u\i(iv. J? m / y \ • f f/j * f- \< r, v *> • -' ,r ■ f V / i, / I [. X HI wBBm Em$@mk Wgm&miffixmi ■»:■ i mmm MARKHAM'S HISTORY OF FRANCE. t J •■■-■■ . VIEW OF PARIS. - '■ THE SAINTE CHAPELLE AND PALAIS DE JUSTICE, PARIS. Frontispiece- HISTORY OF FRANCE, FROM THE CONQUEST OF GAUL BY JULIUS CESAR CONTINUED TO THE YEAR 1878. WITH CONVERSATIONS AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER. BY MKS. MAB^EAM, w FOR THE USE OF YOUNG PERSONS. AUTHOR'S EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1888. DC39 MRS. MARKHAM'S HISTORIES. ^DUC. . r "Mrs. Markham's Histories are constructed on a plan which is novel and we think well chosen, and we are glad to find that they are deservedly popular, for they cannot be too strongly recommended, as adapted for the perusal of youth." — Journal of Education, A HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the First In- vasion by the Romans down to the tear 1878. With Conver- sations at the end of each Chapter. New and revised Edition. With 100 Woodcuts. (528 pp.; 12mo. 3s. 6d. :A* HISTORY; OF. STANCE, from the Conquest by J « , # the G*¥LsJd5wi» ft) |hh year 1878. With Conversations at the * end 'of* each IJhaptef. With 70 Woodcuts. (550 pp.) 12mo. t ,. .3/. .<#;••; . . . •• - iAtHtS^^RyrOT/OERittANY, from the Invasion of the Kingdom by the Romans under Marios down to the Com- pletion of Cologne Cathedral in the year 1880. With 50 Woodcuts. (460 pp.) 12u,>. 3s. Gd. ^JSOP'S FABLES. A New Version, chiefly from Original Sources. By Rev. Thomas James. With 100 Woodcuts, by Ten- niel and Wolf. (168 pp.) Post 8vo. 2s. Qd. "Of Msop's Fables there ought to ba in every school many copies of a cheap edition, full of pictures, but without the morals." — Fraser's Magazine. Copyright Edition, with 63 Illustrations, Fcap. 8vo. Is. Qd. cloth. LITTLE ARTHUR'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Lady Callcott. New and Cheaper Edition, containing the Author's latest Corrections, and carried down to the year 1878. "I never met with a history so well adapted to the capacities of children or their entertainment, so philosophical, and written with such simplicity." — Mrs. Marcett LITTLE ARTHUR'S HISTORY OF FRANCE : From the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Second Empire. With Illus- trations. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. . LETTER FROM RICHARD MARKHAM TO HIS MOTHER. Dear Mamma, I believe I told you in my last letter that George and I are removed into a higher class ; but I forgot to say that one of the ad- vantages of our promotion is, that we are allowed access to a school library of all sorts of useful and amusing books, which Dr. has formed for the use of the upper boys. The first book I happened to take out was Turner's ' Tour in Normandy,' a most entertaining book. If you have not read it, pray send for it. There is a great deal in it about the old Norman kings of England, which, thanks to the History of England that you wrote for us when we were little boys, I understood perfectly ; but there are also several allusions to French history, which I am obliged to pass over without compre- hending; so that I lose a great deal of pleasure. Now, my dear mamma, George and I have a favour to ask of you, which is, that you will be so kind as to write a History of France for us against we come home at the holidays. For, to say the truth, we both of us feel quite ashamed of knowing so little of the history of a people who are our nearest neighbours, and with whom we have often had so much to do. Pray let me have an immediate answer ; for George and I are very impatient to know whether you will grant us this request. With love and duty to papa, and love to dear little Mary, I am, my dear mamma, Your dutiful and most affectionate Son, 961653 Richard Markham, ( vi ) MRS. MARKHAM IN ANSWER. My dearest Boy, You know that your father and I have no wish more at heart than to promote the improvement and happiness of onr children. I shall therefore have real pleasure in complying with your wishes, as far as my powers and opportunities will permit; but you must give me more time for my task than, in your impatience, you seem willing to allow : for I shall have many books to read and refer to ; and the more, because the French literature abounds with memoirs, which are not less entertaining, nor indeed instructive, than regular histories. Be assured, however, that I will do my best to make my little compilation worth your acceptance ; and that, if I fail, it will not be for want of industry, nor from a want of desire to give you pleasure. — Accept the prayers and best wishes of your father and mother for your health and happiness, with the kind love of your sister, and believe me ever, my dear Richard, Your affectionate Mother, lie * * # : * * * ( vii ) CONTENTS. Chap. Page I. From the Conquest of Gaui by Julius Caesar, to the accession of Clovis II. From Clovis to the acces- sion of Charlemagne . . 7 III. The Carlovingian Race.. 15 IV. The Carlovingian Race, continued 26 V. The Carlovingian Race, concluded 34 VI. Hugh Capet 46 VII. Robert, surnamed the Pious 53 VIII. Henry I GO IX. Philip 1 67 X. Louis VI., surnamed le Gros 79 XI. Louis VII., surnamed le Jeune 88 XII. Philip II., surnamed Au- gustus 101 XIII. Louis VIII., surnamed the Lion 113 XIV. Louis IX., or St. Louis.. 119 XV. Philip III., surnamed 1g Hardi 131 XVI. Philip IV., surnamed le Bel 142 XVII. Louis X., surnamed Hu- tin — Philip V., sur- named le Long — Charles IV., surnamed le Bel.. 153 XVIII. Philip VL, of Valois, surnamed lc Bien Fortune 161 XIX. John, surnamed le Bon 1 70 Chap. Page XX. Charles V., surnames le Sage 183 XXI. Charles VI., surnameo le Bien -ai me .. 190 XXII. Charles VI I., surname le Victorieux 204 XXIII. Louis XI 218 XXIV. Charles VIII., sur- named 1' Affable 234 XXV. Louis XII., surnamed le Pere du Peuple . . 24G XXVI. Francis I 256 XXVII. Henry II 274 XXVIII. Francis II. . . 285 XXIX. Charles IX 293 XXX. Henry III 308 XXXI. Henry IV., surnamed le Grand 321 XXXII. Louis XIII., surnamed the Just 336 XXXIII. Louis XIV 352 XXXIV. Louis XIV. in conti- nuation 371 XXXV. Louis XV 392 XXXVI. Louis XV. in continua- tion 405 XXXVII. Louis XVI. 419 XXXVIII. Louis XVL, continued 431 XXXIX. The First Republic .. 453 XL. Napoleon 47:5 XLI. Louis XVIII 493 XLII. Charles X 502 XLIII. Louis Philippe .. 510 XLIV. The Second Republic 520 XLV. Napoleon III 526 XLVI. The Third Republic. 532 Index 537 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE View of Paris.— The Sainte Chapelle and Palais de Justice, Paris . . Frontispiece Francis I. viii John Duke of Bourbon ; Arthur of Bre- tagne, Constable of France ; and John IV., Duke of Bretagne x Pont du Gard 4 Clovis 7 Charlemagne 15 Donjon of Loches, Touraine 26 Ruins of the Castle of Montlhery . . . . 34 Circular Donjon, Castle of Couci . . . . 40 Chateau Gaillard 44 Norman Ships 46 Robert, surnamed the Pious 53 Knight arrayed for a Tournament . . 60 Figures taken from Monuments of the 12th Century 67 Long- toed Shoes 77 Ladies in the Dress of the 15th century 78 The Oriflamme 79 Nave of Notre Dame, Paris 88 Old Louvre 101 Thibaud Count of Champagne .. ..113 Church of Querqueville, near Cherbourg H8 Blanch of Castile.— St. Louis 119 Chateau de Joinville 130 Robert Count of Clermont ; and the Lady of Bourbon, his wife 131 Gateway, Carcasonne 140 Mode of raising Portcullis. — Machinery of Portcullis 141 A Knight Templar.— Charles of Anjou 142 Huntsman and Valet to Philip le Bel . . 153 Part of Chateau of Blois 161 Hotel de Guise, Calais 165 Crossbow-man 169 Avignon Castle, Palace of the Popes . . 170 Avignon, broken bridge over the Rhone 178 King John. — The Earl of Alencon . . 182 Charles V. . - 183 The Constable du Guesclin 189 Citizens of Paris, reign of Charles VI. 190 Donjon of Vincennes, in which Henry V. of England died 199 Combat between Macaire and the Dog of Montargis 203 City of Orleans at the time of the Siege. Reverse of the Town Beaner . . . . 204 PAGB Banner of the Town of Orleans . . . . 210 French Postilion of the 15th century . . 214 Fragment of Louis XL's Chateau of Plessis les Tours 218 Loches: Cage in which Cardinal de la Balue and others were confined by Louis XI 229 A Courtier of the 15th Century. — Charles VIII 234 Louis XII 246 The Emperor Maximilian 253 Chateau of Chenonceau 256 Mad Margaret 268 Henry II 274 The Tilting between Henry II. and the Count de Montgomeri 279 Claud and Francis, Dukes of Guise . . 285 Gate of the town of Moret, near Fon- tainebleau 292 Ch&teau of Blois. Apartments in which the murder of the Duke of Guise took place 293 Henry III. and his Queen 308 Manoir of Xaintrailles 320 Henry IV., Queen, and Dauphin . . 321 Pont Neuf and Tour de Nesle . . . . 326 Monument of Montmorenci 332 Gentleman and Lady going to Court . . 336 Gaston Duke of Orleans 345 Louis XIV., 'Madame Maintenon, and Philip Duke of Orleans 352 Valet and Footman of Henry III. . . 363 Brest, Old Castle and Inner Harbour . . 370 Statue of Corneille 371 Louis XIV 383 Le Grand Dauphin and Ninon de l'Enclos 392 House of Madame de Sevigne . . . . 404 Equestrian Statue of Louis XV 405 The Bastile 419 Le Petit Trianon, Versailles 427 The Tuileries 431 Donjon of the Temple — prison of the Dauphin ; now destroyed 453 St. Denis 465 Robespierre and Danton 467 Napoleon Bonaparte 473 Fontaine de Palmier . . . . , . , . . 493 France. HISTORY O.F FKANCE. CHAPTER I. FROM THE CONQUEST OF GAUL BY JULIUS C/ESAR, TO THE ACCESSION OF CLOVIS. B.C. 60 TO A.D. 481. Before we begin our history, we will open the map, and take a survey of France. We shall there see what an extensive country it is, and what distinct boundaries nature has placed around it. The sea, the Pyrenees, and the Alps, with the great chain of the Jura, almost encompass this fortunate region, except on one side, the side towards Germany. France, thus placed, as you see, in the centre of the temperate zone, enjoys a delightful climate. The air is pure, and is in great measure free from the oppressive heat which is felt in Italy, and from the fogs that are so common in the north of Europe. Most plants and fruits that can contribute to the enjoyment of man grow in France in great abundance. It is a land diversified with fertile plains, hills, woods, and rivers ; and I believe I do not exceed the truth in asserting, that, of all the known countries of the world, this is, on the whole, the most favoured by nature. France. oo FEOM THE ROMAN CONQUEST Chap. I. ■ • | ~ PARIS" \ > i ) s / — -v C S ^^jjg ,> c ygg s v r-j— : 4 J; iijip^ ji France under the Romans. France at the Accession of Clovis. a.d. Faineans, under the government of Charles, the son of Pepin. Thierri IV., J The Merovingian kings are sometimes called les rots chevelures, or the long-haired kings, from the custom amongst the ancient Franks of distinguishing the members of the royal family from the rest of the people by their long hair, which they wore hanging down in curls over their shoulders, whilst all the other Franks had it cut very short. Though the crown was hereditary, and in ordinary cases the direct heir had a preference, yet it was not very unusual to set the direct heir aside, and to elect another member of the royal family, who for any reason might be better qualified or more popular. One of the principal ceremonies in the inauguration of a monarch was to place him on a shield borne on men's shoulders, and pro- claim him as king to the surrounding multitude. In the beginning of the sixth century some natives of Britain fled from the persecutions of their Saxon conquerors, and took refuge on the coasts of Armorica, in the province which had already acquired the name of Brittany. l7l FEOM CLOVIS TO THE Chap. II. These Bretons, although they held themselves subject to the kings of France, still remained a distinct people, were governed by their own laws, and retained many of their own customs. And, notwithstanding the length of time since they settled in France, their posterity still retain the manners and appearance of a separate race. CONVEESATION ON CHAPTER II. Mary. Pray, mamma, will the history of France ever grow enter- taming ? For so far it does not amuse me at all. Mrs. Markham. You must have patience, my dear little girl: I think I may venture to promise you that you will like our history better by and by. I am not surprised that at present you find it somewhat dull. The early part of the history of every country is necessarily uninteresting, from the scanty details that are left us, and from the obscure and confused style in which these details are commonly written. Richard. Who was it that wrote the very oldest history of France ? and what means are there of knowing anything about these Franks and Merovingians ? Mrs. M. The Chronicles of Gregory, bishop of Tours, contain the most ancient and valuable records of the history of the conquerors of Gaul : he died in 595. And after him the next best guide of the French historians is Fredegarius, who comes down to the middle of the seventh century. Richard. Were these old chronicles written in French ? Mrs. M. No, my dear, they were written in Latin : the language we now call French did not at that time exist. The French lan- guage has been wrought out gradually, in the lapse of years, from a mixture of the languages which were at different periods introduced into Gaul by the different nations who settled there. The language of the most ancient inhabitants was Celtic : this under the Eomans became mixed with Latin, and from its Eoman origin has been called Romanesque. The Franks spo&e the Tudesque, a dialect of the German. This by degrees became mixed with the Celtic-Latin of the Gauls, which produced another change in the language of the people ; and at last these have all blended together and formed the basis of what we now call French ; but I shall have more to say on this subject as our history proceeds. Richard. The Eomans would hardly know their own language when they heard it with its Celtic mixture in Gaul. Mrs. M. A Eoman would hardly have known his own language had he heard it at Eome in the times we are speaking oi. Pure Latin ceased to be the vernacular tongue even in Italy after the Conv. ACCESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE, jj irruptions of the barbarians. It has, however, as yon know, been preserved in books. In many countries the laws were written in Latin ; and Latin was the only language employed by authors. Richard. Not the only language, mamma: you forgot that you told us in your History of England of a book written in Saxon as long ago as this. Mrs. M. You are very right ; I had indeed forgot that very curious record, the old Saxon Chronicle. And this brings to my recollection another very curious book which is written in the Gothic language. It is a translation of the Gospels, written in 376, by Ulphilas, one of the earliest Christians amongst the Visi- goths. This book, or rather the fragments of it, were discovered some time in the sixteenth century, hidden in the library of a monas- tery in Germany. It is called the Silver Book, from having, I believe, some of the letters ornamented with silver. George. Pray, mamma, did the mayors of the palace live in the palace with the king ? Mrs. M. The name may reasonably lead you to suppose so ; but if the mayors did live in a palace, it was probably in a splendid one of their own. The office was one of the highest dignity amongst the Franks, and was in reality that of chief judge and governor of the affairs of the state. The name originated from two old German words, mord-dome, which meant judge of murders. After the Franks were masters of Gaul, and had picked up some Latin words which they adopted into their own language, they Latinised this mort-dome into major-domus, which the modern French have metamorphosed into maire du palais. Richard. Those Franks seem to have been a very cruel, wicked set of people. Had they no laws for the punishment of crimes ? Mrs. M. There were laws, though they were not much regarded. In every village there were persons appointed by the feudal lord to administer justice. Sometimes the king himself would act as a judge, and would hear causes and pronounce sentence. Every one, for there were no lawyers in those days, pleaded his own cause. — Perhaps one reason why the laws were so ill kept was that they were not generally understood. The Gauls adhered to their own code of laws, which was derived from the Eoman law ; the Franks to the law which they had brought out of Germany, and which was called the Salic law, from the name of one of their ancient tribes. Richard. Is there not something in this Salic law about women, that they shall never be queens ? Mrs. M. The Salic law permitted the king's wife to have the name of queen, but allowed no woman to govern or to be a queen in her own right. The Franks being a nation of warriors, all their laws were adapted to a military state, and their lands were always 14 FROM CLOVIS TO CHARLEMAGNE. Chap. II. divided into feudal tenures, and held on condition of military service. George. Then was all France divided into feudal tenures ? Mrs. M. Not entirely ; for it should appear that when the Franks conquered Gaul they only appropriated a part of the land to them- selves, and suffered the original proprietors to retain some of their possessions on condition of paying a heavy tribute or fine. These lands a man might consider as his own, and might leave them, if he chose, to his daughters, if he had any ; but all the land which Clovis took for himself and his followers he portioned out into feudal tenures ; and this land always devolved to the male heir, it being deemed inconsistent with the conditions of service imposed by the feudal system that such lands should be inherited by females. One of the provisions of the Salic law is thus worded : " The Salic lands shall never be the inheritance of a woman, but always of a man." As a king amongst the Franks was nothing more than a military chief, this exclusion extended to the throne, and in the variety of changes and revolutions that have occurred in France during the twelve hundred years since Clovis, this law has always been ob- served in its original force, no woman having ever yet ascended the throne of France. It is a singular circumstance that, although France is the only kingdom in Europe where women are forbidden to reign, yet in no country have they more interfered with the affairs of government, as you will find in the progress of this history. Richard. Were those persons who held feudal lands always obliged to be soldiers ? Mrs. M. In the first stages of the feudal system they always were; but as society advanced in civilization, this obligation of military service was found very burdensome to the vassal, and not always the most eligible for the lord. It was then often commuted to other services, and in many instances to the payment of certain fines. A very common case was to substitute the condition of furnishing a certain number of knights, in proportion to the quantity of the land held by the vassal. So much land as was bound to furnish a single knight was called a knight's fee. George. This was something like finding a substitute for the militia, when a man is drawn and does not want to serve himself. Mrs. M. This tenure was called the tenure by knight's service, and has ceased with the feudal system. The payment of a fine, and sometimes the performance of other conditions, is a species of tenure which subsists to this day, and there are many estates in England held by it. So there were in France also till the Revolution. a.d. 747- THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. CHAPTER III. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Years after Christ, 741 — 814. *5 Charlemagne. (From a mosaic, now destroyed, made by the order of Pope Leo III.) The division of the kingdom which Charles had made between his two sons did not last long. Carloman, in 747, entered a cloister, and Pepin thus became sole monarch. Pepin, being fearful lest the people should be averse to the total exclusion of the Merovingian family from the throne, gave the title of king to a prince of that race, who is known by the name of Childeric III. But the nominal sovereignty of Childeric was ot short duration, for Pepin, finding his own power sufficiently esta- blished, obliged him to retire into a monastery, and caused himself to be proclaimed king before an assembly of the nation, held at Soissons. In order to render his person sacred and inviolable, he first introduced at his coronation the ceremony of anointing, and this was done with oil from a phial which it was pretended had been sent from heaven for Clovis's baptism. This phial was ever afterwards preserved at Eheims as a sacred relic, and was always used at the coronation of the French kings. Pepin was a man of great activity of mind and body, and was much respected by his people, although, from the smallness of his stature, they gave him the surname of Pepin le Bref. About this time there was a religious war in Italy on the subject l6 THE CAELOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. III. of introducing images into churches. The early Christians had permitted them as a means to conciliate their pagan proselytes. At first they were regarded as a help to devotion, but at length they became themselves objects of adoration. A part, however, of the Christian world held this worship of images in abhorrence : they refused to suffer them in their churches; and from their zeal in destroying them, they acquired the name of Iconoclasts, from a Greek word signifying image-breaker. Astolphus, king of the Lombards, was of the party of the Iconoclasts, while pope Stephen III. espoused the cause of the images. In 753 Stephen came to France to implore the aid of Pepin against Astol- phus ; Pepin the following spring marched into Italy, and obliged Astolphus to make peace with the pope ; but in 755, the war being renewed, Stephen sent to implore Pepin to come again to his assist- ance, which he accordingly did, and obliged Astolphus to surrender to the Church of Borne Eavenna and a valuable tract of territory on the Adriatic, which he had taken from the emperor of Constantinople, and which was almost the last relic the emperors had retained of their western territory. In 759 Pepin annexed to his own dominions Narbonne and a great part of Languedoc, then called Septimania, which had been con- quered from the Visigoths by the Saracens. He also acquired the duchy of Aquitania, after having vanquished and put to death Guiafer, its duke. Pepin died in 768, leaving two sons, Charles and Carloman, who, according to the custom of the Pranks, succeeded their father as joint kings. The brothers agreed so ill together, that a civil war was on the point of breaking out between them ; but the death of Carloman put an end to the competition, and Charles, setting aside his brother's children, assumed the whole monarchy. The name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, was not given to him till after his death ; but we are so much accustomed to know him only by that name, that it will be the plainest way for us to adopt it imme- diately. The reign of Charlemagne is a very important epoch. It forms the link between ancient and modern history, and marks the period when learning and the arts were first encouraged in France. The French are universally proud of this monarch; and, if we may believe their chroniclers, with much reason, for they assure us that he was courteous, humane, liberal, laborious, vigilant, and sober, a hater of vanity, and a despiser of flattery. All this may be true ; and yet, to judge by his actions, I should be inclined to think that his vices very much overbalanced his virtues. But his reigning vice was ambition, and has been overlooked in the brilliancy of his conquests. Charlemagne's person has been described to us by his secretary a.d. 778. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. jy Eginhard, who wrote his Life, and who tells us that he was consi- derably above six feet in height, and well proportioned in all respects, excepting that his neck was somewhat too short and thick, which in those days, when the throat was uncovered, was a very conspicuous defect. His air was dignified, but at the same time his manners were social. His reign, like that of his father Pepin, was a perpetual war. His first enterprise was against the Saxons in 772, and was undertaken chiefly on the plea of obliging them to abandon paganism and embrace Christianity. This war continued with various success for thirty-three years, at the end of which time they were completely subdued. In 773 Charlemagne marched into Italy, where he had been invited by pope Adrian I. to protect him against Didier king of Lombardy, who had succeeded Astolphus. Charlemagne readily entered into this quarrel, for he had already made Didier his enemy by having married and soon afterwards divorced Desiree, the daughter of that king. This enterprise of Charlemagne was com- pletely successful. He besieged and conquered Pavia, the capital of Lombardy, and made Didier prisoner. He had before taken Verona, where he found the widow and sons of his brother Carle- man, whom Didier had taken under his protection. Didier passed the remainder of his life in captivity ; but history is silent as to what became of the children of Carloman. The conquest of Pavia was followed by that of the rest of Lom- bardy, and Charlemagne was crowned at Milan, with the iron crown of the Lombards, by the hands of the pope. He then spread his victorious arms over Italy, the whole of which submitted to his power, except that part which now forms the kingdom of Naples, and which was then governed by independent princes of the Lom- bard race, who had the title of dukes of Beneventum. Charlemagne had a great desire to annex this province to his new kingdom of Italy, but the dukes of Beneventum fought hard for their inde- pendence, and Charlemagne, after a long struggle, was obliged to give up the attempt. • While he was in Italy he confirmed to the pope all the rich gifts his father Pepin had made to the holy see, and added considerably to them. In 778 Charlemagne turned his arms towards Spain, where he had been invited by some disaffected chiefs of the Saracen conquerors of that country, and he made himself master of a considerable tract between the Pyrenees and the river Ebro, to which he gave the name of the marches of Spain. As he was crossing the Pyrenees on his return into France from this expedition, he was met at the pass of Koncevalles by a party of 1 8 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. III. Gascons, who attacked, the rear-guard of his army to such advantage, that they carried off his baggage, and slew several of Ms bravest warriors ; and, amongst others, Rolando, his sister's son, a hero who has become famous more through the verses of the poets than from any real merits of his own. During all this time the war with the Saxons went on. Tassilon, duke of Bavaria, who was nephew to Charlemagne, supported and encouraged the Saxons, and Charlemagne in return entered Bavaria. Tassilon, in his distress, applied for assistance to the Huns, a people who inhabited what was then called Pannonia. They were a nation of robbers ; and it was their custom to sally forth in bands and pil- lage all the neighbouring states, and then to return and deposit their plunder in large enclosed places, which they called Rings or Binges. The Bavarians, irritated at the rashness of their duke, joined with Charlemagne, and condemned Tassilon to death; but the French monarch commuted his punishment into that of perpetual imprison- ment in a monastery, and annexed the duchy of Bavaria to his own dominions. He next attacked the Huns, and after a relentless war, which lasted eight years, he pushed his conquests to the banks of the Danube, and got possession of the Binges, in which he found treasures and booty which it had taken above two hundred years to collect. In 783 Charlemagne's wife, Hildegard, died, and he soon after- wards married Fastrade, a woman of low birth, but of a proud and haughty temper. From this time a great change may be traced in his conduct : he became cruel and vindictive, and his own inclina- tion to clemency was often counteracted by the violent temper of the queen, whose conduct occasioned a disaffection amongst the nobles ; and in 791 a plot was in agitation to dethrone Charlemagne in favour of one of his natural sons, named Pepin. The conspiracy was discovered, and most of the conspirators were punished with death. In 799 pope Leo III., successor to Adrian, having excited the resentment of the people of Rome, they made an attempt to assas- sinate him. Leo fled from Rome and put himself under the protec- tion of Charlemagne, who was then at his camp at Paderborn. There is a long account of this interview, written, it is supposed, by Alcuin, a learned Anglo-Saxon, whom Charlemagne had invited to his court, that he might be instructed by him in astronomy, rhetoric, and other branches of learning. Charlemagne received the pope with great respect, and Leo returned, after a time, to Rome, so highly gratified by Charlemagne's conduct, that in the following year he bestowed on him the title of emperor, and crowned him with great pomp and ceremony. Leo by this act threw off the dependence which the popes had hitherto been considered to retain on the emperors of the East or of Constantinople; and from this period a.d. 808. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. I9 there were two empires, the Eastern and Western, Charlemagne being the first emperor of the West. The throne of Constantinople was at that time usurped by Irene, the widow of the emperor Leo. Charlemagne, being, by the death of his wife Fastrade, again a widower, entered into a treaty of mar- riage with Irene, for the purpose, as he avowed, of uniting the two empires of the East and the West ; but while the treaty was pending, the empress was driven from the throne by Nicephorus, who was proclaimed emperor, and thus an end was put to the project. In 804 the Saxons, after their long struggle, were totally subdued. Many thousands of them were massacred in cold blood, and others were taken from their native villages and carried into Gaul, and dispersed in different parts of the country. When Charlemagne appeared to have vanquished all his old enemies, new ones sprung up and attacked him almost on his own coast. These enemies were the Normans, a people who dwelt on the northern shores of the Baltic, and who, under the conduct of a brave leader named Godfrey, made a descent on Frizeland in the year 808. Charlemagne marched to attack them ; but finding this new enemy much more powerful than he had expected, he was glad to make peace and return home. This great monarch had three sons, Charles, Pepin, and Louis, whom, following the example of many of his predecessors, he asso- ciated with himself in his empire. Pepin was appointed to the kingdom of Italy, and Louis to Aquitania, Gascony, and the Spanish Marches. They were not made independent kings of those countries, but merely governors under him during his life, with the prospect of succeeding to them, as their own, at his death. Charles, the eldest son, had no portion given to him, it being his father's intention that he should succeed to all the rest of his dominions ; but this division of the empire was prevented by the death of Pepin in 811, and of his brother Charles in the following year. The loss of his two eldest sons afflicted Charlemagne to so great a degree, that in a short space of time it reduced him from the enjoy- ment of unusual health and strength to suffer the extreme infirmities of age. He so entirely lost all bodily strength that he could not walk without assistance. In this melancholy state he shrunk from the cares of government, and wholly occupied himself in works of devo- tion ; and, during the last year of his life, he spent his time in the study of the Scriptures, in prayers, and in acts of charity. At last he fell into such extreme weakness, that he lay for several days unable to swallow anything excepting a few mouthfuls of water. As the moment of his dissolution approached, he gathered sufficient strength to make the sign of the cross with his hand. He then com- posed himself in his bed, and, shutting his eyes, said, " In manus tuas 2 o THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. III. commendo spiritum meum." 1 As soon as he had uttered these words, he expired. Charlemagne died January 28th, 814, in the seventy-second year of his age, and the forty-fourth of his reign : he was buried at Aix- la-Chapelle, in a church which he had built there after his Italian conquests, on the model of some of those which he had found in Lombardy. Eginhard, who has described the manner of his inter- ment, tells us that he was buried in his imperial robes, with his sword by his side, and his crown on his head, and that he had a golden shield and sceptre at his feet; and that, besides all these things, his Bible and his pilgrim's purse, which he always carried with Trim on his journeys to Home, were buried with him. But in the year 1001 the tomb was deprived of all its ornaments by the emperor Otho m, who disinterred the body, and carried away every valuable relic which he could find. The simple inscription " Carolo Magno " on the pavement is all that now marks the spot where his remains are deposited. A gold cross and a hunting-horn, which are supposed to have belonged to him, are preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle. Charlemagne had four sons, only one of whom survived him, and five daughters. At Charlemagne's death, his empire extended to the Ebro on the south; to the Eyder and Vistula on the east and north; and to the sea on the west: it included all Italy, with the exception of the duchy of Beneventum ; the whole of Germany, with what are now called Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Prussia ; half of Spain ; and all France, unless we except the narrow strip of land occupied by the Bretons, who however paid him tribute, and acknowledged him as their sovereign lord. Before the time of Charlemagne no fixed era was established from which the date of events was generally reckoned: almost every country had an epoch of its own. In the time of Charlemagne the years first began to be numbered from the birth of our Saviour, which is now universally adopted throughout the Christian world. An alteration was also made in the calendar about this period. The ancient Franks had been accustomed to begin their year early in March, at the time of their great annual meeting. During the reigns of the Carlovingian family the commencement of the year was changed from March to Christmas. It was not till the six- teenth century that it was finally fixed at the first of January ; and in England this alteration did not take place till nearly two cen- turies after it had been adopted in France. These various altera- tions and irregularities add, as you may suppose, very greatly to the difficulty of settling precisely the exact date of events. The Franks, as well as the Gauls, computed time by nights, and 1 Into thy hands I commend my spirit. Cotfv. TELE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. 2I not by days : indeed our own terms, fortnight and sennight, seem to imply a similar custom amongst ourselves, a custom which is sup- posed to have arisen from the pagan worship of the moon. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER III. Richard. And this, mamma, was the great Charlemagne of whom the French are so proud ? I am sure he was not to be compared with our Alfred. Mrs. Marklmm. I quite agree with you, my dear boy : we value Alfred because he was a wise king and a virtuous man, while the French boast of Charlemagne because he was a great conqueror. Mary. I am very glad, however, that he made up for all his cruelty and conquests by being quite good at last. Mrs. M. Alas ! I fear that a few months devoted to prayer and penitence made but bad amends for so many years of unrestrained violence and ambition. Charlemagne's end, however, is a strong instance of how little all the gratifications of the world can avail at the approach of death : at that awful moment all human pomps and vanities appear vile and contemptible, and the only substantial good is the remembrance of a virtuous and innocent life, and the hope of a happy and holy death. Richard. But notwithstanding Charlemagne's cruelty and ambi- tion, there was still some good about him. Mrs. M. He was certainly a very extraordinary man, especially if we consider the age he lived in : for at the same time that he was a great warrior, he was also a patron of learning, and an encourager of the peaceful arts, and did more than any other monarch of his time towards the civilization of his subjects. One of the chief things I find to admire in Charlemagne is, his careful economy of time : he was not only very industrious himself, but he obliged all those who were about him to be industrious also : he began the day with apportioning to his servants and ministers the appointed business they were to attend to; and when this was done, he would, whilst he was dressing, give audience, and hear and decide causes. Mary. He could not attend much to his dressing, I tlxmk. Mrs. M. His dress appears at no time to have engaged much of his attention. His clothes were commonly of the plainest fashion ; and, excepting on great occasions, when he appeared in his robes of state, differed very little from those worn by the generality of the Franks. At one time he wore, as Eginhard tells us, a long flowing cloak ; but finding this inconvenient, he adopted the short one, such as was worn by the common people. His under dress was of linen, probably a sort of shirt, over which he wore a tunic bordered with a silk ornament. His legs were covered with a sort 22 THE CARLO V1NGIAN RACE. Chap. III. of legging or stocking, which fitted close by means of cross-gartering. In winter-time he wore, in addition to his dress, a vest made of otter- skin with the fur on. He was very abstemious in his diet, and seldom had more than three or four dishes placed before him at dinner : he liked roasted meat in preference to any other, and it was the customary ceremony for one of his hunters to bring it up on the spit. I think, my dears, you must acknowledge that I am indulging you with very minute particulars. Richard. So much the better, mamma ; I should like to know all I can of what Eginhard says about him. Mrs. M. Well, then ; he says that, while the emperor dined, he had always some person to read aloud to him : among his favourite books were the works of St. Augustin ; he was also very fond of history, more especially the history of Jerusalem, which he often had read to him. Charlemagne liked to have learned men about him. I have already said that he invited our learned countryman Alcuin to his court. He founded the University of Paris, which is said to be the oldest university in Europe. Charlemagne him- self made some progress in many branches of learning, but the art of writing he never could acquire, notwithstanding he took infi- nite pains. He always carried writing implements about with him, that he might practise at every leisure moment ; but, as he began late in life, he never could learn to form the letters. Mary. How odd it was that he had never been taught to write when he was a boy ! Mrs. M. The art of writing was then almost entirely confined to those whose express business it was to be scribes or secretaries. The higher orders of people were never taught to write, and, indeed, scarcely to read. "We are told that Charlemagne was very attentive to the education of his children, and had them instructed in all necessary accomplishments ; but when these accomplishments come to be enumerated, we find that those of the sons consisted of little else than hunting and fighting, and those of the daughters in sewing and spinning. Charlemagne, as you have seen, was a very affec- tionate father : for his life was shortened by grief for the death of his sons ; and he never permitted his daughters to marry whilst ho lived, for he could not bring himself to part with them. Pilchard. When you came to that part about the battle of Ronce- valles, I could not help thinking of the song my aunt Lucy some- times sings, which begins, Sad and fearful was the story of the Roncevalles fight, On that fatal field of glory perished many a gallant knight. George. And I, too, was ready to exclaim, from * Marmion,' ! for one blast of that dread horn On Fontarabian echoes borne, That to King Charles did come; Conv. THE CARLOVIXGIAN RACE. 23 When Roland brave, and Olivier, And every Paladin and peer, On Roncevalles died. , , Mrs. M. The story of the Roncevalles fight has been greatly embellished by the poets, particularly by the great Italian poet Ariosto : in reality it was little more than a skirmish between the rear-gnard of Charlemagne's army and a body of undisciplined mountaineers. Mary. "What made the poets take such a fancy to the story ? Mrs. M. It was first made popular by an old book which calls itself the Chronicle of Archbishop Turpin : this book was written in the eleventh century, and is altogether fictitious, as there never was an archbishop of that name. It is an historical romance, of which Charlemagne is the hero, to whom the author ascribes a great many actions that were performed by his grandfather Charles Martel, and the whole is so mixed up with necromantic inventions of magical horns, winged horses, and enchanters, that it does not even pretend to be a true history. Mary. Pray, mamma, was Charles Martel a real name or a nick- name? Mrs. M. Charles was a real name, but Martel was what you would call a nickname. It signified a Jiammer, and was given to Charles after the battle of Poitiers, from the force with which he there hammered down the Saracens. Martel was the name of a weapon which the ancient Franks used in battle, resembling a marteau, or hammer. George. It was better to be called a hammer, like Charles, than to be called Pepin the little ; for that, I suppose, was the meaning of href. Mrs. M. Pepin did not seem to like his name any better than you do ; and having one day heard some of his courtiers use it in deri- sion, he determined to show them that, although he was little, he was brave and strong ; he accordingly caused a lion and a bull to be turned into an arena, and asked which of his courtiers would enter the arena and attack these animals. They all declined risking their lives in such a dangerous combat. On this, Pepin entered the arena, and slew them both : he then returned to his courtiers, who never afterwards ridiculed him because he was not so tall as them- selves, n Richard. Pray, mamma, were there any parliaments held in Prance so long ago as Charlemagne ? And who made and regulated the laws at the time you are now come to ? Mrs. M. The laws were at that time regulated pretty much by the king's will. The ancient Franks had an annual meeting, at which all the wars for the coming year were regulated, and the tribute due to the king was usually brought to him. These meet- 24 THE CARLO VINGIAN RACE. Chap. III. ings were originally held in March, which was the beginning, as I told yon, of the old French year, and were called Les Champs de Mars ; afterwards the time of meeting was in the month of May, and these meetings were then called Les Champs de Mai. Besides these annual assemblies, there were, in the time of Charlemagne, frequent meetings held by the bishops and nobles, for discussing the business of the state: there were also lesser provincial parliaments for the regulation of the affairs of each province. Mary. Did they begin to build handsome churches in those days ? Mrs. M. The churches were, in general, very humble edifices, excepting in those places where the old heathen temples were appro- priated to that purpose : even these had not much interior decora- tion. Bells were first used in the time of Charlemagne, who also, as I have already told you, built the church at Aix-la-Chapelle, in which he was buried. The Lombard churches, from which he copied, were built in imitation of the cathedral of Santa Sofia in Constantinople. Bichard. Pray, mamma, what was the beginning of the popes in Eonie? Mrs. M. To answer your question in full would lead me into a long historical discussion : I will, however, try to explain, as briefly as I can, the origin of the papal authority. The word pope is derived from the Greek word pape, or father ; and is given to the bishops of Eome to express their pre-eminence over all other bishops. Saint Peter is said by the Eoman clergy to have been the first bishop of Eome; and in allusion to our Saviour's words, that Saint Peter shall carry the keys of heaven, the succeeding bishops of Eome have affected to consider themselves as his successors, and pretend that they also carry the keys of heaven. This persuasion, which has led to shocking abuses, gave wonderful influence to the bishops of Eome in ignorant and superstitious times, and caused them to be regarded as God's vicegerents upon earth. Thus, from a small beginning, the popes acquired great power in every state in Christendom, and often governed despotically the most powerful monarchs. George. Thanks to our king Harry the Eighth, the pope does not govern us : but can you tell us nothing more about Charlemagne ? Mrs. M. I think I have told you a great deal ; and I really do not recollect anything more, unless, indeed, I tell you that he received a present of a curious machine for measuring time by water, as a mark of respect, from the Caliph Haroun al Easchid. Richard. Haroun al Easchid ! I did not know that he was a real man ; I thought he was only one of the people of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Mrs. M. He was a real man, nevertheless, and a very great man too : he reigned over the Arabians from the year 786 to 807, and OoNV. THE CAELOVINGIAN KACE. 25 was a most accomplished prince, and a great encourager of learning. It is singular that, whilst Europe was plunged in ignorance and barbarism, the Arabians were a polished and intelligent people, and attained to extraordinary pre-eminence in the sciences and in all the liberal arts ; and it was through them, as I shall have occasion to show you in its proper place, that learning found its way into Europe, and (to make use of a common comparison) rekindled the lamp of knowledge which had been long extinguished. It is still more singular, that whilst the Europeans have, since that time, gone on advancing in civilization, the Arabians, as well as the rest of the people of the East, are exactly in the same state they were in in the time of the Caliph Haroun al Easchid. George. I should like to know what these machines were like for measuring time : I wonder if the wheels were turned by water ? Mrs. M. These clocks, I should imagine, from the descriptions I have read of them, were something on the plan of an hour-glass : the water was contained in a basin which had very small holes at the bottom, through which the water dropped into another basin, the sides of which were marked with lines to show the hours. The water-clock which Haroun al Easchid sent to Charlemagne was, however, on a much more complicated plan: it is described as having twelve doors within it, and at each door was placed a small armed figure, which opened and shut the door according as the hours revolved, and also, by means of some mechanical contrivance, struck the time upon a metal bell. Richard. I suppose it was like the figures which struck the hours at St. Dunstan's church in London ? Mrs. M. I cannot explain to you Iww it was done ; but probably it was not by means of what we now call clock-work. The first great clock which was seen at Paris was erected in the year 1372. Mary. I must just say one thing more : you mentioned something about an iron crown of Lombardy ; now I thought kings never wore anything but golden crowns. Mrs. M. I can assure you the Lombards valued their crown as much as if it had been made of the most precious metals ; their kings were always crowned with it. Mary. I think it must have been a very heavy, ugly thing. Mrs. M. I must acknowledge that it was not very ornamental*, being merely a circle of iron : however, it may comfort you, Mary, to know that the iron was gilded. It was also said to be made of the nails by which our blessed Saviour was fastened to the Cross. It is still preserved at Monza, near Milan, and has often, and I believe commonly, been used in the coronation of subsequent emperors. You will be told hereafter that Napoleon was crowned with it. Fbanck. C 26 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. IV. CHAPTEK IV. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE-CONTINUED. Years after Christ, 814 — 884. -.O.JE^ITT.*/*. A So Donjon of Lochea, Touraiue. Chaelemagne had been so much occupied by his foreign conquests that he had bestowed very little attention on his French subjects, whom he seldom visited. Indeed it is said that he had a dislike not only to them, but also to their country, and to their language, which he would not permit to be spoken in his court. The people of France therefore hailed with joy the accession of Louis, the sole surviving son of Charlemagne, to his father's dominions. Louis had lived from his childhood in Aquitain, of which province he was king, and had made himself so greatly beloved by his gentleness and sweet temper, that his subjects gave him the surname of le Debon- naire, or the good-natured. He was thirty-six years old when his father died. In his way from Toulouse to Aix-la-Chapelle, where he went to take possession of his father's capital, he was everywhere received with acclama- a.d. 8 4 i. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. 27 tions of joy by the inhabitants of the provinces through which he passed, who hoped that all the grievances and oppressions which they had suffered during the ambitious reign of Charlemagne would be redressed under the milder sway of his son. But, alas ! mere good temper and good intentions, without the assistance of sense and judgment, will not suffice to lead men to great and good actions ; and in sense and judgment le Debonnaire was, unhappily for himself and his subjects, miserably deficient. In 816 he received the imperial crown from the hands of pope Stephen IV., and the following year he associated with himself in the empire his eldest son Lothaire. His two younger sons, Pepin and Louis, he made kings of Aquitaine and Bavaria. Hermengard, his first wife, being dead, he married, in 819, Judith, daughter of the count of Bavaria. By her he had a son named Charles, who was born in 823 ; and to provide a portion for this child he attempted to deprive his elder sons of a part of the in- heritance which he had previously assigned to them. This excited the resentment of these princes : they rose in rebellion against their father, and the rest of the reign of Louis was nothing but a suc- cession of contests with his turbulent sons. He died in 840, in the sixty-third year of his age, and in the twenty-seventh of his reign. In his dying moments his favourite son Charles occupied his chief thoughts. He had first made him king of Germany. Afterwards, Louis had Germany, and.Neustria and Burgundy were given to Charles. Pepin had already died in 838. The Normans still continued to make piratical attacks on the coasts of France and Flanders. The Spanish Marches were at this period separated for ever from the crown of France, by Inigo count of Bigorre, who took advantage of the weakness of the government, occasioned by the disturbances between Louis and his sons, to seize on that portion of Spain which afterwards formed the kingdoms of Aragon and of Navarre, and made himself an independent monarch. The glory of the Carlovingian race had expired with Charlemagne. The succeeding branches of his family, by their folly and vices, destroyed the vast fabric of power which their great ancestor had raised, and sank gradually into the utmost contempt. The history of their " decline and fall " is a very unpleasing part of the French history ; I will therefore pass it over as briefly as I can. No sooner was le Debonnaire dead, than Lothaire began to dispute with Charles the possessions which their father had in his lifetime bestowed on him. Louis, now the second brother, took the part of Charles. They encountered Lothaire on June 25, 841, at Fontenay near Auxerre, where was fought one of the most bloody battles that ever desolated France. Historians differ as to the precise number of c 2 28 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. IV. the slain, but they all agree that the loss sustained on that fatal day- reduced the country to a state of weakness which rendered it impossible to make any adequate defence against the Normans, who still continued to harass the coasts. The victory remained to Charles, but his army was too much enfeebled to allow him to reap any advantage from it. At last the three brothers agreed to terms of accommodation, and divided the dominions of their father amongst them. The kingdom of Italy was confirmed to Lothaire, who had already received the imperial crown from the pope. He had also some portion of the south of France, a part of Burgundy, and that part of Austrasia, or eastern France, which, from the word Lotharingia, or land of Lothaire, is now called Lorraine. Bavaria, and all that is properly Germany, fell to the share of Louis, who is commonly distinguished by the title of Louis the German. Everything not included in the districts thus allotted to Lothaire and Louis was yielded to Charles, who was crowned king of France by the title of Charles II., to which was added the sur- name of le Chauve, or the Bald. 1 Aquitaine was included in Charles's share, but he did not gain possession of it till 863. That province was retained by a son of his deceased brother Pepin, but he at last so disgusted his own nobles by his drunkenness and other vices, that they deprived him of his kingdom and delivered him into his uncle's power. I must now tell you something of the invasion of the Nor- mans. This people, who had issued originally from the coast of Norway and Denmark, had taken advantage of the perturbed state of France to carry on their ravages without intermission. They never sought to acquire territory, but contented themselves with pillaging and destroying everything near the coast, and then returned to their ships and sailed back to their own country, but only to come again some future time. Their earlier depredations only extended a little way inland ; but after they had learned the use of horses, to which it appears they were at first unaccustomed, they were enabled to carry their inroads to a considerable distance, and spread terror into the very heart of the country. The churches and monasteries became more particularly the common object of their attacks, as being the general repositories of the riches of the country. The monks concealed themselves as well as they could : those who could not conceal themselves were murdered, and the survivors, on emerg- ing from their hiding-places when the robbers were gone, generally 1 The earlier French monarchs of the name of Charles are counted differently by different writers. Charlemagne often, perhaps usually, stands at the head of the list as Charles I. Charles le Gros (see pp. 34, 45) is often left out. Charles le Bel is always reckoned as Charles IV. M. Koch thinks that Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnaire should most properly be ranked as Frankish emperors, and that the list of the kings of France should begin with Charles le Chauve. a.d. 877. THE CARLO VINGIAN RACE. 29 found their monasteries a heap of ruins. Besides this pillaging of the churches and monasteries, the Normans commonly destroyed also all the books and records they found there. In 845 the Normans sailed up the Seine to Paris, which they sacked and plundered, and even carried off the timber of which the houses were built. Charles opposed no resistance to these marauders, but prevailed with them to retire by a bribe of 7000 pounds weight of silver ; but this, as you will easily believe, only made them the more eager to return. The emperor Lothaire died in 855. He was of a restless and capricious temper, and neither enjoyed peace nor could suffer others to enjoy it while he lived. He left three sons, who all died young, leaving no children; and Charles without difficulty made himself master of Italy, and was crowned emperor by pope John VIII. In 876 Louis the German died, having governed his kingdom with great wisdom and prudence. He left his dominions amongst his three sons, Caiioman, Louis, 'and Charles. Charles le Chauve marched an army into Germany in hopes to dispossess his nephews ; but he found them well prepared to defend their territories, and in the first attack he was repulsed and put to flight. Charles had four sons, Louis, Charles, Lothaire, and Carloman. The two eldest proved rebellious and disobedient : the two youngest their father destined to be ecclesiastics, under the idea that the dedication of his sons to the service of God would be an expiation of his own sins. Lothaire, who was lame, reconciled himself to his lot ; but Carloman, being of an active disposition, would not submit to a monastic life. He renounced his vows, and, flying to Belgium, assembled a band of lawless soldiers, and devastated the surround- ing country. He was at last taken prisoner, was convicted of having broken his vows, and condemned to have his eyes put out: he afterwards found means to escape from prison, and found an asylum with his uncle Louis the German, who was then alive. Carloman, Charles, and Lothaire all died young, and the emperor had now only one son left, Louis, who was of very defective understanding. In 877 Charles le Chauve was taken ill in his return out of Italy into France, and died in the passage of Mont Cenis, in a miserable hut by the wayside. His Jewish physician, Sedecias, was suspected of having poisoned him. An old historian says of this king, that he loved pomp and grandeur ; and that " Fortune, in conformity to his humour, made him happy in appearance, and miserable in reality." And this, I doubt not, may be also said of many kings besides. It was in the reign of Charles le Chauve that the Gauls and Franks first began to assimilate together as one people, and to use one common language. 3 o THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. IV. Louis II., surnamed le Begue, or the Stammerer, reigned not quite two years; and no event of importance occurred during his reign. He died in 879, leaving two sons, Louis and Carloman. A post- humous son was born some months after his death, who was called Charles. Louis was crowned king of Neustria, and Carloman had Aquitain ; the rest of the dominions of the late emperor were abandoned to the sons of Loins the German, excepting Provence and a part of Bur- gundy, which were seized on by Bozon count of Provence, who had married a daughter of the emperor Louis II. Bozon was crowned by pope John VIII. , and proved a wise and politic king. This little kingdom of Provence, or, as it is sometimes called, of Aries, nourished for several centuries, and, while it lasted, was the focus of all that was refined and elegant in France. The two young kings, Louis and Carloman, both died premature and accidental deaths; the one in 882, the other in 884. Charles, their posthumous brother, being only five years old when Carloman died, was considered too young to succeed to the crown : it was therefore offered to Charles, the youngest, and at this time the only surviving son of Louis the German. Charles, who, on oc- count of his corpulence, had received the surname of le Gros, had already received the imperial crown from the pope ; and now, with the exception of the newly-formed kingdoms of Aragon and Pro- vence, reunited the dismembered empire of Charlemagne. Among the Norman depredators who invaded France at this time, we find the famous Hastings, who also made himself well known and dreaded in England. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER IV. Richard. I did not know that Hastings was a Norman : I always thought he had been a Dane. Mrs. Markham. The Danes and Normans were the same people : the name of Norman was a corruption of the word northman. George. It seems to me very strange that the people should let those Normans or Northmans keep coming and coming, and never try to keep them away. Mrs. M. France at that period was, from one cause or other, nearly destitute of men able to contend with those invaders. George. What was become of all the fighting men ? had they been killed in battle? Mrs. M. There were men enough, doubtless, still left, but their character and condition were changed. The spirit of the lower sort was broken and depressed : the middle classes no longer exhibited Conv. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. 3* that warlike character that had distinguished the ancient Franks. The nobles, instead of uniting against the common enemy, wasted their strength in petty wars amongst each other, and in engaging in the quarrels and contentions of the royal family. In addition to these causes, we must recollect that a great portion of the landed property of the country was in the hands of ecclesiastics, and culti- vated by slaves, who were not permitted the use of arms ; all which will easily account for the scarcity of brave men at that time, and for the little opposition which the Normans met with. Richard. But still, I think, if there had been a king who had either sense or spirit, he might have mustered soldiers enough to have kept out these Norman thieves. Mrs. M. Unhappily for France, her kings at that time had neither "sense nor spirit." The character of the sovereigns during this disastrous period was equally debased with that of the people. We are told that the peasantry were so completely enfeebled and with- out energy, that they did not even attempt to protect themselves from the wolves, which, consequently, increased to such a degree, that they ranged the country in packs of two or three hundred at a time. Mary. Eeally, poor creatures, what with wolves and Normans, they seem to have been in a miserable condition. Mrs. M. Nothing conveys a stronger idea of the terror the people had of the Normans, than the following clause in the church Litany used at that time: "From the fury of the Normans, good Lord, deliver us !" Richard. Even we may say that we suffer from the fury of the Normans ; for if they had not destroyed all the books and records which they found in the monasteries, we should have known a great deal more of the history of those times. George. For my part I don't think such uncivilized times were worth knowing anything about. Mrs. M. One chief good of knowing anything about them is, that we may see what a degraded, wretched being man is when he is ignorant and uncivilized, and is left to the guidance of his passions ; and another good is, to make us sensible of the blessing of living in an age like the present, instead of an age when might overcame right, and a man's will was almost his only law. The French, indeed, were at this time going rapidly backwards. They knew so little even of their own country, that when the three sons of le Debonnaire agreed to divide their father's empire amongst them, they could not attempt to make an equal division till they had first sent persons into all the several parts of it to gain a knowledge of the size, population, productions, and riches of each district. Three hundred persons, we are told, were employed in this service ; and 3 2 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. IV. as of these there were but few who could write or even read, you may imagine the difficulties they had to encounter. George. And after all their trouble, I dare say I could tell much better than they, only by just once looking at this map of Europe. Mrs. M. When we think how very difficult the first steps in science must have been to persons who had no previous helps, we ought to be very grateful to those whose laborious industry has smoothed to us the paths of knowledge. In the times we are now treating of, learning in France, as well as in England, was entirely confined to ecclesiastics, the only persons who could write, and almost the only persons who could read. George. I thought you told us that there were scribes, or people whose trade it was to write. Mr*, M. I did so ; but I believe I omitted to add that these scribes were always priests. Our knowledge of Charles le Chauve is almost wholly gathered from the account transmitted to us by his chief counsellor, Hincmar, who was archbishop of Rheims, and who appears, even from his own statement, to have been a very busy, meddling churchman. The priests were also poets as well as historians, and one of them wrote a Latin poem in praise of Charles le Chauve ; and the better to pay his court to the king, he made every word of his poem, which consisted of three hundred lines, begin with the letter C. Packard. He must have made strange nonsensical stuff of it. Mrs. M. I cannot tell you how well or how ill he succeeded; for, in the first place, I don't understand Latin, and, in the second place, I have only seen the first line : " Canmna clarisonae Calvi cantate Camoenae." Piichard. I think you said that Charlemagne would not allow the French language to be spoken in his court. Pray what language did he speak himself? Mrs. M. He spoke German, which was, you know, the original language of the Franks. The Gauls, I have told you, spoke a sort of corrupt Latin, which, after the lapse of some centuries, began to be blended with the German spoken by the Franks. But still there were two great divisions in the language of France; for in the south, where the Latin, or, as it was termed, the Romanesque, was the mother-tongue, it varied considerably from that spoken in the north, where the German language had a much greater ascendency. Richard. I think I understand you, mamma ; that in the south it was Latin with a little German, and that in the north it was German with a little Latin. Mrs. M. You have explained it exactly ; and you will easily com- prehend that this would make a great difference in the two dialects. Cony. THE CARLO VINGIAN RACE. 33 The one was called the langue d'oc, and the other was the langue d'oil, or langue oVoui. Mary. I wonder why they gave them such odd names ! Mrs. M. They were so called from the word in each language which signified yes. The Italian was at that time called the langue de si, and the German the langue de ja, si being Italian, and ja German for yes. But to return to what I was saying about the French languages. The langue d'oc, which was that spoken in the south of France, was afterwards modified into the Provencal, which was for two or three centuries the favourite language of poetry, and of which I shall have to speak further when we come to the time of the troubadours. It is now nearly extinct as a living language, though it still exists, in a certain degree, in the patois, or provincial dialects of the south of France. The langue d'oil is the root or foundation of what was afterwards called the French wallon, which varied very little from the best French now spoken. George. Were Italy and Germany, and all the other countries where the Carlovingians reigned, as ill governed as France was ? Mrs. M. The three great divisions of Charlemagne's empire ex- perienced very different fortunes, which may perhaps all be traced to the different characters of their respective sovereigns. The government of France, under her superstitious monarchs, fell almost wholly into the hands of the ecclesiastics. In Italy the nobles, who, by the capricious Lothaire and his inefficient sons, were set over the several towns and provinces, took advantage of the unstable cha- racters of their sovereigns to appropriate to themselves and their families the governments intrusted to them. If you look into the map of Italy, you will see that the country is divided into numberless dukedoms and marquisates, which have all been independent states in their time ; and this was their origin. The third division, that of Louis, surnamed the German, fell to the share of a just and prudent ruler. Louis, although he was in his younger days implicated in the rebellions of his brother Lothaire, has yet left a name very superior to all the other princes of his time and family. He interfered very little in the quarrels of other states, and had no ambition to extend his territories. He lived entirely amongst his own people, and occupied himself with the care of pro- moting their happiness. The consequence was, that the countries he governed were rich and prosperous, and the people industrious and contented. c 3 34 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Ciiai. V. CHAPTER V. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE-CONCLUDED. Years after Christ, 884 — 987. Ruins of the Castle of Montlhery. The French did not make a fortunate choice in their new sovereign. Charles le Gros was not only proud and cowardly, but he also made himself contemptible by his gluttony; nor does he seem to have possessed any redeeming quality. He was very regardless of his subjects, and did not come near them, but left them to defend them- selves as well as they could against the Normans, who, in 885, made themselves masters of Eouen, and laid siege to Paris. Paris, although the capital of the kingdom, was an inconsiderable place, and was at this time contained within the limits of the little island in the Seine, which I have shown you in the map of that city. It had by the care of a few brave nobles, and more particularly by that of Eudes count of Paris, been put in a good state of defence, and held out a long time. At last Charles, at the earnest instance of Eudes, who had gone in person to Pavia to entreat his assistance, appeared before Paris with his army ; but instead of giving the Normans battle, he, as Charles the Bald had done before, bribed them with a large sum of money to withdraw their troops, and then returned into Germany. a.d. 893. THE CARLOVINGIAN EACE. 35 He soon afterwards fell into a state of insanity, and was deserted by his servants and driven from his palace, and would have wanted the common necessaries of life, had it not been for the compassion of Liutbart bishop of Mayence. This unhappy monarch died in 888. Charles, the posthumous son of Louis le Begue, was now, in the male line, the only one left of the race of Charlemagne. There was, indeed, an illegitimate descendant of that family, named Arnoul, son of Carloman, brother of Louis le Gros. On Charles, therefore, the pope bestowed the imperial crown ; and he thus succeeded to the German and Italian dominions of his late uncle. In France, the youth and the evident imbecility of the young prince, which obtained for him the surname of Charles the Simple, occasioned his claims to be once more set aside; and Eudes, the brave defender of Paris, was chosen king. His kingdom extended, however, only from the Meuse to the Loire. A large portion of the eastern side of France was claimed by the emperor Arnulf ; and Eainulf, a descendant of Charlemagne by a female line, seized on Aquitaine. Even the kingdom of Eudes, small as it was, was divided into many lesser states, which were possessed by independent nobles, who fortified themselves in their strong castles, and lived within them like petty kings. Amongst these the counts of Flanders, Vermandois, and Anjou were the most powerful. In the year 891 the Normans received a severe defeat near Lou- vain, in a pitched battle with the emperor Arnulf ; and after this check they turned their arms on England, thus giving France a respite for the time : but the Normans, or Banes, as we are accus- tomed to call them, found a more vigorous antagonist in England than they had met with in France. This was our great Alfred, who at that time reigned over the Anglo-Saxons. After a time the people of France became dissatisfied with Eudes, and complained "that he commanded them to do insupportable things;" although it does not appear what these insupportable things were, unless it was that he required them to make a stand and defend themselves against the Normans; and in 893 the count of Vermandois and the archbishop of Eheims took advantage of the absence of Eudes, on an expedition against the duke of Aquitaine, to crown the son of Louis le Begue. Charles, afterwards entitled, as I have told you, " the Simple," was, at his coronation, only fourteen years old, and his youth and incapacity made him unable to take any part in the government of his affairs. His party was supported by some active and powerful nobles, in order, by the use of his name, to strengthen their own interests against Eudes. During the next few years the country was greatly disturbed by 36 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. V. the contentions of the two rival parties. At last it was agreed to divide the kingdom between the two kings. Eudes continued to rule Paris and its neighbourhood, and Charles's court was esta- blished on the banks of the Moselle. In 898 Eudes died, and Charles was recognised as sole monarch in the whole territory that remained to the crown of France. In 911, after a complete blank in the history for several years, of which there are no records whatever, we meet with the first notice of the celebrated Kollo, a leader amongst the Normans, who appeared on the coasts of France, and threatened to desolate the whole country. Charles, we are told, offered to cede to Eollo an extensive territory between the Seine and the sea, on condition that he and his people would forbear to molest any other part of France. He also offered Eollo his daughter in marriage, provided he would become a Christian. Eollo agreed to both these proposals. He and his Nor- mans, who all followed his example, were baptized, and settled themselves in that part of Neustria which is now called Normandy. Eollo had the title of duke, and was required to do homage to the king of France, and to hold his duchy as a fief of the crown. He was also chosen one of the twelve peers of France. Eollo kept faithfully the promise of never molesting the other territories of France, and he defended successfully the coasts of Neustria from the future attempts of his piratical countrymen, who in time ceased their invasions. Thus Normandy proved a protec- tion against the Normans ; and the cession of that province, which was caused by the weakness of the sovereign, proved, after all, a very politic measure. Eollo portioned out his new territories in feudal tenures amongst his followers, and applied himself to make laws and regulations. Tradition says that he gave his people a charter, which secured, in like manner with our Magna Charta, the liberty of the subject. He established a supreme tribunal (a sort of parliament), and applied himself with an ardour which appears to have been a part of the Norman character, to cultivate and embellish his territory, which had been reduced to the condition of a desert by the ravages to which it had been so long exposed. Under this good government it became in a short time the most fertile and flourishing province of France Eollo died in 932, and was succeeded by his son William Longue Epee, 1 who was a brave and prudent prince, like his father. But I must return to the affairs of poor simple king Charles, who exasperated the people of France by his folly, and by allowing a man of low birth, named Haganun, to obtain an undue influence over him. In 923 Eobert, brother to the late king Eudes, appeared in arms, and caused himself to be proclaimed king ; but being soon 1 Long Sword. a.d. 939- THE CAELOVIKGIAN RACE. 37 after killed in battle, his name has never been enrolled amongst the French kings. Eobert left a son Hugh, surnamed le Blanc, or the Fair, who seemed so little ambitious of sovereignty, that he caused the crown to be given to Eaoul, or Eodolph, one of the dukes of Burgundy (for Burgundy was at that time divided into three dukedoms), who had married his sister. Eodolph's title was acknowledged by the rest of the nobles, and Charles was confined as a prisoner at the Chateau Thierry. His queen Elgiva, who was sister to Athelstan king of England, fled for protection to her brother, taking with her Louis, her only child, then a boy about nine years old. In 929 Charles died, poisoned, as was supposed, by the count de Vermandois. Eodolph survived him about six years. He inter- fered very little with the affairs of France, and everything was under the management of Hugh le Blanc. Eodolph died in 936, leaving no children. At last Hugh, after an interregnum of some months, sent a deputation to England, inviting Elgiva and her son to return. Athelstan endeavoured to dissuade his sister and nephew from going to France, being fearful that some treachery was intended towards them. His apprehensions, however, were unfounded. Louis, when he landed in France, was received with the greatest respect by Hugh, who conducted him to Eheims, where he was crowned by the name of Louis IV., to which was added the surname of d'Outremer, or beyond sea, which the English translate " the Stranger." Louis was very superior, both in abilities and courage, to any of his predecessors since Charlemagne; but he wanted honesty and sincerity, and consequently his abilities were but of little service either to himself or his couutry. The German branch of the Carlovingian family had become extinct on the death of Louis, son of the emperor Arnulf; and the imperial dignity was now vested in a German family, the founder of which was Henry the Fowler, a surname which he acquired from having been engaged in the amusement of fowling when he was told that he was elected emperor. This Henry left a son named Otho, a very active and powerful prince, who raised the dignity of the empire to a higher pitch than it had known since the days of Charlemagne. Otho had two sisters, one of whom was the wife of Hugh le Blanc ; Gerberg, the other, in 939, married Louis d'Outremer. Hugh, though he had invited the return of Louis, was desirous still to govern the kingdom as he had been accustomed to do ; but to this Louis would not submit, and Hugh, being joined by William Longue Epee, duke of Normandy, and other powerful nobles, a civil war began, which lasted several years. Arnulf count of Flanders took the part of the king ; and having a 3 8 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Char V. private quarrel with the duke of Normandy, assassinated him, with circumstances of great treachery. William left a young son named Richard; Louis, under pretence of having him educated at his court, got the poor boy into his power, and would have put him to death at the instigation of the count of Flanders, whose revengeful temper was not contented with killing the father ; but the young duke was rescued from the hands of his enemies by the courage and ingenuity of Osmond, his governor. His rescue was effected in the following manner. Richard, who was at this time staying with Louis in his castle at Laon, was in- structed by Osmond to feign himself ill, and to keep his bed. One evening, while the king and all Iris attendants were at supper, Osmond took the child out of his bed, and, concealing him in a truss of hay, put him on his back, and, pretending that he was going to feed his horse, an office then very commonly performed by the greatest nobles to a favourite steed, he carried the child, unperceived, out of the castle. When he had got quite clear of the town, he found his attendants ready with horses; they mounted, and reached the town of Couci in the middle of the night : from thence he conveyed his charge to his maternal uncle, the count de Senlis, who took him under his protection. The count de Senlis contrived, in 945, by his bravery and address, to make Louis himself prisoner, and would not release him until he had restored several places in Normandy, which, availing himself of the adverse circumstances of the young duke, he had unjustly seized on. Richard was at last fully established in his dukedom. He married Anne, the daughter of Hugh le Blanc, and acquired the surname of Richard Sans Peur, or the Fearless. He is celebrated by the Norman historians for his goodness and piety, and also for the nobleness and beauty of his person, and for the long beard and white hair for which he seems to have been remarkable in his latter years. Some time before Iris death he caused a stone coffin to be made, and placed in the church of Fecamp. Every Friday this was llled with wheat, which, together with a weekly donation of money, was distributed amongst the poor. When he died he ordered his body to be placed in this stone coffin, and desired that it might not be buried, but placed on the outside of the church under the eaves, " that/' as his own words expressed it, " the drippings of the rain from the holy roof may wash my bones as I lie, and may cleanse them from the spots of impurity contracted in my negligent and neglected life." Louis d'Outremer died in 954, from the effects of a fall from his horse, as he was spurring after a wolf which crossed his road in travelling between Laon and Rheims. He was in the thirty-third year of his age, and left two sons, Lothaire and Charles. a.d. 978. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. 39 As Charles was only a few months old, the undivided kingdom was conferred on Lothaire ; and from this time the custom ceased of dividing the kingdom amongst the sons of the deceased monarch, and was never afterwards revived. Lothaire, who was only fourteen years old when he began to reign, was for some years under the tutelage of his mother and her brother, who for his sanctity has been canonized, under the name of Saint Bruno. It is mentioned, as a remarkable circumstance, that there was no civil war in France for the space of three years. In 956 Hugh le Blanc died, having, as his contemporaries said, reigned many years, though without the title of king. In 973 the emperor Otho the Great died, and was succeeded by his son Otho II. Lothaire, on his uncle's death, claimed a part of Lorraine in right of his mother, and, without waiting to declare war, marched directly to Aix-la-Chapelle, where the young emperor was then residing. Otho was taken so completely by surprise, that he was obliged to rise from table, where he was sitting at dinner. He mounted a fleet horse, and escaped out of one gate as Lothaire and his army entered at another. Lothaire stripped the palace of everything worth carrying off, and then returned to France. This event took place in the month of June, 978 ; and in the following October, Otho, burning with resentment against Lothaire, set out, as he expressed it, " to return the visit." He proceeded straight to Paris, destroying everything in his way. Hugh Capet, the son of Hugh le Blanc, had succeeded his father as count of Paris, and had put the town in such a good state of defence, that Otho found himself unable to effect anything against it ; he therefore contented himself with empty menaces. Amongst other things he sent word to Hugh, " that he would make him hear so loud a litany as would make his ears tingle." Accordingly, he posted his army on the heights of Montmartre, which overlook Paris, and there he made his soldiers sing a Latin canticle as loud as they could. The noise of so many thousand voices all bawling at once was so prodigious, that it could be heard from one end of Paris to the other. Having performed this mighty feat, the emperor turned about to march back into Germany. He reached the banks of the river Aisne without having met with any opposition : it was late when he arrived at the river, and only he himself, with part of his army, could cross that night. The rest were to cross the next morning ; but when the morning came, it was found that the water had risen so considerably in the night, that it was impossible for the second division of the army to pass. In this situation it was attacked by Lothaire; and Otho, from the opposite shore, saw his men put to the rout without being able to give them any assistance. At 4 THE CABXOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. V. length he procured a little boat, and sent over the count of Ardennes to propose that he and Lothaire should settle their differences by- single combat, with the condition that whichever of them was the survivor should succeed to the territories of the other; but the French nobles would not permit Lothaire to accept this challenge, and desired the count to inform his master that they did not wish to lose their own king ; and that, at any rate, they would never have Otho over them. Some time after this a treaty of peace was made between the cousins, and Otho consented to give up Lorraine to Lothaire and Ms brother Charles. In 986 Lothaire died, leaving an only son, Louis V., often called le Faineant, who was of such weak capacity, that, although he was twenty years old, he was incapable of governing, and was placed under the guardianship of Hugh Capet. Louis V. reigned little more than a year, and his uncle, Charles duke of Lorraine, was now the sole male survivor of the house of Charlemagne; but his character was altogether so worthless and contemptible, that the nobles of France excluded him from the succession, and placed the crown upon the head of Hugh Capet. Thus ended the succession of the Carlovingian kings, which had lasted for a period of 246 years. Never was there a race of weaker princes. By their folly and cowardice they had suffered the kingdom to be so much dismembered, that it was latterly reduced to little more than the mere territory which lay immediately round Kheims and Paris. Circular Donjon, Castle of Couci. Conv. THE CARLO VLNGIAN RACE. 4 j CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER V. Richard. I wonder why Hugh le Blanc, who seemed to have the giving away of the crown of France, never thought of putting it upon his own head. Mrs. Markham. He probably thought of it several times ; but it is supposed that he was withheld either by the jealousies of the other nobles, who were unwilling that he should make himself superior to themselves, or else by his own moderation. He is said to have been the greatest man who never wore a crown. He was married three times, and each of his wives was a king's daughter. His first wife was daughter of Louis le Begue ; the second was a daughter of the king of England; and the third was sister to the emperor Otho. Hugh left four sons ; one of them was, as you have just heard, king of France, and the other three were successively dukes of Burgundy. Hugh had several surnames by which he was indiscriminately called : le Blanc, from the colour of his complexion ; le Grand, from his great height ; and VAbbe, because of the number of abbeys he was possessed of. Mary. Then was he a priest besides all this ? Mrs. M. You may very naturally ask that question. Though not a priest, he yet held several abbeys ; for the kings of France were at this time so much reduced, that they had nothing but church property left to bestow, when they wished to conciliate or reward any of their nobles. George. I could not bear those cruel Normans at first, but now I like them very much, they were such fine fellows. Mrs. M. They were indeed a very extraordinary people, and greatly superior to most of their contemporaries. Rollo, especially, was, as you say, a fine felloiu ; and one of the finest parts of his conduct was his keeping his promise so honourably to the king of France, and giving up all his predatory habits, after he obtained the grant of Normandy. He also established schools, and adopted many of the French laws and customs, in preference to those of his own country. In consequence of his taking these and similar measures, the Normans, in the course of one or two generations, became in man- ners, customs, and language assimilated to the rest of France ; which seems the more extraordinary, since the Bretons, their near neigh- bours, were then, and continue to this day, a very distinct people. Mary. Can you tell us, dear mamma, any more stories about those Normans ? Mrs. M. I can tell you one, which is not very much to their credit. When Rollo was required to do homage to Charles the Simple for his fief of Normandy, he positively refused to comply with one of the ceremonies, which was that of kissing the king's foot ; and on being told that it was absolutely indispensable, he still 4 2 THE CARLO VINGI AN RACE. Chap. V. declared that he would only perform it by proxy. Accordingly, he deputed one of his soldiers to go through that ceremony for him. This man, on going up to the king, who was seated on his throne, snatched hold of his foot, and, either through awkwardness or insolence, raised it to his lips with such a sudden jerk, that the poor king was thrown off his balance, and fell backwards. The Normans uttered loud shouts of laughter, and the king, terrified by the boisterous expressions of their mirth, was glad to reinstate himself on his throne without taking any notice of the affront; and his courtiers were also fain to pass it off as an agreeable pleasantry. George. What a set of cowards! — When the emperor Otho II. challenged the king of France to single combat, it was something like fighting a duel. Mrs. M. Duels may be considered as a remnant of barbarism, and I hope, and almost trust, that the world is becoming wise enough, and Christian enough, to rid itself of them altogether. I am told that there are some traces of duels amongst the Greeks and Romans ; but the first we hear of them in modern history is of their having been practised in the court of Gondebaud king of Burgundy, the contemporary of Clovis. Some antiquaries say that they were an invention of the Franks. At all events, they accorded with the passionate temper of that restless people. In the reign of Louis XV. the rage for duelling became, with some persons, almost as innocent as it was ridiculous. Challenges were given for the most trifling af- fronts ; but it was often thought quite enough for the two antagonists to clash their swords together without offering to wound each other. Mary. If people must fight duels, I think that is the best way. Mrs. M. A better way is for people to keep their tempers, and be careful never to give intentional affronts, and then they will be less likely to receive them. Richard. It seems as if, in the old times in France, all people had nicknames. Mrs. M. Before the invention of family surnames, it was very difficult to distinguish persons who had the same Christian name, without using some such appellatives. These were generally derived from some personal peculiarity, or particular quality, as Rainier avAong-col, or the long-necked; William tete detoupes, or flaxen-head — two names that frequently occur in the history of this period. We have also Henry the Quarreller, and Conrade the Pacific. This last was a duke of Burgundy, and had the singular good fortune, or good sense, to preserve his country in peace during a reign of fifty-seven years. Mary. What a dear old man ! How much better off the people of Burgundy must have been than the people of France, with all those quarrelsome kings and nobles ! Conv. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. 43 Mrs. M. The state of society in France underwent a very great change in the tenth century. Most of the principal towns were ruined and depopulated : those in the north by the Normans ; and those in the south by the Saracens of Spain, who were perpetually making irruptions into France. The nobles increased in power as the distresses of the middle and lower orders increased ; and gaining strength also from the weakness of the sovereign, they became like independent monarchs in their own little domains. Their dwellings were fortresses, where they lived surrounded by their vassals and dependants, and engaged in petty wars with their neighbours. The foreign trade, what little there was of it, was all carried on by the travelling merchants, who went from castle to castle, retailing their goods. George. Like our pedlers, I suppose. Mrs. M. But with this difference, that our pedlers bring about with them only inferior and trifling articles, while the itinerant mer- chants of whom I am speaking dealt in precious stones, silks, orna- ments of gold, and spices; and, in short, in whatever was then esteemed rare and costly. There were no shops, but each noble had his own shoemaker, carpenter, and blacksmith, &c, who not only supplied him with whatever he wanted, but also worked at their trades for his advantage and profit. These persons usually dwelt in villages close to their lord's castle, and when any enemy approached to besiege the castle, they all took refuge within the walls. George. What fine driving of sheep and cattle, and hurry-skurry- ing, there must have been then I Mrs. M. And woe betide those who could not reach the gate in time ! — However, on the whole, there was not so much harm done as might have been expected : the walls of the castle were too thick, and the towers too high, for the weapons of the assailants to do much mischief to the besieged. The worst they could do would be to starve them into a capitulation ; and even should that happen, the lord of the castle might be free for some time on paying a good ransom. George. I suppose, however, the nobles always took good care to have plenty of provisions in their castles, so that they could hold out a long time ; and as to water, they always, you know, built their castles in places where they could have good wells. Mrs. M. And yet the best precautions do not always succeed. I could tell you of a castle in which there was abundance of wells, and yet the garrison were obliged to surrender because they could get no water. George. The wells, I suppose, were dry ? Mrs. M. That was not the case ; but you shall hear the whole story, although it is a little forestalling the proper order of our his- 44 THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Chap. V. tory. There exist still in Normandy the ruinous fragments of a castle which was built by our Richard I. to defend his territories against the attacks of Philip Augustus king of France. The castle stood on a rock overhanging the Seine, and was considered impreg- nable. The walls were in some places above sixteen feet thick, and it was large enough to contain several thousand persons. The whole was amply supplied with water, and with everything that could contribute to the use and security of the inhabitants. This castle was so fine a structure, and stood so majestically overlooking the adjacent country, that Richard, in the pride of his heart, called it Chateau Gaillard, and it was considered the bulwark of Normandy. Richard. Ah, mamma, I saw the other day, in some travels in Normandy, a picture of the ruins of a Chateau Gaillard. Could they be the same ? il Chateau Gaillard, built by Richard I. above the Seine to command the river. Mrs. M. They were indeed ; and those desolate ruins are all that remain of what was once distinguished as " the beautiful castle on the rock." But to go on with my story. In the conquest of Nor- mandy by Philip Augustus, during the reign of our pusillanimous king John, Chateau Gaillard fell into the hands of the French. With them it remained till the invasion of France by our Henry V., who laid siege to this castle. After a blockade of sixteen months the garrison found themselves obliged to surrender, because all the ropes of their wells were worn out, and they could get no more water. George. If it had not been our king who took the castle I should have said it was very provoking. But how came it to be such a ruin as it now seems to be ? 45 Conv. THE CARLOVINGIAN RACE. Mrs. M. After the English lost all their possessions in France, Chateau Gaillard reverted to the kings of France, who used it occa- sionally as a royal residence, and more frequently as a state prison. In the sixteenth century it was altogether abandoned, and then the people of the neighbouring districts, fearing it might be made a harbour for robbers, obtained permission to demolish it. Richard. Now you have done with all these stupid Merovingian and Carlovingian kings, and their tiresome dividing and changing of kingdoms, will you be so kind as to give us only one reign in a chapter ? for I think I shall be able to remember the kings much better if they come separately, than I can when half a dozen of them are crowded together. You know you did so in your History of England, when you got past the Saxon kings. Mrs. M. I am very ready to oblige you, although it will occasion some of my chapters to be very short ones. George. Never mind that, mamma; when you give us a short chapter, we shall then, you know, have the more time for talking afterwards. Mary. I shall be glad of that ; for, somehow or other, I think our conversations are the pleasantest part. Mrs. M. To enable you the better to remember the Carlovingian kings, I will give you a table of the descendants of Charlemagne. Louis le Debonnaire, son of Charlemagne, emperor and king of France, left four sons. SONS OF LOUIS LE DEBONNAIRE. Lotliaire, emperor, died 855. Pepin, king of Aquitaine, died 838. Louis, king of Germany, died 876. Charles the Bald, king of France, and afterwards emperor, died 877. SONS OF LOTHAIRE Louis the Young, emperor, died 875.) Lothaire, died 868. > All died without male heirs. Charles, died 868. ) Pepin, king of Aquitaine, son of Pepin, was deposed in 852, and died, leaving no children. SONS OF LOUIS THE GERMAN. Carloman, died 880, leaving an illegitimate son, afterwards emperor. Louis, died 882, 1 . . .... Charles the Fat, emperor and king of France, died 888, J ieavm S no children. Arnulf, emperor, illegitimate son of Carloman, died in 899, and left one son ; Louis, emperor, who died 911, leaving no male heirs. SON OF CHARLES THE BALD. Louis II., surnamed le Begue, or the Stammerer, died 878. SONS OF LOUIS THE STAMMERER Louis III., died 882, 1 , . .... Carloman, died 884, ) having no children. Charles the Simple, died 929. SON OF CHARLES THE SIMPLE. Louis rV., or d'Outremer, died 954. 46 HUGH CAPET. Chap. VL SONS OF LOUIS D'OUTREMER. Lothaire, king of France, died 986. Charles, duke of Lorraine. Louis V., or Faineant, son of Lothaire, died in 987, and in him ended the Carlovingian race. CHAPTEK VI. HUGH CAPET. Years after Christ, 987 — 996. Norman Ships. Hugh Capet owed his elevation to the throne more to the peculiar circumstances of the times than to any extraordinary merits of his own. He was not a man of great abilities, nor of any superiority of character. He seems, however, to have been what is vulgarly called long-headed; an epithet which, if I rightly understand it, denotes a medium quality between prudence and cunning. A few days after the death of the late king, Hugh summoned an assembly of nobles at Noyon, chiefly consisting of his own vassals and partisans. By them he was formally elected king, and he was soon afterwards consecrated at Eheims. During the ceremony, the archbishop would have placed the crown upon his head, but Hugh prevented him, because it had been foretold to him that the crown of France should remain in his family for seven generations ; and he thought that if he was not actually crowned, it would prolong the royal dignity in his family to yet another generation? Some histo- rians suspect, that the real cause of his reluctance to wear the crown arose from his consciousness that he had no right to it. If it were HUGH CAPET. 47 so, I own it appears to me a very extraordinary scruple in a man who made no hesitation in usurping every other kingly privilege. Charles duke of Lorraine, who was now the only survivor of the Carlovingian family, was not, as I have already said, a favourite with the people of France; and his having accepted the duchy of Lorraine, and done homage for it to the^emperor of Germany, gave them a pretext for setting aside his claims. He, however, deter- mined to assert his right ; but not having the means of doing this by force of arms, he had recourse to artifice. Indeed the affairs of this period seem to have been carried on almost entirely by fraud and treachery. Charles had a half-nephew, Arnolf, the illegitimate son of his bro- ther Lothaire. This man was a priest at Laon, and contrived to admit his uncle secretly into the town. Charles immediately took possession of the palace which had been the residence of the latter Carlovingian monarchs, and was proclaimed king by a few of the old friends and retainers of his family. He made Ancelin bishop of Laon his chief counsellor ; and he, being a very artful man, under- took the office, in the hope that it would give him the opportunity of betraying Charles into the hands of his enemies. In the mean time Hugh, instead of seeking to dispossess his rival by open force, sought to oppose him with his own weapons, fraud and falsehood. He attempted to detach Arnolf from Charles's in- terest, by bestowing on him the archbishopric of Eheims. Arnolf accepted the benefice with many promises of fidelity to Hugh : but he was no sooner settled in his archbishopric than he received Charles into the city, at the same time pretending that he came without his consent ; and Charles, to favour the deception, affected to seize on the new archbishop, and carried him off a pretended prisoner to Laon. Hugh, however, was not to be easily deceived, and resolved, if Arnolf should ever fall into his hands, to be fully revenged on him. In the summer of 988 Hugh laid siege to Laon, but at the end of some weeks he was driven off by Charles, who made an unexpected sally, burnt his camp, and compelled him to an ignominious flight. Hugh, fearful lest this disgrace should have a bad effect on his affairs, ordered Gerbert, his secretary, to write as favourable an account of it as he could to the bishop of Treves. I will give you an extract from this letter, to show you that the very useless, because always unavailing, art of putting a false colouring on dis- agreeable facts is not an invention of modern times. — "Do not believe too easily the reports you hear. By the grace of God, and by the aid of your prayers, we are still, as before, masters of the bishopric. And of all the rumour which you may hear this only is true ; — that the king's soldiers being after mid-day overpowered by 48 HUGH CAPET. Chap. VI. wine and sleep, the inhabitants of the town made a sally, which our people repulsed : but during this time the camp was set on fire by a set of ragamuffins, and all the preparation for the siege destroyed. The damage will however be repaired before the 25th of August." Hugh did not, however, again attempt to besiege Laon: and Charles, believing himself to be in perfect security, gave himself up to ease and enjoyment. Tins was the time that his perfidious fa- vourite Ancelin had so long been watching for; and everything being prepared, he received Hugh into the town of Laon in the dead of the night. Charles and his queen were taken prisoners in their beds, and were immediately hurried off to Hugh's strong tower at Orleans, and you may be sure that Arnolf was not left behind. The wife of Charles died very soon afterwards in childbed, leaving two poor little twins. How long these little prisoners remained in con- finement I do not know, nor whether the best days of their child- hood and youth were passed in that melancholy tower. We find them twenty years afterwards under the protection of the emperor of Ger- many. Besides these sons, Charles had two daughters, who, having been left in Germany, escaped sharing in their father's imprisonment. A descendant of one of these daughters married, in 1180, Philip Augustus king of France, and it is through her that the royal family of France claimed a descent from Charlemagne. Charles of Lorraine died at Orleans in 992, and Hugh now hoped that he should have undisturbed possession of the kingdom. But although he had nothing more to apprehend from the Carlovingian family, yet the restlessness and ambition of the nobles prevented him from enjoying tranquillity. There were at this time eight powerful principalities or states all independent of the crown; these were Burgundy, Aquitaine, Normandy, Gascony, Flanders, Champagne, and Toulouse. Bretagne is not included, because, in virtue of a grant from Charles the Simple to Eollo, Bretagne was considered as a dependency on the duchy of Normandy. Besides these greater states, innumerable smaller ones were perpetually forming by all those who could acquire possession of any territory, either by fraud or violence ; and the monarch found sufficient employment in endea- vouring to check the encroachments of these self-created nobles. One of these, on being asked by Hugh, " Who made you a count?" returned for answer, " Who made you a king? " a question to which Hugh could not easily reply. In 995, Arnolf being still a prisoner, Hugh bestowed his arch- bishopric upon his secretary Gerbert. The measure drew upon him the resentment of the pope, who obliged him to reinstate Arnolf, which he did, but without restoring him to liberty. Hugh Capet died October 24th, 996, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, having reigned nearly ten years. He was twice married, — Conv. HUGH CAPET. 49 first to Adelaide, daughter of the duke of Aquitaine, by whom he had one son, Eobert, who succeeded him, and three daughters. His second wife was Blanch, widow of king Louis V. By her he had no children; Hugh resided principally in Paris, which from this time became the chief seat of government. In the same year with Hugh Capet died Bichard Sans Peur, duke of Normandy : he was succeeded by Ms son Bichard II. The tenth century, winch we have now nearly brought to a close, has been named, by some historians, the iron age, as being the period when Europe was the most disgraced by murders, cruelty, immo- rality, and irreligion. • CONVEBSATION ON CHAPTEB VI. Mary. Pray, mamma, why was this last king called Capet ? Mrs. Marhham. You have asked me a difficult question, since anti- quaries themselves are not agreed on the subject. Some persons suppose that he was called so from caput, a head, because he was the head or founder of a new dynasty. Others assert that the name arose from a cap, called a capet, which he introduced. Bichard. Can you tell me whether there were any degrees of rank among the French nobles of those days, or whether they were all alike? Mrs. M. Their ranks were very different, but the degrees were regulated, not by their titles or possessions, but by the nearness of their dependence on the throne. Those who held fiefs of the crown, and who were the vassals of, and did homage to the king, were esteemed the persons of the highest rank ; the next in rank were those who held fiefs of the king's vassals, and who did homage to them : these also could parcel out their lands into other fiefs, so that these fiefs and sub-fiefs might be multiplied in an unlimited degree : but the vassals or peers of the crown were considered to be of supe- rior rank to all the others, and enjoyed peculiar privileges. Richard. Then were none but the king's vassals called peers ? Mrs. M. The word peer was derived from the Latin word par, or equal, and all who were vassals under the same lord were styled peers, not to imply that they were superior to others, but that they were peers or equals amongst themselves. Thus all those nobles, and they only, who held immediately from the crown were by pre- eminence styled peers of France. There was no limited number of these peers under the feudal system, but in the course of time the number was confined to twelve ; six of whom were laymen, and the other six ecclesiastics. Perhaps it may be useful to you to know Frakck. D 5 o HUGH CAPET. Chap. VI. their names. The six lay peers were the dukes of Burgundy, Nor- mandy, and Aquitaine ; the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and Tou- louse. The six ecclesiastical peers were the archbishop of Eheims, the bishops of Laon, Langres, Chalons, Noyon, and Beauvais. George. Was the doing homage a very disagreeable ceremony ? Mrs. M. That depended very much upon circumstances. When a man did homage to his father, or to a friend, the ceremony had in it nothing disagreeable. The form was this : the vassal took off his cap, belt, and spurs, and, kneeling down before his lord, placed his two hands within his, and swore to use his hands, his fortune, and his life, in his service. The lord on his side swore not to oblige his vassal to fight against the king or the church, or indeed to continue under any circumstances in arms more than forty days at a time. There were several other regulations for the protection of the vassal, and the engagement was further ratified by religious ceremonies. On bestowing a fief, the lord either conducted his new vassal to the land with which he invested him, or else he presented him with some symbol or pledge, as a security for his undisturbed posses- sion. George. It was a fine thing to have no title-deeds, nor lawyers with their long parchments, such as papa had to pay for when he bought the new field, and which I heard him say cost nearly a quarter as much as the field itself. Mrs. M. And yet I cannot help thinking that your papa would rather purchase the field with all the expenses attending the " long parchment" than have it on the conditions formerly required from a vassal to his chief. For, in that case, should his liege lord go to the wars, he must go too. If the liege lord should lose his horse in the battle, he must dismount and give him his own. He must protect his person when in danger. If he should be taken prisoner, he must surrender himself as an hostage for him: he must keep all his secrets, and reveal to him all the machinations of his enemies ; and, in fine, he would be called upon to defend, not only his lord's honour, but the honour of every member of his family. Richard. Truly, if the vassals were obliged to do all this, they bought their lands dear enough. Mr*. M. Yet, viewed in another light, these duties of vassalage were much less oppressive. The younger brothers of most noble families were vassals to their father or elder brother, and to these persons, at least, the ties of duty and kindred lightened the weight of the feudal obligation. George. Why, to be sure, all that was nothing more than anybody would do for his own father or brother. Mrs. M. One of the most singular parts of the old feudal system was, that the same persons could mutually pay and receive homage. Conv. HUGH CAPET. 51 For instance, a duke might receive the homage of a count for his county, and at the same time he might do homage to the same count for a viscounty or fief of that same county. Even the king, notwith- standing that he was the liege lord or suzerain over the whole king- dom, yet was himself a vassal to the abbe of Saint Denis, of whom he held in fief a small territory called the Vexin. liicliard. Do you think, mamma, that the feudal system was a good thing ? Mrs. M. At first, I have no doubt, it was an advantageous com- pact for both liege and vassal ; but at last it gave birth to the most horrible abuses. The nobles became a community of little tyrants, and the country was covered by their castles and fortresses ; and there are instances of persons whose means did not enable them to build anything better, who ye' erected single towers, winch perhaps they could only garrison with three or four men, but in which they could shut themselves up, and wage war against the weak and defenceless. Mary. And did all this go on till the time of the French Bevolu- tion, when I have heard that all the nobles were guillotined ? Mrs. M. The power of the nobles began to be shaken in the reign of Philip Angustus, who paved the way by which the monarchs who succeeded him attained at last to absolute power. Some of the worst features, however, of the feudal system lasted much longer. In Besancon and in Franche-Comte, and perhaps in other places, there were to be found peasants whose ancestors had never obtained their manumission, and who had no power to leave their lord's territories without his consent. Richard. What an artful man Hugh had for his secretary ! One would have supposed, from his manner of describing it, that the defeat at Laon was a mere trifle. Mrs. M. Gerbert, the secretary, was a very extraordinary man. It is therefore the more to be lamented that he lived in the court of such a king, and was entangled in his artifices. Gerbert was a man of obscure birth, but by his wonderful talents and acquirements he was, to use the words of Sismondi, " like a meteor illuminating a dark sky." When a boy, he had been taken from charity into the convent of Aurillac, and devoted himself with such ardour to study that he soon obtained the notice of Iris superiors. He applied him- self chiefly to the study of the classic authors of antiquity, and with a success unequalled by any other scholar of that period. The supe- rior of his convent gave him permission to travel into Spain, to gain some knowledge of the abstruse sciences as then taught by the learned Arabians in the university of Cordova. Here he made such good use of his time and opportunities, that his fame spread over all Europe. On Ins return to France his wonderful acquire- D 2 52 HUGH CAPET. Chap. VI. merits, and, above all, his ability to read and write the Arabic characters, gained him the reputation of being a wizard. Both Charles of Lorraine and Hugh Capet employed him at different times as their secretary, and Hugh wished to make him archbishop of Rheims ; but this wish was frustrated, and Gerbert, on being dis- appointed of that benefice, abandoned France in disgust, and entered into the service of the emperor Otho III,, who loaded him with honours. Finally, this Gerbert, the poor monk of Aurillac, ended his career as pope Sylvester II. Mary. Although Hugh Capet's was but a short reign, you have found, I think, a good many things to tell us relating to it. Mrs. M. And yet I perceive, after all, that I have omitted a very remarkable circumstance, which is this : — Towards the latter end of the tenth century, France was visited by a dreadful plague. The mortality occasioned by this disorder was very great, particularly in the provinces of Perigord and Limousin. The nobles of these pro- vinces were noted, even in that quarrelsome age, for their perpetual wars and discords ; but now, in consequence of this plague, which their own consciences made them regard as an especial visitation of God's anger, they entered into a league amongst themselves, and took a solemn oath to live for the future in peace with each other. The example of these nobles was in great part followed in some of the other provinces, and many of the nobles entered into a solemn engagement, if not to live wholly at peace, at least to abstain from fighting on certain specified days of the week. A.D. 996. ROBERT THE PIOUS. 53 CHAPTER VII. ROBERT, SURNAMED THE PIOUS. Years after Christ, 996 — 103 1. The French historians find themselves exceedingly puzzled to make out a clear account of the reign of Robert. The difficulty partly arises from the want of a regular record of events during a period of some years, which causes a serious chasm in the history, and partly from contradictions and confusion of dates in the scanty materials which are left relating to the other part of the reign. I will, how- ever, make out the narrative as well as I can. Robert, the only son of Hugh Capet, was in the twenty-sixth year of his age when his father died. He had been previously crowned, as a means of securing to him the succession to the throne, which ho now ascended without any opposition. He was, we are told, very handsome, with a finely-formed person ; his whole deportment was mild and serene, but more expressive of gravity than of dignity. His understanding was not absolutely defective, but he had no enlargement of mind; and with an earnest desire to do right, ho was continually committing the greatest absurdities. Indeed, the character of Robert was a strange mixture of goodness and folly, and notwithstanding the amiableness of his disposition, he made a very indifferent king. His very virtues became useless by being carried to a pernicious excess. His charity, instead of relieving poverty, was an encouragement to idleness ; his lenity was a sanction to vice, and his religion was confined to the mere performance of out- 54 HOBERT THE PIOUS. Chap. VII. ward forms and ceremonies, which occupied his whole time and attention, to the utter neglect of the government of his kingdom. About the year 995 Robert married Bertha, widow of Eudes count of Chartres, and daughter of Conrad the Pacific. Eobert had been from his youth much attached to Bertha, and for a short time the young couple lived very happily. You know, I believe, that the canons of the Romish church, which were at that time very strictly enforced, forbid marriage even be- tween very distant relations. Unfortunately Robert and Bertha were cousins in the fourth degree, and the pope, Gregory V., sent them an order to separate immediately, under pain of excommuni- cation. Finding that Robert refused to obey, he laid the whole kingdom under an interdict. Some writers have given us a horrible account of the sufferings which the king and queen underwent in consequence of tins sen- tence. They tell us that, abandoned by all their attendants, they were left in the solitude of their palace, with no one to perform any menial offices for them, until two poor slaves, who were bold enough to defy the pope's anathema, offered their services to attend on a deserted king and queen, whom every one else deemed it pollution to approach. But these stories are supposed to have been invented by the monks in after-times, in order to alarm the emperor Henry IV., when he ventured to treat with contempt the papal anathema. If so, we may class them with the fables sometimes told by silly nurses to frighten naughty children. Robert was importuned on all sides to'yield obedience to the pope ; but still he and Bertha, who were sincerely attached to each other, would not consent to a separation. The monks at last obtained that by artifice which they could not gain by persuasion. Bertha having given birth to a dead child, the monks made Robert believe that God had signified his disapprobation of the marriage by causing the queen to bring forth a monster, which had, as they pretended, no resemblance to the human form. Upon this Robert consented to a divorce, and poor Bertha retired into a convent and became a nun. In 1002 l Robert married a second wife, Constance of Provence, a princess of a proud and insolent character, and whose habits were totally different from his own. She delighted in show and amuse- ments, and loved to be always surrounded by minstrels and trouba- dours, and filled her court with the young nobles of Provence, whose dress and lively manners were shocking in the eyes of the king and his grave courtiers. Robert spent his time chiefly with monks, in assisting them in the services of the church, and in pious pilgrimages to the shrines of saints and martyrs. He was constantly accompanied by a train of 1 This appears to be as probable a date as can be given conjecturally. a.d. ioo2. ROBERT THE PIOUS. 55 beggars ; he filled his palace with them, and in imitation of our Saviour's humility, would frequently wash their feet and dress their sores. While Robert was thus in a manner secluded in the circle of monks and beggars which he drew around him, and appeared totally blind to everything that was going on elsewhere, Europe was thrown into a ferment by the repeated accounts which arrived from Pales- tine of the ill treatment which the pilgrims to the Holy Land met with from the Saracens, who even threatened to destroy the holy sepulchre. The tide of fury which this intelligence excited turned in the first instance against the Jews, who were accused of carrying on a secret correspondence with the infidels by means of letters, which, it was pretended, were conveyed in the hollow of a staff. In consequence of this vague suspicion, the Jews underwent a terrible persecution ; but I believe nothing was done towards tho relief of the Christians at Jerusalem, notwithstanding that a crusade against the Saracens was preached by Sylvester II., who was so much animated by his subject, that, although he was then in extreme old age, he astonished his hearers by his eloquence and energy. In 1002 Henry duke of Burgundy, brother to Hugh Capet, died. He left no children of his own ; but having married a widow, his wife's son by her first husband took possession of the duchy. This man, whose name was Otho "William, was opposed by Robert, who claimed the duchy as his uncle's heir. Robert, being no warrior, called in the aid of his vassal the duke of Normandy. They together mustered a considerable army, and set out to punish the usurper. All went on well till they reached Auxerre, to which town they laid siege. Near the town stood an abbey, dedicated to Saint Germain, which was garrisoned by the enemy. Robert was ordering an assault to be made upon it, when he was warned by a priest not to incur the anger of the saint by presuming to attack his cloister. While the priest was speaking, a thick mist rose up from the neighbouring river, which I need not tell you is a very common occurrence; but the royal army chose to regard it as something supernatural. The soldiers called out that it was Saint Germain himself, who was coming to protect the abbey with his buckler : they then took to flight, with the king at their head, and thus ended Robert's first campaign. In the following year he commenced another with nearly the same success. After that he seems to have relinquished his designs on Burgundy. Otho William, after the lapse of eleven years, finding himself beset by many enemies, offered to resign Ms dukedom to the king ; an offer which Robert accepted, and bestowed the title of duke upon his eldest son. Otho obtained for himself the more humble title of count of Burgundy; but with 56 ROBERT THE PIOUS. Chap. VII. it he contrived to retain all the power and solid advantages which he had before possessed. Robert had four sons. The eldest, who had been crowned when a child (as was then the custom), died in 1025. The next son was an idiot, and Robert wished to crown Henry, his third son; but Constance, who loved none of her children excepting Robert, the youngest, was desirous that her favourite son should succeed to the dignities of Ins eldest brother. This the king firmly opposed, and in spite of the queen's violence and opposition, he had Henry crowned accordingly. In 1031, as Robert was returning from a pilgrimage to some of the principal sanctuaries in France, he was attacked at Melun by a fever, which shortly after terminated his life, in the sixtieth year of his age and thirty-fourth of his reign. He married, first, Bertha of Burgundy, and secondly, Constance of Provence, by whom he had four sons and two daughters. (1.) Hugh died before his father. (2.) Eudes. (3.) Henry, suc- ceeded to the throne. (4.) Robert, duke of Burgundy. (1.) Adela, married Richard III., duke of Normandy. (2.) Adelaide, married Baldwin IV., earl of Flanders. In 1027 Richard II., duke of Normandy, died. He left four sons : Richard HI., Ins successor ; Robert ; Mauger, archbishop of Rouen ; and Henry, who was illegitimate. Richard and Robert soon quar- relled, and Richard besieged Robert in the castle of Falaise. At last Robert pretended to desire a reconciliation with his brother, and, opening the gates of the town, invited him and his nobles to a banquet. The two brothers now appeared quite reconciled; but very soon afterwards Richard, with all those who had partaken of the banquet, died. Robert was accused of having poisoned them, and was in consequence excommunicated by Mauger. Robert did not attempt any vindication ; he, however, got the sentence of ex- communication removed, and succeeded his deceased brother as duke of Normandy. He was a man of strong bodily and mental powers, and notwith- standing the dreadful suspicion under which he laboured, he was much looked up to by the princes of his time, and acquired from some the surname of " the Magnificent," and from others that of " le Diable." He was uncle to Edward the Confessor, the greatest part of whose youth was spent in the Norman court. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER VII. George. I think this same king Robert was the most comical king I ever heard of. Conv. ROBERT THE PIOUS. 57 Mrs. Markham. With all his folly he had so much goodness and simplicity of character, that I cannot find in my heart to join in the excessive ridicule which some of the modern French historians attach to his name ; nor can I at the same time consider him as having been almost a saint, as some of the old writers seem to do. He was doubtless much fitter for a cloister than for a throne ; but he had no right to abandon the duties of a king in order to practise those of a priest. Mary. I suppose, mamma, you do not mean that there is any harm in doing the duties of a priest ? Mrs. M. No, my dear ; I only mean that no one has a right to neglect those duties which belong expressly to his own station. Robert carried his charity to so great an excess, that he had ge- nerally three hundred beggars living in his palace. George. He should have built an almshouse for them ; he would have found it much more comfortable. Mrs. M. Indeed I should have thought so, and so doubtless would Queen Constance; for she, it seems, did not like to be always sur- rounded by these lazy, dirty people ; and Robert was often obliged to have recourse to strange contrivances to conceal them from her. One day, at dinner, he had one of his beggars hid under the table, and from time to time he popped a bit of meat from his own plate to the beggar. When dinner was over, the beggar was gone, and so also were the gold ornaments from the bottom of the king's mantle, which the beggar had contrived to purloin. Another time, while the king was at mass, he perceived a man busily employed in strip- ping the gold fringe from the bottom of his robe ; Robert, without moving from Ms kneeling posture, mildly said to him, "Do not take away any more, but leave the rest for some one whose necessities may be as great as thine." Richard. I think this Robert was not only king of beggars, but king of thieves. Mrs. M. It should seem that he not only sanctioned thieves, but that he also taught them how to steal. The queen, who loved show and finery, had presented the king with a splendid lance, which was decorated with rich silver ornaments. As the king was one morning going to church, and carrying this fine lance in his hand, he per- ceived a ragged-looking man, and, beckoning to him to come to him, he ordered him to go and procure some carpenters' tools. When the man returned with them, Robert took him into some snug placo where he thought they should not be found out; and there they both set to work to strip the lance of its silver ornaments, which Robert put into the beggar's wallet, telling him to be gone with all speed, lest the queen should see him. When Constance saw her lance de- prived of its beauty, she flew into a violent passion. J)3 58 ROBERT THE PIOUS. Chap. VII. Mary. Robert was so provoking that I really think the queen was quite right to be in a passion with Mm. Mrs. M. I allow that Robert was very provoking; but still I cannot think that Constance was quite right to be in a passion. Mutual kindness and mutual forbearance is the bond of union and of happiness in every relation of life. George. Pray, mamma, can you recollect any more stories about this droll king ? Mrs. M. He was, as I have told you, very fond of singing, and he composed a great deal of church, music. He once went a pil- grimage to Rome, to visit the tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. While in the church, he placed, with much solemnity and parade, a sealed packet on the altar. As soon as he was gone, the monks hastened to open it, expecting it to contain some splendid offering, and were very greatly disappointed to find that it contained nothing but some of the king's music. Robert was once desired by Constance to compose a song in her praise, and sing it to her. The king did not feel himself disposed to comply with this request, but he sang a hymn, which began, " Constantia Mariyrum ; " and the queen, who luckily did not understand Lathi, distinguishing her own name, Constantia, sup- posed herself to be listening to a flattering song written in praise of her own beauty and wit. Mary. Do you know, mamma, what sort of dresses those were which the queen's young favourites wore, and which the king and the monks did not like ? Mrs. M. I only know what Glaber, an old French historian, says of them. Here is the passage : — " France, because of Queen Constance, became the resort of the natives of Aquitaine and of Auvergne, the most vain and the most frivolous of men. Their manners and their dress were disorderly ; their arms and the equip- ment of their horses were equally strange. On the middle part of their heads they had no hair, and their beards were shaven like merry-andrews. Their leggings and their buskins were shame- fully fashioned. In short, they respected neither faith nor the promises of peace. But, 0, grief ! these shameful examples were almost immediately followed by the whole race of Frenchmen, for- merly so seemly in their manners." Richard. How stupid it was in the old historians to make so many blunders in their histories ! Mrs. M. It is not always easy to discover truth even in these days, when there is every facility for the acquisition of know- ledge. And if we see, as we so often do, facts misrepresented, and false reports circulated, we must not be surprised if we find that a true statement of facts was still more difficult to be ob- Conv. ROBERT THE PIOUS. $g tained at a time when private letters and chance travellers were the only means by which news could be transmitted from one place to another. There is also another and a very singular cause for the chasm in history, which we have to complain of during one part at least of the reign of Robert. It was generally believed by the Christian part of mankind, that the world was to last only a thousand years after the commencement of the Christian era. As therefore the fatal year 1000 drew near, a general gloom and dread prevailed. The minds of the more serious and pious persons were filled with the necessity of performing acts of devotion; they founded churches and religious houses ; and those who had usurped any of the possessions of the church were anxious to restore them. The gay and thoughtless, deeming that the world would last but a short time longer, determined to enjoy what they called its pleasures whilst they could, and plunged into every kind of vice. The nearer the dreaded year approached, the more calamitous was the effect of this general apprehension. The lands were no longer cultivated, all useful labour ceased, and the people thought only of the passing moment. And above all, it appeared useless to record the events of a world that was so soon to end, and we have consequently no know- ledge of this period, excepting that which can be obtained from private letters, particularly from those of Gerbert. George. But as the world was not destroyed in 1000, what did the people do for bread the following year ? Mrs. M. There must inevitably have been a famine, if it had not been for a most fortunate controversy, something like another which I remember to have taken place about the termination of the eight- eenth century. The people could not agree whether the thousand years were to be completed in the year 1000 or in 1001. Those who inclined to the latter opinion cultivated their land yet one more year, and those who had looked for the destruction of the world in 1000, finding the year pass away, and no appearance of the catastrophe they had expected, took courage, and returned again to the labours of agriculture ; and thus the horrors of famine were for this time averted. Richard. You say, mamma, it was averted for this time, as if the famine came at last. Mrs. M. It did indeed come at last, and in all its worst horrors, in consequence of an excessively rainy season, which prevented the corn from ripening. We are told that the distress for food was so great, that the bodies of the dead were no sooner committed to the grave than they were torn up and devoured by the famished people. Travellers were murdered, and children decoyed from their parents, and slain for food. A butcher of Tournay was condemned to be burnt for exposing human flesh for sale in his shop. 6o HENRY I. Chap. VIII. George. Do you know, mamma, in what year this great famine took place ? Mrs. M. That is a point on which the French antiquaries are divided : some historians place it in the reign of Kobert, and others in that of his son. In one thing, however, they are agreed, winch is this, that the harvest which followed after this year of scarcity was the most abundant that had ever been known ; a proof, if proof were wanting, of God's kindness to his creatures, in thus tempering his chastisements with mercies. CHAPTER VIII. HENRY I. Years after Christ, 1033 — 1060. Knight arrayed for a Tournament. Henry, wno was a very insignificant character, was about twenty years old when his father died. His mother endeavoured to excite a revolt against him, for the purpose of placing her youngest son on the throne. a.d. io6o. HENRY I. 6 1 Henry, without attempting any defence, mounted his horse, and with a few young companions rode post-haste into Normandy, to claim the protection of the duke, Robert the Magnificent. Robert immediately marched to Paris, and obliged Constance, and the nobles who had joined her party, to sue for peace. Constance retired into a convent, and soon afterwards died. Henry satisfied his brother's ambition by bestowing on him Burgundy; and rewarded the services Robert had rendered him, by annexing to Normandy Pontoise, Gisors, and some other places. In 1035, Robert, being oppressed with the remembrance of his crimes, and especially with that of the fatal banquet at Falaise, determined to relieve Iris mind, and, as he believed, to wipe away his sins, by going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Feeling assured that he should never return, he arranged his affairs, as well as he could, before his departure. He had one only son, who was illegiti- mate, and his greatest anxiety was about this child ; he wished to make him his successor, but he feared that the stain attached to Iris birth would defeat Iris intentions. He, however, took every possible precaution to secure them. He made his nobles swear fealty to the child, and left him under the guardianship of Alain, duke of Bretagne. This boy was afterwards our William the Conqueror. Robert died, as he had anticipated, in the Holy Land. When the news of his death reached Normandy, Mauger and his brother Henry tried to set aside the claims of the young William ; but these were so well defended by Alain, and so heartily espoused by the king, that the endeavours of his adversaries proved unavailing. When at length William became old enough to undertake the con- duct of his own affairs he showed those great abilities, and that daring yet calculating ambition, which so much distinguished him in after-life. The king of France, when he saw the enterprising disposition of the young duke, repented of the part he had formerly taken in his favour, and joined with Mauger and his other enemies. But William was now too strong to be shaken ; he maintained his power over Normandy, and increased in dignity and reputation. Henry I. is said to have been three times married. In marrying his third wife, Anne, who was daughter of the czar of Muscovy, he at all events kept clear of the evils which his father had incurred by marrying within the prohibited degrees, since the very name and country of Muscovy was at that time almost unknown in France. Anne of Russia proved a very quiet, harmless queen ; she endowed a convent; and is, if I mistake not, enrolled in the list of the French saints. As for Henry, he became every year of his life more and more contemptible, and seems almost to have been overlooked and forgotten by the historians of this period. He died in 1060, leaving three sons by Anne of Muscovy : — 62 HENRY I. Chap. VIII. (1.) Philip, who succeeded him. (2.) Robert, died young. (3.) Hugh, count of Vermandois. During this reign some of the great nobles arrived at a degree of power which eclipsed that of the king. The counts of Toulouse, of Flanders, and of Anjou, were amongst the most powerful. The count of Champagne and Blois, son of Bertha (king Robert's first wife), was another very distinguished nobleman. In 1037 he fought a bloody battle at Bar-le-duc with his cousin the emperor Conrad, for the succession to the territories of their grandfather, Conrad the Pacific, whose son had lately died without children. The count of Champagne was slain; he left two sons: the eldest inherited the earldom of Champagne, and the youngest succeeded to that of Blois, and was the ancestor of our king Stephen. During a long period the affairs of the Gallican church had been in great disorder. Many of the monks had broken their vows of celibacy, and had quitted their convents. The benefices of the church were sold to the highest bidder, and frequently fell into the hands of laymen. This abuse was not confined to France ; it extended to Italy, where even the papal crown was put up to sale, and was at one time placed on the head of a boy of ten years old, who was made pope by the name of Benedict IX. The necessity of a reform in the ecclesiastical order became every day more and more apparent. At last, in 1048, the emperor Henry III. raised to the papal throne Bruno, a man of known sanctity. He took the name of Leo IX. Immediately after his election he came to Rheims and convened a council, at which all the prelates of France were sum- moned to appear, and those who were proved to have been guilty of simony were deprived of their benefices. The corruptions in the church gave rise to many sects of heretics. Amongst the fancies of one of these sects was that of uniting the practice of frequent fasting with an entire abstinence from animal food. The consequence of this spare diet was a peculiarly pallid com-, plexion, which was considered as such a certain symbol of the sect, that we are told that even good Catholics who were so unlucky as to have pale faces were liable to the danger of being dragged to the stake and burnt as heretics. In 1042 Edward, surnamed the Confessor, was recalled from his exile in Normandy, to take possession of the throne of England, then vacant by the death of Harold Harefoot, the son of Canute. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER VIII. Bichard. The reign of Henry I. is not nearly so entertaining as the reign of Robert. Mrs, MarMiam. It is certainly barren of great or brilliant events, Cosv. HENEY I. 63 but it was nevertheless a very important period to the French nation; and during the reign of this king the people made more rapid improve- ment than they had ever done before. George. It must have been the people's own doing then, for the king did not seem endued with much spirit of improvement. Mrs. M. You, George, who are so fond of talking of knights and of knight-errantry, will be delighted to hear that this improvement of the people was in a great measure owing to the institution of chi- valry, which arose about this period. The spirit of chivalry is, as you know, high-minded and honourable, and it had the effect of elevating the national character of the French from the hardness and brutality of barbarism. Though no doubt frequently carried to a romantic and absurd extreme, yet it gave the first impulse to that true, gentlemanly feeling which forms the charm and excellence of all well-bred society. Richard. I wonder how chivalry was first thought of. Mrs. M. Some antiquaries assert that traces of it can be found in the primitive customs of the Franks ; and that when their youths were first presented with manly weapons they were made to swear that they would use them valiantly, and would never disgrace their tribe ; but the more common opinion is, that the origin of chivalry is of much later date, and that it arose in the beginning of the eleventh century, from the piety of certain nobles, who, desirous to give a religious tendency to the profession of arms, consecrated their swords to the service of God, and took a solemn oath to use them only in the cause of the weak and of the oppressed. And this is supposed to have lighted the spark of that chivalrous flame which spread like wildfire from one end of Europe to the other. With regard to the ceremonial part of chivalry, we hardly know its precise original ; but as some of the laws and regulations are very singular, you may be glad to have them described. "When a noble- man (for only men of noble birth could be admitted into the order) was to be made a knight, the ceremony began by placing him in a bath, as if to express that, in presenting himself for knighthood, he presented himself washed from his sins. When he left the bath he was clothed first in a white tunic, then in a crimson vest, and lastly in a sable coat of mail ; each of which ceremonies had its sym- bolical meaning. The white tunic signified the purity of the life which he was now vowing to lead ; the crimson vest, the blood he would be called on to shed ; and the black armour was an emblem of death, for which he was always to be prepared. His dress was then completed by a belt, which was intended as the symbol of chastity, and by a pair of spurs, which were to denote his readiness to hasten wherever duty called him. Lastly, his sword was girded on, and this part of the ceremony was accompanied by an exhortation 64 HENRY I. Chap. VIII. to be brave and loyal. The whole then concluded by a stroke on the shoulder from the flat of a sword ; and this was always given by one who was already a knight, and was meant as a sort of impressive memento which should infix strongly on the mind of the new knight the solemn engagements he had entered into. George. The being a knight was a much more serious thing than I had supposed. I think those rough old barons must have found it rather difficult to become accomplished knights all at once. Mrs. M. When chivalry was thoroughly established, almost every youth of high birth was early trained to knighthood, by being do- mesticated in the castle of some great lord, where he was instructed in all the observances of chivalry. Mary. Then were there schools and schoolmasters in these castles ? Mrs. M. The education of boys was conducted very differently then from what it is now. The young nobles had little to do with books, and, instead of learning lessons, had to learn how to take care of their horses, and how to clean their arms ; and their business was to attend upon the lord of the castle, as if they had been his ser- vants. George. I suppose they only pretended to be his servants, just for form's sake. Mrs. M. I can assure you it was not at all for mere form's sake. These youths had to execute many domestic services in the families in which they resided. They assisted their lord when he dressed, they waited on him and his lady at table, they attended him when he rode out, and in short obeyed him in everything. Mary. Then did these young noblemen dine in the servants' hall ? Mrs. M. Formerly there were no servants' halls. The whole family in a French, as in an English castle, dined together ; a large salt-cellar was placed in the middle of the table, to make a division between the upper end, where the lord sat with his guests, and that part which was occupied by the menials. Mary. But what I wanted to know, mamma, was, whether these boys were considered servants or gentlemen ? Mrs. M. They did not associate with the domestics of the family, but were the companions of the baron's sons ; and when they were not in attendance upon their lord, they used to spend their morn- ings in military sports in the castle-yard, and in the evening they joined in the music, dancing, and other amusements of the ladies of the castle. George. I dare say they led very pleasant lives. Richard. I don't think I should have liked it. It must have been very disagreeable to have been half servant and half gentleman. Mrs. M. We should now think it a very lounging, idle kind of life Conv. HENRY I. 65 for a young man ; but at that time, when there were no schools or colleges, excepting for those who were designed for the profession of the church, there was no better mode of education for the young nobility; and as they were required to conduct themselves with great respect towards the lord and the ladies of the castle, they acquired, at all events, some civilization and polish. Richard. Did all this chivalry make any difference in the manners or condition of the lower classes ? Mrs. M. The same cause that improved the higher orders con- tributed to advance the condition of all the others. The spirit of chivalry, while it refined the nobles, at the same time introduced amongst them habits of expense, which gave a stimulus to industry. Trade was increased; talent and invention were encouraged; the traffic of the country was no longer confined to roving pedlers; the towns were again peopled ; the streets were filled with shops and warehouses ; and the merchants became rich, and were enabled to engage in foreign commerce. Mary. Did the nobles, then, when they became knights, want so many more things than they had before ? Mrs. 31. Knighthood certainly introduced a more costly style of dress, of armour, and of all sorts of equipment. In all these the knights vied with each other, and also, in like manner, in the number of their attendants, and in the size and architecture of their castles. llicliard. Then do you think, mamma, it is a good thing for people to be extravagant ? Mrs.M. Extravagance and penuriousness are both equally wrong ; the golden mean lies between the two extremes. I shall show you, in the next reign, what serious evils the expensive habits of the nobles produced. But almost anything is better than the brutal indolence of men unambitious either of excellence or of distinction ; and it is certain that even the vanities which came in the train of chivalry had the effect of improving the condition of the towns, the inhabitants of which became persons of importance from their wealth, although their political condition continued to be still that of serfs. llicliard. "Was there any change made in the condition of the farmers and country people ? Mrs. M. They still remained in a state of vassalage; and as they were obliged to work for the benefit of their masters, in- stead of their own, they had not the means of getting rich like the townspeople. Still I trust the hardships of their condition were lessened. I mentioned to you before, that about the end of the tenth century, after a dreadful plague in Perigord and the Limousin, the nobles entered into a pacific league with each other. This league was frequently renewed and enforced, particularly about 66 HENRY I. Chap. VITT. 1035, and afterwards, and had the title given it of the peace of God, and of God's truce. It contained an especial clause for the pro- tection of the lower classes; namely, that no one should molest the labourers in the fields, neither deprive them of their implements of husbandry, nor injure their persons. George. Those were shocking times in which such clauses could be required. I recollect, when you mentioned the league before, you said the nobles agreed only to fight on certain specified days. I wonder which were their fighting days, and which were their quiet days. Mrs. M. I believe I can tell you : the fighting days began at sunrise on Monday morning, and ended at sunset on Wednesday evening ; after which all hostility was to cease till the sun rose again on the following Monday. It was also forbidden to fight, or make preparation for war, on any of the festivals of the church, and during Lent or Advent. George. There was not then, after all, much time left for fighting. Mrs. M. The regulations varied in different parts of France, according to circumstances ; but the truce was, on the whole, highly beneficial to the country, and reflects great honour on the ecclesi- astics and nobles by whose praiseworthy exertions it was made and enforced. Mary. I am very glad to find there were some good priests in those days, and that they were not all bad. Mrs. M. History is not the criterion by which we ought to judge of the character of the clergy : there are always amongst them, as amongst all other descriptions of men, some that disgrace their profession ; and it is in general only the artful and ambitious who interfere in affairs of state, and who make their names conspicuous in history. The good and pious (by much, I trust, the most numer- ous), who confine their ambition to the fulfilment of their own proper duties, are overlooked, and their names are unknown to posterity ; but their names are doubtless written in a record not perishable like earthly records. Richard. It seemed very strange that the people of France should be so ignorant of geography as scarcely to know that there was such a country as Muscovy. Mrs. M. The science of geography was very little studied till after the crusades. A canon of Bremen, indeed, wrote a' geo- graphical work as early as the year 1010; and he tells us that Sweden and Norway were two vast realms unknown to the civilized world. Eussia he describes as a country where the people had but one eye and one leg. George. When you were speaking of tnose heretics who were burnt because they were of a pale complexion, I could not help a.d. io6 7 . PHILIP I. 6 7 thinking, mamma, what a bad chance you would have had if you had lived in those days. CHAPTER IX. PHILIP I. Years after Christ, 1060 — 1108. Figures taken from Monuments of the Twelfth Century. The late king appointed Baldwin earl of Flanders to be guardian to Ins son Philip, who, at his accession, was only seven years old. Baldwin died in 1067, and the young prince, being then fourteen, was declared old enough, according -to the laws of France, to hold the reins of government without a guardian. It is impossible to conjecture what Philip might have been had he been brought up till manhood under a judicious parent or precep- tor; but, as the case was, he became a slave to his vices. He had naturally a good disposition and a comely person; but all the faculties of his mind were absorbed and lost in sloth and sensuality, and his personal beauty was destroyed, almost in the prime of life, by the effects of excessive gluttony. These vices, however, did not engross him all at once. In the early part of his reign he showed some degree of activity, by march- ing into Flanders to the assistance of Baldwin, his late guardian's grandson, against his uncle Eobert of Frizeland, who disputed with him the succession to the earldom of Flanders. 68 PHILIP I. Chap. IX. This Eobert was, according to the notions of thoso times, a brave and politic prince, though we should esteem him worse than a com- mon robber. Having been sent forth by his father with a band of adventurers to seek Iris fortunes, he attacked Holland, at that time in the possession of the widow of the last earl of Holland, who held it in trust for her young son ; and the countess found herself obliged to marry the invader as the only means of preserving herself and her children from ruin. Philip was unable to contend with an experienced warrior like Eobert, and was soon glad to make peace with him. One of the conditions of the peace was that he should marry Bobert's step- daughter, Bertha of Holland. He accordingly married her, but divorced her some years afterwards, on the plea of consanguinity. In 1092 he became enamoured of Bertrade de Montfort, the wife of Fulk earl of Anjou, and persuaded her to leave her husband and marry Mm. The pope threatened to excommunicate Philip unless he sent Bertrade back to her husband, and, on the king's refusal, put his threat in execution. About the year 1090, the Turks, who had previously driven the Saracens from Jerusalem, began to excite great apprehensions throughout almost all Europe. The emperor of Constantinople, in particular, Alexis Comnenus, began to tremble for his safety, and in an evil hour sent a letter to Pope Urban II., imploring assistance. There were at this time two popes. A great quarrel had taken place between the emperor of Germany and the cardinals. Each party insisted on the right of choosing the pope ; and Urban, in con- sequence of these dissensions, which were carried on with great bitterness, had come for protection to France. He called a council at Clermont in 1095, where he read the letter of the emperor of Con- stantinople, and exhorted all Christians to take up arms against the infidels. The minds of the people had been already roused by the representations of a monk of Picardy, well known by the name of Peter the Hermit, who was lately returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and who gave most pathetic descriptions of the treatment which the Christians there suffered from the Turks. All France was in agitation, and, while the pope was yet speaking and promis- ing indulgences and absolution to those who should take up arms in defence of the holy sepulchre, the surrounding crowd, as if seized with a simultaneous enthusiasm, shouted forth " Dieu veult" — God wills it. A crusade was immediately resolved upon, and the cry of " Bleu veult " became a sort of watch-word throughout Europe. A whole year was allowed for the necessary preparations, and the 15th of August, 1096, was the day appointed for the departure of the crusade. The whole of France seemed now like a perturbed ocean. The a.d. 1096. PHILIP I. 69 barons were selling and pawning their lands to raise money for the expedition : the citizens were seizing the opportunity to purchase privileges and immunities, which the nobles, regardless of everything but the present occasion, were now willing to sell to them. Even the very dregs of the people were inflamed with the universal zeal for crusading, and nocked in crowds to join the sacred banner. The leaders of the enterprise shrank from encumbering themselves with such an useless and disorderly mob. It was therefore agreed that these people should proceed to Palestine by themselves. Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless (a Norman gentleman) undertook to be their leaders, and on the 8th of March, anticipating the day which had been fixed at Clermont, Walter crossed the Khine with the first crusaders. There appear to have been amongst them only a comparatively small number of soldiers. The rest of the multitude was a dis- orderly rabble, with a great many women and children. It seems to be clear that they had no cavalry (it is said that there were only eight horses amongst them), and that they were in all other respects equally unprovided. Indeed, the greater part were ignorant what distance they had to go, and through what countries they would have to pass. It was enough for them to know that they were going to the Holy Land, and that their priests had assured them that this object, if attained, would secure the eternal salvation of their souls. They imagined that, in the mean time, God would feed them on the way, as he had fed the Israelites of old in the wilderness. When they had passed beyond the confines of France and heard a strange language spoken, some of them supposed they had already arrived near the end of their journey ; and the poor children, with an eagerness natural to their age, would inquire at every town " if that was Jerusalem ? " Alas ! none of them ever reached the pro- mised land. Their conductors led them by way of Hungary and Bulgaria ; but their knowledge of geography was very imperfect, and they often wandered about at random, sometimes following the track of an animal, or the flight of a bird, expressly sent, as they fancied, to guide them. Finding themselves disappointed of the quails and manna they had expected, they were compelled to resort to force to obtain food, and consequently the inhabitants of the countries through which they passed rose against them. At one place we are told that the Danube was turned from its channel by the profusion of slaughtered bodies thrown into the river. Nearly the whole of this vast multitude fell a sacrifice to hunger, fatigue, or popular fury. A few who reached the opposite shores of the Bosphorus survived only to experience the greater misery of falling into the hands of the Turks. Peter and Walter, however, their ignorant and presumptuous leaders, lived to 70 PHILIP I. Chap. IX. return, and we afterwards find them in the great armament which departed from France in the autumn of 1096. This great armament amounted in the whole to the immense number of 300,000 fighting men, assembled from different nations, but chiefly from France. It was agreed that on account of the difficulty of procuring provisions for so vast a multitude, they should march in three divisions, each division taking a different route. The first division was commanded by Godfrey of Bouillon, a warrior of high renown, who, if we may believe the concurrent testi- mony of historians and poets, was actuated to this undertaking solely by motives of piety. He was accompanied by his two brothers, Baldwin and Eustace. The king of France's brother, Hugh de Vermandois ; Robert, son of William the Conqueror ; Stephen de Blois (father of our king Stephen) ; Eobert earl of Flanders, with many other princes, were in the second division ; and being all too proud and too independent to submit to any leader, they each, though they agreed to keep together, marched under separate banners. The third division was commanded by Raymond of Toulouse, a venerable knight, who was as much esteemed for wisdom as for valour. He was lord of one of the finest districts of France, and was one of her most powerful princes ; but he quitted all from motives of religion, and, resigning his territories to his son, abandoned his country with the determination never to return. When this enormous host reached Constantinople, the emperor Alexis was overwhelmed with astonishment, and sincerely repented of having asked aid from Europe. The crusaders, presuming on the holiness of their cause, came more like masters than like friends and allies. They treated the emperor with insolence, looked on his people as barbarians, and considered themselves licensed to commit every kind of violence and disorder. The emperor, on the other hand, as was very natural, viewed them with suspicion, and, per- haps, behaved to them deceitfully. At last they quitted Constanti- nople, and after a series of adventures, too long to relate, in the course of which they possessed themselves of the towns of Nice in Bithynia, and of Antioch, they arrived with a remnant of their army within sight of Jerusalem. They laid siege to the holy city, and took it. On July 14, 1099, the standard of the Cross was planted on the walls. Godfrey, their general, was elected king of Jerusalem, and the greater part of the crusaders returned home, leaving the new king begirt with dangers. On their arrival in France, they were re- proached by their countrymen with having abandoned their brave leader ; and some of them, amongst whom was Hugh de Verman- A.D. 1 1 oi. PHILIP I. yi dois, resolved to return to Palestine and retrieve their reputation. Accordingly, in 1101, a new expedition was fitted out. The command of this expedition was given to William of Poitiers, duke of Aquitaine, who, from the extent of his possessions and from his various talents, was one of the most considerable princes of his time. He was not only the friend and protector of poets and trou- badours, but he was also a troubadour himself; and some of his poetry is still extant. His court was filled with minstrels and jesters, and was more celebrated for its gaiety than for its decorum. The fate of the army which William of Poitiers led into the East was most disastrous. It arrived in tolerable order at Constantinople ; but there the pride of William drew on him the personal enmity of the emperor, who is accused, but with what truth I do not pretend to say, of revenging himself by giving him false guides. The crusading army was led into situations which exposed it to the attack of the Turks, and was defeated with horrible slaughter. William of Poitiers and some of the nobles saved their lives by flight : Hugh de Vermandois escaped to Tarsus, in Cilicia, but died soon after of his wounds. While all these scenes were passing in Palestine, in France the king was sunk in sloth and sensuality, and appeared scarcely to know that a crusade was going on. William duke of Normandy had conquered England in 1066, and died in 1087, leaving Normandy to his son Robert, and England to William Eufus. You probably recollect that Eobert pawned his duchy to his brother, that he might be able to take the Cross. Wil- liam not only tried every means to keep possession of Normandy, but also endeavoured to extend its limits. He made several attacks on the French territories, but was bravely repulsed by Louis, the king's eldest son, who was at that time quite a youth, and had only a small number of troops at his command. In 1100 William was killed in the New Forest, and the young prince of France was then left at leisure to turn his arms against enemies nearer home. These enemies were the lords of Montlheri, of Montfort, and other vassals of the crown, who, taking advantage of the indolence and in- capacity of the king, had erected castles and towers, from whence they sallied forth like captains of banditti. Some of these towers were on the road between Paris and Orleans ; so that it was not pos- sible to travel from one town to the other with safety. Louis chas- tised in some measure the insolence of these barons, and he gained so much popularity, that it drew upon him the increased hatred of Bertrade, who eagerly desired his death, since it would open the way of Philip, her own son, to the throne. She even gave Louis a slow poison, which would have been fatal but for timely antidotes given him by a skilful physician. He always, however, felt the dele- 72 PIIILIP I. Chap. IX. terious effects of this poison ; his complexion was ever after of a death-like paleness. Louis himself does not entirely escape blame in these quarrels with Ins mother-in-law. He is even accused of having one day, in the heat of passion, attempted to stab her. Philip was greatly distressed by these contentions between his wife and his son, and at last succeeded in reconciling them. Louis in his child- hood had been totally neglected by his father, and left to follow in all things his own inclinations, which, as he was of a manly and active temper, naturally led him to delight in all the chivalrous exercises which at that time formed the chief occupation of the young nobility. The young prince thus acquired hardihood and skill in arms ; he also imbibed that finer part of chivalry, an inflex- ible love of honour and integrity. To this he added a natural frank- ness of character that made him greatly beloved by the people. Ho was crowned when he was eighteen or twenty years old ; and his father, apparently glad to be relieved from all care and trouble, re- signed to him the entire government of the kingdom. Philip had frequently been excommunicated by the pope for having married Bertrade, whose first husband, Fulk of Anjou, was still alive. He contrived, however, to pacify the indignant pope, by making pro- mises to repudiate her; but these promises he never performed. His slothful life was terminated in 1108, when he died, in the fifty- seventh year of his age, and fiftieth of his reign. On his death he showed some consciousness of his own un worthiness; for he desired to be buried in the Abbey of St. Benoit on the Loire, and not in the Abbey of St. Denis, the usual burial-place of the French kings, being, as he said, too great a sinner to presume to lay his bones by those of the great martyr. By his first wife, Bertha of Holland, he had — (1.) Louis, who succeeded him. (2.) Constance, married Boe- mond, prince of Antioch. By Bertrade he had — (3.) Philip. (4.) Fleury. (5.) Cecilia, married, first, Tancrcd, nephew to Boemond of Antioch; and, secondly, Alphonso of Tripoli, son of Baymond of Toulouse. Philip was the first French king who altered the coin. In his time a species of money was circulated, which was nothing more than a piece of leather, in the centre of which was stuck a small silver nail. The sovereignty of the crown of France did not at this time ex- tend over more than a district of between thirty and forty square leagues, of which Paris was the capital city, and Orleans the next in importance. The monarchy had now reached its lowest state of de- basement, and from this time it began to rise ; and you will see it increase in power and dominion in every succeeding century. Conv. PHILIP I. 73 CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER IX. Richard. I should like to know how the rest of France was disposed of, since the king had so little of it. Mrs. Markham. The country was at that time subject to such per- petual changes that it is almost impossible to define the limits of every separate state ; but, as nearly as their relative proportions can now be made out, France, in the eleventh century, was divided as follows : — The sovereignty of the king extended over a territory equal to about five of the present departments ; the count of Vermandois in Picardy had two ; the count of Boulogne, one ; the earl of Flanders, four ; the two families of Champagne and Blois, six ; the duke of Burgundy, three ; the duke of Bretagne, five ; the count of Poitiers, seven ; the count of Anjou, three ; the duchy of Normandy, five ; the duchies of Guienne and Aquitaine might be estimated at twenty- four. The emperor of Germany and the count of Toulouse shared the sovereignty of Lorraine, part of Burgundy, and the ancient king- dom of Provence ; and these were about equal to twenty-one depart- ments. Thus we have accounted for the whole of the eighty-six departments into which modern France is divided. Of these, Anjou, Poitiers, Guienne, and Aquitaine, were at one time, as well as Nor- mandy, possessed by the kings of England, and they together were equal to thirty-nine departments. George. It seems to me, mamma, that those old kings of England were very clever fellows. At least they were a great deal cleverer than the kings of Franco. Mrs. M. I do not, on the whole, greatly admire the characters of the Norman race of kings; however, I agree with you that they appear to great advantage compared to the Capetian kings. The Normans were a bold and enterprising people, and united in an eminent degree great activity of body with ardour of mind ; and they were not only masters of England, and of a large part of France, but had also obtained a considerable settlement in Italy. George. Pray, let us hear how they got it. Mrs. M. About the year 1017, some Norman pilgrims to Rome were invited by pope Benedict VIII. to attempt the conquest of a part of Apulia, which still remained under the yoke of the Greek empire. Tins enterprise they gladly undertook ; and being at dif- ferent times assisted by parties of their countrymen, they formed a settlement, which, after a century of combats, was the foundation of the Norman kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Richard. What did they mean by Two Sicilies ? Was the island then divided into two ? Mrs. M. The kingdom of Naples was at that time denominated Fbance. e 74 PHILIP I. Chap. IX. one of the Sicilies ; the island, of course, was the other. About the year 1053 the Normans in Apulia greatly increased their power by a victory which they gained over the pope, Leo IX., who had wished to drive them out of Italy. The Normans were at that time com- manded by Eobert Guiscard, or the Bobber. He was one of the twelve sons of Tancred de Hautville, a descendant from Eollo, and seems to have inherited much of the powerful mind of his great ancestor. He took the pope prisoner ; and though he treated him with the most profound personal respect, yet he would not release him till he had obtained from him the investiture of the dukedom of Apulia, which he had in part conquered, and also that of Calabria and Sicily, which he hoped to conquer. It does not appear that Leo had any right to bestow these territories ; but it sufficiently answered the purpose of Guiscard that he should assume it. Qeorge. Then pray, mamma, whom did these territories really belong to ? Mrs. M. Sicily belonged to the Saracens ; they having conquered it some time in the seventh century, and having remained its undis- turbed masters till 1038, when the emperor of Constantinople made an attempt to get it from them. He did not, however, succeed ; and Robert Guiscard and his brothers, after a ten years' struggle, got possession of it. Mary. I think that Guiscard had not his name of Robber fcr nothing. Mrs. M. As for Calabria, I can scarcely tell you whom it belonged to. The Saracens and the two emperors of the East and the West were contending for it at one and the same time ; at last the Nor- mans subdued them all, and in 1080 Robert Guiscard was again invested by the pope with the provinces of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, which he held as fiefs of the holy see. He died in 1085, having, a short time before his death, gained a great victory at sea over the Greeks. Richard. He must have been a stout old fellow to go fighting on for so many years. Mrs. M. He had a son named Boemond, who was what, I suppose, you would call another stout old fellow. He served in the crusade under Godfrey of Bouillon ; and when the city of Antioch was won from the Turks, he was made prince of it. He was, however, so closely beset on all sides by both Turks and Greeks, that he had great difficulty in keeping possession of his principality. He ardently desired to return to Sicily to procure a supply of soldiers, but the difficulty was how to get there. At last he hit upon a most singular expedient to elude the vigilance of his enemies. Mary. I suppose he put on some strange disguise. Mrs. M. He dared not trust to any disguise. He caused it to be Conv. PHILIP I. 75 reported that he was dead, and, having procured a coffin, bored with holes, which would enable him to breathe, he got into it, and or- dered his attendants to request leave of the Turks and of the emperor of Constantinople to carry their dead master's body through their territories to be buried in Europe. Leave being given, he was carried in this manner till he got to Corfu, where he believed himself beyond the reach of his enemies. He then got out of his coffin, and sent a message back to Alexis to say, that " the prince of Antioch was alive, and as much his enemy as ever." George. And how did it end ? Mrs. M. It ended in his keeping his word with the emperor almost to the last. He returned from Italy with reinforcements, and kept up a constant hostility against Alexis, till a short time before his death in 1111, when, Ins army being in danger of starvation, he con- sented to an amicable treaty. Richard. Was that the same emperor Alexis who gave William of Poitiers the false guides. Mrs. M. It was. I think you never heard of a more shocking piece of treachery. Mary. But if the crusaders behaved so ill to him, it could not be supposed that he would be very fond of them. Mrs. M. There doubtless were very great faults on both sides. The conduct of the Latins (as the Europeans were called in the East) was in many instances very unpardonable. They treated the em- peror and his people with undisguised contempt. A young Norman knight had one day the insolence to place himself on the imperial throne in the emperor's presence : he was, however, reproved by his superior officer, and made to descend. It is said that another of the Latins slew, out of sheer insolence, a tame lion which was a great favourite with the emperor. When the crusaders crossed into Asia, they chose to believe that all the inhabitants were Turks, and thus Christians and infidels alike suffered from their ferocity. After this you will not be surprised that they were considered and treated as enemies wherever they came. Richard. I only wonder how any of them were allowed to get away alive. Mrs. M. It appears that very few except the nobles escaped. Mary. Had the Turks more compassion on them than on the others ? Mrs. M. I believe the reason was, that the nobles were always well mounted and well armed. The great mass of the soldiers were serfs, who were drawn from their peaceful homes to swell the train of their lords, who vied with one another in the number of their followers. These poor people marched on foot, and were slightly armed, having only a sword and a buckler. They had therefore E 2 76 PHILIP I. Chap. IX. neither means of defence nor of flight, and fell at the first onset with the enemy, like chaff before the wind. Richard. Pray, mamma, is there not some very fine poem about the crusades ? Mrs. M. You mean, probably, the l Jerusalem Delivered/ It is an Italian poem written by Tasso, and is one of the most beautiful in any language. George. I think you once told us, mamma, that the English first used crests and coats of arms in the crusades ; did the French also use them ? Mrs. M. They were in use among all the crusaders, and it was the business of the heralds of the army to make themselves acquainted with the different bearings of the different chiefs. Richard. And did the French continue to use them after they came home, as the English did ? Mrs. M. Yes, just like the English ; and the custom was imme- diately adopted by all the nobles throughout France, as creating an additional barrier between themselves and the middle classes, who, from their increasing riches and numbers, were, to use a homely phrase, fast trea-iing on the heels of the nobility. George. That must have made those proud lords very angry. Mrs. M. Many causes had combined to bring the upper and mid- dle classes nearer together. Among the chief of these causes we may reckon the crusades, which had been so greatly conducive to enrich the commoners at the expense of the nobles. Many of those who had allowed their serfs to purchase their freedom were displeased when they returned home at finding how much they had diminished their own power by having thus allowed their former dependants to escape from their rule. They therefore combined to maintain their own personal dignity and importance by every artificial means in their power, and assumed family surnames, as well as family coats of arms, as a further distinction between themselves and the middle classes. Richard. Could the merchants and those sort of people be made knights at the time you are speaking of? Mrs. M. Certainly not, according to the laws of knighthood ; nor could any one who was not of noble birth be admitted to enter the lists at a tournament. George. Were there tournaments, then, in France, so long ago ? Mrs. M. The French claim the honour of inventing them, and the inventor is said to have been a certain Geofifry de Pruilly, about the middle of the eleventh century. But in all proba- bility the tournament was only an improvement on the warlike games which the chivalrous customs of the times had introduced amongst the young men, who were accustomed to assemble in little CONV. PHILIP I. 77 parties from two or more neighbouring castles to make friendly trials of their skill. By degrees these trials at arms came to be attended with more and more pomp and ceremony, till at last they became almost affairs of state. Pruilly, however, seems to have the just credit of inventing, if not the tournament itself, at least the laws and ceremonies by which it was conducted. Qeorge. And do you know what the laws were ? Mrs. M. They were so many and so minute, that I can only at- tempt to tell you a few of the most important. The chief object of the competitors in these mock combats was to unhorse each other, and not to wound. It was therefore against the laws for a com- batant to be fastened to his saddle, or to use any deadly weapons. George. Then what weapons were they to use? Mrs. M. Lances, staffs, and sometimes wooden swords. This law, I believe, was not very strictly kept, as we often read of the knights being wounded, and severely too, with sharp swords. Richard. It always seems very surprising how they could fight, and gallop and wheel about, cased in all that armour. Mrs. M. I am still more surprised at the horses, how they could move with all those trappings. 