TIE GALIGNANI LIBRARY 
 Engl. & Americ. Books, 
 PARIS, 224, rue de Kivol 
 NICE, 1 6, Quar Massena 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 BEQUEST OF 
 
 Alice R. Hilgard 
 
FBAN90IS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT. 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTOEY OF FEANCE 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE OUTBREAK OF 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ABRIDGED FROM MR. ROBERT ^BLACK'S TRANSLATION 
 OF M. GUIZOT'S LARGER HISTORY 
 
 WITH CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX, HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL TABLES, PORTRAITS, &c. 
 
 BY 
 
 GUSTAVE MASSON, B.A. UNIV. GALL. 
 
 OFFICIEB D'ACAD^MIE, ASSISTANT MASTER AND LIBRARIAN, HAEKOW SCHOOL, 
 AND MEMBER OF THE " SOCI^T^ DE L'HISTOIRE DE FRANCE " 
 
 NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIYINGTON 
 
 Limited 
 
 t. ^ttnstan's gjouse 
 FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
 1889 
 [Ail right* reserved"] 
 
GIFT 
 
^ 
 
 (/ sO& 
 
 
 TO 
 
 - 
 
 THE REV. H. M. BUTLER, D.D., 
 
 HEAD MASTER, 
 
 AND TO THE ASSISTANT MASTEES OF HABKOW SCHOOL, 
 THIS 
 
 EDITION OF "THE HISTORY OF FRANCE" 
 
 
 IS BESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THEIE FAITHFUL SEETANT AND COLLEAGUE, 
 
 GUSTAVE MASSON. 
 
 M8G11G9 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN preparing- the following abridgment of M. Guizot's History 
 of France, I have scrupulously abstained from altering the 
 translation, except in a limited number of cases, where con- 
 densation was absolutely necessary. One of the distinctive 
 features of the original work is the number of characteristic 
 extracts taken from the picturesque pages of contemporary 
 chroniclers and annalists. As it was impossible to retain these 
 consistently with the nature of a mere resume, I have given, 
 instead, a tolerably complete list of all the sources of French 
 history, so that the reader may be able to refer without diffi- 
 culty to the authors quoted or alluded to by M. Guizot. This 
 seemed a natural opportunity for mentioning a few standard 
 works on French legislation, civil, political, and ecclesiastical, 
 on literature, etc. I could not do more here than name one 
 writer in each speciality; for further details the student is 
 referred to the " Catalogue de PHistoire de France " (Biblio- 
 theque Nationale), 10 vols., 4to.; M. Ludovic Lalanne's 
 " Dictionnaire Historique de la France" (published by Messrs. 
 Hachette of Paris), 1 vol., 8vo.; and M. Alfred Franklin's 
 " Sources de FHistoire de France" (Paris, Didot, 8vo.), three 
 storehouses of the most valuable information on the history 
 of France. 
 
 I can only trust, in conclusion, that this unpretending 
 volume^ with its pictorial illustrations, and its necessary 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 appendix of genealogical, chronological, and historical tables, 
 will be favourably received by the public; and I gladly 
 acknowledge that whatever merit it possesses must be ascribed 
 to the illustrious author and English translator of " L'Histoire 
 de France racontee a mes petit s-enfants." 
 
 GUSTAVE MASSON. 
 
 HARROW- ON-THE- HILL, 
 June \2>th, 1879. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE .......... v 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE ix 
 
 CHAPTER I. THE GAULS AND THE ROMANS ... 1 
 II. CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. THE BARBARIANS. 
 THE MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY. CHARLE- 
 MAGNE . . . . . . 23 
 
 III. THE CARLOVINGIANS. FEUDAL FRANCE. THE 
 
 CRUSADES . - 53 
 
 IV.' THE KINGSHIP, THE COMMONERS AND THE 
 
 THIRD ESTATE 96 
 
 V. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR . . .141 
 VI. Louis XL CHARLES VIII. Louis XII. 
 
 (14611515) 201 
 
 VII. THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION. 
 
 FRANCIS I. AND HENRY II. (15151559) 241 
 VIII. THE WARS OF RELIGION. FRANCIS II. 
 
 (1559). HENRY III. (1589) . . 285 
 IX. REIGN OF HENRY IV. (15891593). Louis 
 
 XIIL, RICHELIEU AND THE COURT , . 316 
 X. RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN . . . . 346 
 
 XL LOUIS XIV., HIS FOREIGN POLICY, SUCCESSES 
 
 AND REVERSES 375 
 
 XII. Louis XIV. HOME ADMINISTRATION. LITE- 
 RATURE, THE COURT AND SOCIETY . 399 
 
 XIII. Louis XV., THE REGENCY, CARDINAL DUBOIS 
 
 AND CARDINAL DE FLEURY (1715 1748) 447 
 
 XIV. Louis XL THE COLONIES. THE SEVEN 
 YEARS' WAR (17481774). LITERATURE 
 
 AND PHILOSOPHY 479 
 
 XV. Louis XVI. (17781789) .... 532 
 APPENDIX A. SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF FRANCE . 566 
 
 B. PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 574 
 
 C, D. TABLE OF THE FEUDAL DISMEMBERMENT OF 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE . . . 575 
 
 ,, E. TABLE SHOWING THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 PARLIAMENT OF PARIS . . . 576 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLES . . 577 584 
 
 INDEX . . . 585 
 
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 M. GUIZOT (FRONTISPIECE) 
 
 GERBERT 81 
 
 SIRE DE JOINVILLE 113 
 
 CHARLES V 145 
 
 BERTRAND Du GUESCLIN . . . . 161 
 
 JOHN THE FEARLESS 177 
 
 JACQUES CCEUR . 196 
 
 Louis XII .228 
 
 FRANCIS 1 241 
 
 HENRY II 305 
 
 HENRY IY 321 
 
 SULLY . 337 
 
 Louis XIY 385 
 
 PETER CORNEILLE 403 
 
 PASCAL 415 
 
 BOSSUET 421 
 
 LOUIS XIY. IN HIS OLD AGE 433 
 
 THE REGENT ORLEANS . . . . . 451 
 
 Louis XY 467 
 
 CARDINAL DUBOIS 483 
 
 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 497 
 
 BUFFON . . . . . . . . 513 
 
 NECKER AT SAINT OUEN 529 
 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE 561 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 I, d,fl, stand respectively for born, died, and. flourished. 
 
 B.C. 
 
 587 The Gauls in Germany and Italy. 
 
 340 The Gauls in Greece. 
 
 283 A Roman army destroyed by the 
 
 Gauls at Aretium. 
 279 The Gauls near Delphi. 
 241 The Gauls attacked by Eumenes and 
 
 Attalus. 
 154 Marseilles calls in the assistance of 
 
 the Romans. 
 
 122 Sextius founds Aquae Sextiae in Pro- 
 vence. 
 
 118 Foundation of Narbo Martius. 
 102 Marius defeats the Teutons in two 
 
 battles. 
 
 100 Birth of Julius Caesar. 
 58 Caesar obtains the government of 
 
 Cisalpine Gaul for five years. 
 
 Attacks the Helvetii. 
 51 Gaul made a Roman province. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 70 Civilis surrenders. 
 
 79 Death of Sabinus and of his wife 
 
 Eponina. 
 273 The Emperor Aurelian in Gaul. 
 
 Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne. 
 277 Probus goes on an expedition to 
 
 Gaul, in which country the Franks 
 
 settle about this time. 
 305 The Franks defeated by Constantius 
 
 in Gaul. 
 
 355 The Franks take Cologne, and de- 
 stroy it; Julian named prefect of 
 
 Transalpine Gaul. 
 357 Julian defeats six German kings at 
 
 Strasburg. 
 413 The kingdom of the Burgundians 
 
 begins under Gondicarius. 
 420 Pharamond supposed to begin the 
 
 kingdom of the Franks. 
 426 Ae'tius defeats the Franks on the 
 
 borders of the Rhine. 
 438 The Franks obtain a permanent 
 
 footing in Gaul. 
 451 Battle of Chalons. 
 458 Childeric, king of the Franks, de- 
 posed by his subjects. 
 462 The Ripuarian Franks take Cologne 
 
 from the Romans. 
 
 463 Childeric recalled by the Franks. 
 477 Marseilles, Aries, and Aix occupied 
 by the Visigoths. 
 
 Merovingian dynasty. 
 
 481 Death of Childeric ; his son Clovis 
 
 succeeds to the throne. 
 486 Battle of Soissons gained by Clovis 
 
 against Siagrius, the Roman 
 
 general in Gaul. 
 
 493 Marriage of Clovis with Clotilda. 
 496 Clovis, king of France, is baptized 
 
 after the battle of Tolbiac. 
 501 Gondebaud, king of the Burgundians, 
 
 publishes his code, entitled " La 
 
 Loi Gombette." 
 507 Battle of Vouille, near Poictiers ; 
 
 Alaric is defeated and slain by 
 
 Clovis. 
 
 509 Clovis receives the titles of Patrician 
 
 and Consul. 
 
 510 Clovis makes Paris the capital of the 
 
 French dominions. 
 
 511 Clovis dying, his dominions are 
 
 divided among his children. 
 524 Battle of Yoiron ; Chlodomir, king 
 of Orleans, is killed by Gondemar, 
 king of Burgundy. 
 
 531 Thierry, king of Metz, seizes Thurin- 
 
 gia from Hermanfroi. 
 
 532 The kingdom of Burgundy ends, 
 
 being conquered by Childebert 
 and Clotaire, kings of Paris and 
 Soissons. 
 
 556 Civil wars in France ; the dominions 
 of Theodebald, king of Metz, are 
 divided between Clotaire, king of 
 Soissons, and Childebert, king of 
 Paris. 
 
 558 Childebert dies, and is succeeded by 
 his son Clotaire, who becomes 
 sovereign of all France. 
 
 560 Chramn, natural son of Clotaire, 
 defeated and burnt alive. 
 
 567 Death of Charibert, king of Paris ; 
 his territories are divided among 
 his brothers ; but the city of Paris 
 is held by them in common. 
 
History of France. 
 
 557 Rivalry of the two queens, Brune- 
 haut and Fredegonde. 
 
 612 Theodebert II., king of Austrasia, 
 
 defeated and confined in a monas- 
 tery by his brother, Thierry II., 
 king of Orleans and Burgundy. 
 
 613 Clotaire king of all France ; death 
 
 of Brunehaut, widow of Sigebert, 
 king of Austrasia. 
 
 628 Clotaire II., king of France, dies, 
 and is succeeded by his son Dago- 
 bert. 
 
 631 Childeric, son and successor of 
 Charibert, poisoned by Dagobert, 
 who remains sole monarch of 
 France. 
 
 638 Dagobert, king of France, is suc- 
 ceeded by his two sons, Sigebert 
 II. in Austrasia, and Clovis II. 
 in Neustria and Burgundy. The 
 Maires du Palais begin to usurp 
 the royal authority. 
 
 678 Death of Dagobert II., king of 
 Neustria ; Martin and Pdpin 
 Heristal, Mayors of the palace. 
 Thierry III. is suffered to enjoy 
 the title of king of Austrasia. 
 
 691 Clovis III. king. 
 
 715 Charles Martel, son of Pepin Heris- 
 tal, governs as Mayor of the 
 
 717 Charles Martel defeats king Chil- 
 peric II. and the Neustrians. 
 
 732 Charles Martel defeats the Saracens. 
 
 735 Charles Martel becomes master of 
 Aquitaine. 
 
 737 On the death of of Thierry III., 
 Charles Martel governs France, 
 with the title of Duke, for six 
 years. 
 
 741 Charles Martel dies, and is succeeded 
 
 by his sons, Carloman in Aus- 
 trasia and Thuringia, and Pepin 
 in Neustria, Burgundy and Pro- 
 vence. 
 
 742 Pepin places Childeric III. on the 
 
 throne of Neustria and Burgundy. 
 Charlemagne fe. 
 
 Carlomngian dynasty. 
 
 752 Pepin deposes Childeric, confines 
 him in a monastery, and is conse- 
 crated at Soissons. 
 
 754 Pepin's expedition into Italy. 
 
 758 Pepin reduces the Saxons in Ger- 
 many. 
 
 768 Ppin dies at St. Denis, and is suc- 
 ceeded by his sons Charles and 
 Carloman. 
 771 Carloman dyingin November,Charle- 
 
 magne remains sovereign of all 
 France. 
 
 772 Charlemagne begins the Saxon war, 
 
 which continues thirty years. 
 
 773 Charlemagne defeats the troops of 
 
 Didier, king of the Lombards, and 
 lays siege to Pavia. 
 
 774 Surrender of Pavia, and capture of 
 
 Didier. 
 776 The abbey church of St. Denis 
 
 near Paris founded. 
 778 Battle of Roucevaux. 
 784 Charlemagne defeats Witikind and 
 
 the Saxons. 
 791 Charlemagne defeats the Avari, in 
 
 Pannonia. 
 793 The Saracens ravage Gallia Nar- 
 
 bonnensis, where they are at 
 
 length defeated by Charlemagne. 
 800 Charlemagne crowned king of Italy 
 
 and emperor of the West. 
 806 Partition of the empire. 
 
 813 Charlemagne associates his son 
 
 Louis, surnamed the Debonnair, 
 or the Pious, to the Western Em- 
 pire. 
 
 814 Charlemagne dies ; succeeded as em- 
 
 peror and king by his son Louis. 
 817 Louis divides his empire among his 
 children. 
 
 840 Louis the Debonnair dies ; his eldest 
 
 son, Lothaire, has Italy, with the 
 title of Emperor ; Charles the 
 Bald the kingdom of France ; and 
 Louis, that of Bavaria or Ger- 
 many. 
 
 841 Battle of Fontanet. 
 
 843 New partition of the French do- 
 
 minions in an assembly at Thion- 
 ville. 
 
 844 Charles the Bald defeated in Aqui- 
 
 taine by Pepin II. 
 
 877 Charles the Bald poisoned. His son, 
 Louis II., surnamed the Stam- 
 merer, succeeds him. 
 
 879 Louis the Stammerer dies, and is 
 
 succeeded by his sons Louis III. 
 and Carloman. Boson seizes 
 Dauphiny and Provence, and 
 begins the kingdom of Aries. 
 
 880 The Normans invade France, and 
 
 destroy several abbeys. 
 
 881 Louis III., king of France, defeats 
 
 the Normans at Saucourt. 
 
 882 Louis III. of France dies, leaving his 
 
 brother Carloman sole sovereign. 
 Hincmar d. 
 
 887 Paris besieged by the Normans. 
 
 888 On the death of Charles his do- 
 
 minions are divided into five 
 kingdoms : Eudes becomes king 
 
Chronological Table. 
 
 XI 
 
 A.D. 
 
 of Western France and Aqui- 
 
 taine. 
 893 Charles the Simple crowned king of 
 
 France. 
 898 Charles the Simple is recognized 
 
 king of France. 
 
 905 The Normans take the town of 
 
 Kouen. 
 
 906 The Normans conquer Colentin and 
 
 and Maine, and ravage Brittany, 
 Picardy, and Champagne. 
 912 Charles the Simple cedes to Normans 
 a part of Neustria, which thence- 
 forward is called Normandy. 
 
 922 Eobert elected and anointed king 
 
 of France at Eheims. 
 
 923 Eodolph , duke of Burgundy, is elected 
 
 and crowned king of France. 
 
 Charles the Simple is confined in 
 
 the castle of Peronne. 
 929 Charles the Simple dies in prison. 
 936 Louis IV. surnamed d'Outremer, 
 
 son of Charles the Simple, anointed 
 
 king of France. 
 
 Capetian Dynasty. 
 987 Louis V., king of France, dies. Hugh 
 
 Capet is anointed at Rheims. 
 994 Charles, duke of Lorraine, the only 
 survivor of the race of Charle- 
 magne, dies in prison at Orleans. 
 996 Hugh Capet d. Bobert succeeds to 
 
 the crown. 
 
 1031 Henry I. king of France. 
 1066 Conquest of England by William, 
 duke of Normandy, in the battle 
 of Senlac. 
 
 1095 Council held at Clermont j preach- 
 
 ing of the crusade. 
 
 1096 The crusades begin. 
 
 1097 Godfrey of Bouillon and the cru- 
 
 saders take Nice. 
 
 1098 Battle of Doryloeum. 
 
 1099 Jerusalem taken by the crusaders. 
 
 1100 Godfrey of Bouillon d. 
 1108 Philip I. d. 
 
 1112 Eobert Wace 6. 
 
 1113 War begins between England and 
 
 France. 
 
 1115 Peter the Hermit d. 
 1119 Louis VI., king of France, defeated 
 
 at Brenneville. Baldwin, II., king 
 
 of Jerusalem, defeats the Turks 
 
 at Antioch. 
 
 1124 War between France and Germany. 
 1137 Louis VII. king of France. 
 1143 Vitry besieged and burnt by 
 
 Louis VII. 
 1147 Second crusade preached by Bernard 
 
 of Clairvaux. Giraud le Eoux, 
 
 troubadour, fl. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1148 The crusaders besiege Damascus 
 
 without success. The emperor 
 Conrad and king Louis VII. arrive 
 at Jerusalem. 
 
 1149 Louis VII. returns to France. 
 
 1150 Villehardouin &. Arnauld Daniel, 
 
 troubadour fl. The cours d'amour. 
 1152 SugercL 
 
 1179 Louis VII., king of France, arrives 
 
 in England, on a pilgrimage to 
 the shrine of Becket. 
 
 1180 Philip Augustus king of France. 
 
 Eobert Wace d. 
 
 1187 Jerusalem taken by Saladin (2nd of 
 
 October) . 
 
 1188 A third crusade undertaken for the 
 
 recovery of Jerusalem. The tax 
 called Saladin's tithe imposed in 
 most countries of Christendom. 
 
 1190 Eichard Coeur de Lion, king of 
 
 England, and Philip Augustus go 
 to the holy wars. The walls and 
 gates of Paris are built. 
 
 1191 St. Jean d' Acre taken by the crusa- 
 
 ders. Philip Augustus returns to 
 France. Chrestien de Troyes d. 
 
 1196 Philip Augustus marries Agnes of 
 Merania. 
 
 1201 A war begins between John, king 
 of England, and Philip Augustus 
 of France. Thibaut de Cham- 
 pagne 6. Agnes of Merania d. 
 
 1203 John, king of England, accused of 
 the murder of his nephew Arthur, 
 is cited to appear before an 
 assembly of the peers of France ; 
 his estates in that country are 
 confiscated. The French and 
 Venetian crusaders take Constan- 
 tinople on the 10th of July. 
 
 1210 Crusade against the Albigenses- 
 Chronicle of the crusade composed 
 in the Langue d'oc. 
 
 1213 Villehardouin, d. Jaufre and Bru- 
 
 nissende, a Provencal romance, 
 composed about that time. 
 
 1214 Philip Augustus defeats the emperor 
 
 Otho, near Bouvines. 
 
 1215 Louis IX., king of France, &. 
 
 1216 Philip Augustus invades England, 
 
 and is received by the barons ; 
 but on the death of John, Henry 
 III. is crowned king. 
 1218 Simon de Montfort d. 
 
 1222 Joinville 6. 
 
 1223 Louis VIII. king of France. 
 
 1226 Louis IX. king of France. Eegency 
 
 of Blanche of Castile. 
 1234 Louis IX. marries Marguerite of 
 
 Provence. 
 1242 Battle of Taillebourg. 
 
Xll 
 
 History of France. 
 
 1248 Louis IX. sets out for the crusade. 
 
 1249 Damietta, in Egypt, taken by Louis 
 
 on the 5th of June. 
 
 1250 Battle of Mansourah. Louis de- 
 
 feated and taken prisoner in 
 Egypt. Marcabrus, troubadour, fl . 
 
 1252 Blanche of Castile d. 
 
 1254 St. Louis leaves Palestine. 
 
 1258 Stephen Boileau provost of Paris. 
 
 1264 Henry, king of England, taken 
 prisoner by the barons at the 
 battle of Lewes. St. Louis arbi- 
 trates between them. 
 
 1270 Louis dies at Tunis, his son Philip 
 the Bold succeeds him. 
 
 1278 Peter de la Brosse hanged at 
 Paris. 
 
 1282 The Sicilians, excited by Peter III., 
 king of Arragon, massacre all 
 the French they can find in their 
 Island. 
 
 1285 Philip IV. king of France. 
 
 1296 Bull " Clericis Laicos." 
 
 1297 Flanders invaded by the French. 
 
 1301 Revolt at Bruges. Bull "Ausculta 
 
 fili." 
 
 1302 Battle of Courtrai. States- General 
 
 convoked. 
 
 1303 Pope Boniface VIII. arrested. He 
 
 dies. 
 
 1304 Battle of Mons-en-Puelle. Pope 
 
 Benedict XI. d. 
 
 1308 The States- General assembled at 
 Tours approve the measures 
 directed against the Templars. 
 
 1314 Molay, grand master of the order of 
 
 Templars, and a great number of 
 knights companions, burned alive 
 at Paris, on the llth of March. 
 Death of Pope Clement V., and of 
 Philip the Handsome. States- 
 General (August). 
 
 1315 Louis X. emancipates the serfs on 
 
 the royal dominions. Enguerrand 
 de Marigny d. 
 1319 Joinville d. 
 
 Branch of the Valois. 
 
 1328 Philip VI., king of France, gains the 
 battle of Cassel. 
 
 1336 Edward III. of England supports 
 
 the cause of the Flemings against 
 Philip VI. of France. 
 
 1337 Froissart b. 
 
 1340 Edward III. defeats the French in a 
 
 naval engagement near Sluys : 
 truce of four years. 
 
 1341 Beginning of the war for the 
 
 succession of Brittany, between 
 Charles of Blois and John of 
 
 Mont fort. Petrarch crowned at the 
 Capitol. 
 
 1344 Edward III. renews the war with 
 France. 
 
 1346 Battle of Cressy. 
 
 1347 Calais surrenders to Edward III., 
 
 after a siege of eleven months and 
 a few days. William of Ock- 
 ham d. 
 
 1348 The black plague. The Jews per- 
 
 secuted. 
 
 1349 Cession of Vienness and of Mont- 
 
 pellier to France. 
 
 1350 Philip VI. d. 
 
 1356 John II., king of France, taken 
 prisoner in the battle of Poictiers, 
 September 19th, and sent to 
 England. 
 
 1358 Treaty of Calais, between Edward 
 III. of England and the French. 
 Stephen Marcel. The Jacque- 
 rie. 
 
 1360 King John, set at liberty, returns to 
 France. Treaty of Bretigny. 
 Buridan d. 
 
 1364 Battle of Cocherel (6th of May), 
 and of Auray (29th of Sept.) 
 John II. dies in England, his son 
 Charles V. succeeds him, and is 
 crowned at Rheims- A Univer- 
 sity founded at Angers. 
 
 1367 Battle of Navarette. De Guesclin 
 made a prisoner. 
 
 1376 Edward, prince of Wales, surnamed 
 
 the Black Prince, d. (June 8th). 
 
 1377 Edward III., king of England, d. 
 
 Brittany invaded by Oliver de 
 
 Clisson. 
 
 1380 Du Guesclin d. Charles V. d. 
 1382 Battle of Rosebecque. The Mai- 
 
 leteers. Nicolas Oresme d. 
 1392 Murder of Oliver de Clisson. 
 1400 Chaucer d. 
 
 1407 The duke of Orleans murdered. 
 
 1408 Valentine of Milan d. The king of 
 
 France excommunicated by the 
 
 Pope. 
 1410 Beginning of the civil war in 
 
 France. 
 1415 Battle of Agincourt (October 23). 
 
 1418 Massacre of the Armagnac faction 
 
 in Paris. 
 
 1419 The Duke of Burgundy murdered at 
 
 Montereau. 
 
 1420 Treaty of Troyes signed on the 21st 
 
 of May. A Parliament estab- 
 lished at Toulouse (March 20). 
 
 1421 Battle of Beauge on the 3rd of 
 
 April, in which the duke of 
 Clarence is killed. 
 
 1422 Henry V., king of England, d. at 
 
Chronological Table. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Vincennes in France. Charles VI., 
 
 king of France, d. 
 1423 Battle of Crevant (June). 
 1428 The duke of Bedford defeats the 
 
 French at Verneuil (August 16) . 
 
 1428 The siege of Orleans begins on the 
 
 12th of October. 
 
 1429 Battle of Herrings (12th February). 
 
 Joan of Arc obliges the English 
 to raise the siege of Orleans. 
 1431 Trial and death of Joan of Arc. 
 
 1435 Treaty of Arras. 
 
 1436 Paris recovered by the French, on 
 
 the 13th of April. 
 
 1437 Siege of Montereau. Charles VII. 
 
 makes his solemn entry in Paris. 
 1440 The " Praguery." 
 1444 Truce between England and France 
 
 signed at Tours. 
 
 1449 War renewed between England and 
 
 France. 
 
 1450 Battle of Formigny gained over the 
 
 English. Agnes Sorel d. 
 
 1451 The English evacuate Rouen and 
 
 several places in France. Cam- 
 paign in Guyenne. 
 
 1453 Talbot d. 
 
 1456 Jacques Coeur d. 
 
 1461 Louis XI. king of France. 
 
 1464 The league against Louis XI. of 
 
 France, called " La Guerre du 
 Bien Public." 
 
 1465 Treaties of Conflans and of Saint- 
 
 Maur. 
 
 1467 Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, d. 
 
 1468 Louis XL at Peronne. Eevolt of the 
 
 Liegese. 
 
 1476 Charles, duke of Burgundy, defeated 
 
 at Gran son (20th of June). 
 
 1477 The duke of Burgundy slain at 
 
 Nancy. 
 1479 Battle of Guinegate. 
 
 1483 Louis XL d. Rabelais b. Luther 6. 
 
 Charles VIII. king of France. 
 
 1484 The States- General convoked at 
 
 Tours. 
 1488 Battle of St. Aubin : the duke of 
 
 Brittany is defeated and the duke 
 
 of Orleans taken prisoner (28th of 
 
 June). 
 1492 Brittany united to the French crown. 
 
 1494 Charles VIII., king of France, goes on 
 
 an expedition into Italy. 
 
 1495 Battle of Fornovo between Charles 
 
 VIII. and the Venetians (6th July) . 
 Clement Marot b. 
 
 Branch of Orleans. 
 
 1498 Death of Charles VIII., king of 
 
 France (April 7th). 
 
 1499 Louis XII., king of France, takes 
 
 possession of Milaness, and enters 
 Milan on the 6th of October. 
 
 1500 Insurrection at Milan. 
 
 1501 Louis XII. of France and Fer- 
 
 dinand V. of Spain seize on the 
 kingdom of Naples. 
 
 1503 The power of the French in Naples 
 
 ends with the loss of the battles of 
 Cerignola, Seminara, and Gari- 
 gliano. Pope Alexander VI. d. 
 Michel de 1'Hospital b. 
 
 1504 Truce between France and Spain. 
 
 1508 The pope and the emperor join the 
 
 king of France in the treaty of 
 Cambray, against the Venetians. 
 
 1509 Battle of Agnadello, (14th of May). 
 
 Calvin b. Etienne Dolet b. Mar- 
 tial d'Auvergne d. 
 
 1510 Cardinal d'Amboise d. 
 
 1512 Battle of Ravenna. Gaston de Foix d. 
 
 1513 The French defeated by the Swiss 
 
 in the battle of Novarra. Jacques 
 Amyot b. Pope Julius II. d. 
 
 1514 Anne of Brittany d. 
 
 Branch of AngouUme. 
 
 1515 Battle of Melegnano between the 
 
 French and Swiss. Louis XII. d. 
 Ramus b. 
 
 1516 Treaty of Noyons signed on the 16th 
 
 of August. 
 
 1520 Interview between Henry VIII. of 
 
 England and Francis I. of France 
 (4th of June). Pierre Viret b. 
 
 1521 League between the emperor Charles 
 
 V. of Spain and Henry VIII. of 
 England, against the king of 
 France. 
 
 1523 League against Francis I. of France, 
 by Pope Clement VII., the em- 
 peror, and the Venetians. Ba- 
 yard d. The memoirs of Commines 
 published. 
 
 1525 Francis I. taken prisoner in the 
 
 battle of Pavia (24th of February), 
 and sent to Madrid. 
 
 1526 Treaty of Madrid (14th of January). 
 
 Francis is restored to liberty. The 
 Holy League. 
 
 1527 Henri Estienne b. Brant6me b. 
 1529 Peace of Cambray, between Charles 
 
 V. and Francis I. Louis de Ber- 
 quin put to death. Etienne Pas- 
 quier b. 
 
 1536 League between Francis I. of France, 
 and Solyman II., sultan of the 
 Turks, against the emperor Charles 
 V. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye b. 
 
 1543 Treaty of alliance between Sultan 
 Solyman and Francis I. of France 
 against the emperor Charles V. 
 
XIV 
 
 History of France. 
 
 1544 Battle of Cerisoles. Treaty of Crespy 
 
 (18th of September). Bonaven- 
 ture des Periers d. Clement 
 Marot d. Du Bartas b. 
 
 1545 Massacre of the Vaudois. Robert 
 
 Gamier b. 
 
 1547 Henry II. king of France. 
 
 1548 Rebellion in the South of France. 
 
 La Boetie writes his Contre un. 
 First edition of the Salic law. 
 
 1556 Charles V. resigns the crown of 
 
 Spain and all his other dominions 
 and retires to the monastery of 
 St. Just. Malherbe b. 
 
 1557 Battle of St. Quentin (10th of 
 
 August). 
 
 1558 The French recover Calais from the 
 
 English. Mellin de St. Gelais d. 
 
 1559 Henry II. d. Peace of Cateau- 
 
 Cambresis. Edict of Ecouen. Am- 
 yot translates Plutarch. Anne 
 Dubourg put to death. 
 
 1560 Conspiracy of Amboise. Francis 
 
 II. d. Charles IX., king. Joa- 
 chim du Bellay d. 
 
 1562 Massacre of Vassy. Battle of Dreux 
 
 (19th December). 
 
 1563 The duke of Guise is assassinated by 
 
 Poltrot (24th February). Peace 
 of Amboise. 
 
 1567 The religious wars recommence in 
 France ; battle of St Denis, be- 
 tween the prince of Conde and the 
 constable Montmorency, in which 
 the latter is mortally wounded. 
 
 1569 The Huguenots defeated in the 
 battles of Jarnac, on the 13th 
 May, and of Moncontour, on the 
 3rd October. 
 
 1572 Massacre of the Huguenots at Paris, 
 on Sunday, the 24th August. 
 Ramus d. Jean Goujon d. 
 
 1574 Charles IX. d. Hotman publishes 
 his Franco- Gallia. 
 
 1576 Edict of pacification in France. 
 
 1584 The Cardinal de Bourbon proposed 
 as eventual king of France. La 
 Croix du Maine publishes his 
 Bibliotheque Francaise. 
 
 1587 Battle of Coutras (10th of October) 
 
 the Duke de Joyeuse is defeated 
 by Henry, king of Navarre. An 
 Arabic lectureship is created at 
 the college royal. 
 
 1588 The duke of Guise and his brother 
 
 the cardinal murdered at Blois. 
 
 Dynasty of tlie Bourbons. 
 
 1589 Henry III. of France murdered 
 
 (22nd of July). Henry IV. of 
 
 Navarre succeeds to the vacant 
 throne. Battle of Arques. Ron- 
 sard, Hotman d. 
 
 1590 Battle of Ivry (4th of March). 
 
 Germain Pilon, Jean Cousin, Du 
 Bartas, Cujas, Ambrose Pare, 
 Palissy d. Theophile de Viaud b. 
 
 1591 The Pope excommunicates Henry 
 
 IV. : the parliament of Paris 
 oppose the sentence. Guy Co- 
 quille' s Liber tes de V eglise de France 
 published. La Noue d. 
 
 1593 Henry IV. abjures the Protestant 
 
 religion, on Sunday, the 25th of 
 of July, at St. Denis. The Satire 
 M6nippee published. Amyot d. 
 
 1594 Henry IV. anointed at Chartres : 
 
 attempt on his life (17th Decem- 
 ber). Pierre Pithouji Balzac, St. 
 Amand 6. 
 
 1595 Battle of Fontaine-Fran9aise. Des- 
 
 marets de St. Sorlin b. 
 
 1598 Edict of Nantes (April). Peace of 
 Vervins signed on the 22nd of the 
 same-month. Voiture b. 
 
 1602 Marshal Biron's conspiracy detected 
 and punished. 
 
 1610 Henry IV. assassinated by Ravaillac 
 (4th of May). Louis XIII. king 
 of France. Scarron, La Calpre- 
 nede b. 
 
 1617 Murder of Concini. 
 
 1621 The civil war renewed with the 
 Huguenots in France, and con- 
 tinues nine years. The Benedic- 
 tines of the congregation of St. 
 Maur receive their statutes. La 
 Fontaine b. 
 
 1628 Rochelle besieged and taken by 
 
 Louis XIII. (18th of October). 
 
 1629 Peace restored between France and 
 
 England. Malherbe d. Corneille 
 brings out Melite, his first play. 
 
 1630 Treaty of Cherasco. " Journee des 
 
 Dupes." Hardy, Agrippa d'Au- 
 bigne d. 
 
 1632 Battles of Lutzen and of Castel- 
 naudary. Flechier, Bourdaloue b. 
 
 1636 Treaty between Louis XIII. of 
 France, and Christina, queen of 
 Sweden (10th of March). Port 
 Royal des Champs founded. Le 
 Cid brought out. Boileau b. 
 
 1642 Conspiracy of Cinq-Mars. Riche- 
 
 lieu d. 
 
 1643 Louis XIII. d (4th of May). The 
 
 duked'Enghien, afterwards prince 
 of Conde, defeats the Spaniards at 
 Rocroy (9th of M ay). St. Cyran d. 
 1648 The prince of Conde defeats the 
 archduke at Sens (10th of August). 
 
Chronological Table. 
 
 xv 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Treaty of Minister (14th of October) 
 between France, Sweden and the 
 empire. The civil war of the 
 Fronde breaks out in Paris. Mer- 
 senne, Voiture d. La Sueur 
 finishes his series of paintings 
 illustrating the history of St. 
 Bruno. 
 
 1659 Peace restored between France and 
 Spain, by the treaty called the 
 "Peace of the Pyrenees." Louis 
 XIV. marries the Infanta of Spain. 
 Moliere and the Precieuses ridi- 
 cules. 
 
 1661 Cardinal Mazarin d. Bossuet's first 
 sermon before Louis. XIV. 
 
 1667 War renewed between France and 
 
 Spain. Moliere and Tartuffe. 
 Eacine and Andromaque. 
 
 1668 A triple alliance between Great 
 
 Britain, Sweden, and the States- 
 General, against France (23rd of 
 January). Peace of Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle, between France and Spain 
 (22nd of April). Kacine and Les 
 PZo^deurs, Moliere and L'JLuare. Le 
 Sage 6. 
 
 1672 War declared by England and France, 
 
 against the Dutch. A treaty be- 
 tween the empire and Holland, 
 against France (15th of July). 
 Boileau and Le Lutrin. Moliere 
 and Les Femmes savantes. 
 
 1673 The English and French defeat the 
 
 Dutch (28th of May) at Schon- 
 velt; again (4th of JiTne), and 
 (llth of August), in the mouth of 
 the Texel. Louis XIV. declares 
 waragainst Spain (9th of October). 
 Racine and MitTiridate. 
 
 1674 Battle of Seneffe, in Flanders, be- 
 
 tween the prince of Orange and 
 the prince of Conde (1st of August) . 
 First settlement of the French at 
 Pondicherry. Marshal Turenne 
 defeats the Imperialists. Chape- 
 lain d. Eacine and Ipliig6nie. 
 Malebranche and the Recherche 
 de la Verite*. 
 
 1675 Conference for a peace held at 
 
 Nimeguen. Madame de la Valliere 
 
 takes the veil. 
 1678 Peace of Nimeguen (31st of July). 
 
 La Fontaine publishes his second 
 
 series of fables. Ducange's Latin 
 
 Glossary. 
 1681 The city of Strasburg submits to 
 
 Louis XIV. Mabillon publishes 
 
 his De re diplomatica. 
 1684 Luxemburg taken by Louis XIV. 
 
 A truce between France and 
 
 Spain concluded at Eatisbon (31st 
 of July) and between France and 
 the empire (5th of August). P. 
 Corneille d. 
 
 1685 Louis XIV. revokes the edict of 
 
 Nantes. 
 
 1686 Treaty of alliance between Germany, 
 
 Great Britain, and Holland against 
 France. Conde d. 
 
 1689 The French fleet defeated by the 
 
 English and Dutch in Bantry Bay 
 (1st of May). Eacine and Esther. 
 
 1690 Battle of Fleurus ; Luxemburg de- 
 
 feats the allies (21st of June). 
 The allied English and Dutch fleets 
 defeated by the French off Beachy 
 Head (30th of June). 
 
 1691 A congress at the Hague, in Jan. 
 
 Mons taken by the French (30th 
 of March). Louvois d. ' Eacine 
 and Athalie. 
 
 1692 Battle of La Hogue : the English 
 
 defeat the French fleet (19th of 
 May). Namur, in Flanders, be- 
 sieged and taken by Louis XIV. 
 (25th of May). Luxemburg de- 
 feats the allies at Steinkirk (24th 
 of July). 
 
 1693 The English and Dutch fleets de- 
 
 feated by the French off Cape St. 
 Vincent (16th of June) . The duke 
 of Savoy defeated by Marshal 
 Catinat, at Marsaglia (24th of 
 September). Pelisson, Bussy- 
 Eabutin, Mdme. de La Fayette, 
 Mdlle. de Montpensier d. 
 
 1697 Peace of Eyswick (llth of Septem- 
 
 ber) between Great Britain and 
 France France and Holland 
 France and Spain ; and on the 
 20th of October, between France 
 and the empire. Santeuil d. The 
 Abbe Prevost &. 
 
 1698 The first treaty of partition between 
 
 Great Britain, France and Hol- 
 land signed (19th of August) for 
 the dismemberment of Spain, to 
 Charles II., king of that country, 
 makes his will in favour of a prince 
 of the house of Bourbon. Le 
 Nain de Tilletnont d. 
 
 1700 Charles II., king of Spain, d. (21st 
 of October). The duke of Anjou, 
 grandson of Louis XIV., succeeds 
 by the name of Philip V. 
 
 1702 Battle of Luzzara, in Italy (4th of 
 August) ; the Imperialists de- 
 feated by the French ; the French 
 fleet destroyed in the port of Vigo, 
 by the British and Dutch (12th of 
 October) . Jean Bart d. 
 
XVI 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1704 Battle of Hochstedt or Blenheim 
 
 (2nd of August). Bossuet, Bour- 
 
 daloue d. 
 1706 Battle of Eamilies (12th of May) 
 
 the French are defeated by the 
 
 duke of Marlborough. 
 
 1708 Battle of Audenarde (30th of June), 
 
 the French defeated by the duke 
 of Marlborough and Prince Eu- 
 gene. Eegnard and Le Legataire 
 universel, Le Sage and Turcaret. 
 
 1709 Battle of Malplaquet (31st of Aug.), 
 
 the French defeated by the allies. 
 Mons taken by the allies (21st of 
 October). Port Royal des Champs 
 destroyed. 
 
 1710 Battle of Villa Viciosa (29th of No- 
 
 vember), the Imperialists, under 
 Count Stahremburg, are defeated 
 by Philip V. 
 
 1712 Negotiations for a general peace 
 
 opened at Utrecht. Jean Jacques 
 Eousseau b. 
 
 1713 Peace of Utrecht, concluded by 
 
 France and Spain, with England, 
 . Savoy, Portugal, Prussia, and 
 Holland, signed on the 30th of 
 March, O.S. Fenelon publishes 
 his Trait4 de V existence deDieu. 
 
 1714 The bull " Unigenitus" received in 
 
 France. 
 
 1715 Louis XIV. d. (21st of August), suc- 
 
 ceeded by his great-grandson, 
 Louis XV. under the regency of 
 the duke of Orleans. Malebranche, 
 Fenelon d. Le Sage's Gil Bias. 
 
 1717 Triple alliance between Great Bri- 
 
 tain, France, and Holland, signed 
 at the Hague (24th of December). 
 The memoirs of Cardinal de Eetz 
 published. Massillon's Petit Ca- 
 reme preached. 
 
 1718 Quadruple alliance between Ger- 
 
 many, Great Britain, France, and 
 Holland, for the maintenance 
 of the treaties of Utrecht and 
 Baden. Conspiracy of Cellamare. 
 Great Britain declares war against 
 Spain (llth of December) Vol- 
 taire and (Edipe, his first tragedy. 
 
 1719 The Mississippi scheme at its height 
 
 in France. Madame de Main- 
 tenon d. 
 
 1720 The French Mississippi company dis- 
 
 solved. The plague breaks out at 
 Marseilles, and causes great dis- 
 tress. 
 
 1723 Duke of Orleans d. Voltaire pub- 
 lishes his Poeme de la Ligne (La 
 Henriade}. 
 
 1725 Treaty of Hanover, between Great 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Britain, France, and Eussia, 
 against Germany and Spain (3rd 
 September). 
 
 1733 Stanislaus proclaimed king of Po- 
 
 land (5th of October). 
 
 1734 The Imperialists defeated by the 
 
 French and Piedmontese at Parma 
 (18th of June), and in the battle 
 of Guastalla, by the king of Sar- 
 dinia, and the Marshals Coigny 
 and Broglie (8th of September). 
 Montesquieu's Grandeur et D6- 
 cadence des Remains. 
 
 1735 Treaty of Vienna (3rd of October). 
 
 Voltaire publishes his Lettres philo- 
 sophiques. 
 
 1740 The Emperor Charles VI. d. (9th of 
 
 October). Voltaire publishes his 
 Essai sur les mceurs. 
 
 1741 The archduchess Maria Theresa 
 
 crowned queen of Hungary, at 
 Presburg (25th of June). 
 1743 Battle of Dettingen (16th of June) . 
 Cardinal de Fleury d. Voltaire 
 and Me"rope. 
 
 1745 Battle of Fontenoy, the French de- 
 
 feat the allies, commanded by the 
 duke of Cumberland. 
 
 1746 (April 16th) Battle of Culloden. 
 
 ,, (September 30th) Count Saxe de- 
 feats the allies at Eaucoux. Vau- 
 venargues and the Introduction a 
 laconnaissance de I' esprit humain. 
 
 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, between 
 Great Britain, France, Spain, 
 Austria, Sardinia, and Holland 
 (7th of October). Montesquieu's 
 Esprit des lois. 
 
 1754 (April 17) the French attack an Eng- 
 lish fort on Monongahela, and 
 Logstown on the Ohio. General 
 Braddock defeated and killed by 
 the French (July 9), near Fort Du 
 Quesne, on the Ohio. 
 
 1756 May 29, Admiral Byng defeated by 
 
 the French. The duke of Eiche- 
 lieu takes Port Mahon (June 28). 
 
 1757 Damien attempts to assassinate 
 
 Louis XV. The French garrison 
 of Chandernugger surrenders to 
 the British (March 23). Battle 
 of Hastenbeck, the French defeat 
 the duke of Cumberland (July 26). 
 The marquis of Montcalm besieges 
 Fort George (Augusts), the Eng- 
 lish surrender on the 9th. Con- 
 vention of Closter- Seven, between 
 Marshal Eichelieu and the duke 
 of Cumberland (September 8). 
 Battle of Eosbach (November 5). 
 
 1758 March 14th. The French garrison in 
 
Chronological Table. 
 
 xvii 
 
 Minden capitulates. The French 
 defeated at Crevelt (June 23). 
 Helvetius publishes De I'Esprit. 
 Quesnay's Tableau ecanomique* 
 
 1759 (September 30.) The British defeated 
 
 by the French in the East Indies, 
 near Arcot. Rousseau's Nauvelle 
 Helaise. 
 
 1760 (April28th.) The English defeated by 
 
 the French near Quebec- Mdme. 
 de Souza &. 
 
 1761 (August 15th.) The family compact 
 
 concluded between Louis XV. of 
 Franc and Charles III, of Spain. 
 Voltaire's L'Ingenu. 
 
 1763 (August 6,) The Jesuits suppressed 
 in France. Treaty of peace signed 
 at Fontainebleau, between France, 
 Spain and Great Britain, Rous- 
 seau's Emile. 
 
 1763 (February 10,) Peace of Paris, be- 
 tween Great Britain, France and 
 Spain, acceded to by Portugal. 
 1'abbe Prevost d. 
 
 1767 (May 15.) Corsica ceded to France, 
 by the Genoese. Benjamin Con- 
 stant, Fievee, &, 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1769 Napoleon Bonaparte, Cuvier, Cha- 
 teaubriand, b'. 
 
 1774 (May 10) Louis XV. of France d. 
 Succeeded by Louis XVI. 
 
 1778 (February 6.) Treaty of alliance and 
 defence between France and the 
 Americans. Pondichery taken by 
 the British, jRousseau, Voltaire, 
 d. Button's Epoques de la nature. 
 
 1782 (April 12th.) Sir George Rodney de- 
 
 feats the French fleet under Count 
 de Grasse, off Dominica. Another 
 engagement near Trincomalee, on 
 the same day ; and a third in Sep- 
 tember, 
 
 1783 (January 20,) Preliminaries of peace 
 
 between Great Britain, France and 
 Spain, by which the independence 
 of America is confirmed. 
 
 1788 (November 6,) The French notables, 
 
 convoked by Louis XVL, assemble 
 at Paris. Buffon d. Bernardin 
 de St, Pierre's Paul et Virginie. 
 
 1789 (May 4.) The States General of 
 
 France assemble. The Bastille 
 at Paris destroyed (July 14). 
 Chenier's Charles IX. performed. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GAULS AND THE ROMANS. 
 
 THREE or four centuries before the Christian era, on that vast Gaul : its 
 territory comprised between the ocean, the Pyrenees, the Mediter- 
 ranean, the Alps, and the Ehine, lived six or seven millions of 
 men a bestial life, enclosed in dwellings dark and low, the best of 
 them built of wood and clay, covered with branches or straw, made 
 in a single round piece, open to daylight by the door alone, and 
 confusedly heaped together behind a rampart, not inartistically 
 composed, of timber, earth, and stone, which surrounded and pro- 
 tected what they were pleased to call a town. 
 
 Of even such towns there were scarcely any as yet, save in the 
 most populous and least uncultivated portion of Gaul ; that is to 
 say, in the southern and eastern regions, at the foot of the moun- 
 tains of Auvergne and the Cevennes, and along the coasts of the 
 Mediterranean. In the north and the west were paltry hamlets, 
 as transferable almost as the people themselves ; and on some islet 
 amidst the morasses, or in some hidden recess of the forest, were 
 huge entrenchments formed of the trees that were felled, where the 
 population, at the first sound of the war-cry, ran to shelter them- 
 selves, with their flocks and all their movables. Gaul was not 
 occupied by one and the same nation, with the same traditions and 
 the same chiefs. Tribes, very different in origin, habits and date 
 of settlement, were continually disputing the territory. In the 
 south were Iberians or Aquitanians, Phoenicians and Greeks ; in the 
 north and north-west Kymrians or Belgians ; every where else 
 
 B 
 
2 History of France. 
 
 Gauls or Celts, the most numerous settlers, who had the honour of 
 giving their name to the country. "Who were the first to come, 
 then ? and what was the date of the first settlement 1 Nobody 
 knows. Of the Greeks alone does history mark with any precision 
 the arrival in southern Gaul. The Phoenicians preceded them by 
 several centuries ; but it is impossible to fix any exact time. The 
 information is equally vague about the period when the Kymrians 
 invaded the north of Gaul. As for the Gauls and the Iberians, 
 there is not a word about their first entrance into the country, for 
 they are discovered there already at the first appearance of the 
 country itself in the domain of history. 
 
 Iberians. The Iberians, whom Eoman writers call Aquitanians, dwelt at 
 the foot of the Pyrenees, in the territory comprised between the 
 mountains, the Garonne, and the ocean. They belonged to the 
 race which, under the same appellation, had peopled Spain, and 
 which abides still in the department of the Lower Pyrenees, under 
 the name of Basques ; a peoplet l distinct from all its neighbours 
 in features, costume, and especially language, which resembles none 
 of the present languages of Europe, contains many words which 
 are to be found in the names of rivers, mountains, and towns of 
 olden Spain, and which presents a considerable analogy to the 
 idioms, ancient and modern, of certain peoples of northern Africa. 
 The Phoenicians did not leave, as the Iberians did, in the south of 
 Trance distinct and well-authenticated descendants. 
 
 Greeks. As merchants and colonists, the Greeks were, in Gaul, the suc- 
 
 cessors of the Phoenicians, and Marseilles was one of their first and 
 
 Marseilles most considerable colonies ; she extended her walls all round the 
 
 its colonies bay and her enterprises far away. She founded, on the southern 
 coast of Gaul and on the eastern coast of Spain, permanent settle- 
 ments, which are to this day towns : eastward of the Rhone, Her- 
 cules' harbour, Monoecus (Monaco), Niccea (Nice), Antipolis (An- 
 tibes) ; westward, Heradea Cacabaria (Saint-Gilles), Agatha (Agde) 
 Einporice (Ampurias in Catalonia), &c., &c. In the valley of the 
 Ehone, several towns of the Gauls, Cdbellio (Cavaillon), Avenio 
 (Avignon), Arelate (Aries), for instance, were like Greek colonies, 
 so great there was the number of travellers or established merchants 
 who spoke Greek. With this commercial activity Marseilles united 
 intellectual and scientific activity ; her grammarians were among 
 the first to revise and annotate the poems of Homer ; and bold 
 travellers from Marseilles, Euthymenes and Pytheas by name, 
 cruised, one along the western coast of Africa beyond the straits of 
 
 1 Fr. " peuplade," from people, on the analogy of circlet from circle. 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 3 
 
 Gibraltar, and the other the southern and western coasts of Europe, 
 from the mouth of the Tanais (Don), in the Black Sea, to the lati- 
 tudes and perhaps into the interior of the Baltic. They lived, 
 "both of them, in the second half of the fourth century B.C., and 
 they wrote each a Peri-plus, or tales of their travels, which have 
 unfortunately been almost entirely lost. 
 
 Beyond a strip of land of uneven breadth, along the Mediter- 
 ranean, and save the space peopled towards the south-west by the 
 Iberians, the country, which received its name from the former of 
 the two, was occupied by the Gauls and the Kymrians ; by the 
 Gauls in the centre, south-east, and east, in the highlands of modern 
 France, between the Alps, the Vosges, the mountains of Auvergne 
 and the Cevennes ; by the Kymrians in the north, north-west, and 
 west, in the lowlands, from the western boundary of the Gauls to 
 the ocean. 
 
 Whether the Gauls and the Kymrians were originally of the Kymrians. 
 same race, or at least of races closely connected ; whether they 
 were both anciently comprised under the general name of Celts ; 
 and whether the Kymrians, if they were not of the same race as 
 the Gauls, belonged to that of the Germans, the final conquerors of 
 the ^ Roman empire, are questions which the learned have been 
 a long, long while discussing without deciding. Each of these 
 races, far from forming a single people bound to the same destiny 
 and under the same chieftains, split into peoplets, more or less 
 independent, who foregathered or separated according to the shifts 
 of circumstances, and who pursued each on their own account and 
 at their own pleasure, their fortunes or their fancies. Three grand 
 leagues existed amongst the Gauls ; that of the Arvernians, formed 
 of peoplets established in the country which received from them 
 the name of Auvergne ; that of the -ZEduans, in Burgundy, whose 
 centre was Bibracte (Autun); and that of the Sequanians, in 
 Eranche-Comte, whose centre was Vesontio (Besan^on). Amongst 
 the Kymrians of the West, the Armoric league bound together the 
 tribes of Brittany and lower Normandy. These alliances, intended 
 to group together scattered forces, led to fresh passions or interests, 
 which became so many fresh causes of discord and hostility. 
 
 From the earliest times to the first century before the Christian Migra- 
 era, Gaul appears a prey to an incessant and disorderly movement tionsoftli* 
 of the population ; they change settlement and neighbourhood ; 
 disappear from one point and reappear at another ; cross one 
 another ; avoid one another ; absorb and are absorbed. And the 
 movement was not confined within Gaul ; the Gauls of every race 
 went, sometimes in very numerous hordes, to seek far away plunder 
 
 B 2 
 
4 History of France. 
 
 and a settlement. Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Asia Minor and 
 Africa have been in turn the theatre of those Gallic expeditions 
 which entailed long wars, grand displacements of peoples, and some- 
 times the formation of new nations. Let us make a slight acquaint- 
 ance with this outer history of the Gauls ; for it is well worth 
 while to follow them a space upon their distant wanderings. We 
 will then return to the soil of France and concern ourselves solely 
 with what has passed within her boundaries. 
 
 It is only with the sixth century before our era that we light 
 upon the really historical expeditions of the Gauls away from 
 Gaul, those, in fact, of which we may follow the course and 
 estimate the effects. 
 
 B.C. 587. Towards the year 587 B.C., almost at the very moment when 
 The Gauls ^i ie phoceans had just founded Marseilles, two great Gallic hordes 
 many and gt i n motion at the same time and crossed, one the Rhine, the 
 in Italy, other the Alps, making one for Germany, the other for Italy. 
 The former followed the course of the Danube and settled in 
 Illyria, on the right bank of the river. It is too much, perhaps, to 
 say that they settled ; the greater part of them continued wan- 
 dering and fighting, sometimes amalgamating with the peoplets 
 they encountered, sometimes chasing them and exterminating them, 
 whilst themselves were incessantly pushed forward by fresh bands 
 coming also from Gaul. Thus marching and spreading, leaving 
 here and there on their route, along the rivers, and in the valleys 
 of the Alps, tribes that remained and founded peoples, the Gauls 
 B.C. 340. had reached, towards the year 340 B.C., the confines of Macedonia ; 
 The Gauls additional hordes, in great numbers, arrived amongst them about 
 the year 281 B.C. They had before them Thrace, Macedonia, 
 Thessaly, Greece, rich, but distracted and weakened by civil strife. 
 They effected an entrance at several points, devastating, plundering, 
 loading their cars with booty, and dividing their prisoners into two 
 parts ; one offered in sacrifice to their gods, the other strung up to 
 trees and abandoned to the gcds and matars, or javelins and pikes 
 of the conquerors. 
 
 B.C. 279. Three years later, another and a more formidable invasion came 
 near IteU bursting upon Thessaly and Greece. It was, according to the 
 phi. unquestionably exaggerated account ' of the ancient historians, 
 
 200,000 strong, and commanded by a famous, ferocious, and 
 insolent chieftain (Brenri), whom the Latins and Greeks call 
 Brennus. His idea was to strike a blow which should simul- 
 taneously enrich the Gauls and stun the Greeks. He meant to 
 plunder the temple at Delphi, the most venerated place in all 
 Greece, whither flowed from century to century all kinds of 
 
TJie Ganh and the Romans. 5 
 
 offerings, and where, no doubt, enormous treasure was deposited ; 
 thoroughly defeated, however, the barbarians traversed, flying and 
 fighting, Thessaly and Macedonia ; and on returning whence they 
 had set out, they dispersed, some to settle at the foot of a neigh- 
 bouring mountain, under the command of a chieftain named Ba- 
 il tanet or Baedhannat, i.e. son of the wild boar; others to 
 march back towards their own country ; the greatest part to 
 resume the same life of incursion and adventure. But they 
 changed the scene of operations ; they crossed the Hellespont 
 and passed into Asia Minor ; there, at one time in the pay of the 
 kings of Bithynia, Pergamos, Cappadocia, and Syria, or of the 
 free commercial cities which were struggling against the kings, at 
 another carrying on wars on their own account, they wandered for 
 more than thirty years, divided into three great hordes, which 
 parcelled out the territories among themselves, overran and plun- 
 dered them during the fine weather, entrenched themselves during 
 winter in their camp of cars, or in some fortified place, sold their 
 services to the highest bidder, changed masters according to 
 interest or inclination, and by their bravery became the terror 
 of these effeminate populations, and the arbiters of these petty 
 states. 
 
 At last both princes and people grew weary. Antiochus, King 
 of Syria, attacked one of the three bands which formed the 
 barbarian multitude that of the Tectosagians, conquered it, and 
 cantoned it in a district of Upper Phrygia. Later still, about 
 241 B.C., Eumenes, sovereign of Pergamos, and Attains, his 
 successor, drove and shut up the other two bands, the Tolistoboians 
 and Trocmians, likewise in the same region. The victories of B.C. 241. 
 
 Attains over the Gauls excited veritable enthusiasm. He was Eu j ne j es 
 
 and Atta- 
 
 celebrated as a special envoy from Zeus. He took the title of lus defeat 
 King, which his predecessors had not hitherto borne. Attacked tlle Gauls - 
 in their strongholds on Mount Olympus and Mount Magaba, 
 189 B.C., the three Gallic bands, after a short but stout resistance, 
 were at last conquered and subjugated; and thenceforth losing all 
 national importance, they amalgamated little by little with the 
 Asiatic populations around them. 
 
 Nevertheless the fusion of the Gauls of Galatia with the natives 
 always remained very imperfect ; for towards the end of the 
 fourth century of the Christian era they did not speak Greek, 
 as the latter did, but their national tongue, that of the Kymro- 
 Belgians; and St. Jerome testifies that it differed very little 
 from that which was spoken in Belgica itself, in the region of 
 Treves. 
 
6 History of France. 
 
 The details of the struggle "between the Gauls and the Romans 
 belong specially to Eoman history ; they have been transmitted 
 to us only by Roman historians ; and the Romans it was who 
 were left ultimately in possession of the battle-field, that is, 
 of Italy. 
 
 B.C. 391 Four distinct periods may be recognized in this history ; and 
 Struggles eac k mar ks a different phase in the course of events, and, so to 
 oftheGauls speak, an act of the drama. During the first period, which lasted 
 
 f r ty- two years, from 391 to 349 B.C., the Gauls carried on a war 
 
 1st epoch, of aggression and conquest against Rome. 
 
 To this epoch belonged those marvels of daring recorded in 
 Roman tradition, those acts of heroism tinged with fable, which 
 are met with amongst so many peoples, either in their earliest age 
 or in their days of great peril. In the year 361 B.C., Titus 
 Manlius, and twelve years later, M. Valerius, a young military 
 tribune, were the two Roman heroes who vanquished in single 
 combat the two Gallic giants who insolently defied Rome. The 
 gratitude towards them was general and of long duration, for two 
 centuries afterwards (in the year 167 B.C.) the head of the Gaul 
 with his tongue out still appeared at Rome, above the shop of a 
 money-changer, on a circular sign-board, called "the Kymriaii 
 shield" (scutum Cimbricum). After seventeen years' stay in 
 Latium, the Gauls at last withdrew, and returned to their adopted 
 country in those lovely valleys of the Po which already bore the 
 name of Cisalpine Gaul. They began to get disgusted with a 
 wandering life. Their population multiplied ; their towns spread ; 
 their fields were better cultivated ; their manners became less 
 barbarous. For fifty years there was scarcely any trace of 
 hostility or even contact between them and the Romans. But at 
 the beginning of the third century before our era, the coalition of 
 the Samnites and Etruscans against Rome was near its climax ; 
 they eagerly pressed the Gauls to join, and the latter assented 
 easily. Then commenced the second period of struggles between 
 the two peoples. 
 
 2nd epoch. During this second period Rome was more than once in danger. 
 
 Battle f ^ n ^ e y ear ^^ B '' ^ e ^ au ^ s Destroyed one of her armies near 
 
 Aretium. Aretium (Arezzo), and advanced to the Roman frontier, saying, 
 "We are bound for Rome; the Gauls know how to take it." 
 Seventy-two years afterwards the Cisalpine Gauls swore they would 
 not put off their baldricks till they had mounted the Capitol, and 
 they arrived within three days' march of Rome. 
 
 In spite of sometimes urgent peril, in spite of popular alarms, 
 Rome, during the course of this period, from 299 to 258 B.C., 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 7 
 
 maintained an increasing ascendency over the Gauls. She always 
 cleared them off her territory, several times ravaged theirs, on the 
 two banks of the Po, called respectively Transpadan and Cispadan 
 Gaul, and gained the majority of the great battles she had to 
 fight. Finally, in the year 283 B.C., the propraetor Drusus, after 
 having ravaged the country of the Senonic Gauls, carried off the 
 very ingots and jewels, it was said, which had been given to their 
 ancestors as the price of their retreat. 
 
 Towards the close of the third century before our era, the triumph Hannibal, 
 of Eome in Cisalpine Gaul seemed nigh to accomplishment, when 
 news arrived that the Eomans' most formidable enemy. Hannibal, 
 meditating a passage from Africa into Italy by Spain and Gaul, 
 was already at work, by his emissaries, to ensure for his enterprise 
 the concurrence of the Transalpine and Cisalpine Gauls. The 
 Senate ordered the envoys they had just then at Carthage to 
 traverse Gaul on returning, and seek out allies there against 
 Hannibal. However, this scheme failed, and the delights of 
 victory and of pillage brought into full play the Cisalpine Gauls' 
 natural hatred of Eome. After Ticinus and Trebia, Hannibal had 
 no more zealous and devoted troops. This was the third period of B r c 
 the struggle between the Gauls and the Eomans in Italy. Eome, 170. 
 well advised by this terrible war of the danger with which she was 
 ever menaced by the Cisalpine Gauls, formed the resolution of no 
 longer restraining them, but of subduing them and conquering 
 their territory. She spent thirty years (from 200 to 170 B.C.) in 
 the execution of this design, proceeding by means of war, of found- 
 ing Eoman colonies, and of sowing dissension among the Gallic 
 peoplets. In vain did the two principal, the' Eoians and the 
 Insubrians, endeavour to rouse and rally all the rest : some hesi- 
 tated; some absolutely refused, and remained neutral. Day by 
 day did Eome advance. At length, in the year 190 B.C., the 
 wrecks of the 112 tribes which had formed the nation of the Boians, 
 unable any longer to resist, and unwilling to submit, rose as one 
 man, and departed from Italy. 
 
 The Senate, with its usual wisdom, multiplied the number of ^?* n 
 Eoman colonies in the conquered territory, treated with moderation Gaul, 
 the tribes that submitted, and gave to Cisalpine Gaul the name of 
 the Cisalpine or Hither Gallic Province, which was afterwards 
 changed for that of Gallia, Togata or Roman Gaul. Then, de- 
 claring that nature herself had placed the Alps between Gaul and 
 Italy as an insurmountable barrier, the Senate pronounced "a curse 
 on whosoever should attempt to cross it." 
 
 It was Eome herself that soon crossed that barrier of the Alps 
 
8 History of France. 
 
 which she had pronounced fixed by nature and insurmountable. 
 Scarcely was she mistress of Cisalpine Gaul when she entered upon 
 a quarrel with the tribes which occupied the mountain-passes. It 
 is likely that the Gallic mountaineers were not careful to abstain, 
 they and their flocks, from descending upon the territory that had 
 become Roman. The Romans, in turn, penetrated into the ham- 
 lets, carried oif flocks and people, and sold them in the public 
 markets at Cremona, at Placentia, and in all their colonies. 
 
 Towards the middle of the second century B.C. Marseilles, then 
 an ally of Rome, was at war with certain Gallic tribes, her neigh- 
 bours, whose territory she coveted. Two of her colonies, Nice and 
 Antibes, were threatened. She called on Rome for help. A 
 Roman deputation went to decide the quarrel; but the Gauls 
 refused to obey its summons, and treated it with insolence. The 
 deputation returned with an army, succeeded in beating the re- 
 fractory tribes, and gave their land to the Massilians. The same 
 thing occurred repeatedly with the same result. Within the 
 space of thirty years nearly all. the tribes between the Rhone and 
 the Var, in the country which was afterwards Provence, were 
 subdued and driven back amongst the mountains, with notice not 
 to approach within a mile of the coast in general, and a mile and 
 a half of the places of disembarkation. But the Romans did not 
 B.C. 123. stop there. They did not mean to conquer for Marseilles alone. 
 mans B ia In tlie year 123 B ' C> ' at soni e leagues to the north of the Greek 
 Gaul. city, near a little river, then called the Ccenus and now-a-days 
 the Arc, the consul C. Sextius Calvin us had noticed, during his 
 Campaign, an abundance of thermal springs, agreeably situated 
 amidst wood-covered hills. There he constructed an enclosure, 
 aqueducts, baths, houses, a town in fact, which he called after 
 himself, Aquae. Sextia, the modern Aix, the first Roman establish- 
 ment in Transalpine Gaul. As in the case of Cisalpine Gaul, with 
 Roman colonies came Roman intrigue, and dissensions got up and 
 War be- fomented amongst the Gauls. The Gauls, moreover, ran of 
 tween the themselves into the Roman trap. Two of their confederations, 
 and the the ^Eduans, of whom mention has already been made, and the 
 Allobro- Allobrogians, who were settled between the Alps, the Isere, and 
 gians. ^ e Rhone, were at war. A third confederation, the most powerful 
 in Gaul at this time, the Arvernians, who were rivals of the 
 ^Eduans, gave their countenance to the Allobrogians. The 
 u^Eduans, with whom the Massilians had commercial dealings, 
 solicited through these latter the assistance of Rome. A treaty 
 was easily concluded. The ^Eduans obtained from the Romans the 
 title friends and allies ; and the Romans received from the ^Eduans 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 9 
 
 th.it of brothers, which amongst the Gauls implied a sacred tie. 
 The consul Domitius forthwith commanded the Allobrogians to 
 respect the territory of the allies of Koine. War broke out ; the 
 Allobrogians, with the usual confidence and hastiness of all bar- 
 barians, attacked alone, without waiting for the Arvernians, and 
 were beaten at the confluence of the Rhone and the Sorgue, a little 
 above Avignon. The next year, 121 B.C., the Arvernians in their 
 turn descended from the mountains, and crossed the Rhone with all nians cross 
 their tribes; they were beaten, as the Allobrogians had been. theBhone. 
 Rome treated the Arvernians with consideration ; but the Allo- 
 brogians lost their existence as a nation. The Senate declared 
 them subject to the Roman people ; and all the country comprised 
 between the Alps, the Rhone from its entry into the Lake of 
 Geneva to its mouth, and the Mediterranean, was made a Roman 
 consular province. In the three following years, indeed, the 
 consuls extended the boundaries of the new province, on the right 
 bank of the Rhone, to the frontier of the Pyrenees southward. 
 
 In the year 110 B.C. the Kymrians or Cimbrians, and the B.C. 110. 
 Teutons, having their numbers swelled by other tribes, Gallic or T ^ s ^d 
 German, the Ambrons, among others, entered Gaul, at first by way the Teu- 
 of Belgica, and then, continuing their wanderings and ravages in tons< 
 central Gaul, they at last reached the Rhone, on the frontiers of the 
 Roman province. There four successive armies were defeated and 
 slaughtered by the barbarians ; but at last Marius attacked them 
 (102 B.C.) near Aix (Aquce Sorties). The battle lasted two days ; B.C. 102. 
 the first against the Ambrons, the second against the Teutons. Defeated 
 Both were beaten, in spite of their savage bravery, and the equal by Marius 
 bravery of their women, who defended, with indomitable obstinacy, 
 the cars with which they had remained almost alone, in charge of 
 the children and the booty. There remained the Kymrians, who 
 had repassed the Helvetic Alps and entered Italy on the north- 
 east, by way of the Adige. Marius marched against them in July 
 of the following year, 101 B.C., and defeated them in the Raudine 
 Plains, a large tract near Verceil. 
 
 The victories of Marius arrested the torrent of the invasion, but 
 did not dry up its source. The great movement which drove from 
 Asia to Europe, and from eastern to western Europe, masses of 
 roving populations, followed its course, bringing incessantly upon 
 the Roman frontiers new comers and new perils. A greater man 
 than Marius, Julius Caesar in fact, saw that to effectually resist these 
 clouds of barbaric assailants, the country into which they poured 
 must be conquered and made Roman. The conquest of Gaul was 
 
io History of France. 
 
 the accomplishment of that idea, and the decisive step towards the 
 transformation of the Eoman republic into a Eoman empire. 
 Ariovistus. In spite of the victories of Marius, and the destruction or disper- 
 sion of the Teutons and Cimbrians, the whole of Gaul remained 
 seriously disturbed and threatened. In eastern and central Gaul, 
 in the valleys of the Jura and Auvergne, on the banks of the 
 Saone, the Allier, and the Doubs, the two great Gallic confedera- 
 tions, that of the zEduans and that of the Arvernians, were dis- 
 puting the preponderance, and making war one upon another, 
 seeking the aid, respectively, of the Eomans and of the Germans. 
 Every where floods of barbaric populations were pressing upon 
 Gaul, were carrying disquietude even where they had not them- 
 selves yet penetrated, and causing presentiments of a general com- 
 motion. The danger burst before long upon particular places and 
 in connexion with particular names which have remained historical. 
 In the war with the confederation of the ^Eduans, that of the 
 Arvernians called to their aid the German Ariovistus, chieftain of 
 a confederation of tribes which, under the name of Suevians, were 
 roving over the right bank of the Ehine, ready at any time to cross 
 the river. Ariovistus, with 15,000 warriors at his back, was not 
 slow in responding to the appeal. The JMuans were beaten ; and 
 Ariovistus settled amongst the Gauls, who had been thoughtless 
 enough to appeal to him. Numerous bands of the Suevians came 
 and rejoined him ; and in two or three years after his victory he 
 had about him, it was said, 120,000 warriors. He had appro- 
 priated to them a third of the territory of his Gallic allies, and he 
 imperiously demanded another third to satisfy other 25,000 of his 
 old German comrades, who asked to share his booty and his new 
 country. One of the foremost JEduans, Divitiacus by name, went 
 and invoked the succour of the Eoman people, the patrons of his 
 confederation. The Eoman Senate, with the indecision and in- 
 dolence of all declining powers, hesitated to engage, for the 
 .ZEduans' sake, in a war against the invaders of a corner of Gallic 
 territory. At the same time that they gave a cordial welcome to 
 Divitiacus,. they entered into negotiations with Ariovistus himself ; 
 they gave him beautiful presents, the title of King, and even of 
 friend ; the only demand they made was that he should live peace- 
 ably in his new settlement, and not lend his support to the fresh 
 invasions of which there were symptoms in Gaul, and which were 
 becoming too serious for resolutions not to be taken to repel them. 
 A people of Gallic race, the Helvetians, who inhabited the present 
 Switzerland, where the old name still abides beside the modern, 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 1 1 
 
 found themselves incessantly threatened, ravaged, and invaded by 
 the German tribes which pressed upon their frontiers. After some 
 years of perplexity and internal discord, the whole Helvetic nation 
 decided upon abandoning its territory, and going to seek in Gaul, 
 westward, it is said, on the borders of the ocean, a more tranquil 
 settlement. Being informed of this design, the Eoman Senate and 
 Ca3sar, at that time consul, resolved to protect the Eoman province 
 and their Gallic allies, the JMuans, against this inundation of 
 roving neighbours. The Helvetians none the less persisted in 
 their plan ; and in the spring of the year of Eome 696 (58 B.C.) 
 they committed to the flames, in the country they were about to 
 
 leave, twelve towns, four hundred villages, and all their houses ; B - c ' 58 
 
 The Hel- 
 loaded their cars with provisions for three months, and agreed to V etians 
 
 meet at the southern point of the Lake of Geneva. But when they attempt to 
 would have entered Gaul, they found there Ceasar, who after having e 
 got himself appointed proconsul for five years, had arrived suddenly 
 at Geneva, prepared to forbid their passage. Thus foiled, they at- 
 tempted to take another road, and to cross not the Ehone but the 
 Saone, and march thence towards western Gaul. But whilst they 
 were arranging for the execution of this movement, Ca3sar, who had 
 up to that time only four legions at his disposal, returned to 
 Italy, brought away five fresh legions, and arrived on the left 
 bank of the >aone at the moment when the rear-guard of the Hel- 
 vetians was embarking to rejoin 'the main body which had already 
 pitched its camp on the right bank. Caesar cut to pieces this rear- 
 guard, crossed the river in his turn with his legions, pursued the 
 emigrants without relaxation, came in contact with them on several 
 occasions, at one time attacking them or repelling their attacks, at 
 another receiving and giving audience to their envoys without ever 
 consenting to treat with them, and before the end of the year he had 
 so completely beaten, decimated, dispersed and driven them back, 
 that of 368,000 Helvetians who had entered Gaul, but 110,000 
 escaped from the Eomans, and were enabled by flight to regain 
 their country. 
 
 ^Eduans, Sequanians, or Arvernians, all the Gauls interested in 
 the struggle thus terminated, were eager to congratulate Caesar upon 
 his victory ; but if they were delivered from the invasion of the 
 Helvetians, another scourge fell heavily upon them ; Ariovistus 
 and the Germans, who were settled upon their territory, op- 
 pressed them cruelly, and day by day fresh bands were continually 
 coming to aggravate the evil and the danger. They adjured 
 Caesar to protect them from these swarms of barbarians. The 
 
12 History of France. 
 
 Roman general gave ear to the prayer of the Gauls ; after having 
 uselessly attempted to negotiate with the German chieftain, find- 
 ing that Ariovistus with all his forces was making towards 
 Vesontio (Besan^on), the chief town of the Sequanians, he forthwith 
 put himself in motion, occupied Yesontio, established there a 
 strong garrison, and fetching a considerable compass to spare his 
 soldiers the passage of thick forests, after a seven days' march, 
 arrived at a short distance from the camp of Ariovistus. Several 
 days in succession he offered battle ; but Ariovistus remained 
 within his lines. Cassar then took the resolution of assailing the 
 German camp. At his approach, the Germans at length moved 
 out from their entrenchments, arrayed by peoplets, and defiling in 
 front of cars filled with their women, who implored them with 
 tears not to deliver them in slavery to the Romans. The struggle 
 was obstinate, and not without moments of anxiety and partial 
 check for the Romans ; but the genius of Caesar and strict dis- 
 Csesar ex- cipline of the legions carried the day. The rout of the Germans 
 Helve- was complete ; they fled towards the Rhine, which was only a few 
 tians. leagues from the field of battle. Ariovistus himself was amongst 
 the fugitives ; he found a boat by the river-side, and re-crossed 
 into Germany, where he died shortly afterwards, "to the great grief 
 of the Germans," says Caesar. The Suevian bands, who were 
 awaiting on the right bank the result of the struggle, plunged 
 back again within their own territory. And so the invasion of 
 the Germans was stopped as the emigration of the Helvetians 
 had been ; and Caasar had only to conquer Gaul. 
 
 The expulsion of the Helvetian emigrants and of the German 
 
 invaders left the Romans and Gauls alone face to face ; and from 
 
 that moment the Romans were, in the eyes of the Gauls, foreigners, 
 
 A.TT.C. 696 conquerors, oppressors. Conspiracies were hatched, insurrections 
 
 705. S oon broke out in nearly every part of Gaul, in the heart even of 
 
 o?Csesaf in ^ ne peoplets most subject to Roman dominion. Every movement 
 
 Gaul. of the kind was for Ca3sar a provocation, a temptation, almost an 
 
 obligation to conquest. He accepted them and profited by them, 
 
 with that promptitude in resolution, boldness and address in 
 
 execution, and cool indifference as to the means employed, which 
 
 were characteristic of his genius. During nine years, from A.U.C. 
 
 696 to 705, and in eight successive campaigns, he carried his 
 
 troops, his lieutenants, himself, and, ere long, war or negotiation, 
 
 corruption, discord, or destruction in his path, amongst the different 
 
 nations and confederations of Gaul, Celtic, Kymric, Germanic, 
 
 Iberian or hybrid, northward and eastward, in Belgica, between 
 
The- Gauls and the Romans. 1 3 
 
 the Seine and the Rhine ; westward, in Armorica, on the borders 
 of the ocean ; south-westward, in Aquitania ; centre-ward amongst 
 the peoplets established between the Seine, the Loire and the 
 Saone. He was nearly always victorious, and then at one time 
 he pushed his victory to the bitter end, at another stopped at 
 the right moment, that it might not be compromised. He did 
 not confine himself to conquering and subjecting the Gauls in 
 Gaul ; his ideas were ever out-stripping his deeds, and he knew 
 how to make his power felt even where he had made no attempt 
 to establish it. Twice he crossed the Rhine to hurl back the 
 Germans beyond their river, and to strike to the very hearts of 
 their forests the terror of the Roman name (A.U.C. 699, 700). He 
 equipped two fleets, made two descents on Great Britain (A.U.C. 
 699, 700), several times defeated the Britons and their principal 
 chieftain Caswallon (Cassivellaunus),and set up, across the channel, 
 the first landmarks of Roman conquest. He thus became more 
 and more famous and terrible, both in Gaul, whence he sometimes 
 departed for a moment, to go and look after his political pros- 
 pects in Italy, and in more distant lands, where he was but an ap- 
 parition. Nor were the rigours of administration less than those His admi- 
 of warfare. Cajsar wanted a great deal of money, not only to main- nistration. 
 tain satisfactorily his troops in Gaul, but to defray the enormous 
 expenses he was at in Italy, for the purpose of enriching his par- 
 tisans, or securing the favour of the Roman people. It was with 
 the produce of imposts and plunder in Gaul that he undertook the 
 reconstruction at Rome of the basilica of the Forum, the site 
 whereof, extending to the temple of Liberty, was valued, it is 
 said, at more than twenty million five hundred thousand francs 
 (820,000/.). 
 
 After six years' struggling CaBsar was victor; he had successively A.TT.C.7C2. 
 dealt with all the different populations of Gaul ; he had passed 
 through and subjected them all, either by his own strong arm, or 
 thanks to their rivalries. In the year of Rome 702 he was sud- 
 denly informed in Italy, whither he had gone on his Roman 
 business, that most of the Gallic nations, united under a chieftain 
 hitherto unknown, were rising with one common impulse, and 
 recommencing war. Amongst the Arvernians lived a young Gaul 
 whose real name has remained unknown, and whom history has 
 called Vercingetorix, that is, chief over a hundred heads, general- 
 in-chief. He came of an ancient and powerful family, and his 
 father had been put to death in his own city for attempting to 
 make himself king. Caasar knew him, and had taken some pains 
 to attach him to himself. It does not appear that the Arvernian 
 
14 History of France. 
 
 aristocrat had absolutely declined the overtures ; but when the 
 hope of national independence was aroused, Yercingetorix was its 
 representative and chief. He descended with his followers from 
 the mountains, and seized Gergovia, the capital of his nation. 
 Thence his messengers spread over the centre, the north-west, and 
 west of Gaul ; the greater part of the peoplets and cities of those 
 regions pronounced from the first moment for insurrection. Yer- 
 cingetorix was immediately invested with the chief command, and 
 he made use of it with all the passion engendered by patriotism 
 and the possession of power; he regulated the movement, demanded 
 hostages, fixed the contingents of troops, imposed taxes, inflicted 
 summary punishment on the traitors, the dastards and the indif- 
 ferent, and subjected those who turned a deaf ear to the appeal 
 of their common country to the same pains and the same mutila- 
 tions that Caesar inflicted on those who obstinately resisted the 
 Roman yoke. 
 
 At the news of this great movement Caesar immediately left 
 Italy, and returned to Gaul. Starting at the beginning of 702 A.U.C., 
 he passed two months in traversing within Gaul the Roman 
 province and its neighbourhood, in visiting the points threatened 
 by the insurrection, and the openings by which he might get 
 at it, in assembling his troops, in confirming his wavering allies ; 
 and it was not before the early part of March that he moved with 
 his whole army to Agendicum (Sens), the very centre of revolt, 
 and started thence to push on the war with vigour. In less than 
 three months he had spread devastation throughout the insurgent 
 country ; he had attacked and taken its principal cities, Yellaunod- 
 unum (Trigueres), Genabum (Gien), Noviodunum (Sancerre), and 
 Avaricum (Bourges), delivering up every where country and city, 
 lands and inhabitants, to the rage of the Roman soldiery, maddened 
 at having again to conquer enemies so often conquered. To strike 
 a decisive blow, he penetrated at last to the heart of the country 
 of the Arvernians, and laid siege to Gergovia, their capital and the 
 birthplace of Yercingetorix. 
 
 Defeat of ^^ e fi rmness an( l the ability of the Gallic chieftain were not 
 Vercin- inferior to such a struggle ; CaBsar encountered an obstinate re- 
 getorix sistance ; whilst Yercingetorix, encamped on the heights which 
 surrounded his birthplace, every where embarrassed, sometimes 
 attacked, and incessantly threatened the Romans. The eighth 
 legion, drawn on one day to make an imprudent assault, was 
 repulsed, and lost forty-six of its bravest centurions. Caesar de- 
 termined to raise the siege, and to transfer the struggle to places 
 where the population could be more safely depended upon. It was 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 1 5 
 
 the first decisive check he had experienced in Gaul, the first Gallic 
 town he had been unable to take, the first retrograde movement 
 he had executed in the face of the Gallic insurgents and their 
 chieftain. Vercingetorix could not and would not restrain his 
 joy ; it seemed to him that the day had dawned and an excellent 
 chance arrived for attempting a decisive blow. He had under his 
 orders, it is said, 80,000 men, mostly his own Arvernians, and 
 a numerous cavalry furnished by the different peoplets his allies. 
 He followed all Caesar's movements in retreat towards the Saone, 
 and on arriving at Longeau, not far from Langres, near a little river 
 called the Vingeanne, he halted and pitched his camp about nine 
 miles from the Eomans. The action began between the cavalry on 
 both sides ; a portion of the Gallic -had taken up position on the 
 road followed by the Eoman army, to bar its passage ; but whilst 
 the fighting at this point was getting more and more obstinate, the 
 German horse in Caesar's service gained a neighbouring height, 
 drove off the Gallic horse that were in occupation, and pursued 
 them as far as the river, near which was Vercingetorix with his 
 infantry. Disorder took place amongst this infantry so unexpectedly 
 attacked. Caesar launched his legions at them, and there was a 
 general panic and rout among the Gauls. Vercingetorix had 
 great trouble in rallying them,, and he rallied them only to order a 
 general retreat, for which they clamoured. Hurriedly striking his 
 camp, he made for Alesia (Semur in Auxois), a neighbouring town 
 and the capital of the Mandubians, a peoplet in clientship to the 
 ^Eduans. Caesar immediately went in pursuit of the Gauls ; killed, 
 he says, 3000 ; made important prisoners ; and encamped with his 
 legions before Alesia the day but one after Vercingetorix, with his 
 fugitive army, had occupied the place as well as the neighbouring 
 hills, and was hard at work intrenching himself, probably without 
 any clear idea as yet of what he should 'do to continue the struggle. 
 Caesar at once took a resolution as unexpectedly as it was dis- 
 creetly bold. Here was the whole Gallic insurrection, chieftain and 
 soldiery, united together within or beneath the walls of a town 
 of moderate extent. He undertook to keep it there and destroy 
 it on the spot, instead of having to pursue it every whither with- 
 out ever being sure of getting at it. The struggle was fierce, but siege of 
 short. Every time that the fresh Gallic army attacked the be- 
 siegers, Vercingetorix and the Gauls of Alesia sallied forth, and 
 joined in the attack. Caesar and his legions, on their side, at one 
 time repulsed these double attacks, at another themselves took the 
 initiative, and assailed at one and the same time the besieged and 
 the auxiliaries Gaul had sent them. The feeling was passionate 
 
1 6 History of France. 
 
 on "both sides : Roman pride was pitted against Gallic patriotism. 
 But in four or five days the strong organization, the disciplined 
 valour of the Roman legions, and the genius of Caesar triumphed. 
 The Gallic reinforcements, beaten and slaughtered without mercy, 
 dispersed ; and Yercingetorix and the besieged were crowded back 
 within their walls without hope of escape. 
 
 Alesia taken, and her brave defender a prisoner, Gaul was 
 subdued. Csesar, however, had in the following year (A.U.C. 703) 
 a campaign to make to subjugate some peoplets who tried to main- 
 tain their local independence. A year afterwards, again, attempts 
 at insurrection took place in Belgica, and towards the mouth of the 
 Loire ; but they were easily repressed ; they had no national or 
 formidable characteristics ; Csesar and his lieutenants willingly 
 contented themselves with an apparent submission, and in the 
 year 705 A.U.C. the Roman legions, after nine years' occupation in 
 the conquest of Gaul, were able to depart therefrom to Italy and the 
 East for a plunge into civil war. 
 
 Gaul under From the conquest of Gaul by Caesar to the establishment there 
 Roman do- of tne Cranks under Clovis, she remained for more than five 
 
 &QI110& 
 
 centuries under Roman dominion ; first under the Pagan, afterwards 
 under the Christian empire. In her primitive state of independence 
 she had struggled for ten years against the best armies and the 
 greatest man of Rome ; after five centuries of Roman dominion she 
 opposed no resistance to the invasion of the barbarians, Germans, 
 Goths, Alans, Burgundians, and Franks, who destroyed bit by bit 
 the Roman empire. In this humiliation and, one might say, 
 annihilation of a population so independent, so active, and so 
 valiant at its first appearance in history, is to be seen the charac- 
 teristic of this long epoch. It is worth while to learn and to 
 understand how it was. 
 
 Gaul lived, during those five centuries, under very different 
 rules and rulers. They may be summed up under five names 
 which correspond with governments very unequal in merit and 
 defect, in gocd and evil wrought for their epoch : 1st, the Caesars, 
 from Julius to Nero (from 49 B.C. to A.D. 68) ; 2nd, the Flavians, 
 from Yespasian to Domitian (from A.D. 69 to 95) ; 3rd, the 
 Antonines, from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (from A.D. 96 to 180) ; 
 4th, the imperial anarchy, or the thirty-nine emperors and the 
 thirty-one tyrants, from Commodus to Carinus and Kumerian 
 (from A.D. 180 to 284) ; 5th, Diocletian (from A.D. 284 to 305). 
 Through all these governments, and in spite of their different 
 results for their contemporary subjects, the fact already pointed out 
 as the general and definite charasteristic of that long epoch, to wit, 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 1 7 
 
 the moral and social decadence of Gaul as well as of the Roman 
 empire, never ceased to continue and spread. 
 
 On quitting conquered Gaul to become master at Rome, Ca3sar New divi- 
 neglected nothing to assure his conquest and make it conducive to sion of tlie 
 the establishment of his empire. He formed of all the Gallic 
 districts that he had subjugated a special province, which received 
 the name of Gallia Comata (Gaul of the long-hair), whilst the old 
 province was called Gallia Togata (Gaul of the toga). Caesar 
 caused to be enrolled amongst his troops a multitude of Gauls, 
 Belgians, Arvernians, and Aquitanians, of whose bravery he had 
 made proof. He even formed, almost entirely of Gauls, a special 
 legion, called Alauda (lark), because it bore on the helmets a lark 
 with out-spread wings, the symbol t>f wakefulness. At the same 
 time he gave in Gallia Comata, to the towns and families that 
 declared for him, all kinds of favours, the rights of Roman citizen- 
 ship, the titles of allies, clients, and friends, even to the extent 
 of the Julian name, a sign of the most powerful Roman patronage. 
 
 After Csesar, Augustus, left sole master of the Roman world, Augustus, 
 assumed in Gaul, as elsewhere, the part of pacificator, repairer, con- Character 
 servator, and organizer, whilst taking care, with all his moderation, vernment. 
 to remain always the master. He divided the provinces into im- 
 perial and senatorial, reserving to himself the entire government 
 of the former, and leaving the latter under the authority of the 
 senate. Gaul "of the long hair," all that Caesar had conquered, 
 was imperial province. Augustus divided it into three districts, 
 Lugdunensian (Lyonese), Belgian, and Aquitanian. He recognized 
 therein sixty nations or distinct cityships which continued to have 
 themselves the government of their own affairs, according to their 
 traditions and manners, whilst conforming to the general laws of 
 the empire and abiding under the supervision of imperial governors, 
 charged with maintaining every where, in the words of Pliny the 
 Younger, "the majesty of Roman peace." The administrative 
 energy of Augustus was not confined to the erection of monuments 
 and to festivals ; he applied himself to the development in Gaul of 
 the material elements of civilization and social order. His most 
 intimate and able adviser, Agrippa, being settled at Lyons as 
 governor of the Gauls, caused to be opened four great roads, starting 
 from a mile- stone placed in the middle of the Lyonese forum, and 
 going, one centre wards to Saintes and the ocean, another south- 
 wards to Narbonne and the Pyrenees, the third north-westwards 
 and towards the Channel by Amiens and Boulogne, and the fourth 
 north-westwards and towards the Rhine. Agrippa founded several 
 considerable colonies, amongst others Cologne, which bore his name ; 
 
i8 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Tiberius 
 and Cali- 
 gula. 
 
 Claudius. 
 
 and he admitted to Gallic territory bands of Germans who asked 
 for an establishment there. 
 
 But side by side with this work in the cause of civilization 
 and organization, Augustus and his Roman agents were pursuing 
 a work of quite a contrary tendency. They laboured to extirpate 
 from Gaul the spirit of nationality, independence and freedom ; 
 they took every pains to efface every where Gallic memories and 
 sentiments. Gallic towns were losing their old and receiving 
 Roman names : Augustonemetum, Augusta, and Augustodunum took 
 the place of Gergovia, Noviodunum, and Bilracte. The national 
 Gallic religion, which was Druidism, was attacked as well as the 
 Gallic fatherland, with the same design and by the same means. 
 
 Tiberius carried on in Gaul, but with less energy and less care 
 for the provincial administration, the pacific and moderate policy 
 of Augustus. He had to extinguish in Belgica, and even in the 
 Lyonese province, two insurrections kindled by the sparks that 
 remained of national and Druidic spirit. He repressed them 
 effectually, and without any violent display of vengeance. He 
 was succeeded by Germanicus' unworthy son, Caligula, who did 
 just one sensible and useful thing during the whole of his stay in 
 Gaul : he had a light-house constructed to illumine the passage 
 between Gaul and Great Britain. Some traces of it, they say, 
 have been discovered. 
 
 His successor, Claudius, brother of the great Germanicus, and 
 married to his own niece, the second Agrippina, was born at Lyons, 
 at the very moment when his father, Drusus, was celebrating there 
 the erection of an altar to Augustus. During his whole reign he 
 showed to the city of his birth the most lively good-will, and the 
 constant aim as well as principal result of this good-will was to 
 render the city of Lyons more and more Roman by effacing all 
 Gallic characteristics and memories. He undertook to assure to all 
 free men of " long-haired " Gaul the same Roman privileges that 
 were enjoyed by the inhabitants of Lyons ; and, amongst others, 
 that of entering the senate of Rome and 'holding the great public 
 offices. He was, however, neither liberal nor humane towards a 
 notable portion of the Gallic populations, to wit, the Druids. 
 During his stay in Gaul he proscribed them and persecuted them 
 without intermission ; forbidding, under pain of death, their form 
 of worship and every exterior sign of their ceremonies. He drove 
 them away and pursued them even into Great Britain, whither he 
 conducted, A.D. 43, a military expedition. In proportion as Claudius 
 had been popular in Gaul did his adopted son and successor, jtfero, 
 quickly become hated. At the vacancy that occurred after his 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 19 
 
 death, and amid the claims of various pretenders, the authority of 
 the Eoman name and the pressure of the imperial power diminished 
 rapidly in Gaul ; and the memory and desire of independence were 
 re-awakened. In the northern part of Belgica, towards the mouths A.D. 70. 
 of the Ehine, where a Batavian peoplet lived, a man of note amongst 
 his compatriots and in the service of the Eomans, amongst whom 
 he had received the name of Claudius Civilis, embraced first 
 secretly, and afterwards openly, the cause of insurrection. Petilius 
 Cerealis, a commander of renown for his campaigns on the Ehine, 
 was sent off to Belgica with seven fresh legions. He was as skilful 
 in negotiation and persuasion as he was in battle. The struggle 
 that ensued was fierce, but brief; and nearly all the towns and 
 legions that had been guilty of defection returned to their Eoman 
 allegiance. Civilis, though not more than half vanquished, himself 
 asked leave to surrender. The Batavian might, as was said at the 
 time, have inundated the country, and drowned the Eoman armies. 
 Vespasian, therefore, not being inclined to drive men or matters to 
 extremity, gave Civilis leave to go into retirement and live in peace 
 amongst the marshes of his own land. The Gallic chieftains alone, 
 the projectors of a Gallic empire, were rigorously pursued and 
 chastised. 
 
 During the period known in history as the age of the Antonines The Anto- 
 (A.D. 96 180), five notable sovereigns, ]S"erva, Trajan, Hadrian, nines - 
 Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius swayed the Eoman empire. 
 It would be a great error to take them as representatives of the 
 society amidst which they lived, and as giving, in a certain degree, 
 the measure of its enlightenment, its morality, its prosperity, its 
 disposition and condition in general. Those five princes were not 
 only picked men, superior in mind and character to the majority of 
 their contemporaries, but they were men almost isolated in their 
 generation : in them there was a resumption of all that had been 
 acquired by Greek and Eoman antiquity of enlightenment and 
 virtue, practical wisdom and philosophical morality : they were the 
 heirs and the survivors of the great minds and the great politicians 
 of Athens and Eome, of the Areopagus and the Senate. They 
 were not in intellectual and moral harmony with the society they 
 governed, and their action upon it served hardly to preserve it 
 partially and temporarily from the evils to which it was committed 
 by its own vices and to break its fall. When they were thoughtful 
 and modest, as Marcus Aurelius was, they were gloomy and dis- 
 posed to discouragement, for they had a secret foreboding of the 
 uselessness of their efforts. The empe- 
 
 After the death of Marcus Aurelius decay manifested and Area's " 
 
 C 2 Aurelius. 
 
20 History of France. 
 
 developed itself, almost without interruption for the space of a 
 century, the outward and visible sign of it being the disorganization 
 and repeated falls of the government itself. The series of em- 
 perors given to the Eoman world by heirship or adoption, from 
 Augustus to Marcus Amelias, was succeeded by what may be 
 termed an imperial anarchy; in the course of one hundred and 
 thirty-two years the sceptre passed into the hands of thirty-nine 
 sovereigns with the title of emperor (Augustus), and was clutched 
 at by thirty-one pretenders, whom history has dubbed tyrants, and 
 amongst whom were Italians, Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, 
 Illyrians, and Asiatics ; in the number could be found some cases 
 of eminence in war and politics, and some even of rare virtue and 
 patriotism, such as Pertinax, Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus, 
 Deems, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, Tacitus, and Probus. Gaul 
 had her share in this series of ephemeral emperors and tyrants ; 
 one of the most wicked and most insane, though issue of one of 
 the most valorous and able, Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus, 
 was born at Lyons, four years after the death of Marcus Aurelius. 
 A hundred years later Narbonne gave, in two years, to the Eoman 
 world three emperors, Carus and his two sons, Carinus and JS'urne- 
 rian. Amongst the thirty-one tyrants who did not attain to the 
 title of Augustus, six were Gauls ; and the last two, Amandus and 
 jElianus, were, A.D. 285, the chiefs of that great insurrection of 
 peasants, slaves or half-slaves, who, under the name of Bagaudians 
 (signifying, according to Ducange, a wandering troop of insurgents 
 from field and forest), spread themselves over the north of Gaul, 
 between the Ehine and the Loire, pillaging and ravaging in all 
 directions, after having themselves endured the pillaging and 
 ravages of the fiscal agents and soldiers of the Empire. 
 
 A.D. 24E When public evils have reached such a pitch, and nevertheless 
 
 313. the day has not yet arrived for the entire disappearance of the 
 an * system that causes them, there arises nearly always a new power, 
 which, in the name of necessity, applies some remedy to an in- 
 tolerable condition. On the present occasion that power was 
 wielded by a Dalmatian soldier, named Diocletian, who having 
 been raised to the throne, set to work ably, if not successfully, to 
 master the difficulty of government. Convinced that the empire 
 was too vast, and that a single man did not suffice to make head 
 against the two evils that were destroying it war against bar- 
 barians on the frontiers, and anarchy within he divided the Eoman 
 world into two portions, gave the West to Maximian, one of his com- 
 rades, a coarse but valiant soldier, and kept the East himself. To 
 the anarchy that reigned within he opposed a general despotic admi- 
 
The Gauls and the Romans. 2 1 . 
 
 nistrative organization, a vast hierarchy of civil and military agents, 
 every where present, every where masters, and dependent upon the 
 emperor alone. By his incontestable and admitted superiority, 
 Diocletian remained the soul of these two bodies. At the end of 
 eight years he saw that the two empires were still too vast ; and to 
 each Augustus he added a Caesar Galcrius and Constantius Chlorua 
 who, save a nominal, rather than a real, subordination to the two 
 emperors, had, each in his own State, the imperial power with the 
 same administrative system. In this partition of the Eoman world 
 Gaul had the best of it ; she had for master Constantius Chlorus, a 
 tried warrior, but just, gentle, and disposed to temper the exercise 
 of absolute power with moderation ..and equity. He had a son, 
 Constantine, at this time eighteen years of age, whom he was 
 educating carefully for government as well as for war. Weary, 
 however, of his burden, and disgusted with the imperfection of his 
 work, Diocletian abdicated, A.D. 305. He had persuaded or rather 
 dragged his first colleague, Maximian, into abdication after him ; 
 and so Galerius in the East, and Cons'cantius Chlorus in the West, 
 remained sole emperors. After the retirement of Diocletian, 
 ambitions, rivalries and intrigues were not slow to make head ; 
 Maximian reappeared on the s'cene of empire, but only to speedily 
 disappear (A.D. 310), leaving in his place his son Maxentius. 
 Constantius Chlorus had died A.D. 306, and his son,. Constantine, 
 had immediately been proclaimed by his army Ca3sar and Augustus. 
 Galerius died A.D. 311, and Constantine remained to dispute the Constan- 
 mastery with Maxentius in the West, and in the East with Maxi- * ine tlxe 
 minus and Licinius, the last colleagues taken by Diocletian and 
 Galerius. On the 29th of October, A.D. 312, after having gained 
 several battles against Maxentius in Italy, at Milan, Brescia, and 
 Verona, Constantine pursued and defeated him before Rome, on 
 the borders of the Tiber, at the foot of the Milvian bridge ; and 
 the son of Maximian, drowned in the Tiber, left to the son of 
 Constantius Chlorus the Empire of the West, to which that of the 
 East was destined to be in a few years added, by the defeat and 
 death of Licinius. Constantine, more clear-sighted and more 
 fortunate than any of his predecessors, had understood his era, and 
 opened his eyes to the new light which was rising upon the world. 
 Ear from persecuting the Christians, he had given them protection, 
 countenance, and audience ; and towards him turned all their 
 hopes. He had even, it is said, in his last battle against Maxen- 
 tius, displayed the Christian banner, the cross, with this inscrip- 
 tion : Hoc tfigno vinces (" With this device thou shalt conquer"). 
 There is no knowing what was at that time the state of his soul, 
 
22 
 
 History of France. 
 
 and to what extent it was penetrated by the first rays of Christian 
 faith ; but it is certain that he was the first amongst the masters of 
 the Roman world to perceive and accept its influence. With him 
 Paganism fell, and Christianity mounted the throne. With him 
 the decay of Roman society stops, and the era of modern society 
 commences. 
 

 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. THE BARBARIANS. THE MEROVINGIAN 
 DYNASTY. CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 WHEN Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encountered 
 there two religions very different one from the other, and infinitely 
 more different from the Christian religion ; these were Druidism 
 and Paganism hostile one to the other, but with a hostility 
 political only, and unconnected with those really religious questions 
 that Christianity was coming to raise. 
 
 Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion, Druidism. 
 wherein the instinctive notions of the human race concerning the 
 origin and destiny of the world and of mankind were mingled with 
 the oriental dreams of metempsychosis that pretended transmigra- 
 tion, at successive periods, of immortal souls into divers creatures. 
 This confusion was worse confounded by traditions borrowed from 
 the mythologies of the East and the North, by shadowy remnants 
 of a symbolical worship paid to the material forces of nature, and 
 by barbaric practices, such as human sacrifices, in honour of the 
 gods or of the dead. A general and strong, but vague and inco- 
 herent, belief in the immortality of the soul was its noblest 
 characteristic. But with the religious elements, at the same time 
 coarse and mystical, were united two facts of importance : the 
 Druids formed a veritable ecclesiastical corporation ; and in 
 
24 History of France. 
 
 the wars with. Home this corporation became the most faithful 
 representatives and the most persistent defenders of Gallic inde- 
 pendence and nationality. 
 
 Paganism. The Grceco-Roman Paganism was, at this time, far more powerful 
 than Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of 
 all religious vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of 
 the State, and was invested, in that quality, with real power ; but 
 beyond that, it had but the power derived from popular customs 
 and superstitions. As a religious creed, the Latin Paganism was at 
 bottom empty, indifferent, and inclined to tolerate all religions in 
 the State, provided only that they, in their turn, were indifferent 
 at any rate towards itself, and that they did not come troubling the 
 State, either by disobeying her rulers or by attacking her old 
 deities, dead and buried beneath their own still standing altars. 
 
 Such were the two religions with which in Gaul nascent Chris- 
 tianity had to contend. Compared with them it was, to all 
 appearance, very small and very weak ; but it was provided with 
 the most efficient weapons for fighting and beating them, for it 
 Christ!- had exactly the moral forces which they lacked. To the pagan 
 anity. indifference of the Roman world the Christians opposed the pro- 
 found conviction of their faith, and not only their firmness in 
 defending it against all powers and all dangers, but also their 
 ardent passion for propagating it, without any motive but the 
 yearning to make their fellows share in its benefits and its hopes. 
 And it was not in memory of old and obsolete mythologies, but in 
 the name of recent deeds and persons, in obedience to laws pro- 
 ceeding from God, One and Universal, in fulfilment and continua- 
 tion of a contemporary and superhuman history that of Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man that the Christians of 
 the first two centuries laboured to convert to their faith the whole 
 Roman world. It is impossible to assign with exactness the date 
 of the first foot-prints and lirst labours of Christianity in Gaul. 
 It was not, however, from Italy, nor in the Latin tongue and 
 through Latin writers, but from the East and through the Greeks, 
 that it first came and began to spread. Marseilles and the different 
 Greek colonies, originally from Asia Minor, and settled upon the 
 shores of the Mediterranean or along the Rhone, mark the route, 
 and were the places whither the first Christian missionaries carried 
 their teaching : on this point the letters of the Apostles and the 
 writings of the first two generations of their disciples are clear and 
 TheClmrch abiding proof. Lyons became the chief centre of Christian preach- 
 at Lyons. ^^ &n( j association in Gaul. As early as the first half of the second 
 century there existed there a Christian congregation, regularly 
 
Christianity in Gaul. 25 
 
 organized as a Church, and already sufficiently important to be in 
 intimate and frequent communication with the Christian Churches 
 of the East and West. There is a tradition, generally admitted, 
 that St. Pothinus, the first Bishop of Lyons, was sent thither from 
 the East by the Bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, himself a disciple 
 of St. John. One thing is certain, that the Christian Church of 
 Lyons produced Gaul's first martyrs, amongst whom was the 
 Bishop, St. Pothinus. 
 
 It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and most 
 conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the first 
 time in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny 
 and barbarity which was to be renewed so often and during so 
 many centuries in the midst of Christendom itself; for in the year 
 177, that is only three years after the victory of Marcus Aurelius tion of the 
 over the Germans, there took place, undoubtedly by his orders, the Christians, 
 persecution which caused at Lyons the first Gallic martyrdom. 
 This was the fourth, or, according to others, the fifth great imperial 
 persecution of the Christians. 
 
 Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, and 
 came to be nothing more than legends laden with details often 
 utterly puerile or devoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyons in the 
 second century wrote, so to speak, their own history ; for it was 
 their comrades, eye-witnesses of their sufferings and their virtue, 
 who gave an account of them in a long letter addressed to their 
 friends in Asia Minor, and written with passionate sympathy and 
 pious prolixity, but bearing all the characteristics of truth. 
 
 The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons, or 
 with Marcus Aurelius ; it became, during the third century, the 
 common practice of the emperors in all parts of the empire : from. 
 A.D. 202 to 312, under the reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinns A.D. 202 
 the First, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and ^ 3 gy' se . 
 Galerius, there are reckoned six great general persecutions, without cutions. 
 counting others more circumscribed or less severe. The emperors 
 Alexander Severus, Philip the Arabian, and Constantius Chlorus 
 were almost the only exceptions to this cruel system ; and nearly 
 always, wherever it was in force, the Pagan mob, in its brutality or 
 fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigour its own atrocious 
 and cynical excesses. 
 
 But Christian zeal was supeiior in perseverance and efficacy to 
 Pagan persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was .succeeded as 
 bishop at Lyons by St. Irenrous, the most learned, most judicious, 
 and most illustrious of the early heads of the Church in Gaul. 
 Originally from Asia Minor, probably from Smyrna, he had migrated 
 
26 History of France. 
 
 to Gaul, at what particular date is not known, and had settled as a 
 simple priest in the diocese of Lyons, where it was not long before 
 he exercised vast influence, as well on the spot as also during certain 
 missions entrusted to him, and amongst them one, they say, to the 
 Pope St. Eleutherius at Rome. Whilst Bishop of Lyons, from 
 A.D. 177 to 202, he employed the five and twenty years in propa- 
 gating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in defending, by his writings, 
 the Christian doctrines against the discord to which they had already 
 been subjected in the East, and which was beginning to penetrate to 
 the West. In 202, during the persecution instituted by Septimius 
 Severus, St. Irenseus crowned by martyrdom his active and influ- 
 ential life. It was in his episcopate that there began what may be 
 called the swarm of Christian missionaries, who, towards the end of 
 the second and during the third centuries, spread over the whole 
 of Gaul, preaching the faith and forming churches. Some went 
 from Lyons at the instigation of St. Irenaeus ; others from Rome, 
 especially under the pontificate of Pope St. Fabian, himself mar- 
 tyred in 249 ; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to Valence, St. Ferreol 
 to Besan9on, St. Marcellus to Chalons-sur-Saone, St. Benignus to 
 Dijon, St. Trophimus to Aries, St. Paul to JSTarbonne, St. Saturninus 
 to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andeol and St. Privatus 
 to the Cevennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St. Gatian 
 to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their names 
 are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the 
 very spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at 
 the price of their lives. Such were the founders of the faith and of 
 the Christian Church in France. At the commencement of the 
 fourth century their work was, if not accomplished, at any rate 
 triumphant ; and when, A.D. 312, Constantine declared himself a 
 A.D. 312. Christian, he confirmed the fact of the conquest of the Roman 
 Constan- W orld, and of Gaul in particular, by Christianity. No doubt the 
 braces majority of the inhabitants were not as yet Christians ; but it was 
 Christi- clear that the Christians were in the ascendant and had command 
 of the future. Of the two grand elements which were to meet 
 together, on the ruins of Roman society, for the formation of 
 modern society, the moral element, the Christian religion, had 
 already taken possession of souls ; the devastated territory awaited 
 the coming of new peoples known to history under the general 
 name of Germans, whom the Romans called the barbarians. 
 
 About A.D. 241 or 242 the sixth Roman legion, commanded by 
 Aurelian, at that time military tribune, and thirty years later 
 emperor, had just finished a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken 
 for the purpose of driving the Germans from Gaul, and was pre- 
 
Christianity in Gaul. 27 
 
 paring for Eastern service, to make war on the Persians. The 
 soldiers sang, 
 
 "We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand 
 Sarmatians ; we want a thousand, thousand, 
 Thousand Persians. 
 
 It is the first time the name of Frarilts appears in history ; and A.D. 241. 
 it indicated no particular single people, but a confederation of ^"^J" 
 Germanic peoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of the O f the 
 Ehine, from the Mayn to the ocean. The number and the names Franks. 
 of the tribes united in this confederation are uncertain. The tabula, 
 Peutingeri, bears, over a large territory on the right bank of the 
 Ehine, the word Franda, and the following enumeration : " The 
 Chaucians, the Ampsuarians, the Cheruscans, and the Chamavians, 
 who are also called Franks ;" and to these tribes divers chroniclers 
 added several others, " the Attuarians, the Bructerians, the Cattians, 
 and the Sicambrians." Whatever may have been the specific 
 names of these peoplets, they were all of German race, called them- 
 selves Franks, that is " freemen," and made, sometimes separately, 
 sometimes collectively, continued incursions into Gaul especially 
 Belgica and the northern portions of Lyoniies at one time plun- 
 dering and ravaging, at another occupying forcibly, or demanding 
 of the Eoman emperors lands whereon to settle. From the middle 
 of the third to the beginning of the fifth century the history 
 of the Western empire presents an almost uninterrupted series 
 of these invasions on the part of the Franks, together with the 
 different relationships established between them and the Imperial 
 Government. 
 
 After the commencement of the fifth century, from A.D. 406 to A.D. 406 
 409, it was no longer by incursions limited to certain points, and 40 ?- 
 sometimes repelled with success, that the Germans harassed the O f the 
 Eoman provinces ; a veritable deluge of divers nations, forced one Barba- 
 upon another, from Asia into Europe, by wars and migration in n 
 mass, inundated the empire and gave the decisive signal for its 
 fall. Then took place throughout the Eoman empire, in the East 
 as well as in the West, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the 
 last grand struggle between the Eoman armies and the barbarians, struggle 
 It was in Gaul that it was most obstinate and most promptly in Gaul - 
 brought to a decisive issue, and the confusion there was as great as 
 the obstinacy. Barbaric peoplets served in the ranks and barbaric 
 leaders held the command of the Eoman armies : Stilicho was a 
 Goth ; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Franks : Eicimer was a 
 Suevian. The Eoman generals, Bonifacius, Aetius, ^Egidius, 
 Syagrius, at one time fought the barbarians, at another negotiated 
 
28 History of France. 
 
 with such and such of them, either to entice them to take service 
 against other barbarians, or to promote the objects of personal 
 ambition ; for the Roman generals also, under the title of patrician, 
 consul, or proconsul, aspired to and attained a sort of political 
 independence, and contributed to the dismemberment of the empire 
 in the very act of defending it. No later than A.D. 412 two 
 German nations, the Visigoths and the Burgundians, took their 
 stand definitely in Gaul, and founded there two new kingdoms : 
 the Visigoths, under their kings Ataulph and Wallia, in Aquitania 
 and Narbonness ; the Burgundians, under their kings Gundichaire 
 and Gundioch, in Lyonness, from the southern point of -Alsatia 
 right into Provence, along the two banks of the Sa6ne and the left 
 AD. 451. tank of the Rhone, and also in Switzerland. In 451 the arrival in 
 Attila acd Gaul of the Huns and their king Attila gravely complicated the 
 tae Huns. s ^ ua ^ on> T^ common interest of resistance against the most 
 barbarous of barbarians, and the renown and energy of the Eoman 
 general Aetius, united, for the moment, the old and new masters 
 of Gaul ; Romans, Gauls, Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, Alans, 
 Saxons, and Britons, formed the army led by Aetius against that 
 of Attila, who also had in his ranks Goths, Burgundians, GepiJians, 
 Alans, and beyond-Rhine Franks, gathered together and enlisted 
 on his road. Driven from Orleans, the Huns retired towards 
 Champagne, which they had already crossed at their coining into 
 Gaul, and arrived at the plains hard by Chalons-sur-Marne ; Aetius 
 and all his allies had followed them ; and Attila, perceiving that 
 A.D. 451. a Battle was inevitable, halted in a position for delivering it. " It 
 Battle of was," says the Gothic historian Jornandes, "a battle which for 
 a ons. a t r ocity, multitude, horror, and stubbornness has not the like in 
 the records of antiquity." Historians vary in their exaggerations 
 of the numbers engaged and killed: according to some, three 
 hundred thousand, according to others, one hundred and sixty-two 
 thousand were left on the field of battle. Theodoric, King of the 
 Visigoths, was killed. The battle of Chalons drove the Huns out 
 of Gaul, and was the last victory in Gaul, gained still in the name 
 of the Roman empire, but in reality for the advantage of the 
 German nations which had already conquered it. Twenty-four 
 years afterwards the very name of Roman empire disappeared with 
 Augustulus, the last of the emperors of the "West. 
 
 Thirty years after the battle of Chalons the Franks settled in 
 Gaul were not yet united as one nation ; the two principal Frankish 
 tribes were those of the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks, 
 established, the latter in the east of Belgica, on the banks of the 
 Moselle and the Rhine ; the former, towards the west, between tho 
 
Clovis. 
 
 29 
 
 Meuse, the ocean, and the Somme. Meroveus, whose name was 
 perpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of the 
 Salian Franks ; and his son Childeric, who resided at Tournay, 
 where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, 
 who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced the 
 kingdom and history of France. 
 
 Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became King of A.D. 481. 
 the Salian Franks of Tournay. Five years afterwards his ruling J! ovis ' , 
 passion, ambition, exhibited itself, together with that mixture of Salian 
 boldness and craft which was to characterize his whole life. He Franks. 
 attacked first the Eomari patrician Syagrius, who was left master 
 at Soissons after the death of his father .^Egidius, and whom 
 Gregory of Tours calls "King of the Romans;" having put him 
 to death, he settled himself at Soissons, and from thence set on 
 foot, in the country between the Aisne and the Loire, plun- 
 dering and subjugating expeditions which speedily increased 
 his domains and wealth, and extended far and wide his fame 
 as well as his ambition. His marriage with Clotilde, niece of A.D. 493. 
 Gondebaud, then King of the Burgundians (493) was, for the public 
 of the period, for the barbarians and for the Gallo-Eomans, a great 
 matter. Clovis and the Franks were still pagans ; Gondebaud and 
 the Burgundians were Christians, but Arians; Clotilde was a 
 Catholic Christian. To which of the two, Catholics or Arians, 
 would Clovis ally himself 1 ? To whom, Arian, pagan, or Catholic, 
 would Clotilde be married ? Assuredly the bishops, priests and all 
 the Gallo-Roman clergy, for the most part Catholics, desired to 
 see Clovis, that young and audacious Frankish chieftain, take to 
 wife a Catholic rather than an Arian or a pagan, and hoped to 
 convert the pagan Clovis to Christianity much more than an Arian 
 to orthodoxy. 
 
 The consequences of the marriage justified before long the im- 
 portance which had on all sides been attached to it. In 496 the 
 Allemannians, a Germanic confederation like the Franks, who also 
 had been, for some time past, assailing the Eoman empire on the 
 banks of the Rhine or the frontiers of Switzerland, crossed the 
 river, and invaded the settlements of the Franks on the left bank. 
 Clovis went to the aid of his confederation and attacked the 
 Allemannians at Tolbiac, near Cologne. He had with him Aurelian, A.D. 496. 
 who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he had made Duke 
 of Melun, and who commanded the forces of Sens. The battle 
 was going ill ; the Franks were wavering and Clovis was anxious. 
 Before setting out he had, it is said, promised his wife that if he 
 were victorious he would turn Christian. Some chroniclers tell us 
 
30 History of France. 
 
 that Aurelian, seeing the "battle in danger of being lost, said to 
 Clovis, " My lord king, believe only on the Lord of heaven whom 
 the queen, my mistress, preacheth." Clovis cried out with emotion, 
 " Christ Jesus, Thou whom my queen Clotilde calleth the Son of 
 the living God, I have invoked my own gods, and they have with- 
 drawn from me ; I believe that they have no power since they 
 aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, I 
 invoke ; if Thou give me victory over these foes, if I find in Thee 
 the power that the people proclaim of Thee, I will believe on Thee, 
 and will be baptized in Thy name." The tide of battle turned : 
 the Franks recovered confidence and courage ; and the Alleman- 
 nians, beaten and seeing their king slain, surrendered themselves to 
 Clovis, saying, " Cease, of thy grace, to cause any more of our 
 people to perish ; for we are thine." 
 
 The baptism of Clovis took place in the Cathedral of Eheims on 
 Christmas Day, 496; " at the moment," says the historian Hincmar, 
 " when the king bent his head over the fountain of life, ' Lower thy 
 head with humility, Sicambrian,' cried the eloquent bishop ; ' adore 
 
 A.D. 496. what thou hast burned : burn what thou hast adored.' The king's 
 
 an<rba S1 n * wo s i sters > Alboflede and Lantechilde, likewise received baptism; 
 
 tism of and so at the same time did three thousand of the Prankish army, 
 
 Clovis. besides a large number of women and children." 
 
 Clovis was not a man to omit turning his Catholic popularity to 
 the account of his ambition. He learned that Goiidebaud, dis- 
 quieted, no doubt, at the conversion of his powerful neighbour, had 
 just made a vain attempt, at a conference held at Lyons, to recon- 
 
 Clovis in- c ile in his kingdom the Catholics and the Arians. Clovis considered 
 ^ r " the momen t favourable to his projects of aggrandizement at the 
 expense of the Burgundian king; he fomented the dissensions 
 which already prevailed between Gondebaud and his brother 
 Godegisile, assured to himself the latter's complicity, and suddenly 
 entered Burgundy with his army. Gondebaud, betrayed and 
 beaten at the first encounter at Dijon, fled to the south of his 
 kingdom, and went and shut himself up in Avignon. Clovis 
 pursued and besieged him there ; and having reduced him to the 
 humble position of a tributary, he transferred to the Visigoths of 
 Aquitania and their king, Alaric II., his views of conquest. He 
 
 and Aqui- na d there the same pretexts for attack and the same means of 
 success. Alaric and his Visigoths were Arians, and between 
 them and the bishops of Southern Gaul, nearly all orthodox 
 Catholics, there were permanent ill-will and distrust. In 507 
 Clovis assembled his principal chieftains : and " It displeases me 
 greatly," said he, " that these Arians should possess a portion of 
 
Clovis. 31 
 
 the Gauls ; march we forth with the help of God, drive we them 
 from that land, for it is very goodly, and bring we it under our 
 own power. The Franks applauded their king ; and the army set 
 out on the march in the direction of Poitiers, where Alaric 
 happened at that time to "be. The king of the Yisigoths had 
 prepared for the struggle ; and the two armies met in the plain of 
 Vouille, on the banks of the little river Clain, a few leagues from 
 Poitiers. The battle was very severe. " The Goths," says Gregory A.D. 507. 
 of Tours, " fought with missiles ; the Franks sword in hand. Battle > of 
 Clovis met and with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray." 
 
 Beaten and kingless, the Goths retreated in great disorder ; and 
 Clovis, pursuing his march, arrived without opposition at Bordeaux, 
 where he settled down with his Franks for the winter. "When the 
 war-season returned, he marched on Toulouse, the capital of the 
 Yisigoths, which he likewise occupied without resistance, and 
 where he seized a portion of the treasure of the Visigothic kings. 
 He quitted it to lay siege to Carcassonne, which had been made by 
 the Romans into the stronghold of Septimania. 
 
 There his course of conquest was destined to end. After the 
 battle of Vouille he had sent his eldest son Theodoric in command 
 of a division, with orders to cross Central Gaul from west to east, 
 to go and join the Burgundians of Gondebaud, who had promised 
 his assistance, andiii conjunction with them to attack the Yisigoths 
 on the banks of the Ehone and in Narbonness. The young Frank 
 boldly executed his father's orders, but the intervention of Theodoric 
 the Great, king of Italy, prevented the success of the operation. 
 He* sent an army into Gaul to the aid of his son-in-law Alaric ; 
 and the united Franks and Burgundians failed in their attacks 
 upon the Yisigoths of the Eastern Provinces. Clovis had no idea 
 of compromising by his obstinacy the conquests already accom- 
 plished; he therefore raised the siege of Carcassonne, returned 
 first to Toulouse, and then to Bordeaux, took Angouleme, the only 
 town of importance he did not possess in Aquitania ; and feeling 
 reasonably sure that the Yisigoths, who, even with the aid that 
 had come from Italy, had great difficulty in defending what re- 
 mained to them of Southern Gaul, would not come and dispute 
 with him what he had already conquered, he halted at Tours, and 
 stayed there some time, to enjoy on the very spot the fruits of his 
 victory and to establish his power in his possessions. 
 
 It appears that even the Britons of Armorica tendered to him at that 
 time, through the interposition of Melanius, Bishop of Eennes, if not C1 ' ov 'i s re '_ 
 their actual submission, at any rate their subordination and homage, ceives the 
 Clovis at the same time had his self-respect flattered in a p 1 ^"^ 
 
 andConsul. 
 
32 History of France. 
 
 manner to which barbaric conquerors always attach great im- 
 portance. Anastasius, Emperor of the East, with whom he 
 had already had some communication, sent to him at Tours a 
 solemn embassy, bringing him the titles and insignia of Patrician 
 and Consul. On leaving the city of Tours Clovis repaired to 
 Paris, where he fixed the seat of his government. 
 
 Paris was certainly the political centre of his dominions, the 
 intermediate point between the early settlements of his race and 
 himself in Gaul and his new Gallic conquests ; but he lacked some 
 of the possessions nearest to him and most naturally, in his own 
 opinion, his. To the east, north, and south-west of Paris were 
 settled some independent Frankish tribes, governed by chieftains 
 with the name of kings. So soon as he had settled at Paris, it 
 was the one fixed idea of Clovis to reduce them all to subjection. 
 He had conquered the Burgundians and the Visigoths ; it remained 
 for him to conquer and unite together all the Franks. The 
 - barbarian showed himself in his true colours, during this new 
 Sigebert, enterprise, with his violence, his craft, his 'cruelty, and his perfidy. 
 Chararic, He began with the most powerful of the tribes, the Eipuarian 
 nacair*f ~ Franks ; then came the Franks of Terouanne, and Chararic their 
 king ; Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of Cambria, was the third 
 to be attacked ; finally, Eignomer, who ruled over the Franks of 
 Le Mans, was put to death by the order of Clovis. So Clovis 
 remained sole king of the Franks, for all the independent 
 chieftains had disappeared. 
 
 A.D. 511. In 511, the very year of his death, the last act of Clovis in life 
 
 Death of wag ^ e conv ocation at Orleans of a Council, which was attended 
 
 by thirty bishops from the different parts of his kingdom, and at 
 
 which were adopted thirty-one canons that, whilst granting to the 
 
 Church great privileges and means of influence, in many cases 
 
 favourable to humanity and respect for the right of individuals, 
 
 bound the Church closely to the State, and gave to royalty, even 
 
 in ecclesiastical matters, great power. The bishops, on breaking 
 
 up, sent these canons to Clovis, praying him to give them the 
 
 sanction of his adhesion, which he did. A few months afterwards, 
 
 on the 27th of November, 511, Clovis died at Paris, and was 
 
 buried in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, now-a-days St. 
 
 Genevieve, built by his wife, Queen Clotilde, who survived him. 
 
 A.D. 511 From A.D. 511 to A.D. 752, that is, from the death of Clovis to 
 
 Partition ^e access i n f the Carlovingians, is two hundred and forty-one 
 
 of the Me- years, which was the duration of the dynasty of the Merovingians. 
 
 dominions Curing tn * s ^ me ^ere reigned twenty-eight Merovingian kings, 
 
 which reduces to eight years and seven months the average reign 
 
The Merovingian Dynasty. 33 
 
 of each, a short duration compared with that of most of the 
 royal dynasties. Five of these kings, Clotaire I., Clotaire II., 
 Dagobert I., Thierry IV., and Childeric III. alone, at different 
 intervals, united under their power all the dominions possessed by 
 Clovis or his successors. The other kings of this line reigned only 
 over special kingdoms, formed by virtue of divers partitions at the 
 death of their general possessor. From A.D. 511 to 638 five such 
 partitions took place. In 511, after the death of Clovis, his 
 dominions were divided amongst his four sons ; Theodoric, or 
 Thierry L, was king of Metz ; Clodomir, of Orleans ; Childebert, 
 of Paris ; Clotaire I., of Soissons. To each of these capitals fixed 
 boundaries were attached. In 558, in consequence of divers 
 incidents brought about naturally, or by violence, Clotaire I. ended 
 by possessing alone, during three years, all the dominions of 
 his fathers. At his death, in 561, they were partitioned afresh 
 amongst his four sons ; Charibert was king of Paris ; Gontran, of 
 Orleans and Burgundy ; Sigebert L, of Metz ; and Chilperic, of 
 Soissons. In 567 Charibert, king of Paris, died without chil- 
 dren, and a new partition left only three kingdoms, Austrasia, 
 ^N"eustria, and Burgundy. Austrasia, in the East, extended over 
 the two banks of the Ehine, and comprised, side by side with 
 Roman towns and districts, populations that had remained 
 Germanic. Neustria, in the West, was essentially Gallo-Koman, 
 though it comprised in the north the old territory of the Salian 
 Franks, on the borders of the Scheldt. Burgundy was the old 
 kingdom of the Burgundians, enlarged in the north by some few 
 counties. Paris, the residence of Clovis, was reserved and 
 undivided amongst the three kings, kept as a sort of neutral city 
 into which they could not enter without the common consent of 
 all. In 613 new incidents connected with family matters placed A.D. 613. 
 Clotaire II., son of Chilperic, and heretofore king of Soissons, in Clot aif e11 
 possession of the three kingdoms. He kept them united up to 
 628, and left them so to his son Dagobert I., who remained in 
 possession of them up to 638. At his death a new division of 
 the Frankish dominions took place, no longer into three, but two 
 kingdoms, Austrasia being one, and Neustria and Burgundy the 
 other. This was the definitive dismemberment of the great 
 Frankish dominion to the time of its last two Merovingian kings, 
 Thierry IY. and Childeric III., who were kings in name only, 
 dragged from the cloister as ghosts from the tomb, to play a 
 motionless part in the drama. For a long time past the real 
 power had been in the hands of that valiant Austrasian family 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Southern 
 Gaul 
 
 strives to 
 be inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 Character 
 of the Me- 
 rovingian 
 kings. 
 
 which was to furnish the dominions of Clovis with a new dynasty 
 and a greater king than Clovis. 
 
 Southern Gaul, that is to say, Aquitania, Vasconia, Narbonness, 
 called Septimania, and the two banks of the Rhone near its 
 mouths, were not comprised in thes"e partitions of the Frankish 
 dominions. Each of the co-partiti oners assigned to themselves, to 
 the south of the Garonne and on the coasts of the Mediterranean, 
 in that beautiful region of old Roman Gaul, such and such a 
 district or such and such a town, just as heirs-at-law keep to 
 themselves severally such and such a piece of furniture or such and 
 such a valuable jewel out of a rich property to which they succeed, 
 and which they divide amongst them. The peculiar situation of 
 those provinces at their distance from the Franks' own settlements 
 contributed much towards the independence which Southern Gaul, 
 and especially Aquitania, was constantly striving and partly 
 managed to recover. Amongst the various Frankish States, 
 springing from a common base and subdivided between the 
 different members of one and the same family, rivalries, enmities, 
 hostile machinations, deeds of violence and atrocity, struggles, and 
 wars soon became as frequent, as bloody, and as obstinate as they 
 have ever been amongst states and sovereigns as unconnected as 
 possible one with another. The Merovingian kings were as greedy 
 and licentious as they were cruel !N"ot only was pillage, in their 
 estimation, the end and object of war, but they pillaged even in 
 the midst of peace and in their own dominions ; sometimes after 
 the Roman practice, by aggravation of taxes and fiscal manoeuvres, 
 at others after the barbaric fashion, by sudden attacks on places 
 and persons they knew to be rich. Treason, murder, and poisoning 
 were the familiar processes of ambition, covetousness, hatred, 
 vengeance and fear. Eight kings or royal heirs of the Merovingian 
 line died of brutal murder or secret assassination, to say nothing of 
 innumerable crimes of the same kind committed in their circle, 
 and left unpunished, save by similar crimes. Nevertheless, 
 justice is due to the very Avorst times and the very worst govern- 
 ments ; and it must be recorded that, whilst sharing in many of 
 the vices of their age and race, especially their extreme licence of 
 morals, three of Clovis's successors, Theodebert, king of Austrasia 
 (from 534 to 548), Gontran, king of Burgundy (from 561 to 593), 
 and Dagobert I., who united under his own sway the whole 
 Frankish monarchy (from 622 to 638), were less violent, less 
 cruel, less iniquitous, and less grossly ignorant or blind than the 
 majority of the Merovingians. 
 
Dagobert I. 35 
 
 The rivalry between the two queens Fredegonde and Brunehaut 
 occupies an important place in the history of the Merovingian 
 epoch. After the execution of Brunehaut and the death of 
 Clotaire II., the history of the Franks becomes a little less dark 
 and less bloody. 
 
 Despite of many excesses and scandals, Dagobert was the most A.D. 628. 
 wisely energetic, the least cruel in feeling, the most prudent in 
 enterprise, and the most capable of governing with some little 
 regularity and effectiveness, of all the kings furnished, since Clovis, 
 by the Merovingian race. He had, on ascending the throne, 
 this immense advantage, that the three Prankish dominions, 
 Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy, were re-united under his 
 sway ; and at the death of his brother Charibert he added thereto 
 Aquitania. The unity of the vast Prankish monarchy was thus 
 re-established, and Dagobert retained it by his moderation at 
 home and abroad. Either by his own energy, or by surrounding 
 himself with wise and influential counsellors, such as Pepin of 
 Landen, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, St. Arnoul, bishop of 
 Metz, St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon, and St. Audoenus, bishop of 
 Rouen, he applied himself to, and succeeded in assuring to himself, 
 in the exercise of his power, a pretty large measure of independence 
 and popularity. At the beginning of his reign he held, in 
 Austrasia and Burgundy, a sort of administrative and judicial 
 inspection, halting at the principal towns, listening to complaints, 
 and checking, sometimes with a rigour arbitrary indeed, but 
 approved of by the people, the violence and irregularities of the 
 grandees. JS"or did he confine himself to this unceremonious 
 exercise of the royal authority. Some of his predecessors, and 
 amongst them Childebert I., Clotaire I., and Clotaire II., had 
 caused to be drawn up in Latin, and by scholars, digests more or 
 less complete of the laws and customs handed down by tradition, 
 amongst certain of the Germanic peoples established on Roman 
 soil, notably the laws of the Salian Pranks and Eipuarian Franks ; 
 and Dagobert ordered a continuation of these first legislative 
 labours amongst the new-born nations. It was, apparently, in 
 his reign that a digest was made of the laws of the Allemannians 
 and Bavarians. He had also some taste for the arts, and the pious 
 talents displayed by Saints Eloi (Eligius) and Ouen (Audoenus) in 
 goldsmiths' -work and sculpture, applied to the service of religion 
 or the decoration of churches, received from him the support of the 
 royal favour and munificence. His authority was maintained in his 
 dominions, his reputation spread far and wide, and the name of 
 great King Dagobert was his abiding title in the memory of the 
 
 D 2 
 
36 History of France. 
 
 people. Taken all in all, he was, next to Clovis, the most 
 distinguished of .Prankish kings, and the last really king in the 
 line of the Merovingians. After him, from 638 to 752, twelve 
 Last Me- princes of this line, one named Sigebert, two Clovis, two Childeric, 
 rovingian one Clotaire, two Dagobert, one Childebert, one Chilperic, and two 
 Theodoric. or Thierry, bore in Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy, 
 or in the three kingdoms united, the title of king, without 
 deserving in history more than room for their names. There was 
 already heard the rumbling of great events to come around the 
 Prankish dominion ; and in the very womb of this dominion was 
 being formed a new race of kings more able to bear, in ac- 
 cordance with the spirit and wants of their times, the burden of 
 power. 
 
 Mayors of The last of the kings sprung from Clovis acquitted themselves too 
 the palace. -^ Qr no j. ^ a ^ Q f their task ; and the mayors of the palace were 
 naturally summoned to supply their deficiencies, and to give the 
 populations assurance of more intelligence and energy in the 
 exercise of power. The origin and primitive character of these 
 supplements of royalty were different according to circumstances ; 
 some being appointed by the kings to support royalty against the 
 " leudes " (lieges), others chosen by the " leudes " against the 
 kings. It was especially between the Neustrian and Austrasian 
 mayors of the palace that this difference became striking. Gallo- 
 Eoman feeling was more prevalent in Neustria, Germanic in 
 Austrasia. The majority of the Neustrian mayors supported the 
 interests of royalty, the Austrasian, those of the aristocracy of 
 landholders and warriors. The last years of the Merovingian line 
 were full of their struggles ; but a cause far more general and 
 more powerful than these differences and conflicts in the very 
 heart of the Prankish dominions determined the definitive fall of 
 that line and the accession of another dynasty ; we allude to the 
 great invasions of barbarians which took place during the sixth 
 century. 
 
 Power of Everywhere resistance to this new movement became the 
 
 the Anstra- na tional attitude of the Franks, and they proudly proclaimed 
 
 Franks. themselves the defenders of that West of which they had but 
 
 lately been the conquerors. The ascendency in the heart of the 
 
 whole of Prankish Gaul thus passed to the Austrasians, already 
 
 bound by their geographical position to the defence of their 
 
 nation in its new settlement. There had risen up amongst them a 
 
 family, powerful from its vast domains, from its military and 
 
 political services, and already also from the prestige belonging to 
 
 the hereditary transmission of name and power. Its first chief 
 
Pepin of Heristal . Charles M artel. 37 
 
 known in history had been Pepin of Landen, called The Ancient ; 
 he died in 639, leaving to his family an influence already 
 extensive. His son Grimoald succeeded him as mayor of the 
 palace, ingloriously ; but his grandson, by his daughter Bega, p e p in of * 
 Pepin of Heristal, was for twenty-seven years not only virtually, Heristal, 
 
 as mayor of the palace, but ostensibly and with the title of duke, th^fpala 
 the real sovereign of Austrasia and all the Prankish dominion. 
 He did not, however, take the name of king ; and four descendants 
 of Clovis, Thierry III., Clovis III., Childebert III. and Dago- 
 bert III. continued to bear that title in ISTeustria and Burgundy, 
 under the preponderating influence of Pepin of Heristal. He did, 
 during his long sway, three things of importance. He struggled 
 without cessation to keep or bring back under the rule of the 
 Pranks the Germanic nations on the right bank of the Rhine, 
 Prisons, Saxons, Thuringians, Bavarians, and Allemannians ; and 
 thus to make the Prankish dominion a bulwark against the new 
 flood of barbarians who were pressing one another westwards. 
 
 He rekindled in Austrasia the national spirit and some political 
 life by beginning again the old March-parades of the Pranks, 
 which had fallen into desuetude under the last Merovingians. 
 Finally, and this was, perhaps, his most original merit, he under- 
 stood of what importance, for the Prankish kingdom, was the 
 conversion to Christianity of the Germanic peoples over the Rhine, 
 and he abetted with all his might the zeal of the popes and 
 missionaries, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Gallo-Roman, devoted to 
 this great work. 
 
 On the death of Pepin (Dec. 16, 714), his son Charles, at that Charles 
 time twenty-five years of age, was proclaimed Duke of Austrasia. e " 
 He was destined to become Charles Martel. 
 
 He first of all repelled an invasion of the Prisons and Saxons ; 
 turning then against the JSTeustrians, he twice succeeded in beat- 
 ing, first near Cambrai, and then near Soissons (717-718), the 
 Neustrian king and Ragenfried, the mayor of the palace, pursued 
 them to Paris, and remaining temperate amidst the triumph of his 
 ambition, he, too, took from amongst the surviving Merovingians a 
 sluggard king, whom he installed under the name of Clotaire IV., 
 himself becoming, with the simple title of Duke of Austrasia, 
 master of the Prankish dominion. The invasions of the Arabs Invasions 
 soon placed Aquitania and Vasconia within his grasp. ^ , e 
 
 Eudes or Eudon, duke of those beautiful provinces, had twice 
 made a gallant effort to stem the progress of the formidable 
 soldiers of the Crescent ; at last he was obliged to seek assistance 
 from the Pranks ; accordingly he repaired in all haste to Charles 
 
38 History of France. 
 
 and invoked his aid against the common enemy, who, after having 
 crushed the Aquitanians, would soon attack the Franks, and sub- 
 ject them in turn to ravages and outrages. Charles did not 
 require solicitation. He took an oath of the Duke of Aquitania 
 to acknowledge his sovereignty and thenceforth remain faithful 
 to him; and then, summoning all his warriors, Franks, Bur- 
 gundians, Gallo-Komans, and Germans from beyond the Ehine, he 
 set himself in motion towards the Loire. It was time. The 
 Arabs had spread over the whole country between the Garonne 
 and the Loire ; they had even crossed the latter river and pene- 
 trated into Burgundy as far as Autun and Sens, ravaging the 
 country, the towns and the monasteries, and massacring or dis- 
 persing the population. Abdel-Khaman, their chief, had heard tell 
 of the city of Tours and its rich abbey, the treasures whereof, it 
 was said, surpassed those of any other city and any other abbey in 
 Gaul. Burning to possess it, he recalled towards this point his 
 scattered forces. On arriving at Poitiers he found the gates closed 
 and the inhabitants resolved to defend themselves ; and, after a 
 fruitless attempt at assault, he continued his march towards Tours. 
 He was already beneath the walls of the place when he learnt that 
 the Franks were rapidly advancing in vast numbers. He fell back 
 towards Poitiers, collecting the troops that were returning to him 
 from all quarters, embarrassed with the immense booty they were 
 dragging in their wake. He had for a moment, say the histo- 
 rians, an idea of ordering his soldiers to leave or burn their booty ; 
 to keep nothing but their arms, and think of nothing but battle ; 
 however he did nothing of the kind, and, to await the Franks, he 
 fixed his camp between the Yienne and the Clain, near Poitiers, not 
 far from the spot where, two hundred and twenty-five years before, 
 Clovis had beaten the Visigoths ; or, according to others, nearer 
 Tours, at Mire, in a plain still called the Landes de Charlemagne. 
 A.D. 732. The Franks arrived. It was in the month of September or 
 October, 732, and the two armies passed a week face to face, at 
 one time remaining in their camps, at another deploying without 
 attacking. It was a struggle between East and West, South and 
 iNbrth, Asia and Europe, the Gospel and the Koran ; and we now 
 say, on a general consideration of events, peoples, and ages, that 
 the civilization of the world depended upon it. At the breaking 
 of the seventh or eighth day, Abdel-Khaman, at the head of his 
 cavalry, ordered a general attack ; and the Franks received it 
 with serried ranks, astounding their enemies by their tall stature, 
 stout armour, and their stern immobility. The Franks, finally, had 
 the advantage; a great number of Arabs and Abdel-Ehaman 
 
Policy of Charles M artel. His death. 39 
 
 himself were slain. At the approach of night both armies retired 
 to their camps. The next day, at dawn, the Franks moved out 
 of theirs, to renew the engagement; the Arabs had decamped 
 silently in the night, leaving the bulk of their booty, and by this 
 precipitate retreat acknowledging a more severe defeat than they 
 had really sustained in the fight. 
 
 Foreseeing the effect which would be produced by their reverse 
 in the country they had but lately traversed as conquerors, they 
 halted nowhere, but hastened to re-enter Septimania and their 
 stronghold JSTarbonne, where they might await reinforcements from 
 Spain. Duke Eudes, on his side, after having, as vassal, taken the 
 oath of allegiance to Charles, re-entered his dominions of Aqui- 
 tania and Yasconia, and applied himself to the re-establishment 
 there of security. 
 
 The great Duke of Austrasia strengthened his power by occupy- Charles 
 ing Burgundy and Provence ; he also took care to attract or retain ^cy t S . 
 by rich presents, particularly by gifts of lands, the warriors, old wards the 
 and new " leudes," who formed his strength. He therefore laid " Leudes " 
 hands on a great number of the domains of the Church, and gave 
 them, with the title of benefices, in temporary holding, often con- 
 verted into proprietorship, and under the style of precarious tenure, 
 to the chiefs in his service. There was nothing new in this ; the 
 Merovingian kings and the mayors of the palace had more than 
 once thus made free with ecclesiastical property ; but Charles 
 Martel carried this practice much farther than his predecessors 
 had. He did more ; he sometimes gave his warriors ecclesiastical 
 offices and dignities. Whilst thus making use, at the expense of and tfl - 
 the Church and for political interests, of material force, Charles church. 
 Martel was far from misunderstanding her moral influence, and the 
 need he had of her support at the very time when he was incurring 
 her anathemas. JS"ot content with defending Christianity against 
 Islamism, he aided it against Paganism, by lending the Christian 
 missionaries in Germany and the north-west of Europe, amongst 
 others St. "Willibrod and St. Boniface, the most effectual assistance. 
 He also showed himself equally ready to protect, but with as much 
 prudence as good-will, the head of the Christian Church (741) 
 against the Lombards, the Pope's neighbours, who were threatening 
 to besiege Eome ; he wished to do something in favour of the 
 Papacy to show sincere good- will, without making his relations with 
 useful allies subordinate to the desires of the Pope. 
 
 Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually with respect A.D. 741. 
 to the Papacy this policy of protection and at the same time of in- Q^rles^ 
 dependence; he died at the close of this same year, October 22, 741, Martel. 
 
4O History of France. 
 
 at Kiersy-sur-Oise, aged fifty-two years, and his last act was the 
 least wise of his life. He had spent it entirely in two great 
 works ; the re-estahlishment throughout the whole of Gaul of the 
 Franco-Gallo-Roman empire, and the driving back, from the fron- 
 tiers of this empire, of the Germans in the north and the Arabs 
 in the south. The consequence, as also the condition, of this 
 double success was the victory of Christianity over Paganism and 
 Islamism. Charles Martel endangered these results by falling back 
 into the groove of those Merovingian kings whose shadow he had 
 allowed to remain on the throne. He divided between his two 
 legitimate sons, Pepin, called the Short, from his small stature, and 
 Carlouian, this sole dominion which he had with so much toil 
 reconstituted and defended. Pepin had Neustria, Burgundy, 
 Provence, and the suzerainty of Aquitaine ; Carloman Austrasia, 
 Thuringia, and Allemannia. They both, at their father's death, 
 took only the title of mayor of the palace, and, perhaps of duke. 
 The last but one of the Merovingians, Thierry IV., had died in 
 737. For four years there had been no king at all. 
 
 Brought up in the school and in the fear of their father, the two 
 sons of Charles Martel, Pepin and Carloman, were inoculated with 
 his ideas and example ; they remained united in spite of the 
 division of dominions, and laboured together, successfully, to keep 
 down, in the north the Saxons and Bavarians, in the south the 
 Arabs and Aquitanians, supplying want of unity by union, and 
 pursuing with one accord the constant aim of Charles Martel 
 abroad the security and grandeur of the Prankish dominion, at 
 home the cohesion of all its parts and the efficacy of its govern- 
 ment. Events came to the aid of this wise conduct. Five years 
 after the death of Charles Martel, in 746 in fact, Carloman, already 
 weary of the burden of power, and seized with a fit of religious zeal, 
 abdicated his share of sovereignty, left his dominions to his brother 
 Pepin, had himself shorn by the hands of Pope Zachary, and with- 
 drew into Italy to the monastery of Monte Cassino. 
 
 Policy of Pepin, less enterprising than his father, but judicious, perse ver- 
 Shor? ^ i n o an( ^ capable of discerning what was at the same time necessary 
 and possible, was well fitted to continue and consolidate what he 
 would probably never have begun and created. Like his father, 
 he, on arriving at power, showed pretensions to moderation, or, it 
 might be said, modesty. He did not take the title of king ; and, 
 in concert with his brother Carloman, he went to seek, heaven 
 knows in what obscure asylum, a forgotten Merovingian, son of 
 Chilperic II., the last but one of the sluggard kings, and made him 
 king, the last of his line, with the title of Childeric III., himself, 
 
Pepin the Short, king of the Franks. 41 
 
 as well as his brother, taking only the style of mayor of the palace. 
 But at the end of ten years, and when he saw himself alone at the 
 head of the Prankish dominion, Pepin considered the moment 
 arrived for putting an end to this fiction. Having obtained the 
 sanction of Pope Zachary in March, 752, in the presence and with 
 the assent of the general assembly of " leudes " and bishops A< 
 gathered together at Soissons, he was proclaimed king of the claimed 
 Franks, and received from the hand of St. Boniface the sacred king, 
 anointment. They cut off the hair of the last Merovingian 
 phantom, Childeric III., and put him away in the monastery of 
 St. Sithiu, at St. Omer. The new Gallo-Frankish kingship and 
 the Papacy, in the name of thei^ common faith and common 
 interests, thus contracted an intimate alliance. 
 
 Pepin, after he had been proclaimed king and had settled 
 matters with the Church as well as the warlike questions re- 
 maining for him to solve permitted, directed all his efforts 
 towards the two countries which, after his father's example, he 
 longed to reunite to the Gallo-Frankish monarchy, that is, Septi- 
 mania, still occupied by the Arabs, and Aquitaine, the independence 
 of which was stoutly and ably defended by Duke Eudes' grandson, 
 Duke Waifre. The conquest of Septimania was rather tedious 
 than difficult; in 759, after forty years' of Arab rule, it passed 
 definitively under that of the Franks, who guaranteed to the 
 inhabitants free enjoyment of their Gothic or Eoman law and of 
 their local institutions. 
 
 The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly 
 disputed and for a much longer time uncertain ; it was only after 
 nine years' war and seven campaigns full of vicissitudes that Pepin 
 succeeded, not in conquering his enemy in a decisive battle, but in 
 gaining over some servants who betrayed their master. In the 
 month of July, 759, " Duke Waifre was slain by his own folk, by 
 the king's advice," says Fredegaire ; and the conquest of all 
 Southern Gaul carried the extent and power of the Gallo-Frankish 
 monarchy farther and higher than it had ever yet been, even under 
 Clovis. 
 
 In 753 Pope Stephen, threatened by Astolphus, king of the A.D. 754. 
 Lombards, after vain attempts to obtain guarantees of peace, campaign 
 repaired to Paris, and asked the assistance of Pepin and his in Italy, 
 warriors. The Franks crossed the Alps with enthusiasm, succeeded 
 in beating the Lombards, and shut up in Pavia King Astolphus, 
 who was eager to purchase peace at any price. He obtained it on 
 two principal conditions : 1st, that he would not again make a 
 hostile attack on Roman territory or wage war against the Pope or 
 
42 History of France. 
 
 people of Borne ; 2nd, that he would henceforth recognize the 
 sovereignty of the Franks, pay them tribute, and cede forthwith 
 to Pepin the towns and all the lands, belonging to the jurisdiction 
 of the Eoman empire, which were at that time occupied by the 
 Lombards. By virtue of these conditions Kavenna, Rimini, Pesaro, 
 that is to say, the Bomagna, the Duchy of Urbino and a portion 
 of the district of Ancona, were at once given up to Pepin, who, 
 regarding them as his own direct conquest, the fruit of victory, 
 disposed of them forthwith, in favour of the Popes, by that famous 
 deed of gift which comprehended pretty nearly what has since 
 formed the Eoman States, and which founded the temporal inde- 
 pendence of the Papacy, the guarantee of its independence in the 
 exercise of the spiritual power. 
 
 At the head of the Franks, as mayor of the palace from 741, and 
 
 as king from 752, Pepin had completed in France and extended in 
 
 Italy the work which his father, Charles Martel, had begun and 
 
 carried on, from 714 to 741, in State and Church. He left France 
 
 re-united in one and placed at the head of Christian Europe. He 
 
 AD 768 ^ e( ^ a ^ ^ e monas ^ ery f St. Denis, September 18, 768, leaving 
 
 Death of* his kingdom and his dynasty thus ready to the hands of his son, 
 
 Pepin. whom history has dubbed Charlemagne. 
 
 Pepin the Short committed at his death the same mistake that 
 his father, Charles Martel, had committed ; he divided his dominion 
 between his two sons, Charles and Carloman, thus destroying again 
 that unity of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy which his father and 
 he had been at so much pains to establish. But, just as had already 
 happened in 746 through the abdication of Pepin's brother, events 
 discharged the duty of repairing the mistake of men. After the 
 death of Pepin, and notwithstanding that of Duke Waifre, insur- 
 rection broke out once more in Aquitaine; and the old duke, 
 Hunald, issued from his monastery in the island of Ehe to try and 
 recover power and independence. Charles and Carloman marched 
 against him ; but on the march Carloman, who was jealous and 
 thoughtless, fell out with his brother, and suddenly quitted the 
 expedition, taking away his troops. Charles was obliged to con- 
 tinue it alone, which he did with complete success. At the end of 
 this first campaign, Pepin's widow, the Queen-mother Bertha, 
 reconciled her two sons ; but an unexpected incident, the death of 
 Carloman two years afterwards, in 771, re-established unity more 
 surely than the reconciliation had re-established harmony. 
 Charle- ^ ne or igi na ^ an( l dominant characteristic of the hero of this 
 
 magne, reign, that which won for him and keeps for him after more than 
 jus charac- ^ en cen t ur i es the name of great, is the striking variety of his 
 
Charlemagne. His ^vars against the Saxons. 43 
 
 ambition, his faculties, and his deeds. Charlemagne aspired to, 
 and attained to every sort of greatness, military greatness, political 
 greatness, and intellectual greatness ; he was an able warrior, an 
 energetic legislator, a hero of poetry. And he united, he displayed 
 all these merits in a time of general and monotonous barbarism 
 when, save in the Church, the minds of men were dull and barren. 
 Those men, few in number, who made themselves a name at that 
 epoch, rallied round Charlemagne and were developed under his 
 patronage. 
 
 A summary of the wars of Charlemagne will here suffice. From 
 769 to 813, in Germany and Western and Northern Europe, 
 Charlemagne conducted thirty-one campaigns against the Saxons, 
 Prisons, Bavarians, Avars, Slavons,' and Danes; in Italy, five 
 against the Lombards ; in Spain, Corsica, and Sardinia, twelve 
 against the Arabs ; two against the Greeks ; and three in Gaul 
 itself, against the Aquitanians and the Britons ; in all fifty-three 
 expeditions ; amongst which those he undertook against the 
 Saxons, the Lombards, and the Arabs were long and difficult wars. 
 
 In 772, being left sole master of France after the death of his A - 
 brother Carloman, he convoked at Worms the general assembly Wars ' 
 of the Franks, "and took," says Eginhard, "the resolution of against 
 going and carrying war into Saxony. He invaded it without "^Saxons, 
 delay, laid it waste with fire and sword, made himself master of 
 the fort of Ehresburg, and threw down the idol that the Saxons 
 called Irminsul" It was no longer the repression of Saxon 
 invasions of France, but the conquest of Saxony by the Franks 
 that was to be dealt with ; it was between the Christianity of the 
 Franks and the national Paganism of the Saxons that the struggle 
 was to take place. 
 
 For thirty years such was its character. Charlemagne regarded 
 the conquest of Saxony as indispensable for putting a stop to the 
 incursions of the Saxons, and the conversion of the Saxons to 
 Christianity as indispensable for assuring the conquest of Saxony. 
 The principal events of the war may thus be summarily enu- 
 merated : Compulsory baptism of a large number of the Saxons 
 who had been driven beyond the Weser (774) ; diet of Paderborn j 
 all the chiefs send in their submission except Wittikind (777) ; 
 victories of Badenfeld and of Buckholtz (780) ; slaughter of 
 4500 rebels at Verden (782) ; submission of Wittikind, who 
 embraced Christianity (785). The conqueror could only finish his 
 work of subjection by removing forcibly from the country ten 
 thousand families, which he disseminated throughout Brabant and 
 Switzerland (803). 
 
44 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 773. This was not, however, Charlemagne's only great enterprise at 
 Italy 1J ^* s e P ocn J nor the only great struggle he had to maintain. Whilst 
 he was incessantly fighting in Germany, the work of policy 
 commenced by his father Pepin in Italy called for his care and his 
 exertions. The new king of the Lombards, Didier, and the new 
 Pope, Adrian I., had entered upon a new war ; and Didier was 
 besieging Eome, which was energetically defended by the Pope 
 and its inhabitants. In 773 Adrian invoked the aid of the King 
 of the Franks, who, after having married Desiree, the daughter of 
 Didier, had repudiated her, and taken as his wife the Suabian 
 Hildegarde. Charlemagne tried, by means of special envoys, to 
 obtain from the king of the Lombards what the Pope demanded. 
 On Didier's refusal he at once set to work, convoked the general 
 meetings of the Franks, at Geneva, in the autumn of 773, gained 
 them over, not without encountering some objections, to the pro- 
 jected Italian expedition, and forthwith commenced the campaign 
 with two armies. He finally took Pavia, where his father-in-law 
 had shut himself up, received the submission of all the Lombard 
 dukes and counts, save one only, Aregisius, duke of Beneventum, 
 and entered France, leading with him, as prisoner, King Didier, 
 whom he banished to a monastery, first at Liege and then at Corbie, 
 where the dethroned Lombard, say the chroniclers, ended his 
 days in saintly fashion. 
 
 "Three years afterwards, in 777, the Saracen chief Ibn-al- 
 Arabi," says Eginhard, " came to Paderborn in Westphalia, to 
 present himself before the king. He had arrived from Spain, 
 together with other Saracens in his train, to surrender to the King 
 of the Franks himself and all the towns which the King of the 
 Saracens had confided to his keeping." For a long time past the 
 Christians of the West had given the Mussulmans, Arab or other, 
 the name of Saracens. Ibn-al-Arabi was governor of Saragossa, 
 and one of the Spanish- Arab chieftains in league against Abdel- 
 Rhaman, the last offshoot of the Ommiad khalifs, who, with the 
 assistance of the Berbers, had seized the government of Spain. 
 Amidst the troubles of his country and his nation, Ibn-al-Arabi 
 summoned to his aid, against Abdel-Rhaman, the Franks and the 
 Christians. 
 
 A.D. 778. Charlemagne accepted the summons with alacrity. With the 
 
 Charle- coming of spring in the following year, 778, and with the full 
 
 1 assent of his chief warriors, he started on his march towards the 
 
 Bonces- Pyrenees. This expedition, however, begun under the most 
 
 valles. "brilliant and favourable auspices, came to a melancholy conclusion, 
 
 the rear-guard of the Franks being cut to pieces in the passes of 
 
Result of Charlemagne's Campaign. 45 
 
 Eoncesvalles on their return home. This disaster, and the heroism 
 of the warriors who perished there, became, in France, the object 
 of popular sympathy, and the favourite topic for the exercise of 
 the popular fancy. The Song of Roland, a real Homeric poem in 
 its great beauty, and yet rude and simple as became its national 
 character, bears witness to the prolonged importance attained in 
 Europe by this incident in the history of Charlemagne. Four 
 centuries later the comrades of William the Conqueror, marching 
 to battle at Hastings for the possession of England, struck up The 
 Song of Roland " to prepare themselves for victory or death." 
 There is no determining how far history must be made to par- 
 ticipate in these reminiscences of national feeling ; but assuredly 
 the figures of Roland and Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, and the 
 pious, unsophisticated, and tender character of their heroism are 
 not pure fables invented by the fancy of a poet, or the credulity of 
 a monk. If the accuracy of historical narrative must not be looked 
 for in them, their moral truth must be recognized in their pourtrayal 
 of a people and an age. 
 
 Although continually obliged to watch, and often still to fight, Results of 
 Charlemagne might well believe that he had nearly gained his Charle ^ 
 end. He had everywhere greatly extended the frontiers of the wars. 
 Erankish dominions, and subjugated the populations comprised in 
 his conquests. He had proved that his new frontiers would be 
 vigorously defended against new invasions or dangerous neighbours. 
 He had pursued the Huns and the Slavons to the confines of the 
 empire of the East, and the Saracens to the islands of Corsica and 
 Sardinia. The centre of the dominion was no longer in ancient 
 Gaul ; he had transferred it to a point not far from the Ehine, in 
 the midst and within reach of the Germanic populations, at the 
 town of Aix-la-Chapelle, which he had founded, and which was 
 his favourite residence ; but the principal parts of the Gallo- 
 Erankish kingdom, Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy were 
 effectually welded in one single mass. The moral influence of 
 Charlemagne was on a par with his material power ; he had 
 everywhere protected the missionaries of Christianity ; he had 
 twice entered Rome, also in the character of protector, and he 
 could count on the faithful support of the Pope at least as much as 
 the Pope could count on him. He had received embassies and 
 presents from the sovereigns of the East, Christian and Mussulman, 
 from the emperors at Constantinople and the khalifs at Bagdad. 
 Everywhere, in Europe, in Africa, and in Asia, he was feared and 
 respected by kings and people. Such, at the close of the eighth 
 century were, so far as he was concerned, the result of his wars, 
 
4 6 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 800. 
 
 He is 
 
 crowned 
 
 emperor. 
 
 Charle- 
 magne's 
 govern- 
 ment. 
 
 of the superior capacity he had displayed, and of the successes he 
 had won and kept. 
 
 In 799 he received, at Aix-la-Chapelle, news of serious dis- 
 turbances which had broken out at Rome \ he remained all the 
 winter at Aix-la-Chapelle, spent the first months of the year 
 800 on affairs connected with Western France ; then journeying 
 towards Italy, he arrived on the 23rd of November, 800, at the 
 gates of Rome. The pope " received him there as he was dis- 
 mounting ; then, the next day, standing on the steps of the basilica 
 of St. Peter and amidst general hallelujahs, he introduced the 
 king into the sanctuary of the blessed Apostle, glorifying and 
 thanking the Lord for this happy event." Some days were spent 
 in examining into the grievances which had been set down to the 
 pope's account, and in receiving two monks arrived from Jerusalem 
 to present to the king, with the patriarch's blessing, the keys of 
 the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary, as well as the sacred standard. 
 Lastly, on the 25th of December, 800, "the day of the Nativity 
 of our Lord," says Eginhard, " the king came into the Basilica of 
 the blessed St. Peter, apostle, to attend the celebration of mass. 
 At the moment when, in his place before the altar, he was 
 bowing down to pray, Pope Leo placed on his head a crown, and 
 all the Roman people shouted, ' Long life and victory to Charles 
 Augustus, crowned by God, the great and pacific Emperor of the 
 Romans ! ' After this proclamation the pontiff prostrated himself 
 before him and paid him adoration, according to the custom estab- 
 lished in the days of the old emperors ; and thenceforward Charles, 
 giving up the title of patrician, bore that of emperor and Augustus." 
 
 It has just been shown how Charlemagne by his wars, which 
 had for their object and result permanent and well- secured con- 
 quests, had stopped the fresh incursions of barbarians, that is, had 
 stopped disorder coming from without. An attempt will now be 
 made to show by what means he set about suppressing disorder 
 from within and putting his own rule in the place of the anarchy 
 that prevailed in the Roman world which lay in ruins, and in the 
 barbaric world which was a prey to blind and ill-regulated force. 
 
 A distinction must be drawn between the local and central 
 governments. 
 
 Ear from the centre of the State, in what have since been called 
 the provinces, the power of the emperor was exercised by the 
 medium of two classes of agents, one local and permanent, the 
 other despatched from the centre and transitory. 
 
 In the first class we find : 
 
 1st. The dukes, counts, vicars of counts, centeniers, sheriffs 
 
Character of Charlemagne's government. 47 
 
 (scabini), officers or magistrates residing on the spot, nominated 
 by the emperor himself or by his delegates, and charged with the 
 duty of acting in his name for the levying of troops, rendering of 
 justice, maintenance of order, and receipt of imposts. 
 
 2nd. The beneficiaries or vassals of the emperor, who held of 
 him, sometimes as hereditaments, more often for life, and more often 
 still without fixed rule or stipulation, lands ; domains, throughout 
 the extent of which they exercised, a little bit in their own name 
 and a little bit in the name of the emperor, a certain jurisdiction 
 and nearly all the rights of sovereignty. There was nothing very 
 fixed or clear in the position of the beneficiaries and in the nature 
 of their power ; they were at one and the same time delegates and 
 independent, owners and enjoy ers of usufruct, and the former or 
 the latter character prevailed amongst them according to circum- 
 stances. But, altogether, they were closely bound to Charlemagne, 
 who, in a great number of cases, charged them with the execution 
 of his orders in the lands they occupied. 
 
 Above these agents, local and resident, magistrates or bene- Missi 
 ficiaries, were the missi dominici, temporary commissioners, charged dominici" 
 to inspect, in the emperor's name, the condition of the provinces ; 
 authorized to penetrate into the interior of the free lands as well 
 as of the domains granted with the title of benefices ; having the 
 right to reform certain abuses, and bound to render an account of 
 all to their master. The missi dominici were the principal instru- 
 ments Charlemagne had, throughout the vast territory of his 
 empire, of order and administration. 
 
 As to the central government, setting aside for a moment the General 
 personal action of Charlemagne and of his counsellors, the general assemblies, 
 assemblies, to judge by appearances and to believe nearly all the 
 modern historians, occupied a prominent place in it. They were, 
 in fact, during his reign, numerous and active; from the year 776 
 to the year 813 we may count thirty-five of these national assem- . 
 blies, March-parades and May-parades, held at Worms, Valen- 
 ciennes, Geneva, Paderborn, Aix-la-Chapelle, Thionville, and several 
 other towns, the majority situated round about the two banks 
 of the Rhine. The number and periodical nature of these 
 great political reunions are undoubtedly a noticeable fact. What, 
 went on in their midst 1 ? What character and weight must be 
 then, attached to their intervention in the government of the 
 State] 
 
 Two striking facts are to be gathered from contemporary docu- 
 ments : the first, that the majority of the members composing these 
 assemblies probably regarded as a burden the necessity for being 
 
48 History of France. 
 
 present at them, since Charlemagne took care to explain their con- 
 vocation by declaring to them the motive for it and by always 
 giving them something to do ; the second, that the proposal of the 
 capitularies, or, in modern phrase, the initiative proceeded from the 
 emperor ; the figure of Charlemagne alone fills the picture he is 
 the centre-piece of it and the soul of every thing. 'Tis he who 
 wills that the national assemblies should meet and deliberate ; 'tis 
 he who inquires into the state of the country ; 'tis he who proposes 
 and approves of, or rejects the laws; with him rests will and 
 motive, initiative and decision. He has a mind sufficiently judicious, 
 unshackled, and elevated to understand that the nation ought not 
 to be left in darkness about its affairs, and that he himself has 
 need of communicating with it, of gathering information from it, 
 and of learning its opinions. But we have here no exhibition of 
 great political liberties, no people discussing its interests and its 
 business, interfering effectually in the adoption of resolutions, and, 
 in fact, taking in its government so active and decisive a part as to 
 have a right to say that it is self-governing, or, in other words, a 
 free people. It is Charlemagne, and he alone who governs ; it is 
 absolute government marked by prudence, ability, and grandeur. 
 
 What he was in his wars and his general relations with his nation 
 has just been seen ; he shall now be exhibited in all his adminis- 
 trative activity and his intellectual life, as a legislator and as a 
 friend to the human mind. The same man will be recognized in 
 every case; he will grow in greatness, without changing, as he 
 appears under his various aspects. 
 
 Capitula- There are often joined together, under the title of Capitularies 
 (capitula, small chapters, articles) a mass of Acts, very different in 
 point of dates and objects, which are attributed indiscriminately to 
 Charlemagne. This is a mistake. The Capitularies are the laws 
 or legislative measures of the Frankish kings, Merovingian as well 
 as Carlo vingian. Those of the Merovingians are few in number 
 and of slight importance, and amongst those of the Carlovingians, 
 which amount to 152, 65 only are due to Charlemagne. When an 
 attempt is made to classify these last according to their object, it 
 is impossible not to be struck with their incoherent variety ; and 
 several of them are such as we should now-a-days be surprised to 
 meet with in a code or in a special law. Amongst Charlemagne's 
 65 Capitularies, which contain 1151 articles, may be counted 87 of 
 moral, 293 of political, 130 of penal, 110 of civil, 85 of religious, 
 305 of canonical, 73 of domestic, and 12 of incidental legislation. 
 And it must not be supposed that all these articles are really acts 
 of legislation, laws properly so called ; we find amongst them the 
 
Charlemagne a Legislator and a Scholar. 49 
 
 texts of ancient national laws revised and promulgated afresh ; 
 extracts from and additions to these same ancient laws, Salic, Lom- 
 bard, and Bavarian ; extracts from acts of councils ; instructions 
 given by Charlemagne to his envoys in the provinces ; questions 
 that he proposed to put to the bishops or counts when they came 
 to the national assembly ; answers given by Charlemagne to ques- 
 tions addressed to him by the bishops, counts, or commissioners 
 (missi dominici) ; judgments, decrees, royal pardons, and simple 
 notes that Charlemagne seems to have had written down for himself 
 alone, to remind him of what he proposed to do ; in a word, nearly 
 all the various acts which could possibly have to be framed by an 
 earnest, far-sighted, and active government. 
 
 It is noticeable that the majority of Charlemagne's Capitularies 
 belong to that epoch of his reign when he was Emperor of the 
 West, when he was invested with all the splendour of sovereign 
 power. Of the 65 Capitularies classed under different heads, 13 
 only are previous to the 25th of December, 800, the date of his 
 coronation as emperor at Koine; 52 are comprised between the 
 years 801 and 804. 
 
 The energy of Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician having Cliarle- 
 thus been exhibited, it remains to say a few words about his intel- ^ e 
 lectual energy. For that is by no means the least original or least tual cha- 
 grand feature of his character and his influence. Those amongst racter> 
 his habitual advisers whom he did not employ at a distance formed, 
 in his immediate neighbourhood, a learned and industrious society, 
 a school of the palace, according to some modern commentators, 
 but an academy and not a school, according to others, devoted rather 
 to conversation than to teaching. It probably fulfilled both 
 missions ; it attended Charlemagne at his various residences, at one 
 time working for him at questions he invited them to deal with, 
 at another giving to the regular components of his court, to his 
 children and to himself, lessons in the different sciences called 
 liberal, grammar, rhetoric, logic, astronomy, geometry, and even 
 theology and the great religious problems it was beginning to 
 discuss. Two men, Alcuin and Eginhard, have remained justly- 
 celebrated in the literary history of the age. Alcuin was the 
 principal director of the school of the palace, and the favourite, the 
 confidant, the learned adviser of Charlemagne. " If your zeal were 
 imitated," said he one day to the emperor, " perchance one might 
 see arise in France a new Athens, far more glorious than the 
 ancient the Athens of Christ." Eginhard, who was younger, 
 received his scientific education in the school of the palace, and 
 
 E 
 
 e * 
 
50 History of France. 
 
 The school was nea d of the public works to Charlemagne, before becoming his 
 of the biographer, and, at a later period, the intimate adviser of his son 
 pa ace. j^^g ^h e Debonnair. Other scholars of the school of the palace, 
 Angilbert, Leidrade, Adalhard, Agobard, Theodulph, were abbots 
 of St. Eiquier or Corbie, archbishops of Lyons, and bishops of 
 Orleans. They had all assumed, in the school itself, names illus- 
 trious in pagan antiquity; Alcuin called himself Flaccus; Angilbert, 
 Homer; Theodulph, Pindar. Charlemagne himself had been 
 pleased to take, in their society, a great name of old, borrowed 
 from the history of the Hebrews he called himself David ; 
 and Eginhard, animated, no doubt, by the same sentiments, was 
 Bezaleel, that nephew of Moses to whom God had granted the 
 gift of knowing how to work skilfully in wood and all the materials 
 which served for the construction of the ark and the tabernacle. 
 Either in the lifetime of their royal patron or after his death all 
 these scholars became great dignitaries of the Church, or ended 
 their lives in monasteries of note ; but, so long as they lived, they 
 served Charlemagne or his sons not only with the devotion of 
 faithful advisers, but also as followers proud of the master who had 
 known how to do them honour by making use of them. 
 
 It was without effort and by natural sympathy that Charlemagne 
 had inspired them with such sentiments ; for he too really loved 
 sciences, literature, and such studies as were then possible, and he 
 cultivated them on his own account and for his own pleasure, as a 
 sort of conquest. He caused to be commenced, and, perhaps, 
 himself commenced the drawing up of the first Germanic grammar. 
 He ordered that the old barbaric poems, in which the deeds and 
 wars of the ancient kings were celebrated, should be collected for 
 posterity. He gave Germanic names to the twelve months of the 
 year. He distinguished the winds by twelve special terms, whereas 
 before his time they had but four designations. He paid great 
 attention to astronomy. In theological studies and discussions he 
 exhibited a particular and grave interest ; he also paid zealous at- 
 tention to the instruction of the clergy, whose ignorance he deplored; 
 he laid the foundation, in the cathedral churches and the great 
 monasteries, of episcopal and cloistral schools for the education of 
 ecclesiastics, and, carrying his solicitude still farther, he recom- 
 mended to the bishops and abbots that, in those schools, "they 
 should take care to make no difference between the sons of serfs 
 and of free men, so that they might come and sit on the same 
 benches to study grammar, music, and arithmetic " [Capitularies of 
 789, art. 70]. Thus, in the eighth century, he foreshadowed the 
 
Death of Charlemagne. 5 1 
 
 extension which, in the nineteenth, was to be accorded to primary 
 instruction, to the advantage and honour not only of the clergy, 
 but also of the whole people. 
 
 Charlemagne died at Aix-la-Chapelle, on Saturday, the 28th of A.D. 814. 
 January, 814, in his seventy-first year. If we sum up his designs Jj?**} 1 f 
 and his achievements, we find an admirably sound idea and a vain magne. 
 dream, a great success and a great failure. He took in hand the 
 work of placing upon a solid foundation the Frankish Christian 
 dominion by stopping, in the north and south, the flood of bar- 
 barians and Arabs, Paganism and Islamism. In that he succeeded : 
 the inundations of Asiatic populations spent their force in vain, 
 against the Gallic frontier. Western and Christian Europe was 
 placed, territorially, beyond reach of attacks from the foreigner and 
 infidel. No sovereign, no human being, perhaps, ever rendered 
 greater service to the civilization of the world. 
 
 Charlemagne formed another conception and made another at- 
 tempt. Like more than one great barbaric warrior, he admired the 
 Eoman empire that had fallen, its vastness all in one, and its 
 powerful organization, under the hand of a single master. He 
 thought he could resuscitate it, durably, through the victory of a 
 new people and a new faith, by the hand of Franks and Christians. 
 With this view he laboured to conquer, convert, and govern. He 
 tried to be at one and the same time Caesar, Augustus, and Con- 
 stantine. And for a moment he appeared to have succeeded ; but 
 the appearance passed away with himself. The unity of the em- 
 pire and the absolute power of the emperor were buried 'in his 
 grave. The Christian religion and human liberty set to work to 
 prepare for Europe other governments and other destinies. 
 
 E 
 
I ^ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CAELOVINGIANS FEUDAL FRANCE THE CRUSADES. 
 
 A.D. 814 FROM the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh Capet, 
 
 The Carlo- ^at > ^ rom ^14 to 987, thirteen kings sat upon the throne of 
 
 vingians. France. What then became, under their reign, and in the course 
 
 of those hundred and seventy-three years, of the two great facts 
 
 which swayed the mind and occupied the life of Charlemagne 1 
 
 What "became, that is, of the solid territorial foundation of the 
 
 kingdom of Christian France through efficient repression of 
 
 foreign invasion, and of the unity of that vast empire wherein 
 
 Charlemagne had attempted and hoped to resuscitate the Eoman 
 
 empire ? 
 
 The fate of those two facts is the very history of France under 
 the Carlovingian dynasty ; it is the only portion of the events of 
 that epoch which still deserves attention now-a-days, for it is the 
 only one which has exercised any great and lasting influence on 
 the general history of France. 
 
 The North- Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often; 
 it were tedious to relate or even enumerate all the incursions of 
 the Northmen, with their monotonous incidents. When their 
 frequency and their general character has been notified, all has been 
 done that is due to them from history. However, there are three 
 on which it may be worth while to dwell particularly, by reason of 
 their grave historical consequences, as well as of the dramatic 
 details which have been transmitted to us about them. 
 
 Hastings. 
 
The Carlovingians. 53 
 
 In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, a 
 chief of the Northmen, named Hastenc or Hastings, appeared 
 several times over on the coasts and in the rivers of France, with 
 numerous vessels. He penetrated into the interior of the country 
 in Poitou, Anjou, Brittany, and along the Seine ; pillaged the 
 monasteries of Jumieges, St. Yandrille, and St. Evroul ; took 
 possession of Chartres and appeared before Paris, where Charles the 
 Bald, entrenched at St. Denis, was deliberating with his prelates 
 and barons as to how he might resist the Northmen or treat with 
 them. " After long parley with the Abbot of St. Denis," says a 
 Chronicle, " and by reason of large gifts and promises," Hastings 
 consented to stop his cruisings, to become a Christian, and to settle 
 in the countship of Chartres, "which the king gave him as an 
 hereditary possession, with all its appurtenances." According to 
 other accounts, it was only some years later, under the young king 
 Louis III., grandson of Charles the Bald, that Hastings was induced, 
 either by reverses or by payment of money, to cease from his piracies 
 and accept in recompense the countship of Chartres. Whatever 
 may have been the date, he was, it is believed, the first chieftain 
 of the Northmen who renounced a life of adventure and plunder, 
 to become, in France, a great landed proprietor and a count of the 
 king's. 
 
 In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, after A.D. 885, 
 having, for more than forty years, irregularly ravaged France, the S 
 Northmen resolved to unite their forces in order at length to obtain 
 possession of Paris, whose outskirts they had so often pillaged 
 without having been able to the heart of the place, in the 
 
 lie de la Cite, which had originally been and still was the real 
 Paris. 
 
 The siege was prolonged throughout the summer ; and when, in 
 November, 886, Charles the Fat at last appeared before Paris, 
 " with a large army of all nations," it was to purchase the retreat 
 of the Northmen at the cost of a heavy ransom, and by allowing 
 them to go and winter, in Burgundy, "whereof the inhabitants 
 obeyed not the emperor." 
 
 Some months afterwards, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, 
 at a diet held on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of 
 Germanic France; and Arnulf, a natural son of Carloman, the 
 brother of Louis III., was proclaimed emperor in his stead. At 
 the same time Count Eudes, the gallant defender of Paris, was 
 elected king at Compiegne and crowned by the Archbishop of 
 Sens. Guy, duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagne in the 
 female line, hastened to France, and was declared king at Langres 
 
54 History of France. 
 
 by the bishop of that town, but returned with precipitation to 
 Italy, seeing no chance of maintaining himself in his French king- 
 ship. Elsewhere, Boso, duke of Aries, became king of Provence, 
 and the Burgundian Count Eodolph had himself crowned at 
 St. Maurice, in the Valais, king of Trans-juran Burgundy. There 
 was still in France a legitimate Carlovingian, a son of Louis the 
 Stutterer, who was hereafter to become Charles the Simple ; but 
 being only a child, he had been rejected or completely forgotten, 
 and, in the interval that was to elapse ere his time should arrive, 
 kings were being made in all directions. 
 
 Bollo. I n the midst of this confusion, the Northmen, though they kept 
 
 at a distance from Paris, pursued in Western France their cruising 
 and plundering. In Eollo they had a chieftain far superior to his 
 vagabond predecessors. 
 
 When, in 898, Eudes was dead, and Charles the Simple, at 
 hardly nineteen years of age, had been recognized sole king of 
 France, the ascendency of Eollo became such that the necessity of 
 treating with him was clear. In 911 Charles, by the advice of his 
 councillors, and, amongst them, of Eobert, brother of the late king 
 Eudes, who had himself become Count of Paris and Duke of 
 France, sent to the chieftain of the Northmen Franco, archbishop 
 of Eouen, with orders to offer him the cession of a considerable 
 portion of Neustria and the hand of his young daughter Gisele, on 
 condition that he became a Christian, and acknowledged himself 
 the king's vassal. The treaty was made at St. Clair-sur-Epte ; 
 henceforth the vagabond pirates had a country to cultivate and 
 defend ; the Northmen were becoming French. 
 The Sara- The invasions of the Saracens in the south of France were still 
 
 cens * continued from time to time ; but they did not threaten, as those of 
 the N orthmen did in the north, the security of the Gallo-Frankish 
 monarchy, and the Gallo-Eoman populations of the south were able 
 to defend their national independence at the same time against the 
 Saracens and the Franks. They did so successfully in the ninth 
 and tenth centuries ; and the French monarchy, which was being 
 founded between the Loire and the Ehine, had thus for some time 
 a breach in it without ever suffering serious displacement. The 
 first of Charlemagne's grand designs, however, the territorial 
 security of the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, was accom- 
 plished. In the east and the north, the Germanic and Asiatic 
 populations, which had so long upset it, were partly arrested at its 
 frontiers, partly incorporated regularly in its midst. In the south 
 the Mussulman populations, which in the eighth century had 
 appeared so near overwhelming it, were powerless to deal it any 
 
Lotds the Debonnair. 55 
 
 heavy blow. Substantially France was founded. But what had 
 become of Charlemagne's second grand design, the resuscitation of 
 the Roman empire at the hands of the barbarians that had con- 
 quered it and become Christians 1 When Louis the Debonnair A.D. 814. 
 
 became emperor, he began his reign by a reaction against the k 8 the 
 
 5 - , , ,. . -, , , v -, -, Debonnair. 
 
 excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding reign ; he established 
 
 at his court, for his sisters as well as his servants, austere regu- 
 lations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the 
 rights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out 
 every where his commissioners (missi dominici) with orders to listen 
 to complaints and redress grievances, and to mitigate his father's 
 rule, which was rigorous in its application and yet insufficient to 
 repress disturbance, notwithstanding its preventive purpose and its 
 watchful supervision. 
 
 In 817 Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly 
 of his dominions; and there, whilst declaring that " neither to 
 those who were wisely-minded, nor to himself, did it appear ex- 
 pedient to break up, for the love he bare his sons, and by the will 
 of man, the unity of the empire, preserved by God himself," he had 
 resolved to share with his eldest son, Lothaire, the imperial throne. 
 Lothaire was in fact crowned emperor ; and his two brothers, Pepin 
 and Louis, were crowned king ; Pepin, over Aquitaine and a great 
 part of Southern Gaul and of Burgundy ; Louis, beyond the Ehine, 
 over Bavaria, and the divers peoplets in the east of Germany." 
 The rest of Gaul and of Germany, as well as the kingdom of Italy, 
 was to belong to Lothaire, emperor and head of the Prankish 
 monarchy, to whom his brothers would have to repair year by year 
 to come to an understanding with him and receive his instructions. 
 
 Several insurrections burst out in the empire ; the first amongst j nSTirrec . 
 the Basques of Aquitaine ; the next in Italy, where Bernard, son tions. 
 of Pepin, having, after his father's death, become king in 812, with 
 the consent of his grandfather Charlemagne, could not quietly 
 see his kingdom pass into the hands of his cousin Lothaire, at 
 the orders of his uncle Louis. These two attempts were easily 
 repressed, but the third was more serious. It took place in 
 Brittany amongst those populations of Armorica who were ex- 
 cessively jealous of their independence, and was quelled with con- 
 siderable difficulty. 
 
 After the death of Hermangarde, his first wife, Louis had 
 married Judith, daughter of Count Welf (Guelf) of Bavaria. In 
 823 he had, by her, a son, whom he called Charles, and who was 
 hereafter to be known as Charles the Bald. This son became his 
 mother's ruling, if not exclusive passion, and the source of his 
 
56 History of France. 
 
 father's woes. In 829, during an assembly held at Worms, Louis, 
 yielding to Judith's entreaties, set at naught the solemn act 
 whereby, in 817, he had shared his dominions amongst his three 
 elder sons ; and took away from two of them, in Burgundy and 
 Allemannia, some of the territories he had assigned to them, and 
 gave them to the boy Charles for his share. Lothaire, Pepin, and 
 Louis thereupon revolted. Court intrigues were added to family 
 differences ; for ten years scenes - of disorder kept repeating them- 
 selves again and again; rivalries and secret plots began once more 
 between the three victorious brothers and their partisans ; popular 
 feeling revived in favour of Louis ; a large portion of the clergy 
 shared it ; finally, in 834, two assemblies, one meeting at St. Denis 
 and the other at Thionville, once more put Louis in possession of 
 the imperial title and power. He displayed no violence in his 
 use of it ; but he was growing more and more irresolute and weak, 
 when, in 838, the second of his rebellious sons, Pepin, king of 
 Aquitaine, died suddenly. Louis, ever under the sway of Judith, 
 speedily convoked at Worms, in 839, once more and for the last 
 time, a general assembly, whereat^ leaving his son Louis of Bavaria 
 reduced to his kingdom in eastern Europe, he divided the rest of 
 his dominions into two nearly equal parts, separated by the course 
 of the Meuse and the Rhone. Between these two parts he left the 
 choice to Lothaire, who took the eastern portion, promising at the 
 same time to guarantee the western portion to his younger brother 
 Charles. Louis the Germanic protested against this partition, and 
 took up arms to resist it. His father, the emperor, set himself in 
 motion towards the Rhine, to reduce him to submission ; but on 
 A.D. 840. arriving close to Mayence he caught a violent fever, and died on 
 Death of the 20th of June, 840. at the castle of Ingelheim, on a little island 
 Debonnaij. ^ n * ne river - His last acts were a fresh proof of his goodness 
 towards even his rebellious sons, and of his solicitude for his 
 last-born. He sent to Louis the Germanic his pardon, and to 
 Lothaire the golden crown and sword, at the same time bidding 
 him fulfil his father's wishes on behalf of Charles and Judith. 
 A D 843 Charles the Bald was to succeed, Lothaire retaining the imperial 
 Council of dignity ; as a matter of fact the three sons equally aspired to the 
 Verdun. throne. Charles and Louis having united for the purpose of 
 resisting the ambition of their elder brother, defeated him in a 
 terrible battle near the village of Fontenailles, six leagues from 
 Auxerre. The Austrasian influence, till then triumphant in Gaul, 
 perished there for ever (841). The victorious princes subsequently 
 confirmed their union by what is generally called the oaths of Stras- 
 Imrn, a document regarded as the oldest specimen of the French 
 
Fall of the Carlovingians. 57 
 
 language. Finally, in August, 843, the three "brothers assembling 
 with their umpires, at Verdun, they at last came to an agreement 
 about the partition of the Frankish empire, save the three countries 
 which, it had been beforehand agreed to except. Louis kept all the 
 provinces of Germany of which he was already in possession, and 
 received besides, on the left bank of the Ehine, the towns of 
 Mayence, Worms, and Spire, with the territory appertaining to 
 them. Lothaire, for his part, had the eastern belt of Gaul, 
 bounded on one side by the Rhine and the Alps, on the other, by 
 the courses of the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone, starting from 
 the confluence of the two latter rivers, and, further, the country of the Em 
 comprised between .the Meuse and the Scheldt, together with pire ' 
 certain count-ships lying to the west of that river. To Charles 
 fell all the rest of Gaul ; Vasconia or Biscay e, Septimania, the 
 Marches of Spain, beyond the Pyrenees, and the other countries of 
 Southern Gaul which had enjoyed hitherto, under the title of the 
 Kingdom of Aquitaine, a special government, subordinated to the 
 general government of the empire, but distinct from it, lost this 
 last remnant of their Gallo-Roman nationality, and became inte- 
 gral portions of Frankish Gaul, which fell by partition to Charles 
 the Bald, and formed one and the same kingdom under one and 
 the same king. 
 
 Thus fell through and disappeared, in 843, by virtue of the 
 treaty of Verdun, the second of Charlemagne's grand designs, the 
 resuscitation of the Roman empire by means of the Prankish and 
 Christian masters of Gaul. The name of emperor still retained a 
 certain value in the minds of the people and still remained an 
 object of ambition to princes; but the empire was completely 
 abolished, and, in its stead, sprang up three kingdoms, independent 
 one of another, without any necessary connexion or relation. One 
 of the three was thenceforth France. 
 
 Xone of Charlemagne's successors was capable of exercising on Fall of tlie 
 the events of his time, by virtue of his brain and his own will, any Carlovin- 
 notable influence. Not that they were all unintelligent, or timid, S ians - 
 or indolent. It has been seen that Louis the Debonnair did not 
 lack virtues and good intentions ; and Charles the Bald was clear- 
 sighted, dexterous, and energetic : he had a taste for information 
 and intellectual distinction ; he liked and sheltered men of 
 learning and letters, and to such purpose that, instead of speaking, 
 as under Charlemagne, of the school of the palace, people called the 
 palace of Charles the Bald the palace of the school. Amongst the 
 eleven kings who after him ascended the Carlovingian throne, 
 several, such as Louis TIL and Carloman, and especially Louis 
 
58 History of France. 
 
 the Ultramarine (d'Outremer) and Lothaire, displayed, on several 
 occasions, energy and courage ; and the kings elected at this 
 epoch, without the pale of the Caiiovingian dynasty, Eudes in 887 
 and Eaoul in 923, gave proofs of a valour both discreet and 
 effectual. The Carlovingians did not, as the Merovingians did, 
 end in monkish retirement or shameful inactivity : even the last 
 of them, and the only oiie termed sluggard, Louis V., was getting 
 ready, when he died, for an expedition in Spain against the 
 Saracens. The truth is that, mediocre or undecided or addle-pated 
 as they may have been, they all succumbed, internally and exter- 
 nally, without initiating, and without resisting, to the course of 
 events, and that, in 987, the fall of the Carlo vingian line was the 
 naturally and easily accomplished consequence of the new social 
 condition which had been preparing in France under the empire. 
 Breaking Twenty-nine years after the death of Charlemagne, that is, in 
 up of the 843, when, by the treaty of Verdun, the sons of Louis of De- 
 the^West ^onnair ^ a( l divided amongst them his dominions, the great 
 empire split up into three distinct and independent kingdoms, the 
 kingdoms of Italy, Germany, and France. The splits did not stop 
 there. Forty-five years later, at the end of the ninth century, 
 shortly after the death of Charles the Fat, the last of the Carlo- 
 vingians who appears to have re-united for a while all the empire 
 of Charlemagne, this empire had begotten seven instead of three 
 kingdoms, those of France, of Navarre, of Provence or Cis-juran 
 Burgundy, of Trans- juran Burgundy, of Lorraine, of Allemannia, 
 and of Italy. 
 
 The same work was going on in France. About the end of the 
 ninth century there were already twenty-nine provinces or 
 fragments of provinces which had become petty states, the former 
 governors of which, under the names of dukes, counts, marquises, 
 and viscounts, were pretty nearly real sovereigns. Twenty-nine 
 great fiefs, which have played a special part in French history, 
 date back to this epoch. 
 
 From the end of the ninth pass we to the end of the tenth 
 century, to the epoch when the Capetians take the place of the 
 Carlovingians. Instead of seven kingdoms to replace the empire of 
 Charlemagne, there were then no more than four. The kingdoms 
 of Provence and Trans-juran Burgundy had formed, by reunion, 
 the kingdom of Aries. The kingdom of Lorraine was no more 
 than a duchy in dispute between Allemannia and France. The 
 Emperor Otho the Great had united the kingdom of Italy to the 
 empire of Allemannia. Overtures had produced their effects amongst 
 the great states ; but in the interior of the kingdom of France dis- 
 
Feudal Francs. 59 
 
 memberment has held on its course ; and instead of the twenty-nine 
 petty states or great fiefs observable at the end of the ninth century, 
 we find, at the end of the tenth, fifty-five actually established. 
 
 Two causes, perfectly natural and independent of all human 
 calculation, led to this dismemberment, one moral and the other 
 political. They were the absence from the minds of men of any 
 general and dominant idea ; and the reflux, in social relations and 
 manners, of the individual liberties but lately repressed or regu- 
 lated by the strong hand of Charlemagne. In the ninth and 
 tenth centuries there was no general and fructifying idea, save the 
 Christian creed; no great intellectual vent; no great national 
 feeling ; no easy and rapid means of communication ; mind and 
 life were both confined in a narrow space, and encountered, at 
 every step, stoppages and obstacles well nigh insurmountable. At 
 the same time, by the fall of the empires of Eome and of Charle- 
 magne, men regained possession of the rough and ready inc i vidual 
 liberties which were the essential characteristic of Germanic 
 manners : thus, settled upon a soil conquered by themselves, and 
 partitioned amongst themselves, lived each by himself, master of 
 himself and all that was his, family, servitors, husbandmen, and 
 slaves : the territorial domain became the fatherland, and the 
 owner remained a free man, a local and independent chieftain, at 
 his own risk and peril. 
 
 The consequences of such a state of things and of such a dis- Rise of tho 
 position of persons were rapidly developed. Territorial ownership ^^ sys * 
 became the fundamental characteristic of and warranty for inde- 
 pendence and social importance. Local sovereignty, if not complete 
 and absolute, at least in respect of its principal rights, right of 
 making Avar, right of judicature, right of taxation, and right of 
 regulating the police, became one with the territorial ownership, 
 which before long grew to be hereditary, whether, under the title 
 of alien (allodium), it had been originally perfectly independent 
 and exempt from any feudal tie, or under the title of benefice, had 
 arisen from grants of land made by the chieftain to his followers, 
 on condition of certain obligations. The offices, that is, the 
 divers functions, military or civil, conferred by the king on his 
 lieges, also ended by becoming hereditary. Having become esta- 
 blished in fact, this heirship in lands and local powers was soon 
 recognized by the law ; from the ninth to the tenth century it had 
 acquired full force. 
 
 Now go back to any portion of French history, and stop where 
 you will, and you will everywhere find the feudal system con- 
 sidered, by the mass of the population, a foe to be fought, and 
 
60 History of France. 
 
 fought down at any price. At all times, whoever dealt it a blow 
 has been popular in France. 
 Its poli- The reason for this fact is in the political character of feudalism ; 
 
 racter. " ^ was a confederation of petty sovereigns, of petty despots, 
 unequal amongst themselves, and having, one towards another, 
 certain duties and rights, but invested in their own domains, over 
 their personal and direct subjects, with arbitrary and absolute 
 power. That is the essential element of the feudal system ; therein 
 it differs from every other aristocracy, every other form of 
 government. Liberty, equality, and tranquillity were all 'alike 
 wanting, from the tenth to the thirteenth century, to the in- 
 habitants of each lord's domains ; their sovereign was at their 
 very doors, and none of them was hidden from him or beyond 
 reach of his mighty arm; there was despotism just as in pure 
 monarchies, and there was privilege just as in the very closest 
 aristocracies. And both obtruded themselves in the most offensive 
 and, so to speak, crude form. Despotism was not tapered off by 
 means of the distance and elevation of a throne ; and privilege did 
 not veil itself behind the majesty of a large body. Both were the 
 appurtenances of an individual ever present and ever alone, ever 
 at his subjects' doors, and never called upon, in dealing with their 
 lot, to gather his peers around him. 
 Relations And now we will leave the subjects in the case of feudalism, and 
 
 barons ^me cons ^ er the masters, the owners of fiefs, and their relations one 
 with with another. We here behold quite a different spectacle ; we see 
 another, liberties, rights, and guarantees, which not only give protection 
 and honour to those who enjoy them, but of which the tendency 
 and effect are to open to the subject population an outlet towards 
 a better future. The grandeur of the system was neither dazzling 
 nor unapproachable ; it was but a short step from vassal to 
 suzerain ; they lived familiarly one with another, without any 
 possibility that superiority should think itself illimitable, or sub- 
 ordination think itself servile. Thence came that extension of 
 the domestic circle, that ennoblement of personal service, from 
 which sprang one of the most generous sentiments of the middle 
 ages, fealty, which reconciled the dignity of the man with the 
 devotion of the vassal. It was, as it were, a people consisting of 
 scattered citizens, of whom each, ever armed, accompanied by his 
 following, or intrenched in his castle, kept watch himself over his 
 own safety and his own rights, relying far more on his own 
 courage and his own renown than on the protection of the public 
 authorities. Such a condition bears less resemblance to an 
 organized and settled society than to a constant prospect of peril 
 
Feudal France. 6 1 
 
 and war : but the energy and the dignity of the individual \vero 
 kept up in it, and a more extended and better regulated society 
 might issue therefrom. 
 
 And it did issue. The society of the future was not slow Feudalism 
 to sprout and grow in the midst of that feudal system so attac e * 
 turbulent, so oppressive, so detested. No sooner was the feudal 
 system in force, than, with its victory scarcely secured, it 
 was attacked in the lower grades by the mass of the people 
 attempting to regain certain liberties, ownerships and rights, 
 and in the highest by royalty labouring to recover its public 
 character, to become once more the head of a nation ; in spite of 
 the servitude into which the people had sunk at the end of the 
 tenth century, from this moment the enfranchisement of the people 
 makes way. In spite of the weakness, or rather nullity of the 
 regal power at the same epoch, from this moment the regal power 
 begins to gain ground. That monarchial system which the genius 
 of Charlemagne could not found, kings far inferior to Charlemagne 
 will little by little make triumphant. Those liberties and those 
 guarantees which the German warriors were incapable of trans- 
 mitting to a well-regulated society, the commonality will regain one 
 after another. Nothing but feudalism could have sprung from the 
 womb of barbarism ; but scarcely is feudalism established when we 
 see monarchy and liberty nascent and growing in its womb. 
 
 From the end of the ninth to the end of the tenth century, two Struggle of 
 families were, in French history, the representatives and instru- tlle Koman 
 ments of the two systems thus confronted and conflicted at that Germanic 
 epoch, the imperial, which was falling, and the feudal, which was principles, 
 rising. After the death of Charlemagne, his descendants, to the 
 number of ten, from Louis the Debonnair to Louis the Sluggard, 
 strove. obstinately, but in vain, to maintain the unity of the empire 
 and the unity of the central power. In four generations, on the 
 other hand, the descendants of Robert the Strong climbed to the 
 head of feudal France. The former, though German in race, were 
 imbued with the maxims, the traditions and the pretensions of that 
 Roman world which had been for a while resuscitated by their 
 glorious ancestor ; and they claimed it as their heritage. The 
 latter preserved, at their settlement upon Gallo-Roman territory, 
 Germanic sentiments, manners, and instincts, and were occupied 
 only with the idea of getting more and more settled and greater 
 And greater in the new society which was little by little being 
 formed upon the soil won by the barbarians ; their forefathers, 
 Louis the Ultramarine and Lothaire were not, we may suppose 
 less personally brave than Robert the Strong and his son Eudes, 
 
62 History of France. 
 
 but when the Northmen put the Frankish dominions in peril, it 
 was not to the descendants of Charlemagne, not to the emperor 
 Charles the Fat, hut to the local and feudal chieftain, to Eudes, 
 count of Paris, that the population turned for salvation; and 
 Eudes it was who saved them. 
 
 In this painful parturition of French monarchy, one fact de- 
 serves to he remarked, and that is the lasting respect attached, in 
 the minds of the people, to the name and the reminiscences of the 
 Carlovingian rule, notwithstanding its decay. It was not alone 
 the lustre of that name and of the memory of Charlemagne which 
 inspired and prolonged this respect ; a certain instinctive feeling 
 about the worth of hereditary monarchy, as an element of stability 
 and order, already existed amongst the populations, and glimpses 
 thereof were visible amongst the rivals of the royal family in the 
 hour of its dissolution. 
 
 A.D. 987. On the 29th or 30th of June, 987, Hugh Capet was crowned 
 petting!" ki n o ^J ^ e g ran( ^ ees f Frankish Gaul assembled at Senlis, and 
 the dynasty of the Capetians was founded under the double in- 
 fluence of German manners and feudal connexions. Amongst the 
 ancient Germans royal heirship was generally confined to one and 
 the same family ; but election was often joined with heirship, and 
 had more than once thrust the latter aside. Hugh Capet was head 
 of the family which was the most illustrious in his time and the 
 closest to the throne, on which the personal merits of Counts 
 Eudes and Eobert had already twice seated it. He was also one of 
 the greatest chieftains of feudal society, duke of the country which 
 was already called France, and Count of Paris, of that city which 
 Clovis, after his victories, had chosen as the centre of his do- 
 minions. In view of the Eoman rather than Germanic pretensions 
 of the Carlovingian heirs and of their admitted decay, the rise of 
 Hugh Capet was the natural consequence of the principal facts as 
 well as of the manners of the period, and the crowning manifes- 
 tation of the new social condition in France, that is, feudalism. 
 Accordingly the event reached completion and confirmation with- 
 out any great obstacle. The Carlovingian, Charles of Lorraine, 
 vainly attempted to assert his rights ; but, after some gleams of 
 success, he died in 992, and his descendants fell, if not into ob- 
 scurity, at least into political insignificance. In vain, again, did 
 certain feudal lords, especially in Southern France, refuse for some 
 time their adhesion to Hugh Capet. Hugh possessed that in- 
 telligent and patient moderation, which, when a position is once 
 acquired, is the best pledge of continuance. Several facts indicate 
 
The Church. 63 
 
 that he did not tinder-estimate the worth and range of his title of 
 king. At the same time, that by getting his son Eobert crowned with 
 him, he secured for his line the next succession ; he also performed 
 several acts which went beyond the limits of his feudal domains 
 and proclaimed to all the kingdom the presence of the king. But 
 those acts were temperate and wise ; and they paved the way for 
 the future without anticipating it. Hugh Capet confined himself 
 carefully to the sphere of his recognized rights as well as of his 
 effective strength, and his government remained faithful to the 
 character of the revolution which had raised him to the throne, at 
 the same time that it gave warning of the future progress of royalty . 
 independently of and over the head of feudalism. When he died, 
 on the 24th of October, 996, the crown, which he hesitated, they 
 say, to wear on his own head, passed without obstacle to his son 
 Eobert, and the course which was to be followed for eight centuries, 
 under the government of his descendants, by civilization in France, 
 began to develope itself. 
 
 It is worth while noticing that, far from aiding the accession of 
 the new dynasty, the Court of Eome showed herself favourable to 
 the old, and tried to save it without herself becoming too deeply 
 compromised. Such was, from 985 to 996, the attitude of Pope 
 John XVI., at the crisis which placed Hugh Capet upon the Attitude 
 throne. In spite of this policy on the part of the Papacy, the of the 
 French Church took the initiative in the event, and supported the 
 new king ; the Archbishop of Eheims affirmed the right of the 
 people to accomplish a change of dynasty, and anointed Hugh 
 Capet and his son Eobert. The accession of the Capetians was a 
 work independent of all foreign influence and strictly national, in 
 Church as well as in State. 
 
 From 996 to 1108 the first three successors of Hugh Capet, his 
 son Eobert, his grandson Henry I, and his great-grandson Philip L, 
 sat upon the throne of France ; and during this long space of 
 112 years the kingdom of France had not, sooth to say, any 
 history. Parcelled out, by virtue of the feudal system, between a 
 multitude of princes, independent, isolated, and scarcely sovereigns 
 in their own dominions, keeping up anything like frequent inter- 
 course only with their neighbours, and loosely united, by certain 
 rules or customs of vassalage, to him amongst them who bore the 
 title of king, the France of the eleventh century existed in little 
 more than name : Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, 
 Poitou, Anjou, Flanders, and Nivernais were the real states and 
 peoples, each with its own distinct life and history. One single 
 *vent, the Crusade, united, towards the end of the century, those 
 
64 History of France. 
 
 scattered sovereigns and peoples in one common idea and one com- 
 bined action. 
 
 A.D. 1000. In A.D. 1000, in consequence of the sense attached to certain 
 world ex- 6 wor ds i n the Sacred Books, many Christians expected the end of 
 pected. the world. The time of expectation was full of anxieties ; when 
 the last day of the tenth and the first of the eleventh centuries 
 were past, it was like a general regeneration ; it might have been 
 said that time was beginning over again ; and the work was com- 
 menced of rendering the Christian world worthy of the future. 
 "Especially in Italy and in Gaul," says the chronicler Eaoul 
 Glaber, "men took in hand the reconstruction of the basilicas, 
 although the greater part had no need thereof." Christian art, in 
 its earliest form of the Gothic style, dates from this epoch ; the 
 power and riches of the Christian Church, in its different institu- 
 tions, received, at this crisis of the human imagination, a fresh 
 impulse. 
 
 Other facts, some lamentable and some salutary, began, about 
 this epoch, to assume in French history a place which was destined 
 before long to become an important one. Piles of faggots were set 
 up, first at Orleans and then at Toulouse, for the punishment of 
 heretics. The heretics of the day were Manicheans ; at the same 
 time a double portion of ire blazed forth against the Jews. 
 Amongst Christians acts of oppression and violence on the part of 
 the great against the small became so excessive and so frequent 
 that they excited in country parts, particularly in Normandy, in- 
 surrections which the insurgents tried to organize into permanent 
 God's resistance. However, even in the midst of this cruel egotism and 
 truce. ^. g g ross linreason O f the tenth and eleventh centuries, the ne- 
 cessity, from a moral and social point of view, of struggling against 
 such disgusting irregularities made itself felt and found zealous 
 advocates. From this epoch are to be dated the first efforts to 
 establish, in different parts of France, what was called God's peace, 
 God's truce. The words were well chosen for prohibiting at the 
 same time oppression and revolt, for it needed nothing less 
 than law and the voice of God to put some restraint upon the 
 barbarous manners and passions of men, great or small, lord or 
 peasant. King Robert always showed himself favourable to this 
 pacific work ; and he is the first amongst the five kings of France, 
 in other respects very different, himself, St. Louis, Louis XII., 
 A.D. 1031 Henry IV., and Louis XVI., who were particularly distinguished 
 
 1108. f or sympathetic kindness and anxiety for the popular welfare. 
 Hemy 8 l! Though not so pious or so good as Robert, his son, Henry I., 
 
 and and his grandson, Philip L, were neither more energetic nor more 
 Philip I. 
 
The king and the nation. 65 
 
 glorious kings. During their long reigns (the former from 1031 
 to 1060, and the latter from 1060 to 1108) no important and well- 
 prosecuted design distinguished their government. Their public 
 life was passed at one time in petty warfare, without decisive 
 results, against such and such vassals, at another, in acts of capri- 
 cious intervention in the quarrels of their vassals amongst them- 
 selves. Their home-life was neither less irregular nor conducted 
 with more wisdom and regard for the public interest. In spite of 
 their political mediocrity and their indolent licentiousness, however, 
 Eobert, Henry I., and Philip I. were not, in the eleventh century, 
 insignificant personages, without authority or practical influence, 
 whom their contemporaries could leave out of the account. French T > .. 
 kingship in the eleventh century was sole power invested with a ship and 
 triple character, Germanic, Eoman, and religious ; its possessors the c . om- 
 were at the same time the chieftains of the conquerors of the soil, 
 the successors of the Roman emperors and of Charlemagne, and 
 the lay delegates and representatives of the God of the Christians. 
 Whatever were their weaknesses and their personal short-comings, 
 they were not the mere titularies of a power in decay, and the 
 kingly post was strong and full of blossom, as events were not 
 slow to demonstrate. 
 
 And as with the kingship, so with the community of France in 
 the eleventh century. In spite of its dislocation into petty inco- 
 herent and turbulent associations, it was by no means in decay. 
 Irregularities of ambition, hatreds and quarrels amongst neighbours 
 and relatives, outrages on the part of princes and peoples were 
 incessantly renewed ; but energy of character, activity of mind, 
 indomitable will and zeal for the liberty of the individual were 
 not wanting, and they exhibited themselves passionately and at 
 any risk, at one time by brutal or cynical outbursts which were 
 followed occasionally by fervent repentance and expiation, at an- 
 other by acts of courageous wisdom and disinterested piety. In 
 ideas, events, and persons there was a blending of the strongest 
 contrasts ; manners were rude and even savage, yet souls were 
 filled with lofty and tender aspirations ; the authority of religious 
 creeds at one time was on the point of extinction, yet at another 
 shone forth gloriously in opposition to the arrogance and brutality 
 of mundane passions ; ignorance was profound, and yet here and 
 there, in the very heart of the mental darkness, gleamed bright 
 centres of movement and intellectual labour. It was the period 
 when Abelard, anticipating freedom of thought and of instruction, 
 drew together upon Mount St. Genevieve thousands of hearers 
 anxious to follow him in the study of the great problems of Nature 
 
 F 
 
66 History of France. 
 
 and of the destiny of man and the world. And, far away from this 
 throng, in the solitude of the abbey of Bee, St. Anselm was offering 
 to his monks a Christian and philosophical demonstration of the 
 existence of God "faith seeking understanding " (fides queer ens 
 intellectum], as he himself used to say. It was the period, too, 
 when, distressed at the licentiousness which was spreading 
 throughout the Church, as well as lay society, two illustrious 
 monks, St. Bernard and St. Norbert, not only went preaching 
 every where reformation of morals, but laboured at, and succeeded 
 in establishing for monastic life a system of strict discipline and 
 severe austerity. Lastly, it was the period when, in the laic world, 
 was created and developed the most splendid fact of the middle 
 ages, knighthood, that noble soaring of imaginations and souls 
 towards the ideal of Christian virtue and soldierly honour. 
 of fl Chris- * n t ^ ie France f tne middle ages, though practically crimes and 
 tianity. disorders, moral and social evils abounded, yet men had in their 
 souls and their imaginations loftier and purer instincts and desires ; 
 their notions of virtue and their ideas of justice were very superior 
 to the practice pursued around them and amongst themselves ; a 
 certain moral ideal hovered above this low and tumultuous com- 
 munity and attracted the notice and obtained the regard of men 
 in whose life it is but very faintly reflected. The Christian re- 
 ligion undoubtedly was, if not the only, at any rate the principal 
 cause of this great fact ; for its particular characteristic is to arouse 
 amongst men a lofty moral ambition by keeping constantly before 
 their eyes a type infinitely beyond the reach of human nature and 
 yet profoundly sympathetic with it. To Christianity it was that 
 the middle ages owed knighthood, that institution which, in the 
 midst of anarchy and barbarism, gave a poetical ano^ moral beauty 
 to the period. It was feudal knighthood and Christianity together 
 which produced the two great and glorious events of those times, 
 the Norman conquest of England and the Crusades. 
 
 Conquest From the time of Rollo's settlement in Normandy, the commu- 
 by the* 11 nications of the Normans with England had become more and 
 Normans, more frequent and important for the two countries. The success 
 of the invasions of the Danes in England in the tenth century and 
 the reigns of three kings of the Danish line had obliged the princes 
 of Saxon race to take tefuge in Normandy, the duke of which, 
 Richard I., had given his daughter Emma in marriage to their 
 grandfather, Ethelred II. When at the death of the last Danish 
 king, Hardicanute, the Saxon prince Edward ascended the throne 
 of his fathers, he had passed twenty-seven years of exile in Nor- 
 mandy, and he returned to England " almost a stranger," in the 
 
The Anglo- Saxons and the Normans. 67 
 
 words of the chronicles, to the country of his ancestors ; far more 
 Norman than Saxon in his manners, tastes and language, and 
 surrounded by Normans, whose numbers and prestige under his 
 reign increased from day to day. A hot rivalry, nationally as well 
 as courtly, grew up between them and the Saxons. At the head 
 of these latter was Godwin, count of Kent, and his five sons, the 
 eldest of whom, Harold, was destined before long to bear the 
 whole brunt of the struggle. Between these powerful rivals 
 Edward the Confessor, a pacific, pious, gentle, and undecided king, 
 wavered incessantly ; at one time trying to resist, and at another 
 compelled to yield to the pretensions and seditions by which he 
 was beset. In 1051 the Saxon party and its head, Godwin, had 
 risen in revolt. Duke William, on invitation, perhaps, from King 
 Edward, paid a brilliant visit to England, where he found Normans 
 every where established and powerful, in Church as well as in 
 State ; in command of the fleets, ports, and principal English 
 places. King Edward received him " as his own son ; gave him 
 arms, horses, hounds, and hawking-birds," and sent him home full 
 of presents and hopes. The chronicler, Ingulf, who accompanied 
 William on his return to Normandy, and remained attached to 
 him as private secretary, affirms that, during this visit, not only 
 was there no question, between King Edward and the Duke of 
 Normandy, of the latter's possible succession to the throne of 
 England, but that never as yet had this probability occupied the 
 attention of William. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether William had said nothing upon the Duke Wil- 
 
 subject to King Edward at that time ; and it is certain, from 11 
 
 William's own testimony, that he had for a long while been 
 thinking about it. Eour years after this visit of the duke to 
 England, King Edward was reconciled to and lived on good terms 
 with the family of the Godwins. Their father was dead, and the 
 eldest son, Harold, asked the king's permission to go to Normandy 
 and claim the release of his brother and nephew, who had been 
 left as hostages in the keeping of Duke William. The king did 
 not approve of the project. " I have no wish to constrain thee," 
 said he to Harold : " but if thou go, it will be without my consent : 
 and, assuredly, thy trip will bring some misfortune upon thee and 
 our country. I know Duke William and his crafty spirit ; he 
 hates thee, and will grant thee naught unless he see his advantage 
 therefrom. The only way to make him give up the hostages will 
 be to send some other than thyself." Harold, however, persisted, 
 and went. William received him with apparent cordiality, 
 promised him the release of the two hostages, escorted him and his 
 
 F 2 
 
68 History of France. 
 
 comrades from castle to castle, and from entertainment to enter- 
 tainment, made them knights of the grand Norman order, and even 
 invited them, " by way of trying their new spurs," to accompany 
 him on a little warlike expedition he was about to undertake in 
 Brittany. Harold and his comrades behaved gallantly ; and he 
 and William shared the same tent and the same table. On 
 returning, as they trotted side by side, William turned the con- 
 versation upon his youthful connexion with the king of England. 
 " When Edward and I," said he to the Saxon, " were living lika 
 brothers under the same roof, he promised, if ever he became 
 king of England, to make me heir to his kingdom ; I should very 
 much like thee, Harold, to help me to realize this promise ; and be 
 assured that, if by thy aid I obtain the kingdom, whatsoever thou 
 askest of me I will grant it forthwith." Harold, in surprise and 
 confusion, answered by an assent which he tried to make as vague 
 as possible. William took it as positive. " Since thou dost 
 consent to serve me," said he, " thou must engage to fortify the 
 castle of Dover, dig a well of fresh water there, and put it into 
 the hands of my men-at arms ; thou must also give me thy sister 
 to be married to one of my barons, and thou must thyself espouse 
 my daughter Adele." Harold, " not witting," says the chronicler, 
 " how to escape from this pressing danger," promised all the duke 
 asked of him, reckoning, doubtless, on disregarding his engage- 
 ment ; and for the moment William asked him nothing more. 
 Harold But a few days afterwards he summoned, at Avranches according 
 
 oa?h^is by to some > an( * at B aveux according to others, and, more probably 
 promises, still, at Bonneville-sur-Touques, his Norman barons ; and, in the 
 midst of this assembly, at which Harold was present, William, 
 seated with his naked sword in his hand, caused to be brought 
 and placed upon a table covered with cloth of gold, two re- 
 liquaries. " Harold," said he, " I call upon thee, in presence of 
 this noble assemblage, to confirm by oath the promises thou didst 
 make me, to wit, to aid me to obtain the kingdom of England 
 after the death of King Edward, to espouse my daughter Adele, 
 and to send me thy sister to be married to one of my people." 
 Harold, who had not expected this public summons, nevertheless 
 did not hesitate any more than he had hesitated in his private 
 conversation with William ; he drew near, laid his hand on the 
 two reliquaries and swore to observe, to the best of his power, his 
 agreement with the duke, should he live and God help. " God 
 help ! " repeated those who were present. William made a sign ; 
 the cloth of gold was removed and there was discovered a tub filled 
 to tte edge with bones and relics of all the saints that could be got 
 
Invasion of England. 69 
 
 together. The chronicler-poet, Robert Wace, who, alone and 
 long afterwards, recounts this last particular, adds that Harold was 
 visibly troubled at sight of this saintly heap ; but he had sworn. 
 It is honourable to human nature not to be indifferent to oaths 
 even when those w T ho exact them have but small reliance upon 
 them, and when he who takes them has but small intention of 
 keeping them. And so Harold departed, laden with presents, 
 leaving William satisfied but not over-confident. Edward the 
 Confessor died on the 5th of January, 1066 ; the very day after 
 the celebration of his obsequies Harold was proclaimed king, amidst 
 no small public disquietude, and Aldred, archbishop of York, lost 
 no time in anointing him. 
 
