LIBRARY /V y -^v/vvw// f, ' / /<^ presented to the LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO by FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY MR. & MRS. RICHARD KORNHAUSER donor GENERAL VIEW POLITICAL HISTORY OF EUROPE OF THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF EUROPE BY ERNEST LAVISSE PROFESSOR AT THE 80RBONNB TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION BY CHARLES GROSS, PH.D. 1NBTBUCTOB IN HISTORY, HABVABD UNIVEBSITT NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 15 BAST SIXTEENTH STREET 1891 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY CHARLES GROSS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING UNO BOOKBINDING COMPA NIW YORK TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THE title of Professor Lavisse's work is Vue Generate de VHistoire Politique de ^Europe, (Third edition. Paris : Armand Colin & Co. 1890.) While giving the essential facts of universal his- tory, he aims, above all, to describe the formation and political development of the states of Europe, and to indicate the historical causes of their pres- ent condition and mutual relations. In other words, he shows how the existing political divi- sions of Europe, with their peculiar tendencies, were created. To accomplish this, it was neces- sary to begin with the history of Greece and Rome, which played an important part in Europe long after their death ; then, to show the potent influence of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Papacy in the Middle Ages ; next, to point out how these two great ideal powers were superseded by modern Europe, an organic entity composed of various states, new and old, most of which were dominated by the monarchical idea ; and, finally, how, in the nineteenth century, the new principle iv Translator's Preface. of nationality and the power of the people have supplanted the old monarchical element. The ability of Professor Lavisse to compress the es- sence of a great event or sequence of events into a few comprehensive and expressive sentences, has enabled him to accomplish his difficult task with signal success. At any rate, this is the opinion of the Translator, and hence he believes that the work will prove useful to general readers, as well as to college students, in America and England. The Translator has attempted to adhere as closely to the original as the English idiom permits. He has, however, taken the liberty to divide the work into chapters and sections, and to make some slight changes in the titles of the sections ; he has also added an Index. He desires to express his thanks to the friends who have kindly aided him with suggestions, especially to Professor A. B. Hart, of Harvard College, and Professor A. Gr. Canfield, of Kansas State University. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. October 1, 1891. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. a writer presents to the public a General View of the Political History of Europe* he ex- poses himself to the reproach of having under- taken too much. We know, at the present day, the trouble and care that are necessary to establish the truth of a single fact. How, then, can any- one aspire to deal with the great mass of facts that make up the political history of Europe ? The historians who, nevertheless, venture to treat such subjects, can say in their defence that if the details are often doubtful, the leading facts are not. We do not know with complete certainty the inner motives of Luther's revolt, and there are obscurities in the history of the battle of Waterloo ; but it is certain that Luther revolted, and that the battle of Waterloo was lost by Napoleon. Now * The idea of this volume was suggested to me by a preface which I wrote in 1886 for the translation of one of Mr. Freeman's books (His- torical Geography of Europe, by Edward A. Freeman, translated by Mr. Gustave Lefevre, under the title, Histoire Generate de V Europe par la Geographie Politique. Paris: Armand Colin & Co.). It seemed to me that it might be useful to expand this first undertaking into a book. vi Author's Preface. these two events had results that are very clear and very important. Decisive events, those that can be said to belong to universal history, are rare. It is not impossible to discern them, to understand them, and to per- ceive their results. It is for this reason, paradox- ical as the opinion may seem, that the generic in history is more certain than the specific. It is easier to be deceived concerning a person than con- cerning a whole country. The view that fails to distinguish individual trees takes in the whole for- est ; the vastest horizons are the clearest. Never- theless, an attempt, like the present, to sketch in a few pages the history of so many centuries, is not wholly devoid of peril. Certain opinions and judgments that are briefly expressed may aston- ish, perhaps even offend, the reader. Let me also beg him to choose carefully his point of view in this stretch of three thousand years. We are tempted to exaggerate certain facts, because, for our own special reasons, they arouse our interest more than others. We are bet- ter acquainted with ancient history and with the centuries of the Renaissance, of Louis XIV., and of Voltaire, than with the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century. This is one of the effects of our education. Nevertheless, in the Middle Ages were formed the rudiments of the nations, whose development has been completed in the course of Author's Preface. vii the present century. These two periods are thus the most important in the history of Europe I mean political history, properly speaking. This volume presents the sequence of the great phenomena of history, and it also attempts to give the how of things. It would be well to add the why, if it were not too bold an undertaking. Nature has written on the map of Europe the destiny of certain regions. She determines the apti- tudes and, hence, the destiny of a people. The very movement of events in history creates, moreover, in- evitable exigencies, one thing happening because other things have happened. On the other hand, nature has left, on the map of Europe, free scope to the uncertainty of various possibilities. His- tory is full of accidents, the necessity of which can- not be demonstrated. Finally, there exists free power of action, which has been exercised by indi- viduals and nations. Chance and freedom of action oppose alike the fatality of nature and the fatality of historical sequence. To what extent each of these four elements has influenced history cannot be deter- mined with exactness. Still it may be interest- ing, at least, to attempt to accomplish something in this direction. My little volume invites the reader to make such an attempt. One word more. I have done my best to guard myself against the prejudices of patriotism, and I viii Author's Preface. believe that I have not exaggerated the place of France in the world's history. But the reader will find that, in the conflict between the opposing factors of history, France is the most formidable adversary of the fatality of historical sequence. A century ago she placed herself athwart the course of European events, and precipitated it into a new direction. At the present day we feel a formidable fatality weighing upon the Continent of Europe ; hence this book closes with some pessimistic pre- dictions. But it points out in its last pages, that if the discord which is arming Europe, and threat- ens to ruin her, can be appeased, it will be done by the spirit of France. ERNEST LAVISSE. January, 1890. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT HISTORY. PAGES 1. General Characteristics 1-2 2. Greece 2-4 3. The Roman Dominion 4-7 4. Division into Two Empires 7-8 5. Causes of the Fall of Rome 8-10 CHAPTER II. TRANSITION TO MEDLEY AL HISTORY. 1. General Characteristics 11-12 2. The Empire of the East 13-15 3. The Western Barbarians and the Church . . . 15-18 4. The Franks 18-21 5. Restoration of the Empire 21-25 6. The Historical World in the Year 800 .... 25-26 7. Historical Effects of the Restoration of the Empire . 26-29 CHAPTER III. THE MIDDLE AGES. 1. General Characteristics 30-33 2. The Empire of the East 33-37 3. The Empire of the West 37-38 4. Empire and Church Consequences for Germany . . 38-40 x Contents. PAGES 5. Consequences for Italy 41^43 6. Expansion of Italy 43-44 7. Expansion of Germany in the North and East The Three Zones 45-47 8. Progress of Germany in the First Zone . . . 47-48 9. Progress of Germany in the Second Zone . . 49 10. Progress of Germany in the Third Zone . . . 50-51 11. Progress of Germany in the Valley of the Danube . 51-52 12. Resume of the Expansion of Germany . . . 52-53 13. Effects of this Expansion on German History Austria and Prussia 54-56 14. The Intermediate Region between Germany and France 56-57 15. Formation of France 58-60 16. Expansion of France 60-63 17. The Royal Policy French Patriotism . . . 63-65 18. Progress of France in the Intermediate Region . . 65-67 19. The House of Burgundy ...... 67-69 20. Formation of Spain 69-71 21. The Kingdom of England 71-75 22. General and Concluding Reflections on the Middle Ages. 76-78 CHAPTER IV. MODERN TIMES. 1. General Characteristics 79-86 2. Italy and Germany 86-89 3. The Italian Field of Battle The King of Sardinia . 89-92 4. The German Field of Battle Prussia and Austria . 92-95 5. The Intermediate Region 95-97 6. Provinces remaining under Hapsburg Rule . . 97-99 7. Separation of the Netherlands 99-100 8. The United Provinces 100-101 9. The Swiss Cantons 101-102 10. France 102-106 Contents. xi PACKS 11. Spain 106-109 12. England 109-113 13. The East Prussia 113-118 14. Austria 118-119 15. Essential Difference between Prussia and Austria . 120-122 16. Mediaeval Russia 122-125 17. Modern Russia 125-126 18. Characteristics of Russia 126-128 19. Concluding Reflections The Three Regions . . 128-129 20. Western Europe 129-131 21. Eastern Europe 131-134 22. New Manners and New Ideas 134-137 CHAPTER V. THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY. 1. Destruction of Europe 138-139 2. Restoration of Europe 140-141 3. Patriotism of the Revolution 141-142 4. The Principle of Nationality 143-145 5. The New Nations . 145-147 6. Definition of " Nationality " Imperfection of National Development 147-150 7. Application of the Principle of Nationality to Italy . 150-153 8. Application of the Principle of Nationality to Germany 154-155 9. The Alsacian Question 155-157 10. Austrian and Russian Wars of Conquest . . . 157-158 11. Expansion of Europe 158-160 12. Past and Present Politics 160-162 13. Causes of Peace 162-163 14. Causes of War 163-164 15. National Individualism 164-167 16. Conclusion 167-172 INDEX 173-188 POLITICAL HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT HISTORY. 1. General Characteristics. A PEOPLE does not possess a history by the mere fact of its existence ; its life must be active and fruitful. An historical people is one which has rules for the guidance of its political and social life, and which has some measure of order in its govern- ment and of justice in its society. It professes re- ligion and morality. It is skilled in the work of the hands and of the mind : it has industries, art, and literature. It comes in contact with other na- tions in order to use its powers, to enrich itself, and to gratify its pride, devoting itself to commerce or to conquest, or to both at once. At the present day several nations deserve to be called historical ; the actions of each of them and 2 Ancient History. [CH. i. their mutual relations constitute history. But the farther back we go, the rarer are such nations. At first there was in Europe only one, the Greeks ; after them only one occupied the scene a scene of wider dimensions the Romans. The history of Greece and Rome forms our first period, which closes about the fourth century of the Christian era ; then new actors appear, the Germans and Slavs, to give complexity to history, which till then was very simple. 2. Greece. It was natural that the history of Europe should begin in the southeast, quite close to the cradle of the earliest civilizations. Greece turned to account the experience ac- quired by the nations which inhabited the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the slopes of Mount Lebanon, and the banks of the Nile. But Grecian civilization was distinguished from that of earlier nations by an excellence that may be called European, namely, by independent activity. It was also natural that Greece should at once acquire the characteristic features of European civ- ilization. This country, which receives the ocean in the sinuosities of its shores and thrusts its pro- montories into the ocean, this peninsula, encom- passed by islands and cut up by valleys with CH. L] Greece. 3 dominating plains, is like a reduced copy of our peninsular-shaped continent, with its extensive coast and well-defined bays. Greece, in short, is Europe reflected and condensed in a mirror. Her history likewise foretells that of Europe. Greece was divided into populations related to, and yet differing from, one another. Her cities were small sovereign states, which in their mutual inter- course employed all the combinations of politics. Two or three of them exercised a hegemony, which, however, was never extensive or durable. She succeeded in organizing within the sacred precincts of her cities a government and a society. She excelled in all kinds of human activity poetry, philosophy, science, art, industry, and commerce. The powers thus acquired she diffused abroad. Along the whole Mediterranean coast, from the Euxine to the Columns of Hercules, she founded cities, which were offspring of her own towns; but just as she was never consolidated into a state, so, too, she did not unite her colonies into an em- pire. When, however, she lost her power of action, and fell under the rule of a military peo- ple, the Macedonians, Grecian states were formed ; but the most important of them were in Asia and Egypt. Greece, however, was destined to survive in Europe, where Hellenism, under different forms, long continued to exercise very great influence. 