1 These tournaments were so exactly suited to the temper of the French, that their fondness for them became almost a madness. Even the ladies used to be present at them, and entered with the greatest vivacity into the success of the several combatants. They would encourage their favourite knights by decking them with ribands and scarfs from their own dress, and during a long and anxious combat the poor ladies would appear at last almost stripped of their finery, which was seen tied to the armour of the com- batants. In time the cost of these tournaments was carried to an inordi- nate excess; and there are many in- stances in which a French noble has been contented to end his days in dis- tress, and to consign his children to poverty and obscurity, for the sake of giving a splendid tournament. Their dress and the equipment of them- selves and their horses were enormously expensive. There were some who car- ried their folly so far as to have the Long-toed shoes. shields they used on those occasions set with jewels. George. Well ! I think that is the most foolish piece of vanity I ever heard of ! See the vignette at the head of Chapter VIII. 78 PHILIP I. Chap. IX. Mrs. M. I can tell you of another still more foolish. There came up about this time a fashion of wearing immense peaks to the shoes. It was invented by the earl of Anjou, Bertrade's first husband, to hide some strange deformity in his feet. The fashion was imme- diately adopted in France, and the Normans brought it over to England. An old French writer tells us, that they were worn two feet in length, and shaped like the tails of scorpions. The same writer tells us also that in a battle between the Greeks and some Norman knights, the latter were invincible as long as they remained upon their horses : but that when dismounted they became a certain prey to their enemies, being rendered perfectly helpless by the length of their shoes, which hindered them from walking except with the perpetual danger of falling down at every step. in the Dress of the Fifteenth Century. See p. 217. A.D. II08. LOUIS VI. 79 CHAPTER X. LOUIS Vl. ; SURNAMED LE GROS. Yeaes after Christ, 1108 — 113 7. The Oriflamme. Louis, who had been associated in the crown at the age of eighteen or twenty, was about thirty years old when his father died. He had no taste for learning, nor any political talents ; but he had what was far better, a good heart, an inflexible love of justice, a 8o LOUIS VI. Chap. X. friendly disposition, and a gay and cheerful temper. It might, however, be said of him, that his love of justice was on some occa- sions too inflexible, and led Mm to punish offenders with excessive rigour, and to oppose violence with violence. He was naturally brave and exceedingly active, nor did he allow his corpulence, which was such as to acquire him the surname of le Gros, or the Fat, to render him indolent. He never relaxed in his vigilance, nor in his endeavours to protect the weaker part of his subjects from the oppressions of the rich : he was almost continually engaged in petty wars against his nobles ; and while he was with his army, he lived with his soldiers more like their comrade than their king, partaking of the same hardships and exposing himself to the same dangers. I have already said, that the great lords in the neighbourhood of Paris, taking advantage of the supineness of the late king, had many of them sought to repair their lessened fortunes by turning robbers. Their castles were filled with armed men, who were continually on the watch for travellers, whom they attacked and robbed, and some- times murdered. If a rich merchant was so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of these marauders, he was imprisoned in the castle dungeon, and tortured till he would agree to pay such ransom as the lord of the castle chose to demand. Louis had endeavoured during his father's lifetime to repress these practices, and as soon as he was established on the throne he set him- self diligently to punish the offenders. He found this, however, a very difficult task ; for no sooner was one subdued than another rose up in his place. He had hoped to win over one of the most powerful of these depredators, by causing his own brother Philip to marry his daughter and heiress. But Philip joined with his father-in-law, and thus the king had two enemies where he before had one. In a few years Louis found himself called on to attack a more distant enemy. Henry I. of England, having unjustly seized on Normandy, kept his unfortunate brother Eobert in perpetual imprisonment, and obliged his son William to fly for safety and protection to the king of France. Louis readily granted William the protection he sought, and in 1119, being joined by many nobles, alarmed by the increasing power of Henry, who had built the castle of Gisors to overawe the frontier, marched with a con- siderable army into Normandy. A battle was fought between the two monarchs at Brenneville, which terminated to the advantage of the English. The loss was not great on either side. Owing to the eagerness of each party to take their enemies alive, for the sake of their ransoms, only three knights were slain. A peace was after- wards effected between the two kings by the good offices of pope Calixtus II., who was at that time in France, having fled from the a.d. H32. LOUIS VI. disturbances in Italy, occasioned by the contest, which was still as violent as ever, between the emperor Henry V. and the cardinals. In 1124 the war again broke out between Louis and the king of England, aided by the emperor of Germany, who had married his daughter Matilda. The emperor was glad to be revenged on Louis for the protection he had given to Calixtus, and set about preparing for the invasion of France. Louis had no means within his own small territory of repelling so powerful a foe ; he therefore unfurled the oriflamme, a banner which was kept with great veneration in the abbey of St. Denis, the patron saint of France, to be brought forth only on the most important emergencies. The unfurling of the oriflamme called on all the feudal retainers of France, from one end of the country to the other, to assemble round their king, and to follow him to the war. The summons was promptly obeyed, and Louis found himself, almost as it were in- stantaneously, at the head of 200,000 fighting men. The intended invasion, however, never took place, the emperor dying in 1125. A short time before his death he had made peace with Calixtus, who returned to Eome, and tranquillity was for a time restored to Italy. In the year 1127 Louis bestowed on William, the young prince of Normandy, the earldom of Flanders, to which indeed he had a claim in right of his grandmother Matilda, the wife of the Conqueror. But William had a very short enjoyment of his earldom. He died in consequence of a neglected wound, while yet in the flower of his age. In 1131 Louis had the misfortune to lose his eldest son, a very promising youth, who had been crowned about two years before. The manner of this prince's death exposes to us the neglected and filthy state in which the streets of Paris were then suffered to be kept. The streets were very narrow, and full of dirt and rubbish, and pigs were allowed to range about in them. One of these pigs ran against the horse which the young prince was riding, and caused him to fall ; and the rider was so severely hurt as only to survive a few hours. On this occasion an order was issued declaring that no pigs should be in future suffered in the streets. The monks of the Abbey of St. Anthony remonstrated against this order, and an especial permission was given to their pigs to run in the streets, provided they had bells about their necks. The death of his eldest son caused such inexpressible grief to Louis, that he was for a time too much overpowered by it to be able to attend to public affairs. In 1132 he crowned his next son, Louis, who was then only twelve years old. Antiquaries conjecture that it was upon this occasion that the peers of France were reduced in number, and limited to twelve. E 3 82 LOUIS VI. Chap. X. With advancing life, the king became exceedingly corpulent, and his constitution was fast breaking down. In 1134 he was seized with an alarming illness, and, believing his end approaching, he was anxious to be reconciled to his enemies and to die in peace with all the world. Contrary to expectation he recovered, and lived three years afterwards; but his resolutions survived the first alarm of his illness, and he passed these last three years in tranquillity. The death of Henry of England, in 1136, delivered him from his most formidable enemy ; and Stephen, who seized on England and Normandy, was too much occupied in defending himself against Matilda and her husband Geoifry to have time to turn his attention towards France. Geoffry Plantagenet was so much disliked by the Normans, who knew his violent and unfeeling temper, that they gladly acknow- ledged Stephen as their duke. William the Tenth, duke of Aquitaine, took the part of Geoffry, and joined him in making an invasion of Normandy ; but the dreadful excesses committed by these invaders only confirmed the Normans in their detestation of Geoffry, who was obliged to retire into Anjou. Upon Geoffry's death, however, in 1151, the Normans acknowledged his son Henry as their duke. In the mean time the recollection of the cruelties which he had committed in the invasion of Normandy dwelt on the mind of the duke of Aquitaine. The best measure he could devise to relieve the burden of his troubled conscience was to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, in Spain. He set about arrang- ing all his affairs before he went, and believed that he had provided for the security both of Ins family and his dominions, by giving Eleanor, his eldest daughter and heiress, in marriage to Louis, the eldest son of the king of France. William proceeded on his pilgrim- age, and died in the church of Compostella during the performance of divine service. The marriage of Louis of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine and Guienne was celebrated at Bordeaux with all suitable pomp ; but as the youthful couple were on their way to Paris, they were met at Poitiers by messengers with the news of the king's death. Louis le Gros died August 1, 1137, and never was a king of France more sincerely lamented, particularly by the poorer classes of his subjects, whose friend and protector he had always been. He died in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and the thirtieth of his reign. When young, his father had made him marry a sister of the cruel Hugh de Cressy ; but he divorced her as soon as he was his own master. In 1115 he married Adelaide of Savoy, by whom he had six sons and one daughter : — (1.) Philip, who died in consequence of a fall from his horse. a.d. 113 7. LOUIS VI. 83 (2.) Louis, succeeded his father. (3.) Robert, count of Dreux. (4.) Peter, married the heiress of the Courtenays. (5.) Henry, ecclesi- astic. (6.) Philip, ecclesiastic. Constance, married, first, Eustace count of Boulogne; secondly, Raymond V., count of Toulouse. Louis, during his wars with the barons, found that the strength of his government lay amongst the merchants and townspeople, and he therefore united his interests with theirs against the nobles, and granted the towns many valuable charters and immunities, which tended to deliver the citizens from the excessive tyranny of their immediate feudal superiors. One of the clauses in these charters fully proves how much the citizens stood in need of pro- tection. It was this : — That all criminals should, if found guilty, be punished according to the established law of the land, and not according to the will or caprice of their lord. The citizens were glad to avail themselves of the good inclination of the king towards them, to procure charters for forming them- selves into communes, which was another word for associations for mutual defence. It was the practice of these communes to elect from amongst themselves a chief magistrate, whose business it was to watch over the safety of the rest, who were all to assist him in time of danger. The formation of these communes was strenuously opposed by the nobles, whose despotic sway they greatly abridged; and they were one chief cause that lengthened out the wars between them and the king. Some writers give Louis more merit than he probably deserved in regard to the charters which he granted to the towns, and say that they proceeded from his love of freedom and justice ; but the proba- bility is, that he was induced to grant them for the sake of weaken- ing the power of the nobility, and also for the sake of the money which the citizens were willing to give for their enfranchisement ; and it is singular that he would not allow communes to his own good towns of Paris and Orleans. Whatever were the king's motives, the effect was eminently bene- ficial. The people began to feel themselves no longer at the mercy of capricious and often cruel masters. Arts, sciences, and commerce flourished ; waste lands were brought into cultivation ; the chains of slavery were broken. In another century freedom spread from the towns into the country districts, and the peasants were no longer bought and sold with the trees that grew on the soil. In the course of time the cities became so rich and powerful that it was thought necessary to admit deputies from the communes into the general assemblies of the nation, which till then could only be attended by nobles and prelates. But the proper date of these last great changes 84 LOUIS VI. Chap. X. is the fourteenth century, and I shall have to speak of them again in their place. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER X. George. I am afraid it is a foolish kind of curiosity, but I cannot help puzzling myself with thinking what sort of tortures those wicked barons inflicted on their rich prisoners. Mrs. Markham. It is not a species of knowledge that will give you either pleasure or instruction. However, that you may not jmzzle yourself any longer, I will describe to you one of their common modes of torture. The unfortunate wretch was laid on his back on the ground, and heavy weights were heaped upon him till he agreed to pay the ransom that was demanded. Richard. But suppose he would not agree, what was done then ? Mrs. M. Then more weights were heaped upon him till he died. Mary. Oh, mamma, how horrible! I do not wonder the king wanted to rid the country of such cruel people. Richard. Indeed I think that it was high time to place the people under the protection of the law, and to deliver them from the caprice and tyranny of the nobles. Mrs. M. Amongst the many great changes which about this time took place in the condition of society, there was none more remark- able than the increasing taste for learning which was to be observed, more or less, among all ranks of people ; at least among all who were raised above poverty. Richard. Was Louis an encourager of learning? Mrs. M. He had no taste for learning himself. He had been left, rather through carelessness than indulgence, to follow, when a child, his own inclinations, which led him, as I have already said, to chivalrous sports rather than to study. The chief cause that en- couraged learning in this reign was, that, the sale of benefices being considerably if not totally checked, the road to church preferment became effectually opened to all who were eminent for learning or virtue. Low birth, which was an exclusion from other dignities, was no bar to advancement in the church. This gave a great stimulus to the middle classes. The schools were filled with students, and this love of study had an extraordinary effect upon the manners of the inhabitants of the towns, who became infinitely more civilized than formerly. George. That was just as it ought to be; because you know, mamma, papa was telling us this very day that the word civilization is borrowed from citizen. Richard. Were there any very great men amongst the scholars of this time ? Conv. LOUIS VI. 85 Mrs. M. I believe I may name two who were very eminent ; one was the Abbe Suger, and the other was Abelard. Suger is spoken of as being one of the wisest and most virtuous ministers that ever governed France under any of her kings. He was of obscure birth and of an unprepossessing appearance, but had made use of no unworthy arts to procure his advancement. He was abbe of St. Denis, and chief counsellor to Louis le Gros, and afterwards to his son Louis VLT. He was a man of uncommon learning, and pos- sessed, what is perhaps still more rare, an excellent judgment in the affairs of life. Abelard, the other great genius of this age, was a teacher of rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. So numerous was the concourse of scholars who flocked to hear him, that he was obliged to deliver his lectures in the open air, no hall in Paris being found capacious enough to contain his audience. Richard. Did the nobles flock to hear these lectures, or were the students chiefly of the middle classes ? Mrs. M. I do not suppose that Abelard had many nobles amongst his scholars. The nobility appear to have left the more serious studies to the inferior classes, and to have devoted themselves almost exclusively to poetry and romances. An acquaintance with the writings of the troubadours and trouveres was now becoming a necessary part of the education of gentlemen, and of ladies also. Mary. Pray, mamma, who were the troubadours and the trou- veres f Mrs. M. They were poets and romance- writers. The earliest troubadours were natives of Provence, who, instead of writing in Latin, composed songs in their native dialect. They were in general persons of no education, but had the happy art of fascinating their hearers by the harmony and simplicity of their verses. From this time the Provencal, or language of Provence, became the language of poetry, and, for the space of two or three centuries, was uni- versally studied and admired. At length it ceased all of a sudden to be cultivated, and it is now almost forgotten, at least as a written language, although it may still be traced in the provincial dialects which are spoken in the south of France. One of the singularities of the poetry of the troubadours, and what made it, I sujDpose, so captivating to every ear, was, that it was written in rhyme, which they were the first to introduce into France, and which they are sup- posed to have learnt from the Arabians. Mary. It is very odd that they could not find out rhyme for themselves ; it seems to me the most natural thing in the world. Richard. Is there any of the poetry of the troubadours now existing ? Mrs. M. There are, I understand, immense numbers of Provencal manuscripts preserved in the Eoyal Library at Paris, but the Ian- 86 LOUIS VI. Chap. X. guage is so obsolete that they are unintelligible to most readers. 1 have met with translations of some of the songs of the troubadours, which appeared to me very flat and tedious, being chiefly compli- ments to the beauty, or complaints of the cruelty, of the ladies whom they pretended to admire. The troubadours were the greatest of all flatterers, and that probably made their poetry so delightful to those for whom it was written. They led wandering lives, and roved about at their pleasure, and were welcomed wherever they went. Mary. And pray, mamma, who were the trouveres ? Mrs. M. They were the poets of the north of France. Their songs were written in the French Wallon language, which, as I have be- fore remarked, is the original language from which modern French is derived. The troubadours wrote only poetry ; but the trouveres were not only poets, but also wrote prose romances ; the name of trouveres, which signifies finders or inventors, being intended to dis- tinguish them from the writers and compilers of true histories and chronicles. The first French romances were written by Normans. Mary. Was nobody allowed to make verses or stories except the regular troubadours and trouveres ? Mrs. M. Anybody who could might be a troubadour, and when the Provencal poetry became so much admired, many persons wrote verses for their amusement who were not poets by profession. Wil- liam of Poitiers, of whom I have spoken to you as the leader of the second warlike expedition to the Holy Land, was a very famous troubadour in his day. A taste for poetry was at one time carried to such an excess amongst the higher orders, that every lady who was eminent for her rank or beauty had her poet. And while the gentlemen had their tournaments and trials at arms, the ladies had what they called their courts of love and their trials of wit. At these meetings all poets were challenged to appear and to recite their verses ; judges were appointed to decide on the merits of the com- petitors ; and prizes were given to the successful poet with infinite parade and pomp. In these courts, a lady of the highest rank always presided, and they formed what might be called the dissipation of fashionable life in that period, and were the resort of all the frivolous characters of both sexes. In time they assumed a still greater solem- nity, and became petty courts of justice for the settling of difficult cases of precedency, and of nice points in etiquette, and sometimes for the trial of graceless lovers. The discussions at these assemblies were so trivial and ridiculous, and their sentences awarded with so much parade and pomposity, that we are now puzzled to determine whether they were meant as a jest or whether they were held in real seriousness. Bichard. What you said about young William of Normandy brought to my recollection your history of king Henry I. in the His- Conv. LOUIS VI. 87 tory of England ; and I cannot help thinking, that the death of his own son, who, you know, was drowned, must have been a judgment upon him for his cruelty to his nephew. Mrs. M. The ways of God are so inscrutable to man, that it is pre- sumptuous in us, blind and erring mortals, to say how his judgments fall. What appear like adversities may, if they bring us nearer to God, be in reality blessings: while prosperity may be more fre- quently sent us as a trial of our virtue than as a mark of favour. It is remarkable, however, that a particular circumstance occurred to induce the king to send his son in a different ship from the one which he himself embarked in ; and we may, I think, justly acknow- ledge in it the express hand of God, who was about to take the prince, while young and innocent, from the evil to come, and to leave the king a little space for repentance. Mary. I don't remember, mamma, the circumstance to which you allude. Mrs. M. It is not named in the account I formerly gave you of the young prince's death : I only met with it in a history of France a few days since. When Henry was on the point of embarking for England, a man of Barfleur came to him to claim the privilege of conveying him in his ship. The father of this man had been the owner of the vessel in which William the Conqueror had embarked when he made the conquest of England; and he said that William had promised that the right of conveying the future kings of Eng- land across the sea should be hereditary in his family. The man further pleaded that he had fitted out a gallant vessel, which he called the white ship, for this express occasion. Henry, unwilling to disappoint so zealous a servant, consented that the prince and his retinue should embark on board his vessel. They did so, and you know what followed. 88 LOUIS VII. Chap. XI. CHAPTER XI. LOUIS VII., SURNAMED LE JEUNE. Years after Christ, 113 7 — 11 80. .UEWItl.DtL.YSC. Nave of Notre Dame, Paris. Louis, at his accession, was eighteen years old. He possessed from nature many amiable qualities, amongst winch was a tenderness of a.d.i 142. LOUIS VII. 89 feeling, very unlike that hardness and brutality of character which was prevalent in the times he lived in. He was very devout, but unhappily his piety chiefly showed itself in superstitious observ- ances, and not in that religion of the heart by which the moral con- duct is regulated. His talents were very moderate, and had received little improvement from education ; he was, however, notwithstand- ing his many errors and weaknesses, greatly beloved by his subjects ; and a contemporary writer thus speaks of him : " He was a man of fervent devotion towards God, and of an extreme gentleness to his subjects ; full of veneration for the clergy, but more simple than be- came a king : and confiding too much in the counsels of artful and dishonest men, he left more than one stain on his otherwise praise- worthy name." In the early part of his life he displayed a degree of courage and animation which served to conceal the deficiencies of his understand- ing ; but in after-life, when by the death of Suger and other wise counsellors he was obliged to rely upon his own judgment, those deficiencies became but too apparent ; especially when he was called into competition with Henry II. of England, the most politic and long-sighted monarch at that time in Europe. In the early part of the young king's reign, he chiefly occupied himself in chivalrous amusements, leaving the affairs of the nation to be conducted by Suger. In 1142 Louis became entangled in a dispute with pope Innocent II. concerning the right of investiture to the benefices in France, which Innocent assumed to himself. Louis also drew on himself another enemy in Thibaud earl of Champagne. Thibaud's sister had been married to the count of Vermandois, and Louis made the count, who was Ins own cousin, divorce her, and marry Petronilla, the sister of queen Eleanor, to prevent her dower from falling into the hands of any one who would interfere with the interests of France. Thibaud immediately commenced hostilities against the king and the count of Vermandois. Louis marched into Champagne, and took the castle of Vitry, which he afterwards set on fire, meaning only to destroy the for- tress ; but the flames, raging more fiercely than he had expected, spread to the town, and burnt down a church, into which a great number of the inhabitants had fled for refuge. The king, who was near enough to hear the shrieks of the dying wretches, and to see their half-consumed bodies, was struck with so much remorse and horror at this shocking scene, that he gave up the war and made peace with Thibaud. Normandy was at this time the scene of a destructive war between the house of Anjou and Stephen of England. The south of France was also distracted by the contending claims of the descendants of 90 LOUIS VII. Chap. XI. the female branches of some of the great families which had become extinct in the male line. On a sudden all private quarrels were suspended, and all domestic concerns forgot. Accounts were received from Palestine that the Turks had taken Edessa, a town to the north of the Euphrates, part of the new kingdom of Jerusalem, and had massacred all the Christians whom they found there. This intelligence spread universal consternation. A new crusade was immediately determined on, and was advocated with great earnestness by the king, assisted by St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, a man revered for his wisdom and sanctity, and whom the people were so much accustomed to consult on all occasions, that he might be called the oracle of France. Though sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, he appeared at a meeting held at Vezelay, in 1146, and urged the people with so much effect to take the cross, that the cry of " The cross ! the cross ! " resounded on all sides. Crosses were to be fastened on the sleeves of those who en- gaged to join the crusade. These Louis and the abbot undertook to distribute ; and the ardour for the crusade was so great, that they were obliged at last to cut up their cloaks to supply the demands of the immense number of people who flocked about them asking for crosses. Eleanor, as well as Louis, took the cross, and all were to be in readiness to depart for Palestine in the spring of the year 1147. St. Bernard, having roused France, next traversed Germany, and at last prevailed on the emperor Conrad ILL, though somewhat re- luctant, to take the cross. The wise Suger did all in his power to prevent Louis from en- gaging in this mad and destructive undertaking ; but, seeing that his endeavours were of no use, he made a virtue of necessity, and lent his aid in forwarding the expedition. A meeting was held at Estampes early in 1147, for the purpose of arranging the plan of the route. All the experienced warriors were desirous to go by sea, as being the most expeditious and the least hazardous course ; but the king, being young and vainglorious, thought lightly of the dangers of the passage by land, and would not listen to their sage counsel. His nobles also, who hoped to maintain their troops by plunder on their march, opposed the going by sea, and it was accordingly set- tled that they should follow the usual route, through Germany and Hungary to Constantinople. The feast of Pentecost, 1147, was the day fixed for the departure of the army, and Louis employed the intermediate time in preparing himself for his holy work by exercises of devotion. On the eve of the day appointed, he repaired to St. Denis. The oriflamme was presented to him with great solemnity by the abbot ; and Louis, to show that he intended to visit the Holy Land more as a pilgrim A.D. H47. LOUIS VII. than as a soldier, put on a pilgrim's scrip, which had been sent him by the pope. The remainder of the day he spent in monkish observances, and passed the night in one of the cells of the Abbey. The next day he and the queen departed for Metz, the place of rendezvous. Conrad and his Germans, who were already set out, met with a series of continued disasters, chiefly occasioned by their own miscon- duct. The French, taking warning by their misfortunes, observed better discipline during their march, and arrived in tolerable order at Constantinople, where the emperor Manuel, grandson of Alexis Comnenus, though very far from being rejoiced at their coming, yet received them with courtesy. After a short rest, the French army proceeded to Nice on its way to Antioch. To Antioch there were two roads. One, of about twelve days' journey, lay across the mountains, and through the midst of the enemy's country; the other road was much more circuitous, but more secure, and led along the sea-shore. Conrad had chosen the short but more hazardous way ; and the first news Louis heard on his arrival at Nice was that the Germans had been totally cut to pieces by the Turks. Only the emperor and his nephew Frederic Barbarossa, with a few followers, escaped the general slaughter by the fleetness of their horses. This dreadful catastrophe determined Louis to pursue the safer road by the coast. The way was tedious, and at last, being weary of following all its sinuosities, he resolved, when he reached the river Maeander, to brave all the dangers of the inland country, and to take a short cut from thence to Satalia. On this new route he had not advanced far, when he saw the Turks drawn up in order of battle on the other side of a ford which the army was just about to cross. The gallant crusaders plunged into the water, amidst a shower of arrows, and attacked the enemy at the very water's edge, and soon put them to flight. Their elation at this victory did not last long, for as they proceeded their difficulties increased ; the country be- came more mountainous, and they were perpetually harassed by the flying troops of the enemy. Beyond Laodicea they entered on nar- row defiles, and were obliged to march in two separate bodies. One day the van had been ordered to halt in a commanding situation till the rear, in which was the king, should come up ; but the leader, seeing a pleasant valley, disobeyed his orders, and descended into it. By this ill-judged movement, the two divisions of the Christian army were shut out from each other ; and the Turks, who from the heights above watched all their motions, took advantage of it to attack the rear, and made a dreadful slaughter. The king escaped with the greatest difficulty, antl with the loss of all his provisions and baggage. 92 LOUIS VII. Chap. XL The relics of this great army were now in a miserable condition, in an unknown country, without provisions and without guides, for wherever they appeared the people fled, and they found only de- serted villages. In this terrible dilemma the soldiery, seeing the ignorance and incapacity of their leaders, determined, as the only means of pre- servation, to give the command, without any consideration of rank, to the best man they could find. Their choice fell on a poor knight, who is only known to us by the name of Gilbert. This Gilbert justified their choice. He conducted them safely during twelve days through many dangers, by intricate ways, and over rivers, in the face of the enemy, whom he attacked and defeated. When he had brought the army in safety to Satalia, he considered his task as finished, and, resigning his command, resumed his private station. Satalia is a small seaport about three days' sail from Antioch. The journey by land is much longer. When Louis arrived here, he found only vessels enough to convey himself and his nobles, and he felt reluctant to abandon his poor soldiers to encounter difficulties which he did not share with them. He was, however, persuaded to embark, taking with him almost all his nobles, and all the horses he had left. The count of Flanders remained to conduct the army by land, and 500 Greek horsemen were procured to be their guides. These forsook them at the first sight of the Turks, and the French returned once more to Satalia, whence the count of Flanders, having obtained a vessel, sailed after the king. The soldiers were left a prey to fatigue, hunger, and the swords of the Turks, and all perished miserably, excepting 3000, who, to preserve their lives, renounced their religion and became Mahomedans. Louis in the mean time arrived safely at Antioch, but his stay there was rendered very uncomfortable by his disagreements with the queen, which were fomented by the artifices of the count of Antioch, who was her uncle. The count endeavoured to prevail on Louis to undertake some enterprise against the Turks ; but Louis resisted all his entreaties, and, more bent on accomplishing his pilgrimage than on making conquests, went to perform his devotions at the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem. His vow being fulfilled, he had now nothing to detain him, but he lingered one year in Palestine, as if reluctant to show himself in France a defeated and a dishonoured man. At last the pressing instances of Suger, who informed him that his brother was exciting disturbances in France, induced him to return. Louis reached France in October, 1149, and found himself bitterly reproached by his subjects as the destroyer of the flower of the French chivalry. This grievous reflection on him, and his own self- a.d. 1 1 73. LOUIS VII. 93 accusation, preyed on his mind, and totally altered his temper. His cheerfulness forsook him; and, because he was displeased with himself, he also became displeased with, and morose to, others. He had lost the ardour of inexperienced youth, and that presumptuous courage which he and his flatterers had mistaken for real valour. All his misfortunes, however, failed to teach him discretion. During the remainder of his reign, the precipitancy of his temper often made him rush unprepared into war ; and the same cause often drove him into an impolitic and unstable peace. The disagreement which had for some time subsisted between him and his queen was another cause that soured his temper. At last, in 1152, they were divorced, and Louis at the same time re- signed all the vast dower he had received with her, although he might reasonably have retained a part, as the portions of the two daughters he had by her. Eleanor very soon afterwards married young Henry Plantagenet, who, by the death of his father, was possessed of Normandy, Maine, and Anjou. To these dominions he now, by his marriage with Eleanor, added Guienne and Aquitaine ; and not long afterwards, by the death of king Stephen, he obtained the crown of England. Louis soon discovered that Henry was his superior in sense and talents, as well as in power, and hated him with all his heart. The records of the next twenty years contain little else than the history of wars between these two rival monarchs. During one. of the short intervals of peace that occurred, the kings of France and Eng- land went to Torcy-sur-Loire to receive pope Alexander III., who had fled to France for refuge from fresh troubles in Italy; and each taking a rein of his horse's bridle, they conducted him, with the utmost respect and submission to the lodgings which had been prepared for his reception. Soon after Louis had divorced Eleanor, he married Constance of Castile. She died in 1160, leaving one daughter. He married, a third time, Alice, sister to the earl of Champagne; and in 1165 he had a son, Philip, whom he surnamed Dieudonne, or the Gift of God, but who is better known by the name of Philip Augustus. Louis was glad of every occasion to show his enmity to Henry, and took part against him in his disputes with Thomas a Becket ; and when Henry's sons were grown up, he excited them to rebel against their father. Henry, the eldest, married Margaret, Louis's daughter by Constance. This prince was naturally of a proud and overbearing temper, and was encouraged in his misconduct by his father-in-law. In 1173 Henry's three sons, Henry, Geoffry, and Richard, 1 de- 1 Geoffry had married Constance, the heiress of Bretagne, and was duke of Bretagne. Richard had been made duke of Aquitaine by his father. 94 LOUIS VII. Chap. XI. clared open war against him, and were joined by Louis, who entered Normandy with a strong force. He laid siege to Verneuil; and after a month's siege the garrison agreed to surrender, if in three days no succour should arrive. Two days passed, and Louis thought himself sure of his prize, when news was brought him that Henry was approaching to the relief of the garrison. Louis sent heralds to Henry with pretended negotiations for peace, in hopes to delay his march. The artifice in part succeeded ; and the third day passing over without the expected succour, the men of Verneuil surrendered their town. Louis, perfidious in everything, carried away the principal citizens in chains, contrary to the articles of capitulation : and, setting fire to the town, broke up his camp and hastened towards the frontier of his own territories, in hopes to arrive there before Henry should overtake him; but he was dis- appointed. Henry saw, from a distance, the rising flames and smoke of the burning town, and pursued the retreating foe with so much activity that he soon came up with him, and obliged him to turn his retreat into an ignominious flight. In the year 1174 Louis met with another instance of the ill success that commonly attends perfidy. He was besieging Eouen with a numerous army: the town was well garrisoned and provisioned: and the siege, which had already lasted some months, seemed likely to continue a long time. On the 10th of August, which is St. Lawrence's day, Louis, to do honour to that saint, proclaimed a suspension of arms, which was joyfully accepted by the people of Rouen ; more particularly by the younger part of the inhabitants, who, tired of having been so long cooped up within the walls, went to enjoy themselves by the banks of the river, where they amused themselves with a kind of tournament. The count of Flanders — the same, I believe, who had deserted the poor soldiers at Satalia, and who had, on many other occasions, been the king's bad adviser — seeing that the citizens were wrapt in perfect security, proposed to Louis to take advantage of the con- fidence which they placed in his good faith, and to seize the oppor- tunity of surprising the town. Louis at first rejected with scorn this wicked counsel, but at last he yielded to the temptation, and gave orders for the assault. It happened that a priest of Rouen, who had not been disposed to take any part in the general merri- ment, went to the top of the high tower in which hung the alarm- bell, and thence amused himself with looking down into the enemy's camp. All at once he perceived a prodigious bustle of men in arms hurrying from tent to tent, some of them carrying scaling ladders. He instantly suspected some attempt was intended against the town, and, without losing a moment, began to ring the alarm-bell. The citizens, on hearing it, left their tournament, and hastened into a.d. 1 1 79- LOUIS VII. 95 the town. The gates were shut, the walls manned, and everything was soon in preparation to receive the enemy, who, when they arrived, instead of entering a defenceless city, found themselves vigorously repulsed and driven back. The next day Henry arrived with a numerous army of Brabancons. The gates were now thrown open, and the garrison, no longer obliged to act on the defensive, rushed out to attack Louis in his camp. He did not wait for them, but fled with the utmost precipitation. He and Henry made peace with each other soon afterwards. Louis, in 1179, was desirous of seeing his son Philip crowned, now in his fifteenth year. The ceremony was to have been per- formed with great pomp, in the presence of all the great vassals of France, who were already assembled on the occasion ; but on the day before that on which the ceremony was to have taken place, the young prince, when hunting, got separated from his companions, and was lost in a forest. Here he wandered about all night, and was found in the morning by a man who came to cut wood in the forest, and who conducted him back to his terrified attendants. In con- sequence of the fatigue and cold he had undergone, Philip fell dangerously ill, and the king, who was deeply afflicted by the illness of this his only and long-desired son, made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury, in the hope that his old friend, who was now canonized as a saint, would work a miracle for him, and restore his son to health. Louis was so very anxious to return, that he was absent only five days, and the fatigue and anxiety of his journey occasioned an attack of palsy immediately on his return home. The young prince recovered, and his coronation took place with extraordinary splendour ; but the king was too ill to be present at it. He languished many months in a painful state between life and death. The queen and her brothers, the earls of Champagne and of Blois, were desirous of taking the reins of government in then own hands ; but the prince, even at that early age, displayed a proud and domineering spirit; he withdrew himself from the control of his mother and his uncles, and sought the alliance of the count of Flan- ders, whose niece, Isabella of Hainault, he married, contrary to the wishes of his mother. Philip behaved in other respects so ill to his mother, that the king of England sought an interview with him, and entreated him not to sully his name by undutifulness to her. The count of Flanders was Philip's chief adviser, till the death of Louis put an end to his influence. Philip, as soon as he became his own master, cast off his control, as he had already done that of his own relations. "When Louis was on his deathbed, he caused his money, clothes, and jewels to be brought to him, and distributed them with his own 9 6 LOITIS VII. Chak XI. hands amongst the poor. He died September 18th, 1180, in the six- tieth year of his age, and the forty-third of his reign. He had been married three times : first, to Eleanor of Guienne, by whom he had two daughters : — (1.) Mary, married the earl of Champagne. (2.) Alice, married the earl of Blois. By his second wife, Constance of Castile, he had one daughter :— Margaret, married, first, prince Henry of England, and, secondly, the king of Hungary. By Alice of Champagne he had one son and two daughters : — (1.) Philip, who succeeded him. (2.) Agnes, married Alexis, son of the Greek emperor ; (3.) Alice, betrothed to Eichard of England, married the count of Ponthieu. During this reign the number of communes was increased, and freedom continued to advance by gradual steps. There were now many heretics, or at least persons so called ; and of these the Albigenses seem to have been the most considerable. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XI. Richard. Pray, mamma, why were those people called Albigenses? Mrs. Markham. From a city in Languedoc called Alby, where they first appeared. Richard. And what difference was there between them and other heretics ? Mrs. M. Their opponents accused them of entertaining many very strange and absurd doctrines; but I believe they were greatly wronged, and that in the main they differed but little from the Lol- lards of our own country. In the next chapter you will hear that the pope published a crusade against the Albigenses, and that for many years the hitherto peaceful districts of the south of France became the scene of one of the most cruel and exterminating wars that ever disgraced the annals of any country. The arbitrary tribu- nal of the Inquisition was first instituted during this crusade against the Albigenses. Mary. It was very bad, I think, to have crusades against Turks and those people ; but it was a great deal worse to have crusades against Christians. Mrs. M. The religious spirit of those times was very intolerant, and it was thought more pleasing in the sight of God to persecute a heretic or a Jew than to perform any act of benevolence to a fellow- creature George. And did these crusaders against the Albigenses wear crosses like the real crusaders ? Mrs. M. They made this distinction: that the real crusaders wore Conv. LOUIS VII. 97 their cross upon their left shoulder, and that these wore it on the breast. In their ferociousness, and in their mistaken zeal, they were just alike. It was not only a meritorious act in their eyes to slaugh- ter Turks, Jews, and heretics, but it was thought sinful to show them any compassion. With regard to the Jews, St. Bernard was almost the only man who in those days had courage to advocate their cause. We may hope that his exhortations were not totally thrown away; for a custom was about this time abolished at Beziers, which had long prevailed there, of celebrating Palm Sunday by a general attack on the Jews, or rather, I should say, on the Jews'' houses, since it was not permitted to attack their persons. Mary. And what did they do to their houses ? Mrs. M. They threw stones at them, and they threw them in such quantities, and with such hearty good-will, that sometimes they would knock the houses down ; and when they did, it was always a matter of great rejoicing to the zealous citizens of Beziers. Bichard. But I don't see how a house could be knocked down in that way without the people in it being hurt or killed. Mrs. M. If it happened that a Jew lost his life on these occasions, it added considerably to the satisfaction of the assailants, who did not regard it as any infringement of the law, but as a lucky accident. Richard. Pray, mamma, what made the oriflamme so famous ? Mrs. M. The oriflamme was a banner which belonged to the abbey of St. Denis, and the monks pretended that it had been brought there by an angel from heaven in the time of Clovis. The kings of the house of Capet, who were originally counts of Paris, and held a fief of the abbe of St. Denis, claimed the right of carrying this ban- ner ; and at last Louis le Gros adopted it instead of the banner of St. Martin, which had till then been the royal banner of France. Mary. And did the monks pretend that St. Martin's banner had also come from heaven ? Mrs. M. They did not assign it so high an origin, although they regarded it with great veneration as a precious relic. It was made of a piece of St. Martin's old blue cloak. The oriflamme was made of red silk, and covered with golden flames. It was used till the time of Louis XI., after which it disappeared, and is no more mentioned in history. George. I think, mamma, that Paris must have been a very nasty, duty place, when that young prince was killed by the pig that ran under the horse. Mrs. M. Paris was, in the time of Louis VI. and his son, the worst-built and dirtiest city in France. Richard. I suppose that by that time it had outgrown the little old island in the Seine. Mrs. M. The walled part of the city was still confined to the little France. F LOUIS VII. Chap. XI. old island, but the opposite shores of the river were thickly studded with buildings, which were all connected with the town. Many of these were religious houses ; and the monks, to preserve themselves from the depredations of the neighbouring barons, had been obliged to enclose their premises with strong walls. These enclosures were called closes, and each bore the name of its own monastery. The spots where these closes were are now covered with streets, but the names are sufficiently preserved to enable the Parisian antiquary to trace their respective sites. Richard. I think you said that Louis VI. would not allow Paris and Orleans to have a commune. Was that because those towns were so well off they did not require one ? Mrs. M. I am afraid Louis had not so good a motive. The fact was, he did not choose to make his own people too independent. Paris stood in greater need of the protection of a commune than almost any other town in France, for it was subject to the oppression of three separate masters. Richard. How was that, mamma ? I should have thought that Paris had no other master but the king. Mrs. M. He, as count of Paris, was lord of only the western half of the city; the eastern part belonged to the archbishop; and, besides these two, the prevot, who was a kind of governor or sheriff, had a sort of power over the whole city, and the poor citizens were terribly off amongst them all. "Whenever the king came to Paris, his sergeants had a right to ransack every house, and take whatever they chose for the use of the royal family. Louis VII., although, like his father, he would not agree to their having the privilege of communes, yet granted the Parisians several rights and immunities. Richard. I think the people of Italy were always in a tumult. How often the popes were obliged to come and take refuge in France ! Mrs. M. The schism between the cardinals and the emperors lasted for a very long time. They each insisted on the right to elect the pope ; and the consequence was that there were frequently two popes, who were of course bitter antagonists, each insisting on his own right, and calling the other antipope. About this time the two parties began to be distinguished by the names of Guelphs and Ghibelins. Mary. They were very odd names. Mrs. M. The first, which I believe is German for wolf, was the war-cry of the duke of Bavaria, who fought on the side of the cardi- nals. Ghibelin was the war-cry of the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, and was derived from the name of a village in Franconia, from which his family originally came. George. And which got better ? Mrs. M. At this time the Guelphs got the better. Alexander was Conv. LOUIS VII. 99 acknowledged as the true pope, and he made the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, though a most proud and violent-tempered man, ask his pardon, and prostrate himself on the ground while he set his foot on his neck. George. I would have lost my empire, if I had been Frederic, before I would have submitted to be trampled on in that manner. Mrs. M. Humiliations of that kind were not at all uncommon. Several instances are recorded of nobles who were obliged to make submission to their offended superiors, by coming into their pre- sence on their hands and knees, and with a saddle on their backs. Mary. How very strange many of the old customs were ! Mrs. M. And no customs, you will think, were stranger than some mere amusements. At a royal marriage at the court of Navarre, the princes and princesses were entertained by a spectacle which would now be thought too disgusting to please even a mob at a fair. This was a combat between two blind men and a pig. The men were armed with clubs, and the pig was to be the prize of whichever could knock it on the head. The pig, having the use of its eyes, could generally avoid the blows which were aimed at it, and the blind men, instead of striking the pig, generally hit one another; and in this, it seems, the chief diversion of the sport consisted, to the by-standers at least. If this story illustrates the manners of a court, I can tell you another which gives us a little insight into the man- ners of a monastery. When pope Alexander was in France, he went to pay his devotions in the church of St. Genevieve, at Paris. A splendid carpet was prepared for him to kneel on. When the pope had finished his de- votions and left the church, his attendants and the monks of St. Genevieve quarrelled for the possession of this carpet ; they fell to blows, and the uproar became so great that the king came in person to quell it. But his presence was no restraint on the combatants, who continued their battle with such indiscriminate rage, that even the king himself got his share of the blows, and was obliged to retreat. Richard. And what became of the carpet ? Mrs. M. The monks gained the victory, and carried it off in triumph. But their triumph was short ; for, when the pope saw how they had mauled Iris people, he immediately ordered them to be turned out of their monastery. Mary. Do you know, mamma, what sort of a thing the scrip was, which the pope sent Louis before he went to the Holy Land ? Mrs. M. It was a leathern bag, fastened by a belt round the waist, and was meant to contain necessaries for the journey. The scrip was an essential part of a pilgrim's outfit. The rich wore it for show, and the poor for use. F 2 IOO LOUIS VII. Chap. XL Mary. Did the pope provide scrips for all the pilgrims ? Mrs. M. I do not find that he bestowed any but on royal pilgrims. The rest received theirs, together with a staff, from the pastor of their own parish : and, when they returned home, each pilgrim was expected to place a branch of palm over the altar of his parish- church, in token that he had performed his vow. George. I think it very natural that men should like to go cru- sades and pilgrimages; but the women had better have stayed at home. Mrs. M. Indeed I think so ; but it appears that the ladies of the twelfth century were not of the same opinion. In the emperor Conrad's army were several German women who acted the part of soldiers. They wore armour, and fought valiantly with swords and spears. Even children were not exempted from the madness. Towards the end of the twelfth century a crusade was undertaken in France, called the Child's Crusade, which was entirely conducted by boys. George. And how did it end ? Did they conquer any Turks ? Mrs. M. It ended, as might have been expected, very ill : and as for conquering Turks, they did not even arrive in sight of any. This absurd expedition was begun by a boy (I do not know in what part of France), who was so fanatical as to believe that he had re- ceived a commission from God to redeem the holy sepulchre, which, he asserted, could only be redeemed by the innocent hands of children. The populace, who in all countries are easily caught by anything new, flocked to the young enthusiast ; and many parents permitted their sons to enlist under his banner. He traversed the country in a richly ornamented car, followed by his train of young- crusaders, and, wherever he came, he and his companions were re- ceived with a kind of religious respect. At last they reached the coasts of the Mediterranean, and, believing that they would be car- ried to the desired port by divine guidance, they embarked, as it should seem, in ill-appointed vessels, for the history ends by saying that they all perished in the waves. A.D. 1 1 80, PHILIP II. 101 CHAPTER XII PHILIP II., SURNAMES AUGUSTUS. Years after Cheist, izZc—'nai." 5* The reign of this king forms one of the most remarkable eras in the history of the French monarchy. Till this time the French nation was a sort of confederation of princes, governed by a feudal chief; but Philip soon made himself an absolute monarch. He had early shown an impatience of control, and a determination to rule alone ; and it is said of him, that, without being a great man, he yet per- formed many great actions. In fact, he was endowed with no fine qualities or extraordinary talents; he was crafty and ambitious, and his success was chiefly owing to the cunning with which he laid his plans, and his steady perseverance in executing them. His was not the ambition of a hero aspiring after glory, but the long-sighted, calculating spirit of a man eager for gain. But although artful and perfidious in his dealings with rival princes, it is but right to say that he treated his subjects with some show of justice and considera- tion ; a very rare virtue in those days. 102 PHILIP II. Chap. XII. Philip was the first* king of France who could be styled a poli- tician. , He had great ,;cnf>dence in his own powers, and was impatient for an opportunity of trying his strength against the wise and politic king ^f -England. \ Many causes of dispute soon arose between them. Henry refused to restore the dower of Margaret, his eldest son's widow, which Philip, as her brother, had a right to expect. Henry delayed the marriage of his son Eichard with Alice, Philip's youngest sister ; and when his son Geoffry died in 1186, he assumed a right to govern Bretagne in the name of Arthur, Geoffry's posthumous child. Many conferences were held between the two monarchs on the subject of these differences. Philip was anxious for war; but Henry, whose interest it was to preserve peace, always found means to avoid it. These conferences were commonly held under an elm- tree near Gisors, which grew so exactly on the confines of France and Normandy, that the two kings could meet beneath its branches, each standing on his own territory. At last Philip, in a passion at finding that Henry was neither to be intimidated nor cajoled, cut down the elm, declaring that they should never meet again under its shade. Philip next tried his artifices on the sons of his rival, and he found no difficulty in prevailing on them to rebel against their father. He and prince Eichard (now the king oi England's eldest surviving son), the more to vex Henry, made a great parade of their friendship. They would live in the same tent, sleep in the same bed, and drink out of the same cup ; but this their great friendship was soon, as you will hear, turned into the most deadly hatred. On the death of Henry, in 1189, Eichard succeeded to the throne of England, and he and Philip agreed to go together on a crusade. They were to go by sea, and would take no pilgrims with them, but only soldiers ; so that this was the most effective host which had yet been sent out of Europe. But unluckily the two kings determined to spend the winter at Messina, and this part of the plan proved fatal to the expedition. Their ill-cemented friendship had time to cool, and the winter was passed in mutual heartburnings. When spring came, Philip hastened to Acre, which had been taken from the Christians by Saladin the Great, the sultan of Egypt, and which the Christians were now endeavouring, with all their collected forces, to win back. Eichard did not arrive till the month of June, having been detained first by his marriage with Berengaria of Navarre, and, lastly, by the conquest of Cyprus. The mutual animosity of Philip and Eichard, which had begun in Sicily, was strengthened at Acre. The English and French, instead of pressing the siege, thought only of skirmishing before the walls, to exhibit to each other their horsemanship and dexterity. But at length the news of Saladin's approach united them in the common a.d. 1199. PHILIP II. !03 cause, and they exerted themselves with so much vigour that the town was taken. Eichard, on this occasion, obtained so much praise for his valour, that Philip's jealous heart could not brook it; and, on the plea of ill-health, he departed for Europe, having first taken a solemn oath that he would make no attack on the territories of Eichard during his absence. He left behind him ten thousand men, under the command of the duke of Burgundy. But these men were a hin- drance rather than an assistance to Eichard, for the duke of Bur- gundy had received orders from Philip to thwart the English king on all occasions. In the mean time Philip arrived in Italy, and went to pay his devotions at Eome, where he endeavoured to prevail with pope Celestin III. to absolve him of his oaths to Eichard. But Celestin would not sanction such perfidiousness. Philip reached France in 1192, and had there the additional mortification of finding that Eichard was enthusiastically admired throughout Europe, and regarded as the champion of Christendom. In the following year, however, he had the satisfaction, such as it was, of hearing that his rival was taken prisoner in Germany, on his return from Palestine, and confined in one of the emperor's castles. Philip now lost no time in attacking Normandy, and in stirring up John, Eichard's brother, to seize on England. But in neither of these attempts did he succeed. Both English and Normans were faithful to their king, whose faults they forgot in admiration of his courage, and in natural pity for his misfortunes. At last Eichard obtained his freedom, and I think you know that as soon as the news of this event was carried to France, Philip sent off a scroll to John, in which he told him, " de prendre garde a soi : car le diable etoit dechaine." From the time of Eichard's release from captivity till his death, in 1199, an almost perpetual war was produced by the bitter hatred of the two kings to each other. In a battle near Venddme, in 1194, Philip was defeated, with the loss of all his money and camp equi- page, and all the records belonging to the crown. This disaster determined Philip to erect a building at Paris, in which the royal archives should in future be deposited. Philip's first wife, Isabella of Hainault, died in 1191, and in 1193 he married Ingeberge, a princess of Denmark, to whom he took so great a dislike, that he shut her up in a convent, and, obtaining a divorce, married Maria, daughter of the duke of Dalmatia. The pope, Innocent III., took the part of Ingeberge, and laid the kingdom under an interdict, which lasted three years. At the end of that time Philip found himself obliged to submit. He divorced Maria, and brought Ingeberge on a pillion behind him from the j 04 PHILIP II. CHAr.Xn. convent where she resided to the pope's legate ; then, having made this public show of reconciliation, he sent her back to her convent. But in the latter part of his life, Maria being dead, Philip sent for Ingeberge to court, and lived with her to all appearance very happily. Eichard of England died in 1199, and his brother John seized on his dominions, to the exclusion of his elder brother's son, Arthur of Bretagne. In 1200 Philip and John made a treaty, by which Philip obtained possession of Issoudun, Gra9ay, and some other places, as the dower of Blanch of Castile, who was John's niece, on her marriage with Louis, Philip's eldest son. Young Arthur of Bretagne claimed the assistance of Philip against the usurpations of his uncle, and Philip sometimes took up his cause and sometimes abandoned it, as he thought best suited his own interests. At last this unfortunate prince fell into the hands of his cruel uncle, who put him to death ; but as you are already well acquainted with the melancholy particulars both of his fate and that of his unfortunate sister, the damsel of Bretagne, I need not here repeat them. Arthur's mother, Constance, had been married again to Guy de Tours, a gentleman of Poitou. By him she had one child, Alice, whom, on the death of Arthur, the Bretons chose to be their sove- reign. Guy de Tours was appointed regent, and took on himself the title of duke of Bretagne. In the mean time Philip, as suzerain, had cited John to appear at Paris to answer for the murder of Arthur. John did not obey this summons ; he was in consequence pronounced guilty of murder and felony, and all the lands he held in fief were declared forfeited. Philip, who had long set his heart on Normandy, lost no time in en- forcing this sentence. He laid siege to Chateau Gaillard, the bul- wark of Normandy, which he took March 6, 1204, after a siege of many months. The rest of Normandy proved an easy conquest. John now seemed to be stupified, and, instead of taking any active measures for the preservation of his territories, abandoned himself to frivolous amusements; and the Normans could not fight with any vigour under so despicable a sovereign. John was the last of eleven dukes who had governed Normandy during a period of 293 years. Jersey and Guernsey, and some other smaller islands, are the only relics of that ancient dukedom which remain in the possession of the crown of England. Philip soon became master also of Maine, Touraine, and Anjou ; and in 1213 he found himself encouraged by the English, who were completely disgusted with John, to attempt the conquest of England. Pope Innocent III. sanctioned the enterprise, and Philip assembled xo5 A.D. 1 2I 4 . PHILIP II. an army and a fleet on the coasts of Picardy, and was on the point of hoisting sail, when he received a message from cardinal Pandolf, the pope's legate in England, to say that John had submitted him- self to the holy see, and was now under the protection of the pope ; and that consequently the king of France must give up his intended invasion. This peremptory command enraged Philip extremely, but nevertheless he did not choose to disobey it. He therefore vented his rage on the earl of Flanders, who had previously incurred his displeasure by refusing to lend his aid to the intended invasion of England, winch he regarded as an unjustifiable breach of the law of nations. Philip marched into Flanders, burning and destroying everything that came in his way. He was soon, however, recalled, by hearing that the English ships had sailed from their ports, and destroyed his fleet; and the only fruit of this cruel attack on Flanders was a rancorous hatred between the Flemings and the French, that long subsisted. The count of Flanders was now Philip's declared enemy, and joined with the emperor Otho IV., and with the king of England, in a confederacy against him. On August 27, 1214, Philip met his enemies with an army of 50,000 men, at Bouvines near Tournay. The confederate army, which was commanded by the emperor, was still more numerous ; but the superior skill and vigilance of Philip gained him a decided victory. William of Bretagne, who was Philip's chaplain, was pre- sent at this battle, of which he has given us a circumstantial ac- count ; and I think you will not dislike to hear some passages from it. The French army had passed the bridge of Bouvines, and Otho thought this a favourable moment for commencing the attack. " When Philip was informed that the emperor was in movement, he, fatigued by the length of the way and the weight of his armour, was resting under the shade of an ash-tree which grew near the church. At this news he rose up and went into the church, and, addressing a short prayer to God, he went out, took up his arms, and with a joy- ous face, as if he had been going to a wedding, remounted his horse. In crossing the field we heard the cry, * To arms ! to arms ! ' the trumpets resounded, and the squadrons which had already passed the bridge returned. We called for the banner of St. Denis, but as it was not at hand we would not wait for it. The enemy seeing, to their surprise, that the king had faced them, turned to a higher ground on the right; they had their backs to the north, and the sun, which that day shone brighter than usual, was in their faces. The combat was hot and impetuous. The German cavalry, being war- like and very audacious, pushed close to the king. His attendants defended him ; but they with their Teutonic fury would have only the king. In the mean time the German infantry came up, and F 3 106 PHILIP II. Chap. XII. with their little lances and their hooks dragged the king from his horse, and he would have been killed, had not Divine Providence preserved him. His standard-bearer waved the banner in token of distress, winch brought some knights to the rescue, and the king, though wounded, sprang on his feet and remounted his horse. The emperor also encountered equal danger; for a French knight, Pierre Mauvoisin, seized his horse by the bridle, whilst another at- tempted to stab the emperor in the throat ; but he, as is the manner of knights in our days, was clad in such thick armour, that it could not be penetrated. The Frenchman aimed another stroke, which the emperor's horse in rearing received in his eye. The animal, mad with pain, turned short round, and, bearing Ins master a few paces off, dropped down dead. The emperor mounted another horse, and having thus shown us his back, he left us for a trophy of our victory Ins imperial eagle, and the car on which it was mounted. The king said to his people, ' We shall see his face no more this day ; ' and in fact he would no longer oppose himself to the valour of our knights." The bishop of Beauvais was one of the combatants, and fought with a mace, which was deemed a more suitable weapon for a priest than a sword or lance. Philip took many prisoners in this important battle, and amongst them the counts of Flanders and of Boulogne. The former was con- fined in the tower of the Louvre, which was at that time without the walls of Paris. The count of Boulogne had a large log of wood fast- ened by a chain about his waist, and was shut up in the tower of Piron. This victory was celebrated at Paris with transports of joy by a people who have at all periods of their history made glory their idol. While these things were passing in the north of France, the southern provinces were desolated by the war against the Albigenses, which began about the year 1209, and was carried on with most disgraceful ferocity. Amongst the most conspicuous of the sufferers in this war were Baymond count of Toulouse, and his nephew the viscount of Beziers. Amongst the most savage of their persecutors was Simon de Montfort, who in 1215 had the sovereignty conferred on him of all the country conquered from the Albigenses. De Montfort was killed at the siege of Toulouse in 1218. After his death the war subsided for a time, though it was often renewed at different periods. The sect, though persecuted, was never extinguished, and many of the French Protestants, who are still numerous in the southern provinces, are descendants of these Albigenses, whose memory and sufferings are still held in veneration. In 1216 prince Louis was invited by some English barons to claim the throne of England, in right of Blanch his wife. Philip, not PHILIP II. 107 choosing to get into any dispute with the pope, who still declared John to be under his protection, affected to be displeased with his son for acceding to the wishes of the English nobles. He neverthe- less furnished him with a sufficient army for the enterprise, and Louis landed in England in the month of June, and was received with great appearance of cordiality by the inhabitants of London. But the death of John in the following October totally changed the aspect of affairs. The barons, now that the object of their dislike and dread could no longer alarm them, repented that they had in- vited into their country a foreigner, and the son of their enemy. Deserting Louis, they swore allegiance to the young Henry, their late king's son. As a last effort, Louis sent his army into the north, but on May 19, 1217, it was defeated in a bloody battle at Lincoln. After that he gave up the enterprise, and returned to France. The conclusion of this long reign of Philip is marked by the setting out of another crusade. This armament was particularly directed against the sultan of Egypt. It attacked and took Damietta. In the town were found immense riches ; but these the crusaders had little time to enjoy. Part of the army was destroyed by the plague, which raged in Damietta ; and a part, having set forth to be- siege Cairo, was prevented by an inundation of the Nile from either advancing or retreating. In this extremity they were glad to accept the conditions offered them by the sultan, of giving up Damietta, and returning to Europe. Thus ended what is called the fifth crusade. In 1223 Philip, finding his health decline, set about arranging his worldly affairs ; and feeling some remorse at the maimer in which he had amassed his treasures, he appropriated a part of them to the express purpose of repaying, after his death, those persons whose money he had unjustly taken in his lifetime. He died July 14, 1223, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and the forty-fourth of his reign. By his first wife, Isabella of Hainault, he had only one child — Louis, who succeeded him. By Maria of Dalmatia he had a son ana a daughter. The son was — Philip, count of Boulogne. The daughter, Maria, married first the count of Namur, and secondly the duke of Brabant. By Ingeberge, who survived him, he had no children. In the early part of his reign Philip banished the Jews from his dominions, and enriched his coffers with their spoil. He afterwards enriched himself again at their expense, by allowing them to pur- chase permissions to return. He was the first king of France who maintained a standing army. All the former kings had nothing to depend on except the uncertain 108 PHILIP II. Chap. XII. assistance of their vassals. Also, tinder the plea of protecting him- self from assassination, Philip was constantly attended by a troop of young men, who were called Ribauds. They were armed with maces, and guarded him night and day. The captain of this band had the title of king of the Eibauds, and no one was suffered to enter the palace but those he thought fit. After a time he was also made executioner. During this reign the leprosy spread to an alarming degree, and lazar-houses were built in every town for the reception of persons afflicted with that loathsome and infectious disorder. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XII. Mary. Pray, mamma, why were these houses called lazar-houses? Mrs. Markliam. They were so named from Lazarus, of whom we read in our Saviour's parable. The leprosy is supposed to have been brought from the East into Europe by the crusaders. Richard. I think all the crusades were first begun by the French. Mrs. M. The spirit of crusading seemed peculiarly adapted to the temper of that restless people. The French exulted in con- sidering themselves as the very soul of the crusades. The four principalities of the Christians in the East, Jerusalem, Antioch, Tri- poli, and Edessa, were all founded and governed by Frenchmen. George. I hope, mamma, there is no harm in saying, that I like Saladin, although he was a Mussulman, better than all the crusaders put together. Mrs. M. There is no harm in extolling merit wherever we find it. Saladin's was in reality a very fine character. He had been brought up in all the effeminate customs of the East, and in his youth was devoted to luxury and pleasure; but no sooner did he become animated by ambition and a love of glory, than he cast off his former habits of self-indulgence, and showed himself a pattern of sim- plicity and abstemiousness. The Latins would have done well to follow the example he set them of clemency and of moderation in victory ; an example that forms a mortifying contrast to their own brutal and ferocious cruelty. To his own people Saladin was liberal and generous. He expended none of the great riches he acquired by his conquests upon himself, but bestowed the whole in works of public utility, and in acts of munificence to individuals ; and when he died, one solitary piece of gold, and about forty pieces of silver, was all that was found in his treasury. Richard. How did the Christians get on in Palestine after Richard Coeur-de-Lion left them ? Mrs. M. Their loss in Richard was in some measure counter- balanced by the death of Saladin, who died in 1193 ; and thus they Oonv. PHILIP II. 109 became freed from their most powerful adversary. The Turks, also, after the loss of their sultan, were so incessantly occupied by quarrels amongst themselves, that they had little time for molesting the Christians. Mary. I suppose, then, that the Latins, as I think you said they were called, could now enjoy peace and quietness. Mrs. M. They were a people to whom peace and quietness was no enjoyment ; and no sooner did they obtain a respite from the Turks than they turned their arms against the Greeks. Constantinople was at that time rent in factions. The emperor Isaac had been deposed by his brother Alexis III., who, according to a shocking custom in the East, put out his eyes. The poor blind Isaac had also a son called Alexis, who vowed vengeance against ids uncle, and the city was in a state of the greatest uproar. In the midst of these distracting scenes, the Latins appeared before the city with a large fleet of galleys, which had been sent by the Venetian republic. The entrance to the port was protected by a very strong chain, which reached across the harbour; but this chain was severed by an enormous pair of shears, with which one of the galleys was armed, and the whole fleet entered the harbour. The tumult in the town was so great, and the contending parties so entirely occupied with each other, that there was but one person (Theodore Lascaris) who made any attempt to defend the city from the common enemy. But he, soon perceiving that his attempts were useless, abandoned the city, leaving the French and Venetians absolute masters of it. The Latins elected Baldwin earl of Flanders to be emperor of Constantinople. He reigned about three years, at the end of which time he fell into the hands of the Bulgarians, who, it is supposed, put him to a cruel death ; but his fate was never precisely ascer- tained. George. Then I suppose there was an end of this Latin empire of Constantinople. Mrs. M. It lasted yet a little while longer. Baldwin had only two daughters, the eldest of whom inherited Flanders. Constanti- nople was bestowed on his brother Henry, a brave and good man, who defended and governed his little empire (which did not, how- ever, extend beyond the walls of the city) with great spirit and wisdom. He died in 1216. Peter de Courtenai was appointed to succeed him, but was taken prisoner on his road to Constantinople, and never enjoyed his imperial dignity. Peter's son, Bobert, was chosen in his place, and the throne remained in the family of the Courtenais till the year 1261, at which time Baldwin II., grandson of Peter, was reduced to the greatest distress, surrounded on all sides by powerful enemies, and without any resources or means of defence. In this extremity he came to Europe to solicit aid. He no PHILIP II. Chap. XII. brought some jewels and relics with Mm, which he pawned to the Venetians ; but at last his distress became so great, that he even pawned his own son to them for money to defray his travelling expenses. George. I don't think there is a beggar in the country who would do such a thing as that ! Mrs. M. This unfortunate monarch was reduced to many strange necessities, and spent the remainder of his life in wandering over France and England, soliciting charity, while the Greeks, under Michael Pakeologus, once more established themselves in Constan- tinople. Richard. Pray, mamma, who was that earl of Flanders who was taken prisoner at the battle of Bouvines ? Mrs. M. He was a brother of the king of Portugal, and became earl of Flanders by his marriage with Jane, the first Baldwin's eldest daughter and heiress. Jane was a very wicked, hard-hearted woman, and suffered her husband to remain a prisoner many years, because she refused to pay his ransom. Mary. What a set of people they were in those times, pawning their sons, and refusing to pay their husbands' ransoms ! Mrs. M. The Flemings were as indignant as you can be, Mary, at Jane's conduct, and they were very glad when they thought they had found an opportunity of depriving her of her power. The story is a singular one, and I will tell it you at length. In 1224, about twenty years after the time when Baldwin, Jane's father, had been supposed to have been put to death by the Bulgarians, a man made his appearance in Flanders, who asserted himself to be the emperor. The account he gave of himself, and of his escape from captivity, had so great an air of probability, that the Flemings, by whom Baldwin had been as much beloved as his daughter was dis- liked, lent a willing ear to his story. All who remembered the late earl saw, or fancied they saw, in this man, a striking resemblance to him, allowing for the changes which time and suffering would neces- sarily occasion in his appearance. The countess, finding the people ready to assert his claims, fled to Paris, and put herself under the protection of the king. Louis VIII. (in whose reign this took place) prevailed on the supposed earl to come to Peronne, where he and the pope's legate appeared as judges to decide the cause between him and the countess ; she having declared the man to be an im- postor, of the name of Bernard de Kays, who bore a singular resem- blance to her father. The man made many pertinent replies to the interrogatories put to him, except the three last; but as he was unable to answer these, the king pronounced him an impostor. Louis having pro- mised him a safe-conduct through his dominions, he was suffered to Conv. PHILIP II. m depart unmolested. Jane, however, soon contrived to get him into her hands, and had him put to death on a scaffold, after having first inflicted upon him many needless tortures. George. What were the three questions that he could not answer ? Mrs. M. They were the following : — In what place he had done fealty to king Philip ? Where and by whom he had been knighted ? And the place and the day on which he had married his countess, Maria of Champagne. Bichard. Ah, mamma ! I fear he was an impostor ; the real earl would certainly have been able to answer such questions as these. Mrs. M. There were nevertheless many persons who still continued to believe in his identity, and who said, in his excuse, that Louis was so very desirous to have him proved an impostor, that, on the first appearance of hesitation in his answers, he did not give him time to recollect himself; and that the proceedings were hurried over in such a manner as effectually to prevent him, even if he really was the earl, from clearing up any difficulties. However that might be, great doubt still remains on this affair. The Flemings were at the time fully persuaded of the reality of the story the man told, and regarded Jane in abhorrence as the murderer of her father. To put a stop to these accusations, the countess sent persons into Bulgaria to ascertain the circumstances of her father's death, and to bring proofs of it that would satisfy the populace. They returned in due time, and the populace were satisfied. Riclwrd. Why, what proofs did they bring ? Mrs. M. They said that they had not only found the earl's grave, but that a miraculous light emanated from it; and there was no disputing evidence like that. George. These Flemings would believe anything ! Richard. I should now like to talk a little about king Philip Augustus. Do you know, mamma, that of all the kings we have yet come to, I dislike him the most ? Mrs. M. He is, however, a great favourite with the French, be- cause he raised the dignity of the crown, and because he did more than any other king had done before for the embellishment and improvement of Paris. George. I am sure, mamma, from what you told us yesterday, it was not before it was wanted. Mrs. M. His first great improvement was to pave the streets, and the circumstance which led to his making this improvement is thus quaintly told by an old historian: — "The king, one day walking about in his royal palace, went to the window to divert his thoughts by watching the course of the river. Wagons drawn by horses were traversing the city, and, by throwing up the mud, made such an in- 112 PHILIP II. Chap. XII. tolerable stench that the king conld not endure it. He at that moment conceived a difficult but necessary project— a project which none of his predecessors had dared to execute, because of its extreme difficulty and expense ; and this was the paving of the streets." The two principal streets (and perhaps others) were, in consequence, paved with large flat stones. The accumulation of soil has since been so great that this original pavement, which is still to be found, is seven or eight feet below the present surface. The next great work which this king undertook was to enclose the buildings, closes, gardens, and other cultivated lands that bordered the two banks of the Seine, with a strong wall flanked with round towers. This was a great undertaking, and was between twenty and thirty years in completing; but when finished, Paris, though still small compared with the present city, was nearly four times its original size. The palace of the Louvre, which now stands in the heart of Paris, was built by Philip as a country residence on the outside of the new wall. It was a heavy gloomy building, and, according to the fashion of the times, it was intended both for a palace and a prison. Philip built a new church on the site of the old cathedral of Notre Dame. He also enclosed the park at Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris ; and our king Henry II. supplied him with deer to stock it with. Amongst other things, Philip built a bazaar for the conve- nience of the merchants, who were thus enabled, as the old historians tell us, to expose their goods for sale without the hazard of their being stolen by "les gentilhommes." But the most important benefit which Philip conferred on Paris was an aqueduct which he caused to be constructed for the purpose of supplying the city with water. George. I must own the Parisians at least are justified in their admiration of Philip. Mrs. M. It is singular that amongst all these improvements the king did not add that of another bridge. There was at this time no communication between the newly-enclosed parts of Paris on both sides of the river, except through the island, by means of the two old bridges of the Great and the Little Chatelet. Mary. How many bridges are there now ? Mrs. M. There are twenty-six, if we include suspension-bridges and those of iron and wood as well as of stone. Bichard. How did learning thrive in this reign ? Mrs. M. It kept gradually gaining ground. Philip gave it every encouragement, and built several schools ; but his own particular studies could hardly come under the title of learning. He was passionately fond of romances, and it is to his taste for that kind of reading that we owe all the marvellous histories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Bound Table, and of Charlemagne and his Pala- A.D. 1223- LOUIS VIII. 113 dins, which with many other of the old romances, were written in this reign. It is diverting to see how exactly Arthur, Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, and all the rest of the heroes in these romances, are made to speak and act like knights of the thirteenth century ; and this reminds me, that the measure of verse which is used by the French in their serious poetry, and is commonly called by them the Alexandrine measure, has its name from a romance of the history of Alexander, which was written in that measure by a French poet of the time of Philip Augustus. CHAPTER XIII. LOUIS VIM., SURNAMED THE LION. Years after Christ, 1223 — 1226. Thibaud, count of Champagne. Louis was in his thirty-sixth year when his father died. His mother, Isabella of Hainault, was descended from Ermengarde, one of the daughters of Charles duke of Lorraine, who, if you remember, dis- puted the crown with Hugh Capet, and was the last of the Carlo- vingian family who laid claim to the throne of France. Louis thus united in his person the two houses of Charlemagne and Capet. It II 4 LOUIS VIII. Chap. XIII. was perhaps this circumstance that made Philip waive the usual ceremony of having Louis crowned in Ins own lifetime, a custom which seems to have been adopted by the earlier kings of the house of Capet, to secure to their sons a peaceable succession. The surname of Lion might be supposed, if one did not recollect the flattery of courtiers, to have been given to this king in derision, for he was feeble both in body and in mind. An old writer says of him, that " He was neither to be noted for vices, nor commended for virtues ; and Ms greatest fame consisted in that he was son to an excellent father, and father to an excellent son." Louis and his queen, Blanch, were crowned at Eheims ; and the Parisians, who seem always to have had a great relish for all sorts of triumphant display, celebrated this event with great demonstra- tions of joy. They hung carpets from their windows, and decorated their public buildings with garlands of flowers : tables covered with provisions were placed in the streets, at which the poor were enter- tained, while minstrels and troubadours paraded the city singing the praises of the new king. Henry III. of England was summoned as a vassal of France to attend at the coronation. Instead of obeying the summons, he sent to demand the restitution of the provinces which Philip had taken from his father. This was quite enough to cause a war. Louis took several of the towns belonging to the king of England on the banks of tho Garonne, and obliged Savary de Mauleon, who com- manded for Henry, to retire to Eochelle, where he waited for some time in expectation of receiving succour from England, particularly money, of winch he stood in great need. At length some heavy chests arrived. He expected these to be filled with the promised gold ; but when they were opened they were found to contain only pieces of old iron and rubbish. Indignant at this deception, Savary left the service of Henry, and went over to the French king. This at least is the account usually given of this affair, though the story seems more probably to have been an invention of Savary to justify his desertion to the enemy. Only Gascony and Bordeaux now remained to the English of all their former great possessions in France ; and of these Louis would probably have made himself master if he had not been drawn away by stronger inducements to engage in the war against the Albigenses. To this war he had been excited by the exhortations of pope Honorius III., who called upon all the prelates and nobles of France to take upon them the cross, and cleanse (iiettoyer) the land of heretics. Louis's first enterprise in this war was the siege of Avignon. Avignon was in that part of the ancient kingdom of Aries which had fallen to the share of the emperor of Germany, but the count of Toulouse had long been considered as its more immediate lord. When the besieg- Conv. LOUIS VIII. 115 ing army approached, and demanded a passage through the city, the citizens, unwilling to admit such an undisciplined and lawless body of men within their walls, offered to furnish them with provisions and a safe passage across the Ehone provided they would pass on without entering the town. This Louis considered as a great affront, and immediately gave orders for an assault. The citizens defended themselves to the utmost, but were at last obliged to capi- tulate, and Louis entered the city as victor. Fortunately for the inhabitants, the emperor regarded them as under his protection : and Louis, unwilling to offend him, kept the terms of capitulation with more honesty than it was customary to maintain towards heretics. During the siege of Avignon the citizens had undergone great hardships and privations, but the sufferings of the besiegers were still more severe. The weather was intensely hot, and, owing to the scarcity of fodder, a prodigious number of horses died, the smell of whose dead bodies occasioned a fever, which, in the course of the siege, carried off 20,000 men. The king himself fell ill, and was incapable of pursuing his farther projects. He was supposed to have been poisoned by Thibaud count of Champagne, who had a short time before quitted the army on some supposed affront ; but it is more probable that his illness was the prevailing disorder which raged amongst the troops. He bestowed the command of the army, which he was himself obliged to relinquish, on the lord of Beaujeu, and set out on his return to Paris. On his arrival at the castle of Montpensier, in Auvergne, he found himself unable to pro- ceed farther, and, assembling round his bedside the nobles who had accompanied him, he made them swear that they would crown his eldest son. He appointed his queen, Blanch, regent of the kingdom during his son's minority ; and very soon after he had settled these things he breathed his last. He died in October, 1226, in the thirty- ninth year of his age. He reigned little more than three years. His children were— (1.) Louis, who succeeded him. (2.) Robert, count of Artois. (3.) Alfonso, count of Poitou. (4.) Charles, count of Anjou. (5.) John. (6.) Isabella, a nun. There were at this period frequent scarcities, almost amounting to famine ; and wheat was sometimes sold at six times its usual price. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XIII. Richard. I have just been thinking of one of the oddest things in the world, which is, that in your history of England you never said one word about Jersey and Guernsey, and the rest of those little islands, which are the only scraps and shreds left of the duchy of Normandy. U 6 LOUIS VIII. Chap. XIII. Mrs. MarTilvam. I own, my dear, that it was a very unpardonable neglect, and the best amends I can make for it is, to give yon some account of them now. Jersey, the largest, in which is the seat of government, is a pretty island, of about twelve miles long and six broad. It is surrounded by a wall of rocky coast, but the interior is fertile and pleasant. The enclosures are small, and so well sur- rounded by hedge-row trees as to give the island the appearance at a distance of an entire wood. George. Are they fine timber trees ? Mrs. M. No, I believe they are principally apple and pear trees. Guernsey is more diversified than Jersey, and very picturesque. Sark and Alderney are very small islands, being not more than two miles across. They are nevertheless fertile and inhabited, and pro- duce, I need not tell you, a breed of small cattle, which is very much prized in England. These islands are governed by the old ducal laws of Normandy. Our Queen, however, sends a governor, whose usual residence is at St. Helier ; and in war-time there is an English garrison. The gentry in these islands all speak English, but Norman- French is still the language of the common people. All law business is carried on in this language, as is also the service in most of the churches. Mary. If I went there I should almost suppose myself in France. Mrs. M. The inhabitants would be very much offended with you if you did. For I understand that notwithstanding their language, customs, and manners bear so strong a resemblance to the French, they pique themselves extremely on being English subjects. You could not offend them more than by comparing them to Frenchmen. George. It seems very odd to me that the French never tried to get these islands away from us; for they look on the map as if they ought to belong to France much more than to England. Mrs. M. For a great length of time the kings of France seem to have regarded these islands as not worth having; but in 1779 a force of 5000 men was fitted out by the French government, and sent in flat-bottomed boats to the attack of Jersey ; but the island was vigorously defended by its militia, and the French were compelled to retire. In 1781 another expedition was sent under the command of the Baron de Eullecourt, an arrogant, rash man, who made himself confident of success. He embarked his troops in tempestuous weather, under the notion that he should be more likely at such a time to take the garrison by surprise. George. He was a pretty arrogant fellow truly, to think that the storm would be complaisant enough to let his boats have free Mrs. M. As might have been expected, the tempest dispersed his transports. He, however, effected a landing, with about 800 of Cotfv, LOUIS VIII. 117 his men. With these he marched directly to St. Helier, and did indeed take the garrison by surprise, making them and the governor prisoners. The alarm and consternation throughout the island at tins sudden invasion was extreme. Major Pierson, a young and gallant officer, who was at that time in Jersey, immediately collected all the British troops in the island : I do not know exactly how many there were, but their numbers were very inconsiderable. When Eullecourt saw them advancing towards the town, of which he and his 800 men still kept possession, he summoned them to surrender. Their only reply to this command was a furious attack upon the French troops, who were obliged to retreat into the market-place. Here they made a stand, but were again charged by the British with so much vigour, that not a Frenchman escaped, they being all either killed or taken prisoners. Eullecourt was amongst the slain. The governor, whom he had obliged to stand by his side during the whole engagement, escaped without a wound. Richard. What a triumph that was for the people of Jersey! Mrs. M. Alas ! their triumph was mixed with bitter grief, for their brave preserver, major Pierson, was killed in the moment of victory. His loss was most sincerely lamented, and a monument to his memory was erected at the public expense in the church of St. Helier. George. I have been thinking very much of the account you gave us yesterday of Paris in the old times ; and I should like to know a little what it is like in our time. Mrs. M. I will endeavour to satisfy you as well as I can ; but as I have never seen Paris, you must be contented with such a description as I have been able to make out from the accounts of others. The city is entered by several gates or barriers, many of them of exceed- ingly beautiful architecture. Among the most remarkable, and indeed I may almost say peculiar, features of the town itself are the Boulevards. These Boulevards form a circuit round the central part of the city, the city itself now extending far beyond them, and are on the site of the ancient line of the walls which were pulled down by order of Louis XIV., and the ground laid out as a wide road, shaded by rows of trees. This road, or rather fine street (for it is almost everywhere bordered by handsome houses), is in fine weather the daily resort of the Parisians. Here they saunter about under the shade of the trees, amusing themselves with mountebanks, dancing dogs, ballad-singers, and the like, with which the place is thronged. Mary. What an amusing place it must be ! Mrs. M. The Parisians pass much more time out of doors than we do. Indeed they have every temptation to do so ; for besides the Boulevards there are the gardens of the Luxemburg, the Tuileries, n8 LOUIS VIII. Chap. XIII. and the Jardin des Plantes, and innumerable other places of attrac- tion. The streets, I am told, are mostly narrow, dirty, and gloomy. The kennels are all in the middle of the streets, and there are but few flagged pavements for the accommodation of foot-passengers, who are in continual danger of being run over by carriages. At night the danger is still greater, the streets being very ill lighted.* Richard. But don't the drivers of the carriages take care not to hurt the people ? Mrs. M. A Paris coachman thinks he does quite enough for the protection of the public by bawling out as he drives " Gare ! gare ! " None but the lower orders of the people walk in the streets of Paris, and he deems it their business to get out of his way. Richard. Is the Seine a fine river ? Mrs. M. It will in itself bear no comparison with the Thames at London ; but it is rendered a greater ornament to the city than our river is, by the spacious quays with which the banks on each side are lined, which, being paved with flag-stones, form very delightful and magnificent walks. George. Are the houses in Paris built of brick or stone ? Mrs. M. In the modern streets they are built of stone, but a great proportion of those in the older streets are only coated with a cement resembling it. The churches and public buildings are many of them very splendid ; and the absence of fogs and coal-fires enables them to retain their freshness much longer than they would do amid the smoke of London. Richard. I think you said yesterday that Philip Augustus built the cathedral of Notre Dame. Is it at all like any of our cathedrals ? Iff*. M. The shortest answer to your question is this view of the interior, by which you will see that, although it is evidently in what is called the Gothic style, it yet diners ma- terially from Gothic buildings in England. (/See the vignette at the head of Chapter XI.) Mary. Are the village churches in France like - ours? Mrs. M. Here is a view of one from Mr. Cotman's Tour in Nor- mandy. Church of Querqueville, near Cherbourg, * This is by no means the case at present, the gas-lights in Paris being, perhaps, more splendid and better managed than in any other city. The foot-pavements also are very greatly improved. A.D. 1226. LOUIS IX. II 9 CHAPTER XIV. LOUIS IX., OR SAINT LOUIS. Yeaes after Christ, 1226 — 1270. Blanch of Castile. Queen Blanch, whom the late king had appointed to be regent during the minority of her son, then only eleven years old, imme- diately took upon herself the management of affairs. The greater part of the nobles were highly displeased that a woman, and more particularly that a Spanish woman, should presume to rule over them, and they conspired against her authority. But Blanch, who possessed a strong and vigorous understanding, defeated their schemes by the decision and promptitude of her conduct; she maintained her power till her son had attained his twenty-first year, and then resigned the regency, though by the wish of her son, who paid her great deference, she continued for a time to take part in the government. Louis had a truly upright and benevolent disposition. His temper was mild and forgiving, and at the same time brave and firm. In prosperity no man had more meekness, nor in adversity more fortitude. Under all circumstances his integrity was inflexible, and he appears to have been governed by a sincerely religious principle. It is, however, to be lamented that the superstitious temper of the times drew him rashly into new crusades against the infidels, 120 LOUIS IX. Chap. XIV. undertakings ruinous to his country, and which at last proved fatal to himself. He first took the cross in 1244, in consequence of a vow made during a dangerous illness, that if he recovered he would go to the Holy Land. His mother and all his wisest counsellors Vehemently Opposed the project ; but his resolution being taken, nothing would induce him to alter it ; and all they could obtain was a promise that he would do nothing that should endanger the welfare of his kingdom, and that he would not go till he could leave all his affairs in proper order. This he immediately set about doing; "and never," says an old historian, "was an imprudent design more prudently executed." In 1248, four years after he nad taken the cross, Louis, having appointed his mother regent during his absence, departed for the Holy Land, taking with him his queen, Margaret of Provence, and his three brothers, the counts of Artois, of Provence, and of Anjou He embarked in August, with part of his forces, at Aigues-Mortes in Languedoc, and sailed first to Cyprus, where he continued till the following June, waiting the arrival of the rest of his armament, which, when completed, amounted to above 50,000 men. When everything was in readiness for leaving Cyprus, the fleet steered towards the coast of Egypt, to attack, on his own ground, the sultan of that country, who was now the chief enemy of the cause of the Latins. Louis effected a landing near Damietta; and during the night the inhabitants, being seized with a panic, evacuated the town, and fled with their families and moveable effects. The French entered the forsaken town the next day, and took possession of it. It had been the intention of the king to advance immediately into Egypt ; but owing to the annual inundation of the Nile, he was de- tained at Damietta until November. Here Louis had the inexpressible grief to see his nobles give themselves up to the most unbridled licentiousness, which neither Ms example nor his reproofs could restrain. He himself did all he could to provide for the future necessities of the army. He collected all the provisions and treasures that were found in the town, and laid them by in storehouses for the public benefit, to the great dis- pleasure of the French knights, who would have been better pleased to have had them distributed amongst themselves. When the waters had abated, Louis prepared to leave Damietta ; but he first repaired and strengthened the fortifications, and placed a strong garrison in the town. He then departed, leaving the queen with her ladies at Damietta, and took the way to Cairo; but he soon became entangled amongst the canals with which the country is intersected. At last he came to a canal which it was impossible a.d. i25o. LOUIS IX. 121 to pass, and here, although continually harassed by flying troops of the enemy, the army began to construct a causeway, to serve as a bridge. While they were so employed, a ford was accidentally found. The count of Artois with two thousand men dashed through it, and, contrary to the advice of all the experienced persons who knew the country, advanced to the town of Massoura. The inha- bitants having concealed themselves in their houses, the French imagined the place to be deserted, and immediately began to plunder it. While they were thus engaged, the inhabitants appeared at the tops of their houses, and threw down showers of stones on them. At the same moment they were also attacked in front by a large body of Turkish troops. The count of Artois and many of his men were slain, and the rest were only saved by the timely arrival of the king with the main army. Louis beat off the Turks from Massoura, and forced them to retire ; but their numbers were reinforced by the daily arrival of fresh troops, and the king at last found it impossible to proceed. He therefore took possession of the strongest position he could find, and encamped. The Turks now surrounded him on all sides, and with their Greek fire destroyed his machines of war. His army was cut off from procuring provisions : a dreadful sickness broke out in the camp, and the soldiers were soon in a most deplorable condition. The king himself fell ill, and to use the words of an old chronicle, " being sick in bed, had nothing but courage to maintain life." His own sufferings did not, however, make him unmindful of those of his people, and he gave orders that the sick should be con- veyed back to Damietta in some French galleys that had advanced up the river. They were embarked accordingly, but, before they could get away, the galleys were seized by the Turks, who murdered all the sick, and threw their bodies overboard. At the same time another body of the Turks attacked the camp ; and although the king was so ill that he could scarcely sit upon his horse, he rode amongst the ranks, till at last he fainted from excessive weakness. In that condition he was taken prisoner by the Turks ; the defeat of the whole army followed, and all who were not slain were taken prisoners. This event took place April 5, 1250. When the news of this great calamity reached France, the grief and desolation of the people was excessive. Blanch did not long survive it. She died partly from grief at her son's captivity, and partly from remorse at having had two persons executed as spreaders of false news, who had first reported the defeat of the army. Louis in the mean time had to endure many insults from the infidels, and he might have endured worse treatment at their hands, had it not been for the great desire of Malec-sala, the sultan, to France. G 122 LOUIS IX. Chap. XIV. regain Damietta, which he knew was so strongly garrisoned, that he could more easily obtain it by treaty than by force. At last it was agreed that Louis and all Ins people should be restored to liberty, on giving up that town, and also paying a ransom of four hundred thousand pounds of silver. Before the terms of this treaty could be fully adjusted, Malec-sala was murdered by his emirs. During the tumult winch this event occasioned, the life of Louis was in considerable jeopardy, and it is supposed that he owed his pre- servation to the courage and tranquillity of his demeanour, which inspired the Turks with a respect for him. When the tumult had subsided, the new sultan ratified the treaty which his predecessor had made with the Christians, and farther conceded to them a ten years' truce. Thus Louis, after a captivity of about two months, regained his liberty. He then, instead of returning to Europe, immediately proceeded to Acre, where the queen joined him. I must not omit to mention, that, finding there had been some error in the amount of the sum which had been paid for his ransom, he after- wards made good the deficiency. His courtiers, I believe, thought him over honest ; but Louis reproved them, and made them know that he valued his honour too highly to forfeit it for silver or gold. Louis spent four years in Palestine, and employed himself with as much earnestness in repairing the strong towns, and in redressing the grievances of the people, as if it had been his own country. He redeemed 12,000 Christians from slavery ; and when he had put the Christian possessions in Syria in a proper state of defence, he returned to France. He landed at Marseilles, July 2, 1254, having been absent about six years. The lord of Joinville, who attended Louis during the greater part of that time, has left us a very enter- taining and interesting history of this crusade. The king was received in France with every demonstration of joy; but it was observed with regret that he still continued to wear the cross upon his upper garment, a sign that he nourished the intention of going again to Palestine. He maintained at this time great state and regularity in his court; but in his own dress and manners he rather affected the plainness of a private man, than the pomp of a great prince. He earnestly applied himself to the reformation of all abuses; he re- voked many oppressive taxes, which the necessities of preceding times had produced; he made regulations, which were much needed, for the police of the cities ; and he formed a code of laws, winch still goes by his name. It must have been a charming sight to have seen this good king sitting under the shade of a tree (which is still standing in the Bois de Vincennes, near Paris), surrounded by his subjects, and attending to the complaints of the poor, and re- dressing their grievances. a.d. 1267. LOUIS IX. I23 The perfect integrity of Louis's character inspired universal con- fidence. He was often called upon to settle the disputes of neighbour- ing princes, and instead of fomenting quarrels, as had been the general policy of preceding kings, he always endeavoured to be a promoter of peace. Sometimes he was required to give judgment in causes in which his own interests were concerned. On all such occasions he uniformly decided with the most unreproached and perfect impartiality. Louis also aimed at another virtue, but rarely practised, the virtue of restitution. He appointed commis- sioners to inquire what possessions had, during the last two reigns, been unjustly annexed to the royal domains. These he caused to be restored to the right owners, and in cases where the owner could not be ascertained, he distributed the value amongst the poor. He always declared that " it was good policy to be just ; for that a re- putation for probity and disinterestedness created authority, and gave a prince more real power than any accession of territory could do." It is certain that Louis by this upright and wise conduct preserved peace in his dominions, and brought the affairs of his kingdom into better order than any former king had been able to do. Charles count of Anjou was of a very different character from his brother ; he was ambitious, covetous, cruel, and unforgiving. Most unhappily for Italy, the pope Urban IV. made him an offer of the crown of the Two Sicilies ; that is, the island of Sicily and the kingdom of Naj)les. This crown had fallen into the hands of the imperial family, by the marriage of the heiress of the last Norman king of Sicily with the father of the emperor Frederic II. When Frederic died, the crown of the Sicilies was seized by Mainfroi, or Manfred, his natural son. The pope, wishing to get it out of the hands of the Ghibelins, or emperor's party, offered it to Charles of Anjou. Charles could not resist the temptation of being a king, and in 1265, having collected an army, he encountered Mainfroi at Beneventum. Mainfroi was defeated and slain, and Charles took possession of his dominions. He began his reign (and indeed I may also say he ended it) with so many acts of cruelty, that he made the very name of Frenchman hateful to the Sicilians, and his memory is even now held by them in detestation. In 1267 several of the princes of Germany joined Conradih, the son of Conrad IV., the last emperor of the line of Swabia, in an endeavour to drive the French out of Italy ; but the German army was defeated by the French. Conradin was made prisoner and carried to Naples, and Charles, contrary to the established principles by which, even in those comparatively lawless times, the dealings of one prince with another were regulated, caused him to be beheaded as a traitor. Conradin was the last descendant of his ancient family ; he was brave and generous, and Charles, by putting him to death, G 2 124 LOUIS IX. Chap. XIV. incurred a just and general detestation. Conradin, when on the scaffold, threw down his glove amongst the crowd, beseeching some one to convey it to any of his kinsmen, who would receive it as a pledge of investiture in his rights, and as bequeathing the obligation to revenge his death. Louis, in the mean time, had, by fair and honest means, increased Iris dominions. In 1258, on the marriage of his eldest son Philip with Isabella, daughter of the king of Aragon, he made a treaty with that king, in which it was agreed that France should resign all right, a right indeed little more than nominal, over that part of Spain which Charlemagne had conquered from the Saracens. The king of Aragon, on Iris part, agreed to give up to Louis the more substantial possession of several towns in the south of France (with the excep- tion of Montpellier), which he had inherited by the marriage of one of his ancestors with an heiress of the family of Provence. Louis had also, some time previously, purchased a part of Champagne from the earl Thibaud, who now, in right of his mother, had succeeded to the kingdom of Navarre. To Henry III. of England Louis yielded up the possession of those places in Guienne which his father Louis VIII. had won. He did this on condition that Henry should resign all claim to Anjou and Normandy. Some of his courtiers blamed him for yielding them up, but he justified himself to them by urging the policy of main- taining peace by making a small concession. England had long been in a state of anarchy. In 1263 Louis was called on to settle the differences between Henry and his barons. Louis blamed both parties: he told the barons that they should treat their king with more respect ; and advised Henry to observe the terms of the Great Charter, which his father had been compelled to grant. This advice was too wise and temperate to suit the inflamed minds of either party ; and the civil dissensions of England continued to rage with as much violence as before. I need not here tell you of the able and successful part which Henry's son, prince Edward, took in his father's affairs ; nor that, when he had restored tranquillity in England, his ardent spirit panted for active employ- ment, and that he gladly joined with the king of France in a crusade. Louis, who had never lost sight of this favourite project, having a fleet and all things in readiness, embarked at Aigues-Mortes early in July 1270. He was accompanied by his three eldest sons, by his brother Alfonso, his nephew Eobert of Artois, Thibaud king of Navarre, Guy earl of Flanders, and by many other persons of great distinction. The young prince of England and Charles of Anjou, who agreed to follow with a numerous army from Sicily, were expected to join him in the course of the summer. a.d. 1 2 70. LOUIS IX. 125 Louis, after having narrowly escaped from a fearful tempest, landed in Sardinia. Circumstances here determined him to make an attack on Tunis before he proceeded to the Holy Land. He accordingly put to sea again, and, after a safe voyage, anchored off the shore of ancient Carthage. Carthage was soon taken, and the siege of Tunis begun : but in a few weeks the army was seen to suffer from the excessive heat of the climate. The plague broke out in the camp, and destroyed great numbers of men. The king him- self was seized with it, and soon found himself on the brink of death. Sending for his eldest son, he gave him a manuscript which he had written with his own hand, and which contained directions for his future conduct. He gave him an earnest exhortation to govern his people with justice and equity, and to make the fear of God the rule of all his actions. He then desired to be lifted from his bed, and laid amongst ashes on the floor of his tent. He expired exclaiming, " I will enter thy house : I will worship in thy sanctuary !" Just at that moment the fleet of Charles of Anjou arrived. As soon as he landed he sounded his trumpet, and was surprised to hear no answering sound. Alarmed by the silence that pervaded the camp, he mounted a horse and galloped towards the royal pavilion, where the first object he saw was his brother's corpse extended upon the ashes. Louis's son Philip, now become king, fell ill himself soon after- wards. In this emergency the kings of Sicily and Navarre took upon themselves the command of the army. In the royal obsequies a strange custom was followed, which was then often observed in the case of persons who died in a foreign land. The flesh of the corpse was separated from the bones. The bones were consigned to Philip to be conveyed to France ; Charles retained the flesh, and, when he returned to Sicily, had it interred in the abbey of Monte- reale, near Palermo. Louis died August 25th, 1270, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and forty-fourth of his reign. He married Margaret of Provence, and had four sons and four daughters : — (1.) Philip, who succeeded his father. (2.) John Tristan. (3.) Peter. (4.) Eobert, married Beatrice of Burgundy, whose mother was heiress of the lords of Bourbon. Eobert took the title of Bourbon, and it was by descent from him that three hundred years afterwards Henry IV. claimed and obtained the crown of France. (5.) Isabella, married Thibaud II., king of Navarre. (6.) Blanch, married Ferdinand Cerdo, infante of Castile. (7.) Margaret, married the duke of Brabant. (8.) Agnes, married the duke of Burgundy. Louis established a charity for blind persons, which still subsists. He also built several churches and monasteries within the walls of 126 LOUIS IX. Chap. XIV. Paris ; but still he did not, as many of his predecessors had done, regard the founding a religious house as an expiation of sin. He used to say, when speaking on this subject, " that living men were the stones of God's temple, and that the church was more beautified by good manners than by rich walls." Nearly thirty years after his death he was canonized by pope Urban VIII. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XIV. George. I wish I knew what became of that glove which Conradin threw down amongst the people. Mrs, Markham. I believe I can tell you. It was taken up by a knight of the name of Truches, who carried it to Pedro III., king of Aragon ; and the descendants of that knight have always borne the arms of Swabia, in commemoration of the circumstance. George. And what did the king of Aragon do when he got the glove ? Did he revenge the death of Conradin ? Mrs. M. He did indeed, most dreadfully, as you shall hear when we come to the story of the Sicilian Vespers in the next chapter. Mary. Pray, mamma, did that poor old earl of Flanders, who was so long in prison, ever get his liberty again ? Mrs. M. Queen Blanch, during her regency, set him at liberty, not so much, perhaps, out of kindness to him, as to plague his wife, the countess Jane. It would have been as well if Blanch had released at the same time his companion in arms, the old count of Boulogne, who, when he found that the earl of Flanders had regained Ins liberty, and that he himself remained forgotten in prison, put an end to his life in a fit of despair. Mary. Don't you think Blanch was very cruel to let the poor old man remain in prison ? Mrs. M. Blanch was a violent and high-spirited woman ; but she showed on many occasions, although perhaps not on this, a very feeling heart. It happened that some villagers, who were serfs to the canons of Notre Dame, refused to pay some contributions which their lords demanded of them. The canons, in great displeasure, thrust these poor serfs into prison. The prison was so small that they could scarcely move, and were almost suffocated for want of air. When the queen heard of it she was exceedingly shocked, and sent to desire the canons to set the men free, and offered to be surety for the money demanded of them. Mary. The canons must have been very much obliged to her. Mrs. M. So far from being obliged, they were very much offended, and said that she had no right to interfere in what they chose to do Conv. LOUIS IX. I2 « with their slaves. Accordingly, instead of setting the men at liberty, they caused all their wives and families to be shut up in the same place, where many of them actually died of suffocation. On this, the queen proceeded to the prison with her attendants, and ordered them to force open the doors; but so great was the dread of incurring the displeasure of the church, that none had courage to obey her. The queen herself then took up an instrument, and struck the first blow. Thus encouraged, her attendants presently forced the door, and the prisoners were brought out. Many of them fainted at the queen's feet from the effects of the fresh air ; but those who were able to speak loaded her with thanks and blessings. Her kindness did not rest here, for she freed them from the power of the canons, by enfranchising them and their children. George. If Blanch governed in that way, she deserved to be regent. Bichard. Pray, mamma, have you ever read that lord Joinville's history, and can you tell us something about it ? Mrs. M. Lord Joinville was a nobleman of high rank; he was seneschal of Champagne, and was attached to the service of Thibaud king of Navarre, and accompanied him on the crusade. After Join- ville had taken the cross, but before he joined Thibaud's army, he summoned all his vassals and friends and kinsmen to his castle, and there entertained them for a week with all manner of feasting and merriment. Before he dismissed them, he told them that he was going to the holy war and might never return, and desired that, if there was any one there to whom he had done wrong, he would come forward, and he should receive amends. Joinville does not say whether any of them did so or not, but he goes on to tell us that he then set out on pilgrimages to various holy places in the neighbourhood, determining when he left his castle not to enter it again till he returned from the holy wars. In the course of these pilgrimages, which he made barefooted and in his shirt, he often had to pass in sight of his own home ; and he says, " I did not dare turn my eyes that way, for fear of feeling too great regret, and lest my courage should fail on leaving my two fine children, and my fair castle of Joinville, which I loved to my heart." Merry. I think it was very hard upon his children that he would not go and wish them good-bye. Mrs. M. Here is a little sketch of his " fair castle." * Joinville, having joined the troops of the king of Navarre, sailed with them to Cyprus, where he first saw the king of France, who was so much pleased with his company, that from that time he had him constantly near him, and often asked his opinion and advice. George. If you please, mamma, you need not tell us the whole of 1 See the vignette at the end of this Conversation. 128 LOUIS IX. Chap. XIV. what this lord Joinville says, but only that part about the king being taken prisoner. Mrs. M. You recollect, then, that after the battle at Massoura the French were in great distress for provisions, the enemy having cut off all their supplies. A pestilential disorder also broke out. This was occasioned partly by the smell of the dead bodies, which had been thrown into the canal after the battle, and which had been stopped in their passage, as they floated towards the Nile, by a small bridge near the camp ; and partly, as was supposed, by the poor, famished soldiers having eaten eels which had fed upon the putrid bodies. The army was now in no condition to combat the Turks, who were advancing on all sides of it. On the day of the attack, the king, after defending himself as long as he was able, was at last obliged to retire from the heat of the combat ; and to give you the good seneschal's own words, " Of all his men at arms there was only one with him, the good knight sir Geoffrey de Sergine, and who, I heard say, defended him in like manner as a faithful servant defends the cup of his master from flies; for every time the Saracens approached the king, he guarded him with vigorous strokes of the blade and point of his sword, and it seemed as if his strength was doubled. — At last he brought him to a house where there was a wo- man from Paris, and, taking the king off his horse, he laid him on the ground, with his head on the woman's lap, and expected that every moment he would breathe his last." Louis was found in this state by the Saracens, who bore him off to the sultan's tent. As to what farther befel the king at that time Joinville is silent, being too much taken up with his own adventures, which were indeed sufficiently distressing. Richard. I should like to hear what his adventures were. Mrs. M. Being very ill, he had gone on board a galley, in the hope of being conveyed with the rest of the sick to Damietta ; but the vessel had scarcely moved from its station before the boats of the enemy appeared on all sides. They began an attack upon the nearest galleys, and poor Joinville, as he lay upon the deck, expect- ing his own turn to come every minute, saw the Saracens ransacking the other vessels, and dragging forth the crew and the passengers. The strong and healthy they took prisoners, the weak and ill they threw into the river. At last they boarded Joinville's galley, and he thought his last hour was come. But one of the Saracens, either because he heard the sailors say that Joinville was the king's cousin, or, as we may rather hope, from real compassion, took him under his protection. Mary. What made the sailors tell such a fib ? Mrs. M. They thought, I believe, that it might induce the Sara- cens to save Joinville's, life in hopes of a ransom; but they might Oonv. LOUIS IX. 12g have spared themselves the falsehood, for the Saracens seemed to be actuated by better motives. As soon as they reached the shore, a number of men rushed at Joinville with drawn swords, to cut his throat. " I felt," says he, " the knife at my throat, and had already cast myself on my knees ; but God delivered me from this peril by the aid of my poor Saracen, who led me to the castle where the Sara- cen chiefs were assembled." Here he was treated with tolerable kindness, and his "good Saracen" gave Mm a beverage which in two days restored him to health. He was afterwards taken to the place where the king and the rest of the army were confined. Mary. What became of the queen and the poor ladies who were left at Damietta ? Mrs. M. It was expected that the Saracens would immediately assault the town, and the French ladies were, as you may suppose, in great alarm, especially the queen, who was daily expected to be brought to bed. She was in such continual terror, that she thought every noise she heard was the approach of the Saracens, and was for ever shrieking out, " Help — help, the Saracens are coming ! " She had " an ancient knight," whom she would scarcely ever permit to leave her ; and one day she threw herself on her knees before him, and in the greatest agony besought him that he would cut off her head the instant the Saracens should storm the city, that she might not fall alive into their hands. To this the ancient knight replied, that he begged she would make herself perfectly easy, for it was what he had already determined in his own mind to do, even if she had not desired it. George. And that comforted her, I hope. Mrs. M. In the midst of these alarms she was brought to bed of a son, who received the name of Tristan, " because that he was born in misery and poverty." The queen was obliged to quit Damietta soon afterwards, on account of its being given up to the Turks, and she joined the king at Acre. Mary. How glad they must have been to meet again after all their perils ! Mrs. M. In the midst of every peril, the pious king never for a moment forgot his trust in God. When he finally quitted Palestine, and was on his voyage back to France, he would often recal the attention of his people to the power and mercy of God ; and would frequently exhort them "to examine themselves well, to see that there was nothing in their conduct displeasing to God ; beseeching them, if there was, to instantly clear themselves of it." Mary. I think it would keep one always good, to live with such a man as this king Louis was. Mrs. M. The society of the good and wise is one of the greatest blessings which God can bestow upon us in this life. I trust, my G 3 13° LOUIS IX. Chap. XIV. clear children, that whenever you have the enjoyment of this bless- ing, you will not let it be thrown away upon you, but will endeavour to profit by it to your own advancement in wisdom and virtue. Hid turd. Did this entertaining lord of Joinville go with St. Louis the second time ? Mrs. M. No; the seneschal excused himself, by saying that he found on his return from the former expedition that his poor people had been so much oppressed and ill-treated, that he could not, in consideration to the duty he owed them, leave them again. He lived honoured and respected to a very great age ; I believe he was upwards of a hundred years old when he died. His book appears to have been written at the request of the queen. He says that " she, knowing with how much loyalty and love he had served and at- tended the deceased king, her spouse, earnestly entreated him, in honour of God, to write a small book or treatise of the holy actions and sayings of the above-mentioned St. Louis." Chateau de Joinville. AD. 1270. PHILIP III. 131 CHAPTER XV. PHILIP III., SURNAMED LE HARD!. Years after Christ, 1270 — 1286. Robert count of Clermont, son of St. Louis, and ancestor of Henry IY. The lady of Bourbon, wife of Robert de Clermont. In the last chapter we left the French army before Tunis, sinking under the effects of fatigue and sickness. The young king would gladly have returned to Europe, could he have followed his own wishes ; but being totally incapacitated by illness, he was obliged for a time to give up the command of the army to his uncle, Charles of Anjou, who had views of his own in continuing the siege. After passing three months in useless endeavours to reduce the town, Charles yielded to the earnest entreaties of Philip, who had now regained his health, and entered into negotiation with the king of Tunis. A treaty was at last concluded, by which the French agreed to raise the siege, on condition that they should be indemni- fied for all the expense they had been at ; that Charles should receive a tribute from the king of Tunis ; and all the Christian slaves should be set free. Philip embarked for Europe in the end of the year 1270, and landed in Sicily. Here his queen died, in consequence of a fall from her horse. Here also died Thibaud king of Navarre, of the plague ; and the same disorder, not long afterwards, caused the death of Alfonso, the king's uncle, and of his wife, the countess of Pro- vence, who died at Sienna in their way to France. These sad events 1 32 PHILIP III. Chap. XV. were a melancholy beginning of the new reign. Philip remained in Sicily till the following spring, when he returned to France, bringing with him the remains of his father and of Ins queen, who were buried with great pomp in the abbey of St. Denis. Philip was at this time twenty-five years old : he resembled in many respects his excellent father : he was pious, liberal, and just ; but he was greatly his inferior in understanding, and was so singu- larly simple and credulous, that he was perpetually liable to be duped. It has been remarked of him, " that he was fond of med- dling in the affairs of other princes, and began many great under- takings, and completed none : " a sufficient argument of his folly. How he deserved the surname of the M Hardi," which we translate the " Bold," I am at a loss to determine ; for certainly none of his actions entitled him to that epithet. I have, however, seen it thus accounted for. When he was a little boy in the expedition to Egypt, he used to laugh at his mother and her women for being afraid of the Saracens, and would boast, more from childish ignorance than from courage, that " he did not fear them at all." It is, however, but justice to say, that notwithstanding the defi- ciencies in Philip's character, his people were happy and prosperous during his reign, and the French esteem him as one amongst their very few good kings. In 1274 Philip married a second wife, Maria of Brabant. The king had at that time a great favourite named Pierre de la Brosse, whom he had raised from the condition of a barber to be his chief minister. This man took a hatred to the new queen, because he found that she had more influence with the king t'han he had, and he determined to effect her ruin if possible. He soon believed that he had found an opportunity. Prince Louis, the king's eldest son, died in 1276, and De la Brosse procured a false witness to accuse the queen of having poisoned her step-son. Maria was in great distress at this dreadful accusation, and might have found it difficult to prove her innocence, had not her brother sent her a champion, who offered to prove it by a single combat with her accuser. The accuser being worsted in the combat, or, according to some authors, having refused to accept the challenge, was hung on a gibbet as a traitor and coward, and the queen was declared innocent. Philip's sister Blanch had married the king of Castile's eldest son, who died in 1276, and left two sons. These children were shut up in prison by their uncle Sancho, who declared himself heir to the crown, and, although his father, king Alfonso, was living, acted as if already in possession of it. Indeed Alfonso was very willing that he should do so ; for he was himself so much absorbed in mathema- tical studies, and in writing the history of Castile, that he paid little attention to passing affairs. A.D. 1282. PHILIP III. I33 The king of France undertook the cause of the poor imprisoned children, and, assembling an army, set forth into Spain; but Sancho contrived to corrupt one of Philip's courtiers, who gave him constant intelligence of what was going on in the French camp. Philip, after a short time, finding his army in distress for provisions, returned to Paris, without having advanced beyond Beam. Soon after his return he received a sealed packet, and the moment he had read it he changed countenance, and ordered that De la Brosse should be immediately hung on a high gibbet which had been lately erected in Paris. It was never known what were the contents of the packet which caused this sudden anger in the king against his favourite ; but it is supposed that it contained a disclo- sure that De la Brosse was the traitor who had betrayed the king's secrets to the Castilians. While these things were going on in France, in Italy Charles of Anjou was increasing in power and in ambition. He is said to have aspired to both empires, the East and the "West. He purchased the title of king of Jerusalem of the granddaughter of old Guy de Lu- signan. This title, though it did not add to his power or territory, added to his pride, and helped to increase the number of his enemies. Amongst these was Pedro III. of Aragon, who had married a daugh- ter of Mainfroi, and claimed the crown of Sicily in her right : and a conspiracy was at length formed to expel Charles and his whole party from the island, and place Pedro on the throne. The principal agent in this conspiracy was John of Procida, once lord of a small island in the Gulf of Naples, but of which he had been deprived by Charles. This man, animated by a spirit of revenge and hatred, devoted his whole time and thoughts to the furtherance of the plot, and travelled about from place to place, sometimes in the disguise of a physician, and sometimes of a friar. The common story is, that a general massacre of the French was a part of the original plot, and that this horrible design was in agita- tion two years, and conducted so secretly that nothing transpired to give them any warning of their approaching fate. At length, as this relation proceeds, everything being ripe for exe- cution, Easter-eve, 1282, was the day appointed for the massacre ; and the ringing of the vesper-bell, at five o'clock in the afternoon, was to be the signal to the assassins. At that hour, as the French, in ignorant security, were sitting at supper, the infuriate Sicilians rushed upon them, and in the short space of two hours there was not a Frenchman left alive in Palermo, where the massacre began, with the exception of one man alone whose life was spared on account of his extraordinary probity. The name of this man deserves to be remembered. He was Guilliame de Pourcelets, a I34 PHILIP III. Chap. XV. gentleman of Provence. 1 Every other town in Sicily, in which any French were to be found, followed the example thus set by Palermo, and it is estimated that eight thousand persons fell in this massacre, winch is known by the name of the Sicilian Vespers: When Charles, who was at this time absent from Sicily, was informed of what had passed, he became absolutely furious with passion. He hastened to Messina with all the forces he could muster, and laid siege to it ; but the Sicilians, who well knew his unsparing temper, defended themselves with the bravery of despe- ration, and Charles found himself obliged to retire to Calabria, and there wait for reinforcements. Pedro, all this time, had not been idle. Under the pretence that he was going on a crusade, he had craftily borrowed money from the king of France, and had equipped a fleet and army. He now appeared before Sicily, and, landing at Palermo about the end of August, 1282, was proclaimed king. His object being to gain time, he had next recourse to a stratagem to obtain from Charles a sus- pension of hostilities. He sent him a message to this effect, " that, old and broken down as they both were, and unfit for combats, they were yet, such as they were, equal to each other; and he invited him to decide tins quarrel by single combat, each to be attended by a hundred chosen knights." Charles, who was more chivalrous than wise, accepted this chal- lenge, and granted a truce till the 1st of July, 1283, the day appointed for the combat. Edward I. of England, who acted in some sort as a mediator between the parties, proposed that the meeting should take place on a plain near Bordeaux. On the 1st of July an immense concourse of persons of all nations assembled to see the fight, and as soon as the sun was risen, Charles, punctual to Ins appointment, appeared on the plain with his hun- dred knights. There he remained till the sun went down, expecting his antagonist; but none appeared, and Charles retired from the field burning with fresh rage. Pedro, however, did come to Bordeaux in the evening of that day. Affecting a mighty fear lest the king of France (who had never once entertained such a thought) should seize his person, he deposited his arms with the seneschal of Bordeaux, as a testimony of his having kept his appointment, and their 'hastily departed. The pope and the king of France were now roused against Pedro, and the pope, to show his disapprobation of his unknightly conduct, degraded him from his royal station, and bestowed the kingdom of Aragon on Charles of Valois, second son of the king of France. 1 In some of the accounts the name of one other person is also recorded as having been saved for the same reason. Though the conspiracy against Charles and his party had been long on foot, it is probable that the massacre itself was a sudden outbreak, and Sismondi represents it as such. a.d. 1286. PHILIP III. 135 Pedro laughed at the anathemas of the pope. He collected a numerous fleet, and gave the command of it to De Lauria, the most famous admiral of his day. "With this fleet De Lauria appeared before Naples, which, in the absence of Charles of Anjou, was governed by his son, Charles the Lame. He, being, like his father, more brave than prudent, engaged De Lauria with unequal forces. He was taken prisoner, and was carried to Messina, where the Sici- lians would have beheaded him, in revenge for the death of Con- radin, which was still fresh in their memories, had not Constance, Pedro's queen, rescued him from their hands, and sent him under safe custody to Spain. The captivity of his son, together with his affront at Bordeaux, drove Charles almost to frenzy. He hurried from place to place, and from city to city, till the agitation of his mind threw him into a fever, of which he died January 7th, 1285. His nephew, Eobert of Artois, was appointed to the regency of Naples during the captivity of Charles the Lame. We must now return to Philip, from whom the affairs of Charles of Anjou have so long detained us. In 1285 he marched with an army towards Spain, with the design of securing to his son Charles the gift which the pope had made him of the crown of Aragon. Pedro, who had no intention of yielding up his kingdom at the will of the pope, met the French army on the confines of Spain. He received a mortal wound in an ambuscade, and died, leaving the kingdom of Aragon to Alfonso, his eldest son, and that of Sicily to James, his second son. Philip's arms had at first some little success ; but a fleet, which was laden with provisions for his army, being taken by De Lauria, he was so greatly disheartened by tins misfortune, and also so much broken down by sickness, that he resolved to abandon all farther attempts on Aragon, and to return home. But he could get no far- ther than Perpignan, where he expired, October 6th, 1286. He was in the forty-first year of his age, and had reigned sixteen years. By his first wife, Isabella of Aragon, he had three sons : — (1.) Louis, died young. (2.) Philip, succeeded his father. (3.) Charles, count of Valois. By his second wife, Maria of Brabant, he had one son and two daughters : — (1.) Louis, count of Evreux. (2.) Margaret, married Edward I. king of England. (3.) Blanch, married the duke of Austria. Maria of Brabant was a great encourager of poets. By the death, without children, of Philip's uncle Alfonso, and of his wife, who was heiress of Toulouse, the territories of the ancient counts of Toulouse devolved to the crown of France. Thibaud king of Navarre had been succeeded by his brother, 136 PHILIP III. Chap. XV. Henry the Fat, who died in 1274, leaving an infant daughter. The kings of Castile and Aragon each tried to obtain the young queen for one of their own sons ; but her mother fled with her to France, and placed her under the protection of Philip; and in 1284 she married Philip, the king's then eldest son, who assumed the title of king of Navarre. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XV. Richard. As that queen, Maria of Brabant, was an encourager of poets, I hope she afforded some protection to the poor troubadours. Mrs. Markham. Either the troubadours were all destroyed in the wars with the Albigenses, or else the taste for their poetry was gone by ; for we hear no more of them after this time, and their light and lively songs were succeeded by a grave and allegorical kind of poetry. The Romance of the Rose, which was begun by a poet in the reign of St. Louis, and finished by another poet who lived thirty years later, was one of the most popular of these poems. Richard. I always thought it was written by Chaucer, our old English poet. Mrs. M. Chaucer's poem of the Romance of the Rose is a transla- tion, or, to speak more properly, an imitation, of the French poem. I do not exactly know how many verses Chaucer has in his Romance of the Rose, but the original consisted of 20,000. Mary. I hope it was very entertaining, since it was so long. Mrs. M. It was the history of an imaginary dream. George. A dream of 20,000 verses! I would not -read it through — no, not to have a holiday all the rest of the year ! Mrs. M. It was, however, much prized and admired in its day, and contained a description and personification of every possible human virtue and vice. At a time when people had so few books, it was a great merit in a book to be long. Mary. When so few people could read, they could not want many books. Mrs. M. They seem to have made the most of those they had. In most families, the priest, and any one else who could read, were expected to entertain the rest by reading aloud to them. Few houses were provided with more than one book ; and when that one was read through, a new book was never thought of, but the old one was begun over again. Mary. If I had lived in those days, and could have chosen, I would have lived in a house or a castle where the book was a romance, and not a dull, tedious allegory. Conv. PHILIP III. 137 Mrs. M. The old romances were nearly as dull and tedious as the allegories, and a great deal more absurd. They strangely and unscrupulously intermingled truth and fiction, and ingeniously dis- regarded all historical and geographical probabilities. For instance, in one of them (of which I forget the name) Babylon is introduced into France, and placed on the confines of Bretagne ; and Judea is described as the adjoining country to Ireland. One of the oldest and most celebrated of these romances is entitled Brutus. Richard. It was a Eoman story, I suppose. Mrs. M. The name would naturally lead you to think so ; but, in fact, it is a fabulous history of the kings of England : and it is from this romance that the histories of king Arthur, and of the enchanter Merlin, are derived, as also many of those fairy tales which still amuse the children of the present day. Mary. Then was the romance of Brutus a child's book ? Mrs. M. By no means, my dear ; it was written for the amusement of grave and grown-up people. The French have always had a great fondness for fairy tales ; and Mother Goose's tales, and many books of that description, are derived from the French. George. I remember you once read us some pretty little stories in verse, which were something, but not quite, like fairy tales, and you said they were French fables. Mrs. M. They were fabliaux translated by Mr. Way. A fabliau signifies a short tale in verse. This was a favourite species of writing in France, till it was, in the sixteenth century, succeeded by a sedate, sentimental kind of romance, the great charm of which consisted in a mixture of high-wrought sentiments and impossible incidents, jumbled most solemnly and at the same time most comically together. Amadis de Gaul, so often quoted in Don Quixote, was one of these. Richard. I had several questions I wanted to ask you yesterday ; but we had so many things to talk about, I had not time. Mrs. M. You had better ask them now, while you remember them. Richard. In the first place, then, mamma, what was a seneschal ? Mrs. M. He was a sort of lieutenant appointed by the king to superintend the distribution of justice in the different districts which were under the jurisdiction of the crown. The name of seneschal more particularly pertains to the southern parts of France. In the north these lieutenants were styled baillies, or bailiffs. The appoint- ment of seneschals and baillies tended greatly to weaken the power of the nobles, and to strengthen that of the crown : for the lower orders were thus enabled to appeal from the tyrannical jurisdiction of their feudal chiefs to the sovereign legislation of the king. Richard. The next thing I wanted to know was, where all the money came from which was paid for the ransom of St. Louis ? 1 38 PHILIP III. Chap. XV. Mrs. M. It was doubtless raised with great difficulty. Amongst other expedients, the silver balustrades which surrounded the tomb of our Eichard Cceur-de-Lion at Eouen were taken down and melted to make up the sum. George. And, I dare say, Kichard, if he could have known what was going forward, would have thought them put to a very good use. Richard. Pray, mamma, were these silver balustrades coined into money, or were they sent to the Turks all in a lump ? Mrs. M. They probably were sent " all in a lump ; " for it was then a common practice to pay large sums by weight, in pieces of uncoined metal. Only a small quantity of money was coined for the convenience of small payments. Mary. It must have been very troublesome to pay money in those great heavy lumps of silver or gold. Mrs. M. The silver coinage of the early French kings was so shamefully debased, that most persons probably preferred receiving a payment by weight to the receiving it in coin. The practice of mixing silver and copper seems to have been begun by Philip I., whose silver coin was alloyed by one-third of copper. His example was followed by most of his successors, and the old French coinage was very inferior, in point of real value, to the coinage of England. Most of the pretended silver money which was coined in the private mints in France (many of the nobles had mints of their own) was so bad, that from its colour, which showed the want of good metal, it was called moneta nigra, or black money. Richard. And now, mamma, comes the last question I had to ask you. What was that Greek fire with which the Turks molested the army of Louis ? Mrs. M. It was a kind of inflammable substance which burnt everything it came near. It was formerly very much employed in all the eastern countries. Richard. How could the people who used it avoid being burnt by it themselves ? Mrs. M. The art of using and of preparing this Greek fire was kept a great secret, and we know very little about it. Joinville tells us it was put into barrels, and was sent forth by means of a machine which he calls a petardie, but which he does not describe. He says, that when these barrels were sent off, they looked like dragons of fire flying through the air ; and that, when the men saw one coming, they threw themselves upon their knees, and gave themselves up for lost. George. Could they not have run and got out of the way of it ? Mrs. M. When the barrels fell, they exploded with a great noise ; the fire burst forth, and water would not extinguish it. Vinegar was Conv. PHILIP III. I39 said to have an effect upon it ; but the best method, when that could be adopted, was to smother it with sand. Bichard. Did the people of Europe ever make any of this fire ? Mrs. M. Several of the crusaders learnt, or believed that they had learnt, the art of making it ; and antiquaries tell us it was composed of sulphur, bitumen, naphtha, and various kinds of gums : but the only time that I can recollect its being used in Europe to any pur- pose was once by Philip Augustus, who destroyed the English fleet at Dieppe with some Greek fire which he found at Acre, when he and king Kichard took that city, and which he brought with him to Erance. Richard. Ah ! if poor king Eichard could have known that, when he helped to take Acre, he was helping to burn his own fleet ! George. Now that Eichard has got to the end of all Ins questions, there is just one thing I want to say. The little picture you showed us yesterday of the castle of Joinville does not give me at all the idea of a castle, such as I should have supposed these fighting nobles would have lived in. Mrs. M. As the feudal system declined, the nobles became less of fighters, and their chateaux (for in Erance every gentleman's house in the country is called a chateau) became less like fortresses. Still, if you examine this little sketch of the castle of Joinville, you will perceive many traces of the ancient feudal castle. The dwelling of the chief is, you see, placed on the top of the hill, surrounded by a wall, which, although it is apparently intended more for ornament than defence, is a wall nevertheless. Along the slope of the hill is what the artist has doubtless intended for a vineyard ; and there, during times of danger, the labourers, while at work, were under the protection of the archers on the walls. At the bottom of all is the town or village, where the houses of the serfs stood clustering under the eye and shelter of their liege lord. George. I should like to see a real old French castle, that I might see what difference there was between the castles in France and those in England. Mrs. M. If I may venture to judge by the prints which I have seen of the ruins of old castles in France, I should imagine that the French built their castles with loftier towers and with still more massy walls than the English. In the general plan and disposition of the different parts of the building, they were probably much alike. I find, however, one dissimilarity in the interior arrangements which may be worth noticing. The lord of an English castle always dwelt in the centre tower or keep, the upper part of which was occupied with the state apartments ; while in a French castle the keep, or, as they called it, the donjon tower, was the habitation of the four principal officers ; and the lord or castellain had a separate house in the outer ballium, 140 PHILIP III. Chap. XV. which, in an English castle, was the place appropriated for the bar- racks and stables, &c. Richard. What, pray, had those four officers to do ? Mrs. M. In a large castle they had a great deal to do. The first was entitled the guard, the second the watch, the third the provisioner, and the fourth the gate-opener ; and these names, as I suppose you will think, sufficiently explain the nature of their respective offices. A very perfect specimen of fortifications of this age is the castle of Carcasonne. It has been repaired and restored under Napo- leon III. The following woodcuts will almost explain the modes of 1. — Gateway, Carcasonne. defence in use in the reign of Louis IX. Drawbridges were not yet used. The wooden gallery marked B was temporary, and fixed for purposes of defence in time of siege : it was attached to the wall by the holes marked A A. Figs. 2 and 3 show the machinery for working the portcullis- ConY. £HILIP III. I 4 i In the holes marked K beams were inserted to support the port- cullis when raised. It is raised by three chains passing over pulleys with weights, just on the principle of an ordinary window-sash. There is a small opening (M, fig. 3) through which orders were given from the inside to the men working the portcullis. nBBBBcnrrrincBHBi MasBrrrrrrrrraniffl ' MMnrnnnncnrrrjua Fig. 2.— Mode of raising the Portcullis. Fig. 3.— Machinery of the Portcullis. I 4 2 PHILIP IV. Chap. XVI. CHAPTEE XVI. PHILIP IV., SURNAMED LE BEL. Years after Christ, 1286 — 13 14. A Knight Templar. Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily. The happiness and prosperity which France had of late enjoyed was now drawing to a close. The yonng king, unlike his father and his grandfather, was of a violent and unforgiving temper. He was not deficient in abilities ; but all the powers of his mind were directed to the gratification of his own selfish wishes. He loved money, not so much to hoard as to squander ; and he never scrupled committing any act, however cruel or unjust, to obtain it. He was extraor- dinarily handsome ; but the beauty of his person only rendered the deformities of his character the more hideous. His wife, Jane, the heiress of Navarre, was also of a violent and vindictive temper ; and it was another misfortune of his reign that he had avaricious and insolent men for his ministers. Thus France, in the time of Philip the Fair, had her full share of misery. In the early part of his reign Philip was much occupied by the affairs of Aragon, and in endeavours to enforce the claim which his brother pretended to have to that kingdom, in right of the pope's donation. Edward I. of England, whose daughter was married to the king of Aragon, was desirous to maintain peace between Philip and Alfonso; but all his good offices were ineffectual. He could only obtain the release of Charles the Lame. Charles the Lame no a.d. 1293. PHILIP IV. 14 $ sooner recovered his liberty than he and Charles of Valois joined their forces against Alfonso of Aragon and his brother James ; but after a struggle which kept Europe in a continual ferment for some years, the two Charleses were obliged to give up the contest, and to leave the princes of Aragon in possession of their territories. In 1293 a private quarrel between a French and an English sailor involved the two nations in a war. The quarrel, being taken up by the crews of their two ships, spread from them to the fleets of both countries, and much piracy and outrage followed. Edward and Philip each demanded a compensation for the damage which his subjects had received, and this each refused to give. Philip sum- moned Edward as his vassal to appear before the parliament of Paris ; and Edward sent his brother, the earl of Cornwall, to nego- tiate for him. But he, not being a politician, was no match for Philip, who prevailed with him to give up six towns in Guienne, as a mere matter of form, promising to restore them. But when Philip had once got possession of these towns, he refused to resign them. Edward was extremely angry at this proceeding, renounced his homage to Philip, and declared himself no longer a vassal of France. Philip sent Eobert of Artois with an army into Guienne ; but little was done, both kings being at this time occupied with other projects. Edward's favourite project, as you probably remember, was the con- quest of Scotland, and that of Philip was the annexing Flanders to his own dominions. Flanders was at this time in the possession of Guy Dampierre, who had inherited it from his mother, the youngest sister of the countess Jane. He was a brave and venerable man, and was one of those knights who had accompanied St. Louis to the Holy Land. The Flemings, naturally a fickle people, were easily won over by the bribes and artifices of Philip to take offence at the measures pursued by their earl, and loudly to express their discontent. Guy, thinking that an alliance with England would strengthen his power at home, offered his daughter Philippa in marriage to Edward, the young prince of Wales. Philip was resolved to prevent this marriage, and took effectual means to do so. He invited the old earl and his wife and daughter, under a show of friendship, to Paris ; and when they arrived he caused them all to be shut up in prison. The earl and countess obtained their liberty in about a year ; but Philippa was not permitted to accompany them. The king, under the plea that she was his god-daughter, and that he had therefore a right to detain her, kept her a prisoner during the rest of her life, notwithstanding all the earl her father could do, and notwithstanding the united efforts of the pope and the king of England, who tried hard to obtain her liberty. You may easily believe that Philip's overbearing and ambitious 144 PHILIP IV. Chap. XVI. conduct made liim many enemies. The king of England, the em- peror of Germany, and many of the German princes, joined the earl of Flanders in a league against him. But Philip, by bribes and other means, contrived to counteract this league ; and Guy soon saw all his allies fall away, and found that he had to bear the burden of the war alone. Philip made a truce with Edward in 1297, which was prolonged afterwards from time to time. He also gave him his sister Margaret in marriage, and his daughter Isabella to the young prince of Wales. These affairs being settled, Philip turned his whole attention towards Flanders, which he seemed determined to overwhelm. He summoned all his vassals; and, that no one might be hindered from obeying the summons, he forbade all trials by combat, all private wars, and all tournaments, till such time as " the king's wars should be ended." The command of the army was given to Charles of Valois, who entered Flanders in 1299, and besieged Ghent, where the earl and his family were. The earl, finding himself thus hardly pressed, determined to go to Paris -and plead his cause with the king in person. The count de Valois undertook to conduct him, and pro- mised that, if he could not obtain peace within the year, he would bring him back in safety to Ghent. Under the faith of this promise, Guy, with two of his sons, set out ; but when he arrived in Paris, Philip protested that he was not bound by the engagement thus made, and shut up the old earl and Ms sons in prison. At this Charles of Valois was so much offended that he quitted his brother's service, and went into Italy, and entered into that of the pope. Philip now believed himself master of Flanders. He placed garri- sons in all the towns, and appointed Chatillon governor ; and, con- trary to all his former promises, he loaded the people with taxes. The Flemings, unaccustomed to such tyranny, resolved to free themselves from it. They rose up as by one consent, and made a general massacre of the French. On the news of this insurrection Philip sent an army of 50,000 men into Flanders. The Flemings had only raw and undisciplined troops, and were destitute of expe- rienced officers. The French army, on the other hand, consisted of veteran troops, and was commanded by Eobert of Artois, the most experienced general of his age. But, as it happened, their apparent want of military skill proved the Flemings' best security : for Eobert, despising them, and regarding them as an army of shopkeepers, thought his victory over them so certain that he neglected many necessary precautions. The consequence was, that in a battle, which was fought near Courtray, on the 9th of June, 1302, his troops were completely beaten, and he and his son slain. After the battle the Flemings collected on the field four thousand gilt spurs, of the kind a.d. 1 3 o 4 . PHILIP IV. I45 worn only by knights and noblemen, and hung them up in the church at Courtray as a trophy of their victory. Philip, more exasperated than ever, assembled a larger army than before, and, commanding it in person, entered Flanders in 1304. He gained a great victory at Mons en Puelle ; and about the same time Iris fleet defeated the Flemish fleet. This double disaster reduced the Flemings to desperation, and, shutting up all their shops, they assembled in a vast multitude, and marching boldly up to the French army, which was then besieging Lisle, demanded peace or instant battle. This prompt and bold proceeding astonished the king, who granted them peace, one of the conditions of which was that their earl should be restored to them. He was accordingly set at liberty, and went back to his country. Eeturning afterwards to France to complete the treaty with Philip, he died there at the age of eighty. His son, Eobert de Bethune, succeeded to the earldom, and the Flemings, who for the present were cured of their love of change, remained tolerably faithful to him. These wars in Flanders, which I have thus briefly related, occu- pied several years. During the time they were going on, Philip had been also engaged in an angry war of words with Boniface VIII. This pope was one of the most imperious and haughty men who ever sat in the papal chair; but in Philip he found a temper as haughty and imperious as his own. Their disagreements began as early as the year 1295, when Boniface sent to desire that Philip would make peace with the king of England, on pain of excommuni- cation. On this, Philip sent him word, in return, that it was the business of a pope to exhort, and not to command ; and that, for his part, he would allow no one to dictate to him in the government of his kingdom. This bold answer laid the foundation of a lasting enmity between Philip and Boniface. They omitted no opportunity of thwarting and of injuring each other: they even descended to personal abuse. The pope told the king of France that he was a fool, and the king of France accused the pope of heresy, immorality of conduct, and even of magic. At last Philip took it into his head to have Boniface brought by force to attend a council which was to be held at Lyons. For that purpose he despatched a chosen band of soldiers to Italy, under the command of Nogaret. They found the pope at his native town of Anagnia, in Abruzzo, whither he had gone to avoid the many enemies whom his overbearing temper had raised against him at Borne. Nogaret bribed the people of Anagnia to admit him into the town; and one of the Colonna family (the pope's chief enemies at Borne) found entrance with him. Nogaret proceeded to the pope's palace, and easily became master of his person, and was leading him away prisoner, when Colonna struck Francs. H i 4 6 PHILIP IV. Chap. XVI. the pope a violent blow on the face with his iron gauntlet, which instantly covered him with blood. Boniface uttered lond and violent cries of pain and resentment. His countrymen now repented of having betrayed him into the hands of his enemies. They rose and rescued him, and drove Nogaret and Colonna out of the town. Boniface did not long survive the affront he had received ; it is said that the violence of his ungoverned temper threw him into a fever ; and that he died raving mad, having in the paroxysms of his frenzy, gnawed off his fingers. His death took place in 1303 ; he was succeeded by Benedict XL, a mild and peaceable man, who was de- sirous to heal the breaches which had been caused by the violent conduct of his predecessor. Benedict, however, lived only a few months, and after his death the cardinals found it so very difficult to choose a successor, that the papal see remained vacant more than a year. At last Bertrand de Got was elected pope and took the name of Clement V. He was a native of Gascony, and consequently a subject of the king of England ; but he was completely won over by Plulip to the interests of France, and removed the papal see from Rome to Avignon. Clement was crowned pope at Lyons, Nov. 14, 1305, in the pre- sence of the king and the chief nobles of France. As the pope was returning from church, the king, who had been leading the pope's horse, resigned his office to the duke of Bretagne, and mounted his own horse. At that moment an old wall, on which a number of persons were standing to view the procession, fell ; the duke of Bre- tagne was killed on the spot, and many other persons were killed and wounded. The pope himself had a very narrow escape ; he was struck on the head by a stone, which knocked off his tiara. The king and his brother, Charles of Valois, also received hurts. This melancholy adventure of the new pope was regarded as a very bad omen by all the superstitious people of the time ; but I do not know that any great disaster followed, except indeed the disastrous fate of the knights Templars, whose ruin took place during his popedom. These knights, as I believe you know, were an order of military monks, which had been established during the early times of the crusades for the protection of the pilgrims who visited the holy sepulchre. They had in the course of time become exceedingly af- fluent, and had acquired lands in several countries of Europe. They lived dispersed, but still under the dominion of their grand master, who exercised a despotic control over them. The Templars in France had taken part with the people in some popular commotions ; and partly on this account, and partly for the sake of getting possession of their riches, Philip had marked them for destruction. He had many secret conferences on this subject with Clement, who used, for the sake of greater privacy, to meet him a.d. 1314. PHILIP IV. I47 in a wood near Avignon. It was concerted between them that Philip, under pretence of holding a consultation with the Templars respecting a new crusade, should summon them to appear at Paris in October, 1307. The grand master, James de Molai, was then in Cyprus; but he and sixty of his knights nevertheless obeyed the summons. As soon as they arrived, they were thrown into prison, and accused of a variety of crimes, of which they were innocent : but their innocence availed them little ; the pope dissolved their order, and fifty-seven of the knights were condemned and burnt alive. The grand master, and three of his principal officers, remained in prison. After lingering some years in confinement, they urgently demanded to be brought to trial ; and in 1314 were indulged with a sort of mock trial, and de Molai, who could not read, was made to affix his seal to a confession of crimes. He and his companions were con- demned to perpetual imprisonment, and they were placed on a scaf- folding, raised in the front of Notre Dame, to hear their confessions and their sentence read. De Molai exclaimed, with a loud voice, that their confessions were false ; that he and his knights had been trepanned into assenting to them ; and that they were innocent of the crimes imputed to them. On this the king was violently en- raged, and ordered that they should all be burnt to death by a slow fire. The place he appointed for their execution was at the back of the garden wall of his own palace ! The knights submitted to the tortures of their lingering death with incredible constancy. It is said that de Molai, while at the stake, summoned the pope in forty days, and the king in four months, to appear before the throne of God to answer for his murder. It is certain that both the pope and the king died nearly within the stated time. The order of the Templars was everywhere suppressed ; but in no country were they treated with so much cruelty as in France. Their possessions were nominally transferred to the order of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem ; but the king and the pope, it is supposed, retained the greater part. The government of Philip grew every year more oppressive. After he had exhausted the resources of taxes and imposts, he had re- course to debasing his coinage, and at the same time increasing the nominal value of it — an expedient which could only afford him a temporary relief, and was very ruinous to his subjects. The latter years of his reign were also disgraced by the levity of his sons' wives. Philip had three sons, Louis, Philip, and Charles. Margaret, the wife of Louis, was punished for her misconduct with great severity. She was imprisoned in Chateau Gaillard, and it is supposed was pri- vately put to death. Blanch, the wife of Charles, saved her life by declaring her marriage null, by reason of consanguinity, and her h 2 148 PHILIP IV. Chap. XVI. punishment was remitted to perpetual confinement in a convent. Jane, the wife of Philip, was probably considered as the least guilty of the three, and was restored to her husband and family after a year's imprisonment. In 1314, as Philip was hunting in the forest of Fontainbleau, his horse fell with him, and he was so much hurt, that he died Nov. 4. He was in the forty-sixth year of his age, and the twenty-ninth of his reign. While on his death-bed he was touched with a late repentance, and, taking pity on his poor oppressed people, he besought his son Louis, with his dying breath, to moderate the taxes, to maintain justice and good order, and to coin no base money. Philip married Jane queen of Navarre, who died in 1303. He had three sons and two daughters : — (1.) Louis, (2.) Philip, (3.) Charles, who all reigned successively, and died young without heirs male. The crown then went to the son of Charles of Valois. (1.) Margaret, married Ferdinand of Castile, son of Sancho, the usurper. (2.) Isabella, married Edward II., king of England. During this reign the dominions of the crown were increased by Champagne and Brie, which was part of the inheritance of the queen of Navarre. Philip also forcibly annexed the city of Lyons to his own territories. That city had formerly belonged to the kingdom of Aries, but latterly had been independent, and was governed by an archbishop. During the whole of Philip's reign it had been his policy to depress the nobles, and to raise the middle classes of the people. He allowed persons of low birth to purchase fiefs, by the possession of which these persons were elevated to the rank of nobles. He still farther mortified the old nobility, by issuing a patent of nobility in favour of Ealph, his goldsmith. And to raise the condition of the middle classes in general, he allowed the different communes to send depu- ties to attend the meetings of the states-general, which till then had been composed only of nobles and prelates. In 1300 pope Boniface VIII. established a jubilee. This festival was kept with great solemnity; and so many people resorted to Eome to be present at it, that many nobles, not being able to pro- cure lodgings, were obliged to sleep in sheds and hovels, and some even in the streets. CONVEKSATION ON CHAPTER XVI. Richard. Pray, mamma, what were the states-general ? I suppose they were much the same as our parliaments. Mrs. Markham. They have very frequently the name of parlia- Conv. PHILIP IV. 1 49 ment given to them; but as there also existed in France, from a very ancient period, other and very different bodies also called par- liaments, it is necessary to distinguish between them. In all feudal governments the power of the crown was originally confined within narrow limits. I do not mean that it was confined by any strict law : laws in rude ages are seldom exact : but the feudal chiefs, who held under the king, were in general so powerful, that the king could seldom do much in opposition to them, and was obliged to be guided very much by their wishes. In France, as I have already told you, a general assembly of the nation was anciently held every spring, at first in the month of March, afterwards in May. The monarch was by the constitution greatly dependent on this assembly, though such a man as Charlemagne probably led it as he pleased. After Charlemagne, when the monarchy was much weakened, and many nobles became more powerful than the crown, those nobles who thought themselves too great to condescend to admit the king's authority in their own domains, cared not to attend this national council, and it accordingly fell gradually into decay. Philip the Fair, in whose time the crown had gained a consider- able ascendency over the nobles, convened in 1302 what are pro- perly called the states-general. These states were composed in the first place of clergy, who took the precedency ; secondly, of nobles ; and thirdly, of the deputies of the commons, or tiers etat, who now, for the first time, were assigned a regular place in this solemn and deliberative public assembly. Subsequent meetings of the states- general were frequent till the year 1614, from which time they were discontinued till 1789, when they were again summoned at the event- ful crisis of the Kevolution. Richard. And what were the parliaments, as distinct from the states-general ? Mrs. M. The parliament of Paris appears to have emanated from a supreme council, which, under the kings of the house of Capet, was composed of the immediate feudal vassals of the crown, the prelates and officers of the royal household. This was the great judicial tribunal of the French crown. St. Louis made a consider- able alteration in its constitution, and it acquired in his time the title of Parliament. Philip the Fair fixed its seat at Paris. The parliaments, in addition to their judicial functions, were employed to register and authenticate all the royal edicts, and assumed a right to remonstrate against, and in very many cases to delay, and in some absolutely to refuse, to register them. Charles V. permitted the members of the parliament to fill up vacancies in their body by election ; and though this privilege was resumed afterwards by the crown, yet it was restored by Louis XI., who also appointed that 150 PHILIP IV. Chap. XVI. they should retain their stations for life. Thus the parliaments acquired great power in the state, and preserved, even through the most despotic reigns, the form and memory of a comparatively free constitution. When the parliaments refused to register the king's edicts, the king was obliged to proceed in person to the place where they held their sittings, and insist on their registering them ; and the parliaments could not refuse this to the king in person. The king's seat on these occasions was on a sort of couch under a canopy ; and hence we often hear of his holding a bed of justice. Several of the provinces had also separate parliaments. There were parliaments of Toulouse, Eennes, Dijon, Grenoble, and other places. Mary. I don't see why the French nobles need have been so very angry, when the king made his goldsmith a nobleman. Mrs. M. They regarded it as a great infringement of the privi- leges of their order. The French nobles were the proudest class in Europe, and, on account of their descent from the Franks, looked on themselves as a distinct and superior order, possessing rights and dignities which could not be shared by any other. Thus the king, although he might make Ealph the goldsmith a count, could not make him a descendant of the Franks ; and therefore, according to the notions entertained by the nobles, the goldsmith could not be a genuine nobleman. I am told that this distinction between the descendants of the original nobility, and those whose families have been ennobled by the royal patents, is still in some degree kept up. These two different classes of nobility are distinguished by the terms of the nobles and the ennobled. Richard. I think that was a tolerably peremptory law of Philip's which " forbade all private wars till the king's wars were ended." Mrs. M. When the king's wars were ended, he rode fully accoutred into the church of Notre Dame, and returned thanks at the altar for his victory over the Flemings. Mary. Do you mean, mamma, that he really rode on horseback into the church ? Mrs. M. He really did, and an equestrian statue was afterwards placed in the church, an exact representation of him and his horse. George. Pray, mamma, is that kind of high cap which popes are always drawn with called a tiara ? : Mrs. M. Yes, my dear; and if you will examine one of these tiaras, you will observe that it is formed of three crowns, one above another. Richard. I should have thought one crown was enough to wear at a time. Mrs. M. Boniface VIII. surrounded the tiara with its first crown ; Benedict XII. assumed the second; and John XXIII. added the third. The practice has been followed by all succeeding popes. Conv. PHILIP IV. 15 Mary. Will you tell us, if you please, mamma, how the ladies in France used to dress at this time ? Mrs. M. The female dress was at this time very graceful. It con- sisted of a tight bodice, made very high, and fitting the shape, over which was an open robe, trimmed either with gold or fur. The breadth and richness of the trimming depended on the rank of the wearer ; and there were very strict laws by which these things were regulated. George. And pray, mamma, how were the men dressed ? Mrs. M. Persons of distinction had long tunics with cloaks over them. Short tunics, or jackets, were worn only by servants, except- ing in a camp, and then they might be worn by gentlemen. The same laws which regulated the trimmings of the ladies regulated also the cloaks of the gentlemen, whose capes were cut, not " accord- ing to their cloth," but according to their rank. All ranks wore hoods, called chaperons, the size and shape of which were under exact regulation. The nobles had them very large, and let them hang down the back ; and those of the common people were smaller, and shaped like a sugar-loaf, and were worn really to cover their heads. Mary. I think those laws about capes and trimmings must have been very foolish and troublesome. Mrs. M. Laws of this na,ture are called sumptuary laws. Philip IV. enacted a great number of them ; he not only regulated the expense of each dress, but also the number of dresses each person was to have. Richard. That was the most provoking of all. Mrs. M. I can tell you of another law, which you will perhaps think still more provoking. There was a law regulating the number of dishes which each person might have for dinner and supper. Richard. 