 On receiving this uiilooked for piece of intelligence William Harold 
 gathered together his most important and most trusted counsellors ; Proclaimed 
 and they were unanimous in urging him to resent the perjury and 
 injury. He sent to Harold a messenger charged to say, " William, 
 duke of the Normans, doth recall to thee the oath thou swarest to 
 him with thy mouth and with thy hand, on real and saintly 
 relics." " It is true," answered Harold, " that I sware, but on 
 compulsion ; I promised what did not belong to me ; my kingship 
 is not mine own ; I cannot put it off from me without the consent 
 of the country. I cannot any the more, without the consent of 
 the country, espouse a foreigner. As for my sister, whom the 
 duke claims for one of his chieftains, she died within the year ; 
 if he will, I will send him the corpse." William replied without 
 any violence, claiming the conditions sworn, and specially Harold's 
 marriage with his daughter Adele. For all answer to this summons 
 Harold married a Saxon, sister of two powerful Saxon chieftains, 
 Edwin and Morkar. There was an open rupture ; and William 
 swore that " within the year he would go and claim, at the sword's 
 point, payment of what was due to him, on the very spot where 
 Harold thought himself to be most firm on his feet." 
 
 Dives was the place of assemblage appointed for fleet and army. A.D. 1066. 
 William repaired thither about the end of August, 1066. But for ^ns^tart 
 several weeks contrary winds prevented him from putting to sea ; for Eng- 
 some vessels which made the attempt perished in the tempest ; land> 
 and some of the volunteer adventurers got disgusted, and deserted. 
 William maintained strict discipline amongst this multitude, forbid- 
 ding plunder so strictly that " the cattle fed in the fields in full 
 security." The soldiers grew tired of waiting in idleness and often 
 in sickness. " Yon is a madman," said they, " who is minded to 
 possess himself of another's land ; God is against the design and so 
 refuses us a wind." About the 20th of September the weather 
 
History of France. 
 
 Landing 
 at Peven- 
 aey. 
 
 Harold 
 defeats 
 Tostig. 
 
 changed. The fleet got ready, but could only go and anchor at 
 St. Yalery, at the mouth of the Somme. There it was necessary to 
 wait several more days ; impatience and disquietude were redoubled; 
 " and there appeared in the heavens a star with a tail, a certain 
 sign of great things to come." William had the shrine of St. Yalery 
 brought out and paraded about, being more impatient in his soul 
 than any body, but more confident in his will and his good 
 fortune. There was brought to him a spy whom Harold had sent 
 to watch the forces and plans of the enemy; and William dis- 
 missed him, saying, " Harold hath no need to take any care or be 
 at any charges to know how we be and what we be doing ; he shall 
 see for himself, and shall feel before the end of the year." At last, 
 on the 27th of September, 1066, the sun rose on a calm sea and 
 with a favourable wind ; and towards evening the fleet set out. 
 The Mora, the vessel on which William was, and which had been 
 given to him by his wife Matilda, led the way ; and a figure in 
 gilded bronze, some say in gold, representing their youngest son 
 William, had been placed on the prow, with the face towards 
 England. Being a better sailor than the others, this ship was soon 
 a long way ahead ; and William had a mariner sent to the top of 
 the mainmast to see if the fleet were following. ' " I see naught but 
 sea and sky," said the mariner. William had the ship brought to ; 
 and the second time the mariner said, " I see four ships." Before 
 long he cried, " I see a forest of masts and sails." On the 29th of 
 September, St. Michael's-day, the expedition arrived off the coast 
 of England, at Pevensey, near Hastings, and " when the tide had 
 ebbed and the ships remained aground on the strand," says the 
 chronicle, the landing was effected without obstacle ; not a Saxon 
 soldier appeared on the coast. William was the last to leave his 
 ship ; and on setting foot on the sand he made a false step and 
 fell. "Bad sign !" was muttered around him; "God have us in 
 His keeping !" "What say you, lords !" cried William: "by the 
 glory of God I have grasped this land with my hands ; all that 
 there is of it is ours." 
 
 Whilst William was making for the southern coast of England, 
 Harold was repairing by forced marches to the north, in order to 
 defend, against the rebellion of his brother Tostig and the invasion 
 of a Norwegian army, his short-lived kingship, thus menaced, at 
 two ends of the country, by two formidable enemies. On the 25th 
 of September, 1066, he gained at York a brilliant victory over his 
 northern foe ; and, wounded as he was, he no sooner learnt that Duke 
 William had on the 29th pitched his camp and planted his flag at 
 Pevensey, than he set out in haste for the south. 
 
Victory of the Normans. 7 1 
 
 On the eve of the battle, the Saxons passed the night in amuse- October 14. 
 ment, eating, drinking, and singing, with great uproar ; the Battle of 
 Normans, on the contrary, were preparing their arms, saying their 
 prayers, and " confessing to their priests all who would." On the 
 14th of October, 1066, when Duke William put on his armour, his 
 coat of mail was given to him the wrong way. "Bad omen!" 
 cried some of his people : " if such a thing had happened to us, we 
 would not fight to-day." " Be not disquieted," said the duke : 
 " I have never believed in sorcerers and diviners, and I never liked 
 them ; I believe in God, and in Him I put my trust." He as- 
 sembled his men-at-arms, and " setting himself upon a high place, 
 so that all might hear him," he said to them, " My true and loyal 
 friends, ye have crossed the seas for love of me, and for that I 
 cannot thank ye as I ought ; but I will make what return I may, 
 and what I have ye shall have. I am not come only to take what 
 I demanded or to get my rights, but to punish felonies, treasons, 
 and breaches of faith committed against our people by the men of 
 this country. Think, moreover, what great honour ye will have to- 
 day if the day be ours. And bethink ye that, if ye be discomfited, 
 ye be dead men without help ; for ye have not whither ye may 
 retreat, seeing that our ships be broken up and our mariners be 
 here with us. He who flies will be a dead man ; he who fights 
 will be saved. For God's sake, let each man do his duty ; trust 
 we in God, and the day will be ours." 
 
 The address was too long for the duke's faithful comrade, 
 William Fitz-Osbern. " My lord," said he, " we dally ; let us all 
 to arms and forward, forward ! " The army got in motion, starting 
 from the hill of Telham or Heathland, according to Mr. Freeman, 
 marching to. attack the English on the opposite hill of Senlac. 
 A IT ornian, called Taillefer, " who sang very well, and rode a horse 
 which was very fast, came up to the duke. ' My lord,' said he, 
 * I have served you long, and you owe me for all my service : pay 
 me to-day, an it please you ; grant unto me, for recompense in full, 
 to strike the first blow in the battle.' 'I grant it,' quoth the 
 duke. So Taillefer darted before him, singing the deeds of Charle- 
 magne, of Roland, of Oliver, and of the vassals who fell at 
 Eoncesvalles." As he sang, he played with his sword, throwing it 
 up into the air and catching it in his right hand ; and the Normans 
 followed, repeating his songs, and crying, " God help ! God help !" 
 The English, intrenched upon a plateau towards which the Nor- 
 mans were ascending, awaited the assault, shouting and defying 
 the foe. 
 
 The battle, thus begun, lasted nine hours with equal obstinacy 
 on both sides, and varied success from hour to hour ; it ended, how- 
 
72 History of France. 
 
 ever, in the defeat of the English ; their intrenchments were stormed. 
 Harold fell mortally wounded by an arrow which pierced his skull; 
 his two brothers and his bravest comrades fell at his side; the 
 fight was prolonged between the English dispersed and the Nor- 
 mans pursuing; the standard sent from Eome to the Duke of 
 Normandy had replaced the Saxon flag OD the very spot where 
 Harold had fallen ; and all around, the ground continued to get 
 covered with dead and dying, fruitless victims of the passion's of 
 the combatants. Next day William went over the field of battle ; 
 and he was heard to say in a tone of mingled triumph and sorrow, 
 " Here is verily a lake of blood ! " 
 
 There was, long after the battle of Senlac or Hastings, as it is 
 commonly called, a patriotic superstition in the country to the 
 effect that, when the rain had moistened the soil, there were to be 
 seen traces of blood on the ground where it had taken place. 
 Conse- It was not every thing, however, to be victorious, it was still 
 n ^ e j! Lj f necessary to be recognized as king. When the news of the defeat 
 ' at Hastings and the death of Harold was spread abroad in the 
 country, the emotion was lively and seemed to be profound ; the 
 great Saxon national council, the Wittenag emote, assembled at 
 London ; the remnants of the Saxon army rallied there ; and search 
 was made for other kings than the Norman duke. Harold left two 
 sons, very young and not in a condition to reign ; but his two 
 brothers-in-law, Edwin and Morkar, held dominion in the north of 
 England, whilst the southern provinces, and amongst them the 
 city of London, had a popular aspirant, a nephew of Edward the 
 Confessor, in Edgar surnamed Atheling (the noble, the illustrious}, 
 as the descendant of several kings. What with these different pre- 
 tensions, there was discussion, hesitation, and delay ; but at last 
 the young Edgar prevailed, and was proclaimed king. Meanwhile 
 William was advancing with his army, slowly, prudently, as a man 
 resolved to risk nothing and calculating upon the natural results of 
 his victory. At some points he encountered attempts at resistance, 
 but he easily overcame them, occupied successively Eomney, Dover, 
 Canterbury, and Eochester, appeared before London without trying 
 to enter it, and moved on Winchester, which was the residence of 
 Edward the Confessor's widow, Queen Editha, who had received 
 that important city as dowry. Through respect for her, William, 
 who presented himself in the character of relative and heir of King 
 Edward, did not enter the place, and merely called upon the in- 
 habitants to take the oath of allegiance to him and do him homage, 
 which they did with the queen's consent. The Archbishops of 
 Canterbury and York, many other prelates and laic chieftains, the 
 principal citizens of London, the two brothers-in-law of Harold, 
 
The Crusades. 73 
 
 Edwin and Morkar, and the young king of yesterday, Edgar 
 Atheling himself, having tendered their submission to the conqueror, 
 William entered London, and fixed for his coronation upon Decem- 
 Christmas-day, December 25th, 1066. Either by desire of the JjJ^ 
 prelate himself or by William's own order, it was not the Arch- tion of 
 bishop of Canterbury, Stigand, who presided, according to custom, William, 
 at the ceremony ; the duty devolved upon the Archbishop of York, 
 Aldred, who had but lately anointed Edgar Atheling. At the 
 appointed hour, William arrived at Westminster Abbey, the latest 
 work and the burial-place of Edward the Confessor. The Con- 
 queror marched between two hedges of Norman soldiers, behind 
 whom stood a crowd of people, cold and sad, though full of 
 curiosity. A numerous cavalry guarded the approaches to the 
 church and the quarters adjoining. Two hundred and sixty counts, 
 barons, and knights of Normandy went in with the duke. Geoffrey, 
 bishop of Coutances, demanded, in French, of the Normans, if they 
 would that their duke should take the title of King of the English. 
 The Archbishop of York demanded of the English, in the Saxon 
 tongue, if they would have for king the Duke of Normandy. 
 Noisy acclamations arose in the church and resounded outside. 
 The soldiery, posted in the neighbourhood, took the confused roar 
 for a symptom of something wrong and in their suspicious rage set 
 fire to the neighbouring houses. The flames spread rapidly. The 
 people who were rejoicing in the church caught the alarm, and a 
 multitude of men and women of every rank flung themselves out 
 of the edifice. Alone and trembling, the bishops with some clerics 
 and monks remained before the altar and accomplished the work of 
 anointment upon the king's head, "himself trembling," says the 
 chronicle. Nearly all the rest who were present ran to the fire, 
 some to extinguish it, others to steal and pillage in the midst of 
 the consternation. William terminated the ceremony by taking the 
 usual oath of Saxon kings at their coronation, adding thereto, as 
 of his own motion, a promise to treat the English people according 
 to their own laws and as well as they had ever been treated by the 
 best of their own kings. Then he went forth from the church 
 King of England. 
 
 Amongst the great events of European history none was for a The cm- 
 longer time in preparation or more naturally brought about than sades - 
 the Crusades. Christianity, from her earliest days, had seen in 
 Jerusalem her sacred cradle ; it had been, in past times, the home 
 of her ancestors, the Jews, and the centre of their history ; and, 
 afterwards, the scene of the life, death, and resurrection of her 
 Divine Eounder. Jerusalem became more and more the Holy 
 
74 History of France. 
 
 City. To go to Jerusalem, to visit the Mount of Olives, Calvary, 
 and the tomb of Jesus, was, in their most evil days and in the 
 midst of their obscurity and their martyrdoms, a pious passion 
 with the early Christians. Events, however, soon rendered the 
 pilgrimage to Jerusalem difficult, and for some time impossible ; 
 the Mussulmans, khalifs of Egypt or Persia, had taken Jerusalem ; 
 and the Christians, native inhabitants or foreign visitors, continued 
 to be oppressed, harassed, and humiliated there. At two periods 
 Condition their condition was temporarily better. At the commencement of 
 Christians t ^ ie n i ntn century, Charlemagne reached even there with the great- 
 in ness of his mind and of his power ; he kept up so close a friend- 
 a es ine. ^p w ^ n Haroun-al-Raschid, king of Persia, that this prince 
 preferred his good graces to the alliance of the sovereigns of the 
 earth. Accordingly, when the ambassadors whom Charles had 
 sent, with presents, to visit the sacred tomb of our divine Saviour 
 and the site of the resurrection, presented themselves before him 
 and expounded to him their master's wish, Haroun did not content 
 himself with entertaining Charles's request, he wished, besides, to 
 give up to him the complete proprietorship of those places hallowed 
 by the certification of our redemption, and he sent him, with the 
 most magnificent presents, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. At 
 the end of the same century, another Christian sovereign, far less 
 powerful and less famous, John Zimisces, emperor of Constantinople, 
 in a war against the Mussulmans of Asia, penetrated into Galilee, 
 made himself master of Tiberias, Nazareth, and Mount Tabor, 
 received a deputation which brought him the keys of Jerusalem, 
 " and we have placed," he says himself, " garrisons in all the dis- 
 trict lately subjected to our rule." These were but strokes of 
 foreign intervention giving the Christians of Jerusalem gleams of 
 hope rather than lasting diminution of their miseries. However, 
 it is certain that, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, 
 pilgrimages multiplied and were often accomplished without obstacle. 
 At last the crusading movement was brought about by the preach- 
 ing of an obscure pilgrim, at first a soldier, then a married man and 
 father of several children, then a monk and a vowed recluse, Peter 
 the Hermit, who was born in the neighbourhood of Amiens, about 
 1050, and who had gone, as so many others had, to Jerusalem "to 
 say his prayers there." 
 
 A.D. 1095. In 1095, Pope Urban II. was at Clermont, in Auvergne, pre- 
 Council of giving a t the grand council, at which thirteen archbishops and two 
 Peter the* hundred and five bishops or abbots were met together, with so many 
 Hermit princes and lay-lords, that " about the middle of the month of 
 the^cru- November the towns and villages of the neighbourhood were full of 
 sade. 
 
Preaching of the Crusade. 75 
 
 people, and divers were constrained to have their tents and 
 pavilions set up amidst the fields and meadows, notwithstanding 
 that the season and the country were cold to an extreme." The 
 first nine sessions of the council were devoted to the affairs of the 
 Church in the West ; but at the tenth Jerusalem and the Christians 
 of the East became the subject of deliberation. The Pope went 
 out of the church wherein the Council was assembled and mounted 
 a platform erected upon a vast open space in the midst of the 
 throng. Peter the Hermit, standing at his side, spoke first, and 
 told the story of his sojourn at Jerusalem, all he had seen of the 
 miseries and humiliations of the Christians, and all he himself had 
 suffered there, for he had been made to pay tribute for admission 
 into the Holy City, and for gazing upon the spectacle of the 
 exactions, insults, and tortures he was recounting. After him Speech of 
 Pope Urban II. spoke, in the French tongue, no doubt, as Peter - 
 had spoken, for he was himself a Frenchman, as the majority of 
 those present were, grandees and populace. He made a long speech, 
 entering upon the most painful details connected with the sufferings 
 of the Christians of Jerusalem, " that royal city which the Re- 
 deemer of the human race had made illustrious by His coming, had 
 honoured by His residence, had hallowed by His passion, had pur- 
 chased by His death, had distinguished by His burial. She now 
 demands of you her deliverance .... men of France, men from 
 beyond the mountains, nations chosen and beloved of God, right 
 valiant knights, recall the virtues of your ancestors, the virtue and 
 greatness of King Charlemagne and your other kings ; it is from 
 you above all that Jerusalem awaits the help she invokes, for to 
 you, above all nations, God has vouchsafed signal glory in arms. 
 Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalem for the remission of your 
 sins, and depart assured of the imperishable glory which awaits 
 you in the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 From the midst of the throng arose one prolonged and general Enthu- 
 shout, " God willeth it ! God willeth it ! " The pope paused for siasm of 
 a moment ; and then, making a sign with his hand as if to ask 
 for silence, he continued, " If the Lord God were not in your 
 souls, ye would not all have uttered the same words. In the 
 battle, then, be those your war-cry, those words that came from 
 God -, in the army of the Lord let naught be heard but that one 
 shout, ' God willeth it ! God willeth it ! ' We ordain not, and we 
 advise not that the journey be undertaken by the old or the weak, 
 or such as be not suited for arms, and let not women set out 
 without their husbands or their brothers ; let the rich help the 
 poor; nor priests nor clerks may go without the leave of their 
 
76 History of France. 
 
 bishops ; and no layman shall commence the march save with the 
 "blessing of his pastor. Whosoever hath a wish to enter upon this 
 pilgrimage let him wear upon his hrow or his breast the cross of 
 the Lord, and let him who, in accomplishment of his desire, shall 
 be willing to march away, place the cross behind him, between his 
 shoulders ; for thus he will fulfil the precept of the Lord, who 
 said, ' He that doth not take up his cross and follow Me, is not 
 worthy of Me.' " 
 
 The enthusiasm was general and contagious, as the first shout of 
 the crowd had been; and a pious prelate, Adhemar, bishop ofPuy, 
 was the first to receive the cross from the pope's hands. It was of 
 red cloth or silk, sewn upon the right shoulder of the coat or cloak, 
 or fastened on the front of the helmet. The crowd dispersed to 
 assume it and spread it. 
 
 Motives of Religious enthusiasm was not the only, but the first and the de- 
 Bades" termining motive of the crusade ; we must add to it the still vivid 
 recollection of the evils caused to the Christians of the west by 
 the Mussulman invasions in France, Spain and Italy, and the fear 
 of seeing them begin again. Finally, there was no doubt a great 
 motive power in the spirit of adventure and the love of enterprise 
 which characterize times of intellectual sloth and of partly mono- 
 tonous existence. 
 
 A.D. 1096. As early as the 8th of March, 109G, and in the course of the 
 s P r i n o three mobs rather than armies, amounting to three hundred 
 thousand men, set out under the command of Peter the Hermit, 
 Walter the Moneyless and other enthusiasts of the same rank. 
 Peter walked at its head, with a rope about his waist, exhibiting every 
 mark of monkish austerity ; he took the road to Constantinople, but 
 as no provision was made for the subsistence of the army on its 
 march, its disorder was extreme ; being constrained to exist by 
 plunder, it first fell upon the Jews, and twelve thousand of that 
 unfortunate nation were massacred in Bavaria alone, but as all the 
 provinces did not abound in Jews to be robbed, the inhabitants 
 attacked this unprovided body of crusaders, and slaughtered vast 
 numbers; the remainder at length arrived at Jerusalem. The 
 emperor Alexius Comnenus wisely assisted this formidable rabble 
 to pass the Bosphorus with all convenient speed. As soon as they 
 arrived on the plains of Asia, they were attacked by Soleyman, the 
 Turkish sultan, and the chief part slain almost without resistance. 
 Amongst the leaders fell Walter the Moneyless, who it is said had 
 really acquired a considerable portion of military skill. Peter the 
 Hermit found his way back to Constantinople, and indeed was 
 afterwards present at the capture of the Holy Sepulchre. The more 
 
The Crusaders at Jerusalem. 77 
 
 disciplined armies soon after arrived at the Imperial city, 
 under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon, a prince of Brabant ; 
 the counts of Yermandois and Toulouse ; Robert, Duke of Nor- 
 mandy ; Robert, earl of Flanders ; and various other leaders of dis- 
 tinction. The soldiers of the Cross, when mustered on the banks of 
 the Bosphorus, amounted to the amazing number of one hundred 
 thousand horse and six hundred thousand foot. Notwithanding 
 the intractable spirit and want of discipline in the Crusaders, yet 
 their zeal, courage and force carried them irresistibly forward to the 
 completion of their enterprise. With infinite jealousy and alarm, 
 the Greek emperor Alexius Comnenus beheld this mighty host in 
 the neighbourhood of his capital, and his fleet was again put into 
 requisition. The first attempt of he Crusaders was against the 
 ancient city of Mcomedia : assisted by the emperor, they became 
 masters of the place in seven weeks. After crossing the lesser 
 Asia, they defeated Soleyman in the great battle of Doryloeum, and 
 in the month of October besieged Antioch, which, after a siege of 
 incredible labour and difficulty, surrendered to their persevering 
 efforts in the following June (1098). 
 
 The Crusaders were now reduced to an effective force no greater 
 than twenty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse, and it was a 
 year from the capture of Antioch before they found themselves in 
 a condition to attack Jerusalem, which city, after siege of five 
 weeks, was taken by storm. On the 14th of July, 1099, at day- A.D. 1099. 
 break, the assault began at divers points ; and next day, Friday, Jerusalem, 
 the 15th of July, at three in the afternoon, exactly at the hour at 
 which, according to Holy Writ, Jesus Christ had yielded up the 
 ghost, saying, " Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit," 
 Jerusalem was completely in the hands of the crusaders. We have 
 no heart to dwell on the massacres which accompanied the victory 
 so dearly purchased by the conquerors. The historians, Latin or 
 Oriental, set down at 70,000 the number of Mussulmans massacred 
 on the ramparts, in the mosques, in the streets, underground, and 
 wherever they had attempted to find refuge : a number exceeding 
 that of the armed inhabitants and the garrison of the city. Battle- 
 madness, thirst for vengeance, ferocity, brutality, greed, and every 
 hateful passion were satiated without scruple, in the name of their 
 holy cause. When they were weary of slaughter, " orders were 
 given," says Robert the monk, " to those of the Saracens who re- 
 mained alive and were reserved for slavery, to clean the city, 
 remove from it the dead, and purify it from all traces of such fearful 
 carnage. They promptly obeyed ; removed, with tears, the dead ; 
 erected outside the gates dead-houses fashioned like citadels or 
 
7 8 History of France. 
 
 defensive buildings ; collected in baskets dissevered limbs ; carried 
 them away, and washed off the blood which stained the floors of 
 temples and houses." 
 
 Eight or ten days after the capture of Jerusalem, the crusader- 
 chiefs, assembled to deliberate upon the election of a king of their 
 prize. There were several who were suggested for it and might 
 have pretended to it. Robert Slwrthose, duke of Normandy, gave 
 an absolute refusal, "liking better," says an English chronicler, 
 " to give himself up to repose and indolence in Normandy than to 
 serve as a soldier the King of kings : for which God never forgave 
 him." Raymond, count of Toulouse, was already advanced in 
 years, and declared " that he would have a horror of bearing the 
 name of king in Jerusalem, but that he would give his consent 
 to the election of any one else." Tancred was and wished to 
 
 Bouillon* 6 ^ e nly the first f kni hts * Godfrey de Bouillon the more 
 elected easily united votes in that he did not seek them. He was 
 valiant, discreet, worthy, and modest ; and his own servants, being 
 privately sounded, testified to his possession of the virtues which 
 are put in practice without any show. He was elected King of 
 Jerusalem, and he accepted the burden whilst refusing the insignia. 
 "I will never wear a crown of gold," he said, "in the place 
 where the Saviour of the world was crowned with thorns." And 
 he assumed only the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy 
 Sepulchre. 
 
 It is a common belief amongst historians that, after the capture 
 of Jerusalem, and the election of her king, Peter the Hermit 
 entirely disappeared from history. It is true that he no longer 
 A D 1115 P^ a y e ^ an ac ti ye part, and that, 011 returning to Europe, he went 
 Death of ' into retirement near Huy, in the diocese of Liege, where he founded 
 Peter the a monastery, and where he died on the llth of July, 1115. But 
 William of Tyre bears witness that Peter's contemporaries were 
 not ungrateful to him, and did not forget him when he had done 
 his work. " The faithful," says he, " dwellers at Jerusalem, who 
 four or five years before had seen the venerable Peter there, re- 
 cognizing at that time in the same city him to whom the patriarch 
 had committed letters invoking the aid of the princes of the West, 
 bent the knee before him, and offered him their respects in all 
 humility. They recalled to mind the circumstances of his first 
 voyage ; and they praised the Lord who had endowed him with 
 effectual power of speech and with strength to rouse up nations 
 and kings to bear so many and such long toils for love of the 
 name of Christ. Both in private and in public all the faithful 
 at Jerusalem exerted themselves to reader to Peter the Hermit the 
 
First results of the Crusades. 79 
 
 highest honours, and attributed to him alone, after God, their 
 happiness in having escaped from the hard servitude under which 
 they had been for so many years groaning, and in seeing the holy 
 city recovering her ancient freedom." 
 
 In the month of August, 1099, the Crusade, to judge by ap- First re- 
 pearances, had attained its object. Jerusalem was in the hands of suits of the 
 the Christians, and they had set up in it a king, the most pious 
 and most disinterested of the crusaders. Close to this ancient 
 kingdom were growing up likewise, in the two chief cities of 
 Syria and Mesopotamia, Antioch and Edessa, two Christian prin- 
 cipalities, in the possession of two crusader-chiefs, Bohemond 
 and Baldwin. A third Christian principality was on the point of 
 getting founded at the foot of Libanus, at Tripolis, for the advan- 
 tage of another crusader, Bertrand, eldest son of Count Raymond 
 of Toulouse. The conquest of Syria and Palestine seemed accom- 
 plished, in the name of the faith, and by the armies of Christian 
 Europe ; and the conquerors calculated so surely upon their fixture 
 that, during his reign, short as it was (for he was elected king 
 July 23, 1099, and died July 18, 1100, aged only forty years), 
 Godfrey de Bouillon caused to be drawn up and published, under 
 the title of Assizes of Jerusalem, a code of laws, which transferred 
 to Asia the customs and traditions of the feudal system, just as 
 they existed in France at the moment of his departure for the 
 Holy Land. 
 
 Eorty-six years afterwards, in 1145, the Mussulmans, under the Saladin*s 
 leadership of Zanghi, sultan of Aleppo and of Mossoul, had retaken successes. 
 Edessa. Eorty-two years after that, in 1187, Saladin (Salah-el 
 Eddyn), sultan of Egypt and of Syria, had put an end to the 
 Christian kingdom of Jerusalem ; and only seven years later, in 
 1194, Eichard Coeur de Lion, king of England, after the most 
 heroic exploits in Palestine, on arriving in sight of Jerusalem, 
 retreated in despair, covering his eyes with his shield, and saying 
 that he was not worthy to look upon the city which he was not in 
 a condition to conquer. When he re-embarked at St. Jean d'Acre, 
 casting a last glance and stretching out his arms towards the 
 coast, he cried, " Most Holy Land, I commend thee to the care 
 of the Almighty and may he grant me long life enough to return 
 hither and deliver thee from the yoke of the infidels ! " A century 
 had not yet rolled by since the triumph of the first crusaders, and 
 the dominion they had acquired by conquest in the Holy Land 
 had become, even in the eyes of their most valiant and most 
 powerful successors, an impossibility. 
 
 Nevertheless, repeated efforts and glory and even victories were 
 
So History of France. 
 
 not then, and were not to be still later, unknown amongst the 
 Christians in their struggle against the Mussulmans for the 
 A.D. 1099 possession of the Holy Land. In the space of a hundred and 
 Seven cm- sevent y- n e years, from the coronation of Godfrey de Bouillon as 
 sades take king of Jerusalem, in 1099, to the death of St. Louis, wearing the 
 place. cross before Tunis, in 1270, seven grand crusades were under- 
 taken with the same design by the greatest sovereigns of Christian 
 Europe; the Kings of France and England, the Emperors of 
 Germany, the King of Denmark, and princes of Italy successively 
 engaged therein. And they all failed. It was in France, by the 
 French people, and under French chiefs, that the crusades were 
 begun ; and it was with St. Louis, dying before Tunis beneath the 
 banner of the cross, that they came to an end. They received in 
 the history of Europe the glorious name of Gesta Dei per Francos 
 (God's works by French hands) ; and they have a right to keep, 
 in the history of France, the place they really occupied. 
 Causes of During a reign of twenty-nine years, Louis VI., called the Fat t 
 crusade. son f Philip I., did not trouble himself about the East or the 
 crusades, at that time in all their fame and renown. Being rather 
 a man of sense than an enthusiast in the cause either of piety or 
 glory, he gave all his attention to the establishment of some order, 
 justice, and royal authority in his as yet far from extensive king- 
 dom. A tragic incident, however, gave the crusade chief place in 
 the thoughts and life of his son, Louis VII., called the Young, 
 who succeeded him in 1137. He got himself rashly embroiled, in 
 1142, in a quarrel with Pope Innocent II., on the subject of the 
 election of the Archbishop of Bourges. The pope and the king 
 had each a different candidate for the see. "The king is a child," 
 said the pope ; "he must get schooling, and be kept from learning 
 bad habits." " Never, so long as I live," said the king, " shall 
 Peter de la Chatre (the pope's candidate) enter the city of Bourges." 
 The chapter of Bourges, thinking as the pope thought, elected 
 Peter de la Chatre ; and Theobald II., count of Champagne, took 
 sides for the archbishop elect. " Mind your own business," said 
 the king to him j your dominions are large enough to occupy 
 you ; and leave me to govern my own as I have a mind." Theobald 
 persisted in backing the elect of pope and chapter. The pope 
 excommunicated the king. The king declared war against the 
 Count of Champagne ; and went and besieged Vitry. Nearly all 
 the town was built of wood, and the besiegers set fire to it. The 
 besieged fled for refuge to a church, in which they were invested ; 
 and the fire reached the church, which was entirely consumed, 
 together with the thirteen hundred inhabitants, men, women, and 
 
GERLERT. 
 
 81. 
 
The Crusades. Si 
 
 children, who had retreated thither. Then, by way of expiating 
 so foul an act of cruelty, Louis the young joined with the Emperor 
 Conrad III. in carrying on the second crusade, which was preached 
 at Vezelay by the abbot of Clairvaux, the celebrated St. Bernard. 
 
 Having each a strength, it is said, of 100,000 men, the two A.D. 1147. 
 monarchs marched by Germany and the Lower Danube, at an The . Fren ^ 
 interval of two months between them, without committing irregu- Constanti- 
 larities and without meeting obstacles so serious as those of the n ple. 
 first crusade, but still much incommoded and subjected to great 
 hardships in the countries they traversed. The Emperor Conrad 
 and the Germans first, and then King Louis and the French 
 arrived at Constantinople in the cqurse of the summer of 1147. 
 Manuel Comnenus, grandson of Alexis Comnenus, was reigning 
 there ; and he behaved towards the crusaders with the same mix- 
 ture of caresses and malevolence, promises and perfidy as had 
 distinguished his grandfather. " There is no ill turn he did not do 
 them," says the historian Nicetas, himself a Greek. Conrad was 
 the first to cross into Asia Minor, and, whether it were unskil- 
 fulness or treason, the guides with whom he had been supplied by 
 Manuel Comnenus led him so badly that, on the 28th of October, 
 1147, he was surprised and shockingly beaten by the Turks, near 
 Iconium. An utter distrust of Greeks grew up amongst the 
 French, who had not yet left Constantinople ; and some of their 
 chiefs and even one of their prelates, the Bishop of Langres, 
 proposed to make, without further delay, an end of it with this 
 emperor and empire, so treacherously hostile, and to take Constan- 
 stinople in order to march more securely upon Jerusalem. But 
 King Louis and the majority of his knights turned a deaf ear; 
 accordingly, they continued their march across Asia Minor and 
 gained in Phrygia, at the passage of the river Meander, so brilliant Passage of 
 a victory over the Turks that, " if such men," says the historian the Mean- 
 Nicetas, "abstained from taking Constantinople, one cannot but er * 
 admire their moderation and forbearance." But the success was 
 short, and, ere long, dearly paid for. On entering Pisidia, the 
 French army split up into two, and afterwards into several 
 divisions, which scattered and lost themselves in the defiles of the 
 mountains. The Turks waited for them, and attacked them at the 
 mouths and from the top of the passes ; before long there was 
 nothing but disorder and carnage ; the little band which surrounded 
 the king was cut to pieces at his side ; and Louis himself, with his 
 back against a rock, defended himself, alone, for some minutes, 
 against several Turks, till they, not knowing who he was, drew off, 
 whereupon he, suddenly throwing himself upon a stray horse, 
 
82 History of France. 
 
 rejoined his advanced guard, who believed him dead. The army 
 continued their march pell-mell, king, barons, knights, soldiers, and 
 pilgrims, uncertain day by day what would become of them on the 
 morrow. The Turks harassed them afield ; the towns in which 
 there were Greek governors residing refused to receive them ; 
 provisions fell short ; arms and baggage were abandoned on the 
 road. On arriving in Pamphilia, at Satalia, a little port on the 
 Mediterranean, the impossibility of thus proceeding became 
 evident ; they were still, by land, forty days' march from Antioch, 
 whereas it required but three to get there by sea. Louis embarked 
 with his queen, Eleanor, and his principal knights ; and towards 
 the end of March, 1148, he arrived at Antioch, having lost more 
 than three quarters of his army. 
 
 A.D. 1148. Raymond of Poitiers, at that time Prince of Antioch, by his 
 
 Differences marriage with Constance, grand-daughter of the great Bohemond of 
 
 theldnff ^ e ^ rs ^ crusade, was uncle to the Queen of France, Eleanor of 
 
 of France Aquitaine. He had at heart, beyond every thing, the conquest of 
 
 L ueen Aleppo and Caesarea. In this design the King of France and 
 
 Eleanor, the crusaders who were still about him might be of real service ; 
 
 and he attempted to win them over. Louis answered that he 
 
 would engage in no enterprise until he had visited the holy places. 
 
 Raymond was impetuous, irritable, and as unreasonable in his 
 
 desires as unfortunate in his undertakings. He had quickly 
 
 acquired great influence over his niece, Queen Eleanor ; and he 
 
 had no difficulty in winning her over to his plans. When the 
 
 king, her husband, spoke to her of approaching departure, she 
 
 emphatically refused, and, to justify her opposition, she declared 
 
 that they could no longer live together, as there was, she asserted, 
 
 a prohibited degree of consanguinity between them. Austere in 
 
 morals, easily jealous, and religiously scrupulous, Louis was for a 
 
 moment on the point of separating from his wife ; but the counsels 
 
 of his chief barons dissuaded him, and, thereupon, taking a sudden 
 
 resolution, he set out from Antioch secretly, by night, carrying off 
 
 the queen almost by force. 
 
 Louis VII On approaching Jerusalem, in the month of April, 1148, 
 arrives at Louis YII. saw coming to meet him King Baldwin III., and the 
 Jerusalem, pafo.^^ an( j the people, singing, " Blessed be he that cometh in 
 the name of the Lord ! " at the same time arrived from Con- 
 stantinople the Emperor Conrad, almost alone and in the guise of 
 a simple pilgrim. All the remnant of the crusaders, French and 
 German, hurried to join them. They decided upon the siege of 
 Siege of Damascus, the most important and the nearest of the Mussulman 
 Damascus, princedoms in Syria, and in the early part of June they moved 
 
Suger. 83 
 
 thither with forces incomplete and illunited. Neither the Prince 
 of Antioch nor the Counts of Edessa and Tripolis had been 
 summoned to St. Jean d'Acre ; and Queen Eleanor had not 
 appeared. At the first attack, the ardour of the assailants and the 
 brilliant personal prowess of their chiefs, of the Emperor Conrad 
 amongst others, struck surprise and consternation into the be- 
 sieged, who, foreseeing the necessity of abandoning their city, laid 
 across the streets beams, chains, and heaps of stones, to stop the 
 progress of the conquerors, and give themselves time for flying, 
 with their families and their wealth, by the northern and southern 
 gates. But personal interest and secret negotiations before long 
 brought into the Christian camp weakness together with discord ; 
 finally the crusader-sovereigns raised the siege, and returned to 
 Jerusalem. The Emperor Conrad, in indignation and confusion, 
 set out precipitately to return to Germany. King Louis could not 
 make up his mind thus to quit the Holy Land in disgrace and 
 without doing any thing for its deliverance. He prolonged his 
 stay there for more than a year without any thing to show for his 
 time and zeal ; urged, however, by the repeated entreaties of his 
 minister Suger, he at length made up his mind, embarked at 
 St. Jean d'Acre at the commencement of July, 1149 ; and dis- 
 embarked in the month of October at the port of St. Gilles, at the Louis VIl'. 
 mouth of the Khone. returns to 
 
 This preference and this confidence were no more than Louis VII. A^IQW 
 owed to Suger. The Abbot of St. Denis, after having opposed 1152. 
 the crusade with a freedom of spirit and a farsightedness unique, E 
 perhaps, in his times, had, during the king's absence, borne the racter, 
 weight of government with a political tact, a firmness and a dis- 
 interestedness rare in any times. He had upheld the authority of 
 absent royalty, kept down the pretensions of vassals, and established 
 some degree of order wherever his influence could reach ; he had 
 provided for the king's expenses in Palestine by good adminis- 
 tration of the domains and revenues of the crown ; and, lastly, he 
 had acquired such renown in Europe, that men came from Italy 
 and from England to view the salutary effects of his government, 
 and that the name of Solomon of his age was conferred upon him 
 by strangers, his contemporaries. With the exception of great 
 sovereigns, such as Charlemagne or William the Conqueror, only 
 great bishops or learned theologians, and that by their influence in 
 the Church, or by their writings, had obtained this European 
 reputation ; from the ninth to the twelfth century, Suger was the 
 first man who attained to it by the sole merit of his political 
 conduct, and who offered an example of a minister justly admired, 
 for his ability and wisdom, beyond the circle in which he moved. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 History of France. 
 
 He died in 1152, aged seventy, and "thanking the Almighty," 
 says his "biographer, " for having taken him to Him, not suddenly 
 "but little by little, in order to bring him step by step to the rest 
 needful for the weary man." It is said that, in his last days and 
 when St. Bernard was exhorting him not to think any more save 
 only of the heavenly Jerusalem, Suger still expressed to him his 
 regret at dying without having succoured the city which was so 
 dear to them both. 
 
 Council of Almost at the very moment when Suger was dying, a French 
 Beaugency counci^ assembled at Beaugency, was annulling, on the ground of 
 prohibited consanguinity, and with the tacit consent of the two 
 persons most concerned, the marriage of Louis VII. and Eleanor of 
 Aquitaine. Some months afterwards, at Whitsuntide in the 
 same year, Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Count of 
 Anjou, espoused Eleanor, thus adding to his already great pos- 
 sessions Poitou and Aquitaine, and becoming, in France, a vassal 
 more powerful than the king his suzerain. Twenty months later, 
 in 1154, at the death of King Stephen, Henry Plantagenet became 
 King of England ; and thus there was a recurrence, in an aggravated 
 form, of the position which had been filled by William the Con- 
 queror, and which was the first cause of rivalry between France 
 and England and of the consequent struggles of considerably more 
 than a century's duration. 
 
 A.D. 1153. ^ttle more than a year after Suger, on the 20th of April, 1153, 
 St.Bernard. St. Bernard died also. The two great men, of whom one had 
 excited and the other opposed the second crusade, disappeared to- 
 gether from the theatre of the world. The crusade had completely 
 failed. After a lapse of scarce forty years, a third crusade began. 
 A.D. 1187. I n tne course of the year 1187, Europe suddenly heard tale upon 
 Battle of tale about the repeated disasters of the Christians in Asia. On 
 i erias. ^ e ^ Q ^ May, the two religious and warlike orders which had 
 been founded in the East for the defence of Christendom, the 
 Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and the Templars, lost, at 
 a brush in Galilee, 500 of their bravest knights. On the 3rd and 
 4th of July, near Tiberias, a Christian army was surrounded by 
 the Saracens, and also, ere long, by the fire which Saladin had 
 Jerusalem ordered to be set to the dry grass which covered the plain. Four 
 capitulates d avs a f teij on t h e g t h O f Ju^ H87, Saladin took possession of 
 St. Jean d'Acre, and, on the 4th September following, of Ascalon. 
 Finally, on the 18th of September, he laid siege to Jerusalem, 
 wherein refuge had been sought by a multitude of Christian 
 families driven from their homes by the ravages of the infidels 
 throughout Palestine ; and the Holy City contained at this time, 
 it is said, nearly 100,000 Christians. The capitulation soon 
 
The Kings of France and of England take the Cross. 8$ 
 
 followed, and all Christians, however, with the exception of 
 Greeks and Syrians, had orders to leave Jerusalem within 
 four days. 
 
 The news of this terrible event, spreading through Europe, caused 
 amongst all classes there, high and low, a deep feeling of sorrow, 
 anger, disquietude, and shame. After the capture of Jerusalem by A.D. 1188. 
 Saladin, the Christians of the East, in their distress, sent to the A ne ^ cru " 
 West their most eloquent prelate and gravest historian William, termined 
 archbishop of Tyre, who, fifteen years before, in the reign of on. 
 Baldwin IV., had been Chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem. 
 He, accompanied by a legate of Pope Gregory VIII., scoured Italy, 
 France, and Germany, recounting every where the miseries of the 
 Holy Land, and imploring the aid ^of all Christian princes and 
 peoples, whatever might be their own position of affairs and their 
 own quarrels in Europe. At a parliament assembled at Gisors, on 
 the 21st of January, 1188, and at a diet convoked at Mayence on 
 the 27th of March following, he so powerfully affected the knight- 
 hood of France, England, and Germany, that the three sovereigns 
 of these three States, Philip Augustus, Richard Coaur de Lion, and 
 Frederick Barbarossa, engaged with acclamation in a new crusade. 
 The eldest, Frederick Barbarossa, was first ready to plunge amongst 
 the perils of the crusade. Starting from Eatisbonne about Christmas, A.D. 1189. 
 1189, with an army of 150,000 men, he traversed the Greek em- jj^ c g * a 
 pire and Asia Minor, defeated the Sultan of Iconium, passed the starts first, 
 first defiles of Taurus, and seemed to be approaching the object of 
 his voyage when, on the 10th of June, 1190, having arrived at the 
 borders of the Selef, a small river which throws itself into the 
 Mediterranean close to Seleucia, he determined to cross it by fording, 
 was seized with a chill and, according to some, drowned before his 
 people's eyes, but, according to others, carried dying to Seleucia, 
 where he expired. His young son Conrad, duke of Suabia, 
 was not equal to taking the command of such an army ; and it 
 broke up. 
 
 On the 24th of June, 1190, Philip Augustus went and took the A.D. 1190. 
 oriflarnme at St. Denis, on his way to Vezelai, where he had ap- Fhil ip 
 pointed to meet Eichard, and whence the two kings, in fact, set and 
 out, on the 4th of July, to embark with their troops, Philip at Kichard 
 Genoa, and Eichard at Marseilles. They had agreed to touch 
 nowhere until they reached Sicily, where Philip was the first to 
 arrive, on the 16th of September; and Eichard was eight days 
 later. But, instead of simply touching, they passed at Messina all 
 the autumn of 1190 and all the winter of 1190-91, no longer 
 seeming to think of any thing but quarrelling and amusing them- 
 
86 History of France. 
 
 selves. Nor were grounds for quarrel or opportunities for amuse- 
 ments far to seek. Richard, in spite of his promise, was unwilling 
 to marry the Princess Alice, Philip's sister; and Philip, after 
 lively discussion, would not agree to give him back his word, save 
 "in consideration of a sum of 10,000 silver marks, whereof he 
 shall pay us 3000 at the feast of All Saints, and year by year in 
 succession, at this same feast." Naturally independent, and dis- 
 posed to act, on every occasion, according to his own ideas, Philip 
 resolved, not to break with Richard, but to divide their commands, 
 and separate their fortunes. On the approach of spring, 1191, he 
 announced to him that the time had arrived for continuing their 
 pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and that, as for himself, he was quite 
 ready to set out. " I am not ready," said Richard ; " and I cannot 
 depart before the middle of August." Philip, after some discus- 
 sion, set out alone, with his army, on the 30th of March, and on 
 the 14th of April arrived before St. Jean d'Acre. This important 
 place, of which Saladin had made himself master nearly four years 
 before, was being besieged by the last King of Jerusalem, Guy de 
 Lusignan, at the head of the Christians of Palestine, and by a 
 multitude of crusaders, Genoese, Danish, Flemish, and German 
 who had flocked freely to the enterprise. A strong and valiant 
 Mussulman garrison was defending St. Jean d'Acre. Saladin 
 manoeuvred incessantly for its relief, and several battles had already 
 been fought beneath the walls. When the King of France arrived, 
 " he was received by the Christians besieging," say the chronicles 
 of St. Denis, "with supreme joy, as if he were an angel come 
 down from heaven." Philip set vigorously to work to push on the 
 siege; but, at his departure he had promised Richard not to deliver 
 the grand assault until they had formed a junction before the place 
 with all their forces. Richard, who had set out from Messina at 
 the beginning of May, though he had said that he would not be 
 ready till August, lingered again on the way to reduce the island 
 of Cyprus, and to celebrate there his marriage with Berengaria of 
 Navarre, in lieu of Alice of France. At last he arrived, on the 
 7th of June, before St. Jean d'Acre ; and several assaults in suc- 
 cession were made on the place with equal determination on the 
 A.D. 1191 part of the besiegers and the besieged. On the 13th of July 1191, 
 sfkj 1 ^ f * n s P^ e f ^ ne ener g e tic resistance offered by the garrison, which 
 d'Acre. defended itself " as a lion defends his blood-stained den," St. Jean 
 d'Acre surrendered. The terms of capitulation stated that 200,000 
 pieces of gold should be paid to the chiefs of the Christian army ; 
 that 1600 prisoners and the wood of the true cross should be given 
 up to them ; and that the garrison as well as all the people of the 
 
Results of the Crusades. 87 
 
 town should remain in the conquerors' power, pending full execu- 
 tion of the treaty. 
 
 Philip Augustus returned to France after the capture of St. Jean A.D. 119L 
 d'Acre, because he considered the ultimate success of the crusade Augustus 
 impossible, and his return necessary for the interests of France and returns to 
 for his own. He was right in thus thinking and acting ; and King France - 
 Kichard, when insultingly reproaching him for it, did not foresee 
 that a year later he would himself be doing the same thing, and 
 would give up the crusade without having obtained any thing more 
 for Christendom except fresh reverses. 
 
 On the 31st of July, 1191, Philip, leaving with the army of the 
 crusaders, 10,000 foot and 500 knights, under the command of 
 Duke Hugh of Burgundy, who had, orders to obey King Eichard, 
 set sail for France ; and, a few days after Christmas in the same 
 year, landed in his kingdom, and forthwith resumed, at Fontaine- 
 bleau according to some, and at Paris according to others, the Results of 
 regular direction of his government. Thus ended the third crusade, tlie t ^ r ^ 
 undertaken by the three greatest sovereigns and the three greatest 
 armies of Christian Europe, and with the loudly proclaimed object 
 of retaking Jerusalem from the infidels and re-establishing a king 
 over the sepulchre of Jesus Christ. The Emperor Frederick Bar- 
 barossa perished in it before he had trodden the soil of Palestine. 
 King Philip Augustus retired from it voluntarily, so soon as ex- 
 perience had foreshadowed to him the impossibility of success. 
 King Eichard abandoned it perforce, after having exhausted upon 
 it his heroism and his knightly pride. The three armies, at the 
 moment of departure from Europe, amounted, according to the 
 historians of the time, to 500,000 or 600,000 men, of whom 
 scarcely 100,000 returned ; and the only result of the third crusade 
 was to leave as head over all the most beautiful provinces of Mus- 
 sulman Asia and Africa, Saladin, the most illustrious and most able 
 chieftain, in war and in politics, that Islamry had produced since 
 Mahomet. 
 
 From the end of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth Remaining 
 century, between the crusade of Philip Augustus and that of Saint f- xpedi r 
 Louis, it is usual to count three crusades, over which we will not the Holy 
 linger. Two of these crusades, one, from 1195 to 1198, under Land - 
 Henry VI., emperor of Germany, and the other, from 1216 to 1240, 
 under the Emperor Frederick II. and Andrew II., king of Hungary, 
 are unconnected with France and almost exclusively German, or, in 
 origin and range, confined to Eastern Europe. They led, in Syria, 
 Palestine, and Egypt, to wars, negotiations, and manifold compli- 
 cations ; Jerusalem fell once more, for a while, into the hands of 
 
88 History of France. 
 
 the Christians ; and there, on the 18th of March, 1229, in the 
 church of the Eesurrection, the Emperor Frederick II., at that time 
 excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX., placed with his own hands 
 the royal crown upon his head. But these events, confused, dis- 
 connected and short-lived as they were, did not produce in the 
 West, and especially in France, any considerable reverberation, 
 and did not exercise upon the relative situations of Europe and 
 Asia, of Christendom and Islamry, any really historical influence. 
 The expedition which led to the conquest of Constantinople and 
 to the foundation (1204) of a Latin empire in the East so far 
 interests Frenchmen, that it was a Frenchman, Geoffrey de Ville- 
 hardouin, seneschal of Theobald III., count of Champagne, who, 
 after having been one of the chief actors in it, wrote the history 
 of it ; and his work, strictly historical as to facts, and admirably 
 epic in description of character and warmth of colouring, is one of 
 the earliest and finest monuments of French literature. 
 
 A.D. 1215. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, whilst the enter- 
 His^cii &- P r i ses which were still called crusades were becoming more and 
 racter. more degenerate in character and potency, there was born in France, 
 on the 25th of April, 1215, not merely the prince, but the man 
 who was to be the most worthy representative and the most de- 
 voted slave of that religious and moral passion which had inspired 
 the crusades. Louis IX., though born to the purple, a powerful 
 king, a valiant warrior, a splendid knight, and an object of reverence 
 to all those who at a distance observed his life, and of affection to 
 all those who approached his person, was neither biassed nor in- 
 toxicated by any such human glories and delights ; neither in his 
 thoughts nor in his conduct did they ever occupy the foremost 
 place ; before all and above aU he wished to be, and was indeed, a 
 Christian, a true Christian, guided and governed by the idea and the 
 resolve of defending the Christian faith and fulfilling the Christian 
 law. Had he been born in the most lowly condition, as the world 
 holds, or, as religion, the most commanding ; had he been obscure, 
 needy, a priest, a monk, or a hermit, he could not have been more 
 constantly and more zealously filled with the desire of living as a 
 faithful servant of Jesus Christ, and of ensuring, by pious obedience 
 to God here, the salvation of his soul hereafter. This is the peculiar 
 and original characteristic of St. Louis, and a fact rare and probably 
 unique in the history of kings. (He was canonized on the llth of 
 August, 1297 ; and during twenty- four years nine successive popes 
 had prosecuted the customary inquiries as to his faith and life.) 
 
 In the first years of his government, when he had reached his 
 majority, there was nothing to show that the idea of the crusade 
 
Louis IX. 89 
 
 occupied Louis IX.'s mind; and it was only in 1239, when he 
 was now four and twenty, that it showed itself vividly in him. 
 Some of his principal vassals, the Counts of Champagne, Brittany, 
 and Macon had raised an army of crusaders, and were getting 
 ready to start for Palestine ; and the king was not contented with 
 giving them encouragement, "but "he desired that Amaury de 
 Montfort, his constable, should, in his name, serve Jesus Christ in 
 this war ; and for that reason he gave his arms and assigned to 
 him per day a sum of money for which Amaury thanked him on 
 his knees, that is, did him homage, according to the usage of those 
 times. And the crusaders were mighty pleased to have this lord 
 with them." 
 
 Eive years afterwards, at the close of 1244, Louis fell seriously Illness of 
 ill at Pontoise, and having recovered, took the cross in consequence 
 of a vow he had made to that effect. The crusades, however, 
 although they still remained an object of religious and knightly 
 aspiration, were from the political point of view decried ; and, 
 without daring to say so, many men of weight, lay or ecclesiastical, 
 had no desire to take part in them. Under the influence of this 
 public feeling, timidly exhibited but seriously cherished, Louis con- 
 tinued, for three years, to apply himself to the interior concerns of 
 his kingdom and to his relations with the European powers, as if 
 he had no other idea. At last, in June, 1248, after having received 
 at St. Denis, together with the oriflamme, the scrip and staff of a 
 pilgrim, he took leave, at Corbeil or Cluny, of his mother, Queen A - D - 1248. 
 Blanche, whom he left regent during his absence, with the fullest for ^ e 
 powers. " Most sweet fair son," said she, embracing him, " fair Crusade, 
 tender son, I shall never see you more ; full well my heart assures 
 me." He took with him Queen Marguerite of Provence, his wife, 
 who had declared that she would never part from him. On arriving 
 in the early part of August at Aigues-Mortes, he found assembled 
 there a fleet of thirty-eight vessels with a certain number of trans- 
 port-ships which he had hired from the republic of Genoa ; and 
 they were to convey to the East the troops and personal retinue of 
 the king himself. The number of these vessels proves that Louis 
 was far from bringing one of those vast armies with which the first 
 crusades had been familiar; it even appears that he had been 
 careful to get rid of such mobs, for, before embarking, he sent away 
 nearly ten thousand bowmen, Genoese, Venetian, Pisan, and even 
 Erench, whom he had at first engaged, and of whom, after inspection, 
 he desired nothing further. The sixth crusade was the personal 
 achievement of St. Louis, not the offspring of a popular movement, 
 and he carried it out with a picked army, furnished by the feudal 
 
9 History of France. 
 
 chivalry and by the religious and military orders dedicated to the 
 service of the Holy Land. 
 
 Arrives at The Isle of Cyprus was the trysting-place appointed for all the 
 forces of the expedition. Louis arrived there on the 12th of 
 September, 1248, and reckoned upon remaining there only a few 
 days ; for it was Egypt that he was in a hurry to reach. The 
 French, however, left the island only in May, 1249, and, in spite 
 of violent gales of wind, which dispersed a large number of vessels, 
 A.D. 1249. they arrived on the 4th of June before Damietta, which was taken 
 Lands at without the least difficulty. St. Louis and the crusaders unfor- 
 tunately committed the same fault there as in the Isle of Cyprus : 
 they halted there for an indefinite time. They were expecting 
 fresh crusaders ; and they spent the time of expectation in 
 quarrelling over the partition of the booty taken in the city. 
 
 At length, on the 20th of November, 1249, after more than five 
 months' inactivity at Damietta, the crusaders put themselves once 
 more in motion, with the determination of marching upon Babylon, 
 that outskirt of Cairo, now called Old Cairo, which the greater 
 part of them, in their ignorance, mistook for the real Babylon, and 
 where they flattered themselves they would find immense riches 
 and avenge the olden sufferings of the Hebrew captives. The 
 Mussulmans had found time to recover from their first fright and 
 A.D. 1250. to organize, at all points, a vigorous resistance. On the 8th of 
 Mansourah February, 1250, a battle took place twenty leagues from Damietta, 
 at Mansourah (the city of victory), on the right bank of the Mle. 
 The king's brother, Robert, count of Artois, marched with the 
 vanguard, and obtained an early success ; elated by this result, he 
 rushed forward into the town, where he found the Mussulmans 
 numerous and perfectly rallied ; in a few moments the count of 
 Artois fell pierced with wounds, and more than 300 knights of his 
 train, the same number of English, together with their leader 
 William Longsword, and 280 Templars, paid with their lives for 
 the senseless ardour of the French prince. 
 
 The king hurried up in all haste to the aid of his brother ; but 
 he had scarcely arrived, and as yet knew nothing of his brother's 
 fate, when he himself engaged so impetuously in the battle that he 
 was on the point of being taken prisoner by six Saracens who had 
 already seized the reins of his horse. He was defending himself 
 vigorously with his sword when several of his knights came up 
 with him and set him free. He asked one of them if he had any 
 news of his brother ; and the other answered, " Certainly I have 
 news of him : for I am sure that he is now in Paradise." " Praised 
 be God ! " answered the king, with a tear or two, and went on with 
 
Louis IX. a prisoner in the East. 91 
 
 his fighting. The battle-field was left that day to the crusaders ; 
 but they were not allowed to occupy it as conquerors, for three 
 days afterwards, on the llth of February, 1250, the camp of St. 
 Louis was assailed by clouds of Saracens, horse and foot, Mame- 
 lukes and Bedouins. All surprise had vanished ; the Mussulmans 
 measured at a glance the numbers of the Christians, and attacked 
 them in full assurance of success, whatever heroism they might 
 display ; and the crusaders themselves indulged in no more self- 
 illusion, and thought only of defending themselves. An attempt 
 was made by the king of France to negociate with the enemy, but 
 to no purpose, and on the 5th of April, 1250, the crusaders de- 
 cided upon retreating. 
 
 This was the most deplorable scene of a deplorable drama ; and, Eetreat of 
 at the same time it was, for the king, an occasion for displaying, in 
 their most sublime and most attractive traits, all the virtues of the 
 Christian. Whilst sickness and famine were devastating the camp, 
 Louis made himself visitor, physician, and comforter ; and his 
 presence and his words exercised upon the worst cases a searching 
 influence. But neither his courage nor his servants' devotion were 
 enough to ensure success even to the retreat ; a truce was about to 
 be concluded, and the Mussulman was taking off his ring from his 
 finger as a pledge that he would observe it. " But during this," 
 says Joinville, " there took place a great mishap. A traitor of a 
 sergeant, whose name was Marcel, began calling to our people, 
 ' Sirs knights, surrender, for such is the king's command : cause St. Louis 
 not the king's death.' All thought that it was the king's com- j^e jj us _ 
 niand ; and they gave up their swords to the Saracens." Being snlmans. 
 forthwith declared prisoners, the king and all the rear-guard were 
 removed to Mansourah ; the king by boat ; and his two brothers, 
 the Counts of Anjou and Poitiers, and all the other crusaders, 
 drawn up in a body and shackled, followed on foot on the river- 
 bank. The advance-guard and all the rest of the army soon met 
 the same fate. 
 
 Ten thousand prisoners this was all that remained of the 
 crusade that had started eighteen months before from Aigues- 
 Mortes. Nevertheless the lofty bearing and the piety of the king 
 still inspired the Mussulmans with great respect. A negotiation 
 was opened between him and the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, who, 
 having previously freed him from his chains, had him treated with 
 a certain magnificence ; he perceived that he had to do with an in- 
 domitable spirit ; and he did not insist any longer upon more than 
 the surrender of Damietta and on a ransom of 500,000 livres (that 
 is, about 10,132,000 francs, or 405,280?., of modern money. "I 
 
92 History of France. 
 
 will pay willingly 500,000 livres for the deliverance of my people," 
 said Louis, " and I will give up Damietta for the deliverance of my 
 own person, for I am not a man who ought to be bought and sold 
 for money." " By my faith," said the sultan, " the Frank is liberal 
 not to have haggled about so large a sum. Go tell him that I will 
 give him 100,000 livres to help towards paying the ransom." On the 
 7th of May, 1250, the faithful friend and companion of Saint Louis, 
 Geoffrey de Sargines, gave up to the emirs the keys of Damietta ; 
 and the Mussulmans entered in tumultuously. The king was 
 awaiting aboard his ship for the payment which his people were to 
 make for the release of his brother, the Count of Poitiers ; and 
 when he saw approaching a bark on which he recognised his 
 St. Louis brother, "Light up ; light up !" he cried instantly to his sailors; 
 leaves which was the signal agreed upon for setting out. And leaving 
 Palestine 1 forthwith the coast of Egypt, the fleet which bore the remains of 
 the Christian army made sail for the shores of Palestine. 
 
 The king, having arrived at St. Jean d'Acre on the 14th of May, 
 1250, accepted, without shrinking, the trial imposed upon him by 
 his unfortunate situation. Twice he believed he was on the point 
 of accomplishing his desire the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre 
 from the Mussulmans, and the re-establishment of the kingdom of 
 Jerusalem. Towards the end of 1250, and again, in 1252, the 
 Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus, and the Emirs of Egypt, being 
 engaged in a violent struggle, made offers to him, by turns, of 
 restoring the kingdom of Jerusalem if he would form an active 
 alliance with one or the other party against its enemies. Louis 
 sought means of accepting either of these offers without neglecting 
 his previous engagements, and without compromising the fate of 
 the Christians still prisoners in Egypt, or living in the territories of 
 Aleppo and Damascus ; but, during the negotiations entered upon 
 with a view to this end, the Mussulmans of Syria and Egypt sus- 
 pended their differences, and made common cause against the 
 remnants of the Christian crusaders ; and all hope of re-entering 
 Jerusalem by these means vanished away. Another time, the 
 Sultan of Damascus, touched by Louis' pious perseverance, had 
 word sent to him that he, if he wished, could go on a pilgrimage to 
 Jerusalem and should find himself in perfect safety. " The king," 
 says Joinville, " held a great council ; and none urged him to go. 
 It was shown unto him that if he, who was the greatest king ii> 
 Christendom, performed his pilgrimage without delivering the Holy 
 City from the enemies of God, all the other kings and other pilgrims 
 who came after him would hold themselves content with doing just 
 as much, and would trouble themselves no more about the de- 
 
State of the Christians in the East. 93 
 
 liverance of Jerusalem." Kichard Coeur de Lion, sixty years 
 before, had refused to cast even a look upon Jerusalem, when he 
 was unable to deliver her from her enemies. Louis, just as 
 Richard had, refused the incomplete satisfaction which had been 
 offered him, and for nearly four years, spent by him on the coasts 
 of Palestine and Syria since his departure from Damietta, from 
 1250 to 1254, he expended, in small works of piety, sympathy, 
 protection, and care for the future of the Christian populations in 
 Asia, his time, his strength, his pecuniary resources, and the ar dour 
 of a soul which could not remain idly abandoned to sorrowing over 
 great desires unsatisfied. 
 
 At the commencement of the year 1253, at Sidon, the ramparts A.D. 1252. 
 of which he was engaged in repairing, he heard that his mother, Death of 
 Queen Blanche, had died at Paris on the 27th of November, 1252. Castile. 
 This melancholy news induced him to return to Europe ; he em- 
 barked at St. Jean d' Acre, on the 24th of April, 1254, carrying A.D. 1254. 
 away with him, on thirteen vessels, large and small, Queen ** ^o^ 8 
 Marguerite, his children, his personal retinue, and his own more Palestine, 
 immediate men-at-arms, and leaving the Christians of Syria, for 
 their protection in his name, a hundred knights under the orders of 
 Geoffrey de Sargines, that comrade of his in whose bravery and 
 pious fealty he had the most entire confidence. After two months 
 and a half at sea, the king and his fleet arrived, on the 8th of July, 
 1254, off the port of Hyeres, where he landed, and, passing slowly 
 through France, he made his solemn entry into Paris on the 7th of 
 September, 1254. 
 
 For seven years after his return to France, from 1254 to 1261, State of 
 Louis seemed to think no more about them, and there is nothing t j ans -^" 
 to show that he spoke of them even to his most intimate confidants ; the East, 
 but, in spite of his apparent calmness, he was living, so far as they 
 ! were concerned, in a continual ferment of imagination and internal 
 fever, ever flattering himself that some favourable circumstance 
 would call him back to his interrupted work. And he had reason 
 to believe that circumstances were responsive to his wishes. The 
 Christians of Palestine and Syria were a prey to perils and evils 
 which became more pressing every day; the cross was being 
 humbled at one time before the Tartars of Tchingis-Khan, at 
 another before the Mussulmans of Egypt ; Pope Urban was calling 
 upon the King of France; and Geoffrey de Sargines, the heroic 
 representative whom Louis had left in St. Jean d'Acre, at the 
 head of a small garrison, was writing to him that ruin was im- 
 minent and speedy succour indispensable to prevent it. In 1261, 
 
94 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1270. 
 
 St. Louis 
 starts for 
 another 
 crusade. 
 
 Lands at 
 Tunis. 
 
 Louis held, at Paris, a parliament at which, without any talk of a 
 new crusade, measures were taken which revealed an idea of it : 
 there were decrees for fasts and prayers on behalf of the Christians 
 of the East, and for frequent and earnest military drill. In 1263, 
 the crusade was openly preached ; taxes were levied, even on the 
 clergy, for the purpose of contributing towards it ; and princes and 
 barons bound themselves to take part in it. Louis was all approval 
 and encouragement, without declaring his own intention. In 1267, 
 a parliament was convoked at Paris. The king, at first, conversed 
 discreetly with some of his barons about the new plan of crusade ; 
 and then, suddenly, having had the precious relics deposited in the 
 Holy Chapel set before the eyes of the assembly, he opened the 
 session by ardently exhorting those present " to avenge the insult 
 which had so long been offered to the Saviour in the Holy Land, 
 and to recover the Christian heritage possessed, for our sins, by the 
 infidels." Next year, on the 9th February, 1268, at a new 
 parliament assembled at Paris, the king took an oath to start in the 
 month of May, 1270. 
 
 Saint Louis left Paris on the 16th of March, 1270, a sick man 
 almost already, but with soul content, and probably the only one 
 without misgiving in the midst of all his comrades. It was once 
 more at Aigues-Mortes that he went to embark. All was as yet 
 dark and undecided as to the plan of the expedition. At last, on 
 the 2nd of July, 1270, he set sail without any one's knowing and 
 without the king's telling anyone whither they were going. It 
 was only in Sardinia, after four days' halt at Cagliari, that Louis 
 announced to the chiefs of the crusade, assembled aboard his ship 
 the Mountjoy, that he was making for Tunis, and that their 
 Christian work would commence there. The King of Tunis 
 (as he was then called), Mohammed Mostanser, had for some time 
 been talking of his desire to become a Christian, if he could be 
 efficiently protected against the seditions of his subjects. Louis 
 welcomed with transport the prospect of Mussulman conversions. 
 " Ah ! " he cried, " if I could only see myself the gossip and sponsor 
 of so great a godson ! " 
 
 But on the 17th of July, when the fleet arrived before Tunis, 
 the admiral, Florent de Yarennes, probably without the king's 
 orders, and with that want of reflection which was conspicuous at 
 each step of the enterprise, immediately took possession of the 
 harbour and of some Tunisian vessels as prize, and sent word to 
 the king " that he had only to support him and that the dis- 
 embarcation of the troops might be effected in perfect safety." 
 
Death of Saint Louis. 95 
 
 Thus war was commenced at the very first moment against the 
 Mussulman prince whom there had been a promise of seeing before 
 long a Christian. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight, after some fights between the Tu- 
 nisians and the crusaders, so much political and military blindness 
 produced its natural consequences. On the 3rd of August Louis His illness. 
 was attacked by the epidemic fever, and obliged to keep his bed 
 in his tent j the illness soon took an unfavourable turn, and no 
 hopes of recovery could be entertained. It was announced to 
 him, on the 24th of August, that envoys from the Emperor 
 Michael Palasologus had landed at Cape Carthage, with orders to 
 demand his intervention with his brother Charles, king of Sicily, 
 to deter him from making war on 'the but lately re-established 
 Greek empire. Louis summoned all his strength to receive them 
 in his tent, in the presence of certain of his counsellors, who were 
 uneasy at the fatigue he was imposing upon himself. " I promise 
 you, if I live," said he to the envoys, " to co-operate, so far as I 
 may be able, in what your master demands of me ; meanwhile, I 
 exhort you to have patience, and be of good courage." This was 
 his last political act, and his last concern with the affairs of the 
 world ; henceforth he was occupied only with pious effusions 
 which had a bearing at one time on his hopes for his soul, at 
 another on those Christian interests which had been so dear to 
 him all his life. He kept repeating his customary orisons in a low 
 voice ; and he was heard murmuring these broken words : " Fair 
 Sir God, have mercy on this people that bideth here, and bring 
 them back to their own land ! Let them not fall into the hands of 
 their enemies, and let them not be constrained to deny Thy name ! " 
 And at the same time that he thus expressed his sad reflections 
 upon the situation in which he was leaving his army and his 
 people, he cried from time to time, as he raised himself on his bed, 
 " Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! we will go up to Jerusalem ! " During the 
 night of the 24th-25th of August he ceased to speak, all the time 
 continuing to show that he was in full possession of his senses; 
 he insisted upon receiving extreme unction out of bed, and lying 
 upon a coarse sack-cloth covered with cinders, with the cross 
 before him ; and on Monday, the 25th of August, 1270, at 3 p.m., 
 he departed in peace, whilst uttering these his last words : " Father, A ' 
 after the example of the Divine Master, into Thy hands I commend (Aug. 9,5). 
 my spirit ! " 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE KINGSHIP, THE COMMONERS AND THE THIRD ESTATE. 
 
 f 8^ ance > two f acts strike us in the history of the king- 
 
 tile French sn ip i n France. It was in France that it adopted soonest and most 
 kingship, persistently maintained its fundamental principle, heredity ; only 
 in France was there, at any time during eight centuries, but a single 
 king and a single line of kings. Unity and heredity, those two 
 essential principles of monarchy, have been the invariable charac- 
 teristics of the kingship in France. 
 
 A second fact, less apparent and less remarkable, but, never- 
 theless, not without importance or without effect upon the history 
 of the kingship in France, is the extreme variety of character, of 
 faculties, of intellectual and moral bent, of policy and personal 
 conduct amongst the French kings. Absolute monarchical power 
 in France was, almost in every successive reign, singularly modi- 
 fied, being at one time aggravated and at another alleviated accord- 
 ing to the ideas, sentiments, morals, and spontaneous instincts of 
 the monarchs. Nowhere else, throughout the great European 
 monarchies, has the difference between kingly personages exercised 
 so much influence on government and national condition. In that 
 country the free action of individuals has filled a prominent place 
 and taken a prominent part in the course of events. 
 
 It has been shown how insignificant and inert, as sovereigns, 
 were the first three successors of Hugh Capet. The goodness to 
 his people displayed by King Eobert was the only kingly trait 
 
Royal domains. 97 
 
 which, during that period, deserved to leave a trace in history. 
 The kingship appeared once more with the attributes of energy 
 and efficiency on the accession of Louis VI., son of Philip I. 
 Brought up in the monastery of St. Denis, he had the good fortune 
 to find there a fellow-student capable of becoming a king's coun- 
 sellor. Suger, a child born at St. Denis, of obscure parentage, and 
 three or four years younger than Prince Louis, had been brought up 
 for charity's sake in the abbey, and the Abbot Adam, who had 
 perceived his natural abilities, had taken pains to develope them. 
 A bond of esteem and mutual friendship was formed between the 
 two young people, both of whom were disposed to earnest thought 
 and earnest living; and when, in 1108, Louis ascended the throne, 
 the monk Suger became his adviser whilst remaining his friend. 
 
 A very small kingdom was at that time the domain belonging 
 properly and directly to the King of France. He- de-France, strictly 
 so called, and a part of Orleanness (1'Orleanais), pretty nearly the 
 five departments of the Seine, Seine-et-Oise, Seine-et-Marne, Oise 
 and Loiret, besides, through recent acquisition, French Vexin 
 (which bordered on the Ile-de-France and had for its chief place 
 Pontoise, being separated by the little Eiver Epte from Norman 
 Vexin, of which Rouen was the capital), half the countship of Sens 
 and the countship of Bourges such was the whole of its extent. 
 But this limited State was as liable to agitation, and often as 
 troublous and as toilsome to govern as the very greatest of modern 
 States. It was full of petty lords, almost sovereigns in their own 
 estates, and sufficiently strong to struggle against their kingly 
 suzerain, who had, besides, all around his domains, several neigh- 
 bours more powerful than himself in the extent and population of 
 their States. But lord and peasant, layman and ecclesiastic, castle 
 and country and the churches of France were not long discovering, 
 that, if the kingdom was small, it had verily a king. Louis did 
 not direct to a distance from home his ambition and his efforts ; it 
 was within his own dominion, to check the violence of the strong 
 against the weak, te put a stop to the quarrels of the strong amongst 
 themselves, to make an end, in France at least, of unrighteousness 
 and devastation, and to establish there some sort of order and some 
 sort of justice, that he displayed his energy and his perseverance. 
 Sometimes, when the people and their habitual protectors, the 
 bishops, invoked his aid, Louis would carry his arms beyond his 
 own dominions, by sole right of justice and kingship. "It is 
 known," says Suger, " that kings have long hands." 
 
 Into his relations with his two powerful neighbours, the King of *? 18 " 
 England, duke of Normandy, and the Emperor of Germany, Louis MS neigh 
 
 hours. 
 
98 History of France. 
 
 the Fat (such was his surname) introduced the same watchfulness, 
 the same firmness, and, at need, the same warlike energy, whilst 
 observing the same moderation and the same policy of holding aloof 
 from all turbulent or indiscreet ambition, adjusting his pretensions 
 to his power, and being more concerned to govern his kingdom 
 efficiently than to add to it by conquest. Twice, in 1109 and in 
 1116, he had war in Normandy with Henry I., king of England, 
 and he therein was guilty of certain temerities resulting in a reverse, 
 which he hastened to repair during a vigorous prosecution of the 
 campaign ; but, when once his honour was satisfied, he showed a 
 ready inclination for the peace which the pope, Calixtus II., in 
 council at Eome, succeeded in establishing between the two rivals. 
 The war with the Emperor of Germany, Henry V., in 1124, 
 appeared, at the first blush, a more serious matter. The emperor 
 had raised a numerous army of Lorrainers, Allemannians, Bavarians, 
 Suabians, and Saxons, and was threatening the very city of Rheims 
 with instant attack. Louis hastened to put himself in position ; 
 he went and took solemnly, at the altar of St. Denis, the banner of 
 that patron of the kingdom, and flew with a mere handful of men 
 to confront the enemy, and parry the first blow, calling on the 
 whole of France to follow him. France summoned the flower of 
 her chivalry ; and at the news of this mighty host, and of the 
 ardour with which they were animated, the Emperor Henry V. 
 advanced no farther, and, before long, " marching, under some pre- 
 text, towards other places, he preferred the shame of retreating like 
 a coward to the risk of exposing his empire and himself to certain 
 destruction. After this victory, which was more than as great as 
 a triumph on the field of battle, the French returned every one to 
 their homes." 
 
 The three elements which contributed to the formation and 
 character of the kingship in France, the German element, the 
 Roman element, and the Christian element, appear in conjunction 
 A.D 1137. * n tne re ig n f Louis the Fat. In his last days he found great 
 Marriage cause for rejoicing as a father. William VII. , duke of Aquitaine, 
 the L Young had > at his death, entrusted to him the guardianship of his daughter 
 ' Eleanor, heiress of all his dominions, that is to say, of Poitou, of 
 Saintonge, of Gascony, and of the Basque country, the most beau- 
 tiful provinces of the south-west of France from the lower Loire to 
 the Pyrenees. A marriage between Eleanor and Louis the Young, 
 already sharing his father's throne, was soon concluded ; it took 
 place at Bordeaux, at the end of July, 1137, and on the 8th of 
 August following, Louis the Young, on his way back to Paris, was 
 crowned at Poitiers as duke of Aquitaine. He there learned 
 
Philip Augustus. 99 
 
 that the king his father had lately died, on the 1st of August. 
 Louis the Fat was far from foreseeing the deplorable issues of the 
 marriage which he regarded as one of the blessings of his reign. 
 
 In spite of its long duration of forty-three years, the reign of Barren- 
 Louis VII. called the Young, was a period barren of events and J? ss ? f 
 of persons worthy of keeping a place in history. We have already 
 had the story of this king's unfortunate crusade, the commencement 
 at Antioch of his imbroglio with his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, 
 and the subsequent divorce. A petty war or a sullen strife be- 
 tween the Kings of Prance and England, petty quarrels of Louis 
 with some of the great lords of his kingdom, certain rigorous 
 measures against certain districts in travail of local liberties, the 
 first bubblings of that religious fermentation which resulted before 
 long, in the south of France, in the crusade against the Albigensians 
 such were the facts which went to make up with somewhat of 
 insipidity the annals of this reign. So long as Suger lived the 
 kingship preserved, at home, the wisdom which it had been accus- 
 tomed to display, and abroad the respect it had acquired under 
 Louis the Fat ; but at the death of Suger it went on languishing 
 and declining without encountering any great obstacles. It was 
 reserved for Louis the Young's son, Philip Augustus, to open for 
 France and for the kingship in France a new era of strength and 
 progress. 
 
 Philip II., to whom history has preserved the name of Philip A.D. 1180 
 Augustus, given him by his contemporaries, had shared the crown, 1223. 
 been anointed, and taken to wife Isabel of Hainault, a year before Augustus, 
 the death of Louis VII. put him in possession of the kingdom. 
 He was as yet only fifteen, and his father, by his will, had left 
 him under the guidance of Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, as 
 regent, and of Eobert Clement, marshal of France, as governor. 
 But Philip, though he began his reign under this double influence, 
 soon let it be seen that he intended to reign by himself, and to 
 reign with vigour ; it was not granted to Philip Augustus to re- character 
 suscitate the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, a work impossible of hi s 
 for him or any one whatsoever in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
 turies ; but he made the extension and territorial construction of 
 the kingdom of France the chief aim of his life, and in that work 
 he was successful. Out of the forty-three years of his reign, 
 twenty-six at the least were war-years, devoted to that very pur- 
 pose. During the first six, it was with some of his great French 
 vassals, the Count of Champagne, the Duke of Burgundy, and 
 even the Count of Flanders, sometime regent, that Philip had to 
 do battle, for they all sought to profit by his minority so as to 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO History of France. 
 
 make themselves independent and aggrandize themselves at the 
 expense of the crown; but, once in possession of the personal 
 power as well as the title of king, it was, from 1187 to 1216, 
 against three successive kings of England, Henry II., Eichard 
 Coeur de Lion, and John Lackland, masters of the most beautiful 
 provinces of France, that Philip directed his persistent efforts. 
 They were in respect of power, of political capacity and military 
 popularity, his most formidable foes; he managed, however, to hold 
 his own against them ; and when, after Eichard's death, he had to 
 do with John Lackland, he had over him, even more than over his 
 brother Eichard, immense advantages. He made such use of them 
 that after six years' struggling, from 1199 to 1205, he deprived 
 John of the greater part of his French possessions, Anjou, Nor- 
 mandy, Touraine, Maine, and Poitou. Philip would have been 
 quite willing to dispense with any legal procedure by way of 
 sanction to his conquests, but John furnished him with an excel- 
 lent pretext; for on the 3rd of April, 1203, he assassinated with 
 his own hand, in the tower of Eouen, his young nephew Arthur, 
 duke of Brittany, and in that capacity vassal of Philip Augustus, 
 to whom he was coming to do homage. The king of France thus 
 recovered possession of nearly all the territories which his father, 
 Louis VII., had kept but for a moment. He added, in succession, 
 other provinces to his dominions ; in such wise that the kingdom 
 of France which was limited, as we have seen, under Louis the 
 Fat, to the Ile-de-France and certain portions of Picardy and 
 Orleanness, comprised besides, at the end of the reign of Philip 
 Augustus, Vermandois, Artois, the two Yexins, French and Nor- 
 man, Berri, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Touraine, and Au- 
 vergne. 
 
 Wars In 1206 the territorial work of Philip Augustus was well nigh 
 
 Xtafriand com pl e ted ; but his wars were not over. John Lackland when 
 and Ger- worsted kicked against the pricks, and was incessantly hankering, 
 many. j n ^j s antagonism to the King of France, after hostile alliances and 
 local conspiracies, easy to hatch amongst certain feudal lords dis- 
 contented with their suzerain. Being on intimate terms with his 
 nephew, Otho IV., emperor of Germany and the foe of Philip 
 Augustus, he urged him to prepare for a grand attack upon the 
 King of France, and the two allies had won over to their coalition 
 some of his most important vassals, amongst others, Eenaud de 
 Dampierre, count of Boulogne. The invasion of England, boldly 
 attempted by Philip, proved a failure; on the 8th of April, 1213, 
 he convoked, at Soissons, his principal vassals or allies, explained 
 to them the grounds of his design against the King of England, 
 
Battle of B amines. I O I 
 
 and, by a sort of special confederation, they bound themselves, all 
 of them, to support him. One of the most considerable vassals, 
 however, the sometime regent of France during the minority of 
 Philip, Ferrand, count of Flanders, did not attend the meeting to 
 which he had been summoned and declared his intention of taking 
 no part in the war against England. " By all the saints of France," 
 cried Philip, "either France shall become Flanders, or Flanders 
 France ! " He entered Flanders accordingly, besieged and took 
 several of the richest cities in the country, Cassel, Ypres, Bruges, 
 and Courtrai, and pitched his camp before the walls of Ghent, " to 
 lower," as he said, " the pride of the men of Ghent and make them 
 bend their necks beneath the yoke of kings." The confederates 
 had at their head the Emperor Otho IT., who had already won the 
 reputation of a brave and able soldier; and they numbered in their 
 ranks several of the greatest lords, German, Flemish, and Dutch, 
 and Hugh de Boves, the most dreaded of those adventurers in the 
 pay of wealthy princes who were known at that time by the name 
 of roadsters (routiers, mercenaries). They proposed, it was said, 
 to dismember France ; and a promise to that effect had been made 
 by the Emperor Otho to his principal chieftains assembled in secret 
 conference. "It is against Philip himself and him alone," he had 
 said to them, " that we must direct all our efforts ; it is he who 
 must be slain first of all, for it is he alone who opposes us and 
 makes himself our foe in every thing. When he is dead, you will 
 be able to subdue and divide the kingdom according to our pleasure ; 
 as for thee, Eenaud, thou shalt take Peronne and all Yermandois ; 
 Hugh shall be master of Beauvais, Salisbury of Dreux, Conrad of 
 Mantes together with Vexin, and as for thee, Ferrand, thou shalt 
 have Paris." 
 
 The two armies marched over the Low Countries and Flanders, A.D. 1214 
 seeking out both of them the most favourable position for com- 
 mencing the attack. On Sunday, the 27th of July, 1214, Philip 
 had halted near the bridge of Bouvines, not far from Lille, and was 
 resting under an ash beside a small chapel dedicated to St. Peter. 
 There came running to him a messenger, sent by Guerin, bishop of 
 Senlis, his confidant in war as well as government, and brought 
 him word that his rear-guard, attacked by the Emperor Otho, was 
 not sufficient to resist him. Philip went into the chapel, said a 
 short prayer, and cried as he came out, " Haste we forward to the 
 rescue of our comrades ! " Then he put on his armour, mounted 
 his horse, and made swiftly for the point of attack, amidst the 
 shouts of all those who were about him, " To arms ! to arms ! " 
 
 Both armies numbered in their ranks not only all the feudal 
 
IO2 History of France. 
 
 important chivalry on the two sides, but burgher-forces, those from the 
 init by* the ma J or ity ^ tne o reat cities of Flanders being for Otho, and those 
 communes, from sixteen towns or communes of France for Philip Augustus. 
 These communal forces evidently filled an important place in the 
 king's army at Bouvines, and maintained it brilliantly. The battle 
 was not the victory of Philip Augustus, alone, over a coalition of 
 foreign princes; the victory was the work of king and people, barons, 
 knights, burghers, and peasants of Ile-de-France, of Orleanness, of 
 Picardy, of Normandy, of Champagne, and of Burgundy. And 
 this union of different classes and different populations in a senti- 
 ment, a contest and a triumph shared in common was a decisive 
 step in the organization and unity of France. The victory of Bou- 
 vines marked the commencement of the time at which men might 
 speak and indeed did speak, by one single name, of the French. 
 The nation in France and the kingship in France on that day rose 
 out of and above the feudal system. 
 
 Philip Augustus was about the same time apprised of his son 
 Louis' success on the banks of the Loire. The incapacity and 
 swaggering insolence of King John had made all his Poitevine 
 allies disgusted with him; he had been obliged to abandon his 
 attack upon the King of France in the provinces, and the insur- 
 rection, growing daily more serious, of the English barons and 
 clergy for the purpose of obtaining Magna Charta, was preparing 
 for him other reverses. He had ceased to be a dangerous rival to 
 Philip. 
 
 Religious The organization of the kingdom, the nation, and the kingship 
 and Intel- j n p rance was no ^ ^ Q on } v g re at event and the only great achieve- 
 state of nient of that epoch. At the same time that this political movement 
 France. was going on in the State, a religious and intellectual ferment was 
 making head in the Church and in men's minds ; in the course of 
 this active and salutary participation in the affairs of the world, 
 the Christian clergy lost somewhat of their primitive and proper 
 character religion in their hands was a means of power as well as 
 of civilization ; and its principal members became rich and fre- 
 quently substituted material weapons for the spiritual authority 
 which had originally been their only reliance. Morals had sunk 
 far below the laws, and religion was in deplorable contrast to 
 morals. It was not laymen only who abandoned themselves with 
 impunity to every excess of violence and licentiousness ; scandals 
 were frequent amongst the clergy themselves ; bishoprics and other 
 ecclesiastical benefices, publicly sold or left by will, passed down 
 through families from father to son, and from husband to wife, and 
 the possessions of the Church served for dowry to the daughters of 
 
State of the Church in France. 103 
 
 "bishops. Absolution was at a low quotation in the market, and 
 redemption for sins of the greatest enormity cost scarcely the price 
 of founding a church or a monastery. In the midst of such irre- 
 gularities, the eleventh and twelfth centuries saw the outbreak of a 
 grand religious, moral and intellectual fermentation, and it was the 
 Church herself that had the honour and the power of taking the Reforms in 
 initiative in the reformation. Under the influence of Gregory VII. 
 the rigour of the popes began to declare itself against the scandals 
 of the episcopate, the traffic in ecclesiastical benefices and the bad 
 morals of the secular clergy. At the same time, austere men 
 exerted themselves to rekindle the fervour of monastic life, re- 
 established rigid rules in the cloister, and refilled the monasteries by 
 their preaching and example. Eich ,nd powerful laymen, filled 
 with ardour for their faith or fear for their eternal welfare, went 
 seeking after solitude, and devoted themselves to prayer in the 
 monasteries they had founded or enriched with their wealth ; whole 
 families were dispersed amongst various religious houses ; and all 
 the severities of penance hardly sufficed to quiet imaginations 
 scared at the perils of living in the world or at the vices of their 
 age. And, at the same time, in addition to this outburst of piety, Progress 
 ignorance was decried and stigmatized as the source of the prevail- 
 ing evils ; the function of teaching was included amongst the duties 
 of the religious estate; and every newly-founded or reformed 
 monastery became a school in which pupils of all conditions were 
 gratuitously instructed in the sciences known by the name of liberal 
 arts. Bold spirits began to use the rights of individual thought in 
 opposition to the authority of established doctrines ; and others, 
 without dreaming of opposing, strove at any rate to understand, 
 which is the way to produce discussion. Activity and freedom of 
 thought were receiving development at the same time that fervent 
 faith and fervent piety were. The quarrel of Abelard with St. 
 Bernard and the crusade against the Albigensians are the two most 
 striking events in connection with this part of our subject ; they 
 show us how Northern France and Southern France differed one 
 from the other before the bloody crisis which was to unite them in 
 one single name and one common destiny. 
 
 It was in the very midst of the clergy themselves, amongst 
 literates and teachers, that, in Northern France, the intellectual 
 and innovating movement of the period was manifested and con- 
 centrated. The movement was vigorous and earnest, and it was a A.D. 1079 
 really studious host which thronged to the lessons of Abelard TT 1 , 142 ' 
 at Paris, on Mount St. Genevieve, at Melun, at Corbeil, and at the 
 Paraclete ; it was to expound and propagate what they regarded as 
 
IO4 History of France. 
 
 the philosophy of Christianity that masters and pupils made hold 
 use of the freedom of thought ; they made hut slight war upon the 
 existing practical ahuses of the Church ; they differed from her in 
 the interpretation and comments contained in some of her dogmas; 
 and they considered themselves in a position to explain and con- 
 firm faith hy reason. The chiefs of the Church, with St. Bernard 
 at their head, were not slow to decry, in these interpretations and 
 comments "based upon science, danger to the simple and pure faith 
 of the Christian ; they saw the apparition of dawning rationalism 
 His doc- confronting orthodoxy. They had Abelard's doctrines condemned 
 trines con- a ^ the councils of Soissons and Sens ; they prohibited him from 
 public lecturing ; and they imposed upon him the seclusion of the 
 cloister ; but they did not even harbour the notion of having him 
 burnt as a heretic, and science and glory were respected in his 
 person, even when his ideas were proscribed. Peter the Venerable, 
 abbot of Cluni, one of the most highly considered and honoured 
 prelates of the Church, received him amongst his own monks and 
 treated him with paternal kindness, taking care of his health as 
 well as of his eternal welfare ; and he who was the adversary of 
 St. Bernard, and the teacher condemned by the councils of Soissons 
 and Sens, died peacefully, on the 21st of April, 1142, in the abbey 
 of St. Marcellus, near Chalon-sur-Saone, after having received the 
 sacraments with much piety and in presence of all the brethren of 
 the monastery. 
 
 The struggle of Abelard with the Church of Northern France 
 and the crusade against the Albigensians in Southern France are 
 divided by much more than diversity and contrast ; there is an 
 abyss between them. In Northern France, in spite of internal 
 disorder and through the influence of its bishops, missionaries, and 
 monastic reformers, the orthodox Church had obtained a decided 
 ^nj^t^n superiority and full dominion; but in Southern France, on the 
 of South- contrary, all the controversies, all the sects, and all the mystical or 
 ern France, philosophical heresies which had disturbed Christendom from the 
 second century to the ninth, had crept in and spread abroad. In 
 it there were Arians, Manicheans, Gnostics, Paulicians, Cathars 
 (the pure), and other sects of more local or more recent origin and 
 name, Albigensians, Vaudians, Good People and Poor of Lyons, 
 some piously possessed with the desire of returning to the pure 
 faith and fraternal organization of the primitive evangelical Church, 
 others given over to the extravagances of imagination or asceticism. 
 The princes and the great laic lords of the country, the Counts of 
 Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges, the Viscount of Beziers, and 
 many others had not remained unaffected by this condition of the 
 
Crusade again-st the Albigensians. 105 
 
 people : the majority were accused of tolerating and even protect- 
 ing the heretics ; and some were suspected of allowing their ideas 
 to penetrate within their own households. 
 
 After a not very effectual mission of St. Bernard, who died in 
 1153, and for half a century, the orthodox Church was several 7 
 times occupied with the heretics of Southern France, who were gensians. 
 before long called Albigensians, either because they were numerous 
 in the diocese of Albi, or because the council of Lombers, one of 
 the first at which their condemnation was expressly pronounced 
 (in 1165), was held in that diocese. Innocent III. at first em- 
 ployed against them only spiritual and legitimate weapons. Before 
 proscribing, he tried to convert them ; but the murder of Peter de 
 Castelnau, his legate, by supposed agents of Raymond VI., Count 
 of Toulouse, brought matters to extremities. The crusade against A.D. 1208 
 the Albigensians was the most striking application of two principles, I" 122 ?' 
 equally false and fatal, which did more than as much evil to the against 
 Catholics as to the heretics and to the papacy as to freedom ; and them, 
 they are, the right of the spiritual power to claim for the coercion 
 of souls the material force of the temporal powers, and its right to 
 strip temporal sovereigns, in case they set at nought its injunctions, 
 of their title to the obedience of their people; in other words, 
 denial of religious liberty to conscience and of political indepen- 
 dence to States. It was by virtue of these two principles, at that 
 time dominant, but not without some opposition, in Christendom, 
 that Innocent III., in 1208, summoned the king of France, the 
 great lords and the knights, and the clergy, secular and regular, of 
 the kingdom to assume the cross and go forth to extirpate from 
 Southern France the Albigensians "worse than the Saracens;" 
 and that he promised to the chiefs of the crusaders the sovereignty 
 of such domains as they should win by conquest from the princes 
 who were heretics or protectors of heretics. 
 
 Through all France and even outside of France the passions of 
 religion and ambition were aroused at this summons. Twelve 
 abbots and twenty monks of Citeaux dispersed themselves in all 
 directions preaching the crusade ; and lords and knights, burghers 
 and peasants, laymen and clergy, hastened to respond. Peter of 
 Vaulx-Cernay, the chief contemporary chronicler of this crusade, 
 says that, at the siege of Carcassonne, one of the first operations 
 of the crusaders, "it was said that their army numbered fifty 
 thousand men." Whatever may be the truth about the numbers, 
 the crusaders were passionately ardent and persevering : the war 
 against the Albigensians lasted twenty-one years (from 1208 to 
 1229), and of the two leading spirits, one ordering and the other 
 
io6 History of France. 
 
 executing, Pope Innocent III. and Simon de Montfort, neither saw 
 the end of it. During these twenty-one years, in the region situated 
 between the Ehone, the Pyrenees, the Garonne, and even the 
 Dordogne, nearly all the towns and strong castles were taken, lost, 
 retaken, given over to pillage, sack, and massacre, and burnt by 
 the crusaders with all the cruelty of fanatics, and all the greed of 
 conquerors. 
 
 In the midst of these atrocious unbridlements of passions sup- 
 posed to be religious, other passions were not slow to make their 
 appearance. Innocent III. had promised the crusaders the enjoy- 
 ment of the domains they might win by conquest from princes who 
 were heretics or protectors of heretics. After the capture, in 1209, 
 of Beziers and Carcassonne, the sovereignty of these possessions 
 was granted by the Pope to Simon, lord of Montfort, earl of 
 Leicester ; from this time forth the war in Southern France 
 The war changed character, or, rather, it assumed a double character ; with 
 character ^ ne war ^ re lioi n was openly joined a war of conquest ; it was 
 Simon de no longer merely against the Albigensians and their heresies, it was 
 Montfort. a g a j ns t ^ e native princes of Southern France and their domains 
 that the crusade was prosecuted. Simon de Montfort was emi- 
 nently qualified to direct, and accomplished this twofold design ; 
 when, however, it became evident that the question lay far less 
 between catholics and heretics than between the independence of 
 the southern people and the triumph of warriors come from the north 
 of France, that is to say, between two different races, civilizations, 
 and languages, the count of Toulouse, Eaymond VI. and his son 
 recovered certain supports and opportunities of which hitherto the 
 accusation of heresy and the judgments of the court of Eome had 
 robbed them ; their neighbouring allies and their secret or intimi- 
 dated partisans took fresh courage ; the fortune of battle became 
 shifty ; successes and reverses were shared by both sides ; and not 
 only many small places and castles but the largest towns, Toulouse 
 amongst others, fell into the hands of each party alternately. 
 Innocent III/s successor in the Holy See, Pope Honorius III., 
 though at first very pronounced in his opposition to the Albi- 
 gensians, had less ability, less perseverance, and less influence than 
 A.D. 1218. his predecessor. Finally, on the 25th of June, 1218, Simon de 
 He is killed ]\j[ on tfort, who had been for nine months unsuccessfully besieging 
 louse. Toulouse, which had again come into the possession of Eay- 
 mond VI., was killed by a shower of stones under the walls of the 
 place, and left to his son Amaury the inheritance of his war and 
 his conquests, but not of his vigorous genius and his warlike 
 renown. The struggle still dragged on for five years with varied 
 
Philip Augustus as a Politician. 107 
 
 fortune on each side, but Amaury de Montfort was losing ground 
 every day, and Eaymond VI., when he died in August, 1222, had 
 recovered the greater part of his dominions. His son, Eay- 
 mond VII., continued the war for eighteen months longer, with 
 enough of popular favour and of success to make his enemies despair 
 of recovering their advantages j and, on the 14th of January, 1224, 
 Amaury de Montfort, after having concluded with the counts of 
 Toulouse and Foix a treaty which seemed to have only a provi- 
 sional character, ceded to Louis VIII., then king of France, his 
 rights over the domains which the crusaders had conquered. 
 
 Whilst this cruel war lasted Philip Augustus would not take any 
 part in it. Not that he had any leaning towards the Albigensian 
 heretics on the score of creed or religious liberty; but his sense of 
 justice and moderation was shocked at the violence employed 
 against them, and he had a repugnance to the idea of taking part 
 in the devastation of the beautiful southern provinces. Never- 
 theless, on the pope's repeated entreaty, he authorized his son to Discretion 
 join in the war with such lords as might be willing to accompany of Philip 
 him ; but he ordered that the expedition should not start before u ^ us 
 the spring, and, on the occurrence of some fresh incident, he had 
 it further put off until the following year. He received visits from 
 Count Eaymond VI., and openly testified good will towards him. 
 When Simon de Montfort was decisively victorious, and in pos- 
 session of the places wrested from Eaymond, Philip Augustus 
 recognized accomplished facts, and received the new count of 
 Toulouse as his vassal ; but when, after the death of Simon de 
 Montfort and Innocent III. the question was once more thrown 
 open, and when Eaymond VI. first and then his son Eaymond VII. 
 had recovered the greater part of their dominions, Philip formally 
 refused to recognize Amaury de Montfort as successor to his father's 
 conquests ; nay, he did more, he refused to accept the cession of 
 those conquests, offered to him by Amaury de Montfort and pressed 
 upon him by Pope Honorius III. Philip Augustus was not a scrupu- 
 lous sovereign, nor disposed to compromise himself for the mere sake 
 of defending justice and humanity ; but he was too judicious not to 
 respect and protect, to a certain extent, the rights of his vassals as 
 well as his own, and, at the same time, too discreet to involve 
 himself, without necessity, in a barbarous and dubious war. He 
 held aloof from the crusade against the Albigensians with as much 
 wisdom and more than as much dignity as he displayed, seven- 
 teen years before, in withdrawing from the crusade against the 
 Saracens. tion of 
 
 He had, in 1216. another great chance of showing; his discretion. J rince . 
 
 Louis into 
 England. 
 
io8 History of France. 
 
 The English barons were at war with their king, John Lackland, 
 in defence of Magna Charta, which they had obtained the year 
 before; and they offered the crown of England to the king of 
 France, for his son, Prince Louis. Philip Augustus, who in his 
 youth had dreamed of resuscitating the empire of Charlemagne, 
 was strongly tempted to seize the opportunity of doing over again 
 the work of William the Conqueror ; but he hesitated to endanger 
 his power and his kingdom in such a war against King John and 
 the pope. Foreseeing the dangers of events to come, he did not 
 give his public consent, and, without any expression of wish or 
 counsel, permitted the young prince to go, with the gift of his 
 blessing. It was the ambitious princess Blanche of Castile, wife 
 of Prince Louis, and destined to be the mother of St. Louis, who, 
 after her husband's departure for England, made it her business to 
 raise troops for him and to send him means of sustaining the war. 
 Events justified the discreet reserve of Philip Augustus ; for John 
 Lackland, after having suffered one reverse previously, died on the 
 18th of October, 1216 ; his death broke up the party of the insur- 
 gent barons ; and his son, Henry III., who was crowned on the 
 28th of October in Gloucester cathedral, immediately confirmed 
 the Great Charter. Thus the national grievance vanished, and 
 national feeling resumed its sway in England ; the French every 
 where became unpopular ; and after a few months' struggle, with 
 equal want of skill and success, Prince Louis gave up his enter- 
 prise and returned to France with his French comrades, on no 
 other conditions but a mutual exchange of prisoners and an 
 amnesty for the English who had been his adherents. 
 
 At this juncture, as well as in the crusade against the Albigen- 
 sians, Philip Augustus behaved towards the pope with a wisdom 
 and ability hard of attainment at any time, and very rare in his 
 own : he constantly humoured the papacy without being subser- 
 vient to it, and he testified towards it his respect and at the same 
 A.D. 1196. time his independence. In his political life he always preserved 
 Au^tns ^ n * s P r P er mean j an( i h e found it succeed ; but in his domestic 
 marries life there came a day when he suffered himself to be hurried out 
 Agnes of O f n j s ug^i deference towards the pope ; and, after a violent at- 
 tempt at resistance, he resigned himself to submission. The cir- 
 cumstance we are alluding to is his repudiation of Ingeburga of 
 Denmark, and his marriage with the Tyrolese princess Agnes of 
 Merania, daughter of Bethold, Marquis of Istria, whom, about 
 1180, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had made Duke of 
 The inter- Moravia. The pope threatened Philip with the interdict ; that is, 
 diet. the suspension of all religious ceremonies, festivals, and forms in 
 
Administration. 109 
 
 the Church of France. The king resisted not only the threat, but 
 also the sentence of the interdict, which was actually pronounced, 
 first in the churches of the royal domain, and afterwards in those 
 of the whole kingdom. For four years the struggle went on. At 
 last Philip yielded to the injunction of the pope and the feeling of 
 his people ; he sent away Agnes, and recalled Ingeburga. 
 
 Philip Augustus was as energetic and effective in the internal Admini- 
 administration of his kingdom as in foreign affairs ; thus, during his ^k . f 
 reign, we find a record of forty-one acts confirming certain com- dom. 
 munes already established or certain privileges previously granted 
 to certain populations, forty-three acts establishing new communes, 
 or granting new local privileges, and nine acts decreeing suppres- 
 sion of certain communes or a repressive intervention of the royal 
 authority in their internal regulation, on account of quarrels or 
 irregularities in their relations either with their lord, or, especially, 
 with their bishop. These mere figures show the liberal character 
 of the government of Philip Augustus in respect of this important 
 work of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Nor are 
 we less struck by his efficient energy in his care for the interests 
 and material civilization of his people ; " he ordered that all the 
 thoroughfares and streets of Paris should be paved with hard and 
 solid stone, for this right Christian prince aspired to rid Paris of 
 her ancient name, Lutetia (Mud-town)." In 1190, on the eve of 
 his departure for the crusade, " he ordered the burghers of Paris 
 to surround with a good wall flanked by towers the city he loved 
 so well, and to make gates thereto ; " and, in twenty years, this 
 great work was finished on both sides of the Seine. " The king 
 gave the same orders," adds the historian Rigord, " about the towns 
 and castles of all his kingdom." His foresight went beyond such 
 important achievements. " He had a good wall built to enclose the 
 wood of Yincennes, heretofore open to any sort of folk. The 
 King of England, on hearing thereof, gathered a great mass of 
 fawns, hinds, does, and bucks, taken in his forests in Normandy 
 and Aquitaine; and having had them shipped aboard a large 
 covered vessel, with suitable fodder, he sent them by way of the 
 Seine to King Philip Augustus, his liege-lord at Paris. King 
 Philip received the gift gladly, had his parks stocked with the 
 animals and put keepers over them." A feeling, totally uncon- 
 nected with the pleasures of the chase, caused him to order an 
 enclosure very different from that of Yincennes. " The common 
 cemetery of Paris, hard by the Church of the Holy Innocents, 
 opposite the street of St. Denis, had remained up to that time open 
 to all passers, man and beast, without any thing to prevent it from 
 
no History of France. 
 
 "being confounded with the most profane spot ; and the king, hurt 
 at such indecency, had it enclosed by high stone-walls, with as 
 many gates as were judged necessary, which were closed every 
 night." At the same time he had built, in this same quarter, the 
 first great municipal market-places, enclosed, likewise, by a wall, 
 with gates shut at night, and surmounted by a sort of covered 
 gallery. Before his time, the ovens employed by the baking-trade 
 in Paris were a monopoly for the profit of certain religious or laic 
 establishments ; but when Philip Augustus ordered the walling-in 
 of the new and much larger area of the city " he did not think it 
 right to render its new inhabitants subject to these old liabilities, 
 and he permitted all the bakers to have ovens wherein to bake 
 their bread, either for themselves, or for all individuals who might 
 wish to make use of them." His reign saw the completion, and, 
 it might also be said, the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris, 
 the frontage of which, in particular, was the work of this epoch. 
 At the same time the king had the palace of the Louvre repaired 
 and enlarged ; and he added to it that strong tower in which he 
 kept in captivity for more than twelve years, Ferrand, count of 
 Flanders, taken prisoner at the battle of Bouvines. We must also 
 add to these proofs of manifold and indefatigable activity on the 
 part of Philip Augustus the constant interest he testified in letters, 
 science, study, the University of Paris, and its masters and pupils. 
 It was to him that in 1200, after a violent riot, in which they con- 
 sidered they had reason to complain of the provost of Paris, the 
 students owed a decree, which, by regarding them as clerics, ex- 
 empted them from the ordinary criminal jurisdiction so as to 
 render them subject only to ecclesiastical authority. At that time 
 there was no idea how to efficiently protect freedom save by grant- 
 ing some privilege. 
 
 Death of A death which seems premature for a man as sound and strong 
 
 the king. i n constitution as in judgment struck down Philip Augustus at the 
 
 age of only fifty-eight, as he was on his way from Pacy-sur-Eure 
 
 to Paris to be present at the council which was to meet there and 
 
 once more take up the affair of the Albigensians. He had for 
 
 several months been battling with an incessant fever; he was 
 
 obliged to halt at Mantes, and there he died on the 14th of January, 
 
 1222, leaving the kingdom of France far more extensive and more 
 
 compact, and the kingship in France far stronger and more re- 
 
 A.D. 1223. spected than he had found them. His son, Louis VIII., inherited 
 
 Louis VIII. a g rea t kingdom, an undisputed crown, and a power that was re- 
 
 His cha- spected. It was matter of general remark, moreover, that, by his 
 
 racter. mother, Isabel of Hainault, he was descended in the direct line 
 
Louis IX. and Blanche of Castile. 1 1 1 
 
 from Hermengarde, countess of Namur, daughter of Charles of 
 Lorraine, the last of the Carlovingians. Thus the claims of the 
 two dynasties of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet were united in 
 his person ; and, although the authority of the Capetians was no 
 longer disputed, contemporaries were glad to see in Louis VIII. this 
 twofold heirship, which gave him the perfect stamp of a legitimate 
 monarch. He was a man of downright ^mediocrity, without fore- 
 sight, volatile in his resolves, and weak and fickle in the execution 
 of them. He, as well as Philip Augustus, had to make war on the 
 king of England and negotiate with the pope on the subject of the 
 Albigensians ; but at one time he followed, without well under- 
 standing it, his father's policy, at another he neglected it for some 
 whim or under some temporary influence. He died on the 8th of A.D. 1226. 
 November, 1226, after a reign of three years, adding to the history ^is IX. 
 of France no glory save that of having been the son of Philip t j ie t^r^e 
 Augustus, the husband of Blanche of Castile, and the father of 
 St. Louis. 
 
 "We have already perused the most brilliant and celebrated 
 amongst the events of St. Louis' reign, his two crusades against the 
 Mussulmans ; and we have learned to know the man at the same 
 time with the event, for it was in these warlike outbursts of his 
 Christian faith that the king's character, nay, his whole soul, was 
 displayed in all its originality and splendour. It was his good 
 fortune, moreover, to have at that time as his comrade and bio- 
 grapher, Sire de Joinville, one of the most sprightly and charming 
 writers of the nascent French language. It is now of Louis in 
 France and of his government at home that we have to take note. 
 And in this part of his history he is not the only royal and really 
 regnant personage we encounter; for of the forty-four years of 
 St. Louis' reign, nearly fifteen, with a long interval of separation, A.D. 1226 
 pertained to the government of Queen Blanche of Castile rather 1236> 
 than that of the king her son. Louis, at his accession, in 1226, men t "f 
 was only eleven ; and he remained a minor up to the age of twenty- Blanche of 
 one, in 1236, for the time of majority in the case of royalty was as 
 not yet specially and rigorously fixed. During those ten years 
 Queen Blanche governed France ; not at all, as is commonly as- 
 serted, with the official title of regent, but simply as guardian of the 
 king her son. With a good sense really admirable in a person so 
 proud and ambitious, she saw that official power was ill suited to her 
 woman's condition and would weaken rather than strengthen her ; 
 and she screened herself from view behind her son. He it was who, 
 in 1226, wrote to the great vassals bidding them to his consecra- 
 tion ; he it was who reigned and commanded ; and his name alone 
 
1 1 2 History of France. 
 
 appeared on royal decrees and on treaties. It was not until twenty- 
 two years had passed, in 1248, that Louis, on starting for the 
 crusade, officially delegated to his mother the kingly authority, 
 and that Blanche, during her son's absence, really governed with 
 the title of regent, up to the 1st of December, 1252, the day of 
 his death. 
 
 Her qua During the first period of his government, and so long as her 
 lities. son's minority lasted, Queen Blanche had to grapple with intrigues, 
 plots, insurrections, and open war, and, what was still worse for 
 her, with the insults and calumnies of the crown's great vassals, 
 burning to seize once more, under a woman's government, the 
 independence and power which had been effectually disputed with 
 them by Philip Augustus. Blanche resisted their attempts, at one 
 time with open and persevering energy, at another dexterously 
 with all the tact, address and allurements of a woman. Neither 
 in the events nor in the writings of the period is it easy to find any 
 thing which can authorize the accusations made by the foes of 
 Queen Blanche, to the effect that she encouraged the passion of 
 Theobald IV., count of Champagne ; but it is certain that neither 
 the poetry nor the advances of the nobleman made any difference 
 in the resolutions and behaviour of the queen. She continued 
 her resistance to the pretensions and machinations of the great 
 vassals, whether foes or lovers, and she carried forward, in the face 
 and in the teeth of all, the extension of the domains and the power 
 Her politi- O f the kingship. She saw by profound instinct what forces and 
 alliances might be made serviceable to the kingly power against 
 its rivals. When, on the 29th of November, 1226, only three 
 weeks after the death of her husband Louis VIII., she had her son 
 crowned at Eheims, she bade to the ceremony not only the prelates 
 and grandees of the kingdom, but also the inhabitants of the 
 neighbouring communes; wishing to let the great lords see the 
 people surrounding the royal child. In 1228, amidst the insur- 
 rection of the barons, who were assembled at Corbeil, and who 
 meditated seizing the person of the young king during his halt at 
 Montlhery on his march to Paris, Queen Blanche had summoned 
 to her side, together with the faithful chivalry of the country, the 
 burghers of Paris and of the neighbourhood ; and they obeyed the 
 appeal with alacrity. Eight years later, in 1236, Louis IX. 
 attained his majority, and Blanche transferred to him a power 
 respected, feared and encompassed by vassals always turbulent and 
 still often aggressive, but disunited, weakened, intimidated, or 
 A.D. 1234. discredited, and always outwitted, for a space of ten years, in 
 ^th 1 *^ 6 ^eir plots. In 1234, amidst great rejoicings, he married by his 
 king. 
 
SIKE DE JOINVILLE. 
 
 Page 113. 
 
Relations of Saint Louis with the Nobles. 113 
 
 mother's advice the princess Marguerite, elder daughter of Eaymond 
 Beranger, count of Provence. 
 
 The entrance of Louis IX. upon personal exercise of the kingly Maintains 
 power produced no change in the conduct of public affairs. JJt^* 11 * 8 
 There was no vain seeking after innovation on purpose to mark crown 
 the accession of a new master, and no reaction in the deeds and ** in r S g t 
 words of the sovereign or in the choice and treatment of his vassals, 
 advisers ; the kingship of the son was a continuance of the mother's 
 government. Louis persisted in struggling for the preponderance 
 of the crown against the great vassals ; succeeded in taming Peter 
 Mauclerc, the turbulent count of Brittany ; wrung from Theobald 
 IV., count of Champagne, the rights of suzerainty in the 
 countships of Chartres, Blois, and Sancerre, and the viscountship 
 of Chateaudun; and purchased the fertile countship of Macon 
 from its possessor. It was almost always by pacific procedure, by 
 negotiations ably conducted, and conventions faithfully executed, 
 that he accomplished these increments of the kingly domain ; and 
 when he made war on any of the great vassals, he engaged therein Rebellion 
 only on their provocation, to maintain the rights or honour of his of the 
 crown, and he used victory with as much moderation as he had La Marche. 
 shown before entering upon the struggle. Thus Hugh de Lusignan, 
 count of la Marche, had not only declined doing homage to the 
 king's brother, Alphonso, count of Poitiers, whose vassal he was, 
 but had also excited to rebellion certain powerful lords, of la Marche, 
 Saintonge, and Angoumois, and had called to his assistance Henry 
 III., king of England, son of the countess of la Marche. Louis 
 summoned the crown's vassals to a parliament ; and " What think A Par- 
 you," he asked them, " should be done to a vassal who would fain 
 hold land without owning a lord, and who goeth against the fealty 
 and homage due from him and his predecessors 1 " The answer was 
 that the lord ought in that case to take back the fief as his own 
 property. " As my name is Louis," said the king, " the count of 
 la Marche doth claim to hold land in such wise, land which hath 
 been a fief of France since the days of the valiant King Clovis, who 
 won all Aquitaine from King Alaric, a pagan without faith or 
 creed, and all the country to the Pyrenean mount." And the 
 barons promised the king their energetic co-operation. 
 
 The war was pushed on zealously by both sides. In this young 
 king of France, this docile son of an able mother, none knew what 
 a hero there was, until he revealed himself on a sudden. Near two A.D. 1242. 
 towns of Saintonge, Taillebourg and Saintes, at a bridge which ^ a " le of 
 covered the approaches of one and in front of the walls of the bourg. 
 other, Louis, on the 21st and 22nd of July, delivered two battles 
 
 I 
 
114 History of France. 
 
 in which the brilliancy of his personal valour and the affectionate 
 enthusiasm he excited in his troops secured victory and the sur- 
 render of the two places. The successes he had gained in his 
 campaign of 1242 were not for him the first step in an endless 
 career of glory and conquest ; he was anxious only to consolidate 
 them, whilst securing, in Western Europe, for the dominions of his 
 adversaries as well as for his own the benefits of peace. He 
 entered into negotiations, successively, with the count of la Marche, 
 the king of England, the count of Toulouse, the king of Aragon, 
 and the various princes and great feudal lords who had been more 
 T ' D ' t 124 f 3 ' or less engaged in the war; and in January, 1243, the treaty of 
 Lorris. Lorris marked the end of feudal troubles for the whole duration of 
 St. Louis' reign. He drew his sword no more, save only against 
 the enemies of the Christian faith and Christian civilization, the 
 Mussulmans. 
 
 Nevertheless there was no lack of opportunities for interfering 
 
 with a powerful arm amongst the sovereigns his neighbours, and 
 
 for working their disagreements to the profit of his ambition, had 
 
 ambition guided his conduct ; but into his relations with foreign 
 
 sovereigns, his neighbours, he imported the most loyal spirit. 
 
 Eelations " Certain of his council used to tell him," reports Joinville, " that 
 
 f - ] th UiSlX ' ^ e ^ not we ^ * n not I eay * n 8 tnese foreigners to their warfare ; 
 
 foreign ^ or j if ne gave them his good leave to impoverish one another, they 
 
 sovereigns, would not attack him so readily as if they were rich. To that the 
 
 king replied that they said not well ; for, quoth he, if the neigh- 
 
 bouring princes perceived that I left them to their warfare, they 
 
 might take counsel amongst themselves, and say, 'It is through 
 
 malice that the king leaves us to our warfare;' then it might 
 
 happen that by cause of the hatred they would have against me, 
 
 they would come and attack me, and I might be a great loser 
 
 thereby. Without reckoning that I should thereby earn the 
 
 hatred of God, who says, 'Blessed be the peacemakers !'" 
 
 So well established was his renown as a sincere friend of peace 
 
 and a just arbiter in great disputes between princes and peoples, 
 
 that his intervention and his decisions were invited wherever 
 
 obscure and dangerous questions arose. Louis gave not only to 
 
 the king of England, but to the whole English nation, a striking 
 
 A.D. 1264. proof of his judicious and true-hearted equity. An obstinate civil 
 
 Is chosen war was raging between Henry III. and his barons. Neither 
 
 between P ar ty> i n defending' its own rights, had any notion of respecting 
 
 Henry III. the rights of its adversaries, and England was alternating between 
 
 and 11 M 11 a ki n oty an( ^ an aristocratic tyranny. Louis, chosen as arbiter by 
 
 barons. both sides, delivered solemnly, on the 23rd of January, 1264, a 
 
Arbitrates between Henry III. and the English Barons. 115 
 
 decision which was favourable to the English kingship, but at the 
 same time expressly upheld the Great Charter and the traditional 
 liberties of England. He concluded his decision with the following 
 suggestions of amnesty : " "We will also that the king of England 
 and his barons do forgive one another mutually, that they do forget 
 all the resentments that may exist between them by consequence 
 of the matters submitted to our arbitration, and that henceforth 
 they do refrain reciprocally from any offence and injury on account 
 of the same matters." But when men have had their ideas, passions, 
 and interests profoundly agitated and made to clash, the wisest 
 decisions and the most honest counsels in the world are not 
 sufficient to re-establish peace ; the cup of experience has to be Fairness of 
 drunk to the dregs ; and the parties are not resigned to peace until h? 8 deci - 
 one or the other, or both have exhausted themselves in the struggle, S1 
 and perceive the absolute necessity of accepting either defeat or 
 compromise. In spite of the arbitration of the king of France, the 
 civil war continued in England ; but Louis did not seek in any 
 way to profit by it so as to extend, at the expense of his neighbours, 
 his own possessions or power ; he held himself aloof from their 
 quarrels, and followed up by honest neutrality his ineffectual 
 arbitration. Eive centuries afterwards the great English historian, 
 Hume, rendered him due homage in these terms : " Every time 
 this virtuous prince interfered in the affairs of England, it was 
 invariably with the view of settling differences between the king 
 and the nobility. Adopting an admirable course of conduct, as 
 politic probably as it certainly was just, he never interposed his 
 good offices save to put an end to the disagreements of the English ; 
 he seconded all the measures which could give security to both 
 parties, and he made persistent efforts, though without success, to 
 moderate the fiery ambition of the earl of Leicester." (Hume, 
 History of England, t. ii. p. 465.) 
 
 To watch over the position and interests of all parties in his His ad- 
 dominions and to secure to all his subjects strict and prompt justice, ft 1 ^" 
 this was what continually occupied the mind of Louis IX. On justice, 
 this subject we may transcribe Joinville's often-quoted account of 
 St. Louis's familiar intervention in his subjects' disputes about 
 matters of private interest. "Many a time," says he, "it hap- 
 pened in summer that the king went and sat down in the wood 
 of Yincennes after Mass, and leaned against an oak and made us sit 
 down round about him. And all those who had business came to 
 speak to him without restraint of usher or other folk. And then he 
 demanded of them with his own mouth, ' Is there here any who 
 hath a suit 1 ' and they who had their suit rose up ; and then he 
 
 i 2 
 
n6 History of France. 
 
 said, ' Keep silence all of ye ; and ye shall have despatch one after 
 the other.' And then he called my lord Peter de Fontaines and 
 my lord Geoffrey de Villette (two learned lawyers of the day and 
 counsellors of St. Louis), and said to one of them, ' Despatch me 
 this suit.' And when he saw ought to amend in the words of 
 those who were speaking for another, he himself amended it with 
 his own mouth. I sometimes saw in summer that, to despatch his 
 people's business, he went into the Paris garden, clad in camlet 
 coat and linsey surcoat without sleeves, a mantle of black taffety 
 round his neck, hair right well combed and without coif, and on 
 his head a hat with white peacock's plumes. And he had carpets 
 laid for us to sit round about him. And all the people who had 
 business before him set themselves standing around him ; and then 
 he had their business despatched in the manner I told you of 
 before as to the wood of Vincennes." (Joinville, chap, xii.) 
 
 The active benevolence of St. Louis was not confined to this 
 paternal care for the private interests of such subjects as approached 
 his person ; he was equally attentive and zealous in the case of 
 measures called for by the social condition of the times and the 
 general interests of the kingdom. Amongst the twenty-six 
 government ordinances, edicts, or letters, contained under the date 
 His laws f hi s re ig n * n tne fi rst volume of the Recueil des Ordonnances des 
 and ordi- Hois de France, seven, at the least, are great acts of legislation and 
 tances. administration of a public kind ; and these acts are all of such a 
 stamp as to show that their main object is not to extend the power 
 of the crown or subserve the special interests of the kingship at 
 strife with other social forces ; they are real reforms, of public and 
 moral interest, directed against the violence, disturbances, and 
 abuses of the feudal system. As for the large collection of legis- 
 "Etablis- tive enactments known by the name of fitablissements de Saint 
 sements de Louis, it is probably a lawyer's work, posterior, in great part at 
 Louis " l eas *> to his reign, full of incoherent and even contradictory enact- 
 ments, and without any claim to be considered as a general code of 
 law of St. Louis' date and collected by his order, although the 
 paragraph which serves as preface to the work is given under his 
 name and as if it had been dictated by him. 
 
 "Prag- Another act, known by the name of the Pragmatic Sanction, has 
 
 Sanction" likewise got placed, with the date of March, 1268, in the Recueil 
 
 "The Gal- des Ordonnances des Rois de France, as having originated with St. 
 
 Church " kouis. I ts ty ect i g > first of all, to secure the rights, liberties, and 
 
 canonical rules, internally, of the Church of France ; and, next, to 
 
 interdict " the exactions and very heavy money-charges which have 
 
 been imposed or may hereafter be imposed on the said Church by 
 
Police Regulations. 117 
 
 the court of Eome, and by the which our kingdom hath been 
 miserably impoverished ; unless they take place for reasonable, 
 pious, and very urgent cause, through inevitable necessity, and with 
 our spontaneous and express consent, and that of the Church of our 
 kingdom." The authenticity of this act, vigorously maintained in 
 the seventeenth century by Bossuet (in his Defense de la Decla- 
 ration da Clerge de France de 1682, chap. ix. t. xliii. p. 26), and 
 in our time by M. Daunou (in the Histoire litteraire de la France, 
 continuee par des Membres de I'lnstitut, t. xvi. p. 75, and t. xix. 
 p. 169), has been and still is rendered doubtful for strong reasons, 
 which M. Felix Faure, in his Histoire de Saint Louis (t. ii. p. 271), 
 has summed up with great clearness. There is no design of 
 entering here upon an examination of this little historical problem ; 
 but it is a bounden duty to point out that, if the authenticity of 
 the Pragmatic Sanction, as St. Louis', is questionable, the act has, 
 at bottom, nothing but what bears a very strong resemblance to 
 and is quite in conformity with the general conduct of that prince. 
 He was profoundly respectful, affectionate, and faithful towards the 
 papacy, but, at the same time, very careful in upholding both the 
 independence of the crown in things temporal and its right of 
 superintendence in things spiritual. 
 
 One special fact in the civil and municipal administration of Police in 
 St. Louis deserves to find a place in history. After the time of g? n ^* n 
 Philip Augustus there was malfeasance in the police of Paris. The Boileau. 
 provostship of Paris, which comprehended functions analogous to 
 those of prefect, mayor, and receiver-general, became a purchaseable 
 office, filled sometimes by two provosts at a time. The burghers 
 no longer found justice or security in the city where the king re- 
 sided. At his return from his first crusade, Louis recognized 
 the necessity for applying a remedy to this evil ; the provostship 
 ceased to be a purchaseable office ; and he made it separate from the 
 receivership of the royal domain. In 1258, he chose as provost 
 Stephen Boileau, a burgher of note and esteem in Paris ; and in 
 order to give this magistrate the authority of which he had need, 
 the king sometimes came and sat beside him, when he was admi- 
 nistering justice at the Chatelet. Stephen Boileau justified the 
 king's confidence, and maintained so strict a police that he had his 
 own godson hanged for theft. His administrative foresight was 
 equal to his judicial severity. He established registers wherein 
 were to be inscribed the rules habitually followed in respect of the 
 organization and work of the different corporations of artisans, the 
 tariffs of the dues charged, in the name of the king, upon the ad- 
 mittance of provisions and merchandise, and the titles on which the 
 
1 1 8 History of France. 
 
 abbots and other lords founded the privileges they enjoyed within 
 the walls of Paris. The corporations of artisans, represented by 
 their sworn masters or prud'Jiommes, appeared one after the other 
 before the provost to make declaration of the usages in practice 
 amongst their communities, and to have them registered in the book 
 prepared for that purpose. This collection of regulations relating 
 to the arts and trades of Paris in the thirteenth century, known under 
 the name of Livre des Metiers d'jfitienne Boileau, is the earliest monu- 
 ment of industrial statistics drawn up by the French administration. 
 All the chroniclers of the age, all the historians of his reign 
 have celebrated the domestic virtues of Saint Louis, his charity as 
 much as his piety ; and the philosophers of the eighteenth century 
 almost forgave him his taste for relics in consideration of his 
 beneficence. And it was not merely legislative and administrative 
 beneficence; St. Louis did not confine himself to founding and 
 endowing hospitals, hospices, asylums, the Hotel-Dieu at Pontoise, 
 that at Vernon, that at Compiegne, and, at Paris, the house of 
 Quinze-Vingts, for 300 blind ; but he did not spare his person 
 in his beneficence, and regarded no deed of charity as beneath 
 Charity a king's dignity. "Every day, wherever the king went, one 
 o? the hundred and twenty-two of the poor received each two loaves, a 
 king. quart of wine, meat or fish for a good dinner, and a Paris denier. 
 The mothers of families had a loaf more for each child. Besides 
 these hundred and twenty-two poor having out-door relief, thirteen 
 others were every day introduced into the hotel and there lived as 
 the king's officers ; and three of them sat at table at the same time 
 with the king, in the same hall as he, and quite close." . . . . " Many 
 a time," says Joinville, " I saw him cut their bread and give them 
 to drink. He asked me one day if I washed the feet of the poor on 
 Holy Thursday : ' Sir,' said I, 'what a benefit ! The feet of those 
 knaves ! Not I.' ' Verily,' said he, 'that is ill said, for you ought 
 not to hold in disdain what God did for our instruction. I pray 
 you, therefore, for love of me, accustom yourself to wash them.' " 
 
 He who thus felt and acted was no monk, no prince enwrapt in 
 mere devoutness and altogether given up to works and practices 
 of piety ; he was a knight, a warrior, a politician, a true king, who 
 attended to the duties of authority as well as to those of charity, 
 and who won respect from his nearest friends as well as from 
 strangers, whilst astonishing them at one time by his bursts of 
 mystic piety and monastic austerity, at another by his flashes of 
 the ruler's spirit and his judicious independence, even towards the 
 representatives of the faith and Church with whom he was in 
 sympathy. "He passed for the wisest man in all his council." He 
 
Saint Louis encourages liter attire. 119 
 
 delighted in books and literates ; " He was sometimes present at His fond* 
 the discourses and disputations of the University ; but he took 
 care to search out for himself the truth in the word of God and in 
 
 the traditions of the Church Having found out, during his 
 
 travels in the East, that a Saracenic sultan had collected a quantity 
 of books for the service of the philosophers of his sect, he was 
 shamed to see that Christians had less zeal for getting instructed in 
 the truth than infidels had for getting themselves made dexterous 
 in falsehood ; so much so that, after his return to France, he had 
 search made in the abbeys for all the genuine works of St. Augustin, 
 St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, and other orthodox teachers, 
 and, having caused copies' of them to be made, he had them placed 
 in the treasury of Sainte-Chapelle. He used to read them when 
 he had any leisure, and he readily lent them to those who might 
 get profit from them for themselves or for others. Sometimes, at 
 the end of the afternoon meal, he sent for pious persons with whom 
 he conversed about God, about the stories in the Bible and the 
 histories of the saints, or about the lives of the Fathers." He had 
 a particular friendship for the learned Kobert of Sorbon, founder 
 of the Sorbonne, whose idea was a society of secular ecclesiastics, 
 who, living in common and having the necessaries of life, should 
 give themselves up entirely to study and gratuitous teaching. Not 
 only did St. Louis give him every facility and every aid necessary 
 for the establishment of his learned college ; but he made him one 
 of his chaplains, and often invited him to his presence and his 
 table in order to enjoy his conversation. 
 
 For all his moral sympathy, and superior as he was to his age, His blun- 
 St. Louis, nevertheless, shared and even helped to prolong two of de . rs - 
 its greatest mistakes ; as a Christian he misconceived the rights of ception" of 
 conscience in respect of religion, and, as a king, he brought upon the rights 
 his people deplorable evils and perils for the sake of a fruitless 
 enterprise. War against religious liberty was, for a long course of 
 ages, the crime of Christian communities and the source of the most 
 cruel evils as well as of the most formidable irreligious reactions 
 the world has had to undergo. The thirteenth century was the 
 culminating period of this fatal notion and the sanction of it con- 
 ferred by civil legislation as well as ecclesiastical teaching. St. 
 Louis joined, so far, with sincere conviction, in the general and 
 ruling idea of his age ; and the jumbled code which bears the name 
 of fitablissements de Saint Louis, formally condemns heretics to 
 death, and bids the civil judges to see to the execution, in this 
 respect, of the bishops' .sentences. In 1255 St. Louis himself 
 demanded of Pope Alexander IY. leave for the Dominicans and 
 
I2O History of France. 
 
 Franciscans to exercise, throughout the whole kingdom, the inquisi- 
 tion already established, on account of the Albigensians, in the old 
 domains of the counts of Toulouse. His extreme severity towards 
 what he called the knavish oath (vilain serment), that is, blasphemy, 
 an offence for which there is no definition save what is contained 
 in the bare name of it, is, perhaps, the most striking indication of 
 the state of men's minds, and especially of the king's, in this re- 
 spect. Every blasphemer was to receive on his mouth the imprint 
 of a red-hot iron. In the matter of religious liberty St. Louis is 
 a striking example of the vagaries which may be fallen into, under 
 the sway of public feeling, by the most equitable of minds and 
 the most scrupulous of consciences. A solemn warning, in times 
 of great intellectual and popular ferment, for those men whose 
 hearts are set on independence in their thoughts as well as in their 
 conduct, and whose only object is justice and truth. As for the 
 crusades, the situation of Louis was with respect to them quite 
 different and his responsibility far more personal. It was a great 
 error in his judgment that he prolonged, by his blindly prejudiced 
 obstinacy, a movement which was more and more inopportune and 
 illegitimate, for it was becoming day by day more factitious and 
 more inane. 
 
 A.D. 1270. St. Louis was succeeded by his son, Philip III, a prince, no 
 Philip III. doubt, of some personal valour, since he has retained in history the 
 king of nickname of The Bold, but not, otherwise, beyond mediocrity. His 
 France. reign had an unfortunate beginning. After having passed several 
 months before Tunis, in slack and unsuccessful continuation of his 
 father's crusade, he gave it up and re-embarked in November, 1270, 
 with the remnants of an army anxious to quit "that accursed land," 
 wrote one of the crusaders, "where we languish rather than live, 
 exposed to torments of dust, fury of winds, corruption of atmos- 
 phere and putrefaction of corpses." He arrived at Paris, on the 
 21st of May, 1271, bringing back with him five royal biers, that 
 of his father, that of his brother John Tristan, count of Severs, 
 that of his brother-in-law Theobald king of Navarre, that of his 
 wife and that of his son. The day after his arrival he conducted 
 them all in state to the Abbey of St. Denis, and was crowned, at 
 Bheims, not until the 30th of August following. His reign, which 
 lasted fifteen years, was a period of neither repose nor glory. He 
 engaged in war several times over in Southern France and in the 
 north of Spain, in 1272, against Roger Bernard, count of Foix, and 
 in 1275 against Don Pedro III., king of Aragon, attempting con- 
 quests and gaining victories, but becoming easily disgusted with 
 his enterprises and gaining no result of importance or durability. 
 
Philip IIL and Peter de la Brosse. 121 
 
 Without his taking himself any official or active part in the matter, 
 the name and credit of France were more than once compromised 
 in the affairs of Italy through the continual wars and intrigues of 
 his uncle Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, who was just as ambi- 
 tious, just as turbulent and just as tyrannical as his brother St. 
 Louis was scrupulous, temperate and just. It was in the reign of 
 Philip the Eold that there took place in Sicily, on the 30th of 
 March, 1282, that notorious massacre of the French which is known 
 by the name of Sicilian Vespers, which was provoked by the un- A.D. 1282. 
 
 bridled excesses of Charles of Anjou's comrades, and through which " 
 many noble French families had to suffer cruelly. At the same time, 
 the celebrated Italian admiral Eoger de Loria inflicted, by sea, on the 
 French party in Italy, the Prove^al navy, and the army of Philip 
 the Bold, who was engaged upon incursions into Spain, considerable 
 reverses and losses. At the same period the foundations were being 
 laid in Germany and in the north of Italy, in the person of Eudolph 
 of Hapsburg, elected emperor, of the greatness reached by the 
 House of Austria, which was destined to be so formidable a rival to 
 France. The government of Philip III. showed hardly more ability , 
 at home than in Europe; not that the king was himself violent, of Philip's 
 tyrannical, greedy of power or money, and unpopular ; but he govern- 
 was weak, credulous, very illiterate, and without penetration, fore- 
 sight, or intelligent and determined will. He fell under the 
 influence of an inferior servant of his house, Peter de la Broese, Peter de la 
 who had been surgeon and barber first of all to St. Louis and Brosse - 
 then to Philip III., who made him, before long, his chancellor 
 and familiar counsellor. This barber-mushroom was soon a mark 
 for the jealousy and the attacks of the great lords of the court ; he 
 joined issue with them, and even with the young queen, Maria of 
 Brabant, the second wife of Philip III. Accusations of treason, of 
 poisoning and peculation were raised against him, and, in 1278, he 
 was hanged at Paris, on the thieves' gibbet, in presence of the 
 dukes of Burgundy and Brabant, the count of Artois, and many 
 other personages of note, who took pleasure in witnessing his 
 execution. Peter de la Brosse was one of the first examples, in 
 French history, of those favourites who did not understand that, 
 if the scandal caused by their elevation were not to entail their 
 ruin, it was incumbent upon them to be great men. 
 
 In spite of the want of ability and the weakness conspicuous in 
 the government of Philip the Bold, the kingship in France had, in 
 his reign, better fortunes than could have been expected. The 
 death, without children, of his iincle Alphonso, St. Louis's brother, 
 count of Poitiers and also count of Toulouse, through his wife, 
 
122 History of France. 
 
 Joan, daughter of Kaymond VII., put Philip in possession of those 
 fair provinces. He at first possessed the countship of Toulouse 
 merely with the title of count, and as a private domain which was 
 not definitely incorporated with the crown of France until a century 
 later. Certain disputes arose between England and France in 
 respect of this great inheritance ; and Philip ended them by ceding 
 Agenois to Edward I., king of England, and keeping Quercy. 
 He also ceded to Pope Urban IV., the county of Venaissin, with 
 its capital Avignon, which the court of Borne claimed by virtue of 
 a gift from Eaymond VII., count of Toulouse, and which, through 
 a course of many disputations and vicissitudes, remained in posses- 
 sion of the Holy See until it was reunited to France on the 19th 
 of February, 1797, by the treaty of Tolentino. But, notwith- 
 standing these concessions, when Philip the Bold died, at Per- 
 pignan, the 5th of October, 1285, on his return from his expedition 
 in Aragon, the sovereignty in Southern France, as far as the 
 frontiers of Spain, had been won for the kingship of France. 
 
 A Flemish chronicler, a monk at Eginont, describes the character 
 of Philip the Bold's successor in the following words : " A certain 
 king of France, also named Philip, eaten up by the fever of avarice 
 and cupidity." And that was not the only fever inherent in 
 Philip IV., called the Handsome ; he was a prey also to that of 
 A.D. 1285. ambition, and above all, to that of power. "When he mounted the 
 (the (hand throne, a * seventeen years of age, he was handsome, as his nick- 
 some). name tells us, cold, taciturn, harsh, brave at need, but without fire 
 His cha- or fa^ a t)i e j n the formation of his designs and obstinate in 
 prosecuting them by craft or violence, by means of bribery or 
 cruelty, with wit to choose and support his servants, passionately 
 vindictive against his enemies, and faithless and unsympathetic 
 towards his subjects, but from time to time taking care to conciliate 
 them either by calling them to his aid in his difficulties or his 
 dangers, or by giving them protection against other oppressors. 
 Never, perhaps, was king better served by circumstances or more 
 successful in his enterprises ; but he is the first of the Capetians 
 who had a scandalous contempt for rights, abused success, and 
 thrust the kingship, in France, upon the high-road of that arrogant 
 and reckless egotism which is sometimes compatible with ability 
 and glory, but which carries with it in the germ, and sooner or 
 later brings out in full bloom, the native vices and fatal con- 
 sequences of arbitrary and absolute power. 
 
 Eelations Away from his own kingdom, in his own dealings with foreign 
 
 with Eng- coun t r ies, Philip the Handsome had a good fortune, which his 
 
 predecessors had lacked, and which his successors lacked still more. 
 
Philip IV. Wars with Flanders. 123 
 
 Through William the Conqueror's settlement in England and 
 Henry II. 's marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the kings of 
 England had, by reason of their possessions and their claims in 
 France, become the natural enemies of the kings of France, and 
 war was almost incessant between the two kingdoms. But Edward 
 L, king of England, ever since his accession to the throne, in 1272, 
 had his ideas fixed upon, and his constant efforts directed towards 
 the conquests of the countries of Wales and Scotland, so as to unite 
 under his sway the whole Island of Great Britain. In spite, then, 
 of frequent interruptions, the reign of Edward I. was on the whole 
 a period of peace between England and France, being exempt, at 
 any rate, from premeditated and obstinate hostilities. 
 
 In Southern France, at the foot of the Pyrenees, Pfcilip the And with 
 Handsome, just as his father Philip the Bold, was, during the first Aragon. 
 year of his reign, at war with the kings of Aragon, Alphonso III. 
 and Jayme II. ; but these campaigns, originating in purely local 
 quarrels or in the ties between the descendants of St. Louis and of 
 his brother Charles of Anjou, king of the Two Sicilies, rather than 
 in furtherance of the general interests of France, were terminated in 
 1291 by a treaty concluded at Tarascon between the belligerents, 
 and have remained without historical importance. 
 
 The Flemish were the people with whom Philip the Handsome His 
 engaged in and kept up, during the whole of his reign, with Barrels 
 frequent alternations of defeat and success, a really serious war. Flemings. 
 In the thirteenth century Flanders was the most populous and the 
 richest country in Europe. She owed the fact to the briskness of 
 her manufacturing and commercial undertakings not only amongst 
 her neighbours, but throughout Southern and Eastern Europe, in 
 Italy, in Spain, in Sweden, in Norway, in Hungary, in Russia, and 
 even as far as Constantinople, where, as we have seen, Baldwin I., 
 count of Flanders, became, in 1204, Latin Emperor of the East. 
 Cloth and all manner of woollen stuffs were the principal articles 
 of Flemish production, and it was chiefly from England that 
 Flanders drew her supply of wool, the raw material of her industry. 
 Thence arose between the two countries commercial relations, which 
 could not fail to acquire political importance. At the time of 
 Philip the Handsome's accession to the throne, Guy de Dampierre, Guy de 
 of noble Champagnese origin, had been for five years count of Dampierre 
 Flanders, as heir to his mother Marguerite II. He was a prince Flanders, 
 who did not lack courage, or, on a great emergency, high-minded- 
 ness and honour ; but he was ambitious, covetous, as parsimonious 
 as his mother had been munificent, and above all concerned to get. 
 his children married in a manner conducive to his own political 
 
124 History of France. 
 
 importance. In 1293 he was secretly negotiating the marriage of 
 Philippa, one of his daughters, with Prince Edward, eldest son of 
 the king of England. Philip the Handsome, having received due 
 warning, invited the count of Elanders to Paris, " to take counsel 
 with him and the other barons touching the state of the kingdom." 
 At first Guy hesitated ; "but he dared not refuse, and he repaired to 
 
 Is arrested p ar j s w jth his sons John and Guy. The three princes were 
 marched off at once to the tower of the Louvre, where Guy 
 remained for six months, and did not then get out save by leaving 
 as hostage to the king of France his daughter Philippa herself, who 
 was destined to pass in this prison her young and mournful life. 
 On once more entering Flanders, and driven to extremity by the 
 haughty severity of Philip, Count Guy at last came to a decision, 
 concluded a formal treaty with Edward I., affianced to the English 
 crown-prince the most youthful of his daughters, Isabel of Flanders, 
 and formally renounced his allegiance to Philip the Handsome. 
 
 A.D. 1297. This meant war. And it was prompt and sharp on the part of 
 
 Sanders f the kins of France, slow and dul1 on the P art of tlie kin & of 
 England, who was always more bent upon the conquest of Scotland 
 than upon defending, on the Continent, his ally the count of 
 Flanders. The French arms were at first crowned with success ; 
 but the greed and cruelty of the conquerors soon led to an outburst 
 of violent sedition. A simple weaver, obscure, poor, undersized 
 and one-eyed, but valiant and eloquent in his Flemish tongue, one 
 
 A.D. 1301. Peter Deconing, became the leader of revolt in Bruges ; accomplices 
 
 Eevolt at fl oc k e( j t hi m f r0 m nearly all the towns of Flanders ; and he found 
 allies amongst their neighbours. In 1302 war again broke out; 
 but it was no longer a war between Philip the Handsome and Guy 
 de Darnpierre : it was a war between the Flemish communes and 
 their foreign oppressors. Every where resounded the cry of 
 insurrection: "Our bucklers and our friends for the lion of 
 Flanders! Death to all "Walloons !" Philip the Handsome pre- 
 cipitately levied an army of sixty thousand men, says Yillani, and 
 gave the command of it to Count Kobert of Artois, the hero of 
 Fumes. The forces of the Flemings amounted to no more than 
 
 A.D. 1302. twenty thousand fighting men. The two armies met near Courtrai. 
 
 Battle of 'j^e F re nch chivalry were full of ardour and confidence ; and the 
 our rai. j ta ^ an arc h ers j n their service began the attack with some success. 
 " My lord," said one of his knights to the count of Artois, " these 
 knaves will do so well that they will gain the honour of the day ; 
 and, if they alone put an end to the Avar, what will be left for 
 the noblesse to do? " " Attack then !" answered the prince. Two 
 grand attacks succeeded one another \ the first under the orders of 
 
Battles of Courtrai and of Mons~en-Puclle. 125 
 
 the Constable Eaoul of Nesle, the second under those of the count 
 of Artois in person. After two hours' fighting, both failed against 
 the fiery national passion of the Flemish communes, and the two 
 French leaders, the Constable and the count of Artois, were left 
 both of them lying on the field of battle amidst twelve or fifteen 
 thousand of their dead. " I yield me ! I yield me ! " cried the 
 count of Artois, but, " We understand not thy lingo," ironically 
 answered in their own tongue the Flemings who surrounded him ; 
 and he was forthwith put to the sword. Too late to save him 
 galloped up a noble ally of the insurgents, Guy of JSTamur. " From 
 the top of the towers of our monastery," says the abbot of St. 
 Martin's of Tournai, "we could see the French flying over the 
 roads, across fields and through hedges, in such numbers that the 
 sight must have been seen to be believed. There were in the out- 
 skirts of our town and in the neighbouring villages so vast a mul- 
 titude of knights and men-at-arms tormented with hunger, that it 
 was a matter horrible to see. They gave their arms to get bread." 
 
 A French knight, covered with wounds, whose name has remained 
 unknown, hastily scratched a few words upon a scrap of parchment 
 dyed with blood; and that was the first account Philip the 
 Handsome received of the battle of Courtrai, which was fought and 
 lost on the llth of July, 1302. 
 
 The news of this great defeat of the French spread rapidly 
 throughout Europe, and filled with joy all those who were hostile 
 to or jealous of Philip the liandsome. The wily monarch spent 
 two years in negotiations, for the purpose of gaining time, and of 
 letting the edge wear off the Flemings' confidence. In the spring A.D. 1304. 
 of 1304, the cry of war resounded every where. Philip had laid Tlie war 
 
 an impost extraordinary upon all real property in his kingdom ; ( 
 
 regulars and reserves had been summoned to Arras, to attack the 
 Flemings by land and sea. He had taken into his pay a Genoese 
 fleet commanded by Eegnier de Grimaldi, a celebrated Italian 
 admiral ; and it arrived in the North Sea, and blockaded Zierikzee, 
 a maritime town of Zealand. On the 10th of August, 1304, the 
 Flemish fleet which was defending the place was beaten and 
 dispersed. Philip hoped for a moment that this reverse would 
 discourage the Flemings ; but it was not so at all. A great battle 
 took place on the 17th of August between the two land armies at 
 Mons-en-Puelle (or, Mont-en-Pevele, according to the true local Battle of 
 spelling), near Lille ; the action was for some time indecisive, and 
 even after it was over both sides hesitated about claiming the 
 victory; but when the Flemings saw their camp swept off and 
 rifled, and when they no longer found in it, say the chroniclers, 
 
126 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Struggles 
 with the 
 Papacy. 
 
 Philip the 
 Handsome 
 curtails 
 the privi- 
 leges of 
 theChurch. 
 
 " their fine stuffs of Bruges and Ypres, their wines of Rochelle, 
 their beers of Cambrai and their cheeses of Bethune, "they 
 declared that they would return to their hearths ; and their leaders, 
 unable to restrain them, were obliged to shut themselves up in 
 Lille, whither Philip, who had himself retired at first to Arras, 
 came to besiege them. Thus during ten years, from 1305 to 1314, 
 there was between France and Flanders a continual alternation of 
 reciprocal concessions and retractions, of treaties concluded and of 
 renewed insurrections without decisive and ascertained results. It 
 was neither peace nor war; and, after the death of Philip the 
 Handsome, his successors were destined for a long time to come to 
 find again and again amongst the Flemish communes deadly enmities 
 and grievous perils. 
 
 At the same time that he was prosecuting this interminable war 
 against the Flemings, Philip was engaged, in this case also beyond 
 the boundaries of his kingdom, in a struggle which was still more 
 serious owing to the nature of the questions which gave rise to it 
 and to the quality of his adversary. The French kingship and 
 papacy, the representatives of which had but lately been great and 
 glorious princes such as Philip Augustus and St. Louis, Gregory VII. 
 and Innocent. III., were, at the end of the thirteenth century, 
 vested in the persons of men of far less moral worth and less 
 political wisdom, Philip the Handsome and Boniface VIII. "We 
 have already had glimpses of Philip the Handsome's greedy, rug- 
 gedly obstinate, haughty and tyrannical character ; and Boni- 
 face VIII. had the same defects, with more hastiness and less 
 ability. Philip the Handsome had been nine years king when 
 Boniface VIII. became pope. On his accession to the throne he 
 had testified an intention of curtailing the privileges and power of 
 the Church. He had removed the clergy from judicial functions, 
 in the domains of the lords as well as in the domain of the king, 
 and he had every where been putting into the hands of laymen the 
 administration of civil justice. He had considerably increased the 
 per centage to be paid on real property acquired by the Church 
 (called possessions in mortmain), by way of compensation for the 
 mutation-dues which their fixity caused the State to lose. At the 
 time of the crusades the property of the clergy had been subjected 
 to a special tax of a tenth of the. revenues, and this tax had been 
 several times renewed for reasons other than the crusades. In 1296, 
 Philip the Handsome, at war with the king of England and the 
 Flemings, imposed upon the clergy two fresh tenths. The bishops 
 alone were called upon to vote them; and the order of Citeaux 
 refused to pay them, and addressed to the pope a protest, with a 
 
The King and the Pope. 127 
 
 comparison between Philip and Pharaoh. Boniface not only 
 
 entertained the protest, but addressed to the king a bull (called 
 
 Clericis laicos, from its first two words), in which, led on by his A.D. 1296. 
 
 zeal to set forth the generality and absoluteness of his power, ne fiigV^ l 
 
 laid down as a principle that churches and ecclesiastics could not cos." 
 
 be taxed save with the permission of the sovereign-pontiff, and 
 
 that "all emperors, kings, dukes, counts, barons, or governors 
 
 whatsoever, who should violate this principle, and all prelates or 
 
 other ecclesiastics who should through weakness lend themselves 
 
 to such violation, would by this mere fact incur excommunication 
 
 and would be incapable of release therefrom, save in articulo mortis, 
 
 unless by a special decision of the Holy See." This was going far 
 
 beyond the traditions of the French Church, and, in the very act 
 
 of protecting it, to strike a blow at its independence in its dealings 
 
 with the French State. Philip was mighty wroth, but he did not 
 
 burst out ; he confined himself to letting the pope perceive his 
 
 displeasure by means of divers administrative measures, amongst 
 
 others by forbidding the exportation from the kingdom of gold, 
 
 silver, and valuable articles, which found their way chiefly to 
 
 Rome. Boniface, on his side, was not slow to perceive that he 
 
 had gone too far, and that his own interests did not permit him to 
 
 give so much offence to the king of France. A year after the 
 
 bull Clericis laicos he modified it by a new bull, which not only 
 
 authorized the collection of the two tenths voted by the French 
 
 bishops, but recognized the right of the king of France to tax 
 
 the French clergy with their consent and without authorization 
 
 from the Holy See, whenever there was a pressing necessity for 
 
 it. Philip, on his side, testified to the pope his satisfaction at 
 
 this concession by himself making one at the expense of the 
 
 religious liberty of his subjects. 
 
 Thus the two absolute sovereigns changed their policy and Policy of 
 made temporary sacrifice of their mutual pretensions, according th k j n 
 as it suited them to fight or to agree. But there arose a question p p e< 
 in respect of which this continual alternation of pretensions 
 and compromises, of quarrels and accommodations, was no longer 
 possible ; in order to keep up their position in the eyes of one 
 another they were obliged to come to a deadly clash; and in this 
 struggle, perilous for both, Boniface VIII. was the aggressor, and 
 with Philip the Handsome remained the victory. An opportunity 
 for a splendid confirmation of the pope's universal supremacy 
 in the Christian world came to tempt him. A quarrel had arisen 
 between Philip and the archbishop of Narbonne on the subject 
 of certain dues claimed by both in that great diocese. Boniface 
 
128 History of France. 
 
 was loud in his advocacy of the archbishop against the officers 
 of the king : he sent to Paris, to support his words, Bernard de 
 Saisset, whom he. on his own authority, had just appointed 
 Bernard de bishop of Pamiers. On arriving in Paris as the pope's legate, 
 bishop 'of Saisset made use there of violent and inconsiderate language ; Philip 
 Pamiers. had, at that time, as his chief councillors, lay-lawyers, servants 
 passionately attached to the kingship. They were Peter Flotte, 
 his chancellor, William of Nogaret, judge-major at Beaucaire, and 
 William of Plasian, lord of Vezenobre, the two latter belonging, 
 as Bernard de Saisset belonged, to Southern France, and de- 
 termined to withstand, in the south as well as the north, the 
 domination of ecclesiastics. They, in their turn, rose up against 
 the doctrine and language of the bishop of Pamiers. He was 
 arrested and committed to the keeping of the archbishop of 
 Narbonne; and Philip sent to Rome his chancellor Peter Flotte 
 himself, and William of Nogaret, with orders to demand the 
 condemnation of the bishop of Pamiers. Boniface replied by 
 changing the venue to his own personal tribunal in the case of 
 Bernard de Saisset. " My power the spiritual power," said the 
 pope to the chancellor of France, "embraces the temporal, and 
 includes it." " Be it so," answered Peter Flotte ; "but your power 
 is nominal, the king's real." 
 
 Here was a coarse challenge hurled by the crown at the tiara : 
 and Boniface VIII. unhesitatingly accepted it. But, instead of 
 keeping the advantage of a defensive position by claiming, in the 
 name of lawful right, the liberties and immunities of the Church, 
 he assumed the offensive against the kingship by proclaiming the 
 supremacy of the Holy See in things temporal as well as spiritual, 
 and by calling upon Philip the Handsome to acknowledge it. On 
 the 5th of December, 1301, he addressed to the king, commencing 
 A.D. 1S01. with the words, "Hearken, most dear Son" (Ausculta, carissime fill), 
 ^ u11 a long bull in which, with circumlocutions and expositions full of 
 
 fill." obscurity and subtlety, he laid down and affirmed, at bottom, the 
 
 principle of the final sovereignty of the spiritual power, being 
 of divine origin, over every temporal power, being of human 
 creation. The final supremacy of the pope in the body politic 
 and over all sovereigns meant the absorption of the laic com- 
 munity in the religious and the abolition of the State's independence 
 not in favour of the national Church, but to the advantage of the 
 foreign head of the universal Church. The defenders of the French 
 kingship formed a better estimate than was formed at Borne of the 
 effect which would be produced by such doctrine on France, in the 
 existing condition of the French mind ; they entered upon no theo- 
 
The States-general and the Pope. 1 29 
 
 logical and abstract polemics ; they confined themselves entirely to 
 setting in a vivid light the pope's pretensions and their conse- 
 quences, feeling sure that by confining themselves to this question 
 they would enlist in their opposition not only all laymen, nobles, 
 and commoners, but the greater part of the French ecclesiastics 
 themselves, who were no strangers to the feeling of national 
 patriotism, and to whom the pope's absolute power in the body 
 politic was scarcely more agreeable than the king's. On the llth 
 of February, 1302, the bull Hearken, most dear Son, was solemnly 
 burnt at Paris in presence of the king and a numerous multitude. 
 Philip convoked, for the 8th of April following, an assembly of the A.D. 1302. 
 barons, bishops, and chief ecclesiastics, and of deputies from the Tlie state8 " 
 communes to the number of two or three for each city, all being convoked 
 summoned " to deliberate on certain affairs which in the highest in Paris. 
 degree concern the king, the kingdom, the churches, and all and 
 sundry." This assembly, which really met on the 10th of April at 
 Paris in the church of Notre-Dame, is reckoned in French history 
 as the first " states-general." The three estates wrote separately to 
 Eome ; the clergy to the pope himself, the nobility and the 
 deputies of the communes to the cardinals, all, however, protest- 
 ing against the pope's pretensions in matters temporal, the two laic 
 orders writing in a rough and threatening tone, the clergy making 
 an appeal " to the wisdom and paternal clemency of the Holy 
 Father with tearful .accents and sobs mingled with their tears." 
 The king evidently had on his side the general feeling of the 
 nation : and the publication of a third bull ( Unam sanctam), which 
 threatened him with excommunication, only the more irritated 
 him ; he resolved to act speedily. Notification must be sent to 
 the pope of the king's appeal to the future council. Philip could A.D. 1303. 
 no longer confide this awkward business to his chancellor Peter William * 
 Flotte; for he had fallen at Courtrai, in the battle against the Anagni. * 
 Flemings. William of JNbgaret undertook it, at the same time 
 obtaining from the king a sort of blank commission authorizing 
 and ratifying in advance all that, under the circumstances, he 
 might consider it advisable to do. Notification of the appeal had 
 to be made to the pope at Anagni, his native town, whither he had 
 gone far refuge, and the people of which, being zealous in his 
 favour, had already dragged in the mud the lillies and the banner 
 of France. Nbgaret was bold, ruffianly, and clever. He repaired 
 in haste to Florence to the king's banker, got a plentiful supply of 
 money, established communications in Anagni, and secured, above 
 all, the co-operation of Sciarra Colonna, who was passionately 
 hostile to the pope, had been formerly proscribed by him, and, . 
 
130 History of France. 
 
 having fallen into the hands of corsairs, had worked at the oar 
 for them during many a year rather than reveal his name and be 
 sold to Boniface Gaetani. On the 7th of September, 1303, 
 Colonna and his associates introduced ISTogaret and his following 
 into Anagni, with shouts of " Death to Pope Boniface ! Long 
 live the Jung of France ! " The populace, dumb-founded, re- 
 mained motionless. The pope, deserted by all, even by his own 
 nephew, tried to touch the heart of Colonna himself, whose only 
 answer was a summons to abdicate, and to surrender at discretion. 
 Death of * Thus outraged in spite of his advanced years (he was seventy-five), 
 Pope Boni- Boniface maintained a dauntless attitude under the grossest insults, 
 face VIIL but died very S h rtly a f ter< 
 
 On the 22nd of October, 1303, eleven days after the death of 
 Boniface VIII., Benedict XI., son of a simple shepherd, was elected 
 at Rome to succeed him. Philip the Handsome at once sent his 
 congratulations, but by "William of Plasian, who had lately been 
 the accuser of Boniface, and who was charged to hand to the new 
 pope, on the king's behalf, a very bitter memorandum touching his 
 predecessor. Philip at the same time caused an address to be 
 presented to himself in his own kingdom and in the vulgar tongue, 
 called a supplication from the people of France to the king against 
 Boniface. Benedict XL exerted himself to give satisfaction to the 
 conqueror ; Nogaret and the direct authors of the assault at Anagni 
 were alone excepted from the general amnesty. The pope reserved 
 for a future occasion the announcement of their absolution, when 
 he should consider it expedient. But, on the 7th of June, 1304, 
 instead of absolving them, he launched a fresh bull of excommuni- 
 cation against " certain wicked men who had dared to commit a 
 hateful crime against a person of good memory, Pope Boniface." 
 A.D. 1304. A month after this bull Benedict XL was dead. It is related that 
 Pope^Bene- a y oun o woman had put before him at table a basket of fresh figs, 
 diet XI. of which he had eaten and which had poisoned him. The 
 chroniclers of the time impute this crime to William of Nogaret, 
 to the Colonnas, and to their associates at Anagni ; a single one 
 names King Philip. The king of France, who had gained the 
 battle of Mons-en-Puelle, then took advantage of his success to 
 procure the election of a pope who would be entirely and exclu- 
 sively his creature. The archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand de Got, 
 proclaimed under the title of Clement V., had to accept, in return, 
 Trial and ^ ie harshest conditions, such as pronouncing the condemnation of 
 condemna- Boniface VIIL, transferring the Papal See from Rome to Avignon, 
 knf hts- 116 autnor i z i n o tn e suppression of the order of the Knights Templars, 
 templars, etc. This last clause cost the new pontiff a great deal of pains, 
 
The Knights Templars. 131 
 
 and it was with the utmost reluctance that he yielded to it. The 
 great wealth possessed by the order of the Temple was the true 
 cause of Philip's hatred, but as some plausible cause was needed to 
 procure their condemnation, they were accused of heresy, immo- 
 rality and sacrilege. The council of Yienne condemned them, but 
 the Grand Master Jacques Molay protested of their innocence to the Jacques 
 very last ; a poet -chronicler, Godfrej' of Paris, who was a witness bu r ^ 
 of the scene, thus describes it : " The Grand Master, seeing the fire alive, 
 prepared, stripped himself briskly ; I tell just as I saw ; he bared 
 himself to his shirt, light-heartedly and with a good grace, without 
 a whit of trembling, though he was dragged and shaken mightily. 
 They took hold of him to tie him to the stake, and they were 
 binding his hands with a cord, but he said to them, ' Sirs, suffer 
 me to fold my hands awhile, and make my prayer to God, for verily 
 it is time. I am presently to die; but wrongfully, God wot. 
 Wherefore woe will come, ere long, to those who condemn us 
 without a cause. God will avenge our death.' " 
 
 It was probably owing to these last words that there arose a 
 popular rumour, soon spread abroad, that Jacques Molay, at his 
 death, had cited the pope and the king to appear with him, 
 the former at the end of forty days, and the latter within a 
 year, before the judgment-seat of God. Events gave a sanction to 
 the legend : for Clement Y. actually died on the 20th of April, A - D - 1314 ' 
 1314, and Philip the Handsome on the 29th of November, 1314; p ope cie- 
 the pope, undoubtedly uneasy at the servile acquiescence he had meat V. 
 shown towards the king, and the king expressing some sorrow for ai j[ ri f 
 his greed, and for the imposts (maltote, maletolta, or blacJc mail) king of 
 with which he had burdened his people. 
 
 In excessive and arbitrary imposts, indeed, consisted the chief 
 grievance for which France, in the fourteenth century, had to com- 
 plain of Philip the Handsome; and, probably, it was the only 
 wrong for which he upbraided himself. As he was no stranger to General 
 the spirit of order in his own affairs, he tried, towards the end of 
 
 his reign, to obtain an exact account of his finances. His chief Hand 
 
 adviser, Enguerrand de Marigny, became his superintendent-general, govern . 
 and on the 19th of January, 1311, at the close of a grand council ment. 
 held at Poissy, Philip passed an ordinance which established, under 
 the headings of expenses and receipts, two distinct tables and 
 treasuries, one for ordinary expenses, the civil list and the payment 
 of the great bodies of the State, incomes, pensions, &c., and the 
 other for extraordinary expenses. 
 
 The general history of Erance has been more indulgent towards 
 Philip the Handsome than his contemporaries were; it has 
 
 K 2 - 
 
132 History of France. 
 
 expressed its acknowledgments to him for the progress made, under 
 his sway, by the particular and permanent characteristics of 
 civilization in France. The kingly domain received in the Pyre- 
 nees, in Aquitaine, in Franche-Comte, and in Flanders territorial 
 increments which extended national unity. The legislative power 
 of the king penetrated into, and secured footing in the lands of his 
 vassals. The scattered semi-sovereigns of feudal society bowed 
 down before the incontestable pre-eminence of the kingship, which 
 gained the victory in its struggle against the papacy. The general 
 constitution of the judiciary power, as delegated from the kingship, 
 the creation of several classes of magistrates devoted to this great 
 social function, and, especially, the strong organization and the 
 permanence of the parliament of Paris, were important progressions 
 Develop- i n the development of civil order and society in France. But it 
 ment of was to the advantage of absolute power that all these facts were 
 ir * turned, and the perverted ability of Philip the Handsome consisted 
 in working them for that single end. He was a profound egotist ; 
 he mingled with his imperiousness the leaven of craft and patience, 
 but he was quite a stranger to the two principles which constitute 
 the morality of governments, respect for rights and patriotic 
 sympathy with public sentiment; he concerned himself about 
 nothing but his own position, his own passions, his own wishes, or 
 his own fancies. And this is the radical vice of absolute power. 
 Philip the Handsome is one of the kings of France who have most 
 contributed to stamp upon the kingship in France this lamentable 
 characteristic from which France has suffered so much even in the 
 midst of her glories, and which, in our time, was so grievously 
 atoned for by the kingship itself when it no longer deserved the 
 reproach. 
 
 A.D. 1314 Philip the Handsome left three sons, Louis X., called le Hutin 
 
 Reigns of (^ ie Quarreller) , Philip V., called the Long, and Charles IV., called 
 
 Philip the the Handsome, who, between them, occupied the throne only 
 
 some's ^ n ^ een years and ten months. Not one of them distinguished 
 
 three sons, himself by his personal merits ; and the events of the three reigns 
 
 hold scarcely a higher place in history than the actions of the three 
 
 kings do. Shortly before the death of Philip the Handsome, his 
 
 greedy despotism had already excited amongst the people such 
 
 lively discontent that several leagues were formed in Champagne, 
 
 Burgundy, Artois, and Beauvaisis, to resist him ; and the members 
 
 of these leagues, "nobles and commoners," say the accounts, engaged 
 
 to give one another mutual support in their resistance " at their own 
 
 cost and charges." After the death of Philip the Handsome the 
 
 opposition made head more extensively and effectually; and it 
 
TJie Salic law. 133 
 
 produced two results : ten ordinances of Louis the Quarreller for 
 redressing the grievances of the feudal aristocracy, for one ; and, 
 for the other, the trial and condemnation of Enguerrand de Marigny, 
 " coadjutor and rector of the kingdom " under Philip the Handsome. 
 Marigny was accused, condemned by a commission assembled at 
 Vincennes, and hanged on the gibbet of Montfaucon which he 
 himself, it is said, had set up. 
 
 Whilst the feudal aristocracy was thus avenging itself of kingly 
 tyranny, the spirit of Christianity was noiselessly pursuing its 
 work, the general enfranchisement of men. Louis the Quarreller A 
 had to keep up the war with Flanders, which was continually being Emancipa- 
 renewed ; and in order to find, without hateful exactions, the lio ^ of l ^ e 
 necessary funds, he was advised to offer freedom to the serfs of his royal do- 
 domains ; accordingly he issued, on the 3rd of July, 1315, an edict mains, 
 to that effect. 
 
 Another fact which has held an important place in the history of 
 France, and exercised a great influence over her destinies, likewise 
 dates from this period ; and that is the exclusion of women from 
 the succession to the throne, by virtue of an article, ill understood, _. g .. 
 of the Salic law. The ancient law of the Salian Franks, drawn up, law. 
 probably, in the seventh century, had no statute at all touching 
 this grave question ; the article relied upon was merely a regulation, 
 of civil law prescribing that a no portion of really Salic land 
 (that is to say, in the full territorial ownership of the head of the 
 family) should pass into the possession of women, but it should 
 belong altogether to the virile sex." From the time of Hugh 
 Capet heirs male had never been wanting to the crown, and the 
 succession in the male line had been a fact uninterrupted indeed, 
 but not due to prescription or law. Louis the Quarreller, at his 
 death, on the 5th of June, 1316, left only a daughter, but his 
 second wife, Queen Clernence, was pregnant. As soon as Philip the 
 Long, then count of Poitiers, heard of his brother's death, he hur- 
 ried to Paris, assembled a certain number of barons, and got them 
 to decide that he, if the queen should be delivered of a son, 
 should be regent of the kingdom for eighteen years ; but that if 
 she should bear a daughter he should immediately take possession 
 of the crown. On the 15th of November, 1316, the queen gave 
 birth to a son, who was named John, and who figures as John I. 
 in the series of French kings, but the child died at the end of five 
 days, and on the 6th of January, 1317, Philip the Long was 
 crowned king at Eheinis. He forthwith summoned, there is no 
 knowing exactly where and in what numbers, the clergy, barons, 
 and third estate, who declared, on the 2nd of February, that " the 
 
134 History of France. 
 
 laws and customs, inviolably observed among the Franks, excluded 
 daughters from the crown." There was no doubt about the fact ; 
 but the law was not established, nor even in conformity with the 
 entire feudal system or with general opinion. And " thus the 
 kingdom went," says Froissart, " as seemeth to many folks, out of 
 the right line." But the measure was evidently wise and salutary 
 for France as well as for the kingship ; and it was renewed, after 
 Philip the Long died, on the 3rd of January, 1322, and left 
 daughters only, in favour of his brother Charles the Handsome, 
 Conse- w h died, in his turn, on the 1st of January, 1328, and likewise 
 quences of left daughters only. The question as to the succession to the throne 
 la ^ a then lay between the male line represented by Philip, count of 
 Yalois, grandson of Philip the Bold through Charles of Valois, his 
 father, and the female line represented by Edward III., king of 
 England, grandson, through his mother Isabel, sister of the late 
 king Charles the Handsome, of Philip the Handsome. A war of 
 more than a century's duration between France and England 
 was the result of this lamentable rivalry, which all but put the 
 kingdom of France under an English king ; but France was saved 
 by the stubborn resistance of the national spirit and by Joan of Arc, 
 inspired by God. One hundred and twenty-eight years after the 
 triumph of the national cause and four years after the accession of 
 Henry IV., which was still disputed by the League, a decree of 
 the parliament of Paris, dated the 28th of June, 1593, maintained, 
 against the pretentious of Spain, the authority of the Salic law, 
 and on the 1st of October, 1789, a decree of the National Assembly, 
 in conformity with the formal and unanimous wish of the me- 
 morials drawn up by the States-general, gave a fresh sanction to 
 that principle, which, confining the heredity of the crown to the 
 male line, had been salvation to the unity and nationality of the 
 monarchy in France. 
 
 We have traced the character and progressive development of the 
 French kingship from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, 
 through the reigns of Louis the Fat, of Philip Augustus, of St. 
 Louis and of Philip the Handsome, princes very diverse and very 
 unequal in merit, but all of them able and energetic. This period 
 was likewise the cradle of the French nation. That was the time 
 when it began to exhibit itself in its different elements, and to 
 arise under monarchical rule from the midst of the feudal system. 
 The Com- The Communes,. which should not be confounded with the Third 
 nmnes. Estate, are the first to appear in history. They appear there as 
 local facts, isolated one from another, often very different in point 
 of origin though analogous in their aim, and in every case neither 
 
The Communes. 135 
 
 assuming nor pretending to assume any place in the government of 
 the State. Local interests and rights, the special affairs of certain 
 populations agglomerated in certain spots, are the only objects, the 
 only province of the communes. With this purely municipal and 
 individual character they come to their birth, their confirmation 
 and their development from the eleventh to the fourteenth century; 
 and at the end of two centuries they enter upon their decline, they 
 occupy far less room and make far less noise in history. It is 
 exactly then that the Third Estate comes to the front, and uplifts 
 itself as a general fact, a national element, a political power. It is 
 the successor, not the contemporary, of the Communes ; they con- 
 tributed much towards, but did not suffice for its formation; it 
 drew upon other resources, and was developed under other in- 
 fluences than those which gave existence to the communes. The Their 
 struggles which from the eleventh to the fourteenth century gave racter. 
 existence to so many communes had no such profound character ; 
 the populations did not pretend to any fundamental overthrow of 
 the regimen they attacked ; they conspired together, they swore 
 together, as the phrase is according to the documents of the time 
 they rose to extricate themselves from the outrageous oppression 
 and misery they were enduring, but not to abolish feudal sove- 
 reignty and to change the personality of their masters. When 
 they succeeded, they obtained those treaties of peace called charters, 
 which brought about in the condition of the insurgents salutary 
 changes accompanied by more or less effectual guarantees. When 
 they failed or when the charters were violated, the result was 
 violent reactions, mutual excesses ; the relations between the popu- 
 lations and their lords were tempestuous and full of vicissitude ; 
 but at bottom neither the political regimen nor the social system 
 of the communes were altered. 
 
 Feudal oppression and insurrection were the chief cause, but not Cause of 
 
 the sole origin of the communes. The first cause was the continu- the com * 
 
 . . niuncs. 
 
 ance of the Koman municipal regimen, which kept its footing in a Eoman 
 
 great number of towns, especially in those of Southern Gaul, Mar- municipal 
 seilles, Aries, Nismes, Narbonne, Toulouse, &c. ; as the feudal 
 system grew and grew, these Roman municipalities still went on 
 in the midst of universal darkness and anarchy. They had pene- 
 trated into the north of Gaul in fewer numbers and with a 
 weaker organization than in the south, but still keeping their foot- 
 ing and vaunting themselves on their Eoman origin in the face of 
 their barbaric conquerors. Under different names, in accordance 
 with changes of language, the Eoman municipal regimen held on 
 and adapted itself to new social conditions. 
 
136 History of France. 
 
 Part In our own day there has been far too much inclination to 
 
 played by dispute the active and effective part played by the kingship in the 
 ship, formation and protection of the French communes. Not only did 
 
 the kings often interpose as mediators in the quarrels of the 
 communes with their laic or ecclesiastical lords, but many amongst 
 them assumed in their own domains and to the profit of the com- 
 cler^ munes an intelligent and beneficial initiative. Nor was it the 
 kings alone who in the middle ages listened to the counsels of 
 reason, and recognized in their behaviour towards their towns the 
 rights of justice. Many bishops had become the feudal lords of 
 the episcopal city; and the Christian spirit enlightened and 
 animated many amongst them just as the monarchical spirit some- 
 times enlightened and guided the kings. The third and chief 
 
 Feudal S0 urce of the communes was the case of those which met feudal 
 
 oppression. 
 
 oppression with energetic resistance, and which after all the suffer- 
 ings, vicissitudes and outrages, on both sides, of a prolonged struggle 
 ended by winning a veritable administrative and, to a certain 
 extent, political independence. The number of communes thus 
 formed from the eleventh to the thirteenth century was great, and 
 we have a detailed history of the fortunes of several amongst them, 
 Cambrai, Beauvais, Laon, Amiens, Rheirns, Etampes, Vezelay, &c. 
 
 Decline of When, however, we arrive at the end of the thirteenth and the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century we see a host of communes 
 falling into decay or entirely disappearing; they cease really to 
 belong to, and govern themselves ; some, like Laon, Cambrai, 
 Beauvais, and Rheims, fought a long while against decline, and 
 tried more than once to re-establish themselves in all their indepen- 
 dence ; but they could not do without the king's support in their 
 resistance to their lords, laic or ecclesiastical ; and they were not in 
 a condition to resist the kingship which had grown whilst they 
 were perishing. Others, Meulan and Soissons for example (in 1320 
 and 1335), perceived their weakness early, and themselves requested 
 the kingship to deliver them from their communal organization and 
 itself assume their administration. And so it is about this period, 
 under St. Louis and Philip the Handsome, that there appear in the 
 collections of acts of the French kingship, those great ordinances 
 which regulate the administration of all communes within the 
 kingly domains. 
 
 At the very time that the communes were perishing and the 
 
 Eise of the kingship was growing, a new power, a new social element, the 
 
 State Th^d Estate, was springing up in France ; and it was called to 
 
 take a far more important place in the history of France, and to 
 
 exercise far more influence upon the fate of the French fatherland, 
 
The Third Estate. 137 
 
 than it had been granted to the communes to acquire during their 
 short and incoherent existence. 
 
 It may astonish many who study the records of French history 
 from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, not to find any where 
 the words third estate; it was at the great States of Tours, in 
 1468, that, for the first time, the third order bore the name which 
 has been given to it by history. 
 
 The fact was far before its name. The third estate drew its 
 origin and nourishment from all sorts of sources ; and whilst one 
 was within an ace of drying up, the others remained abundant and 
 fruitful. Independently of the commune properly so called and 
 invested with the right of self-government, many towns had privi- 
 leges, serviceable though limited franchises, and under the adminis- 
 tration of the king's officers they grew in population and wealth. 
 These towns did not share, towards the end of the thirteenth 
 century, in the decay of the once warlike and victorious communes. 
 The majority amongst the officers of the king were burghers, and Burgher- 
 their number and their power were turned to the advantage of 
 burgherdom, and led day by day to its further extension and 
 importance. Of all the original sources of the third estate this it 
 is, perhaps, which has contributed most to bring about the social 
 preponderance of that order. Just when burgherdom, but lately 
 formed, was losing in many of the communes a portion of its local 
 liberties, at that same moment it was seizing by the hand of 
 parliaments, provosts, judges, and administrators of all kinds, a 
 large share of central power. It was through burghers admitted 
 into the king's service and acting as administrators or judges in his 
 name, that communal independence and charters were often attacked 
 and abolished ; but at the same time they fortified and elevated 
 burgherdom, they caused it to acquire from day to day more wealth, 
 more credit, more importance and power in the internal and external 
 affairs of the State. 
 
 Philip the Handsome was under no delusion when in 1302, 
 1308 and 1314, on convoking the first states-general of France, he 
 summoned thither "the deputies of the good towns." His son, 
 Philip the Long, was under no delusion when in 1317 and 1321 
 he summoned to the states -general "the commonalties and good 
 towns of the kingdom " to decide upon the interpretation of the 
 Salic law as to the succession to the throne, " or to advise as to the 
 means of establishing a uniformity of coins, weights, and measures ;" 
 and the three estates played the prelude to the formation, painful 
 and slow as it was, of constitutional monarchy when, in 1338, 
 under Philip of Valois, they declared, "in presence of the said 
 
138 History of France. 
 
 king, Philip of Yalois, who assented thereto, that there should be 
 no power to impose or levy talliage in France if urgent necessity or 
 evident utility did not require it, and then only by grant of the 
 people of the estates." 
 
 The Third Taking the history of France in its entirety and under all its 
 
 Estate in phases, the third estate has been the most active and determining 
 
 unique element in the process of French civilization. If we follow it in 
 
 fact, its relation with the general government of the country, we see it 
 
 at first allied for six centuries to the kingship, struggling without 
 
 cessation against the feudal aristocracy, and giving predominance in 
 
 place thereof to a single central power, pure monarchy, closely 
 
 bordering, though with some frequently repeated but rather useless 
 
 reservations, on absolute monarchy. But. so soon as it had gained 
 
 this victory and brought about this revolution, the third estate 
 
 went in pursuit of a new one, attacking that single power to the 
 
 foundation of which it had contributed so much, and entering upon 
 
 the task of changing pure monarchy into constitutional monarchy. 
 
 This fact is unique in the history of the world. "We recognize 
 
 in the career of the chief nations of Asia and ancient Europe nearly 
 
 all the great facts which have agitated France ; but nowhere is 
 
 there any appearance of a class which, starting from the very lowest, 
 
 from being feeble, despised, and almost imperceptible at its origin, 
 
 rises by perpetual motion and by labour without respite, strengthens 
 
 proved by itself from period to period, acquires in succession whatever it 
 
 a survey of lacked, wealth, enlightenment, influence, changes the face of society 
 
 history an( ^ ^ e na t ure of government, and arrives at last at such a pitch of 
 
 predominance that it may be said to be absolutely the country. 
 
 Let us pass to the Europe of the Greeks and Eomans. At the 
 first blush we seem to discover some analogy between the pro- 
 gress of these brilliant societies and that of French society ; but 
 the analogy is only apparent ; there is, once more, nothing 
 resembling the fact and the history of the French third estate. 
 One thing only has struck sound judgments as being somewhat 
 like the struggle of burgherdom in the middle ages against the 
 feudal aristocracy, and tllat is the struggle between the plebeians 
 and patricians at Rome. They have often been compared ; but it 
 is a baseless comparison. The struggle between the plebeians and 
 patricians commenced from the very cradle of the Roman republic ; 
 it was not, as happened in the France of middle ages, the result 
 of a slow, difficult, incomplete development on the part of a class 
 which, through a long course of great inferiority in strength, wealth, 
 and credit, little by little, extended itself and raised itself, and 
 ended by engaging in a real contest with the superior class. 
 
National character of the Third Estate. 
 
 139 
 
 Not only is the fact new, but it is a fact eminently French, and shown 
 essentially national. ISTo where has burgherdom had so wide and *? ^ essen- 
 so productive a career as that which fell to its lot in France. There tional. 
 have been communes in the whole of Europe, in Italy, Spain, 
 Germany, and England, as well as in France. Not only have there 
 been communes every where, but the communes of France are not 
 those which, as communes, under that name and in the middle ages, 
 have played the chiefest part and taken the highest place in his- 
 tory. The Italian communes were the parents of glorious republics. 
 The German communes became free and sovereign towns, which 
 had their own special history, and exercised a great deal of influence 
 upon the general history of Germany. The communes of England 
 made alliance with a portion of the , English feudal aristocracy, 
 formed with it the preponderating house in the British government, 
 and thus played, full early, a mighty part in the history of their 
 country. Far were the French communes, under that name and in 
 their day of special activity, from rising to such political im- 
 portance and to such historical rank. And yet it is in France 
 that the people of the communes, the burgherdom, reached the 
 most complete and most powerful development, and ended by 
 acquiring the most decided preponderance in the general social 
 structure. There have been communes, we say, throughout 
 Europe ; but there has not really been a victorious third estate any 
 where, save in France. 
 
king of 
 France. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 
 
 A.D. 1328. IN the fourteenth century a new and a vital question arose : will 
 ^ ie -F rencn dominion preserve its nationality? Will the kingship 
 remain French or pass to the foreigner ? This question brought 
 ravages upon France and kept her fortunes in suspense for a 
 hundred years of war with England, from the reign of Philip of 
 Valois to that of Charles VII. ; and a young girl of Lorraine, 
 called Joan of Arc, had the glory of communicating to France 
 that decisive impulse which brought to a triumphant issue the 
 independence of the French nation and kingship. 
 
 Some weeks after his accession, on the 29th of May, 1328, 
 Philip was crowned at Rheims, in presence of a brilliant assemblage 
 of princes and lords, French and foreign ; next year, on the 6th of 
 June, Edward III., king of England, being summoned to fulfil a 
 vassal's duties by doing homage to the king of France for the 
 duchy of Aquitaine, which he held, appeared in the cathedral of 
 Amiens, with his crown on his head, his sword at his side, and his 
 gilded spurs on his heels ; and on the 30th of March, 1331, he 
 recognized, by letters express, " that the said homage which we did 
 at Amiens to the king of France in general terms, is, and must be 
 understood as liege : and that we are bound, as duke of Aquitaine, 
 and peer of France, to show him faith and loyalty." 
 
 The relations between the two kings were not destined to be for 
 long so courteous and so pacific. 
 
Relations between France and England. 141 
 
 Philip VI. had embroiled himself with a prince of his line, 
 Robert of Artois, great-grandson of Robert the first count of 
 Artois, who was a brother of St. Louis, and was killed during the 
 crusade in Egypt, at the battle of Mansourah. As early as the 
 reign of Philip the Handsome, Robert claimed the countship of 
 Artois as his heritage ; but having had his pretensions rejected by 
 a decision of the peers of the kingdom, he had hoped for more 
 success under Philip of Valois, whose sister he had married. 
 Philip tried to satisfy him with another domain raised to a peerage j 
 but Robert, more and more discontented, got involved in a series of A.D. 1332. 
 intrigues, plots, falsehoods, forgeries, and even, according to public gjjjjjj^f 
 report, imprisonments and crimes which, in 1332, led to his being Artois, 
 condemned by the court of peers to banishment and the confiscation sentenced 
 of his property. He fled for refuge first to Brabant, and then to me nt. 
 England, to the court of Edward III., who received him graciously, 
 and whom he forthwith commenced inciting to claim the crown of 
 France, "his inheritance," as he said, "which King Philip holds 
 most wrongfully." In the soul of Edward temptation overcame 
 indecision. As early as the month of June, 1336, in a parliament 
 assembled at Northampton, he had complained of the assistance 
 given by the king of France to the Scots, and he had expressed a 
 hope that " if the Erench and the Scots were to join, they would 
 at last offer him battle, which the latter had always carefully 
 avoided." In September of the same year he employed similar 
 language in a parliament held at Nottingham, and he obtained 
 therefrom subsidies for the Avar going on, not only in Scotland, but 
 also in Aquitaine against the Erench king's lieutenants. In April 
 and May of the following year, 1337, he granted to Robert of 
 Artois, his tempter for three years past, court favours which proved 
 his resolution to have been already taken. On the 21st of August 
 following he formally declared war against the king of Erance, and declares 
 addressed to all the sheriffs, archbishops, and bishops of his w . ar 
 kingdom a circular in which he attributed the initiative to Philip ; France, 
 on the 26th of August he gave his ally, the emperor of Germany, 
 notice of what he had just done, whilst, for the first time, insult- 
 ingly describing Philip as " setting himself up for king of Erance." 
 At last, on the 7th of October, 1337, he proclaimed himself king of 
 Erance, as his lawful inheritance, designating as representatives 
 and supporters of his right the duke of Brabant, the marquis 
 of Juliers, the count of Hainault, and William de Bohun, earl of 
 Northampton. 
 
 The enterprise had no foundation in right, and seemed to have 
 few chances of success. No national interest, no public ground 
 
142 History of France. 
 
 was provocative of war between the two peoples ; it was a war of 
 personal ambition like that which in the eleventh century William 
 the Conqueror had carried into England. The memory of that 
 great event was still in the fourteenth century so fresh in France, 
 that when the pretensions of Edward were declared, and the 
 struggle was begun, an assemblage of Normans, barons and knights, 
 or, according to others, the Estates of Normandy themselves came 
 and proposed to Philip to undertake once more and at their own 
 expense the conquest of England, if he would put at their head his 
 eldest son John, their own duke. The king received their depu- 
 tation at Yincennes, on the 23rd of March, 1339, and accepted 
 their offer. They bound themselves to supply for the expedition 
 4000 men-at-arms and 20,000 foot, whom they promised to main- 
 tain for ten weeks and even a fortnight beyond, if, when the duke 
 of Normandy had crossed to England, his council should consider 
 the prolongation necessary. 
 
 His policy. Edward III., though he had proclaimed himself king of France, 
 did not at the outset of his claim adopt the policy of a man firmly 
 A.D. 1340. resolved and burning to succeed. From 1337 to 1340 he behaved 
 the title as ^ ^ e were at strife with the count of Flanders rather than with 
 of king of the king of France. 
 
 ranee. JJ Q obtained the support of the famous brewer Van Artevelde, 
 
 head of the populace of Ghent, and so a French prince and a 
 Flemish burgher prevailed upon the king of England to pursue,' as 
 in assertion of his avowed rights, the conquest of the kingdom of 
 France. King, prince, and burgher fixed Ghent as their place of 
 meeting for the official conclusion of the alliance ; and there, in 
 January, 1340, the mutual engagement was signed and sealed. The 
 king of England "assumed the arms of France quartered with 
 those of England," and thenceforth took the title of king of France. 
 Then burst forth in reality that war which was to last a hundred 
 years ; which was to bring upon the two nations the most violent 
 struggles as well as the most cruel sufferings, and which, at the 
 end of a hundred years, was to end in the salvation of France from 
 her tremendous peril, and the defeat of England in her unrighteous 
 attempt. In January, 1340, Edward thought he had won the 
 most useful of allies ; Artevelde thought the independence of the 
 Flemish coiiimunes and his own- supremacy in his own country 
 secured ; and Uobert d'Artois thought with complacency how he 
 had gratified his hatred for Philip of Valois. And all three were 
 Victory of d_ ece i v ing themselves in their joy and their confidence. A brilliant 
 (June 24). victory which Edward gained at Sluys (1340) struck a serious 
 blow at the French navy ; a truce followed, which was concluded 
 
Succession to the Duchy of Brittany. 143 
 
 on the 25th of September, 1340, at first for nine months, and was Treaty 
 afterwards renewed on several occasions up to the month of June, (Septem- 
 1342. Neither sovereign, and none of their allies gave up any thing 
 or bound themselves to any thing more than not to fight during 
 that interval ; but they were, on both sides, without the power of 
 carrying on without pause a struggle which they would not entirely 
 abandon. 
 
 An unexpected incident led to its recommencement in spite of 
 the truce ; not, however, throughout France, or directly between 
 the two kings, but with fiery fierceness, though it was limited to a 
 single province, and arose not in the name of the kingship of 
 France but out of a purely provincial question. John III., duke of 
 Brittany and a faithful vassal of Philip of Valois, died suddenly at 
 Caen, on the 30th of April, 1341, on returning to his domain. 
 Though he had been thrice married he left no child. The duchy of Succession 
 Brittany then reverted to his brothers or their posterity ; but his to tne 
 very next brother, Guy, count of Penthievre, had been dead six Brittany, 
 years and had left only a daughter, Joan called the Cripple, mar- 
 ried to Charles of Blois, nephew of the king of France. The third 
 brother was still alive ; he, too, was named John, had from his 
 mother the title of count of Mont fort, and claimed to be heir to 
 the duchy of Brittany in preference to his niece Joan. The niece, 
 on the contrary, believed in her own right to the exclusion of her 
 uncle. At the death of John III., his brother, the count of Mont- 
 fort, immediately put himself in possession of the inheritance, 
 seized the principal Breton towns, Nantes, Brest, Rennes, and 
 Yannes, and crossed over to England, to secure the support of 
 Edward III. His rival, Charles of Blois, appealed to the decision 
 of the king of France, his uncle and natural protector. Philip of 
 Valois thus found himself the champion of succession in the female 
 line in Brittany, whilst he was himself reigning in France by virtue 
 of the Salic law, and Edward III. took up in Brittany the defence 
 of succession in the male line, which he was disputing and fighting 
 against in France. Philip and his court of peers declared on the A - D : 1341. 
 7th of September, 1341, that Brittany belonged to Charles of S'SJ * 
 Blois, who at once did homage for it to the king of France, whilst court of 
 John of Montfort demanded and obtained the support of the king p 
 of England. War broke out between the two claimants, effectually 
 supported by the two kings, who nevertheless were not supposed to 
 make war upon one another and in their own dominions. tweenJe~an 
 
 If the two parties had been reduced for leaders to the two de Mont- 
 claimants only, the war would not, perhaps, have lasted long. In c^rie^de 
 the first campaign the count of Montfort was made prisoner at the Bloi*. 
 
144 History of France. 
 
 siege of Mantes, carried off to Paris and shut up in the tower of the 
 Louvre, whence he did not escape until three years were over. The 
 countess his wife all the while strove for his cause with the same 
 indefatigable energy. He escaped in 1345, crossed over to England,, 
 swore fealty and homage to Edward III. for the duchy of Brittany, 
 and immediately returned to take in hand, himself, his own 
 cause. But in that very year, on the 26th of September, 1345, 
 Death of he died at the Castle of Hennebon, leaving once more his wife, 
 of MoST* w **k a y un " c hild, a l ne at the head of his party and having in 
 fort. charge the future of his house. The Countess Joan maintained 
 
 the rights and interests of her son as she had maintained those of 
 her husband. For nineteen years, she, with the help of England, 
 struggled against Charles of Blois, the head of a party growing more 
 and more powerful, and protected by France. Fortune shifted her 
 favours and her asperities from one camp to the other. Charles of 
 Blois had at first pretty considerable success ; but, on the 18th of 
 June, 1347, in a battle in which he personally displayed a brilliant 
 courage, he was in his turn made prisoner, carried to England, and 
 immured in the Tower of London. There he remained nine years. 
 But he too had a valiant and indomitable wife, Joan of Penthievre, 
 the Cripple. She did for her husband what Joan of Montfort 
 was doing for hers. All the time that he was a prisoner in the 
 Tower of London, she was the soul and the head of his party, in 
 the open country as well as in the towns, turning to profitable 
 account the inclinations of the Breton population, whom the 
 presence and the ravages of the English had excited against John of 
 Montfort and his cause. During nine years, from 1347 to 1356, 
 the two Joans were the two heads of their parties in politics and in 
 war. Charles of Blois at last obtained his liberty from Edward 
 III. on hard conditions, and returned to Brittany to take up the 
 conduct of his own affairs. The struggle between the two 
 claimants still lasted eight years with vicissitudes ending in 
 A.D. 1364. nothing definite, and on the 29th of September, 1364, the battle of 
 Battle of Auray cost Charles of Blois his life and the countship of Brittany. 
 (Sept. 29) . From that day forth John of Montfort remained in point of fact 
 duke of Brittany, and Joan of Penthievre, the Cripple, the proud 
 princess who had so obstinately defended her rights against him, 
 survived for full twenty years the death of her husband and the 
 loss of her duchy. 
 
 Whilst the two Joans were exhibiting in Brittany, for the 
 preservation or the recovery of their little dominion, so much energy 
 and persistency, another Joan, no princess, but not the less a 
 heroine, was, in no other interest than the satisfaction of her love 
 
CHARLES V. 
 
 Page 145. 
 
Joan de Belleville. 145 
 
 and her vengeance, making war, all by herself, on the same terri- 
 tory. Several Norman and Breton lords, and amongst others 
 Oliver do Clisson and Godfrey d'Harcourt were suspected, nomi- 
 nally attached as they were to the king of France, of having made 
 secret overtures to the king of England. Philip of Valois had them 
 arrested at a tournament, and had them beheaded without any 
 form of trial, in the middle of the market-place at Paris, to the 
 number of fourteen. The head of Clisson was sent to Nantes, and 
 exposed on one of the gates of the city. At the news thereof, his 
 widow, Joan of Belleville, attended by several men of family, her ^ Q war Q j 
 neighbours and friends, set out for a castle occupied by the troops the " three 
 of Philip's candidate, Charles of Blois. The fate of Clisson was Joan8 -" 
 not yet known there ; it was supposed that his wife was on a 
 hunting excursion ; and she was admitted without distrust. As 
 soon as she was inside, the blast of a horn gave notice to her 
 followers, whom she had left concealed in the neighbouring woods. 
 They rushed up and took possession of the castle ; and Joan de 
 Clisson had all the inhabitants but one put to the sword. But 
 this was too little for her grief and her zeal. At the head of her 
 troops, augmented, she scoured the country and seized several 
 places, every where driving out or putting to death the servants of 
 the king of France. Philip confiscated the property of the house 
 of Clisson. Joan moved from land to sea. She manned several 
 vessels, attacked the French ships she fell in with, ravaged the 
 coasts, and ended by going and placing at the service of the 
 countess of Montfort her hatred and her son, a boy of seven years 
 of age whom she had taken with her in all her expeditions, and 
 who was afterwards the great constable Oliver de Clisson. Ac- 
 cordingly the war for the duchy of Brittany in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury has been called in history the war of the three Joans. 
 
 Although Edward III. by supporting with troops and officers, A.D. 1340 
 and sometimes even in person, the cause of the countess of Mont- ^jj v 
 fort and Philip of Valois, by assisting in the same way Charles of tween the 
 Blois and Joan of Penthievre, took a very active, if indirect, share French and 
 in the war in Brittany, the two kings persisted in not calling n| 
 themselves at war ; and when either of them proceeded to acts of 
 unquestionable hostility, they eluded the consequences of them by 
 hastily concluding truces incessantly violated and as incessantly 
 renewed. They had made use of this expedient in 1340 ; and they 
 had recourse to it again in 1342, 1343, and 1344. The last of these 
 truces was to have lasted up to 1346 ; but, in the spring of 1345, 
 Edward resolved to put an end to this equivocal position, and to 
 openly recommence war. He announced his intention to Pope 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1346. 
 Invasion 
 of France 
 by the 
 English. 
 
 A.D. 1346. 
 Battle of 
 
 Crecy 
 (Aug. 25). 
 
 Clement IV., to liis own lieutenants in Brittany, and to all the 
 cities and corporations of his kingdom. The tragic death of Van 
 Artevelde, however, (1345) proved a great loss to the king of 
 England. He was so much affected by it that he required a whole 
 year before he could resume with any confidence his projects of 
 war ; and it was not until the 2nd of July, 1346, that he embarked 
 at Southampton, taking with him, besides his son the prince of 
 Wales, hardly sixteen years of age, an army which comprised, 
 according to Froissart, seven earls, more than thirty -five barons, a 
 great number of knights, four thousand men-at-arms, ten thousand 
 English archers, six thousand Irish and twelve thousand Welsh 
 infantry, in all something more than thirty-two thousand men. By 
 the advice of Godfrey d'Harcourt, he marched his army over Nor- 
 mandy ; he took and plundered on his way Barfleur, Cherbourg, 
 Valognes, Carentan, St. L6, and Caen ; then, continuing his march, 
 lie occupied Louviers, Vernon, Yerneuil, Mantes, Meulan, and 
 Poissy, where he took up his quarters in the old residence of King 
 Robert ; and thence his troops advanced and spread themselves as 
 far as Euel, Neuilly, Boulogne, St. Cloud, Bourg-la-Keine and 
 almost to the gates of Paris, whence could be seen " the fire and 
 smoke from burning villages." Philip recalled in all haste his 
 troops from Aquitaine, commanded the burgher-forces to assemble, 
 and gave them, as he had given all his allies, St. Denis for the 
 rallying-point. At sight of so many great lords and all sorts of 
 men of war flocking together from all points, the Parisians took 
 fresh courage. " For many a long day there had not been at St. 
 Denis a king of France in arms and fully prepared for battle." 
 
 Edward began to be afraid of having pushed too far forward, and 
 of finding himself endangered in the heart of France, confronted 
 by an army which would soon be stronger than his own. He, ac- 
 cordingly, marched northward, where he flattered himself he would 
 find partisans, counting especially on the help of the Flemings, 
 who, in fulfilment of their promise, had already advanced as far as 
 Bethune to support him. Philip moved with all his army into 
 Picardy in pursuit of the English army, which was in a hurry to 
 reach and cross the Somme, and so continue its march northward. 
 
 When Edward, after passing the Somme, had arrived near Crecy, 
 five leagues from Abbeville, in the countship of Ponthieu, which 
 had formed part of his mother Isabel's dowry, " Halt we here," 
 said he to his marshals ; " I will go no farther till I have seen the 
 enemy j I am on my mother's rightful inheritance, which was given 
 her on her marriage ; I will defend it against mine adversary, 
 Philip of Valois " and he rested in the open fields, he and all his 
 
Battle of Crecy. 147 
 
 men, and made his marshals mark well the ground where they 
 would set their battle in array. Philip, on his side, had moved 
 to Ahbeville, where all his men came and joined him, and whence 
 he sent out scouts to learn the truth about the English. When he 
 knew that they were resting in the open fields near Crecy and 
 showed that they were awaiting their enemies, the king of France 
 was very joyful, and said that, please God, they should fight him 
 011 the morrow [the day after Friday, Aug. 25, 1346]. 
 
 On Saturday, the 26th of August, after having heard 
 mass, Philip started from Abbeville with all his barons. The 
 battle began with an attack by 15,000 Genoese bowmen, who 
 marched forward, and leaped thrice with a great cry : their arrows 
 did little execution, as the strings of their bows had been 
 relaxed by the damp ; the English archers now taking their Genoese 
 bows from their cases, poured forth a shower of arrows upon this 
 multitude, and soon threw them into confusion : the Genoese falling 
 back upon the French cavalry, were by them cut to pieces, and 
 being allowed no passage, were thus prevented from again forming 
 in the rear : this absurd inhumanity lost the battle, as the young 
 Prince of Wales, taking advantage of the irretrievable disorder, 
 led on his line at once to the charge. " No one can describe or 
 imagine," says Froissart, "the bad management and disorder of the 
 French army, though their troops were out of number." Philip 
 was led from the field by John of Hainault, and he rode till he 
 came to the walls of the castle of Broye, where he found the gates 
 shut : ordering the governor to be summoned, when the latter en- 
 quired, it being dark, who it was that called at so late an hour, he 
 answered: "Open, open, governor; it is the fortune of France;" 
 and accompanied by five barons only he entered the castle. 
 
 Whilst Philip, with all speed, was on the road back to Paris with Siege of 
 his army, as disheartened as its king, and more disorderly in retreat (geptem- 
 than it had been in battle, Edward was hastening, with ardour and ber 3). 
 intelligence, to reap the fruits of his victory. In the difficult war 
 of conquest he had undertaken, what was clearly of most importance 
 to him was to possess on the coast of France, as near as possible to 
 England, a place which he might make, in his operations by land 
 and sea, a point of arrival and departure, of occupancy, of pro- 
 visioning and of secure refuge. Calais exactly fulfilled these con- 
 ditions. On arriving before the place, September 3rd, 1346, 
 Edward " immediately had built all round it," says Froissart, 
 "houses and dwelling-places of solid carpentry and arranged in 
 streets as if he were to remain there for ten or twelve years, for his 
 intention was not to leave it winter or summer, whatever time and 
 
 L 2 
 
148 History of France. 
 
 whatever trouble lie must spend and take. He called this new 
 town Villeneuve la Hardie ; and he had therein all things necessary 
 for an army, and more too, as a place appointed for the holding of 
 a market on Wednesday and Saturday ; and therein were mercers' 
 shops and butchers' shops, and stores for the sale of cloth and 
 bread and all other necessaries. King Edward did not have the 
 city of Calais assaulted by his men, well knowing that he would 
 lose his pains, but said he would starve it out, however long a time 
 it might cost him, if King Philip of France did not come to fight 
 him again, and raise the siege." 
 
 Calais had for its governor John de Yienne, a valiant and faithful 
 Burgundian knight, " the which seeing," says Froissart, " that the 
 king of England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, 
 ordered that all sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should 
 quit the city without further notice. The Calaisians endured for 
 eleven months all the sufferings arising from isolation and famine. 
 The king of France made two attempts to relieve them. On the 
 20th of May, 1347, he assembled his troops at Amiens; but they 
 were not ready to march till about the middle of July, and as long 
 before as the 23rd of June a French fleet of ten galleys and thirty- 
 five transports had been driven off by the English. 
 
 Surrender When the people of Calais saw that all hope of a rescue had 
 Calaisians s ^PP e( ^- fr m them, they held a council, resigned themselves to offer 
 submission to the king of England rather than die of hunger, and 
 begged their governor, John de Vienne, to enter into negotiations 
 for that purpose with the besiegers. Walter de Manny, instructed 
 by Edward to reply to these overtures, said to John de Vienne, 
 "The king's intent is that ye put yourselves at his free will to ransom 
 or put to death such as it shall please him ; the people of Calais 
 have caused him so great displeasure, cost him so much money and 
 lost him so many men, that it is not astonishing if that weighs 
 heavily upon him." In his final answer to the petition of the 
 unfortunate inhabitants, Edward said, " Go, Walter, to them of 
 Calais, and tell the governor that the greatest grace they can find 
 in my sight is that six of the most notable burghers come forth 
 from their town bare-headed, bare-footed, with ropes round their 
 necks and with the keys of the town and castle in their hands. 
 With them I will do according to my will, and the rest I will receive 
 Eustace de to mercy." It is well known how the king would have put to 
 St. Pierre. d ea th Eustace de St. Pierre and his companions, and how their 
 lives were spared at the intercession of Queen Philippa. 
 
 Eustace, more concerned for the interests of his own town than 
 for those of France, and being more of a Calaisian burgher than a 
 
The Plague. Death of Philip VI. 149 
 
 national patriot, showed no hesitation, for all that appears, in 
 serving, as a subject of the king of England, his native city for 
 which he had shown himself so ready to die. At his death, which 
 happened in 1351, his heirs declared themselves faithful subjects 
 of the king of France, and Edward confiscated away from them the 
 possessions he had restored to their predecessor. Eustace de St. 
 Pierre's cousin and comrade in devotion to their native town, John 
 d'Aire, would not enter Calais again ; his property was confiscated, 
 and his house, the finest, it is said, in the town, was given by King 
 Edward to Queen Philippa, who showed no more hesitation in 
 accepting it than Eustace in serving his new king. Long-lived 
 delicacy of sentiment and conduct was rarer in those rough and 
 rude times than heroic bursts of courage and devotion. 
 
 The battle of Crecy and the loss of Calais were reverses from 
 which Philip of Yalois never even made a serious attempt to 
 recover ; he hastily concluded with Edward a truce, twice renewed, 
 which served only to consolidate the victor's successes. A calamity 
 of European extent came as an addition to the distresses of Erance. 
 From 1347 to 1349 a frightful disease, brought from Egypt and A. D. 1347 
 Syria through the ports of Italy, and called the black plague or the jm! f 9 " 
 plague of Florence, ravaged Western Europe, especially Provence 
 and Languedoc, where it carried off, they say, two-thirds of the 
 inhabitants. When the epidemic had well nigh disappeared, the 
 survivors, men and women, princes and subjects, returned passion- 
 ately to their pleasures and their galas; to mortality, says a contempo- 
 rary chronicler, succeeded a rage for marriage ; and Philip of Yalois 
 himself, now fifty-eight years of age, took for his second wife 
 Blanche of Navarre, who was only eighteen. She was a sister of 
 that young king of Navarre, Charles II., who was soon to get the 
 name of Charles the Bad, and to become so dangerous an enemy of 
 Philip's successors. Seven months after his marriage, and on the 
 22nd of August, 1350, Philip died at Nogent-le-Eoi in the Haute- A.D. 1350. 
 Marne, strictly enjoining his son John to maintain with vigour his ^^ L* 
 well ascertained right to the crown he wore, and leaving his people (Aug. 22). 
 bowed down beneath a weight " of extortions so heavy that the 
 like had never been seen in the kingdom of France." 
 
 Only one happy event distinguished the close of this reign. As 
 early as 1343 Philip had treated, on a monetary basis, with Hum- 
 bert II., count and Dauphin of Vienness, for the cession of that 
 beautiful province to the crown of France after the death of the 
 then possessor. Humbert, an adventurous and fantastic prince, 
 plunged, in 1346, into a crusade against the Turks, from which he 
 returned in the following year without having obtained any sue- 
 
150 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1349. cess. Tired of seeking adventures as well as of reigning, he, on 
 
 Viennesf the 16th f July ' 1349 ' ^ ei TQ a solemn assembly held at Lyons, 
 
 to Franco abdicated his principality in favour of Prince Charles of France, 
 
 (July 16), grandson of Philip of Valois and afterwards Charles Y. The new 
 
 dauphin took the oath, between the hands of the bishop of 
 
 Grenoble, to maintain the liberties, franchises and privileges 
 
 of the Dauphiny ; and the ex-dauphin, after having taken 
 
 holy orders and passed successively through the archbishopric 
 
 of Rheims and the bishopric of Paris, both of which he found 
 
 equally unpalatable, went to die at Clermont in Auvergne, in a 
 
 convent belonging to the order of Dominicans, whose habit he 
 
 and of had donned. 
 
 lifr n (A S ril In the Same yeai> ' n the 18tl1 f April) 1349j Philip f Yaloi s 
 18). bought of Jayme of Arragon, the last king of Majorca, for 120,000 
 
 golden crowns, the lordship and town of Montpellier, thus trying 
 to repair to some extent, for the kingdom of Prance, the losses he 
 John II., had caused it. 
 
 "the good" jjjg successor, John II., called the Good, on no other ground 
 France. ^ an tnat he was g av > prodigal, credulous and devoted to his 
 favourites, did nothing but reproduce, with aggravations, the faults 
 His go- and reverses of his father. 
 
 vernment. He compromised more and more seriously every day his own 
 safety and that of his successor by vexing more and more, without 
 destroying, his most dangerous enemy. He showed no greater 
 prudence or ability in the government of his kingdom. Always in 
 want of money, because he spent it foolishly on galas or presents to 
 his favourites, he had recourse, for the purpose of procuring it, at 
 one time to the very worst of all financial expedients, debasement 
 of the coinage ; at another, to disreputable imposts, such as the tax 
 upon salt and upon the sale of all kinds of merchandise. In the single 
 year of 1352 the value of a silver mark varied sixteen times, from 
 4 livres 10 sous to 18 livres. To meet the requirements of his 
 government and the greediness of his courtiers, John twice, in 1355 
 and 1356, convoked the states-general, which did not refuse him their 
 support ; but John had not the wit either to make good use of the 
 powers with which he was furnished or to inspire the states-general 
 with that confidence which alone could decide them upon con- 
 tinuing their gifts. And, nevertheless, King John's necessities 
 were more evident and more urgent than ever : war with England 
 had begun again. 
 
 The truth is that, in spite of the truce still existing, the English, 
 since the accession of King John, had at several points resumed 
 hostilities. The disorders and dissensions to which France was a 
 
CJiarlcs of Navarre. Invasion of France. 151 
 
 prey, the presumptuous and hare-brained incapacity of her new 
 king were for so ambitious and able a prince as Edward III. very 
 strong temptations. Nor did opportunities for attack and chances 
 of success fail him any more than temptations. He found in France, 
 amongst the grandees of the kingdom and even at the king's court, 
 men disposed to desert the cause of the king and of France, to serve 
 a prince who had more capacity, and who pretended to claim the 
 crown of France as his lawful right. As early as 1351, amidst all Charles 
 his embroilments and all his reconciliations with his father-in-law, " th ^ ad> " 
 Charles the Ead, king of Navarre, had concluded with Edward III. of Navarre, 
 a secret treaty, whereby, in exchange for promises he received, he **j* 
 recognized his title as king of France. In 1355 his treason burst 
 forth. The king of Navarre, who had .gone for refuge to Avignon, 
 under the protection of Pope Clement VL, crossed France by 
 English Aquitaine, and went and landed at Cherbourg, which he 
 had an idea of throwing open to the king of England. He once more 
 entered into communications with King John, once more obtained 
 forgiveness from him, and for a while appeared detached from his 
 English alliance. But Edward III. had openly resumed his hostile 
 attitude ; and he demanded that Aquitaine and the countship of 
 Ponthieu, detached from the kingdom of France, should be ceded 
 to him in full sovereignty, and that Brittany should become all 
 but independent. John haughtily rejected these pretensions, which 
 were merely a pretext for recommencing war. And it recommenced 
 accordingly, and the king of Navarre resumed his course of perfidy. 
 He had lands and castles in Normandy, which John put under 
 sequestration, and ordered the officers commanding in them to 
 deliver up to him. Six of them, the commandants of the castles of 
 Cherbourg and Evreux amongst others, refused, believing, no 
 doubt, that in betraying France and her king, they were remaining 
 faithful to their own lord. 
 