4 Ancient History. CCH. i. It modified the customs and ideas of republican Rome. After the foundation of Constantinople it created a religious and political civilization, the Byzantine. It broke up Roman unity in the last days of the Empire. During the Middle Ages it was antagonistic to the ideas and systems of which the West made trial, and it destroyed the ecclesi- astical unity of the Christian world. Still later, in the period of the Renaissance, its wide diffusion rejuvenated thought, and produced the intellectual development of modern times. 3. The Roman Dominion. The Italian Peninsula does not resemble that of Greece. It is more regular in outline ; islands do not abound around the coast ; and its inlets do not face the East. Italy is, moreover, situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, and Sicily brings her within view of Africa. She is much more conti- nental, in the language of French sailors more ter~ rienne, than Greece. Her indigenous inhabitants along the coast came in contact with foreign sea- men. It was, however, a city of husbandmen that united them all under its laws. Rome employed the first centuries of her exist- ence in enlarging her territory, just as a peasant rounds ofE his estate. Like all conquerors, she continued to conquer because she had begun to CH. L] The Roman Dominion. 5 conquer. Her first wars led to others ; her first successes rendered the later ones at once necessary and easy. She finally believed that it was her mission to conquer other nations. Conquest be- came to her a profession : Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento. She thus considerably extended the field of his- tory, by bringing within its limits Spain, Gaul, Britain, the country situated between the Alps and the Danube, and a part of Germany. To ex- ploit these conquered territories she invented the province. Her administration destroyed the ancient na- tions, and fused the old historical and natural divi- sions into the unity of the orbis romanus. This name she gave to the beautiful Mediterranean region in the centre of which arose u the immov- able rock of the Capitol." The Grecian cities had separately founded colonies ; Greece dispersed her strength : Rome consolidated the world in the O words of Varro, fiebat orbis urbs. There had been a Grecian world, but not a Grecian empire ; there was a Roman world, and also a Roman empire. Rome's activity was intense and profound. She transformed nations, substituted order for anarchy, and taught the conquered people her language, customs, and religion. She rose to the conception of genus liumanum, and wrote human reason in her 6 Ancient History. [CH.L ]aws. One cannot help admiring so extraordinary a power, but it is doubtful whether all its influ- ences were beneficent. All uniformity of education is dangerous, be- cause individual divergence is necessary for the progress of human activity. The more competing individuals there are, the more productive is the world's work. As far as she could, Rome de- stroyed the individual genius of nations; she seems to have rendered them unqualified for a na- tional existence. When the public life of the Empire ceased, Italy, Gaul, and Spain were thus unable to become nations. Their great historical existence did not commence until after the arrival of the barbarians, and after several centuries of experiments amid violence and calamity. The countries that Rome civilized do not owe her thanks only. We are fond of contrasting the picture of Celtic Gaul with that of Roman Gaul. The villages are transformed into cities, huts into palaces, foot-paths into paved ways, un- cultured orators into eloquent rhetoricians, and barbarous warriors into generals and emperors. We marvel at this miracle, and at the happy life that people led in the Gallo-Roman cities. But how does it happen that the countries which Rome did not conquer, or did not long have under her sway, now hold such a prominent place in the world that they exhibit so much CH. i.] Division into Two Empires. 7 originality and such complete confidence in their future? Is it only because, having existed a shorter time, they are entitled to a longer future ? Or, perchance, did Rome leave behind her certain habits of mind, intellectual and moral qualities, which impede and limit activity ? These are insolvable questions, like all similar ones whose solution it would be important for us to know. At any rate, let us not be too prompt to pass judgment in this matter. It is not certain that Caesar's conquest of Vercingetorix was a blessing to the world. 4. Division into Two JJ/mpires. Though strongly organized, this vast dominion encountered various opposing forces which it could not overcome. Very frequently there was opposition, and hence permanent conflict, between the spirit of the North and that of the South. But in Roman times the North was only an external enemy, and one which was held in check. The real contrast lay between the West and the East the West, which Rome had subdued and assimilated by civilizing it ; the East, which still retained its Hellenic civilization. Into Western Europe Rome introduced her spirit and language ; but from Hellenism she won with great difficulty Southern Italy and Sicily. The Ian- 8 Ancient History. [CH.L guage and civilization of Greece survived from the Adriatic to Mount Taurus. In this stretch of country the Roman name displaced the Grecian, but it was Roman only in appearance. On the day when Constantine founded a second Rome, an empire began which the Byzantine chancery called the Roman Empire, but which history regards as the Greek Empire. The separation of the West and the East was in- evitable, and was consummated when, in the year 395, the two sons of Theodosius began to reign, the one at Ravenna, the other at Constantinople. From that time there existed two distinct states, each with it own task and its own enemies the latter forming a great and potent throng that strove to make room for itself on the scene of action. 5. Causes of the fall of Home. It was not the division into two empires, nor merely the power of external enemies, that de- stroyed the domination of Rome. Republican Rome had ended in monarchy by the decadence of her institutions and customs, by the very effect of her victories and conquests, by the necessity of giv- ing to this immense dominion a dominus. But after she had begun to submit to the reality of a mon* archy, she retained the worship of republican forms. CH. i.] Causes of the Fall of Rome. 9 The Empire was for a long time a piece of hypoc- risy ; for it did not dare to give to its rulers the first condition of stability, a law of succession. The death of every emperor was followed by troubles, and the choice of a master of the world was often left to chance. At length the monarchy had to be organized, but thenceforth it was absolute, without restraint or opposition. Its proposed aim was to exploit the world, an aim which in practice was carried to an extreme. Hence it exhausted the orbis romanus. We may also mention among the causes of ruin the very duration of the Empire, the wear and tear of time. The world felt itself growing old. It was seeking and awaiting something new. This it could not obtain by a political revolution, for no one thought of any other form of govern- ment than the empire ; nor by a social revolution, for the mind had become inured to the regime of castes that had gradually secured a foothold. A religious revolution occurred, but it was directed against the Empire. To say, "My kingdom is not of this world," was to hurl divine contempt at the pagan world, which desired to be self-suffic- ing, and did not recognize the existence of a fut- ure life. To say, " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," was to distinguish God from Caesar, in whom were blended the human and the divine. 10 Ancient History. CCH. i. This distinction having once been made, would not the debt to God have been much greater than the obligation to Caesar ? To say, " Heaven and earth shall pass away," was to gainsay the pre- diction of the Empire's eternity (Imperium sine fine dedi) ; to speak thus was to shake the immov- able rock. CHAPTER II. TRANSITION TO MEDLEVAL HISTORY. 1. General Characteristics. FROM the East, the cradle of races, the tumultu- ous procession of the nations advances Germans, Slavs, Huns, Avars, and Arabs. They differ very much from one another. Humanity with its con- trasting variations, congenital or slowly acquired, enters into conflict with the Roman work of as- similating men by force and by the power of the intellect. The Arabs were characterized by a potent origi- nality. They represented the great Semitic race as opposed to the great Aryan race. They founded a religion and an empire, and did not harmonize with the imperial Roman past. They have, in fact, a peculiar domicile of their own in history. The Huns and the Avars, both of the Turanian race, more poorly endowed than the Semites, un- touched by earlier educating influences, still re- maining in the primitive state of nomads, and 12 Transition to Mediaeval History. ten. n. benighted in fetichism, brought with them nothing save brutality. Destroyers, incapable of founding anything, they were destined to be destroyed. The Germans and the Slavs are of the same stock as the Greeks and Romans. Posted on the frontiers of the Roman Empire, where dwelt order, joy, and wealth, it seemed as though they were simply awaiting the time when they were to divide their patrimony. They are the younger branches of the Aryan family, which succeeded when the older ones were exhausted and withered. All these nations, differing in origin, customs, and religion, came in contact with the Roman Empire. In the East, it suffered encroachment without being destroyed ; in the West, the Ger- mans, after unintentionally extinguishing the Em- pire, restored it. In the year 800, when Charle- magne was crowned in the basilica of St. Peter, Europe appeared to be again restored to good order, as in the time of Theodosius, with her two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. This was the case only in appearance ; but appearances are facts, and illusions are powers that produce real actions of considerable importance. Thus the year 800 marks the end of a second period. Let us now trace the history of Europe to this date. CH. n.] The Empire of the East. 13 2. The Empire of the East. The main efforts of the barbarians were di- rected against the West. A few years after the death of Theodosius, Britain was abandoned by the Roman legions. Franks, Visigoths, and Bur- gundians occupied Gaul and Spain. Almost all the barbarians visited and pillaged Italy. Groups of mercenaries established their quarters in the Peninsula, but no people took possession of it in the formal way in which the above-mentioned tribes occupied Gaul. Italy inspired respect. Though completely disarmed, she was protected by the grand reminiscences of her glory, just as Sylla had formerly been shielded by the shades of his pro- scribed victims. No king entertained the idea of reigning over Home. Emperors continued to succeed one another, valiant or craven, intelligent or stupid, all equally impotent. Nevertheless, in the year 476, the chief of the mercenaries of Italy, Odoacer by name, thought that it was no longer necessary that the West should have a separate emperor. He caused the imperial insignia to be carried to Gaul by a depu- tation charged to tell the Emperor Zeno that a single master of the world sufficed. Thenceforth unity, as it existed under the Caesars and Antonines, seemed to be restored. Con- 14 Transition to Mediaval History. [en. n. stantinople imagined that in the future she alone was to direct the course of history. There the Emperor received the homage of the kings of the West. He sent titles and favors to the limits of the orbis romanus. He decorated Clovis, King of the Franks, with the insignia of a proconsul. Against Odoacer, the Emperor sent to Italy the Ostrogoths, commanded by Theodoric, who, will- ingly or unwillingly, remained his lieutenant. At one time it even seemed as though the Emperor were going to take effective possession of the world ; for Justinian conquered Italy, Africa, a part of Spain, and various islands and shores of the Western Mediterranean. This return to offensive operations on the part of the ancient power was of short duration. The Lombards, invading Italy in the sixth century, wrested from the Empire all save a few islets of territory, and these were beaten and wasted by the waves of the invasion. The Arabs, by their conquests in Asia, Africa, and Spain, formed an immense semicircle around the orbis romanus on the south. Relegated to the East, the Empire, still calling itself the universal Empire, began to assume the well-defined character of an oriental state. Bar- barian invasions complicated the ethnography of the Balkan Peninsula. The Slavs spread over the north and the northwest ; and thus Servia CH. no The Western Barbarians and the Church. 15 and Croatia came into existence. Istria and Dal- matia were completely permeated with Slavs, who likewise penetrated by infiltration into Macedonia and Greece. The Bulgarians, a Turanian people, who were soon assimilated by the Slavs, crossed the Danube, and spread out far beyond the Bal- kans. Such is the agglomeration of elements out of which was to arise the modern Eastern Ques- tion. Henceforth there was no longer any hope of re- storing the universal empire. Only a modest function remained to be performed by the Byzan- tine Empire : it had to strive to exist. It is a marvel that it existed so long. 3. The Western Barbarians and the Cliurch. While the East thus adhered to the forms of the past, new and curious experiments were being tried in the West. These novelties were not of a revolutionary nature. When the Germans first entered into relations with Rome, they came in the attitude of armed supplicants, demanding lands in exchange for their military service. Ma- rius destroyed this first army of invaders, but others came, always repeating the same supplica- tions. The frontiers of the Rhine and the Danube, after a long defence, gave way. Numerous indi- viduals, bands more or less considerable, finally 16 Transition to Mediceval History. [CH. IL whole nations, came for the purpose of establishing themselves on Roman soil. In the course of the fifth century the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks divided Gaul ; and the Ostrogoths occupied Italy. None of them were destroyers. Each of these nations, spread out over vast provinces, formed a minority in the midst of a completely Roman population, and sought to live in harmony with the latter. In this attempt they showed some intelligence and much good- will, but they could not cast off their old customs. The government of the barbarian kings was a peculiar monarchy, half Roman, half German, ab- solute in principle, but tempered by revolts, by murders, and, above all, by the impossibility of their comprehending the spirit of imperial govern- ment. The surviving respect for the Empire dis- turbed the Ostrogoths, established on soil pre-emi- nently Roman, and also the Burgundians, whose chancery makes them use the language of very humble servants when they address the Emperor of the East. Nevertheless, this sentiment, which the people of the West professed for the Empire, was a superstition. It was a new power that was des- tined to give the barbarians a domicile in history. The Christian Church, after having lived con- cealed in the Empire, after having defied its laws and suffered its persecutions, had received from it honors, privileges, riches, and a model for her gov- CH. n.] The Western Barbarians and the Church. 