0! I don't think I should have minded about that, provided the dishes were not stinted in size as well as in number. Mrs. M. No person was to have more than one dish of soup and two dishes of meat for dinner, and the same for supper. George. I think that was a very fair allowance for supper. Mrs. M. You must recollect that they dined at the very early hour of half-past eleven; they therefore required a more solid supper than we do. The usual supper-hour was between four and five in the afternoon. Mary. If we had such laws about dinners and suppers in Eng- land, I suspect they would not be very well kept. Mrs. M. To say the truth, the strictness of the law forbidding many dishes was sometimes evaded by putting different sorts of meat into the same dish ; but the good folks of France were not long allowed to enjoy the benefit of this ingenious contrivance, for the king afterwards made a law forbidding it. 152 PHILIP IV. Chap. XVI. George. I don't wonder the country was so full of discontent. I think the old saying, of having " a finger in the pie," must have come from that over-meddling of king Philip. Mrs. M. The French were always a comparatively abstemious people, and perhaps did not think these restrictions on their meals so very serious a grievance as you seem to do. They were always much fonder of show than of comfort ; and even so long ago as Philip le Bel's reign, the inferior gentry, who were generally very poor, would try to hide their poverty by external finery. The English, on the contrary, preferred good living to show. The English yeomanry of this period are said to have lived in mean houses, but to have kept plentiful tables. In one respect, however, their houses were better than those of the French ; for the houses in England had the luxury of chimneys long before they were known in France. George. I was always sure that in all material things the English were much cleverer than the French. Mrs. M. The English might perhaps be cleverer in regard to chimneys, but the French beat them in glass windows. The English were obliged to have French artificers to make all the glass windows in their older churches. Most of the finest painted glass in our cathedrals came from France. Glass was at first chiefly, if not solely, employed in both countries for religious buildings. It was not used in France in domestic architecture till the fourteenth century. When we were speaking of the laws made by Philip to restrict his subjects' dinners, I ought to have told you of a very singular custom which at this time prevailed in France. Mary. "What was it, mamma ? Mrs. M. It was a custom for people to eat off each other's plates, and this was thought so great a mark of politeness, that, if a gentle- man sat next a lady at table, he would have been thought very rude if he did not eat off her plate. George. One would almost think that the poor dear souls were stinted in plates as well as in dishes. Richard. Pray, mamma, shall we have the history of any more crusades ? Mrs. M. "We have now come to the end of the crusades ; for though several of the succeeding popes tried to excite another, the princes of Europe were at length become too wise, and the crusade which was undertaken by St. Louis and our Edward I. proved the last. George. What became of all the Latins in Palestine ? Mrs. M. Their power dwindled away, till of all their possessions in the East, the town of Acre alone remained to them. But although their power was gone, their pride and their ambition remained. A.D, 13 14. LOUIS X. 153 Acre was taken by the Turks in 1291 ; and even while the Turks were storming their town, the Latins were occupied in contentions for the title of king. Some of the knights escaped, and afterwards possessed themselves of the island of Rhodes ; the rest were massa- cred by the Turks ; and thus closes the history of the dominion of the Latins in Syria. CHAPTER XVII. LOUIS X., SURNAMED HUTIN. PHILIP V., SURNAMED LE LONG. CHARLES IV., SURNAMED LE BEL. Years after Christ, 13 14 — 1328. Huntsman and Valet to Philip le 13el (from their tombs , These three brothers reigned one after the other in rapid suc- cession, and all died in the prime of life, leaving no male heirs. As these reigns are very short, I think it best to place them in one chapter. To begin then with Louis surnamed Hutin, a word which some English historians translate "the Quarrelsome," and others "the Peevish." Too little is known of this king's temper and character to enable us to say how far he deserved either of these opprobrious epithets; but judging by his conduct during the short time he H 3 I 5 4 LOUIS X. Chap. XVII. reigned, we may reasonably believe that he was very covetous, and of a restless, unsettled humour. He was twenty-six years of age when he began to reign. At first he allowed his uncle, Charles of Valois, to take the chief direction of affairs. Charles's first act was to compass the ruin of Enguerrand de Marigny, the late king's minister. He caused him to be accused of theft, and to be condemned and executed without being per- mitted to speak in his own defence. The wife of de Marigny was also accused of conspiring to compass the king's death by magic, and was thrown into prison. Many years afterwards Charles of Valois became convinced of his injustice towards de Marigny, and repented bitterly of it. He at length endeavoured also to make some reparation, the only repara- tion indeed which it was in his power to make. He restored all the forfeited estates of Marigny to his children, and caused his body to be taken down from the gibbet where it had continued to hang, and to be honourably interred. This took place in the year 1325. I must now return to the beginning of the reign of Louis Hutin. Hostilities having again broken out between France and the Flemings, Louis was desirous of marching into Flanders; but before he could do this, he found it necessary to replenish his coffers, which his father had left empty. Amongst other means of raising money, he issued a proclamation, offering to enfranchise all the serfs in the royal domains on their paying a certain sum. But the greater part of them preferred their money to their freedom. Louis then hit on the singular expedient of forcing them to be free, whether they would or not, by making a law to oblige them to purchase their enfranchise- ment. Having at last collected an army, he laid siege to Courtray ; but the elements conspired against him. Such torrents of rain fell that the roads were rendered impassable, and it was scarcely possible, even in the camp, to get from tent to tent without sinking up to the knees in mud. Provisions also began to fail, and the king was obliged to raise the siege and return to France ; but he first burnt all his baggage, which, on account of the state of the roads, he could not remove, to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. In the following year Louis died suddenly. His death was at the time ascribed to poison ; but we may with much more reason attri- bute it to the effects of his own imprudence in drinking cold water after he had heated himself with playing at tennis in the Bois de Vincennes, and then sitting down to rest himself in a damp grotto. He was seized soon afterwards with a sudden chill, and died the next day. He was twenty-eight years old, and had reigned only nineteen months. He was twice married. By his first wife, Mar- a.d. i 3 22. PHILIP V.— CHARLES IV. 155 garet, daughter of the duke of Burgundy, who died in prison, he had one daughter, — Jane, queen of Navarre, who married the count d'Evreux. Louis married, secondly, Clemence of Anjou, daughter of Charles Martel, king of Hungary. By her he had a posthumous child, — John, who lived only eight days. "When the king's death was known, a regency was appointed ; and on the death of the infant, Philip, the late king's next brother, ascended the throne, his daughter being excluded by the Salic law. Jane, however, was still heiress of the kingdom of Navarre, which had descended to her father from his mother, the queen of Na- varre. The duke of Burgundy and the count d'Evreux seemed at first determined to support the claims of Jane to the crown of France ; but the parliament having confirmed the law excluding females, and taken an oath to maintain Philip on the throne, all opposition was withdrawn ; and Philip secured the duke of Burgundy to his interests by giving him his daughter Jane in marriage. The young queen of Navarre was married to the count d'Evreux's eldest son, who by that means became king of Navarre. Philip reigned about six years ; the whole of which time proved, from different causes, a period of turbulence and disquietude. The king, we are told, was a man of good abilities, and desirous to remedy the disorders in the state ; but the seeds of evil were so deeply sown, and a lamentable corruption of morals prevailed so generally, that his best endeavours availed but little. We are told that the crime of poisoning was at this time common in France. Philip made an attempt to reduce all the weights and measures throughout his kingdom to one general standard ; but he did not live to effect this beneficial regulation. He died of a lingering ill- ness, at the chateau de Vincennes, January 3, 1322, in the twenty- ninth year of his age. He married Jane, daughter and heiress of the count of Burgundy, and of Mahaud countess of Artois, and by her had one son and four daughters : — (1.) Louis, who died in Ms infancy. (2.) Jane, married Eudes IV., duke of Burgundy. (3.) Margaret, married Louis earl of Flanders. (4.) Isabella, married the dauphin of Vienne. (5.) Blanch, a nun. The same law which had excluded the daughter of Louis Hutin from the throne now excluded the daughters of Philip le Long ; and his brother Charles, surnamed le Bel, ascended the throne without opposition. Money transactions in France (as also in England) were at this time chiefly carried on by natives of Lombardy. These people acquired prodigious wealth, and it was one of the first acts of 156 CHARLES IV. Chap. XVII. Charles's" reign to seize on their effects, and drive them all out of his kingdom. England was at this time in a state of great anarchy. Edward I., who had ruled with a powerful hand, was dead, and was succeeded by Edward II., a weak prince, who suffered himself to be governed by his favourites. He had married Isabella, Charles's sister ; and on a revival of the old claim of doing homage for Guienne, Edward sent his queen to France to accommodate this affair with her brother. Charles agreed to excuse Edward from appearing personally, and to receive the homage of the young prince of Wales instead. Isabella, when she had got her son with her in Paris, was in no hurry to return to England. She collected about her several English exiles, and some nobles who had left their country in disgust. She made Edmund Mortimer her favourite and confidant, and, planning to overthrow the weak, infatuated Edward, solicited aid of her brother for that purpose. But Charles entirely disapproved of her conduct, and not only refused to give her any assistance, but desired her to quit France. I need not here say how Isabella went on, nor relate to you the imprisonment and death of her husband. About this time Flanders was in a very unsettled state. I have already told you that the Flemings were a turbulent and changeable people. They were rich, and aspired at independence, which caused a perpetual struggle between them and their rulers. In the course of a few years they often changed masters, and the peace between France and Flanders was continually broken and renewed. In 1325 died Charles of Valois. It has been said of him, as of our own John of Gaunt, that he was the son, the brother, the uncle, and the father of kings, but was never a king himself. His disorder, which I have already said was of the mind, and occasioned by remorse, completely baffled his physicians, " who could not minister to a mind diseased." It was therefore attributed to magic, which was at that time the convenient way of accounting for every un- known disorder. On Christmas eve, 1327, the king was seized with a violent illness, which in a few weeks terminated his life. He died in the thirty- third year of his age and fifth of his reign. He was married three times : first, to Blanch of Burgundy, whom he divorced ; secondly, to Mary of Luxemburg, sister to Henry VIL, emperor of Germany ; and lastly, to Jane d'Evreux, by whom he had two daughters : — (1.) Mary, who died young, a few years after her father ; (2.) Blanch, a posthumous child, married Philip, son of Philip of Valois. As Blanch was not born till some months after the king's death, a regency was appointed; but when the expected child proved a daughter, Philip of Valois, the late king's cousin, assumed the crown, as being the nearest male heir. Oonv. LOUIS X.- PHILIP V.— CHARLES IV. 157 TABLE I. OF THE FAMILY OF CAPET. Began to reign. 987 Hugh Capet. 996 Robert. 1031 Henry L 1060 Philip I. 1106 Louis VI., le Gros. 1137 Louis VII., le Jeune. 1180 Philip II., Augustus. 1223 Louis VIII., le Lion. 1226 Louis IX., le Saint. 1270 Philip HI., le Hardi. 1286 Philip IV., le Bel, also king of Navarre. 1314 Louis X., Hutin, also king of Navarre, ^ 1316 Philip V., le Long, \ sons of Philip le Bel. 1322 Charles IV., le Bel. ) CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XVII. Bichard. In what way was it pretended that the wife of Marigny tried to take away the king's life by magic ? Mrs. Markham. She was accused of having made a wax image of the king, which she placed in a gentle heat so that it would melt gradually ; and it was supposed that by means of her magical in- cantations the king would waste away by degrees as the image melted, and that when the last atom of wax dissolved he would expire. Richard. The belief in magic was a fine thing for the physicians ; it must have saved them a great deal of trouble in studying the nature of disorders. Mrs. M. I omitted to mention amongst the events of the last reign, that the Jews had to endure a more severe persecution than they had ever before experienced. The pretext was that they had entered into a plot with the Turks to destroy all the people of France, by poisoning the springs of water. Bichard. They must have been very clever Jews to have managed that. Mrs. M. The lepers also were implicated in the charge, and were accused of endeavouring to spread their loathsome disease. Conse- quently their hospitals or lazar-houses were stripped and pillaged. As for the Jews, they were deprived of all their possessions, and then banished from France. George. This is very like the story of the Jews in England. It would have been much more honest if king Philip of France, and our king John, had said to the Jews at once, " We want your money, and we will have it," instead of calumniating them as well as robbing them. 158 LOUIS X.— PHILIP V.— CHARLES IV. Chap. XVII. Mrs. M. It would have been more honest still, if they had left the Jews in peaceable possession of their property. Richard, I have been looking at the map of Paris, and I see there are other islands in the Seine besides the one we used to call " the little old island" Mrs. M. There were formerly more than there are now, for by means of bridges and quays some of those have been joined that lie nearest together. The one you see, named l'isle Louviers, was formerly covered with a grove of elms, and is now occupied as a timber and wood yard. The isle of St. Louis was formerly a bleaching-ground, and was the place where the Parisians celebrated festive games. It is now joined to the isle of Notre Dame, and they form together one island, which is covered with buildings. Mary. Did the kings always inhabit the palace in the old island f Mrs. M. Louis Hutin was the last monarch who resided in that palace. He gave it up to the use of the public : the courts of justice are held in it ; and it goes by the name of Le Palais de Justice. Mary. Then where does the king of France live when he comes to Paris? Mrs. M. The palace of the Tuileries, which was built in 1564 by Catherine de Medicis, is the present 1 habitation of the royal family. From the time of Louis Hutin till the Tuileries were built, the Louvre was, I believe, the favourite residence of the French kings. George. I remember you told us, that in old times, when the king came to Paris, the citizens were obliged to send their furniture to the palace. I hope, when he went away, they got all their things again. Mrs. M. I hope they did. There is still extant a very curious letter from Philip Augustus, desiring that the old straw, with which the floors of the palace were strewed, may be given for the good of his soul to the use of the poor in the Maison de Dieu. Richard. "What was the Maison de Dieu ? and what use could be made of the old, dirty straw ? Mrs. M. The Maison de Dieu was an hospital for the sick, and the straw was probably used for the poor creatures to lie upon ; and I dare say it was very thankfully received, for the hospital was, at that time, so ill supplied with beds, that a statute was made, exacting that, on the death of every canon of Notre Dame, his bed should go to the hospital. Mary. Then I hope in time they had plenty of beds, and com- fortable ones too. Mrs. M. They had indeed plenty of beds at last, but I fear not very comfortable ones ; for, owing to the great increase in the size 1 Written in 1898. Oonv. LOUIS X.— PHILIP V.— CHARLES IV. 159 of Paris, the number of sick persons who were sent to this hospital was so great, that the rooms were crowded to excess. Beds were placed one above another, and those at the top could only be reached by the help of ladders ; and even in these wretched, close, suffocat- ing beds, the sick were huddled, five and six together — persons with all disorders, and even the dying with the dead. At last the state of the hospital was such, that to send a patient there was almost sending lum to certain death. Mary. Poor creatures ! it would have been better for them to have stayed and died quietly at home. Mrs. M. In the reign of Louis XVI. an inquiry was made into the state of this hospital, and the king was arranging a plan for some additional buildings, when the tumult of the revolution put an end to his benevolent designs. George. This is another reason for disliking that horrible French revolution. Mrs. M. Happily for the poor wretches in the Maison de Dieu, the revolution was productive of benefit to them ; for when the religious orders were abolished, some of the convents were appropriated to the use of the hospital, and the sick are now (whether or no by fair means, I do not say) comfortably lodged, and the different classes of patients are kept separate. Ricliard. You once told us something about the Bois de Vincennes, and I have quite forgot what it was. Mrs. M. I told you that it was a park close to Paris, and that it was enclosed by Philip Augustus. He built a hunting palace in the park. Our king Henry V. resided in it when he was master of Paris, and died there. Richard. Is there a palace there now ? Mrs. M. There is a chateau, which has been greatly enlarged and beautified since those times. It was a favourite residence of many of the French kings till the time of Louis XL He was, as you will hear when we come to his reign, a very wicked man, and his cruelties converted the chateau de Vincennes from a maison de plaisance into a maison de misere, and after Iris time it was used as a state prison, a few apartments being alone reserved for the occasional accommo- dation of the royal family. Mary. It was a strange, uncomfortable plan, to make prisons and palaces all in one. Mrs. M. The donjon tower of Vincennes, which is the oldest part of the building, contains several dungeons, some of which had no daylight whatever; and the stone beds which the prisoners lay on may still be seen. Mary. I hope no prisoners are ever confined there now. Mrs. M. During the time of Bonaparte it contained several 160 LOUIS X.— PHILIP V.— CHARLES IV. Chap. XVII. prisoners ; but now the donjon tower is used as a depot for gun- powder, and the rest of the palace is converted into a manufactory of porcelain. The most interesting thing to me at Vincennes would be the old oak, which is still standing, under which St. Louis used to sit to hear the petitions of the poor. Richard. Pray, mamma, will you be so kind as to explain what sort of thing the jubilee was which pope Boniface ordered to be cele- brated once every hundred years ? Mrs. M. It was a plenary indulgence, or in other words a full pardon of sins, to all persons who should in this appointed year make a pilgrimage to Eome. The concourse of pilgrims to the first jubilee was so great, that it was called the golden year. The period was afterwards shortened to fifty years by pope Clement VL, who lived in 1350, and who was willing to come in for one of these golden harvests. Later popes have, for the same reason, found it con- venient to shorten the period to twenty-five years ; giving as a reason that, by this change, every person may reasonably hope to enjoy the benefit of the jubilee at least once in their lives. George. Are there any jubilees at Eome now ? Mrs. M. One was celebrated in 1825, but it was a great falling off from the jubilees of old times, being attended by only seventy-two pilgrims. Mary. And what did they do when they got to Eome ? Mrs. M. They received their plenary indulgences from the pope, Leo XII., and afterwards went in procession to hear mass in St. Peter's church. When they returned, they dined in one of the halls of the Vatican with his holiness, who helped them with his own hands, and dined with them at the same table. George. That would be a very comfortable way of getting absolved of our sins, if we could but make our consciences keep quiet. Mrs. M. In former days, when people were very ignorant, and consequently very superstitious, there were various comfortable ways of getting absolution for sin. Some people, who were rich and could afford it, allowed their confessors an annual stipend to absolve them from all their sins for the year. Richard. I should like to know whether these stipends were paid beforehand. Mrs. M. Some people, instead of buying absolution by the year, thought it better to try the efficacy of a rod, and used to undergo regular castigations from the hands of their confessors. St. Louis, who followed very rigorously the superstitious observances of his times, always kept a rod by him, and used to apply it to his own person as occasion offered, or as he thought he deserved it. A.D. 1328. PHILIP VI, 161 CHAPTER XVIII. PHILIP VI. OF VALOIS, SURNAMED LE BIEN FORTUNE. Years after Christ, 1328 — 1350. Part of Chateau of Blois. I have already told you in the last chapter, that, on the death of Charles le Bel, his cousin Philip, count of Valois, was appointed regent. When the queen-dowager's expected child proved a daughter, Philip was declared king by the peers and the states- general. He was crowned at Eheims, in the 35th year of his age; and from the circumstances of his thus obtaining a crown, was called le Bien Fortune. But few monarchs, as you will see in the sequel, have less merited that epithet. He was impetuous, rash, 1 62 PHILIP VI. Chap. XVIII. selfish, and of a suspicious temper. He was, however, a man of great personal bravery, and this appears to have been his only merit. Edward III. of England, whose mother, you know, was daughter of Philip le Bel, pretended to claim through her a right to the crown of France, contending that although, according to the Salic law, a woman could not inherit the crown, she might yet transmit a right to it to her son. He, however, dissembled for a time his ambitious designs, and appeared to acquiesce in Philip's right, by doing homage to him for Guienne. But he never lost sight of his project, and, long before he could execute it, began secretly to lay his measures. He collected a great quantity of warlike stores, and formed alliances with John de Montfort, duke of Bretagne, and with the Elemings. . Both the Flemings and de Montfort were at that time at war with France, Philip having espoused the cause of the earl of Flanders, against whom his subjects had rebelled, and also that of Charles de Blois, who had married the daughter of an elder brother of de Montfort, and disputed with him the possession of the duchy of Bretagne. In 1336 Edward openly set himself to prosecute his claim to the French crown. He prevailed on his allies, the Flemings, to proclaim him king of France, and swear fealty to him. On this occasion also he assumed the arms of France, three fleurs-de-lis, and quartered them with the arms of England on his seal and shield. They continued to form part of the royal arms of England till the foolish pretence was at length abandoned in the reign of George III. Philip assembled a great fleet, which sailed up and down the Channel, and did great mischief to English commerce. It was en- countered by the English fleet off Sluys, and a desperate battle was fought, in which the French were defeated. In 1342 a truce was agreed upon between the two kings, and Philip proclaimed a tournament at Paris, with the hope of drawing there several Breton noblemen, whom he suspected of favouring the cause of Edward. When he had succeeded in getting them into his power, he caused them to be beheaded, without either trial or sentence — an act of injustice and wickedness, of which, during the remainder of his life, he had ample reason to repent. "In this manner," says Mezerai, " did this too severe and revengeful king alienate the affections of his nobles, who, in consequence, served him but ill in his hour of need." Edward, regarding the death of the Breton nobles as an infraction of the truce, immediately renewed the war. He sent the earl of Derby to attack the dominions of. Philip on the side of Guienne, while he himself landed on the coast of Normandy with about a.d. 1346. PHILIP VI. 163 40,000 men. Meeting with no opposition, he marched through the country almost to the gates of Paris, destroying and pillaging everywhere by the way. Edward's army was too small to allow him to penetrate far into France for any considerable length of time, and he soon retired towards Ponthieu with the intention of joining the Flemings, having first defied Philip to single combat. This defiance Philip did not accept, but having summoned all the vassals of his kingdom, and assembled a numerous army, he pursued Edward with all haste, burning with resentment towards that audacious monarch, who had thus braved him even at the walls of his capital. When he arrived near the mouth of the Somme, he learned that the English were en- camped on the plain of Cressy. Philip was so impatient to be revenged on the English, that he was with difficulty prevailed on to give his wearied soldiers a night's rest at Abbeville. His army was so numerous that he could with ease have surrounded the English camp and starved it into a surrender; but he rejected with disdain the advice given him to do so, and the next morning, the 26th of August, 1346, he sounded his trumpets, and set forward to battle. Abbeville is five miles from Cressy, and Philip urged on his troops with such inconvenient speed, that when they arrived in sight of the enemy they were heated, out of breath, and in disorder; whilst the English were seated on the ground in order of battle, tranquilly waiting their approach. At sight of the French army, the English sprang up and made ready their arms. When Philip saw their formidable and prepared array, he gave orders for the horsemen to halt, and for the archers, who were Genoese mercenaries, to advance to the front. But there was no discipline or subordination. The horsemen would not obey the order ; and the king's brother, the duke of Alencon, declared the Genoese unworthy to have the post of honour. The offended Genoese would not relinquish their ground, and, forgetting that they were in the face of the enemy, they and the horsemen began to fight with one another. During their contention a violent shower of rain fell. The English, cool and collected, put their bows into their cases ; but the Genoese were too much disordered to take that pre- caution. The consequence was, that when order was restored, and the archers were commanded to commence the attack, they found their bowstrings spoiled by the rain, so that the arrows fell short of their mark. The duke of Alencon, observing this, and inflamed with passion, believing it to be done with design, called out "Treason! treason!" and commanded his men to ride over the Genoese, and drive them off the field. The rout being thus begun by the French themselves, there was 1 64 PHILIP VI. Chap. XVIII. an end of all order and command in the whole army. Each man pressing forward, they overset one another; and those who were down could not rise because of the press. The English, meanwhile, stood firmly together, and discharged such thick and steady flights of arrows, that they made a dreadful havoc. The battle began at four in the afternoon, and raged till ten at night, when 40,000 French were left dead upon the field. Amongst them was the king of Bohemia, who, though blind, had still desired to be conducted into the battle, that he might " strike one stroke against the enemy." He was led by two of his nobles, who, tying the reins of his horse's bridle to their own bridles, galloped with him between them into the midst of the combat. Their three bodies were found with their horses tied together, and a small stone cross still marks the spot where they fell. Philip, although he saw the battle was lost, would not quit the field till he was forced from it by his attendants, and then, riding under cover of the darkness, he reached the walls of a neighbouring- town, and demanded to have the gates opened to him. The governor refused to admit him till he knew who he was, not imagining it could be the king, who was arrived like a fugitive ; but when Philip replied that " he was the fortunes of France," the gates were immediately opened to him. But he could scarcely make his way through the numbers of people who came flocking about him, weep- ing and bewailing in so distressful a manner, that he was obliged to try to console them as best he could. The next day the English continued the pursuit of their flying enemy, and it is said that the slaughter exceeded that of the day before. Edward's next enterprise was to besiege Calais, which was at last reduced by famine, and surrendered August 29, 1347, after a siege of eleven months. Edward turned out all the inhabitants, and peopled the town with his own subjects. Philip recompensed the brave citizens as well as he could, for the fortitude and loyalty they had displayed during the siege. Soon after this a dreadful pestilence, which equally desolated both England and France, made the two monarchs desirous of peace. Edward, however, retained Calais, as well as several places which the earl of Derby had gained in Guienne. In 1350 Philip was seized with a violent illness, which soon terminated his life, in the 57th year of his age, and the 23rd of his reign. He was twice married : by his first wife, Jane of Burgundy, he had two sons and a daughter : — (1.) John, duke of Normandy, who succeeded his father; (2.) Philip, duke of Orleans ; (3.) Mary, duchess of Brabant. Philip's second wife was Blanch, granddaughter of Louis X, ot Navarre : by her he had Jane, a posthumous child, a.d. 1350. PHILIP VI. 165 In the latter end of this reign, the dauphin of Vienne, having caused the death of his only child by letting him fall out of a window, was so inconsolable for his misfortune, that he retired from the world into a monastery, and sold his territories to Philip, on condition that the eldest son of the kings of France should, in future, bear the title of dauphin. Philip purchased Eoussillon and Cerdagne, with the town of Montpellier, of the king of Aragon. He inherited Maine and Anjou from his mother, who was a daughter of Charles the Lame, king of Naples. The dominions of the crown of France acquired thus an extension which compensated for its losses in the wars with Eng- land. The people during this reign were greatly distressed by imposts and taxes, more particularly by a tax called Oabelle, the levying of which occasioned great discontents. The province of Bretagne was in a very disturbed state during the greater part of this reign. John de Mont- fort fell into the hands of the king, who imprisoned him in the Louvre. During his imprisonment, his wife, Margaret of Flanders, a woman of a masculine spirit, took upon herself the direction of affairs. She sent her young son for safety to England ; and clothing herself in armour, and mount- ing a war-horse, she was, as Froissart says, " as good as a man." She was, nevertheless, driven from all her strongholds, except- ing the little town of Hennebon, where she shut herself up, and awaited succours from England. The succours, though promised, were long in coming, and the countess began to despair; but before she could determine to surrender, she mounted a high tower, and took one more look at the sea. There she saw some distant sails which proved to be those of a fleet from England, under the command of Sir "Walter Manny, who, landing with his troops, JEW1TT.S0' Hotel de Guise, Calais, originally Hall of the English Merchants of the Staple. 1 66 HIILIP VI. Chap. XVIII. beat off the enemy, and delivered the countess from peril. She met sir Walter as he entered the town, and (I use the words of the chronicle) " kissed him and Ins captains like a brave and valiant lady as she was." After several truces and renewals of war between the parties of De Montfort and Blois, the former diecUin 1345 ; and the latter was, in 1347, taken prisoner, with his two sons. His wife, who was both courageous and ambitious, collected the scattered forces of her friends, and supported her husband's party against the countess de Montfort. But although thus the war was still carried on between these two female warriors, nothing decisive was done. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XVIII. Richard. "What kind of tax was the Gabelle ? Mrs. Marhham. The mere word itself signifies any kind of tax or rent, but in the French history it commonly means a tax on salt, which was the more oppressive, because it became at last a mono- poly. Richard. How was it made a monopoly ? Mrs. M. All the salt that was made in France was brought to the royal warehouses, and was from thence sold to the people at what- ever price the king and his ministers chose to fix ; and as salt may be considered one of the necessaries of life, this tax was felt by every description of persons. George. I don't call that so much a tax as a cheat. Richard. And did all the kings of France keep on selling salt ? Mrs. M. In all the latter reigns the Gabelle, as well as all the other taxes in France, was farmed. Mary. Farm a tax ! mamma ; that is very puzzling. Mrs. M. To farm a tax is to pay so much to the king for the privilege of receiving all the money collected by it. I believe the French farmers of taxes made very good bargains; for they commonly became very rich, and, in consequence, were very obnoxious to the poor, who looked upon their wealth as taken from their own pockets Richard. But was not some of it taken from the pockets of the rich? Mrs. M. Not from those of the nobles ; for they were exempted from taxation, which made it fall doubly heavy upon the lower orders. I must not forget to tell you a witticism which is recorded of our king Edward III. You know that sal is Latin for salt, and when he heard that Philip had levied a tax on salt, he called him the inventor of the Salic law. Conv. PHILIP VI. 167 George. I suppose that dreadful pestilence you just now mentioned was the same you spoke of in your other history, and which I re- member you said was called the black death. Mrs. M. You are quite right. This dreadful disorder first made its appearance in the year 1346, in the kingdom of Cathay, the ancient name of China. By degrees it spread over all the then known world, visiting first Constantinople, Egypt, and Greece. From thence it passed over into Europe and travelled northward, till, in 1348, it reached France. Mary. And did the people of one country begin to be ill as soon as those of another got well ; or were they all ill together? Mrs. M. The disorder seemed to quit one country as soon as it reached another, and to make a very regular progress. It commonly lasted about five months in each. The people in general, believing that all medicines were vain, took no precautions, either to abate its violence or to prevent infection. George. Then how was it ever stopped ? Mrs. M. It only stopped on the borders of the Frozen Sea. In Russia it carried off the whole of the royal family. There is one circumstance relative to this black death so very extraordinary that I cannot forbear relating it, although it has nothing to do with the history of France. You know that, a great many centuries ago, a colony from Denmark inhabited a part of the coast of West Green- land. They built houses and churches, and even had a bishop. The country was, however, very unproductive, and the colony was annually supplied with necessaries from Denmark. But in the year 1349 the pestilence caused so great a mortality amongst the Danish seamen, that none survived who were acquainted with the navigation to West Greenland. The colony was therefore deprived of its usual resources. - Mary. What became of the poor creatures ? Mrs. M. No one knows. West Greenland, ever since that time, has never been visited by Europeans. We are even ignorant whether or not there are any existing descendants of the Danish settlers. George. Why don't some of our sailors go and see ? there is no black death now to prevent them. Mrs. M. But there are now as great difficulties to overcome. An insurmountable barrier of ice has formed along the coast, which prevents all access to it. Many attempts have at different times been made to reach the ancient settlement. In the reign of queen Elizabeth, our famous navigator, Frobisher, was sent with a squadron for that purpose, but all in vain; neither he, nor any subsequent navigator, has been able to approach the shore, and our sailors can only see, or fancy they see, beyond the barrier of impass- 1 68 PHILIP VI. Chap. XVIII. able ice, a long line of coast, on which they think they can perceive something like the ruins of buildings. George. If I were they, I would go to the other side, to East Greenland, and would get to the western shores over land. Mrs. M. That also has been attempted. A king of Denmark, in the early part of the last century, sent out an expedition, provided with horses and sledges, to explore the country between the two shores ; but when the expedition got a short way into the interior, they found that the country, as far as could be seen, presented nothing but an immense plain of ice, intersected by impassable chasms, and that it was utterly impossible to proceed. George. ! if I had but wings, you should soon know what was become of those Danes in West Greenland. But this is talking nonsense ; so, if you please, mamma, we had best go back to France. Richard. Pray, mamma, are the French well off in histories of their own country ? Mrs. M. They have, I believe, a great many more than my limited information can tell you of. I believe that one of the best is that by Velly, with a continuation by Villaret. I have been exceedingly entertained and instructed by a history, not yet completed, written by M. Sismondi, a very distinguished living author. 1 I confess also I have a great liking for old Mezerai, a very naif and honest-hearted historian, and who has the merit with me of not being too philoso- phical. ( Richard. And when did this unphilosophical old gentleman live ? Mrs. M. He lived in the time of Louis XIV., and many whimsical anecdotes are related of him. It was one of his fancies always to sit by candlelight even in the lightest and brightest days in summer. He also loved singularity in his dress, and often wore very shabby clothes. Once, when he was travelling, his carriage broke down ; he left his servants to get it repaired, and walked on alone to the nearest town. Here his dress exciting observation, he was about to be taken up as a vagrant. He was highly diverted at the mistake, and only very civilly requested of the people who were going to take him before the magistrate, that they would be so obliging as to wait till his equipage should arrive. George. I think they, would take him for a madman. Mrs. M. Luckily the arrival of the carriage finished the adventure. Richard. Have you not a history of France also by a M. Henault? Mrs. M. Henault was president of the chamber of requests in Paris, and during a long life enjoyed the highest reputation for virtue and wisdom. He was forty years in writing his short chrono- logical abridgment of French history. 1 M. Sismondi died in 1842. Conv. PHILIP VI. 169 George. It must be owned that the good man did not hurry himself. Mrs. M. He verified the old saying of " slow and sure ; * and though his history, if we may call it so, is not lively, it may yet be re- lied on for its accuracy. That is more than can be said for a history by Father Daniel, which is said to contain ten thousand blunders. Bichard. I think it must have required some patience to count them. Mrs. M. "When Daniel was writing his history, the king's librarian sent him a great mass of valuable records and royal letters, thinking that they would be useful to him ; but he sent them all back, saying that he had no patience to look over them, and that he was sure he could make a very readable history without plaguing himself with such paper rubbish. Mary. Ah, mamma! if you could get some of that paper rub- bish, how many entertaining, and I dare say curious, stories you would find for us! Mrs. M. I have no doubt but that I shall still be able to find for you many entertaining stories. French literature is singularly rich in private memoirs, which often give us more insight than graver histories into the manners, customs, and ways of thinking, in the different periods in which they were written. Richard. I don't think there is anything more curious in history than the change of opinion. One would think that right and wrong must be always the same, and yet how differently people think of it ! Mrs. M. The change of opinion may generally be traced to the progress of knowledge; the more the human understanding is culti- vated, the more it is enlarged, and the better able to discern good from evil. A Crossbow-mau from an old picture of the battle of Creasy. Pkakce. 170 JOHN. Chap. XIX. CHAPTEE XIX. JOHN, SURNAMED LE BON. Years after Christ, 1350 — 1364. Avignon Castle, Palace of the Popes. John, who was forty years old when he ascended the throne, had already had great experience in military affairs, and had on several occasions shown an extraordinary degree of personal bravery. It is probable that to this quality, at all times so captivating to the French people, he owed his surname of "the Good;" for he does not seem to have been any otherwise entitled to it. He was passion- ate and vindictive, and by his impetuosity and wilfulness brought his kingdom to the verge of ruin. It might indeed be said of him that he was frank and honourable ; but his honour was a mere high- flown, chivalrous principle, and not that true honour which is just as well as generous. John began his reign with an act of flagrant injustice. He put the constable d'Eu and some other nobles to death, on the bare sus- picion that they had intelligence with the English. He then con- ferred the office of constable, with the earldom of Angouleme, on one of his favourites. This act brought upon him the resentment of the king of Navarre, who was indignant that the earldom was not bestowed on himself. Charles king of Navarre was the son of Philip d'Evreux and of Jane queen of Navarre, daughter of Louis X. He inherited from his father very considerable territories in Normandy, and but for the Salic law, which had excluded his mother from the throne, would a.d. 1356. JOHN. 17I have been king of France. His sister had married the late king, and he was himself married to one of the daughters of the reigning monarch. His youth had been chiefly spent in the French court, and he was distinguished above all the princes of his time for courtly address, and excellence in all knightly accomplishments. He was bold, liberal, and eloquent ; qualities, as Mezerai observes, which are admirable when joined to virtue, but pernicious when they accom- pany a bad heart, as they increase the means of doing harm. It seemed indeed as if this was the only use which Charles made of his fine qualities ; for he was cruel, unforgiving, and artful, to the last degree. He seemed to love wickedness for its own sake, and was deservedly distinguished by the name of Charles the Bad. Not long after the new constable had been invested in his office, he was murdered in his bed by order of the king of Navarre, who took no pains to conceal his crime, but, on the contrary, boasted of it openly. Charles was cited before the peers of France to answer for the murder ; but John wanted either the courage or the power to punish him openly. He therefore had recourse to artifice. A grand entertainment was given at Eouen, m 1356, on the king's eldest son being invested with the duchy of Normandy. Charles the Bad was invited, and John entered the castle with some armed men, who seized on Charles and his attendants as they were sitting at table. Charles was closely confined in chateau Gaillard, and some of his attendants were put to death. I told you, at the close of the last reign, that one of the last acts of Philip of Valois was to conclude a truce with England, if truce it could be called, for there still subsisted a kind of warfare between the soldiers of each nation, who were perpetually engaged in trials at arms with one another. The inhabitants of every town and village were obliged to keep themselves well defended and constantly upon the watch, that they might protect themselves from the attack of the two contending parties, and also from the numbers of dis- banded soldiers, who had enlisted in bands and called themselves free companies, roving about the country, owning no masters but their own captains, and committing dreadful devastations wherever they came. These people even threatened the town of Avignon, and the pope was obliged to purchase his safety with a large sum of money. The truce with England, such as it was, lasted till 1356. Edward construed the imprisonment of Charles of Navarre into an infringe- ment of it, and the war again broke out openly. Edward the Black Prince, eldest son of the king of England, had the year before been invested by his father with the duchy of Guienne. Not content to keep within the limits of his own duchy, he invaded John's terri- tories, and overran the neighbouring country. John hastily assem- — '■ --.--<■» - ■ ^ 172 JOHN. Chap. XIX. bled a numerous army, and came up with the Black Prince near Poitiers. The prince, seeing his retreat cut off, and that the French army was more than twice as large as his own, was willing to sur- render on any honourable conditions : but John would agree only to an unconditional surrender. The Black Prince, therefore, resolved to defend himself to the last moment, and encamped his little army on the most advantageous spot he could find. This was a small plain, surrounded, except on one side, by vine- yards and thick hedges. The prince, having hastily thrown up some ditches and trenches to strengthen the natural defences of his position, quietly awaited the approach of the enemy. The French king was eager to commence the attack; but the pope's legate, cardinal Perigord, who was in the French camp, was very anxious to prevent the effusion of blood. The armies came in sight of one another on Saturday, September 17, 1356; and the whole of the Sunday the cardinal was occupied in riding from one camp to the other, endeavouring to persuade each party to consent to reasonable terms. But John remained wilfully bent to exact an entire submis- sion on the part of the prince, and Edward would agree to nothing that he thought would compromise his honour. John, blinded by passion, insisted on an immediate battle ; but the day being by that time far advanced, he was at last persuaded to remain in his quarters till the morning. Early the next day the two armies made themselves ready for battle. The French were in three divisions. In the first were the king's three eldest sons, the dauphin, the duke of Anjou, and the duke of Berri. The second was commanded by the duke of Orleans. The king, with his youngest and favourite son Philip, was in the third. John gave order that the attack should be begun by three hundred chosen horsemen, and that all the rest of the cavalry, with the exception of some German troops, should be dismounted. This order occasioned great confusion. Each horseman wanted to be one of the chosen number. Those who could not be of that number were dissatisfied ; and the time that should have been spent in dis- posing the men in order of battle was passed in disputes and squabbles. At last order was restored, and the attack commenced. The three hundred chosen horsemen led the van, followed by the Germans ; but in attempting to push through the vineyards which surrounded the English intrenchments, they found themselves en- tangled amongst the trees. Their horses were rendered unmanage- able by the arrows of the English archers, and turned round, over- throwing the German cavalry in their rear. This movement had something the appearance of a repulse ; and either from over-caution or cowardice, the officers who had the care of the dauphin and his brothers withdrew with the three young princes from the field. A.D. 1356. JOHN. 73 Their flight spread an alarm throughout the army, and the whole of the first and second divisions followed them, without having even faced the enemy. The king's division alone remained, but this was superior in numbers to the whole English army, and John still continued confident of victory. He did not want either for bravery or skill, and manfully exerted both, remaining in the field, though twice wounded in the face, till the close of the day. His youngest son, Philip, fought by his side, and would not be persuaded to leave his father. At last John found that his troops had given way on every side, and that the field was lost. He saw himself entirely surrounded by the enemy, and observing amongst them a knight of Artois, named De Morbec, who, being an outlaw, had enlisted in the English army, he surrendered himself to him. The English soldiers disputed the prize with De Morbec, and while they were contending, the earl of Warwick arrived with orders from the Black Prince to conduct John and his young son, who had surrendered with him, to his tent. The prince received his royal captives with the greatest courtesy and respect. At supper he waited upon the king as if he had been his own father ; and seeing him sad and heavy, he sought to cheer him by consoling words. He said to him, " Although, noble sir, it was not God's will that you should win the day, yet you singly have won the prize of valour, since it was apparent to every Englishman that none bore himself so bravely as you." The prince conveyed his prisoners the next day to Bordeaux, where they remained till the following spring, when they were con- ducted to England, and were there received by Edward and his queen Philippa with every demonstration of respect. The palace of the Savoy in London was allotted to the French king for his resid- ence ; and during the four years he remained in England he was treated more like a guest than a prisoner. In the mean time France was plunged in the greatest misery. The dauphin took upon himself the management of affairs. He was a young man of great talents and activity, but was too young and inexperienced to be able to govern the country at such a juncture. He was guided and misled by evil counsellors, and endeavoured to keep the people tranquil by making promises, which he did not per- form, of redressing their grievances. He thus forfeited their con- fidence, and prepared for himself a long train of difficulties. Indeed the condition of the country was such, that it would have been scarcely possible even for the most wise and able man to remedy it. The nobles, instead of lending their help to the exigencies of the state, only thought how they might avail themselves of the feeble- ness of the government to further their own private interests. They endeavoured to deprive the enfranchised peasants of their newly 174 JOHN. Chap. XIX. acquired rights, and to bring them back to a state of feudal slavery. They pillaged the peasants without mercy, burnt their dwellings, and drove them like wild beasts to seek shelter in caverns and forests. But these wicked violences prepared their own punishment. A worm when trod on will turn again. Some peasants in Beauvoisin were talking over their grievances, and they agreed amongst them- selves that it would be a justifiable deed to exterminate all the nobi- lity and gentry. The word was no sooner given than they seized on scythes, pitchforks, and whatever they could first lay hold of, and, rushing to the nearest gentleman's house, they murdered all the inhabitants and set fire to the house. With hourly increasing numbers they proceeded onward, destroying and slaughtering wher- ever they came. The panic of the gentry was extreme ; all who could, fled to the nearest fortified town. This insurrection, which was called the Jacquerie, spread with frightful rapidity, and it was impossible to foresee where it would end ; for no one of the higher orders could consider himself for a moment safe, since he knew not how soon his own servants might turn against him. Every one, however, saw that something must be done, and that speedily ; the difference of party and of country was forgotten, and the English and the French all united against the Jacquerie. Even the king of Navarre, who had escaped from his prison, united with the dauphin in this emergency, and the insurrection was soon quelled. Thus were the provinces restored to comparative tranquillity, but the government was by no means settled. Charles of Navarre laid claim to the crown, and Paris was in a continual tumult. There was at that time in the city a man of the name of Marcel; he was the provost of the merchants, an office which, in some respects, resem- bled that of the lord-mayor of London. Marcel at first affected a great desire to serve his fellow-citizens, and to protect their liberties ; but he soon declared himself a strenuous partisan of the king of Navarre. In 1358 the dauphin was appointed regent. In the provinces he was able to support his authority ; but in Paris Marcel had raised so strong a party in favour of the king of Navarre, that the dauphin was several times obliged to abandon the city. The contentions be- tween Charles and him make the history of tins period extremely tedious. Charles, who was very eloquent, would frequently ha- rangue the mob from a raised platform. The dauphin would do the same. Neither party, however, confined itself entirely to a war of words ; they both frequently proceeded to violence. Marcel one day entered the palace of the dauphin, and murdered two of his servants before his face. He justified himself by saying that these men had a.d. 1358. JOHN. 175 given the dauphin bad advice ; he then snatched the cap, or barrette, from the prince's head, to put upon his own, and made him wear a particoloured hood of red and blue, which was the badge of Na- varre. The dauphin found himself obliged to submit for the time to the insolence of Marcel, but he took the first opportunity of escaping from Paris. At the commencement of the disturbances, Marcel, under pretext of securing the city from the attacks of the free companies, had re- paired and strengthened the fortifications, and planted cannon on the walls. For some time he continued steady to the king of Na- varre's party, but afterwards, becoming displeased with him, he entered into secret intelligence with the English, and took measures for betraying the city to them. His intentions, however, were sus- pected by some of his fellow-citizens, and one of them, named Jean Maillard, seeing him going slily towards one of the city gates at midnight, accused him of an intention to open them to the enemy. A tumult arose, in which Marcel was slain, and the keys of the gate were found concealed under his cloak. On Marcel's death the party of the king of Navarre declined, the particoloured hoods were thrown away, tranquillity was restored, and on August 24, 1358, the dauphin once more took possession of Paris. The king of Navarre was more exasperated than discouraged by the turn his affairs had taken. He blockaded Paris by land and water, and cut off all its supplies ; he vowed that he would never have peace with the princes of the house of Valois, and the dauphin found himself in the utmost distress and difficulty. He had no money, and was obliged to have recourse to the same sort of leather money which had formerly been used in the time of Henry I. In addition to all the other calamities with which Paris was now afflicted, famine was beginning to be severely felt, and it seemed as if Charles the Bad would soon effect the ruin, not only of Paris, but of the whole kingdom ; when suddenly his mind changed, and from some cause, which historians and politicians have vainly tried to dis- cover, he made peace with the dauphin, raised the blockade of Paris, and relinquished all pretensions to the crown of France. The dauphin, being now more his own master than he had ever yet been, was able to take measures for his father's release; but Edward's terms were severe ; the states-general were firm in reject- ing them, and nothing could at first be done. Edward, with a view to enforce compliance with his demands, entered France with a numerous army, and marched through the country till he came to Montlheri, where he encamped. The dauphin, profiting by the experience of former disasters, avoided a pitched battle. He left all the country open, but placed strong garrisons in the towns, and 176 JOHN. Chap. XIX. strongly defended himself in Paris. Edward in vain attempted to provoke him to an engagement. In vain did sir "Walter Manny, and other daring warriors, ride a tilt against the barriers of Paris ; the danphin kept himself shut up within his walls, nor would he suffer any of his knights to answer the insults of the English. He, never- theless, kept a watchful look-out upon them ; and even the convent bells were not allowed to be rung for midnight prayers, as was cus- tomary, lest the watchmen should be prevented from hearing the movements of the enemy. Edward at last broke up his camp, and advanced towards Chartres, still meeting no opposition, and amusing himself with his hawks and hounds, as if he had come to hunt, and not to fight. During his progress he was continually followed by commissioners from the dauphin and the states-general, importuning him to agree to a peace on terms which they could accept. But the English king would agree to no terms whatever ; he considered the whole king- dom as within Ins grasp, and nothing but being its monarch would now content him. But God, " in whose rule and governance are the hearts of princes," turned the heart of this ambitious king. A more violent storm than had been before known in the memory of man overtook the English army, as it approached the village of Bretigny, near Chartres. The thunder and lightning were tremendous, and were accompanied by hail of such extraordinary size, that six thou- sand of the English horses are said to have been killed by it, and several of the soldiers severely hurt. The king was so much im- pressed by the awfulness of this circumstance, that he considered it as a warning from heaven not to harden himself any longer against "the prayers of France." He immediately entered into a treaty with the dauphin, which, after a great many preliminaries, was at last concluded in 1360, and is called the treaty of Bretigny. Edward demanded three millions of gold crowns for John's ran- som, which the states, on condition of certain immunities from their king, agreed to give. It was to be paid at three instalments ; and at the first payment Edward promised to set John at liberty, on receiving, as hostages, the king's three youngest sons, with the duke of Orleans, and thirty French noblemen, to guarantee the payment of the remainder. Edward agreed, on his part, to withdraw his pre- tensions to the crown of France, retaining, however, Calais, and all his son's late conquests in Guienne. In October, 1360, John again entered France, after a captivity of four years. The people seemed to have forgot all their past suffer- ings, and when the king made his public entry into Paris, he was received with every demonstration of joy. John was scarcely restored to his kingdom when he began to form plans for a crusade to the Holy Land. He was, however, in- a.d. 1364. JOHN. 177 terrupted in this scheme by the misconduct of his sons, the dukes of Anjou and of Berri. These two princes, with the other royal host- ages, had been received by Edward with the greatest courtesy and kindness. The town of Calais had been assigned them as their prison, if prison it could be called, when they were allowed the per- mission of going wherever they pleased, provided they returned to Calais every fourth day. But even this was considered by the two young princes as too severe a restraint. They came to Paris, and refused to return. John was exceedingly distressed at this conduct of his sons. He regarded it as a breach of his own honour, which could only be redeemed by surrendering himself again a prisoner to Edward. He accordingly returned to England. Soon afterwards he fell ill of a languishing disorder, and died at the palace of the Savoy, April 8, 1364. The king of England gave him a magnificent and royal funeral. His body was afterwards removed to France, and interred in the abbey of St. Denis. John was twice married : first to Bona, daughter of the blind king of Bohemia ; and, secondly, to Jane of Boulogne, widow of the duke of Burgundy. By Bona he had four sons and four daughters : — (1.) Charles, who succeeded his father; (2.) Louis, duke of An- jou ; (3.) John, duke of Berri ; (4.) Philip, duke of Burgundy ; (5.) Maria, duchess of Bar; (6.) Jane, married Charles the Bad; (7.) Isabella, married John Visconti, first duke of Milan ; (8.) Margaret, a nun. John's second wife had one son by her former marriage, who died in 1361. In him ended the race of the Capetian dukes of Burgundy. The king of Navarre claimed the duchy in right of his grandmother, who was aunt to the late duke ; but John, although he had a more distant claim, took possession of it, and gave it to his youngest son. The king of Navarre, as some amends for the injustice done him, had the city of Montpellier bestowed upon him in the succeeding reign. John found so much difficulty in raising the money for the pay- ment of his ransom, that he was obliged to recal the Jews. In con- sideration of their paying him a large sum of money, he granted them permission to return to France for a term of twenty years. John founded the royal library at Paris, which consisted at first of only ten volumes. * About this time Joanna queen of Naples sold the city of Avignon to the popes. 1 3 178 JOHN. Chap. XIX Avignon, broken bridge over the Rhone. CONVEKSATION ON CHAPTEK XIX. Mary. I think, mamma, that of all the terrible things you have ever told us, that insurrection of the peasants was the worst. But why was it called the Jacquerie ? Mrs. Markham. Some persons imagine the name to have origin- ated from Jaques Ion homme, an insulting name by which the upper classes were accustomed to call the peasantry. Others, and I believe with more reason, suppose it to have been derived from a jack, a sort of short coat, which was worn by the country people. In the Chronicles of Froissart there are some dreadful particulars of this insurrection. Mary. Do you remember any of them ? Mrs. M. The dauphiness, with the ladies of her court, were in the town of Meaux. The Jacquerie approached the town in great num- bers, and the ladies were in the greatest possible alarm, having no means of making any defence. The duke of Orleans was the only nobleman with them, and they had no dependence on any of the people of the town ; who, in fact, either through cowardice or wicked- ness, opened their gates as soon as the mob arrived, and admitted them into the town. At that moment two of king Edward's knights, passing that way, heard of the peril the dauphiness and her ladies were in. They set spurs to their horses, and, galloping into the town, found the Jacquerie surrounding the palace, and threatening to burst open the gates and murder every one within. The two knights drew their swords, and, being joined by the duke of Orleans, dispersed the Jacquerie and drove them out of the town, and slew seven thousand of them. Richard. Three men to kill seven thousand ! Conv. JOHN. 1 70 Mrs. M. Of course we must suppose that these knights had some followers with them, though Froissart tells us nothing about it, and only says that they were well cased in armour, and that the Jacque- rie had nothing but their jackets. George. Does he say who the two knights were ? Mrs. M. Yes ; he tells us that one was the earl of Foix, and the other the captal de Buche, the same who afterwards died of grief, as perhaps you remember, for the death of the Black Prince. Richard. I cannot help thinking that it was an overstretched no- tion of honour in king John to go back again to England ; he had better have stayed at home, and tried to make his people happy and comfortable. Mrs. M. During John's first captivity a wax taper was placed in the church of Notre Dame, at Paris, and was kept burning till his return. Mary. You said he was four years in England, and how could a wax taper be kept burning so long ? Mrs. M. This taper would have burnt even much longer. It was said to have been of such a prodigious length that it might have encompassed Paris, which was six miles round. The taper was wound, like a rope, round a large wheel. Mary. I think, mamma, there is no end of the odd things you find to tell us. Mrs. M. And I have found, to-day, many more odd things to tell you, in Dulaure's History of Paris. Richard. Pray, mamma, will you let us hear them ? Mrs. M. I will give you a description of the daily routine of bustle in the streets of Paris, at about the middle of the fourteenth century. The first sound that was heard, as soon as the day arose, was the tinkling of little bells, which were rung by persons clothed in black, whose business it was to announce the death of such persons as had died during the night, and to call upon all good Christians to pray for the souls of the deceased. George. I don't think that was so solemn and awful a way of tell- ing one that somebody is dead, as our way of tolling the passing bell ; — but, if you please, go on. Mrs. M. These proclaimers of death were succeeded by the people who attended at the hot baths, and who, with loud voices, let every- body know when the baths were ready, bidding all who meant to bathe to make haste before the water got cold. After these people followed the tradesmen, who seem to have been greatly in the habit of hawking their goods about the town; and for several hours nothing was heard but the voices of butchers, millers, and the sellers of fish, fruit, and vegetables. Richard. Is it said in the book what sort of fruit and vegetables they had at that time ? 180 JOHN. Chap. XIX. Mrs. M. The chief fruits I find mentioned are medlars, wild plums, pears, and apples. It should appear that the most crude and acrid sorts were the most esteemed, as also the most pungent and strongly tasted vegetables. Peas, beans, and turnips were cul- tivated ; but leeks, chervil, purslain, cress, anise, shallot, and garlic were in great request, particularly garlic, of which a kind of sauce was made, which was spread on bread, and eaten as we do bread and butter. Besides these tradespeople, there were various artifi- cers who followed their calling in the open streets ; amongst these were the menders of old clothes, who stood ready prepared with needles and threads to repair any hole or accidental rent in the clothes of a passenger. Mary. That was a very convenient custom. Mrs. M. The Parisians had also another custom, which I don't quite so much approve of, which was, that when any disaster befel them, they would stand at the doors of their houses, and with loud voices proclaim their misfortunes to all the passers-by. Pdchard. What a noise and chattering there must have been ! I would not have lived in Paris for all the world ! Mrs. M. And then to all this tintamarre, were added the cla- morous voices of the monks and scholars, who went begging about the streets. Mary. Scholars begging, mamma ! Mrs. M. The scholars of Paris were then a very ill-conducted set, notwithstanding that one of their schools had the imposing title of " UEcole des bons Enfans." Mary. I wonder their masters did not keep them in better order. Mrs. M. I am afraid the masters wanted keeping in good order themselves, for they are accused of showing a very unjustifiable in- dulgence to their pupils of high degree, and of treating the poorer ones with neglect and barbarity; and this perhaps was one cause which drove them to beg in the streets. There is an old book, written about this time, entitled Miserice ScJiolasticorum-, in which the author pathetically describes the ill conduct of the masters to the poorer scholars, " whose faces," he says, " were pale and hag- gard, their hair neglected, and their clothes in rags." There is an old manuscript grammar of this time, the frontispiece of which is a heartrending picture of the interior of a school, in which the master is represented with a most enormous rod in his half-raised hand, ready to let it fall on the shoulders of his poor scholars, who are standing around him with their books, and who are drawn with their shoulders naked, in readiness to receive the impending blow. Indeed, rods were so much in use, that they were reckoned as amongst the necessary expenses of a college. Conv. JOHN. I8l Richard. Was anything new taught, or did they go on learning the same sort of things as formerly ? Mrs. M. I believe there was very little change ; except, indeed, that the Latin was employed less exclusively, and the vulgar tongue, or language of the country, began to take its place. I ought not to say that there was nothing new ; the pretended science of astrology became about this time a favourite study. I am not quite sure whether or not it was taught in the university of Paris ; but this I know, that master Gervaise, astrologer to Charles V., founded a college in Paris for the express use of students in astrology. It was afterwards suppressed, and the building is now a barrack for veteran soldiers. George. And a very good use to put it to. Mrs. M. The university of Paris was filled with students of all nations. A writer of the time of St. Louis gives the following de- scription of them. The French, he says, were proud, vainglorious, and effeminate ; the Germans were rough-tempered and vulgar ; the Normans were vain and boasting ; the English were drunkards and poltroons. George. Nay, mamma, that was too bad ! They may have been drunkards, but I am sure they never could have been poltroons. Mrs. M. I fear the English did not at that time enjoy a very high national reputation. Petrarch, the great Italian poet, who lived in the fourteenth century, says, "In my youth the inhabitants of Britain, whom they call English, were the most cowardly of all the barbarians, inferior even to the vile Scotch." George. I should like to have asked that impertinent Petrarch, how the English, if they were such cowards, could win the battles of Cressy and Poitiers ? Mrs. M. Petrarch had the candour afterwards to acknowledge that "the English, having been trained under a wise and brave king, Edward III., were become a brave and warlike people." How- ever, with regard to the victories of Cressy and of Poitiers, the his- tory of them clearly shows us that the English owed them not more to their own bravery than to the insubordination of the French. Petrarch also says of a French army, " When you enter their camp, you might think yourself in a tavern. The soldiers are doing nothing but eating, drinking, and revelling in their tents. When called out to battle they submit to no chief, obey no orders, but run hither and thither like bees that have lost their hive; and when they are made to fight, they do nothing for the love of their country, but are wholly swayed by vanity, interest, and pleasure." Richard. How came this Italian poet to know anything about French camps ? Mrs. M. He visited France twice. The first time was soon after 82 JOHN. Chap. XIX. the battle of Cressy, and he gives in a letter to a friend a very moving picture of the state of France. He says that the country appeared everywhere desolated by fire and sword. The fields lay waste and untilled. The houses were falling in ruins, excepting here and there one which was made into a fortress ; and traces of the English, and of the havoc they had made, might everywhere be seen. Paris, he says, looked forlorn and desolate ; the highways were overgrown with weeds and brambles, and many of the streets deserted ; and the Parisians wore a sad and cast-down look. Richard. When one thinks of these things, it takes off very much from the pleasure of boasting of the victories of Cressy and Poitiers. Mrs. M. Petrarch's second visit was immediately after king John's return, when he was sent by the duke of Milan to congratulate him on his restoration to liberty. Petrarch has left us a very pleasing description of Charles V., who was then dauphin, and whose reign we shall enter on to-morrow. Richard. Pray, mamma, what does he say of him ; for I like al- ways to know beforehand as much as I can of people ? Mrs. M. He says that he was astonished at the cultivation of his mind, and the polished elegance of his manners. But what he most of all admired him for was, the wisdom and moderation with which he would converse on all subjects, the respect he showed to men of learning and experience, and his own ardent desire of obtaining knowledge. George. What a comfort it will be to come to a good king again ! I really think we have not had one since St. Louis. The Earl of Alencon, killed at Cressy. A.D. 1364. CHARLES V. 183 CHAPTER XX. CHARLES V., SURNAMED LE SAGE. Years after Christ, 1364 — 1380. Charles V., with the castle of Vincennes in the distance. Chaeles on ascending the throne found himself encompassed by cares and difficulties. His kingdom was dismembered by a foreign foe, his finances were exhausted, his people harassed by the conti- nual depredations of the free companies, and the government weak and disorganized ; but by his extraordinary prudence and ability he delivered his country from all its worst grievances, and placed it in a more prosperous condition than it had for a long time known. This king, deservedly surnamed the Wise, was one of the very few good kings who have sat on the throne of France. He had a great capacity, an extraordinary command of temper, and was con- siderate and kind to his attendants. Frugal and economical in his personal expenses, he yet knew how to be magnificent and liberal on all proper occasions. He loved and encouraged men of learning, and had himself received a more learned education than was at that time customary amongst princes. The kings of France had hitherto been little more than the leaders of armies, and to be valiant was often their only merit ; but in Charles the Wise the French saw for the first time a monarch who could 1 84 CHARLES V. Chap. XX. regulate the march of an army without engaging personally in the campaign. Edward III. used to say of him, that of all the enemies he ever contended with, Charles was the one who never appeared against him, and yet gave him the most trouble. Charles, however, though he did not himself lead his troops, knew how to appoint good generals. The most famous of these was the constable Du Guesclin, and the French used to boast that they had the wisest king and the bravest general in Europe. Du Guesclin was a gentleman of Bretagne, who had already dis- tinguished himself in the wars with the English. Charles gave him the command of an army winch he sent in 1367 into Spain to the assistance of Henry of Trastamare, who had been invited by the Cas- tilians to take the crown of Castile from his half-brother Pedro, sur- named the Cruel. Pedro applied for aid to the Black Prince, who marched into Spain, and on April 3, 1367, encountered the army of Du Guesclin, near Najara. The French were completely defeated, and Du Guesclin was taken prisoner. The loss of this battle, though fatal at the time to the cause of Trastamare, was yet a gain rather than a loss to Charles, who had entered into the war chiefly with a view of clearing his own country from the oppression of the free companies. These had gladly enlisted in the army of Du Guesclin, and had flocked like birds of prey to the Spanish war. After the battle of Najara, Pedro was replaced upon the throne of Castile, and remained secure as long as the English troops stayed in Spain. But when the Black Prince, disgusted by the ingratitude of Pedro, returned to Bordeaux, the tyrant, no longer checked by his presence, resumed his barbarities. The Castilians again rose in arms; Pedro was killed in battle, and Henry of Trastamare was established on the throne. It was suspected that, while the Black Prince was in Spain, Pedro had contrived to give him a slow poison. It is certain that on his return to Bordeaux his health was completely broken down; and what was still more lamentable, his temper, which was formerly mild and forgiving, was now, from the fever of his body, become irritable and vindictive, and he gave frequent causes of dissatisfac- tion to his Gascon subjects, who were jealous of the preference which he showed for the English. Charles, who kept a watchful eye upon the English in France, saw with satisfaction these rising dis- contents, and availed himself of them to allure many of the nobles of Gascony from their allegiance to Edward. At last, having suffi- ciently paved his way, he assembled the states, and summoned the king of England as his vassal to appear before it, and on his non- appearance he pronounced him rebellious and disobedient, and de- clared all his possessions in France forfeited. Du Guesclin, who had some time before regained his liberty, and had been made constable a.d. 1377- CHARLES V. i%$ of France, was sent with a powerful army to Guienne. The Black Prince was unable, from the state of his health, to take the field. His brother, John of Gaunt, had, therefore, the command of the army, which, although strengthened by reinforcements from Eng- land, was yet unable to arrest the progress of the French, partly because the hearts of the people naturally inclined towards Charles, whom they considered as their legitimate sovereign, and partly be- cause it was the policy of Charles to order his generals to avoid pitched battles. What he instructed them to do was, to keep strong garrisons in all the fortified places, and to sally forth and molest the enemy whenever they could do so without incurring much risk themselves. Thus the English saw their numbers diminish in small encounters with the enemy, without having an opportunity of achieving any signal advantage. During these wars the valiant Du Guesclin died. He had laid siege to a castle in Languedoc, and the governor promised to sur- render it on a specified day, if not relieved in the interval. Du Guesclin, who was ill of a fever, expired before the appointed day arrived, and the governor was advised by his people not to keep to his agreement; but he declared that he would be as true to that great warrior in death as he would have been to him in life; and on the day originally fixed, he marched, followed by his garrison, to the French camp, and placed the keys of his castle on the bier of the deceased hero. The king was deeply grieved by the death of Du Guesclin ; he raised a magnificent monument to his memory in the abbey of St. Denis, and placed on it a lamp, which was kept burning for many centuries. Du Guesclin with his dying words exhorted his soldiers never to forget what he had so often told them, that, in whatever country they should have to carry on war, they should never consider the clergy, the women, children, or the poor, as their enemies. When Du Guesclin was dead, many of his captains refused the office of constable, as deeming themselves unworthy to succeed him ; at last it was accepted by Oliver du Clisson. The affairs of the English in France rapidly declined from this time, and Edward had the mortification of beholding his boasted conquests gradually fall from his grasp. This, added to his afflic- tion at the death of his incomparable son, embittered his latter days, and probably shortened them. He died in 1377, and during the feeble reign of his grandson, Eichard II., the English lost everything they had possessed in France, except Calais, Bayonne, Bordeaux, and Cherburg. I must now say something of the affairs of Bretagne. When last we spoke of them, the son of De Montfort was still a child, and Charles de Blois was in captivity ; but in 1364 Charles had regained 1 86 CHARLES V. Chap. XX. his liberty, the young De Montfort was become a man, and the civil war was again renewed. On the 20th of September in that year (1364), Charles de Blois was killed in a battle near Auray, and the king of France consented to acknowledge De Montfort as duke of Bretagne. The king of Navarre, during all this time, never ceased showing his settled enmity to Charles. He carried his wickedness so far as to give him poison, and though the effect was checked by antidotes, yet it finally caused his death. In 1378 Charles of Navarre sent his eldest son to Paris, under the pretence of paying a visit of respect to the king his uncle, but in reality as a spy. He is also accused of having commissioned his son to give the king another and a stronger dose of poison. How far the accusation was true cannot now be known; it was, however, believed at the time. The young prince of Navarre was put in prison, and two of his attendants, who were supposed to be agents in the plot, were beheaded. The king's health was declining for some years before his death ; and his physicians declared that his life could only be preserved by keeping open an issue, and that if it dried up he must assuredly die. In 1380 he received the fatal warning, the issue dried up, and could by no means be kept open. Charles prepared for death with the greatest fortitude. He made every regulation that prudence could suggest for the security of his sons, who were very young, and of the kingdom, and awaited his final hour with piety and resigna- tion. He died Sept. 16, 1380, at the chateau de Beaute sur Maine ; he was in the 44th year of his age, and had reigned 16 years. He married Jane of Bourbon, and left two sons : — (1.) Charles, who succeeded him. (2.) Louis, duke of Orleans. Charles the Wise left the royal coffers well filled with treasure. He erected many stately buildings. He added greatly to the library founded by his father, which at his death had increased to nine hundred volumes, and was placed in one of the towers of the Louvre. Charles entered into a treaty of amity with the king of Scotland ; and a guard of twenty-four natives of Scotland, which had been formed originally by St. Louis, was now augmented to a hundred, and was appointed to be always in attendance on the king. The king of Navarre survived his victim some years. His death, which took place in 1387, was occasioned by the carelessness of one of his attendants, who set fire to some bandages steeped in brandy, which the king wore on account of some cutaneous disorder. By this means he was so dreadfully burnt that he died in the greatest tortures. In this reign pope Gregory XI. removed the papal see from Avi- Oonv CHARLES V. jgy gnon to Eome. After his death great confusion arose amongst the cardinals in electing a new pope. The schism lasted forty years. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XX. George. I think, mamma, it was very boasting of the French to say that they had the wisest king and the bravest general in Europe at the very time when our king Edward and all his captains were alive. Richard. I think the French would have been very ungrateful if they had not boasted of their king ; for I am sure he was a very good king to them. Mrs. M. One of the things I admire in Charles was his exactitude in business ; a virtue which is quite as essential in a king as it is in a tradesman. Mary. Why, what sort of business could a king of France have to attend to ? Mrs. M. The cares of government involve a great deal of business, such, for instance, as that of furnishing magazines, and providing means for supplying the wants of an army. These cares had usually been left to the ministers, but Charles took them upon him- self; and to his personal attention to them much of the success of his arms may be justly attributed. George. But I thought you said he never would let his generals come to a battle. Mrs. M. He found that without a battle he could waste and diminish the strength of the English. He dreaded, from the ex- perience of past misfortunes, to place the fortune of war upon a single blow : and to prevent his generals from committing that error, he never would trust them with the command of a large army. His method was to divide the forces of his kingdom into five parts ; four of these were employed under different leaders to harass the enemy in different places ; the fifth division he kept with himself, ready to push any advantage, or repair any loss, that might happen to the others. Richard. And I suppose that was the most politic plan, because it answered. Mrs. M. Charles was no less exact and methodical in the manner of his private life than in the discharge of public affairs. He rose early, and retired to rest early ; and during the day was constantly employed. When he had ended his morning devotions, he applied himself to the affairs of state. He dined at noon, and afterwards took the exercise requisite for his health. Mary. Poor man! what a shocking thing it must have been to him to know that he had swallowed poison, and to think that he might die any day ! rfS CHARLES V. Chap. XX. Mrs. M. That, my dear child, is nothing more than what we all ought to think ; for we none of us know the day nor the hour when we may be called hence. But I agree with you that the knowledge that he had been poisoned must have been a great trial of Charles's forti- tude; and it is amongst the things for which he is to be commended, that this knowledge did not paralyse his mind, nor deprive him of Ins energy. On the contrary, it made him the more earnest to employ to the best purpose every hour that remained to him. Expecting his death daily, he was the more anxious to provide against all the dangers to winch his young son would be exposed. To this end he intrusted the queen with all his affairs of state, and gave her instructions for her conduct in case of his death; but unfortunately for the young prince, and to the utter grief of the king, she died first. Mary. Was she a very fine character ? Mrs. M. She is highly spoken of by contemporary authors, and it is said that the king (an uncommon circumstance amongst crowned heads) had married her from pure affection, and for her sake had rejected the rich heiress of Flanders. Jane was a very graceful and accomplished woman, and the French court, during the reign of Charles V., was better regulated and more correct than it ever seems to have been at any former time. Eicliard. I suppose, then, that all ladies had begun to be accom- plished and graceful, and like what ladies are now. Mrs. M. I should suspect that they had not, in general, acquired much refinement ; at least I judge so by a French poem of which I have met with some account, and which was written about this period for the express benefit of the ladies. The poet's first exhortation to them is, that they should avoid pride, and return the salutations they receive, even those of the poor people. He then recommends them, when they go to church, to walk in an orderly manner, and not to run and jump in the streets. He recommends them not to laugh and jest during mass, and adds that those who can read should take their psalters, and that those who cannot would do well to learn the prayers by heart at home, that when they come to church they may be able to keep pace with the priest. Mary. And does he tell them nothing more than how they are to behave at church ? Mrs. M. He says that ladies should be neat in their persons, and keep their nails cut short ; and that they should not laugh or talk too loud at dinner, nor daub their fingers with their food. He says they may wipe their lips on the tablecloth, but not blow their noses with it. He goes on to say, that when ladies walk in the streets they must not stop as they pass to look in at people's windows ; for this, he observes, is neither agreeable nor seemly. He says that CONV. CHARLES V. 189 when they visit their friends they ought not to bounce all at once into the room, but stop at the entrance, and announce their coming by a little gentle cough, or by speaking a few words. The poem winds up by a recommendation to the ladies to forbear from stealing and telling lies. George. They must have been comical ladies in those days, to re- quire telling about such things as those. Richard. I should think that poem must have been written for the benefit of the ladies who dwelt in towns, and not for those fine stately dames who lived in castles. Mrs. M. The gentlemen of those days came in for their share of blame as well as the ladies. Mary. What fault was to be found in them particularly ? Mrs. M. They are much ridiculed by the writers of the times for the absurdity of their dress. Amongst other things we are told that they adopted such an extraordinary fashion in their boots that the king published an edict against it. Mary. Pray, mamma, what were these boots like ? Mrs. M. They were intended to be like a bird : the front projected in a sharp point at the toe in the shape of a beak, and the back of the heel was lengthened out to look like a claw. I cannot imagine anything more ridiculous. Richard. Was the rest of the men's dress equally ridiculous ? Mrs. M. Dress, about this time, underwent, in France, a very re- markable change. Heretofore the nobles were clad in long flowing robes, and they, and all persons of respectable station of middle life, wore long hoods, which hung down on the back; but now these robes and hoods were left off, if not uni- versally, at least by the younger nobility, who, in place of the long robe, adopted a tight short jacket, which exposed to view the whole form of the limbs. Qeorge. They must have looked like so many postilions. Mrs. M. These innovations did not come in all at once. A French writer in the reign of Philip of Valois reproaches his countrymen with their dress, which he tells them makes them look like so many merry-andrews. He adds, that they are so fantastic in their modes, The Constable du Guesclin. I9 o CHARLES VI. Chap. XXI. that they are always in one foolish extreme or another ; sometimes their clothes, he says, are too long, at others too short ; at one time too tight, and at another too wide. George. I snspect the good gentleman was rather hard to please. Mrs. M. He inveighs, above all, at their changeableness, and com- plains that the same fashion seldom lasted more than six years. CHAPTEE XXI. CHARLES VI., SURNAMED LE B I EN-AI M £. Years after Christ, 1380 — 1422. Citizens of Paris in the reign of Charles VI. We are now come to the most disastrous period in the whole long history of France. We shall see the fruits of the late king's prudence and care totally destroyed ; we shall see the sovereign a miserable maniac, the princes of the blood sacrificing their duty to the indul- gence of their own base passions, the nobles acting as if they par- took in the madness of their monarch, and the kingdom brought to the very verge of ruin. But I must relate all things in order. The young king was only thirteen years old when his father died. The duke of Anjou was appointed regent during his minority, but the dukes of Berri and of Burgundy each desired to have a share in the government, and the jealousies and contentions amongst these three princes, all equally violent, selfish, and greedy of gain, were, as I may truly say, the beginning of troubles. The duke of Bur- gundy had the best abilities; but the duke of Anjou was the most A.D. 1385. CHARLES VI. 191 ambitious, and made no scruple of sacrificing the interest of France, and of his nephew, to forward his own private schemes. A short time before the late king's death, Joanna queen of Naples, a descendant of Charles of Anjou, in order to revenge herself on Charles Durazzo, her nearest relation, who had driven her from her throne, adopted the duke of Anjou as her heir. Durazzo was in possession of the kingdom of Naples, but the duke of Anjou, never- theless, determined to assert the claim thus given him by Joanna. To this end he got possession of all the money left by his brother, the late king, in the royal treasury ; together with a great quantity of gold and silver concealed in one of the palaces, the secret of which had been confided to one of the king's old servants, from whom Anjou contrived to extort it. With this ill-gotten wealth the duke raised an army, and marched into Italy. He at first obtained some slight advantages ; but they were soon followed by fatal reverses. His army was destroyed, his baggage lost, and he was reduced to poverty and distress. One small silver cup was all that remained to him of the immense quan- tity of gold and silver which he had brought from France. He did not long survive his misfortunes, and died in 1384 of vexation and disappointment. His son still asserted his claim, and took on him- self the title of Louis II. , king of Naples. In France meantime the duke of Burgundy had assumed the reins of power, and used them, as his brother had done, for his own pur- poses : he had married the heiress of the earl of Flanders, and, in 1382, he engaged the young king in a war with the Flemings, to quell an insurrection they had raised against their earl. The French troops gained a great victory at Eosebec; and Charles, who was present, was much elated at this his first success in arms. On his return to Paris he found that city in a state of tumult on account of the exorbitancy of the taxes. The insurrection was soon quelled, and the offenders punished with great severity. Some were pub- licly executed, and others were put in sacks and thrown into the river. In 1385 Charles married Isabella of Bavaria, a very beautiful princess, but of depraved manners. She brought much misery, not only to her husband, but to the whole kingdom. The young king's education had been entirely neglected ; and his uncles had promoted his passing his time in frivolous amusements, that he might the less interfere with their schemes of ambition. Although hasty and impetuous, he had many good qualities; he was of an affectionate and obliging temper ; and it is related of him that he never forgot a kindness which he had received, nor broke a promise which he had made. He had a remarkable facility in remem- bering every person's face whom he had once seen ; and amongst I 9 2 CHARLES VI. Chap. XXI. other qualities was noted for extraordinary bodily strength, and, it is said, could bend a horseshoe with his hands. In 1386 the French government meditated an invasion of England; but as France had at that time no navy, the requisite vessels were either purchased or hired from other countries. They amounted to nine hundred when collected at Sluys. Every gentleman who pre- pared for this expedition was provided with an attendant, styled " a pillurd," or, in other words, a robber, whose express business was to pillage for his master's benefit. One part of the equipage was an enormous wooden castle, which could be taken to pieces and put together again. But all these mighty preparations came to nothing, through the jealousy of the duke de Berri, who, though inferior in abilities to the duke of Burgundy, was yet equally ambitious, and took every opportunity to thwart and perplex his brother in all his measures. The ships were detained at Sluys till after the stormy season commenced, and, the art of navigation being but ill under- stood, many of the vessels were wrecked. The vaunted wooden castle drifted to the mouth of the Thames, and became an easy spoil to the English mariners. In the following year a fleet was again assembled. The men at arms were all prepared, and everything was ready, when the expedition was a second time prevented from sailing. The duke of Bretagne, either from personal hatred to Oliver du Clisson, who was to have commanded, or from a wish to serve his allies the English, invited du Clisson to pay him a friendly visit. When he had got him in his power, he made him his prisoner. He detained him only a short time ; but in the mean while the men at arms dispersed themselves, and the intended invasion of England was given up. In 1388 the king, being of age, took the administration of affairs into his own hands. He deprived the duke of Burgundy of his offices, and bestowed them upon his own brother, the duke of Orleans. He recalled several of his father's old servants, and displaced the creatures of the dukes his uncles. He revoked several unjust laws and oppressive taxes, and showed every wish to rule his people with justice. This was the period in which he obtained the surname of Bien-Aime ; but this flattering promise did not last long. The constable du Clisson was attacked in the streets of Paris by Peter de Craon, a man of infamous character, who, in the belief that he had killed his victim, fled for protection to the duke of Bretagne. Du Clisson, however, was only severely wounded, and when he reco- vered called loudly for vengeance on the assassin. The duke of Bretagne was required to give him up ; and on his refusal to do so, the king was exceedingly enraged, and resolved to march in person into Bretagne to punish the duke. He ordered his troops to rendez- vous at Mans, and repaired there himself early in August, 1391. a.d. 1393- CHARLES VI. 1 93 The impatience of his spirit had thrown him into a fever, and his attendants endeavoured to prevail on him to defer his march into Bretagne. But he would not listen to them, and set forth, notwith- standing the heat of the weather and his own indisposition. The way was dusty, and the king rode apart from his company, followed only by two pages, one of whom carried his lance and the other his helmet. Froissart tells us that the king's sufferings from the heat were greatly increased by his wearing a jerkin of thick velvet, and a heavy cap of scarlet cloth adorned with pearls. As he was riding by the side of a forest near Mans, suddenly a tall and ghastly man rushed out from amongst the trees, and, seizing his bridle, exclaimed, " Stop, king ! you are going where you are be- trayed ! " and then as suddenly disappeared. Charles was greatly agitated by this incident. "While he was ruminating upon it, he arrived at a sandy plain, where one of the pages, being overpowered by the heat, fell asleep, and let the lance which he carried fall against the helmet borne by his com- panion. The king, being startled by the clanking noise, was seized immediately by a sudden frenzy : he imagined himself pursued by enemies, and, riding fiercely amongst his attendants with his sword drawn, would have killed or wounded several of them, if they had not fled. At last, his sword being broken, one of his servants sprang up behind him, and held him tightly by the arms till the rest had secured him with ropes, and in this manner he was bound down in a cart and conveyed back to Mans. He remained in a state of frenzy for some months, and then recovered his senses ; but the expedition to Bretagne was not resumed. In 1393 another fatal accident brought on a return of the king's disorder. The circumstance is thus related : — At the marriage of one of the queen's attendants, the king and five young noblemen of the court agreed to appear in the character of savages, in what the English called a disguisement. Their dresses were made of coarse cloth covered with flax, which was fastened on with pitch. On account of the inflammable nature of their dress, orders had been given that the flambeau-bearers (for in those days there were neither lamps nor chandeliers) should stand close to the wall ; but the duke of Orleans, ignorant of this order, and not thinking of the conse- quences, took a torch from one of the bearers, and holding it close to one of the savages that he might the better find out who he was, set fire to the flax. Five of the savages were instantly in flames. The sixth, who was the king, was standing at a little distance talking to the duchess of Berri. She had the presence of mind to envelop him in her mantle, and thus saved his life. Four of the others, who had entered the room chained together, were burnt to death; the fifth, extricating himself from the chain, rushed to a large cistern of France. K 1 94 CHARLES VI. Chap. XXI. Water which was placed in the buttery for the purpose of rinsing the drinkmg-cups, and plunging into it saved his life. The noise and confusion in the hall were extreme. The king was conveyed to his bed, but he was so much shocked by this dreadful catastrophe that he could get no sleep all night. At last towards morning he fell into a doze, from which he was presently roused by the voices of the mob, who, hearing something of the accident, assembled tumultuously round the palace, and would not be con- vinced that the king was not amongst the sufferers unless they saw him. He was therefore obliged to rise and parade about the streets for the purpose of pacifying the people. All this brought on a return of his delirium. From that time till his death he was never entirely restored to reason, or, if he had lucid intervals, they were very short, and only made him feel the more the misery of his situa- tion. The people meanwhile suffered the grievous oppression of being under the rule of many masters. The first struggle for power was between the duke of Burgundy and his nephew the duke of Orleans, the king's brother. These two princes bore an inveterate hatred to each other, and their two duchesses also entered into the same feelings of enmity. The duchess of Burgundy, who was very ill-tempered and disagreeable, and prided herself on having been the heiress of Flanders, hated the duchess of Orleans, and affected to despise her, because she was of inferior birth to herself. The duchess of Orleans was Valentina, daughter of the duke of Milan. She was very beautiful and engag- ing, though of a very high spirit. She had great influence over the poor king, and sometimes, when he was in the paroxysms of madness, his attendants would send for Valentina, whose presence would instantly calm his violence. In 1403 the duke of Burgundy died. His son John succeeded to his possessions and to his ambition, and the struggle for power was carried on between the two cousins with even more bitterness than that which had characterised it before in the contentions between the uncle and nephew. The history of France is at this period little else but a history of the outrages committed by these two selfish and vin- dictive men. At last the duke of Burgundy filled the measure of his guilt by causing the duke of Orleans to be assassinated in the streets of Paris. Valentina and her children called loudly for justice on the murderer, and the duke of Burgundy was cited to Paris to answer for his crime. He came, but attended by such a numerous body of armed men, that the council found it necessary to acquit him. The duke of Orleans left three sons, Charles, Philip, and John. Besides these he had an illegitimate son .named the count de Dunois. Charles, the young duke, entered a protest against the acquittal of the duke of Burgundy, and called on all France to revenge his father's a.d. 1415. CMAKLES VI. 195 death. But the father had made himself so odious by his miscon- duct, that no one listened to the appeal of his son : on the contrary, the Parisians received the duke of Burgundy into their city ; at which Valentina, who was a woman of ungoverned temper, actually died of grief and rage. The party of the Burgundians now gained the ascendency in affairs ; the opposite party were called Armagnacs. The young duke of Orleans had married a daughter of the count of Armagnac, and suffered himself to be governed by Ins father-in-law. The Armagnacs assumed the badge of a white scarf with a St. George's cross ; that of the Burgundians was a St. Andrew's cross upon a red scarf. Both parties endeavoured to possess themselves of the king's person, and to govern in his name. But all they understood by government was to oppress the people, and to imprison and put to death (if they could) those whom they considered their enemies. The king, during his short intervals of reason, would sometimes make attempts to rid himself of both Burgundians and Armagnacs ; but these efforts only tended to increase the confusion. Meantime the queen, Isabella of Bavaria, led a licentious life, neglecting the king and her children, who were often in want of absolute necessaries, while she was sharing in the plunder of the people. Part of that plunder she spent in frivolous extravagances ; the rest she laid up to make a fund for herself, in case she should find it necessary to abandon France. During all this time France and England remained at peace. The reign of Eichard II. had been too weak and frivolous, and that of the usurper Henry IV. too full of troubles, to allow either of them to engage in a foreign war ; but on the accession of Henry V. the case was altered. That young prince was energetic and martial, and, being at peace at home, was able to be enterprising abroad. He revived the almost forgotten pretensions of Edward III. to the crown of France, and with no other pretext declared war on France, and landed at Havre, August 14th, 1415, with 36,000 men. His first operation was to lay siege to Harfleur, which, though bravely defended by the citizens and a few neighbouring gentlemen, yet, re- ceiving no aid from the government, was obliged to surrender. The loss of Harfleur seemed first to rouse the contending parties at Paris to a sense of their danger. The oriflamme was unfurled, and an army collected; but the jealousies and animosities amongst the nobles occasioned so many impediments to its march, that Henry traversed the country from Harfleur nearly to Calais without meeting anything to oppose his progress. But, to use the quaint words of an old historian, "the very abundance of the country, aided by the climate, had been fighting the battles of the land." The heat of the weather, and the quantity of fruit which the Eng- k 2 196 CHARLES VI. Chap. XXL lish had indulged in on their march, had occasioned so much illness amongst them, that by the time Henry reached Agincourt his army was greatly reduced in numbers. Of those who remained, many were so weak with illness and fatigue, that they could scarcely sit upon their horses. At Agincourt, on October 24th, 1415, the French army, com- manded by the constable d'Albret, came up with the English ; and on the following day France experienced a still more disastrous defeat than even those of Cressy and Poitiers. The constable com- mitted the great error of marshalling his men on a spot of ground too small for their vast number (which was four times greater than that of the enemy); so that the soldiers impeded each other for want of room. The ground also was wet and marshy, and the footmen, at every step, sank up to their knees in mud. The knights and nobles rushed on without order to the front of the army, and scarcely any officers were left to command the main body, which soon gave way. It is a remarkable fact, that the chief brunt of the day fell on the nobles, who suffered much more than the common soldiers. The dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, with 1400 other gentlemen, were taken prisoners ; the constable himself, and two of the duke of Burgundy's brothers, with the duke of Alencon, were amongst the slain. When the battle was over, Henry found himself too weak to improve his victory by any hostile proceeding; he conducted his wearied soldiers to Calais, and there embarked for England with his prisoners. This great and unexpected reverse, instead of uniting the Bur- gundians and Armagnacs against the common enemy, only gave them another object of contention, namely, who should obtain the vacant office of constable. The count of Armagnac succeeded, and, for a time, made himself master of Paris. The king had three sons — Louis, John, and Charles. The two eldest died very nearly together. The duke of Anjou (the king's cousin, and titular king of Naples) was accused of having poisoned them, to make way for Charles, the youngest, who had married his daughter. Charles, though only sixteen when he succeeded to the rank of dauphin, took an active part in affairs : he joined the Armagnacs, and by his advice his mother, who was become infa- mous by her vices, was shut up in the castle at Tours. She, how- ever, regained her liberty, and, joining with the Burgundians, ever after pursued her son with unrelenting hatred. On May 28, 1418, one of the gates of Paris was opened at night by a friend of the duke of Burgundy; and a party of his men entered the town, and rode about the streets, proclaiming, " Peace and Burgundy!" But this polluted word peace was only the prelude to a general slaughter of all the Armagnacs. The count a.d. 1419. CHARLES VI. 197 himself was amongst the victims ; and the scenes of ferocity which at this time took place in Paris have no parallel in the history of any other civilized country. At the commencement of the tumult, the life of the dauphin was saved by Du Chastel, the governor of the Bastile, who woke him from his sleep, and, without giving him time to put on his clothes, hurried with him to the Bastile, where he kept him concealed till he could escape out of the city. The queen and the duke of Burgundy made a triumphant entry into Paris, while the streets were actually streaming with the blood of the murdered Armagnacs. Meanwhile king Henry landed a second time in France, and made himself master of Eouen, and of the whole of Normandy, before the contending parties seemed aware of his presence. They now saw that it was too late to attempt to oppose him by force ; they therefore resolved to try what could be done by treaty. Conferences were held in a tent in a park near Meulan, between Henry and Isabella, who acted for her husband. But nothing definite was determined on, excepting that Henry should marry the princess Catherine. The dauphin and the duke of Burgundy were present at these conferences ; but even here, though so much was at stake, their mutual hatred broke out, and each endeavoured to counteract the object which the other wished to gain. The dauphin had an attendant who had formerly been a servant to the late duke of Orleans. This man, whose name was Jean Louvet, had long meditated to revenge his master's death, by assas- sinating, if he could, the duke of Burgundy. He and Du Chastel, who entered into his designs, endeavoured to procure an oppor- tunity of effecting them, by persuading the dauphin to pretend an earnest wish to be reconciled to the duke. Historians are not agreed as to whether the dauphin was or was not privy to their plot. The Searcher of hearts alone knows whether or no, or in what degree, he participated in it. The duke and he had an inter- view, in which, with hatred in their hearts, they swore to assist each other as friends and brothers. They had another interview, August 28, 1419, on the bridge of Montereau sur Yonne ; and Lou- vet and Du Chastel, leaping a barrier which was placed across the bridge for the security of each party, stabbed the duke with their swords, as he was kneeling down to kiss the dauphin's hand. The duke of Burgundy had only one son, who is distinguished from the other princes of his house by the title of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. This prince had never taken a part in the disturbances and crimes of the times ; but this atrocious deed roused him to revenge. He entered into a friendly treaty with the king of England, and in the hope of for ever excluding the dauphin from the 1 98 CHARLES VI. Chap. XXI. throne of France, he procured Henry to be declared regent during the life of the present king, and entitled to the succession to the throne after his death. Charles, probably unconscious of what he did, was made to acknowledge Henry as his successor. Henry mar- ried the princess Catherine; and the two kings of France and England, with their two queens, made a triumphant entry into Paris. The parliament of Paris consented to this appointment of Henry to the regency, but stipulated that the rights of the people should be respected, and that they should continue to be governed by their own laws. To these conditions, I believe, Henry strictly adhered ; he, however, exercised one instance of severity, which was perhaps not displeasing to the Parisians, in putting to death L'He Adam, an infamous agent of the late duke of Burgundy, and a man who had been particularly active in the massacre of the Armagnacs. The dauphin, while these tilings were passing, had retired to Poitiers with a few friends. He was here joined by some of the members of the parliament and the university of Paris ; and though to all appearance he was cast out from the throne, yet the hearts of almost all true Frenchmen were with him. The presence of the duke of Burgundy and of the English army, obliged them, however, to conceal their sentiments. The king of England was, in the autumn of 1421, obliged to return to England, leaving his brother, the duke of Clarence, his lieutenant- general in France. Clarence was slain in a skirmish with a body of Scotch troops in the pay of the dauphin; and Henry hastened back to France, declaring that he would not leave the dauphin a single town ; but the ill state of his health prevented him from putting his threat into execution. He went to Paris, where he exhibited to the people his infant son (afterwards Henry VI.) as their future king ; and assembling a plenary court, he and the child were both crowned with royal diadems. This was nearly the last act of his life. He died at the palace of Vincennes, August 28, 1422, leaving his brother, the duke of Bedford, regent of France. On the 21st of the following October Charles VI. ended his un- happy life. He died in the palace of St. Pol in Paris. He lived 55 years, and reigned 42 years, thirty of which he had passed in a state of almost constant insanity. He married Isabella of Bavaria, and had three sons and five daughters : — (1.) Louis, (2.) John, died before their father ; (3.) Charles, suc- ceeded his father ; (4.) Isabella, married, first, Eichard II. of England ; and, secondly, the duke of Orleans; (5.) Jane, married John de Montfort, duke of Bretagne ; (6.) Michella, married Philip duke of Burgundy ; (7.) Catherine, married Henry V. of England; (8.) Mary, a nun. CONV. CHARLES VI. 199 That I might not break the thread of my narrative, I omitted to speak in their proper place of the affairs of Naples. Durazzo was slain in a popular tumult in 1385, and Louis II., the young duke of Anjou, took possession of the crown of Naples, and reigned there till 1399, when, having offended some of the nobles, he was driven from liis throne, and retired to France. He died in 1417. In 1421 his son Louis III. made an attempt on Naples ; but he experienced nothing but a succession of disasters ; and at last "nothing remained to him of his kingdom but the road out of it." In 1396 an expedition was sent from France to succour the king of Hungary, who was at war with Bajazet, the great Turkish con- queror. The expedition failed, through the ill conduct of the French themselves. Their army was defeated with dreadful slaughter near Nicopolis. Donjon of Vincennes, in which Henry V. of England died. CONVEKSATION ON CHAPTER XX Richard. Did you not, George, think of Shakspeare's play of King Henry V. when mamma came to that part about the poor English soldiers being so ill and tired before the battle of Agincourt ? 200 CHARLES VI. Chap. XXJ. George. I remember it very well, and how the Frenchman de- scribes the English army, and says— Their horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, With torch-staves in their hands, and their poor jades Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips ; The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes, And, in their pulled dull mouths, the gimmal bit Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless. Henry V, act iv. sc. 2. — By-the-bye, mamma, what is a gimmal bit ? Mrs. Markham. It means a jointed bit, running in rings. We will ask your papa to be so kind as to read that fine play to us after tea. In the mean time it has reminded me that plays were first performed in France about this period. Richard. That was, if I mistake not, about the time they were first introduced into England. Mrs. M. You are very right : the first theatrical representation we find spoken of in England was, I believe, in 1378. In 1385 we find mention made in the history of France of a play exhibited in Paris in honour of the marriage of Charles VI. and Isabella of Bavaria ; but I do not understand whether this was the first exhibi- tion of the kind or not. It represented the history of our Saviour's passion and resurrection, and was made to last eight days. It was performed by monks. There were eighty-seven characters in the piece, and St. John was one of the principal speakers. Mary. I think acting plays was a very silly employment for monks. Mrs. M. So I suppose the prev6t of Paris thought, for he forbade them to act any more. But the king, who had been present at the representation, was so much pleased with it, that he incorporated the performers into a company, entitled " the Master, Governors, and Fraternity of the Passion and Eesurrection of our Lord." — This fraternity, or confrerie, as the French term is, proceeded to act the history of the Acts of the Apostles ; and some of these plays, written in very indifferent French verse, are still extant. Mysteries and Moralities next followed, much in the same manner as in England. The rage for all sorts of theatrical representation in France was so great, that the priests found it necessary to alter the hour of vesper prayers to enable the people to attend both. George. I think it would have been as well if they had altered the time of the plays to suit the prayers. Mrs. M. The plays were considered a species of religious observ- ance. They were represented on Sundays and saints' days. They commenced at one o'clock at noon, and lasted about four hours; and the price of admittance for each person was two sous. Mary. I am sure that was little enough, Conv CHARLES VI. 201 Mrs. M. If we estimate the value of two sous at the time we are speaking of, you will find it was a high price for admittance to a play. Bichard. I thought a sou was only equal to our English halfpenny; and surely a penny was not much. Mrs. M. There is an old couplet which runs thus — The real worth of any thing Is just as much as it will bring ; and in the time of Charles VI. money in France was so scarce, that a sou went much farther than it does now. A sou a-day was con- sidered as very good pay for a workman; and from two to three sous was the price of a good pair of shoes. Bichard. Then, after all, it cost at least as much to go to the play then as it costs us now. Mrs. M. It is commonly asserted that cards were invented about this time in France ; but some authors suppose that they had been known long before, and that they were derived, through the Moors, from the East. At any rate, we first hear of them in France in this reign, when they were employed to divert the melancholy of the king, during some of the less violent paroxysms of his disorder. It is very singular that no change should have taken place since in their form or figure. The cards which are played with now resemble, in all respects, those used to amuse Charles VI. Bichard. I wonder if there was any meaning in the figures on the cards, or if they were only meant to distinguish one from another. M?*s. M. At the time they were invented they were intended to convey a distinct meaning, the four suits being designed to represent the four classes of people ; the churchmen, the military, the class of artificers, and the peasantry. Mary. I cannot comprehend how hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs can express all that. Mrs. M. You shall hear. By the hearts were meant the ecclesias- tics — the French word is gens de chceur, or choirman ; and coeur is, as I need not tell you, French for heart. By the spades, which are, in fact, intended to represent pike-heads, are meant the nobles or mili- tary. By the square stones, or tiles, which we call diamonds, but which the French call carreaux, was intended the artificers' class ; and, lastly, the suit which we call clubs, but which is, after all, a leaf of trefoil, or clover, was meant to represent the peasantry. George. This is really something quite new to me, and very diverting. Mrs. M. The French have also particular names for each of the twelve court cards. The names of the four kings are David, Alex- ander, Caesar, and Charles; the four queens are Argine, Esther, Judith, and Pallas; the knaves, or knights, as the French called K3 202 CHARLES VI. Chap. XXI. them, are Ogier the Dane, Lancelot, La Hire, and Hector de Galard. — I must not forget a story relating to this reign, which I think will interest you very much, particularly if you have not forgot the play you went to see last year, called * The Forest of Bondi, or Dog of Montargis.' George. 0! I remember it very well; for I shall never forget the dear dog Carlo, and all his clever tricks ; how he trotted along carrying the lantern to show the place where the body of his mur- dered master was hid ! Mrs. M. The circumstance from which the play is taken occurred in the reign of Charles VI. , and is briefly this. A man, named Aubri de Montdidier, was murdered in the Forest of Bondi, not far from Paris, by Macaire, his professed and mortal enemy, who con- cealed the body under a tree, and returned to Paris, satisfied that there had been no witnesses of the deed. In that he was mistaken ; for besides the watchful eye which witnesseth every deed, Aubri's faithful dog had observed the whole transaction, and laid himself down on Ins master's grave, never leaving the spot, except to go in search of food. For this purpose he generally repaired to Paris, to the house of his late master's most intimate friend. Here he usually obtained food, and as soon as he was satisfied, he instantly returned to the forest. The friend, surprised at this singular appearance and disappearance of the dog, resolved one day to follow him : he did so ; and as soon as they had arrived at the tree under which Aubri had been buried, the dog scratched away the earth, and disclosed his master's murdered body. From this time the dog attached him- self to the friend, and would never quit him. It was observed, that whenever he saw Macaire he always growled at him, flew at him, and showed every sign of anger, insomuch that Macaire was suspected to be the murderer ; and, according to the custom at that time, of deciding upon a man's guilt or innocence by a trial at arms, Macaire was sentenced to a trial by combat with the dog. George. A duel between a man and a dog! And pray what weapons were they to fight with ? Mrs. M. The dog had his natural weapons of claws and teeth ; besides which he had the advantage of a tub to retire to when he was weary. The man was only permitted to have a stick and a shield. The combat took place at Paris, in the He Notre Dame, amidst an immense concourse of people. It lasted so long that Macaire fainted through fatigue, and when he came to himself con- fessed his crime. A picture representing this singular combat was for a long time preserved in the castle of Montargis; and I can show you a little sketch of some of the principal figures. Mary. I can understand how the real dog could, from love of his dead master, do what he did ; but I cannot understand how the dog CONV. CHAKLES VI. 203 in the play can be made to do all these things, such as ringing the bell to call up the people of the inn, and all the rest. Mrs. M. Dogs are surprisingly tractable animals, and may be taught to do many things that seem against their natures ; but in regard to the ringing the bell, I believe I can let you into a little secret about it. In training the dog to act the part, a sausage is hung at the end of a bell-string, and, in jumping up to get at the sausage, the dog rings the bell ; and in time he learns to pull the string without requiring the bribe. Oeorge. Well, I am glad the poor fellow is taught his lesson by bribery, and not by blows. Mrs. M. Before we leave off, I have one more circumstance to mention. There appeared in Germany, in the early part of the 15th century, certain bands of vagabonds, without religion, without laws, without a country. They had tawny faces, and spoke a kind of gibberish which was peculiar to themselves; stealing and telling fortunes seemed to be their only business. Do you think you can guess who these people were ? Oeorge. I think they must have been gipsies. Mrs. M. So Mezerai thought ; for he says, " Ce sont, a mon avis, ceux que Ton appelle en France Bohemiens et Egyptiens." Richard. And in reality who are the gipsies? Mrs. M. It has been a common notion that the first gipsies were natives of Egypt, who, refusing to submit to the Turkish yoke, abandoned their country. But though it is hard to trace the history of this wandering race, I believe that the best informed people are of opinion that they came originally from the East. Combat between Macaire and the Dog of Montargis (from Montfaucon). 204 CHARLES VII. Chap. XXIL CHAPTER XXII. CHARLES VII., SURNAMED LE VICTORIEUX. Years after Christ, 1422 — 146 1. City of Orleans about the time of the Siege. Reverse of the Town Banner. The dauphin was at Espailly, a petty castle in Auvergne, when he first heard of his father's death. He immediately put on mourning ; but the next day he clothed himself in scarlet, and was proclaimed king by the princes and nobles who formed his little court. Charles a.d. 1428. CHARLES VII. 205 was, at that time, about twenty years old. He possessed excellent abilities and a good heart, and occasionally acted with vigour; but he commonly suffered indolence and love of pleasure to stifle his better qualities. His countrymen have given him the pompous title of the Victorious, because in his time the English were driven out of France ; but he was, properly speaking, a spectator, rather than an actor, in the emancipation of his country . and he much more deserves the name which I have sometimes seen given to him of " the Well-served." Kheims, at Charles's accession, was in the possession of the English ; consequently he could not be consecrated there as his predecessors had been. He was, therefore, crowned at Poitiers, and began his reign under every possible discouragement. He was so poor that he had little else but promises to bestow upon his followers; but his affability and his grateful disposition served him at this time instead of wealth, and procured him many faithful and zealous friends. His agreeable manners could not, however, entirely supply the place of money ; for we are told, that, being in want of some boots, he was obliged to go without them, the shoemaker refusing to let him have them unless they were paid for. The regent Bedford, and some of Henry's valiant captains, were very active in the field, and the English were becoming every day more and more masters of the country. Orleans was at length the only remaining town of importance which Charles possessed ; and, in 1428, the English forces, commanded by the earl of Salisbury, laid siege to it. Salisbury surrounded the town by a great number of towers, and put good garrisons into each ; but according to the imperfect tactics of those times, he left many unguarded places between the towers, which enabled the count of Dunois, who commanded Charles's troops, to bring succours from time to time into the town. By this means the garrison was enabled to hold out many months, during which time the brave Salisbury was slain, and was succeeded in his com- mand by the earl of Suffolk. At the approach of Lent the English regent sent to the English army a large supply of salted herrings under a strong escort. The French sallied out of the town to attack the escort, but were driven back again with great loss. This battle was called the battle of the herrings, and the loss of it reduced the French to despair. They actually began to treat for a surrender ; but that they might not fall into the hands of the English, they offered to yield up their city to the duke of Burgundy. To this the regent would not consent, and demanded "if it was reasonable that he should beat the bush for the duke of Burgundy to catch the hare?" The affairs of Charles were now reduced to the lowest ebb, and he was prepared, as soon as Orleans, which he considered as the 206 CHARLES VII. Chap. XXII. main prop of his fortunes, should have fallen, to retire into Dauphine as a last retreat. His fortunes were, however, unexpectedly re- trieved by one of the most singular occurrences in history. You will have already guessed that this singular occurrence was the appearance of Joan of Arc, who is known also by the name of the Maid of Orleans. This girl was the daughter of a peasant of Domremy sur le Meuse, and by the strength of dreams, and, as she fancied, of apparitions of saints and angels, she believed herself divinely commissioned to rescue her fallen country. She obtained an interview with the king, and told him that she was destined to deliver Orleans from the English, and to take him to Kheims to be crowned. Some of the courtiers thought her an insane enthusiast; but Charles, either because he was willing to cling to a last hope, or else because he was really convinced that she spoke by divine authority, granted her request that he would send her with an escort to Orleans. On her arrival there her presence inspired the garrison with fresh courage. She headed the troops in several sorties, in which they were always successful. The English soldiers could not exert themselves when she appeared. Believing that she was assisted by supernatural powers, they felt a superstitious dread of her, and so many of them fled from the army on that account, that a proclamation was issued in England to apprehend every soldier who deserted from France " for feare of the mayde." At last the English, on May 29, 1429, found themselves obliged to raise the siege of Orleans. Joan having fulfilled what she believed was the first part of her mission, was now desirous to accomplish the second part, which was that of conducting the king to Eheims. In this also she succeeded, and he was consecrated by the archbishop of Rheims, July 7. It was now Joan's wish to resign her military command, and to return to her native obscurity; but this the king, having found her so necessary to his success, would not permit. But this very success was poor Joan's ruin; for the French officers became jealous of her fame, and ashamed that a woman should have performed greater exploits than themselves. In a sortie from the town of Compeigne she was abandoned by her companions, who, at the approach of the enemy, retired into the town and closed the gates upon her, thus leaving her alone amidst the enemy. She was pulled from her horse by a gentleman of Picardy: he relinquished her to John of Luxemburg, the Bur- gundian general, who for a large sum of money gave her up to the regent. Joan, by every law of honour and humanity, ought to have been considered and treated as a prisoner of war ; but the regent chose to regard her as a sorceress and a heretic. He obliged those mem- a.d. 143 1. CHARLES VII. 207 bers of the university of Paris who still remained in that city to bring her to trial for these offences, and they and several bishops and doctors, who were her judges, condemned her to perpetual captivity. But this the regent deemed too mild a punishment, and he found means to have it changed for one more severe. Joan, by the articles of her condemnation, was forbidden ever again to wear the habit of a man ; and Bedford, in the cruel hope that she would not be able to resist the temptation of dressing herself in armour, caused a complete suit to be hung up in her cell. Poor Joan fell into the snare, and her barbarous persecutors, having detected her with the armour on, pronounced her worthy of death, and condemned her to be burnt alive. The sentence was executed May 30, 1431, in the market-place of Eouen. When at the stake, Joan exclaimed aloud that the hand of God was raised against the English, and that he would not only drive them out of France, but that his vengeance would also pursue them in their own country. And if we reflect on the miseries which the English experienced, after their expulsion from France, in the wars of the White and Eed Eoses, we may well think that her words were fully verified. At all events, her death has fallen heavy on all who were con- cerned in it. It is the " one great blot " in the otherwise spotless character of Bedford, the disgrace of her countrymen and judges who sanctioned it, and of Charles who made no effort to save her. Mezerai says, that the judgments of God fell on her judges, and that they all died violent and sudden deaths. I cannot pretend to say how far this is true, but it is certain that the bishop of Lisieux, one of her judges, was so conscious of his crime, that he founded a chapel at Lisieux in expiation of it. The king, who had shown his gratitude to Joan in her lifetime by ennobling her and her family, did tardy justice twenty-four years after her death to her memory, by causing the process of her condemnation to be burnt before a large assembly of prelates and nobles at Eouen. This history of poor Joan of Arc has led me on to anticipate the order of time, and to neglect in their proper place one or two par- ticulars I ought to have mentioned. Amongst other things, I ought to have said that Charles con- trived, in 1424, to attach the duke of Bretagne, a weak and vacillat- ing man, to his interest, by making his brother, Arthur of Bretagne, count of Eichemont, constable of France. This man had many great and fine qualities, and served the king with a most faithful attachment ; but his zeal for Ins master's service often carried him farther than was just or politic. Charles had many very brave men in his service. Amongst those who are most frequently named in history are the count of Dunois, La Hire, and Saintraille ; but although they performed many valiant 208 CHARLES VII. Chap. XXIL exploits, they were none of them endowed with great military talents; and it was said of Charles, that he had many brave captains, but no generals. He himself, whenever he exerted himself, displayed vigour and ability. But his habitual indolence made these exertions very rare ; and although the war was still kept up between him and the English, it was conducted without much activity on either side. The torpor on the part of the English was not the fault of the regent. He did all he could, but could not counteract the ill conse- quences of a quarrel which had taken place between his brother the duke of Gloucester and the duke of Burgundy, which caused for a time a coolness on the part of Burgundy towards the English. The hearts of the French also, although they might dissemble their sentiments for fear of the English arms, were all inclining towards their own legitimate sovereign. To excite some feeling in favour of the young king of England (Henry VI.), the regent had him brought to France and crowned a second time in Paris. But the pageant had no other effect than to make the Parisians sigh the more for their own monarch. In 1435 the tide turned in their favour. The duke of Burgundy deserted the English, and made a separate peace with Charles. This peace, which is called the peace of Arras, was celebrated throughout France with the most frantic expressions of joy. To the regent, Bedford, it occasioned, on the other hand, so much vexation as to be the cause of his death. The English affairs rapidly declined from this time. The dukes of York and Somerset, who were successively regents of France, wanted the ability to stem the torrent that ran strongly against them; and when the civil wars broke out in England, the con- tending parties were too much occupied at home to be able to pay attention to affairs in France. Paris was almost the first town that threw off the English yoke : and on Nov. 4, 1437, Charles made his public entry into his capital, after a banishment of seventeen years. The year 1438 is memorable on account of a famine, followed by a pestilence, which caused so great a mortality in Paris and in the environs, that the wolves roamed about the nearly depopulated streets, and some children were carried off by them. In 1440 a short truce was agreed on between the English and the French. Charles would now have given himself up to the enjoy- ment of his gardens (of which he was very fond), and of his other quiet amusements, had not his tranquillity and happiness been destroyed by the conduct of his eldest son. This young prince (afterwards Louis XL) had early shown a disobedient and malignant temper. When not more than sixteen years of age, he had joined a.d 1448. CHARLES VII. 209 some discontented nobles in a conspiracy against the king. Charles forgave him this offence on account of his youth, and received him into his favour as before. But Louis made an undutiful and un- grateful return to his indulgent father. He behaved insolently to his favourites, and often displeased them by the violence of his temper. When he was about twenty-two years old, he conceived an enmity to some person about the court, whom he engaged the count de Dammartin to assassinate. Dammartin, either because he had never seriously intended to commit the deed, or else because he afterwards repented of his engagement, refused to perpetrate the crime. These circumstances coming to the knowledge of the king, he sent for his son, and most severely reprimanded him for his wickedness. The dauphin, to exculpate himself, threw the whole blame on Dammartin, who denied the charge, and offered to vindi- cate his honour by single combat with any gentleman of the dauphin's household. The king, knowing too well the evil dispo- sition of his son, felt persuaded of his guilt, and banished him to Dauphine, forbidding him to appeal again in his presence for foui months. At the expiration of that time, Charles expected to have seen him again, and that he would have returned penitent and subdued. But Louis, on the contrary, refused to return, and, establishing himself in Dauphine, set himself up as his own master. He loaded the people with taxes, and treated them with the utmost tyranny. His conduct becoming insupportable, the king sent Dammartin with orders to arrest him, and bring him to Paris. But Louis, having previous notice of his coming, fled to the duke of Burgundy, who received him with the greatest kindness, gave him money for his expenses, and assigned him the castle of Genappe, near Brussels, for his residence. Here he remained till his father's death, refusing every invitation to return, and repaying the kindness of the duke of Burgundy by sowing dissensions between him and the count de Charolois, his only son. In the mean time the truce with England had been broken. The war was renewed in 1448, and was carried on throughout to the disadvantage of the English. Talbot, who alone remained of all Henry's brave warriors, made a last effort to redeem the honour and interests of his country. He and his son were both slain m 1453, near Chatillon. This defeat was followed by the ruin of the English cause, and soon nothing remained to them of all their conquests in France except the town of Calais. Charles, though thus at last restored to the dominions of his an- cestors, had little satisfaction in this prosperous situation of his affairs, His son, to strengthen himself still more against his father, had allied himself with the duke of Savoy, and had married his 2IO CHARLES VII. Chap, XXII. daughter ; a step which was highly displeasing to Charles. Louis was also suspected (but I believe unjustly) of having caused the death of his father's mistress, Agnes Sorel, by poison. He was sus- pected also of designs on the life of his father, and to have bribed Charles VIL pannsr of the town of Orleans. his servants to give him poison in his food. The unhappy monarch, under this apprehension, refused all nourishment ; and when, at last, he was prevailed on to take some, it was too late to save his life. He died July 22, 1461. He was fifty-nine years old, and had reigned thirty-nine years. He married Mary of Anjou, daughter Conv. CHARLES VII. of Louis II., titular king of Naples, and had two sons and four daughters : — (1.) Louis, who succeeded him. (2.) Charles, duke of Berri. (3.) Joland, married the duke of Savoy. (4.) Catherine, married the count of Charolois. (5.) Jane, married the duke de Bourbon. (6.) Magdelain, married the count de Foix. In 1438 Charles called an assembly of his clergy at Bourges. In this assembly the Gallican church threw off much of its dependence on the pope. Charles, finding that there was a great want of infantry in France, ordered that each village throughout the kingdom should furnish and pay a foot archer, who should be free from all taxes and subsi- dies. This corps, which amounted to about 22,000 men, was called the Franc Archers. Charles also established the Companies of Ordnance, which formed a body of about 9000 cavalry, and were the founda- tion of the French regular army. In 1440 the duke of Orleans returned from his long captivity in England. He obtained his release chiefly by the good offices of the duke of Burgundy, who, being desirous to terminate the long feud between their families, assisted him in paying his ransom. When the duke of Orleans regained his liberty, he was received with great honour by the duke of Burgundy in his town of Gravelines. These two princes lived ever after in perfect friendship. The duke of Orleans's first wife being dead, the duke of Burgundy gave him his niece in marriage, by whom he had a son, who was afterwards Louis XII. The constable of France, Arthur of Bretagne, died a few years be- fore the king his master. Some years before his death, he became, by the deaths of his brother and of his nephew, duke of Bretagne ; but he would never suffer himself to be called duke of Bretagne ; preferring always the title of constable of France, and saying, " that in his old age he would be called by that title only which had given lustre to his youth." On his death the dukedom of Bretagne devolved on Francis, the son of his younger brother. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXII. Mary. Pray, mamma, who was that Agnes Sorel, who was such a favourite with the king ? Mrs. Markham. She was a lady of great beauty and accomplish- ments, and much celebrated by the French poets and historians, because she employed the influence she possessed over Charles to rouse him from his natural indolence, and to urge him to exert him- self for the recovery of his dominions. Mary. Then she must have been a very good woman. 212 CHARLES VII. Chap. XXII. Mrs. M. She had some redeeming virtues with some very great faults. She was buried at Jumieges in Normandy, where a splendid monument was raised over her grave, in which she was represented in a kneeling posture, with her heart in her hand, which she was offering to the Virgin. This monument was destroyed in some religious disturbances, and its place was supplied by a plain slab of black marble, still in existence, as the threshold stone to a house at Rouen. Agnes is sometimes called the Lady of Beaute, not because of her own beauty, but on account of a castle so called, which the king gave her. Mary. How glad that poor duke of Orleans must have been when he got his liberty again ! I hope they did not keep him shut up in a prison all those twenty-five years in England ? Mrs. M. Great part of that time he passed at Groombridge, not far from Tunbridge, in the custody of Richard Waller, an English gentleman. "Waller had found the duke after the battle of Agin- court, lying amongst the slain, and, perceiving some life in him, carried him to Henry, who, as a reward for his care, appointed him guardian to the royal prisoner. Mary. But was Groombridge a prison ? Mrs. M. No, my dear ; it was Mr. Waller's own house. It is still standing, and I have been told that a part of it was built under the directions of the duke. He also contributed to the repairs of the neighbouring church of Speldhurst, where his arms may still be seen over the porch. Mary. I am glad he had such pleasant employments to amuse himself with. Mrs. M. He was also able to amuse himself with writing poetry. I will show you a sonnet on Spring, which is said to have been written by him. LE PRINTEMS. Le Temps a laissie son menteau De vent, de froidure, et de pluye; Et s'est vestu de broderye De soleil riant, cler, et beau. II n'y a beste, ne oyseau, Qui en son jargon ne chante et crye: Le Temps a laissie son menteau De vent, de froidure, et de pluye. Riviere, fontaine, et ruisseau, Portent en livree jolie Gouttes d'argent, d'orfevrerie : Chascun s'abille de nouveau, Le Temps a laissie son menteau. Richard. Many of the words are spelt so differently from modern French, that I am not quite sure whether I understand it perfectly, I wish you would be so good as to translate it for us. Gonv. CHAKLEiS VII. 213 Mrs. M. I will read you a translation, which I copied from a magazine. The Time hath laid his mantle by Of wind and rain and icy chill, And dons a rich embroidery Of sun-light poured on lake and hill. No beast or bird, in earth or sky, Whose voice doth not with gladness thrill ; For Time hath laid his mantle by Of wind and rain and icy chill. River and fountain, brook and rill, Bespangled o'er with livery gay Of silver droplets, wind their way: All in their new apparel vie, For Time hath laid his mantle by. Richard. Pray, can you tell us what became of that bad queen Isabella of Bavaria ? Mrs. M. She seems to have been detained in a sort of custody by the English at Paris, who treated her with contempt and neglect. Her hatred of her son continued unabated to the end of her life, which, in fact, was terminated by the excess of her vexation at see- ing him regain possession of his kingdom. A monument was erected over her, in which, instead of the dog which it was customary to place at the feet of ladies in the monuments of those times, the sculptor substituted the figure of a wolf, as an emblem of her cruel and rapacious disposition. George. By the bye, mamma, that was very shocking about the wolves eating up the children in the streets of Paris. Are there any wolves in France now ? Mrs. M. I understand there are ; but they no longer range about the country in packs as they did formerly. They are only to be seen in unfrequented places, and seldom more than two or three at a time. Mary. I should be afraid to live in France for fear of the wolves. Mrs. M. A gentleman, who has lived a good deal in Touraine, told me, that he had frequently seen a solitary wolf in his walks ; but that he never met with one that showed an inclination to attack him ; at the sight of him they commonly slunk away into the nearest thicket. George. I suppose wolves know by instinct that their strength is in numbers. Mrs. M. I have just recollected that I omitted to mention in its proper place the famous council of Constance, which, although it has no immediate connexion with the history of France, is yet so im- portant an event, that I ought not to have passed it over. Richard. Then will you be so good as to give us some account of it now ? 