 At several points in the kingdom, especially in the northern Success of 
 provinces, the first-fruits of the war were not favourable for the 
 English. King Edward, who had landed at Calais with a body of 
 troops, made an unsuccessful campaign in Artois and Picardy and 
 was obliged to re-embark for England, falling back before King 
 John, whom he had at one time offered and at another refused to 
 meet and fight at a spot agreed upon. But in the south-west and 
 south of France, in 1355 and 1356, the prince of Wales at the 
 head of a small picked army and with John Chandos for comrade, 
 victoriously overran Limousin, Perigord, Languedoc, Auvergne, 
 Berry, and Poitou, ravaging the country and plundering the towns 
 into which he could force an entrance and the environs of those 
 
152 History of France. 
 
 that defended themselves behind their walls. He met with 
 scarcely any resistance, and he was returning by way of Berry and 
 Poitou back again to Bordeaux when he heard that King John, 
 starting from Normandy with a large army, was advancing to give 
 him battle. John, in fact, with easy self-complacency and some- 
 The Prince what proud of his petty successes against King Edward in Picardy, 
 Southern 111 ^ a( ^ keen ^ n a nurr y to move against the prince of Wales, in hopes 
 France. of forcing him also to re-embark for England. He was at the 
 head of forty or fifty thousand men, with his four sons, twenty-six 
 dukes or counts, and nearly all the baronage of France ; and such 
 was his confidence in this noble army, that on crossing the Loire 
 he dismissed the burgher forces, " which was madness in him and 
 in those who advised him," said even his contemporaries. John, 
 even more than his father Philip, was a king of courts, ever 
 surrounded by his nobility and caring little for his people. When 
 the two armies were close to one another on the platform of 
 Maupertuis, two leagues to the north of Poitiers, two legates from 
 the pope came hurrying up from that town with instructions to 
 negotiate peace between the kings of France, England, and 
 Navarre. John consented to an armistice of twenty-four hours. 
 The prince of Wales, seeing himself cut off from Bordeaux by 
 forces very much superior to his own, for he had but eight or ten 
 thousand men, offered to restore to the king of France "all that he 
 had conquered this bout, both towns and castles, and all the 
 prisoners that he and his had taken, and to swear that, for seven 
 whole years, he would bear arms no more against the king of 
 France ;" but King John and his council would not accept any 
 thing of the sort, saying that "the prince and a hundred of his 
 knights must come and put themselves as prisoners in the hands 
 of the king of France." Neither the prince of Wales nor Chandos 
 had any hesitation in rejecting such a demand : " God forbid," said 
 Chandos, " that we should go without a fight ! If we be taken or 
 discomfited by so many fine men-at-arms and in so great a host we 
 shall incur no blame ; and if the day be for us and fortune be 
 pleased to consent thereto we shall be the most honoured folk in 
 A.D. 1356. the world." The battle took place on the 19th of September, 
 Poitiers ^ *^ J * n ^ e morn i n g > nere as a t Crecy it was a case of undisciplined 
 (Sept. 19). forces, without co-operation or order, and ill-directed by their 
 commanders, advancing, bravely and one after another, to get 
 broken against a compact force under strict command, and as docile 
 as heroic. Two divisions of the French, in which were the 
 dauphin and two of his brothers, being repulsed, precipitately fled ; 
 but the king himself, with his youngest son by his side, a youth of 
 
States General. 153 
 
 fourteen, fought valiantly, and endeavoured to retrieve the disaster 
 by strenuously continuing the contest, but in vain. Left almost 
 alone in the field, John might easily have been slain, had not 
 every one been desirous of taking alive the royal prisoner. The 
 king, unwilling to surrender himself to a person of inferior con- 
 dition, still cried out, "Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales'?" 
 At length, giving his right hand gauntled to Denis de Morbecque, 
 a knight of Arras, who had been expelled from France for a 
 homicide, committed in an affray, he said, " Sir Knight, I surren- 
 der." He was taken first to Bordeaux, and then to England, where 
 he remained a captive, yet most honourably and considerately 
 treated by his victors. 
 
 The Dauphin Charles, aged nineteen, in spite of his youth and his The Dau- 
 any thing but glorious retreat from Poitiers, took the title of lieutenant gu^g^ 
 of the king, and had hardly re-entered Paris, on the 2 9th of September, govern- 
 when he summoned, for the 15th of October, the states-general O f ment * 
 Languedoc, who met, in point of fact, on the 17th, in the great 
 chamber of parliament. Fresh subsidies were granted, but only on 
 very hard conditions. The deputies demanded of Charles "that he 
 should deprive of their offices such of the king's councillors as they 
 should point out, have them arrested, and confiscate all their 
 property. Twenty-two men of note, the chancellor, the premier 
 president of the parliament, the king's stewards; and several 
 officers in the household of the dauphin himself were thus pointed 
 out. They were accused of having taken part to their own profit 
 in all the abuses for which the Government was reproached, and 
 of having concealed from the king the true state of things and the 
 misery of the people. The commissioners elected by the estates 
 were to take proceedings against them : if they were found guilty, 
 they were to be punished ; and if they were innocent, they were at 
 the very least to forfeit their office and their property, on account 
 of their bad counsels and their bad administration." 
 
 They further insisted that the deputies, under the title of re- Preten- 
 formers, should traverse the provinces as a check upon the mal- 
 versations of the royal officials, and that twenty-eight delegates, 
 chosen from amongst the three orders, four prelates, twelve knights, 
 and twelve burgesses, should be constantly placed near the king's 
 person " with power to do and order every thing in the kingdom, 
 just like the king himself, as well for the purpose of appointing 
 and removing public officers as for other matters." It was taking 
 away the entire government from the crown, and putting it into 
 the hands of the estates. Finally, they spoke about setting at 
 liberty the king of Navarre, who had been imprisoned by King John, 
 
History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1358, 
 
 States- 
 general. 
 Stephen 
 Marcel. 
 
 Murder of 
 the Mar- 
 shals. 
 
 and said to the dauphin that " since this deed of violence no good 
 had come to the king or the kingdom because of the sin of having 
 imprisoned the said king of Navarre." And yet Charles the Bad 
 was already as infamous as he has remained in history ; he had 
 laboured to embroil the dauphin with his royal father; and there 
 was no plot or intrigue, whether with the malcontents in France 
 or with the king of England, in which he was not, with good 
 reason, suspected of having been mixed up and of being ever 
 ready to be mixed up. He was clearly a dangerous enemy for the 
 public peace as well as for the crown, and, for the states-general 
 who were demanding his release, a bad associate. 
 
 In the face of such demands and such forebodings the dauphin 
 did all he could to gain time. The next year, however, the states 
 under the direction of Stephen Marcel, provost of the merchants, 
 and Eobert Lecoq, bishop of Laon, showed themselves still more 
 severe. Not content with checking the authority of the dauphin 
 by setting Charles the Bad at liberty, impeaching the ministers, 
 and creating a commission of thirty-six members, chosen from 
 amongst themselves, and enjoying all the prerogatives of the 
 sovereign, these revolutionists of the fourteenth century entered 
 the Louvre by force Marcel ascended, followed by a band of armed 
 men, to the apartments of the dauphin, " whom he requested very 
 sharply," says Froissart, "to restrain so many companies from 
 roving about on all sides, damaging and plundering the country." 
 The duke replied that he would do so willingly if he had the where- 
 withal to do it, but that it was for him who received the dues 
 belonging to the kingdom to discharge that duty. " I know not 
 why or how," adds Froissart, " but words were multiplied on the 
 part of all, and became very high." "My lord duke," suddenly 
 said the provost, "do not alarm yourself; but we have somewhat to do 
 here ; " and turned towards his fellows in the caps, saying, "Dearly 
 beloved, do that for the which ye are come ; " the mob immediately mas- 
 sacred the lord de Conflans, marshal of Champagne, and Eobert de 
 Clermont, marshal of Normandy, both at the time unarmed, so close 
 to the dauphin that his robe was covered with their blood. The 
 dauphin shuddered; and the rest of his officers fled. " Take no heed, 
 lord duke," said Marcel; "you have naught to fear." He handed to the 
 dauphin his own red and blue cap, and himself put on the dauphin's, 
 which was of black stuff with golden fringe. The corpses of the 
 two marshals were dragged into the courtyard of the palace, where 
 they remained until evening without any one's daring to remove 
 them ; and Marcel with his fellows repaired to the mansion-house, 
 and harangued from an open window the mob collected on the 
 
The Jacqitery. 155 
 
 Place de Greve. " What has been done is for the good and the 
 profit of the kingdom," said he ; " the dead were false and wicked 
 traitors." " We do own it and will maintain it ! " cried the people 
 who were about him. 
 
 The house from which Marcel thus addressed the people was his 
 own property, and was called the Pillar-house. There he accom- 
 modated the town-council, which had formerly held its sitting in 
 divers parlours. 
 
 For a month after this triple murder, committed with such Dictator- 
 official parade, Marcel reigned dictator in Paris. He removed from ship of 
 the council of thirty-six deputies such members as he could not arce 
 rely upon, and introduced his own confidants. He cited the 
 council, thus modified, to express approval of the blow just struck; 
 and the deputies, " some from conviction and others from doubt 
 (that is, fear), answered that they believed that for what had been 
 done there had been good and just cause." The king of Navarre 
 was recalled from Nantes to Paris, and the dauphin was obliged to 
 assign to him, in the king's name, " as a make-up for his losses," 
 10,000 livres a year on landed property in Languedoc. On the 
 25th of March, the young Prince, succeeded in leaving Paris, and 
 repaired first of all to Senlis, and then to Provins, where he found 
 the estates of Champagne eager to welcome him. In the mean- 
 while, an event occurred outside which seemed to open to Marcel 
 a prospect of powerful aid, perhaps of decisive victory. Throughout A D 13 gg 
 several provinces the peasants, whose condition, sad and hard as The Jac- 
 it already was under the feudal system, had been still further 
 aggravated by the outrages and irregularities of war, not finding 
 any protection in their lords, and often being even oppressed by 
 them as if they had been foes, had recourse to insurrection in 
 order to escape from the evils which came down upon them every 
 day and from every quarter. They bore and would bear any thing, 
 it was said, and they got the name of Jacques Bonhomme (Jack 
 Goodfellow] ', but this taunt they belied in a terrible manner. We 
 will quote from the last continuer of William of Nangis, the least 
 declamatory and least confused of all the chroniclers of that 
 period: "In this same year 1358, says he, "in the summer [the 
 first rising took place on the 28th of May], the peasants in the 
 neighbourhood of St. Loup de Cerent and Clermont in the diocese 
 of Beauvais took up arms against the nobles of France. They 
 assembled in great numbers, set at their head a certain peasant 
 named William Karle [or Cale, or Callet], of more intelligence than 
 the rest, and marching by companies under their own flag, roamed 
 over the country, slaying and massacring all the nobles they met, 
 
History of France. 
 
 Their 
 excesses. 
 
 Put down 
 at Mont- 
 didier 
 (July). 
 
 even their own lords. Not content with that, they demolished the 
 houses and castles of the nobles : and, what is still more deplorable, 
 they villainously put to death the noble dames and little children 
 who fell into their hands ; and afterwards they strutted about, they 
 and their wives, bedizened with the garments they had stripped 
 from their victims. The number of men who had thus risen 
 amounted to five thousand, and the rising extended to the outskirts 
 of Paris. They had begun it from sheer necessity and love of 
 justice, for their lords oppressed instead of defending them ; but 
 before long they proceeded to the most hateful and criminal deeds. 
 They took and destroyed from top to bottom the strong castle of 
 Ermenonville, where they put to death a multitude of men and 
 dames of noble family who had taken refuge there. For some 
 time the nobles no longer went about as before; none of them 
 durst set a foot outside the fortified places." Jacqaery had taken 
 the form of a fit of demagogic fury, and the Jacks [or Goodfellows'] 
 swarming out of their hovels were the terror of the castles. 
 
 The insurrection having once broken out, Marcel hastened to 
 profit by it, and encouraged and even supported it at several points. 
 Amongst other things he sent from Paris a body of three hundred 
 men to the assistance of the peasants who were besieging the castle 
 of Ermenonville. 
 
 The reaction against Jacquery was speedy and shockingly 
 bloody. The nobles, the dauphin, and the king of Navarre, a 
 prince and a noble at the same time that he was a scoundrel, made 
 common cause against the Good/allows, who were the more dis- 
 orderly in proportion as they had become more numerous, and be- 
 lieved themselves more invincible. The ascendancy of the masters 
 over the rebels was soon too strong for resistance. At Meaux, of 
 which the Goodfellows had obtained possession, they were sur- 
 prised and massacred to the number, it is said, of seven thousand, 
 with the town burning about their ears. In Beauvaisis, the king 
 of Navarre, after having made a show of treating with their 
 chieftain, William Karle or Callet, got possession of him, and had 
 him beheaded, wearing a trivet of red-hot iron, says one of the 
 chroniclers, by way of crown. He then moved upon a camp of 
 Goodfellows assembled near Montdidier, slew three thousand of 
 them and dispersed the remainder. These figures are probably 
 very much exaggerated, as nearly always happens in such accounts ; 
 but the continuer of "William of Nangis, so justly severe on the 
 outrages and barbarities of the insurgent peasants, is not less so on 
 those of their conquerors. 
 
 Marcel from that moment perceived that his case was lost, and 
 
End of the Rebellion. 157 
 
 no longer dreamed of any thing but saving himself and his, at any Stephen 
 price ; " for he thought," says Froissart, " that it paid better to J^dered 
 slay than to be slain." Being reduced to depend entirely during (July 31). 
 this struggle upon such strength as could be supplied by a muni- 
 cipal democracy, incoherent, inexperienced, and full of divisions in 
 its own ranks, and by a mad insurrection in the country districts, 
 he rapidly fell into the selfish and criminal condition of the man 
 whose special concern is his own personal safety. This he sought 
 to secure by an unworthy alliance with the most scoundrelly 
 amongst his ambitious contemporaries, and he would have given 
 up his own city as well as France to the king of Navarre and the 
 English, had not another burgher of Paris, John Maillart, stopped 
 him, and put him to death at the very moment when the patriot 
 of the states-general of 1355 was about to become a traitor to his 
 country. Hardly thirteen years before, when Stephen Marcel was 
 already a full-grown man, the great Flemish burgher, James van 
 Artevelde, had, in the cause of his country's liberties, attempted a 
 similar enterprise and, after a series of great deeds at the outset 
 and then of faults also similar to those of Marcel, had fallen into 
 the same abyss, and had perished by the hand of his fellow-citizens, 
 at the very moment when he was labouring to put Flanders, his 
 native country, into the hands of a foreign master, the prince of 
 Wales, son of Edward III., king of England. 
 
 One single result of importance was won for France by the Result of 
 states-general of the fourteenth century, namely, the principle of the states> 
 the nation's right to intervene in their own affairs, and to set 
 their government straight when it had gone wrong or was in- 
 capable of performing that duty itself. Up to that time, in the 
 thirteenth century and at the opening of the fourteenth, the 
 states-general had been hardly any thing more than a temporary 
 expedient employed by the kingship itself to solve some special 
 question or to escape from some grave embarrassment. Starting 
 from King John, the states-general became one of the principles of 
 national right : a principle which did not disappear even when it 
 remained without application, and the prestige of which survived 
 even its reverses. Faith and hope fill a prominent place in the 
 lives of peoples as well as of individuals ; having sprung into real 
 existence in 1355, the states-general of France found themselves 
 alive again in 1789 ; and we may hope that, after so long a trial, 
 their rebuffs and their mistakes will not be more fatal to them in 
 our day. 
 
 On the 2nd of August, 1358, in the evening, the dauphin 
 Charles re-entered Paris, and was accompanied by John Maillart, 
 
158 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Recon- 
 ciliation 
 between 
 the Dau- 
 phin and 
 Charles 
 the Bad. 
 
 King John 
 "the good" 
 in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 who " was mightily in his grace and love." On being re-settled in 
 the capital, he showed neither clemency nor cruelty. He let the 
 reaction against Stephen Marcel run its course, and turned it to 
 account without further exciting it or prolonging it beyond 
 measure. The property of some of the condemned was confiscated ; 
 some attempts at a conspiracy for the purpose of avenging the 
 provost of tradesmen were repressed with severity; and John 
 Maillart and his family were loaded with gifts and favours. On 
 becoming king, Charles determined himself to hold his son at the 
 baptismal font; but Robert Lecocq, bishop of Laon, the most 
 intimate of Marcel's accomplices, returned quietly to his diocese ; 
 two of Marcel's brothers, William and John, owing their protec- 
 tion, it is said, to certain youthful reminiscences on the prince's 
 part, were exempted from all prosecution ; Marcel's widow even 
 recovered a portion of his property ; and as early as the 10th of 
 August, 1358, Charles published an amnesty, from which he 
 excepted only " those who had been in the secret council of the 
 provost of tradesmen in respect of the great treason ; " and on the 
 same day another amnesty quashed all proceeding for deeds done 
 during the Jacquery, " whether by nobles or ignobles." Charles 
 knew that in acts of rigour or of grace impartiality conduces to 
 the strength and the reputation of authority, 
 
 A reconciliation then took place between him and the king of 
 Navarre, whose wife, Joan of France, was the dauphin's sister ; 
 "the town of Melun," says the chronicler, "was restored to the 
 lord duke ; the navigation of the river once more became free up 
 stream and down ; great was the satisfaction in Paris and through- 
 out the whole country; and, peace being thus made, the two 
 princes returned both of them home." 
 
 The king of Navarre knew how to give an appearance of free 
 will and sincerity to changes of posture and behaviour which 
 seemed to be pressed upon him by necessity ; and we may suppose 
 that the dauphin, all the while that he was interchanging graceful 
 acts, was too well acquainted by this time with the other to become 
 his dupe, but, by their apparent reconciliation, the}' put an end, 
 for a few brief moments, to a position which was burthensome 
 to both. 
 
 While these events, from the battle of Poitiers to the death of 
 Stephen Marcel (from the 19th of September, 1356, to the 1st of 
 August, 1358), were going on in France, King John was living as 
 a prisoner in the hands of the English, first at Bordeaux, afterwards 
 in London, and then at Windsor, much more concerned about the 
 reception he met with and the galas he was present at than about 
 
Invasion of France, 159 
 
 the affairs of his kingdom. Towards the end of April, 1359, the A.D. 1359. 
 dauphin-regent received at Paris the text of a treaty which the Treaty of 
 king his father had concluded in London with the king of England. 
 "The cession of the western half of France, from Calais to Bayonne, 
 and the immediate payment of four million golden crowns," such 
 was, according to the terms of this treaty, the price of King John's 
 ransom, and the regent resolved to leave to the judgment of 
 Trance the acceptance or refusal of such exorbitant demands. The 
 indignation of the people was roused to the highest pitch ; the 
 estates replied that the treaty was not " tolerable or feasible," and 
 in their patriotic enthusiasm " decreed to make fair war on the 
 English." But it was not enough to spare the kingdom the shame 
 of such a treaty ; it was necessary to give the regent the means of 
 concluding a better. On the 2nd of June, the nobles announced 
 to the dauphin that they would serve for a month at their own states- 
 expense, and that they would pay besides such imposts as should general, 
 be decreed by the good towns. The churchmen also offered to pay 
 them. The city of Paris undertook to maintain " six hundred 
 swords, three hundred archers, and a thousand brigands" The 
 good towns offered twelve thousand, men ; but they could not keep 
 their promise, the country being utterly ruined. 
 
 Edward III., on his side, at once took measures for recommencing Ed ward III 
 the war; but, before engaging in it, he had King John removed inPicardy. 
 from Windsor to Hertford Castle, and thence to Somerton, where 
 he set a strong guard. Having thus made certain that his prisoner 
 would not escape from him, he put to sea and, on the 28th of 
 October, 1359, landed at Calais with a numerous and well supplied 
 army. Then, rapidly traversing northern France, he did not halt 
 till he arrived before Eheims, which he was in hopes of surprising, 
 and where, it is said, he purposed to have himself, without delay, 
 crowned king of France. But he found the place so well provided 
 and the population so determined to make a good defence, that he 
 raised the siege and moved on Chalons, where the same disappoint- 
 ment awaited him. Passing from Champagne to Burgundy he 
 then commenced the same course of scouring and ravaging; but the 
 Burgundians entered into negotiations with him, and by a treaty 
 concluded on the 10th of March, 1360, and signed by Joan of 
 Auvergne, queen of France, second wife of King John and guardian 
 of the young duke of Burgundy, Philip de Rouvre, they obtained 
 at the cost of two hundred thousand golden sheep (moutons} an 
 agreement that for three years Edward and his army " would not 
 go scouring and burning " in Burgundy as they were doing in the 
 other parts of France. At this same time, another province, Picardy, 
 
160 History of France. 
 
 aided by many Normans and Flemings its neighbours, " nobles, 
 burgesses, and common-folk," was sending to sea an expedition 
 which was going to try, with God's help, to deliver King John 
 from his prison in England, and bring him back in triumph to his 
 kingdom. The expedition landed in England on the 14th of March, 
 1360 ; it did not deliver King John, but it took and gave over to 
 flames and pillage for two days the town of Winchelsea, after which 
 it put to sea again and returned to its hearths. 
 
 Edward Edward III., weary of thus roaming with his army over France 
 
 approaches without obtaining any decisive result, and without even managing 
 to get into his hands any one " of the good towns which he had 
 promised himself," says Froissart, " that he would tan and hide in 
 such sort that they would be glad to come to some accord with 
 him," resolved to direct his efforts against the capital of the 
 kingdom, where the dauphin kept himself close. On the 7th of 
 April, 1360, he arrived hard by Montrouge, and his troops spread 
 themselves over the outskirts of Paris in the form of an investing 
 or besieging force. But he had to do with a city protected by 
 good ramparts and well supplied with provisions, and with a prince 
 cool, patient, determined, free from any illusion as to his danger or 
 his strength, and resolved not to risk any of those great battles of 
 which he had experienced the sad issue. Foreseeing the advance 
 of the English, he had burnt the villages in the neighbourhood of 
 Paris, where they might have fixed their quarters ; he did the same 
 with the suburbs of St. Germain, St. Marcel, and Notre-Dame-des- 
 Champs ; he turned a deaf ear to all King Edward's warlike chal- 
 lenges ; and some attempts at an assault on the part of the English 
 knights and some sorties on the part of the French knights, im- 
 patient of their inactivity, came to nothing. At the end of a week 
 Edward, whose "army no longer found aught to eat," withdrew 
 from Paris, overtures for peace were then made by the Eegent of 
 A.D. 1360. France, and on the 8th of May, 1360, was concluded the treaty of 
 Brltigny Bretigny, a peace disastrous indeed, but become necessary. Aqui- 
 (May 8). taine ceased to be a French fief, and was exalted, in the king of 
 England's interest, to an independent sovereignty, together with 
 the provinces attached to Poitou, Saintorige, Aunis, Agenois, Peri- 
 gord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, Angoumois, and Eouergue. The 
 king of England, on his side, gave up completely to the king of 
 France Normandy, Maine, and the portion of Touraine and Anjou 
 situated to the north of the Loire. He engaged, further, to solemnly 
 renounce all pretentions to the crown of Franco so soon as King 
 John had renounced all rights of suzerainty over Aquitainc. King 
 John's ransom was fixed at three millions of golden crowns payable 
 
BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN. 
 
 Page 161. 
 
 
Annexations of Burgundy. 161 
 
 in six years, and John Galeas Visconti, duke of Milan, paid the 
 first instalment of it (600,000 florins) as the price of his marriage 
 with Isabel of France, daughter of King John. Hard as these 
 conditions were, the peace was joyfully welcomed in Paris and 
 throughout northern France ; and, on the 8th of July following, 
 King John, having been set at liberty, was brought over by the 
 prince of Wales to Calais, where Edward III. came to meet him. 
 The two kings treated one another there with great courtesy. Mean- 
 while the prince-regent of France was arriving at Amiens, and there 
 receiving from his brother-in-law, Galeas Yisconti, duke of Milan, 
 the sum necessary to pay the first instalment of his royal father's 
 ransom. Payment having been made, the two kings solemnly 
 ratified at Calais the treaty of Bretigny. Two sons of King John, 
 the duke of Anjou and the duke of Berry, with several other per- 
 sonages of consideration, princes of the blood, barons, and burgesses 
 of the principal good towns, were given as hostages to the king of 
 England for the due execution of the treaty j and Edward III. 
 negotiated between the king of France and Charles the Bad, king 
 of Navarre, a reconciliation as precarious as ever. In 1362, John Burgundy 
 committed the gravest fault of his reign, a fault which was destined annexed to 
 to bring upon France and the French kingship even more evils and 
 disasters than those which had made the treaty of Bretigny a 
 necessity. The young duke of Burgundy, Philip de Eouvre, the 
 last of the first house of the dukes of Burgundy, descendants of 
 King Robert, had died without issue, leaving several pretenders to 
 his rich inheritance. King John was the nearest of blood and at 
 the same time the most powerful ; he immediately took possession 
 of the duchy and disposed of it in favour of his fourth son Philip, 
 who " freely exposed himself to death with us and, all wounded 
 as he was, remained unwavering and fearless at the battle of Poi- 
 tiers." Thus was founded that second house of the dukes of Bur- 
 gundy, which was destined to play for more than a century so great 
 and often so fatal a part in the fortunes of France. 
 
 Whilst he was thus preparing a gloomy future for his country 
 and his line, King John heard that his second son, the duke of 
 Anjou, one of the hostages left in the hands of the king of England 
 as security for the execution of the treaty of Bretigny, had broken 
 his word of honour and escaped from England, in order to go and 
 join his wife at Guise Castle. Knightly faith was the virtue o 
 King John ; and it was, they say, on this occasion that he cried, returns to 
 as he was severely upbraiding his son, that " if good faith were England, 
 banished from the world, it ought to find an asylum in the hearts 
 of kings." He announced to his councillors, assembled at Amiens, 
 
 M 
 
1 62 History of France. 
 
 His death his intention of going in person to England. Shortly after his 
 ( pr '' arrival in London, he fell seriously ill, and died on the 8th of April, 
 1364, at the Savoy; France was at last about to have in Charles Y. 
 a practical and an effective king. 
 
 State of In spite of the discretion he had displayed during his four years 
 
 the^acces- ^ re g encv (from 1356 to 1360) his reign opened under the saddest 
 
 sionof auspices. In 1363, one of those contagious diseases, all at that 
 
 Charles V. t j me ca ^ e ^ fae plague, committed cruel ravages in France. "None," 
 
 says the contemporary chronicler, " could count the number of the 
 
 dead in Paris, young or old, rich or poor ; when death entered a 
 
 house, the little children died first, then the menials, then the 
 
 parents. In the smallest villages as well as in Paris the mortality 
 
 was such that at Argenteuil, for example, where there were wont 
 
 to be numbered seven hundred hearths, there remained no more 
 
 than forty or fifty." The ravages of the armed thieves or bandits 
 
 who scoured the country added to those of the plague. 
 
 King Charles V. had a very difficult work before him. Between 
 himself and his great rival, Edward III., king of England, there 
 was only such a peace as was fatal and hateful to France. To 
 escape some day from the treaty of Bretigny and recover some of 
 the provinces which had been lost by it this was what king and 
 Difficulty country secretly desired and laboured for. Pending a favourable 
 f . *k e opportunity for promoting this higher interest, war went on in 
 position. Brittany between John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, who 
 continued to be encouraged and patronized, covertly, one by the 
 king of England, the other by the king of France. Almost im- 
 mediately after the accession of Charles Y. it broke out again 
 between him and his brother-in-law, Charles the Bad, king of 
 Navarre, the former being profoundly mistrustful and the latter 
 brazen-facedly perfidious, and both detesting one another and watch- 
 ing to seize the moment for taking advantage one of the other. The 
 states bordering on France, amongst others Spain and Italy, were 
 a prey to discord and even civil wars, which could not fail to be a 
 source of trouble or serious embarrassment to France. In Spain two 
 brothers, Peter the Cruel and Henry of Transtamare, were disputing 
 the throne of Castile. Shortly after the accession of Charles Y., 
 and in spite of his lively remonstrances, in '1367, Pope Urban Y. 
 quitted Avignon for Eome, whence he was not to return to Avignon 
 till three years afterwards, and then only to die. The emperor of 
 Germany was, at this period, almost the only one of the great sove- 
 reigns of Europe who showed for France and her kings a sincere 
 good will. 
 
 In order to maintain the struggle against these difficulties, within 
 
Charles F., his family and his ministers. 163 
 
 and without, the means which Charles V. had at his disposal were The king's 
 of but moderate worth. He had three brothers and three sisters JJ^Jj^ 
 calculated rather to embarrass and sometimes even injure him than family, 
 to be of any service to him. Of his brothers the eldest, Louis, 
 duke of Arijou, was restless, harsh, and bellicose. He upheld 
 authority with no little energy in Languedoc, of which Charles 
 had made him governor, but at the same time made it detested ; 
 and he was more taken up with his own ambitious views upon the 
 kingdom of Xaples, which Queen Joan of Hungary had transmitted 
 to him by adoption, than with the interests of France and her 
 king. The second, John, duke of Berry, was an insignificant prince 
 who has left no strong mark on history. The third, Philip the 
 Bold, duke of Burgundy, after having been the favourite of his 
 father, King John, was likewise of his brother, Charles V., who did 
 not hesitate to still further aggrandize this vassal already so great, 
 by obtaining for him in marriage the hand of Princess Marguerite, 
 heiress to the countship of Flanders ; and this marriage, which was 
 destined at a later period to render the dukes of Burgundy such 
 formidable neighbours for the kings of France, was even in the life- 
 time of Charles V. a cause of unpleasant complications both for 
 France and Burgundy. Of King Charles' three sisters, the eldest, 
 Joan, was married to the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, and 
 much more devoted to her husband than to her brother; the 
 second, Mary, espoused Kobert, duke of Bar, who caused more 
 annoyance than he rendered service to his brother-in-law the king 
 of France ; and the third, Isabel, wife of Galeas Visconti, duke of 
 Milan, was of no use to her brother beyond the fact of contributing, 
 as we have seen, by her marriage to pay a part of King John's ran- 
 som. Charles V., by kindly and judicious behaviour in the bosom 
 of his family, was able to keep serious quarrels or embarrassments 
 from arising thence ; but he found therein neither real strength nor 
 sure support. 
 
 His civil councillors, his chancellor, William de Dormans, car- and his 
 dinal-bishop of Beauvais ; his minister of finance, John de la Grange, ministers, 
 cardinal-bishop of Amiens ; his treasurer, Philip de Savoisy ; and 
 his chamberlain and private secretary, Bureau de la Kiviere, were, 
 undoubtedly, men full of ability and zeal for his service, for he had 
 picked them out and maintained them unchangeably in their offices. 
 There is reason to believe that they conducted themselves discreetly, 
 for we do not observe that after their master's death there was any 
 outburst against them, on the part either of court or people, of that 
 violent and deadly hatred which has so often caused bloodshed in 
 the history of France. Bureau de la Kiviere was attacked and 
 
 M 2 
 
164 History of France. 
 
 prosecuted, without, however, "becoming one of the victims of judi- 
 cial authority at the command of political passions. None of 
 Charles V.'s councillors exercised over his master that preponderat- 
 ing and confirmed influence which makes a man a premier minister. 
 Character The government of Charles V. was the personal government of an 
 intelligent, prudent, and honourable king, anxious for the interests 
 ment. " of the State, at home and abroad, as well as for his own, with little 
 inclination for, and little confidence in, the free co-operation of the 
 country in its own affairs, but with wit enough to cheerfully call 
 upon it when there was any pressing necessity, and accepting it then 
 without any chicanery or cheating, but safe to go back as soon as 
 possible to that sole dominion, a medley of patriotism and selfish- 
 ness, which is the very insufficient and very precarious resource of 
 peoples as yet incapable of applying their liberty to the art of their 
 own government. Charles Y. had recourse three times, in July, 
 1367, and in May and December, 1369, to a convocation of the 
 states-general, in order to be put in a position to meet the political 
 and financial difficulties of France. It was his good fortune, besides, 
 to find amongst his servants a man to be the thunderbolt of war and 
 the glory of knighthood of his reign ; we mean Bertrand du Gues- 
 clin, a Breton gentleman, who had already distinguished himself on 
 A.D. 1364. the field of battle. Having received the command of the royal 
 Du Ones- troops, he inaugurated the new reign by the victory of Cocherel, 
 Battle of when he defeated John de Grailly, Captal of Buch, the best of the 
 Cocherel generals of the king of Navarre. Charles the Bad lost by this affair 
 ' ay '" nearly all his possessions in Normandy. 
 
 Charles V., encouraged by his success, determined to take part like- 
 wise in the war which was still going on between the two claimants 
 to the duchy of Brittany, Charles of Blois and John of Montfort. 
 Du Guesclin was sent to support Charles of Blois ; he entered at 
 once on the campaign, and marched upon Auray which was being 
 besieged by the count of Montfort. But there he was destined 
 to encounter the most formidable of his adversaries. John of Mont- 
 fort had claimed the support of his patron the king of England, 
 and John Chandos, the most famous of the English commanders, 
 had applied to the prince of "Wales to know what he was to do. 
 " You may go full well," the prince had answered, " since the French 
 A.D. 1364. are going for the count of Blois ; I give you good leave." The 
 DuGues- Battle took place on the 29th of September, 1364, before Auray; 
 Brittany. Charles of Blois was killed and Du Guesclin was made prisoner. 
 Battle of The cause of John of Montfort was clearly won ; and he, on taking 
 fseptem- possession of the duchy of Brittany, asked nothing better than to 
 ber 29). acknowledge himself vassal of the king of France and swear fidelity 
 
The French in Spain. 165 
 
 to him. According!}- he made peace at Guerande, on the llth of 
 April, 1365, after having disputed the conditions inch by inch ; 
 and some weeks previously, on the 6th of March, at the indirect 
 instance of the king of Navarre, who, since the battle of Cocherel, 
 had felt himself in peril, Charles V. had likewise put an end to his 
 open struggle against his perfidious neighbour, of whom he certainly 
 did not cease to be mistrustful. Being thus delivered from every 
 external war and declared enemy, the wise king of France was at 
 liberty to devote himself to the re-establishment of internal peace 
 and of order throughout his kingdom, which was in the most press- 
 ing need thereof. 
 
 Charles Y. was not, as Louis XII. and Henry IY. were, of a 
 disposition full of affection and sympathetically inclined towards ' 
 his people ; but he was a practical man, who in his closet and in nies." 
 the library growing up about him, took thought for the interests 
 of his kingdom as well as for his own ; he had at heart the public 
 good, and lawlessness was an abomination to him. Having pur- 
 chased, at a ransom of a hundred thousand francs, the liberty of 
 Bertrand du Guesclin, who had remained a prisoner in the hands 
 of John Chandos, after the battle of Auray, an idea occurred to 
 him that the valiant Breton might be of use to him in extricating 
 France from the deplorable condition to which she had been 
 reduced by the bands of plunderers who, under the name of Grand 
 Companies, were roaming over the land. 
 
 There was, at that time, a civil war raging in Spain between Civil war 
 Don Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, and his natural brother, in pam * 
 Henry of Transtamare, and that was the theatre on which Du 
 Guesclin proposed to launch the vagabond army which he desired 
 to get out of France. 
 
 With a strength, it is said, of 30,000 men, he took the decided 
 resolution of supporting Prince Henry's cause, and on the 1st of 
 January, 1366, entered Barcelona, whither Henry of Transtamare 
 came to join him. There is no occasion to give a detailed account 
 here of that expedition, which appertains much more to the history 
 of Spain than to that of France. Edward III. in London, and the The French 
 prince of Wales at Bordeaux, could not see without serious dis- * nd .. . 
 quietude, the most famous warrior amongst the French crossing the Spain. 
 Pyrenees with a following for the most part French, and setting 
 upon the throne of Castile a prince necessarily allied to the king 
 of France. The question of rivalry between the two kings and the 
 two peoples was thus transferred into Spain ; after several months 
 preparation the prince of Wales, purchasing the complicity of the 
 king of Navarre, marched into Spain in February, 1367, with an 
 
i66 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1367. 
 Battle of 
 Navarette 
 (April 3). 
 
 Du Gues- 
 clin made 
 prisoner, 
 
 and re- 
 leased. 
 
 army of 27,000 men, and John Chandos, the most able of the 
 English warriors. Henry of Transtamare had troops more numerous 
 "but less disciplined and experienced. The two armies joined 
 battle on the 3rd of April, 1367, at Najara or Navarette, not far 
 from the Ebro. Disorder and even sheer rout soon took place 
 amongst that of Henry, who flung himself before the fugitives, 
 shouting, " Why would ye thus desert and betray me, ye who have 
 made me king of Castile 1 Turn back and stand by me ; and by 
 the grace of God the day shall be ours." Du Guesclin and his 
 men-at-arms maintained the fight with stubborn courage, but at last 
 they were beaten and either slain or taken. To the last moment 
 Du Guesclin, with his back against a wall, defended himself 
 heroically against a host of assailants. The prince of Wales coming 
 up, cried out, " Gentle marshals of France, and you too, Bertrand, 
 yield yourselves to me." " Why, yonder men are my foes," cried 
 the king Don Pedro ; " it is they who took from me my kingdom, 
 and on them I mean to take vengeance." Du Guesclin darting 
 forward struck so rough a blow with his sword at Don Pedro that 
 he brought him fainting to the ground, and then turning to the 
 prince of Wales said, " Nathless I give up my sword to the most 
 valiant prince on earth." The prince of Wales took the sword, 
 and charged the Captal of Buch with the prisoner's keeping. 
 " Aha ! sir Bertrand," said the Captal to Du Guesclin, you took me 
 at the battle of Cocherel, and to-day I've got you." " Yes," replied 
 Du Guesclin ; " but at Cocherel I took you myself, and here you 
 are only my keeper." 
 
 The captivity of the Breton commander was not of long duration ; 
 Du Guesclin proudly fixed his ransom at a hundred thousand 
 francs, which seemed a large sum, even to the prince of Wales. 
 " Sir," cried Du Guesclin to him, " the king in whose keeping is 
 Prance will lend me what I lack, and there is not a spinning 
 wench in France who would not spin to gain for me what is 
 necessary to put me out of your clutches." The advisers of the 
 prince of Wales would have had him think better of it, and 
 break his promise ; but " that which we have agreed to with him 
 we will . hold to," said the prince ; " it would be shame and 
 confusion of face to us if we could be reproached with not setting 
 him to ransom when he is ready to set himself down at so much 
 as to pay a hundred thousand francs." Prince and knight were 
 both as good as their word. Du Guesclin found amongst his 
 Breton friends a portion of the sum he wanted ; King Charles V. 
 lent him thirty thousand Spanish doubloons, which, by a deed of 
 December 27th, 1367, Du Guesclin undertook to repay : and at 
 
Irritation against the Prince of Wales. 167 
 
 the beginning of 1368 the prince of Wales set the French warrior 
 at liberty. 
 
 The consequences of this unfortunate campaign were soon felt. The Prince 
 The expenses incurred for the purpose of carrying it on having J^itates 8 
 involved the prince of Wales in great embarrassment, he was the Gas- 
 compelled to levy heavy taxes on his newly acquired provinces, cons and 
 The Gascons and Aquitanians became irritated. The prince's nians. 
 more temperate advisers, even those of -English birth, tried in vain 
 to move him from his stubborn course. John Chandos himself, 
 the most notable as well as the wisest of them, failed, and withdrew 
 to his domain of St. Sauveur, in Normandy, that he might have 
 nothing to do with measures of which he disapproved. Being 
 driven to extremity, the principal lords of Aquitaine, the counts of 
 Comminges, of Armagnac, of Perigord, and many barons besides, 
 set out for France, and made complaint, on the 30th of June, 
 1368, before Charles V. and his peers, "on account of the 
 grievances which the prince of Wales was purposed to put upon 
 them." They had recourse, they said, to the king of France as 
 their sovereign lord, who had no power to renounce his suzerainty 
 or the jurisdiction of his court of peers and of his parliament. 
 
 Nothing could have corresponded better with the wishes of 
 Charles V. For eight years past he had taken to heart the treaty 
 of Bretigny, and he was as determined not to miss as he was 
 patient in waiting for an opportunity for a breach of it. Having 
 ascertained the legal means of maintaining that the stipulations 
 of the treaty of Bretigny had not all of them been performed by 
 the king of England, and that, consequently, the king of France 
 had not lost all his rights of suzerainty over the ceded provinces, 
 he summoned the prince of Wales to appear before a court of his 
 peers at Paris, to be judged as a rebellious vassal. " When the 
 prince of Wales had read this letter, " says Froissart, " he shook 
 his head and looked askant at the aforesaid Frenchman ; and when 
 he had thought a while, he answered, ' We will go willingly, at our 
 own time, since the king of France doth bid us, but it shall be 
 with our casque on our head, and with sixty thousand men at 
 our back/ " 
 
 This was a declaration of war ; and deeds followed at once A.D. 1369. 
 upon words. Edward III., after a short and fruitless attempt at 
 an accommodation, assumed on the 3rd of June, 1369, the title of 
 king of France, and ordered a levy of all his subjects between against 
 sixteen and sixty, laic or ecclesiastical, for the defence of England, En & land 
 threatened by a French fleet which was cruising in the Channel. 
 Profiting by the lessons of experience, Charles V. abstained from 
 
1 68 History of France. 
 
 general engagements, confining himself to fortifying his cities, laying 
 of the" waste tne country, and destroying in detail the forces of the 
 French. enemy. Thus it was that an English army, which had landed at 
 Calais (1369), and advanced as far as Paris, melted away before it 
 had time to reach Bordeaux. Another one, partly ruined by want 
 of provisions, was crushed at Pontvalain by Du Guesclin, lately 
 named constable of France (1370). At the same time, the French 
 navy, renewed by the wise foresight of the king, and reinforced by 
 Spanish ships, gained a signal victory at La Rochelle. These suc- 
 cesses and others besides allowed Charles V. to recover from the 
 English the greater part of the provinces which they had on the 
 continent. The leading actors in this historical drama did not 
 know how near were the days when they would be called away 
 from this arena still so crowded with their exploits or their re- 
 verses. A few weeks after the destruction of Limoges, the prince 
 of Wales lost, at Bordeaux, his eldest son, six years old, whom he 
 loved with all the tenderness of a veteran warrior, so much the 
 more affected by gentle impressions as they were a rarity to him ; 
 , and he was himself so ill that " his doctors advised him to return 
 to England, Jtis own land, saying that he would probably get better 
 health there. Accordingly he left France, which he would never 
 A.D. 1376. see again, and he died on the 8th of June, 1376, in possession of a 
 th a <Bi * k popukrity ^ na ^ never shifted and was deserved by such qualities 
 Prince" as showed a nature great indeed and generous, though often sullied 
 (June 8). "by the fits of passion of a character harsh even to ferocity. " The 
 good fortune of England," says his contemporary Walsingham, 
 "seemed bound up with his person, for it flourished when he 
 was well, fell off when he was ill, and vanished at his death. 
 As long as he was on the spot the English feared neither the 
 foe's invasion nor the meeting on the battle-field ; but with him 
 A.D. 1377. died all their hopes." A year after him, on the 21st of June, 1 377, 
 Edwardlll ^ e( ^ ^ s f^her, Edward III., a king who had been able, glorious, 
 (June 21). and fortunate for nearly half a century, but had fallen towards 
 the end of his life into contempt with his people and into forget- 
 fulness on the continent of Europe, where nothing was heard about 
 him beyond whispers of an indolent old man's indulgent weaknesses 
 to please a covetous mistress. 
 
 Whilst England thus lost her two great chiefs, France still kept 
 hers. For three years longer Charles V. and Du Guesclin re- 
 mained at the head of her government and her armies. A truce 
 between the two kingdoms had been twice concluded, between 
 1375 and 1377 : it was still in force when the prince of Wales 
 died, and Charles, ever careful to practise knightly courtesy, had a 
 
Constable Du Guesclin. 169 
 
 solemn funeral service performed for him in the Sainte-Chapelle ; 
 but the following year, at the death of Edward III., the truce had 
 expired. The war prosecuted by Charles V. between Edward 
 III/s death and his own had no result of importance ; the 
 attempt, by law and arms, which he made in 1378, to make A.D. 1378 
 Brittany his own and reunite it to the crown completely failed, ^J 1 !? 8 v * 
 thanks to the passion with which the Bretons, nobles, burgesses Guesclin. 
 and peasants were attached to their country's independence. 
 Charles V. actually ran a risk of embroiling himself with the 
 hero of his reign ; he had ordered Du Guesclin to reduce to sub- 
 mission to the countship of Rennes, his native land, and he showed 
 some temper because the constable not only did not succeed, but 
 advised him to make peace with the duke of Brittany and his 
 party. Du Guesclin, grievously hurt, sent to the king his sword 
 of constable, adding that he was about to withdraw to the court of 
 Castile, to Henry of Transtamare, who would show more apprecia- 
 tion of his services. All Charles Y.'s wisdom did not preserve him 
 from one of those deeds of haughty levity which the handling of 
 sovereign power sometimes causes even the wisest kings to commit, 
 but reflection made him promptly acknowledge and retrieve his 
 fault. He charged the dukes of Anjou and Bourbon to go and, 
 for his sake, conjure Du Guesclin to remain his constable ; and, 
 though some chroniclers declare that Du Guesclin refused, his will, 
 dated the 9th of July, 1380, leads to a contrary belief, for in it he 
 assumes the title of constable of France, and this will preceded the 
 hero's death only by four days. Having fallen sick before Chateau- 
 neuf-Randon, a place he was besieging in the Gevaudan, Du Gues- 
 clin expired on the 13th of July, 1380, at sixty-six years of age, A.D. 1380. 
 and his last words were an exhortation to the veteran captains S 6 *? 1 of 
 around him " never to forget that, in whatsoever country they might c lin 
 be making war, churchmen, women, children, and the poor people ( Jul y 13 )- 
 were not their enemies." According to certain contemporary chro- 
 nicles, or, one might almost say, legends, Chateauneuf-Kandon was 
 to be given up the day after Du Guesclin died. The marshal de 
 Sancerre, who commanded the king's army, summoned the governor 
 to surrender the place to him ; but the governor replied that he 
 had given his word to Du Guesclin, and would surrender to no 
 other. He was told of the constable's death : " Very well," he 
 rejoined, " I will carry the keys of the town to his tomb." To this 
 the marshal agreed ; the governor marched out of the place at the 
 head of his garrison, passed through the besieging army, went and 
 knelt down before Du Guesclin's corpse, and actually laid the keys 
 of Chateauneuf on his bier. The body of the constable was carried 
 
170 History of France. 
 
 to Paris to be interred at St. Denis, hard by the tomb which 
 Charles Y. had ordered to be made for himself ; and nine years 
 afterwards, in 1389, Charles Y.'s successor, his son Charles VI., 
 caused to be celebrated in the Breton warrior's honour a fresh 
 funeral, at which the princes and grandees of the kingdom, and the 
 young king himself, were present in state. The life, character, and 
 name of Bertrand du Guesclin were and remained one of the most 
 popular, patriotic, and legitimate boasts of the middle ages, then at 
 their decline. 
 
 Death of Two months after the constable's death, on the 1 6th of Septem- 
 C^arles V. ^ 1330^ Charles V. died at the castle of Beaute-sur-Marne, near 
 ber 16). Vincennes, at forty-three years of age, quite young still after so 
 stormy and hard-working a life. His contemporaries were con- 
 vinced, and he was himself convinced, that he had been poisoned 
 by his perfidious enemy, King Charles of Navarre. 
 
 His cha- Charles V., taking upon his shoulders at nineteen years of age, first 
 racter. ag ki n g' s lieutenant and as dauphin and afterwards as regent, the 
 government of France, employed all his soul and his life in repair- 
 ing the disasters arising from the wars of his predecessors and pre- 
 venting any repetition. No sovereign was ever more resolutely 
 pacific ; he carried prudence even into the very practice of war, as 
 was proved by his forbidding his generals to venture any general 
 , engagement with the English, so great a lesson and so deep an 
 impression had he derived from the defeats of Crecy and Poitiers 
 and the causes which led to them. But without being a warrior, 
 and without running any hazardous risks, he made himself respected 
 and feared by his enemies. At his death he left in the royal trea- 
 sury a surplus of seventeen million francs, a large sum for those 
 days. Nor the labours of government, nor the expenses of war, nor 
 farsighted economy had prevented him from showing a serious 
 interest in learned works and studies, and from giving effectual pro- 
 tection to the men who devoted themselves thereto. The university 
 of Paris, notwithstanding the embarrassments it sometimes caused 
 him, was always the object of his good-will. " He was a great lover 
 of wisdom," says Christine de Pisan, " and when certain folks mur- 
 mured for that he honoured clerks so highly, he answered, ' So long 
 as wisdom is honoured in this realm, it will continue in prosperity ; 
 but when wisdom is thrust aside, it will go down.'" He collected 
 nine hundred and fifty volumes (the first foundation of the Royal 
 Library), which were deposited in a tower of the Louvre, called the 
 library tower ^ and of which he, in 1373, had an inventory drawn up 
 by his personal attendant, Gilles de Presle. His taste for literature 
 and science was not confined to collecting manuscripts. He had a 
 
Charles VI. and his Uncles. 171 
 
 French translation made, for the sake of spreading a knowledge 
 thereof, of the Bible in the first place, and then of several works of 
 Aristotle, of Livy, of Valerius Maximus, of Vegetius, and of St. Au- 
 gustine. He was fond of industry and the arts as well as of litera- 
 ture. Henry de Yic, a German clockmaker, constructed for him the 
 first public clock ever seen in France, and it was placed in what 
 was called the Clock Tower in the Palace of Justice ; and the king 
 even had a clockmaker by appointment, named Peter de St. Beathe. 
 Several of the Paris monuments, churches, or buildings for public 
 use were undertaken or completed under his care. He began the 
 building of the Bastille, that fortress which was then so necessary 
 for the safety of Paris, where it was to be, four centuries later, the 
 object of the wrath and earliest excesses on the part of the populace. 
 Charles the Wise, from whatever point of view he may be regarded, 
 is, after Louis the Fat, Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and Philip the 
 Handsome, the fifth of those kings who powerfully contributed to 
 the settlement of France in Europe, and of the kingship in France. 
 He was not the greatest nor the best, but, perhaps, the most honestly 
 able. 
 
 Scarcely was Charles V. laid on his bier when it was seen what a 
 loss he was and would be to his kingdom. Discord arose in the Charles VI, 
 king's own family. In order to shorten the ever critical period of His uncles - 
 minority, Charles Y. had fixed the king's majority at the age of 
 fourteen. His son, Charles VI., was not yet twelve, and so had 
 two years to remain under the guardianship of his four uncles, the 
 dukes of Anjou, Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon ; but the last being 
 only a maternal uncle and a less puissant prince than his paternal 
 uncles, it was between the other three that strife began for tem- 
 porary possession of the kingly power. Though very unequal in 
 talent and in force of character, they were all three ambitious and 
 jealous. The eldest, the duke of Anjou, who was energetic, despo- 
 tic, and stubborn, aspired to dominion in France for the sake of 
 making French influence subserve the conquest of the kingdom of 
 Naples, the object of his ambition. The duke of Berry was a 
 mediocre, restless, prodigal, and grasping prince. The duke of 
 Burgundy, Philip the Bold, the most able and the most powerful of 
 the three, had been the favourite, first of his father, King John, and 
 then of his brother, Charles V., who had confidence in him and 
 readily adopted his counsels \ his father-in-law, Count Louis of 
 Flanders, was in almost continual strife with the great Flemish com- 
 munes, ever on the point of rising against the taxes he heaped upon 
 them and the blows he struck at their privileges. The city of Ghent 
 in particular joined complaint with menace, and in 1381 the quarrel 
 
I/ 2 History of France. 
 
 became war ; and in November, of the following year, the king of 
 France and his army marched into Flanders in support of the count. 
 Several towns, Cassel, Bergues, Gravelines, and Turnhout, hastily 
 
 A.D. 1382. submitted to him ; and on the 28th of November the two armies 
 Bo e f f un d themselves close together at Eosebecque, between Ypres and 
 
 becque Courtrai. Twenty-five thousand Flemings fell on the field, together 
 
 ber JsT" W ^ ^ e ^ r l ea( * er > ^ an Artevelde, the concoctor of this rebellion, 
 whose corpse, discovered with great trouble amongst a heap of slain, 
 was, by order of Charles VI., hung upon a tree in the neighbour- 
 hood. The French also lost in this struggle some noble knights, 
 not less illustrious by birth than valour ; amongst others forty-four 
 valiant men, who, being the first to hurl themselves upon the ranks 
 of the enemy to break them, thus won for "themselves great glory. 
 
 The victory of Eosebecque was a great cause for satisfaction and 
 pride to Charles VI. and his uncle, the duke of Burgundy. They 
 had conquered on the field in Flanders the commonalty of Paris as 
 well as that of Ghent ; and in France there was great need of such a 
 success, for, since the accession of the young king, the Parisians had 
 risen with a demand for actual abolition of the taxes of which 
 Charles V., on his death-bed, had deplored the necessity, and all 
 but decreed the cessation. Armed with all sorts of weapons, with 
 strong mallets amongst the rest, they spread in all directions, killing 
 the collectors, and storming and plundering the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 The "Mai- They were called the Malleteers. They were put down with as 
 much timidity as cruelty. Eeturning victorious from Flanders to 
 France, Charles VI. re-entered Paris, he alone being mounted, in 
 the midst of his army. The burgesses went out of the city to meet 
 him and offer him their wonted homage, but they were curtly 
 ordered to retrace their steps ; the king and his uncles, they were 
 informed, could not forget offences so recent. Fundamental order 
 having been thus upheld, reprisals began to be taken for the out- 
 breaks of the Parisians, municipal magistrates or populace, burgesses 
 or artisans, rich or poor, in the course of the two preceding years ; 
 arrests, imprisonments, fines, confiscations, executions, severities of 
 all kinds fell upon the most conspicuous and the most formidable 
 of those who had headed or favoured popular movements. The 
 most solemn and most iniquitous of these punishments was that 
 which befell the advocate-general, John Desmarets. " For nearly 
 a whole year," says the monk of St. Denis, '* he had served as 
 mediator between the king and the Parisians ; but, yielding to the 
 prayers of this rebellious and turbulent mob, he, instead of leaving 
 Paris as the rest of his profession had done, had remained there, 
 and throwing himself boldly amidst the storms of civil discord, 
 
Clisson murdered. 173 
 
 he had advised the assumption of arms and the defence of the city, 
 which he knew was very displeasing to the king and the grandees.'* 
 Public respect accompanied the old and courageous magistrate 
 beyond the scaffold ; his corpse was taken up by his friends, and at 
 a later period honourably buried in the church of St. Catherine. 
 
 Free at last from the surveillance of his uncles, Charles VI. mar- Charles VI. 
 ried Isabel of Bavaria, whose wantonness was destined to bring the ^abe^of 
 kingdom to the verge of destruction. Now, yielding to the impetuous Bavaria. 
 suggestions of his character, he prepared against England a gigantic 
 armament, which the delays of the Duke of Berry rendered useless. 
 Matters were getting worse in France, when a serious misfortune 
 came to destroy the already exhausted constitution of the king, and 
 to give up the country to the unprincipled ambition of his uncles. On 
 the 13th of June, 1392, the constable, Oliver de Clisson, was waylaid A.D. 1392. 
 as he was returning home after a banquet given by the king at the Oliver de 
 hostel of St. Paul. The assassin was Peter de Craon, cousin of mur dered 
 John IV., duke of Brittany. He believed De Clisson to be dead, (Jane 13). 
 and left him bathed in blood at a baker's door in the street called 
 Culture- Sainte- Catherine. The king was just going to bed, when 
 one of his people came and said to him, " Ah ! sir, a great misfor- 
 tune has happened in Paris." "What, and to whom?" said the 
 king. " To your constable, sir, who has just been slain." " Slain !" 
 cried Charles; "and by whom?" " Nobody knows ; but it was 
 close by here, in St. Catherine Street." "Lights! quick!" said 
 the king : " I will go and see him ;" and he set off without waiting 
 for his following. "When he entered the baker's shop, De Clisson, 
 grievously wounded, was just beginning to recover his senses. 
 " Ah ! constable," said the king, " and how do you feel ?" " Very 
 poorly, dear sir." "And who brought you to this pass?" "Peter 
 de Craon and his accomplices ; traitorously and without warning." 
 " Constable," said the king, " never was any thing so punished or 
 dearly paid for as this shall be ; take thought for yourself, and 
 have no further care; it is my affair." Orders were immediately 
 given to seek out Peter de Craon and hurry on his trial. He had 
 taken refuge, first in his own castle of Sable, and afterwards with 
 the duke of Brittany, who kept him concealed, and replied to the 
 king's envoys that he did not know where he was. The king pro- 
 claimed his intention of making war on the duke of Brittany until 
 Peter de Craon should be discovered and justice done to the con- 
 stable. Preparations for war were begun ; and the dukes of Berry 
 and Burgundy received orders to get ready for it, themselves and 
 their vassals. 
 
 The king had got together his uncles and his troops at Le Mans ; 
 
History of France. 
 
 The king and, after passing three weeks there, he gave the word to march for 
 
 'tii UC \ -Brittany. They had just entered the great forest of Le Mans, when 
 
 ness. all at once there started from behind a tree by the roadside a tall 
 
 man, with bare head and feet, clad in a common white smock, who, 
 
 dashing forward and seizing the king's horse by the bridle, cried, 
 
 " Go no farther ; thou art betrayed ! " So unusual an appearance 
 
 brought on a fit of frenzy from which Charles never recovered, and 
 
 which indeed was augmented by a strange accident which occurred 
 
 at a masquerade, some time after. Five young noblemen with the 
 
 king appeared as savages linked together, in a dress of linen, to 
 
 which fur was cemented by the means of rosin : the secret was so 
 
 well kept, that they remained undiscovered. The Duke of Orleans, 
 
 either from levity or accident, ran a lighted torch against one of 
 
 the party, which immediately set his combustible costume on fire ; 
 
 the flame was quickly communicated to the rest; but the masks, in the 
 
 midst of their torments, crying out " Save the king, save the king !" 
 
 his aunt, the duchess of Berry, recollecting his person, threw her 
 
 robes over him, and by wrapping them close, extinguished the fire. 
 
 One of the mummers saved his life by leaping into a cistern of 
 
 water; but the remaining four were so dreadfully scorched that 
 
 they died. On the king's good days he was sometimes brought in 
 
 to sit at certain councils at which there was a discussion about the 
 
 diminution of taxes and relief of the people, and he showed 
 
 symptoms, at intervals, of taking an interest in them. A fair 
 
 young Burgundian, Odette de Champdivers, was the only one 
 
 amongst his many favourites who was at all successful in soothing 
 
 him during his violent fits. It was Duke John the Fearless, who 
 
 had placed her near the king that she might promote his own 
 
 influence, and she took advantage of it to further her own fortunes, 
 
 which, however, did not hinder her from passing into the service 
 
 of Charles VII. against the House of Burgundy. For thirty years, 
 
 from 1392 to 1422, the crown remained on the head of this poor 
 
 madman, whilst France was a victim to the bloody quarrels of the 
 
 royal house, to national dismemberment, to licentiousness in morals 
 
 to civil anarchy, and to foreign conquest. 
 
 A.D. 1392 The dukes of Burgundy and Berry being thus in possession of 
 
 1402. power, exercised it for ten years, from 1392 to 1402, without 
 
 of Bur- an y S rea t dispute between themselves, the duke of Burgundy's 
 
 gundy and influence being predominant, or with the king, who, save certain 
 
 the hea^ at ^ uc ^ intervals, took merely a nominal part in the government. 
 
 of the During this period no event of importance disturbed France 
 
 state - internally. In 1393 the king of England, Eichard II., son of the 
 
 Black Prince, sought in marriage the daughter of Charles VI., 
 
The Queen of France and the Duke of Orleans. 175 
 
 Isabel of France, only eight years old. In Loth courts and in both 
 countries there was a desire for peace ; the contract was signed on 
 the 9th of March, 1396, with a promise that, when the princess 
 had accomplished her twelfth year, she should be free to assent to 
 or refuse the union ; and ten days after the marriage, the king's 
 uncles and the English ambassadors mutually signed a truce, which 
 promised but quite in vain to last for eight and twenty years. 
 
 Rivalries, intrigues, arid scandals of every kind were, in the Intrigue 
 meanwhile, disgracing the entourage of the mad king, and bringing j et ^ e i en f 
 about the curse and the shame of France. There had grown up Bavaria 
 between Queen Isabel of Bavaria and Louis, duke of Orleans, and the 
 brother of the king, an intimacy which, throughout the city and Q r i eans 
 amongst all honourable people, shocked even the least strait-laced. 
 It was undoubtedly through the queen's influence that Charles VI., 
 in 1402, suddenly decided upon putting into the hands of the duke 
 of Orleans the entire government of the realm and the right of 
 representing him in every thing during the attacks of his malady. 
 The duke of Burgundy wrote at once about it to the parliament of 
 Paris, saying, "Take counsel and pains that the interests of the 
 king and his dominion be not governed as they now are, for, in 
 good truth, it is a pity and a grief to hear what is told me about 
 it." In spite of his malady and his affection for his brother, 
 Charles VI. yielded to the councils of certain wise men who 
 represented to him "that it was neither a reasonable nor an 
 honourable thing to entrust the government of the realm to a prince 
 whose youth needed rather to be governed than to govern." He 
 withdrew the direction of affairs from the duke of Orleans and 
 restored it to the duke of Burgundy, who took it again and held it 
 with a strong grasp, and did not suffer his nephew Louis to meddle 
 in any thing. But from that time forward open distrust and hatred 
 were established between the two princes and their families. In 
 the very midst of this court-crisis Duke Philip the Bold fell ill and 
 died within a few days, on the 27th of April, 1404. John the 
 Fearless, count of Nevers, his son and successor in the dukedom of duke of ' 
 Burgundy, was not slow to prove that there was reason to regret Burgundy, 
 his father. His expedition to Hungary, ending as it did by the 
 terrible disaster of Nicopolis, for all its bad leadership and bad 
 fortune, had created esteem for his courage and for his firmness 
 under reverses, but little confidence in his direction of public 
 affairs. He was a man of violence, unscrupulous and indiscreet, 
 full of jealousy and hatred, and capable of any deed and any risk 
 for the gratification of his passions or his fancies. At his accession 
 he made some popular moves ; he appeared disposed to prosecute 
 
176 History of France. 
 
 vigorously the war against England which was going on sluggishly; 
 he testified a certain spirit of conciliation by going to pay a visit 
 to his cousin, the duke of Orleans, lying ill at his castle of Beaute, 
 near Yincennes ; when the duke of Orleans was well again, the two 
 princes took the communion together and dined together at their 
 uncle's, the duke of Berry's ; and the duke of Orleans invited the 
 new duke of Burgundy to dine with him the next Sunday. The 
 Parisians took pleasure in observing these little matters, and in 
 hoping for the re- establishment of harmony in the royal family. 
 They were soon to be cruelly undeceived. 
 
 A.D. 1407. On the 23rd of November, 1407, the duke of Orleans was 
 JJe'diikeof mur dered * n ^ Q streets of Paris by ruffians hired for the purpose 
 Orleans by the duke of Burgundy, who openly dared to justify the assas- 
 (Nov. 23). sinat ion. 
 
 Valentine Yisconti, the duke of Milan's daughter, whose dowry 
 had gone to pay the ransom of King John, was at Chateau-Thierry 
 when she heard of, the duke of Orleans, her husband's murder. 
 Hers was one of those natures, full of softness and at the same 
 time of fire, which grief does not overwhelm, and in which a passion 
 for vengeance is excited and fed by their despair. She started for 
 Paris in the early part of December, 1407, during the roughest 
 winter, it was said ever known for several centuries, taking with 
 her all her children. Dismounting at the hostel of St. Paul, she 
 threw herself on her knees before the king with the princes and 
 council around him, and demanded of him justice for her husband's 
 cruel death. Justice was promised by the chancellor in the name 
 of the king, and Valentine even obtained a kind of moral reparation 
 during the absence of her deadly foe ; but she died on the 4th of 
 Death of * December, 1408, at Blois, far from satisfied, and clearly foreseeing 
 Valentine, that against the duke of Burgundy, flushed with victory and 
 Orleans present in person, she would obtain nothing of what she had asked. 
 (Dec. 4). For spirits of the best mettle, and especially for a woman's heart, 
 impotent passion is a heavy burden to bear ; and Valentine Visconti, 
 beautiful, amiable, and unhappy even in her best days through the 
 fault of the husband she loved, sank under this trial. At the close 
 of her life she had taken for devise, " Naught have I more, more 
 hold I naught " (Rien ne m'esl plus ; plus ne m'est rien) and so 
 fully was that her habitual feeling that she had the words inscribed 
 upon the black tapestry of her chamber. In her last hours she had 
 by her side her three sons and her daughter, but there was another 
 still whom she remembered. She sent for a child, six years of age, 
 John, a natural son of her husband by Marietta d'Enghien, wife of 
 sire de Cany-Dunois.' " This one," said she, " was filched from me ; 
 
A. >. N 
 
 f - -.-- ^;^:v,., 1: . 
 
 "- : 
 
 JOHN THE FEARLHSS. 
 
 Page 177. 
 
T/ic Burgundians and tJie Armagnacs. 177 
 
 yet there is not a child so well cut out as he to avenge his father's 
 death." Twenty-five years later John was the famous bastard of 
 Orleans, Count Dunois, Charles VII. 's lieutenant-general and Joan 
 of Arc's comrade in the work of saving the French kingship 
 and France. 
 
 The duke of Burgundy's negotiations at Tours were not fruitless. 
 The result was that on the 9th of March, 1409, a treaty was con- 
 cluded and an interview effected at Chartres between the duke on 
 one side and on the other the king, the queen, the dauphin, all the 
 royal family, the councillors of the crown, the young duke of Orleans, 
 his brother, and a hundred knights of their house, all met together 
 to hear the king declare that he pardoned the duke of Burgundy. 
 The duke prayed " my lord of Orleans and my lords his brothers 
 to banish from their hearts all hatred and vengeance ;" and the 
 princes of Orleans "assented to what the king commanded them, 
 and forgave their cousin the duke of Burgundy every thing 
 entirely." But falsehood does not extinguish the facts it attempts 
 to disguise. The hostility between the houses of Orleans and 
 Burgundy could not fail to survive the treaty of Chartres and 
 cause search to be made for a man to head the struggle so soon as The Bur- 
 it could be recommenced. The hour and the man were not long gundians 
 waited for. In the very year of the treaty, Charles of Orleans, imag* 
 eldest son of the murdered duke and Valentine of Milan, lost his aacs, 
 wife, Isabel of France, daughter of Charles VI. ; and as early as 
 the following year (1410) the princes, his uncles, made him marry 
 Bonne d'Armagnac, daughter of Count Bernard d'Armagnac, one of 
 the most powerful, the most able, and the most ambitious lords of 
 southern France. Forthwith, in concert with the duke of Berry, 
 the duke of Brittany, and several other lords, Count Bernard put 
 himself at the head of the Orleans party, and prepared to proceed 
 against the duke of Burgundy in the cause of dominion combined 
 with vengeance. From 1410 to 1415 France was a prey to civil 
 war between the Armagnacs and Burgundians, and to their alternate 
 successes and reverses brought about by the unscrupulous employ- 
 ment of the most odious and desperate means. The Burgundians 
 had generally the advantage in the struggle, for Paris was chiefly 
 the centre of it, and their influence was predominant there. Their 
 principal allies there, says the chronicle, were the butchers, the 
 boldest and most ambitious corporation in the city; and they numbered 
 amongst their most active associates one, Caboche, a flayer of beasts in 
 the shambles of Hotel-Dieu, and master John de Troyes, a surgeon 
 with a talent for speaking. Their company consisted of prentice- 
 butchers, medical students, skinners, tailors, and every kind of lewd 
 
178 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Vicissi- 
 tudes of 
 the strug- 
 gle. 
 
 A.D. 1415. 
 Battle of 
 Agincourt 
 (Oct. 25). 
 
 fellows. "When any "body caused their displeasure they said, c Here's 
 an Armagnac/ and despatched him on the spot, and plundered his 
 house, or dragged him off to prison to pay dear for his release. The 
 rich burgesses lived in fear and peril. More than three hundred 
 of them went off to Melun with the provost of tradesmen, who 
 could no longer answer for the tranquillity of the city. The 
 Armagnacs, in spite of their general inferiority, -sometimes got the 
 upper hand, and did not then behave with much more discretion 
 than the others. Eager to avenge themselves on the men of the 
 north for all the misfortunes their own ancestors had endured during 
 the crusade of the Albigenses, the Armagnacs, distinguished by a 
 white scarf fastened on the right shoulder, marched towards Paris 
 and laid waste all the provinces on the banks of the Seine. 
 Masters of the metropolis, the Burgundians were enabled to 
 retaliate severely upon the Armagnacs, and even to drive them 
 southwards. Both parties were anxious to secure the support of 
 the king of England. The Armagnacs had promised the half of 
 Erance to Henry, and thus induced him to espouse their quarrel. 
 The duke of Burgundy however, and Charles II. whom he had in 
 his power, declared them enemies of the State, and besieged them in 
 the city of Bourges (1412). There a peace was concluded, but 
 proved of very short duration. The death of Henry of Lancaster, 
 by lessening the immediate chances of a foreign war, rendered the 
 conflict at home much more terrible. 
 
 This time, and after the useless assembly of the States-general in 
 1413, the Cabochians committed such excesses in Paris, that the 
 citizens came to an understanding to expel them. The Armagnacs 
 immediately entered the metropolis, and not only maintained 
 themselves there, but, commanded by Charles VI., pursued their 
 enemies as far as Arras. There they consented to sign a treaty of 
 peace by virtue of which John the Fearless pledged himself to 
 break off his recent alliance with the English (1414). The next 
 year Henry Y. started upon an expedition for the purpose of 
 claiming the execution of the treaty of Bretigny. The two armies 
 met in the plains of Agincourt (25th October, 1415), where a 
 most terrible battle took place. 
 
 It was a monotonous and lamentable repetition of the disasters 
 of Crecy and Poitiers ; disasters almost inevitable, owing to the in- 
 capacity of the leaders, and ever the same defects on the part of 
 the Erench nobility, defects which rendered their valorous and 
 generous qualities not only fruitless but fatal. Never had that 
 nobility been more numerous and more brilliant than in this pre- 
 meditated struggle. On the eve of the battle, marshal de Boucicaut 
 
Agincourt. State of France. 1 79 
 
 had armed five hundred new knights ; the greater part passed the 
 night on horseback, under arms, on ground soaked with rain ; and 
 men and horses were already distressed in the morning, when the 
 tattle began. It were tedious to describe the faulty manoeuvres of 
 the French army and their deplorable consequences on that day. 
 Never was battle more stubborn or defeat more complete and 
 bloody. Eight thousand men of family, amongst whom were a 
 hundred and twenty lords bearing their own banners, were left on Its results, 
 the field of battle. The duke of Brabant, the count of Severs, 
 the duke of Bar, the duke of Aleii9on, and the constable 
 D'Albret were killed. The duke of Orleans was dragged out 
 wounded from under the dead. "When Henry V., after having 
 spent several hours on the field of battle, retired to his quarters, 
 he was told that the duke of Orleans would neither eat nor drink. 
 He went to see him. " What fare, cousin 1 " said he. " Good, my 
 lord." Why will ye not eat or drink?" "I wish to fast." 
 " Cousin," said the king gently, " make good cheer : if God has 
 granted me grace to gain the victory, I know it is not owing to my public feel- 
 deserts ; I believe that God wished to punish the French ; and, if in in 
 all I have heard is true, it is no wonder, for they say that never rance * 
 were seen disorder, licentiousness, sins, and vices like what is going 
 on in France just now. Surely God did well to be angry." It 
 appears that the king of England's feeling was that also of many 
 amongst the people of France. "On reflecting upon this cruel 
 mishap," says the monk of St. Denis, " all the inhabitants of the 
 kingdom, men and women, said, ' In what evil days are we come into 
 this world that we should be witnesses of such confusion and shame ! '" 
 These successes of the king of England were so many reverses 
 and perils for the count of Armagnac. He had in his hands Paris, 
 the king, and the dauphin ; in the people's eyes the responsibility 
 of government and of events rested on his shoulders ; and at one 
 time he was doing nothing, at another he was unsuccessful in what Success of 
 he did. Whilst Henry V. was becoming master of nearly all the the En- 
 towns of Normandy, the constable, with the king in his army, was g u ' 
 besieging Senlis ; and he was obliged to raise the siege. The 
 legates of Pope Martin V. had set about establishing peace between 
 the Burgundians and Armagnacs as well as between France and 
 England ; they had prepared on the basis of the treaty of Arras a 
 new treaty with which a great part of the country and even of the 
 burgesses of Paris showed themselves well pleased ; but the con- 
 stable had it rejected on the ground of its being adverse to the 
 interests of the king and of France ; and his friend, the chancellor, 
 Henry de Marie, declared that, if the king were disposed to sign it, 
 
 N 2 
 
i So 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1418. 
 The Bur- 
 gundians 
 in Paris. 
 Perrinet 
 Leclerc. 
 
 Henry ne 
 
 gotiates. 
 
 he would have to seal it himself, for that as for him, the chancellor, 
 he certainly would not seal it. Bernard of Armagnac and his con- 
 fidential friend, Tanneguy Duchatel, a Breton nohleman, provost of 
 Paris, were hard and haughty. "When a complaint was made to 
 them of any violent procedure, they would answer, " What business 
 had you there ? If it were the Burgundians, you would make no 
 complaint." The Parisian population was becoming every day more 
 Burgundian. In the latter days of May, 1418, a plot was con- 
 trived for opening to the Burgundians one of the gates of Paris. 
 Perrinet Leclerc, son of a rich iron-merchant having influence in 
 the quarter of St. Germain des Pres, stole the keys from under the 
 bolster of his father's bed; a troop of Burgundian men-at-arms 
 came in, and they were immediately joined by a troop of Parisians. 
 They spread over the city, shouting, " Our Lady of peace ! Hurrah 
 for the king ! Hurrah for Burgundy ! Let all who wish for peace 
 take arms and follow us ! " The people swarmed from the houses 
 and followed them accordingly. The Armagnacs were surprised 
 and seized with alarm. Tanneguy Duchatel, a man of prompt 
 and resolute spirit, ran to the dauphin's, wrapped him in his bed- 
 clothes, and carried him off to the Bastille, where he shut him up 
 with several of his partisans. The count of Armagnac, towards 
 whose house the multitude thronged, left by a back-door and took 
 refuge at a mason's where he believed himself secure. In a few 
 hours the Burgundians were masters of Paris. Their chief, the 
 lord of Isle- Adam, had the doors of the hostel of St. Paul broken 
 in, and presented himself before the king. " How fares my cousin 
 of Burgundy?" said Charles VI., " I have not seen him for some 
 time." That was all he said. He was set on horseback and 
 marched through the streets. He showed no astonishment at any- 
 thing ; he had all but lost memory as well as reason, and no longer 
 knew the difference between Armagnac and Burgundian. A devoted 
 Burgundian, sire Guy de Bar, was named provost of Paris in the 
 place of Tanneguy Duchatel. 
 
 Henry of England negotiated with both parties ; but though Bur- 
 gundy and the queen having possession of the person of the afflicted 
 sovereign carried the appearance of legal authority, every Frenchman 
 who paid any regard to the true interests of his country adhered to 
 the dauphin. From the enmity of the contending factions, a cir- 
 cumstance occurred which facilitated Henry's views more readily 
 than he could possibly have anticipated. A simulated reconcilia- 
 tion having taken place between the duke of Burgundy and the 
 dauphin, an interview was appointed on the bridge of the town 
 of Montereau. 
 
The Duke of Burgundy murdered, 181 
 
 In the duke's household many of his most devoted servants were 
 opposed to this meeting; the place, they said, had been chosen "by, 
 and would be under the ordering of the dauphin's people, of the 
 old servants of the duke of Orleans and the count of Armagnac. 
 At the same time four successive messages came from Paris urging 
 the duke to make the plunge ; and at last he took his resolution. 
 " It is my duty," said he, " to risk my person in order to get at ^ D 1419< 
 so great a blessing as peace. Whatever happens, my wish is Interview 
 peace. If they kill me, I shall die a martyr. Peace being made, I J erea ( || 1 ~ 
 will take the men of my lord the dauphin to go and fight the 
 English. He has some good men of war and some sagacious 
 captains. Tanneguy and Barbazan are valiant knights. Then we 
 shall see which is the better man, Jack (Hannotin) of Flanders or 
 Henry of Lancaster." He set out for Bray on the 10th of Sep- 
 tember, 1419, and arrived about two o'clock before Montereau. 
 Tanneguy Duchatel came and met him there. " Well," said the 
 duke, " on your assurance we are come to see my lord the dauphin, 
 supposing that he is quite willing to keep the peace between him- 
 self and us as we also will keep it, all ready to serve him according 
 to his wishes." "My most dread lord," answered Tanneguy, 
 " have ye no fear ; my lord is well pleased with you, and desires 
 henceforth to govern himself according to your counsels. You have 
 about him good friends who serve you well." A conversation 
 then took place between the dauphin and the duke, the former re- 
 proaching the latter with his inertness against the English, and 
 with his alliances amongst the promoters of civil war. The con- 
 versation was becoming more and more acrid and biting. " In so 
 doing," added the dauphin, " you were wanting to your duty." 
 " My lord," replied the duke, " I did only what it was my duty to 
 do." " Yes, you were wanting," repeated Charles. " No," replied 
 the duke. It was probably at these words that, the lookers-on also 
 waxing wroth, Tanneguy Duchatel told the duke that the time Burgundy 
 had come for expiating the murder of the duke of Orleans, which (^P^ 10 )' 
 none of them had forgotten, and raised his battle-axe to strike 
 the duke. Sire de Navailles, who happened to be at his master's 
 side, arrested the weapon ; but, on the other hand, the viscount of 
 Narbonne raised his over Navailles, saying, " Whoever stirs, is a 
 dead man." At this moment, it is said, the mob which was throng- 
 ing before the barriers at the end of the bridge heard cries of 
 " Alarm ! slay, slay." Tanneguy had struck and felled the duke : 
 several others ran their swords into him ; and he expired. The 
 dauphin had withdrawn from the scene and gone back into the town. 
 After his departure his partisans forced the barrier, charged the 
 
1 82 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Prelimi- 
 naries of 
 peace. 
 
 A.D. 1420, 
 Peace of 
 Troyes 
 (May 21). 
 
 dumbfounded Burgundians, sent them flying along the road to Bray, 
 and returning on to the bridge would have cast the body of Duke 
 John, after stripping it, into the river ; but the minister of Mon- 
 tereau withstood them and had it carried to a mill near the bridge. 
 " Next day he was put in a pauper's shell, with nothing on but his 
 shirt and drawers, and was subsequently interred at the church of 
 Notre-Dame de Montereau, without winding-sheet and without pall 
 over his grave." 
 
 Henry V., king of England, as soon as he heard about the murder 
 of Duke John, set himself to work to derive from it all the advan- 
 tages he anticipated. " A great loss," said he, "is the duke of Bur- 
 gundy ; he was a good and true knight and an honourable prince ; 
 but through his death we are by God's help at the summit of our 
 wishes. "We shall thus, in spite of all Frenchmen, possess dame 
 Catherine, whom we have so much desired." As early as the 24th 
 of September, 1419, Henry Y. gave full powers to certain of his 
 people to treat " with the illustrious city of Paris and the other 
 towns in adherence to the said city." On the 17th of October 
 was opened at Arras a congress between the plenipotentiaries of 
 England and those of Burgundy. On the 20th of November a 
 special truce was granted to the Parisians, whilst Henry Y., in 
 concert with Duke Philip of Burgundy, was prosecuting the war 
 against the dauphin. On the 2nd of December the bases were laid 
 of an agreement between the English and the Burgundians. 
 The preliminaries of the treaty which was drawn up in accor- 
 dance with these bases were signed on the 9th of April, 1420, 
 by King Charles YL, and on the 20th communicated at Paris 
 by the chancellor of France to the parliament and to all the 
 religious and civil, royal and municipal authorities of the capital. 
 After this communication, the chancellor and the premier pre- 
 sident of parliament went with these preliminaries to Henry Y. 
 at Pontoise, whence he set out with a division of his army for 
 Troyes, where the treaty, definitive and complete, was at last 
 signed and promulgated in the cathedral of Troyes, on the 21st of 
 May, 1420. 
 
 Of the twenty-eight articles in this treaty, five contained its 
 essential points and fixed its character : 1st. The king of France, 
 Charles YL, gave his daughter Catherine in marriage to Henry Y., 
 king of England. 2nd. " Our son, King Henry, shall place no 
 hindrance or trouble in the way of our holding and possessing as 
 long as we live and as at the present time the crown, the kingly 
 dignity of France and all the revenues, proceeds, and profits which 
 are attached thereto for the maintenance of our state and the 
 
Peace of Troy es. 183 
 
 charges of the kingdom. 3rd. It is agreed that immediately after 
 our death, and from that time forward, the crown and kingdom of 
 France, with all their rights and appurtenances, shall belong 
 perpetually, and shall be continued to our son King Henry and his 
 heirs. 4th. Whereas we are, at most times, prevented from advising 
 by ourselves and from taking part in the disposal of the affairs of our 
 kingdom, the power and the practice of governing and ordering 
 the commonweal shall belong and shall be continued, during our 
 life, to our son King Henry, with the counsel of the nobles Con ltlons * 
 and sages of the kingdom who shall obey us, and shall desire 
 the honour and advantage of the said kingdom. 5th. Our son 
 King Henry shall strive with all his might, and as soon as pos- 
 sible, to bring back to their obedience to us, all and each of 
 the towns, cities, castles, places, districts, and persons in our 
 kingdom that belong to the party commonly called of the dauphin 
 or Arrnagnac." 
 
 This substitution, in the near future, of an English for the French 
 kingship ; this relinquishment, in the present, of the government 
 of France to the hands of an English prince nominated to become 
 before long her king ; this authority given to the English prince to 
 prosecute in France, against the dauphin of France, a civil war j this 
 complete abdication of all the rights and duties of the kingship, of 
 paternity and of national independence ; and, to sum up all in one 
 word, this anti-French state-stroke accomplished by a king of 
 France, with the co-operation of him who was the greatest amongst 
 French lords, to the advantage of a foreign sovereign there was 
 surely in this enough to excite the most ardent and most legitimate 
 national feelings. The revulsion against the treaty of Troyes 
 was real and serious, even in the very heart of the party attached 
 to the duke of Burgundy. A popular poet of the time, Alan 
 Chartier, constituted himself censor of the moral corruption, 
 and interpreter of the patriotic paroxysms caused by the cold 
 and harsh supremacy of this unbending foreigner, who set 
 himself up for the king of France and had not one feeling in 
 sympathy with the French. Alan Chartier's Quadriloge invectif is Alan Char- 
 a lively and sometimes eloquent allegory in which France personi- ^ tier's _ 
 fied implores her three children, the clergy, the chivalry, and the i g e ." " 
 people, to forget their own quarrels and unite to save their mother 
 whilst saving themselves ; and this political pamphlet getting 
 spread about amongst the . provinces did good service to the 
 national cause against the foreign conqueror. An event more 
 powerful than any human eloquence occurred to give the dauphin 
 and his partisans earlier hopes. Towards the end of August, 1422, 
 
184 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1422. Henry Y. fell ill ; an 1, too stout-hearted to delude himself as to 
 Death of his condition, he thougLt no longer of any thing but preparing 
 of England hi mse lf for death. He expired at Vincennes on the 31st of August, 
 (Aug. 31). 1422, at the age of thirty-four. A great soul and a great king ; but 
 a great example also of the boundless errors which may be fallen 
 into by the greatest men when they pursue with arrogant con- 
 fidence their own views, forgetting the laws of justice and the 
 rights of other men. 
 
 Death of On the 22nd of October, 1422, less than two months after the 
 
 o^Fr^ncY' death of Henry Y., Charles VI., king of France, died at Paris in the 
 
 (Oct. 22). forty-third year of his reign. As soon as he had been buried at 
 
 St. Denis, the duke of Bedford, regent of France according to the 
 
 will of Henry Y., caused a herald to proclaim, " Long live Henry 
 
 of Lancaster, king of England and of France ! " The people's 
 
 voice made very different proclamation. It had always been said 
 
 that the public evils proceeded from the state of illness into which 
 
 the unhappy King Charles had fallen. The goodness he had 
 
 given glimpses of in his lucid intervals had made him an object of 
 
 tender pity. Some weeks yet before his death, when he had 
 
 entered Paris again, the inhabitants, in the midst of their sufferings 
 
 and under the harsh government of the English, had seen with joy 
 
 He tt *d 'b " ^eir P oor mad king coming back amongst them, and had greeted 
 
 his suh- him with thousand-fold shouts of " Noel ! " His body lay in state 
 
 jects. f or three days, with the face uncovered, in a hall of the hostel of 
 
 St. Paul, and the multitude went thither to pray for him, saying, 
 
 " Ah ! dear prince, never shall we have any so good as thou wert ; 
 
 never shall we see thee more. Accursed be thy death ! Since 
 
 thou dost leave us, we shall never have aught but wars and 
 
 troubles. As for thee, thou goest to thy rest ; as for us, we remain 
 
 in tribulation and sorrow. We seem made to fall into the same 
 
 distress as the children of Israel during the captivity in Babylon." 
 
 The people's instinct was at the same time right and wrong. 
 
 France had yet many evil days to go through and cruel trials to 
 
 endure ; she was, however, to be saved at last ; Charles VI. was to 
 
 be followed by Charles VII. and Joan of Arc. 
 
 It was only when he knew that, on the 27th of October, the par- 
 liament of Paris had, not without some little hesitation and am- 
 biguity, recognized *' as king of England and of France, Henry VI., 
 son of Henry Y. lately deceased," that the dauphin Charles assumed 
 on the 30th of October, in his castle of Mehun-sur-Yevre, the 
 title of king, and repaired to Bourges to inaugurate in the cathedral 
 of that city his reign as Charles VII. 
 
 At a time when not only the crown of the kingdom but the 
 
Charles VII., King. 185 
 
 existence and independence of the nation were at stake, the new 
 king had not given any signs of being strongly moved by patriotic 
 feelings. " He was, in person, a handsome prince, and handsome in CharlesVII. 
 speech with all persons and compassionate towards poor folks," says 
 his contemporary Monstrelet ; " but he did not readily put on his 
 harness, and he had no heart for war if he could do without it." 
 On ascending the throne, this young prince, so little of the politi- 
 cian and so little of the knight, encountered at the head of his 
 enemies the most able amongst the politicians and warriors of the 
 day in the duke of Bedford, whom his brother Henry Y. had 
 appointed regent of France and had charged to defend on behalf 
 of his nephew, Henry VI., a child in the cradle, the crown of 
 France already more than half won. Never did struggle appear 
 more unequal, or native king more inferior to foreign pretender. 
 
 Sagacious observers, however, would have easily discerned in the 
 cause which appeared the stronger and the better supported many 
 seeds of weakness and danger. "When Philip the Good, duke of 
 Burgundy, heard at Arras, that Charles VI. was dead, it occurred to 
 him immediately that if he attended the obsequies of the English 
 king of France he would be obliged, French prince as he was, and 
 cousin-german of Charles VI., to yield precedence to John, duke of 
 Bedford, regent of France and uncle of the new king Henry VI. 
 He resolved to hold aloof, and contented himself with sending to 
 Paris chamberlains to make his excuses and supply his place with _l2i 
 the regent. The war, though still carried on with great spirit, The war 
 could not and in fact did not bring about any decisive result from B^ieg 6 ^ 
 1422 to 1429. Towns were alternately taken, lost, and retaken, at Crevant 
 one time by the French, at another by the English or Burgundians ; * nd * .. 
 petty encounters and even important engagements took place with 
 vicissitudes of success and reverses on both sides. At Crevant-sur- 
 Yonne, on the 31st of July, 1423, and at Verneuil, in Normandy, 
 on the 17th of August, 1424, the French were beaten, and their 
 faithful allies, the Scots, suffered considerable loss. In the latter 
 affair, however, several Norman lords deserted the English flag, 
 refusing to fight against the king of France. In order to put an 
 end to this doubtful condition of events and of minds, the duke of 
 Bedford determined to aim a grand blow at the national party in 
 France and at her king. After Paris and Rouen, Orleans was the 
 most important city in the kingdom ; it was as supreme on the 
 banks of the Loire as Paris and Rouen were on those of the Seine. 
 After having obtained from England considerable reinforcements, A D 142 g. 
 commanded by leaders of experience, the English commenced, in Siege of 
 October, 1428, the siege of Orleans. The approaches to the place Orleans - 
 
1 86 History of France. 
 
 were occupied in force, and bastilles closely connected one with 
 another were constructed around the walls. As a set off, the most 
 valiant warriors of France, La Hire, Dunois, Xaintrailles, and the 
 marshal La Fayette threw themselves into Orleans, the garrison of 
 which amounted to scarcely twelve hundred men. Several towns, 
 Bourges, Poitiers, and La Rochelle sent thither money, munitions, 
 ' ' The Her ' an( ^ m ^* a > ^ e states-general, assembled at Chinon, voted an 
 ring af- extraordinary aid ; and Charles VII. called out the regulars and the 
 fair." reserves. Assaults on the one side and sorties on the other were 
 begun with ardour. Besiegers and besieged quite felt that they 
 were engaged in a decisive struggle. The first encounter was unfor- 
 tunate for the Orleannese. In a light called the herring affair, they 
 were unsuccessful in an attempt to cany off a supply of victuals and 
 salt fish which Sir John Falstolf was bringing to the besiegers. 
 
 This very year, on the 6th of January, 1428, at Domremy, a 
 little village in the valley of the Meuse, between ^Teufchateau and 
 Yaucouleurs, on the edge of the frontier from Champagne to Lor- 
 raine, the young daughter of simple tillers-of-the-soil " of good life 
 and repute, herself a good, simple, gentle girl, no idler, occupied 
 Joan of Arc. hitherto in sewing or spinning with her mother or driving afield her 
 parent's sheep and sometimes even, when her father's turn came 
 round, keeping for him the whole flock of the commune," was fulfil- 
 ling her sixteenth year. It was Joan of Arc, whom all her neigh- 
 bours called Joannette. Her early childhood was passed amidst the 
 pursuits characteristic of a country life ; her behaviour was irre- 
 proachable, and she was robust, active, and intrepid. Her imagina- 
 tion becoming inflamed by the distressed situation of France, she 
 dreamed that she had interviews with St. Margaret, St. Catherine, 
 and St. Michael, who commanded her, in the name of God, to go 
 and raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct Charles to be crowned 
 at Eheims. Accordingly she applied to Eobert de Baudricourt, 
 captain of the neighbouring town of Vaucouleurs, revealing to him 
 her inspiration, and conjuring him not to neglect the voice of God, 
 
 Her inter- w ] 1 i c ] 1 S poke throush her. This officer for some time treated her 
 
 view with 
 
 the king, with neglect ; but at length, prevailed on by repeated importu- 
 nities, he sent her to the king at Chinon, to whom, when 
 introduced, she said': " Gentle dauphin, my name is Joan the Maid, 
 the King of heaven hath sent me to your assistance ; if you please 
 to give me troops, by the grace of God and the force of arms, I will 
 raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct you to be crowned at Bheirns, 
 in spite of your enemies." Her requests were now granted : she 
 was armed cap-a-pie, mounted on horseback, and provided with a 
 suitable retinue. Previous to her attempting any exploit, she wrote 
 
Joan of Arc relieves Orleans. 187 
 
 a long letter to the young English, monarch, commanding him to 
 withdraw his forces from France, and threatening his destruction in 
 case of refusal. She concluded with " hear this advice from God 
 and la Pucelle." 
 
 But, side by side with these friends, she had an adversary in the H ? r sac- 
 king's favourite, George de la Tremoille, an ambitious courtier, m 
 jealous of any one who seemed within the range of the king's good 
 graces, and opposed to a vigorous prosecution of the war, since it ham- 
 pered him in the policy he wished to keep up towards the duke of Bur- 
 gundy. To the ill-will of La Tremoille was added that of the 
 majority of courtiers enlisted in the following of the powerful 
 favourite, and that of warriors irritated at the importance acquired 
 at their expense by a rustic and fantastic little adventuress. Here 
 was the source of the enmities and intrigues which stood in the 
 way of all Joan's demands, rendered her successes more tardy, 
 difficult, and incomplete, and were one day to cost her more dearly 
 still. 
 
 At the end of about five weeks the expedition was in readiness. 
 It was a heavy convoy of revictualment protected by a body of 
 ten or* twelve thousand men commanded by marshal de Boussac, and 
 numbering amongst them Xaintrailles and La Hire. The march A.D. 1429. 
 began on the 27th of April, 1429. Joan had caused the removal 
 
 of all women of bad character, and had recommended her comrades Orleans. 
 to confess. She took the Communion in the open air, before their 
 eyes ; and a company of priests, headed by her chaplain, Pasquerel, 
 led the way whilst chanting sacred hymns. Great was the surprise 
 amongst the men-at-arms. Many had words of mockery on their 
 lips. It was the time when La Hire used to say, " If God were a 
 soldier, He would turn robber." Nevertheless, respect got the better 
 of habit ; the most honourable were really touched ; the coarsest 
 considered themselves bound to show restraint. On the 29th of 
 April they arrived before Orleans. But, in consequence of the road 
 they had followed, the Loire was between the army and the town ; 
 the expeditionary corps had to be split in two ; the troops were 
 obliged to go and feel for the bridge of Blois in order to cross the 
 river ; and Joan was vexed and surprised. Dunois, arrived from 
 Orleans in a little boat, urged her to enter the town that same even- 
 ing. " Are you the bastard of Orleans 1 " asked she, when he accosted 
 her. "Yes; and I am rejoiced at your coming." "Was it you 
 who gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the 
 river and not the direct way, over yonder where Talbot and the 
 English were?" "Yes; such was the opinion of the wisest cap- 
 tains." 
 
iS8 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Enters 
 
 Orleans 
 
 (April 29). 
 
 Marches 
 towards 
 
 Eheiins. 
 
 Coronation 
 of the king 
 (July 16). 
 
 Joan's first undertaking was against Orleans, which she entered 
 without opposition on the 29th of April, 1429, on horseback, com- 
 pletely armed, preceded by her own banner, and having beside her 
 Dunois, and behind her the captains of the garrison and several of 
 the most distinguished burgesses of Orleans, who had gone out to 
 meet her. The population, one and all, rushed thronging round her, 
 carrying torches, and greeting her arrival " with joy as great as if 
 they had seen God come down amongst them." "With admirable 
 good sense, discovering the superior merits of Dunois, the bastard 
 of Orleans, a celebrated captain, she wisely adhered to his instruc- 
 tions : and by constantly harassing the English, and beating up 
 their intrenchments in various desperate attacks, in all of which she 
 displayed the most heroic courage, Joan in a few weeks compelled 
 the earl of Suffolk and his army to raise the siege, having sustained 
 the loss of six thousand men. The proposal of crowning Charles at 
 Rheims would formerly have appeared like madness, but the Maid 
 of Orleans now insisted on its fulfilment. She accordingly recom- 
 menced the campaign on the 10th of June ; to complete the deliver- 
 ance of Orleans an attack was begun upon the neighbouring places, 
 Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency ; thousands of the late dispirited 
 subjects of Charles now flocked to his standard, many towns imme- 
 diately declared for him ; and the English, who had suffered in 
 various actions, at that of Jargeau, when the earl of Suffolk was 
 taken prisoner, and at that of Patay, when Sir John Eastolfe fled 
 without striking a blow, seemed now to be totally dispirited. On 
 the 16th of July King Charles entered Eheims, and the ceremony 
 of his coronation was fixed for the morrow. 
 
 It was solemn and emotional as are all old national traditions 
 which recur after a forced suspension. Joan rode between Dunois 
 and the archbishop of Eheims, chancellor of France. The air 
 resounded with the Te Deum sung with all their hearts by clergy 
 and crowd. " In God's name," said Joan to Dunois, " here is a good 
 people and a devout ; when I die, I should much like it to be in 
 these parts." " Joan," inquired Dunois, "know you when you will 
 die and in what place 1 " " I know not," said she, " for I am at the 
 will of God." Then she added, " I have accomplished that which 
 my Lord commanded me, to raise the siege of Orleans and have the 
 gentle king crowned. I would like it well if it should please Him 
 to send me back to my father and mother, to keep their sheep and 
 their cattle and do that which was my wont." " When the said 
 lords," says the chronicler, an eye-witness, " heard these words of 
 Joan, who, with eyes towards heaven, gave thanks to God, they the 
 more believed that it was somewhat sent from God and not other- 
 wise." 
 
Siege of Comptigne. 1 89 
 
 Historians and even contemporaries have given much discussion 
 to the question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, 
 had really limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans 
 and the coronation of Charles YII. at Eheims. However that may 
 he, when Orleans was relieved and Charles VII. crowned, the situa- 
 tion, posture, and part of Joan underwent a change. She no longer 
 manifested the same confidence in herself and her designs. She 
 no longer exercised over those in whose midst she lived the 
 same authority. She continued to carry on war, but at hap-hazard, 
 sometimes with and sometimes without success, just like La Hire 
 and Dunois ; never discouraged, never satisfied, and never looking 
 upon herself as triumphant. After the coronation, her advice was 
 to march at once upon Paris, in order to take up a fixed position in it, 
 as being the political centre of the realm of which Kheims was the 
 religious. Nothing of the sort was done. She threw herself into 
 Compiegne, then besieged by the duke of Burgundy. The next day 
 (May 25th, 1430), heading a sally upon the enemy, she was repulsed 
 and compelled to retreat after exerting the utmost valour; when, Joan of Arc 
 having nearly reached the gate of the town, an English archer pur- t aken 
 sued her, and pulled her from her horse. The joy of the English at 
 this capture was as great as if they had obtained a complete victory. 
 Joan was committed to the care of John of Luxembourg, count of 
 Ligny, from whom the duke of Bedford purchased the captive for 
 ten thousand pounds, and a pension of three hundred pounds a 
 year to the bastard of Vendome, to whom she surrendered. Joan 
 was now conducted to Rouen, where, loaded with irons, she 
 was thrown into a dungeon, preparatory to appear before a court Kouen. 
 assembled to judge her. 
 
 The trial lasted from the 21st of February to the 30th of May, A.D. 1431. 
 1431. The court held forty sittings, mostly in the chapel of the Her trial, 
 castle, some in Joan's very prison. On her arrival there, she had 
 been put in an iron cage ; afterwards she was kept " no longer in 
 the cage, but in a dark room in a tower of the castle, wearing irons 
 upon her feet, fastened by a chain to a large piece of wood, and 
 guarded night and day by four or five soldiers of low grade." She 
 complained of being thus chained ; but the bishop told her that her 
 former attempts at escape demanded this precaution. " It is true," 
 said Joan, as truthful as heroic, " I did wish and I still wish to 
 escape from prison, as is the right of every prisoner." At her exami- 
 nation, the bishop required her to take " an oath to tell the truth 
 about every thing as to which she should be questioned." " I 
 know not what you mean to question me about ; perchance you 
 may ask me things I would not tell you ; touching my revelations, 
 
190 History of France. 
 
 for instance, you might ask me to tell something I have sworn not 
 to tell ; thus I should be perjured, which you ought not to desire." 
 The bishop insisted upon an oath absolute and without condition. 
 "You are too hard on me," said Joan; "I do not like to take an 
 answers to oa ^ * * e ^ ^ e truth save as to matters which concern the faith." 
 the judges, The bishop called upon her to swear on pain of being held guilty of 
 the things imputed to her. " Go on to something else," said 
 she. And this was the answer she made to all questions which 
 seemed to her to be a violation of her right to be silent. Wearied 
 and hurt at these imperious demands, she one day said, " I come on 
 God's business, and I have naught to do here ; send me back to 
 God from whom I come." " Are you sure you are in God's grace?" 
 asked the bishop. "If I be not," answered Joan, "please God to 
 bring me to it; and if I be, please God to keep me in it !" The 
 bishop himself remained dumbfounded. 
 
 There is no object in following through all its sittings and all its 
 twistings this odious and shameful trial, in which the judges' 
 prejudiced servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three 
 months to wear out the courage or overreach the understanding of 
 a young girl of nineteen, who refused at one time to lie, and at 
 and death, another to enter into discussion with them, and made no defence 
 beyond holding her tongue or appealing to God who had spoken 
 to her and dictated to her that which she had done. In the end 
 she was condemned for all the crimes of which she had been 
 accused, aggravated by that of heresy, and sentenced to perpetual 
 imprisonment, to be fed during life on bread and water. The 
 English were enraged that she was not condemned to death. 
 " Wait but a little," said one of the judges, " we shall soon find the 
 means to ensnare her." And this was effected by a grievous 
 accusation, which, though somewhat countenanced by the Levitical 
 law, has been seldom urged in modern times, the wearing of man's 
 attire. Joan had been charged with this offence, but she promised 
 not to repeat it. A suit of man's apparel was designedly placed in 
 her chamber, arid her own garments, as some authors say, being 
 removed, she clothed herself in the forbidden garb, and her 
 keepers surprising her in that dress, she was adjudged to death as 
 a relapsed heretic, and was condemned to be burnt in the market- 
 place at Eouen. (1431). 
 
 Four centuries have rolled by since Joan of Arc, that modest and 
 heroic servant of God, made a sacrifice of herself for France. For 
 four and twenty years after her death, France and the king appeared 
 to think no more of her. However, in 1455, remorse came upon 
 Charles VII. and upon France. Nearly all the provinces, all the 
 
Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc. 191 
 
 towns were freed from the foreigner; and shame was felt that 
 nothing was said, nothing done for the young girl who had saved 
 every thing. At Eouen, especially, where the sacrifice was 
 completed, a cry for reparation arose. It was timidly demanded Her reha- 
 from the spiritual power which had sentenced and delivered over bilitation 
 Joan as a heretic to the stake. Pope Calixtus III. entertained the ( July ^' 
 request preferred not by the king of France but in the name of 
 Isabel Eomee, Joan's mother, and her whole family. Eegular 
 proceedings were commenced and followed up for the rehabilitation 
 of the martyr ; and, on the 7th of July, 1456, a decree of the court 
 assembled at Eouen quashed the sentence of 1431, together with 
 all its consequences, and ordered " a general procession and solemn 
 sermon at St. Ouen Place and the Vieux-Marche, where the said 
 maid had been cruelly and horribly burned ; besides the planting 
 of a cross of honour (crucis Jwnestce) on the Vieux-Marche, the 
 judges reserving the official notice to be given of their decision 
 throughout the cities and notable places of the realm." 
 
 After the execution of Joan the war'resumed its course, though 
 without any great events. By way of a step towards solution, the 
 duke of Bedford, in November, 1431, escorted to Paris King 
 Henry VI., scarcely ten years old, and had him crowned at Notre- 
 Dame. The ceremony was distinguished for pomp but not for 
 warmth. The duke of Burgundy was not present; it was an 
 Englishman, the cardinal-bishop of Winchester, who anointed the 
 young Englander king of France. 
 
 Peace, however, was more and more the general desire. Scarcely Attempts 
 had one attempt at pacification failed when another was begun. ** P acifica - 
 The constable De Eichemont's return to power led to fresh 
 overtures. He was a statesman as well as a warrior; and his 
 inclinations were known at Dijon and London as well as at Chinon. 
 The advisers of King Henry VI. proposed to open a conference, on 
 the 15th of October, 1433, at Calais. The capture of several towns 
 by the generals of Charles VII. contributed much to restore universal 
 confidence to the French, and in the year 1435 the treaty of Arras, 
 concluded between the king and the duke of Burgundy, led, if not 
 to the active support, at least to the neutrality of a lord who had 
 been one of the most dangerous enemies of the crown of France. 
 The conditions imposed by this treaty were certainly of a rather 
 humiliating character, but the immediate result more than com- 
 pensated for them ; Paris opened its gates on May 29th, 1436, and 
 the English troops who had shut themselves up in the Bastille, 
 offered to give up that fortress on condition that they might be 
 allowed to retire with all their property, and accompanied by those 
 
192 History of France. 
 
 who would like to follow them. These terms "being accepted, they 
 left Paris by the gate Saint Antoine, marched round the walls and 
 embarked on the Seine for the purpose of returning to Rouen. 
 The constable de Richemont's easy occupation of the capital led the 
 majority of the small places in the neighbourhood, St. Denis, 
 Chevreuse, Marcoussis, and Montlhery to decide either upon 
 spontaneous surrender, or allowing themselves to be taken after no 
 
 Change in great resistance. Charles VII., on his way through France to 
 
 disposition ^y 011 ' * n Dauphiny, Languedoc, Auvergne, and along the Loire, 
 recovered several other towns, for instance, Chateau-Landon, 
 Nemours, and Charny. He laid siege in person to Montereau, an 
 important military post with which a recent and sinister remi- 
 niscence was connected. A great change now made itself apparent 
 in the king's behaviour and disposition. He showed activity and 
 vigilance, and was ready to expose himself without any care for 
 fatigue or danger. On the day of the assault (10th of October, 
 1437) he went down into the trenches, remained there in water up 
 
 ters Paris, to his waist, mounted the scaling-ladder sword in hand, and was 
 one of the first assailants who penetrated over the top of the walls 
 right into the place. After the surrender of the castle as well as 
 the town of Montereau, he marched on Paris, and made his solemn 
 re-entry there on the 12th of November, 1437, for the first time 
 since in 1418 Tanneguy-Duchatel had carried him away, whilst 
 still a child, wrapped in his bed-clothes. Charles was received and 
 entertained as became a recovered and a victorious king ; but he 
 passed only three weeks there, and went away once more, on the 
 3rd of December, to go and resume at Orleans first and then at 
 Bourges, the serious cares of government. It is said to have been 
 
 Agnes a n j g r0 y a i entry into Paris that Agnes Sorel or Soreau, who was 
 soon to have the name of Queen of Beauty, and to assume in French 
 history an almost glorious though illegitimate position, appeared 
 with brilliancy in the train of the queen, Mary of Anjou, to whom 
 the king had appointed her a maid of honour. 
 
 The war There was a continuance of war to the north of the Loire ; 
 
 con inue . an( j am i(j s t manv alternations of successes and reverses the 
 national cause made great way there. Charles resolved, in 1442, 
 to undertake an expedition to the south of the Loire, in Aquitaine, 
 where the English were still dominant ; and he was successful. He 
 took from the English Tartas, Saint-Sever, Marmande, La Reole, 
 Blaye, and Bourg-sur-Mer. Their ally, Count John d'Armagnac, 
 submitted to the king of France. These successes cost Charles VII. 
 the brave La Hire, who died at Montauban of his wounds. On 
 returning to Normandy, where he had left Dunois, Charles, in 
 
Truce of Tours. Battle of Formigny. 193 
 
 1443, conducted a prosperous campaign there. The English 
 leaders were getting weary of a war without any definite issue; 
 and they had proposals made to Charles for a truce, accompanied 
 with a demand on the part of their young king, Henry VI., for the 
 hand of a French princess, Margaret of Anjou, daughter of King 
 Rene, who wore the three crowns of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, 
 without possessing any one of the kingdoms. The truce and the 
 marriage were concluded at Tours, in 1444. Neither of the Truce of 
 arrangements was popular in England ; the English people, who Tours, 
 had only a far-off touch of suffering from the war, considered that 
 their government made too many concessions to France. In 
 France, too, there was some murmuring; the king, it was said, 
 did not press his advantages with sufficient vigour ; every body not popu- 
 was in a hurry to see all Aquitaine reconquered. Charles VII. ar * 
 and his advisers employed the leisure afforded by the truce in pre- 
 paring for a renewal of the struggle. They were the first to begin A.D. 1449. 
 it again ; and from 1449 to 1451 it was pursued by the French king Hostilities 
 and nation with ever increasing ardour, and with obstinate courage resume 
 by the veteran English warriors, astounded at no longer being vic- 
 torious. Normandy and Aquitaine, which was beginning to be 
 called Guyenne only, were throughout this period the constant and 
 the chief theatre of war. Amongst the great number of fights and 
 incidents which distinguished the three campaigns in those two 
 provinces the recapture of Kouen by Dunois in October, 1449, the 
 battle of Formigny, won near Bayeux on the 15th of April, 1450, 
 by the constable De Eichemont, and the twofold capitulation of 
 Bordeaux, first on the 28th of June, 1451, and next on the 9th of 
 October, 1453, in order to submit to Charles VII., are the only 
 events to which a place in history is due, for those were the days 
 on which the question was solved touching the independence of 
 the nation and the kingship in France. The battle of Formigny . _ 
 lasted nearly three hours ; the English were forced to fly at three Battle of 
 points, and lost 3700 men ; several of their leaders were made Formigny 
 prisoners ; those who were left retired in good order ; Bayeux, 
 Avranches, Caen, Falaise, and Cherbourg fell one after the other 
 into the hands of Charles VII. ; and by the end of August, 
 1 450, the whole of Normandy had been completely won back by 
 France. 
 
 The conquest of Guyenne, which was undertaken immediately 
 after that of Normandy, was at the outset more easy and more 
 speedy. Amongst the lords of southern France several hearty 
 patriots, such as John of Blois, count of Perigord, and Arnold 
 Amanieu, sire d'Albret, of their own accord began the strife, and on 
 
 o 
 
194 History of France. 
 
 the 1st of November, 1450, inflicted a somewhat severe reverse upon 
 the English, near Blanquefort. In the spring of the following 
 year Charles VII. authorized the count of Armagnac to take the 
 A.D. 1451. field, an( i sen t Dunois to assume the command-in- chief, An army 
 Campaign of twenty thousand men mustered under his orders ; and, in the 
 inGuyeane course O f M aVj 145^ some O f the principal places of Guyenne, such 
 as St. Emilion, Blaye, Fronsac, Bourg-en-Mer, Libourne, and 
 Dax were taken by assault or capitulated. Bordeaux and Bayonne 
 held out for some weeks; but, on the 12th of June, a treaty 
 concluded between the Bordelese and Dunois secured to the three 
 estates of the district the liberties and privileges which they had 
 enjoyed under English supremacy ; and it was further stipulated 
 that, if by the 24th of June the city had not been succoured 
 by English forces, the estates of Guyenne should recognize the 
 sovereignty of King Charles. "When the 24th of June came, a 
 herald went up to one of the towers of the castle and shouted, 
 " Succour from the king of England for them of Bordeaux ! " 
 None replied to this appeal; so Bordeaux surrendered, and on ! 
 the 29th of June Dunois took possession of it in the name of the 
 king of France. The siege of Bayonne, which was begun on the 
 6th of August, came to an end on the 20th by means of a similar 
 treaty. Guyenne was thus completely won. But the English still 
 had a considerable following there. They had held it for three 
 centuries ; and they had always treated it well in respect of local 
 liberties, agriculture, and commerce. Charles VII., on recovering 
 it, was less wise. He determined to establish there forthwith the 
 Insurrec- taxes, the laws, and the whole regimen of northern France ; and 
 tion at the Bordelese were as prompt in protesting against these measures 
 as the king was in employing them. In August, 1452, a deputation 
 from the three estates of the province waited upon Charles at 
 Bourges, but did not obtain their demands. On their return to 
 Bordeaux an insurrection was organized ; and Peter de Mont- 
 ferrand, sire de Lesparre, repaired to London and proposed to the 
 English government to resume possession of Guyenne. On the 
 22nd of October, 1452, Talbot appeared before Bordeaux with a 
 body of five thousand men ; the inhabitants opened their gates to 
 him ; and he installed himself there as lieutenant of the king of 
 England, Henry VI. Nearly all the places in the neighbourhood, 
 with the exception of Bourg and Blaye, returned beneath the sway 
 of the English ; considerable reinforcements were sent to Talbot 
 from England ; and at the same time an English fleet threatened 
 the coasts of Normandy. But Charles VII. was no longer the 
 blind and indolent king he had been in his youth. Nor can 
 
End of the Hundred Years' War. 195 
 
 the prompt and effectual energy he displayed in 1453 be any 
 longer attributed to the influence of Agnes Sorel, for she died on 
 the 9th of February, 1450. Charles left Eichemont and Dunois to 
 hold Normandy ; and, in the early days of spring, moved in person 
 to the south of France with a strong army and the principal Gascon 
 lords who two years previously had brought Guyenne back under 
 his power. On the 2nd of June, 1453, he opened the campaign at 
 St. Jean d'Angely. Several places surrendered to him as soon as 
 he appeared before their walls; and on the 13th of July he laid A-D. 1453. 
 siege to Castillon, on the Dordogne, which had shortly before ca^Ulon. 
 fallen into the hands of the English. The Bordelese grew alarmed Death of 
 and urged Talbot to oppose the advance of the French. " We may Ta " )ot * 
 very well let them come nearer yet," said the old warrior, then 
 eighty years of age ; " rest assured that, if it please God, I will 
 fulfil my promise when I see that the time and the hour have come." 
 On the night between the 16th and the 17th of July, Talbot set 
 out with his troops to raise the siege of Castillon; the result, 
 however, was unfavourable to the English, and their brave com- 
 mander met his death on the field of battle. Castillon surren- 
 dered ; and at unequal intervals Libourne, St. Emilion, Chateau- 
 !N"euf de Medoc, Blanquefort, St. Macaire, Cadillac, &c., followed 
 the example. At the commencement of October, 1453, Bordeaux 
 alone was still holding out. The promoters of the insurrection Taking of 
 which had been concerted with the English, amongst other sires Bordeaux 
 de Duras and de Lesparre, protracted the resistance rather in their ' c ' '" 
 own self-defence than in response to the wishes of the population ; 
 the king's artillery threatened the place by land, and by sea a 
 king's fleet from Rochelle and the ports of Brittany blockaded, the 
 Gironde. " The majority of the king's officers." says the contem- 
 porary historian, Thomas Basin, " advised him to punish by at 
 least the destruction of their walls the Bordelese who had recalled 
 the English to their city ; but Charles, more merciful and more 
 soft-hearted, refused." He confined himself to withdrawing from 
 Bordeaux her municipal privileges, which, however, she soon par- 
 tially recovered, and to imposing upon her a fine of a hundred 
 thousand gold crowns, afterwards reduced to thirty thousand; 
 he caused to be built at the expense of the city two fortresses, the 
 fort of the Ha and the castle of Trompette, to keep in check so 
 bold and fickle a population ; and an amnesty was proclaimed for 
 all but twenty specified persons, who were banished. On these 
 conditions the capitulation was concluded and signed on the 17th End of the 
 of October ; the English re- embarked ; and Charles, without war * 
 entering Bordeaux, returned to Touraine. The English had no 
 
 o 2 
 
196 History of France. 
 
 longer any possession in France but Calais and Guines ; the Hun- 
 dred Years' War was over. 
 
 And to whom was the glory due ? 
 
 Charles VII. himself decided the question. When in 1455, 
 twenty-four years after the death of Joan of Arc, he at Eome and 
 at Rouen prosecuted her claims for restoration of character and did 
 for her fame and her memory all that was still possible, he was but 
 relieving his conscience from a load of ingratitude and remorse which 
 in general weighs but lightly upon men and especially upon kings ; 
 La PuceUe, first amongst all, had a right to the glory, for she had 
 been the first to contribute to the success. 
 
 Constable Next to Joan of Arc, the constable De Eichemont was the most 
 de Eiche- effective and the most glorious amongst the liberators of France 
 and of the king. He was a strict and stern warrior, unscrupulous 
 and pitiless towards his enemies, especially towards such as he 
 despised, severe in regard to himself, dignified in his manners, never 
 guilty of swearing himself, and punishing swearing as a breach of 
 discipline amongst the troops placed under his orders. Like a true 
 patriot and royalist, he had more at heart his duty towards France 
 and the king than he had his own personal interests. Dunois, 
 La Hire, Xaintrailles, and marshals De Boussac and De La Fayette 
 were, under Charles VII., brilliant warriors and useful servants of 
 the king and of France ; but, in spite of their knightly renown, it 
 is questionable if they can be reckoned, like the constable De 
 Bichemont, amongst the liberators of national independence. There 
 are degrees of glory, and it is the duty of history not to distribute 
 it too readily and as it were by handfuls. 
 
 Besides all these warriors, we meet, under the sway of Charles VII., 
 at first in a humble capacity and afterwards at his court, in his 
 diplomatic service and sometimes in his closest confidence, a man of 
 quite a different origin and quite another profession, but one who 
 nevertheless acquired bypeaceful toil great riches and great influence ; 
 we mean Jacques Co3ur, born at Bourges at the close of the fourteenth 
 Coeur his century. This eminent man, after acquiring a large fortune by commer- 
 character. cial transactions, rose to the post of argentier, or administrator of the 
 royal exchequer. In this quality he was for twelve years associated 
 with the most important government transactions, and he adminis- 
 tered the finances with the greatest probity and uprightness. The 
 war was becoming daily more onerous ; Jacques Co3ur always knew 
 how to provide the necessary means, and when the royal exchequer 
 was empty, he supplied the deficiency out of his own private means. 
 Thus it was that he lent to Charles VII. the 200,000 golden crowns 
 (24,000,000 francs) necessary for the conquest of Normandy. " Sir, 
 
JACQUES CCEUR. 
 
 Paye 196. 
 
Character of Charles VII. and of his government. 197 
 
 what I have is yours," said he to the king. The courtiers took him 
 at his word, and after an infamous lawsuit which they instituted 
 against him, they divided, his spoils between them, and caused him 
 to be shut up in a convent at Beaucaire. His former clerks, how- 
 ever, combined to set him free, and conducted him to Eome, where 
 the Pope received him in the most honourable manner (1455). 
 He died the following year at Ohio, of a wound received in the 
 course of a battle with the Turks. Another financial, Jean de A.D. 1456. 
 Xaincoings, as innocent as Jacques Coeur, was likewise condemned 1S deatlu 
 to prison and all his property confiscated " pour avoir pris grandes 
 et excessives sommes des deniers du Eoi." 
 
 We have now reached the end of events under this long reign ; 
 all that remains is to run over the substantial results of Charles 
 VII. 's government, and the melancholy imbroglios of his lat- 
 ter years with his son, the turbulent, tricky, and wickedly able 
 born conspirator who was to succeed him under the name of 
 Louis XI. 
 
 One fact is at the outset to be remarked upon ; it at the first blush Nature of 
 appears singular, but it admits of easy explanation. In the first tlie vern- 
 nineteen years of his reign, from 1423 to 1442, Charles VII. very charlesVH 
 frequently convoked the states-general, at one time of northern 
 France or Langue d'oil, at another of southern France or Langue- 
 d'oc. Twenty-four such assemblies took place during this period 
 at Bourges, at Selles in Berry, at Le Puy in Velay, at Meun-sur- 
 Yevre, at Chinon, at Sully-sur-Loire, at Tours, at Orleans, at Nevers, 
 at Carcassonne, and at different spots in Languedoc. It was the 
 time of the great war between France on the one side and England 
 and Burgundy allied on the other, the time of intrigues incessantly 
 recurring at court, and the time likewise of carelessness and indo- 
 lence on the part of Charles VII., more devoted to his pleasures than 
 regardful of his government. He had incessant need of states- 
 general to supply him with money and men, and support him 
 through the difficulties of his position. But when, dating from the 
 peace of Arras (September 21, 1435), Charles VIL, having become 
 reconciled with the duke of Burgundy, was delivered from civil war, 
 and was at grips with none but England alone, already half beaten 
 by the divine inspiration, the triumph, and the martyrdom of Joan 
 of Arc, his posture and his behaviour underwent a rare transforma- 
 tion. Without ceasing to be a coldly selfish and scandalously licen- 
 tious king, he became a practical, hard-working, statesmanlike king, 
 jealous and disposed to govern by himself, but at the same time 
 watchful and skilful in availing himself of the able advisers who, 
 whether it were by a happy accident or by his own choice, were 
 
198 History of France. 
 
 grouped around him. By assiduous toil, in concert with his 
 advisers, he was able to take in hand and accomplish, in the mili- 
 tary, financial, and judicial system of the realm, those bold and at 
 the same time prudent reforms which wrested the country from the 
 state of disorder, pillage, and general insecurity to which it had been 
 a prey, and commenced the era of that great monarchical adminis- 
 tration which, in spite of many troubles and vicissitudes, was 
 destined to be during more than three centuries the govern- 
 ment of France. The constable De Bichemont and marshal De la 
 
 reforms. Fayette were in respect of military matters Charles VII. 's principal 
 advisers ; and it was by their counsel and with their co-operation 
 that he substituted for feudal service and for the bands of wandering 
 mercenaries (routiers\ mustered and maintained by hap-hazard, 
 a permanent army, regularly levied, provided for, paid and com- 
 manded, and charged with the duty of keeping order at home, and at 
 the same time subserving abroad the interests and policy of the State. 
 In connexion with and as a natural consequence of this military system 
 Charles VII. on his own sole authority established certain permanent 
 imposts with the object of making up any deficiency in the royal 
 treasury whilst waiting for a vote of such taxes extraordinary as 
 might be demanded of the states-general. Jacques Coeur, the two 
 brothers Bureau, Martin Gouge, Michel Lailler, William Cousinot, 
 and many other councillors, of burgher origin, laboured zealously 
 
 Adminis- to establish this administrative system, so prompt and freed from 
 trative a n independent discussion. Weary of wars, irregularities, and 
 sufferings, France, in the fifteenth century, asked for nothing but 
 peace and security; and so soon as the kingship showed that it had 
 an intention and was in a condition to provide her with them, the 
 nation took little or no trouble about political guarantees which, as 
 yet, it knew neither how to establish nor how to exercise ; its right 
 to them was not disputed in principle, they were merely permitted 
 to fall into desuetude; and Charles VII., who during the first half 
 of his reign had twenty-four times assembled the states-general to 
 ask them for taxes and soldiers, was able in the second to raise per- 
 sonally both soldiers and taxes without drawing forth hardly any 
 complaint. Charles VII. was a prince neither to be respected nor 
 to be loved, and during many years his reign had not been a pros- 
 perous one ; but "he re-quickened justice which had been a long 
 while dead," says a chronicler devoted to the duke of Burgundy ; 
 " he put an end to the tyrannies and exactions of the men-at-arms, 
 and out of an infinity of murderers and robbers he formed men of 
 resolution and honest life; he made regular paths in murderous 
 woods and forests, all roads safe, all towns peaceful, all nationalities 
 
The Church and the State. 199 
 
 of his kingdom tranquil ; he chastised the evil and honoured the 
 good, and he was sparing of human blood." 
 
 Questions of military, financial, and judicial organization were 
 not the only ones which occupied the government of Charles VII. Eccle _ 
 He attacked also ecclesiastical questions which were at that period siastical 
 a subject of passionate discussion in Christian Europe amongst the questions, 
 councils of the Church and in the closets of princes. The celebrated 
 ordinance, known by the name of Pragmatic Sanction, which 
 Charles VII. issued at Bourges on the 7th of July, 1438, with the 
 concurrence of a grand national council, laic and ecclesiastical, was 
 directed towards the carrying out, in the internal regulations of the 
 French Church and in the relations either of the State with the 
 Church in France, or of the Church of France with the papacy, of 
 reforms long since desired or dreaded by the different powers and 
 interests. It would be impossible to touch here upon these difficult 
 and delicate questions without going far beyond the limits imposed 
 upon the writer of this history. All that can be said is that there 
 was no lack of a religious spirit or of a liberal spirit in the Prag- 
 matic Sanction of Charles VII., and that the majority of the mea- 
 sures contained in it were adopted with the approbation of the 
 greater part of the French clergy as well as of educated laymen in 
 France. 
 
 In whatever light it is regarded, the government of Charles VII. 
 in the latter part of his reign brought him not only in France but 
 throughout Europe a great deal of fame and power. "When he had 
 driven the English out of his kingdom, he was called Charles the 
 Victorious ; and when he had introduced into the internal regula- 
 tions of the State so many important and effective reforms he was 
 called Charles the Well-served. "The sense he had by nature," 
 says his historian Chastellain, "had been increased to twice as 
 much again, in his straitened fortunes, by long constraint and 
 perilous dangers which sharpened his wits perforce." " He is the 
 king of kings," was said of him by the doge of Venice, Francis 
 Foscari, a good judge of policy ; " there is no doing without him." 
 
 Nevertheless, at the close, so influential and so tranquil, of his 
 reign, Charles VII. was in his individual and private life the most 
 desolate, the most harassed, and the most unhappy man in his 
 kingdom. The dauphin Louis, after having from his very youth 
 behaved in a factious, harebrained, turbulent way towards the king Coaduct 
 his father, had become at one time an open rebel, at another a Dauphin, 
 venomous conspirator and a dangerous enemy. At his birth, in 
 1423, he had been named Louis in remembrance of his ancestor 
 St. Louis and in hopes that he would resemble him. In 1440, at 
 
2OO History of France. 
 
 seventeen years of age, he allied himself with the great lords, who 
 were displeased with the new military system established by 
 Charles VII., and allowed himself to be drawn by them into the 
 The " Pra- transient rebellion known by the name of Praguery. When the 
 gnery." king, having put it down, refused to receive the rebels to favour, 
 the dauphin said to his father, " My lord, I must go back with 
 them, then ; for so I promised them." " Louis," replied the king, 
 " the gates are open, and if they are not high enough I will have 
 sixteen or twenty fathom of wall knocked down for you, that you 
 may go whither it seems best to you." Charles VII. had made his 
 son marry Margaret Stuart of Scotland, that charming princess who 
 was so smitten with the language and literature of France, that 
 coming one day upon the poet Alan Chartier asleep upon a bench, 
 she kissed him on the forehead in the presence of her mightily asto- 
 nished train, for he was very ugly. The dauphin rendered his wife so 
 wretched that she died in 1445, at the age of one and twenty, with 
 these words upon her lips, " Oh ! fie on life ! Speak to me no more 
 of it." In 1449, just when the king his father was taking up arms to 
 drive the English out of Normandy, the dauphin Louis, who was 
 now living entirely in Dauphiny, concluded at Briangon a secret 
 league with the duke of Savoy " against the ministers of the king 
 of France, his enemies" In 1456, in order to escape from the 
 perils brought upon him by the plots which he in the heart of 
 Dauphiny was incessantly hatching against his father, Louis fled 
 from Grenoble and went to take refuge in Brussels with the duke 
 .of Burgundy, Philip the Good, who willingly received him, at the 
 same time excusing himself to Charles VII. " on the ground of the 
 respect he owed to the son of his suzerain," and putting at the 
 disposal of Louis "his guest" a pension of thirty-six thousand 
 livres. At Brussels the dauphin remained impassive, waiting with 
 A.D. 1461. scan (i a lous indifference for the news of his father's death. Charles 
 
 JJ6citll OX 
 
 Charles VII sank into a state of profound melancholy and general distrust. At 
 (July 22). last, deserted by them of his own household and disgusted with his 
 own life, he died on the 22nd of July, 1461. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LOUIS XI. CHARLES VIII. LOUIS XII. (1461-1515). 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Dunois on rising from table at the funeral- 
 banquet held at the abbey of St. Denis in honour of the obsequies 
 of King Charles VII., " we have lost our master ; let each look 
 after himself." The old warrior foresaw that the new reign would 
 not be like that which had just ended. Charles VII. had been a 
 prince of indolent disposition, more inclined to pleasure than 
 ambition, whom the long and severe trials of his life had moulded 
 to government without his having any passion for governing, and 
 who had become in a quiet way a wise and powerful king without 
 any eager desire to be incessantly and every where chief actor and 
 master. His son Louis, on the contrary, was completely possessed 
 with a craving for doing, talking, agitating, domineering, and 
 reaching, no matter by what means, the different and manifold 
 ends he proposed to himself. Any thing but prepossessing in 
 appearance, supported on long and thin shanks, vulgar in looks and 
 often designedly ill-dressed, and undignified in his manners though 
 haughty in mind, he was powerful by the sheer force of a mind 
 marvellously lively, subtle, unerring, ready, and inventive, and of 
 a character indefatigably active, and pursuing success as a passion 
 without any scruple or embarrassment in the employment of means. 
 His contemporaries, after observing his reign for some time, gave 
 him the name of the universal spider, so relentlessly did he labour 
 to weave a web of which he himself occupied the centre and 
 extended the filaments in all directions. 
 
 
2O2 History of France. 
 
 At the accession of Louis XI. the feudal system was still 
 powerful. At the summit, the houses of Burgundy, Bourbon, 
 Orleans, Anjou and Brittany ; the degrees immediately below were 
 occupied by the families of Armagnac, Albret and Saint Pol. 
 Against feudalism the king began a desperate warfare, and the 
 first decrees which he published were as much the expression of his 
 hatred, as of his determination to do away with every reminiscence 
 of his father's government. Thus we account for the parsimonious 
 character of the new court, the annulling of the pragmatic 
 sanction, the prohibition of hunting, the dismissal of the late 
 king's ministers, whose places were given to men of low extraction 
 (Tristan I'Hermite, La Balue, Olivier le Daim), etc., etc. Thoroughly 
 irritated by these measures, and by others besides, such as that 
 which deprived the duke of Burgundy of the lieutenancy of 
 Normandy, which had first been bestowed upon him, the great 
 A.D. 1464. malcontents formed together, at the end of 1464, an alliance "for to re- 
 the Com- monstrate with the king," says Commynes, " upon the bad order and 
 mon Weal, injustice he kept up in his kingdom, considering themselves strong 
 enough to force him if he would not mend his ways ; and this war was 
 called the common weal, because it was undertaken under colour of 
 being for the common weal of the kingdom, the which was soon con- 
 verted into private weal." The aged duke of Burgundy, sensible and 
 wary as he was, gave at first only a hesitating and slack adherence 
 to the league ; but his son Charles, count of Charolais, entered into 
 it passionately, and the father was no more in a condition to resist 
 his son than he was inclined to follow him. The number of the 
 declared malcontents increased rapidly ; and the chiefs received at 
 Paris itself, in the church of Notre Dame, the adhesion and the 
 signatures of those who wished to join them. Louis XL had no 
 sooner obtained a clear insight into the league of the princes than 
 he set to work with his usual activity and knowledge of the world 
 to checkmate it. To rally together his own partisans and to 
 separate his foes, such was the two-fold end he pursued, at first 
 Lonis XI. w ^ some succ ess. He would have been glad to have nothing to 
 grapples do but to negotiate and talk. Though he was personally brave, he 
 
 feudalism ^^ no * ^ e war an( ^ ^ s un f reseen issues. He belonged to the 
 class of ambitious despots who prefer strategem to force. But the 
 very ablest speeches and artifices, even if they do not remain 
 entirely fruitless, are not sufficient to reduce matters promptly to 
 order whan great interests are threatened, passions violently excited, 
 and factions let loose in the arena. Between the League, of the 
 Common Weal and Louis XI. there was a question too great to be, 
 at the very outset, settled peacefully. It was feudalism in decline 
 
The King and the Feudal System. 203 
 
 at grips with the kingship which had been growing greater and 
 greater for two centuries. The lords did not trust the king's 
 promises ; and one amongst those lords was too powerful to yield 
 without a fight. At the beginning Louis had, in Auvergne and in 
 Berry, some successes which decided a few of the rebels, the most 
 insignificant, to accept truces and enter upon parleys; but the 
 great princes, the dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, and Berry, waxed 
 more and more angry. 
 
 The two armies met at Montlhery, on the 16th of July, 1465. A.D. 1465. 
 Breze, who commanded the king's advance-guard, immediately Battle * 
 went into action and was one of the first to be killed. Louis came 
 up to his assistance with troops in rather loose order ; the affair 
 became hot and general ; the French for a moment wavered, and a 
 rumour ran through the ranks that the king had just been killed. 
 " No, my friends," said Louis, taking off his helmet, " no, I am 
 not dead ; defend your king with good courage." The wavering 
 was transferred to the Burgundians, and the advantage virtually 
 remained on the side of the French. 
 
 Negotiations for peace speedily followed. There was no difn- Treaties of 
 cuity about them. Louis was ready to make sacrifices as soon as Conflans 
 he recognized the necessity for them, being quite determined, how- * 
 ever, in his heart, to recall them as soon as fortune came back to 
 him. Two distinct treaties were concluded : one at Conflans on the 
 5th of October, 1465, between Louis and the count of Charolais ; 
 and the other at St. Maur on the 29th of October, between Louis 
 and the other princes of the League. By one or the other of the 
 treaties the king granted nearly every demand that had been made 
 upon him ; to the count of Charolais he gave up all the towns of 
 importance in Picardy ; to the duke of Berry he gave the duchy 
 of Normandy, with entire sovereignty ; and the other princes, 
 independently of the different territories that had been conceded to 
 them, all received large sums in ready money. Scarcely were the 
 treaties signed and the princes returned each to his own dominions, 
 when a quarrel arose between the duke of Brittany and the new 
 duke of Normandy. Louis, who was watching for dissensions 
 between his enemies, went at once to see the duke of Brittany, 
 and made with him a private convention for mutual security. 
 Then, having his movements free, he suddenly entered Normandy 
 to retake possession of it as a province which, notwithstanding the 
 cession of it just made to his brother, the king of France could 
 not dispense with. Evreux, Gisors, Gournay, Louviers, and even 
 Rouen fell, without much resistance, again into his power. 
 
 In order to be safe in the direction of Burgundy as well as that 
 
2O4 History of France. 
 
 of Brittany, Louis had entered hi to negotiations with Edward IV., 
 
 king of England, and had made him offers, perhaps even promises, 
 
 which seemed to trench upon the rights ceded by the treaty of 
 
 Confians to the duke of Burgundy as to certain districts of 
 
 Picardy. The count of Charolais was informed of it, and complained 
 
 "bitterly of the king's obstinate pretensions and underhand ways. 
 
 A serious incident now happened, which for a while distracted the 
 
 A.D. 1467. attention of the two rivals from their mutual recriminations. Duke 
 
 Phil? 1 th Philip the Good, who had for some time past been visibly declining 
 
 Good. in body and mind, was visited at Bruges by a stroke of apoplexy, 
 
 soon discovered to be fatal. 
 
 Insurrec- A few days after his death, several of the principal Flemish 
 Ghent and cities, Ghent first and then Liege, rose against the new duke of Bur- 
 Liege, gundy in defence of their liberties already ignored or threatened. 
 The intrigues of Louis were not unconnected with these seditions. 
 He would undoubtedly have been very glad to have seen his most 
 formidable enemy beset, at the very commencement of his ducal 
 reign, by serious embarrassments, and obliged to let the king of 
 France settle without trouble his differences with his brother Duke 
 Charles of Berry and with the duke of Brittany. But the new 
 duke of Burgundy was speedily triumphant over the Flemish 
 insurrections ; and after these successes, at the close of the year 
 1467, he was so powerful and so unfettered in his movements that 
 Louis might with good reason fear the formation of a fresh league 
 amongst his great neighbours in coalition against him, and perhaps 
 even in communication with the English, who were ever ready to 
 seek in France allies for the furtherance of their attempts to 
 regain there the fortunes wrested from them by Joan of Arc and 
 Charles VII. In view of sucn a position, Louis formed a resolution, 
 unpalatable no doubt to one so jealous of his own power, but 
 indicative of intelligence and boldness ; he confronted the difficul- 
 ties of home government in order to prevent perils from without. 
 He summoned the states-general to a meeting at Tours on the 
 1st of April, 1468, and obtained from them the annulment of the 
 concessions he had made, more particularly with reference to Nor- 
 mandy, a province which was within so dangerous a proximity of 
 England. 
 
 A.D. 1468. Thus fortified by their burst of attachment, Louis, by the treaty 
 Treaty of O f Ancenis, signed on the 10th of September, 1468, put an end to 
 his differences with Francis II., duke of Brittany, who gave up his 
 alliance with the house of Burgundy, and undertook to prevail upon 
 Duke Charles of France to accept an arbitration for the purpose of 
 settling, before two years were over, the question of his territorial 
 
Louis XL at Peronne. 205 
 
 appanage in the place of Normandy. In the meanwhile a pension 
 of sixty thousand livres was to be paid by the crown to that prince. 
 Thus Louis was left with the new duke, Charles of Burgundy, as 
 the only adversary he had to face. His advisers were divided as 
 to the course to be taken with this formidable vassal. Was he to 
 be dealt with by war or by negotiation ? Count De Dampmartin, 
 marshal De Rouault, and nearly all the military men earnestly 
 advised war ; but the king did not like to risk the kingdom ; and 
 he had more confidence in negotiation than in violent measures. 
 Two of his principal advisers, the constable De St. Pol and the 
 cardinal De la Balue, bishop of Evreux, were of his opinion, and 
 urged him to the top of his bent. Accordingly he started for 
 Noyon on the 2nd of October, taking with him the constable, the 
 cardinal, his confessor, and, for all his escort, fourscore of his faith- 
 ful Scots and sixty men-at-arms. Duke Charles went to meet him interview 
 outside the town. They embraced one another and returned on between 
 foot to Peronne, chatting familiarly, and the king with his hand Franceand 
 resting on the duke's shoulder in token of amity. Louis had the duke of 
 quarters at the house of the chamberlain of the town ; the castle 
 being, it was said, in too bad a state and too ill-furnished for his 
 reception. " King Louis, on coming to Peronne, had not con- 
 sidered," says Commynes, " that he had sent two ambassadors to 
 the folks of Liege to excite them against the duke. Nevertheless 
 the said ambassadors had advanced matters so well that they had 
 already made a great mass (of rebels). The Liegese came and took of the 
 by surprise the town of Tongres, wherein were the bishop of Liege 
 and the lord of Humbercourt, whom they took also, slaying more- 
 over some servants of the said bishop." The fugitives who reported 
 this news at Peronne made the matter a great deal worse than it 
 was ; they had no doubt, they said, but that the bishop and sire 
 d'Humbercourt had also been murdered ; and Charles had no 
 more doubt about it than they. Exasperated by so glaring an act 
 of treachery, Charles the Rash confined his sovereign within the 
 tower where Charles the Simple had died in 929 ; and, through the 
 happy mediation of Philip de Commynes, obliged him to sign the 
 treaty of Peronne (1468). According to the terms of this agree- 
 ment the king renounced every suzerainty over the possessions of 
 the duke of Burgundy ; he further gave the province of Cham- 
 pagne to his own brother, and consented to the destruction of the 
 city of Liege. He had even the cruelty of witnessing the massacre 
 of those whose rebellion he had not only encouraged but assisted. 
 
 But Louis XL's deliverance after his quasi-captivity at Peronne, 
 and the new treaty he had concluded with Duke Charles, were and 
 
206 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Continued 
 
 rivalry 
 
 between 
 
 France and 
 
 Burgundy. 
 
 A.D. 1472. 
 Siege of 
 
 Beauvais. 
 
 Joan 
 Fourquet. 
 
 Relations 
 with Eng 
 land. 
 
 could be only a temporary break in the straggle between the&e two 
 princes, destined as they were both by character and position to 
 irremediable incompatibility. They were too powerful and too 
 different to live at peace when they were such close neighbours and 
 when their relations were so complicated. Between 1468 and 
 1477, from the incident at Peronne to the death of Charles at the 
 siege of Nancy, the history of the two princes was nothing but 
 one constant alternation between ruptures and re-adjustments, hos- 
 tilities and truces, wherein both were constantly changing their 
 posture, their language, and their allies. It was at one time the 
 affairs of the duke of Brittany or those of Prince Charles of France, 
 become duke of Guienne ; at another it was the relations with the 
 different claimants to the throne of England, or the fate of the 
 towns, in Picardy, handed over to the duke of Burgundy by the 
 treaties of Conflans and Peronne, which served as a ground or 
 pretext for the frequent recurrences of war. In 1471 St. Quentin 
 opened its gates to Count Louis of St. Pol, constable of France. 
 The next year (1472) war broke out. Duke Charles went and laid 
 siege to Beauvais, and on the 27th of June delivered the first 
 assault. The inhabitants were at this moment left almost alone to 
 defend their town. A young girl of eighteen, Joan Fourquet, whom 
 a burgher's wife of Beauvais, Madame Laisne, her mother by adop- 
 tion, had bred up in the history, still so recent, of Joan of Arc, 
 threw herself into the midst of the throng, holding up her little axe 
 (hachette) before the image of St. Angadresme, patroness of the 
 town, and crying, " glorious virgin, come to my aid ; to arms ! 
 to arms ! " The assault was repulsed ; reinforcements came up 
 from JSToyon, Amiens, and Paris, under the orders of the marshal de 
 Eouault. Charles remained for twelve days longer before the place, 
 looking for a better chance ; but on the 12th of July he decided 
 upon raising the siege, and took the road to Normandy. Some days 
 before attacking Beauvais, he had taken, not without difficulty, 
 Nesle in the Vermandois. " There it was," says Commynes, " that 
 he first committed a horrible and wicked deed of war, which had 
 never been his wont ; this was burning every thing every where ; 
 those who were taken alive were hanged ; a pretty large number had 
 their hands cut off. It mislikes me to speak of such cruelty ; but 
 I was on the spot, and must needs say something about it." Com- 
 mynes undoubtedly said something about it to Charles himself, 
 who answered, " It is the fruit borne by the tree of war ; it would 
 have been the fate of Beauvais if I could have taken the town." 
 
 Between the two rivals in France, relations with England were 
 a subject of constant manreuvring and strife. In spite of reverses 
 
Edward IV. attempts to invade France. 207 
 
 on the Continent and civil wars in their own island, the kings of 
 England had not abandoned their claims to the crown of France ; 
 they were still in possession of Calais ; and the memory of the 
 "battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt was still a tower of strength 
 to them. Between 1470 and 1472 the house of York had 
 triumphed over the house of Lancaster; and Edward IV. was 
 undisputed king. In his views touching France he found a natural 
 ally in the duke of Burgundy ; and it was in concert with Charles A.D. 1478. 
 that Edward was incessantly concocting and attempting plots and T he En ~ 
 campaigns against Louis XL In 1474 he, by a herald, called upon g in NO^ 
 Louis to give up to him Normandy and Guienne, else, he told him, mandy. 
 he would cross over to France with his army. " Tell your master," 
 answered Louis coolly, " that I should not advise him to." Edward 
 landed at Calais on the 22nd of June, 1475, with an army of 
 from sixteen to eighteen thousand men thirsting for conquest and 
 pillage in France, and the duke of Burgundy had promised to go 
 and join him with a considerable force ; but the latter after having 
 appeared for a moment at Calais to concert measures with his ally, 
 returned no more, and even hesitated about admitting the English 
 into his towns of Artois and Picardy. Edward waited for him 
 nearly two months at Peronne, but in vain. During this time 
 Louis negotiated ; he fixed his quarters at Amiens, and Edward 
 came and encamped half a league from the town. An agreement 
 was soon come to as to the terms of peace. King Edward bound 
 himself to withdraw with his army to England so soon as Louis XL 
 should have paid him seventy-five thousand crowns. Louis promised 
 besides to pay annually to King Edward fifty thousand crowns, 
 in two payments, during the time that both princes were alive. A 
 truce for seven years was concluded ; they made mutual promises 
 to lend each other aid if they were attacked by their enemies or by 
 their own subjects in rebellion ; and Prince Charles, the eldest 
 son of Louis XL, was to marry Elizabeth, Edward's daughter, 
 when both should be of marriageable age. Lastly, Queen Margaret 
 of Anjou, who had been a prisoner in England since the death of 
 her husband, Henry VI., was to be set at liberty and removed to 
 France, on renouncing all claim to the crown of England. These 
 conditions having been formulated, they were signed by the two 
 kings at Pecquigny on the Somme, three leagues from Amiens, on 
 the 29th of August, 1475. 
 
 The duke of Burgundy, as soon as he found out that the king of Lorraine 
 France had, under the name of truce, made peace for seven years * 01^1 
 with the king of England, and that Edward IV. had recrossed the the Bash, 
 Channel with his army, saw that his attempts, so far, were a 
 
. 208 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Charles 
 the Rash 
 attacks 
 Lorraine. 
 
 A.D 1472. 
 Death of 
 
 the duke 
 of Guienne. 
 (May 24). 
 
 failure. Accordingly he too lost no time in signing [on the 1 3th of 
 September, 1475] a truce with King Louis for nine years, and 
 directing his ambition and aiming his blows against other quarters 
 than western France. Two little states, his neighbours on the 
 east, Lorraine and Switzerland, became the object and the theatre 
 of his passion for war. Lorraine had at that time for its duke 
 Eene II., of the house of Anjou through his mother Yolande, a 
 young prince who was wavering as so many others were between 
 France and Burgundy. Charles suddenly entered Lorraine, took 
 possession of several castles, had the inhabitants who resisted 
 hanged, besieged Nancy, which made a valiant defence, and ended 
 by conquering the capital as well as the country-places, leaving 
 Duke Eene no asylum but the court of Louis XL, of whom the 
 Lorraine prince had begged a support, which Louis after his 
 custom had promised without rendering it effectual. Charles did 
 not stop there. He had already been more than once engaged in 
 hostilities with his neighbours the Swiss ; and he now learned that 
 they had just made a sanguinary raid upon the district of Vaud, 
 the domain of a petty prince of the house of Savoy, and a devoted 
 servant of the duke of Burgundy's. Scarcely two months after the 
 capture of Nancy, Charles set out, on the llth of June, 1476, to go 
 and avenge his client and wreak his haughty and turbulent 
 humour upon these bold peasants of the Alps. 
 
 In spite of the truce he had but lately concluded with Charles 
 the Eash, the prudent Louis did not cease to keep an attentive 
 watch upon him, and to reap advantage, against him, from the 
 leisure secured to the king of France by his peace with the king 
 of England and the duke of Brittany. A late occurrence had still 
 further strengthened his position : his brother Charles, who became 
 duke of Guienne, in 1469, after the treaty of Peronne, had died on 
 the 24th of May, 1472. There were sinister rumours abroad touch- 
 ing this death. Louis was suspected of having poisoned his 
 brother. At any rate this event had important results for him. 
 Not only did it set him free from all fresh embarrassment in that 
 direction, but it also restored to him the beautiful province of 
 Guienne and many a royal client. Of the great feudal chieftains 
 who, in 1464, had formed against him the League of the Common 
 Weal, the duke of Burgundy was the only one left on the scene 
 and in a condition to put him in peril. 
 
 Louis XL felt, however, now sure of success, for his principal 
 adversary, Charles the Eash, had begun the prosecution of a plan 
 which proved beyond his strength, and the failure of which even- 
 tually turned to the advantage of the king of France. The dominions 
 
Charles the Rash defeated. 209 
 
 of Charles consisted of the duchy and county of Burgundy on the 
 one side, and of the Netherlands on the other feudal regime here, 
 communal regime there. Between these divisions no communications 
 existed, and it was in order to form a homogeneous whole of the 
 two discordant and antagonistic parts that Charles the Bold staked 
 his power, his treasures and his life. He wished to be a king, and 
 with the hope of obtaining the creation of a kingdom of Belgian- 
 Gaul, he had courted the alliance of the emperor Frederick III., 
 promising to the archduke Maximilian the hand of his daughter 
 Mary. Nothing resulted from this scheme on account of the 
 sudden retreat of the emperor, who left Treves on the very day 
 before that which had been fixed for the ceremony of consecra- 
 tion. Mad with fury, Charles the Kash then turned against Ger- 
 many. After a long siege he failed to take the city of Neuss, 
 and signed with Louis XL the peace of Soleure which has been 
 called Treve Marchande, on account of the stipulations it con- "Treve 
 tained respecting freedom of commerce between France, England, Mar - 
 and the Netherlands. Safe, as he thought, on that side, he had C an e * 
 leisure to attack both the Swiss and the Lorraine where he had 
 for his client the old king Rene. He started from Besancon on 
 the 6th of February to take the field with an army amounting, it 
 is said, to thirty or forty thousand men, provided with a power- 
 ful artillery and accompanied by an immense baggage-train, wherein 
 Charles delighted to display his riches and magnificence in contrast 
 with the simplicity and roughness of his personal habits. At the 
 rumour of such an armament, the Swiss attempted to keep off 
 the war from their country. Charles, however, gave no heed, saw 
 nothing in their representations but an additional reason for 
 hurrying on his movements with confidence, and on the 19th of A. D. 1476. 
 February arrived before Granson, a little town in the district of ^ans^n^ 
 Vaud, where war had already begun. There he was tremendously (Feb.), 
 beaten by the Swiss ; the squadrons of his chivalry were not able 
 to make any impression upon the battalions of Berne, Schwitz, 
 Soleure, and Fribourg, armed with pikes eighteen feet long ; and 
 at sight of the mountaineers marching with huge strides and 
 lowered heads upon their foes and heralding their advance by the 
 lowings of the bull of Uri and the cow of Untenvalden, two enor- 
 mous instruments made of buffalo-horn, and given, it was said, to 
 their ancestors by Charlemagne, the whole Burgundian army, 
 seized with fright, fled in wild confusion. On the 22nd of June, 
 another desperate battle was fought at Morat, and hopelessly lost 
 by the Burgundians. Charles had still three thousand horse, but an a Morat 
 he saw them break up, and he himself had great difficulty in (June). 
 
 P 
 
2IO History of France. 
 
 getting away, with merely a dozen men behind him, and reaching 
 Merges, twelve leagues from Morat. Eight or ten thousand of his 
 men had fallen, more than half, it is said, killed in cold blood, 
 after the fight. Never had the Swiss been so dead set against 
 their foes ; and " as cruel as at Morat " was for a long while a com- 
 mon expression. 
 
 The duke Charles learned before long that the Swiss were not his most 
 make? war threatening foes, and that he had something else to do instead of 
 going after them amongst their mountains. During his two cam- 
 paigns against them, the duke of Lorraine, Rene II., whom he had 
 despoiled of his dominions and driven from Nancy, had been 
 wandering amongst neighbouring princes and people in France, 
 Germany, and Switzerland, at the courts of Louis XI. and the 
 emperor Frederic III., on visits to the patricians of Berne, and 
 in the free towns of the Rhine. He was young, sprightly, amiable, 
 and brave ; he had been well received and certain promises had 
 been made him. His partisans in Lorraine recovered confidence 
 in his fortunes ; the city of Strasbourg gave him some cannon, four 
 hundred cavalry, and eight hundred infantry ; Louis XI. lent him 
 some money; and Rene before long found himself in a position 
 to raise a small army and retake Epinal, Saint-Die, Vaudemont, 
 and the majority of the minor towns in Lorraine. Finally he 
 A.D 1477 attacked and defeated the Burgundians at Nancy on January the 
 Battle of* 5th, 1477. The duke was killed on the field of battle. Charles 
 Beat? of *^ e ^ as k k a( * kft on ty a daughter, Mary of Burgundy, sole heiress 
 Charles the of all his dominions. To annex this magnificent heritage to the 
 Bash. crown of France by the marriage of the heiress with the dauphin, 
 who was one day to be Charles VIII., was clearly for the best in- 
 terests of the nation as well as of the French kingship, and such 
 had, accordingly, been Louis XL's first idea. 
 
 Mary of All the efforts of Louis the XL, however, did not succeed. On 
 
 marries* 7 the 18th of August, 1477, seven months after the battle of Nancy 
 
 the Em- and the death of Charles the Rash, Archduke Maximilian, son of 
 
 peror fa e emperor Frederic III., arrived at Ghent to wed Mary of 
 
 milian. Burgundy. "The moment he. caught sight of his betrothed," say 
 
 the Flemish chroniclers, " they both bent down to the ground and 
 
 turned as pale as death ; a sign of mutual love according to some, 
 
 an omen of unhappiness according to others." Next day, August 
 
 19, the marriage was celebrated with great simplicity in the chapel 
 
 of the Hotel de Yille ; and Maximilian swore to respect the 
 
 privileges of Ghent. A few days afterwards he renewed the same 
 
 oath at Bruges, in the midst of decorations bearing the modest 
 
 device, "Most glorious prince, defend us lest we perish" (Gloria, 
 
Policy of Louis XL 21 1 
 
 sissime princeps, defende nos ne pereamus). Not only did Louis XL 
 thus fail in his first wise design of incorporating with France, by 
 means of a marriage between his son the dauphin and Princess 
 Mary, the heritage of the dukes of Burgundy, but he suffered the 
 heiress and a great part of the heritage to pass into the hands of 
 the son of the German Emperor ; and thereby he paved the way 
 for that determined rivalry between the houses of France and Aus- 
 tria, which was a source of so many dangers and woes to both 
 states during three centuries. In vain, when the marriage of 
 Maximilian and Mary was completed, did Louis XL attempt to 
 struggle against his new and dangerous neighbour ; his campaigns 
 in the Flemish provinces, in 1478 and 1479, had no great result; 
 he lost, on the 7th of August, 1479, the battle of G-uinegate, 
 between St. Omer and Therouanne ; and before long, tired of Battle of 
 war, which was not his favourite theatre for the display of his Guine & ate 
 abilities, he ended by concluding with Maximilian a truce at first, 
 and then a peace, which, in spite of some conditionals favourable to 
 France, left the principal and the fatal consequences of the Austro- 
 Burgundian marriage to take full effect. This event marked 
 the stoppage of that great, national policy which had prevailed 
 during the first part of Louis XL's reign. Joan of Arc and 
 Charles VII. had driven the English from France ; and for sixteen 
 years Louis XL had, by fighting and gradually destroying the 
 great vassals who made alliance with them, prevented them from 
 regaining a footing there. That was work as salutary as it was 
 glorious for the nation and the French kingship. At the death 
 of Charles the Eash the work was accomplished ; Louis XL was 
 the only Power left in France, without any great peril from 
 without and without any great rival within; but he then fell 
 under the sway of mistaken ideas and a vicious spirit. Old in 
 years, master-power still though beaten in his last game of policy, 
 he appeared to all as he really was and as he had been prediscerned 
 to be by only such eminent observers as Commynes, that is, a 
 crooked, swindling, utterly selfish, vindictive, cruel man. Not 
 only did he hunt down implacably the men who, after having 
 served him, had betrayed or deserted him; he revelled in the 
 vengeance he took and the sufferings he inflicted on them. Note Cruelty of 
 for instance, his treatment of Cardinal Balue, whom he caused to be 
 confined in a cage, "eight feet broad," says Commynes, "and 
 only one foot higher than a man's stature, covered with iron plates 
 outside and inside, and fitted with terrible bars." In it the un- Tortnre of 
 fortunate prelate passed eleven years, and it was not until 1480 
 that he was let out, at the solicitation of Pope Sixtus IV., to whom 
 
 p 2 
 
212 History of France. 
 
 Louis XI., being old and ill, thought he could not possibly refuse 
 this favour. 
 
 He was still more pitiless towards a man more formidable and 
 less subordinate, both in character and origin, than Cardinal Balue. 
 A.D. 1475. Louis of Luxembourg, count of St. Pol, had been from his youth 
 thecount U P en g a ec ^ ^ n the wars an( ^ intrigues of the sovereigns and great 
 of St. Pol. feudal lords of western Europe, France, England, Germany, Bur- 
 gundy, Brittany and Lorraine. From 1433 to 1475 he served and 
 betrayed them all in turn, seeking and obtaining favours, incurring 
 and braving rancour, at one time on one side and at another time 
 on another, acting as constable of France and as diplomatic agent 
 for the duke of Burgundy, raising troops and taking towns for 
 Louis XL, for Charles the Rash, for Edward IV., for the German 
 emperor, and trying nearly always to keep for himself what he had 
 taken on another's account ; given up at last, by the duke of Bur- 
 gundy, to the king, he was beheaded on the 19th of December, 
 1475, in Paris, on the Place de Greve. 
 
 In August, 1477, the battle of Nancy had been fought; Charles 
 the Eash had been killed ; and the line of the dukes of Burgundy 
 had been extinguished. Louis XL remained master of the battle- 
 field on which the great risks and great scenes of his life had been 
 passed through. It seemed as if he ought to fear nothing now, and 
 that the day for clemency had come. But such was not the king's 
 opinion ; two cruel passions, suspicion and vengeance, had taken 
 possession of his soul ; he remained convinced, not without reason, 
 that nearly all the great feudal lords who had been his foes were 
 continuing to conspire against him, and that he ought not, on his 
 side, ever to cease from striving against them. The trial of the 
 constable, St. Pol, had confirmed all his suspicions ; he had dis- 
 covered thereby traces and almost proofs of a design for a long time 
 past conceived and pursued by the constable and his associates, the 
 design of seizing the king, keeping him prisoner, and setting his 
 son, the dauphin, on the throne, with a regency composed of a 
 council of lords. Amongst the declared or presumed adherents 
 of this project, the king had found James d'Armagnac, duke of 
 Nemours, the companion and friend of his youth, for his father, 
 the count of Pardiac, had been governor to Louis, at that time 
 dauphin. Arrested, sent to the Bastille, and tried on a charge of 
 A.D. 1477 high treason, the duke de Nemours was beheaded on the 4th of 
 Death of August, 1477. A disgusting detail, reproduced by several modern 
 Nemours, writers, has almost been received into history. Louis XL, it is 
 said, ordered the children of the duke of Nemours to be placed 
 under the scaffold and besprinkled with their father's blood. None 
 
Louis XL and his friends. 213 
 
 of his contemporaries, even the most hostile to Louis XI., and even 
 amongst those who, at the states-general held in 1484, one of them 
 after his death, raised their voices against the trial of the dnke of 
 Nemours and in favour of his children, has made any mention of 
 this pretended atrocity. 
 
 The same rule of historical equity makes it incumbent upon us The friends 
 to remark that, in spite of his feelings of suspicion and revenge, of LouisXI. 
 Louis XL could perfectly well appreciate the men of honour in D am p. 
 whom he was able to have confidence, and would actually confide martin, 
 in them even contrary to ordinary probabilities. He numbered 
 amongst his most distinguished servants three men who had begun 
 by serving his enemies and whom he conquered, so to speak, by his 
 penetration and his firm mental grasp of policy. They were Philip 
 of Chabannes, count de Dampmartin, Odet d'Aydie, lord of ^ lor ^ Q f 
 Lescun in Beam, whom he created count of Comminges, and Lescun. 
 finally Philip de Commynes, the most precious of the politic con- phiijp de 
 quests made by Louis in the matter of eminent counsellors, to whom Commynes. 
 he remained as faithful as they were themselves faithful and useful 
 to him. The Memoires of Commynes are the most striking proof 
 of the rare and unfettered political intellect placed by the future 
 historian at the king's service and of the estimation in which the 
 king had wit enough to hold it. 
 
 Louis XI. rendered to France four centuries ago, during a reign Home ^. 
 of twenty-two years, three great services, the traces and influence ministra- 
 of which exist to this day. He prosecuted steadily the work of tlon * 
 Joan of Arc and Charles VII. , the expulsion of a foreign kingship 
 and the triumph of national independence and national dignity. 
 By means of the provinces which he successively won, wholly or 
 partly, Burgundy, Franche-Comte, Artois, Provence, Anjou, Eous- 
 sillon, and Barrois, he caused France to make a great stride 
 towards territorial unity within her natural boundaries. By the 
 defeat he inflicted on the great vassals, the favour he showed the 
 middle classes, and the use he had the sense to make of this new 
 social force, he contributed powerfully to the formation of the 
 French nation and to its unity under a national government. 
 Feudal society had not an idea of how to form itself into a nation 
 or discipline its forces under one head; Louis XL proved its 
 political weakness, determined its fall, and laboured to place in its 
 stead France and monarchy. Herein are the great facts of his 
 reign and the proofs of his superior mind. 
 
 But side by side with these powerful symptoms of a new regimen 
 appeared also the vices of which that regimen contained the germ, 
 and those of the man himself who was labouring to found it. 
 
214 History of France. 
 
 Feudal society, perceiving itself to be threatened, at one time 
 attacked Louis XI. with passion, at another entered into violent 
 disputes against him; and Louis, in order to struggle with it, 
 employed all the practices at one time crafty and at another vio- 
 lent that belong to absolute power. Craft usually predominated in 
 his proceedings, violence being often too perilous for him to risk it ; 
 he did not consider himself in a condition to say brazen-facedly, 
 " Might before right," but he disregarded right in the case of his 
 adversaries, and he did not deny himself any artifice, any lie, any 
 baseness, however specious, in order to trick them or ruin them 
 secretly, when he did not feel himself in a position to crush them at a 
 Character Wow. He was " familiar," but " by no means vulgar ; " he was in 
 of LouisXI conversation able and agreeable, with a mixture, however, of petu- 
 lance and indiscretion, even when he was meditating some perfidy ; 
 and " there is much need," he used to say, " that my tongue should 
 sometimes serve me ; it has hurt me often enough." The most 
 puerile superstitions as well as those most akin to a blind piety 
 found their way into his mind. When he received any bad news, 
 he would cast aside for ever the dress he was wearing when the 
 news came ; and of death he had a dread which was carried to the 
 extent of pusillanimity and ridiculousness. " Whilst he was every 
 day," says M. de Barante, "becoming more suspicious, more absolute, 
 more terrible to his children, to the princes of the blood, to his old 
 servants, and to his wisest counsellors, there was one man who, 
 without any fear of his wrath, treated him with brutal rudeness. 
 This was James Coettier, his doctor. When the king would some- 
 His super- times complain of it before certain confidential servants : ' I know 
 stition. verv we ii } ' Coettier would say, ' that some fine morning you'll send 
 me where you've sent so many others ; but, 'sdeath, you'll not live 
 a week after ! ' " Then the king would coax him, overwhelm him 
 with caresses, raise his salary to ten thousand crowns a month, make 
 him a present of rich lordships ; and he ended by making him 
 premier president of the Court of Exchequer. All churches and 
 all sanctuaries of any small celebrity were recipients of his obla- 
 tions, and it was not the salvation of his soul but life and health 
 that he asked for in return. 
 
 Whether they were sincere or assumed, the superstitions of 
 Louis XI. did not prevent him from appreciating and promoting 
 the progress of civilization, towards which the fifteenth century saw 
 the first- real general impulse. He favoured the free development of 
 industry and trade; he protected printing, in its infancy, and 
 scientific studies, especially the study of medicine ; by his authori- 
 zation, it is said, the operation for the stone was tried, for the first 
 
Louis XL favours the progress of civilization. 215 
 
 time in France, upon a criminal under sentence of death, who 
 recovered and was pardoned ; and he welcomed the philological 
 scholars who were at this time labouring to diffuse through 
 Western Europe the works of Greek and Eoman antiquity. He 
 instituted, at first for his own and before long for the public service, 
 post-horses and the letter-post within his kingdom. Towards 
 intellectual and social movement he had not the mistrust and His re- 
 antipathy of an old, one-grooved, worn-out, unproductive despotism ; f orms and 
 his kingly despotism was new, and, one might almost say, innova- ments. 
 tional, for it sprang and was growing up from the ruins of feudal 
 rights and liberties which had inevitably ended in monarchy. But 
 despotism's good services are shortlived ; it has no need to last long 
 before it generates iniquity and tyranny ; and that of Louis XL, in 
 the latter part of his reign, bore its natural, unavoidable fruits. 
 " His mistrust," says M. de Barante, " became horrible and almost 
 insane ; every year he had surrounded his castle of Plessis with 
 more walls, ditches and rails. On the towers were iron sheds, a 
 shelter from arrows and even artillery. More than eighteen hundred 
 of those planks bristling with nails, called caltrops, were distri- 
 buted over the yonder side of the ditch. There were every day four 
 hundred crossbow-men on duty, with orders to shoot whosoever 
 approached. Every suspected passer-by was seized, and carried off 
 to Tristan I'Hermite, the provost marshal. No great proofs were 
 required for a swing on the gibbet or for the inside of a sack and a 
 plunge in the Loire. 
 
 An unexpected event occurred at this time to give a little more A.D. 1482. 
 heart to Louis XL, who was now very ill, and to mingle with his Death f 
 gloomy broodings a gleam of future prospects. Mary of Burgundy, Burgundy. 
 daughter of Charles the Eash, died at Bruges on the 27th of 
 March, 1482, leaving to her husband, Maximilian of Austria, a 
 daughter, hardly three years of age, Princess Marguerite by name, 
 heiress to the Burgundian-Elemish dominions which had not come 
 into the possession of the king of Erance. Louis, as soon as he 
 heard the news, conceived the idea and the hope of making up for 
 the reverse he had experienced five years previously through the 
 marriage of Mary of Burgundy. He would arrange espousals 
 between his son tire dauphin, Charles, thirteen years old, and the 
 infant princess left by Mary, and thus recover for the crown of 
 Erance the beautiful domains he had allowed to slip from him. A 
 negotiation was opened at once on the subject between Louis, 
 Maximilian, and the estates of Elanders, and, on the 23rd of 
 December, 1482, it resulted in a treaty, concluded at Arras, 
 which arranged for the marriage and regulated the mutual 
 
216 History of France. 
 
 conditions. In January, 1483, the ambassadors from the estates of 
 Flanders and from Maximilian, who then for the first time assumed 
 the title of archduke, came to France for the ratification of the 
 treaty. 
 
 A.D. 1483. On the 2nd of June following, the infant princess, Marguerite of 
 ^A^tria, 6 ^ ustr ^ was Bought by a solemn embassy to Paris first, and then, 
 betrothed on the 23rd of June, to Amboise, where her betrothal to the 
 to the Dau- dauphin, Charles, was celebrated. Louis XI. did not feel fit for 
 removal to Amboise ; and he would not even receive at Plessis-les- 
 Tours the new Flemish embassy. Assuredly neither the king nor 
 any of the actors in this regal scene foresaw that this marriage, 
 which they with reason looked upon as a triumph of French policy, 
 would never be consummated ; that, at the request of the court of 
 France, the pope would annul the betrothal ; and that, nine years 
 after its celebration, in 1492, the Austrian princess, after having been 
 brought up at Amboise under the guardianship of the duchess of 
 Bourbon, Anne, eldest daughter of Louis XL, would be sent back 
 to her father, Emperor Maximilian, by her affianced, Charles VIII., 
 then king of France, who preferred to become the husband of a 
 French princess with a French province for dowry, Anne, duchess 
 of Brittany. 
 
 A.D. 1483. It was in March, 1481, that Louis XL had his first attack of that 
 Death of apoplexy which, after several repeated strokes, reduced him to such 
 a state of weakness that in June, 1483, he felt himself and declared 
 himself not in a fit state to be present at his son's betrothal. Two 
 months afterwards, on the 25th of August, St. Louis' day, he had 
 a fresh stroke, and lost all consciousness and speech. 
 
 On Saturday, August 30th, 1483, between seven and eight in 
 the evening, he expired, saying, " Our Lady of Embrun, my good 
 mistress, have pity upon me ; the mercies of the Lord will I sing 
 for ever (misericordias Domini in (sternum cantabo)" 
 
 Louis XL has had the good fortune to be described and appraised, 
 in his own day too, by the most distinguished and independent of 
 his councillors, Philip de Commynes, and, three centuries after- 
 wards, by one of the most thoughtful and the soundest intellects 
 amongst the philosophers of the eighteenth century, Duclos, who, 
 moreover, had the advantage of being historiographer of France 
 and of having studied the history of that reign in authentic docu- 
 ments. We reproduce here the two judgments, the agreement of 
 which is remarkable : 
 
 "God," says Commynes, "had created our king more wise, 
 liberal, and full of manly virtue than the princes who reigned with 
 him and in his day, and who were his enemies and neighbours. In 
 
Death of the king. Regency. 217 
 
 all there was good and evil, for they were men ; but, without 
 flattery, in him were more things appertaining to the office of king 
 than in any of the rest. I saw them nearly all, and knew what 
 they could do." 
 
 " Louis XI.," says Duclos, " was far from being without reproach ; 
 few princes have deserved so much ; but it may be said that he 
 was equally celebrated for his vices and his virtues, and that, every- 
 thing being put in the balance, he was a king." 
 
 We will be more exacting than Commynes and Duclos ; we will 
 not consent to apply to Louis XI. the words liberal, virtuous, and 
 virtue ; he had not greatness of soul, nor uprightness of character, 
 nor kindness of heart ; he was neither a great king nor a good 
 king ; but we may assent to Duclos' last words he was a king. 
 
 Louis XI. had by the queen, his wife, Charlotte of Savoy, six chil- Family of 
 dren ; three of them survived him : Charles VIII., his successor ; Louis ** 
 Anne, his eldest daughter, who had espoused Peter of Bourbon, sire 
 de Beaujeu ; and Joan, whom he had married to the duke of Orleans, 
 who became Louis XII. At their father's death, Charles was 
 thirteen ; Anne twenty-two or twenty-three \ and Joan nineteen. 
 According to Charles V.'s decree, which had fixed fourteen as the 
 age for the king's majority, Charles VIII., on his accession, was 
 very nearly a major ; but Louis XL, with good reason, considered 
 him very far from capable of reigning as yet. On the other hand, 
 he had a very high opinion of his daughter Anne, and it was to 
 her far more than to sire de Beaujeu, her husband, that six days 
 before his death and by his last instructions he entrusted the 
 guardianship of his son, to whom he already gave the title of king, 
 and the government of the realm. Louis, duke of Orleans, was a 
 natural claimant to the regency ; but Anne de Beaujeu, imme- 
 diately and without consulting anybody, took up the position 
 which had been entrusted to her by her father, and the fact was 
 accepted without ceasing to be questioned. Louis XL had not been 
 mistaken in his choice; there was none more fitted than his 
 daughter Anne to continue his policy under the reign and in the 
 name of his successor. 
 
 She began by acts of intelligent discretion. She tried, not to Regency of 
 subdue by force the rivals and malcontents, but to put them in the Madame de 
 wrong in the eyes of the public and to cause embarrassment eau J en< 
 to themselves by treating them with fearless favour. Her brother- 
 in-law, the duke of Bourbon, was vexed at being only in appear- 
 ance and name the head of his own house ; and she made him 
 constable of France and lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The 
 friends of Duke Louis of Orleans, amongst others his chief confi- 
 
218 History of France. 
 
 dant George of Amboise, bishop of Montauban, and Count Dunois, 
 son of Charles VII.'s hero, persistently supported the duke's rights 
 to the regency; and Madame (the title Anne de Beaujeu had 
 assumed) made Duke Louis governor of Ile-de-France and of Cham- 
 Her energy pagne and sent Dunois as governor to Dauphiny. She kept those 
 ^ ^ ou ^ s XL's advisers for whom the public had not conceived a 
 perfect hatred like that felt for their master; and Commynes alone 
 was set aside, as having received from the late king too many 
 personal favours and as having too much inclination towards 
 independent criticism of the new regency. Two of Louis XL's 
 subordinate and detested servants, Oliver le Daim and John Doyac, 
 were prosecuted, and one was hanged and the other banished; 
 and his doctor, James Coettier, was condemned to disgorge fifty 
 thousand crowns out of the enormous presents he had received 
 from his patient. At the same time that she thus gave some 
 satisfaction to the cravings of popular wrath, Anne de Beaujeu 
 threw open the prisons, recalled exiles, forgave the people a 
 quarter of the talliage, cut down expenses by dismissing six 
 thousand Swiss whom the late king had taken into his pay, re-esta- 
 blished some sort of order in the administation of the domains of 
 the crown, and, in fine, whether in general measures or in respect 
 of persons, displayed impartiality without paying court and firmness 
 without using severity. 
 
 Anne's discretion was soon put to a great trial. A general cry 
 
 was raised for the convocation of the states-general. The ambitious 
 
 hoped thus to open a road to power ; the public looked forward to it 
 
 for a return to legalized government. No doubt Anne would have 
 
 preferred to remain more free and less responsible in the exercise of 
 
 her authority ; for it was still very far from the time when national 
 
 assemblies could be considered as a permanent power and a regular 
 
 means of government. But Anne and her advisers did not waver; 
 
 they were too wise and too weak to oppose a great public wish. 
 
 The states-general were convoked at Tours for the 5th of January, 
 
 A.D. 1484. 1484. The deputies had all at heart one and the same idea ; they 
 
 ^nerafare Desired to turn ^ e ^ an( * undisputed monarchy into a legalized 
 
 convoked and free government. Clergy, nobles, and third estate, there was 
 
 at Tours. no ^ j n anv O f their minds any revolutionary yearning or any thought 
 
 of social war. It is the peculiar and the beautiful characteristic of 
 
 the states-general of 1484 that they had an eye to nothing but 
 
 a great political reform, a regimen of legality and freedom. 
 
 Two men, one a Norman and the other a Burgundian, the canon 
 John Masselin and Philip Pot, lord of la Eoche, a former counsellor 
 of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, were the exponents of this 
 
The States-general. 219 
 
 political spirit, at once bold and prudent, conservative and reforma- 
 tive. The nation's sovereignty and the right of the estates not only 
 to vote imposts but to exercise a real influence over the choice and 
 conduct of the officers of the crown, this was what they affirmed 
 in principle and what in fact they laboured to get established. They 
 voted the taxes for a period of two years, declared that at the end 
 of that interval they would meet again as a matter of course, and 
 separated only after having passed resolutions of the boldest 
 character. 
 
 Neither Masselin nor his descendants for more than three cen- T1 *eir re- 
 
 suits* 
 turies were destined to see the labours of the states-general of 1484 
 
 obtain substantial and durable results. The work they had con- 
 ceived and attempted was premature. The establishment of a free 
 government demands either spontaneous and simple virtues such 
 as may be found in a young and small community, or the lights, 
 the scientific method, and the wisdom, painfully acquired and still 
 so imperfect, of great and civilized nations. France of the fifteenth 
 century was in neither of these conditions. But it is a crown of 
 glory to have felt that honest and patriotic ambition which animated 
 Masselin and his friends at their exodus from the corrupt and cor- 
 rupting despotism of Louis XL Who would dare to say that their 
 attempt, vain as it was for them, was so also for generations sepa- 
 rated from them by centuries ? Time and space are as nothing in 
 the mysterious development of God's designs towards men, and it 
 is the privilege of mankind to get instruction and example from far- 
 off memories of their own history. It was a duty to render to the 
 states-general of 1484 the homage to which they have a right by 
 reason of their intentions and their efforts on behalf of the good 
 cause and in spite of their unsuccess. 
 
 When the states-general had separated, Anne de Beaujeu, with- Ambition 
 out difficulty or uproar, resumed, as she had assumed on her father's f Orleans 6 
 death, the government of France ; and she kept it yet for seven 
 years, from 1484 to 1491. During all this time she had a rival 
 and foe in Louis, duke of Orleans, who was one day to be 
 Louis XII. This ambitious prince induced Fra^ois II., duke of 
 Brittany, Eichard III., king of England, Maximilian of Austria, 
 and others to take up arms against the regent. She vanquished 
 Francois at Nantes, and sent to the gallows Landais, minister of 
 that prince, and the original instigator of the league. In order 
 to divert the attention of Eichard III., she gave her support to 
 Henry Tudor, who ultimately gained the battle of Bosworth (1485) 
 and ascended to the throne of England, under the title of Henry VII. 
 To Maximilian she opposed with success the marshals d'Esquerdes 
 
220 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1488. 
 
 Battle of 
 
 St. Aubin- 
 du-Cormier 
 (July 28). 
 
 Charles 
 
 VIII. 
 
 marries 
 
 Anne of 
 
 Brittany. 
 
 and De Gie. The foolish war, thus called on account of the pre- 
 cipitation with which it had been undertaken, came to an issue 
 as speedily as it was unexpected. The counts of Albret and of 
 Comminges had espoused the cause of the duke of Orleans : they 
 were defeated on their own domains in the South of France. In 
 July, 1488, Louis de la Tremoille came suddenly down upon 
 Brittany, took one after the other Chateaubriant, Ancenis, and 
 Fougeres, and, on the 28th, gained at St. Aubin-du-Cormier, near 
 Eennes, over the army of the duke of Brittany and his English, 
 German, and Gascon allies, a victory which decided the campaign : 
 six thousand of the Breton army were killed, and Duke Louis of 
 Orleans, the prince of Orange and several French lords, his friends, 
 were made prisoners. 
 
 It was a great success for Anne de Beaujeu. She had beaten 
 her united foes. Two incidents that supervened, one a little before 
 and the other a little after the battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier, 
 occurred to both embarrass the position, and at the same time call 
 forth all the energy of Anne. Her brother-in-law, Duke John of 
 Bourbon, the head of his house, died on the 1st of April, 1488, 
 leaving to his younger brother, Peter, his title and domains. 
 Having thus become duchess of Bourbon, and being well content 
 with this elevation in rank and fortune, Madame the Great (as 
 Anne de Beaujeu was popularly called) was somewhat less eagerly 
 occupied with the business of the realm, was less constant at the 
 king's council, and went occasionally with her husband to stay 
 awhile in their own territories. Charles VIII., moreover, having 
 nearly arrived at man's estate, made more frequent manifestations 
 of his own personal will; and Anne, clear-sighted and discreet 
 though ambitious, was little by little changing her dominion into 
 influence. But some weeks after the battle of St. Aubin-du- 
 Cormier, on the 7th or 9th of September, 1488, the death of 
 Francis II., duke of Brittany, rendered the active intervention of 
 the duchess of Bourbon natural and necessary : for he left his 
 daughter, the Princess Anne, barely eighteen years old, exposed to 
 all the difficulties attendant upon the government of her inherit- 
 ance and to all the intrigues of the claimants to her hand. The 
 count of Nassau, having arrived in Brittany with the proxy of 
 Archduke Maximilian, had by a mock ceremony espoused the 
 Breton princess in his master's name. Madame de Beaujeu imme- 
 diately sent into Brittany a powerful army, and compelled the young 
 heiress to bestow herself upon the suzerain, Charles VIII. The 
 young princess Marguerite of Austria, who had for eight years 
 been under guardianship and education at Amboise as the future 
 
Marriage of Charles VIII. Its results. 221 
 
 wife of the king of France, was removed from France and taken 
 
 back into Flanders to her father Archduke Maximilian with all the 
 
 external honours that could alleviate such an insult. On the 7th 
 
 of February, 1492, Anne was crowned at St. Denis ; and next day, 
 
 the 8th of February, she made her entry in state into Paris amidst 
 
 the joyful and earnest acclamations of the public. A sensible and 
 
 a legitimate joy : for the reunion of Brittany to France was the Brittany 
 
 consolidation of the peace which, in this same century, on the 17th reunited to 
 
 of September, 1453, had put an end to the Hundred Years' War France< 
 
 between France and England, and was the greatest act that 
 
 remained to be accomplished to insure the definitive victory and 
 
 the territorial constitution of French nationality. 
 
 Charles VIII. was pleased with and proud of himself. He had 
 achieved a brilliant and a difficult marriage. In Europe and within 
 his own household he had made a display of power and independence. 
 In order to espouse Anne of Brittany he had sent back Marguerite 
 of Austria to her father. He had gone in person and withdrawn 
 from prison his cousin Louis of Orleans, whom his sister Anne de 
 Beaujeu had put there ; and so far from having got embroiled with 
 her he saw all the royal family reconciled around him. This was 
 no little success for a young prince of twenty-one. He thereupon 
 devoted himself with ardour and confidence to his desire of winning 
 back the kingdom of Naples which Alphonso I., king of Arragon, 
 had wrested from the House of France, and of thereby re-opening 
 for himself in the East and against Islamry that career of Christian 
 glory which had made a saint of his ancestor Louis IX. By two 
 treaties concluded in 1493 [one at Barcelona on the 19th of January 
 and the other at Senlis on the 23rd of May], he gave up Eoussillon 
 and Cerdagne to Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Arragon, and 
 Franche-Comte, Artois and Charolais to the House of Austria, and, 
 after having at such a lamentable price purchased freedom of move- 
 ment, he went and took up his quarters at Lyons to prepare for his 
 Neapolitan venture. 
 
 It were out of place to follow out here in all its details a war gtate Qf 
 which belongs to the history of Italy far more than to that of Italy. 
 France ; it will suffice to point out with precision the positions of 
 the principal Italian States at this period, and the different shares 
 of influence they exercised 011 the fate of the French expedition. 
 
 Six principal States, Piedmont, the kingdom of the dukes of 
 Savoy ; the duchy of Milan ; the republic of Venice ; the republic 
 of Florence ; Eome and the pope and the kingdom of Naples, 
 co-existed in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. In August, 
 1494, when Charles VIII. started from Lyons on his Italian expe- 
 
222 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Its rulers 
 temporal 
 and spiri- 
 tual. 
 
 dition, Piedmont was governed by Blanche of Montferrat, widow 
 of Charles the Warrior, duke of Savoy, in the name of her son 
 Charles John Amadeo, a child only six years old. In the duchy of 
 Milan the power was in the hands of Ludovic Sforza, called 
 the Moor, who, being ambitious, faithless, lawless, unscrupulous, 
 employed it in banishing to Pavia the lawful duke, his own nephew, 
 John Galeas Mario Sforza, of whom the Florentine ambassador 
 said to Ludovic himself, " This young man seems to me a good 
 young man, and animated by good sentiments, but very deficient 
 in wits." He was destined to die ere long, probably by poison. 
 The republic of Venice had at this period for its doge Augustin 
 Barbarigo ; and it was to the council of Ten that in respect of 
 foreign affairs as well as of the home department the power really 
 belonged. Peter de' Medici, son of Lorenzo de' Medeci, the father 
 of the Mitses, was feebly and stupidly, though with all the airs and 
 pretensions of a despot, governing the republic of Florence. Rome 
 had for pope Alexander VI. (Roderigo Borgia), a prince who was 
 covetous, licentious, and brazen-facedly fickle and disloyal in his 
 policy, and who would be regarded as one of the most utterly 
 demoralized men of the fifteenth century only that he had for son 
 a Caesar Borgia. Finally at Naples, in 1494, three months before 
 the day on which Charles VIII. entered Italy, King Alphonso II. 
 ascended the throne. "No man," says Commynes, "was ever 
 more cruel than he, or more wicked, or more vicious and tainted, or 
 more gluttonous." Such, in Italy, whether in her kingdoms or her 
 republics, were the Heads with whom Charles VIII. had to deal 
 when he went, in the name of a disputed right, three hundred 
 leagues away from his own kingdom in quest of a bootless and 
 ephemeral conquest. 
 
 On his way to Italy, Charles VIII. had stopped at Lyons, and 
 of ^^haffis there he spent so much money in rejoicings that he was obliged to 
 VIII. contract a loan before he could proceed with his undertaking. He 
 conducted his army through Vienne (Dauphine), Gap, the passage 
 of mount Genevre and Susa as far as Asti, where he was detained by 
 a serious illness. His fleet, under the command of the Duke of 
 Orleans, gained at the same time a victory over the Neapolitans at 
 Rapalto, near Genoa. From Asti, where he received the visit of 
 Ludovic Sforza, Charles VIII. went to Placentia, and there he 
 learnt both the deaths of the duke of Milan and the anticipated 
 usurpation of the young prince's guardian. He then crossed the 
 Apennine pass of Pontemoli which had been left defenceless, and 
 entered Tuscany, delivering Pisa from the yoke of the Florentines, 
 and respecting, in this last named city, the intrepidity of Pietro 
 
 Italian 
 
Charles VIII. in Italy. 223 
 
 Capponi and the inhabitants, who had risen to maintain their free- 
 dom. " Sound your trumpets," said they to the French, " we will 
 ring our hells." 
 
 On the 1st of January, 1495, Charles VIII. entered Kome with A.D. 1495. 
 his army ; the pope having retired at first to the Vatican and yin 6 * 
 afterwards to the castle of St. Angelo, and Charles remaining enters 
 master of the city, which, in a fit of mutual ill-humour and mis- 
 trust, was for one day given over to pillage and the violence of the 
 soldiery. At last, on the 15th of January, a treaty was concluded 
 which regulated pacific relations "between the two sovereigns, and 
 secured to the French army a free passage through the States of 
 the Church, "both going to Naples and also returning, and 
 provisional possession of the town of Civita Vecchia, on condition 
 that it should he restored to the pope when the king returned to 
 France. It was announced that, on the 23rd of January, the 
 Arragonese king of Naples, Alphonso II., had abdicated in favour 
 of his son, Ferdinand II.; and, on the 28th of January, Charles VIII. 
 took solemn leave of the pope, received his blessing, and left 
 Eome, as he had entered it, at the head of his army, and more 
 confident than ever in the success of the expedition he was going 
 to carry out. 
 
 After such a beginning, the Italian campaign promised to be 
 merely a brilliant military promenade, where the only trouble would 
 be that necessitated by appointing every day the quarters for the 
 troops. There was indeed the semblance of a fight at San-Germano, 
 but the king of Naples, betrayed both by his army and by his 
 subjects, was obliged to seek safety in the island of Ischia, from 
 whence he reached Sicily. Charles VIII. entered Naples on the a nd 
 22nd of February at the head of his troops, on horseback beneath Naples 
 a pall of cloth of 'gold borne by four great Neapolitan lords, and * ** 
 
 " received," says Guicciardini, " with cheers and a joy of which it 
 would be vain to attempt a description ; the incredible exultation 
 of a crowd of both sexes, of every age, of every condition, of every 
 quality, of every party, as if he had been the father and first founder 
 of the city." 
 
 At the news hereof the disquietude and vexation of the principal A.D. 1495. 
 Italian powers were displayed at Venice as well as at Milan and at J|M]Jg n 
 Eome ; on the 31st of March, 1495, a league was concluded between the Pope, 
 Pope Alexander VI. Emperor Maximilian L, as king of the Eomans, the Em - 
 the king of Spain, the Venetians, and the duke of Milan : " To three Spaniards 
 ends," saysCommynes,"for to defend Christendom against the Turks, the Vene- 
 for the defence of Italy, and for the preservation of their estates. Milanese* 
 There was nothing in it against the king, they told me, but it was to (March 31;. 
 
f 
 
 224 History of France. 
 
 secure themselves from him ; they did not Kke his so deluding the 
 world with words by saying that all he wanted was the kingdom 
 and then to march against the Turk, and all the while he was 
 showing quite the contrary." Charles VIII. remained nearly two 
 months at Naples after the Italian league had been concluded, and 
 whilst it was making its preparations against him was solely con- 
 cerned about enjoying, in his beautiful but precarious kingdom, 
 " all sorts of mundane pleasaunces," as his councillor, the cardinal 
 of St. Malo, says, and giving entertainments to his new subjects, 
 as much disposed as himself to forget every thing in amusement. 
 On the 12th of May, 1495, all the population of Naples and of the 
 neighbouring country was a-foot early to see their new king make 
 his entry in state as king of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, with his 
 Neapolitan court and his French troops ; and only a week afterwards, 
 Retreat of on the 20th of May, 1495, Charles VIII. started from Naples to 
 re ^ urn * France with an army at the most from twelve to fifteen 
 thousand strong, leaving for guardian of his new kingdom his cousin 
 Gilbert of Bourbon, count de Montpensier, a brave but indolent 
 knight, (who never rose, it was said, until noon,) with eight or ten 
 thousand men, scattered for the most part throughout the provinces. 
 During the months of April and May, thus wasted by Charles 
 VIII., the Italian league, and especially the Venetians and the 
 duke of Milan, Ludovic the Moor, had vigorously pushed for- 
 ward their preparations for war, and had already collected an 
 army more numerous than that with which the king of France, in 
 order to return home, would have to traverse the whole of Italy. 
 He took more than six weeks to traverse it, passing three days at 
 Rome, four at Siena, the same number at Pisa, and three at Lucca, 
 though he had declared that he would not halt anywhere. He 
 evaded entering Florence, where he had made promises which he 
 could neither retract nor fulfil. It was in the duchy of Parma, 
 near the town of Fornovo, on the right bank of the Taro, an affluent 
 of the Po, that the French and Italian armies met, on the 5th of 
 A.D. 1495. July, 1495. The French army was nine or ten thousand strong, 
 Fornovo "**&* ^ ve or ^ thousand camp-followers, servants or drivers ; the 
 (July 5). Italian army numbered at least thirty thousand men, well supplied 
 and well rested, whereas the French were fatigued with their long 
 march and very badly off for supplies. The battle was very hotly 
 contested, but did not last long, with alternations of success and 
 reverse on both sides. The two principal commanders in the king's 
 army, Louis de la Tremoille and John James Trivulzio, sustained 
 without recoiling the shock of troops far more numerous than 
 their own. 
 
Battle of Fornovo. 225 
 
 Both armies might and did claim the victory, for they had, each 
 of them, partly succeeded in their design. The Italians wished to 
 unmistakably drive out of Italy Charles VIII., who was withdrawing 
 voluntarily ; but to make it an unmistakable retreat, he ought to 
 have been defeated, his army beaten, and himself perhaps a Its results, 
 prisoner. With that view they attempted to bar his passage and 
 beat him on Italian ground : in that they failed ; Charles, remain- 
 ing master of the battle-field, went on his way in freedom and 
 covered with glory, he and his army. He certainly left Italy, but 
 he left it with the feeling of superiority in arms, and with the 
 intention of returning thither better informed and better supplied. 
 The Italian allies were triumphant, but without any ground of security 
 or any lustre ; the expedition of Charles VIII. was plainly only the 
 beginning of the foreigner's ambitious projects, invasions and wars 
 against their own beautiful land. The king of France and his men 
 of war had not succeeded in conquering it, but they had been 
 charmed with such an abode ; they had displayed in their cam- 
 paign knightly qualities more brilliant and more masterful than the 
 studied duplicity and elegant effeminacy of the Italians of the 
 fifteenth century, and, after the battle of Fornovo, they returned to 
 France justly proud and foolishly confident notwithstanding the 
 incompleteness of their success. 
 
 Charles VIII. reigned for nearly three years longer after his tatter 
 return to his kingdom ; and for the first two of them he passed his Charles 
 time in indolently dreaming of his plans for a fresh invasion of VIII. 
 Italy, and in frivolous abandonment to his pleasures and the enter- 
 tainments at his court, which he moved about from Lyons to 
 Moulins, to Paris, to Tours and to Amboise. The news which 
 came to him from Italy was worse and worse every day. The 
 count de Montpensier, whom he had left at Naples, could not hold 
 his own there, and died a prisoner on the llth of November, 
 
 1496, after having found himself driven from place to place by 
 Ferdinand II., who by degrees recovered possession of nearly all 
 his kingdom, merely, himself also, to die there on the 6th of 
 October, leaving for his uncle and successor, Frederick III., the 
 honour of recovering the last four places held by the French. 
 Whilst still constantly talking of the war he had in view, Charles 
 attended more often and more earnestly than he hitherto had done, to 
 the internal affairs of his kingdom. His two immediate predecessors, 
 Charles VII. and Louis XL had decreed the collation and revision 
 of local customs, so often the rule of civil jurisdiction; but the work 
 made no progress ; Charles VIII. by a decree dated March 15, 
 
 1497, abridged the formalities, and urged on the execution of it, 
 
 Q 
 
226 History of France. 
 
 though it was not completed until the reign of Charles IX. By 
 another decree, dated August 2, 1497, he organized and regulated, 
 as to its powers as well as its composition, the king's grand council, 
 the supreme administrative body which was a fixture at Paris. At 
 ^ ne Beginning of the year 1498, Charles YIIL was at Amboise, 
 Charles where considerable works had been begun under his direction b;y 
 VIII. several excellent artists whom he had brought from Naples. "When 
 passing one day through a dark gallery, he knocked his forehead 
 against a door with such violence that he died a few hours after- 
 wards (April 7, 1498). He was only twenty-eight years old; 
 Commines has said of him : " He had little understanding, but he 
 was so good that it would have been impossible to find a kinder 
 creature." With him the direct family of Valois became extinct, 
 and was replaced by that of the Valois-Orleans. Under the reign 
 of Charles VIII. the cultivation of the mulberry tree was first 
 introduced into France ; the earliest plantations were attempted in 
 the neighbourhood of Montelimar with complete success. 
 Louis XII. On ascending the throne Louis XII. reduced the public taxes 
 policy S of 6 an( ^ conn>rlne( l i n their posts his predecessor's chief advisers, using 
 his prede- to Louis de la Tremoille, who had been one of his most energetic 
 cessor. foes, that celebrated expression, " The king of France avenges not 
 the wrongs of the duke of Orleans." At the same time on the day 
 of his coronation at Rheims [May 27, 1492], he assumed, besides 
 his title of king of France, the titles of king of Naples and of 
 Jerusalem and duke of Milan. This was as much as to say that he 
 would pursue a pacific and conservative policy at home, and a 
 warlike and adventurous policy abroad. And, indeed, his govern- 
 ment did present these two phases so different and inharmonious. 
 By his policy at home, Louis XII. deserved and obtained the name 
 of Father of the People ; by his enterprises and wars abroad, he 
 involved France still more deeply than Charles VIII. had in that 
 mad course of distant, reckless, and incoherent conquests for which 
 his successor, Francis I., was destined to pay by capture at Pavia 
 and by the lamentable treaty of Madrid, in 1526, as the price of 
 his release. Let us follow these two portions of Louis XII. 's reign, 
 each separately, without mixing up one with the other by reason 
 of identity of dates. "We shall thus get at a better understanding 
 and better appreciation of their character and their results. 
 Claims Outside of France Milaness [the Milanese district] was Louis 
 
 Milaness xn , g firgt t h ou ght, at his accession, and the first object of his 
 patrimony, desire. He looked upon it as his patrimony. His grandmother, 
 Valentine Visconti, widow of that duke of Orleans who had been 
 assassinated at Paris in 1407 by order of John the Fearless, duke 
 
First Invasion of Italy. 227 
 
 of Burgundy, had been the last to inherit the duchy of Milan which 
 the Sforzas, in 1450, had seized. When Charles VIII. invaded 
 Italy in 1494, "Now is the time," said Louis, "to enforce the 
 rights of Valentine Visconti, my grandmother, to Milaness." And 
 he, in fact, asserted them openly, and proclaimed his intention of 
 vindicating them so soon as he found the moment propitious. 
 Accordingly, in the month of August, 1499, the French army, with 
 a strength of from twenty to five and twenty thousand men, of 
 whom five thousand were Swiss, invaded Milaness. Duke Ludo- A 
 vie Sforza opposed to it a force pretty nearly equal in number, but The French. 
 far less full of confidence and of far less valour. In less than three j? v * 
 weeks the duchy was conquered ; in only two cases was any assault 
 necessary ; all the other places were given up by traitors or surren- 
 dered without show of resistance. On the 6th of October, 1499, Their first 
 Louis made his triumphal entry into Milan amidst cries of "Hurrah ! successes, 
 for France." He reduced the heavy imposts established by the 
 Sforzas, revoked the vexatious game-laws, instituted at Milan a 
 court of justice analogous to the French parliaments, loaded with 
 favours the scholars and artists who were the honour of Lombardy, 
 and recrossed the Alps at the end of some weeks, leaving as 
 governor of Milaness John James Trivulzio, the valiant Condottiere, 
 who, four years before, had quitted the service of Ferdinand II., 
 king of Naples, for that of Charles VIII. Unfortunately Trivulzio 
 was himself a Milanese, and of the faction of the Guelphs. He 
 had the passions of a partisan, and the habits of a man of war, and 
 he soon became as tyrannical, and as much detested in Milaness as 
 Ludovic the Moor had but lately been. A plot was formed in 
 favour of the fallen tyrant, who was in Germany expecting it, and 
 was recruiting, during expectancy, amongst the Germans and Swiss 
 in order to take advantage of it. On the 25th of January 1500, A.D. 1500. 
 the insurrection broke out ; and two months later Ludovic Sforza tio^at " 
 had once more become master of Milaness, where the French Milan 
 possessed nothing but the castle of Milan. ( Jan * 25 ^ 
 
 Louis XII., so soon as he heard of the Milanese insurrection, 
 sent into Italy Louis de la Tremoille, the best of his captains, and 
 the cardinal d'Amboise, his privy councillor and his friend ; the 
 former to command the royal troops, French and Swiss, and the 
 latter " for to treat about the reconciliation of the rebel towns, and 
 to deal with everything as if it were the king in his own person." 
 The campaign did not last long. The Swiss who had been recruited 
 by Ludovic and those who were in Louis XII. 's service had no 
 mind to fight one another ; and the former capitulated, surrendered 
 the strong place of Novara, and promised to evacuate the country 
 
 Q2 
 
228 History of France. 
 
 on condition of a safe-conduct for themselves and their booty. 
 Betrayed into the hands of the enemy, Ludovic was sent to Trance 
 where he expired fourteen years after, a prisoner in the castle of 
 Loches. The duchy of Milan then submitted to Louis XII., and 
 this prince made immediate preparations for attacking Naples. 
 With this view he signed with Ferdinand the Catholic the secret 
 treaty of Granada (Nov. 11, 1500). 
 
 On hearing of the approach of the French, the new king Frederic 
 requested the Spaniards to defend him, and gave over to them his 
 fortresses : this was surrendering to the enemy. Dethroned with- 
 out having fought, and made a prisoner in the island of Ischia, he 
 was conducted first to Blois, and then to Tours, whilst his son was 
 confined in Spain. He was at least avenged by the disunion which 
 took place between his enemies. Gonzalvo of Cordova, one of the 
 most celebrated chieftains of the day, attempted to defend Barletta, 
 but would have been compelled to surrender, had not the treaty of 
 Lyons, by apparently bringing about a cessation of hostilities, 
 permitted the treacherous Ferdinand to succour his general. The 
 The French French suffered, in consequence, two defeats (Seminara, Cerignola), 
 Sem?nara at an( * * ost near ^ v a ^ tne * r P ossess ions in tne kingdom of Naples (1503). 
 and Louis XII. hasted to levy and send to Italy, under the command 
 
 Cerignola. o f L ou j s d e ] a Tremoille, a fresh army for the purpose of relieving 
 Gaeta and recovering Naples ; but at Parma La Tremoille fell ill, 
 and the command devolved upon the Marquis of Mantua, who 
 A.D. 1503. marched on Gaeta. He found Gonzalvo of Cordova posted with 
 theGarte- ^ s army on the left bank of the Garigliano, either to invest the 
 liano ' place or to repulse reinforcements that might arrive for it. The 
 (Dec. 27). WO arm i es passed fifty days face to face almost, with the river and 
 its marshes between them, and vainly attempting over and over 
 again to join battle. At length the French were defeated, and 
 Gaeta fell into the hands of the Spaniards on the 1st of January, 
 1504. 
 
 At the news of these reverses the grief and irritation of Louis 
 XII. were extreme. Not only was he losing his Neapolitan con- 
 quest, but even his Milanese was also threatened. The ill-will of 
 the Venetians became manifest. The determined prosecution of 
 hostilities in the kingdom of Naples by Gonzalvo of Cordova, in 
 spite of the treaty concluded at Lyons on the 5th of April, 1503, 
 between the kings of France and Spain, was so much the more offen- 
 sive to Louis XII. in tha,t this treaty was the consequence and the 
 confirmation of an enormous concession which he had, two years 
 previously, made to the king of Spain on consenting to affiance his 
 daughter, Princess Claude of France, two years old, to Ferdinand's 
 
LOUIS XII. 
 
 Page 223. 
 
France nearly dismembered by its king. 229 
 
 grandson, Charles of Austria, who was then only one year old, and 
 who became Charles the Fifth (emperor) ! Lastly, about the same 
 time, Pope Alexander VI., who, willy nilly, had rendered Louis 
 XII. so many services, died at Rome on the 12th of August, 1503. 
 Louis had hoped that his favourite minister, Cardinal George 
 d'Amboise, would succeed him, and that hope had a great deal to 
 do with the shocking favour he showed Caesar Borgia, that infa- 
 mous son of a demoralized father. But the candidature of Cardinal 
 d'Amboise failed ; a four weeks' pope, Pius III., succeeded Alex- 
 ander VI. ; and, when the Holy See suddenly became once more 
 vacant, Cardinal d'Amboise failed again ; and the new choice was 
 Cardinal Julian della Eovera, Pope Julius II., who soon became 
 the most determined and most dangerous foe of Louis XII. , already 
 assailed by so many enemies. 
 
 In order to put off the struggle which had succeeded so ill for 
 him in the -kingdom of Naples, Louis concluded on the 31st of Spain. 
 March, 1504, a truce for three years with the king of Spain ; and 
 on the 22nd of September, in the same year, in order to satisfy his 
 grudge on account of the Venetians' demeanour towards him, he 
 made an alliance against them with Emperor Maximilian I. and 
 Pope Julius II., with the design, all three of them, of wresting 
 certain provinces from them. With those political miscalculations 
 was connected a more personal and more disinterested feeling. 
 Louis repented of having in 1501, under the influence of his wife, 
 Anne of Brittany, affianced his daughter Claude to Prince Charles 
 of Austria, and of the enormous concessions he had made by two 
 treaties, one of April 5, 1503, and the other of September 22, 1504, 
 for the sake of this marriage. He had assigned as dowry to his 
 daughter, first the duchy of Milan, then the kingdom of Naples, 
 then Brittany, and then the duchy of Burgundy and the countship 
 of Blois. The latter of these treaties contained even the following 
 strange clause : ' If, by default of the Most Christian king or of 
 the queen his wife, or of the Princess Claude, the aforesaid marriage Dismem- 
 should not take place, the Most Christian king doth will and O f F ranC e 
 consent, from now, that the said duchies of Burgundy and Milan 
 and the countship of Asti, do remain settled upon the said Prince 
 Charles, duke of Luxembourg, with all the rights therein possessed 
 or possibly to be possessed by the Most Christian king." [Corps 
 Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, by J. Dumont, t. iv. part i. p. 57.] 
 It was dismembering France and at the same time settling on all 
 her frontiers, to east, west, and south-west, as well as to north and 
 south, a power which the approaching union of two crowns, the 
 imperial and the Spanish, on the head of Prince Charles of Austria 
 rendered so preponderating and so formidable. 
 
230 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1506, 
 
 Annulled 
 by the 
 States- 
 general. 
 
 A.D. .1506 
 1511. 
 
 Summary 
 of the 
 Italian 
 war. 
 
 The states-general were convoked and met at Tours (1506) for 
 the purpose of deliberating upon so important a step : the nation 
 protested, through the voice of George d'Amboise, against the poli- 
 tical arrangements made by Anne of Brittany, and the king seized 
 the earliest opportunity of annulling by force what he would never 
 have consented to, had the suggestion been offered to him whilst 
 he was in the enjoyment of his usual health. 
 
 Whatever displeasure must have been caused to the emperor of 
 Germany and to the king of Spain by this resolution on the part of 
 France' and her king, it did not show itself either in acts of hos- 
 tility, or even in complaints of a more or less threatening kind. Italy 
 remained for some years longer the sole theatre of rivalry and strife 
 between these three great powers ; and, during this strife, the utter 
 diversity of the combinations, whether in the way of alliance or of 
 rupture, bore witness to the extreme changeability of the interests, 
 passions, and designs of the actors. From 1506 to 1515, between 
 Louis XII.'s will and his death, we find in the history of his 
 career in Italy five coalitions and as many great battles of a pro- 
 foundly contradictory character. In 1508, Pope Julius II., Louis 
 XII., Emperor Maximilian, and Ferdinand the Catholic, king of 
 Spain, form together against the Venetians the League of Cambrai. 
 In 1510, Julius II., Ferdinand, the Venetians, and the Swiss make 
 a coalition against Louis XII. In 1512, this coalition, decomposed 
 for a while, re-unites, under the name of the League of the Holy 
 Union, between the pope, the Venetians, the Swiss, and the kings 
 of Arragon and Naples against Louis XII., minus the Emperor 
 Maximilian and jpZws Henry VIII., king of England. On the 14th 
 of May, 1509, Louis XII., in the name of the League of Cambrai, 
 gains the battle of Agnadello against the Venetians. On the llth 
 of April, 1512, it is against Pope Julius II., Ferdinand the Catholic, 
 and the Venetians that he gains the battle of Ravenna. On the 
 14th of March, 1513, he is in alliance with the Venetians, and it 
 is against the Swiss that he loses the battle of JSTovara. In 1510, 
 1511, and 1512, in the course of all these incessant changes of 
 political allies and adversaries, three councils met at Tours, at Pisa, 
 and at St. John Lateran, with views still more discordant and 
 irreconcilable than those of all these laic coalitions. We merely 
 point out here the principal traits of the nascent sixteenth century ; 
 we have no intention of tracing with a certain amount of detail any 
 incidents but those that refer to Louis XII. and to France, to their 
 procedure and their fortunes. 
 
 Jealousy, ambition, secret resentment, and the prospect of 
 despoiling them caused the formation of the League of Camlrai 
 against the Venetians. Independently of their natural haughtiness 
 
Battle of Agnadello. 231 
 
 the Venetians were puffed up with the advantages they had ob- 
 tained in a separate campaign against the Emperor Maximilian, and 
 flattered themselves that they would manage to conquer one after 
 the other, or to split up, or to tire out their enemies ; and they pre- 
 pared energetically for war. Louis XII., on his side, got together The Vene- 
 an army with a strength of 2300 lances (about 13,000 mounted 
 troops), 10,000 to 12,000 French foot and 6000 or 8000 Swiss. 
 One of his most distinguished officers was the celebrated Bayard, 
 whose courage and high sense of honour merited for him the title of 
 Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. 
 
 On the 14th of May, 1509, the French and the Venetians A.D. 1509. 
 encountered near the village of Agnadello, in the province of Lodi, Affnadello 
 on the banks of the Adda. Louis XII. commanded his army in person, (May 14) . 
 with Louis de la Tremoille and James Trivulzio for his principal 
 lieutenants : the Venetians were under the orders of two generals, 
 the count of Petigliano and Barthelemy d'Alviano, both members 
 of the Eoman family of the Orsini, but not on good terms with one 
 another. The great blow fell upon the Venetians' infantry, which 
 lost, according to some, eight thousand men ; others say that the 
 number of dead on both sides did not amount to more than six 
 thousand. The territorial results of the victory were greater than 
 the numerical losses of the armies. Within a fortnight the towns 
 of Caravaggio, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Cremona and Pizzighi- 
 tone surrendered to the French. Peschiera alone, a strong fortress 
 at the southern extremity of the Lake of Garda, resisted and was 
 carried by assault. 
 
 Louis, so gentle at home, behaved barbarously in Italy ; he put 
 to the sword every garrison which dared to hold out against his 
 forces, and sent to the gallows every peasant who cried "San 
 Marco ! " In this extremity, the republic saved itself by an act of 
 wisdom which was at the same time a masterpiece of calculation. 
 They withdrew their troops from all the cities on the mainland, 
 and released their subjects from their oath of allegiance. These, no 
 longer constrained to fidelity, made it a point of honour to remain 
 spontaneously faithful. Concentrated between its own walls and 
 safe by its inexpregnable position in the midst of the sea, Venice 
 waited patiently for discord to break out amongst the confederates. 
 This soon came to pass. Louis XII. committed the mistake of Political 
 embroiling himself with the Swiss by refusing to add 20,000 Jj!ra 8 
 livres to the pay of 60,000 he was giving them already, and by XII. 
 styling them "wretched mountain-shepherds who presumed to 
 impose upon him a tax he was not disposed to submit to." The 
 pope conferred the investiture of the kingdom of Naples upon 
 
232 History of France. 
 
 Ferdinand the Catholic, who at first promised only his neutrality, 
 hut could not fail to be drawn in still further when war was 
 rekindled in Italy. In all these negotiations with the Venetians, 
 the Swiss, the kings of Spain and England and the Emperor Maxi- 
 milian, Julius II. took a bold initiative. Maximilian alone remained 
 for some time at peace with the king of France. In October, 1511, 
 a league was formally concluded between the pope, the Venetians, 
 the Swiss and King Ferdinand against Louis XII. A place was 
 reserved in it for the king of England, Henry VIII., who, on 
 ascending the throne, had sent word to the king of France that "he 
 desired to abide in the same friendship that the king his father 
 had kept up," but who, at the bottom of his heart, burned to 
 resume on the Continent an active and a prominent part. The 
 coalition thus formed was called the League of Holy Union. " I," 
 said Louis XII., "am the Saracen against whom this league is 
 directed." 
 
 He had just lost, a few months previously, the intimate and 
 faithful adviser and friend of his whole life; Cardinal George 
 d'Amboise, seized at Milan with a fit of the gout, during which 
 Louis tended him with the assiduity and care of an affectionate 
 brother, died at Lyons on the 25th of May, 1510, at fifty years of 
 Cardinal a S e - He was one, not of the greatest, but of the most honest 
 d'Amboise ministers who ever enjoyed a. powerful monarch's constant favour, 
 ' ay '" and employed it, we will not say with complete disinterestedness, 
 but with a predominant anxiety for the public weal. In the 
 His cha- matter of external policy the influence of Cardinal d'Amboise was 
 racter. neither skilfully nor salutarily exercised : he, like his master, 
 indulged in those views of distant, incoherent and improvident 
 conquests which caused the reign of Louis XII. to be wasted in 
 ceaseless wars, with which the Cardinal's desire of becoming pope 
 was not altogether unconnected, and which, after having resulted 
 in nothing but reverses, were a heavy heritage for the succeeding 
 reign. But at home, in his relations with the king and in his civil 
 and religious administration, Cardinal d'Amboise was an earnest 
 and effective friend of justice, of sound social order, and of regard 
 for morality in the practice of power. It is said that, in his latter 
 days, he, virtuously weary of the dignities of this world, said to 
 the infirmary -brother who was attending him, " Ah ! Brother 
 John, why did I not always remain Brother John ! " A pious 
 regret, the sincerity and modesty whereof are rare amongst men of 
 high estate. 
 
 "At last, then, I am the only pope ! " cried Julius II., when he 
 heard that Cardinal d'Amboise was dead. But his joy was mis- 
 
" TJie barbarians must be driven from Italy'.' 233 
 
 placed : the cardinal's death was a great loss to him ; "between the 
 king and the pope the cardinal had been an intelligent mediator 
 who understood the two positions and the two characters, and who, 
 though most faithful and devoted to the king, had nevertheless a 
 place in his heart for the papacy also, and laboured earnestly on 
 every occasion to bring about between the two rivals a policy of 
 moderation and peace. War was rekindled, or, to speak more cor- 
 rectly, resumed its course after the cardinal's death. Julius II. 
 plunged into it in person, moving to every point where it was going 
 on, living in the midst of camps, himself in military costume, 
 besieging towns, having his guns pointed and assaults delivered 
 under his own eyes. Men expressed astonishment, not unmixed 
 with admiration, at the indomitable energy of this soldier-pope at 
 seventy years of age. It was said that he had cast into the Tiber 
 the keys of St. Peter to gird on the sword of St. Paul. His answer 
 to everything was, " The barbarians must be driven from Italy." 
 Louis XII. became more and more irritated and undecided. 
 
 From 1510 to 1512 the war in Italy was thus proceeding, but Gastonde 
 with no great results, when Gaston de Foix, duke of Nemours, ^nder^f 
 came to take the command of the French army. He was scarcely the French 
 twenty-three, and had hitherto only served under Trivulzio and la 
 Palisse ; but he had already a character for bravery and intelli- 
 gence in war. Louis XII. loved this son of his sister Mary of 
 Orleans, and gladly elevated him to the highest rank. Gaston, 
 from the very first, justified this favour. Instead of seeking for 
 glory in the field only, he began by shutting himself up in Milan 
 which the Swiss were besieging. They made him an offer to take 
 the road back to Switzerland, if he would give them a month's 
 pay ; the sum was discussed ; Gaston considered that they asked 
 too much for their withdrawal ; the Swiss broke off the negotia- 
 tion ; but " to the great astonishment of everybody," says Guic- 
 ciardini, " they raised the siege and returned to their own country." 
 The pope was besieging Bologna; Gaston arrived there suddenly 
 with a body of troops whom he had marched out at night through 
 a tempest of wind and snow ; and he was safe inside the place 
 whilst the besiegers were still ignorant of his movement. The 
 siege of Bologna was raised. Gaston left it immediately to march 
 on Brescia, which the Venetians had taken possession of for the 
 Holy League. ' He retook the town by a vigorous assault, gave it 
 up to pillage, punished with death Count Louis Avogaro and his 
 two sons, who had excited the inhabitants against France, and 
 gave a beating to the Venetian .army before its walls. All these 
 successes had been gained in a fortnight. "According to uni- 
 
234 History of France. 
 
 versal opinion," says Guicciardini, " Italy for several centuries had 
 seen nothing like these military operations." 
 