17 eminent. In fact, the imperial hierarchy was re- produced in the cities by the bishops, and in the provinces by the metropolitans. The Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter and sole patriarch of the West, already saluted with the title of univer- sal bishop, was spiritually what the successor of Augustus was temporally. Thus the Church remade, or rather perpetuated, the idea of universality. When the Roman father- land, torn into fragments, was about to be super- seded by many small countries, the Church offered to civilized humanity the great ecclesiastical and Christian fatherland. She mediated a quiet tran- sition from the past to the future. Was she not in reality Roman? Her leader sat at Rome; her language was that of Rome ; and her worship had become the official worship of Rome. The words "Christian" and "Roman" were at first opposed to each other. When the martyrs refused to wor- ship at the statue of the Emperor, they justified their disobedience by saying : " I am a Christian," Sum Christianus. But in the fourth century the two words approached each other in meaning or were confused ; " Christian " and " Roman " be- came, in fact, synonymous terms. Like ancient Rome, the Church conquered and assimilated. The intellectual sap of the ancient world no longer produced anything but miserable flowerets without color or perfume. The Church, 2 18 Transition to Mediaeval History. [CH. n. on the other hand, attracted intelligent men by her literature, history, dialectics, the philosophy of her dogma, and her words of eternal life. Since the barbarians did not wish to destroy Rome, since they entered the Empire as guests, and since they were not numerous enough or strong enough to exterminate the ancient population or to reduce it to obedience, they had no other policy to adopt save to make it accept them. But the necessary and prime condition of this step was their own acceptance by the Church. Accord- ingly, the Visigoths, Burgundians, Vandals, and Ostrogoths consented to become Christians, but after their own fashion. They did not accept the whole Catholic creed. Hence they were merely transient figures on the scene of action. The Church and the Roman population were not powerful enough to drive them away, but they allowed Justinian to obtain possession of Italy, and aided the Franks to conquer Gaul and the West. 4. The Franks. The Franks had long been familiar with the name of Rome, and had, in fact, been in her ser- vice, but they had not been Romanized like the Visigoths and Burgundians. They were no longer wholly barbarians, although still uncivilized. Es- tablished on the northern frontier of the Empire, CH. n.] The Franks 19 they occupied territory partly Roman and partly German. Inhabiting both sides of the Rhine, which separated the classical from the barbarian world, they were destined to be the medium of communication between the past, in which the chief actors were the Romans, and the future, which was to be mainly the possession of the Germanic nations. Like the Church, the Franks were thus capable of mediating a transition. Hence the harmony between the ecclesiastical power and Frank en- ergy is one of the greatest facts in universal his- tory. The vigor of the Franks by itself would have sufficed to triumph over the worn-out and enervated Visigoths and Burgundians ; but the baptism of Clovis and his policy toward the Church completed the success of the Franks. St. Remi gave them citizenship among the Roman populations, in whose midst the other barbarians remained strangers because they were heretics. The Church immediately opened to their ambi- tion an immense perspective. She sought a new people of God, which she could charge with the divine mission. Hence on the day after the bap- tism of Clovis priests preached to the new David concerning his duties; the task which they im- posed upon him was nothing less than to unite un- der one law and one faith all the nations of the earth. 20 Transition to Mediaval History. ECH.IL Beyond the ancient limits of the Empire the Franks conquered Alemannia and Thuringia; they also made Bavaria a dependent state ; and Chris- tianity began to be preached in these new coun- tries. But the Franks did not immediately suc- ceed in accomplishing their arduous task. The Merovingian dynasty governed poorly, and never even succeeded in comprehending what a govern- ment was. It wore itself out in enjoyments, dis- cords, and imbecile follies. Its empire was dis- membered Neustria, Aquitaine, Burgundy, Aus- trasia, Alemannia, and Bavaria secured separate organizations. In each of these provinces, which were like distinct kingdoms, little groups of sei- gneurs with their dependents began to be absorbed in their own local life. Among these seigneurs were the bishops. Hav- ing become great landowners and important mem- bers of the state, they were entangled and lost in the temporal hierarchy. It seemed as though the world would split into an infinite number of small pieces. But the idea of unity survived in the great pagan reminiscences, in the indestructible power of the imagination, and in the creed of the Bishop of Rome, the successor of that apostle to whom Christ had entrusted the task of feeding the O universal flock of the faithful. At the close of the sixth century the Papacy became a conquering power. Under its direction en. n.] Restoration of the Empire 21 missionaries proceeded beyond Gaul, to the very extremity of the ancient Empire, and converted the Anglo-Saxons, who had recently established themselves in Britain. Here an ecclesiastical pro- vincia was organized, as completely subject to the Bishop of Rome as the ancient political province had been to the Roman emperor. From England missionaries went forth to preach the Christian faith in Germany, and, as one of its dogmas, obedi- ence to the See of Rome. Thus the Rome of St. Peter began her conquests where the Rome of Augustus had finished hers, in Britain and Germany. These two countries are the first provinces of a Church Empire ; they enter into history through the Church. Hence it was the Papacy which first enlarged Europe. 5. Restoration of the Empire. Meanwhile, since the sixth century, Lombards and Greeks were contending for the possession of Italy. Rome, which was menaced by the former, still belonged to the Emperor. The Bishop of the Eternal City was thus the subject of the Byzan- tine /?acri/li;g. But Constantinople held out to him the prospect of nothing but insults, humilia- tions, and even dangers to the Christian faith. From the Lombards, likewise, he expected no good. Between these two enemies he maintained 22 Transition to Mediceval History. CCH. n. himself with difficulty. His secret desire was to have Rome to himself ; and this end he gradu- ally attained by the very services that he rendered in rebuilding her walls and in nourishing her peo- ple. He even dreamed of dominion over all Italy ; but he was still weak in the midst of violent en- emies. "Watching carefully the course of events, he fol- lowed the progress of a new Frankish power. For he, too, like the Gallo-Roman bishops of the fifth century, was in quest of a people that might become the workmen of God. An Austrasian family, destined later to bear the name of Carolingians, had recently acquired great possessions between the Moselle and the Rhine. In this family public office became heredi- tary. Its heads served the Merovingian crown as mayors of the palace ; but they were, in reality, dukes of Austrasia, just as the Agilofings were dukes of Bavaria. Their country was rich in men of war, and was well situated to exert influence, on the one hand, upon the German duchies and, on the other, upon Neustria and Burgundy. This country of the Rhine was, decidedly, the principal theatre of history. There, on the con- fines of the old world and the new, it was necessary to live in order to become the controlling powe^r of the future. The Merovingian Franks left this region too quickly, making Paris and Orleans their CH. n.i Restoration of the Empire. 23 favorite capitals. They sank in the quicksands of the Gallo-Roman population, and their energy was prematurely stifled in the ashes of the past. On the other hand, the Franks of Austrasia, the Ripu- arians of the Rhine, had preserved their primitive energy, the practice of undertaking a campaign every spring, and the love and enjoyment of war. When the Merovingian Franks first appeared on the scene, the Bishop of Rheims had been there to greet them ; and ready to greet the Austrasian Franks was the Bishop of Rome. Being a greater personage than St. Remi, the universal bishop pro- posed a higher task : with prayers and tears he begged the Franks to constitute themselves the protectors of the Apostle St. Peter. The Franks did not at first understand this proposition, and hesitated a long time. Charles Martel, intent on his work of war, did not trouble himself to place his weapons at the service of a priest. But the priest insisted. Pipin and Carlo- man, sons of Charles, were already disciples of the Church. The latter died as a monk ; the former pre- sided over ecclesiastical councils, and was zealous in reforming the churches of Gaul and Germany. When Pipin was elected king by the Franks, the Pope went to Gaul to anoint him, just as Samuel had anointed David. Nevertheless, the alliance was not final. Charlemagne, son of Pipin, did not come to an immediate understanding with the 24 Transition to Mediceval History. ten. n. Papacy. For a time lie was on good terms with the Lombards, and chose a wife from amonor this 7 O " most infamous tribe of lepers," as they were called by the Holy Father. Nevertheless, the spell exercised by the Church continued to work, and became irresistible. If Charlemagne had been left to his own resources, he would have had at his disposal only the power and the ideas of a primitive king, that is to say, of a military leader and a judge. The Church nour- ished him with her learning her theology, history, literature, grammar, and astronomy. She proposed an ideal for his political and military activity, as well as employment for his energy, by requesting him " to defend the faith against the heretics within, and to propagate it without over the lands of the pagans." To minds capable of reflection, Christianity seemed at this time like a society of soldiers and priests, governed by a soldier and a priest. If she could have forgotten the profane portion of ancient history, she would have believed herself again in biblical times, when the army fought on the plain, and Moses prayed on the mountain. This figure is applicable to Charlemagne himself at a cer- tain period of his reign. But the traditions of pro- fane antiquity thrust themselves upon the Bishop of Rome and Charlemagne, and they agree to re- store not the government of the people of God, but en. n.] The Historical World in the Year 800. 25 the Koman Empire. Thus in the year 800, in the basilica of St. Peter, Moses crowns Joshua, whom the Roman people salutes as Augustus. 6. The Historical World in the Year 800. The Pope claimed that he had established a single universal Emperor. Ever since Odoacer had sent to Constantinople the imperial insignia, the Byzantine fiaff&ev$ had been " the sole master who sufficed for the world ; " but in the year 800 old Rome resumed her right to make emperors. Charlemagne was thus in theory the head of the world ; but Constantinople maintained against such a theory her actual possession of the im- perial title, the legitimacy of which Charlemagne himself recognized. These two empires would have embraced all Christianity, if the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, an independent Christian people, were not already en- tering upon a separate career of their own. The Empire of the West, the Empire of the East, and England were the three political entities which at the beginning of the ninth century constituted Europe. Outside of their boundaries were the infidels and the pagans. The country of Islam which was itself divided into an empire of the West, the cali- phate of Cordova, and an empire of the East, the 26 Transition to Mediaeval History. ten. n. caliphate of Bagdad extended, like a gigantic crescent, south of the two empires of which it was the common enemy. The pagans occupied all the North and East: Scandinavia, the immense, measureless region of Slavonia, and the country of the Avars. Charlemagne destroyed the kingdom of the Avars on the Danube. He also conquered the Scandinavians and the Slavs of the Elbe; and, although he did not reduce them to subjection, he organized along his frontiers military counties or marches, which formed the vanguard of Christian- ity. He thus pointed out the way to his succes- sors, and bequeathed to them the duty of waging war against the pagans and infidels. 