214 CHARLES VII. Chap. XXII. Mrs. M. I must go back to the year 1377, when pope Gregory XI. removed the papal see from Avignon back to Eome. He died in the following year, and after his death there was a great schism amongst the cardinals, who could not agree in the choice of the new pontiff. Those who were in the interest of Eome wished to elect a pope who would remain at Eome ; while, on the contrary, those who were in the interest of France, wished to bring back the papal see to Avignon. George. And which got the better ? Mrs. M. I can scarcely tell you. As the two parties could not agree in naming the same pope, they each chose one of their own, so that there were two popes. This schism lasted forty years, and caused continual disturbances throughout Italy. At last, there were three popes all at one time, John XXIII., Gregory XII., and Benedict XIII. The emperor Sigismond, who was very anxious to restore the peace of Italy, obliged John, much against his will, to summon a council at Constance, for the three purposes of terminat- ing the schism, of reforming the church, and of extirpating heresy. This council met on the feast of All Saints, 1414, and the emperor compelled John to make a public declaration, that he would resign his dignity provided his two rivals would do the same. John had no intention of keeping his word, but he dissembled, for fear of the emperor, who kept him as a kind of prisoner. He now bitterly re- pented having come to Constance, and resolved to get away as soon as he could. But this, as the town was full of Sigismond's partisans, was no easy matter. At last, the duke of Austria, who was his friend, contrived to favour his escape, by proclaiming a tourna- ment, during the bustle of which the pope got away in the disguise of a postilion. Mary. ! what a comical figure he must have made ! Mrs. M. Particularly if he was dressed like this figure of a French postilion in the time of Charles VI. But to go on with my story. The emperor was very angry with the duke of Austria for assisting John in his escape ; he laid him under the ban of the empire, and would forgive him only on condition that he gave up the fugitive pope. John was suspended from his pontifical powers, and imprisoned for about three years at Heidelberg, at the end of which time he was released on consenting to acknowledge Martin V., who had been elected pope by the members of the council. Thus in 1417 an end A French postilion of the fifteenth Conv; CHAliLES VII. 215 was happily put to the schism which had so long embroiled Italy, and the more happily, because Martin was a peace-making, good man. EieMrd: This council of Constance managed the affair of the schism very well. Pray, what was done in regard to heresy and the reformation of the church ? Mrs. M. I believe nothing was done towards reforming the church; but the members of the council thought they did a great deal towards extirpating heresy by burning John Huss and Jerome of Prague, who were followers of the doctrines of "Wicklifle. The death of Huss seemed the more shocking, because he had been in- duced to obey a summons to attend the council under promise of the emperor's protection ; but when he came there, Sigismond withdrew his protection, and suffered him to be given up to his persecutors. Richard. And was Jerome of Prague betrayed in the same manner ? Mrs. M. He had not been summoned to the council ; but hearing of his friend's arrest, he came to Constance with a view to assist and comfort him. Being here intimidated by the violent spirit which he found raging against their opinions, he endeavoured to fly from the town; but he was overtaken and brought back in chains, and confined for nearly a year in a dark dungeon. He was then brought to trial, found guilty, and condemned to be burnt alive. Poggio Bracciolini, a learned Italian, who was present at his trial and death, has left us a very interesting account of his death in a letter to a friend. Richard. How I should like to see that letter ! Mrs. M. You may read it in Mr. Shepherd's Life of Poggio. In the mean time I can give you some extracts from it. " I must confess," says he, speaking of Jerome's appear- ance at his trial, " that I never saw any one who, in pleading a cause, especially a cause on the issue of which his own life depended, ap- proached nearer to that standard of ancient eloquence which we so much admire. It was astonishing to witness with what choice of words, with what closeness of argument, he replied to his adver- saries. — It is a wonderful instance of his memory, that, though he had been confined three hundred and forty days in a dark dungeon, where it was impossible for him to read, and where he must have daily suffered from the utmost anxiety of mind, yet he quoted so many learned writers in defence of his opinions, and supported his sentiments by the authority of so many doctors of the church, that any one would have been led to believe that he had devoted all the time of his imprisonment to the peaceful and undisturbed study of philosophy. His voice was sweet, clear, and sonorous; his action digni- fied, and well adapted either to express indignation or to excite com- passion, which, however, he neither wished nor asked for ; he stood 216 CHARLES VII. Chap. XXII. undaunted and intrepid, not merely contemning, but, like another Cato, longing for death : he was a man worthy to be had in ever- lasting remembrance." " When he arrived at the place of execution, he stripped him- self of his garments, and knelt down before the stake to which he was soon after tied by wet ropes and a chain ; then great pieces of wood, intermixed with straw, were piled as high as his breast. When fire was set to the pile he began to sing a hynm, which was scarcely interrupted by the smoke and flame. I must not omit a striking instance, which shows the firmness of his mind. When the executioner was about to apply the fire behind him, that he might not see it, he said, ' Come this way and kindle it in my sight ; for, if I had been afraid of it, I should never have come to this place.' " George. I am very glad you remembered to tell us about the council of Constance, for I should have been sorry not to have heard this letter. Mrs. M. I must not forget another very memorable event, the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, which took place in the year 1453. The empire of the East had been so much encroached upon by these overwhelming invaders, that at last it was reduced to little more than the city of Constantinople, which the Turks made many efforts to gain. But the city, being well defended, and having a fine harbour, by which supplies could readily be introduced, held out successfully against many attacks. At last, in the month of April, 1453, the Sultan Mahommed II. with an immense force blockaded it by sea and land. The emperor Constantino Paleologus, being full of youthful courage, was nothing daunted, and refused many offers from Mahommed to give up his city on reasonable terms. After somo time a mutiny arose in the Turkish army, and the sultan found that the best way to pacify his soldiers was to lead them to the immediate assault of the city, with the promise that, if they took it, it should be given up to plunder during three days. The next morning (May 29), as soon as it was daybreak, the Turks rushed to the walls like so many beasts of prey. The Greeks defended them- selves with the valour of desperation ; but they were so much out- numbered by the assailants (who as soon as one party of troops were slain could supply their places with others), that, overpowered by fatigue, they were at last obliged to give way. The Turks broke into the city ; and I need not pain you with describing the scenes which followed during those dreadful three days of carnage and rapine. At the end of that time the sultan made his triumphal entry, and Constantinople has, as you know, ever since been the capital of the Turkish empire. George. I wonder all the Christian people in the world did not rise in a body and drive out those infidel Turks. Conv. CHARLES VII. 217 Mrs. M. The capture of Constantinople, although a most calamitous event, was yet productive of some advantages to the rest of Europe. Richard. I cannot comprehend what good it could possibly do. Mrs. M. The good it produced was that several learned men who fled from Constantinople settled in Italy, France, and other coun- tries, and engaged in teaching the Greek language and many of the liberal sciences. The good effect of this increase of knowledge soon began to show itself in an increase of civilization and of humanity, amongst people who had till then been taught to consider cruelty as no crime, and ignorance as no misfortune. Mary. And pray, mamma, what became of the courageous young emperor ? Mrs. M. It is not exactly known whether he was slain by the Turks, or squeezed to death by the press of people in trying to escape by one of the gates. Theodore Paleologus, a descendant of this family, found his way into Cornwall, and his tomb may still be seen in a village church near Callington. George. Do you continue to take any of your curious stories out of Froissart's chronicles ? Mrs. M. The chronicles of Froissart come down no later than the year 1400. But there is what may be considered a continuation of them, or at least a continuation of the history, by Monstrelet, a gen- tleman of Picardy, who, as he tells us, " wished to avoid indolence by writing down the events of his time.'' George. And is his book entertaining ? Mrs. M. His chronicles are for the most part very dull and dry ; but here and there I have found an amusing passage. As I per- ceive that Mary takes a great interest in the various revolutions of dress, she shall hear what he says on that subject. "In the year 1461 the ladies laid aside their long trains to their gowns, and in lieu of them had deep borders of furs of minever, marten, and others, or of velvet and various articles of great breadth. They also wore hoods on their heads, of a circular form, half an ell or three quarters high, gradually tapering to the top. Some had them not so high, with handkerchiefs wreathed round them, the corners hanging down to the ground. They also wore silken girdles of a greater breadth than formerly, with the richest shoes; with golden necklaces much more trimly decked in divers fashions than they had been accustomed to wear them. At the same time the men wore shorter jackets than usual, after the manner in which people are wont to dress monkeys, which was a very indecent and impudent thing. The sleeves of their outward dress and jackets were slashed, to show their wide white shirts. " Their hair was so long that it covered their eyes and face, and on their heads they had cloth bonnets of a quarter of an ell in height. FnAXCE. Li 218 LOUIS XI. Chap. XXIIt. "Knights and squires, indifferently, wore the most sumptuous golden chains. Even the very varlets had jackets of silk, satin, or velvet; and almost all, especially at the courts of princes, wore peaks at their shoes of a quarter of an ell in length. They had also under their jackets stuffings at the shoulders to make them appear broad, which is a vanity, and perchance displeasing to God." CHAPTEE XXIII. LOUIS XI. Years after Christ, 1461—1483. Fragment of Louis XL's Chateau of Plessis les Tour* a.d. 1461. LOUIS XI. 219 Loins was in Brabant when he heard of his father's death ; and lest any attempt should be made to place his younger brother on the throne, he instantly mounted his horse, and, accompanied by the duke of Burgundy, and his son Charles count of Charolois, after- wards surnamed Charles the Bold, hastened to Eheims, where he was crowned by the archbishop. Louis was at this time in the thirty-ninth year of his age. He had considerable shrewdness and penetration, but every faculty of his mind was perverted by being directed to unworthy ends. He was cruel, malignant, and ungrateful, and was never known to for- give an injury or repay a kindness, unless, indeed, he had some selfish object to gain by it. He was so excessively cunning and art- ful, that his whole life was one continued act of deceit. He was avaricious by nature, but often prodigal through policy, saving even to parsimony in his personal expenses, especially in his dress. He commonly wore a coarse short jacket. He was however liberal in his presents (which might, indeed, more properly be called bribes) to persons whose services he could in no other way secure. To sum up his character, he was a stranger to every kindly feeling and natural affection ; and never was there a man more feared and distrusted by his contemporaries, and more hated and despised by posterity. From Eheims Louis proceeded directly to Paris, accompanied by a train of thirteen or fourteen thousand soldiers, which effectually secured him a good reception. The first act of his government was to deprive his brother of everything his father had given him, except- ing the county of Berri. He dismissed his father's ministers, and turned off all the officers of the household, and replaced them by men of low extraction and mean habits, who, he thought, would be more subservient to his will than he could expect persons of higher station to be. These measures excited the indignation of the nobles, and a league, called the League of the Public Good, was formed against the king, at the head of which were the dukes of Berri and Bretagne. The count of Charolois also joined this confederacy. The professed friendship between him and Louis was now turned to deadly hatred, the warm and impetuous nature of the count having been worked up to the highest pitch of resentment against the heartless, ungrateful king, who, forgetting all his obligations to the house of Burgundy, now took every opportunity to weaken and injure it. Amongst other provocations Louis had secretly tampered with the duke's ministers for the restitution of Abbeville, Amiens, Corbie, and St. Quentin, four towns on the Somme, which had been ceded to the duke of Burgundy by Charles VII. at the treaty of Arras. The confederates agreed to assemble their forces before Paris. The fiery and impatient Charolois was the first in the field, and L2 220 LOUIS XL Chap. XXItt entered France with a powerful force, before his allies were in readiness to join him. After waiting for them ten or twelve days in the neighbourhood of Paris, he crossed the Seine, and advanced to join the army of the duke of Bretagne. The king, who had been in the "Bourbonnois quelling a disturb- ance, was at this time hastening to Paris, with the intention of throwing himself into the city before the confederates should have joined their forces. His army and that of the Burgundians met unexpectedly near Montlheri, and although neither party wished an encounter at that moment, yet they found themselves so near together that they could not avoid it. The battle took place July 16, 1465. Both Charles and Louis (who on all necessary occasions could master his natural timidity) showed great bravery, and the victory was so undecided that both parties claimed it. Louis, whose main object was to reach Paris, did not stay to follow up any advan- tage he might have gained, and left Charles master of the field. This day, as Philip de Comines tells us in his memoirs, was an unfortunate one for Burgundy; for the conqueror was so much elated with his own prowess, that from that day forth his mind was wholly turned to military affairs, and he thought of nothing but of wars and conquest, by which he brought much misery on his people, and, in the end, destruction on himself. Louis accomplished his object of getting into Paris, and used every art to gain the affections of the Parisians, who he feared might be seduced by the allies to open their gates to them. Doing violence to his nature, he affected great respect for the citizens, and complied with their wishes in appointing a council of eighteen persons chosen from amongst the principal citizens, and the members of the parlia- ment and the university, and promised to do nothing without their advice. He also proclaimed a reduction of the taxes : but all this lasted only whilst the danger did ; when that no longer existed, he revoked these beneficial acts, and persecuted those persons with un- remitting malevolence at whose suggestions he had been induced to agree to them. Not long after the battle of Montlheri, the dukes of Berri and Bretagne, with the rest of the confederates, joined Charolois. Their army, which amounted to 100,000 men, might have been very for- midable to Louis, if they had all acted in unison. But amongst so many chiefs there was no leader ; and although they encamped close to Paris, they let three weeks slip by without doing anything of importance. In the mean time Louis had quitted Paris to procure reinforcements, and had re-entered it again. While each party was expecting that a decisive blow would be struck, Louis, who feared to trust to the event of a battle, sought to dissolve, by policy, this formidable confederacy. It is said that he pursued this line of con- A.D, 1468. LOUIS XI. 221 duct by the advice of his friend and ally Francis Sforza, the usurp- ing duke of Milan, who exhorted him to break the league, at whatever cost, by granting to each of the chiefs whatever he de- manded. Louis accordingly accomplished this great object at little more expense than that of a few promises, and with no other loss than that of his honour ; a loss which he little regarded. He made a treaty with the confederates, called the treaty of Conflans, by which the disputed towns on the Somme were to remain to Burgundy ; the duke of Berri was to have Normandy, and all the other malcontents were also satisfied, — well pleased in believing, that, in securing their own interests, they had done all that was required by the League of the Public Good. They did not, however, gain so much as they had reckoned upon ; the crafty king finding various means to evade the fulfilment of his promises. The duke of Berri had no sooner taken possession of Normandy than he was driven out of it by his brother, and compelled to take refuge in the court of the duke of Bretagne, who, by giving him that refuge, drew on himself the lasting resentment of Louis. In 1467 Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, died. His son suc- ceeded to his vast possessions, but not to his wisdom and prudence. He was passionate and indiscreet to the last degree : he was also brave and generous; but as he was never swayed by reason, both his good and his bad qualities were always in extremes. On succeeding to the dukedom, Charles was for some time fully occupied in quelling some disturbances amongst his Flemish sub- jects; but as soon as his affairs were a little settled in that quarter, he set himself to revenge the cause of his friend and ally, the duke of Berri, whoso treatment by Louis he violently resented. Louis, believing himself more equal to cope with his ardent and hot-headed antagonist in the cabinet than in the field, and having great confid- ence in his own powers of persuasion, was desirous of a personal conference with him. A meeting was accordingly agreed upon, which was to take place in October 1468, at Peronne, a town on the Somme, belonging to the duke of Burgundy. Louis, to make a display of his entire confidence in the duke's honour, repaired to Peronne, accompanied only by the cardinal de Balue, the count de St. Pol, and a few other lords. On entering the town he was greatly alarmed to find there several French noblemen whom he had banished, and others whom he knew to be his enemies, and he requested of the duke that, for his greater security, he might be lodged in the castle. A short time before Louis came to Peronne, he had sent some of his emissaries to foment the disturbances in Flanders, and, from 222 LOUIS XI. Chap. XXIII. some unaccountable oversight, he had either forgotten to counter- mand these orders, or else had supposed that his machinations would not take immediate effect. It, however, happened, that at the very moment when he was now at Peronne, using all his arts to cajole the duke of Burgundy, his agents succeeded in exciting the people of Liege to open rebellion against their sovereign. The news of this revolt soon reached Peronne, and the discovery of the king's treacherous dealing threw Charles into the most fearful transports of rage. He instantly ordered the gates of the castle to be closed and strictly guarded, thus making the king a prisoner, and permitting only a few of his personal attendants to have access to him. Thus the artful and perfidious Louis saw himself completely entangled in a net of his own contriving. He became a prey to the most pain- ful reflections and bitter regrets ; not, I fear, regrets at his own per- fidy and wickedness, but at the folly and want of forethought which had led him thus to put himself in the power of a justly irritated enemy. To add to his uneasy reflections, he saw himself lodged at the foot of the tower in which Charles the Simple had formerly been confined, and where he died, as was supposed, by poison. Louis, however, did not let his presence of mind forsake him in this emergency. When his perturbation had a little subsided, he began to consider how he could extricate himself. He found means through those few of his servants who were permitted to go in and out of the castle, to send tempting messages and rich gifts to those of the duke's attendants who, he supposed, had most influence with their master. Amongst these was the celebrated Philip de Comines, who became impressed with a great opinion of the king's wisdom, and perhaps also of his liberality. Comines afterwards quitted the service of the duke, and entered that of the king, and has left us in the memoirs of his own times one of the ablest and most enter- taining histories ever written. In the mean time Charles was in a state of mind scarcely more enviable than that of Louis. On the first day he was almost like a madman, and it seemed as if nothing would appease him but the death of his victim. On the second day he became more calm, and held a council on the conduct to be observed towards his royal prisoner. This council lasted during the greater part of the day and part of the night, but without coming to any determination. Charles was sometimes inclined to keep the king prisoner for life, and sometimes resolved to send him to his brother the duke of Berri. At other times he seemed as if he only wanted a little encouragement from his council to put him to death at once. During the whole of the third night he was in a perpetual agitation. He neither un- dressed himself nor slept, but kept alternately lying on his bed and walking up and down his apartment with Comines, who now and a.p. 147 1. LOUIS XI. 223 then threw in a word representing the impolicy as well as the dis- honour of proceeding to extremities. He at length became moro tractable, and towards morning was so far pacified as to consent that the king should have his liberty, on conditions which were sufficiently humiliating, but which Louis was glad enough to accede to. One of these conditions was, that he should give up to his brother the counties of Champagne and Brie ; another was, that he should accompany the duke to Liege, and assist in quelling the insurrection which he had himself excited. To Liege accordingly these two princes went, and there Charles gave a free rein to his passion. The insurgents were soon subdued, and the innocent and the guilty fell indiscriminately in the shocking butchery which followed. If Louis was capable of feeling any remorse or pity, he must have been touched at witnessing the miser- able consequences which his own arts had brought on these un- happy people ; but that is a point on which his annalists are silent. When the work of blood was over, and the duke's vengeance was sufficiently sated, he and Louis separated, with many fair words and compliments, and such a show of civility, as, considering the circumstances and the characters of the two men, was a mere mockery. It added to the king's vexation at this result of his expedition to Peronne, that the Parisians were very facetious at his expense, and at the failure of all his fine contrivances. By way of being revenged on them, he deprived them of all the tame animals and birds they kept for their amusement ; and such was the meanness of his jealousy, that he had a register kept of everything the parrots and other talk- ing birds said, to find out if any of them had been taught to pro- nounce that unlucky word Peronne. When Louis was once more safe in his own dominions, he was in no disposition to fulfil the conditions of the treaty which necessity had forced upon him at Peronne. Not choosing to give to his brother Champagne and Brie, a territory which would place him near his ally the duke of Burgundy, he persuaded him to accept instead the duchy of Guienne. Charles was violently enraged at this infringement of the treaty, and was on the point of enforcing the observance of it, when the death of the duke of Berri in 1471 removed the subject of the dispute, although it did not prevent the war from breaking out. The duke of Berri's death was occasioned by eating part of a poisoned peach, and Louis was strongly suspected of having con- trived, or at least connived at it. Nothing was ever proved to con- firm or clear away this suspicion, but Charles acted on the belief that it was a true one, and, to avenge his friend's death, carried the 224 LOUIS XI. Chap. XXIII. war into Picardy, where the unoffending inhabitants suffered the punishment of the crimes imputed to their unprincipled king. This war, with the interruption of occasional truces, lasted many- years; but I shall pass over the particulars, which are rendered exceedingly intricate by the chicanery and double dealing of Louis of Luxembourg, count of St. Pol. This man had been originally attached to the side of Burgundy, and took an active part with the confederates in the war for the public good. A short time before the treaty of Conflans, the king, in hopes to detach him from that party, offered him the sword of constable of France. St. Pol accepted the offer with great profession of loyalty to Louis, and at the same time he made Charles believe that he accepted it solely with the view of being the better able to be secretly serviceable to him. In this manner did this perfidious man sell himself to two masters, betraying the secrets of the one to the other, and deceiving both. His chief object was to promote the war between France and Burgundy, because during a time of war his emoluments as con- stable were enhanced. At last, his treachery became so evident, that both Charles and Louis were equally convinced of it. And at a time when they happened to be in tolerable good humour with each other, they mutually agreed that whichever of them should first get the constable into his power should either put him to death in eight days, or else give him up to the other. When St. Pol heard of this agreement, he took good care to keep out of their way, and shut himself up in the town of St. Quentin, where he remained for some time in security. At last, finding himself hard pressed by Louis, and thinking he was no longer safe at St. Quentin, he deter- mined to trust himself to the more generous nature of the duke of Burgundy, and, obtaining a safe-conduct from him, he sought refuge in his territories. Louis instantly claimed his victim; Charles suffered his resentment against St. Pol to balance every other consi- deration, and delivered him up. He was conveyed to Paris, and condemned and executed as a traitor, Dec. 19, 1475, and never was any one less pitied or lamented. Some months previous to the death of the constable, Edward IV. of England, to assist his ally the duke of Burgundy (who had mar- ried his sister), brought a numerous army into France, through " the ever open gate of Calais." Louis, bearing in mind the terrible days of Cressy and Agincourt, trembled at the thoughts of an English army in Ms kingdom, and resolved to spare no pains to get peaceably rid of them. He did not find this a very difficult matter. Edward had been pressed into the war against his inclination, and being grown unwieldy and indolent, willingly listened to Louis's overtures, and unhesitatingly accepted a considerable bribe, under a.d. 1477- LOUIS XI. 225 the softened name of tribute, on consideration of returning with his army to England. Louis did not content himself with bribing only the king. He secured the suffrages of Edward's ministers by bestowing on them gifts and pensions. He treated the English during their stay in France with the greatest apparent respect and courtesy, though all the time he hated them in his heart. To keep the soldiers in good humour, he gave them a great entertainment at Amiens. With "his good brother of England" he requested a personal interview ; still, however, so much distrusting him that he did not venture to meet him otherwise than on a bridge (the bridge of Pequigni), with a grated barrier between them. In short, his con- duct to the English cannot be better described than by comparing it to that of some timorous person, who by coaxing words is trying to keep down a mastiff which he thinks is longing to fly at him. At last, the treaty being concluded at Pequigni, Aug. 29, 1475, Edward and his host departed, and Louis recovered from the terror he had been thrown into. A chief article of the peace was, that the son of the king of France should marry the king of England's eldest daughter. The duke of Burgundy was much displeased at this treaty, and refused to be included in it. He, however, not long afterwards, made a truce with Louis for nine years. This truce he made because his ambition was now impelling him to turn his arms against his other neighbours. He attacked the duke of Lorraine, and dispossessed him of his dominions. He invaded a part of Savoy, and he next endeavoured to subjugate the Swiss : but from these hardy mountaineers he met with an unexpected repulse, and was defeated by them with great loss at Granson, April 5, 1476. This defeat, instead of checking his ambitious projects, only made him pursue them the more fran- ticly, and against all prudent counsel; and with an inadequate force he rashly made another attack on the Swiss. But in a battle fought near Nancy, in January, 1477, his army was totally defeated, and he himself lost his life. The circumstances of his death are truly tragical. He had for some time given his chief confidence to an Italian favourite named Campobasso, who, under a show of devoted attachment, had (from some cause which is not known, but which is commonly supposed to have been the having once received a blow from him) vowed his destruction. Campobasso had purposely, on many occasions, per- suaded Charles into very impolitic measures, and now, in the field of Nancy, in the time of his greatest need, he withdrew with that part of the army which was under his command, and stationed some of his own creatures about the duke's person, with orders to l 3 226 LOUIS XI. Chap. XXIII. kill him if they saw that he was likely to escape with life. These orders were but too well executed. The day after the battle the duke's body was found wounded in three places. He had fallen in a kind of morass with his face in the water, which in the night had frozen so hard that he could not be extricated from it but by pick- axes. The duke of Lorraine, who commanded the Swiss army, gave his fallen adversary an honourable funeral. To show the more respect, he wore his beard covered with gold-leaf. What was some- thing more in unison with the mournfulness of the occasion, he pro- nounced over the dead body, taking it by the hand, this short but simple oration: — "God rest thy soul! thou hast given us much trouble and grief." Thus fell Charles the Bold, the last duke of Burgundy. By his death, his vast possessions, extending from the northern limits of Holland to the frontiers of Switzerland, descended to his only child Mary, who, young and inexperienced, knew not how to contend with the difficulties with which she found herself environed. The resources of her country had been exhausted, and the bravest of her subjects had fallen in the late wars ; and she was at once assailed by a tumultuous council, a disobedient people, and a powerful and vindictive enemy. That enemy was Louis, who made no attempts to conceal his joy at the duke of Burgundy's death. He instantly seized on the duchy of Burgundy, on the plea that in default of male heirs it had fallen to the crown of France ; and at the same time he made an attack on some of Mary's towns in Picardy. When the news of the duke's death arrived at Ghent, the citizens immediately took the government into their own hands. They slew the magistrates, and refused to acknowledge the young duchess's au- thority. As Mezerai expresses it, " being both proud and ignorant, they meddled with everything, and did nothing but what was wrong." The duchess placed her chief confidence in her mother-in-law (Margaret of York), and in a few of the ancient servants of her family. These persons, although they were her firm and attached friends, appear to have been but indifferent advisers. By their advice she tried to excite compassion and feelings of honour in the hard and insensible heart of Louis. She sent ambassadors to him with offers of peace, and wrote him a letter in which she promised to unite her dominions with those of France by a marriage with the dauphin, then a boy of eight years old. Louis, who preferred taking his own crooked ways, returned an ambiguous answer; and soon afterwards, when some deputies from the people of Ghent arrived at Paris, he gave them the duchess's letter, in the hope that it would embroil her with her subjects, who he knew would greatly resent her having offered to give up herself and her territories to France without their knowledge or consent. a.d. 1480. LOUIS XI. 227 It turned out as he had expected. "When the deputies returned to Ghent they showed the duchess her letter in a public assembly, and vehemently reproached her for her conduct. Nor was that all ; they condemned as traitors her chancellor Hugonet and the lord of Imbercourt, by whose advice she had acted, and gave them only three hours to prepare for death. The poor young duchess was in the deepest affliction. At once humiliated at the public disclosure of her negotiation with Louis, and driven to despair at the impending fate of her faithful servants, she ran about the market-place, where the scaffolds were erecting, and with dishevelled hair and disordered dress she implored and entreated for their lives. But her entreaties were vain. They were executed almost in her sight. The citizens were now more over- bearing than ever. They made the duchess their prisoner, debarred her from the company of her mother-in-law, and wished to force on her a husband of their own choosing. But in that particular Mary found means to elude their vigilance, and entered into a treaty of marriage with Maximilian, eldest son of the emperor Frederic III. The Flemings agreed to this marriage, winch took place in 1477. They did not dispute Maximilian's authority over them while Mary lived; but on her death, in 1481, by a fall from her horse, they refused to submit any longer to his control. Mary left two children, Philip and Margaret. The people of Ghent took these children under their own guardianship. They brought up the boy as their future duke, and, making peace with Louis, they betrothed the little girl, who was not two years old, to the dauphin, and sent her to be educated in France. This event is said to have hastened the death of the king of England, who had so confidently built on his own daughter's mar- riage with the dauphin, that he had been accustomed to style her " the dauphiness." Louis had now outlived all his most feared and hated rivals, and had, either by secret treachery or by open violence, arrived at a greater degree of power and authority than any of his predecessors had attained. But now was the time when, instead of enjoying, as he had hoped, the fruits of his labours, he was to pay the penalty of his crimes. His constitution was breaking down, and the fear of death filled him with indescribable horrors. He had the first warn- ing of its dreaded approach in March, 1480, when, as he was sitting at dinner, he was suddenly deprived of speech and sense. He remained three days in that condition, and although he partially recovered from the effects of this attack, he never afterwards regained his former health. As his bodily strength declined, the malevolence of his temper increased, and he became more jealous and suspicious than ever. Conscious, as he himself, in an exhorta- 228 LOUIS XI. Chap. XXIII. tion to his son, acknowledged, " that he had grievously oppressed his people," he lived in continual dread of their retaliation. He shut himself up in his castle of Plessis, near Tours, and, in addition to the customary fortifications, caused it to be surrounded with ditches, in which were iron spikes ; and not daring to trust to the fidelity of his own subjects, he had a band of foreign archers, who kept guard at the gate of the castle day and night. The castle could only be entered by a wicket, which admitted but one person at a time, and he suffered no person of rank to be lodged within it excepting the lord of Beaujeu, who had married his eldest and favourite daughter, and who, being a person of weak abilities, he supposed to be the less capable of forming dangerous machina- tions against him. Louis had so great a dread of the nobles and princes of the blood, that, although he detained the duke of Orleans and some others near his court, he treated them with distant coldness, and kept them in a sort of imprisonment. His chief and familiar associates were Oliver Daim, his barber ; Tristan FHermite, his hangman ; and Jacques Coctier, his physician. To the last of these this most tyrannical monarch was an absolute slave. The artful Jacques pretended that an astrologer had predicted that his death should take place a few days before that of the king, and the king consequently watched over his life with anxious care, loaded him with presents, and sub- mitted to all his insolence and humours. The more Louis was conscious of his declining state, the more he sought to conceal it from the world. Instead of the mean and sordid dress he was accustomed to wear, he now put on magnificent apparel, and would take occasion to show himself at the windows of his castle, and then hastily withdraw himself, that the people who saw him might not have time to observe his meagre and altered looks. He imported from foreign countries many rare animals, which could not be procured without much expense and difficulty. He had dogs from Spain, lions from Barbary, elks and deer from Denmark and Sweden, and yet when they were obtained he cared not even to see them. But though he endeavoured to deceive others, he could not deceive himself. The nearer death approached, the more his dread of it increased. To ward it off he tried all the arts of superstition. He caused himself to be anointed with the holy oil from Eheims ; he loaded himself with the relics of saints, and sent processions to their shrines, praying that they would prevent the north-east wind from blowing because it seemed to increase his dis- order ; but he placed his greatest hopes in a holy hermit of Cala- bria, who had the reputation of working miracles, and of restoring the sick to health by his prayers. He sent for him to Tours, and frequently on his knees besought him to prolong his life. The holy A.D. I483. LOUIS XI. 229 man in vain represented to him that the power of prolonging it lay- only with God, and bade him turn his thoughts towards the next world, instead of thinking so exclusively of this. Louis was at length sensible that these miserable struggles to avert the inevitable hand of death must soon terminate. Believing himself to be on the point of expiring, he ordered his chief officers to go to his son at Amboise, and to consider him as their master. He also sent with them his hawks and his hounds, and all that was then considered as forming the royal establishment. Loches : Cage in which Card, de la Balue and others were confined by Louis XL He soon after felt momentarily a little revived, and would have recalled them, but death prevented his purpose. He died August 30, 1483, having lived sixty-one years, and reigned twenty-two. When very young he was married to Margaret, daughter of James I. king of Scotland ; but this princess, although amiable and gentle- tempered, never could acquire his regard, and died of grief, as it was said, at his neglect and unkindness. His second wife, Charlotte of Savoy, was not more happy; and 230 LOUIS XL Chap. XXIII. although he acknowledged that she was "a virtuous and loving wife/' he treated her with harshness and inattention, alleging as his chief cause of being offended with her, that she expressed more com- passion than he approved of for the house of Burgundy. By her he had three children, one son and two daughters : — (1.) Charles, who succeeded him. (2.) Anne, married Pierre de Bourbon, lord of Beaujeu. (3.) Joan, married the duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII. Mezerai tells us, that Louis caused more than four thousand per- sons to be put to death by different modes of execution, many of which he himself took pleasure in witnessing. He kept the cardinal de Balue for many years shut up in an iron cage, as a punishment for Ins numerous political intrigues; and only released him from his imprisonment on the cardinal's feigning himself at the point of death. Louis added greatly to the territories of the crown of France. He won a considerable district from the house of Burgundy. The county of Boulogne he acquired by purchase. The counties of Maine and Anjou were bequeathed to him by Charles of Anjou, count of Maine ; who also left to him the rich inheritance he had derived from his uncle Kegnier of Anjou. This inheritance included Bar and Provence, together with the imaginary claims of the house of Anjou to the crown of Naples. In this reign the art of printing was introduced into France. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXIII. George. What in the world could induce that count of Maine to leave his territories to such an old rogue as king Louis ? Mrs. Markham. It was possibly on the score of their relationship, and not from any feeling of regard. The king's mother, Mary of Anjou, and the count's father were brother and sister : old Regnier of Anjou, often called king Rene, was another brother. Richard. Pray, mamma, was not that Regnier of Anjou the father of our queen Margaret of Anjou? Mrs. M. He was. After spending the early part of his life in struggling to obtain the kingdom of Naples, he, in his old age, retired to Provence, and consoled himself for the loss of a crown by the amusement of a garden, and in the cultivation of plants. We may thank him for that lovely ornament of our gardens, the Provence rose. Mary. I am sure that I, for one, am very much obliged to him. Richard. I wonder if there ever was another man so cold-hearted and wicked as this Louis the eleventh. Mrs. M. The Roman emperor Tiberius seems to have very much resembled him. A striking parallel may be drawn between their two characters, and it is hard to say which was the worst. Conv. LOUIS XI. 231 Richard. Louis was the worst, because, being a Christian, he ought to have known better. Mrs. M. His Christianity, I fear, did him little good. The fear and love of God, and the wish to serve Him, was no part of the reli- gion of Louis. His religion was the most abject superstition. He paid great devotion to the bones of saints, and always carried some relics about his person. He also wore a little leaden image of the Virgin in his baretle or cap, to which he frequently addressed his prayers. He had also many religious scruples, and amongst them was one which consisted in an unwillingness even to make oath by the cross of St. Lo. Mary. And what did he think there was wrong in that ? Mrs. M. It was not so much his fear of doing wrong, as of incur- ring danger, which made him avoid this oath. He believed that whoever made oath falsely by that cross would come to an untimely death before the end of the year. He was, therefore, too prudent to venture on doing anything so rash. George. There was something like conscience in that : he was not blind to his own faults. Mrs. M. He was by no means without a conscience, and he took great pains to keep it clear by frequent confessions. Philip de Comines was once present at an interview between the king and his priest, and drily observes, " that there was no great matter in the king's confession, for he had confessed himself not long before." Louis, however, had one merit. Little as he respected justice in his own conduct, he was very rigorous in requiring his subjects to observe it towards one another. There are also two or three other praiseworthy things to be said of him. He graciously received and protected those learned Greeks who, after the taking of Constan- tinople by the Turks, sought refuge in France. He instituted parliaments at Dijon and at Bordeaux : and, lastly, he established posts and couriers in different parts of France for the conveyance of letters. George. And that was the best thing he ever did. Mrs. M. These posts had their origin from the king's restless and suspicious temper, and from his impatience to learn promptly what- ever was passing in all parts of his kingdom. They were employed solely in the service of the king. It was not until 1630 that the letters of private individuals might be conveyed by the public posts. Richard. There is one thing that xmzzles me very much in the history of this king, and it is how so bad a man could find faithful and attached servants to execute all Ins schemes. Mrs. M. He had a wonderful skill in finding out the tempers and dispositions of those persons whom he wished to make use of, and had great art in binding them to his will by means of their avarice, 232 LOUIS XL Chap. XXIII. vanity, or self-love. Comines tells us, that one of his ways, when he wanted to gain any person, was to whisper, as if confidentially, in his ear, which gave him importance in his own eyes and in those of others, who would look on him as intrusted with important affairs. He had also a way of cajoling by a pleasant and facetious humour, which he could at all times command. He could also, when he chose it, overawe and confound by his keen and sarcastic wit those whom he conversed with ; and lastly, he could, as he saw occasion, be liberal in his gifts, and severe in his punishments; so that, between hope and fear, he kept all whom he employed in a very strict dependence on his will. George. I shall have greater pleasure in reading that enter- taining book Quentin Durward, now that I know so much more about Louis XL Mrs. M. The historical parts of that very delightful novel must not be read as real history, for the ingenious author has not thought it necessary to adhere critically to fact, and has in many places accommodated the history to his story, instead of giving himself the trouble to make his story accommodate itself to history. The character of Louis, which forms so conspicuous a part of the book, is drawn throughout in a very masterly manner, and is evidently taken from the memoirs of Comines. Richard. Will you be so kind as to read us a little of Comines's book ? It must be very entertaining. Mrs. M. You shall have a part of his account of the king's last illness. "Our king was now at Plessis, with little company but his archers : — to look upon him one would have thought him rather a dead than a living man; he was grown so lean, it was scarce credible. "His clothes were now richer and more magnificent than they had been before : his gowns were all of crimson satin, lined with rich martens' furs, of which he gave to several, without being de- manded; for no person durst ask a favour, or scarce speak to him of anything. He inflicted very severe punishments, for fear of losing his authority, as he himself told me. He removed officers, disbanded soldiers, retrenched pensions, and sometimes took them away quite. So that, as he told me not many days before his death, he passed his time in making and ruining men ; which he did in order to be talked of, and that his subjects might take notice he was not yet dead." George. That was a mighty singular amusement for a dying man, methinks. Mary. There was something very melancholy in the death of the duke of Burgundy. I could not help being very sorry for him. Cony. LOUIS XI. 233 Mrs. M. It was scarcely possible for two human beings to be more totally opposite than were Charles and Louis ; they had only one common quality, and that was ambition. Richard. And even their ambition was very different. In Louis it was thriving and prosperous, and in Charles it was everything that was ruinous. Mrs. M. The riches and prosperity of the Netherlands, before that country was ruined by the misconduct of Charles, exceeded that of any other jDeople of Europe. Bruges, Antwerp, and Arras, which last city was famous for its tapestry, were the staples of the northern nations. The dukes of Burgundy were more powerful than many kings, and their courts were the most splendid in Europe. After the battle of Nancy, an immense quantity of the rich spoil of the Burgundians fell into the hands of the Swiss, who, unaccus- tomed to the refinements of luxury, did not know what to do with it. They garnished their miserable huts with pieces of beautiful and costly embroidery : and so little knowledge had they of gold, that many of them bartered pieces of that valuable metal for copper, which they esteemed the more useful of the two. Richard. They were probably very happy in their ignorance. Mrs. M. There is a singular history relating to a diamond which once belonged to Charles of Burgundy. The story is this. Charles wore this valuable jewel in his hat at the battle of Nancy. It was found amongst the spoil by a Swiss soldier, who sold it to a French gentleman of the name of Sancy. In his family it remained above a hundred years, until a descendant of the family, who was captain of the Swiss soldiers in the service of Henry III., was employed by that monarch to procure him a reinforcement of soldiers from Switzer- land. The king, being driven from his throne by a league which was formed against him amongst his subjects, was so totally without resources, that he was unable to send any money for the payment of the troops. He therefore borrowed Sancy's family jewel, which was to be sent into Switzerland as a pledge. Sancy sent the diamond by one of his own servants, but he and the diamond both disappeared. The king reproached Sancy for his credulity in trust- ing so valuable a treasure to a menial ; and he, piqued both for his own credit and that of his servant, in whose fidelity he had implicit reliance, set out in search of him. He found that he had been way- laid and murdered, and that his body was concealed in a forest. Sancy, still confident in the poor fellow's zeal and integrity, caused the body to be disinterred and opened ; when it was found, that, to preserve the jewel from the robbers, he had swallowed it. This diamond, winch went by the name of "the Sancy/' afterwards became the property of the crown. It was stolen in the general 234 CHARLES VIII. Chap. XXIV. wreck of French royalty at the revolution, and no one now knows what has become of it. Mary. I only hope it will never come into my possession. I should not like to wear an ornament having such a melancholy history, and which seemed to bring misfortune on all who pos- sessed it. CHAPTER XXIV. CHARLES VIM., SURNAMED L'AFFABLE. Years after Christ, 1483— 1498. A Courtier of the fifteenth century. Charles VIII. As Charles was in his fourteenth year, and might according to the French law have been considered old enough to rule alone, the late king had not appointed a regency. In consideration, however, of his son's weak health and backwardness of mind, he placed him under the guardianship of the lady of Beaujeu. The princes of the blood, and more particularly the duke of Orleans, jealous of the power which Anne thus acquired, called an assembly of the states at Tours, with the hope of displacing her. Contrary to their expectation, the states confirmed her authority; but to pacify the nobles, a council of ten, of which the duke of Orleans was to be the head, was appointed to assist her in the govern- ment. Anne soon showed this council that their office was merely nominal, and took into her own hands the whole management of affairs. She was a very clever, strongheaded woman, and possessed a.d. 1488. CHARLES VIII. 235 great talents, with perhaps a little too much of her father's politic spirit. She had not, however, his cunning or malevolence, and was, on the whole, a very fine character. She was, at this time, only twenty-two years old, but she cheerfully relinquished all the usual amusements of her age and sex, and gave herself up entirely to the business of the state. Her chief difficulty arose at first from the conduct of the duke of Orleans, who gave her many provocations, which she, having a high spirit, violently resented; and at last, things came to that pass between them, that Orleans, believing his liberty in danger, fled to the court of Bretagne, and put himself under the protection of the duke. Bretagne was, at that timo, governed by Francis II., the last male descendant of John de Montfort. He had no sons ; and the kings of France had begun to cast their eyes on that valuable fief, the only one now remaining independent. The last descendants of the family of Blois had ceded to Louis XL all their supposed claims on Bretagne, and the lady of Beaujeu and her young brother, who was early awakened to ambition, held themselves in readiness to urge these claims on the first opportunity. In furtherance of these designs, Charles entered into an alliance with some malcontent Bretons, and, under pretence of assisting them, sent a large body of troops into Bretagne, who took possession of several towns for the king. The Bretons now saw their error in choosing such a dangerous ally. They reconciled themselves with their duke, and, joining their forces with his, assembled a numerous army, and encountered the French near St. Aubin, July 28, 1488. The result of this battle was fatal to the Bretons. The duke of Orleans, who was fighting on their side, was taken prisoner; and the lady of Beaujeu, who had not forgot her own particular grudge, caused him to be closely im- prisoned in the great tower of the castle of Bourges ; and, to make his captivity doubly sure, she had him shut up every night in an iron cage. The duke of Bretagne was completely broken down by his defeat at St. Aubin. He made peace with Charles on very disadvan- tageous terms, and died soon after from the effects of vexation. He left two daughters, one of whom died soon after her father. His other daughter, Anne, now sole heiress of the duchy, was only thirteen years old, but she possessed a strong and vigorous mind far beyond her years, and conducted herself with wonderful firmness and judgment under very difficult and trying circumstances. The Bretons were in no condition to contend in arms with the king of France, and were urgent with their young duchess to marry, and give them a legal protector. Some of them pressed her to fulfil an engagement which her father had made for her with the seigneur d'Albret, whose brother had married the heiress of Navarre. Others, 236 CHARLES VIII. Chap. XXIV. who had been gained over to the French interest, solicited her to terminate all her difficulties by marrying Charles. Anne was herself averse to both these alliances. D'Albret was old enough to be her grandfather, and was notorious for his bad temper ; and Charles she regarded with particular aversion, as the enemy of herself and her race. In this perplexity she resolved to choose for herself, and selected the archduke Maximilian from amongst the list of her suitors. The archduke's character for easy good-nature appears to have been one cause which prepossessed her in his favour. The marriage took place, by proxy, in 1489. But either from indolence, which was always Maximilian's bane, or that he was beset by other more pressing cares, he neither came to claim his bride, nor sent any troops to her aid. Charles, meantime, was preparing to advance into Bretagne; and Anne, receiving no succour from Maximilian, applied to Henry VII. of England, on whom she thought she had a claim of gratitude for the protection which her father had given him in his distress. But Henry was cautious and tardy ; and Anne saw that she would have to wait long for his assistance. In these circumstances Charles renewed his suit for her hand ; but Anne, in addition to her former reluctance to marry him, now felt herself the affianced wife of the archduke. Charles, believing that the duke of Orleans might, from his former acquaintance, have some influence with her, released him from prison, and sent him into Bretagne. He himself soon followed with a numerous army, and encamped at the gates of Eennes, where the duchess was keeping her little court. Anne, thus neglected by her betrothed husband, and ill assisted by her cold ally, now began to waver in the purpose she had formed. Charles, through the intervention of Orleans, entered the city incognito, and was admitted to see her. It might be said of Anne, as Shakspeare has said of her namesake, in his play of Richard III.— Was ever woman in this humour woo'd ? Was ever woman in this humour won? The result of the conference was, that she consented to marry him. The determination was received by the Bretons with great satisfac- tion. They stipulated with Charles for the preservation of their laws and privileges, and the marriage took place December 10, 1491. Thus was Bretagne annexed to the crown, and the whole of France, after a lapse of many centuries, again united under one sovereign. Anne soon forgot her former prejudices against Charles ; she loved him for his many amiable qualities, and made him an excellent and affectionate wife. Charles, at the time of his marriage, was twenty-two years old. He had, for some time past, withdrawn himself from the tutelage of a.d. 1 49 1. CHAELES VIII. 237 his sister; he, nevertheless, always continued to treat her with respect and affection, and, in matters of importance, would generally ask her advice ; though, unhappily for himself and his kingdom, he did not always follow it. This young prince was of a gay, lively nature, but so thoughtless and deficient in judgment, that, though he seems to have set out in life with one of the best hearts in the world, he was continually guilty of very unjustifiable actions. One of his follies was that of being always eager after some new scheme, which he would pursue for a time with great ardour, and then sud- denly relinquish. He commonly acted from the impulse of the moment, was seldom to be convinced by reason, and had an in- vincible repugnance to business. Notwithstanding these great defects, Charles made himself much beloved. He was generous and forgiving to excess ; and had so gentle a temper, that it is recorded of him, that he never, in the course of his life, said a single word which could give pain to any human being. His faults might, in all probability, be attributed to his want of education. His early years had been passed in a kind of imprisonment in the castle of Amboise. His mean-spirited and jealous father, fearing that his sou might at some time or other become his rival, gave him no instructors, and placed only low and unworthy persons about him. When he became king, he did not even know how to read. He endeavoured after- wards to supply the deficiencies of his education, and when he was about seventeen or eighteen years old, he applied diligently to study during several months. Then, either from the persuasions of his young companions, who thought that a studious king would make a very dull master, or else from the changeableness of his own dis- position, he threw aside his books, and gave himself up to dissipa- tion and frivolity. You may suppose that Charles's marriage with the duchess of Bretagne caused both displeasure and surprise in Maximilian, whose daughter, you may remember, had been sent into France as Charles's affianced bride. Maximilian, therefore, felt himself doubly injured, both in his daughter's person and in his own; but not being in a condition to declare war openly, he contented himself with taking the towns of St. Omer and Arras by stratagem, and entered into an alliance with Henry VII., who at last, when it was too late, landed in France with a numerous force, and laid siege to Boulogne. Charles, whose mind was now eagerly running on a new scheme, hastened to rid himself of these enemies, which he did without much difficulty. Maximilian was pacified by receiving his daughter again, with all the towns that were to have been her dower ; and Henry, who was no warrior, gladly relinquished his projected conquest in France for a considerable sum of money, and returned home. 238 CHARLES VIII. Chap, XXIV. The project on which Charles was now bent was no other than the conquest of Naples, to which kingdom he pretended to have a claim, in right of the earl of Maine's bequest to his father. Perhaps this claim would have been suffered to remain dormant, if it had not been for the artifices of Ludovico Sforza, a man whose character stood pre-eminent (even in that age, when such qualities were but too common) for perfidy, ingratitude, and cruelty. Ludovico was uncle to Galeazzo, the reigning duke of Milan, and wanted to destroy his nephew, and get possession of the duchy for himself. He was, however, prevented from making any attempt against the young duke by the fear of drawing upon himself the vengeance of Ferdi- nand king of Naples, whose granddaughter Galeazzo had married. He therefore gladly fanned the flame of ambition which perhaps his arts had first lighted in the inconsiderate mind of Charles, and encouraged him to make an invasion of Naples. It was in vain that the lady of Beaujeu, or the duchess of Bourbon, as she was now become by the death of the lord of Beaujeu's elder brother, and all Charles's other most prudent ad- visers, represented to him the folly and madness of such a scheme. He was obstinately bent upon it. During two years it was the con- stant subject of debate in the royal council. At last, after many changes of plans, it was finally determined on, and the king accord- ingly set out on this great enterprise in the autumn of 1494, but with so little preparation that he could only collect an army of 18,000 troops, with little money and with no provisions for a cam- paign. Besides these troops, indeed, he was accompanied by a great number of young noblemen, who served as volunteers — a class of soldiers which might perhaps be useful in a day of battle, but which were a hindrance rather than a help in a long campaign, as being less able to endure fatigue, and less willing to submit to control, than the regular army. The Italian princes had had ample notice of the intended invasion, and might easily have crushed it ; but they trusted that it would end in idle talk, and made but little preparation against it. Ferdi- nand king of Naples, and his son Alfonso duke of Calabria, were men of the most notorious vices, as was also the pope, Alexander VI., and it seemed (to quote the words of Mezerai) " as if God had blindfolded their eyes and tied down their hands, and raised up this young prince to chastise them, who came with a small force, and was governed by a brainless council." Charles crossed the Alps, and reached Asti, in Piedmont. Here he fell ill of the small-pox, which detained him some time. By the end of October he was sufficiently recovered to continue his march ; but when he arrived at Turin his resources were so completely expended, that he was obliged to borrow the duchess of Savoy's and A.b. 1495. CHARLES VIII. 239 the marchioness of Montferrat's jewels, to raise money on them to pay his troops. At Yigevano Charles was joined by his faithless ally Lndovico Sforza, who stayed with him till he was assured of the success of a dose of poison, which he had a short time before found means to give to his nephew. As soon as he heard that Galeazzo was dead, he hastened to Milan and took possession of the dukedom, in viola- tion of the rights of the infant son of the deceased duke. Galeazzo and Charles were sisters' sons, and some of the council urged the king to proceed immediately to Milan to avenge his cousin's death and punish the usurper. But Charles's whole mind was set on conquering Naples, and he was not to be turned from it. He proceeded on his march, and wherever he came he proclaimed himself " The friend of freedom, and the enemy of tyrants." Every gate was opened to him as he passed, and he was received in triumph into Florence and Eome. In January, 1495, he ap- proached the confines of the Neapolitan territory. The old king Ferdinand was now dead, and had been succeeded by his son Alfonso. When Alfonso heard that Charles had actually quitted Eome, and was advancing towards Naples, his terror was so excessive as in a manner to bereave him of his senses. While the French were yet many miles distant, he would fancy that he heard them in the streets, and that the very stones cried out, " France ! France ! " which was the war-cry of the French soldiers. He would not await their coming, and, abandoning the throne to his son Ferdinand, he fled to Messina, and shut himself up in a monastery. Here, without taking the vows, he practised all the austerities of a monk, hoping thereby to expiate the sinfulness of his former life. The rigorous discipline which he imposed on himself occasioned disorders which soon ter- minated his miserable existence. Alfonso had amassed immense riches by every species of cruelty and fraud ; and it is singular that when he fled from Naples he showed no anxiety to save anything except some garden-seeds. Ferdinand was a prince of great promise, and it was hoped that he would retrieve the character of his family, which, for several generations, had been notorious for its vices. When the French approached Naples, he marched to meet them at the head of his troops ; but at the first sight of the enemy he was seized with a sudden panic, and fled back to the town. The Neapolitans shut the gates against him, and the terrified prince took refuge in the island of Ischia. Charles in the mean time entered Naples, and was received by the inhabitants as their deliverer from oppression. Every place in the Neapolitan dominions, with the exception of Brindisi, Reggio, and 2 4 o CHARLES VIII. Chap. XXIV. Gallipoli, yielded to him, and he achieved this great conquest with- out striking a single blow. This brilliant success absolutely turned the heads of the king and his council. Every kind of business and affair of state was neglected: nothing was thought of but diversions and feasting. Little care was taken to preserve the towns that had submitted. To some few, indeed, garrisons and a governor were sent; but these persons, following the example of the king, were more occupied with their pleasures than with their duties. The soldiers lived at dis- cretion, the stores were squandered, the inhabitants ill treated, their goods pillaged, and their rights disregarded; and the Neapo- litans found their new masters even worse than their old ones, and that these professed friends of freedom were indeed very tyrants. The princes in the other parts of Italy now began to recover from the panic which the irruption of the French had thrown them into. The pope, the Venetians, and Ludovico Sforza, who now no longer needed the French, and wished to get rid of them, entered into a confederacy to drive them out of Italy. They were joined by Fer- dinand king of Aragon, and by Maximilian, who, by the death of his father, was now emperor of Germany. Philip de Comines was at that time at Venice on a mission from Charles, and he repeatedly warned his master of what was going on ; but Charles was too much immersed in amusements to give heed to the warning, until the news reached him that a treaty had been actually signed by the confederate powers. He then thought it necessary to take care of himself, and resolved to retrace his steps to France. About 4000 of his troops he left in Calabria and Naples under the command of the count d'Aubigny and of Gilbert de Bourbon, duke de Montpensier, to the last of whom he gave the title of viceroy of Naples. Charles departed on the 20th of May with his diminished army, and reached Pisa without meeting any impediment. Here he halted for a reinforcement of 9000 men which he had ordered the duke of Orleans to bring from Asti. But after waiting twelve or fifteen days he learned that the duke of Orleans was in no condition to bring him the expected succour, being closely blockaded by Sforza in the town of Novara in the Milanese. The following was the cause of his unfortunate predicament. Orleans, in right of his grandmother Valentina, had a claim to the duchy of Milan, and, instead of leading the troops under his command to join the king, he could not resist a temptation which offered itself of making himself master of Novara. Before he had time to get it pro- visioned, he was shut up in the town by Ludovico's troops, and driven to the last extremities of famine. Charles, having obtained some small reinforcements, which after all did not make his army exceed 9000 men, now pushed forward A.d. 1496. CHAKLES VIII. 24 1 towards Piedmont. His delay at Pisa had given the confederates time to concentrate their forces, amounting to no less than 40,000 men, commanded by the marquis of Mantua. But even with this superior force the Italians did not venture to attack the French until they reached Fornova, where the confederate troops, stationing themselves in a valley through which the French must necessarily pass, waited for their approach. Charles had here his first oppor- tunity of showing himself to be a soldier. He came in view of the enemy July 6th, 1495, and rushing forwards with inconceivable bravery, he and his little army broke through their ranks and pur- sued their way, with the loss of only eighty men, leaving 3000 of the enemy slain. Nine days afterwards he reached Asti, where he re- mained some time to refresh his troops. He here commenced a treaty with Sforza, who permitted the duke of Orleans to leave Novara. Charles; although the most generous and forgiving of men, never thoroughly forgave Orleans for letting his private interest interfere with his public duty, and ever afterwards treated him with a degree of coolness. Heartily weary of military enterprises, and impatient to enjoy the pleasures of peace at home, the king scarcely stayed to con- clude his treaty with Sforza, and hastened to Lyons, where, forgetting all weightier cares, he plunged into every kind of dissipation. In the mean while Ferdinand of Naples had left his retreat at Ischia. He applied to Ferdinand king of Aragon, to assist him in expelling the French from the Neapolitan dominions, and that monarch sent him a body of Spanish troops, commanded by Gon- salvo de Cordova, surnamed "the Great Captain." The French commanders made what resistance they could; but receiving no reinforcements, were soon overpowered. Ferdinand was reinstated in Naples, and before the end of the year 1496 nothing remained of Charles's conquests in Italy. These calamities roused the whole French nation to a desire of avenging the honour of their country ; and Charles was awakened from his dream of pleasure, and loudly called on to renew the war. He collected an army, and prepared to take the command of it. Previous to his departure on this new expedition, he went to the abbey of St. Denis, to take leave of the holy saints and martyrs who there lie buried. He then proceeded as far as Lyons, on his way into Italy, and some of the advanced cavalry had already crossed the Alps, when suddenly the king's mind was changed, the enterprise was suspended, and afterwards wholly laid aside. Many different causes are given for this relinquishment of the Italian war. Some persons attribute it to the king's displeasure with the duke of Orleans, who, it is said, could not conceal his satisfaction at the death, about this time, of the king's only son ; but perhaps the change of plans may be sufficiently accounted for by the natural Fkanck. M 2 4 2 CHARLES VIIL Chap. XXIV. fickleness of Charles's temper, and the increasing feebleness of his health, which made him nneqnal to any active exertion. The king now pursued an entirely new course of conduct. He forsook all his former frivolous diversions, and seemed desirous to live only for the good of his people : he set about reforming the abuses of the government; he established a supreme council; he dismissed all unjust judges and unworthy persons from their ofiices ; he attended personally to the complaints of the poor; he medi- tated great reduction in the taxes; and it was his intention to limit his expenditure within the revenues derived from the royal domains, and from the ancient rights of the crown. But before he could execute these good resolutions his life was suddenly cut short. One day, when he and the queen were at Amboise, some of the noblemen of the court were diverting themselves with playing at tennis in the fosse of the castle. Charles led the queen into a gallery from whence she could see the players. The doorway of this gallery, which Comines describes as nothing more than a dirty passage-room, was very low, and the king in entering struck his head against it. He, however, took no notice of the blow, but en- tered into conversation with the persons assembled there. To one of them he said, that he hoped never to commit another wilful sin as long as he lived. While he was speaking these words, he was suddenly seized with a sort of apoplexy, and fell down with- out sense or motion. He was laid upon a pallet bed which hap- pened to be in the place, and expired in a few hours. He was in the twenty-eighth year of his age, and had reigned fifteen years. He married Anne of Bretagne, by whom he had three children, who all died in their infancy. Charles had a very indifferent figure, and, with the exception of his eyes, which were sharp and brilliant, his face was exceedingly plain. His speech also was defective, and he spoke slowly and with difficulty; but the kindness of his manner and the sprightliness of his humour made these, as well as the more serious faults of his character, to be overlooked; and never was any man more beloved. It is even said, that two of his attendants were so much over- whelmed with grief at his death, that when they saw Ins body committed to the grave they dropped down dead. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXIV. Richard. I think the conquest of Naples, by Charles, was one of the most extraordinary things you have yet told us. What a set of poltroons those Italian princes must have been to let him march with a mere handful of men from one end of Italy to the Conv. CHARLES VIII. 243 other, and back again, without making any attempt to stop him, till just at the very last ! Mrs. Markham. Philip de Comines, in his account of the expe- dition, declares, that " the whole voyage was a mystery conducted by God himself." George. I am very glad we have not yet lost sight of our old friend Comines. Mrs. M. Poor Comines experienced a variety of fortunes. In the minority of Charles VIII. he fell under the displeasure of the lady of Beaujeu, who kept him prisoner during three years, the greater part of which time he was shut up in an iron cage. Mary. What had he done to offend her ? Mrs. M. He had entered into a secret correspondence with the duke of Orleans, then an exile in Bretagne. The king, when he took the reins of government into his own hands, restored Comines to favour, and employed him on several important occasions. He was present at the battle of Fornova, and has given a full account of it. George. Perhaps he has told us how it was that 9000 French could make their way through an army of 40,000 Italians, with scarcely any loss. Mrs. M. Several causes combined to favour the escape of the French. The valley was only a mile and a half wide, and the enemy's troops were hemmed in, and hampered by their own num- bers. Their thirst of plunder was another cause of their over- throw; for instead of opposing the advanced troops of the French, the Italians were more intent in falling on the baggage in the rear, which they completely pillaged. Charles, on this occasion, not only lost all his Italian spoil, but also the holy relics which he had carried from France, and which, it seems, always accom- panied the royal presence. But what was at that moment the most serious matter of all, was the loss of his provisions, by which his army was reduced to the greatest distress. And, although he gained his passage through the valley of Fornova, he found the hardest part of his labour yet to come, and had a most terrible march to Asti, winch Comines describes in very feeling terms. Mary. "Will you, if you please, tell us what he says ? Mrs. M. The whole would be too long ; I will, however, read to you one passage, which will give you some idea of the not unfre- quent sufferings of a retreating army. " Our marches were long, and our drink nothing but standing water that stank; and yet our men were so greedy, they ran themselves up to the waist to come at it. The king always marched before day, but never took a guide with him, nor baited till it was noon, and then he dined; and those that attended him took what care they could of themselves. No m 2 *_ — _ J 244 CHARLES VIII. Chap. XXIV. man in the whole army, though of the best quality, was excused from looking to his own horse, but every one brought his own hay or straw in his arms : twice I did it myself, and was two days with- out eating anything but bread, and that none of the best. It was the most painful and incommodious march I ever made, though I have been in several bad enough with Charles duke of Burgundy. We marched no faster than our artillery, and were forced often to halt on purpose to mend them, which, besides the deficiency of horses to draw them, incommoded us extremely. — We were in no want of good officers, and men of experience, in the army ; but (as fortune would have it) they had no authority with the king, who was young and untractable: so that, to conclude, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, did most manifestly reserve the glory of that voyage to himself." Richard. There is one thing in the history of our old friend Comines which I don't quite like ; and that was, his leaving his old master, Charles, to enter into the service of Louis XL Mrs. M. There is a story told of Comines, which, if it be true, ac- counts for his quitting the court of Burgundy. The story is, that Comines, presuming on the freedoms which the duke permitted him to take, one day desired him to pull off his boots for him. George. And what did the duke do? Mrs. M. He did as he was desired, and then gave Comines such a hearty drubbing with the boots, that the discomfited courtier could never more appear in his presence. Mary. Do you know, mamma, what were the amusements in which this king Charles VIII. spent so much of his time ? Mrs. M. He was passionately fond of dancing, of tournaments, and of theatrical exhibitions. George. I cannot think how he could like those tedious mysteries and moralities. Mrs. M. Mysteries and moralities were, at this time, superseded by a more lively kind of theatrical amusement, more suited to the natural character of the French. Several of the gay young men of Paris formed themselves into companies for the performance of short lively pieces, the object of which was to turn into ridicule their ac- quaintance, or sometimes the public characters of the day. One of these companies was composed of young lawyers, and was called "les Clercs de la Basoche." Another, which was formed from amongst the principal citizens of Paris, was called " les Enfans sans Souci," and was under the management of a chief who bore the dis- tinguished title of the prince of fools. The performances of these gentlemen actors were exceedingly captivating to the Parisians, who flocked in crowds to witness them. Mary. Were these entertaining plays exhibited in churches ? Conv. CHAELES Till. 245 Mrs. M. No ; they were exhibited in halls, which served as thea- tres, — not such theatres as ours; for there was no division between the stage and the part appropriated to the audience; and the actors, when they were not wanted on the stage, sat amongst the audience. Richard, Were the French people as fond of disguisements as the English were ? Mrs. M. They seem to have been fond of every kind of amuse- ment, and to have had a greater variety of diversions than the English. The lower orders of the French, and particularly the Parisians, were very fond of processions. One of their favourite festivals was the procession of the Giant, which was annually cele- brated on the 3rd of July. An enormous figure of a giant, twenty feet high, with a poniard in his hand, was paraded about the streets, and finally burnt in the rue aux Ours, with fireworks, and other signs of rejoicing. George. Had this giant ever wanted to blow up the parliament, that they treated him as we do Guy Faux ? Mrs. M. The story is, that this giant is meant to represent a cer- tain soldier (I cannot tell you his name) who, in a fit of desperation at losing his money at play, rushed into the street, and struck his poniard into an image of the Virgin, which stood at the corner of la rue aux Ours. Blood instantly gushed from the wounded image. The people who saw the miracle seized on the soldier, and, binding him on a gallows, stabbed him to death ; and in commemoration of this event, instituted the procession of "the giant." — This is the account given by popular tradition. The learned say that the fes- tival is nothing more than a relic of paganism, which has descended to the French from the Roman colonists in Gaul. There was another favourite ceremony, which was derived from the same source, and that was the procession of the Boeuf gras ; in which a bull was adorned with branches and flowers, as were the bulls of old when led to sacrifice. A child, decked out in ribands, was placed upon his back, and he was led about the streets, preceded by instruments of music. Richard. This custom is not yet left off. Don't you remember there is an account of it in one of those entertaining stories in 'Highways and Byways'? Mrs. M. There was another annual festival which happily no longer exists, and which was much more reprehensible than either the Giant or the Boeuf gras. This festival was called the Feast of the Ass. A young woman, with a child in her arms, was seated on an ass, and was led in a procession, with the bishop and clergy at its head, to the church or cathedral. There mass was said by the priests; but instead of the usual responses, the people answered by 246 LOUIS XII. Chap. XXV. loud cries of " Hinlia ! hinha !" in imitation of the braying of an ass. This was meant for a representation of the flight into Egypt. Richard. How shockingly disgusting and profane ! Mrs. M. Tins feast of the Ass was at one time adopted in England, but was never, I believe, permitted after the eleventh century, when Gros-tete, bishop of Lincoln, forbade its celebration in his cathedral. In France it was not left off till the end of the sixteenth century. George. I am very glad to find the English were better than the French, even so long ago. Mrs. M. I should be very glad if it was the ambition of every Englishman to ■ George. Ah ! mamma, I am almost certain I know what you were going to say. Mrs. M. Well, what was I going to say ? George. That it ought to be our ambition to try to surpass the French in the excellence of our moral and religious conduct and principles, still more than by superior courage and warlike skill. Mrs. M. You have guessed right, my dear boy ; and I hope you will always bear this sentiment in mind. CHAPTER XXV. LOUIS XII., SURNAMED LE PERE DU PEUPLE. Yeabs after Christ, 1498— 15 15. The early life of Louis XII. was attended with many sorrows and mortifications. The death of his father, while he was still a youth, a.d. 1499. LOUIS XII. 247 threw him under the immediate control of Louis XL, who looked on him with a suspicious eye, on account of his near relationship to the throne, and always kept him near his own person, in a state of subjection which must have been very galling to a young and lively prince. Afterwards his disputes with the lady of Beaujeu drove him into exile and caused his imprisonment. During the latter years of the reign of Charles VIII. he fell under that king's dis- pleasure, and found himself treated with coldness and distrust. These vexations and trials of temper had certainly a beneficial effect on his character. No king of France was ever more solicitous to promote the happiness of his people, or more enthusiastically beloved by them in return. But while we applaud this amiable disposition, we must not be blind to his failings, though these were less, we may hope, of the heart than of the understanding. His foreign policy in particular seems to have been most injudicious. France suffered extremely from his ruinous wars, which he com- menced without foresight, and conducted without vigour. We may see but too often that even princes by nature exceedingly kind and compassionate, have proved quite unable to appreciate justly the folly and misery of unnecessary war. . Louis XII. had been obliged at an early age to marry Joan, the youngest daughter of Louis XI., a marriage every way repugnant to his inclinations ; for Joan, though amiable and gentle-tempered, was unfortunate in her person and unprepossessing in her manners. On becoming his own master, he immediately sued for a divorce, and to that end courted the friendship of pope Alexander VI., and bestowed the dukedom of Valentinois on Caesar Borgia, the pope's natural son. Mezerai says, in speaking on this subject, that "Louis's alliance with Alexander and his son, who were monsters of wicked- ness, drew on him the hatred of all Italy, and perhaps the maledic- tion of God. For it is impossible to stand well in the eyes of God if one is in friendship with wicked men." Poor Joan defended herself by every means in her power. But her efforts were in vain. The king procured his divorce, and Joan shortly after retired into a convent. Anne of Bretagne had on the death of Charles returned to her duchy, where she affected to exercise an independent sovereignty. But she was soon restored to the throne of France. Louis, to pre- vent the important fief of Bretagne from falling into the hands of an adversary, had no sooner obtained his divorce from Joan than he solicited the hand of the widowed queen. She accepted his suit, and their marriage was celebrated January 18, 1499. Louis's first care, in entering on the concerns of his government, was to lessen the taxes, and to improve the administration of justice. It is related that he was at this time importuned by his courtiers to 24 8 LOUIS XII. Chap. XXV. remove from the command of the army a brave old general of the name of De la Trimouille, who had taken him prisoner at the battle of St. Aubin. Louis magnanimously replied, "That it did not become the king of France to revenge the quarrels of the duke of Orleans." — It would have been happy if, when he forgave the quarrels of the duke of Orleans, he could also have forgot Ms claims to the duchy of Milan. He would thus have avoided many diffi- culties, and been spared many mortifications. At first, indeed, no difficulties presented themselves. In July, 1499, he sent an army into Italy, which made an easy conquest of the Milanese and of Genoa. On hearing of this success, the king himself crossed the Alps, and, entering Milan in his ducal robes, spent three weeks there in regulating affairs. Sforza had fled on the first alarm of invasion, but he reappeared as soon as Louis had returned to France, and retook the city as speedily as he had lost it. Louis then sent fresh forces into Italy, under the command of the brave La Trimouille, who soon regained possession of Milan, and took Sforza prisoner. On account of his crimes, the king would not extend towards him his wonted clemency, but kept him a close prisoner during the remainder of his life in the castle of Loches. From the conquest of Milan, Louis turned his arms to that of Naples ; but not conceiving himself sufficiently powerful to accom- plish without assistance so great an enterprise, he formed an alliance with the crafty Ferdinand of Aragon, who lent his aid on condition of sharing the spoil. Frederic king of Naples, seeing himself unequal to contend with the united force of France and Spain, abandoned Iris kingdom, and, leaving his children to the mercy of Ferdinand, trusted himself to the generosity of Louis, who gave him a pension, and conferred on him the duchy of Anjou. Louis and Ferdinand, being now masters of Naples, proceeded to make a division of the territory. But as might have been expected, neither party was contented with his share. Thus their alliance soon turned into enmity, and hostilities commenced on both sides. I have now to remind you that Mary of Burgundy, whose history I gave you in the reign of Louis XL, left one son and a daughter. The son, the archduke Philip, was, I then told you, educated by the Flemings as their future sovereign. He married Joanna, the eldest surviving child of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Philip had an interview with the French king at Lyons, and there agreed with him for a cessation of arms. The French kept in good faith the agreement thus made ; but the Spanish general, who knew that his master would be well pleased with any act of treachery by which he might gain an advantage, took an opportunity of attacking the French army in Naples, which he defeated in two battles. These battles were fought on two successive Fridays, a circumstance which a.d. 1507. LOUIS XII. 249 Henault tells us is the origin of the vulgar superstition that Friday- is an unlucky day. In consequence of these defeats, the whole kingdom of Naples, with the exception of the town of Gaeta, fell into the hands of the Spaniards. When the archduke heard of these events, he was extremely shocked, and returned instantly to France, and put himself in Louis's power, assuring him that he had himself no participation in the acts of perfidy which had been committed. Louis very honour- ably dismissed the archduke, but determined to avenge himself on Ferdinand. Accordingly, he equipped three powerful armies. Two he sent into Spain. The third, under the command of La Trimouille, was destined to attempt the recovery of Naples ; but that brave commander fell dangerously ill, and so this hope was defeated. The invasion of Spain proved also unsuccessful. Louis was so much affected by these disasters that an alarming illness ensued, and his life was for a time despaired of. He however recovered, and a truce was agreed to with Ferdinand. The death of pope Alexander, under very singular circumstances, in 1503, caused a great change in the affairs of Italy. He was suc- ceeded by Pius III., who lived only three weeks. Cardinal Eovera was then chosen pope, and took the name of Julius II. He was a great patron of the arts. He commenced the building of the church of St. Peter at Eome, and was the friend and patron of Michael Angelo and of Eaphael. Julius was one of the most bold and aspiring pontiffs that ever sat upon the papal throne, and the ruling passion of his mind, next to ambition and the love of power, appears to have been hatred to the court of France. In the year 1504 died Isabella of Castile, the wife of Ferdinand of Aragon, and the patroness of Columbus. She was a woman of a noble and generous nature, and her name is venerated in Spain to this day. Isabella had one son and three daughters. The son had married Margaret of Burgundy, and died without children. The eldest daughter had married the king of Portugal, and died leaving one son, who did not long survive his mother. These afflictions weighed down Isabella's spirits and hastened her death. The two surviving children were the archduchess Joanna, and Catherine the wife of our Henry VIII. On Isabella's death, the archduke Philip took possession of Castile in his wife's name. He died in 1507, and the extreme grief of Joanna, whose understanding was naturally very defective, totally incapacitated her from taking any part in the government. Her eldest son Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles V., was acknowledged as sovereign of Castile, but without the title of king, which the Castilians would not confer on him while his mother lived. Ferdinand, however, contrived still to retain the chief power, and governed Castile in the name of his m 3 250 LOUIS XII. Chap. XXV. grandson, who was at this time only seven years old. Charles was educated in the Netherlands, under the superintendence of his great- grandmother, Margaret of York, and his aunt, Margaret of Burgundy, who had married the duke of Savoy, and was a second time a widow. A few months after the death of Isabella, Ferdinand married Ger- mana de Foix, a young and beautiful princess, and niece to Louis, who gave as part of her dower all his right and title to the kingdom of Naples, stipulating however that those Neapolitans who had suffered for their attachment to the cause of France should be set at liberty and have their property restored. In 1508 Louis most unwisely entered into the league of Cambray. This was a league formed by the pope, the emperor Maximilian, and the king of Aragon, all of them professed enemies to Louis, against the republic of Venice, Louis's only sure friend and ally on that side the Aips. Louis in person gained a great victory over the Venetians in the battle of Aignadel, May 14, 1509, and the republic was stripped of a considerable portion of its territory, but afterwards in part recovered its losses. The councils of Louis had hitherto been governed by the cardinal d'Amboise, who had been his attached friend and servant during the adversities of his early years, and his minister and adviser since his elevation to the throne. D'Amboise was not a man of great abilities ; but his integrity commanded general respect, and raised him above all the cabals and intrigues by which the affairs of Europe were at that time distracted. His death was universally bewailed, not only by the friends, but also by the adversaries of France. Julius alone, who stood in awe of his integrity, rejoiced at his death. Julius and Louis came at last to open war, and the former was reduced almost to extremity, when the queen, who deemed it sacrilege to carry on hostilities against the church, prevailed with Louis to forbid his general to advance. On this forbearance Julius rallied, and resumed the offensive. He was again repulsed, and Louis gave orders not to spare him. Julius then allied himself with Ferdinand and the Venetians; but their united forces were defeated on the 11th of April, 1512, in a great battle at Eavenna. In 1512 Ferdinand of Aragon made the acquisition of Navarre. He had long looked covetously at this little kingdom, and now quietly took possession of it. On the first approach of the Spanish troops on his frontier, John d'Albret, who was no hero, abandoned his territories on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, and fled to Beam, a small district on the French side, which constituted hence- forth all the inheritance of the kings of Navarre. His wife, Catherine Foix, who was the last descendant of Charles d'Evreux and Jane of France, and who had been the heiresss of Navarre, would often reproach him for his pusillanimity; and would say, " If I had been a.d. 15 14. LOUIS XII. 251 John d'Albret, and you Catherine Foix, we should not have lost our kingdom." Julius II. died in 1513, and was succeeded by the cardinal de Medicis, who took the name of Leo X. He, too, though with less animosity than his predecessor, adopted a policy adverse to France. In the same year a new enemy rose up against Louis in Henry VIII. of England, who, young and inconsiderate, was eager to dis- play his spirit and activity in a war with France. He had no very good pretences of his own for breaking the peace which subsisted between the two nations; he therefore took up a quarrel of the emperor Maximilian ; and the two sovereigns, joining their forces together, laid siege to Teroiienne in Picardy. An action was fought near Guinegate, in which the French were defeated. The duke de Longueville, and the celebrated chevalier Bayard, were taken prisoners. This action, which on the part of the French was more a flight than a battle, has been called the tattle of the Spurs. Teroiienne soon afterwards capitulated, and Maximilian and Henry, not being able to decide who should keep it, settled the dispute by burning it to the ground. Tournay was next besieged, and, fearing the same fate, surrendered to Henry, who placed an English garrison in the town. Louis was now become weary of the unsuccessful warfare in which, during fifteen years, he had been perseveringly engaged. On every side he was defeated and disappointed. All his conquests in Italy had vanished from his grasp. Maximilian, the son of Sforza, had recovered Milan, where the French during their occupancy had made themselves extremely unpopular. Genoa had revolted, and Naples was completely under the dominion of Ferdinand. But though the arms of Louis were thus unfortunate abroad, his people were well governed and happy at home. Though an indif- ferent warrior, and a miscalculating politician, he was just and benignant in his conduct towards his subjects, and acquired the title of " The Father of his People." Anne of Bretagne died in January, 1514. The king, although he sometimes reproved her for interfering too much in matters of state, loved her with sincere affection, and was a most afflicted mourner for her death. In the course of a few months, however, he made peace with the king of England, and soon after married Mary, the young and beautiful sister of that monarch. Mary, whose affections had been pre-engaged to the duke of Suffolk, was brought to France a reluctant sacrifice to state policy. To please his young bride, Louis gave up his regular hours and quiet habit of life : he relin- quished his former custom of dining at eight o'clock in the morning, and retiring to rest at six in the evening. He adopted, instead, the fashionably late dinner-hour of twelve at noon, and would sit up at 252 LOUIS XII. Chap. XXV. dances and gay assemblies till midnight. These altered habits dis- agreed with his health, which had long been in a declining state, and he died January 1, 1515. By his second wife, Anne of Bretagne, he had two daughters : — (1.) Claude, married her cousin the count d'Angouleme. (2.) Renee, married Hercules d'Este, duke of Ferrara. Mary of England had no children. The king having left no son, his cousin Francis, count d'Angou- leme, was the nearest male heir to the crown. Bretagne was the inheritance of Claude, the king's eldest daughter, whom her father was very desirous of marrying to the count d'Angouleme. Anne of Bretagne opposed this marriage with all her power. It did not therefore take place till after her death. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXV. Mary. Why did the queen object to her daughter's marriage with the count d'Angouleme ? Mrs. Markham. She had two reasons : one, that she wished the duchy of Bretagne to recover the dignity of an independent state, instead of sinking into insignificance as merely a part of the French monarchy. George. That was a very foolish reason. I hope the other was a better. Mrs. M. I think it was. It arose from her disapprobation of the conduct of Louisa of Savoy, the count's mother, a woman of great beauty and talents, and of a most extraordinary fascination of man- ners, but of great vices. The event proved the justice of Anne's apprehensions : for Louisa behaved very cruelly to poor Claude, and caused her to lead a miserable life. Anne herself was a woman of singular propriety of manners, and of simple habits ; and her court was remarkable for its decorum. She was always surrounded by a numerous train of young ladies of quality, whom she employed in embroidering, and in other works suitable to their sex and station. She herself would sit at her work in the midst of them. She had a high, and on some occasions rather a vindictive spirit, and interfered, as I have said, somewhat too much in the affairs of government. But she was on the whole an excellent woman, and stands pre- eminent amongst the queens of France. Her heart is preserved in the royal library at Paris, enclosed in a case of gold filigree. Richard. I must say there was a strange set of monarchs at that time ; our king Henry VIII., those two popes Alexander and Julius, the emperor Maximilian, and the deceitful old Ferdinand of Aragon. It was lucky there were one or two good queens to make up for the kings. CoNV. LOUIS XII. 253 Mrs. M. Maximilian was the strangest character of them all. While the rest were in general governed by one ruling passion, which led them on in a steady track of wickedness, he was drawn different ways by ambition and avarice, contending passions, of which, while each led him wrong, each at the same time counteracted the other. Hence his whole life was a life of unfinished projects, and of the most absurd and glaring contradictions. One of his strange schemes was to make himself pope. Mary. It must have been only a joke, mamma ; he could not be in earnest. Mrs. M. He seemed very much in earnest in a letter on this sub- ject to his daughter Margaret. This letter was written a short time before the death of pope Julius II., and in it he expresses a great anxiety to be appointed coadjutor to the pope, to the end that after his death he may be assured of the papacy. He concludes his letter thus : " I shall become a priest and be canonized ; so that after my death you will be obliged to pay me adoration, at which I shall be much glorified. I pray you keep this matter very secret, or else in a few days it will be known to all the world. "From the hand of your good father Maximilian, the future pope." Richard, He would have made a very droll pope. By the bye, mamma, what was there so re- markable in the death of pope Alexander ? Mrs. M. The story is, that he and his son Caesar Borgia coveted the riches of a wealthy cardinal, and determined to poison him. To this end they invited themselves to sup with him at his country house, and, to do him the more honour, they brought with them a present of some choice wine: in this wine they had mixed poison. When they arrived at the villa, the heat of the weather had made them very thirsty, and they imme- diately asked for some wine. The pope's attendants being out of the way at the moment, the cardi- nal's servants brought the poisoned wine by mistake. Alexander drank heartily of it, and was soon seized with convulsions which in a few hours terminated his life. Csesar, who was a stronger man, and had drunk more sparingly, escaped with the loss of health and strength. The Emperor Maximilian. 2 ^ 4 LOUIS XII. Chap. XXV. Mary. I always like, mamma, to see the devices of bad people turned in this way against themselves. George. Pray, mamma, how did Lonis and the lady of Beaujeu behave to one another when he was king ? Mrs. M. Their quarrels were reconciled during the reign of Charles VIII., and they lived afterwards on very good terms with each other. Anne, now duchess of Bourbon, never took any part in public affairs after Charles's death, but devoted herself to the education of Susanna, her only daughter, the richest heiress in France. George. I am glad, mamma, we have still some gallant knights in our history, now that we have left dear old Froissart so long behind. You said something to us in this reign of the chevalier Bayard. Mrs. M. And in the next reign you shall hear more of him. But I may now mention to you the famous Gaston de Foix. Gewge. Pray do, mamma. Who was he, and what can you tell us of him ? Mrs. M. He was duke de Nemours, and the favourite nephew of Louis. His fine qualities have been always celebrated in France, and he is the hero of many popular songs. He was killed at the battle of Ravenna, at the early age of twenty-three. He charged the enemy, calling out to his soldiers, "He that loves me follow me!" and fell in the moment of victory, pierced by twenty-two wounds. There were many other brave knights, Gaston's friends and contemporaries, who greatly signalized themselves by their personal exploits. — But I must leave this topic, that I may say something on the subject of architecture, particularly of church architecture, which underwent a great change in this reign. The earliest style of the French church architecture was rude and simple, as I believe I observed to you in the former part of our history. This was called the Lombard style. Bichard. Then I suppose the old Lombard churches in France were heavy, clumsy buildings, like the old Saxon ones in England. Mrs. M. Still there was a marked difference between the Lombard and Saxon styles of architecture. In the Saxon the pillars were short and thick, and far apart, so that the arches which sprang from one to the other were low, and had a wide span. In the Lom- bard style the pillars were thick, but lofty and near together, so that the arches were necessarily very narrow. Under the reigns of Hugh Capet and his son Eobert, the pointed arch was first intro- duced, and gave rise to what was called the mixed Lombard. Other alterations and improvements arose, till at last, during the course of the thirteenth century, the elegance of the Gothic architecture reached it highest perfection. The cathedrals of Amiens and Rheims were built during that Conv. LOUIS XII. 255 period, and also, as perhaps you may remember I have before told you, the church of Notre Dame at Paris; but this glory of the Gothic architecture was of short duration. The wars with the Eng- lish, and the other distractions which followed, put a stop to all great and public works in France during the greater part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Under the paternal government of Louis XII. several new and considerable buildings were erected. The frequent intercourse the French then had with Italy led them to introduce a mixture of the Italian with the Gothic style. Mary. Have the French any buildings like those of ours which were built in the reigns of Henry VIII. and queen Elizabeth, and which I have heard you call the Tudor style ? Mrs. M. No, my dear. The Tudor style is nowhere to be met with in France, and I believe may be considered as exclusively English. Richard. Do you know, mamma, what is the oldest building now existing in France ? I don't mean Roman buildings : they of course must be the oldest of all. Mrs. M. I believe that the church of St. Genevieve at Paris is con- sidered as the most ancient French building. It has been repaired and added to at different times ; but there is a part still left which was built in the time of Clovis. One of the most curious monuments of architectural antiquity existing in France is the remnant of a bridge across the Ehone between Avignon and Villeneuve. This bridge was erected in the thirteenth century. The fragment left of it is still much admired as a work of art, and it was regarded at the time when it was built as something so wonderful, that the architect was supposed to have been miraculously assisted, and was canonized after his death by the name of St. Benedict or Benezet. The build- ing a bridge was in those days regarded as an act of charity to the public, and of piety to God ; and a company of religious freemasons was formed, calling themselves La Confraternite des Fonts, who employed themselves in building bridges from motives of piety. George. And a very good work it was. I will try in future, when- ever I pass over a bridge, to recollect how much obliged we are to the people who built it 256 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. CHAPTEK XXVI. FRANCIS I. Years after Christ, 15 15— 1547. Chateau of Chenonceau, standing in the river Cher, built in the reign of Francis I. When Louis XII. was on his deathbed, he sent for the young count d'Angouleme, and, holding out his arms to embrace him, said, " I am dying : I recommend our subjects to you." Francis count d'Angouleme was grandson of John, the second son of Louis duke of Orleans and of Valentina of Milan. He was in the twenty-first year of his age ; his person was finely formed, his face was handsome, and his whole air and demeanour chivalrous and princely. He was brave, generous, and gay. His temper was so frank and open, that he was incapable of disguise or of reserve. But with all these dazzling qualities Francis had many faults. His very virtues led to them, for they engendered in him such a high opinion of himself as laid him open to the arts of flattery. He wanted judgment and steadiness, and, at the same time that he was presumptuous and headstrong, was apt to be deceived and governed by others. No faults were, however, seen in him at first. His gay and open character won all hearts. The young nobility, whom the frugality and more reserved deportment of Louis XII. had kept at a.d. 15 15. FRANCIS I. 257 a distance, crowded round Francis, and his court was the centre of all that was brilliant, noble, and gallant. Francis, like the late king, seemed to set an undue value on his claims in Italy. To obtain possession of Milan was the first and the last object of his reign. It was the mainspring of almost all his actions, and he many times risked his kingdom for it. As he made no secret of his determination to repossess himself of that duchy, the emperor, the Swiss cantons, and Ferdinand of Ara- gon, who, although on the verge of the grave, was as much alive as ever to worldly politics, entered into a confederacy with Sforza against him. To this confederacy the pope afterwards acceded. Francis, all eagerness to begin the war, despatched an army into Italy, which, crossing the Alps with incredible rapidity, surprised Prosper Colonna, the pope's general, at a small town in Piedmont, and took him prisoner, an exploit winch was chiefly accomplished by the bravery of the chevalier Bayard. Francis no sooner received the news of this success than he hastened to join his troops, which had now advanced within sight of Milan. He left Ins mother regent of France during his absence. The confederates, discouraged by the capture of Colonna, were de- sirous to treat for peace ; but scarcely were the negotiations begun, when they were broken by the arrival of a body of Swiss reinforce- ments, who, eager for plunder, demanded to be instantly led to battle. The state of discipline was then so remiss, that the com- manders were obliged to comply. About four o'clock in the after- noon of October 13, 1515, the Swiss rushed impetuously upon the French quarters at Marignano, about eight miles from Milan. The French on the first alarm put themselves in battle array, and the king, delighted to find himself thus actively engaged, placed himself with a body of his gens-d'armerie in the thickest part of the fight. The enemy had forced their way into the camp, but could make no progress, being opposed man to man by the French, till night was far advanced, when, from darkness and weariness, both parties were constrained to desist from the contest. They did not however sepa- rate, but friends and foes, mingling together, lay down to snatch a short repose. The king lay down on a gun-carriage, and refreshed himself with a draught of water sullied with dirt and blood, which a soldier brought in his morion. He did not sleep long, but employed the greater part of the night in preparing to renew the battle on the following day. When the day broke, and the Swiss returned to the charge, they found the French well prepared to receive them. At about nine in the morning, the Swiss, seeing a body of Venetians advancing to the assistance of the French, retreated in good order, but with the loss of ten thousand slain. The veteran Trivulzio, a Milanese in the French service, who had been in eighteen pitched 258 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. battles, declared that they were all children's play in comparison with this " battle of the giants." This victory gave Francis for a time the desired possession of Milan. Maximilian Sforza did not make any further attempt at resistance. Francis allowed him a pension as a compensation for his duchy, and he retired into France, where he died. The king returned triumphantly to Lyons, so much elated with his success that he now thought himself invincible. In the following year Ferdinand of Aragon died. He retained his fraudulent and crafty character to the last. He has not, however, been without his panegyrists, one of whom says, " There is nothing to blame in this king, but his inobservance of keeping his word." Ferdinand's daughter Joanna was still alive, but, on account of her unhappy malady, was incapable of assuming the government, which was consequently conferred on her eldest son Charles, one of the first acts of whose government was to make peace with France. The pope and the Swiss cantons had ceased hostilities the year before. In 1519 the emperor Maximilian, Charles's paternal grandfather, died. Charles and Francis became candidates for the imperial dig- nity, and carried on the contest with all outward appearance of amity. Francis said on this occasion to Charles, " We are as two suitors to the same mistress ; the more fortunate will gain her, but the other must remain contented." Francis, however, was very far from being contented when Charles was elected emperor. He could not conceal his disappointment, and it laid the foundation of a per- sonal hatred to Charles, which ended only with his life.- Charles had a younger brother Ferdinand, who had the name and dignity of king of the Eomans, and who, by marrying the heiress of Hungary and Bohemia, afterwards became king of those countries. He was a man of meek temper and inferior abilities, and interfered but little in the politics of Europe. Charles and Francis were each anxious to acquire the friendship of the king of England. To that end Francis proposed a meeting with Henry, which took place in June, 1520, near Ardres. From the extra- ordinary magnificence displayed on this occasion by these two young and vainglorious monarchs, this meeting has been called " the field of the cloth of gold." Henry and Francis first met each other on horse- back. After a ceremonious salutation, they dismounted, and entered a splendid pavilion, and began with great gravity to debate on the affairs for which they were ostensibly met. But soon, growing weary of these discussions, they left all serious matters to their ministers, and spent the remainder of the ten or twelve days this interview lasted in di- versions, and, I might add, boyish sports. At the end of that time, a treaty of alliance having been completed, the two kings received the sacrament together, as a farther and solemn tie of their friendship. a.d. 15 2 1. FRANCIS I. 259 It was now the emperor's turn to try his skill in winning the vacil- lating favour of Henry. He had previously paid him the compliment of landing in England, on his way from Spain to the Low Countries. They now met at Gravelines, and Charles, by flattering Henry, and caressing his favourite Wolsey, gained almost all he wanted at but little cost. Not indeed that he could prevail with Henry to break with Francis. All he could obtain (but this answered his purpose nearly as well) was a promise from Henry that he would hold himself neutral, and, if called on, act as umpire between him and his rival. Both Francis and Charles were impatient to commence hostilities, and they only paused because each was in hope that the other would begin first. It is difficult to say winch monarch was the assailant, but open war was at length declared, in spite of the remonstrances of Henry, who, in his office of umpire, affected a great anxiety to preserve peace. Never was there a king who had braver soldiers, more unskilful generals, and more corrupt ministers than Francis. And never was there a king more bold in his attempts, or more negligent of all the means by which those attempts could be made successful. He confided the execution of his military operations principally to Lautrec and Bonivet, men who in rash bravery and presumption resembled himself, while he slighted the advice of the constable de Bourbon, the only general in France who appears to have been endowed with superior military talent. The civil government was not in better hands than the military. From habit, complaisance, or else reluctance to business, the king suffered his mother, Louisa of Savoy, to usurp the control of affairs. She had wit, beauty, and talents, but was totally without principle. She disposed of all the offices of the state at her pleasure, and bestowed them only on crea- tures of her own, and on those who would flatter her vanity or her vices. — With such a government at home, and with such com- manders abroad, it will not seem surprising that the war in Italy, though rendered prosperous at first by the bravery of the French soldiers, was in the end a series of defeats and disasters. Lautrec, who commanded, was deserted by his troops for want of pay ; and before the end of the year 1521 the French were deprived of the Milanese, and of every conquest they had made in Italy, with the exception of the castle of Milan, and of a few inconsiderable forts, which the valour and perseverance of the several governors enabled them to retain for a while. Leo X., who had dreaded lest the French should get a permanent footing in Italy, was so much delighted to hear of their reverses, that he died, as is said, from the effects of excessive joy. He was succeeded by Adrian VI., a good and honest man, but too rigid and sincere to suit either the manners or the pontics of the Italians. Adrian lived about a year in great unpopu- 260 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. larity, and was succeeded in 1523 by the cardinal Julio de Medicis, who took the name of Clement VII. When Lautrec returned to France, the king bitterly reproached him for his misconduct in losing the Milanese. Lautrec threw the whole blame of his ill success on Semblanc.ai, the director of the finance, who had failed to send him the stipulated supplies for the payment of his troops. Scmblanc^i exculpated himself by assert- ing that the money had been paid into the hands of the king's mother, and offered to produce the acquittances she had given for it. But Louisa, who, instead of sending the money to Lautrec, had applied it to her own use, contrived by some of her agents to steal the acquittances from Semblancai; and this man, vener- able from his years, and respected for 'Ins unimpeachable character, was put to death in order to screen her crime. Francis, in defiance of every difficulty, still madly persisted in his determination to regain the Milanese; and that money might not be wanting, many till then unheard-of methods were resorted to, to obtain it. But when all was ready, and the impatient monarch panted to lead his army to what he believed would be certain victory, an unlooked-for impediment baffled all his mea- sures, and detained him in France. This was the defection of the constable de Bourbon, who, driven to desperation by the neglects of the king, and the malice of Louisa, forgot in the violence of his resentment Ins duty to his country, and abandoned the service of France to enter into that of the emperor, by whom he was received with open arms. Francis, on the discovery of Bourbon's treason, was uncertain how far the mischief might have spread, and had the prudence, though prudence was not a common virtue with him, not to quit his kingdom till all danger of intestine commotions had subsided. He nevertheless did not abandon Ins design on the Milanese, and sent there an army under the command of Bonivet. Bonivet had to contend with Lannoy and Pescara, two of Charles's best generals. He was driven from all his posts, and, being severely wounded while retreating before the enemy, he consigned the command of the army to the chevalier Bayard, who, being always the foremost in advance and the last in retreat, was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Bomagnano, to the great grief of the whole French army, and, I might add, of the whole nation. In the mean time, Charles and the constable, in concert with Henry VIII., entered into a secret treaty to divide France amongst them, in like man- ner as it was once proposed to divide England between Harry Hotspur, Mortimer, and Glendower. Bourbon's share was to be Provence, and all that had anciently belonged to the kings of Aries, from whom he claimed to be descended; Henry was to content a.d. 1525. FEANCIS I. 2 6 t himself with the duchy of Guienne ; and Charles was to have all the rest. But France was to be won before it could be divided, and Bourbon was appointed, jointly with Pescara, to make an inva- sion, in the hope that the French, who were beginning to be greatly dissatisfied with the bad administration of the affairs of govern- ment, would flock to him. Not a single Frenchman, however, joined his standard, and Bourbon was soon obliged to retreat with some confusion into Italy. Francis, flushed with the success of having driven out the invading army, resolved to pursue it across the Alps; and, showing great displeasure towards all who dis- suaded him, he set off for Italy, leaving his mother regent as before. The terror of the French arms cleared his way. He entered Milan at one gate as Bourbon and Pescara escaped at another. Francis, instead of pursuing the flying enemy, followed the ill ad- vice of Bonivet, and laid siege to Pavia ; and believing that, like Caesar, he had only to come, to see, and to conquer, he despatched a part of his army to take possession of Naples, and weakened it still more by sending another body of troops to Savona. Pavia was well garrisoned, under the command of Antonio de Leyva, a Spanish general of great skill. At the end of two months Francis was surprised to find that the siege was not the least advanced. It would indeed have been more surprising if it had ; for such was the improvidence of the king, and the misma- nagement of his officers, that the assaults were often stopped for want of ammunition, and always impeded by want of good order. In the beginning of the year 1525, Bourbon, with Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, advanced towards Pavia with a numerous army. On hearing of their approach, Francis was strongly urged to raise the siege, and withdraw for a time till he could reinforce his dis- membered army. But he had written a letter to his mistress, say- ing that he would never move from the walls of Pavia till he had taken it. He stayed to keep his word, and staked his life and his kingdom. The French army was encamped in the park of Pavia, and the Imperialists were now advanced so near that there were not a hundred paces between their outposts. On the night of February 23rd the enemy made an attack on the king's position, which, how- ever, was well defended, and the assailants were forced to retire. Francis, delighted to see the action begin, and elated by this first success, believed the battle half won almost before it commenced, and sallied out of his camp, thinking to complete the victory. The Spaniards at first gave way before the impetuosity of his charge, but the appearance of Bourbon and Lannoy in the field soon turned the scale. Leyva also sallied from the town, and fell on the rear of the French. The duke of Alencon, who was first 262 FEANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. prince of the blood, and had married the king's only sister, was seized with so great a panic, that he fled from the field, and never stopped till he reached Lyons, where he died of fatigue, regret, and shame. Francis, who was conspicuous by the splendour of his armour, continued in the thickest part of the combat, and fought no longer for victory, but for life. His horse was killed under him, and he himself received several wounds. Two Spaniards, not knowing who he was, put their swords to his throat. At that instant one of Bourbon's French attendants came up and recognised the king, although his face was covered with blood from a wound in his forehead. This man protected him from the Spaniards, and be- sought him to surrender to the constable. But this the proud heart of Francis could not stoop to. He demanded to see Lannoy, and surrendered himself to him, but not before the Spanish soldiers had stripped him, and despoiled him of his belt and coat of mail. The captive king only conditioned that he might not be carried into Pavia, and made a gazing-stock to the populace. He was accordingly conducted into a tent, where his wounds were dressed. At supper the constable de Bourbon made his appearance, that he might attend on the king. The Spanish writers say that Francis received him very graciously, but the French assure us that he turned from him with indignation, and would not accept his ser- vices, f :."<"- sr* In this battle ten thousand of the French were slain ; amongst them the veteran La Trimouille and Bonivet. Bonivet had formerly sought the constable's ruin in the hope of succeeding him in his office, and Bourbon considered him as one of his greatest enemies. But when his dead body was found on the field of battle, the sight of it seemed to disarm Bourbon's resentment ; and, after looking at it for some time in mournful silence, he exclaimed, "0 malheureux! tu es cause de la ruine de la France, et de la mienne ! " Charles affected to receive the news of his rival's defeat with great moderation, but in his heart he was overjoyed at an event which put not only the king, but (to all appearance at least) the kingdom of France, in his power. He rejected the advice which his confessor, and others of his council, gave him, to act in a way worthy to be held in remembrance by the latest posterity, and to restore Francis unconditionally to freedom. He demanded, as the price of his liber- ation, that he should resign to him Burgundy, which he considered as having been unjustly wrested from his ancestors; and that he should both reinstate the constable of Bourbon in his rights, and confer on him Provence and Dauphine as an independent sovereignty. When these conditions, to which were added others not less un- a.d. 1526. FRANCIS I. 263 reasonable, were proposed to him, Francis rejected them scornfully, and protested that he would submit to perpetual imprisonment rather than agree to them. He was at this time confined in a small castle near Cremona, under the rigorous custody of Don Ferdinand Alarcon. Lannoy was very desirous to convey Mm to Spain, but was afraid of his being rescued during the passage by sea, and had no means of providing an adequate convoy. After some time, how- ever, Francis found his imprisonment so irksome, that he was easily persuaded to request to be transported to Spain, and to order that the French ships should offer no resistance to the vessels appointed to convey him. He landed in Spain, but, instead of being imme- diately admitted, as he had expected, into the emperor's presence, he was closely confined in prison, and only suffered to take the air occasionally on a mule, surrounded by a strong guard. His friends, meanwhile, were not unmindful of him. His mother made some atonement for her former bad government by her exer- tions on this occasion. The king of England, also, either from fear of the increasing power of Charles, or that he was really affected by the misfortunes of Francis, exerted himself zealously in his behalf. But Charles was unmoved by all these attempts, and Francis, sink- ing under the disappointment of protracted hope, fell into a fever which threatened to put an end to his life. Charles then began to fear that his victim would slip from his grasp, and relaxed the severity with which he was treated. He suffered his sister Mar- garet to come and visit him, and also vouchsafed to go and see him himself. Francis, who was in his bed, ill and languishing, reproached the emperor with having come to see him die. Charles replied with kind and conciliating expressions; and such is the power of hope, that from this time the king revived. He had been above a year in prison, when Charles, perceiving that he could gain nothing by longer delays, again offered him his liberty, nearly on the same terms as before. Francis, weary of con- finement, accepted the terms, and agreed to send his two eldest sons to Spain as hostages, till the conditions agreed on should be fulfilled. He signed the treaty at Madrid, in March, 1526, contracting to marry Eleanor, the emperor's sister, to resign Burgundy to him, and to relinquish his pretensions to Naples and Milan. Eleanor accordingly he afterwards married, but the other conditions he had no intention to perform. Francis, escorted by Lannoy, now set off for his own kingdom. When they reached the Bidassoa, which divides France from Spain, they saw on the opposite bank Lautrec, with the two young princes. They met in a bark which was moored in the middle of the stream, and the father, giving his children one hasty embrace, saw them de- livered as prisoners to Lannoy. It must, I should think, have been 264 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. a bitter pang to him thus to see his two poor children consigned to the same prison from which he himself had been so anxious to escape. He did not, however, give himself time to reflect on it : for, mounting a horse the instant he landed on the French side, he waved his cap over his head, and, exclaiming, " I am yet a king ! " he galloped off, as if he was afraid of being pursued, and scarcely stopped till he arrived at Bayonne, where he found his mother and sister. He was soon called on by Charles to fulfil the conditions of the treaty which he had signed at Madrid. But he excused himself, alleging, that promises made in prison were not binding. Charles exclaimed vehemently against this breach of faith, and revenged himself upon the poor boys, his prisoners. They were often shut up in a dark room, and were not allowed to have any- thing with which they could amuse themselves. A French gentle- man, who obtained permission to see them, found them in a most forlorn condition, their persons and their education being quite neglected. The war was now renewed. The pope and most of the Italian powers, exasperated by the tyranny of Charles, and the cruelty and excesses of the Spanish troops, took the part of Francis. Henry VIII. also espoused his cause. Bourbon commanded the imperial forces in the Milanese, and, finding his soldiers becoming mutinous for want of pay, he resolved to march to Eome, and pacify their discontents by giving them the plunder of that noble city. At the approach, of this disorderly and ravenous multitude, Clement, with several of the cardinals, shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo, and left the citizens to defend themselves as well as they could. The imperial army came in sight of Eome in the evening of May 5, 1527. The assault commenced early the next morning ; and as Bourbon was in the act of placing a scaling-ladder against the walls, he was killed by a random shot from the town. When he felt him- self mortally wounded, he desired to be covered with a cloak, that the soldiers might not be discouraged by seeing his condition. Phili- bert prince of Orange took the command. The city was taken and given up to plunder. The imperial army kept undisturbed possession of it for several months, during which time this " queen of cities " was a prey to every excess which the wickedness of man could de- vise or perpetrate. But this wickedness brought ere long its own punishment. A pestilence broke out in the city, and the soldiers, refusing to leave their prey, fell in crowds by the disease. Of the numerous hosts which had marched to the sack of Eome, scarcely five hundred survived to leave it, when it was evacuated about ten months after the capture, on the approach of Lautrec, who, after re- ducing the Milanese, advanced rapidly to the succour of the pope. Lautrec, having delivered Eome, proceeded to attack Naples ; but a.d. 1536. FRANCIS I. 265 his death soon after, which was followed by the capitulation of his army, put a final end to the enterprises of Francis in Italy. In 1529 a peace was made, chiefly negotiated by Louisa of Savoy, and Margaret the emperor's aunt. It was stipulated in this treaty, which was called the treaty of Cambray, that the king's sons should be set at liberty on the payment of a ransom of twelve hundred thousand crowns. Money was then so scarce in France, that several months passed before the required sum could be procured. At last it was conveyed, packed in forty-eight chests, to the Bidassoa, and there given in exchange for the young princes, with precisely the same formalities with which they had three years before been exchanged for their father. They were accompanied by the emperor's sister Eleanor, and were met at the abbey of Veries, in Gascony, by the king, who there celebrated his marriage with the Spanish princess. Francis had now an interval of peace, and availed himself of it to indulge his taste for the fine arts. He enlarged and beautified several of the royal palaces, and built others. He assembled about him the most learned men and the most celebrated artists of his time, and acquired for himself the title of * the restorer of letters and of the arts." After a short repose, however, we find both him and the emperor again watching for an opportunity to renew the war. In 1536 Charles invaded Provence with an army of 50,000 men, and laid siege to Marseilles. He was repulsed by the skill of Mont- morenci, a nobleman at that time in great favour at the court, and was forced to a hasty and most disastrous retreat, in which he was exposed to great personal dangers, and was more than once a whole day without food. On the first alarm of this hostile invasion, James V., the young and chivalrous king of Scotland, came unsolicited to the assistance of his ancient ally with a body of sixteen thousand men. Contrary winds prevented Ms arrival till the danger was over. Francis could not, however, but be grateful for the kind intention, and, to express his sense of it, gave his daughter Magdelaine in marriage to the youthful monarch. She lived a very short time. On her death James became a suitor for another princess of France, and married Mary of Lorraine, daughter of the duke of Guise. She was the mother of the unfortunate Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland. Francis had three sons, Francis, Henry, and Charles. The eldest, a young man of great promise, died in 1536. Henry, now, by Ins brother's death, dauphin, was a prince of an active and warlike temper. At an early age he had married Catherine de Medicis, niece of Clement VIE., but he was chiefly governed by his mistress, Diana of Poitiers. She and the king's mistress, the duchess d'Es- tampes, were avowed enemies. The duchess, seeing the king's health decline, and knowing that she could expect no favour from his suc- Fkance. Bf 266 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. cessor, determined to make a friend of the emperor, entered into a correspondence with him, and betrayed to him the secrets of the confiding Francis. In 1538 a truce for ten years was agreed on. Not long afterwards the emperor, being desirous of going through France in his way from Spain to the Low Countries, applied to Francis for his consent, and offered to give up the Milanese to him in return for this favour. Francis gladly accepted the offer, and Charles passed safely through France, and was treated during his journey with the courtesy due to a royal visitor. But when he was afterwards called on to fulfil his promise, he refused, and in 1542 the war recommenced. In this war the capricious Henry VIII. of England took part with the emperor, and joined him in 1544 in an invasion of Champagne and Picardy. Had they continued to act in concert, inevitable ruin must have overtaken the French monarchy ; but both Henry and the emperor were too anxious to secure their own particular interest to do what was best for their common cause. Instead of proceeding to Paris, where they would have found everything in confusion, and no pre- parations made for resistance, Henry laid siege to Boulogne, and Charles sat down before St. Dizier. In the mean time the dauphin, on whom the command of the army had devolved, the king being at that time disabled by illness, had time to collect a considerable force, with which he kept the invading army in check. The em- peror's troops began to be distressed for provisions ; but this diffi- culty was removed by the duchess d'Estampes, who gave him secret intelligence which both enabled him to take St. Dizier, and also to possess himself of the French magazines of provisions at Chateau Thierry and Epernay. But Charles, notwithstanding the treachery which thus wrought in his favour, found the dauphin's army so powerful, that he was glad to make peace. A treaty was accordingly concluded at Crepy. In this treaty the emperor promised to give in marriage either his niece or his daughter to the duke of Orleans, Francis's youngest son, with Milan or the Low Countries for her dower. The dauphin, who had long been jealous of his brother, whom he regarded as his father's favourite, was exceedingly displeased by the terms of this treaty, and complained that his interests and those of France had been sacrificed. His complaints were so uncontrolled, that on his brother's death, which was somewhat sudden, he was accused of having poisoned him. But from this charge he may be entirely exculpated, if the story is true which is commonly told of that young prince's folly and presumption. It is said, that on arriving at a village in which symptoms of the plague had appeared, he persisted in taking up his lodging in a house said to be infected; boasting that in the annals of the monarchy there was no instance of a son of a.d. 1547- FRANCIS I. 267 France having died of the plague. To show the more disregard of danger he pulled out the bedding said to be tainted, and ran up and down covered with the feathers. He was almost immediately- seized with the distemper, and died. Francis was inconsolable at his death, while Charles rejoiced at it, and declared that the young prince's death absolved him from his engagement to resign the Milanese. In the mean time Henry Yin., who had taken Boulogne, kept fast hold of his conquest. Francis attempted to force him to resign it by making reprisals on England, and fitted out a fleet for that purpose. When this fleet was on the point of sailing, he deter- mined to give the ladies of the court an entertainment on board ; but the cooks, in their preparations for the banquet, set fire to the largest ship, which was burned with seven others. This accident proved fatal to the entertainment, but did not prevent the expedi- tion, which effected a landing in the Isle of Wight, but soon after- wards found it necessary to return home. In June, 1546, Henry and Francis made peace. Francis bound himself to pay a hundred thousand crowns a-year for eight years, at the end of which time Henry promised to restore Boulogne. But in the course of the very next year, both these monarchs were called to their great account. Henry died January 28, 1547 ; and Francis's death followed, March 31 of the same year. He had long been con- sumed by a slow fever, which affected his temper, and made him irritable and restless. He fancied that change of place would bring relief to his disordered frame, and roved incessantly from one resi- dence to another. He died at Eambouillet in the fifty-third year of his age, and the thirty-second of his reign. This king's magnificence accompanied him to the last. He had the most splendid funeral that had been ever seen in France, and the people were so absorbed in their admiration of it, that they forgot his faults, and pardoned his ambition and his immoralities. He was twice married; first to Claude of France, by whom he had three sons and two daughters : — (1.) Francis, died in 1536. (2.) Henry, who succeeded his father. (3.) Charles, duke of Orleans, who died in 1545. (4.) Magdelaine, married James V. of Scotland. (5.) Margaret, married Philibert, duke of Savoy. By his second wife, Eleanor of Austria, he had no children. The Spaniards continued to retain possession of Navarre, in spite of several attempts to drive them out ; but Henry d'Albret, the son of John d'Albret and Catherine Foix, retained the title of king of Navarre. He married Margaret, sister of the king of France and widow of the duke d'Alen^on, a princess celebrated for her wit and talents. They had only one child, Jane, who married Anthony duke of Bourbon. N 2 268 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. In this reign Luther laid the foundation of the reformed or pro- testant church. His doctrines found their way into France; but the converts to them were in general treated with great severity, and many suffered martyrdom. The queen of Navarre was suspected of having imbibed the sentiments of the reformed religion, and was obliged to conceal her opinions with great care. In this reign, Anthony du Prat, who had been first Francis's tutor, and was afterwards chancellor, introduced the practice of selling the offices of judicature; a practice which was not abolished till the Revolution. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXVI. Mad Margaret. Mary. That is a sad history, mamma, of the constable de Bourbon. Traitor as he was, I cannot help pitying him : he must have been so very unhappy. Mrs. Markham, His greatest unhappiness was in his own un- governed temper, which was such as to procure for him the title of " the impatient." George. But then you said, you know, that he had great provoca- tions. Will you tell us something of his early history, if you please ? Mrs. M. His father was duke de Montpensier, younger brother to the duke de Bourbon, and the lord of Beaujeu. He married his cousin Susanna, who, as I have already told you, was the richest heiress in France. She died in 1522, and her husband succeeded to all her vast possessions, which had been settled on him at their marriage. The constable was at the time of his wife's death still young and handsome, and Louisa of Savoy, who was a great many years older, wished to marry him, and desired the king to propose the match to him, which was accordingly done. Bourbon, who was a man of strict and regular conduct, had an utter detestation of Louisa's vices ; and being taken by surprise, expressed his dislike to Cony. FRANCIS I. 269 her with so much freedom, that the king was provoked to strike him. From that moment Louisa's love turned to the most deadly hate, and she determined on his destruction. She put in a claim, in right of her mother, who was of the house of Bourbon, to all the Bourbon possessions, and, contrary to all law and equity, obtained a verdict in her favour. The constable was stripped of everything which his wife had bestowed on him ; and this it was which drove him to desperation, and made him a traitor. Richard. He did not get much by his treason. Mrs. M. If revenge was his object, he gained all he wanted, and more than he could have presumed on; but if ambition was his motive, he was indeed disappointed. His own countrymen abhorred him: even the Spaniards shrank from him and treated him with suspicion and reserve. The emperor did not keep his promises; and instead of being a king and the arbiter of kingdoms, he became little more than the head of a lawless army of banditti. George. As to king Francis I., he heartily deserved everything he met with. For my part, I do not see what the French can find in him to be so mighty fond of. Mrs. M. Shakspeare says, " The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." But the reverse of tins is true in the case of Francis I. The evil that he did, his perpetual wars for the possession of a dukedom which a king of France might well have done without, his weakness in submitting to the control of his mistresses, his breach of faith, Ins disregard of morality, are all forgotten. On the other hand, his palaces, his establishments for learning, and the monuments of the arts winch he encouraged, " live after him," and have handed down his name to later ages as that of a great and glorious king, " the father and restorer of letters and of the arts." One of the mischiefs, as I cannot help considering it, which Francis did to his country, was, that he changed the aspect of the court by introducing so many ladies into it. Before his time, the nobles in attendance on the king left their wives to look after their families at home. But in the reign of Francis, the ladies were invited to accom- pany their husbands to court. The king was not at all scrupulous as to their characters, and some of them were very abandoned women, and caballed and interfered in all affairs. The example thus set was followed in succeeding reigns. At one time there were as many as three hundred ladies in attendance on the court, and their quarrels and meddling caused infinite harm. Richard. I think I have heard that the reason why the French ladies have always meddled so much in state affairs is to make them- selves amends for the Salic law. Mary. For my part, I cannot help thinking that there is no 270 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. occasion for women to trouble themselves about managing king- doms. There are always men enough to do that. Don't you think so, mamma ? Mrs. M. I agree with you, my dear, that women have nothing to do with the management of public affairs. We have duties enough of our own, without interfering with those of the other sex. Richard. You said that there are many vestiges of Francis's mag- nificence. Pray what are they ? Mrs. M. He built the palace of Fontainbleau, and also that of St. Germain-en-Laye. He pulled down the old palace of the Louvre erected by Philip Augustus, of which I have shown you the drawing, and began to rebuild it on a much larger scale, and in quite a dif- ferent style. But he only completed one range of the present edifice : the rest has been added since at different periods. George. You yesterday gave us some account of the French churches. "Will you be so good as now to tell us something about their houses. Mrs. M. The dwellings of the Gauls, like those of the ancient Britons, were merely huts built of mud, and roofed with reeds. The Bomans introduced stone and brick into their buildings ; but they do not seem to have been imitated in this by the Franks, who con- structed their houses of planks of wood tied together, and filled up the interstices with clay. Even public buildings and the walls of their towns were long built in this manner. Richard. But I suppose that when it became the fashion to build castles, brick and stone came into use again. Mrs. M. Stone did, but not brick, winch was almost totally disused in France from the time of the Bomans till the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, when it re-appeared, and was much employed as an ornament. Mary. As an ornament, mamma ! why, I always thought a brick one of the ugliest things in the world. Mrs. M. It was at one time the fashion in France to mix bricks with stone, in such a manner as to form patterns and compartments in the walls of the houses. Tiles for roofs were used as early as the thirteenth century, and these, in houses of distinction, were varnished and painted in chequers. Slate also, which I believe was unknown to the ancients, began to be employed for roofs in the thirteenth century. Mary. Pray, mamma, do you know what the insides of the houses were like ? Mrs. M. There is very little known of the interior of French houses previous to the fourteenth century. At that time they were built with low doors and very narrow windows, and were seldom more than two stories high. The staircases were outside, as is still Conv. FRANCIS I. 27I often to be seen in French cottages. In the houses of the gentry the staircases were in process of time put under cover, and enclosed in little towers. Richard. I have often seen in pictures of old French and Dutch houses little towers sticking out at the corners of the houses. I dare say they were for the staircases. Mrs. M. Very probably. The interior of a house was commonly divided into one large room for the use of the family, and a few small chambers for the accommodation of strangers, which, when there were few inns, was a very necessary provision. Mary. There were, I suppose, bed-rooms for the family. Mrs. M. The large room, like the cobbler's stall in the song, served for parlour, for kitchen, and hall, and also for bed-room. There the whole family, parents, children, and servants, lived together. This family room was called La chambre me'nagere, and this primitive mode of life continued even among the higher classes for a very long period. Qeorge. It might be very primitive, but I am sure it could not be very comfortable. Mrs. M. La chambre menagere was not excluded from the royal palace. At least, mention is made in an old book of good authority of the tubs of salted meat which stood in the king's chamber. At the period we are now arrived at, domestic architecture had under- gone a material change. The taste for Italian architecture, which had been introduced into churches, was in some measure extended also to the houses, the outsides of which were most elaborately charged with ornaments. There still exist some old houses of this period, completely covered outside with medallions, festoons of flowers, groups of figures, and all kinds of fanciful decorations. Richard. What were these ornaments made of? Mrs. M. Sometimes of carved wood, but more generally of plaster. There is a very fine specimen of this sort of house at Kouen. It was built in the reign of Francis I., and is supposed to have been in- habited by him during his occasional visits to that city. One of the characteristics of the French houses of this date is the enormous height of the roof, which to our eyes appears out of all proportion to the rest of the building ; but which, according to the then French taste, was supposed to give an air of dignity to the whole edifice. These roofs were not suffered to escape the national love of decoration, and were loaded with a profusion of wooden or leaden ornaments. Richard. Are the French still fond of high roofs ? Mrs. M. The fashion continued during a long period; but latterly, to judge by the drawings I have seen of French houses of the present day, the contrary extreme seems to have been adopted. The roofs of most of the modern buildings, those at least that pretend to archi- tectural beauty, are very low, or nearly flat. 272 FRANCIS I. Chap. XXVI. Richard. And now, mamma, will you give us, if you please, the history of the chevalier Bayard ? Mrs. M. To begin the story, then, according to the good old beginning. There was once upon a time, in Dauphine, a brave and loyal gentleman, who had four sons. Perceiving himself near his end, he sent for them all, and asked them what manner of life they desired to pursue. The eldest replied, that he should like to stay at home, and take care of his aged parents. Pierre, a boy of thirteen and the hero of our story, chose the profession of arms. Of the two youngest, one declared it to be his wish to be an abbot, and the other said he would be a bishop. George. I must say, two very modest young gentlemen ! Mrs. M. And lucky ones too; for it appears that in process of time each attained his wish. As for young Pierre, he entered as a page into the service of the duke of Savoy. The life of Bayard is written by one who styles himself his " loyal servant." The account of his departure from his father's house is thus quaintly told. "His mother, poor lady ! was in a tower of the castle, weeping bitterly ; but when she knew that her young son was on his horse, impatient to be gone, she descended to take leave of him, telling him, as much as a mother could a son, that she commanded him three things : The first was, to love God above all things, and recommend himself night and morning to God, and serve him without offending him in any way, if it might be possible. The second was, to be courteous to all men, casting away pride, neither to slander nor lie, nor be a tale-bearer, and to be temperate and loyal. The third was, that he should be charitable, and share with the poor whatever gifts God should bestow upon him. Richard. I am sure that was very good advice. I don't think that even you yourself, mamma, could have given better. Mrs. M. And I shall be satisfied if you follow my advice as well as young Bayard did his mother's. From boy to man, he was respected and beloved for his courtesy, loyalty, bravery, benevolence, and invincible integrity. He entered the service of Charles VIII., and was actively engaged in his Italian wars, as also in those of Louis XII. and of Francis I. He was often appointed to posts of honour and danger, and always acquitted himself well. Mary. I suppose he was made a general at least. Mrs. M. He never rose above the rank of a simple captain. George. What was that owing to ? Mrs. M. Perhaps to his inability to win the favour of the great by the usual arts of servility and flattery ; and perhaps, to his own moderation in not aspiring higher. But if he did not reach to the common and less noble rewards of wealth and rank, he acquired a far more valuable prize, in the universal love and respect of his Conv. FRANCIS I. 273 fellow- creatures, and a title far above that of lord or potentate, tho title of the knight " sans peur, et sans reproche." The account of Bayard's death is exceedingly touching. He had always expressed a great desire to die in battle. The French general, Bonivet, being wounded, as I related to you in the last chapter, was obliged to quit his army, which was then retreating before the Spaniards, and appointed Bayard to take the command. Bayard was slain in this retreat, and the loyal servant has thus described the manner of his death. " The good knight caused his gens d'armes to march, with as much composure as if he had been in his own house, and slowly retired, keeping his face ever towards the foe, and brandishing his sword ; but it so fell out by the sufferance of God, that a stone from a hacquebouze struck him across the back, and fractured his spine. As soon as he felt the blow he cried out, ' God ! I am slain.' He then took hold of his sword, and kissed the cruciform hilt thereof, and exclaiming, Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericord iam tuaml after that he waxed pale, as one swooning, and nearly fell. But he still had strength to grasp the saddle-bow, till a young gentleman who was his steward helped him to dismount, and placed him under a tree. His soldiers wished to carry him in their arms to some place of safety, but he could not bear the least motion, and desired to be left where he was, earnestly beseeching them to leave him and secure their own safety ; but they would not abandon him." His biographer thus continues. " How can I describe the profound sorrow that prevailed throughout the French camp ! You would have thought of every one of them that he had lost a parent." The Spaniards now came up, and Pescara ordered "a fine pavilion for him, and laid him on a camp bed. Also a priest was brought him, to whom he devoutly confessed, saying these very words : \ My God, I am assured that thou hast declared thyself ever ready to receive into mercy and to forgive whoso shall return to thee with a sincere heart, however great a sinner he may have been. My Father and Saviour, I entreat thee to be pleased to pass over the faults by me committed, and show me thy abundant clemency, instead of thy rigorous justice!' At the conclusion of these words, the good knight without fear and without reproach rendered up his soul to God." A short time before Bayard expired, Bourbon arrived, and was affected to tears at seeing him in that sad condition. Bayard perceived it, and said to him, " Weep not for me ; I die in the service of my country : you have far more cause to lament your own victory than my defeat." The Spanish general paid every respect to the remains of his fallen enemy, and permitted his body to be carried to France for interment. It was treated everywhere as it passed with the honours usually paid to nobles and princes. N 3 274 HENRY II. Chap. XXVII. Mary. Pray, mamma, where was he buried ? Mrs. M. At Grenoble, where a monument was erected over him by a private individual who admired his worth. But his noblest monument is in the respect winch posterity yet shows to his memory. The Spaniards have a proverb, Muchos Grisones ypocos Bayardos, which means, There are many gray horses, but few Bayards, or bay ones. George. How pleasant it is, amidst such a number of wicked, cruel, and rapacious people, to meet with a man who was so very good ! Mrs. M. Nothing shows more strongly than the history of Bayard the beauty and dignity of virtue. His character sheds a lustre over a scene which in a moral sense is in general gloomy : and the reign of Francis I. is more truly ennobled by the virtues of this one man than by all the king's fruitless victories. George. I think that for the future, instead of wishing that when I am a man I may be an admiral, or general, or lord chancellor, I will be contented to wish myself like the good knight, without fear and without reproach. CHAPTER XXVII. HENRY II. Years after Christ, 1547 — 1559. Henry IL Heney II. resembled his father in many parts of his character. Like him,, he was brave, generous, and of a gay and lively temper; and A.D. 1549- HENRY II. 2 ^ like him, he loved show and profusion. But he had not his father's superior talents, nor his imposing dignity of manner. He was good- natured to excess, was agreeable in conversation, had a great readi- ness in public speaking, and was one of the handsomest and most graceful men of Ms time. But his want of firmness, and the facility with which he suffered himself to be governed by his favourites, made him, although he was an engaging companion, a very in- different king. He might have been still worse if he had been governed by his queen, the universally detested Catherine de Medicis. But she seems never to have had any influence over him, and as yet appeared only in the background. Nothing is to be remarked of her during the reigns of Francis I. and of her husband, except the art with which she concealed the violence of her passions, and the profound dissimulation in which she shrouded her talents. Amongst the prominent characters in the late reign was Claude duke of Guise. He was the second of the seven sons of the duke of Lorraine who vanquished Charles the Bold at the battle of Nancy. Claude had entered the service of France very young, and had risen into great favour with Francis I., who created him duke of Guise. But Francis was at length aware of the duke's aspiring and ambi- tious temper (a temper which became hereditary in his family), and not long before his death enjoined his son " to beware of the ambition of the house of Lorraine." Another of his injunctions was, that the constable de Montmorenci, who had been sent into banish- ment, should not be recalled. But Francis was scarcely laid in his grave before Montmorenci was summoned to court, and Francis duke d'Aumale, Claude's eldest son, was loaded with favours. You will see, in the course of the events which follow, how clearly the misfortunes which befel Henry and his children may be traced to the infringement of his father's dying commands. But although Montmorenci and d'Aumale partook of the king's favour, they had only a limited influence over him. Diana of Poitiers was the brilliant star of the court, and all other favourites bowed before her. Diana was the widow of the Sieur de la Breze, seneschal of Normandy. She was several years older than the king, but by her wit and her brilliant beauty, which she retained to extreme old age, he was so captivated, that he resigned himself and his kingdom almost entirely to her guidance. The people vented their discontent by accusing her of using magic arts. In 1549 the king and queen made a public entry into Paris, which was celebrated by tournaments, running at the ring, and other entertainments. These were succeeded by the burning alive of several heretics, in the presence of the whole court. This hor- rible spectacle affected the king extremely. His nerves never got the better of the shock they then received, and he was ever after 2 7 6 HENRY II. Chap. XXVII. subject to convulsive shudders, whenever the recollection of it crossed his mind. In 155'2 another war commenced with the emperor. In this year also Henry formed an alliance with the protestant princes of Ger- many, who had leagued with each other to protect their rights and liberties against the unjust usurpations of Charles. Henry, in per- son, marched into Lorraine, and possessing himself of the person of the duke, who was at this time a child, sent him to France to be edu- cated with his own sons. Proceeding onwards, he seized on Metz, Toul, and Verdun, three considerable towns, then dependencies on the empire, but which were incorporated into the French monarchy. He next entered Alsace, and hoped to obtain possession of Strasburg, but was compelled by various circumstances to retreat. The German states made a treaty for themselves at Passau, which secured their religious liberties from future invasion. Henry was much dis- pleased at being thus deserted by his allies : but he was still pre- pared to carry on the war with alacrity. The emperor, on his part, though it was now late in the year, and the winter had set in with unusual rigour, was too impatient to attempt the recovery of Metz to think of waiting for a better season. The town was large and straggling, and the fortifications weak, and when Charles arrived before it with a numerous army, he made himself sure of soon regaining it. But he found a stronger resistance than he had expected. D'Aumale, now, by his father's death, duke of Guise, displayed a skill and intrepidity in its defence which raised his reputation to the highest pitch. He was no less dis- tinguished also for his humanity than for his bravery ; and when at last Charles found himself obliged to raise the siege, and to withdraw his troops, treated the prisoners who fell into his hands with a benevolence which, at that time, was new in the bloody annals of war. The emperor's mother, Joanna, died in April, 1555, and in the autumn of that year her son put into execution the extraordinary design which he had meditated for some time, of resigning his vast dominions, and retiring from the busy scenes of life. As he advanced in age, he had become more and more weary of the great- ness which he had in his early life so much loved and sought. It has been imagined that this disgust to the world proceeded from a degree of that unhappy malady which had clouded his mother's long and melancholy existence. To his only son, Philip, he resigned Flanders on the 25th of October in this year, and the crown of Spain on the 16th of January, 1556. In the October following he also re- signed the empire to his brother Ferdinand, whom he had before caused to be elected king of the Komans, and then retired into a monastery in Spain, where he died in 1558. a.d. 155 7- HENRY II. 2 yy Philip II., soon after his succession, became entangled in a dis- pute with pope Paul IV. Paul called on the king of France for assistance against Philip, and held out the lure of the conquest 01 Naples. I do not know whether this bait tempted Henry himself; but, what was in effect the same thing, it was caught at by his powerful nobles, the duke of Guise, and his brother the cardinal of Lorraine. Diana of Poitiers, now duchess of Valentinois, was also favourable to the attempt. The opposition of all the king's wisest and most prudent counsellors availed nothing, and a gallant army was sent across the Alps under the command of the duke of Guise, who departed full of hope and presumption. He experienced, how- ever, nothing but reverses, and was only spared from further morti- fications by a hasty recall to France, where his presence was required to avert still greater disasters. While Guise had been attempting the conquest of Naples, the king of Spain had been projecting an invasion of France. He prevailed on his queen, Mary of England, to assist him with some troops, and with a large army, under the command of Emanuel Philibert (now, by his father's death, duke of Savoy), laid siege to St. Quentin. Coligny, admiral of France, nephew to the constable Montmorenci, was governor of Picardy. He threw himself into St. Quentin with a small body of men, and defended the town so bravely, that he kept the whole Spanish army at bay. The constable hastened to the relief of his nephew, but found the place closely invested. It was with the utmost difficulty that a small reinforcement, commanded by d'Andelot, Coligny's brother, made its way into the town. When this object was effected, Montmorenci would gladly have withdrawn ; but, as he was endeavouring to secure his retreat, he was attacked by the Spaniards with so much celerity, that he had not time to put his troops in order of battle. After four hours' hard fighting, the French were totally defeated. Four thousand men were slain, six hundred of whom were gentlemen. All the artillery was taken except four pieces, and the constable, with many other noblemen, were made prisoners. This battle was fought August 10, 1557. Such a defeat had not been sustained on the French soil since the days of Cressy and Poitiers. The consternation throughout France was extreme. It was fully expected that the duke of Savoy would march directly to Paris ; and this probably he would have done if he could have followed his own judgment. But Philip, ignorant of war, and no less obstinate than ignorant, commanded him to prose- cute the siege of St. Quentin. Seventeen days after the battle, the town was taken; but the time which it thus cost to overpower the bravery of Coligny and his resolute little band of warriors, enabled Henry to assume a posture of defence. On the other hand, Philip's German soldiers deserted for want of pay, and the English 278 HENRY II. Chap. XXVII. refused to serve any longer with the Spaniards. The return also of the duke of Guise from Italy greatly revived the spirits of the French. This gallant prince performed soon afterwards the brilliant exploit of recovering Calais out of the hands of the English, in whose possession it had been for more than two centuries. Thus the ancient rivals of France were expelled from the last hold which they had retained on her territory. Calais was taken January 8, 1558; and in the April following the ascendency of the duke of Guise was raised still higher, by the marriage of the dauphin to his niece Mary, the young queen of Scotland. In 1559 a peace was concluded at Cateau Cambresis, between Henry and Philip. To cement this peace, two marriages were agreed on; the one between Philip and Elizabeth, Henry's eldest daughter; the other between Margaret, the king's sister, and the duke of Savoy. Great preparations were made in France for the ap- proaching celebration of these marriages. That of Philip and Eliza- beth took place first, June 17, 1559, the duke of Alva attending as proxy for Philip. On this occasion was held a splendid tournament. Lists were erected, extending from the Tournelles to the Bastile. The king, who excelled in this kind of exercise, entered the lists, and broke several lances with different lords of his court. The tournament continued during three days. On the last day, June 29th, the king desired to try his skill against the count de Mont- gomery one of the captains of the Scottish guard, and esteemed one of the most expert tilters of his time. Montgomeri was very unwill- ing to accept the king's challenge, and excused himself as well as he could : but Henry would take no denial. Montgomeri's lance broke against the king's helmet, but a splinter wounded him in the right eye a little below the eyebrow. He instantly fell backwards, and would have come to the ground if the dauphin had not caught him in his arms. He lay without speech or sense during eleven days, at the end of which time he expired. It is impossible to describe the distraction and confusion which pervaded the court. There was a general struggle for power amongst the courtiers. But at this junc- ture the queen came forward, as alone entitled to take the direction of affairs. Her first exercise of authority was to order the duchess of Valentinois to retire to her own house, and not to enter the chamber of the dying king. Henry II. died July 10, 1559, in the forty-first year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. He married Catherine, daughter of Lorenzo de Medicis, and had four sons and three daughters : — (1.) Francis, who succeeded him. (2.) Charles, afterwards king Charles IX. (3.) Henry, duke of Anjou; afterwards king Henry III. (4.) Francis, due d'Alencon, afterwards duke of Anjou. (5.) Eliza- CONV. HENRY II. 279 beth, married Philip II. of Spain. (6.) Claude, married the duke of Lorraine. (7.) Margaret, married Henry Bourbon, king of Navarre. A few days only before the king's death, his sister's marriage took place with the duke of Savoy. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXVII. The tilting between Henry n. and the Count de Montgomeri. (From Montfatujon.) Richard. I hope the count of Montgomeri was not punished for causing the king's death. He did not seem to be at all to blame. Mrs. Markham. No process against him was instituted ; but still he deemed it prudent to withdraw for a time to England. The event proved that this precaution was wise, for when he fell into Catherine's hands many years afterwards, she had him cruelly put to death in revenge for having caused the death of her husband. George. He was very foolish to put himself in her way. Mrs. M. He would gladly have kept out of it if he could ; but the fortune of war threw him into her power. During the civil wars which arose afterwards in France, between the Catholics and the Hugonots, Montgomeri left England, and was a very active leader in the Hugonot army, till at last he was taken prisoner by the royal, or catholic party. Mary. I am sorry we are going to have civil wars. I always think civil wars the worst part of history. Mrs. M. Those of France will not reconcile you to them. The wars between the Hugonots and the Catholics display more faith- lessness and cruelty than any other civil wars on record. — The speaking of the count de Montgomeri reminds me of an anecdote which I forgot to mention to you in our yesterday's conversation. George. Then pray let us have it to-day. 280 HENRY II. Chap. XXVII. Mrs. M. Twelfth-night, which the French call " la fete des rois," is observed by them with great festivity. It happened that, ono Twelfth-night, Francis I., then yonng, and fond of boyish sports, was engaged with a party of the young lords of his court in the diversion of a mock siege. The missiles used on this occasion were snow-balls, with which they attacked the house they were besieging. The party within also pelted the assailants with snow-balls. At last one of them, the father of the count de Montgomeri, let fall, probably by accident, a lighted firebrand, which struck the king on the head, and severely wounded him. He was obliged in conse- quence to have his hair shaved off; and tins accident introduced into France a fashion of wearing the hair short, a fashion which lasted nearly a century, when the curling locks of the young king Louis XIV. introduced the fashion of wearing it long. Richard. Pray, mamma, why were the French Protestants called Hugonots? Mrs. M. The common opinion is, that they derived this name from the Hugo gate at Tours, near which the early reformers held their nocturnal assemblies; but Mezerai and others say, that the name comes from an old Swiss word, which signifies a league, or covenant. Richard. Are there different sects among the Catholics as there are among the Protestants ? Mrs. M. They will not allow, I believe, that there are any dif- ferent sects; but there are, at all events, great diversities of opinion. In the reign of Francis I. there arose a new religious order : that of the Jesuits. The founder of this order was Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish gentleman, who, having been severely wounded in an en- gagement between the French and Spaniards in Navarre, beguiled the tedious hours of his confinement with reading the Lives of the Saints. The study of this book gave a serious turn to his mind, and determined him to abandon the profession of arms, and to aim at the glory of founding a new order in the church. Loyola was a man of a very ardent character, and the rules of his order are framed with extraordinary art, and consummate knowledge of mankind. He soon procured many followers, and prevailed with the pope, Paul III., to grant a bull confirming the new institution. George. Then I suppose the next thing he did was to build a monastery ? Mrs. M. The Jesuits had, properly speaking, no monasteries. They had houses to dwell in, and a great number of colleges, which were very excellent seminaries for youth. The members of this order were not required to live in cells, or to occupy themselves with that routine of pious exercises which forms the chief business of Conv. HENRY II. 281 monks. The business of the Jesuits was to live in the world, and to disperse themselves in different places, that they might so spread the more extensively, both by precept and example, the knowledge and the love of religion. George. And surely that was the way to do more good than by living shut up in a cell. Mrs. M. The Jesuits have doubtless in their time done much good, particularly in the continent of South America. There they found a noble field for their pious endeavours; and in those parts especially, where the cruelty and avarice of the Spanish and Portu- guese settlers had tended to brutalize the human character, the mild and benignant influence of the Jesuits has shed a ray of humanity over the gloomy scene. But when they exchanged the desert for the court, they became different men. Their policy was very subtle and insinuating, and they were often at the bottom of state plots and intrigues. At length they incurred an almost universal distrust, which, as all opinions run naturally into ex- tremes, was probably carried farther than could be justified. Richard. Had they an abbot, or any person they called their head? Mrs. M. Their head had the name of general. He had very des- potic authority, and appointed all the other officers, of whom some were called rectors, and others provincials ; but they were all under the absolute control of the general. Richard. If he was a bad man, and abused his power, had the others any remedy ? Mrs. M. They might appeal to the pope, who was considered as their supreme head; but no instance ever occurred, I believe, of such an appeal being made. They were careful to admit no mem- bers who were not possessed of considerable abilities, and likely to promote the interests of their order. George. How did they manage to have only clever men among them? Mrs. M. The noviciates were very long and very strict. No per- son was admitted into the order till he was thirty-three years old. And so much was required of every candidate by the rules, that only men of superior intellect and acquirement could aspire to belong to it. The Jesuits applied themselves particularly to the education of youth, and acquired an influence over the minds of their pupils, which in very many instances continued through life. They had no large estates, nor independent revenues. They coveted neither riches nor luxuries: all they aimed at was power and influence. And they understood their business so well, that they at length made their way into the councils of every Catholic prince of Europe. 282 HENRY II. Chap. XXVII. George. And if it had not been for our Harry the Eighth, who knows but the Jesuits would now be governing us ? Mrs. M. The influence of the Jesuits increased to so great a degree, that the order was abolished in the year 1773. It was again restored, a very few years ago. Mary. I was just going to ask you, before we began talking about the Jesuits, if the terrible accident that happened to the king did not put an end to tournaments ? Mrs. M. The kings of the Valois family were too passionately attached to that species of diversion to let any consideration make them forego it. Tournaments were frequent in the reign of Charles IX., who was severely wounded in the foot at a tournament. The last entertainment of the kind in France was during the reign of Henry IV., when a grandson of the duke of Guise wounded severely the marechal Bassompierre. Mary. The riding at the ring must have been much the most agreeable and the least dangerous of all those games. Mrs. M. The low and mean habits of the unhappy sons of Henry II. introduced a degraded taste into their court. The manly exer- cise of tilting was turned into a vulgar piece of buffoonery by the duke de Nemours and the grand prior of Lorraine, who, at a tilting at the ring in the reign of Francis II., appeared in the dress of women. The duke was attired like a citizen's wife, with a silver chain and a large bunch of keys hanging from his girdle, such as were then worn by women of the middle class, the jingling of which as he rode " afforded great sport to the spectators." The prior was dressed like a gipsy woman, and carried in his arms an ape dressed in baby clothes, which afforded even more sport than the bunch of keys. Richard. I have hardly patience to hear of dukes and priors making such fools of themselves. Mrs. M. After the commencement of the civil wars, by which the minds of men were wrought up to a pitch of sanguinary fury, these childish sports and burlesque trials at arms gave way to con- tests of a very different sort. Single combats then became frequent, which usually ended fatally, it being customary for the combatants to fight in their shirts, to obviate all suspicion of wearing concealed armour. George. I should think if that was the fashion now, it would soon put an end to duels. Richard. The more I think of the emperor Charles V. retiring from the world, the more extraordinary it seems. Mrs. M. Charles in his latter years was a great sufferer from the gout. Exertion of every kind was often extremely painful to him, and he appears to have meditated on his retirement long before he put the design in execution. Conv. HENRY II. 283 Mary. "Where did he retire to ? Mrs. M. To the monastery of St. Justus, not far from Placencia, in Estremadura. Several years before, in passing through the country, Charles had been charmed with its beautiful situation. The impression dwelt on his mind ever after, and determined Mm to make this the place of his retreat. He had no sooner gone through the ceremonials of his abdication, which he made in the Low Countries, than he set sail for Spain. He was accompanied by his two sisters, Mary queen of Hungary, and Eleanor, widow of Francis I. Soon after he landed he dismissed all his train, except twelve gentlemen, whom alone he would suffer to follow him in his retreat. Mary. I hope he let his sisters go with him. Mrs. M. They anxiously desired to do so, but he would not permit it. They settled near him, however, and the grave soon united them. Charles died in 1558, and his sisters did not long sur- vive him. George. Did the emperor live in a cell as the monks did ? Mrs. M. Previously to his arrival at the monastery, he had caused an addition to be made to it of six apartments for his accommoda- tion. These apartments were built and furnished more in reference to the condition in which he now placed himself than to his former dignity. The two largest rooms were only twenty feet square : they were hung with brown cloth : on one side they communicated with the chapel, and on the other with a small garden which the emperor cultivated with his own hands. The other four rooms were mere cells with bare walls. Richard. Did he ever seem to grow tired of his retirement ? Mrs. M. It does not appear that he ever did. The salubrity of the air, for which the spot he had chosen was much celebrated, and the absence of carking care, procured him at first so great a remission of his disorder, as to amply reward him for the sacrifice of his great- ness. He employed himself sometimes in his garden, and sometimes in making models of machines and in mechanical experiments. He would occasionally ride out on a little palfrey. These were his amusements; but he at length totally discontinued them, and occupied his whole time in religious exercises. At last his health declined rapidly, and the nearer death approached, the more vividly would the sins of his former life rise to his terrified remembrance. It seemed an alleviation to his wounded conscience to inflict upon himself severe corporal punishment, and after his death his whip of cords was found stained with his blood. A few days before he died, he went through a singular act of penance. He performed the whole ceremony of his funeral, except the interment. He laid himself in his coffin, dressed in his shroud, and the service for the dead was 284 HENKY II. Chap. XXVII. performed over him, in which he himself joined with prayers and tears, showing every sign of deep repentance and fervent devotion. Richard. It mnst have been a very affecting solemnity to the spectators. Yet still I cannot help thinking that he would have shown a still better repentance, if, instead of shutting himself up in a monastery and practising these austerities, he had continued to reign, and had spent the end of his life in trying to promote his people's happiness, and making what amends he could for the sins of his early life. Mrs. M. If he had done so, it would have been much better for his people ; and more particularly as his son Philip II. had all his faults with few of his redeeming virtues, and was by his bigotry and cruelty the scourge of Europe during the long period of forty years. George. I saw, in looking over one of your books, some account of Philip's building a palace to celebrate the battle of St. Quentin. Mrs. M. That was the palace of the Escurial, which he built in performance of one of the two vows which he made during the battle. He then vowed to St. Lawrence (on whose day, August 10, the battle was fought), that he would, if he escaped, build a palace in honour of him. This palace, because of the tradition that that saint was broiled to death on a gridiron, was laid out in the form of a gridiron. It was a magnificent, but not a beautiful structure, and has lately been destroyed by an accidental fire. Mary. Pray, mamma, what was Philip's other vow ? Mrs. M. His other vow, which also he religiously kept, was, that if he escaped with life out of this battle, he would never be present at another. a.d. 1559- FRANCIS II. 285 CHAPTER XXVIII. FRANCIS II. Years after Christ, 1559 — 1560. d5 Claude and Francis, Dukes of Guise. Francis was between sixteen and seventeen years old when the unexpected death of his father placed him on the throne. The kingdom was in a very deplorable state. There had not yet been time for the newly contracted peace to heal the disorders occasioned by the long war. The introduction of the reformed religion had excited a general ferment, and had caused breaches and divisions in all orders of society. The court was split into factions. The two principal factions, and these hated each other rancorously, were those of the duke of Guise, and of his great rival the constable Montmorenci. The king, from his youth, and his evident incapacity, could afford no promise of any effectual support to the sinking fabric of the state. He and his three young brothers were at this time the sole remaining male descendants of the house of Valois. The next princes of the blood were Anthony de Bourbon and his brothers, who traced their connexion with the royal family as far back as St. Louis, by their descent from Eobert de Clermont, that monarch's youngest son, who married the heiress of Bourbon. Anthony himself was not a man who could act a prominent part. He was easy and good-natured, of great personal bravery, but of no firmness or decision of character, and easily swayed by the merest trifle. He had married Jane dAlbret, the only child of Henry d'Al- 286 FRANCIS II. Chap. XXVHI. bret and of Margaret of Valois, sister to Francis I. By that marriage he gained the title of king of Navarre, an almost barren dignity. His two brothers were, Charles cardinal de Bourbon, a man of feeble capacity, and Louis prince of Conde, who seemed to concentre in his own person all the ability of the family ; but he, having embraced the reformed religion, was entirely excluded from all influence at court. The party of the duke of Guise was soon perceived to assume a decisive superiority over every other. That prince's near relation- ship to the young queen of France made him formidable even to the queen-mother herself, who was jealous of Iris power even when she pro- fessed to unite with him. The influence of Montmorenci was in the mean time gradually weakened by the divisions which sprang up in his family. His nephews, Coligny and d'Andelot, became Hugonots; and he, in abhorrence of their heresy, at length united himself with the duke of Guise. The duke, who was by nature humane and generous, was induced by the cardinal of Lorraine, his brother, whose bigotry was extreme, to persecute the Hugonots with furious zeal ; and great numbers of them suffered death for their religion. The chambres ardentes, which had this horrid name given them because they inflicted on heretics the punishment of burning to death, were instituted at this time in France. The people murmured at the authority usurped by the Guises. They even affected to consider them as foreigners, who had no right to interfere in the affairs of France; and several plots, chiefly fomented by the Hugonots, were formed to displace them. The most considerable of these plots was called the conspiracy of Am- boise, the object of which was to seize on the duke's person while he was with the royal family at Amboise, a town on the Loire. The plot was discovered and frustrated, and the parties concerned in it punished with unexampled severity. Several were put to death, and their bodies fastened on iron hooks round the walls of the castle of Amboise, which the king and queen were at that time inhabiting. The queen-mother herself, and the ladies of the court, had the bar- barity to look out from the windows of the castle at some of the cruellest of these executions. The prince of Conde was charged with being concerned in this plot, but vindicated himself with so much eloquence and apparent truth, that the duke and cardinal could find no plea for condemning him, and were obliged to suffer him to depart unmolested. He and his brother the king of Navarre retired into Guienne, and kept aloof from the court, but continued to keep up a secret cor- respondence with the Hugonots in different parts of the kingdom. This correspondence being discovered, the duke of Guise in the king's name convened an assembly of the states-general at Orleans, a.d. 1560. FRANCIS II. 2 8 7 to which the king of Navarre and the prince were summoned to answer for their conduct. Their friends entreated them not to go, but they thought that, if they refused, it would appear like an acknowledgment of guilt; and they accordingly went to Orleans. Immediately on their arrival they went to the castle to pay their respects to the royal family. Guise, as if impatient to secure his prey, had them arrested at the instant of their departure from the king's presence. The prince of Conde was brought immediately to trial, and was condemned to be beheaded. The only honest minister at that time in France was the chan- cellor l'Hopital. He, amidst the corruption of the times, had pre- served his integrity wholly inviolate, and had on many occasions used his best endeavours to oppose the violent and pernicious counsels of the Guises. He had succeeded in preventing them from establishing the inquisition in France, and now exerted himself to save the prince of Conde. The count de Sancerre also refused to sign the warrant for his execution. This refusal, and the delays which the chancellor contrived to interpose, saved Conde's life. For while his existence was thus hanging by a thread, the unlooked-for death of the king made a sudden change in the aspect of affairs, and delivered him from the grasp of his enemies. The Guises saw their court influence at an end, and knew that the queen-mother would have a predominating ascendency during the minority of the next king, who was now a boy. The death of Francis was occasioned by an abscess in the head, which was not at first apprehended to be of any dangerous conse- quence; but, after some days, the symptoms appeared to indicate his imminent and inevitable death. Nothing could now exceed the confusion and consternation of the court: the courtiers hurrying backwards and forwards ; the duke and cardinal paying obsequious attention to the queen-mother, whom they had before slighted ; and Catherine, forgetting the sufferings of her dying son, and thinking only how best to secure her own authority. The Guises endeavoured to prevail with her to seize on the king of Navarre, who, though not absolutely a prisoner, was detained at Orleans, and to put him and Ms brother instantly to death. But l'Hopital was fortunately able to persuade her that they were her only counterpoise against the predominance of the house of Lorraine. Catherine sent for the king of Navarre, and after assuring him that she had taken no part in the trial and intended execution of his brother, offered him her friendship on two conditions : the first, that he would forego the claim to the regency, which he possessed as first prince of the blood ; and the second, that he would be reconciled to the Guises. Anthony complied readily with her first request, but was with difficulty pre- vailed on to agree to the second. FRANCIS II. Chap. XXVIII. Francis died, December 5, 1560, at the age of nearly eighteen years, having reigned one year and five months. His next brother, Charles, who was then in the eleventh year of his age, was declared his successor. Francis married Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, but had no children. I have not before mentioned to you, that a council was summoned at Trent in the year 1545, for the regulation of the church and extirpation of heresy. This council, the decrees of which are com- monly considered as the authorised exposition of the Catholic doc- trines, continued its sittings at different intervals till the year 1564, when it was dissolved. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXVIII. Bichard. I shall be curious to see how this cunning queen Catherine got on in the next reign. Mrs. Markham. Catherine had great talents, but no enlargement of mind. Her whole thoughts centred in self. To acquire power, and retain it, was the sole aim of all her actions. But even her views of her own interest were bounded views ; she never looked beyond the present moment, and forgot that there was a future, both as regarded this world and the next. Hence she was often entangled in her own nets. She looked upon deceit and dissimulation as wisdom and policy. She never acted with sincerity, and her whole life was one continued tissue of artifices. George. I dare say she got no good by them; for I know that when I try to be cunning, I never find it answer. Mrs. M. The history of Catherine de Medicis presents, as you will find in the sequel, a very striking example of the anxieties and embarrassments which insincerity causes. It may, however, be said in her excuse, that her early life was passed amid difficulties and dangers, which must have too much familiarized her to the intrigues and vices of dishonest politicians. Mary. Will you tell us, if you please, something of her early history ? Mrs. M. She was the daughter of Lorenzo duke d'Urbino (a grandson of the great Lorenzo de Medicis), and was born at Florence during a scene of perpetual tumults between the friends and enemies of that powerful family. "When Catherine was about nine years old, all the Medicis were banished except herself. She was detained as a kind of hostage. At the end of two years the city was besieged, and a factious chief proposed that she should be placed on the walls and exposed to the fire of the besiegers. Oonv. FEANCIS II. 289 Mary. And was she ? Mrs. M. If she had been, it might have saved France many miseries. But the proposal was rejected with the utmost horror. At the age of fourteen she was married to Henry, who was then duke of Orleans, his brother the dauphin being at that time alive. I have already given you some account of her farther history down to the death of Francis II. George. "Was she the same queen Catherine de Medicis who had all the Protestants massacred on St. Bartholomew's day ? Mrs. M. She was. She had a feeling of personal hatred to every' Protestant, independently of her zeal for the Catholic religion. She always attributed the death of the king her husband, not so much to accident as to a preconcerted plan of the Hugonots. For this sus- picion there was not, I believe, the least foundation; but she was herself so unprincipled, and so void of all good feelings, that she was the more prone to think evil of others. I should add that, though she had no good qualities, she yet had some great ones. She had a taste for literature, and encouraged men of letters. She loved mag- nificence, and promoted all ingenious and liberal arts ; she had an uncommon degree of personal courage, and possessed such evenness of temper and so much self-command, that she never on any occasion lost her presence of mind. She was by nature cruel, and at the same time had a taste for all those gaieties and refinements of life which are supposed to have the effect of softening the disposition. She was both avaricious and profuse, and united in her character the most discordant and contradictory qualities that ever womaD possessed. Mary. Did she show her wickedness by her countenance ? Mrs. M. Her face was as deceitful as her mind. She had a calm and composed exterior. She was fat and very fair, with fine eyes, and was altogether a very handsome and engaging-looking woman. George. I cannot tell why it is, but there seems something quite revolting in such a wicked woman's being so handsome. Mary. You would not have badness and ugliness always go together ? Packard. I think they often do go together : at least all people look ugly when they are angry, and most people look handsome, to my way of thinking, when they are good-humoured. Mrs. M. Catherine was very vain of her beauty, and in particular of the symmetry of her hands and arms. She had also very well- turned ankles, and was at some pains to show them, and was the first person in France who wore tight silk stockings. Indeed, amidst all her political cares, the care of the toilette took up much of her time and thoughts, and her dress was remarked as generally grace- ful and becoming. She was a great huntress, and introduced, and Fhakce. 290 FRANCIS II. Chap. XXVItt. if I mistake not invented, the side-saddle. Ladies of rank in France, till then, rode on a kind of pad, with a board suspended from it for the feet to rest on. She had some severe falls from her horse in hunting. She at one time broke her leg, and another time fractured her skull, and was trepanned. Mary. And did not that cure her of hunting ? Mrs. M. Her passion for it was incurable, and continued even in her old age. Her belief in magic was equally incurable. She con- stantly wore a cabalistic charm written on parchment made from the skin of a child. She was in the constant habit of applying to astrologers, and had a restless curiosity to pry into futurity. One astrologer told her that all her sons would be kings. George. I dare say he said so because he thought it would please her ambition. Mrs. M. Instead of pleasing her, it grieved her, for it led her to fear that they were all destined to die young, and to succeed each other as kings of France. She therefore used every art to avert that doom, and yet to make the presage true, by procuring for her two younger sons other crowns. She succeeded in getting that of Poland for one, but tried in vain to get that of England for the other, by a marriage with queen Elizabeth. Richard. Our queen Elizabeth was as cunning as she was. Mrs. M. Another astrologer had told Catherine that she should die at a place called St. Germains. She therefore carefully avoided all places of that name, and actually abandoned the Tuileries, a splendid palace which she had built for her own residence, because she discovered that it stood in the parish of St. Germains. George. I don't doubt that Catherine was very clever, but at the same time she must have been very silly. Mrs. M. The proudest human mind cannot support the load of life without something to lean on; and those who have cast away their trust in the God of mercy are the most prone to put their faith in spirits of darkness. Mary. When you told us of those people who were burnt alive for their religion, I could not help wondering how anybody could have the courage to be a Hugonot. Mrs. M. Those martyrs to their religion were doubtless supported by faith and zeal ; and the remembrance of the sufferings of their blessed Master the better enabled them to endure the extremities of their torture. In those terrible times the indiscriminate rage of persecution seemed to spare nobody. Any person who was known to associate with Hugonots was regarded as a heretic. Many Catholics were, from the hatred or avarice of others, denounced as Hugonots, and suffered accordingly. Margaret queen of Navarre herself found it very difficult to avoid persecution. She wrote a Conv. FRANCIS II. 291 devotional book entitled Le Miroir de VArae pecheresse, and, because there was no mention in it of the saints or of purgatory, it was condemned as heretical by the doctors of the Sorbonne. Even the Psalms of David fell under their anathemas for the same offence; and Marot, a popular French poet, was obliged to fly his country for having translated them into French. Richard. Is it possible that any people could have been so stupid, — so blind, — so — Mrs. M. Such blindness is indeed surprising, yet there are but too many examples of it. Mary. One of the most shocking things of those terrible times was, that the ladies should like to see the martyrdoms of the poor Hugonots. Mrs. M. I am glad to say that there was one lady who did not like it, and that was Anne of Este, the young duchess de Guise. She was daughter of the duke of Ferrara, and of the princess Eenee of France, and had been brought up by her mother in the reformed principles. At the execution of the conspirators of Amboise she was in an agony of grief, and exclaimed, " Shall not the blood which has been shed this day be required of me and of my children?" George. There is some comfort in knowing that there were two good people in those wicked times, this Anne of Este, and the chan- cellor mdpital. Mrs. M. Michel de l'Hopital, the virtuous chancellor of France; laboured all his life to promote religious toleration ; insomuch, that he was strongly suspected of being a Hugonot himself. It is but justice to Catherine de Medicis to say, that she uniformly respected the character of l'Hopital, even though he never scrupled to oppose her measures when he thought them wrong. During the massacre of St. Bartholomew the king sent a guard of soldiers to protect him. George. I am glad to hear any good of Catherine or her son. Mary. I hope, mamma, you are not going to leave off. You know this has been a very short reign. I am sure you might find time to tell us something more. Mrs. M. The shortness of the reign furnishes me with the less to say relating to it. Mary. Then you may tell us something that does not relate to it. I dare say that if you think a little you can find a great many diverting things you have not yet told us. Mrs. M. Well, then, I will tell you an anecdote relating to Jane d'Albret, the queen of Navarre. When she was about twelve years old, her uncle, Francis I., married her to the duke of Cleves. The young bride's dress was overloaded with so much finery that she could not walk, and the constable Montmorenci was commanded by the king to carry her to church in his arms. 292 FEANCIS II. Chap. XXVIII. Mary. I am sure that was comical enough. Can you recollect anything else ? Mrs. M. I recollect that, when speaking to you of the constable de Bourbon, I might have told you that there is now an orange-tree in the garden of Versailles which once belonged to him. George. It must be a very old tree. Mrs. M. It is now more than four hundred years old. It was a hundred years old in the year 1530, when, in the confiscation of the constable's property, it came into the royal possession. Richard. Is it very large ? Mrs. M. It is thirty feet high, and the trunk is five feet in cir- cumference, and branches ojff into two upright stems, each as large as a common orange-tree. Gate of tho town of Moret, near Fontainebleatu Mary. Now, mamma, something more, if you please. Mrs. M. You seem determined to exhaust my store of recollections. Let me give you then a short account of the introduction into France of the manufacture of the Gobelin tapestry. This manufac- ture was begun in the reign of Francis I. by a man named Giles Gobelin. One of its great excellences consisted in the beauty of the scarlet dye. This dye Gobelin procured from a man at Leyden, whoso father had discovered the art of making it by a mere accident. Richard. Do you know by what accident ? Mrs. M. This man had a phial of aqua regia standing in a window, near which was also some extract of cochineal, with which he was going to fill the tube of a thermometer. The window was framed A.D. 1560, CHARLES IX. 293 with tin, a piece of which, being loose, fell into the phial of aqua regia. This phial being afterwards broken, some of the contents were scattered into the extract of cochineal, and changed its colour to the most beautiful scarlet. Richard. Do you suppose that any effect was produced by that bit of tin. Mrs. M. The tin was ascertained, by a variety of experiments, to be the chief agent in this chemical transformation. Mary. It is very entertaining to see how many useful things have been discovered by accident. George. There is a saying about necessity being the mother of invention : I am sure that accident must be one of her sisters. CHAPTEE XXIX. CHARLES IX. Years after Christ, 1560 — 1574. Chateau of Blois; Apartments in which the murder of the duke of Guise took place: The events of the late king's short reign had tended to place the affairs of the country in even a worse condition than they were in at 294 CHARLES IX. Chap. XXIX. the death of Henry II. The evils of faction were severely felt, and the violence of religious differences was increased. It was in vain that the chancellor l'Hopital, in a speech on the opening of the first assembly of the states in the new reign, exhorted to patriotism and religious toleration. These virtues were at that time but little known in France. Catherine and the duke of Guise were solely intent on the possession of power. The duke, although he could not pretend to rule the present king as he had ruled his brother, was yet very unwilling to give up the authority which he had been accustomed to exercise. To strengthen his hands, he entered into a close confederacy with the constable Montmorenci. The marechal St. Andre was another member of this confederacy, which was called the Triumvirate. The prince of Conde regained his liberty on the late king's death, and placed himself at the head of the Hugonots. His brother, the king of Navarre, soon after deserted the Hugonots, and went over to the party of the Triumvirs. Catherine, to balance the power of this confederacy, and believing that the grand secret of politics was to govern all parties by dividing them against each other, now affected to entertain a great regard for the Hugonots, and granted them several privileges. But these con- cessions to the Hugenots only added strength to the Triumvirate ; for the Catholics, becoming alarmed, and believing their own church in danger, relied for protection chiefly on the princes of Lorraine. The two parties became every day more inflamed, and mutual in- sults and retaliations took place. A civil war was ready to burst forth, and nothing was wanting but a pretext to begin. It was not long before this was found. Several Hugonots, while at their devotions in a barn at Vassy, were insulted by the servants of the duke of Guise, who was travelling through the place. An affray ensued, in which the duke, while endeavouring to quell the tumult, received a blow in the face from a stone. His servants, exasperated at seeing their master thus wounded, attacked the Hu- gonots, and killed several of them. The Hugonots interpreted the massacre of these peasants as a premeditated commencement of hostilities, and as a signal to arm. The prince of Conde seized on the town of Orleans, and there established the chief seat of his party, and published a manifesto calling on all good Protestants to assist him in the common cause. The Hugonots possessed themselves also of many other towns in different parts of the kingdom. They ap- plied for assistance to the English queen, and put the town of Havre into her hands, as a requital for the succours which she engaged to send them. This was the commencement of those dreadful religious wars, to which all France was to become a prey for many years ; wars which were carried on with the greatest animosity, tearing asunder all family and social ties, and exposing the wretched in- a.d. 1563. CHARLES IX. 295 habitants to all the horrors of fire and the sword. Mezerai says, " If any one were to relate all that passed at this time in different parts of France, all the taking and retaking of towns, — the infinity of little combats, — the furies, — the massacres, it would take up a great many volumes." — I must pass over all but the most leading events. In 1562 Eouen, which was in possession of the Hugonots, was be- sieged by the Catholics. During this siege the king of Navarre received a wound, of which he soon after died, at Andelys, in his way to Paris. When he found himself dying, he sent an express to his queen, exhorting her to keep on her guard, and on no account to trust herself at court. The garrison of Eouen was commanded by the count de Montgo- mery He defended the town with great spirit, but it was at last taken by assault, and was given up to pillage ; a circumstance, to the best of my recollection, without parallel in the civil wars of England, but not unfrequent in those of France. "When Eouen was taken, Montgomeri saved himself from falling into the enemy's hands by hurrying on board a galley. He promised liberty to the crew if they got him off. The crew rowed so vigorously that they broke through the chains which were placed across the Seine at Caudebec, and landed him in safety at Havre. In the same year a battle was fought at Dreux, in Normandy. At the first onset St. Andre* was killed, and Montmorenci taken prisoner. Some persons who fled, hastened to Paris with the in- telligence that the Catholics were overthrown. The queen, who perhaps thought that the victory of the Hugonots was more to her advantage than any event which might increase the power of the house of Guise, only observed, with the utmost levity, " Well, then (He bien), we must now say our prayers in French." But the for- tune of the battle had in the mean time changed. The prince of Conde was taken prisoner, and Coligny, who then took the command of the Hugonots, was obliged to retire from the field. Conde was immediately conveyed to the tent of the duke of Guise, who, seeming to forget that any causes of animosity had subsisted between them, received him more as a guest than as a prisoner, and, as a mark of his confidence and friendship, made him sleep in the same bed with himself. Conde afterwards declared that Guise slept as soundly as if his best friend, instead of his greatest enemy, was lying by his side ; but that, as for himself, he had not closed his eyes all night. In February 1563, the Catholic army, under the command of the duke of Guise, laid siege to Orleans. The town was on the point of being taken, when one evening, as the duke was returning to the camp from a visit to his family, he received a mortal wound in the shoulder by a pistol-shot fired at him by a man named Poltrot. The duke instantly fell, and the assassin galloped off. After having 296 CHARLES IX. Chap. XXIX. ridden full speed the whole of the night, which was extremely dark, Poltrot supposed himself to be many miles from Orleans ; but when daylight broke, he found himself only about a mile from the spot from which he had first set out. His horse was unable to go a step farther, and he was constrained to seek shelter in a house, where, throwing himself on a bed, he soon fell asleep. In this state he was discovered, and, being put to the torture, he accused several persons of having been his instigators, and, amongst others, the ad- miral Coligny. Coligny protested his innocence, and demanded to be confronted with his accuser; but this favour was denied him. Poltrot was put to death with savage cruelty. Guise lived only six days after his wound ; but before he died he exhorted Catherine to make peace with the Hugonots. He left three sons, Henry, who succeeded him in his dukedom, the cardinal de Guise, and Charles due de Mayenne. He had one daughter, married to the due de Mont- pensier. — The queen, in compliance with the dying advice of the duke of Guise, made peace with the Hugonots, and granted them very favourable conditions. These conditions were never fulfilled, but hostilities did not break out again for above four years. Catherine made use of this interval to conduct the king on a royal progress to different parts of his kingdom, with a view to ascertain, if possible, the real strength of the Hugonots. At Bayonne the royal party was met by Elizabeth, or, as she was called by the Spaniards, Isabella, queen of Spain, to whom Philip II. allowed the indulgence of a visit to her mother and brother. She was escorted by the duke of Alva, Philip's proud and cruel minister ; and Catherine, who often concealed under the cloak of festivities the most bloody and relentless purposes, is believed to have held with him secret conferences, which had for their object the extirpa- tion of the Protestants. But with all Catherine's art she could not avert the suspicion winch justly attached both to her measures and her character. The Protestants had long observed that, though she had often made them flattering promises, yet these promises were never performed. Perpetual outrages were committed by the Catho- lics both on their persons and their property. The duke of Alva, after the meeting at BayonnS, was appointed to the command of a numerous army in the Low Countries, now in a state of revolt against Philip's authority. He was the known enemy of their religion : he might easily enter France and further the designs of the queen- mother against them. Thus goaded by past, and apprehensive of future injuries, the Hugonots flew to arms in 1567. Their first enterprise was an unsuc- cessful attempt to possess themselves of the person of the young king, who was then at Meaux. They next proceeded to Paris, which they held in blockade eight days. The constable Montmorenci had a.d. 1569. CHARLES IX. 297 the command of the city ; and the Parisians, impatient under the restraints of a blockade, obliged him, contrary to his judgment, to march out and attack the enemy, who were exceedingly inferior in numbers. The two armies encountered in the plain of St. Denis, and the Hugonots were worsted; but the victory was dearly bought by the death of the constable, who, although in the 75th year of his age, fought with the courage and activity of youth. Even when at last he fell covered with wounds, he had so much vigour left, that, by a blow with the pommel of his sword, he beat out some of the teeth, and broke the jawbone, of Eobert Stuart, a Scotsman, who had given him his last and mortal wound. To Catherine herself the death of Montmorenci was a subject rather of rejoicing than of regret. She had now got rid of all whose influence she was afraid of, and hoped to rule undisturbed for the future. She persuaded the king not to appoint another constable, but to give the command of the royal armies to her third and favour- ite son, Henry duke of Anjou. This prince was only sixteen years old, and was therefore placed under the guidance of the marechal Tavannes, an experienced and skilful general, who was in all Cathe- rine's secrets, and had been long devoted to her service. He had even on one occasion carried his obsequiousness so far as to offer to cut off the nose of her rival, the duchess of Valentinois. This offer, however, Catherine declined. After the battle of St. Denis a peace was patched up with the Hugonots, but it was ill kept, and in a few months the war broke out more furiously than ever. On March 13, 1569, the two parties met on the banks of the river Charente, near the town of Jarnac. The royal army was nearly four times stronger than that of the adversary. Conde entered the field of battle with his arm in a sling, from the effects of a former wound. Before the engagement com- menced, a kick from a restive horse broke his leg ; but, undaunted by this accident, he made a short and animated harangue to his soldiers, and rushed forward against the enemy. The Hugonots fought with desperate courage, but, overpowered by superior num- bers, were at length obliged to fly. Conde, as you may well suppose, was now unable to move, and was compelled to allow himself to be taken prisoner. He was lifted from his horse, and placed on the ground, under the shade of a tree. Here one of the captains of the duke of Anjou's guard basely came behind him, and shot him dead. He left three young sons, Henry, who succeeded as prince of Conde, the count of Soissons, and the prince of Conti. Henry, prince of Beam, now about sixteen years of age, the son of Anthony, late king of Navarre, was, on Conde's death, declared the head of the Protestants ; but on account of his youth, the com- mand of their forces was given to Coligny. Eochelle was at this 3 298 CHARLES IX. Chap. XXIX. time one of their chief bulwarks, and here the queen of Navarre resided with her family, together with many of the principal leaders of the Hugonot cause. In the following October the Catholics obtained another victory at Montcontour ; but their opponents, though often beaten, were far from being subdued. In 1570 Coligny transferred the war into Burgundy, where he obtained the advantage. Peace was again made, and Coligny was sent for to court. He went reluctantly, and with hesitation, but the apparently cordial and sincere manner of the king soon effaced all unpleasant suspicions, and lulled him into security. Some authors say, and we may, I hope, incline to believe them, that Charles was really sincere, and actually meant at the time to fulfil his professions. But the common notion is, that the whole of the shocking perfidy which I have here to relate was a deep-laid plot of his and his mother's contriving. Catherine, to calm the suspicions of the Protestants, proposed and concluded a marriage between the prince of Beam and her daughter Margaret. The queen of Navarre was invited to Paris to be present at the nuptials. It would perhaps have been better for her if she had adhered to her husband's injunctions, and had not ventured to court. She how- ever came, and was apparently received by Charles with the open- hearted affection due to a relative ; but it is said, that, when their interview was over, he boasted to his mother, "how well he had acted his part." The pope had opposed with all his power the mar- riage of Margaret with a Hugonot prince, but it is said that Charles assured the pope's legate of his own entire devotion to the Holy See, and, pressing his hand, added these remarkable words: 01 s'il m'etoit permis de m'expUquer d'avantage \ In the midst of the preparations for the marriage of the young prince and princess, the queen of Navarre died suddenly. Her death is now generally attributed to some constitutional disease ; but at the time the Protestants naturally took alarm at it, and many of them believed it to have been procured by means of a poisoned pair of gloves, which she had purchased of Catherine's Italian per- fumer. The marriage of Henry, now, by his mother's death, king of Navarre, with Margaret of Valois, took place August 18, 1572. It is said that the bride was extremely averse to it ; that the being united to a Hugonot filled her with repugnance and horror; and that her affections had been previously fixed on the duke of Guise. But Catherine was not accustomed to let the feelings of others stand in the way of her own schemes. The court was now, to all appearance, fully occupied with ban- quets, masquerades, and other splendid entertainments. The Hugo- nots were treated with the greatest attention. The inhabitants of Bochelle repeatedly sent entreaties to Coligny to quit Paris, and a.d. 1572. CHARLES IX. 299 "not trust himself in the power of a king whose passions were uncontrollable, and of an Italian woman, whose dissimulation was unfathomable." But Coligny would not hearken to their cautions, and declared himself ready to abide all hazards rather than show a distrust which might plunge the country again into a civil war. On August 22, as Coligny was returning from the Louvre to his hotel, and walking slowly, perusing some papers, he was fired at by a man stationed behind a grated window. He was wounded in two places, but it was thought not dangerously. On being conveyed home, he was instantly surrounded by the alarmed and agitated Hugonots. It was discovered that the assassin was a servant of the duke of Guise, and that he had been stationed for two days behind the window to wait for his victim. The king and Catherine, on hearing of this outrage, visited Coligny in his bed-chamber, ex- pressed the greatest concern at the accident, and sent hin a guard of their own soldiers, as if for his protection. They professed great anxiety lest the Parisians should commit any act of hostility against the Protestants ; they gave orders to close all the city gates except two, under colour of preventing the escape of the assassin ; and had an account laid before them of the names and places of abode of all the Hugonots in Paris, on the pretence of taking them under their immediate protection. Everything remained quiet during two days. It was like the calm before a thunder-storm. The transactions of the bloody day of St. Bartholomew are in- volved in great obscurity. Some assert that the massacre had been planned two years before it was executed. Others, that the death of Coligny alone was the main object of Catherine's machinations, and that the slaughter which followed was an after-thought on the part of the court, and resorted to as an act of self-defence against the Hugonots, who might be expected to revenge the death of the admiral. On Saturday, August 23rd, it was finally determined that the massacre should begin that night, and that the signal should be the striking of the tocsin, or great bell of the palace. The Swiss guards and the city militia were ordered to be in readiness, wearing a white cross on their hats, and a scarf on their left arms. As the hour approached, the king, less hardened than his mother, was in the greatest agitation : he trembled from head to foot, and the perspiration ran down his forehead. His mother and the duke of Anjou had great difficulty in keeping him steady to his purpose. The queen at length forced a command from him to commence tho slaughter, and then, to prevent the possibility of his retracting, she hastened, as it is said, the fatal signal, which was given at half-past one o'clock in the morning by the great bell of the palace. On the first sound, the implacable Guise flew to the house of Coligny, and there completed his bloody purpose ; not indeed by his own hands, 300 CHARLES IX. Chap. XXIX. for he remained below and sent up his people to the admiral's cham- ber. The venerable old man, disabled by his late wounds, had no other defence than his calm, intrepid countenance. La Besme, a German servant of the duke of Guise, approached him with his drawn sword in his hand. " Young man," said Coligny, " you ought to. reverence these gray hairs ; but do what you think proper ; my life can be shortened but a very little." La Besme made no answer, but plunged the sword into the admiral's body, while the other assassins despatched him with their daggers : they then threw the body out of the window. The head was cut off and carried as a trophy to the queen, who, it is said, caused it to be embalmed, and sent it as a present to the pope. The headless trunk was dragged about the streets by the frantic mob, who afterwards hung it on a gibbet at Montfaucon, where it remained some days, scorched, though not consumed, by a fire which was lighted under it. The king and his mother came to view it. At last it was secretly con- veyed away by orders of the marechal Montmorenci, who gave it honourable burial in his chapel at Chantilly. I must now return to the other events of this horrid massacre. When morning dawned, the king, who had got rid of his tremors, called for his long fowling-piece, and placed himself at one of the windows of the palace which looked on the Seine, and employed himself in firing on the wretched Hugonots who were endeavouring to secure themselves by crossing the river. He continually ex- claimed, as he aimed at the fugitives, Tue, tue, tirons : mon Dieu 1 ils s'enfuient. Henry of Navarre, the young prince of Conde, and several other Hugonots, had been, by the king's particular desire, lodged in the Louvre. All were sacrificed with the exception of the two princes. The queen-mother even looked from her window at the slaughtered bodies as they were brought out and thrown into the court of the palace. In the city, also, the work of death was going on with equal ferocity, and did not entirely cease during seven days. More than five thousand persons of all ranks are supposed to have perished in Paris alone. Some few had been so fortunate as to save themselves by flight at the first alarm. Others were preserved by the humanity of some of the Catholics. The marechal Biron, who was master of the artillery, gave to some a secure refuge at the arsenal ; and the duke of Guise himself gave protection in his own house to many whom he was desirous to attach to his service. One poor boy saved his life by concealing himself under the murdered bodies of his father and brother, and afterwards lived to be a marechal of France. The massacre was not confined to Paris ; orders were also sent into the provinces to put the Hugonots to the sword. In many places these orders were too well obeyed, but not in all. The governor of a.u. 1573. CHA11LES IX. 301 Bayonne, we are told, in answer to the king's mandate, wrote as fol- lows : " Your majesty lias many faithful servants in Bayonne, but not one executioner." The court for a time exulted in its victory. Charles was heard to declare, that now he had got rid of the rebels, he should live in peace. Alas ! he had murdered for ever all his own peace. His and Catherine's punishment soon began. Instead of living in peace, they were a prey to constant disquietude. At one time the king denied all participation in the massacre, and threw the whole blame of it on the duke of Guise. The very next day he avowed the deed publicly, and gloried in it, and had a solemn mass performed to celebrate what he called the victory over the Protestants, and had medals struck in commemoration of it: The authors of the massacre, to throw the more odium on the Protestants, and to justify themselves, pretended that Coligny had formed a plot to kill the king. They instituted a mock trial against him for treason: they sentenced him to be hung in effigy: they commanded every portrait of him to be destroyed and trampled on by the common hangman. His property was confiscated, his house at Chatillon levelled with the ground, and his children degraded from their rank. To give more colour to this imaginary plot, they accused two innocent men as being accessory to it, and caused them to be hung on the same gibbet from which was suspended also the effigy of the admiral. Conde and the king of Navarre were for a time kept prisoners in the Louvre. Both persuasions and threats were resorted to, to make them renounce the Protestant principles ; and at last these princes, young, without friends and advisers, and overcome with grief, dis- may, and horror at the scenes which were passing around them, yielded to the pressure, and consented to profess themselves Catho- lics ; but they retracted this profession as soon as they had regained their liberty. The natural consequence of these shocking transac- tions was, that Charles and Catherine were universally held up to execration, excepting, indeed, in the courts of Madrid and Eome. In the latter a jubilee was proclaimed by Gregory XIII. to celebrate what he termed " the triumph over heresy." The Hugonots, who were at first paralysed with horror, soon re- gained their activity and flew to arms, and their persecutors found that, instead of extirpating heresy, they had made the heretics despe- rate. Eochelle was besieged by the royal army, but was defended with so much vigour during a protracted siege, that the duke of Anjou, who commanded the assailants, found it expedient to nego- tiate. A treaty bearing date July 6, 1573, was concluded with the whole of the Hugonot party. Before this siege concluded, the duke of Anjou received intelli- 302 CHAELES IX. Chap. XXIX. gence that he was elected to the crown of Poland. The duke himself was little desirous of this advancement. He regretted leaving the delights and enjoyments of France, and delayed as long as he could to set out for Poland. But Charles, who had long regarded him with a jealous eye, as being his mother's and the people's favourite, at length compelled him to depart. He himself designed to accom- pany him to the frontier of France, but was seized on the way with a fever and a pain in the heart, and was unable to continue his journey. The queen-mother proceeded to Blamont in Lorraine, and her last words to the king of Poland were, " Go, my son, take pos- session of your kingdom ; your stay there will not be long." These words raised a suspicion that Charles's illness was the effect of poison which his mother had given him. His illness has, however, been also attributed to the effects of over exertion, and more parti- cularly to his fondness for blowing the French horn, by which he injured his lungs. On the departure of the king of Poland, the count d'Alencon, Catherine's youngest son, aspired to the post of lieutenant -general of the royal armies. But Charles refused to give it him, and be- stowed it on the duke of Lorraine. Alencon was a wild and capri- cious young man, with little sense or judgment. His person was diminutive, and this, as he was naturally vain, mortified him ex- tremely, and led him perhaps to engage the more eagerly in the pursuits of ambition. He has been described as* of great hasti- ness, both in forming enterprises and in deserting them almost as soon as they were formed. He now made an attempt to go over to the Hugonots : but Catherine, having gained intelligence of his purpose, caused him and the king of Navarre to be put under arrest. The king's health now rapidly declined, and he was visibly hasten- ing to the grave. He had never been quite himself since the day of St. Bartholomew. His complexion, which before was pale, was now often flushed ; his eyes acquired an unnatural fierceness, his nights were restless and disturbed, and his sleep unrefreshing. As his disorder increased, every symptom was aggravated. He was seldom still for an instant. His limbs were at one moment distorted by convulsive twitches, and the next so stiff that he could not bend them ; and the blood oozed from the pores of his skin. His physi- cians, unable to comprehend his disorder, affirmed that it was the effect of poison, or of sorcery. Nor was his mind less agitated than his bodily frame. The recollection of the massacre continually haunted him, and he was frequently overheard bewailing his crime with bitter tears and groans. Catherine, who thought more of securing her own power than of his sufferings, disturbed his dying moments by making him give her a commission of regency for the Cony. CHARLES IX. 3 o 3 interval which must ensue between his death and the return of his brother the king of Poland into France. Charles breathed his last, May 30, 1574. He was in the 24th year of his age, and had reigned thirteen years. He married Elizabeth, daughter of the emperor Maximilian II., a gentle-tempered and virtuous princess, too good for the scenes to which she was brought. By her he had one daughter, Elizabeth, who died in 1578, at the age of five. The cardinal of Lorraine, who had been one of the most active contrivers of the massacre of the Hugonots, died a few months after the king, in a state of raving madness. It is singular that during this unhappy reign, which on the part of the court was one continued scene of wrong and cruelty, many judicious laws were enacted, many wise regulations made regarding the police, and many abuses reformed in the administration of jus- tice. All these benefits were the work of the great Michel THopital. Dismissed from the office of chancellor by the queen, when she found that his integrity interfered with her own schemes, and seeing that all his efforts were vain to stem the torrent of political corruption, he turned all his attention to improve the laws and to increase their efficacy, and in this important field of usefulness laboured almost without intermission. CONVEESATION ON CHAPTER XXIX. Richard. How much the remorse and sufferings of Charles disarm one's resentment ! I quite felt compassion for him at last. Mrs. Markham. It is generally agreed that Charles was endowed by nature with many valuable qualities; but these were all perverted by a bad education. He had a good capacity, a retentive memory, and was a ready and eloquent speaker. George. But his education, you say, was neglected ? Mrs. M. It was worse than neglected. He was taught what was bad. His mother trained him early in the art of dissimulation, and instructed him to consider it the main principle in the science of government. The marechal de Retz also, an Italian of low birth, to whom the care of his education was confided, made it his business to stifle as much as possible every germ of goodness in his young mind, and to encourage him in dissolute habits. He taught him to be a profane swearer, but he could not succeed in the attempt to make him a drunkard. He was once prevailed on to drink to intoxication, but he was so much ashamed of having been seen in that disgusting condition, that he could never be induced to commit the same excess again, and he was ever after remarkably abstemious in drinking, and also in eating. 3°4 CHAKLES IX. Chap. XXIX. Mary. I cannot imagine why Catherine should wish that her son should be made wicked. Mrs. M. It is supposed that she desired to see him immersed in degrading vices, that he might be the less inclined to interfere with her politics. George. How I wish he had disappointed her, and grown up good in spite of her ! Mrs. M. Poor Charles, I doubt not, would have joined you in that wish, for his vices certainly brought him anything rather than hap- piness. He had by nature an ardent and vehement character. What- ever he did, he did with violence. When he danced, it was with such impetuosity and perseverance, that the ladies of the court dreaded him for a partner. When he hunted, it was as if it was a matter of life and death. He loved all kinds of hard labour, and would take delight in working at a blacksmith's forge ; and no labourer toiling for his bread worked harder than he did for his amusement. His bodily strength was prodigious, and it seemed as if violent exer- cise alone could allay the constant restlessness of his mind. He was an excellent gunsmith ; but the art he most excelled in was that of making false money ; and he would often vaunt of his dexterity in passing it. Mary. Don't you think he must have been half mad? Mrs. M. His temper was very irritable, and he is supposed to have increased that evil by not allowing himself proper sleep. When a boy, he loved cruel sports, a taste which he did not leave off in manhood. He was extremely fond of practical and tormenting jokes ; but whether all this could entitle him to the excuse of mad- ness I cannot pretend to say. Mary. Do you recollect any of his jokes ? Mrs. M. One of them was as follows : — On some great occasion, when he gave a splendid entertainment at the Louvre, he introduced into the assembly ten of the most notorious pickpockets in Paris, and gave them full licence to practice their nefarious art upon the com- pany. Of this liberty, you may be assured, they fully availed them- selves, whilst the king amused himself with watching their proceed- ings. When the entertainment was over, he made them show him their gains, which, it is said, were prodigious. George. Did he go shares with them ? Mrs. M. Not quite so bad as that. It does not appear that covet- ousness was one of Charles's faults. He suffered the thieves to depart With their plunder, but threatened to have them all hanged if they ever stole again. Mary. Do you know, mamma, what sort of a looking man he was ? George. According to Richard's rule, he ought not to have been very handsome. Conv. CHARLES IX. « * Mrs. M. He was. a tall, large man, and tolerably well made, but spoiled his appearance by a habit of stooping, and by an awkward way of holding his head on one side. He had rather handsome eyes, and an aquiline nose. His complexion was fair and pale, and his countenance haggard and unpleasing. Richard. I think my rule will hold good in this instance at least. Mrs. M. The best trait in Charles's character was his fondness for his old nurse. He protected her, notwithstanding her being a Pro- testant, during the massacre. He always retained her near his person, and she attended him in his last moments, and witnessed the struggles of his remorse. George. If his wicked mother had witnessed them also, it might perhaps have done her some good. Mrs. M. I have met with an account of Charles's sufferings in his last illness, which appears to me very touching and impressive. I will give you a short extract from it. " As Ms old nurse was watch- ing him, she, being weary, sat down on a chest by the bed-side and began to doze. Presently she was awakened by hearing the king bemoaning himself with tears and groans. She approached the bed very gently and opened the curtains. The king then said with a heavy groan, 'A h, ma miel ma nourrice! what blood! what mur- ders ! Ah, I have followed a wicked counsel ! my God, forgive me, have mercy upon me, if thou wilt ! ' " After a few more bitter lamentations, the nurse gave him a dry handkerchief, his own being steeped with tears, and closing the curtains left him to repose. George. What a comfort it must have been to Charles in his agonies, that he had saved his old nurse's life ! Mrs. M. He also saved another Hugonot, who was his surgeon. Richard. Do the French still consider the massacre of St. Bartho- lomew as a triumph over heresy ? Mrs. M. When the delirium of party fury subsided, they could not but learn to view it in its true light, and all writers now join in condemning it. Margaret of Valois, the king of Navarre's young bride, has given us, in the memoirs of her life, a description of the horrors which she herself was a witness to during that memorable night of the 24th of August. Richard. I should like to read it. Mrs. M. The language is rather difficult, but I will translate some passages for you. Margaret was not admitted into the secret of the projected massacre, for fear she should betray it to her hus- band. She says, "Nobody said anything to me till the evening, when, being in the queen's chamber, seated on a chest near my sister of Lorraine, who I saw was very sad, the queen my mother per- ceived me, and told me to go to bed. As I made my reverence, my sister took me in her arms, and told me not to go. This frightened 3° 6 CHARLES IX. Chap. XXIX. me extremely. The queen called to my sister, and rebuked her very severely, forbidding her to tell me anything. My sister replied that there was no reason why I should be sacrificed, and that, if the Hugonots discovered anything, they would, without doubt, revenge themselves on me. The queen replied that, if it was God's will, no harm would happen to me ; but let it be as it might, I must go, to avoid exciting any suspicion. I saw that the queen and my sister differed, but I could not hear their words. The queen then ordered me still more rudely to go to bed, and my sister, bathed in tears, wished me good night, without daring to say another word, and I went, all agitated and trembling, without being able to imagine what I had to fear." George. Well ! this is the most cold-blooded deed of all ! I think that Catherine de Medicis gets wickeder and wickeder the more one knows of her ! Mrs. M. The rest of Margaret's story is too long to give you in her own words ; I must therefore abridge it. She was disturbed all night by the presence of some Hugonot gentlemen who came to con- fer with her husband. At last, at daybreak, he and they departed, and she then hoped to be able to get some sleep, but was suddenly roused by a violent noise at her chamber-door. The door being opened by her nurse, who lay in her apartment, a man streaming with blood rushed in pursued by four archers. This man darted towards the bed, and clung to her for protection, while she did not know whether she herself or the wounded man was the victim they sought. Her shrieks brought M. Nanci, the captain of the guard. He sent away the archers, and allowed Margaret to conceal the fugitive in an inner apartment, where he lay concealed till he was cured of his wounds. Margaret, after changing her night-dress, which was all smeared with blood, hurried with trembling steps to her sister's chamber. In one of the passages she encountered another poor fugitive, whose pursuers overtook him, and slew him with their halberds, so close to her that she expected to have been wounded herself, and would have fainted if M. Nanci had not sup- ported her. Mary. I am only surprised she did not die of fright ! Bichard. Pray, mamma, do you know which was reckoned the best general, the prince of Conde or the admiral Coligny ? Mrs. M. I cannot pretend to say which was the best general, but I do not hesitate in saying which was the best man. Conde's pri- vate character was very faulty, and his public conduct was much actuated by personal resentments and selfish ambition. Coligny, on the other hand, was a man of the purest life, and of strict religious principle. He had an extraordinary enlargement of mind, and in happier times might have been the pride and glory of France. Ex- Conv. CHARLES IX. 307 cepting the unjust charge of his conniving at the murder of the duke of Guise, his heresy was the only crime which his enemies could ever find to accuse him of. Mary. And that is no crime in the eyes of us English people. Mrs. M. Nor is it now in the eyes of his own countrymen, who do ample justice to his memory. The house in which he was assas- sinated is still standing in the Eue Bethisi. It is an inn, and the room in which he died iz still shown. Mary. It seems very strange to call him an admiral, while all the while he was a general. Mrs. M. In old times the offices of general and admiral were often held by the same person. The post of admiral of France was con- ferred by Henry II. on Coligny, as a reward for his bravery in the wars with Spain. Even during the tumult of the civil wars, he also sometimes acted as admiral, and earnestly laboured to extend commerce and improve navigation; but the times were very un- favourable to his endeavours. Coligny first attempted to establish a French settlement in America. He fitted out an expedition in 1562, to take possession of Florida, which he hoped might be made a place of refuge for the persecuted Hugonots. Mary. And was it so ? Mrs. M. The first settlers were entirely destroyed by the Spaniards. At this time the French navy was behind that of all the other na- tions in Europe, and could do but little for the support or protec- tion of distant colonies. One cause of this naval inferiority is to be found in the constant wars which the French waged on the conti- nent. Another cause was, perhaps, the scarcity of good harbours. Nature, very profuse to them in most other things, has been sparing in that respect. Richard. I thought there were some very fine harbours in France. Mrs. M. So there are now, but most of them are the work of art, and of after-times. Several early but ineffectual attempts had been made to procure a marine. Francis I., who loved to do everything on a magnificent scale, had the largest ship built that ever had been seen in France. She was two thousand tons burthen, and was called La Grande Frangaise. George. I dare say she was built in imitation of the old English ship The Great Harry. Mrs. M. Very probably. She had on board a windmill and a tennis-court, and her cables were of the thickness of a man's leg. She was built for the purpose of some great enterprise, but made only one voyage, and that a very short one. She was launched at Havre, and could get no further than the end of the pier, where she stuck fast. From her enormous bulk she could not be got off, and was obliged to be broken up. 3 o8 HENRY III. Chap. XXX. George. You have several times spoken of galleys. What sort of vessels are they ? Mrs. M. They are decked vessels, with a great number of oars. To row these vessels is very laborious work, and is commonly made a punishment for criminals, who are condemned to work for a term of years, or sometimes for life, on board these galleys. 1 Mary. Don't they sometimes jump overboard and swim away ? Mrs. M. They are chained to their benches, so that they cannot escape. CHAPTER XXX HENRY III. Years after Christ, 1574 — 1589. Henry HI. and his queen, Heney was at Cracow, in Poland, when the news of his brother's death reached him. Instead of notifying the event to the senate, that measures might be taken for the government of Poland during his absence, he was so impatient of the smallest delay, that he fled secretly in the night, and never stopped till he had passed the con- fines of the kingdom. Here he was overtaken by some of the Polish nobles, who entreated him to return, which he promised to do as soon as he had settled the affairs of France. Henry lingered by the 1 The rowing in galleys has been almost entirely, if not entirely, given up since the intro- duction of steam navigation. a.d. 1575. HENRY III. 309 way in Germany and Italy, as if to enjoy the delights of freedom, before he was again fettered by the restraints of a throne. He arrived at Lyons early in September, where his mother met him and resigned the regency. Henry had in his early years displayed some degree of manliness ; but every flattering appearance of character soon vanished; and now. although in his twenty-third year, he was more like a wayward boy than a man. He took little or no share in the administration of affairs, which he abandoned to his mother and his favourites. He lived shut up in his palace, occupied in devising new fashions in dress, and diverting himself with monkeys and lapdogs, and in every frivolous and childish amusement. The queen encouraged rather than checked these follies, because they left her the more at liberty to gratify her own inordinate love of dominion. The Poles, finding that Henry had no intention to return, elected another king, and Henry and his late subjects soon thought no more of one another. The king had long been deeply enamoured of the princess of Conde : indeed it is said to have been his passion for her that had made him so unwilling to accept the crown of Poland. He now determined to make her his wife, presuming that, as the prince of Conde had returned to the profession of the Protestaut faith, a divorce might easily be obtained between him and the princess. But while this affair was in agitation, the princess died suddenly : and Catherine has been suspected of poisoning her, as being the easiest way of getting her son out of what she considered a foolish scrape. What truth there was in this suspicion, I cannot pretend to say. The king, for three days, abandoned himself to the most frantic excesses of grief. At the end of that time, having exhausted his sorrow, he resumed his usual occupations ; but for some time after, he wore, as a token of his regard for the princess, little death's heads instead of the silver tags which were then much worn in the dresses of gentlemen. The duke of Alencon, and the king of Navarre, who had been detained by Catherine in a sort of custody, made their escape, the one in September, 1575, and the other in the February following, and joined the Hugonots. A treaty with the Hugonots was con- cluded soon after, but on terms which were considered by the Catholics as being much too favourable to the Protestants. Many of the Catholics, therefore, believing their church to be in danger, formed themselves into a league for the defence of their religion. The chief promoter of this league was the duke of Guise, a man every way fitted to be the head of a party. He possessed, in an eminent degree, the qualities which had been so conspicuous in his father and uncle. Like his father, he was the idol of the populace. 3io HENRY III. Chap. XXX. He had brilliant talents, was generous to profusion, insinuating and engaging in his address, and had a towering ambition, which neither principle nor honour could restrain. He had been wounded in the cheek in an engagement with the Hugonots, and this accident acquired for him the surname of le Balafre, or "the scarred." The king was induced to declare himself the head of the League, although the principles of the party were in reality subversive of the royal authority. But this Henry did not discover until he was brought to the brink of ruin. The flames of civil war again broke forth, and again died away. But, even when it was called peace, private animosities raged fiercely. The social ties seemed broken ; and the true reason why so much violence was manifested in the wars of religion was, that religion was often little else than the pretext of men whose minds were almost wholly guided and absorbed by the irreligious spirit of revenge, and by unprincipled ambition. The duke of Alencon, who had neither honesty nor consistency, abandoned the king of Navarre, and, reconciling himself to his brother, had the dukedom of Anjou conferred on him. In 1578 he engaged in a treaty with the Flemings to assist their efforts to throw off the yoke of Spain, a yoke which the tyranny of Philip II. now made more than ever intolerable, iinjou had the title given him of Protector of the Belgic Liberties, and entered the Netherlands with a considerable force. But his desire to make himself king at last betraying itself, the Flemings became distrustful of him, and he found himself obliged to return to France. He long indulged the hope of marrying Elizabeth queen of England ; but all his hopes of aggrandizement miscarried, and he died, humiliated and dejected, June 10, 1584. The death of the duke of Anjou made a great change in affairs. The king, who had now been married some years, had no children, and the king of Navarre thus became the presumptive heir of the throne. The character of this great prince began to display itself. His superior talents and noble nature had long been obscured by adverse circumstances. But the prospect of his succession, while it animated the spirits of the Hugonots, filled the Catholics with a corresponding dread. They joined heartily in any scheme to exclude him, and, under the plea that his claims were forfeited by his religion, they chose to consider his uncle, the old cardinal of Bour- bon, as the immediate heir of the crown of France. The duke of Guise was the chief supporter of this choice, hoping that, as the cardinal was weak in intellect, and now infirm from age, he would (should he come to the crown) be but the shadow of a king, and that he himself should govern in his name. The king, however, would never consent to set aside the claims of the king of Navarre. a.d. i 5 83. UEisKY 111. 311 He sent pressing invitations to him, in his own and his mother's name, to come to court ; but the king of Navarre would not trust himself in their hands. On the 31st of December, 1584, was concluded a treaty called the treaty of Joinville, between the party of the duke of Guise and Philip II. of Spain, who took the title of Protector of the League. In the following year the war recommenced with the Protestants. This war has been called the War of the three Henrys : that is, Henry III. ; the king of Navarre ; and the duke of Guise. In 1587 the king of Navarre gained a signal victory over the royal army at Coutras ; but this victory he failed to improve as he ought. A considerable army of Germans entered France for the purpose of supporting the Hugonots, and penetrated into the centre of the kingdom, but was finally routed and almost exterminated by the duke of Guise. In 1588 the Hugonots sustained a great loss in the death of the prince of Conde. This prince of Conde was a man of great abilities, of the most strict and sincere integrity, and no way inferior to his cousin the king of Navarre in bravery and generosity of character. He was a Protestant from the purest principles of religion, and scorned every selfish and unworthy motive. This great man was poisoned by his own servants. His wife, Charlotte de la Trimouille, was detained many years in prison on suspicion of having been the instigator of the crime. She had one son, who was born a few months after the death of his father. During these transactions, the king, jealous of the League, which daily treated him with increased insolence and tyranny, knew not, and had not firmness to determine consistently, which way to turn. Too weak to cope either with the king of Navarre or the duke of Guise, he acted an insincere part towards both, sometimes treating openly with the one at the very moment that he was treating secretly with the other. Catherine also, as was her custom, acted perfidiously. She had formed a design, in defiance of the law, to advance the children of her favourite daughter, the duchess of Lorraine, to the succession to the crown. She affected to keep good friends with the king of Navarre, while she secretly courted the duke of Guise, in the hope of engaging him to favour her schemes. But Guise had still nearer interests of his own to serve, and aimed at procuring for himself, if not the crown itself, yet at least the exercise of all its power. He, however, with a dissimulation equal to Catherine's, aifected to lend a willing ear to her schemes, while he carefully con- cealed his own. The king became at length the object of an extreme and general distrust and contempt. The people, the Parisians more especially, could not help making disparaging comparisons between him and 3 i2 HENRY III. Chap. XXX. the duke of Guise, whom they idolized. Guise, by means of his agents, fomented the public disaffection, and several plots were formed to dethrone the king, and confine him in a monastery. One of the most active promoters of these plots was the duchess de Mont- pensier, Guise's sister, who, to revenge herself for some remarks which Henry had made on her want of personal beauty, took every means of turning him into ridicule, and lowering his authority. These designs against the king becoming daily more formidable, Henry in terror sent orders to the duke of Guise to abstain from coming to Paris. But Guise, his plots being ripe, came in defiance of him. He entered the city, May 9, 1588. He was received with acclamations of triumphant joy by the populace, and welcomed with apparent cordiality by Catherine, who undertook to mediate between him and the king. Henry was at length prevailed on to admit him into his presence. The duke, while he was with the king, kept his hand on his sword, and there is every reason to think that Henry had intended to order his guards to fall on him during the interview. But he was for the present suffered to retire unharmed, after having been loaded by the king with reproaches, to which he replied with apparent submission. After another day had passed, the king caused a body of four thousand Swiss soldiers to be brought into the city, with orders to post themselves in the squares and principal places. But the citizens, instigated by Guise and his party, assembled in prodigious numbers, and, overpowering the soldiers, proceeded to erect barricades, and to stretch chains across the streets, by way of protecting themselves against any attack from the king. These barricades were by degrees carried farther and farther, till they were advanced within a few steps of the Louvre. The shops were shut, the alarm-bells rung, and the town, from one end of it to the other, was in the greatest tumult. The king himself was every instant in expectation of being attacked in his palace. The marechals Biron and d'Aumont, who ventured to harangue the mob, were fired at, and obliged to retire. The duke of Guise, who had till now remained in his house, a passive spectator of the commotion, appeared at this crisis in the streets on horseback, unarmed, and with only a truncheon in his hand. His voice and presence instantly calmed the mob. He forbade the people to commit any violence, and at the same time he ordered the bar- ricades to be kept up, and the king to be vigilantly observed. Catherine endeavoured to restore tranquillity by negotiating. The mob, in the mean time, hourly increased. The king, during the night, found means to escape from the gardens at the back of the palace, and, mounting a horse, took the road to Chartres, leaving Guise almost entire master of the capital. Catherine remained behind, and continued her negotiations, and at last procured an a.d. 1588. HENRY III. 3 ! 3 apparent reconciliation. The terms of reconciliation included a pro- mise from the king to call an assembly of the states-general. It was the object of the duke of Guise to procure from this assembly, which met at Blois in the month of October following, a ratification of the king's other concessions, and he spared no pains to secure its mem- bers in his own interests. Henry, under these circumstances, determined to rid himself of his ambitious subject by resorting to the detestable act of assassina- tion. In the dead of the night of the 22nd of December he himself introduced nine of his body-guards into secret hiding-places, which he had had constructed in the passage leading to his own chamber, in the castle of Blois; and, arming them with poniards, he bade them lie in wait for their victim. A public council had been ap- pointed to be held in the castle at eight o'clock in the morning of the 23rd, and Guise had been summoned to attend it. The king's designs were known to so many persons, that the duke had that morning received no fewer than nine billets entreating him not to attend ; but he disregarded these friendly warnings, and looked on them as a contrivance of Henry's to intimidate him, and to induce him to leave Blois, where he knew that his presence was no longer desired. At the appointed hour, Guise, with his brother the cardinal of Guise, entered the council-room. The duke presently received a message to attend the king in his private chamber. By nature intrepid, he obeyed the summons without fear; but when he ap- proached the door of the royal apartment, he was suddenly beset by the assassins, and, after a desperate but short resistance, fell covered with wounds. Henry, from the scene of death, went to his mother's apartment, and said exultingly, "Now, madam, I am a king!" She neither blamed nor approved the deed, but coldly replied, "We shall see what will come of it." She urged him, however, to take instant measures to secure Paris, while yet in consternation at the first intelligence of this bloody transaction, and for checking the com- motions which might be expected to arise throughout the kingdom. Catherine was at this time ill, and indeed on the very brink of eternity. This miserable woman had no comfort in looking forward to what was to her a dreadful futurity. She saw the futility also of all her worldly schemes, and the ruin and misery which they had brought, and were still bringing, upon her race. The mental agita- tion which these reflections excited in her is commonly supposed to have hastened her end. The murder of the duke of Guise entangled Henry, as is com- monly the case, in other crimes. At the moment when Guise was assassinated, his brother the cardinal was arrested. On the following day, it being thought dangerous that he should survive, he, too, was France. P 3 i 4 HENRY III. Chap. XXX. sent for under pretence of speaking to the king, and was despatched by four soldiers, in one of the galleries of the castle. That night the two bodies were let down by ropes from the windows into a court, where they were burnt to ashes, in order to prevent any remains of them from being preserved. No sooner was the death of Guise known in Paris than the people became almost frantic, and their grief and indignation knew no bounds. The doctors of the Sorbonne, whose decrees were con- sidered as being almost as binding as laws, pronounced Henry of Valois to have forfeited his crown, and absolved his subjects from their oath of allegiance. The whole country was in a state of alarm and commotion. Whole provinces, and nearly all the chief cities, revolted; and Henry, instead of "finding himself a king," saw himself on the point of losing his crown. Utterly incapable of effecting anything for himself, he now again turned his eyes to the king of Navarre, and besought him to come to him, and to have compassion on his distressed condition. It was with some difficulty, arising partly from his abhorrence of the king's crimes, and partly from suspicions of his sincerity, that this prince could bring himself to pay attention to his entreaties. However, for this once he sus- pected him wrongfully. The king had now no intention to injure the only man who could assist him in his present abject condition. The two Henrys met April 30, 1589, in the park of the castle of Plessis les Tours, and a reconciliation took place, which appears to have inspired the king with some degree of courage and energy. He called together all the troops who still adhered to him, and, uniting his forces with those of the king of Navarre, assembled an army of 38,000 men. With this army the two kings appeared before Paris in the end of July. The alarm of the Parisians was excessive. They had not expected, and were totally unprepared for a siege. The duke de Mayenne, the surviving brother of the duke of Guise, who since his brother's death had been appointed head of the League, came to the relief of the capital with all the troops he could muster. But these were very inadequate to its defence, and Mayenne meditated the desperate resolution of putting himself at the head of four thousand of his best men, and either cutting his way through the besiegers, or perishing in the attempt. The fate of Paris had arrived at this awful crisis, when an unexpected event averted the destruction which seemed impending, and made an entire revolution in the affairs of the kingdom. On the 1st of August, 1589, a monk named James Clement, under pretence of having important communications to make to the king, obtained admittance into his chamber while he was dressing, and, presenting to him a paper for his perusal, almost immediately after- Cost. HENRY III. 3 1 5 wards stabbed him in the body with a knife which he had concealed in his sleeve. Henry wrenched the knife from the wound, and struck the assassin with it in the face. The attendants, rushing forward, soon despatched him with their swords, and thus all clue was lost to the motives which instigated him; and it was never known whether the deed had proceeded from his own malignant and fanatical disposition, or was perpetrated at the suggestion of others. Suspicion therefore had an ample range, and glanced by turns at the king of Spain, the duchess of Montpensier, and at all the principal supporters of the League. The king's wound did not, at first, appear to be mortal ; but, in the course of a few hours, his surgeons pronounced, on re-examina- tion, that he had not long to live. He sent for the king of Navarre, embraced him cordially, declared him his successor, and conjured him to renounce the reformed religion. He then confessed himself with much apparent devotion, and expired, August the 2nd. He was in the 38th year of his age, and had reigned fifteen years. He left no children by his queen, Louisa of Vaudemont, and in him the house of Valois became extinct. The family of Valois sat on the throne of France 261 years. Of the thirteen monarchs of this race it must be said that they were, for the most part, brave, magnificent, and lovers of the fine arts. They found the kingdom overrun by foreign enemies, hemmed in and curtailed on every side, and parcelled out into independent states. They expelled the English, they united Dauphine, Burgundy, Pro- vence, and Bretagne to their dominions, and left to their successors a great and well-compacted territory. On the other hand, these kings were, with few exceptions, arbitrary and ambitious, lovers of conquest rather than of the prosperity of their people, On whose rights they trampled unscrupulously. They ground down the poor by taxes and impositions, and degraded the nobles by bestowing the highest dignities on mean and unworthy favourites, a practice unheard of among their predecessors. In the year 1564 an edict had been published in France fixing the commencement of the year on the first of January, instead of begin- ning it on Easter-day, as had till then been the custom. Pope Gregory XIIL's reformation of the Calendar was adopted in France in 1585. The Protestant countries of Europe long rejected it, because they regarded it as a popish ordinance. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXX. Richard. Of all those thirteen Valois kings, I think I like this Henry III. the least. To be sure he was not worse than Louis XL, but then he was more contemptible. P2 316 HENRY III. Chap. XXX. Mrs. Markham. Henry III. was a disgusting mixture of folly and vice. He was exceedingly vain of his personal appearance, and painted his face red and white, and wore some kind of plasters at night to improve his complexion. He also slept in gloves to make his hands white, and stained his hair to hide its natural colour, which was red. Mary. I thought it was nobody but only very silly women indeed who did those sort of things. George. I think his being so fond of inventing new fashions in dress was another thing in which he was like a very silly woman. Mrs. M. He became bald while quite young, which was probably the effect of the dye which he used for his hair ; and to conceal his baldness he latterly wore a Turkish turban. Mary. How very strange he must have looked with his painted face and his turban ? Mrs. M. The duke de Sully had an interview with him during the time of his greatest distress, and thus describes his appear- ance : — " I found him in his closet, a sword by his side, and short cloak on his shoulders, little turban on his head, and about his neck was hung a basket, in which were two or three little dogs, no bigger than my fist." George. A basketful of little dogs! I should as soon have ex- pected to find him playing, like a girl, with a doll. Mrs. M. He was often found playing with a cup and ball : and this amusement soon became so fashionable at court, that not only the gentlemen, but also the pages and lacqueys, were perpetually seen engaged in it. Richard; I suppose a foolish king will make foolish courtiers. George. I hope there will soon be an end of these civil wars, and of all their cruelties. I am getting very tired of them. Mrs. M. Amongst their many evil consequences, one of the worst was their effect on the minds of all ranks of people, whose feelings were made callous by familiarity with scenes of blood, and their malignant passions fostered by the violence of party spirit, till they seemed to be insensible to all difference between right and wrong. All writers agree that the character of the French people underwent a great change for the worse during the reigns of the three last kings of the house of Valois. Richard. Pray, mamma, had the soldiers who fought in the civil wars regular pay like other soldiers ? Mrs. M. They had a nominal pay, but they did not receive it very regularly. They were often driven to obtain the necessaries of life by the plunder of the peasants, and were, in fact, little better than authorized banditti. Conv. HENRY III. 3I7 George. It seems to me that the soldiers of old times were seldom anything else. Mrs. M. It must, indeed, be owned, that whatever may be the case now, war and robbery, in former times, went hand-in-hand. I have met with an account of the Italian wars in the reign of Henry II., in which it is said that the French soldiers acquired by plunder such prodigious wealth, that it was no uncommon thing to see the private men clothed in velvet and gold. One man's dress is de- scribed as of green satin, with gold coins for buttons. But in the civil wars all this wealth disappeared, and the French soldiery might have then passed muster in Falstaff's ragged regiment. We need not except even Henry IV., who in a letter to the duke of Sully, written in the early part of his reign, complains that his shirts were all torn, and that he had not a doublet which was not out at the elbows, and that he had not a coat of armour which he could wear. Bichard. Then armour was still worn at that time ? Mrs. M. It did not disappear finally till the seventeenth century. The offensive arms and defensive armour used in France came chiefly from Italy. The French, though in many arts extremely inge- nious, have never, from the earliest time to the present day, possessed much skill in working in iron and steel. Bichard. What fire-arms were in use at the time of the French civil wars? Mrs. M. The arquebuss, which had succeeded to the cross-bow, had now in its turn given place to muskets, and the cavalry had exchanged their lances for pistols. The musket of that day, in con- sequence of its extreme weight, was not brought into use without great opposition. George. Did the French excel now in their artillery as much as they did in the time of Charles VHI. ? Mrs. M. During the civil wars, there appears to have been on both sides a great deficiency of cannon. At the battle of Coutras the king of Navarre had only three field-pieces, and the royal army only two. Queen Elizabeth, in a moment of generosity, sent the Hugonots a present of nine cannon, which were considered a great acquisition. Mary. And I think it was very generous in her. Mrs. M. The prince of Conde thought so too, and wished much to make her a handsome present in return ; but he was so poor, and his party so much reduced, that nothing could be found to send her but some wool, and some bells which had been taken from a church in Normandy. George. Could not the king of Navarre, too, have found something to send ? Mrs. M. The king of Navarre was not much richer than Conde. 318 HENRY III. Chap. XXX. It had long been the policy of the family of Valois to depress, as much as they could, the house of Bourbon. And the royal revenues of Navarre, with Henry's Bourbon patrimony, and his wife's portion included, did not amount to so much as six thousand pounds sterling a-year, — a small sum to maintain an army and to keep up kingly state with. George. It was not surprising then that his doublets, poor man, were out at elbows ! Richard. Pray, mamma, when were regimental uniforms first adopted ? Mrs. M. During the civil wars of France some distinction of dress was adopted by the nobles and officers of each party. The Catholics wore crimson jackets and scarfs, and the Hugonots white ones ; but this was as a badge of party, and not as a military uni- form. The first attempt I have found mentioned to dress the French soldiers in uniform was made by Henry III., who clothed his Swiss guards in suits of gray. Richard. I fear the arts and sciences were sadly neglected during these terrible civil wars. Mrs. M. All great public works and general improvements were at a stand. But so great an impulse had now been given to the human mind, that, notwithstanding the calamities of the times, knowledge of all kinds went on increasing. Amongst other arts, that of surgery made great progress. George. Why, the art of surgery was likely enough to thrive in a time of such constant war. Mrs. M. Much is said of the superior skill of Ambrose Pare, the Hugonot surgeon whose life was spared by Charles IX. at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Richard. Pare* ! That was the name of the man who first made that happy discovery, of which you told us in the History of England, that boiling oil was not good for gun-shot wounds. Mrs. M. Surgery before his time was more a butchery than a healing art, and the usual way of stopping the blood was to sear the wound with red-hot irons. There was one man, however, of the name of Doublet, who did not pursue so barbarous a method. This man had the reputation of curing wounds by magic, and it must be owned that some of his cures were very surprising. . Mary. You are not serious, mamma! He did not really cure them by magic ? Mrs. M. He used to repeat certain magical incantations, after which he washed the wound with plain water, and bound it up with clean linen bandages. George. It was not fair upon the plain water and the clean linen that the magic should get all the credit. Conv. HENRY III. 319 Mrs. M. But there was another way also of stopping the blood, without magic, and without searing the part: this was, for some person to hold his thumb on the wound till it should cease bleeding. George. Then which did they call the patient, mamma, the man with the wound, or the man with the thumb ? Richard. So much for the art of surgery. And how was it in the mean time with the art of poetry ? Mrs. M. Jodelle, Desportes, and Eonsard, were poets who enlivened this melancholy period. Jodelle was the father of French tragedy, and Desportes was famed for his elegies ; but it is Eonsard's name which has come down to us with most honour. He was the author of the Franciad, the first French epic, and his writings are said to have greatly improved the French language, which before his time was very unpolished and inharmonious. Richard. Is his poetry much admired now ? Mrs. M. In England it is scarcely known, and little read, I should think, even in France. But there was a time when it formed the universal study of all well-educated persons. It was the delight of our queen Elizabeth and her court, and the solace of Mary Stuart in her prison. Mary sent Eonsard a splendid present of a silver beaufet, on which was a representation of Mount Parnassus, as a token of gratitude for the beguiling of her sorrows, which she had derived from the perusal of his poetry. Richard. "Were there any famous prose-writers at that time ? Mrs. M. The essays of Montaigne are very celebrated, and I be- lieve very clever ; and there are a great number of private memoirs, a species of writing in which the French particularly excell. One of the most valuable books of this kind is the Memoirs of the Duke of Sully, the faithful friend and virtuous minister of Henry IV. These memoirs give us circumstantial and highly interesting details of the chief transactions of the reigns of Henry III. and Henry IV. George. Were the schools under better discipline now than they used to be ? Mrs. M. You shall judge for yourself. Here is an account by a French gentleman of a school he was at at Toulouse. " Being in the year 1545 fourteen years old, I was sent with my brother to study the law under the superintendence of an ancient gentleman. "We were auditors during three years, leading a much stricter life, and studying more severely, than persons of the present time would suppose. "We rose at four in the morning, and, having said our prayers, began our studies at five, our great books under our arms, and our inkstands and candlesticks in our hands. "We listened to all the lectures till ten without intermission, and then dined, after having in haste run over the substance of the lectures,, which we had taken down in writing. After dinner, as a matter of amusement, 320 HENRY III. Chap. XXX. we read Greek plays, or Demosthenes, &c. At one o'clock to our studies again. At five, home, to repeat and look out in our books for the passages cited. Then we supped, and read in Greek and Latin. On holidays we went to mass and vespers, and during the remainder of the day we had a little music and walking." George. Truly, there was no great relaxation of discipline there. Mrs. M. Amongst the things worthy to be noted of this period is the first introduction of telescopes into France. Snuff also was first used in France about this time. It was called Vherbe a la reine, because Catherine de Medicis was extremely fond of it, and used to take it. George. And for that very reason I never will. Mrs. M. I forgot, when I was speaking of Henry III.'s capricious- ness in dress, to say that he left off the large ruffs which were much in fashion when he came to the crown. Mary. I suppose he thought they misbecame him. Mrs. M. He left them off because he took it into his head that the person, whose business it was to pin on his ruff, had been bribed by his brother, the duke of Alencon, to scratch him in the nape of the neck with a poisoned pin. Manoir of Xaintrailles : cradle of Pothon de Xaintrailles A.D. 1589. HENRY IV. 321 CHAPTER XXXI. HENRY IV., SURNAMED LE GRAND Years after Christ, 1589 — 16 10. Henry IV., Queen, and Dauphin, When the melancholy catastrophe which put an end to the troubled and ignominious reign of Henry III. was known in Paris, the Pari- sians abandoned themselves to the most disgraceful excesses of joy. The duchess of Montpensier ran about the streets exclaiming, " Good news ! good news ! the tyrant is dead ! " In the mean time all was confusion and consternation in the royal camp. There was no nearer male heir than the king of Navarre : but still his claim was by many considered too remote to be admitted as a clear title to the throne, he being related to the late king only in the eleventh degree. The party of the League refused to acknow- ledge his claim; they affected to call him, from the place of his birth, le Bearnais, and caused the old cardinal de Bourbon, who was still a prisoner, to be proclaimed king by the title of Charles X. The nobles in the royal army were chiefly inclined to the cause of Henry, and, as soon as they had recovered from the surprise into which the death of Henry III. had thrown them, acknowledged him as king. The duke of Epernon, and some others, however, professed to take no part in the contest, and withdrew with a large portion of the troops. Henry with his diminished forces found it impossible to continue the siege of Paris, and as soon as he had consigned the remains of P3 322 HENRY IV. Chap. XXXI. the last of the Valois to a humble grave in the church of Compeigne, he broke up his camp and retired into Normandy. Thither Mayenne followed, and was defeated by Henry, first at Arques, and afterwards at Ivri. These victories, though they did much to raise Henry's character, and encouraged his friends, were yet very far from putting him in possession of the kingdom. The party of the League was far more numerous than Ins own, and was held together by the gold and influence of the king of Spain, who was desirous to sub- vert the principles of the Salic law, and obtain the crown of France for Iris daughter Clara Isabella, or, as some authors call her, Clara Eugenia. In addition to the difficulties thrown in his way by his enemies, Henry suffered also many embarrassments from his friends. The Catholics who had joined his party could have no toleration for the Hugonots, who on their part had no cordiality for the Catholics. They were each jealous of the other, and were always fancying them- selves not sufficiently valued by the king. Nor had Henry any sup- port from the members of his own family. The young prince of Conde, the next heir after him to the crown, was quite a boy, and could give him no assistance whatever. The three uncles of Conde had neither influence nor abilities, and the only prince of the blood who possessed either was the duke de Montpensier, but he was lost to the royal cause by the vehement politics of his wife. Henry thus stood alone, and had to contend unsupported with all the burdens of his difficult situation. He was now in the thirty- sixth year of his age, and had been tried from his earliest years in the hard school of adversity. He was blessed with a frank and cheerful disposition, and with gay and buoyant spirits. Prompt and vigilant, he was always ready to act. He was sparing in his own personal expenses, but generous and liberal to others. He pos- sessed in an eminent degree those truly royal virtues, valour and clemency ; and is said to have subdued his enemies as much by the one as by the other. He was a man of great sincerity and simplicity of manners, and the French found in him what they had long been unaccustomed to, a king without artifice or dissimulation. He also possessed another virtue, at this time a very rare one, namely, hu- manity. His compassion and tenderness of heart endeared him particularly to all the lower ranks of the people, who were but little accustomed to receive kindness from their superiors. He was not without faults, and those very serious ones, but I will not spoil his portrait by naming them now. When circumstances force them upon our notice, it will be time enough to speak of them. He was tall and well made. He had a clear complexion, well-proportioned features, and an open, engaging countenance. The duke de Mayenne, who may be considered as Henry's chief a.d. 1590. HENRY IV. 323 opponent, was in almost all respects Ins entire reverse. He was slow in all his movements, heavy in his person, a great eater, and a great sleeper. Ho took on all occasions a long time to deliberate, and, though his judgment was good, yet his efforts were commonly unavailing, through Ins over caution and dilatoriness. He was a bad manager of his affairs, profuse in expense, and always in diffi- culties. His manners were grave and ungracious, and he owed the consideration in which he was held more to the cause he was engaged in than to any popular attachment to himself. In 1590 the League lost their phantom of a king, Charles X., who died, it should appear, perfectly innocent of any wish to supersede the better rights of his nephew. In this year, Henry, after taking Melun, and some other places, laid siege to Paris. The citizens had made no preparations of any kind, and as soon as they were invested by the royal army, and their supplies cut off, it was found that they had not sufficient provision or ammunition to enable them to stand a siege. But nevertheless they were determined not to yield. Dis- like of the Hugonots seems to have been felt more strongly at Paris than anywhere else, and animated the inhabitants in their opposition to Henry. The governor of Paris was the duke de Nemours, Mayenne's half- brother. He was young and inexperienced, but active and full of zeal; and the city was soon put into a good state of defence. The breaches in the walls were repaired, a large quantity of gunpowder was manufactured, the people formed themselves into companies to learn the use of arms, and every family contributed its copper culi- nary vessels to be converted into cannon. But all this time their provisions were fast diminishing, and at length the calamities of famine began to be severely felt. But even when numbers were dying of hunger, a capitulation was never thought of. The duchess de Montpensier encouraged the citizens by her unceasing exhortations to a persevering resistance. The pope's legate assured them that they would obtain absolution of their sins, and that those who fell would inherit the crown of mar- tyrdom in virtue of their steady defence of the true faith. The Spanish ambassador distributed money and provisions, and cheered them with the promise of speedy relief. Notwithstanding all these efforts, however, the king would easily have taken the city by assault, could he have prevailed with him- self to adopt so violent a measure. " I am," said he, " the true father of my people. I would much rather never have Paris, than possess it by the death and ruin of so many persons." This cle- mency saved the city. When it was at length reduced to the last distress, and incapable, it is said, of holding out more than four days longer, the duke of Parma, the greatest general of his age, 324 HENRY IV. Chap. XXXI. arrived at the head of a considerable Spanish army, and obliged Henry to raise the siege. On the 30th of August, 1590, the sentinels who had been keeping watch all night on the walls, perceived, at break of day, that the royal army was decamping. Their cries of joy at this unexpected sight were so loud and vehement, that the awakened and astonished citizens imagined that some fresh calamity had befallen them. But when they were brought to comprehend that the siege was raised, they were as if in a delirium. Some crowded to the ramparts to convince themselves that the news was really true ; others rushed out of the gates in quest of provisions ; while others repaired to the churches to return thanks to God for their deliverance. Henry, having in vain endeavoured to bring the duke of Parma to an engagement, was compelled to disband his forces and to retreat. In the following year he undertook the siege of Kouen. Parma again came to the assistance of the League, and obliged him to raise the siege. The united army of the duke of Parma, and of the League, was afterwards hemmed in by the royal forces near Cau- debec, and only escaped by crossing the Seine in the dead of night, May 20, 1592. The duke of Parma, who had been long in an infirm state of health, died at Arras, December 3 of the same year. The events of this war proved sufficiently to Henry that nothing but the renunciation of the Protestant religion could possibly fix him firmly on the throne. A sense of honour, perhaps, and the fear of alienating the queen of England, had weighed more to hinder him from taking that step than any real interest which he himself took in the distinctions between the Protestant and the Catholic faith. He had before this time declared a willingness to listen to the in- structions of Koman Catholic divines, and probably contemplated the being one day reconciled to their church. But an event now occurred which compelled him to decide without delay. In 1593 the states-general were assembled, and proceeded so far as to offer the crown to the Spanish Infanta, on the condition that she should marry a French Catholic prince. The young duke of Guise was fixed on as her future husband. Under these circumstances, Henry, on July 25, 1593, made a public abjuration of Protestantism. To complete his entire recon- ciliation with the Eomish church, there now remained nothing but the pope's absolution, for which his ambassadors at Eome laboured earnestly, but for some time unsuccessfully. The duke of Mayenne, and some of the stanchest adherents of the League, contended that, until Henry had received absolution, he could not be considered as a legitimate sovereign. But notwithstanding this opposition, daily increasing numbers of the nobles flocked to tender him their sub- mission, and Henry received them with a frankness and kindness, a.d. 1598. HENRY IV. 325 and with a seeming forgetfulness of the past, which served to rivet their obedience to his authority. Kheims was in the hands of the League, and Henry was therefore crowned at Chartres, Feb. 27, 1594 A new crown and sceptre were made for the occasion, the regalia of France, amongst which was the golden crown of the Carlovingians, which had long been trea- sured as a valuable relic, having been seized by the duke de Nemours and melted down to supply the necessities of the League. On March 22nd Henry was received into Paris. In 1595 he at length obtained his long-desired absolution from the pope. The duke of Mayenne was now deprived of all plea for withholding the submission due to his sovereign. Henry concluded a treaty with him early in the year 1596, and received and treated him with so much nobleness and generosity that he was ever after one of his most faithful servants. The remaining members of the League followed the example of their leader, and thus France at last saw the termination of those troubles with which she had been distracted ever since the death of Henry II., a period of thirty-seven years. Domestic tranquillity being thus happily restored, the war with Spain was comparatively of little importance. The archduke Albert, governor of the Low Countries, to whom Philip had promised his daughter in marriage, made an inroad into France in 1596, and took Calais and Ardres. Henry, whose finances were not yet re- cruited, applied in this emergency to the queen of England. Eliza- beth, after making some difficulties on account of the displeasure she felt at his change of religion, entered into an alliance with him, and sent him a supply of troops. In this alliance the Dutch after- wards joined. In 1597 the Spaniards took Amiens. But Henry retook it after an obstinate siege of six months. During the siege he was often tempted to try a pitched battle, which the archduke appeared to seek. But the caution of Mayenne was here of signal use in pre- venting the king from running so great a risk. Mayenne said to him, " Sire, you are come here to take Amiens, and not to fight." Soon after the recapture of Amiens, Philip II., who was now old and infirm, and aware that his life and his ambitious projects would soon close together, became desirous of peace. A treaty was com- menced under the pope's mediation, and finally concluded at Ver- vins, in Picardy, May 2, 1598. By this treaty the Spaniards agreed to give up Calais, and, with slight exceptions, all their other con- quests in France. In the following September Philip II. died, and was succeeded in the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal by his only son Philip in., a youth of very mean capacity. Franche Comte and the Low Countries were settled on Clara Isabella, who married the archduke Albert. 326 HENRY IV. Chap. XXXI. A short time before the conclusion of the peace of Vervins, Henry- granted an edict called the edict of Nantes, in favour of the Hugo- nots, by which the exercise of their religion was, with some slight restrictions, permitted, and by which they were made admissible to all places of honour and dignity in the state. These concessions did not satisfy the Hugonots, who distrusted the king ever after his change of religion, and who, though now by law admissible into all offices of the state, yet found themselves, in point of fact, almost excluded from them. The French in general, however, were de- lighted with their king, and began to feel the happiness of a well- organized government. The taxes, it is true, remained as high as in the preceding reign, but they were paid without murmuring, Pont Neuf and Tour de Ne3le. because ihe people were persuaded that the revenue was now ex- pended with a strict and honest judgment and frugality. But what may be considered as Henry's greatest praise was the attention which he paid to the condition of the peasantry, whose wants and sufferings had hitherto been overlooked by their sovereigns. During an insurrection which arose in the beginning of the reign amongst the peasants of Guienne, the king, instead of sending troops to ex- terminate them, as was the customary method of quelling such disturbances, had their complaints inquired into, and, as far as was possible, redressed. The peasants immediately returned to their duty, and became a most attached and loyal portion of his subjects. i Another object of this great king was to promote arts and manu- factures. The silk-trade of Lyons owes to him its birth and en- a.d. i6o2. HENRY IV. 327 couragement. He began many public buildings, and finished others which he had found incomplete. Amongst these was the Pont Neuf. He continued the improvements which Charles IX. had commenced at the Louvre ; and also made great additions to the Tuileries ; but these palaces were not completed till the reign of his grandson, Louis XIV. In all that Henry did, he found a most able assistant in his faithful friend and servant Kosny, on whom he conferred the title of duke of Sully. Sully, although a Hugonot, was made chief minister of finance, and held other important offices in the state. He was thoroughly deserving of the king's confidence, and seems to have had no other object at heart but the honour of his royal master and the good of his country. Few characters in history have ever been more popular than that of Henry. He is beyond all comparison the favourite monarch of the French, and merits this distinction by his alert spirit and happy temper, and by having possessed all the endearing qualities of a kind and frank disposition. I wish, as I have already told you, that we could cast a veil over his vices. But it must not be con- cealed that he indulged a passion for gambling, and licentious attachments to his various mistresses, in the most disgraceful and intemperate degree. In 1599 he obtained a divorce from Margaret of Valois, and the same year married Mary de Medicis, niece to the grand duke of Tuscany. Mary was a woman of a weak mind and violent temper. She was entirely governed by her Italian favourites, and her per- petual quarrels with the king made the court a continued scene of dissension. These quarrels were chiefly excited or fomented by Henrietta d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil, the king's mistress, a woman of a sharp and lively wit, who made the queen the perpetual theme of her pleasantries. She also attempted to create disturbances in the state, and, though her practices were discovered, Henry's infatuation was so great, that the knowledge of her perfidy could not estrange him from her. A war broke out in 1600 with the duke of Savoy, which was how- ever terminated early in the following year, by a treaty greatly to the honour and advantage of Henry, and which acquired for the French monarchy some accession of territory. During several years which followed, and which have been called the golden age of France, few public events of any moment occurred. That which attracts most interest is the unhappy fate of marechal Biron, who, after having been the king's faithful servant in his adversities, was now found guilty of a treasonable correspondence with the Spanish government. He was beheaded July 31, 1602. While Biron was engaged in this treason, the due de Bouillon, one of the great leaders of the Protestants, was seen also to meditate an 328 HENRY IV. Chap. XXXI. insurrection. But, apprehensive of being arrested, he quitted France and went to Geneva. In 1606 Henry proposed to reduce by arms the duke's little principality of Sedan, which was situate on the frontier of Flanders; but the town surrendered at the king's ap- proach. Letters of pardon were granted to the duke, who, hasten- ing to the king's presence, and throwing himself at his feet, was again received into favour. Historians have dwelt much, and the duke of Sully in particular, on a darling project of Henry, to unite all Christendom into a sort of Christian republic, in which each state should be secured from the aggression of any other, and thus all should be at liberty to carry on war against the infidels. In this new crusade Henry, I suppose, intended that he himself should be appointed generalis- simo. He communicated the project as early as the year 1601 to his firm friend and ally our queen Elizabeth, who, though she pro- bably thought the plan chimerical, was too politic to discountenance it. But Henry's immediate object was to reduce the power of the house of Austria, his inveterate, and long his dangerous enemy. With this end in view, he passed the latter years of his life in putting his army into the most efficient condition, and in amassing a very considerable treasure. In the spring of 1610 he prepared to set his forces in motion, on the pretext of some disputes with the emperor Eodolph. Before his departure for the army, which he intended to command in person, the queen demanded to be solemnly crowned. Henry was unwilling to grant her request, as well on account of the expense it would occasion as the delay which it would cause to his departure. Yet he did not like to refuse her this gratification. The coronation accordingly took place with all becoming splendour, May 13, 1610. Amidst the general expression of gaiety, the king alone wore a face of dejection, and seemed to take no pleasure in the passing scene. This melancholy has been attributed by the superstitious to a pre- sentiment of his approaching fate, though it may naturally enough be supposed to have solely arisen from his being vexed at the delay of his enterprise. It was settled that on the 15th of May the queen was to make a grand entry into Paris. The happy citizens were busily occupied with their preparations for this pompous ceremony. Triumphal arches were being erected in all the streets through which the pro- cession was to pass, and the whole city was a scene of bustle and expectation. All this joyous scene was of a sudden painfully inter- rupted. On May the 14th, the day after the coronation, the king went in his coach, attended by six noblemen, to visit Sully, who was confined by sickness to his house. On the way the coach was stopped in a narrow street by two carts. Instantly a man jumped upon the Conv. HENRY IV. 329 hind wheel of the coach and plunged a knife into the breast of the king, who was reading a letter, and did not even see his assassin. Some authors say that the king exclaimed, * I am wounded ! " others, that he expired instantly with a deep-drawn sigh. The noblemen who were in the coach closed the leathern curtain, which at that time served instead of blinds or windows, and ordered the coach- man to drive back to the Louvre. The carriage might be tracked the whole way by the blood which flowed from it. On arriving at the palace, the dead body was laid upon a bed, and the courtiers assembled in haste and agitation to deliberate on what was to be done. The queen was declared regent. The whole transaction passed so rapidly, that at four o'clock the king was in good health, and before half-past six the queen was established in the regency. No sooner was Henry's death known in the city than the people ran about the streets in grief and consternation. The murderer, whose name was Ravaillac, had been seized as he was still standing on the wheel, brandishing his knife, as if in triumph. He appeared to be a bewildered fanatic, whose only motive for committing the crime was bigotry. He probably thought that Henry's preparations against Spain and the emperor would operate to the disadvantage of the Catholic faith. The king's life had been attempted several times before; and once, in 1594, he was actually wounded in the mouth by a young man named James Chatal. In consequence of a suspicion that CMtal had been instigated to this crime by some Jesuits, the order of the Jesuits was banished from France, but was afterwards re- called in 1603. Henry died on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age and the twenty-second of his reign. He had no children by his first wife, Margaret of Valois. By his second wife, Mary of Medicis, he had two sons and three daughters : — (1.) Louis, who succeeded his father. (2.) Gaston, duke of Orleans. (3.) Elizabeth, married Philip IV. of Spain. (4.) Chris- tian, married the prince of Piedmont. (5.) Henrietta Maria, married Charles I. of England. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXXI. Mary. What a grief it must have been to that good duke of Sully, when his dear master king Henry was killed ! Mrs. Markham. You shall have the account of his affliction in his own words. " In the cruel heart-sinking the news of the king my dear master's murder threw me into, it occurred to me that, although the wound might be mortal, there yet might remain some small sparks of life. My mind greedily snatched at this faint glimpse of 330 HENRY IV. Chap. XXXI. hope and consolation. I called to those about me to bring me my clothes and my boots, to saddle some good horses, and that all my people should hold themselves in readiness to accompany me. I had at that moment only two or three of my servants near me. The rest of my people, believing that my illness would prevent me from stirring abroad, and even from dressing myself, had dispersed them- selves different ways; but the news of the king's wound brought them all back; and by the time I had got on horseback, I had, including them and other persons who were attached to me, a train of a hundred horsemen. The consternation and public grief were a proof how tenderly this prince was beloved in his capital. It was very touching to see in how many different ways the people of this great city expressed their affection and their regrets: the groans, the tears, the mournful silence, the doleful cries, the arms raised towards heaven, the hands clasped together. This was the spectacle which everywhere presented itself to my view. Some persons who met me, with grief-stricken countenances, exclaimed, ' Ah, sir, we are lost (nous sommes perdus) : our good king is dead ! ' " Mary. And what did Sully do when he found that the king was really dead? Mrs. M. He turned about and returned home, where, overcome with grief and fatigue, he took to his bed. The next day at the pressing instances of the queen, he repaired to the Louvre. " When I found myself," says he, " in the presence of the queen, the little fortitude with which I had armed myself entirely forsook me, and I abandoned myself to sobs and tears. She, also, no longer main- tained that firmness with which she had prepared to receive me. She had the young king brought in, whose caresses and embraces were a new trial under which my heart had well nigh sunk. I do not remember what that young prince said to me, nor what I said to him. I only know that they had some difficulty in tearing him from my arms, I held him so tightly clasped/'" Richard. Did Sully, like his master, change his religion ? Mrs. M. No ; he always remained a Hugonot. The pope laboured hard to prevail with him to turn Catholic, but Sully's answer was, " that he would never cease to pray for the conversion of his holi- ness." Sully was a grave, dignified personage, and kept up such a solemn state in his family, that it almost resembled the court of a sovereign. George. Where did he live ? Mrs. M. His favourite residence was at Villebon, about twenty leagues from Paris. Here he was surrounded by such a host of attendants, that on some occasion, when above eighty of them were ill, their absence was scarcely perceived. Mary. What could he find for such a tribe of people to do ? Conv. HENRY IV. 331 Mrs. M. In the first place he had his four secretaries ; then he had his Swiss guard : the duchess had her maids of honour. But the easiest way to make you comprehend the style of things at Ville- bon will be to describe to you the manner of life the duke led there, after his retirement from public affairs. "The duke rose early. After his prayers he set himself to work with his secretaries. Their occupation consisted in arranging his papers, in looking over and correcting his memoirs, in answering letters, and in various other matters of business. Thus he passed the whole morning, till an hour before dinner, when he went out to take the air. Then was rung the great bell on the bridge, to give notice that the duke was going to walk. At the sound of the bell, almost all the household assembled in his apartment, and arranged themselves in a file. The duke then issued forth, preceded by his esquires, his gentlemen, and his officers, headed by two Swiss bearing their halberds. Some one of his family walked by his side, with whom he conversed, and he was followed by a train of officers and soldiers." Mary. dear, mamma ! and all that fuss just to take a little walk ! Mrs. M. " This solemn walk being ended, the duke entered the eating-room, which was a vast apartment hung with pictures repre- senting the most memorable actions of his own life and of that of his royal master. In this room stood a table as long as the table of a refectory. At the top were two arm-chairs for the duke and duchess. All their sons and daughters, whether married or single, were seated on little stools. Such in those days was the subordina- tion of children to their parents. They did not even venture to sit down in their presence without permission. As soon as dinner was over, at which there would frequently be many guests, the company rose and went into another room, where, after a short time, the duke would leave them, and return to work with his secretaries, till it was time to take his afternoon walk." Mary. I hope that this time he went without all that train of people. Mrs. M. The formalities of the afternoon walk were precisely like those of the morning. After a few turns the duke would commonly go through a little covered walk which divided the flower and kitchen gardens : then up a flight of stone steps into a grand alley of lime-trees. There he would place himself on a little bench, and leaning his two elbows on a sort of summer-house window, would enjoy the view of a beautiful terrace below, of a large pond, of his park, and of a fine distant country beyond. George. I should like well enough to have seen that garden, though I should not have liked that Swiss guard. Mrs. M. The French were at this time beginning to take great pleasure in embellishing their gardens, which were usually laid out 332 HENRY IV. Chap. XXXI. in terraces, alleys, and straight rows of trees, and were full of busts, urns, and statues. Richard. Were the houses at that time as much decorated as the gardens ? Mrs. M. The chief splendour of great houses consisted in the beauty of the tapestry, carpets, and bed-hangings. In all other respects there was a wretched deficiency of what we should call furniture. Excepting one or two arm-chairs for the heads of the family, the apartments usually contained only one coarse, long table, some stools, a few benches, and several chests or coffers, which also served as seats. Mary. It would seem very strange in these days to see such a mixture of fine hangings and shabby furniture. Mrs. M. When the constable Montmorenci was killed, in the reign of Charles IX., he was brought to his own house and lay in state in a hall, the walls of which were hung with crimson velvet, bordered with pearls. The pillows of the bed on which he was laid were covered with gold tissue, and the quilt was of cloth of gold bordered with ermine, and was thirty yards square. Monument of Montmorenci George. I hope they did not put living men under such a load of quilt. Can you tell us, mamma, anything about the houses of the middle class of people at this time ? They, I suppose, did not hang their rooms with velvet and pearls. Mrs. M. The walls of many houses were at this time wainscoted in panels. A fashion of covering them with gilt leather was also in vogue. I have met with an account of a French country-house of the sixteenth century, which gives the following description of the principal, perhaps the only sitting-room. " This hall was very large. At one end were a stag's antlers, which were placed there for the Conv. HENRY IV. 333 purpose of hanging up hats, caps, dog-couples, and the chaplet of paternosters. At the opposite end of the hall were bows and arrows, targets, swords, halberds, pikes, and cross-bows. In the great window were three harquebusses, with a variety of nets, and other apparatus for rural sports. In the coffers were coats of mail laid up in bran, to prevent their getting rusty. Under the benches was a plentiful provision of clean straw for the dogs to he on." Mary. My dear mamma, how uncomfortable you would have been in such a littery place ! Mrs. M. But amidst all this litter there were two shelves, on which were ranged the Bible, Ogier the Dane, the Shepherd's Calen- dar, the Golden Legend, and the Eomance of the Eose. Richard. So I see the Eomance of the Eose was not yet out of fashion. Well, I am glad there were a few books to make amends for all the rest ! George. Were there any great writers in the reign of Henry IV.? Mrs. M. The greatest writer of this period was James Augustus de Thou. He wrote a long and minute general history of the period comprised between the years 1545 and 1607, a work which stands in very high estimation. There were in this reign also several writers of memoirs. One of the most distinguished of these (after Sully) was Theodore d'Aubigne. He was a natural son of Anthony king of Navarre, and consequently half-brother to Henry IV. D'Aubigne was grandfather of the famous madame de Maintenon, of whom I shall have much to say when we come to the reign of Louis XIV. Mary. I could not help being angry with the people of the League for keeping Paris so long from the king. And yet, at the same time, I felt very sorry for the sufferings of the poor Parisians. Mrs. M. Paris was so cruelly desolated during the siege, that when Henry obtained possession of it, he found the streets over- grown with grass, the courts of law deserted, many of the shops and of the houses of the nobility shut up. The suburbs presented a still more melancholy appearance ; for the houses, having been abandoned by their inhabitants, had been used by the neighbouring peasantry as places of shelter for their cattle. Henry's first care was to restore his capital to its former flourishing condition ; and he laboured with so much success, that when the Spanish ambassadors came to Paris to complete the treaty of Vervins, they could not help express- ing their admiration at the great improvement which had taken place in the city since they were there in the time of the League. The king replied, " When the master is absent, all things get into disorder; but when he is returned, his presence ornaments the house, and all things profit." George. I don't know whether all things go wrong when you and 3 34 HENRY IV. Chap. XXXI. papa are from home, but I know the house always seems very dull without you ! Richard. Pray, mamma, when were coaches first introduced into France ? Mrs. M. In the reign of Henry II. For a long time there were only three coaches in Paris. The queen had one; Diana of Poitiers had another; and the third belonged to a corpulent nobleman, who, being too fat to ride on horseback, was obliged to be carried in a coach "like a woman:" for at first coaches were entirely appro- priated to the ladies, and it was considered as very effeminate for a man to be seen in one. George. But it seems that in time the gentlemen got the better of their prejudices ; for instance, king Henry IV. himself. Mrs. M. It is recorded of Henry that, though he was as bold as a lion on horseback, he was more timorous than a woman in a coach, and would turn pale if it went the least awry. George. I dare say it was because he was apt to be sick in a carriage. It could not possibly be from fear. Mrs. M. It was from superstitious fear. An astrologer had told him that he should die in a coach. Mary. And you see, mamma, it really did come true. Mrs. M. It is difficult for even sensible people to avoid being affected by a reigning folly. The reigning folly of this age was the belief in soothsayers and astrologers, whom it was customary to con- sult on every occasion ; and amidst their various and often contra- dictory predictions, it would have been very odd if some had not now and then come true. Richard. When Henry became king of France did he become fond of pomp and show, as all the other kings of France did who went before him ? Mrs. M. He was frugal in his own habits, but encouraged his courtiers in expense, from the principle, I believe, of benefiting trade and commerce. The expense of dress, in particular, was carried at this time to an enormous height. Mary. What made it so expensive ? Mrs. M. The quantity of gold, silver, and jewels, with which it was decorated. Dress was not only costly, but also dreadfully heavy. Gabrielle d'Estrees, one of the king's mistresses, was often, when she was full dressed, so encumbered by the weight of her finery as to be unable to move or even to stand. Richard. I hope the gentlemen were too wise to overload them- selves in this manner. Mrs. M. If they were not wiser they were at least stronger, and so were the better able to sustain the gorgeous^weight of their habili- ments. We often read of the vain followers of the court being Oonv. HENRY IV. 335 brought to ruin by their extravagance in dress. The marechal de Bassompierre owns in his Memoirs that he had once a coat trimmed with pearls that cost nine hundred pounds. The following is a description of a fine gentleman's dress in the beginning of the seven- teenth century : — " He was clothed in silver tissue, his shoes were white, as also his stockings. His cloak was black, bordered with rich embroidery, and lined with cloth of silver : his bonnet was of black velvet, and he wore besides a profusion of precious stones." George. I hope it never will be the fashion to wear such dresses in England. Coats of broadcloth, mamma, for me, as well as hearts of oak. Mrs. M. And goodness of heart, too, my dear boy, as well as fortitude. You remember those two pleasant lines of Cowper, which will, I trust, always be characteristic of Englishmen : — An honest man close button'd to the chin, Broadcloth without, and a -warm heart within. Before we dismiss the subject of dress, I ought to mention, that in this reign the ruff was superseded by a sort of frame made of wire and lace, in which the ladies' heads were enclosed, and which, in compliment to the queen, was called a Medici. I need not describe it particularly, because you will perceive that in this little drawing* she is represented as wearing one of these Medicis. Masks were much worn at this time by men as well as by women. They were made of black velvet, and used by the ladies when they walked or rode, as a preservative of the complexion. Indeed, a mask was considered as so necessary a part of the female out-door costume, that a lady was thought to be in dishabille if seen without one. Mary. And did the gentlemen wear them for the sake of their complexions. Mrs. M. I fear their motives were not always so innocent. They wore them principally, we are told, to conceal their frequenting the gaming-houses. One poor man, indeed, the marechal Montluc, latterly wore a mask to cover the horrible disfigurements which he had received from a wound with a harquebuss. It has, I believe, in all times and countries, been a point of civility among courtiers to copy any peculiarity in dress which the h> firmities of the sovereign may make it expedient for him to adopt. Hence the swelled feet of our Henry VIII. caused the shoes of his courtiers to expand to the width of six inches across the toe. You have been told how a wound in the head of Francis I. brought in short hair, and how another in his chin, which he hoped to conceal by letting his beard grow, introduced the fashion of long beards ; a fashion which continued to the reign of Henry IV. In that reign the chief pride of a fine gentleman was in his beard, which was well * Seep. 321. 33^ LOUIS XIII. Chap. XXXII. thickened and stiffened with wax, to make it spread out broad at the bottom. But the same knife that killed poor Henry struck at the root of these much and long-cherished beards, which were presently shaved off in compliment to the smooth chin of his young successor. Nothing was left but a pair of thin mustachios over the upper lip, and a small pointed lock on the chin. Richard. I saw in a book lately something about Henry IY.'s cradle. Pray do you know whether it was anything so very curious? Mrs. M. It was nothing more than the shell of a tortoise, and was long preserved — perhaps is preserved still — in the castle of Pau, which was Henry's birthplace. There is another curiosity that perhaps may also still be found there,— a huge steel two-pronged fork, which was used by him, and which was thought at that time, when forks were first introduced, a very refined and delicate invention. CHAPTER XXXII. LOUIS XIII., SURNAMED THE JUST. Years after Christ, 1610 — 1643. Gentleman and lady going to court. The young king, who thus succeeded to the throne on the horrid event of his father's assassination, was not yet nine years old. The parliament, as I have already said, immediately conferred the regency on his mother, Mary of Medicis, a woman not less bigoted in her devotion to Rome than the former queen-mother of that family. a.d. 1617. LOUIS XIII. 337 The character of Mary, however, is wholly unstained with the im- putation of any such bloody crimes as those for which Catherine is universally execrated. She was entirely under the influence of two Florentine adventurers, a man of the name of Concini, whom she made marechal d'Ancre, and his wife Leonora de Galigai. The rapid and extraordinary elevation of these favourites excited almost universal discontent. It is said of Concini, that to repress the murmurs of the people, by showing them what fate they might expect if they dared to censure him, he had several gibbets erected in different parts of Paris. Such means as this of stifling the expres- sion of public feeling are seldom for the safety of those who adopt them. On the 3rd of October, 1611, died the due de Mayenne. His death at this time was accounted a great loss to France. He was a man of integrity, and from the time of his reconciliation to Henry IV. had never embarked in any intrigues of state ; and it has been thought, that if he had lived he might have been able to check the civil dissensions which ensued. These dissensions were greatly owing to the ambitious desire of some of the princes of the blood, and others of the great nobility, to take advantage of the distractions of a new reign, and of a feeble minority, to establish their own power and independence. The due de Mayenne, on his death-bed, charged his son to remain firm in his principles of religion and loyalty, and only on that condition gave him his blessing. One of the first objects of Mary of Medicis, and her favourites, was to unite themselves as closely as possible with the court of Spain. In the year 1612 were announced two intended marriages, the one between the young king Louis XIII., and the infanta, Anne of Austria, daughter of the king of Spain; the other between the princess Elizabeth, the king's sister, and the prince of Spain, after- wards Philip IV. These marriages took place by proxy, the one at Burgos in Spain, and the other at Bordeaux, on the same day, Oct. 18, 1615, and the two princesses were exchanged in the isle of Pheasants, in the river Bidassoa, in the November following. The infanta was then conducted to Bordeaux, and, the king meeting her on the way, they made together a solemn entry into that city. In the mean time the prince of Conde (Henry II.), and other princes and nobles, joined with the Protestants in opposition to the queen. A war broke out, and the Swiss Protestants in the king's pay quitted the service and returned home, because they would not act against their brethren of the same religion. These troubles were for a time composed in 1617, by the entire downfall of the queen and her party. A courtier of the name of de Luynes excited in the mind of the king, who was now about sixteen years of age, a jealousy of his mother and of her favourites, and proposed to him that Vitry, Frakce. Q 3^8 LOUIS XIII. Chap. XXXll. a captain of the guards, should have the royal authority to arrest marechal d'Ancre. The king agreed, and Vitry, at the head of a body of ruffians, who, it may be suspected, were marked out for this employment, because something more than a mere arrest was in- tended, took an opportunity of arresting his victim on the bridge of the Louvre, and, on the marechal's putting his hand to his sword, had him instantly killed by his followers. The king, on being informed of this transaction by Vitry himself, exclaimed, " Grand merci a vous ! a cette heure je suis roi ; " and made him immediately marechal of France. The body of Concini, which had been carried off and buried immediately after his death, was that very evening taken out of its grave by a mob of footmen and " pages." It was then dragged through the streets, and afterwards cut in pieces, some of which were hung on the gibbets which he had himself erected in order to frighten his enemies. His wife Leonora was beheaded by order of the parliament. She was interrogated, during her trial, what sorcery she had used to acquire her great ascendency over the mind of the queen. " I have used none," she answered, " except that ascendency which strong minds have over the weak." The queen-mother herself was exiled to Blois, from whence she made her escape to Angouleme. Soon after she had an interview with Louis at Tours, and came to a sort of accommodation with him. The reconcilia- tion, however, did not last long, and she was at one time at actual war with her son. To conclude at once all I need say to you of her history, I may here add, that she was again reconciled to him, but that a final breach ensued in 1630. She fled to Bruxelles in 1631, and after many sufferings from neglect and vexation, died at Cologne > July 3, 1642. On the king's approach to maturity, strong hopes were for a time entertained that he would show some portion of his father's energy of character. But though personally brave, and, like many weak men, often ready to authorize very decisive and violent measures, he possessed no power of self-government and control, and was always, through his whole life, a mere puppet played on by the hands of others. M. de Luynes first assumed over the young monarch the dominion winch the Concinis had exercised over the queen. De Luynes was a man of a proud and grasping temper, but wholly unequal to restrain the ambition of the princes of the blood, and other nobles, who indulged themselves with impunity in all sorts of disorders, and even sometimes committed hostilities against the crown. De Luynes died Dec. 15, 1621. It has been observed of the court of France at this period, that not any one person of eminence was to be found in it who could properly be entitled a man of honour or worth. Pride and baseness, qualities very often united, appeared to be almost the a,d. 1 624. LOUIS XIII. 339 universal characteristics, and the only ability which was either pos- sessed or valued was the ability to corrupt and betray. At the death of De Luynes, the celebrated Armand du Plessis Richelieu, bishop of Luyon, and soon afterwards created cardinal, was rising rapidly into distinction. He was a man of great abilities, and of consummate intrigue and artifice. He had been first brought forward by the unfortunate Concini, and afterwards attached him- self to the new favourite De Luynes. He was for some time about the person of the queen-mother, over whom he had great influence. He is said to have perfidiously abandoned her interests, as soon as he saw that he could advance his own by forsaking her. At all events he acquired a greater degree of power than any minister had before possessed in France, and from the date of his admission into the royal council in 1624, to his death, is to be counted the sole efficient ruler of France. He reminds us in some respects of our own cardinal Wolsey, but was incomparably more crafty and artful. He accumulated in his own hands a great number of church bene- fices, but gave his whole attention to affairs of state. He was fond to an extreme of display and magnificence, and even assumed the dress and arms of a soldier, and the personal direction of military affairs. The cardinal de la Valette, archbishop of Toulouse, followed in this respect the example of Eichelieu. He commanded some troops in Italy, and died with arms in his hands. Cardinal Eichelieu is generally spoken of with applause and respect by French historians, as having laid the foundations of the greatness of the monarchy, and of the glory which it acquired in the succeeding reign. He finally extinguished the excessive power of the aristocracy, who have never since his time been able to con- tend with the crown. Ho almost wholly suppressed also those religious wars by which the kingdom had been so long fatally dis- tracted. But this he did by depriving the Hugonots of their just rights as subjects, rights which had been guaranteed to them by the most solemn treaties. He also depressed that pre-eminence of the house of Austria, which the gallant virtues of Francis I. and Henry IV. had in vain attempted to overrule. Among the Hugonots, as we have seen in Henry IV. 's reign, were many nobles of the highest dignity and power. These, though they acknowledged the royal title of the sovereign, yet possessed in their own territories the same independence which had been from of old the pride of the great feudatories. Many con- siderable towns also, particularly in the south and the west of France, were inhabited chiefly by Hugonots, and united with those princes as in a common cause. The Catholics and the Hugonots were, indeed, very nearly balanced, and the cause of the Hugonots would probably have been the stronger, if in this corrupt age many Q2 3 4 6 LOUIS XIII. CiiAr. XXXIL of their leaders had not been bought over by the temptations which the government threw in their way. Louis, in the beginning of his reign, had confirmed the edict of Nantes. The prince of Conde was a Catholic, yet in his treaty with the Hugonots, bearing date November 27, 1615, he pledged himself to insist on the strict ob- servance of that edict ; and in a treaty at Loudun, in the beginning of the following year, between the king on one side and the prince of Conde on the other, the same stipulations were again repeated and enforced. All these engagements, however, seemed made only to be violated. In 1620 the king marched into Beam, the native province and patrimony of Henry IV., where the inhabitants were almost ex- clusively Hugonots. He there re-established the Koman Catholic church, suppressed the privileges of the people, and annexed the principality to the crown. The due de Eohan, who was son-in-law of the great due de Sully, and his brother the due de Soubise, may be considered as having been at this time the chief leaders of the Hugonots. The prince of Conde forsook them. The due de Lesdi- guieres, one of their most powerful chiefs, was not only bought over to desert their interests, but was also prevailed on to abjure the Protestant religion. In 1621 the king, accompanied by these new allies, compelled the due de Soubise, after a most gallant defence, to surrender the fortress of St. Jean d'Angeli. He afterwards laid siege to Montau- ban, but was repulsed with the loss of some of Ins bravest officers, and was at length compelled to abandon the enterprise. In 1622 Louis marched into Poitou, for the purpose of subduing the due de Soubise, who occupied that country with a considerable force. On the approach of the royal army the duke retreated into the isle of Ehe, which is separated from the continent by a small arm of the sea, fordable at low water. The king displayed on this occasion much intrepidity ; he crossed the sea under cover of the night, and stormed the duke's intrenchments. The Hugonots defended them- selves without skill or energy, and were almost all cut to pieces. The duke himself, with a few companions, escaped by swimming. Montpellier, which was gallantly defended by the due de Eohan, surrendered to the royal arms ; but the inhabitants of Eochelle, though their town was invested *by sea and land, exhibited the greatest firmness and constancy. While affairs were in this state, a treaty was made at Montpellier, by winch, among other articles, the edict of Nantes was again confirmed, a general amnesty granted, and the privilege conceded to the Hugonots of holding ecclesiastical consistories and synods. The terms of this treaty, however, were very ill observed ; and the Eochellers, enraged at the wilful infraction of it on the part of Louis, a.d. 1627. LOUIS XIII. 341 who seemed utterly careless whether he gained his objects by open force or by treachery, renewed the war in 1625. One of the most remarkable events of this short war was, that the duke of Soubise, with a small fleet from Eochelle, succeeded in a daring attack on seven of the king's ships which lay at Port Louis, then called Blavet, a port on the south side of the river Blavet, and opposite to L'Orient. When he was preparing to return, the wind suddenly shifted, and for the time cut off his retreat. The king's forces in the neighbour- hood immediately hastened to destroy him ; but before their cannon could be brought to bear on the ships with any effect, the wind again changed, and enabled him to escape with his prizes. Peace was again concluded, through the intervention of England, by another treaty confirming the edict of Nantes, and agreeing to the other just claims of the Eochellers. Louis consented also that the king of England, Charles I., who, having married his sister Henrietta Maria, was now his brother-in-law, should guarantee the articles of the peace. The king and his minister, however, evidently agreed to this treaty only because they felt at that time a pressing danger on the side of Italy, where, in the character of allies of the duke of Savoy, they were contending with Spain for the possession of the Yalteline. " The ruin of the Hugonots," said the cardinal to the king on this occasion, who frequented them in such numbers that it was dangerous to tra- verse any part of Paris without arms, and without a numerous train of attendants. George. Were there no constables and thief-takers to keep the streets clear of these people ? Mrs. M. The police of Paris was at that time very in efficient ; and, what was worse, the greater number of the thieves and ruffians, by whom the streets were infested, were lacqueys and gentlemen's servants. Mary. It was a very shameful thing in the gentlemen to permit their servants to act in that manner. Mrs. M. It was one of the consequences of the numerous train of idle retainers which the fashion of the times obliged all noblemen and gentlemen to have about them. These people were constantly lounging about the streets, and their insolence and vice became intolerable. Nor indeed did their masters always set them a good example, if it be true, as we are told, that gentlemen were some- times known to purloin a mantle, or snatch a rich citizen's well- filled purse. It was then the custom to carry the purse hung from the girdle. Richard. Pray, mamma, is there not some very famous French poem, which is made on Henry IV. ? Mrs. M. You mean, I suppose, the Henriade, which contains the history of his struggles with the League. It is esteemed the finest epic in the French language. Conv. LOUIS XIII. 351 George. It is either because I am very stupid, or else that I don't know enough of French to find out the beauties ; but to say the truth, mamma, French poetry always appears to me sad, dull stuff. llicfiard. Perhaps mamma will be so good as to give us a specimen of this fine poem. Mrs. M. You shall have a few lines from a passage on the death of Henry III., whom the author (Voltaire) designates by his family name of Valois. Deja Valois touchait a son heure derniere ; Ses yeux ne voyaient plus ou'un reste de lumiere • Ses courtisans en pleurs, autour de lui ranges, Par leurs desseins divers en secret partages, D'une commune voix formant les memes plaintes, Exprimaieut des douleurs, ou sinceres ou feintes, Quelqu'uns qui flattoient l'espoir du cbangement Du danger de leur roi s'affligeaient faiblement . Les autres, qu'occupait leur crainte interessee, Pleuraient au lieu du roi leur fortune passee. Richard. Well, that is easy enough to understand, but I must say I don't like the jingle of it. Mrs. M. I forgot, in our yesterday's conversation, to give you some account of the equestrian statue of Henry IV., which was placed by Mary of Medicis on the Pont Neuf. The horse was the work of a celebrated Italian artist, and was sent as a present by Cosmo LI., grand duke of Tuscany, to his sister Mary of Medicis. It came by sea, and the vessel which brought it was wrecked off the coast of Normandy. The horse lay two years covered by the waves. At last it was weighed up with great difficulty and expense, and was brought to Paris, where a bronze statue of Henry was cast and placed on it. George. If ever I go to Paris I must remember to take particular notice of tha i t statue. Mrs. M. I am sorry to tell you that the original statue is not now in existence. During the revolution it was broken up and melted, and cast into cannon. It has since been replaced by another. Amongst the decorations which Paris owed to Mary of Medicis, I must not omit to speak of the Luxemburg gallery, a collection of pictures painted by Eubens, the great Flemish painter, and which represent an allegorical history of Mary's life. Mary. An allegorical history in a picture must be something very curious. Mrs. M. It is always, I think, something very unsatisfactory. I myself dislike exceedingly to see real portraits mixed with figures of heathen deities, or any other imaginary personages. These pictures of Rubens are, I am assured, in point of execution, very splendid 352 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. specimens of art. It is the more to be lamented, therefore, that the design is not more judicious. CHAPTER XXXIII. LOUIS XIV. (PAKT I.) Years after Christ, 1643 — 1679. Louis XIV., Madame Maintenon, and Philip Duke of Orleans. No sooner was the king dead than his will was openly violated. Anne of Austria, having previously gained over to her interests the duke of Orleans and the prince of Conde, assembled the parliament on the 18th of May, and procured a formal arret which gave her the choice of the council, and invested her with all real authority. She was herself governed in all things by cardinal Mazarin, a native of the little town of Piscina in the Abruzzo in Italy, whose political address had introduced him to Kichelieu, and who now became the leading minister in France. The army in Flanders, at the time of the young king's accession, was under the command of Louis of Bourbon due d'Enghien, son of the prince of Conde, and himself afterwards known in history by the name of " the great Conde." On receiving the news of the late king's death, this young prince, who was only twenty-two years of age, received orders not to risk a battle. A battle, however, being necessary for the relief of Eocroi, which the Spaniards were besieg- a.d. 1647. LOTJIS XIV 353 ing with a larger army than his own, he ventured to disobey these orders, and on the 19th of May fought the battle of Kocroi, in which he gained a decisive victory. In this battle he charged with horse the Spanish infantry, winch had been till now deemed invincible, and, after charging three times, broke their ranks. The count of Fuentes, their commander, perished on the field. After this great victory he besieged and took Thionville, and afterwards carried the war into Germany. In August, 1644, he fought another battle at Friburg, and took Philipsburg and Mentz, and several forts on the Ehine. At the end of the campaign he returned to Paris, leaving the command of his army to marechal Turenne. Turenne was sur- prised by the enemy and defeated, May, 1645, at Mariendahl. The due d'Enghien instantly returned to the army, and gained another great victory, on the 3rd of August, at Nordlingen. One of the enemy's generals, general Merci, was among the slain. His body was interred near the field of battle ; and on his tomb was engraved the short but expressive inscription : •* Sta, viator, heroem calcas." — " Stop, traveller, you tread upon a hero. ' Meanwhile, in Flanders, the duke of Orleans reduced Grave- lines, Mardyke, and some other towns. On October 10, 1646, the due d'Enghien made the conquest of the important fortress of Dun- kirk, which surrendered to him in sight of the Spanish army. The due d'Enghien's father died December 26, and from this time we are to call him prince of Conde. In 1647 Mazarin, envious of his glory, detached him into Catalonia with, too slender a force to allow of his effecting there anything considerable. But in the following year, the archduke Leopold having entered Flanders and recovered several of the places which had been reduced in the preceding campaigns, it was deemed expedient to send Conde to oppose him. The prince took Ypres, and marched to the relief of Lens, which, to his great mortification, surrendered in his sight. This mortification, however, was soon effaced in the decisive battle of Lens which followed, in which the enemy's forces were totally destroyed or dis - persed. Since the foundation of the monarchy the French had never gained so many successive victories, nor displayed so much conduct or courage. The war with the emperor was terminated this year by a peace signed at Munster, on the 24th of October, commonly called the peace of Westphalia, in which several important cessions were made to France. Peace was also restored between Spain and the Dutch Provinces, in which the independence of these provinces was at last acknowledged, after a contest which had lasted four score years. Spain was thus at liberty to direct her whole force against France ; and in France itself also civil dissensions arose, which favoured the progress of the Spanish arms. 354 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. The unpopularity of Mazarin was the chief occasion of these dis- sensions. The distress of the finances, which had been much increased by the long war, drove the minister to attempt to procure money by many unjust and impolitic methods. The parliament of Paris refused to register the edicts which were issued for the purpose of raising supplies. In consequence of this refusal, one of its members was arrested. On this the populace flew to arms, shut up the shops, and barricaded the streets. Several affrays, attended with much blood- shed, took place. The chancellor was attacked as he was going to the parliament for the purpose of annulling its arrets. He was obliged to take flight, and several of his attendants were killed. His daughter-in-law, the duchess of Sully, who was in the carriage with him, received a wound in her arm. Sanson, the son of the cele- brated geographer, with whose huge old atlas you have sometimes amused yourself, and who was also in the carriage, was mortally wounded. This was the commencement of the disturbances com- monly called the Fronde : — from the French verb fronder, to censure or browbeat ; and hence the word frondeur, which even within my own recollection has often been used to denote a person of a party oi>posed to the government. These disturbances were aggravated by the famous de Retz, a man of very bustling and jDerturbing abilities, and of very profligate morals and politics, who, having been, much against his will, placed by his family in the church, was now coadjuteur to the archbishop of Paris. He appears at first to have tried to conciliate the two parties, for the purpose, apparently, of improving his interest with the court; but this attempt failing, he set himself at the head of the Fronde, chiefly, it is supposed, through his sheer love of intrigue and the vanity 'of making himself head of a party, and of exercising his skill in artifice and cabal. Nor must I forget to mention the duchess de Longueville, a lady of a very masculine spirit, who was one of the chief promoters of these dissensions. The " day of the barricades " was the 26th August, 1648. On the following day the barricades wero removed, the shops reopened, and affairs to all appearance resumed a peaceable aspect. The queen, however, thinking Paris no place of safety, fled to St. Germaine en Laye, accompanied by her children, by cardinal Maza- rin, the duke of Orleans, and the prince of Conde. Here she was obliged to pledge the jewels of the crown to obtain money. The king himself was often in want of necessaries. Most of the court were obliged to sleep upon straw, and the pages of the bedchamber were dismissed, from absolute inability to supply them with food. Henrietta Maria also, the king's aunt, daughter of Henry IV. and wife of Charles I, of England, who had fled for refuge to her native country, was reduced on this occasion to extreme wretchedness ; and a.d, 1 65 2. LOUIS XIV. 355 her daughter, afterwards duchess of Orleans, is said to have been compelled to lie in bed for want of means to procure a fire. The court, in conformity with that cheerful or perhaps flippant humour which has always enabled the French to turn misfortune into a sub- ject for pleasantry, consoled itself under these vexations by making a jest of the Parisians, whose inexpertness in the military art fur- nished a perpetual theme of ridicule. Songs and epigrams were for a time a great part of the contest. At last the king's army, under the command of the prince of Conde, invested Paris, and several conflicts took place. Many of the great nobles had joined the Fronde and the parliament ; but scarcely any one of them appeared to be influenced by any better motive than the desire of personal aggran- dizement. They joined the Fronde that they might be bought over by the government, either by money or places, or by the hand of some rich heiress ; and when they had got what they wanted, were always ready to change again. The great Conde was quite as unprincipled as the rest. A sort of peace was made in the spring of 1649, and in August the court returned to Paris. The intriguing de Eetz for a time reconciled himself to the court, that he might so purchase his eleva- tion to the rank of cardinal, which was soon afterwards conferred on him. The prince of Conde became discontented, and incurred the displeasure of Mazarin, and was imprisoned first at Yincennes, and afterwards at Havre. In February, 1651, the prince was released, and Mazarin sent into exile. Conde returned to Paris, but in the latter part of the same year retired into Guienne, of which province he was governor, and there set up the standard of revolt. Mazarin soon afterwards returned to court and to power. The court was at this time removed to Poitiers, whence it was obliged afterwards to retreat before Conde, who had been joined by a great number of nobles, and who was reinforced also by a body of troops from Spain. Marechal Turenne, who, after having attached himself to the Fronde, was now come over to the court party, possessed the com- mand of the royal army. Conde, after gaining a victory at Blenau, advanced to Paris in the month of April, 1652. Turenne pursued him, and a severe action was fought in the suburb of St. Antoine, but with little advantage on either side. Many tumults and assas- sinations took place in the city, where the great obstacle to the re- storation of the royal authority appears to have been the extreme dislike entertained for Mazarin. This dislike the king, who had now attained his majority, found it altogether beyond his power to overrule, and this obnoxious minister was again sent into exile on the 12th of August, 1652. Immediately after his departure, a depu- tation from the citizens went to the king and entreated him to 356 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. return to his capital. This accordingly he did, and tranquillity was restored. The duke of Orleans, who in this last contest had taken part with the prince of Conde, was banished to Blois, where he passed the rest of his life. Cardinal de Eetz was arrested in the Louvre, and conveyed from prison to prison; while the prince of Conde himself, pressed by Turenne, and feebly supported by the Spaniards, was reduced to wage on the frontiers of Champagne a petty and unsuccessful war. Such was the termination of this war of the Fronde. From this time Louis exercised an undisputed prerogative. The country was no longer distracted by faction. The arrogance of the nobles was again reduced within those limits which the policy of Richelieu had dictated. Arts and architecture, and all the splendour of this long reign, date their origin from this epoch of restored domestic tran- quillity. But whatever advantage the nation may have derived from the happy termination of its internal feuds, and whatever share the vigour of the king's personal character may have had in pro- ducing it, I fear that we cannot attribute to him any of that true glory which a virtuous monarch, more than any other individual, is justly entitled to from the gratitude of mankind. One of the king's first acts, after his return to Paris, was to recall cardinal Mazarin. The storm was over ; the king was master ; and though, only a few months before, the expulsion of this minister had been the principal object of the civil war, he was now received without the least opposition. The parliament which had before set a price on his head, sent deputies to compliment him ; and soon after passed sentence of death on the prince of Conde, though it had lately been taking his part and had declared him the general of its forces. That prince, fortunately for him, was beyond the reach of its juris- diction. He was now the commander of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands, In 1654, in conjunction with the archduke, he laid siege to Arras, which was, however, relieved by Turenne, who in the following year took Landreci and Quesnoi ; and in 1656, though repulsed from Valenciennes, laid siege to and took La Capelle. The prince of Conde, in these active campaigns, though engaged in the service of the enemies of his country, had not lost anything of his military genius, But in Turenne he had a rival who equalled him in abilities, and who seemed now to have become the favourite of fortune. An alliance with Cromwell, which had been concluded in 1655, gave also a new accession to the power of Louis. To purchase this alli- ance, Louis expelled from the French dominions the exiled princes of the English royal family, who, on the downfall of their cause at home, had naturally sought refuge in a country of which the reigning king a.d. 1660. LOUIS XIV. 357 was nephew to their mother, Henrietta Maria, and in which their grandfather, Henry IV., had been the most popular monarch of his race. Cromwell now insisted peremptorily on their expulsion, and to this demand Louis had the meanness to consent. On quitting France, the English princes found an asylum in the Spanish territories. England and France were thus for a time united. Mardyke and Dunkirk, which had been recovered by Spain during the late civil commotions in France, were successively taken by Turenne, whose progress Conde vainly opposed. These towns were put into the hands of Cromwell, though Louis would fain have kept them for himself. Cromwell dying soon after, his son Eichard became pro- tector, and his title was recognised by the court of France. Turenne's career of victory still continued in Flanders. After the surrender of Dunkirk, he took Furnes and Dixmude, Oudenarde, Menin, Grave- lines, and Ypres. The arms of France were also successful on the side of Italy ; and in 1659 the court of Spain, wearied out by re- verses, made overtures of peace, which Mazarin gladly accepted. The war was concluded Nov. 7, 1659, by the treaty of the Pyrenees, in which it was agreed that the king of France should marry the infanta, the only daughter of Philip IV. by his first marriage with Elizabeth, sister of Louis XIII. It was further agreed that Louis should retain Alsace and Eousillon, but that he should renounce all right of succession to any part of the Spanish dominions ; that he should restore Lorraine to the duke (Charles IV.) ; that he should restore to Spain some of the towns taken in Flanders ; and that he should pardon the prince of Conde's rebellion. Charles II. of England implored both of Mazarin, who conducted the negotiations on the part of France, and of Don Louis de Haro, the Spanish minister, that they would aid to replace him on the throne of his ancestors. All his applications were coldly rejected, but he was soon actually recalled by the English themselves ; and nothing is more probable than that, if France and Spain had made any attempt to restore him by force of arms, they would only have rendered Ins cause hopeless. The duke of Orleans, the king's uncle, died at Blois, Feb. 2, 1660. As he died without sons, the dukedom of Orleans was given to Philip, the king's youngest brother, who married Henrietta, sister of Charles II. of England. On the 9th of June the king's marriage with the infanta took place at St. Jean de Luz, on the Spanish frontier. — The new queen was of a most amiable and estimable character, which she preserved through life; and though to her the marriage was not a happy one, it is recorded that at her death, twenty-three years afterwards, Louis exclaimed that this was the first uneasiness which she had ever caused him. Voila le premier chagrin gu'elle rrC ait jamais donne. 358 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. Cardinal Mazarin died March 9, 1661. On his death, Louis, though not yet twenty-three years of age, took the administration of affairs into his own hands. From this time to the last moment of his life he was not only the nominal but also the real head of the state, and kept all his ministers under strict control. He devoted his time to business with unwearied assiduity, and was attentive and methodical in all his arrangements. He purchased from Charles II. the towns of Dunkirk and Mar- dyke, to the great discontent of the English nation. He improved the port of Dunkirk, and made it an arsenal ; and in subsequent wars it has been a nest and shelter for privateers and other vessels, which have been fitted out to commit depredations on English com- merce. Lockhart, Charles's ambassador in France, who had filled the same post there under Cromwell, said that he was treated with far more consideration in Cromwell's time than in Charles's. In a war which followed in the year 1665 between England and Holland, Louis interfered as the ally of the Dutch; but this war was remarkable for little else but the hard fighting which took place between the Dutch and the English fleets, and the daring enterprise of the Dutch, who sailed up the Thames and burned the English ships in the Medway. This war between England and Holland was concluded by the treaty of Breda in 1667. But another war had broken out, even before this was concluded. Philip IV. of Spain had died in 1665, and left by his second wife, Maria Anne of Austria, a son, Charles II., the sole male heir of his extensive dominions. By his first wife he had one daughter, who was now queen of France ; and though in the treaty of the Pyrenees Louis renounced all claim in her right of succeeding to any of the territories of the Spanish crown, he now set at nought this solemn renunciation, and claimed Flanders, Brabant, and Franche Comte. The emperor Leopold, though as head of the Austrian family he was expressly bound to protect the interests of the infant king of Spain, consented that Louis should take possession of Flanders, on condition that he himself should be suffered, in the event of Charles's death, to annex Spain to his own dominions. It is said that Leo- pold was so much ashamed of this bargain that he insisted it should be kept a secret from all the world, and that there should be only one copy of the treaty containing it, and that one kept in a metal chest with only two keys, one for himself and the other for the king of France. The French army, with Louis himself at its head, the skilful Tu- renne commanding under him, entered Flanders in May, 1667. The celebrated Colbert had been minister of finance for some years, and had placed more resources in the king's hands than had ever been pos- sessed by any former sovereign. Louvois, minister of war, had made AJh 1672. LOUIS XIV. 359 great military preparations, particularly by distributing magazines along the frontiers, a method of providing for the efficient power of an army, which, amid the disorders and the poverty of earlier periods, could not be adopted to any considerable extent. The young nobility nocked with ardour to carry arms under the im- mediate eye of their sovereign, and submitted even with pride to the strict discipline which he enforced. At the head of this army the king took, with little resistance, seve- ral towns in the Netherlands, and excited alarm even in Brussels itself. In the following year the prince of Conde, now again at the head of a French army, reduced with ease the whole of Tranche Comte. England, Holland, and Sweden, however, apprehending that the ambition of the youthful monarch menaced danger to the independence of Europe, interfered as mediators, and a peace was concluded May 2, 1668, at Aix-la-Chapelle, by which Louis restored Franche Comte to Spain, but retained all his acquisitions in Flan- ders. Notwithstanding these acquisitions, he felt greatly indignant at the check given to his ambition by the other powers of Europe ; and was particularly offended that the new republic of the United Provinces, to which France had been till now a steady ally, should have presumed to oppose him. His conquests in Flanders gave him an easy access to the Dutch frontier, and he determined to take some future opportunity of profiting by this advantage. In truth, he made peace only that he might prepare for war with better means, and a greater certainty of success. One great object was to detach Charles II. from his alliance with Holland. To effect this he prevailed on Charles's sister, the duchess of Orleans, to go to England and use her influence with her brother, and also to take with her a beautiful mademoiselle de Querouaille, by whose charms he hoped that Charles might by captivated. These two ambassadresses succeeded so well, that Charles consented to break his engagements with the States and to join with Louis in a new war against them. Mademoiselle de Querouaille was afterwards made duchess of Portsmouth, and was long the reigning favourite of the English court. Louis succeeded also in inducing the emperor and the king of Sweden, and also the minor neighbouring states on the Ehine, either to second, or to view with indifference, his design to humiliate the power of Holland. To this little republic there remained no ally but Spain ; that very state with which it had contended during so many years for the blessings of liberty and independence. In 1672 the king burst into the Dutch provinces at the head of a most formidable and numerous army. He passed the Ehine, which, from the dryness of the season, was very low. There was nothing very hazardous or difficult in this passage: but it sounded as a 360 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. great achievement in the ears of the Parisians, and was magnified and panegyrized by the wits and poets. The following lines are a good specimen of the bombast with winch all the actions of their king were clothed by them. Le roi parle. A sa parole, Plus vite qu'un trait ne vole, On voit nager nos guerriers ; Et leur ardeur est si vive, Que deja sur l'autre rive lis ont cueillis des lauriers. Louis soon made himself master of the three provinces of Gueldres, Overyssel, and Utrecht. Groningen and Frizeland were open to him, and there remained to the Dutch scarcely any means of oppos- ing him, except in the strength of those fortified towns which still protected the provinces of Holland and Zealand. Naerden was taken, a town three leagues from Amsterdam ; and it is said that Muyden was saved only by the singular presence of mind of a woman. Fourteen stragglers of the army having appeared before the gates, the magistrates surrendered it and sent them the keys ; but they were kept out of the castle by a female servant, who raised the drawbridge and prevented them from entering. The magistrates afterwards, finding the party so weak, made them drunk and took tho keys from them. Muyden is so near to Amsterdam that its cannon can play on the ships which enter the harbour. 1 In the battle of Solebay, fought on the 7th of June, -in which De Euyter commanded the Dutch fleet, and the duke of York and the count d'Estrees the combined fleets which opposed him, neither side gained any decided advantage. De Euyter, who had been in no less than thirty-two actions, declared that this was the most obstinate of them all. Turenne and Conde urged Louis to follow up his splendid success in the eastern provinces by pressing forwards against Holland and Zealand. To this end it would have been necessary to dismantle most of the towns already taken, that the troops left to garrison them might reunite with the army. But the dismantling of them seemed inexpedient to Louvois, and was abandoned in consequence of his opposition to it. It is thought that otherwise all the provinces must have fallen. But they were again destined to be saved, as they had so often been before, during the long struggles which they sustained for their independence. They sent ambassadors to entreat pity and forbearance ; but the conditions exacted both by Louis and Charles were altogether intolerable even to men plunged in despair. They 1 Amsterdam was saved by lasting under water the low ground surrounding the city ; and this was done by opening the sluices of the canals, which, if the French had kept possession of Muyden, might have been prevented. Aj). 1674. LOUIS XIV. 361 resolved therefore to maintain a courageous resistance, and with the more hope, because they saw kindling in other countries the apprehension that Louis would become too dangerous a neighbour if he were permitted to achieve the conquest of their republic. An insurrection of the populace conferred the stadtholdership on the prince of Orange. Tins prince, afterwards William III. king of England, was a man of sound and steady resolution, and bent all his faculties to oppose the power of France. About Christmas, marechal Luxemburg, who was stationed at Utrecht, made an attempt to take the Hague by surprise. He marched twelve thousand men over the ice, and would probably have suc- ceeded if a thaw had not come on. His troops, being surrounded by water, were in the greatest danger of perishing. They had no other road but the top of a narrow dyke, where only four men could march abreast ; and a fort was in their way, which, as they were without artillery, it seemed impossible for them to take. But for- tunately for them the governor, from excessive cowardice, made no kind of resistance ; and the French, who otherwise must have inevi- tably perished, secured by this means their retreat to Utrecht. In the year 1673 both the emperor and the king of Spain openly declared themselves the allies of the Dutch. Three indecisive actions were again fought at sea with De Euyter by the combined fleets under the command of D'Estrees and prince Eupert : one on the 7th, another on the 14th of June, the third and last on the 21st of Au- gust. Louis took Maestricht ; but the prince of Orange, uniting his forces to those of Montecuculi, the imperial general, cut off the communication between France and the Dutch provinces, and obliged the king to recall Ins forces and precipitately abandon his conquests. In 1674 Louis was abandoned by England. Charles, though loth to desert an ally who, by furnishing him with money for his private expenses, kept him in a willing though most abject state of depen- dence, could no longer withstand the clamours of his people, and made peace with Holland on the 9th of February. He still refused to recall a body of ten thousand men who were serving in the French army, but he conditioned with the States not to recruit them. Louis, however, undismayed by this desertion, made vigorous head against all his enemies. He invaded Franche Comte in person with a pow- erful army, and reduced the whole province in the course of six months. In Alsace Turenne gained splendid advantages ; but the unnecessary ravages which he permitted throw a cloud over Ins reputation which the greatness of his military successes cannot and ought not to be allowed to remove. He laid waste with fire and sword the whole fertile district of the palatinate of the Ehine, exer- cised on the defenceless and unoffending inhabitants the most cruel Fbakce. R 362 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. acts of outrage, and almost converted the country into a desert. The elector Palatine beheld at one time, from the walls of his palace at Manheim, two cities and twenty-five villages in flames. The prince of Conde meanwhile encountered the prince of Orange in Flanders ; and the comte de Schomberg, who commanded in Koussillon, effectu- ally defended the French frontier on the side of Spain. In the following campaign, which was very warmly disputed, Turenne and Montecuculi opposed each other on the Khine. Tu- renne was killed in a battle near Salzbach. The prince of Conde, who succeeded to his command, confirmed by his continued ability and success the renown which had acquired for him the surname of " the Great." At the end of the year he retired from the service, and passed the short remnant of his life at Chantilly, He died in 1686. Montecuculi retired at the same time, unwilling, it is said, to expose in contests with younger adversaries the reputation which he had acquired as the rival of Conde and Turenne. Thus termi- nated, nearly at the same time, the military career of the three greatest general in Europe ; and in the following year De Euyter, who had gained on another element a fame not perhaps any way in- ferior to theirs, was killed in an action with a French fleet in the Mediterranean. The war continued to be carried on with great vigour, and on the whole with advantage to the arms of France, but to the great exhaustion of all the countries concerned. By the mediation of the king of England, who in 1677 had given his niece Mary to the prince of Orange in marriage, the peace of Nimeguen was concluded in the summer of 1679. By this peace Louis retained Valenciennes and many other towns in the Netherlands, and also Franche Comte, which, having once before been pledged to France as the dower of Margaret of Burgundy, now became, after a long lapse of years, an integral part of the French dominions. A separate treaty with Holland had been concluded in the August of the preceding year. The prince of Orange was highly disgusted with this treaty, the terms of which he thought too advantageous to France. Four days after it was signed he attacked marechal Luxemburg near Mons. Four thousand men were slain in this action. It was supposed, but apparently without sufficient foundation, that the prince knew of the treaty, though he professed to be ignorant of it, and that he made this wanton sacrifice of so many lives with a view of breaking it, and of prolonging the war. This peace placed Louis at the pinnacle of his glory. Inflated with success, he listened with complacency to the adulation of his courtiers, who persuaded him that he was invincible abroad and omnipotent at home. In fact, everything conspired to raise in him a high opinion of himself. But if he had looked beyond himself, he CONV. LOUIS XIV. 363 would have seen that the high position in which he stood was in part owing to other causes than to his own inherent greatness. The youth and incapacity of Charles II. of Spain, and the indolence and vices of Charles II. of England, had sunk those two monarchies below their natural scale in the balance of Europe. The prince of Orange, Louis's chief opponent, was a man of simple habits, and averse to boasting and parade, and hence his actions were less blazed forth to the world than those of the vainglorious monarch of France, who, in his own opinion and that of his dazzled subjects, was regarded as superior to all the kings and warriors either in modern or in ancient history. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXXIII. Valet and footman of Henry III. George. We are no sooner rid of cardinal Richelieu than we have got cardinal Mazarin. Pray, mamma, which of the two was the worse ? Mrs. Markham. That is a puzzling question. They were men of very different characters. Richelieu was haughty and overbearing, and bore down all opposition. Mazarin was supple and insinuating, and affected great gentleness of manner. Mary. I cannot imagine why he should have been so much disliked. Mrs. M. He was disliked because he was cunning and avaricious, and more solicitous to amass an enormous private fortune than to promote the glory of his master or the welfare of France. He was, moreover, a foreigner, and that was another great fault in the eyes r 2 364 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. of the people. His imperfect pronunciation of the language was also a perpetual subject of ridicule. Mary. I cannot think what sort of a language broken French can be! Mrs. M. I don't know what Mazarin's was like. I only know that the duchess de Nemours says in her Memoirs that he used to pronounce the word union as if it were oignon, which is, you know, French for onion. George. That would be a fine joke for the Parisians. Mrs. M. They were not sparing of their jokes, and indulged in many abusive songs and witticisms on the cardinal, who bore it all with great indifference. Richard. You named another cardinal, De Ketz. Was he as bad as the other two ? Mrs. M. He was a very clever but unprincipled man. In his youth he led a dissipated life, and tells in his Memoirs of himself that he quarrelled and fought duels, "apropos de rien." In his middle life he mixed with violence in all the politics of the time, and was a principal promoter of the wars of the Fronde. A long im- prisonment and exile tamed his turbulent spirit. He wrote the Memoirs of his own life, a book very illustrative of his character, and abounding with shrewd observations. Mary. I thought that history of the Fronde very puzzling. It seemed to me as if they none of them knew what they were about, nor what they wanted. Mrs. M. The part easiest to comprehend is that which relates to the sufferings of the poor, who were stripped and pillaged by the soldiery. I have met with a very moving account of the state of the neighbourhood of Paris at that time in the history of the nuns at Port Koyal. These nuns, besides a convent at Paris, had a country house some leagues from the city called Port Royal au Champs. During the war of the Fronde this place was protected by a guard of soldiers, and became a refuge for the neighbouring poor, whose distresses are very touchingly described in a letter from the lady abbess to one of her friends. George. I should like to see a letter from a lady abbess. Mrs. M. Then I will give you a short extract from this : — " We are all occupied," she says, " in contriving soups and pottage for the poor. Everything is pillaged around. Cornfields are trampled down by the cavalry in presence of the owners. Despair has seized on all whose confidence is not with God. Nobody will any longer plough or dig : nobody is certain of reaping what he sows : all is stolen. We have concealed as many of the peasants and the cattle as we can. The dormitory and chapter-house are full of horses. We are almost stifled by being pent up by those beasts, but we Conv. LOUIS XIV. 365 could not resist the pressing lamentations of the poor. In the cellar are concealed forty cows. Our laundry is thronged by old and infirm, and by children, and our infirmary is full of sick and wounded. We have torn up all our linen clothes to dress their wounds. Our firewood is consumed, and we dare not send into the woods for more, as they are full of marauding parties." George. I will say that those nuns were good creatures, and that old lady abbess a very kind good sort of woman. Richard. Pray, mamma, who was that duchess de Longueville you spoke of? Mrs. M. No inconsiderable person I can assure you. She was sister to the great Conde, and had much of his restless spirit. The duchess de Nemours says, in her Memoirs, that madame de Longue- ville entered into the party of the Fronde because " she thought it a clever thing for a woman to be seen in great affairs, and hoped that it would make her distinguished and considered." She was a very active partizan, and interfered with the military as well as with the political affairs of the faction. Mary. Don't you think she must have been the sort of woman one calls a termagant? Mrs. M. Indeed I think so ; and there was another very con- spicuous lady at that time who also belonged to the class of terma- gants: this was mademoiselle de Montpensier. She was daughter of Gaston duke of Orleans, by his first wife the heiress of the duke de Montpensier, and inherited from her mother an immense fortune, and from her grandmother (the lady who made herself so con- spicuous at the siege of Paris) a bold and masculine spirit. Made- moiselle, as she was called by pre-eminence, entered heartily into the disturbances of the Fronde, and on one occasion took on herself to order the cannon of the Bastile to fire upon the royal troops ; an action which the king her cousin never forgot, or thoroughly forgave. George. Why, to say the truth, I don't think it could be called the action of a gentle-woman. Mrs. M. This woman, then, since you will not allow her the epithet gentle, had, with all her violence of temper a very susceptible heart. When in her forty-second year, she fixed her affections on the count, afterwards duke, de Lauzun, a young, aspiring, and un- principled courtier. With great difficulty she wrung from the king a permission to marry him. The vanity of Lauzun induced him to make splendid preparations for his nuptials, which he designed should be more like a royal than a private wedding. The delay which was caused by these preparations gave his enemies time to undermine his good fortune, and the king was prevailed on to retract his consent. Madame de Sevigne, who in her letters to her daughter gives a very lively account of the whole transaction, tells us that the 366 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. order to break off the marriage was received by Lauzun with great submission and respect, and all proper despair, but that mademoi- selle, " following her humour," broke out into violent outcries and lamentations. George. If I had been the gentleman, my submission would have been very sincere. Mrs. M. A severe trial was in store for Lauzun's submission. About a year after this adventure he fell into disgrace, and was im- prisoned for eleven years in the citadel of Pignerol. Mary. What could he have done to draw on him such a punish- ment as that ? Mrs. M. The favour of courts is fickle, and Louis was an absolute and vindictive monarch. It was never precisely known how Lauzun offended him. Some supposed that he had presumed to disobey the royal command, and had privately married mademoiselle de Mont- pensier. But the due de St. Simon, a courtier who has written his own Memoirs, gives another reason for Lauzun's disgrace. It seems that he had continually solicited madame de Montespan, the king's mistress, to use her influence in his favour, which she promised to do. Lauzun, however, being somewhat doubtful of her sincerity, bribed one of her femmes de chambre to conceal him where he might overhear a private conversation between her and the king. It is an old and common saying, which I suppose will hold good in France as well as in England, that listeners seldom hear any good of them- selves. At least such, it seems, was the case with Lauzun. He took an early opportunity of asking madame de Montespan if she had remembered to speak to the king in his behalf. She assured him that she had not failed so to do, and composed a romance of all the 'services she was going to render him, and of all the fine things she had said of him. On this, Lauzun, in his resentment, forgetting all caution, reproached her so bitterly with her perfidiousness that she fainted away. This affront neither she nor the king could pardon ; for they were aware that he could have obtained the knowledge of her treachery only by some base stratagem. Richard. Such histories as these are enough to sicken one of courts and courtiers. But still I shall like to hear the end of the story. *^»r Mrs. M. At Pignerol Lauzun found Fouquet, a disgraced minister, who had been there in close confinement seven years, during which time he had been utterly shut out from all knowledge of what was passing in the world. This man and Lauzun contrived to gain access to each other's cells. Fouquet greedily inquired news of the court, and Lauzun began by telling his own history. Fouquet had formerly known him only as a page about court, and when he heard Jiim relate that he had risen into high favour, had obtained great Conv. LOUIS XIV. 367 dignities, and, lastly, had been on the point of marrying a princess of the royal blood, he thought his head was turned, and, believing him to be insane, would never listen to him, or give credit to what he said. He was even afraid of being left alone with him, and it was some time before he discovered his error. Mary. And what became of mademoiselle during those long eleven years? Mrs. M. She spent them in besieging the ears of the king and of madame de Montespan to obtain her lover's freedom. But all was in vain ; her lamentations could not influence them, till she tried that universal key, that open sesame, a bribe, which will unlock royal as well as plebeian hearts. By a donation of a considerable part of her possessions to enrich the duke de Maine, one of the king's illegi- timate children, she at last obtained Lauzun's release from captivity. George. I will say this for her, that she was a generous, constant old soul. Mrs. M. Lauzun's return to liberty was clogged with the condi- tion that he should renounce the court. But happening to be in England at the time of the abdication of James II., he was extremely instrumental in the escape of the queen and her infant son (after- wards the Pretender) to France; and Louis XIV. was so well satisfied with his conduct on that occasion, that he restored him once more to favour. Mary. And now I suppose that all his and mademoiselle's troubles were over ? Mrs. M. The troubles of wilful and violent people seldom end but with their lives. Mademoiselle was privately married to Lauzun soon after his return from Pignerol, and he, who could never forgive his wife for the sacrifices of fortune which she had made, even though she had made them for his sake, proved a very ungrateful and negligent husband. Mademoiselle, not being blessed, as you have already perceived, with the most placable of all tempers, resented her grievances not only by words, but sometimes also, it should seem, with her nails. At last, after leading for a time what might be truly called a cat-and-dog life, they parted in mutual disgust. She retired to a convent, and died in 1693. He continued at court, by turns enlivening it by his wit and tormenting it by his malice, till 1725, when he died at the age of 89. And thus ends the history of these two people, who for half a century made a great noise in the world, and who have now taken up more of our time than they perhaps deserve. George. Do you really think that the grand monarque, as I believe the French call Louis XIV., was such a very great king ? Mrs. M. Mazarin used to say of Louis, " Je trouve en lui de quoi faire quatre rois, et un honnete homme." Nature had certainly 368 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. intended him for a great man; but fortune and art combined to spoil the noble work of nature. He had a fine person, which he deformed by the dress of the times; a fine carriage and manner, rendered almost bombastical by his high opinion of his kingly dig- nity ; a clear understanding, but contracted by ignorance ; a natural uprightness of mind, but which was warped by flattery, and by the evil counsels of the Jesuits his confessors. He was extremely good- tempered ; but this quality was often neutralized by his rigid con- formity to rules and etiquette, and often abused by his too great lenity to dissolute persons. The only quality in him which remained unimpaired by the unwholesome atmosphere of a servile and vicious court, was his industrious application to business. To this homely virtue he owes, more than to any other, his great reputation, par- ticularly now that the glare winch his conquests and his pomp cast around him is faded away. Richard. What memorials are left of him in France ? Mrs. M. It would be difficult to recapitulate them all. The har- bours of Brest, Toulon, and Dunkirk, the navigable canal of Languedoc which joins the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and the excellent roads which lead to and from the metropolis, all tend to keep Louis in almost constant remembrance. I ought, however, to add, that all these works were greatly promoted by Ms en- lightened minister Colbert. Louis also reformed the police of Paris, and repressed the insolences and excesses of that tribe of lacqueys who in the former reign had made that city a den of thieves. George. After all, then, Mazarin did not so much overpraise him when he said there was stuff enough in him to make one honest man, to say nothing of the four kings. Mrs. M. He had many kingly qualities, which were by no means incompatible with the honest man. He was extremely generous, and had a gracious and obliging manner of conferring favours, winch greatly enhanced their value. Nature, amongst the profusion of her gifts, had bestowed on him a fine-toned voice, which gave grace and expression to every trifling word that he uttered. There was also a certain grandeur about Mm which inspired the most audacious person with respect and awe. He was studiously polite, and the sort of deportment which we are apt to call the manner of the vieille cour traces its origin to those punctilious attentions wMch Louis practised and exacted in Ms court. He liked to see himself surrounded by a numerous throng of courtiers. Anquetil, in his ' History of the Court of Louis XIV.,' says, " The king at his rising, at his going to bed, at Ms repasts, in passing in the apartments, in the garden, and in the chase, looked to the right and left, remarking everybody, and would instantly perceive if any person was absent whose state or office required him to be in attendance." No Conv. LOUIS XIV. 369 monarch ever kept his courtiers in completer subjection ; all hung upon his words and watched his looks. The court often consisted of as many as six hundred persons, including both sexes. It was impossible to confer frequent and substantial benefits on such a host. Louis therefore invented a variety of ideal favours, which answered his purpose quite as well, and became objects of vehement ambition. Mary. What could these make-believe favours be ? Mrs. M. The permission to wear a peculiar sort of dress, the being ordered to accompany him in a promenade or on a journey, an invitation to a fete, the being allowed to hold a wax candle during his undressing, and many other equally insignificant matters. On the other hand, the being banished from court was regarded as little less dreadful than a sentence of death. George. I cannot make up my mind which I should have disliked most, to have been one of these six hundred courtiers, or to have been the king himself, always followed about by such a crowd of gaping, aping people. Mrs. M. The king was the most exact man in the world. Every movement of the court was regulated by clock-work. His private life, like that of his grandfather Henry IV., was very immoral, and he had several mistresses. Of these mesdames De la Valiere and Montespan are the best known. Madame de Maintenon has been supposed to have been another of his mistresses, but she was in reality his wife, he having privately married her after his queen's death. Louis's mistresses might more properly have been called his slaves. He required their constant attendance, and, sick or well, they were to be always full dressed and ready to dance, or to appear at fetes, or to go on a journey, or whatever he chose to do. They were never to be weary, or to mind heat or cold, and above all, were to be always gay and good-humoured. Mary. That was the hardest part of all. Richard. Did the courtiers all live in the palace ? Mrs. M. The greater part of them, I believe, at least when the court was at Versailles. Richard. I have heard my uncle speak of Versailles, and say it was more like a city than a palace. Mrs. M. Louis XIV. (from disgust, as is thought, to the Fronde) took a great aversion to Paris, and never liked to reside there. His court was at first held at St. Germains, but was removed afterwards to Versailles, which, from only a plain hunting lodge built by his father, he converted into one of the most splendid and extensive palaces in Europe. It is far from being one of the most beautiful : it is quite a labyrinth of building ; and all symmetry or proportion, which is the essence of beauty in architecture, is confounded in its immense size. R 3 37o LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIII. Richard. I think you said that Louis was extremely ignorant. Surely that was not a very kingly quality. Mrs. M. He had no natural love of learning, and those precious hours of his boyhood which he ought to have passed in useful study were spent with his mother and her ladies. By the sort of educa- tion which he gained in their society, his manners acquired a high degree of refinement, but his mind remained unfurnished with useful and solid knowledge. His ignorance of the history of past times prevented him from forming correct judgments of the times he lived in. He believed himself to be the greatest man who had ever existed. He was equally unable to judge of others as of himself, and his ignorance was a source of perpetual miscalculations and mistakes. George. I see then that learning is as necessary for kings as it is for poor folks who have to get their living by it. Mrs. M. Knowledge is to the mind what eyes are to the body, and none but foolish or conceited people would wish to continue blind, when with a little exertion they may obtain the blessing of sight. Mary. Was not this king's reign very long ? Mrs. M. It lasted sixty-three years, and may be divided into three distinct periods ; his minority, his manhood, and his old age. The first, as you have already seen, was a period of turbulence and dis- order; the second was full of triumph and glitter; but in the third period his fortunes declined. His old age was, as you will find in the next chapter, a melancholy series of mortifications and reverses, followed by afflicting family losses. tfrest. Old Castle and Inner Harbour. .D. 1679. LOUIS XIV. 371 CHAPTER XXXIV. LOUIS XIV. (in continuation.) Years after Christ, 1679 — 1715. Statue of Corneille. The restoration of peace did not relax Louis's preparations for future enterprises. He augmented with the greatest possible industry the naval and military strength of his kingdom. He strengthened and extended his line of defence in Flanders, on the Ehine, and in Italy, and this partly by measures which, though pro- fessed to be merely in execution of the treaty of Nimeguen, differed little from actual war. He seized on Strasburg, a free and opulent city, and, fortifying it, made it one of the strongest posts on his fron- tier. He set up a claim to the town of Alost in the Spanish Nether- lands, asserting that a stipulation ceding it to France had been left out of the treaty through mere forgetfulness; and when the Spaniards would not listen to so vain a pretension, he caused his troops to form the blockade of Luxemburg. He instigated the Turks to attack the emperor on the side of Hungary. They penetrated to Vienna, and Louis then for the moment withdrew his army from before Luxem- burg, declaring that, while the Turks were in the empire, he would make no attack on any Christian prince, nor prevent Spain from giving aid to expel them. The Turks were no sooner repulsed than Louis renewed hostilities ; besieged and took Courtrai, Dixmude, and 372 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV. Luxemburg, and also seized Treves, and demolished its fortifications. All this, he said, was to carry into effect the spirit of the treaty of Nimeguen. * But during these operations the Imperialists and Spaniards opened a negotiation with him at Katisbon, and it was agreed, August, 1684, that the peace of Nimeguen should be con- verted into a truce for twenty years, and that France should retain possession of Luxemburg. The year 1685 is the date of the worst blot in the whole of Louis's character, the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the persecution of the Hugonots. Cardinal Mazarin had never been a persecutor. During the life of Colbert the influence of that wise minister had protected the Hugonots against their numerous enemies. He found them useful and intelligent subjects, and encouraged their industry as much as lay in his power. But Colbert had died in 1683. Lou- vois, a man whom no sense for human suffering seems ever to have diverted from any design, and his father Le Tellier, who was now chancellor, spared no efforts to induce the king to exterminate them. The Catholic clergy and the church of Home pressed their destruc- tion ; and the king himself was sufficiently disposed to think that his will ought to be law in every matter in which he chose to interfere. In the years 1681 and 1682 several steps had been taken against the Hugonots, which could not but excite amongst them the greatest alarm. Many of their places of worship were shut up ; they were expelled from civil offices ; they were excluded as much as possible from all situations of profit; and their children were encouraged, even at the early age of seven years, to abjure the religion professed by their parents, and were admitted as converts into the Boman Catholic church. These measures had induced several families, par- ticularly in Poitou, Saintonge, and the neighbourhood, to abandon their country while they were yet able to do so, and to take refuge in Protestant states. On this it was ordered that all seamen and artizans who should attempt to make their escape from the country should be sent to the galleys ; and as several families were observed to be selling their lands and houses, it was further ordered, that the property should be confiscated if the sellers should quit the country in less than a year after the sale. Some commotions being excited by these tyrannical proceedings, Louis, towards the end of the year 1684, and in the beginning of 1685, sent bodies of troops to enforce obedience to his commands, and compel the Hugonots to embrace Catholicism. Of these troops many were dragoons, and, from the cruel licence and excess which they practised in the harsh office committed to them, this persecu- tion is often entitled by French writers the " Dragonade." Louvois declared it to be " his majesty's will that the greatest rigours shall be executed on those who will not adopt his religion, and that such k.i>. 1685. LOUIS XIV. 373 as have the stupid vanity to hold out to the last should be pursued to the last extremity." On those who refused to obey these commands the troops were quartered at discretion, consumed their provisions, pillaged their houses, destroyed their effects, and seized whatever belonged to them. They next attacked their persons, and tortured them in a thousand ways, without any distinction of sex or age. Numbers, who remained firm and unshaken, were thrown into dungeons; those who escaped into the woods were pursued like beasts of prey, and like them massacred without mercy. The females were placed in the convents, where the nuns in their zeal would not suffer them to enjoy repose till they consented to attend the mass. All were reduced to poverty and wretchedness ; and their places of worship were razed to the ground. By the twelfth article of the revocation of the edict of Nantes it was decreed " that the Hugonots, till it should please God to en- lighten them, might continue to reside in the kingdom, pursue their commerce, and enjoy their property, without being subject to trouble or molestation on account of their religion, on condition that they should not publicly profess it, nor assemble under pretence of read- ing prayers, or performing any other act of worship whatever." But no attention was now paid to this article. The soldiers were left in the provinces, where their outrages daily became greater and greater. There was no safety but in flight ; and at the same time the strictest precautions were taken to deprive the unhappy victims of this hor- rible tyranny of all possible means of escape. The guards were doubled on all the frontiers. The peasants were ordered to attack the unhappy fugitives wherever they met them. Soldiers were dis- persed over every part of the country. The strictest orders were issued to those who kept the barriers to prevent any person from passing. All who were taken were thrown into prison, stripped of what little they had saved from the general wreck, separated from their wives and families, loaded with chains, put to the torture, and exposed to all the evils which the savage ingenuity of their guards could invent. But notwithstanding the vigilance of the government, not less, it is said, than half a million of people found means to escape, and car- ried into foreign and rival nations, not only the money which they had been able to save, but what was still more valuable, their skill in manufactures, and their habits of industry. Nearly forty thou- sand took refuge in England, where they were received with open arms : and we meet daily in the most respectable walks of life with the descendants of these unhappy refugees ; a large proportion of whom, in this their adopted country, have both earned for them- selves, and transmitted to their descendants, a deservedly high repu- 374 L0UIS XIV - Chap. XXXIV. tation. Nearly four hundred thousand, who still continued in France, were compelled to attend mass, and to receive the sacrament, accord- ing to the rites of the Roman communion. History since that time has said but little of the French Protestants. The government has, on the whole, grown milder in its principles, and has begun to learn something from long and sad experience of the crime and folly of persecution. Liberty of conscience, however, never became perfect in France till the era of the revolution of 1789, which mingled with its many evils and shocking outrages the great good of enfranchising those who differed from the established religion. In 1686, chiefly through the influence of the prince of Orange, a new league, which united Germany, Holland, and Spain against France, was formed by the treaty of Augsburg. 1 Savoy also acceded to this alliance. Louis exerted himself to anticipate the designs of his enemies. ~ In September, 1688, he detached an army of twenty thousand men, with the dauphin at their head, marechal Duras commanding under him, against the Imperialists. Philipsburg, Manheim, and other towns, were soon taken. At the same time his attention was forcibly drawn to England, where most important events were now taking place, which terminated in carrying the whole strength of that nation into the interests of his most determined adversaries. . Charles II. had died in 1685, and was succeeded by his brother James II., whose rash zeal for the church of Eome, together with his arbitrary principles of government, compelled his subjects to throw off his authority, and to call in the prince of Orange to their assistance. William prepared immediately to invade England. Louis soon learned, through M. d'Avaux, the French envoy at the Hague, the real object of William's preparations, and immediately conveyed the intelligence to James. At the same time he offered to reinforce the English fleet with a French squadron, or to send over to Eng- land any number of troops ; but this offer was rejected by James, who feared to increase the dissatisfaction of his subjects. Louis then proposed to march an army into the Netherlands, and so to detain the Dutch in the defence of their own country. But this proposal was also declined. James fled to France, and the prince of Orange, now William III., bent all his efforts to strengthen the powerful confederacy against France, which he himself had been already the chief agent in forming. In March, 1689, Louis sent thirteen ships of the line to escort James to Ireland, where he had still a party in his favour. The first success exceeded his expectations; but in the battle of the Boyne, fought July 11, 1690, in which James had the assistance of six thou- sand French troops, William obtained a decisive victory. James returned to France, and passed the remainder of his days at St. A.D. 1693. LOUIS XIV. 375 Germains, partly a dependant on the bounty of Louis, and partly supported by a private pension from his daughter Mary, now queen of England. In the battle of the Boyne William received a slight wound. Hence was spread for a time a false alarm of his death. This news was received at Paris with great demonstrations of joy. The bells were rung. William was burned in effigy, and even the guns of the Bastile were fired, though not by order of the king, as on an occasion of public rejoicing. In the mean time, on the continent, the French army burst again into the unhappy country of the Palatinate, winch had in the former war endured such horrible devastation by the army of marechal Turenne. It was now determined to make an absolute desert of this fertile and extensive district, that the Austrian army might find no means of subsistence in it. The savage Louvois was the author of this resolve. When he proposed it to Louis, we are told that the king remonstrated, saying that Turenne's ravages had excited the in- dignation of Europe, and that he did not like to sanction so cruel a measure. But the minister persisted, and the king made no further difficulty. Everything was destroyed with fire and sword. The wretched inhabitants were compelled to quit their habitations in the month of February, 1689. Men, women, and children had to wan- der in the fields without shelter, or to seek for refuge in the neigh- bouring states. The destruction began at Manheim, the residence of the elector, and was carried universally throughout the whole coun- try. The ravages of Turenne, it is said, were but a mere spark com- pared with this horrid conflagration ; and the officers who executed the orders of the government were covered with shame at being made the instruments of so much cruelty. During the remainder of this, and in the succeeding campaigns, the French armies opposed with gallantry and success the forces of their enemies. Marechal Luxemburg, who chiefly commanded in the Netherlands, proved himself to be no unworthy successor of Conde and Turenne, his great masters in the art of war. In Savoy and Piedmont marechal Catinet opposed prince Eugene, and Victor Amadeus duke of Savoy. Marechal Luxemburg died in January, 1695. Marechals Boufflers and Villeroy were afterwards employed in the Netherlands, and subsequently Catinet, who had closed the war in Savoy by concluding a separate treaty of peace with the duke. By sea the advantage was on the side of England and Holland. On the 29th of May, 1692, Tourville, the French admiral, was completely defeated off Cape la Hogue, and the remnant of his fleet, which took refuge on the French coast, was afterwards nearly destroyed by the enemy. James II. himself beheld from a neighbouring eminence this disaster, which seemed to destroy his last hope of being restored to the throne of his ancestors. This loss was, however, repaired with 376 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV. great diligence, and in 1693 Tourville sailed with a large fleet to the Mediterranean. On the 17th of June he fell in with Sir George Kooke, who, in company with a Dutch vice-admiral, was convoying a large fleet of merchantmen. The French commander, who was greatly superior in force, attacked and defeated the enemy, took or destroyed several ships of war and a great number of merchantmen, and afterwards made unsuccessful attempts on Cadiz and Gibraltar. The English retaliated by making attacks on St. Malo, and on other parts of the French coast. All parties were at length inclined sincerely to peace. The empire and Spain were weary of a war which had been attended only with misfortunes ; the parliament of England had long murmured at the heavy expense of engaging so vigorously in the continental quarrels of their sovereign ; the trade of Holland was interrupted, and her most fruitful provinces laid waste. Louis must have been sensible that his own intense exertions had almost exhausted the great re- sources of France ; and he was also harbouring other designs which a restoration of peace was necessary to mature. Under these circum- stances, a treaty was entered into, and peace was concluded in Sep- tember, 1697, at Eyswick, a village near the Hague. By this peace Louis restored his conquests from Spain ; he ac- knowledged the title of William III. to the crown of England ; he restored Philipsburg and other towns to the emperor, and submitted to destroy the fortifications of Strasburg. He resigned also Lorraine, Treves, and the Palatinate. Thus he consented at the end of a successful war to terms of peace which scarcely could have been expected, even in defeat, from the monarch of so great a country as France. The secret of this moderation is, that a far more tempting ambi- tion than that of merely extending his frontier was now working in his mind. Charles II., king of Spain, son of Philip IV. by his second marriage, and the last heir male of the emperor Charles V., was now on the brink of the grave. All Europe was in anxiety as to the future disposal of his great dominions. He had no children, and his nearest relations were Louis XIV. and the emperor Leopold. By a remarkable coincidence, they were both his first-cousins, both being grandsons of Philip III. Both were also his brothers-in-law, both having married daughters of Philip IV. : and thus both princes transmitted also to their children, Louis to the dauphin, and Leo- pold to his son Joseph, king of the Komans, the same relationship to the crown of Spain, by the same double connexion, and in precisely the same degree. Louis's wife Marie Therese, and his mother Anne of Austria, had been the elder sisters. But then the right of succes- sion both in Louis and his posterity had been solemnly renounced both by his father and by himself, particularly by himself in the a.d. 1700. LOUIS XIV. 377 treaty of the Pyrenees. Leopold had moreover in his favour the long continuance of the crown of Spain in the Austrian family, his direct descent in the male line from the emperor Maximilian, and the inve- terate dislike of the Spanish nation to the French. Besides these two great monarchs, there was also a young prince of Bavaria, a grandson of Leopold, who traced through his mother, Leopold's daughter by the princess of Spain, a direct descent from Philip IV. It was not easy to see how these claims could be reconciled. Louis had shown sufficiently, on former occasions, that the treaty of the Pyrenees, and other formal renunciations, would not stand in the way of his claiming anything he chose to have ; but he feared to see all Europe oppose his ambition, and he felt that he could not cope with all its powers united. He was not the less desirous, however, both to get all he could, and also to keep out of the hands of the emperor all that he could not get for himself. With these views he made a proposal to the king of England to join in a treaty for settling a par- tition of the Spanish empire, to take place after the death of Charles LT. William acceded, probably from apprehension that Louis might else obtain the whole or a larger share for himself. By this partition treaty Spain and the Indies (with the exception of Guipuscoa, the north-west district of the province of Biscay in Spain) were to be assigned to the young prince of Bavaria ; Naples, Sicily, and Guipus- coa to the dauphin ; and the duchy of Milan to the archduke Charles, second son of the emperor Leopold. The king of Spain's indignation at this parcelling out of his do- minions may be more easily conceived than expressed. Anxious to preserve his empire entire, he made a will, by which he bequeathed the whole of it to the prince of Bavaria. That young prince, how- ever, died suddenly. Louis and William signed a new partition treaty, by which Spain and the Indies were to be transferred to the archduke Charles, and Milan to the duke of Lorraine, who in his turn was to cede Lorraine to France. All these arrangements, how- ever, were finally superseded by a new will made by the king of Spain about a month before his death, by which he bequeathed his whole dominions to Philip duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis, and second son of the dauphin. Charles II. died November 1, 1700. Louis, it is said, hesitated whether to accept for his grandson this splendid inheritance, or to abide by the treaty of partition, winch would have annexed Naples, Sicily, and Lorraine to the French monarchy, and also have extended its frontier on the side of Spain. But he naturally decided to espouse the claims of his grandson, and probably did not much care what William might think of the in- fraction thus made in the partition treaty: a treaty which some think that Louis brought forward originally only as a pretence to cover the secret intrigues which he was at the same time carrying 378 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV. on with the Spaniards. However this may be, both William and the States of Holland, who were unprepared for immediate hostilities, recognised the title of Philip V. Spain readily acknowledged him, and Lords was admitted into the possession of the Spanish Nether- lands and of the duchy of Milan in his right. The emperor, meanwhile, hesitated, but at length commenced war in Italy, where prince Eugene gained signal advantages over the French generals, marechals Catinat and Villeroi. England and Hol- land soon after joined with the emperor, by a treaty concluded at the Hague on the 7th of September, 1701 ; but it is supposed that the war would have been very unpopular in England, if Louis, on the death of James II., who died Sept. 16 of the same year, had not most indiscreetly acknowledged his son as king of England; and this, notwithstanding that he had so lately recognised William's title in the treaty of Eyswick. The whole English nation fired at this insult. William was always eager for war with France, and the States of Holland were at this time guided entirely by the counsels and policy of the English government. The death of William, a monarch of whom it has been wittily said, that he was king of Hol- land and stadtholder of England, seemed for a moment to threaten the dissolution of the alliance ; but queen Anne, who succeeded him, renewed all his engagements. Churchill, earl of Marlborough, who had served under Turenne, was appointed to the command of the allied army in the Netherlands, where he compelled Boufflers, the French general, to retreat, and took Venlo, Ruremonde, and Liege. The victories of Marlborough are so much a portion of the Eng- lish history, that I must here pass them over in my brief account of this long reign. I will therefore only say, that after the entire defeat of the French army under marechal Tallard, at Hochstedt or Blen- heim, August 13, 1704, marechal Villars, who was now the ablest and the most distinguished of the French generals, firmly and pru- dently checked the advance of the allies, and effectually protected the French territory from invasion. At the same time, in Spain itself, the arms of the allies were attended with the most rapid and signal success. The archduke Charles was proclaimed king by the title of Charles III. of Spain. The whole of Catalonia declared in his favour; and under the guidance of the active and intrepid earl of Peterborough, who marched through the whole country with but little resistance, he at length entered in triumph into Madrid. That capital, however, Philip recovered soon afterwards. In the campaign of 1706 the allied armies subdued almost all Flanders, took Antwerp, Brussels, Ostend, and Menin. In Italy, where the French arms had long had the advantage, prince Eugene, in the decisive battle of Turin, Sept. 7, 1706, obtained a victory a.d. 1710. LOUIS XIV. 379 which left the house of Bourbon no hope of restoring its power in that country. •*- - In 1707 one ray of brighter fortune was seen to gleam on the declining interests of France, the allies being in this year completely defeated in Spain, by the duke of Berwick, a natural son of James II., in the bloody battle of Almanza. This battle was fought April 25 ; and from this time the cause of Philip, though not de- cided, seems in Spain itself to have been usually the strongest. Everywhere else there was nothing but gloom and despondency. In 1708 an attempt failed to invade Scotland, where it had been hoped that a diversion might be excited in favour of the exiled house of Stuart. In Flanders, though Louis's dispirited armies still sup- ported the contest with resolution, the allies made alarming and almost continual progress, and by taking Lille, on October 25, appeared to open for themselves the way to Paris. Exhausted in his resources, and humbled in his ambition, Louis, though he had before vainly tried to negotiate, now sent an ambas- sador to the Hague to sue for peace. He offered even much more than the allies had claimed in the beginning of the war, and his pro- posals ought reasonably to have met with acceptance. But the allies insisted on terms so extravagant, that, though the ambassador con- sented to sign the preliminaries, Louis himself rejected them with disdain. The French people, though oppressed and impoverished, shared in the indignation which their sovereign felt and expressed ; and the campaign of 1709 opened, on the side of France, with gloomy but determined resolution. But the ascendency of the allies, and the skill of Eugene and Marlborough, who were now united in the command of the armies in the Netherlands, presented obstacles too powerful to be overcome even by the strength and valour of despera- tion. In tins campaign France still lost ground, though marechals Villars and Boufflers showed themselves worthy opponents of the distinguished generals whom they had to encounter. In the close of this year the pope acknowledged Charles III. as king of Spain, Naples, and Sicily. In 1710 Louis again sued for peace, and added new concessions to those he had proposed the year before. Among the rest, he offered to ratify the pope's acknowledgment of the archduke Charles ; to give no assistance to his grandson Philip, and even to advance a sum of money to the allies, to be used by them in carrying on the war against him in Spain ; to raze the French line of fortresses on the Bhine; to demolish the fortifications and fill up the harbour of Dunkirk, and to cede to the Dutch a strong frontier in the Nether- lands. He consented also to acknowledge the title of queen Anne to the throne of England, and to expel the Pretender from France. Conferences to take these terms into consideration were opened at 380 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV. Gertruydenburg in the month of March. But the allies, intoxicated with success, refused them even with insult, and demanded that Louis should himself undertake to expel his grandson from the Spanish throne. This ignominy Louis, overwhelmed as he was, rejected with scorn, exclaiming, " Since I must make war, I had rather make it against my enemies than my children." The war was accordingly renewed. Louis had again the mortifi- cation of seeing the allies successful in Flanders. In Spain, however, after many fluctuations of fortune, Philip gained the decided advan- tage, and at length acquired possession of the whole kingdom, with the exception of the province of Catalonia. In 1711 the efforts of Villars in the Netherlands were doomed again to sink before the superior genius of Marlborough, a general whose rare destiny it was never to experience any serious repulse. But though triumphant to the close of his military life, the altered policy of his court made this his last campaign. An extraordinary change of parties took place in England. The new ministers determined to make peace, and Marlborough was compelled by their conduct to resign his command in the Netherlands. He was succeeded by the duke of Ormond, who had private instructions not to fight. Pre- liminaries of peace with England were signed in London in the month of October, 1711. On the 29th of January following a con- gress was opened at Utrecht ; and on the 17th of July, 1712, the English troops withdrew from the army of the allies. Prince Eugene, though thus deserted, was still formidable ; but his army was routed on the 24th of the same month at Denain, by marechal Villars. It is said that prince Eugene had sent a plan of his position to Marlborough, who was at this time at Aix-la-Chapelle, and that the duke, seeing the danger to which he was exposed, instantly despatched a courier to warn him of it ; but the courier did not arrive till it was too late. Several fortresses fell into Villars' hands after this victory, which was the more important as it cheered the spirits of the French nation — a nation always ready to be re- animated by the first symptoms of success, and raised the tone and confidence of its ambassadors in the pending negotiation at Utrecht. The strength of the French interests had also received previously a great accession in consequence of the death, April 17, 1711, of the emperor Joseph, who had succeeded his father Leopold in 1705. Joseph was succeeded by his brother, the archduke Charles, the competitor of Philip V. for the crown of Spain, who thus became the emperor Charles VI. Europe in general was even more unwilling to see the union of Spain and the empire in the hands of the same prince of the house of Austria than that two princes of the house of Bourbon should be in possession of the thrones of France and Spain. Treaties of peace with Great Britain, Holland, Prussia, Portugal, a.d. 1714. LOUIS XIV. 381 and Savoy, were signed at Utrecht in the spring and summer of 1713. By these treaties Philip was acknowledged king of Spain, bnt at the same time renounced, both for himself and his descendants, all future succession to the throne of France. Similar renunciations of all suc- cession to the Spanish territories were made by Louis for himself and his successors. Louis recognised the title of Anne, and the suc- cession of the house of Hanover to the crown of England. He con- sented to raze the fortifications of Dunkirk, and to cede to England Newfoundland, Hudson's Bay, Acadia, and the island of St. Christo- pher's. It was stipulated that the emperor should have Naples, Milan, and the Spanish Netherlands ; that the duke of Savoy should have Sicily with the title of king ; that Lille and its dependencies should be restored to France ; but that the frontier of the United Provinces should be strengthened by the possession of Namur, Charleroi, Luxemburg, Ypres, and Nieuport. The emperor alone continued the war : but in the following year he also agreed to make peace, and a treaty was concluded between him and Louis at Baden, Sept. 7, 1714. The Catalans, with uncal- culating determination, and although forsaken both by the empire and by England, still dared to maintain the contest a short time longer. But Barcelona, their capital, after an obstinate defence, at length capitulated, and they were compelled to submit. Thus Louis at last saw the termination of that disastrous war which, though it had strikingly displayed the great resources of his kingdom, yet had reduced it to extreme wretchedness and poverty. The unreasonableness of the allies in rejecting the conditions offered in 1710 at Gertruydenburg had been justly punished by their own subsequent divisions, and by the natural consequences of those divisions. The humiliation of France had been in the same measure relieved ; but misery enough remained to show in frightful colours the crime and folly of ambition, and to prove to the king, who was now seventy-six years old, and visibly drawing near his end, that he had altogether mistaken the true business of life, and all the ends for which his power had been given. Domestic afflictions, also, fell heavily on him during the last years of his life. The dauphin, the only one of his legitimate children who survived infancy, had died April 14, 1711, leaving three sons, the duke of Burgundy, Philip king of Spain, and the due de Berri. The duke of Burgundy, a prince of the highest promise, died February 18, 1712, and was buried in the same grave with his wife, who had died only six days before him. His eldest child, the due de Bretagne, survived only about three weeks, and the due de Berri died May 4, 1714. The king of Spain having renounced his succession to the throne of France, all the hopes of the Bourbons now rested on the due d'Anjou, the sole surviving son of the duke of Burgundy, 382 LOUIS XIV. Ohap. XXXIV. a feeble infant, for whose life also great fears had been enter- tained. At the close of a life thus bowed down by calamity, Louis sought refuge in the hopes of religion. Amidst all his vices, the principle of religion, or at least the fear of future punishment, seems always to have retained some hold of him. He had often been a prey to the visitations of remorse, had devoutly observed the penances of his church. His persecution of the Hugonots shows that he could know but little of the true spirit of Christianity, yet let us still hope that age, disease, and affliction may have opened his heart to a better lesson at the last than he had ever learnt before. In August, 1715, his malady increased, and it appeared evident that death was approaching. On the 26th of that month, he ordered his infant successor to be brought into his apartment. He took him in his arms, and thus addressed him aloud in the presence of all his attendants : " You will soon be king of a great kingdom. What I most strongly recommend to you is, never to forget the obligations you are under to God. Kemember that to him you owe all you possess. Endeavour to preserve peace with your neighbours. I have been too fond of war. Do not you follow my example in that, nor in my too lavish expenditure. Take advice in all things, and endeavour to find out the best, that you may adhere invariably to it. Ease your people as soon as you can, and do that which I have had the misfortune of not being able to do." These words Louis XV. had inscribed afterwards at the head of his bed. Louis XIV. died September 1, 1715, being within a few days of 77 years of age. He married Marie Therese of Austria, only daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, by his first marriage with the princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry IV. of France. > By her he had one son, Louis, the dauphin, who in the history of the times has commonly the title of Monseigneur. This prince (who died April 14, 1711) married Marie-Anne-Christine- Victoire, a princess of Bavaria, and by her had three sons : Louis, duke of Burgundy, who married Marie Adelaide of Savoy, and was the father of (1) Louis XV. ; (2) Philip V. of Spain ; and (3) Charles, due de Berri, who died May 4, 1714. Louis XIV. had two sons and three daughters, who died young He had also several mistresses, and many illegitimate children. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXXIV. Richard. You said very truly, mamma, in our yesterdays conver- sation, that the old age of Louis XIV. was a melancholy period. C/ONV. LOUIS XIV. 38; Mary. But the worst was the death of all those poor princes and princesses. Mrs. Marhham. The death of the elder, or, as he was called, le grand dauphin, was no doubt a great affliction to the king his father ; but that of the duke of Burgundy, the younger dauphin, was a still greater. George. Was that first dauphin a bad sort of a man ? Mrs. M. He was one of those people who might be called neither bad nor good. He was very good-natured, but had a littleness of mind which kept him always occu- pied in petty af- fairs. At the same time he was often observed to be wholly indifferent to things which were of real importance. He overlooked his domestic expenditure very minutely, and knew exactly the price of every article of consumption, and would never give more for anything than it was worth. George. That was a very fiddle-faddle sort of work for a dauphin of France. He should have left all that to his stewards and servants. Mrs. M. His great attention to these lesser matters acquired for him a character for niggardliness which was in some respects un- deserved, for he was extremely charitable to the poor and liberal to his dependants. He had another quality which in a prince is not a popular one : this was his incredible silence. (I use the very word of the French author.) This fault was accompanied, however, with its concomitant virtues, discretion and secrecy, which, in a meddling and mischief-making court like that of Louis XIV., made ample amends for it. Richard. Had his education been neglected ? Mrs. M. Very far from it : Louis had taken great pains to procure proper instructors for him. One of these instructors was Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, whose Introduction to Universal History, which you, Kichard, have read, was written for the dauphin's use. But he had not a capacity to gain much benefit from these advantages. He had Louis XTV., from Van der Meuleu's Portrait 384 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV. so little taste for literature, that, after lie became his own master, he never read anything but the lists of the deaths and marriages in the Gazette de France. He had an awkward address, and, particularly when in his father's presence, was extremely timid and constrained. Louis, indeed, did not strive to remove his shyness, but rather in- creased it by the coldness and reserve of his own manner; and it has been observed of him that he was to his son " always a king, and seldom a father." George. Oh ! poor dauphin, that was not the way to improve his capacity. I think, if papa were to treat me with coldness and re- serve, I should soon lose all the little sense I have ; or at least I should cease to take any pleasure in improving it, which I suppose would be almost the same thing. Mary. What sort of a woman was the dauphiness? Mrs. M. She was not a woman who could in any way counteract the defects of her husband. Unhappily for her, she entered the most brilliant court in Europe without any of those prepossessing- qualities which were necessary to acquire consideration in it. She was very plain, and was neither graceful nor witty, and understood French very imperfectly. The diversions of the ladies of the court appeared to her frivolous and uninteresting, and she withdrew her- self as much as she could from their society. George. I think she showed herself to be a very sensible woman. Mrs. M. I am not so sure of that. She loved to shut herself up in a little dull back-room, with one of her German women, with whom she could converse at ease in her native language. The king took great pains to lure her from her love of retirement, but in vain, and the dauphin soon left her for more cheerful society. She gradually sunk into a profound melancholy, and after a few years died, having, as the French ladies asserted, literally moped herself to death. Richard. Well, I think she would have been a more sensible woman if she had learned French and tried to make herself agree- able. You know, mamma, you often tell us that the cultivation of cheerfulness is one of the moral duties. Mary. And now, mamma, will you tell us about the second dau- phin, whose death was such a great grief to the old king ? Mrs. M. His death was a grief not only to the king, but also to the whole nation. He had a lively wit, and an acute and penetrating genius, and what was still more valuable, he possessed also a sound judgment and an inflexible integrity. George. How delightful it is to find a faultless character at last ! Mrs. M. The duke of Burgundy (as he was entitled in his father's life-time) was not entirely faultless. He was by nature extremely passionate ; but this fault he at length subdued, and brought his temper under such control, that after his boyish days its impetuosity Conv. LOUIS XIV. 385 rarely if ever broke forth. His mind had been early trained to virtue by Fenelon, the great and good archbishop of Cambray. Richard. Fenelon ! I thought he had been the author of Telemachus. Mrs. M. So he was. That agreeable romance was written for the instruction of his royal pupil. The duke was always greatly attached to Fenelon, and, when this venerable old man had fallen into disgrace with the king, persevered in showing him every attention in his power. Mary. What could such a good man have done to get into disgrace ? Richard. Whatever the reason was, he ought to have been for- given, though it were only for the sake of that delightful book. Mrs. M. It was principally that delightful book which occasioned his disgrace. The king fancied there were some passages in it which alluded to the tyranny of his own government. But to resume what I was saying of the duke of Burgundy. He was sincerely religious, and made the performance of his duty the main business of his life. In expectation of the throne which seemed to await him, he con- stantly studied to acquire a perfect knowledge of everything that could contribute to make the country flourishing, and his people happy. He was about thirty years old when by his father's death he became dauphin. The king his grandfather, who knew how to appreciate his merit, admitted him to a much greater participation of state affairs than had ever been allowed to his father, and treated him with a deference and a respect for his opinion which astonished all those who had seen how tenacious Louis always was of his own authority and opinions. Although he had the disadvantage of a plain face and a very indifferent figure (he was awry and walked lame), yet his sensible countenance and noble deportment gave a dignity even to his person. The courtiers found that he was not to be deceived by any of their artifices, that he saw through their malice, and depised their littlenesses. The ministers also (who, in spite of the king's jealousy of being governed, had long had everything their own way) soon perceived that to his grandfather's close application to business he added a much sounder judgment and a clearer insight into affairs. Mary. Was his wife as excellent as himself? Mrs. M. She was one of the most amiable and engaging creatures that ever lived ; and she and the prince presented the example, an example which in a court is but too rare, of a perfectly happy and united couple. Mary. Did she shut herself up like the other dauphiness ? Mrs. M. Her chief pleasure was to promote the happiness of the king, who was now grown old, and was often melancholy. She also attached herself to madame de Maintenon, and generally called her by the endearing name of " ma tante." She was only eleven years old when she came to France, and, although so young, had from the FllANCE. S 386 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV very first an extraordinary tact in accommodating herself to the humour in which she saw the king, and could be grave or gay as the occasion required. Sometimes she would perch herself on the arms of his chair, or plant herself at his knees, and caress or tease him by turns, all which he would take in very good part. Mary. It must have been a droll sight to see that pompous old king playing at romps with that merry little princess. Mrs. M. This little princess knew how to be wise as well as merry. In all her lively sallies she preserved a discretion which kept them from being ever displeasing, and would instantly desist when the king began to be weary. In public she always took care to conduct herself towards him with the most marked respect. The king doted upon her, and in his latter years her presence became essential to his comfort. She seldom engaged in the gay diversions of the court, but, when she did, Louis always expected her to come to his chamber before she retired to rest, and give him an account of all that had passed. Mary. I suppose that madame de Maintenon was a very good woman, since tins charming princess was so fond of her. Mrs. M. Madame de Maintenon has two characters. By some persons she is esteemed a woman of the greatest merit, and by others an artful and narrow-minded bigot. All however agree that she was a woman of great talents, and of most engaging manners. Most of her contemporaries, and particularly madame de Sevigne, speak with great admiration of the charms of her conversation; and indeed it was to her conversational powers that she in great measure owed her elevation. Richard. Who was she originally ? Mrs. M. She was originally a Hugonot, and was granddaughter of Theodore d'Aubigne, half-brother of Henry IV. Her father died when she was very young, and it was remarked of her mother that her manner to her daughter was so unnaturally rigid, that she never embraced her but twice in her life. She did not, however, remain long under her mother's care. A Catholic lady, to pay her court to Mary of Medicis, obtained an order to take her away from her relations, for the purpose of bringing her up a Catholic, a species of violence which was not only allowed but even encouraged by the government, and which was one of the most cruel tyrannies to which the Hugonots were exposed in this and in the preceding reigns. But to proceed; the lady who had thus taken charge of mademoiselle d'Aubigne soon became weary of her, and married her, when only fourteen, to the poet Scarron, a man of great wit, but not, I believe, of correct manners. She was so poor, that Scarron acknowledged in his marriage contract that all the dower which he received with his wife consisted of " two large eyes full of Conv. LOUIS XIV. 387 malice, a fine shape, a pair of beautiful hands, a great deal of wit, and a rental of four Louis." Scarron's death did not leave her much richer than she was at her marriage, excepting indeed in the friends whom the propriety of her conduct and the fascination of her manners had gained her. She afterwards obtained the office of governess to the children of madame de Montespan, the king's mistress. In this situation the king had frequent opportunities of seeing her, and, although he had a prejudice against her at first, yet at last he became so much captivated by her agreeable conversation, and by the evenness of her placid temper, which formed a strong contrast to madame de Montespan's violent and variable humours, that not long after the queen's death he married her. George. It is a comfort to find now and then a king who marries to please himself. Mrs. M. The marriage, however, was kept secret, or at least was not avowed. George. You said she had two characters. "Which do you think she deserved, the good or the bad one ? Mrs. M. Whatever faults she might have, she cannot be denied the merit of a singular modesty. She assumed no airs of greatness in consequence of her elevation. Her dress, which was elegant and becoming, was remarkable for its simplicity, and her manners pre- served their natural frankness. The only change that could be perceived in her was, that she withdrew more from general society, and confined herself almost entirely to the company of the king, and to that of a few ladies who perhaps were in her secret. Mary. I suppose she thought herself very happy to be the king's wife. Mrs. M. Alas ! ambition is of all passions the one of which the gratification is the least conducive to happiness. No one experienced this more fully than madame de Maintenon, who appears to have been a much happier woman as the wife of the poor old poet Scarron, than she was as the wife of the grand monarque. She resigned the ease and liberty of a private condition, and, as her marriage was concealed, she had none of the gratifications, such as they are, of being a queen. Her life ever after was dull and monotonous, and she might be con- sidered as a sort of state prisoner at large. In a letter to one of her friends she thus feelingly expresses herself: "Why can I not give you all my experience ? why can I not make you see the ennui which devours the great, and the labour it is to them to get rid of their time ? See you not that I die of sadness in a fortune beyond what I could ever imagine, and that nothing but the assistance of God prevents my sinking under it ? " In another letter she complains of " the torment of having to amuse an unamusable king." George. I am sure that on such terms I should never wish to be s 2 388 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV. great. But, mamma, how came the court of Louis XIV. to be so dull ? I always thought it was the gayest in the world. Mrs. M. So it was in the former part of Ms reign, and especially when he was under the influence of madame de Montespan, who loved pomp, and show, and diversions. But in his latter years all was changed. Mary. That was because the king was grown old and grave, I suppose. Mrs. M. The same etiquettes and forms remained, but the spirit was gone which before had enlivened them. To quote from an ingenious modern writer, " The pomp and ceremonies of the court were like wedding-dresses upon dead corpses : all was weariness, disgust, and misery.''' Richard. When Louis saw how tiresome all these etiquettes and ceremonies were become, I wonder he did not leave them off. Mrs. M. Habit, you know, is second nature ; and Louis was become so much habituated to the pompous trammels which he had imposed upon himself that he would not have been comfortable without them. I think I have before told you that he was methodical to the greatest degree. In his latter years the regularity of his life met with few interruptions. Every morning at eight o'clock his valet called him, and his old nurse, who lived to a great age, entered his apartment, accompanied by Ins first physician and surgeon. The two latter examined into the state of his health. The grand cham- berlain, and a tribe of courtiers by whom the privilege of attending at the levee was eagerly sought, were next admitted : and the king proceeded to dress himself; which, as the Frenchman says who has given us this detail, " he did with grace and address." We are next told (for our author is very minute) that the king used no dressing- table, but that one of the persons in waiting held the looking-glass for him. Another of the peculiarities of his toilette was, that he always put on his wig before he left his bed. Mary. Was that for fear of getting cold ? Mrs. M. The reason was that he thought it undignified to be seen bare-headed. His wig was always handed to him, before his curtains were undrawn, at the end of a long cane. We need not, however, go through the whole routine of the levee. When it was at last happily over, the king commonly occupied himself till dinner-time in transacting business with his ministers. He dined in public, and the privilege of seeing him eat his dinner was a highly-coveted honour. The being gazed at by a staring crowd did not at all spoil his appetite. The duchess of Orleans says that she had often seen him eat four plates of soup, a whole pheasant, and two good slices of ham, besides mutton, salad, and garlic, with pastry, fruit, and sweetmeats into the bargain. Conv. LOUIS XI V. 389 Mary. Don't yon think he mnst have been rather greedy ? Mrs. M. Perhaps the dnchess might exaggerate. Lonis was con- sidered a very temperate man. He generally spent the evening in madame de Maintenon's apartment, where he would often transact business with one of his ministers, while madame de Maintenon sat by, working or reading, and seldom appearing to take any part in what was going on. The king would now and then ask her opinion, and say " Qu'en pense votre solidite ?" She would then make some remark, but always in very guarded terms. George. I don't wonder the poor thing wrote such melancholy letters. It was a very dull way of spending her evenings. Mrs. M. When she retired to bed, which she always did early, the king passed the remainder of the evening with his children and grandchildren. At twelve o'clock commenced the ceremonies of the coucher, which were nearly as formal and tedious as those of the levee. Thus was the king in public from morning till night, — a manner of life which to us, who are not accustomed to it, would be irksome in the extreme, and which some one has compared to that of an actor who should be never off the stage. Richard. His time, however, was not all spent in tiresome cere- monies, for he seems to have passed a great deal of it in transacting business. Mrs. M. And even his application to business degenerated in his old age into a minute and meddling attention to trivial matters, to the great neglect of more important affairs, a neglect which the ministers well knew how to take advantage of for their own purposes. Mary. Pray, mamma, did the king wear a wig because he was bald, or because it was the fashion ? Mrs. M. The wearing wigs was universal at the close of this reign, though the custom had its origin only in the beginning of it. Louis, when a little boy, had remarkably beautiful hair, which hung in curls on his shoulders. The courtiers, always ready to copy their masters, had wigs made in imitation of his natural locks. When the king became a man, he too wore a wig. Wigs were, by degrees, made larger and larger, and were more and more curled and frizzled, till at last they became enormous bushes. George. What ridiculous figures the men must have looked ! Mrs. M. The rest of the dress was no less ridiculous. The fine gentlemen of this time were tricked out in a profusion of frippery, and must have looked like so many great dolls. A foreigner, whe visited Paris in the early part of the reign of Louis XIV., expresses great surprise at the dress of the Parisians. Mary. Pray what does he say about it ? Mrs. M. He says that " they dressed very studiously ; and that lace, ribands, and looking-glasses (which the ladies used to carry in 390 LOUIS XIV. Chap. XXXIV. their hands) were three things which the French could not do with- out ; that they were very changeable in their fashions ; and that la mode est le veritable demon qui tourmente cette nation" He also tells us that the gentlemen's wigs were so finely curled, that for fear of squeezing them they were accustomed to carry their hats in their hands, instead of wearing them on their heads. George. La mode did indeed torment them with a vengeance. Mrs. M. This foreigner notices amongst other things the over- strained civility which, in imitation of the court manners, was practised at tins time by all orders of people in France, to a ridicu- lous and burlesque excess. He adds that there were even masters who gave instructions in the art of politeness. George. For my part, I had rather have honest rudeness, than sham politeness taught by a civility master. Mrs. M. What is most to be desired is that honest civility winch is taught by a kind and feeling heart. I suspect that the politeness which was cultivated in the court of Louis was commonly of that hollow and unmeaning sort which consists chiefly, or rather entirely, in fine words. I will give you one or two instances which the due de St. Simon relates in Ins Memoirs. The cardinal d'Estrees, though advanced in years, had preserved his teeth, which, having a wide mouth, he showed extremely. Being one day at the king's dinner, Louis addressed himself to him, and complained of the inconvenience of having lost his teeth. The cardinal replied with a smile which displayed his own fine teeth to advantage, " Ah, sire, who is there that has any?" The king was one day walking at Marly with the cardinal de Polignac, and was himself showing him the gardens, which of course was a great honour. It began to rain a little, and the king expressing some concern at seeing the cardinal exposed to this malheur, the cardinal exclaimed, " Ah, sire, the rain of Marly does not wet." Mary. In England, mamma, we should not call that a civil speech, so much as a downright fib. Mrs. M. Then what will you think of the following? On the death of Corneille, the great French dramatist, there was a vacancy in the French Academy, a society of men of letters something like our Eoyal Society. The vacant seat was offered to the duke of Maine, and the offer was accompanied by the following message : " That even if the number of members were full, there was not one of them who would not willingly die to make room for him." Mary. Have you nothing more to tell us, mamma, about Louis xrv.? Mrs. M. I may tell you that the French passion for writing memoirs extended even to him. There are six volumes of memoirs, of which Louis dictated the substance to Pelisson his historiographer, who Conv. LOUIS XIV. 391 put them in proper form, and garnished them with suitable reflec- tions. The whole was afterwards revised by the king, and the manuscript contains some corrections in his own handwriting. Richard. Pray, mamma, what was that book I saw you reading this morning with so much interest ? Mrs. M. It was the Life of Daniel Huet, bishop of Avranches. Richard. Was he particularly famous for anything ? Mrs. M. He was famous for having devoted his whole life, from childhood to extreme old age, exclusively to study ; and for having been one of the principal promoters of a celebrated edition of the Latin classics, which, because it was made for the use of the Dauphin, has been called the Delphin edition. George. Is his Life entertaining? Mrs. M. The most amusing part is that in which he describes the early difficulties which he had to contend with in the pursuit of knowledge. He was an orphan, and was brought up by an aunt, who educated him with her own sons. His young cousins were, it seems, poor Huet's torments. He tells us that their only pleasures were in hunting, running, jumping, and playing ; that they hated study, and could not bear to see him engaged with his books. " They did everything," says he, " in their power to interrupt me in my studies : my books were stolen ; my paper torn or spoiled ; my chamber-door was barred, that whilst they were at play I might not be lurking in my room with a book, as I was frequently detected in doing." But this was not all. He adds, " In order to indulge my taste, it was my custom to rise with the sun, whilst they were buried in sleep, and either hide myself in the wood, or seek some thick shade which might conceal me from their sight, while I was reading and studying in quiet. It was, however, their practice to hunt for me amongst the bushes, and by throwing stones or wet sods, or squirting water through the branches, to drive me from my hiding- place." Mary. How glad he must have been when he was grown up, and could read as much as he pleased without the fear of being pelted ! Mrs. M. But even then he found other interruptions not less annoying, for he could not succeed in always shutting himself up from the cares and business of life. Richard. How did he get on when he became a bishop ? Mrs. M. I fear, very ill indeed. Persons who came to him on business were generally told that " the bishop was at his books, and could not be interrupted." This made one of them exclaim, " Why did not the king send us a bishop who has finished his studies ? " At last Huet, finding, as he said, " the episcopal duties beyond the power of man to sustain," very wisely resigned them, and retired to 392 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXV. the Jesuits' college at Paris, where he indulged himself in an unin- terrupted devotedness to books, till the ninety-first year of his age, when he died, leaving behind him the reputation of very great learning, and, I believe, of very weak judgment. CHAPTER XXXV. LOUIS XV. (part I.) Years after Christ, i 715— 1748. Le Grand Dauphin and Ninon de l'Enclos. The crown having now, by the death of Louis XIV., devolved on his great-grandson, a child of only five years of age, the important question of a regency immediately occupied the public attention. The person whose rank and connexion with the royal family gave him the strongest claim to be appointed regent, was Philip duke of Orleans, who was nephew of the late king, and had married one of his natural daughters. In consequence of the renunciation which had been made by the king of Spain, the duke of Orleans was also the heir-apparent to the crown. But the character of this prince made him justly distrusted. Careless of all appearances, impious, and profligate, it was thought that no scruples would restrain him from paving a way for himself by any crime to the sovereignty. He had been publicly accused, and probably with justice, of having a.d. 1 715. LOUIS XV. 393 intrigued to place himself on the throne of Spain, even at a time when he commanded a French army in that country in aid of Philip V. He had been generally suspected of having given poison to his wife, and of having actually destroyed, by means of poison also, all the three dauphins, and also the duchess of Burgundy. This horrid suspicion was indeed so strong and so general, that in the formal procession which conveyed at the same time through Paris the sad remains of the duke and duchess of Burgundy, and of the infant duke of Bretagne, people cried out, as it passed by the Palais Eoyal, which was the duke of Orleans' residence, " See here our good dauphin and dauphiness and their son. Come then and look at them, detestable poisoner ! " Modern writers are, I believe, generally persuaded that these im- putations on the duke were wholly unjust. His very character, which was the only pretence for suspecting him, is of itself incon- sistent with any such charge. Irreligious no doubt he was, and profligate in the greatest degree. But though he was unprincipled, he was yet easy tempered; and though he might not have been deterred by the guilt, yet he would in all probability have shrunk from the cruelty of murders such as those imputed to him. An extreme distrust of him, however, prevailed throughout France, and if Louis XIV. had died two or three years sooner, when the public indigna- tion against him was at its height, he probably would not have obtained the regency. But the last two or three years had done much in his favour, by directing to another quarter the tide of popular jealousy. The due de Maine, and his brother the count of Toulouse, who were natural children of the late king, and had previously been elevated to a superiority in rank above the dukes and peers of France, were, in 1714, declared to be the next heirs to the crown after the princes of the royal blood, and had all other privileges of the blood royal con- ferred on them. A suspicion arose also, which turned out to be well founded, that the king had made a will, conferring the regency on the due de Maine, who was a very weak man, and possessed no popular qualities. Hence the duke of Orleans began to be regarded with favour. This favour he very skilfully increased by every method in his power, and, after a short struggle with the due de Maine, he triumphantly established himself in the regency. After the settlement of this contest, the first thing which seems to require our notice is the remarkable event of a war breaking out with Spain, notwithstanding all the efforts which had been used to connect the two countries, and the hard success with which those efforts had been crowned. Cardinal Alberoni, the Spanish minister, a man of great abilities, but of much too grasping designs, and who miscalculated exceedingly his means of bringing them into effect, was s 3 394 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXV. a declared enemy of the regent. Tins crafty politician persuaded his master, Philip V., that, in case of the death of the young king of France, the hearts of all Frenchmen would be fixed on Mm as the grandson of their adored Louis XIV., and that he would easily be able to renew his claim to that crown, of which he was, in blood, the next inheritor. These tempting views Alberoni pressed on Philip with the utmost vehemence and pertinacity. He excited in France itself conspiracies and insurrections against the regent, and sent a Spanish fleet to the coast of Bretagne, where the insurgents had rashly ventured to take arms. But the regent's forces soon put down the revolt, and the Spanish fleet was obliged to retire without effecting anything. The regent himself, who seems to have been rarely betrayed by any vice or impetuosity of mere temper into violent or impolitic measures, would have been very glad to remain at peace with Spain. The conduct of Alberoni, however, produced a short war, which soon terminated to the entire advantage of France. Alberoni was disgraced, and retired to Italy. Spain acceded to what was called the quadruple alliance which had previously been formed between France, England, Holland, and Austria. Philip again renounced for himself and his descendants all pretensions whatever to the suc- cession in France ; and with the exception of certain brief discon- tents, which nearly produced a breach in the year 1725, the court of Madrid, under its Bourbon monarch, became from this time till the wars of the French revolution little else than a dependency on France. About the time of the conclusion of the peace with Spain, a bubble, called the Mississippi scheme, burst in France, which was exceedingly similar to the South Sea scheme in England. The pro- jector, a Scotsman of the name of Law, was countenanced even by the regent himself; and the financial delusions which he imposed on the public were carried to a greater and more injurious extent than the similar delusions which were practised in England. The only other event of the regency to which I shall think it ne- cessary here to call your attention is the plague at Marseilles, which you may perhaps have heard of. This plague is memorable not only for its wide-wasting destruction, but also for the exalted virtue or heroism of " Marseilles' good bishop," as he is called by Pope, who exerted himself night and day, to succour the dying, to cheer the despairing, and to animate the courage of those few who partook with him these glorious employments. Full half of the inhabitants are said to have perished in this severe calamity, which continued from the month of May, 1720, until the end of June, 1721. You will be glad to hear that the good bishop, whose name was Belsunce, sur- vived the fatigues and dangers of this terrible period. He died in a.d. i 7 33. LOUIS XV. 395 1755, at the great age of eighty-four. Marseilles was endeared to him, as he doubtless was greatly endeared to the inhabitants, by the calamity he had there witnessed and survived. He lived there till his death, having refused a better bishopric which was offered him in the year 1723. On the 2nd of December, 1723, the duke of Orleans, who could not be persuaded even by the enfeebled state of his health to alter his intemperate method of living, died the victim of his own excesses at the age of forty-nine. The due de Bourbon, a great-grandson of the great Conde, now became first minister to the young king, who, having attained his majority, winch was fixed at the age of thirteen, was nominally in possession of the sovereign power, though as yet too much a child to be able to act for himself. The duke's first object was to choose for him a queen, by contributing to whose elevation to the throne he might hope to strengthen his own influence. His choice fell eventually on Marie Leczinski, daughter of Stanislaus ex-king of Poland, who had taken refuge in the French territories, and was now residing at Weissemburg in Alsace, where his wife and daugh- ter shared his retirement with him. The marriage was celebrated on the 4th of September, 1725; and at first Louis and his queen seemed to be much attached to each other. But he soon began to treat her with great unkindness. In June, 1726, the due de Bourbon was dismissed. Cardinal Fleury succeeded him as chief minister. Fleury's administration lasted upwards of sixteen years. He possessed great influence over the mind of the king, and was a man of the most pacific character. His love of peace, the integrity of his dealings, and his strict economy of the finances, were productive of very beneficial effects : but his genius was better calculated to direct the helm in a calm than to guide it in a stormy sea, and he ought to have resigned when he could maintain peace no longer. In 1733 a war was excited by the restless spirit of many who could not bear quiet, and were anxious for some opportunities of advancement. Fleury's dislike to a war which he could not approve prevented him from engaging in it with vigour, and it became throughout a scene of disgrace and reverses. The immediate occasion which gave birth to this war was a con- test for the crown of Poland. Augustus II., the successful rival of Stanislaus, died on the 1st of February, 1733. Austria and Prussia declared for his son, but France, influenced, perhaps, in addition to other motives, by some romantic desire of restoring to the queen's father the crown he had lost, declared for Stanislaus. In Poland Stanislaus was very popular. He was elected and proclaimed king in the month of September ; but was compelled by a Eussian army 396 LOUIS XY. Chap. XXXV. to shut himself up in the town of Dantzic, where it was his intention to wait for succour from France. That succour, however, when it arrived, was found to consist of only 1500 men, and of course could not do much to withstand the enemy. Stanislaus escaped, and took refuge in Prussia, and Dantzic surrendered almost immediately afterwards. The late king's son, Augustus III., was then elected king of Poland in his place. The real strength of France was in the mean time exerted on the Rhine and in Italy. The Austrian general on the Rhine was prince Eugene. The French, under the duke of Berwick, gained some ad- vantages over him, and took the fort of Kehl in December, 1733, and the town of Philipsburg on the 18th of July, 1734. The military operations in Italy of the year 1734, under the command of marshal Villars, who united his forces with those of the king of Sardinia, were also successful ; but the king of Sardinia w T as an insincere ally, who wished indeed to see the power of the Austrians broken, but had no desire to see that of Franee established. Comparatively little, there- fore, was effected in this quarter. Don Carlos, however, son of Philip V. by his second wife Elizabeth Farnese, invaded Naples with a Spanish army, and overran and conquered it with but little oppo- sition. This don Carlos, afterwards Charles III. king of Spain, was the father of Ferdinand IV., who succeeded to the crown of Naples in 1759, and who lived till 1824. This was by much the most con- siderable event of the war, which was concluded by a treaty, of which the preliminaries were signed in the month of October, 1735. By this treaty the duke of Lorraine, who had taken no part in the war, was appointed successor to the reigning grand duke of Tus- cany, Jean Gaston, the last of the Medici, who died July 9, 1737. The duchies of Lorraine and Bar were given to Stanislaus, who retained the title of king, but renounced all claim to the kingdom which he had lost. It was provided that these duchies should after his death be united to France, as a sort of marriage portion with his daughter Marie Leczinski. Thus, from an unprotected exile, whose father had sought in France nothing but an asylum from misfortune, this princess became heiress of the most valuable accession which, with the exception of Bretagne and Guienne, any queen had ever brought to the crown. Naples and Sicily were ceded to don Carlos ; France surrendered all her conquests on the Rhine, and became a party to what was called the Pragmatic Sanction, by which Maria Theresa, daughter of the emperor Charles VI., who married in 1736 Francis duke of Lorraine, was recognised as her father's successor, both in his hereditary dominions, and also in the imperial crown. The emperor's anxiety to have his daughter's succession thus recog- nised by a solemn compact with France was the reason why he con- sented that France should acquire Lorraine. But we shall soon see a.d. 1740. LOUIS XV. 397 how little dependence is to be placed on treaties, when it is supposed that the violation of them will produce any advantage. The emperor Charles VI. died at the age of fifty-five, on the 20th of October, 1740. Maria Theresa, his daughter, succeeded him : but both the elector of Bavaria, and Augustus III. king of Poland, set up claims to her rich inheritance. Other powers also made preten- sions of their own. Of these, the king of Prussia, the celebrated warrior, Frederic II., who had succeeded to his crown on the 31st of May in the same year, was the first to show himself in the field. He made a claim on Silesia, entered that country with an army in December, two months after the emperor's death, and in a very short time made himself master of it. The elector of Bavaria applied to France for assistance, and ob- tained it, though cardinal Fleury did all he could to prevent so shameful a breach of the solemn engagement which had been en- tered into with the late emperor. The united French and Bavarian army marched into Austria almost without opposition, penetrated into Bohemia, and took Prague. The elector of Bavaria was raised to the title of emperor, 1 and Maria Theresa fled from Vienna, and sought refuge in Hungary. Among the powerful nobles of that chi- valrous country she found the sympathy for her misfortunes which she looked for. She convoked an assembly of the states, and, clad in mourning, and with her infant, afterwards the emperor Joseph II., in her arms, addressed the assembly with forcible eloquence, and with the more effect because she spoke in Latin, the language still in use in Hungary. She presented her son to the several nobles one by one. They all swore to defend and protect him. At last they drew their swords, and cried out unanimously, " Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa " — Let us die for our king Maria Theresa. You may think it remarkable that they should thus speak of the empress as the king, and not as the queen, of Hungary : but the reason is, that they were a people somewhat too rude to submit with a good grace to female authority, and were pleased therefore to give to their sovereign the title of king, even when the crown rested on the head of a woman. The fortune of the war now suddenly changed. The Austrians kindled at the same spark of enthusiasm which was thus lighted in Hungary, General Kevenhuller, preceded by a crowd of Croats and Pandours, a set of very active but irregular troops, who like the Cossacs often excited more terror than the better disciplined part of the army, entered and laid waste the whole of Bavaria. The king of Prussia made a treaty for himself, by which he secured the pos- session of Silesia. The French were expelled from Bohemia, and were also defeated in a battle at Dettingen by an army from Eng- i As Charles VII. 398 LOUIS XV. Osjp, XXXV. land, which had taken the part of the empress-queen. This battle, in which George II. commanded in person, had no decisive results. It was fought on the 27th of June, 1743. Cardinal Fleury was at this time no more. He had died a few months before, at the age of ninety. There is one anecdote of him which I do not like to omit, because it shows that the spirit of peace and civilization may be carried even into actual war. You have all of you heard of the good bishop Wilson, who did so much for the improvement and happiness of the Isle of Man. Out of respect to his character, Fleury gave orders that during the war with England, which took place in his administration, no French vessel should make a descent on that island. A like anecdote is recorded of the duke of Marlborough, who would not suffer Ins troops to injure the property of Fenelon. After the death of Fleury the conquest of the Low Countries became with the court of France the chief object of the war ; and the king himself joined the army there. He marched afterwards to the defence of Alsace, which was invaded by the Austrians under prince Charles of Lorraine (the brother of Francis grand duke of Tuscany, who had married the empress Maria Theresa). The prince of Lorraine was so prompt and skilful a general, that the royal pre- sence might have been insufficient to save Alsace, had not the king of Prussia been persuaded to join again with France. Frederic saw with alarm the increase and consolidation of the Austrian power, and doubted not but that on the very first opportunity attempts would be made to recover Silesia. Eesuming therefore the offen- sive, he invaded Bohemia, and took Prague in the month of Sep- tember, 1744. This movement recalled prince Charles from Alsace. Frederic, after another campaign, was compelled to retire before him, and peace was restored between Prussia and Austria. The French army in the Low Countries was in the mean time very successful. It was commanded by marechal Saxe, a natural son of Augustus II. of Poland, one of the ablest generals whom any age has produced, and no less remarkable for his prudence as a com- mander than for the great impetuosity of his natural character. On the 11th of May, 1745, he defeated at Fontenoy, with great slaugh- ter, the allied army of England, Holland, and Austria, under the command of the duke of Cumberland. France gained other vic- tories in the two following years, and possessed herself of almost the whole of the Austrian Low Countries. On the side of Italy the arms of Louis were unfortunate. It would take me too long to relate the details of the operations there, or to give you any account of the in- vasion of Scotland by Charles Edward, grandson of James II. king of England, for which I may refer you to the English history. The elector of Bavaria, who had been elevated to the imperial Conv. LOUIS XV. 399 crown on the 24th of January, 1742, died on the 20th of January, 1745. He left a son of the age of seventeen, who soon made peace between Bavaria and Austria. The grand duke of Tuscany, hus- band of Maria Theresa, was elected emperor under the title of Francis I. with very little opposition on the 13th of September in the same year, Philip V., king of Spain, died on the 9th of July, 1746, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Ferdinand VI. • Negotiations for a general peace were entered into at Aix-la-Cha- pelle in the beginning of the year 1748. ' A suspension of arms was agreed to on the 11th of May, and the peace was concluded on the 18th of October. By this treaty France surrendered all her con- quests in the Low Countries. The Pragmatic Sanction of the empe- ror Charles VI., which secured to his daughter the Austrian succes- sion, was again solemnly recognised and guaranteed ; and England restored to France the island of Cape Breton, which had been taken in the year 1745. CONVEESATION ON CHAPTER XXXV. Richard. I felt sure from the beginning that this would be a dis- agreeable reign. The beginning with that hateful duke of Orleans boded no good. Mrs. Markham. One of the duke's faults was that he was too good-natured. Nothing made him angry, nothing displeased him. His levity was such that he turned everything into pleasantry. This humour of the regent was but too readily followed by a lively and volatile people like the French. The most sacred things were made the subject of ridicule. Duty was called a weakness; honour, a prejudice ; and delicacy, affectation. Itichard. Do you think there would have been any chance that Louis XV. might have made a better king, if he had lived in better times ? Mrs. M. I do not think he ever could have been a superior cha- racter. He had none of the seeds of greatness in him. He had a narrow capacity, and a natural inertness of mind, which made every kind of serious application irksome to him. In his youth he de- tested study, and in his manhood he shrank from business. Piiclwrd. Were any pains taken to instruct him when he was a child? Mrs. M. Proper persons were appointed to superintend his educa- tion ; but you may readily imagine that it is not easy to make a boy learn his lessons against his will, who knows himself to be a king. George. I suppose that to have flogged his majesty would have been little less than high treason. Mrs. M. At all events, it would have been contrary to etiquette. 400 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXV. The duchess of Ventadour, however, Ms governess, hit upon the singular expedient of whipping him by proxy. Mary. How could she manage that? Mrs. M. She procured a child, the son of poor parents, and of the same age with the king, to be the companion of his studies ; and whenever the king was naughty, or said a bad lesson, the poor unfortunate companion was whipped in his stead. George. His majesty must have been a mean-spirited little wretch to have suffered it. Mrs. M. This kind of education was not, as you will suppose, cal- culated to improve either his heart or his understanding. The young king grew up vicious and frivolous. Like most ignorant people, he was extremely inquisitive about trifles. He delighted in mean gossip ; and though he was as uninformed as a child in all the political inte- rests of Ins own or of any other country, he yet knew a great deal of what was going on in private families. He had a natural love of low company, and, king as he was, delighted to pick up and repeat vulgar expressions, and to be told of any scandalous or disgusting anecdote winch was current. Notwithstanding all this, however, he acquired so much of the outward show of royalty as to have a re- markably dignified and majestic air and manner. He was also remarkably handsome, and had the most beautiful blue eyes that ever were seen. But to return to his education. The tutors or pre- ceptors who succeeded to the office of the duchess de Ventadour were not more successful than she had been ; and the only art the king learned well was the art of dissimulation, which the cardinal Fleury, who was one of his preceptors, has been accused, perhaps unjustly, of teaching him. Richard. Why, to be sure, it is very hard to make tutors answer- able for the faults of their pupils. Mrs. M. After the king became a man, Fleury seems to have done all he could to check his vicious propensities. Nor were his efforts wholly in vain. Whilst he lived, the young king's conduct was kept in some sort within the bounds of decency. But after his death, Louis sank into an abyss of vice from which he never afterwards emerged. Mary. Pray, mamma, what became of poor old madame de Main- tenon? Mrs. M. She survived Louis XIV. only four years. On his death she retired to St. Cyr, an establishment which she had founded near Versailles for the education of young ladies of good family but of small fortune. She there passed the remainder of her life in reli- gious seclusion. Madame de Maintenon possessed the rare merit of being devoid of mercenary feelings. In the height of her power she had never thought of reserving any provision for herself; and by Conv. LOUIS XV. 4 0i some unaccountable neglect on the part of the king, she was at his death left totally unprovided for. The regent, however, who did not want for generous feelings, settled a pension on her, saying that " her disinterestedness had made it necessary." Richard. "Will you be so kind, mamma, as to tell us some of the particulars of that dreadful plague at Marseilles ? Mrs. M. This great calamity is said to have been brought on that city in a way in which calamities very frequently come, namely, by carelessness. The captain of a merchant vessel which arrived there from Syria, presuming that he had no infected goods on board, neglected to observe the usual precautions. Soon after his mer- chandise was landed, the plague appeared in the city, and spread with frightful rapidity. The streets were filled with the unburied dead, whose putrid bodies added to the contagion. The terrified Marseillois sought to escape from the city, but the parliament of Aix had planted around it a cordon of troops, which prevented the possi- bility of flight. Some, however, of the wealthier and more prudent inhabitants had left the city at the first alarm. Those who remained were in the most dreadful condition, and all their energy seemed lost in despair. Four men alone possessed sufficient courage and fortitude to undertake anything for the general safety. Mary. That good bishop, I suppose, was one of them. Mrs. M. He was. His office was to attend the sick in the hospi- tals. In this Christian office he was assisted by some of the filles pieuses, an order of nuns, who, instead of immuring themselves in convents, devoted their lives to nursing the sick. George. What good useful creatures ! But pray, mamma, who were those other three courageous men? Mrs. M. They were Estelle and Moustier, the sheriffs of the town, and the chevalier Eose. Their first care was to remove the bodies of the dead from the streets. They caused a deep ditch to be dug outside the walls, and obliged the galley-slaves to convey the bodies there in carts. These poor wretches all fell victims to this dreadful occupation. Their officers had some scruple in permitting them to be devoted to this service of death. But the necessities of the case prevailed. The plague commenced in the month of May, and con- tinued its ravages during the whole summer. The hospitals were quite unequal to contain the numbers of those who were daily imploring admittance. A large hospital was erected outside the walls; but when it was nearly completed it was destroyed by a violent storm from the north. George. What an unfortunate storm ! Mrs. M. And yet the great misfortune, as the citizens at first considered it, was in fact a providential mercy. The north wind had the effect of cleansing and purifying the air and of abating the 4 02 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXV. violence of the contagion. The disease did not, however, totally cease till the following summer. The people of this unhappy city, in addition to the plague, had to contend also with famine; but the pope sent them vessels laden with corn to be distributed amongst the poor. George. Well, mamma, that was right ; and as you tell us of so many bad things, it is but fair you should tell us as many good things as you can. Richard, Pray is the prince Eugene of whom you spoke in the last chapter the same person who is mentioned in your History of Eng- land, and who had the dispute with the duke of Marlborough ? Mrs. M. The same. His father was count de Soissons, a prince of the house of Savoy. His mother was niece to cardinal Mazarin. Prince Eugene received his early education in France; but when he was about eleven or twelve years old his mother, who was a very busy meddling woman, was banished the kingdom, and her son with her. Eugene's lofty spirit, although he was so young, highly re- sented this indignity, and he declared "that he would one day enter France in spite of the king." He afterwards went into the service of the emperor, and became, as you know, one of the greatest generals of Ins time. He was upright and religious, and had no weakness that I know of, unless indeed we may reckon as a weak- ness the personal pique which he entertained against Louis XIV., and which he delighted to show even on trivial occasions. Richard. The speaking of Louis XIV. reminds me of something I wanted to ask you about. Is there not in his reign some curious story of a man in an iron mask ? Mrs. M. A very curious story it is, and one which has given rise to innumerable conjectures. A prisoner, apparently of distinction, was confined for many years in the Bastile, and the greatest care was taken to conceal who he was. He was guarded with the utmost vigilance, and constantly wore a mask, not of iron, as has been com- monly supposed, but of black velvet, stiffened with pasteboard and whalebone, and fastened behind the head with a padlock, to prevent the possibility of uncovering the face. Mary. "Well, I am glad it was not an iron mask, however. Richard. Has it ever been found out who the man was ? Mrs. M. The secret was so well kept that none of his contempo- raries could fathom it. Invention was therefore called in to make up a story. The unhappy man was said by some to be a twin brother of Louis XIV., who, to prevent the possibility of any dispute for the succession, had been secreted from his birth and brought up in obscurity. Another conjecture was, that he was the illegitimate son of queen Anne of Austria and of cardinal Mazarin. But the mystery seems at last cleared up, and the real truth brought to light, by the Conv. LOUIS XV. 403 discovery of letters from Louvois to the French ambassador at Man- tua, and of other authentic documents. From these it appears that this mysterious prisoner was an Italian of the name of Matthioli, a minister of the duke of Mantua. Bichard. And what had this man done to draw on him such severe punishment ? Mrs. M. He had done no more than many a political rogue has often done with impunity. He was the agent of a secret treaty with Louis XIV. for the sale of a fortress belonging to the duke of Man- tua: and he afterwards betrayed the secret of this treaty to the duke of Savoy, by whom he was well paid for his treachery. Bichard. "Well! the grand monarque would not like that, I sup- pose. But still I do not see why he should have taken the trouble to punish such an insignificant person in so singular and mysterious a way. Mrs. M. The same thing has puzzled many wiser people than either you or me. The king, entertaining a high opinion of his own political skill, and accustomed all his life to the most implicit obedi- ence, was, I suppose, mortally affronted at being baffled and cajoled by an insignificant Italian, and thought it inconsistent with his dig- nity to pardon such an offence. By a flagrant act of treachery he got his victim within his grasp ; and it was then, of course, still more necessary to his dignity that that treachery should be con- cealed from all the world. The history is as follows. Under pre- tence of a secret meeting with some of Louis's agents, Matthioli was allured into the neighbourhood of Pignerol. Here he was seized and thrown into a dungeon. Louis, not contented with having incar- cerated him, pursued him with a mean and unworthy revenge, and sent express orders to St. Mars, the governor of Pignerol, " that, excepting the absolute necessaries of life, he should have nothing given him that might make him pass his time agreeably." The suddenness of his misfortune, and the severity of his confinement, appear to have affected the prisoner's intellects ; and we may hope that the aberration of his reason might lessen to him the sense of his calamity. Mary. And did they put that mask on him when first they impri- soned him ? Mrs. M. I believe not. After a time St. Mars was promoted to be governor of the isle of St. Margaret, a state prison on the coast of Provence, and Matthioli also was removed there. To conceal him during the journey, he was placed in a chair enclosed by an oil- cloth cover, and carried by men who could neither see him nor hear him speak. The closeness of the oil-cloth cover well nigh suffocated him, and it was after this that the black mask was adopted, which he wore not only during the remainder of his journey, but for the 40 4 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXV. rest of his life. Matthioli was an inhabitant of the isle of St. Mar- garget eleven years. His cell was lighted by a window, or more properly by a hole in the wall, winch looked upon the sea. His servant, who had been made a prisoner with him, died in confine- ment in this melancholy abode. Attempts were made to procure him another attendant, but no bribe could induce any one to accept the office. Richard. It ought indeed to be a powerful bribe to induce any one to shut himself up for life with a man who was mad, and whose face one was never to see. Mrs. M. In 1698 St. Mars, and his prisoner with him, were re- moved to the Bastile. The strict order that Matthioli should be debarred from all indulgences was now relaxed. He was allowed to play on a guitar: he was also permitted to attend mass: but it was on condition that he never uttered a word, and soldiers were stationed with orders to fire on him if he made any attempt to speak. George. I protest I never thought I could have felt so much pity for a rogue and a traitor as I find I do feel for this poor fellow. Mrs. M. Misfortune, like death, is a great leveller of distinctions. After an imprisonment of twenty-four years this unhappy victim of the pride and tyranny of Louis ended his miserable life. Provi- dence, in mercy, perhaps, for his long sufferings, spared him the House of Madame de Sevigne. additional pain of any previous illness. He died suddenly, soon after his return from mass, November 19, 1703. Bichard. The king, I dare say, was glad enough when the poor A.D. I756. LOUIS XV. 405 man was dead, and he was himself no longer in fear of the secret being found out. Mrs. M. The king's jealousy continued even after Ms death. It is said that the disgusting precaution was taken of mutilating the face to prevent its being recognised in case of disinterment. The walls of the prison were carefully scraped and whitewashed, to efface any writing that the prisoner might have left on them : the ceiling was taken down, and the pavement of the chamber removed, lest papers or any other memorial should be concealed beneath the floor, or in the roof. Even the doors and window-frames were taken down and burnt. Mary. Did anybody ever see him when he went to mass ? Mrs. M. Several people saw him after he came to the Bastile. He is described as having been tall and well made. His complexion, what little could be seen of it, was very dark. He had fine teeth, and his hair was grey. Nothing more is known, I believe, of his personal appearance. CHAPTER XXXVI. LOUIS XV. (in continuation.) Years after Christ, 1748 — 1774. Equestrian Statue of Louis XV. From the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, till the year 1756, France was permitted to enjoy the blessings of peace, though there were some 4 o6 LOUIS XV. Char XXXVI. contests in the interval in the East Indies between the English and French factions and allies. The domestic state of France was em- broiled by disputes among the clergy; and the king, who now submitted himself entirely to the ascendency of a madame d'Etioles, whom he had made marchioness de Pompadour, had not the energy or sense to repress them. It is said of the pope, then Benedict XIV., that, being quite astonished at the violence with which these dis- putes were suffered to be carried on, he wondered that they did not overset the government, which, he said, must surely be a good ma- chine, since it was able to go of itself. In spite of these disputes, however, the manufactures, commerce, and general prosperity of the country advanced with rapid strides. The colonies flourished, and that of St. Domingo in particular became exceedingly opulent and productive. In 1756 a new war broke out. Indeed it may be said in strictness to have broken out somewhat sooner; the French and English forces having come to blows in Canada both in 1754 and 1755. But as the war in Europe became general in 1756, this is the year from which the French historians date its origin. It has commonly the title of the Seven Years' War. You recollect that, in the war concluded by the peace of Aix-la- Chapelle, France and Prussia were combined against Austria ; that the great object of Austria was to recover Silesia ; and that it was the policy of France to support the power of Prussia, by way of balancing that of the Austrians. All this system changed in the new war now entered into, in which France and Austria were leagued together in opposition to Prussia. The secret history of this new policy is said to have been, that Maria Theresa, in order to prevail on the court of France to join in her designs against the king of Prussia, was lavish of her attentions to madame de Pompadour ; and that madame de Pompadour, captivated by these flatteries, and angry with the king of Prussia, who was said to have spoken of her sarcastically, was the effectual advocate of the Austrian interests. Be this as it may, a treaty with Austria was signed at Versailles on the 1st of May, 1756 ; and France soon after placed at the disposal of its new ally more than a hundred thousand men. The first operations of the new war were by sea. The marechal de Eichelieu, at the head of a considerable army, sailed from Hyeres under the convoy of twelve ships of the line and five frigates, com- manded by the marquis de la Galissoniere. The capture of Minorca, then in possession of the English, was the object of this expedition. The army disembarked without opposition, and took possession of the town of Citadella, and also of Mahon, the principal town in the island, which the English, being in no great force, abandoned, and shut themselves up in Fort St. Philip. Tho English admiral, a.d. 1757. LOUIS XV. 407 Byng, with fourteen ships of the line, arrived off the island soon after- wards. La Galissoniere offered battle, and a partial engagement ensued; but Byng, for some reason or other, sheered off, gave up the object of relieving Fort St. Philip, and sailed for Gibraltar. The fort surrendered on the 28th of June. Byng, as you know, was brought to trial on his return to England, and was shot for having failed in his duty. The war on the continent was commenced by the king of Prussia, who, undismayed by the powerful combination against him, in which Eussia, Sweden, and Saxony had united with France and Austria, dared to anticipate the attack of his enemies. He invaded Saxony, and took possession of Dresden : he blockaded the Saxon army in an entrenched camp it had formed at Pirna : he defeated at Lowositz fifty thousand Austrians who were on their march to the relief of Saxony, and then made the whole Saxon army capitulate. > In the following year this intrepid monarch entered Bohemia with but little opposition, and penetrated to the environs of Prague. Prince Charles of Lorraine, who commanded the Austrian army, would not abandon the city without a battle. The Austrians for a time resisted the attack of the Prussians, but their positions were at length forced, and they were defeated with great slaughter. On this defeat, prince Charles threw himself into Prague, which was immediately invested by Frederic. The operations of a blockade, however, were too tedious to suit the temper of this active warrior. Frederic well knew that, not- withstanding all his ability, he was too much over-matched by his numerous enemies to be able to sustain a prolonged contest. There was hardly any risk, therefore, which he was not willing to run in attempting to crush the foe he was at present engaged with, and so, if possible, to put an end to the war. Besides prince Charles's, there was another Austrian army, under the able, but very cautious, mar- shal Daun. Frederic, leaving a part of his army to blockade prince Charles in Prague, marched against Daun with the remainder of his forces, and attacked him in a very strong position at Kolin ; but was at length, after great loss, compelled to retreat, to raise the siege of Prague, and to evacuate Bohemia. The French court, whatever motive had determined it to join in exciting this war on the continent, had, of course, its own objects in carrying it on. Probably its greatest object was the conquest of Hanover. Sixty thousand men were accordingly marched in that direction under the command first of the marechal d'Estrees, and afterwards of the marechal de Richelieu; to whom was opposed an army hastily collected, and chiefly consisting of Brunswickers, Hanoverians, and Hessians, under the command of the duke of Cumberland. To him Frederic looked for support on that side; 4 o8 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXVI. but the duke retreated as the Trench army advanced ; and at last he signed a convention at Closter Seven, by which both parties agreed to abstain from hostilities. * The possession of Hanover was left in the hands of the French, who committed there great dis- orders and levied excessive contributions. A detachment of twenty- five thousand men penetrated into Saxony after thus ravaging Hanover, and joined at Erfurt an army of the Imperialists. On November the 5th Frederic defeated this army at Eosbach. This was one of his most splendid and memorable victories. He then hastily returned into Silesia, and on the 5th of December gained another victory over the Austrians at Leuthen. Thus ended the year 1757. It would take me too long to give you even the briefest relation of the other exploits which the king of Prussia performed in the subsequent years of this sanguinary war. Often defeated, but never dispirited, often suffering from his own over-pertinacity in attempting to overcome insuperable obstacles, but always formidable and full of resources, even in circumstances to all appearance hopeless, there scarcely exists perhaps in the history of the world any other instance in which a general effected so much with means apparently so inadequate. At length, exhausted even by his own victories, he was on the point of falling before Eussia and Austria, when he was delivered by one of those extraordinary chances which are sometimes seen to change the fortune of nations. Eliza- beth empress of Eussia died in 1762, and was succeeded by Peter III. This young monarch had been an enthusiastic admirer of the military talents and glory of Frederic ; he solicited his friendship, and restored all that Eussia had taken from him. It even seems probable that, if he had lived, he would, in his enthusiastic passion for glory, have placed at the king of Prussia's disposal the whole power of his immense territory, and have proposed to engage with him, like a true knight-errant of old times, in some wild object of romantic ambition. Such visionary schemes, if they existed, were soon cut short by the death of the new czar, who was assassinated six months after his accession. His wife, Catherine II., who succeeded him, and who is universally supposed to have been privy to his murder, preserved towards all the courts of Europe a rigid neutrality. This enabled Frederic to direct his whole efforts against the Austrians, whose progress he checked, and over whom, at the very end of the war, he gained some closing advantages. But to return to the events which concerned France more imme- diately. All the best statesmen were anxious for peace ; but madame de Pompadour, who governed everything, was otherwise determined; and a second treaty of Versailles was contracted with Austria on December the 30th. 1757, on nearly the same terms with the former. A.r. 1768. LOUIS XV. 409 This determination to go on with the war turned out most dis- astrously. The French army in Germany was defeated at Crevelt, in June, 1758 ; and, though victorious at Berghen in the following April, was again defeated at Minden on the 1st of August, 1759. The campaign of 1760 produced no event of importance, though the French gained a slight advantage at Closter-camp. The war with England was still more unfortunate. On August 17th, 1759, the French admiral La Clue was defeated near Lagos, on the coast of Portugal, by a superior fleet under the command of admiral Bos- cawen. Marechal Conflans, who had the command of the Brest fleet, was defeated by sir Edward Hawke on November 20th. Guada- loupe, and some other small islands in the West Indies, fell into the hands of the English ; and the French arms sustained also a signal defeat in the battle of Quebec, on the 13th of September. In this battle the French general, the marquis de Montcalm, was killed, and nearly at the same moment the English general Wolfe. Both these officers were greatly regretted, and appear to have possessed equally all those estimable, as well as all those gallant qualities, which, when united, form the perfection of the soldier's character. In the end of 1759 died Ferdinand VI. king of Spain, and was suc- ceeded by his brother don Carlos, king of Naples, who now took the title of Charles III. of Spain. One of Charles's first acts was to enter into a treaty with the king of France, which is commonly called the Family Compact, by winch these two kings of the house of Bourbon united themselves in the strictest offensive and defensive alliance. France hoped, by this treaty, which was signed August 15th, 1761, to avail herself in the war with England of the maritime power of Spain ; but its only effect was that of inflicting on her ally a series of disasters similar to her own. In 1761 and 1762 the French lost Martinique, and were finally expelled from Canada. The English also, who in the former years of the war had made descents at St. Malo and Cherbourg, took Belle-Isle, which they retained till the peace. They took also all the French possessions in the East Indies, and took Cuba and the Philippine Islands from Spain. All parties at length feeling themselves exhausted, preliminaries of peace between England and France were signed at Fontainbleau on the 3rd of November, 1762, and a general peace was concluded in the beginning of the following year. The chief articles were, that France surrendered to England Canada and all its dependencies, Florida, and several of the captured islands in the West Indies. Minorca was restored to the English, and Cuba to Spain. The king of Prussia on his part retained Silesia. The island of Corsica was annexed to France in 1768. The natives of that island had carried on for many years a contest with the Genoese, who had been at one time its masters, but who had been of France. T 4io LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXVI. late unable to enforce their authority. The Genoese sold their claims to France ; and a body of French troops, after a spirited resistance, which was chiefly headed by Pascal Paoli, a native Corsican, gained full possession of it. Paoli took refuge in England, where he lived to be very old. The due de Choiseul, who had been made chief minister in 1758, was disgraced and banished from court in 1770, chiefly through the influence of madame du Barri, a new mistress of the king. One of the duke's chief objects during the whole course of his adminis- tration was to raise a navy which might be equal to contend with that of England. He longed to retaliate all the maritime disgraces which France had suffered during the Seven Years' War, and was pre- pared to foment by every means in his power the discontents already beginning to spring up between England and her American colonies. Soon after the peace of Paris the order of the Jesuits was sup- pressed in France. Of this obnoxious body, the very name of which has with many persons become almost synonymous with falsehood and artifice, it is very difficult to know justly what to think. It was by far the most learned of all the orders of the church of Rome, and has doubtless always possessed among its members many sincere and excellent men. An intriguing ambition, and a disposition to justify, if not to instigate, any crimes which might be for the aggrandise- ment of their society, is the character commonly given to them by their enemies, — with what degree of justice I do not pretend to say. But it is certain that at the period of their suppression they were the victims, not of justice, but of animosity, and that they have a claim on this account to our sympathy and regard. The edicts by which they were suppressed in France were dated November 1764, and July 1773. Subsequently, however, the Order was restored in France, and again suppressed in 1880. During the greater part of this reign a perpetual struggle was carried on between the royal authority and that of the parliaments. At length the crown proved completely successful, and established an absolute and unresisted prerogative. You recollect how many of the direct heirs of the crown died pre- maturely in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV. The same misfortune marks also the reign of his successor. The duke of Bur- gundy, eldest son of the dauphin, and the elder brother of Louis XVI., died in 1761, at the age of eleven. The dauphin, his father, who possessed a very amiable character, survived him only a few years, and died December 20, 1765. The dauphiness, to whom he had been most sincerely attached, and who cherished the greatest respect for his memory, died March 13, 1767. The queen's death followed on the 25th of June, 1768. Her father, Stanislaus, by whom she was tenderly beloved, had died a few months before. a.d. 1774. LOTTIS XV. 41I Louis on the death of his queen felt some moments of anguish ; but he soon plunged into the most disgraceful excesses, from which he never afterwards made any attempt to emancipate himself. He died of the small-pox on the 10th of May, 1774, in his 65th year, after a reign of fifty-nine years. He married in 1725 Marie Leczinski, daughter of Stanislaus king of Poland. By her he had two sons and eight daughters : — (1.) Louis the dauphin, born Sept. 4, 1729, died in 1765. (2.) A son, who died in his infancy. (3.) Marie Louise Elizabeth, married in 1739 Philip infant of Spain. (4.) Anne Henriette, died 1752. (5.) Marie Adelaide. (6.) Victoire. (7.) Sophie. (8.) Louise Marie, entered a convent of Carmelites in 1771. Two others died in childhood. Louis the dauphin married first the infanta of Spain, who died July 22, 1746, leaving one daughter, who died in infancy. He married, secondly, Marie Josephe, princess of Saxony. By her he had five sons and three daughters : — (1.) Louis Joseph Xavier, duke of Burgundy, born Sept. 13, 1751, died Feb. 22, 1761. (2.) Xavier Marie Joseph, dufc d'Aquitaine, born Sept. 8, 1753, died Feb. 22, 1754. (3.) Louis Auguste, after- wards Louis XYI. (4.) Louis Stanislaus Xavier, count de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII. (5.) Charles Philippe, count dArtois, after- wards Charles X. (6.) Adelaide Clotilde, married the prince of Pied- mont. (7.) Elizabeth Philippine. (8.) Marie Zephirine, died, aged five years, Sept. 1, 1755. Louis XV. was one of tne worst kings of his race. Though not naturally deficient either in benevolent or in pious feelings, he had neither sense nor principle to raise on this foundation any super- structure of true virtue or religion, and he stands in history a most conspicuous example of the ease with which even a good disposition, when unsustained by any strength of character, may sink into the most hopeless and degrading habits of vice. In the course of this long reign there arose in France a large body of men of letters, who seem almost to have devoted themselves to the guilty project of undermining the Christian faith. What the causes were which made this wickedness so general it is not easy to say. The corruptions of the church of Pome, which was now no longer upheld in France by the great abilities of such men as had belonged to it in the reign of Louis XIV., alienated many people even from religion itself. That pride of heart also, which is a too common and the worst fault of our nature, and the most incon- sistent with the humble and teachable disposition inculcated by our blessed Saviour on his disciples, catches easily the spirit of infidelity. From these and other causes there arose a large party in France of men who went in common by the title of pkilosophes. These united T 2 4 I2 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXVI. all their efforts to destroy what they commonly called "fanaticism;" but by this term they meant nothing less than Christianity. The harder and the worse the object they proposed, the more determined they became in the prosecution of it ; and nothing can less deserve the name of philosophy than the insidious warfare by which they attempted to gain the evil object which they had at heart. To a certain extent they were no doubt very successful. The tone of infidelity spread into all companies, I might almost say into all countries, with rapidity ; and in France especially, if it did not serve to prepare the political revolution of the subsequent reign, yet un- doubtedly it aggravated all its worst excesses. Of the French writers of the age of Louis XV. Voltaire and Rous- seau were by far the most eminent. The family name of Voltaire was Arouet. He was born at Paris, February 20, 1694. He was a man of dry wit, and of a sarcastic turn of expression, but of the most outrageous and jealous vanity imagin- able. He was invited to Berlin by Frederic of Prussia, and stayed there some time; but Frederic could not long bear his arrogance, and Voltaire expected everywhere the most unlimited deference and respect. He fled from Prussia, and settled afterwards at Ferney, an estate which he purchased near Geneva. He died at Paris, May 30, 1778. Kousseau's forte was eloquence ; his writings are very impassioned. His feelings seemed to follow the current of his imagination, and he had plainly no principle by which to regulate them. He, too, was vain, even to a degree of insanity. He quarrelled with everybody, even with those who were most disposed to be friendly to him, and of these in particular with Hume the historian. Kousseau and Vol- taire could never tolerate each other. Kousseau at one time came to London and attracted attention there by walking about the streets in an Armenian costume. He was born at Geneva, June 28, 1712, and died at Ermenonville, July 2, 1778. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXXVI. Richard. The people of France seem to have come to a pretty pass, more especially the ladies ; I hope there were some good ones amongst them ! Mrs. Markham. The queen and her four daughters were women of exemplary character, but of very retired habits, and their example could only be seen in the limited circle to which they confined them- selves. The dauphiness also was a very charming woman. She was all goodness and gentleness, and devoted her life to the fulfil- ment of her duties as a wife and a mother. Conv. LOUIS XV. 413 Mary. What sort of a man was the dauphin? Mrs. M. He is represented as having been an amiable man, whose affections had been chilled, and the powers of his mind depressed, by the coldness of his father's behaviour towards him. Louis always entertained a jealousy of his son, and repressed, as thinking it in- sincere, every demonstration of affection which the naturally warm heart of the dauphin prompted him to show. The courtiers, catch- ing the tone of the king, and of madame de Pompadour, the dauphin's avowed enemy, affected to treat him with marked neglect. The prince, whose spirits were naturally weak, oppressed by those morti- fications, sank into a state of mental apathy. His health gave way, and he fell into a consumption. He met the approach of death with the most cheerful tranquillity. His only worldly regret was on account of his son, afterwards Louis XVI., left without a guide amid the dangers of a vicious court and a corrupted age. His affec- tionate wife, who had nursed Mm with unremitting care during the whole of his illness, contracted the seeds of the same fatal disorder, and soon followed him to the grave. Richard. Was that marchioness of Pompadour a very fascinating woman ? Mrs. M. She was handsome and bold, and contrived to acquire an unbounded influence over the weak and facile mind of the king. She was a woman of low birth, and of no education. She had no great talents, but had some degree of shrewdness. By living in the court she acquired an imposing air of dignity, but she still retained many traces of vulgarity in her speech and manner, which appeared the more striking in a court which, though it had lost much of the decorum, still piqued itself on the elegance and refinement which it had acquired under Louis XIV. Madame de Pompadour affected to make madame de Maintenon her model, and, after the decease of the queen, she aimed at a marriage with the king. But death put an end to her projects ; and never did he seize a more unwilling victim. She clung to power with the last remnant of life, and, while lying on her death-bed, had her face rouged to hide her hopeless condition, and gave audience to ministers, princes, and courtiers. George. Why did that other bad woman, that madame du Barri, want to get the due de Choiseul turned out of the ministry ? Mrs. M. Because he refused to pay court to her. The duke retired to Chanteloup, a magnificent palace on the banks of the Loire, where he was soon surrounded by the best chosen and most brilliant society in France, and may truly be said to have enjoyed an honourable disgrace. M. Dutens, in his ' Memoires d'un Voyageur qui se repose/ gives a particular description of the manner of living at Chanteloup, where it was the wish of the duke and duchess that their guests should enjoy entire liberty. Every person spent his 414 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXVI. mornings as lie pleased. At three o'clock dinner was served, bnt those who preferred dining in private had dinner in their own apartments. After dinner, some walked, some conversed, some read aloud ; every one followed his own inclinations ; and those wearisome questions, " Why don't you stay ? " and " Where are you going ?" were never asked. In the evening the duke and duchess usually walked, and their guests gladly accompanied them. Afterwards, those who chose played at cards, and every one went to bed as early or as late as he pleased. The household was on a princely scale, and, including out-door and in-door servants, consisted of nearly four hundred persons. A second table was kept for people who came on business, but whose rank did not entitle them to a place at the first table. There was a complete establishment for la chasse, and, what was still more essential in a French chateau, a private theatre. Richard. Was the loss of the duke as a minister much felt in France ? Mrs. M. It was the more felt because he had very inefficient suc- cessors. His dismissal was, therefore, a great blow to the dignity of the French monarchy, and with him all its political greatness disap- peared for a time. But Choiseul, though a favourite with the higher classes, was much disliked by the people at large, on account of his love of war, his extravagance, and his mismanagement of the finances. George. Were there not plenty of dukes and counts left ? Mrs. M. There was no scarcity of dukes or counts. In fact, the increase of the nobility was amongst the national evils, and the more so because an effeminate and degraded character pervaded the higher classes of society. It is, however, to be observed of the latter end of this reign, that the coarseness in conversation, which had in the time of the regency been esteemed as wit, was getting out of fashion. The philosophers, as they were called, who were now beginning to have a great influence over the public taste, had introduced a sort of senti- mental cant which proved extremely catching. To extol the virtues, instead of deriding them, became the order of the day. But the re- formation went no farther. To profess the love of virtue was of itself sufficient, and was not thought to imply any obligation to 'practise it. Richard. Pray, mamma, did the arts and sciences suffer by this alteration for the worse in the national character ? Mrs. M. I think I may venture to say that the age of Louis XV. was the age of bad taste, and that the architecture, paintings, and dress of the times will fully justify me in making this remark. A love of gaudy and frivolous ornament was everywhere visible. Architecture was deformed and painting disfigured by it. Gods and goddesses and satyrs were introduced out of place, while shep- herds and shepherdesses were painted in the formal dress and the constrained attitudes which la mode, that veritable demon, had intro- Conv. LOUIS XV. 415 duced at court. This is particularly conspicuous in the paintings of Watteau. Richard. Ah, mamma, I remember seeing some pictures of mincing ladies and gentlemen by that very painter at the Dulwich gallery ; and George and I laughed so loud that you and papa said you were ashamed of us. Mary. And pray, mamma, what were they like ? Mrs. M. The dress of the ladies was the most unbecoming that could be imagined. Paint, patches, hoops, and high heels, were all in their glory in the reign of Louis XV. The hair also was dressed in the most frightful way possible, and with so elaborate an atten- tion, that to curl, friz, and distort it according to rule, was a labour of some hours. It is asserted that there were no less than twelve hundred hair-dressers at that time in Paris, and the sieur le Gros, a celebrated coiffeur, published a volume on hair-dressing, in which the principles of the art are laid down scientifically. Bichard. I really, mamma, begin to be out of all patience with these French, and all their frivolity. Mrs. M. Having said so much of what is bad in this reign, it is but fair to mention what is good. The general appearance and convenience of Paris was much improved, and this example was imitated in many of the provincial towns. In Paris several foun- tains were made in different parts of the city; the royal military school was founded, and other public buildings erected. A noble square also, the Place de Louis XV., was built, adjoining to the gardens of the Tuileries. In it was placed a bronze equestrian statue of Louis XV. on a pedestal supported by four marble statues, representing Strength, Peace, Prudence, and Justice. This group gave occasion to the following epigram : — la belle statue ! le beau pedestal ! Les vertus sont a pied : le vice est a cheval ! This statue of Louis was destroyed during the Eevolution, but I can show you a drawing of it. The horse has been criticised as not sufficiently majestic, but the fault does not, I understand, rest with the artist. The king expressly desired to be placed on his favourite steed, and both horse and rider are likenesses. George. Shall I tell you, mamma, whom I liked best of all the people in the last chapter? It was that king of Prussia. He was something like a king. Mrs. M. He was undoubtedly a man much to be admired. But you will not like him so well when you know more about him. He had great courage, a clear understanding, a decisive mind, and a long and a strong head. But he was hard, unfeeling, and despotic, in a degree that has been seldom witnessed in modern times. The common sympathies of humanity were dead within him, He could 4 I 6 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXVI. be just, and lie could be liberal, because his reason told him that it was good policy to be so ; but he had no heart, he loved nobody, he cared for nobody. Even those whom he appeared to cherish, and professed to serve, he would, when the whim seized him, overwhelm with cutting sarcasms, sneers, and neglects, those instruments of mental torture, the inflictions of which are more severe than any bodily pains. Mary. I suppose he had been a spoiled child. I have heard that that will make people hard-hearted ! Mrs. M. On the contrary, the defects in Frederic's character may in a great measure be traced to the blight which his feelings had suffered in early life from the harsh treatment which he had received from his father. His father, William I., was a man of brutal and violent temper. He piqued himself on being a thorough soldier, and despised all refinements. He disliked his eldest son, and always spoke of him with contempt, as a coxcomb and a French wit, because his taste led him to cultivate his mind by the study of the belles lettres. The queen, who was sister to our king George I., was an amiable good woman. She was very desirous that her son should marry her niece, the princess Anne of England. Frederic had seen his cousin, and was deeply enamoured of her. The king at first consented to the marriage, but, having taken some offence at George I. (I believe for calling Mm his brother the corporal), he for- bade his son to think any more of the match. Frederic found this a very hard order to obey, and, being more and more miserable at home, he, with his mother's approbation, concerted a plan of escape to England. But unluckily the plan was discovered, and Frederic, and his friend and confidant the baron de Catt, were seized in the moment of escape, and thrown into prison. The king's first impulse was to put his son to death, and his life was saved only by the inter- vention of the Austrian ambassador, who declared that, according to the laws of the Germanic body, the prince of Prussia was under the safeguard of the empire. William, finding he could not take his son's life, inflicted on him a most horrible revenge. He ordered a scaffold to be erected in front of his prison windows, and caused his unfortunate friend to be decapitated before his eyes. The prince fainted away at this horrible spectacle, and it was with difficulty he could be brought to himself again. Mary. I hope his hard-hearted father did not keep him in prison after that ? Mrs. M. He was kept in close confinement for three years. At the end of that time, William, capricious and sudden in all his resolutions, took it into his head to release him. He had him brought from prison, and placed behind his mother's chair while she was engaged at cards. The imprisonment of her son had been a Conv. LOUIS XV. 417 severe affliction to the queen, who had often interceded for him as much as she dared. You may imagine therefore what were her feelings when she turned round and unexpectedly beheld him. Richard. There was more of cruelty than kindness in this contrivance of the king's, for the poor queen might have died of surprise. Mrs. M. In 1740 William died, and Frederic became king, and having been in his own person so great a sufferer from tyranny, he acted as if he thought that he had acquired the greater right to be a tyrant himself. Mary. Ah ! mamma, if he had but recollected how much better it is to do as we would be done by ! Mrs. M. That Christian maxim had, I fear, but little to do either with the practice of Frederic or with his creed. He had entangled himself in the mazes of the new French philosophy, and was a pro- fessed infidel. Mary. Did he ever marry the English princess ? Mrs. M. No. He married a princess of Brunswick, and treated her with neglect. The happiness of domestic life was quite unknown to him. He lived only for the public ; and though he divided his time between war, literature, and the government of his kingdom, the same unalloyed desire of fame was the motive which prompted these various pursuits, and engrossed all his faculties. He followed rigidly the rules he had laid down for his own conduct, and required the most exact obedience in others. He was extremely methodical, both in the affairs of state and in his studies. He read a great deal, and divided his books into two classes. The first class consisted of the lighter works of the day, which he read only once ; the second, of books of established merit, to which he wished to give repeated attention. Of each of these select works he had five copies, one for each of the five palaces he used to inhabit. Thus, when he removed from one palace to another, he had only to make a note of the volume and page he left off at, to be able to resume the perusal, without having to carry his books about with him. Richard. Do you know what these favourite books were ? Mrs. M. They were not always the same. New books would gain admittance, and the old ones would go out of favour. But amongst the standards were the French translations of the classics (for Frederic knew little Latin and no Greek), and the plays of Corneille, Racine, and Molifcre. Our old acquaintance, Henault's History, had also a place in this select library. George. I cannot comprehend how Frederic could find time to read so many old books and new books, besides fighting all those battles, and looking after the affairs of his kingdom. Mrs. M. I have already said that he was very methodical, T 3 4 l 8 LOUIS XV. Chap. XXXVI. and that will in great measure account for his finding time for everything. Richard. In that respect he resembled Louis XIV. Mrs. M. Frederic was in most respects greatly superior to Louis. He was no lover of pomp and etiquette, and gave little of his time to trifles. For instance, the dress of a courtier was to Louis almost an affair of state, while to Frederic it was a matter of the utmost indifference. One day, some person just arrived from a long journey made an apology for appearing in his travelling dress. The king rebuked him by saying, that all he wanted of him was his head, and that, as long as he brought that, he might come in whatever dress he pleased. Mary. Pray, what sort of a dress did the king wear himself? Mrs. M. His dress was never splendid, and not often new. He commonly wore a blue military uniform, a small wig with a long queue, and a little three-cornered cocked hat. He was never seen without high-topped boots. In his latter years he would indulge himself, when he was indisposed, in wearing a robe de chambre; but even then he was seldom seen without his cocked hat, and never without his boots. Mary. He must have been a droll figure. Mrs. M. There was so much majesty in his eye and demeanour, and he was so really great, that no singularity of dress could make him look ridiculous. In the Memoirs of count Segur, a French gentle- man, which have been lately published, there is an account of a private audience which he had with Frederic. "I examined," says the count, " with strong curiosity this man, great in genius, small in stature, and almost bent down under the weight of his laurels and his long labours. His blue coat worn out like his body, his long boots that went higher than his knees, his waistcoat stained with snuif, formed a singular and yet noble appearance. The fire of his eyes showed that his mind had not decayed with age." Mary. I don't think I could ever have admired his dirty waist- coat. Mrs. M. Snuff was the only personal gratification in which he indulged to excess, and I was going to say that snuff-boxes, of which he had an incredible number, were his only vanity. But he was extremely vain of his wit, and never could control himself in the display of it. No one, when in his presence, could feel himself secure from its attacks, which were the more painful because the arrows of his satire were generally barbed by malice. Mary. Well : my brothers may call him a very great man if they choose ; but for my part, I don't like him at all. Mrs. M. The only living creatures to whom he was uniformly kind were his dogs. He had a favourite breed of very small grey- a.d. 1774. LOUIS XVI. 419 hounds, and had some of them always with him. When he travelled, and even when engaged in war, he would carry one of these little animals in his arms. CHAPTER XXXVII. LOUIS XVI. (PAKT I.) Years after Christ, 1774— 1789. xvNvrr. The Bastile. Louis XVI. was about twenty years of age when, on his grand- father's death, he succeeded to the throne. He had married, May 16, 1770, Marie Antoinette, archduchess of Austria, one of the daughters of Maria Theresa. Nothing could be more amiable than the new king's natural disposition: he was pious and tolerant; of great industry and application, particularly in financial affairs ; and sincerely anxious to promote the happiness of his people, by intro- ducing into the system of government many improvements and alterations which were in themselves desirable, or which the spirit of the times appeared to require. Louis, however, though of very amiable dispositions, had a weak and irresolute mind. One of his first acts was to re-establish the parliament, which had been suppressed in the latter part of the reign of his predecessor. The management of the finances he placed in the hands of M. Turgot, a man of great and enlightened abilities, who saw plainly both the evils produced by the improvident system of former rulers, and also the true principles on which to remedy them. It is thought that this minister did not sufficiently consult 4 20 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVII. the wishes and opinions of the country in general, and the timid king, either alarmed by some of his measures, or swayed by the artful instigation of his enemies, dismissed him in the year 1776. Soon after his dismissal the effective business of his office was in- trusted to M. Necker, a Swiss, and a Protestant, who iL supposed to have been a less able man than Turgot, but who was much less obnoxious. In the mean time the differences between the English and their North American colonies grew into a war which was destined to extend into almost every portion of the world. It was the policy of France to foment these dissensions. Louis, both as an honest and as an amiable man, and probably also from the repugnance which we may suppose him to have felt as a king to encourage subjects in resisting their government, was exceedingly unwilling to embark in this war. But he was carried along, almost in spite of himself, by those ambitious statesmen who thought that the time was now come to strike with advantage at the power of England, and to transfer to France the naval and commercial superiority which that rival nation had for a long time possessed. The French marine, through the efforts of the duke de Choiseul in the latter part of the former reign, and of M. de Sartine in the early part of the present, was nearly equal in force to that of England, and more than equal to it, allowing for the necessary occupation of a considerable portion of the English navy in the war with America. Under these circum- stances this war between France and England became almost wholly maritime. In December, 1777, the preliminaries were signed at Paris of a treaty between France and the United States of America. This treaty was equivalent to a declaration of war with England. The first action of any importance was fought off Ushant on the 27th of July, 1778, between a French fleet of thirty-two ships of the line, com- manded by the count d'Orvilliers, and the English fleet of thirty ships of the line, commanded by admirals Keppel and Palliser. This action was indecisive. Not a single ship was taken or sunk on either side. But the French seemed to think it a great matter to have been able thus to contend on nearly equal terms with a nation which had been so long master of the sea. The English on their side were much dissatisfied, and a long series of mutual accusa- tion and recrimination ensued between their two admirals. The count d'Estaing, with twelve ships of the line, had been despatched in April to the coast of America. Thence, after some time, he pro- ceeded to the West Indies, where the marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had taken Dominica from the English. The English in their turn had taken St. Lucia. D'Estaing made an attack on St. Lucia, but was repulsed with great slaughter. a.d. 1780. LOUIS XVI. 421 In the following year France was joined by her ally Spain. The combined fleets of these two countries amounted together to sixty- six ships of the line, besides frigates and other smaller vessels. The count d'Orvilliers was commander-in-chief. These fleets entered the British Channel, unseen by sir Charles Hardy, the English admiral, who was on the watch for them at its entrance, with, some say thirty-five, and some thirty-eight, ships of the line, and who, it was thought, might have prevented their junction. For a time they threatened an attack at or near Plymouth; and the English, who knew that large bodies of French troops were assembled on the opposite coast, were very apprehensive of an attempt at invasion, now that their enemies, whom they had so long triumphed over at sea, appeared their superiors even on that element. The count d'Orvilliers, however, seemed to fear the consequences of an attack on Plymouth, or of any similar operation, while the English fleet, although inferior to his own, remained entire. He took, near Plymouth, one 64-gun ship, which, mistaking his fleet for the English, sailed into the middle of it unawares ; and he then retired towards the mouth of the Channel, for the purpose of intercepting sir Charles Hardy on his return. The English admiral, who had been long retarded by contrary winds, found himself at length able, on the last day of August, to enter the Channel. The combined fleets, which he had thus passed by, turned and pursued him as far as Plymouth, and then went to Brest, without effecting anything of importance. There probably was never any maritime spectacle more imposing in itself, or more mortifying to the English, than to see these great fleets, the pur- suing and the pursued, in their course up the Channel. I have conversed with persons who saw them passing the Lizard point, and who told me that the sea seemed to be quite covered with ships, and that the foremost was nearly out of sight to the eastward, when the last became visible in the west. In this year, in the West Indies, the French fleet, under comte d'Estaing, took the islands of St. Vincent and Grenada, and had an indecisive engagement with admirals Byron and Barrington. D'Es- taing afterwards made an unsuccessful attempt on Savannah in Georgia, which was in the possession of the English, and then, after sailing again into the West Indies, where he left a part of his fleet, proceeded with the remainder to Europe. The chief events of the year 1780 were, that, on the 16th of January, admiral Eodney, who was on his way to relieve Gibraltar, which had been blockaded ever since Spain had declared war, defeated a Spanish fleet of eleven ships of the line, under the command of don Juan de Langara. He then proceeded to Gibraltar, without opposition, and afterwards to the West Indies. He had there three engagements 422 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVII. with the comte de Guichen, who had succeeded the comte d'Estaing, but none of these had any important results. The French and Spanish fleets were united, and possessed in those seas a decided superiority oyer any force which could be brought against them. In 1781 the comte de Grasse took the command of these fleets, and on the 28th of April had an engagement with admiral Hood, the result of which was, to bring Tobago into the hands of the French. The English suffered several other losses in that quarter. They were involved also soon afterwards in a war with Holland, and an indecisive action between the Dutch and the English fleets was fought in the North Sea, near the shoal called the Dogger-bank, on the 5th of August, 1781. On the 12th of April, in the year 1782, the comte de Grasse had, off the island of Dominica, another action with admiral Eodney. The English had thirty-seven ships of the line, the French thirty-four. The comte de Grasse, a man of the highest courage, was on board the Ville de Paris, a ship of 110 guns, which was a present to the French king from the city of Paris. Hardly any ship, perhaps, was ever fought more gallantly, but the French were at last totally de- feated ; the Ville de Paris and four other ships of the line were taken, and one ship was sunk. The slaughter was terrible, and the more so because the fleet had on board a body of 5500 troops. On the 19th of the same month two more ships were captured by sir Samuel Hood, who had been detached from admiral Eodney's main fleet, and two more about the same time off Ushant, by admiral Barrington. The English were much elated with these successes, but their exultation was considerably damped by the loss of some of their principal prizes, and among them of the Ville de Paris, in a violent storm which overtook the fleet on its way to England after the action. When the Ville de Paris was last seen, she was weathering the gale with apparent success, but she was never heard of more. On September 13 a formidable attack was made on Gibraltar, but it failed completely. The besiegers were commanded by the due de Crillon, a French officer in the service of Spain, and a large body of French troops served under him. Amongst them were the comte d'Artois, the king's brother, and the duke of Bourbon. Under these circumstances, negotiations for peace were entered into on less unequal terms than might have been expected in a case where England alone had to contend with so many powerful adver- saries. A treaty between England and the United States having been previously settled, preliminaries of peace between the powers at war were signed at "Versailles, January 20, 1783. France and England restored mutually their respective conquests, with the ex- ception that England gave up to France the islands of St. Lucia and Tobago in the West Indies, the establishments on the river Senegal, a.d. 1783. LOUIS XVI. 423 and some other forts in Africa, together with some small districts in the East Indies. All that I need say here of the treaty between England and Spain is, that Spain retained possession of Minorca, which, after sustaining a severe siege, had finally been obliged to capitulate to a united French and Spanish army, on the 4th of February, 1782. Soon after the conclusion of this general peace, the internal diffi- culties of the French government were seen sensibly to increase. Financial embarrassments seemed to be at first the most pressing evil. The expenses of the war had added greatly to the public debt, and the privilege possessed by the nobles and clergy of holding their estates free from the payment of taxes exceedingly diminished the national resources, and naturally aggravated the discontents of the people. M. Necker had been dismissed in 1781. In the end of 1783 M. de Calonne was appointed minister. He at length found it necessary to propose to subject to taxation the whole of the landed property of the kingdom, including that of the nobles and clergy. This could not be done, however, without the consent either of these bodies themselves, or at least of some great national council, the authority of which would have decisive weight with all parties. The assembling of the states-general appeared, under these circum- stances, the most natural and constitutional resource. But that body had not met since 1644, and both the king and the minister must have feared to encounter, in the existing state of the country, the stormy discussions which would certainly arise in it if assembled. For it is to be observed that, at this time, the people not only suf- fered many grievances from the actual despotism both of the govern- ment and of the nobles, but that the principles of liberty, which made them more sensible of these grievances, were very generally canvassed and popular. The ability of England (a far less populous and fertile, and far less extensive country) to support with ease a much larger debt than that which pressed on France so heavily, was justly ascribed to its free constitution. The interest taken in the late war in America had diffused an enthusiasm for republican theo- ries ; and many writers, Eousseau in particular, had decked them out with a seducing brilliancy. In this state of opinion, Calonne reasonably dreaded the conse- quences which might result from assembling the states-general. The parliaments appeared determined to support the exclusive inte- rests of the privileged classes. He had no resource, therefore, but to convene the Notables : an assembly consisting of a number of per- sons summoned from all parts of the kingdom, chiefly selected from the higher orders of the state, and nominated by the king himself. The Notables had been convened by Henry IV. and by Louis XIII. 424 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVII. They now met on the 22nd of February, 1787. The number of members was 144. This assembly would not listen to the measures proposed by M. de Calonne ; and that minister was obliged to resign his office on the 9th of April. About a month after, M. de Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse, afterwards archbishop of Sens, was ap- pointed his successor ; but the Notables still remained impracticable, and consequently were dissolved on the 25th of May. The only resource for money, without convening the states- general, was now to raise it in the ordinary way by royal edict ; which edict could not be passed without first going to the parlia- ment for registration. This the parliament on the present occasion refused; and when the king, by holding a bed of justice, compelled them to register the edict, they made strong remonstrances, and de- clared the registration illegal. They also petitioned that the states- general might be assembled. On this the parliament was banished to Troyes in Champagne, but was again recalled in September. In 17&8, after further struggles with the parliament, M. de Brienne resigned his office: M. Necker was recalled, and again appointed chief minister; and with his advice it was at last determined to convoke the states-general on the 1st of May in the following year. A new convention of Notables was assembled in November, to deter- mine the method by which the states should be elected, and other questions as to the composition of that great body. The first question was, whether the states, when convened, should meet in one assembly, or in three separate chambers, or, as was said, whether they should vote by heads or by orders. Another question was, whether the deputies of the third estate should be only equal in number to those of each of the other two orders sever- ally, or whether they should be equal to those of both orders con- jointly. In the previous meetings of the states-general which had taken place in remote periods of the French history, neither of these questions had been clearly decided, precedents being to be found on both sides. They were both of them questions of great importance. If the three estates met in separate chambers, and any measure to be adopted must have a majority in all, or at least in two of them (which was the plan proposed in case of their separation), it would appear easy for the clergy and nobles, whose interests were in most respects similar, to coalesce against the commons. And it was plain, on the other hand, that, if they sat in one chamber, the commons would have a great ascendency over the other orders, particularly if it had also as many deputies of its own as those of the other two orders united. Even without this double representation, the ascend- ant of the commons would probably be quite decisive, if all the orders met in a single chamber. This would be the case— partly, because very many of the nobles, the duke of Orleans more particu- Conv. LOUIS XVI. 425 larly, were disposed to seek popularity, for the sake of converting it to their own aggrandisement ; partly, because among the deputies of the clergy a great number would be parish priests or cures, of whom in all countries a very large proportion is always taken out of the popular body ; partly, and principally, because many persons of all orders were become converts to popular principles. The king, at length, without deciding the question whether the states should deliberate, or not, in separate chambers, conceded the double repre- sentation of the commons. The states opened at Versailles on the 7th of May, 1789. The deputies of the clergy were in number 291, of whom 205 were cures : those of the nobles, 270 : those of the third estate, 584. Nothing could be more august than the first opening of this assembly. The king delivered a short speech from the throne, in winch he congra- tulated himself on thus meeting his people, and expressed a hope that this epoch might become for ever memorable from the happi- ness and prosperity which would succeed it. To judge from the mere spectacle which was here exhibited, the fondest hopes might be cherished that a bright day of happiness was now dawning on France. The king desired most truly his people's welfare. Was it possible that the representatives of the people themselves could fail to point out to him the best way of attaining it ? Alas ! all persons who indulged this pleasurable anticipation were destined to experience the bitterest disappointment. The king and Ins ministers were men wholly incompetent to guide the debates of such a body as they had assembled. All real strength was in the popular party. Of the first leaders of this party many were men of good intentions, but they almost all of them wanted practical wis- dom; and it soon appeared evident that it was unprepared and unequal to pursue steadily, and to useful purpose, any consistent object or principle. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXXVII. Richard. Alas, poor Louis ! how sorry I am for him ! What a pity it was that he had not some wise and good counsellor to tell him what to do for the best. Mrs. Markham. He would have been incapable, I fear, of benefit- ing even by the best advice. His excessive timidity (the effect of his too confined education) occasioned in him a want of confidence both in himself and others, and put it out of his power to act with can- dour or firmness. The misfortunes of his life may be chiefly attri- buted to this weakness. In all other respects he was an excellent man, and he was the only king of France, since Henry IV., who had shown any regard for the real happiness of his people. But the 42 6 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVII. parallel can go no farther. Lords, though superior to Henry in the purity of his private life, was his inferior in all popular qualities. Shy and awkward in his manner and air, he could not, like Henry, captivate the multitude by the grace and dignity of his demeanour, nor by his ready address ; nor could he overawe them by Iris prompt- ness and decision. Ho was clumsy in his person, inelegant in his gait, careless and untidy in his dress, and, though his features were good, his countenance was heavy and unpleasing. He did not look like a king; and the French, who of all the people in the civilized world are the most governed by the eye, soon lost their respect for him. His good qualities were thrown away upon them. His bene- volence and kindness of heart they attributed to weakness, and his lenity to cowardice. George. It should seem, then, that the French would rather have a fine gentleman than a good man for their king. Mrs. M. There were some few who could appreciate his real worth. The marquis de Bouille says of him in his Memoirs, " In the midst of the most corrupt court, Louis XVI. led an uncorrupt life. In the midst of irreligion and atheism, he preserved a pure and en- lightened devotion, and was personally economical amidst the most unbridled luxury." Mary. I really think the French were unreasonable not to be con- tented with such a king as that. Mrs. M. The French had long been used to the blaze and flutter of a gaudy court, and could not reconcile themselves to a monarch who preferred the simple habits and amusements of private life. The queen also greatly shocked them by the contempt with which she treated those unmeaning ceremonials which had been introduced by Louis XIV., and which, like his ghost, still haunted the court. George. I do not wonder at her. I am quite certain that if I had been in her place I should have done the same. Mrs. M. It was very natural that a young and lively princess should find the court formalities extremely irksome. Still she was very unwise to show her dislike to them. She was the first queen of France who admitted gentlemen into her court parties : but her greatest happiness was to abandon the court altogether, and to retire with a chosen circle of friends to her little farm at Trianon ; where, dismissing the queen, she would assume the farmer's wife, and, attired in a simple dress of white muslin, would employ herself in her dairy and garden. Everything here was supposed to be in imitation of an English farm, but it was more so in appearance than reality. The thatched building, which looked on the outside like a barn, proved on entering it to be an elegant ball-room, and every- thing else was in the same taste. CONV. LOUIS XVI. 427 Packard. To my way of thinking, this English farm must have been a mighty silly sort of a pastime. George. For my part, I am always glad when poor kings and queens can find any nice comfortable amusements. Mrs. M. The French thought of Trianon very much as you do, Richard ; but there was nothing which so much lowered the queen in their eyes as her evening walks on the terraces of Versailles. These terraces were used as a public promenade. They were open to every respectably dressed person who chose to walk there, and in Le Petit Trianon, Versailles. the summer evenings were in general thronged with people. The queen delighted to mingle in the crowd, and, because she wore a mask, would fancy herself unknown. But her grace and dignity betrayed her through her disguise, and she was often exposed to impertinences from persons who would not, except for her incognito, have presumed to address her. Nor was this the worst. These garden adventures gave opportunities to her enemies of cruelly, and I believe most undeservedly, aspersing her character. But although she was fully aware of this, and was often importuned by her real friends to forego these evening walks, she could not be prevailed on to do so, persisting that there could be no harm in them since her intentions were innocent. She forgot that every station has not 428 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVII. only its own peculiar duties, but also its own amusements, and that what was proper enough for a private gentlewoman might be impro- per or impolitic in a queen of France. Unhappily, almost all her amusements were of a sort that compromised her dignity. Private theatricals were at that time a universal passion in France, and to be able to act was an accomplishment no less essential to a lady of any pretensions than to be able to dance. The queen caught the general mama : she had a private theatre, and, though a very indif- ferent performer, would frequently exhibit herself on the stage. It is some excuse, however, for her follies, that she was only fifteen when she married. She was very beautiful, thoughtless to a degree of childishness, and wilful to an excess of obstinacy. Her education had been exceedingly neglected, and her mind was totally unin- formed. She had been taught some few accomplishments, but excelled in none. Conscious of her own ignorance, she disliked knowledge in other women, and it is said that sense and information were always a bar against her favour. It is certain that the two ladies who enjoyed her exclusive friendship were both of them, though amiable, sweet-tempered, and of irreproachable character, women of very inferior capacity. Mary. Pray, who were these ladies ? Mrs. M. The princess de Lamballe, and the duchess de Poli- gnac. Marie Antoinette lived to lament her own deficiencies, and to observe, " What a resource in the casualties of life is a well- informed mind ! " Her own defects of character were sufficiently apparent to all the world, and soon deprived her of the respect of the public. Her amiable qualities were seen by those only who knew her intimately. Her manners were singularly engaging and fascinating to those she liked, and with whom she could feel at her ease. She was warm in her friendships, and benevolent and tender- hearted almost to an excess ; but her feelings were under no regula- tion, and she attempted neither to control nor disguise them. Her resentments were as warmly expressed as her friendships, an unre- serve which occasioned her many personal enemies. Bichard. Did the king follow the same sort of life with the queen ? Mrs. M. Out of complaisance to her, he partook sometimes in her amusements, " but in general," says M. Lacretelle, " he lived in the middle of his court like an indulgent father who tolerates the diver- sions of his young family." His own favourite employments were of a more serious nature. He applied himself sedulously to all the details of business. He was a great reader, and had an extraordinary knowledge of geography. He was also a good mechanic, and had no greater pleasure than to shut himself up in a room he called his workshop, and amuse himself with a common workman of the name of Ganim in making locks and keys. Conv. LOUIS XVI. 429 Mary. And how did the king's two brothers employ themselves ? Mrs. M. I do not know that Monsieur 1 joined in the king's amuse- ments, but he very much resembled him in character and appear- ance. He was grave and studious, was fond of literature, and even occupied himself in writing, under a feigned name, for the periodical papers of the day. When a boy he had the reputation of being the cleverest of his family. There is a story that, when he and his brothers were children, a deputation was sent from the country with an address to them on some public occasion. The orator addressed the dauphin as being the eldest, and began with a flaming compli- ment on his talents and progress in learning. On this, Louis in- terrupted the spokesman, and, pointing to the comte de Provence (as Monsieur was then called), said, " Sir, you must mean my brother, the comte de Provence ; he is the clever boy." George. I am sure Louis was an honest boy — clever or not. Mrs. M. And the same might be said of him when a man. Whether clever or not, he was very honest. The comte d'Artois (afterwards Charles X.) was very unlike his brothers. He was handsome, gay, and lively: he loved frivolous diversions much more than serious employments, and partook in all the queen's amusements, and en- couraged her in her love of dissipation. Mary. The revolution in France is very difficult to understand. I don't quite comprehend what was the first beginning of it. Mrs. M. I have already endeavoured to explain to you that the disorders in the finance had paralysed the powers of government ; an evil which the inefficient measures of the king and his bewildered ministers in vain essayed to remedy. The higher ranks of the nobility, excepting those who were of what was called the queen's party, were much estranged from the court, chiefly in consequence of the unpopular habits of the king and queen. The provincial nobles, who were by far the most numerous, were, with few excep- tions, miserably poor and uneducated. Shut up within the pale of their rank, they were excluded from the law, from commerce, and from many of those roads to- wealth which were open to plebeians. Their titles and their exemptions from taxation were their only dis- tinctions. These distinctions, however, made them look down with contempt on their unprivileged though richer neighbours, by whom they were in their turn despised for their poverty and pride. In addi- tion to all these evils, the false philosophy of the times had weakened the influence of religious principle throughout France. Thus the cords were loosened which bind society together, and very slight im- pulses were sufficient to burst them asunder. The court party ascribe the first popular disturbances chiefly to the machinations of the duke of Orleans, who at any rate encouraged and heartily joined in them. 1 Afterwards Louis XVIIL 430 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVII. Richard. I should have thought that, as a prince of the blood, he ought to have supported the royal cause, instead of turning against it, Mrs. M. The duke of Orleans was both a wrongheaded and an unprincipled man. He was great-grandson of the regent, and in- herited some of his ancestor's talents, most of his vices, and very few, if any, of his captivating qualities. He hated the queen, because she had been too frank and unguarded to conceal her disapprobation of his conduct, and gratified his malice by attacking her character in every possible way. Most of the abusive pamphlets which, in the beginning of the Revolution, were circulated against the queen, could be traced to his palace, and the celebrated madame Genlis, who was then governess to his children, is much belied if she is not the author of some of them. Not contented with thus vilifying the queen, he is said to have aimed also at dethroning the king, in the hope to obtain, if not the throne itself, at least the nomination of lieutenant- general of the kingdom. But his desires surpassed his means of accomplishment. He had no character, and no power of any kind, except what his immense wealth and his undaunted wickedness gave him. And while he deceived himself with the idea that in compass- ing the ruin of the royal family he was at once gratifying his revenge and his ambition, he was in fact preparing his own destruction. Richard. It must have been something very striking to watch the coming on of the Eevolution, I mean merely as a spectator, without having anything to do with it. Mrs. M. The late Mr. Arthur Young enjoyed, if indeed it could be called enjoyment, that opportunity. He was at Paris in the summer of 1789, and says, * It is impossible to have any other employment at so critical a moment, than going from house to house demanding news." He adds, that every press throughout France was busied in printing pamphlets in favour of liberty, and that in the book-shops in Paris every hour produced something new. Mr. Young was in Paris when the royal family, as you will hear in the next chapter, were brought there from Versailles, and resided in a sort of captivity in the Tuileries. He says, " I saw the king walking in the garden of the Tuileries, attended by six of the milice Bourgeoise. The queen was also there with a lady of her court, but attended so closely by the gardes Bourgeoises, that she could not speak but in a low voice without being overheard. She does not appear in health ; she seems to be much affected, and shows it in her face. A little garden has been railed off for the dauphin. Here he was at work with a rake and hoe, but not without a guard of two soldiers. He is a very pretty, good-natured looking boy, of five or six years old." Mary. Poor dear little boy! I fear he could not have much enjoy- ment of his garden with that horrible guard of soldiers. Richard. How many children had the king and queen? A.D. I789. LOUIS XVI. 431 Mrs. M. They had had four, but at this time two only were living. Their eldest son died when about six years old, and was spared by his early death from partaking in the calamities of his family. But, as if sorrow was to be the portion of his race, his short life was em- bittered by his jealousy of his brother, whom, because he was very beautiful, and more than commonly engaging, he was taught to con- sider as his mother's favourite. The queen, who was a very tender mother, loved all her children alike, and this evident coldness and want of affection in her eldest son was one of the first severe afflic- tions of her life. CHAPTER XXXVIII. LOUIS XVI. (in continuation.) Years after Cheist, 1789 — 1793, The Tuileriea. The first step of importance after the opening of the states-general was, that the deputies of the commons assumed, which they did almost 43 2 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. immediately, the determination of the point in dispute, whether the deliberations should be carried on in three separate chambers or only in one. The commons declared themselves the " national assembly," and invited the deputies of the nobles and clergy to join them. The majority of the clergy joined them first, and then the duke of Orleans with several nobles ; and, at length, at the pressing instance of the king, who was anxious to compose by any means the increased and increasing dissensions of tHe state, all the other deputies of those orders came over. "While these things were going on in the assembly, the nobles attending on the court, with the comte d'Artois, the king's second brother, at their head, were occupied in collecting round Paris and Versailles all the troops they could muster from different parts of the kingdom. The king dismissed M. Necker, the only person about him who possessed any portion of the public confidence. This step was taken on the 11th of July. Paris, where all the materials of insur- rection had been fomenting for a considerable time, was thrown into commotion by the intelligence of his dismissal. The citizens armed, and, incorporating with themselves a portion of the regular army, took the appellation of the " national guard." It was now found that democratical principles were become general even among the soldiers, particularly in Paris, where they were exposed to the infec- tion of all the prevalent feelings of the populace, and to the artifices of those who wished to seduce them. On the 14th of July this newly formed army, accompanied by a vast concourse of the lowest people, attacked and stormed the Bastile, which had long been converted into a sort of state prison. Only seven prisoners were found there. Of these, the greater number were imprisoned for forgery. The others were persons who had lost their reason, and who, having been confined ever since the preceding reign, had been detained because the officers did not know in what way to dispose of them. The frantic populace immediately murdered the governor, M. de Launay, and also M. de Lolme, the second in command. The guards, who had been concerned in, and had directed the attack, could with difficulty prevail on the mob to spare the garrison. The heads of the murdered were fixed upon pikes, and carried in triumph by the mob about the streets, — a horrid exhibi- tion of that sanguinary spirit which became predominant from this time in Paris, and was thence communicated to other parts of the country. I must cast a veil over most of the enormities which followed, enormities which are among the strongest proofs to be found in history how utterly depraved human nature may become, when the weakness of the law, and the forgetfulness of religion, give free scope to all its evil passions. The princes of the blood and their adherents now emigrated. The a.d. 1789. LOUIS XVI. 433 king again recalled M. Necker. On the 4th of August the vicointe de Noailles, seconded by the due d'Aiguillon, proposed in the national assembly a complete reform in the whole system of taxa- tion ; that for the future every tax should be imposed in proportion to the fortune of the contributor, and that no order of the state should be exempted ; that feudal services should be redeemable, and personal servitude abolished. The excitement created by these pro- posals spread immediately through the whole assembly. The nobles and clergy seemed to contend with each other which should offer the greatest sacrifices to the public welfare. When they had once begun, they were afraid to stop. The representatives of the cities renounced their incorporations ; and every exclusive right and privilege, through- out the whole kingdom, was at length resigned. No one end, how- ever, did these resignations gain for those who made them : the reign- ing party was more inclined to insult their weakness than to respect or praise their generosity. On the 20th of August a declaration of rights was agreed on to serve as a basis of the new constitution. On the 20th of September it received the royal sanction. Though under this new constitution the crown was not abolished, yet its whole real power was taken away. At about six in the morning on the 6th ot October a furious mob of both sexes, who had come from Paris the preceding day, made an attack on the palace of Versailles, and forced their way into it. They seized two of the gardes du corps, dragged them from their posts, and murdered them in the most cruel manner. A party rushed into the queen's apartments, with loud outcries, execrations, and threats, too horrid to be related. The sentinel M. de Miomenil, after bravely resisting for a few minutes, finding himself entirely overpowered, opened the queen's door, and called out with a loud voice, " Save the queen ; her life is aimed at : I stand alone against two thousand tigers ! " He soon after sank down covered with wounds, and was left for dead ; but coming again to the use of his senses, he had the good fortune to creep away unobserved through the crowd. It will afford pleasure to all who love courage and fidelity to know that he was afterwards cured of his wounds. The ruffians, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with bayonets and poniards the bed whence this persecuted woman had fled, almost naked, and through ways unknown to the murderers, to the king's apartments. The king was already alarmed, and had gone to seek her. He was met by some of his guards, who escorted him back to his own apartment, where the queen was already arrived, and where soon afterwards the children were brought to them. In the mean time the gardes du corps were hunted from place to place through all the purlieus of the palace, much as the Protestants had been during the massacre of St. Bartholomew. France. U 434 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. In this imminent danger, the marquis de la Fayette interposed. He commanded the national guard of Paris, and had come to Ver- sailles the preceding evening. He had but little influence over his troops, and less over the raging mob ; but on the king's promising to set out instantly for Paris, he succeeded in checking the imme- diate progress of violence. Le vol a Paris I was the universal cry : there was no refusing or remonstrating : the whole royal family was at the mercy of the rabble, nor could La Fayette have insured their lives for a moment if they had appeared to hesitate. The mournful procession, which lasted six hours, though the dis- tance is only twelve miles, began immediately. The mob accom- panied and surrounded the royal carriage. To render the triumph more complete, a party of the gardes du corps, deprived of their arms, and treated as prisoners of war, were appointed, under the name of an escort, to attend their sovereign. That this procession also might in all its parts be characteristic, the mangled and bloody heads of the two guards who had been murdered in the morning were carried along on pikes to grace the spectacle ; and, it is said, were frequently and designedly exhibited before the windows of the carriage which contained the royal captives. The king was lodged at the Tuile- ries : the city was illuminated, and the evening spent in triumph by the Parisians. The national assembly also removed at this time to Paris. During the year 1790 the king remained at the Tuileries, in a condition no way different from that of a prisoner, and not treated even with personal respect. On the 16th of June a decree passed the assembly for the abolition of all hereditary titles, orders, armorial bearings, and other marks of the distinction of ranks in society. Of all the king's ministers, M. Necker alone, though himself a plebeian, and born and bred in the republic of Geneva, had the courage to oppose the idle folly of this decree. On the 4th of September this minister resigned. He was a man of the strictest and most un- blemished integrity, and had, during the greater part of his career of office, possessed throughout France high popularity. But the opinions of the people were now in a state of disturbance, in which everything, except crime and violence, was suspected of a want of zeal for liberty; and this man, who had acquired in France an eminence which perhaps no foreigner had ever previously attained in any country, and who had certainly done nothing to forfeit the public favour, retired to his own country without the smallest mark of honour, esteem, or regret. He died in 1804, at Copet. As a minister of finance, he would probably have ranked high in any ordinary times or circumstances. It is generally supposed that he had not that stamp of high ability which alone could have carried the government in safety through the perils by which it had been of late environed: but it must be ever doubtful whether, under a.d. 1 791. LOUIS XVI. 435 the circumstances in which France was placed at the time of the convocation of the states-general, the wisdom or virtue of any indivi- dual could have averted the fatal consequences which were to follow. A decree was passed on the 27th of November ejecting from their benefices all those of the clergy who should refuse to take an oath " to maintain to the utmost the new constitution of France, and particularly the decrees relative to the civil constitution of the country." The pope had declared himself in disapprobation of this oath; and it was refused unhesitatingly by vast numbers of the clergy, including almost all the bishops. Of one hundred and thirty- one bishops, there were only three who would take the oath. During these events the number of emigrants increased consider- ably. In the spring of 1791 they formed an army on the German frontier, under the command of the prince of Conde. 1 They assumed a black uniform, faced with yellow, with a death's head, surrounded by a laurel wreath, on one cuff, and a sword on the other, with the motto " Conquer or die." Much jealousy was entertained in France .that this army of emigrants would attempt a counter-revolution, and that it would have the support also of many of the powers of Europe, who were evidently alarmed by the internal disorders of France, and withheld, perhaps, from interfering in them only by the reasonable apprehension that any symptom of external hostility might endanger the king's personal safety. The king and queen and their children, the princess Elizabeth, the king's sister, with Monsieur and Madame, the king's brother and his wife, were now the only persons of the royal family who remained in France : all the rest had emigrated. Monsieur and Madame left the palace of the Luxemburg on the night of the 20th of June, 1791, and on the 23rd reached Brussels in safety. On the same night also of the 20th the king himself, accompanied by the queen and their children, and the princess Elizabeth, quitted the Tuileries; the king's intention, however, not being to leave France, but to put himself at the head of the loyal part of his army. Unhappily they were stopped at Varennes, and brought back under escort of the national guard. All the suspicions which had before been enter- tained of the king's fidelity to the new constitution were of course augmented by his thus attempting to escape ; but he was received at Paris with more temper than could have been expected, and for a short time the affairs of the country bore a comparatively tranquil appearance. The national assembly was now hastening fast to the final com- pletion of the new constitution. On the 3rd of September it was presented to the king, and on the 13th he signified his acceptance 1 This prince of Conde, Louis Joseph, was the only son of the duke of Bourbon, who suc- ceeded the regent Orleans as minister to Louis XV. See p. 395. U 2 43 6 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. of it. On the following day he repaired in person to the assembly, and being conducted to a chair of state, prepared for him at the side of the president, he signed the constitutional act, and took an oath to be faithful to the law and the nation. On the 30th of Sep- tember this first national assembly, which is often known by the name of the constituent assembly, dissolved itself, after having, by a kind of self-denying ordinance, excluded all its members from being eligible to seats in the next assembly. That next, which is called the legislative assembly, opened on the 1st of October, and soon gave proof of a most lamentable unfitness for the important functions de- volved on it. Things might have turned out better, if some of the members of the first assembly, many of whom, it was hoped, might have learned wisdom from experience, had retained their place among the national representatives. The frightful violences which had been committed throughout France, the unsparing attacks which had been made on the royal authority, and an apprehension that the dangerous principles which had in part produced them might spread to their own dominions, had now excited a very general alarm among the sovereign princes of Europe. Francis II., who on the sudden death of Leopold, in the beginning of 1792, succeeded to the possession of the imperial crown, and in conjunction with him the king of Prussia, were the first powers to prepare for hostilities. War was decreed by the national assembly against Francis on the 20th of April, 1792. The first operations were unfavourable to the French, who attacked, but unsuccessfully, the Austrian Netherlands. On the 25th of July the duke of Brunswick, commander-in-chief of the united armies of Prussia and Austria, issued at Coblentz a most violent manifesto, in which he declared himself authorised by the sovereigns of those countries to support the royal authority in France, and even resolved to inflict "on those who shall deserve it the most exemplary and ever-memorable avenging punishments, by giving up the city of Paris to military execution, and exposing it to total destruction ; and that the rebels who shall be guilty of illegal resist- ance shall suffer the punishments which they shall have deserved." It may well be supposed that this arrogant declaration excited a general indignation in France. It seemed to unite against the invaders all who were not zealots for the royal authority, and per- haps did more than any other single cause to pave the way to the bloody tragedy of the king's death. a But this was to be preceded by new violences and indignities. On the 10th of August an attack was made on the Tuileries by a republican party which was now gaining ascendency. The king and the royal family took refuge in the national assembly. The insurgents, in the mean time, forced. the gates of the palace/and a.d. 1792. LOUIS XVI. 437 made an attack on the regiment of Swiss guards who defended it. The national guards, who had been joined with the Swiss, deserted them most perfidiously in their hour of need, and the Swiss were at length overpowered by numbers, and gave way. All of them who could be found, and not the guards only, but also the servants of the palace, were massacred in cold blood, and even those who escaped to the assembly were with difficulty preserved from the popular fury. On the 14th of August the royal family were committed prisoners to the old palace of the Temple, one of the most melan- choly places of custody that could be selected. Meanwhile the combined armies had entered France, with the full expectation of speedy victory. The Prussians in particular, proud of their victories under the great Frederic, believed that they would have nothing to do but to trample on the undisciplined rabble whom they should find opposed to them. All France was in a state of the greatest disorder. Almost all the officers who had formerly served in its armies had joined the emigrant army, and had given the duke of Brunswick most erroneous accounts of the pretended dissatisfaction of all orders of men with the conduct of the ruling factions at Paris. The operations of the duke were in the first instance successful. He took Longwy and Verdun, and it was expected that he would advance immediately on Paris. Tins apprehension excited among the ruffians who now abounded in that distracted city a still more savage fury than they had before manifested. On the 2nd of September a party of the Federes, as those persons called themselves who pretended the greatest zeal for liberty, rushed to the prisons, where a great number of priests were under confinement for refusing to take the oath which was pre- scribed by the late constitution. Of these unhappy men, twenty- three were massacred in the abbey of St. Germain; one hundred and fifty-two at the convent of the Carmelites ; ninety-two at the seminary of St. Fermin. The murder of the Swiss officers who had escaped on the 10th of August, and had afterwards been imprisoned, soon followed: other murders were then perpetrated. A sort of tribunal was instituted, before which prisoners of each sex, and, of all ages, were brought, in mockery of the forms of legal justice. The queen's confidential friend, the beautiful princess of Lamballe, was, after one of these mock trials, murdered, and her head placed on a pike, and carried round the streets. After exhibiting it at the Palais Eoyal, where the duke of Orleans was at that moment sit- ting down to dinner, the assassins carried it, together with the bleeding heart, to the Temple, and displayed it under the window of the apartment in which the royal prisoners were confined. The dreadful spectacle threw the queen into convulsions, in which she remained for several hours. The number of the persons mur- 438 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. dered on this and the following day is said to have amounted to 1085. The hospital of the Bicetre, said to contain about 4000 per- sons, was afterwards besieged by the same frantic wretches. After a resistance of eight days it was taken, and every soul within the walls was put to death. Other massacres were perpetrated at Orleans and Eheims, at Lyons, and at Meanx. In short, there is not in the history of mankind any more painful and horrible narrative than that of these massacres of September, 1792, in the midst of a nation which has always professed itself the model of all politeness and civilization. The only ground, indeed, on which I can feel myself justified in giving you this relation, even though I suppress the worst barbarities, is, that the shocking picture here presented to us of the worst excesses of human vice and depravity is at the same time relieved by that which we have, on the other hand, of the heroism of many of the unhappy sufferers. The princesse de Lamballe bore with unshaken fortitude the in- sults of her ferocious persecutors, and refused, though mildly, to seek forgiveness at their hands. The unhappy priests who were murdered in their prisons met their fate with that calm resignation which can be derived only from conscious virtue and from a firm reliance on God. Their deportment extorted in some instances the admiration even of their persecutors. M. Violet, an officer who pre- sided over the massacre at the convent of the Carmelites, exclaimed, some time after, in an involuntary enthusiasm, " I am lost : I am overpowered with astonishment : it is beyond my conception : and I am convinced that any man who had been witness of the scene, as I was, would have been equally astonished. The priests met death with as much joy and as much pleasure as if they had been going to a bridal feast ! " And yet I know not that, even while we venerate the fortitude displayed by these victims of the most unbridled tyranny that ever disgraced any civilized age, we ought to allow ourselves to be very greatly surprised by it. When the spirit is roused by oppression, and hope is lost in despair, and particularly when long and severe afflictions have directed the mind to the true sources of consolation, I can hardly see why even our weak nature should shrink from the refuge afforded by a short and easy death, which places us at once in His merciful hands, who, we know, in- flicts not on his servants any earthly chastisement which shall not be for their eternal welfare. On the 21st of September the national legislative assembly was succeeded by a new body of representatives, which took the name of the national convention. Two Englishmen, the celebrated Dr. Priestly, and a man of the name of Paine, who had acquired much notoriety by his democratical writings, were elected into this body by certain departments ; but the former declined accepting the seat. a.d. 1792. LOUIS XYI. 439 On the 22nd, the first day of the actual sitting of the new con- vention, it was decreed by acclamation "that royalty is abolished in France." It was the next day decreed that all public acts should be dated by the year of the French republic. This rage of repub- licanism soon went so far, that the ordinary titles, monsieur and madame, were abolished, and the appellation of citizen substi- tuted in their stead, as being more suitable to the principles of equality. There were also violent parties among the republicans themselves. The most numerous party, and by much the most moderate, was called that of the Gironde, and sometimes that of the Brissotines, from Brissot, their principal leader. The opposite party, which was entitled the Mountain, was chiefly composed of men of daring and sanguinary characters. At the head of this party were Danton and Eobespierre. To this party was also now commonly appro- priated the more lasting and memorable appellation of Jacobins : an appellation which had been first given to one of the most violent clubs of revolutionists, which met in the hall of the Jacobin friars at Paris ; a religious body of the Dominican order, whose convent at Paris was in the rue St, Jacques. Of all the causes which swelled the horror of the revolution, probably the most considerable was the evil influence of these clubs, and of others of similar character, which were perpetually meeting to discuss the measures of the legis- lature. In these assemblies, composed almost entirely of the worst and most ignorant members of society, the most ferocious took the lead. These ruled the populace, by exciting a universal fear that moderation would be interpreted into a want of civism, or a want of sufficient zeal for liberty. They also terrified the convention into many measures which the great majority of the members would cer- tainly not have been prevailed on to adopt if they had not feared to incur the same suspicion. One great object of the Jacobins was to destroy the king. This unhappy monarch was, as you have been told, confined in the Temple, where every art which malignant cruelty could suggest was put in practice to make his imprisonment irksome. Even the common necessaries of life were often withheld, and scarcely ever granted without much insolence, and after long delay. Threatening and indecent inscriptions were scrawled on walls, and offensive ballads sung in the hearing of the royal prisoners. But they bore these insults with unshaken magnanimity. Not a murmur, nor a com- plaint, ever escaped from them. The king, and queen, and madame Elizabeth, employed their captivity in the education of the dauphin and his sister, and in reading to each other. The king employed also a part of every morning and evening in study. A short airing was allowed them in the garden, but they never could avail them- 440 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. selves of this permission without encountering the insolence and depraved animosity of those who watched and surrounded them. On the 11th of December the ill-fated monarch was ordered to the bar of the convention. He was accused of having committed various crimes against the sovereignty and liberty of the people, and was obliged to anwer several interrogatories. He on his part demanded a copy of the accusation, and of the papers on which it was founded, and claimed the right of choosing counsel for his defence. No objec- tion was made to the first of these demands, and the last was granted also, but with some difficulty. On the king's return to the Temple he requested to see his family, but was answered by the officers that they had no orders on the sub- ject. In the course ot the evening he often renewed the same request. For a long time no reply was given. He was at length told that he must wait till it was permitted by the convention. By that body, four days afterwards, it was decreed that the queen and madame Elizabeth should have no communication with the king during the trial ; but that he might, if he pleased, have the company of his children, to whom, however, it was in that case strictly forbidden to see either their mother or their aunt. Louis then refused to avail himself of a decree which was clogged with such a restriction. The counsel chosen by the king for his defence were M. Tronchet, M. Lamoignon de Malesherbes, and M. Deseze — men who executed with great courage and ability the dangerous task confided to them. On Christmas-day the king made his will : on the following morning he was summoned to the convention for the purpose of making his defence, which was read by M. Deseze. "When his counsel had finished, the king made a short speech, expressive of the regard which he had always felt for his people. He was then conducted back to the Temple, and did not again appear before the convention. The discussions winch followed were brought to a close on the 16th and 17th of January. Not one single member of the convention had the boldness to assert the innocence of his sovereign. Of 721 suf- frages which were given on the question what punishment should be inflicted, 366 were for immediate death. The duke of Orleans, now called Philip Egalite, a name which he had assumed to pay court to the mob, was, to his eternal disgrace, among those who voted for the king's death. Paine, the Englishman, who owed his seat in the convention to the intemperance of his republican politics, voted against it. The defenders of Louis were then admitted to the bar, and M. Deseze read a note from the king, declaring that he appealed to the nation itself against the sentence of its representatives. But this appeal the convention would not allow, and the next day they de- creed that the sentence should be executed without delay. a.d. 1 793- LOUIS XVI. 441 On Sunday, January 20th, the messengers of the convention en- tered Louis's apartment, in order to announce to him in form this decree. The king demanded four things : the first, a delay of three days, to prepare himself for appearing before God; secondly, the assistance and consolation of a priest ; thirdly, permission to see his family privately ; and lastly, an exemption, for the little time he had to live, from the oppressive vigilance of the municipal officers. The delay was refused, but the other requests were granted. The inter- view with his family, which took place late in the evening, was aifecting and agitating in the extreme. He promised to see them again the next morning ; but when the morning came, he thought that it would be most advisable to spare both them and himself the pang of another sad separation. After passing some time at his devotions with M. Edgeworth, the priest whom, at the king's desire, the convention had permitted to attend him, he went to bed and slept soundly. On the morning of the 21st, at eight o'clock, he entered the car- riage in which he was to be conveyed to execution. The procession was nearly two hours in reaching the place appointed, formerly the Place de Louis X V., but which had now the name given it of the Place de la Revolution. The interval was employed by the king in reading from a breviary, lent him by M. Edgeworth, the prayers for persons in extremity. When the carriage stopped at the scaffold, the king said, " Nous voici done arrives." He took off his coat, unbuttoned the neck of his shirt, ascended the scaffold with steadiness, and surveyed for a few moments the immense multitude : then approaching the edge, he made a motion for silence, and, with a raised voice, said, " Fran- cais, je meurs innocent : je pardonne a tous mes ennemis, et je souhaite que la France — " Santerre, one of the leaders of the Jacobins, a man who, I have been told, had been a butcher, and who was on horseback near the scaffold, made a signal for the drums to beat, and for the executioners to perform their office. The king's voice was drowned in the noise of the drums. Three executioners then approached to seize him. At the sight of a cord, with which one of them attempted to tie his arms, the king, for the first time, showed signs of indignation, and seemed to be about to resist, but he recollected himself in a moment and sub- mitted. The executioners laid hold of him, and placed him on the guillotine. The confessor then, kneeling with his face near to that of the king, pronounced aloud, " Enfant de Saint Louis, montez au ciel!" The blow was given. M. Edgeworth's face was sprinkled with the king's blood. The executioners walked round the scaffold, holding up the head to be seen by the people. A few, who had pro- u 3 44 2 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. bably been hired for the purpose, cried, " Vive la nation ! vive la republique ! " The queen, the princess Elizabeth, the dauphin, and the princess royal, continued for some time in close confinement in the Temple. On the 3rd of July the dauphin, who was about eight years old, was forcibly taken from his mother, and placed under the care of a cob- bler of the name of Simon. He still continued to be confined in the Temple ; and this separation from his own family was doubtless in- tended as a means of degrading his manners and character. This poor young prince, however, happily for him, died on the 9th of June, 1795. The queen was brought to trial October 14th, 1793, and on the 16th of that month was executed, meeting her fate with the greatest fortitude and composure. Madame Elizabeth was put to death on the 10th of May following. The young princess, after the death of her brother in 1795, was given up by the convention to the Aus- trians, in exchange for some French commissioners who had been made prisoners. She afterwards married the due d'Angouleme. Louis XVI. was born August 23, 1754, was guillotined Jan. 21, 1793. He married, May 16, 1770, Marie Antoinette, archduchess of Austria, by whom he had two sons and two daughters : — (1.) Louis Joseph, born October 22nd, 1781, died June 4, 1789. (2.) Louis Charles, afterwards called Louis XVIL, born March 27, 1785, died in the Temple June 9, 1795. (1.) Marie Therese, born Dec. 29th, 1778, married afterwards the due d'Angouleme. (2.) Sophie Helene, died an infant. A very short time after the murder of the queen, the duke of Orleans, who, though he had committed so many crimes in the hope of acquiring popular favour, had yet never acquired it, but was at all times the object of universal indignation and hatred, was con- demned and executed. On the day of his execution only a very few people were present when first he ascended the cart, but the rumour soon flew, and attracted innumerable gazers. These reproached him in the severest terms with all the infamy of his past life, especially with his assassinations, his perfidy, and his vote against the king. All this, however, together with his actual death on the scaffold, he bore with the greatest possible intrepidity. He was in the forty- seventh year of his age. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXXVHI. Itichard. I cannot help thinking that it was very cowardly in the nobles of France to emigrate, and leave the king and queen in their distress, Mrs. Marhliam. Some of the nobility, who by their attachment to the court had made themselves obnoxious to the people, were urged by the king and queen themselves to leave the country at the first Conv. LOUIS XVI. 443 breaking out of the troubles. Amongst these was the duchess of Polignac, who, when she afterwards heard in her exile of the queen's death, was so much shocked that she uttered one shriek, and in- stantly expired. Mary. It was very good-natured in the king and queen to wish to send their friends away out of danger ; but I think that if I had been one of them I would not have gone. George. Nor I neither. I would have tried to make the nobles rally round the throne, and I would have defended the king sword in hand, instead of sneaking out of the kingdom. Mrs. M. The king's excessive timidity, and his dread of shedding blood, damped the ardour of those who would have been willing to serve liim. I however quite agree with you in blaming the emigra- tion of the nobles, and it was not long before the court found the ill consequences of it. Pressing letters were sent to invite many of them to come back, to some of which the queen added with her own hand the following postscript : " If you love your king, your religion, your government, and your country, return ! return ! return ! Marie Antoinette." George. If I had got such a letter, not fire nor water should have kept me. Mrs. M. From the time when the fortunes of France began to cloud over, the character of the queen began to rise. She was no longer the frivolous creature she had formerly been. She devoted herself wholly to her husband and children ; and although she was conti- nually importuned to withdraw from the popular fury, of which she was peculiarly the object, and to retire to Vienna, she could not be induced to leave France, and would say, " My only care is for my hus- band and children ; with them and them only will I live and die." Un- fortunately for her, the king's indecision, and particularly his want of presence of mind on all sudden emergencies, frequently obliged her to act a prominent part ; and thus the public became encouraged in the notion that she was herself the author of all the measures of the court. Mary. Was she clever in public affairs ? Mrs. M. No person whose judgment is weak, and temper impe- tuous, can be clever in either public or private business, and it must be owned that the counsels of this unfortunate woman were often very injudicious. But what appears to me the most blameable part of her conduct is, that she had an ertreme fondness for secret con- trivances and underhand plots. These plots and contrivances were perpetually betrayed, and thus exposed her to the continual suspicion of being in league with the enemies of the state. But whatever might be her errors as a politician and as a queen, her conduct as a wife and mother was exemplary, and in all the concluding trials of her unhappy life she showed heroic courage and greatness of mind. 444 LOUTS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. Ih'chard. If the royal family had not been found out and brought back that time when they were trying to make their escape, who knows but that they might all have been alive now ? Mrs. M, The king always refused to quit the kingdom. At the time he was stopped at Varennes, he Avas only preparing to go to Longwy, a place on the frontier, where he meant to put himself under the protection of that part of the army which was commanded 1 >y M. de Bouille, a steady royalist. But there seemed a fatality in all the measures which were taken by this unfortunate family. Every attempt which they made, or which was made by others, to remedy their affairs, only made them worse. Of this the history of their flight to Varennes is a striking instance. The plan had been princi- X^ally arranged by count Fersen, a young Swedish nobleman who happened to be in Paris, and whose ardour inspired him with this project to save them. The count knew that a Eussian lady, named madame Korfif, was about to leave Paris with her family, and he obtained a duplicate of her passport. Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the royal children, was to represent the Eussian lady, and the young princess and the dauphin were to pass for her two daughters, the queen for the governess, and the king and the princess Elizabeth for attendants. It was arranged that they should take the road through Chalons, and that at Pont de Sommerville a detachment from Bouille's army, commanded by an officer named Goguelat, should be in waiting to escort them to Varennes, where relays of horses were to be placed to carry them to Longwy. Everything being arranged, the first difficulty was how to get the royal family out of the palace, where they were doubly guarded by the suspicious watchfulness of the republicans, and by the fetters that still remained of the court etiquettes. At about half-past ten at night the dauphin and his sister were taken from their beds. The poor little boy was so sleepy that he could scarcely stand, and when he saw himself dressed in girl's clothes he asked if they were going to act a play. The children and madame de Tourzel were first con- veyed to the coach, which was waiting at some distance from the palace. The dauphin was soon asleep at the bottom of the carriage, in happy ignorance of his danger ; but the princess, who was about thirteen years old, was able to comprehend the anxieties of their situation. Indeed I take this account chiefly from her narrative of the transaction. After waiting one hour, which, as you may well think, seemed an age, the king and queen, and princess Elizabeth, joined them, and they set off, driven by count Fersen, who acted as their coachman, to a place where a travelling carriage was in waiting. Into this the royal party got, and the count, to avoid suspicion, was obliged to hasten back. Never was a more helpless set of beings cast adrift in the world Oonv. LOUIS XVI. 445 than the six poor creatures who were now at the dead of the night to steer their course across a country in which they were surrounded by a thousand dangers. They had, it is true, three gentlemen in their train, who acted as couriers, but these supported so ill their assumed character, that, instead of assisting, they only added to the hazards of the royal party. A& for the king and queen, they knew no more of the routine of travelling for private persons in France than the poor boy who was asleep at their feet. They however went on, according to the plan that had been arranged for them, and proceeded through that night, and through part of the following day, without meeting with any other mischance than a slight accident to the carriage, which caused some delay. On this delay, however, hung the fate of the fugitives. Goguelat, after waiting some time at the appointed place, not seeing the royal party arrive, concluded that the enterprise had been abandoned; and, perceiving that he and his party had excited the observation of the country people, gave orders to return by cross-roads to Varennes. He had not left Pont de Sommerville more than a quarter of an hour, when the travellers arrived, and were thrown into the utmost per- plexity and dismay at not finding there the expected escort. They, however, proceeded and arrived at St. Menehould, where the king had the imprudence to put his head out of the carriage window, to make some inquiries about the road. At this instant Drouet, the post- master's son, caught a glimpse of him, and was struck with his resem- blance to the impression of the royal head on some new assignats, which he had that morning received from Paris. He drew near the carriage, and the sight of the queen confirmed him in his suspicions, and he set off instantly to give the alarm at Varennes. In the mean time the royal family advanced. They arrived at Varennes in the night : but not knowing where to find the relay of horses, they drove about the town in search of them, thus giving Drouet ample time to rouse the inhabitants. Presently the place was in an uproar, the bridge was barricaded, so that the fugitives could not proceed ; and the carriage was surrounded by a throng of people. At this juncture Goguelat and his party rode up, and asked the king's permission to force a way for him through the town. The king inquired whether it would cost many lives, and, on being told that it probably would, he forbade making the attempt, and yielded himself a prisoner. Qeorge. Was it cowardice or stupidity that made him give himself up so tamely ? Mrs. M. I should rather think it was his natural tenderness of dis- position, which made him shrink from the shedding of blood. In Louis's character there was a singular mixture of cowardice and courage. In acting he had the timidity of a child ; but in suffering no man could show more firmness and resolution. 446 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. Richard. I suppose the thing was that Louis was a coward by nature, but that reason and religion gave him courage to bear mis- fortunes. Mary. Pray, mamma, go on, and tell us what happened at Varennes. Mrs. M. The royal party was obliged to alight from the carriage, and to enter the house of the mayor, who was a grocer. Here the queen, sitting down in the shop, exhausted all her powers of fascina- tion and persuasion on the mayor's wife (who it would appear was chief manager of the affairs of Varennes), in hopes to prevail with her to befriend them. The woman seemed greatly touched, but remained nevertheless inflexible, and persisted in saying, while the tears rolled down her cheeks, that it would be the destruction of her husband should he connive at their escape. Marie Antoinette pleaded in vain ; the wretched fugitives were compelled again to get into their carriage, and to retrace their steps, amidst the insults of a disorderly mob which the news of the arrest of the royal family had assembled round them. Barnave and Petion, two deputies from the national assembly, were sent to meet them on their return to Paris. These men got into the carriage. Barnave conducted himself with civility and respect ; but Petion, who was by birth a gentleman, affected to show his civism by assuming a vulgar and disgusting freedom of manner. He threw the bones of a cold chicken, which he was eating in the carriage, out of the window, and the king was obliged to draw his head back to avoid being struck by them. He then took the dauphin rudely on his knee, and began to play with his hair, which was very beautiful, twirling the ringlets round his fingers. The poor boy, half frightened and half hurt, cried out at this treatment ; on which the queen could no longer conceal her displeasure, and, snatching the child away, said, " Give me my son ; he is accustomed to tender- ness and delicacy, which renders him little fit for such familiarity." Mary. And how were they used when they got back to Paris ? Mrs. M. Worse, as you may suppose, than ever. They were re- placed in the Tuileries, and watched with the utmost vigilance. Guards were placed at the doors of their apartments night and day, and the queen could only obtain permission to have her bed-room door closed while she was dressing and undressing. The princesse de Lamballe had a short time before escaped to England; but when she heard of the unfortunate termination of the flight to Varennes, she re- solved to return to Paris and share the prison and the afflictions of her friend. The queen of England used every argument to detain her, but without effect. When she arrived at the Tuileries, and beheld the change which a few weeks had wrought in the beautiful Marie Antoinette, she could scarcely believe her senses. The queen's eyes were sunk in their sockets, her hair had turned white in one night, and she looked ten years older. Indeed, from the moment of Coxv. LOUIS XVI. 447 the arrest she had given up everything as lost. Her spirits were broken, and she almost entirely lost her sleep. But though her beauty was thus dimmed, and all her hopes were gone, she still main- tained the grace and dignity of her air, and when it was necessary could call up the energies of her lofty spirit. As for the king, he appeared at this time to be sinking into a state of lethargy. Richard. Was the princesse de Lamballe one of the royal family ? Mrs. M. No ; she was an Italian, and related to the king of Sar- dinia. She was the widow of the prince de Lamballe, the only son of the due de Penthievre, grandson of the comte de Toulouse, one of the illegitimate sons of Louis XIV. ; she was extremely beautiful, and very amiable. Mary. I cannot think how they could have the heart to kill her. Mrs. M. One can only account for it by saying that the Parisians were at this time possessed by a mad and malignant spirit of party, which, as has been truly observed, " shuts up every avenue of the heart, and renders us cruel and wicked." Some peculiarly melan- choly circumstances attending the death of the princess Lamballe are to be met with in a book purporting to be written by one of her confidential attendants, and containing her memoirs. It is there said, that, while she was in the prison of la Force, the due de Penthievre, whose name is never mentioned but in terms of the greatest respect, left no means untried to save her. On the first rumour of an intended massacre of the prisoners, he engaged a person, by the offer of an enormous bribe, to convey her in the night-time to a place of security. In the mean time an idea had gone abroad that the murderers, to save themselves the trouble of searching the prisons, intended to open all the doors, and to call out litre, libre; in the supposition that the prisoners, allured by the hope of freedom, would rush out of their cells, and fall on the knives of the assassins, who would stand ready to attack them. A friend of madame de Lamballe, in the belief that this most treacherous plan would be adopted, contrived to have a billet conveyed to her couched in these words : " Let whatever happen, for God's sake do not quit your cell : you will be spared." In conse- quence of this well-meant but unfortunate intimation, the princess refused to accompany the due de Penthievre's agent, who came a short time afterwards to convey her away, and the man was com- pelled to leave her in prison. Mary. How sorry the friend must have been who sent the letter ! George. You said that you took the history of the journey to Varennes from the account which the young princess wrote of it Is that account printed? Mrs. M. Yes, it is : and also a very interesting narrative which she wrote of the events which took place in the Temple during the time she was a prisoner in it. 448 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. Mary. Can you tell us any particulars ? Mrs. M. I can : but I must warn you that it is a very heartrending history. Mary. Well, mamma, I will try to bear it. Mrs. M. The princess was about fourteen years old when she first entered the gloomy walls of her prison. She had great difficulty in writing her journal ; for having been deprived of pen, ink, and paper, she was obliged to write with a pencil on such scraps of paper as she could secrete from her gaolers. These scraps were afterwards col- lected together and published. When the royal family were first placed in the tower of the Temple, they had the comfort of being together ; there was a good collection of old books to which the king was allowed access ; and these books and the instruction of the dauphin furnished his chief occupations. But you shall have the princess's own account, which I ought to remind you is written with the artless simplicity of a girl, and under every disadvantage of time and cir- cumstance. " My father rose at seven, and was employed in his devotions till eight : afterwards he dressed himself and my brother, and at nine came to breakfast with my mother. After breakfast, my father taught my brother his lessons till eleven. The child then played till twelve, at which hour the whole family was obliged to walk in the garden, whatever the weather might be, because the guards, who were relieved at that time, wished to see all the prisoners, and satisfy themselves that we were safe. The walk lasted till dinner, which was at two o'clock. After dinner, my father and mother played at tric-trac, or piquet, or, to speak more truly, pretended to play, that they might have an opportunity of saying a few words to one another." Mary. Were they not allowed then to talk to each other except when they were playing at cards ? Mrs. M. They were allowed indeed to speak, but only in a voice loud enough for the persons, who were constantly keeping guard over them, to hear what they said. Perhaps they observed that while they were playing at cards they were not so narrowly watched, and might enjoy the comfort of conversing unobserved. Richard. If you please, mamma, will you go on ? Mrs. M. " At six my brother went again to my father, to say his lessons, and to play till supper-time. After supper, my mother un- dressed him quickly and put him to bed. We then went up to our own apartment. The king did not go to bed till eleven. My mother worked a great deal of tapestry : she directed my studies, and often made me read aloud. My aunt was frequently at prayer, and read every morning the divine service for the day. She read a good many religious books, and sometimes, at the queen's request, would read aloud." George. Were they allowed to have any servants to attend on them ? Mrs. M. The king was permitted to retain M. Clery, his valet, but Conv. LOUIS XVI. 449 the queen was deprived of all her women, and was waited upon by her daughter and sister. At first they were allowed to have a woman to clean out their rooms, light their fires, and do all the harder work; but this woman, who was a low vulgar creature, and a furious re- publican, proved a great torment to them. At last she lost her intellects, and they had themselves, for a time, the trouble and anxiety of attending on her in the unhappy state to which she was thus reduced. When she was gone, the two princesses had to make their beds and clean the rooms. The young princess says that she and her aunt were very awkward at this work at first, and that it used to fatigue them "very much. But they preferred anything to the being pestered with another female Jacobin. Mary. It seemed as if everything was done that could be thought of for the mere purpose of tormenting these poor people. Mrs. M. There was scarcely a moment in which they were not exposed to some fresh insult or vexation. They were frequently searched, to see that they had no treasonable papers, that is, what the municipal officers chose to call treasonable papers, about them. They were deprived of almost all their personal comforts. Their work was searched ; and at last their tapestry was taken from them, under pretence that it might afford them a secret method of writing or communicating intelligence by hidden signs or devices. While the queen was giving her daughter lessons, a municipal officer was continually looking over their shoulders, to see that they were not employed in plots or conspiracies. The wretches even carried their insults so far as to accuse the princess Elizabeth of having stolen a china cup, which by some accident was broken or mislaid. When the king was dead, his ring and other little remembrances, which he had wished his family to keep for his sake, were withheld from them ; and the only remembrance of him which his sister, who was tenderly attached to him, was able to procure, was an old hat which by some accident had been left in the tower. This hat she treasured for his sake as a most valuable relic. It did not, however, long escape the prying eyes of the municipal officers, who took it away, saying " it was a suspicious circumstance." George. The unfeeling savages! I have hardly patience to hear any more about them. Mrs. M. But the most affecting part of the narrative is yet to come. The princess, after detailing her father's trial and death in a very touching manner, next describes her mother's mute despair, and her aunt's pious resignation, and thus proceeds : " On the 3rd of July, 1793, the municipal officers read to us a decree of the con- vention, that my brother should be separated from us. As soon as he heard this, he threw himself into the arms of my mother, and entreated, with violent cries, not to be separated from her. My 45o LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. mother was struck to the earth by this cruel order : she would not part with her son, and she actually defended, against the efforts of the officers, the bed on which she had placed him. My mother exclaimed they had better kill her than tear her son from her. An hour was spent in resistance on her part, in threats and insults from the officers, and in prayers and tears on the part of us all. At last they threatened the lives of both him and me, and my mother's maternal tenderness at length forced her to this sacrifice. My aunt and I dressed the child, for my poor mother had no longer strength for anything : nevertheless, when he was dressed, she took him and delivered him into the hands of the officers, bathing him with her tears, and foreseeing she should never see him again. The poor little fellow embraced us all tenderly, and was carried off in a flood of tears." Mary. Ah ! mamma, you did right to warn us that it was a very sad history. Mrs. M. The poor, heartbroken mother never looked up after the loss of her son. She would sit whole hours in silent despair, and her only consolation was to go to tho leads of the tower; "because," says the princess, " my brother went there too from the other side." The only pleasure my mother enjoyed was seeing him through a chink as he passed at a distance. She would watch at the clunk for hours together, to see the child as he passed. It was her only hope, her only thought. But this mournful satisfaction she was soon deprived of. About a month after the poor boy had been taken away, she was roused from her bed at two o'clock one morning by some commissioners, who ordered her to rise, telling her that they were come to convey her to the Conciergerie, winch was a place of confinement for prisoners of the lowest and most infamous descrip- tion. The poor queen was obliged to rise and dress before these men, who searched her pockets and took everything out of them. They, however, allowed her, as a great favour, to retain her pocket- handkerchief and her smelling-bottle, lest she should be faint by the way. She was scarcely suffered to take a hurried leave of her sister and daughter. As she was passing through a low doorway she struck her forehead, and one of the men asked her if she was hurt. Her reply was, " Nothing can hurt me now." On her arrival at the Conciergerie she was placed in a gloomy, damp cell, where she had not even the comfort of enduring her sorrows alone. A police officer was stationed in her cell night and day, who never lost sight of her. The two princesses were now left sad and disconsolate in their tower. They were kept in ignorance of the queen's condition, but, knowing how much she had always been accustomed to beguile her sorrows by work, they besought permission to send her some materials. They collected all the silks and worsted they could find, and also a pair of little stockings which she had Conv. LOUIS XVI. 451 begun to knit for the dauphin. But these things she was not per- mitted to have, under pretence that she might destroy herself with the knitting-needles. The queen's industry, however, overcame all impediments. She found a piece of an old carpet in her cell, which she unravelled, and by means of two bits of wood she contrived to knit these raveillngs into garters. In the mean time the poor dauphin was placed under the care of Simon, a creature of Eobespierre. This man stripped the boy of the suit of mourning which had been given him for his father, and dressed him in a red cap and coarse jacket, such as was worn in France by the children of the poor. He made him drink intoxicating liquors, he taught him blasphemous oaths and revolutionary songs, and obliged him to repeat them at the windows, that he might be heard by the soldiers. In short, no pains were spared to vitiate his character and destroy his health. In a few months this lovely boy, who had been gifted by nature with an excellent constitution, became a miserable object, diseased and stupified by ill treatment. But still he must have retained a surprising degree of firmness for a child of his tender age, if the following anecdote is true. It appears that his artful keepers had drawn from him some expressions, which they chose to interpret as impeaching the conduct of the queen and the princess Elizabeth, and that they compelled him to sign a deposition against them. The prince was so excessively grieved at the use thus made of his words, that he formed a resolution never to speak again; and this resolution he persisted in for a length of time, although threats, and promises of fruit and toys, and everything that could be most tempting to a child, were employed to make him break it. George. What a dear little fellow ! Mrs. M. On January 19, 1794, Simon, who had till then been his companion, left him, and the princess thus continues her nar- rative. " Unheard-of, unexampled barbarity ! to leave an unhappy and sickly child of eight years old in a great room locked and bolted. He had indeed a bell, which he never rang, so greatly did he fear the people whom its sound would have brought to him. He pre- ferred wanting anything and everything to calling his persecutors. His bed was not stirred for six months, and he had not strength to make it himself. For more than a year he had no change of shirt or stockings. He might indeed have washed himself, for he had a pitcher of water, and might have kept himself cleaner than he did : but, overwhelmed by the ill treatment he had received, he had not the resolution to do so, and his illness began to deprive him of even the necessary strength. He passed his days without any occupation, and in the evening was allowed no light. His situation affected his mind as well as his body." In this pitiable condition he continued to exist till the following 452 LOUIS XVI. Chap. XXXVIII. November, when the arrival of two new gaolers of more humane dispositions brought an amelioration of his unhappy condition. Their first care was to procure him another bed, and one of them, named Gamier, would frequently sit with him whole hours trying to amuse him. The poor boy, who had been long unused to kind- ness, soon became very fond of him. But these attentions came too late to save the life of this innocent victim, although his disease, having to contend with a naturally strong constitution, made its way by very slow degrees, and he lingered till the following June. Richard. It is a great comfort to think that there was some person who was kind and good to him at the last. Mary. Will you just finish the story about the two princesses who were left in the tower ? and then I shall not want to know anything more of that horrible revolution. Mrs. M. They were suffered to remain in the same prison to sup- port and console each other, till May, 1794, when, as you have already been told, the princess Elizabeth was brought to her short trial, and was condemned and executed. This princess, who is often called " the saintlike Elizabeth," carried with her to the grave the same calm and dignified virtue which had always marked her life ; and that piety, which in her youth had been her staff in all the mazes of a frivolous court, was her firm support in the rugged path she had now to tread. In all the afflictions of her family, it was to her they always looked for support and consolation. She is described as having retained under every exigency a holy serenity of coun- tenance and demeanour, which had more in it of heaven than of earth, and which on many occasions made the wretches who were loading the rest of the royal family with abuse, shrink from insulting her. " When condemned to death," says her niece, " she desired to be placed in the same room with the persons who were to suffer with her. She exhorted them with a presence of mind, an elevation of soul, and religious enthusiasm, which fortified all their minds. In the cart which conveyed her to the place of execution she preserved the same firmness, and encouraged and supported the women who accompanied her. She kissed them, and with her usual benignity said some words of comfort to each." In her last moments, as in the whole of her preceding life, she was more occupied with the sorrows of others than with her own. After the death of her aunt the young princess remained for six months the solitary tenant of her gloomy tower. When she first arrived at Vienna, her friends there used every endeavour to cheer her; but her spirits were so completely depressed by all she had undergone, that it was more than a year before she was seen to smile ; and indeed I am told that the expression of melancholy has never been entirely effaced from her countenance. a.d. 1793- THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 453 CHAPTEE XXXIX. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Years after Christ, i 793-1805. Donjon of the Temple — prison of the Dauphin : now destroyed. During the progress of these events in Paris, the duke of Brunswick, who, after taking Verdun and Longwy, had for a short time con- 454 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. tinued to advance slowly towards the capital, was compelled to retreat. His confident, hope, that many of the French would join his standard, had turned out to be utterly unfounded. He found himself opposed, not, as he had expected, by a mere rabble, but by a disciplined army. General Dumourier had the command of this army. He, after forcing the duke to commence his retreat, retook Verdun on the 12th, and Longwy on the 18th of October, 1792. An Austrian army, also, which had commenced the siege of Lille, was compelled to raise it. Spires and Worms were taken, and Mentz capitulated. On the 6th of November Dumourier gained at Gemappe a victory which decided the fate of the Austrian Netherlands, the whole of which, with the exception of Luxemburg, fell immediately into the hands of the French. War had been also declared against the king of Sardinia, and the French troops took possession of Savoy. On the 1st of February, 1793, the convention declared war against England and Holland, and on the 7th of March against Spain. Dumourier invaded Holland, and took Breda on the 24th of Feb- ruary, Klundert on the 26th, and Gertruydenberg on the 4th of March. From this point he retreated, and his retreat exciting a suspicion that he had been brought over to act in concert with the allies, the convention sent commissioners to supersede and arrest him. Dumourier himself, however, arrested these commissioners, and sent them as prisoners to the Austrian general at Tournay ; to whose quarters he himself soon afterwards made his escape, after vainly attempting to prevail on his army to take part with him against the convention. On the 4th of April, which was before Dumourier left his army, and while he was still hoping to induce the troops to join with him, the prince of Saxe Coburg, on the part of the allies, issued a declaration, that to restore a constitutional monarchy in France was the only object of the war, and that he absolutely disclaimed all intention of conquest. He had the weak- ness, four days afterwards, when the schemes of Dumourier had miscarried, to revoke his declaration, and to say that he would not be bound by it. Conde and Valenciennes surrendered in July to the allied army under the command of the duke of York, and were taken possession of in the name of the emperor. The duke afterwards made an attack on Dunkirk, but failed, and in the latter part of the year the French gained the ascendency in Flanders. On the Rhine, also, the French armies, under Hoche and Pichegru, repulsed, after a most bloody campaign, the Prussians and Imperialists under general Wurmser and the duke of Brunswick. Toulon submitted to an English fleet under lord Hood, on condition that the town and shipping should be preserved as a deposit for Louis XVII. A mixed body of men, a.d. 1793. THE FIEST REPUBLIC. 455 Neapolitans, English, and Spaniards, were brought into the town to defend it. But an army of the convention being sent to besiege it, and a fort which commanded the harbour being taken by assault, it became necessary to abandon the place suddenly, and the most hor- rible confusion and destruction ensued. Of 31 ships found in the port by the English, 13 were left behind, 10 were burnt, and they were able to extricate only three ships of the line and five frigates. In Paris, in the mean time, every day seemed to increase the vehemence of the factions by which the convention was distracted. The Jacobins at length usurped a tyrannical power, and every symptom of moderation fell before them. Some resistance to their usurpations was indeed made in the provinces. Lyons, in particular, broke into open insurrection. This great city, after sustaining a siege for two months, was, on the 9th of October, compelled to sur- render to the conventional troops, who disgraced their victory by horrid massacres. In this year, were also perpetrated the massacres of La Vendee. The inhabitants of that department, and of the neighbouring dis- tricts, forming altogether a large portion of the ancient province of Poitou, with some adjoining parts of Anjou and Bretagne, were a people of simple and primitive habits, and strongly attached to the ancient system of government. In 1792 they made some efforts to raise an army for the purpose of restoring the royal authority. In the following year almost the whole population rose en masse with enthusiasm. The country was intricate, and afforded every advan- tage to the operations of an armed and active peasantry, who, though little able to encounter disciplined troops in the field, yet were extremely formidable in detached bodies, and in sudden incursions carried on in their own country, and that a country full of hills and morasses. The relations which we possess of the events of this war in La Vendee have a greater portion of romantic feeling connected with them than those of almost any other since the age of chivalry ; but the relentless carnage is too horrible to be dwelt upon. The armies of the convention were at length completely successful ; and the barbarities almost exceed belief which were inflicted on the con- quered party. One savage invention which was practised at Nantes was to shut up a number of victims in the hold of a vessel, which was so constructed as to open suddenly and plunge into the water the persons contained in it. This was called the noyade, and was much approved of by the convention. An armament from England was sent to assist the Vendeans, but it did not arrive on the coast till too late, and was obliged to return without attempting to land. I fear that in this short history I have already said too much of the atrocious crimes by which the revolution was disgraced. Though much more remains, I will spare your feelings for the future. But 456 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. that you may not fail to observe how closely crime and impiety are allied, I must here add that the convention, in the midst of its career of savage barbarity, attempted to extirpate also all regard to religion. On the 10th of November an edict was passed, declaring that the French nation "acknowledged no worship but that of universal morality, nor any other dogma but that of its own sovereignty and omnipotence." To disunite, if possible, religious hope even from death, it is enacted in the same edict, that " every citizen deceased, of whatsoever sect, shall be carried to the place destined for common interment covered with a funeral veil, on which shall be a picture of sleep. The common place of burial shall be separate from all dwell- ings, and planted with trees, under the shade of which shall be a statue representing sleep, and on the door of the enclosure shall be inscribed Death is an eternal sleep" An attempt was made after- wards to revive the Pagan games, processions, and idolatries. The commune of Paris decreed that, instead of pulpits, public tribunes should be erected, where republican principles should be preached ; and they celebrated in the cathedral of Paris a festival in honour of Keason, to whom, as to a deity, the building was now dedicated. Busts were erected to several infidels, and a woman of bad reputa- tion was introduced in the person or character of the Goddess of Eeason. This woman, in an arm-chair borne by four men, was carried with great parade to the convention. She was surrounded with oak garlands, she was escorted by women in white robes, and attended by martial music : the cap of liberty was placed upon her head ; she was covered with a thin veil, and she leaned upon a pike. There was an harangue in her praise, and in honour of the ceremony : she received the fraternal kiss from the president and secretaries of the convention, and a great number of the members mixed with the mob, and repaired to the goddess's temple, to assist in the festival, and join in the hymn to liberty. So unnatural a state of feeling, however, could not long be popular. The commune of Paris ordered the churches to be shut up ; but the convention found it necessary to annul the order. On this occasion even the infamous Eobespierre made a speech from which it would seem that he was not wholly destitute of all sense of religion. This daring republican, who had long been a prominent member, became in 1794 the absolute ruler of the convention. Ambitious of power, and perhaps seeing that he would fall a victim to the ambi- tion of others if he did not himself obtain the mastery, he brought to trial, on the 25th of March in this year, not less than twenty of the Jacobin leaders, who were condemned and executed on the follow- ing day. On the 2nd of April he brought to trial nine more, and these also were all executed on the 5th. Eobespierre himself, how- A.D. 1795- THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 457 ever, in this perilous career, soon appeared to have risen only to fall. The members of the convention, each jealous of being the next sacri- fice, united against him as in defence of their common safety, made him their prisoner on the 28th of July, and had him executed in the course of the day. With him ended what has justly been termed the reign of terror. Councils more moderate, and men who, if not of honester principles, were yet in nature or policy less bloody and detestable, are now to take their place on the scene. The reign of terror had given an intense vigour to the war against the foreign enemies. Immense resources were placed in the power of the state by the confiscation of the property of the wretched victims of its tyranny ; and these were employed with the greatest activity by the intrepid officers who rose to command in the army, at a time when no man could be ambitious or successful who was not of the hardest and most decisive character. In the campaign of 1794 the French conquered all Flanders, overran the Palatinate, and took Treves. They also took Coblentz, Venlo, and Maestricht, and obtained possession of almost the whole frontiers of Holland. In Spain they took Fontarabia, St. Sebas- tian's, and other places, which laid entirely open to them the pro- vinces of Navarre and Catalonia. During the following winter a frost of uncommon severity enabled them to cross the Waal on the ice, and to advance rapidly into the very heart of the Dutch terri- tories, without encountering any effectual opposition. They took possession of Amsterdam, Jan. 16th, 1795. The fleet and shipping were fixed by the intense frost, and fell an unresisting prey. There are several points of comparison between this conquest of Holland and that which was effected by the arms of Louis XIV., but this was incomparably the most rapid and complete. The stadtholder and his family fled to England, and Holland, from this time till the end of the wars of the Revolution, became an absolute dependency on France. On the 1st of June, 1794, lord Howe engaged the French fleet off Ushant, and after a severe action took seven sail of the line. Two were sunk. Scarcely any attempt was made after this defeat to contest with England the empire of the sea. Many of the French seamen were marched off to join the armies, and the marine fell of course into comparative neglect. All the French West India islands were captured by England, with the exception of a part of Guada- loupe. The Corsicans, also, being much dissatisfied with the new government, made the veteran Paoli once more their generalissimo, and with the assistance of an English force expelled the French from their island. In 1795 peace was made with Prussia and Spain, France restoring to Spain her original frontier on the river Bidassoa, and Spain ceding Fkancb. x 45^ THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. in return the Spanish portion of St. Domingo. In the following year Spain returned to her old policy of an alliance offensive and defensive with France, and of course took part with France in the war. In June, 1795, an attempt was made by the emigrants to renew the unhappy war in La Vendee, where new commotions had been attempted, and the inhabitants were known to be in a very discon- tented state. The emigrant army, under the escort of an English squadron, disembarked in the bay of Quiberon in the end of June, and was joined by many of the insurgents, who, from the nature of the hostility which alone they had been able of late to carry on had often the title given them of Chouans, or night owls. The republican troops, however, soon repulsed the invaders, and almost all perished who were not able to re-embark. The military operations of this year on the side of Germany were not of importance enough to make it necessary that I should relate them to you in this brief sketch of so eventful a war. The national convention, after many convulsions of party, and some sanguinary engagements with the opposing factions, terminated, Oct. 27, 1795, its disgraceful career. A new constitution succeeded, by which the legislature was divided into two assemblies. The one of these was called the council of the ancients, and consisted of 250 members, all of whom were to be at least forty years old. The other assembly was called the council of the five hundred. The council of the five hundred alone could propose any laws. The council of the ancients might either reject or accept, but could not alter, any decrees which might pass the five hundred. The executive power was placed in the hands of a directory, consisting of five members, of whom it was appointed that one member should go out every year. Barras, Carnot, Kewbell, Keveillere-Lepaux, and Letourneur were the first members. Sieyes had been elected, but, though he became a member afterwards, he was too prudent, at this critical time, to venture to accept any station of power. In the spring of 1796 three great armies took the field : the army of the Sambre and Meuse, under general Jourdan ; the army of the Rhine and Moselle, under Moreau ; and the army of Italy, of which the command was given to Bonaparte, a native of Corsica, and god- son of Paoli. Bonaparte had distinguished himself at the capture of Toulon from the English, and had afterwards been brought forward by the director Barras. The campaign in Italy raised at once this ex- traordinary man to great distinction. He annexed Savoy to France ; he defeated the Austrians at Lodi, where he stormed their position on the bridge over the Adda, which was so strongly defended that even his own officers thought it impregnable ; and at length esta- blished the French ascendency throughout Italy Many of the states were compelled to purchase an armistice by sacrificing the finest a.d. 1797- THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 459 paintings or statues with which their palaces and museums were stored. These were put in requisition, as was the phrase, by order of the convention, and were transported to Paris, where for a period of nearly twenty years they formed a most splendid and attractive ornament of that triumphant metropolis. Mantua alone held out for the imperialists. In Germany, Moreau and Jourdan, combining their operations, compelled the archduke Charles, the Austrian general, after a hardly- contested campaign, to retreat, and to cross the Neckar and Danube. The minor states of the empire, and even the diet at Eatisbon, were compelled to solicit peace with the republic. England and the emperor were the only powers who still continued the contest. But the archduke Charles, in this emergency, exerted himself with great and firm resolution. He first repulsed Jourdan, and then menaced Moreau, to whom Bonaparte, who was detained in Italy by the siege of Mantua, and by the attempts of the Austrians to recover their interests in that quarter, was wholly unable to send assistance. Moreau, however, extricated himself, and effected a retreat into France, which has been greatly celebrated for the ability with which he conducted it. In the end of this year an ill-concerted expedition was despatched from France for the invasion of Ireland. General Hoche commanded, and 25,000 men were embarked. They reached Bantry Bay, but returned to Brest without making any attempt to land. This ex- pedition having failed, the directory was at a great loss how to dis- pose of some of the troops embarked in it, many of whom had been permitted to enter the service after having been condemned for their crimes to the galleys. These troops could not be remanded to the galleys ; they could not prudently be restored to liberty ; they could not be drafted into the other armies of the republic, because soldiers of the better classes would not serve with them. In this perplexity they were again embarked on a new expedition ; and this nothing less than the invasion of Great Britain itself. They were landed at Fisgard in Wales on the 23rd of February, 1797, and were made prisoners the same evening without opposition. Mantua capitulated Feb. 2, 1797, and Italy soon after was reduced to quiet submission, and even to tolerate the plunder of the chapel of Loretto, whence the famous image of the Virgin was taken and sent to Paris. Italy being subdued, Bonaparte marched along the Adriatic, took Gradisca on the 19th of March, and Trieste on the 23rd. Thence advancing rapidly, he passed the defies of the alpine country which protects the Italian frontier of Germany, and alarmed the Austrians for the safety of Vienna. Under these circumstances a negotiation was entered into, and a peace eventually concluded with the emperor, by the treaty of Campo Formio, on the 17th of October. X 2 — . > , 46o THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chip. XXXIX. France by this treaty retained the Austrian Netherlands. Milan, Mantua, Modena, Ferrara, and Bologna were formed into a mere dependency on France, and entitled the Cisalpine republic. The Venetian islands, Corfu, Zante, and their dependencies, were also sur- rendered to France : but the emperor was put in possession of Venice, and of its territory on both sides of the gulf, including Dalmatia, and reaching as far as the Lake di Garda. Genoa was converted into a Ligurian republic soon afterwards. Early in 1798 the French took possession of Eome, and deposed the pope. At the same time they also invaded Switzerland, though Switzerland had observed the most sincere neutrality in the doubtful contest which had been lately closed in Germany. The war with Switzerland could not last long. The hardy mountaineers of the smaller cantons made a brief but desperate struggle for their inde- pendence. But they were soon subdued by superior numbers and skill, and a new constitution was forced on them after the model of France. England was now the only enemy of the republic. In August this year a small body of troops was despatched from France into Ireland, in order to foment a rebellion which was raging in that distracted island. This body, however, was soon compelled to surrender. To attack England in her vast dominions in the East Indies was a chief object of the directory. Tins appears at least to have been the ostensible design of an expedition which was despatched to Egypt in June, 1798, under the command of Bonaparte. The possession of that country might afford an access to India, which a power decidedly inferior at sea could not hope for in the long passage round the Cape. Some suppose, however, that the real motive of the expedition was to rid the directory of Bonaparte and his army, by sending them on this doubtful adventure. Nothing can be more likely than that the character of that general had already disclosed to those who were best acquainted with him a towering ambition, which would never be satisfied so long as there remained a greater than himself. Be this as it may, Bonaparte embarked at Toulon with 40,000 of his veteran troops. In his way to Egypt he obtained possession of Malta, which, it is supposed, was betrayed to him by the knights. He then sailed for Alexandria : he landed, and took the city by storm on the 5th of July. He had a narrow escape in getting there without being intercepted by the English fleet. The French navy had never recovered its defeat on June 1st, 1794, and had indeed also suffered subsequent losses. The allied fleet of Spain had been defeated on its way to Brest, in an engagement fought on the 14th of February, 1797 ; and the Dutch also, whose whole power had now joined the republic, had seen their fleet almost destroyed in a sanguinary a.d. 1799. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 46 1 conflict with the English on October 11th in the same year, near Camperdown. The design on Egypt had been in a great degree disguised by demonstrations made at Brest, and on the coast of the Channel, which appeared to have for their object the invasion of England. Huge rafts, to be impelled by paddles and windmills, were said to be constructed for the purpose of transporting an army ; and various other absurd reports were circulated, chiefly to divert attention from the serious preparations at Toulon. The fleet at Toulon was watched by the English admiral, Nelson, than whom no age has ever pro- duced an abler commander. He actually pursued it from Malta to Alexandria; but the French steered their course by the island of Candia, and the English keeping the direct line towards Egypt, missed their enemies, and reached Alexandria before them. Not finding them there, they left the coast immediately, and went in search of them. Two days after they were gone, the French fleet arrived. 1 After taking Alexandria, Bonaparte marched up the country and took Cairo. He defeated the Mamelukes in several engagements, one of the principal of which is called the battle of the Pyramids, from having been fought in the immediate neighbourhood of those massy structures. 1 On the 1st of August admiral Nelson returned, and at sunset on that day began his attack on the French fleet, which lay at anchor in Aboukir Bay, at the mouth of the Nile. In this great battle the whole French fleet was destroyed or taken; two ships of the line only and two frigates escaping. These also fell afterwards into the hands of the English. Bonaparte, though thus shut up in Egypt by the destruction of a fleet which he had no means of replacing, soon made himself master of the whole country. FromEgypt he, in the following year, marched into Palestine, and laid siege to Acre, which was valiantly defended by sir Sidney Smith, a captain in the English navy, who had pre- vailed on the Turkish pasha to give him the command of the gar- rison. The French general, after having made eleven attempts to take the town by assault, and after having lost almost half the troops he had taken with him, was at length compelled to laiso the siege. From Acre he retreated to Egypt, where he had to en- counter a Turkish army which had been despatcned by sea from Constantinople. He destroyed this army in a dreadful battle at Aboukir, on the 25th day of July, 1799. Bonaparte soon afterwards returned to France with a few of his officers, leaving General Kleber in command of the army in Egypt, now reduced to about eighteen thousand men. In his passage to France he narrowly escaped being taken. Few occurrences in 462 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. history have appeared more mysterious than that he should thus without orders have deserted his army. No one can doubt, however, but that his real object was to push his own way to the supreme authority. After many obscure and intricate transactions, the two legislative bodies were adjourned to St. Cloud, which is about six miles from Paris. On the 10th of November, 1799, Bonaparte, accompanied by about twenty officers and grenadiers, entered the hall of the council of five hundred. In this perhaps he imitated the example of Crom- well when he dissolved the long parliament. After a great tumult a body of troops made their appearance, and the members of the council were dispersed. The final result of this new change in the constitution was to abolish the directory, and to vest the executive power in one chief consul, with two other consuls assisting him. Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and Le Brun were named consuls, Bona- parte from this time assuming the title of first consul of the republic. During the course of these events the flames of war again broke out on the continent. After the great victory of admiral Nelson over the French fleet, the emperor, encouraged by that event, which shut up in Egypt the formidable army of Bonaparte, and stimulated by the English minister Pitt, who spared no efforts to excite a new alliance against France, determined to renew hostilities. The king of Naples did not even wait for the Austrians. He himself went to receive admiral Nelson on his arrival in the Bay of Naples after the battle of the Nile, and immediately afterwards commenced operations against the French army in Italy. He had at first some success, and his army occupied Rome, but was soon compelled to retreat precipi- tately. The king and his family were obliged to retire on board the English fleet, by which they were conveyed to Palermo. The French soon afterwards became masters of almost all Italy. The king of Prussia and most of the German princes determined to be neutral in the impending contest with Austria, but Russia de- spatched to the aid of that power an army of 45,000 men under the celebrated Suwarrow, who was invested with the command of the combined armies. Moreau and Macdonald were opposed to Suwar- row, and a hard-fought and bloody campaign followed in the north of Italy. Suwarrow, who had a great superiority of force, acquired for a time the advantage. Almost all Italy fell into the hands of the Austrians, and it was thought that Suwarrow would have wrested Switzerland from France, if his allies had not failed to support him. Being left unsupported, he was repulsed by the French general Mas- sena. On this the emperor of Russia, believing that the Austrians had perfidiously deserted his general, withdrew from the coalition against France. In August, 1799, a considerable English army, under the command of sir Ralph Abercromby, landed at the Helder a.d. i8oo. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 463 point, near the entrance of the Zuyder Zee, in the hope of acquiring possession of Holland. But the expedition was either ill-concerted or badly managed, and at length, after great loss, the English were compelled to retire. Bonaparte became first consul Dec. 29, 1799. His first measure was to make proposals of peace to the allied powers. But, from distrust of his sincerity, these were rejected by both England and Austria. It was remarked that his communication to England was made in a letter to the king personally, and not in the ordinary form of diplomatic correspondence. In the campaign of 1800 Moreau was successful in Germany, and this partly, as is supposed, through the disunion and treachery ot the army opposed to him under general Kray. Bonaparte himselt took the command of the army of Italy ; he passed the Alps, and gained on the 14th of June the great battle of Marengo. For a long time the battle seemed in favour of the Austrians ; and it is said that Bonaparte at one moment wavered; but the gallantry of geenral Desaix, who with a fresh body of cavalry charged at the critical moment, turned the tide, and gave that superiority to the French arms which the Austrians were on the very point of gaining. Gene- ral Desaix was killed in the action. The Austrians soon after soli- cited an armistice ; but the war recommenced, and they were again defeated by Moreau at Hohenlinden. Another armistice followed, and negotiations were immediately entered into. These were at length concluded by a separate peace with the emperor, signed at Luneville on the 9th February, 1801. By this treaty the em- peror recognised the independence of the Batavian, the Swiss, the Cisalpine, and the Ligurian republics. Peace was restored soon afterwards with Naples and Portugal. England also now made attempts to negotiate ; but it was found impossible to agree upon the aftairs of Egypt. Egypt was still in possession of the French army, and England had despatched thither a powerful armament. General Kleber, who had been left in command of the French army, concluded a convention at El Arish on the 24th of January 1800, with the grand vizier, to which sir Sidney Smith undertook to accede on the part of England. By this convention Egypt was to be restored to the Porte ; and the French army to be conveyed to France. This convention, which sir Sidney Smith had no authority to sanction, was disavowed at first by the English government, which was unwilling to allow that the French troops in Egypt should be restored to their own country, whence they might be marched in- stantly either into Italy or to the Ehine. On the rupture of the convention, Kleber again attacked the Turks, and again defeated them in another great battle near Cairo. Another treaty to the 464 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. same effect with that of El Arish was then entered into, and on the point of being concluded, when Kleber was assassinated— by whose instigation is not known. General Menou, who succeeded him, refused to leave Egypt, and no alternative remained to the English but to expel him. With this object in view, sir Ralph Abercromby was despatched from England at the head of a considerable and well-appointed army. On March 7, 1801, he began his disembarkation in the Bay of Abou- kir, in the face of a large body of French troops posted advan- tageously to receive him. After a sharp contest the English made good their landing. One battle took place on the 13th, and another on the 21st, near Alexandria, in which the English commander-in- chief was mortally wounded. On both days the English arms were successful. On the death of sir Ralph Abercromby, lord Hutchinson suc- ceeded to his command. An auxiliary army arrived from India by the Red Sea. Rosetta and Cairo fell into the hands of the English ; and Menou, who still held out in Alexandria, consented at length to accept the terms previously offered, and was conveyed with his army to the ports of France. The war in Egypt being thus concluded, no material impediment to the peace with England seemed to remain. Preliminaries were signed in London, Oct. 1st, 1801, and a definitive treaty concluded afterwards at Amiens, March 25th, 1802. By this treaty England agreed to give up all her conquests, except Ceylon, which she had taken from the Dutch, and Trinidad, taken from Spain. Malta was to be restored to the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. To France were restored her West Indian possessions, all which had been taken by England during the war, except St. Domingo, where the negroes had emancipated themselves, and had established a republic of their own. It soon became evident that the peace would not be permanent. Preparations were made in the ports of France and Holland, which, though professedly intended for the reduction of St. Domingo, ap- peared too extensive not to have some greater design. The first consul, now all powerful in France, felt great jealousy of the ambi- tion of England; and England, on the other hand, was not less sus- picious of his character and sincerity. Hostilities were recommenced, May 18th, 1803, by the issue of letters of marque by the English government, and an embargo on all French vessels in English ports. This prompt hostility, without a declaration of war, Bonaparte resented, by arresting all British subjects to be found in France or in Holland. Many of these were persons in the higher ranks of society, who had been tempted by the restoration of peace to travel or take up their residence on the con- A.D. 1803. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 465 tinent. Many were officers in the army or navy, whose detention in France precluded their employment in their country's service, and out off their hopes of promotion. Many were the captains and crews of merchant vessels which had been found in the ports of Holland or France. Of these prisoners the higher and middling ranks were x 3 466 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. mostly sent to Verdun, where they were allowed to be on their parole. Some few officers made their escape, and got home; but the English government reused to employ them again, on account of their having broken their parole. It must be allowed that their case was exceedingly hard, especially since it differed from a common case of captivity, as being one in which they were almost hopeless of liberation. In ordinary circumstances, a prisoner of war may always expect to be soon exchanged ; but these detenus were not prisoners of war ; and the English government would not recognise the justice of their seizure, by giving French prisoners in exchange. Nothing, however, can justify a breach of parole : when a man's word is once given, no consideration should induce him to break it. The prac- tice also of allowing prisoners to be at large on giving their word that they will not attempt to escape, is so material an alleviation of captivity, that I hardly know how any man can do more injury to his fellow-creatures than by acting so as to discourage it. In the months of May and June the French armies entered Ha- nover, and took possession of it with but little resistance. At the same time England was again menaced with invasion. But the ex- traordinary events of the new war which was thus begun, to which, if we consider the vast armies in motion, and also the skill with which they were guided, there is, I believe, no parallel in the annals of the world, will more properly belong to the ensuing chapter. I shall here only add, that on May 3, 1804, a decree was passed creating Bonaparte " emperor of the French," and investing him in that capacity with the government of the French republic. By this decree, also, the imperial title and power were made hereditary in his family. His coronation took place November 19, pope Pius VII. performing the ceremony of crowning him. On the 4th of February, 1805, the new emperor addressed a second letter to the king of Eng- land, in which he urged him to put an end to the war. Whether or no it would have been wise to answer this letter amicably is a ques- tion which I cannot presume to decide. The letter itself was very wordy and pompous, and did not bear any internal marks of sincerity. On May 26 the emperor was crowned at Milan king of Italy. Genoa was united to the empire a few days afterwards. CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XXXIX. Richard. Was Robespierre a clever as well as a very wicked man? Mrs. MarJcham. I believe he was a man of no extraordinary talents ; unless indeed we may account as a talent the art which he possessed of enticing others to crimes, of which he generally con- trived to reap the benefit. He began the world as a lawyer, but CONV. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 467 was an indifferent orator, and attained no eminence in his profes- sion. Early in the revolntion he made himself conspicuous as a vehement member of the Jacobin party, and appeared to be actu- ated by a personal animosity against the king, and perseveringly aimed at his destruction. Mary. Had the king done him any injury ? Mrs. M. The king never intentionally injured any one. Robes- pierre's own republican principles appear to have been the first, and his ambition to be a dictator the second cause of his enmity. Bobespierre and Dan ton. Robespierre's chief political rival was Danton, and these two men, apparent friends, but secret enemies, were, while professing indi- visible fraternity, endeavouring to compass each other's destruction. At last the superior cunning of Robespierre prevailed, and the fero- cious Danton was guillotined. George. It is a comfort to think that Robespierre was not long after him. Mrs. M. "When Robespierre was seized he endeavoured to shoot himself, but he only shattered his jaw. In that mangled condition he was placed in the cart, and carried to the place of execution amidst the shouts and exultations of the populace, frantic with joy at the downfall of the tyrant. The women, who in all the popular tumults in France acted a very conspicuous part, danced like insane creatures round the procession. When he arrived at the scaffold he was more dead than alive: but on the executioner's roughly pulling off a bandage which had been hastily put on his wound, he uttered a horrible shriek ; and it is said, that, of all the executions which were at that time witnessed at Paris, Robespierre's presented the most appalling spectacle. 468 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. Richard. It is surprising to me how executioners enough could be found for such a great number of people. Mrs. M. And your surprise will be increased when I tell you that all those executions were performed by two individuals only, of the name of Sampson. These persons, who were brothers, shed the blood of Louis XVI., of Marie Antoinette, of Eobespierre and his faction, with equal unconcern. They are described as having been little less of machines than the guillotine itself; and so that there was but a head to be cut off, it mattered not to them whose it was. Mary. Why was that machine for cutting off heads called a guillotine ? Mrs, M. It obtained its name from one of the most harmless and benevolent of men, a physician of the name of Guillotin, a member of the national assembly, who, on some question relating to the amelioration of the penal code, had recommended the use of a decapitating machine as a more merciful kind of death than that by the gallows. George. Poor man ! how he must have hated his own name ! Mrs. M. When Guillotin saw the horrible use made of his in- vention he was overwhelmed with grief, and withdrew in disgust from public life. He afterwards confined himself to the duties of his profession, in which he arrived at great eminence. I know not when he died. He was alive in 1811. Mary. Pray, mamma, can you remember the French Eevolution ? Mrs. M. I can recollect its being the constant topic of conversa- tion, although I was then too young to be able to form any very distinct ideas on the subject. I can also recollect hearing accounts read in the newspapers of the dreadful atrocities taking place in France, which used to " curdle my young blood with horror." On my first visit to London I also saw a great number of French emi- grants, who had found refuge there. Mary. Did they seem very unhappy ? Mrs. M. They seemed unhappy when you saw them in forlorn and melancholy groups, perambulating, as was their custom, the sunny sides of the streets. But, in company, the buoyancy of the national character commonly enabled them to cast off for the mo- ment the load of their afflictions, and they would be not only cheer- ful but even gay. And although, in general, we must blame their abandonment of their country, yet there were many instances, espe- cially in the advanced stages of the Eevolution, in which it was a necessary measure of self-preservation: nor was it possible to forbear feeling respect and admiration for persons situated as they had been, who could support, with a contentedness often truly dig- nified, the loss of wealth, rank, country, and consideration. Richard. How did they get money to live on ? Conv. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 469 Mrs. M. Some few brought with them money or jewels. Others were thrown on the benevolence of the English, and very many exerted a praiseworthy industry, and preferred the maintaining themselves by their own labour to a dependence on the liberality of others. George. That was much wiser than if they had sat still doing nothing but lamenting their misfortunes. Mrs. M. The French exiles had an illustrious example of industry and exertion in the young duke of Orleans, 1 who after his father's death took refuge in Switzerland. He there assumed the name of M. Corby, and maintained himself for more than a year as mathe- matical teacher in a school. Mary. I do not at all comprehend how the affairs of France could be carried on by such a set of governors as those republicans. Mrs. M. I cannot show you a more forcible picture of the spirit by which those governors were actuated than by reading to you a letter from Fouche, then one of the members of the committee of public safety, to his friend and colleague, Collot d'Herbois. This letter was written at the time of the victory which was gained by the republicans over the royalists at Toulon. " Toulon, 28th of Frimaire, year 2 of the Kepublic, one and indivisible. " The war is at an end, if we know how to avail ourselves of this memorable victory. Let us be terrible, that we may not be in dan- ger of being weak or cruel. Let us destroy in our wrath, and at one blow, all rebels, conspirators, and traitors, to spare ourselves the anguish, the tedious misery, of punishing them as kings. Let us avenge ourselves as a people, let us strike like the thunder-bolt, and annihilate even the ashes of our enemies, that they may not pollute the soil of liberty. May the perfidious English be attacked in all directions : may the whole republic form but one volcano to overwhelm them with its devouring lava ! May the infamous isle, which produced these monsters, whom humanity disowns, be en- gulfed for ever in the depths of ocean ! — Adieu ! my friend ; tears of joy gush from my eyes, and inundate my soul. (( FoTJCH | " P.S. — We have only one way of celebrating the victory. This evening we send two hundred and thirteen rebels to meet death amidst the thunder of our guns." Richard. We English are exceedingly obliged to M. Fouche for his kind wishes towards us. Mrs. M. And you may rest assured that the vehement passions of the republicans did not exhaust themselves on the aristocrats alone. 1 Afterwards Louis-Philippe, king of the French. 470 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. Almost all the chief promoters of the Revolution fell a sacrifice, sooner or later, to its fury ; and the insatiable guillotine had almost a daily tribute from the members of all the different factions, who were struggling with each other for the mastery. Mary. Well, for my part, I think that those poor French who could get to England were very right to stay here. It is quite a pleasure to think that our dear nice little island was such a com- fortable place of refuge for them. Mrs. M. When Louis XVIII. came to England he landed at Yar- mouth, and was rowed on shore by a boat's crew belonging to the Majestic, an English man-of-war. On quitting the boat, the king (who, I should tell you, travelled under the name of comte de Lille) left a purse containing fifteen guineas to be distributed amongst the crew. It is said that the tars refused the money, and sent it with the following letter to their admiral : — " May it please your worship, " HMS - Ma J estic « Nov - 6 > 1807 - " We holded a talk about that there money that was sent us, and, hope no offence, your honour, we don't like to take it, because as how we knows fast enuff that it was the true king of France that went with your honour in the boat, and that he and our own noble king, God bless 'em both, and give every one his right, is good friends now. And besides that, your honour gived an order long ago not to take any money from nobody, and we never did take none. And Mr. Leneve, that steered your honour and that there king, says he won't have no hand in it, and so does Andrew Young the proper coxen, and he hopes no offence. — So we all, one and all, begs not to take it at all, so no more from your honor's dutiful servants." The letter was signed by ten of the crew. George. Hurrah ! for the jolly tars ! I hope the story is true, for the honour of the British navy. Mrs. M. " * cannot tell how the truth may be : I say the tale as 'twas said to me." Before we dismiss from our memories Louis XVI. " and his times," it will not be uninteresting to take a review of some of the most re- markable changes in manners which took place in France during his reign. In the earliest part of it, the whole style of fashionable society was frivolous in the extreme, and nothing was thought of but amusements. To dress, to act, to sing, to dance, were the sole business of life, and to make complimentary speeches, epigrams, and extemporary verses, was, if we may credit the picture which madame de Genlis has drawn of Parisian society, the highest and most desired stretch of intellect among the wits and men of fashion of the day. All at once a revolution was wrought in these follies, and an entirely opposite system came in. Coxv. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 471 Mary. And who was it who set the new fashion ? Mrs. M. Benjamin Franklin, the bookseller of Philadelphia, who, I dare say, would have been the very last person to intend it. When Franklin came to Paris as one of the American deputies, the simplicity of his dress turned the heads of the ladies and altered the coats of the gentlemen. The gold lace and embroidery, and the powdered curls, which had been the pride of the Parisian beaux, were all discarded. The fine gentlemen appeared with their hair cut straight, and in plain brown coats like this sober republican's. Count Segur speaks, in his Memoirs, of the arrival of the deputies, and says, " It was as if the sages of Piome and Greece had suddenly appeared; their antique simplicity of dress, their firm and plain demeanour, their free and direct language, formed a contrast to the frivolity, effeminacy, and servile refinements of the French. The tide of fashion and nobility ran after these republicans, and ladies, lords, and men of letters, all worshipped them." At a splendid entertainment given to these Americans, the countess Diana de Polignac, one of the beaux esprits of the court, advanced to doctor Franklin, and, assuming a theatrical attitude, placed a crown (a crown of laurel, if I mistake not) on his head. Richard. How much the doctor must have been astonished ! Mrs. M. This admiration of the Americans led, by a somewhat singular transition, to an admiration of everything that was Eng- lish ; and at the beginning of the Revolution the Anglomania was carried to a ridiculous excess. Societies were instituted in imita- tion of the clubs in England, and these were mainly instrumental in assisting the projects of the revolutionists. Hence too another great change in Parisian society. The gentlemen deserted the evening parties and "petit soupers" of the ladies, and went instead to le club politique, &c. &c. In the belief also that they were mi- nutely following the English customs, they carried cudgels in their hands, wore thick shoes, and did all they could to look like black- guards. Richard. That was not very flattering to us English. Mrs. M. As the Revolution proceeded, the French had neither time, nor, as it would seem, inclination, to adopt any new affecta- tion or foreign fashion. Society was for a time annihilated. The awful precipice on which every one stood appeared to have changed the national character, and gave it an unnatural gravity. But when the worst tyrannies of the Revolution subsided, and Danton, Robespierre, and the guillotine no longer kept the people in dismay, they seemed to awaken as if from a frightful dream, and gave way to the most vehement excesses of gaiety. The women especially, many of whom had exhibited an heroic greatness of mind during the late horrible scenes, now indemnified themselves for the self- 472 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. Chap. XXXIX. control they had exercised, by plunging into an inconceivable dissi- pation. By the emigration of the nobles, the wealth of the nation was flowing in new channels. Paris was inundated by parvenus, rich people of mean birth and sudden elevation, by swindlers and ail kinds of low adventurers ; and it was not till the reign of Bonaparte that society appeared to recover materially from the shock of the late violent convulsions. Bonaparte, even before he ventured to confer titles of his own, did all he could to restore decorum of man- ners in a court which he must have seen to be degraded by the want of it ; and it was observed, that, from this first dawn of encourage- ment, elegance of manners and purity of speech resumed their natural superiority, and stood in the place of titular dignities. Mary. Pray, mamma, did the ladies as well as the gentlemen try to make themselves like the English ? Mrs. M. I do not recollect that the ladies ever yielded to the English mania sufficiently to adopt our fashions. Nevertheless, the revolutions in female dress were as extraordinary in their way as the other more important revolutions of this period. In the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. hoops and paint were still worn. The hair was loaded with pomatum and powder, and drawn up into extraordinary high pyramids. I have seen caricatures of hairdressers mounted on ladders dressing the ladies' heads. It was all in vain, however, that caricaturists and satirists levelled their ridicule against these enormous piles. They continued to rise higher and higher, till a violent illness of the queen, which caused her to lose her hair, occasioned their downfall. On a sudden, and as if with one consent, every lady in France was seen with a flat head. The next great change of fashion was wrought by the philosopher St. Pierre, who, in his novel of Paul et Virginie, has described Virginie as attired in a simple robe of white muslin and a plain straw hat. This simple picture instantly captivated the ladies of Paris. The silks, satins, and formal dress which had reigned with different modifications almost from the time of St. Louis, now all vanished as beneath the stroke of a necromancer, and nothing was to be seen, from the queen to the waiting-maid, but white muslin gowns and straw hats. When the Revolution was commencing, and the rage for liberty introduced an admiration of the ancient republics, the ladies dressed their heads in imitation of antique busts, and endea- voured to copy the light and scanty draperies of ancient statues. "While the ladies were thus attired a la Grec, the gentlemen kept them in countenance by cropping their hair a la JRomain. This antique mode, with variations, lasted several years. An end was at length put to it by the appearance on the stage of a favourite actress in the character of a Chinese girl, dressed according to the idea she A.D. 1805. NAPOLEON. 473 had formed of the costume of China, with her petticoats loaded with frills. The novelty of these frills again enchanted the Parisians, who soon muffled themselves up with frills and ruffs. The fashion found its way also into England, though many English ladies were, I dare say, quite unconscious that they were dressing themselves a la Chinois cm Frangais. George. I never used to think the fashions of dress worth trou- bling my head about : but I now see that it is very amusing to observe what a weathercock fashion is and what trifles can turn it. Mrs. M. Amongst other Changes of fashion, I must not forget to notice that which took place in the hour of dining. At the begin- ning of the reign the fashionable dinner-hour in Paris was two o'clock ; afterwards it was five or six o'clock ; a great change from the wholesome practice of the time of Francis I., when the rule of life was as follows : — Lever a cinq, diner a neuf, Souper a cinq, coucher a neuf Fait vivre d'ans nonant et neuf. CHAPTER XL. NAPOLEON. Years after Christ, 1805 — 18 15. Napoleon Bonaparte The contest with England, as you were told in the last chapter, recommenced in 1803. Eussia and Austria again coalesced with 474 NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. that power. Napoleon, with his characteristic impetuosity, burst into Germany in the beginning of October, 1805. Wurtemberg, Baden, and Bavaria joined their forces to his, and the duke of Wurtemberg and the elector of Bavaria were rewarded by his con- ferring on them the title of king. Ulm surrendered on the 17th of October. November 13th the French army entered Vienna. On the 2nd of December was fought the great battle of Austerlitz, which ended in the complete defeat of the Eussians and Austrians, and enabled the French emperor to dictate a peace with Austria. By the terms of this peace, which was dated at Presburg, December 26th, the title of the emperor Napoleon was recognised, together with the titles of the newly-made kings of Bavaria and Wurtem- berg. Venice was ceded to Bonaparte as king of Italy. The emperor of Kussia withdrew his troops into his own territories. The king of Prussia, who had remained neutral in this contest, received Hanover as the reward of his neutrality ; or, as is most probable, that electorate was conferred on him for the purpose of placing his interests in opposition to those of the king of England, who, it could not be doubted, would seize the first opportunity of reclaiming his ancient inheritance. Thus rapidly was this coalition dissolved in a short campaign, winch proved universally successful, except on that element in which the power of England still reigned without a rival. On February 7th a French squadron in the West Indies was defeated by the English admiral Duckworth. Of eight sail of the line, three were taken and two burnt. On the 21st of October the combined fleets of France and Spain were defeated off Cape Trafalgar, by lord Nelson. Nineteen sail of the line fell into the hands of the victors, most of which however, in consequence of bad weather coming on, went on shore, and were destroyed after the action. The English lost also in this great battle their gallant Nelson, whose death embittered all that natural exultation with which they would else have regarded their naval triumph. On March 30th, 1806, Joseph Bonaparte, one of the brothers of Napoleon, was declared king of the two Sicilies; June 5th Louis Bonaparte was made king of Holland. Dalmatia, Istria, Friuli, and other districts, were erected into duchies and great fiefs of the French empire, and bestowed on the most distinguished gene- rals, and on other persons eminent for their public services. Four- teen princes also of the south and west of Germany united them- selves into what was called the Confederation of the Ehine, and placed themselves under the protection of Napoleon. Thus terminated, after having lasted so many ages, the existence of what is properly called the Germanic empire. Francis II. renounced by proclamation * I Dated Aug, 6, a.d. 1 807- NAPOLEON. 475 the title of emperor of Germany, and assumed that of emperor of Austria in its stead. This perpetual aggrandizement of the French power and influence could not but give great alarm to Prussia and Austria. Austria was still unable to rise from the blow inflicted at Austerlitz ; but Prussia, which had been then too much alarmed by the rapid pro- gress of the French arms in Germany to dare to break her neutrality, now entered into a league with Eussia, and took arms. Napoleon instantly set his troops in motion. On October 14th, 1806, he gained over the Prussians a decisive victory at Jena. On the 27th he entered Berlin. Hence he marched soon afterwards against the Russian armies in Poland. There too he was successful, after a longer and harder contest, defeating them at Eylau on the 8th of February, 1807, and at Friedland on the 14th of June. The em- peror Alexander then entered into negotiations, and a peace was concluded at Tilsit, July 7th. By the terms of this peace the king of Prussia was stripped of almost half his dominions. These spoils of Prussia were given to Saxony and Westphalia, two new kingdoms now created by Napoleon. In the electorate of Saxony the elector was made king, and Prussian Poland was added to his dominions. Jerome Bonaparte was made king of Westphalia. Every power of the continent that had dared to resist the arms of France was at this time humbled by repeated defeats. England alone remained inaccessible. The invasion of that country was a favourite project of Bonaparte, but a project much too dangerous to be attempted without first acquiring a great maritime power ; and in the actual state of the French empire and its dependencies, which could not muster anywhere one formidable fleet, the hope of dis- puting the command of the seas with England seemed so remote as to baffle all expectation. To attack the commerce of that proud island with the continent appeared to be the only method left of weakening its power. With this view Bonaparte now established a system which has been commonly called the continental blockade. Eussia and Denmark took part with him in this policy, which required them to break oif all communication with England ; and at length those powers joined France openly in the war. This was the moment of Napoleon's greatest ascendency. But from this moment opens also a new scene of events, which must necessarily withdraw our attention for a short time from the politics of the northern powers of Europe. Napoleon, in concert with Charles IV. king of Spain, sent an army under marechal Junot to invade Portugal. The prince regent of Portugal embarked and sailed for Brazil, and the French troops took possession of Lisbon, Nov. 30th, 1807. In the following year the king of Spain himself was prevailed on to resign his crown to 476 NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. the French emperor, who placed on the throne his brother Joseph, king of Naples, and advanced Murat, one of his marshals, to the crown of Naples, in Joseph's room. Both Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand, the prince of Asturias, were brought to France. Charles IV. was sent to Compeigne, and Ferdinand was detained in the castle of Valencay. The Spaniards, indignant at the insult offered to their country by thus elevating a foreigner to the throne, rose with enthusiasm to repel the intrusion. A provincial junta was held at Seville, in May, 1808, in which the prince of Asturias, though detained a prisoner in France, was acknowledged king. In Portugal also arose a similar resistance. An English army, under the command of sir Arthur Wellesley (after- wards marquis and duke of Wellington), was promptly despatched to assist these struggles in the Peninsula. Junot was compelled to evacuate Portugal, and nearly at the same time king Joseph quitted Madrid. In November, 1808, however, Napoleon himself entered Spain, and soon made himself master of the greater part of the country. Madrid submitted to him December 4th. But notwithstanding the success with which the French arms seemed to be thus everywhere crowned, still the resistance which they had met with in Spain, and perhaps still more the open injustice of the aggression on so old and faithful an ally, once more awakened the slumbering spirit of the other powers of the continent. The pope had been long dissatisfied. The commercial interests of the whole of Europe were almost ruined by the effect of those decrees which precluded, or at least extremely embarrassed, the trade with England ; and the emperor of Austria was impatient under his past losses, and eager to redeem them. In the spring of 1809 the Tyrol revolted. The Westphalians expelled king Jerome from his new dominions, and it was believed that Prussia, notwithstanding the smart of her late misfortunes, would be glad to take advantage of the first reverses of Napoleon to join her forces to those of the Austrians. But the French emperor, returning instantly from Madrid, crossed the Shine, and penetrated into the heart of Germany. He gained successive victories at Eckmuhl and Essling; took possession of Vienna a second time ; and though worsted in an obstinate battle at Asperne, a short time afterwards conquered at Wagram. He then dictated a peace called the peace of Vienna, signed Oct. 14th, 1809. The continent was now again prostrate at the feet of Napoleon. The Tyrol was given up to devastation ; the pope was dethroned ; Bernadotte, a French general, was elected successor to the throne of Sweden ; and Louis king of Holland, although brother to the French emperor, yet being thought to allow of a freer intercourse with England than the jealousy of Napoleon would tolerate, was dispos- sessed of his kingdom, and the Dutch territories were incorporated A.r>. 1 81 2. NAPOLEON. 477 with France. Now also Napoleon allied himself by marriage with the most ancient and illustrious house in Europe. He divorced the empress Josephine, to whom he had been married many years, and to whom he is supposed to have been sincerely attached, and was united to Maria Louisa archduchess of Austria, a daughter of the emperor Francis II. The marriage ceremony, in which the arch- duke Charles was Napoleon's proxy, was performed at Vienna, March 11th, 1810. In the following year the empress had a son, 1 born March 20th, to whom was given the title of the king of Eome. Amid these transactions a new war was preparing, of which the alternations were more rapid, and the events on a vaster scale, than any which had yet been witnessed in Europe. The emperor ot Kussia, though, during the French campaign against Austria, winch was concluded in 1809 by the battle of Wagram, he maintained the alliance which he had contracted at Tilsit, repented of a policy which appeared daily to add new strength to the overbearing* power of France. In the end of 1810 he renewed his intercourse with Eng- land ; and during that year and the following, both he and Napoleon prepared for the decisive struggle. On March 9th, 1812, Napoleon left Paris to commence his northern campaign. He stayed some time at Dresden, the capital of the king of Saxony. Austria and Prussia, and all the other states of Germany, were his allies, or rather his dependants. On June 22nd he arrived on the banks of the Niemen. He here issued his declaration of war against Eussia. He crossed the Niemen on the 23rd of the same month. On the 28th he took possession of Wilna. On the 27th of July he arrived at Witepsk. Smolensk, after sustaining a vigorous attack, was abandoned to him on the 17th of August. On the 7th of September he fought a great battle with the Eussian army, under marechal Kutusoff, near Borodino, a village in the immediate neigh- bourhood of Moscow. This battle was indecisive, though on both sides the carnage was dreadful. The Eussians remained in posses- sion of the field of battle: but Kutusoff, a few days afterwards, retreated, abandoning Moscow to its fate rather than risk the farther weakening of his army in another conflict. It was the Eussian policy, indeed, to retire before the enemy, and, allowing him to advance as far as possible into their territories, then to close on him, and cut off his retreat. Had Napoleon been wise, he would have avoided this danger. But it appeared to be his maxim that he must always keep advancing, and that it was necessary to continue to dazzle the world with a perpetual series of vast enterprises and of success. He was 1 Francis Charles Joseph Napoleon, afterwards created duke of Reichstadt by the emperor of Austria. He is said to have been of an extremely engaging and promising character, but died of a consumption in 1834. His mother, on her husband's fall, was made duchess of Parma. 478 NAPOLEON". Chap. XL. also so much intoxicated with past triumphs, as to despise all obstacles which might rise in his way, and even to make a sort of divinity of his own fortune. What is most remarkable of all is, that in this dangerous enterprise he still preserved an almost unlimited influence over his whole army. This was not because either the officers or the troops were blind to their dangers. It is well known that they felt themselves led to almost certain destruction. But their habits of obedience to their great general, their absolute idolatry of him as the military genius of France, in whom all their own great- ness was as it were expressed and embodied, together with the kindness of his manner to individual soldiers, gave him an unex- ampled influence even over their murmurs and despair. On the 14th of September the French army entered Moscow. From this moment we may date the history of its destruction. Count Eostopchin, the Eussian governor, on quitting the city, had caused it to be set on fire in several places. The French troops in their first triumph of taking possession were thrown into consternation by this unexpected event, and were at the same time too intent on plunder to exert themselves effectually to arrest the progress of the flames, which by the morning of the 16th prevailed in every direction. Nothing can be more dreadful than the accounts of the ravage pro- duced by this horrible devastation. A large portion of the popula- tion had refused to abandon the city, and had concealed themselves in the interior of their houses. These unhappy people were now forced into the streets by the devouring element. Some took refuge in the public buildings and churches, but even here they were not safe from destruction. The hospitals, which were full of wounded Eussian soldiers, became a prey to the flames. The French army was driven out of the city by the fire. " For four days, during which it never ceased burning, they encamped at Petrovsky, at the distance of four versts, or about three miles, till the flames had time to exhaust themselves, and heavy rains also fell, which helped to extinguish them. On the 21st the army re-entered the city, where the Kremlin, its interior circle, which contained the palace of the ancient czars, together with that of the patriarch, and many other great buildings, had escaped the flames. Napoleon took up his residence in the Kremlin, and it was found that houses enough had escaped the flames to afford cantonments for the whole of the army. Thus was Napoleon at length installed, though most inauspi- ciously, in the possession of Moscow. But the Eussian power was still unbroken ; his communication with France would soon be cut off; and the vast armies of the enemy would again advance on him in the spring. All this doubtless he saw distinctly. Yet he hoped that the eclat a.d. i8n. NAfOLEON. 479 of his conquest would now induce Alexander to seek for peace. Failing in tins hope, he himself proposed to negotiate , but Kutusoff, to whom the proposal was made, answered immediately, that no terms could be entered into while an enemy remained in the Eus- sian territories. After twice renewing the attempt, with the same ill success, Napoleon, though in the face of a Eussian winter, deter- mined to commence his retreat. The French army quitted Moscow on the 18th of October, leaving behind a detachment which was instructed to blow up the Kremlin. The Kremlin was saved by the rapid advance of the Eussians. In the rear of the main army followed a long train of carriages loaded with the spoils of Moscow, which were all destined, however, to be abandoned on the road. The first considerable engagement of the retreating army with the enemy was on the 24th of the same month at Malo Jaroslavitz, where the French army, though it suffered severely, appears on the whole to have had the advantage. But the history of the retreat becomes from this period a history of the most dreadful and length- ened calamities. On the 6th of November Napoleon arrived at Studzianca, a village on the banks of the river Beresina ; where the Eussians, who had destroyed the bridge at Borisow, were in force on both sides to dispute the passage with him. Here he constructed two bridges, one for cavalry, and one for infantry. He himself crossed on the 27th. On the morning of the 28th the Eussians opened a cannonade on the wretched fugitives who were pressing their flight, and the most dreadful carnage took place. The strong made their way by throwing the weak into the river, or by tram- pling them under foot. Many were crushed to death by the wheels of the cannon. Some, who hoped to save themselves by swimming, were enclosed by the floating ice in the midst of the river. Many perished by trusting themselves to pieces of ice, which sunk under them; and thousands, weary of suffering, and deprived of all hope, drowned themselves voluntarily. One division, forcing its way over the bridge, set fire to it as soon as it had passed, in order to prevent the enemy from pursuing. But many of their own troops were still on the other side of the river, whose misery at this abandonment exceeds all description. Crowds on crowds still pressed on the burning bridge, choking up the passage, and scorched and frozen at the same instant, till it sunk at length with a horrid crash in the Beresina. After these disasters all order was wholly lost. Napoleon himself on the 5th of December set out on a sledge for Paris, where he arrived at midnight on the 18th. The relics of his army arrived at Wilna on the 9th, and on the 12th at Kowno, where, six months before, they had crossed the Niemen in their invasion of Eussia. 4 So ttAPOLEON. Chap. XL. How different the state in which they now recrossed it! It is said that of 400,000 men, including Prussians and Austrians, who took part in this disastrous expedition, not 50,000 escaped death or captivity. Most of these 50,000 also consisted of reinforcements which the army met while retreating, and which consequently had not shared in the previous fatigue and brunt of the campaign. It is said also by some good officers, that, if the Eussian generals had exerted themselves sufficiently during the retreat, even this residue could not have escaped. In France the greatest possible exertions were made to recruit the army. It was impossible wholly to replace by new levies the vete- rans who had fallen or been made prisoners in Eussia. But still a very large and powerful force was marched into Germany early in the spring. New enemies had arisen in the mean time. The influ- ence of Eussia, and the hope that an opportunity was now given of crushing for ever the insatiable ambition of the French emperor, induced the king of Prussia to declare once more against him. The Prussians of all ranks flew to arms with enthusiasm. Sweden also acceded to this new coalition. Nevertheless Napoleon was still alert and intrepid. On May 2nd, 1813, he gained a victory over the Eussians and Prussians at Lut- zen. On the 20th and 21st he gained another at Bautzen. The emperor of Austria then proposed a mediation. An armistice was concluded on the 4th of June, and a congress assembled at Prague to take into consideration terms of peace. The terms proposed were, that the French empire should be bounded by the Alps, the Ehine, and the Meuse, and the German states restored to their independence. These terms were positively rejected by Bonaparte, and the armistice terminated August 10th. Immediately afterwards Austria joined the confederates. In a great battle near Dresden on the 26th and 27th of the same month, Napoleon defeated the allies and compelled them to retreat. But the force of his enemies was daily increasing. The Bavarians deserted him, and joined their forces to those of the Austrians ; and at length, in a series of conflicts at Leipsic, in which the Saxons also deserted him in the midst of a battle, the great conqueror was deci- sively defeated, and he was compelled to a retreat which was less calamitous than that from Moscow only because a less distance was to be crossed before he could arrive in a place of safety, and be- cause he had not now to contend with the hardships of a Eussian winter. The great conflict at Leipsic was fought on the 18th and 19th of October. On the 7th of November Napoleon crossed the Ehine at Mentz, and two days afterwards arrived in Paris. Still, even after this second calamity, his power did not forsake him. He obtained from the senate a levy of 300,000 men, and pre- a.d. 1 8 14- NAPOLEON. 481 pared with the greatest diligence for a campaign in which the tide of war, which since the commencement of the Kevolution had over- flowed on the surrounding nations of Europe, was now rolled back on France itself. Prince Schwartzenberg, commander-in-chief of the Austrians, and with him the Eussian generals Barclay de Tolli and Wittgenstein, were advancing on the side of Switzerland with 150,000 men ; Blucher, with 130,000 Prussians, from Frankfort ; and Bernadotte, with 100,000, by way of the Netherlands. The Austrian^ had another army in Italy, and Murat, king of Naples, joined the confederates. The Dutch recalled the stadtholder ; and the English under Wellington, having succeeded in expelling the French from Spain, had crossed the Bidassoa and were advancing to Bayonne. Opposed by so many and such formidable enemies, Napoleon appeared not to lose either his courage or his military genius. He disconcerted the allies by the rapidity of his movements, and gained several brilliant successes ; which, though they did not carry with them any lasting advantage, yet filled Europe with wonder at his fertility of resources, began to restore that dominion over men's minds which he had long exercised so extensively, and made his enemies still doubtful of the result. A congress for the negotiation of a general peace was assembled at Chatillon, in January, 1814. The terms proposed by the allies were to leave Napoleon in posses- sion of the same territories which France had held under her kings, with the accession of the Austrian Netherlands. This congress, however, was ineffectual, and at length dissolved itself. The allies advanced, and on the 30th of March a battle was fought on the heights near Montmartre, which put it in their power to make an immediate assault on the capital. The city capitulated the follow- ing day. The old royalist party now conceived the hope that the Bourbon family might be restored to the throne ; and many friends of liberty also, who had found that the finger of Napoleon had pressed more heavily than the whole weight of the ancient government, were dis- posed to concur in favouring their restoration, as being the surest means of producing a steady tranquillity. The head of the Bourbon family was Louis, brother of Louis XVI., who was generally known as " Monsieur " until the death of his nephew, Louis XVII., in 1795, after which event he styled himself Louis XVIII. Cries of Vive le roi ! a has le tyran I vivent les Bourbons ! vive Louis X VIII. ! were fre- quently heard in the streets ; and the emperor Alexander, and the king of Prussia, who entered Paris in procession, March 31st, were greeted with the plaudits and acclamations of the multitude. On the 1st of April the senate decreed that " Napoleon Bonaparte had forfeited the throne ; that the hereditary right in his family was abolished ; and the people and the army released from their oath of fidelity.'' Fkakck- v 482 NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. Napoleon, who had still an army at Fontainbleau, on receiving this intelligence, announced a determination to march to Paris, and to make an attempt to repel the intruders ; but the struggle was become plainly hopeless. His marechals refused to support him, and in this desperate situation of his affairs pressed him to abdicate. He stipulated at first that his son should succeed him; but the cause of the Bourbons becoming stronger every day, he was com- pelled finally to give way. The treaty with the allied powers con- taining his abdication was dated on the 11th of April, and provided that the little island of Elba, in the Mediterranean, should be as- signed to him in full sovereignty as Iris future residence. A pension of two millions of francs was allotted to him. Pensions were assigned also to the other members of his family. On the 20th he set out for his new principality, for which he embarked on the 28th in an Eng- lish frigate at Frejus, the same port at which he had landed, fifteen years before, on his return from the expedition to Egypt. The em- press returned to Austria with her son, and put herself under the protection of her father, with whom they remained for some time. In the mean time the senate declared a constitutional charter, by which they recalled Louis XVIII. to the throne, on the condition that he should swear to accept the charter and to enforce it. To this Louis gave a general assent in a declaration dated May 2nd. On the 3rd he made his solemn entry into Paris. On the 30th a defini- tive treaty of peace was concluded ; by which the continental domi- nions of France were restricted, generally speaking, to those which it possessed on the 1st of January, 1792, but with some few addi- tions of territory, partly in the Netherlands, and partly in Savoy. England restored all her foreign conquests from France, with the exception of the islands of Tobago and St. Lucie in the "West Indies, and of the Isle of France, or Mauritius, and its dependencies. All means were taken, which prudence could dictate to the allied powers, to spare the feelings of the great nation which they had conquered ; and even in the act of resuming the foreign territories which it had acquired, to leave it in possession of the consolatory and just belief that the honour of the nation was still preserved in all its integrity, and that no disgrace fell anywhere but on that am- bitious individual, whose own imprudence had provoked his signal fall. On June 4th the king presented to the legislature a constitu- tional charter. It was formed on the basis of that former charter drawn up by the senate in the beginning of April. Still, however, there were very many persons who feared that the king, or his ad- visers, were disposed to hold that the oppressive privileges of the old monarchy had been transmitted to him untouched through the ^Revolution ; and that he would only wait for an opportunity to break the faith he had pledged, to re-establish all the abuses of the NAPOLEON. 483 ancient prerogative, and especially to resume the property of the church, winch had been taken possession of by the national assem- bly, and was now divided among a large body of proprietors. The personal character of Louis himself gave little encouragement to the suspicions ; but still they acquired, from various causes, great cur- rency, and awakened a very general distrust. With these feelings the year 1814 passed away. In the year fol- lowing, a yet more startling series of events took place than any in the career of Napoleon. On his passage from Frejus to Elba he is said to have observed, that, "if Marius had slain himself in the marshes of Minturnse, he would never have enjoyed his seventh con- sulate." What was thus at first perhaps only a vague aspiration, soon became an object of thought and ambition. The peace had restored to France the soldiers who had been prisoners in England, Eussia, and Germany. Even those officers who had sworn fidelity to Louis were ready to aid in reviving the claims of the great gene- ral to whom the army was thought to owe its glory and greatness. They were sensible that they could never retain under another government that consideration which they had possessed under his. Many of them also felt, or fancied, that they were slighted in the Bourbon court. All means were taken to foment popular dissatis- faction, and to excite some undefined expectation of the future return of Napoleon. In the beginning of the year 1815 he returned in reality. Escaping from Elba, he disembarked on the 1st of March with about 900 men near the small town of Cannes, in the gulf of Juan : thence he ad- vanced to Gap. On the 5th, in his way to Grenoble, he was joined by many of the officers and all the soldiery stationed there. From Grenoble he advanced to Lyons, where Monsieur the king's brother, and the duke of Orleans, had hastened to oppose his farther progress. Here also the troops joined him. On the 17th he reached Auxerre ; he then proceeded to Fontainbleau, and on the evening of the 20th entered Paris without opposition. Louis had left his capital at one in the morning of that day, and after vainly attempting to secure himself in Lille, fled first to Ostend, and afterwards to Ghent. The whole of the army, except a few officers, and almost all the civil authorities, welcomed Napoleon, thus once more seated on his ab- dicated throne by the most rapid transition known in history. One of the first acts of the restored emperor of France was to attempt to induce the allied powers to acquiesce in his restoration, as being, he said, the unanimous act of the French people, and to abide in all other respects by the treaty of Paris of the preceding year. But those powers agreed unanimously that they would have neither peace nor truce with him. It was become evident, there- fore, that there must be another appeal to the sword. Both parties y 2 484 NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. made the most gigantic preparations. Napoleon endeavoured to gain popularity by proposing institutions of a nature favourable to liberty, and similar to those of Louis's constitutional charter. But he clearly saw that his real strength lay in his army ; and it was plain that, if victory should restore his authority, all the national and civil insti- tutions would again bend before his will. In the beginning of June a combined English and Prussian army was quartered in the neighbourhood of Brussels and Charleroi, under the command of the duke of Wellington and marechal Blucher. Napo- leon, with his characteristic decision and promptitude, put himself at the head of 150,000 selected troops, who had assumed the title of the army of the north, and on the 14th of June commenced operations on the Flemish frontier. On the 15th he passed the Sambre, and took Charleroi. On the 16th two battles were fought at Ligny and at Quatre Bras. In the one of these Napoleon gained the advantage over Blucher ; in the other marechal Ney had a severe struggle with the English, in which neither side gained a clear superiority. In this action at Quatre Bras the duke of Brunswick was killed — the son of that duke who had commanded the Prussian army in the war winch broke out in the beginning of the Eevolution. Both these actions, however, are chiefly memorable as the precursors of the decisive battle which followed on the 18th, at Waterloo, and which terminated for ever Napoleon's splendid career. It had long been Ms wish to be personally opposed to the duke of Wellington, and, when he joined the army of the north, he exultingly exclaimed, " Je vais me frotter contre Wellington." His wish was gratified, but never perhaps was any defeat more bloody or more disastrous than that which he was destined now to sustain. He issued his orders, and viewed the battle, from a convenient distance ; and an officer who was standing near him affirmed that " his astonishment at the resistance of the British was extreme : his agitation became violent : he took snuff by handfuls at the repulse of each charge." At last he took the officer by the arm, saying, " The affair is over, — we have lost the day,— let us be off!" In this heartless manner, and thinking only of himself, Napoleon abandoned an army which was wholly devoted to him. He fled to Paris, where he arrived on the 20th. He again abdicated, making at the same time another ineffectual attempt to secure the succession for his son. On the 29th he set out for Kochefort, intending to seek refuge in the United States of America. In the mean time the allied army advanced on Paris. On the 7th of July the city surrendered, and on the 8th Louis XVIII. re-entered it. Thus closed finally that succession of revolutions which had dis- tracted Europe for twenty-five years. Peace was again restored, nearly on the basis of the treaty of the year before, but with some a.d. 1815. NAPOLEON". 485 resumptions of territory by the allies on the frontiers of the Nether- lands, of Germany, and of Savoy. It was also provided that an allied army of 150,000 men should occupy, for the space of three or five years, a line of fortresses from Cambray to Alsace ; the possession of which would enable them, in any case of necessity, to march straight to Paris without opposition. This army was to be main- tained wholly at the expense of France, and France agreed also to pay 700,000,000 of francs, to be divided in different proportions among the allied powers, as a partial indemnification for the ex- penses of this last contest, which had been brought on so unex- pectedly by the return of Napoleon. It was also decided that the pictures and statues, of which Italy, the Netherlands, and other countries had been despoiled, should be restored to their ancient possessors. Not even the occupation of their territory by foreign troops, and the sort of tribute which they were compelled to pay for their maintenance, appear to have been so grating to the national vanity as the being compelled to make this just restitution. The definitive treaty was signed at Paris on the 20th day of November. It now only remains for me to add a few brief particulars with regard to the condition in which the other nations of Europe were left at the conclusion of these protracted hostilities. In December, 1813, after the defeats which Napoleon had sustained in Germany, he judged it politic to restore Ferdinand to the throne of Spain ; first making a treaty by which he may be said to have bound him hand and foot to support in everything the interests of France. In Italy, Murat, the new king of Naples, who had married one of Napoleon's sisters, joined in 1814, as you have already been told, the cause of the allies. In 1815, either from distrust of their sincerity, or from the natural restlessness of his disposition, he took arms against Austria, and occupied Eome. He thence advanced as far as the Po, but was soon compelled to retreat. In a battle at Tolentino, on the 2nd and 3rd of May, he was completely defeated. He fled alone to Naples, and thence to France, and from France to Corsica. The exiled Ferdinand of Naples, in the mean time, returned from Palermo, and again seated himself on his throne. Murat, in the October following, rashly attempted to invade Calabria, but was defeated and taken prisoner, and immediately afterwards was tried by a court-martial and executed. In the north of Italy the king of Sardinia was restored, and Genoa added to his dominions. Austria retained Venice, and resumed the Milanese, and the other territories of which she had been in possession before the wars of the Eevolution. The whole of Flanders was, with the consent of Austria, united to Holland, and the prince of Orange assumed the title of king of the Netherlands. 486 NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. Napoleon, now a hopeless fugitive, arrived at Kochefort on the 3rd of July. He there embarked on board a small frigate for America ; but an English ship of superior force lying in sight, it was impossible, if he sailed, to escape being taken. Under these circumstances, he surrendered himself, on the 15th of July, to the English. The Eng- lish captain received him and his suite on board, and, immediately sailing for England, arrived in Torbay on the 25th. After various discussions as to the manner in which he should be treated, it was finally determined that he should be sent to the island of St. Helena; a place which combined in a remarkable degree the provision for the safe custody of his person, with the least restraint possible of his domestic comforts and his habits of exercise. This consideration was fairly regarded as due to a man who had filled so high a station in the world, and whose return from Elba, however perfidious and indefensible, had been sanctioned by the general voice of France. He arrived at St. Helena on the 18th of October, 1815, A place called Longwood was fitted up for his reception. He there resided nearly six years, and died on the 5th of May, 1821. 1 CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER XL. Richard. And now, if you please, mamma, will you tell us some- thing more about Bonaparte ? Mary. I should have thought you had heard enough about him in the last chapter ! Richard. Yes ! But I want to know how he began the world, and by what means he came to be so great. Mrs. Markham. The father of Napoleon Bonaparte, or Buona- parte, as it was originally and more correctly spelt, was a lawyer at Ajaccio, in Corsica. Count Marbceuf, the French governor of Corsica, took great notice of the young Napoleon, and procured admittance for him into the royal military college at Brienne in Champagne. While there, his whole soul was absorbed in military ardour. Not only his studies, but also his amusements, all took the same direction. He scorned the common diversions of boyhood, and solely occupied himself in inventing manoeuvres, in forming plans of fortifications, and in other meditations and studies of the military art. His little garden (for it seems that each of the students had one of his own) he turned into an encampment, surrounded it with a palisade, and was violently irritated if any of his companions presumed to invade it. 1 Napoleon was buried at Longwood ; but in 1840, with the consent of the English govern- ment, a small French squadron was 6ent under the command of the prince de Joinville to bring his remains to France. They were received with the greatest veneration both at Havre, where they were first landed, and afterwards at Paris, where they were reinterred in the church of the Invalids on the 18th of December in that year. Cowv. NAPOLEON. 487 George. It would have been well for the world if master Bona- parte had grown up with as great a dislike to invading, as he had to being invaded. Mrs. M. Bonaparte, while at Brienne, was noted for his proficiency in his studies, and also for his pride and sullenness. But notwith- standing these defects of character, he was even then remarkable for that power, which he showed so much afterwards, of gaining ascend- ency over others. His schoolfellows, though they disliked him, he yet constrained to follow him in all his schemes, and to enter into his mimic wars. Many were the battles between imaginary Greeks and Persians, Bomans and Carthaginians, in which Napoleon, as you may be sure, was always of the victorious party. George. Nothing should have made me one of his Legion of Honour after he was emperor ; but I should have liked very well to be one of his Greeks or Bomans while he was a schoolboy. Mrs. M. In 1784, when Napoleon was about fifteen, he was ad- mitted into the royal military school at Paris ; and in the following year he obtained a lieutenancy in a regiment of artillery. About this time he lost his patron, count Marbceuf, who had hitherto sup- plied him with money, and his finances became in consequence much reduced. But notwithstanding this embarrassment, the time we are now speaking of was, probably, the happiest period of Ins life. He would often say, when in the plenitude of his power, that " he loved to look back on those happy days, when he was roaming about the streets of Paris as an engineer subaltern, to discover a cheap place to dine at." Richard. I think I know why he was then so happy. George. And so do I. It was because his heart was as light as his purse, and not weighed down with a load of guilt and ambition. Mrs. M. This happy period was soon over. In the outset of the Bevolution the young Napoleon entered so heartily into its prin- ciples as to excite the indignation of his brother officers, who on one occasion were so much exasperated by his conduct, that, with a vio- lence as unpardonable as his own, they were actually on the point of drowning him. He then secluded himself, to brood in solitude over his wrongs. After a while he returned into Corsica, and re- sided a short time with his mother, who was at that time a widow in indigent circumstances. Here he still industriously pursued his professional studies, and he amused himself in his intervals of leisure in writing a history of Corsica. George. I should never have thought that the writing a history could be a leisure amusement. From what I have seen of it, it seems very hard work. Mrs. M. His love for his native country probably lightened the labour to him. He was often heard to say that "he recollected 488 NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. with delight the very smell of the earth in Corsica." He did not, however, at this time, give himself any long enjoyment of it. We find him again at Paris in 1790 : and in the following year he was promoted to be a captain of artillery in the regiment of Grenoble. He first exhibited his transcendent military talents at the siege of Tonlon, in December, 1794. On that memorable occasion he dis- played a coolness, bravery, and decision of character which asto- nished his superior officers. He was one of those who, after the city was taken, was appointed to execute the sanguinary vengeance with which, as Fouche says, in the letter I read to you yesterday, the victory was celebrated. From Toulon Bonaparte repaired to Nice, and he was there at the time of Eobespierre's death, and the termi- nation of the reign of terror. He was arrested on the charge of having been a party in the massacres at Toulon, but was soon released. He was, nevertheless, deprived of his command in the artillery. In disgust at this treatment he hastened to Paris to make his complaint, but could obtain no redress. His fortunes were now at their lowest ebb ; he was destitute of money and friends, and spent many months in revolving various wild and impracticable plans. I have heard it said that, designing to enter the English service, he secretly visited London, and lodged in the Adelphi. The disturbances in Paris at length produced an opening for his ambition. He vigorously exerted himself in the service of the con- vention, and gained over the opposing factions a great victory, in which 8000 Parisians are said to have fallen. This success was rewarded by the command of the army of the interior. In March 1796 he married Josephine, 1 the widow of count Beauharnois, and was soon afterwards placed at the head of the army of Italy. Richard. One of the most surprising things about Bonaparte is, that he should so easily have prevailed on those determined repub- licans to submit to him. Mrs. M. By the confession of our old acquaintance M. Fouche, " the republicans had governed at random, without end, and with- out fixed principles." They were all jealous of one another, the want of a head being much felt, when the young Corsican appeared, who promptly and skilfully seized the opportunity. Mary. Pray what became of Josephine after she was divorced ? Mrs. M. She continued to reside at Malmaison, near Paris, and submitted to her degradation with a serenity and dignity which greatly exalted her in the eyes of the world. When the allies entered Paris the emperor Alexander paid her a visit, and behaved to her with marked respect, saying, that he was anxious to see a i Much interesting matter relative to Bonaparte's behaviour to his wife, and his generally unamiable character in private, is to be found in the Memoirs of Madame de ftemusat, who was lady-in-waiting to Josephine. Conv. NAPOLEON. 4 8 9 lady whose praises he had heard repeated in every part of France in which he had been. Josephine died soon after this interview of a violent cold. Richard. I cannot imagine anything more mortifying to the French than to see their dear Paris, of which they are so proud, taken possession of by a foreign enemy. George. It served them very right : for my part, I don't pity them in the least. The French had themselves taken possession of so many capital cities, that it was but fair they should have their own taken in turn. Mary. But then think, brothers, of the poor innocent Parisians ! Mrs. M. The Parisians, as in the wars of the League, shut their eyes to their impending danger. Even when the cannon of the allied army were within hearing, the mass of the people felt little alarm, so totally ignorant were they of the number of the enemy, and so entirely confident in the " fortune " of their emperor, who, they doubted not, would soon surround the invaders, and take them all prisoners. As some excuse for this blind folly, it ought to be added, that everything was done on the part of the government to encourage the delusion of the people. The number of the enemy was represented as being only thirty or forty thousand, and the newspapers, which were all under the direction of the government, spread the most barefaced falsehoods. Defeats were passed over, and every trifling advantage was magnified into a great victory. To favour this deceit, every prisoner of war that could be mustered was paraded with great ceremony through Paris. Not only those who had been taken in recent actions were thus exhibited, but also many of those who had been taken on former occasions were brought from their places of confinement for the purpose of swelling the apparent triumph. Richard. It is impossible that everybody could have been so deceived. There must have been some who knew the real state of affairs. Mrs. M. All who were immediately connected with Bonaparte were doubtless very well informed on the subject. The empress retired to Blois on the first approach of the allies, taking with her fifteen waggon-loads of treasure. I lately met with a curious account by an English gentleman of what he saw in Paris at this interesting period. " At daybreak of the morning," he says, " on which the empress left Paris, the disorder which had reigned all night in the Tuileries was exposed to the public. The window- shutters being opened, the wax-lights in the chandeliers were seen expiring in their sockets. The ladies were seen running from room to room, some weeping in the greatest distraction, and servants hurrying from place to place in like confusion." Y 3 49° NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. George. I should like to know what the newspapers said about the allies when they were actually in Paris. Mrs. M. In the Moniteur, which was published on the day of capitulation, little or no notice was taken of the state of public affairs. The columns of the paper were nearly filled with a critique on some dramatic works and a dissertation on the probable existence of Troy. Iiichard. But surely all attempt at deceit must then have been use- less ; for everybody that had eyes must have seen what was going on. Mrs. M. Paris, during its occupation by the allied troops, pre- sented a strange spectacle. Soldiers of many mingled nations, Eussians, Austrians, and semi-barbarians from the deserts of Tar- tary, all quartered, as it were, in one great camp. In the wide streets many of the soldiers had constructed huts, at the doors of which some of them might be seen cooking their food, others botch- ing their grotesque garments, and others looking over the booty which they had gained in their march through the country, or bar- tering it with the inhabitants, who were eagerly chaffering for pro- perty which they knew to have been the plunder of their fellow countrymen. In some places horses were tied to the trees, and were busily employing themselves in eating the bark. Around were piles of warlike accoutrements, and arms of every description, from the bows and arrows and long lances of the Tartars, to the pistols and sabres of the Europeans. But the most surprising part of this extraordinary scene was the extreme orderliness and peaceable de- meanour (with very few exceptions) of the foreign soldiers, and the composure and apparent apathy of the French under circumstances so truly humiliating. George. Well : now we have gone through the history of France, I am still as much puzzled as ever what to think of the people. Mrs. M. I believe we may think of them, as we think of our- selves : that there are good and bad people everywhere, and that all nations have their faults. Mary. But, dear mamma, are not the national faults of the French much worse than ours ? Mrs. M. We have a better government, a better form of religion, and in general a better education. Perhaps, therefore, our faults may be less excusable than theirs. Mary. And what are our faults ? Mrs. M. To speak generally, I should say, pride and arrogance in the higher classes ; and dishonesty and drunkenness in the lower. The French, I believe, as a people, are far more honest and sober than the English. Horrible murders and robberies do sometimes occur among them ; but petty thefts are extremely rare, and a dis- honest servant is scarcely known. Cony. NAPOLEOX. 491 Richard. Then, pray, what are their faults ? Mrs. M. Ferocity and insincerity. I have heard it said, and though with much hardness, yet perhaps with some truth, that " the English steal, and the French He." The title of the French to their part of this sweeping character of the two nations cannot, I am afraid, be altogether denied. On the other hand, I think we must acknowledge that the French, though passionate, and cruel when irritated, are habitually cheerful and good-natured. Frederic the Great used to say that " even misfortunes were lost upon them." The real fact, I believe, is, that they take a vivid interest in the pre- sent moment, and are so wholly occupied with it, that they forget the past, and seldom look forward to the future. George. And I am not sure whether that is not better than fret- ting about things that cannot be helped, as I am afraid is often the case with us English. Richard. Pray, mamma, which is reckoned the finest race of people, the English or the French ? Mrs. M. If you mean which is the handsomest, that must remain a mere matter of opinion. The English are in general fairer, and preserve longest the appearance of youth. But I believe you will find the French the most graceful and elegant. Richard. What I meant was, which is the strongest set of men, and which can work the best and fight the best ? Mrs. M. The English have, I understand, decidedly the advantage in muscular strength. When the two nations have been engaged in close combat, it has commonly been observed that the French make the briskest onset, but that their strength flags sooner, and that they cannot stand against the bayonet and the force of arm of the English soldiery. The French, however, are a brave nation ; and even you boys, I believe, always allow that in legs they have much the advantage over us, being more light and nimble, and that, when beaten, they can run away much faster than we can. George. That is an advantage they are heartily welcome to, and much good may it do them ! Mrs. M. The French, I suspect, are no changelings, and Time in his progress leaves them very much as he finds them. At any rate, the last century and half has made little real alteration in them, if we may rely on the description which our amiable countryman Mr. Evelyn has left us of the French of his day. " The French children," says he, " are the fairest letter Nature can show through- out the human alphabet. But though they be angels in the cradle, yet are they more like devils in the saddle; age gene- rally showing that what she so soon bestows she takes as fast away. For the French, after twenty, presently stick forty in their faces, and especially among the women, who are then extremely 492 NAPOLEON. Chap. XL. decayed, when ours, if not beautiful, are yet tolerable at those years." Richard. And now having compared the two people, let us, if you please, compare the two countries ; which do you think is the best to live in ? Mrs. M. I doubt not that the two countries, like their inhabit- ants, have each their several advantages and disadvantages. If the climate of England is not so exhilarating as that of France, we are yet exempt from those terrific storms of rain and hail which fre- quently desolate whole districts of that fine country, especially in the central and southern provinces. Mr. Arthur Young, in his agricultural tour in France, tells us that animals, and even men, are often killed by the hail, and that he himself saw a noble crop of standing corn completely beaten down by it, and the field converted into a pool of liquid mud. He also says that the flies are in the south of France a real torment, and that it is impossible to eat a meal in comfort, everything that is brought to table being presently covered with them. Bichard. Does the husbandry of France resemble ours ? Mrs. M. The husbandry of France is very various in the dif- ferent districts. Independently of the grains common to each country, there are in France three principal objects of cultivation unknown in English agriculture. These are the vine, the olive, and the maize, or Indian corn. Mr. Young divides France into four agri- cultural regions. To begin from the north : — In the first region there are no vines ; in the second no olives ; in the third no maize : but we find all in the fourth. This must of course occasion a great diversity of culture; but on the whole Mr. Young appeared to think that France was behind England in agriculture more than in any other art. Mary. Perhaps the French are improved in this respect since Mr. Young was in France. Mrs. M. On that point I can say nothing, but an English farmer would be of opinion that the minute divisions of property, and the custom which prevails in many places of the landlord and tenant sharing the produce, instead of paying and receiving rent, must be a great impediment to improvement. George. I think I heard some gentlemen who were talking of their travels say that the farming implements in France are shocking ugly, clumsy things. Mrs. M. The French, although they excel us in all works of mere ingenuity, are remarkably deficient in mechanical skill. They fre- quently procure machinery from England, but have so little know- ledge, or else so much negligence, that, when their machines get deranged, they still go on working them as long as they will hold together, instead of repairing them immediately. A.D. I 815. LOUIS XV11I. 493 Bichard. As the French, are not clever at machinery, I suppose they have not many manufactories. Mrs. M. They manufacture not only almost everything they can want for their own consumption, but also a great quantity of lace, cambrics, and silks, for exportation. The principal manufactories of hemp and flax are in Picardy, Normandy, Bretagne, and Maine. Some silk is woven in Paris, but Lyons and its vicinity are the chief seat of that manufacture. Cottons and muslins are also woven in France, and I am told that in their coloured calicoes the French as much excel us in their red dyes as it appears we excel them in our blue dyes. George. Then it should seem that in little things, as well as in great, matters are pretty evenly balanced between us. Mary. They may be so in little and in middling things, perhaps, but not in great things; for don't you remember, George, that mamma said that we have the best government and the best religion ? Mrs. M. And let us not, my dear children, be ungrateful for these inestimable advan- tages, nor by our own misconduct show ourselves undeserving of the blessings which we enjoy, or bring our country into disgrace. Fontaine de Palmier. CHAPTER XLI. LOUIS XVIII. Years after Christ, 1815 — 1824. After the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Louis, as you were told, re-entered his capital July 8th, 1815. He, at first, appointed the prince de Talleyrand to the ministry of foreign affairs, and con- tinued Fouche in his post of minister of police. But these appoint- ments were soon cancelled, and a new ministry formed under the due de Eichelieu. Towards the close of the year a law of amnesty was proposed and carried, by which, with some few reservations, a full pardon was granted to all who had taken the part of Napoleon in the recent struggle. Among the persons excepted were Ney, La- bedoyere, and Lavallette, who were apprehended and tried. The treason of the two first was evident. They had sworn allegiance to, 494 LOUIS XVIII. Chap. XLI. and had taken employment under Louis after the restoration in 1814, and nevertheless had been among the first to desert his service for that of the usurper. Yet an intense feeling in their behalf pre- vailed throughout France. At the time of Napoleon's arrival before Grenoble, in his ex- traordinary career of March, 1815, Labedoyere had the command in that town. He immediately marched out at the head of his corps, with drums beating, and the old eagle of the regiment dis- played, to salute and join the emperor. This was the first great impulse which the army received, and it may have weighed much towards the success of the enterprise. He was now condemned, and shot. Ney, duke of Elchingen, who had acquired the title of " bravest of the brave," had been one of the most distinguished of all the generals of Napoleon; and the national enthusiasm for military glory had fixed on him as its favourite hero. He is said to have promised Louis to bring Napoleon to Paris, shut up like a wild beast in an iron cage. Yet he no sooner received an invitation to espouse the cause of his former master, than he denounced the Bourbons as unfit to reign, and called upon his troops to join the emperor. He had afterwards fought at "Waterloo, and led the last unsuccessful attack on the British centre. The court-martial, which was now collected to try him, strangely declared itself incompetent to the office. He was then brought before, and condemned to death by, the chamber of peers ; and the sentence was carried into execution, but in a clandestine manner, which showed, or was thought to show, an extreme timidity in the government. The case of Lavallette was altogether romantic. He had been one of Napoleon's earliest and most intimate personal friends, and had married a niece of the empress Josephine. He had taken no office under Louis, but on the approach of Napoleon had assumed the mastership of the post-office, the station which he had held before the restoration ; and he had zealously circulated the intelligence of the emperor's rapid success, and had suppressed a proclamation issued by Louis previously to his departure from the capital. For this offence he was condemned to death; but his execution was delayed, and during the interval his wife contrived and effected his escape. Every restored monarch must be surrounded by difficulties, and probably no one was ever more entangled in them than Louis XVIII. The humiliation of the French arms, to which he owed his restora- tion, was, of itself, enough to excite a strong feeling against him. He was infirm, and of an unwieldy person, and the Parisians, and the people in general, were very ready to contrast these disadvantages with the energetic activity of Napoleon. He had expressed a natural LOUIS XVIII. 