 AD 1512 Finally, a decisive battle was fought at Eavenna (April llth) 
 Killed at ' which cost the life of the heroic French commander. When the 
 Ravenna fatal news was known, the consternation and grief were profound. 
 '* At the age of twenty-three Gaston de Foix had in less than six 
 months won the confidence and affection of the army, of the king 
 and of France. It was one of those sudden and undisputed repu- 
 tations which seem to mark out men for the highest destinies. " I 
 would fain," said Louis XII., when he heard of his death, " have 
 no longer an inch of land in Italy and be able at that price to bring 
 back to life my nephew Gaston and all the gallants who perished 
 The domi- with him. God keep us from often gaining such victories ! " La 
 
 nation of p a ii sse a wa rrior valiant and honoured, assumed the command of 
 
 tne J? rencn 
 
 disappears this victorious army ; but under pressure of repeated attacks from 
 
 from Italy, the Spaniards, the Venetians and the Swiss, he gave up first the 
 Eomagna, then Milaness, withdrew from place to place, and ended 
 by falling back on Piedmont. Julius II. won back all he had 
 won and lost. Maximilian Sforza, son of Ludovic the Moor, after 
 twelve years of exile in Germany, returned to Milan 'to resume 
 possession of his father's duchy. By the end of June, 1512, less 
 than three months after the victory of Eavenna, the domination of 
 the French had disappeared from Italy. 
 
 Louis XII. had, indeed, something else to do besides crossing 
 the Alps to go to the protection of such precarious conquests. 
 Into France itself war was about to make its way ; it was his own 
 kingdom and his own country that he had to defend. In vain, 
 after the death of Isabella of Castile, had he married his niece, 
 Germaine de Foix, to Ferdinand the Catholic, whilst giving up to 
 him all pretensions to the kingdom of Naples. In 1512 Ferdinand 
 invaded Navarre, took possession of the Spanish portion of that 
 little kingdom, and thence threatened Gascony. Henry VIII., king 
 of England, sent him a fleet, which did not withdraw until after it 
 had appeared before Bayonne and thrown the south-west of France 
 into a state of alarm. In the north Henry VIII. continued his 
 preparations for an expedition into France, obtained from his par- 
 lianfent subsidies for that purpose, and concerted plans with 
 Emperor Maximilian, who renounced his doubtful neutrality, and 
 
 Lea 'u?" 17 en 8 a S e(i nimself at last in the Holy League. Louis XII. had in 
 Germany an enemy as zealous almost as Julius II. was in Italy : 
 Maximilian's daughter, Princess Marguerite of Austria, had never 
 forgiven France or its king, whether he were called Charles VIII. 
 or Louis XII., the treatment she had received from that court 
 
Death of Pope Julius IL 235 
 
 when, after having been kept there and "brought up for eight years 
 to become queen of France, she had been sent away, and handed 
 back to her father, to make way for Anne of Brittany. She was 
 ruler of the Low Countries, active, able, full of passion, and in 
 continual correspondence with her father, the emperor, over whom 
 she exercised a great deal of influence. The Swiss, on their side, 
 continuing to smart under the contemptuous language which Louis 
 had imprudently applied to them, became more and more pro- 
 nounced against him, rudely dismissed Louis de la Tremoille who 
 attempted to negotiate with them, re-established Maximilian Sforza 
 in the duchy of Milan, and haughtily sty led themselves "vanquishers 
 of kings and defenders of the holy Roman Church." And the 
 Roman Church made a good defender of herself. Julius II. had 
 convoked at Rome, at St. John Lateran, a council, which met on 
 the 3rd of May, 1512, and in presence of which the council of Pisa 
 and Milan, after an attempt at removing to Lyons, vanished away 
 like a phantom. Everywhere things were turning out according to 
 the wishes and for the profit of the pope ; and France and her king 
 were reduced to defending themselves on their own soil against a 
 coalition of all their great neighbours. 
 
 On the 21st of February, 1513, ten months since Gaston de Foix A.D. 1513. 
 the victor of Ravenna, had perished in the hour of his victory, Death of 
 Pope Julius II. died at Rome at the very moment when he seemed j u ii u g n. 
 invited to enjoy all the triumph of his policy. He died without (Feb. 21). 
 bluster and without disquietude, disavowing naught of his past life 
 and relinquishing none of his designs as to the future. The death 
 of Julius II. seemed to Louis XII. a favourable opportunity for 
 once more setting foot in Italy, and recovering at least that which 
 he regarded as his hereditary right, the duchy of Milan. He com- State of 
 missioned Louis de la Tremoille to go and renew the conquest ; and, Eur P e - 
 whilst thus reopening the Italian war, he commenced negotiations 
 with certain of the coalitionists of the Holy League, in the hope of 
 causing division amongst them, or even of attracting some one of 
 them to himself. He knew that the Venetians were dissatisfied 
 and disquieted about their allies, especially the Emperor Maximilian, 
 the new duke of Milan, Maximilian Sforza, and the Swiss. He had 
 little difficulty in coming to an understanding with the Venetian 
 senate ; and, on the 14th of May, 1513, a treaty of alliance, offen- 
 sive and defensive, was signed at Blois between the king of France 
 and the republic of Venice. Louis hoped also to find at Rome in 
 the new pope, Leo X. [Cardinal John de' Medici, elected pope 
 March 11, 1513], favourable inclinations; but they were at first 
 very ambiguously and reservedly manifested. As a Florentine, Leo X. 
 
236 History of France. 
 
 had a leaning towards France ; but as pope, he was not disposed 
 to relinquish or disavow the policy of Julius II. as to the indepen- 
 dence of Italy in respect of any foreign sovereign, and as to the 
 extension of the power of the Holy See ; and he wanted time to 
 make up his mind to infuse into his relations with Louis XII. good- 
 Poor re- will instead of his predecessor's impassioned hostility. Louis had 
 suits of the no t an( j could not have any confidence in Ferdinand the Catholic ; 
 foreign but ne ^ new hi m to be as prudent as he was rascally, and he 
 policy. concluded with him at Orthez, on the 1st of April, 1513, a year's 
 truce, which Ferdinand took great care not to make known to his 
 allies, Henry VIII. king of England, and the Emperor Maximilian, 
 the former of whom was very hot-tempered, and the latter very 
 deeply involved, through his daughter Marguerite of Austria, in the 
 warlike league against France. This was all that was gained during 
 the year of Julius II.'s death by Louis XII. 's attempts to break up 
 or weaken the coalition against France ; and these feeble diplomatic 
 advantages were soon nullified by the unsuccess of the French 
 expedition in Milaness. Conquerors at Novara, the Swiss drove 
 the French from the duchy of Milan, which La Tremoille had 
 reconquered ; in Burgundy they besieged Dijon ; in the north the 
 combined troops of Maximilian and Henry VIII. of England gained 
 the battle of Guinegate, sometimes called battle of the Spurs, on 
 account of the haste with which the French cavalry, under the 
 influence of a panic flight, fled from the field of battle. The truce 
 of Orleans, followed by the treaty of London, put a stop to these 
 disasters, and the Italian question remained still undecided. 
 
 Such was the situation in which France, after a reign of fifteen 
 years and in spite of so many brave and devoted servants, had been 
 placed by Louis XII. 's foreign policy. Had he managed the home 
 affairs of his kingdom as badly and with as little success as he had 
 matters abroad, is it necessary to say what would have been his 
 people's feelings towards him, and what name he would have left 
 in history? Happily for France and for the memory of Louis XIL, 
 his home-government was more sensible, more clear-sighted, more 
 able, more moral, and more productive of good results than his 
 foreign policy was. 
 
 policy^f When we consider this reign from this new point of view, we 
 Louis XII. are at once struck by two facts : 1st, the great number of legislative 
 and administrative acts that we meet with, bearing upon the general 
 interests of the country, interests political, judicial, financial, and 
 commercial ; the Reciieil des Ordonnances des Rois de France con- 
 tains forty-three important acts of this sort owing their origin to 
 Louis XIL; it was clearly a government full of watchfulness, 
 
Home Policy of Louis XII. 237 
 
 activity, and attention to good order and the public weal ; 2nd, the 
 
 profound remembrance remaining in succeeding ages of this reign 
 
 and its deserts ; a remembrance which was manifested, in 1560 
 
 amongst the states-general of Orleans, in 1576 and 1588 amongst 
 
 the states of Blois, in 1593 amongst the states of the League, and 
 
 even down to 1614 amongst the states of Paris. During more 
 
 than a hundred years France called to mind, and took pleasure in 
 
 calling to mind the administration of Louis XII. as the type of a His admi- 
 
 wise, intelligent, and effective regimen. Confidence may be felt in m stration. 
 
 a people's memory when it inspires them for so long afterwards with 
 
 sentiments of justice and gratitude. 
 
 If from the simple table of the acts of Louis XII. 's home-govern- 
 ment we pass to an examination of their practical results, it is plain 
 that they were good and salutary. 
 
 Foreigners were not less impressed than the French themselves with 
 the advance in order, activity, and prosperity which had taken place 
 amongst the French community. Macchiavelli admits it, and, with 
 the melancholy of an Italian politician acting in the midst of rival- 
 ries amongst the Italian republics, he attributes it above all to 
 French unity, superior to that of any other State in Europe. 
 
 As to the question, to whom reverts the honour of the good 
 government at home under Louis XII. , and of so much progress in 
 the social condition of France, it may be attributed, in a great mea- 
 sure, to the influence of the states assembled .at Tours, in 1484, at 
 the beginning of the reign of Charles VIII. ; but Louis XII.'s per- 
 sonal share in the good home-government of France during his 
 reign was also more meritorious. His chief merit, a rare one 
 amongst the powerful of the earth, especially when there is a ques- 
 tion of reforms and of liberty, was that he understood and enter- 
 tained the requirements and wishes of his day ; he was a mere 
 young prince of the blood when the states of 1484 were sitting at 
 Tours ; but he did not forget them when he was king, and, far from 
 repudiating their patriotic and modest work in the cause of reform 
 and progress, he entered into it sincerely and earnestly with the aid 
 of Cardinal d'Amboise, his honest, faithful, and ever influential 
 councillor. The character and natural instincts of Louis XII. 
 inclined him towards the same views as his intelligence and modera- 
 tion in politics suggested. He was kind, sympathetic towards his His intelli- 
 people, and anxious to spare them every burden and every sufferin 
 that was unnecessary, and to have justice, real and independent jus- tion. 
 tice, rendered to all. He reduced the talliages a tenth at first and 
 a third at a later period. He refused to accept the dues usual on a 
 joyful accession. "When the wars in Italy caused him some extra- 
 
238 History of France. 
 
 ordinary expense he disposed of a portion of the royal possessions, 
 Btrictly administered as they were, before imposing fresh burdens 
 upon the people. His court was inexpensive, and he had no 
 favourites to enrich. His economy became proverbial ; it was 
 sometimes made a reproach to him ; and things were carried so far 
 that he was represented, on the stage of a popular theatre, ill, pale, 
 and surrounded by doctors, who were holding a consultation as to 
 the nature of his malady : they at last agreed to give him a potion 
 of gold to take ; the sick man at once sat up, complaining of nothing 
 more than a burning thirst. When informed of this scandalous 
 piece of buffoonery, Louis contented himself with saying, " I had 
 rather make courtiers laugh by my stinginess than my people weep 
 by my extravagance." He was pressed to punish some insolent 
 comedians, but, " No" said he, " amongst their ribaldries they may 
 sometimes tell us useful truths ; let them amuse themselves, pro. 
 vided that they respect the honour of women." In the administra- 
 stration ** on ^ J us ^ ce ^ e accomplished important reforms, called for by 
 justice. the states-general of 1484 and promised by Louis XI. and Charles 
 VIII., but nearly all of them left in suspense. The purchase of 
 offices was abolished and replaced by a two-fold election : in all 
 grades of the magistracy, when an office was vacant, the judges were 
 to assemble to select three persons from whom the king should be 
 bound to choose. The irremovability of the magistrates, which had 
 been accepted but often violated by Louis XL, became under Louis 
 XII. a fundamental rule. It was forbidden to every one of the king's 
 magistrates, from the premier-president to the lowest provost, to 
 accept any place or pension from any lord, under pain of suspension 
 from their office or loss of their salary. The annual Mercurials 
 (Wednesday meetings) became, in the supreme courts, a general and 
 standing usage. The expenses of the law were reduced. In 1501, 
 Louis XII. instituted at Aix, in Provence, a new Parliament ; in 
 1499 the court of exchequer at Eouen, hitherto a supreme but mov- 
 able and temporary court, became a fixed and permanent court which 
 afterwards received, under Francis I., the title of Parliament. Be- 
 ing convinced before long, by facts themselves, that these reforms 
 were seriously meant by their author and were practically effective, 
 the people conceived, in consequence, towards the king and the 
 magistrates a general sentiment of gratitude and respect. 
 
 Louis XII. 's private life also contributed to win for him, we will 
 
 not say the respect and admiration, but the goodwill of the public. 
 
 Private He was not, like Louis IX., a model of austerity and sanctity ; but 
 
 life * after the licentious court of Charles VII., the coarse habits of 
 
 Louis XI. and the easy morals of Charles VIIL, the French public 
 
Matrimonial Alliances. 
 
 239 
 
 was not exacting. Louis XII. was thrice married. His first wife, 
 Joan, daughter of Louis XL, was an excellent and worthy princess, 
 but ugly, ungraceful, and hump-backed. He had been almost forced 
 to marry her, and he had no child by her. On ascending the throne 
 he begged Pope Alexander VI. to annul his marriage ; the negotia- 
 tion was anything but honourable either to the king or to the pope ; 
 and the pope granted his bull in consideration of the favours shown 
 to his unworthy son, Caesar Eorgia, by the king. Joan alone 
 behaved with a virtuous as well as modest pride, and ended her life 
 in sanctity within a convent at Bourges, being wholly devoted to 
 pious works, regarded by the people as a saint, spoken of by bold 
 preachers as a martyr and " still the true and legitimate queen of ,, . . 
 France," and treated at a distance with profound respect by the king monial 
 who had put her away. Louis married in 1499 his predecessor's alliances, 
 widow, Anne, duchess of Brittany, twenty-three years of age, Brittany, 
 short, pretty, a little lame, witty, able, and firm. It was, on both 
 sides, a marriage of policy, though romantic tales have been mixed 
 up with it ; it was a suitable and honourable royal arrangement, 
 without any lively affection on one side or the other, but with mutual* 
 esteem and regard. As queen, Anne was haughty, imperious, sharp- 
 tempered, and too much inclined to mix in intrigues and negotia- 
 tions at Eome and Madrid, sometimes without regard for the king's 
 policy; but she kept up her court with spirit and dignity, being 
 respected by her ladies, whom she treated well, and favourably 
 regarded by the public, who were well disposed towards her for hav- 
 ing given Brittany to France. Some courtiers showed their astonish- 
 ment that the king should so patiently bear with a character so far 
 from agreeable ; but " one must surely put up with something from 
 a woman," said Louis, " when she loves her honour and her hus- 
 band." After a union of fifteen years, Anne of Brittany died on 
 the 9th of January, 1514, at the castle of Blois, nearly thirty-seven 
 years old. Louis was then fifty-two. He seemed very much to 
 regret his wife ; but, some few months after her death, another mar- The Prin- 
 riage of policy was put, on his behalf, in course of negotiation. It 
 was in connexion with Princess Mary of England, sister of Henry 
 VIII., with whom it was very important for Louis XII. and for 
 France to be once more at peace and on good terms. Three treaties 
 were concluded on the 7th of August, 1514, between the kings of 
 France and England in order to regulate the conditions of their politi- 
 cal and matrimonial alliance; on the 13th of August the duke de 
 Longueville, in his sovereign's name, espoused the Princess Mary 
 at Greenwich ; and she, escorted to France by a brilliant embassy, 
 arrived on the 8th of October at Abbeville where Louis XII. was 
 
240 History of France. 
 
 awaiting her. Three days afterwards the marriage was solemnized 
 there in state, and Louis, who had suffered from gout during the cere- 
 mony, carried off his young queen to Paris after having had her 
 crowned at St. Denis. Mary Tudor had given up the German 
 prince, who was destined to become Charles V., but not the hand- 
 some English nobleman she loved. The duke of Suffolk went to 
 France to see her after her marriage, and in her train she had as 
 maid of honour a young girl, a beauty as well, who was one day to 
 be queen of England Anne Boleyn. 
 
 A.D. 1515. Less than three months after this marriage, on the 1st of January, 
 
 Louis XII 1^15, "the death-bell-men were traversing the streets of Paris, 
 
 ringing their bells and crying, ' The good King Louis, father of the 
 
 people, is dead.' " Louis XII., in fact, had died that very day at 
 
 midnight, from an attack of gout and a rapid decline. 
 
 To the last of his days he was animated by earnest sympathy and 
 active solicitude for his people. It cost him a great deal to make 
 with the king of England the treaties of August 7, 1514, to cede 
 Tournai to the English, and to agree to the payment 'to them of 
 1 a hundred thousand crowns a year for ten years. He did it to 
 restore peace to France, attacked on her own soil, and feeling her 
 prosperity threatened. Eor the same reason he negotiated with 
 Pope Leo X., Emperor Maximilian and Ferdinand the Catholic, 
 His solid- and he had very nearly attained the same end by entering once 
 trade for his more U p 0n p ac ifi c relations with them, when death came and struck 
 him down at the age of fifty-three. He died sorrowing over the 
 concessions he had made from a patriotic sense of duty as much as 
 from necessity, and full of disquietude about the future. He felt a 
 sincere affection for Francis de Valois, count of Angouleme, his son- 
 in-law and successor ; the marriage between his daughter Claude 
 and that prince had been the chief and most difficult affair connected 
 with his domestic life ; and it was only after the death of the queen 
 Anne of Brittany, that he had it proclaimed and celebrated. The 
 bravery, the brilliant parts, the amiable character, and the easy 
 grace of Francis I. delighted him, but he dreaded his presumptuous 
 inexperience, his reckless levity, and his ruinous extravagance ; and 
 in his anxiety as a king and father he said, "We are labouring in 
 vain ; this big boy will spoil everything for us." 
 
FRANCIS I. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION FRANCIS I. AND HENRY II. 
 (15151559). 
 
 Two things, essential to political prosperity amongst communities 
 of men, have hitherto "been to seek in France ; predominance of 
 public spirit over the spirit of caste or of profession, and modera- 
 tion and fixity in respect of national ambition both at home and 
 abroad. France has been a victim to the personal passions of her 
 chiefs and to her own reckless changeability. 
 
 We are entering upon the history of a period and a reign 
 during which this intermixture of merits and demerits, of virtues 
 and vices, of progress and backsliding, was powerfully and attrac- 
 tively exhibited amongst the French. Francis I., his government 
 and his times, commence the era of modern France, and bring 
 clearly to view the causes of her greatnesses and her weaknesses. 
 When, on the 1st of January, 1515, he ascended the throne before A.D. 1515. 
 he had attained his one and twentieth year, it was a brilliant and Acces- 
 
 81011 01 
 
 brave but spoilt child that became king. He had been under the Francis I. 
 governance of Artus Gouffier, sire de Boisy, a nobleman of Poitou, 
 who had exerted himself to make his royal pupil a loyal knight 
 well trained in the moral code and all the graces of knighthood, but 
 without drawing his attention to more serious studies or preparing 
 him for the task of government. The young Francis d'Angouleme 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Louise de 
 Savoy. 
 
 Margue- 
 rite de 
 Valois. 
 
 Early gov 
 eminent of 
 
 lived and was moulded under the influence of two women, his 
 mother, Louise of Savoy, and his eldest sister Marguerite, who both 
 of them loved and adored him with passionate idolatry. The former 
 princess was proud, ambitious, audacious or pliant at need, able 
 and steadfast in mind, violent and dissolute in her habits, greedy of 
 pleasure and of money as well as of power, so that she gave her 
 son neither moral principles nor a moral example : for him the 
 supreme kingship, for herself the rank, influence and wealth of a 
 queen-mother, and, for both, greatness that might subserve the 
 gratification of their passions this was all her dream and all her 
 aim as a mother. Of quite another sort were the character and 
 sentiments of Marguerite de Valois. She was born on the llth of 
 April, 1492, and was, therefore, only two years older than her 
 brother Francis ; but her more delicate nature was sooner and more 
 richly cultivated and developed. She was brought up " with 
 strictness by a most excellent and most venerable dame, in whom 
 all the virtues, at rivalry one with another, existed together " 
 [Madame de Chatillon, whose deceased husband had been governour 
 to King Charles VIII.]. As she was discovered to have rare 
 intellectual gifts and a very keen relish for learning, she was pro- 
 vided with every kind of preceptors, who made her proficient in 
 profane letters, as they were then called. Marguerite learnt Latin, 
 Greek, philosophy, and especially theology. Intellectual pursuits, 
 however, were far from absorbing the whole of this young soul. 
 " She," says a contemporary, " had an agreeable voice of touching 
 tone which roused the tender inclinations that *there are in the 
 heart." Tenderness, a passionate tenderness, very early assumed 
 the chief place in Marguerite's soul, and the first object of it was 
 her brother Francis. When mother, son, and sister were spoken 
 of, they were called a Trinity, and to this Marguerite herself bore 
 witness when she said with charming modesty : 
 
 " Such boon is mine, to feel the amity 
 That God hath putten in our trinity, 
 Wherein to make a third, I, all unfitted 
 To be that number's shadow, am admitted." 
 
 Marguerite it was for whom this close communion of three per- 
 sons had the most dolorous consequences : we shall fall in with her 
 more than once in the course of this history ; but, whether or no, 
 she was assuredly the best of this princely trio, and Francis I. 
 was the most spoilt by it. There is nothing more demoralizing 
 than to be an idol. 
 
 The first acts of his government were sensible and of good omen. 
 
 Francis I. He confirmed or renewed the treaties or truces which Louis XII., 
 
Francis I. and his advisers. 243 
 
 at the close of his reign, had concluded with the Venetians, the 
 Swiss, the pope, the king of England, the archduke Charles and 
 the emperor Maximilian, in order to restore peace to his kingdom. 
 At home Francis I. maintained at his council the principal and 
 most tried servants of his predecessor, amongst others the finance- 
 minister, Florimond Eobertet ; and he raised to four the number 
 of the marshals of France, in order to confer that dignity on Bayard's His advi- 
 valiant friend, James of Chabannes, lord of la Palice, who even sers * 
 under Louis XII. had been entitled by the Spaniards " the great 
 marshal of France." At the same time he exalted to the highest 
 offices in the State two new men, Charles, duke of Bourbon, who 
 was still a mere youth but already a warrior of renown, and 
 Anthony Duprat, the able premier president of the parliament of 
 Paris ; the former he made constable, and the latter chancellor of 
 France. His mother, Louise of Savoy, was not unconcerned, it is 
 said, in both promotions ; she was supposed to feel for the young 
 constable something more than friendship, and she regarded the 
 veteran magistrate, not without reason, as the man most calculated 
 to unreservedly subserve the interests of the kingly power and 
 her own. 
 
 These measures, together with the language and the behaviour 
 of Francis I. and the care he took to conciliate all who approached 
 him, made a favourable impression on France and on Europe. In 
 Italy, especially, princes as well as people, and Pope Leo X. before 
 all, flattered themselves, or were pleased to appear as if they 
 flattered themselves, that war would not come near them again, 
 and that the young king had his heart set only on making 
 Burgundy secure against sudden and outrageous attacks from the 
 Swiss. The aged king of Spain, Ferdinand the Catholic, adopting 
 the views of his able minister, Cardinal Ximenes, alone showed 
 distrust and anxiety ; he urged the pope, the emperor Maximilian, 
 the Swiss, and Maximilian Sforza, duke of Milan, to form a league 
 for the defence of Italy ; but Leo X. persisted in his desire of 
 remaining or appearing neutral, as the common father of the faithful. 
 Neither the king of France nor the pope had for long to take the 
 trouble of practising mutual deception. It was announced at Rome Francis L 
 that Francis I., having arrived at Lyons in July, 1515, had just m a *' 
 committed to his mother Louise the regency of the kingdom, and was 
 pushing forward towards the Alps an army of sixty thousand men 
 and a powerful artillery. He had won over to his service 
 Octavian Fregoso, doge of Genoa ; and Barthelemy d'Alviano, the 
 veteran general of his allies the Venetians, was encamped with his 
 troops within hail of Verona, ready to support the French in the 
 
 R2 
 
244 History of France. 
 
 struggle he foresaw. Francis I. on his side, was informed that 
 twenty thousand Swiss, commanded by the Roman, Prosper 
 Colonna, were guarding the passes of the Alps in order to shut 
 him out from Milaness. At the same time he received the news 
 that the cardinal of Sion, his most zealous enemy in connexion 
 with the Eoman Church, was devotedly employing, with the secret 
 support of the emperor Maximilian, his influence and his preaching 
 for the purpose of raising in Switzerland a second army of from 
 twenty to five-and-twenty thousand men to be launched against 
 him, if necessary, in Italy. A Spanish and Roman army, under 
 the orders of Don Raymond of Cardone, rested motionless at 
 some distance from the Po, waiting for events and for orders 
 prescribing the part they were to take. It was clear that Francis 
 I., though he had been but six months king, was resolved and 
 impatient to resume in Italy, and first of all in Milaness, the war 
 of invasion and conquest which had been engaged in by Charles 
 VIII. and Louis XII. : and the league of all the States of Italy, 
 save Venice and Genoa, with the pope for their half-hearted patron 
 and the Swiss for their fighting men, were collecting their forces 
 to repel the invader. 
 
 A.D. 1515. On the 13th of September, 1515, the French encountered and 
 M^le^nano defeated the Swiss at Melegnano, a town about three leagues from 
 Sept. 13th. Milan ; this victory was the most brilliant day in the annals of this 
 reign. Old Marshal Trivulzio, who had taken part in seventeen 
 battles, said that this was a strife of giants, beside which all the 
 rest were but child's play. On the very battle-field, before making 
 and creating knights of those who had done him. good service, 
 Francis I. was pleased to have himself made knight by the hand 
 of Bayard. The effect of the battle was great, in Italy primarily, 
 but also throughout Europe. It was, at the commencement of a 
 new reign and under the impulse communicated by a young king, 
 an event which seemed to be decisive and likely to remain so for a 
 long while. Of all the sovereigns engaged in the Italian league 
 against Francis I. he who was most anxious to appear temperate 
 and almost neutral, namely Leo X., was precisely he who was 
 most surprised and most troubled by it. He made up his mind 
 without much trouble, however, to accept accomplished facts. 
 When he had been elected pope, he had said to his brother, Julian 
 de' Medici, "Enjoy we the papacy, since God hath given it us" 
 [Godiamoci il papato, poiclie Dio ci V ha data]. He appeared to 
 have no further thought than how to pluck from the event the 
 advantages he could discover in it. His allies all set him an example 
 of resignation. On the 14th of September, the day after the battle, 
 
Francis I. treats with his adversaries. 245 
 
 the Swiss took the road back to their mountains. Francis I. 
 entered Milan in triumph. Maximilian Sforza took refuge in the 
 castle, and twenty days afterwards, on the 4th of October, surren- 
 dered, consenting to retire to France with a pension of thirty 
 thousand crowns, and the promise of being recommended for a car- 
 dinal's hat, and almost consoled for his downfall " by the pleasure of 
 being delivered from the insolence of the Swiss, the exactions of 
 the emperor Maximilian, and the rascalities of the Spaniards." Negotia- 
 Fifteen years afterwards, in June, 1530, he died in oblivion at Paris. tions - 
 Francis I. regained possession of all Milaness, adding thereto, with 
 the pope's consent, the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which had 
 been detached from it in 1512. Two treaties, one of November 7, 
 1515, and the other of November 29, 1516, re-established not only 
 peace but perpetual alliance between the king of France and the 
 thirteen Swiss cantons, with stipulated conditions in detail. Whilst 
 these negotiations were in progress, Francis I. and Leo X., by a 
 treaty published at Yiterbo on the 1 3th of October, proclaimed 
 their hearty reconciliation. The pope guaranteed to Francis I. the 
 duchy of Milan, restored to him those of Parma and Piacenza, and 
 recalled his troops which were still serving against the Venetians ; 
 being careful, however, to cover his concessions by means of forms 
 and pretexts which gave them the character of a necessity submitted 
 to rather than that of an independent and definite engagement. 
 Francis I. on his side, guaranteed to the pope all the possessions of 
 the Church, renounced the patronage of the petty princes of the 
 ecclesiastical estate, and promised to uphold the family of Medici 
 in the position it had held at Florence, since, with the king of Spain's 
 aid, in 1512, it had recovered the dominion there at the expense 
 of the party of republicans and friends oi France. 
 
 The king of France and the pope had to discuss together ques- Francis I. 
 tions far more important on both sides than those which had just 
 been thus settled by their accredited agents. In the course of an 
 interview they had at Bologna, Leo X. obtained of Francis an 
 agreement which abolished the Pragmatic Sanction. Thus sup- 
 ported by the Holy See and by the Venetians, the king of France 
 saw the road to Naples once more opened before his troops ; for the 
 young Charles of Luxemburg, who had just succeeded in Spain to 
 his grandfather Ferdinand the Catholic, was too busy entering upon 
 his inheritance to think of disturbing any plan of Italian conquest 
 which Francis I. might entertain ; but this prince preferred enjoy- 
 ing his victory rather than completing it The treaty of Noyon 
 gave, during a short time, repose to Europe, and allowed the two 
 rivals leisure for the preparing of a far more terrible war. Francis L 
 
246 History of France. 
 
 returned to Milan, leaving at Bologna, for the purpose of treating 
 Chancellor in detail the affair of the Pragmatic Sanction, his chancellor, Duprat, 
 Duprat. ^o j^ accompanied him during all this campaign as his adviser 
 and negotiator. In him the king had, under the name and guise 
 of premier magistrate of the realm, a servant whose bold and com- 
 plaisant abilities he was not slow to recognize and to put in use. 
 At the commencement of the war for the conquest of Milanes? 
 there was a want of money, and Francis I. hesitated to so soon 
 impose new taxes. Duprat gave a scandalous extension to a practice 
 which had been for a long while in use, but had always been 
 reprobated and sometimes formally prohibited, namely, the sale of 
 public appointments or offices : not only did he create a multitude 
 of financial and administrative offices, the sale of which brought 
 considerable sums into the treasury, but he introduced the abuse 
 into the very heart of the judicial body; the tribunals were encum- 
 bered by newly-created magistrates. The Estates of Languedoc 
 complained in vain. The Parliament of Paris was in its turn 
 attacked, and Duprat having resolved to strike a great blow, an edict 
 of January 31, 1522, created within the Parliament a fourth 
 chamber composed of eighteen councillors and two presidents, all of 
 fresh and, no doubt, venal appointment, though the edict dared not 
 avow as much. The registration of this iniquitous measure was 
 obtained by force, and thus began to be implanted in that which 
 should be the most respected and the most independent amongst 
 the functions of government, namely, the administration of justice, 
 not only the practice but the fundamental maxim of absolute go- 
 vernment. Chancellor Duprat, if we are not mistaken, was, in the 
 sixteenth century, the first chief of the French magistracy to make 
 use of language despotic not only in fact but also in principle ; 
 he was the delegate, the organ, the representative of the king ; it 
 was in the name of the king himself that he affirmed the absolute 
 power of the kingship and the absolute duty of submission. 
 Francis I. could not have committed the negotiation with Leo X. 
 in respect of Charles VII. 's Pragmatic Sanction to a man with 
 more inclination and better adapted for the work to be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Pragmatic ^e f ra ff ma ^ c Sanction had three principal objects : 
 Sanction. 1. To uphold the liberties and the influence of the faithful in 
 the government of the Church, by sanctioning their right to elect 
 ministers of the Christian faith, especially parish priests and 
 bishops ; 
 
 2. To guarantee the liberties and rights of the Church herself in 
 her relations with her Head, the pope, by proclaiming the necessity 
 
The Pragmatic Sanction and tJie Concordat. 247 
 
 for the regular intervention of councils and their superiority in 
 regard to the pope ; 
 
 3. To prevent or reform abuses in the relations of the papacy Its purport 
 with the State and Church of France in the matter of ecclesiastical 
 tribute, especially as to the receipt by the pope, under the name of 
 annates, of the first year's revenue of the different ecclesiastical 
 offices and benefices. 
 
 In the fifteenth century it was the general opinion in France, 
 in State and in Church, that there was in these dispositions nothing 
 more than the primitive and traditional liberties and rights of the 
 Christian Church. There was no thought of imposing upon the 
 papacy any new regimen, but only of defending the old and legiti- 
 mate regimen, recognized and upheld by St. Louis in the thirteenth 
 century as well as by Charles VII. in the fifteenth. 
 
 The popes, nevertheless, had all of them protested since the 
 days of Charles VII. against the Pragmatic Sanction as an attack 
 upon their rights, and had demanded its abolition. This important 
 edict, then, was still vigorous in "*I5, when Francis I., after his 
 victory at Melegnano and his reconciliation with the pope, left 
 chancellor Duprat at Bologna to pursue the negotiation reopened 
 on that subject. The compensation, of which Leo X., on redemand- 
 ing the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction, had given a" peep to 
 Francis I., could not fail to have charms for a prince so little 
 scrupulous, and for his still less scrupulous chancellor. The pope 
 proposed that the Pragmatic, once for all abolished, should be 
 replaced by a Concordat between the two sovereigns, and that 
 this Concordat, whilst putting a stop to the election of the clergy The " Con- 
 by the faithful, should transfer to the king the right of nomi- cor at ' 
 nation to bishoprics and other great ecclesiastical offices and 
 benefices, reserving to the pope the righfc of presentation of 
 prelates nominated by the king. This, considering the condition 
 of society and government in the sixteenth century, in the absence 
 of political and religious liberty, was to take away from the 
 Church her own existence and divide her between two masters, 
 without giving her, as regarded either of them, any other guarantee of 
 independence than the mere chance of their dissensions and quarrels. 
 
 Francis I. and his chancellor saw in the proposed Concordat 
 nothing but the great increment of influence it secured to them, 
 by making all the dignitaries of the Church suppliants, at first, and 
 then, clients of the kingship. After some difficulties as to points 
 of detail, the Concordat was concluded and signed on the 18th of 
 August, 1516. Seven months afterwards it was registered, notwith- 
 standing the opposition of the parliament and the university of Paris. 
 
248 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Charles V. 
 
 elected 
 
 The Field 
 of toeCiotl 
 
 Then it was that Francis I. and his chancellor, Duprat, loudly 
 proclaimed and practised the maxims of absolute power ; in the 
 Church, the Pragmatic Sanction was abolished ; and in the State, 
 Francis I., during a reign of thirty-two years, did not once convoke 
 the States -general, and laboured only to set up the sovereign right 
 of his own sole will. The Church was despoiled of her electoral 
 autonomy ; and the magistracy, treated with haughty and silly 
 impertinence, was vanquished and humiliated in the exercise of its 
 right of remonstrance. The Concordat of 1516 was not the only, 
 but it was the gravest, pact of alliance concluded between the 
 papacy and the French kingship for the promotion mutually of 
 absolute power. 
 
 The death of Maximilian and the election of a new emperor were 
 the proximate causes of the renewal of hostilities between Francis I. 
 and Charles Y. ; both these princes were candidates ; and by be- 
 stowing the imperial crown upon the latter, there is no doubt that 
 the electors adopted the safest course; but in doing so they gave the 
 signal for a struggle of the mo.** iesperate and protracted character. 
 
 "Whatever pains were taken by Francis I. to keep up a good 
 appearance after this heavy reverse, his mortification was profound 
 and he thought of nothing but getting his revenge. He nattered 
 himself he would find something of the sort in a solemn interview 
 and an appearance of alliance with Henry VIII., king of England, 
 who had, like himself, just undergone in the election to the 
 empire a less flagrant but an analogous reverse. It had already, 
 in the previous year and on the occasion of a treaty concluded 
 between the two kings for the restitution of Tournai to France, 
 been settled that they should meet before long in token of recon- 
 ciliation. The interview took place on the 31st of May, 1520, 
 between Ardres and Guines, in Picardy; it has remained cele- 
 brated in history far more for its royal pomp, and for the personal 
 incidents which were connected with it, than for its political results. 
 It was called The Field of the Cloth of Gold ; and the courtiers 
 W h attended the two sovereigns felt bound to almost rival them 
 in sumptuousness, " insomuch," says the contemporary Martin du 
 Bellay, " that many bore thither their mills, their forests, and 
 their meadows on their backs." The two kings signed a treaty 
 whereby the dauphin of France was to marry Princess Mary, only 
 daughter at that time of Henry VIII., to whom Francis I. under- 
 took to pay annually a sum of 100,000 livres [2,800,000 francs or 
 XI 12,000 in the money of our day] until the marriage was cele- 
 brated, which would not be for some time yet, as the English 
 princess was only four years old. 
 
Francis I. and Henry VIII. 249 
 
 Having left the Field of Cloth of Gold for Amboise, his favourite Henry VHI 
 residence, Francis I. discovered that Henry VIII., instead of (Carles* y. 
 returning direct to England, had gone, on the 10th of July, to 
 Gravelines in Flanders, to pay a visit to Charles V., who had 
 afterwards accompanied him to Calais. The two sovereigns had 
 spent three days there, and Charles V., on separating from the king 
 of England, had commissioned him to regulate, as arbiter, all 
 difficulties that might arise between himself and the king of 
 France. Assuredly nothing was less calculated to inspire Francis I. 
 with confidence in the results of his meeting with Henry VIII. and 
 of their mutual courtesies. Though he desired to avoid the 
 appearance of taking the initiative in war, he sought every occasion 
 and pretext for recommencing it ; and it was not long before he 
 found them in the Low Countries, in Navarre, and in Italy. A 
 trial was made of Henry VIII. 's mediation and of a conference at 
 Calais ; and a discussion was raised touching the legitimate nature 
 of the protection afforded by the two rival sovereigns to their petty 
 allies. But the real fact was that Francis I. had a reverse to make 
 up for and a passion to gratify ; and the struggle recommenced in 
 April, 1521, in the Low Countries. The campaign opened in the 
 north, to the advantage of France, by the capture of Hesdin ; 
 Admiral Bonnivet, who had the command on the frontier of 
 Spain, reduced some small forts of Biscay and the fortress of Font- 
 arabia ; and Marshal de Lautrec, governor of Milaness, had orders 
 to set out at once to go and defend it against the Spaniards and 
 Imperialists who were concentrating for its invasion. 
 
 Lautrec was but little adapted for this important commission. 
 He had been made governor of Milaness in August, 1516, to 
 replace the constable de Bourbon, whose recall to France the Lautrec. 
 queen-mother, Louise of Savoy, had desired and stimulated. Lau- 
 trec had succeeded ill in his government. He was active and 
 brave, but he was harsh, haughty, jealous, imperious, and grasping ; 
 and he had embroiled himself with most of the Milanese lords, 
 amongst others with the veteran J. J. Trivulzio, who, under 
 Charles VIII. and Louis XII., had done France such great service 
 in Italy. When he set out to go and take the command in Italy, 
 he found himself at the head of an army numerous indeed, but 
 badly equipped, badly paid, and at grips with Prosper Colonna, the 
 most able amongst the chiefs of the coalition formed at this 
 juncture between Charles V. and Pope Leo X. against the French. 
 Lautrec did not succeed in preventing Milan from falling into the 
 hands of the Imperialists, and, after an uncertain campaign of 
 some months' duration, he lost at La Bicocca, near Monza, on the 
 
250 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Death of 
 
 Semblau- 
 cay. 
 
 Constable 
 de Bour- 
 bon's 
 treachery 
 
 Policy of 
 Francis I. 
 
 27th of April, 1522, a battle, which left in the power of Francis I., 
 in Lombardy, only the citadels of Milan, Cremona, and Novara. 
 The funds for the payment of the army had been sent, but Louis 
 of Savoy had kept them back out of hatred for Lautrec's sister, the 
 Duchess of Chateaubriand, who, at that time, was all powerful over 
 the mind of Francis I. The king then allowed the surintendant 
 Semblan2ay, who was accused of that crime, to perish on the gallows. 
 The same princess drove by her injustice and partiality the 
 Constable de Bourbon to enter upon a plot against the safety of 
 the State. As M. Michelet remarks, the very existence of France 
 as a kingdom was endangered by this conspiracy. Bourbon had 
 promised Charles V. that he would attack Burgundy as soon as 
 Francis I. had crossed the Alps, and so bring about the rebellion of 
 five provinces which he believed were entirely at his discretion ; 
 the kingdom of Provence was to be re-established on his behalf, 
 and France, divided between Spain and England, would have lost 
 for ever its political importance. 
 
 According to what appears, Bourbon had harboured a design of 
 commencing his enterprise with a very bold stroke. Being 
 informed that Francis I. was preparing to go in person and wage 
 war upon Italy, he had resolved to carry him off on the road to 
 Lyons, and, when once he had the king in his hands, he nattered 
 himself he would do as he pleased with the kingdom. If his 
 attempt were unsuccessful, he would bide his time until Francis I. 
 was engaged in Milaness, Charles Y. had entered Guienne and 
 Henry VIII. was in Picardy ; he would then assemble a thousand 
 men-at-arms, six thousand foot and twelve thousand lanzknechts, 
 and would make for the Alps, to cut the king off from any com- 
 munication with France. This plan rested upon the assumption 
 that the king would, as he had announced, leave the constable in 
 France with an honourable title and an apparent share in the 
 government of the kingdom, though really isolated and debarred 
 from action. But Francis had full cognizance of the details of 
 the conspiracy through two Norman gentlemen whom the constable 
 had imprudently tried to get to join in it, and who, not content 
 with refusing, had revealed the matter at confession to the bishop 
 of Lisieux, who had lost no time in giving information to sire de 
 Breze, grand seneschal of Normandy. Breze at once reported it to 
 the king. L T nder such grave and urgent circumstances, Francis I. 
 behaved on the one hand with more prudence and efficiency than 
 he had yet displayed, and on the other with his usual levity and 
 indulgence towards his favourites. Abandoning his expedition in 
 person into Italy, he first concerned himself for that internal 
 
France threatened by the Imperialists. 251 
 
 security of his kingdom, which was threatened on the east and 
 north by the Imperialists and the English, and on the south by the 
 Spaniards, all united in considerable force and already in motion. 
 Francis opposed to them in the east and north the young Count 
 Claude of Guise, the first celebrity amongst his celebrated race, 
 the veteran Louis de la Tremoille, the most tried of all his 
 warriors, and the duke of Vendome, head of the younger branch 
 of the House of Bourbon. Into the south he sent Marshal de 
 Lautrec, who was more brave than successful, but of proved fidelity. Northern 
 All these captains acquitted themselves honourably. Claude of ^J^ 6 in " 
 Guise defeated a body of twelve thousand lanzknechts who had Guise and 
 already penetrated into Champagne ; he hurled them back into 
 Lorraine and dispersed them beneath the walls of the little town 
 of Neuf chateau, where the princesses and ladies of Lorraine, 
 showing themselves at the windows, looked on and applauded 
 their discomfiture. La Tremoille's only forces were very inferior to 
 the thirty-five thousand Imperialists or English who had entered 
 Picardy ; but he managed to make of his small garrisons such 
 prompt and skilful use that the invaders were unable to get hold 
 of a single place, and advanced somewhat heedlessly to the very 
 banks of the Oise, whence the alarm spread rapidly to Paris. The 
 duke of Vendome, whom the king at once despatched thither 
 with a small body of men-at-arms, marched night and day to the 
 assistance of the Parisians, harangued the parliament and H6tel 
 de Yille vehemently on the conspiracy of the constable de Bourbon, 
 and succeeded so well in reassuring them, that companies of the city- 
 militia eagerly joined his troops, and the foreigners, in dread of 
 finding themselves hemmed in, judged it prudent to fall back, 
 leaving Picardy in a state of equal irritation and devastation. In 
 the south, Lautrec, after having made head for three days and 
 three nights against the attacks of a Spanish army which had 
 crossed the Pyrenees under the orders of the constable of Castille, 
 forced it to raise the siege and beat a retreat. Everywhere, in the 
 provinces as well as at the court, the feudal nobility, chieftains and 
 simple gentlemen, remained faithful to the king ; the magistrates 
 and the people supported the military ; it was the whole nation that 
 rose against one great lord, who, for his own purposes, was making 
 alliance with foreigners against the king and the country. 
 
 In respect of Italy, Francis I. was less wise and less successful. 
 Not only did he persist in the stereotyped madness of the conquest 
 of Milaness and the kingdom of Naples, but abandoning for the 
 moment the prosecution of it in person, he entrusted it to his 
 favourite, Admiral Bonnivet, a brave soldier, alternately rash and 
 
252 History of France. 
 
 backward, presumptuous and irresolute, who had already lost credit 
 by the mistakes he had committed, and the reverses he had experi- 
 enced in that arena. The campaign of 1524 in Italy, brilliant as 
 was its beginning, what with the number and the fine appearance 
 Compaign of the troops under Bonnivet's orders, was, as it went on, nothing 
 Blundersof ^ u ^ a ser ^ es ^ hesitations, contradictory movements, blunders, and 
 theFrench. checks, which the army itself set down to its general's account. 
 The situation of the French army before Milan was now becoming 
 more and more, not insecure only, but critical. Bonnivet considered 
 it his duty to abandon it and fall back towards Piedmont, where 
 he reckoned upon finding a corps of five thousand Swiss who were 
 coming to support their compatriots engaged in the service of France. 
 Near Romagnano, on the banks of the Sesia, the retreat was hotly 
 pressed by the imperial army, the command of which had been 
 ultimately given by Charles V. to the constable de Bourbon, with 
 whom were associated the viceroy of Naples, Charles de Lannoy, 
 and Ferdinand d'Avalos, marquis of Pescara, the most able amongst 
 the Neapolitan officers. On the 30th of April, 1524, some disorder 
 took place in the retreat of the French; and Bonnivet, being 
 severely wounded, had to give up the command to the count of 
 St. Pol and to Chevalier Bayard. Bayard, last as well as first in 
 the fight, according to his custom, charged at the head of some 
 men-at-arms upon the Imperialists who were pressing the French 
 Death of too closely, when he was himself struck by a shot from an arquebus, 
 Bayard which shattered his reins. " Jesus, my God," he cried, " I am 
 '" dead ! " He then took his sword by the handle, and kissed the 
 cross-hilt of it as the sign of the cross, saying aloud as he did so : 
 " Have, pity on me, God, according to Thy great mercy " (Miserere 
 mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam). The constable 
 de Bourbon, being informed of his wound, came to him, saying, 
 " Bayard, my friend, I am sore distressed at your mishap : there is 
 nothing for it but patience ; give not way to melancholy ; I will 
 send in quest of the best surgeons in this country, and, by God's 
 help, you will soon be healed." "My lord," answered Bayard, "there 
 is no pity for me ; I die, having done my duty ; but I have pity for 
 you, to see you serving against your king, your country, and your 
 oath." Bourbon withdrew without a word. 
 
 The French army continued its retreat under the orders of the 
 count of St. Pol, and re-entered France by way of Suza and Brian- 
 ^on. It was Francis I.'s third time of losing Milaness. Charles V., 
 enchanted at the news, wrote on the 24th of May to Henry VIII. : 
 "I keep you advertised of the good opportunity it has pleased God 
 to offer us of giving a full account of our common enemy. I pray 
 
Invasion of Provence. 253 
 
 you to carry into effect on your side that which you and I have for 
 a long while desired, wherein I for my part will exert myself with 
 all my might. According to a plan settled by him with Henry 
 VIII. and Charles V., Bourbon entered Provence on the 7th of July, A D 
 1524, at the head of an army of eighteen thousand men, which was Bourbon 
 to be joined before long by six or seven thousand more. He had 
 no difficulty in occupying Antibes, Frejus, Draguignan, Brignoles, 
 and even Aix ; and he already began to assume the title of count 
 of Provence, whilst preparing for a rapid march along by the Rhone 
 and a rush upon Lyons, the chief aim of the campaign ; but the 
 Spanish generals whom Charles V. had associated with him, and 
 amongst others the most eminent of them, the marquis of Pescara, 
 peremptorily insisted that, according to their master's order, he 
 should besiege and take Marseilles. Charles V. cared more for the 
 coasts of the Mediterranean than for those of the Channel ; he nat- 
 tered himself that he would make of Marseilles a southern Calais, 
 which should connect Germany and Spain, and secure their com- 
 munications, political and commercial. Bourbon objected and 
 resisted ; it was the abandonment of his general plan for this war, 
 and a painful proof how powerless he was against the wishes of the 
 two sovereigns of whom he was only the tool, although they called 
 him their ally. Being forced to yield, he began the siege of Mar- 
 seilles on the 19th of August. The place, though but slightly 
 fortified and ill supplied, made an energetic resistance ; the name 
 and the presence of Bourbon at the head of the besiegers excited 
 patriotism ; the burgesses turned soldiers ; the cannon of the 
 besiegers laid open their walls, but they threw up a second line, an 
 earthen rampart, called the ladies' rampart, because all the women 
 in the city had worked at it. The siege was protracted ; the rein- 
 forcements expected by Bourbon did not arrive; a shot from 
 Marseilles penetrated into Pescara's tent, and killed his almoner 
 and two of his gentlemen. Bourbon rushed up. " Don't you see ? " 
 said Pescara to him ironically : " here are the keys sent to you by 
 the timid consuls of Marseilles." Bourbon resolved to attempt an 
 assault ; the lanzknechts and the Italians refused ; Bourbon asked 
 Pescara for his Spaniards, but Pescara would only consent on 
 condition that the breach was reconnoitred afresh. Seven soldiers 
 were told off for this duty ; four were killed and the other three 
 returned wounded, reporting that between the open breach and the 
 intrenchment extended a large ditch filled with fireworks and de- Defeated 
 fended by several batteries. The assembled general officers looked before 
 at one another in silence. " Well, gentlemen," said Pescara, " you Marseiiles - 
 see that the folks of Marseilles keep a table well spread for our 
 
254 History of France. 
 
 reception j if you like to go and sup in paradise, you are your own 
 masters so far ; as for me, who have no desire to go thither just 
 yet, I am off. But believe me," he added seriously, " we had best 
 return to Milaness ; we have left that country without a soldier ; 
 we might possibly find our return cut off." Whereupon Pescara 
 got up and went out ; and the majority of the officers followed 
 him. Bourbon remained almost alone, divided between anger and 
 shame. Almost as he quitted this scene he heard that Francis I. 
 was advancing towards Provence with an army. The king had 
 suddenly decided to go to the succour of Marseilles, which was 
 making so good a defence. Nothing could be a bitterer pill for 
 Bourbon than to retire before Francis E, whom he had but lately 
 promised to dethrone ; but his position condemned him to suffer 
 every thing, without allowing him the least hesitation ; and on the 
 The siege of 28th of September, 1524, he raised the siege of Marseilles and 
 Marseilles resunie (l the road to Italy, harassed even beyond Toulon, by the 
 (Sept. 28). French advance-guard, eager in its pursuit of the traitor even more 
 than of the enemy. 
 
 After Bourbon's precipitate retreat, the position of Francis I. 
 was a good one. He had triumphed over conspiracy and invasion ; 
 the conspiracy had not been catching, and the invasion had failed 
 on all the frontiers. If the king, in security within his kingdom, 
 had confined himself to it, whilst applying himself to the task of 
 governing it well, he would have obtained all the strength he 
 required to make himself feared and deferred to abroad. For a 
 while he seemed to have entertained this design : on the 25th of 
 September, 1523, he published an important ordinance for the 
 repression of disorderliness and outrages on the part of the soldiery 
 in France itselfj and, on the 28th of December following, a regu- 
 lation as to the administration of finances established a control 
 Financial over ^ G yar i us exchequer-officers, and announced the king's 
 regnla- intention of putting some limits to his personal expenses, "not 
 ns oe including, however," said he, "the ordinary run of our little 
 necessities and pleasures." This singular reservation was the 
 faithful exponent of his character ; he was licentious at home and 
 adventurous abroad, being swayed by his coarse passions and his war- 
 like fancies. When Bourbon and the imperial army had evacuated 
 Provence, the king loudly proclaimed his purpose of pursuing them 
 into Italy, and of once more going forth to the conquest of 
 Milaness, and perhaps also of the kingdom of Naples, that incurable 
 craze of French kings in the sixteenth century. In vain did his 
 most experienced warriors, La Tremoille and Chabannes, exert 
 themselves to divert him from such a campaign, for which he was 
 
Francis I. crosses the Alps. 255 
 
 not prepared ; in vain did his mother herself write to him, begging 
 him to wait and see her, for that she had important matters to 
 impart to him. He answered by sending her the ordinance which 
 conferred upon her the regency during his absence ; and, at the 
 end of October, 1524, he had crossed the Alps, anxious to go and 
 risk in Milaness the stake he had just won in Provence against 
 Charles Y. 
 
 Arriving speedily in front of Milan, he there found the imperial 
 army which had retired before him ; there was a fight in one of the 
 outskirts ; but Bourbon recognized the impossibility of maintaining Francis I. 
 a siege in a town of which the fortifications were in ruins, and with invades 
 disheartened troops. On the line of march which they had pursued, m ^ 01 
 from Lodi to Milan, there was nothing to be seen but cuirasses, (October), 
 arquebuses tossed hither and thither, dead horses, and men dying 
 of fatigue and scarcely able to drag themselves along. Bourbon 
 evacuated Milan and, taking a resolution as bold as it was singular, 
 abruptly abandoned, so far as he was personally concerned, that 
 defeated and disorganized army, to go and seek for and reorganize 
 another at a distance. Francis I.'s veteran generals, Marshals la 
 Tremoille and Chabannes, had advised him to pursue without 
 pause the beaten and disorganized imperial army, but Admiral 
 Bonnivet, " whose counsel the king made use of more than of 
 any other," says Du Bellay, pressed Francis I. to make himself 
 master, before every thing, of the principal strong places in Lom- 
 bardy, especially of Pavia, the second city in the duchy of Milan. 
 Francis followed this counsel, and on the 26th of August, 1524, 
 twenty days after setting out from Aix in Provence, he appeared Battle of 
 with his army in front of Pavia. On learning this resolution, Pavia 
 Pescara joyously exclaimed, "We were vanquished; a little while ( Oc t. 28). 
 and we shall be vanquishers." Pavia had for governor a Spanish 
 veteran, Antony de Leyva, who had distinguished himself at the 
 battle of Eavenna, in 1512, by his vigilance and indomitable 
 tenacity : and he held out for nearly four months, first against 
 assaults and then against investment by the French army. Francis I. 
 decided to accept battle as soon as it should be offered him. The 
 imperial leaders, at a council held on the 23rd of February, deter- 
 mined to offer it next day. 
 
 The two armies were of pretty equal strength : they had each 
 from twenty to five and twenty thousand infantry, French, 
 Germans, Spaniards, lanzknechts, and Swiss. Francis I. had the 
 advantage in artillery and in heavy cavalry, called at that time the 
 gendarmerie, that is to say, the corps of men-at-arms in heavy 
 armour with their servants ; but his troops were inferior in 
 
256 History of France. 
 
 effectives to the Imperialists, and Charles V.'s two generals, 
 Bourbon and Pescara, were, as men of war, far superior to 
 Francis I. and his favourite Bonnivet. After a desperate struggle 
 the French were defeated; the gendarmerie gave way, and the 
 German lanzknechts cut to pieces the Swiss auxiliaries. One of 
 Bourbon's most intimate confidants, the lord of Pomperant, who, 
 in 1523, had accompanied the constable in his flight through 
 France, came up at this critical moment, recognized the king, 
 and, beating off the soldiers with his sword, ranged himself at the 
 king's side, represented to him the necessity of yielding, and pressed 
 him to surrender to the duke of Bourbon, who was not far off. 
 "No," said the king, "rather die than pledge my faith to a traitor : 
 where is the viceroy of Naples 1 " It took some time to find 
 Lannoy ; but at last he arrived and put one knee on the ground 
 before Francis I., who handed his sword to him. Lannoy took 
 it with marks of the most profound respect, and immediately 
 
 Francis I. gave him another. The battle was over, and Francis I. was 
 
 JJT y f Charles V.'s prisoner. 
 
 He had shown himself an imprudent and unskilful general, but 
 at the same time a hero. His conquerors, both officers and privates, 
 could not help, whilst they secured his person, showing their admi- 
 ration for him. When he sat down to table, after having had his 
 wounds, which were slight, attended to, Bourbon approached him 
 respectfully and presented him with a dinner-napkin ; and the king 
 took it without embarrassment, and with frigid and curt politeness. 
 He next day granted him an interview, at which an accommodation 
 took place with due formalities on both sides, but nothing more. 
 Francis asked to be excused from entering Pavia, that he might not be 
 a gazing- stock in a town that he had so nearly taken. He was, 
 accordingly, conducted to Pizzighittone, a little fortress between 
 Milan and Cremona. He wrote thence two letters, one to his 
 mother the regent, and the other to Charles V., which are here 
 given word for word, because they so well depict his character and 
 the state of his mind in his hour of calamity : 
 
 His letters \ f fj ie regent of France : Madame, that you may know how 
 mother, stands the rest of my misfortune : there is nothing in the world left to 
 me but honour and my life, which is safe. And in order that, in 
 your adversity, this news might bring you some little comfort, I 
 prayed for permission to write you this letter, which was readily 
 granted me ; entreating you, in the exercise of your accustomed 
 prudence, to be pleased not to do any thing rash, for I have hope 
 after all that God will not forsake me. Commending to you my 
 children your grandchildren, and entreating you to give the bearer 
 
Treaty of Madrid. 257 
 
 a free passage, going and returning, to Spain, for he is going to the 
 emperor to learn how it is his pleasure that I should be treated." 
 
 2. "To the Emperor Charles V. : If liberty had been sooner and to the 
 granted me by my cousin the viceroy, I should not have delayed emperor, 
 so long to do my duty towards you, according as the time and 
 circumstances in which I am placed require; having no other 
 comfort under my misfortune than a reliance on your goodness, 
 which, if it so please, shall employ the results of victory with 
 honourableness towards me ; having steadfast hope that your virtue 
 would not willingly constrain me to anything that was not honour- 
 able ; entreating you to consult your own heart as to what you 
 shall be pleased to do with me ; feeling sure that the will of a 
 prince such as you are cannot be coupled with aught but honour 
 and magnanimity. Wherefore, if it please you to have so much 
 honourable pity as to answer for the safety which a captive king 
 of France deserves to find, whom there is a desire to render friendly 
 and not desperate, you may be sure of obtaining an acquisition 
 instead of a useless prisoner, and of making a king of France your 
 slave for ever." 
 
 The former of these two letters has had its native hue somewhat 
 altered in the majority of histories, in which it has been compressed 
 into those eloquent words, " All is lost save honour." The second 
 needs no comment to make apparent what it lacks of kingly pride 
 and personal dignity. Beneath the warrior's heroism there was in 
 the qualities of Francis I. more of what is outwardly brilliant and 
 winning than of real strength and solidity. 
 
 Taken prisoner to Spain, the unfortunate monarch was restored to Treaty of 
 liberty only on conditions of his signing the treaty of Madrid, by Madrid, 
 which he abandoned Italy, Burgundy, Artois, Flanders, besides 
 restoring to the constable of Bourbon his confiscated estates. He 
 likewise promised to marry the sister of Charles V., and gave both 
 his sons as hostages. 
 
 On becoming king again he fell under the dominion of three 
 personal sentiments, which exercised a decisive influence upon his 
 conduct and, consequently, upon the destiny of France : joy at his 
 liberation, a thirsting for revenge, we will not say for vengeance 
 to be wreaked on Charles V., and the burden of the engagement 
 he had contracted at Madrid in order to recover his liberty, alter- 
 nately swayed him. The envoys of Charles V., with Lannoy, the Meeting at 
 viceroy of Naples at their head, went to Cognac to demand execu- Cognac, 
 tion of the treaty of Madrid. Francis waited, ere he gave them 
 an answer, for the arrival of the delegates from the estates of Bur- 
 gundy, whom he had summoned to have their opinion as to the 
 
258 History of France 
 
 The dele- cess i n of the ducliy. These delegates, meeting at Cognac in June r 
 gates from 1527, formally repudiated the cession, being opposed, they said, to 
 fe^tfaiatJ *ke ^ aws ^ *ke kingdom, to the rights of the king, who could not 
 the cession by his sole authority alienate any portion of his dominions, and to 
 of the kjg C oronation-oath, which superseded his oaths made at Madrid. 
 Francis invited the envoys of Charles Y. to a solemn meeting of 
 his court and council present at Cognac, at which the delegates 
 from Burgundy repeated their protest. Whilst availing himself of 
 this declaration as an insurmountable obstacle to the complete exe- 
 cution of the treaty of Madrid, Francis offered to give two million 
 crowns for the redemption of Burgundy, and to observe the other 
 arrangements of the treaty, including the relinquishment of Italy 
 and his marriage with the sister of Charles V. Charles formally 
 rejected this proposal, and required of him to keep his oath. 
 
 However determined he was, at bottom, to elude the strict exe- 
 cution of the treaty of Madrid, Francis was anxious to rebut the 
 charge of perjury by shifting the responsibility on to the shoulders 
 of the people themselves and their representatives. He did not 
 A.D. 1527. like to summon the states-general of the kingdom and recognize 
 theParfia their right as well as their power ; but, after the meeting at Cognac, 
 merit in he went to Paris, and, on the 12th of December, 1527, the parlia- 
 Paria. ment met in state with the adjunct of the princes of the blood, a 
 great number of cardinals, bishops, noblemen, deputies from the 
 parliaments of Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rouen, Dijon, Grenoble and 
 Aix, and the municipal body of Paris. In presence of this assem- 
 bly the king went over the history of his reign, his expeditions in 
 Italy, his alternate successes and reverses and his captivity. " If 
 my subjects have suffered," he said, " I have suffered with them." 
 He then caused to be read the letters patent whereby he had abdi- 
 cated and transferred the crown to his son the dauphin, devoting 
 himself to captivity for ever. He explained the present condition 
 of the finances, and what he could furnish for the ransom of his 
 sons detained as hostages ; and he ended by offering to return as a 
 prisoner to Spain if no other way could be found out of a difficult 
 position, for he acknowledged having given his word, adding, 
 however, that he had thought it pledged him to nothing since it 
 had not been given freely. 
 
 This last argument was of no value morally or diplomatically; but 
 in his bearing and his language Francis I. displayed grandeur and 
 emotion. The assembly also showed emotion ; they were four days 
 deliberating ; with some slight diversity of form the various bodies 
 present came to the same conclusion; and, on the 16th of December, 
 1527, the parliament decided that the king was not bound either 
 
The Holy League. 259 
 
 to return to Spain or to execute, as to that matter, the treaty of 
 Madrid, and that he might with full sanction and justice levy on hia 
 subjects two millions of crowns for the ransom of his sons and the 
 other requirements of the State. 
 
 Before inviting such manifestations Francis I. had taken measures 
 to prevent them from being in vain. As early as the 22nd of May, A.D. 1526. 
 1526, whilst he was still deliberating with his court and parliament ^ he Hol y 
 as to how he should behave towards Charles Y. touching the treaty 
 of Madrid, Francis I. entered into the Holy League with the pope, 
 the Venetians and the duke of Milan for the independence of Italy; 
 and on the 8th of August following Francis I. and Henry VIII. 
 undertook, by a special treaty, to give no assistance one against the 
 other to Charles V., and Henry VIII. promised to exert all his 
 efforts to get Francis L's two sons, left as hostages in Spain, set at 
 liberty. Thus the war between Francis I. and Charles V., after 
 fifteen months' suspension, resumed its course. 
 
 It lasted three years in Italy, from 1526 to 1529, without inter- 1526-1529. 
 ruption, but also without result ; it was one of those wars which Tlie w *f 
 are prolonged from a difficulty of living in peace rather than from 
 any serious intention, on either side, of pursuing a clear and definite 
 object. The chief events connected with this period are the syste- 
 matic pillage of Italy by a lawless soldiery led on by Leyva, 
 Bourbon and the Lutheran George Frondsberg, who wore habitually 
 round his neck a gold chain, destined, he said, to strangle the pope. 
 Bourbon was killed whilst leading on that rabble to the storming 
 of Koine ; the captivity of the pope and the horrors of which the 
 eternal city was the scene, excited universal indignation, and 
 Francis I. thought the moment favourable to march into Italy 
 troops which, a few months before, would have saved both Rome 
 and Milan. Hampered for want of money, Lautrec could do 
 nothing, and the plague moreover decimated his army. Nothing, 
 however, would have been lost if the communications between Italy 
 and France had remained open. But Francis committed the signal 
 blunder of offending the Genoese Doria, who was admiral of the 
 French fleet and who was considered as the first sailor of the age. 
 The engagement of that foreigner had just terminated, and, of 
 course, instead of renewing it, Doria employed against France his 
 influence and his personal courage. Charles having accused the 
 king of France of treachery, the latter, in his turn, called his rival 
 a liar, challenged him to single combat, and allowed him the choice 
 of weapons. But the era of great nations and great contests was 
 beginning, and one is inclined to believe that Francis I. and Charles 
 V. were themselves aware that their mutual challenges would not 
 
 s 2 
 
260 History of France. 
 
 come to any personal encounter. The war which continued between 
 them in Italy was not much more serious or decisive ; both sides 
 were weary of it, and neither one nor the other of the two sovereigns 
 espied" any great chances of success. The French army was wasting 
 itself, in the kingdom of Naples, upon petty inconclusive engage- 
 ments; its commander, Lautrec, died of the plague on the 15th of 
 August, 1528 ; a desire for peace became day by day stronger ; it 
 A.D. 1529. was made, first of all, at Barcelona, on the 20th of June, 1529, 
 Cambrai between Charles Y. and Pope Clement VII. ; and then a conference 
 was opened at Cambrai for the purpose of bringing it about between 
 Charles V. and Francis I. likewise. Two women, Francis I.'s 
 mother and Charles V.'s aunt, Louise of Savoy and Margaret of 
 Austria, had the real negotiation of it, and it was called accordingly 
 the ladies' peace. Though morally different and of very unequal 
 worth, they both had minds of a rare order and trained to recognize 
 political necessities and not to attempt any but possible successes. 
 They did not long survive their work : Margaret of Austria died on 
 the 1st of December, 1530, and Louise of Savoy on the 22nd of 
 September, 1531. All the great political actors seemed hurrying 
 away from the stage, as if the drama were approaching its end. 
 A.D. 1534. Pope Clement VII. died on the 26th of September, 1534. He was 
 Death of a man O f sense and moderation ; he tried to restore to Italy her 
 mart VII independence, but he forgot that a moderate policy is, above all, 
 that which requires most energy and perseverance. These two 
 qualities he lacked totally ; he oscillated from one camp to the 
 other without ever having any real influence anywhere. A little 
 before his death he made France a fatal present ; for, on the 28th 
 of October, 1533, he married his niece Catherine de' Medici to 
 Francis I.'s second son, Prince Henry . of Valois, who by the death 
 of his elder brother, the dauphin Francis, soon afterwards became 
 heir to the throne. The chancellor, Anthony Duprat, too, the 
 most considerable up to that time amongst the advisers of Francis I., 
 died on the 9th of July, 1535. In the civil as well as in the 
 military class, for his government as well as for his armies, Francis I. 
 had, at this time, to look out for new servants. 
 
 A.D. 1532. The ladies' peace, concluded at Cambrai in 1529, lasted up to 
 Interview ^535 . incessantly troubled, however, by far from pacific symptoms, 
 Francis I. proceedings, and preparations. In October, 1532, Francis I. had, 
 at Calais, an i nterv i ew with. Henry VIII., at which they contracted 
 a private alliance and undertook " to raise between them an army 
 of 80,000 men to resist the Turk, as true zealots for the good of 
 Christendom." The Turks, in fact, under their great sultan 
 Soliman II., were constantly threatening and invading eastern 
 
Invasion of Provence. 261 
 
 Europe. Charles V., as emperor of Germany, was far more exposed 
 to their attacks and far more seriously disquieted by them than 
 Francis I. and Henry VIII. were ; but the peril that hung over 
 him in the East urged him on at the same time to a further deve- 
 lopment of ambition and strength; in order to defend eastern 
 Europe against the Turks, he required to be dominant in western 
 Europe ; and in that very part of Europe a large portion of the 
 population were disposed to wish for his success, for they required 
 it for their own security. 
 
 In 1536 all the combustibles of war exploded; in the month of A.D. 1536. 
 February, a French army entered Piedmont and occupied Turin ; 
 and, in the month of July, Charles Y. in person entered Provence by 
 at the head of 50,000 men. Anne de Montmorency, having Charles V. 
 received orders to defend southern France, began by laying it 
 waste in order that the enemy might not be able to live in it ; 
 officers had orders to go everywhere and " break up the bake-houses 
 and mills, burn the wheat and forage, pierce the wine-casks and 
 ruin the wells by throwing the wheat into them to spoil the water." 
 In certain places the inhabitants resisted the soldiers charged with 
 this duty ; elsewhere, from patriotism, they themselves set fire to 
 their corn-ricks and pierced their casks. Montmorency made up 
 his mind to defend, on the whole coast of Provence, only Marseilles 
 and Aries ; he pulled down the ramparts of the other towns, which 
 were left exposed to the enemy. For two months Charles Y. 
 prosecuted this campaign without a fight, marching through the 
 whole of Provence an army which fatigue, shortness of provisions, 
 sickness and ambuscades were decimating ingloriously. At last he 
 decided upon retreating. 
 
 On returning from his sorry expedition, Charles Y. learned that 
 those of his lieutenants whom he had charged with the conduct of 
 a similar invasion in the north of France, in Picardy, had met with 
 no greater success than he himself in Provence. Queen Mary of 
 Hungary, his sister and deputy in the government of* the Low 
 Countries, advised a local truce ; his other sister, Eleanor, the queen 
 of France, was of the same opinion ; Francis I. adopted it ; and the 
 truce in the north was signed for a period of three months. 
 Montmorency signed a similar one for Piedmont. It was agreed 
 that negotiations for a peace should be opened at Locate, in 
 Roussillon, and that, to pursue them, Francis should go and take 
 up his quarters at Montpellier and Charles Y. at Barcelona. Pope 
 Paul III. (Alexander Farnese), who, on the 13th of October, 1534, 
 had succeeded Clement VII., came forward as mediator. One Interview 
 month afterwards, Charles and Francis met at Aigues-Mortes, and Mortes! * 
 
262 History of France. 
 
 these two princes who had treated one another in so insulting a 
 manner, exchanged protestations of the warmest friendship. The 
 peace lasted six years. 
 
 Francis I. was not willing to positively renounce his Italian 
 conquests, and Charles V. was not willing to really give them up 
 to him. Milaness was still, in Italy, the principal object of 
 their mutual ambition. Navarre, in the south-east of France, 
 and the Low Countries in the north, gave occasion for incessantly 
 renewed disputes between them. The two sovereigns sought 
 for combinations which would allow them to make, one to 
 the other, the desired concessions, whilst still preserving pretexts 
 for, and chances of, recovering them. Divers projects of marriage 
 between their children or near relatives were advanced with that 
 object, but nothing came of them ; and, after two years and a 
 half of abortive negotiations, another great war, the fourth, broke 
 out between Francis I. and Charles V., for the same causes and 
 with the same by-ends as ever. It lasted two years, from 1542 to 
 1544, with alternations of success and reverse on either side, and 
 several diplomatic attempts to embroil in it the different European 
 powers. Francis I. concluded an alliance in 1543 with Sultan 
 A.D. 1543. Soliman II., and, in concert with French vessels, the vessels of the 
 between pirate Barbarossa cruised about and made attacks upon the shores 
 Francis I. O f the Mediterranean. On the other hand, on the llth of 
 SofimanlL February, 1543, Charles V. and Henry YIIL, king of England, 
 concluded an alliance against Francis I. and the Turks. The 
 unsuccess which had attended the grand expedition conducted by 
 Charles Y. personally in 1541, with the view of attacking Bar- 
 barossa and the Mussulmans in Algiers itself, had opened his eyes 
 to all the difficulty of such enterprises, and he wished to secure 
 the co-operation of a great maritime power before engaging therein 
 afresh. He at the same time convoked a German diet at Spires in 
 order to make a strong demonstration against the alliance between 
 Francis I.' and the Turks, and to claim the support of Germany in 
 the name of Christendom. Ambassadors from the duke of Savoy 
 and the king of Denmark appeared in support of the propositions 
 and demands of Charles V. The diet did not separate until it had 
 voted 24,000 foot and 4000 horse to be employed against France, 
 and had forbidden Germans, under severe penalties, to take service 
 with Francis I. In 1544 the war thus became almost European, 
 and in the early days of April two armies were concentrated in 
 A.D. 1544. Piedmont, near the little town of Ceresole, the Spanish 20,000 
 Battle of strong and the French 19,000 ; the former under the orders of the 
 marquis del Guasto, the latter under those of the count d'Enghien ; 
 
T/ie Imperialists and the English in France. 263 
 
 both ready to deliver a battle which was, according to one side, to 
 preserve Europe from the despotic sway of a single master, and, 
 according to the other, to protect Europe against a fresh invasion 
 of Mussulmans. 
 
 The battle was bravely disputed and for some time indecisive, 
 even in the opinion of the anxious Count D'Enghien, who was for 
 a, while in an awkward predicament ; but the ardour of the Gascons 
 and the firmness of the Swiss prevailed, and the French army was 
 victorious. This success, however, had not the results that might 
 have been expected. The war continued ; Charles V. transferred The Ger- 
 his principal efforts therein to the north, on the frontiers of the j? a s a ?A 
 Low Countries and France, having concluded an alliance with invade 
 Henry VIII. for acting in concert and on the offensive. Champagne France, 
 and Picardy were simultaneously invaded by the Germans and the 
 English ; Henry VIII. took Boulogne ; Charles V. advanced as 
 far as Chateau- Thierry and threatened Paris. Great was the con- 
 sternation there; Erancis I. hurried up from Fontainebleau and 
 rode about the streets, accompanied by the duke of Guise and 
 everywhere saying, " If I cannot keep you from fear, I will keep 
 you from harm." "My God," he had exclaimed as he started from 
 Fontainebleau, "how dear Thou sellest me my kingdom!" The 
 people recovered courage and confidence ; they rose in a body ; 
 40,000 armed militiamen defiled, it is said, before the king. The 
 army arrived by forced marches, and took post between Paris and 
 CMteau-Thierry. Charles V. was not rash ; he fell back to Crespy 
 in Laonness, some few leagues from his Low Countries. Negotia- 
 tions were opened ; and Francis I., fearing lest Henry VIII., being 
 master of Boulogne, should come and join Charles V., ordered his 
 negotiator, Admiral d'Annebaut, to accept the emperor's offers, 
 " for fear lest he should rise higher in his demands when he knew 
 that Boulogne was in the hands of the king of England." The 
 demands were hard, but a little less so than those made in 1540 ; 
 Charles V. yielded on some special points, being possessed beyond 
 everything with the desire of securing Francis L's co-operation in 
 the two great contests he was maintaining, against the Turks in 
 eastern Europe and against the Protestants in Germany. Francis I. 
 conceded everything in respect of the European policy in order to 
 retain his rights over Milaness and to recover the French towns on 
 the Somme. Peace was signed at Crespy on the 18th of Sep- AD 
 tember, 1544; and it was considered so bad a one that the Peace of 
 dauphin thought himself bound to protest, first of all secretly 
 before notaries and afterwards at Fontainebleau, on the 12th of 
 December, in the presence of three princes of the royal house. 
 
264 History cf France. 
 
 This feeling was so general that several great bodies, amongst 
 others the parliament of Toulouse (on the 22nd of January, 1545), 
 followed the dauphin's example. 
 
 Francis I., in his life as a king and a soldier, had two rare pieces 
 of good fortune : two great victories, Melegnano and Ceresole, 
 stand out at the beginning and the end of his reign ; and in his 
 direst defeat, at Pavia, he was personally a hero. In all else, as 
 regards his government, his policy was neither an able nor a suc- 
 cessful one; for two and thirty years he was engaged in plans, 
 attempts, wars, and negotiations ; he failed in all his designs ; he 
 undertook innumerable campaigns or expeditions that came to 
 nothing ; he concluded forty treaties of war, peace, or truce, inces- 
 santly changing aim and cause and allies ; and, for all this inco- 
 herent activity, he could not manage to conquer either the empire 
 or Italy ; he brought neither aggrandizement nor peace to France. 
 
 Outside of the political arena, in quite a different field of ideas 
 and facts, that is, in the intellectual field, Francis I. did better and 
 succeeded better. In this region he exhibited an instinct and a 
 taste for the grand and the beautiful ; he had a sincere love for 
 literature, science, and art; he honoured and protected, and 
 effectually too, their works and their representatives. His reign 
 occupies the first half of the century (the sixteenth) which has been 
 nafsuince ca ^ e( * *ke a e ^ Renaissance. Taken absolutely, and as implying 
 its antece- a renaissance, following upon a decay of science, literature, and art, 
 dents. ^ e expression is exaggerated ; it is not true that the five centuries 
 which rolled by between the establishment of the Capetians and the 
 accession of Francis I. (from 987 to 1615), were a period of intel- 
 lectual barrenness and decay. It is in the thirteenth century, for 
 instance, that we meet for the first time in Europe and in France 
 with the conception and the execution of a vast repertory of different 
 scientific and literary works produced by the brain of man, in fact 
 with a veritable Encyclopedia. Vincent of Beauvais, born at 
 Beauvais Beauvais between 1184 and 1194, who died at his native place in 
 1264, collected and edited what he called BiUiotheca Mundi, 
 Speculum majus (Library of the World, an enlarged Mirror), an 
 immense compilation, the first edition of which, published at Stras- 
 bourg in 1473, comprises ten volumes folio, and would comprise fifty 
 or sixty volumes octavo. The work contains three, and, according 
 to some manuscripts, four parts, entitled Speculum naturale (Mirror 
 of Natural Science), Speculum historiale (Mirror of Historical 
 Science), Speculum doctrinale (Mirror of Metaphysical Science), 
 and Speculum morale (Mirror of Moral Science). Each of these 
 Specula contains a summary, extracted from the various writings 
 
Literature The Schoolmen. 265 
 
 which have reference to the subject of it, and the authors of which 
 Vincent of Beauvais takes care to name. 
 
 After the encyclopaedist of the middle ages come, naturally, their 
 philosophers. They were numerous ; and some of them have 
 remained illustrious, such as Gerbert of Aurillac, who became Pope 
 Sylvester II., St. Anselm, Abelard, St. Bernard, Eobert of Sorbon, 
 founder of the Sorbonne, and St. Thomas Aquinas. To these 
 names, known to every enlightened man, might be added many 
 others less familiar to the public, but belonging to men who held 
 a high place in the philosophical contests of their times, such as 
 John Scot Erigena, Berenger, Eoscelin, William of Champeaux, 
 Gilbert de la Poree, &c. The questions which always have taken 
 and always will take a passionate hold of men's minds, in respect 
 of God, the universe and man, in respect of our origin, our nature 
 and our destiny, were raised and discussed, from the eleventh to 
 the fifteenth century, if not with so much brilliancy, at any rate 
 with as much boldness and earnest thought as at any other period. 
 God, creator, lawgiver and preserver of the universe and of man, character 
 everywhere and always present and potent, in permanent con- of their 
 nexion, nay, communication, with man, at one time by natural and teacllin ?' 
 at another by supernatural means, at one time by the channel of 
 authority and at another by that of free-agency, this is the point of 
 departure, this the fixed idea of the philosopho-theologians of the 
 middle ages. There are great gaps, great diversities, and great in- 
 consistencies in their doctrines ; they frequently made unfair use of 
 the subtle dialectics called scholastics (la scolastique), and they fre- 
 quently assigned too much to the master's authority (I'autorite du 
 maitre) ; but Christian faith, more or less properly understood and 
 explained, and adhesion to the facts, to the religious and moral pre- 
 cepts, and to the primitive and essential testimonies of Christianity, 
 are always to be found at the bottom of their systems and their 
 disputes. Whether they be pantheists even or sceptics, it is in an 
 atmosphere of Christianity that they live and that their thoughts 
 are developed. On the other hand, speaking from the religious point 
 of view, the Eenaissance was but a resurrection of paganism dying 
 out before the presence of the Christian world, which was troubled 
 and perplexed but full of life and futurity. 
 
 The religious question thus set on one side, the Eenaissance was 
 a great and happy thing, which restored to light and honour the 
 works and glories of the Greek and Eoman communities. The 
 memorials and monuments of classical civilization, which were sud- 
 denly removed, at the fall of the Greek empire, to Italy first and then 
 from Italy to France and throughout the whole of Western Europe, 
 
266 History of France. 
 
 impressed with just admiration people as well as princes, and 
 inspired them with the desire of marching forward in their turn in 
 this attractive and glorious career. 
 
 It was not only in religious questions and by their philosopho- 
 theologians that the middle ages, before the Renaissance, displayed 
 their activity and fecundity. In literature and in art, in history 
 and in poesy, in architecture and in sculpture, they had produced 
 great and beautiful works which were quite worthy of surviving 
 and have, in fact, survived the period of their creation. Here too 
 the Renaissance of Greek and Roman antiquity came in and 
 altered the originality of the earliest productions of the middle 
 ages and gave to literature and to art in France a new direction. 
 The French The first amongst the literary creations of the middle ages is 
 language, that of the French language itself. When we pass from the ninth 
 to the thirteenth century, from the oath of Charles the Bald and 
 Louis the Germanic at Strasbourg in 842, to the account of the 
 conquest of Constantinople in 1203, given by Geoffrey de Ville- 
 hardouin, seneschal of Champagne, what a space has been tra- 
 versed, what progress accomplished in the language of France ! 
 When the thirteenth century begins, the French language, though 
 still rude and somewhat fluctuating, appears already rich, varied 
 and capable of depicting with fidelity and energy events, ideas, cha- 
 racters, and the passions of men. There we have French prose and 
 French poesy in their simple and lusty youth ; the Conquest of 
 Constantinople by Goeffrey de Villehardouin, and the Song of 
 Roland by the unknown poet who collected and put together in 
 the form of an epopee the most heroic amongst the legends of the 
 reign of Charlemagne, are the first great and beautiful monuments 
 of French literature in the middle ages. 
 
 The words are French literature ; and of that alone is there any 
 intention of speaking here. It is with the reign of Francis I. that, 
 to bid a truce to further interruption, we commence the era of the 
 real grand literature of France, that which has constituted and still 
 constitutes the pride and the noble pleasure of the French public ; 
 several of the most illustrious of French writers, in poesy and prose, 
 Ronsard, Montaigne, Bodin, and Stephen Pasquier, were born dur- 
 ing that king's lifetime and during the first half of the sixteenth 
 century ; but it is to the second half of that century and to the 
 first of the seventeenth that they belong by the glory of their works 
 and of their influence. 
 
 The middle ages bequeathed to French literature four prose- 
 writers, writers whom we cannot hesitate to call great historians : Villehar- 
 douin, Joinville, Froissart, and Commyncs. Geoffrey de Villeliar- 
 
Historians Poetry. 267 
 
 douin, after having taken part, as negotiator and soldier, in the 
 crusade which terminated in the capture of Constantinople, and 
 having settled in Thessaly, at Messinopolis, as holder of conside- 
 rable fiefs, with the title of marshal of Romania (Eoumelia), em- 
 ployed his leisure in writing a history of this great exploit. He 
 wrote with a dignified simplicity, epic and at the same time prac- 
 tical, speaking but little of himself, narrating facts with the preci- 
 sion of one who took part in them and yet without useless detail 
 or personal vanity. Joinville wrote his History of St. Louis at the joinville. 
 request of Joan of Navarre, wife of Philip the Handsome, and five 
 years after that queen's death ; he was then eighty-five, and ho 
 dedicated his book to Louis le Hutin (the quarreller), great grand- 
 son of St. Louis. More lively and more familiar in style than Ville- 
 hardouin, he combines the vivid and natural impressions of youth 
 with an old man's fond clinging to the memories of his long life ; his 
 narrative is at one and the same time very full of himself, without 
 any pretension and very spirited without any show of passion, and 
 fraught with a graceful and easy carelessness which charms the 
 reader and all the while inspires confidence in the author's veracity. Froissart. 
 Froissart is an insatiable pry who revels in all the sights of his 
 day, events and personages, wars and galas, adventures of heroism 
 or gallantry, and who is incessantly gadding about through all the 
 dominions and all the courts of Europe, everywhere seeking his 
 own special amusement in the satisfaction of his curiosity. Philip de Commynes, 
 Commynes is quite another affair and far more than Froissart, nay 
 than Joinville and Villehardouin. He is a politician proficient in 
 the understanding and handling of the great concerns and great 
 personages of his time. With the recital of events as well as the 
 portrayal of character, he mingles here and there the reflections, 
 expressed in precise, firm and temperate language, of a profound 
 moralist, who sets before himself no other aim but that of giving 
 his thoughts full utterance. 
 
 Setting aside the language and poems of the troubadours of Poetry. 
 southern France, we shall find, in French poesy previous to the 
 Renaissance, only three works which, through their popularity in 
 their own time, still live in the memory of the erudite, and one only 
 which, by its grand character and its superior beauties, attests the 
 poetical genius of the middle ages and can claim national rights in 
 the history of France. The Romance of the Rose in the erotic and 
 allegorical style, the Romances of Renart in the satirical, and the i 
 
 Farce of Patelin, a happy attempt in the line of comedy, though 
 but little known now-a-days to the public, are still and will remain 
 subjects of literary study. The Song of Roland alone is an admi- 
 rable sample of epic poesy in France, and the only monument 
 
268 History of France. 
 
 of poetical genius in the middle ages which can have a claim to 
 national appreciation in the nineteenth century. 
 
 Such, in its chief works, philosophical, historical, and poetical, 
 was the literature which the middle ages bequeathed to the reign of 
 Francis I. In history only, and in spite of the new character as- 
 sumed afterwards by the French language, this literature has had 
 the honour of preserving its nationality and its glory. Villehar- 
 douin, Joinville, Froissart, and Commynes have remained great 
 writers. In philosophy and in poesy a profound revolution was 
 approaching ; the religious reform and the fine literary genius, as 
 well as the grand French language of the seventeenth century, were 
 preparing to rise above the intellectual horizon. But between the 
 moment when such advances dawn, and that when they burst forth 
 there is nearly always a period of uncertain and unfruitful transi- 
 tion : and such was the first half of the sixteenth century, that is 
 to say, the actual reign of Francis I. ; it is often called the reign of 
 the Eenaissance, which certainly originated in his reign, but it did 
 not grow and make any display until after him ; the religious, 
 philosophical, and poetical revolution, Calvin, Montaigne, and 
 Eonsard, born in the earlier half of the seventeenth century, did 
 not do anything that exercised any power until the later. One 
 single poet, a third-rate one, Clement Marot, attained lustre under 
 Marot Francis ! Rabelais is the only great prose writer who belongs 
 strictly to that period. The scholars, the learned critics of what 
 had been left by antiquity in general and by Greek and Eoman 
 antiquity in particular, Bude (Budaeus), J. C. Scaliger, Muretus, 
 Danes (Danesius), Amyot, Eamus (Peter la Eamee), Eobert Estienne 
 (Stephanus), Vatable (Watebled), Cujas, and Turnebius make up 
 the tale of literature specially belonging to and originating in the 
 reign of Francis I., just as the foundation of the College Royal, 
 which became the College de France, is his chief personal claim to 
 renown in the service of science and letters. 
 
 Coming between Villon and Eonsard, Clement Marot rendered 
 to the French language, then in labour of progression and, one 
 might say, of formation, eminent service : he gave it a naturalness, 
 a clearness, an easy swing, and, for the most part, a correctness 
 which it had hitherto lacked. It was reserved for other writers, 
 in verse and prose, to give it boldness, the richness that comes of 
 precision, elevation and grandeur. 
 
 During the reign of Francis I. and after the date of Clement 
 
 Marot, there is no poet of any celebrity to speak of, unless we 
 
 except Francis I. himself and his sister ; and it is only in compli- 
 
 euerite de men ^ * royalty's name that they need be spoken of. We have 
 
 Navarre, three collections of Marguerite's writings : 1. the Heptameron, ou 
 
Margtierite de Valois Rabelais. 269 
 
 les Sept Journees de la Heine de Navarre, a collection of sixty-eight 
 
 tales more or less gallant, published for the first time in 1558, 
 
 without any author's name ; 2. her CEuvres poetiques, which ap- 
 
 peared at Lyons in 1547 and 1548, in consequence of her being 
 
 alive, under the title of Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des Prin- 
 
 cesses (the Pearls of the Pearl of Princesses'), and of which one of her Her works, 
 
 grooms-of-the-chamber was editor ; in addition to which there is a S 
 
 volume of Poesies inedites, collected by order of Marguerite herself, brother. 
 but written by the hand of her secretary, John Frotte, and preserved 
 at Paris amongst the manuscripts of the Bibliothegue nationals 
 3. the Collection of her Letters, published in 1841, by M. F. Genin. 
 This last collection is, morally as well as historically, the most 
 interesting of the three. As for Francis I. himself, there is little, 
 if anything, known of his poesies beyond those which have been 
 inserted in the Documents relatifs a sa Captivite a Madrid, pub- 
 lished in 1847 by M. Champollion-Figeac ; some have an historical 
 value, either as regards public events or Francis I.'s relations 
 towards his mother, his sister, and his mistresses ; the most impor- 
 tant is a long account of his campaign, in 1525, in Italy, and of 
 the battle of Pavia ; but the king's verses have even less poetical 
 merit than his sister's. 
 
 Francis I.'s goodwill did more for learned and classical litera- 
 ture than for poesy. He contributed to this progress, first by 
 the intelligent sympathy he testified towards learned men of letters, 
 and afterwards by the foundation of the College Royal, an estab- 
 lishment of a special, an elevated and an independent sort, where 
 professors found a liberty protected against the routine, jealousy, 
 and sometimes intolerance of the University of Paris and the 
 Sorbonne. 
 
 We will not quit the first half of the sixteenth century and the 
 literary and philosophical Renaissance which characterizes that 
 period, without assigning a place therein at its proper date and in 
 his proper rank to the name, the life, and the works of the man who 
 was not only its most original and most eminent writer, but its 
 truest and most vivid representative, Rabelais (born at Chinon in Babelais. 
 1495, died at Paris in 1553), Fra^ois Rabelais, the jolly vicar of 
 Meudon, Alcofribas Nasier, abstracteur de quintessence, as he styled 
 himself. There is scarcely a question of importance that is not 
 touched upon in his book ("La vie tres-horrifique du grand Gar- 
 gantua, pere de Pantagruel"). The corruption of the clergy is 
 denounced in the strongest terms; the rights of conscience, the 
 futility of those logomachies to which scholasticism had finally de- 
 graded itself, the defects of absolute government, the necessity of 
 educational reforms all these points are discussed by Rabelais with 
 
270 History of France. 
 
 an amount of common sense which is only equalled by the origi- 
 nality of his style and the genial character of his wit. La Bruyere 
 was quite right when he gave of the Gargantua his famous appre- 
 ciation : " ou il est mauvais, il passe bien loin au-dela du pire, 
 c'est le charme de la canaille ; ou il est bon, il va jusqu'a 1'exquis et 
 a 1'excellent, il peut etre le mets des plus delicats." 
 
 The Eefor- Nearly half a century before the Keformation made any noise in 
 mation. France, it had burst out with great force and had established its 
 footing in Germany, Switzerland, and England. John Huss and 
 Jerome of Prague, both born in Bohemia, one in 1373 and the 
 other in 1378, had been condemned as heretics and burnt at Con- 
 stance, one in 1415 and the other in 1416, by decree and in the 
 presence of the council which had been there assembled. But, at 
 the commencement of the sixteenth century, Luther in Germany 
 and Zwingle in Switzerland had taken in hand the work of the 
 Reformation, and before half that century had rolled by they had 
 made the foundations of their new Church so strong that their 
 powerful adversaries, with Charles V. at their head, felt obliged to 
 treat with them, and recognize their position in the European 
 world, though all the while disputing their right. In England 
 Henry YIIL, under the influence of an unbridled passion, as all 
 his passions were, for Anna Boleyn, had, in 1531, broken with the 
 Church of Eome, whose pope, Clement VII., refused very properly 
 to pronounce him divorced from his wife Catherine of Aragon, and 
 the king had proclaimed himself the spiritual head of the English 
 Church, without meeting either amongst his clergy or in his king- 
 dom with any effectual opposition. Thus in these three States of 
 Western Europe the reformers had succeeded, and the religious 
 revolution was in process of accomplishment. The nascent 
 Its pecu- Reformation did not meet in France with either of the two 
 tures in important circumstances, politically considered, which in Germany 
 France. an d in England rendered its first steps more easy and more secure. 
 It was in the cause of religious creeds alone, and by means of 
 moral force alone, that, she had to maintain the struggles in which 
 she engaged. The questions raised by the councils of Bale and 
 Florence and by the semi-political, semi-ecclesiastical assembly at 
 Tours, which had been convoked by Louis XII., the instruction at 
 the Parisian University, and the attacks of the Sorbonne on the 
 study of Greek and Hebrew, branded as heresy, were producing a 
 lively agitation in the public mind. Professors and pupils, scholars 
 grown old in meditation, such as Lefevre of Staples, and young 
 folks eager for truth, liberty, action, and renown, such as William 
 Farel, welcomed passionately those boundless and undefined hopes, 
 those yearnings towards a brilliant and at the same time a vague 
 
The Reformation. 271 
 
 future, at which they looked forward. Men, too, holding a social 
 position very different from that of the philosophers, men with 
 minds formed on an acquaintance with facts and in the practice 
 of affairs took part in this intellectual and religious ferment, and 
 protected and encouraged its fervent adherents. "William Bri^on- 
 net, bishop of Meaux, a prelate who had been Louis XII.'s ambas- 
 sador to Pope Julius II., and one amongst the negotiators of 
 Francis I.'s Concordat with Leo X., opened his diocese to the 
 preachers and writers recommended to him by his friend Lefevre Is helped 
 of Etaples, and supported them in their labours for the transla- r j e ^ ue 
 tion and propagation, amongst the people, of the Holy Scriptures. Valois. 
 They had at court, and near the king's own person, the avowed 
 support of his sister, Princess Marguerite, who was beautiful, 
 sprightly, affable, kind, disposed towards all lofty and humane 
 sentiments as well as all intellectual pleasures, and an object of the 
 sometimes rash attentions of the most eminent and most different 
 men of her time, Charles V., the constable De Bourbon, Admiral 
 Bonnivet, and Clement Marot. Marguerite, who was married to 
 the Duke d'Ale^on, widowed in 1525, and married a second time, 
 in 1527, to Henry d'Albret, king of Navarre, was all her life, at 
 Pau and at Nerac, as well as at Paris, a centre, a focus of social, 
 literary, religious, and political movement. Luther and Zwingle 
 had distinctly declared war on the papacy ; Henry VIII. had with 
 a flourish separated England from the Romish Church ; Marguerite 
 de Yalois and Bishop Bri9onnet neither wished nor demanded so w kat the 
 much ; they aspired no further than to reform the abuses of the wa nted. 
 Romish Church by the authority of that Church itself, in concert 
 with its heads, and according to its traditional regimen ; they had 
 no idea of more than dealing kindly and even sympathetically with 
 the liberties and the progress of science and human intelligence. 
 Confined within these limits, the idea was legitimate and honest 
 enough, but it showed want of foresight and was utterly vain. 
 
 During the first years of Francis I/s reign (from 1515 to 1520) 
 young and ardent reformers, such as William Farel and his friends, 
 were but isolated individuals, eager after new ideas and studies, 
 very favourable towards all that came to them from Germany, but 
 without any consistency yet as a party, and without having com- 
 mitted any striking act of aggression against the Roman Church. 
 Nevertheless they were even then, so far as the heads and the 
 devoted adherents of that Church were concerned, objects of serious 
 disquietude and jealous supervision. The Sorbonne, in particu- The Sor- 
 lar pronounced vehemently against them. The syndic of that bonne. 
 
272 History of France. 
 
 learned society, Noel Bedier or Beda, of whom Erasmus used to 
 say, " in a single Beda there are 3000 monks," had at court two 
 powerful patrons, the king's mother, Louise of Savoy, and the 
 chancellor, Duprat, both decided enemies of the reformers : 
 Louise of Savoy, in consequence of her licentious morals and her 
 thirst for riches ; Duprat, by reason of the same thirst, and of his 
 ambition to become an equally great lord in the Church as in the 
 State ; and he succeeded, for in 1525 he was appointed arch- 
 bishop of Sens. They were, moreover, both of them, opposed to 
 any liberal reform, and devoted, in any case, to absolute power. 
 Beaucaire dePeguilhem, a contemporary and most Catholic historian, 
 for he accompanied the cardinal of Lorraine to the Council of 
 Trent, calls Duprat " the most vicious of bipeds." 
 
 Attitude of Against such passions the reformers found Francis I. a very 
 Francis I. indecisive and very inefficient protector. " I wish," said he, " to 
 give men of letters special marks of my favour." When deputies 
 from the Sorbonne came and requested him to put down the publi- 
 cation of learned works taxed with heresy, " I do not wish," he 
 replied, " to have those folks meddled with ; to persecute those who 
 instruct us would be to keep men of ability from coming to our 
 country." But, in spite of his language, orders were given to the 
 bishops to furnish the necessary funds for the prosecution of here- 
 tics, and, when the charge of heresy became frequent, Francis I. 
 no longer repudiated it : " Those people," he said, " do nothing 
 but bring trouble into the State." 
 
 Persecu- ^ ie defeat at Pavia and the captivity of the king at Madrid 
 tions. placed the governing power for thirteen months in the hands of 
 the most powerful foes of the Reformation, the Regent Louise of 
 Savoy and the chancellor Duprat. They used it unsparingly, with 
 the harsh indifference of politicians who will have, at any price, 
 peace within their dominions and submission to authority. It was 
 under their regimen that there took place the first martyrdom 
 decreed and executed in France upon a partisan of the Reformation 
 for an act of aggression and offence against the Catholic Church, that, 
 we mean, of John Leclerc, a wool-carder at Meaux, followed, after a 
 brief interval, by the burning of Louis de Berquin, a gentleman of 
 Artois. These two confessors of the Protestant faith were notable 
 and vivid representatives of the two classes amongst which, in the 
 sixteenth century, the Reformation took root in France. This move- 
 ment had a double origin, morally and socially, one amongst the 
 people, and the other amongst the aristocratic and the learned; it was 
 not national, nor was it embraced by the government of the country. 
 
Francis I. and the Protestants. 273 
 
 Persecution was its first and its only destiny in the reign of Francis I., 
 and it went through the ordeal with admirable courage and patience ; 
 it resisted only in the form of martyrdom. 
 
 Marguerite alone continued to protect, timidly and dejectedly, 
 those of her friends amongst the reformers whom she could help or 
 to whom she could offer an asylum in Beam without embroiling 
 herself with the king her brother and with the parliaments. 
 
 During the long truce which succeeded the peace of Cambrai, Francis I. 
 from 1532 to 1536, it might have been thought for a while that self To S" 
 the persecution in France was going to be somewhat abated. Protestants 
 Policy obliged Francis I. to seek the support of the protestants German 7 > 
 of Germany against Charles V. ; he was incessantly fluctuating 
 between that policy and a strictly catholic and papal policy ; by 
 marrying his son Henry, on the 28th of October, 1533, to Catherine 
 de' Medici, niece of Pope Clement VII., he seemed to have decided 
 upon the latter course ; but he had afterwards made a movement 
 in the contrary direction ; Clement VII. had died on the 26th of 
 September, 1524; Paul III. had succeeded him; and Francis I. 
 again turned towards the protestants of Germany ; he entered into 
 relations with the most moderate amongst their theologians, with 
 Melancthon, Bucer, and Sturm ; there was some talk of conciliation, 
 of a re-establishment of peace and harmony in the Church ; nor 
 did the king confine himself to speaking by the mouth of diploma- 
 tists ; he himself wrote to Melancthon. But whilst making all 
 these advances to the protestants of Germany, he was continuing 
 to proceed against their brother-Christians in France more bitterly 
 and more flagrantly than ever. The last and most atrocious act of The Van- 
 persecution which occurred in his reign was directed not against M ^g^ re 
 isolated individuals but against a harmless population, the Vaudois, atCabrieres 
 who had for three centuries maintained religious doctrines of a 
 strictly Evangelical character. In 1540, they had been condemned 
 as heretics, but their peaceful habits, the purity of their manners, 
 and the regularity with which they paid the taxes, had induced the 
 king to countermand the execution of the sentence. In April 
 1545, however, precise and rigorous orders were transmitted from 
 the court to the parliament of Aix. Baron de la Garde, assisted 
 by President d'Oppede and by the advocate-general Guerin, 
 invaded suddenly at the head of an army the districts of Cabrieres 
 and Merindol, chiefly inhabited by the Vaudois. 3000 of these 
 unhappy men were massacred or burnt in their dwellings ; 660 
 were sent to the hulks, and the rest, dispersed throughout the 
 woods and mountains, perished of want and of fatigue. Within a 
 radius of fifteen leagues not one tree, not one house was left 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 History of France. 
 
 standing. It is said that Francis I., when near his end, repented of 
 this odious extermination of a small population, which, with his 
 usual fickleness and carelessness, he had at one time protected, and 
 at another abandoned to its enemies. Amongst his last words to 
 his son Henry II. was an exhortation to cause an inquiry to he 
 made into the iniquities committed by the parliament of Aix in 
 this instance. It will be seen, at the opening of Henry II.'s 
 reign, what was the result of this exhortation of his father's. 
 
 It was quite clear that the reformation of the Church could be 
 brought about only by a return to Gospel Christianity, and with 
 Calvin, his this great movement the name of Calvin must ever be associated in 
 an^his 68 France, as that of Luther is in Germany, and that of Zwingli in 
 work. Switzerland. John Calvin, or Chauvin, was born at Noyon in 1509. 
 He received at Orleans lessons in Greek from the Lutheran Melchior 
 Wolmar, who impressed him with his own views of the errors of 
 the Romish Church. The publication of a treatise On Clemency 
 shortly after his conversion (1532), and in the midst of the per- 
 secutions ordered by Francis I. against the first Huguenots, drew 
 upon him some amount of notice. Shortly after he was publicly 
 censured by the Sorbonne on account of a speech which he had 
 composed for Nicolas Cop, rector of the University of Paris. 
 Obliged to leave the metropolis, he found a refuge at Nerac. From 
 thence he went first to Basle, where he published his great work 
 "Institution Chretienne" (1535); then to Geneva, where Farel detained 
 him ; afterwards to Strasburg ; in that city he remained till the 
 year 1541, when the inhabitants of Geneva recalled him in con- 
 sequence of the defeat of his adversaries, who, under the name of 
 Libertines, wanted to oppose the establishment of a severe form 
 of ecclesiastical and political government. Calvin remained at 
 Geneva till his death (1564), exercising unlimited authority, and 
 displaying all the qualities not only of a divine and a pastoral 
 adviser, but also of a stern civil ruler. As a reformer and a 
 Source of legislator, Calvin owed his power to the energy of his mind, and 
 his power, to the manner in which he interpreted the two conflicting prin- 
 ciples liberty and authority. Liberty is the form proposed by 
 Calvin and the Reformers ; religion, that is to say, legitimate 
 obedience, is the substance. The Reformation might have dwindled 
 into a negative protest ; it became a positive movement : instead of 
 being a mere outburst of liberalism, it claimed a hearing as the 
 pure exponent of Christianity, or, rather, this was its first character, 
 and it steadfastly resisted every effort made to draw it away from 
 this safe course. There were, during the sixteenth century, two 
 classes of Reformers. Some, whilst professing the utmost regard 
 
Calvin. 275 
 
 for all the externals of religion (viz., Roman Catholicism), were 
 busily but stealthily engaged in destroying Christianity; the 
 others determined upon following the opposite direction. With 
 them, forms were nothing; nay, they had become worse than 
 nothing ; for they had accumulated like a mass of corrupt rubbish 
 over the fair superstructure raised by Christ in the Gospel ; at any 
 cost these excrescences must be cleared away. The war raged quite 
 as fiercely between both classes of reformers, as between the 
 reformers properly so called and the supporters of the hierarchy ; 
 it was a struggle for life and death, and when we consider the 
 issue, we may boldly affirm that Protestantism, in a certain sense, 
 saved Christianity. We go even farther than that the seventeenth 
 century is indebted to the Reformation for Pascal, Fenelon, 
 Bossuet ; and Port-Royal is connected with Geneva. 
 
 In 1547, when the death of Francis I. was at hand, that eccle- Catholics 
 siastical organization of protestantism which Calvin had instituted 
 at Geneva was not even begun in France. The French protestants 
 were as yet but isolated and scattered individuals, without any bond 
 of generally accepted and practised faith or discipline, and without 
 uny eminent and recognised heads. The Reformation pursued its 
 course ; but a reformed Church did not exist. And this confused 
 mass of reformers and reformed had to face an old, a powerful, and 
 a strongly-constituted Church, which looked upon the innovators as 
 rebels over whom it had every right as much as against them it had 
 every arm. In each of the two camps prevailed errors of enormous 
 magnitude and fruitful of fatal consequences ; catholics and pro- 
 testants both believed themselves to be in exclusive possession of 
 the truth, of all religious truth, and to have the right of imposing it Liberty of 
 by force upon their adversaries the moment they had the power, conscience 
 Both were strangers to any respect for human conscience, human 
 thought, and human liberty. Those who had clamoured for this on 
 their own account when they were weak had no regard for it in 
 respect of others, when they felt themselves to be strong. On the 
 side of the protestants the ferment was at full heat, but as yet 
 vague and unsettled ; on the part of the catholics the persecution 
 was unscrupulous and unlimited. Such was the position and such 
 the state of feeling in which Francis I., at his death on the 31st of 
 March, 1547, left the two parties that had already been at grips 
 during his reign. He had not succeeded either in reconciling them 
 or in securing the triumph of that which had his favour, and the 
 defeat of that which he would have liked to vanquish. That was 
 in nearly all that he undertook, his fate ; he lacked the spirit of 
 sequence and steady persistence, and his merits as well as his defects 
 
 T2 
 
History of France. 
 
 Death of 
 Louise of 
 Savoy 
 Duprat 
 
 Mar- 
 guerite. 
 
 A.D. 1547. 
 
 Accession 
 
 of 
 Henry II. 
 
 almost equally urged him on to rashly attempt that whiclx he only 
 incompletely executed. He was neither prudent nor persevering, 
 and he may be almost said to have laid himself out to please every- 
 body rather than to succeed in one and the same great purpose. 
 
 It is said that at the close of his reign Francis I., in spite of all 
 the resources of bis mind and all his easy-going qualities, was much 
 depressed, and that he died in sadness and disquietude as to the 
 future. One may be inclined to think that, in his egotism, he was 
 more sad on his own account than disquieted on that of his succes- 
 sors and of France. However that may be, he was assuredly far 
 from foreseeing the terrible civil war which began after him and the 
 crimes as well as disasters which it caused. None of his more 
 intimate circle was any longer in a position to excite his solicitude : 
 his mother, Louise of Savoy, had died sixteen years before him 
 [September 22, 1531] ; his most able and most wicked adviser, 
 Chancellor Duprat, twelve years [July 29, 1535]. His sister Mar- 
 guerite survived him two years [she died December 21, 1549], 
 " disgusted with everything," say the historians, and " weary of 
 life," said she herself. 
 
 And yet Marguerite was loth to leave this world. She had always 
 been troubled at the idea of death ; when she was spoken to about 
 eternal life she would shake her head sometimes, saying: "All that 
 is true ; but we remain a mighty long while dead underground before 
 arriving there." When she was told that her end was near, she 
 considered " that a very bitter word, saying that she was not so old 
 but that she might still live some years." She had been the most 
 generous, the most affectionate and the most lovable person in a 
 family and a court which were both corrupt and of which she only 
 too often acquiesced in the weaknesses and even vices, though she 
 always fought against their injustice and their cruelty. She had 
 the honour of being the grandmother of Henry IV. 
 
 Henry II. had all the defects and, with the exception of personal 
 bravery, not one amongst the brilliant and amiable qualities of the 
 king his father. Like Francis I., he was rash and reckless in his 
 resolves and enterprises, but without having the promptness, the 
 fertility and the suppleness of mind which Francis I. displayed in 
 getting out of the awkward positions in which he had placed him- 
 self and in stalling off or mitigating the consequences of them. 
 Henry was as cold and ungenial as Francis had been gracious and 
 able to please : and whilst Francis I., even if he were a bad master 
 to himself, was at any rate his own master, Henry II. submitted, 
 without resistance and probably without knowing it, to the influence 
 of the favourite who reigned in his house as well as in his court, 
 
Rebellion against the salt-tax. 277 
 
 and of the advisers who were predominant in his government. Two 
 facts will suffice to set in a clear light, at the commencement of the 
 new reign, this regrettable analogy in the defects and this profound 
 diversity in the mind, character and conduct of the two kings. 
 
 Towards the close of 1542, a grievous aggravation of the tax upon 
 salt, called gabel, caused a violent insurrection in the town of 
 Eochelle, which was exempted, it was said, by its traditional privi- 
 leges from that impost. Not only was payment refused, but the 
 commissioners were maltreated and driven away. Francis I. con- 
 sidered the matter grave enough to require his presence for its 
 repression. He repaired to Eochelle with a numerous body of 
 lanzknechts. The terrified population appeared to have determined 
 upon submission, and they were let off for a fine of 200,000 francs, 
 which the king gave to his keeper of the seals, Francis de Montho- 
 lon, whom he wished to compensate for his good service. The 
 keeper of the seals in his turn made a present of them to the town 
 of Eochelle to found a hospital. But the ordinances as to the salt- 
 tax were maintained in principle, and their extension led, some 
 years afterwards, to a rising of a more serious character and very 
 differently repressed. 
 
 In 1548, hardly a year after the accession of Henry II. and in A.D. 1548. 
 the midst of the rejoicings he had gone to be present at in the north i n %he 1(m 
 of Italy, he received news at Turin to the effect that in Guienne, South of 
 Angoumois and Saintonge a violent and pretty general insurrection France - 
 had broken out against the salt-tax, which Francis I., shortly before 
 his death, had made heavier in these provinces. The local authorities 
 in vain attempted to repress the rising, and it was put down in the 
 most terrible manner by constable de Montmorency. This insur- 
 rection was certainly more serious than that of Eochelle in 1542 ; 
 but it is also quite certain that Francis I. would not have set about 
 repressing it as Henry II. did ; he would have appeared there him- 
 self and risked his own person instead of leaving the matter to the 
 harshest of his lieutenants, and he would have more skilfully inter- 
 mingled generosity with force and kind words with acts of severity. 
 And that is one of the secrets of governing. In 1549, scarcely a 
 year after the revolt at Bordeaux, Henry II., then at Amiens, 
 granted to deputies from Poitou, Eochelle, the district of Aunis, 
 Limousin, Perigord, and Saintonge, almost complete abolition of the 
 gabel in Guienne, which paid the king, by way of compensation, 
 two hundred thousand crowns of gold for the expenses of war or the 
 redemption of certain alienated domains. We may admit that on 
 the day after the revolt the arbitrary and bloody proceedings of the 
 constable de Montmorency must have produced upon the insurgents 
 
278 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Constable 
 de Mont- 
 morency. 
 His cha- 
 racter. 
 
 War with 
 Germany. 
 
 of Bordeaux the effect of a salutary fright ; but we may doubt 
 whether so cruel a repression was absolutely indispensable in 1548, 
 when in 1549 the concession demanded in the former year was to 
 be recognized as necessary. 
 
 History must do justice even to the men whose brutal violence 
 she stigmatizes and reproves. In the case of Anne de Montmo- 
 rency it often took the form of threats intended to save him from 
 the necessity of acts. When he came upon a scene of any great 
 confusion and disorder : "Go hang me such an one," he would 
 say; "tie yon fellow to that tree ; despatch this fellow with pikes 
 and arquebuses, this very minute, right before my eyes ; cut me 
 in pieces all those rascals who chose to hold such a clockcase as 
 this against the king ; burn me yonder village ; light me up a blaze 
 everywhere, for a quarter of a mile all round." The same man 
 paid the greatest attention to the discipline and good condition of 
 his troops, in order to save the populations from their requisitions 
 and excesses. A nephew of the constable de Montmorency, a 
 young man of twenty-three, who at a later period became Admiral 
 de Coligny, was ordered to see to the execution of these protective 
 measures, and he drew up, between 1550 and 1552, at first for his 
 own regiment of foot and afterwards as colonel-general of this 
 army, rules of military discipline which remained for a long while 
 in force. 
 
 There was war in the atmosphere. The king and his advisers, 
 the court and the people, had their minds almost equally full of it, 
 some in sheer dread, and others with an eye to preparation. The 
 reign of Francis I. had ended mournfully ; the peace of Crespy had 
 hurt the feelings both of royalty and of the nation ; Henry, now 
 king, had, as dauphin, felt called upon to disavow it. It had left 
 England in possession of Calais and Boulogne and confirmed the 
 dominion or ascendancy of Charles Y. in Germany, Italy and Spain, 
 on all the French frontiers. How was the struggle to be recom- 
 menced? Two systems of policy and warfare, moreover, divided 
 the king's council into two : Montmorency, now old and worn out 
 in body and mind [he was born in 1492 and so was sixty in 1552], 
 was for a purely defensive attitude, no adventures or battles to be 
 sought, but victuals and all sorts of supplies to be destroyed in the 
 provinces which might be invaded by the enemy, so that instead 
 of winning victories there he might not even be able to live there. 
 In 1536 this system had been found successful by the constable in 
 causing the failure of Charles Y.'s invasion of Provence; but in 
 1550 a new generation had come into the world, the court, and the 
 army; it comprised young men full of ardour and already dis- 
 
New generation of warriors and politicians. 279 
 
 tinguished for their capacity and valour ; Francis de Lorraine, duke 
 of Guise [born at the castle of Bar, February 17, 1519], was thirty- 
 one ; his brother, Charles de Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, was only 
 six-and-twenty [he was born at Joinville, February 17, 1524] ; 
 Francis de Scepeaux [born at Duretal, Anjou, in 1510], who after- 
 wards became Marshal de Yieilleville, was at this time nearly forty ; 
 but he had contributed in 1541 to the victory of Ceresole, and 
 Francis I. had made so much of it that he had said on presenting 
 him to his son Henry : " He is no older than you, and see what he 
 has done already ; if the wars do not swallow him up, you will The new 
 some day make him constable or marshal of France." Gaspard de f f e y e r g^ 
 Coligny [born at Chatillon-sur-Loing, February 16, 1517], was warriors, 
 thirty-three ; and his brother, Francis d'Andelot [born at Chatillon 
 in 1521], twenty -nine. These men, warriors and politicians at one 
 and the same time, in a high social position and in the flower of 
 their age, could not reconcile themselves to the constable de Mont- 
 morency's system, defensive solely and prudential to the verge of 
 inertness; they thought that, in order to repair the reverses of 
 France and for the sake of their own fame, there was something 
 else to be done, and they impatiently awaited the opportunity. 
 
 It was not long coming. At the close of 1551, a deputation of 
 the protestant princes of Germany came to Fontainebleau to ask for 
 the king's support against the aggressive and persecuting despotism 
 of Charles V. Their request having been granted, the place of 
 meeting for the army was appointed at Chalons-sur-Marne, March 
 10, 1552; more than a thousand gentlemen flocked thither as 
 volunteers ; peasants and mechanics from Champagne and Picardy 
 joined them ; the war was popular; "the majority of the soldiers," 
 says Eabutin, a contemporary chronicler, " were young men whose 
 brains were on fire." Francis de Guise and Gaspard de Coligny 
 were their chief leaders. The king entered Lorraine from Cham- 
 pagne by Joinville, the ordinary residence of the dukes of Guise. ne SS 
 He carried Pont-a-Mousson ; Toul opened its gates to him on the French. 
 13th of April ; he occupied Nancy on the 14th, and on the 18th 
 he entered Metz, not without some hesitation amongst a portion of 
 the inhabitants and the necessity of a certain show of military force 
 on the part of the leaders of the royal army. At that time the 
 emperor was lying ill at Inspruck, where he had gone for the pur- 
 pose of watching more closely the deliberations of the council of 
 Trent. On the point of being surprised in that city by Maurice of 
 Saxony at the head of the Protestants, he signed with these the 
 treaty of Passau, afterwards ratified at Augsburg (1552-55). Then 
 he came to besiege Metz, which the Duke of Guise successfully 
 defended, displaying as much true courage as greatness of soiil. 
 
280 History of France. 
 
 During the next year (1553), Charles V., anxious to avenge the 
 check which his forces had met with, invaded Artois, and burnt 
 down the city of Therouanne, which has never since been rebuilt. 
 A short time after, his army was defeated at Eenty by Guise and 
 Tuvannes. In the meanwhile, marshal Brissac was holding his 
 ground in Piedmont ; Strozzi, a Florentine in the service of France? 
 and Montluc, defended in turns the town of Sienna which, at last, 
 was obliged to capitulate to the fierce Medichino ; the French fleet, 
 commanded by Baron de la Garde, and combined with that of the 
 Turks under the orders of Dragut, threatened the coasts of Calabria 
 and of Sicily, ravaged the island of Elba, and captured some towns 
 in Corsica, then belonging to the Genoese. 
 
 Abdication These events decided Charles V. to abdicate. On the 25th of 
 ? f v October, 1555, and the 1st of January, 1556, he gave over to his 
 son Philip the kingdom of Spain, with the sovereignty of Burgundy 
 and the Low Countries, and to his younger brother Ferdinand the 
 empire, together with the original heritage of the House of Austria ; 
 he then retired personally to the monastery of Yuste, in Estrama- 
 dura, there to pass the last years of his life, distracted with gout, 
 at one time resting from the world and its turmoil, at another 
 vexing himself about what was doing there now that he was no 
 longer in it. Before abandoning it for good, he desired to do his 
 son Philip the service of leaving him, if not in a state of definite 
 peace, at any rate in a condition of truce with France. Henry II. 
 also desired rest ; and the constable de Montmorency wished above 
 everything for the release of his son Francis, who had been a 
 prisoner since the fall of Therouanne. A truce for five years was 
 signed at Yaucelles on the 5th of February, 1556; and Coligny, 
 quite young still, but already admiral and in high esteem, had the 
 conduct of the negotiation. 
 
 Philip II Philip II. continued his father's policy, and took measures for 
 his sue- promptly entering upon a fresh campaign. By his marriage with 
 S 6S ain m Mary Tudor, queen of England, he had secured for himself a 
 marries powerful ally in the North ; the English parliament were but little 
 disposed to compromise themselves in a war with France ; but in 
 March, 1557, Philip went to London; the queen's influence and 
 the distrust excited in England by Henry II. prevailed over the 
 pacific desires of the nation ; and Mary sent a simple herald to 
 carry to the king of France at Eheims her declaration of war. 
 A.D. 1558. Henry accepted it politely but resolutely. A negotiation was corn- 
 Mary menced for accomplishing the marriage, long since agreed upon, 
 marries between the young queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart, and Henry II.'s 
 the Dan- SOI1) Francis, dauphin of France. Mary, who was born on the 8th 
 of December, 1542, at Falkland Castle in Scotland, had, since 
 
Treaty of Cdteau-Carnbresis. 281 
 
 1548, lived and received her education at the court of France, 
 whither her mother, Mary of Lorraine, eldest sister of Francis of 
 Guise and queen-dowager of Scotland, had lost no time in sending 
 her as soon as the future union between the two children had been 
 agreed upon between the two courts. The dauphin of France was 
 a year younger than the Scottish princess; on the 19th of April, 
 1558, the espousals took place in the great hall of the Louvre, and 
 the marriage was celebrated in the church of Notre-Dame. From 
 that time Mary Stuart was styled in France queen-dauphiness, and 
 her husband, with the authorization of the Scottish commissioners, 
 took the title of king-dauphin. 
 
 In the meanwhile Henry II. made an alliance with Pope Paul IV. A.D. 1557. 
 and sent two armies, one into the Netherlands, under the command ^ a . ttle of 
 of Montmorency, the other into Italy, under that of the duke of Quentin. 
 Guise. Montmorency was thoroughly defeated at Saint-Quentin 
 by the duke of Savoy, Philibert Emmanuel (1557), and the French 
 general himself remained in the power of the enemy. Fortunately, 
 admiral Coligny held in check for seventeen days the victor before 
 that town ; a circumstance which enabled the king to organise re- 
 inforcements, and the duke of Guise to return from the kingdom of 
 Naples, where the duke of Alva had resisted him with success. 
 Guise saved France, not by attacking the Spaniards but by sur- 
 prising Calais, which was, after eight days' siege, taken from the 
 English, who had occupied it for the space of two hundred and 
 eleven years. The news of this event was a death blow for Mary. 
 
 Several other acts ol hostility of not much moment took place in 
 the Northern provinces ; the Duke de Guise made himself master 
 of a few small towns, but on the other hand, the French general 
 Thermes was defeated at Gravelines by the count of Egmont. At 
 last, a treaty was signed at Cateau-Cambresis (1559) between . D 
 Henry II. and Elizabeth, who had become queen of England at Treaty of* 
 the death of her sister Mary [November 17th, 1558] ; and next Cateau- ^ 
 day, April 3rd, between Henry II., Philip II. and the allied princes 
 of Spain, amongst others the prince of Orange, William the Silent, 
 who, whilst serving in the Spanish army, was fitting himself to 
 become the leader of the reformers and the liberator of the Low 
 Countries. By the treaty with England, France was to keep Calais 
 for eight years in the first instance, and on a promise to pay 
 500,000 gold crowns to queen Elizabeth or her successors. The 
 money was never paid and Calais was never restored, and this 
 without the English government's having considered that it could 
 make the matter a motive for renewing the war. By the treaty 
 with Spain, France was to keep Metz, Toul, and Yerdun, and have 
 
282 - History of France. 
 
 back Saint-Quentin, le Catelet and Ham ; but she was to restore to 
 Spain or her allies a hundred and eighty-nine places in Flanders, 
 Piedmont, Tuscany, and Corsica. The malcontents, for the absence 
 of political liberty does not suppress them entirely, raised their 
 voices energetically against this last treaty signed by the king, 
 Opposition with the sole desire, it was supposed, of obtaining the liberation of 
 creates 1 ^ s ^ wo f avour ^ es > the constable De Montmorency and marshal de 
 Saint- Andre, who had been prisoners in Spain since the defeat at 
 Saint-Quentin. "Their ransom," it was said, "has cost the kingdom 
 more than that of Francis I." Guise himself said to the king, 
 " A stroke of your Majesty's pen costs more to France than thirty 
 years of war cost." Ever since that time the majority of his- 
 torians, even the most enlightened, have joined in the censure that 
 was general in the sixteenth century ; but their opinion will not 
 be endorsed here : the places which France had won during the 
 war, and which she retained by the peace, Metz, Toul, and Verdun 
 on her frontier in the north-east, facing the imperial or Spanish 
 possessions, and Boulogne and Calais on her coasts in the north- 
 west, facing England, were, as regarded the integrity of the State 
 and the security of the inhabitants, of infinitely more importance 
 than those which she gave up in Flanders and Italy. The treaty 
 of Cateau-Cambresis, too, marked the termination of those wars of 
 ambition and conquest which the kings of France had waged 
 beyond the Alps : an injudicious policy which, for four reigns, had 
 crippled and wasted the resources of France in adventurous expe- 
 ditions, beyond the limits of her geographical position and her 
 natural and permanent interests. 
 
 TheProtes- France was once more at peace with her neighbours, and seemed 
 tants. to have nothing more to do than to gather in the fruits thereof, 
 ment of the But sne had * n ^ er own m idst questions far more difficult of solu- 
 Eeforma- tion than those of her external policy, and these perils from within 
 were threatening her more seriously than any from without. Since 
 the death of Francis I., the religious ferment had pursued its course, 
 becoming more general and more fierce ; the creed of the reformers 
 had spread very much ; their number had very much increased ; 
 permanent churches, professing and submitting to a fixed faith and 
 discipline, had been founded ; that of Paris was the first, in 1555 ; 
 and the example had been followed at Orleans, at Chartres, at 
 Lyons, at Toulouse, at Eochelle, in Normandy, in Touraine, in 
 Guienne, in Poitou, in Dauphiny, in Provence, and in all the pro- 
 vinces, more or less. ID 1561, it was calculated that there were 
 2150 reformed, or, as the expression then was, rectified (dressees), 
 churches. It is clear that the movement of the Eeformation in the 
 
TJie principles of the Reformation spread. 283 
 
 sixteenth century was one of those spontaneous and powerful move- 
 ments which have their source and derive their strength from the 
 condition of men's souls and of whole communities, and not merely 
 from the personal ambitions and interests which soon come and mingle 
 with them, whether it be to promote or to retard them. One thing 
 has been already here stated and confirmed by facts : it was specially Special 
 in France that the Reformation had this truly religious and sincere character 
 character ; very far from supporting or tolerating it, the sovereign French Ke- 
 and public authorities opposed it from its very birth ; under formation. 
 Francis I. it had met with no real defenders but its martyrs ; and 
 it was still the same under Henry II. During the reign of 
 Francis I., within a space of twenty-three years, there had been 
 eighty-one capital executions for heresy; during that of Henry II., 
 twelve years, there were ninety-seven for the same cause, and at 
 one of these executions Henry II. was present in person on the 
 space in front of Notre-Dame : a spectacle which Francis I. had 
 always refused to see. In 1551, 1557 and 1559 Henry II., by 
 three royal edicts, kept up and added to all the prohibitions and 
 penalties in force against the reformers. All the resources of 
 French civil jurisdiction appeared to be insufficient against them. 
 They held at Paris, in May, 1559, their first general synod ; and 
 eleven fully established churches sent deputies to it. This synod 
 drew up a form of faith called the Galilean Confession, and like- 
 wise a form of discipline. The king of Navarre, Anthony de Protestant 
 Bourbon, Prince Louis de Conde, his brother, and many other lords chieftains, 
 had joined the new faith; the queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, 
 in her early youth " was as fond of a ball as of a sermon," says 
 Brantome, " and she had advised her spouse, Anthony de Bourbon, 
 who inclined towards Calvinism, not to perplex himself with all 
 these opinions." In 1559 she was passionately devoted to the faith 
 and the cause of the Reformation. With more levity but still in 
 sincerity her brother-in-law, Louis de Conde, put his ambition and 
 his courage at the service of the same cause. Admiral de Coligny's 
 younger brother, Francis d'Andelot, declared himself a reformer to 
 Henry II. himself, who, in his wrath, threw a plate at his head and 
 sent him to prison in the castle of Melun. Coligny himself, who 
 had never disguised the favourable sentiments he felt towards the 
 reformers, openly sided with them on the ground of his own per- 
 sonal faith as well as of the justice due to them. At last the 
 Reformation had really great leaders, men who had power and were 
 experienced in the affairs of the world ; it was becoming a political 
 party as well as a religious conviction ; and the French reformers 
 were henceforth in a condition to make war as well as die at the 
 
History of France. 
 
 
 stake for their faith. Hitherto they had been only believers and 
 martyrs ; they became the victors and the vanquished, alternately, 
 in a civil war. A new position for them and as formidable as it 
 was grand. 
 
 n tte 29tl1 f June ' 1559 ' a "brilliant tournament was cele- 
 killed in a brated in lists erected at the end of the street of Saint- Antoine, 
 tourna- almost at the foot of the Bastille. Henry II., the queen, and the 
 whole court had been present at it for three days. The entertain- 
 ment was drawing to a close. The king, who had run several tilts 
 "like a sturdy and skilful cavalier." wished to break yet another 
 lance, and bade the count de Montgomery, captain of the guards, 
 to run against him. Montgomery excused himself; but the king 
 insisted. The tilt took place. The two j ousters, on meeting, 
 broke their lances skilfully ; but Montgomery forgot to drop at 
 once, according to usage, the fragment remaining in his hand ; he 
 unintentionally struck the king's helmet and raised the visor, and 
 a splinter of wood entered Henry's eye, who fell forward upon his 
 horse's neck. He languished for eleven days and expired on the 
 10th of July, 1559, aged forty years and some months. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE WAES OF RELIGION. 
 
 FRANCIS II. 1559 - HENRY TIL 1589. 
 
 DURING the course, and especially at the close of Henry II. 's reign, Persecu- 
 two rival matters, on the one hand the numbers, the quality, and ti . ons 
 the zeal of the reformers, and on the other, the anxiety, prejudice, t f e 
 
 and power of the catholics, had been simultaneously advancing in testants. 
 development and growth. Between the 16th of May, 1558, and 
 the 10th of July, 1559, fifteen capital sentences had been executed 
 in Dauphiny, in Normandy, in Poitou, and at Paris. Two royal 
 edicts, one dated July 24,< 1558, and the other June 14, 1559, had 
 renewed and aggravated the severity of penal legislation against 
 heretics. To secure the registration of the latter, Henry II. , 
 together with the princes and the officers of the crown, had 
 repaired in person to parliament ; some disagreement had already 
 appeared in the midst of that great body, which was then composed 
 of a hundred and thirty magistrates ; the seniors who sat in the 
 great chamber had in general shown themselves to be more inclined 
 to severity, and the juniors, who formed the chamber called La 
 Tournelle, more inclined to indulgence towards accusations of 
 heresy. The disagreement reached its climax in the very presence 
 of the king. Two councillors, Dubourg and Dufaure, spoke so 
 
286 History of France. 
 
 warmly of reforms which, were, according to them, necessary and 
 legitimate, that their adversaries did not hesitate to tax them 
 with being reformers themselves. The king had them arrested 
 and three of their colleagues with them. Special commissioners 
 were charged with the preparation of the case against them. It 
 has already been mentioned that one of the most considerable 
 amongst the officers of the army, Francis d'Andelot, brother of 
 Admiral Coligny, had, for the same cause, been subjected to a 
 burst of anger on the part of the king. He was in prison at Meaux 
 when Henry II. died. Such were the personal feelings and the 
 relative positions of the two parties when Francis II. a boy of 
 sixteen, a poor creature both in mind and body, ascended the 
 throne. The constable de Montmorency and Henry II. 's favourite, 
 Diana de Poitiers, were dismissed, the latter in a harsh manner, 
 and the power remained in the hands of the Queen mother, Cathe- 
 rine de' Medici, advised by the Guises. 
 
 Th&Guises, In order to give a good notion of Duke Francis of Guise and 
 * " kis ^ ro ^ ner the cardinal of Lorraine, the two heads of the house, 
 we will borrow the very words of one of the men of their age who 
 had the best means of seeing them close and judging them correctly, 
 the Venetian ambassador John Micheli. "The cardinal," he says, 
 "who is the leading man of the house, would be, by common 
 consent, if it were not for the defects of which I shall speak, the 
 greatest political power in this kingdom. He has not yet completed 
 his thirty-seventh year ; he is endowed with a marvellous intellect, 
 which apprehends from half a word the meaning of those who con- 
 verse with him ; he has an astonishing memory, a fine and noble 
 face, and a rare eloquence which shows itself freely on any subject, 
 but especially in matters of politics. He is very well versed in 
 letters : he knows Greek, Latin, and Italian. He is very strong in 
 the sciences, chiefly in theology. The externals of his life are very 
 proper and very suitable to his dignity, which could not be said of 
 the other cardinals and prelates, whose habits are too scandalously 
 irregular. But his great defect is shameful cupidity, which would 
 employ, to attain its ends, even criminal means, and likewise great 
 duplicity, whence comes his habit of scarcely ever saying that 
 which is. There is worse behind. He is considered to be very 
 ready to take offence, vindictive, envious, and far too slow in 
 benefaction. He excited universal hatred by hurting all the world 
 as long as it was in his power to do so. As for Mgr. de Guise, who is 
 the eldest of the six brothers, he cannot be spoken of save as a man 
 of war, a good officer. None in this realm has delivered more 
 battles and confronted more dangers. Everbody lauds his courage, 
 
The Guises and their influence. 287 
 
 his vigilance, his steadiness in war, and his coolness, a quality 
 wonderfully rare in a Frenchman. His peculiar defects are first of 
 all stinginess towards soldiers ; then he makes large promises, and 
 even when he means to keep his promise he is infinitely slow 
 about it." 
 
 The Guises were, in the sixteenth century, the representatives S** 1116 * 
 and the champions of the different cliques and interests, religious govern- 
 or political, sincere in their belief or shameless in their avidity, and men *- 
 all united under the flag of the catholic Church. And so when 
 they came into power, " there was nothing," says a protestant 
 chronicler, "but fear and trembling at their name." Their acts of 
 government soon confirmed the fears as well as the hopes they had 
 inspired. During the last six moriths of 1559 the edict issued by 
 Henry II. from Ecouen was not only strictly enforced but aggra- 
 vated by fresh edicts : a special chamber was appointed and chosen 
 amongst the parliament of Paris, which was to have sole cognizance 
 of crimes and offences against the catholic religion. A proclamation 
 of the new king Francis II. ordained that houses in which 
 assemblies of reformers took place should be razed and demolished. 
 It was " death to the promoters of unlawful assemblies for purposes 
 of religion or for any other cause." Another royal act provided 
 that all persons, even relatives, who received amongst them any one 
 condemned for heresy, should seize him and bring him to justice, 
 in default whereof they would suffer the same penalty as he. 
 Individual condemnations and executions abounded after these 
 general measures; between the 2nd of August and the 31st of The Hu- 
 December, 1559, eighteen persons were burned alive for open ^rely^per 
 heresy, or for having refused to communicate according to the rites secuted. 
 of the Catholic Church or go to mass, or for having hawked about 
 forbidden books. Finally, in December, the five councillors of the 
 parliament of Paris whom, six months previously, Henry II. had 
 ordered to be arrested and shut up in the Bastille, were dragged 
 from prison and brought to trial. The chief of them, Anne Dubourg, 
 was condemned on the 22nd of December, and put to death the 
 next day in the Place de Greve. 
 
 As soon as the rule of the catholics, in the persons and by the 
 actions of the Guises, became sovereign and aggressive, the 
 threatened reformers assumed attitude of defence. They too had 
 got for themselves great leaders, some valiant and ardent, others 
 prudent or even timid, but forced to declare themselves when the 
 common cause was greatly imperilled. They ranged themselves 
 round the king of Navarre, the prince of Conde, and Admiral de 
 Coligny, and became under their direction, though in a minority, 
 
288 History of France. 
 
 a powerful opposition, able and ready, on the one hand, to narrowly 
 watch and criticize the actions of those who were in power, and on 
 the other to claim for their own people, not by any means freedom 
 as a general principle in the constitution of the State, but free 
 manifestation of their faith and free exercise of their own form 
 of worship. 
 
 Catherine Apart from, we do not mean to say above, these two great parties 
 de' Medici, -^r^ch we re arrayed in the might and appeared as the representatives 
 of the national ideas and feelings, the queen-mother, Catherine de' 
 Medici was quietly labouring to form another, more independent 
 of the public, and more docile to herself, and, above all, faithful to 
 the crown and to the interests of the kingly house and its servants ; 
 a party strictly catholic, but regarding as a necessity the task of 
 humouring the reformers and granting them such concessions as 
 as might prevent explosions fraught with peril to the State. The 
 constable De Montmorency sometimes issued forth from Chantilly 
 to go and aid the queen-mother, in whom he had no confidence, but 
 whom he preferred to the Guises. A former councillor of the par- 
 liament, for a long while chancellor under Francis I. and Henry II. 
 and again summoned, under Francis II., by Catherine de' Medici to 
 the same post, Francis Olivier, was an honourable executant of the 
 party's indecisive but moderate policy. He died on the 15th of 
 March, 1560 ; and Catherine, in concert with the cardinal of Lor- 
 raine, had the chancellorship thus vacated conferred upon Michael 
 de 1'Hospital, a magistrate already celebrated and destined to become 
 still more so. 
 
 A.D. 1560. A few months, and hardly so much, after the accession of Francis 
 La Eenau- jj^ a se rious matter brought into violent collision the three parties 
 attempt. wnose characteristics and dispositions have just been described. 
 The supremacy of the Guises was insupportable to the reformers and 
 irksome to many lukewarm, or wavering members of the catholic 
 nobility. An edict of the king's had revoked all the graces and 
 alienations of domains granted by his father. The crown refused 
 to pay its most lawful debts ; and duns were flocking to the court. 
 To get rid of them, the cardinal of Lorraine had a proclamation 
 issued by the king, warning all persons, of whatever condition, who 
 had come to dun for payment of debts, for compensations or for 
 graces, to take themselves off within twenty-four hours on pain of 
 being hanged ; and, that it might appear how seriously meant the 
 threat was, a very conspicuous gibbet was erected at Fontainebleau 
 close to the palace. This affront led the Huguenots, assisted by the 
 other malcontents, to form a scheme whereby the king should be 
 seized, placed under a kind of surveillance, and the power of the 
 
La Renaudies conspiracy. 289 
 
 Lorraine princes destroyed for ever. Conde was evidently at the 
 head of the plot, but the management of the whole affair was 
 entrusted to a Perigord gentilhomme, Godefroid de Barry, sieur 
 de la Eenaudie. So extensive a conspiracy, and necessarily involv- 
 ing the participation of a large number of accomplices, could not long 
 remain secret. The court was then at Blois, and on rumours being 
 spread abroad of the discovery of a plot, Francois de Guise suddenly 
 removed the king to Amboise, which could more easily be defended 
 against a coup de main. The prince of Conde himself, though 
 informed about the discovery of the plot, repaired to Amboise "Tumulte 
 without showing any signs of being disconcerted at the cold recep- 
 tion offered him by the Lorraine princes. The duke of Guise, 
 always bold, even in his precautions, " found an honourable means 
 of making sure of him," says Castelnau, " by giving him the guard 
 at a gate of the town of Amboise," where he had him under watch 
 and ward himself. The lords and gentlemen attached to the court 
 made sallies all around Amboise to prevent any unexpected attack. 
 On the 18th of March, La Eenaudie, who was scouring the country, 
 seeking to rally his men, encountered a body of royal horse who 
 were equally hotly in quest of the conspirators ; the two detach- 
 ments attacked one another furiously ; La Eenaudie was killed, and 
 his body, which was carried to Amboise, was strung up to a gallows 
 on the bridge over the Loire with this scroll : " This is La Eenaudie 
 called La Forest, captain of the rebels, leader and author of the sedi- 
 tion." The important result of the riot of Amboise (tumulte 
 d Amboise), as it was called, was an ordinance of Francis II., who, 
 on the 17th of March, 1560, appointed Duke Francis of Guise " his 
 lieutenant-general, representing him in person absent and present 
 in this good town of Amboise and other places of the realm, with 
 full power, authority, commission and especial mandate to assemble 
 all the princes, lords, and gentlemen, and generally to command, 
 order, provide, and dispose of all things requisite and necessary." 
 
 The Guises made a cruel use of their easy victory : " for a whole Cruelty of 
 month," according to contemporary chronicles, " there was nothing tlle 
 but hanging or drowning folks. The Loire was covered with 
 corpses strung, six, eight, ten and fifteen, to long poles. . . ." It 
 was too much vengeance to take and too much punishment to inflict 
 for a danger so short-lived and so strictly personal. There was, 
 throughout a considerable portion of the country, a profound feeling 
 of indignation against the Lorraine princes. One of their victims, 
 Villemongey, just as it came to his turn to die, plunged his hands 
 into his comrades' blood, saying, " Heavenly Father, this is the blood 
 of Thy children : Thou wilt avenge it 1" John d'Aubigne, a noble- 
 
 u 
 
290 History of France. 
 
 man of Saintonge, as he passed through. Amboise one market-day 
 with his son, a little boy eight years old, stopped before the heads 
 fixed upon the posts and said to the child, " My boy, spare not thy 
 head, after mine, to avenge these brave chiefs ; if thou spare thyself, 
 thou shalt have my curse upon thee." The Chancellor Olivier him- 
 self, for a long while devoted to the Guises, but now seriously ill 
 and disquieted about the future of his soul, said to himself, quite 
 low, as he saw the cardinal of Lorraine, from whom he had just 
 received a visit, going out, " Ah ! cardinal, you are getting us all 
 damned ! " 
 
 Feeling in On all sides there was a demand for the convocation of the states- 
 ^ V Y of general. The Guises and the queen-mother, who dreaded this great 
 general, and independent national power, attempted to satisfy public opinion 
 by calling an assembly of notables, not at all numerous, and chosen 
 by themselves. It was summoned to meet on August 21, 1560, at 
 Fontainebleau, in the apartments of the queen-mother. Some great 
 lords, certain bishops, the constable De Montmorency, two marshals 
 of France, the privy councillors, the knights of the order, the secre- 
 taries of state and finance, Chancellor de 1'Hospital and Coligny 
 took part in it ; the king of Navarre and the prince of Conde did 
 not respond to the summons they received ; the constable rode up 
 with a following of six hundred horse. The cardinal of Lorraine 
 having given his consent to the holding of the states-general, his 
 opinion was adopted by the king, the queen-mother, and the 
 assemblage. An edict dated August 26, convoked a meeting of 
 They are the states-general at Meaux on the 10th of December following, 
 convened. Meanwhile, it was announced that the punishment of sectaries 
 would, for the present, be suspended, but that the king reserved to 
 himself and his judges the right of severely chastising those who 
 had armed the populace and kindled sedition. 
 
 A D iseo ^ e e ^ ec ^ OIls to the states-general were very stormy ; all parties 
 Death of " displayed the same ardour ; the Guises by identifying themselves 
 Francis II. more an d mor e with the Catholic cause, and employing, to further 
 its triumph, all the resources of the government ; the reformers by 
 appealing to the rights of liberty and to the passions bred of sect 
 and of local independence. Despite the entreaties of their staunchest 
 friends, the king of Navarre and Conde came to Orleans. The 
 Guises who had sufficient proofs against the latter, caused him to 
 be arrested as soon as he had entered the town, and wished to 
 murder Navarre whom they could not get rid of by legal means. At 
 the appointed moment, however, Frai^ois refused to give the signal, 
 and. so this part of the scheme failed. In the meanwhile a special 
 commission had been named to try Conde : his fate had been sealed 
 
Protestantism in Europe. 291 
 
 beforehand ; he was condemned to death, and would have certainly 
 perished, had not the courageous L'Hospital refused to sign the sen- 
 tence. Thus some time was gained, and as the king was on his 
 death-bed a short delay proved the salvation of Conde's life. 
 Francis II. died on the 5th of December ; he had reigned seventeen 
 months. 
 
 At the close of the fifteenth and at the commencement of the *otes- ^ 
 sixteenth centuries, religious questions had profoundly agitated Europe. 
 Christian Europe ; but towards the middle of the latter century 
 they had obtained in the majority of European States solutions 
 which, however incomplete, might be regarded as definitive. 
 Germany was divided into Catholic States and Protestant States, 
 which had established between themselves relations of an almost 
 pacific character. Switzerland was entering upon the same 
 course. In England, Scotland, the Low Countries, the Scandi- 
 navian States, and the free towns their neighbours, the Reforma- 
 tion had prevailed or was clearly tending to prevail. In Italy, 
 Spain, and Portugal, on the contrary, the Reformation had been 
 stifled, and Catholicism remained victorious. It was in France 
 that, notwithstanding the inequality of forces, the struggle between 
 Catholicism and Protestantism was most obstinately maintained, 
 and appeared for the longest time uncertain. 
 
 Men were wonderfully far from understanding the principle of 
 religious liberty in 1560, at the accession of Charles IX., a child 
 ten years old ; around that royal child, and seeking to have the 
 mastery over Erance by being masters over him, were struggling 
 the three great parties at that time occupying the stage in the name 
 of religion : the Catholics rejected altogether the idea of religious 
 liberty for the Protestants ; the Protestants had absolute need of 
 it, for it was their condition of existence ; but they did not wish for 
 it in the case of the Catholics their adversaries. The third party 
 (tiers parti), as we call it now-a-days, wished to hold the balance 
 continually wavering between the Catholics and the Protestants, 
 conceding to the former and the latter, alternately, that measure of 
 liberty which was indispensable for most imperfect maintenance 
 of the public peace and reconcilable with the sovereign power of 
 the kingship. On such conditions was the government of 
 Charles IX. to establish its existence. 
 
 The new king, on announcing to the parliament the death of his Charles IX. 
 brother, wrote to them that " confiding in the virtues and prudence 
 of the queen-mother, he had begged her to take in hand the 
 administration of the kingdom, with the wise counsel and advice 
 of the king of Navarre, and the notables and great personages of 
 
 u 2 
 
292 History of France. 
 
 the late king's council." A few months afterwards the' states- 
 general, assembling first at Orleans and afterwards at Pontoise, 
 ratified this declaration by recognizing the placing of " the 
 young king Charles IX. 's guardianship in the hands of Catherine 
 de' Medici, his mother, together with the principal direction of 
 affairs, but without the title of regent." The king of .Navarre was 
 to assist her in the capacity of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. 
 Twenty-five members specially designated were to form the king's 
 privy council. 
 
 The Queen The queen-mother of France was, to use the words of the Yene- 
 He^cha- ^ an am bassador, John Michieli, who had lived at her court, " a 
 racter. woman of forty-three, of affable manners, great moderation, superior 
 intelligence, and ability in conducting all sorts of affairs, especially 
 affairs of State. As mother, she has the personal management of 
 the king ; she allows no one else to sleep in his room ; she is never 
 away from him. As regent and head of the government, she holds 
 everything in her hands, public offices, benefices, graces, and the 
 seal which bears the king's signature, and which is called the 
 cachet (privy-seal or signet). In the council, she allows the others* 
 to speak ; she replies to any one who needs it ; she decides accord- 
 ing to the advice of the council, or according to what she may have 
 made up her own mind to. She opens the letters addressed to the 
 king by his ambassadors and by all the ministers. . . . She has 
 great designs, and does not allow them to be easily penetrated." 
 The power really belonged to Catherine de' Medici, if she had only 
 known how to keep it. She, however, merely took it away from 
 the heads of the Guises, chiefs of the Catholic party, but did not 
 make any use of it hersel That Italian woman, adopting the 
 old political principles of the Borgias, was incapable of holding the 
 balance even between the energetic men who despised her ; she 
 was out of her place in that epoch of strong persuasion, and 
 L'Hospital himself could not carry out his ideas of strict imparti- 
 ality L'Hospital, that noble embodiment of wisdom which the 
 storms of passion cannot shake. Guise soon recovered the influence 
 he had lost at first, and the court rendered this easy for him by 
 publishing the edicts of Saint Germain favourable to the Huguenots, 
 and by admitting the divines of the Protestant persuasion to a 
 solemn discussion at the colloque of Poissy. Whilst the Calvinists 
 were revolting at Nismes, the followers of the Duke de Guise 
 Massacre ' massacred a company of Protestants at Yassy in Champagne (1562). 
 of Vassy. The civil war was then begun. 
 
 From 1561 to 1572 there were in France eighteen or twenty 
 massacres of Protestants, four or five of Catholics, and thirty or 
 
" The Triumvirate! 1 and the Protestant association. 293 
 
 forty single murders sufficiently important to have been kept in 
 remembrance by history ; and during that space of time formal 
 civil war, religious and partisan, broke out, stopped and recom- 
 menced in four campaigns signalized, each of them, by great battles 
 and four times terminated by impotent or deceptive treaties of 
 peace, which, on the 24th of August, 1572, ended, for their sole 
 result, in the greatest massacre of French history, the St. Bartho- 
 lomew. 
 
 The first religious war, under Charles IX., appeared on the The trium- 
 point of breaking out in April, 1561, some days after that the duke virate. 
 of Guise, returning from the massacre of Yassy, had entered 
 Paris, on the 1 6th of March, in triumph. The queen-mother, in dis- 
 may, carried off the king to Melun at first, and then to Fontaine- 
 bleau, whilst the prince of Conde, having retired to Meaux, sum- 
 moned to his side his relatives, his friends, and all the leaders 
 of the reformers, olid wrote to Coligny " that Csesar had not only 
 crossed the Rubicon, but was already at Rome, and that his 
 banners were beginning to wave all over the neighbouring country." 
 For some days Catherine and L'Hospital tried to remain out of 
 Paris with the young king, whom Guise, the constable De Mont- 
 morency and the king of Navarre, the former being members and 
 the latter an ally of the triumvirate, went to demand back from 
 them. They were obliged to submit to the pressure brought to 
 bear upon them. The constable was the first to enter Paris, and 
 went, on the 2nd of April, and burnt down the two places of 
 worship which, by virtue of the decree of January 17, 1561, had 
 been granted to the Protestants. Next day the king of Navarre 
 and the duke of Guise, in their turn, entered the city in company 
 with Charles IX. and Catherine. A council was assembled at the 
 Louvre to deliberate as to the declaration of war, which was 
 deferred. Whilst the king was on his way back to Paris, Conde 
 hurried off to take up his quarters at Orleans, whither Coligny assoc i a tion 
 went promptly to join him. They signed with the gentlemen who of the Pro- 
 came to them, from all parts a compact of association " for the 
 honour of God, for the liberty of the king, his brothers and the 
 queen-mother, and for the maintenance of decrees ; " and Conde, 
 in writing to the protestant princes of Germany to explain to them 
 his conduct, took the title of protector of the house and crown of 
 France. Negotiations still went 011 for nearly three months. The 
 chiefs of the two parties attempted to offer one another generous 
 and pacific solutions ; they even had two interviews ; but Catherine 
 was induced by the Catholic triumvirate to expressly declare that 
 she could not allow in France more than one single form of 
 
294 History of France. 
 
 worship. Conde and his friends said that they could not lay 
 down their arms until the triumvirate was overthrown, and the 
 execution of decrees granting them liberty of worship, in certain 
 places and to a certain extent, had been secured to them. ^Neither 
 party liked to acknowledge itself beaten in this way, without having 
 struck a blow. 
 
 On both sides was displayed equal enthusiasm ; the first armies 
 that were raised distinguished themselves by the utmost strictness ; 
 no debauchery, no gambling, no swearing ; religious worship morn- 
 ing and evening. But under these externals of piety the hearts 
 retained all their cruelty. Montluc, governor of Guienne, went 
 about accompanied by a band of executioners. He says himself in 
 his memoirs : " on pouvoit cognoistre par ou il etoit passe, car par 
 les arbres sur les chemins on en trouvoit les enseignes." In the pro- 
 vince of Dauphine, a Protestant chieftain, baron des Adrets, retali- 
 ated in the most cruel manner. He obliged his prisoners to throw 
 themselves down from the top of a high tower on the pikes and 
 spears of his soldiers. 
 
 A.D. 1562. Guise was, first, conqueror at Dreux ; he made a prisoner of Conde, 
 
 D reux 8 f g enera l f tne Protestant army, and gave on that occasion proofs of 
 
 (Dec. 19). a generosity which could scarcely have been expected under such 
 
 circumstances. He shared his bed with his captive, " and so," says 
 
 La Noue, " these two great princes, who were like mortal foes, 
 
 found themselves in one bed, one triumphant and the other captive, 
 
 taking their repast together." 
 
 The results of the battle of Dreux were serious, and still more 
 serious from the fate of the chiefs than from the number of 
 the dead. The commanders of the two armies, the constable 
 De Montmorency and the prince of Conde, were wounded and 
 prisoners. One of the triumvirs, Marshal de Saint- Andre, had 
 been killed in action. The Catholics' wavering ally, Anthony de 
 Bourbon, king of Navarre, had died before the battle of a wound 
 which he had received at the siege of Rouen ; and on his death- 
 bed had resumed his protestant bearing, saying that, if God 
 granted him grace to get well, he would have nothing but the 
 The" Due ' Gospel preached throughout the realm. The two staffs (etats- 
 de Guise majors), as we should now say, were disorganized : in one, the 
 8 duke of Guise alone remained unhurt and at liberty ; in the other, 
 
 Coligny, in Conde's absence, was elected general-in-chief of the 
 Protestants. Orleans was at that time the principal stronghold of 
 the Protestant party ; it would certainly have been taken but for 
 the assassination of Guise whom the protestant gentleman Poltrot 
 de Mere shot in the most treacherous manner (1563). Whatever 
 
Guise murdered. Peace of Amboise. 295 
 
 may have "been the ambition of that celebrated man, it is impossible 
 not to feel some respect for him, who addressed to his murderer 
 the following noble words : " Or a, je veux vous montrer cornbien 
 la religion que je tiens est plus douce que celle de quoi vous faites 
 profession : la votre vous a conseille de me tuer sans m'ouir, 
 n'ayant re9U de moi aucune offense ; et la mienne me commande 
 que je vous pardonne, tout convaincu que vous etes de m'avoir 
 voulu tuer sans raison." Arrested, removed to Paris, put to the Arrest and 
 torture and questioned by the commissioners of parliament, Pol- JJJjJ 81 ? 11 *" 
 trot at one time confirmed and at another disavowed his origiu al Poltrot de 
 assertions. Coligny, he said, had not suggested the project to 
 him, but had cognizance of it, and had not attempted to deter him. 
 The decree sentenced Poltrot to the punishment of regicides. He 
 underwent it on the 18th of March, 1563, in the Place de Greve, 
 preserving to the very end that fierce energy of hatred and ven- 
 geance which had prompted his deed. He was heard saying to 
 himself in the midst of his torments and as if to comfort himself, 
 " For all that, he is dead and gone the persecutor of the faithful, 
 and he will not come back again." The angry populace insulted 
 him with yells ; Poltrot added, " If the persecution does not cease, 
 vengeance will fall upon this city, and the avengers are already at 
 hand." 
 
 Catherine de' Medici, well pleased, perhaps, that there was now 
 a question personally embarrassing for the admiral and as yet in 
 abeyance, had her mind entirely occupied apparently with the 
 additional weakness and difficulty resulting to the position of the 
 crown and the Catholic party from the death of the duke of Guise ; 
 she considered peace necessary; and, for reasons of a different 
 nature, Chancellor de 1'Hospital was of the same opinion : he drew 
 attention to " scruples of conscience, the perils of foreign influence, 
 and the impossibility of curing by an application of brute force a 
 malady concealed in the very bowels and brains of the people." 
 Negotiations were entered into with the two captive generals, the A.D. 1563 
 prince of Conde and the constable De Montmorency ; they assented 
 to that policy; and, on the 19th of March, peace was concluded at 
 Amboise in the form of an edict which granted to the Protestants 
 the concessions recognized as indispensable by the crown itself, and 
 regulated the relations of the two creeds, pending " the remedy of 
 time, the decisions of a holy council, and the king's majority." 
 Liberty of conscience and the practice of the religion "called 
 reformed " were recognized " for all barons and lords high-justiciary, 
 in their houses, with their families and dependants ; for nobles 
 having fiefs without vassals and living on the king's lands, but for 
 
296 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Division 
 opinion 
 amongst 
 the Pro- 
 testants. 
 
 Royal de 
 crees. 
 
 them and their families personally." The burgesses were treated 
 less favourably; the reformed worship was maintained in the 
 towns in which it had been practised up to the 7th of March in 
 the current year ; but beyond that and noblemen's mansions, this 
 worship might not be celebrated, save in the faubourgs of one 
 single town in every bailiwick or seneschalty. Paris and its 
 district were to remain exempt from any exercise "of the said 
 reformed religion." 
 
 During the negotiations, and as to the very basis of the edict of 
 March 19, 1563, the Protestants were greatly divided : the soldiers 
 of and the politicians, with Conde at their head, desired peace, and 
 thought that the concessions made by the Catholics ought to be 
 accepted. The majority of the reformed pastors and theologians 
 cried out against the insufficiency of the concessions, and were 
 astonished that there should be so much hurry to make peace 
 when the Catholics had just lost their most formidable captain. 
 It was not long before facts put the malcontents in the right. 
 Between 1563 and 1567 murders of distinguished Protestants 
 increased strangely, and excited amongst their families anxiety 
 accompanied by a thirst for vengeance. The Guises and their 
 party, on their side, persisted in their outcries for proceedings 
 against the instigators, known or presumed, of the murder of Duke 
 Francis. It was plainly against Admiral de Coligny that these 
 cries were directed ; the king and the queen-mother could find no 
 other way of stopping an explosion than to call the matter on 
 before the privy council and cause to be there drawn up, on the 
 29th of January, 1566, a solemn decree "declaring the admiral's 
 innocence on his own affirmation, given in the presence of the 
 king and the council as before God himself, that he had not had 
 anything to do with or approved of the said homicide." Silence 
 for all time to come was consequently imposed upon the attorney- 
 general and everybody else ; inhibition and prohibition were issued 
 against the continuance of any investigation or prosecution. 
 
 At the same time that the war was proceeding amongst the 
 provinces with this passionate doggedness, royal decrees were 
 alternately confirming and suppressing or weakening the securities 
 for liberty and safety which the decree of Amboise, on the 19th of 
 March, 1563, had given to the Protestants by way of re-establishing 
 peace. It was a series of contradictory measures which were 
 sufficient to show the party-strife still raging in the heart of the 
 government. Even Conde could not delude himself any longer : 
 the preparations were for war against the reformers. He quitted 
 the court to take his stand again with his own party. Coligny, 
 
Second and third religions wars. 297 
 
 D'Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, La Noue, and all the accredited 
 leaders amongst the Protestants, whom his behaviour, too full of 
 confidence or of complaisance towards the court, had shocked or 
 disquieted, went and joined him. In September, 1567, the second A.D. 1567. 
 religious war broke out. ** re " 
 
 It was short and not decisive for either party. At the outset of war. 
 the campaign, success was with the Protestants; forty towns, 
 Orleans, Montereau, Lagny, Montauban, Castres, Montpellier, 
 Uzes, &c., opened their gates to them or fell into their hands. 
 They were within an ace of surprising the king at Monceaux, and 
 he never forgot, says Montluc, that " the Protestants had made him 
 do the stretch from Meaux to Paris at something more than a 
 walk." Defeated at St. Denis (November 10, 1567), but still 
 powerful, Coligny and Conde imposed upon the court the peace 
 of Longjumeau (1568; paix lotteuse ou mal assise) confirming the 
 terms of that of Amboise. 
 
 Scarcely six months having elapsed, in August, 1568, the third A.D. 1568. 
 religious war broke out. The written guarantees given in the T h ird reli - 
 treaty of Longjumeau for security and liberty on behalf of the 
 Protestants were misinterpreted or violated. Massacres and mur- 
 ders of Protestants became more numerous, and were committed 
 with more impunity than ever : in 1568 and 1569, at Amiens, at 
 Auxerre, at Orleans, at Rouen, at Bourges, at Troyes, and at Blois, 
 Protestants, at one time to the number of 140 or 120, or 53, or 40, 
 and at another singly, with just their wives and children, were 
 massacred, burnt, and hunted by the excited populace, without 
 any intervention on the part of the magistrates to protect them or 
 to punish their murderers. The contemporary protestant chroniclers 
 set down at ten thousand the number of victims who perished in 
 the course of these six months which were called a time of peace : 
 we may, with De Thou, believe this estimate to be exaggerated, 
 but, without doubt, the peace of Longjumeau was a lie, even 
 before the war began again. 
 
 The queen-mother attempted to take possession of the two 
 Protestant leaders ; Conde, however, managed to enter La Rochelle. 
 The protestant nobles of Saintonge and Poitou flocked in. A royal Jeanne 
 ally was announced ; the queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, was ^j^s the 
 bringing her son Henry, fifteen years of age, whom she was training Protes- 
 up to be Henry IV. Conde went to meet them, and, on the 28th tants - 
 of September, 1568, all this flower of French Protestantism was 
 assembled at La Rochelle, ready and resolved to strike another 
 blow for the cause of religious liberty. 
 
 It was the longest and most serious of the four wars of this kind 
 
298 History of France. 
 
 which so profoundly agitated France in the reign of Charles IX. 
 This one lasted from the 24th of August, 1568, to the 8th of August, 
 1570, between the departure of Conde and Coligny for La 
 Eochelle and the treaty of peace of 6t. Germain-en-Laye : a hollow 
 peace, like the rest, and only two years before the St. Bartholomew. 
 On starting from Noyers with Coligny, Conde had addressed to 
 the king, on the 23rd of August, a letter and a request wherein 
 "after having set forth the grievances of the reformers, he attributed 
 all the mischief to the cardinal of Lorraine, and declared that the 
 protestant nobles felt themselves constrained, for the safety of the 
 realm, to take up arms against that infamous priest, that tiger of 
 France, and against .his accomplices." He bitterly reproached the 
 Guises "with treating as mere policists, that is, men who sacrifice 
 religion to temporal interests, the Catholics inclined to make con- 
 cessions to the reformers, especially the chancellor De 1'Hospital 
 and the sons of the late constable De Montmorency. The Guises, 
 indeed, and their friends, did not conceal their distrust of De 1'Hos- 
 pital, any more than he concealed his opposition to their deeds and 
 PHospital their designs. Convinced that he would not succeed in preserving 
 from putT- 8 France from a fresh civil war, the chancellor made up his mind to 
 lie life. withdraw, and with him all moderation departed from the councils 
 of the king. 
 
 During the two years that it lasted, from August, 1568, to 
 August, 1570, the third religious war under Charles IX. entailed 
 two important battles and many deadly faction-fights which spread 
 and inflamed to the highest pitch the passions of the two parties. 
 Notwithstanding their defeat at Jarnac and Moncontour (1569), 
 notwithstanding the death of Conde and the wound of Coligny, 
 the Protestants were still able to obtain from their enemies a favour- 
 able peace. The negotiations were short. The war had been 
 going on for two years. The two parties, victorious and vanquished 
 by turns, were both equally sick of it. In vain did Philip II., 
 king of Spain, offer Charles IX. an aid of nine thousand men to 
 continue it. In vain did Pope Pius Y. write to Catherine de' 
 Medici, " as there can be no communion between Satan and the 
 children of the light, it ought to be taken for certain that there can 
 be no compact between Catholics and heretics, save one full of 
 fraud and feint." " We had beaten our enemies," says Montluc, 
 " over and over again ; but notwithstanding that, they had so 
 much influence in the king's council, that the decrees were always 
 A.D. 1570. to their advantage. We won by arms, but they won by those 
 St & Ger- devils of documents." Peace was concluded at St. Germain-en-Layo 
 on the 8th of August, 1570, and it was more equitable and better 
 
Marriage of Henry of Navarre. 299 
 
 for the reformers than the preceding treaties ; for, besides a pretty 
 large extension as regarded free exercise of their worship and their 
 civil rights in the State, it granted " for two years, to the princes 
 of Navarre and Conde and twenty noblemen of the religion, who 
 were appointed by the king, the wardenship of the towns of La 
 Eochelle, Cognac, Montauban, and La Charite, whither those of the 
 religion who dared not return so soon to their own homes might 
 retire." All the members of the parliament, all the royal and 
 municipal officers and the principal inhabitants of the towns where 
 the two religions existed were further bound over on oath " to 
 maintenance of the edict." 
 
 Peace was made ; but it was the third in seven years, and very 
 shortly after each new treaty civil war had recommenced. No 
 more was expected from the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye than 
 had been effected by those of Amboise and Longjumeau, and on 
 both sides men sighed for something more stable and definitive. 
 By what means to be obtained, and with what pledges of dura- 
 bility ? 
 
 There had already, thirteen or fourteen years previously, been Henry of 
 some talk about a marriage between Henry of Navarre and Mar- Navarre 
 guerite de Yalois, each born in 1553. This union between the two m ^jj["r- 
 branches of the royal house, one catholic and the other protestant, guerite de 
 ought to have been the most striking sign and the surest pledge of Valois * 
 peace between Catholicism and Protestantism. The political expe- 
 diency of such a step appeared 'the more evident and the more 
 urgent, in proportion as the religious war had become more direful, 
 and the desire for peace more general. Charles IX. embraced 
 the idea passionately, being the only means, he said, of putting a 
 stop at last to this incessantly renewed civil war, which was the 
 plague of his life as well as of his kingdom. A fact of a personal Charles IX. 
 character tended to mislead Coligny. By his renown, by the 
 loftiness of his views, by the earnest gravity of his character and 
 his language, he had produced a great effect upon Charles IX., a 
 young king of warm imagination and impressible and sympathetic 
 temperament, but, at the same time, of weak judgment. He readily 
 gave way, in Coligny's company, to outpourings which had all 
 the appearance of perfect and involuntary frankness ; and even 
 seemed to entertain seriously the idea of sending an army to the 
 relief of the persecuted Protestants in the Netherlands. This tone 
 of freedom and confidence had inspired Coligny with reciprocal 
 confidence ; he believed himself to have a decisive influence over 
 the king's ideas and conduct ; and when the Protestants testified 
 their distrust upon this subject, he reproached them vehemently for 
 
3OO History of France. 
 
 it ; he affirmed the king's good intentions and sincerity ; and he 
 considered himself in fact, said Catherine de' Medici with temper, 
 <J a second king of France." 
 
 How much sincerity was there about these outpourings of Charles 
 IX. in his intercourse with Coligny and how much reality in the 
 massacre a< ^ m ^ ra ^ s influence over the king? We are touching upon that 
 on St. Bar- great historical question which has been so much disputed : was 
 tholomew's the St. Bartholomew a design, long ago determined upon and 
 meditated prepared for, of Charles IX. and his government, or an almost 
 or not ? sudden resolution, brought about by events and the situation of 
 the moment, to which Charles IX. was egged on, not without diffi- 
 culty, by his mother Catherine and his advisers ? 
 
 Without giving either to Catherine de' Medici or to her sons the 
 honour of either so long a course of dissimulation or of so cunningly 
 arranged a stratagem, it is not unnatural to believe that whilst con- 
 ceding the advantageous terms of the peace of Saint-Germain, they 
 looked forward ultimately to something like the horrible tragedy 
 of Saint Bartholomew's day ; and yet we may reasonably question 
 even if the massacre would have taken place, had not the Catholics 
 dreaded the influence which Coligny seemed about to assume over 
 the weak mind of the king. Catherine and the Duke d'Anjou in 
 their turn, and as a last resource, worked upon the feelings of that 
 wretched monarch, and finally led him to sanction the massacre of 
 the Protestants just as easily as he would hare done that of the 
 principal Catholic leaders. 
 
 Co?i n 572 * On Fridav tlie 22nd of August, 1572, Coligny was returning on 
 wounded foot from the Louvre to the Eue des Fosses-St.-Germain-rAuxerrois, 
 (Aug. 22). w here he lived; he was occupied in reading a letter, which he had 
 just received ; a shot, fired from the window of a house in the 
 cloister of St. Germain -1'Auxerrois, smashed two fingers of his right 
 hand and lodged a ball in his left arm ; he raised his eyes, pointed 
 out with his injured hand the house whence the shot had come, 
 and reached his quarters on foot. Two gentlemen who were in 
 attendance upon him rushed to seize the murderer ; it was too late ; 
 Maurevert had been lodging there, and on the watch for three days 
 at the house of a canon, an old tutor to the duke of Guise ; a horse 
 from the duke's stable was waiting for him at the back of the 
 house ; and, having done his job, he departed at a gallop. He was 
 pursued for several leagues without being overtaken. 
 
 Coligny sent to apprise the king of what had just happened to 
 him : " There," said he, " was a fine proof of fidelity to the 
 agreement between him and the duke of Guise." " I shall never 
 have rest, then ! " cried Charles, breaking the stick with which he 
 
Coligny murdered. 301 
 
 was playing tennis with the duke of Guise and Teligny, the 
 admiral's son-in-law ; and he immediately returned to his room. 
 The duke of Guise took himself off without a word. Teligny 
 speedily joined his father-in-law. Ambrose Pare had already 
 attended to him, cutting off the two broken fingers ; somebody 
 expressed a fear that the balls might have been poisoned ; " It will 
 be as God pleases as to that," said Coligny ; and, turning towards 
 the minister, Merlin, who had hurried to him, he added, "pray 
 that He may grant me the gift of perseverance." Towards mid-day, H . is inter- 
 Marshals de Damville, De Cosse, and De Villars went to see him SamvUle 
 " out of pure friendship," they told him, " and not to exhort him Cosse and 
 to endure his mishap with patience : we know that you will not Vlllars - 
 lack patience." " I do protest to you," said Coligny, " that death 
 affrights me not ; it is of God that I hold my life ; when He 
 requires it back from me, I am quite ready to give it up. But I 
 should very much like to see the king before I die ; I have to speak 
 to him of things which concern his person and the welfare of his 
 State, and which I feel sure none of you would dare to tell him of." 
 " I will go and inform his Majesty, . . ." rejoined Damville ; and 
 he went out with Yillars and Teligny, leaving Marshal de Cosse in 
 the room. " Do you remember," said Coligny to him, " the 
 warnings I gave you a few hours ago ? You will do well to take 
 your precautions." 
 
 About two p.m. the king, the queen-mother, and the dukes of 
 Anjou and Alen9on, her two other sons, with many of their high 
 officers, repaired to the admiral's. " My dear father," said the 
 king as he went in, " the hurt is yours ; the grief and the outrage 
 mine ; but I will take such vengeance that it shall never be for- 
 gotten," to which he added his usual imprecations. 
 
 Saturday passed quietly. On Sunday, August 24, between two He is killed 
 and three o'clock in the morning, Cosseins, the commander of the y esme> 
 king's guards, Besnie, a servant of the duke de Guise, and several 
 others, broke open the door of Coligny's house, and forced their 
 way into his bedroom, where Besme plunged a sword into his bosom, 
 the rest despatched him with their daggers; and Besme called out 
 of the window to the duke de Guise, who, with other Catholics, was 
 waiting in the court below, " It is done." At the command of the 
 duke, the body was then thrown out of the window to him, when 
 having wiped away the blood to see his features, he said, " It is he 
 himself," and then gave a kick to " that venerable face, which when 
 alive was dreadful to all the murderers of France." Now the great 
 bell of the palace, and the bell of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois were 
 answered by the bells of all the churches, the Swiss guards were 
 
302 
 
 History of France. 
 
 General 
 massacre 
 (Aug. 24), 
 
 Escape of 
 
 M. de 
 Leran. 
 
 under arms, and the city militia poured through, the streets. Ones 
 let loose, the Parisian populace was eager indeed, but not alone in 
 its eagerness, for the work of massacre ; the gentlemen of the court 
 took part in it passionately, from a spirit of vengeance, from reli- 
 gious hatred, from the effect of smelling blood, from covetousness 
 at the prospect of confiscations at hand. Teligny, the admiral's son- 
 in-law, had taken refuge on a roof; the duke of Anjou's guards 
 made him a mark for their arquebuses. La Eochefoucauld, with 
 whom the king had been laughing and joking up to eleven o'clock 
 the evening before, heard a knocking at his door, in the king's 
 name; it is opened; enter six men in masks and poniard him. 
 The new queen of Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, had gone to bed 
 by express order of her mother Catherine : "Just as I was asleep," 
 says she, " behold a man knocking with feet and hands at the 
 door and shouting, * Navarre ! Navarre ! ' My nurse, thinking it was 
 the king my husband, runs quickly to the door and opens it. It 
 was a gentleman named M. de Leran, who had a sword-cut on the 
 elbow, a gash from a halberd on the arm, and was still pursued by 
 four archers, who all came after him into my bedroom. He, wishing 
 to save himself, threw himself on to my bed ; as for me, feeling 
 this man who had hold of me, I threw myself out of bed towards 
 the wall, and he after me, still holding me round the body. I did 
 not know this man, and I could not tell whether he had come 
 thither to offer me violence, or whether the archers were after him 
 in particular or after me. We both screamed, and each of us was 
 as much frightened as the other. At last it pleased God that M. de 
 Nan9ay, captain of the guards, came in, who, finding me in this 
 plight, though he felt compassion, could not help laughing ; and, 
 flying into a great rage with the archers for this indiscretion, he 
 made them begone and gave me the life of that poor man, who had 
 hold of me, whom I had put to bed and attended to in my closet, 
 until he was well." 
 
 "We might multiply indefinitely these anecdotical scenes of the 
 massacre, most of them brutally ferocious, others painfully pathetic, 
 some generous and calculated to preserve the credit of humanity 
 amidst one of its most direful aberrations. We will not pause 
 either to discuss the secondary questions which meet us at the period 
 of which we are telling the story; for example, the question 
 whether Charles IX. fired with his own hand on his protestant 
 subjects, whom he had delivered over to the. evil passions of the 
 aristocracy and of the populace, or whether the balcony from which 
 he is said to have indulged in this ferocious pastime existed at that 
 time, in the sixteenth century, at the palace of the Louvre and 
 
St. Bartholomew^ day. 303 
 
 overlooking the Seine. The great historic fact of the St. Bartho- 
 lomew is what we confine ourselves to. When he had plunged 
 into the orgies of the massacre, when, after having said " Kill 
 them all ! " he had seen the slaughter of his companions in 
 his royal amusements, Teligny and La Rochefoucauld, Charles IX. 
 abandoned himself to a fit of mad passion. He was asked whether 
 the two young huguenot princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry de 
 Conde, were to be killed also ; Marshal de Retx had been in favour 
 of it ; Marshal de Tavannes had been opposed to it ; and it was 
 decided to spare them. 
 
 The historians, catholic or protestant, contemporary or research- 
 ful, differ widely as to the number of the victims in this cruel mas- 
 sacre : according to De Thou, there v were about 2000 persons killed 
 in Paris the first day ; D'Aubigne says 3000 ; Brantome speaks of 
 4000 bodies that Charles IX. might have seen floating down the 
 Seine ; la Popeliniere reduces them to 1000. The uncertainty is Results of 
 still greater when one comes to speak of the number of victims St. Bar- 
 throughout the whole of Trance ; De Thou estimates it at 30,000, ^ay. 01 ^' 8 
 Sully at 70,000, Perefixe, archbishop of Paris in the seventeenth 
 century, raises it to 100,000 j Papirius Masson and Davila reduce 
 it to 10,000, without clearly distinguishing between the massacre 
 of Paris and those of the provinces ; other historians fix upon 
 40,000. Great uncertainty also prevails as to the execution of the 
 orders issued from Paris to the governors of the provinces ; the 
 names of the viscount D'Orte, governor at Bayonne, and of John le 
 Hennuyer, bishop of Lisieux, have become famous from their hav- 
 ing refused to take part in the massacre ; but the authenticity of the 
 letter from the viscount D'Orte to Charles IX. is disputed, though 
 the fact of his resistance appears certain. One thing which is quite 
 true and which it is good to call to mind in the midst of so great a 
 general criminality is that, at many spots in France, it met with a 
 refusal to be associated in it ; President Jeannin at Dijon, the count 
 de Tende in Provence, Philibert de la Guiche at Macon. Tanneguy 
 le Yeneur de Carrouge at Eouen, the count de Gordesin Dauphiny, 
 and many other chiefs, military or civil, openly repudiated the 
 example set by the murderers of Paris ; and the municipal body of 
 Nantes, a very catholic town, took upon this subject a resolution 
 which does honour to its patriotic firmness as well as to its Chris- 
 tian loyalty. A.D. 1573. 
 
 A great, good man, a great functionary and a great scholar, in y e '^^g ltal 
 disgrace for six years past, the chancellor Michael de 1'Hospital gave office 
 in his resignation on the 1st of February, 1573, and died six weeks (Feb.), and 
 afterwards, on the 18th of March : " I am just at the end of my (Uar. 18). 
 
304 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Attitude 
 of the 
 Protes- 
 tants. 
 
 A.D. 1572. 
 
 Fourth re 
 ligious 
 war. 
 Siege of 
 
 LaRo- 
 chelle. 
 
 long journey, and shall have no more business but with God," he 
 wrote to the king and the queen-mother. " I implore Him to give 
 you His grace and to lead you with His hand in all your affairs, and 
 in the government of this great and beautiful kingdom which He 
 hath committed to your keeping, with all gentleness and clemency 
 towards your good subjects, in imitation of Himself, who is good 
 and patient in bearing our burthens, and prompt to forgive you and 
 pardon you everything." 
 
 The tardy and lying accusations officially brought against Coligny 
 and his friends ; the promises of liberty and security for the Pro- 
 testants, renewed in the terms of the edicts of pacification and, in 
 point of fact, annulled at the very moment at which they were being 
 renewed ; the massacre continuing here and there in France, at one 
 time with the secret connivance and at another notwithstanding the 
 publicly -given word of the king and the queen-mother ; all this 
 policy, at one and the same time violent and timorous, incoherent 
 and stubborn, produced amongst the Protestants two contrary effects: 
 some grew frightened, others angry. At court, under the direct 
 influence of the king and his surroundings, "submission to the 
 powers that be " prevailed ; many fled ; others, without abjuring 
 their religion, abjured their party. The two reformer-princes, Henry 
 of Navarre and Henry de Conde, attended mass on the 29th of 
 September, and, on the 3rd of October, wrote to the Pope deploring 
 their errors and giving hopes of their conversion. Far away from 
 Paris, in the mountains of the Pyrenees and of Languedoc, in the 
 towns where the reformers were numerous and confident, at San- 
 cerre, at Montauban, at Nimes, at La Eochelle, the spirit of resist- 
 ance carried the day. An assembly, meeting at Milhau, drew up a 
 provisional ordinance for the government of the reformed Church, 
 "until it please God, who has the hearts of kings in His keeping, 
 to change that of King Charles IX. and restore the State of France 
 to good order, or to raise up such neighbouring prince as is mani- 
 festly marked out, by his virtue and by distinguishing signs for to 
 be the liberator of this poor afflicted people." In November, 1572, 
 the fourth religious war broke out. 
 
 The siege of La Eochelle was its only important event. Charles 
 IX. and his councillors exerted themselves in vain to avoid it. 
 There was everything to disquiet them in this enterprise : so sudden 
 a revival of the religious war after the grand blow they had just 
 struck, the passionate energy manifested by the Protestants in 
 asylum at La Rochelle, and the help they had been led to hope for 
 from Queen Elizabeth, whom England would never have forgiven 
 for indifference in this cause. 
 
HENRY II. 
 
 Page 305. 
 
Death of Charles IX. 305 
 
 Biron first, and then the duke of Anjou in person took the com- 
 mand of the siege. They brought up, it is said, 40,000 men and 
 60 pieces of artillery. The Rochellese, for defensive strength, had 
 but 22 companies of refugees or inhabitants, making in all 3100 
 men. The siege lasted from the 26th of February to the 13th of 
 June, 1573 ; six assaults were made on the place ; in the last, the 
 ladders had been set at night against the wall of what was called 
 Gospel bastion ; the duke of Guise, at the head of the assailants, 
 had escaladed the breach, but there he discovered a new ditch and 
 a new rampart erected inside ; and, confronted by these unforeseen 
 obstacles, the men recoiled and fell back. Xa Eochelle was saved. 
 Charles IX. was more and more desirous of peace ; his brother, the 
 duke of Anjou, had just been elected king of Poland ; Charles IX. 
 was anxious for him to leave France, and go to take possession of 
 his new kingdom. Thanks to these complications, the Peace of La 
 Eochelle was signed on the 6th of July, 1573. Liberty of creed 
 and worship was recognized in the three towns of La Rochelle, 
 Montauban, and Nimes. They were not obliged to receive any 
 royal garrison, on condition of giving hostages to be kept by the 
 king for two years. Liberty of worship throughout the extent of 
 their jurisdiction continued to be recognized in the case of lords 
 high-justiciary. Everywhere else the reformers had promises of not 
 being persecuted for their creed, under the obligation of never hold- 
 ing an assembly of more than ten persons at a time. These were 
 the most favourable conditions they had yet obtained. 
 
 Certainly this was not what the king had calculated upon when 
 he consented to the massacre of the Protestants: "Provided," he 
 had said, " that not a single one is left to reproach me." Charles IX. 
 had not mind or character sufficiently sound or sufficiently strong to 
 support, without great perturbation, the effect of so many violent, re- 
 peated and often contradictory impressions. In the spring of 1574, at A.D. 1574. 
 the age of twenty-three years and eleven months, and after a reign of Juries IX 
 eleven years and six months, Charles IX. was attacked by an in- 
 flammatory malady, which brought on violent hemorrhage ; he was 
 revisited, in his troubled sleep, by the same bloody visions about 
 which, a few days after the St. Bartholomew, he had spoken to his 
 physician, Ambrose Pare. He no longer retained in his room any- 
 body but two of his servants and his nurse, " of whom he was very 
 fond, although she was a huguenot," says the contemporary chro- 
 nicler Peter de 1'Estoile. " When she had lain down upon a chest 
 and was just beginning to doze, hearing the king moaning, weeping 
 and sighing, she went full gently up to the bed : ' Ah ! nurse, nurse,' 
 said the king, < what bloodshed and what murders ! Ah ! what 
 
306 History of France. 
 
 evil counsel have I followed ! Oh ! my God, forgive me them and 
 t h ave niercy upon me, if it may please Thee ! I know not what 
 moments, hath come to me, so bewildered and agitated do they make me. 
 What will be the end of it all ? What shall I do ? I am lost ; I see 
 it well/ Then said the nurse to him : ' Sir, the murders be on the 
 heads of those who made you do them ! Of yourself, sir, you never 
 could ; and since you are not consenting thereto and are sorry 
 therefor, believe that God will not put them down to your account, 
 and will hide them with the cloak of justice of His Son, to whom 
 alone you must have recourse. But, for God's sake, let your 
 Majesty cease weeping !' And thereupon, having been to fetch him 
 a pocket-handkerchief because his own was soaked with tears, after 
 that the king had taken it from her hand, he signed to her to go 
 away and leave him to his rest." 
 
 On Sunday, May 30, 1574, Whitsunday, about three in the 
 afternoon, Charles IX. expired, after having signed an ordinance 
 conferring the regency upon his mother Catherine, "who accepted 
 it," was the expression in the letters patent, " at the request of 
 the duke of Alen9on, the king of Navarre, and other princes and 
 peers of France." According to D'Aubigne, Charles often used to 
 say of his brother Henry that, " when he had a kingdom on his 
 hands, the administration would find him out and that he would 
 disappoint those who had hopes of him." The last words he said 
 were " that he was glad not to have left any young child to succeed 
 him, very well knowing that France needs a man, and that, with a 
 child, the king and the reign are unhappy." 
 
 A.D. 1573. Though elected king of Poland on the 9th of May, 1573, Henry, 
 duke of duke of Anjou, had not yet left Paris at the end of the summer. 
 Anjou, Impatient at his slowness to depart, Charles IX. said, with his 
 Polan! usual oatn > " By God's death ! my brother or I must at once leave 
 the kingdom ; my mother shall not succeed in preventing it." 
 " Go," said Catherine to Henry : " you will not be away long." 
 She foresaw, with no great sorrow one would say, the death of 
 Charles IX., and her favourite son's accession to the throne of 
 France. Having arrived in Poland on the 25th of January, 1574, 
 and being crowned at Cracow on the 24th of February, Henry had 
 been scarcely four months king of Poland when he was apprised, 
 about the middle of June, that his brother Charles had lately 
 died, on the 30th of May, and that he was king of France. " Do 
 not waste your time in deliberating," said his French advisers : 
 " you must go and take possession of the throne of France without 
 abdicating that of Poland ; go at once and without fuss." Henry 
 followed this counsel. Having started from Cracow on the 18th of 
 
Henry III. King of France. 307 
 
 June, 1574, he did not arrive until the 5th of September at Lyons, Returns to 
 whither the queen-mother had sent his brother the duke of Alencon France 
 and his brother-in-law the king of Navarre to receive him, going th e throne, 
 herself as far as Bourgoin in Dauphiny in order to be the first to 
 see her darling son again. 
 
 The king's entry into France caused, says De Thou, a strange 
 revulsion in all minds. " During the lifetime of Charles IX. none 
 had seemed more worthy of the throne than Henry, and everybody 
 desired to have him for master. But scarcely had he arrived when 
 disgust set in to the extent of auguring very ill of his reign. The 
 time was ill-chosen by him for becoming an indolent and volup- 
 tuous king, set upon taking his pleasure in his court, and isolating 
 himself from his people. The condition and ideas of France were 
 also changing, but to issue in the assumption of quite a different 
 character, and to receive development in quite a different direction. 
 Catholics or Protestants, agents of the king's government or mal- 
 contents, all were getting a taste for, and adopting the practice of 
 independence, and a vigorous and spontaneous activity. The bonds 
 of the feudal system were losing their hold, and were not yet country, 
 replaced by those of a hierarchically organized administration. 
 Religious creeds and political ideas were becoming, for thoughtful 
 and straightforward spirits, rules of conduct, powerful motives of 
 action, and they furnished the ambitious with effective weapons. 
 
 It was in a condition of disorganization and red-hot anarchy 
 that Henry III., on his return from Poland, and after the St. Bar- 
 tholomew, found France ; it was in the face of all these forces, 
 full of life, but scattered and excited one against another, that, with 
 the aid of his mother Catherine, he had to re-establish unity in the 
 State, the efficiency of the government, and the public peace. 
 It was not a task for which the tact of an utterly corrupted 
 woman and an irresolute prince sufficed. What could the artful 
 manceuvrings of Catherine and the waverings of Henry III. do 
 towards taming both Catholics and Protestants at the same time, 
 and obliging them to live at peace with one another under one 
 equitable and effective power? 
 
 Henry and Catherine aspired to no more than resuming their 
 policy of manoeuvring and wavering between the two parties 
 engaged in the struggle ; but it was not for so poor a result that the 
 ardent Catholics had committed the crime of the St. Bartholomew : 
 they promised themselves from it the decisive victory of their 
 Church and of their supremacy. Henry de Guise came forward as 
 their leader in this grand design. When, in 1575, first the duke 
 of Anjou and after him the king of Navarre were seen flying 
 
308 History of France. 
 
 from the court of Henry III. and commencing an insurrection 
 with the aid of a considerable body of German auxiliaries and 
 French refugees already on French soil and on their way across 
 Champagne, the peril of the Catholic Church appeared so grave 
 and so urgent that, in the threatened provinces, the Catholics 
 devoted themselves with ardour to the formation of a grand asso- 
 ciation for the defence of their cause. Then and thus was really 
 " The born the League, secret at first, but, before long, publicly and openly 
 proclaimed, which held so important a place in the history of the 
 sixteenth century. Henry de Guise did not hesitate to avow the 
 League and labour to propagate it; he did what was far more 
 effectual for its success : he entered the field and gained a victory. 
 The German allies and French refugees, who had come to support 
 Prince Henry de Conde and the duke of Anjou in their insurrec- 
 tion, advanced into Champagne. Guise had nothing ready, neither 
 army nor money ; he mustered in haste three thousand horse who 
 were to be followed by a body of foot and a moiety of the king's 
 guards. He set out in pursuit of the Germans, came up with them 
 on the 10th of October, 1575, at Port-a-Binson, on the Marne, and 
 ordered them to be attacked by his brother the duke of Mayenne, 
 whom he supported vigorously. They were broken and routed. 
 He had himself been wounded : he went in obstinate pursuit of a 
 Guise (le mounted foe whom he had twice touched with his sword, and who, 
 Balafre)^ i n return, had fired two pistol-shots, of which one took effect in the 
 leadership! ^ e ^' an( ^ tne otner carried away part of his cheek and his left ear. 
 Thence came his name of Henry the Scarred (le Balafre) which 
 has clung to him in history. 
 
 Scarcely four years had rolled away since the St. Bartholomew. 
 In vain had been the massacre of 10,000 Protestants, according to 
 the lowest, and of 100,000, according to the highest estimates, 
 besides nearly all the renowned chiefs of the party. Admiral 
 Coligny was succeeded by the king of Navarre, who was destined 
 to become Henry IV. ; and Duke Francis of Guise by his son 
 Henry, if not as able, at any rate as brave a soldier, and a more 
 determined Catholic than he. Amongst the Protestants, Sully and 
 Du Plessis-Mornay were assuming shape and importance by the 
 side of the king of Navarre. Catherine de' Medici placed at her 
 son's service her Italian adroitness, her maternal devotion and an 
 energy rare for a woman between sixty and seventy years of age, 
 for forty-three years a queen, and worn out by intrigue and business 
 A.D. 1576 combined with pleasure. 
 
 1588. This state of things continued for twelve years, from 1576 to 
 attempts 1588, with constant alternations of war, truce, and precarious 
 to peace. 
 
Difficult position of Henry III. 309 
 
 peace, and in the midst of constant hesitation on the part of 
 Henry III., between alliance with the League, commanded by the 
 duke of Guise, and adjustment with the Protestants, of whom the 
 king of Navarre was every day becoming the more and more avowed 
 leader. Between 1576 and 1580, four treaties of peace were con- 
 cluded : in 1576, the peace called Monsieur's, signed at Chastenay 
 in Orleanness; in 1577, the peace of Bergerac or of Poitiers; in 
 1579, the peace of Nerac ; in 1580, the peace of Fleix in Perigord. 
 In November, 1576, the states-general were convoked and assem- 
 bled at Blois, where they sat and deliberated up to March, 1577, 
 without any important result. Neither these diplomatic con- 
 ventions nor these national assemblies had force enough to esta- 
 blish a real and lasting peace between the two parties, for the 
 parties themselves would not have it; in vain did Henry III. 
 make concessions and promises of liberty to the Protestants ; he 
 was not in a condition to guarantee their execution and make it 
 respected by their adversaries. At heart neither Protestants nor 
 Catholics were for accepting mutual liberty; not only did they both 
 consider themselves in possession of all religious truth, but they 
 also considered themselves entitled to impose it by force upon 
 their adversaries. 
 
 From 1576 to 1588, Henry III. had seen the difficulties of his 
 government continuing and increasing. His attempt to maintain 
 his own independence and the mastery of the situation between 
 Catholics and Protestants, by making concessions and promises at 
 one time to the former and at another to the latter, had not suc- 
 ceeded ; and, in 1584, it became still more difficult to practise. 
 On the 10th of June in that year Henry III.'s brother, the duke of 
 Anjou, died at Chateau-Thierry. By this death the leader of the 
 Protestants, Henry, king of Navarre, became lawful heir to the , 
 throne of France. The Leaguers could not stomach that prospect. 
 The Guises turned it to formidable account. They did not hesitate 
 to make the future of France a subject of negotiation with Philip II. 
 of Spain, at that time her most dangerous enemy in Europe. By a A.D. 1584. 
 secret convention concluded at Joinville on the 31st of December, TJ 18 car - 
 1584, between Philip and the Guises, it was stipulated that at the Bourbon 
 death of Henry III. the crown should pass to Charles, cardinal of proposed 
 Bourbon, sixty-four years of age, the king of Navarre's uncle, who, 2 f tual 
 in order to make himself king, undertook to set aside his nephew's France. 
 hereditary right and forbid, absolutely, heretical worship in France. 
 On the 7th of July, 1585, a treaty was concluded at Nemours 
 between Henry III. and the league, to the effect "that by an 
 irrevocable edict the practice of the new religion should be for- 
 
310 History of France. 
 
 bidden, and that there should henceforth be no other practice of 
 
 religion, throughout the realm of France, save that of the Catholic, 
 
 Apostolic, and Roman ; that all the ministers should depart from 
 
 the kingdom within a month ; that all the subjects of his Majesty 
 
 Treaty ' should be bound to live according to the catholic religion and 
 
 signed be- make profession thereof within six months, on pain of confiscation 
 
 Henry 6 ?!! both f person and goods ; that heretics, of whatsoever quality they 
 
 and the might be, should be declared incapable of holding benefices, public 
 
 league, offices, positions, and dignities; that the places which had been 
 
 given in guardianship to them for their security should be taken 
 
 back again forthwith ; and, lastly, that the princes designated in the 
 
 treaty, amongst whom were all the Guises at the top, should receive 
 
 as guarantee certain places to be held by them for five years." 
 
 This treaty was signed by all the negotiators, and specially by 
 the queen-mother, the cardinals of Bourbon and Guise, and the 
 dukes of Guise and Mayenne. It was the decisive act which made 
 the war a war of religion. 
 
 The king of Navarre left no stone unturned to convince every- 
 body, friends and enemies, great lords and commonalty, Frenchmen 
 and foreigners, that this recurrence of war was not his doing, and 
 that the Leaguers forced it upon him against his wish, and despite 
 of the justice of his cause. Before taking part in the war which 
 was day by day becoming more and more clearly and explicitly a 
 war of religion, the protestant princes of Germany and the four 
 great free cities of Strasbourg, Ulm, Nuremberg and Frankfort 
 resolved to make, as the king of Navarre had made, a striking 
 move on behalf of peace and religious liberty. They sent to 
 Henry III. ambassadors who, on the llth of October, 1586, treated 
 him to some frank and bold speaking, but obtained no satisfactory 
 answer. 
 
 The war Except some local and short-lived truces, war was already blazing 
 breaks out throughout nearly the whole of France, in Provence, in Dauphiny, 
 again. j n Nivernais, in Guienne, in Anjou, in Normandy, in Picardy, in 
 Champagne. The successes of Henry de Guise (Vimory, October 28 ; 
 Auneau, November 24), and of Henry de Bourbon (Coutras, Octo- 
 ber 20), were almost equally disagreeable to Henry de Valois. It is 
 probable that, if he could have chosen, he would have preferred 
 those of Henry de Bourbon ; if they caused him like jealousy, they 
 did not raise in him the same distrust ; he knew the king of Navarre's 
 loyalty and did not suspect him of aiming to become, whilst he him- 
 self was living, king of France. Besides, he considered the Protestants 
 less powerful and less formidable than the Leaguers. Henry de Guise, 
 on the contrary, was evidently, in his eyes, an ambitious conspirator, 
 
The barricades. The States-general. 311 
 
 determined to push his own fortunes on to the very crown of France, 
 if the chances were favourable to him, and not only armed with all 
 the power of Catholicism, but urged forward by the passions of the 
 League perhaps further and certainly more quickly than his own 
 intentions travelled. Since 1584, the Leaguers had, at Paris, 
 acquired strong organization amongst the populace ; the city had 
 been partitioned out into five districts under five heads, who, 
 shortly afterwards, added to themselves eleven others, in order that, 
 an the secret council of the association, each amongst the sixteen 
 quarters of Paris might have its representative and director. 
 Thence the famous Committee of Sixteen, which played so great and 
 so formidable a part in the history of that period. It was religious 
 fanaticism and democratic fanaticism closely united, and in a 
 position to impose their wills upon their most eminent leaders, 
 upon the duke of Guise himself. 
 
 In vain did Henry III. attempt to resume some sort of authority 
 in Paris ; his government, his public and private life, and his in Paris. 
 person were daily attacked, insulted, and menaced from the elevation 
 of the pulpit and in the public thoroughfares by qualified preachers 
 or mob-orators. The duke de Guise, whose courage rendered him 
 the favourite of the people, became more and more insolent. In 
 defiance of a royal order he marched into Paris, and at the head of 
 four hundred gentilsliommes set the king at defiance in the 
 apartments of the Louvre. The party of Lorraine thought that 
 they had gained their object : they loudly declared their purpose 
 of confining Henry III. to a monastery, and the duchess de Mont- 
 pensier, sister of the duke de Guise, showed to everybody a pair of 
 gold scissors with which she intended to perform upon the head of 
 the dethroned monarch the ceremony of ecclesiastical tonsure. 
 Barricades were raised throughout Paris, and the Swiss guards 
 whom the king had summoned, disarmed by the populace, would 
 have been slaughtered, but for the interposition of Guise himself. 
 At that supreme moment, the duke hesitated and recoiled before 
 the final step of attacking the Louvre. This wavering saved the 
 king ; for Catherine de' Medicis had time to amuse her rival by 
 feigned propositions of reconciliation, and in the meanwhile 
 Henry III. could retire to Chartres. There the imbecile monarch, 
 forsaken by every one, was compelled to approve all that had been States of 
 done against himself; he gave to the duke de Guise several 01S * 
 powerful towns, and named him generalissimo of the French 
 forces; finally he convoked the States-general at Blois. Guise 
 was not satisfied yet, and he insulted his king so repeatedly that 
 he drove the most timid of men to the boldest of all resolutions, 
 that of murdering him. 
 
312 History of France 
 
 On the evening of Thursday, December the 22nd, the duke of 
 Guise, on sitting down at table, found under his napkin a note to 
 this effect : " The king means to kill you." Guise asked for a pen, 
 of Guise wrote at the bottom of the note, " He dare not," and threw it under 
 cautioned, the table. In spite of this warning, he persisted in going, on the 
 next day, to the council-chamber. On entering the room he felt 
 cold, asked to have some fire lighted, and gave orders to his secre- 
 tary, Pericard, the only attendant admitted with him, to go and 
 fetch the silver- gilt shell he was in the habit of carrying about him 
 with damsons or other preserves to eat of a morning. Pericard was 
 some time gone ; Guise was in a hurry, and, " be kind enough," he 
 said to M. de Morfontaines, " to send word to MY de Saint-Prix 
 [first groom of the chamber to Henry III.] that I beg him to let 
 me have a few damsons or a little preserve of roses, or some trifle 
 of the king's." Four Brignolles plums were brought him ; and he 
 ate one. His uneasiness continued; the eye close to his scar 
 became moist ; according to M. de Thou, he bled at the nose. He 
 felt in his pocket for a handkerchief to use, but could not find one. 
 "My people," said he, "have not given me my necessaries this 
 morning; there is great excuse for them, they were too much 
 hurried." At his request, Saint-Prix had a handkerchief brought 
 to him. Pericard passed his bonbon-box to him, as the guards 
 would not let him enter again. The duke took a few plums from 
 it, threw the rest on the table, saying, " Gentlemen, who will have 
 any?" and rose up hurriedly upon seeing the secretary of state 
 Kevol, who came in and said to him, " Sir, the king wants you ; 
 he is in his old cabinet." 
 
 The duke of Guise pulled up his cloak as if to wrap himself well 
 He is in it, took his hat, gloves, and his sweetmeat-box and went out of 
 murdered the room, saying, " Adieu, gentlemen," with a gravity free from any 
 "Forty- appearance of mistrust. He crossed the king's chamber contiguous 
 five" to the council-hall, courteously saluted, as he passed, Loignac and 
 guar smen j^ g comra( j eg w h om h e found drawn up, and who, returning him a 
 frigid obeisance, followed him as if to show him respect. On 
 arriving at the door of the old cabinet, and just as he leaned down 
 to raise the tapestry that covered it, Guise was struck by five poniard 
 blows in the chest, neck, and reins : " God ha' mercy !" he cried, 
 and, though his sword was entangled in his cloak and he was him- 
 self pinned by the arms and legs and choked by the blood that 
 spurted from his throat, he dragged his murderers, by a supreme 
 effort of energy, to the other end of the room, where he fell down 
 backwards and lifeless before the bed of Henry III. who, coming 
 to the door of his room and asking " if it was done," contemplated 
 
Death of the Queen Mother. 3 1 3 
 
 with mingled satisfaction and terror the inanimate body of his 
 mighty rival, " who seemed to be merely sleeping, so little was he 
 changed." " My God ! how tall he is !" cried the king ; " he looks 
 even taller than when he was alive." 
 
 " They are killing my brother ! " cried the cardinal of Guise 
 when he heard the noise that was being made in the next room ; 
 and he rose up to run thither. The archbishop of Lyons, Peter 
 d'Espinac, did the same. The duke of Aumont held them both 
 back, saying, "Gentlemen, we must wait for the king's orders." 
 Orders came to arrest them both and confine them in a small room, 
 over the council chamber. They had " eggs, bread, wine from the 
 king's cellar, their breviaries, their night-gowns, a palliasse, and a 
 mattress," brought to them there ; arid they were kept under ocular 
 supervision for four and twenty hours. The cardinal of Guise was 
 released the next morning, but only to be put to death like his 
 brother. The king spared the archbishop of Lyons. 
 
 Thirteen days after the murder of the duke of Guise, on the A - D - 1589 
 5th of January, 1589, Catherine de' Medici herself died. Nor Catherine 
 was her death, so far as affairs and the public were concerned, an de' Medici, 
 event : her ability was of the sort which is worn out by the fre- 
 quent use made of it, and which, when old age comes on, leaves 
 no long or grateful reminiscence. Time has restored Catherine de' 
 Medici to her proper place in history ; she was quickly forgotten 
 by her contemporaries. 
 
 It was not long before Henry III. perceived that, to be king, it Position of 
 was not sufficient to have murdered his rival. He survived the Henr y JI1 * 
 duke of Guise only seven months, and, during that short period, 
 he was not really king, all by himself, for a single day ; never had 
 his kingship been so embarrassed and impotent ; the violent death 
 of the duke of Guise had exasperated much more than enfeebled 
 the League ; the feeling against his murderer was passionate and 
 contagious ; the catholic cause had lost its great leader ; it found 
 and accepted another in his brother the duke of Mayenne, far 
 inferior to his elder brother in political talent and prompt energy 
 of character, but a brave and determined soldier, a much better 
 man of party and action than the sceptical, undecided, and indolent 
 Henry III. The majority of the great towns of France, Paris, 
 Rouen, Orleans, Toulouse, Lyons, Amiens, and whole provinces 
 declared eagerly against the royal murderer. He demanded sup- 
 port from the states-general, who refused it ; and he was obliged to 
 dismiss them. The parliament of Paris, dismembered on the 16th 
 of January, 1589, by the counsel of Sixteen, became the instru- 
 ment of the Leaguers. The majority of the other parliaments 
 
History of France. 
 
 He treats 
 with the 
 king of 
 Navarre. 
 
 Siege of 
 Paris. 
 
 followed the example set by that of Paris. The Sorbonne, consulted 
 by a petition presented in the name of all Catholics, decided that 
 Frenchmen were released from their oath of allegiance to Henry III., 
 and might with a good conscience turn their arms against him. Henry 
 made some obscure attempts to come to an. arrangement with certain 
 chiefs of the Leaguers ; but they were rejected with violence. 
 
 There was clearly for him but one possible ally who had a chance 
 of doing effectual service, and that was Henry of Navarre and the 
 Protestants. It cost Henry III. a great deal to have recourse to 
 that party ; his conscience and pusillanimity both revolted at it 
 equally ; in spite of his moral corruption, he was a sincere Catholic, 
 and the prospect of excommunication troubled him deeply. How- 
 ever, on the 3rd of April, 1589, a truce for a year was concluded 
 between the two kings. It set forth that the king of Navarre 
 should serve the king of France with all his might and main; 
 that he should have, for the movements of his troops on both 
 banks of the Loire, the place of Saumur ; that the places of which 
 he made himself master should be handed over to Henry III., 
 and that he might not anywhere do anything to the prejudice 
 of the catholic . religion ; that the Protestants should be no more 
 disquieted throughout the whole of France, and that, before the 
 expiration of the truce, King Henry III. should give them assurance 
 of peace. This negotiation was not concluded without difficulty, 
 especially as regarded the town of Saumur ; there was a general 
 desire to cede to the king of Navarre only some place of less impor- 
 tance on the Loire; and when, on the 15th of April, Du Plessis- 
 Mornay, who had been appointed governor of it, presented himself 
 for admittance at the head of his garrison, the royalist commandant 
 who had to deliver the keys to him limited himself to letting them 
 drop at his feet. Mornay showed alacrity in picking them up. 
 
 On arriving before Paris towards the end of July, 1589, the two 
 kings besieged it with an army of 42,000 men, the strongest and 
 the best they had ever had under their orders. " The affairs of 
 Henry III.," says De Thou, " had changed face ; fortune was pro- 
 nouncing for him." Quartered in the house of Count de Retz, 
 at St. Cloud, he could thence see quite at his ease his city of Paris. 
 " Yonder," said he, " is the heart of the League ; it is there that the 
 blow must be struck. It were great pity to lay in ruins so beauti- 
 ful and goodly a city. Still, I must settle accounts with the rebels 
 who are in it and who ignominiously drove me away." " On Tues- 
 day, August 1st, at eight a.m., he was told," says L'Estoile, " that 
 a monk desired to speak with him, but that his guards made a 
 difficulty about letting him in. ' Let him in/ said the king : * if 
 
Death of Henry III. 
 
 315 
 
 lie is refused, it will "be said that I drive monks away and will 
 not see them.' Incontinently entered the monk, having in his 
 sleeve a knife unsheathed. He made a profound reverence to the 
 king, who had just got up and had nothing on but a dressing- 
 gown about his shoulders, and presented to him despatches from 
 Count de Brienne, saying that he had further orders to tell the 
 king privately something of importance. Then the king ordered 
 those who were present to retire, and began reading the letter which murder d 
 the monk had brought asking for a private audience afterwards; (Aug. 1). 
 the monk, seeing the king's attention taken up with reading, drew 
 his knife from his sleeve and drove it right into the king's small 
 gut, below the navel, so home that he left the knife in the hole ; 
 the which the king having drawn out with great exertion struck the 
 monk a blow with the point of it on his left eyebrow, crying, 'Ah ! 
 wicked monk ! he has killed me ; kill him ! ' At which cry run- 
 ning quickly up, the guards and others, such as happened to be 
 nearest, massacred this assassin of a Jacobin who, as D'Aubigne 
 says, stretched out his two arms against the wall, counterfeiting the 
 crucifix, whilst the blows were dealt him. Having been dragged out 
 dead from the king's chamber, he was stripped naked to the waist, 
 covered with his gown and exposed to the public." Henry III. 
 expired on the 2nd of August, 1589, between two and three in the 
 morning. The first persons Henry of Navarre met as he entered 
 the Hotel de Eetz were the officers of the Scottish guard, who threw 
 themselves at his feet, saying : " Ah ! sir, you are now our king 
 and our master." 
 
 ft; 
 
Henry IV. 
 Tlie two 
 moving 
 
 principles 
 of his 
 policy. 
 
 State of 
 parties in 
 France. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REIGN OF HENRY IV. (1589 1593.) LOUIS XIII., RICHELIEU AND 
 
 THE COURT. 
 
 HENRY IY. perfectly understood and steadily took the measure 
 of the situation in which he was placed. He was in a great 
 minority throughout the country as well as the army, and he would 
 have to deal with public passions, worked by his foes for their own 
 ends, and with the personal pretensions of his partisans. He made 
 no mistake about these two facts, and he allowed them great weight ; 
 but he did not take for the ruling principle of his policy and for 
 his first rule of conduct the plan of alternate concessions to the dif- 
 ferent parties and of continually humouring personal interests ; he 
 set his thoughts higher, upon the general and natural interests of 
 France as he found her and saw her. They resolved themselves, 
 in his eyes, into the following great points : maintenance of the 
 hereditary rights of monarchy, preponderance of Catholics in the 
 government, peace between Catholics and Protestants, and religious 
 liberty for Protestants. With him these points became the law 
 of his policy and his kingly duty as well as the nation's right. He 
 proclaimed them in the first words that he addressed to the lords 
 and principal personages of State assembled around him. On the 
 4th of August, 1589, in the camp at St. Cloud, the majority of the 
 princes, dukes, lords, and gentlemen present in the camp expressed 
 their full adhesion to the accession and the manifesto of the king, 
 promising him " service and obedience against rebels and enemies 
 who would usurp the kingdom." Two notable leaders, the duke of 
 
Protestants, Leaguers, and Policists. 317 
 
 fepernon amongst the Catholics and the duke of La Tremoille 
 amongst the Protestants, refused to join in this adhesion; the 
 former saying that his conscience would not permit him to serve 
 a heretic king, the latter alleging that his conscience forbade 
 him to serve a prince who engaged to protect catholic idolatry. 
 They withdrew, D'Epernon into Angoumois and Saintonge, tak- 
 ing with him six thousand foot and twelve thousand horse ; and 
 La Tremoille into Poitou, with nine battalions of reformers. They 
 had an idea of attempting, both of them, to set up for themselves 
 independent principalities. Three contemporaries, Sully, La Force, 
 and the bastard of Angouleme, bear witness that Henry IV. was 
 deserted by as many huguenots as Catholics. The French royal 
 army was reduced, it is said, to one halfc As a make-weight, Sancy 
 prevailed upon the Swiss, to the number of twelve thousand, and 
 two thousand German auxiliaries, not only to continue in the ser- 
 vice of the new king but to wait six months for their pay, as he was 
 at the moment unable to pay them. From the 14th to the 20th 
 of August, in Ile-de-France, in Picardy, in Normandy, in Auvergne, 
 in Champagne, in Burgundy, in Anjou, in Poitou, in Languedoc, 
 in Orleanness and in Touraine, a great number of towns and districts 
 joined in the determination of the royal army. 
 
 There was, in 1589, an unlawful pretender to the throne of 
 France ; and that was Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, younger Bourbon- 
 brother of Anthony de Bourbon, king of Navarre, and consequently 
 uncle of Henry IV., sole representative of the elder branch. Under 
 Henry III., the cardinal had thrown in his lot with the League ; 
 and, after the murder of Guise, Henry III. had, by way of precau- 
 tion, ordered him to be arrested and detained him in confinement 
 at Chinon, where he still was when Henry III. was in his turn 
 murdered. The Leaguers proclaimed him king under the name of 
 Charles X. ; and, eight months afterwards, on the 5th of March, 
 1590, the parliament of Paris issued a decree "recognizing Charles X. 
 as true and lawful king of France." Du Plessis-Mornay, then 
 governor of Saumur, had the cardinal removed to Fontenay-le- 
 Comte in Poitou, "under the custody of Sieur de la Boulaye, 
 governor of that place, whose valour and fidelity were known to 
 him." On the 9th of May, 1590, not three months after the decree 
 of the parliament of Paris which had proclaimed him true and law- 
 ful king of France, Cardinal de Bourbon, still a prisoner, died at 
 Fontenay, aged sixty- seven. A few weeks before his death he had 
 written to his nephew Henry IV. a letter in which he recognized 
 him as his sovereign. 
 