7. Historical Effects of the Restoration of the Empire. The Empire of Charlemagne comprised certain ancient Christian countries which had obeyed Rome. These were : Gaul ; Northern Spain, from the Py- renees to the Ebro, taken from the Arabs ; Italy, as far as the Garigliano, taken from the Lom- bards, a portion of which Pipin had given to the Pope as the patrimony of St. Peter ; in addition, outside of the orbis romanus, Germany. Before the time of the Carolingians, Gaul, Italy, and Ger- many had each a separate existence. The Caro- CH. n.] Effects of the Restoration of the Empire. 27 lingians fused all these countries into the unity of the restored Empire. This restoration is the great fact of the period, which is distinguished from that which precedes and from those which follow by a strange phenom- enon : two ideal powers, the remembrance of pagan Rome and the authority of Christian Rome, were exclusively directing the material power of West- ern Europe. The historian looks with more favor upon the new Rome, which subdued souls after having en- lightened them, than upon ancient Rome, which con- quered in order to dominate and to exploit. The conquest of Britain by a few Roman missionaries, armed only with the Cross, their chants, and their prayers, is certainly more admirable, more glorious, and more humane than the conquest by Agricola. It is a source of pleasure to us also to consider the homage rendered by Charlemagne the Frank to the power of the past. This German is a de- scendant of the old enemies of Rome ; in him is summed up, and, as it were, personified, the inva- sion of the barbarians which destroj^ed the Empire ; and, to crown his victories, he restores the Empire. But the historian should not admire without re- serve, unless he believes, as a sort of fatalistic op- timist, that in this best of worlds everything has been for the best. It is said that the Carolingian Empire had a 28 Transition to Medi&val History. ten. n. beneficial effect in preparing for the nations of the future a common civilization Christian, military, and political ; and that from this Empire were de- rived the typical Christian man of arms, and the poetry of the conflict between the faithful of all countries and the infidel. Would you eliminate chivalry, the Crusades, and mediaeval heroic poetry from the history of sentiments and ideas ? No. But the nations of Europe on issuing from their common cradle were to be hostile brothers. After the vitality of the Carolingians had been ex- hausted, the "West was again divided. There was as much misery and bloodshed in destroying the edifice as there had been in building it. The temporal hegemony and the spiritual hegemony which the Pope and Charlemagne had riveted together, col- lided ; and each of them, in turn, became tyrannical. Are you so anxious to preserve in history the quar- rel between the Papacy and the Empire, the op- pression of Italy by Germany, and the long restraint exercised on the human conscience by the Church ? Would you not gladly efface from the list of Cru- sades that against the Albigenses ? When the Pope consecrated Pipin, and when Charlemagne and the Pope restored the Empire, they bequeathed to future ages the coalition between the throne and the altar. Do you not see the result, the whole result ? It is not certain that without the alliance of the CH. ii.] Effects of the Restoration of tbe Empire, 29 Carolingians and the Papacy the Austrasian, the Aquitainian, the Lombard, the Bavarian, and the Saxon would have failed to find the standard of living that was best suited to each of them ; that they would not have been just as fully permeated with the Christian spirit by adapting religion each to his own particular genius, as they did adapt it in later times. Who knows? That is a question which one must frequently repeat. One thing appears cer- tain : if the past is beneficent, because it initiates new generations into the experience of by-gone ages, it abuses its power. To the living some things in the past seem like impish pranks. One of these pranks was the re-establishment of the Empire, in the year 800, by a priest and a warrior, neither of whom knew exactly what the ancient Empire had been, and what the new one was to be. CHAPTER III. THE MIDDLE AGES. 1. General Characteristics. WE must first determine the limits and general characteristics of the period which is now to oc- cupy our attention. The Empire of the East maintained its exist- ence like an agitated flame, sending forth great gleams of light, which vanished only to reappear with renewed brightness. During more than six centuries it defended itself against the darkness which finally overtook it. The West began by undoing the work of the Carolingians ; it broke up the Empire into king- doms, and the kingdoms into feudal territories. A tangled and very rank vegetation thus ob- scured the general ideas of government. The im- perial power, which lost a part of its authority every time it changed hands, and for which petty Italian princes contended, was reduced to a ci- pher ; and the papal power, for which Roman fac- CH. ra.] General Characteristics. 31 tions contended, was debased. But in the middle of the tenth century a Pope suddenly restored to the Empire its lustre and strength by crowning as Emperor, Otto, King of Germany. These two powers then became the principal factors in the politics of the West. In the pro- tecting shadow of the Empire the Papacy was re- invigorated and purified, and regained control over the Church, which was once more losing itself in worldly cares and obligations. Having become the head of an immense spiritual army, the Pa- pacy constrained the Empire at first to respect her independence, and soon afterward to recognize her primacy of rank. If these two powers had acted in harmony they would have been mistresses of the West, where they would have long prevented national develop- ment. In fact, the Papacy did not desire to hear anything concerning quarrels between nations. In her eyes only one kind of war was legitimate and perpetually obligatory, namely, war against the infidel, and, by way of interlude, war against the heretic and the excommunicate. In order that Christians might perform the duty of waging this war of God, the Pope tried to impose upon them the peace of God. Whoever interfered with this peace, whether a petty baron or a Henry of Eng- land, a Philip of France, or an Emperor Freder- ick, was a rebel. 32 The Middle Ages. rcn. m. Thus the Crusades formed the principal phe- nomenon of political history in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; but they quickly miscarried, and finally failed lamentably. The kings turned away from this ruinous undertaking. Other inter- ests attracted their attention, undertakings nearer home and more lucrative. National territories be- gan to appear, and the nations began to be con- scious of the fact that they possessed a frontier. The two leading powers were themselves the cause of their own destruction. The Papacy ruined the Empire in the thirteenth century ; but she soon met with resistance from the kings, who had become heads of nations, and she fell into the scandals of the Great Schism. Thus from the wreck of the two universal powers the various nationalities emerged. Just as Christianity had succeeded the Roman Empire, so Europe succeeded Christianity. But how confused and chaotic Europe still was ! It is, therefore, necessary to look further for a date of demarca- tion in the political history of the Continent. In the fourteenth century the veritable Middle Ages came to a close. But there was still an Empire of the East, which even seemed to be animated with new life; there was still a Holy Empire, which even did its utmost to perform its duties as protector of the Church during the disorders of the Great Schism ; and there still survived CH. ra.] The Empire of the East. 33 the illusion and even the heroic enterprises of the Crusades. In the fifteenth century the Schism and the Mussulman still preoccupy and trouble Joan of Arc. In the interval between two battles the knights of the West vow on the pheasant the extermination of the infidel. Nevertheless, the infidel captured Constantino- ple. Europe, which had sought combats with him in his own country, permitted the Turk to trans- form the patriarchal church of St. Sophia into a mosque. Europe left to the petty states of the Balkan Peninsula the task of stopping the Asia- tic on the road that led to the heart of the Con- tinent. The most Christian King of France, the Catholic King of Spain, and the Pope himself weighed the price of an alliance with the Otto- mans, and allowed such an alliance to enter as an element in their political calculations a sure in- dication that a period in the history of Europe is concluded. Thus it is now necessary for us to trace the his- tory of the various countries of the West and the East from the time of Charlemagne to about the O end of the fifteenth century. 2. The Empire of the East. During this long period the contrast between the West and the East became more and more marked. a 34 The Middle Ages. ccn. m. The Empire in the West was a power almost ideal, without a fixed territory, without even a name, for the periphrase by which it was desig- nated, " the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation," was not a name. The Empire in the East was a real sovereignty, exercised over a defi- nite region, and bearing a national name, that of " Romania." The Empire in the West was divided into two powers one spiritual, the other temporal. In the East the Empire did not tolerate by its side a sa- cerdotal monarchy, independent of the civil power. The /SaGifavg was a sort of pope-king. At the very time when the Papacy, having become all- powerful, ruled over the kings of the West, the schism separated Constantinople from Rome. The Byzantine Empire was thus more coherent and stronger than its rival. But it had to cope with three distinct enemies: an internal enemy consisting of ethnographical groups, which were established on its territory, but which it had not assimilated ; and two external enemies, the Cath- olic West and the Moslem East. A threefold question presented itself concerning the destiny of this Empire. Would the nations established within its territory remain in possession of it, and the Balkan Peninsula be divided, already in the Middle Ages, into petty independent states? Would the West seize Constantinople and the CH. ni.] The Empire of the East. 35 Balkan Peninsula ? Or, perchance, would Con- stantinople and the Peninsula become the prey of Asia? The time arrived when the nations of the Balkan Peninsula were successful. In the ninth century Bulgaria became a powerful state, and Slavic prin- cipalities were established ; in the fourteenth cen- tury Servia was an empire. At one time the West regarded itself as master of the East. Papal and knightly Europe had un- dertaken the Crusades to regain from the infidels the holy places wrested from the /faffi^eug. For this purpose many thousands of men had been sent to Asia. The Emperor of the East, who was much superior to these barbarians in politics, had de- ceived them. He had recovered, by means of the first Crusades, parts of Asia Minor which his em- pire had lost. But the merchants of Venice also were statesmen. Circumstances gave them the di- rection of the Fourth Crusade ; and the Christian barons, who were as covetous as the Republic of the Lagunes, divided the Empire in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Thus there ruled at Constantinople a Flemish emperor ; at Thessalo- nica, an Italian king ; in Achaia, at Naxos, and at Athens, petty dynasties ; while Venice took pos- session of Crete and the Peloponnesus. As to the Asiatic, the third of the possible con- querors of the Byzantine Empire, he constantly 36 The Middle Ages. [CE. m. attacked the latter. After the Arab Empire, which included Asia, Africa, Spain, and Sicily, had fallen, the Ottoman emir in Asia became a formidable neighbor. Against all these enemies the fiaGifavg defended himself with a constancy and skill that compel admiration. Such was the vitality of the " sick man" of this time that he recovered from the strange catastrophe of the Fourth Crusade. At the close of the thirteenth century he reconquered Constantinople. The Empire, thus restored, re- commenced the conquest of the Peninsula; it re- gained its three seas, and pushed its dominion to the Peloponnesus. It seemed to be strong enough to prevail over the Slavs, the Bulgarians, the principalities of Epirus, Achaia, and Athens, and over Venice. But the power of the Turks in Asia grew stronger and stronger. In Asia there was a great reserve of men and soldiers, led by a dynasty of absolute chiefs, who all desired one and the same thing. The great conflict between these Turks and the Byzan- tine Empire is conspicuous in the history of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Finally Con- stantinople became the capital of the Ottoman state, which embraced the whole peninsula from the Save to Cape Matapan, excepting the heroic Montenegro, and certain points that remained Ve- netian. OH. m.] The Empire of the West. 37 Thus Asia took revenge on Europe for the Per- sian Wars, and for the conquests of Alexander, the Romans, the Byzantine Emperor, and the cru- saders. She was destined to extend her empire in the Mediterranean by the conquest of certain islands and of Africa, and toward central Europe by the progress of the Turks along the Danube. In this condition the Eastern Question was to re- main a long time ; Slavs, Bulgarians, Albanians, Roumanians, and Greeks slept under the sway of the scimitar and the crescent ; but they only slept. 3. The Empire of the West. After the death of Charlemagne the ecclesiasti- cal and imperialist party tried in vain to maintain the unity of the Empire. The force of circum- stances, permanently felt amid the accidents of politics and chance, had separated Germany, France, and Italy ; but the separation, begun with the Treaty of Verdun in 843, was not complete. These three countries were not states, for a state is an organized political entity ; there were no states, properly speaking (at least no great states), before the close of the Middle Ages. Nor were they nations ; a nation is a definitely formed, conscious, and responsible person ; there were no real nations on the Continent before our own times. 