495 gratitude to the prince regent of England, for the friendly inter- ference by which he had been placed on his throne. But this natural feeling of gratitude to England made him unpopular in France. The general object of his policy was to steer between the extremes of all parties as well as he could. His chief difficulties, at least at first, were with the royalists, although he had certainly gone great lengths to satisfy them, eyen to the extent of violating in several instances the constitutional charter, which he had accepted in 1814. He had, moreover, proscribed the tricolor, and restored the spotted and white flags of the Bourbons. This last, trifling as it may seem, was probably one among the most serious of his errors. Almost all to whom French glory was dear, that is, almost all Frenchmen, felt indignant at the proscription of the flag which had triumphed at Marengo, Jena, and Austerlitz, and in so many other great battles of Napoleon. Still, however, the royalists, who had the duke and duchess of An- gouleme at their head, were not satisfied. Their party was in great strength in the chamber of deputies, and the king, therefore, in 1816, by his ministers' advice, dissolved the chamber. The elections which followed gave the predominance in the new chamber to the liberals, as the opposite party was commonly called ; and the due de Eiche- lieu, finding himself as unable to repress this party as he had been to modify that of the royalists, resigned his office in 1818. He was succeeded by the marquis Dessoles, and then by M. Decazes. De- cazes resigned in 1820, and the due de Kichelieu resumed his place in the ministry. M. Decazes had established the freedom of the press. Eichelieu restrained it, by bringing forward and carrying a law which required that all political writings should be subjected to a censorship before they were published. He carried, also, a law of arrest, and various alterations in the law of elections, which greatly increased the power of the government These measures checked for a time the influence of the liberal, or popular party, or of what was called the left, or cote gauche, of the chamber of deputies. The cote droit, of course, consisted of the royalists, or of those who were inclined to press, as far as possible, a return to the principles of the " ancien regime." Each of these sides warred on the party of the centre, or the moderate party, which was the king's own. From these dissensions in the chamber of deputies, it is satis- factory to turn to a view of the relations of France with the neigh- bouring countries. It had been provided by the treaties of alliance of 1814 and 1815 between Kussia, Austria, Prussia, and England, that special congresses, or, as they were called, re-unions, should be held from time to time by the sovereigns of these states, or their ministers, to take into consideration the state of Europe, and the 496 LOUiS XVIII. Chap. XLI. measures necessary for its repose and prosperity. The first of these re-unions was held in October, 1818, at Aix-la-Chapelle. Among the chief points then brought before the congress was that of with- drawing the foreign troops cantoned in France, concerning whom it had been provided that they either should remain for a period of five years, or might be withdrawn at the end of three years, as circumstances should direct. Their immediate removal was now agreed to unanimously. France acceded to the terms of the alliance already existing between the other four great powers of Europe. No delay was made in the actual removal of the troops ; and in a very short period not a foreign soldier was to be found in arms in any part of France. At the close of 1820 the due de Eichelieu, in the hope of con- ciliating some of the aristocrats, admitted a few of the more moderate of that party into the cabinet. Of these M. Villele was the most conspicuous. These new allies, however, soon felt dissatisfied, and resigned in the end of July, 1821. Eichelieu then retired, and a new administration, having M. Villele at its head, was announced on the 14th of December following. Another congress of sovereigns assembled at Verona in the be- ginning of 1822. The viscount Montmorency attended this congress on the part of France, and the affairs of Spain were the chief topic of its discussions. Louis, who was well aware that many political discontents were fomenting secretly within his own realm, regarded on that account with the greater apprehension the distracted condi- tion of Spain; and his minister strongly urged the congress to resort to force to restore its tranquillity. The opposition which was made on the part of England hindered the congress from doing this openly ; but it must be suspected that Montmorency foresaw that no obstacle would be presented to the interference of France, provided she kept clear of all aggrandisement of her own power by any conquests which she might make. The French ministry attempted for a time to conceal their intentions ; but at length the mask was thrown off, and in the beginning of 1823 a considerable army was marched into Spain, under the command of the duke of Angouleme. England was the only neutral power which took any offence at this proceed- ing : but though it became the subject of much animadversion in parliament, it was not generally deemed to amount to a sufficient cause for hostility. The French army crossed the Bidassoa April 7th, and entered Madrid on the 10th of May. From Madrid they advanced to and took Cadiz. On the 2nd of November the duke of Angouleme re-entered Paris in a triumphal procession : but the greater part of the army remained behind in military occupation of Spain, and the last division did not return to France till 1828. a.d. 1824. LOUIS XVIII. 497 The impression made in France by these successes was very grati- fying to the conrt. To dictate to Spain was to take once more an attitude of command in Europe ; and the duke of Angouleme was extolled as a hero, and loaded with eulogies which would have been extravagant even if applied to Napoleon. The ministers, encouraged by the popularity thus obtained, ven- tured to project new changes in the election of the members of the chamber of deputies; and also an extension, from five years to seven, of the period for which they were to serve, as in the instance of the septennial law of England. These measures, which were evidently calculated to strengthen the influence of the crown and the aristo- cracy, were accordingly introduced and carried in the spring of 1824. A general feeling also appeared at this time to prevail that the crown was resuming by degrees a very large portion, if not of its preroga- tive, yet of its power ; and so many years had now passed since the restoration, that almost all fears for the public tranquillity were fast fading away. The king himself, though not of showy or popular qualities, was yet a man of sound and good understanding. He had learned temper and caution in the hard school of adversity. He was pious, but not superstitious ; and the welfare of his country appears to have been his chief and sincere object throughout a reign, during the whole of which he was in depressed health, and frequently almost broken down by painful infirmities. He would, probably, however, have been a wiser king if he had more heartily entered into the spirit of a constitutional monarchy. Every Englishman who had at that time any free intercourse with the middle classes in France, saw plainly that amongst those classes a strong under- current of opinion was setting against the court. And though the chamber of deputies was returned by not more than 110,000 electors out of a population of not less than 29,000,000, yet there were evident indications that its sympathies with the people would increase by degrees, and to an extent not to be limited by any changes in its constitution, or in the law of elections, which any ministry could venture to propose. The complication of diseases by which the king was afflicted ex- hausted gradually his vital powers, and his existence became at length only a protracted agony, which he endured, however, with patience and resignation. The first public declaration of his being in actual danger was made September 12th, 1824, and he died on the morning of the 1 6th. He was born November 17th, 1755, and married Maria Josepha of Savoy, who died at Hartwell in 1810. On the death of Louis XVIIL, his brother Charles, who had been the comte d'Artois, mounted the throne. He married Maria Theresa of Savoy, sister to the wife of Louis XVIIL She died in 1805, and left two sons. Of these the eldest, Louis Antoine, due d' Angouleme, 498 LOUIS XVIII. Chap. XLI. on his father's accession, of course became dauphin. He married his cousin, the daughter of Louis XVI. The younger son, Charles Ferdinand due de Berri, married Maria Caroline of Naples. He was killed Feb. 13th, 1820, as he was leaving the theatre, by an assassin of the name of Louvel. This man was a political enthusiast, who declared on his trial that he had taken away the life of the duke in the intention of destroying the race of the Bourbons, who were the cause, as he thought, of the misery of the nation. The due de Berri had a daughter born Feb. 21st, 1819, and a post- humous son, Henry Charles Ferdinand, due de Bordeaux, born Sept. 29th, 1820. After the dauphin, this young prince became presump- tive heir to the crown of France. CONVEKSATION ON CHAPTER XLI. Oeorge. Pray, mamma, was not that prince de Talleyrand, whom Louis XVIII. , as you said, made his prime minister, one of the old leaders of the Revolution ? Mrs. M. He was a man of noble and indeed illustrious descent, and was born in 1754. In the early part of his life he entered the church, and at the opening of the Revolution was bishop of Autun : but afterwards (I believe it was during Bonaparte's first consulship) he obtained a brief from the pope by which he was released from his ecclesiastical vows. In 1789 he was one of the deputies to the states- general, and espoused the most violent principles of the Revolution, of which he was a zealous and active leader. In 1792 he went to England on some secret mission or design ; but his footsteps were watched by the royalist emigrants, who denounced him to the English government, and procured an order for him to leave the kingdom. Not daring, at that time, to return to France, he sought an asylum in the United States of America, where he remained till the reign of terror was over, when he again sought the shores of his own country. Under the rule of the directory he was made minister of foreign affairs, and he afterwards held the same station for a considerable time under Bonaparte, in whose elevation to the supreme authority by the revolution of November 1799 he is supposed to have had a very large share. Bonaparte by turns caressed and insulted him ; but knowing his great abilities, always feared him. In 1814 he took part in the restoration of the Bourbons, and was sent by Louis to the congress of Vienna as French ambassador. Napoleon, on his return from Elba, endeavoured to gain him over once more to his own cause. But Talleyrand was too wily a politician not to see that his old master's cause was now a desperate one. He remained firm to Conv. LOUIS XVIII. 499 his new master, and, as you have been told, had the seals of the foreign office confided to him on the second restoration in 1815. But he soon found it necessary to resign them. He then retired for a time from public life. In 1830 he was made ambassador to Eng- land. He died 20th May, 1838, in his eighty-fourth year. He retained, to extreme old age, his activity of mind, and his power of turning and sifting other people as he pleased, while he suffered no one to gain the least insight into his own thoughts. His manner was always guarded, and his countenance absolutely imperturbable. His habits of life were very licentious when he was young, and he had the reputation of being the most artful man in Europe. George. Well ! that is the last species of reputation that I should be ambitious of, either for myself or any of my friends. But what became of our old friend M. Fouche ? Mrs. M. During the eventful hundred days of 1815, M. Fouche appears to have been a traitor to both parties at once, and on the second restoration he assumed so much merit on account of the ser- vices which he had rendered to the Bourbons, that he was continued, as you were told, in office for a time. He was afterwards made ambassador to Dresden, by way of sending him into a sort of honourable banishment; but was at last denounced as a regicide, and condemned to death in case he re-entered the French terri- tory. He died at Trieste in 1820. Mary. I dare say, mamma, that all those people were of a great deal more consequence ; but I have been longing all this time to ask you something about the count Lavallette whom you mentioned, and how his wife managed to bring about his escape from prison. Mrs. M. On Lavallette's arrest in 1815 he was confined in the prison of the Conciergerie. His wife was admitted to see him there; and after having tried in vain to procure his pardon, she contrived a plan for him to escape in a female dress, while she herself remained behind in his place. There are many stories of the escapes of other prisoners in the same way, as, for example, the account of lady Niths- dale's extricating her husband from the Tower of London, in the reign of George I. But there is no other story of the kind which takes a more powerful hold of our feelings than this of madame Lavallette. When she first proposed her scheme to her husband, he was un- willing to agree to it. He thought, as he tells us in the account of his escape which he gives in his Memoirs, that it was an attempt which could not succeed, and he shrank from the ridicule of being detected in the disguise proposed. Nor was he less reluctant to expose a wife whom he tenderly loved to the brutality with which the gaolers might treat her when found in the prison. Madame Lavallette, however, would not listen to any of these objections. " I die," she said to him, " if you die. Do not therefore reject my 500 LOUIS XVIII. Chap. XLI. plan. I know that it will succeed. I feel that God supports me ! " " How," he then adds, " could I refuse ? Emilie appeared so happy in her plan ; so sure of its success. It would be killing her not to give my consent." Accordingly, on the very evening before he expected to be taken to execution, madame Lavallette, accompanied by her daughter, came to the prison. A little before seven o'clock Lavallette put on his disguise. His wife particularly cautioned him to stoop, that he might not break the feathers of his bonnet, as he passed through the doors of a large room in which the turnkeys were stationed : and she also cautioned him to walk slowly, like a person overcome by fatigue, and to cover his face with a handkerchief. When the anxious moment arrived, Lavallette himself went first, then Ms daughter, and afterwards an old nurse who had come with her. Lavallette, you may be sure, did not forget to stoop as he went through the door of the large room. On raising his head he found himself in the presence of five turnkeys. He put his hand- kerchief to his face, and waited for his daughter to come up, as she had been instructed to do, to his left side, that he might by that means avoid the politeness of the gaoler, who had been used to con- duct madame Lavallette by her left hand through the apartment. The child, by mistake, went to her father's right, and thus gave room for the gaoler to come up in his usual way, and to put his hand on her arm, and to say, " You are going away early, madame." The man was evidently affected, and thought he was speaking to a wife who had just been taking a last leave of her husband. The anxious party reached at length the end of the room, and were let out by the turnkey stationed there. They had still a few steps to ascend to reach the yard ; and at the bottom of these steps they encountered about twenty soldiers headed by their officer, who had placed themselves at a few paces distance to see madame Laval- lette pass. On reaching the top of the steps Lavallette went immediately into a sedan-chair which had been stationed on that spot by his wife, as if to wait her own return. But no chairmen were there ; nor yet the servant who had been sent to see that they should be at their posts. Lavallette sat alone in the chair about two minutes, — " minutes," he says, " which seemed to me as long as a whole night." At last he heard the servant's voice, saying, " One of the chairmen was not punctual, but I have found another." At the same instant he found himself raised. The chair set him down in the Quai des Orfevres, and he then got into a cabriolet which was waiting for him. As he was driving off he saw his daughter standing on the Quai, her hands clasped, fervently offering up her prayers to God. In the carriage he threw off his female dress, and put on a livery ; and he was then conducted to a place of conceal- Conv. LOUIS XVIII. 501 ment, where he continued about three weeks, before measures could be concerted for his making his escape out of France. A remarkable part of the story is, that this place, in which he lay- three weeks concealed, was an apartment in the hotel of the due de Eichelieu, the prime minister. The occupier of this part of the hotel was a M. Bresson, who held an office under the government, a man not supposed to have any particular sympathies with the friends of Napoleon, but led to risk the giving an asylum on this occasion to poor Lavallette by the having formerly had a similar good deed done to himself. He had been a member of the national convention, and had spoken and voted against the death of Louis XVI. In the violent times which followed, he was outlawed, and was obliged to fly. He found a retreat in the mountains of the Vosges, in the home of some kind people who received and concealed both him and his wife. Madame Bresson then made a vow that, if Providence should ever give her the opportunity, she would endeavour to show her gratitude for this preservation of herself and her husband, by saving the life of some other person in similar circumstances. One of Lavallette's friends, knowing that she had made this vow, applied to her now to fulfil it; and both she and M. Bresson gladly consented to receive the fugitive, and took all possible care of him till he could leave Paris. Two British officers, sir Bobert Wilson and captain Hutchinson, and their friend Mr. Bruce, got him off to Mons in the disguise of an English officer of the guards ; and from Mons he went into Bavaria. Sir Kobert Wilson and his two friends were appre- hended on the charge of having aided his escape ; and in the fol- lowing year were tried and found guilty, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. After six years of exile Lavallette was permitted to return to France, and there passed the remainder of his days in retirement. He died in the spring of 1830. Mary. And I hope that he and his gallant wife were at last quite comfortable and happy together. But did not she go to him when he was in Bavaria ? Mrs. M. Ah, my dear girl ! there comes the sad part of tne story. About five minutes after her husband's departure, the turnkey entered the prison, and there found madame Lavallette quite alone. She was kept six weeks in confinement, and is said to have been treated with coarseness and severity. Either from this cause, or more probably from that extreme revulsion of spirits which often succeeds very violent agitations of mind, she fell into a state of dis- tressing melancholy and depression, from which she does not seem ever to have completely recovered. On her husband's return to France she is said not to have known him. She was at this time living in some place of retreat for persons of deranged mind. At 502 CHARLES X. Chap. XLII. last her health recovered sufficiently to allow her husband to take her home. "Her deep melancholy/' he says of her in his Memoirs, " throws her frequently into fits of abstraction ; but she is always equally mild, amiable, and good. We pass the summer in a retired country house, where she seems to enjoy herself." Lavallette him- self did all that could be done for her by care and affectionateness, and by devoting to her the life which she had saved. Mary. This is, indeed, a most sad ending of the story : but still I hope that poor madame Lavallette was able to know that her husband at last came back to her. CHAPTER XLII. CHARLES X. Years after Christ, 1824 — 1830. The new sovereign of France was, in point of understanding, very inferior to his brother ; but he was good-humoured and affable, and had greatly endeared himself, during his exile in England, to all persons with whom he was in habits of society. His great mis- fortune was, that he was too much influenced by the party of the ultra-royalists. His first measure, however, in behalf of a consider- able body of persons who were, mostly, members of that party, was by no means generally unpopular. In 1825 an act was passed to indemnify the heirs, or, if still alive, the original proprietors, of the estates confiscated and sold during the Eevolution, by granting them annuities from the public funds. Tins tardy justice, a justice which, indeed, was not only tardy, but also imperfect (for the annuities granted are not supposed to have been real equivalents), was all that now remained to be done. This measure was highly acceptable to the existing possessors of the lands, who had often felt apprehensive that they themselves might be called on to restore them, in case of the predominance of the aristocratical party. And the claim of the parties to whom the annuities were granted was the more apparent, because the unsold lands had been previously restored, partly by Napoleon, and partly by Louis, to the rightful inheritors. Thus far all went smoothly, but in the same year was unfor- tunately commenced a system of hostility to the press and the popular party winch did not terminate but with the reign. In 1827 seventy-six new peers were created, for the purpose of in- creasing the influence of the crown in the chamber of peers. The chamber of representatives was also dissolved, in the hope that the a.d. 1830. CHARLES X. 503 new elections would prove favourable to the court. But these measures proved wholly unsuccessful. The result of the elections was to weaken instead of strengthening the ministers, who conse- quently resigned ; and the king was left, for the time, without any other resource than to appoint an administration composed of persons of more liberal politics. On the 8th of Angust, 1829, this administration was dissolved, and a new one appointed which had for its head prince Jules de Polignac, a person whose very name was obnoxious to the people from the recollections which it recalled of the influence supposed to have been exercised by his family over the mind of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Prince Jules, who was now recalled from Eng- land, where he was ambassador, was received in Paris as the creature of the duke of Wellington, and the head of a faction supported by English intrigue. The popular leaders spread a general persuasion that the court would attempt to rule without a legislature, or, at least, to remodel the elective system to their own purposes, in some much more effective way than before. The chambers met March 2nd, 1830, and evidently showed that they shared these suspicions. No act had yet proceeded from the new cabinet which could be construed into a direct attack on the public liberties; but the address of the deputies, in answer to the speech from the throne, breathed so hostile a spirit, that the king again dissolved the chamber. A few days afterwards new changes were made in the ministry. These, however, neither gave it strength, nor altered its character, and, in fact, argued little else than the imbecility of a cabinet which was perpetually shifting its members without any visible object or effect. The elections to the new chamber, which was appointed to meet on the 3rd of August, augmented again the power of the opposition. What the result would be of its assembling under such circumstances, it was impossible to anticipate without great appre- hension. The general opinion was that the ministers would give way. If the voice of the chambers should still be against them, as would plainly be the case, they would be unable to carry their measures, except by force, and no preparation for the use of force was anywhere made. In 1827 the French government had sent a fleet under admiral de Eigny to the coast of the Morea to join the English in putting a stop to the barbarous warfare between the Greeks and the Turks. De Eigny, and the English admiral, Codrington, acted in concert in the battle fought in Navarino bay, in which the Turkish fleet was destroyed, and France, in like manner, subsequently became a party to the treaties by which Greece was finally extricated from the Turkish yoke, and made, at least ostensibly, an independent state. 504 CHARLES. X. Chap. XLII. In the same year some disputes took place with Algiers, and a blockading squadron was despatched there to demand satisfaction. Some slight hostilities followed ; but these were only a prelude to the sending a formidable army there three years afterwards. This army, which consisted of no less than 37,000 men, sailed from Toulon on the 25th of May, 1830. It was commanded by the comte de Bourmont, who had been originally a Vendean chief, but had tarnished his reputation by his readiness to join all parties, and had teen a Bourbonist and a Bonapartist by turns. On June 14th, after encountering nmch hazy and baffling weather, the army was landed on the coast of Africa, at about fifteen miles to the west of Algiers. On the 4th of July, as the French were preparing to assault one of the forts, the dey sent a flag of truce to treat for peace, and the terms finally settled were that the town should be delivered up to France, and that the inhabitants should retain their private property and personal liberty, together with the free exercise of their religion. The dey himself was expelled, and finally took up his abode at Naples. It had been originally announced that this expe- dition had been fitted out for the purpose of causing the French flag to be respected by the piratical states, and not with any view to a permanent conquest. The news of this success reached Paris on the 9th of July, and it was for a moment hoped that it might gain some popularity for the ministers. The public feeling was, however, by this time too much decided to be easily turned. On the 26th the king issued six ordi- nances by which the liberty of the press was abolished ; the newly elected chamber of deputies dissolved, though it had not yet met ; a new mode of election appointed; and several individuals very obnoxious to the people nominated as members of the council of state. The intelligence of this subversion (for it was nothing less) of the charter was first communicated to the public by the appear- ance of the ordinances in the government newspaper. Even mare- chal Marmont, who had the military command, and was the person to be relied on to suppress any tumult or insurrection, had not been apprised of what was intended. The king passed the day in hunting, and the ministers, although some mobs collected in Paris, and broke lamps and windows, and threw stones at prince Polignac's carriage, were so blind to their danger that they even congratulated each other on the tranquillity of the capital. But these congratulations were very premature. All the next day the agitation went on increasing. The military were called out, and in some places the collected multitudes were charged by the cavalry. In other places, after much forbearance, the streets were cleared by volleys of musketry. By these means a temporary repose was obtained at an early hour of the night, and a.d. 1830. CHARLES X. 505 the ministers again hoped that the contest was come to an end. Many persons also have thought that, if the ensuing night had been passed by the government in active preparation for the more serious contest of the next day, the insurrection might still have been sup- At an early hour of the morning of the 28th large bodies of people were everywhere in motion. At nine o'clock the tricolor flag was seen to wave from the top of the cathedral of Notre Dame, and at eleven from the central tower of the Hotel de Ville. On this morning there also appeared in the throng several armed citizens arrayed in the old uniform of the national guard. The ministers declared the town in a state of siege, and Marmont, who had been disgusted at the weakness and precipitation which had brought affairs into this dangerous state, was now seriously alarmed for the result, and advised measures of pacification. No attention was paid to this recommendation, and at midday he put the guards in mo- tion. A series of contests ensued in all parts of the town, some of which lasted till late at night. The troops fought under the disad- vantage of being plunged in narrow and crowded streets, in which, though, when they could act together, they surmounted all opposi- tion, they were exposed to a harassing fire from the windows, and to the hurling down on their heads of stones and tiles, or any other missiles that could be found. Even boiling water and oil were used as instruments of warfare on this occasion ; and it is said that one lady and her maid contrived to throw down a pianoforte on the heads of the adverse party in the streets. The scene on which the contest of this day took the most serious appearance was the Place de Greve, and the north end of Pont Notre Dame. Of these stations the guards took possession, though under a series of incessant attacks. But the troops of the line which had been appointed to support them refused to act, and the guards were therefore at length compelled to retire, first to the Hotel de Ville, and afterwards to the Tuileries. There is no doubt that Marmont had exposed his troops to these repulses by frittering them into small bodies ; but his heart had never been in the cause for winch he was fighting. He was pledged by the office which he bore to obey the orders of the government, but he saw and felt, at the same time, that it was going wrong. In the mean time some of the deputies to the new chamber, which the king had dissolved, endeavoured, but in vain, to restore tran- quillity. They had assembled on the 27th, and had protested against the fatal ordinances of the day before. On the 28th a body of them proceeded to the Tuileries, and had an audience of Marmont, who tried to persuade them to use their influence with the people to make them submit. They replied that the ordinances must be France. Z 506 CHARLES X. Chap. XLIL repealed, and the ministers changed, before any conciliation conld be attempted, and that, if these things were not done, they mnst themselves take part against the government. Marmont wrote at five in the afternoon to the king, to express his opinion of the great danger of the crisis which had arrived, but received in return only an injunction to persevere in the use of force, and to act in larger masses than before. The night of the 29th was passed by the populace in erecting bar- ricades across the principal streets, to hinder them from being pene- trated or scoured by the troops. On the evening of the 27th they had made, in some places, a rude sort of blockade with carriages and omnibuses. They now broke up the pavement at intervals, and heaped it into mounds, winch they augmented with planks and pieces of furniture ; and they also cut down, and employed in the same manner, the trees of the Boulevards. All these preparations, how- ever, were not brought to the trial. The soldiers, instructed by their experience of the day before, did not attempt to penetrate again into the narrow streets, and maintained themselves during the whole of the morning of the next day in their positions. The popu- lace made several skirmishing attacks, and some of them fell by the fire of the guards. The first approach to a decision of the contest was by the deser- tion of the regiments of the line, at about noon of this day, the 29th. But before this was known, or during an interval in which the guards had been removed from their post, the populace made way into the garden in front of the Louvre, and thence, entering through the windows and glass doors, took possession of the whole interior of the edifice. The remainder of the guards were compelled to fly in disorder ; they rallied for a time in the Place de Carrousel, but were not supported, and were again obliged to retire. Shortly afterwards Marmont relinquished the possession of the city to the insurgents. He withdrew all the troops whom his orders could reach, and di- rected them to take the road to St. Cloud, in order to protect the person of the king. And thus, by three in the afternoon, Paris was left entirely at the command of the populace. The ministers now tendered their resignations; and the king, seeing the necessity of the case, signed an order, by which he re- pealed the obnoxious decrees, and appointed a new ministry com- posed of men attached to popular principles. But before this order could be received in Paris, the Parisians had determined that he should not be permitted to reascend the throne. As soon as the retreat of Marmont and his troops was ascertained, the deputies in Paris proclaimed a provisional government. The national guard was called out, and general La Fayette was appointed to take the command. The personal influence and popularity of a.d. 1830. CHARLES X. 507 this veteran was exceedingly great with all classes of citizens. All his orders were willingly obeyed ; and it is thought to have been greatly through the weight of Ins individual character that order and police were restored throughout the whole city before the close of the day. It is also remarked that no instance has been recorded in which the disorder of these three days was made the occasion of any plunder, or of gratifying any private malice. Such was the Eevolution of the llwee Bays. Never before, pro- bably, was any contest of so much moment begun and ended so rapidly. There is a story of a party of Englishmen, who had arrived in Paris just at the time on a tour of pleasure ; and who never found out what was going on. They perceived that there was a violent tumult, but, being ignorant of the French language, did not discover its meaning, till they learnt on their return home, from the English newspapers, that they had been " assisting," as the phrase was, at a revolution. On the 30th of July the deputies invited the duke of Orleans to place himself at the head of the government, with the title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The duke accepted the oifer without delay ; and on the following morning issued a proclamation announcing his appointment, and adding, that the chambers were about to assemble, to consider means to secure the reign of the laws, and the maintenance of the rights of the nation, and that the charter should henceforward be a reality. He afterwards met the deputies and the members of the provisional government at the Hotel de Ville, and pledged himself still more strongly to the most popular principles. In the mean time the intelligence of these events was joyfully re- ceived as it spread into all parts of the kingdom. The tricolor flag waved everywhere. The troops submitted to the orders of the new government, the guards only continuing so far their adherence to the court as to deem it their duty still to protect the person of the sovereign. All further contest was hopeless. The court with- drew on the 31st of July from St. Cloud to Trianon, and on the fol- lowing day to Eambouillet. Here, on the 2nd of August, the king and the dauphin signed an act of abdication, the one of the crown itself, the other of his right of succession, in favour of the king's infant grandson the duke of Bordeaux, the son of the unfortunate due de Berri. This act of abdication the king addressed to the duke of Orleans, and required him to proclaim the accession of Henry V. No such resource, however, to save the crown for this last scion of the direct stock of the Bourbons was now available. The duke of Orleans, either in his eagerness to be king himself, or because he felt that the proposition came too late, suppressed, in announcing the king's and the dauphin's abdication, the stipulation coupled z 2 _ — , 508 CHARLES X. Chap. XLII. with it as to the duke of Bordeaux. But that the stipulation had been made was publicly known, and the news threw the capital again into some confusion. The mob prepared in thousands to march to Kambouillet, in pro- bably much the same temper in which, in the disastrous period of August, 1789, another mob of Paris had marched to Versailles. But the king, though he had still guards who might, and probably would, have defended him successfully against an undisciplined multitude, determined not to prolong an unavailing resistance. He set out for Cherbourg, and on the next day dismissed his guards, retaining only a small escort. After a journey in which he was everywhere treated with respect, but not received with any indications of attachment, he arrived at that port August 15th. He reached England on the 17th, and, after a short residence at Lulworth Castle in Dorsetshire, proceeded to Edinburgh, where the ancient palace of Holyrood, which had been his place of abode during a great part of his former exile, once more afforded him an asylum. The chamber of deputies proceeded on the 6th and 7th of August to revise the charter, and to make the formal appointment of the new sovereign. They declared the throne to be vacant; that not only the Eoman Catholic, but that all ministers of Christianity (and to these were added at a later period those of the Jews) should be supported at the public expense ; and that all the peerages granted during the reign of Charles X. should be null and void. Finally they resolved that Louis Philippe duke of Orleans should be called to the throne, by the title not of king of France, but king of the French, as Napoleon had been entitled emperor of the French, not of France ; and that he should be succeeded by his descendants in the direct male line only, in the order of birth. These resolutions of the house of deputies were transmitted on the same day (August 7) to the chamber of peers, though rather as a matter of courtesy than with any recognition of that house as pos- sessing an independent voice in the legislature. The viscount Cha- teaubriand spoke, but in vain, in behalf of the claims of the duke of Bordeaux. The declaration of the deputies was adopted, and on the 9th the constitution as thus created was formally tendered to, and accepted by, the new sovereign. Charles X. died at Goritz in Carniola, November 6th, 1836, and his son, the due d'Angouleme, who, as I have already said, had re- nounced the succession for himself, immediately proclaimed the duke of Bordeaux king of France and Navarre, by the title of Henry V. a.d. 1830. LOUIS PHILIPPE. 509 CHAPTER XLIII. LOUIS PHILIPPE. Years after Christ, 18 30-1 848. Louis Philippe was born at Paris, October 6th, 1773. When he was nine years old, his education was confided to the celebrated comtesse de Genlis. In 1791, being then due de Chartres, he com- manded a regiment of dragoons, and in 1792 he served as lieutenant- general under Dumourier, and distinguished himself in the battle of Jemappes against the Austrians. In 1793, finding that there was no longer any safety in France for a prince of his family, he emigrated to Switzerland. He afterwards visited Norway and Sweden ; and in 1796 took refuge in the United States of America, where he was joined in the following year by his two brothers, the due de Montpensier and the comte de Beaujolais. In 1800 the three brothers came to England, where they established themselves for some years in a villa at Twickenham. During these years the duke of Orleans visited many parts of this country, and impressed all who became acquainted with him with a very high opinion of his abilities. After the fall of Napoleon he returned to Paris, and the command, of the department of the North was intrusted to him by Louis XVIII. during the early part of the eventful year 1815. But on the second restoration the part which he took with the liberal or popular party offended the court, and he consequently found himself obliged to retire into private life, in which he conti- nued till placed on the throne by the revolution of 1830. Whether he judged wisely to exchange, for that fatiguing and hazardous station, the peaceful enjoyment of the resources of his well-stored mind, and of his ample fortune, can only be known by those who can determine whether he acted from a sense of duty to his country, or from the temptation of personal aggrandisement. France, and Paris especially, appear to have been divided at the accession of the new monarch into three principal parties. Two of the parties were desirous to uphold a regal government ; but of these, the one desired to impose very strict constitutional restrictions on the power of the crown and the other to restore by degrees much of its ancient influence and authority. The third party was that of the Eepublicans— men who had inherited the principles of the revolu- tion of 1789, and of whom some had been lying in wait ever since the restoration of Louis XVIIL, and probably through the reign of 5 1 o LOUIS PHILIPPE. Chap. XLTII. Napoleon also, for an opportunity of reasserting them. This last party was comparatively dormant at first, bnt was guided, although in secret, by resolute and persevering leaders, ready to avail them- selves of every popular discontent, and who appear to have bei;ii the organizers or prompters of the many plots and outbreaks against the government, and of many of those reiterated attempts on the king's life, which are among the strongest features of the history of his reign. In 1831 several riots took place in Paris; but these seemed to arise chiefly out of the distresses of the workmen, whom their employers, in consequence of the interruption of commerce, and industry by the late convulsion, had been compelled to dis- charge. The turbulent population of Lyons broke out into fierce revolt on the 21st of November in the same year, and on the 23rd compelled the garrison, with which there had been several bloody conflicts in the streets, to withdraw from the town. This insurrec- tion was so serious that the duke of Orleans and marshal Soult, at the head of a body of 26,000 men, were sent to quell it. The next scene of great violence which occurred was in Paris, at the funeral of one of Napoleon's generals, general Lamarque, who had lately come forward as a zealous friend of the popular party. The day of the funeral was June 5, 1832. The tumult was extreme ; much fighting ensued, and oiclerwas not restored till, on the morn- ing of the following day, artillery was brought to bear on the barri- cades which had been erected in the streets, and after a heavy and incessant firing of some hours Many other riots followed in subse- quent years, both in Paris and in the provincial towns. These were chiefly occasioned by the strikes of workmen, and the most consider- able of them was another insurrection in Lyons in April, 1834, in which 129 of the military and 200 of the rioters are said to have been killed. Another marked characteristic of this reign consists in the almost perpetual changes of ministry during its first ten years. To mention only a few: M. Lafitte, the banker, was made president of the council, or prime minister, Nov. 3rd, 1830; M. Casimir Perier was appointed in 1831, but died in 1832, and was succeeded by marshal Soult; count Mole was placed at the head of a new ministry in 1836 ; M. Thiers became first minister March 1st, 1840, but resigned in October; and a new cabinet was then formed under marshal Soult and M. Guizot. The name of Soult had long been celebrated throughout Europe as that of one of the most distinguished of the generals of Napoleon. Both M. Thiers and M. Guizot are well- known as historians. M. Thiers was devoted to the popular interest in the constitution, but desirous to conciliate it at the same time with the preservation of the monarchy. He appears to have been inclined also to encourage the disposition (always popular with a.d. i832. LOUIS PHILIPPE. 5" large bodies of men in France) for war, and for a war with England, especially, but was held in check by the king. M. Guizot was the son of a Protestant lawyer at Nismes, where he was born, October 4th, 1787. His father was guillotined April 8th, 1794, during the excesses of the first revolution ; and the son, then a child of between six and seven years old, was barbarously called on to witness the execution. His mother then took him to Geneva, where he was educated. He began life as a lawyer, but afterwards gave himself up to the study of history, politics, and literature. He translated Gibbon's History into French, and subjoined to it extremely valuable notes, and published many other works of importance. The writings, however, by which he is best known are, a History of the Civilisation of Europe and a History of France, in which he traced, with great learning and penetration, the progress of society and of the municipal institu- tions of his country, from the decay of the Eoman empire to modern times. In 1839 he was made ambassador to London, but was recalled to Paris in 1840 as minister of foreign affairs, and continued in that station till the events of February, 1848, com- pelled him, like his royal master, to take refuge in England. To return, however, to 1832. In the month of March in this year the formidable disease entitled the cholera, which had made its first appearance in England in the preceding autumn, visited Paris, and, as is said, without having shown itself previously in any of the fron- tier towns. The deaths in Paris by this disease, between March 26th and August 30th, were reported to amount to 18,000. In June, 1832, a weak attempt was made in La Vendee by the duchess de Berri to assert the claim of her son, Henry V., to the French crown. But this attempt was instantly suppressed, and the duchess was compelled to take refuge in a place of concealment at Nantes. On being here discovered, she was sent prisoner to Blaye, where, on the 10th of May following, she gave birth to a daughter, and was obliged to confess that she had been privately married in Italy to a count Palli. This event annulled at once her influence with her party, and the sympathy felt for her as the widow of the duke de Berri. She was set at liberty as soon as she could be safely removed, and was conveyed with her infant to Sicily in a French vessel. In the mean time Belgium had revolted against Holland. The Belgians had never been altogether reconciled to the forced union with that country, to which they had been compelled by the con- gress of Vienna in 1815 ; and the first intelligence of the events of July, 1830, in Paris, was received greedily in Brussels, and pro- duced riots which the prince of Orange vainly attempted to quell by force, and which led eventually to a declaration of independence 512 LOUIS PHILIPPE. Chap. XLIII. by a national congress of Belgium. This congress assembled at Brussels, November 10th of the same year. In the February follow- ing the crown of Belgium was offered to the duke de Nemours ; but Louis Philippe could not venture to allow his son to embrace an offer of which the acceptance would have excited the jealousy of the other powers of Europe ; and, consequently, prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, the widowed husband of the princess Charlotte of England, was elected king of the Belgians June 4th, 1831. The contest with Holland was still going on ; but the five great powers, as they are called, namely, France, England, Austria, Eussia, and Prussia, agreed to recognise the independence of Belgium, and France and England engaged to support it by arms. Against so overwhelming a confederacy the king of Holland could have no hope of eventual success. The war continued, however, for some time, and the cita- del of Antwerp was maintained by a Dutch garrison, under the command of general Chasse, during almost the whole of the year 1831. A combined French and English fleet entered the Scheldt in the beginning of November ; and on the 30th of the same month a French army, under the command of marshal Gerard, encamped before the citadel, and, after sending a summons to surrender, which general Chasse would not accept, commenced the active ope- rations of the siege. The garrison made a most brave resistance, but was at length reduced to capitulate. Nearly all the other military operations of this reign were confined to the new French colony in Algeria. A series of almost perpetual conflicts here took place between the French armies and the Moors or Arabs who surrounded them, especially with Abd el Kader, the native chief of the province of Mascara, at the foot of the Atlas. In May, 1843, a war was entered into with Morocco, and in the month of August, in the same year, three French ships of the line, under the command of the king's third son, the prince de Joinville, bombarded Tangier. Other hostilities followed, but peace was re- stored with Morocco in the ensuing month. In September, 1845, Abd el Kader attacked and cut to pieces a considerable body of French, and in April, 1846, massacred 300 prisoners, one only escaping. In the December of the following year, however, Abd el Kader himself was compelled to surrender to the duke d'Aumale, Louis Philippe's fourth son, then governor of Algiers, and was sent prisoner to France. During the whole course of these events the position both per- sonal and political of the king himself became more and more anxious every day. The many jealousies of which he was the sub- ject, and the rooted animosity of the republicans, do not appear to have ever slept during his whole reign, and seven, if not more, direct attempts were made to assassinate him. The most remarkable of a.d. 1835- LOUIS PHILIPPE. 513 these was made on July 28th, 1835, one of the three days appointed to commemorate the revolution of 1830. While he was riding along the Boulevards, accompanied by three of his sons, a violent explosion issued from a window which overlooked the line of procession. Both Louis himself and the princes escaped unhurt ; but no less than four- teen persons were killed on the spot, and forty others were wounded. This discharge was found on examination to have come from a machine constructed of twenty-four musket-barrels, laid horizon- tally on a single frame, and so adjusted as to be raised or lowered according to the angle required. The touch-holes communicated by means of a train of gunpowder, and consequently all the barrels could be discharged at once. The window behind which it was placed stood open ; but the machine had been screened by Persian blinds, which were not removed till the moment of the explosion ; and it is probable that some delay in removing them saved the king. The discharge took place immediately behind him, and one of the bullets wounded his horse. The wretch who was guilty of this crime, a Corsican named Fieschi, was seized and guillotined. Another of these attempts was made June 25th, 1836, by discharging a walking-stick gun into the king's carriage, at the moment when he was bending forward to return a salute. The ball passed behind his head, but some of the wadding lodged in his hair. Another attempt was made at Fontainbleau in April, 1846; and another, but this by a man who appears to have been insane, in the month of June in the same year, while he was standing on the balcony of the Tuileries. All friends of order rejoiced sincerely in the king's escape from these many dangers ; and in England especially it was felt that his life was the surest safeguard which existed, both of the tranquillity of France and of the peace of Europe. On the other hand, however, the ties of friendship by which the king was connected with England, though arising chiefly out of the hospitality with which he had been received in that country during his exile, added to his unpopularity at home. The national jealousy of England had not subsided during the many years of peace which had succeeded to the long war of the Eevolution. In 1839 a war had almost arisen out of a difference respecting the conduct to be pursued in the contest then going on between Turkey and Egypt. About the same time the prince de Joinville acquired a sort of popularity by bringing forward a scheme for destroying, in the case of another war, the undefended English towns and villages on the coast of the Channel ; and in 1844 a demand for the redress of an outrage on the British consul in Tahiti created an angry feeling in France which it was hard to subdue. The feeling excited in Paris on the first of these two occasions enabled the king to procure an almost universal assent to a plan of encircling the whole city by a strong z 3 5i 4 LOUIS PHILIPPE. Chap. XLIII. fortification, by which it might be protected from any future attempt by an invading enemy. "Works, said to be constructed on a plan of Napoleon, had been raised, at almost the beginning of the reign, on the great roads leading to the Boulevards, and in the session of 1835 the minister of war moved for a grant of two millions of francs for carrying them on. The grant was on this occasion refused by the chamber of deputies ; but the measure, on being brought forward again four years afterwards, was carried without difficulty. It is probable that Louis's chief real object was to bridle the turbulent population of his own city. Certainly his own amicable feeling to- wards England never changed. In 1843 he received a visit from queen Victoria and prince Albert, at the chateau d'Eu, near Tre- port. In the following year he himself paid a short visit to Windsor, and the English queen and prince Albert came again for one day to the chateau d'Eu in 1845. In 1816 the duke de Montpensier, Louis Philippe's youngest son, married the infanta Louisa Fernanda of Spain, a marriage, the circumstances of which recall the attention to the accession of Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., in 1700, and to the introduction of the Salic law into Spain at that time. This law had been abro- gated in 1789, but re-enacted in 1812. Ferdinand VII., who had been restored in 1814, died in 1833. He had married Christina, a daughter of the king of Naples, and sister of the queen of the French, and left two daughters, but no son. On his death the question arose whether the re-enactment of the Salic law should be deemed valid, or whether Isabella, the elder daughter, should suc- ceed, her father. Queen Christina asserted of course her daughter's claim, which was supported also by Portugal, England, and France. But don Carlos, Ferdinand's brother, who was the male heir, ap- pealed to arms; and a civil war between the Carlists and the Christinos, or the party of queen Christina, who had been appointed regent, immediately followed. This war raged with great violence for several years, but was finally terminated by the defeat of the Carlists and the establishment of Isabella in possession of the crown. A Spanish legion, which had been recruited in England, did good service in this civil war to the Christino cause. The king of the French had at first contemplated the marriage of one of his sons with queen Isabella; but the English government remonstrated warmly against this direct revival of the family compact between the two crowns. Queen Isabella, on the same day on which her sister was married to the duke de Montpensier, married the duke of Cadiz, a son of don Francesco de Paula, who was her father's brother; and the only political result as far as France was con- cerned of these transactions was to augment the general suspicion that the king desired to govern in the strength of his own family a.d. 1847. LOUIS PHILIPPE. 515 claims and connections, and not in right of the popular invitation by which he had been called to the throne. Many other causes concurred to strengthen the same feeling. The hereditary peerage had been abolished in the session of 1831, and at the same time an alteration had been made in the qualifica- tions both of the electors to the chamber of deputies, and of the members themselves. By this alteration the qualification of an elector, which had previously been fixed at the payment of 300 francs a-year in direct taxes, was reduced to 200, and the qualifica- tion of a deputy from 1000 francs to 500. It was calculated that this alteration increased the number of electors from less than 100,000 to 280,000 throughout France. The votes were also taken by ballot, as a supposed security against undue influence and cor- ruption. But still this constituency was regarded as very narrow and inadequate. It was moreover a constituency rapidly diminishing, in consequence of the division of properties which was continually going on under the operation of the French law of inheritance. By that law a father's estate, whether large or small, is always neces- sarily divided amongst his children, and consequently the land on which the land-tax, or contribution fonciere, gave the father a quali- fication to vote, would often, and indeed commonly, yield none at his death. The inadequacy of this suffrage was also the more glaring, because the great number of public offices which were at the dis- posal of the government provided means, and means which were said to be very unsparingly used, of corrupting both the deputies and their constituents, and so bringing them into subserviency to the court. In a chamber consisting in the whole of 45y members, upwards of 200 either held government offices, or had salaries. Petitions for a further reform had been presented to the chambers in the session of 1835, but without being listened to ; the discontent on the subject had gone on steadily increasing; and the increase of taxation throughout the country was also loudly complained of. In this state of the public feeling, a motion for reforming the elections was brought forward in the chamber in the session of 1847, but was rejected. The popular party throughout the country then took up the cause, Paris set the example, which was followed by many of the provincial towns ; and a series of Eeform banquets, as they were called, was instituted, of which the professed object was " to array union, order, and discipline against the disorder and anarchy into which the government had fallen." On the 22nd of September, Marshal Soult, president of the council, or first minister, resigned his office, and was succeeded by M. Guizot. On the opening of the new session, December 28th, no symptom was shown by the king or his minister of making any concession to 5 1 6 LOUIS PHILIPPE. Chap. XLIII. the popular demand ; and a Reform banquet which had been an- nounced for January 19th, 1848, was prohibited by the police. But the reformers persevered. Secret organizations were formed among the working classes, and the watchwords Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, together with the doctrine commonly entitled Socialism, or that all persons may and ought always to be provided with both labour and wages by a good government, was assumed as their creed. The people of the middle ranks, including the bourgeoisie or tradesmen, were not in general infected with this folly. The maxims of the Jacquerie of the 14th century, or any other notions which plainly tend to the subversion of order and property, were not theirs. But still they disliked both the king and his minister, and therefore their loyalty, although it might to a certain extent be real, was not hearty. The day of the banquet, which had been announced for January 19th, was finally appointed for February 22nd. It was proposed also to have a procession, which it was thought would be joined by a large body of the national guards, from the Place de la Madeleine, and the Place de la Concorde, through the Champs Elysees. In the afternoon of the 21st the government issued a proclamation pro- hibiting the banquet, and the police denounced the procession as illegal. In the evening the people assembled in crowds, and tore down the notices to this effect which had been put up. The whole of the next day, the 22nd, was a day of tumult. At about nine in the morning numerous groups of workmen were seen descending the line of the Boulevards towards the Place de la Concorde. About an hour later, and on the other side of the Seine, the students of law and medicine assembled to the number of 2000 in front of the Pantheon. They then proceeded to cross the river, and fraternized, as was the word, with the workmen whom they met on the quay. Later in the day an attack was made on the Hotel des Affaires, the official residence of M. Guizot, but was repulsed by a detachment of the mounted municipal guard, which had been stationed in the court. At five in the evening the national guard was called out, and about three hours later, Louis Philippe, accompanied by two of his sons, reviewed a force of about 10,000 men in the Place du Carrousel. At nine in the morning of the 23rd the national guard was again called out : but the third legion, and afterwards the second, joined the multitude in cheering for reform ; and also sent a deputation to the chambers to request that some measure might be adopted which would at once satisfy the people and restore order. But the king, though undecided to resist, was unwilling to yield ; and M. Guizot, finding himself unable to allay the storm which had arisen, resigned his office. This resignation appeared to be received by the insur- a.d. 1848. LOUIS PHILIPPE. 517 gents as an indication that the reforms which they had demanded would now be granted, and for a moment tranquillity was restored. The vacant office of first minister was offered to count Mole, but he refused to accept it. During the succeeding night an officer on duty was severely wounded, or according to other accounts killed, by a pistol-shot from some one in the crowd. The commanding officer ordered his men to fire, and several persons were killed and struck down by the discharge. On this provocation the anger of the populace burst forth. Several dead bodies were placed on open waggons lighted by torches, and were carried in procession through the principal streets : and many of the trees lining the Boulevards were cut down to form barricades. Arms were got ready, and a desperate contest seemed to be at hand. At about noon on Thursday the 24th the king con- sented to appoint a reform ministry, of which M. Thiers was the head : and at two o'clock he issued a proclamation, in which he announced his abdication of the throne in favour of his grandson the count de Paris. The duchess of Orleans, accompanied by her two sons and the dukes de Nemours and Montpensier, went to the chamber of deputies, in full persuasion that this abdication would be immediately accepted, and the count proclaimed king, and that she would herself be regent. But an armed and infuriate mob rushed suddenly into the chamber. The duchess and the princes were hastily removed, and the great majority of the deputies left the hall. The few who remained fraternized with the intruders. M. Lamartine proposed the establishment of a provisional government, and the sitting was then adjourned to the Hotel de Ville, where this new government was installed. M. Dupont de FEure was placed at its head, but M. Lamartine himself was appointed minister of foreign affairs, and seemed to be virtually at the head of the govern- ment. He had recently published a history of the Girondists, which had been thought to reflect honour on the first revolution ; and the popularity which this work had acquired seems to have been the cause which chiefly brought him forward at this time. It is due to Mm, however, to add that he appears to have filled his office with moderation and firmness, to have done much both to avert foreign war, and towards the restoration of domestic tranquillity ; and thus to have added a reputation for practical conduct and sense to that of the ingenious and sentimental poet and traveller which he had long While these transactions were going on at the Hotel de Ville, another portion of the excited populace attacked and plundered the Palais Eoyal, and thence rushed through the Place du Carrousel into the Tuileries. The king and royal family had barely time to make their escape by the Place de la Concorde. But before the 5 i8 LOUIS PHILIPPE. Ciup.XLIII. intelligence of their escape could reach the Hotel de Ville, the pro- visional government had assumed the supreme authority. It then proceeded to issue a proclamation, announcing the overthrow of the monarchy, and proposing the establishment of a democratic republic. The palace of the Tuileries, of which the mob had got possession, was thoroughly despoiled. The throne was carried in procession through the streets and broken to pieces. The railway stations were seized, and the rails torn up, and all communications with the pro- vinces cut off. Happy did many of those English residents esteem themselves, who were able to find places in the last long train which left Paris for Eouen on this day. The escape of the fugitive royal family from the Tuileries was down the central avenue of the garden to the Place de la Concorde. They here found a strong detachment of cavalry of the national guard, which General Dumas, the king's aide-de-camp, had brought up. They were received by these troops with shouts of " Vive le roil" " Vive la famille royalel" They then got into three little hack carriages, and were driven off to St. Cloud. These were car- riages wlrich had been built with the intention of conveying only two persons each ; but a party of fifteen was now crowded into them : the king and queen, the duchess de Nemours, the duke de Mont- pensier, six infant grandchildren, general Dumas, and four female attendants. Two or three other attendants hung on the outside, or sat with the drivers. From St. Cloud the royal party proceeded to Trianon, where they divided; and the king went on to Dreux, where he passed the night. The next day, and through the succeeding night, he travelled by Evreux to Honfleur, where he arrived early in the morning of the 26th, with the purpose of crossing the Channel as soon as possible, to seek that refuge in England which was once more to be afforded to him. His state of mind during this sudden flight is said to have been pitiable in the extreme, and he often ejaculated, " Like Charles X.!— like Charles X.!" On the 28th he proceeded to Trouville, a little town on the sea- coast, about fifteen miles west of Honfleur ; but he could not get afloat either that night or the next day, during the whole of which he lay concealed in the house of an old seaman. On the morning of the 30th he returned to Honfleur, where he embarked for Havre in the evening of March 2nd ; and on arriving at Havre he went imme- diately on board an English steam-packet winch had been provided for him by the English consul, Mr. Featherstonhaugh ; he assumed while on board this packet the very convenient name of Mr. William Smith, and the queen that of madame le Brun. He landed at New- haven on the morning of the 3rd, and from Newhaven proceeded to Claremont, the seat near Esher which belonged to his son-in-law, a.d. 1848. LOUIS PHILIPPE. 5 ! 9 Leopold king of the Belgians, in right of his first marriage. Here he lived in great and unpretending privacy till his death. What- ever verdict may be passed by posterity on the faults or errors of his public career, it never will be doubted that he was warmly sensible throughout his whole life to domestic affection. He was an attached husband, and a fond father ; and the loss of his sister madame Adelaide, the friend and companion both of his early struggles and of his maturer age, caused him the deepest distress, and had pro- bably tended to unnerve, during the last anxious days of his reign, that firm resolution of mind which had borne fearlessly the many previous trials and dangers of his long life. — She died December 31st, 1847. — The very large property of the house of Orleans in France was sequestered by a decree of the provisional government, dated March 4th ; and the perpetual banishment both of Louis himself and his family was decreed in the national assembly on the 30th of May following, by a majority of 695 to 63. But the property was restored in October. Louis Philippe died at Claremont, August 26th, 1850 ; his decline was gradual, and his end peaceful, and soothed by the affectionate attentions of his wife and family. His remains were deposited in a Boman Catholic chapel at Weybridge, with the intention of removing them at some future time to the family burying-place at Dreux, in Normandy. Masses were said for the repose of his soul, not only in London in some of the Boman Catholic chapels, but also at Paris, Amiens, and many other places in France; and a funeral service to his memory was celebrated at Wiesbaden by the count de Chambord, the title now borne by the son of the duchess de Berri, who had previously been entitled duke de Bordeaux, and by the legitimists Henry Y. Louis Philippe married in 1809 the princess Amelia, daughter of the king of Sicily, by whom he had seven children : — (1.) Ferdinand, due d'Orleans, born September 3, 1810, died July 13, 1842. (2.) Louisa, born April 3, 1812. (3.) Louis Charles, due de Nemours, born October 25, 1814. (4.) Maria Clementina, duchess of Beaujolais, born January 3, 1817. (5.) Francis, prince of Join- ville, born August 14, 1818. (6.) Henry. (7.) Anthony Maria, duke of Montpensier, born July 31, 1824. The eldest son, the duke of Orleans, married Helena Louisa, prin- cess of Mecklenburg, by whom he left two sons : — (1.) Louis Philip Albert, count of Paris, born August 24, 1838. (2.) Bobert Philip, duke of Chartres, born November 9, 1840. Louisa married, in 1832, Leopold king of Belgium, and has chil- dren. The due de Nemours married Victoria Augusta princess of Saxe Coburg, and has one son, Louis Philippe count of Eu. 5 20 THE SECOND REPUBLIC. Chap. XLIV. CHAPTER XLIV. THE SECOND REPUBLIC. Years after Chuist, 1848-185 2. To return to the events in Paris which followed immediately after the flight of the king— on Sunday, February 26th, the republic was proclaimed from the steps of the H6tel de Ville. The 27th was kept as a high festival ; and the republic was again solemnly pro- claimed on this day at the foot of the column which had been erected in the Place de la Bastile to commemorate the revolution of July, 1830. March 4th a national assembly was summoned, to be elected by universal suffrage throughout France. The assembly thus elected opened May 4th, but its meeting did nothing to restore to the disquieted metropolis the tranquillity of which it had need. On May 15th an immense concourse of clubbists forced its way into the assembly, and afterwards proclaimed another provisional govern- ment from the HOtel de Ville. The chiefs of this party were arrested and sent to Vincennes. June 12th, prince Louis Napoleon, the son of the ex-king of Holland, was elected into the assembly as represent- ative of the department of the Seine. He had been returned also by two other departments. M. Lamartine, on the notification of this election, moved a decree for his banishment; but after some debate he was admitted by a great majority to take his seat. On the 22nd of the same month, and on the three following days, violent insurrections, with great carnage, though to what extent is hard to tell, took place in the streets. The archbishop of Paris was killed while he was imploring peace from the multitude. General Cavaig- nac was made dictator, and the city declared to be in a state of siege, or under martial law : and this state of siege continued till October 20th. Such was the state of Paris, but the agitation was also carried into the provinces. Eeform banquets were still given ; and some of these, which were given by the Eed Kepublicans, as they were called from using the old red cap of liberty as their badge, were said to be in honour of the revolution of 1789. In the month of December prince Louis Napoleon was elected president of the republic, by nearly five millions and a half of votes. General Cavaignac, who was one of his competitors, had one million and a half of votes. M. Lamartine and M. Ledru-Eollin were also candi- dates. The tenure of the presidentship was fixed for a period of nominally four years. Popular as was the name which the new presi- dent bore, certain demonstrations which he had previously made of himself at Strasburg and Boulogne had assuredly not led the warmest Bonapartists to anticipate that this distinction awaited him. At a.d. 1848. THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 5 21 Strasburg, on October 30th, 1836, he had made an abortive attempt with a very few men to get possession of the place, but was imme- diately taken prisoner and conveyed to Paris, whence he was sent to America. From America he went to Switzerland; but a remon- strance by France prevented him from fixing his residence in that country. He then removed to England, where he lived for a time in great obscurity. On August 6th, 1840, he made another effort to gain footing in France, by landing at Boulogne with a scanty band of between fifty and sixty followers. He was taken and brought to trial, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, and put into con- finement at Ham. But after six years he made his escape and re- turned to London. It is one incident, though almost too ludicrous to be related, of his adventure at Boulogne, that he had trained a tame eagle to feed out of his hand, in the hope that the bird might perhaps be tempted to hover over him, or possibly to pitch on his head, while he harangued the troops whom he might muster in his cause, and whom he might assemble around the Napoleon column on the cliff east of the town. Among the most manifest consequences of this revolution was the public distress, and the decline of commerce and industry, which all great political agitations always produce, at least for a time. One of the results of the Socialist doctrine, as it was called, which has been already mentioned, was that on May 30th, 1848, not less than 150,000 persons were employed in national workshops, and paid by the government. But it soon became evident that the government had thus undertaken to do what no government can perform, and on July 4th these workshops were suppressed. M. Ledru-Bollin, M. Louis Blanc, and a newspaper writer named Albert, commonly designated as Albert ouvrier, were the members of the government by whom chiefly these deceptions were espoused. Another conse- quence of these convulsions was, the Bank of France was compelled to discontinue its payments in specie March 15th, 1848. The depre- ciation of the public securities was so great that the 3 per cent, stock, which on February 3rd had sold at 74f. 60c, was reduced on April 6th to 32f. 25c. The produce of the indirect taxes, which in 1847 amounted, taking the whole of France, to 819 millions of francs, was reduced to 676 millions for the year 1848 : and as, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, the wisest and most indus- trious of the French Protestants transferred both themselves, and as far as they could their property, to Holland and England, so on this occasion many transfers were made to England both of French and of other foreign property. It has been stated that, in only the six months from January 1st to July 1st, 1849, not less than 22 mil- lions sterling of foreign capital were invested in the English funds. Revolutions, nevertheless, are infectious, and the example of 522 THE SECOND REPUBLIC. Chap. XLIV. France was not, as indeed it could not be, without its influence on the other countries of Europe. On February 29th, five days only after the flight of Louis Philippe from Paris, the Swiss canton of Neu- chatel declared itself independent of Prussia. The lesser German states followed the movement. On March 4th an insurrection took place at Munich, and on the 6th the king of Bavaria yielded to tho demands of the insurgents. Ho afterwards abdicated in favour of his son. On the 13th there was a revolution at Vienna, and the veteran statesman prince Metternich, who had so long directed the councils of the Austrian empire, was compelled to fly. The emperor himself fled to Innspruck in May, but returned to Vienna in August. Vienna was afterwards besieged by the Hungarians, who were however compelled to retreat : and a most desolating war, of which the issue seemed for a time to be doubtful, but in which the Austrians were, with the help of Russia, at length victorious, was subsequently carried on in Hungary itself. Great commotions were also excited in Berlin, and a premature attempt was made to fuse all the German states in one general system. In Northern Italy the convulsions of this eventful year had in their commencement rather preceded the outbreak in Paris. The inhabitants of Milan had expelled the Austrian viceroy February 18th ; and a long and fierce contest ensued, in which the king of Sar- dinia, in the vain desire of annexing Lombardy to Piedmont, took the part of the revolutionists. The Venetians also made a strong effort to throw off the Austrian yoke. They established a provi- sional government March 23rd, and in the July following appointed the veteran Neapolitan general Pepe their commander-in-chief. The Austrian rule, however, was at length restored in Lombardy. The king of Sardinia resigned his dominions to his son, and took refuge in France. He afterwards went to Oporto, where he died. Venice capitulated to the Austrians after making a gallant defence of seven months, in which it had been bombarded by sea and land, and re- duced by the want both of food and powder, and the simultaneous visitation of the cholera, to the greatest extremity. Even the grand duchy of Tuscany, although its government had long and with uni- versal acknowledgment been administered most wisely and benefi- cently, partook of the contagion of these disturbances. The grand duke was obliged to fly from Sienna February 7th, 1849, but was recalled in April. Neither yet was there peace either in Sicily or in Naples. On April 13th, 1848, the parliament assembled at Palermo decreed that Ferdinand of Naples and his dynasty were for ever fallen from the throne of Sicily, and that some Italian prince should be elected in their place. This revolt was suppressed, but in the mean time a fierce contest had taken place in Naples itself on May 15th between the regular army and the national guard. a.d. 1850. THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 523 Of all the Italian revolutions however of this period, the most prominent, if not the most important, was the revolution in Rome. In that noble and ancient, and, as it has been called, eternal city, a popular feeling had long been growing up against the apparent des- potism of the pope and the cardinals. The pope himself, Pius IX., who had been elected in 1846, was a man whose politics or principles led him to concede much to that feeling in respect of the temporal government of his states : and on March 14th, 1848, he granted a legislative constitution, consisting of a senate and a chamber of de- puties. But a vehemently democratic party rose afterwards into power, and demanded further concessions. On November 15th count Rossi, the pope's prime minister, was assassinated at the entrance of the chamber of deputies ; and on the 24th of the same month Pius himself fled from his capital in disguise, and, crossing the Neapoli- tan frontier, took refuge at Gaeta. A provisional government was afterwards appointed at Rome; and a constituent assembly met February 5th, 1849, composed of 140 representatives from different parts of the papal states. This assembly voted to divest the pope of all temporal power, and to adopt the republican form of govern- ment. Against these acts the pope protested, and appealed to the great Catholic powers of Europe for their assistance. The sensation excited, and not among Roman Catholics only, but Protestants also, by this event, could not but be extreme throughout all Europe. But it was little thought that France, the country in which republicanism had triumphed so lately, would come forward the most promptly, and take arms in the pope's behalf. This, how- ever, the French national assembly decided to do by a vote of April 16th, 1849. On the 26th of the same month general Oudinot landed at Civita Vecchia, and sent forward immediately a small force, which, as marching under the French banner, might, it was sup- posed, dictate terms which the Romans would scarcely dare to reject. But the energetic republicans who now bore sway in the city made a determined resistance. The small force which had been sent was immediately repulsed (April 30th), and the French general then put his main army in motion, and in the course of the following month took possession of Monte Mario, the hill on the right bank of the Tiber, north of St. Peter's. On the south side of St. Peter's he also encamped over against the wall which skirts the Janiculum, opposite the seven hills of the ancient city, and opened trenches against it, and erected batteries. The first assault was made by night, June 21st; the siege continued till July 1st, when the Romans sent to treat for a surrender. They yielded, uncondition- ally, on July 3rd, the French army entering the city the same day. The re-establishment of the pope's temporal authority was pro- claimed on July 15th, and he returned to Rome, April 12th, 1850. 524 THE SECOND REPUBLIC. Chap. XLIV. Louis Napoleon's period of office was limited to four years, to expire Dec. 10th, 1852. The legitimist and Orleanist parties, and also the violent republicans, possessed great influence in the country at large, and were all strongly represented in the legislative assembly, which wanted neither the power nor the will to control and thwart the new president whenever opportunities might arise : and the prince himself had at that time shown no signs of the ability necessary for him to contend with the difficulties of his posi- tion. Certainly the general course of the events to be now described has proved altogether contrary to the expectations formed at the beginning of the period. The presidency held by virtue of the election of 1848 lasted not quite three years. The French continued to occupy Eome and Algeria; in which latter country they gradually extended their borders, until it became an important province or colony. In the year 1857 many contests took place between the president and the legislative assembly. The president appealed on several occa- sions to public opinion with decided success; but by so doing widened the breach between himself and his opponents. At length things came to a crisis. The votes of the assembly had become decidedly factious and obstructive. The president adopted a bold resolution, and carried it out with perfect success. During the night of Dec. 2nd the leading members of the legislative assembly were arrested, almost simultaneously, by his order, including MM. Thiers and Berryer; the former the eminent historian and leader of the republican party, the latter the most eminent ad- vocate in France ; also generals Changarnier, Bedeau, Cavaignac, and Lamoriciere, all officers of great distinction. This blow was struck with such suddenness, and the arrangements were so complete, that no attempt at resistance could be made, and no blood was shed. The prince proceeded to appeal to the national will. A ballot was taken, Dec. 20th and 21st, throughout France, whereby he was reappointed president for a period of ten years, by seven and a half millions of citizens — the votes against the measure being 640,000. The prince, thus established on a firmer footing than before, took measures with great skill and forethought to consolidate his au- thority, and prepare for the next step in his aggrandisement. The eagle, the imperial emblem, adopted by the first Napoleon, was restored to the regiments, and his birthday, the 15th of August, was appointed to be observed with great splendour as the principal fete of the French nation. The freedom of the press was placed under restrictions. The principal political and military leaders who had been arrested on the 2nd of December were either sent out of the country and forbidden to return, or deported to the French colony THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 525 § 3 © «3 P«45 0? 1 ins. Orlea: ite'). E. leans. Phili -,Char 6 ■S* =S *o 'S Ph 5 © Cm O © , Rege eof Duke >pe(E HILL ike of 1 o P ©~ & .£< Ph Philippe Louis, Duk Louis Philippe, Louis Philij LOUIS P Ferdinand, Di 1 i Philippe, Comte de Paris. '3 a « a © *<$ © t- o ^ c £ M_ Is SI eg "3 -Sfl- © Q 5 TJ1 iharl of Duk pa f C enry, Com !> OQ ! auphin. f Burgundy. XV. auphin. o Louis, Duke o Angouleme. H Louis, D uis, Duke o LOUIS Louis, D 1 . LOUIS XVil. o HH — -n £ — 02 "3 \ h— P 4 o © 1-1 OQ O — ^ jq *3 o Hi 526 NAPOLEON III. Chap. XL V. of Cayenne, in South America. Many of these, after a few years, were by a wise clemency permitted to return, particularly M. Thiers. One of the wisest things in the president's policy was his dis- claiming all ideas of foreign war and conquest, notwithstanding that by so doing he endangered Ins popularity with the army, one of the chief pillars of his strength. He announced this policy in a striking way during one of his progresses through the country, at Bordeaux, in the words, " The empire is peace." This course went far to gain the confidence of the great middle class of the nation, including all persons in any way interested in trade and commerce. All these persons were beyond all things desirous of peace and a settled government, and became determined supporters of an au- thority which seemed to give so fair a promise of these blessings. They were in favour of any measures which might render such an authority strong and permanent. Some attempts to assassinate the president, particularly one at Marseilles (Sept. 23rd, 1852), by means of an infernal machine, even tended to strengthen his hands. Con- sequently it seemed almost a natural result of events, when a motion was carried in the senate by a majority of 86 to 1, for submitting to the nation the proposition to raise the president to the dignity of emperor, and to make the empire hereditary in his family. The voting on this question took place on the 21st and 22nd of No- vember, and the people decided in favour of the measure by an even greater majority than before — the numbers being 7,864,189 to 253,145. The emperor took the title of Napoleon III., on the some- what unfounded assumption that the young king of the Eomans, Napoleon I.'s child by the empress Maria Louisa, had been entitled, after his father's abdication, to the rank of emperor of the French, though his empire was as imaginary as the reign of Louis XVII. CHAPTEE XLV. NAPOLEON III. Years after Christ, 185 2-1 8 70. Early in the year 1853 the emperor married madlle. de Montijo, since known as the empress Eugenie, a noble Spanish lady of re- markable beauty. In 1854 the emperor was able to gratify his military supporters by entering upon the war with Russia, in defence of the integrity of Turkey, which was concluded by the capture of Sebastopol. The French forces took part with their British allies in the battles of Alma (Sept. 20th) and Inkermann (Nov. 5th), in the A.b. 1858. NAPOLEON III. 527 long winter siege, and in the final triumph in September, 1855. They were commanded first by marshal St. Arnaud, who commanded the French troops at the Alma in the last stage of a mortal disease. He was succeeded by marshal Canrobert, and the final success was obtained under marshal Pelissier, created due de Malakhoff, from the name of the fort commanding the Eussian defences, the capture of which by the French troops was the decisive operation of that memorable siege. In March, 1856, on occasion of the birth of a son and heir to the empire, Napoleon III. granted an amnesty to political offenders. The peace with Eussia was just at the same time concluded at Paris, under the emperor's immediate superintendence. All these cir- cumstances added greatly to the feeling of confidence in Iris success. Fresh attempts at assassination from time to time even tended, as before, to strengthen Iris authority. The mass of the people dreaded the anarchy and confusion which must have arisen in case of Iris death, beyond any other political evil. In the spring of this year great suffering and loss of life were caused in the valley of the Ehone, and other parts of France, by in- undations. The friendship between our country and our neighbours was doubtless promoted by the sympathy shown, and the collections made, in England for the relief of the sufferers. In 1858 an attempt to destroy the emperor, by means of grenades to be thrown into his carriage, led to serious misunderstanding with the British government. The chief conspirator was an Italian named Orsini, but many of the measures connected with the plot had been prepared in England, and the grenades themselves made at Bir- mingham. Much ill feeling against England arose out of this cir- cumstance; addresses to the emperor, particularly one from some officers of the French army, breathed a spirit which was thought to forebode war between the two countries. This affair gave rise to important political results in our own country, and in France afforded a ground for further restrictions on the liberty of the press. The events of the next year (1859) were of considerable importance in the history of Europe. A war, of which it is impossible to trace all the secret causes, arose between Austria and Sardinia, the weaker state having undoubtedly received assurances of support from the great military power of France. A marriage was contracted between prince Napoleon, cousin of the emperor, and the princess Clothilde, daughter of king Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia. A defensive alliance was signed between the two countries. On the 19th April an ultimatum was presented to the Sardinian government by the Austrian general, count Guylai, on the rejection of which war was declared, and the invasion of Piedmont commenced by the passage of the Tessino. Had the invading commander followed up this step 528 NAPOLEON III. Chap. XLV. with energy and decision, he might have at least struck some im- portant blow before the allies could have assembled a force capable of resisting him. But he failed to use Ms advantage. He hesitated, and lost time. Meanwhile French troops were marched into Italy, over the pass of Mont Cenis, and transported by sea to Genoa. The first serious engagement took place on the 20th of May, at Monte- bello, where general Forey repulsed a strong Austrian detachment. General Garibaldi, in command of an irregular force, advanced across the spurs of the Alps, threatening the Austrian right wing, and had reached Como as early as 27th May. The Austrians were reduced to the defensive, and commenced a retreat. They made a stand on the line of the Tessino, but sustained a decisive defeat at Magenta (4th June), where marshal McMahon, an officer of Irish extraction, greatly distinguished himself. The victors followed the retreating Austrians, who made no attempt even to defend Milan, and that capital was entered by the allied sovereigns four days after the battle. The duchies of Tuscany and Parma, at an early stage of the war, in the month of April, expelled their sovereigns, who had long been maintained solely by the influence of Austria, and declared for annexation to Sardinia. Their example was followed by Bologna and Modena. On the 24th June was fought, with the same result as the former engagements, the decisive battle of Solferino, near Verona, at which both the French and Austrian emperors were present. It was thought that the hold of Austria on Italy was now all but at an end, and that the four strong fortresses of Mantua, Verona, Legnago, and Peschiera must fall into the hands of the allies, when Venice and her whole territory would no longer be tenable. But to the surprise of all, the war was concluded even more suddenly than it had been begun, by a truce signed between the two emperors at Villafranca (11th July). This truce was after- wards confirmed by treaties at Zurich. Venice and its territory remained under Austrian rule ; Lombardy was ceded to Sardinia ; and the annexation of the duchies of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena to the growing kingdom of Victor Emmanuel was recognised. In the beginning of the following year (1860) that prince ceded to France Savoy and Nice. The same year was marked bystill further extension of the new kingdom of Italy over Naples and Sicily. This was effected by the patriot Garibaldi, who, having landed in Sicily, with a few friends, conveyed in one small steamer, in May, entered Naples in triumph on the 8th September. The papal territories were also curtailed by the loss of the northern provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, and Eavenna, which were taken possession of in the same year by general Cialdini, in command of a Sardinian army. In the next year (1861) Garibaldi attempted an expedition against the a.d. r866. NAPOLEON III. 529 remaining part of the papal dominions. His undertaking had been strongly discountenanced by the Italian government, which was naturally anxious to avoid any collision with the French army of occupation. The patriot chief was attacked by a Sardinian force, his followers dispersed, and himself wounded and taken prisoner at Aspromonte. He was shortly afterwards set at liberty. Two years afterwards, Napoleon concluded a treaty with Victor Emmanuel, in which he undertook to withdraw his troops from Italy within two years. The capital of Italy was transferred from Turin to Florence, and finally in 1871 to Eome. In the affairs of Poland, Denmark, and the United States, the French government, in accordance with that of Great Britain, observed strict neutrality. In 1860, the allied forces of France and England undertook an expedition to China and stormed Pekin; and in the same year some French troops were sent to Syria to repress the excesses of the Druses, who had massacred a large number of Christians. In 1862, the emperor, acting in concert with England and Spain, undertook an expedition to Mexico, as a protest against the arbitrary proceedings of that republic. England and Spain soon retired from the expedition; but the French troops invaded the country, and, after defeating the Mexicans, obliged them to renounce their republican constitution, and accept as emperor the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. From this the emperor of the French reaped neither honour nor advantage, for after the de- parture of the French army, Maximilian did not long enjoy his dignity. In 1867 he was taken prisoner by the republicans under Juarez, and executed, June 19th. In the war which broke out in 1866 between Austria on the one side, and Prussia and Italy on the other, France remained neutral. But when the decisive victory of the Prussians at Koniggratz, or Sadowa, forced the Austrians to conclude peace, the emperor of the French endeavoured to obtain for his own country some advantage in order to balance the great accessions of territory gained by Prussia, but he only succeeded in becoming the medium of conveying Venetia to Italy. A treaty of peace was signed at Vienna, which recognized a new confederation of Germany without Austria. During this reign many important improvements were carried out in the city of Paris. The Louvre was at length finished, also the Halles centrales, the capacious general markets of Paris, and churches, boulevards, and gardens sprang up on every side. Much was also done to make Paris more healthy, and this example was followed by many of the provincial towns. Eailways were con- structed all over the country, and commerce, manufactures, and the Feance. 2 A 53° NAPOLEON III. Chap. XLV. arts of peace, brought to a very flourishing condition. Great encouragement was given to the latter by the exhibitions of 1855 and 1867. But we must hasten to the events by which Napoleon III. lost his empire. The elections in 1869 showed the feelings of the people to be so strong in favour of increased liberty, that the emperor was obliged to introduce many reforms, and completely modify the constitution of the empire. Fearing that greater concessions might probably be demanded from him if he did not divert the attention of his people to foreign affairs, he took advantage of an opportunity afforded him by the nomination of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a Prussian prince, as a candidate for the throne of Spain, which was left vacant by the abdication of Queen Isabella, June 23rd, 1870. The French emperor strongly opposed this, and after much diplomatic correspondence, the Prussian government consented to withdraw their candidate, but the emperor had now gone too far to draw back, and found it impossible to restrain the impatience of the Parisians to fight an hereditary enemy, of whose growing power they had been jealous ever since the defeat of the Austrians at Sadowa had removed its most powerful check. The great Prussian minister, Count Bismarck, on his side, declined to make any further concessions, and, upon an insult offered, or supposed to be offered, to the French ambassador, by the king of Prussia, the emperor declared war, July 19th, 1870. All Germany took up arms on behalf of Prussia, and at the close of the month, both French and German forces were already opposed to each other along the eastern frontier of France. The French relied on the superiority they had shown over the Prussian armies in the days of Bonaparte; the Germans, more justly, on the admirable organization which for many years they had practised. The second empire, in the midst of its seeming prosperity, had fostered luxurious habits, with official corruption as their consequence. Nothing was ready. The ranks of the army were incomplete, and the military stores imperfect. With the Germans, on the contrary, everything was in its place. They were superior in numbers, they were admirably handled in the field, and moreover, the campaign was directed by one of the greatest strategists of modern times, general v. Moltke, who had won the confidence of the army in the Austrian war. Napoleon divided his forces into three armies ; 150,000 men were massed at Metz, 100,000 at Strasburg, whilst a reserve force of 50,000 was to remain at Chalons, with the special duty of protect- ing Paris. The two first armies were commanded by the emperor in person, whose plan of campaign was to cross the Ehine and separate the north and south Germans before they could unite a.d. 1870. NAPOLEON III. 531 their forces. This plan of invasion depended for its success upon the rapidity of its execution. But, as we have seen, nothing was ready, the uncompleted armies lingered inactive on the frontier day after day, until when at last they were in a condition to fight, they found themselves confronted by immensely superior numbers. Moltke's leading idea seems to have been to force the French army in a northerly direction away from its communications with Paris. Three German armies were sent forward to the frontier in an incredibly short space of time. Active operations began on August 2nd, when the French attacked and took the heights commanding Saarbriick. This engagement was unimportant and led to no results. The Germans now invaded both Alsace and Lorraine. In the former province, on the 4th of August, the Crown Prince of Prussia gained a victory over marshal MacMahon at Weissenbourg, and two days afterwards, totally defeated him at Worth. In Lorraine, the battle of Forbach was fought on the same day as that of Worth. The Prussians were again victorious, and advanced nearly to Metz, the most consider- able fortress in that part of France. The moral effect of this double defeat was immense. The plan of invasion had now to be exchanged for a cautious system of defence. Napoleon ought to have immediately retreated beyond the Moselle, but he dared not retreat, for he knew that the Parisians would not receive back a defeated emperor. It was not till August 12th, when he resigned the chief command to Marshal Bazaine, that the retreat began. And then it was too late. On August 14th began a series of battles, which may be considered as one great operation, ultimately leading to the shutting up of the main French army in Metz. In the first of the series, which has been called Colombey, the Germans suffered great losses, and the actual result of the battle was indecisive, but it retarded the French retreat and gave time for another German army to cross the Moselle above Metz, a small detachment of which moved northwards to intercept Bazaine, and encountered him, August 16th, at Vionville. The whole French army was gradually brought into the field, and on this occasion had the advantage of numbers. This twelve hours' struggle was the bloodiest battle of the war. Victory hung all day in the balance, and the darkness alone put an end to the fight. It was in the battle of Vionville that a brigade of German cavalry, under overwhelming fire at close range, charged the French, and broke through their line of guns, putting teams and gunners to the sword. Their loss was great, but they checked the French advance and relieved their own infantry. Early next morning the French retired towards Metz, thus losing their last chance of 2 a 2 532 THE THIRD REPUBLIC. Chap. XLVI. retreat. The final battle of this fatal series was Gravelotte, after which the French army sought safety under the cannon of Metz. Marshal MacMahon, who was in command of the reserve force at Chalons, received peremptory orders from the government to advance to the relief of Metz. Eeluctant to leave Paris un- protected, he hesitated, and the Germans, by rapid marches, threw him back on Sedan, a small fortress near the Belgian frontier. Hemmed in on all sides, his army, after an honourable struggle, succumbed to superior forces, and Napoleon and 100,000 men became prisoners of war. This surrender made a profound impression in Europe. It was the greatest reverse ever suffered, at least in modern history, by a French army. There had been nothing like it in the annals of war since the capitulation of Ulm to Bonaparte in 1805. This was Napoleon's last act as emperor, for when the news of the disaster of Sedan reached Paris, a revolution broke out. The Second Empire was overthrown and a provisional government formed. The King of Prussia sent Napoleon as a prisoner of war to Wilhelmshohe, in Cassel, where he remained until March 19th, 1871, when he joined the ex-empress and his son, who had taken refuge in England after the proclamation of the republic. He died at Chiselhurst, January 9th, 1873, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He married, February 29th, 1853, Eugenie de Montijo, by whom he had one son : Louis Napoleon, born March 16th, 1856. He was present at Saarbriick, and afterwards pursued his military studies at Woolwich. He was killed, June 1st, 1879, whilst serving as a volunteer in the British army against the Zulus. CHAPTER XLVI. THE THIRD REPUBLIC. Years after Christ, 1870. The republic was proclaimed September 5th, 1870, and a Govern- ment of National Defence instituted, consisting of eighteen members, of which General Trochu was president, M. Jules Favre, minister for foreign affairs, and M. Gambetta, minister of the interior. Vigorous measures were at once taken for the defence of Paris, for the Germans were rapidly marching upon it. As early as July the military authorities had endeavoured to carry out the most pressing works. Now the Defence Commission did all that modern improvement could suggest for the security of the city. New a.d. 1871. THE THIED REPUBLIC. 533 works were begun, barriers placed across the Seine, and telegraphs made to connect the forts with all the buildings of importance within the city. Heavy guns were brought by railway from the naval stores, large supplies of ammunition collected and a gun- powder factory established in Paris. An immense army of not less than 300,000 men, though they were not all regular troops, was assembled within the walls, and barracks and hospitals were built for their accommodation. There was no time to be lost, for the Crown Prince entered Versailles on September 20th. The war had now become a war of great sieges. The flower of the French army was shut up in Metz, Strasburg was closely pressed, and orders were now given to the Germans to invest Toul, a fortress which commanded the only railway from the north-east of France to Paris. Toul was the first to fall, September 24th, and after its capture, the Germans used the railway to bring up a train of siege artillery for the bombardment of Paris. Strasburg fell on the 28th of September, and Metz on the 27th of October, thus setting free fresh German troops to march into the interior of France, to oppose the new army which was assembling for the relief of Paris. Some trifling successes were won by the French in the Vosges district, where Garibaldi had been sent by M. Gambetta, when he came from Italy to offer his sword to the young republic. Mean- while, M. Gambetta, who had escaped from Paris in a balloon, had succeeded in placing in the field 600,000 men and 1,400 guns. This Army of the Loire, as it was called, drove the enemy out of Orleans, and advanced towards Paris, hoping in combination with a sortie from within the walls, to break through the lines of investment. But the brave efforts of these hastily-levied troops were of no avail against the disciplined forces of the Germans, and Paris was forced to surrender, January 28th, 1871, after a siege of one hundred and thirty-one days. The capital being thus in the hands of the enemy, a National Assembly was elected, which met at Bordeaux, February 12th, with M. Thiers as head of the executive committee. On the 26th, a treaty of peace was signed at Versailles by M. Thiers and the Emperor of Germany. 1 By the terms of this treaty, France ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and agreed to pay a war indemnity of five milliards of francs (£200,000,000) in three years. The Prussian army entered Paris in triumph on the 1st of March. But it was not only with foreign enemies that M. Thiers had to contend. The extreme republicans, dissatisfied with his govern- ment, fortified themselves on Montmartre, an elevated quarter of Paris, and broke out into open insurrection, March 18th, and ten days afterwards the Commune was proclaimed in front of the 1 Kine William of Prussia had been proclaimed Emperor of Germany, Jan. 18th, 1871. 534 THE THIRD REPUBLIC. Chap. XLVI. Hotel de Yille. The National Assembly, which had been removed from Bordeaux to Versailles, took energetic measures for the sup- pression of the insurrection. The government troops, after much severe fighting, entered Paris, May 21st, but the Communists still held out until the 24th, when finding further resistance hopeless, they ruthlessly set fire to the Tuileries, the Hotel de Ville, and many of the finest buildings in the city, and massacred in prison the Archbishop of Paris, whom with five other hostages, they had detained. Four days afterwards, the Communists were completely defeated. Their principal leaders were brought to trial and executed or sent into banishment. The elections, which had been postponed in consequence of this revolution, strengthened the power of M. Thiers, and he was elected President of the Republic. The deputies could be classed, with very few exceptions, into the following parties, namely : the Republicans, the Bonapartists, the Legitimists, who claim the throne for the Comte de Chambord, and the Orleanists, who support the pretensions of the Comte de Paris, though for a time they consented to waive his claims in favour of the Comte de Chambord. M. Thiers consistently supported the republic, and held the presidentship till 1873, when, upon an adverse vote, he resigned, and marshal MacMahon, who in addition to his dis- tinguished character and proved integrity, was favoured by the Legitimists, was elected President in his place. M. Thiers then took his seat as a deputy in the Assembly, in which he continued until his death, September 3rd, 1877. In September 1873, the last German troops evacuated French territory, the enormous war indemnity having been paid off even before the required time, an achievement which reflects the highest honour upon the skilful and patriotic statesmanship of M. Thiers. When the assembly reopened in November, an act was passed which prolonged marshal MacMahon's power for seven years. An important measure was passed in 1875, by which a second chamber called the Senate was created, to be composed of three hundred members, two hundred and twenty-five of which were to be elected by the departments and colonies, and seventy-five by the Assembly. The first Senate which was elected had a considerable Conservative majority, which served as a check to the Chamber of Deputies, which every year became more and more democratical. In 1877, M. Dufaure became Prime Minister, and, the senatorial elections changing the balance of votes in that chamber, marshal MacMahon was obliged to resign. M. Grevy was chosen President in his place, and M. Waddington Prime Minister. The latter, how- ever, held office only for a few months, and there have been several changes in the ministry. a.d. 1878. THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 535 France took no part in the great war which broke out in 1878 between Russia and Turkey, and M. Waddington won universal respect by his prudent management of foreign affairs. It should not be omitted to mention that M. Gambetta, although not himself bearing office, has exercised great influence upon the politics of the country. ( 537 ) INDEX. N.B. — The references to the Conversations are included in parentheses. ABD. BALAFRE. BATTLE3. A Angouleme, duchess of, 442 Baldwin, earl of Flanders, Abd el Kadee, 512. Anjou, Francis duke of, 302, and first Latin emperor of Constantinople (109-111). Abelard (85). 309,310(320). II. (109). Abercromby, sir R., 462, 464. Anne of Austria, 337, 345, Banner of St. Martin (97). Absolution (160). 352, 354- Barbarossa, Frederic, 91 (99). Acre (129, 152, 153). See lady of Beaujeu, 228 Barnave, 446. Barclay de Tolli, 481. Sieges. 234, 235, 247 (254)- Adelaide, madame, 519. of Bretagne, 23?, 236, Barricades in Paris, 312, 354, Admiral of France (30-7). 247, 251 (252). 506. Adrian VI., pope, 259. of Este (291). Barri, madame du, 410(413). Advice to the ladies (188, queen of England, 378, Bartholomew, St., massacre 189). 381. of, 299, 300 (305, 306). Agnes Sorel, 210 (211, 212). Annonces (349). Bassompierre (335). Agriculture (492). Anquetil (368). Bastile stormed in 1789, 432. Aix la Chapelle, congress of, Antipopes (98, 214). Battles— 496. Aquitain, 1, 35. Aboukir, 461. Aix in Provence, 1. Archers, 211. Agincourt, 196 (199, 200). Alamanni, the, 3. Architecture (254, 255, 270, Aignadel, 250. Alberoni, 39?, 394. 271). See Chii7-ches,Houses, Alexandria, 464. Albert, archduke, 325. and Lombard. Alma, 526. Ouvrier, 521. Aries, 30. Almanza, 379. Albigenses (96), 106, 114. Armagnacs, 195, 197. Arques, 322. Alcuin, 18 (22). Alen<;on, Francis duke of, Armorial bearings (76). Asperne, 476. Armour (317). Aspromonte, 529. afterwards duke of Anjou, Armor ica, 3, 11. Austerlitz, 474. 302, 309, 310 (320). Army of occupation, 485,496. Bar-le-Duc, 62. Alexander III., pope, 93 (98, Arnolf, 47. Bautzen, 480. 99)- Arnulf, 35, 37- Blenheim, 378. - — VI., pope, 238, 240, 247, Arquebuss (317). Borodino, 477. 249 (253). Arthur of Bretagne, 102, 104. Bouvines, 105 (no). Alexandrine measure (113)- count of Richemont, the Boyne, 374. Alexis Comnenus, 68, 71, 75 207, 211. Camperdown, 461. (109). Asti (24?). Cape la Hogue, 375. Alfonso of Castile, 132. Astolphus, 16. the Clain, 8. of Naples, 239. Astrology (181). Colombey, 531. Alfred (21). Athelstan, 37. Courtray, 144. Algiers, expeditions against Aubri de Montdidier (202). Cressy, i63,»i64- in 1827 and 1830, 504. Augsburg, treaty of, in 1687 , Dettingen, 397. Allegorical pictures (350- Alsace, 531; ceded to Ger- 374- Augustus II., of Poland, 395. Dresden, 480. Dreux, 295. many, 533. III., 396, 397- Eckmuhl, 476. Essling, 476. Alva, duke of, 278, 296. Avignon sold to the popes, Amboise, conspiracy of, 286. 146, 177. See also (214) Eylau, 475. Amphitheatres at Nismes, and Sieges. Fontenay in 841, 27. and in Normandy (3, 4). Austrasia, 9. Fontenoy, 398. Ancelin.bishopof Laon,47,48. Austria, emperor of, 475. For bach, 531. Ancients, council of, 458. Fornova, 241. Angan (5). Friedland, 475. Anglomania (471). B Gemappe, 454. Angouleme, Louis Antoine Granson, 225. duke of, 496, 497, 507, 508, Bajazet, 199. Balafre, 296. Gravelotte, 532. 525. the Herrings, 205. 2 A 3 53» INDEX. BATTLES. BRUNSWICK. CHANTELOUP. Battles— Benedict XI., pope, 146. Brussels, congress of, 512. Hohenlinden, 463. XIV., 406. Brutus, romance of (137). Inkermann, 526. Beneventum, dukes of, 17. Buche, captal de (179). Jarnac, 297. Beresina, passage of, 479. Buckingham, duke of, 341, Jena, 475. Bernadotte, 476, 481. 342. Ivry, 322. Bernard, St., 90 (97). Buonaparte. See Napoleon. , Jerome, 475, 476. Leipsic, 480. de Rays (no, in). Lens, 353. Berri, Charles Ferdinand , Joseph, 474, 476. Ligny, 484. due de, assassinated, 498. , Louis, 474, 476. , Madame Letitia, 525. Lodi, 458. Berri, duchess of, 511. Lntsen, 480. Berryer, 524. Bureau d'adresses (349). Magenta, 528. Bertha, 9. Burgundians, 3. Malo Jaroslavitz, 479. of Burgundy, queen of and Armagnacs, 195, .Marengo, 463. Robert the Pious, 54. l W- M , ■ Mariendahl, 353. Berwick, Duke of, 379. 396. Burgundy, dukes of (233); Marignano, 257. Beziers (97). and see Louis. Minden, 409. Montebello, 528. Biron, marshal, 300, 327. Byng, admiral, 407. Black death (167). Montlhery, 220. Blanc, Louis, 521. c Montmartre, 481. Blanch of Castile, 106, 115, Najara, 184. 119, 121 (126, 127). Blucher, 481, 484. Boat's crew of the Majestic Calais taken by the English, Nancy, 225, 226. 164; retaken, 278: taken Navarino, 503. by the Spaniards and re- the Nile, 461. (47o). stored, 325. Nordlingen, 353. Boemond, 72 (74). Calendar, reformation of the, Pavia, 261, 262. Bceuf gras (24;). 315- Poitiers, 172, 173. Bohemia, king of, 164. Calixtus II., pope, 80. the Pyramids, 461. Bonapartists, the, 534. Calonne, 423, 424. Quatre Bras, 484. Boniface VIII., pope, 145, Cambray, league of, 250. Quebec, 409. 146. Campobasso, 225. Rocroi, 352, 353. Bonivet, 259, 262. Campio Fermio, treaty of, St. Aubyn, 235. Bordeaux, Henry due de, 459- St. Denis, 297. 498, 507, 508, 524. Canal of Languedoc (j68). St. Quentin, 277. Borgia, 247 (253) , and see Canons of Notre Dame (126, Sluys, 162. Alexander VI. 127). Solebay, 360. Bossuet (383)- Canrobert, marshal, 527. Solferino, 528. Boufflers, 375, 378, 379. Capet dynasty, 157 ; and see the Spurs, 251. Bouille, 420, 426. Hugh. Tolentino, 485. Bouillon, duke of, 327, 328, Cards (201). Trafalgar, 474. 344- Carloman, son of Charles Turin, 378. Boulogne, count of (126). Martel, 10, 15. Vendome, 103. Bourbon, constable de, 260- , son of Pepin, 16. Vionville, 531. 264. See also (268, 269, , son of Charles the Bald, Ushant, 420, 457. 273)- 29. Wagram, 477. , Anthony de, king of , son of Louis II., 30. Waterloo, 484. ( Navarre, 285-287, 294, 295. Carlos, don, 514. Worth, 53 1- - — , cardinal de, 289, 310, Carlovingian dynasty (45, Bavaria, Charles elector of, 321, 323. 46). afterwards the emperor , due de, 395. Casimir Perier, 510. Charles VII., 397, 399- Bourbons, their descent from Castles in France (139, 140). , Maximilian elector of, Louis IX., 125, 285. Catherine de Medicis, 265, made king by Napoleon, , their restoration in 275 (279, 288, 291), 294, 474- 1814-1815, 482, 484. 296-303 (305), 308, 309- Bayard, chevalier, 257, 260 Bourmont, 504. Bozon, king of Provence, 30. 313. C272-274). II. of Russia, 408. Beards and mustachios {315, Breda, treaty of, 358. Catinet, 375, 378. 336). Brest (368). Catt, baron de, 416. Beaujeu, Anne, lady of, 228, Bretagne, duchy of, 3, n. Cavaignac, general, 520, 525. 234. 235, 247 (254). Bridges in Paris (112). Celtic language (12). Bed of justice (150), 424. Brissot, 439. Latin (12). Bedeau, 524. Brissotines, 439. Chamber of deputies dis- Bedford, John duke of, 198, Brittany, 3- See Bretagne. solved by Charles X., 502, 205-208. Bruce, Mr., 501. 503, 504- Beds (332). Brunhault, 9, II. Chambre, la chambre mena- Begging scholars (180). Belgium, revolt of, 511. Bruno, St., 39. gere(27i). Brunswick, duke of, his Chambord. See Bordeaux. Bells (24). manifesto, 436 ; enters Champs de Mai (24). Belsunce, bishop, 394, 395, France, 437 ; and see 453, de Mars (24). (401). 454- Chanteloup (413, 414). INDEX. 539 CHANGARNIER. CLOTHAIEE. CRUSADE. Changarnier, 524. Character of the English and Charles, archduke, 459, 477. Martel, 10, (23) Clothaire III., 11. IV., 11. Scotch (181). , son of Charlemagne, 19, Clotilda, 7, 8. of the French army , duke of Lorraine, 39, Clovis I., 2 ; his conversion < l8l > ^ . s 40, 47, 48. to Christianity, and subse- of the English and of Anjou, 123-125, 131- quent reign, 7, 8. French (490-492). 135- II., 11. Charibert I., 9, II. the Lame, 135, 142. III., 11. II., 10, 11. Charles of Valois, 154, 156. Clubs (471). Charlemagne, 16 j his wars See Valois. Coaches (334). Coctier, Jacques, 228. with the Saxons, 17, 18, 19 ; his conquest of Italy ; de Blois, 185, 186. the Bad, King of Na- Codrington, admiral, 503. 1 -j ; crowned at Milan, ib.; varre, 170, 174, 175, 186. Coinage. See Money. invades Spain, and is de- the Bold, duke of Bur- Colbert, 358 (368), 372. feated at Roncesvalles, ib. ; gundy, 209, 219-226; his Coligny, 277, 295, 300 (306, takes possession of Bavaria cruelties at Liege, 223 ; de- 307). 18 ; defeats the Huns, ib. ; feated at Granson, 225; Comines, 222 (231, 232), 240 his expedition against the killed at Nanci, ib. See (243, 244). Normans, 19 ; his death, (232, 233). Communal charters granted 20; extent of his empire, , duke of Orleans, 194, by Louis VI., 83. ib. ; his character, 16 (21, 195. Commune, the, proclaimed, 22). of Lorraine, 398, 407. Charlerois. See Charles the 533- Charles the Bald, 27-29. Comnenus, Alexis, 68, 71,75 the Fat. 30, 34, 35- Bold. (109). the Simple, 35-37. Chasse, general, 512. , Isaac (109). IV. (le Bel), 155, 156. Chateau Gaillard (44) Conciergerie (450). V. (le Sage), 174, 175, 183 ; his death and charac- Chatillon, congress of, 481. Concini, 337, 338. Chevelures, les rois, n. Conde family, their descent, ter, 186 (187, 188). Childebert I., 9, II. 285. VI., 190-192 ; his alarm II., 9, 11. , Louis I., prince of, 286, in the forest at Mans, 193 ; Childeric I., 2. 287, 294, 295; murdered his insanity, 194; death, II., 11. at Jarnac, 297. 198. III., 15. , Henry 1., 297, 300, 301, VII., 196-198, 204 ; re- Chilperic I., 9, 11. (306); his death, 311. covers Paris from the II., 11. , Henry II., 337, 340, English, 209; his death, Chimneys (152). 352. 210. Chivalry (63-65). , Louis II., the Great, VIII., 234 ; marries Chlodoald, 9. 352-357. 359. 36o, 362. Anne of Bretagne, 236; Choiseul, duke de, 410 (413). , Louis Joseph, 435. invades Italy, 238; con- Cholera, 511. Confederation of the Rhine, quers Naples, 239 ; retreats Chouans, 458. 474- into France, 240 ; his death, Christianity introduced into Confraternite desPonts (255). 242. Gaul, 3. Conrad the Pacific (42). IX., 293 ; his last illness Christina, queen dowager of ■ III., 90, 91. and death, 302 ; and see Spain, 514. Conradin, 123 (126). (303-305). Churches (24, 118). Constance, council of (213- - — X., 422 (429), 432, 483 ; , architecture (254, 255). 216). his accession, 497, 502 ; his Cialdini, general, 528. Constance of Provence.second unwise politics, 502-507; Cisalpine Gaul (4). wife of Robert the Pious, withdraws from Paris, 507 ; republic, 460. 54. 56 (57. 58),\6o, 61. abdicates, ib. ; retires to Civil wars of France (279). Constantinople taken by the England, 508 ; his death.ib. , their effect (316). Turks (216, 217). V., emperor of Ger- ClementV.removes the papal Consuls, 462. many, 249, 258, 259, 260, see to Avignon, 146. Continental system, 475. 262-267 ; his wars with VI., 160. Convention, 438, 440. Henry II., 276 ; his abdica- VII., 260, 264. Corruptions of the church, tion and death, ib. ; and see XIV., 410. 62 (66). 1282-284), and Francis I. , James, assassinates Corsica, 409, 457. VI. 396, 397- Henry III., 214. Court of Louis XIV. (388- I. of England (346). II., 357-359. 36i, 374- Clercs de la Basoche (244). 390). Clergy, French, their ejection Courtenai, Peter and Robert II. of Spain, 358, 376, from their benefices in (109). 377- 1790, 435. Craon, Peter de, 192. III., 378, 379. 38o, 396. Clocks (25). Crests and coats of arms 409. Clodomir, 9, 11. (76). IV., 475, 476. Closter Seven, convention of, Cromwell, 356, 357. VII., elector of Bavaria, 408. Crusade preached by Syl- 397 ; elected emperor, ib. ; Clothaire I., 9, II. vester II., 55. his death, 399. II., 9, 11. , the first, 68-71. 54o INDEX. CRUSADE. ELIZABETH. FRANCE. Crusade, the second.preached Didier, 17. Elizabeth, Philippine ol by St. Bernard, 90-92. Dinner-hour, 151 (473). France, 435, 439. 44 2 » (448. , the Child's (100). Directory, 458, 462. 449, 452). , the fourth, 102, 103. Discipline of schools in the 16th century (319). Emigrations of the French , the fifth, 10-7. revolution, 432, 435. , the sixth, 120-122. Disguisements, 193 (245). Encouragement of learning , the seventh, 124, 12?. Dog of Montargis (202, 203). (84)- Crusades, their termination Doublet (318). End of the world expected (152). See also (75, 76, D'Orvilliers, 420, 421. (59)- 108, 109, 128-130). Dragonade under Louis XIV. Enfans sans souci (244). Cumberland, duke of, 407. 312. England and France com- Dress of the nth century pared (492, 493). D (58, 78). Epernon, duke of, 321. Dress of the 13 th and 14th Escurial (284). DagobertL, 10, 11. centuries (151). Eudes, 34-36. II., n. 14th (189). Eugene, prince, 375, 37 8 , 379. III., 11. 15th (217, 218). 380, 396 (402). Daim, Oliver, 228. ■ 16th and 17th (334, 335, Eugenie, empress, 526, 532. D'Albret, Henry, king of 348, 389, 39°)- Navarre, 285. reign of Louis XV. F , John, 250. (415). D'Amboise, 250. Louis XVI. (472, 473). Fabliaux (137). Dammartin, 209. Drouet, 445. Faineans, 10, n. Dampierre.Guy, earl of Flan- Du Chastel, 197. Falots (350). ders, 143, 144. Duckworth, 474. Family Compact, 409. Daniel's History of France Du Clisson, 185, 192. Famine in the reign of (169). Duels (42). Du Guesclin, 184, 185. Robert the Pious (59). Danton, 439 (467). Farmers of taxes (166). D'Aubigne (jjj). Dumas, general, 518. Fastrade, 18. Daun, marshal, 407. Dumourier, 454. Fauchet (349). Dauphin, title of, 165. Dunkirk, 357. 358 (368). Favre, Jules, 532. , le Grand (383, 384). Dufaure, M., 534. Fayette, La, 434, 506. See Burgundy,l}mis, duke Dupont de l'Eure, 517. Feast of the Ass (245, 246). of. Du Prat, 268. Fenelon (385). , son of Louis XV. (41 3). Durazzo, 191, 199. Dutens (413, 414). Ferdinand of Aragon, 240, Dauphinesses (384-386). 248-251, 257, 258. De Brienne, 424. of Naples, 238, 239. Decazes, 495. of Spain, 476, 485, 514. De Crillon, 422. E IV. of Naples, 396. De Grasse, 422. VI. of Spain, 399, 409. De la Brosse, 132, 133. Edgeworth, 441. Education of the young no- Fersen (444). De Launay, 432. Feudal system (49-51, 76, De Lauria, 135. bility (64, 65). Edward the Confessor, 56, 62. 149, 150) ; its abuses, 80. De Lolme, 432. Fiefs. See Feudal. Delphin classics (391). I. of England, 134, 142, Field of the Cloth of Gold, De Luynes, 337, 338. 143- 258. De Marigny, 154. II. of England, 156. Fieschi, 513. De Molai, 147. III. of England, his Fire-arms (317). De Montfort, John, 162, 165. ground of pretension to the Flanders, 156. , his son, 186. throne of France, 162 ; in- , earl of (109, 126). Denbigh, earl of, 342. vades France, ib. ; see also F>eury, cardinal, 395, 397; De Retz, cardinal (364). 175, 176; his death, 185. his death, 398. , marechal (303). IV.ofEngland.224, 225. Florida (307). Foix, earl of (179). De Rullecourt, 116, 117. the Black Prince, 171- De Ruyter, 360-362. 173. , Catherine, 250. Dessaix, killed at Marengo, Eginhard, 17, 20 (21). Fontainbleau, 270. 463. Egypt, expedition to in 1798, Forey, general, 528. Desportes (319). 460, 461, 463, 464. Fortifications of Paris, 514. Dessolles, 495. El Arish, convention of, Fouche, 469, 493 (499). D'Estaing, 420, 421. 463. Fouquet (366). D'Estampes, duchess, 265, Eleanor of Guienne marries France.general survey of, 1-3. 266. Louis VII., 82; divorced, , its state in the 10th D'Estrees, cardinal (390). and marries Henry II. of century (43). , count, 360, 361. England, 93. , nth century (73). , marshal, 407. Detenus, 464-466. Electoral law, 515. , 14th century, 173, 174. Elgiva, 37. joins with the United De Thou (333). Elizabeth, Queen of England States of America in the Diana of Poitiers, 265, 275, (317), 325. war against England, 420 ; 2^1.278 (334). empress of Russia, 408. revolution in its com- INDEX. 541 FRANCE. GUILLOTINE. HENRY. mencement, 432 ; attack Guiscard (74). on Versailles, Oct.oth, 1780, G Guise ,dukes of, their descent, 433. 434 5 royalty abolished, 275. 439- Gabfxle, 165 (166). , Claude duke of, 275. France, war of the Revolu- Gabrielle d'Estrees (334). , Francis duke of, 275, tion : conquest of Flanders Galeazzo, 238, 239. 276 ; takes Calais, 278 ; and Holland, 457 ; of Italy, Galissoniere, La, 406, 407. murdered by Poltrot, 295, 459; suspended by the Galleys (308). 296 ; see also pp. 286, 287, treaty of Campo Formio, Galley-slaves (308). 294, 2Q5- 459 ; renewed, conquest of Gambetta, Leon, 532, 533. , Henry duke of (le Switzerland, 460 ; again Garibaldi, 528, 529. Balafre), 296, 299, 300, 309, suspended by the peace of Garnier (452). 310, 312; assassinated, 313 Luneville, 463 ; and of Gaston de Foix (254). (35o). Amiens, 464 ; recom- Gaul, or Gallia, conquered by Guise, cardinal of, 296, 313; menced with England in Julius Cassar, 1 ; its divi- assassinated, 314. 1803, 464, 47J ; in Ger- sion under the Romans, ib. Guizot, 510, 511, 516. many, 474 ; with Russia , Cisalpine (4). Guylai, count, 527. and Prussia, 475 ; invasion Gauls, their religion (6, 7) ; of Portugal, 475 ; of Spain, laws (13). 476 ; expedition to Eussia, Gazette (349). H 477-480; concluded by the Genlis, madame de (430), 509. peace of 18 14 and that of Geoffry Plantagenet, 82. Hardy, sir C, 421. 1815, 482, 484. See Arw.y , son of Henry II. of Haroun Alraschid (24). of occupation and Gaul. England, 83. Hastings (30). Francesco de Paula, don, 514. de Pruilly (76). Henault (168), 249. Franciad (319). Geography (66). Henriade (350, 351). Francis I., 252; his acces- George II. of England, 398. Henrietta Maria, 354. sion and character, 256, Gerard, marshal, 512. Henry I., 60, 62. 265 ; invades the Milanese, Gerbert, 47 (51, 52, 59). Germain-en-Laye, St., 270. II. marries Catherine of 257 ; defeated and taken Medicis, 26,5 ; his acces- prisoner at Pavis, 261, 262, German language (32, 33). sion and character, 274, restored to liberty, 263 ; Germany, revolutions in,52i. 275 ; his death, 278. renews the war with Gertruydenburg conferences, III., when duke of Charles V., 264; again 380. Anjou, 297, 299 ; elected makes peace, 265; his Ghent, its revolt, 226, 227. king of Poland, 302 ; suc- death, 267; and see (269, Giant, procession of (345). ceeds to the crown of 270, 280, 335). Gibraltar, siege of, 421. France, 308 ; murdered by II., his accession, 285 ; Gilbert, 92. Clement, 314, 315 ; and see his death, 287. Gipsies (203). (315, 316, 320, 350- I., emperor of Germany, Giradon (347). IV., 297, 300, 301, 309, 399- Girondists, 439. 310, 311, 314; his descent, II., 436, 474. duke of Alencon, 302, Glaber (58). 125, 285 ; his accession and Gobelin tapestry (292). character, 321, 322, $27 ; 309, 310. Godfrey of Bouillon, 70. marries Margaret of Valois, Francisque (5). Goguelat, 444, 445. 298; divorces her and Franklin, Dr. (471). Golden legend (333). marries Mary of Medicis, Franks invade and conquer Gondeband (42). Gonsalvo de Cordova, 241. ; 327 ; renounces Protest- Gaul, make Treves their antism, 324; assassinated capital, and take Paris, 2, Gonthran, 9, 11. by Ravaillac, 329; see 3 ; and see (;, 6). Goths (5), 10. also (317, 329, 330, 333- Fredegarius (12). Gothic language (13). 336) ; equestrian statue of Fredegonde, 9, n. Grande Francaise (307). 05i). Frederic Barbarossa, 91 (99). Great Harry (307). the Fowler, 37. of Naples, 248. Greek Fire, 121 (138, 139). the Quarreller (42). II., of Prussia, 397, 398, Greenland, West (167, 168). V., emperor, his contest 407, 408 (415-419). Gregorian calendar, 315. with the cardinals on the Free companies, 171, 175,183, Gregory of Tours (12). right of choosing the pope, 184. V., pope, 186 ; removes 68, 81. French academy O49). the papal see from Avig- 1. of England, 80, 87. emigrants (468, 469). non to Rome, ib. II. 89, 93,94, 102." character (316). XIII., 301. III. 114, 124. Florida (307). Grevy, M., President, 534. IV. 195. Friday, why thought an un- Groombridge (212). V. 195; invades France, lucky day, 249. Gros-tete (246). 195-197 ; declared Regent Frobisher (167). Guelphs and Ghibelins (98). of France, and marries the Froissart(i78, 179), 193(217). Guernsey (115-117). princess Catherine, 198 ; Fronde, contests of, 354-356 Guichen, count de, 422. his death, ib. (364, 365). Guienne, insurrection in,326. VI. 198. Furniture (332). Guillotine (468). VII., 236, Hi. 542 INDEX. HENRY. Henry VIII., 251, 258, 259, 260, 263, 264, 266, 26-7 (335). See Francis I. , duke of Burgundy, 55. . emperor of Constanti- nople (109). of Tra Lrastaniare, 184. Hermengard, 27. Hildegard, 18. Hincmar (32). Hoche, 454. 459- ' . . Holland incorporated with France, 476^ confederacy against,and loss of Belgium by, 512. Homage (50). Honorius III., 114. Hood, sir S., 422. , lord, 454. Houses of the 14th and 16th centuries (270, 27 1); of the 16th (332, 333)- Howe, lord, 457. Huet (391, 392). Hugh Capet, 39, 46~49- le Blanc, 37. 39 (4°. 40- de Vermandois, 70, 71. Hugonots, 286, 294, 296, 301, 310; their power broken by Richelieu, 339-34* ; persecution of, by Louis XIV., 372, 313 5 and see (279, 280, 290, 291, 305, 318). Huns, 2, 18. Hutchinson, lord, 464. capt., 501. Iconoclasts, 16. Images introduced Into churches, 16. Indulgences (160). Infernal machine, 513. Infidelity of the reign of Louis XV., 411, 412. Ingeberge, 103. Inheritance, French law of, 5*5- Innocent II., pope, 89. III., pope, 103, 104. Inquisition (96). Interdict, 54. Invasion, projected, of Eng- land in 1798, 460. in 1803, 466. Irene, 19. Iron crown of Lombardy (25). mask (402-404). Isabella of Bavaria, 191, 195- 197(213). of Castile, 249. of France, 156. of Hainault, 103, 107, 113. , wife of Philip H., 296. LADIES. Isabella, queen of Spain, her marriage, 514. Italy, revolutions in, 522,523. Itinerant merchants (43). Jacobins, 439, 455, 456. Jacquerie, 174 (178, 179). James II., king of England, 360, 374. 375. 378- James V., king of Scotland, 265. Jane d'Albret, queen of Na- varre, 285 (291). of Bourbon, 186 (188). Countess of Flanders (no, in). Jardin des Plantes O47). Jerome of Prague (215, 216). Jersey and Guernsey (115- 117). Jesuits (280-282). suppression of the, 410. Jews, 55 (96, 97). 107 (157). 177. Joan of Arc, 206, 207. Joanna, queen of Naples, 177, 191. , archduchess, mother of Charles V., 248, 249, 276. Jodelie (319). John (le Bon), 170 ; defeated and made prisoner at Poitiers, 172, 173 .released, 176; his death, 177. XXIII., pope (214). , duke of Burgundy, 194 ; assassinated, 197. , king of England, 103, 104. of Gaunt, 185. Hu8s (215). of Procida, 133. Joinville, 122 (127-129). , prince de, 513. Joseph, emperor, 380. II., 397- Josephine, 477 (488, 489). Jourdan, 458, 459. Jubilee, 148 (160), 301. Julius II., pope, 249-251. Junot, 475, 476. Keppel, 420. Kleber, 461, 463, 464. Knighthood (76). See Chi- valry. Knights' fees (14). service (14). Kutusoff, 477, 479. Labedotere, 493, 494. Lacqueys (350). Ladies, rules for their be- haviour, 188, 189. LOUIS. Ladies at court (269). Lafitte, 510. Lamarque, general, tumult at his funeral, 510. Lamartine, 517, 520. Lamballe, princess (428)437, 438 (446, 447)- Lamoriciere, 524. Langue d'oc (33). Langue d'oil (33). Lannoy, 260-263. Latin empire of Constanti- nople (109). language (12, 13). Latins in Palestine (152). La Trimouille, 248, 249, 262. Lavallette, 493, 494 (499- S02). Lautrec, 259, 260, 26?, 264. Lauzun, duke of, 365-367. Law, 394. Lazar-houses (108, 157). League, 309, 321, 325. of God's Truce (52, 65, 66). • of the Public Good, 219, 221. Learning of the reign of Louis VI. (84, 85). Ledru-Rollin, 520, 521. Legitimists, the, 534. Leo III., pope, 18. IX., 62, 74. X., 251 ; his death, 259. Leopold, archduke, 353. , emperor, 358. , prince, of Saxe Coburg, elected king of the Bel- gians, 512. of Hohenzollern, prince, 530. Lepers (157). Lesdiguieres, duke of, 340. Leyva, 261. Liege, insurrection at, 223. Ligurian republic, 460. Liutbart, 35. Lombard style of architec- ture (254). Lombards, 155. Longueville, duchess of, 354 (365). L'Hopital, 287 (291), 294,303. Lindsey, earl of, 343. Lorraine, 28 , united with France, 396 ; ceded to Ger- many, 5??. Lothaire, son of Louis le Debonnaire, 27-29 (53). , son of Louis d'Outre- mer, 39. Louis I. (le Debonnaire), 26, 27. II., le Begue, 30. III., 30. IV.(d'Outremer), 37, 38. V. (le Faineant), 40. VI. (le Gros), 71, 72, 79 ; his wars with Henry I. of INDEX. 543 LOUIS. England, 80, 81 ; his death, 82 ; and see (84). LouisVII.(le Jeune) marries Eleanor of Guienne, 82 ; his accession and character, 88, 89; engages in the crusade, 90; returns to France, 92 ; divorced from Eleanor of Guienne, 93 ; his two subsequent mar- riages, ib. ; his war with England, 94, 95 ; his death, 96. VIII. (le Lion) 106, 107, 113 ; his war with England, 114; his death, 115. IX. (le Saint), 119; his first crusade, 120 ; defeated at Massoura, 121 ; his se- cond crusade, 124 ; dies at Tunis, 125 ; see also (128, 129, 160). X. (Hutin), 153-155- XI. 208, 209, 219, 220; imprisoned at Peronne by Charles the Bold, 222 ; re- leased, 223; his declining health, 227, 228 ; his death, 229. See also (230-232). XII., 246 ; marries first, Joan,daughter of St. Louis, 247 ; secondly, Anne of Bre- tagne, ib. ; thirdly, Mary of England, 251 ; his wars in Italy, 248, 250, 251. XIII., 336-345 (348, 349)- . , XIV., 352 ; marries the infanta, 357 ; invades Hol- land, 359; an d Franche Comte, 361 ; concludes the peace of Nimeguen, 362 ; renews the war, 371 ; re- vokes the edict of Nantes, 372, 373 ; acknowledges James III. of England, 378 ; his death, 382 ; and see (367-370, 387-391)- XV., 392 ; his marriage, 395; and see (399. 400), 411 ; his statue (415)- XVI., 419; his com- pulsory journey from Ver- sailles to Paris, 4*4; im- prisoned in the Temple, 437: his trial and execu- tion, 440, 441 ; and see (425, 426, 429, 444, 445, 448), and Varennes. XVII. (430), 442 (448- 452). XVIII., 429, 435, 482 ; his restoration (see Bour- bons) ; his flight from Paris in 1815, 483; his second restoration, 484, 493 ; his death, 497 ; and see (470) 494-496. MANNERS. Louis Philippe (469), 483, 507, 508; his accession, 509; his changes of ministry, 510 ; attempts to assassin- ate him, 512; his fortifi- cations, 514; his abdication, 517 ; leaves Paris, 518 ; lands in England, ib. ; his character, 519 ; decree of perpetual punishment against, ib. ; death, ib. ; respect shown to his memory, ib.; his family, ib. the German, son of Louis le Debonnaire, 27, 28, 29, 33. , duke of Anjou, 190, 191. , duke of Orleans, as- sassinated, 194. , dauphin, son of Louis XIV., 381. , duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV., 381,382(384,385). Louisa of Savoy (252), 259, 260, 265 (268, 269). Louvel, 498. Louvet, 197. Louvois, 358, 360, 372, 375- Louvre (112, 158), 327, 527- Loyola (280). Luneville, peace of, 463. Luther, 268. Luxemburg, marshal, 361, 362,375. m , , John of, 206. , Louis of, count of St. Pol, 224. gallery (351)- _ Lyons annexed to France, 148 ; besieged and taken by the troops of the con- vention, 455 ; revolts at in 183 1 and 1834, 5 IO « M Macaire (202). Macdonald, 462. M'Mahon, marshal, 528, 531, 534- Magical incantations (157). Mahommed II. (216). Majestic, boat's crew of the (47°)- Maine, duke of (367), 393. Mainfroi, 123. Maintenon, madame (369, 386, 387, 589, 400, 401). Maison de Dieu (158, 159). Carree (3). Malta taken possesion of by the French, 460. Manfred, 123. Manners and Customs (98, 99, 152, 330-333). of the reign of Louis XVI., and of the Eevolu- tion (470-473). MONTESPAN. rfi. Manny, sir Walter, 165, Mantua, siege of, 459. Manuel, emperor, 91. Manufactures (493). Marbceuf (486, 487). Marcel, 174, 175. Mardyke, 357, 358. Margaret of Flanders,i65, 166. queen of Navarre, 268 (290), 298. of Provence (129, 130). of Valois, 298 (305,306), 327. Maria of Brabant, 132. Theresa, 396-399, 406. Louisa, 477, 482. Marie Antoinette, 419 (426- 428), 442 (446, 450, 451). Leczinski, 395, 410. Marlborough, duke of, 378, 380, 398. Marmont, 504, 505, 506. Marseilles, plague at, 394 (401, 402). Martin V., pope, 214, 215. Mary queen of Scots, 278 (319)- of Burgundy, 226, 227. of Medicis, 327-329, 336- 338 (346, 348, 35i). Masks (335). Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 299, 300 (305, 306). of September, 1792, 437, 438. Massena, 462. Massoura, 121 (128). Matthioli (402-404). Maximilian, 227, 236, 237, 240, 251 (252, 253), 258. Mayenne, duke of, 296, 3 14, 322, 323, 324, 325, 337. Mayors of the palace (13). Mazarin, 352-358 (363, 364). Medici (335). See Catherine and Mary. Menou, 464. Merci, general, 353. Mercure Francais (349). Merovee, 2. Metternich, 522. Metz, 533. Mezerai (168, 293), 226, 230, 238, 295. Ministry, numerous changes of, by Louis Philippe, 510. Minorca, 423. Miomenil, M. de, 433. Miseria? scholasticorum(i8o) Mississippi scheme, 394. Mole, count, 510, 517. Money (138). Monks of St. Genevieve (99). Monstrelet (217, 218). Montaigne, 319. Montcalm, marquis de, 409. Montecuculi, 361, 362. Montespan, madame de (3661 367, 387). 544 INDEX. MONTFORT. ORLEANS. PEACE. Montfort, John de, 162, 165. against Austria, 527 ; pros- Ormond, duke of, 380. , Simon, 106. perity of his reign, 529; Orsini, 527. Montgomeri, 278 (279), 295. declares war with Prussia, Osmond, 38. See Henry II. 530; resigns the chief Ostrogoths (5). Montluc (335)- command to Bazaine, 531 ; Otho the Great, 37, 39. Montmorenci, constable, 265, taken prisoner and sent II., 39, 4°- 275. 277, 294, 295, 296, 297 to Wilhelmshohe, 532. III., 20. Cm). Napoleon, Louis, prince, 532. IV., 105. , marechal, 300. National assembly, 431, 433, Oudinot, general, takes Rome , viscount, 496. 435, 4? 6 » 438. and restores the pope, 523. Montpeusier, mademoiselle character of the English (365, 367). and French (490-492). P , duchess de, 312, 321, convention, 438; de- 323. clares war against Sardinia, Paine, 438, 440. Moutpensier, duke of, son of England, Holland, and Painted glass (152). Louis Philippe, 514. Spain, 454; and see 548. Palais Royal (347). Moralities (200, 244). Necker, 420, 423, 424, 432, Palatinate ravaged, 361, 375. Morceau, 458, 459, 462, 463. 433, 4J4- ' J Paleologus,Constantine(2i6). Mort-dome (13). Nelson, lord, 461, 474. Paleologus, Michael (no). Moscow burnt, 478. Nemours, duke of, 323. , Theodore (217). , retreat from, 479, 480. Mountain,the party so called, Neustria, 9. Pallisier, 420. Newspapers (349). Panache (348). 4*9- of 1814 (490). Pandolf, 105. Munster, peace of, 353. Ney, his trial and execution, Pannonia, 18. Murat, 476, 481 : his defeat 49*. 494- Paoli, 410, 457. and execution, 485. Nobles exempted from taxa- Pare (318). Muskets (317). tion (166). Paris founded by the Celts, 2. Muyden, 360. Nogaret, 145. under the Romans, 2. Mysteries (200, 244). Normandy, 80 ; conquered sacked and besieged by by Philip Augustus, 104. the Normans in 845, and N Normans, 19, 28-30 (30, 31), 885, 29, 34- besieged by Henry III., 35, 36. Nantes, edict of, 326. in Italy and Sicily (73, 314; by Henry IV., 323; , its revocation, 372-374. 74). the siege raised, 324 ; taken Naples, conquest of by North Italy, convulsions in, in 1814, 481 (489, 490). Charles VIII., 239 (242) ; 522. described, 81, (97, 98, revolt of 1848, 522. Notables, convention of, in in, 112, 117, 118,158-159, Napoleon I., 458, 459 ; em- 1787, 423, 424- 1 79-1 8 1, 333, 349, 35o). barks for Egypt, 460; re- turns to France, 461 ; Notre Dame (112, 118, 255). , parliament of, 423, 424 ; Noyades, 455. and see University. created first consul, 462 ; , riots in, 510; fortifica- offers peace, 463 ; gains tions of, 514, 532 : surren- the battle of Marengo, ib* ; ders to Prussia, 533. created emperor, 466 ; Ogier the Dane (331). , archbishop of, mur- crowned king of Italy, ib. ; Orange-tree at Versailles dered, 533. his greatest ascendency, (292). Parisian society (470, 473). 475 ; marries Marie Louisa, Oriflamme, 81 (97). Parliaments (23, 149, 150). 477 ; his expedition to, and Orleanists, the, 534. , their power depressed retreat from Russia, 477- Orleans, siege of, and relief in the reign of Lonis XV., 480; his resources after by Joan of Arc, 205, 206. 410 ; and see Paris. defeat, 480, 481 ; declared to have forfeited his throne, , duke of, taken prisoner Parma, duke of, 323, 324. at Agincourt, 196 ; re- Parties, political, at the ac- 481; abdicates, 4825 his stored to liberty, 211 ; and cession of Louis Philippe, return from Elba; 483; see (212, 213). , Gaston duke of, son of 509. his second abdication 484 ; surrender to the English, Parvenus (472). Henry IV., 329, 344. 345. Paul IV., pope, 277. Paul et Virginie (472). 486 ; his exile to, and death in, St. Helena, ib. ; 352, 353, 354. 356, 357- I., Philip duke of, son Peace of God. See Truce. his remains brought to of Louis XIII., 345, 357. Peace of— France, ib. ; and see (472, , Philip duke of, the Aix la Chappelle, 359, 399 486-488) and Josephine. regent, 392-39; (399)- Amiens, 464. — III., elected to the , Philip Egalite duke of, Arras, 208. assembly, 520 ; becomes 424, 432, 440, 442; and Cateau Cambresis, 278. president, ib. ; reappointed see (429, 430). Fontainbleau, 409. president, 524 ; orders , Ferdinand duke of, son Nimeguen, 362. arrest of members, ib. ; of Louis Philippe, 524. Presburg, 474. elected emperor, 526 ; joins , Henrietta duchess of, Tilsit, 475. England in the Russian 355, 359- Vervins, 325. war, ib. ; aids Sardinia 1 — — , Helena duchess of, 517. Westphalia, 353- INDEX. 545 PEACE. Peace of— 1-783, 422. 1814, 482. Peaked shoes (78). Pedro IIl.(i26), in, 134, 1 ?5- the Cruel, 184. Peers of France (49). Pelissier, marshal, 527. Pelisson (390). Pepin d'Heristal, 10. le Bref, io, 15, 16 (23). , son of Charlemagne, 19. , son of Louis Debon- naire, 27. Pequigni, treaty of, 225. Pescara, 260, 261 (273). Pestilence (167). Peter the Hermit, 68, 69. II. of Russia, 408. Peterborough, earl of, 378. Petion, 446. Petrarch (181, 182). Pharamond, 2. Philip I., 67-72. II. (Augustus), 48 (51). 93, 95 ; his accession, 101 ; his transactions with Henry II. of England, 102 ; joins in the crusade with Richard I. of England, ib.; their dissensions, 803 ; con- quers Normandy, 104 ; his death, 107. III. (le Hardi), 125 ; his accession and character, 131, 132; his death, 135. IV. (le Bel), 142 ; his wars in Flanders, 144, 145 ; his disputes with the pope, 145, 146; his death, 148. See also (149-151). V., 155- VI. (of Valois, le Bien Fortune), 156, 161; his war with England, 162; defeated at Cressy, 163, 164 ; his death, 164. II. of Spain, 276 ; makes war on France, 277 ; gains the battle of St. Quentin, ib. ; joins the duke of Guise, 311 ; his death, 325 ; and see (284. IIT. of Spain, 325. IV., 337. 358, 377- V., grandson of Louis XIV., 377, 378. 38o, 381, 394 ' 39 £ , , archduke, 227, 248, 249. , see Orleans, Duke of. the Good, duke of Bur- gundy, 197, 208, 221. Philosophers, 412, (414) Pichegru, 454. Pickpockets (304). Pierson, major (117). Pignerol (366). Pilgrims' scrip (99, ioo> Pius VII., pope, 466. REPUBLIC. Pius IX., 523 ; his flight from Rome, ib. ; divested of his temporal power, ib.; re- stored bya French army,i'5. Place de Louis XV.(4i5),44 T - Plague at Marseilles, 394 (401, 402). Plays (200, 201, 244, 245). Poetry (319). Poggio Bracciolini (215, 216). Polignac, cardinal (390). , duchess of, 428 (443). , prince Jules, 503. Poltrot, 295, 296. Pompadour, madame de, 406, 408 (413). Pont du Gard (4). Neuf (300). Port Royal (364). Popes, rise of their power, 18 (24). Pope's tiara (150). Posts (231). Pourcelets, Guilliame de,i33 . Pragmatic Sanction, 396, 399. Prague, congress of, 480. Predial servitude 1(51). Priestly, 438. Prince of fools (244). Printing, introduction of, 230. Procession of the Bceuf gras (245)- of the Giant (245). Provence (or Aries), king- dom of, 30. Provencal dialect Oi)- poets (15, 86). Pruilly, Geoffrey de (76). Prussia and Sweden, and afterwards Austria, de- clare war against France in 1813, 480. Pyramids. See Battles. Pyrenees, treaty of, 357. Quays on the Seine (118). Querouaille, mademoiselle de, 359- Quiberon, 451. Rainulp, 35- Ransom of Louis IX. (137, 138). Raoul (or Rodolph), 37. Ravaillac, 329. Ravenna granted to the pope, 16. Raymond of Toulouse, 70, 106. Reason, goddess of, 456. Reform, demand for, 515; banquets, 516, 520. Regnier of Anjou (230). Republic, proclamation of, 520, 532. RYSWICK. Republicans, 509, 520, 534. Retainers. See Lacqueys. Retz, cardinal, 3 54"? 56 (364). Revolution of 1789 (429, 430) ; and see France. of 1830, 504-507. of 1848, 516, 521; some consequences of, 521. Revolutions on the continent of Europe, 521-523. Richard I. of England, 93, 102, 103, 104. II. of England, 185, 195. (Sans Peur), duke of Normandy, 38, 49. II. and HI. dukes of Normandy, 56. Richelieu, cardinal, 339, 341, 342; his death, 345; and see (346-348, 363). , marshal, 406, 407. , duke of, 493, 495, 496. Rigny, admiral de, 503. Rings, or ringes, 18. Robert the Pious, 53-56 (56- 60). , duke of Normandy, 56, 61. of Frizeland, 67. , son of William the Conqueror, 71. of Bourbon, 125. of Artois, 135, 143, 144. Robespierre, 439, 456, (466, 467). ochi 457 340- Rochelle, siege of, 301, 343- Rodney, 421, 422. Rodolph, 37. Rohan, duke of, 340. Roland, 18. Rollo, 36 (41). Roman empire, its decline (5) ; families in Gaul (6) ; remains in Gaul (3, 4). Romance of the Rose (136, 333- Romances (137). Romanesque language (12, 32). Rome taken by the French, 264, 460. , king of, his birth, 477 ; his death, 526. , revolution of 1848-9 in, 523. Roncesvalles, 17 (22). Ronsard (319)- Roofs of houses (271). Rossi, count, 523. Rouen, siege and capture of. in the reign of Charles IX. 295. Rousseau, 412, 423. Rubens (351). Ruffs (320). Rupert, prince, 361. Ryswick, peace of, 376. 546 INDEX. SAARBRUCK. THIBATJD. VASSALAGE. s Slaves, domestic (6). Thierri I., 8, 11. Sluggard kings, 10, 11. II., 11. SAARBRTJCK, 531. Smith, sir Sidney, 461, 463. III., 11. St. Andre, 294, 295. Smolensk taken by the IV., 10, 11. — Arnaud, marshal, 527. French, 477. Thiers, 510, 524, 526, 533. — Bernard (97). Snuff (320). ™ 5J 4- — Cyr (400). Socialism, 521. Tiara, 150. — Domingo, 464. Soissons, count of, 344. Soldiers' pay and habits of Tilting (282). — Pierre, 472. Tortures (84). — Pol, 224. — Simon (366, 390). plunder (316, 317). Toul captured, 533. Sorbonne (347). Toulon (368); given up to Saladin, 102 (108). Soubise, duke of, 340. the English, 454 ; retaken, Salic law (13, 14), 514. Soult, marshal, 510, 515. 455- Salisbury, earl of, 205. Spain, war of the succession, Tournaments (76, 77, 282). Salt-cellar ^64). 378-381 ; invaded by Napo- Tournay, 251. Sampson, 468. leon, 476 ; in the reign of Tourville, admiral, 375, 376. Sancy diamond (233. 234). Louis XVIII., 496; civil Treaty of Confians, 221. Sanson, 354. war in, 514. of Cambray, 265. Santerre, 441. Stanislaus, king of Poland, of Rochelle, 301. Saracens, 10; defeated by 395» 396 ; his death, 410. of Joinville, 311. Charles Martel, ib. States-general, 148 (i49),286, of Versailles, 408, 422. Saxe, marechal, 398. 423-425, 4* 1 - Trent, council of, 288. Saxony.elector of.made king, Stephen III., pope, 16. Treves, 2. 475- de Blois, 70. Trianon (426, 427). Tristan l'Hermite, 228. Scarlet dye (292). Scarron (386). of England, 82, 93. Strasburg taken by the Ger- Triumvirate, 294. Schism in the church, 187 mans, 5J3. Trivulzio, 257. (214, 215). Suffrage, parliamentary, 515. Trochu, general, 532. Schools in the 16th century Suger, 85, 89, 90, 92. Troubadours and trouveres Oi9)- Sully (116), 327, 328 (329- (85, 86, 136). Schwartzenberg, 481. 331, 348, 349)- Truce of God (66). Sedan, 522. , his memoirs (319). Sumptuary laws (151). Truches (126). Segur (418, 471). Tudesque (12). Seine (118). Superstition (334). Tuileries (158, 290), 327 ; Semblancai, 260. Surgery (318, 319)- attack on, in 1792, 436. Seneschals and baillies (137). Suwarrow, 462. Turenne, 353, 355-357. 36i, Ssrfs (76, 126, 127), 154. Sweden. See Prussia. 362. Seven years' war, 406-409. Sevigne, madame de (365). Swiss guards massacred in Turgot, 419. 1792, 436, 457. Turks, their conquests in the Sforza, Ludovico, 238-241, Sylvester II., 47 (51, 52, 59). East, 68, 216. 248. Turpin's Chronicle (23). , Francis, 221. T Tyrol, revolt of the, 476. , Maximilian, 258. Shepherd's Calendar (333). Talbot, 209. Ships, 307. Tallard, 378. U Sicilian Vesper, 133. Talleyrand, 491 (498, 499), Sieges — 525. Ulphilas (13). Acre, 102 ; in 1798, 461. Tassilon, 18. Ulm, surrender of, in 1805, Amiens, 325. Tasso's ' Jerusalem Deliver- 474- Avignon, 114, 115. ed ' (76). Uniforms (318). Calais, 164. Tavannes, 297. University of Paris (22, 181). Harfleur, 195. Taxation. See Gdbelle and Urban II., pope, 68. Metz, 276. Nobles. Utrecht, peace of, 380, 381. Orleans, 295. Tellier, Le, 372. Perpignan, 345. Templars, their suppression, 146, 147. Prague, 407. V Kochelle, 301, 340-343. Temple, prison of the (447- Rouen, 29;. 452). Valenttna, duchess of St. Quentin, 277. Tenth century, changes in Orleans, 194. Sieyes, 458, 525. (4?)- Valois, Charles of, 134, 135, SlGEBERT I., 9, II. Terouenne, 251. 144, 146, 148, 154, 156. II., II. Terror, reign of, 457. , Philip of, 161. Sigismond (214, 215). Theodebert, 11. , house of, its succession Silver Book (13). Simon de Montfort, 106. Theodore Lascaris (109). to the throne, 156, 161 ; Theodoric, 8, 11. its duration, 315 ; character .jailer, 442(451). Thibaud, earl of Champagne, of the sovereigns, ib. Single combats (282). afterwards king of Na- Varennes,Louis XVI.'s flight Sismondi, 168. varre, 115, 124(127), 131, to, 435 (444-446)- Slaves in agriculture (6). U5. Vassalage (49, 50). INDEX. 547 VELLY. WILLIAM. ZURICH. Velly (168). William, son of Robert of "Vendee war and massacre, w Normandy, 80, 81. 455, 458. Venice bombarded, 522. ■ , duke of Aquitaine, 82. Waddington, M., 534. I. of Prussia, 416. Ventadour, ducbess of, 400. Wallon language (86). Wilson, sir R., 501. Verdun, 464-466. Walter the Penniless, 69. Wittgenstein, 481. Verneuil, marquise de, 327. Water-clock (24, 25). Watteau (415). Wolfe, general, 409. Verona, congress of, 496. Wolves (31), 208 (213). Versailles (369). Wax taper in Notre Dame Workshops, national, 521. Victor Amadeus, 375. (i79)- Wurmser, 454. Victor Emmanuel, 529. Wellington, 476, 481, 484. Wurtemberg, duke of, made Vienna, revolution at, 522. Wigs (389). king by Napoleon, 474. Villafranca, truce of, 528. William the Conqueror, 61, Villars, marsbal, 378,379, 380, 7i- 396- Villebon (330, jji). Rufus, 71. Y William, prince of Orange, Villele, 496. afterwards William III. York, duke of, 454. Villeroy, marshal, 375, 378. of England (348), 361-363, Young, Arthur (430, 492). Vincennes (112, 159). 374-378. Visigoths, 2, 3 (5), 8. , prince, son of Henry I. Vitry, 337, «8. of England (87). Z Voltaire (351), 412. ■ of Poitiers, 71 (86). Vulgar era, 20. , son of Rollo, 36. Zurich, treatise of, 528. iONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS 50, Albemarle Street, London, October, 1893. MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. MURRAY'S STUDENT'S MANUALS. I juries jof Class-toafeg tax aMrattcefr $$&lm. Forming a Chain of History from the Earliest Ages down to Modern Times. English History and Literature. " The great foundation for all useful knowledge we hold, without any doubt, to be the knowledge of the history and literature of our own country. On this ground Mr. Murray is especially strong. 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It has been the object of the Authors of this Work to produce a more com- plete and more perfect English-Latin Dictionary than yet exists, and every article has been the result of original and independent research. Each meaning is illustrated by examples from the classical writers ; and those phrases are as a general rule given in both English and Latin. A SMALLER ENGLISH-LATIN DICTIONARY. Abridged from the above Work, by Sir WM. SMITH and T. D. HALL, M. A., for the use of Junior Classes. 16th Edition. (730 pp.) Square umo. 7$. 6d. "An English-Latin Dictionary worthy of the scholarship of our age and country. It will take absolutely the first rank, and be the standard English- Latin Dictionary as long as either tongue endures. Even a general exami- nation of the pages will serve to reveal the minute pains taken to ensure its fulness and philological value, and the ' work is to a large extent a diction- ary of the English language, as well as an English-Latin Dictionary.'"— English Churchman. A NEW GRADUS AD PARNASSUM. AN ENGLISH -LATIN GRADUS, OR VERSE DIC- TIONARY, on a new plan, with carefully selected Epithets and Synonyms, intended to Simplify the Composition of Latin Verses. By A. C. AINGER, M.A., Trinity Coll., Cambridge, and H. G. WINTLE, M. A., Christ Church, Oxford. (450 pp.) Crown 8vo. 9s. MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. Sir Wm. Smith's Educational Series. Latin Course. THE YOUNG BEGINNER'S COURSE. 2s. each. L FIRST LATIN BOOK.— Gram- mar, Easy Questions, Exercises, and Vocabularies. II, SECOND LATIN BOOK -An easy Latin Reading Book with Analysis of Sentences. III. THIRD LATIN BOOK— Ex- ercises on the Syntax, with Vocabularies. IV. FOURTH LATIN BOOK— A Latin Vocabulary for Beginners, arranged according to Subjects and Etymologies. PRINCIPIA LATINA, Part I. First Latin Course. Grammar, Delectus, Exercises, and Vocabularies. (218pp.) i2mo. 3-y.cW. APPENDIX TO PRINCIPIA LATINA, Part I. Containing Additional Exercises, with Examination Papers. (125 pp.) i2mo. 2J. 6d. PRINCIPIA LATINA, Part II. Reading Book. An Introduction to Ancient Mythology, Geography, Roman Antiquities, and History. With Notes and a Dictionary. (268 pp.) i2mo. 3^.6^. PRINCIPIA LATINA, Part III. Poetry, i. Easy Hexameters and Pentameters. 2. Eclogae Ovidianse. 3. Prosody and Metre. 4. First Latin Verse Book. (160 pp.) 121110. 3s. 6d. PRINCIPIA LATINA, Part IV. Prose Composition. Rules of Syntax, with Examples, Explanations of Synonyms, and Exercises on the Syntax. (194 pp.) i2mo. 35. 6d. PRINCIPIA LATINA, Part V. Short Tales and Anecdotes from Ancient History, for Translation into Latin Prose. With an English-Latin Vocabulary. By Sir WM. SMITH, LL.D. 10th Edition. Revised and considerably En- larged. By T. D. HALL, M.A. (182 pp.) 3 s. 6d. THE STUDENT'S LATIN GRAMMAR. For THE Use of Colleges and the Higher Forms in Schools. By Sir WM. SMITH, LL.D. and T. D. HALL. Thirteenth Edition, thoroughly revised and partly re-written. (450 pp.) Post 8vo. 6s. SMALLER LATIN GRAMMAR. For the Middle and Lower Forms. New and thoroughly revised Edition. (260 pp.) i2mo. 3 j. 6d. CHILD'S FIRST LATIN BOOK. Comprising Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives, with the Verbs. With ample and varied Practice of the easiest kind. Both old and new order of Cases given. By T. D. HALL, M.A. (124 pp.) New and Enlarged Edition, including the Passive Verb. i6mo. 2s. The speciality of this book lies in its presenting a great variety of vh>& voce work for class-room practice, designed to render the young beginner thoroughly familiar with the use of the Grammatical forms. V* Kty* may be had by Authenticated Teachers on application. 10 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. Sir Wm. Smith's Greek Course. INITIA GILffiCA, Part I. A First Greek Course, containing Grammar, Delectus, Exercise Book, and Vocabularies. (284 pp.) i2mo. 3$. 6d. •«* The present Edition has been very thoroughly revised, and many additions and improvements have been introduced. The great object of this work, as of the " Principia Latina," is to make the study of the language as easy and simple as possible, by giving the grammatical forms only as they are wanted, and by enabling the pupil to translate from Greek into English and from English into Greek as soon as he has learnt the Greek characters and the First Declension. For the con- venience of teachers the cases of the nouns, &c, are given according to the ordinary grammars as well as according to the arrangement of the Public Schools Latin Primer. APPENDIX TO INITIA GR.ECA, Part I. Containing Additional Exercises, with Examination Papers and Easy Reading Lessons with the Sentences Analysed, serving as an Introduction to Initia Gr.sca, Part II. (no pp.) umo. 2s. 6d. INITIA GRiECA, Part II. A Reading Book. Con- taining short Tales, Anecdotes, Fables, Mythology, and Grecian History. With a Lexicon. (220 pp.) i2mo. 35. 6d. INITIA GR-eECA, Part III. Prose Composition. Containing the Rules of Syntax, with Copious Examples and Exer- cises. (202 pp.) 1 2 mo. y. 6d. THE STUDENT'S GREEK GRAMMAR. For THE Higher Forms. By Professor CURTIUS. Edited by Sir WM. SMITH, D.C.L. (386pp.) Post8vo. 6s. The Greek Grammar of Dr. Curtius is acknowledged by the most com- petent scholar to be the best representative of the present advanced state of Greek scholarship. It is, indeed, almost the only Grammar which exhibits the inflexions of the language in a really scientific form; while its extensive use in schools, and the high commendations it has received from practical teachers, are a sufficient proof of its excellence as a school-book. It is surprising to find that many of the public and private schools in this country continue to use Grammars which ignore all the improvements and discoveries of modern philology. A SMALLER GREEK GRAMMAR. For the Middle and Lower Forms. Abridged from the above Work. (220 pp.) i2mo. 3s. 6d. THE GREEK ACCIDENCE. Extracted from the above Work. (125 pp.) i2mo. 2s. 6d. LEATHES' HEBREW GRAMMAR. With the Hebrew Text of Genesis i. — vi., and Psalms i. — vi. Grammatical Analysis and Vocabulary. (252 pp.) Post 8vo. js. 6d. *■ \* Keys may be had by Authenticated Teachers oh application, MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. II Sir Wm. Smith's French Course . FRENCH PRINCIPIA, Part I. A First French Course, containing Grammar, Delectus and Exercises, with Vocabu- laries and Materials for French Conversation. (202 pp.) nmo. 3s. 6d. This work has been compiled at the repeated request of numerous teachers who, finding the " Principia Latina " and " Initia Graeca " the easiest books for learning Latin and Greek, are anxious to obtain equally elementary French books on the same plan. There is an obvious gain in studying a new language on the plan with which the learner is already familiar. The main object is to enable a beginner to acquire an accurate knowledge of the chief grammatical forms, to learn their usage by constructing simple sentences as soon as he commences the study of the language, and to accumulate gradually a stock of words useful in conversation as well as in reading. APPENDIX TO EPvENCH PRINCIPIA, Part I. Con- taining Additional Exercises and Examination Papers, (no pp.) i2mo. 2 s. 6d. FRENCH PRINCIPIA, Part II. A Reading Book. Containing Fables, Stories, and Anecdotes, Natural History, and Scenes from the History of France. With Grammatical Questions, Notes, and copious Etymological Dictionary. (376 pp.) i2mo. 4-r. 6d. FRENCH PRINCIPIA, Part III. Prose COMPOSITION. Containing a Systematic Course of Exercises on the Syntax, with the Principal Rules of Syntax. i2mo. 4$. 6d. THE STUDENT'S FRENCH GRAMMAR: PRACTICAL and Historical. For the Higher Forms. By C. HERON-WALL, with Introduction by M. Littre. (490 pp.) Post 8vo. 6s. This Grammar is the work of a practical teacher of twenty years' experi- ence in teaching English boys. It has been his special aim to produce a book which would work well in schools where Latin and Greek form the principal subjects of study. " This book as a whole is quite a monument of French Grammar, and cannot fail to become a standard work in high-class teaching." — School Board Chronicle. " It would be difficult to point more clearly to the value of Mr. Wall's work, which is intended lor the use of Colleges and Upper Forms in schools, than by quoting what M. Littre says of it in an introductory letter :— ' I have carefully tested the principal parts of your work, and have been com- pletely satisfied with the accuracy and correctness which I found there.'"— Saturday Review. A SMALLER FRENCH GRAMMAR. For THE Middle and Lower Forms. Abridged from the above Work. (230 pp.) 1 2 mo. 3 j. 6d. V Keys may be had by Authenticated Teachers on application. 12 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. Sir Wm. Smith's German Course. GERMAN PRINCIPIA, Part I. A First German Course. Containing Grammar, Delectus, Exercises, Vocabularies and materials for German Conversation. (244 pp.) i2mo. 3s. 6d. •." The present edition has undergone a very careful revision, and various improvements and additions have been introduced. This work is on the same plan as the " French Principia," and therefore requires no further description, except in one point. Differing from the ordinary grammars, all German words are printed in Roman, and not in the old German characters. The Roman letters are used by many modern German writers, and also in Grimm's great Dictionary and Grammar ; and it is believed that this alteration will facilitate, more than at first might be sup- posed, the acquisition of the language. But at the same time, as many German books continue to be printed in the German characters, the exer- cises are printed in both German and Roman letters. GERMAN PRINCIPIA, Part II. A Reading Book. Containing Fables, Stories, and Anecdotes, Natural History, and Scenes from the History of Germany. With Grammatical Questions, Notes, and Dictionary. (272 pp.)_i2mo. 3s. 6d. PRACTICAL GERMAN GRAMMAR. With a Sketch of the Historical Development of the Language and its Principal Dialects. (240 pp.) Post 8vo. 3s, 6d. '.* Keys may be had by Authenticated Teachers on application. Sir Wm. Smith's Italian Course. ITALIAN PRINCIPIA, Part I. A First Italian Coukse. Containing a Grammar, Delectus, Exercise Book, with Vocabularies, &c. By Signor RICCI, Professor of Italian at the City of London School. (288 pp.) i2mo. 3s. 6d. ITALIAN PRINCIPIA, Part II. A First Italian Reading-Book, containing Fables, Anecdotes, History, and Passages from the best Italian Authors, with Questions, Notes, and an Etymo- logical Dictionary. By Signor RICCI. i2mo. 3s. 6d. %* Keys may be had by Authenticated Teachers on application. English Course. A READABLE ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Etymologi- cally arranged. By DAVID MILNE, M.A. Crown 8vo.- 7s. td. "An excellent book. . . . We gladly allow that its contents justify the title. . . . It is sound matter very skilfully arranged."— Pall Mall Gazette. "Mr. Milne has, we think, in his new Readable English Dictionary, hit the right nail on the head. . . . We have no hesitation in pronouncing his Dictionary to be one of the most entertaining and instructive and readable books of the seascn."— Bookseller. MR. MURRAY 'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 13 English Course- continue d L PRIMARY ENGLISH GRAMMAR for Elementary Schools. With 134 Exercises and carefully graduated parsing lessons. By T. D. HALL, M.A. (120 pp.) i6mo. is. This Work aims at the clearest and simplest statement possible of the first principles of English Grammar for the use of children from about eight to twelve years of age. " We doubt whether any grammar of equal size could give an introduction to the English language more clear, concise, and fuli than this." — Watchman. SCHOOL MANUAL OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR.. With 194 Exercises. By Sir WM. SMITH, D.C.L., and T. D. HALL, M.A. With Appendices. Eighth Edition, carefully revised. (270 pp.) Post 8vo. 3s. 6d. This Work has been prepared with a special view to the requirements of Schools in which English, as a living- language , is systematically taught, and differs from most modern grammars in its thoroughly practical character. A distinguishing feature of the book is the constant appeal for every usage to the authority of Standard English Authors. "An admirable English Grammar. We cannot give it higher praise than to say that as a school grammar it is the best in this country." — English Churchman. •«* Keys may be had by Authenticated Teachers on application. MANUAL OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. With Copious Illustrations and Practical Exercises. Suited equally for Schools and for Private Students of English. By T. D. HALL, M.A. Fourth Edition. (210 pp.) i2mo. 3^. 6d. " Certainly the most sensible and practical book upon English composition that we have lately seen. The great variety of subjects which it suggests as themes for exercising the imagination as well as the literary powers of young students will be found a great assistance to teachers, who must often be sorely puzzled to hit upon subjects sufficiently diversified without being ridiculously beyond the scope of youthful experience." — Saturday Review. PRIMARY HISTORY OF BRITAIN for Elementary Schools. Edited by Sir WM. SMITH, D.C.L. and LL.D. With a Map. (430 pp.) i2mo. 2S. 6d. A New and thoroughly revised Edition, continued down to 1S80. SCHOOL MANUAL OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY, Physical and Political. By JOHN RICHARDSON, M.A. (400 pp.) Post 8vo. 5$. This work has been drawn up for Middle Forms in"Pub!ic Schools, Ladies' Colleges, Training Colleges, Assistant and Pupil Teachers, Middle Class and Commercial Schools, and Civil Service Examinations. " It fully sustains the high reputation of Mr. Murray's series of school manuals, and we venture to predict for it a wide popularity. Bearing in mind its high character, it is a model of cheapness. "School Guardian. SMALLER MANUAL OF MODERN ^GEOGRAPHY. For Schools and Young Persons. By JOHN RICHARDSON, M.A. New and Revised Edition. (290 pp.) i6mo. 2s. 6d. " Great pains appear to have been spent on the verification of facts, and the arrangement is a model of good method. Throughout the book there are unmistakable indications of solid, conscientious work, sound judgment, and practical acquaintance with teaching. "School Guardian. 14 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. Eton College Books. THE ETON LATIN GRAMMAR. An entirely New Work. For use in the Higher Forms. By F. H. RAWLINS, M.A., and W..R. INGE, M.A., Fellows of King's Coll., Cambridge, and Assistant-Masters at Eton Coll. (396 pp.) Crown 8vo. 6s. THE ETON ELEMENTARY LATIN GRAMMAR. For Use in the Lower Forms. Compiled with the sanction of the Headmaster. By C. A. AINGEH, M.A., Trinity College, Cam- bridge, and H. G. WINTLE, M.A., Christ Church, Oxford, Assis- tant Masters at Eton College. (327 pp.) Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. THE ETON PREPARATORY GRAMMAR. Abridged from the above Work. (108 pp.) Post 8vo. 2s. ♦THE ETON FIRST LATIN EXERCISE BOOK. Adapted to the Eton Latin Grammar. (152 pp.) Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. THE ETON FOURTH FORM OVID. Being Easy Passages selected from the Elegiac Poems of Ovid and Tibullus. With Explanatory Notes. By H. G. WINTLE. (155 pp.) 2s. 6d. THE ETON HORACE. The Odes, Epodes, and Carmen S,eculare. With Notes. By F. W. CORNISH, M.A., Assistant- Master at Eton College. With Maps. (380 pp.) Crown 8vo. 6s. THE ETON MATHEMATICAL SERIES. I. *ETON EXERCISES IN ALGEBRA. By E. P. ROUSE and A. COCKSHOTT. Crown 8vo. 3 s. II. *ETON EXERCISES IN ARITHMETIC. By Rev. T. DALTON, M. A., Assistant Master at Eton College. Crown 8vo. 3s. • Keys may be purchased by Authenticated Teachers on written application to the Publisher. Natural Philosophy and Science. WORKS BY SAMUEL NEWTH, M.A., D.D. Specially adapted to tlie Regulations of the Examinations o/the University of London. FIRST BOOK OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, an Intro- duction to the Study of Statics, Dynamics, Hydrostatics, Light, Heat, and Sound, with Examples. (200 pp.) 3s. 6d. ELEMENTS OF MECHANICS, INCLUDING HYDRO- STATICS. With numerous Examples. (362 pp.) 8s. 6d. ~ MATHEMATICAL EXAMPLES. A Graduated Series of Elementary Examples in Arithmetic. Algebra, Logarithms, Trigono- metry, and Mechanics. (378 pp.) 8jr. 6d. MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 15 University Extension Manuals. Edited by Professor KNIGHT, of St. Andrew's University. The following are now ready ; — AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN GEOLOGY. By Dr. R. D. ROBERTS. With Illustrations and Coloured Maps. 5s. THE REALM OF NATURE: A Manual of Phy- siography. By Dr. HU and 68 Illustrations. 5$. siography. By Dr. HUGH ROBERT MILL. 19 Coloured Maps " Ilk THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE. By J. ARTHUR THOMSON. With many Illustrations. 5s. THE ELEMENTS OF ETHICS. By J. H. MUIR- HEAD. 3ft ENGLISH COLONIZATION AND EMPIRE. By A. CALDECOTT. Coloured Maps and Diagrams. 3s. td. THE FINE ARTS. By Prof. BALDWIN BROWN. Illustrations. 3s. td. THE USE AND ABUSE OF MONEY. By Professor CUNNINGHAM, D.D. 3s. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. By Professor KNIGHT. Parts I. and II. 3s. 6d. each part. FRENCH LITERATURE. By H. G. KEENE. 3*. THE RISE OF THE BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA. By Sir ALFRED LYALL. From the Early Days of the East India Company. With Coloured Maps. 4$. 6d. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SENSES. By Pro- fessor McKENDRICK and Dr. SNODGRASS. With Illustra- tions. 4s. 6d. CHAPTERS IN MODERN BOTANY. By Professor PATRICK GEDDES. With Illustrations. 3 s. td. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By C. E. MALLET, 35. td. ENGLISH LITERATURE. By WILLIAM RENTON. With Diagrams. 3s. td. LOGIC, INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE. By WILLIAM MINTO, late Professor of Logic, University of Aber- deen. With Diagrams. 4*. td. 16 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF SCHOOL BOOKS. Mrs. Markham's Histories. "Mrs. Markham's Histories are constructed on a plan which is novel and wo think well chosen, and we are glad to find that they are deservedly popular, for they cannot be too strongly recommended. "—JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE FIRST INVASION by thk Romans to 1880. New and revised edition. With Conversa- tions at the end of each Chapter. 100 Woodcuts. (528 pp.) 3s. 6d. HISTORY OF FRANCE, FROM THE CONQUEST OF Gaul by Julius C/esar to 1878. New and revised edition. Con- versations at the end of each Chapter. 70 Woodcuts. (550 pp.) 3s. 6d. HISTORY OF GERMANY, from its Invasion by Marius to 1880. New and revised edition. 50 Woodcuts. (460 pp.) 3s. 6d. LITTLE ARTHUR'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Lady CALLCOTT. New and revised edition. Continued down to 1878. 500/A thousand. With 36 Woodcuts. i6mo. is. 6d. " I never met with a history so well adapted to the capacities of children or their entertainment, so philosophical, and written with such simplicity." —Mrs. Marcett. LITTLE ARTHUR'S HISTORY OF FRANCE. From the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Second Empire. With Map and Illustrations. i6mo. 2s. 6d. " The jaded schoolboy, surfeited with tales and the ' over-pressure' arising from long attention to lives and adventures, will, towards the latter part of his holiday, turn with some relief to this book, and begin feasting afresh. Those who know what ' Little Arthur's England ' did to popularise the subject among little folks, will know what to expect in this ' France.' The book is capitally illustrated, and very wisely the compiler does not reject the exciting and legendary parts of the subject."— Schoolmaster. JESOP'S FABLES. A New Version. Chiefly from the Original Sources. By Rev. THOMAS JAMES. With 100 Wood- cuts. Illustrations by John Tenniel. (168 pp.) Post 8vo. zs. 6d. " Of yEsop's Fables there ought to be in every school many copies, full of pictures."— Fraser's Magazine. THE BIBLE IN THE HOLY LAND. Extracted from Dean Stanley's work on Sinai and Palestine. With Woodcuts. (210 pp.) Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. SERMONS FOR CHILDREN PREACHED IN WEST- MINSTER ABBEY. By Dean STANLEY. Post 8vo. 3s. 6d. JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. Bradbury, Agnew & Co. Ld.] [Printers, Whitefriars. 96165 tiff THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY % HnHHH BRNS9 1HHHIH ■■■ ykmwb