 The League was more than ever dominant in Paris ; Henry IV. 
 
318 History of Frarice. 
 
 A.D. 1589. could not think of entering there. He was closely pressed by 
 Arques Mayenne, who boasted that he would very shortly bring him into 
 
 (Sept. 13 Paris bound hand and foot. Already windows were engaged on the 
 28 J* line of streets through which the procession was to pass. But 
 Mayenne's adversary was a prince of the utmost vigilance as well as 
 courage, and who, as the duke of Parma himself said, " was accus- 
 tomed to wear out more boots than shoes." He awaited the attack 
 of Mayenne at Arques in Normandy, where with three thousand 
 men alone he defeated an army of thirty thousand. Strengthened 
 by the accession of a number of gentilshommes, Henry then once 
 more attacked Paris, and pillaged the faubourg Saint Germain. 
 
 He would perhaps have carried the terror-stricken capital itself, if 
 the imperfect breaking-up of the St. Maixent bridge on the Somme 
 had not allowed Mayenne, notwithstanding his tardiness, to arrive at 
 Paris in time to enter with his army, form a junction with the 
 Leaguers amongst the population, and prevail upon the king to 
 
 Progress carry his arms elsewhither. Henry left some of his lieutenants to 
 
 f T? nry carry on the war in the environs of Paris, and himself repaired on 
 the 21st of November to Tours, where the royalist parliament, the 
 exchequer- chamber, the court of taxation, and all the magisterial 
 bodies which had not felt inclined to submit to the despotism of 
 the League, lost no time in rendering him homage, as the head and 
 the representative of the national and the lawful cause. He reigned 
 and ruled, to real purpose, in the eight principal provinces of the 
 North and Centre, He- de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Normandy, 
 (Meanness, Touraine, Maine, and Anjou; and his authority, 
 although disputed, was making way in nearly all the other parts of 
 the kingdom. He made war, not like a conqueror, but like a king 
 who wanted to meet with acceptance in the places which he occupied 
 and which he would soon have to govern. It was not long before 
 Henry reaped the financial fruits of his protective equity ; at the 
 close of 1589 he could count upon a regular revenue of more 
 than two millions of crowns, very insufficient, no doubt, for the 
 wants of his government, but much beyond the official resources 
 of his enemies. He had very soon taken his proper rank in 
 Europe : the Protestant Powers which had been eager to recog- 
 nize him, England, Scotland, the Low Countries, the Scandina- 
 vian States, and reformed Germany, had been joined by the 
 republic of Venice, the most judiciously governed State at that 
 time in Europe, but solely on the ground of political interests 
 and views, independently of any religious question. 
 
 As the government of Henry IV. went on growing in strength 
 and extent, the moderate Catholics were beginning, not as yet to 
 
Attitude of the Pope. 319 
 
 make approaches towards him, but to see a glimmering possibility 
 of treating with him, and obtaining from him such concessions as 
 they considered necessary, at the same time that they in their turn 
 made to him such as he might consider sufficient for his party and 
 himself. 
 
 Unhappily the new pope, Gregory XIY., elected on the 5th of A..D. 1590. 
 December, 1590, was humbly devoted to the Spanish policy, meekly xivfpope. 
 subservient to Philip II. ; that is, to the cause of religious persecu- His rela- 
 tion and of absolute power, without regard for anything else. The p ns w 
 relations of France with the Holy See at once felt the effects of this \ 
 Cardinal Gaetani received from Eome all the instructions that the 
 most ardent Leaguers could desire ; and he gave his approval to a 
 resolution of the Sorbonne to the effect that Henry de Bourbon, 
 heretic and relapsed, was for ever excluded from the crown, whether 
 he became a Catholic or not. Henry IY. had convoked the states- 
 general at Tours for the month of March, and had summoned to that 
 city the archbishops and bishops to form a national council, and to 
 deliberate as to the means of restoring the king to the bosom of the 
 Catholic Church. The legate prohibited this council, declaring, 
 beforehand, the excommunication and deposition of any bishops who 
 should be present at it. The Leaguer parliament of Paris forebade, 
 on pain of death and confiscation, any connexion, any corre- 
 spondence with Henry de Bourbon and his partisans. A solemn 
 procession of the League took place at Paris on the 14th of March, 
 and, a few days afterwards, the union was sworn afresh by all the 
 municipal chiefs of the population. In view of such passionate 
 hostility, Henry IY., a stranger to any sort of illusion, at the same 
 time that he was always full of hope, saw that his successes at 
 Arques were insufficient for him, and that, if he were to occupy 
 the throne in peace, he must win more victories. He recommenced 
 the campaign by the siege of Dreux, one of the towns which it was 
 most important for him to possess, in order to put pressure on Paris 
 and cause her to feel, even at a distance, the perils and evils of war. 
 
 On Wednesday, the 14th of March, 1590, the two armies met on A.D. 1590. 
 the plains of Ivry, a village six leagues from Evreux, on the left Battle of 
 bank of the Eure. A battle ensued in which, although the resources 
 of modern warfare were brought into operation, the decisive force 
 consisted, as of old, in the cavalry. It appeared as if Henry IY. 
 must succumb to the superior force of the enemy : further and fur- 
 ther backward was his white banner seen to retire, and the great 
 mass appeared as if they designed to follow it. At length Henry 
 cried out that those who did not wish to fight against the enemy 
 might at least turn and see him die, and immediately plunged into 
 
320 History of France. 
 
 the thickest of the "battle. It appeared as if the royalist gentry had 
 felt the old martial fire of their ancestry enkindled by these words, 
 and by the glance that accompanied them. Raising one mighty 
 shout to God, they threw themselves upon the enemy, following 
 their king, whose plume was now their banner. In this there might 
 have "been some dim principle of religious zeal, but that devotion to 
 personal authority, which is so powerful an element in war and in 
 policy, was wanting. The royalist and religious energy of Henry's 
 troops conquered the Leaguers. The cavalry was broken, scattered, 
 and swept from the field, and the confused manner of their retreat 
 so puzzled the infantry that they were not able to maintain their 
 ground ; the German and French were cut down ; the Swiss sur- 
 rendered. It was a complete victory for Henry IV. 
 
 It was not only as able captain and valiant soldier that Henry 
 IY. distinguished himself at Ivry; there the man was as con- 
 spicuous for the strength of his better feelings, as generous and as 
 Generosity affectionate as the king was far-sighted and bold. When the word 
 IV* ry was given to march from Dreux, Count Schomberg, colonel of the 
 German auxiliaries called reiters, had asked for the pay of his troops, 
 letting it be understood that they would not fight, if their claims 
 were not satisfied. Henry had replied harshly, " People don't ask 
 for money on the eve of a battle." At Ivry, just as the battle was 
 OH the point of beginning, he went up to Schomberg : " Colonel," 
 tjaid he, "I hurt your feelings. This may be the last day of my 
 life. I can't bear to take away the honour of a brave and honest 
 gentleman like you. Pray forgive me and embrace me." " Sir," 
 answered Schomberg, "the other day your majesty wounded me, 
 to-day you kill me." He gave up the command of the reiters in 
 order to fight in the king's own squadron, and was killed in action. 
 The victory of Ivry had a great effect in France and in Europe, 
 though not immediately and as regarded the actual campaign of 1590. 
 The victorious king moved on Paris and made himself master of the 
 little towns in the neighbourhood with a view of besieging the 
 p . . capital. The investment became more strict ; it was kept up for 
 Paris. more than three months, from the end of May to the beginning of 
 September, 1590 ; and the city was reduced to a severe state of 
 famine, which would have been still more severe if Henry IV. had 
 not several times over permitted the entry of some convoys of 
 provisions and the exit of the old men, the women, the children, in 
 fact, the poorest and weakest part of the population. " Paris must not 
 The duke he a cemetery," he said : "I do not wish to reign over the dead." 
 of Parma j n the meantime, Duke Alexander of Parma, in accordance with 
 Mayenne. express orders from Philip II., went from the Low Countries, with 
 
HENRY IV. 
 
 Paje 321. 
 
Strategy of the two dukes. 321 
 
 his army, to join Mayenne at Meaux, and threaten Henry IV. 
 with their united forces if he did riot retire from the walls of the capi- 
 tal. Henry IV. offered the two dukes battle, if they really wished to 
 put a stop to the investment ; but " I am not come so far," answered 
 the duke of Parma, " to take counsel of my enemy ; if my manner 
 of warfare does not please the king of Navarre, let him force me to 
 change it instead of giving me advice that nobody asks him for." 
 Henry in vain attempted to make the duke of Parma accept battle. 
 The able Italian established himself in a strongly entrenched camp, 
 surprised Lagny and opened to Paris the navigation of the Marne, 
 by which provisions were speedily brought up. Henry decided 
 upon retreating ; he dispersed the different divisions of his army fore them, 
 into Touraine, Normandy, Picardy," Champagne, Burgundy, and 
 himself took up his quarters at Senlis, at Compiegne, in the towns 
 on the banks of the Oise. The duke of Mayenne arrived on the 
 18th of September at Paris ; the duke of Parma entered it himself 
 with a few officers and left it on the 13th of November, with his 
 army on his way back to the Low Countries, being a little harassed 
 in his retreat by the royal cavalry, but easy, for the moment, as to the 
 fate of Paris and the issue of the war, which continued during the 
 first six months of the year 1591, but languidly and disconnectedly, 
 with successes and reverses see-sawing between the two parties and 
 without any important results. 
 
 Then began to appear the consequences of the victory of Ivry and Results of 
 the progress made by Henry IV., in spite of the check he received vry * 
 before Paris and at some other points in the kingdom. Not only 
 did many moderate Catholics make advances to him, struck with his 
 sympathetic ability and his valour, and hoping that he would end 
 by becoming a Catholic, but patriotic wrath was kindling in France 
 against Philip II. and the Spaniards, those fomenters of civil war 
 in the mere interest of foreign ambition. 
 
 The League was split up into two parties, the Spanish League and The two 
 the French League. The committee of Sixteen laboured incessantly Lea S ues - 
 for the formation and triumph of the Spanish League ; and its 
 principal leaders wrote, on the 2nd of September, 1591, a letter to 
 Philip II., offering him the crown of France and pledging their 
 allegiance to him as his subjects : "We can positively assure your 
 Majesty," they said, "that the wishes of all Catholics are to see 
 your Catholic Majesty holding the sceptre of this kingdom and 
 reigning over us, even as we do throw ourselves right willingly into 
 your arms as into those of our father, or at any rate establishing one 
 of your posterity upon the throne." These ringleaders of the Spanish 
 League had for their army the blindly fanatical and demagogic 
 
322 History of France. 
 
 populace of Paris, and were, further, supported by 4000 Spanish 
 troops whom Philip II. had succeeded in getting almost surrepti- 
 tiously into Paris. They created a council of ten, the sixteenth 
 century's committee of public safety; they proscribed the policists ; 
 they, on the 15th of November, had the president, Brisson, and two 
 councillors of the Leaguer parliament arrested, hanged them to a 
 beam and dragged the corpses to the Place de Greve, where they 
 strung them up to a gibbet with inscriptions setting forth that they 
 were heretics, traitors to the city and enemies of the catholic princes, 
 restores* "Whilst the Spanish League was thus reigning at Paris, the duke of 
 the French Mayenne was at Laon, preparing to lead his army, consisting partly 
 League. O f Spaniards, to the relief of Rouen, the siege of which Henry IY. 
 was commencing. Being summoned to Paris by messengers who 
 succeeded one another every hour, he arrived there on the 28th of 
 November, 1591, with 2000 French troops; he armed the guard of 
 burgesses, seized and hanged, in a ground-floor room of the Louvre, 
 four of the chief leaders of the Sixteen, suppressed their committee, 
 re-established the parliament in full authority and, finally, restored 
 the security and preponderance of the French League, whilst taking 
 the reins once more into his own hands. 
 
 Whilst these two Leagues, the one Spanish and the other French, 
 were conspiring thus persistently, sometimes together and sometimes 
 one against the other, to promote personal ambition and interests, 
 at the same time national instinct, respect for traditional rights, 
 weariness of civil war, and the good sense which is born of long 
 wearTof experience, were bringing France more and more over to the cause 
 civil war, and name of Henry IV. In all the provinces, throughout all ranks 
 of society, the population non-enrolled amongst the factions were 
 turning their eyes towards him as the only means of putting an 
 end to war at home and abroad, the only pledge of national unity, 
 public prosperity, and even freedom of trade, a hazy idea as yet, 
 but even now prevalent in the great ports of France and in Paris. 
 Would Henry turn Catholic] That was the question asked 
 everywhere, amongst Protestants with anxiety, but with keen 
 desire and not without hope amongst the mass of the population. 
 The rumour ran that, on this point, negotiations were half opened 
 even in the midst of the League itself, even at the court of Spain, 
 even at Rome where Pope Clement VIII., a more moderate man 
 than his predecessor, Gregory XIV., "had no desire," says Sully, 
 " to foment the troubles of France, and still less that the king of 
 Spain should possibly become its undisputed king, rightly judging 
 that this would be laying open to him the road to the monarchy 
 of Christendom, and, consequently, reducing the Roman pontiffs to 
 
Henry IV. and the Catholic Church. 323 
 
 the position, if it were his good pleasure, of his mere chaplains " 
 [(Economies royales, t. ii. p. 106]. Such being the existing state 
 of facts and minds, it was impossible that Henry IY. should not 
 ask himself roundly the same question and feel that he had no time 
 to lose in answering it. 
 
 In spite of the breadth and independence of his mind, Henry IY. Henry IV 
 was sincerely puzzled. He was of those who, far from clinging to and Roman 
 a single fact and confining themselves to a single duty, take account C^koh- 
 of the complication of the facts amidst which they live, and of the 
 variety of the duties which the general situation or their own 
 imposes upon them. Born in the reformed faith, and on the steps 
 of the throne, he was struggling to defend his political rights whilst 
 keeping his religious creed ; but his religious creed was not the fruit 
 of very mature or very deep conviction ; it was a question of first 
 claims and of honour rather than a matter of conscience ; and, on 
 the other hand, the peace of France, her prosperity, perhaps her 
 territorial integrity, were dependent upon the triumph of the poli- 
 tical rights of the Bearnese. Even for his brethren in creed his 
 triumph was a benefit secured, for it was an end of persecution and 
 a first step towards liberty. There is no measuring accurately how 
 far ambition, personal interest, a king's egotism had to do with 
 Henry lY.'s abjuration of his religion ; none would deny that those 
 human infirmities were present; but all this does not prevent the 
 conviction that patriotism was uppermost in Henry's soul, and that 
 the idea of his duty as king towards France, a prey to all the evils 
 of civil and foreign war, was the determining motive of his reso- 
 lution. It cost him a great deal. On the 26th of April, 1593, he 
 wrote to the grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand de' Medici, that he 
 had decided to turn Catholic " two months after that the duke of A.D. 1593. 
 Mayenne should have come to an agreement with him on just and Resolves to 
 suitable terms ; " and, foreseeing the expense that would be occa- p^testant- 
 sioned to him by " this great change in his affairs," he felicitated ism. 
 himself upon knowing that the grand duke was disposed to second 
 his efforts towards a levy of 4000 Swiss and advance a year's pay 
 for them. On the 28th of April, he begged the bishop of Chartres, 
 Nicholas de Thou, to be one of the catholic prelates whose instruc- 
 tions he would be happy to receive on the 15th of July, and he 
 sent the same invitation to several other prelates. On the 16th 
 of May, he declared to his council his resolve to become a convert. 
 This news, everywhere spread abroad, produced a lively burst of 
 national and Bourbonic feeling even where it was scarcely to be 
 expected ; at the states-general of the League, especially in the 
 chamber of the noblesse, many members protested " that they would 
 not treat with foreigners, or promote the election of a woman, or 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 History of France. 
 
 give their suffrages to any one unknown to them, and at the choice of 
 his Catholic Majesty of Spain." At Paris, a part of the clergy, the 
 incumbents of St. Eustache, St. Merri, and St. Sulpice, and even 
 some of the popular preachers, violent Leaguers but lately, and 
 notably Guincestre, boldly preached peace and submission to the 
 king if he turned Catholic. The principal of the French League, 
 in matters of policy and negotiation, and Mayenne's adviser since 
 1589, Villeroi, declared "that he would not bide in a place where 
 the laws, the honour of the nation and the independence of the 
 kingdom were held so cheap ;" and he left Paris on the 28th of June. 
 During these disputes amongst the civil functionaries and con- 
 tinuing all the while to make proposals for a general truce, Henry 
 IV. vigorously resumed warlike operations so as to bring pressure 
 upon his adversaries and make them perceive the necessity of 
 accepting the solution he offered them. He besieged and took the 
 town of Dreux, of which the castle alone persisted in holding out. 
 Further jj e cu ^. O g> ^ e p rov isions which were being brought by the Marne 
 
 Henry IV. to Paris. He kept Poitiers strictly invested. Lesdiguieres defeated 
 the Savoyards and the Spaniards in the valleys of Dauphiny and 
 Piedmont. Count Mansfield had advanced with a division towards 
 Picardy ; but at the news that the king was marching to encounter 
 him, he retired with precipitation. From the military as well as 
 the political point of view, there is no condition worse than that 
 of stubbornness mingled with discouragement. And that was the 
 state of Mayenne and the League. Henry IV. perceived it, and 
 confidently hurried forward his political and military measures. 
 The castle of Dreux was obliged to capitulate. Thanks to the 4000 
 Swiss paid for him by the grand duke of Florence, to the numerous 
 volunteers brought to him by the noblesse of his party, " and to 
 the sterling quality of the old huguenot phalanx, folks who, from 
 father to son, are familiarized with death," says D'Aubigne, 
 Henry IV. had recovered in June 1593, so good an army that " by 
 means of it," he wrote to Ferdinand de' Medici, "I shall be able to 
 reduce the city of Paris in so short a time as will cause you great 
 contentment." But he was too judicious and too good a patriot 
 not to see that it was not by an indefinitely prolonged war that he 
 would be enabled to enter upon definitive possession of his crown, 
 and that it was peace, religious peace, that he must restore to 
 
 Ee assem- France in order to really become her king. He entered resolutely, 
 
 ference C of " n the 15th f July ' 1593 ' Up n the em P lo y ment of the moral 
 divines at means which alone could enable him to attain this end ; he 
 Mantes. assembled at Mantes the conference of prelates and doctors, 
 
 Catholic and Protestant, which he had announced as the preface 
 
 to his conversion. 
 
Abjuration of Protestantism by Henry IV. 325 
 
 Ten days after, on Sunday the 25th of July, 1593, he repaired 
 in great state to the church of St. Denis. On arriving with all his H ' ig ' ab : u . ' 
 train in front of the grand entrance, he was received by Reginald ration 
 de Beaune, archbishop of Bourges, the nine bishops, the doctors and ( Jul ? 25 )' 
 the incumbents who had taken part in the conferences and all the 
 brethren of the abbey. " Who are you ? " asked the archbishop 
 who officiated. "The king." "What want you?" "To be 
 received into the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Eoman 
 Church." " Do you desire it ? " " Yes, I will and desire it." At 
 these words the king knelt and made the stipulated profession of 
 faith. The archbishop gave him absolution together with bene- 
 diction ; and, conducted by all the clergy to the choir of the church, 
 he there, upon the gospels, repeated his oath, made his confession, 
 heard mass, and was fully reconciled with the Church. The in- 
 habitants of Paris, dispensing with the passports which were 
 refused them by Mayenne, had flocked in masses to St. Denis and 
 been present at the ceremony. The vaulted roof of the church 
 resounded with their shouts of Hurrah for the king ! There was 
 the same welcome on the part of the dwellers in the country when 
 Henry repaired to the valley of Montmorency and to Montmartre 
 to perform his devotions there. Here, then, was religious peace, a 
 prelude to political reconciliation between the monarch and the 
 great majority of his subjects. 
 
 On one side a great majority of Catholics and Protestants 
 favourable for different practical reasons to Henry IV. turned Catholic 
 king on the other, two minorities, one of stubborn Catholics of 
 the League, the other of Protestants anxious for their creed and 
 their liberty ; both discontented and distrustful. Such, after 
 Henry IV. 's abjuration, was the striking feature in the condition 
 of France and in the situation of her king. This triple fact was 
 constantly present to the mind of Henry IV. and ruled his conduct 
 during all his reign ; all the acts of his government are proof of 
 that. It was province by province, inch by inch that he had to 
 recover his kingdom. At Lyons, the success of the king was easy 
 and disinterested ; not so in Normandy. Andrew de Brancas, lord Reconcilia- 
 of Villars, an able man and valiant soldier, was its governor ; he tion of 
 had served the League with zeal and determination ; nevertheless 
 " from the month of August, 1593, immediately after the king's 
 conversion, he had shown a disposition to become his servant and 
 to incline thereto all those whom he had in his power." Thinking, 
 however, that every man has his price, he determined to get out of 
 Henry IV. as much as he could, and the following memorandum 
 shows how far he was successful : " To M. Villars, for himself, his 
 brother Chevalier d'Oise, the towns of Eouen and Havre and other 
 
326 History of France. 
 
 places, as well as for compensation which had to be made to 
 MM. de Montpensier, Marshal de Biron, Chancellor de Chi- 
 verny and other persons included in his treaty .... 3,447,800 
 livres." 
 
 To these two instances of royalist reconciliation, Lyons and the 
 spontaneous example set by her population and Eouen and the 
 dearly purchased capitulation of her governor Villars, must be 
 added a third, of a different sort. Nicholas de Neufville, lord of 
 and Ville- Villeroi, after having served Charles IX. and Henry III., had 
 become through attachment to the catholic cause a member of the 
 League and one of the duke of Mayenne's confidants. When 
 Henry IV. was king of France and Catholic king, Villeroi tried to 
 serve his cause with Mayenne, and induce Mayenne to be reconciled 
 with him. Meeting with no success, he made up his mind to 
 separate from the League, and go over to the king's service. He 
 could do so without treachery or shame ; even as a Leaguer and a 
 servant of Mayenne's, he had always been opposed to Spain, and 
 devoted to a French, but at the same time a faithfully catholic policy. 
 He imported into the service of Henry IV. the same sentiments 
 and the same bearing ; he was still a zealous catholic and a partisan, 
 for king and country's sake, of alliance with catholic powers. 
 He was a man of wits, experience, and resource, who knew Europe 
 well and had some influence at the court of Rome. Henry IV. 
 saw at once the advantage to be gained from him, and in spite of 
 the Protestants' complaints and his sister Princess Catherine's 
 prayers, made him, on the 25th of September, 1594, Secretary of 
 State for foreign affairs. This acquisition did not cost him so dear 
 as that of Villars : still we read in the statement of sums paid by 
 Henry IV. for this sort of conquest : " Furthermore, to M. de 
 Villeroi, for himself, his son, the town of Pontoise, and other 
 individuals, according to their treaty, 476,594 livres." 
 
 Henry IV. had been absolved and crowned at St. Denis by the 
 bishops of France ; he had not been anointed at Rheims according 
 to the religious traditions of the French monarchy. At Rheims 
 he could not be, for it was still in the power of the League. The 
 ceremony took place at Chartres on the 27th of February, 1594 ; 
 anointed ' ^ ne ^ri sno P f Chartres, Nicholas De Thou, officiated, and drew up 
 atChartres. a detailed account of all the ceremonies and all the rejoicings ; 
 thirteen medals, each weighing fifteen gold crowns, were struck 
 according to custom ; they bore the king's image, and for legend, 
 Invia virtuti nulla est via (To manly worth no road is inaccessible). 
 Henry IV., on his knees before the grand altar, took the usual 
 oath, the form of which was presented to him by Chancellor de 
 Chiverny. With the exception of local accessories, which were 
 
Henry IV. in Paris. 327 
 
 acknowledged to "be impossible and unnecessary, there was nothing 
 lacking to this religious hallowing of his kingship. 
 
 But one other thing, more important than the anointment at 
 Chartres, was wanting. He did not possess the capital of his king- 
 dom : the League were still masters of Paris ; uneasy masters of 
 their situation ; but not so uneasy, however, as they ought to 
 have been. The great leaders of the party, the duke of Mayenne, 
 his mother the duchess of Nemours, his sister the duchess of 
 Montpensier, the duke of Feria, Spanish Ambassador, were within 
 its walls, a prey to alarm and discouragement. Henry IV. started 
 on the 21st of March, nearly one month after the ceremony we 
 have just related, from Senlis, where he had mustered his troops, 
 arrived about midnight at St. Denis, and immediately began his 
 march to Paris, where a strong party headed by Brissac and 
 D'Epinay St. Luc stood in readiness to receive him. The night 
 was dark and stormy ; thunder rumbled ; rain fell heavily ; the A.D. 1594. 
 king was a little behind time. On the 22nd of March three of ***$J' 
 the city gates were thrown open, and the king's troops entered p a ris 
 Paris. They occupied the different districts and met with no ( Mar - 22). 
 show of resistance but at the quay of L'Ecole, where an outpost of 
 lanzknechts tried to stop them ; but they were cut in pieces or 
 hurled into the river. Between five and six o'clock Henry IY., 
 at the head of the last division, crossed the draw-bridge of the 
 New Gate. Brissac, Provost L'Huillier, the sheriffs and several 
 companies of burgesses advanced to meet him. At ten o'clock he 
 was master of the whole city ; the districts of St. Martin, of the 
 Temple, and St. Anthony alone remained still in the power of three 
 thousand Spanish soldiers under the orders of their leaders, the 
 duke of Feria and Don Diego d'Ibarra. Nothing would have been 
 easier for Henry than to have had them driven out by his own 
 troops and the people of Paris, who wanted to finish the day's 
 work by exterminating the foreigners ; but he was too judicious 
 and too far-sighted to embitter the general animosity by pushing 
 his victory beyond what was necessary. He sent word to the 
 Spaniards that they must not move from their quarters, and must 
 leave Paris during the day, at the same time promising not to bear The 
 arms any more against him, in France. They eagerly accepted Spanish 
 these conditions. At three o'clock in the afternoon, ambassador, evacua ta 
 officers, and soldiers all evacuated Paris and set out for the Low the 
 Countries. The king, posted at a window over the gate of St. ca P lta 
 Denis, witnessed their departure. They, as they passed, saluted 
 him respectfully; and he returned their salute, saying, "Go, 
 gentlemen, and commend me to your master; but return no 
 more." 
 
328 History of France. 
 
 The other After his conversion to Catholicism, the capture of Paris was 
 submit. W the mos t decisive of the issues which made Henry IV. really king 
 of France. The submission of Kouen followed almost immediately 
 upon that of Paris ; and the year 1594 brought Henry a series of 
 successes, military and civil, which changed very much to his advan- 
 tage the position of the kingship as well as the general condition of 
 the kingdom. In Normandy, in Picardy, in Champagne, in Anjou, 
 in Poitou. in Brittany, in Orleanness, in Auvergne, a multitude 
 of important towns, Havre, Honfleur, Abbeville, Amiens, Peronne, 
 Montdidier, Poitiers, Orleans, Kheims, Chateau-Thierry, Beauvais, 
 Sens, Eiom, Morlaix, Laval, Laon, returned to the king's authority, 
 some after sieges, and others by pacific and personal arrangement, 
 more or less burthensome for the public treasury but very effective 
 in promoting the unity of the nation and of the monarchy. 
 A.D. 1594. The close of this happy and glorious year was at hand. On the 
 Chaste? to 27th of September, between six and seven p.m., a deplorable 
 murder the incident occurred, for the second time, to call Henry IV.'s attention 
 (Sept^T) * *ke wea/ k s ^ e f kis P os iti n - An attempt upon his life had 
 already been made by a fanatic named Barriere ; now it was a young 
 man of nineteen, son of a cloth-merchant in the city, who, acting 
 under the influence of the Jesuits, tried to murder the king. He 
 was arrested, and put to death, a decree of the parliament of Paris 
 being at the same time (December 29, 1594) issued against the 
 Jesuits. 
 
 A.D. 1595. i n the meanwhile Philip II. persisted in his active hostility 
 clared 6 ~ an( * continued to give the king of France no title but that of prince 
 against of Beam. On the 17th of January, 1595, Henry, in performance 
 of what he had proclaimed, formally declared war against the king 
 of Spain, forbade his subjects to have any commerce with him or 
 his allies, and ordered them to make war on him for the future, just 
 as he persisted in making it on France. The conflict thus solemnly 
 begun lasted three years and three months, from the 17th of 
 January, 1595, to the 1st of May, 1598, from Henry IV.'s declara- 
 tion of war to the peace of Vervins, which preceded by only four 
 months and thirteen days the death of Philip II. and the end of 
 the preponderance of Spain in Europe. It is not worth while to 
 follow step by step the course of this monotonous conflict, pregnant 
 with facts which had their importance for contemporaries but are 
 A.D. 1595. not worthy of an historical resurrection. The battle of Fon- 
 Battle of taine-Fran9aise (5th June) was a brilliant evidence that Navarre 
 Francaise whilst becoming a monarch had not forgotten to be a soldier. The 
 (June 5). absolution at last granted by Pope Clement VIII. proved of the 
 utmost benefit to the king ; Mayenne, d'Epernon and Joyeuse sub- 
 mitted, and the town of Amiens having been taken by the royal 
 
Peace of Vervins. Edict of Nantes. 329 
 
 troops the duke de Mercoeur followed their example (February, 
 1598). Three months after, the king of Spain at last consented to 
 accept terms of agreement (Peace of Vervins, May 2) ; and as the 
 promulgation of the edict of Nantes (April 13) had put an end to 
 the wars of religion, so by the treaty with Philip II. a long period 
 of foreign wars was terminated. 
 
 A month before the conclusion of the treaty of peace at Vervins A.D. 1598. 
 with Philip II., Henry IV. had signed and published at Paris on ** eac ? of 
 the 13th of April, 1598, the edict of Nantes, his treaty of peace Edict of 
 with the protestant malcontents. This treaty, drawn up in ninety- Nantes,, 
 two open and fifty-six secret articles, was a code of old and new 
 laws regulating the civil and religious position of Protestants in 
 France, the conditions and guarantees of their worship, their 
 liberties and their special obligations in their relations whether 
 with the crown or with their catholic fellow-countrymen. By this 
 code Henry IV. added a great deal to the rights of the Protestants 
 and to the duties of the State towards them. Their worship was 
 authorized not only in the castles of the lords high-justiciary, who 
 numbered 3500, but also in the castles of simple noblemen who 
 enjoyed no high-justiciary rights, provided that the number of 
 those present did not exceed thirty. Two towns or two boroughs, 
 instead of one, had the same religious rights in each bailiwick or 
 seneschalty of the kingdom. The State was charged with the 
 duty of providing for the salaries of the protestant ministers and 
 rectors in their colleges or schools, and an annual sum of 165,000 
 livres of those times (495,000 francs of the present day) was 
 allowed for that purpose. Donations and legacies to be so applied 
 were authorized. The children of Protestants were admitted into 
 the universities, colleges, schools and hospitals, without distinc- 
 tion between them and Catholics. There was great difficulty in I ? s . 
 securing for them, in all the parliaments of the kingdom, impartial clauses, 
 justice; and a special chamber, called the edict chamber, was 
 instituted for the trial of all causes in which they were interested. 
 Catholic judges could not sit in this chamber unless with their 
 consent and on their presentation. In the parliaments of Bordeaux, 
 Toulouse, and Grenoble, the edict-chamber was composed of two 
 presidents, one a Catholic and the other a Reformer, and of twelve 
 councillors, of whom six were Reformers. The parliaments had 
 hitherto refused to admit Reformers into their midst ; in the end 
 the parliament of Paris admitted six, one into the edict-chamber and 
 five into the appeal-chamber (enquetes). The edict of Nantes re- 
 tained, at first for eight years and then for four more, in the hands 
 of the Protestants the towns which war or treaties had put in their 
 possession and which numbered, it is said, two hundred. The 
 
33O History of France. 
 
 king was bound to bear the burthen of keeping up their fortifi- 
 cations and paying their garrisons ; and Henry IV. devoted to that 
 object 540,000 livres of those times, or about two million francs of 
 our day. 
 
 Parliaments and Protestants, all saw that they had to do not 
 only with a strong- willed king, but with a judicious and clear-sighted 
 man, a true French patriot, who was sincerely concerned for the 
 public interest and who had won his spurs in the art of governing 
 parties by making for each its own place in the State. It was 
 scarcely five years ago that the king who was now publishing the 
 edict of Nantes had become a Catholic ; the parliaments enregistered 
 the decree. The protestant malcontents resigned themselves to the 
 necessity of being content with it. Whatever their imperfections 
 and the objections that might be raised to them, the peace of 
 Yervins and the edict of Nantes were, amidst the obstacles and 
 perils encountered at every step by the government of Henry IY., 
 the two most timely and most beneficial acts in the world for 
 France. 
 
 D ^th 5 ^ 8 Four months after the conclusion of the treaty of Vervins, on 
 
 Philip II. the 13th of September, 1598, Philip II. died at the Escurial, and 
 
 (Sept. 13). on the 3rd of April, 1603, a second great royal personage, Queen 
 
 Death of ' Elizabeth, disappeared from the scene. She had been, as regards 
 
 Queen the Protestantism of Europe, what Philip II. had been, as regards 
 
 (April 6 3) Catholicism, a powerful and able patron ; but what Philip II. did 
 
 from fanatical conviction, Elizabeth did from patriotic feeling ; she 
 
 had small faith in Calvinistic doctrines and no liking for Puritanic 
 
 sects ; the Catholic Church, the power of the pope excepted, was 
 
 more to her mind than the Anglican Church, and her private 
 
 preferences differed greatly from her public practices. Thus at the 
 
 beginning of the seventeenth century Henry IY. was the only one 
 
 remaining of the three great sovereigns who, during the sixteenth, 
 
 Policy of na d disputed, as regarded religion and politics, the preponderance 
 
 at home " * n Europe. He had succeeded in all his kingly enterprises ; he had 
 
 become a Catholic in France without ceasing to be the prop of the 
 
 Protestants in Europe ; he had made peace with Spain without 
 
 embroiling himself with England, Holland and Lutheran Germany. 
 
 He had shot up, as regarded ability and influence, in the eyes of 
 
 all Europe. It was just then that he gave the strongest proof of 
 
 his great judgment and political sagacity ; he was not intoxicated 
 
 with success ; he did not abuse his power ; he did not aspire to 
 
 distant conquests or brilliant achievements ; he concerned himself 
 
 chiefly with the establishment of public order in his kingdom and 
 
 with his people's prosperity. His well-known saying, " I want all 
 
 my peasantry to have a fowl in the pot every Sunday," was a desire 
 
The " Grand Design" 331 
 
 worthy of Louis XII. Henry IV. had a sympathetic nature ; his 
 grandeur did not lead him to forget the nameless multitudes whose 
 fate depended upon his government. He had, besides, the rich, 
 productive, varied, inquiring mind of one who took an interest not 
 only in the welfare of the French peasantry, biit in the progress of 
 the whole Trench community, progress agricultural, industrial, 
 commercial, scientific, and literary. 
 
 Abroad the policy of Henry IV. was as judicious and farsighted and 
 as it was just and sympathetic at home. There has been much 
 writing and dissertation about what has been called his grand design. 
 design. This name has been given to a plan for the religious and 
 political organization of Christendom, consisting in the division of 
 Europe amongst three religions, the Catholic, the Calvinistic and 
 the Lutheran, and into fifteen states, great or small, monarchical or 
 republican, with equal rights, alone recognized as members of the 
 Christian confederation, regulating in concert their common affairs 
 and pacifically making up their differences, whilst all the while 
 preserving their national existence. The grand design, so far as 
 Henry IV. was concerned, was never a definite project. His true 
 external policy was much more real and practical. He had seen 
 and experienced the evils of religious hatred and persecution. He 
 had been a great sufferer from the supremacy of the House of 
 Austria in Europe, and he had for a long while opposed it. When 
 he became the most puissant and most regarded of European kings, 
 he set his heart very strongly on two things, toleration for the three 
 religions which had succeeded in establishing themselves in Europe 
 and showing themselves capable of contending one against another, 
 and the abasement of the House of Austria which, even after the 
 death of Charles V. and of Philip II., remained the real and the 
 formidable rival of France. The external policy of Henry IV., 
 from the treaty of Vervins to his death, was religious peace in 
 Europe and the alliance of Catholic France with Protestant England 
 and Germany against Spain and Austria. He showed constant 
 respect and deference towards the papacy, a power highly regarded 
 in both the rival camps, though much fallen from the substantial 
 importance it had possessed in Europe during the middle ages. 
 French policy striving against Spanish policy, such was the true 
 and the only serious characteristic of the grand design. 
 
 Four men, very unequal in influence as well as merit, Sully, Advisers of 
 Villeroi, Du Plessis-Mornay, and D'Aubigne, did Henry IV. 
 effective service, by very different processes and in very different 
 degrees, towards establishing and rendering successful this internal 
 and external policy. Three were' Protestants ; Villeroi alone was 
 
332 History of France. 
 
 a Catholic. Sully is beyond comparison with the other three. He 
 is the only one whom Henry IV. called my friend ; the only one 
 who had participated in all the life and all the government of 
 Henry IV., his evil as well as his exalted fortunes, his most painful 
 embarrassments at home as well as his greatest political acts ; the 
 only one whose name has remained inseparably connected with 
 that of a master whom he served without servility as well as with- 
 out any attempt to domineer. 
 
 Villeroi, Nicholas de Neufville, lord of Villeroi, who was born in 1543, 
 and whose grandfather had been secretary of state under Francis I., 
 was, whilst Henry III. was still reigning, member of a small 
 secret council at which all questions relating to Protestants were 
 treated of. Though a strict Catholic, and convinced that the king 
 of France ought to be openly in the ranks of the Catholics, and 
 to govern with their support, he sometimes gave Henry III. some 
 free-spoken and wise counsels. Villeroi was a Leaguer of the 
 patriotically French type. And so Henry IV., as soon as he was 
 firm upon his throne, summoned him to his councils and confided 
 to him the direction of foreign affairs. The late Leaguer sat 
 beside Sully, and exerted himself to give the prevalence, in 
 Henry IV.'s external policy, to catholic maxims and alliances, 
 whilst Sully, remaining firmly protestant in the service of his king, 
 turned catholic, continued to be in foreign matters the champion of 
 protestant policy and alliances. 
 
 Henry IV. made so great a case of Villeroi's co-operation and 
 influence that, without loving him as he loved Sully, he upheld 
 him and kept him as secretary of state for foreign affairs to the 
 end of his reign. 
 
 DuPlessis- Philip du Plessis-Mornay occupied a smaller place than Sully 
 
 Mornay. and Villeroi in the government of Henry IV. ; but he held and 
 deserves to keep a great one in the history of his times. He was 
 the most eminent and also the most moderate of the men of 
 profound piety and conviction of whom the Eeformation had made 
 a complete conquest, soul and body, and who placed their public 
 fidelity to their religious creed above every other interest and every 
 other affair in this world. Mornay had made up his mind to 
 serve for ever a king who had saved his country. He remained 
 steadfast and active in his faith, but without falling beneath the 
 yoke of any narrow-minded idea, preserving his patriotic good 
 sense in the midst of his fervent piety, and bearing with sorrow- 
 ful constancy his friends' bursts of anger and his king's exhibitions 
 
 Agrippa of ingratitude. 
 
 d'Aubigne. A third Protestant, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, grandfather 
 
Henry IV. separates from his wife. 333 
 
 of Madame de Maintenon, has been reckoned here amongst, not the 
 councillors, certainly, but the familiar and still celebrated servants 
 of Henry IY. He held no great post and had no great influence 
 with the king ; he was, on every occasion, a valiant soldier, a 
 zealous Protestant, an indefatigable lover and seeker of adventure, 
 sometimes an independent thinker, frequently an eloquent and 
 bold speaker, always a very sprightly companion. If D'Aubigne 
 had not been a writer, he would be completely forgotten by this 
 time, like so many other intriguing and turbulent adventurers, 
 who make a great deal of fuss themselves and try to bring every- 
 thing about them into a fuss as long as they live, and who die 
 without leaving any trace of their career. But D'Aubigne wrote 
 a great deal both in prose and in verse ; he wrote the Histoire 
 universelle of his times, personal Memoires, tales, tragedies, and 
 theological and satirical essays; and he wrote with sagacious, 
 penetrating, unpremeditated wit, rare vigour, and original and 
 almost profound talent for discerning and depicting situations and 
 characters. It is the writer which has caused the man to live and 
 has assigned him a place in French literature even more than in 
 French history. 
 
 These politicians, these Christians, these warriors had, in 1600, ^ D 1600. 
 a grave question to solve for Henry IV. and grave counsel to Henry IV. 
 give him. He was anxious to separate from his wife, Mar- separates 
 guerite de Yalois, who had, in fact, been separated from him for wife, 
 the last fifteen years, was leading a very irregular life, and had not 
 brought him any children. But, in order to obtain from the 
 pope annulment of the marriage, it was first necessary that Mar- 
 guerite should agree to it, and at no price would she yield, so 
 long as the king's favourite continued to be Gabrielle d'Estrees, 
 whom she detested and by whom Henry already had several chil- 
 dren. The question arose in 1598 in connexion with a son lately 
 born to Gabrielle, who was constantly spreading reports that she 
 would be the king's wife. In consequence, however, of the 
 favourite's sudden death (April 10th, 1599), the consent of Mar- 
 guerite de Yalois to the annulment of her marriage was obtained ; 
 and negotiations were opened at Eome by Arnauld d'Ossat, who was 
 made a cardinal, and by Brulart de Sillery, ambassador ad hoc. 
 
 Clement VIII. pronounced on the 17th of December, 1599, and 
 transmitted to Paris by Cardinal de Joyeuse the decree of annul- 
 ment. On the 6th of January, 1600, Henry IV. gave his ambas- 
 sador, Brulart de Sillery, powers to conclude at Florence his mar- 
 riage with Mary de' Medici, daughter of Francis I. de' Medici, 
 grand duke of Tuscany, and Joan, archduchess of Austria and 
 
334 History of France. 
 
 His mar- niece of the grand duke Ferdinand I. de' Medici, who had often 
 riage with ren( j ere( j Henry IV. pecuniary services dearly paid for. As early 
 Medici. as the year 1592 there had been something said about this project 
 of alliance ; it was resumed and carried out on the 5th of October, 
 1600, at Florence, with lavish magnificence. Mary embarked at 
 Leghorn on the 17th with a fleet of seventeen galleys; that of 
 which she was aboard, the General, was all covered over with 
 jewels inside and out ; she arrived at Marseilles on the 3rd of 
 November and at Lyons on the 2nd of December, where she waited 
 till the 9th for the king, who was detained by the war with Savoy. 
 He entered her chamber in the middle of the night, booted and 
 armed, and next day, in the cathedral church of St. John, re-cele- 
 brated his marriage, more rich in wealth than it was destined to be 
 in happiness. 
 
 Henry IV. seemed to have attained in his public and in his 
 domestic life the pinnacle of earthly fortune and ambition. He 
 was, at one and the same time, catholic king and the head of the 
 Protestant polity in Europe, accepted by the Catholics as the best, 
 the only possible, king for them in France. He was at peace 
 with all Europe, except one petty prince, the duke of Savoy, 
 Charles Emmanuel L, from whom he demanded back the mar- 
 quisate of Saluzzo or a territorial compensation in France itself on 
 the French side of the Alps. After a short campaign, and thanks 
 to Bosny's ordnance, he obtained what he desired, and by a treaty 
 of January 17, 1601, he added to French territory La Bresse, Le 
 Bugey, the district of Gex and the citadel of Bourg, which still 
 held out after the capture of the town. He was more and more 
 dear to France, to which he had restored peace at home as well as 
 abroad, and industrial, commercial, financial, monumental and 
 scientific prosperity, until lately unknown. Sully covered the 
 country with roads, bridges, canals, buildings and works of public 
 utility. The conspiracy of his old companion in arms, Gontaut de 
 Biron, proved to him, however, that he was not at the end of 
 spiracy. his political dangers, and the letters he caused to be issued (Sep- 
 tember, 1603) for the return of the Jesuits did not save him 
 from the attacks of religious fanaticism. 
 
 The queen's coronation had been proclaimed on the 12th of 
 May, 1610; she was to be crowned next day the 13th at St. 
 Denis, and Sunday the 16th had been appointed for her to make 
 her entry into Paris. On Friday the 14th the king had an idea 
 of going to the Arsenal to see Sully, who was ill ; we have the 
 account of this visit and of the assassination given by Malherbe, 
 at that time attached to the service of Henry IV., in a letter 
 
Murder of Henry IV. 335 
 
 written on the 19th of May from the reports of eye-witnesses, 
 and it is here reproduced word for word : 
 
 " The king set out soon after dinner to go to the Arsenal. He 
 deliberated a long while whether he should go out, and several murdered 
 times said to the queen, ' My dear, shall I go or not 1 ' He even ^^ Ra ~ 
 went out two or three times and then all on a sudden returned, (May 14). 
 and said to the queen, ' My dear, shall I really go 1 ' and again he 
 had doubts about going or remaining. At last he made up his 
 mind to go, and having kissed the queen several times, bade her 
 adieu. Amongst other things that were remarked he said to her, 
 ' I shall only go there and back ; I shall be here again almost 
 directly.' When he got to the bottom of the steps where his car- 
 riage was waiting for him, M. de Praslin, his captain of the guard, 
 would have attended him, but he said to him, ' Get you gone ; I 
 want nobody ; go about your business.' 
 
 " Thus, having about him only a few gentlemen and some foot- 
 men, he got into his carriage, took his place on the back seat at 
 the left-hand side, and made M. d'Epernon sit at the right. Next 
 to him, by the door, were M. de Montbazon and M. de la Force ; 
 and by the door on M. d'Epernon's side were Marshal de Lavardin 
 and M. de Crequi ; on the front seat the marquis of Mirabeau and 
 the first equerry. When he came to the Croix-du-Tiroir he was 
 asked whither it was his pleasure to go ; he gave orders to go 
 towards St. Innocent. On arriving at Eue de la Ferronnerie, which 
 is at the end of that of St. Honore on the way to that of St. Denis, 
 opposite the Salamandre he met a cart which obliged the king's D t ^ 
 carriage to go nearer to the ironmongers' shops which are on the given by 
 St. Innocent side, and even to proceed somewhat more slowly, with- Malherbe. 
 out stopping however, though somebody, who was in a hurry to 
 get the gossip printed, has written to that effect. Here it was that 
 an abominable assassin, who had posted himself against the 
 nearest shop, which is that with the Coeur couronne perce d'une 
 fl'eche, darted upon the king and dealt him, one after the other, 
 two blows with a knife in the left side j one, catching him between 
 the arm-pit and the nipple, went upwards without doing more than 
 graze ; the other catches him between the fifth and sixth ribs and, 
 taking a downward direction, cuts a large artery of those called 
 venous. The king, by mishap and as if to further tempt this 
 monster, had his left hand on the shoulder of M. de Montbazon, 
 and with the other was leaning on M. d'fepernon, to whom he was 
 speaking. He uttered a low cry and made a few movements. 
 M. de Montbazon having asked, ' What is the matter, Sir ? ' he 
 answered, ' It is nothing,' twice ; but the second time so low that 
 
336 History of France. 
 
 there was no making sure. These are the only words he spoke after 
 he was wounded. 
 
 " In a moment the carriage turned towards the Louvre. When 
 he was at the steps where he had got into the carriage, which are 
 those of the queen's rooms, some wine was given him. Of course 
 some one had already run forward to bear the news. Sieur de 
 Cerisy, lieutenant of M. de Praslin's company, having raised his 
 head, he made a few movements with his eyes, then closed them 
 immediately, without opening them again any more. He was carried 
 upstairs by M. de Moiitbazon and Count de Curzon en Quercy and 
 laid on the bed in his closet, and at two o'clock carried to the 
 bed in his chamber, where he was all the next day and Sunday. 
 Somebody went and gave him holy water. I tell you nothing about 
 the queen's tears ; all that must be imagined. As for the people of 
 Paris, I think they never wept so much as on this occasion." 
 
 On the king's death and at the imperious instance of the duke of 
 Epernon, who at once introduced the queen, and said in open ses- 
 sion, as he exhibited his sword, " It is as yet in the scabbard, but 
 it will have to leap therefrom unless this moment there be granted 
 to the queen a title which is her due according to the order of nature 
 Mary de' an( ^ ^ J us ^ ce /' the Parliament forthwith declared Mary regent of 
 Medici the kingdom. Thanks to Sully's firm administration, there were, 
 regent. after the ordinary annual expenses were paid, at that time in the 
 vaults of the Bastille or in securities easily realizable, forty-one 
 million three hundred and forty-five thousand livres, and there was 
 nothing to suggest that extraordinary and urgent expenses would 
 come to curtail this substantial reserve. The army was disbanded 
 and reduced to from twelve to fifteen thousand men, French or 
 Swiss. For a long time past no power in France had, at its 
 accession, possessed so much material strength and so much moral 
 authority. Since the death of Henry IV., however, the king and 
 court of France were much changed : the great questions and the 
 great personages had disappeared. The last of the real chiefs of 
 the League, the brother of Duke Henry of Guise, the old duke of 
 Mayenne, he on whom Henry, in the hour of victory, would wreak 
 no heavier vengeance than to walk him to a standstill, was dead, 
 parties* Henry IV.'s first wife, the sprightly and too facile Marguerite de 
 Valois, was dead also, after consenting to descend from the throne 
 in order to make way for the mediocre Mary de' Medici. The 
 catholic champion whom Henry IV. felicitated himself upon being 
 able to oppose to Du Plessis-Mornay in the polemical conferences 
 between the two communions, Cardinal de Perron, was at the point 
 of death. The decay was general and the same amongst the Pro- 
 
SULLY. 
 
 Page 337 
 
The Concinis The Spanish marriages. 337 
 
 testants as amongst the Catholics ; Sully and Mornay held them- 
 selves aloof or were barely listened to. In place of these eminent The Q Qn _ 
 personages had come intriguing or ambitious subordinates, who were cinis. 
 either innocent of, or indifferent to, anything like a great policy, and 
 who had no idea beyond themselves and their fortunes. The chief 
 amongst them were Leonora Galigai, daughter of the queen's nurse, 
 and her husband, Concino Concini, son of a Florentine notary, both 
 of them full of coarse ambition, covetous, vain and determined to 
 make the best of their new position, so as to enrich themselves and 
 exalt themselves beyond measure and at any price. The husband 
 of Leonora Galigai, Concini, had amassed a great deal of money and 
 purchased the marquisate of Ancre ; nay more, he had been created 
 marshal of France. In his dread lest- influence opposed to his own 
 should be exercised over the young king, he took upon himself to 
 regulate his amusements and his walks, and prohibited him from 
 leaving Paris. Louis XIII. had amongst his personal attendants a 
 young nobleman, Albert de Luynes, clever in training little sporting 
 birds, called butcher-birds (pies grieches or shrikes), then all the 
 rage \ and the king made his falconer and lived on familiar terms 
 with him. Playing at billiards one day, Marshal d' Ancre, putting 
 on his hat, said to the king, " I hope your Majesty will allow me 
 to be covered." The king allowed it ; but remained surprised and Concini 
 shocked. His young page, Albert de Luynes, observed his displea- 
 sure, and being anxious, himself also, to become a favourite, he took 
 pains to fan it. A domestic plot was set hatching against Marshal 
 d' Ancre, who was shot down on the bridge of the Louvre (April 
 24, 1617) by M. de Yitry, captain of the guard. Shortly after, 
 Leonora Galigai, accused of witchcraft, was beheaded on the place 
 de Greve, and her body committed to the flames. 
 
 Concini and his wife, both of them, probably, in the secret ser- The 
 
 vice of the court of Madrid, had promoted the marriage of Louis s P ani . sh 
 
 marriages 
 XIII. with the Infanta Anne of Austria, eldest daughter of Philip 
 
 III. king of Spain, and that of Philip, Infanta of Spain, who was 
 afterwards Philip IV., with Princess Elizabeth of France, sister of 
 Louis XIII. Henry IV., in his plan for the pacification of Europe, 
 had himself conceived this idea and testified a desire for this double 
 marriage, but without taking any trouble to bring it about. It was 
 after his death that, on the 30th of April, 1612, Villeroi, minister 
 of foreign affairs in France, and Don Inigo de Cardenas, ambassador 
 of the king of Spain, concluded this double union by a formal 
 deed. The two Spanish marriages were regarded in France as an 
 abandonment of the national policy ; France was, in a great majority, 
 catholic, but its Catholicism differed essentially from the Spanish 
 
338 History of France. 
 
 Catholicism : a remedy was desired ; it was hoped that one would 
 be found in the convocation of the states-general of the kingdom, 
 to which the populace always looked expectantly ; they were con- 
 voked first for the 16th of September, 1614, at Sens ; and, after- 
 wards, for .the 20th of October following, when the young king, 
 Louis XIII., after the announcement of his majority, himself 
 The States- P ene( ^ t ^ lem ^ state - The chief political fact" connected with the 
 general. convocation of the States-general of 1614 was the entry into their 
 Kichelieu. ran k s O f the youthful bishop of Lu9on, Armand John du Plessis de 
 Richelieu, marked out by the finger of God to sustain, after the 
 powerful reign of Henry IV. and the incapable regency of Mary de' 
 Medici, the weight of the government of France. As he was born 
 on the 5th of September, 1585, he was but 28 years old in 1614. 
 
 He had even then acquired amongst the clergy and at the court 
 of Louis XIII. sufficient importance to be charged with the duty of 
 speaking in presence of the king on the acceptance of the acts of 
 the council of Trent and on the restitution of certain property 
 belonging to the Catholic Church in Beam. He made skilful use 
 of the occasion for the purpose of still further exalting and improv- 
 ing the question and his own position. He complained that for a 
 long time past ecclesiastics had been too rarely summoned to the 
 sovereign's councils ; he took care at the same time to make himself 
 pleasant to the mighty ones of the hour ; he praised the young king 
 for having, on announcing his majority, asked his mother to con- 
 tinue to watch over France, and " to add to the august title 
 of mother of the king that of mother of the kingdom" The post of 
 almoner to the queen-regnant, Anne of Austria, was his reward. 
 He carried still further his ambitious foresight; in Feb. 1615, at 
 the time when the session of the states-general closed, Marshal 
 d'Ancre and Leonora Galigai were still favourites with the queen- 
 mother ; Richelieu laid himself out to be pleasant to them, and 
 A.D. 1616. received from the marshal in 1616 the post of Secretary of State 
 minister? ^ or war an( * ^ ore ig n affairs. Marshal d'Ancre was at that time look- 
 ing out for supports against his imminent downfall. When, in 
 1617, he fell and was massacred, people were astonished to find 
 Richelieu on good terms with the marshal's court-rival, Albe'rt de 
 Luynes, who pressed him to remain in the council at which he had 
 Follows sat for only five months. To accept the responsibility of the new 
 the Queen favourite's accession was a compromising act ; Richelieu judged it 
 more prudent to remain bishop of Lucon and to wear the appear- 
 ance of defeat by following Mary de' Medici to Blois, whither, since 
 the fall of her favourites, she had asked leave to retire. He would 
 there, he said, be more useful to the government of the young king ; 
 
Richelieu? s cleverness. 339 
 
 for, remaining at the side of Mary de' Medici, lie would be able to 
 advise and restrain her. 
 
 The astute minister contrived to interest both parties on his 
 behalf. To the court he adduced his withdrawal from public 
 business as a proof of the most absolute submission ; to Mary de' 
 Medici he described it as the result of his unremitting zeal for her 
 service, and as a new persecution on the part of her enemies. He 
 thus contrived to weather the storm ; and when the excitement 
 produced by the catastrophe of Concini had subsided, he looked 
 round to see what could be done. We cannot enter here into the Manages 
 particulars connected with the disgrace of the queen-mother. to kee P on 
 Suffice it to say, that Richelieu served her to the utmost of his 
 power, and rendered her party so formidable, that it proved a 
 serious obstacle to the ambitious views of the new favourite. The 
 Bishop of Lu9on, through his determination, his intrigues, his 
 unscrupulous conduct, had become a dangerous personage ; he was 
 first ordered to return to his priory at Coussay, then to his episcopal 
 palace, and finally he was banished to Avignon. There he seemed 
 determined upon leading a life of seclusion, and a casual observer, 
 anxious to know how he spent his time, would have found him 
 busily employed in writing theological works. This, of course, was 
 merely a feint, designed to throw his enemies off their guard. 
 Attention to his books did not prevent Richelieu from watching 
 the progress of events ; and when Mary de' Medici contrived to 
 escape from Blois, he joined her without any further delay. By 
 his influence, the whole of the Anjou nobility the dukes de 
 Longueville, de Bouillon, d'Epernon rallied round the standard of 
 the queen. A battle was fought at Pont-de-Ce, near Angers, 
 where the rebel troops met with a signal defeat. A treaty, never- 
 theless, concluded shortly after, secured to Richelieu almost as 
 many advantages as if he, and not de Luynes, had triumphed. 
 The queen received permission to return to court, with the full 
 enjoyment of all the privileges and honours due to her rank ; and 
 the king pledged himself to solicit a cardinal's hat for Richelieu, 
 whose niece, Mademoiselle de Pont-Courlay, married the marquis 
 de Combalet, nephew of de Luynes (1619-20). 
 
 Albert de Luynes came out of this crisis well content. He Albert de 
 felicitated himself on the king's victory over the queen-mother, for 
 he might consider the triumph as his own ; he had advised and 
 supported the king's steady resistance to his mother's enterprises. 
 Besides, he had gained by it the rank and power of constable ; it 
 was at this period that he obtained them, thanks to the retirement 
 of Lesdiguieres, who gave them up to assume the title of marshal- 
 
 z 2 
 
34 History of France. 
 
 general of the king's camps and armies. The royal favour did not 
 stop there for Luynes ; the keeper of the seals, Du Vair, died in 
 1621 ; and the king handed over the seals to the new constable, 
 who thus united the military authority with that of justice, 
 without being either a great warrior or a great lawyer. 
 Rising of The favourite now turned his attention to the Protestants, and 
 ^ e P reten( led to compel those of Beam and Navarre to restore what 
 he designed as secularized Church property. A general rising was 
 the consequence; in order to quell it, de Luynes took the command 
 of an army of 15,000 men and laid siege before Montauban. 
 Sully and Duplessis-Mornay had vainly endeavoured to dissuade 
 their fellow-religionists from publishing a declaration of indepen- 
 dence ; and the marshal de Lesdiguieres and the duke de Bouillon 
 having refused the dangerous part of leader of the movement, it 
 was accepted by the duke de Eohan. The siege of Montauban 
 proved, however, more difficult than had been anticipated ; the 
 royal troops were compelled to withdraw ; and De Luynes, having 
 caught fever whilst attacking the smaller town of Monheurt, on the 
 banks of the Garonne, died on the 14th of December. 
 
 A.D. 1621. Richelieu, when he had become cardinal, premier minister of 
 Deatli of ;L ou is XIII. and of the government of France, passed a just but 
 (Dec. 14). severe judgment upon Albert de Luynes. " He was a mediocre 
 and timid creature," he said, " faithless, ungenerous, too weak to 
 remain steady against the assault of so great a fortune as that 
 which ruined him incontinently ; allowing himself to be borne 
 away by it as by a torrent, without any foot -hold, unable to set 
 bounds to his ambition, incapable of arresting it and not knowing 
 what he was about, like a man on the top of a tower, whose head 
 goes round and who has no longer any power of discernment. He 
 would fain have been prince of Orange, count of Avignon, duke of 
 Albret, king of Austrasia, and would not have refused more if he 
 had seen his way to it." \Memoires de Richelieu, p. 169, in the 
 Petitot Collection, series v., t. xxii.] 
 
 This brilliant and truthful portrait lacks one feature which was 
 the merit of the constable de Luynes : he saw coming, and he anti- 
 cipated, a long way off, and to little purpose, but heartily enough, 
 the government of France by a supreme kingship, whilst paying 
 respect, as long as he lived, to religious liberty and showing himself 
 favourable to intellectual and literary liberty though he was 
 opposed to political and national liberty. That was the govern- 
 ment which, after him, was practised with a high hand and rendered 
 triumphant by Cardinal Richelieu to the honour, if not the hap- 
 piness, of France. 
 
Richelieu and the aristocracy. 341 
 
 Richelieu, created a cardinal in 1622, set his face steadily against 
 all the influences of the great lords; he broke them down one after 
 another ; he persistently elevated the royal authority ; it was the 
 hand of Richelieu which made the court and paved the way for 
 the reign of Louis XIV. The Fronde was but a paltry interlude 
 and a sanguinary game between parties. At Richelieu's death, 
 pure monarchy was founded. 
 
 In the month of December, 1622, the work was as yet full of Cardinal 
 difficulty. There were numerous rivals for the heritage of royal j^chelieu's 
 favour that had slipped from the, dying hands of Luynes. The policy, 
 first victim of Richelieu's stern home policy proved to be Colonel A.D. 1626. 
 Ornano, lately created a marshal at the duke of Anjou's request; he I rest of 
 was arrested and carried off a prisoner "to the very room where, (Sept. 16). 
 twenty-four years ago, Marshal Biron had been confined." For 
 some time past " it had been current at court and throughout the 
 kingdom that a great cabal was going on," says Richelieu in his 
 Memoires, " and the cabalists said quite openly that under his 
 ministry, men might cabal with impunity, for he was not a 
 dangerous enemy." If the cabalists had been living in that confi- 
 dence, they were most wofully deceived. Richelieu was neither 
 meddlesome nor cruel, but he was pitiless towards the sufferings as 
 well as the supplication of those who sought to thwart his policy. 
 Thus again, Henry de Talleyrand, count of Chalais, master of the A.D. 1626. 
 wardrobe, hare-brained and frivolous, had hitherto made himself And . f 
 talked about only for his duels and his successes with women. He (Aug. 18). 
 had already been drawn into a plot against the cardinal's life ; but, 
 under the influence of remorse, he had confessed his criminal 
 intentions to the minister himself. Richelieu appeared touched 
 by the repentance, but he did not forget the offence, and his watch 
 over this " unfortunate gentleman," as he himself calls him, made 
 him aware before long that Chalais was compromised in an 
 intrigue which aimed at nothing less, it was said, than to secure 
 the person of the cardinal by means of an ambush, so as to get rid 
 of him at need. Chalais was arrested in his bed on the 8th of 
 July, and condemned to death on the 18th of August 1626. 
 
 At the outset of his ministry, in 1624, Richelieu had obtained 
 from the king a severe ordinance against duels, a fatal custom 
 which was at that time decimating the noblesse. Already several 
 noblemen, amongst others M. du Plessis-Praslin, had been deprived 
 of their offices, or sent into exile in consequence of their duels, when Duels. 
 M. de Bouteville, of the house of Montmorency, who had been BonteviUe 
 previously engaged in twenty-one affairs of honour, came to Paris death, 
 to fight the marouis of Beuvron on the Place Royale. The marquis's 
 
34 2 History of France. 
 
 second, M. de Bussy d'Amboise, was killed by the count of 
 Chapelles, Bouteville's second. Beuvron fled to England. M. de 
 Bouteville and his comrade had taken post for Lorraine; they 
 were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le-Brule, and brought back to 
 Paris; and the king immediately ordered Parliament to bring 
 them to trial. The crime was flagrant, and the defiance of the 
 king's orders undeniable ; but the culprit was connected with the 
 greatest houses in the kingdom ; he had given striking proofs of 
 bravery in the king's service ; and all the court interceded for him. 
 Parliament, with regret, pronounced condemnation, absolving the 
 memory of Bussy d'Amboise, who was a son of President de 
 Mesmes's wife, and reducing to one-third of their goods the confis- 
 cation to which the condemned were sentenced. 
 
 The cardinal had got Chalais condemned as a conspirator ; he 
 had let Bouteville be executed as a duellist; the greatest lords 
 bent beneath his authority, but the power that depends on a king's 
 favour is always menaced and tottering. The enemies of Richelieu 
 had not renounced the idea of overthrowing him, their hopes even 
 went on growing, since, for some time past, the queen-mother had 
 been waxing jealous of the all-powerful minister, and no longer 
 A.D. 1630. made common cause with him. These reiterated attempts are sur- 
 " J uniee^ prising enough ; but what astonishes us most is that the con- 
 spirators should have allowed themselves to be led astray by Gaston, 
 duke d'Orleans, a man who, in the hour of danger, would not 
 hesitate to betray his bosom-friend, if his own safety could be pur- 
 chased at sucii a price. And yet they fell into the snare. The 
 king was dangerously ill at Lyons ; they thought the opportunity 
 too good to be lost ; and indeed managed so well that when the 
 court returned to Paris, the cardinal's disgrace seemed inevitable. 
 But he determined upon making a final effort, and securing an 
 interview of a quarter of an hour with Louis XIII. at Versailles, he 
 ixightened the monarch, and left the palace as powerful as ever. 
 " This coup d'etat? says M. Michelet, " was a perfect comedy : the 
 cardinalists packed off in the morning, and it was the turn of the 
 royalists to make their exit in the evening" (1630). Marshal 
 Marillac had to pay for the rest ; seized in the middle of his army, 
 he was tried before a court composed of his private enemies, and in 
 the cardinal's own palace, at Ruel. Of course, under such circum- 
 stances, it was useless to expect mercy ; the unfortunate warrior 
 was beheaded. In the meanwhile, what had become of Gaston 1 
 Banished with his mother to Brussels, he felt at last some shame 
 at not taking any personal part in the struggle against his enemy. 
 Besides, the duke de Montmorency, governor of Languedoc, had 
 
Conspiracy of Cinq-Mars. 343 
 
 informed him that his presence in the disaffected provinces would 
 undoubtedly excite a general rebellion. Assisted by the duke de 
 Lorraine, whose daughter he had married, Gaston raised an army of 
 brigands, as they have justly been termed. Unfortunately, in order 
 to reach Languedoc, it was necessary that this select band should A.D. 1632. 
 cross France from north to south. Badly paid, badly fed, they Battle of 
 took to pillage by way of compensation, and thus materially 
 impaired the cause they were engaged to serve. A battle was 
 fought at Castelnaudary (1632); the king's troops were victorious, 
 and Montmorency shared the fate of Marillac, whilst Gaston 
 d' Orleans " swore by the faith of a gentleman that he would ever 
 be my lord the cardinal's best friend." 
 
 Women filled but a short space in the life of Louis XIII. Twice, 
 however, in that interval of ten years which separated the plot of 
 Montmorency from that of Cinq-Mars, did the minister believe 
 himself to be threatened by feminine influence ; and twice he used 
 artifice to win the monarch's heart and confidence from two young 
 girls of his court, Louise de Lafayette and Marie d'Hautefort. Both 
 were maids of honour to the queen. 
 
 Louis XIII. 's fancies were never of long duration, and his 
 growing affection for young Cinq-Mars, son of Marshal d'Effiat, led 
 him to sacrifice Mdlle. d'Hautefort. The cardinal merely asked 
 him to send her away for a fortnight." She insisted upon hearing 
 the order from the king's own mouth. " The fortnight will last all 
 the rest of my life," she said : " and so I take leave of Your Majesty 
 for ever." She went accompanied by the regrets and tears of Anne 
 of Austria and leaving the field open to the new favourite, the king's 
 " rattle," as the cardinal called him. 
 
 M. de Cinq-Mars was only nineteen when he was made mast'er - D - 1 . 642 - 
 of the wardrobe and grand equerry of France. Brilliant and witty, O f cinq, 
 he amused the king and occupied the leisure which peace gave Mars, 
 him. By degrees he listened to the insinuations of those who were 
 availing themselves of his popularity for the purpose of egging 
 him on against the cardinal. 
 
 Then began a series of negotiations and intrigues ; the duke of 
 Orleans had come back to Paris, the king was ill and the cardinal 
 more so than he ; thence arose conjectures and insensate hopes ; 
 the duke of Bouillon, being sent for by the king, who confided to 
 him the command of the army of Italy, was at the same time drawn 
 into the plot, which was beginning to be woven against the minis- 
 ter ; the duke of Orleans and the queen were in it ; and the town 
 of Sedan, of which Bouillon was prince-sovereign, was wanted to 
 serve the authors of the conspiracy as an asylum in case of 
 
344 History of France. 
 
 reverse. Sedan alone was not sufficient ; there was need of an 
 
 army. Whence was it to come? Thoughts naturally turned 
 
 towards Spain. A negotiation was therefore concluded at Madrid, 
 
 Treaty by Fontrailles, in the name of the duke of Orleans, and a copy of 
 
 with Spam. - fc goon f oun( j j ts wav to Richelieu's study. 
 
 The king could not believe his eyes ; and his wrath equalled his 
 astonishment. Together with that of the grand equerry, he ordered 
 the immediate arrest of M. de Thou, his intimate friend ; and the 
 order went out to secure the duke of Bouillon, then at the head of 
 the army of Italy. He, caught like Marshal Marillac in the midst 
 of his troops, had vainly attempted to conceal himself ; but he was 
 taken and conducted to the castle of Pignerol. 
 
 The most guilty, if not the most dangerous, of all the accom- 
 plices, Monsieur, frightened to death, saw that treachery was safer 
 than flight, and contrived to have an interview with his brother. 
 He assured Louis XIII. of his fidelity; he intreated Chavigny, the 
 minister's confidant, to give him " means of seeing his Eminence 
 before he saw the king, in which case all would go well." He 
 appealed to the cardinal's generosity, begging him to keep his letter 
 as an eternal reproach, if he were not thenceforth the most faithful 
 and devoted of his friends. 
 
 The two accused denied nothing : M. de Thou merely main- 
 tained that he had not been in any way mixed up with the con- 
 spiracy, proving that he had blamed the treaty with Spain, and that 
 Death of n ^ s on ^y crime was not having revealed it. The last tragic scene was 
 Cinq-Mars not destined to be long deferred; the very day on which the sentence 
 de ^Thou was delivered saw the execution of it. " The grand equerry showed 
 (Sept. 4). a never changing and very resolute firmness to the death, together 
 with admirable calmness and the constancy and devoutness of a 
 Christian," wrote M. de Marca, councillor of state, to the secretary 
 of state Brienne ; and Tallemant des Reaux adds : " he died with 
 astoundingly great courage and did not waste time in speechifying ; 
 he would not have his eyes bandaged, and kept them open when 
 the blow was struck." M. de Thou said not a word save to God, 
 repeating the Credo even to the very scaffold, with a fervour of 
 devotion that touched all present. " We have seen," says a report 
 of the time, " the favourite of the greatest and most just of kings 
 lose his head upon the scaffold at the age of twenty-two, but with 
 a firmness which has scarcely its parallel in our histories. We 
 have seen a councillor of state die like a saint after a crime which 
 men cannot justly pardon. There is nobody in the world who, 
 knowing of their conspiracy against the State, does not think them 
 worthy of death, and there will be few who, having knowledge of 
 
Last moments of the conspirators. 
 
 345 
 
 their rank and their fine natural qualities, will not mourn their sad 
 fate." 
 
 " Now that I make not a single step which does not lead me to 
 death, I am more capable than anybody else of estimating the value 
 of the things of the world," wrote Cinq-Mars to his mother, the 
 wife of Marshal d'Effiat. " Enough of this world ; away to Para- 
 dise ! " said M. de Thou, as he marched to the scaffold. Chalais 
 and Montmorency had used the same language. At the last hour, 
 and at the bottom of their hearts, the frivolous courtier and the 
 hare-brained conspirator as well as the great soldier and the grave 
 magistrate had recovered their faith in God. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 Richelieu 
 and the 
 parlia- 
 ments. 
 
 Trials of 
 
 Marillac 
 and La 
 Valette. 
 
 RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 
 
 THE French parliaments, and in particular the parliament of Paris, 
 had often assumed the right, without the royal order, of summoning 
 the princes, dukes, peers and officers of the crown to deliberate upon 
 what was to be done for the service of the king, the good of the 
 State, and the relief of the people. 
 
 This pretention on the part of the parliaments was what Cardinal 
 Eichelieu was continually fighting against. He would not allow 
 the intervention of the magistrates in the government of the State. 
 "When he took the power into his hands, nine parliaments sat in 
 France Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, Rouen, Aix, 
 Rennes, and Pau: he created but one, that of Metz, in 1633, to 
 sever in a definitive manner the bonds which still attached the 
 three bishoprics to the Germanic Empire. Trials at that time were 
 carried in the last resort to Spires. 
 
 Throughout the history of France we find the parliament of 
 Paris bolder and more enterprising than all the rest \ and it did 
 not belie its character in the very teeth of Richelieu. Symptoms 
 of resistance manifested themselves after Dupes' Day, at the time 
 of the trial of Marshal Marillac, and during that of the duke of 
 La Valette, third son of the duke of Epernon, accused, not without 
 grounds, of having caused the failure of the siege of Fontarabia 
 from jealousy towards the prince of Conde. The cup had over- 
 flowed, and the cardinal resolved to put an end to an opposition 
 
The Parliaments. 347 
 
 which was the more irritating inasmuch as it was sometimes legi- 
 timate. A notification of the king's, published in 1641, prohibited 
 the parliament from any interference in affairs of state and admi- 
 nistration. The cardinal had gained the victory ; parliament bowed 
 the head ; its attempts at independence during the Fronde were but 
 a flash, and the yoke of Louis XIV. became the more heavy for it. 
 The pretensions of the magistrates were often foundationless, the 
 restless and meddlesome character of their assemblies did harm to 
 their remonstrances ; but for a long while they maintained, in the 
 teeth of more and more absolute kingly power, the country's rights 
 in the government, and they had perceived the dangers of that 
 sovereign monarchy which certainly sometimes raises States to the 
 highest pinnacle of their glory, but only to let them sink before 
 long to a condition of the most grievous abasement. 
 
 Though ever first in the breach, the parliament of Paris was 
 not alone in its opposition to the cardinal. The parliament of Eouen 
 had always passed for one of the most recalcitrant. The province 
 of Normandy was rich and, consequently, overwhelmed with mandy. 
 imposts ; and several times the parliament refused to enregister 
 financial edicts which still further aggravated the distress of the 
 people. In 1637, the king threatened to go in person to Eouen 
 and bring the parliament to submission, whereat it took fright and 
 enregistered decrees for twenty-two millions. It was, no doubt, 
 this augmentation of imposts that brought about the revolt of the 
 Nu-pieds (Barefoots) in 1639. Before now, in 1624 and in 1637, 
 in Perigord and Rouergue, two popular risings of the same sort, 
 under the name of Croquants (Paupers), had disquieted the authori- 
 ties, and the governor of the province had found some trouble in 
 putting them down. The Nu-pieds were more numerous and more 
 violent still; from Eouen to Avranches all the country was a-blaze. Tlie ,, ^ 
 At Coutances and at Vire, several monopoliers and gabeleurs, as the pieds." 
 fiscal officers were called, were massacred ; a great number of 
 houses were burnt, and most of the receiving-offices were pulled 
 down or pillaged. Everywhere the army of suffering (armee de 
 souffrance), the name given by the revolters to themselves, made 
 appeal to violent passions ; popular rhymes were circulated from 
 hand to hand, in the name of General Nu-pieds (Barefoot), an 
 imaginary personage whom nobody ever saw. 
 
 Colonel Gassion, a good soldier and an inflexible character, was 
 sent to put down the rebellion. First at Caen, then at Avranches, 
 where there was fighting to be done, at Coutances and at Elbeuf, 
 Gassion's soldiery everywhere left the country behind them in sub- 
 jection, in ruin and in despair. They entered Eouen on the 31st 
 
343 
 
 History of France. 
 
 The States 
 provincial. 
 
 Eeforms 
 in the 
 adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 of December, 1639, and on the 2nd of January, 1640, the chan- 
 cellor himself arrived to do justice on the rebels heaped up in the 
 prisons, whom the parliament dared not bring up for judgment. 
 "I come to Rouen," he said on entering the town, "not to 
 deliberate, but to declare and execute the matters on which my 
 mind is made up." Rouen had to pay imposts to the amount of 
 more than three millions. The province and its parliament were 
 henceforth reduced to submission. 
 
 It was not only the parliaments that resisted the efforts of Car- 
 dinal Richelieu to concentrate all the power of the government in 
 the hands of the king. From the time that the sovereigns had 
 given up convoking the states-general, the states-provincial had 
 alone preserved the right of bringing to the foot of the throne the 
 plaints and petitions of subjects. Unhappily few provinces enjoyed 
 this privilege ; Languedoc, Brittany, Burgundy, Provence, Dau- 
 phiny, and the countship of Pau alone were states-districts, that is 
 to say, allowed to tax themselves independently and govern them- 
 selves to a certain extent. Normandy, though an elections-district, 
 and, as such, subject to the royal agents in respect of finance, had 
 states which continued to meet even in 1666. The states-provincial 
 were always convoked by the king, who fixed the place and duration 
 of assembly. 
 
 The composition of the states-provincial varied a great deal, 
 according to the district. In Brittany all noblemen settled in the 
 province had the right of sitting, whilst the third estate were repre- 
 sented by only forty deputies. In Languedoc, on the contrary, the 
 nobility had but twenty-three representatives, and the class of the 
 third estate numbered sixty-eight deputies. Hence, no doubt, the 
 divergences of conduct to be remarked in those two provinces 
 between the parliament and the states-provincial. In Languedoc, 
 even during Montmorency's insurrection, the parliament remained 
 faithful to the king and submissive to the cardinal, whilst the 
 states declared in favour of the revolt : in Brittany, the parliament 
 thwarted Richelieu's efforts in favour of trade, which had been 
 enthusiastically welcomed by the states. 
 
 As a sequel to the systematic humiliation of the great lords, 
 even when provincial governors, and to the gradual enfeeblement 
 of provincial institutions, Richelieu had to create in all parts of 
 France, still so diverse in organization as well as in manners, repre- 
 sentatives of the kingly power, of too modest and feeble a type to 
 do without him, but capable of applying his measures and making 
 his wishes respected. Before now the kings of France had several 
 times over perceived the necessity of keeping up a supervision 
 
The administration. 349 
 
 over the conduct of their officers in the provinces. The inquisitors 
 (enquesteurs) of St. Louis, the ridings of the revising-masters (che- 
 vauchees des maitres des requetes), the departmental commissioners 
 (commissaires departis) of Charles IX., were so many temporary 
 and travelling inspectors, whose duty it was to inform the king of 
 the state of affairs throughout the kingdom. Richelieu sub- 
 stituted for these shifting commissions a fixed and regular insti- 
 tution, and in 1637 he established in all the provinces overseers of Overseers 
 justice, police, and finance, who were chosen for the most part from 
 amongst the burgesses, and who before long concentrated in their 
 hands the whole administration and maintained the struggle of the 
 kingly power against the governors, the sovereign courts and the 
 states-provincial. 
 
 At the time when the overseers of provinces were instituted, the 
 battle of pure monarchy was gained ; Richelieu had no further need 
 of allies, he wanted mere subjects; but at the beginning of his 
 ministry he had felt the need of throwing himself sometimes for 
 support on the nation, and this great foe of the states-general had 
 twice convoked the assembly of notables. The first took place at 
 Fontainebleau, in 1625-6, and the second, during the following 
 year, after the conspiracy of Chalais. The assembly was favourable 
 to his measures ; but amongst those that it rejected was the pro- 
 posal to substitute loss of offices and confiscation for the penalty of 
 death in matters of rebellion and conspiracy. " Better a moderate 
 but certain penalty," said the cardinal, "than a punishment too 
 severe to be always inflicted." It was the notables who preserved 
 in the hands of the inflexible minister the terrible weapon of which 
 he availed himself so often. The assembly separated on the 24th 
 of February, 1627, the last that was convoked before the revolution 
 of 1789. It was in answer to its demands, as well as to those of 
 the states of 1614, that the keeper of the seals, Michael Marillac, 
 drew up, in 1629, the important administrative ordinance which "Code 
 has preserved from its author's name the title of Code Michau. Michau." 
 
 The cardinal had propounded to the notables a question which 
 he had greatly at heart, the foundation of a navy. Harbours The navy, 
 repaired and fortified, arsenals established at various points on the 
 coast, organization of marine regiments, foundation of pilot- schools, 
 in fact, the creation of a powerful marine which, in 1642, numbered 
 63 vessels and 22 galleys, that left the roads of Barcelona after the 
 rejoicings for the capture of Perpignan and arrived the same 
 evening at Toulon such were the fruits of Eichelieu's adminis- 
 tration of naval affairs. So much progress on every point, so 
 many efforts in all directions, 85 vessels afloat, a hundred regiments 
 
3 So History of France. 
 
 of infantry, and 300 troops of cavalry, almost constantly on a war- 
 footing, naturally entailed enormous expenses and terrible burthens 
 on the people. It was Richelieu's great fault to be more concerned 
 about his object than scrupulous as to the means he employed for 
 arriving at it. His principles were as harsh as his conduct. 
 
 Let us turn, now, to ecclesiastical affairs. Eichelieu laboured 
 for Catholicism whilst securing for himself Protestant alliances, and 
 if the independence of his mind caused him to feel the necessity 
 for a reformation, it was still in the Church and by the Church 
 that he would have had it accomplished. 
 
 J^ 16 The oratorical and political brilliancy of the Catholic Church in 
 
 the reign of Louis XIV. has caused men to forget the great 
 religious movement in the reign of Louis XIII. Learned and 
 mystic in the hands of Cardinal Berulle, humane and charitable 
 with St. Vincent de Paul, bold and saintly with M. de Saint-Cyran, 
 the Church underwent from all quarters quickening influences 
 which roused her from her dangerous lethargy. The effort was 
 attempted at all points at once. Mid all the diplomatic negotiations 
 which he undertook in Richelieu's name and the intrigues he, with 
 the queen-mother, often hatched against him, Cardinal Berulle 
 Cardinal de founded the congregation of the Oratory, designed to train up well- 
 Berulle. informed and pious young priests with a capacity for devoting 
 themselves to the education of children as well as the edification 
 of the people. It was, again, under his inspiration the order of 
 Carmelites, hitherto confined to Spain, was founded in France. 
 The convent in Eue St. Jacques soon numbered amongst its 
 penitents women of the highest rank. 
 
 de S 6nt The labours of Mg* de Berulle tended especially to the salvation 
 of individual souls ; those of St. Vincent de Paul embraced a 
 vaster field, and one offering more scope to Christian humanity. 
 Some time before, in 1610, St. Francis de Sales had founded, under 
 the direction of Madame de Chantal, the order of Visitation, whose 
 duty was the care of the sick and poor ; he had left the direction 
 of his new institution to M. Vincent, as was at that time the 
 appellation of the poor priest without birth and without fortune 
 who was one day to be celebrated throughout the world under the 
 name of St. Vincent de Paul. This direction was not enough to 
 satisfy his zeal for charity ; children and sick, the ignorant and the 
 convict, all those who suffered in body or spirit, seemed to 
 summon M Vincent to their aid; he founded in 1617, in a small 
 parish of Bresse, the charitable society of Servants of the Poor, 
 which became in 1633, at Paris, under the direction of Madame 
 Legras, niece of the keeper of the seals Marillac, the sisterhood of 
 
The Church. 351 
 
 Servants of the Sick Poor and the cradle of the Sisters of Charity. 
 St. Vincent do Paul had confidence in human nature, and every- 
 where on his path sprang up good works in response to his appeals ; 
 the foundation of Mission-priests or Lazarists, designed originally 
 to spread about in the rural districts the knowledge of God, still His works 
 testifies in the East, whither they carry at one and the same time of cliarit y' 
 the Gospel and the name of France, to that great awakening of 
 Christian charity which signalized the reign of Louis XIII. The 
 same inspiration created the seminary of St. Sulpice, by means of 
 M. Olier's solicitude, the brethren of Christian Doctrine and the 
 Ursulines, devoted to the education of childhood, and so many other 
 charitable or pious establishments, noble fruits of devoutness and 
 Christian sacrifice. 
 
 Nowhere was this f ructuating idea of the sacrifice, the immolation St. Cyran 
 of man for God and of the present in prospect of eternity, more a jj r ^ 6 
 rigorously understood and practised than amongst the disciples of royalists. 
 John du Vergier de Hauranne, abbot of St. Cyran. Victories 
 gained over souls are from their very nature of a silent sort : but 
 M. de St. Cyran was not content with them. He wrote also, and 
 his book, " Petrus Aurelius" published under the veil of the 
 anonymous, excited a great stir by its defence of the rights of 
 the bishops against the monks and even against the pope. The 
 Gallican bishops welcomed at that time with lively satisfaction 
 its eloquent pleadings in favour of their cause. But, at a later 
 period, the French clergy discovered in St. Cyran's book free- 
 thinking concealed under dogmatic forms. " In case of heresy any 
 Christian may become judge," says Petrus Aurelius. Who, then, 
 should be commissioned to define heresy? So M. de St. Cyran 
 was condemned. 
 
 He had been already signalled out as dangerous by an enemy more 
 formidable than the assemblies of the clergy of France. Cardinal 
 Richelieu, naturally attracted towards greatness as he was at a later 
 period towards the infant prodigy of the Pascals, had been desirous 
 of attaching St. Cyran to himself. " Gentlemen," said he one day as 
 he led back the simple priest into the midst of a throng of his 
 courtiers, " here you see the most learned man in Europe." But the St. Cyran 
 abbot of St. Cyran would accept no yoke but God's : he remained a . nd 
 independent and perhaps hostile, pursuing, without troubling him-, 
 self about the cardinal, the great task he had undertaken. Having 
 had, for two years past, the spiritual direction of the convent of Port 
 Royal, he had found in Mother Angelica Arnauld, the superior and 
 reformer of the monastery, in her sister, Mother Agnes, and in the 
 nuns of their order, souls worthy of him and capable of tolerating 
 his austere instructions. 
 
352 History of France. 
 
 Before long he had seen forming, beside Port Royal and in the 
 solitude of the fields, a nucleus of penitents, emulous of the hermits 
 of the desert. M. le Maitre, Mother Angelica's nephew, a cele- 
 brated advocate in the parliament of Paris, had quitted all " to have 
 no speech but with God." A howling (rugissant) penitent, he had 
 The drawn after him his brothers, MM. de Sacy and de Sericourt, and, 
 Arnauldg. ere long, young Lancelot, the learned author of Greek roots: all 
 steeped in the rigours of penitential life, all blindly submissive to 
 M. de St. Cyran and his saintly requirements. The director's 
 power over so many eminent minds became too great. The king, 
 being advertised, commanded him to be kept a prisoner in the Bois 
 de Yincennes, where he remained up to the death of Cardinal Riche- 
 lieu ; the seclusionists of Port Royal were driven from their retreat 
 and obliged to disperse. 
 
 Cardinal Richelieu dreaded the doctrines of M. de St. Cyran, 
 and still more those of the reformation, which went directly to the 
 emancipation of souls ; but he had the wit to resist ecclesiastical 
 encroachments, and, for all his being a cardinal, never did minister 
 maintain more openly the independence of the civil power. " The 
 king, in things temporal, recognizes no sovereign save God." That 
 had always been the theory of the Gallican Church. " The Church 
 of France is in the kingdom, and not the kingdom in the Church," 
 said the jurisconsult Loyseau, thus subjecting ecclesiastics to the 
 common law of all citizens. 
 
 Galli- The French clergy did not understand it so ; they had recourse 
 
 Church.' to the liberties of the Gallican Church in order to keep up a certain 
 and State, measure of independence as regarded Rome, but they would not 
 give up their ancient privileges, and especially the right of taking 
 an independent share in the public necessities without being taxed 
 as a matter of law and obligation. Here it was that Cardinal 
 Richelieu withstood them : he maintained that, the ecclesiastics and 
 the brotherhoods not having the right to hold property in France 
 by mortmain, the king tolerated their possession, of his grace, but 
 he exacted the payment of seignorial dues. The clergy at that 
 time possessed more than a quarter of the property in France ; the 
 tax to be paid amounted, it is said, to eighty millions. The 
 subsidies further demanded reached a total of eight millions six 
 hundred livres. 
 
 The clergy in dismay wished to convoke an assembly to deter- 
 mine their conduct; and after a great deal of difficulty it was 
 authorized by the cardinal ; they consented to pay five millions 
 and a half, the sum to which the minister lowered his pretensions. 
 " The wants of the State," says Richelieu, " are real ; those of the 
 Church are fanciful and arbitrary; if the king's armies had 
 
The Protestants. The duke of Rohan. 353 
 
 not repulsed the enemy, the clergy would have suffered far 
 mere." 
 
 Whilst the cardinal imposed upon the French clergy the obliga- The Pro- 
 tions common to all subjects, he defended the kingly power testants. 
 and majesty against the ultramontanes, and especially against the 
 Jesuits ; finally he turned his attention to the submission of the 
 Protestants. It was State within State that the reformers were 
 seeking to found, and that the cardinal wished to upset. After 
 the death of Du Plessis-Mornay, the direction of the party fell 
 entirely into the hands of the duke of Eohan, a fiery temper and 
 soured by misfortunes as well as by continual efforts made on the 
 part of his brother the duke of Soubise, more restless and less 
 earnest than he. Hostilities broke out afresh at the beginning of 
 the year 1625. The peace of Montpellier had left the Protestants 
 only two surety-places, Montauban and La Eochelle ; and they 
 clung to them with desperation. On the 6th of January, 1625, 
 Soubise suddenly entered the harbour of Le Blavet with twelve 
 vessels, and seizing without a blow the royal ships, towed them off 
 in triumph* to La Eochelle, a fatal success which was to cost that 
 town dear. 
 
 The royal navy had hardly an existence ; after the capture A.D. 1625. 
 made by Soubise, help had to be requested from England and Hoi- sie e of I* 
 land ; the marriage of Henrietta of France, daughter of Henry IY., 
 with the prince of Wales, who was soon to become Charles I., was 
 concluded ; the English promised eight ships ; the treaties with the 
 United Provinces obliged the Hollanders to supply twenty, which 
 they would gladly have refused to send against their brethren, if 
 they could ; the cardinal even required that the ships should be 
 commanded by French captains. The siege of La Eochelle has 
 become famous in history ; it lasted thirteen months, and the un- 
 fortunate Huguenots had to surrender, in spite of the heroism of 
 Guiton, the mayor of the town, assisted by the unflinching energy 
 of the old Duchess of Eohan. 
 
 With La Eochelle fell the last bulwark of religious liberties. 
 Single-handed, duke Henry of Eohan now resisted at the head of a 
 handful of resolute men. But he was about to be crushed in his 
 turn. The capture of La Eochelle had raised the cardinal's power 
 to its height ; it had, simultaneously, been the death-blow to the 
 huguenot party and to the factions of the grandees. Town after Rohan 
 town, " fortified huguenot- wise," surrendered, opening to the royal te & 8 far 
 armies the passage to the Cevennes. The duke of Eohan, who had m 
 at first taken position at Nimes, repaired to Anduze for the defence 
 of the mountains, the real fortress of the reformation in Languedoc. 
 
 A A 
 
354 History of France. 
 
 Alais itself had just opened its gates. Rohan saw that he could no 
 longer impose the duty of resistance upon a people weary of suffer- 
 ing, " easily believing ill of good folks and readily agreeing with 
 those winners who blame everything and do nothing." He sent 
 " to the king, begging to be received to mercy, thinking it better 
 to resolve on peace, whilst he could still make some show of being 
 able to help it, than to be forced, after a longer resistance, to sur- 
 render to the king with a rope round his neck." The cardinal 
 advised the king to show the duke grace, "well knowing that, 
 together with him individually, the other cities, whether they 
 wished it or not, would be obliged to do the like, there being but 
 little resolution and constancy in people deprived of leaders, espe- 
 cially when they are threatened with immediate harm and see no 
 door of escape open." 
 
 A.D. 1629 The general assembly of the reformers, which was then in meet- 
 grace.^ * n 8 at Ni mes > removed to Anduze to deliberate with the duke of 
 Eohan ; a wish was expressed to have the opinion of the province 
 of the Cevennes, and all the deputies repaired to the king's pre- 
 sence. No more surety- towns ; fortifications everywhere razed, at 
 the expense and by the hands of the reformers ; the catholic worship 
 re-established in all the churches of the reformed towns ; and, at 
 this price, an amnesty granted for all acts of rebellion, and religious 
 liberties confirmed anew such were the conditions of the peace 
 signed at Alais on the 28th of June, 1629, and made public the 
 following month at Nimes under the name of Edict of grace. Mon- 
 tauban alone refused to submit to them. 
 
 Bohan The duke of Rohan left France and retired to Venice, where his 
 
 w ife and daughter were awaiting him. He had been appointed by 
 the Venetian senate generalissimo of the forces of the republic, 
 when the cardinal, who had no doubt preserved some regard for 
 his military talents, sent him an offer of the command of the king's 
 troops in the Valteline. There he for several years maintained the 
 honour of France, being at one time abandoned and at another 
 supported by the cardinal, who ultimately left him to bear the 
 odium of the last reverse. Meeting with no response from the 
 court, cut off from every resource, he brought back into the 
 district of Gex the French troops driven out by the Grisons them- 
 selves, and then retired to Geneva. Being threatened with the 
 king's wrath, he set out for the camp of his friend Duke Bernard 
 of Saxe- Weimar ; and it was whilst fighting at his side against 
 the imperialists that he received the wound of which he died in 
 A.D.1638. Switzerland on the 16th of April, 1638. His body was removed 
 to Geneva amidst public mourning. A man of distinguished mind 
 
Foreign politics. 355 
 
 and noble character, often wild in his views and hopes, and so 
 deeply absorbed in the interests of his party and of his Church, 
 that he had sometimes the misfortune to forget those of his country. 
 
 Meanwhile the king had set out for Paris, and the cardinal was 
 marching on Montauban. Being obliged to halt at Pezenas because 
 he had a fever, he there received a deputation from Montauban, 
 asking to have its fortifications preserved. On the minister's 
 formal refusal, supported by a movement in advance on the part of 
 Marshal Bassompierre with the army, the town submitted unre- Castres 
 servedly ; the fortifications of Castres were already beginning to surreil der. 
 fall ; and the huguenot party in France was dead. Deprived of the 
 political guarantees which had been granted them by Henry IV., 
 the reformers had nothing for it but to retire into private life. 
 This was the commencement of their material prosperity ; they 
 henceforth transferred to commerce and industry all the intel- 
 ligence, courage and spirit of enterprise that they had but lately 
 displayed in the service of their cause, on the battle-field or in the 
 cabinets of kings. 
 
 "From that time," says Cardinal Richelieu, "difference in re- 
 ligion never prevented me from rendering the huguenots all sorts 
 of good offices, and I made no distinction between Frenchmen but 
 in respect of fidelity." A grand assertion, true at bottom, in spite 
 of the frequent grievances which the reformers had often to make 
 the best of; the cardinal was more tolerant than his age and his 
 servants ; what he had wanted to destroy was the political party ; 
 he did not want to drive the reformers to extremity, nor force 
 them to fly the country. 
 
 Everywhere in Europe were marks of Eichelieu's handiwork. 
 " There must be no end to negotiations near and far," was his Richelieu 
 saying : he had found negotiations succeed in France ; he extended foreign 
 his views ; numerous treaties had already marked the early years affairs, 
 of the cardinal's power; and, after 1630, his activity abroad was 
 redoubled. Between 1623 and 16 4 2 'seventy-four treaties were 
 concluded by Richelieu: four with England; twelve with the 
 United Provinces ; fifteen with the princes of Germany ; six with 
 Sweden ; twelve with Savoy ; six with the Republic of Venice ; 
 three with the pope ; three with the emperor ; two with Spain ; 
 four with Lorraine ; one with the Grey Leagues of Switzerland ; 
 one with Portugal ; two with the revolters of Catalonia and Rous- 
 sillon ; one with Russia ; two with the emperor of Morocco ; such 
 was the immense network of diplomatic negotiations whereof the 
 cardinal held the threads during nineteen years. 
 
 The foreign policy of Richelieu was a continuation of that of 
 
 AA 2 
 
356 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Marriage 
 of the 
 Princess 
 Henrietta 
 Maria. 
 
 Spain. 
 Question 
 of the 
 Valteline. 
 
 Henry IV.; it was to protestant alliances that he looked for 
 support in order to maintain the struggle against the House of 
 Austria, whether the German or the Spanish branch. In order to 
 give his views full swing, he waited till he had conquered the 
 huguenots at home; nearly all his treaties with protestant powers 
 are posterior to 1630. So soon as he was secure that no political 
 discussions in France itself would come to thwart his foreign designs, 
 he marched with a firm step towards that enfeeblement of Spain 
 and that upsetting of the empire of which Nani speaks ; Henry IV. 
 and Queen Elizabeth, pursuing the same end, had sought and 
 found the same allies ; Eichelieu had the good fortune, beyond 
 theirs, to meet, for the execution of his designs, with Gustavus 
 Adolphus, king of Sweden. 
 
 The marriage of Henry IV. 's daughter with the prince of Wales 
 was, in Eichelieu's eyes, one of the essential acts of a policy neces- 
 sary to the greatness of the kingship and of France. He obtained 
 the best conditions possible for the various interests involved, but 
 without any stickling and without favour for such and such an one 
 of these interests, skilfully adapting words and appearance but 
 determined upon attaining his end. Negotiated and concluded by 
 Cardinal Eichelieu, with the assistance of Cardinal de Berulle, this 
 event was the open declaration of the fact that the style of Protes- 
 tant or Catholic was not the supreme law of policy in Christian 
 Europe, and that the interests of nations should not remain 
 subservient to the religious faith of the reigning or governing 
 personages. 
 
 Spain had always been the great enemy of France, and her 
 humiliation was always the ultimate aim of the cardinal's foreign 
 policy ; the struggle, power to power, between France and Spain 
 explains, during that period, nearly all the political and military 
 complications in Europe. There was no lack of pretexts for bring- 
 ing it on. The first was the question of the Valteline, a lovely 
 and fertile valley, which, extending from the Lake of Como to the 
 Tyrol, thus serves as a natural communication between Italy and 
 Germany. Possessed but lately, as it was, by the Grey Leagues of 
 the protestant Swiss, the Valteline, a catholic district, had revolted 
 at the instigation of Spain in 1620 ; the emperor, Savoy and Spain 
 wanted to divide the spoil between them; when France, the 
 old ally of the Grisons, interfered, and, in 1623, the forts of 
 the Valteline had been entrusted on deposit to the pope, Urban 
 VIII. He still retained them in 1624, when the Grison lords, 
 seconded by a French reinforcement under the orders of the marquis 
 of Coeuvres, attacked the feeble garrison of the Valteline ; in a few 
 
Treaties of Suza and Cherasco. 357 
 
 days they were masters of all the places in the canton, and the A.D. 1626. 
 enemies were compelled to sign the peace of Moncon (1626). The ^ eace of * 
 Grisons remained in possession of the Valteline, Austria ceased to 
 communicate with Spain, and Eichelieu found himself, so to say, 
 on the road to Vienna. The question of the succession to the 
 duchy of Mantua enabled him to take another step forward. 
 
 Whilst the cardinal was holding La Rochelle besieged, the duke 
 of Mantua had died in Italy, and his natural heir, Charles di Gon- 
 zaga, who was settled in France with the title of Duke of Severs, 
 had hastened to put himself in possession of his dominions. Mean- 
 while the duke of Savoy claimed the marquisate of Montferrat : 
 the Spaniards supported him ; they entered the dominions of the 
 duke of Mantua and laid siege to Casale. When La Rochelle suc- 
 cumbed, Casale was still holding out ; but the duke of Savoy had 
 already made himself master of the greater part of Montferrat ; the 
 duke of Mantua claimed the assistance of the king of France, whose 
 subject he was ; here was a fresh battle-field against Spain and, 
 scarcely had he been victorious over the Rochellese, when the king 
 was on the march for Italy. The duke of Savoy refused a passage 
 to the royal army, which found the defile of Suza Pass fortified 
 with three barricades. The French dashed forward, stormed the 
 barricades, and entered Suza. The siege of Casale was raised, and, 
 by virtue of the treaty of Suza the duchy of Mantua was secured to A D 162 g 
 Richelieu's protege, the Duke of Nevers. Scarcely, however, had Treaty of 
 Louis XIII. re-crossed the Alps when an imperialist army advanced 
 into the Grisons and, supported by the celebrated Spanish general 
 Spinola, laid siege to Mantua. Richelieu did not hesitate : he 
 entered Piedmont in the month of March, 1630, to march before 
 long on Pignerol, an important place commanding the passage of 
 
 the Alps ; it, as well as the citadel, was carried in a few days : the 
 
 AD 1630 
 result of this fresh interposition was the treaty of Cherasco (1630) Treaty of* 
 
 where the young Giulio Mazarini won his spurs as an able and sue- Cherasco. 
 cessful diplomatist. 
 
 The House of Austria, in fact, was threatened mortally. For The Thirty 
 two years Cardinal Richelieu had been labouring to carry war into ' 
 
 its very heart. The thirty years' war, now raging in all its fury, 
 had increased a hundred-fold the emperor's power. Tilly, Wallen- 
 stein, Bernard of Saxe- Weimar, were upholding, sword in hand, on 
 many battle-fields, the destinies of the House of Austria. Riche- 
 lieu's genius and activity checked the progress of the great impe- 
 rialist generals, and opposed to them a warrior who, in his short 
 career, abundantly proved that a clever system of tactics does not 
 always ensure success. Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of Zutphen, 
 
35 8 History of France. 
 
 fought at the same time the battles of Eichelieu and those of the 
 % protestant cause. After the death of the king of Sweden, the posi- 
 
 tion of France became for awhile extremely difficult. The impe- 
 rialists assumed the offensive ; they entered France by Burgundy 
 and by Picardy. If Bernard of Saxe- Weimar had not gained the 
 two battles of Eheinfeld and Brissach, it is impossible to conjecture 
 what would have been the issue. In the year 1640, however, 
 Eichelieu adopted a more expeditious plan : he occupied the 
 Spaniards at home by sending support to the rebels of Catalonia 
 and of Portugal ; whilst, to retaliate, the government of Madrid 
 espoused the cause of the Duke of Orleans, and prepared the catas- 
 trophe which was to impart such a tragic feature to the last moments 
 of the great Cardinal. For several months past, Eichelieu's health, 
 always precarious, had taken a serious turn ; it was from his sick- 
 bed that he, a prey to cruel agonies, directed the movements of the 
 army and, at the same time, the prosecution of Cinq-Mars. All at 
 A.D. 1642. once hi s chest was attacked ; and the cardinal felt that he was 
 Richelieu dying. On the 2nd of December, 1642, public prayers were ordered 
 (Dec. 3). in all the churches ; the king went from St. Germain to see his 
 minister. The cardinal was quite prepared. " I have this satisfac- 
 tion," he said, " that I have never deserted the king, and that I 
 leave his kingdom exalted and all his enemies abased." He com- 
 mended his relatives to his Majesty, " who on their behalf will 
 remember my services ; " then, naming the two secretaries of state, 
 Chavigny and De Noyers, he added : " Your Majesty has Cardinal 
 Mazarin ; I believe him to be capable of serving the king." And 
 he handed to Louis XIII. a proclamation which he had just pre- 
 pared for the purpose of excluding the duke of Orleans from any 
 right to the regency in case of the king's death. The preamble 
 called to mind that the king had five times already pardoned his 
 brother, recently engaged in a new plot against him. 
 
 Eichelieu's work survived him. On the very evening of the 3rd 
 Declara- O f D ecem ber, Louis XIII. called to his council Cardinal Mazarin ; 
 King. and the next day he wrote to the parliaments and governors of 
 provinces : " God having been pleased to take to Himself the Car- 
 dinal de Eichelieu, I have resolved to preserve and keep up all 
 establishments ordained during his ministry, to follow out all pro- 
 jects arranged with him for affairs abroad and at home, in such sort 
 that there shall not be any change. I have continued in my councils 
 the same persons as served me then, and I have called thereto 
 Cardinal Mazarin, of whose capacity and devotion to my service I 
 have had proof, and of whom I feel no less sure than if he had 
 been born amongst my subjects." Scarcely had the most powerful 
 
Literature. 359 
 
 kings yielded up their last breath, when their wishes had been at 
 once forgotten : Cardinal Richelieu still governed in his grave. 
 
 The great statesman had been barely four months reposing in 
 that chapel of the Sorbonrie which he had himself repaired for the 
 purpose, and already King Louis XIII. was sinking into the tomb. 
 The minister had died at fifty-seven, the king was not yet forty- 
 two ; but his always languishing health seemed unable to bear the 
 burden of affairs which had been but lately borne by Richelieu A.D. 1643. 
 alone. He died on Thursday, May the 14th, 1643. France owed JouisXIII 
 to Louis XIII. eighteen years of Cardinal Richelieu's government ; (May 14). ' 
 and that is a service which she can never forget. " The minister 
 made his sovereign play the second part in the monarchy and the 
 first in Europe," said Montesquieu : "he abased the king, but he 
 exalted the reign." It is to the honour of Louis XIII. that he 
 understood and accepted the position designed for him by Provi- 
 dence in the government of his kingdom, and that he upheld with 
 dogged fidelity a power which often galled him all the while that 
 it was serving him. 
 
 We must turn back for a moment and cast a glance at the intel- 
 lectual condition which prevailed at the issue of the Renaissance 
 and the Reformation. . 
 
 For sixty years a momentous crisis had been exercising language State of 
 and literature as well as society in France. They yearned to get literature, 
 out of it. Robust intellectual culture had ceased to be the privi- 
 lege of the erudite only ; it began to gain a footing on the common 
 domain ; f people no longer wrote in Latin, like Erasmus ; the 
 Reformation and the Renaissance spoke French. In order to 
 suffice for this change, the language was taking form ; everybody 
 had lent a hand to the work ; Calvin with his Christian Institutes 
 (Institution Chrelienne) at the same time as Rabelais with his 
 learned and buffoonish romance, Ramus with his Dialectics, and 
 Bodin with his Republic, Henry Estienne with his essays in French 
 philology, as well as Ronsard and his friends by their classical 
 crusade. Simultaneously with the language there was being 
 created a public, intelligent, inquiring and eager. Scarcely had 
 the translation of Plutarch by Amyot appeared, when it at once 
 became, as Montaigne says, " the breviary of women and of 
 ignoramuses." 
 
 As for Montaigne himself, an inquiring spectator, without per- Mon- 
 sonal ambition, he had taken for his life's motto, " What do I know 1 
 (Que sais-je?) " Amidst the wars of religion he remained without 
 political or religious passion. " I am disgusted by novelty, what- 
 ever aspect it may assume, and with good reason," he would say, 
 
360 History of France. 
 
 " for I have seen some very disastrous effects of it." Outside as 
 well as within himself, Montaigne studied mankind without regard 
 to order and without premeditated plan. That fixity which he 
 could not give to his irresolute* and doubtful mind he stamped 
 upon the tongue ; it came out in his Essays supple, free and bold ; 
 he had made the first decisive step towards the formation of the 
 language, pending the advent of Descartes and the great literature 
 of France. 
 
 Work of The sixteenth century began everything, attempted everything ; 
 the six- if; accomplished and finished nothing ; its great men opened the 
 tury. roa( i of the future to France; but they died without having 
 
 brought their work well through, without foreseeing that it was 
 going to be completed. The Eeformation itself did not escape 
 this misappreciation and discouragement of its age ; and nowhere 
 do they crop out in a more striking manner than in Montaigne. 
 At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Eabelais a satirist and 
 a cynic, is, nevertheless, no sceptic ; there is felt circulating through 
 his book a glowing sap of confidence and hope ; fifty years later, 
 Montaigne, on the contrary, expresses, in spite of his happy nature, 
 in vivid, picturesque, exuberant language, only the lassitude of an 
 antiquated age. All the writers of mark in the reign of Henry IV. 
 bear the same imprint ; they all yearn to get free from the chaos of 
 those ideas and sentiments which the sixteenth century left still 
 bubbling up. In literature as well as in the State, one and the 
 same need of discipline and unity, one universal thirst for order 
 and peace was bringing together all the intellects and all the forces 
 which were but lately clashing against and hampering one another ; 
 in literature, as well as in the State, the impulse, everywhere great 
 and effective, proceeded from the king, without pressure or effort ; 
 " Make known to Monsieur de Geneve," said Henry IV. to one of 
 St. Francis the friends of St. Francis de Sales, " that I desire of him a work 
 of Sales. to gerye ag a manua i f or a ]i persons of the court and the great 
 world, without excepting kings and princes, to fit them for living 
 Christianly each according to their condition. I want this manual 
 to be accurate, judicious, and such as any one can make use of." 
 St. Francis de Sales published, in 1608, the Introduction to a Devout 
 Life, a delightful and charming manual of devotion, more stern 
 and firm in spirit than in form, a true Christian regimen softened 
 by the tact of a delicate and acute intellect, knowing the world 
 and its ways. " The book has surpassed my hope," said Henry IY. 
 The style is as supple, the fancy as rich, as Montaigne's ; but 
 scepticism has given place to Christianism ; St. Francis de Sales 
 does not doubt, he believes ; ingenious and moderate withal, he 
 
Philosophy. 36 1 
 
 escapes out of the controversies of the violent and the incertitudes 
 of the sceptics. The step is firm, the march is onward towards 
 the seventeenth century, towards the reign of order, rule and 
 method. The vigorous language and the beautiful arrangement in 
 the style of the magistrates had already prepared the way for its 
 advent. Descartes was the first master of it and its great 
 exponent. 
 
 Never was any mind more independent in voluntary submission 
 to an inexorable logic. Rene Descartes, who was born at La Haye, Descartes, 
 near Tours, in 1596, and died at Stockholm in 1650, escaped the 
 influence of Eichelieu by the isolation to which he condemned 
 himself as well as by the proud and somewhat uncouth indepen- 
 dence of his character. His independence of thought did not tend 
 to revolt ; in publishing his Discourse on Method he halted at the 
 threshold of Christianism without laying his hand upon the sanc- 
 tuary. Making a clean sweep *)f all he had learnt, and tearing 
 himself free by a supreme effort from the whole tradition of 
 humanity, he resolved never to accept anything as true until he 
 recognised it to be clearly so, and not to comprise amongst his 
 opinions anything but what represented itself so clearly and dis- 
 tinctly to his mind that he could have no occasion to hold it in 
 doubt. '' In this absolute isolation of his mind, without past and 
 without future, Descartes, first of all assured of his own personal His " Dis- 
 existence by that famous axiom, " Cogito, ergo sum " (7 think, 
 therefore I am), drew from it as a necessary consequence the fact 
 of the separate existence of soul and of body ; passing on by a 
 sort of internal revelation which he called innate ideas, he came 
 to the pinnacle of his edifice, concluding for the existence of a 
 God from the notion of the infinite impressed on the human soul. 
 A laborious reconstruction of a primitive and simple truth which 
 the philosopher could not, for a single moment, have banished from 
 his mind all the while that he was labouring painfully to demon- 
 strate it. 
 
 By his philosophical method, powerful and logical, as well as 
 by the clear, strong, and concise style he made use of to expound it, 
 Descartes accomplished the transition from the sixteenth century 
 to the seventeenth ; he was the first of the great prose- writers of 
 that incomparable epoch, which laid for ever the foundations of the 
 language. At the same moment the great Corneille was rendering 
 poetry the same service. 
 
 It had come out of the sixteenth century more disturbed and Poetry, 
 less formed than prose ; Ronsard and his friends had received and tlle 
 it, from the hands of Marot, quite young, unsophisticated and Pleiad. 
 
362 
 
 History of France. 
 
 undecided; they attempted, as a first effort, to raise it to the 
 level of the great classic models of which their minds were full. 
 The attempt was bqld, and the Pleiad did not pretend to consult 
 the taste of the vulgar. There was something pregnant and 
 brilliant about Ronsard in spite of exaggerations of style and faults 
 of taste ; his disciples imitated and carried to an extreme his defects 
 without possessing his talent ; the unruliness was such as to call 
 for reform. Peace revived with Henry IV., and the court, hence- 
 forth in accord with the nation, resumed that empire over taste, 
 manners and ideas, which it was destined to exercise so long and 
 Malherbe. so supremely under Louis XIV. Malherbe became the poet of the 
 court, whose business it was to please it, to adopt for it that litera- 
 ture which had but lately been reserved for the feasts of the 
 learned. A complete revolution in the opposite direction to that 
 which Ronsard attempted appeared to have taken place, but the 
 human mind never loses all the ground it has once won ; in the 
 verses of Malherbe, often bearing the imprint of beauties borrowed 
 from the ancients, the language preserved, in consequence of the 
 character given to it by Ronsard, a dignity, a richness of style, of 
 which the times of Marot showed no conception, and it was falling, 
 moreover, under the chastening influence of an elegant correctness. 
 As passionate an admirer of Richelieu as of Henry IV., naturally 
 devoted to the service of the order established in the State as well 
 as in poetry, Malherbe, under the regency of Mary de' Medici, 
 favoured the taste which was beginning to show itself for intellec- 
 tual things, for refined pleasures and elegant occupations. It was 
 not around the queen that this honourable and agreeable society 
 gathered ; it was at the Hotel Rambouillet, around Catherine de 
 Vivonne, in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. Literature was there 
 represented by Malherbe and Racan, afterwards by Balzac and 
 Voiture, Gombault and Chapelain, who constantly met there, in 
 company with Princess de Conde and her daughter, subsequently 
 duchess of Longueville, Mademoiselle du Vigean, Madame and 
 Mdlle. d'Epernon, and the bishop of Lucon himself, quite young 
 as yet, but already famous. " All the wits were received at the 
 Hotel Rambouillet, whatever their condition," says M. Cousin : 
 "all that was asked of them was to have good manners but the 
 aristocratic tone was established there without any effort, the 
 majority of the guests at the house being very great lords, and the 
 mistress being at one and the same time Rambouillet and Vivonne. 
 The wits were courted and honoured, but they did not hold the 
 dominion." 
 
 The cardinal remained well-disposed towards Hotel Rambouillet. 
 
 The Hotel 
 de Kam- 
 
 bouillet. 
 
The "Academic Franchise" 363 
 
 Completely occupied in laying solidly the foundations of his power, 
 in checkmating and punishing conspiracies at court, and in breaking 
 down the party of the huguenots, he had no leisure just yet to 
 think of literature and the literary. He had, nevertheless, in 1626, 
 begun removing the ruins of the Sorbonne, with a view of recon- 
 structing the buildings on a new plan and at his own expense. At 
 the same time he was helping Guy de la Brosse, the king's physician, 
 to create the Botanic Gardens (Le Jardin des plantes), he was Richelieu's 
 defending the independence of the College of France against the ht r ^ y 
 pretensions of the University of Paris, and he gave it for its Grand scientific 
 Almoner his brother the archbishop of Lyons. He was preparing creations, 
 the foundation of the King's Press (Imprimerie royale), definitively 
 created in 1640; and he gave the Academy or King's College 
 (college royal} of his town of Eichelieu a regulation-code of studies 
 which bears the imprint of his lofty and strong mind. He pre- 
 scribed a deep study of the French tongue. 
 
 Associations of the literary were not unknown in France ; 
 Eonsard and his friends, at first under the name of the brigade. 
 and then under that of the Pleiad, often met to read together 
 their joint productions, and to discuss literary questions ; and the 
 same thing was done, subsequently in Malherbe's rooms. *' Now 
 let us speak at our ease," Balzac would say, when the sitting was 
 over, "and without fear of committing solecisms." When Malherbe 
 was dead, and Balzac had retired to his country-house on the 
 borders of the Charente, some friends, "men of letters and of 
 merits very much above the average," says PellissOn in his Histoire 
 de rAcademie Frangaise, " finding that nothing was more incon- demie 
 venient in this great city than to go often and often to call upon Franchise' 7 
 one another without finding anybody at home, resolved to meet one 
 day in the week at the house of one of them." Such were the 
 commencements of the French Academy, which, even after the inter- 
 vention and regulationising of Cardinal Eichelieu, still preserved 
 something of that sweetness and that polished familiarity in their 
 relations which caused the regrets of its earliest founders. [They 
 were MM. Godeau, afterwards bishop of Grasse, Conrart and 
 Gornbault who were huguenots, Chapelain, Giry, Habert, Abbe de 
 Cerisy, his brother, M. de Serizay and M. de Maleville.] In 
 making of this little private gathering a great national institution, 
 Cardinal Eichelieu yielded to his natural yearning for government 
 and dominion; he protected literature as a minister and as an 
 admirer ; the admirer's inclination was supported by the minister's 
 influence. At the same time, and perhaps without being aware of 
 it, he was giving French literature a centre of discipline and union 
 
364 History of France. 
 
 whilst securing for the independence and dignity of writers a 
 supporting-point which they had hitherto lacked. Whilst recom- 
 pensing them by favours nearly always conferred in the name of 
 the State, he was preparing for them afar off the means of with- 
 drawing themselves from that private dependence, the yoke of which 
 they nearly always had to bear. Set free at his death from the 
 weight of their obligations to him, they became the servants of the 
 State ; ere long the French Academy had no other protector but 
 Its rules the king. Order and rule everywhere accompanied Cardinal 
 or & aniz Richelieu ; the Academy drew up its statutes, chose a director, a 
 tion. chancellor and a perpetual secretary : Conrart was the first to be 
 called to that honour ; the number of Academicians was set down 
 at forty. The letters patent for establishment of the French 
 Academy had been sent to the parliament in 1635 ; they were not 
 enregistered until 1637, at the express instance of the cardinal. 
 
 Amongst the earliest members of the Academy the cardinal had 
 placed his most habitual and most intimate literary servants, Bois- 
 Eobert, Desmarets, Colletet, all writers for the theatre, employed 
 by Richelieu in his own dramatic attempts. Theatrical representa- 
 tions were the only pleasure the minister enjoyed, in accord with 
 the public of his day. He had everywhere encouraged this taste, 
 supporting with marked favour Hardy and the Theatre Parisien. 
 With his mind constantly exercised by the wants of the government, 
 he soon sought in- the theatre a means of acting upon the masses. 
 He had already foreseen the power of the press ; he had laid hands 
 on Doctor Renaudot's Gazette de France ; King Louis XIII. often 
 wrote articles in it ; the manuscript exists in the National Library, 
 with some corrections which appear to be Richelieu's. As for the 
 theatre, the cardinal aspired to try his own hand at the work : 
 The drama n ^ s literary labours were nearly all political pieces ; his tragedy of 
 "Mirame." Mirame, to which he attached so much value, and which he had 
 represented at such great expense for the opening of his theatre in 
 the Palais-Cardinal, is nothing but one continual allusion, often 
 bold even to insolence, to Buckingham's feelings towards Anne of 
 Austria. 
 
 Occupied as he was in governing the affairs of France and of 
 
 Europe otherwise than in " verse, the cardinal chose out collabora- 
 
 teurs ; there were five of them, to whom he gave his ideas and the 
 
 plan of his piece ; he entrusted to each the duty of writing an 
 
 act, and " by this means finished a comedy in the course of a month," 
 
 Peter says Pellisson. In conjunction with Colletet, Bois-Robert, Del'Etoile 
 
 Corneille. and Rotrou, Peter Corneille worked at his Eminence's tragedies and 
 
 comedies. He handled according to his fancy the act entrusted to 
 
Corneille and " Le Cid" 365 
 
 him, with so much freedom that the cardinal was shocked, and said 
 that he lacked, in his opinion, the gift of connectedness (f esprit 
 de suite). Corneille did not appeal from this judgment ; he quietly 
 took the road to Eouen, leaving henceforth to his four work-fellows 
 the glory of putting into form the ideas of the all-powerful minis- 
 ter he worked alone, for his own hand., for the glory of France 
 and of the human mind. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to fathom the causes of the 
 cardinal's animosity to the Cid. It was a Spanish piece, and "Le Cid." 
 represented in a favourable light the traditional enemies of France 
 and of Eichelieu ; it was all in honour of the duel, which the 
 cardinal had prosecuted with such rigorous justice ; it depicted a 
 king simple, patriarchal,, genial in the exercise of his power, contrary 
 to all the views cherished by the minister touching royal majesty ; 
 all these reasons might have contributed to his wrath, but there 
 was something more personal and petty in its bitterness. The 
 triumph of the Cid seemed to the resentful spirit of a neglected 
 and irritated patron a sort of insult. Therewith was mingled a 
 certain shade of author's jealousy. Eichelieu saw in the fame of 
 Corneille the success of a rebel. Egged on by base and malicious 
 influences, he attempted to crush him, as he had crushed the House 
 of Austria and the huguenots. 
 
 The cabal of bad taste enlisted to a man in this new war. cabal 
 Scudery was standard-bearer ; astounded that " such fantastic against it. 
 beauties should have seduced knowledge as well as ignorance." 
 The contest was becoming fierce and bitter ; much was written for 
 and against the Cid; the public remained faithful to it; the 
 cardinal determined to submit it to the judgment of the Academy, 
 thus exacting from that body an act of complaisance towards 
 himself, as well as an act of independence and authority in the teeth 
 of predominant opinion. At his instigation, Scudery wrote to the 
 Academy to make them the judges in the dispute. The Sentiments 
 de TAcademie at last saw the light in the month of December, 1637, 
 and, as Chapelain had foreseen, they did not completely satisfy 
 either the cardinal or Scudery, in spite of the thanks which the 
 latter considered himself bound to express to that body, or 
 Corneille, who testified bitter displeasure. Eichelieu did not come 
 out of it victorious ; his anger however had ceased : the duchess of 
 Aiguillon, his niece, accepted the dedication of the Cid; when 
 Horace appeared, in 1639, the dedicatory epistle addressed to the 
 cardinal proved that Corneille read his works to him beforehand ; 
 the cabal appeared for a while on the point of making head again : 
 "Horace, condemned by the decemvirs, was acquitted by the 
 
366 History of France. 
 
 people," said Corneille. The same year China came to give the 
 finishing touch to the reputation of the great poet : 
 
 " To the persecuted Cid the Cinna owed its birth." 
 
 The great literary movement of the seventeenth century had 
 
 begun ; it had no longer any need of a protector ; it was destined 
 
 to grow up alone during twenty years, amidst troubles at home and 
 
 wars abroad, to flourish all at once, with incomparable splendour, 
 
 under the reign and around the throne of Louis XIV. Cardinal 
 
 La Bru- Richelieu, however, had the honour of protecting its birth ; he had 
 
 preciation taken personal pleasure in it ; he had comprehended its importance 
 
 of and beauty ; he had desired to serve it whilst taking the direction 
 
 e ien. ^ ^ j^ e t u s end, as we began, with the judgment of La Bruyere : 
 
 " Compare yourselves, if you dare, with the great Eichelieu, you 
 
 men devoted to fortune, you, who say that you know nothing, that 
 
 you have read nothing, that you will read nothing. Learn that 
 
 Cardinal Richelieu did know, did read ; I say not that he had no 
 
 estrangement from men of letters, but that he loved them, caressed 
 
 them, favoured them, that he contrived privileges for them, that he 
 
 appointed pensions for them, that he united them in a celebrated 
 
 body, and that he made of them the French Academy." 
 
 The Academy, the Sorbonne, the Botanic Gardens (Jardin des 
 Plantes), the King's Press have endured ; the theatre has grown 
 and been enriched by many master-pieces, the press has become 
 the most dreaded of powers ; all the new forces that Richelieu 
 created or foresaw have become developed without him, frequently 
 in opposition to him and to the work of his whole life : his name 
 has remained connected with the commencement of all these 
 wonders, beneficial or disastrous, which he had grasped and 
 presaged, in a future happily concealed from his ken. 
 
 A.D. 1643. The declaration of Louis XIIL touching the Regency had been 
 i>rim* rm ' entirely directed towards counteracting by anticipation the power 
 minister, entrusted to his wife and his brother. The queen's regency and 
 The Re- ^] ie duke O f Orleans' lieutenant-generalship were in some sort 
 subordinated to a council composed of the prince of Conde, Cardinal 
 Mazarin, Chancellor Seguier, Superintendent Bouthillier, and 
 Secretary of State Chavigny, "with a prohibition against intro- 
 ducing any change therein, for any cause or on any occasion 
 whatsoever." The queen and the duke of Orleans had signed and 
 sworn the declaration. 
 
 King Louis XIIL was not yet in his grave when hfe last wishes 
 were violated ; before his death the queen had made terms with 
 the ministers ; the course to be followed had been decided. On the 
 
Battle of Rocroi. 367 
 
 18th of May, 1643, the queen, having brought back the little king 
 to Paris, conducted him in great state to the parliament of Paris 
 to hold his bed of justice there, and on the evening of the same day 
 the queen regent, having sole charge of the administration of affairs, 
 and modifying the council at her pleasure, announced to the 
 astounded court that she should retain by her Cardinal Mazarin. 
 Continuing to humour all parties, and displaying foresight and 
 prudence, the new minister was even now master. Louis XIII., 
 without any personal liking, had been faithful to Kichelieu to the 
 death ; with different feelings, Anne of Austria was to- testify the 
 same constancy towards Mazarin. 
 
 A stroke of fortune came at the very first to strengthen the War in 
 regent's position. Since the death t>f Cardinal Kichelieu, the ^ttuTof 
 Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had Rocroi 
 recovered courage and boldness ; new counsels prevailed at the ( Ma y 19 )* 
 court of Philip IY. who had dismissed Olivarez; the House of 
 Austria vigorously resumed the offensive ; at the moment of 
 Louis XIII. 's death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the Low 
 Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the Ardennes, 
 and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May. The French army 
 commanded by the young duke of Enghien, the prince of Conde's 
 son, scarcely twenty-two years old, gained a signal victory over the 
 Spanish infantry till then deemed invincible (1643). 
 
 Negotiations for a general peace, the preliminaries whereof had Negotia- 
 been signed by King Louis XIII. in 1641, had been going on since tions for 
 1644 at Minister and at Osnabriick, without having produced any begun, 
 result; the duke of Enghien, who became prince of Conde in 1646, 
 was keeping up the war in Flanders and Germany, with the co- 
 operation of Viscount Turenne, younger brother of the duke of 
 Bouillon, and, since Rocroi, a marshal of France. The capture of 
 Thionville and of Dunkerque, the victories of Friburg and Nord- 
 lingen, the skilful opening effected in Germany as far as Augsburg 
 by the French and the Swedes, had raised so high the reputation 
 of the two generals, that the prince of Conde, who was haughty 
 and ambitious, began to cause great umbrage to Mazarin. Fear of 
 having him unoccupied deterred the cardinal from peace, and made 
 all the harder the conditions he presumed to impose upon the 
 Spaniards. Meanwhile the United Provinces, weary of a war 
 which fettered their commerce, and skilfully courted by their old 
 masters, had just concluded a private treaty with Spain; the 
 emperor was trying, but to no purpose, to detach the Swedes 
 likewise from the French alliance, when the victory of Lens, gained 
 on the 20th of August, 1648, over Archduke Leopold and General 
 
368 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1648 
 Peace of 
 Westpha- 
 lia. 
 
 Disorder 
 of the 
 finances. 
 
 "Edict of 
 Union." 
 
 Eeck, came to throw into the balance the weight of a success as 
 splendid as it was unexpected ; one more campaign, and Turenne 
 might "be threatening Vienna whilst Conde entered Brussels ; the 
 emperor saw there was no help for it and bent his head. The 
 House of Austria split in two ; Spain still refused to treat with 
 France, but the whole of Germany clamoured for peace ; the con- 
 ditions of it were at last drawn up at Miinster by MM. Servien and 
 de Lionne; M. d'Avaux, the most able diplomatist that France 
 possessed, had been recalled to Paris at the beginning of the year. 
 On the 24th of October, 1648, after four years of negotiation, France 
 at last had secured to her Alsace and the three bishoprics of Metz, 
 Toul, and Verdun ; Sweden gained Western Pomerania, including 
 Stettin, the isle of Eugen, the three mouths of the Oder and the 
 bishoprics of Bremen and Werden, thus becoming a German power : 
 as for Germany, she had won liberty of conscience and political 
 liberty ; the rights of the Lutheran or reformed Protestants were 
 equalized with those of Catholics ; henceforth the consent of a free 
 assembly of all the Estates of the empire was necessary to make 
 laws, raise soldiers, impose taxes, and decide peace or war. The 
 peace of Westphalia put an end at one and the same time to 
 the Thirty Years' War and to the supremacy of the House of 
 Austria in Germany. 
 
 So much glory and so many military or diplomatic successes 
 cost dear ; France was crushed by imposts, and the finances were 
 discovered to be in utter disorder ; the superintendent, D'Emery, 
 an able and experienced man, was so justly discredited that his 
 measures were, as a foregone conclusion, unpopular ; an edict laying 
 octroi or tariff on the entry of provisions into the city of Paris 
 irritated the burgesses, and parliament refused to enregister it. 
 For some time past the parliament, which had been kept down by 
 the iron hand of Eichelieu, had perceived that it had to do with 
 nothing more than an able man and not a master ; it began to hold 
 up its head again ; a union was proposed between the four sovereign 
 courts of Paris, to wit, the parliament, the grand council, the 
 chamber of exchequer, and the court of aids or indirect taxes ; the 
 queen quashed the deed of union; the magistrates set her at 
 naught ; the queen yielded, authorizing the delegates to deliberate 
 in the chamber of St. Louis at the Palace of Justice ; the pretensions 
 of the parliament were exorbitant, and aimed at nothing short of 
 resuming, in the affairs of the State, the position from which 
 Eichelieu had deposed it ; the concessions which Cardinal Mazarin 
 with difficulty wrung from the Queen augmented, the parliament's 
 demands. Anne of Austria Was beginning to lose patience, when 
 
The Fronde. 369 
 
 the news of the victory of Lens restored courage to the court. 
 
 " Parliament will be very sorry," said the little king, on hearing of 
 
 the prince of Conde's success. The grave assemblage, on the 26th 
 
 of August, was issuing from Notre Dame, where a le Deum had Arrest of* 
 
 just been sung, when Councillor Eroussel and President Blancmesnil Broussel 
 
 were arrested in their houses and taken, the one to St. Germain and ^^J anc " 
 
 the other to Vincennes. (Aug. 26). 
 
 It was a mistake on the part of Anne of Austria and Cardinal 
 Mazarin not to have considered the different condition of the 
 public mind. A suppressed excitement had for some months been 
 hatching in Paris and in the provinces. " The parliament growled 
 over the tariff-edict," says Cardinal de Retz ; " and no sooner had 
 it muttered than everybody awoke. People went groping as it were 
 after the laws; they were no longer to be found. Under the 
 influence of this agitation, the people entered the sanctuary and 
 lifted the veil that ought always to conceal whatever can be 
 said about the right of peoples and that of kings which never 
 accord so well as in silence." The arrest of Broussel, an old man "The 
 in high esteem, very keen in his opposition to the court, was like Fronde." 
 fire to flax. 
 
 Thousands of persons rushed to the Palais-Royal, where the 
 court then resided, shouting out " Liberte et Broussel/" Barricades 
 were erected in the principal streets ; the authority of the chan- 
 cellor Sdguier was set at nought, and the president of the parliament 
 himself, Mathieu Mole, saw himself obliged to comply with the 
 wishes of the people. They forced him to go to the queen at the 
 head of the assembly, and under penalty of death, to bring back 
 either Broussel or the cardinal. He succeeded in obtaining the 
 liberty of the captives, and the queen, frightened out of her ob- 
 stinacy, hastened to confirm the resolutions of the Chambre de 
 Saint Louis "by a decree dated October 24th, 1648 (Ordonnance de 
 Saint Germain). 
 
 The court, however, had yielded only with the firm resolution 
 of retracting its concession as soon as a fit opportunity should 
 occur. The king was removed from Paris, and, supported by Th e court 
 Conde, the queen-dowager engaged against the parliament the war 
 to which the name of La Fronde has been given by way of contempt; 
 the rebellion of the parliamentarians being compared to that of 
 unruly children who would persist in fighting with slings (frondes) 
 notwithstanding the prohibition of the police. The principal 
 leaders of the frondeurs were Conti, brother of Conde, his brother- 
 in-law the duke de Longueville, the dukes de Bouillon and de 
 La Rochefoucauld, Turenne, Paul de Gondi, coadjutor of the arch- 
 
 B B 
 
37 History of France. 
 
 bishop of Paris and afterwards Cardinal de Retz, and lastly the 
 duke de Beaufort- Vendome, grandson of Henry IV. 
 
 The chief results of this war, at least in its commencement, were 
 . songs, epigrams, lampoons, and now and then a few insignificant 
 
 and lam- skirmishes. The twenty councillors of Richelieu's creation, who 
 poons, supplied 15,000 livres towards the expenses of the war in order to 
 ingratiate themselves with their colleagues, were nick-named les 
 quinze-vingts ; each house having a carriage-entrance was obliged to 
 fit out a mounted soldier, hence the sobriquet cavalerie des portes- 
 cocheres given to the body of troops thus raised ; Gondi, who was 
 archbishop of Corinth in partibus, had been called " the little Cati- 
 line," and the dagger which he carried habitually in his pocket was 
 designated as "our archbishop's breviary"; he raised at his own 
 expense " the regiment of Corinth," and this regiment having been 
 beaten in an engagement with the royal troops, the result was 
 called " the first to the Corinthians" Conti was deformed, they 
 said that he was a dwarf; Beaufort had obtained much popularity, 
 they called him le roi des halles. As for serious battles, there were 
 none. Conde had only to present himself with a handfull of sol- 
 diers ; he defeated at Charenton the armies of the Parisians who 
 had marched out against him covered with ribbons and feathers. 
 An arrangement was made at Ruel (April 1649), but the court 
 returned to Paris only four months afterwards. 
 
 The easy success obtained by Conde, his position as general of 
 the royal army dazzled him. He made himself chief of a new 
 party, who, under the name of petits~maitres t were more insup- 
 portable still than the others. He affected the most supreme con- 
 tempt for Mazarin. One day, writing to him, he directed the letter, 
 " all' illustrissimo Signor Facchino /" " Adieu, Mars f" said he to 
 him on another occasion, when taking leave of him. It was high 
 time that the minister should vindicate his own dignity. Conde, 
 Conti and Longueville, arrested at the Louvre, were taken first to 
 Vincennes, and then to the Havre. 
 
 Contest The State stroke had succeeded ; Mazarin's skill and prudence 
 
 Mazarin once more checkmated all the intrigues concocted against him. 
 
 and Conde. When the news was told to Chavigny, in spite of all his reasons 
 
 for bearing malice against the cardinal, who had driven him from 
 
 the. council and kept him for some time in prison, he exclaimed : 
 
 " That is a great misfortune for the prince and his friends ; but 
 
 the truth must be told : the cardinal has done quite right ; without 
 
 it he would have been ruined." The contest was begun between 
 
 Mazarin and the great Conde, and it was not with the prince that 
 
 the victory was to remain. 
 
Mazarin leaves France. * 371 
 
 Already hostilities were commencing ; Mazarin had done every- 
 thing for the Frondeurs who remained faithful to him, but the 
 house of Conde was rallying all its partisans; the dukes of 
 Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld had thrown tliemselves into Bor- 
 deaux, which was in revolt against the royal authority, represented 
 by the duke of fepernon. The princess of Conde and her young 
 son left Chantilly to join them ; Madame de Longueville occupied 
 Stenay, a strong place belonging to the prince of Conde : she had 
 there found Turenne ; on the other hand, the queen had just been 
 through Normandy ; all the towns had opened their gates to her ; TheFronde 
 it was just the same in Burgundy ; the princess of Conde's able in.tlie 
 agent, Lenet, could not obtain a declaration from the parliament of 
 Dijon in her favour. Bordeaux was the focus of the insurrection ; 
 the people, passionately devoted to " the dukes," as the saying was, 
 were forcing the hand of the parliament ; riots were frequent in 
 the town ; the little king, with the queen and the cardinal, marched 
 in person upon Bordeaux ; one of the faubourgs was attacked, the 
 dukes negotiated and obtained a general amnesty, but no mention 
 was made of the princes' release. The parliament of Paris took 
 the matter up, and on the 30th of January, Anne of Austria sent 
 word to the premier president that she would consent to grant the 
 release of the princes, " provided that the armaments of Stenay and 
 of M. de Turenne might be discontinued." 
 
 The cardinal saw that he was beaten ; he made up his mind, A.D. 165 
 and, anticipating the queen's officers, he hurried to Le Havre to i^^ 
 release the prisoners himself ; he entered the castle alone, the France, 
 governor having refused entrance to the guards who attended him. 
 " The prince* told me," says Mdlle. de Montpensier, " that, when 
 they were dining together, Cardinal Mazarin was not so much in 
 the humour to laugh as he himself was, and' that he was very much 
 embarrassed. Liberty to be gone had more charms for the prince 
 than the cardinal's company. He said that he felt marvellous 
 delight at finding himself outside Le Havre, with his sword at his 
 side ; and he might well be pleased to wear it, he is a pretty good 
 hand at using it. As he went out he turned to the cardinal and 
 said: 'Farewell, Cardinal Mazarin,' who kissed 'the tip of sleeve* 
 to him." 
 
 The cardinal had slowly taken the road to exile, summoning to 
 him his nieces, Mdlles. Mancini and Martinozzi, whom he had, 
 a short time since, sent for to court; he went from Normandy 
 into Picardy, made some stay at Doullens, and, impelled by his 
 enemies' hatred, he finally crossed the frontier on the 12th of 
 March. The parliament had just issued orders for his arrest in 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Battle of 
 
 the Porte 
 
 St. An- 
 
 toine. 
 
 any part of France. On the 6th of April, he fixed his quarters at 
 Briihl, a little town helonging to the electorate of Cologne, in the 
 same territory which had but lately sheltered the last days of Mary 
 de' Medici. 
 
 The Frondeurs, old and new, had gained the day ; but even now 
 there was disorder in their camp. Conde had returned to the 
 court "like a raging lion, seeking to devour everybody, and, in 
 revenge for his imprisonment, to set fire to the four corners of the 
 realm " [Memoir es de Montglaf]. He retired southwards and pre- 
 pared for war. He was opposed, in the first instance, by marshal 
 d'Hocquincourt, who was defeated at Bleneau, on the banks of the 
 Loire, and afterwards by Turenne, who, having come to terms with 
 the court, gained at Gien a battle over the rebels. Both com- 
 manders then marched upon Paris, and a general engagement took 
 place at the Porte Saint Antoine, where the Frondeurs remained 
 victorious, thanks to the audacity of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, 
 daughter of Gaston, duke d'Orleans. From the top of the Bas- 
 tille this princess fired the first cannon upon the royal army, and, as 
 Mazarin said, that fatal shot killed her husband, alluding to the 
 ambition she entertained of marrying Louis XIY. Conde marched 
 into the metropolis, and after attempting vainly to maintain him- 
 self by violence, he took the command of the Spanish army, thus 
 disgracing his character by joining the enemies of his country. The 
 court then returned to Paris, punished the rebels, and in October, 
 1652, the Fronde may be said to have finished. 
 
 It was now Mazarin's turn to triumph ; his progress back to Paris 
 A.D. 1660. was almost regal. The duke of Orleans retired before long to his 
 Death of castle at Blois, where he died in 1660, deserted, towards the end of 
 of Orleans. ^ s ^ e > ^ v a ^ *^ e friends ne ^ a( i successively abandoned and 
 betrayed. " He had, with the exception of courage, all that was 
 necessary to make an honourable man," says Cardinal de Eetz, "but 
 weakness was predominant in his heart through fear, and in his 
 mind through irresolution ; it disfigured the whole course of his 
 life. He engaged in everything because he had not strength to 
 resist those who drew him on, and he always came out disgrace- 
 fully, because he had not the courage to support them." He was 
 a prey to fear, fear of his friends as well as of his enemies. The 
 Fronde, as we last said, was all over, that of the gentry of the long 
 robe as well as that of the gentry of the sword. The parliament 
 of Paris was once more falling in the State to the rank which had 
 been assigned to it by Richelieu, and from which it had wanted 
 to emerge by a supreme effort. 
 
 From 1653 to 1657, Turenne, seconded by Marshal La Ferte 
 
Negotiations with Spain. 373 
 
 and sometimes by Cardinal Mazarin in person, constantly kept the 
 Spaniards and the prince of Conde in check, recovering the places 
 but lately taken from France, and relieving the besieged towns ; 
 without ever engaging in pitched battles, he almost always had the 
 advantage. At last the victory he gained at the Downs was pro- 
 ductive of the greatest results ; Dunkerque surrendered imme- 
 diately, and was ceded to England conformably to an agreement 
 made between Mazarin and Cromwell. For a long time past the 
 object of the cardinal's labours had been to terminate the war by 
 an alliance with Spain. The Infanta, Maria Theresa, was no End of the 
 longer heiress to the crown, for King Philip at last had a son ; war with 
 Spain was exhausted by long-continued efforts, and dismayed by s P a * n * 
 the checks received in the campaign of 1658 ; the alliance of the 
 Rhine, recently concluded at Frankfurt between the two leagues, 
 catholic and protestant, confirmed immutably the advantages which 
 the treaty of Westphalia had secured to France. The electors had 
 just raised to the head of the empire young Leopold I., on the 
 death of his father Ferdinand III., and they proposed their media- 
 tion between France and Spain. Whilst King Philip IV. was still 
 hesitating, Mazarin took a step in another direction ; the king set 
 out far Lyons, accompanied by his mother and his minister, to go 
 and see Princess Margaret of Savoy, who had been proposed to 
 him a long time ago as his wife. He was pleased with her, and 
 negotiations were already pretty far advanced, to the great dis- 
 pleasure of the queen-mother, when the cardinal, on the 29th of 
 November, 1659, in the evening, entered Anne of Austria's room. 
 "He found her pensive and melancholy, but he was all smiles. 
 ' Good news, madame,' said he. l Ah ! ' cried the queen, ' is it to 
 be peace ? ' ' More than that, madame ; I bring your Majesty both 
 peace and the Infanta.' " The Spaniards had become uneasy ; Louis XIV, 
 and Don Antonio de Pimental had arrived at Lyons at the same marries 
 time with the court of Savoy, bearing a letter from Philip IV. for f an t a . " 
 the queen his sister. The duchess of Savoy had to depart and 
 take her daughter with her, disappointed of her hopes ; all the 
 consolation she obtained was a written promise that the king 
 would marry Princess Margaret, if the marriage with the Infanta 
 were not accomplished within a year. 
 
 The year had not yet rolled away, and the duchess of Savoy 
 had already lost every atom of illusion. Since the 13th of August, 
 Cardinal Mazarin had been officially negotiating with Don Louis de 
 Haro representing Philip IY. The ministers had held a meeting 
 in the middle of the Bidassoa, on the Island of Pheasants, where 
 a pavilion had been erected on the boundary-line between the two 
 

 
 374 History of France. 
 
 Peace of States. On the 7th of November, the peace of the Pyrenees 
 the Pyre- was signed at last ; it put an end to a war which had continued 
 nees. f or twenty-three years, often internecine, always burdensome, and 
 
 which had ruined the finances of the two countries. France was 
 the gainer of Artois and Eoussillon, and of several places in Flan- 
 ders, Hainault and Luxembourg ; and the peace of Westphalia 
 was recognized by Spain, to whom France restored all that she held 
 in Catalonia and Franche-Comte. Philip IV. had refused to 
 include Portugal in the treaty. The Infanta received as dowry 
 500,000 gold crowns, and renounced all her rights to the throne of 
 Spain ; the prince of Conde was taken back to favour by the king, 
 and declared that he would fain redeem with his blood all the 
 hostilities he had committed in and out of France. The king 
 restored him to all his honours and dignities, gave him the govern- 
 ment of Burgundy, and bestowed on his son, the duke of Enghien, 
 the office of Grand Master of France. The honour of the king oi 
 Spain was saved, he did not abandon his allies, and he made a 
 great match for his daughter. But the eyes of Europe were not 
 blinded; it was France that triumphed, the policy of Cardinal 
 Richelieu and of Cardinal Mazarin was everywhere successful. The 
 work of Henry IV. was completed, the House of Austria was humi- 
 liated and vanquished in both its branches ; the man who had con- 
 cluded the peace of Westphalia and the peace of the Pyrenees had 
 .a right to say, " I am more French in heart than in speech." 
 
 Like Cardinal Richelieu, Mazarin succumbed at the very pin- 
 A.D. 1661. nacle of his glory and power ; he died of gout in the stomach, 
 S Miwh 9,1661. 
 
 (March 9). Louis XIV. was about to reign with a splendour and puissance 
 without precedent; his subjects were submissive and Europe at 
 peace; he was reaping the fruits of the labours of his grand- 
 father Henry IV., of Cardinal Richelieu and of Cardinal Mazarin. 
 Whilst continuing the work of Henry IV., Richelieu had rendered 
 possible the government of Mazarin ; he had set the kingly 
 authority on foundations so strong that the princes of the blood 
 themselves could not shake it. Mazarin had destroyed party and 
 secured to France a glorious peace. Great minister had succeeded 
 great king and able man great minister ; Italian prudence, dex- 
 terity and finesse had replaced the indomitable will, the incompar- 
 able judgment and the grandeur of view of the French priest and 
 nobleman. Richelieu and Mazarin had acccmplished their patriotic 
 work : the King's turn had come. 
 
 r 
 
CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. HIS FOREIGN POLICY, SUCCESSES AND REVERSES. 
 
 MAZARIN knew thoroughly the king whose birth he had seen. " He Louis XIV. 
 has in him the making of four kings and one honest man," he sum ^ ons 
 used to say. Scarcely was the minister dead, when Louis XIV. council. 
 sent to summon his council : Chancellor Seguier, Superintendent 
 Fouquet and Secretaries of State Le Tellier, de Lionne, Brienne, 
 Duplessis-Guenegaud, and La Vrilliere. Then, addressing the 
 chancellor : " Sir," said he, " I have had you assembled together 
 with my ministers and my Secretaries of State to tell you that until 
 now I have been well pleased to leave my affairs to be governed by 
 the late cardinal : it is time that I should govern them myself ; you 
 will aid me with your counsels when I ask for them. Beyond the 
 general business of the seal, in which I do not intend to make any 
 alteration, I beg and command you, Mr. Chancellor, to put the 
 seal of authority to nothing without my orders, and without having 
 spoken to me thereof, unless a Secretary of State shall bring them 
 
 to you on my behalf And for you, gentlemen," addressing Declares 
 
 the Secretaries of State, " I warn you not to sign anything, even 
 a safety-warrant or passport, without my command, to report every 
 day to me personally, and to favour nobody in your monthly rolls. 
 Mr. Superintendent, I have explained to you my intentions ; I beg 
 that you will employ the services of M. Colbert, whom the late 
 cardinal recommended to me." The king's councillors were men 
 of experience ; and they all recognized the master's tone. It was 
 
History of France. 
 
 His dis- 
 grace. 
 
 Louis XIY.'s misfortune to be king for seventy-two years, and to 
 reign fifty-six years as sovereign master. 
 
 At the age of twenty-two no more than during the rest of his life 
 was Louis XI Y. disposed to sacrifice business to pleasure, but he 
 did not sacrifice pleasure to business. It was on a taste so natural 
 to a young prince, for the first time free to do as he pleased, that 
 Superintendent Fouquet counted to increase his influence and pro- 
 Fouquet. bably his power with the king. Fouquet, who was born in 1615, 
 and had been superintendent of finance in conjunction with Servien 
 since 1655, had been in sole possession of that office since the death 
 of his colleague in 1659. He had faithfully served Cardinal 
 Mazarin through the troubles of the Fronde. The latter had kept 
 him in power in spite of numerous accusations of malversation and 
 extravagance. 
 
 At the time we are now speaking of, the tide had not yet set in 
 against the surintendant ; but clouds were beginning to gather on 
 the horizon, and it became evident that a tremendous catastrophe 
 was at hand. The magnificent fete given to the king at Yaux by 
 Fouquet was the immediate occasion of his disgrace. A few weeks 
 after (September 1661) he was arrested, sent to the Bastille and 
 tried on a double charge of dilapidations and of a plot formed 
 against the safety of the State. The first ground of accusation was 
 too true ; the second has never been proved. After a trial which 
 lasted three years, nine judges voted for capital punishment and 
 thirteen for banishment. The king passed a sentence of prison for 
 life. Fouquet was taken to Pignerol, and all his family removed 
 from Paris. He died piously in his prison, in 1680, a year before 
 his venerable mother Marie Maupeou, who was so deeply concerned 
 about her son's soul at the very pinnacle of greatness that she threw 
 herself upon her knees on hearing of his arrest and exclaimed, " I 
 thank Thee, God ; I have always prayed for his salvation, and 
 here is the way to it ! " 
 
 Master as he was over the maintenance of peace in Europe after 
 so many and such long periods of hostility, young Louis XIY. was 
 only waiting for an opportunity of recommencing war. God had 
 vouchsafed him incomparable instruments for the accomplishment 
 of his designs. Whilst Colbert was replenishing the exchequer, all 
 the while diminishing the imposts, a younger man than the king 
 himself, the marquis of Louvois, son of Michael Le Tellier, admitted 
 to the council at twenty years of age, was eagerly preparing the 
 way for those wars which were nearly always successful so long 
 as he lived, however insufficient were the reasons for them, how- 
 ever unjust was their aim. 
 
War with Spain. 377 
 
 Foreign affairs were in no worse hands than the administration Colbert 
 of finance and of war. M. de Lionne was an able diplomatist, 
 broken in for a long time past to important affairs, shrewd and sen- 
 sible, more celebrated amongst his contemporaries than in history, 
 always falling into the second rank, behind Mazarin or Louis XIV., 
 " who have appropriated his fame," says M. Mignet. The negotia- 
 tions conducted by M. de Lionne were of a delicate nature. Louis 
 XIV. had never renounced the rights of the queen to the succession 
 in Spain ; King Philip IV. had not paid his daughter's dowry, he 
 said ; the French ambassador at Madrid, the archbishop of Embrun, 
 was secretly negotiating to obtain a revocation of Maria Theresa's 
 renunciation, or at the very least a recognition of the right of devo- 
 lution over the catholic Low Countries. This strange custom of 
 Hainault secured to the children of the first marriage succession 
 to the paternal property to the exclusion of the offspring of the 
 second marriage. Louis XIV. claimed the application of it to the 
 advantage of the queen his wife, daughter of Elizabeth of France. 
 
 In this view and with these prospects, he needed the alliance 
 of the Hollanders, and had remained faithful to the policy of 
 Henry IV. and Eichelieu when Philip IV. died on the 17th of 
 September, 1665. Almost at the same time the dissension between 
 England and Holland, after a period of tacit hostility, broke out 
 into action. The United Provinces claimed the aid of France. 
 Louis XIV. took the field in the month of May, 1667. The Campaign 
 Spaniards were unprepared : Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai and 
 Tournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost with- 
 out striking a blow. Audenarde was taken in two days; and 
 the king laid siege to Lille. Vauban, already celebrated as an 
 engineer, traced out the lines of circumvallation ; the burgesses 
 forced the garrison to capitulate ; and Louis XIV. entered the town 
 on the 27th of August, after ten days' open trenches. This first 
 campaign had been nothing but playing at war, almost entirely 
 without danger or bloodshed ; it had, nevertheless, been sufficient 
 to alarm Europe. Scarcely had peace been concluded at Breda, 
 when, on the 23rd of January, 1668, the celebrated treaty of the 
 Triple Alliance was signed at the Hague between England, Holland 
 and Sweden. The three powers demanded of the king of France 
 that he should grant the Low Countries a truce up to the month of 
 May, in order to give time for treating with Spain and obtaining 
 from her, as France demanded, the definitive cession of the con- 
 quered places or Franche-Comte in exchange, At bottom, the A.D. 1668. 
 Triple Alliance was resolved to protect helpless Spain against t te Triple 
 France ; a secret article bound the three allies to take up arms to Alliance. 
 
378 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Franehe- 
 Comte in 
 
 vaded. 
 
 Treaty of 
 
 Aix-la- 
 
 Chapelle. 
 
 The French 
 cross the 
 Ehine. 
 
 restrain Louis XIV., and to bring him back, if possible to the peace 
 of the Pyrenees. At the same moment, Portugal was making peace 
 with Spain, who recognized her independence. 
 
 The king refused the long armistice demanded of him : " I will 
 grant it up to the 31st of March," he had said, " being unwilling to 
 miss the first opportunity of taking the field." The marquis of 
 Castel-Eodrigo made merry over this proposal : " I am content," 
 s'aid he, " with the suspension of arms that winter imposes upon 
 the king of France." The governor of the Low Countries made a 
 mistake : in the midst of winter, after having concentrated from all 
 parts of France 90,000 men at Dijon, the king threw himself upon 
 the Spanish possessions in Franche-Comte, carried Besanpon in two 
 days, Dole in four, and the whole province in three weeks. Some 
 one said, alluding to the rapidity of this campaign : " Autant eut 
 valu envoy er des laquais pour en prendre possession." Louis XIV. 
 satisfied with the brilliant results of his expedition and not wishing 
 to compromise it, signed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (May 2nd). 
 According to the terms of that agreement, Spain abandoned to France 
 all her conquests in the North, together with the towns of Bergues 
 and Fumes on the sea-coast ; France restored Franche-Comte, but 
 after having destroyed the fortifications which protected it, and 
 reduced it to a defenceless state. By so doing, Louis XIV. was fur- 
 ther enabled to gain the time he required for the preparation of the 
 campaign which he meditated against Holland. 
 
 He began by levying exorbitant duties on the tonnage of all ships 
 coming from Holland and by subjecting to a treble duty French 
 goods imparted into that country. In the meanwhile Sweden had 
 joined the side of France ; through the mediation of Henrietta of 
 England, duchess of Orleans, and sister of Charles II., this monarch 
 had taken the same resolution ; and finally the league was 
 strengthened by the accession of the emperor and of the princes of 
 the confederation of the Ehine (1672). 
 
 At length, when everything was ready, Louis XIV., at the head of 
 100,000 men, crossed the Ehine without obstacle, marching 
 straight into the very heart of Holland. Eheinberg, Wesel, 
 Burick, and Orsoy, attacked at once, did not hold out four days. 
 On the 12th of June the king and the prince of Conde appeared 
 unexpectedly on the right bank of the intermediary branch of the 
 Ehine, between the Wahal and the Yssel. The Hollanders were 
 expecting the enemy at the ford of the Yssel, being more easy to 
 pass ; they were taken by surprise ; the king's cuirassier regiment 
 dashed into the river and crossed it partly by fording and partly 
 by swimming; the resistance was brief; meanwhile the duke of 
 
Murder of the brothers Van Witt. 379 
 
 Longueville was killed and the prince of Conde was wounded for the 
 first time in his life. " I was present at the passage, which was 
 bold, vigorous, full of brilliancy and glorious for the nation," writes 
 Louis XIV. Arnheim and Deventer had just surrendered to 
 Turenne and Luxembourg ; Duisbourg resisted the king for a few 
 days ; Monsieur was besieging Zutphen. John van Witt was for 
 evacuating the Hague and removing to Amsterdam the centre of 
 government and resistance ; the prince of Orange had just abandoned 
 the province of Utrecht, which was immediately occupied by the utrecht 
 French ; the defensive efforts were concentrated upon the province occupied 
 of Holland ; already Naarden, three leagues from Amsterdam, was 5, y th ! 
 in the king's hands \ " We learn the^ surrender of towns before we 
 have heard of their investment," wrote Van Witt. A deputation 
 from the States was sent on the 22nd of June, to the king's head- 
 quarters to demand peace. Louis XIV. had just entered Utrecht, 
 which, finding itself abandoned, opened its gates to him. On the 
 same day, John van Witt received in a street of the Hague four 
 stabs with a dagger from the hand of an assassin, whilst the city of 
 Amsterdam, but lately resolved to surrender and prepared to send 
 its magistrates as delegates to Louis XIV., suddenly decided upon 
 resistance to the bitter end. 
 
 The king of France was as yet ignorant what can be done 
 amongst a proud people by patriotism driven to despair; the 
 States-general offered him Maestricht, the places on the Rhine, 
 Brabant and Dutch Flanders, with a war-indemnity of ten millions ; 
 it was an open door to the Spanish Low Countries, which became 
 a patch enclosed by French possessions ; but the king wanted to 
 annihilate the Hollanders ; he demanded southern Gueldres, the 
 island of Bonmel, twenty-four millions, the restoration of Catholic 
 worship, and, every year, an embassy commissioned to thank the 
 king for having a second time given peace to the United Provinces. 
 This was rather too much ; and, whilst the deputies were nego- 
 tiating with heavy hearts, the people of Holland had risen in wrath. 
 The States-general decided to " reject the hard and intolerable con- 
 ditions proposed by their lordships the kings of France and Great 
 Britain, and to defend this State and its inhabitants with all their 
 might." The province of Holland in its entirety followed the 
 example of Amsterdam ; the dikes were everywhere broken down, 
 at the same time that the troops of the electors t>f Brandenburg and 
 Saxony were advancing to the aid of the United Provinces, and 
 that the emperor was signing with those two princes a defensive ji ur( j er 
 alliance for the maintenance of the treaties of Westphalia, the of the 
 Pyrenees and Aix-la-Chapelle. The murder of the brothers Van 
 
3 8o 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Campaign 
 of 1674. 
 Battle of 
 
 Seneffe. 
 
 The Pala- 
 tinate 
 ravaged. 
 
 A.D. 1675. 
 
 Battle of 
 Sassbach. 
 Death of 
 Turenne 
 (July 27). 
 
 Witt was an act wanton cruelty and of brutal ingratitude; the 
 instinct of the people of Holland, however, saw clearly into the 
 situation. John van Witt would have failed in the struggle against 
 France ; William of Orange, prince, politician and soldier, saved 
 his country and Europe from the yoke of Louis XIV. 
 
 Thus was being undone, link by link, the chain of alliances 
 which Louis XIV. had but lately twisted round Holland ; France, 
 in her turn, was finding herself alone, with all Europe against her, 
 scared, and consequently active and resolute ; not one of the belli- 
 gerents desired peace j the Hollanders had just settled the heredity 
 of the stadtholderate in the House of Orange. Louis XIV. saw 
 the danger. "So many enemies," says he in his Memoires, 
 " obliged me to take care of myself, and think what I must do to 
 maintain the reputation of my arms, the advantage of my dominions 
 and my personal glory." It was in Franche-Comte that Louis 
 XIV. went to seek these advantages. The 'whole province was 
 reduced to submission in the month of June, 1674. Turenne had 
 kept the Ehine against the Imperialists ; the marshal alone escaped 
 the tyranny of the king and Louvois, and presumed to conduct the 
 campaign in his own way. Conde had gained on the llth of 
 August the bloody victory of Seneffe over the prince of Orange 
 and the allied generals. Advantages remained balanced in 
 Flanders ; the result of the campaign depended on Turenne, who 
 commanded on the Rhine. On the 16th of June, he engaged in 
 battle at Sinzheim with the duke of Lorraine, who was coming up 
 with the advance-guard. " I never saw a more obstinate fight," 
 said Turenne : " those old regiments of the emperor's did mighty 
 well." He subsequently entered the Palatinate, quartering his 
 troops upon it, whilst the superintendents sent by Louvois were 
 burning and plundering the country, crushed as it was under war- 
 contributions. The king and Louvois were disquieted by the 
 movement of the enemy's troops, and wanted to get Turenne back 
 into Lorraine. On the 20th of September, the burgesses of the 
 free city of Strasburg delivered up the bridge over the Ehine to the 
 Imperialists who were in the heart of Alsace. The victory of 
 Ensheim, the fights of Miilhausen and Turckheim, sufficed to drive 
 them back ; but it was only on the 22nd of January, 1675, that 
 Turenne was at last enabled to leave Alsace reconquered. 
 
 The coalition was proceeding slowly ; the prince of Orange was 
 ill ; the king made himself master of the citadel of Liege and some 
 small places. Limburg surrendered to the prince of Conde, with- 
 out the allies having been able to relieve it. In June 1675, 
 Turenne returned to his army ; he invaded once more the Palatinate, 
 
Marriage of the Prince of Orange. 381 
 
 and was opposed by Montecuculli, a general who, ten years before, 
 had defeated the Turks at the battle of Saint-Gothard, and who 
 was considered a consummate tactician. For six weeks the two 
 commanders observed and followed one another, and their reputation 
 was much increased by the proof they thus give of strategic skill. 
 At last, they were on the point of fighting, near the village of 
 Sassbach, on a spot which Turenne had selected, and where he 
 made sure of being victorious, when the marshal, whilst observing 
 the position of a battery, was killed by a cannon-ball, which carried 
 off likewise the arm of Saint- Hilaire, lieutenant-general of the 
 Artillery (July 27, 1675). His death was, for France, a public 
 calamity. In order to honour the best captain of the age, Louis 
 XIV. authorized his being buried at Saint-Denis, in the midst of 
 the sepultures of the kings. 
 
 Europe demanded a general peace : England and Holland Alliance 
 , . ,., * .' f , , between 
 
 desired it passionately. " I am as anxious as you for an end to England 
 
 be put to the war," said the prince of Orange to the deputies from and Hol- 
 the Estates, " provided that I get out of it with honour." He land ' 
 refused obstinately to separate from his allies, William had just 
 married (November 15, 1677) the Princess Mary, eldest daughter 
 of the duke of York and Anne Hyde. An alliance offensive and 
 defensive between England and Holland was the price of this 
 union, which struck Louis XIY. an unexpected blow. He had 
 lately made a proposal to the prince of Orange to marry one of 
 his natural daughters. " The first notice I had of the marriage," 
 wrote the king, " was through the bonfires lighted in London." 
 " The loss of a decisive battle could not have scared the king of 
 France more," said the English ambassador, Lord Montagu. For 
 more than a year past negotiations had been going on at Nimeguen j 
 Louis XIV. resolved to deal one more great blow. 
 
 The campaign of 1676 had been insignificant, save at sea. John 
 Bart, a corsair of Dunkerque, scoured the seas and made foreign 
 commerce tremble ; he took ships by boarding, and killed with his 
 own hands the Dutch captain of the Neptune, who offered resist- 
 ance. Messina, in revolt against the Spaniards, had given herself 
 up to France ; the duke of Vivonne, brother of Madame de 
 Montespan, who had been sent thither as governor, had extended 
 his conquests ; Duquesne, quite young still, had triumphantly 
 maintained the glory of France against the great Ruyter, who had 
 been mortally wounded off Catana on the 21st of April. But 
 already the possession of Sicily was becoming precarious, and these 
 distant successes had paled before the brilliant campaign of 1677 ; Campaign 
 the capture of Valenciennes, Cambrai, and St. Omer, the defence of 1677. 
 
382 History of France. 
 
 of Lorraine, the victory of Cassel gained over the prince of Orange, 
 had confirmed the king in his intentions. " We have done all 
 that we were able and bound to do," wrote "William of Orange to 
 the Estates on the 13th of April, 1677, "and we are very sorry 
 to be obliged to tell your High Mightinesses that it has not pleased 
 God to bless, on this occasion, the arms of the State under our 
 guidance." Ghent was invested by the French on the 1st of March 
 and capitulated on the llth; Ypres in its turn succumbed on the 
 25th after a vigorous resistance. Louis XIV. sent his ultimatum 
 to Nimeguen. 
 
 Its results. ^ n ^ e IQtin. of August, in the evening, the special peace between 
 Holland and France was signed after twenty-four hours' conference. 
 The prince of Orange had concentrated all his forces near Mons, 
 confronting Marshal Luxembourg, who occupied the plateau of 
 Casteau ; he had no official news as yet from Nimeguen, and, on 
 the 14th, he began the engagement outside the abbey of St. Denis. 
 The affair was a very murderous one and remained indecisive : it 
 did more honour to the military skill of the prince of Orange than 
 to his loyalty.. Holland had not lost an inch of her territory during 
 this war, so long, so desperate, and notoriously undertaken in order 
 to destroy her ; she had spent much money, she had lost many men, 
 she had shaken the confidence of her allies by treating alone and 
 being the first to treat, but she had furnished a chief to the Euro- 
 pean coalition, and she had shown an example of indomitable 
 resistance; the States-general and the prince of Orange alone, 
 besides Louis XIV., came the greater out of the struggle. The king 
 of England had lost all consideration both at home and abroad, and 
 Spain paid all the expenses of the war. 
 
 A.D. 1677. Peace was concluded on the 1 7th of September, thanks to the 
 Nimeguen. ener g et i c intervention, of the Hollanders. The king restored 
 Courtray, Audenarde, Ath, and Charleroi, which had been given 
 him by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Ghent, Limburg and St. 
 Ghislain ; but he kept by definitive right St. Omer, Cassel, Aire, 
 Ypres, Cambray, Bouchain, Valenciennes, and all Franche-Comte ; 
 henceforth he possessed in the north of France a line of places 
 extending from Dunkerque to the Meuse ; the Spanish monarchy 
 was disarmed. 
 
 It still required a successful campaign under Marshal Cre"qui 
 to bring the emperor and the German princes over to peace ; ex- 
 changes of territory and indemnities re-established the treaty of 
 Westphalia on all essential points. The duke of Lorraine refused 
 the conditions on which the king proposed to restore to him his 
 duchy ; so Louis XIV. kept Lorraine. 
 
Brilliant successes of Louis XIV. 383 
 
 The king of France was at the pinnacle of his greatness and 
 power. " Singly against all," as Louvois said, he had maintained 
 the struggle against Europe, and he came out of it victorious ; 
 everywhere, with good reason, was displayed his proud device, 
 Nee pluribus im.par. The prince of Orange regarded the peace of 
 Nimeguen as a truce, and a truce fraught with danger to Europe. 
 For that reason did he soon seek to form alliances in order to secure 
 the repose of the world against the insatiable ambition of King 
 Louis XIV. Intoxicated by his successes and the adulation of his 
 court, the king no longer brooked any objections to his will or any 
 limits to his desires. Standing at the king's side and exciting his Louis XIV. 
 pride and ambition, Louvois had little by little absorbed all the i t ?* i ~ 
 functions of prime minister without bearing the title. Colbert success, 
 alone resisted him, and he, weary of the struggle, was about to 
 succumb before long (1683), driven to desperation by the burthens 
 that the wars and the king's luxury caused to weigh heavily upon 
 France. Whilst all the contending parties disbanded their troops, 
 Louis XIV. alone took advantage of the situation for the purpose 
 of increasing his power by means which were very little short of 
 actual warfare. By virtue of the last arrangements he had obtained 
 the surrender of a certain number of towns and districts together 
 with their dependencies. In order to ascertain what these depen- 
 dencies were, he established at Tournay, at Metz, at Brisach and 
 at Besancon special courts, known as chambres de reunion, because "Chambres 
 their business was to re-unite to France certain territories alleged , d . e 
 to have been dismembered from the cities of Flanders, Alsace, Trois- 
 e'veche's, and Franche-Comte. Some German princes, the Elector 
 Palatine, and the king of Spain were obliged to appear by deputy 
 and make their respective titles good ; and sentences supported by 
 force gave to Louis XIV. twenty important military positions, Saru- 
 bruck, Deux-Ponts, Luxemburg, Montbeliard, and especially Stras- 
 burg, which Vauban fortified, thus making the strongest barrier of 
 the kingdom on the Ehenish frontier (1681). In Italy, Louis XIV. 
 purchased Casal in the Montferrate from the duke of Mantua, in 
 order to command the north of the peninsula and Piedmont, which 
 he was already in a certain sense master of by the possession of 
 Pignerol. 
 
 He was, however, himself about to deal his own kingdom a blow 
 more fatal than all those of foreign wars and of the European coali- 
 tion. He had been carrying matters with a very high hand in 
 other quarters. The stronghold of the Algerian pirates was twice 
 bombarded by Duquesne (1683) ; the republic of Genoa which had 
 supplied them with arms and ships, found itself compelled to make 
 
384 History of France. 
 
 amende honorable in the person of the Doge, who, contrary to the 
 laws of the state, came to Versailles (1685). Pope Innocent XI. 
 himself incurred the resentment of the king for attempting to 
 abolish the right of asylum which the French ambassadors had till 
 then enjoyed in Eome (1687). The glory of Louis XIV. seemed 
 to extend to the remotest limits of the known world, and the king of 
 Siam sent to Versailles an embassy which created, at the time, the 
 greatest sensation. Intoxicated by so much success and so many vic- 
 tories, he fancied that consciences were to be bent like States, and he 
 set about bringing all his subjects back to the Catholic faith. Himself 
 returning to a regular life, under the influence of age and of Madame 
 de Maintenon, he thought it a fine thing to establish in his kingdom 
 that unity of religion which Henry IV. and Richelieu had not been 
 able to bring about. He set at nought all the rights consecrated 
 by edicts, and the long patience of those Protestants whom Mazarin 
 called " the faithful flock ; " in vain had persecution been tried for 
 several years past; tyranny interferred, and the edict of Nantes 
 A.D. 1685. was revoked on the 13th of October, 1685. Some years later, the 
 Kevocation reformers, by hundreds of thousands carried into foreign lands their 
 edict of industries, their wealth and their bitter resentments. Protestant 
 Nantes. Europe, indignant, opened her doors to these martyrs to conscience, 
 living witnesses of the injustice and arbitrary power of Louis XIV. 
 All the princes felt themselves at the same time insulted and 
 threatened in respect of their faith as. well as of their puissance. 
 In the early months of 1686, the league of Augsburg united all the 
 German princes, Holland and Sweden; Spain and the duke of 
 Savoy were not slow to join it. In 1687, the diet of Ratisbonne 
 refused to convert the twenty years' truce into a definitive peace. 
 By his haughty pretensions the king gave to the coalition the sup- 
 port of Pope Innocent XL ; Louis XIV. was once more single- 
 handed against all, when he invaded the electorate of Cologne in 
 the month of August, 1686. Philipsburg, lost by France in 1676, 
 was recovered on the 29th of October ; at the end of the campaign, 
 the king's armies were masters of the Palatinate. In the month 
 The war of January, 1689, war was officially declared against Holland, the 
 mences emperor and the empire. The command-in- chief of the French 
 forces was entrusted to the Dauphin, then twenty-six years of age. 
 " I give you an opportunity of making your merit known," said 
 Louis XIV. to his son : " exhibit it to all Europe, so that when I 
 come to die it shall not be perceived that the king is dead." 
 
 The Dauphin was already tasting the pleasures of conquest, and 
 the coalition had not stirred. They were awaiting their chief; 
 William of Orange was fighting for them in the very act of taking 
 
V 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 LOUTS XIV. 
 
 Page 385. 
 
The Palatinate once more ravaged. 385 
 
 possession of the kingdom of England. The revolution of 1688 
 was the answer made to the revocation of the edict of Nantes. 
 Louis XIV. received James II., affected to treat him as a king, and 
 commenced extensive preparations for his re-establishment. Hence 
 a general explosion against France ; war broke out in four different 
 quarters simultaneously. James II. appeared in Ireland, besieged to 
 no purpose the town of Londonderry, and lost against William III. 
 himself the battle of the Boyne, where a regiment of French 
 colonists, commanded by Schomberg, did much harm to the troops 
 of Louis XIV. (1690). At the same time the French fleet under Naval en- 
 the orders of d'Estrees and Tourville obtained a decided victory at S a ements * 
 Beachy-Head. It required two years to fit out a new expedition, 
 composed of thirty vessels and which was entrusted to d'Estrees, 
 who had directions to occupy the Mediterranean, whilst Tourville, 
 with forty-four sail, remained in the British Channel. An engage- 
 ment took place at La Hogue (1692), which turned to the utter 
 discomfiture of the French, and completely put an end to the hopes 
 still entertained by James II. The whole fleet of Louis XIV. was 
 defeated, and fourteen of the ships which composed it were burnt 
 down. On the Ehine, the Dauphin, at the head of 100,000 men, 
 with the assistance of marshal de Duras, took Philipsburg, Worms, 
 Manheim, and by the order of Louvois the Palatinate was once Second de- 
 more subjected to all the horrors of wholesale destruction by sword sjraction 
 and fire. This piece of unwarrantable atrocity is said to have been latinate. 
 the cause of Louvois's disgrace, who died shortly afterwards. 
 
 In Italy Catinat kept his ground against Victor- Amadeus, duke 
 of Savoy, and against prince Eugene, who, in consequence of an 
 act of injustice on the part 'of Louis XIV., had joined the enemy. 
 The French general defeated the allies at Staffarde, and three 
 years afterwards at Marsaglia ; but compelled as he was to see his 
 foot soldiers withdrawn from his command for the purpose of 
 strengthening other divisions of the French army ; he was himself 
 obliged merely to keep the defensive. 
 
 The most brilliant episodes of the war took place in the Nether- 
 lands. Luxembourg, whose military talents and whose energy 
 have often caused him to be compared with Conde, defeated 
 the prince of Waldeck at Fleurus (1690), then took possession 
 of Mons under the eyes of William III., who had come from Ire- Battles of 
 land on purpose to relieve the town, and finally made himself staff arde 
 master of Namur during the following campaign (1692). The king Fleurus. 
 was present on both these occasions, and his favourite poet Boileau 
 celebrated the taking of Namur in an ode which is generally con- 
 sidered one of his weakest compositions. The battle of Steinkirk 
 
 c c 
 
386 History of France. 
 
 was an act of skill which reflected the greatest credit upon Marshal 
 Luxembourg. Exhausted by the fatigues of war and the pleasures 
 of the court, he died on the 4th of January, 1695, at sixty-seven 
 years of age. An able general, a worthy pupil of the great Conde, 
 a courtier of much wits and no shame, he was more corrupt than 
 his age, and his private life was injurious to his fame ; he died, 
 however, as people did die in his time, turning to God at the last 
 day. " I haven't lived like M. de Luxembourg," said Bourdaloue, 
 " but I should like to die like him." History has forgotten Marshal 
 Luxembourg's death and remembered his life. 
 
 Louis XIV. had lost Conde and Turenne, Luxembourg, Colbert, 
 Louvois and Seignelay ; with the exception of Vauban, he had 
 exhausted the first rank ; Catinat alone remained in the second ; 
 the king was about to be reduced to the third : sad fruits of a long 
 reign, of an incessant and devouring activity, which had speedily 
 used up men and was beginning to tire out fortune ; grievous result 
 of mistakes long hidden by glory, but glaring out at last before the 
 eyes most blinded by prejudice ! By detaching the duke of Savoy 
 from the coalition, Louis XIY. struck a fatal blow at the great 
 alliance: the campaign of 1696 in Germany and in Flanders had 
 resolved itself into mere observations and insignificant engagements ; 
 Holland and England were exhausted, and their commerce was 
 ruined ; in vain did Parliament vote fresh and enormous supplies : 
 " I should want ready money," wrote William III. to Heinsius, 
 "and my poverty is really incredible." 
 
 Wretched There was no less cruel want in France. " I calculate that in 
 of France. tnese l atter days more than a tenth part of the people," said 
 Yauban, " are reduced to beggary and "in fact beg." Sweden had 
 for a long time been proffering mediation ; conferences began on the 
 9th of May, 1697, at Meuburg, a castle belonging to William III., 
 near the village of Ryswick. Three great halls opened one into 
 another ; the French and the plenipotentiaries of the coalition of 
 princes occupied the two wings, the mediators sat in the centre. 
 Before arriving at Ryswick, the most important points of the treaty 
 between France and William III. were already settled. 
 
 France offered restitution of Strasburg, Luxembourg, Mons, 
 Chaiieroi and Dinant, restoration of the House of Lorraine, with 
 the conditions proposed at Nimeguen, and recognition of the king 
 of England. " We have no equivalent to claim," said the French 
 plenipotentiaries haughtily ; " your masters have never taken any- 
 thing from ours." 
 
 A.D. 1697. On the 27th of July a preliminary deed was signed between Mar- 
 Treaty of g k a i Boufflers and Bentinck, earl of Portland, the intimate friend of 
 Ryswick. 
 
The Spanish succession. 387 
 
 King William ; the latter left the army and retired to his castle o 
 Loo ; there it was that he heard of the capture of Barcelona by the 
 duke of Vendome j Spain, which had hitherto refused to take part 
 in the negotiations, lost all courage and loudly demanded peace, but 
 France withdrew her concessions on the subject of Strasburg, and 
 proposed to give as equivalent Friburg in Brisgau and Brisach. 
 William III. did not hesitate. Heinsius signed the peace in the 
 name of the States-general on the 20th of September at midnight; 
 the English and Spanish plenipotentiaries did the same ; the 
 emperor and the empire were alone in still holding out: the 
 Emperor Leopold made pretensions to regulate in advance the 
 Spanish succession, and the Protestant princes refused to accept 
 the maintenance of the Catholic worship in all the places in which 
 Louis XIV. had restored it. 
 
 Here again the will of William III. prevailed over the irreso- T . he fron - 
 lution of his allies. For the first time since Cardinal Eichelieu 
 
 France moved back her frontiers by the signature of a treaty, moved 
 She had gained the important place of Strasburg, but she lost * 
 nearly all she had won by the treaty of Mmeguen in the Low 
 Countries and in Germany ; she kept Franche-Comte, but she gave 
 up Lorraine. Louis XIV. had wanted to aggrandise himself at any 
 price and at any risk ; he was now obliged to precipitately break 
 up the grand alliance, for King Charles II. was slowly dying at 
 Madrid, and the Spanish succession was about to open. Ignorant 
 of the supreme evils and sorrows which awaited him on this fatal 
 path, the king of France began to forget, in this distant prospect 
 of fresh aggrandisement and war, the checks that his glory and his 
 policy had just met with. 
 
 The competitors for the succession were numerous ; the king of The 
 France and the emperor claimed their rights in the name o 
 their mothers and wives, daughters of Philip III. and Philip IV. ; 
 the elector of Bavaria put up the claims of his son by right of his 
 mother, Mary Antoinette of Austria, daughter of the emperor ; for 
 a short time Charles II. had adopted this young prince ; the child 
 died suddenly at Madrid in 1699. 1 The persons most interested 
 in the succession had not thought proper either to obtain the 
 king's consent or to wait for his demise before dividing his pos- 
 sessions between themselves ; they had even made a partition 
 twice, and had satisfied none of the claimants. Charles was 
 informed of this unwarrantable arrangement, and under the 
 impressions of disgust which it excited in him, he named as 
 his successor Philip, duke d'Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. 
 1 See the genealogical tree at the end of this chapter. 
 C C 2 
 
388 History of France. 
 
 After a pretence of deliberation the king accepted, and sending 
 Philip to take possession of his throne he said to him : " For the 
 future, the Pyrenees exist no longer." He thus betrayed his true 
 political designs. Some other measures quite as significative roused 
 once more the anger of Europe, and produced a fresh coalition. 
 Death 2 ' Death removed William ni. (1702) shortly after he had sue- 
 William Deeded in organizing a formidable league against France ; but his 
 III. system of policy prevailed, because it was the expression of the 
 English national will. Three men, whom their hatred of France 
 has rendered illustrious, Heinsius, the duke of Marlborough, and 
 prince Eugene, stepped by their close union into the positions held 
 by the leaders whom the allies had just lost. Heinsius was grand- 
 pensioner of Holland, and directed the affairs of the common- 
 wealth with the authority of a monarch. Marlborough had made 
 his debut as a soldier under Turenne ; he governed queen Anne by 
 his wife, the parliament by his friends, the cabinet by his son-in- 
 law Sunderland, secretary of state for war, and by the treasurer 
 Godolphin whom a matrimonial connection had likewise brought 
 into his family. We have already said why prince Eugene had 
 joined the coalition. 
 
 To triumph over such formidable opponents Louis XIV. would 
 have required the illustrious generals of the preceding generation, 
 Ineffi- hut they were either dead or worn out, and the heavy atmosphere 
 ciency of O f Versailles produced none that could continue their work. Like 
 statesmen a so ^ wn i n nas given too luxuriant a. crop, France was becoming 
 exhausted, and the king was on the point of seeing soldiers failing 
 just as much as generals and cabinet ministers. The inefficient 
 Chamillard, the creature of Madame de Maintenon, gave way under 
 the double weight of the treasury and the war administration, 
 which Colbert and Louvois had divided between themselves. 
 Louis XIV. thought he would counteract Chamillard's weakness by 
 directing him, and never indeed did he show more activity. But 
 here, too, obstacles of another kind arrested him. He had no 
 experience of either men or things ; he hampered his generals with 
 directions which they were to observe punctually and which often 
 brought about the worst results. " Si le general," says Voltaire, 
 " voulait faire quelque grande entreprise, il fallait qu'il en demandat 
 la permission par un courrier, qui trouvait a son retour, ou 1'occa- 
 sion manquee, ou le general battu." And yet some of the com- 
 manders whom France had still, Villars, Catinat, Boufflers, Ven- 
 dome, deserved more confidence and greater liberty of action. It 
 is true that men like Villeroi, Marsin, Tallard, La Feuillade, 
 required advice and the assistance of trustworthy guides, but the 
 
Louis XIV. single-handed against Europe. 389 
 
 fact of keeping them in leading strings did not prevent them from 
 inflicting irreparable disasters upon the French arms. 
 
 The campaigns of 1702 and 1703 had shown Marlborough to be 
 a prudent and bold soldier, fertile in resources and novel concep- 
 tions ; and those had earned him the thanks of Parliament and the 
 title of duke. The campaign of 1704 established his glory upon 
 the misfortunes of France. Marshals Tallard and Marsin were 
 commanding in Germany together with the elector of Bavaria ; the Louis XIV. 
 emperor, threatened with a fresh insurrection in Hungary, recalled ^J 8 e 
 Prince Eugene from Italy ; Marlborough effected a junction with single- 
 him by a rapid march, which Marshal Villeroi would fain have hin- handed, 
 dered but to no purpose ; on the 13th of August, 1704, the hostile , D 1?04 
 armies met between Blenheim and Hochstett, near the Danube ; Battle of 
 the forces were about equal, but on the French side the counsels 
 were divided, the various corps acted independently. Tallard sus- 
 tained single-handed the attack of the English and the Dutch com- 
 manded by Marlborough ; he was made prisoner, his son was killed 
 at his side ; the cavalry, having lost their leader and being pressed 
 by the enemy, took to flight in the direction of the Danube ; many 
 officers and soldiers perished in the river ; the slaughter was awful. 
 Marsin and the elector, who had repulsed five successive charges of 
 Prince Eugene, succeeded in effecting their retreat ; but the elec- 
 torates of Bavaria and Cologne were lost, Landau was recovered by 
 the allies after a siege of two months, the French army recrossed the 
 Rhine, Alsace was uncovered and Germany evacuated. 
 
 The defeat of Hochstett in 1704 had been the first step down 
 the ladder ; the defeat of Ramilies on the 23rd of May, 1706, was 
 the second. The king's personal attachment to Marshal Villeroi 
 blinded him as to his military talents. Beaten in Italy by Prince 
 Eugene, Villeroi, as presumptuous as he was incapable, hoped to 
 retrieve himself against Marlborough. There had been eight hours 
 fighting at Hochstett, inflicting much damage upon the enemy ; a 
 Ramilies, the Bavarians took to their heels at the end of an hour ; A.D. 1706 
 the French, who felt that they were badly commanded, followed j^miiies 
 their example ; the rout was terrible and the disorder inexpressible : (May 23). 
 Villeroi kept recoiling before the enemy, Marlborough kept advan- 
 cing ; two thirds of Belgium and sixteen strong places were lost, 
 when Louis XIV. sent Chamillard into the Low Countries ; it was 
 no longer the time when Louvois made armies spring from the very 
 soil, and when Vauban prepared the defence of Dunkerque. The 
 king recalled Villeroi, showing him to the last unwavering kind- 
 ness. " There is no more luck at our age, marshal," was all he said 
 to Villeroi on his arrival at Versailles. The king summoned Ven- 
 
390 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Battle of 
 
 Turin 
 
 (Sept. 7). 
 
 State of 
 things in 
 Spain. 
 
 A.D. 1707. 
 Battle of 
 Almanza 
 (April 13) 
 
 dome, to place him at the head of the army of Flanders, " in hopes 
 . of restoring to it the spirit of vigour and audacity natural to the 
 French nation," as he himself says. For two years past, amidst a 
 great deal of ill-success, Vendome had managed to keep in check 
 Victor Amadeo and Prince Eugene, in spite of the embarrassment 
 caused him by his brother the grand prior, the duke of La Feuil- 
 lade, Chamillard's son-in-law, and the orders which reached him 
 directly from the king ; he had gained during his two campaigns the 
 name of taker of towns, and had just beaten the Austrians in the 
 battle of Cascinato. Prince Eugene had, however, crossed the 
 Adige and the Po when Vendome left Italy ; he effected his junction 
 with Victor Amadeo, encountered and defeated the French army 
 between the rivers Doria and Stora. Marsin was killed, discourage- 
 ment spread amongst the generals and the troops, and the siege of 
 of Turin was raised ; before the end of the year, nearly all the 
 places were lost, and Dauphiny was threatened. Victor Amadeo 
 refused to listen to a special peace; in the month of March, 1707, 
 the prince of Vaudemont, governor of Milaness for the king of 
 Spain, signed a capitulation at Mantua, and led back to France the 
 troops which still remained to him. The imperialists were masters 
 of Naples. Spain no longer had any possessions in Italy. 
 
 Philip V. had been threatened with the loss of Spain as well as 
 of Italy. For two years past Archduke Charles, under the title of 
 Charles III., had, with the support of England and Portugal, been 
 disputing the crown with the young king. Philip V. had lost 
 Catalonia and had just failed in his attempt to retake Barcelona ; 
 the road to Madrid was cut off, the army was obliged to make its 
 way by Eoussillon and Beam to resume the campaign ; the king 
 threw himself in person into his capital, whither he was escorted 
 by Marshal Berwick, a natural son of James II., a Frenchman by 
 choice, full of courage and resolution, *' but a great stick of an 
 Englishman who hadn't a word to say," and who was distasteful 
 to the young queen Marie-Louise. Philip V. could not remain at 
 Madrid, which was threatened by the enemy : he removed to 
 Burgos ; the English entered the capital and there proclaimed 
 Charles III. 
 
 This was too much ; Spain could not let herself submit to have 
 an Austrian king imposed upon her by heretics and Portuguese ; 
 the campaign of 1707 was signalized in Spain by the victory of 
 Almanza, gained on the 13th of April by Marshal Berwick over the 
 Anglo-Portuguese army, and by the capture of Lerida, which capitu- 
 lated on the llth of November into the hands of the duke of 
 Orleans. In Germany, Villars drove back the enemy from the 
 
Campaign of 1707. 391 
 
 banks of the Ehine, advanced into Suabia and ravaged the Palati- 
 nate, crushing the country with requisitions, of which he openly 
 reserved a portion for himself. " Marshal Yillars is doing very 
 well for himself," said somebody one day to the king. " Yes," 
 answered his Majesty, " and for me too." "I wrote to the king that 
 I really must/a^ my calf" said Villars. 
 
 The inexhaustible elasticity and marvellous resources of France 
 were enough to restore some hope in 1707. The invasion of 
 Provence by Victor Amadeo and Prince Eugene, their check before 
 Toulon and their retreat precipitated by the rising of the peasants, 
 had irritated the allies ; the attempts at negotiation which the king 
 had entered upon at the Hague remained without result ; the duke 
 of Burgundy took the command of the armies of Flanders with 
 Vendome for his second. On the 5th of July, Ghent was surprised ; 
 Vendome had intelligence inside the place, the Belgians were weary 
 of their new masters : " The States have dealt so badly with this 
 country," said Marlborough, "that all the towns are ready to play 
 us the same trick as Ghent the moment they have the opportunity." 
 Bruges opened its gates to the French. Prince Eugene advanced 
 to second Marlborough, but he was late in starting ; the troops of 
 the elector of Bavaria harassed his march. The English encoim- 
 tered the French army in front of Audenarde. The engagement Battle of 
 began. Vendome, who commanded the right wing, sent word to 
 the duke of Burgundy. The latter hesitated and delayed; the 
 generals about him did not approve of Vendome's movement. He 
 fought single-handed, and was beaten. The excess of confidence 
 of one leader and the inertness of the other caused failure in all 
 the operations of the campaign ; Prince Eugene and the duke of 
 Marlborough laid siege to Lille, which was defended by old Marshal 
 Boufflers, the bravest and the most respected of all the king's 
 servants. Lille was not relieved, and fell on the 25th of October ; 
 the citadel held out until the 9th of December ; the king heaped 
 rewards on Marshal Boufflers ; at the march out from Lille, Prince 
 Eugene had ordered all his army to pay him the same honours as 
 to himself. Ghent and Bruges were abandoned to the imperialists. 
 
 The campaign in Spain had not been successful ; the duke of 
 Orleans, weary of his powerlessness, and under suspicion at the 
 court of Philip V., had given up the command of the troops ; the 
 English admiral, Leake, had taken possession of Sardinia, of the 
 island of Minorca and of Port Mahon ; the archduke was master 
 of the isles and of the sea. The destitution in France was fearful, 
 and the winter so severe that the poor were in want of everything ; 
 riots multiplied in the towns ; the king sent his plate to the Mint, France. 
 
39 2 
 
 History of France. 
 
 and put his jewels in pawn ; he likewise took a resolution, which 
 Conditions cost him even more, he determined to ask for peace. He offered 
 
 of peace 
 proposed 
 and dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 War 
 recom- 
 mences. 
 
 the Hollanders a very extended barrier in the Low Countries and 
 all the facilities they had long been asking for their commerce; 
 He accepted the abandonment of Spain to the archduke and merely 
 claimed to reserve to his grandson, Naples, Sardinia and Sicily. 
 This was what was secured to him by the second treaty of partition 
 lately concluded between- England, the United Provinces and 
 France ; he did not even demand Lorraine. President Eouille, 
 formerly French envoy to Lisbon, arrived disguised in Holland ; 
 conferences were opened secretly at Bodegraven. . 
 
 Led on by his fidelity to the allies, distrustful and suspicious as 
 regarded France, burning to avenge the wrongs put upon the 
 republic, Heinsius, in concert with Marlborough and Prince Eugene, 
 required conditions so hard that the French agent scarcely dared 
 transmit them to Versailles. What was demanded was the abdi- 
 cation pure and simple of Philip V. ; Holland merely promised her 
 good offices to obtain in his favour Naples and Sicily ; England 
 claimed Dunkerque; Germany wanted Strasburg and the renewal 
 of the peace of Westphalia; Victor Amadeo aspired to recover 
 Nice and Savoy ; to the Dutch barrier stipulated for at Ryswick 
 were to be added Lille, Conde and Tournay. In vain was the 
 matter discussed article by article ; in their short-sighted resentment 
 the allies had overstepped reason. The young king of Spain felt 
 this when he wrote to his grandfather : " I am transfixed at the 
 chimerical and insolent pretensions of the English and Dutch 
 regarding the preliminaries of peace ; never were seen the like. I 
 am beside myself at the idea that anybody could have so much as 
 supposed that I should be forced to leave Spain as long as I have a 
 drop of blood in my veins. I will use all my efforts to maintain 
 myself upon a throne on which God has placed me and on which 
 you, after Him, have set me, and nothing but death shall wrench 
 me from it or make me yield it." War recommenced on all sides. 
 The king had just consented at last to give Chamillard his discharge. 
 " Sir, I shall die over the job," had for a long time been the com- 
 plaint of the minister worn out with fatigue. " Ah ! well, we will 
 die together," had been the king's rejoinder. 
 
 France was dying, and Chamillard was by no means a stranger 
 to the cause. Louis XIV. put in his place Voysin, former super- 
 intendent of Hainault, entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon. 
 He loaded with benefits the minister from whom he was parting, 
 the only one whom he had really loved. The troops were destitute 
 of everything. On assuming the command of the army of the Low 
 
Malplaquet and Villaviciosa. 393 
 
 Countries Villars wrote in despair, " Imagine the horror of seeing 
 an army without bread ! " In spite of such privations and sufferings, 
 Villars found the troops in excellent spirits, and urged the king to 
 permit him to give battle. " M. de Turenne used to say that he 
 who means to altogther avoid battle gives up his country to him 
 who appears to seek for it," the marshal assured him ; the king was 
 afraid of losing his last army ; the dukes of Harcourt and Berwick 
 were covering the Rhine and the Alps ; Marlborough and Prince 
 Eugene, who had just made themselves masters of Tournay, marched 
 against Villars, whom they encountered on the llth of September, 
 1709, near the hamlet of Malplaquet. Marshal Boufflers had just 
 reached the army to serve as a volunteer. Villars had entrenched A 
 himself in front of the woods ; his men were so anxious to get Battle of 
 under fire that they threw away the rations of bread just served Mal P^ - 
 out; the allies looked sulkily at the works : "We are going to fight (Sept. 11). 
 moles again," they said. The allies won the victory, but they had 
 lost more than twenty thousand men, according to their official 
 account. " It was too much for this victory, which did not entail 
 the advantage of entirely defeating the enemy, and the whole fruits 
 of which were to end with the taking of Mons." 
 
 This glorious defeat was followed by a triumph of a more decided 
 character. Louis XIV. sent into Spain the Duke de Vendome who 
 was in disgrace since the famous campaign of Audenarde. His 
 name alone was worth an army. A number of volunteers crowded 
 under his command, and Philip V. who as yet had not appeared on 
 any field of battle, placed himself at the head of his troops. The 
 Spaniards, roused up at the voice of the king, began against the 
 imperial forces a guerilla warfare which proved fatal to their 
 invaders; and, finally, the archduke's troops, headed by count 
 Stahrenberg, were thoroughly routed at Villaviciosa (December 9th A - D - 171 - 
 1710). It is reported that after the battle, Philip V. being over- *%? f 
 come with fatigue, Vendome said to him : " Sire, I shall make up viciosa 
 for you the finest bed that ever king had to lie upon;" and, ( Dec - 9 ) 
 accordingly, he heaped up together as a cover all the colours that 
 had been taken from the enemy. The victory of Villaviciosa not 
 only saved the crown of Philip V., but also prevented Louis XIV. 
 from losing Canada. An English expedition was fitted out to 
 occupy that colony, but the success of Vendome obliged it to remain 
 in observation 011 the coast of Spain. 
 
 This unexpected act of vigour on the part of a monarch whose 
 ruin seemed certain astonished the allies ; they, besides, were becom- 
 ing weary of the war, especially the English, whose finances were in 
 a precarious condition. A court intrigue, which ended in the down- 
 
394 History of France. 
 
 fall of the Whig administration and the disgrace of the duchess of 
 Marlborough, brought matters to a crisis. The Tories, called to 
 the direction of the government, tried to establish their credit on 
 peaceful measures. Secret negociations between France and England 
 were begun ; after the death of the Emperor (April 17th, 1711) they 
 became public, a suspension of arms was immediately decided, and 
 the preliminaries of peace were signed in London on the 8th of 
 October following. This example decided the allies ; a congress 
 assembled at Utrecht on the 29th of January, 1712. The new 
 Emperor refused to have anything to do with it ; but the forces 
 were now equal, and one campaign proved to the Emperor that he 
 could not single-handed hope to reduce France. 
 
 Disasters The bolts of Heaven were falling one after another upon the royal 
 in the family of France. On the Hth of April, 1711, Louis XIY. had 
 Versailles ^ os ^ ^J sma ll-p ox h* 8 son > the grand dauphin, a mediocre and sub- 
 missive creature, ever the most humble subject of the king, at just 
 fifty years of age. His eldest son, the duke of Burgundy, devout, 
 austere and capable, the hope of good men and the terror of 
 intriguers, had taken the rank of dauphin, and was seriously com- 
 mencing his apprenticeship in government, when he was carried off 
 on the 18th of February, 1712, by spotted fever (rougeolepourpree), 
 six days after his wife, the charming Mary Adelaide of Savoy, the 
 idol of the whole court, supremely beloved by the king, and by 
 Madame de Maintenon, who had brought her up ; their son, the 
 duke of Brittany, four years old, died on the 8th of March ; a child 
 in the cradle, weakly and ill, the little duke of Anjou remained the 
 only shoot of the elder branch of the Bourbons. Dismay seized 
 upon all France ; poison was spoken of ; the duke of Orleans was 
 accused ; it was necessary to have a post mortem examination ; only 
 the hand of God had left its traces. Europe in its turn was 
 excited. If the little duke of Anjou were to die, the crown of 
 France reverted to Philip V. The Hollanders and the ambassadors 
 of the emperor Charles VI., recently crowned at Frankfurt, insisted 
 on the necessity of a formal renunciation. In accord with the 
 English ministers, Louis XIV. wrote to his grandson: 
 Letter of " You will be told what England proposes, that you should 
 Lou j 8 XIV. renounce your birthright, retaining the monarchy of Spain and the 
 of Spain. Indies, or renounce the monarchy of Spain, retaining your rights to 
 the succession in France, and receiving in exchange for the crown 
 of Spain the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, the States of the duke 
 of Savoy, Montferrat and the Mantuan, the said duke of Savoy suc- 
 ceeding you in Spain ; I confess to you that, notwithstanding the 
 disproportion in the dominions, I have been sensibly affected by 
 
Villars in Flanders. 395 
 
 the thought that you would continue to reign, that I might still 
 regard you as my successor, sure, if the dauphin lives, of a regent 
 accustomed to command, capable of maintaining order in my king- 
 dom, and of stifling its cabals. If this child were to die, as his weakly 
 complexion gives too much reason to suppose, you would enjoy the 
 succession to me following the order of your birth, and I should 
 have the consolation of leaving to my people a virtuous king, 
 capable of commanding them, and one who, on succeeding me, 
 would unite to the crown States so considerable as Naples, Savoy, 
 Piedmont and Montferrat. If gratitude and affection towards your 
 subjects are to you pressing reasons for remaining with them, I may 
 say that you owe me the same sentiments ; you owe them to your 
 own house, to your own country, before Spain. All that I can do 
 for you is to leave you once more the choice, the necessity for con- 
 cluding peace becoming every day more urgent." 
 
 The choice of Philip Y. was made ; he had already written to 
 his grandfather to say that he would renounce all his rights of suc- 
 cession to the throne of France rather than give up the crown of 
 Spain. This decision was solemnly enregistered by the Cortes 
 The English required that the dukes of Berry and Orleans should 
 likewise make renunciation of their rights to the crown of Spain. 
 Negotiations began again, but war began again at the same time as 
 the negotiations. 
 
 The king had given Villars the command of the army of Flanders. Villars 
 
 The marshal went to Marly to receive his last orders. " You see takes th 
 
 command. 
 my plight, marshal," said Louis XIY. " There are few examples O f the 
 
 of what is my fate to lose in the same week a grandson, a grand- army in 
 son's wife and their son, all of very great promise and very tenderly 
 beloved. God is punishing me ; I have well deserved it. But sus- 
 pend we my griefs at my own domestic woes, and look we to what 
 may be done to prevent those of the kingdom. If anything were to 
 happen to the army you command, what would be your idea of the 
 course I should adopt as regards my person ? " The marshal hesi- 
 tated. The king resumed : " This is what I think ; you shall tell 
 me your opinion afterwards. I know the courtiers' line of argu- 
 ment ; they nearly all wish me to retire to Blois, and not wait for 
 the enemy's army to approach Paris, as it might do if mine were 
 beaten. For my part, I am aware that armies so considerable are 
 never defeated to such an extent as to prevent the greater part of 
 mine from retiring upon the Somme. I know that river, it is very 
 difficult to cross ; there are forts, too, which could be made strong. 
 I should count upon getting to Peronne or St. Quentin, and there 
 massing all the troops I had, making a last effort with you, and 
 
396 History of France. 
 
 falling together or saving the kingdom ; I will never consent to let 
 the enemy approach my capital [Memoires de Villars, t. ii. p. 362]." 
 God was to spare Louis XIV. that crowning disaster reserved for 
 other times ; in spite of all his faults and of the culpable errors of 
 his life and reign, Providence had given this old man, overwhelmed 
 by so many reverses and sorrows, a truly royal soul, and that regard 
 for his own greatness which set him higher as a king than he would 
 have been as a man. " He had too proud a soul to descend lower 
 than his misfortunes had brought him," says Montesquieu, " and he 
 well knew that courage may right a crown and that infamy never 
 Louis XIV does." O n ^ ne 25th of May, the king secretly informed his pleni- 
 treats with potentiaries as well as his generals that the English were proposing 
 England. ^0 ^ m a suspension of hostilities, and he added : " It is no longer 
 a time for flattering the pride of the Hollanders, but, whilst we treat 
 with them in good faith, it must be with the dignity that becomes 
 me." That which the king's pride refused to the ill will of the 
 Hollanders he granted to the good will of England. The day 
 of the commencement of the armistice Dunkerque was put as 
 guarantee into the hands of the English, who recalled their native 
 regiments from the army of Prince Eugene ; the king complained 
 that they left him the auxiliary troops j the English ministers pro- 
 posed to prolong the truce, promising to treat separately with France 
 if the allies refused assent to the peace. The news received by 
 Louis XIV. gave him assurance of better conditions than any one 
 had dared to hope for. 
 
 Villars had not been able to prevent Prince Eugene from becom- 
 ing master of Quesnoy on the 3rd of July ; the imperialists were 
 already making preparations to invade France ; in their army the 
 causeway which connected Marchiennes with Landrecies was called 
 the Paris road. The marshal resolved to relieve Landrecies, and, 
 having had bridges thrown over the Scheldt, he crossed the river 
 Battle of ' Between Bouchain and Denain on the 23rd of July, 1712; the 
 Denain latter little place was defended by the duke of Albemarle, son of 
 ( y ' General Monk, with seventeen battalions of auxiliary troops in the 
 pay of the allies. The Imperialist lines, stretching over a space of 
 between twelve and fifteen leagues were too straggling, and the dif- 
 ferent corps too far separated to be within reach of relieving one 
 another. Villars took advantage of this mistake ; by a false attack 
 towards Landrecies, he deceived the Prince Eugene, and then march- 
 ing with all speed upon Denain, where was the earl of Albemarle, 
 he destroyed that general's camp and cut to pieces seventeen batta- 
 lions (July 24, 1712). Eugene comes up ; he too is driven back. 
 All the posts on the bank of the Scarpe are successively carried, 
 
Peace concluded. 397 
 
 Landrecies is relieved, Douai, Marchiennes, Bouchain and Le 
 Quesnoy are taken, and the frontiers of France become safe once 
 more. 
 
 The victory of Denain hastened the conclusion of the peace. 
 Three treaties were signed : 1st, that of Utrecht (April llth, 1713), 
 between France, Spain, Holland, Savoy and Portugal ; 2nd, that of 
 Eastadt (March 7th, 1714), between France and Charles VI., 3rd, 
 that of Baden (June 7th 1714), between France and the Empire. 
 The treaty of Rastadt was delayed for one year on account of the 
 obstinacy of Charles VI., who persisted in continuing the war 
 although his allies had come to terms with Louis XIV. Villars, 
 sent towards the Rhenish frontier where he found himself opposed 
 to Prince Eugene, disconcerted the Imperial troops by the rapidity 
 of his movements. He retook Landau, scaled at the head of his 
 grenadiers the mountain of Roskhof, which protected Friburg, and 
 made himself master of this city. This brilliant success constrained 
 at last the emperor to give to his subjects that peace with which for 
 so long a time they had ceased to be acquainted. France kept Lan- 
 dau and Fort Louis, she restored Spires, Brisach and Friburg. The 
 emperor refused to recognize Philip V., but he accepted the status 
 quo; the crown of Spain remained definitively with the house of signature 
 Bourbon ; it had cost men and millions enough ; for an instant the of tne 
 very foundations of order in Europe had seemed to be upset ; the j ts co ' n . 
 old French monarchy had been threatened ; it had recovered of ditions. 
 itself and by its own resources, sustaining single-handed the struggle 
 which was pulling down all Europe in coalition against it ; it had 
 obtained conditions which restored its frontiers to the limits of the 
 peace of Ryswick ; but it was exhausted, gasping, at wits' end for 
 men and money ; absolute power had obtained from national pride 
 the last possible efforts, but it had played itself out in the struggle ; 
 the confidence of the country was shaken ; it had been seen what 
 dangers the will of a single man had made the nation incur ; the 
 tempest was already gathering within men's souls. The habit of 
 respect, the memory of past glories, the personal majesty of Louis 
 XIV. still kept up about the aged king the deceitful appearances of 
 uncontested power and sovereign authority ; the long decadence of 
 his great-grandson's reign was destined to complete its ruin. 
 
 "I loved war too much," was Louis XIV. 's confession on his General 
 death-bed. He had loved it madly and exclusively, but this fatal 
 passion which had ruined and corrupted France had not at any 
 rate remained fruitless. Louis XIV. had the good fortune to 
 profit by the efforts of his predecessors as well as of his own 
 servants : Richelieu and Mazarin, Conde and Turenne, Luxem- 
 
398 History of France. 
 
 bourg, Catinat, Vauban, Villars and Louvois all toiled at the same 
 work ; under his reign, France was intoxicated with excess of the 
 pride of conquest, but she did not lose all its fruits ; she witnessed 
 the conclusion of five peaces, mostly glorious, the last sadly 
 honourable ; all tended to consolidate the unity and power of the 
 kingdom ; it is to the treaties of the Pyrenees, of Westphalia, of 
 Nimeguen, of Eyswick, and of Utrecht, all signed in the name of 
 Louis XIV., that France owed Koussillon, Artois, Alsace, Flanders 
 and Franche-Comte. Her glory has more than once cost her 
 dear, it has never been worth so much and such solid increment to 
 her territory. 
 
 COMPETITORS FOR THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Louis XIV. = Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain 
 Louis, Dauphin= Maria Anna of Bavaria 
 
 Louis, Duke of Burgundy Philip, Duke of Anjou, Charles, Duke of Berry 
 
 King of Spain as Philip Y. 
 
 Nov. 1700 
 Louis XY. 
 
 BAVARIA. 
 
 Leopold I. Emperor= Maria Margarita, younger daughter of Philip IY. of Spain 
 Maria Antonia, Archduchess= Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria 
 
 Joseph Ferdinand, Electoral Prince of Bavaria 
 declared heir to the Spanish throne, 1698, d. 6th February, 1699 
 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 Maria Anna, = Ferdinand III. Emperor 
 younger daughter of I 
 Philip III. of Spain | 
 
 Leopold I. Emperor=Maria Margarita daughter of Philip IY. 
 
 Joseph I. Emperor, 1705. Charles Francis Joseph 
 
 declared King of Spain, 1700 
 Emperor, 1711. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. HOME ADMINISTRATION. LITERATURE. THE COURT AND 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 IT is King Louis XIY.'s distinction and heavy burthen in the 
 
 eyes of history that it is impossible to tell of anything in his reign 
 
 without constantly recurring to himself. He had two ministers of 
 
 the higher order, Colbert and Louvois ; several of good capacity, 
 
 such as Seignelay and Torcy ; others incompetent, like Chamillard ; Absolutism 
 
 he remained as much master of the administrators of the first rank xiV U1 
 
 as if they had been insignificant clerks ; the home government of 
 
 France, from 1661 to 1715, is summed up in the king's relations 
 
 with his ministers. 
 
 It was their genius which made the fortunes and the power of 
 Louis XIY.'s two great ministers, Colbert and Louvois. On the 
 faith of Cardinal Mazarin, the king knew the worth of Colbert. Colbert. 
 " I had all possible confidence in him," says he, " because I knew 
 that he had a great deal of application, intelligence and probity." 
 Rough, reserved, taciturn, indefatigable in work, passionately 
 devoted to the cause of order, public welfare and the peaceable 
 aggrandisement of France, Colbert, on becoming the comptroller of 
 finance in 1661, brought to the service of the State superior views, 
 consummate experience and indomitable perseverance. The position 
 of affairs required no fewer virtues. "Disorder reigned everywhere," 
 says the king ; " on casting over the various portions of my king- 
 
400 History of France. 
 
 dom not eyes of indifference but the eyes of a master, I was sensibly 
 affected not to see a single one which did not deserve and did not 
 press to be taken in hand. The destitution of the lower orders 
 was extreme, and the finances, which give movement and activity 
 to all this great framework of the monarchy, were entirely exhausted, 
 and in such plight that there was scarcely any resource to be seen ; 
 the affluent, to be seen only amongst official people, on the one hand 
 cloaked all their malversations by divers kinds of artifices, and 
 uncloaked them on the other, by their insolent and audacious 
 extravagance, as if they were afraid to have me in ignorance of 
 them." 
 
 The punishment of the tax-collectors (traitants), prosecuted at 
 the same time as superintendent Fouquet, the arbitrary redemption 
 rearms * ^ ren ^ es (annuities) on the city of Paris or on certain branches of 
 the taxes, did not suffice to alleviate the extreme suffering of the 
 people. The talliages from which the nobility and the clergy were 
 nearly everywhere exempt, pressed upon the people with the most 
 cruel inequality. Colbert proposed to the king to remit the arrears 
 of that tax, and devoted all his efforts to reducing them, whilst 
 regulating its collection. His desire was to arrive at the establish- 
 ment everywhere of real talliages, on landed property, &c., instead 
 of personal talliages, variable imposts, depending upon the supposed 
 means of social position of the inhabitants. He was only very 
 partially successful, without, however, allowing himself to be 
 repelled by the difficulties presented by differences of legislation 
 and customs in the provinces. He died without having completed 
 his work ; but the talliages had been reduced by eight millions 
 of livres, within the first two years of his administration. 
 
 Peace was of short duration in the reign of Louis XIV., and 
 
 often so precarious that it did not permit disarmament. At the 
 
 very period when the able minister was trying to make the people 
 
 feel the importance of the diminution in the talliages, he wrote to 
 
 Colbert re- the king : "I merely entreat your Majesty to permit me to say 
 
 monstrates that in war as well as in peace you have never consulted your 
 
 king, finances for the purpose of determining your expenditure, which is 
 
 a thing so extraordinary that assuredly there is no example thereof. 
 