38 The Middle Ages. [CH. in. In the ninth century France and Germany had not yet received their names. Charles the Bald was king of the Franks ; Lewis the German was also king of the Franks. They were distinguished by the points of the compass. Charles ruled over " the Western Franks," Lewis over " the Eastern Franks." Gradually and very slowly each of the two countries worked out its own destiny. As for Germany and Italy, they were bound together by the restoration of the Empire in the tenth century. Thenceforth the same personage was at once king in Germany, king in Italy, and Emperor. Germany and Italy were the habitation of the priesthood and of the Empire an honor of considerable and prolonged consequence for the future of both countries. 4. Empire and Church Consequences for Ger- many. In the Middle Ages the most active man in the world, and the most singular political personage, was the Emperor-King. He did not succeed in gain- ing recognition as a universal monarch, and did not even become the monarch of any one nation. Not knowing what name to assume, he called him- self briefly imperator. His legal capital was Rome, but he did not reside there. He had no capital in Germany. He had, in fact, no fixed habitation. In the period of Carolingian decadence the cus- CH. in.] Empire and Church Germany. 39 tom of electing kings had been regularly estab- lished. Thus it was necessary to be elected in order to become king of Germany. On the other hand, to become Emperor the person elected king had to be crowned by the Pope at Rome. If the German king had been simply a king, he would doubtless have been able to dispense with the elec- tion, as the Capetians did in France after the fifth royal generation. But he was at the same time Emperor ; and the Pope never admitted that the imperial dignity was hereditary, or that the coro- nation was to be considered a vain formality. The Pope combined with the German princes to per- petuate the custom of election, which placed the elect at the mercy of the electors, and obliged him to make terms with the Bishop of Rome. Hence in Germany there was not the continuity of mon- archical policy that transformed other countries into states, which afterward became nations. The clearest function of the Emperor being his protectorship of the Church, he had to look af- ter the welfare of the Papacy, and raise it from the disgraceful condition into which it had fallen in the tenth century ; then, after having given it strength enough to combat with him, he found it necessary to combat with it. As protector of the Church and as king of Italy, he was entangled in all the affairs of the Peninsula, where he found allies and also enemies. 40 Toe Middle Ages. ten. m. As for Germany, she was one of the theatres of the conflict between the Emperor and the Pope. Not merely the ecclesiastical, but also the secular princes, favoring the disorder which increased their independence, sided with the Pope against the Em- peror. From the middle of the thirteenth century Ger- many was merely an anarchical federation of prin- cipalities and republics. There was no longer any collective national life, no national army, finance, or judiciary. Everywhere war prevailed, and there was no longer any law save that of the fist (FaustrecJii). To protect themselves, princes and cities formed leagues for the maintenance of peace ; these leagues themselves were militant, for they waged war to prevent war. Over this disorder a monarch presided who still called himself Emperor. But at the close of the thirteenth century, under the trappings of this title, he was only a petty German prince, exploit- ing his high office to make the fortune of his house. Thus the Luxemburgs, poor squires of the country of Ardennes, and the Hapsburgs, small seigneurs of the country of Argovia, secured a family domain. " Everyone for himself " was the motto of Germany at this time. Hence the coun- try which in the tenth century seemed to be nearer to unity than any other Carolingian land, sank into anarchy. CH. ra.] Empire and Church Italy. 41 5. Consequences for Italy. Italy was no more predestined to be divided than Germany. The fact that we were long accus- tomed to see these two countries divided, leads one to think that they followed their natural bent ; but there is nothing to prove that unity was more difficult to establish in Germany and Italy than in other regions. Without doubt their geography places obstacles in the way of unity ; but are not such obstacles also to be found in Spain, and even in France ? In fact, the great divergence between the destinies of France and Germany, or Spain and Italy, has been created by history. In France a Germanic people, the Franks established on Gallo-Roman soil, mingling their blood, spirit, and laws with the blood, spirit, and laws of the ancient population became the arti- san of a new nationality. In Italy this same end could have been attained, first by the Ostrogoths, and afterward by the Lombards. The Papacy, however, considered them as strangers and ene- mies. When the Lombards were on the point of occupying Rome, the Pope summoned the Franks. In Northern Italy Charlemagne superseded the king whom he had conquered ; but in the South he left in existence Lombard duchies, and countries under the Byzantine dominion. He and Pipin 42 The Middle Ages. [CH. m. founded a papal state. These southern duchies, the principality of St. Peter, and the kingdom of the north mark the beginning of Italian polyarchy. The Empire having apparently sunk in the ship- wreck of the Carolingian family, attempts were made to found an Italian monarchy. But the Pope terminated them by restoring the Empire ; and he placed the Peninsula under the Teutonic yoke, which was so odious to the Italians, and which was perpetuated in divers forms to our day. The Papacy inaugurated a formidable game by opposing barbarians against barbarians. To drive the German Hohenstaufens from the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a Pope, in the second half of the thirteenth century, summoned the Angevins of France. It would be displaying lack of intelligence to accuse the mediaeval Papacy of offending against an Italian nationality, which had no existence. The Pope could be neither the vassal of a city nor the vassal of a country without forfeiting some of his dignity, which was the highest in the world. It was his defined function or office to adopt a universal policy ; and he sought thereby to guar- antee the independence and power of the See of the Apostles. At the close of the Middle Ages he be- came an Italian prince, and adopted an Italian pol- icy ; but this compromised the Papacy, and even the Church. CH. ra.3 Expansion of Italy. 43 Nevertheless, Machiavelli, considering the mat- ter from an Italian point of view, was right in at- tributing to the Popes the disorganization of Italy, to which they at least largely contributed. As in Germany, so in Italy, at first, from the tenth to the thirteenth century, feudal principali- ties and republics were established ; then, from the middle of the thirteenth century to the end of the Middle Ages, most of the republics were trans- formed into principalities. In the fifteenth cen- tury Milan, Florence, the Papal State, the oli- garchic republic of Venice, and the kingdom of Naples formed a pentarchy, each of them looking after its own separate interests, and none of them acquainted with the sentiment of Italian patriot- ism. 6. Expansion of Italy. Anarchy in Germany and polyarchy in Italy do not mean that Germany and Italy were inert. Not having a common master, nor a common life, nor collective patriotism, these countries suffered the evils of constant civil war. Moreover, in mod- ern times they became the battle-fields of European politics. But there is some compensation in not having a government which employs all its powers in a well-defined policy. Italy was broken in frag- ments, but lived a life all the more intense, because it was in conformity with the natural aptitudes of 44 The Middle Ages. ECH. m. each section. If an Italian monarchy had had its seat at Rome, Rome would have lost its incom- parable originality as a sacerdotal and universal city, and history would not have known of Floren- tine or Venetian energy. Already the Renaissance had begun. It was a natural product of the classical Italian soil, but polyarchy favored its development, and permitted its free and varied growth. While waiting for the Italian spirit to expand over all Europe, the great Italian cities ruled the Mediterranean. They formed the medium of communication between the Orient and the Occident, and thus rapidly grew rich. They invented and perfected commercial in- stitutions, such as the consulate, exchange, and the bank. The bankers of France were called Lom- bards ; and Italian money was current throughout all Western Europe, where people reckoned by ducats, the money of the two dogal towns, Genoa and Venice, and by florins, on which was impressed the flower of Florence. There was something like a Mediterranean em- O pire of Italy. For Genoa possessed Corsica and Sardinia, and Venice owned a large part of the Adriatic coast and many of the islands of the Ar- chipelago. In fact, before the arrival of the Turks Venice ruled over three-eighths of the old Greek Empire. CH. in.] Expansion of Germany. 45 7. Expansion of Germany in the North and East The Three Zo'nes. German anarchy in the Middle Ages was very energetic and fruitful. Carolingian Germany was almost comprised in the country situated between the Rhine and the Elbe. It was capable of expansion in three direc- tions : toward the south natural highways, extend- ing over the mountains, led invitingly into Italy ; on the west, between France and Germany, lay a region bounded by the Rhine and the Meuse, the Rhone and the Alps whose political destiny was uncertain, for it was exposed to the competition of the two nations ; and on the north and east an immense, undefined stretch of territory was open to German colonization. It was official or imperial Germany which inter- fered in Italy, where, with a few rare exceptions, she wrought mischief. In the west Germanic ac- tivity was early impeded, then arrested, by France. In a large part of the third region Germany suc- ceeded in securing a foothold. O The northern and eastern frontier of Germany was in Carolingian times that of Christianity. To extend this frontier, and keep extending it, until the last pagan submitted, was converted, and be- came the faithful subject of both Pope and Em- 46 The Middle Ages. [CH. ra. peror, was the necessary foreign policy or func- tion of the Empire, which had been restored the first time in the year 800, and a second time in 962. In Charlemagne's time a multitude of pagan and barbarian tribes were ranged in echelons along the Christian frontier, and they extended into the unknown region of the European Far- East and into the peninsula of the north. At the mouths of the Elbe were the Scandina- vians; all along the Elbe and the Saale, from the shores of the Baltic to the mountains of Bohemia, were the Slavic Polabi; in Bohemia, the Slavic Tsechs; on the Danube, Turanian hordes of Avars, who were afterward displaced by the Mag- yars ; and in the southeast, as far as the Adri- atic, other Slavic tribes. Behind this first zone of tribes, with most of which Charlemagne had come in contact, a second, entirely Slavic, extended from north to south, comprising Pomerania, Poland, and Silesia. Still farther away, along the eastern Baltic, lived Finns and Lithuanians; and in the great plain beyond them, the Russians. The task of bringing all these tribes within the bounds of Christian civilization should have been divided between the Empires of the East and West. But the Empire of the East could barely defend its own life, and the Empire of the West united the forces of Germany under its command CH. in.] Progress of Germany in the First Zone. 47 during only a very short time. Hence the Chris- tianizing and civilizing work was performed al- most entirely by private enterprise. 8. Progress of Germany in the first Zone. From the Scandinavians Germany won nothing. The three kingdoms Denmark, Sweden, and Nor- way were established and Christianized in the tenth century. But to be Christianized meant to acquire the right to live. Every time that a people entered the Church, the Europe of the future was enriched by a new recruit. Denmark, a neighbor of the Empire, had relations with the latter ; and at times her king was a sort of vassal of the Em- peror ; but her ordinary status was one of inde- pendence. The Scandinavian kings were soon able to contend with the Germans for the posses- sion of the Baltic, that sombre Mediterranean upon which were fought so many obseure and violent battles between competing tribes. On the other hand, Germany extended her boundaries very quickly in the region of the Slavs of the Elbe, where she ever afterward retained her dominion. At the close of the twelfth century the Slavs of the country between the Saale and the Elbe were Germanized and converted to Chris- tianity. This was the work of the margraves of 48 The Middle Ages. [CH. m. Lusatia and Misnia. The Slavs of the country between the Elbe and the Oder were in great part exterminated. This was the work of the dukes of Saxony and of "the Margraves of the North," who in the twelfth century assumed the name of Mar- graves of Brandenburg, a name destined to become celebrated. The Slavs of the shores of the Baltic received throngs of colonists ; their princes were Germanized, and their country, Mecklenburg, be- came a trans-Elbine prolongation of Lower Ger- many. Thus the whole northern part of the first zone was acquired by Germany. The Tsechs in Bohemia defended themselves more successfully ; their dukes became kings and Christians, which circumstance saved them. It is true that they were vassals of the Emperor ; and the crown of Bohemia, which was elective, was finally attached to the head of German princes, the Hapsburgs. But the destiny of the Tsechs was very different from that of the Slavs of the North. They preserved their race, language, and peculiar genius. Hence there is a Tsech ques- tion in Austria at the present day. There is no Polabian question, because the Polabi have dis- appeared. cH.m.] Progress of Germany in the Second Zone. 49 9. Progress of Germany in the Second Zone. The Germans naturally made less progress in the zone of the Oder. Pomerania, Poland, and Silesia received crowds of German colonists hus- bandmen, merchants, artisans, and soldiers. But the duchy of Pomerania maintained an indigenous dynasty until the seventeenth century; and the Germans in this country encountered the competi- tion of the Scandinavians. Silesia, which broke up into duchies and principalities, belonged to no one ruler. Already in the Middle Ages Poland was prepar- ing the way for the disasters of the future. She allowed Pomerania to escape from her grasp, a country which would have given her a seaboard ; and also Silesia, whose mountains would have sheltered her. She remained a kingdom wholly exposed on every side. She did not succeed in se- curing consolidation or organization. Her feudal cavalry while on the gallop made conquests which she did not preserve. She was not able to produce a royal race, and her elective crown was open to the competition of foreign families. Nevertheless, Poland was a Slavic Christian kingdom, more in- dependent than Bohemia. Germany, which in the north encountered a Scandinavia, met with a Sla- vonia in the east. The Europe of the future became more complicated in proportion to its expansion. 4 50 The Middle Ages. [CH.m. 10. Progress of Germany in the Third Zone. Germany penetrated as far as the third zone. Here the Finns were peopling Finland, and were advancing along the coasts of Livonia and Es- thonia. Next to them, on the south, came various Indo-European tribes Lithuanians, Lettes, and Prussians extending from the interior of Livonia O to the mouth of the Vistula. Inimical to each other, pagans, still remaining in the impotent state of primitive barbarism, these tribes of the eastern Baltic, while awaiting the still far-distant awak- ening of Russia, were the prey of the nations of the West. Sweden took possession of Finland and Carelia ; Denmark secured Esthonia. But the greatest acquisitions were made by the Ger- mans. The Hanse, a league of German merchants who were, after their fashion, both soldiers and crusad- ers, covered the shores of the Baltic with their federated emporiums. A knightly German order, that of the Sword-bearers, was founded even at Riga. Another, that of the Teutonic Knights, started in Palestine, and there had a brilliant ca- reer ; then, after having been exiled from the Holy Land, it established itself in Prussia. Knowing how to conquer and to govern, it founded a state which is one of the curiosities of history. The two orders, having united under one grand-master CH. m.] Progress of Germany on the Danube. 51 in the second half of the thirteenth century, ruled over a vast and rich country. Its two principal provinces, Livonia and Prussia, filled with German colonists, were like an exterior Ger- many, a German vanguard in the European Far- East. In the north, this dominion extended as far as the Narva ; on the south, a series of con- quests, made at the expense of Pomerania and Poland, placed the German Knights in communi- cation with the German margraves of Branden- burg. 11. Progress of Germany in the Valley of the Danube. Southeast of Germany, in the valley of the Danube, the path of expansion was narrower than in the north, and more difficult. The valley of the river contracts between the projecting moun- tains of Bohemia and those of the Alps. More- over, Bavaria could not furnish a contingent of emigrants so large as that of North Germany, with her great plain and immense seaboard. At the point where the Danube valley widens, the Hungarian horde finally fixed its permanent en- campment. Like the Danes, Bohemians, and Poles, the Hungarians entered the history of Europe on the day when they were converted to Christianity. They had relations with the Empire, but they rec- 52 The Middle Ages. [CH. m. ognized its suzerainty only a short time. Their elective crown, like that of the Bohemians, be- came permanently attached to the heads of the Hapsburgs. But the Hungarian remained Hun- garian, even more than the Tsech remained Tsech. Hence there is at the present day an Hungarian question, as there is a Tsech question ; and the Hapsburg whose function it is to solve both, will solve neither. 12. Resume of the Expansion of Germany. Thus Germany diffused abroad her superfluous strength. All classes of her population compet- ed in the conquest, colonization, and development of an immense tract of country. The princes of the frontier conquered the border-lands. The knights recruited the two orders (Teutonic Knights and Sword-bearers), and assisted them in their conflicts with the indigenous population by cru- sades, incessantly renewed. The regular and secular clergy sent missionaries, monks, priests, and bishops. The merchants built new cities, or transformed into cities various villages along the coast of the Baltic and along the river banks. The tool of the German artisan and the plough of the German peasant brought riches where bar- barism had prevailed. The allurement of adven- tures, the spirit of religious proselytism, the hope en. m.] Resume of the Expansion of Germany. 53 of gain or of martyrdom, the love of independence, the search for liberty and property, attracted these various categories of emigrants to this America. And Germany, which stopped at the Elbe in Caro- lingian times, now extended to the Niemen. She had subjugated or destroyed many enemies of the Christian world, those that Charlemagne had known and fought, and others whose very names he had never heard. In the fifteenth century, it is true, the fortune of the Germans declined. Two formidable ene- mies appeared simultaneously: the Turks, who eventually conquered almost the whole of Hun- gary, and menaced the German possessions on the Danube ; and Poland, which took the offensive against the Germans, after her union with Lithu- ania, the great unconquered enemy of the Teu- tonic Knights. Poland dismembered the prin- cipality of the Knights, took from them the mouths of the Vistula, and made Dantzig a roy-. al Polish city ; thus communication was cut off between Germany and the Order between the main body of the army and the vanguard, which was now placed in a very perilous position. But the Turkish power was to remain barbarian and Asiatic; and Poland was incapable of acquiring the solidity of a well-regulated state. The cen- turies that followed were to witness the revenge of Germany on Slav and Turk. 54: The Middle Ages. [CH. m. 13. Effects of this Expansion on German His- tory Austria and Prussia This development of German power is not merely a great event in the history of Europe; its effects on Germany herself were very impor- tant. On the disputed frontier, in the zone of perpetual conflict, were formed and developed the two states which, in turn, were to dominate over Germany, namely, Austria and Prussia. Both were born in the midst of the enemy. The cradle of Austria was the Eastern march, established by Charlemagne on the Danube, be- yond Bavaria, at the very gate through which have passed so many invaders from the Orient. It was a veritable field of battle of the German race, lying between Slavic Bohemia and Carinthia, and confronted first by the Avar, then by the Hun- garian. Since the end of the thirteenth century it belonged to the Hapsburgs. They also acquired, successively, the ancient march of Carinthia, the county of Tyrol, and Trieste. These ac- quisitions, together with the march of Austria, formed a group of provinces, half German, half Slavic, which extended to the Adriatic and Italy, and had necessarily relations with two kingdoms of the Eastern zone, namely, Bohemia and Hungary. Already, in the fifteenth century, a Hapsburg of CH. mo Austria and Prussia. 55 Austria was king of these two countries, an in- dex and a presage of the future. Two centuries earlier the imperial crown had already been worn by a Hapsburg; and since the fifteenth century, although still elective in theory, it was in practice hereditary in the Austrian house. This was an- other factor in the future destiny of the Haps- burgs. At the end of the Middle Ages they were merely poor princes, but they were about to be- come the foremost monarchs in the world. The cradle of Prussia was the march of Bran- denburg, between the Elbe and the Oder, in the region of the exterminated Slavs. It was a poor country, quite flat, and swept by winds, which heaped up the sands in barren hills. By persist- ent effort this march conquered the right to ex- ist. It had already survived many catastrophes, when, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, it became the property of the Hohenzollerns. Bran- denburg had to choose between the alternatives of increasing in extent (for a fatherland cannot be constructed out of a morsel of plain) or of perish- ing. It increased toward the ocean, to the detri- ment of Mecklenburg and Pomerania ; and also toward the mountains, across Lusatia and Silesia. It was the great German champion of the North- east, the collaborator of the Teutonic Knights, with whom, at the end of the fourteenth century, it desired to divide Poland. 56 The Middle Ages. [cn.ra. This harmony between the margraves and the Teutonic Order, and this similarity of vocation, presaged the future. The time was near at hand when the Prussia of the Teutonic Knights was to be united to the march of Brandenburg by an in- dissoluble bond. Then the Brandenburg-Prussian state was to proclaim itself the heir of the knights, priests, merchants, and peasants who had been the pioneers of Germanism beyond the Elbe. 14. I 1 he Intermediate Region between Germany and France. In striking contrast with the enormous advance of Germany in the East was the decline of her power in the West. The history of the region between Germany and France is very singular. When the three sons of Lewis the Pious divided the Empire in the ninth century, they found it very natural to give the Emperor Lothair both Rome and Aix-la-Chapelle, the two imperial capitals ; for the men of that time had no sense of the reality of things, but followed blindly the ideas that possessed their minds. Hence Lothair received Italy and a long strip of territory between the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhone, on the one side, and the Rhine and the Alps, on the other. Thus there was placed be- tween the future Germany and the future France en. m.] Region between Germany and France. 57 a field of combat, which has already witnessed, and doubtless will again witness, many battles. This long and narrow strip was soon divided into two portions : Burgundy, between the Alps, the Saone, the Rhone, and the Mediterranean ; and Lorraine, to the north of Burgundy. As Germany was at first much stronger than France, she domi- nated both regions ; and Lorraine and Burgundy became countries of the Empire. But the impe- rial power grew weaker just when the kingdom of France was growing stronger. Furthermore, Ger- many was not well protected along the western frontier ; nor did she here come in contact with pagans, as in the East. The frontier, moreover, was not sharply defined by a difference of lan- guage, race, and civilization. Nor were there on this frontier any German states organized for war. While margraves guarded the course of the Elbe, the Rhine became " the highway of the priests." German energy, so conspicuous in the East, lan- guished in these principalities of archbishops, bishops, and abbots. By the close of the fifteenth century the Empire had lost almost all its western dependencies, while France was gaining ground in this territory. 58 ne Middle Ages. [CH.ni. 15. Formation of France. When France was detached from the Empire, in the ninth century, of all three imperial regions she was the one which seemed least likely to form a nation. There was no unity in the coun- try west of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhone. Various principalities, duchies, or coun- ties were here formed, but each of them was divided into secular fiefs and ecclesiastical terri- tories. Over these fiefs and territories the authority of the duke or the count, which was supposed to rep- resent that of the king, was exercised only in case these seigneurs had sufficient power, derived from their own personal estates. Destitute of domains and almost starving, the king, in official documents, asked what means he might find on which to live with some degree of decency. From time to time, amid this chaos, he discussed the theory of his authority. He was a lean and solemn phantom, straying about among living men who were very rude and energetic. The phantom kept constantly growing leaner, but royalty did not vanish. People were accus- tomed to its existence, and the men of those days could not conceive of a revolution. By the election of Hugh Capet, in 987, royalty became a reality, CH. in.] Formation of France. 59 because the king, as Duke of Frtmcia, had lands, money, and followers. It would be out of place to seek a plan of con- duct and a methodical line of policy in the actions of the Capetians, for they employed simultane- ously every sort of expedient. During more than three centuries they had male offspring ; thus the chief merit of the dynasty was that it endured. As always happens, out of the practice developed a law ; and this happy accident produced a lawful hereditary succession, which was a great element of strength. Moreover, the king had a whole arsenal of rights : old rights of Carolingian royalty, preserv- ing the remembrance of imperial power, which the study of the Roman law was soon to resuscitate, transforming these apparitions into formidable realities ; old rights conferred by the coronation, which were impossible to define, and hence incon- testable ; and rights of suzerainty, newer and more real, which were definitely determined and codified as feudalism developed, and which, joined to the other rights mentioned above, made the king pro- prietor of France. These are the elements that Capetian royalty con- tributed to the play of fortuitous circumstances. Everything turned to its profit : the miseries of the Church, which, unarmed in the midst of a violent society, claimed the royal protection from 60 The Middle Ages,. ten. ra. one end of the kingdom to the other ; and also the efforts of the middle classes to be admitted with well-defined rights into feudal society (for the king, the head of this society, was the natural protector of these new-comers, the burgesses of the French towns). His authority was thus exercised, out- side the limits of his own particular domain, throughout the whole kingdom. He did more : he gradually united France to his domain. He acquired petty principalities, such as the counties of Amiens, Vermandois, and Valois. By right- ful authority and by force he took possession of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou. This conquest, which the wicked imbecility of John of England facilitated, insured the success of the Capetians. From that time onward water poured from all directions into the great central stream. When, in the war against the Albigenses, the Church and the knights of the North destroyed a feudal dynasty and a separate civilization, the king acquired Languedoc. When Philip the Fair, by marriage, gained Champagne, the domain of the king extended to the imperial frontier as well as to the Mediterranean and the ocean. 