 For the past twenty years during which I have had the honour of 
 
 serving your Majesty, though the receipts have greatly increased, 
 
 you would find that the expenses have much exceeded the receipts, 
 
 which might perhaps induce you to moderate and retrench such as 
 
 are excessive." Louis XIV. did not "moderate or retrench his 
 
 expenses." Colbert laboured to increase the receipts; the new 
 
 imposts excited insurrections in Angoumois, in Guyenne, in Brittany, 
 
Taxation and Commerce. 401 
 
 and, although they cost so much suffering and severity, brought in but 
 2,500,000 livres at Colbert's death. The indirect taxes, which were 
 at that time called fermes generates (farmings-general), amounted taxes. 
 to 37,000,000 during the first two years of Colbert's administration, 
 and rose to 64,000,000 at the time of his death." 1 "I should be 
 apprehensive of going too far and that the prodigious augmen- 
 tations of the fermes (farmings) would be very burdensome to the 
 people," wrote Louis XIV. in 1680. The expenses of recovering 
 the taxes, which had but lately led to great abuses, were diminished 
 by half. " The bailiffs generally, and especially those who are set 
 over the recovery of talliages, are such terrible brutes that, by way 
 of exterminating a good number of them, you could not do anything 
 more worthy of you than suppress those," wrote Colbert to the 
 criminal-magistrate of Orleans. The puissance of the provincial 
 governors, already curtailed by Eichelieu, suffered from fresh attacks 
 under Louis XIV. Everywhere the power passed into the hands 
 of the superintendents, themselves subjected in their turn to 
 inspection by the masters of requests. "Acting on the infor- 
 mation I had that in many provinces the people were plagued by 
 certain folks, who abused their title of governors in order to make 
 unjust requisitions," says the king in his Memoires, " I posted 
 men in all quarters for the express purpose of keeping myself more 
 surely informed of such exactions, in order to punish them as they 
 deserved." Order was restored in all parts of France. 
 
 "A useless banquet at a cost of a thousand crowns causes me 
 incredible pain," said Colbert to Louis XIV., "and yet when it is a 
 question of millions of gold for Poland, I would sell all my property, 
 I would pawn my wife and children and I would go a-foot all my 
 life to provide for it if necessary." Colbert knew how to " throw Manufac- 
 millions about " when it was for endowing France with new manu- tures. 
 factures and industries. " One of the most important works of 
 peace," he used to say, " is the re-establishment of every kind of 
 trade in this kingdom and to put it in a position to do without 
 having resource to foreigners for the things necessary for the use 
 and comfort of the subjects." " We have no need of anybody and 
 our neighbours have need of us ; " such was the maxim laid down 
 in a document of that date, which has often been attributed to 
 Colbert, and which he certainly put incessantly into practice. The 
 cloth manufactures were dying out, they received encouragement ; 
 a protestant Hollander, Van Eobais, attracted over to Abbeville by 
 
 1 See at the end of this chapter, table 1, Colbert's Budget for the year 
 1662. 
 
 D D 
 
4O2 History of France. 
 
 Colbert, there introduced the making of fine cloths ; at Beauvais. 
 and in the Gobelins establishment at Paris, under the direction of 
 the -great painter, Lebrun, the French tapestries soon threw into 
 the shade the reputation of the tapestries of Flanders ; Venice had 
 _ to yield up her secrets and her workmen for the glass manufactories 
 
 canals. f St. Gobain and Tourlaville. The bad state of the roads " was 
 a dreadful hindrance to traffic ; " Colbert ordered them to be every- 
 where improved. " The superintendents have done wonders, and 
 we are never tired of singing their praises," writes Madame de 
 Sevigne to her daughter during one of her trips ; " it is quite extra- 
 ordinary what beautiful roads there are ; there is not a single 
 moment's stoppage ; there are malls and walks everywhere." The 
 magnificent canal of Languedoc, due to the generous initiative of 
 Riquet, united the Ocean to the Mediterranean ; the canal of Orleans 
 completed the canal of Briare, commenced by Henry IV. The 
 inland custom-houses, which shackled the traffic between province 
 and province, were suppressed at divers points ; many provinces 
 demurred to the admission of this innovation, declaring that, to set 
 their affairs right, "there was need of nothing but order, order, order." 
 Colbert also wanted order, but his views were higher and broader 
 than those of Breton or Gascon merchants ; in spite of his desire 
 to " put the kingdom in a position to do without having recourse 
 to foreigners for things necessary for the use and comfort of the 
 French," he had too lofty and too judicious a mind to neglect the 
 extension of trade ; like Richelieu, he was for founding great 
 trading companies ; he had five, for the East and West Indies, 
 the Levant, the North, and Africa ; his efforts were not useless ; at 
 his death, the maritime trade of France had developed itself, and 
 French merchants were effectually protected at sea by ships of war. 
 In 1692, the royal navy numbered a hundred and eighty-six vessels; 
 a hundred and sixty thousand sailors were down on the books ; the 
 works at the ports of Toulon, Brest, and Eochefort, were in full 
 activity ; Louis XIV. was in a position to refuse the salute of the 
 flag, which the English had up to that time exacted in the Channel 
 from all nations. 
 
 So many and such sustained efforts in all directions, so many 
 
 vast projects and of so great promise suited the mind of Louis XIV. 
 
 Public as we ^ as tnat ^ kis minister. Louis XIV. was the victim of 
 
 buildings, three passions which hampered and in the long-run destroyed the 
 
 accord between king and minister : that for war, whetted and 
 
 indulged by Louvois ; that for kingly and courtly extravagance ; 
 
 and that for building and costly fancies. Colbert likewise loved 
 
 " buildments " (Ics bailments), as the phrase then was ; he urged 
 
PETER CORNEILLE. 
 
 Page 403. 
 
Death of Colbert. 403 
 
 the king to complete the Louvre, plans for which were requested of 
 Bernini, who went to Paris for the purpose; after two years' 
 useless feelers and compliments, the Italian returned to Eome, and 
 the work was entrusted to Perrault, whose plan for the beautiful 
 colonnade still existing had always pleased Colbert. The comple- 
 tion of the castle of St. Germain, the works at Fontainebleau and 
 at Chambord, the triumphal arches of St. Denis and St. Martin, 
 the laying out of the Tuileries, the construction of the Observatory, 
 and even that of the Palais des Invalides, which was Louvois's idea, 
 found the comptroller of the finances well disposed if not eager. 
 Versailles was a constant source of vexation to him. " For my 
 part, I confess to your Majesty that, notwithstanding the repug- Casll _ 
 nance you feel to increase the cash-orders [comptants], if I could orders, 
 have foreseen that this expenditure would be so large, I should have 
 advised the employment of cash-orders, in order to hide the know- 
 ledge thereof for ever." [The cash-orders (ordonnances au comp- 
 tant) did not indicate their object and were not revised. The king 
 merely wrote : Pay cash : I know the object of this expenditure 
 (Bon au comptant : je sais I'objet de cette depense).~] 
 
 Colbert was mistaken in his fears for Louis XIV.'s glory; if the 
 expenses of Versailles surpassed his most gloomy apprehensions, 
 the palace which rose upon the site of Louis XIV.'s former hunting 
 box was worthy of the king who had made it in his own image 
 and who managed to retain all his court around him there ; he died, 
 however, before Versailles was completed ; at sixty-four years of 
 age Colbert succumbed to excess of labour and of cares. That ^.D. 1683. 
 man, so cold and reserved, whom Madame de Sevigne called North, Death, of 
 and Guy-Patin the Man of Marble (Vir Marmoreus), felt that 
 disgust for the things of life which appears so strikingly in the 
 seventeenth century amongst those who were most ardently engaged 
 in the affairs of the world. He was suffering from stone ; the king 
 sent to inquire after him and wrote to him. The dying man had 
 his eyes closed ; he did not open them : " I do not want to hear 
 anything more about him," said he, when the king's letter was 
 brought to him: " now, at any rate, let him leave me alone." His 
 thoughts were occupied with his soul's salvation. Madame de 
 Maintenon used to accuse him of always thinking about his finances 
 and very little about religion. He repeated bitterly, as the dying 
 Cardinal Wolsey had previously said in the case of Henry : " If I 
 had done for God what I have done for that man, I had been saved 
 twice over ; and now I know not what will become of me." He 
 expired on the 6th of September, 1683. 
 
 Louvois remained henceforth alone, without rival and without Louvois. 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 History of France. 
 
 check. The work he had undertaken for the reorganization of the 
 army was pretty nearly completed ; he had concentrated in his own 
 hands the whole direction of the military service, the burthen and 
 the honour of which were both borne by him. He had subjected 
 to the same rules and the same discipline all corps and all grades ; 
 the general as well as the colonel obeyed him blindly. M. de 
 Turenne alone had managed to escape from the administrative 
 level. Order reigned in the army, and supplies were regular. 
 Louvois received the nickname of great Victualler (Vivrier). The 
 wounded were tended in hospitals devoted to their use. " When 
 a soldier is once down, he never gets up again," had but lately been 
 the saying. " Had I been at my mother's, in her own house, I could 
 not have been better treated," wrote M. D'Alligny on the contrary, 
 when he came out of one of the hospitals created by Louvois. He 
 conceived the grand idea of the Hotel des Invalides. Never had 
 the officers of the army been under such strict and minute super- 
 vision ; promotion went by seniority, by "the -order on the list," as 
 the phrase then was, without any favour for rank or birth ; corn- 
 Reforms in manders were obliged to attend to their corps. Education in the 
 the army. Sc h 00 i s f or cadets, regularity in service, obligation to keep the com- 
 panies full instead of pocketing a portion of the pay in the name 
 of imaginary soldiers who appeared only on the registers and who 
 were called dummies (passe-volants) , the necessity of wearing uni- 
 form, introduced into the army customs to which the French 
 nobility, as undisciplined as they were brave, had hitherto been 
 utter strangers. 1 
 
 Artillery and engineering were developed under the influence of 
 Vauban, "the first of his own time and one of the first of all 
 times " in the great art of besieging, fortifying and defending 
 places. Louvois had singled out Vauban at the sieges of Lille, 
 Tournay and Douai, which he had directed in chief under the king's 
 Vauban. own eye. The honesty and moral worth of Vauban equalled his 
 genius ; he was as high-minded as he was modest ; evil reports 
 had been spread about concerning the contractors for the fortifica- 
 tions of Lille ; Vauban demanded an inquiry : " You are quite 
 right in thinking, my lord," he wrote to Louvois to whom he was 
 united by a sincere and faithful friendship, " that, if you do not 
 examine into this affair, you cannot do me justice, and, if you do 
 it me not, that would be compelling me to seek means of doing it 
 myself and of giving up for ever fortification and all its con- 
 comitants. Examine, then, boldly and severely ; away with all 
 
 1 See at the end of the chapter, table No. 2, Chronological History of the 
 French Army. 
 
Vauban a reformer. 405 
 
 tender feeling, for I dare plainly tell you that in a question of 
 strictest honesty and sincere fidelity I fear neither the king, nor 
 you, nor all the human race together. Fortune had me born the 
 poorest gentleman in France, but in requital she honoured me with 
 an honest heart, so free from all sorts of swindles that it cannot 
 bear even the thought of them without a shudder." It was not 
 until eight years after the death of Louvois, in 1699, when Vauban 
 had directed fifty-three sieges, constructed the fortifications of 
 thirty-three places, and repaired those of three hundred towns, 
 that he was made a marshal, an honour that no engineer had yet 
 obtained ; " The king fancied he was giving himself the baton," it 
 was said, " so often had he had Yauban under his orders in 
 besieging places." 
 
 The leisure of peace was more propitious to Vauban's fame than 
 to his favour. Generous and sincere as he was, a patriot more far- 
 sighted than his contemporaries, he had the courage to present to 
 the king a memorial advising the recall of the fugitive huguenots 
 and the renewal, pure and simple, of the edict of Nantes. He had 
 just directed the siege of Brisach and the defence of Dunkerque 
 when he published a great economical work entitled la Dime royale, His "Dime 
 the fruit of the reflections of his whole life, fully depicting the royale." 
 misery of the people and the system of imposts he thought adapted 
 to relieve it. The king was offended ; he gave the marshal a cold 
 reception and had the work seized. Vauban received his death-blow 
 from this disgrace: the royal edict was dated March 19, 1707: 
 the great engineer died on the 30th ; he was not quite seventy-four. 
 The king testified no regret for the loss of so illustrious a servant, 
 with whom he had lived on terms of close intimacy. Vauban had 
 appeared to impugn his supreme authority ; this was one of the 
 crimes that Louis XIV. never forgave. 
 
 On the 16th July, 1691, death suddenly removed the minister 
 Louvois, fallen in royal favour, detested and dreaded in France, 
 universally hated in Europe, leaving, however, the king, France and 
 Europe with the feeling that a great power had fallen, a great deal 
 of merit disappeared. " I doubt not," wrote Louis XIV. to Mar- ^th o?' 
 shal Boufflers, " that, as you are very zealous for my service, you Louvois 
 will be sorry for the death of a man who served me well." " Lou- ( Jul 7 16 )- 
 vois," said the marquis of La Fare, " should never have been born 
 or should have lived longer." The public feeling was expressed in 
 an anonymous epitaph : 
 
 " Here lieth he who to his will 
 Bent everj-one, knew everything : 
 Louvois, beloved by no one, still 
 Leaves everybody sorrowing." 
 
406 History of France. 
 
 The king felt his loss, but did not regret the minister whose 
 tyranny and violence were beginning to be oppressive to him : he 
 felt himself to be more than ever master in the presence of the 
 young or inexperienced men to whom he henceforth entrusted his 
 affairs. Louvois's son, Barbezieux, had the reversion of the war- 
 department ; Pontchartrain, who had been comptroller of finance 
 ever since the retirement of Lepelletier, had been appointed to the 
 navy in 1690 at the death of Seignelay. "M. de Pontchartrain 
 had begged the king not to give him the navy," says Dangeau 
 ingenuously, "because he knew nothing at all about it, but the 
 king's will was absolute that he should take it. He now has all 
 that M. de Colbert had, except the buildments." What mattered 
 the inexperience of ministers'? The king thought that he alone 
 sufficed for all. 
 
 God had left it to time to undeceive the all-powerful monarch ; 
 he alone held out amidst the ruins : after the fathers the sons were 
 falling around him, Seignelay had followed Colbert to the tomb ; 
 Louvois was dead after Michael Le Tellier ; Barbezieux died in his 
 turn in 1701. Then came the age of mediocrity in the cabinet as 
 Chamil- we ^ as on the ne ^ '> Chamillard was the first, the only one of his 
 lard ministers whom the king had ever loved. " His capacity was nil," 
 
 says St. Simon, who had very friendly feelings towards Chamillard, 
 "and he believed that he knew everything and of every sort"; the 
 court bore with him because he was easy and good-natured, but the 
 affairs of the State were imperilled in his hands; Pontchartrain had 
 already had recourse to the most objectionable proceedings in order 
 to obtain money : the mental resources of Colbert himself had failed 
 in presence of financial embarrassments and increasing estimates. 
 Trade was languishing, the manufactures founded by Colbert were 
 dropping away one after another; the revocation of the edict of 
 Nantes and the emigration of Protestants had drained France of the 
 most industrious and most skilful workmen ; many of the reformers 
 had carried away a great deal of capital ; the roads, everywhere 
 neglected, were becoming impracticable. The soldiers were without 
 victuals, the officers were not paid, the abuses but lately put down 
 by the strong hand of Colbert and Louvois were cropping up again 
 in all directions ; the king at last determined to listen to the general 
 cry and dismiss Chamillard. 
 
 Desmarets in the finance and Yoysin in the war department, 
 
 and both superintendents of finance, the former a nephew of Colbert's 
 
 Voysin. an( j initiated into business by his uncle, both of them capable and 
 
 assiduous, succumbed, like their predecessors, beneath the weight 
 
 of the burthens which were overwhelming and ruining France. "I 
 
Mistakes of L onis XI V. 407 
 
 know the state of my finances," Louis XIY. had said to Desmarets, 
 " I do not ask you to do impossibilities ; if you succeed, you will 
 render me a great service : if you are not successful, I shall not 
 hold you to blame for circumstances/' Desmarets succeeded better 
 than could have been expected without being able to rehabilitate 
 the finances of the State. Pontchartrain had exhausted the resource 
 of creating new offices. " Every time your Majesty creates a new 
 post, a fool is found to buy it," he had said to the king. Desmarets 
 had recourse to the bankers ; and the king seconded him by the 
 gracious favour with which he received at Versailles the greatest of 
 the collectors (traitants), Samuel Bernard. " By this means every- 
 thing was provided for up to the time of the general peace," says gtate Q ^ 
 M. d'Argenson. France kept up the contest to the end. When France at 
 the treaty of Utrecht was signed, the fleet was ruined and destroyed, 
 the trade diminished by two thirds, the colonies lost or devastated 
 by the war, the destitution in the country so frightful that orders 
 had to be given to sow seed in the fields ; the exportation of grain 
 was forbidden on pain of death ; meanwhile the peasantry were 
 reduced to browse upon the grass in the roads and to tear the bark 
 off the trees and eat it. Thirty years had rolled by since the death 
 of Colbert, twenty-two since that of Louvois ; everything was going 
 to perdition simultaneously ; reverses in war and distress at home 
 were uniting to overwhelm the aged king, alone upstanding amidst 
 so many dead and so much ruin. " Fifty years' sway and glory had 
 inspired Louis XIV. with the presumptuous belief that he could 
 not only choose his ministers well but also instruct them and teach 
 them their craft," says M. d'Argenson. His mistake was to think 
 that the title of king supplied all the endowments of nature or 
 experience ; he was no financier, no soldier, no administrator, yet 
 he would everywhere and always remain supreme master ; he had 
 believed that it was he who governed with Colbert and Louvois ; 
 those two great ministers had scarcely been equal to the task 
 imposed upon them by war and peace, by armies, buildments and 
 royal extravagance ; their successors gave way thereunder and illu- 
 sions vanished; the king's hand was powerless to sustain the weight 
 of affairs becoming more and more disastrous ; the gloom that per- 
 vaded the later years of Louis XIV.'s reign veiled from his people's 
 eyes the splendour of that reign which had so long been brilliant 
 and prosperous, though always lying heavy on the nation, even 
 when they forgot their sufferings in the intoxication of glory and 
 success. 
 
 Independently of simple submission to the Catholic Church, there 
 were three great tendencies which divided serious minds amongst questions. 
 
408 History of France. 
 
 them during the reign of Louis XIV.; three noble passions held 
 possession of pious souls ; liberty, faith, and love were, respectively, 
 the groundwork as well as the banner of Protestantism, Jansenism, 
 fer^nt * " an( ^- Quietism. It was in the name of the fundamental and innate 
 views of liberty of the soul, its personal responsibility and its direct relations 
 re igiou. w fth God, that the Reformation had sprung up and reached growth 
 in France, even more than in Germany and in England. M. de St. 
 Cyran, the head and founder of Jansenism, abandoned the human 
 soul unreservedly to the supreme will of God ; his faith soared 
 triumphant over flesh and blood, and his disciples, disdaining the 
 joys and the ties of earth, lived only for eternity. Madame Guyon 
 and Fenelon, less ardent and less austere, discovered in the tender 
 mysticism of pure love that secret of God's which is sought by all 
 pious souls ; in the name of divine love, the Quietists renounced all 
 will of their own, just as the Jansenists in the name of faith. 
 louis XIV. Louis XIV. on one occasion had solemnly promised that he would 
 violates respect the rights of conscience ; but from the very beginning of 
 of 6 coiu & kis personal government he plainly showed that he did not mean to 
 science, keep his word ; and after an interval of twenty years, the series of 
 arbitrary measures which he countenanced and even ordered were 
 replaced by open and avowed persecution. To begin with the 
 Huguenots ; all the guarantees stipulated by the edict of Nantes 
 were successively withdrawn, the mixed chambers established in 
 the parliaments of Toulouse, Grenoble, and Bordeaux were sup- 
 pressed, and no protestant could enter any one of the liberal pro- 
 fessions or practise as physician, lawyer, publisher, printer, etc. 
 Thus debarred from the pursuit of these occupations, the persecuted 
 Calvinists had. nothing left open to them but trade and industry, 
 and in a short time the whole commerce of the kingdom was in 
 their hands. Roman Catholics were prohibited from embracing 
 The Pro- Calvinism under penalty of hard labour at the hulks for life ; and 
 testants. children of protestant parents were, on the contrary, authorized to 
 abjure their faith as early as the age of seven years, " age auquel," 
 says the edict, " ils sont capables de raison et de choix dans une 
 matiere aussi importante qui celle de leur salut." By virtue of this 
 declaration, a great number of children were torn from the bosom 
 of their family ; and Madame de Maintenon founded the convent 
 of Saint-Cyr, near Versailles, for the reception of young ladies of 
 noble origin, thus converted. Missions were multiplied throughout 
 the provinces, consciences were bought according to a certain tariff, 
 and Pellisson, who, like the new favourite, had been originally a 
 protestant, received the direction of a special fund organized to pay 
 these shameful abjurations. " The average standard was not very 
 
Persecution of the Protestants. 409 
 
 high ; a soul was paid for at the rate of six livres a piece, a little 
 less than the price of a porker. ' Send in, send in,' Pellisson wrote 
 to them, ' you demand money, here it is ! five, ten, fifteen, twenty 
 thousand livres !' and every quarter he displayed before the eyes 
 of the monarch these scandalous bargains. It was pleasantly 
 remarked at court, that the golden doctrine of M. Pellisson was 
 much more convincing than that of Monsieur de Meaux. The pro- 
 testants called his coffers the box of Pandora, whilst he himself 
 compared them to the cruse of the widow of Sarepta." Louvois 
 had recourse to means still more persuasive ; he sent soldiers to take 
 up their quarters in the houses of the protestants. " Troops of all 
 arms were employed in this military mission. But the dragoons ^ Q tt Dra- 
 owed to the excess of their brutal zeal, or to the dazzling splendour gonnades." 
 of their uniforms, by which they were distinguished above all the 
 other corps, the honour of giving it their name. On the eve of 
 their arrival in a town, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities assem- 
 bled the Protestants in the market place, to whom, in an address 
 which was generally wound up with a threatening announcement 
 that the military force was approaching, they signified the irrevo- 
 cable will of the king. Sometimes the poor frightened people at once 
 declared themselves converts by general acclamation. The people 
 of education signed a profession of faith, whilst the common people 
 only said, 'I re-unite myself,' or cried out 'Ave Maria/ or made 
 the sign of the cross. In some towns, offices of conversion were 
 established, where the proselytes, after having their names registered 
 on a list, received a certificate written on the back of a playing card, 
 which was to protect them from the persecution of the soldiery. 
 The people of Nismes, using an apocalyptic phrase, called this card 
 the mark of the beast ; and, indeed, they only announced a pro- 
 found truth ; for what is a man worth who, to preserve what is 
 animal and mortal in him, gives up his spiritual being his soul, 
 the heavenly and immortal part of his nature V 
 
 At last the fatal blow was struck. The king assembled his council : A D 1 g 8 5 > 
 the lists of converts were so long that there could scarcely remain in Revocation 
 the kingdom more than a few thousand recalcitrants. " His Majesty 
 proposed to take an ultimate resolution as regarded the Edict of 
 Nantes," writes the duke of Burgundy in a memorandum found 
 amongst his papers : " Monseigneur represented that, according to an 
 anonymous letter he had received the day before, the huguenots had 
 some expectation of what was coming upon them, that there was per- 
 haps some reason to fear that they would take up arms, relying upon 
 the protection of the princes of their religion, and that, supposing they 
 dared not do so, a great number would leave the kingdom, which 
 
4io 
 
 History of France. 
 
 would be injurious to commerce and agriculture and, for that same 
 reason, would weaken the State. The king replied that he had 
 foreseen all for some time past and had provided for all ; that 
 nothing in the world would be more painful to him than to shed 
 a single drop of the blood of his subjects, but that he had armies 
 and good generals whom he would employ in case of need against 
 rebels who courted their own destruction. As for calculations 
 of interest, he thought them worthy of but little consideration in 
 comparison with the advantages of a measure which would restore 
 to religion its splendour, to the State its tranquillity and to authority 
 all its rights. A resolution was carried unanimously for the sup- 
 It is signed P ress i n f ^ ne Edict of Nantes." The declaration, drawn up by 
 by Le Tel- Chancellor Le Tellier and Chateauneuf, was signed by the king on 
 
 lier and 
 Chateau- 
 neuf. 
 
 Its ex- 
 treme 
 severity. 
 
 the 15th of October, 1685; it was despatched on the 17th to all 
 the superintendents. The edict of pacification, that great work of 
 the liberal and prudent genius of Henry IV., respected and con- 
 firmed in its most important particulars by Cardinal Eichelieu, 
 recognized over and over again by Louis XI Y. himself, disappeared 
 at a single stroke, carrying with it all hope of liberty, repose and 
 justice for fifteen hundred thousand subjects of the king. " Our 
 pains," said the preamble of the Edict, " have had the end we had 
 proposed, seeing that the better and the greater part of our subjects 
 of the religion styled reformed have embraced the catholic ; the 
 execution of the Edict of Nantes consequently remaining useless, 
 we have considered that we could not do better, for the purpose of 
 effacing entirely the memory of the evils which this false religion 
 has caused in our kingdom, than revoke entirely the aforesaid 
 Edict of Nantes and all that has been done in favour of the said 
 religion." 
 
 The Edict of October 15, 1685, supposed the religion styled 
 reformed to be already destroyed and abolished. It ordered the 
 demolition of all the chapels that remained standing and interdicted 
 any assembly or worship : recalcitrant (opinidtres) ministers were 
 ordered to leave the kingdom within fifteen days ; the schools were 
 closed; all new-born babies were to be baptised by the parish- 
 priests ; religionists were forbidden to leave the kingdom on pain 
 of the galleys for the men and confiscation of person and property 
 for the women. "The will of the king," said Superintendent 
 Marillac at Eouen, " is that there be no more than one religion in 
 this kingdom ; it is for the glory of God and the well-being of the 
 State." Two hours were allowed the reformers of Rouen for 
 making their abjuration. 
 
 One clause, at the end of the edict of October 15, seemed to 
 
The revocation of the Edict is useless. 411 
 
 extenuate its effect; "Those of our subjects of the religion styled 
 
 reformed who shall persist in their errors, pending the time when 
 
 it may please God to enlighten them like the rest, shall be allowed 
 
 to remain in the kingdom, country and lands which obey the king, 
 
 there to continue their trade and enjoy their property without being 
 
 liable to be vexed or hindered on pretext of prayer or worship of 
 
 the said religion of whatsoever nature they may be." " Never was 
 
 there illusion more cruel than that which this clause caused people," 
 
 says Benoit in his Histoire de V^dit de Nantes : " it was believed 
 
 that the king meant only to forbid special exercises, but that he Miscalcu- 
 
 intended to leave conscience free, since he granted this grace to all lations as 
 
 those who were still reformers, pending the time when it should S1llts O f t ^ e 
 
 please God to enlighten them. Many gave up the measures they measure. 
 
 had taken for leaving the country with their families, many 
 
 voluntarily returned from the retreats where they had hitherto been 
 
 fortunate enough to lie hid. The most mistrustful dared not 
 
 suppose that so solemn a promise was only made to be broken on 
 
 the morrow. They were all, nevertheless, mistaken ; and those who 
 
 were imprudent enough to return to their homes were only just in 
 
 time to receive the dragoons there." A letter from Louvois to the 
 
 duke of Noailles put a stop to all illusion. " I have no doubt," 
 
 he wrote, " that some rather heavy billets upon the few amongst 
 
 the nobility and third estate still remaining of the religionists will 
 
 undeceive them as to the mistake they are under about the Edict 
 
 M. de Chateauneuf drew up for us : his Majesty desires that you 
 
 should explain yourself very sternly and that extreme severity 
 
 should be employed against those who are not willing to become of 
 
 his religion ; those who have the silly vanity to glory in holding 
 
 out to the last must be driven to extremity." The pride of 
 
 Louis XIY. was engaged in the struggle ; those of his subjects who 
 
 refused to sacrifice their religion to him were disobedient, rebellious 
 
 and besotted with silly vanity. " It will be quite ridiculous before 
 
 long to be of that religion," wrote Madame de Maintenon. 
 
 Even in his court and amongst his most useful servants the king Opposition. 
 encountered unexpected opposition. Marshal Schomberg with 
 great difficulty obtained authority to leave the kingdom ; Duquesne 
 was refused. All ports were closed, all frontiers watched. The 
 great lords gave way, one after another ; accustomed to enjoy royal 
 favours, attaching to them excessive value, living at court, close to 
 Paris which was spared a great deal during the persecution, they, 
 without much effort, renounced a faith which closed to them hence- 
 forth the door to all offices and all honours. The gentlemen of the 
 provinces were more resolute ; many realized as much as they could 
 
412 History of France. 
 
 of their property and went abroad, braving all dangers, even that 
 of the galleys in case of arrest. It were impossible to estimate 
 precisely the number of emigrations ; it was probably between 
 Trade three and four hundred thousand. Almost all trade was stopped 
 ruined. in Normandy. The little amount of manufacture that was possible 
 rotted away on the spot for want of transport to foreign countries, 
 whence vessels were no longer found to come ; Rouen, Darnetal, 
 Elbeuf, Louviers, Caudebec, Le Havre, Pont-Audemer, Caen, 
 St. L6, Alen9on and Bayeux were falling into decay, the different 
 branches of trade and industry which had but lately been seen 
 flourishing there having perished through the emigration of the 
 masters whom their skilled workmen followed in shoals. The 
 Norman emigration had been very numerous, thanks to the extent 
 of its coasts and to the habitual communication between Normandy, 
 England and Holland ; Yauban, however, remained very far from 
 the truth when he deplored, in 1688, "the desertion of 100,000 
 t men, the withdrawal from the kingdom of sixty millions of livres, 
 the enemy's fleets swelled by 9000 sailors, the best in the kingdom, 
 and the enemy's armies by 600 officers and 12,000 soldiers, who 
 had seen service." It is a natural but a striking fact that the 
 reformers who left France and were received with open arms in 
 Brandenburg, Holland, England and Switzerland carried in their 
 hearts a profound hatred for the king who drove them away from 
 their country and everywhere took service against him, whilst the 
 Protestants who remained in France, bound to the soil by a thou- 
 sand indissoluble ties, continued at the same time to be submissive 
 and faithful. 
 
 The peace of Eyswick had not brought the Protestants the hoped 
 for alleviation of their woes. Louis XIV. haughtily rejected the 
 petition of the English and Dutch plenipotentiaries on behalf of 
 "those in affliction who ought to have their share in the happiness 
 Insurrec- f Europe." The persecution everywhere continued, with deter- 
 tion in the niination and legality in the North, with violence and passion in 
 Cevennes. ^ Q g ou fl^ abandoned to the tyranny of M. de Lamoignon de 
 Baville, a crafty and coldbloodedly cruel politician, without the 
 excuse of any zealous religious conviction. The execution of 
 several ministers who had remained in hiding in the Cevennes or 
 had returned from exile to instruct and comfort their flocks raised 
 to the highest pitch the enthusiasm of the reformers of Languedoc. 
 Deprived of their highly prized assemblies and of their pastors' 
 guidance, men and women, greybeards and children, all at once 
 fancied themselves animated by the spirit of prophecy. Young 
 girls had celestial visions ; the little peasant-lasses poured out their 
 
Civil war in Southern France. 413 
 
 utterances in French, sometimes in the language and with the 
 sublime eloquence of the Bible, sole source of their religious 
 knowledge; the rumour of these marvels ran from village to 
 village; meetings were held to hear the inspired maidens, in 
 contempt of edicts, the galleys and the stake; a gentleman glass- 
 worker, named Abraham de la Serre, was as it were the Samuel of 
 this new school of prophets. In vain did M. de Baville have three 
 hundred children imprisoned at Uzes, and then send them to the 
 galleys ; the religious contagion was too strong for the punishments ; 
 " women found themselves in a single day husbandless, childless, 
 houseless and penniless," says the historian Court : they remained 
 immovable in their pious ecstasy,; the assemblies multiplied; the 
 troops which had so long occupied Languedoc had been summoned 
 away by the war of succession in Spain, the militia could no longer 
 restrain the reformers, growing every day more enthusiastic through 
 the prophetic hopes which were born of their long sufferings. 
 
 The insurrection of the Cevenols or, as the "Catholic peasants 
 called them, the Camisards, led by Jean Cavalier, Eoland and The " t'a 
 others, was put down by marshal Yillars, after many vicissitudes of misards. 
 successes and reverses. Little by little the chiefs were killed off 
 in petty engagements or died in obscurity of their wounds ; pro- 
 visions were becoming scarce ; the country was wasted ; submission 
 became more frequent every day. The principals all demanded 
 leave to quit France. " There are left none but a few brigands in 
 the Upper Cevennes," says Villars. Some partial risings alone 
 recalled, up to 1709, the fact that the old leaven still existed ; the 
 war of the Camisards was over. It was the sole attempt in his- 
 tory on the part of French Protestantism since Eichelieu, a 
 strange and dangerous effort made by an ignorant and savage 
 people, roused to enthusiasm by persecution, believing itself called 
 upon by the spirit of God to win, sword in hand, the freedom of genets 
 its creed, under the leadership of two shepherd-soldiers and prophets, and the 
 Only the Scottish Cameronians have presented the same mixture of Qame 
 warlike ardour and pious enthusiasm, more gloomy and fierce with ians. 
 the men of the North, more poetical and prophetical with the 
 Cevenols, flowing in Scotland as in Languedoc from religious 
 oppression and from constant reading of the Holy Scriptures. The 
 silence of death succeeded everywhere in France to the plaints of 
 the reformers and to the crash of arms ; Louis XIV. might well 
 suppose that Protestantism in his dominions was dead. 
 
 It was a little before the time when the last of the Camisards, 
 Abraham Mazel and Claris, perished near Uzes (in 1710), that the 
 king struck the last blow at Jansenism by destroying its earliest 
 
414 History of France. 
 
 nest and its last refuge, the house of the nuns of Port-Eoyal des 
 Champs. With truces and intervals of apparent repose, the struggle 
 had lasted more than sixty years between the Jesuits and Jan- 
 senism. M. de St. Cyran, who left the Bastille a few months after 
 the death of Eichelieu, had dedicated the last days of his life to 
 writing against Protestantism, being so much the more scared by 
 the heresy in that, perhaps, he felt himself attracted thereto by a 
 Jansenism, secret affinity. He was already dying when there appeared the book 
 Frequents Communion, by M. Arnauld, youngest son and twentieth 
 child of that illustrious family of Arnaulds in whom Jansenism 
 seemed to be personified. The author was immediately accused at 
 Eome and buried himself for twenty years in retirement. With his 
 dying breath M. de St. Cyran had said to M. Guerin, physician to 
 the college of Jesuits : " Sir, tell your Fathers, when I am dead, 
 not to triumph, and that I leave behind me a dozen stronger than 
 I." With all his penetration the director of consciences was mis- 
 taken. M. Arnauld was a great theologian, an indefatigable con- 
 troversialist, the oracle and guide of his friends in their struggle 
 against the Jesuits ; M. de Sacy and M. Singlin were wise and able 
 directors, as austere as M. de St. Cyran in their requirements, less 
 domineering and less rough than he ; but M. de St. Cyran alone 
 was and could be the head of Jansenism ; he alone could have 
 inspired that idea of immolation of the whole being to the sovereign 
 will of God, as to the truth which resides in Him alone. Once 
 assured of this point, M. de St. Cyran became immovable. Mother 
 Angelica Angelica pressed him to appear before the archbishop's council, 
 Arnauld. which was to pronounce upon his book Theologie familiere. " It 
 is always good to humble oneself," she said. "As for you," he 
 replied, " who are in that disposition and would not in any respect 
 compromise the honour of the truth, you could do it ; but as for me 
 I should break down before the eyes of God if I consented thereto ; 
 the weak are more to be feared sometimes than the wicked." 
 
 Mother Angelica Arnauld, to whom these lines were addressed, 
 -was the most perfect image and the most accomplished disciple of 
 M. de St. Cyran. More gentle and more human than he, she was 
 quite as strong and quite as zealous. A reformer of many a con- 
 vent since the day when she had closed the gates of Port-Eoyal 
 against her father, M. Arnauld, in order to restore the strictness of the 
 cloister, Mother Angelica carried rule along with her, for she carried 
 within herself the government, rigid no doubt> for it was life in a 
 convent, but characterized by generous largeness of heart, which 
 caused the yoke to be easily borne. She carried the same zeal from 
 convent to convent, from Port-Eoyal des Champs to Port-Eoyal 
 
BHAJSE PASCAL. 
 
 Page 415. 
 
Jansenius and the A rnaulds. 415 
 
 de Paris; from Maubuisson, whither her superiors sent her to 
 establish a reformation, to St. Sacreraent, to establish union between 
 the two orders ; ever devoted to religion, without having chosen 
 her vocation ; attracting around her all that were hers ; her mother 
 a wife at twelve years of age, and astonished to find herself obeying 
 after having commanded her twenty children for fifty years; 
 five of her sisters ; nieces and cousins ; and in " the Desert," 
 beside Port-Eoyal des Champs, her brothers, her nephews, her 
 friends, steeped like herself in penitence. 
 
 Mother Angelica was nearing the repose of eternity, the only 
 repose admitted by her brother M. Arnauld, when the storm of 
 persecution burst upon the monastery. The Augustinus of Jan- T |C ^ 
 senius, bishop of Ypres, a friend of M. de St. Cyran's, had just gustinus," 
 been condemned at Koine. Five propositions concerning grace were 
 extracted from the book, and pronounced heretical. The opposers of 
 what was called Jansenist doctrines employed every means in their 
 power to have these propositions condemned by the court of Rome ; 
 and having obtained to this effect two bulls from the Popes Inno- 
 cent X. and Alexander VII., their next object was to secure the pro- 
 mulgation of these documents in the dominions of the French king. 
 An assembly of court-bishops drew up a declaration which was subse- 
 quently made more valid still by the king's own signature, and which 
 became obligatory on all ecclesiastical persons throughout France. 
 This declaration contained two points ; the former, to the effect that 
 the five famous propositions on the subject of divine grace were to be 
 found in Jansenius ; the latter maintained the heretical character of 
 these propositions. Believing, as they did, that the five proposi- 
 tions were, in substance, maintained by Jansenius, the solitaries of 
 Port-Royal would have been guilty of an untruth had they sub- Discus- 
 scribed to the Pope's declaration ; on the other hand, if they refused jion on the 
 to sign, they were lost. In this dreadful situation, the thought of positions!" 
 a compromise struck the firmest minds. A negotiation was opened 
 with the archbishop of Paris, for the purpose of endeavouring to 
 obtain from him a pastoral letter conceived in moderate terms. 
 Several meetings took place amongst the Jansenists, Pascal and 
 Domat deciding against all compliance contrary to Christian truth 
 and sincerity, whilst Nicole and Arnauld wrote in favour of condi- 
 tional obedience. The latter prevailed - } the authority of Arnauld 
 especially, carried along with it the votes of the majority. Port- 
 Royal had breathed its last ! In the year 1709 the monastery was 
 destroyed, and not even the sanctity of the grave was respected by 
 the agents of Louis XIV. Dogs were seen disputing the mangled 
 remains of bodies torn from what should have been their last rest- p rt-Eoyal 
 ing place. destroyed. 
 
41 6 History of France. 
 
 Success seemed at first to crown these deeds of violence, and the 
 king for a short time thought that Jansenism had disappeared with 
 Port-Royal des Champs. Nevertheless the publication of the 
 Quesnel Reflexions sur le Nouveau Testament, by Quesnel, a priest of the 
 and the congregation of the Oratory (1671) revived all the disputes, and 
 bull " Uni- proved the vitality of the doctrines with which the name of Jan- 
 senism had been connected. One hundred and one propositions 
 extracted from the work were condemned at Eome by the bull 
 Unigenitus, and Louis XIV., in 1712, bound the whole French 
 clergy to adhere to that condemnation under penalty of disgrace, 
 prison and exile. Quietism was proscribed quite as strictly as Jan- 
 senism. It is well known that a pious but mistaken lady, Madame 
 Guyon, had endeavoured to spread a kind of mystical form of reli- 
 gion introduced previously by a Spanish priest, Michael de Molinos, 
 and condemned by Pope Innocent XI. Through the Duke de 
 Beauvilliers this lady became acquainted with Fenelon. Naturally 
 inclined to the contemplative sort of piety which springs more from 
 the heart than from the understanding, the prelate adopted Madame 
 Madame Guyon's views, and a kind of sect was soon organized at court, of 
 Quietism, which the dukes de Beauvilliers and de Chevreuse, Fenelon and 
 Madame Guyon were the leaders. " We must," said the Quietists, 
 " love God for his own sake ; our love must be pure and disin- 
 terested, inspired neither by the hope of everlasting happiness, nor 
 by the dread of everlasting condemnation." Madame de Maintenon, 
 at first gained over likewise, had introduced Madame Guyon into 
 the house of St. Cyr, and thus given a sort of sanction to the doc- 
 trines of Molinos. The bishop of Chartres, in whose diocese the 
 establishment was, soon perceived what the consequences would be 
 of allowing an exalted, quintessentiated form of mysticism to spread 
 through a community of young girls. He warned Madame de 
 Maintenon ; and this lady accordingly desired that Madame Guyon's 
 works and opinions should be examined by a committee composed 
 of Bossuet, M. de Noailles, bishop of Chalons, and Tronson, superior 
 of the ecclesiastical college of St. Sulpice, in Paris. Fenelon had 
 openly taken Madame Guyon's part : he was therefore quite as 
 much on his trial as the fair disciple of Molinos ; but he expressly 
 declared that he would abide by the decision of the examiners, 
 especially that of Bossuet ; and, as a reward for his submission, 
 Madame de Maintenon secured his nomination to the archbishopric 
 of Cambrai. This appointment was a heavy blow for Fenelon's 
 party ; the important diocese of Paris was just vacant, and they had 
 confidently expected that their leader would be nominated to it. Such 
 a position would have given him the greatest influence, and enabled 
 him to propagate with absolute success Madame Guyon's doctrine. 
 
The Quietists. 417 
 
 The disappointment was general; and the countess de Guiche, 
 amongst many others, is said to have been so mortified, that she 
 could not conceal her tears. In order to secure by other means the 
 authority which his nomination to the see of Cambrai could not 
 give him, Fenelon courted the Jesuits, openly acknowledged his 
 sympathy for them, and did his utmost to conciliate men whose 
 power at Versailles was then without control. 
 
 The result of the conference held at Issy proved null ; Madame Fenelon 
 Guyon persevered in promulgating the principles of Molinos, and JfJJJJJJ 
 Quietism seemed to spread more rapidly than ever. Exasperated at Guyon, 
 
 Fenelon's questionable behaviour, and at the determination with *&* ** c n - 
 
 which he supported the condemned doctrines, after having promised 
 
 to yield to the decision of the examiners, Bossuet prepared his 
 
 celebrated Instructions sur les fitats d'oraison. Fenelon, however, 
 
 was ready beforehand ; he refused to approve the work of the 
 
 Bishop of Meaux, and published in support of his opinions the 
 
 well-known volume containing the maxims of the saints on the 
 
 spiritual life. He managed so cleverly that his apology was the 
 
 first to appear. The scandal became immense ; it seemed necessary 
 
 to institute an appeal to the Court of Eome. Madame Guyon 
 
 was arrested, Fenelon exiled in his diocese, and the Pope requested 
 
 to pronounce judgment in a case respecting which there could hardly 
 
 be any difficulty. The archbishop of Cambrai was condemned, 
 
 and whatever may have been his errors during the course of this 
 
 affair, he redeemed them by the dignity with which he bore his 
 
 disgrace. 
 
 So many fires smouldering in the hearts, so many different strug- 
 gles going on in the souls that sought to manifest their personal 
 and independent life have often caused forgetfulness of the great 
 mass of the faithful who were neither Jansenists nor Quietists. 
 Bossuet was the real head and the pride of the great catholic Church Bossuet. 
 of France in the seventeenth century ; what he approved of was 
 approved of by the immense majority of the French clergy, what 
 he condemned was condemned by them. Moderate and prudent in 
 conduct as 'well as in his opinions, pious without being fervent, 
 holding discreetly aloof from all excesses, he was a Gallican without 
 fear and without estrangement as regarded the papal power to 
 which he steadfastly paid homage. It was with pain and not 
 without having sought to escape therefrom that he found himself 
 obliged, at the assembly of the clergy in 1682, to draw up the 
 solemn declarations of the Gallican Church. The meeting of the 
 clergy had been called forth by the eternal discussions of the civil 
 power with the court of Rome on the question of the rights of 
 
 E E 
 
4i 8 
 
 History of France. 
 
 His theo- 
 logical 
 
 responsi- 
 
 Church 
 matters 
 
 regale, that is to say, the rights of the sovereign to receive the 
 revenues of vacant bishoprics and to appoint to benefices belonging 
 to them. The French bishops were of independent spirit; the 
 archbishop of Paris, Francis de Harlay, was on bad terms with 
 Pope Innocent XI. ; Bossuet managed to moderate the discussions 
 and kept within suitable bounds the declaration which he could not 
 avoid. He had always taught and maintained what was proclaimed 
 by the assembly of the clergy of France, that " St. Peter and his 
 successors, vicars of Jesus Christ, and the whole Church itself 
 received from God authority over only spiritual matters and such 
 as appertain to salvation, and not over temporal and civil matters, 
 in such sort that kings and sovereigns are not subject to any eccle- 
 siastical power, by order of God, in temporal matters, and cannot 
 be deposed directly or indirectly by authority of the keys of the 
 Church ; finally that, though the pope has the principal part in 
 questions of faith, and though his decrees concern all the churches 
 and each church severally, his judgment is, nevertheless, not irre- 
 fragable, unless the consent of the Church intervene." Old doc- 
 trines in the Church of France, but never before so solemnly 
 declared and made incumbent upon the teaching of all the facul- 
 ties of theology in the kingdom. 
 
 Constantly occupied in the dogmatic struggle against Pro- 
 testantism, Bossuet had imported into it a moderation in form 
 which, however, did not keep out injustice. Without any inclina- 
 tion towards persecution, he, with almost unanimity on the part of 
 the bishops of France, approved of the king's piety in the revoca- 
 tion of the edict of Nantes. 
 
 Bossuet had died on the 12th of April, 1704. The king was 
 about to bring the Jansenist question before his bed of justice, 
 when he fell ill : "I am sorry to leave the affairs of the Church in 
 the state in which they are," he said to his councillors ; " I am 
 perfectly ignorant in the matter; you know and I call you to 
 witness that I have done nothing therein but what you wanted, and 
 that I have done all you wanted ; it is you who will answer before 
 
 God for ^ that has been done> whether to much or to little ; I 
 
 charge you with it before Him, and I have a clear conscience ; I 
 am but a know-nothing who have left myself to your guidance." 
 An awful appeal from a dying king to the guides of his conscience ; 
 he had dispeopled his kingdom, reduced to exile, despair or false- 
 hood fifteen hundred thousand of his subjects, but the memory of 
 the persecutions inflicted upon the Protestants did not trouble 
 him ; they were, for him, rather a pledge of his salvation and of 
 his acceptance before God ; he was thinking of the catholic Church, 
 
Literature. Pascal. 419 
 
 the holy priests exiled or imprisoned, the nuns driven from their 
 convent, the division among the bishops, the scandal amongst the 
 faithful ; the great burthen of absolute power was evident to his 
 eyes ; he sought to let it fall back upon the shoulders of those who 
 had enticed him or urged him upon that fatal path. A vain 
 attempt in the eyes of men, whatever may be the judgment of 
 God's sovereign mercy ; history has left weighing upon Louis XIV. 
 the crushing weight of the religious persecutions ordered under 
 his reign. 
 
 It has been said in this history that Louis XIY. had the fortune Literature, 
 to find himself at the culminating point of absolute monarchy and 
 to profit by the labours of his predecessors, reaping a portion of 
 their glory ; he had likewise the honour of enriching himself with 
 the labours of his contemporaries, and attracting to himself a share 
 of their lustre ; the honour, be it said, not the fortune, for he 
 managed to remain the centre of intellectual movement as well 
 as of the court, of literature and art as well as affairs of State. 
 Only the abrupt and solitary genius of Pascal, or the prankish and 
 ingenuous geniality of La Fontaine held aloof from king and 
 court ; Racine and Moliere, Bossuet and Fenelon, La Bruyere and 
 Boileau lived frequently in the circle of Louis XIV. and enjoyed in 
 different degrees his favour ; M. de la Eochefoucauld and Madame 
 de Sevigne were of the court ; Lebrun, Eigaud, Mignard painted 
 for the king ; Perrault and Mansard constructed the Louvre and 
 Versailles ; the learned of all countries considered it an honour to 
 correspond with the new academies founded in France. Louis XIV. 
 was even less a man of letters or an artist than an administrator 
 or a soldier, but literature and art as well as the superintendents 
 and the generals found in him the King, The puissant unity of 
 the reign is everywhere the same. The king and the nation are 
 in harmony. 
 
 Pascal, had he been born later, would have remained indepen- Pascal, 
 dent and proud, from the nature of his mind and of his character, 
 as well as from the connexion he had full early with Port-Eoyal, 
 where they did not rear courtiers ; he died, however, at thirty-nine, 
 in 1661, the very year in which Louis XIV. began to govern. 
 Born at Clermont in Auvergne, educated at his father's and by 
 his father, though it was not thought desirable to let him study 
 mathematics, he had already discovered by himself the first thirty- 
 two propositions of Euclid, when Cardinal Eichelieu, holding on 
 his knee little Jacqueline Pascal and looking at her brother, said 
 to M, Pascal, the two children's father, who had come to thank 
 him for a favour, " Take care of them ; I mean to make something 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 
 
 History of France. 
 
 matical 
 works. 
 
 great of them." This was the native and powerful instinct of 
 genius divining genius ; Eichelieu, however, died three years later, 
 without having done anything for the children who had impressed 
 him, beyond giving their father a share in the superintendence of 
 Rouen ; he thus put them in the way of the great Corneille, who 
 was affectionately kind to Jacqueline, but took no particular notice 
 of Blaise Pascal. The latter was seventeen; he had already 
 written his Traite des Coniques (Treatise on Conies) and begun to 
 His mathe- occupy himself with " his arithmetical machine," as his sister, 
 Madame Perier, calls it. At twenty-three he had ceased to apply 
 his mind to human sciences ; " when he afterwards discovered the 
 roulette (cycloid), it was without thinking," says Madame Perier, 
 " and to distract his attention from a severe tooth-ache he had." 
 He was not twenty-four when anxiety for his salvation and for the 
 glory of God had taken complete possession of his soul. It was to 
 the same end that he composed the Lettres Provinciates , the first 
 of which was written in six days, and the style of which, clear, 
 lively, precise, far removed from -the somewhat solemn gravity of 
 Port-Royal, formed French prose as Malherbe and Boileau formed 
 the poetry. 
 
 The Provincials could not satisfy for long the pious ardour of 
 Pascal's soul ; he took in hand his great work on the Verite de la 
 religion, but, unfortunately, was unable to finish it. " God, who 
 had inspired my brother with this design and with all his thoughts," 
 writes his sister, " did not permit him to bring it to its completion, 
 for reasons to us unknown." A genius unique in the extent and 
 variety of his faculties, which were applied with the same splendid 
 results to mathematics and physics, to philosophy and polemics, 
 disdaining all preconceived ideas, going unerringly and straight- 
 forwardly to the bottom of things with admirable force and 
 profundity, independent and free even in his voluntary submission 
 to the Christian faith, which he accepts with his eyes open after 
 having weighed it, measured it and sounded it to its uttermost 
 depths, too steadfast and too simple not to bow his head before 
 mysteries, all the while acknowledging his ignorance. " If there 
 were no darkness," says he, " man would not feel his corruption ; 
 if there were no light, man would have no hope of remedy. Thus, 
 it is not only quite right but useful for us that God should be con- 
 cealed in part, and revealed in part, since it is equally dangerous 
 for man to know God without knowing his own misery, and to 
 know his own misery without knowing God." The lights of this 
 great intellect had led him to acquiesce in his own fogs : "One can be 
 quite sure that there is a God, without knowing what He is," says he. 
 
 The Pro- 
 vincial 
 letters. 
 
BOSSUET. 
 
 Page A21. 
 
L iterature. Bossuet, 42 1 
 
 In 1627, four years after Pascal and, like him, in a family of Bossnet. 
 the long robe, was born, at Dijon, his only rival in that great art 
 of writing prose which established the superiority of the French 
 language. At sixteen, Bossuet preached, his first sermon in the 
 drawing-room of Madame de Eambouillet, and the great Conde was 
 pleased to attend his theological examinations. He was already 
 famous at court as a preacher and a polemist when the king gave 
 him the title of bishop of Condom, almost immediately inviting him 
 to become preceptor to the Dauphin. 
 
 Eossuet laboured conscientiously to instruct his little prince, 
 studying for him and with him the classical authors, preparing 
 grammatical expositions, and, lastly, writing for his edification the 
 Traite de la Connaissance de Dieu 'et de soimeme (Treatise on the 
 Knowledge of God and of Self ), the Discours sur Vhistoireuniverselle 
 (Discourse on Universal History), and the Politique tiree de 
 VlUcriture sainte (Polity derived from Holy Writ). The labour His chief 
 was in vain ; the very loftiness of his genius, the extent and writings, 
 profundity of his views rendered Bossuet unfit to get at the heart 
 and mind of a boy who was timid, idle and kept in fear by the 
 king as well as by his governor. The Dauphin was nineteen when 
 his marriage restored Bossuet to the Church and to the world ; the 
 king appointed him almoner to the dauphiness and, before long, 
 bishop of Meaux. 
 
 The guidance of the bishop of Meaux, in fact, answered the 
 requirements of spirits that were pious and earnest without enthu- 
 siasm ; less ardent in faith and less absolute in religious practice character 
 than M. de St. Cyran and Port-Royal, less exacting in his demands of his 
 than Father Bourdaloue, susceptible now and then of mystic ideas, eac in ^' 
 as is proved by his letters to Sister Cornuau, he did not let himself 
 be won by the vague ecstasies of absolute (pure) love ; he had a 
 mind large enough to say, like Mother Angelica Arnauld : " I am 
 of all saints' order and all saints are of my order;" but his pre- 
 ferences always inclined towards those saints and learned doctors 
 who had not carried any religious tendency to excess and who had 
 known how to rest content with the spirit of a rule and a faith 
 that were practical. A wonderful genius, discovering by flashes 
 and as if by instinct the most profound truths of human nature, and 
 giving them expression in an incomparable style, forcing, straining 
 the language to make it render his idea, darting at one bound to the 
 sublimest height by use of the simplest terms, which he, so to speak, 
 bore away with him, wresting them from their natural and proper 
 signification. " There, in spite of that great heart of hers, is that 
 princess so admired and so beloved : there, such as Death has made 
 her for us ! " Bossuet alone could speak like that. 
 
4 22 
 
 History of France. 
 
 He was writing incessantly, all the while that he was preaching 
 at Meaux and at Paris, making funeral orations over the queen, 
 Maria Theresa, over the Princess Palatine, Michael Le Tellier and 
 the prince of Conde ; the edict of Nantes had just been revoked ; 
 controversy with the protestant ministers, headed by Claude and 
 Jurieu, occupied a great space in the life of the bishop of Meaux ; 
 he at that time wrote his Histoire des variations, often unjust and 
 violent, always able in its attacks upon the Reformation. 
 
 Simultaneously with the controversial treatises, the Elevations 
 sur les mystcres and the Meditations sur I'fivangile were written at 
 Works of Meaux, drawing the bishop away to the serener regions of supreme 
 edification. fa^ There might he have chanced to meet those reformers, as 
 determined as he in the strife, as attached, at bottom, as he, for 
 life and death, to the mysteries and to the lights of a common 
 hope. " When God shall give us grace to enter Paradise," 
 St. Bernard used to say, " we shall be above all astonished at not 
 finding some of those whom we had thought to meet there and at 
 finding others whom we did not expect." Bossuet had a moment's 
 glimpse of this higher truth ; in concert with Leibnitz, a great 
 intellect of more range in knowledge and less steadfastness than he 
 in religious faith, he tried to reconcile the catholic and protestant 
 communions in one and the same creed. There were insurmountable 
 difficulties on both sides; the attempt remained unsuccessful. 
 Bossuet died at Paris on the 12th of April, 1704, just when the 
 troubles of the Church were springing up again. Great was the 
 consternation amongst the bishops of France, wont as they were to 
 shape themselves by his counsels. " Men were astounded at this 
 mortal's mortality." Bossuet was seventy-three. 
 
 A month later, on the 13th of May, Father Bourdaloue in his 
 turn died : a model of close logic and moral austerity, with a stiff 
 and manly eloquence, so impressed with the miserable insufficiency 
 of human efforts, that he said as he was dying, " My God, I have 
 wasted life, it is just that Thou recall it." There remained only 
 Fenelon in the first rank, which Massillon did not as yet dispute 
 with him. Malebranche was living retired in his cell at the 
 Oratory, seldom speaking, writing his Reclierches sur la verite 
 (Researches into Truth), and his Entretiens sur la metaphysique 
 (Discourses on Metaphysics], bolder in thought than he was aware 
 of or wished, sincere and natural in his meditations as well as in 
 his style. In spite of Flechier's eloquence in certain funeral 
 orations, posterity has decided against the modesty of the arch- 
 bishop of Cambrai, who said at the death of the bishop of Nimes, 
 in 1710, "We have lost our master." In his retirement or his 
 exile, after Bossuet's death, it was around Fenelon that was con- 
 
 Bourda- 
 
 loue. 
 
 Male- 
 tranche. 
 
 Flechier. 
 
Fenelon. 423 
 
 centrated all the lustre of the French episcopate, long since restored 
 to the respect and admiration it deserved. 
 
 Fenelon was born in Perigord, at the castle of Fenelon, on the 6th Fenelon. 
 of August, 1651. Like Cardinal de Retz he belonged to an ancient 
 and noble house and was destined from his youth for the Church. 
 Brought up at the seminary of St. Sulpice, lately founded by 
 M. Olier, he for a short time conceived the idea of devoting himself 
 to foreign missions; his weak health and his family's opposition, 
 turned him ere long from his purpose, but the preaching of the 
 gospel amongst the heathen continued to have for him an attraction 
 which is perfectly depicted in one of the rare sermons of his which 
 have been preserved. He had held himself modestly aloof, occupied 
 with confirming new Catholics in their conversion or with preaching 
 to the Protestants of Poitou; he had written nothing but his 
 Traite de I' education des filles, intended for the family of the duke 
 of Beauvilliers, and a book on the ministere du pasteur. He was 
 in bad odour with Harlay, archbishop of Paris, who had said to him 
 curtly one day : " You want to escape notice, M. Abbe, and you 
 will ;" nevertheless, when Louis XIV. chose the duke of Beau- 
 villiers as governor to his grandson, the duke of Burgundy, the 
 duke at once called Fenelon, then thirty-eight years of age, to the 
 important post of preceptor. 
 
 Fenelon's best known work is Telemaque. " It is a fabulous nar- "Tele- 
 rative," he himself says, " in the form of a heroic poem, like Homer's 
 or Virgil's, wherein I have set forth the principal actions that are 
 meet for a prince, whose birth points him out as destined to reign. 
 I did it at a time when I was charmed with the marks of confidence 
 and kindness showered upon me by the king ; I must have been 
 not only the most ungrateful but the most insensate of men to have 
 intended to put into it satirical and insolent portraits ; I shrink 
 from the bare idea of such a design. It is true that I have inserted . 
 in these adventures all the verities necessary for government and 
 all the defects that one can show in the exercise of sovereign 
 power, but I have not stamped any of them with a peculiarity 
 which would point to any portrait or caricature. The more the 
 work is read, the more it will be seen that I wished to express 
 everything without depicting anybody consecutively ; it is in fact, 
 a narrative done in haste, in detached pieces and at different 
 intervals ; all I thought of was to amuse the duke of Burgundy 
 and, whilst amusing, to instruct him, without ever meaning to give 
 the work to the public." 
 
 Telemaque was published, without any author's name and by an 
 indiscretion of the copyist's, on the 6th of April, 1699. Fenelon 
 
4 2 4 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Fenelon 
 dies in 
 disgrace. 
 
 was in exile at his diocese ; public rumour before long attributed 
 the work to him ; the Maximes des saints had just been condemned, 
 Telemaque was seized, the printers were punished; some copies 
 had escaped the police : the book was reprinted in Holland ; all 
 Europe read it, finding therein the allusion and undermeanings 
 against which Fenelon defended himself. Louis XIV. was more 
 than ever angry with the archbishop. 
 
 Fenelon died in disgrace, leaving amongst his friends, so dimin- 
 ished already by death, an immeasurable gap, and amongst his 
 adversaries themselves the feeling of a great loss. " I am sorry for 
 the death of M. de Cambrai," wrote Madame de Maintenon on the 
 10th of January, 1715 : "he was a friend I lost through Quietism, 
 but it is asserted that he might have done good service in the council, 
 if things should be pushed so far." Fenelon had not been mistaken, 
 when he wrote, once upon a time, to Madame de Maintenon, who 
 consulted him about her defects : " You are good towards those for 
 whom you have liking and esteem, but you are cold as soon as the 
 liking leaves you ; when you are frigid, your frigidity is carried 
 rather far, and, when you begin to feel mistrust, your heart is 
 withdrawn too brusquely from those to whom you had shown con- 
 fidence." 
 
 Our thoughts may well linger over those three great minds : 
 Pascal, Bossuet, and Fenelon, one layman and two bishops, all 
 equally absorbed by the great problems of human life and immor- 
 tality ; with different degrees of greatness and fruitfulness, they all 
 serve the same cause ; whether as defenders or assailants of Jan- 
 senism and Quietism, the solitary philosopher or the prelates engaged 
 in the court or in the guidance of men, all three of them serving 
 God on behalf of the soul's highest interests, remained unique in 
 their generation ami without successors as they had been without 
 . predecessors. 
 
 Leaving the desert and the Church, and once more entering the 
 world we immediately encounter, amongst women, one, and one 
 Madame de on ty * n ^ e ^ rs * ran ^ Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marchioness of 
 Sevigne. Sevigne, born at Paris on the 5th of February, 1627, five months 
 before Bossuet. Like a considerable number of women in Italy in 
 the sixteenth century and in France in the seventeenth, she had 
 received a careful education : she knew Italian, Latin and Spanish ; 
 she had for masters Menage and Chapelain ; and she early imbibed 
 a real taste for solid reading, which she owed to her leaning 
 towards the Janseniste and Port-Eoyal. Madame de Sevigne is a 
 friend whom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, 
 to whom we go for an hour's distraction and delightful chat ; we 
 
Lady writers. 425 
 
 have no desire to chat with Madame de Grignan, we gladly leave 
 her to her mother's exclusive affection, feeling infinitely obliged to 
 her, however, for having existed, inasmuch as her mother wrote 
 letters to her. Madame de Sevigne's letters to her daughter are 
 superior to all her other letters, charming as they are ; when she 
 writes to M. de Pomponne, to M. de Coulanges, to M. de Bussy, 
 the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred ; 
 she writes to her daughter as she would speak to her ; it is not 
 letters, it is an animated and charming conversation, touching upon 
 everything, embellishing everything with an inimitable grace. She racter. 
 would have very much scandalized those gentlemen of Port-Royal, 
 if she had let them see into the bottom of her heart as she showed 
 it to her daughter. Pascal used to say : " There are but three 
 sorts of persons : those who serve God, having found him ; those 
 who employ themselves in seeking Him, not having found Him ; 
 and those who live without seeking Him or having found Him. 
 The first are reasonable and happy ; the last are mad and miserable ; 
 the intermediate are miserable and reasonable." Without ever 
 having sought and found God in the absolute sense intended by 
 Pascal, Madame de Sevigne kept approaching Him by gentle degrees. 
 " We are reading a treatise by M. Hamon of Port -Royal on con- 
 tinuous prayer ; though he is a hundred feet above my head, he 
 nevertheless pleases and charms us. One is very glad to see that 
 there have been and still are in the world people to whom God 
 communicates His Holy Spirit in such abundance; but, oh God! 
 when shall we have some spark, some degree of it 7 How sad to 
 find oneself so far from it and so near to something else ! Oh fie ! 
 Let us not speak of such plight as that : it calls for sighs and 
 groans and humiliations a hundred times a day." 
 
 After having suffered so much from separation and so often 
 traversed France to visit her daughter in Provence, Madame de 
 Sevigne had the happiness to die in her house at Grignan. She 
 was sixty-nine when an attack of small-pox carried her off on the 
 19th of April, 1696. 
 
 All the women who had been writers in her time died before 
 Madame de Sevigne. Madame de Motteville, a judicious and Mesdames 
 sensible woman, more independent at the bottom of her heart than Jj J^nd 
 in externals, had died in 1689, exclusively occupied, from the time de Mont- 
 that she lost Queen Anne of Austria, in works of piety and in P ensier - 
 drawing up her Memoires. Mdlle. de Montpensier, "my great 
 Mademoiselle," as Madame de Sevigne used to call her, had died 
 at Paris on the 5th of April, 1693, after a violent illness, as feverish 
 as her life. Impassioned and haughty, with her head so full of 
 
426 History of France. 
 
 her greatness that she did not marry in her youth, thinking nobody 
 worthy of her except the king and the emperor who had no fancy 
 for her, and ending by a private marriage with the duke of Lauzun, 
 "a cadet of Gascony," whom the king would not permit her to 
 espouse publicly, clever, courageous, hare-brained, generous. A few 
 Madame days after Mademoiselle, died, likewise at Paris, Madelaine de la 
 J elia tt Vergne, marchioness of La Fayette, the most intimate friend of 
 Madame de Sevigne. Sensible, clever, a sweet and safe acquaint- 
 ance, Madame de La Fayette was as simple and as true in her rela- 
 tions with her confidantes as in her writings. La Princesse de 
 Cleves alone has outlived the times and the friends of Madame de 
 La Fayette. Following upon the " great sword-thrusts " of La 
 Calprenede or Mdlle. de Scudery, this delicate, elegant and virtuous 
 tale, with its pure and refined style, enchanted the court, which 
 recognized itself at its best and painted under its brightest aspect ; 
 it was farewell for ever to the " Pays de Tendre." 
 
 La Boche- Madame de La Fayette had in her life one great sorrow which 
 foucauld. had comp ieted the ruin of her health. On the 16th of March, 
 1680, after the closest and longest of intimacies, she had lost her 
 best friend, the duke of La Rochefoucauld. A meddler and in- 
 triguer during the Fronde, sceptical and bitter in his Maximes, the 
 duke of La Rochefoucauld was amiable and kindly in his private 
 life. Factions and the court had taught him a great deal about 
 human nature, he had seen it and judged of it from its bad side ; 
 witty, shrewd, and often profound, he was too severe to be just : 
 the bitterness of his spirit breathed itself out completely in his 
 writings, he kept for his friends that kindliness and that sensitive- 
 ness of which he made sport. " He gave me wit," Madame de La 
 Fayette would say, " but I reformed his heart." He had lost his 
 son at the passage of the Rhine, in 1672. He was ill, suffering 
 cruelly. " I was yesterday at M. de La Rochefoucauld's," writes 
 Madame de Sevigne in 1680 : " I found him uttering loud shrieks; 
 his pain was such that his endurance was quite overcome without 
 a single scrap remaining ; the excessive pain upset him to such a 
 degree that he was setting out in the open air with a violent fever 
 upon him. He begged me to send you word and to assure you that 
 the wheel-broken do not suffer during a single moment what he 
 suffers one half of his life, and so he wishes for death as a happy 
 release." He died with Bossuet at his pillow. M. de La Roche- 
 foucauld thought worse of men than of life. " I have scarcely any 
 fear of things," he had said : " I am not at all afraid of death." 
 With all his rare qualities and great opportunities, he had done 
 nothing but frequently embroil matters in which he had meddled 
 
De Retz and La Bruyere. 427 
 
 and had never been anything but a great lord with a good deal of 
 wit. Actionless penetration and sceptical severity may sometimes 
 clear the judgment and the thoughts, but they give no force or in- 
 fluence that has power over men. 
 
 Cardinal de Eetz had more wits, more courage and more resolu- Cardinal 
 tion than the duke of La Eochefoucauld ; he was more ambitious de Retz - 
 and more bold ; he was, like him, meddlesome, powerless and 
 dangerous to the State. He thought himself capable of superseding 
 Cardinal Mazarin and far more worthy than he of being premier 
 minister; but every time he found himself opposed to the able 
 Italian, he was beaten. All that he displayed, during the Fronde, 
 of address, combination, intrigue and resolution would barely have 
 sufficed to preserve his name in history, if he had not devoted his 
 leisure in his retirement to writing his Memoires. Vigorous, 
 animated, always striking, often amusing, sometimes showing rare 
 nobleness and highmindedness, his stories and his portraits trans- 
 port us to the very midst of the scenes he desires to describe and 
 the personages he makes the actors in them. His rapid, nervous, 
 picturesque style, is the very image of that little dark, quick, agile 
 man, more soldier than bishop, and more intriguer than soldier, 
 faithfully and affectionately beloved by his friends, detested by his 
 very numerous enemies and dreaded by many people, for the causti- 
 city of his tongue, long after the troubles of the Fronde had ceased 
 and he was reduced to be a wanderer in foreign lands, still arch- 
 bishop of Paris without being able to set foot in it. 
 
 Mesdames de Sevigne and de La Fayette were of the court, as 
 
 were the duke of La Eochefoucauld and Cardinal de Eetz ; La Iia Bru- 
 
 vcre 
 Bruyere lived all his life rubbing shoulders with the court ; he knew 
 
 it, he described it, but he was not of it and could not be of it. 
 Nothing is known of his family. He was born at Dourdan, in 
 1639, and had just bought a post in the Treasury (tresorier de 
 France) at Caen, when Bossuet, who knew him, induced him to 
 remove to Paris as teacher of history to the duke, grandson of the 
 great Conde. He remained for ever attached to the person of the 
 prince, who gave him a thousand crowns a year, and he lived to the 
 day of his death at Conde's house. 
 
 La Bruyere's " Caracteres " is a book unique of its sort, full of 
 sagacity, penetration and severity without bitterness ; a picture of 
 the manners of the court and of the world, traced by the hand of 
 a spectator who had not essayed its temptations, but who guessed 
 them and passed judgment on them all, " a book," as M. de Male- 
 zieux said to La Bruyere, " which was sure to bring its author 
 many readers and many enemies." Its success was great from the 
 
428 History of France. 
 
 first, and it excited lively curiosity. The courtiers liked the por- 
 traits ; attempts were made to name them ; the good sense, shrewd- 
 ness and truth of the observations struck everybody ; people had 
 met a hundred times those whom La Bruyere had described. The 
 form appeared of a rarer order than even the matter ; it was a 
 brilliant, uncommon style, as varied as human nature, always 
 elegant and pure, original and animated, rising sometimes to the 
 height of the noblest thoughts, gay and grave, pointed and serious. 
 Avoiding, by richness in turns and expression, the uniformity 
 native to the subject, La Bruyere rivetted attention by a succession 
 of touches making a masterly picture. 
 
 His cha- More earnest and less bitter than La Rochefoucauld, and as 
 racter as a brilliant and as firm as Cardinal de Retz, La Bruyere was a more 
 sincere believer than either. " I feel that there is a God, and I do 
 not feel that there is none ; that is enough for me ; the reasoning 
 of the world is useless to me ; I conclude that God exists ; are men 
 good enough, faithful enough, equitable enough to deserve all oui 
 confidence, and not make us wish at least for the existence of God 
 to whom we may appeal from their judgments and have recourse 
 when we are persecuted or betrayed T' A very strong reason and 
 of potent logic, naturally imprinted upon an upright spirit and a 
 sensible mind, irresistibly convinced, both of them, that justice 
 alone can govern the world. 
 
 We pass from prose to poetry, from La Bruyere to Corneille, who 
 had died in 1684, too late for his fame, in spite of the vigorous 
 returns of genius which still flash forth sometimes in his feeblest 
 Corneille. works. Throughout the Regency and the Fronde, Corneille had 
 continued to occupy almost alone the great French stage ; Rotrou, 
 his sometime rival with his piece of Venceslas and ever tenderly 
 attached to him, had died, in 1650, at Dreux, of which he was 
 civil magistrate. An epidemic was ravaging the town, and he was 
 urged to go away : " I am the only one who can maintain good 
 order, and I shall remain," he replied : " at the moment of my 
 writing to you the bells are tolling for the twenty-second person 
 to-day ; perhaps, to-morrow it will be for me, but my conscience 
 has marked out my duty ; God's will be done ! " Two days later 
 he was dead. 
 
 Corneille had dedicated Polyeude to the regent Anne of Austria; 
 he published in a single year Rodogune and the Mort de Pompee, 
 dedicating this latter piece to Mazarin, in gratitude, he said, for 
 an act of generosity with which his Eminence had surprised him. 
 At the same time he borrowed from the Spanish drama the canvas 
 of the Menteur, the first really French comedy which appeared on 
 
Poetry. Corneille and Racine. 429 
 
 the boards, and which Moliere showed that he could appreciate at 
 its proper value. After this attempt, due perhaps to the desire 
 felt by Corneille to triumph over his rivals in the style in which he 
 had walked abreast with them, he let tragedy resume its legitimate 
 empire over a genius formed by it; he wrote Heraclius and 
 Nicomede, which are equal in parts to his finest master-pieces. 
 But by this time the great genius no longer soared with equal 
 flight; Theodore and Pertharite had been failures. " I don't men- 
 tion them," Corneille would say, " in order to avoid the vexation His later 
 of remembering them." He had announced his renunciation of the works - 
 stage ; he was translating into verse the Imitation of Christ. " It 
 were better," he had written in his preface to Pertharite, " that I 
 took leave myself instead of waiting till it is taken of me altogether ; 
 it is quite right that after twenty years' work I should begin to 
 perceive that I am becoming too old to be still in the fashion. 
 This resolution is not so strong but that it may be broken ; there 
 is every appearance, however, of my abiding by it." 
 
 Posterity has done for Corneille more than Louis XIV. could 
 have done ; it has left in oblivion Agesilas, Attila, Titus and Pul- 
 che'rie, it has preserved the memory of the triumphs only. The 
 poet was accustomed to say with a smile, when he was reproached 
 with his slowness and emptiness in conversation : " I am Peter 
 Corneille all the same." The world has passed similar judgment 
 on his works ; in spite of the rebuffs of his latter years, he has 
 remained " the great Corneille." 
 
 "When he died, in 1684, Racine, elected by the Academy in 1673, Eacine. 
 found himself on the point of becoming its director : he claimed 
 the honour of presiding at the obsequies of Corneille. The latter 
 had not been admitted to the body until 1641, after having under- 
 gone two rebuffs. Corneille had died in the night. The Academy 
 decided in favour of Abbe de Lavau, the outgoing director. " No- 
 body but you could pretend to bury Corneille," said Benserade to 
 Racine, " yet you have not been able to obtain the chance." It 
 was only when he received into the Academy Thomas Corneille, in 
 his brother's place, that Racine could praise, to his heart's content, 
 the master and rival who, in old age, had done him the honour to 
 dread him. At that time, his own dramatic career was already 
 ended. He was born, in 1639, at La Ferte-Milon; he had made 
 his first appearance on the stage in 1664, with the Freres ennemis, 
 and had taken leave of it in 1673 with Phedre ; Esther and Athalie, 
 played in 1689 and in 1691 by the young ladies of St. Cyr, were 
 not regarded by their author and his austere friends as any dero- 
 gation from the pious engagements he had entered into. If his first 
 
430 History of France. 
 
 two plays were feeble attempts, spoilt by a declamatory style, and 
 altogether deficient in interest, " Andromaque " was a masterpiece, 
 and all the other subsequent creations of Eacine's pen only served 
 to confirm his reputation as one of the great delineators of the 
 passions. 
 
 Eacine for a long while enjoyed the favours of the king, who 
 went so far as to tolerate the attachment the poet had always testi- 
 fied towards Port-Eoyal. Eacine, moreover, showed tact in humour- 
 _ . ing the susceptibilities of Louis XIV. and his counsellors. All 
 
 the dis- this caution did not prevent him, however, from displeasing the 
 pleasure of king. After a conversation he had held with Madame de Main- 
 ' tenon about the miseries of the people, she asked him for a memo- 
 randum on the subject. The king demanded the name of the 
 author and flew out at him. " Because he is a perfect master of 
 verse," said he, "does he think he knows everything ? And, because 
 he is a great poet, does he want to be minister T' On the 21st of 
 April, 1699, the great poet, the scrupulous Christian, the noble and 
 delicate painter of the purest passions of the soul, expired at Paris 
 at fifty-nine years of age, leaving life without regret, spite of all the 
 successes with which he had been crowned. Unlike Corneille with 
 the Cid, he did not take tragedy and glory by assault, he conquered 
 them both by degrees, raising himself at each new effort and 
 gaining over little by little the most passionate admirers of his 
 great rival ; at the pinnacle of this reputation and this victory, at 
 thirty-eight years of age, he had voluntarily shut the door against 
 the intoxications and pride of success, he had mutilated his life, 
 buried his genius in penitence, obeying simply the calls of his con- 
 science, and, with singular moderation in the very midst of exag- 
 geration, becoming a father of a family and remaining a courtier, 
 at the same time that he gave up the stage and glory. Eacine was 
 gentle and sensible even in his repentance and his sacrifice. 
 Boileau gave religion the credit for this very moderation : " Eeason 
 commonly brings others to faith, it was faith which brought M. 
 Eacine to reason." 
 
 Boileau. Boileau himself had entered the arena of letters at three-and- 
 twenty, after a sickly and melancholy childhood. The Art Poetique 
 and the Lutrin appeared in 1674 ; the first nine Satires and several 
 of the Epistles had preceded them. Eather a witty, shrewd and 
 able versifier than a great poet, Boileau displayed in the Lutrin a 
 richness and suppleness of fancy which his other works had not 
 foreshadowed. The broad and cynical buffoonery of Scarron's 
 burlesques had always shocked his severe and pure taste. " Your 
 father was weak enough to read Virgile travesti and laugh over it," 
 
La Fontaine. Moliere. 43 1 
 
 he would say to Louis Eaciue, " but he kept it dark from me." In 
 the Lutrin, Boileau sought the gay and the laughable under noble and 
 polished forms : the gay lost by it, the laughable remained stamped 
 with an ineffaceable seal. He survived all his friends ; La Fontaine, 
 born in 1 621 at Chateau-Thierry, had died in 1695. He had entered 
 in his youth the brotherhood of the Oratory, which he had soon 
 quitted, being unable, he used to say, to accustom himself to 
 theology ; he went and came between town and town, amusing 
 himself everywhere, and already writing a little. La Fontaine has 
 been described as a solitary being, without wit and without external 
 charm of any kind. La Bruyere has said : "A certain man appears, 
 loutish, heavy, stupid ; he can neither talk nor relate what he has 
 just seen ; he sets himself to writing, and it is a model of story- 
 telling ; he makes speakers of animals, trees, stones, everything 
 that cannot speak; there is nothing but lightness and elegance, 
 nothing but natural beauty and delicacy in his works." We are 
 told that La Fontaine knew nothing of natural history ; he knew 
 and loved animals ; up to his time, fable-writers had been merely 
 philosophers or satirists ; he was the first who was a poet, unique 
 not only in France but in Europe, discovering the deep and secret 
 charm of nature, animating it with his inexhaustible and graceful 
 genius, giving lessons to men from the example of animals, without 
 making the latter speak like man, ever supple and natural, some- 
 times elegant and noble, with penetration beneath the cloak of his 
 simplicity, inimitable in the line which he had chosen from taste, 
 from instinct, and not from want of power to transport his genius 
 elsewhither. 
 
 A charming and a curious being, serious and simple, profound 
 and childlike, winning by reason of his very vagaries, his good- 
 natured originality, his helplessness in common life, La Fontaine 
 knew how to estimate the literary merits as well as the moral 
 qualities of his illustrious friends; Moliere, in particular, was 
 appreciated by him at once, and he commemorated the death of the 
 great comic writer in a touching epitaph. 
 
 Shakspeare might dispute with Corneille and Eacine the sceptre 
 of tragedy, he had succeeded in showing himself as full of power, 
 with more truth, as the one, and, as full of tenderness, with more 
 profundity, as the other ; Moliere is superior to him in originality, Moliere - 
 abundance and perfection of characters ; he yields to him neither 
 in range, nor penetration, nor complete knowledge of human nature. 
 The lives of these two great geniuses, authors and actors both 
 together, present in other respects certain features of resemblance. 
 Both were intended for another career than that of the stage ; both, 
 
432 History of France. 
 
 carried away by an irresistible passion, assembled about them a few 
 actors, leading at first a roving life, to end by becoming the delight 
 of the court and of the world. In 1645 (? 1643), Moliere had 
 formed, with the ambitious title of illustre theatre, a small company 
 of actors who, being unable to maintain themselves at Paris, for a 
 long while tramped the provinces, through all the troubles of the 
 His first Fronde. It was in 1653 that Moliere brought out at Lyons his 
 P ays. comedy I'fitourdi, the first regular piece he had ever composed. The 
 Depit amoureux was played at Beziers, in 1656, at the opening of 
 the session of the States of Languedoc ; the company returned to 
 Paris in 1658 ; in 1659, Moliere, who had obtained a licence from 
 the king, gave at his own theatre les Precieuses ridicules. He 
 broke with all imitation of the Italians and the Spaniards, and, 
 taking off to the life the manners of his own times, he boldly attacked 
 the affected exaggeration and absurd pretensions of the vulgar imi- 
 tators of the Hotel de Eambouillet. The ficole des Maris and the 
 Fdcheux were played at Vaux. The ficole des Femmes the Im- 
 promptu de Versailles, the Critique de Vficole des Femmes, began 
 the bellicose period in the great comic poet's life. Accused of im- 
 piety, attacked in the honour of his private life, Moliere, returning 
 insult for insult, delivered over those amongst his enemies who 
 offered a butt for ridicule, to the derision of the court and of pos- 
 terity. The Festin de Pierre and the signal punishment of the 
 libertine (free-thinker) were intended to clear the author from the 
 reproach of impiety; la Princesse d' Elide and I' Amour medecin were 
 but charming interludes in the great struggle henceforth instituted 
 "LeMisan- between reality and appearance; in 1666, Moliere produced le Mis- 
 tnrope." anthrope, a frank and noble spirit's sublime invective against the 
 * frivolity, perfidious and showy semblances of court. The Misan- 
 thrope is a shriek of despair uttered by virtue, excited and almost 
 "Tartuffe" distraught at the defeat she forebodes. The Tartuffe was a new 
 effort in the same direction, and bolder in that it attacked religious 
 hypocrisy and seemed to aim its blows even at religion itself. 
 Moliere was a long time working at it; the first acts had been 
 performed, in 1664, at court under the title of V Hypocrite, at the 
 same time as la Princesse d? Elide. Though played once publicly, 
 in 1667, under the title of VImposteur, the piece did not appear 
 definitively on the stage until 1669, having undoubtedly excited 
 more scandal by interdiction than it would have done by representa- 
 tion. The king's good sense and judgment at last prevailed over 
 the terrors of the truly devout and the resentment of hypocrites. 
 He had just seen an impious piece of buffoonery played. "I should 
 very much like to know," said he to the prince of Conde, who stood 
 
LOUIS XIV. IN HIS OLD AGE. 
 
 Page 433. 
 
Moliere. 433 
 
 up for Moliere, an old fellow-student of his brother's, the prince of 
 Conti's, " why people who are so greatly scandalized at Moliere's 
 comedy say nothing about Scaramouche ? " " The reason of that," 
 answered the prince, " is that Scaramouche makes fun of heaven 
 and religion, about which those gentry do not care, and that Moliere 
 makes fun of their own selves, which they cannot brook." The 
 prince might have added that all the blows in Tartuffe, a master- 
 piece of shrewdness, force and fearless and deep wrath, struck home 
 at hypocrisy. 
 
 Whilst waiting for permission to have Tartuffe played, Moliere 
 had brought out le Medecin malgre lui, Amphitryon, Georges Dandin 
 and I'Avare, lavishing freely upon them the inexhaustible resources 
 of his genius, which was ever ready to supply the wants of kingly 
 and princely entertainments. Monsieur de Pourceaugnac was played 
 for the first time at Chambord on the 6th of October, 1669 ; a year 
 afterwards, on the same stage, appeared le Bourgeois gentilhomme, "LeBour- 
 with the interludes and music of Lulli. The piece was a direct 
 attack upon one of the most frequent absurdities of his day ; many 
 of the courtiers felt in their hearts that they were attacked ; there 
 was a burst of wrath at the first representation, by which the king 
 had not appeared to be struck. Moliere thought it was all over 
 with him. Louis XIV. desired to see the piece a second time ; 
 " You have never written anything yet which has amused me so 
 much ; your comedy is excellent," said he to the poet ; the court 
 was at once seized with a fit of admiration. 
 
 Psyche, Les Fourberies de Scapin, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, 
 deserve just a mention ; Les Femmes savantes had at first but little ^ $ 
 success ; the piece was considered heavy ; the marvellous nicety of nair^" 
 the portraits, the correctness of the judgments, the delicacy and 
 elegance of the dialogue were not appreciated until later on. Le 
 Malade imaginaire, Moliere's last play, was also the last of that 
 succession of blows which he had so often dealt the doctors. 
 
 It has been a labour of love to go into some detail over the 
 lives, works and characters of the great writers during the age of 
 Louis XIV. They did too much honour to their time and their 
 country, they had too great and too deep an effect in France and 
 in Europe upon the successive developments of the human intellect 
 to refuse them an important place in the history of that France to 
 whose influence and glory they so powerfully contributed. 
 
 In this brief survey of French literature we should not forget to 
 mention the French Academy, which had grown and found its liberty 
 had increased under the sway of Louis XIV. ; it held its sittings at 
 the Louvre, and, as regarded complimentary addresses to the king 
 
 F F 
 
434 History of France. 
 
 on state occasions, it took rank with the sovereign bodies. The 
 Academy of medals and inscriptions was founded by Colbert in 
 The 1662, " in order to render the acts of the king immortal by deciding 
 
 Academies, the legends of the medals struck in his honour." Pontchartrain 
 raised to forty the number of the members of the petite academie, 
 as it was called, extended its functions, and entrusted it thenceforth 
 with the charge of publishing curious documents relating to the 
 history of France. The Academy of Sciences had already for many 
 years had sittings in one of the rooms of the king's library. Like 
 the French Academy, it had owed its origin to private meetings at 
 which Descartes, Gassendi and young Pascal were accustomed to be 
 present. " There are in the world scholars of two sorts," said a 
 note sent to Colbert about the formation of the new Academy ; 
 " some give themselves up to science because it is a pleasure to 
 them; they are content, as the fruit of their labours, with the 
 knowledge they acquire, and, if they are known, it is only amongst 
 those with whom they converse unambitiously and for mutual 
 instruction ; these are bond fide scholars, whom it is impossible to 
 do without in a design so great as that of the Academie royale. 
 There are others who cultivate science only as a field which is to 
 give them sustenance, and, as they see by experience that great 
 rewards fall only to those who make the most noise in the world, 
 they apply themselves especially, not to making new discoveries, 
 for hitherto that has not been recompensed, but to whatever may 
 bring them into notice ; these are scholars of the fashionable world, 
 and such as one knows best." Colbert had the true scholar's taste ; 
 he had brought Cassini from Italy to take the direction of the new 
 Observatory ; he had ordered surveys for a general map of France ; 
 he had founded the Journal des Savants ; literary men, whether 
 Frenchmen or foreigners, enjoyed the king's bounties ; Colbert had 
 even conceived the plan of a universal Academy, a veritable fore- 
 runner of the Institute. The arts were not forgotten in this grand 
 project; the academy of painting and sculpture dated from the 
 regency of Anne of Austria ; the pretensions of the Masters of Arts 
 Fine arts, (maitres es arts), who placed an interdict upon artists not belonging 
 to their corporation, had driven Charles Lebrun, himself the son of 
 a Master, to agitate for its foundation ; Colbert added to it the 
 academy of music and the academy of architecture, and created the 
 French school of painting at Borne. The tradition of the masters 
 in vogue in Italy, of the Caracci, of Guido, of Paul Veronese, had 
 reached Paris with Simon Vouet, who had long lived at Rome. 
 He was succeeded there by Le Poussin, whose two pupils, Lesueur 
 and Claude Gelee, called Lorrain, soon equalled their master. 
 
Painters, sculptor s> engravers. 435 
 
 Philip of Champagne deserves a prominent place in the brilliant 
 roll of French seventeenth century artists. He had passionately 
 admired Le Poussin, he had attached himself to Lesueur. " Never," 
 says M. Vitet, " had he sacrificed to fashion ; never had he fallen 
 into the vagaries of the degenerate Italian style." This upright, 
 simple, painstaking soul, this inflexible conscience, looking con- 
 tinually into the human face, had preserved in his admirable 
 portraits the life and the expression of nature which he was Cham- 
 incessantly trying to seize and reproduce. Lebrun was preferred ^S 116 * 
 to him as first painter to the king by Louis XIV. himself ; Philip 
 of Champagne was delighted thereat ; he lived in retirement, in 
 fidelity to his friends of Port-Royal, whose austere and vigorous 
 lineaments he loved to trace, beginning with M. de St. Cyran, and 
 ending with his own daughter, Sister Suzanne, who was restored to 
 health by the prayers of Mother Agnes Arnauld. 
 
 Lebrun was as able a courtier as he was a good painter : the Lebrnn. 
 clever arrangement of his pictures, the richness and brilliancy of 
 his talent, his faculty for applying art to industry, secured him 
 with Louis XIV. a sway which lasted as long as his life. He was 
 first painter to the king, he was director of the Gobelins and of 
 the academy of painting. He followed the king's ideas, being 
 entirely after his own heart; for fourteen years he worked for 
 Louis XIV., representing his life and his conquests, at Versailles ; 
 painting for the Louvre the victories of Alexander, which were 
 engraved almost immediately by Audran and Edelinck. After 
 Lebrun's death (1690) Mignard became first painter to the king. 
 He painted the ceiling of the Val-de-Grace, which was celebrated by 
 Moliere, but it was as a painter of portraits that he excelled in 
 France : " M. Mignard does them best," said Le Poussin not long Miena d 
 before, with lofty good-nature, " though his heads are all paint, 
 without force or character." To Mignard succeeded Bigaud as 
 portrait-painter, worthy to preserve the features of Bossuet and 
 Fenelon. The unity of organization, the brilliancy of style, the 
 imposing majesty which the king's taste had everywhere stamped 
 about him upon art as well as upon literature, were by this time 
 beginning to decay simultaneously with the old age of Louis XIV., 
 with the reverses of his arms and the increasing gloominess of his 
 court ; the artists who had illustrated his reign were dying one 
 after another as well as the orators and the poets; the sculptor 
 James Sarazin had been gone some time ; Puget and the Anguiers 
 were dead, as well as Mansard, Perrault and Le Notre ; Girardon 
 had but a few months to live; only Coysevox was destined to 
 survive the king whose statue he had many a time moulded. The 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 History of France. 
 
 great age was disappearing slowly and sadly, throwing out to the 
 last some noble gleams, like the aged king who had constantly 
 served as its centre and guide, like olden France which he had 
 crowned with its last and its most splendid wreath. 
 
 Society. Louis XI Y. reigned everywhere, over his people, over his age, 
 often over Europe ; but nowhere did he reign so completely as over 
 his court. Never were the wishes, the defects and the vices of a 
 man so completely a law to other men as at the court of Louis XIV. 
 during the whole period of his long life. When near to him, in 
 the palace of Versailles, men lived and hoped and trembled ; 
 everywhere else in France, even at Paris, men vegetated. The 
 existence of the great lords was concentrated in the court, about 
 the person of the king. Scarcely could the most important duties 
 bring them to absent themselves for any time. They returned 
 quickly, with alacrity, with ardour; only poverty or a certain 
 rustic pride kept gentlemen in their provinces. " The court does 
 not make one happy," says La Bruyere, "it prevents one from 
 being so anywhere else." 
 
 Madame The principle of absolute power, firmly fixed in the young king's 
 VauSre m ^ n( ^j began to pervade his court from the time that he disgraced 
 Fouquet and ceased to dissemble his affection for Mdlle. de La 
 Valliere. She was young, charming and modest. Of all the king's 
 favourites she alone loved him sincerely. " What a pity he is a 
 king !" she would say. Louis XIV. made her a duchess; but all 
 she cared about was to see him and please him. When Madame de 
 Montespan began to supplant her in the king's favour, the grief of 
 Madame de La Valliere was so great that she thought she should 
 die of it. Then she turned to God, in penitence and despair ; and, 
 later on, it was at her side that Madame de Montespan, in her turn 
 forced to quit the court, went to seek advice and pious consolation. 
 " This soul will be a miracle of grace," Bossuet had said. 
 Madame de Madame de Montespan was haughty, passionate, "with hair 
 Monte- dressed in a thousand ringlets, a majestic beauty to show off to the 
 B P an * ambassadors : " she openly paraded the favour she was in, accepting 
 and angling for the graces the king was pleased to do her and hers, 
 having the superintendence of the household of the queen, whom 
 she insulted without disguise, to the extent of wounding the king 
 himself: "Pray consider that she is your mistress," he said one 
 day to his favourite. The scandal was great ; Bossuet attempted 
 the task of stopping it. It was the time of the Jubilee : neither 
 the king nor Madame de Montespan had lost all religious feeling ; 
 the wrath of God and the refusal of the sacraments had terrors for 
 them still. 
 
The court. 437 
 
 Bossuet had acted in vain " like a pontiff of the earliest times, 
 with a freedom worthy of the earliest ages and the earliest bishops 
 of the Church," says St. Simon. He saw the inutility of his 
 efforts ; henceforth prudence and courtly behaviour put a seal upon 
 his lips. It was the time of the great king's omnipotence and 
 highest splendour, the time when nobody withstood his wishes. 
 The great Mademoiselle had just attempted to show her indepen- 
 dence j tired of not being married, she had made up her mind to a "LaGrande 
 love-match ; she did not espouse Lauzun just then, the king broke M ^- Jj 
 off the marriage. " I will make you so great," he said to Lauzun, and Lau- 
 " that you shall have no cause to regret what I am taking from you ; zun - 
 meanwhile, I make you duke anci peer and marshal of France." 
 " Sir," broke in Lauzun insolently, " you have made so many dukes 
 that it is no longer an honour to be one, and, as for the baton of 
 marshal of France, your Majesty can give it me when I have 
 earned it by my services." He was before long sent to Pignerol, 
 where he passed ten years. There he met Fouquet and that mys- 
 terious personage called the Iron Mask, whose name has not yet 
 been discovered to a certainty by means of all the most ingenious 
 conjectures. It was only by settling all her property on the duke 
 of Maine after herself that Mademoiselle purchased Lauzun's 
 release. The king had given his posts to the prince of Marcillac, 
 son of La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 Louis XIV. entered benevolently into the affairs of a marshal of i, ou i s xiv. 
 France ; he paid his debts, and the marshal was his domestic ; all and the 
 the court had come to that ; the duties which brought servants in cour iers ' 
 proximity to the king's person were eagerly sought after by the 
 greatest lords. Bontemps, his chief valet, and Fagon, his physician, 
 as well as his surgeon Marechal, very excellent men too, were all- 
 powerful amongst the courtiers. Louis XIV. possessed the art of 
 making his slightest favours prized; to hold the candlestick at 
 bed-time (au petit coucher), to appear in the trips to Marly, to 
 play in the king's own game, such was the ambition of the most 
 distinguished; the possessors of grand historic castles, of fine 
 houses at Paris, crowded together in attics at Versailles, too happy 
 to obtain a lodging in the palace. The whole mind of the greatest 
 personages, his favourites at the head, was set upon devising means 
 of pleasing the king ; Madame de Montespan had pictures painted 
 in miniature of all the towns he had taken in Holland ; they were 
 made into a book which was worth four thousand pistoles, and of 
 which Eacine and Boileau wrote the text ; people of tact, like 
 M. de Langlee, paid court to the master through those whom he loved. 
 
 All the style of living at court was in accordance with the 
 
43 8 History of France. 
 
 magnificence of the king and his courtiers ; Colbert was beside 
 himself at the sums the queen lavished on play. Madame de 
 Montespan lost and won back four millions in one night at 
 bassette ; Mdlle. de Fontanges gave away twenty thousand crowns' 
 worth of New Year's gifts. A new power, however, was beginning 
 to appear on the horizon, with such modesty and backwardness that 
 Madame de none could as yet discern it, least of all could the king. Madame 
 noa. n ^ e Montespan had looked out for some one to take care of and 
 educate her children. She had thought of Madame Scarron ; she 
 considered her clever ; she was so herself, " in that unique style 
 which was peculiar to the Mortemarts," said the duke of St. Simon; 
 she was fond of conversation ; Madame Scarron had a reputation 
 for being rather a blue-stocking ; this the king did not like ; 
 Madame de Montespan had her way ; Madame Scarron took charge 
 of the children secretly and in an isolated house. She was atten- 
 tive, careful, sensible. The king was struck with her devotion to 
 the children entrusted to her. " She can love," he said : " it 
 would be a pleasure to be loved by her." This expression plainly 
 indicated what was to happen ; and Madame de Montespan saw 
 herself supplanted by Madame Scarron. The widow of the 
 deformed poet had bought the estate of Maintenon out of the king's 
 bounty. He made her take the title. The recollection of Scarron 
 was displeasing to him. 
 
 The queen had died on the 30th of July, 1683, piously and 
 gently, as she had lived. " This is the first sorrow she ever caused 
 me," said the king, thus rendering homage, in his superb and 
 unconscious egotism, to the patient virtue of the wife he had 
 put to such cruel trials. Madame de Maintenon was agitated but 
 Her cha- resolute. " Madame de Montespan has plunged into the deepest 
 racter. devoutness," she wrote, two months after the queen's death : "it 
 is quite time she edified us; as for me, I no longer think of 
 retiring." Her strong common-sense and her far-sighted ambition, 
 far more than her virtue, had secured her against rocks ahead ; 
 henceforth she saw the goal, she was close upon it, she moved 
 towards it with an even step. The date has never been ascertained 
 exactly of the king's private marriage with Madame de Maintenon. 
 It took place probably eighteen months or two years after the 
 queen's death ; the king was forty-seven, Madame de Maintenon 
 fifty. " She had great remains of beauty, bright and sprightly 
 eyes, an incomparable grace," says St. Simon, who detested her, 
 " an air of ease and yet of restraint and respect, a great deal of 
 cleverness with a speech that was sweet, correct, in good terms and 
 naturally eloquent and brief." 
 
The duchess of Burgundy. 439 
 
 Madame de La Valliere had held sway over the' young and pas- 
 sionate heart of the prince, Madame de Montespan over the court, 
 Madame de Maintenon alone established her empire over the man 
 and the king. Alone she had any part in affairs, a smaller part 
 than has frequently been made out, but important, nevertheless, 
 and sometimes decisive. Ministers went occasionally to do their 
 work in her presence with the king, who would turn to her when 
 the questions were embarrassing, and ask, " What does your 
 Solidity think 1 " The opinions she gave were generally moderate 
 and discreet. Whatever the apparent reserve and modesty with Her in- 
 which it was cloaked, the real power of Madame de Maintenon fluen e . 
 over the king's mind peeped out more and more into broad daylight. XIV. 
 She promoted it dexterously by her extreme anxiety to please him 
 as well as by her natural and sincere attachment to the children 
 whom she had brought up and who had a place near the heart of 
 Louis XIV. 
 
 The chief ornament of the Court of Versailles was the Duchess The 
 of Burgundy. For the king and for Madame de Maintenon, the duchess of 
 great and inexhaustible attraction of this young lady washer gaiety 
 and unconstrained ease, tempered by the most delicate respect, 
 which, on coming as quite a child to France from the court of 
 Savoy, she had tact enough to introduce and always maintain 
 amidst the most intimate familiarity. " In public, demure, res- 
 pectful with the king, and on terms of timid propriety with Madame 
 de Maintenon, whom she never called anything but aunt, thus 
 prettily blending rank and affection. In private, chattering, frisk- 
 ing, fluttering around them, at one time perched on the arm of one 
 or the other's chairs, at another playfully sitting on their knee, she 
 would throw herself upon their necks, embrace them, kiss them, 
 fondle them, pull them to pieces, chuck them under the chin, tease 
 them, rummage their tables, their papers, their letters, reading 
 them sometimes against their will, according as she saw that they 
 were in the humour to laugh at it, and occasionally speaking 
 thereon. Admitted to everything, even at the reception of couriers 
 bringing the most important news, going in to the king at any hour, 
 even at the time the council was sitting, useful and also fatal to 
 ministers themselves, but always inclined to help, to excuse, to 
 benefit, unless she were violently set against any body. The king 
 could not do without her ; when, rarely, she was absent from his 
 supper in public, it was plainly shown by a cloud of more than 
 usual gravity and taciturnity over the king's whole person ; and so, 
 when it happened that some ball in winter or some party in 
 summer made her break into the night, she arranged matters so 
 
44 History of France. 
 
 well that she was there to kiss the king the moment he was awake 
 and to amuse him with an account of the affair " \_Memoires de St. 
 Simon. 
 
 The dauphiness had died in 1690; the duchess of Burgundy 
 was, therefore, almost from childhood queen of the court and before 
 long the idol of the courtiers ; it was around her that pleasures 
 sprang up ; it was for her that the king gave the entertainments to 
 which he had habituated Versailles, not that for her sake or to take 
 care of her health he would ever consent to modify his habits or 
 make the least change in his plans. " Thank God, it is over," he 
 exclaimed one day, after an accident to the princess ; " I shall no 
 longer be thwarted in my trips, and in all I desire to do, by the 
 representations of physicians. I shall come and go as I fancy ; and 
 I shall be left in peace." Even in his court and amongst his most 
 devoted servants, this monstrous egotism astounded and scandalized 
 everybody. 
 
 Flattery, at Versailles, ran a risk of becoming hypocrisy. On 
 hypocrisy, returning to a regular life, the king was for imposing the same upon 
 his whole court ; the instinct of order and regularity, smothered 
 for a while in the hey-day of passion, had resumed all its sway over 
 the naturally proper and steady mind of Louis XIV. His dignity 
 and his authority were equally involved in the cause of propriety 
 and regularity at his court ; he imposed this yoke as well as all the 
 others; there appeared to be entire obedience; only some princes 
 or princesses escaped it sometimes, getting about them a few free- 
 thinkers or boon-companions ; good, honest folks showed ingenuous 
 joy ; the virtuous and far-sighted were secretly uneasy at the false- 
 hood and deplored the pressure put on so many consciences and so 
 many lives. The king was sincere in his repentance for the past, 
 many persons in his court were as sincere as he ; others, who were 
 not, affected, in order to please him, the externals of austerity ; 
 absolute power oppressed all spirits, extorting from them that 
 hypocritical complaisance which it is liable to engender ; corrup- 
 tion was already brooding beneath appearances of piety ; the reign 
 of Louis XV. was to see its deplorable fruits displayed with a haste 
 and a scandal which are to be explained only by the oppression 
 exercised in the last years of King Louis XIV. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon was like the genius of this reaction 
 towards regularity, propriety, order; all the responsibility for it 
 has been thrown upon her; the good she did has disappeared 
 beneath the evil she allowed or encouraged ; the regard lavished 
 upon her by the king has caused illusions as to the discreet care she 
 was continually taking to please him. She was faithful to her 
 
Influence of women at Madrid and Versailles. 441 
 
 friends, so long as they were in favour with the king ; if they had 
 the misfortune to displease him, she, at the very least, gave up see- 
 ing them ; without courage or hardihood to withstand the caprices 
 and wishes of Louis XIV., she had gained and preserved her empire 
 by dint of dexterity and far-sighted suppleness beneath the externals 
 of dignity. 
 
 It was through Madame de Maintenon and her correspondence The pr j n _ 
 with the princess des Ursins that the private business between the cess des 
 two courts of France and Spain was often carried on. At Madrid Ursins - 
 far more than at Versailles, the influence of women was all-power- 
 ful. The queen ruled her husband, who was honest and courageous 
 but without wit or daring ; and the princess des Ursins ruled the 
 queen, as intelligent and as amiable as her sister the duchess of 
 Burgundy, but more ambitious and more haughty. Louis XIV. 
 had several times conceived some misgiving of the camarera major's 
 influence over his grandson ; she had been disgraced and then 
 recalled ; she had finally established her sway by her fidelity, 
 ability, dexterity and indomitable courage. She served France . 
 habitually, Spain and her own influence in Spain always ; she had 
 been charming, with an air of nobility, grace, elegance and majesty 
 all together, and accustomed to the highest society and the most 
 delicate intrigues, during her sojourn at Eome and Madrid ; she was 
 full of foresight and calculation, but impassioned, ambitious, 
 implacable, pushing to extremes her amity as well as her hatred, 
 faithful to her master and mistress in their most cruel trials, and 
 then hampering and retarding peace for the sake of securing for 
 herself a principality in the Low Countries. 
 
 But the time came for Madame des Ursins to make definitive Her power 
 trial of fortune's inconstancy. After having enjoyed unlimited * nd h . e * 
 power and influence, with great difficulty she obtained an asylum 
 at Eome, where she lived seven years longer, preserving all her 
 health, strength, mind and easy grace until she died, in 1722, at 
 more than eighty four years of age, in obscurity and sadness, not- 
 withstanding her opulence, but avenged of her Spanish foes, Car- 
 dinals della Giudice and Alberoni, whom she met again at Eome, 
 disgraced and fugitive like herself. " I do not know where I may 
 die," she wrote to Madame de Maintenon, at that time in retire- 
 ment at St. Cyr. Both had survived their power ; the princess des 
 Ursins had not long since wanted to secure for herself a dominion ; 
 Madame de Maintenon, more far-sighted and more modest, had 
 aspired to no more than repose in the convent which she had 
 founded and endowed. Discreet in her retirement as well as in her 
 life, she had not left to chance the selection of a place where she 
 might die. 
 
44 2 History of France. 
 
 " One has no more luck at our age," Louis XIV. had said to his 
 old friend Marshal Villars, returning from his most disastrous cam- 
 paign. It was a bitter reflection upon himself which had put these 
 words into the king's mouth. After the most brilliant, the most 
 continually and invariably triumphant of reigns, he began to see 
 fortune slipping away from him and the grievous consequences of 
 his errors successively overwhelming the State. " God is punish- 
 ing me, I have richly deserved it," he said to Marshal Villars, who 
 was on the point of setting out for the battle of Denain. The aged 
 king, dispirited and beaten, could not set down to men his misfor- 
 tunes and reverses ; the hand of God Himself was raised against his 
 The sun of ^ ouse > Death was knocking double knocks all round him. The 
 Louis XIV. grand-dauphin had for some days past been ill of small-pox ; he 
 sets. di ec [ j n April, 1711 ; the duchess of Burgundy was carried off by 
 
 an attack of malignant fever in February, 1712 ; her husband fol- 
 lowed her within a week, and their eldest child, the duke of 
 Brittany about a month afterwards. 
 
 There was universal and sincere mourning in France and in 
 Europe. The most sinister rumours circulated darkly ; a base 
 intrigue caused the duke of Orleans to be accused ; people called 
 to mind his taste for chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, 
 his scandalous debauchery ; beside himself with grief and anger, he 
 demanded of the king to be sent to the Bastille ; the king refused 
 curtly, coldly, not unmoved in his secret heart by the perfidious in- 
 sinuations which made their way even to him, but too just and too 
 sensible to entertain a hateful lie, which, nevertheless, lay heavy on 
 the duke of Orleans to the end of his days. 
 
 Darkly, 'but to more effect, the same rumours were renewed before 
 long. The duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven, on the 
 4th of May, 1714, of a disease which presented the same features as 
 the scarlet fever (rougeole pourpree) to which his brother and sister- 
 in-law had succumbed. The king was old and sad : the state of his 
 kingdom preyed upon his mind ; he was surrounded by influences 
 hostile to his nephew, whom he himself called " a vaunter of 
 crimes." A child who was not five years old remained sole heir to 
 the throne. Madame de Maintenon, as sad as the king, " naturally 
 mistrustful, addicted to jealousies, susceptibilities, suspicions, aver- 
 sions, spites, and woman's wiles " \_Lettres de Fenelon au due de 
 Chevreuse], being, moreover, sincerely attached to the king's 
 natural children, was constantly active on their behalf. On the 
 19th of July, 1714, the king announced to the premier president 
 Louis XIV. and. the attorney-general of the parliament of Paris that it was his 
 pleasure to grant to the duke of Maine and to the count of Tou- 
 louse, for themselves and their descendants, the rank of princes of 
 
The king's last will. 443 
 
 the blood, in its full extent, and that he desired that the deed 
 should be enregistered in the parliament. Soon after, still under 
 the same influence, he made a will which was kept a profound 
 secret and which he sent to be deposited in the strong-room (greffe) 
 of the parliament, committing the guardianship of the future king 
 to the duke of Maine, and placing him, as well as his brother, on 
 the council of regency, with close restrictions as to the duke of 
 Orleans, who would be naturally called to the government of c i anses> 
 the kingdom during the minority. The will was darkly talked 
 about : the effect of the elevation of bastards to the rank of princes 
 of the blood had been terrible. " There was no longer any son of 
 France : the Spanish branch had renounced j the duke of Orleans 
 had been carefully placed in such a position as not to dare say a 
 word or show the least dissatisfaction ; his only son was a child ; 
 neither the duke (of Berry), his brothers, nor the prince of Conti, 
 were of an age or of standing, in the king's eyes, to make the least 
 trouble in the world about it. The bomb-shell dropped all at once 
 when nobody could have expected it, and everybody fell on his 
 stomach, as is done when a shell drops ; everybody was gloomy and 
 almost wild ; the king himself appeared as if exhausted by so great 
 an effort of will and power." He had only just signed his will, 
 when he met, at Madame de Main tenon's, the ex-queen of England. 
 " I have made my will, Madame," said he : "I have purchased 
 repose ; I know the impotence and uselessness of it ; we can do all 
 we please as long as we are here ; after we are gone, we can do less 
 than private persons ; we have only to look at what became of my 
 father's, and immediately after his death too, and of those of so 
 many other kings. I am quite aware of that ; but, in spite of all 
 that, it was desired ; and so, Madame, you see it has been done ; 
 come of it what may, at any rate I shall not be worried about it 
 any more." It was tjie old man yielding to the entreaties and 
 intrigues of his domestic circle ; the judgment of the king remained 
 steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices. 
 
 Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so Last days 
 long, and had occupied so much room in the world, that it caused ?* the 
 mistakes as to the very age of the king. He was seventy-seven, he 
 continued to work with his ministers ; the order so long and so 
 firmly established was not disturbed by illness any more than it had 
 been by the reverses and sorrows of late. He said to Madame de 
 Maintenon once, " What consoles me for leaving you, is that it will 
 not be long before we meet again." She made no reply. " What 
 will become of you ?" he added : " you have nothing." " Do not 
 think of me," said she : " I am nobody ; think only of God." He 
 
444 History of France. 
 
 said farewell to her : she still remained a little while in his room 
 
 and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had given 
 
 away here and there the few moveables that belonged to her, and 
 
 now took the road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Vil- 
 
 leroy : " Good bye, marshal," she said curtly and covered up her 
 
 face in her coifs. He it was who sent her news of the king to the 
 
 last moment. The duke of Orleans, on becoming regent, went to 
 
 see her and took her the patent (brevet} for a pension of sixty 
 
 thousand livres, " which her disinterestedness had made necessary 
 
 for her," said the preamble. It was paid her up to the last day of 
 
 her life. History makes no further mention of her name ; she 
 
 never left St. Cyr. Thither the czar Peter the Great, when he 
 
 visited Paris and France, went to see her ; she was confined to her 
 
 bed ; he sat a little while beside her. " What is your malady ? " 
 
 he asked her through his interpreter. "A great age," answered 
 
 Madame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment in 
 
 A D 1719 s ^ ence > then, closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The 
 
 Death of memory he would have called up had vanished. The woman on 
 
 de^Tn w k m ti 16 g reat king had, for thirty years, heaped confidence and 
 
 tenon affection was old, forgotten, dying ; she expired at St. Cyr on the 
 
 (April 15). 15th of April, 1719, at the age of eighty-three. 
 
 She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies ; the 
 prayers in extremity were being repeated around him; the cere- 
 monial recalled him to consciousness. He joined his voice with the 
 voices of those present, repeating the prayers with them. Already 
 the court was hurrying to the duke of Orleans ; some of the more 
 confident had repaired to the duke of Maine's ; the king's servants 
 were left almost alone around his bed ; the tones of the dying man 
 were distinctly heard above the great number of priests. He 
 several times repeated : Nunc et in Jwra mortis. Then he said 
 quite loud : " my God, come Thou to help irie, haste Thee to 
 succour me." Those were his last words. He expired on Sunday, 
 the 1st of September, 1715, at eight a.m. Next day he would 
 Death of ^ ave keen seventy-seven years of age and he had reigned seventy- 
 the king two of them. 
 
 ) j n gpite of his faults and his numerous and culpable errors, 
 Louis XIV. had lived and died like a king. The slow and grievous 
 agony of olden France was about to begin. 
 
Colbert's Budget. 
 
 445 
 
 TABLE I. COLBERT'S BUDGET FOR THE YEAR 1662. 
 
 DEBITOR'S ACCOUNT. 
 
 livres s. ds. 
 
 Royal household 7,000,000 
 
 The army (at the rate of 600,000 
 
 livres per month) 7,200,000 
 
 Regiment of the French Guards 969,841 
 
 Regiment of the Swiss Guards 1,224,810 6 8 
 
 Light Dragoons (chevau-legers) 
 
 of the Guard 223,205 
 
 The two companies of Muske- 
 teers 314,952 
 
 Public Buildings 1,600,000 
 
 Garrison expenses (as per es- 
 timate) 2,000,000 
 
 Navy estimates 2,000,000 
 
 The hulks (galeres) 400,000 
 
 Fortifications 300,000 
 
 Extraordinary expenses of the 
 
 Royal Family 300,000 
 
 Ambassadors 250,000 
 
 Salary of government officers. 1,200,000 
 
 Foreign pensions 300,000 
 
 Extraordinary pensions, etc. to 
 the officers of the King's 
 household 200,000 
 
 Payment to the Archduke of 
 
 Inspriick 1,000,000 
 
 Artillery and purchase of am- 
 munition 300,000 
 
 Salary of the Marshals of 
 
 France 200,000 
 
 Gratuities to members of the 
 
 council, etc 300,000 
 
 Extraordinary and unforeseen 
 
 expenses 1,317,191 13 4 
 
 Total... 30,000,000 livres 
 
 CREDITOR'S ACCOUNT. 
 
 Gabelles (salt tax) 
 
 Lea cinq grosses fermes\ 
 
 Aides (wine and spirit taxes) . 
 
 Tolls 
 
 Convoi de Sordedux-f 
 
 Salt-tax for Languedoc, Lyon- 
 nais, Provence, Dau- 
 phine, and customs of 
 Valence 
 
 Overtax for Lyons 
 
 Ditto (quarantieme.) 
 
 Subvention of Rouen. 
 
 Patents of Languedoc, Arzac 
 and Bouille 
 
 Tax of thirty-five sous raised 
 at Brouage 
 
 Paulette 
 
 Farming of one-third of the 
 domains and alienated 
 rights 
 
 Salt-tax in Roussillon 
 
 Domains in ditto 
 
 Salt-tax and domains of Metz, 
 Toul and Verdun 
 
 Farming of the King's do- 
 mains in Alsace 
 
 Post office 
 
 Tailles (poll-tax and property 
 
 livres 
 13,500,000 
 3,650,000 
 5,211,000 
 4,720,900 
 3,600,000 
 
 6,570,000 
 60,000 
 120,000 
 120,000 
 
 566,000 
 
 335,000 
 800,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 277,000 
 
 80,000 
 100,000 
 
 45,768,807 
 
 8. ds. 
 
 Total... 87,587,607 livres. 
 
 * This name was given to the custom-house 
 dues levied collectively on the provinces of lie 
 de France, Normandy, Picardy, Champagne, 
 Bourgogne, Bresse and Bugey, Bourbonnais, 
 Poitou, Anjou, Maine and Touraine, which had 
 formed together a kind of Zollverein, 
 
 t A tax levied on consideration of the protec- 
 tion given by the King's navy to the merchant 
 ships trading between Bordeaux and foreign 
 parts. 
 
 N.B. This table is taken from Mr. Ch^ruel's excellent Dictionnaire historique des institutions, 
 tnceur* et coutumes de la France, published by Messrs. Hachette. 
 
 TABLE II. A CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE FRENCH ARMY, 
 DOWN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 1124. First instance of a permanent military force established. 
 
 1191. The supreme command of the army given to the constable of France, 
 
 who has under his orders two marshals, besides the grand-master 
 
 of the cross-bowmen. 
 1439. The cavalry of the gens d'armes (compagnies d'ordonnance) instituted j 
 
 these companies, fifteen in number, are of 100 lances (600 men) 
 
 each. 
 1445. The Francs-archers or Francs-taupins (infantry) instituted. The 
 
 name taupins is derived from the Low Latin talparius, meaning a 
 
 man who works underground, like a mole. Scotch archers appointed 
 
 as part of the king's body-guard. 
 
446 History of France. 
 
 1478. The company of the gentilshommes-a-bec-de-corbin (infantry) or- 
 ganized. 
 
 1496. A body of Swiss soldiers, 127 in number, added to the king's house- 
 hold troops. (Les cent hommes de guerre Suisses de la garde du Roi). 
 1532. Provincial legions instituted by Francis I. These corps, seven in all, 
 
 are of 6000 men each. 
 
 1544. A colonel-general of the infantry appointed. 
 1558. Creation of a corps of carabins (light cavalry). Marshal de Cosse- 
 
 Brissac forms a regiment of dragoons destined to fight both on 
 
 horseback and- on foot. 
 1563. The provincial legions formed into regiments. The most ancient of 
 
 these corps are the regiments of Picardy, Champagne, Navarre, 
 
 Piedmont. Institution of the French guards. 
 1571. Appointment of a colonel-general of the Swiss and Grison troops in 
 
 the French service. 
 
 1609. Gens d'armes of the king's body-guard instituted (cavalry). 
 1619. First nomination of a minister of war. 
 1612. The company of grey musketeers instituted. (Thus called from the 
 
 colour of their horses. 
 
 1627. The office of constable of France suppressed. 
 
 1630. Formation of a body of chevau-legers (household troops, light cavalry). 
 1635. The musketeers and carbineers formed into regiments. 
 1660. A company of black musketeers instituted. 
 
 1665. Generals of brigade appointed for the cavalry. 
 
 1666. Louvois, minister of war. 
 
 1668. Generals of brigade appointed for the infantry. 
 
 1670. Establishment of the gardes marines at Brest, Rochefort and Tonlon. 
 
 1671. Foundation of the Hdtel des Invalides. Introduction of the bayonet. 
 
 Regiments of fusiliers formed. 
 
 1672. Companies of grenadiers introduced into each regiment. 
 
 1686. Grenadiers on foot and on horseback raised as part of the household 
 
 troops. 
 
 1679-1707. Vauban reorganizes military engineering. 
 1682. Military schools established (4coles de cadets). 
 1691. First company of hussards raised. 
 
 1693. The order of Saint-Louis created as a decoration for military services. 
 1734. Marshal de Saxe forms a body of 100 Uhlans (lancers). 
 1748. Engineering schools established at Mezieres. 
 1751. A military school established at Paris. 
 1764. The Gardes Francaises arranged into six battalions, each containing 
 
 half a company of grenadiers (50 men), and five companies of 
 
 fusiliers (120 men each). 
 1776. The cent-Suisses disbanded. Count de Saint Germain, minister of war, 
 
 introduces many reforms. 
 1789. Reform of the army. Creation of the national guard. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LOUIS XV., THE REGENCY, CARDINAL DUBOIS AND CARDINAL DE FLEURY. 
 
 (17151748). 
 
 UNDER Henry IV., under Eichelieu, under Louis XIV., events 
 found quite naturally their guiding hand and their centre ; men as 
 well as circumstances formed a group around the head of the nation, 
 whether king or minister, to thence unfold themselves quite clearly Decay of 
 before the eyes of posterity. Starting from the reign of Louis XV. the French 
 the nation has no longer a head, history no longer a centre ; at the 
 same time with a master of the higher order, great servants also fail 
 the French monarchy ; it all at once collapses, betraying thus the 
 exhaustion of Louis XIV.'s latter years ; decadence is no longer 
 veiled by the remnants of the splendour which was still reflected 
 from the great king and his great reign \ the glory of olden France 
 descends slowly to its grave. At the same time, and in a future 
 as yet obscured, intellectual progress begins to dawn ; new ideas of 
 justice, of humanity, of generous equity towards the masses germi- 
 nate sparsely in certain minds ; it is no longer Christianity alone 
 that inspires them, though the honour is reflected upon it in a 
 general way and as regards the principles with which it has silently 
 permeated modern society, but they who contribute to spread them 
 refuse with indignation to acknowledge the source whence they 
 have drawn them. Intellectual movement no longer appertains 
 exclusively to the higher classes, to the ecclesiastics, or to the mem- 
 bers of the parliaments ; vaguely as yet, and retarded by apathy in 
 the government as well as by disorder in affairs, it propagates and 
 
448 History of France. 
 
 extends itself imperceptibly pending that signal and terrible 
 explosion of good and evil which is to characterize the close of the 
 eighteenth century. Decadence and progress are going on confusedly 
 in the minds as well as in the material condition of the nation. 
 They must be distinguished and traced without any pretence of 
 separating them. 
 
 There we have the reign of Louis XV. in its entirety. 
 
 Eegency of The regency of the duke of Orleans and the ministry of Cardinal 
 onMeans ^ubois showed certain traits of the general tendencies and to a 
 certain extent felt their influence ; they formed, however, a distinct 
 epoch, abounding in original efforts and bold attempts, which 
 remained without result but which testified to the lively reaction 
 in men's minds against the courses and fundamental principles of 
 the reign which had just ended. 
 
 Louis XIV. had made no mistake about the respect which his 
 last wishes were destined to meet with after his death. His will 
 was as good as annulled ; it was opened, it was read, and so were 
 the two codicils. All the authority was entrusted to a council of 
 regency of which the duke of Orleans was to be the head, but with- 
 out preponderating voice and without power to supersede any of 
 the members, all designated in advance by Louis XIV. The 
 person and the education of the young king, as well as the command 
 of the household troops, were entrusted to the duke of Maine. 
 The will of The Parliament applauded the formation of the six councils of 
 ' forei g n afftiirs > of finance, of war, of the marine, of home or the 
 interior, of conscience or ecclesiastical affairs ; the Regent was 
 entrusted with the free disposal of graces : "I want to be free for 
 good," said he, adroitly repeating a phrase from Te'le'maque, " I 
 consent to have my hands tied for evil." 
 
 The victory was complete. Not a shred remained of Louis 
 XIV.'s will. The duke of Maine, confounded and humiliated, 
 retired to his castle of Sceaux, there to endure the reproaches of 
 his wife. The king's affection and Madame de Maintenon's clever 
 tactics had not sufficed to found his power ; the remaining vestiges 
 of his greatness were themselves about to vanish before long in 
 their turn. 
 
 On the 12th of September, the little king held a bed of justice ; 
 his governess, Madame de Ventadour, sat alone at the feet of the 
 poor orphan, abandoned on the pinnacle of power. All the decisions 
 of September 2 were ratified in the child's name. Louis XIV. 
 had just descended to the tomb without pomp and without regret. 
 The joy of the people broke out indecently as the funeral train 
 passed by j the nation had forgotten the glory of the great king, it 
 
Liberal measures. 449 
 
 remembered only the evils which had for so long oppressed it 
 during his reign. 
 
 The new councils had already been constituted, when it was 
 discovered that commerce had been forgotten; and to it was 
 assigned a seventh body. How singular are the monstrosities of 
 inexperience ! At the head of the council of finance a place was The duke 
 found for the duke of Noailles, active in mind and restless in cha- i^u^ 
 racter, without any fixed principles, an adroit and a shameless 
 courtier, strict in all religious observances under Louis XIV. and a 
 notorious debauchee under the Regency, but intelligent, insolent, 
 ambitious, hungering and thirsting to do good if he could, but evil 
 if need were and in order to arrive at his ends. His uncle, Cardinal 
 Noailles, who had been but lately threatened by the court of Rome 
 with the loss of his hat, and who had seen himself forbidden to 
 approach the dying king, was now president of the council of con- 
 science. Marshal d'Huxelles, one of the negotiators who had 
 managed the treaty of Utrecht, was at the head of foreign affairs. 
 The Regent had reserved to himself one simple department, the 
 Academy of Sciences. " I quite intend," said he gaily, " to ask the 
 king, on his majority, to let me still be secretary of State of the 
 Academy." 
 
 The Regent's predilection, consolidating the work of Colbert, 
 contributed to the development of scientific researches, for which 
 the neatness and clearness of French thought rendered it thence- 
 forth so singularly well adapted. 
 
 The gates of the prison were meanwhile being thrown open to The Bas- 
 many a poor creature \ the Jansenists left the Bastille j others, who t j ir o wn 
 had been for a long time past in confinement, were still ignorant open. 
 of the grounds for their captivity, which was by this time forgotten 
 by everybody. For a while the Protestants thought they saw their 
 advantage in the clemency with which the new reign appeared to 
 be inaugurated, and began to meet again in their assemblies ; the 
 Regent had some idea of doing them justice, re-establishing the 
 edict of Nantes and reopening to the exiles the doors of their 
 country, but his councillors dissuaded him, the more virtuous, like 
 St. Simon, from catholic piety, the more depraved from policy and 
 indifference. However, the lot of the Protestants remained under 
 the Regency less hard than it had been under Louis XIV. and 
 than it became under the duke of Bourbon. The chancellor, Voysin, D^fftieS" 
 had just died. To this post the Regent summoned the attorney- seau chan- 
 general, D'Aguesseau, beloved and esteemed of all, learned, eloquent, cellor 
 virtuous, but too exclusively a man of parliament for the functions 
 which had been confided to him. 
 
 G G 
 
45 o History of France. 
 
 The new system of government, as yet untried and confided to 
 men for the most part little accustomed to affairs, had to put up 
 __ with the most formidable difficulties and to struggle against the 
 
 treasury, most painful position. The treasury was empty and the country 
 exhausted ; the army was not paid and the most honourable men, 
 such as the duke of St. Simon, saw no other remedy for the evils 
 of the State but a total bankruptcy and the convocation of the 
 States-general. Both expedients were equally repugnant to the 
 duke of Orleans. The duke of Noailles had entered upon a 
 course of severe economy ; the king's household was diminished, 
 twenty-five thousand men were struck off the strength of the 
 army, exemption from talliage for six years was promised to all 
 such discharged soldiers as should restore a deserted house and 
 should put into cultivation the fields lying waste. At the same 
 time something was being taken off the crushing weight of the 
 taxes and the State was assuming the charge of recovering them 
 directly, without any regard for the real or supposed advances of the 
 Receivers-general ; their accounts were submitted to the revision of 
 the brothers Paris, sons of an innkeeper in the Dauphinese Alps, 
 who had made fortunes by military contracts and were all four 
 reputed to be very able in matters of finance. They were likewise 
 commissioned to revise the bills circulating in the name of the 
 State, in other words, to suppress a great number without re-iin- 
 bursement to the holder, a sort of bankruptcy in disguise, which 
 did not help to raise the public credit. At the same time also a 
 chamber of justice, instituted for that purpose, was prosecuting 
 the tax-farmers (traitants), as Louis XIV. had done at the com- 
 mencement of his reign, during the suit against Fouquet. The 
 resources derived from this measure, as well as from the revision 
 of the State's debts, remaining very much below expectation, the 
 deficit went on continually increasing. In order to re-establish 
 the finances, the duke of Noailles demanded fifteen years' imprac- 
 ticable economy, as chimerical as the increment of the revenues on 
 which he calculated ; and the duke of Orleans finally suffered 
 himself to be led away by the brilliant prospect which was flashed 
 before his eyes by the Scotsman Law, who had now for more than 
 two years been settled in France. 
 
 John Law Law, born at Edinburgh in 1671, son of a goldsmith, had for a 
 long time been scouring Europe, seeking in a clever and systematic 
 course of gambling a source of fortune for himself and the first 
 foundation of the great enterprises he was revolving in his singu- 
 larly inventive and daring mind. Passionately devoted to the 
 financial theories he had conceived, Law had expounded them to 
 
THE REGENT ORLEANS. 
 
 Page -151. 
 
Financial speculations. 451 
 
 all the princes of Europe in succession. " He says that of all the 
 persons to whom he has spoken about his system he has found but 
 two who apprehended it, to wit, the king of Sicily and my son," 
 wrote Madame, the Regent's mother. Victor Amadeo, however, 
 had rejected Law's proposals. " I am not powerful enough to 
 ruin myself," he had said. Law had not been more successful 
 with Louis XIV. The Regent had not the same repugnance for 
 novelties of foreign origin ; so soon as he was in power, he 
 authorised the Scot to found a circulating and discount bank 
 (banque de circulation et d'escompte), which at once had very great 
 success and did real service. Encouraged by this first step, Law His bank- 
 reiterated to the Regent that the credit of bankers and merchants in & s y stem ' 
 decupled their capital ; if the State became the universal banker 
 and centralized all the values in circulation, the public fortune 
 would naturally be decupled. A radically false system, fated to 
 plunge the State and consequently the whole nation into the risks 
 of speculation and trading without the guarantee of that activity, 
 zeal and prompt resolution which able men of business can import 
 into their private enterprises. The system was not as yet applied j 
 the discreet routine of the Erench financiers was scared at such 
 risky chances, the pride of the great lords sitting in the council 
 was shocked at the idea of seeing the State turning banker, perhaps 
 even trader. St. Simon maintained that what was well enough for 
 a free State could not take place under an absolute government. 
 Law went on, however; to his bank he had just added a great 
 company. The king ceded to him Louisiana, which was said to be 
 rich in gold and silver mines superior to those of Mexico and Peru. 
 People vaunted the fertility of the soil, the facility offered for trade 
 by the extensive and rapid stream of the Mississippi ; it was by the 
 name of that river that the new company was called at first, though 
 it soon took the title of Compagnie $ Occident, when it had obtained 
 the privilege of trading in Senegal and in Guinea ; it became the 
 Compagnie des Indes, on forming a fusion with the old enterprises 
 which worked the trade of the East. For the generality, and in 
 the current phraseology, it remained the Mississippi ; and that is " The Mis- 
 the name it has left in history. New Orleans was beginning to sissi PP i " 
 arise at the mouth of that river. Law had bought Belle-Isle-en- 
 Mer, and was constructing the port of Lorient. 
 
 The Regent's councillors were scared and disquieted; the 
 chancellor proclaimed himself loudly against the deception or 
 illusion which made of Louisiana a land of promise : he called to 
 mind that Crozat had been ruined in searching for mines of the 
 precious metals there. This opposition, resulting from the purest 
 
 G G 2 
 
, 45 2 History of France. 
 
 motives, caused his temporary disgrace ; he was ordered by the 
 Regent to give up the seals, which were entrusted to d'Argenson. 
 The die had been cast and the duke of Orleans outstripped Law 
 Financial himself in the application of his theories. A company, formed 
 jc ernes. secre ti v an d protected by the new keeper of the seals, had bought 
 up the general farmings (fermes generates), that is to say, all the 
 indirect taxes, for the sum of forty-eight million fifty-two thousand 
 livres ; the Compagnie des Indes re-purchased them for fifty-two 
 millions ; the general receipts were likewise conceded to it, and 
 Law's bank was proclaimed a Royal Bank ; the Company's shares 
 already amounted to the supposed value of all the coin circulating 
 in the kingdom, estimated at seven or eight hundred millions. 
 Law thought he might risk everything in the intoxication which 
 had seized all France, capital and province. He created some 
 fifteen hundred millions of new shares, promising his shareholders 
 a dividend of 12 per cent. From all parts silver and gold flowed 
 into his hands ; everywhere the paper of the bank was substituted 
 for coin. The delirium had mastered all minds. The street called 
 Quincampoix, for a long time past devoted to the operations of 
 bankers, had become the usual meeting-place of the greatest lords 
 as well as of discreet burgesses. It had been found necessary to 
 close the two ends of the street with gates, open from six a.m. to 
 nine p.m. ; every house harboured business agents by the hundred ; 
 the smallest room was let for its weight in gold. The workmen 
 who made the paper for the bank-notes could not keep up with the 
 consumption. The most modest fortunes suddenly became colossal, 
 lacqueys of yesterday were millionaires to-morrow ; extravagance 
 followed the progress of this outburst of riches, and the price of 
 provisions followed the progress of extravagance. 
 
 This extraordinary financial delusion did not, could not last. Law 
 had brought with him to France a considerable fortune ; he had 
 scarcely enough to live upon when he retired to Venice, where he 
 died some years later (1729), convinced to the last of the utility of 
 his system, at the same time that he acknowledged the errors he 
 had committed in its application. 
 
 Throughout the successive periods of intoxication and despair 
 
 caused by the necessary and logical development of Law's scheme, 
 
 the duke of Orleans had dealt other blows and directed other 
 
 affairs of importance. Easy-going, indolent, often absorbed by his 
 
 and the pleasures, the Regent found no great difficulty in putting up with 
 
 legitima- the exaltation of the legitimatized princes ; it had been for him 
 
 princes sufficient to wrest authority from the duke of Maine, he let him 
 
 enjoy the privileges of a prince of the blood. " I kept silence 
 
Intrigues of the duchess of Maine. 453 
 
 during the king's lifetime," he would say ; " I will not he mean 
 enough to "break it now he is dead." But the duke of Bourbon, 
 heir of the House of Conde, fierce in temper, violent in his hate, 
 greedy of honours as well as of money, had just arrived at man's The duke 
 estate, and was wroth at sight of the bastards' greatness. He ?^ 
 drew after him the count of Charolais his brother, and the prince a t the 
 of Conti his cousin : on the 22nd of April, 1716, all three presented neatness 
 to the king a request for the revocation of Louis XIV.'s edict ar( j s e 
 declaring his legitimatized sons princes of the blood and capable of 
 succeeding to the throne. 
 
 The Eegent saw the necessity of firmness. " It is a maxim," 
 he declared, " that the king is always a major as regards justice ; 
 that which was done without the states-general has no need of 
 their intervention to be undone. The decree of the council of 
 regency, based on the same principles, suppressed the right of suc- 
 cession to the crown, and cut short all pretensions on the part of 
 the legitimatized princes' issue to the rank of princes of the blood \ 
 the rights thereto were maintained in the case of the duke of Maine 
 and the count of Toulouse, for their lives, by the bounty of the 
 Eegent. 
 
 In the excess of her indignation and wrath the duchess of Maine Conspiracy 
 determined not to confine herself to reproaches. She had passed f Cella- 
 her life in elegant entertainments, in sprightly and frivolous intel- 
 lectual amusements ; ever bent on diverting herself, she made up her 
 mind to taste the pleasure of vengeance, and set on foot a con- 
 spiracy, as frivolous as her diversions. The object, however, was 
 nothing less than to overthrow the duke of Orleans, and to confer 
 the regency on the king of Spain, Philip V., with a council and a 
 lieutenant, who was to be the duke of Maine. 
 
 Some scatter-brains of great houses were mixed up in the affair : 
 MM. de Eichelieu, de Laval, and de Pompadour ; there was secret 
 coming and going between the castle of Sceaux and the house of the 
 Spanish ambassador, the prince of Cellamare j M. de Malezieux, the 
 secretary and friend of the duchess, drew up a form of appeal from 
 the French nobility to Philip V., but nobody had signed it or 
 thought of doing so. They got pamphlets written by Abbe Brigault, 
 whom the duchess had sent to Spain ; the mystery was profound 
 and all the conspirators were convinced of the importance of their 
 manoeuvres ; every day, however, the Regent was informed of them 
 by his most influential negotiator with foreign countries, Abbe 
 Dubois, his late tutor and the most depraved of all those who were 
 about him. Able and vigilant as he was, he was not ignorant of 
 any single detail of the plot, and was only giving the conspirators 
 
454 History of France. 
 
 time to compromise themselves. At last, just as a young abbe, 
 Porto Carrero, was starting for Spain, carrying important papers, 
 he was arrested at Poitiers and his papers were seized. Next day, 
 Dec. 7, 1718, the prince of Cellamare's house was visited and the 
 streets were lined with troops. 
 
 At six a.m. the king's men entered the duke of Maine's house. 
 
 The Eegent had for a long time delayed to act, as if he wanted to 
 
 leave everybody time to get away ; but the conspirators were too 
 
 The duke careless to take the trouble. The duchess was removed to Dijon, 
 
 and within the government and into the very house of the duke of 
 
 Maine* 8 ' ' Bourbon ner nephew, which was a very bitter pill for her. The 
 
 arrested, duke of Maine, who protested his innocence and his ignorance, was 
 
 detained in the castle of Dourlans in Picardy. Cellamare received 
 
 his passports and quitted France. The less illustrious conspirators 
 
 were all put in the Bastille ; the majority did not remain there 
 
 long and purchased their liberty by confessions, which the duchess 
 
 of Maine ended by confirming. 
 
 The only serious result of Cellamare's conspiracy was to render 
 imminent a rupture with Spain. From the first days of the regency 
 the old enmity of Philip V. towards the duke of Orleans and the 
 secret pretensions of both of them to the crown of France, in case 
 of little Louis XY.'s death, rendered the relations between the two 
 courts thorny and strained at bottom, though still perfectly smooth 
 in appearance. It was from England that Abbe Dubois urged the 
 Character Regent to seek support. Dubois, born in the very lowest position, 
 of the Abbe an( j en( j owe d with a soul worthy of his origin, was "a little, lean 
 man, wire-drawn, with a light-coloured wig, the look of a weasel, a 
 clever expression," says St. Simon, who detested him : " all vices 
 struggled within him for the mastery ; they kept up a constant hub- 
 bub and strife together. Avarice, debauchery, ambition were his 
 gods ; perfidy, flattery, slavishness his instruments ; and complete 
 unbelief his comfort. He excelled in low intrigues ; the boldest lie 
 was second nature to him, with an air of simplicity, straightforward- 
 ness, sincerity, and often bashfulness." In spite of all these vices, 
 and the depraving influence he had exercised over the duke of 
 Orleans from his earliest youth, Dubois was able, often far-sighted, 
 and sometimes bold ; he had a correct and tolerably practical mind. 
 Madame, who was afraid of him, had said to her son on the day of 
 his elevation to power : " I desire only the welfare of the State and 
 your own glory ; I have but one request to make for your honour's 
 sake, and I demand your word for it, that is, never to employ that 
 scoundrel of an Abbe Dubois, the greatest rascal in the world, and 
 one who would sacrifice the State and you to the slightest interest." 
 
Peter the Great in France. 455 
 
 The Eegent promised ; yet a few months later and Dubois was 
 Church-councillor of State, and his growing influence with the 
 prince placed him, at first secretly and before long openly, at the 
 head of foreign affairs. 
 
 Inspired by Dubois, weary of the weakness and dastardly inca- 
 pacity of the Pretender, the Regent consented to make overtures 
 to the king of England. The Spanish nation was favourable to 
 Trance, but the king was hostile to the Regent ; the English loved 
 neither France nor the Regent, but their king had an interest in 
 severing France from the Pretender for ever. Dubois availed 
 himself ably of his former relations with Lord Stanhope, heretofore 
 commander of the English troops in Spain, for commencing a secret 
 negotiation which soon extended to Holland, still closely knit to 
 England. The order of succession to the crowns of France and 
 England, conformably to the peace of Utrecht, was guaranteed in 
 the scheme of treaty ; that was the only important advantage to 
 the Regent, who considered himself to be thus nailing the renun- 
 ciation of Philip Y. ; in other respects all the concessions came from 
 the side of France ; her territory was forbidden ground to the 
 Jacobites, and the Pretender, who had taken refuge at Avignon on 
 papal soil, was to be called upon to cross the Alps. The English 
 required the abandonment of the works upon the canal of Mardyck, 
 intended to replace the harbour of Dunkerque; the Hollanders 
 claimed commercial advantages. Dubois yielded on all the points, 
 defending to the last with fruitless tenacity the title of king of 
 France, which the English still disputed. The negotiations came 
 to an end at length on the 6th of January, 1717, and Dubois wrote 
 in triumph to the Regent : " I signed at midnight ; so there are you 
 quit of servitude (your own master), and here am I quit of fear." 
 
 At the moment when the signature was being put to the treaty The czar 
 of the triple alliance, the sovereign of most distinction in Europe ete ^ the 
 owing to the eccentric renown belonging to his personal merit, visits 
 the czar Peter the Great, had just made flattering advances to France. 
 France. He had some time before wished to take a trip to Paris, 
 but Louis XIV. was old, melancholy and vanquished, and had 
 declined the czar's visit. The Regent could not do the same thing, 
 when, being at the Hague in 1717, Peter I. repeated the expression 
 of his desire. Marshal Cosse was sent to meet him, and the 
 honours due to the king himself were everywhere paid to him on 
 the road. A singular mixture of military and barbaric roughness 
 with the natural grandeur of a conqueror and creator of an empire, 
 the czar mightily excited the curiosity of the Parisians. He testified 
 towards the Regent a familiar good grace mingled with a certain 
 
456 History of France. 
 
 superiority; at the play, to which they went together, the czar 
 asked for beer ; the Eegent rose, took the goblet which was brought 
 and handed it to Peter, who drank and, without moving, put the 
 glass back on the tray which the Regent held all the while, with a 
 slight inclination of the head which, however, surprised the public. 
 Anecdotes At his first interview with the little king, he took up the child in 
 about him. ^ B arms and kissed him over and over again, " with an air of 
 tenderness and politeness which was full of nature and nevertheless 
 intermixed with a something of grandeur, equality of rank and, 
 slightly, superiority of age ; for all that was distinctly perceptible." 
 One of his first visits was to the church of the Sorbonne ; when he 
 caught sight of Richelieu's monument, he ran up to it, embraced 
 the statue, and, "Ah ! great man," said he, "if thou wert still alive, 
 I would give thee one half of my kingdom to teach me to govern 
 the other." 
 Political Amidst all his chatting, studying, and information-hunting, 
 
 "visit* MS Peter the Great did not forget the P litical ob J ect of his tri P- He 
 wanted to detach France from Sweden, her heretofore faithful ally, 
 
 still receiving a subsidy which the czar would fain have appropriated 
 to himself. Together with his own alliance he promised that of 
 Poland and of Prussia. "France has nothing to fear from the 
 emperor," he said : as for King George, whom he detested, " if any 
 rupture should take place between him and the Regent, Russia 
 would suffice to fill towards France the place of England as well as 
 of Sweden." 
 
 Thanks to the ability of Dubois, the Regent felt himself infeoffed 
 to England ; he gave a cool reception to the overtures of the czar, 
 who proposed a treaty of alliance and commerce. Prussia had 
 already concluded secretly with France ; Poland was distracted by 
 intestine struggles ; matters were confined to the establishment of 
 amicable relations ; France thenceforth maintained an ambassador 
 in Russia, and the czar accepted the Regent's mediation between 
 Sweden and himself. 
 
 Dubois was struggling everywhere throughout Europe against 
 
 the influence of a broader, bolder, more powerful mind than his 
 
 own, less adroit perhaps in intrigue, but equally destitute of scruples 
 
 as to the employment of means. Alberoni had restored the finances 
 
 and reformed the administration of Spain ; he was preparing an 
 
 army and a fleet, meditating, he said, to bring peace to the world, 
 
 Bold and beginning that great enterprise by manoeuvres which tended to 
 
 schemes of j^i^g i ess than setting fire to the four corners of Europe, in the 
 
 name of an enfeebled and heavy- going king, and of a queen 
 
 ambitious, adroit, and unpopular. He dreamed of reviving the 
 
Treaty of the quadruple alliance. 457 
 
 ascendancy of Spain in Italy, of overthrowing the protestant king 
 of England, whilst restoring the Stuarts to the throne, and of 
 raising himself to the highest dignities in Church and State. He 
 had already obtained from Pope Clement XL the cardinal's hat, 
 disguising under pretext of war against the Turks the preparations 
 he was making against Italy ; he had formed an alliance between 
 Charles XII. and the czar, intending to sustain by their united 
 forces the attempts of the Jacobites in England. His first enterprise, 
 at sea, made him master of Sardinia within a few days ; the Spanish 
 troops landed in Sicily. The emperor and Victor Amadeo were in 
 commotion; the pope, overwhelmed with reproaches by those 
 princes, wept, after his fashion, saying that he had damned himself 
 by raising Alberoni to the Roman purple ; Dubois profited by the 
 disquietude excited in Eur6pe by the bellicose attitude of the brings 
 Spanish minister to finally draw the emperor into the alliance 
 between France and England. He was to renounce his pretensions 
 to Spain and the Indies, and give up Sardinia to Savoy, which was 
 to surrender Sicily to him. The succession to the duchies of Parma 
 and Tuscany was to be secured to the children of the queen of 
 Spain. France and England left Holland and Savoy free to accede 
 to the treaty ; but, if Spain refused to do so voluntarily within a 
 specified time, the allies engaged to force her thereto by arms. 
 
 The Hollanders hesitated : the Spanish ambassador at the Hague 
 had a medal struck representing the quadruple alliance as a coach 
 on the point of falling, because it rested on only three wheels. 
 Certain advantages secured to their commerce at last decided the 
 states-general. Victor Amadeo regretfully acceded to the treaty 
 which robbed him of Sicily : he was promised one of the Regent's 
 daughters for his son. 
 
 Alberoni refused persistently to accede to the great coalition 
 brought about by Dubois. The hope of a sudden surprise in 
 England, on behalf of the Jacobites, had been destroyed by the 
 death of the king of Sweden, Charles XII., killed on the 12th of 
 December, 1718, at Freiderishalt, in Norway; the flotilla equipped 
 by Alberoni for Chevalier St. George had been dispersed and beaten rdinal 
 by the elements ; the Pretender henceforth was considered to cost Alberoni 
 Spain too dear ; he had just been sent away from her territory at isolated, 
 the moment when the conspiracy of Cellamare failed in France ; 
 in spite of the feverish activity of his mind and the frequently 
 chimerical extent of his machinations, Alberoni remained isolated 
 in Europe, without ally and without support. 
 
 The treaty of the quadruple alliance had at last come to be 
 definitively signed. Some days later appeared, almost at the same 
 
45 8 History of France. 
 
 time the 17th of December, 1718, and the 9th of January, 1719 
 the manifestoes of England and France, proclaiming the resolution 
 of making war upon Spain, whilst Philip V., by a declaration of 
 December 25th, 1718, pronounced all renunciations illusory, and 
 proclaimed his right to the throne of France in case of the death of 
 Louis XV. At the same time he made an appeal to an assembly 
 of the states-general against the tyranny of the Eegent, " who was 
 making alliances," he said, "with the enemies of the two crowns." 
 Preparations for war were actively carried on in France; the 
 prince of Conti was nominally at the head of the army, Marshal 
 Berwick was entrusted with the command. He accepted it, in spite 
 of his old connexions with Spain, the benefits which Philip Y. had 
 heaped upon him, and the presence of his eldest son, the duke of 
 Liria, in the Spanish ranks. Fontarabia, St. Sebastian and the 
 castle of Urgel fell before long into the power of the French ; 
 another division burnt, at the port of Los Pasages, six vessels which 
 chanced to be on the stocks ; an English squadron destroyed those 
 at Centera and in the port of Yigo. Everywhere the depots were 
 committed to the flames : this cruel and destructive war against an 
 enemy whose best troops were fighting far away and who was unable 
 to offer more than a feeble resistance, gratified the passions and the 
 interests of England rather than of France. 
 
 Alberoni attempted in vain to create a diversion by hurling into 
 His fall *^e m ^ st f France the brand of civil war. Philip V. was beaten 
 at home as well as in Sicily. The Eegent succeeded in introducing 
 to the presence of the king of Spain an unknown agent, who 
 managed to persuade the monarch that the cardinal was shirking 
 his responsibility before Europe, asserting that the king and queen 
 had desired the war and that he had confined himself to gratifying 
 their passions. The duke of Orleans said, at the same time, quite 
 openly, that he made war not against Philip V. or against Spain 
 but against Alberoni only. Lord Stanhope declared, in the name 
 of England, that no peace was possible, unless its preliminary were 
 the dismissal of the pernicious minister. 
 
 The cardinal's fall was almost as speedy as that which he had 
 
 but lately contrived for his enemy the princess des Ursins. On 
 
 the 4th of December, 1719, he received orders to quit Madrid 
 
 archbishop w ^ n ^ n eight days and Spain under three weeks. So great success 
 
 ofCambrai. in negotiation, however servile had been his bearing, had little by 
 
 little increased the influence of Dubois over his master. The Eegent 
 
 knew and despised him, but he submitted to his sway and yielded 
 
 to his desires, sometimes to his fancies. Dubois had for a long 
 
 while comprehended that the higher dignities of the Church could 
 
Plague in Southern France. 459 
 
 alone bring him to the grandeur of which he was ambitions ; he 
 obtained the see of Cambrai, strange to say, through the influence 
 of a Protestant king, George I. The Eegent, as well as the whole 
 court, was present at the ceremony, to the great scandal of the 
 people attached to religion. Dubois received all the orders on the 
 the same day ; and, when he was joked about it, he brazenfacedly 
 called to mind the precedent of St. Ambrose. Dubois henceforth 
 cast his eyes upon the cardinal's hat, and his negotiations at Rome 
 were as brisk as those of Alberoni had but lately been with the 
 same purpose. 
 
 Amidst so much defiance of decency and public morality, in the 
 presence of such profound abuse of sacred things, God did not, 
 nevertheless, remain without testimony, and his omnipotent justice 
 had spoken. On the 21st of July, 1719, the duchess of Berry, A.D. 1719. 
 eldest daughter of the Regent, had died at the Palais-Royal, at Death of 
 barely twenty-four years of age ; her health, her beauty, and her of Berry 68 * 
 wit were not proof against the irregular life she had led. Ere long (July 21). 
 a more terrible cry arose from one of the chief cities of the kingdom : 
 "The plague," they said, "is at Marseilles, brought, none knows 
 how, on board a ship from the East." The bishop of Marseilles, 
 Monseigner de Belzunce, the sheriffs Esteile and Moustier, and a 
 simple officer of health, Chevalier Roze, sufficed in the depopulated 
 town for all duties and all acts of devotion. The example of the 
 prelate animated with courageous emulation not the clergy of lazy 
 and emasculated dignitaries, for they fled at the first approach of 
 danger, but the parish-priests, the vicars, and the religious orders ; 
 not one deserted his colours, not one put any bound to his fatigues 
 save with his life. 
 
 Marseilles had lost a third of its inhabitants ; Aix, Toulon, Aries, ThePlague 
 the Cevennes, the Gevaudan were attacked by the contagion ; of Mar - 
 fearful was the want in the decimated towns, long deprived of every seiUes * 
 resource. Scarcely, however, had they escaped from the dreadful 
 scourge which had laid them waste, when they plunged into excesses 
 of pleasure and debauchery, as if to fly from the memories that 
 haunted them. Scarcely was a thought given to those martyrs to 
 devotion who had fallen during the epidemic ; those who survived 
 received no recompense ; the Regent, alone, offered Monseigneur de 
 Belzunce the bishopric of Laon, the premier ecclesiastical peerage 
 in the kingdom; the saintly bishop preferred to remain in the 
 midst of the flock for which he had battled against despair and 
 death. It was only in 1802 that the city of Marseilles at last 
 raised a monument to its bishop and its heroic magistrates. 
 
 Dubois, meanwhile, was nearing the goal of all his efforts. In 
 
460 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Dubois 
 curries 
 
 Is made a 
 Cardinal, 
 
 His deatn. 
 
 His ability 
 as a states- 
 
 or der to obtain the cardinal's hat, he had embraced the cause of 
 the Court of Rome, and was pushing forward the registration by 
 ^ ar ^ ameilt f ^ e Bull Unigenitus. The long opposition of the 
 duke of Noailles at last yielded to the desire of restoring peace in 
 the Church. In his wake the majority of the bishops and commu- 
 nities who had made appeal to the contemplated council renounced, 
 in their turn, the protests so often renewed within the last few 
 years. The Parliament was divided, but exiled to Pontoise, as a 
 punishment for its opposition to the system of Law; it found 
 itself threatened with removal to Blois. Chancellor d'Aguesseau 
 had vainly sought to interpose his authority ; a magistrate of the 
 Grand Chamber, Perelle by name, was protesting eloquently against 
 any derogation from the principles of liberty of the Gallican Church 
 and of the parliaments : " Where did you find such maxims laid 
 down 1 ?" asked the chancellor angrily. "In the pleadings of the 
 late Chancellor d'Aguesseau," answered the councillor icily. 
 D'Aguesseau gave in his resignation to the Regent, the Parlia- 
 ment did not leave for Blois ; after sitting some weeks at Pon- 
 toise, it enregistered the formal declaration of the Bull, and at last 
 returned to Paris on the 20th of December, 1720. 
 
 O n the 16th of July, 1721, Dubois was at last elected cardinal : 
 it was stated that his elevation had cost eight millions of livres ; 
 he became premier minister in name, after having long been so in 
 fact. His reign was not long at this unparalleled pinnacle of his 
 greatness ; he had been summoned to preside at the assembly of 
 the clergy, and had just been elected to the French Academy, 
 where he was received by Fontenelle, when a sore from which he 
 had long suffered reached all at once a serious crisis ; an operation 
 was indispensable, but he set himself obstinately against it ; the 
 duke of Orleans obliged him to submit to it, and it was his death- 
 
 blow ; the wretched cardinal expired, without having had time to 
 
 . . 
 receive the sacraments. 
 
 The elevation and power of Dubois had the fatal effect of lower- 
 ing France in her own eyes ; she had felt that she was governed 
 by a man whom she despised and had a right to despise ; this was 
 a deep-seated and lasting evil, authority never recovered from the 
 blow thus struck at its moral influence. Dubois, however, was 
 more a bi e an d more far-sighted in his foreign policy than the 
 majority of his predecessors and his contemporaries were ; without 
 definitively losing the alliance of Spain, reattached to the interests 
 of France by a double treaty of marriage, he had managed to form 
 a firm connexion with England, and to rally round France the 
 European coalition but lately in arms against her. He maintained 
 
France in a state of dissolution. 461 
 
 and made peace ingloriously ; he obtained it sometimes by mean- 
 nesses in bearing and modes of acting ; he enriched himself by his 
 intrigues, abroad as well as at home ; his policy none the less was 
 steadfastly French, even in his relations with the court of Eome 
 and in spite of his eager desire for the cardinal's hat. 
 
 On the 2nd of December, 1723, three months and a half after A.D. 1723. 
 the death of Dubois, the duke of Orleans succumbed in his turn. JJj^Je * nt 
 Struck down by a sudden attack of apoplexy, whilst he was chatting (Dec. 2). 
 with his favourite for the time, the duchess of Falarie, he expired 
 without having recovered consciousness. Lethargized by the 
 excesses of the table and debauchery of all kinds, more and more 
 incapable of application and work, the prince did not preserve 
 sufficient energy to give up the sort of life which had ruined him. 
 All the vices thus imputed to the Eegent did not perish with him, 
 when he succumbed at forty-nine years of age under their fatal 
 effects. " The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft 
 interred with their bones ; " the Eegency was the signal for an 
 irregularity of morals which went on increasing, like a filthy river, 
 up to the end of the reign of Louis XV. ; the fatal seed had been 
 germinating for a long time past under the forced and frequently 
 hypocritical decency of the old court ; it burst out under the easy^ 
 going regency of an indolent and indulgent prince, himself wholly 
 given to the licentiousness which he excused and authorized by his 
 own example. From the court the evil soon spread to the nation ; Break-up 
 religious faith still struggled within the soul, but it had for a long Drench 
 while been tossed about between contrary and violent opinions, it nation. 
 found itself disturbed, attacked, by the new and daring ideas which 
 were beginning to dawn in politics as well as in philosophy. The 
 break-up was already becoming manifest, though nobody could 
 account for it, though no fixed plan was conceived in men's minds. 
 People devoured the memoirs of Cardinal Eetz and Madame de 
 Motteville, which had just appeared ; people formed from them 
 their judgments upon the great persons and great events which they 
 had seen and depicted. The University of Paris, under the direc- 
 tion of Eollin, was developing the intelligence and lively powers of 
 burgessdom : and Montesquieu, as yet full young, was shooting his 
 missiles in the Lettres persanes at the men and the things of his 
 country with an almost cynical freedom, which was as it were the 
 alarum and prelude of all the liberties which he scarcely dared to 
 claim, but of which he already let a glimpse be seen. Evil and 
 good were growing up in confusion, like the tares and the wheat. 
 For more than eighty years past France has been gathering the 
 harvest of ages ; she has not yet separated the good grain from the 
 rubbish which too often conceals it. 
 
462 History of France. 
 
 The bishop of Frejus, who had but lately been the modest pre- 
 ceptor of the king and was quietly ambitious and greedy of power, 
 but without regard to his personal interests, was about to become 
 Fleuryand Cardinal Fleury and to govern France for twenty years; in 1723, 
 the duke of he was seventy years old. Whether from adroitness or prudence, 
 our on. d not a n at once ag pj re to all-powerfulness. Assured in 
 
 his heart of his sway over the as yet dormant will of his pupil, he 
 suffered the establishment of the duke of Bourbon's ministry, who 
 was in a greater hurry to grasp the power he had so long coveted. 
 He kept the list of benefices, and he alone, it was said, knew how 
 to unloosen the king's tongue ; but he had not calculated upon the 
 pernicious and all-powerful influence of the marchioness of Prie, 
 favourite " by appointment " (attitree) to the duke. Clever, adroit, 
 depraved, she aspired to govern, and chose for her minister Paris- 
 Du^erney. Duverney, one of the four Dauphinese brothers who had been 
 engaged under the regency in the business of the visa, and the 
 enemies as well as rivals of the Scotsman Law. 
 
 The strictness of the views and of the character of this new 
 statesman strove, in the home department, against the insensate 
 lavishness of the duke, and the venal irregularities of his favourite ; 
 imbued with the maxims of order and regularity formerly impressed 
 His ky Colbert upon the clerks of the Treasury, and not yet completely 
 
 schemes of effaced by a long interregnum, he laboured zealously to cut down 
 economy. ex p enses an d use less posts, to resuscitate and regulate commerce ; 
 his ardour, systematic and wise as it was, hurried him sometimes 
 into strange violence and improvidence ; in order to restore to their 
 proper figure values and goods which still felt the prodigious rise 
 brought about by the System, Paris-Duverney depreciated the 
 coinage and put a tariff on merchandize as well as wages. The 
 commotion amongst the people was great ; the workmen rioted, the 
 tradesmen refused to accept the legal figure for their goods ; several 
 men were killed in the streets, and some shops put the shutters up. 
 The misery, which the administration had meant to relieve, went 
 on increasing; begging was prohibited; refuges and workshops 
 were annexed to the poor-houses; attempts were made to collect 
 there all the old, infirm and vagabond. All this rigour was 
 ineffectual ; the useful object of Paris-Duverney's decrees was not 
 attained. 
 
 The Pro- Other outrages, not to be justified by any public advantage, were 
 t ersecuted ^ e ^ n g at tne same time committed against other poor creatures, for 
 a long while accustomed to severities of all kinds. Without free- 
 dom, without right of worship, without assemblies, the Protestants 
 had, nevertheless, enjoyed a sort of truce from their woes during 
 the easy-going regency of the duke of Orleans. Amongst the 
 
Protestantism. 463 
 
 number of his vices Dubois did not include hypocrisy ; he had not 
 persecuted the remnants of French Protestantism, enfeebled, dumb, 
 but still living and breathing. Paris-Duverney and Madame de 
 Prie returned to the policy of Louis XIV., they published in 1724 
 an edict which equalled in rigour the most severe proclamations of Rigorous 
 the previous reicrn ; it placed the peace and often the life of measures 
 .c i f A *.- -U A enacted, 
 
 reformers at the mercy not only ot an enemy s denunciation, but 
 
 of a priest's simple deposition ; it destroyed all the bonds of family 
 and substituted for the natural duties a barbarous and depraving 
 law, but general sentiment and public opinion were no longer in 
 accord with the royal proclamations. The clergy had not solicited 
 the edict, the work of an ambitious man backed up by certain 
 fanatics ; they were at first embarrassed by it ; when the old 
 hatreds revived and the dangerous intoxications of power had 
 affected the souls of bishops and priests, the magistracy, who had 
 formerly been more severe towards the reformers than even the 
 superintendents of the provinces had been, pronounced on many 
 points in favour of the persecuted ; the judges were timid, the 
 legislation, becoming more and more oppressive, tied their hands, 
 but the bias of their minds was modified, it tended to extenuate 
 and not to aggravate the effects of the edict. The law was bar- 
 barous everywhere ; it was strictly carried out only at certain spots, 
 owing to the zeal of the superintendents or bishops; as usual, 
 the South of France was the first to undergo all the rigours of it. 
 Throughout a persecution which lasted nearly forty years, with alter- 
 nations of severity and clemency, the chiefs of French Protestantism, 
 Paul Rabaut, Court, and others equally distinguished, managed 
 to control the often recurring desperation of their flocks. The _ 
 execution of the unhappy Galas, accused of having killed his son, of Galas, 
 and the generous indignation of Voltaire cast a momentary gleam 
 of light within the sombre region of prisons and gibbets. For the 
 first time public opinion, at white heat, was brought to bear upon 
 the decision of the persecutors. Galas was dead, but the decree of 
 the Parliament of Toulouse, which had sentenced him, was quashed 
 by act of the council : his memory was cleared, and the day of 
 toleration for French Protestants began to glimmer, pending the 
 full dawn of justice and liberty. 
 
 The young king was growing up, still a stranger to affairs, solely 
 occupied with the pleasures of the chase, handsome, elegant, with 
 noble and regular features, a cold and listless expression. In the 
 month of February 1725, he fell ill ; for two days there was great 
 danger. The duke thought himself to be threatened with the 
 elevation of the House of Orleans to the throne. " I'll not be 
 
464 History of France. 
 
 caught so again," he muttered between his teeth, when he came one 
 night to inquire how the king was : " if he recovers, I'll have him 
 married." The king did recover, but the Infanta was only seven 
 years old ; the duke and Madame de Prie were looking out for a 
 queen who would belong to them and would secure them the king's 
 heart. Their choice fell upon Mary Leckzinska, a good, gentle, 
 simple creature, without wit or beauty, twenty-two years old and 
 living upon the alms of France with her parents, exiles and refugees 
 at an old commandery of the Templars at Weissenburg. Before 
 this king Stanislaus had conceived the idea of marrying his 
 daughter to count d'Estrees ; the marriage had failed through the 
 Eegent's refusal to make the young lord a duke and peer. The 
 distress of Stanislaus, his constant begging-letters to the Court of 
 France were warrant for the modest submissiveness of the princess. 
 " Madame de Prie has engaged a queen, as I might engage a valet 
 to-morrow," writes Marquis d'Argenson ; " it is a pity." 
 
 Fleury had made no objection to the marriage. Louis XY. 
 accepted it, just as he had allowed the breaking-off of his union 
 with the Infanta and that of France with Spain. For a while the 
 duke had hopes of reaping all the fruit of the unequal marriage he 
 had just concluded for the king of France ; but the hour of his 
 Disgrace of downfall had arrived ; he was ordered to quit the court and retire 
 ^ o e u ^ of provisionaUy to Chantilly. Madame de Prie was exiled to her 
 estates in Normandy, where she soon died of spite and anger. The 
 head of the House of Conde came forth no more from the political 
 obscurity which befitted his talents. At length Fleury remained 
 sole master. 
 
 Fleury jj e took possession of it without fuss or any external manifesta- 
 
 minister. ^ on ) caring on ly f r rea l authority, he advised Louis XY. not to 
 create any premier minister and to govern by himself, like his 
 great-grandfather. The king took this advice, as every other, and 
 left Fleury to govern. This was just what the bishop intended ; a 
 sleepy calm succeeded the commotions which had been caused by 
 the inconsistent and spasmodic government of the duke ; galas and 
 silly expenses gave place to a wise economy, the real and important 
 blessing of Fleury's administration. Commerce and industry 
 recovered confidence ; business was developed ; the increase of the 
 revenues justified a diminution of taxation; war, which was 
 imminent at the moment of the duke's fall, seemed to be escaped ; 
 the bishop of Frejus became Cardinal Fleury ; the court of Borne 
 paid on the nail for the service rendered it by the new minister in 
 freeing the clergy from the tax of the fiftieth impot du cinquan- 
 tieme). " Consecrated to God and kept aloof from the commerce 
 
State of Poland. 465 
 
 of men," had been Fleury's expression, " the dues of the Church 
 are irrevocable and cannot be subject to any tax whether of ratifi- 
 cation or any other." The clergy responded to this pleasant exposi- 
 tion of principles by a gratuitous gift of five millions. Strife ceased 
 in every quarter ; France found herself at rest, without lustre as 
 well as without prospect. 
 
 It was not, henceforth, at Versailles that the destinies of Europe 
 were discussed and decided. The dismissal of the Infanta had 
 struck a deadly blow at the frail edifice of the quadruple alliance, 
 fruit of the intrigues and diplomatic ability of Cardinal Dubois. 
 The efforts made in common by Fleury and Eobert Walpole, prime 
 minister of the king of England, were for a long while successful in 
 maintaining the general peace ; the unforeseen death of Augustus 
 of Saxony, king of Poland, suddenly came to trouble it. It was, ^ j . 
 thenceforth, the unhappy fate of Poland to be a constant source of Poland, 
 commotion and discord in Europe. The elector of Saxony, son of 
 Augustus II., was supported by Austria and Eussia ; the national 
 party in Poland invited Stanislaus Leckzinski ; he was elected at 
 the Diet by sixty thousand men of family, and set out to take pos- 
 session of the throne, reckoning upon the promises of his son-in- 
 law, and on the military spirit which was reviving in France. The 
 young men burned to win their spurs ; the old generals of Louis XIY. 
 were tired of idleness. 
 
 The ardour of Cardinal Fleury did not respond to that of the 
 friends of King Stanislaus. Russia and Austria made an imposing 
 display of force in favour of the elector of Saxony ; France sent, 
 tardily, a body of fifteen hundred men ; this ridiculous reinforce- 
 ment had not yet arrived when Stanislaus, obliged to withdraw 
 from Warsaw, had already shut himself up in Dantzic. The 
 Austrian general had invested the place. 
 
 News of the bombardment of Dantzic greeted the little French 
 corps as they approached the fort of Wechselmunde. Their com- 
 mander saw his impotence ; instead of landing his troops, he made 
 sail for Copenhagen. The French ambassador at that court, Count Heroism 
 Plelo, was indignant to see his countrymen's retreat, and, hastily of Count 
 collecting a hundred volunteers, he summoned to him the chiefs of 
 the expeditionary corps. " How could you resolve upon not fighting 
 at any price 1 " he asked. " That is easy to say," rejoined one of 
 the officers, roughly, " when you're safe in your closet." " I shall 
 not be there long ! " exclaims the count, and presses them to return 
 with him to Dantzic. The officer in command of the detachment, 
 M. de la Peyrouse Lamotte, yields to his entreaties. They set out 
 both of them, persuaded at the same time of the uselessness of their 
 
 H H 
 
466 History of France. 
 
 enterprise and of the necessity they were under, for the honour of 
 France, to attempt it. Before embarking Count Plelo wrote to M. 
 de Chauvelin, the then keeper of the seals : " I am sure not to 
 return ; I commend to you my wife and children." Scarcely had 
 the gallant little band touched land beneath the fort of Wechsel- 
 munde, when they marched up to the Russian lines, opening a way 
 through the pikes and muskets in hopes of joining the besieged, 
 who at the same time effected a sally. Already the enemy began 
 to recoil at sight of such audacity, when M. de Plelo fell mortally 
 wounded ; the enemy's battalions had hemmed in the French. La 
 Peyrouse succeeded, however, in effecting his retreat, and brought 
 away his little band into the camp they had established under 
 shelter of the fort. For a month the French kept up a rivalry in 
 courage with the defenders of Dantzic ; when at last they capitu- 
 lated, on the 23rd of June, General Munich had conceived such 
 esteem for their courage that he granted them leave to embark with 
 arms and baggage. A few days later King Stanislaus escaped alone 
 from Dantzic, which was at length obliged to surrender on the 7th 
 of July, and sought refuge in the dominions of the king of Prussia. 
 Some Polish lords went and joined him at Konigsberg. Partisan 
 war continued still, but the arms and influence of Austria and 
 Russia had carried the day; the national party was beaten in 
 Poland. The pope released the Polish gentry from the oath they 
 had made never to entrust the crown to a foreigner. Augustus III., 
 recognised by the mass of the nation, became the docile tool of 
 Russia, whilst in Germany and in Italy the Austrians found them- 
 selves attacked simultaneously by France, Spain, and Sardinia. 
 
 Marshal Berwick had taken the fort of Kehl in the month of 
 
 December, 1733 ; he had forced the lines of the Austrians at 
 
 Erlingen at the commencement of the campaign of 1734, and he 
 
 had just opened trenches against Phillipsburg, when he pushed 
 
 forward imprudently in a reconnoissance between the fires of the 
 
 besiegers and besieged : a ball wounded him mortally, and he 
 
 A.D. 1734. expired immediately, like Marshal Turenne ; he was sixty-three. 
 
 Death of j^g duke of Noailles, who 'at once received the marshal's baton, 
 
 Berwick succeeded him in the command of the army by agreement with 
 
 Marshal d'Asfeldt. Philipsburg was taken after forty-eight days' 
 
 open trenches, without Prince Eugene, all the while within hail, 
 
 Campaign ma king anv attempt to relieve the town. The campaign of 1735 
 
 in Italy, hung fire in Germany. It was more splendid in Italy, where the 
 
 and"?' 118 ' ou * se ^ f ^ Qe war k a( ^ been brilliant. Presumptuous as ever, in 
 
 ghitone spite of his eighty-two years, Villars had started for Italy, saying 
 
 surrender. ^ Cardinal Fleury : " The king may dispose of Italy, I am going 
 
Pnge 467. 
 
Treaty of Vienna. 467 
 
 to conquer it for him." And, indeed, within three months, nearly 
 the whole of Milaness was reduced. Cremona and Pizzighitone 
 had surrendered ; but already King Charles Emmanuel was relax- 
 ing his efforts with the prudent selfishness customary to his 
 house. The Sardinian contingents did not arrive : the Austrians 
 had seized a passage over the Po ; Villars, however, was preparing 
 to force it, when a large body of the enemy came down upon him. 
 The king of Sardinia was urged to retire : " That is not the way 
 to get out of this," cried the Marshal, and, sword in hand, he 
 charged at the head of the body-guard ; Charles Emmanuel fol- 
 lowed his example; the Austrians were driven in. "Sir," said 
 Villars to the king, who was complimenting him, "these are the 
 last sparks of my life ; thus, at departing, I take my leave of it." 
 
 Death, in fact, had already seized his prey ; the aged marshal A >D 1734 
 had not time to return to France to yield up his last breath there ; Death of 
 he was expiring at Turin, when he heard of Marshal Berwick's *Jj :snal 
 death before Philipsburg ; " That fellow always was lucky," said (June 17). 
 he. On the 17th of June, 1734, Villars died, in his turn, by a 
 strange coincidence, in the very room in which he had been born, 
 when his father was French ambassador at the court of the duke 
 of Savoy. 
 
 Some days later Marshals Broglie and Coigny defeated the 
 Austrians before Parma ; the general-in-chief, M. de Mercy, had 
 been killed on the 19th of September; the prince of Wurtemberg, 
 in his turn succumbed at the battle of Guastalla, and yet these 
 successes on the part of the French produced no serious result. 
 The Spaniards had become masters of the kingdom of Naples and 
 of nearly all Sicily ; the Austrians had fallen back on the Tyrol, 
 keeping a garrison at Mantua only. The duke of Noailles, then 
 at the head of the army, was preparing for the siege of the place, 
 in order to achieve that deliverance of Italy which was even 
 then the dream of France ; but the king of Sardinia and the queen 
 of Spain were already disputing for Mantua ; the Sardinian troops 
 withdrew, and it was in the midst of his forced inactivity that the 
 duke of JSToailles heard of the armistice signed in Germany. Cardinal 
 Fleury, weary of the war which he had entered upon with regret, 
 disquieted too at the new complications which he foresaw in Europe, ~j ' * f * 
 had already commenced negotiations ; the preliminaries were signed Vienna 
 at Vienna in the month of October, 1735. (October). 
 
 The conditions of the treaty astonished Europe. Cardinal 
 Fleury had renounced the ambitious idea suggested to him by 
 Chauvelin ; he no longer aspired to impose upon the emperor the 
 complete emancipation of Italy, but he made such disposition as 
 
 H H 2 
 
4 68 
 
 History of France. 
 
 The 
 
 principal 
 clauses. 
 
 The Jan- 
 
 senists 
 and the 
 Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 he pleased of the States there, and reconstituted the territories 
 according to his fancy. The kingdom of Naples and the Two 
 Sicilies were secured to Don Carlos, who renounced Tuscany and 
 the duchies of Parma and Piacenza. These three principalities 
 were to form the appanage of duke Francis of Lorraine, betrothed 
 to the archduchess Maria Theresa. There it was that France was 
 to find her share of the spoil; in exchange for the dominions 
 formed for him in Italy, duke Francis ceded the duchies of 
 Lorraine and Bar to king Stanislaus ; the latter formally renounced 
 the throne of Poland, at the same time preserving the title of 
 king and resuming possession of his property ; after him, Lorraine 
 and the Barrois were to be united to the crown of France, as dower 
 and heritage of that queen who had been but lately raised to the 
 throne by a base intrigue, and who thus secured to her new country a 
 province so often taken and retaken, an object of so many treaties 
 and negotiations, and thenceforth so tenderly cherished by France. 
 Peace reigned in Europe, and Cardinal Fleury governed France 
 without rival and without opposition. He had but lately, like 
 Richelieu, to whom, however, he did not care to be compared, 
 triumphed over parliamentary revolt. Jealous of their ancient tra- 
 ditional rights, the Parliament claimed to share with the govern- 
 ment the care of watching over the conduct of the clergy. It was 
 on that ground that they had rejected the introduction of the 
 Legend of Gregory VII., recently canonized at Eome, and had 
 sought to mix themselves up in the religious disputes excited just 
 then by the pretended miracles wrought at the tomb of deacon 
 Paris, a pious and modest Jansenist, who had lately died in the 
 odour of sanctity in the parish of St. Medard. The cardinal had 
 ordered the cemetery to be closed, in order to cut short the strange 
 spectacles presented by the convulsionists, as they were called ; and, to 
 break down the opposition of Parliament, the king had ordered, at a 
 bed of justice, the registration of all the papal bulls succeeding the 
 Unigenitus. In vain had D'Aguesseau, reappointed to the chancel- 
 lorship, exhorted the Parliament to yield : he had fallen in public 
 esteem. A hundred and thirty-nine members received letters under 
 the king's seal (lettres de cachet), exiling them to the four quarters of 
 France. The Grand Chamber had been spared ; the old councillors, 
 alone remaining, enregistered purely and simply the declarations of 
 the keeper of the seals. Once more the Parliament was subdued, 
 it had testified its complete political impotence ; the iron hand of 
 Richelieu, the perfect address of Mazarin, were no longer neces- 
 sary to silence it ; the prudent moderation, the reserved frigidity 
 of Cardinal Fleury had sufficed for the purpose. 
 
Frederick the Great. 469 
 
 It was amidst this state of things that the death of the Emperor . D 
 Charles VI. on the 20th of October, 1740, occurred to throw Europe Death of 
 into a new ferment of discord and war. Maria Theresa, the emperor's the em ~ 
 eldest daughter, was twenty-three years old, beautiful, virtuous, and Charles VI. 
 of a lofty and resolute character ; her rights to the paternal heritage (Oct. 20). 
 had been guaranteed by all Europe. Europe, however, soon rose, a ^out t^e " 
 almost in its entirety, to oppose them. The elector of Bavaria succession, 
 claimed the domains of the House of Austria, by virtue of a will of 
 Ferdinand L, father of Charles V. The king of Poland urged the 
 rights of his wife, daughter of the Emperor Joseph I. Spain put 
 forth her claims to Hungary and Bohemia, appanage of the elder 
 branch of the House of Austria. Sardinia desired her share in 
 Italy ; Prussia had a new sovereign, who spoke but little, but was 
 the first to act. 
 
 Kept for a long while by his father in cruel captivity, always 
 carefully held aloof from affairs, and, to pass the time, obliged to 
 engage in literature and science, Frederick II. had ascended the n j^ng 
 throne in August, 1740, with the reputation of a mind cultivated, of Prussia, 
 liberal and accessible to noble ideas. Voltaire, with whom he had 
 become connected, had trumpeted his praises everywhere : the first 
 act of the new king revealed qualities of which Voltaire had no con- 
 ception. On the 23rd of December, after leaving a masked ball, he 
 started post-haste for the frontier of Silesia, where he had collected 
 thirty thousand men. Without preliminary notice, without declara- 
 tion of war, he at once entered the Austrian territory, which was 
 scantily defended by three thousand men and a few garrisons. Before 
 the end of January, 1741, the Prussians were masters of Silesia. " I 
 am going, I fancy, to play your game," Frederick had said, as he set 
 off, to the French ambassador : " if the aces come to me we will share." 
 
 Meanwhile France, as well as the majority of the other nations, 
 had recognized the young queen of Hungary. She had been pro- 
 claimed at Vienna on the 7th of November, 1740 ; all her father's 
 States had sworn alliance and homage to her. Cardinal Fleury's 
 intentions remained as yet vague and secret. Naturally and stub- 
 bornly pacific, he felt himself bound by the confirmation of the 
 Pragmatic-Sanction, lately renewed, at the time of the treaty of 
 Vienna. And yet prudent, economizing, timid as he was, he had 
 taken a liking for a man of adventurous and sometimes chimerical 
 spirit. " Count Belle-Isle, grandson of Fouquet," says M. d'Argen- count 
 son, " bad more wit than judgment, and more fire than force, but Belle-Isle, 
 he aimed very high." He dreamed of revising the map of Europe, 
 and of forming a zone of small States destined to protect France 
 against the designs of Austria. Louis XV. pretended to nothing, 
 
History of France. 
 
 demanded nothing for the price of his assistance ; "but France had 
 been united from time immemorial to Bavaria : she was bound to 
 raise the elector to the imperial throne. If it happened afterwards, 
 in the dismemberment of the Austrian dominions, that the Low 
 Countries fell to the share of France, it was the natural sequel of 
 past conquests of Flanders, Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics. 
 Count Belle- Isle did not disturb with his dreams the calm of the 
 aged cardinal ; he was modest in his military aspirations. The 
 French navy was ruined, the king had hardly twenty vessels to 
 France and send to sea ; that mattered little, as England and Holland took no 
 Spain join p ar t i n the contest ; Austria was not a maritime power ; Spain 
 oge er. j Q - ne( j w jth France to support the elector. A body of forty thou- 
 sand men was put under the orders of that prince, who received the 
 title of lieutenant-general of the armies of the king of France. 
 Louis XY. acted only in the capacity of Bavaria's ally and auxiliary. 
 Meanwhile Marshal Belle-Isle, the king's ambassador and plenipo- 
 tentiary in Germany, had just signed a treaty with Frederick II., 
 guaranteeing to that monarch Lower Silesia. At the same time, a 
 second French army under the orders of Marshal Maillebois entered 
 Germany ; Saxony and Poland came into the coalition. The king 
 of England, George II., faithful to the Pragmatic-Sanction, hurry- 
 ing over to Hanover to raise troops there, found himself threatened 
 by Maillebois, and signed a treaty of neutrality. The elector had 
 been proclaimed, at Lintz, archduke of Austria : nowhere did the 
 Franco-Bavarian army encounter any obstacle. The king of Prussia 
 was occupying Moravia ; Upper and Lower Austria had been con- 
 quered without a blow, and by this time the forces of the enemy 
 were threatening Vienna. The success of the invasion was like a 
 dream, but the elector had not the wit to profit by the good fortune 
 which was oifered him. 
 
 Maria A few weeks had sufficed to crown the success ; less time sufficed 
 
 e Sa to un( ^ i*- O n flying from Vienna, Maria Theresa had sought 
 Hungary, refuge in Hungary ; the assembly of the Estates held a meeting at 
 Presburg ; there she appeared dressed in mourning, holding in her 
 arms her son, scarce six months old. Already she had known how 
 to attach the magnates to her by the confidence she had shown 
 them ; she held out to them her child ; " I am abandoned of my 
 friends," said she in Latin, a language still in use in Hungary 
 amongst the upper classes ; " I am pursued by my enemies, 
 attacked by my relatives ; I have no hope but in your fidelity and 
 courage ; we my son and I look to you for our safety." 
 
 The palatines scarcely gave the queen time to finish ; already the 
 sabres were out of the sheaths and flashing above their heads. 
 
England and Germany. 47 * 
 
 Count Bathyany was the first to shout : " Moriamur pro rege nostro 
 Maria Theresa!" The same shout was repeated everywhere; 
 Maria Theresa, restraining her tears, thanked her defenders with 
 gesture and voice ; she was expecting a second child before long : 
 " I know not," she wrote to her mother-in-law the duchess of Lor- 
 raine, "if I shall have a town left to be confined in." Hungary 
 rose, like one man, to protect her sovereign against the excess of 
 her misfortunes ; the same spirit spread before long through the 
 Austrian provinces ; bodies of irregulars, savage and cruel, formed 
 at all points, attacking and massacring the French detachments they 
 encountered, and giving to the war a character of ferocity which 
 displayed itself with special excess against Bavaria. Count Segur, 
 besieged in Lintz, was obliged to capitulate on the 26th of January, 
 and the day after the elector of Bavaria had received the imperial 
 crown at Frankfurt under the name of Charles VII. February 12, 
 1742 the Austrians, under the orders of General Khevenhuller, 
 obtained possession of Munich, which was given up to pillage. 
 
 Meanwhile England had renounced her neutrality : the general Attitude 
 feeling of the nation prevailed over the prudent and far-sighted 
 ability of Eobert Walpole ; he succumbed, after his long ministry, 
 full of honours and riches ; the government had passed into warlike 
 hands. The women of society, headed by the duchess of Marl- 
 borough, raised a subscription of 100,OOOZ., which they oifered 
 unsuccessfully to the haughty Maria Theresa. Parliament voted 
 more effectual aid, and English diplomacy adroitly detached the 
 king of Sardinia from the allies whom success appeared to be aban- 
 doning. The king of Prussia had just gained at Czezlaw an 
 important victory ; next day, he was negotiating with the queen of 
 Hungary. On the llth of June the treaty which abandoned Silesia 
 to Frederick II. was secretly concluded. 
 
 Chevert still occupied Prague, with six thousand sick or wounded ; 
 the prince of Lorraine had invested the place, and summoned it to 
 surrender at discretion. " Tell your general," replied Chevert to 
 the Austrian sent to parley, " that, if he will not grant me the 
 honours of war, I will fire the four corners of Prague, and bury 
 myself under its ruins." He obtained what he asked for, and went 
 to rejoin Marshal Belle-Isle at Egra. People compared the retreat Betreat of 
 from Prague to the retreat of the Ten Thousand ; but the truth 
 came out for all the fictions of flattery and national pride. A hun- 
 dred thousand Frenchmen had entered Germany at the outset of the 
 war; at the commencement of the year 1743 thirty-five thousand 
 soldiers, mustered in Bavaria, were nearly all that remained to with- 
 stand the increasing efforts of the Austrians. 
 
 Marshal Belle-Isle was coldly received at Paris. " He is much 
 
472 History of France. 
 
 inconvenienced by a sciatica," writes the advocate Barbier, "and 
 cannot walk but with the assistance of two men. He comes back 
 with grand decorations : prince of the empire, knight of the Golden 
 Fleece, blue riband, marshal of France and duke. He is held 
 accountable, however, for all the misfortunes that have happened to 
 us ; it was spread about at Paris that he was disgraced and even exiled 
 to his estate at Vernon, near Gisors. It is true, nevertheless, that he 
 has several times done business with the king, whether in M. Amelot's 
 presence, on foreign affairs, or M. D'Aguesseau's, on military ; but 
 this restless and ambitious spirit is feared by the ministers." 
 A.D. 1743. Almost at the very moment when the Austrians were occupying 
 Death of Prague and Bohemia, Cardinal Fleury was expiring, at Versailles, 
 Fleury a * the age of ninety. He had lived too long : the trials of the last 
 (Jan. 29). years of his life had been beyond the bodily and mental strength 
 of an old man elevated for the first time to power at an age when 
 it is generally seen slipping from the hands of the most energetic. 
 Naturally gentle, moderate, discreet, though stubborn and perse- 
 vering in his views, he had not an idea of conceiving and practising 
 a great policy. France was indebted to him for a long period of 
 mediocre and dull prosperity, which was preferable to the evils that 
 had for so long oppressed her, but as for which she was to cherish 
 no remembrance and no gratitude, when new misfortunes came 
 bursting upon her. 
 
 Both court and nation hurled the same reproach at Cardinal 
 Fleury ; he alone prevented the king from governing and turned 
 his attention from affairs, partly from jealousy and partly from the 
 old habit acquired as a preceptor, who can never see a man in one 
 who has been his pupil. When the old man died at last, as 
 M. d'Argenson cruelly puts it, France turned her eyes towards 
 Louis XY. " The cardinal is dead : hurrah for the king ! " was the 
 cry amongst the people. The monarch himself felt as if he were 
 emancipated. " Gentlemen, here am I premier minister ! " said he 
 to his most intimate courtiers. 
 
 The prudent hesitation and backwardness of Holland had at last 
 
 yielded to the pressure of England. The States-general had sent 
 
 twenty thousand men to join the army which George II. had just 
 
 sent into Germany. It was only on the 15th of March, 1744, that 
 
 Loui I XY" -kuis ^^' ^ orma ^y declared war against the king of England and 
 
 declares ' Maria Theresa, no longer as an auxiliary of the emperor, but in his 
 
 war own name and on behalf of France. Charles VII., a fugitive, 
 
 England, driven from his hereditary dominions, which had been evacuated 
 
 by Marshal Broglie, had transported to Frankfurt his ill fortune and 
 
 his empty titles. France alone supported in Germany a quarrel 
 
 the weight of which she had imprudently taken upon herself. 
 
Successes of the French. 473 
 
 The effort was too much for the resources ; the king's coun- A.D. 1743. 
 sellors felt that it was ; the battle of Dettingen, skilfully com- 
 menced on the 27th of June, 1743, by Marshal JSoailles, and lost 
 by the imprudence of his nephew, the duke of Gramont, had com- 
 pletely shaken the confidence of the armies; the emperor had 
 treated with the Austrians for an armistice, establishing the 
 neutrality of his troops, as belonging to the empire. Noailles 
 wrote to the king on the 8th of July, " It is necessary to uphold 
 this phantom, in order to restrain Germany, which would league 
 against us, and furnish the English with all the troops therein, the 
 moment the emperor was abandoned." It was necessary, at the 
 same time, to look out elsewhere for more effectual support. The 
 king of Prussia had been resting for the last two years, a curious 
 and an interested spectator of the contests which were bathing 
 Europe in blood, and which answered his purpose by enfeebling 
 his rivals. He frankly and coolly flaunted his selfishness. " In a 
 previous war with France," he says in his memoirs, " I abandoned 
 the French at Prague, because I gained Silesia by that step. If 
 I had escorted them to Vienna, they would never have given me 
 so much." In turn, the successes of the queen of Hungary were 
 beginning to disquiet him ; on the 5th of June, 1 744, he signed a 
 new treaty with France ; for the first time Louis XV. was about 
 to quit Versailles and place himself at the head of an army. " If 
 my country is to be devoured," said the king, with a levity far differ- 
 ent from the solemn tone of Louis XIV., " it will be very hard on me 
 to see it swallowed without personally doing my best to prevent it." 
 
 He had, however, hesitated a long while before he started, 
 Credit was given to the duchess of Chateauroux, Louis XV. 's new ardour of 
 favourite, for having excited this warlike ardour in the king. * m &- 
 Ypres and Menin had already surrendered after a few days' open 
 trenches; siege had just been laid to Fumes. Marshal Noailles 
 had proposed to move up the king's household troops in order to 
 make an impression upon the enemy. "If they must needs be 
 marched up," replied Louis XV., " I do not wish to separate from 
 my household : verbum sap" 
 
 The news which arrived from the army of Italy was equally 
 encouraging ; the prince of Conde, seconded by Chevert, had forced 
 the passage of the Alps: "There wiD come some occasion when 
 we shall do as well as the French have done," wrote Count Campo 
 Santo, who, under Don Philip, commanded the Spanish detachment ; 
 "it is impossible to do better." 
 
 Just at that moment Louis XV. was taken suddenly ill, and a 
 few days later all France was in consternation ; reports flew about 
 
474 History of France. 
 
 Illness of *kat kis life was despaired of. Confronted with death, the king 
 
 Louis XV. had once more felt the religious terrors which were constantly 
 
 ofChattau! intermingled with the irregularity of his life ; he had sent for the 
 
 rouz. queen, and had dismissed the duchess of Chateauroux. On 
 
 recovering his health, he found himself threatened by new perils, 
 
 aggravated by his illness, and by the troubled state into which it 
 
 had thrown the public mind. After having ravaged and wasted 
 
 Alsace, without Marshals Coigny and Noailles having been able 
 
 to prevent it, Prince Charles had, unopposed, struck again into 
 
 the road towards Bohemia, which was being threatened by the 
 
 king of Prussia. " This prince," wrote Marshal Belle-Isle on the 
 
 13th of September, "has written a very strong letter to the king, 
 
 complaining of the quiet way in which Prince Charles was allowed 
 
 to cross the Ehine ; he attributes it all to his Majesty's illness, and 
 
 complains bitterly of Marshal Noailles." And, on the 25th, to 
 
 Count Clermont : " Here we are, decided at last ; the king is to 
 
 start on Tuesday the 27th for Luneville, and on the 5th of October 
 
 will be at Strasbourg. Nobody knows as yet any further than 
 
 that, and it is a question whether he will go to Friburg or not. 
 
 The ministers are off back to Paris. Marshal Noailles, who has sent 
 
 for his equipage hither, asked whether he should attend his Majesty, 
 
 who replied 'As you please,' rather curtly. Your Highness cannot 
 
 have a doubt about his doing so after such a gracious permission." 
 
 Louis XY. went to the siege of Friburg, which was a long and 
 
 a difficult one. He returned to Paris on the 13th of November, to 
 
 the great joy of the people. A few days later, Marshal Belle-Isle, 
 
 whilst passing through Hanover in the character of negotiator, was 
 
 arrested by order of George II., and carried to England a prisoner 
 
 of war, in defiance of the law of nations and the protests of France. 
 
 The moment was not propitious for obtaining the release of a 
 
 A D 1745 mars k a l f France and an able general. The emperor Charles VII, 
 
 Death of ' wno h&d. but lately returned to his hereditary dominions, and 
 
 the em- recovered possession of his capital, after fifteen months of Austrian 
 
 ChariesVII occupation, died suddenly on the 20th of January, 1745, at forty- 
 
 (Jan. 20). seven years of age. The face of affairs changed all at once ; the 
 
 honour of France was no longer concerned in the struggle; the 
 
 grand-duke of Tuscany had no longer any competitor for the empire ; 
 
 the eldest son of Charles VII. was only seventeen ; the queen of 
 
 Hungary was disposed for peace. " The English ministry, which 
 
 laid down the law for all because it laid down the money, and 
 
 which had in its pay, all at one time, the queen of Hungary, the 
 
 king of Poland and the king of Sardinia, considered that there was 
 
 everything to lose by a treaty with France and everything to gain 
 
Battle of Fontenoy. 475 
 
 by arms. War continued, because it had commenced " [Voltaire, 
 Siecle de Louis XV.}. 
 
 The king of France henceforth maintained it almost alone by 
 himself. The young elector of Bavaria had already found himself 
 driven out of Munich, and forced by his exhausted subjects to 
 demand peace of Maria Theresa. The election to the empire was 
 imminent; Maximilian- Joseph promised his votes to the grand- 
 duke of Tuscany ; at that price he was re-established in his here- 
 ditary dominions. The king of Poland had rejected the advances 
 of France, who offered him the title of emperor, beneath which 
 Charles VII. had succumbed. Marshal Saxe bore all the brunt of 
 the war. A foreigner and a protestant, for a long while under 
 suspicion with Louis XV., and blackened in character by the 
 French generals, Maurice of Saxony had won authority as well as 
 glory by the splendour of his bravery and of his military genius. 
 Combining with quite a French vivacity the far-sightedness and 
 the perseverance of the races of the North, he had been toiling for 
 more than a year to bring about amongst his army a spirit of 
 discipline, a powerful organization, a contempt for fatigue as well 
 as for danger. " At Dettingen the success of the allies was due to 
 their surprising order, for they were not seasoned to war," he used 
 to say. Order did not as yet reign in the army of Marshal Saxe. 
 In 1745, the situation was grave; the marshal was attacked with 
 dropsy, his life appeared to be in danger. He nevertheless com- 
 manded his preparations to be made for the campaign, and, when 
 Voltaire, who was one of his friends, was astounded at it, " It is no 
 question of living, but of setting out," was his reply. 
 
 The victory of Fontenoy, like that of Denain, restored the A.D. 1745. 
 courage and changed the situation of France. When the king of 2 att t 
 Prussia heard of his ally's success, he exclaimed with a grin : " This (May 10). 
 is about as useful to us as a battle gained on the banks of the 
 Scamander." His selfish absorption in his personal and direct 
 interests obscured the judgment of Frederick the Great. He, 
 however, did justice to Marshal Saxe : " There was a discussion 
 the other day as to what battle had reflected most honour on the 
 general commanding," he wrote a long while after the battle of 
 Fontenoy : " some suggested that of Almanza, others that of Turin : 
 but I suggested and everybody finally agreed that it was un- 
 doubtedly that in which the general had been at death's door 
 when it was delivered." 
 
 The fortress of Tournai surrendered on the 22nd of May ; the Brilliant 
 citadel capitulated on the 19th of June. Ghent, Bruges, Oude- "J^JJf 8 
 narde, Dendermonde, Ostend, Nieuport, yielded one after another French. 
 
476 
 
 History of France. 
 
 The grand 
 duke of 
 Tuscany 
 proclaimed 
 emperor. 
 
 The Pre- 
 tender 
 Charles 
 Edward 
 invades 
 England. 
 
 to the French armies. In the month of February, 1746, Marshal 
 Saxe terminated the campaign by taking Brussels. By the 1st of 
 the previous September Louis XV. had returned in triumph to Paris. 
 
 Henceforth he remained alone confronting Germany, which was 
 neutral or had rallied round the restored empire. On the 13th of 
 September, the grand duke of Tuscany had been proclaimed 
 emperor at Frankfurt under the name of Francis I. The in- 
 domitable resolution of the queen his wife had triumphed ; in spite 
 of the checks she suffered in the Low Countries, Maria Theresa 
 still withstood, at all points, the pacific advances of the belligerents. 
 
 On the 4th of June, the king of Prussia had gained a great 
 victory at Freilberg. "I have honoured the bill of exchange 
 your Majesty drew on me at Fontenoy," he wrote to Louis XV. 
 A series of successful fights had opened the road to Saxony, 
 Frederick headed thither rapidly; on the 18th of December he 
 occupied Dresden. 
 
 Whilst Berlin was in gala trim to celebrate the return of her 
 monarch in triumph, Europe had her eyes fixed upon the unparal- 
 leled enterprise of a young man, winning, courageous and frivolous 
 as he was, attempting to recover by himself alone the throne of 
 his fathers. For nearly three years past, Charles Edward Stuart, 
 son of the Chevalier de St. George, had been awaiting in France the 
 fulfilment of the promises and hopes which had been flashed before 
 his eyes. "Weary of hope deferred, he had conceived the idea of 
 a bold stroke. "Why not attempt to cross in a vessel to the 
 north of Scotland 1" had been the question put to him by Cardinal 
 Tencin, who had sometime before owed his cardinal's hat to the de- 
 throned king of Great Britain. " Your presence will be enough to get 
 you a party and an army, and France will be obliged to give you aid." 
 
 Charles Edward followed this audacious counsel. Landing 
 in June, 1745, in the Highlands of Scotland, he had soon found 
 the clans of the mountaineers hurrying to join his standard. At 
 the head of this wild army, he had in a few months gained over 
 the whole of Scotland. On the 20th of September he was 
 proclaimed at Edinburgh regent of England, France, Scotland and 
 Ireland for his father, king James III. George II. had left Hanover ; 
 the duke of Cumberland, returning from Germany, took the com- 
 mand of the troops assembled to oppose the invader. Their success 
 in the battle of Preston-Pans against General Cope had emboldened 
 the Scots; at the end of December, 1745, Prince Charles Edward 
 and his army advanced as far as Derby. 
 
 It was the fate of the Stuarts, whether heroes or dastards, to see 
 their hopes blasted all at once, and to drag down in their fall their 
 
Battles of Culloden and Raucoux. 477 
 
 most zealous and devoted partisans. The aid, so often promised by 
 France and Spain, had dwindled down to the private expeditions 
 of certain brave adventurers. The duke of Richelieu, it was said, 
 was to put himself at their head. Charles Edward had already 
 been forced to fall back upon Scotland. As in 1651, at the time 
 of the attempt of Charles II., England remained quite cold in the 
 presence of the Scottish invasion ; the duke of Cumberland was 
 closely pressing the army of the mountaineers. On the 23rd of A.D. 1746. 
 April, 1746, the foes found themselves face to face at Culloden, cuiSden 
 in the environs of Inverness. Charles Edward was completely (April 23). 
 beaten, and the army of the Highlanders destroyed ; the prince only 
 escaped either death or captivity by the determined devotion of his 
 partisans, whether distinguished or obscure ; a hundred persons had 
 risked their lives for him, when he finally succeeded, on the 10th 
 of October, in touching land, in Brittany, near St. Pol de Leon. 
 His friends and his defenders were meanwhile dying for his cause 
 on scaffold or gallows. 
 
 The anger and severity displayed by the English Government 
 towards the Jacobites were aggravated by the checks encountered 
 upon the Continent by the coalition. At the very moment when 
 the duke of Cumberland was defeating Charles Edward at Culloden, 
 Antwerp was surrendering to Louis XV. in person ; Mons, Namur 
 and Charleroi were not long before they fell. Prince Charles of 
 Lorraine was advancing to the relief of the besieged places ; 
 Marshal Saxe left open to him the passage of the Meuse : the 
 French camp seemed to be absorbed in pleasures ; the most famous 
 actors from Paris were ordered to amuse the general and the soldiers. 
 On the 10th of October, in the evening, Madame Favart came for- 
 ward on the stage : To-morrow," said she, " there will be no per- 
 formance, on account of the battle : the day after, we shall have the 
 honour of giving you Le Coq du Village" At the same time, the Battle of 
 marshal sent the following order to the columns which were already (Oct. 11). 
 forming on the road from St. Tron to Liege, near the village of 
 Kaucoux : " Whether the attacks succeed or not, the troops will 
 remain in the position in which night finds them, in order to recom- 
 mence the assault upon the enemy." 
 
 The battle of October llth left the battle-field in the hands of 
 the victors, the sole result of a bloody and obstinate engagement. 
 Marshal Saxe went to rest himself at Paris ; the people's enthusiasm 
 rivalled and endorsed the favours shown to him by the king. 
 
 So much luck and so much glory in the Low Countries covered, in 
 the eyes of France and of Europe, the checks encountered by the 
 king's armies in Italy. The campaign of 1745 had been very bril- 
 
478 History of France. 
 
 liant. Parma, Piacenza, Montferrat, nearly all Milaness, with the 
 exception of a few fortresses, were in the hands of the Spanish and 
 French forces. The king of Sardinia had recourse to negotiation ; 
 he amused the marquis of Argenson, at that time Louis XV. 's 
 foreign minister, a man of honest, expansive, but chimerical views. 
 At the moment when the king and the marquis believed themselves 
 to be remodelling the map of Europe at their pleasure, they heard 
 TheFrench that Charles Emmanuel had resumed the offensive. A French corps 
 in Italy. jjad b een surprised at Asti, on the 5th of March ; thirty thousand 
 Austrians marched down from the Tyrol, and the Spaniards 
 evacuated Milan. A series of checks forced Marshal Maillebois to 
 to effect a retreat ; the enemy's armies crossed the Var and invaded 
 French territory. Marshal Belle-Isle fell back to Puget, four 
 leagues from Toulon. 
 
 The Austrians had occupied Genoa, the faithful ally of France : 
 their vengefulness and their severe exactions caused them to lose 
 the fruits of their victory. The resistance of Genoa was effectual ; 
 but it cost the life of the duke of Boufflers, who was wounded in an 
 engagement and died three days before the retreat of the Austrians, 
 on the 6th of July, 1747. 
 
 On the 19th of July, Common Sense Belle-Isle (Bon-Sens de 
 Belle-Isle), as the Chevalier was called at court to distinguish him 
 from his brother the marshal, nicknamed Imagination, attacked 
 with a considerable body of troops the Piedmontese intrenchments 
 at the Assietta Pass, between the fortresses of Exilles and Fenes- 
 defeated. trelles ; at the same time, Marshal Belle-Isle was seeking a passage 
 over the Stura Pass, and the Spanish army was attacking Piedmont 
 by way of the Apennines. The engagement at the heights of 
 Assietta was obstinate ; Chevalier Belle-Isle, wounded in both arms, 
 threw himself bodily upon the palisades to tear them down with his 
 teeth ; he was killed, and the French sustained a terrible defeat ; 
 five thousand men were left on the battle-field. The campaign of 
 Italy was stopped. The king of Spain, Philip V., enfeebled and 
 exhausted almost in infancy, had died on the 9th of July, 1746. 
 The fidelity of his successor, Ferdinand VI., married to a Portu- 
 guese princess, appeared doubtful ; he had placed at the head of his 
 forces in Italy the marquis of Las Minas, with orders to preserve to 
 Spain her only army. " The Spanish soldiers are of no more use 
 to us than if they were so much cardboard," said the French troops. 
 Europe was tired of the war. England avenged herself for her 
 reverses upon the Continent by her successes at sea ; the French 
 navy, neglected systematically by Cardinal Fleury, did not even 
 suffice for the protection of commerce. The Hollanders, who had 
 
Peace of A ix-la- Chapelle. 479 
 
 for a long while been undecided and had at last engaged in the 
 struggle against France without any declaration of war, bore, in 
 1747, the burthen of the hostilities. Count Lowendahl, a friend 
 of Marshal Saxe's, and, like him, in the service of France, had 
 taken Sluys and Sas-de-Gand ; Bergen-op-Zoom was besieged ; on 
 the 1st of July, Marshal Saxe had gained, under the king's own A.D. 1747. 
 eye, the battle of Lawfeldt. As in 1672, the French invasion had ^wfeldt 
 been the signal for a political revolution in Holland ; the aristocra- (July 2). 
 tical burgessdom, which had resumed power, succumbed once more 
 beneath the efforts of the popular party, directed by the House of 
 Nassau and supported by England. 
 
 Bergen-op-Zooin was taken and plundered on the 16th of Sep- 
 tember. Count Lowendahl was made a marshal of France. " Peace 
 is in Maestricht, sir," was Maurice of Saxony's constant remark to 
 the king. On the 9th of April, 1748, the place was invested, 
 before the thirty-five thousand Eussians, promised to England by 
 the Czarina Elizabeth had found time to make their appearance on 
 the Rhine. A congress was already assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle 
 to treat for peace. The Hollanders, whom the marquis of Argenson 
 before his disgrace used always to call " the Ambassadors of Eng- 
 land," took fright at the spectacle of Maestricht besieged ; from 
 parleys they proceeded to the most vehement urgency ; and Eng- 
 land yielded. The preliminaries of peace were signed on the 30th _ 
 of April ; it was not long before Austria and Spain gave in their Peace of " 
 adhesion. On the 18th of October the definitive treaty was con- Aix-la- 
 cluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. France generously restored all her con- 
 quests, without claiming other advantages beyond the assurance 
 of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza to the Infante Don Philip, 
 son-in-law of Louis XV. England surrendered to France the 
 island of Cape Breton and the colony of Louisbourg, the only 
 territory she had preserved from her numerous expeditions against 
 the French colonies and from the immense losses inflicted upon 
 French commerce. The Great Frederick kept Silesia ; the king of 
 Sardinia the territories already ceded by Austria. Only France 
 had made great conquests ; and only she retained no increment of 
 territory. She recognized the Pragmatic Sanction in favour of 
 Austria and the Protestant succession in favour of George II. 
 Prince Charles Edward, a refugee in France, refused to quit the 
 hospitable soil which had but lately offered so magnificent an 
 asylum to the unfortunates of his house : he was, however, carried 
 off, whilst at the Opera, forced into a carriage, and conveyed far 
 from the frontier. " As stupid as the peace ! " was the bitter 
 saying in the streets of Paris. 
 
480 
 
 History of France. 
 
 of per- 
 manence. 
 
 It has no The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had a graver defect than that of 
 conditions fruitlessness ; it was not and could not be durable. England was 
 excited, ambitious of that complete empire of the sea which she 
 had begun to build up upon the ruins of the French navy and the 
 decay of Holland, and greedy of distant conquests over colonies 
 which the French could not manage to defend. In proportion as 
 the old influence of Richelieu and of Louis XIV. over European 
 policy became weaker and weaker, English influence, founded upon 
 the growing power of a free country and a free government, went 
 on increasing in strength. Without any other ally but Spain, 
 herself wavering in her fidelity, the French remained exposed to 
 the attempts of England, henceforth delivered from the phantom 
 of the Stuarts. " The peace concluded between England and 
 France in 1748 was, as regards Europe, nothing but a truce," 
 says Lord Macaulay : " it was not even a truce in other quarters 
 of the globe." The mutual rivalry and mistrust between the two 
 nations began to show themselves everywhere, in the East as well 
 as in the West, in India as well as in America. 
 
CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 LOUIS XV. THE COLONIES. THE SEVEN YEARS* WAR (1748 1774). 
 LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 WE must now review briefly the history of the French colonies. Fonnda- 
 At the outset of Louis XIV. 's personal reign and through the per- tion of the 
 severing efforts of Colbert, marching in the footsteps of Cardinal ifa 
 Richelieu, an India Company had been founded for the purpose of Company. 
 developing French commerce in those distant regions, which had 
 always been shrouded in a mysterious halo of fancied wealth and 
 grandeur. Several times the Company had all but perished ; it had 
 revived under the vigorous impulse communicated by Law and had 
 not succumbed at the collapse of his system. It gave no money 
 to its shareholders, who derived their benefits only from a partial 
 concession of the tobacco revenues, granted by the king to the 
 Company, but its directors lived a life of magnificence in the East, 
 where they were authorised to trade on their own account. 
 Abler and bolder than all his colleagues, Joseph Dupleix, mem- 
 ber of a Gascon family and son of the comptroller-general of 
 Hainault, had dreamed of other destinies than the management 
 of a counting-house ; he aspired to endow France with the empire 
 of India. Placed at a very early age at ' the head of the French 
 establishments at Chandernugger, he had improved the city and 
 constructed a fleet, all the while acquiring for himself an immense 
 fortune ; he had just been sent to Pondicherry as governor-general 
 of the Company's agencies when the war of succession to the 
 
 1 1 
 
482 History of France. 
 
 empire broke out in 1742. Unfortunately a serious misunderstand- 
 ing took place between him and the governor of Bourbon and of 
 He de France, Bertrand Francis Mahe de La Bourdonnais, who, in 
 September, 1746, at the head of a flotilla, had obliged the English 
 garrison of Madras to surrender. A jealous love of power and 
 absorption in political schemes induced Dupleix to violate a 
 promise lightly given by La Bourdonnais in the name of France ; 
 he arbitrarily quashed a capitulation of which he had not discussed 
 the conditions. The report of this unhappy conflict, and the colour 
 put upon it by the representations of Dupleix, ruined at Paris the 
 governor of He de France. 
 
 On arriving at He de France, amidst that colony which he had 
 found exhausted, ruined, and had endowed with hospitals, arsenals, 
 la Bour- quays, and fortifications, La Bourdonnais learned that a new 
 donnais. governor was already installed there. His dissensions with Dupleix 
 had borne their fruits ; he had been accused of having exacted too 
 paltry a ransom from Madras, and of having accepted enormous 
 presents ; the Company had appointed a successor in his place. 
 Driven to desperation, anxious to go and defend himself, La Bour- 
 donnais set out for France with his wife and his four children ; a 
 prosecution had already been commenced against him. He was 
 captured at sea by an English ship, and taken a prisoner to England. 
 The good faith of the conqueror of Madras was known in London ; 
 one of the directors of the English Company offered his fortune as 
 security for M. de la Bourdonnais. Scarcely had he arrived in 
 Paris when he was thrown into the Bastille, and for two years kept 
 in solitary confinement. When his innocence was at last acknow- 
 ledged and his liberty restored to him, his health was destroyed, his 
 s death. f or ^ une exhausted by the expenses of the trial. La Bourdonnais 
 died before long, employing the last remnants of his life and of his 
 strength in pouring forth his anger against Dupleix, to whom he 
 attributed all his woes. His indignation was excusable, and some 
 of his grievances were well grounded ; but the germs of suspicion 
 thus sown by the unfortunate prisoner released from the Bastille 
 were destined before long to consign to perdition not only his enemy, 
 but also, together with him, that French dominion in India to 
 which M. de La Bourdonnais had dedicated his life. 
 
 France and England had made peace ; the English and French 
 Companies in India had not laid down arms. Their power, as well 
 as the importance of their establishments, was as yet in equipoise. 
 At Surat both Companies had places of business ; on the coast of 
 Malabar, the English had Bombay and the French Mahe ; on the 
 coast of Coromandel, the former held Madras and Fort St. George, 
 

 CARDINAL BOOTS. 
 
 483. 
 
Weakness of the French government. 483 
 
 the latter Pondicherry and Karikal. The principal factories, as 
 well as the numerous little establishments which were dependencies 
 of them, were defended by a certain number of European soldiers 
 and by Sepoys, native soldiers in the pay of the Companies. 
 
 These small armies were costly, and diminished to a considerable 
 extent the profits of trade. Dupleix espied the possibility of a 
 new organization, which should secure to the French in India the Plans of 
 preponderance, and ere long the empire even, in the two peninsulas. Dupleix. 
 He purposed to found manufactures, utilise native hand-labour and 
 develope the coast ing- trade or Ind to Ind trade, as the expression 
 then was ; but he set his pretensions still higher and carried his 
 views still further. He purposed to acquire for the Company and, 
 under its name, for France, territories and subjects furnishing 
 revenues and amply sufficing for the expenses of the commercial 
 establishments. The moment was propitious ; the ancient empire 
 of the Great Mogul tottering to its base was distracted by revolu- 
 tions ; Dupleix reckoned without France, and without the incom- 
 petent or timid men who governed her. His successes scared King 
 Louis XV. and his feeble ministers ; they angered and discomfited Supine- 
 England, which was as yet tottering in India, and whose affairs neg sof the 
 there had for a long while been ill managed, but which remained govern- 
 ever vigorous, active, animated by the indomitable ardour of a free 
 people. At Versailles attempts were made to lessen the conquests 
 of Dupleix, prudence was recommended to him, delay was shown 
 in sending him the troops he demanded. In India England had at 
 last found a man still young and unknown, but worthy of being 
 opposed to Dupleix. Clive, who had almost in boyhood entered 
 the Company's offices, turned out, after the turbulence of his early 
 years, a heaven- born general ; he was destined to continue Dupleix's 
 work, when abandoned by France, and to found to the advantage 
 of the English that European dominion in India which had been 
 the governor of Pondicherry's dream. Two French corps were 
 destroyed by Clive, and a third army soon shared the same fate. 
 The report of Dupleix's reverses arrived in France in the month of 
 September, 1752. 
 
 The dismay at Versailles was great, and prevailed over the 
 astonishment. There had never been any confidence in Dupleix's 
 projects, there had been scarcely any belief in his conquests. The 
 soft-hearted inertness of ministers and courtiers was almost as 
 much disgusted at the successes as at the defeats of the bold 
 adventurers who were attempting and risking all for the aggran- 
 disement and puissance of France in the East. The tone of Eng- 
 land was more haughty than ever, in consequence of Clive's suc- 
 cesses. The recall of Dupleix was determined upon. 
 
 ii 2 
 
484 
 
 History of France. 
 
 seded" 
 
 The governor of Pondieherry had received no troops, but he had 
 managed to reorganise an army, and had resumed the offensive in 
 the Carnatic ; powerfully helped by his military lieutenant, Bussy 
 Castelnau, his future son-in-law, animated by the same zeal for the 
 greatness of France. Clive was ill and had just set out for Eng- 
 land : fortune had once more changed front. The open conferences 
 held with Saunders, English governor of Madras, failed in the 
 month of January, 1754 ; Dupleix wished to preserve the advan- 
 tages he had won, Saunders refused to listen to that ; the approach 
 of a French squadron was signalled. The ships appeared to be 
 numerous. Dupleix was already rejoicing at the arrival of unex- 
 pected aid, when, instead of an officer commanding the twelve 
 hundred soldiers from France, he saw the apparition of M. Godeheu 
 one of the directors of the Company, and but lately his friend and 
 Dupleix is correspondent. "I come to supersede you, sir," said the new 
 arrival without any circumstance ; " I have full powers from the 
 Company to treat with the English." The cabinet of London had 
 not been deceived as to the importance of Dupleix in India ; his 
 recall had been made the absolute condition of a cessation of hos- 
 tilities. Louis XV. and his ministers had shown no opposition ; 
 the treaty was soon concluded, restoring the possessions of the two 
 Companies within the limits they had occupied before the war of 
 the Carnatic, with the exception of the district of Masulipatam, 
 which became accessible to the English. All the territories ceded 
 by the Hindoo princes to Dupleix reverted to their former masters ; 
 the two Companies interdicted one another from taking any part in 
 the interior policy of India, and at the same time forbade their 
 agents to accept from the Hindoo princes any charge, honour or 
 dignity ; the most perfect equality was re-established between the 
 possessions and revenues of the two great European nations, rivals 
 in the East as well as in Europe ; England gave up some petty 
 forts, some towns of no importance, France ceded the empire of 
 India. When Godeheu signed the treaty, Trichinopoli was at last 
 on the point of giving in. Dupleix embarked for France with his 
 w ^ e an( ^ daughter, leaving in India, together with his life's work 
 destroyed in a few days by the poltroonery of his country's govern- 
 ment, the fortune he had acquired during his great enterprises, 
 entirely sunk as it was in the service of France ; the revenues 
 destined to cover his advances were seized by Godeheu. 
 
 France seemed to comprehend what her ministers had not even 
 an idea of; Dupleix's arrival in France was a veritable triumph. 
 It was by this time known that the reverses which had caused so 
 much talk had been half repaired. It was by this time guessed 
 how infinite were the resources of that empire of India, so lightly 
 
 signs a 
 treaty 
 
 W \and D 
 
Misfortunes of Dupleix. 485 
 
 and mean- spiritedly abandoned to the English. " My wife and I 
 dare not appear in the streets of Lorient," wrote Dupleix, "because 
 of the crowd of people wanting to see us and bless us " the 
 comptroller-general, Herault de Sechelles, as well as the king and 
 Madame de Pompadour, then and for a long while the reigning 
 favourite, gave so favourable a reception to the hero of India that 
 Dupleix, always an optimist, conceived fresh hopes. " I shall 
 regain my property here," he would say, " and India will recover returns to 
 in the hands of Bussy." France. 
 
 He was mistaken about the justice as he had been about the 
 discernment and the boldness of the French government; not a 
 promise was accomplished ; not a hope was realized ; after delay 
 upon delay, excuse upon excuse, Dupleix saw his wife expire at 
 the end of two years, worn out with suffering and driven to despair : 
 like her, his daughter, affianced for a long time past to Bussy, suc- 
 cumbed beneath the weight of sorrow ; in vain did Dupleix tire 
 out the ministers with his views and his projects for India, he saw 
 even the action he was about to bring against the Company vetoed 
 by order of the king. Persecuted by his creditors, overwhelmed 
 with regret for the relatives and friends whom he had involved in 
 his enterprises and in his ruin, he exclaimed a few months before 
 his death : " I have sacrificed youth, fortune, life in order to load 
 with honour and riches those of my own nation in Asia. Unhappy 
 friends, too weakly credulous relatives, virtuous citizens have dedi- 
 cated their property to promoting the success of my projects ; they 
 are now in want. ... I demand, like the humblest of creditors, 
 that which is my due ; my services are all stuff, my demand is 
 ridiculous, I am treated like the vilest of men. The little I have 
 left is seized, I have been obliged to get execution stayed to pre- 
 vent my being dragged to prison!" Dupleix died at last on the . _ -* 
 llth of November, 1763, the most striking, without being the last His 'death, 
 or the most tragical, victim of the great French enterprises in (Nov. 11). 
 India. 
 
 Despite the treaty of peace, hostilities had never really ceased 
 in India. Clive had returned from England ; freed henceforth 
 from the influence, the intrigues and the indomitable energy of 
 Dupleix, he had soon made himself master of the whole of Bengal, 
 he had even driven the French from Chandernugger ; Bussy had 
 been unable to check his successes, he avenged himself by wresting 
 away from the English all their agencies on the coast of Orissa, 
 and closing against them the road between the Coromandel coast 
 and Bengal. 
 
 Meanwhile the Seven Years' war had broken out ; the whole of 
 
486 History of France. 
 
 Europe had joined in the contest ; the French navy, still feeble 
 in spite of the efforts that had been made to restore it, underwent 
 serious reverses on every sea. Count Lally-Tolendal, descended 
 Tolendal fr m an Irish family which took refuge in France with James II., 
 starts for went to Count d'Argenson, still minister of war, with a proposition 
 Indiat to go and humble in India that English power which had been 
 imprudently left to grow up without hindrance. M. de Lally had 
 served with renown in the wars of Germany ; he had seconded 
 Prince Charles Edward in his brave and yet frivolous attempt 
 upon England. The directors of the India Company went and 
 asked M. d'Argenson to entrust to General Lally the king's troops 
 promised for the expedition. " You are wrong," M. d'Argenson 
 said to them : " I know M. de Lally, he is a friend of mine, but he 
 is violent, passionate, inflexible as to discipline, he will not tolerate 
 any disorder ; you will be setting fire to your warehouses, if you 
 send him thither." The directors, however, insisted, and M. de 
 Lally set out on the 2nd of May, 1757, with four ships and a body 
 of troops. Some young officers belonging to the greatest houses of 
 France served on his staff. 
 
 The brilliant courage and heroic ardour of M. de Lally triumphed 
 over the first obstacles ; his recklessness, his severity, his passion- 
 ateness were about to lose him the fruits of his victories. " The 
 successes comm i ss i on I hold," he wrote to the directors of the Company at 
 Paris, " imports that I shall be held in horror by all the people of 
 the country." By his personal faults he aggravated his already 
 critical position. The discord which reigned in the army as well 
 as amongst the civil functionaries was nowhere more flagrant than 
 between Lally and Bussy. The latter could not console himself 
 for having been forced to leave the Deccan in the feeble hands of 
 the marquis of Conflans. An expedition attempted against the 
 fortress of Wandiwash, of which the English had obtained pos- 
 session, was followed by a serious defeat ; Colonel Coote was master 
 of Karikal. Little by little the French army and French power in 
 India found themselves cooped within the immediate territory of 
 Pondicherry. The English marched against this town. Lally shut 
 himself up there in the month of March, 1760. Bussy had been 
 made prisoner, and Coote had sent him to Europe. " At the head 
 of the French army Bussy would be in a position by himself alone 
 to prolong the war for ten years," said the Hindoos. On the 27th 
 of November, the siege of Pondicherry was transformed into an 
 investment. 
 
 He held out for six weeks, in spite of famine, want of money 
 and ever increasing dissensions. At last it became necessary to 
 
Lally-Tolendal tried and beheaded. 487 
 
 surrender, the council of the Company called upon the general to 
 capitulate ; Lally claimed the honours of war, but Coote would 
 have the town at discretion : the distress was extreme as well as 
 the irritation. Pondicherry was delivered up to the conquerors on p ndi- 
 the 16th of January, 1761 ; the fortifications and magazines were cherry 
 razed ; Trench power in India, long supported by the courage or "^J^e er 
 ability of a few men, was foundering, never to rise again. " No- English, 
 body can have a higher opinion than I of M. de Lally," wrote 
 Colonel Coote : " he struggled against obstacles that I considered 
 insurmountable and triumphed over them. There is not in India 
 another man who could have so long kept an army standing with- 
 out pay and without resources in any direction." " A convincing 
 proof of his merits," said another English officer, " is his long and 
 vigorous resistance in a place in which he was universally de- 
 tested." 
 
 Hatred bears bitterer fruits than is imagined even by those who 
 provoke it. The animosity which M. de Lally had excited in 
 India was everywhere an obstacle to the defence ; and it was 
 destined to cost him his life and imperil his honour. Scarcely 
 had he arrived in England, ill, exhausted by sufferings and fatigue, 
 followed even in his captivity by the reproaches and anger of his 
 comrades in misfortune, when he heard of the outbreak of public 
 opinion against him in France; he was accused of treason; and 
 he obtained from the English cabinet permission to repair to Paris. 
 "I bring hither my head and my innocence," he wrote, on dis- 
 embarking, to the minister of war, and he went voluntarily to 
 imprisonment in the Bastille. After a delay of nineteen months, 
 the trial commenced in December, 1764, and on the 9th of May, 
 at the close of the day, the valiant general whose heroic resistance 
 had astounded all India mounted the scaffold on the Place de - D - 1766 
 Greve, nor was permission granted to the few friends who remained Tolendal 
 faithful to him to accompany him to the place of execution ; there beheaded, 
 was only the parish-priest of St. Louis en Tile at his side; as ( May 9 ^' 
 apprehensions were felt of violence and insult on the part of the 
 condemned, he was gagged like the lowest criminal when he reso- 
 lutely mounted the fatal ladder ; he knelt without assistance and 
 calmly awaited his death-blow. " Everybody," observed D'Alem- 
 bert, expressing by that cruel saying the violence of public feeling 
 against the condemned, " everybody, except the hangman, has a 
 right to kill Lally." Voltaire's judgment, after the subsidence of 
 passion and after the light thrown by subsequent events upon the 
 state of French affairs in India before Lally's campaigns, is more 
 just: "It was a murder committed with the sword of justice." 
 
488 History of France. 
 
 King Louis XV. and his government had lost India ; the rage and 
 shame blindly excited amongst the nation by this disaster had 
 been visited upon the head of the unhappy general who had been 
 last vanquished in defending the remnants of French power. 
 
 For a long time past the French had directed towards America 
 their ardent spirit of enterprise ; in the fifteenth century, on the 
 morrow of the discovery of the new world, when the indomitable 
 genius and religious faith of Christopher Columbus had just opened 
 a new path to inquiring minds and daring spirits, the Basques, the 
 Bretons and the Normans were amongst the first to follow the 
 road he had marked out; their light barques and their intrepid 
 navigators were soon known among the fisheries of Newfoundlond 
 and the Canadian coast. As early as 1506 a chart of the St. Law- 
 The French rence was drawn by John Denis, who came from Honfleur in Nor- 
 ' a ' mandy. Before long the fishers began to approach the coasts, 
 attracted by the fur-trade; they entered into relations with the 
 native tribes, buying, very often for a mere song, the produce of 
 their hunting, and introducing to them together with the first- 
 fruits of civilization, its corruptions and its dangers. Before long 
 the savages of America became acquainted with the fire-water. 
 
 Policy was not slow to second the bold enterprises of the navi- 
 gators. France was at that time agitated by various earnest and 
 mighty passions : for a moment the Reformation, personified by the 
 austere virtues and grand spirit of Coligny, had seemed to dispute 
 the empire of the Catholic Church. The forecasts of the admiral 
 became more and more sombre every day, he weighed the power 
 and hatred of the Guises as well as of their partisans; in his 
 anxiety for his countrymen and his religion, he determined to 
 secure for the persecuted Protestants a refuge, perhaps, a home in 
 the new world, after that defeat of which he already saw a 
 glimmer. 
 
 A first expedition had failed, after an attempt on the coasts of 
 Brazil; in 1562, a new flotilla set out from Havre, commanded by 
 Ribaut's John Ribaut of Dieppe, who, having effected a landing, took pos- 
 expedition. Segs j 011 O f the country in the name of France, and immediately 
 began to construct a fort which they called Fort Charles, in honour 
 of the young king, Charles IX. Unhappily, at the end of three 
 years, a Spanish expedition landed in Florida, commanded by 
 Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who attacked and overmastered the 
 French colonists ; a great number were massacred, others crowded 
 on to the little vessels still at their disposal and carried to France 
 the news of the disaster. 
 
 For a long while expeditions and attempts at French colonization 
 
Canada and Champlain. 489 
 
 had been directed towards Canada. James Cartier, in 1535, had A.D. 1535. 
 
 taken possession of its coasts under the name of New France. 
 M. de Eoberval had taken thither colonists, agricultural and 
 mechanical ; but the hard climate, famine and disease had stifled 
 the little colony in the bud ; religious and political disturbances in 
 the mother-country were absorbing all thoughts ; it was only in the 
 reign of Henry IV., when panting France, distracted by civil dis- 
 cord, began to repose for the first time since more than a century, 
 beneath a government just, able, and firm at the same time, that zeal 
 for distant enterprises at last attracted to New France its real founder. 
 Samuel de Champlain du Brouage,born in 1567, a faithful soldier of Champ- 
 the king's so long as the war lasted, was unable to endure the indo- lain - 
 lence of peace. After long and perilous voyages, he enlisted in the 
 company which M. de Monts, gentleman of the bedchamber in 
 ordinary to Henry IV., had just formed for the trade in furs on the 
 northern coast of America; appointed viceroy of Acadia, a new 
 territory, of which the imaginary limits would extend in our 
 times from Philadelphia to beyond Montreal, and furnished with a 
 commercial monopoly, M. de Monts set sail on the 7th of April, 
 1604, taking with him, Calvinist though he was, Catholic priests as 
 well as Protestant pastors. After long and painful explorations in 
 the forests and amongst the Indian tribes, after frequent voyages to 
 France on the service of the colony, he became at last, in 1606, the 
 first governor of the nascent town of Quebec. 
 
 Never was colony founded under more pious auspices ; for some 
 time past the Recollects had been zealously labouring for the con- 
 version of unbelievers ; seconded by the Jesuits, who were before 
 long to remain sole masters of the soil, they found themselves suf- 
 ficiently powerful to forbid the protestant sailors certain favourite 
 exercises of their worship : " At last it was agreed that they should 
 not chant the psalms," says Champlain, " but that they should 
 assemble to make their prayers." 
 
 In 1627, Richelieu put himself at the head of a company of a Richelieu 
 hundred associates, on which the king conferred the possession as Jjom^ny^ 
 well as the government of New France, together with the commer- for the 
 cial monopoly and freedom from all taxes for fifteen years. The coloniza- 
 colonists were to be French and Catholics ; huguenots were Canada. 
 excluded : they alone had till then manifested any tendency 
 towards emigration ; the attempts at colonization in America were 
 due to their efforts : less liberal in New France than he had lately 
 been in Europe, the cardinal thus enlisted in the service of the 
 foreigner all the adventurous spirits and the bold explorers amongst 
 the French Protestants, at the very moment when the English 
 
490 
 
 History of France. 
 
 A.D. 1635. 
 
 Champ- 
 Iain's 
 death 
 (Dec. 25). 
 
 Puritans, driven from their country by the narrow and meddlesome 
 policy of James I., were dropping anchor at the foot of Plymouth 
 Rock, and were founding, in the name of religious liberty, a new 
 protestant England, the rival ere long of that New France which 
 was catholic and absolutist. 
 
 Champlain had died at Quebec on Christmas Day, 1635, after 
 twenty-seven years' efforts and sufferings in the service of the 
 nascent colony. Bold and enterprising, endowed with indomitable 
 perseverance and rare practical faculties, an explorer of distant 
 forests, an intrepid negotiator with the savage tribes, a wise and 
 patient administrator, indulgent towards all, in spite of his ardent 
 devotion, Samuel de Champlain had presented the rare intermix- 
 ture of the heroic qualities of past times with the zeal for science 
 and the practical talents of modern ages ; he was replaced in his 
 government by a knight of Malta, M. de Montmagny. Quebec 
 had a seminary, a hospital and a convent, before it possessed a 
 population. 
 
 The foundation of Montreal was still more exclusively religious. 
 The accounts of the Jesuits had inflamed pious souls with a noble 
 emulation ; a Montreal association was formed, under the direction 
 of M. Olier, founder of St. Sulpice. The first expedition was 
 placed under the command of a valiant gentleman, Paul de Maison- 
 neuve, and of a certain Mademoiselle Mance, belonging to the 
 middle-class of Nogent-le-Koi, who was not yet a nun, but who was 
 destined to become the foundress of the hospital-sisters of Ville- 
 Marie, the name which the religious zeal of the explorers intended 
 for the new colony. 
 
 The affair of Montreal stood, like that of Quebec ; New France 
 was founded in spite of the sufferings of the early colonists, thanks 
 to their courage, their fervent enthusiasm, and the support afforded 
 them by the religious zeal of their friends in Europe. The Jesuit 
 missionaries every day extended their explorations, sharing with 
 M. de la Salle the glory of the great discoveries of the West. 
 Champlain had before this dreamed of and sought for a passage 
 across the continent, leading to the Southern seas and permitting 
 La Salle. of commerce with India and Japan. La Salle, in his intrepid 
 expeditions, discovered Ohio and Illinois, navigated the great lakes, 
 crossed the Mississippi, which the Jesuits had been the first to 
 reach, and pushed on as far as Texas. Constructing forts in the 
 midst of the savage districts, taking possession of Louisiana in the 
 name of King Louis XIV., abandoned by the majority of his com- 
 rades and losing the most faithful of them by death, attacked by 
 savages, betrayed by his own men, thwarted in his projects by his 
 
The Canadians and France. 491 
 
 enemies and his rivals, this indefatigable explorer fell at last beneath 
 the blows of a few mutineers, in 1687, just as he was trying to get 
 back to New France ; he left the field open after him to the 
 innumerable travellers of every nation and every language who were 
 one day to leave their mark on those measureless tracts. Every- 
 where, in the western regions of the American continent, the foot- 
 steps of the French, either travellers or missionaries, preceded the 
 boldest adventurers. It is the glory and the misfortune of France 
 to always lead the van in the march of civilization, without having nation, 
 the wit to profit by the discoveries and the sagacious boldness of 
 her children. On the unknown roads which she has opened to the 
 human mind and to human enterprise she has often left the fruits 
 to be gathered by nations less inventive and less able than she, but 
 more persevering and less perturbed by a confusion of desires and 
 an incessant renewal of hopes. 
 
 The treaty of Utrecht had taken out of French hands the gates 
 of Canada, Acadia and Newfoundland. It was now in the neigh- 
 bourhood of New France that the power of England was rising, 
 growing rapidly through the development of her colonies, usurping 
 little by little the empire of the seas. Canada was prospering, how- 
 ever ; during the long wars which the condition of Europe had kept 
 up in America, the Canadians had supplied the king's armies with 
 their best soldiers. Eeturning to their homes and resuming with- The French 
 out an effort the peaceful habits which characterized them, they Canadians - 
 skilfully cultivated their fields and saw their population increasing 
 naturally without any help from the mother-country. The governors 
 had succeeded in adroitly counterbalancing the influence of the 
 English over the Indian tribes. The Iroquois, but lately impla- 
 cable foes of France, had accepted a position of neutrality. 
 Agricultural development secured to the country comparative 
 prosperity, but money was scarce, the instinct of the popula- 
 tion was not in the direction of commerce; it was everywhere 
 shackled by monopolies. The English were rich, free and bold ; 
 for them the transmission and the exchange of commodities were 
 easy. The commercial rivalry which set in between the two 
 nations was fatal to the French ; when the hour of the final 
 struggle came, the Canadians, though brave, resolute, passionately 
 attached to France and ready for any sacrifice, were few in number 
 compared with their enemies. Scattered over a vast territory, they 
 possessed but poor pecuniary resources and could expect from the 
 mother-country only irregular assistance, subject to variations of 
 government and fortune as well as to the chances of maritime war- 
 fare and engagements at sea, always perilous for the French ships, 
 
492 History of France. 
 
 which were inferior in build and in number, whatever might be the 
 courage and skill of their commanders. 
 
 The capture of Louisbourg and of the island of Cape Breton by 
 the English colonists, in 1745, profoundly disquieted the Canadians, 
 it was the first scene in a drama doomed to end fatally for the 
 interests of France. 
 
 Regretfully and as if compelled by a remnant of national honour 
 Louis XV. adopted the resolution of defending his colonies ; he had, 
 and the nation had as well, the feeling that the French were hope- 
 lessly weak at sea. " What use to us will be hosts of troops and 
 plenty of money," wrote the advocate Barbier, " if we have only to 
 fight the English at sea 1 They will take all our ships one after 
 another, they will seize all our settlements in America and will get 
 all the trade. We must hope for some division amongst the 
 English nation itself, for the king personally does not desire war." 
 The The English nation was not divided. The ministers and the 
 
 English parliament, as well as the American colonies, were for war. 
 French in " There is no hope of repose for our thirteen colonies, as long as 
 Canada. the French are masters of Canada," said Benjamin Franklin on his 
 arrival in London in 1754. He was already labouring, without 
 knowing it, at that great work of American independence which was 
 to be his glory and that of his generation ; the common efforts and 
 the common interest of the thirteen American colonies in the war 
 against France were the first step towards that great coalition which 
 founded the United States of America. 
 
 The union with the mother country was as yet close and potent : 
 at the instigation of Mr. Fox, soon afterwards Lord Holland, and 
 at the time Prime Minister of England, parliament voted twenty- 
 five millions for the American war. The bounty given to the 
 soldiers and marines who enlisted was doubled by private sub- 
 scription; 15,000 men were thus raised to invade the French 
 colonies. 
 
 Canada and Louisiana together did not number 80,000 in- 
 habitants, whilst the population of the English colonies already 
 amounted to 1,200,000 souls ; to the 2800 regular troops sent from 
 Heroism France the Canadian militia added about 4000 men, less experienced 
 of the but quite as determined as the most intrepid veterans of the cam- 
 Canadians. p a jg ns i n Europe. During more than twenty years the courage and 
 devotion of the Canadians never faltered for a single day. 
 
 The wicked deportation of four hundred and eighteen heads of 
 families from Acadia excited in France the greatest and most 
 natural emotion ; a few brilliant successes obtained by the marquis 
 of Montcalm cheered up for a short space the hopes of the French 
 
The colonies lost to Franee. 493 
 
 government; "but it was all in vain. Quebec, besieged by general 
 Wolfe, capitulated on the 18th of September, 1759. Both the 
 English and the French commanders had been killed ; the capitula- capitula' 
 tion of Montreal was signed on the 8th of September, 1760 ; on the tion of 
 10th of February, 1763, the peace concluded between France, Spain, Montreal 
 and England completed without hope of recovery the loss of all the ' 
 French possessions in America ; Louisiana had taken no part in the 
 war, it was not conquered ; France ceded it to Spain in exchange 
 for Florida, which was abandoned to the English. Canada and all 
 the islands of the St. Lawrence shared the same fate. Only the 
 little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon were preserved for the French 
 fisheries. One single stipulation guaranteed to the Canadians the 
 free exercise of the Catholic religion. The principal inhabitants of 
 the colony went into exile on purpose to remain French. The weak 
 hands of King Louis XV. and of his government had let slip the 
 fairest colonies of France, Canada and Louisiana had ceased to 
 belong to her ; yet attachment to France subsisted there a long 
 while and her influence left numerous traces there. It is an honour 
 and a source of strength to France that she acts powerfully on men 
 through the charm and suavity of her intercourse ; they who have 
 belonged to France can never forget her. 
 
 The struggle was over. King Louis XV. had lost his American France Ira- 
 colonies, the nascent empire of India and the settlements of Senegal, initiated 
 He recovered Guadaloupe and Martinique, but lately conquered by theiiu3ffi 
 the English, Chandernugger and the ruins of Pondicherry. The ciency of 
 humiliation was deep and the losses were irreparable. All the fruits Louls XVt 
 of the courage, of the ability and of the passionate devotion of the 
 French in India and in America were falling into the hands of 
 England. Her government had committed many faults ; but the 
 strong action of a free people had always managed to repair them. 
 The day was coming when the haughty passions of the mother- 
 country and the proud independence of her colonies would engage 
 in that supreme struggle which has given to the world the United 
 States of America. 
 
 It was not only in the colonies and on the seas that the peace of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle had seemed merely a truce destined to be soon 
 broken : hostilities had never ceased in India or Canada ; English 
 vessels scoured the world, capturing, in spite of treaties, French 
 merchant-ships ; in Europe and on the continent, all the sovereigns 
 were silently preparing for new efforts ; only the government of 
 King Louis XV., intrenched behind its disinterestedness in the 
 negotiations and ignoring the fatal influences of weakness and 
 vanity, believed itself henceforth beyond the reach of a fresh war. 
 
494 History of France. 
 
 The nation, as oblivious as the government "but less careless than it, 
 "because they had borne the burthen of the fault committed, were 
 applying for the purpose of their material recovery that power of 
 revival which, through a course of so many errors and reverses, has 
 always saved France ; in spite of the disorder in the finances and 
 the crushing weight of the imposts, she was working and growing 
 rich ; intellectual development was following the rise in material 
 resources ; the court was corrupt and inert, like the king, but a 
 new life, dangerously free and bold, was beginning to course through 
 men's minds : the wise, reforming instincts, the grave reflections of 
 the dying Montesquieu no longer sufficed for them ; Voltaire, who 
 had but lately been still moderate and almost respectful, was about 
 to commence with his friends of the Encyclopedia that campaign 
 against the Christian faith which was to pave the war for the 
 State of materialism of our own days. The state of the royal treasury, and 
 
 the French ^ measures to which recourse was had to enable the State to make 
 
 treasury. 
 
 both ends meet, aggravated the dissension and disseminated discon- 
 tent amongst all classes of society. Comptrollers-general came one 
 after another, all armed with new expedients ; MM. de Machault, 
 Moreau de Sechelles, de Moras, excited, successively, the wrath and 
 the hatred of the people, crushed by imposts in peace as well as 
 war ; the clergy refused to pay the twentieth, still claiming their 
 right of giving only a free gift ; the states-districts, Languedoc and 
 Brittany at the head, resisted, in the name of their ancient privi- 
 leges, the collection of taxes to which they had not consented ; riots 
 went on multiplying : they even extended to Paris, where the 
 government was accused of kidnapping children for transportation 
 to the colonies. The people rose, several police-agents were mas- 
 sacred ; the king avoided passing through the capital on his way 
 from Versailles to the camp at Campiegne : the path he took in the 
 Bois de Boulogne received the name of Eevolt Eoad. " I have 
 seen in my days," says D'Argenson, " a decrease in the respect and 
 love of the people for the kingship." 
 
 Decadence went on swiftly, and no wonder. At forty years of 
 age Louis XV., finding every pleasure pall, indifferent to or forget- 
 ful of business from indolence and disgust, bored by every thing 
 and on every occasion, had come to depend solely on those who 
 
 Madame de could still manage to amuse him. Madame de Pompadour had 
 Pompa- accepted this ungrateful and sometimes shameful task. Vigilant 
 in attaching the courtiers to herself, she sowed broadcast, all around 
 her, favours, pensions, profitable offices, endowing the gentlemen to 
 facilitate their marriage, turning a deaf ear to the complaints of the 
 people as well as to the protests of the States or Parliaments. The 
 
War with England. 495 
 
 court still swarmed with brave officers, ready to march to death at 
 the head of the troops ; the command of armies henceforth depended 
 on the favour of Madame the marchioness of Pompadour. 
 
 The day had come when the fortune of war was about to show 
 itself fatal to France. Marshal Saxe had died at Chambord, still 
 young and worn out by excesses rather than by fatigue. War, T^HT de- 
 however, was inevitable ; five months of public or private negotia- dared 
 tion, carried on by the ambassadors or personal agents of the king, England, 
 could not obtain from England any reparation for her frequent vio- 
 lation of the law of nations : the maritime trade of France was 
 destroyed \ the vessels of the royal navy were themselves no longer 
 safe at sea. On the 21st of December, 1 755, the minister of foreign 
 affairs, Kouille, notified to the English cabinet " that His Most 
 Christian Majesty, before giving way to the effects of his resent- 
 ment, once more demanded from the king of England satisfaction 
 for all the seizures made by the English navy, as well as restitution 
 of all vessels, whether war-ships or merchant-ships, taken from the 
 French, declaring that he should regard any refusal that might be 
 made as an authentic declaration of war." England eluded the 
 question of law, but refused restitution. On the 23rd of January, 
 an embargo was laid on all English vessels in French ports, and war 
 was officially proclaimed. It had existed in fact for two years 
 past. 
 
 A striking incident signalized the commencement of hostilities. 
 Eather a man of pleasure and a courtier than an able soldier, Mar- 
 shal Eichelieu had, nevertheless, the good fortune to connect his 
 name with the only successful event of the Seven Years' War that 
 was destined to remain impressed upon the mind of posterity, 
 namely the capture of Port Mahon in the island of Minorca. Capture 
 
 At the same time the king's troops were occupying Corsica in the of Port 
 name of the city of Genoa, the time-honoured ally of France. Mis- al1011 * 
 tress of half the Mediterranean and secure of the neutrality of Hol- 
 land, France could have concentrated her efforts upon the sea and 
 have maintained a glorious struggle with England, on the sole con- 
 dition of keeping peace on the Continent. The policy was simple 
 and the national interest palpable ; King Louis XY. and some of 
 his ministers understood this ; but they allowed themselves to drift 
 into forgetfulness of it. 
 
 For a long time past, under the influence of Count Kaunitz, a 
 young diplomat equally bold and shrewd, " frivolous in his tastes 
 and profound in his views," Maria Theresa was inclining to change 
 the whole system of her alliances in Europe ; she had made ad 
 vances to France. Louis XV. still sought to hold the balance 
 
496 History of France. 
 
 steady between the two great German sovereigns, but lie was 
 already beginning to lean towards the empress. A proposal was 
 made to Maria Theresa for a treaty of guarantee between France, 
 Austria and Prussia; the existing war between England and 
 France was excepted from the defensive pact; France reserved 
 to herself the right of invading Hanover. The same conditions 
 had been offered to the king of Prussia; he was not contented 
 with them. Whilst Maria Theresa was insisting at Paris upon 
 obtaining an offensive as well as defensive alliance, Frederick II. 
 was signing with England an engagement not to permit the 
 entrance into Germany of any foreign troops. " I only wish to 
 preserve Germany from war,' 7 wrote the king of Prussia to 
 Louis XV. On the 1st of May, 1756, at Versailles, Louis XV. 
 replied to the Anglo-Prussian treaty by his alliance with the 
 Empress Maria Theresa. The House of Bourbon was holding 
 out the hand to the House of Austria ; the work of Henry IV. and 
 of Eichelieu, already weakened by an inconsistent and capricious 
 policy, was completely crumbling to pieces, involving in its ruin 
 the military fortunes of France. 
 
 The prudent moderation of Abbe de Bernis, then in great 
 favour with Madame de Pompadour and managing the negotia- 
 Versailles. tions with Austria, had removed from the treaty of Versailles the 
 most alarming clauses. The empress and the king of France 
 mutually guaranteed to one another their possessions in Europe, 
 "each of the contracting parties promising the other, in case of 
 need, the assistance of twenty-four thousand men." Eussia and 
 Saxony were soon enlisted in the same alliance ; the king of 
 Prussia's pleasantries, at one time coarse and at another biting, 
 had offended the czarina Elizabeth and the elector of Saxony as 
 well as Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour. The weakest 
 of the allies was the first to experience the miseries of that war 
 so frivolously and gratuitously entered upon, from covetousness, 
 rancour or weakness, those fertile sources of the bitterest sorrows 
 to humanity. 
 
 A.D. 1757. Whilst hostilities were thus beginning throughout Europe, 
 stabbed bv wn ^ s ^ negotiations were still going on with Vienna touching the 
 Damiens second treaty of Versailles, King Louis XV., as he was descending 
 (Jan. 5). the staircase of the marble court at Versailles on the 5th of 
 January, 1757, received a stab in the side from a knife. With- 
 drawing full of blood the hand he had clapped to his wound, the 
 king exclaimed : " There is the man that wounded me, with his 
 hat on ; arrest him, but let no harm be done him ! " The guards 
 were already upon the murderer and were torturing him pending 
 
.-. 
 
 
 MADAME DE POMPADOUR. 
 
 Page 497. 
 
Damiens and Madame de Pompadour. 497 
 
 the legal question. The king had been carried away, slightly 
 wounded by a deep puncture from a penknife. In the soul of 
 Louis XV. apprehension had succeeded to the first instinctive and 
 kingly impulse of courage : he feared the weapon might be poisoned, 
 and hastily sent for a confessor. The crowd of courtiers was 
 already thronging to the dauphin's. To him the king had at once 
 given up the direction of affairs. 
 
 Justice, meanwhile, had taken the wretched murderer in hand. 
 Eobert Damiens was a lacquey out of place, a native of Artois, of 
 weak mind and sometimes appearing to be deranged. In his 
 vague and frequently incoherent depositions, he appeared animated 
 by a desire to avenge the wrongs of the Parliament ; he burst out 
 against the archbishop of Paris, Christopher de Beaumont, a vir- and death 
 tuous prelate of narrow mind and austere character : " The arch- of . Da ' 
 bishop of Paris," he said, "is the cause of all this trouble through 
 ordering refusal of the sacraments." No investigation could dis- 
 cover any conspiracy or accomplices : with less coolness and fana- 
 tical resolution than Eavaillac, Damiens, like the assassin of 
 Henry IV., was an isolated criminal, prompted to murder by the 
 derangement of his own mind; he died, like Eavaillac, amidst 
 fearful tortures which were no longer in accord with public senti- 
 ment, and caused more horror than awe. France had ceased to 
 tremble for the life of King Louis XV. 
 
 For one instant the power of Madame de Pompadour had 
 appeared to be shaken : the king, in his terror, would not see her ; 
 M. de Machault, but lately her protege, had even brought her 
 orders to quit the palace. Together with the salutary terrors of 
 death, Louis XV. 's repentance soon disappeared ; the queen and 
 the dauphin went back again to the modest and pious retirement 
 in which they passed their life ; the marchioness returned in 
 triumph to Versailles. MM. de Machault and D'Argenson were Machault 
 exiled : the latter, who had always been hostile to the favourite, and 
 was dismissed with extreme harshness. The king had himself failed, 
 written the sealed letter : " Your services are no longer required. 
 I command you to send me your resignation of the secretaryship 
 of State for war and of all that appertains to the posts connected 
 therewith, and to retire to your estate of Ormes." Madame de 
 Pompadour was avenged. 
 
 The war, meanwhile, continued : the king of Prussia, who had 
 at first won a splendid victory over the Austrians in front of 
 Prague, had been beaten at Kolin and forced to fall back on 
 Saxony. Marshal d'Estrees, slowly occupying Westphalia, got the 
 duke of Cumberland into a corner on the Weser, and defeated him 
 
 K K 
 
498 History of France. 
 
 The duke of at Hastenbeck. He was then superseded by Richelieu, who in 
 Bichelieu. G erinanv> reaped the fruits of Marshal d'Estrees' successes ; the 
 electorate of Hanover was entirely occupied ; all the towns opened 
 their gates ; Hesse Cassel, Brunswick, the duchies of Yerden and 
 of Bremen met with the same fate. The marshal levied on all 
 the conquered countries heavy contributions, of which he pocketed 
 a considerable portion. His soldiers called him " Father La 
 Maraude." The pavilion of Hanover at Paris was built out of the 
 spoils of Germany. Meanwhile, the duke of Cumberland, who 
 had taken refuge in the marshes at the mouth of the Elbe, under 
 the protection of English vessels, was demanding to capitulate ; 
 his offers were lightly accepted. On the 8th of September, through 
 the agency of Count Lynar, minister of the king of Denmark, the 
 duke of Cumberland and the marshal signed at the advanced posts 
 Convention O f t ne French army the famous convention of Closter- Severn. The 
 Severn. " king's troops kept all the conquered country ; those of Hesse, 
 Brunswick and Saxe-Gotha returned to their homes ; the Hano- 
 verians were to be cantoned in the neighbourhood of Stade. The 
 marshal had not taken the precaution of disarming them. 
 
 Incomplete as the convention was, it nevertheless excited great 
 emotion in Europe. The duke of Cumberland had lost the military 
 reputation acquired at Fontenoy ; the king of Prussia remained 
 alone on the Continent, exposed to all the efforts of the allies ; 
 every day fresh reverses came down upon him : the Russian army 
 had invaded the Prussian provinces and beaten marshal Schwald 
 near Mem el ; twenty-five thousand Swedes had just landed in 
 Pomerania. Desertion prevailed amongst the troops of Frederick, 
 recruited as they often were from amongst the vanquished. 
 
 For a moment, indeed, Frederick had conceived the idea of 
 
 Frede- deserting simultaneously from the field of battle and from life. 
 
 rick II. " My dear sister," he wrote to the margravine of Baireuth, " there 
 
 pla?es?iii- * s no P or ^ or as y^ um f r me anv mor e save in the arms of death." 
 
 cide. A letter in verse to the marquis of Argens pointed clearly to the 
 
 notion of suicide. A firmer purpose, before long, animated that 
 
 soul, that strange mixture of heroism and corruption. 
 
 Fortune, moreover, seemed to be relaxing her severities. Under 
 the influence of the hereditary grand-duke, a passionate admirer of 
 Frederick II., the Russians had omitted to profit by their victories ; 
 they were by this time wintering in Poland, which was abandoned 
 to all their exactions. The Swedes had been repulsed in the island 
 of Rugen, Marshal Richelieu received from Versailles orders to 
 remain at Halberstadt, and to send reinforcements to the army of 
 the prince of Soubise ; it was for this latter that Madame de Pom- 
 
Popularity of Frederic II. 499 
 
 padour was reserving the honour of crushing the Great Frederick. 
 More occupied in pillage than in vigorously pushing forward the 
 war, the marshal tolerated a fatal licence amongst his troops. 
 
 Whilst the plunder of Hanover was serving the purpose of feed- 
 ing the insensate extravagance of Richelieu and of the army, 
 Frederick II. had entered Saxony, hurling back into Thuringia the 
 troops of Soubise and of the prince of Hildburghausen. By this 
 time the allies had endured several reverses ; the boldness of the 
 king of Prussia's movements bewildered and disquieted officers as 
 well as soldiers. On the 3rd of November the Prussian army 
 was all in order of battle on the left bank of the Saale, near 
 Rosbach. 
 
 Soubise hesitated to attack : being a man of honesty and sense, Battle of 
 he took into account the disposition of his army, as well as the ^J sta S 
 bad composition of the allied forces, very superior in number to 
 the French contingent. The command belonged to the duke of 
 Saxe-Hildburghausen, who had no doubt of success. Orders were 
 given to turn the little Prussian army, so as to cut off its retreat. 
 All at once, as the allied troops were effecting their movement to 
 scale the heights, the king of Prussia, suddenly changing front by 
 one of those rapid evolutions to which he had accustomed his men, 
 unexpectedly attacked the French in flank, without giving them 
 time to form in order of battle. The batteries placed on the hills 
 were at the same time unmasked and mowed down the infantry. 
 The German troops at once broke up. Soubise sought to restore 
 the battle by cavalry charges, but he was crushed in his turn. 
 The rout became general, the French did not rally till they reached 
 Erfurt ; they had left eight thousand prisoners and three thousand 
 dead on the field. 
 
 The news of the defeat at Rosbach came bursting on France like 
 a clap of thunder ; Frederick II. had renovated affairs and spirits Popularity 
 in Germany ; the day after Rosbach, he led his troops into Silesia of Frede- 
 against Prince Charles of Lorraine, who had just beaten the duke nc 
 of Bevern ; the king of Prussia's lieutenants were displeased and 
 disquieted at such audacity. He assembled a council of war, and 
 then, when he had expounded his plans, " Farewell, gentlemen," 
 said he, " we shall soon have beaten the enemy or we shall have 
 looked on one another for the last time." On the 3rd of December 
 the Austrians were beaten at Lissa as the French had been at 
 Rosbach, and Frederick II. became the national hero of Germany ; 
 the protestant powers, but lately engaged, to their sorrow, against 
 him, made up to the conqueror ; admiration for him permeated 
 even the French army. " At Paris," wrote D'Alembert to Voltaire, 
 
 K K 2 
 
500 History of France. 
 
 " everybody's head is turned about the king of Prussia ; five 
 months ago he was trailed in the mire." 
 
 Bernis The counsels of Abbe de Bernis had for some time past been 
 
 "^ei ^ P ac i nc > from a court-abb^, elegant and glib, he had become, on 
 affairs. the 25th of June, minister of foreign affairs. But Madame de 
 Pompadour remained faithful to the empress. In the month of 
 January, 1758, Count Clermont was appointed general-in-chief of 
 the army of Germany. In disregard of the convention of Closter- 
 Severn, the Hanoverian troops had just taken the field again under 
 the orders of the grand-duke Ferdinand of Brunswick: he had 
 already recovered possession of the districts of Luneberg, Zell, a 
 part of Brunswick and of Bremen. In England, Mr. Pitt, after- 
 wards Lord Chatham, had again come into office; the king of 
 Prussia could henceforth rely upon the firmest support from Great 
 Britain. 
 
 He had need of it. A fresh invasion of Eussians, aided by the 
 savage hordes of the Zaporoguian Cossacks, was devastating Prussia ; 
 the sanguinary battle of Zorndorf, forcing them to fall back on 
 Poland, permitted Frederick to hurry into Saxony, which was 
 attacked by the Austrians. General Daun surprised and defeated 
 him at Hochkirch ; in spite of his inflexible resolution, the king 
 of Prussia was obliged to abandon Saxony. His ally and rival, 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick, had just beaten Count Clermont at 
 Crevelt. 
 
 The count The new commander-in-chief of the king's armies, prince of the 
 ofClermont blood, brother of the late Monsieur le Due, abbot commendatory of 
 Crevelt. & St. Germain-des-Pres, "general of the Benedictines," as the soldiers 
 said, had brought into Germany, together with the favour of 
 Madame de Pompadour, upright intentions, a sincere desire to 
 restore discipline, and some great allusions about himself. De- 
 feated at Crevelt, he was superseded by the marquis of Contades. 
 The army murmured ; they had no confidence in their leaders. At 
 Versailles, Abbe de Bernis, who had lately become a cardinal, paid 
 by his disgrace for the persistency he had shown in advising 
 peace. 
 
 The duke Madame de Pompadour had just procured for herself a support in 
 
 ofChoiseul. ner obstinate bellicosity : Bernis was superseded in the ministry of 
 
 racter. foreign affairs by Count Stainville, who was created duke of Choi- 
 
 seul. After the death of Marshal Belle-Isle he exchanged the office 
 
 for that of minister of war ; with it he combined the ministry of 
 
 the marine. The foreign affairs were entrusted to the duke of 
 
 Praslin, his cousin. The power rested almost entirely in the hands 
 
 of the duke of Choiseul. Of high birth, clever, bold, ambitious, he 
 
Projected invasion of England. 501 
 
 had but lately aspired to couple the splendour of successes in the 
 fashionable world with the serious preoccupations of politics : his 
 marriage with Mdlle. Crozat, a wealthy heiress, amiable and very 
 much smitten with him, had strengthened his position. Elevated 
 to the ministry by Madame de Pompadour, and as yet promoting 
 her views, he nevertheless gave signs of an independent spirit and 
 a proud character capable of exercising authority firmly in the pre- 
 sence and the teeth of all obstacles. France hoped to find once 
 more in M. de Choiseul a great minister; nor were her hopes 
 destined to be completely deceived. 
 
 A new and secret treaty had just rivetted the alliance between 
 France and Austria. M. de Choiseul was at the same time dream- 
 ing of attacking England in her own very home, thus dealing her 
 the most formidable of blows. The preparations were considerable : 
 M. de Soubise was recalled from Germany to direct the army of 
 invasion. He was to be seconded in his command by the duke of 
 Aiguillon, to whom, rightly or wrongly, was attributed the honour Invasion of 
 of having repulsed in the preceding year an attempt of the English projected, 
 at a descent upon the coasts of Brittany. The expedition was 
 ready, there was nothing to wait for save the moment to go out of 
 port, but Admiral Hawke was cruising before Brest ; it was only in 
 the month of November, 1759, that the marquis of Conflans, who 
 commanded the fleet, could put to sea with twenty-one vessels. 
 Finding himself at once pursued by the English squadron, he sought 
 shelter in the difficult channels at the mouth of the Yilaine. The 
 English dashed in after him. A partial engagement, which ensued, 
 was unfavourable ; and the commander of the French rear-guard, 
 M. St. Andre du Verger, allowed himself to be knocked to pieces 
 by the enemy's guns in order to cover the retreat. The admiral ran 
 ashore in the bay of Le Croisic and burnt his own vessel ; seven 
 ships remained blockaded in the Vilaine. M. de Conflans' job, as 
 the sailors called it at the time, was equivalent to a battle 
 lost without the chances and the honour of the struggle. The 
 English navy was triumphant on every sea, and even in French 
 waters. 
 
 The commencement of the campaign of 1759 had been brilliant Campaign 
 in Germany : the duke of Broglie had successfully repulsed the 
 attack made by Ferdinand of Brunswick on his positions at Ber- 
 gen; the prince had been obliged to retire. The two armies, 
 united under M. de Contades, invaded Hesse and moved upon the 
 Weser ; they were occupying Minden when Duke Ferdinand threw 
 himself upon them on the 1st of August. The action of the two 
 French generals was badly combined and the rout was complete. 
 
502 
 
 History of France. 
 
 The Rus- 
 sians occu 
 py Poland. 
 
 Marshal 
 Broglie 
 
 general-ill 
 chief. 
 
 Heroic 
 death of 
 Chevalier 
 d'Assas, 
 
 The necessity for peace was beginning to be admitted even in 
 Madame de Pompadour's little cabinets. 
 
 Maria Theresa, however, was in no hurry to enter into negotia- 
 tions ; her enemy seemed to be bending at last beneath the weight 
 of the double Austrian and Eussian attack. At one time Frederick 
 had thought that he saw all Germany rallying round him ; now, 
 beaten and cantoned in Saxony, with the Austrians in front of him, 
 during the winter of 1760, he was everywhere seeking alliances 
 and finding himself everywhere rejected : "I have but two allies 
 left," he would say, " valour and perseverance." Repeated victories, 
 gained at the sword's point, by dint of boldness and in the extremity 
 of peril, could not even protect Berlin. The capital of Prussia 
 found itself constrained to open its gates to the enemy, on the sole 
 condition that the regiments of Cossacks should not pass the line of 
 enclosure. When the regular troops withdrew, the generals had 
 not been able to prevent the city from being pillaged. The heroic 
 efforts of the king of Prussia ended merely in preserving to him a 
 foot-hold in Saxony. The Russians occupied Poland. 
 
 Marshal Broglie, on becoming general-in-chief of the French 
 army, had succeeded in holding his own in Hesse ; he frequently 
 made Hanover anxious. To turn his attention elsewhither and in 
 hopes of deciding the French to quit Germany, the hereditary 
 prince of Brunswick attempted a diversion on the Lower Rhine ; 
 he laid siege to Wesel whilst the English were preparing for a 
 descent at Antwerp. Marshal Broglie detached M. de Castries to 
 protect the city. The French corps had just arrived, it was bivou- 
 acking. On the night between the 15th and 16th of October, 
 Chevalier d'Assas, captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was sent to 
 reconnoitre. He had advanced some distance from his men and 
 happened to stumble upon a large force of the enemy. The prince 
 of Brunswick was preparing to attack. All the muskets covered 
 the young captain : " Stir, and thou'rt a dead man," muttered 
 threatening voices. Without replying, M. d'Assas collected all his 
 strength and shouted : " Auvergne ! Here are the foe ! " At the 
 same instant he fell pierced by twenty balls. [Accounts differ : 
 but this is the tradition of the Assas family.] The action thus 
 begun was a glorious one. The hereditary prince was obliged to 
 abandon the siege of Wesel and to re-cross the Rhine. The French 
 divisions maintained their positions. 
 
 The war went on as bloodily as monotonously and fruitlessly, 
 but the face of Europe had lately altered. The old king George II. , 
 who died on the 25th of September, 1760, had been succeeded on 
 the throne of England by his grandson, George III., aged twenty- 
 
The "Family pact? 503 
 
 two, the first really native sovereign who had been called to reign 
 over England since the fall of the Stuarts. Pitt still reigned over 
 Parliament and over England, governing a free country sovereign- 
 masterlike. His haughty prejudice against France still ruled all 
 the decisions of the English government, but Lord Bute, the young 
 monarch's adviser, was already whispering pacific counsels destined 
 ere long to bear fruit. Pitt's dominion was tottering when the first 
 overtures of peace arrived in London. The duke of Choiseul pro- 
 posed a congress. He at the same time negotiated directly with 
 England, and seemed to be resigned to the most humiliating con- 
 cessions, when a new actor came upon the scene of negotiation ; 
 Erance no longer stood isolated face to face with triumphant 
 England. The younger branch of the House of Bourbon cast into 
 the scale the weight of its two crowns and the resources of its navy ; 
 and at the moment when Mr. Pitt was haughtily rejecting the 
 modest ultimatum of the French minister, the treaty, known by the 
 name of Family Pact, was signed at Paris (August 15, 1761), ' 
 between France and the young king of Spain, Charles III. Pact" 
 
 Never had closer alliance been concluded between the two courts, (Aug. 15). 
 even at the time when Louis XIY. placed his grandson upon the 
 throne of Spain. It was that intimate union between all the 
 branches of the House of Bourbon which had but lately been the 
 great king's conception, and which had cost him so many efforts 
 and so much blood ; for the first time it was becoming favourable 
 to France ; the noble and patriotic idea of M. de Choiseul found an 
 echo in the soul of the king of Spain ; the French navy, ruined and 
 humiliated, the French colonies, threatened and all but lost, found 
 faithful support in the forces of Spain, recruited as they were by a 
 long peace. The king of the Two Sicilies and the Infante Duke of 
 Parma entered into the offensive and defensive alliance, but it was 
 not open to any other power in Europe to be admitted to this 
 family-union, cemented by common interests more potent and more 
 durable than the transitory combinations of policy. In all the ports 
 of Spain ships were preparing to put to sea. Charles III. had Spain pre- 
 undertaken to declare war against the English if peace were not P ares * or 
 concluded before the 1st of May, 1762. France promised in that 
 case to cede to him the island of Minorca. 
 
 Such efforts, however, were not destined to be attended with 
 success ; before the year had rolled by, Cuba was in the hands of 
 the English, the Philippines were ravaged and the galleons laden 
 with Spanish gold captured by British ships. The unhappy fate of 
 France had involved her generous ally. The campaign attempted 
 against Portugal, always hand in hand with England, had not been 
 
504 History of France. 
 
 attended with any result. Martinique had shared the lot of Guada- 
 loupe, lately conquered by the English after a heroic resistance. 
 Canada and India had at last succumbed. War dragged its alow 
 length along in Germany. The brief elevation of the young 
 czar Peter III., a passionate admirer of the Great Frederick, had 
 delivered the king of Prussia from a dangerous enemy, and pro- 
 mised to give him an ally equally trusty and potent. France was 
 exhausted, Spain discontented and angry ; negotiations recommenced, 
 on what disastrous conditions for the French colonies in both hemi- 
 spheres ha& already been remarked : in Germany the places and 
 districts occupied by France were to be restored ; Lord Bute, like 
 his great rival, required the destruction of the port of Dunkerque. 
 The preliminaries of peace had been already signed at Fontaine- 
 bleau on the 3rd of November, 1762 ; it was received, not without 
 ill-humour on the part of England but with a secret feeling of relief ; 
 the burthens which weighed upon the country had been increasing 
 Errors of every year. In 1762, Lord Bute had obtained from Parliament 
 the French 450 millions (18,000,0002.) to keep up the war: " I wanted the 
 Sent? 1 " P ea ce to be a serious and a durable one," said the English minister 
 in reply to Pitt's attacks; "if we had increased our demands, it 
 would have been neither the- one nor the other." 
 
 M. de Choiseul submitted in despair to the consequences of the 
 long-continued errors committed by the Government of Louis XV. 
 " Were I master," said he, " we would be to the English what 
 Spain was to the Moors ; if this course were taken, England would 
 be destroyed in thirty years from now." The king was a better 
 judge of his weakness and of the general exhaustion. " The peace 
 we have just made is neither a good one nor a glorious one, nobody 
 Choiseul in sees that better than I," he said in his private correspondence ; 
 despair. b u ^ under such unhappy circumstances, it could not be better, and 
 I answer for it that if we had continued the war, we should have 
 made a still worse one next year." All the patriotic courage and 
 zeal of the duke of Choiseul, all the tardy impulse springing from 
 the nation's anxieties could not suffice even to palliate the conse- 
 quences of so many years' ignorance, feebleness and incapacity in 
 succession. 
 
 Prussia and Austria henceforth were- left to confront one another, 
 the only actors really interested in the original struggle, the last to 
 quit the battle-field on to which they had dragged their allies. By 
 an unexpected turn of luck, Frederick II. had for a moment seen 
 Eussia becoming his ally ; a fresh blow came to wrest from him 
 this powerful support. The czarina Catherine II., princess of 
 Anhalt-Zerbst and wife of the czar Peter III.^ having been pro- 
 
Results of the Seven Years' war. 505 
 
 claimed empress, inaugurated a new policy, equally bold and astute, 
 having for its sole aim, unscrupulously and shamelessly pursued, 
 the aggrandisement and consolidation of the imperial power : 
 Russia hecame neutral in the strife between Prussia and Austria. Th e 
 The two sovereigns, left without allies and with their dominions Czarina 
 drained of men and money, agreed to a mutual exchange of their jj^ 
 conquests ; the boundaries of their territories once more became as 
 they had been before the Seven Years' war. England alone came 
 triumphant out of the strife. She had won India for ever ; and, 
 for some years at least, civilized America, almost in its entirety, 
 obeyed her laws. She had won what France had lost, not by 
 superiority of arms, or even of generals, but by the natural and 
 proper force of a free people, ably and liberally governed. 
 
 The position of France abroad, at the end of the Seven Years' 
 war, was as painful as it was humiliating ; her position at home 
 was still more serious and the deep-lying source of all the reverses 
 which had come to overwhelm the French. Slowly lessened by 
 the faults and misfortunes of King Louis XIY.'s later years, tho 
 kingly authority, which had fallen, under Louis XY., into hands 
 as feeble as they were corrupt, was ceasing to inspire the nation 
 with the respect necessary for the working of personal power ; Position of 
 public opinion was no longer content to accuse the favourite and France - 
 the ministers, it was beginning to make the king responsible fo-r 
 the evils suffered and apprehended. People waited in vain for a 
 decision of the crown to put a stop to the incessantly renewed 
 struggles between the Parliament and the clergy. Thus, by 
 mutually weakening each other, the great powers and the great 
 influences in the State were wasting away ; the reverses of the 
 French arms, the loss of their colonies and the humiliating peace of 
 Paris aggravated the discontent. In default of good government 
 the people are often satisfied with glory. This consolation, to 
 which the French nation had but lately been accustomed, failed it 
 all at once; mental irritation, for a long time silently brooding, 
 cantoned in the writings of philosophers and .in the quatrains of 
 rhymesters, was beginning to spread and show itself amongst the 
 nation ; it sought throughout the State an object for its wrath : 
 the powerful society of the Jesuits was the first to bear all the 
 brunt of it. 
 
 A French Jesuit, Father Lavalette, had founded a commercial Proceed- 
 house at Martinique. Ruined by the war, he had become bankrupt JjJJ t 
 to the extent of three millions ; the Order having refused to pay, it the Jesuits 
 was condemned by the Parliament to do so. The responsibility in Fran c e 
 was declared to extend to all the members of the Institute, and g]. 
 
506 History of France. 
 
 public opinion triumphed over the condemnation with a " quasi- 
 indecent " joy, says the advocate Barbier. Nor was it content 
 with this legitimate satisfaction. One of the courts which had 
 until lately been most devoted to the Society of Jesus had just set 
 an example of severity. In 1759, the Jesuits had been driven 
 from Portugal by the marquis of Pombal, King Joseph I.'s all- 
 powerful minister; their goods had been confiscated, and their 
 principal, Malagrida, handed over to the Inquisition, had just been 
 burnt as a heretic (Sept. 20, 1761). 
 
 A.D. 1767. In 1767, the king of Spain, Charles III., less moderate than the 
 S aifl 11 government of Louis XV., expelled with violence all the members 
 of the Society of Jesus from his territory, thus exciting the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris to fresh severities against the French Jesuits, and, on 
 the 20th of July, 1773, the court of Eome itself, yielding at last to 
 pressure from nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, solemnly pro- 
 nounced the dissolution of the Order : " Recognizing that the 
 members of this Society have not a little troubled the Christian 
 commonwealth, and that for the welfare of Christendom it were 
 better that the Order should disappear." The Jast houses still 
 offering shelter to the Jesuits were closed ; the general, Ricci, was 
 imprisoned at the castle of St. Angelo, and the Society of Jesus, 
 which had been so powerful for nearly three centuries, took refuge 
 in certain distant lands, seeking in oblivion and silence fresh 
 strength for the struggle which it was one day to renew. 
 TheParlia- The Parliaments were triumphant, but their authority, which 
 ments. seemed never to have risen so high or penetrated so far in the 
 La Chalo- government of the State, was already tottering to its base. Once 
 tais. more the strife was about to begin between the kingly power and the 
 
 magistracy, whose last victory was destined to scarcely precede its 
 downfall. The financial embarrassments of the State were growing 
 more serious every day : to the debts left by the Seven Years' war 
 were added the new wants developed by the necessities of com- 
 merce and by the progress of civilization. The refusal of several 
 of the provincial parliaments to register the edicts promulgated by 
 the crown ended in the arrest of five of the members of the Par- 
 liament of Rennes ; at their head was the attorney-general, M. de 
 la Chalotais, author of a very remarkable paper against the Jesuits. 
 It was necessary to form at St. Malo a King's Chamber to try the 
 accused. M. de Calonne, an ambitious young man, the declared 
 foe of M. de la Chalotais, was appointed attorney-general on the 
 commission. He pretended to have discovered grave facts against 
 the accused ; he was suspected of having invented them. Public 
 feeling was at its height ; the magistrates loudly proclaimed the 
 
Madame Dubarry. Choiseul dismissed. 507 
 
 theory of Classes, according to which all the Parliaments of France, 
 responsible one for another, formed in reality but one body, dis- 
 tributed by delegation throughout the principal towns of the 
 realm. 
 
 Under the administration of the duke of Duras, the agitation 
 subsided in Brittany ; the magistrates who had resigned resumed 
 their seats ; M. de La Chalotais and his son, M. de Caradeuc, alone 
 remained excluded by order of the king. The restored Parliament 
 immediately made a claim on their behalf, accompanying the request 
 with a formal accusation against the duke of Aiguillon. The 
 states supported the Parliament. A royal ordinance forbade any 
 proceedings against the duke of Aiguillon, and enjoined silence on 
 the parties. Parliament having persisted, and declaring that the 
 accusations against the duke of Aiguillon attached (entachaient) 
 his honour, Louis XV., egged on by the chancellor, M. de Mau- 
 peou, an ambitious, bold, bad man, repaired in person to the office 
 and had all the papers relating to the procedure removed before his 
 eyes. The strife was becoming violent : the duke of Choiseul, still 
 premier minister, but sadly shaken in the royal favour, disapproved 
 of the severities employed against the magistracy. All the blows 
 dealt at the Parliaments recoiled upon him. 
 
 King Louis XV. had taken a fresh step in the shameful A.D. 1764. 
 irregularity of his life; on the 15th of April, 1764, Madame de Death of 
 Pompadour had died, at the age of forty-two, of heart-disease. As p ^>Sunir 
 frivolous as she was deeply depraved and base-minded in her (April 15). 
 calculating easiness of virtue, she had more ambition than com- 
 ported with her mental calibre or her force of character ; she had 
 taken it into her head to govern, by turns promoting and over- 
 throwing the ministers, herself proffering advice to the king, 
 sometimes to good purpose, but more often still with a levity 
 as fatal as her obstinacy. Less clever, less ambitious but more 
 potent than Madame de Pompadour over the faded passions of a 
 monarch aged before his time, the new favourite, Madame Dubarry, 
 made the least scrupulous blush at the lowness of her origin 
 and the irregularity of her life. It was, nevertheless, in her circle 
 that the plot was formed against the duke of Choiseul. Bold, Dis 
 ambitious, restless, presumptuous sometimes in his views and his ofChoiseul. 
 hopes, the minister had his heart too nearly in the right place Mad *nie 
 and too proper a spirit to submit to either the yoke of Madame 
 Dubarry or that of the shameless courtiers who made use of her 
 influence. He was dismissed on the 24th of December, 1770, and 
 the power passed into the hands of Chancellor Maupeou, the new 
 comptroller-general, Abbe Terray, and the duke of Aiguillon. 
 
508 History of France. 
 
 With M. de Choiseul disappeared the sturdiest prop of the 
 Parliaments. In vain had the king ordered the magistrates to 
 resume their functions and administer justice. " There is nothing 
 left for your Parliament," replied the premier president, " but to 
 perish with the laws, since the fate of the magistrates should 
 go with that of the State." Madame Dubarry, on a hint from her 
 able advisers, had caused to be placed in her apartments a fine 
 portrait of Charles I. by Van Dyck. " France" she was always 
 reiterating to the king with vulgar familiarity, " France, thy Par- 
 liament will cut off tliy head too ! " 
 
 No analogy ^ piece of ignorant confusion, due even more to analogy of 
 theEnglish name than to the generous but vain efforts often attempted by the 
 and the French magistracy in favour of sound doctrines of government, 
 parlia- ^ e P ar li amen t OI * Paris fell sitting upon curule chairs, like the 
 ments. old senators of Rome during the invasion of the Gauls ; the 
 political spirit, the collected and combative ardour, the indomitable 
 resolution of the English Parliament, freely elected representatives 
 of a free people, were unknown to the French magistracy. 
 Despite the courage and moral elevation it had so often shown, its 
 stre'ngth had been wasted in a constantly useless strife ; it had 
 withstood Richelieu and Mazarin ; already reduced to submission by 
 Cardinal Fleury, it fell beneath the equally bold and skilful blows 
 of Chancellor Maupeou. Amidst the rapid decay of absolute power, 
 the transformation and abasement of the Parliaments a skilful and 
 bold attempt to restore some sort of force and unity to the kingly 
 authority. It was thus that certain legitimate claims had been 
 satisfied, the extent of jurisdictions had been curtailed, the sale- 
 ability of offices had been put down, the expenses of justice had 
 been lessened. 
 
 The ferment caused by this measure subsided without having 
 reached the mass of the nation ; the majority of the princes made 
 it up with the court, the dispossessed magistrates returned one after 
 another to Paris, astonished and mortified to see justice adminis- 
 ' Maupeou tered without them and advocates pleading before the Maupeou 
 ment." Parliament. The chancellor had triumphed and remained master : 
 all the old jurisdictions were broken up, public opinion was already 
 forgetting them ; it was occupied with a question more important 
 still than the administration of justice. The ever increasing dis- 
 order in the finances was no longer checked by the enregistering 
 of edicts; the comptroller-general, Abbe Terray, had recourse 
 shamelessly to every expedient of a bold imagination to fill the 
 royal treasury ; it was necessary to satisfy the ruinous demands of 
 Madame Dubarry and of the depraved courtiers who thronged 
 
Death in the Royal Family of France. 509 
 
 about her. Successive bad harvests and the high price of bread 
 still further aggravated the position. It was known that the king 
 had a taste for private speculation ; he was accused of trading in 
 grain and of buying up the stores required for feeding the people. 
 The odious rumour of this famine-pact, as the bitter saying was, 
 soon spread amongst the mob. Before its fall, the Parliament 
 of Kouen had audaciously given expression to these dark accusa- 
 tions ; it had ordered proceedings to be taken against the mono- 
 polists. A royal injunction put a veto upon the prosecutions. 
 Contempt grew more and more profound : the king and Madame 
 Dubarry by their shameful lives, Maupeou and Abbe Terray by 
 destroying the last bulwarks of the public liberties, were digging 
 with their own hands the abyss in which the old French monarchy 
 was about to be soon engulfed, 
 
 In the meanwhile, the dauphin died at the age of thirty-six on A.D. 1765. 
 the 20th of December, 1765, profoundly regretted by the bulk of Death of 
 the nation, who knew his virtues without troubling themselves, 
 
 like the court and the philosophers, about the stiffness of his (Dec. 20), 
 manners and his complete devotion to the cause of the clergy. The 
 new dauphin, who would one day be Louis XVI., was still a child : 
 the king had him brought into his closet. " Poor France ! " he 
 said sadly, " a king of fifty-five and a dauphin of eleven ! " The 
 dauphiness and Queen Mary Leczinska soon followed the dauphin of the 
 to the tomb (1767, 1768). The king, thus left alone, and scared f*^" 1688 
 by the repeated deaths around him, appeared for a while to be and of the 
 drawn closer to his daughters, for whom he had always retained Q u een 
 some sort of affection, a mixture of weakness and habit. One of 
 them, Madame Louise, who was deeply pious, left him to enter the 
 convent of the Carmelites ; he often went to see her, and granted her 
 all the favours she asked. But by this time Madame Dubarry had 
 become all-powerful ; to secure to her the honours of presentation 
 at court the king personally solicited the ladies with whom he was 
 intimate in order to get them to support his favourite on this new 
 stage ; when the youthful Marie Antoinette, archduchess of Austria 
 and daughter of Maria Theresa, whose marriage the duke of 
 Choiseul had negotiated, arrived in France, in 1770, to espouse the 
 dauphin, Madame Dubarry appeared alone with the royal family 
 at the banquet given at La Muette on the occasion of the marriage. 
 After each reaction of religious fright and transitory repentance, 
 after each warning from God that snatched him for an instant from 
 the depravity of his life, the king plunged more deeply than before 
 into shame. Madame Dubarry was to reign as much as Louis XV. 
 Before his fall the duke of Choiseul had made a last effort to 
 
510 History of France. 
 
 revive abroad that fortune of France which he saw sinking at home 
 without his being able to apply any effective remedy. He had 
 vainly attempted to give colonies once more to France by founding 
 the French i n French Guiana settlements which had been unsuccessfully 
 colonies, attempted by a Rouennese Company as early as 1634. The 
 enterprise was badly managed ; the numerous colonists, of very 
 diverse origin and worth, were cast without resources upon a terri- 
 tory as unhealthy as fertile. No preparations had been made 
 to receive them ; the majority died of disease and want ; New 
 France henceforth belonged to the English, and the great hopes 
 which had been raised of replacing it in Equinoctial France, as 
 Guiana was named, soon vanished never to return. An attempt 
 made about the same epoch at St. Lucie was attended with the same 
 result. The great ardour and the rare aptitude for distant enter- 
 prises which had so often manifested themselves in France from the 
 fifteenth to the seventeenth century seemed to be henceforth ex- 
 tinguished. Only the colonies of the Antilles, which had escaped 
 from the misfortunes of war, and were by this time recovered from 
 their disasters, offered any encouragement to the patriotic efforts of 
 the duke of ChoiseuL He had been more fortunate in Europe than 
 in the colonies. 
 
 Corsica, whose independence had been gloriously but fruitlessly 
 defended by Pascal Paoli, was to be the last conquest of the old 
 French monarchy. Great or little, magnificent or insignificant, 
 from Richelieu to the duke of Choiseul, France had managed to 
 preserve her territorial acquisitions ; in America and in Asia, 
 Louis XV. had shamefully lost Canada and the Indies ; in Europe, 
 the diplomacy of his ministers had given to the kingdom Lorraine 
 and Corsica. The day of insensate conquests ending in a diminu- 
 tion of territory had not yet come. In the great and iniquitous 
 dismemberment which was coming, namely the partition of Poland, 
 France was to have no share. The political annihilation of 
 Louis XV. in Europe had been completed by the dismissal of the 
 duke of Choiseul. 
 
 The public conscience is lightened by lights which ability, even 
 
 Partition when triumphant, can never altogether obscure. The Great 
 
 o o an . Fredrick an d the Empress Catherine have to answer before history 
 
 for a crime which they made acceptable to the timorous jealously of 
 
 Maria Theresa and to the youthful ambition of her son. 
 
 France did not do anything and could not do anything ; the 
 king's secret negotiators, as well as the minister of foreign affairs, 
 had been tricked by the allied powers. " Ah ! if Choiseul had 
 been here i " exclaimed King Louis XV., it is said, when he heard 
 
Partition of Poland. 511 
 
 of the partition of Poland. The duke of Choiseul would no doubt 
 have been more clear-sighted and better informed than the duke of 
 Aiguillon, but his policy could have done no good. Frederick II. 
 knew that. " France plays so small a part in Europe," he wrote to 
 Count Solms, " that I merely tell you about the impotent efforts of 
 the French ministry's envy just to have a laugh at them and to let 
 you see in what visions the consciousness of its own weaknesses is 
 capable of leading that court to indulge." " Oh, where is Poland 1 " 
 Madame Dubarry had said to Count Wicholorsky, King Stanislaus 
 Augustus' charge d'affaires, who was trying to interest her in the 
 misfortunes of his country. 
 
 The partition of Poland was barely accomplished, and already 
 King Louis XV., for a moment roused by the audacious aggression Lethargy 
 of the German courts, had sunk back into the shameful lethargy of and " 
 his life. When Madame Louise, the pious Carmelite of St. Denis, Louis XV. 
 succeeded in awakening in her father's soul a gleam of religious 
 terror, the courtiers in charge of the royal pleasures redoubled their 
 efforts to distract the king from thoughts so perilous for their own 
 fortunes. Louis XV., fluctuating between remorse and depravity, 
 ruled by Madame Dubarry, bound hand and foot to the triumvirate 
 of Chancellor Maupeou, Abbe Terray and the duke of Aiguillon, 
 who were consuming between them in his name the last remnants 
 of absolute power, fell suddenly ill of small-pox. The princesses, 
 his daughters, had never had that terrible disease, the scourge and 
 terror of all classes of society, yet they bravely shut themselves 
 up with the king, lavishing their attentions upon him to the last 
 gasp. Death, triumphant, had vanquished the favourite : Madame 
 Dubarry was sent away as soon as the nature of the malady had 
 declared itself. The king charged his grand almoner to ask pardon 
 of the courtiers for the scandal he had caused them. " Kings owe 
 no account of their conduct save to God only," he had often 
 repeated to comfort himself for the shame of his life. "It is 
 just He whom I fear," said Maria Theresa, pursued by remorse for 
 the partition of Poland. 
 
 Louis XV. died on the 10th of May, 1774, in his sixty-fourth A.D.1774. 
 year, after reigning fifty- nine years, despised by the people who had j^JJjg xv 
 not so long ago given him the name of Well-beloved, and whose (May 10). 
 attachment he had worn out by his cold indifference about affairs 
 and the national interests as much as by the irregularities of his life. 
 With him died the old French monarchy, that proud power which 
 had sometimes ruled Europe whilst always holding a great position 
 therein. Henceforth France was marching towards the unknown, 
 tossed about as she was by divers movements, which were mostly 
 
512 History of France. 
 
 hostile to the old state of things, blindly and confusedly as yet, but, 
 under the direction of masters as inexperienced as they were 
 daring, full of frequently iioble though nearly always extravagant 
 and reckless hopes, all founded on a thorough reconstruction of 
 the bases of society and of its ancient props. Far more even than 
 the monarchy, at the close of Louis XV. 's reign, did religion find 
 itself attacked and threatened ; the blows struck by the philosophers 
 at fanaticism recoiled upon the Christian faith, transiently liable 
 here below for human errors and faults over which it is destined to 
 triumph in eternity. 
 
 Literature. Nowhere and at no epoch had literature shone with so vivid a 
 lustre as in the reign of Louis XIV. ; never has it been in a 
 greater degree the occupation and charm of mankind, never has it 
 left nobler and rarer models behind it for the admiration and imita- 
 tion of the coming race : the writers of Louis XV. 's age, for all 
 their brilliancy and all their fertility, themselves felt their inferi- 
 ority in respect of their predecessors. Voltaire confessed as much 
 with a modesty which was by no means familiar to him. Inimit- 
 able in their genius, Corneille, Bossuet, Pascal, Moliere, left their 
 imprint upon the generation that came after them ; it had judg- 
 ment enough to set them by acclamation in the ranks of the 
 classics ; in their case, greatness displaced time. Voltaire took 
 Racine for model ; La Motte imagined {hat he could imitate La Fon- 
 taine. The illustrious company of great minds which surrounded the 
 throne of Louis XIV. and had so much to do with the lasting splen- 
 dour of his reign had no reason to complain of ingratitude on the 
 part of its successors ; but, from the pedestal to which they raised it, 
 it exercised no potent influence upon new thought and new passions. 
 Montes- Montesquieu, despite the wise moderation of his great and strong 
 
 quieu. mind, was the first to awaken that yearning for novelty and reforms 
 which had been silently brooding at the bottom of men's hearts. 
 .Born in 1689 at the castle of La Brede, near Bordeaux, Montes- 
 quieu really belonged, in point of age, to the reign of Louis XIV., 
 of which he bears the powerful imprint even amidst the boldness 
 of his thoughts and expressions. Grandeur is the distinctive cha- 
 racteristic of Montesquieu's ideas as it is of the seventeenth century 
 altogether. In 1721, when he still had his seat on the fleurs-de-lis, 
 he had published his Lettres persanes, an imaginary trip of two exiled 
 Parsees, freely criticizing Paris and France. The book appeared 
 under the Regency, and bears the imprint of it in the licentious- 
 ness of the descriptions and the witty irreverence of the criticisms. 
 Sometimes, however, the future gravity of Montesquieu's genius 
 reveals itself amidst the shrewd or biting judgments. 
 
Montesquieu. 5 1 3 
 
 The success of the Lettres persanes was great; Montesquieu had 
 said what many people thought without daring to express it ; the 
 doubt which was nascent in his mind, and which he could only 
 withstand by an effort of will, the excessive freedom of the tone 
 and of the style scared the authorities, however ; when he wanted 
 to get into the French Academy, in the place of M. de Sacy, 
 Cardinal Fleury opposed it formally. It was only on the 24th 
 of January, 1728, that Montesquieu, recently elected, delivered 
 his reception speech. He at once set out on some long travels ; 
 and in 1734, he published his Considerations sur Us causes de la The "Con- 
 grandeur et de la decadence des Remains. Montesquieu did not, sidera- 
 as Boss net did, seek to hit upon God's plan touching the destinies 
 of mankind : he discovers in the virtues and vices of the Romans 
 themselves the secret of their triumphs and of their reverses. The 
 contemplation of antiquity inspires him with language often 
 worthy of Tacitus, curt, nervous, powerful in its grave simplicity. 
 
 Montesquieu thus performed the prelude to the great work of his 
 life : he had been working for twenty years at the Esprit des lois, 
 when he published it in 1748. "In the course of twenty years," 
 he says, " I saw my work begin, grow, progress and end." He had 
 placed as the motto to his book this Latin phrase, which at first 
 excited the curiosity of readers : Prolem sine matre creatam 
 (Offspring begotten without a mother). "Young man," said Mon- 
 tesquieu, by this time advanced in years, to M. Suard (afterwards 
 perpetual secretary to the French Academy), " young man, when 
 a notable book is written, genius is its father and liberty its 
 mother ; that is why I wrote upon the title-page of my work : 
 Prolem sine matre creatam" 
 
 It was liberty at the same time as justice that Montesquieu The 
 sought and claimed in his profound researches into the laws which 
 have from time immemorial governed mankind ; that new instinc- 
 tive idea of natural rights, those new yearnings which were begin- 
 ning to dawn in all hearts, remained as yet, for the most part, upon 
 the surface of their minds and of their lives ; what was demanded 
 at that time in France was liberty to speak and write rather than 
 to act and govern. Montesquieu, on the contrary, went to the 
 bottom of things, and, despite the natural moderation of his mind, 
 he propounded theories so perilous for absolute power that he dared 
 not have his book printed at Paris, and brought it out in Geneva ; 
 its success was immense : before his death, Montesquieu saw 
 twenty-one French editions published and translations in all the 
 languages of Europe. " Mankind had lost its title-deeds," says 
 Voltaire : " Montesquieu recovered and restored them." 
 
 L L 
 
5 14 History of France. 
 
 The intense labour, the immense courses of reading, to which 
 Montesquieu had devoted himself, had exhausted his strength ; he 
 died on the 10th of February, 1755, at the age of sixty-six, at the 
 beginning of the reign of the philosophers, whose way he had 
 prepared before them without having ever belonged to their 
 number. Diderot alone followed his bier. Fontenelle, nearly a 
 hundred years old, was soon to follow him to the tomb. 
 Fonte- Born at Eouen in February, 1657, and nephew of Corneille on 
 
 ne e * the mother's side, Fontenelle did not receive from nature any of 
 the unequal and sublime endowments which have fixed the 
 dramatic crown for ever upon the forehead of Corneille ; but he 
 inherited the wit, and bel esprit which the great tragedian hid 
 beneath the splendours of his genius. When, at forty years of age, 
 he became perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences, he had 
 already written his book on the Pluralite des Mondes, the first 
 attempt at that popularization of science which has spread so since 
 then. " I believe more and more," he said, " that there is a certain 
 genius which has never yet been out of our Europe, or, at least, 
 has not gone far out of it." This genius, clear, correct, precise, the 
 genius of method and analysis, the genius of Descartes, which was 
 expounder a ^ a later period that of Buffon and of Cuvier, was admirably 
 of science, expounded and developed by Fontenelle for the use of the 
 ignorant. He wrote for society and not for scholars, of whose 
 labours and discoveries he gave an account to society. His extracts 
 from the labours of the Academy of Science, and his eulogies of 
 the Academicians are models of lucidness under an ingenious and 
 subtle form, rendered simple and strong by dint of wit. " There 
 is only truth that persuades," he used to say, " and even without 
 requiring to appear with all its proofs. It makes its way so 
 naturally into the mind, that, when it is heard for the first time, 
 it seems as if one were merely remembering." 
 
 Equitable and moderate in mind, prudent and cold in tempera- 
 ment, Fontenelle passed his life in discussion without ever stum- 
 bling into disputes ; his very courage and trustiness bore this stamp 
 of discreet moderation. When the Abbe St. Pierre was excluded 
 from the French Academy under Louis XV. for having dared to 
 His liberal criticize the government of Louis XIV., one single ball in the urn 
 views, protested against the unjust pressure exercised by Cardinal Fleury 
 upon the society. They all asked one another who the rebel was ; 
 each defended himself against having voted against the minis- 
 ter's order ; Fontenelle alone kept silent ; when everybody had 
 exculpated himself, " It must be myself, then," said Fontenelle 
 half aloud. 
 
Voltaire. 515 
 
 So much cool serenity and so much taste for noble intellectual 
 works prolonged the existence of Fontenelle beyond the ordinary 
 limits ; he was ninety-nine and not yet weary of life : " If I might 
 but reach the strawberry-season once more ! " he had said. He 
 died at Paris on the 9th of January, 1759 ; with Lim disappeared 
 what remained of the spirit and traditions of Louis XIV. 's reign. 
 Montesquieu and Fontenelle were the last links which united the 
 seventeenth century to the new era. The flood of free-thinking 
 had spared Montesquieu and Fontenelle, it was about to carry away 
 Voltaire almost as far as Diderot. 
 
 Born at Paris on the 21st of November, 1694, Fran$ois Marie Voltaire. 
 Arouet de Voltaire was sent to the college of Louis-le-Grand, which 
 at that time belonged to the Jesuits. As early as then little 
 Arouet, who was weak and in delicate health, but withal of a very 
 lively intelligence, displayed a freedom of thought and a tendency 
 to irreverence which already disquieted and angered his masters. 
 Father Lejay jumped from his chair and took the boy by the 
 collar, exclaiming, " Wretch, thou wilt one of these days raise the 
 standard of Deism in France ! " Father Pallou, his confessor, 
 accustomed to read the heart, said as he shook his head, "This 
 child is devoured with a thirst for celebrity." Under a despotic 
 government, this awkward disposition must necessarily lead to 
 painful consequences ; it was within the precincts of the Bastille 
 that young Arouet wrote the first part of the poem called La 
 Henriade, under the title of La Ligue ; when he at last obtained 
 his release in April, 1718, he at the same time received orders to 
 reside at Chatenay, where his father had a country house. It was 
 on coming out of the Bastille that the poet took, from a small 
 family- estate, that name of Voltaire which he was to render so 
 famous. "I have been too unfortunate under my former name," 
 he wrote to Mdlle. du Noyer, " I mean to see whether this will 
 suit me better." 
 
 The players were at that time rehearsing the tragedy of OEdipe, 
 which was performed on the 18th of November, 1718, with great 
 success. The daring nights of philosophy introduced by the poet 
 into this profoundly and terribly religious subject excited the 
 enthusiasm of the roues ; Voltaire was well received by the Eegent, H g actg f 
 who granted him an honorarium. " Monseigneur," said Voltaire, impru- 
 " I should consider it very kind if his Majesty would be pleased dence 
 to provide henceforth for my board, but I beseech your Highness 
 to provide no more for my lodging." Voltaire's acts of imprudence 
 were destined more than once to force him into leaving Paris ; he 
 all his life preserved such a horror of prison that it made him 
 
 LL 2 
 
516 History of France. 
 
 commit more than one platitude. " I have a mortal aversion for 
 prison," he wrote in 1734; once more, however, he was to be an 
 inmate of the Bastille. 
 
 Launched upon the most brilliant society, everywhere courted 
 and nattered, Voltaire was constantly at work, displaying the 
 marvellous suppleness of his mind by shifting from the tragedies 
 of Artemise and 'Marianne, which failed, to the comedy of L'lndis- 
 cret, to numerous charming epistles, and lastly to the poem of La 
 Henriade, which he went on carefully revising, reading fragments 
 of it as he changed his quarters from castle to castle. 
 
 Voltaire in After another visit to the Bastille, he passed three years in 
 England, engaged in learning English and finishing La Henriade, 
 which he published by subscription in 1727. Touched by the 
 favour shown by English society to the author and the poem, he 
 dedicated to the queen of England his new work, which was 
 entirely consecrated to the glory of France ; three successive 
 editions were disposed of in less than three weeks. Lord Boling- 
 broke, having returned to England and been restored to favour, did 
 potent service to his old friend, who lived in the midst of that 
 Returns to literary society in which Pope and Swift held sway. When, in the 
 France. mon th of March, 1729, Voltaire at last obtained permission to 
 revisit France, he had worked much without bringing out anything. 
 The riches he had thus amassed appeared ere long : before the end 
 of the year 1731 he put Brutus on the stage, and began his publi- 
 cation of the Histoire de Charles XII. ; he was at the same time 
 giving the finishing touch to firipliyle and La Mori de Cesar. 
 Zaire, written in a few weeks, was played for the first time on the 
 13th of August, 1732. 
 
 Voltaire had just inaugurated the great national tragedy of his 
 country, as he had likewise given it the only national epic 
 attempted in France since the Chansons de geste ; by one of those 
 equally sudden and imprudent reactions to which he was always 
 subject, it was not long before he himself damaged his own success 
 by the publication of his Lettres pliilosopMgues sur les Anglais. 
 
 The light and mocking tone of these letters, the constant com- 
 parison between the two peoples, with many a gibe at the English, 
 but always turning to their advantage, the preference given to the 
 philosophical system of Newton over that of Descartes, lastly the 
 attacks upon religion concealed beneath the cloak of banter all 
 this was more than enough to ruffle the tranquillity of Cardinal 
 Fleury. The book was brought before Parliament : Voltaire was 
 disquieted. He ran, first, for refuge to Bale, then to the castle of 
 Cirey, to the marchioness du Chatelet's, a woman as learned as she 
 
Madame du Chdtelet. 517 
 
 was impassioned, devoted to literature, physics and mathematics, Voltaire 
 and tenderly attached to Voltaire, whom she enticed along with 
 
 her into the paths of science. For fifteen years Madame du du Cha- 
 Chatelet and Cirey ruled supreme over the poet's life. There telet * 
 began a course of metaphysics, tales, tragedies ; Ahire, Merope, 
 Mahomet were composed at Cirey and played with ever increasing 
 success. Pope Benedict XIV. had accepted the dedication of 
 Mahomet, which Voltaire had addressed to him in order to cover 
 the freedoms of his piece. Every now and then, terrified in 
 consequence of some bit of anti-religious rashness, he took flight, 
 going into hiding at one time to the court of Lorraine beneath 
 the wing of King Stanislaus, at another time in Holland, at a 
 palace belonging to the king of Prussia, the Great Frederick. 
 
 Madame du Chatelet died on the 4th of September, 1749, at 
 Luneville, where she then happened to be with Voltaire. Their 
 intimacy had experienced many storms, yet the blow was a cruel 
 one for the poet ; in losing Madame du Chatelet he was losing the 
 centre and the guidance of his life. For a while he spoke of 
 burying himself with Dom Calmet in the abbey of Senones ; then 
 he would be off to England : he ended by returning to Paris, sum- 
 moning to his side a widowed niece, Madame Denis, a woman of 
 coarse wit, and full of devotion to him, who was fond of the drama, 
 and played her uncle's pieces on the little theatre which he had 
 fitted up in his rooms. 
 
 Despite the lustre of that fame which was attested by the 
 frequent attacks of his enemies as much as by the admiration of 
 his friends, Voltaire was displeased with his sojourn at Paris, and 
 weary of the Court and the men of letters. The king had always 
 exhibited towards him a coldness which the poet's adulation had 
 not been able to overcome ; he had offended Madame de Pompa- 
 dour, who had but lately been well disposed towards him; the 
 religious circle, ranged around the queen and the dauphin, was 
 of course hostile to him. "The place of historiographer to the 
 king was but an empty title," he says himself : " I wanted to make 
 it a reality by working at the history of the war of 1741 ; but, in 
 spite of my work, Moncrif had admittance to his Majesty and I 
 had not." 
 
 In tracing the tragic episodes of the war, Voltaire, set as his Vauve- 
 mind was on the royal favour, had wanted in the first place to pay 
 homage to the friends he had lost. It was in the " eulogium of 
 the officers who fell in the campaign of 1741 " that he touchingly 
 called attention to the memory of Vauvenargues. He, born at Aix 
 on the 6th of August, 1715, died of his wounds, at Paris, in 1747. 
 
5 i8 
 
 History of France. 
 
 His views 
 on philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 Voltaire 
 and the 
 king of 
 
 Prussia. 
 
 Poor and proud, resigning himself with a sigh to idleness and 
 obscurity, the young officer had written merely to relieve his mind. 
 His friends had constrained him to publish a little book, one only, 
 the Introduction a la connaissance de Vesprit humain, suivie de 
 reflexions et de maximes. Its success justified their affectionate 
 hopes : delicate minds took keen delight in the first essays of Vau- 
 venargues. Hesitating between religion and philosophy, with a 
 palpable leaning towards the latter, ill and yet bravely bearing 
 the disappointments and sufferings of his life, Vauvenargues was 
 already expiring at thirty years of age, when Provence was in- 
 vaded by the enemy. The humiliation of his country and the 
 peril of his native province roused him from his tranquil melan- 
 choly : " All Provence is in arms," he wrote to his friend Fauris 
 de St. Vincent, " and here am I quite quietly in my chimney- 
 corner ; the bad state of my eyes and of my health is not sufficient 
 excuse for me, and I ought to be where all the gentlemen of the 
 province are. Send me word then, I beg, immediately whether 
 there is still any employment to be had in our newly raised levies 
 and whether I should be sure to be employed if I were to go to 
 Provence." Before his friend's answer had reached Vauvenargues, 
 the Austrians and the Piedmontese had been forced to evacuate 
 Provence ; the dying man remained in his chimney-corner, where 
 he soon expired, leaving amongst the public and still more amongst 
 those who had known him personally the impression of great 
 promise sadly extinguished. " It was his fate," says his faithful 
 biographer, M. Gilbert, "to be always opening his wings and to be 
 unable to take flight." 
 
 Voltaire, quite on the contrary, was about to take a fresh 
 flight. After several rebuffs and long opposition on the part of the 
 eighteen ecclesiastics who at that time had seats in the French 
 Academy, he had been elected to it in 1746. In 1750, he offered 
 himself at one and the same time for the Academy of Sciences 
 and the Academy of Inscriptions : he failed in both candidatures. 
 This mishap filled the cup of his ill-humour. For a long time 
 past Frederick II. had been offering the poet favours which he had 
 long refused. The disgust he experienced at Paris through his 
 insatiable vanity made him determine upon seeking another arena ; 
 after having accepted a pension and a place from the king of 
 Prussia, Voltaire set out for Berlin. He was received there with 
 enthusiasm and as sovereign of the little court of philosophers ; 
 but his intimacy with Frederick II. did not last long ; it had for a 
 while done honour to both of them, it had ended by betraying the 
 pettinesses and the meannesses natural to the king as well as to 
 
Voltaire and his difficulties. 519 
 
 the poet. Frederick did not remain without anxiety on the score 
 of Voltaire's rancour ; Yoltaire dreaded nasty diplomatic proceed- 
 ings on the part of the king ; he had been threatened with as 
 much by Lord Keith, Milord Marechal, as he was called on the 
 Continent from the hereditary title he had lost in his own country 
 through his attachment to the cause of the Stuarts : 
 
 " Let us see in what countries M. de Voltaire has not had some Voltaire's 
 squabble or made himself many enemies," said a letter to Madame S<1Ua 
 Denis from the great Scotch lord when he had entered Frederick's 
 service : " every country where the Inquisition prevails must be 
 mistrusted by him ; he would put his foot in it sooner or later. 
 The Mussulmans must be as little pleased with his Mahomet as 
 good Christians were. He is too old to go to China and turn 
 mandarin ; in a word, if he is wise, there is no place but France 
 for him. He has friends there, and you will have him with you 
 for the rest of his days ; do not let him shut himself out from the 
 pleasure of returning thither, for you are quite aware that, if he 
 were to indulge in speech and epigrams offensive to the king my 
 master, a word which the latter might order me to speak to the 
 court of France would suffice to prevent M. de Voltaire from re- 
 turning, and he would be sorry for it when it was too late." 
 
 Voltaire was already in France, but he dared not venture to 
 Paris. Mutilated, clumsy or treacherous issues of the Abrege de 
 VHistoire universelle had already stirred the bile of the clergy ; 
 there were to be seen in circulation copies of La Pucelle, a dis- 
 gusting poem which the author had been keeping back and bring- 
 ing out alternately for several years past. Voltaire fled from Colmar, ]j e takes 
 where the Jesuits held sway, to Lyons, where he found Marshal fright. 
 Eichelieu, but lately his protector and always his friend, who was 
 repairing to his government of Languedoc. Cardinal Tencin re- 
 fused to receive the poet, who regarded this sudden severity as a 
 sign of the feelings of the court towards him. " The king told 
 Madame de Pompadour that he did not want me to go to Paris ; 
 I am of his Majesty's opinion, I don't want to go to Paris," wrote 
 Voltaire to the marquis of Paulmy. He took fright and sought 
 refuge in Switzerland, where he soon settled on the lake of Geneva, 
 pending his purchase of the estate of Ferney in the district of Gex 
 and that of Tourney in Burgundy. He was henceforth fixed, free 
 to pass from France to Switzerland and from Switzerland to France; 
 in the comparative security which he thought he possessed, he 
 gave scope to all his free-thinking, which had but lately been often 
 cloaked according to circumstances. In the great campaign against 
 Christianity undertaken by the philosophers, Voltaire, so long a 
 
S2O History of France. 
 
 wavering ally, will henceforth fight in the foremost ranks ; it is 
 he who shouts to Diderot, "Squelch the thing (ficrasez l'mfdme)\" 
 The masks are off, and the fight is bare-faced ; the Encyclopaedists 
 march out to the conquest of the world in the name of reason, 
 humanity and free-thinking ; even when he has ceased to work at 
 the Encyclopaedia, Voltaire marches with them. 
 
 The Essai sur VHistoire generals et les Mceurs was one of the 
 first broadsides of this new anti-religious crusade. " Voltaire will 
 never write a good history," Montesquieu used to say : " he is like 
 the monks, who do not write for the subject of which they treat, 
 but for the glory of their order : Voltaire writes for his convent." 
 Takes the ^ e same intention betrayed itself in every sort of work that issued 
 lead in the at that time from the hermitage of Delices, the poem on Le Trem- 
 crusade Element de terre de Lisbonne, the drama of Socrate, the satire of 
 religion, the Pauvre Diable, the sad story of Candida, led the way to a 
 series of publications every day more and more violent against the 
 Christian faith. The tragedy of VOrphelin de la Chine and that of 
 Toner ede, the quarrels with Ereron, with Lefranc de Pompignan, 
 and lastly with Jean Jacques Rousseau, did not satiate the devour- 
 ing activity of the Patriarch, as he was called by the knot of 
 philosophers. 
 
 Innate love of justice and horror of fanaticism had inspired 
 Voltaire with his zeal on behalf of the Galas family and other 
 persecuted Protestants ; a more personal feeling, a more profound 
 sympathy caused his grief and his dread when Chevalier de la 
 Barre, accused of having mutilated a crucifix, was condemned, in 
 His love of 1766, to capital punishment ; the scepticism of the eighteenth cen- 
 justice. tury had sudden and terrible reactions towards fanatical violence, 
 as a protest and a pitiable struggle against the doubt which was 
 invading it on all sides ; the chevalier was executed ; he was not 
 twenty years old. He was an infidel and a libertine, like the 
 majority of the young men of his day and of his age ; the crime he 
 expiated so cruelly was attributed to reading bad books, which had 
 corrupted him. "I am told," writes Voltaire to D'Alembert, "that 
 they said at their examination that they had been led on to the 
 act of madness they committed by the works of the Encyclopaedists. 
 I can scarcely believe it ; these madmen don't read ; and certainly 
 no philosopher would have counselled profanation. The matter is 
 important ; try to get to the bottom of so odious and dangerous a 
 report." 
 
 Voltaire reigned peacefully, however, over his little empire at 
 Eerney, courted from afar by all the sovereigns of Europe who 
 made any profession of philosophy. " I have a sequence of four 
 
Death of Voltaire. His character. 521 
 
 kings" (Irelan de roi quatrieme), he would say with a laugh when 
 he counted his letters from royal personages. The empress of 
 Eussia, Catherine II., had dethroned, in his mind, the Great 
 Frederick. He was destined to die at Paris ; there he found the 
 last joys of his life, and there he shed the last rays of his glory. 
 
 Voltaire's incessant activity bore many fruits which survived Voltaire's 
 him ; he contributed powerfully to the triumph of those notions G ener 'al 
 of humanity, justice and freedom, which, superior to his own ideal, survey of 
 did honour to the eighteenth century ; he became the model of a r ^t r a " 
 style, clear, neat, brilliant, the natural exponent of his own mind, 
 far more than of the as yet confused hopes and aspirations of his 
 age ; he defended the rights of common sense and sometimes with- 
 stood the anti-religious passion of his friends, but he blasted both 
 minds and souls with his sceptical gibes ; his bitter and at the 
 same time temperate banter disturbed consciences which would 
 have been revolted by the materialistic doctrines of the Encyclo- 
 paedists ; the circle of infidelity widened under his hands ; his 
 disciples were able to go beyond him on the fatal path he had 
 opened to them. Voltaire has remained the true representative 
 of the mocking and stone-flinging phase of free-thinking, knowing 
 nothing of the deep yearnings any more than of the supreme 
 wretchlessness of the human soul, which it kept imprisoned within 
 the narrow limits of earth and time. At the outcome from the 
 bloody slough of the French Revolution and from the chaos it 
 caused in men's souls, it was the infidelity of Voltaire which 
 remained at the bottom of the scepticism and moral disorder of 
 the France of our day. The demon which torments her is even 
 more Voltairian than materialistic. 
 
 Other influences, more sincere and at the same time more dan- 
 gerous, were simultaneously undermining men's minds. The group 
 of Encyclopaedists, less prudent and less temperate than Voltaire, 
 flaunted openly the flag of revolt. At the head marched Denis 
 Diderot, born in 1715, the most daring of all, the most genuinely 
 affected by his own ardour, without perhaps being the most sure 
 of his ground in his negations. He was an original and exuberant 
 nature, expansively open to all new impressions ; it was in con- 
 junction with his friends and in community of ideas that Diderot an a the 
 undertook the immense labour of the Emydopcedia. Having, in Encyclc- 
 the first instance, received a commission from a publisher to trans- pae ia * 
 late the English collection of [Ephraim] Chambers, Diderot was 
 impressed with a desire to unite in one and the same collection all 
 the efforts and all the talents of his epoch, so as to render joint 
 homage to the rapid progress of science. Won over by his enthu- 
 
522 History of France. 
 
 siasm, D'Alembert consented to share the task ; and he wrote the 
 beautiful exposition in the introduction. Voltaire sent his articles 
 from Les Delices. The Jesuits had proposed to take upon themselves 
 a certain number of questions, but their co-operation was declined : 
 it was a monument to philosophy that the Encyclopaedists aspired 
 to raise : the clergy were in commotion at seeing the hostile army, 
 till .then uncertain and unhanded, rally organized and disciplined 
 around this vast enterprise. An early veto, soon, however, taken 
 off, compelled the philosophers to a certain moderation : Voltaire 
 ceased writing for the Encyclopaedia, it was not sufficiently free- 
 going for him: "You admit articles worthy of the Trevoux journal," 
 Severity of he said to D'Alembert. New severities on the part of the Par- 
 the govern- Hament and the grand council dealt a blow to the philosophers 
 before long : the editors' privilege was revoked. Orders were given 
 to seize Diderot's papers. Lamoigncn de Malesherbes, who was at 
 that time director of the press, and favourable to freedom without 
 ever having abused it in thought or action, sent him secret warn- 
 ing. Diderot ran home in consternation. " What's to be done *?" 
 he cried : " how move all my manuscripts in twenty-four hours 1 
 I haven't time even to make a selection. And, above all, where 
 find people who would and can take charge cf them safely ?" "Send 
 them all to me," replied M. de Malesherbes : " nobody will come 
 thither to look for them." 
 
 Feeble governments are ill served even by their worthiest ser- 
 vants ; the severities ordered against the Encyclopaedia did not 
 stop its publication ; D'Alembert, however, weary of the struggle, 
 had ceased to take part in the edilorship. An infidel and almost a 
 materialist by the geometer's rule, who knows no power but the 
 laws of mathematics, he did not carry into anti-religious strife the 
 bitterness of Voltaire, or the violence of Diderot. More and more 
 absorbed by pure science, which he never neglected save for the 
 French Academy, whose perpetual secretary he had become, 
 D'Alembert left to Diderot alone the care of continuing the Ency- 
 A.D. 1783. clopcedia. When he died, in 1783, at fifty-six years of age, the 
 D^d t wor k na( ^ ^ een finished nearly twenty years. In spite of the bad 
 faith of publishers, who mutilated articles to render them acceptable, 
 in spite of the condemnation of the clergy and the severities of 
 the council, the last volumes of the Encyclopaedia had appeared in 
 1765. 
 
 This immense work, unequal and confused as it was, a medley of 
 various and often ill-assorted elements, undertaken for and directed 
 to the fixed end of an aggressive emancipation of thought, had 
 not sufficed to absorb the energy and powers of Diderot. The stage 
 
Buffon. 523 
 
 occupied largely his attention ; he sought to introduce reforms, the 
 
 fruit of his own thought as well as of imitation of the Germans, 
 
 which he had not perhaps sufficiently considered. For the classic 
 
 tragedies, the heritage of which Voltaire received from the hands 
 
 of Racine, Diderot aspired to substitute the natural drama. His The "natu- 
 
 two attempts in that style, Le Pere de Famille and Le Fits nature!, raldrama -" 
 
 had but little success in France, and contributed to develope in 
 
 Germany the school already founded by Lessing. Diderot died on 
 
 the 29th of July, 1784, still poor, an invalid for some time past, 
 
 surrounded to the end by his friends, who rendered back to him 
 
 that sincere and devoted affection which he made the pride of his 
 
 life. The charm of his character had often caused people to forget 
 
 his violence, which he himself no longer remembered the next day. 
 
 " I should like to know this hot-headed metaphysician," was the 
 remark made to Buffon by President De Brosses, w r ho happened to 
 be then at Paris ; and he aiterwards added : " He is a nice fellow, 
 very pleasant, very amiable, a great philosopher, a mighty arguer, 
 but a maker of perpetual digressions. Yesterday he made quite five 
 and twenty between nine o'clock and one, during which time he 
 remained in my room. Oh ! how much more lucid is Buffon than 
 all those gentry ! " 
 
 The magistrate's mind understood and appreciated the great 
 naturalist's genius. Diderot felt in his own fashion the charm of 
 nature, but, as was said by Chevalier Chastellux, "his ideas got 
 drunk and set to work chasing one another." The ideas of Buffon, 
 on the other hand, came out in the majestic order of a system, 
 under powerful organization and informed as it were with the very 
 secrets of the Creator. " The general history of the world," he says, 
 " ought to precede the special history of its productions ; and the 
 details of singular facts touching the life and habits of animals, or 
 touching the culture and vegetation of plants, belong perhaps less 
 to natural history than do the general results of the observations 
 which have been made on the different materials which compose 
 the terrestrial globe, on the elevations, the depressions and the 
 unevennesses of its form, on the movement of the seas, on the 
 trending of mountains, on the position of quarries, on the rapidity 
 and effects of the currents of the sea this is nature on the grand 
 scale." 
 
 M. Flourens truly said : " Buffon aggrandises every subject he 
 touches." 
 
 It was in his dignified and studious retirement at Montbard that 
 Buffon, after having transformed, and almost created the Paris Jar- 
 din du Koi, quietly passed his long life. Born in 1707, he died 
 
524 History of France. 
 
 on the 14th of April, 1788. "I dedicated," he says, "twelve, 
 nay fourteen, hours to study ; it was my whole pleasure. In 
 truth, I devoted myself to it far more than I troubled myself 
 about fame ; fame comes afterwards, if it may, and it nearly always 
 does." 
 
 Buffon did not lack fame ; on the appearance of the first three 
 volumes of his Histoire naturelle, published in 1749, the breadth of 
 on natural ^ s y i ews > the beauty of his language and the strength of his mind 
 history. excited general curiosity and admiration. * The Sorborme was in a 
 nutter at certain bold propositions ; Buffon, without being discon- 
 certed, took pains to avoid condemnation. " I took the liberty," 
 he says in a letter to M. Leblant, " of writing to the duke of Mver- 
 nais (then ambassador at Rome), who has replied to me in the 
 most polite and most obliging wa}^ in the world ; I hope, therefore, 
 that my book will not be put in the Index, and, in truth, I have 
 done all I could not to deserve it and to avoid theological squabbles, 
 which I fear far more than I do the criticisms of physicists and 
 geometricians." " Out of a hundred and twenty assembled doctors," 
 he adds before long, " I had a hundred and fifteen, and their resolu- 
 tion even contains eulogies which I did not expect." Despite cer- 
 tain boldnesses which had caused anxiety, the Sorbonne had reason 
 to compliment the great naturalist. The unity of the human race 
 as well as its superior dignity were already vindicated in these 
 first efforts of Buffon's genius, and his mind never lost sight of this 
 great verity. He continued his work, adroitly availing himself of 
 His the talent and researches of the numerous co-operators whom he 
 assistants. na( i managed to gather about him, directing them all with inde- 
 fatigable vigilance in their labours and their observations. " Genius 
 is but a greater aptitude for perseverance," he used to say, himself 
 justifying his definition by the assiduity of his studies. 
 
 To the The'orie de la Terre, the Idees generates sur les Animavx 
 and the Histoire de I'Homme, already published when Buffon was 
 elected by the French Academy (1754), succeeded the twelve 
 volumes of the Histoire des Quadrupedes, a masterpiece of luminous 
 classifications and incomparable descriptions ; eight volumes on 
 Oiseaicx appeared subsequently, a short time before the Histoire des 
 Mineraux ; lastly, a few years before his death, Buffon gave to the 
 world the jBpoqucs de la Nature. "As in civil history one con- 
 sults titles, hunts up medals, deciphers antique inscriptions to deter- 
 mine the epochs of revolutions amongst mankind, and to fix the 
 date of events in the moral world, so, in natural history, we must 
 ransack the archives of the universe, drag from the entrails of the 
 earth the olden monuments, gather together their ruins and collect 
 
Buff on s theories. 525 
 
 into a body of proofs all the indications of physical changes that 
 can guide us back to the different ages of nature. It is the only 
 way of fixing certain points in the immensity of space and of 
 placing a certain number of memorial-stones on the endless road 
 of time." 
 
 " This is what I perceive with my mind's eye," Buffon would say, 
 " thus forming a chain which, from the summit of Time's ladder, 
 descends right down to us." " This man," exclaimed Hume, with 
 an admiration which surprised him out of his scepticism, "this man 
 gives to things which no human eye has seen a probability almost 
 equal to evidence." 
 
 Some of Buffon's theories have been disputed by his successors' Buffon 
 science ; as D'Alembert said of Descartes : " If he was mistaken JJ^ or ie 
 about the laws of motion, he was the first to divine that there must 
 be some." Buffon divined the epochs of nature, and by the intui- 
 tion of his genius, absolutely unshackled by any religious prejudice, 
 he involuntarily reverted to the account given in Genesis : " We 
 are persuaded," he says, " independently of the authority of the 
 sacred books, that man was created last, and that he only came to 
 wield the sceptre of the earth when that earth was found worthy of 
 his sway." 
 
 Buffon was still working at eighty years of age ; he had under- 
 taken a dissertation on style, a development of his splendid recep- 
 tion-speech at the French Academy. Great sorrows had crossed his 
 life j married late to a young wife whom he loved, he lost her early ; 
 she left him a son, brought up under his wing and the object of 
 his constant solicitude. Just at the time of sending him to school, His 
 he wrote to Madame Daubenton, wife of his able and learned co- do 68 
 operator : " I expect Buffonet on Sunday ; I have arranged all his 
 little matters : he will have a private room, with a closet for his 
 man-servant ; I have got him a tutor in the school-house itself, and 
 a little companion of his own age ; I do not think that he will be 
 at all unhappy." And, at a later date, when he is expecting this son, 
 who has reached man's estate and has been travelling in Europe : 
 " My son has just arrived ; the empress and the grand duke have 
 treated him very well and we shall have some fine minerals, the 
 collection of which is being at this moment completed. I confess 
 that anxiety about his return has taken away my sleep and the 
 power of thinking." 
 
 When the young Count de Buffon, an officer in the artillery and 
 at first warmly favourable to the noble professions of the French 
 Eevolution, had, like his peers, to mount the scaffold of the Terror, 
 he damned with one word the judges who profaned in his person 
 
526 History of France. 
 
 his father's glory. " Citizens," he exclaimed from the fatal car, 
 "my name is Buffon." With less respect for the rights of genius 
 than was shown by the Algerian pirates who let pass, without 
 opening them, the chests directed to the great naturalist, the 
 executioner of the Committee of public safety cut off his son's head. 
 
 The "Five " How many great men do you reckon 1 " Buffon was asked one 
 J^M day. " Five," answered he at once : " Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, 
 Montesquieu and myself." 
 
 This self-appreciation, fostered by the homage of his contem- 
 poraries, which showed itself in Buffon undisguisedly with an air of 
 ingenuous satisfaction, had poisoned a life already extinguished ten 
 years before amidst the bitterest agonies. Taking up arms against 
 a society in which he had not found his proper place, Jean Jacques 
 Rousseau (born at Geneva, 28th of June, 1712) had attacked the 
 present as well as the past, the Encyclopaedists as well as the old 
 social organization. It was from the first his distinctive trait to 
 voluntarily create a desert around him. The eighteenth century 
 was in its nature easily seduced; liberal, generous and open to 
 allurements, it delighted in intellectual contentions, even the most 
 dangerous and the most daring; it welcomed with alacrity all 
 p . those who thus contributed to its pleasures. The charming 
 
 ''salons." drawing-rooms of Madame Geoffrin, of Madame du Deffand, of 
 Madlle. Lespinasse, belonged of right to philosophy. " Being men 
 of the world as well as of letters, the philosophers of the eighteenth 
 century had passed their lives in the pleasantest and most brilliant 
 regions of that society which was so much attacked by them. 
 It had welcomed them, made them famous : they had mingled in 
 all the pleasures of its elegant and agreeable existence ; they 
 shared in all its tastes, its manners, all the refinements, all the 
 susceptibilities of a civilization at the same time old and reju- 
 venated, aristocratic and literary ; they were of that old regimen 
 which was demolished by their hands. The philosophical circle 
 was everywhere, amongst the people of the court, of the church, 
 of the long robe, of finance ; haughty here, complaisant there, at 
 one time indoctrinating, at another amusing its hosts, but every- 
 where young, active, confident, recruiting and battling everywhere, 
 penetrating and fascinating the whole of society " [M. Guizot, 
 Madame la comtesse de Mumford]. Eousseau never took his place 
 in this circle ; in this society, he marched in front like a pioneer of 
 new times, attacking tentatively all that he encountered on his 
 way. " Nobody was ever at one and the same time more factious 
 and more dictatorial," is the clever dictum of M. Saint Marc 
 Girardin. 
 
Rousseau. 527 
 
 In Lis Discours sur les Sciences et Jes Arts, Rousseau showed the Bonsseau. 
 characteristic which invariably distinguished him from the philoso- 
 phers, and which ended by establishing deep enmity between them 
 and him ; the eighteenth century espied certain evils, certain sores 
 in the social and political condition, believed in a cure and blindly 
 relied on the power of its own theories. Rousseau, more earnest, 
 often more sincere, made a better diagnosis of the complaint, he 
 described its horrible character and the dangerousness of it, he saw 
 no remedy and he pointed none out. Profound and grievous 
 impotence, whose utmost hope is an impossible recurrence to the 
 primitive state of savagery ! " In the private opinion of our adver- 
 saries," says M. Royer-Collard eloquently, " it was a thoughtless 
 thing, on the great day of creation, to let man loose, a free and in- 
 telligent agent, into the midst of the universe ; thence the mis- 
 chief and the mistake. A higher wisdom comes forward to repair 
 the error of Providence, to restrain his thoughtless liberality and to 
 render to prudently mutilated mankind the service of elevating it 
 to the happy innocence of the brute." 
 
 Before Rousseau, and better than he, Christianity had recognized 
 and proclaimed the evil ; but it had, at the same time, announced 
 to the world a remedy and a Saviour. 
 
 Henceforth Rousseau had chosen his own road : giving up the 
 drawing-rooms and the habits of that elegant society for which he 
 was not born and the admiration of which had developed his pride, 
 he made up his mind to live independent, copying music to get his H - inde 
 bread, now and then smitten with the women of the world who pendent 
 sought him out in his retirement, in love with Madame d'Epinay life - 
 and Madame d'Houdetot, anon returning to the coarse servant- 
 wench whom he had but lately made his wife and whose children 
 he had put in the foundling-hospital. Music at that time absorbed 
 all minds : Rousseau brought out a little opera entitled Le Devin de 
 village (The Village Wizard), which had a great success. It was 
 played at Fontainebleau before the king. The emotions of the 
 eighteenth century were vivid and easily roused ; fastening upon 
 everything without any earnest purpose and without any great 
 sense of responsibility it grew as hot over a musical dispute as over 
 the gravest questions of morality or philosophy. Grimm had 
 attacked French music, Rousseau supported his thesis by a Lettre 
 sur la Musique. It was the moment of the great quarrel between 
 the Parliament and the Clergy. " When my letter appeared, there 
 was no more excitement save against me," says Rousseau : " it was 
 such that the nation has never recovered from it. When people 
 read that this pamphlet probably prevented a revolution in the 
 
528 History of France. 
 
 State, they will fancy they must be dreaming." And Grimm adds 
 in his correspondence : "The Italian actors who have been playing 
 for the last ten months on the stage of the Opera de Paris and who 
 are called here bouffons, have so absorbed the attention of Paris 
 that the Parliament, in spite of all its measures and proceedings, 
 which should have earned it celebrity, could not but fall into com- 
 plete oblivion." 
 
 " Discours Rousseau had just printed his Discours sur TInegalite des con- 
 
 Bu y. 1 ! I J" ditions, a new and violent picture of the corruptions of human 
 society. " Inequality being almost nil in a state of nature," he 
 says, " it derives its force and increment from the development of 
 
 our faculties and from the progress of the human mind 
 
 according to the poet it is gold and silver, but according to the 
 philosopher it is iron and corn which have civilized men and 
 ruined the human race." 
 
 The singularity of his paradox had worn off ; Rousseau no 
 longer astounded, he shocked the good sense as well as the 
 aspirations, superficial or generous, of the eighteenth century : the 
 Discours sur VIncgalite des conditions was not a success. It was 
 at the Hermitage, under Madame d'Epinay's roof, that he began the 
 tale of La Nowvelle Heloise, which was finished at Marshal de 
 Montmorency's, when the susceptible and cranky temper of the 
 philosopher had justified the malevolent predictions of Grimm. 
 The latter had but lately said to Madame d'Epinay : " I see in 
 
 of Rous- 6 * Rousseau nothing but pride concealed everywhere about him ; 
 
 seau, you will do him a very sorry service in giving him a home at the 
 
 Hermitage, but you will do yourself a still more sorry one. Soli- 
 tude will -complete the blackening of his imagination ; he will fancy 
 all his friends unjust, ungrateful, and you first of all, if you once 
 refuse to be at his beck and call ; he will accuse you of having 
 bothered him to live under your roof and of having prevented 
 him from yielding to the wishes of his country. I already see the 
 germ of these accusations in the turn of the letters you have 
 shown me." 
 
 Rousseau quarrelled with Madame d'Epinay, and shortly after- 
 wards with all the philosophical circle : Grimm, Helvetius, 
 D'Holbach, Diderot ; his quarrels with the last were already of 
 old date, they had made some noise. " Good God ! " said the 
 duke of Castries in astonishment, " wherever I go I hear of 
 nothing but this Rousseau and this Diderot ! Did anybody ever 1 
 Fellows who are nobody, fellows who have no house, who lodge on 
 a third floor ! Positively, one can't stand that sort of thing ! " 
 The rupture was at last complete, it extended to Grimm as well 
 
NKCKER AT SAINT OUEN. 
 
 Pape 529. 
 
Rousseau persecuted. 5 2 9 
 
 as to Diderot. " Nobody can put himself in my place," wrote 
 Rousseau, " and nobody will see that I am a being apart, who has 
 not the character, the maxims, the resources of the rest of them, 
 and who must not be judged by their rules." 
 
 Eousseau was right ; he was a being apart ; and the philo- 
 sophers could not forgive him for his independence. His merits 
 as well as his defects annoyed them equally : his Lettre centre les 
 Spectacles had exasperated Voltaire ; isolated henceforth by the good 
 as well as by the evil tendencies of his nature, Jean Jacques stood 
 alone against the philosophical circle which he had dropped as well Eousseau 
 as against the protestant or catholic clergy whose creed she often *? * 
 offended. He had just published Le Contrat Social, " The Gospel," 
 says M. Saint-Marc Girardin, " of the theory as to the sovereignty 
 of the State representing the sovereignty of the people." The 
 governing powers of the time had some presentiment of its danger ; 
 they had vaguely comprehended what weapons might be sought 
 therein by revolutionary instincts and interests ; their anxiety and 
 their anger as yet brooded silently ; the director of publications (de 
 la librairie), M. de Malesherbes, was one of the friends and almost 
 one of the disciples of Eousseau whom he shielded ; he himself 
 corrected the proofs of the lUmile which Rousseau had just 
 finished. The book had barely begun to appear, when, on the 8th 
 of June, 1762, Rousseau was awakened by, a message from la 
 Marechale de Luxembourg : the Parliament had ordered fimile to 
 be burned and its author arrested. Rousseau took flight, reckoning 
 upon finding refuge at Geneva. The influence of the French 
 government pursued him thither; the grand council condemned 
 JSmile. One single copy had arrived at Geneva : it was this which 
 was burned by the hand of the common hangman, nine days after 
 the burning at Paris in the Place de Greve. " The Contrat Social 
 has received its whipping on the back of fimile," was the saying 
 at Geneva. " At the instigation of M. de Voltaire they have 
 avenged upon me the cause of God," Jean Jacques declared. 
 
 Rousseau rashly put his name to his books ; Voltaire was more Voltaire's 
 prudent. One day, having been imprisoned for some verses which prudence, 
 were not his, he had taken the resolution to impudently repudiate the 
 paternity of his own works : " You must never publish anything 
 under your own name," he wrote to Helvetius ; " La Pucelle was 
 none of my doing, of course. Master Joly de Fleury will make a 
 fine thing of his requisition ; I shall tell him that he is a calum- 
 niator, that La Pucelle is his own doing, which he wants to put 
 down to me out of spite." 
 
 Rousseau died at the pavilion of Ermenonville, which had 
 
 M M 
 
530 History of France. 
 
 been offered to him by M. de Girardin, he died there at the age 
 of sixty-six, sinking even more beneath imaginary woes than under 
 the real sorrows and bitter deceptions of his life. The dispropor- 
 tion between his intellect and his character, between the bound- 
 less pride and the impassioned weakness of his spirit, had little 
 by little estranged his friends and worn out the admiration of his 
 contemporaries. By his writings Eousseau acted more powerfully 
 upon posterity than upon his own times : his personality had 
 ceased to do his genius injustice. 
 
 Character He belonged moreover and by anticipation to a new era ; from 
 offionsssau. ^ res ti ess working of his mind, as well as from his moral and 
 political tendencies, he was no longer of the eighteenth century pro- 
 perly speaking, though the majority of the philosophers out-lived 
 him ; his work was not their work, their world was never his. He 
 had attempted a noble reaction, but one which was fundamentally 
 and in reality impossible. The impress of his early education had 
 never been thoroughly effaced : he believed in God, he had been 
 nurtured upon the Gospel in childhood, he admired the morality 
 and the life of Jesus Christ ; but he stopped at the boundaries of 
 adoration and submission. " The spirit of Jean Jacques Eousseau 
 inhabits the moral world, but not that other which is above," 
 M. Joubert has said in his Pensees. The weapons were insufficient 
 and the champion was too feeble for the contest ; the spirit of the 
 moral world was vanquished as a foregone conclusion. Against the 
 systematic infidelity which was more and more creeping over the 
 eighteenth century, the Christian faith alone, with all its forces, 
 could fight and triumph. But the Christian faith was obscured and 
 enfeebled, it clung to the vessel's riggiug instead of defending its 
 powerful hull ; the flood was rising meanwhile, and the dikes were 
 breaking one after another. The religious belief of the Savoyard 
 vioar, imperfect and inconsistent, such as it is set forth in Umile, 
 and that sincere love of nature which was recovered by Eousseau 
 in his solitude, remained powerless to guide the soul and regulate 
 life. 
 
 The eigh- " The eighteenth century " [M. Guizot, Melanges biographiques : 
 teenth cen- (M a d ame l a Comtesse de Rumford)~\, was far superior to all its 
 sceptics, to all its cynics. What do I say ? Superior 1 Nay it was 
 essentially opposed to them and continually gave them the lie. 
 Despite the weakness of its morals, the frivolity of its forms, the 
 mere dry bones of such and such of its doctrines, despite its critical 
 and destructive tendency, it was an ardent and a sincere century, a 
 century of faith and disinterestedness. It had faith in the truth, 
 for it claimed the right thereof to reign in this world. It had faith 
 
The Eighteenth Century. 531 
 
 in humanity, for it recognized the right thereof to perfect itself, and 
 would have had that right exercised without obstruction. It erred, 
 it lost itself amidst this twofold confidence, it attempted what was 
 far beyond its right and power; it misjudged the moral nature of 
 man and the conditions of the social state. Its ideas as well as its 
 works contracted the blemish of its views. But, granted so much, 
 the original idea, dominant in the eighteenth century, the belief The eigh- 
 that man, truth and society are made for one another, worthy of eent jj cen " 
 one another and called upon to form a union, this correct and epoch of 
 salutary belief rises up and overtops all its history. That belief it hope. 
 was the first to proclaim and would fain have realized. Hence its 
 power and its popularity over the whole face of the earth. Hence, also 
 to descend from great things to small, and from the destiny of man 
 to that of the drawing-room, hence the seductiveness of that epoch 
 and the charm it scattered over social life. Never before were seen 
 all the conditions, all the classes that form the flower of a great 
 people, however diverse they might have been in their history and 
 still were in their interests, thus forgetting their past, their per- 
 sonality, in order to draw near to one another, to unite in a com- 
 munion of the sweetest manners, and solely occupied in pleasing 
 one another, in rejoicing and hoping together during fifty years 
 which were to end in the most terrible conflicts between them." 
 
 At the death of King Louis XV., in 1774, the easy-mannered 
 joyance, the peaceful and brilliant charm of fashionable and philo- 
 sophical society were reaching their end : the time of stern realities 
 was approaching with long strides. 
 
 M M 2 
 

 
 Intellec- 
 tual state 
 of France. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 LOUIS xvi. (17751789.) 
 
 AT the news that Louis XV. had just heaved his last sigh in the 
 arms of his pious daughters, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette Loth 
 flung themselves upon their knees, exclaiming, " God, protect us, 
 direct us, we are too young." 
 
 The monarch's youth did not scare the country, itself everywhere 
 animated and excited by a breath of youth. There were congratu- 
 lations on escaping from the well-known troubles of a regency ; the 
 king's ingenuous inexperience, moreover, opened a vast field for the 
 most contradictory hopes. The philosophers counted upon taking 
 possession of the mind of a good young sovereign, who was said to 
 have his heart set upon his people's happiness ; the clergy and the 
 Jesuits themselves expected every thing from the young prince's 
 pious education; the old parliaments, mutilated, crushed down, 
 began to raise up their heads again, whilst the economists were 
 already preparing their most daring projects. Like literature, the 
 arts had got the start, in the new path, of the politicians and the 
 magistrates. M. Turgot and M. de Malesherbes had not yet laid 
 their enterprising hands upon the old fabric of French administra- 
 tion, and already painting, sculpture, architecture, and music had 
 shaken off the shackles of the past. The conventional graces of 
 Vanloo, of Watteau, of Boucher, of Fragonard, had given place to 
 a severer school. Greuze was putting upon canvas the characters 
 and ideas of Diderot's Drame naturel ; but Vien, in France, was 
 
Louis XVI. 533 
 
 seconding the efforts of Winckelman and of Raphael Mengs in Italy ; 
 he led his pupils back to the study of ancient art ; he had trained 
 Eegnault, Vincent, Menageot, and lastly Louis David, destined to 
 become the chief of the modern school ; Julien, Houdon, the last of 
 the Coustous, were following the same road in sculpture : Soufflot, 
 an old man by this time, was superintending the completion of the 
 church of St. Genevieve, dedicated by Louis XY. to the comme- 
 moration of his recovery at Metz, and destined, from the majestic 
 simplicity of its lines, to the doubtful honour of becoming the Pan- 
 theon of the revolution ; Servandoni had died a short time since, 
 leaving to the church of St. Sulpice the care of preserving his 
 memory ; everywhere were rising charming mansions imitated from ]?i rs f; ac t s , 
 the palaces of Rome. The painters, the sculptors and the archi- 
 tects of France were sufficient for her glory ; only Gretry and Mon- 
 signy upheld the honour of that French music which was attacked 
 by Grimm and by Jean Jacques Rousseau ; but it was at Paris that 
 the great quarrel went on between the Italians and the Germans : 
 Piccini and Gliick divided society, wherein their rivalry excited 
 violent passions. Everywhere and on all questions, intellectual 
 movement was becoming animated with fresh ardour ; France was 
 marching towards the region of storms, in the blindness of her con- 
 fidence and joyance ; the atmosphere seemed purer since Madame 
 Dubarry had been sent to a convent by one of the first orders of 
 young Louis XVI. 
 
 Already, however, farseeing spirits were disquieted ; scarcely had 
 he mounted the throne, when the king summoned to his side, as 
 his minister, M. de Maurepas, but lately banished by Louis XV., in 
 1749, on a charge of having tolerated, if not himself written, songs 
 disrespectful towards Madame de Pompadour ; in the place of the 
 duke of Aiguillon, who had the ministry of war and that of foreign 
 affairs both together, the count of Muy and the count of Vergennes 
 were called to power. Some weeks later, the obscure minister of 
 marine, M. de Boynes, made way for the superintendent of the 
 district (generalite) of Limoges, M. Turgot. 
 
 Intimately connected with the most esteemed magistrates and Turgot. 
 economists, such as MM. Trudaine, Quesnay, and Gournay, at the 
 same time that he was writing in the Encyclopedia, and constantly 
 occupied in useful work, Turgot was not yet five and thirty when 
 he was appointed superintendent of the district of Limoges. There, 
 the rare faculties of his mind and his sincere love of good found 
 their natural field ; the country was poor, crushed under imposts, 
 badly intersected by roads badly kept, inhabited by an ignorant 
 populace, violently hostile to the recruitment of the militia. He 
 
534 
 
 History of France. 
 
 His career 
 and views 
 of reform. 
 
 Maupeou 
 retires. 
 
 The Abbe 
 Terray 
 obliged to 
 refund. 
 
 encouraged agriculture, distributed the talliages more equitably, 
 amended the old roads and constructed new ones, abolished forced 
 labour (corvees), provided for the wants of the poor and wretched 
 during the dearth of 1770 and 1771, and declined, successively, 
 the superintendentship of Rouen, of Lyons, and of Bor- 
 deaux, in order that he might be able to complete the useful 
 tasks he had begun at Limoges. It was from that district that he 
 was called to a seat in the new cabinet. Scarcely had he been 
 installed in the department of marine, and begun to conceive vast 
 plans, when the late ministers of Louis XV. succumbed at last 
 beneath the popular hatred ; in the place of Abbe Terray, M. Turgot 
 became comptroller-general. 
 
 The old parliamentarians were triumphant ; at the same time as 
 Abbe Terray, Chancellor Maupeou was disgraced, and the judicial 
 system he had founded fell with him. Unpopular from the first, 
 the Maupeou Parliament had remained in the nation's eyes the 
 image of absolute power corrupted and corrupting. The suit 
 between Beaumarchais and Councillor Goezman had contributed to 
 decry it, thanks to the uproar the able pamphleteer had managed 
 to cause ; the families of the former magistrates were powerful, 
 numerous, esteemed, and they put pressure upon public opinion. 
 Imperturbable and haughty as ever, Maupeou retired to his estate 
 at Thuit, near the Andelys, where he drew up a justificatory 
 memorandum of his ministry, which he had put into the king's 
 hands, without ever attempting to enter the court or Paris again ; 
 he died in the country, at the outset of the revolutionary storms, 
 on the 29th of July, 1792, just as he had made the State a patriotic 
 present of 800,000 livres. At the moment when the populace 
 were burning him in effigy in the streets of Paris together with 
 Abbe Terray, when he saw the recall of the parliamentarians, and 
 the work of his whole life destroyed, he repeated with his usual 
 coolness : " If the king is pleased to lose his kingdom well, he 
 is master." 
 
 Abbe Terray had been less proud, and was more harshly treated. 
 It was in vain that he sought to dazzle the young king with ably 
 prepared memorials ; he had to refund nearly 900,000 livres to the 
 public treasury. Being recognized by the mob as he was passing 
 over the Seine in a ferry boat, he had some difficulty in escaping 
 from the hands of those who would have hurled him into the 
 river. 
 
 The contrast was great between the crafty and unscrupulous 
 ability of the disgraced comptroller-general and the complete 
 disinterestedness, large views, and noble desire of good which 
 
Turgofs financial schemes. 535 
 
 animated his successor. After his first interview with the king, at 
 Compiegne, M. Turgot wrote to Louis XVI. : " Your Majesty has Turgot's 
 been graciously pleased to permit me to place before your eyes the financial 
 engagement you took upon yourself, to support me in the execution 
 of plans of economy which are at all times, and now more than 
 ever, indispensable. I confine myself for the moment, sir, to 
 reminding you of these three expressions : 1 No bankruptcies ; 
 2 No augmentation of imposts ; 3 No loans." M. Turgot set 
 to work at once. Whilst governing his district of Limoges, he 
 had matured numerous plans and shaped extensive theories. He 
 belonged to his times and to the school of the philosophers as 
 regarded his contempt for tradition and history ; it was to natural 
 rights alone, to the innate and primitive requirements of mankind, 
 that he traced back his principles and referred as the basis for all 
 his attempts. " He desired no more to reform old France ; he 
 wanted a new France. Before ten years are over," he would say, 
 " the nation will not be recognizable, thanks to enlightenment. 
 This chaos will have assumed a distinct form. Your Majesty will 
 have quite a new people, and the first of peoples." A profound 
 error, which was that of the whole Eevolution, and the con- 
 sequences of which would have been immediately fatal, if the 
 powerful instinct of conservatism and of natural respect for the 
 past had not maintained between the regimen which was crumbling 
 away and the new fabric connexions more powerful and more 
 numerous than their friends as well as their enemies were 
 aware of. 
 
 Two fundamental principles regulated the financial system of He is sup- 
 M. Turgot, economy in expenditure and freedom in trade ; every- ported by 
 where he ferreted out abuses, abolishing useless offices and pay- 01US 
 ments, exacting from the entire administration that strict probity of 
 which he set the example. Louis XVI. supported him conscien- 
 tiously at that time in all his reforms ; the public made fun of it. 
 It was on account of his financial innovations that the comptroller- 
 general particularly dreaded the return of the old Parliament, with 
 which he saw himself threatened every day. " I fear opposition 
 from the Parliament," he said to the king. " Fear nothing," 
 replied the king warmly, " I will stand by you ; " and, passing 
 over the objections of the best politician amongst his ministers, he 
 yielded to M. de Maurepas, who yielded to public opinion. On 
 the 12th of November, 1774, the old Parliament was formally 
 restored, subjected, however, to the same jurisdiction which had 
 controlled the Maupeou Parliament. The latter had been sent to 
 Versailles to form a grand council there. The restored magistrates 
 
History of France. 
 
 The Par g rum bled at tne narrow limits imposed upon their authority ; the 
 liaments. duke of Orleans, the duke of Chartres, the prince of Conti sup- 
 ported their complaints ; it was in vain that the king for some time 
 met them with refusals ; threats soon gave place to concessions ; 
 and the parliaments everywhere reconstituted, enfeebled in the eyes 
 of public opinion, but more than ever obstinate and Fronde-like, 
 found themselves free to harass, without doing any good, the march 
 of an administration becoming every day more difficult. " Your 
 Parliament may make barricades," Lord Chesterfield had remarked 
 contemptuously to Montesquieu, "it will never raise barriers." 
 
 M. Turgot, meanwhile, was continuing his labours, preparing a 
 project for equitable redistribution of the talliage and his grand 
 The taxes, system of a graduated scale (hierarchie) of municipal assemblies, 
 commencing with the parish, to culminate in a general meeting of 
 delegates from each province ; he threatened, in the course of his 
 reforms, the privileges of the noblesse and of the clergy, and gave 
 his mind anxiously to the instruction of the people, whose condi- 
 tion and welfare he wanted to simultaneously elevate and augment; 
 already there was a buzz of murmurs against him, confined as yet 
 to the courtiers, when the dearness of bread and the distress which 
 ensued in the spring of 1775 furnished his adversaries with a 
 convenient pretext. Up to that time the attacks had been cautious 
 Keeker's and purely theoretical. M. Necker, an able banker from Geneva, 
 criticism. f or ft ^ on g w hil e settled in Paris, hand and glove with the philo- 
 sophers, and keeping up, moreover, a great establishment, had 
 brought to the comptroller-general a work which he had just 
 finished on the trade in grain ; on many points he did not share 
 M. Turgot's opinions. " Be kind enough to ascertain for yourself," 
 said the banker to the minister, "whether the book can be 
 published without inconvenience to the government." M. Turgot 
 was proud and sometimes rude : " Publish, sir, publish," said he, 
 without offering his hand to take the manuscript, " the public shall 
 decide." M. Necker, out of pique, published his book ; it had an 
 immense sale ; other pamphlets, more violent and less solid, had 
 already appeared ; at the same moment a riot, which seemed to 
 have been planned and to be under certain guidance, broke out in 
 riots. several parts of France. Drunken men shouted about the public 
 thoroughfares, " Bread ! cheap bread ! " 
 
 Serious damage was done throughout France to property, and 
 even to provisions; barns were burnt, farm-houses plundered, 
 wheat thrown in to the river, and sacks of flour ripped to pieces 
 before the king's eyes at Versailles. At last the troubles began to 
 subside, and the merchants recovered their spirits ; M. Turgot had 
 
Disturbances 537 
 
 at once sent fifty thousand francs to a trader whom the rioters had 
 robbed of a boat full of wheat which they had flung into the river ; 
 two of the insurgents were at the same time hanged at Paris on a 
 gallows forty feet high, and a notice was sent to the parish-priests, 
 which they were to read from the pulpit in order to enlighten the 
 people as to the folly of such outbreaks, and as to the conditions of 
 the trade in grain : " My people, when they know the authors of 
 the trouble, will regard them with horror," said the royal circular. Measures 
 The authors of the trouble have remained unknown ; to his last p^J^ 
 day, M. Turgot believed in the existence of a plot concocted by down. 
 the prince of Conti, with the design of overthrowing him. 
 
 Severities were hateful to the king; he had misjudged his own 
 character, when, at the outset of his reign, he had desired the 
 appellation of Louis le Severe. " Have we nothing to reproach 
 ourselves with in these measures 1 " he was incessantly asking 
 M. Turgot, who was as conscientious, but more resolute, than his 
 master. An amnesty preceded the coronation, which was to take 
 place at Rheims on the llth of June, 1775. 
 
 A grave question presented itself as regarded the king's oath : 
 should he swear, as the majority of his predecessors had sworn, to 
 exterminate heretics 1 M. Turgot had aroused Louis XYI.'s scruples 
 upon this subject : " Tolerance ought to appear expedient in point 
 of policy for even an infidel prince," he said ; " but it ought to be 
 regarded as a sacred duty for a religious prince." The clergy, 
 scared by the minister's liberal tendencies, reiterated their appeals 
 to the king against the liberties tacitly accorded to Protestants. 
 " Finish," they said to Louis XVI., " the work which Louis the 
 Great began, and which Louis the Well-beloved continued." The 
 king answered with vague assurances ; already MM. Turgot and 
 de Malesherbes were entertaining him with a project which 
 conceded to Protestants the civil status. 
 
 M. de Malesherbes, indeed, had been for some months past M. de Ma- 
 seconding his friend in the weighty task which the latter had lesherbes 
 undertaken. Called to the ministry in the place of the duke of c i a i re . 
 La Vrilliere, his first care was to protest against the sealed letters forms. 
 (lettres de cachet summary arrest), the application whereof he 
 was for putting in the hands of a special tribunal ; he visited the 
 Bastille, releasing the prisoners confined on simple suspicion. He 
 had already dared to advise the king to a convocation of the states- 
 general. 
 
 Almost the whole ministry was in the hands of reformers ; a 
 sincere desire to do good impelled the king towards those who 
 promised him the happiness of his people. The count de St. 
 
538 History of France. 
 
 Germain, who succeeded M. de Muy at the war-office, had conceived 
 a thousand projects of reform ; he wanted to apply them all at 
 once. He made no sort of case of the picked corps, and suppressed 
 the majority of them, thus irritating, likewise, all the privileged. 
 "M. de St. Germain," wrote Frederick II. to Voltaire, "had great 
 and noble plans very advantageous for your Welches ; but every- 
 body thwarted him, because the reforms he proposed would have 
 entailed a strictness which was repugnant to them on ten thousand 
 M. de sluggards, well frogged, well laced." The enthusiasm which had 
 nfainaifd been excited by the new minister of war had disappeared from 
 military amongst the officers ; he lost the hearts of the soldiers by wanting 
 reforms. to es t a -bii s h f n the army the corporal punishments in use amongst 
 the German armies in which he had served. The feeling was so 
 strong, that the attempt was abandoned. " In the matter of 
 sabres," said a grenadier, "I like only the edge." Violent and 
 weak both together, in spite of his real merit and his genuine worth, 
 often giving up wise resolutions out of sheer embarrassment, he 
 nearly always failed in what he undertook ; the outcries against the 
 reformers were increased thereby ; the faults of M. de St. Germain 
 were put down to M. Turgot. 
 
 The task which that energetic and well-meaning statesman had 
 
 undertaken was above his strength. Ever occupied with the public 
 
 weal, he turned his mind to every subject, issuing a multiplicity of 
 
 decrees, sometimes with rather chimerical hopes. He had proposed 
 
 to the king six edicts ; two were extremely important ; the first 
 
 Suppres- abolished jurorships (jurandes) and masterships (maitrises) among 
 
 sipn of the the workmen : " The king," said the preamble, " wishes to secure 
 
 anY^mai'- to a ^ ^ s subjects and especially to the humblest, to those who 
 
 trises." have no property but their labour and their industry, the full and 
 
 entire enjoyment of their rights, and to reform, consequently, the 
 
 institutions which strike at those rights, and which, in spite of 
 
 their antiquity, have failed to be legalized by time, opinion and 
 
 even the acts of authority." The second substituted for forced 
 
 labour on roads and highways an impost to which all proprietors 
 
 were equally liable. 
 
 This was the first step towards equal redistribution of taxes ; 
 great was the explosion of disquietude and wrath on the part of the 
 privileged ; it showed itself first in the council, by the mouth of 
 M. de Miromesnil ; Turgot sprang up with animation. " The 
 keeper of the seals," he said, " seems to adopt the principle that, 
 by the constitution of the State, the noblesse ought to be exempt 
 from all taxation. This idea will appear a paradox to the majority 
 of the nation. The commoners (roturiers) are certainly the 
 
Fall of Tiirgot and Maleskerbes. 539 
 
 greatest number, and we are no longer in the days when their voices 
 did not count." The king listened to the discussion in silence. 
 " Come," he exclaimed abruptly, " I see that there are only 
 M. Turgot and I here who love the people," and he signed 
 the edicts. 
 
 The comptroller-general was triumphant ; but his victory was Fall of M. 
 but the prelude to his fall. Too many enemies were leagued Turgot. 
 against him, irritated both by the noblest qualities of his character, 
 and at the same time by the natural defects of his manners. 
 Possessed of love "for a beautiful ideal, of a rage for perfection," 
 M. Turgot had wanted to attempt everything, undertake every- 
 thing, reform everything at one blow. He fought single-handed. 
 M. de Malesherbes, firm as a rock at the head of the Court of Aids, 
 supported as he was by the traditions and corporate feeling of the 
 magistracy, had shown weakness as a minister. The two friends 
 fell together. M. Turgot had espied the danger and sounded some 
 of the chasms just yawning beneath the feet of the nation as well 
 as of the king ; he committed the noble error of believing in the 
 instant and supreme influence of justice and reason. " Sir," said 
 he to Louis XVI., " you ought to govern, like God, by general 
 laws." Had he been longer in power, M. Turgot would still have 
 failed in his designs. The life of one man was too short, and the 
 hand of one man too weak, to modify the course of events, fruit 
 slowly ripened during so many centuries. It was to the honour of 
 M. Turgot that he discerned the mischief and would fain have 
 applied the proper remedy. He was often mistaken about the 
 means, oftener still about the strength he had at disposal. He had 
 the good fortune to die early, still sad and anxious about the fate 
 of his country, without having been a witness of the catastrophes 
 he had foreseen and of the sufferings as well as wreckage through 
 which France must pass before touching at the haven he would 
 fain have opened to her. 
 
 The joy of the courtiers was great, at Versailles, when the news Joy of the 
 arrived of M. Turgot's fall ; the public regretted it but little : the courtiers - 
 inflexible severity of his principles, which he never veiled by grace 
 of manners, a certain disquietude occasioned by the chimerical 
 views which were attributed to him, had alienated many people 
 from him. His real friends were in consternation. 
 
 A few months later M. de St. Germain retired in his turn, not to 
 Alsace again, but to the Arsenal with forty thousand livres for 
 pension. The first, the great attempt at reform had failed ; a vain 
 attempt had been made to establish the government on the soundest 
 as well as the most moderate principles of pure philosophy; at 
 
54 History of France. 
 
 home a new attempt, bolder and at the same time more practical, 
 was soon about to resuscitate for a while the hopes of liberal minds; 
 abroad and in a new world there was already a commencement of 
 events which were about to bring to France a revival of glory and 
 to shed on the reign of Louis XYI. a moment's legitimate and 
 brilliant lustre. 
 
 Foreign f^g Seven Years' "War was ended, shamefully and sadly for 
 
 TheAmeri- France ; M. de Choiseul, who had concluded peace with regret and 
 can War. a bitter pang, was ardently pursuing every means of taking his 
 revenge. To foment disturbances between England and her 
 colonies appeared to him an efficacious and a. natural way of grati- 
 fying his feelings. " There is great difficulty in governing States 
 in the days in which we live," he wrote to M. Durand, at that 
 time French minister in London; "still greater difficulty in 
 governing those of America ; and the difficulty approaches impos- 
 sibility as regards those of Asia. I am very much astonished that 
 England, which is but a very small spot in Europe, should hold 
 dominion over more than a third of America, and that her dominion 
 should have no other object but that of trade. ... As long as the 
 vast American possessions contribute no subsidies for the support 
 of the mother- country, private persons in England will still grow 
 rich for some time on the trade with America, but the State will be 
 undone for want of means to keep together a too extended power ; 
 if, on the contrary, England proposes to establish imposts in her 
 M. de Choi- American domains, when they are more extensive and perhaps more 
 seul wishes populous than the mother-country, when they have fishing, woods, 
 the S1 Ameri- navigation, corn, iron, they will easily part asunder from her, 
 cans. without any fear of chastisement, for England could not undertake 
 
 a war against them to chastise them." He encouraged his agents 
 to keep him informed as to the state of feeling in America, wel- 
 coming and studying all projects, even the most fantastic, that 
 might be hostile to England. 
 
 "When M. de Choiseul was thus writing to M. Durand, the 
 English government had already justified the fears of its wisest and 
 most sagacious friends. The disruption of the American colonies, 
 and the declaration of independence created in Europe, as may well 
 be supposed, the greatest excitement. Statesmen followed with 
 increasing interest the vicissitudes of a struggle which at a distance 
 had iroin the first appeared to the most experienced an unequal 
 one. " Let us not anticipate events, but content ourselves with 
 learning them when they occur," said a letter, in 1775, to M. de 
 Guines, ambassador in London, from Louis XVI.'s minister for 
 foreign affairs, M. de Vergennes : "I prefer to follow, as a quiet 
 
Division in the French cabinet. 541 
 
 observer, the course of events rather than try to produce them." 
 He had but lately said with prophetic anxiety : " Far from seeking 
 to profit by the embarrassment in which England finds herself on 
 account of affairs in America, we should rather desire to extricate 
 her. The spirit of revolt, in whatever spot it breaks out, is 
 always of dangerous precedent ; it is with moral as with physical 
 diseases, both may become contagious. This consideration should 
 induce us to take care that the spirit of independence, which is 
 causing so terrible an explosion in North America, have no 
 power to communicate itself to points interesting to us in this 
 hemisphere." 
 
 Independence was not yet proclaimed, and already the committee The 
 charged by Congress " to correspond with friends in England, Ire- a^* 11 ^ 
 land, and other parts of the world," had made inquiry of the French secure the 
 government, by roundabout ways, as to what were its intentions kelp of 
 regarding the American colonies, and was soliciting the aid of 
 France. On the 3rd of March, 1776, an agent of the committee, 
 Mr. Silas Deane, started for France ; he had orders to put the same 
 question point blank at Versailles and at Paris. 
 
 The ministry was divided on the subject of American affairs ; 
 M. Turgot inclined towards neutrality. " Let us leave the insur- 
 gents," he said, " at full liberty to make their purchases in our ports 
 and to provide themselves by the way of trade with the munitions, 
 and even the money, of which they have need. A refusal to sell 
 to them would be a departure from neutrality. But it would be a 
 departure likewise to furnish them with secret aid in money, and 
 this step, which it would be difficult to conceal, would excite just 
 complaints on the part of the English." 
 
 This was, however, the conduct adopted on the advice of M. de 
 Vergennes ; he had been powerfully supported by the arguments 
 presented in a memorandum drawn up by M. de Rayneval, senior 
 clerk in the foreign office ; he was himself urged and incited by the 
 most intelligent, the most restless and the most passionate amongst Secret 
 the partisans of the American rebellion Beaumarchais. The transac- 
 versatile author of " Le manage de Figaro " had for a long while t j e j-ren^h 
 been pleading the cause of the colonies, sure, he said, of its ultimate foreign 
 triumph. On the 10th of January, 1776, three weeks before the office ' 
 declaration of independence, M. de Vergennes secretly remitted a 
 million to M. de Beaumarchais ; two months later the same sum 
 was entrusted to him in the name of the king of Spain. Beau- 
 marchais alone was to appear in the affair and to supply the insur- 
 gent Americans with arms and ammunition. " You will found," he 
 had been told, " a great commercial house, and you will try to 
 
54 2 History of France. 
 
 draw into it the money of private individuals ; the first outlay be- 
 ing now provided, we shall have no further hand in it, the affair 
 would compromise the government too much in the eyes of the 
 English." It was under the style and title of Rodrigo Hortalez 
 and Co. that the first instalment of supplies, to the extent of more 
 M. de Ver- than three millions, was forwarded to the Americans ; and, not- 
 and^ean- withstanding the hesitation of the ministry and the rage of the 
 marchais. English, other instalments soon followed. Beaumarchais was 
 henceforth personally interested in the enterprise; he had com- 
 menced it from zeal for the American cause and from that yearning 
 for activity and initiative which characterized him even in old age. 
 " I should never have succeeded in fulfilling my mission here with- 
 out the indefatigable, intelligent and generous efforts of M. de 
 Beaumarchais," wrote Silas Deane to the secret committee of Con- 
 gress : " the United States are more indebted to him, on every 
 account, than to any other person on this side of the Ocean." 
 
 The hereditary sentiments of Louis XVI. and his monarchical 
 principles, as well as the prudent moderation of M. Turgot, retarded 
 at Paris the negotiations which caused so much ill-humour among 
 the English, and which Silas Deane and Franklin were endeavour- 
 ing to bring to a satisfactory issue ; M. de Vergennes still preserved, 
 in all diplomatic relations, an apparent neutrality. "It is my line 
 (metier), you see, to be a royalist," the Emperor Joseph II. had 
 said during a visit he had just paid to Paris, when he was pressed 
 to declare in favour of the American insurgents ; at the bottom of 
 his heart the king of France was of the same opinion ; he had 
 refused the permission to serve in America which he had been 
 asked for by many gentlemen : some had set off without waiting for 
 it ; the most important as well as the most illustrious of them all, 
 La Fayette the marquis of La Fayette, was not twenty years old when he slipped 
 inAmerica. awav f r0 m Paris, leaving behind his young wife close to her con- 
 finement, to go and embark upon a vessel which he had bought, 
 and which, laden with arms, awaited him in a Spanish port ; 
 arrested by order of the court, he evaded the vigilance of his guards ; 
 in the month of July, 1777, he disembarked in America. 
 
 Washington did not like France, he did not share the hopes 
 
 which some of his fellow-countrymen founded upon her aid ; he 
 
 made no case of the young volunteers who came to enrol themselves 
 
 amongst the defenders of independence and whom Congress loaded 
 
 Washing- with favours. " No bond but interest attaches these men to 
 
 ton's feel- America," he would say, " and, as* for France, she only lets us get 
 
 wards" our mun itions from her because of the benefit her commerce derives 
 
 France. from it." Prudent, reserved, and proud, Washington looked for 
 
Declaration of war. 543 
 
 America's salvation to only America herself; neither had he fore- 
 seen, nor did he understand that enthusiasm, as generous as it is 
 unreflecting, which easily takes possession of the French nation, and 
 of which the United States were just then the object. M. de La 
 Fayette was the first who managed to win the general's affection Washing- 
 and esteem. A great yearning for excitement and renown, a great ton and L 
 zeal for new ideas and a certain political perspicacity had impelled 
 M. de La Fayette to America ; he showed himself courageous, 
 devoted, more judicious and more able than had been expected 
 from his youth and character. Washington came to love him as 
 a son. The great and strong common-sense of the American general 
 had enlightened him as to the conditions of the contest he had 
 entered upon. He knew it was a desperate one, he foresaw that it 
 would be a long one ; better than anybody he knew the weaknesses 
 as well as the merits of the instruments which he had at disposal, 
 he had learned to desire the alliance and the aid of France. She 
 did not belie his hopes ; at the very moment when Congress was 
 refusing to enter into negotiations with Great Britain as long as a 
 single English soldier remained on American soil, rejoicings and 
 thanksgivings were everywhere throughout the thirteen colonies 
 greeting the news of the recognition by France of the Independence 
 of the United States ; the treaties of alliance, a triumph of diplo- 
 matic ability on the part of Franklin, had been signed at Paris on 
 the 6th of February, 1778. 
 
 " Assure the English government of the king's pacific intentions," 
 M. de Vergennes had written to the marquis of Noailles, then 
 French ambassador in England. George III. replied to these mock- 
 ing assurances by recalling his ambassador. 
 
 "Anticipate your enemies," Franklin had said to the ministers of George III 
 Louis XVI., "act towards them as they did to you in 1755, let recalls his 
 your ships put to sea before any declaration of war, it will be time 
 to speak when a French squadron bars the passage of Admiral 
 Howe, who has ventured to ascend the Delaware." The king's 
 natural straightforwardness and timidity were equally opposed to 
 this bold project ; he hesitated a long while ; when Count d'Estaing 
 at last, on the 13th of April, went out of Toulon harbour to sail 
 for America with his squadron, it was too late, the English were on 
 their guard. 
 
 When the French admiral arrived in America, hostilities had 
 commenced between France and England, without declaration of -^ar de- 
 war, by the natural pressure of circumstances and the state of feel- dared. 
 ing in the two countries. England fired the first shot on the 17th 
 of June, 1778. 
 
544 
 
 History of France. 
 
 proved. 
 
 TheFrench. From the day when the duke of Choiseul had been forced to sign 
 navy im- the humiliating treaty of 1763, he had never relaxed in his efforts 
 to improve the French navy. In the course of ministerial alterna- 
 tions, frequently unfortunate for the work in hand, it had neverthe- 
 less been continued by his successors. Counts d'Estaing and 
 d'Orvilliers nobly maintained the honour of the fleur-de-lys against 
 men such as admiral Howe and Lord Keppel ; in England the com- 
 motion was great at the news that France and America in arms 
 against her had just been joined by Spain. A government essen- 
 tially monarchical, faithful to ancient traditions, the Spaniards had 
 for a long while resisted the entreaties of M. de Yergennes, who 
 availed himself of the stipulations of the Family pact. Charles III. 
 felt no sort of sympathy for a nascent republic, he feared the con- 
 tagion of the example it showed to the Spanish colonies, he hesi- 
 tated to plunge into the expenses of a war. His hereditary hatred 
 against England prevailed at last over the dictates of prudence. He 
 was promised, moreover, the assistance of France to reconquer 
 Gibraltar and Minorca. The king of Spain consented to take part 
 in the war, without however recognizing the independence of the 
 United States or entering into alliance with them. 
 
 The situation of England was becoming serious, she believed 
 herself to be threatened with a terrible invasion. As in the days 
 of the Great Armada, " orders were given to all functionaries, civil 
 and military, in case of a descent of the enemy, to see to the trans- 
 portation into the interior and into a place of safety of all horses, 
 cattle and flocks that might happen to be on the coasts." " Sixty- 
 six allied ships of the line ploughed the Channel, fifty thousand 
 men, mustered in Normandy, were preparing to burst upon the 
 southern counties. A simple American corsair, Paul Jones, ravaged 
 with impunity the coasts of Scotland. The powers of the North, 
 united with Russia and Holland, threatened to maintain, with arms in 
 hand, the rights of neutrals, ignored by the English admiralty- 
 courts. Ireland awaited only the signal to revolt ; religious 
 quarrels were distracting Scotland and England ; the authority of 
 Lord North's cabinet was shaken in Parliament as well as 
 throughout the country, the passions of the mob held sway in 
 London, and amongst the sights that might have been witnessed 
 was that of this great city given up for nearly a week to the popu- 
 lace, without anything that could stay its- excesses save its own 
 lassitude and its own feeling of shame" [M. Cornelis de Witt, 
 Histoire de Washington]. 
 
 So many and such imposing preparations were destined to pro- 
 iuce but little fruit ; everywhere the strength of the belligerents 
 
 Situation 
 of Eng- 
 land. 
 
The American War. 545 
 
 was being exhausted without substantial result and without honour; 
 for more than four years now America had been keeping up the 
 war, and her Southern provinces had been everywhere laid waste 
 by the enemy ; in spite of the heroism which was displayed by the 
 patriots and of which the women themselves set the example, General 
 Lincoln had just been forced to capitulate at Charlestown ; Wash- 
 ington, still encamped before Xew York, saw his army decimated by ^^ O f 
 hunger and cold, deprived of all resources, and reduced to subsist Charles- 
 at the expense of the people in the neighbourhood. All eyes town ' 
 were turned towards France; the marquis of La Fayette had 
 succeeded in obtaining from the king and the French ministry 
 the formation of an auxiliary corps ; the troops were already on 
 their way under the orders of Count de Eochambeau. 
 
 Misfortune and disappointments are great destroyers of some bar- 
 riers, prudent tact can overthrow others ; Washington and the 
 American army would but lately have seen with suspicion the 
 arrival of foreign auxiliaries ; in 1780, transports of joy greeted the 
 news of their approach ; M. de La Fayette, moreover, had been 
 careful to spare the American general all painful friction. Count 
 de Eochambeau and the French officers were placed under the 
 orders of Washington, and the auxiliary corps entirely at his dis- 
 .posal. The delicate generosity and the disinterestedness of the 
 French government had sometimes had the effect of making it 
 neglect the national interests in its relations with the revolted 
 colonies ; but it had derived therefrom a spirit of conduct invari- 
 ably calculated to triumph over the prejudices, as well as the jealous 
 pride of the Americans. 
 
 " The history of the War of Independence is a history of hopes The 
 deceived," said Washington. He had conceived the idea of making Frencl1 in 
 himself master of New York with the aid of the French. The 
 transport of the troops had been badly calculated ; Eochambeau 
 brought to Ehode Island only the first division of his army, five 
 thousand men about, and Count de Guichen, whose squadron had 
 been relied upon, had just been recalled to France. Washington 
 was condemned to inaction. " Our position is not sufficiently bril- 
 liant," he wrote to M. de La Fayette, " to justify our putting pres- 
 sure upon Count de Eochambeau ; I shall continue our arrange- 
 ments, however, in the hope of more fortunate circumstances." 
 The American army was slow in getting organized, obliged as it had 
 been to fight incessantly and make head against constantly recur- 
 ring difficulties ; it was getting organized, however ; the example 
 of the French, the discipline which prevailed in the auxiliary corps, 
 the good understanding thenceforth established amongst the 
 
546 History of France. 
 
 officers, helped Washington in his difficult task. From the first 
 the superiority of the general was admitted by the French as well 
 as by the Americans ; naturally and by the mere fact of the gifts 
 he had received from God, Washington was always and everywhere 
 chief of the men placed within his range and under his influence. 
 
 After many and painful efforts, the day of triumph was at last 
 dawning upon General Washington and his country. Alternations 
 of success and reverse had signalized the commencement of the 
 Campaign campaign of 1781. Lord Cornwallis, who commanded the English 
 of 1781. armies in the South, was occupying Virginia with a considerable 
 force, when Washington, who had managed to conceal his designs 
 from Sir Henry Clinton, shut up in New York, crossed Phila- 
 delphia on the 4th of September and advanced by forced marches 
 against the enemy. The latter had been for some time past harassed 
 by the little army of M. de La Fayette. The fleet of Admiral de 
 Grasse cut off the retreat of the English. Lord Cornwallis threw 
 himself into Yorktown ; on the 30th of September the place was 
 invested, and on the 17th October it capitulated. 
 
 Whilst the United States were celebrating their victory with 
 thanksgivings and public festivities, their allies were triumphing 
 at all the different points, simultaneously, at which hostilities had 
 been entered upon. Becoming embroiled with Holland, where the 
 republican party had prevailed against the stadtholder, who was 
 devoted to them, the English had waged war upon the Dutch 
 The Eng- colonies. Admiral Rodney had taken St. Eustache, the centre of 
 the Dutch an i mmense trade; he had pillaged the warehouses and laden his 
 vessels with an enormous mass of merchandise ; the convoy which 
 was conveying a part of the spoil to England was captured by 
 Admiral La Motte-Piquet ; M. de Bouille surprised the English 
 garrison remaining at St. Eustache and recovered possession of the 
 island, which was restored to the Dutch. They had just main- 
 tained gloriously, at Dogger Bank, their old maritime renown : 
 " Officers and men all fought like lions," said Admiral Zouttman. 
 The firing had not commenced until the two fleets were within 
 pistol-shot. The ships on both sides were dismasted, scarcely in 
 a condition to keep afloat ; the glory and the losses were equal, 
 but the English admiral, Hyde Parker, was irritated and displeased ; 
 George III. went to see him on board his vessel: "I wish your 
 Majesty younger seamen and better ships," said the old sailor, and 
 he insisted on resigning. This was the only action fought by the 
 Dutch during the war ; they left to Admiral de Kersaint the job 
 of recovering from the English their colonies of Demerara, Esse- 
 quibo and Berbice on the coasts of Guiana. A small Franco- 
 
The French in India. 547 
 
 Spanish army was at the same time besieging Minorca ; the fleet 
 was considerable, the English were ill-prepared ; they were soon 
 obliged to shut themselves up in Fort St. Philip, and, finally, to 
 surrender (February 4th, 1782). 
 
 As early as 1778, even before the maritime war had burst out in TheFrench 
 Europe, France had lost all that remained of her possessions on 1D 
 the Coromandel coast. Pondicherry, scarcely risen from its ruins, 
 was besieged by the English, and had capitulated on the 17th of 
 October, after a heroic resistance of forty days' open trenches. 
 Since that day a Mussulman, Hyder Ali, conqueror of the Car- 
 natic, had struggled alone in India against the power of England : 
 it was around him that a group had been formed by the old 
 soldiers of Bussy, and by the French who had escaped from the 
 disaster of Pondicherry. It was with their aid that the able 
 robber-chief, the crafty politician, had defended and consolidated 
 the empire he had founded against that foreign dominion which 
 threatened the independence of his country. He had just suffered 
 a series of reverses, and he was on the point of being forced to 
 evacuate the Carnatic, and take refuge in his kingdom of Mysore 
 when he heard, in the month of July, 1782, of the arrival of a 
 French fleet commanded by M. de Suffren. Hyder Ali had already Suffren 
 been many times disappointed. The preceding year Admiral d'Orves 
 had appeared on the Coromandel coast with a squadron, the Sultan 
 had sent to meet him, urging him to land and attack Madras, left 
 defenceless ; the admiral refused to risk a single vessel or land a 
 single man, and he returned, without striking a blow, to lle-de- 
 France. Ever indomitable and enterprising, Hyder Ali hoped 
 better things of the new corners : he was not deceived. Six 
 months, however, had scarcely elapsed when he died, leaving to 
 his son Tippoo Sahib affairs embroiled and allies enfeebled. At 
 this news the Mahrattas, in revolt against England, hastened to 
 make peace, and Tippoo Sahib, who had just seized Tanjore, was 
 obliged to abandon his conquest, and go to the protection of Mala- 
 bar. Ten thousand men, only, remained in the Carnatic to back 
 the little corps of French ; these had resumed the offensive and 
 were preparing to make fresh sallies, when it was known at Cal- 
 cutta that the preliminaries of peace had been signed at Paris on 
 the 9th of February. The English immediately proposed an armis- 
 tice. The Surveillante shortly afterwards brought the same news, 
 with orders for Suffren to return to France. India was definitively 
 given up to the English, who restored to the French Pondicherry, 
 Chandernugger, Mahe and Karikal, the last strips remaining of 
 that French dominion which had for a while been triumphant 
 
 N N 2 
 
548 
 
 History of France. 
 
 throughout the Peninsula. The feebleness and the vices of Louis 
 XV. 's government weighed heavily upon the government of Louis 
 XVI. in India as well as in France, and at Paris itself. 
 
 Reception It is to the honour of mankind and their consolation under 
 of M. de great reverses that political checks and the inutility of their efforts 
 
 Versailles. do not obscure the glory of great men. M. de Suffren had just 
 arrived at Paris, he was in low spirits ; M. de Castries took him 
 to Versailles. There was a numerous and brilliant court. On 
 entering the guards' hall, " Gentlemen," said the minister to the 
 officers on duty, "this is M. de Suffren." Everybody rose, and 
 the bodyguards, forming an escort for the admiral, accompanied 
 him to the king's chamber. His career was over ; the last of the 
 great sailors of the ancien regime died on the 8th of December, 1788. 
 Whilst Hyder Ali and M. de Suffren were still disputing India 
 with England, that power had just gained in Europe an important 
 advantage in the eyes of public opinion as well as in respect of 
 her supremacy at sea ; we allude to the town and fortress of Gib- 
 raltar which, after being invested by the Franco-Spanish army for 
 a considerable time, was relieved and revictualled by Lord Howe in 
 1782. 
 
 Peace was at hand, however : all the belligerents were tired of 
 the strife, the marquis of Buckingham was dead ; his ministry, 
 after being broken up, had re-formed with less lustre under the 
 leadership of Lord Shelburne ; William Pitt, Lord Chatham's 
 second son, at that time twenty-two years of age, had a sea,t in 
 the cabinet. Already negotiations for a general peace had begun 
 at Paris, but Washington, who eagerly desired the end of the war, 
 did not yet feel any confidence. On the 5th of December, at the 
 opening of Parliament, George III. announced in the speech from 
 the throne that he had offered to recognize the independence of 
 the American colonies. " In thus admitting their separation from 
 the crown of this kingdom, I have sacrificed all my desires to the 
 wishes and opinion of my people," said the king. " I humbly 
 pray Almighty God that Great Britain may not feel the evils 
 which may flow from so important a dismemberment of its empire, 
 and that America may be a stranger to the calamities which have 
 before now proved to the mother-country that monarchy is in- 
 separable from the benefits of constitutional liberty. Religion, 
 language, interests, affections may still form a bond of union be- 
 tween the two countries, and I will spare no pains or attention to 
 promote it." "I was the last man in England to consent to the 
 independence of America," said the king to John Adams, who was 
 the first to represent the new republic at the Court of St. James's ; 
 
 Negocia- 
 tious for 
 peace. 
 
France after the American war. 549 
 
 " I will now be the last in the world to sanction any violation of 
 it." Honest and sincere in his concessions as he had been in his 
 persistent obstinacy, the king supported his ministers against the 
 violent attacks made upon them in Parliament. The prelimi- 
 naries of general peace had been signed at Paris on the 20th of 
 January, 1783. 
 
 To the exchange of conquests between France and England was its results 
 added the cession to France of the island of Tobago and of the for France. 
 Senegal river with its dependencies. The territory of Pondicherry 
 and Karikal received some augmentation. For the first time for 
 more than a hundred years the English renounced the humiliating 
 conditions so often demanded on the subject of the harbour of 
 Dunkerqtie. Spain saw herself confirmed in her conquest of the 
 Floridas and of the island of Minorca. Holland recovered all her 
 possessions, except Negapatam. 
 
 France came out exhausted from the struggle, but relieved in her 
 own eyes as well as those of Europe from the humiliation inflicted 
 upon her by the disastrous Seven Years' War, and by the treaty of 
 1763. She saw triumphant the cause she had upheld, and her 
 enemies sorrow-stricken at the dismemberment they had suffered. 
 It was a triumph for her arms and for the generous impulse which 
 had prompted her to support a legitimate but for a long while 
 doubtful enterprise. A fresh element, however, had come to add 
 itself to the germs of disturbance, already so fruitful, which were 
 hatching within her. She had promoted the foundation of a 
 Eepublic based upon principles of absolute right, the government 
 had given way to the ardent sympathy of the nation for a people 
 emancipated from a long yoke by its deliberate will and its indo- longing 
 mitable energy. France felt her heart still palpitating from the freedom. 
 efforts she had witnessed and shared on behalf of American free- 
 dom ; the unreflecting hopes of a blind emulation were already 
 agitating many a mind. "In all states," said Washington, " there 
 are inflammable materials which a single spark may kindle." In 
 1783, on the morrow of the American war, the inflammable mate- 
 rials everywhere accumulated in France were already providing 
 means for that immense conflagration in the midst of which the 
 country well-nigh perished. 
 
 After a few inefficient and useless ministers, Necker had been 
 called to the important post so ably filled by Turgot. Public 
 opinion was favourable to him, his promotion was well received 
 it presented, however, great difficulties : he had been a banker, 
 and hitherto the comptrollers-general had all belonged to the 
 class of magistrates or superintendents; he was a Protestant, 
 
55<D History of France. 
 
 and, as such, could not hold any office. The clergy were in com- 
 motion ; they tried certain remonstrances. " We will give him up 
 to you," said M. de Maurepas, " if you undertake to pay the debts 
 of the State." The opposition of the Church, however, closed to 
 the new minister an important opening ; at first director of the 
 treasury, then director-general of finance, M. decker never received 
 the title of comptroller- general, and was not admitted to the 
 council. From the outset, with a disinterestedness not devoid of 
 ostentation, he had declined the salary attached to his functions. 
 The courtiers looked at one another in astonishment : " It is easy 
 to see that he is a foreigner, a republican and a Protestant," people 
 said. M. de Maurepas laughed : " M. Necker," he declared, " is a 
 maker of gold ; he has introduced the philosopher's stone into the 
 kingdom." 
 
 Necker at This was for a while the feeling throughout France. " No 
 of affairs bankruptcies, no new imposts, no loans," M. Turgot had said, and 
 had looked to economy alone for the resources necessary to restore 
 the finances. Bolder and less scrupulous, M. Necker, who had no 
 idea of having recourse to either bankruptcy or imposts, made 
 unreserved use of the system of loans. During the five years that 
 his ministry lasted, the successive loans he contracted amounted to 
 nearly 500 million livres. There was no security given to insure 
 its repayment to the lenders. The mere confidence felt in the 
 minister's ability and honesty had caused the money to flow into 
 the treasury. 
 
 M. Necker did not stop there : a foreigner by birth, he felt no 
 respect for the great tradition of French administration ; practised 
 in the handling of funds, he had conceived as to the internal 
 His finan- government of the finances theories opposed to the old system; the 
 cial plans, superintendents established a while ago by Richelieu had become 
 powerful in the central administration as well as in the provinces, 
 and the comptroller-general was in the habit of accounting with 
 them ; they nearly all belonged to old and notable families ; some 
 of them had won the public regard and esteem. The new 
 minister suppressed several offices and diminished the importance 
 of some others ; the treasurers-general, numbering forty-eight, were 
 reduced to a dozen, and the twenty-seven treasurers of the navy and 
 of war to two ; the farmings-general (of taxes) were renewed with an 
 advantage to the treasury of fifteen millions. The posts at court 
 likewise underwent reform : the courtiers saw at one blow the 
 improper sources of their revenues in the financial administration 
 cut off, and obsolete and ridiculous appointments, to which 
 numerous pensions were attached, reduced. Their discontent was 
 
M. Necker and the " Compte Rendu? 5 5 1 
 
 becoming every day more noisy, without as yet shaking the credit 
 of M. Necker. He thought the moment had come for giving 
 public opinion the summons of which he recognized the necessity ; 
 he felt himself shaken at court, weakened in the regard of M. de 
 Maurepas, who was still powerful in spite of his great age and 
 jealous of him as he had been of M. Turgot; he had made up his 
 mind, he said, to let the nation know how its affairs had been A - 
 managed, and in the early days of the year 1781 he published his <jompte 
 Compte rendu au roL Bendu." 
 
 It was a bold innovation ; hitherto the administration of the 
 finances had been carefully concealed from the eyes of the public 
 as the greatest secret in the affairs of State ; for the first time the 
 nation was called upon to take cognizance of the position of the 
 public estate and, consequently, pass judgment upon its adminis- 
 tration. The very reforms brought about by the minister rendered 
 his fall more imminent every day. He had driven into coalition His down- 
 against him the powerful influences of the courtiers, of the old f* 11 - ** e ~ 
 families whose hereditary destination was office in the administra- jj a e ca- 
 tion, and of the Parliament everywhere irritated and anxious. He lonne. 
 had lessened the fortunes and position of the two former classes, 
 and his measures tended to strip the magistracy of the authority 
 whereof they were so jealous ; obliged finally to send in his 
 resignation (1781), he was replaced by M. de Calonne. 
 
 It was court-influence that carried the day and, in the court, that 
 of the queen, prompted by her favourite, Madame de Polignac. 
 Tenderly attached to his wife, who had at last given him a son, 
 Louis XVI., delivered from the predominant influence of M. de 
 Maurepas, was yielding, almost unconsciously, to a new power. 
 Marie Antoinette, who had long held aloof from politics, henceforth Tn qneen 
 changed her part ; at the instigation of the friends whom she Antoinette, 
 honoured with a perhaps excessive intimacy, she began to take an 
 important share in affairs, a share which was often exaggerated by 
 public opinion, more and more hard upon her every day. 
 
 Received on her arrival in France with some mistrust, of which 
 she had managed to get the better amongst the public, having been 
 loved and admired as long as she was dauphiness, the young queen, 
 after her long period of constraint in the royal family, had soon 
 profited by her freedom ; she had a horror of etiquette, to which 
 the court of Austria had not made her accustomed, she gladly 
 escaped from the grand palaces of Louis XIV., where the traditions 
 of his reign seemed still to exercise a secret influence, in order to 
 seek at her little manor-house of Trianon new amusements and 
 rustic pleasures, innocent and simple, and attended with no other 
 
552 
 
 History of France. 
 
 The royal 
 family of 
 Prance. 
 
 inconvenience but the air of cliquedom and almost of mystery in 
 which the queen's guests enveloped themselves. 
 
 In the home-circle of the royal family, the queen had not found 
 any intimate friend : the king's aunts had never taken to her ; the 
 crafty ability of the count of Provence and the giddiness of the count 
 of Artois seemed in the prudent eye of Maria Theresa to be equally 
 dangerous ; Madame Elizabeth, the heroic and pious companion of 
 the evil days, was still a mere child j already the duke of Chartres, 
 irreligious and debauched, displayed towards the queen who kept 
 him at a distance symptoms of a bitter rancour which was destined 
 to bear fruit; Marie Antoinette, accustomed to a numerous family, 
 affectionately united, sought friends who could "love her for 
 herself," as she used to say. An illusive hope, in one of her rank, 
 for which she was destined to pay dearly. She formed an attach- 
 ment to the young princess of Lamballe, daughter-in-law of the 
 duke of Penthievre, a widow at twenty years of age, affectionate 
 and gentle, for whom she revived the post of lady-superintendent, 
 abolished by Mary Leczinska. The court was in commotion, and 
 the public murmured ; the queen paid no heed, absorbed as she was 
 in the new delights of friendship ; the intimacy, in which there 
 was scarcely any inequality, with the princess of Lamballe, was 
 soon followed by a more perilous affection ; the countess Jules de 
 Polignac, who was generally detained in the country by the narrow- 
 ness of her means, appeared at court on the occasion of a festival ; 
 the queen was pleased with her, made her remain and loaded 
 her and her family, not only with favours but with unbounded 
 and excessive familiarity. Finding the court-circles a constraint 
 and an annoyance, Marie Antoinette became accustomed to seek in 
 Madame de ^ e drawing-room of Madame de Polignac amusements and a 
 Polignac. freedom which led before long to sinister gossip. Those who were 
 admitted to this royal intimacy were not always prudent or 
 discreet, they abused the confidence as well as the generous kind- 
 ness of the queen ; their ambition and their cupidity were equally 
 concerned in urging Marie Antoinette to take in the government a 
 part for which she was not naturally inclined. M. de Calonne was 
 intimate with Madame de Polignac ; she, created a duchess and 
 appointed governess to the children of France (the royal children), 
 was all-powerful with her friend the queen ; she dwelt upon the 
 talents of M. de Calonne, the extent and fertility of his resources ; 
 M. de Vergennes was won over, and the office of comptroller- 
 general, which had but lately been still discharged with lustre by 
 M. Turgot and M. Necker, fell on the 30th of October, 1784, into 
 the hands of M. de Calonne. 
 
M. de Calonnc. 553 
 
 Discredited from the very first by a dishonourable action, he had 
 invariably managed to get his vices forgotten, thanks to the charms 
 of a brilliant and fertile wit. Prodigal and irregular as superin- 
 tendent of Lille, he imported into the comptroller-generalship 
 habits and ideas opposed to all the principles of Louis XVI. 
 " The reputation of M. de Calonne," says M. Necker in his 
 memoires, " was a contrast to the morality of Louis XVI., and I J 1 * d 
 know not by what argumentation, by what ascendancy such a financial 
 prince was induced to give a place in his council to a magistrate v i e ^ s< 
 who was certainly found agreeable in the most elegant society of 
 Paris but whose levity and principles were dreaded by the whole 
 of France. Money was lavished, largesses were multiplied, there 
 was no declining to be goodnatured or complaisant, economy was 
 made the object of ridicule, it was daringly asserted that immensity 
 of expenditure, animating circulation, was the true principle of 
 credit." 
 
 If the first steps of M. de Calonne dismayed men of foresight 
 and of experience in affairs, the public was charmed with them, no 
 less than the courtiers. The bail des fermes was re-established, the 
 Caisse d'escompte had resumed payment, the stock-holders (rentiers) 
 received their quarters' arrears, the loan whereby the comptroller- 
 general met all expenses had reached 1 1 per cent. " A man who 
 wants to borrow," M. de Calonne would say, " must appear rich, 
 and to appear rich he must dazzle by his expenditure. Act we 
 thus in the public administration. Economy is good for nothing, 
 it warns those who have money not to lend it to an indebted 
 Treasury, and it causes decay amongst the arts which prodigality 
 vivifies." 
 
 The captivation was general, the blindness seemed to Toe so Excite- 
 likewise ; a feverish impulse carried people away into all new- France 1 
 fangled ways, serious or frivolous. Mesmer brought from Germany 
 his mysterious revelations in respect of problems as yet unsolved 
 by science, and pretended to cure all diseases around the magnetic 
 battery ; the adventurer Cagliostro, embellished with the title of 
 count and lavishing gold by handfuls, bewitched court and city. 
 At the same time splendid works in the most diverse directions 
 maintained at the topmost place in the world that scientific genius 
 of France which the great minds of the seventeenth century had 
 revealed to Europe. The ladies of fashion crowded to the brilliant 
 lectures of Fourcroy. The princes of pure science, M. de Lagrange, science 
 M. de Laplace, M. Monge, did not disdain to wrench themselves 
 from their learned calculations in order to second the useful labours 
 of Lavoisier. Bold voyagers were scouring the world, pioneers of 
 
554 History of France. 
 
 those enterprises of discovery which had appeared for a while 
 abandoned during the seventeenth century. M. de Bougainville 
 coveries ^ad J us * com pl e ted the round of the world, and the English 
 captain, Cook, during the war which covered all seas with hostile 
 ships, had been protected by generous sympathy. The name of 
 another distinguished sailor, M. de La Peyrouse, must not be 
 forgotten ; nor should we leave unnoticed the first attempts in 
 aerial locomotion made by MM. de Montgolfier and Pilatre de 
 Eozier. 
 
 So many scientific explorations, so many new discoveries of 
 nature's secrets were seconded and celebrated by an analogous 
 movement in literature. Rousseau had led the way to impassioned 
 admiration of the beauties of nature ; Bernardin de St. Pierre had 
 just published his Etudes de la, Nature ; he had in the press his 
 Paul et Virginie ; the Abbe Delille was reading his Jardin, and M. 
 Literature, de St. Lambert his Saisons. In their different phases and according 
 to their special instincts, all minds, scholarly or political, literary or 
 philosophical, were tending to the same end and pursuing the same 
 attempt. It was nature which men wanted to discover or recover : 
 scientific laws and natural rights divided men's souls between 
 them. Buffon was still alive, and the great sailors were every day 
 enriching with their discoveries the Jardin du Eoi ; the physicists 
 and the chemists, in the wake of Lavoisier, were giving to science 
 a language intelligible to common folks ; the juris-consults were 
 attempting to reform the rigours of criminal legislation at the same 
 time with the abuses they had entailed, and Beaumarchais was 
 bringing on the boards his Mariage de Figaro. 
 
 Figaro ridiculed everything with a dangerously pungent vigour ; 
 
 the days were coming when the pleasantry was to change into 
 
 insults. Already public opinion was becoming hostile to the 
 
 queen : she was accused of having remained devoted to the interests 
 
 of her German family ; the people were beginning to call her the 
 
 The queen Austrian. This direful malevolence on the part of public opinion, 
 
 unpopular, springing from a few acts of imprudence, and fomented by a long 
 
 diamond series of calumnies, burst forth on the occasion of a scandalous and 
 
 necklace, grievous occurrence ; we mean the affair of the diamond necklace, 
 
 which led to the arrest of the cardinal de Rohan. 
 
 Guilty in the king's eyes, a dupe according to the judgment of 
 history, Cardinal Rohan was exiled to his abbey of Chaise-Dieu, 
 less to be pitied than the unhappy queen abruptly wrenched from 
 the sweet dreams of a romantic friendship and confidence, as well 
 as from the nascent joys of maternal happiness, to find herself 
 henceforth confronting a deluded people and an ever-increasing 
 
The Notables and the Parliament. 555 
 
 hostility which was destined to unjustly persecute her even to the 
 block. 
 
 M. de Calonne had taken little part in the excitement which the Convoca- 
 trial of Cardinal Eohan caused in court and city : he was absorbed no tables 
 by the incessantly recurring difficulties presented by the condition Downfall 
 of the Treasury ; speculation had extended to all classes of society ; 
 loans succeeded loans, everywhere there were formed financial com- 
 panies, without any resources to speak of, speculating on credit. 
 Parliament began to be alarmed, and enregistered no more credits 
 save with repugnance. In view of the stress at the Treasury, of 
 growing discontent, of vanished illusions, the comptroller-general 
 meditated convoking the Assembly of Notables, the feeble resource 
 of the old French kingship before the days of pure monarchy, an 
 expedient more insufficient and more dangerous than the most far- 
 seeing divined after the lessons of the philosophers and the con- 
 tinuous abasement of the kingly Majesty. 
 
 The convocation of the Notables brought about the views of the 
 minister, who had staked his popularity upon it (1787); he was suc- 
 ceeded by Lomenie de Brienne, a minister who " had nothing but ?'. 
 bad moves to make," says M. Mignet. Three edicts touching the Agitation 
 trade in grain, forced labour and the provincial assemblies were * n ^ e 
 first sent up to the Parliament and enregistered without any dif- me nt. 
 ficulty ; the two edicts touching the stamp-tax and equal assess- 
 ment of the impost were to meet with more hindrance ; the latter 
 at any rate united the sympathies of all the partisans of genuine re- 
 forms ; the edict touching the stamp-tax was by itself and first sub- 
 mitted for the approval of the magistrates : they rejected it, asking, 
 like the notables, for a communication as to the state of finance. 
 " It is not states of finance we want," exclaimed a councillor, Saba- 
 tier de Cabre, " it is States-general." This bold sally became a 
 theme for deliberation in the Parliament. " The nation represented 
 by the States-general," the court declared, " is alone entitled to 
 grant the king subsidies of which the need is clearly demonstrated." 
 At the same time the Parliament demanded the impeachment of 
 M. de Calonne ; he took fright and sought refuge in England. 
 The mob rose in Paris, imputing to the court the prodigalities with 
 which the Parliament reproached the late comptroller-general. 
 Sad symptom of the fatal progress of public opinion ! The cries 
 heretofore raised against the queen under the name of Austrian 
 were now uttered against Madame Deficit, pending the time when 
 the fearful title of Madame Veto would give place in its turn to the 
 sad name of the woman Capet 'given to the victim of October 1C, 
 1793. 
 
556 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Bed of 
 justice. 
 
 The par- 
 liament 
 sent to 
 Troyes. 
 
 Provincial 
 assem- 
 blies. 
 
 The king summoned the Parliament to Versailles, and on the 6th 
 of August, 1787, the edicts touching the stamp-tax and territorial 
 subvention were enregistered in bed of justice. The Parliament 
 had protested in advance against this act of royal authority, which 
 it called " a phantom of deliberation." On the 13th of August, the 
 court declared " the registration of the edicts null and without 
 effect, incompetent to authorize the collection of imposts opposed to 
 all principles ; " this resolution was sent to all the seneschalties and 
 bailiwicks in the district. It was in the name of the privilege of 
 the two upper orders that the Parliament of Paris contested the royal 
 edicts and made appeal to the supreme jurisdiction of the States- 
 general ; the people did not see it, they took out the horses of 
 M. d'Espremesnil, whose fiery eloquence had won over a great 
 number of his colleagues, and he was carried in triumph. On the 
 15th of August, the Parliament was sent away to Troyes, to be, 
 however, recalled a little more than a month later. M. de Brienne 
 hoped thus to obtain a loan of 420,000,000, which was to be raised 
 in the course of five years. The king held a bed of justice at Ver- 
 sailles, arid insisted upon the registration of the necessary edicts ; 
 notwithstanding the efforts of M. de Malesherbes and the duke of 
 Nivernais, the Parliament inscribed on the registers that it was not 
 to be understood to take any part in the transcription here ordered 
 of gradual and progressive loans for the years 1788, 1789, 1790, 
 1791 and 1792. In reply, the duke of Orleans was banished to 
 Villers-Cotterets, whilst Councillors Freteau and Sabatier, who had 
 made themselves conspicuous by their opposition, were arrested and 
 taken to a state-prison. 
 
 The contest extended as it grew hotter ; everywhere the Parlia- 
 ments took up the quarrel of the court of Paris ; the formation of 
 the provincial assemblies furnished new centres of opposition ; the 
 petty noblesse made alliance with the magistracy, the antagonism 
 of principles became every day more evident ; after the five months 
 elapsed since the royal session, the Parliament was still protesting 
 against the violence done to it. "I had no need to take or count 
 the votes," said the king's reply ; " being present at the deliberation, 
 I judged for myself without taking any account of plurality. If 
 plurality in my courts were to force my will, the monarchy would 
 be nothing but an aristocracy of magistrates." " No, Sir, no aris- 
 tocracy in France, but no despotism either," replied the members of 
 parliament. 
 
 The indiscretion of a printer made M. d'Espremesnil acquainted 
 with the great designs which were- in preparation ; at his instiga- 
 tion the Parliament issued a declaration as to the reciprocal rights 
 
Disturbances. 557 
 
 and duties of the monarch and the nation. " France," said the 
 resolution, " is a monarchy hereditary from male to male, governed 
 by the king following the laws ; it has for fundamental laws the 
 nation's right to freely grant subsidies by means of the States- 
 general convoked and composed according to regulation, the customs 
 and capitulations of the provinces, the irremoveability of the magis- 
 trates, the right of the courts to enregister edicts, and that of each 
 citizen to be judged only by his natural judges, without liability 
 ever to be arrested arbitrarily." " The magistrates must cease to 
 exist before the nation ceases to be free," said a second protest. 
 
 Bold and defiant in its grotesque mixture of the ancient prin- 
 ciples of the magistracy with the novel theories of philosophy, the 
 resolution of the Parliament was quashed by the king. Orders Arrest of 
 were given to arrest M. d'Espremesnil and a young councillor, d'Espre- 
 Goislard de Montsabert, who had played also an active part in the Goi^ard^ 
 spirited resistance to the orders of the court, The former was taken Montsa- 
 to the island of St. Marguerite, and the latter imprisoned at Pierre ert * 
 Encise. 
 
 Notwithstanding his promise to convoke the States-general for 
 the 1st of May, 1789, M. de Brienne became more and more unpo- 
 pular, and disturbances broke out in several points of the kingdom. 
 Legal in Normandy, violent in Brittany, tumultuous in Beam, the 
 parliamentary protests took a politic and methodical form in Dau- 
 phiny. An insurrection amongst the populace of Grenoble, soon Disturb- 
 supported by the villagers from the mountains, had at first flown an ^e * 
 to arms at the sound of the tocsin. The members of the Parlia- provinces, 
 ment, on the point of leaving the city, had been detained by force, 
 and their carriages had been smashed. The troops offered little 
 resistance ; an entry was effected into the house of the governor, 
 the duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, and, with an axe above his head, 
 the insurgents threatened to hang him to the chandelier in his 
 drawing-room if he did not convoke the Parliament. Ragged ruf- 
 fians ran to the magistrates, and compelled them to meet in the 
 sessions-hall. The members of parliament succeeded with great 
 difficulty in pacifying the mob. As soon as they found themselves 
 free, they hastened a\vay into exile. Other hands had taken up 
 their quarrel. A certain number of members of the three orders 
 met at the town hall, and, on their private authority, convoked for 
 the 21st of July the special states of Dauphiny, suppressed a while 
 before by Cardinal Eichelieu. 
 
 The duke of Clermont-Tonnerre had been superseded by old 
 Marshal Vaux, rough and ready. He had at his disposal twenty 
 thousand men. Scarcely had he arrived at Grenoble when he wrote 
 
558 History of France. 
 
 to Versailles, " It is too late," he said. The prerogatives of royal 
 authority were maintained, however. The marshal granted a meet- 
 ing of the states-provincial, but he required permission to be asked 
 of him. He forbade the assembly to be held at Grenoble. It was 
 in the castle of Vizille, a former residence of the dauphins, that the 
 three orders of Dauphiny met, closely united together in wise and 
 patriotic accord. The archbishop of Yienne, Lefranc de Pom- 
 The three pig naT1> brother of the poet, lately the inveterate foe of Voltaire, an 
 Dauphiny. ardently and sincerely pious man, led his clergy along the most 
 liberal path ; the noblesse of the sword, mingled with the noblesse 
 of the robe, voted blindly all the resolutions of the third estate ; 
 these were suggested by the real head of the assembly, M. Mounier, 
 judge-royal of Grenoble, a friend of M. decker's, an enlightened, 
 loyal, honourable man, destined ere long to make his name known 
 over the whole of France by his courageous resistance to the out- 
 bursts of the National Assembly. Unanimously the three orders 
 presented to the king their claims to the olden liberties of the pro- 
 vince ; they loudly declared, however, that they were prepared for 
 all sacrifices and aspired to nothing but the common rights of all 
 Frenchmen. The double representation of the third in the estates 
 of Dauphiny was voted without contest, as well as equal assessment 
 of the impost intended to replace forced labour. Throughout the 
 whole province the most perfect order had succeeded the first mani- 
 festations of popular irritation. 
 
 Meanwhile the Treasury was found to be empty ; all the resources 
 were exhausted, disgraceful tricks had despoiled the hospitals and 
 the poor ; credit was used up, the payments of the State were back- 
 ward; the discount-bank (caisse d'escompte) was authorized to 
 refuse to give coin. To divert the public mind from this painful 
 situation, Brienne proposed to the king to yield to the requests of 
 the members of Parliament, of the clergy, and of the noblesse 
 themselves. A decree of August 8, 1788, announced that the 
 States-general would be convoked May 1, 1789; the re-establish- 
 ment of the plenary court was suspended to that date. Concessions 
 wrested from the weakness and irresolution of governments do not 
 strengthen their failing powers. Brienne had exhausted his bold- 
 ness as well as his basenesses ; he succumbed beneath the outcry of 
 public wrath and mistrust. 
 
 On the 25th of August, 1788, the king sent for M. decker. 
 
 M. Necker For an instant his return to power had the effect of restoring some 
 
 resumes hope to the most far-sighted. On his coming into office, the 
 
 Treasury was empty, there was no scraping together as much as 
 
 five thousand livres. The need was pressing, the harvests were 
 
M. Necker resumes office. 559 
 
 bad ; the credit and the able resources of the great financier 
 sufficed for all ; the funds went up thirty per cent, in one day, 
 certain capitalists made advances, the chamber of the notaries of 
 Paris paid six millions into the Treasury, M. Necker lent two 
 millions out of his private fortune. The great financial talents of 
 the minister, his probity, his courage had caused illusions as to his 
 political talents ; useful in his day and in his degree, the new 
 minister was no longer equal to the task. The distresses of the 
 Treasury had powerfully contributed to bring about, to develope 
 the political crisis ; the public cry for the States-general had arisen 
 in a great degree from the deficit ; but henceforth financial 
 resources did not suffice to conjure away the danger; the Discount- 
 bank had resumed payment, the State honoured its engagements, 
 the phantom of bankruptcy disappeared from before the frightened 
 eyes of stockholders ; nevertheless the agitation did not subside, 
 minds were full of higher and more tenacious concernments. 
 Every gaze was turned towards the States-general. Scarcely was 
 M. Necker in power, when a royal proclamation, sent to the Parlia- 
 ment returning to Paris, announced the convocation of the Assembly 
 for the month of January, 1789. 
 
 The States-general themselves had become a topic of the most The States- 
 lively discussion. Amidst the embarrassment of his Government, summoned, 
 and in order to throw a sop to the activity of the Opposition, 
 Brienne had declared his doubts and his deficiency of enlighten- 
 ment as to the form to be given to the deliberations of that ancient 
 assembly, always convoked at the most critical junctures of the 
 national history, and abandoned for 175 years past. "The 
 researches ordered by the king." said a decree of the Council, 
 "have not brought to light any positive information as to the 
 number and quality of the electors and those eligible, any more 
 than as to the form of the elections ; the king will always try to 
 be as close as possible to the old usages, and, when they are 
 unknown, his Majesty will not supply the hiatus till after con- 
 sulting the wish of his subjects, in order that the most entire 
 confidence may hedge a truly national assembly. Consequently 
 the king requests all the municipalities and all the tribunals to 
 make researches in their archives ; he likewise invites all scholars 
 and well-informed persons, and especially those who are members 
 of the Academy of inscriptions and literature, to study the question 
 and give their opinion." In the wake of this appeal, a flood of Pamphlets, 
 tracts and pamphlets had inundated Paris and the provinces : 
 some devoted to the defence of ancient usages ; the most part 
 intended to prove that the Constitution of the olden monarchy 
 
560 History of France. 
 
 of France contained in principle all the political liberties which 
 were but asking permission to soar ; some finally, bolder and the 
 most applauded of all, like that of Count d'Entraigues, Note on 
 the States-general, their rights and the manner of convoking them, 
 and that of the Abbe Sieyes, What is the third estate ? Count 
 d'Entraigues' pamphlet began thus : " It was doubtless in order 
 to give the most heroic virtues a home worthy of them that heaven 
 willed the existence of republics, and, perhaps to punish the 
 ambition of men, it permitted great empires, kings and masters 
 to arise." Sieyes' pamphlet had already sold to the extent of 
 thirty thousand copies; the development of his ideas was an 
 audacious commentary upon his modest title. " What is the third 
 estate 1 " said that able revolutionist : " Nothing. What ought it 
 to be ? Everything 1 " It was hoisting the flag against the two 
 upper orders. 
 
 Agitation The whole of France was fever-stricken. The agitation was 
 outT?ran"ce contradictory and confused, a medley of confidence and fear, joy 
 and rage, everywhere violent and contagious. This time again 
 Dauphiny showed an example of politic and wise behaviour. 
 The preparatory assemblies were tumultuous in many spots : in 
 Provence as well as in Brittany they became violent. In his 
 Mirabeau. province, Mirabeau was the cause or pretext for the troubles. 
 Born at Bignon, near Nemours, on the 9th of March, 1749, well 
 known already for his talent as a writer and orator as well as for 
 the startling irregularities of his life, he was passionately desirous 
 of being elected to the States-general. " I don't think I shall be 
 useless there," he wrote to his friend Cerruti. Nowhere, however, 
 was his character worse than in Provence : there people had 
 witnessed his dissensions with his father as well as with his wife. 
 Public contempt, a just punishment for his vices, caused his 
 admission into the states-provincial to be unjustly opposed. The 
 assembly was composed exclusively of nobles in possession of fiefs, 
 of ecclesiastical dignitaries and of a small number of municipal 
 officers. It claimed to elect the deputies to the States-general 
 according to the ancient usages. Mirabeau's common sense, as 
 well as his great and powerful genius, revolted against the absurd 
 theories of the privileged ; he overwhelmed them with his terrible 
 eloquence, whilst adjuring them to renounce their abuseful and 
 obsolete rights ; he scared them by his forceful and striking 
 hideousness : " Generous friends of peace," said he, addressing the 
 two upper orders, " I hereby appeal to your honour ! Nobles of 
 Provence, the eyes of Europe are upon you, weigh well your 
 answer ! Ye men of God, have a care ; God hears you ! But, if 
 
Mirabeau and the States-General. 561 
 
 you keep silence or if you intrench yourselves in the vague 
 utterances of a piqued self-love, allow me to add a word. In all 
 ages, in all countries, aristocrats have persecuted the friends of the 
 people, and if, by I know not what combination of chances, there 
 have arisen one in their own midst, he it is whom they have struck 
 above all, thirsting as they were to inspire terror by their choice of 
 a victim. Thus perished the last of the Gracchi, by the hand of 
 the patricians ; but, wounded to the death, he flung dust towards 
 heaven, calling to witness the gods of vengeance, and from that 
 dust sprang Marius, Marius less great for having exterminated the 
 Cimbri than for having struck down at Eome the aristocracy of 
 the noblesse." 
 
 Mirabeau was shut out from the states-provincial, and soon Mirabeau 
 adopted eagerly by the third estate. Elected at Marseilles as well returned 
 as at Aix for the States-general, he quieted, in these two cities Marseilles 
 successively, riots occasioned by the dearness of bread. The people, and for 
 in their enthusiasm, thronged upon him, accepting his will without 
 a murmur when he restored, to their proper figure provisions 
 lowered in price through the terror of the authorities. The petty 
 noblesse and the lower provincial clergy had everywhere taken the 
 side of the third estate. Mirabeau was triumphant : " I have 
 been, am, and shall be to the last," he exclaimed, " the man for 
 public liberty, the man for the constitution. Woe to the privileged 
 orders, if that means better be the man of the people than the 
 man of the nobles, for privileges will come to an end, but the 
 people is eternal ! " 
 
 The day of meeting of the States-general was at hand. Almost 
 everywhere the elections had been quiet, and the electors less 
 numerous than had been anticipated. We know what indifference 
 and lassitude may attach to the exercise of rights which would not 
 be willingly renounced ; ignorance and inexperience kept away 
 from the primary assemblies many working-men and peasants; 
 the middle class alone proceeded in mass to the elections. The 
 irregular slowness of the preparatory operations had retarded the 
 convocations; for three months, the agitation attendant upon 
 successive assemblies kept France in suspense. Paris was still plunder of 
 voting on the 28th of April, 1789, the mob thronged the streets; Beveillon's 
 all at once the rumour ran that an attack was being made on the JJJ ao " 
 house of an ornamental-paper maker in the faubourg St. Antoine, 
 named Eeveillon. Starting as a simple journeyman, this man had 
 honestly made his fortune ; he was kind to those who worked in 
 his shops : he was accused, nevertheless, amongst the populace, of 
 having declared that a journeyman could live on fifteen sous a day. 
 
 o o 
 
562 History of France. 
 
 The day before, threats had been levelled at him ; he had asked 
 
 for protection from the police, thirty men had been sent to him. 
 
 The madmen who were swarming around his house and stores soon 
 
 got the better of so weak a guard, everything was destroyed ; the 
 
 rioters rushed to the archbishop's, there was voting going on 
 
 there; they expected to find Reveillon, whom they wanted to 
 
 murder. They were repulsed by the battalions of the French and 
 
 Swiss guards. More than two hundred were killed. Money was 
 
 found in their pockets. The Parliament suspended its prosecutions 
 
 _. against the ringleaders of so many crimes. The Government, 
 
 Govern- impotent and disarmed, as timid in presence of this riot as in 
 
 ment is presence of opposing parties, at last came before the States-general, 
 
 B3S * but blown about by the contrary winds of excited passions, 
 
 without any guide and without fixed resolves, without any firm 
 
 and compact nucleus in the midst of a new and unknown Assembly 
 
 without confidence in the troops, who were looked upon, however, 
 
 as a possible and last resort. 
 
 The States-general were presented to the king on the 2nd of 
 
 May, 1789. It seemed as if the two upper orders, by a prophetic 
 
 instinct of their ruin, wanted, for the last time, to make a parade 
 
 of their privileges. Introduced without delay to the king, they 
 
 A.D. 1789. left, in front of the palace, the deputies of the third estate to wait 
 
 th^St ^ f * n *k e ra * n * ^"^ e l atter were g ett i n g an o r J> an( i already beginning 
 general to clamour, when the gates were opened to them. In the magnifi- 
 (May). cen t procession on the 4th, when the three orders accompanied the 
 king to the church of St. Louis at Versailles, the laced coats and 
 decorations of the nobles, the superb vestments of the prelates 
 easily eclipsed the modest cassocks of the country-priests as well 
 as the sombre costume imposed by ceremonial upon the deputies of 
 the third estate ; the bishop of Nancy, M. de la Fare, maintained 
 the traditional distinctions even in the sermon he delivered before 
 the king : "Sir," said he, "accept the homage of the clergy, the 
 respects of the noblesse and the most humble supplications of the 
 third estate." The untimely applause which greeted the bishop's 
 words was excited by the picture he drew of the misery in the 
 country-places exhausted by the rapacity of the fiscal agents. At 
 this striking solemnity, set off with all the pomp of the past, 
 animated with all the hopes of the future, the eyes of the public 
 sought out, amidst the sombre mass of deputies of the third 
 (estate), those whom their deeds, good or evil, had already made 
 celebrated : Malouet, Mounier, Mirabeau, the last greeted with a 
 murmur which was for a long while yet to accompany his name. 
 " When the summons by name per bailiwick took place," writes 
 
I 
 The King and M. Necker. 563 
 
 an eye-witness, " there were cheers for certain deputies who 
 were known, but at the name of Mirabeau there was a noise of 
 a very different sort. He had wanted to speak on two or three 
 occasions, but a general murmur had prevented him from making 
 himself heard. I could easily see how grieved he was, and I 
 observed some tears of vexation standing in his bloodshot eyes " 
 [Souvenirs de Dumont, 47]. 
 
 The opening of the session took place on the 5th of May. The 
 royal procession had been saluted by the crowd with repeated and 
 organized shouts of " Harrah ! for the duke of Orleans ! " which had 
 disturbed and agitated the queen. " The king," says Marmontel, 
 " appeared with simple dignity, without pride, without timidity, 
 wearing on his features the impress of the goodness which he had 
 in his heart, a little affected by the spectacle and by th'e feelings 
 which the deputies of a faithful nation ought to inspire in its 
 king." His speech was short, dignified, affectionate, and without 
 political purport. With more of pomp and detail, the minister of the 
 confined himself within the same limits. " Aid his Majesty," said 
 he, " to establish the prosperity of the kingdom on solid bases, seek 
 for them, point them out to your sovereign, and you will find on 
 his part the most generous assistance." The mode of action cor- 
 responded with this insufficient language. Crushed beneath the 
 burthen of past defaults and errors, the government tendered its 
 abdication, in advance, into the hands of that mightily bewildered 
 Assembly it had just convoked. The king had left the verification 
 of powers to the States-general themselves. M. Necker confined 
 himself to pointing out the possibility of common action between 
 the three orders, recommending the deputies to examine those 
 questions discreetly. " The king is anxious about your first 
 deliberations," said the minister, throwing away at hap-hazard 
 upon leaders as yet unknown the direction of those discussions 
 which he with good reason dreaded. 
 
 It was amidst a chaos of passions, wills, and desires, legitimate 
 or culpable, patriotic or selfish, that there was, first of all, pro- 
 pounded the question of verification of powers. Prompt and 
 peremptory on the part of the noblesse, hesitating and cautious on 
 the part of the clergy, the opposition of the two upper orders to 
 any common action irritated the third estate ; its appeals had ended 
 in nothing but conferences broken off, then resumed at the king's 
 desire, and evidently and painfully to no purpose. "By an 
 inconceivable oversight on the part of M. Necker in the local 
 apportionment of the building appointed for the Assembly of the tion of " 
 States-general, there was the throne-room or room of the three powers. 
 
 o o 2 
 
564 History of France. 
 
 orders, a room for the noblesse, one for the clergy, and none for the 
 commons, who remained, quite naturally, established in the states- 
 room, the largest, the most ornate, and all fitted up with tribunes 
 for the spectators who took possession of the public boxes (loges 
 communes) in the room. When it was perceived that this crowd of 
 strangers and their plaudits only excited the audacity of the more 
 violent speakers, all the consequences of this installation were felt. 
 Would anybody believe," continues M. Malouet, " that M. Necker 
 Hesitation had an idea of inventing a ground-slip, a falling-in of the cellars 
 of the O f faQ Menus, and of throwing down, during the night, the 
 carpentry of the grand room, in order to remove and install the 
 three orders separately 1 It was to me myself that he spoke of it, 
 and I had great difficulty in dissuading him from the notion, by 
 pointing out to him all the danger of it." The want of foresight 
 and the nervous hesitation of the ministers had placed the third 
 estate in a novel and a strong situation. Installed officially in the 
 states-room, it seemed to be at once master of the position, waiting 
 for the two upper orders to come to it. Mirabeau saw this with 
 that rapid insight into effects and consequences which constitutes, 
 to a considerable extent, the orator's genius. The third estate had 
 taken possession, none could henceforth dispute with it its privi- 
 leges, and it was the defence of a right that had been won which 
 was to inspire the fiery orator with his mighty audacity, when on 
 the 23rd of June, towards evening, after the miserable affair of the 
 Mirabeau rova l session, the marquis of Dreux-Breze came back into the 
 and M. de room to beg the deputies of the third estate to withdraw. The 
 Brlz?" king's order was express, but already certain nobles and a large 
 number of ecclesiastics had joined the deputies of the commons ; 
 their definitive victory on the 27th of June and the fusion of the 
 three orders were foreshadowed ; Mirabeau rose at the entrance of 
 the grand-master of the ceremonies : " Go," he shouted, " and tell 
 those who send you, that we are here by the will of the people, and 
 that we shall not budge save at the point of the bayonet." This 
 was the beginning of revolutionary violence. 
 
 On the 1 2th of June the battle began ; the calling over of the 
 bailiwicks took place in the States-room. The third estate sat 
 alone. At each province, each chief-place, each roll (proces- 
 verbal), the secretaries repeated in a loud voice, " Gentlemen of 
 the clergy 1 ? None present. Gentlemen of the noblesse? None 
 present." Certain parish-priests alone had the courage to separate 
 from their order and submit their powers for verification. All the 
 deputies of the third (estate) at once gave them precedence. The 
 day of persecution was not yet come. 
 
The National Assembly. 565 
 
 Legality still stood, the third estate maintained a proud modera- 
 tion, the border was easily passed, a name was sufficient. 
 
 The title of States-general was oppressive to the new Assembly, What was 
 
 it recalled the distinction between the orders as well as the humble to t . e 
 
 name 01 
 
 posture of the third estate heretofore. " This is the only true the new 
 name," exclaimed Abbe Sieyes : " Assembly of acknowledged and assembly ? 
 verified representatives of the nation." This was a contemptuous 
 repudiation of the two upper orders. Mounier replied with another 
 definition : " Legitimate Assembly of the majority amongst the 
 deputies of the nation, deliberating in the absence of the duly 
 invited minority." The subtleties of metaphysics and politics are 
 powerless to take the popular fancy* Mirabeau felt it : " Let us 
 call ourselves representatives of the people ! " he shouted. For 
 this ever fatal name he claimed the kingly sanction : "I hold the 
 king's veto so necessary," said the great orator, " that, if he had it 
 not, I would rather live at Constantinople than in France. Yes, I 
 protest, I know of nothing more terrible than a sovereign aristo- 
 cracy of six hundred persons who, having the power to declare 
 themselves to-morrow irremoveable and the next day hereditary, 
 would end, like the aristocracies of all countries in the world, by 
 swooping down upon every thing. " 
 
 An obscure deputy here suggested during the discussion the 
 name of National Assembly, often heretofore employed to designate 
 the States-general ; Sieyes took it up, rejecting the subtle and 
 carefully prepared definitions : " I am for the amendment of M. 
 Legrand," said he, " and I propose the title of National Assembly" 
 Four hundred and ninety- one voices against ninety adopted this 
 simple and superb title. In contempt of the two upper orders of 
 the State, the national assembly was constituted. The decisive 
 step was taken towards the French Eevolution. 
 
 During the early days, in the heat of a violent discussion, History is 
 Barrere had exclaimed, " You are summoned to recommence never re- 
 history." It was an arrogant mistake. For more than eighty years 
 modern France has been prosecuting laboriously and in open day 
 the work which had been slowly forming within the dark womb of 
 olden France. In the almighty hands of eternal God a people's 
 history is interrupted and recommenced never. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A. SOURCES OP THE HISTORY OP PRANCE, 
 
 L COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS, MEMOIRS, LAWS, CHARTERS, ETC. 
 
 BIBLTOTHEQUE Historique cle la France, 
 contenant le catalogue des ouvrages im- 
 primes et manuscrits qui traitent de 1'his- 
 toire de ce royaume, oa qui y ont rapport ; 
 avec des notes critiques et historiques. 
 Par feu Jacques Lelong, pretre de 1'Ora- 
 toire, bibliothecaire de la maison de Paris. 
 Nouvelle edition, revue, corrigee et con- 
 siderablement augmentee par M. Fevret 
 de Foiitette. 5 vols. folio. One of the best 
 and most useful works of its kind. 
 
 Bibliotheque Nationale, catalogue de 
 1'histoire de France. 10 vols. 4to. 
 
 Table Chronologique des Diplomes, 
 chartes, titres et actes imprimes con- 
 cernant 1'histoire de France, par MM. de 
 Brequigny et Pardessus. 7 vols. folio. 
 
 Diplomata, chartee, epistolae, leges, 
 aliaque instrumenta ad res gallo-francicas 
 spectantia. Prius collecta a Y. V. C. C. 
 de Brequigny et la Porte du Theil ; nunc 
 nova ratione ordinata, plurimumque 
 aucta, jubente ac moderante Academia 
 inscriptionem et humaniorum litterarum, 
 edidit J.-M. Pardessus. 5 vols. folio. 
 
 Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de 
 la France. Commence par les benedictins 
 de la congregation de Saint-Maur et con- 
 tinue par 1'Academie des inscriptions et 
 belles lettres. 22 vols. folio, in progress. 
 
 Collection des Documents Inedits rela- 
 tifs a 1'histoire de France. Publies sous 
 les auspices du ministere de 1'instruction 
 publique. 177 vols. 4to, in progress. 
 