16. Expansion of France. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, while royalty was still very weak and anarchy prevailed in the kingdom, France, like Italy and Ger- en. m.] Expansion of France. Gl many, diffused abroad her vital energy. Unfor- tunately she had not within reach, like Germany, an undefined region inhabited by barbarians and pagans, that is to say, reputed to be without an owner and open to Christian occupancy. France threw herself, so to speak, into the Crusades ; she charged herself with " deeds of God " against the infidel. She gave kings to Jerusalem and Cyprus, dukes to Athens, and emperors to Constantinople. She built upon this holy illusion of Christianity, not without profit to her fame, that fame which she early began to love as a patrimony. Knights of France also founded a Christian o kingdom in Portugal, upon soil which was then Moslem ; others wrested South Italy from the Saracens and Greeks ; but neither the kingdom of Portugal nor the kingdom of the Two Sicilies be- came French territory. The expansion of France in Europe during the Middle Ages was pre-eminently intellectual. Her intellect gave expression to the whole civilization of that period religious, feudal, and knightly. The French wrote heroic poems, built castles and cathedrals, and interpreted the texts of Aristotle and the Scriptures. Their songs, buildings, and scholastic philosophy verged upon perfection. Al- ready independent, already mobile and sprightly, the French mind freed itself from tradition and authority. It produced the aerial grace of Gothic 62 The Middle Ages. ten. m. art. It parodied its own heroic songs, and sculpt- ured caricatures on the walls of its monuments of religion. It gave as companion to " Monsieur Saint Louis," who lived in heaven, Sire de Join- ville, who loved the earth, especially his lands and his fine castle of Champagne ; he avoided the sight of these possessions when he w r ent on the Crusade, lest tears should fill his eyes, which were not prone to weep. The French mind produced prose French prose as well as poetry. Among the theologians it almost produced philosophers. Christian Europe copied French cathedrals, re- cited French heroic and humorous songs, and thus learned the French language. Foreigners spoke French " because the tongue of France was more delectable, and common to all people." Among the Masters of Arts in the Christian world the most erudite were those who had successfully defended a thesis at the University of Paris. Almost all the universities of Europe were like swarms of bees from the hive on Mount St. Genevieve. A proverb said that the world was ruled by three powers the Papacy, the Empire, and Learning ; the first residing in Rome, the second in Germany, the third in Paris. Political history cannot neglect these facts of in- tellectual progress. In other countries other forms of genius have been characterized by power and beauty. None has been as radiant as that of CH. m.] French Patriotism. 63 France. The light which she diffused throughout Christendom contributed to the formation of Eu- rope, by creating resemblances between widely different nations. In the Middle Ages this was the way in which the French worked for the wel- fare of others. 17. The Royal Policy French Patriotism. Soon the age of adventure in France came to a close, and French energy was absorbed by the royal policy. The French monarchs, from the time when they began to take possession of the kingdom, had had a policy. They were entangled by family in- terests in the affairs of Italy, and, consequently, in those of Aragon ; but these were merely acci- dental circumstances. Toward England, on the other hand, they were compelled to adopt a watch- ful and permanent policy. In 1066 a vassal of the French king, William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England, and be- came more potent than his feudal lord. His suc- cessors, by fortunate alliances, greatly increased their French domain, which at one time included the whole of the Atlantic seaboard of France. Hence war with England was a necessity. At first this was a feudal war between vassal and lord, men of the same country, who spoke the same language. At the beginning of the four- 64 The Middle Ages. [cam. teenth century, the direct line of the Capetians died out, and the crown of France was contested by two French princes, one of whom was King Edward of England, and the other, Philip of Valois. The war which broke out was not a con- flict between one nation and another, between the genius of one people and that of another ; never- theless, it continued, and was fierce as well as long. From year to year the hatred against the English increased. In contact with the foreigner, France began to know herself, like the ego in contact with the non-ego. Vanquished, she felt the disgrace of defeat. Acts of municipal and local patriotism preceded and heralded French patriotism, which finally blossomed out in Joan of Arc, and sancti- fied itself with the perfume of a miracle. Out of France with the English ! They left France, and France came into existence. She existed at first in and through the king, who, in his living flesh and in his privileged blood, personified the idea, still too abstract, of a na- tive country. War itself, with its cortege of mis- ery and ruin, made royalty all-powerful. War mowed down the nobility, bankrupted the munici- palities, and weakened all the powers of resistance. It permitted the king, the defender of the coun- try, to decree general measures, to make laws, to provide himself with a royal army, royal finances, and a royal administration. In a word, it per- CH. m.] Progress of France in the Intermediate Region. 65 fected the French monarchy, which at the close of the fifteenth century was one of the greatest powers in Europe in fact, the greatest. tf 18. Progress of France in the Intermediate Region. Let us now return to the intermediate region between Germany and France. While Germany coped with the East, and France with the 'West, the regions of Burgundy and Lorraine, not having in themselves a sufficient reason for independent existence, and not knowing what they ought to be- come, sank into inextricable disorder. Burgundy began to fall to pieces at the very time when the German emperors were wearing the crown of Aries. In the thirteenth century there was no longer a separate king of Aries, no royal titulary to represent the Burgundian kingdom in dealings with foreign countries. At this very juncture the crusade against the Albigenses ex- posed the South to the armies and state-craft of the Capetians. One of the consequences of this event was that a Capetian prince acquired the marqui- sate of Provence. In the fourteenth century Ly- ons and the Dauphine were added to the royal domain; and in the fifteenth century Provence became the immediate possession of the crown. Thus, at the end of the Middle Ages, the list of 5 66 The Middle Ages. [CH.IIL French cities included Lyons the great Roman city, which had been the sanctuary of the worship of Augustus, and had become the seat of the pri- mate of Gaul Aries, likewise a Roman city, after- ward the capital of the kingdom of Burgundy, and Marseilles, the oldest city in Gaul. An accident the conquest of England by the Normans had confined the efforts of the Cape- tians to the West ; another accident, the crusade against the Albigenses, had attracted their activ- ity to the south of the Burgundian region, far from their proper sphere of action. Here work of a confused nature, singular experiments, were in progress: the Swiss Confederation and Savoy were beginning to take form. The Swiss Confederation was born in Swabia, at the southwest extremity of Germany. Its first additions were made in Swabia and Italy; but toward the close of the fifteenth century it began to expand in the upper valley of the Rhone. It lost its Germanic character, to become something very distinct and peculiar, a league of peasants and cities grouped in cantons, expanding little by little despite obstacles of nature and racial differ- ences within its bounds. The state of Savoy was born on the frontier of Burgundy and Italy. It seemed at first as though it would develop on Burgundian soil. The counts of Maurienne, having become counts, then dukes, CH. in.] The House of Burgundy. 67 of Savoy, were important personages on that side of the mountains. But the progress of France and of the Swiss leagues soon held them in check, and drove them toward Italy. The first duke of Savoy was also prince of Piedmont. The forma- tion of a state, at once cisalpine and transalpine, was a harbinger of the future. 19. The House of Burgundy. The destiny of the Lorraine region was also uncertain. Here there was a confused state of things : countries without a ruler, like Alsace ; principalities like the duchy which retained and perpetuated the name of Lorraine, and like the duchies and counties of the Netherlands ; and ecclesiastical feudal lordships, like the bishopric of Liege. In the midst of this feudal regime with- out an effective lord, the cities surrounded by nobles who lived by war were nurseries of in- dustry and the greatest commercial centres of Europe. An attempt was made by the dukes of Bur- gundy, princes of the house of France, to reunite under one government the regions of Burgundy and Lorraine. The duchy of Burgundy was wholly outside the ancient kingdom of Burgundy. It was a French fief, which never had anything in common with 68 The Middle Ages. CCH. ra. the German Empire. One of the first Capeti- ans gave it to his brother in the eleventh cen- tury, and one of the first of the Valois gave it to his son in the fourteenth. By marriage, inheri- tance, and conquest, a considerable domain was rapidly formed, comprising the duchy of Bur- gundy, the counties of Flanders, Artois, Rethel, and Nevers, which were all fiefs of France ; and Franche-Comte, the county of Namur, Brabant, Hainault, Zealand, Holland, Luxemburg, etc., which were lands of the Empire. Threatening Alsace, the duchy of Lorraine, and the confederated Swiss, this Burgundian state represented ancient Lotha- ringia accurately enough for Charles the Bold to make an attempt to restore the old Lotharingian kingdom. Louis XL succeeded in shattering this power, which had prevented France from making any progress toward the East, and which had even de- prived her of lands already in her possession ; for the limits of the Burgundian state in the north of France extended at one time to the Somme. France regained her territory by acquiring the duchy of Burgundy and the cities of the Somme. Freed from the English, unfettered by the old feudal system, united and strong, it seemed as though France, at the close of the Middle Ages, would direct her attention to the North and East. For a time the dormant ambition to regain for the OH. m.] Formation of Spain. 69 French kingdom the old frontiers of Gaul awoke. But the French kings were seized with the mad desire always to be deplored by France and Italy to wage wars in Italy, wars which soon became European. Thus they let pass their great opportunity. The Swiss Confederation and Savoy each strengthened its power. The Nether- lands were transferred by the daughter of Charles the Bold to the house of Austria, passing later on to Spain. Every enterprise of France against these countries was destined to provoke general wars. All this territory without a master, between Germany and France, was a region of incoherence, accident, and chance. It was a soil suited to form peculiar kinds of governments, which have not had their parallel in the rest of Europe, such as the Swiss league ; or to produce agglomerations of ter- ritory, such as those of the Burgundian domain, which were not at all necessary in their origin, but which, by enduring, have modified history. 20. Formation of Spain. While France was being organized, two other new states, Spain and England, were undergoing this same process. Ever since Spain had been conquered by the Saracens, she had been separated from Europe. In order to understand the indifference manifested 70 The Middle Ages. [CH. ra. by European nations toward this peninsula, when they were sending thousands of men to the Holy Land, it is necessary to bear in mind that no one in those days had any conception of a European community. This age, which was capable of find- ing precise rules of daily life, and of organizing a thousand petty governments around its towers, spires, and belfries, allowed itself to be guided by sentiments and ideas wholly outside the world of reality. The man of that period was wont to gaze at his feet, but when he lifted his head, his gaze was lost in the vast heavens. We are inclined to say that the popes and kinoes would have done well to attack Islam in O Europe rather than in Asia ; but they never even thought of it. They were actuated by the feeling that there was no place more in need of deliv- erance, none whose deliverance would bring them more credit, than the spot where the Saviour had lived, and where he had lain buried for three days. They sent only a few isolated knights beyond the Pyrenees, and left to Spain the task of delivering herself. The conflict lasted more than seven centuries. It was not conducted by one people against another, or by one ruler against another ; several Christian kingdoms, which had been successively formed, fought with several small Arab states. In the fifteenth century the aspect of the Penin- CH. ni.j The Kingdom of England. 