 Recueil general des Anciennes Lois 
 Fran9aises, depuis Tan 420 jusqu'a la 
 revolution de 1789. Contenant la notice 
 des principaux monumens des Merovin- 
 giens, des Carlovingiens et des Capetiens, 
 et le texte des ordonnances, e"dits, de- 
 clarations, lettres patentes, reglemens, 
 arrets du conseil, etc., de la troisieme race, 
 qui ne sont pas abrog^s, ou qui peuvent 
 servir, soit & 1'interpretation, soit & This- 
 toire du droit public et prive. Avec notes 
 
 de concordance, table chronologique efc 
 table ge"nerale analytique et alphabetique 
 des matieres. Par MM. Jourdan, Decrusy, 
 et Isambert. 22 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Collection des Memoires relatifs h 1'his- 
 toire de France, depuis la fondation de la 
 monarchie fran9aise jusqu'au xiii e siecle. 
 Avec une introduction, des supplements, 
 des notices et des notes, par M. F. Guizot. 
 31 vols. 8vo. This collection is valuable 
 because it comprises in a portable and con- 
 venient shape a large number of docu- 
 ments : but it has been edited in a slovenly 
 manner. 
 
 Collection des Chroniques Rationales 
 Fran9aises Sorites en langue vulgaire, du 
 xiii e au xvi e siecle, avec notes et eclaircis- 
 sements par J.-A. Buchon. 47 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Collection complete des Memoires rela- 
 tifs & 1'histoire de France, depuis le regne 
 de Philippe-Auguste jusqu'a la paix de 
 Paris conclue en 1763. Avec des notices 
 sur chaque auteur et des observations sur 
 chaque ouvrage, par MM. Petitot et Mon- 
 merque. 131 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Nouvelle collection des Memoires pour 
 servir a 1'histoire de France, depuis le 
 xiii e siecle jusqu'a la fin du xviii 6 . Pre- 
 cedes de notices pour caracteriser chaque 
 auteur des memoires et son epoque, suivis 
 de 1' analyse des documents historiques qui 
 s'y rapportent, par MM. Michaud et Pou- 
 joulat. 32 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Gallia Christiana, in provincias ecclesi- 
 asticas distributa. Qua series et historia 
 archiepiscoporum, episcoporum et abba- 
 turn Francise vicinarumque ditionum, ab 
 orig-ine Ecclesiarum ad nostra tempora 
 deducitur, et probatur ex authenticis in- 
 strumentis ad calcem appositis. Opera 
 et studio domni Dionysii Sammarthani, 
 presbyteri et monachi ordinis Sancti 
 Benedicti e congregatione Sancti Mauri. 
 Vols. 1 16 folio, in progress. Continued 
 by the Institute cf France. 
 
Sources of the History of France. 
 
 Concilia Antiqua Gallise, tres in tomos 
 online digesta. Cum epistolis Pontifi- 
 cum, principum constitutionibus, et aliis 
 Gallicanse rei ecclesiastics monimentis. 
 Quorum plurima vel integra, vel magna 
 ex parte, nunc primum in lucem exeunt. 
 Opera et studio Jacobi Sirmondi, socie- 
 tatis Jesu presbyteri. 3 vols. folio. 
 
 Histoire Litteraire de la France, ou Ton 
 traite de 1'origine et du progres, de la de"- 
 cadence et du retablissement des sciences 
 parmi les Gaulois et parmi les Franois ; 
 du gout et du genie des uns et des autres 
 pour les lettres en chaque siecle ; de leura 
 anciennes ecoles ; de 1'etablissement des 
 universites en France ; des principaux 
 colleges ; des Academies des sciences et 
 des belles-lettres ; des meilleures biblio- 
 theques anciennes et modernes ; des plus 
 celebres imprimeurs ; et de tout ce qui 
 a un rapport particulier a la litterature. 
 Avec les eloges historiques des Gaulois et 
 des Fra^ois qui s'y sont fait quelque re- 
 putation, le catalogue et la chronologie de 
 
 leurs ecrits ; des remarques historiques et 
 critiques sur les principaux ouvrages; le 
 denombrement des differentes editions ; le 
 tout justifie par les citations des auteurs 
 originaux. Par des Religieux Benedictins 
 de la congregation de Saint-Maur. Vols. 
 127 4to. Continued by the Institute of 
 France. 
 
 Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, ipsius 
 fundationem, nationes, facultates, magis- 
 tratus, decreta, censuras et judicia in 
 negotiis fidei, privilegia, comitia, lega- 
 tiones, reformationes ; item antiquissimag 
 Gallorum academias, aliarum quoque uni- 
 versitatum et religiosorum ordinum, qui 
 ex eadem communi matre exierunt, insti- 
 tutiones et fundationes, aliaque id genus ; 
 cum instrumentis publicis et authenticis, 
 a Carolo magno ad nostro tempora, or- 
 dine chronologico complectens. Authore 
 Csesare-Egassio Buleeo, eloquentias emerito 
 professore, antique rectore et scriba ejus- 
 dem universitatis. 6 vols. folio. Ouvrage 
 curieux (Lalanne). 
 
 II. LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES FOR EACH EPOCH. 
 
 1. The Gauls, and the Origin of the 
 French Monarchy. 
 
 Histoire des Gaulois, depuis les temps 
 Jes plus recules jusqu'a 1'entiere soumis- 
 sion de la Gaule a la domination romaine, 
 par Amedee Thierry. 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Histoire critique de 1'etablissement de la 
 monarchic Francoise dans les Gaules, par 
 M. 1'abbe Dubos. 2 vols. 4to. Dubos, says 
 Montesquieu, had made a conspiracy 
 against the aristocracy. 
 
 Histoire de 1'ancien gouvernement de la 
 France, avec quatorze lettres historiques 
 sur les Parlements ou fitats generaux, par 
 M. le comte de Boulainvilliers. 3 vols. 8vo. 
 Aims at proving the superiority of the no- 
 bility to the rest of the community. 
 
 Observations sur 1'histoire de France, 
 par 1'abbe de Mably, nouvelle edition, 
 revue par M. Guizot. 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Essais sur 1'histoire de France, pour 
 faire suite aux observations de 1'abbe de 
 Mably, par F. Guizot. 8vo. Paris. 
 
 2. The Merovingians. 
 
 Histoire des institutions Merovingien- 
 nes,et du gouvernement des Merovingiens, 
 par T. M. Lehuerou. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Recits des temps Merovingiens, precedes 
 de considerations sur 1'histoire de France, 
 par Augustin Thierry. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris. 
 
 Histoire des Francs, par Gregoire de 
 Tours. [300589.] G. 1, 2. S.H.F. 
 4 vols. Svo. 1 Le plus precieux monument 
 des premiers temps de notre histoire. (La- 
 lanne.) 
 
 Chronique de Fredegaire. [583 641.] 
 G. 2. Le seul monument qui nous fasse 
 connaitre 1'histoire de cette obscure epoque. 
 (Lalanne.) 
 
 Continuations anonymes de Fredegaire. 
 [642768.] G. 2. 
 
 Vie de Dagobert I. Par un moine de 
 Saint Denis. [600651.] G. 2. 
 
 Vie de saint Leger, eveque d'Autun. 
 fPar un moine de Saint -Symphorien 
 d'Autun. 616683.] G. 2. 
 
 Vie de Pepin le Vieux, dit de Landen, 
 maire du palais en Austrasie. [622 752.1 
 G. 2. 
 
 3. The Carlovingians. 
 
 Annales des rois Pepin, Charlemagne 
 et Louis le Debonnaire, par Eginhard. 
 [740829.] G. 3. S.H.F. Svo. Le meil- 
 leur ouvrage d'histoire de cette dpoque. (La- 
 lanne.) 
 
 1 G. Collection of memoirs published 
 by M. Guizot. 
 
 S H.F. Publications of the SocMU de 
 I'Histoire de Franco. 
 
568 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Vie de Charlemagne, par Eginhard. 
 [740814.] G. vol. 3. 
 
 Des faits et gestes de Charles le Grand, 
 roi des Francs et empereur, par un moine 
 de Saint- Gall. [771812.] G. vol. 3. 
 
 De la vie et des actions de Louis le De- 
 bonnaire, par Thegan. [813835.] G. 3. 
 
 Yie de Louis le Debonnaire, par 1'Ano- 
 nyme dit 1'Astronome. [768840.] G. 3. 
 
 Histoire des dissensions des fils de Louis 
 le Debonnaire, par Nithard. [814843.] 
 G.3. 
 
 Faits et gestes de Louis le Pieux (ou le 
 Debonnaire), par Ermold le Noir. [780 
 826.] G. 4. 
 
 Annales de Saint-Bertin. [840882.] 
 G. 4. S.H.F. 8vo. 
 
 Annales de Metz. [883903.] G, 4. 
 
 Histoire de 1'eglise de Eeims, par Fro- 
 doard. [290-940.] G. 5. 
 
 Siege de Paris par les Normands, poeme 
 d'Abbon. [885896.] G. 6. 
 
 Chronique de Frodoard. [877978.] 
 G. 6. 
 
 4. The Capetians. 
 
 Chronique de Raoul Glaber. [900 
 1044.] G.6. 
 
 Richer, Histoire de son temps. [888 
 954.] S.H.F. 8vo. 
 
 Yie du roi Robert, par Helgaud. [997 
 1031.] G. 6. 
 
 Poeme d'Adalberon, eveque de Laon, 
 adresse a Robert, roi des Fran9ais. [1006] 
 G. 6. 
 
 Yie de Bouchard [Burckhardt], comte de 
 Melun et de Corbeil. [Par Eudes, moine 
 de 1'abbaye de Saint-Maur des Fosses. 
 [9501058.] G. 6. 
 
 Fragmens [anonymes] de 1'histoire des 
 Franeais, de 1'avenement de Hugues - 
 Capet a la mort de Philippe ler. [987 
 1110.] G. 6. 
 
 Chronique de Hugues [moine] de Fleury 
 [Saint-Benoit sur Loire], 9491108, 
 Chronicon Floriacense]. G. 7. 
 
 Proces-verbal du sacre de Philippe I**, 
 a Reims, le 23 mai 1059. G. 7.^ 
 
 Histoire du monastere de Vezelai, par 
 Hugues de Poitiers. [Livres II. IY. 
 11401167.] G. 7. 
 
 Histoire des croisades, par Guibert de 
 Nogent. [10901100.] G. 9. 
 
 Yie de Guibert de Nogent, par lui 
 meme. [10531190.] G. 9, 10. 
 
 Yie de Saint Bernard, abbe de Glair- 
 vaux. Par Guillaume de Saint-Thierri, 
 Arnaud de Bonneval et Geoffroi de Clair- 
 vaux. 10911153. G. 10. 
 
 Vie de Philippe-Auguste, par Rigord. 
 [11651208.] G. 
 
 Yie de Philippe-Auguste, par Guillaume 
 le Breton, et autres. [11651223.] G. 11. 
 
 Yie de Louis VIII. par un anonyme. 
 [12231226.] G. 11. 
 
 Des faits et gestes de Louis Y1IL, poeme 
 historique, par Nicholas de Bray. [1223 
 1226]. G. 11. 
 
 La Philippide, poeme historique, par 
 Guillaume le Breton. G. 12. 
 
 Chronique de Guillaume de Nangis. 
 [11131327]. G. 13. S H.F.2vols. 8vo. 
 
 Histoire de 1'heresie des Albigeois, et de 
 la sainte guerre entreprise contre eux, 
 [12031218,] par Pierre de Vaulx-Cernay. 
 G. 14. 
 
 Chanson de la croisade contre les Albi- 
 geois. [12071218.] S.H.F., vol. 1, 8vo. 
 D.I. 12071219. 4to. 2 
 
 Histoire de la Guerre des Albigeois. 
 [12021219.] G. 15. 
 
 Chronique de Guillaume dePuy-Laurens, 
 contenant 1'histoire de 1'expedition contre 
 les Albigeois. [12001272.] G. 15. 
 
 Des Gestes glorieux des Franfais. [1202 
 1311.] Chronique dite de Simon de 
 Montfort. G. 15. 
 
 Histoire des croisades, par Guillaume de 
 Tyr. [6101184.] G. 1518. 
 
 Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le 
 Tresorier. [11011231.] G. 19. S.H.F. 
 8vo. 
 
 Histoire des croisades, par Albert d'Aix. 
 (Chronicon Hierosolymitanum.) [1095 
 1120.] G. 20, 21. 
 
 L'Ystoire de li Normant, laquelle com- 
 pila un moine de mont de Cassin, et la 
 manda a lo abbe Desidere de mont de 
 Cassym. [ 1078.] S.H.F. 8vo. 
 
 Chronique de Robert Viscart et de ses 
 freres. [ 1282.] S.H.F. S.H.F. 8vo. 
 
 Histoire des dues de Normandie et des 
 
 rois d'Angleterre, [ 1220.] S.H.F. 
 
 8vo. 
 
 Histoire des Francs qui ont pris Jerusa- 
 lem, par Raimond. d'Agiles, chapelain du 
 comte Raimond de Toulouse. [1096 
 1100.] G. 21. 
 
 Histoire des croisades [historia Hieroso- 
 lymitana], par Jacques de Yitry. [1096 
 1220.] G. 22.. 
 
 Faits et gestes du prince Tancrede [de 
 Sicilej pendant 1'expedition de Jerusalem, 
 par Raoul de Caen. [10961105.] G. 23. 
 
 Histoire de la premiere croisade, par 
 Robert le Moine. [10951099.] G. 23. 
 
 Histoire des croisades, par Foulcher de 
 Chartres. [10951127.] G. 24. 
 
 2 D.I. Collection of Documents inedits ) 
 published by the French Government. 
 
Sources of the History of France. 
 
 569 
 
 Histoire de la croisade de Louis VII., 
 par Odon de Deuil. [11461148.] G. 
 24. 
 
 Histoire de Normandie, par Orderic 
 
 Vital. [ 1141.] G. 2528. S.H.F. 
 
 5 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Histoire des Normands, par Guillaume 
 de Jumiege. [8501137.] G. 29. 
 
 Vie de Guillaume le Conquerant, par 
 
 Guillaume de Poitiers. [ 1070.] 
 
 G. 29. 
 
 Histoire de la guerre de Navarre en 1276 
 et 1277, par Guillaume Anelier, de Tou- 
 louse. D.I. 4to. 
 
 Les Grandes Chroniques de France. 
 [3761381.] Paris, Techener, 6 vols 8vo. 
 
 Geoffrey de Ville-Hardouin, de la con- 
 queste de Constantinople. [1198-1207.] 
 Mi. i. 1. Bu. 3. P. i. 1.3 See also M. Na- 
 talis de Wailly's edition, royal 8vo. Sous 
 tous les rapports cette chronique offre un 
 vif interet. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Continuation de 1'histoire de Ville-Har- 
 douin, d'apres les memoires de Henri de 
 Valenciennes. Mi. i. 1. Bu. 43. 
 
 Cuvelier (Robert) chronique de Ber- 
 trand Du Guesclin. D I. 4to. An histo- 
 rical poem in monorhyme stanzas. 
 
 Chronique metrique de Saint-Magloire. 
 [12231292.] Bu. 7. 
 
 Chronique metrique d'Adam de la Halle, 
 [1282 ?] Bu. 7. 
 
 Branche des royaux lignages. Chroni- 
 que metrique de Guillaume Guiart. [1160 
 1306 ] Bu. 7, 8. 
 
 Chronique metrique de Philippe le Bel, 
 par Godefroy de Paris. [13001316.} 
 Bu. 9. 
 
 Livre de la taille de Paris en Fan 1313. 
 Bu. 9. 
 
 Les chroniques de Jean Froissart. [1325 
 1400] Bu. 10 25. S.H.F. in progress. 
 N' a pas d'autre passion que celle de voir 
 et de narrer. 
 
 Memoires du Sire de Joinville. See also 
 M. Natalis de Wailly's splendid edition, 
 published by Didot. [12451270.] Mi. 
 i. 1. P. i. 2. S.H.F. Plus sense qu'en- 
 thousiaste, plus fin que passionne". (La- 
 lanne.) 
 
 Lettre de Jean-Pierre Sarrazins, cham- 
 bellan du roi de France, a Nicolas Ar- 
 
 3 Mi. Collection of Memoirs published 
 by Messrs. Michaud and Poujoulat. 
 
 Bu. Collection of Memoirs published by 
 M. Buchon. 
 
 P. Memoirs published by Messrs. Petitot 
 and Monmerque. 
 
 rode, sur la premiere croisade de Saint 
 Louis. [12481261.] Mi. i. 1. 
 
 Extraits des historiens arabes, relatifs 
 aux deux croisades de Saint Louis. [1243 
 1270.] Mi. i. 1. 
 
 5. The Valois. 
 
 Anciena memoires du XIV e siecle sur 
 Bertrand du Guesclin. [13201380.] 
 Mi. i. 1. P. i. 4. 
 
 Chronique des quatre premiers Valois. 
 [13271393.] S H.F. 8vo. 
 
 Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du 
 sage roy Charles [V.], par Christine de 
 Pisan. [13361380.] Mi. i. 1, 2. P. i. 
 8. S.H.F. 8vo. An authentic narrative, 
 but written in too pompous a style. 
 
 La chronique du bon due Louis de 
 Bourbon. [13601410.] S.H.F. 8vo. 
 
 Le livre des faicts du bon messire Jean 
 le Maingre, dit mareschal de Boucicaut. 
 [13681421.] Mi. i 2. P. 6, 7. 
 
 Chronique du Religieux de Saint Denis. 
 [1380-1422.] D.L 6 vols. 4to. 
 
 Histoire de Charles VI., roy de France, 
 par Jean Juvenal des Ursins. [1380 - 
 1422.] Mi. i, 2. 
 
 Monstrelet (Enguerrandde), chroniques 
 [14001444]. Bu. 2632. S.H.F. 6 vole. 
 8vo. Very valuable, but most tediously 
 written. Contain a number of official docu- 
 ments. 
 
 Lefevre de Saint-Remy (Jean), me- 
 moires. [1407 1435.J Bu. 32, 33. 
 
 Memoires de Pierre de Fenin. [1408 
 1425.] Mi. i. 2. P. i. 7. Very partial on 
 the Burgundian side. 
 
 Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le 
 regne de Charles VI. [14081422.] Mi. 
 i.2. 
 
 Cousinot (Guillaume), Chronique de la 
 Pucelle. [14221429.] 12mo. An inte- 
 resting ivork. 
 
 Cochon (Pierre), chronique Nbrmande. 
 [1118 1430.] A decided champion of the 
 Armagnacs. 
 
 Memoires concernant la Pucelle d'Or- 
 leans. [14221429.] Mi. i. 3. Bu. 34. 
 P. i. 3. 
 
 Chartier (Jean) chronique de Charles 
 VII. [14221461.] 
 
 Histoire d'Artus III., due de Bretaigne, 
 comte de Richemont et connestable de 
 France, contenant ses memorables faicts 
 depuis 1'an 1413 jusques a Tan 1457 ; mise 
 en lumiere par Th. Godefroy. Mi. i. 3. 
 P. 1-8. 
 
 Memoires relatifs a Florent, sire d'll- 
 liers [par Denis Godefroy]. Mi. i. 3. 
 P. i. 8. 
 
5/0 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le 
 regne de Charles VII. [14221449.] Mi. 
 i. 3. Bu. 40. 
 
 Les l er et 2 e livre des memoires de mes- 
 sire Olivier de la Marche. [1435 1488.] 
 Mi. i. 3. Precieux pour Vkistoire du 
 temps. 
 
 S'ensuyt 1'estat de la maison du due 
 Charles de Bourgongne, dit le Hardy, 
 compose par Olivier de la Marche. [1474.] 
 Mi. i. 3. P. i. 9, 10. 
 
 Memoires de Jacques du Clercq, sieur 
 de Beauvoir en Ternois. [14481467.] 
 Mi. i. 3. Bu. 3740. P. i. 11. Full of 
 details on the dukes of Burgundy. 
 
 Chronique de Mathieu de Coussy (or 
 d'Escouchy). [14441461.] Bu. 35, 36. 
 S.H.F. 3. vols. 8vo. 
 
 Memoires de Philippe de Comines. 
 [1464-1498.] Mi.i.4. Pi. 11- 13. S.H.F. 
 3 vols. 8vo. II voit son temps tel qu'il 
 est, et le peint avec des couleurs qui ne 
 viennent point de I'ecole. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Les chroniquesdutres-chrestienet tres- 
 victorieux Louys de Valois, feu roy de 
 France, unziesme de ce nom; avecques 
 plusieurs aultres adventures advenues 
 tant en ce royaume de France, comme es 
 pays voisins. [1460 1483.] Mi. i. 4. P. 
 i. 13 14. Cette chronique est appelee 
 bien a tort " Chronique Seandaleuse." (La- 
 lanne.) 
 
 Basin (Thomas), Histoire de Charles 
 
 VII. et de Louis XL S.H.F. 4 vols. 8vo. 
 Precieuse chronique . (Lalanne.) 
 
 Journal des fitats gneraux de 1484, par 
 Jean Masselin. D. i. 4to. 
 
 Memoires de Guillaume de Villeneuve. 
 [14941497.] Mi. i. 4. P. i. 14. Invalu- 
 able for the history of the wars of Charles 
 
 VIII. in Italy. 
 
 PEtnegyrique du chevallier sans repro- 
 che, Louis de la Tremoille, par Jean 
 Bouchet. [14601525.] Mi. i. 4. P. i. 14. 
 
 Tres-joyeuse, plaisante et recreative 
 histoire du bon chevalier sans paour et 
 sans reprouche, composee par le loyal ser- 
 viteur. [14761520.] Mi. i. 4. S.H.F. 8vo. 
 P. i. 15, 16. Un des chefs-d'oeuvre de noire 
 langue. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Chronique du bon chevalier messire 
 Jacques de Lalain, pere et compagnon de 
 1'ordre de la toison d'Or, par messire 
 Georges Chastellain. [14301453.] Bu.41. 
 
 Declaration de tous les hautz faictz et 
 glorieases adventures du due Philippe de 
 Bourgongne, par messire Georges Chas- 
 tellain, son indiciaire [historiographe]. 
 [14641470.] Bu. 42, 43. 
 
 Chroniques de Jean Molinet. [1470 
 1506.] Bu.43, 47. 
 
 6. Branch of Orleans. 
 
 Histoire des choses memorables adve- 
 nues du reigne de Louis XII. et Fra^ois 
 l er , par Kobert de la Marck, seigneur de 
 Fleurange. [14991521.] Mi. i. 5. P. 
 i. 16. Curieux memoires .... vivacite 
 naive et un peu fanfaronne. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Journal de Louise de Savoye. [1476 
 1522.] Mi. i. 5. P. i. 16. Short, but very 
 interesting. 
 
 Les memoires de messire Martin du 
 Bellay, seigneur de Langey, chevalier de 
 1'ordre du roy, capitaine de cinquante 
 hommes d'armes de ses ordonnances, et 
 son lieutenant general en ses pays et 
 duche de Normandie, en 1' absence de mon- 
 seigneur le Dauphin. [1512 1534.] Mi. 
 i. 5. 
 
 Les memoires de messire Guillaume du 
 Bellay. [15351536.] Mi. i. 5. P. i. 17, 
 18, 19. 
 
 7. Branch of Valois-Angouleme. 
 
 Les memoires de messire Martin du 
 Bellay. [15361547.] Mi. i. 5. P. i. 
 18, 19. 
 
 Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous 
 le regne de Francois ler. [15151536.] 
 S H.F. 8vo. 
 
 Memoires-journaux de Fra^ois de Lor- 
 raine, due d'Aumale et de Guise. [1547 
 1563.] Mi. i. 6. 
 
 Memoires du prince de Conde. Recueil 
 des choses memorables faites et passees 
 pour le faict de la religion et estat de ce 
 royaume, depuis la mort du roy Henry II. 
 jusqu'en 1'annee 1564. [15591564.] Mi. 
 i. 6. 
 
 Memoires d'Antoine du Puget, sieur de 
 Saint-Marc, relatifs aux troubles de Pro- 
 vence. [15611596.] Mi. i. 6. 
 
 Commentaires de messire Blaise de 
 Montluc, mareschal de France. [1521 
 1574.] Mi. i. 7. S.H.F. 5 vols. 8vo. P. i. 
 20 22. II faut faire soigneusement la 
 part du caractere fanfaron de I'auteur. 
 (Lalanne.) 
 
 Commentaires des dernieres guerres en 
 la Gaule Belgique, entre Henry second du 
 nom, tres-chrestien roy de France, et 
 Charles cinquiesme, empereur, et Philippe 
 son fils, roy d'Espaigne, par Fran9ois de 
 Eabutin. [1551.] Mi. i. 7. P. i. 31, 32. 
 
 Memoires sur Gaspard de Saulx, seig- 
 neur de Tavannes. [1515 1573.] Mi. i. 
 8. P. i. 23. 
 
 Memoires de Guillaume de Saulx, seig- 
 neur de Tavannes. [15601595.] Mi. 
 i. 8. P. i. 35. 
 
 Le siege de Metz par Bertrand de Sali- 
 gnac. [1552.]. Mi. i. 8. P. i. 32. 
 
Sources of the History of France. 
 
 571 
 
 Discours de Gaspard de Coligny, ou sont 
 sommairement contenues les choses qui se 
 sont passees durant le siege de Saint- 
 Quentin. [1557.] Mi. i. 9. P. i, 32. 
 
 Memoire de la Chastre, sur le voyage de 
 M. le due de Guise en Italie. [1556 
 1557-] Mi. i. 8. P. i. 32. 
 
 Memoires de Guillaume de Rochechou- 
 art. [14971565.] Mi. i. 8. P. i. 33. 
 
 Memoires de Claude Haton. [1553 
 1582.] D. i. 2 vols. 4to. 
 
 Memoires d'Achille Gamon. [1558 
 1586.] Mi. i. 4. P. i. 34. 
 
 8. The Bourbons. 
 
 Memoires de Jean Philippi. [1560 
 1590.] Mi. i. 8. P. i. 34. 
 
 Memoires de la vie de Fra^ois de Sce- 
 peaux, mareschal de Vielleville. [1527 
 1571.] Mi. i. 9. P. i. 2628. 
 
 Memoires de Michel de Castelnau. 
 [15591570.] Mi. i. 9. P. i. 33. Me- 
 moires fort interessants. (Lalaime.) 
 
 Memoires de Jean de Mergey. [1554 
 1589.] Mi. i. 9. P. i. 34. 
 
 Memoires de Fran9ois de la Noue. [1562 
 1570.] Mi. i. 9. P. ' i. 34. On the 
 Protestant side, but impartial, and well 
 written. 
 
 Brantome (Pierre de Bourdeille, sieur 
 de). Vies des grands capitaines, dames 
 illustres, etc. S.H.F. 9 vols. 8vo. Le plus 
 fidele miroir des mceurs de cette 4poque. 
 (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires de Boyvin du Villars. [1550 
 1569.] Mi. i. 10. P. i. 2830. Curieux, 
 et ecrits d'un ton de franchise et de verite. 
 (Boissonade.) 
 
 Memoires de Marguerite de Yalois. 
 [1569-1582.] Mi. i. 1. P. i. 37. S.H.F. 
 8vo. 1842. S't.st peinte d'une plume 
 legere. 
 
 Memoires de messire Philippe Hurault, 
 comte de Cheverny. [15531599.] Mi. 
 i. 10. P. i. 36. The transactions carried 
 on by the royalist party are explained in 
 detail. 
 
 Memoires de Philippe Hurault, abb6 de 
 Pontlevoy, eveque de Chartres. [1599 
 1601.] Mi. i. 10. P. i. 36. 
 
 Memoires de Henri de la Tour d'Au- 
 vergne, due de Bouillon, adressez a son 
 fils le prince de Sedan. [15551586.] 
 Mi. i. 11. P. i. 35. 
 
 Memoires du due d' Angouleme, pour ser- 
 vir a. 1'histoire des regnes de Henri III. et 
 de Henri IV. [15891593.] Mi. i. 11. 
 P. i. 44. 
 
 Memoires de Th. Agrippa d'Aubigne. 
 [15511562.] 8vo. Ne doivent etre lus 
 qu'avec une certaine mefiance. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires d'Estat de Monsieur deVille- 
 roy, secretaire des commandemens dea 
 rois Charles IX., Henri III., Henri IV., et 
 Louis XIII. [15741594.] Mi.i.ll. P. i. 
 44. 
 
 Memoires de Jacques -Auguste de Thou. 
 [15531601.] Mi. i. 11. P. i. 37- These 
 memoirs, originally written in Latin, form 
 part of the author's great work " Historia 
 sui temporis." 
 
 Memoires de Jean Choisnin. [1571 
 1573.] Mi. i. 11. P. 38. 
 
 Relation faite par maitre Jacques Gil- 
 lot, de ce qui se passa au Parlement 
 touchant la regence de la reine Marie de 
 Medicis. [1610.] Mi. i. 11. P. i. 49. 
 
 Memoires du marquis de Beauvais- 
 Nangis. [15621641.] S.H.F. 
 
 Journal du proces du marquis de la 
 Boulaye. [Maximilien fichalard. Decem- 
 ber 1649, May, 1650.] S.H.F. 
 
 Memoires de Mathieu Merle, baron de 
 Salavas. [15701580.] Mi. i. 11. P. i.38. 
 
 Memoires de Jacques Pape, seigneur de 
 Saint-Auban. [15721587.] Mi. i. 11. 
 P. i. 43. 
 
 Memoire fidele des choses qui se sont 
 passees a la mort de Louis XIII., par 
 Dubois, 1'un des valets de chambre de 
 S.M. [1643.] Mi. i. 11. 
 
 Memoires de Michel de Marillac. [1593 
 1594.] Mi. i. 11. P. i. 49. 
 
 Memoires de Claude Groulart, ou voya- 
 ges par lui faits en cour. [1588 1606.] 
 Mi. i. 11. P. i. 49. Peignent en traits 
 vifs et caract4ristiques toute la cla.sse 
 grave de la societe de cette 4poq_ue. 
 (Poirson.) 
 
 Chronologie novenaire de Palma Cayet. 
 [15761597.] Mi. i. 12. 
 
 Chronologie septenaire de Palma Cayet. 
 [15981604.] Mi. i. 12. P. i. 3843. 
 Ouvrages fort importants. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires et correspondance de Jacques 
 Nompar de Caumont, due de la Force 
 [1572 1640.] Renseignements precieux 
 sur des points particuliers. (Poirson.) 
 
 Memoires et journal de Pierre de 1'Es- 
 toile. [. . . 1574.] 
 
 Registre-journal de Henri III, roi de 
 France et de Pologne, par P. de 1'Estoile. 
 [15741589.] Mi. ii. 1. 
 
 Memoires et journal de Pierre de 1'Es- 
 toile. Regne de Henri IV., roy de France 
 et de Navarre. [15891610.] 
 
 Memoires et journal de Pierre de 1'Es- 
 toile. Regne de Loys XIII., roy de France 
 et de Navarre. [16101611.] Mi. ii. 1. 
 P. i. 45 49. A new and complete edition 
 of these interesting and valuable journals 
 is now in progress. 
 
572 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Memoires des sages et royales oecono- 
 mies d'Estat de Henry le Grand, ou rue- 
 moires de Sully. [15701611. Mi. ii. 2, 
 3. P. ii. 19. Pleins defaits et precieux 
 pour I'histoire. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Les negociations da president Jeannin. 
 [15981609.] Mi. ii, 4. P. ii. 1115 
 
 Melanges diplomatiques du president 
 Jeannin. [15951623.] Mi. ii. 4. P. ii. 
 16. Deploy a une capacite egale a son 
 integrite. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires de Francois Duval, marquis 
 de Fontenay-Mareuil. [16091647.] Mi. 
 ii. 5. P. i. 50 51. Memoires interes- 
 sants. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires de P. Phelypeaux de Pont- 
 chartrain. [16101620.] Mi. ii. 5. P. ii. 
 16, 17. 
 
 Conference de Loudun. [1616.] Mi. 
 ii. 3. 
 
 Memoires du due de Eolian. [1610 
 1629.] Mi. ii. 5. P. ii. 18, 19. Un des 
 plus beaux monuments historiques et litte- 
 raires de cette e~poque. (Haag.) 
 
 Memoires du due de Kohan sur la guerre 
 de la Valteline. [16301637.] Mi. ii. 5. 
 
 Memoires du marechal de Bassompierre. 
 [1579-1640.] Mi. ii. 6. P. ii. 1921. 
 S.H.F. 3 vols. Pleins de details precieux 
 et authentiques. 
 
 Memoires de Madame de Mornay. [1549 
 1606.] S.H.F. 2 vols. Narration sincere, 
 honnete, sans restriction. (Poirson.) 
 
 Memoires du marechal d'Estrees. [1610 
 1617.] Mi. ii. 6. P. ii. 16. 
 
 Memoires du sieur de Pontis. [1597 
 1652.] Mi. ii. 6. P. ii. 31. Memoires 
 a classer pa/rmi les romans historiques. 
 (D'Avrigny.) 
 
 Memoires du cardinal de Richelieu. 
 [16001638.] Mi. ii. 79. P. ii. 21 bis 
 30. De la plus haute importance. Leur 
 authenticity avait ete bien a tort attaque'e 
 par Voltaire. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Les Historiettes de Tallemant des Reaux. 
 Paris, Techener, 9 vols. 8vo. Anecdotes 
 de tout genre sur les homines de la pre- 
 miere rnoitie du xvi i fi . siecle. 
 
 Testament de S. E. Armand-Jean du 
 Plessis, cardinal due de Richelieu. [1642.] 
 Mi. ii. 9. 
 
 Memoires d'Arnauld d'Andilly. [1600 
 1656.] Mi. ii. 9. P. ii. 33, 34. 
 
 Memoires de Mathieu Mole. [1614 
 1650.] S.H.F. 4 vols. Documents depour- 
 vus d'inte"ret. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires de 1'abbe Antoine Arnauld. 
 [16341675.] Mi. ii. 9. P. ii. 34. 
 
 Memoires de Gaston, due d' Orleans. 
 16081636.] Mi. ii. 9. P. ii. 31. 
 
 Memoires de la duchesse de Nemours. 
 
 [1618-1653.] Mi. ii. 9. P. ii. 34 M6- 
 
 moires piquants, spirituels, mais un pen 
 sees. (Ste. Beuve.) 
 
 Memoires de Madame de Motteville. 
 [16301666.] Mi. ii. 10. P. ii. 3640. 
 Portent au plus haut degrd, dans leur 
 allure negligee, le caractere de la verite. 
 (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires du Pere Fr. Berthod. [1652 
 1653.] Mi. ii. 10. P. ii. 48. 
 
 La vie du cardinal de Rais. [1630 
 1655.] Mi. iii. 1. P. ii. 4446. 
 
 Complement des memoires du cardinal 
 de Retz. Redige d'apres les documents 
 originaux, par M. Champollion-Figeac. 
 [16541679.] Mi. iii. 1. An excellent 
 edition of the cardinal's memoirs forms 
 part of Messrs Hachette's collection, " Les 
 Grands ficrivains de la France," and is 
 now in progress. 
 
 Memoires de Guy Joly.. [16131665.] 
 Mi. iii. 2. P. ii. 47- 
 
 Memoires concernant le cardinal de Retz, 
 par Claude Joly. [16481655.] Mi, iii. 
 
 2. P. ii. 47- Peuvent etre regarde"s comme 
 la contre-partie des memoires- du Cardinal 
 de Retz. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires de Pierre Lenet. [1649 
 1659.] Mi. iii. 2. P. ii. 53, 54. Ecrits 
 avec beaucoup de franchise. 
 
 Journal d' Olivier Lefevre d'Ormesson. 
 [16431672.] D.I. 2 vols. 4to. 
 . Memoires du comte de Brienne, avec 
 additions, inedites. [1613 | 1661.] Mi. iii. 
 
 3. P. ii. 35, 36. 
 
 Memoires de Claude de Bourdeille, comte 
 de Montresor, [16321637.] Mi. iii. 3. 
 P. ii. 54. Tres intdressants ;. souvent r- 
 imprime's. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Relation faite par le vicomte de Fon- 
 trailles. [1642.] Mi. iii. 3. P. ii. 54. 
 
 Memoires du comte de la Chatre. [1638 
 -1643.] Mi. iii. 3. P. ii. 51. 
 
 Memoires de Nicolas Joseph Foucault. 
 [16751706.] D.I. 
 
 Memoires du comte de Coligny-Saligny. 
 [16171690. S.H.F. 
 
 Memoires de Daniel de Cosnac. [1650 
 1701.] S.H.F. 2 vols. Tres curieux, tres 
 animus, tres piquants. 
 
 Memoires du marquis de Villette. [1672 
 1704.] S.H.F. 
 
 Extrait des memoires de Henri de Cam- 
 pion. Mi. iii. 3. P. ii. 51. H^moires 
 pleins d'inte"ret. A good and complete 
 edition of these memoirs was published in 
 the " Bibliotheque Elzevirienne" of M. P. 
 Jannet. 12mo. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Lettres du vicomte de Turenne, pour 
 servir d' introduction a ses memoires. 
 [16271643.] Mi. iii. 3. 
 
Sources of the History of France. 
 
 573 
 
 Memoires du marechal vicomte de Tu- 
 renne. [16431658.] Mi. iii. 3. 
 
 Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpeu- 
 sier. [16271688.] Mi. iii. 4. P. ii. 40 
 43. Tres veridiques. (Sainte Beuve.) 
 
 Memoires de Valentin Conrart. [1652.] 
 Mi. iii. 4. P. ii. 48. 
 
 Memoires du marquis de Montglat. 
 [16351668.] Mi. iii. 5. P. ii. 4951. 
 Off- rent des renseignements precieux. 
 
 Memoires du due de la Rochefoucauld. 
 [16301652.] Mi. iii. 5. P. ii. 51, 52. 
 See also the edition published by Messrs. 
 Hachette in the Grands ficrivains. L'his- 
 toire de la regence d'Anne d'Autriche y est 
 racontee avec nettete et une Elegante pre- 
 cision. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires de Jean Herault de Gourville. 
 [16421697.] Mi. iii. 5. P. ii. 52. Gil 
 Bias superieur. (Sainte Beuve.) 
 
 Memoires d'Omer Talon. [16301653.] 
 Mi. iii. 6. P. ii. 6063. 
 
 Memoires de 1'abbe de Choisy. [1661 
 1683.] Mi. iii. 6. P. ii. 63. Agreablement 
 ecrits. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Memoires du due de Guise. [1647 
 1648.] Mi iii. 7. P. ii- 55, 56. 
 
 Memoires du marechal de Gramont. 
 [16041677.] Mi. iii. 7. P. ii. 56, 57. 
 
 Eelation du passage du Rhin, par le 
 comte de Guiche. [1672.] Mi. iii. 7. 
 
 Memoires du mareehal du Plessis. [1627 
 1671.] Mi. iii. 7. P. ii. 57. 
 
 Memoires de M. de *** [le comte de 
 Bregy]. [16431690.] Mi. iii. 7. P. ii. 
 58, 59. 
 
 Memoires de P. de la Porte. [1624 
 1666.] Mi. iii. 8. P. ii. 59. 
 
 Histoire de Madame Henriette d' Angle- 
 terre. [16591670.] Mi. iii. 8. P. ii. 64. 
 
 Memoires de la cour de France, pendant 
 les annees 1688 et 1689. Mi. iii. 8. P.ii.65. 
 
 Memoires du marquis de la Fare. [1672 
 1693.] Mi. iii. 8. P. ii. 65. 
 
 Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus. Mi. 
 iii. 8. P. ii. 66. Suite rapide de portraits 
 et d' esquisses. Elle y excelle. (Ste. Beuve.) 
 
 Memoires du marquis de Torcy. [1687 
 1713.] Mi. iii. 8. P. ii. 67, 68. 
 
 Me'moires du marechal de Villars. [1672 
 1734.] Mi. iii. 9. P. ii. 6871. 
 
 Memoires du comte de Forbin. [1675 
 1710.] Mi. iii. 9. P. ii. 74, 75. 
 
 Memoires de Duguay-Trouin. [1689 
 1715.] Mi. iii. 9. P. 75. 
 
 Memoires politiques et militaires, com- 
 poses par 1'abbe Millot, sur les pieces re- 
 cueillies par le due de Noailles. [1682 
 1766.] Mi. iii. 10. P. ii. 7174. 
 
 Memoires secrets de Duclos, sur lea 
 regnes de Louis XIV. et de Louis XV. 
 [17001726.] Mi. iii. 10. P. ii. 76, 77. 
 Abondent en renseignements. 
 
 Memoires de Madame de Staal. Mi. iii. 
 10. P. ii. 77, 78. Forment une des plus 
 agre"ables lectures. (Vinet.) 
 
 Journal et Memoires du marquis d'Ar- 
 genson. [16571757.] S.H.F. 5 vols. 8vo. 
 II choque, mais il instruit. (Ste. Beuve.) 
 
 Chronique de la Regence et du regne de 
 Louis XV., ou journal de Barbier, avocat 
 au Parlement. S.H.F. 4 vols. Charpen- 
 tier, 8 vols. 12rno. (Best edition.) Un des 
 ouvrayes les plus interessants que nous 
 ayons sur le xviii e . siecle. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Journal du marquis de Dangeau. [ 
 
 1684 
 mile 
 
 1720.] Paris, Didot, 19 vols. 8vo. 
 a consulter, mais ennuyeux. 
 
 Memoires couplets et authentiques ,du 
 due de Saint Simon. [1691 1723.] Paris, 
 Hachette, 20 vols. 8vo. Ne doivent etre 
 lus^qu'avec une certaine precaution, car les 
 erreurs, volontaires -ou non, n'y sont pas 
 rares.. (Lalanne.) 
 
 Journal et memoires de Mathieu Marais, 
 avocat au Parlement de Paris. [1707 
 1733..] Paris, Didot, 4 vols. 8vo. In- 
 teressants* 
 
 Memoires du due de Luynes sur la cour 
 de Louis XV. [17351758.] Paris, Didot, 
 17 vols. 8vo. Journal a peu pres dans le 
 meme genre que celui de Dangeau. (La- 
 lanne.) 
 
574 
 
 History of France. 
 
 o^3M 
 
 ^E-i'o c8 O 
 
Historical Tables. 
 
 575 
 
 C. TABLE OF THE FEUDAL DISMEMBERMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF 
 FRANCE, ABOUT THE END OF THE NINTH CENTURY. 
 
 Duchy of Gascony, became hereditary in . 8/2 
 
 Viscounty of Barn 819 
 
 County of Toulouse 850 
 
 Marquisate of Septimania . . . . 878 
 
 County of Barcelona 864 
 
 County of Carcassonne ..... 819 
 
 Viscounty of Narbonne 802 
 
 County of Roussillon 812 
 
 County of Urgel 884 
 
 County of Poitiers 880 
 
 County of Auvergne 864 
 
 Duchy of Aquitaine 864 
 
 County of Angouleme 866 
 
 County of Pe"rigord 866 
 
 Viscounty of Limoges, became hereditary in 887 
 
 Lordship of Bourbon 890 
 
 County of the Lyonnais . . . .890 
 
 Lordship of Beaujolais 880 
 
 Duchy of Burgundy 887 
 
 County of Chalons . , . . . . 836 
 
 Duchy of France 830 
 
 County of Vexin 878 
 
 County of Vermandois . . . about 880 
 
 County of Valois .... about 880 
 
 County of Ponthieu 859 
 
 County of Boulogne .... about 860 
 
 County of Anjou 875 
 
 County of Maine 853 
 
 County of Brittany 824 
 
 D. TABLE OF THE FEUDAL DISMEMBERMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF 
 FRANCE, ABOUT THE END OF THE TENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Duchy of Gascony, became hereditary in . 
 
 Viscounty of Beam 
 
 Viscounty of Bigorre, end of the 9th century 
 
 County of Fezensac 
 
 County of Armagnac 
 
 County of Lectoure, end of the 10th century 
 County of Astarac .... about 
 
 County of Toulouse 
 
 County of Barcelona 
 
 County of Rouergue 
 
 County of Carcassonne 
 
 Viscounty of Narbonne, end of the 9th cent. 
 
 County of Melgueil, commencement of the 
 
 9th century 
 
 Lordship of Montpellier . 
 County of Roussillon, middle of the 9th cent. 
 
 County of Urgel 
 
 County of Poitiers 
 
 Duchy of Aquitaine 
 
 County of Auvergne . . . . ' 
 
 County of Angouleme 
 
 County of P&rigord 
 
 County of Lower March 
 
 Viscounty of Limoges 
 
 Viscounty of Turenne, middle of the9th cent. 
 
 Viscounty of Bourges 
 
 Lordship of Bourbon, end of the 9th century 
 County of Macon 
 
 875 
 819 
 
 920 
 
 850 
 864 
 
 819 
 
 975 
 
 884 
 
 864 
 864 
 
 887 
 927 
 920 
 
 Duchy of Burgundy, became hereditary in 877 
 
 County of Chalons 886 
 
 Lordship of Salins 920 
 
 County of Nevers 987 
 
 County of Tonnerre, end of the 10th century 
 
 County of Sens 914 
 
 County of Champagne, end of the 9th cent. 
 
 County of Blois 834 
 
 County of Rethel, middle of the 10th century 
 
 County of Corbeil, middle of the 10th century 
 
 Barony of Montmorency, middle of the 10th 
 
 century 
 
 County of Vexin 878 
 
 County of Meulan 959 
 
 County of Vermandois 8SO 
 
 County of Valois 880 
 
 County of Soissons, end of the 10th century 
 
 County of Reims 940 
 
 County of Ponthieu 859 
 
 County of Boulogne 860 
 
 County of Guines 965 
 
 County of Vendome, end of the 10th century 
 
 Duchy of Normandy 812 
 
 County of Anjou ...... 870 
 
 County of Maine 853 
 
 Lordship of Belleme 940 
 
 County of Brittany 1008 
 
 Barony of Fougeres, end of the 10th cent. 
 
 County of Flanders 860 
 
576 
 
 History of France. 
 
 E. TABLE SHOWING THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS. 
 
 PERSONS COMPRISING THE PARLIAMENT : The king ; the princes of the blood royal ; the 
 peers of the realm; the chancellor ; the conseillers d'honneur; four maitres des requetes 
 du conseil du roi; the procureur-general (solicitor), and his gubstituts (assistants) ; three 
 avocats du roi (king's counsel) ; two premiers presidents ; nine presidents a mortier ; a 
 number of councillors. 
 
 INFERIOR OFFICERS : One registrar in chief (greffier) for civil cases, one for criminal 
 cases, and one for presentations ; four notaries and secretaries of the court ; several 
 special registrars ; one usher (huissier) in chief ; twenty-two subordinate ones. 
 
 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENTS, 
 
 with the date of their creation. 
 
 Aix, 1501; Dombes, 1538; Pau, 1620; 
 
 Grenoble, 1453; 
 Metz, 1635 ; 
 Nancy, 1769; 
 Normandy, 1499 ; 
 
 Besan90n, 1 676 ; 
 Bordeaux, 1462 ; 
 Bourges or Dijon, 1477 ; 
 Brittany, 1553 ; 
 
 2 
 
 I! 
 
 02. 
 
 a* 
 
 < o 
 
 05 
 H'g 
 
 .The grand conseil, which 
 was both a tribunal 
 judging in certain spe- 
 cial cases, and a poli- 
 tical council. Charles 
 VIII modified its func- 
 tions (1497) , assigning 
 them to two different 
 courts.: 
 
 / The grand conseil 
 
 Rennes, 1553; 
 Rouen, 1499. 
 Toulouse, 1302. 
 Tournai and Douai, 1668. 
 re- 
 
 The parlement was en- 
 trusted with the ad- 
 ministration of justice. 
 But it soon assumed a 
 political character, es- 
 pecially in connection 
 with the registration 
 (enreaistrement) of the 
 taxes (edits bursaux). 
 Under the reign of 
 Louis XIV. it consisted 
 of five courts (cham- 
 bren) : 
 
 The chambre des comp- 
 tea became sedentary 
 about the year 1319; 
 it had to examine and 
 regulate the accounts 
 of the government offi- 
 cers, to settle every- 
 thing connected with 
 the management of 
 the royal domains, 
 the temporalities of 
 .the Church, etc. Its 
 principal officers were, 
 under the reign of 
 
 * Louis XIV: 
 
 The conseil d'etat pre- 
 served the political 
 functions. It was sub- / 
 divided into four sec- 
 tions which were or- 
 ganized by Richelieu 
 (1624). 
 
 mained a special court 
 
 of justice. / The conseil d'en haut, 
 
 also called conseil- se- 
 cret,QTconseildu cabinet, 
 for the discussions of 
 foreign political to- 
 pics. Its members 
 were exclusively the 
 princes of the blood, 
 and the ministers. 
 A judicial court. 
 A treasury or financial 
 
 court. 
 
 A court for the settle- 
 ment of home ques- 
 tions (conseil des de- 
 \ ptches). 
 
 .rl. La grand' chambre, chambre du parlement, chambre 
 des plaids (by opposition to the chambre des en- 
 quetes). This was the most important of all. 
 There were held the beds of justice; letters of 
 grace, pardon, abolition, etc., were also presented 
 and examined at the grand' chambre. It consisted 
 of the senior president, nine presidents a mortier, 
 twenty-five lay, and twelve clerical councillors. 
 
 2. La chambre de la Tournelle. Existed as far back 
 as 1436, and judged the only petty cases of a cri- 
 minal nature. In 1515 its jurisdiction was ex- 
 tended to all cases of the kind. 
 
 3. Les chambres des enquetes. The first existed at the 
 beginning of the 14th century ; a second was esta- 
 blished in 1319 ; a third in 1521 ; a fourth in 1543, 
 and a fifth in 1 568 . The two last were suppressed in 
 1756. Preliminary examination of cases of appeal. 
 
 4. La chambre des requetes. Decided on all cases 
 brought immediately before the parliament. Its 
 earliest organization dates from 1304, or even from 
 1291, when Philip III. appointed three mattres des 
 requetes and one notary for the purpose of collecting 
 the petitions during the session of the Parliament. 
 
 5. La chambre des vacations, instituted in 1405 ; con- 
 firmed in 1499 and 1519. Judged preliminary civil 
 cases, and all criminal cases during the autumn 
 vacations of the other courts. 
 
 La chambre de la maree was a kind of police court 
 or commission established to settle and regulate 
 the sale of salt-water fish, and to decide in all 
 cases connected with that industry. 
 
 The grands-jours were assizes held at irregular 
 periods and in various places in order to despatch 
 long-pending law-suits, punish cases of oppres- 
 sion or gross misdemeanour, relieve the suffer- 
 ings of the people, etc. Instances of grands-jours 
 ^ occur between the 14th and the 17th centuries. 
 
 1. One first president, and twelve others. 
 
 2. Seventy-eight masters (maitres des comptes), who 
 delivered judgment. 
 
 3. Thirty-eight revisers (correcteurs) . These officers 
 were established in 1410. 
 
 4. A hundred and eighty-two clerks or auditeurs, 
 who had to prepare and draw up the reports. 
 
 6. One attorney-general, and one solicitor-general. 
 
Historical Tables. 
 
 577 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 Clodion 
 
 (k. 427-448). 
 
 Meroveus 
 (k. 448-458). 
 
 Childeric I. 
 (k. 458-481). 
 
 Clovis 
 (k. 481-511). 
 
 Thierry L, Chlodomir, Cbildebert I., 
 k. of Austrasia. k. of Orleans. k. of Paris. 
 d. 534. d. 524. d. 558. 
 
 Clotaire L, 
 k. of Soissons, 
 sole king 
 (558-561). 
 
 Caribert, 
 k. of Paris 
 (d. 567). 
 
 Gontran, Sigebert 
 k. of Burgundy k. of A 
 and of Orleans (d. , 
 (d. 593). 
 
 Childe 
 k. of Am 
 Burgund 
 
 1 
 I.=Brunehaut, 
 oistrasia 
 575), 
 
 aert II., 
 trasia and 
 Y (d. 596). 
 
 Chilperic L, 
 k. of Soissons= 
 Fredegonde 
 (d. 584). 
 
 Clotaire II., 
 sole king 
 (613-628). 
 
 Theodebert, Thierry II., 
 k. of Austrasia k. of Burgundy 
 (d. 312). (d. 613). 
 
 Dagobert L, 
 
 sole king 
 
 (628-638). 
 
 Sigebert II., 
 k. of Austrasia 
 (d. 656). 
 
 Dagobert II., 
 last Merovingian 
 k. of Austrasia 
 (d. 679). 
 
 Clotaire IV., 
 k. of Austrasia 
 (d. 719). 
 
 Clovis II., 
 (638-656). 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
 Caribert, 
 
 k. of Aquitaine 
 
 (d. 631). 
 
 Boggis, 
 d. of Aquitaine. 
 
 Eudes, 
 
 d. of Aquitaine 
 (688-735). 
 
 Clotaire III., 
 
 k. of Neustria 
 
 (656-670). 
 
 Clovis 
 (673-674). 
 
 Childeric II., 
 k. of Austrasia, 
 then sole k. 
 (d. 673). 
 
 I I" 
 
 Chilperic II. Clovis III. 
 
 (691695). 
 
 Thierry III., 
 k. of Burgundy. 
 I 
 
 Childeric III. 
 
 (742-752), 
 deposed by Pepin le Bref. 
 
 Childebert III. 
 (695-711). 
 
 Dagobert III. 
 (711-715). 
 
 Thierry IV. 
 (720-737). 
 P P 
 
578 
 
 History of France. 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE CAKLOVINGIANS. 
 Pepin of Landen, Saint Arnulf, 
 
 mayor of the palace in Austrasia 
 (d. 639). 
 
 brother of Pepin 
 (d. 640). 
 
 
 Grimoald Begga = 
 (d. 656). 
 
 Pepin of Ht 
 d. of the Fi 
 (d. 714 
 
 Anseghis 
 (d. 678). 
 
 jristal, 
 anks 
 ) 
 
 Drogo, Grimoald, Charles M 
 d. of Champagne mayor in (d. 741] 
 (d. 708). Neustria 
 (4.714). 
 
 irtel Childebrand 
 (d. 753). 
 
 
 Carloman, Pepin le Bref, 
 becomes a monk k. of the Franks 
 (747). (752-768). 
 
 Grippo 
 (d. 753). 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE Carloman 
 (768-814). (k. 771). 
 
 Louis le Debonnaire 
 (814-840). 
 
 Lot 
 emi 
 (d. 
 
 haire, Pepin, 
 jeror (d. 838) 
 875). 
 
 1 I 
 Louis the Charles the 
 German, Bald, 
 (d. 876). k. of France 
 (d. 877). 
 
 r ' i i 
 
 Louis II. Lothaire, Charles, Pepin II. Charles Louis 
 emperor k. of k. of k. of the Fat the 
 (d. 855). Lorraine Burgundy Aquitaine k. and Stammerer 
 (d. 869). and emperor (d. 879). 
 Provence (d. 888), 
 (d. 863). 
 
 
 Louis III. Carloman 
 (d. 882). (d. 884). 
 
 Charles the Simple 
 (d. 929). 
 
 Louis IY. 
 (k. 954). 
 
 1 
 Lothaire 
 (d. 986). 
 
 Louis V. 
 (d. 987). 
 
 Charles 
 d. of Lorraine 
 (d. 992). 
 
Historical Tables. 
 
 379 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE CAPETIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 I. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HUGH CAPET TO THE ACCESSION OP THE 
 HOUSE OP VALOIS. 
 
 Kobert the Strong, count of = Adelaide, daughter of 
 Anjou (d. 867). | Louis le Debonnaire. 
 
 Eudes, count of Paris, 
 king, 888-898. 
 
 Robert, duke of France, 
 (d. 923). 
 
 Hugh le Grand or le Blanc, 
 king of France and count of Paris 
 (d. 956). 
 
 HUGH CAPET, king, 987-996. 
 
 Robert, k. 996-1031. 
 I 
 
 Henry I., 
 k. 1031-1060. 
 
 EmmarrRodolph, or Raoul, 
 king of France, from 
 923 to 936. 
 
 Robert, duke of Burgundy. 
 
 Philip I., k. 1060-1108. 
 
 I 
 
 Hugh, founder of the 
 Capetian counts of Vermandois 
 and Valois. 
 
 Louis VI. (le Gros), k. 1108-1137. 
 Louis VII. (le Jeune), k. 1137-1180. 
 Philip II. (Augustus), k. 1180-1223. 
 Louis VIII., k. 1223-1226. 
 
 Louis IX. 
 k. 125 
 
 I 
 (St. Louis), 
 56-1270. 
 
 Robert, founder 
 of the counts of 
 Artois. 
 
 1 
 Alphonse, count of 
 Poitiers and 
 Toulouse. 
 
 1 
 Charles, count of 
 Anjou and Provence, 
 founder of the Royal 
 House of Naples. 
 
 Philip III. (le Hardi), 
 
 k. 1270-1285. 
 
 I 
 
 Robert, count of Clermont, 
 founder of the House of Bourbon. 
 
 Philip IV. (le Bel), 
 k. 1285-1314 
 
 1 
 
 Charles, count of Valois, 
 founder of the House of Valois. 
 
 1 1 
 Louis X. (le Hutin), Philip V. (le Long), 
 k. 1314-1316. k. 1316-1322. 
 
 i 
 
 Jeanne, m. Philip, 
 k. of Navarre 
 (d. 1349). 
 
 Charles, 
 k. of Navarre. 
 
 Charles IV. (le Bel), Isabella, 
 k. 1322-1328. m, Edward II. of 
 England. 
 
 Edward III. 
 of England. 
 
 p?2 
 
580 
 
 History of France. 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE HOUSE OF VALOIS OF FRANCE. 
 
 Charles, count of Yalois, younger son of king Philip III. 
 
 Philip VI., k. 1328-1350. 
 John (le Bon), k. 1350-1364. 
 
 Charles V. (le Sage), Louis, duke of Anjou, John, duke Philip, duke of Bur- 
 k. 1364-1380. founder of the 2nd royal of Berry. gundy (d. 1404). 
 
 house of Naples. 
 
 Jean Sans peur, killed at Montereau, 1419. 
 Philip (le Bon) (d. 1467). 
 Charles (le Temeraire) (d. 1477). 
 
 Mary, duchess of = Maximilian, archduke 
 Burgundy of Austria. 
 
 Philip, archduke of Austria, Juana, heiress of Cas- 
 
 and sovereign of the Nether- 
 lands (d. 1506). 
 
 tille and Aragon. 
 
 Charles V., king of Spain, sovereign of the Netherlands, 
 and emperor, 1519. 
 
 Charles VI. (le Bien-aime), (k. 1380-1422). 
 = Isabella of Bavaria. 
 
 Louis, duke of Orleans, 
 assassinated 1407, founder of the 
 line of Valois-Orleans. 
 
 Louis 
 'I . 1415). 
 
 John 
 (d. 1416). 
 
 Charles VII. 
 
 (le Victorieux), 
 
 k. 1422-1461. 
 
 I 
 
 Isabella Catherine 
 
 =1. Richard II. of England. = Henry V. 
 2. Duke of Orleans. of England. 
 
 Louis XI., k. 1461-1483. 
 
 I 
 
 Charles, duke of Berry. 
 
 Four daughters. 
 
 Charles VIII., 
 k. 1483-1498. 
 
 Anne= 
 Sire de Beaujeu. 
 
 Jeanne = 
 Duke of Orleans, 
 afterwards Louis XII. 
 
Historical Tables. 
 
 M 
 
 3131 
 
 yj fl rl CQ 
 
582 
 
 History of France. 
 
Historical Tables. 
 
 583 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE HOUSE OF BOURBON. 
 
 Robert, count of Clermont = Beatrice, heiress of Bourbon, 1272. 
 younger son of St. Louis. I 
 
 Louis, duke of Bourbon (d. 1341). 
 
 Peter, duke of Bourbon, 
 ancestor of the Constable 
 Charles, duke of Bourbon. 
 
 James, count de la Marche. 
 
 John, count de la Marche = Catherine, heiress of Vendome. 
 Louis, count of Vendome (d. 1447). 
 John, count of Vendome (d. 1477). 
 
 Francis, count of Vendome. Louis, prince of La Roche-sur-Yon 
 
 1 = Louisa, countess of Montpensier. 
 
 This branch became extinct 1608. 
 Charles, first duke of Vendome. 
 
 Antoine, duke of Vendome = Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre (d. 1572). 
 
 Henry IV. king of France and Navarre, 1589-1610. 
 = 1. Marguerite de Valois, d. of Henry II. 
 2. Mary de' Medici. 
 
 Louis XIII. king, 
 
 Gaston, duke of 
 
 Elizabeth 
 
 Christiana 
 
 Henrietta Maria 
 
 1610-1643= Anne 
 
 Orleans 
 
 = Philip IV. 
 
 =duke of 
 
 = Charles I. 
 
 of Austria d. of 
 
 (d. 1660). 
 
 of Spain 
 
 Savoy 
 
 of England 
 
 Philip III. of Spain. 
 
 1 
 
 (d. 1641). 
 
 (d. 1663). 
 
 (d. 1669). 
 
 
 
 La grande 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mademoiselle " 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (d. 1693). 
 
 
 
 
 Louis XIV. king, 1643-1715 
 
 = Maria Theresa, d. of 
 
 Philip IV. of Spain. 
 
 Louis, the dauphin, ob. 1711=Mary Anne Christine Victoire of Bavaria. 
 
 Philip, duke of Orleans 
 
 (founder of the branch of Bourbon-Orleans) 
 
 (d. 1701). 
 
 Louis, duke of Burgundy Philip V. of Spain. 
 
 (d. 1712)= Mary Adelaide 
 of Savoy. 
 
 I 
 Louis XV. king, 1715-1774= Mary Leczynska of Poland. 
 
 Charles, duke of Berry 
 (d. 1714). 
 
 Louis, the dauphin (d. 1765). 
 I 
 
 Six daughters. 
 
 Louis XVI. 
 
 king, 1774-1793. 
 
 = Marie Antoinette 
 
 of Austria. 
 
 L 
 
 Louis Stanislas Xavier, Charles Philip Three 
 
 count of Provence, count of Artois, daughters, 
 
 afterwards Louis XVIEE. afterwards Charles X. 
 
 king, 1814-1824. king, 1824-1830. (d. 1836). 
 
 I. 
 
 Maria Theresa Louis XVII. Louis, duke of Charles Ferdinand, duke of 
 
 Louis, duke (d. 1795). Angouleme Berry, assassinated, Feb. 1820. 
 
 of Angouleme. = Maria Theresa, 
 
 daughter of Louis XVI. 
 
 Henry, duke of Bordeaux, 
 comte de Chambord " Henry V." 
 
 Louisa, 
 duchess of Parma. 
 
History of France. 
 
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INDEX. 
 
 Abdel-Rhaman, 38. 
 
 Abelard, 103 ; a Freethinker, his struggles 
 
 with the Church, 104. 
 Academy, the French, founded by Riche- 
 lieu, 363. 
 , the (see also French Academy), 
 
 and Corneille's Cid, 365 j and Eacine, 
 
 429. 
 of Sciences, the, 434 j and Fonte- 
 
 nelle, 514. 
 Acadia, French colony of, and M. de 
 
 Monts, 489 j and the Treaty of Utrecht, 
 
 491. 
 Acadians, Emigration of, to the Bay of 
 
 Fundy, 492. 
 Adalhard, Scholar of the School of the 
 
 Palace, time of Charlemagne, 50. 
 Adams, John, 548. 
 Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, 76. 
 Adrets, Baron, 294. 
 Adrian I., Pope, 44. 
 JEduans, the, 3, 8. 
 ^Egidius, Roman General, 29. 
 JEtius, Roman General, 28. 
 Agatha (Agde), Founding of, 2. 
 Agenois ceded to Edward I. of England 
 
 by Philip III., 122. 
 Agincourt, the battle of, Oct. 25, 1415, 
 
 178. 
 Agnadello, the battle of, between the 
 
 French under Louis XII. and the Vene- 
 tians, 1509, 231. 
 Agobard, scholar of the School of the 
 
 Palace, time of Charlemagne, 50. 
 Aguesseau, Chancellor d', 449; exiled, 
 
 458. 
 Aigues - Mortes, meeting at, between 
 
 Francis I. and Charles V., 261. 
 Aiguillon, the Duke of, 501, 507. 
 Aire, John d', 149. 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, residence of Charle- 
 magne, 46; the Peace of, 1668, 378; 
 
 Peace Congress and Treaty of 1748, 
 
 477. 
 
 Alais, the Peace of, 354. 
 Alaric II., King of the Visigoths, 30. 
 Alans, the, 28. 
 
 Alauda, the, Julius Caesar's "Wakeful" 
 
 Gallic Legion, 17. 
 Albemarle, the Duke of, 396. 
 Alberoni, 455 ; fall of, 456. 
 Albigensians, the, 104 ; crusade against, 
 
 105, 106 ; and Louis VIII., 111. 
 Albret, Jeanne d', 297. 
 Alcuin, 45. 
 Aldred r Archbishop of York, anoints 
 
 Harold King of England, 69. 
 AlenQon, the Duke d', killed at Agincourt, 
 
 179. 
 
 Alesia, the town of, 15. 
 Alexander IV., Pope, and St. Louis, 119. 
 VI., Pope, 222, 223 ; and Louis 
 
 XII., 229. 
 Alexis Comnenus, the Emperor, and the 
 
 Crusaders, 76, 81. 
 Allemanians,. the, invade the settlements 
 
 of the Franks, A.D. 496, 29. 
 Allobrogians r the, 8, 9. 
 Almanza, the battle of, 1707, 390. 
 Alphonso II., King of Naples, and Charles 
 
 VIII., 223. 
 Alps, the, crossed by Francis I. and his 
 
 army, 243. 
 
 Alsace, 368 ; restored to France, 398. 
 Alviano, Barthelemy d', at the battle of 
 
 Agnadello, 231. 
 Amadeo, Victor, Duke of Savoy, 385, 390, 
 
 391, 392 ; and Law, the Scotch adven- 
 turer, 448, 449. 
 Amboise, Cardinal d', 229; death and 
 
 character, 232. 
 , the Peace and Edict of, 1563, 
 
 295, 296. 
 Ambrons, the, and Teutons, the, defeated 
 
 by the Romans under Marius at the 
 
 Campi Putridi, 102 B.C., 9. 
 America and French enterprise, 488. 
 American Independence, the Declaration 
 
 of, July 4, 1776, 543. 
 American Colonies, the, independence of 
 
 recognized by England, 548. 
 War of Independence, the, 540 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Ampsuarians,the,a tribe of the Franks, 27. 
 Amsterdam, gallant defence of, against 
 
 Louis XIV. 379. 
 
586 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Amyot, James, 359. 
 Anastasius, Emperor of the East, 32. 
 Ancenis, the Treaty of, 1468, 204. 
 Ancre, Marshal d' (see also Concini), 
 
 death of, 337. 
 Andelot, Francis d', 297. 
 Angilbert, scholar of the School of the 
 
 Palace, time of Charlemagne, 50. 
 Anjou,, the Duke of, and Charles VI., 
 
 171. 
 , the Duke of, son of John II , 
 
 breaks his word of honour and escapes 
 
 to France, 161. 
 
 -, Henry, Duke of, and the massa- 
 
 cre of St. Bartholomew, 300 ; and the 
 
 siege of La Kochelle in 1573, 305; 
 
 elected King of Poland, 305; recalled 
 
 from Poland to the crown of France as 
 
 Henry III., 306. 
 , the Duke of, becomes Philip V. 
 
 of Spain by the will of Charles II., 388. 
 Anne of Austria and Louis XIII., 337 ; 
 
 and the Broussel affair, 369. 
 Anne de Beaujeu, 217, 221 ; government 
 
 of, 218. 
 Anne of Brittany, 220 ; marriage of, with 
 
 Charles VIII., 221; wife of Louis XII., 
 
 239. 
 Anne, Queen of England, and the Duke 
 
 of Marlborough, 388. 
 Anselm, St., 265. 
 
 Antioch and the Crusaders, 77, 79. 
 Antipolis (Antibes), founding of, 2, 
 Antoinette, Marie, and Louis XVI., 551 ; 
 
 and court intrigues, 552 ; growing un- 
 popularity of, 554 ; increase of the 
 
 popular feeling against, 555, 
 Antwerp surrenders to Louis XV., 475. 
 Aquas Sextise (Aix), the first Roman 
 
 settlement in Transalpine Gaul, 123 
 
 B.C., 8. 
 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 265. 
 Aquitania, 34 ; conquered by the Visigoths, 
 
 30 ; district of, 35. 
 Aquitanian province, the, of ancient Gaul, 
 
 2,17. 
 
 Aquitanians, the, 2. 
 Arabs, the, 37, 44 ; incursions of the, in 
 
 Southern Gaul, 38. 
 
 Arbogastes, a leader of the Franks, 27. 
 Arelate (Aries), the town of, 2. 
 Argenson, Marquis d', 476; and the 
 
 Orleans Regency, 452 ; quoted, 462, 
 
 469; and M. de Lally, 486; and the 
 
 decline of the kingship in France, 494 ; 
 
 dismissed by Louis XV., 497. 
 Arians, the, 29. 
 Ariovistus, 10, 11 ; is defeated by Julius 
 
 Caesar, 12. 
 
 Armagnac, Count Bernard d', 177. 
 , the Constable, torn to pieces 
 
 by the mad mob of Burgundians, 180. 
 
 Armagnac, Count James d', and Louis XL, 
 
 202, 212. 
 Armagnacs and Burgundians, civil war 
 
 between the, 179. 
 
 , Massacre of the, 180. 
 
 Armoric League, the, 3. 
 Armorica, the Britons of, 3. 
 Army reforms of Louvois, 404. 
 Arnaulds, the, and M. de St. Cyran, 414, 
 
 415. 
 
 Arouet, Frangois Marie, see Voltaire. 
 Arques, battle of, gained by Henry IV., 
 
 318. 
 Arras, siege of, July 1414, 178 ; the Peace 
 
 of (1435), 191 ; treaty at, in 1482, be- 
 tween Louis XL, and Maximilian of 
 
 Austria, 215. 
 Artevelde, James Van, the brewer of 
 
 Ghent, and Edward III. of England, 
 
 142. 
 
 , Philip Van, leader of the in- 
 surgent Flemings, 172. 
 Artois, Count Eobert of, commands the 
 
 army of Philip IV. raised to subdue the 
 
 revolt in Flanders, and is defeated 
 
 and killed at the battle of Courtrai, 
 
 124. 
 
 Arvernians, the, 3. 
 Assas, Chevalier d', heroic death of, 
 
 502. 
 Assembly of Notables, convocation of the, 
 
 proposed by M. de Calonne (1787), 
 
 555. 
 As sizes of Jerusalem, Godfrey de Bouillon's 
 
 Code of Laws, 79. 
 
 Ataulph, King of the Visigoths, 28. 
 Attila, the famous Hun King, 28. 
 Aubin-du- Cormier, St., battle of, 220. 
 Audenarde, the battle of, 391. 
 Augsburg, the League of, 1686, 384. 
 Augustus, sole master of the Roman 
 
 world, 17 ; forms roads in Gaul, 17. 
 
 III. of Poland, death of, 465. 
 
 , Stanislaus, of Poland, 465. 
 
 Auneau, the battle of, 310. 
 
 Auray, battle of, costs Charles of Blois 
 
 his life and the countship of Brittany, 
 
 144. 
 
 Aurelian, the Roman Emperor, 20. 
 Aurelius, Marcus, 19 ; persecutes the 
 
 Christians, 25. 
 Aurillac, Gerbert de, 265. 
 Austrasia, kingdom of, 33, 35. 
 Austria and France, commencement of 
 
 the rivalry between, 211. 
 
 and Henry IV., 331. 
 
 and the Partition of Poland, 
 
 1772, 510. 
 
 , Margaret of (see also Margaret}, 
 
 216. 
 
 , Anne of, wife of Louis XIIL, 
 
 337- 
 
Index. 
 
 587 
 
 Avaux, M. d', 368. 
 
 Avenio (Avignon), the town of, 2. 
 
 Avernians, the, 9, 10, 11. 
 
 Avignon, chosen as the Papal residence 
 
 by Clement V-, 130. 
 Aydie, Odet d', and Louis XI. 213. 
 
 B. 
 
 Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem, and 
 Louis VII., 82. 
 
 Balue, Cardinal de la, 211. 
 
 Balzac, 363. 
 
 Barbarigo, Doge of Venice, and Charles 
 VIII., 222. 
 
 Barbarities of the early French Kings, 
 34. 
 
 Barbarossa, Frederic, 85. 
 
 Barbezieux, 406. 
 
 Barbier, Advocate, 492, 506. 
 
 Barfleur taken by Edward III., 146. 
 
 Barri, Godfrey de, Lord of Renaudie, 
 289. 
 
 Barricades in Paris in 1648, 369. 
 
 Bart, John, a corsair of Dunkerque, ex- 
 ploits of, 381. 
 
 Bartholomew, St., the Massacre of, events 
 which led to, 300; commencement of 
 the Massacre of, by the murder of 
 Admiral Coligny, 301. 
 
 Basques, the, 2. 
 
 Bastille, the, begun by Charles V., 171. 
 
 Baudricourt and Joan of Arc, 186. 
 
 Bavaria, the Duke of, asked to give his 
 daughter Isabel in marriage to Charles, 
 173. 
 
 , Judith of, becomes the wife of 
 
 Louis the Debonnair, 55. 
 
 , the Elector of, and the battle 
 
 of Blenheim, 389, claims to the Empire, 
 469; made lieutenant-general of the 
 armies of France, 470 ; proclaimed 
 Emperor as Charles VII., 471. 
 
 Bavarians, the, 43. 
 
 Baville, Lamoignon de, 412. 
 
 Bayard, Peter du Terrail, the Chevalier 
 de, knights Francis I., 244; wounded 
 near Romagnano; death of that "gentle 
 knight, well-beloved of every one," 
 252. 
 
 Bayonne, loss of, by the English after 
 holding it for three centuries, 194. 
 
 Bazin, Thomas, quoted, 195. 
 
 Beachy Head, naval engagement off, in 
 which the English and Dutch are de- 
 feated by the French under Tourville, 
 385. 
 
 Beaujeu, Anne de, government of, 218. 
 
 Beaumarchais, aids the Americans against 
 England, 541. 
 
 . Mwriage de Figaro, 554. 
 
 Beaumont, Christopher de. Archbishop of 
 Paris, 497. 
 
 Beauvais, siege of, by Charles the Kash, 
 206. 
 
 , the Bishop of, and the trial of 
 
 Joan of Arc, 190. 
 
 , Vincent of, writings of, 264. 
 
 Beauvilliers, the Duke of, 416. 
 
 Beda, Noel, denounced by Erasmus, 272. 
 
 Bedford, the Duke of, regent of France, 
 184 ; and Joan of Arc, 421 ; has King 
 Henry VI. crowned at Paris, 1431, 
 191. 
 
 Belgian province, the, of Roman Gaul, 17. 
 
 Belgians, the, 1. 
 
 Belle-Isle, Count, character of, 469. 
 
 , Marshal, coldly received at 
 
 Paris, 478 ; and the Italian campaign 
 of 1745, 474; death of, 500. 
 
 Belleville, Joan of, wife of Oliver de 
 Clisson, revenges her husband's death, 
 145. 
 
 Belzunce, Mon seigneur de, heroic self- 
 sacrifice and benevolence of, during the 
 time of the Plague in Marseilles, 459. 
 
 Benedict XL, Pope, and Philip IV. of 
 France, 130. 
 
 Benefices, 39. 
 
 Bentinck, Earl of Portland, 386. 
 
 Beranger, Raymond, Count of Provence, 
 gives his daughter Marguerite in mar- 
 riage to Louis IX., 113. 
 
 Berbers, the, or Moors, 44. 
 
 Berengaria of Navarre, married to Ri- 
 chard Cceur de Lion at Cyprus, 86. 
 
 Bergen-op-Zoom, captured 1747, 479. 
 
 Bergerac, the Peace of, in 1577, 309. 
 
 Berlin, captured and pillaged by the 
 Russians, 502. 
 
 Bernard, St., 81 ; death of, 84 ; and Abe- 
 lard, 103 ; in concert with Cardinal 
 Alberic, preaches against the heretics 
 in the Countship of Toulouse, 105. 
 
 , Duke, of Saxe- Weimar, 357, 
 
 35& 
 
 Bernis, Abbe de, 496; dismissed by Louis 
 XV., 500. 
 
 Berquin, Louis de, burnt as a heretic, 
 272. 
 
 Bertrand du Guesclin, 164, 169. 
 
 Berry, the Duke of, and Charles VI, 
 174. 
 
 the Duchess of, death of, 459. 
 
 Berulle, Cardinal, 350. 
 
 Berwick, Marshal, and Philip V. of Spain, 
 390 ; gains the victory of Almanza, 
 390 ; commences the campaign of 1734 
 against Austria, and is killed, 466. 
 
 Beziers, capture of, 106. 
 
 Bibracte (Autun), the town of, 3. 
 
 Biron, Marshal de, conspiracy against 
 Henry IV., 334. 
 
 Black Plague, the, 13471349, 149. 
 
 Blanche, Queen, of Castille, aids her 
 
588 
 
 History of France. 
 
 husband, Prince Louis, in his expe- 
 dition against England, 108 ; character 
 of, 112 ; mother of St. Louis, 111. 
 
 Blenheim, the battle of, 1704, 189. 
 
 Blois, Charles of, war with John of Mont- 
 fort, 143. 
 
 Treaty of, between Louis XII. and 
 Venice, 235. 
 
 Boileau, 430. 
 
 , Stephen, Provost of Paris, 117. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, (see also St. John), 
 and Yoltaire, 516. 
 
 Bologna, meeting of Francis I. and Pope 
 Leo II., 245 ; siege of, raised by Gaston 
 de Foix, 233. 
 
 Boniface VIII., Pope, St. Louis, claims 
 temporal as well as spiritual power 
 in the affairs of Christendom, 126, 127 ; 
 and his Bull, "Hearken, most dear 
 Son," 128 ; narrow escape of, death 
 of, 130. 
 
 Bonifacius, Roman General, 27- 
 
 Bonnivet, Admiral, entrusted by Francis 
 I. with the conduct of the war in Italy, 
 251. 
 
 Bordeaux, loss of, by the English, 1451, 
 194; retaken by Lord Talbot, 195; revolt 
 of, against the Salt Tax, 1548, 277. 
 
 Borgia, Csesar, 222. 
 
 Bossuet, and the works of Madame 
 Guyon, 417; and Fenelon, 417; head 
 of the great French Catholic Party, 
 421 ; and the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, 418 ; death of, 422. 
 
 Bouchain, captured by Villars and the 
 French, 397- 
 
 Boucicaut, Marshal de, 178. 
 
 Boufflers, Marshal, 386, 388 ; defends 
 Lille against Marlborough and Eugene, 
 391 ; at Malplaquet, 393. 
 
 Bougainville, M. de, world circumnaviga- 
 tor, 554. 
 
 Bouillon, the Duke of, arrested for con- 
 spiring with Cinq Mars, 343. 
 
 Bourbon, Francis of. See Count d'En- 
 ghien. 
 
 , Charles, Duke of, and Francis I., 
 243. 
 
 , Charles II., Duke of, revolt of, 
 
 250; interview with Bayard, 252; lays 
 siege to Marseilles, 253 ; is repulsed, 
 and has to fall back on Italy, 254 ; 
 leaves the Imperial army in Italy and 
 raises an army in Germany, 255 ; killed 
 at the storming of Rome, 1527, 259. 
 
 , the Constable de. See Charles II. 
 
 of Bourbon. 
 
 , Louis de. See Prince Louis de 
 
 Cond6. 
 
 , Henry de, son of Prince Louis de 
 Conde. See Henry de Cond4. 
 
 , Cardinal Charles de, 317. 
 
 Bourbon, the Duke of, and the legitimized 
 
 princes, 453. 
 
 , French colony, 482. 
 
 Bourdaloue, Father, death and character 
 
 of, 422. 
 Bourges besieged by the Burgundians, 
 
 178. 
 Bouteville, M. de, executed for duelling, 
 
 341. 
 Bouvines, battle of, won by the French 
 
 under Philip II., 101. 
 Boyne, battle of the, 385. 
 Brabant, the Duke of, kil ed at Agin- 
 
 court, 179. 
 Breda, Peace of, between England and 
 
 Holland, 377. 
 Brenn (the Brennus of the Greeks and 
 
 Latins), the great Gallic chieftain, 4. 
 Brescia captured by Gaston de Foix, 
 
 233. 
 Bretigny, the Treaty of, between the 
 
 English and French, 1360, 160. 
 Breze, Peter de, seneschal of Louis XL, 
 
 203. 
 
 , Sire de, 250. 
 
 Bri9onnet, William, 271. 
 Brienne and Louis XIV., 375, 
 
 , Lom6nie de, 555. 
 
 Brissac, Charles de, 327. 
 Brittany, the Parliament of, 494. 
 
 , John III. of, 143. 
 
 , Arthur of, 100. 
 
 , Francis II. of, and Louis XI., 
 
 204, 208. 
 , Anne of, wife of Louis XII., 
 
 239. 
 
 Broglie, Marshal, 472. 
 , the Duke of, defeated at Minden, 
 
 502. 
 
 Broussel, arrest of, 369. 
 Broye, castle of, 147. 
 Bructerians, the, 27. 
 Brunehaut, Queen, 35. 
 Brunswick, Grand Duke Ferdinand of, 
 
 defeats Count Clermont at Crevelt, 
 
 500, defeats the French at Minden, 
 
 502. 
 Brussels captured by Marshal Saxe. 
 
 476. 
 
 Bude (or Budaeus), 273. 
 Buffon, 523525. 
 
 , Count de, death of, in the Re- 
 volution, 525. 
 
 Burgundy, kingdom of, 33. 
 and Edward III. of England. 
 
 159 ;. taken possession of by John II., 
 
 161 ; the Dukes of, and Charles VI., 
 
 175, 176, 177. 
 , Philip the Bold, Duke of, and 
 
 Charles VI., 176, 177. 
 , Duke John the Fearless of, 
 
 murders the Duke of Orleans, 176 ; 
 
Index. 
 
 589 
 
 returns, and becomes master of Paris, 
 180 ; death of, 181. 
 
 Burgundy, Charles the Eash, Duke of 
 Burgundy, and Louis XI., 205; and 
 the siege of Beauvais, 206; and the 
 English in France, 207 ; defeated by 
 the Swiss at Morat, 209 ; defeated and 
 killed at the battle of Nancy, 210. 
 
 , the Duke of, takes command of 
 
 the French army in Flanders, 384 ; 
 death of, 394. 
 
 , the Duchess of, and Louis XIV., 
 
 439 ; death of, 440. 
 
 Burgundians, the, 16 ; and Armagnacs, 
 civil war between the, 177 ; obtain pos- 
 session of Paris, 180. 
 
 Bussy, M. de, 484486. 
 
 Butchers, the, of Paris, 177. 
 
 Bute, Lord, and Mr. Pitt, 503 ; demands 
 the destruction of Dunkerque, 504. 
 
 Byzantium in danger from the Crusaders, 
 81. 
 
 C. 
 
 Cabellio (Cavaillon), the town of, 2. 
 
 Caen taken by Edward III., 146. 
 
 Caesar Borgia, 222. 
 
 , Julius, and the conquest of G-aul, 
 
 10, defeats the Helvetians, B.C. 58, 12 ; 
 begins his conquest of Gaul, 9 ; defeats 
 the Germans who had invaded Gaul 
 under Ariovistus, 10 ; character of, 13 ; 
 defeats the Gauls under Yercingetorix, 
 14; encloses eighty thousand Gallic in- 
 surgents under Vercingetorix in the 
 town of Alesia, 16. 
 
 Calais, siege of, by Edward III., 147, 148, 
 captured from the English by Duke de 
 Guise, 1558, 281; and the treaty of 
 Gateau- Cambresis, 282. 
 
 Galas, 520 ; the persecution of the, and 
 Voltaire, 463. 
 
 Caligula, government of, 18. 
 
 Calixtus III., Pope, rehabilitates Joan of 
 Arc, 191. 
 
 Calonne, M. de, made comptroller-general 
 by Louis XVI., 551 ; extravagant mea- 
 sures of, 553 ; proposes to convoke the 
 Assembly of Notables, 555. 
 
 Calvin, 274, 275 j Christian Institutes, 
 274. 
 
 Calvinists, the, and Henry IV., 322, 323. 
 
 Cambrai, the League of, 230 ; the Peace 
 of, 1529, 260; captured, 381. 
 
 Camisards, revolt of the, 412, 413. 
 
 Canada, early French settlements in, 
 488 ; and the Treaty of Utrecht, 491 ; 
 abandoned by France, 493. 
 
 Canadians, the French, 491 ; character of, 
 492 ; devotion and courage of, 491. 
 
 Canals, the, of Languedoc and Orleans, 
 402. 
 
 Cape Breton, captured by the English, 
 1745, 492. 
 
 Capet, Hugh, 62; and Feudal France, 
 63 ; has his son Eobert crowned with 
 him, death of, A.D. 996, 63. 
 
 Capitularies, the, of Charlemagne and the 
 Frankish Kings, 48, 49. 
 
 Capponi, Peter, and Charles VIII., 223. 
 
 Captal of Buch, capture of, 164, 166. 
 
 Carcassonne, 105. 
 
 Carloman, son of Pepin the Short, 42, 43. 
 
 Carlovingian. line, fall of the, A.D. 937, 
 57. 
 
 Carnatic, the, 484. 
 
 Cartier, James, 489. 
 
 Cassel, 172. 
 
 Castelnaudary, battle of, 343. 
 
 Castillon, death of Lord Talbot and his 
 son at the siege of, 195. 
 
 Castries, Marshal de, 502, 548. 
 
 Cateau-Cambresis, Treaty of, 1559, 281. 
 
 Catherine de Medici. See Medici. 
 
 , Princess, daughter of Charles 
 
 VI., offered in marriage to Henry V. of 
 England, 182. 
 
 II. of Eussia, 504, 505; and 
 
 Voltaire, 521. 
 
 Catholics, the, and the Edict of Nantes, 
 323. 
 
 Catinat, 385, 386, 387. 
 
 Cattians, the, a tribe of the Franks, 27. 
 
 Cauchon, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais, and 
 Joan of Arc, 189. 
 
 Cavalier, the Camisard, 413. 
 
 Cellamare's conspiracy 453, 454. 
 
 Celts, the, 2. 
 
 Ceresole, victory of the French over the 
 Imperial forces at, 1544, 262. 
 
 Cerignola, battle of, between the French 
 and Spaniards, 1503, 228. 
 
 Cevennes, ruins in the, 413. 
 
 Chabannes, Philip of, Count de Damp- 
 martin. See Dampmartin. 
 
 Chalais, Count of, 341. 
 
 Chalons, the battle of, between the Franks 
 and Huns, in which the latter are de- 
 feated, 28. 
 
 Chalotais, M. de la, 506, 507. 
 
 Chamavians, the, a tribe of the Franks, 27. 
 
 Chamillard, 388, 392, 406. 
 
 Champagne, Philip of, 435. 
 
 Champeaux, William of, 265. 
 
 Champlain, Samuel de, 489, 490. 
 
 Chandernugger, French colony, 485 ; re- 
 stored to the French, 493. 
 
 Chandos, John, leader of the English at 
 the battle of Auray, 104; defeats Gues- 
 clin, 166; and the Prince of Wales 
 enter Spain with an army of 27,000 
 men, 167. 
 
 Chararic, king of the Terouanne Franks, 
 32. 
 
590 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Charibert of Paris, 33. 
 
 Charlemagne, 42 ; sole king of the Gallo- 
 Franco- Germanic Monarchy, A.D. 771, 
 43 ; summary of the wars of, 43 ; in- 
 vades Lombardy, 44; enters Rome, 
 A.D. 774, 46 ; invades Spain, 44 ; and 
 his government, 46 ; his missi dominici 
 or chief agents of government, 47 ; Ca- 
 pitularies, 48 ; great men of the reign 
 of, 49 ; forms a school of the palace, 
 50 ; death of, on Jan. 28, 814, 51. 
 
 Charles of Austria and Francis I., com- 
 mencement of the struggle between ; 
 elected Emperor of Germany as Charles 
 V. at the Diet of Frankfort, 1519, 
 248. 
 
 VI. of Austria, 390. 
 
 of Blois, 143, 144. 
 
 the Bad. See Navarre. 
 
 the Bald, son of Louis the De- 
 
 bonnair, born, 56. 
 
 of Burgundy. See Burgundy. 
 
 the Dauphin re-enters Paris, 
 
 153. 
 
 Edward, Prince, expelled from 
 
 France, 479. 
 
 the Fat, 53, 58, 62. 
 
 , son of Pepin the Short, 42. 
 
 the Rash. See Burgundy. 
 
 the Simple, A.D. 898, 54. 
 
 I. of England and Henrietta of 
 
 France, 353. 
 
 II. of England and Louis XIV., 
 
 secret alliance between, 378. 
 
 II. of Spain and the claimants 
 
 to his kingdom, 387. 
 
 III. of Spain and Louis XV., 
 
 treaty between, 1761, 503. 
 
 IV., called the Handsome, 152. 
 
 . V. of France, 162 ; the Fifth's 
 
 brothers and sisters, 163 ; government 
 of, 163, 169, commands Edward the 
 Black Prince to come to Paris; the 
 Prince's answer, 167; death of, 1380, 
 170 ; character of, 170, 171. 
 
 V., Emperor of Germany, and 
 
 Francis I., 248; and the commence- 
 ment of the war with France, 249; and 
 Charles II of Bourbon, 250; and his 
 prisoner Francis I., 256 ; demands the 
 Duchy of Burgundy of Francis I., 
 258 ; and the Holy League, 259 ; and 
 the treaty of Cambrai, 260 ; enters 
 Provence with 50,000 men in ' 1536, 
 261 ; and Francis I., treaty and meet- 
 ing between, 1538, 261; and Henry 
 VIII. of England, treaty between, 1543, 
 262 ; and Francis I., renewal of war 
 qetween, 1542 1544, 262 ; invades 
 France, and forces terms on Francis I., 
 263; and the Protestant Princes of 
 Germany, 273 ; at the siege of Mezt, 
 
 279; captures Therouanne, 280; ab- 
 dication of, 280 ; and the capture of 
 Saint Quentin, 281. 
 
 Charles VI. and the Duke of Burgundy, 
 171 ; minority, 171 ; of France invades 
 Flanders, 172; enters Paris, 172; and 
 the Princess Isabel of Bavaria, 173; 
 character of, 184 ; mental derangement 
 of, 174 ; mad freaks of, 174 ; and the 
 civil war between the Armagnacs and 
 Burgundians, 177; and Odette, 174; 
 by the treaty of Troyes, leaves the 
 crown of France to Henry V. of England, 
 182; death of, 184. 
 
 VII,, 184; youth of, 185; first 
 
 hears of Joan of Arc, 186 ; and Joan of 
 Arc, 187 ; coronation of, at Rheims, 
 188 ; remorse for the death of Joan of 
 Arc, 190 ; convokes the States -General 
 at Tours to ratify the peace with Bur- 
 gundy, 193 ; and the Constable De 
 Richemont, 196 ; re-enters Paris Nov. 
 12th, 1437, 192 ; besieges Montereau in 
 person, and is one of the first assailants 
 to penetrate into the place, 192 ; expe- 
 dition against Aquitaine, 194 ; renews 
 the war with England, 1449, 194, 195 ; 
 renders tardy homage to the memory 
 and fame of Joan of Arc, 196 ; and 
 Jacques Coaur, 196 ; character of, 197 ; 
 and the Pragmatic Sanction, 199 ; 
 troubles with his son, 199 ; death of 200. 
 
 Emperor, 397 ; death of, 469. 
 
 VIII., 217; and the States- 
 
 General of 1484, 218 ; and Duke Louis 
 of Orleans, 219 ; marriage of, with 
 Anne of Brittany, 210; prepares to win 
 back the kingdom of Naples, 221 ; 
 enters Italy, 222 ; and Pope Alexander 
 VI., 223 ; enters Rome 1495, and 
 Naples, 223 ; league of the Italian 
 Princes against, 224 ; starts to return 
 to France ; wins the battle of Foruovo 
 and returns to France, 224 ; govern- 
 ment of, death of, 225, Commynes' 
 character of, 226. 
 
 IX. and the religious wars, 1560 
 
 1574, accession of, 291 ; and the St. 
 Bartholomew, 301 ; and the battle of 
 Dreux, 294 ; and the Huguenots, 
 296; and the marriage of Marguerite 
 de Valois and the Prince of Navarre, 
 299; and Coligny, 299; the Guises 
 and Coligny, 300 ; and the murder of 
 Coligny, 301; and Michel de I'Hospital, 
 292 ; excuses for the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew, 301; and the fourth 
 religious war, 304; and the peace 
 of La Rochelle, 305; death of, 1574, 
 305. 
 
 Charolais, Count Charles of, 202; and 
 Louis XL, 203. 
 
Index. 
 
 591 
 
 Chartier's Alan, Quadriloge invectif, 309 
 poet, 183. 
 
 Chastel, John, attempts to murder Henry 
 IV., 328. 
 
 Chateauroux, the Duchess of, and Louis 
 XV., 474. 
 
 Chatelet, Madame du, and Voltaire, 
 517. 
 
 Chatham, Lord, (see also Pitt), 500, 
 
 503. 
 
 Chatillon, Madame de, 242. 
 
 Chaucians, the, a tribe of the Franks, 
 27. 
 
 Chauvelin, 467. 
 
 Chavigny, 366. 
 
 Cherbourg taken by Edward III., 146. 
 
 Cheruscans, the, a tribe of the Franks, 
 27. 
 
 Chevert, 471. 
 
 Chevreuse, the Duke of, 416. 
 
 Childebert of Paris, 33. 
 
 III., 36. 
 
 Childeric, King of the Franks ; 33, 
 36. 
 
 Chilperic of Soissons, 33. 
 
 Chiverny, Chancellor de, 326. 
 
 Choiseul, the Duke of, Ministry of, 500 ; 
 attempt to invade England defeated, 
 501; and the Family Pact, 503; dis- 
 missed by Louis XV., 507; his attempts 
 to obtain colonies for France, 501 ; and 
 the Polish insurrection, 511; and the 
 approaching rupture between England 
 and the American colonies, 540. 
 
 Christian zeal superior to pagan persecu- 
 tion, 25. 
 
 Christianity, establishment of, in Gaul, 
 25 ; rise of, 24 ; peculiar and glorious 
 characteristic of, 25 ; influence of, on 
 the order of knighthood, and, through 
 it, on civilization in general, 66. 
 
 Christians, persecution of, by Marcus 
 Aurelius, A.D. 177, 25 ; the, expected 
 the end of the world A.D. 1000, 66; 
 and the Holy Land7 74; persecuted, 
 77. 
 
 Church and State in the time of Louis 
 XIII. and Richelieu, 350. 
 
 Cimbrians, or Kymrians. the, and the 
 Teutons driven from their homes on 
 the shores of the Baltic by an earth- 
 quake and inundations, spread south- 
 wards over Europe and threaten Gaul 
 and Italy, 113, B.C., 9 ; invade Gaul by 
 way of Belgica, 110 B.C., 9. 
 
 Cinq- Mars, M. de, favourite of Louis 
 XIII., 343; imprisonment of, 344; 
 condemned to death and threatened 
 with torture, 344. 
 
 Cisalpine Gaul, 7. 
 
 Citeaux, twelve abbots and twenty monks 
 of Citeaux disperse themselves in all 
 
 directions, preaching the crusade against 
 
 the Albigensians, 105. 
 Civilization, progress of, in the time of 
 
 Louis XL, 215. 
 Civita Vecchia provisionally given up to 
 
 Charles VIII., 223. 
 Claude, the Princess, of France, daughter 
 
 of Louis XII., and Charles of Austria, 
 
 228. 
 
 Claudius, policy of, in Gaul, 18. 
 Clement, James, stabs King Henry III., 
 
 315. 
 V., Pope, and Philip IV., 130 ; 
 
 abolishes the order of the Templars, 
 
 130; death of, 131. 
 
 VII., Pope, 260. 
 
 VIII., Pope, 322'; and Henry 
 
 IV., 543; absolves Henry IV., 328; 
 
 annuls the marriage of Henry IV. with 
 
 Marguerite of Valois, 333. 
 Clermont, grand Council at, in 1095, 
 
 under Pope Urban II., 74. 
 , Count, beaten at Crevelt, 
 
 500. 
 
 Clisson, Oliver de, attempted assassi- 
 nation of, 173. 
 Clive " a heaven-born general," 483 ; his 
 
 early successes against the French and 
 
 their Indian allies, returns to India 
 
 and conquers Bengal, 484. 
 Clodomir of Orleans, 33. 
 Closter- Severn, the convention of, 1757, 
 
 498. 
 
 Clotaire I. of Soissons, 33. 
 II. of Soissons murders his nephew, 
 
 33. 
 Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, 29 ; 
 
 and Clotilde, marriage of, 29 ; at the 
 
 battle of Tolbiac, 30 ; baptism of, 30 ; 
 
 makes Paris the centre of his dominions, 
 
 32 ; death of, in A.D. 511, 32. 
 Clovis III., 37. 
 Code Michau, 349. 
 Coettier, James, 214. 
 Coaur de Lion, Richard, in the Holy Land, 
 
 85, 86, 87. 
 , Jacques, a great merchant and 
 
 statesman, 196, 197. 
 Cognac, Francis I at, in 1527, 257. 
 Coigny, Marshal, 467. 
 Colbert, M., 376 ; and Louis XIV. 399 ; 
 
 able administration of, 400, 402 ; 
 
 literary taste and work of, 434. 
 Coligny, Admiral de, and the Refor- 
 mation, 294, 296 ; influence with 
 
 Charles IX., 299; attempted murder of, 
 
 300, 301, 431; and the early French 
 
 Settlements in America, 488. 
 College Royal, the, 268. 
 Colonna, Sciarra, and Pope Boniface 
 
 VIIL, 129. 
 Colonna, Prosper, 249. 
 
592 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Common weal, war of the, against Louis 
 XI., 202. 
 
 Communes, the, and the Third Estate, 
 134 ; rise of the, 135 ; Roman traditions 
 and Christian sentiments had their 
 share in the formation of the, 135, 
 136. 
 
 Commynes, Philip de, quoted, 202, 205, 
 206, 211, 216; and Louis XL, 213, 
 216 ; character and works of, 267. 
 
 Compagnie des Indes, Law's, 451. 
 
 Concini, Concino, 337 ; see Marshal 
 d'Ancre. 
 
 Concordat, the, between Pope Leo X. and 
 Francis I., 247. 
 
 Conde, Prince Louis de, 283, 289, 290; 
 295, 297; and the Reformation, and 
 the Guises, 287 ; trial of, sentenced to 
 death, set at liberty, 291 ; taken 
 prisoner at Dreux, 294; death of, at 
 Jarnac, 298. 
 
 , the Duke of Enghien, Prince of, 
 at the, 367 ; and the Frondeurs, 369- 
 371; arrested, 370; taken back to 
 favour by Louis XIV., and restored to 
 all his honours. 374 ; placed by Louis 
 XIV. in command of the army to be 
 employed in the reduction of the 
 Netherlands, commands the French 
 army in Holland, 378, 379; gains the 
 bloody battle of Seneffe over the Prince 
 of Orange, 1674, 380; and Bossuet, 
 421 ; and Moliere, 432, 433. 
 
 Conflans, Lord de, assassinated, 154. 
 
 , the Marquis of, defeated by 
 
 Admiral Hawke, 501. 
 
 , treaty of, between Louis XI. 
 
 and the Count of Charolais, 203. 
 
 Conquest of England by the Normans, 70- 
 73. 
 
 III., Emperor of Germany, 
 
 arrives at the Holy City almost alone, 
 82. 
 
 Constantino, the Emperor, 26. 
 
 Constantinople, in danger from the Cru- 
 saders, 81 ; perils of the Latin empire 
 of, in the 13th century, 88. 
 
 Contades, the Marquis of, 500. 
 
 Conti, the Prince of, 369, 370. 
 
 Cook, Captain, and the generous attitude 
 of the French towards his mission, 
 554. 
 
 Coote, Colonel, captures Bussy, 486; cap- 
 tures Pondicherry, 487. 
 
 Corneille, Peter, 364 ; and Richelieu, 
 365 ; his Oid, 365, 366 ; works of, 428, 
 429. 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord, forced to capitulate to 
 Washington, 394. 
 
 Corsica, and Pascal Paoli, 510. 
 
 Cosse, Marshal de, 301, 327. 
 
 Council of Clermont, 74. 
 
 Courtrai, battle of, in which the French 
 are defeated by the Flemings, 124 
 
 Coustou, 533. 
 
 Coysevox, 435. 
 
 Craon, Peter de, 173. 
 
 Crecy, arrival of the English under Edward 
 III., 146 ; commencement of the battle 
 of, 147. 
 
 Crequi, Marshal de, subdues Lorraine, 
 382. 
 
 Crespy, the peace of, 263. 
 
 Crevelt, battle of, 500. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, and Mazarin, treaty 
 between, and English aid to France, 
 373. 
 
 Crusade, the, of Godfrey de Bouillon, 74 
 77 ; the four leaders of the first great, 
 77 ; of Richard Cceur de Lion, Philip 
 Augustus of France, and Fredric Bar- 
 barossa of Germany, 85 ; end of the 
 third great, 87 ; the sixth, the personal 
 achievement of St. Louis, 88; of St. 
 Louis, end of, 95. 
 
 Crusaders, ravages of the early, 77; and 
 Saladin, 80, 85. 
 
 Crusades, the, their origin and their 
 success, 75 ; mostly from France, Eng- 
 land, and Italy, 80. 
 
 Culloden, battle of, 477. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dagobert I., 35. 
 III., 37. 
 
 D'Aguesseau, character of; appointed 
 chancellor, 449. 
 
 D'Aiguillon, the Duke of, 507. 
 
 D'Albret, the Constable, killed at Agin- 
 court, 179. 
 
 D'Alembert, 522. 
 
 Damiens attemps to assassinate Louis 
 XV., 496. 
 
 Damietta captured by St. Louis, 90. 
 
 Dampierre, Guy de, Count of Flanders, 
 his challenge to Philip IV., 123 ; death 
 of, in the prison of Compiegne, 124. 
 
 Dampmartin, Count de, 213. 
 
 Damville, Marshal de, 301. 
 
 D'Andelot, 297. 
 
 Danes, (Danesius), 268. 
 
 Dantzick, siege of, 465, 466. 
 
 D'Argenson, M., quoted, 464. 
 
 D'Asfeldt, Count, and the campaign of 
 1734, 466. 
 
 D' Aubigne, Theodore Agrippa, 290 ; cha- 
 racter of, 332, 333. 
 
 Daun, General, defeats the Prussians at 
 Hochkirch, 500. 
 
 Dauphin, the, and Edward III., and the 
 English, 158. 
 
 , the, son of Charles VI., assumes 
 
 the title of Regent, 175; treaty between, 
 and Jchn, Duke of Burgundy, 177. 
 
Index. 
 
 593 
 
 Dauphin, the, son of Louis XV., character 
 and death of, 509. 
 
 Dauphiny, the parliament of, 558. 
 
 Deconing, Peter, leader of the revolt of 
 the Flemings, 124. 
 
 De Cosse, Marshal de, 301, 327. 
 
 Decius, the Roman Emperor, 20. 
 
 D'Emery, 368. 
 
 Defland, Madame du, 526. 
 
 De Luynes, Constable, 339, 340. 
 
 Denain, captured by Villars and the 
 French, 396 ; effects of the battle of, 
 397. 
 
 Denis, Saint, 325. 
 
 D'Epernon, 317. 
 
 De Richemont, the Constable, his cha- 
 racter and part in the successes of 
 France at the close of the 100 years' 
 war, 195, 196. 
 
 Descartes, Rene, life, character, and works 
 of, 361. 
 
 Desmarets, 401. 
 
 Despreaux, M. See Boileau. 
 
 De Thou, 307. 
 
 Dettingen, the battle of, 473. 
 
 Diderot, 521, 523. 
 
 Didier, King of Lombardy, 44. 
 
 Diocletian, 25. 
 
 Dives, the town of, Duke William of Nor- 
 mandy's rendezvous for his troops and 
 ships, meant for the invasion of Eng- 
 land, 69. 
 
 Divitiacus, 10. 
 
 Domremy, native place of Joan of Arc, 186. 
 
 Dormans, William de, minister of Charles 
 V., 163. 
 
 D'Orte, Viscount, 303. 
 
 Doryleum, the Saracens defeated at, by 
 the Crusaders, 77. 
 
 Douai, captured by Villars and the French, 
 397. 
 
 Draux, results of the battle of, 294. 
 
 Dreux-Breze, the Marqiiis of, 564. 
 
 Druids, persecution of, by Claudius, 18. 
 
 Druidism, the national religion of the 
 Gauls, 23, 24. 
 
 Dubarry, Madame, and Louis XV., 507 ; 
 and the fall of the French Parliament, 
 508 ; growing contempt of her by the 
 people, 509. 
 
 Dubois, Abbe, character of, 454; and 
 Lord Stanhope, 455 ; how he became 
 Archbishop of Cambrai, 458; elected 
 Cardinal, 460 ; becomes premier Minis- 
 ter of the Orleans regency ; death and 
 character, 460 ; and the Protestants, 
 463. 
 
 Dubourg, A. De, martyrdom of, 286. 
 
 Duchatel, Tanneguy, leader of the Arma- 
 gnacs, 180. 
 
 Duel os, quoted, 217. 
 
 Duels, severe ordinance against, 341. 
 
 Dunkerque, destruction of, demanded by 
 
 Pitt, and by Lord Bute, 504. 
 Dunois and the Maid of Orleans, 188. 
 Dupleix, Joseph, 479-85. 
 Duplessis Guenegaud and Louis XIV., 
 
 375. 
 
 Du Plessis-Mornay, 332. 
 Duprat, Anthony, and Francis I., 246 ; and 
 
 the Concordat, 247, 248 j death of, 
 
 260. 
 Duquesne and Admiral Ruyter, 381 ; 
 
 bombards Algiers and Genoa, 383. 
 Duras, Marshal, 385. 
 Dutch, the, declare war against England, 
 
 546. 
 
 E. 
 
 Ecluse, defeat of the French fleet at, by 
 Edward III. of England, 142. 
 
 Ecouen, the edict of, 287. 
 
 Edict Chamber, the, 329. 
 
 of Nantes, the (see also Nantei), 
 
 issued by Henry IV., 329 ; revoked by 
 Louis XIV., 1685, 384, 409. 
 
 of Grace, the, signed at Alais, 354. 
 
 of Union, the, 368. 
 
 of 1724, the, against the Protes- 
 tants, 463. 
 
 Edward the Black Prince, death and 
 character of, 168. 
 
 I. of England receives Agenois of 
 
 Philip III. of France, 122; 
 
 fealty at Paris to Philip IV. of France, 
 124. 
 
 III. of England, 142; and Robert 
 
 of Artois, 143 ; declares war with Philip 
 VI. of France on August 21st, 1337, 
 143 ; commences war with France, 
 142; and the English before the 
 battle of Crcy, 146; and the Burghers 
 of Calais, 147 ; and John II. of France, 
 151 ; and his prisoner, King John of 
 France, 153 ; again invades France, 
 146; declares war with Charles V., 167; 
 death of, 168. 
 
 IV. of England's claims on 
 
 France, 207. 
 
 Eginhard, quoted, 43-46. 
 
 , biographer of Charlemagne, 46. 
 
 Ehresburg, castle of, 43. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England, and the 
 treaty of Gateau- Cambresis, 281 ; and 
 the French Protestants, 304; death and 
 character of, 330. 
 
 , Madame, and Marie Antoinette, 
 
 552. 
 
 Emporiffl (Ampurias, in Catalonia), found- 
 ing of, 2. 
 
 Encyclopaedists, the, 521, 522. 
 
 Enghien, Francis of Bourbon, Count d', 
 262. 
 
 Q Q 
 
594 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Enghien, the Duke of, and the relief of 
 Rocroi, 367. 
 
 England, conquest of, by William the 
 Bastard, 1066, 66-72; its influence on 
 France, 123. 
 
 and the Normans, 66 ; invaded 
 
 by the Normans, 70 ; and France, ori- 
 gin of the rivalry between, 123 ; and 
 Flanders in the 13th century, 123 ; and 
 France, origin of the Hundred Years' 
 War between, 142; and continental 
 affairs, 1509, 230; and France, out- 
 break of war between, in 1512, 234; 
 and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 304; and the revolt of La Eochelle, 
 353 ; and Holland, alliance between, at 
 the marriage of William of Orange and 
 the Princess Mary, 1677, 381; and 
 France declare war with Spain, 1719, 
 458 ; and the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 1748, 479 ; rise of her power in America, 
 and decline of that of France, 491 ; and 
 France, war between, in 1756, 495 ; 
 French attempt to invade, in 1759, de- 
 feated by Admiral Hawke, 501 ; de- 
 clares war with Spain, 1762, 504; and 
 the partition of Poland, 1772, 503 ; and 
 the American War of Independence, 
 540 et seq. ; and France, commencement 
 of war between, 1778, 543 ; threatened 
 invasion of, by France and Spain, 544 ; 
 at war with France, Spain, and Ame- 
 rica, declares war against Holland, 546. 
 
 English, the, and Marcel, 157 ; defeated 
 by Joan of Arc, raise the siege of 
 Orleans, 188 ; evacuate Paris, 192 ; and 
 France under Louis XL, 206; invade 
 France under Henry VIII., and take 
 Boulogne, 263 ; and Philip II. of Spain 
 invade France ; expedition against La 
 Eochelle defeated, 353 ; and the battle 
 of Fontenoy, 475. 
 
 fipernon, the Duke of, 317, 335. 
 
 Epinay, Madame d', and Rousseau, 
 528. 
 
 Erasmus, quoted, 272 ; denounces Noel 
 Beda,272. 
 
 Erigena, John Scot, 265. 
 
 Escurial, the, 330. 
 
 Espremesnil, M. d', 556, 557. 
 
 Estates- General, assembled at Paris, 129. 
 See States- General. 
 
 , the three, of 1468, 204. 
 
 Estaing, Count d', commands the French 
 fleet sent to aid the Americans, 543, 
 544. 
 
 Estelle, Sheriff, and the Plague in Mar- 
 seilles, 459. 
 
 Estienne, Robert (Stephanus), 268. 
 
 Estrees, Gabrielle d', 333. 
 
 , Marshal d', commander of the 
 
 French army at the commencement of 
 
 the Seven Years' War, repulses the 
 
 Duke of Cumberland, 497. 
 Etablissements de St. Louis, the, 
 
 116. 
 Etruria, Tuscany, ravaged by the Gauls, 
 
 587581 B.C., 6. 
 Eudes, Duke of Aquitania, 37. 
 , Count of Paris, defends Paris 
 
 against the Northmen, 53. 
 Eugene, Prince, of Savoy-Carignano, 388 ; 
 
 and Marlborough, 388; and Villeroi, 
 
 389; and the battle of Malplaquet, 393; 
 
 and the Peace of Utrecht, 397 ; and the 
 
 campaign of 1734, 466. 
 Europe, trade of, in the 13th century, 
 
 principally carried on by Flanders, 123 ; 
 
 coalition of, against France under Louis 
 
 XIV., 389. 
 Euthymenes, the explorer, 2. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fagon, 437. 
 
 Family Pact, the, between France and 
 Spain, 1761, 503. 
 
 Farce of Patelin, the, 267. 
 
 Farel, William, 270. 
 
 Farnese, Alexander. See Parma. 
 
 Fenelon, Bossuet, and Madame Guy on, 
 416 ; his work on the Inner Life, 417 ; 
 birth of, 1651, and early life of, 423 ; 
 made preceptor of the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, his TeUmaque, 423 ; death and 
 character of, 424 ; Pascal, and Bossuet, 
 424. 
 
 Ferdinand, the Catholic, of Spain and 
 Louis XII., 240. 
 
 II. of Naples and Charles VIII., 
 
 223 ; energy of, 225. 
 
 Feria, Duke of, leaves Paris with the 
 Spanish troops, 327. 
 
 Feudal France and Hugh Capet, 62. 
 
 System, the essential elements of 
 
 the, 59 ; considered by the mass of 
 the population a foe to be fought, and 
 fought down at any cost, 59, 60. 
 Society and Louis XL, 202. 
 
 Feudalism in France, 65. 
 
 Fiefs, the owners of, and their mutual 
 relations considered, 60. 
 
 Field of the Cloth of Gold, 248. 
 
 Flanders, commercial relations of, with 
 England, 123; submits to Philip IV., 
 125 ; under Count Louis de Nevers, 142 ; 
 and the threatening 100 years' war 
 between France and England, 142; and 
 Charles IX. of France, 299 ; and Louis 
 XIIL, 358. 
 
 , Joan of, her intrepid defence of 
 
 Hennebon Castle, 144. 
 
 , Louis, Count of, and Charles VI., 
 
 171, 172. 
 
Index. 
 
 595 
 
 Fleet, the French, and Colbert, 402; under 
 Louis XV., 495. 
 
 Fleix, the Peace of, in 1580, 309. 
 
 Fleurus, battle of, 1690, 385 
 
 Fleury's, Cardinal, ministry, 17231748, 
 464 ; commencement of his fostering 
 administration, 464, 465; concludes the 
 peace of Vienna, 1735, 467 ; and Chau- 
 velin, 467 ; and the Parliament of Paris, 
 468; and Count Belle -Isle, 469; death 
 and character of, 472. 
 
 Fleury, M. Joly de, 529. 
 
 Florence, the Republic of, and Charles 
 VIII., 222. 
 
 Floridas, the, confirmed to Spain, 493. 
 
 Foix, Gaston de, Duke of Nemours, takes 
 command of the French army in Italy, 
 
 1512, 233 ; death of, at the victory of 
 Ravenna, 236. 
 
 Fontaine, La (see also La Fontaine) , 431. 
 
 Fontaine Francaise, encounter at, 328. 
 
 Fontainebleau, Peace of, 1762, 504. 
 
 Fontenelle, character and works of, 514. 
 
 Fontenoy, the battle of, 475. 
 
 Fontrailles, Viscount de, 344. 
 
 Formigny, the battle of, 1450, 193. 
 
 Fornovo, the battle of, 1495, in which 
 Charles VIII. of France defeats the 
 army of the Italian league, 224. 
 
 Fouquet, Superintendent, and Louis XIV., 
 376. 
 
 and Moliere, 432. 
 
 Fourquet, Joan, 206. 
 
 France, kingdom and history of, really 
 commenced with Clovis, A.D. 481, 29 ; 
 and England, origin of the "rivalry" 
 between, 108 ; the kingship in, 65, 96 ; 
 extent of the kingdom of, under Philip 
 II., 97; and England, origin of the 
 Hundred Years' War between, 141 ; 
 sends an army to aid Sigismund against 
 the Turks, which is destroyed, 175 ; 
 condition of, in 1440, 185 ; and England, 
 end of the Hundred Years' War be- 
 tween, 195; under Charles VII., 197; 
 and Austria, commencement of the 
 rivalry between, 223 ; invaded, 251 ; 
 and England, renewal of the war be- 
 tween, 1512, 234 ; the situation of, in 
 
 1513, 235; and the Renaissance, 264; 
 in the Middle Ages, 265 ; and the nas- 
 cent Reformation, 270 ; and the Treaty 
 of Cateau-Cambresis, 281 ; state of, at 
 the commencement of the reign of 
 Henry III., 307 ; condition of, after 
 Henry IV.'s abjuration, 327 ; and Eng- 
 land, treaty between, in 1697, 386 ; and 
 sufferings of, during the reign of Louis 
 XIV., 407 ; and England declare war 
 with Spain, 1719, 458 ; and the treaty 
 of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, 479 ; inability 
 of, to turn her discoveries in foreign 
 
 Q Q 
 
 lands to her own profit, 491 : loaves 
 Canada to her fate, 493 ; position of, at 
 the end of the Seven Years' War, 510 ; 
 and the partition of Poland, 1772, 510 ; 
 the effects of Voltaire's writings on, 
 521 ; and the American War of Inde- 
 pendence, 540; and England and the 
 American War of Independence, 541 ; 
 recognizes the Independence of the 
 United States, 1778, and declares war 
 with England, 543 ; and the peace be- 
 tween England and America, 1783, 549; 
 on the eve of the Revolution, 556-560. 
 
 Francis de Valois, Count of Angouleme, 
 afterwards Francis I., 240. 
 
 Francis I., 241 ; and Charles V., 218; the 
 era of modern France commences with 
 his government and times, 241 ; made 
 king, 240 ; prepares to invade Italy, 
 243 ; and his army cross the Alps, and 
 the battle of Melegnano, 244 ; regains 
 possession of Milaness, 250 ; Pope Leo 
 X., the Pragmatic Sanction, 246, 247 ; 
 and the Concordat, and the Parliament 
 of Paris' refusal to acknowledge the 
 Concordat, 248 ; and the vacant throne 
 of the Emperor Maximilian, 248 ; and 
 Charles of Austria, commencement of 
 the struggle between, 249 ; meets Henry 
 VIII. of England at The Field of the 
 Cloth of Gold, 248 ; commences war 
 with Charles V., 249 ; and Charles II. 
 of Bourbon, 250; and the conspiracy 
 of Charles II. of Bourbon, 250; entrusts 
 the conduct of the war in Italy to 
 Admiral Bonnivet, 251 ; loses Milaness 
 for the third time, 252 ; advances to 
 the relief of Marseilles, 253; enters 
 Italy, 1524, 255; bravery and capture 
 at the battle of Pavia, 255 ; his letters 
 to his mother and to Charles V. after 
 his defeat and capture at Pavia, 256 ; 
 carried prisoner to Spain, 257 ; refuses 
 to accede to the terms of Charles V. of 
 Germany, 258; set at liberty, enters 
 into the Holy League, 259 ; and Henry 
 VIII. of England renew their alliance, 
 260 ; challenges Charles V. to mortal 
 combat, 260 ; makes peace with Charles 
 V. at Cambria, 260 ; and Duprat, 260 ; 
 and Henry VIII., meeting and treaty 
 between, 1532, 260; and Soliman II., 
 treaty between, 262 ; and Charles V., 
 war renewed between, from 1542 to 
 1544, 262 ; forced to terms by Charles 
 V. of Germany, 263; and the Renais- 
 sance, 264 ; and the College Royal, or 
 College de France, 268; Robert Es- 
 tienne, and Marot, 268 ; as a poet, 
 269; and the Reformation, 270; and 
 the Reformers, 272; and the Protes- 
 tants of Germany, 273 ; and the mas- 
 
 2 
 
596 
 
 History of France. 
 
 sacre of the Vaudians, 273, 274 ; and 
 Calvin, 275 ; death of, 1547, 276 ; and 
 the salt-tax at Rochelle, 277. 
 
 Francis I., Emperor of Germany, 476. 
 
 II. and Mary Stuart, marriage 
 
 of, 280 ; ascends the throne, 285 ; and 
 the Reformers, 286, 287 ; and the Guises, 
 286; and the King of Navarre, 288; 
 death of, 290; death of, and the Guises, 
 291. 
 
 Franks, the, first mention of in history, 27. 
 
 " Freemen," or Franks, 27. 
 
 Fredegonde, Queen, death of, 35. 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa (Eedbeard), joins 
 in a new crusade, 85 ; drowned in the 
 Selef on his way to the Holy Land, 85. 
 
 II., emperor of Germany, his 
 
 struggle with Popes Gregory IX. and 
 Innocent IV., 88. 
 
 III. of Naples, 225. 
 
 the Great, 469 ; commences the 
 
 Silesian campaign, 1740, 469 ; signs a 
 new treaty with France, 1744, 470; 
 and the battle of Fontenoy, 475 ; and 
 Louis XV., 476 ; and the treaty of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, 479; England, and the 
 Franco -Austrian Alliance, 496? vic- 
 torious at Prague, and defeated at Kolin, 
 497 ; reverses of, 498 ; gains the battle 
 of Rosbach, 499 ; defeats the Austrians 
 at Lissa, 499 ; gains the battle of Zorn- 
 dorf, and loses that of Hochkirch, 500 ; 
 reverses of, in 1760, 502 ; finds an ally 
 in Peter III. of Russia, 504 ; and the 
 end of the Seven Years' War, 505 ; and 
 the partition of Poland, 510; invites 
 Voltaire to Berlin, 518. 
 
 Frejus, the Bishop of, created Cardinal 
 Fleury. See Fleury. 
 
 French, the, rise out of and above the 
 feudal system, 59; and English, com- 
 mencement of hostilities between, in 
 1292, 122; rejoicing of the, at the peace 
 of Tours, 193. 
 
 Communes, the, 134-136. 
 
 civilization, The Third Estate, the 
 
 most active and determining element 
 in the process of French civilization, 
 138. 
 
 nationality accomplished, 139. 
 
 language, the, and the Renais- 
 
 sance, 266. 
 
 Academy, early days of the, 363 ; 
 
 its rules of Election, 364 ; and Montes- 
 quieu, 513 ; elects Buffon, 525. 
 
 Reformers, the, and Louis XIV., 
 
 410. 
 
 Court, demoralization of, under 
 
 Louis XV., 461. 
 
 enterprise in America, 488. 
 
 pioneers, the earliest in North 
 
 America, 488-490. 
 
 French Guiana, 510. 
 
 Freundsberg, George of, 259. 
 
 Frisons, the, 43. 
 
 Froissart, quoted, 147, 148, 154, 167; 
 
 character and works of, 267. 
 Fronde, the, 369 ; of the Princes of France 
 
 and of the people, 371 ; the army of, 
 
 fighting between, and the Royal troops, 
 
 372 ; defeat of, 373. 
 Frondeurs, the, 369. 
 Fumes, battle of, 124. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gabel, or the Halt-tax, 277. 
 
 Gaeta, siege of, 1504, 228. 
 
 Galatians, the, 5. 
 
 Galiga'i, Leonora, 337. 
 
 Gallia Comata, 7, 17. 
 
 Togata, or Roman Gaul, 7, 17. 
 
 Gallican Confession, the, 283. 
 
 Gallo-Frankish Society, state of, in the 
 eighth century, 39. 
 
 Garonne, the river, 2. 
 
 Gaston de Foix. See Foix. 
 
 Gaul, 1 ; conquered by Julius Caesar, 12- 
 16 ; under Roman dominion, 16 ; its 
 Roman rulers, from 49 B.C. A.D. 305, 
 16-26; divided into three provinces 
 by Augustus, 17 ; under Augustus, 17 ; 
 the sixty nations or peoplets of, recog- 
 nized by Augustus, 17 ; under Caligula, 
 Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, 17-19; the 
 Germans in, 27 ; the Visigoths and 
 Burgundians definitely settle in, A.D. 
 412, 28. 
 
 Gauls, the, 3 ; send representatives to 
 Rome, 6 ; emigration of, 3 ; invade 
 Germany, 4 ; invade Italy, B.C. 587, 4 ; 
 invade Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, 
 Greece, 4 ; defeated by King Antiochus 
 of Syria, 5; pass into Asia Minor, 5; 
 in Asia Minor become a people under 
 the name of Galatians, defeated by 
 Attalus, keep the Phrygians and Greeks 
 of Asia Minor in subjection, 5 ; of Asia 
 Minor encountered and defeated by the 
 Romans in pursuit of Hannibal, B.C. 
 189, 7 ; commence their 400 years' war 
 with Rome, B.C. 391, 6; defeat the 
 Romans at Aretium, 283 B.C., 6 ; under 
 Hannibal, 7. 
 
 Genoa, defence of, by the Duke of Boufflers, 
 478 ; cedes Corsica to France, 1768, 510. 
 
 Genoese cross- bowraen, the, at Crecy, 147. 
 
 George I. of England and Dubois, 456. 
 
 II. of England and the Pragmatic 
 
 Sanction, 470 ; and the war with France, 
 1744, 472 ; death of, 1760, 502. 
 
 III. of England, 502, 543, 546, 548. 
 
 Geoffrin, Madame, 526. 
 
 Gepidians, the, allies of the Huns, 28. 
 
Index. 
 
 597 
 
 Gerbert, secretary of Archbishop Adal- 
 beron, and afterwards Archbishop of 
 Bheims and Pope, 265. 
 
 Germanicus, 18. 
 
 Germans, the Ancient, 9, 10; in Gaul, 10; 
 first become a nation, 27. 
 
 Germany, joins in the Crusades, 80. 
 
 Gesta Dei per Francos (the Crusades), 80. 
 
 Ghent, alliance at, in 1340, between the 
 Flemish Communes and Edward III. of 
 England, 142 ; insurrection of the bur- 
 ghers of, under Philip Van Artevelde, 
 171 ; captured by Louis XIV., 391. 
 
 Gibraltar, 548. 
 
 Girardon, 435. 
 
 Gliick, 533. 
 
 Gnostics, the, 101. 
 
 God's Peace, God's Truce, 64. 
 
 "God willeth it!" war-cry of the early 
 crusaders, 75. 
 
 Godeau, Bishop of Grasse, 363. 
 
 Godeheu, M., supersedes Dupleix, 484. 
 
 Godfrey de Bouillon (see Bouillon), Duke 
 of Lorraine, martial and noble character 
 of, 77; accepts the office of King of 
 Jerusalem, 78. 
 
 . of Paris, quoted, 131. 
 
 Godwin, Earl, 67. 
 
 Golo, defeat of the Corsicans at, 231. 
 
 Gondebaud, 30. 
 
 Gondegisile, 30. 
 
 Gondi, Paul de, afterwards Archbishop of 
 Eetz, 369. 
 
 Gontran of Orleans and Burgundy, 33. 
 
 Gonzalvo of Cordova, the great Captain of 
 Ferdinand of Spain, 228. 
 
 Goodfellows, the, 156. 
 
 Gordes, the Count de, 303. 
 
 Goths, the, 27 ; under Alaric II., beaten 
 by Clovis near Poitiers, A.D. 507, 31. 
 
 Graeco-Roman Paganism, 24, 
 
 Grailli, John de, called the Captal of 
 Buch, 164, 166. 
 
 Grand Alliance, the, against France and 
 Louis XIV., 381, 389. 
 
 Grand Company, the, and Bertrand Gues- 
 clin, 165. 
 
 Grand Monarque, 440, 
 
 Grange, John de la, minister of Charles 
 V., 163. 
 
 Granson, Charles the Rash of Burgundy 
 defeated at, by the Swiss, 209. 
 
 Grasse, Count de, captures Tobago, and 
 aids the Americans, 546. 
 
 Great Britain and the American Declara- 
 tion of Independence, 1776, 543. 
 
 Mogul, the, 483. 
 
 Greeks, the, 1. 
 
 Gregory of Tours, historian, 31. 
 
 VII., Pope, and the Crusades, 85. 
 
 . IX., Pope, and Frederick II. of 
 
 Germany, 88. 
 
 Gregory XIV., Pope, 319. 
 
 Gretry, musician, 533. 
 
 Greuze, painter, 532. 
 
 Grignan, Madame de, and Madame de 
 Sevigne, 424, 425. 
 
 Grimaldi, Regnier de, a celebrated Italian 
 admiral, employed by Philip IV. in his 
 war with Flanders, 125. 
 
 Grisons, the, 156. 
 
 Guastalla, the battle of, 467. 
 
 Guasto, Marquis de, 262. 
 
 Guesclin, Bertrand du, 164; is set at 
 liberty for a ransom, 166 ; is made 
 Constable of France by Charles V., 
 169 ; death of, 169. 
 
 Guinegate, battle of, 236. 
 
 Guise, 286. 
 
 , the Cardinal of, death of, 313. 
 
 , Francis de Lorraine, Duke of, 279 ; 
 
 and the siege of Metz, 279 ; recalled 
 from Italy by Henry II. to repel the 
 Spaniards, 281 ; captures Calais, 282 ; 
 Conde, 283; and the Huguenots of 
 Vassy, 292 ; at the battle of Dreux, 
 294 ; and Charles IX., 298 ; assassina- 
 tion of, 294. 
 
 , Duke Henry de, 308 ; obtains his 
 
 name of The Scarred, whilst putting 
 down the Protestant revolt, 308; be- 
 comes master of Paris, 311 ; murdered 
 by order of Henry III., 312. 
 
 Guises, the, 286 ; cruelties of, 287, 289 ; 
 and the death of Francis II., 290 ; and 
 the Catholic party declare war against 
 Conde and the Protestants, 292 ; and 
 Coligny, 300; and the murder of Coligny, 
 301 ; and Philip II. of Spain, 309. 
 
 Guiton, John, burgess of La Rochelle at 
 the time of the siege by Louis XIII., 
 353. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus and Richelieu, 356. 
 
 Guyenne, the conquest of, 194, 195. 
 
 Guyon, Madame, teachings and works of, 
 416, 417. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hadrian, 19. 
 
 Hainault, Isabel of, wife of Philip Augus- 
 tus, 99. 
 
 Hanover, the Elector of, and the Seven 
 Years' War, 498. 
 
 Hapsburg, Rudolph of, Emperor, 121. 
 
 Harlay, Francis de, and Innocent XL, 
 418, 423. 
 
 Haro, Don Louis de, Ambassador to 
 France, of Philip IV. of Spain, 373. 
 
 Harold, son of Earl Godwin, and after 
 wards king of England, 67 ; visits 
 William of Normandy, and. is detained 
 by him until he swears over the relics 
 to aid the Duke to maintain the English 
 crown, 68 ; anointed King of England 
 
598 
 
 History of France. 
 
 by Aldred, archbishop of York, 69; 
 inarches to subdue Tostig, 70 j death 
 of, at Hastings' fight, 72. 
 
 Haroun al- Has chid, 74. 
 
 Hastenc of Hastings, chieftain of the 
 Northmen, ravages France, 52. 
 
 Hastings, the battle of, 70. 
 
 Hautefort, Marie d', and Louis XIII., 343. 
 
 Havenought, or, the moneyless, Walter, 
 his crusade, 76. 
 
 Hawke, Admiral, 501. 
 
 Heinsius, grand pensionary, 388, 392. 
 
 Helvetians, the, burn their houses and 
 abandon their territory, 58 B.C., but 
 are thwarted in their project of settling 
 in Gaul by Julius Csesar, and defeated 
 and driven back by him, 11, 12. 
 
 Hennebon Castle, gallant defence of, by 
 Joan of Flanders, 144. 
 
 Hennuyer, John le, 303. 
 
 Henrietta of England, 378. 
 
 of France and Charles of Eng- 
 land, 353, 356. 
 
 Henry I., grandson of Hugh Capet, 64, 65. 
 
 II. of England and Philip II. of 
 
 France, 100. 
 
 II. of France, 15471559, 276 ; and 
 
 the revolt against the Oabel or salt-tax, 
 277; and the treaty, prepares for war with 
 Charles V. of Germany, 279 ; and Mary 
 of England, war declared between, 281 ; 
 and the Spanish invasion of France, 
 281 ; and the treaty of Cafceau-Cam- 
 bresis, 281 ; and the Reformation, 282 ; 
 and Francis 'd'Andelot, 283 ; acciden- 
 tally mortally wounded by the Count 
 de Montgomery, death of, 286 ; and 
 the Lutherans, 287. 
 
 III. of France and the Religious 
 
 Wars, 15741589, 307; disappointment 
 caused by his first acts as king, 307; 
 and the League, 308 ; difficulties of his 
 government, 309 ; and Henry of Na- 
 varre, 310 ; and Duke Henry de Guise, 
 310 ; escapes from Paris and the Duke 
 de Guise, 311 ; at the States- General of 
 Blois, 312 ; and the murder of Guise, 
 312; and Henry of Navarre, 3 14; stabbed 
 by a Monk, 314 ; besieges Paris, 1589, 
 death of, 1589, 315. 
 
 IV. of England and the war with 
 
 France, 178. 
 
 IV. of France, 314; policy of, 316; 
 
 Protestant king, 15891593, 323 ; and 
 the Cardinal de Bourbon, 317; defeats 
 the Duke of Mayenne at Arques, 318 ; 
 foreign opinion of, 318 ; at the battle 
 of Ivry, 319 ; besieges Paris, 320 ; and 
 the Duke of Parma, 321 ; and the siege 
 of Rouen, 328 ; decides to turn Catholic, 
 323; besieges Dreux, 324; turns Catholic, 
 325 ; Catholic king, 15931610, 326 ; 
 
 anointed at Chartres, 326 ; enters Paris, 
 1594, 327 ; attempted murder of, by 
 John Chastel, 328 ; declares war with 
 Philip II. of Spain, 328; gallant con- 
 duct at the encounter of Fontaine- 
 Fran9aise, 328 ; makes peace with Spain 
 at Vervins, issues the Edict of Nantes, 
 329 ; and the House of Austria, 330 ; 
 foreign policy of, 331 ; his ministers, 
 331-333 ; and Marguerite of Valois, 
 annulment of their marriage, 333 ; and 
 Biron's conspiracy, 334; assassinated, 
 335 ; work of, completed, 374. 
 
 Henry V., Emperor of Germany, declines 
 battle with Louis VI., 98. 
 
 V. of England, designs on the 
 
 Crown of France, 177 ; lands with his 
 army near Harfleur on the 14th August, 
 1415, 178 ; and the battle of Agincourt, 
 
 178 ; resumes his campaign in France, 
 
 179 ; death of, at Vincennes, 184. 
 
 VI. of England, 185 ; crowned at 
 
 Paris, 1431, 191; marries Margaret of 
 Anjou, 193. 
 
 VIII . of England and the League 
 
 of the Holy Union, 1511, 234 ; sends a 
 fleet to aid Ferdinand of Spain, 234; 
 and the affair of the Spurs, 1513, 236 ; 
 makes peace with Louis XII.. 236; and 
 European affairs in 1519, 247 ; meets 
 Francis I. at The Field of the Cloth of 
 Gold, 248 ; agrees to aid Charles II. of 
 Bourbon against Francis I., 250; and 
 the Holy League, 259 ; and Charles V. 
 of Germany, treaty between, 1543, 262; 
 invades France, 263; and the Refor- 
 mation, 270. 
 
 Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, 
 
 Count of Anjou, marries Eleanor of 
 Aquitaine, and on the death of Stephen, 
 in 1154, he becomes King of England, 84. 
 
 Heraclea Cacabaria ( Saint- Gilles), found- 
 ing of, 2. 
 
 Heretics first burnt in France, 106. 
 
 Hermengarde, wife of Louis the Debon- 
 nair, death of, 55. 
 
 Hildebrand, the celebrated Monk, after- 
 wards Pope Gregory, 85. 
 
 Hochkirch, the battle of, 500. 
 
 Hochstett, the battle of, 1704, 389. 
 
 Holland, liberty and prosperity of, se- 
 cured by Heinsius, at the expense of 
 her political position in Europe, 392 ; 
 joins England against Louis XV., 472. 
 
 Holy City, the, 73. 
 
 League, 259. 
 
 Sepulchre, 74. 
 
 Honorius III., Pope, 107. 
 
 Hospital, Chancellor de 1', 290, 291, 298, 
 303. 
 
 Hotel des Invalides and Louvois, 404. 
 
 Houdon, sculptor, 533. 
 
Index. 
 
 599 
 
 Howe, Lord, revictuals Gibraltar during 
 the three years' siege, 548. 
 
 Huguenots, the, 270, 271 ; Montluc's per- 
 secution of, 294 ; and the Fall of La 
 Eochelle, 353 ; and Richelieu, 354 ; and 
 Louis XIV., 384 ; loyalty of, 411. 
 
 Human sacrifices, 23. 
 
 Hume, History of England, quoted, 115 ; 
 and Rousseau, 325. 
 
 Hundred Years' War, the, 141 ; Charles 
 V-, and the, 162 ; Charles VII., Joan of 
 Arc, 14221461, and the, 186; Joan of 
 Arc's, the glory of bringing to an end 
 the, 196. 
 
 Hungarians, the, or Magyars, invade 
 France, 27. 
 
 Huns, the, 28 ; arrival of, in Gaul, under 
 their King Attila, A.D. 451, 28 ; driven 
 out of Gaul, 29. 
 
 Huss, John, 270. 
 
 Hyder AH and the struggle against the 
 English in India, 484, 547. 
 
 Ibarra, Don Diego d', 327. 
 
 Iberians, the, 1, 2. 
 
 Ibn-al-Arabi, Saracen chief, 44. 
 
 He de France, colony of, 482. 
 
 Illyria, settlement of the Gauls in, B.C. 
 
 587, 4. 
 India Company, the French, 478. 
 
 Companies, the, rivalry between 
 
 the French and English, 479-487. 
 
 , the French in, 479. 
 
 lost to France, 504. 
 
 Ingeburga, Princess, of Denmark, wife of 
 
 Philip Augustus, 108. 
 Innocent II., Pope, and Louis VII., 80. 
 i III., Pope, summons France to 
 
 extirpate the Albigensians, 105; and 
 
 Simon de Montfort, 106 ; death of, 107 ; 
 
 and the conjugal irregularity of Philip 
 
 Augustus, 108. 
 XL, Pope, and the Augsburg 
 
 League against Louis XIV., 384. 
 
 XIIL, Pope, makes Dubois a 
 
 Cardinal, 460. 
 
 Irenreus, St., second Bishop of Lyons, A.D. 
 
 177 to 202, 75. 
 Iron Mask, the, 437. 
 Iroquois, the, 491. 
 Isabel, daughter of Philip IV., espoused 
 
 by Edward II. of England, 174. 
 
 of Bavaria, Queen, 173, 175. 
 
 Islamism, the tide of, rolled back by the 
 
 wars of the Crusades, 38. 
 Isle-de-France, personal domain of the 
 
 King of France, 62. 
 Italian League, the, and Charles VIII., 
 
 223 
 
 Italy, the wars of, and Charles VIII., 222 ; 
 . the wars in, and Louis XII., 226, 227. 
 Ivry, the battle of, 1590, 319. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jacobite rising, the Scottish, of 1745, 476. 
 Jacquery, the, 155. 
 
 Jacques, Bonhomme, origin of the term, 
 155. 
 
 Coeur. See Cceur. 
 
 James I. of England and the marriage of 
 his son Prince Charles, 353, 356. 
 
 II. of England abdicates, and is 
 
 splendidly received by Louis XIV. in 
 France, 385 ; his expedition to take 
 Ireland, and the battle of the Boyne, 
 385. 
 
 Jansenism in France, 414 ; Louis XIV. 's 
 last blow at, 415 ; Jansenism and Mme. 
 de Maintenon, 416; in Paris in 1735, 
 468. 
 
 Jansenists, the, set at liberty, 449. 
 
 Jansenius and his teaching, 414. 
 
 Jardin des Plantes, Le, and Richelieu, 366 ; 
 and Buffon, 523. 
 
 Jarnac, the battle of, 1569, 298. 
 
 Jeannin, President, 303. 
 
 Jerome of Prague, 270. 
 
 Jerusalem, the cradle of Christianity, 73; 
 besieged by the Mussulmans, 74 ; siege 
 and capture of, by the Crusaders, 77 ; 
 under Christian rule, 1100 1186, 79 ; 
 the fall of the Christian kingdom of, 
 causes great consternation throughout 
 Christendom, 84. 
 
 Jesuits, the, 328, 490; the Portuguese, 
 under Louis XV., 505, 506 ; the Order 
 of, dissolved by Rome, 506 ; the Society 
 of the, suppressed in France by the 
 Edict of 1764, 506 ; expelled from Spain, 
 506. 
 
 Joan, wife of Louis XII., 217- 
 
 of Penthievre, the cripple, wife of 
 
 Charles of Blois, energy of, 143, 144. 
 
 Hachette, 206. 
 
 of Arc, 186-191. 
 
 Joans, history of the war of the Three, 
 143-145. 
 
 John Lackland, King of England, and 
 Philip II. of France, 102 j murders his 
 nephew Arthur, 100. 
 
 I. of France, 133. 
 
 II., King of France, called the Good, 
 
 150 ; and Charles of Navarre, 151 ; with 
 his army, comes up with the Prince of 
 Wales and the English near Poictiers ; 
 defeated and taken prisoner at the 
 battle of Poictiers, 152 ; his captivity 
 in England, 158 ; his ransom ; set 
 at liberty and escorted to France by 
 the Priuce of Wales, 159; takes pos- 
 
6oo 
 
 History of France. 
 
 session of the duchy of Burgundy, and 
 bestows it on his son Philip, 161 ; volun- 
 tarily returns to captivity in England, 
 and dies in London, 1364, 162. 
 
 Joinville, Sire de, " One of the most 
 sprightly and charming writers of the 
 nascent French language," 266, 267; 
 quoted, 91, 92, 114, 115, 118. 
 
 Jornandes, the Gothic historian, 28. 
 
 Joyeuse, Anne, Duke of, 328. 
 
 Judith, the Empress, 55. 
 
 Julius II., Pope, 229 ; and the Venetians, 
 230 ; his joy at the death of Cardinal 
 Amboise, 232 ; the soldier pope, energy 
 of, 233 j death of, 235. 
 
 K. 
 
 Karikal, 483 ; restored to the French, 549. 
 
 Karle, or Callet, William of, 155, 156. 
 
 Kaunitz, Count, 495. 
 
 Keith, Lord, and Voltaire, 519. 
 
 Keppel, Admiral, 544. 
 
 Kersaint, Admiral de, 546. 
 
 Khevenhuller, General, 471. 
 
 Kingship, the, in France, decline of, 446 ; 
 
 decay of, 493, 505. 
 Kolin, battle of, 497. 
 Kymrians, the, 3. 
 Kymro-Belgians, 3. 
 
 L. 
 
 La Bourdonnais, 482. 
 
 La Bruyere, his account of Eichelieu, 366 ; 
 
 estimate of Richelieu, 213 ; character 
 
 and works of, 427, 428. 
 Ladies' Peace, the, 260. 
 La Fayette, Louis de, and Louis XIII., 
 
 343. 
 , Madame de, and Eochefou- 
 
 cauld, 426. 
 
 lands in America, 1777, 542 ; 
 
 at the capture of Yorktown, 394 ; and 
 Washington, 543. 
 
 La Fontaine, 431. 
 
 Lagrange, 553. 
 
 La Hire, 186- 
 
 Lally-TolendaT, Count ; sails with a 
 French fleet to avenge the French re- 
 verses in India, 486 ; accused of treason 
 and beheaded, 487. 
 
 Languedoc, ravaged by the Black Plague, 
 149 ; the estates of, and the Chancellor 
 Duprat, 246. 
 
 Canal, the, 402. 
 
 , persecution of the Protestants 
 
 of, under Louis XIV., 412, 413. 
 
 Lannoy, Viceroy of Naples, 252, 257- 
 
 La Noue, 297 ; quoted, 294. 
 
 La Peyrouse, M. de la, 554. 
 
 Laplace, M. de, 553. 
 
 La Rochefoucauld, the Duke of, 369; and 
 Madame de La Fayette, 426. 
 
 La Rochelle, and the English, 168; re- 
 bellion in 1542, 277 ; siege of, in 1572, 
 304, 305 ; obstinate resistance of the 
 citizens of,- to Louis XIII., 353 ; capitu- 
 lation of, to Louis XIII., 1628, 353. 
 
 La Salle, one of the earliest of the Ame- 
 rican Pioneers, 490. 
 
 Latin Paganism, 24. 
 
 La Tremoille, 220, 224, 226, 228, 235, 
 251. 
 
 Lautrec, Marshal de, 249, 251 ; death of, 
 260. 
 
 Lauzun, M. de, 437. 
 
 La Valette, the Duke of, trial of, 347. 
 
 La Valliere, Mdlle. de, and Louis XIV., 
 436. 
 
 Lavoisier, 553. 
 
 Law, John, the Scottish adventurer, 
 birth, character and schemes of, 450 
 452. 
 
 Lawfeldt, the battle of, 479. 
 
 League of the Holy Union, against Louis 
 XII., 234. 
 
 League, the, of the Sixteenth Century, 
 308 ; and Henry III., 310 ; and Henry 
 IV., 317. 
 
 , the Spanish, 321. 
 
 , the French, 321, 322, 326. 
 
 Leaguers, the, and the murder of Guise, 
 312 ; defeated by Henry IV. at Arques, 
 318. 
 
 Leake, Admiral, captures Sardinia, Mi- 
 norca, and Port Mahon, 391. 
 
 Lebrun, Charles, 435. 
 
 Leclerc, John, first French martyr of the 
 Reformation, 272. 
 
 Leckzinska, Mary, and Louis XV., 509. 
 
 Lecocq, Robert, Bishop of Laon, 158. 
 
 Lefevre, Jacques, of Staples, 270. 
 
 Lens, the victory of, 367, 369. 
 
 Leo III., Pope, 224, 296. 
 
 X., Pope, and Louis XII. of France, 
 
 235; and Francis I., 243; and the 
 battle of Melegano, 244 ; and the Con- 
 cordat with Francis I., 245. 
 
 Le Poussin and Louis XIV., -435. 
 
 Le Quesnoy, captured by Villars and the 
 French, 397. 
 
 Lerida, captured 1707, 390. 
 
 Lesdiguieres, 340. 
 
 Lespinasse, Mdlle., 526. 
 
 L'Estoile, quoted, 305, 306. 
 
 Lesueur, Eustache, and Poussin, 435. 
 
 Lettres Persanes, the, 512. 
 
 Leudes', the, 39. 
 
 Leyva, Antony de, governor of Pavia, de- 
 fends it against Francis I., 270. 
 
 L'Hospital. See Hospital. 
 
 Liege, the siege of, by Louis XI. and 
 Charles the Rash, 205. 
 
Index. 
 
 601 
 
 Lille captured, 1707, by Eugene and Marl - 
 borough, 391. 
 
 Lincoln, General, 545. 
 
 Lionne, De, and Louis XIV., 375. 
 
 Lissa, the battle of, 499. 
 
 Literature, French, Geoffrey de Villehar- 
 douin's history of the conquest of the 
 Greek Empire by the Latin Christians, 
 one of the earliest and finest monuments, 
 of French literature, 267; of the Renais- 
 sance, 269; tempo Richelieu, 361-364; 
 in the reign of Louis XV., 245. 
 
 Livre, Le, des Metiers d'Etienne Boileau, 
 117. 
 
 Lombards, the, 42, 44. 
 
 London and William the Conqueror, 73. 
 
 Londonderry, the 105 days' siege of, by 
 the French and the Irish Catholics, 
 385. 
 
 Longueville, the Duke de, 369, 370. 
 
 Longjumeau, the Peace of, 297. 
 
 Lorrain, Claude, 434. 
 
 Lorraine, 58, 382; the annexation of, 
 468. 
 
 , Cardinal Louis of, 279. 
 
 , Charles de, Duke of Mayenne. 
 
 See Mayenne. 
 
 , Prince Charles of, 474 ; and the 
 
 battle of Eaucoux, 477; defeated at 
 Lissa by Frederick the Great, 499. 
 
 -, Francis de, Duke of Guise, 279, 
 
 282, 292. 
 
 Lorris, the treaty of, 114. 
 
 Lothaire, Emperor of the Franks, A.D. 
 817, 55, 56. 
 
 Louis the Debonnair, or, Louis the Pious, 
 55 ; divides his kingdom between his 
 sons Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis, 55 ; 
 death of, A.D. 840, 56. 
 
 the Germanic, 56. 
 
 , Prince, son of Philip Augustus, his 
 
 enterprise against England, 107, 108. 
 
 the Stutterer, 54. 
 
 the Ultramarine, 58, 61. 
 
 III. and the Northmen, 53. 
 
 V., the Sluggard, 61. 
 
 VI., the Fat, or, the Wide Awake, 
 
 also called the Fat, energy and effi- 
 ciency of, 97 ; his numerous and suc- 
 cessful expeditions against his rebel 
 subjects, 98. 
 
 VII., the Yonng, his unimportant 
 
 but long reign, 99. 
 
 VIII. of France, a man of downright 
 
 mediocrity, 110. 
 IX. or St. Louis. See St. Louis. 
 
 X., called the Quarreller, at his 
 
 death leaving only a daughter, the 
 Salic Law is called into effect for the 
 first time, and the crown passes to 
 Philip the Long, 132, 133. 
 
 XL, youth of, 200 ; called the Uni- 
 
 versal Spider, 14611483, 201; and 
 the rebel barons, 202 ; and the Count of 
 Charolais, 203 ; makes peace with his 
 barons, 203 ; and Charles the Rash of 
 Burgundy, 204; held in the Castle 
 of Peronne by Charles the Rash, 205 ; 
 accompanies Charles the Rash to the 
 siege of Liege, 205 ; returns to Paris 
 after passing the most trying three 
 weeks of his life, 206 ; and Edward IV. 
 of England, 206 ; Commynes' account 
 of, 206, 216 ; and Edward IV., meeting 
 of, at Amiens, 207 ; and the death of 
 his brother Charles, 208 , and the 
 Swiss Cautons. 209 ; and the news of 
 the death of Charles the Rash, 210; 
 and Mary of Burgundy, 210 ; failure of 
 the main policy of, 211; and the Count 
 de Dampmartin, 213 ; his three great 
 services to France, 213; character of, 
 214 ; death of, 1483, 216 ; the family 
 of, 217. 
 
 Louis XII., crowned at Rheims, reign, his 
 home and foreign policy, 226 ; and the 
 Italian states, 226 ; and the Duchy of 
 Milan ; his army invades Milaness, 
 enters Milan, 227 ; and Ferdinand of 
 Spain, 229 ; prepares for the conquest 
 of Naples, 226; and the French re- 
 verses in Italy, 221 ; declares war 
 against the Venetians, 230; at the 
 battle of Agnadello, 238 ; and the 
 victory of Ravenna, 234; reopens the 
 Italian campaign and concludes a 
 treaty with Venice at Blois, 234 ; 
 foreign policy and home government 
 of, 236, 237; character of, private 
 life of, 238; marries Princess Mary, 
 sister of Henry VIII., 239; death of, 
 240. 
 
 XIII., youth of, 336; and the murder 
 
 of D' Ancre, 237 ; and Anne of Austria, 
 337 ; and Richelieu, 338 ; and Luynes, 
 338; Mary de' Medici, civil war be- 
 tween, 342 ; and the death of Duke 
 Luynes, 340 ; and Talleyrand, Count 
 of Chalais, 341 ; severe ordinances of, 
 against duels, 341 ; and the revolt of 
 Duke Gaston of Orleans and the Duke 
 of Montmorency, has Duke Henry of 
 Montmorency beheaded, 342, 343 ; and 
 Louise de La fayette and Marie d' Haute - 
 fort, 343 ; and his favourite Cinq-Mars, 
 343 ; and the trial of La Valette, 347 ; 
 Cardinal Richelieu and the Provinces, 
 348 ; Cardinal Richelieu, the Catholics, 
 and the Protestants, 350 - 355 ; his 
 rigorous policy against the Rochellese, 
 353; the capitulation of La Rochelle, 
 Richelieu and Foreign Affairs, 355 ; 
 and the Duke of Savoy, 356 ; declares 
 war with Spain, 357 ; and the death of 
 
602 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Cardinal Richelieu, 358; illness and 
 death of, 359 ; Richelieu and literature, 
 360-366. 
 
 Louis XIV-, and the policy of Kichelieu, 
 367 ; the Fronde and the government 
 of Cardinal Mazarin, 16431661, 366 ; 
 and the great Conde, 370 ; marriage of, 
 with the Infanta of Spain, 373 ; com- 
 mences to reign with a splendour and 
 puissance without precedent, 375 ; the 
 council of, 375 ; his wars and his con- 
 quests, 16611697, 377 ; and Fouquet, 
 376 ; waiting to recommence war, 377 ; 
 and John Van Witt, 379 ; and Vauban 
 at Lille, 377 ; places Conde in com- 
 mand of the new army to reduce the 
 Netherlands, 378 ; and the Peace of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668, 378 ; determines 
 to make war with the Netherlands, 
 378 ; prepares to subdue the Nether- 
 lands, the successful commencement of 
 the war with Holland, 379 ; reduces 
 Franche-Comte, 378 ; his account in 
 his Memoires of his eagerness to begin 
 the campaign of 1678^ 380 ; concludes 
 the Peace of Nimeguen with Holland, 
 382 ; is intoxicated with his successes, 
 383 ; declares war against Holland and 
 the Empire and captures the Palati- 
 nate, 385 ; effects of his revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes, 384 ; his magni- 
 ficent reception of James II., late King 
 of England, 385 ; the grand alliance 
 against, 386 ; consents to recognize 
 William III. as King of England, 386 ; 
 his Wars and the partition of the King 
 of Spain's dominions, 387; throws over 
 the Treaty of Partition and confirms the 
 will of Charles II. of Spain, which left 
 that kingdom to the Duke of Anjou, 
 388 ; and the defeats of Villeroi by 
 Marlborough, 389-391 ; proposes peace, 
 394 ; his courage under reverses, 394 ; 
 and the battle of Malplaquet, 393; 
 family losses of, 394; and Villars, 395 ; 
 disastrous effects of his ambition on 
 France, 397; and Louvois' work, 404; 
 and home administration, 400; and 
 Colbert's administration of the finances, 
 401 ; reckless expenditure of, 403 ; the 
 three passions of, 402; and the death 
 of Louvois, 405 ; his affection for Cha- 
 millard, 406; mistakes of, 407; and 
 religion, 408; revokes the Edict of 
 Nantes, 409 ; and the revolt of the 
 Camisards, 413 , and the Jansenists, 
 414 ; and Fenelon, 416 ; answerable 
 for the religious persecutions of his 
 reign, 418; and literature and art, 419- 
 435; and his Court, 436; Mdlle. de 
 la Valliere, and Madame de Montes- 
 pan, 436 ; and the death of his queen, 
 
 438; his affection for the Duchess of 
 Burgundy, 439 ; egotism of, 440 ; his 
 will, 442, 443; death-bed of, 443; 
 death of, September 1st, 1715, 441; 
 and the Scottish adventurer Law, 451. 
 
 Louis XV., character of his reign, 447 ; 
 the regency and Cardinal Dubois, 1715- 
 1723, 448 ; and Peter the Great, 455 ; 
 and the Eegent Orleans, 452-461 ; de- 
 moralization of his court, 461 ; and 
 the ministry of Cardinal Fleury, 1723 
 1748, 464; and the persecution of 
 the Protestants, 462 ; his proposed 
 marriage with the Infanta broken off, 
 465 ; and Floury as his prime minister, 
 464 ; and the Parliament of Paris, 468 ; 
 and the death of Fleury, 472 ; he de- 
 clares war against England and Maria 
 Theresa, 472; joins the army in person, 
 473 ; illness of, and the consternation 
 of his subjects, 474 ; Marshal Saxe, 
 and the battle of Fontenoy, 475 ; re- 
 turns in triumph to Paris, 476 ; and the 
 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 479; France 
 in the Colonies, 17451763, 481-494; 
 at fifty years of age, and Madame de 
 Pompadour, 494 ; declares war with 
 England, 1755, 495 ; and the Franco- 
 Austrian alliance, 1756, 496 ; attempted 
 assassination of, 1757, 496; and the 
 outbreak of the Seven Years' War, 
 497 ; and the Family Pact with Spain, 
 503 ; the Parliament, and the Jesuits, 
 505-508; Madame Dubarry; dismisses 
 Choiseul, 507 ; suspected of private 
 speculation and of keeping up the price 
 of corn, 509 ; and the annexation of 
 Corsica, 510; political annihilation of, 
 in Europe completed by the dismissal 
 of Choiseul, 507; his fluctuations be- 
 tween remorse and depravity, illness, 
 death, and character of, 1774, 511 ; the 
 philosophers of his time, 512 ; and 
 Diderot, 521 ; and Buffon, 523. 
 
 XVI., and Marie Antoinette, 532; 
 
 and the ministry of M. Turgot, 533, 
 et seq. ; recalls M. de Maurepas, 533 ; 
 recalls the Parliament of Paris, 536 ; 
 and the bread riots, 536; the coro- 
 nation of, 537 ; dismisses Turgot, 539 ; 
 France abroad, United States War of 
 Independence, 17751783, 540; and 
 the American War of Independence, 
 540 ; his aid to the Americans, 542 ; 
 France at Home Ministry of M. 
 Necker 1776 1781, 550; and M. 
 Necker's reforms, 551 ; M. de Calonne 
 and the Assembly of Notables, 1781 
 1787, 553 ; and the disgrace of Cardinal 
 Rohan, 555 ; and Captain Cook's 
 voyage, 554 ; and the Mariage de 
 Figaro, 554 ; and the Assembly of the 
 
Index. 
 
 Notables, 555 ; and the Protestants, 
 554, 555 ; convocation of the States- 
 general, 17871789, 555; and the 
 protest of the French Parliaments, 
 556; recalls M. Keeker, 558; and the 
 Third Estate, 560; and the States- 
 general of, 1789, 561. 
 
 Louisbourg, surrendered to France, 479. 
 
 Louise of Savoie, 242, 260, 272 ; death of, 
 1531, 276. 
 
 Louvois, Marquis de, admitted to Louis 
 XIV.'s council, 376; and Turenne, 380; 
 increasing power of, only resisted by 
 Colbert, and the successes of Louis 
 XIV., 332; harsh policy of, in the Pala- 
 tinate, 385 ; and influence with Louis 
 XIV., 386; by the death of the Colberts 
 is left alone in his work, 404 ; death of, 
 405 ; and the conversion of the Refor- 
 mers, 443. 
 
 Lowendahl, Count, 479. 
 
 LuQon (Richelieu, Bishop of) . See Riche- 
 lieu. 
 
 Ludovic the Moor, Duke of Milan, and 
 Charles, 222. 
 
 Lugdunensian Province, the, of Roman 
 Gaul, 17. 
 
 Lusignan, Hugh de, Count de la Marche, 
 113. 
 
 Lutetia, or Mud Town, the ancient name 
 of Paris, 109. 
 
 Luther, Martin, 270. 
 
 Lutherans, the, and Henry II., 283. 
 
 Luxembourg, John of, captures Joan of 
 Arc, 189. 
 
 , Louis of, and Louis XI. , 212. 
 
 , Marshal, 379; placed by Louis 
 
 XIV. in command of the French armies, 
 385; defeats William III. of England, 
 385 ; death and character of, 386. 
 
 Luynes, Albert de, 338; and Richelieu, 
 339 ; and Louis XIII. 339 ; the duke 
 of, at the siege of Montauban, death of, 
 340. 
 
 Lynar, Count, 498. 
 
 Lyonness, conquered by the Burgundians, 
 28. 
 
 Lyons the chief centre of early Christi- 
 anity in Gaul, 24. 
 
 M. 
 
 Machault, M. de, 494, 497. 
 
 Madras, captured by the French, 482 ; re- 
 stored to the English, 484. 
 
 Madrid, Treaty of, between Francis I. 
 and Charles V., 257. 
 
 Maestricht invested, 1748, 479. 
 
 Magna Charta, upheld by St. Louis, 115. 
 
 Mahe, 482. 
 
 Maillart and Marcel, 157. 
 
 Maillebois, Marshal, 470. 
 
 Maine's, the Duke of, position as regent 
 usurped by the Duke of Orleans, 448 ; 
 and the Orleans regency, 453. 
 
 , the Duchess of, her mortification 
 
 and rage at the decree against her hus- 
 band, 453 ; her plot against the re- 
 gency ; arrested and removed to Dijon, 
 456. 
 
 Maintenon, Madame de, and Louis XIV., 
 438; and the persecution of the Refor- 
 mers, 384; and Racine. 430; and the 
 death of Louis XIV., 443 j death of, 
 444. 
 
 Maisonneuve, Paul de, 490. 
 
 Malagrida burnt as a heretic, 506. 
 
 Malebranche, 422. 
 
 Malesherbes, L. de, called to the Ministry 
 by Turgot, 537 ; and Diderot, 522. 
 
 Malherbe, 362 ; his account of the assas- 
 sination of Henry IV., 335. 
 
 Malleteers, the, 172. 
 
 Malouet, and the convocation of the 
 States-General, 1789, 562, 564. 
 
 Malplaquet, the battle of, 1709, 393. 
 
 Man with the Iron Mask, the, 437. 
 
 Mandubians, the, 15. 
 
 Mansard, 435. 
 
 Manicheans, the, persecution of, 104. 
 
 Manny, Walter de, 148. 
 
 Mantes, the Conference of, 324. 
 
 Marcel, Stephen, Provost of the trades- 
 men of Paris, 154-157. 
 
 Marche, Count de la, and the Count of 
 Poitiers ; defeated by St. Louis, 113. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, account of, 19. 
 
 Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. of 
 England, received by Louis XL, 207. 
 
 Marguerite of Austria betrothed to the 
 Dauphin Charles, son of Louis XL, 
 216; removed from France by the 
 Archduke Maximilian, 220; death of, 
 1530, 260. 
 
 of Provence, wife of St. Louis 
 
 IX., 112. 
 
 de Valois and Francis I., 
 
 beautiful character of, 242 ; the writ- 
 ings of, 269 ; death of, 276. 
 
 Maria Theresa, 470. 
 
 Mariage de Figaro, the, and its effects, 
 459. 
 
 Marie Antoinette, 532. See Antoinette. 
 
 Marigny, Enguerrand de, chief adviser of 
 Philip IV., 131 ; hanged on the gibbet 
 of Montfaucon, 132. 
 
 Marillac, Francis de, 346. 
 
 Marlborough, the Duke of, and Blenheim, 
 389; checked by Villars, 390; and the 
 battle of Ramilies, 389 ; defeats Ven- 
 d6me at Audenarde, 391 ; and the 
 battle of Malplaquet, 393; dismissed 
 by Queen Anne, 394. 
 
 Marot, Clement, 268. 
 
604 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Marseilles, the founding and rise of, 2 ; 
 horrors of the plague of, and heroic de- 
 votion of the religious orders, 459. 
 
 Marsin, Marshal, at the battle of Blen- 
 heim, 389. 
 
 Martel, Charles, 37-39. 
 
 Martin V., Pope, and affairs in France, 
 179. 
 
 Martyrs, the, of Lyons, 25. 
 
 Mary of Anjou, wife of Charles VII., 192. 
 
 , Queen, of England, and Philip II. of 
 
 Spain, 280. 
 
 of Burgundy weds the Archduke 
 
 Maximilian, 220. 
 
 Stuart. See Stuart. 
 
 Masselin, John, character of, 218, 219. 
 
 Massilia (Marseilles), founding of, 2. 
 
 Massillon, 422. 
 
 Maupeou, M. de, Chancellor, and the fall 
 of the Parliament of Paris, 507, 508 j 
 dismissal and death of, 534. 
 
 Maurepas, M. de, recalled by Louis XVI., 
 532 ; and M. Necker, 550. 
 
 Maximilian, Archduke, weds Mary of Bur- 
 gundy at Ghent, 220 ; of Austria, 221 ; 
 and Anne of Brittany, 221. 
 
 1., Emperor, and Louis XII., 230 ; 
 
 joins the Holy League, 234 ; and Henry 
 VIII of England in Prance, 236 ; death 
 of, 248. 
 
 Mayenne, the Duke of, 308, 310 ; defeated 
 by Henry IV. at Arques, 318 ; at Paris. 
 322, 323 ; joins Henry IV., 328. 
 
 Maynier, John de, baron of Oppede, 273. 
 
 Mayors, the, of the palace, 36. 
 
 Mazarin, Julius, concludes a treaty of 
 peace and commerce with Cromwell, 
 373. 
 
 , Cardinal, 366 ; recommended to 
 
 Louis XIII. by Richelieu, 366; de- 
 nounced by the Parliament of Paris, 
 369; defeated and obliged to leave 
 France, 371 ; his state-stroke, 372 ; be- 
 comes all-powerful, 372 ; concludes 
 the Peace of the Pyrenees with Spain, 
 373 ; death of, 374. 
 
 Medici, Peter de', and Charles VIII., 
 222. 
 
 , Queen Catherine de', 288; cha- 
 racter of, 292 ; and the St. Bartholo- 
 mew, 302, 303; and the death of 
 Charles IX., 306; and the League, 308 ; 
 and the duke de Guise, 311 j death of, 
 313. 
 
 , Ferdinand de', 333. 
 
 -, Queen Mary de', marries Henry 
 
 IV., 333, 334 ; Regency of, 16101617, 
 336; and Richelieu, her flight from 
 Blois, 338 ; and Louis XIII., civil war 
 between, 339 ; flight of, 339. 
 
 , the family of the, and Francis I., 
 
 245. 
 
 Mediterranean, pirates of the, in 1532, 
 
 262. 
 
 Melancthon, and Francis I., 273. 
 Melegnano, the battle of, 244. 
 Mello, Don Francisco de, invades France, 
 
 367. 
 
 Mellobaudes, a leader of the Franks, 27. 
 Menageot, painter, 533. 
 Merania, Princess Agnes of, and Philip 
 
 Augustus, 108. 
 Meroveus, 29. 
 Merovingian kings, the greedy, licentious, 
 
 and cruel, 34. 
 Mesmer, 553. 
 
 Messina gives herself up to France, 381. 
 Metz, the siege of, in 1552, 279 ; restored 
 
 to France, 281. 
 Micheli, John, his account of Catherine de 
 
 Medici, 292. 
 Mignard, 435. 
 Milan, the duchy of, and Charles VEIL, 
 
 222 ; siege of, raised by Gas ton de 
 
 Foix, 233. 
 
 Milaness and Louis XII., 226. 
 Minden, the battle of, 1759, 501, 502. 
 Minorca captured by Admiral Leake, 391 ; 
 
 captured from the English, 1782, 547. 
 Mirabeau, birth and character of, 560; 
 
 and the Revolution, 561 ; and M. 
 
 Necker, 564; and the title of the 
 
 States-general, 565. 
 Missi dominici, Charlemagne's chief agents 
 
 in his government, 47. 
 Missionaries, the first Christian, in Gaul, 
 
 23, 24. 
 
 Mississippi, the scheme of Law, 451. 
 Molay, James de, Grand Master of the Tern. 
 
 plars, arrested, accused, and burnt, 131. 
 Mole, President, 369. 
 Moliere, 431 ; early dramatic works of, 
 
 432 ; his Misanthrope, &c., 432 ; Bour- 
 geois Gentilhomme, &c., 433. 
 Moncontour, battle of, 1569, 298. 
 Monge, M., 553. 
 
 Monoecus (Monaco), founding of, 2. 
 Mons captured by Louis XIV., 385. 
 Monseigneur, Grand Dauphin, 394. 
 Monsieur's Peace, 1576, 309. 
 Monsigny, musician, 533. 
 Montaigne, Michael de, character and 
 
 essays of, 359, 360. 
 Montauban, siege of, 1621, 340. 
 Montcalm, the Marquis of, death of, and 
 
 the loss of Quebec, 492. 
 Montecuculli, General, and the death of 
 
 Turenne, 381. 
 Montereau, siege of, by Charles VII. in 
 
 person, 192. 
 Montespan, Madame de, and Louis XIV., 
 
 436. 
 Montesquieu, his Lettres Persanes, 512 ; 
 
 the works of, 512, 513. 
 
Index. 
 
 6o 5 
 
 Montfort, John of, his war with Charles of 
 
 Blois, 143, 144. 
 
 , Simon de. See Simon. 
 
 Montgolfier, MM. de, and the first balloon, 
 
 554. 
 
 Montgomery, Count de, by accident mor- 
 tally wounds King Henry II., 284. 
 Montlhery, engagement at, between Louis 
 
 XI. and the rebel barons, 303. 
 Montluc, Blaise de, cruelties of, 294. 
 Montmorency, Marshal de, death of, 342, 
 
 343. 
 , the Constable Anne de, 277,278, 
 
 279 ; wounded and captured at St. 
 
 Quentin, 281 ; taken prisoner at the 
 
 battle of Dreux, 294. 
 , Henry, Duke of, wounded at 
 
 Castelnaudary, executed, 342, 343. 
 Montpensier, the Duchess of, 327. 
 , Mdlle. de, called the Great 
 
 Mademoiselle, and the Fronde, 371, 372. 
 Montreal, capitulation of, 1760, 493. 
 Monts, M. de, appointed viceroy of Acadia, 
 
 489. 
 
 Montsabert, M. de, arrest of, 557. 
 Moors, the, 38, 39. 
 Morat, defeat of Charles the Rash at, by 
 
 the Swiss, 209. 
 Mornay, Du-Plessis, and the Protestants, 
 
 332. 
 
 Motte, Admiral de la, 546. 
 Mounier, M. 558 ; and the Third Estate, 
 
 565. 
 
 Mount of Olives, the, 74. 
 Mulhausen, fight of, 380. 
 Muretus, 268. 
 Mussulman Arabs, the, pass over into 
 
 Europe, establish themselves in Spain, 
 
 and invade France, 37, 38. 
 
 N. 
 
 Najara, the battle of, gained by the Eng- 
 lish in Spain over Henry of Transta- 
 mare and Guesclin, 166. 
 
 Nancy, defeat and death of Charles the 
 Rash of Burgundy at, 210. 
 
 Nantes, the Edict of, 329; revoked by 
 Louis XIV., 384 ; in 1685, 409, 410. 
 
 Naples and Louis XII., 234. 
 
 Narbonness, conquered by the Visigoths, 
 28. 
 
 Nassau, the Count de, 220. 
 
 National Assembly, adopted as the style of 
 the States- General, 565. 
 
 Navarre, Anthony de Bourbon, King of, 
 293, 294 ; death of, 294. 
 
 , Charles the Bad of, 151; his 
 
 treason, 151 ; accepts the leadership of 
 Marcel's party, 156 ; submits to the 
 Dauphin, 158. 
 
 , Henry of, and Marguerite do 
 
 Valois, 299 ; and Henry III., 314 ; be- 
 comes heir to the French throne, 315; 
 and the murder of Henry III., 316. 
 
 Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of, 297. 
 
 Navy, the, and Richelieu, 349 ; the French, 
 under Louis XV., 492, 495, 510. 
 
 Necker, M., Director- General of Finance 
 under Louis XVI., 558; financial ad- 
 ministration of, 551 ; resigns, 551 ; re- 
 called by Louis XVI., 558; in the 
 States-General of 1789, 563. 
 
 Nerac, the Peace of, in 1579, 309. 
 
 Nero, hatred of, by the Gauls, 18. 
 
 Neustria, kingdom of, 33, 35. 
 
 Nevers, Duke de, 357. 
 
 Newfoundland, ceded to England by 
 France at the Peace of Utrecht, 1712, 
 491. 
 
 New France, and Cardinal Richelieu, 489. 
 
 Newton, 516. 
 
 Nicaea (Nice), founding of, 2. 
 
 Nicholas V., Pope, and Jacques Cceur, 97. 
 
 Nicole, M., quoted, 197. 
 
 Nicopolis, battle of, between the Chris- 
 tians and the Turks, in which the former 
 are destroyed, 175. 
 
 Nimeguen, the Peace of, between Louis 
 XIV. and Holland, 382. 
 
 Noailles, Cardinal de, and the Orleans 
 Regency, 449. 
 
 , Marshal, and the campaign of 
 
 1734, 406 ; at Dettingen, 473. 
 
 , the Duke of, made head of the 
 
 Council of Finance during the Orleans 
 Regency, 449 ; and Law's schemes, 450. 
 
 Nogaret, William de, 129. 
 
 Norman, the, Conquest of England, 69, 70. 
 
 Normandy, the Estates of, offer to under- 
 take, at their own expense, to re-con- 
 quer England, which had just declared 
 war with Phillip VI. of France, 142 ; 
 completely won back to France by 
 Charles VII., 1450, 193 ; the revolt of, 
 against the taxation of Louis XIII., 
 347 ; emigration of persecuted reformers 
 from, in the reign of Louis XIV., 412. 
 
 , William of. See William. 
 
 Normans, the, and the discovery of Ame- 
 rica, 488. 
 
 North, Lord, 544. 
 
 Northmen, the, their incursions into 
 France, 52, 53. 
 
 Notables, assembly of the, 555. 
 
 Notre-Dame de Paris, cathedral of, com- 
 pleted in the reign of Philip Augustus, 
 110. 
 
 Noue, La. See La None. 
 
 Novara, battle of, 1513, in which the 
 French are defeated, 236. 
 
 Noyon, treaty of, between Francis I. and 
 the Archduke Charles of Austria, 245. 
 
 Nu-pieds, revolt of the, 347. 
 
6o6 
 
 History of France. 
 
 0. 
 
 Olier, M., 490. 
 
 Oliver de Clisson, 173. 
 
 and Roland, 45. 
 
 Omar captures Jerusalem, 74. 
 
 Oppede, Baron d', 273. 
 
 Orange, William, the Prince of, and Louis 
 XIV., the campaign against the Nether- 
 lands, 379; and the murder of the 
 Witts, 380 ; opposition of, to the peace 
 party, 383 ; and the battle of Mons, 
 382 ; and the deputies of the estates, 
 and Mary, marriage of, and its con- 
 sequences to France, 381. 
 
 Orders, the three, composing the States- 
 General, 129. 
 
 Orleans, siege of, by Attila and the Huns, 
 28 ; the Maid of "(see Joan of Arc) ; be- 
 sieged by the English under the Duke 
 of Bedford, 1428. 187; the siege of, 
 raised through the Maid of Orleans, 
 188 ; tribute of, to the memory of Joan 
 of Arc, 191 ; the siege of, in 1563, 294. 
 
 , Louis, Duke of, 175; death of, 
 
 176. 
 
 , the Duke Charles of, and Henry Y. 
 
 at the battle of Agincourt, 179. 
 
 Duke Gaston of, and Richelieu, 
 
 342, 343 ; and Mazarin, 366 ; submis- 
 sion, retirement, and death of, 372. 
 
 , the regency of the Duke of, is 
 
 confirmed by the Parliament, 448 ; re- 
 gency, the, and the reduction of taxa- 
 tion, 450 ; and the policy of Alberoni, 
 457 ; declares war with Spain, 1719, 
 458 ; and the Dubois treaties with Eng- 
 land and Holland, 1717, 457 ; and the 
 plague, 459. 
 
 , the Regent, and the Scotch ad- 
 venturer Law, 450; outstrips Law in 
 his wild financial schemes, 452 ; and the 
 exclusion of the legitimatized princes' 
 right of succession to the throne, 453 ; 
 and the Duchess of Maine's plot, 453 ; 
 and Dubois, 454 ; and Dubois as Arch- 
 bishop of Cambria, 458 ; and Belzunce, 
 459 ; death and character of, 461. 
 
 , the Duke of, and Louis XVI., 
 
 536 ; and the States- General of, 1789, 
 563. 
 
 Ornano, Alphonso Corso d', 341. 
 
 Orvilliers, Count d', 544. 
 
 Ossat, Arnauld d', 333. 
 
 Otho IV., Emperor of Germany, and John 
 Lackland plan a grand attack upon 
 Philip II. of France, 100 ; his proposed 
 dismemberment of France, 101, 102. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paderborn, Saxons baptized at, by Charle- 
 magne, 43. 
 
 Paganism, fall of, 24. 
 
 Painters of the reign of Louis XIV., 434- 
 436. 
 
 Palace, the School of the, 50. 
 
 Palatinate, the, devastated by the French 
 in 1689, 385. 
 
 Palisse, Chabannes, Lord of La, 254, 255. 
 
 Paoli, Pascal, the hero of Corsica, 510. 
 
 Pare, Ambrose, 305. 
 
 Paris, ancient name of, see Lutetia ; 
 chosen as the seat of Government of 
 the Franks by Clovis, 32 ; death of 
 Clovis at, 32 ; pillaged by the North- 
 men, ,53 ; improvements of Philip 
 Augustus in, 109; threatened by Ed- 
 ward III., 146 ; besieged by the Eng-~ 
 lish, 1360, 160 ; the university of, and 
 Charles V., 170 ; given up to Riche- 
 mont and the National Party in France, 
 and evacuated by the English, 190; the 
 Parliament of, and Duprat's sale of 
 public appointments, 246; the Parlia- 
 ment of, and the Concordat between 
 Francis I. and Leo X., 217 ; revolt of 
 the populace of, 1588, under Duke Henry 
 de Guise, 311; siege of, by Henry III., 
 1589, 314 ; the Parliament of, and the 
 Bourbon Pretender, 317; besieged by 
 Henry IV., 320; the Parliament of, 
 and the Edict of Nantes, 329; and 
 Louis XIII., 342; and Mazarin, 369; 
 and the Fronde, 368, 369 ; the Parlia- 
 ment of, and its struggles with Fleury, 
 468; and Louis XV., 497, 507; the 
 Peace of, 1762, 505 ; the Parliament of, 
 and the Jesuits, 506. 
 
 Paris-Duverney, 462. 
 
 Parker, Admiral Hyde, 546. 
 
 Parliament, the, of Paris (see also Paris]. 
 banished by Louis XV., 507 ; recalled 
 by Louis XVI., 534; arrest of members 
 of the, 1788, 556, 557. 
 
 Parliaments, the, of France and Cardinal 
 Richelieu, 329 ; protests of the, 556. 
 
 Parma annexed by Francis I., 245. 
 
 , Duke Alexander of, invades 
 
 France, 320, 321. 
 
 , the battle at, 467. 
 
 Pascal, Blaise, 419, 420. 
 
 Pasquier, Stephen, 266. 
 
 Patay, the battle of, in which the French, 
 with Joan of Arc defeat the English, 
 188. 
 
 Patelin, the Farce of, 267. 
 
 Paul, St. Vincent de, 350. 
 
 Pavia, besieged by Charlemagne, 44 ; the 
 battle of, between Francis I. of France 
 and the Imperial troops under Bourbon 
 and Pescara, 255. 
 
 Pecquigny, the Peace of, between Louis 
 XI. and Edward IV., 207. 
 
 People's Battle, the, of Bouvines, 101. 
 
Index. 
 
 Pepin of Landen, called The Ancient, 37. 
 
 of Heristal, glorious acts of, his 
 
 death, 37. 
 
 the Short, 40 ; proclaimed King of 
 
 the Franks at Soissons, A.D. 752, 41 ; 
 his expeditions, 41, 42. 
 
 Perelle, Abbe, 460. 
 
 Peronne, Treaty of, 205. 
 
 Perrault, 435. 
 
 Pescara, the Marquis of, 252, 253, 256. 
 
 Peschiera, capture of, by Louis XII., 231. 
 
 Peter de la Brosse and Phillip III., 121. 
 
 - the Great and Madame de Main- 
 tenon, 444; visits France, 455, 456. 
 
 , the Hermit, 74, 75, 76. 
 
 the Venerable, Abbot of Cluni, 104. 
 
 III., Czar, and Frederick the Great, 
 
 504. 
 
 Petigliano, Count, at the battle of Agna- 
 dello, 231. 
 
 Philip I., 64, 65. 
 
 II., or Philip Augustus of France, 
 
 99 ; joins in a new Crusade, 85 ; and 
 Richard Coeur de Lion at Messina, 86 ; 
 leaves the Holy Land, 87 ; his relations 
 with Henry II. of England, Richard 
 Cceur de Lion, and John Lackland, 100; 
 in order to avert a joint attack from 
 John Lackland, King of England, and 
 Otho IV. of Germany, threatens to in- 
 vade England, 100; at the battle of 
 Bouvines, 101 ; and Agnes of Merania, 
 108 ; administrative acts of, 109 ; re- 
 ceives a present of fawns, hinds, does, 
 and bucks from the King of England to 
 stock his wood of Vincenues, 109 ; 
 death of, 110. 
 
 III. of France, surnamed the Bold, 
 
 his disastrous termination of his father's 
 crusade, 120 ; government, character, 
 acts, and death of, 121. 
 
 IV., called the Handsome, cha- 
 racter of, 122 ; defeats Guy de Dam- 
 pierre, Count of Flanders, 123, 124; 
 Flanders submits to, 124 ; defeated by 
 the Flemings at Courtrai, prepares to 
 renew the war, 124; defeats the 
 Flemings at Mons-en-Puelle, and lays 
 siege to Lille, 125, 126 ; and Pope Boni- 
 face VIII., 126, 127, 128, 129 ; death and 
 character of, 131 ; the three sons of, 
 132. 
 
 V., called the Long, 132, 133. 
 
 VI., or Philip of Valois, 140 ; and 
 
 Robert of Artois, 141 ; his preparations 
 for war with England, 142 ; aids Count 
 Louis de Nevers against the Flemings, 
 142 ; and Edward III., renewal of the 
 war between, 143, 144 ; and the French 
 before the battle of Crecy, 146 ; flight 
 from Crecy fight, 147; fears to raise 
 the siege of Calais, and returns to 
 
 Amiens, 148; death of, 1350, 149; and 
 James Van Artevelde, 142. 
 Philip II , of Spain, 240 ; captures St. 
 Quentin, 281; and the peace of Cateau- 
 Cambresis, 281 ; and the Duke of 
 Parma, 320; and Henry III., 309; and 
 Henry IV., war between, formally de- 
 clared, 328 ; character of, death of, 
 September, 1598, 330. 
 
 IV., of Spain, and the Peace of 
 
 the Pyrenees, 374. 
 V. of Spain, renounces all claim 
 
 to the throne of France, 388 ; refuses 
 
 to abdicate, 392 ; and his claims to the 
 
 Frence throne, 453 ; death of, 478. 
 Philippa, Queen, intercedes for the six 
 
 Burghers of Calais with Edward III., 
 
 146. 
 Philosophers, the, of the reign of Louis 
 
 XV , 512531. 
 Philosophy in France in the Middle ages, 
 
 103, 264, 265. 
 
 Phocean colony established in Gaul, 4. 
 Phoenicians, the, 2. 
 Piacenza annexed by Francis I., 245. 
 Piccini, 533. 
 Piedmont, and Charles VIII. of France, 
 
 222. 
 
 Pillar- house, the, of Marcel, 155. 
 Pisa, the Council of, 1511, 230. 
 Pitt, William, returns to office, 500; 
 
 haughty prejudice of, against France, 
 
 503. 
 
 Pius Antoninus, 19. 
 Plague of Florence, the, or the Black 
 
 Plague, 149 ; ravages of the, in 1363, 
 
 162. 
 
 , the, in France in 1719, 459. 
 
 Plelo, Count, killed at Dantzic, 465, 466. 
 Plessis-les-Tours, residence of Louis XL, 
 
 215. 
 Plessis Mornay, Philip du, 89. See Du 
 
 Plessis-Mornay. 
 Poets, the, of France in the Middle Ages, 
 
 267, 268. 
 Poictiers, the battle of, September 19th, 
 
 152 ; see also Poitiers. 
 Poisson, Mdlle. See Pompadour. 
 Poitiers (see also Poictiers), battle near, 
 
 between the Goths under Alaric II. 
 
 and the Franks under Clovis, A.D. 507, 
 
 31 ; great battle at, between the united 
 
 Franks under Charles Martel and the 
 
 Arabs under Abdel-Rhaman, in which 
 
 the latter are defeated, A.D. 732, 38. 
 Poitou, 100. 
 Poland, the crown of, offered to the Duke 
 
 of Anjou, 306; events preceding the 
 
 Partition of, 465 ; the Partition of, by 
 
 the Treaty of Warsaw, 1772, 510, 511. 
 Policists, the, 298. 
 Polignac, Madame de, 552. 
 
6o8 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Poltrot, John, 294, 295. 
 
 Polycarp, St., 25. 
 
 Pompadour, Madame de, 494 ; death and 
 character of, 507. 
 
 Pompignan, Lefranc de, 558. 
 
 Pondicherry and Governor Dupleix, 483, 
 484; captured by the English, 1778, 
 547 ; restored to the French, 547. 
 
 Ponts de Ce, engagement of, 339. 
 
 Poquelin, John Baptist. See Moliere. 
 
 Poree, Gilbert de la, 265. 
 
 Port-Koyal des Champs, 351, 352, 414- 
 416. 
 
 Pothinus, St., first Bishop of Lyons, 25. 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction, the, 116 ; of Charles 
 VII., 199; and Francis I. and Leo X., 
 246 ; its three principal objects, 247. 
 
 , relating to Maria Theresa, gua- 
 ranteed by France, 469, 470; recognized 
 by France, 479. 
 
 Prague, the siege of, given up by Chevert, 
 471. 
 
 Praguery, the, 200. 
 
 Preston-Pans, the battle of, 476. 
 
 Prie, the Marchioness of, 462-464. 
 
 Probus, Roman emperor, 20. 
 
 Prose writers, the, of France in the Middle 
 Ages, 266. 
 
 Protestants, the, after the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew, 304; and Henry IV., 
 323 ; and the issue of the Edict of 
 Nantes, 329; persecutions of, under 
 Louis XIV., 408 413; under the Or- 
 leans Regency, 449; and the terrible 
 edict of 1724, 463; and Louis XVI., 
 527. 
 
 Protestantism in Louis XIV.'s reign, 408- 
 413. 
 
 Provence, ravaged by the Black Plague, 
 149 ; the Parliament of, 560. 
 
 Prussia and France, and the Partition of 
 Poland, 1772, 510, 511. 
 
 Puget, 435. 
 
 Pyrenees, Peace of the, 1659, puts an end 
 to the twenty-three years' war between 
 France and Spain, 374. 
 
 Pytheas, the explorer, 2. 
 
 Q- 
 
 Quebec, Champlain made first governor 
 of, 489; gallant defence of, by the 
 French Cauadians against Wolfe; capi- 
 tulation of, 1759, 493. 
 
 Quesnel, Father, 416. 
 
 Quietism, 416 ; and Madame de Mainte- 
 non, 417. 
 
 Quincampoix, the street of the specula- 
 tors, during John Law's reign, 452. 
 
 R. 
 
 Rabelais, Fra^ois, 269. 
 
 Rabutin-Chantal, Marie de, Marchioness 
 of Sevigne. See Sevignd. 
 
 Racine, 429, 430. 
 
 Ragnacaire, King of the Franks of Cam- 
 brai, 32. 
 
 Rambouillet, H6tel, meetings of the Lite- 
 rati of the reign of Henry IV. at, 
 362. 
 
 Ramilies, the battle of, 1706, 389. 
 
 Ramus, Peter la Ramee, 268. 
 
 Ratisbonne, the Diet of, 1687, 384. 
 
 Raucoux, battle of, 477. 
 
 Ravaillac assassinates Henry IV., 235. 
 
 Ravenna, the battle of, 1512, 234. 
 
 Raymond VI., of Toulouse 105107. 
 
 VII., of Toulouse, 107. 
 
 Reformation, the, and Francis I., 270 ; 
 state of the, in France in 1561, 291 ; in 
 the latter half of the 16th century, 
 304. 
 
 Reformers, the French, and Mary de' 
 Medici, 337 ; rising of the, against 
 Louis XIII., 353. 
 
 Religion in France in the Middle Ages, 
 102, 103; in the reign of Louis XV.. 
 461. 
 
 Religious Wars in France, outbreak of the, 
 275. 
 
 War, outbreak of the Fourth, 
 
 1572, 306 ; outbreak of the Fifth in 
 France, 310. 
 
 Renaissance, the age of the, 264. 
 
 Renart, the Romances of, 267. 
 
 Renaudie, Lord de la, death of, 289. 
 
 Rene, II., King of Lorraine, and Louis 
 XL, 210. 
 
 Retz, Cardinal de, 369, 370. 
 
 Reveillon riot, the, 561. 
 
 Revolution, the, the eve of, 562. 
 
 Ribaut, John, heroic death of, 488. 
 
 Richard Cceur de Lion, in the Holy Land, 
 79, 85, 86. 
 
 Richelieu, Armand John du Plessis de, 
 Bishop of Lucon (afterwards Cardinal), 
 birth and early life of, 338; effects a 
 treaty between Mary de' Medici and 
 Louis XIII., 339; and Luynes, 339; 
 his character of Luynes, 340 ; and the 
 great lords, 341 ; and the ordinance 
 against duels, 341 : designs of Mary de' 
 Medici against, 342 ; and the revolt of 
 Montmorency, 343 ; and Cinq-Mars, 
 343 ; illness of, and conspiracy of Cinq- 
 Mars against, 344, 345; and the Par- 
 liament, 346 ; and the French navy, 
 349; and St. Cyran, 351; and the 
 Church and State, 352 ; and the revolt 
 of La Rochelle, 353 ; and the expedition 
 against Buckingham in the island of Rhe, 
 351 ; and the capitulation of La Rochelle, 
 1628, 353 ; and the Duke of Rohan, 
 353 j and the capitulation of Montau- 
 
Index. 
 
 609 
 
 ban, 355 ; foreign policy of, 355 ; and 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 357 ; seventy-four 
 treaties concluded by, 355 ; and the mar- 
 riage of the Prince of Wales with Hen- 
 rietta of France, 356 ; and the French 
 settlements in Canada, 489 ; death of, 
 358 ; and Louis XIII. and literature, 
 359-366 ; La Bruyere's estimate of, 366 ; 
 his monument, and Peter the Great, 456. 
 
 Richelieu, the Duke of, 477. 
 
 , Marshal, defeats Admiral Byng 
 
 and captures Minorca, 495. 
 
 Richemont, the Constable de, 193. 
 
 Kicimer, a Suevian leader, 27. 
 
 Rigaud, 435. 
 
 Rignomer, King of the Franks of Le 
 Mans, 32. 
 
 Ripuarian Franks, the, 32. 
 
 Robais, Van, 401. 
 
 Robert of Artois and Philip VI., 141, 142. 
 , Count of Paris, and the Emperor 
 Alexis, 
 
 , the Strong, 61. 
 
 , son of Hugh Capet, 63. 
 
 Robertet, Florimond, Finance Minister of 
 Louis XII. ; and Francis L, 243. 
 
 Rochambeau, Count de, and the capture ot 
 Yorktown, 546. 
 
 Rochefoucauld, see La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 Rodney, Admiral, 546. 
 
 Rohan, Duke Henry of, 353; death of, 
 354. 
 
 , the Duchess of, and the siege of La 
 
 Rochelle, 353. 
 
 , Cardinal, arrested and disgraced, 
 
 556. 
 Roland, the Song of, 45, 267. 
 
 , death of 44. 
 
 , the Camisard, 413. 
 
 Rolf (or Rollo), the Northman, invades 
 
 France, 54. 
 Roman Armies, the, and the Barbarians, 
 
 last grand struggle between, 28. 
 , Empire, the decay of, 20 ; division 
 
 of, 21 ; final dissolution of, 21. 
 customs and manners forced on 
 
 the Gauls, 17. 
 
 Municipal regimen, the, 18. 
 
 States, the, settled on the Popes 
 
 by Pepin the Short, 42. 
 Victories over the Gauls, B.C. 200 
 
 to 170, 9 et seq. 
 Romance of the Rose, 267. 
 Romances of Renart, 267. 
 Romans defeat the Gauls of Asia Minor, 
 
 B.C. 189 ; the, in Gaul, 8. 
 Rome plants colonies among the Gauls, 8 ; 
 
 aids Marseilles against the Gauls, 9 ; 
 
 and the Papacy, and Charles VIII. 223 ; 
 
 stormed and plundered by the Im- 
 perialist forces, 1527, 259. 
 Roncesvalles, death of Roland at, 44. 
 
 Ronsard, 361. 
 
 Rosbach, the battle of, 499. 
 
 Roscelin, 265. 
 
 Rosebecque, battle of, 172. 
 
 Rosny, Marquis of. See Sully. 
 
 Rouault, Marshal Joachim, 205- 
 
 Rouen, captured by the English, recap- 
 tured from the English by Dunois, 
 1449, 123 ; siege of, by Henry IV., 328. 
 
 Rousseau, birth, character, and works of, 
 527-529. 
 
 Rouvre, Philip de, Duke of Burgundy, 161 . 
 
 Rovera, Julian della. See Pope Julius II. 
 
 Roze, Chevalier, and the plague in Mar- 
 seilles, 459. 
 
 Russia and the Partition of Poland, 1772, 
 , 510. 
 
 Ruyter, Admiral, 381. 
 
 Ryswick, the Peace of, 1697, 386, 387. 
 
 S. 
 
 Saint Andre, Marshal de, killed at the 
 battle of Dreux, 294. 
 
 Saint Bartholomew, The, and the Re- 
 formers, incidents of the Massacre of, 
 300-303. 
 
 Saint Bernard. See Bernard. 
 
 Saint Cyran, M. de, character and work 
 of, 351, 352. 
 
 Saint Germain-en-Laye, the Peace of, 298. 
 
 Saint Germain, the Duke of, called to the 
 Ministry by Louis XVI., his character, 
 538. 
 
 Saint Irenseus, 25, 26. 
 
 Saint John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, 
 516. 
 
 Saint Louis, or Louis IX., powerful king, 
 valiant warrior, splendid knight, and 
 true Christian 88; his Christian en- 
 thusiasm due to his mother ; aids the 
 Crusaders ; his illness, 89 ; leaves for the 
 Holy Land, 89 ; winters with his crusade 
 in Cyprus, 90 ; lands in Egypt, repulsed 
 by the Saracens, his popularity with 
 his army, captured by the Saracens, 90, 
 91 ; arrives with the remnant of his 
 army at St. Jean d'Acre, 22 ; hears the 
 news of his mother's death, leaves St. 
 Jean d'Acre and enters Paris again 
 Sept. 7, 1254, 93 ; starts on his second 
 crusade, 94 ; arrives at Tunis and dies 
 Aug. 27, 1270, 95; "rarest and most 
 original on the roll of glorious kings," 
 111 ; description of his person and 
 tastes, his marriage with Marguerite, 
 daughter of Raymond Beranger, Count 
 of Provence, 112; struggles with the 
 great vassals, 113 ; chosen arbiter be- 
 tween Henry III. and the English 
 barons, 114; and Hume's History of 
 
6io 
 
 History of France. 
 
 England, 115 ; his interest in the pri- 
 vate affairs of his subjects, 115 ; acts of 
 legislation and administration of his 
 reign, 116; and literature, 119; mis- 
 taken zeal of, and religious liberty, 119. 
 120. 
 
 Saint Omer kept by France, 382. 
 
 Saint-Quentin, captured by Philip II. of 
 Spain, 281. 
 
 Saint Pierre, Eustace de, 148. 
 
 , Abbe, 514. 
 
 's, Bernardin de, Paul and Vir- 
 ginia^ 554. 
 
 Saint Pol, death of, 212. 
 
 Saint Pothinus, 25. 
 
 Saladin, Sultan, puts an end to the Chris- 
 tian rule in Jerusalem, 117. 
 
 Sales, St. Francis de, and the Introduction 
 to a Devout Life, 360. 
 
 Salian Franks, the, 28, 29. 
 
 Salic Law, the, 133. 
 
 Saracens, the, and Charlemagne, their 
 invasion of Southern Gaul, 44. 
 
 Sardinia, captured by Admiral Leake, 391. 
 
 Saunders, English governor of Madras, and 
 Dupleix, 484 
 
 Savoy, Duke Charles of, and Charles VIII. , 
 222. 
 
 , Louise of. See Louise of Savoy. 
 
 , the Duke of, and Louis XIII., 357. 
 
 Saxe, Marshal, character of, 475 ; at the 
 battle of Fontenoy, 475. 
 
 Saxons, the, defeated by Charlemagne, 43. 
 
 Saxony, Augustus II. of, is secured the 
 crown of Poland by Russia and Austria, 
 465. 
 
 , conquered by Frederick the 
 
 Great, 499. 
 
 Scaliger, J. C., 268. 
 
 Scarron, Madame. See Madame de Main- 
 tenon. 
 
 Schomberg, Count Gaspard de, 320. 
 
 , Marshal, and the siege of Lon- 
 donderry, 385, 
 
 School of the Palace, formed by Charle- 
 magne, 50. 
 
 Scottish Cameronians, the, compared to 
 the Camisards, 413. 
 
 Scudery and the Cid, 365. 
 
 Seignelay, M. de, character of, 406. 
 
 Semblan9ay, Baron de, 250, 
 
 Seneffe, the battle of, 1674, 380. 
 
 Senegal settlements, the, ceded to France, 
 549. 
 
 Senlac, the English position at the com- 
 mencement of the battle of Hastings, 
 70. 
 
 Sepoys, the 483. 
 
 Septimania, 34. 
 
 Serfs, enfranchisement of the, by Louis 
 the Quarreller, 133. 
 
 Servandoni, 533. 
 
 Seven Yews' War, outbreak of the, 497 ; 
 
 end of the, 505. 
 Sevigne, Madame de, letters and opinions 
 
 of, 424, 425. 
 Sequanians, the, 11, 12. 
 Sforza, Ludovic, duke of Milan, 222. 
 
 , Maximilian, 243. 
 
 Sicambrians, the, a tribe of the Franks, 
 
 27. 
 Sicilian Vespers, the massacre known by 
 
 the name of the, 121. 
 Sieyes, Abbe, and the Third Estate, 560, 
 
 565. 
 Sigebert, king of the Ripuarian Franks, 
 
 32. 
 
 I. of Metz, 33. 
 
 Simon, Count of Montfort 1'Amaury, or 
 
 Simon de Montfort, and the Albi- 
 
 gensian War, 106. 
 Sixteen, the Committee of, 313, 321. 
 Slavons, the, 43. 
 Sluggard Kings, the, 36. 
 Sluys. See Ecluse. 
 Soliman IL, Sultan, 262. 
 Song of Roland, the, 45, 267. 
 Sorbon, Robert of, Founder of the Sor- 
 
 bonne, 119. 
 Sorbonne, the, and the Reformation, 271 ; 
 
 and Henry III., 314 ; and Buffon, 529. 
 Sorel, Agnes, " Queen of Beauty," and 
 
 Charles VII., 192. 
 Soubise, the Duke of, captures the French 
 
 fleet, 353. 
 , Prince of, defeated by Frederick 
 
 the Great at Rosbach, 419. 
 Soufflot, 533. 
 Spain and France, treaty between, of 
 
 1761, 503. 
 
 Spinola, celebrated Spanish General, 357. 
 Spun, the affair of, 1513, 236. 
 Stahrenberg, Count von, 393. 
 Stainville, Count. See Choiseid. 
 Stafarde, battle of, 1690, 385. 
 Stanhope, Lord, and the fall of Alberoni, 
 
 457. 
 Stanislaus, King, 465 ; and the national 
 
 party in Poland defeated, 468. 
 States- General (see also Estates-General), 
 
 the first in French history, 129 ; con- 
 
 voked by John II., 150; assembled, 
 
 1358, 159 ; convoked at Tours, Jan. 
 
 5, 1484, 218; convoked at Tours by 
 
 Louis XII., 1506, 230 ; meeting of the, 
 
 at Paris, 1527, 258 ; of 1560, 290 ; con- 
 voked in 1576, 309 ; meeting of the, at 
 
 Blois, 1588, 311 ; of the League, 319, 
 
 322; and Louis XIII., 338; of 1789, 
 
 559. 
 
 Stephanus, Robert Estienne, 268, 
 Stephen II,, Pope, visits France to obtain 
 
 the aid of Pepin the Short against the 
 
 Lombards, 41. 
 
Index. 
 
 611 
 
 Strasburg captured by Louis XIV., 383, 
 387. 
 
 Stuart, Mary, and Francis II., marriage 
 of, 280. 
 
 , Charles Edward, lands in the 
 
 Highlands of Scotland, "1745," short 
 account of his career, 476, 477. 
 
 Suevians, 10. 
 
 Suflfren, Peter Andrew de, and French 
 successes in the Bast Indies, 547, 549. 
 
 Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, the Solomon 
 of his age, 83, 84. 
 
 Sully, character of, 331 ; and Mary de' 
 Medici, 336. 
 
 Surat, 482. 
 
 Swiss Cantons, army of the, defeats 
 Charles the Rash at Granson, 209. 
 
 Swiss, the, defeat Charles the Rash at 
 Morat, 209; invade France and lay 
 siege to Dijon, 1513, 235 ; defeated at 
 Melegnano by the French under Fran- 
 cis L, 244. 
 
 Syagrius, Roman general, 27. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tabula Peutingeri, or Chart of the Roman 
 
 Empire, 27. 
 
 Taillebourg, battle of, 113. 
 Talbot, Lord, retakes Bordeaux, 1452, 
 
 194 ; death of, at the siege of Castillon, 
 
 195. 
 
 Tallard, Count de, 388 ; defeated at Blen- 
 heim, 389. 
 
 Talleyrand, Henry de, 341. 
 Tavannes, Marshal de, and the Massacre 
 
 of St. Bartholomew, 303. 
 Taxation in France, temp. Louis XIV., 
 
 400; reforms of the Orleans Regency, 
 
 450. 
 
 Tectosagians, the, 5. 
 Teligny, 303. 
 
 Tellier, Le, and Louis XIV., 410. 
 Templars, persecutions of the, by Philip 
 
 IV. and the Pope, 130, 131. 
 Tende, Count de, 303. 
 Terouanne, the Franks of, 32. 
 Terrail, Peter du, the Chevalier Bayard. 
 
 See Bayard. 
 Terray, Abbe, extravagant expedients of, 
 
 to fill the Royal treasury, 508; dis- 
 missed by Louis XVI., 533. 
 Theobald IV., Count of Champagne and 
 
 Blanche of Castillo, 113. 
 Theodebert, King of Austrasia, 34. 
 Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, killed, 28. 
 
 or Thierry 1. of Metz, 33. 
 
 Theodulph, scholar, 50. 
 
 Theresa, Maria (see also Maria), 469, 470, 
 
 475, 495. 
 Thierry 111., 37. 
 IV., 40. 
 
 Third Estate, the, and the Communes, dif- 
 ferences between, 131 ; and French 
 civilization, 136, 137 ; and Louis XVI., 
 560. 
 
 Thirty Years' War, end of the, 368. 
 
 Thou, Nicholas de, arrested, condemned 
 to death, and executed, 344, 345. 
 
 Tiberias, terrible battle at, between Sala- 
 din and the Crusaders, 84 
 
 Tiberius, the policy of, in Gaul, 18. 
 
 Tippoo Sahib, 547. 
 
 Tobago, ceded to France, 549. 
 
 Tolbiac, battle of, between Clovis and the 
 Allemanians, 29. 
 
 Tostig, rebellion of, 70. 
 
 Tours, truce concluded at, between the 
 English and French, 1444, 193. 
 
 Tourville, defeats the English and Dutch 
 fleets off Beachy Head, 385. 
 
 Trajan, 19. 
 
 Transalpine Gaul, the first Roman settle- 
 ment in, B.C. 123, 8. 
 
 Transtamare, Prince Henry of, and Gues- 
 clin, 165. 
 
 Tremoille, Louis de la, and Anne de Beau- 
 jeu, 220 ; in Italy with Charles VIII., 
 224 ; sent to command the troops of 
 Louis XII. in Italy, 228 ; at the battle 
 of Agnadello, 231 ; and the revolt of 
 Charles II. of Bourbon, 251. 
 
 , George de la, favourite of 
 
 Charles VII., 187. 
 
 Trianon, the Manor- House of, residence of 
 Marie Antoinette, 551. 
 
 Triple Alliance, the, signed at the Hague, 
 377. 
 
 Trivulzio, John James, at the battle of 
 Fornovo, 224; and Louis XII., 227 ; at 
 the battle of Agnadello, 231. 
 
 Troyes, treaty of, between the English and 
 the Burgundians, 182. 
 
 Truce of God, the, 64. 
 
 Tuileries, the, and Louis XIV., 403. 
 
 Turckheim, fight of, 380. 
 
 Turenne, Viscount de, 369, 380, 381. 
 
 , M. de, and Louvois, 404. 
 
 Turgot, M., the Ministry of, and Louis 
 XVI., 532 ; acts of his Ministry, 535, 
 536 ; dismissed by Louis XVI., 539 ; so- 
 licitations of the American colonies for 
 aid against England, 541. 
 
 Turin, the siege of, 1706, 390. 
 
 Turnebius, 268. 
 
 Turpin, Archbishop, 45. 
 
 Tuscany, the Grand Duke of, proclaimed 
 Emperor as Francis I., 470. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ultramontanes, the, and Cardinal Riche- 
 lieu, 352. 
 Unigenitus, the bull, 416. 
 
612 
 
 History of France. 
 
 Union, the, of the sixteenth century, 
 
 308. 
 
 United Provinces, the, and Eichelieu, 355. 
 United States of America, and the war of 
 
 Independence, 540543. 
 University of Paris and Philip Augustus, 
 
 110; and Charlemagne, 49; and the 
 
 Concordat, 247. 
 Unterwalden, the cow of, 209. 
 Urban II., Pope, and Peter the Hermit 
 
 74, 75. 
 IV., Pope, receives the county of 
 
 Venaissin of Phillip III. of France, 122. 
 UH, the bull of, 209. 
 Ursins, the Princess des, 441. 
 Ursulines, 351. 
 Utrecht, the Treaty of, between England, 
 
 the Allies, and France, 1712, 396, 397. 
 
 V. 
 
 Valenciennes, capture of, 381. 
 Valentine, Visconti, wife of the Duke of 
 
 Orleans, 176. 
 Valois, Joan of, 212. 
 , Prince Henry of, son of Francis I., 
 
 marries Catherine de' Medici, 1533, 260. 
 
 , Marguerite de, 271. 
 
 Valteline, the war in the, and Eichelieu, 
 
 356, 357. 
 
 Van Artevelde, 142. 
 Vassy, the massacre of, 292, 
 Vatable (Watebled), 268. 
 Vauban, the celebrated engineer, his work 
 
 and Louis XIV., 404, 405. 
 Vaudians, persecution and massacre of 
 
 the, 273. 
 
 Vaux, Marshal, 557. 
 Vend6me, the Duke of, 388, 390 ; defeated 
 
 by Marlborough at Oudenarde, 391 ; 
 
 sent to the aid of Philip V. of Spain, 393. 
 Venetians, the, and Louis XII., 228 ; de- 
 feat of, by Louis XII. at Agnadello, 231. 
 Venice, the Republic of, and Charles 
 
 VIII., 222 ; and the Venetians in 1509, 
 
 251. 
 
 Ventadour, Madame de, 448. 
 Vercingetorix heads the Gauls in their 
 
 rising against the Romans, 13, 14. 
 Verdun, the Treaty of, 57. 
 Vergennes, M. de, 540, 541, 542. 
 Vergne, Madelaine de la, Marchioness of 
 
 La Fayette. See La Fayette. 
 Versailles, the Palace of, built by Louis 
 
 XIV., 403. 
 Vervins, Peace of, between France and 
 
 Spain, 329. 
 
 Vesontio (Besanqon), the town of, 3. 
 Vezelay, 81. 
 Vic, Henry de, constructs for Charles V. 
 
 the first public clock ever seen in 
 
 France, 171. 
 
 Villehardouin, Geoffrey de, one of the 
 earliest and best of French writers, 267. 
 
 Villeneuve la Hardie, Edward III. of Eng- 
 land's temporary town round Calais, 
 148. 
 
 Vien, painter, 532. 
 
 Vienna, the Peace of, 1735, and its condi- 
 ditions, 467. 
 
 Vienne, John de, governor of Calais dur- 
 ing its siege by Edward III., 148. 
 
 Villars, Andrew de Brancas, Lord of, 325, 
 326. 
 
 , Marshal, 388, 390 ; and the battle 
 
 of Malplaquet, 393 ; and the battle of 
 Denain, 395, 396 ; and the revolt of the 
 Camisards, 413. 
 
 Villeroi, Nicholas de Neufville, Lord of, 
 character of, 332. 
 
 , Marshal, 388, 389 ; defeated by 
 
 Marlborough, 389. 
 
 Villon, Francis, 269. 
 
 Visconti, John Galeas, Duke of Milan, 161. 
 
 Visigoths, the, 18. 
 
 Viterbo, the Treaty of, between Francis I. 
 and Pope Leo X., 245. 
 
 Vitry, 80. 
 
 , Baron de, 337. 
 
 Vivonne, the Duke of, 381. 
 
 Voltaire, 515 ; and the execution of Lally, 
 487 ; his campaign against the Chris- 
 tian faith, 520; and Frederick the 
 Great, 518 ; imprisoned in the Bastille, 
 515 ; in England, 516 ; and Madame du 
 Chatelet, 517 ; in Switzerland, 519 ; acts 
 of humanity of, 520 ; returns to Paris, 
 and is enthusiastically welcomed, 521 ; 
 and the Encyclopaedists, 522. 
 
 Vouet, Simon, 434. 
 
 Vouille, battle of, between Clovis and 
 Alaric, 31. 
 
 Voysin, Chancellor, 406, 407. 
 
 W. 
 
 Waldensians. See Vaudians. 
 
 Wales, the Prince of, son of Edward III., 
 also called Edward the Black Prince, 
 at Crecy, 146 ; and John Chandos, 151 ; 
 defeats and captures John II. of France 
 at Poictiers, 152 ; with John Chandos, 
 enters Spain with an army of 27,000 
 men, 165 ; creates discontent in Aqui- 
 taine by his imposts, 167 ; declares 
 war with Charles V., 167. 
 
 Walpole, Eobert, and Fleury, 465. 
 
 Warsaw, the Treaty of, providing for the 
 partition of Poland, 511. 
 
 Washington, his mistrust of French aid 
 to America, 542 ; and La Fayette, 543 ; 
 forces Lord Cornwallis to capitulate at 
 Yorktown, 545. 
 
 Watebled, Francis. See Vatable. 
 
Index. 
 
 613 
 
 Westphalia, the Peace of, and its conse- 
 quences, 368 ; the Peace of, recognized 
 by Spain, 374. 
 
 William of Normandy, the Conqueror, see 
 also Normandy ; 66-73. 
 
 William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and 
 the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, 281. 
 
 III. of England, lands in Ireland 
 
 and gains the battle of the Boyne, over 
 James II. and the French, 385 ; and the 
 naval defeat off Beachy Head, 385 ; and 
 the Treaty of Eyswick, 387 ; death of, 
 388. 
 
 Witt, John and Cornelius van, assassinated, 
 379. 
 
 Wittikind, Saxon Chieftain, 43. 
 
 Wolfe, General, and the siege of Quebec, 
 493. 
 
 Woollen Trade, the, of Flanders, with 
 England, 123. 
 
 World, end of the, expected by the Chris- 
 tians, A.D. 1000, 64. 
 
 Worms, general assembly convoked at, by 
 Louis the Debonnair, A.D. 839, 56. 
 
 Xaintrailles, 187. 
 
 X. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Yorktown, capitulation of Lord Cornwal- 
 
 lis at, 1781, 546. 
 Ypres, taken by Louis XIV., 382. 
 
 Zachary, Pope, 41. 
 Swingle, 271. 
 
 Z. 
 
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