71 sula became less complex. There were then only one Arab state, that of Granada, and four Chris- tian kingdoms : Navarre, Portugal, Aragon, and Castile. Navarre, which had been the most powerful kingdom, was now only a petty Pyre- nean state. Portugal, facing the Atlantic Ocean, sought her fortune in that direction. Aragon, facing the Mediterranean, already coveted the peninsula and islands of Italy. Castile, the heart of Spain, was the last combatant of the Mussul- man, and finally conquered Granada. Soon Cas- tile, Aragon, Navarre, and Granada were united ; and the new state constituted the great power of Spain, extending along both the Mediterranean and the ocean. 21. The Kingdom of England. Like the great peninsula of the Southwest, the islands of the Northwest remained a long time iso- lated from the rest of Europe. The Continent sent them armed colonists, who were superimposed in layers more or less thick upon the old Celtic population. The successive invaders were : Ro- mans, whose last and least durable conquest was Britain; Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians, who ar- rived in great numbers in a series of migrations ; and, finally, Normans, that is to say, an army from French Normandy, which was transformed into a 72 The Middle Ages. [cn.ra. permanent colony, and which in the course of time was amalgamated with the rest of the popu- lation. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kings to Christianity again connected their island with Christian Europe. Thus was born a Church of England, daughter of the Church of Rome, and she was at first respectful and obedient. The con- quest of England by the Duke of Normandy, a vassal of the King of France, also implicated the insular realm in the history of France, and con- sequently in the affairs of the Continent. But this external history had only a secondary im- portance for England. The feudal wars of the English kings against their suzerain, the King of France, and the Hun- dred Years' War itself, with its dramatic reverses of fortune, count in the general history of England only in so far as they influenced the constitutional development of the kingdom. The England of that time was a small countrv. O v It did not embrace all the British Isles : for Wales, though conquered, remained Wales ; Ireland, like- wise conquered by the Norman kings, remained Ireland; and Scotland continued to be a separate kingdom. In the Middle Ages England, properly speaking, had the appearance of a great French fief. By the first Norman kings she was governed as CH. m.] The Kingdom of England. 73 was no other country in the Middle Ages. The Normans had accustomed themselves to habits of discipline and order in the piratical expeditions which the} 7 used to undertake, when they obeyed sea-kings and shared their booty. These habits they retained in Normandy, which, in consequence, was the only French territory with a strong ju- diciary and internal peace. These habits they also took with them to England. They divided the country among themselves, just as their an- cestors had formerly divided gold, silver, utensils, cattle, and captives. They calculated the exact value of their conquest by undertaking a method- ical census of lands and men. Thus the Anglo- Norman kings knew exactly what property and power they possessed, things of which the Ger- man Emperor was wholly ignorant, and concern- ing which the King of France did not have much knowledge. They kept under discipline all their subjects, whether noble or not, by retaining for themselves and their officers superior judicial authority and the direct services of all freemen. They had vas- sals who were very wealthy, but who did not pos- sess principalities consisting of contiguous estates; who were landlords, not seigneurs. The small ex- tent of the country and its insular isolation were favorable to the maintenance of good order by the crown. In this fragment of island, between the 74 The Middle Ages. [CH. m. ocean and territories inhabited by a hostile race, like the Welsh and the Scots, an Englishman was English, and only English. There was no fluctuating frontier nor vague zone of territory. There was no great seigneur whose homage wav- ered between two masters hostile to each other, and who could call himself, as occasion demanded, French or German, like the Count of Flanders; French or Aragonese, like many a seigneur in the South; vassal of the King of France or of the Emperor, like the Count of Toulouse, Marquis of Provence. This good order of a well-regulated monarchy and the power of the monarch produced an unex- pected result, namely, political liberty. Just be- cause the king had everything in his own hands, be- cause the rights and duties of all were defined with precision, because each person easily came in contact with all, because people saw, knew, and elbowed each other, the resistance to a power that was too strong was easily organized, and with the first at- tempt attained its object. The Great Charter of John Lackland enacted that no freeman should be convicted in any way whatsoever, except by due judgment of his peers ; and that no money im- post should be levied without the common consent of the realm. These two articles gave England two great guarantees of liberty, the jury and Parliament. English society did not break up into castes CH. ni.] The Kingdom of England. 75 separated from one another by habits and preju- dices. It had grades, but not barriers. And at last the Saxons and Normans were amalgamated, and spoke a single national language. Thus Eng- land of the fifteenth century was more than a state ; it was almost a nation. The sea, over which she was afterward to rule, rendered her at this time no other service than to isolate her, to endow her with originality, and to inspire her with a national spirit, narrow, but lofty and proud. She had neither a great marine nor a great commerce. Her cities were quite small. She subsisted very bountifully on til- lage and pasturage. She did not weave even the wool of her own sheep, but sold it to Flanders, which was her manufactory. She was likewise in close political relations with that country, which she already defended against the kings of France. Her vocation abroad was not yet revealed ; but she had various powers in reserve : the power of a sanguine, vigorous, and vehement temperament, and the power which is produced by freedom and by the spirit of independence. These she was at first to waste in her civil and religious wars ; but eventually she employed them to found an em- pire, the most extensive and flourishing that his- tory has known. 7G The Middle Ages. [CH.III. 22. General and Concluding Reflections on the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the ninth century Europe was divided into two very distinct historical re- gions. One was the Balkan Peninsula, where the old Empire still endured ; the other was complex, consisting of the Rhine region, where Carolingian energy had developed, and Rome, where the Pa- pacy had preserved, but transformed, the tradi- tion of a world power. At this time Gaul, Ger- many, and Italy were only dependencies of the Rhenish Francia, governed in temporal matters by the Emperor, in spiritual matters by the Pope. England under her Saxon and Danish kings, and Spain, which was in great part Moslem, had little or no importance in the Christian world. Three great personages created the history of that time : the Pope, the Emperor of the West, and the Emperor of the East. The world had also three capitals : Rome, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Con- stantinople. In the fifteenth century the Empire of the East disappears. The city of Constantine and the city of Pericles become Turkish. The Balkan Peninsula becomes an annex of Asia. The Emperor of the West is now only a petty prince, occupied with the affairs of his house, CH. m.] General and Concluding Reflections. 11 powerless even in Germany, even in his hereditaiy countries. This dominus mundi is an object of derision. The Pope has emerged from the crisis of the Great Schism, weakened and imperilled. The Vicar of Christ has sunk to the rank of an Italian prince ; he has a family to provide for, and, like the Emperor, his own petty private affairs to look after. Against his supremacy Wickliffe and Huss have spoken, and their words will not be lost. The ecclesiastical and imperial past is crumbling in ruins on the countries with which it has been identified. The Rhine region has fallen into de- O cay ; Aix-la-Chapelle is only a memory. Germany and Italy, which restored the Empire in the tenth century, and on which the Empire subsisted, are now scarcely more than geographical expressions. On the other hand, in the West and the East great innovations have been introduced. In the West, three organized entities, France, England, and Spain, are ready for modern life ; in the East, outside the limits of the ancient Empire, within regions unknown to the ancients and regarded by them as abominable, have appeared Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Bohemia, Hungaiy, the Teutonic Knights, and the Sword-bearers. In the last-mentioned countries an immense stretch of uncultivated territory has been re- claimed. It has its castles, palaces, cathedrals, and town-halls. It has its saints, kings, seigneurs, 78 The Middle Ages. CCH.UI. bishops, burgesses, artisans, and merchants. It has its men of learning. Good and solemn Latin is spoken in Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary. Prague has its university, modelled after that of Paris. On the whole Continent and on the English island, an activity reigns, confused but singularly potent. There are more artisans, artists, states- men, soldiers, and thinkers than ever existed in the ancient world. The intellect, although it has not found the true method of working, works more than ever before. It is a joy to anyone who loves life, to see it in such a state of effervescence. From the tumultuous laboratory of the Middle Ages there is at length about to emerge an histori- cal entity, greater and more potent than Greece and Home, for these are magnified in our imagina- tions by prejudices of education. That entity is Europe. CHAPTER IV. MODEBN TIMES. 1. General Characteristics. THE formation of states distinct from one an- other, each having its own character, passions, and interests, was destined to produce, as a necessary consequence, a conflict between these various ele- ments. The coexistence of individuals, each of whom is his own master, and considers the abso- lute possession of himself the sovereign good, this juxtaposition without a hierarchy, these ambitions without a moderator, these pretensions without a common judge, were all causes of war. It was certain that France would seek to extend her territory toward the north and east, now that she was protected on the two other sides by her natural frontiers ; it was certain that France and Spain, now that each was unified, would quarrel in the Pyrenees, as neighbors often do; it was cer- tain that the conflict between the Germans and the Turks, and between the Germans and the Slavs, would continue in the East ; and certain that the 80 Modern Times. ten. iv. competition between the maritime nations would not continue without the sound of cannon on all the seas the North Sea, the Baltic, the Mediter- ranean, and the oceans. But, in addition to these causes, there were others that contributed to make war almost the normal condition of Europe in modern times. The discovery of the New World and the estab- lishment of active relations with Eastern Asia might have diminished the evils of European war, since they furnished states with an outlet for their energy. But the governments of Europe began by considering the colonies simply as coun- tries to exploit. To reserve to themselves the benefits of exploitation they created monopolies, which they entrusted to armed companies. Since, on the other hand, political centralization had re- sulted in the transformation of commerce and in- dustry which formerly belonged to corporations into state institutions, there were thenceforth national economic interests which became motives of war. The Europeans Portuguese, Dutch, Spaniards, English, and French did not content themselves with fighting in the two Indies to ac- quire territories and rights, nor with extending to Europe conflicts begun in the colonies ; they even sought war on the Continent in order that they might extend it to the colonies. The Reformation did not long remain an eccle- OH. iv.] General Characteristics. 81 siastical affair ; for as the State and the Church were closely connected, to reform the Church was a State affair. Where the Keformation succeeded it increased the authority of the sovereign, by giving him a fragment of the sole and universal authority of the Holy See. The king of a Protes- tant country was the supreme archbishop of that country, a localized Pope. Thus the first political effect of the Reformation (an effect that was af- terward corrected) was to strengthen the monarch- ies "by giving them new power, and to distinguish the European principalities more clearly from one another. Even if it had everywhere succeeded, it would have stimulated the rivalries between the states, for the very reason that it placed them in the hands of their respective rulers, and cut the sole bond by which they were still united. But the Reformation gained only partial victories over Catholicism. It began by creating two parties in every coun- try. Where these were approximately equal in power, they tried their strength in civil war. Moreover, there was formed an international Catholic party, and an international Protestant party ; in France, Catholic Spaniards fought side by side with French Catholics against French, German, and English Protestants. Thus the life of France, that of England, and still more that of Germany were profoundly troubled by 82 Modern Times. [CH.IV. forays of religious hatred across the frontiers. Of course, politics did not blindly follow the guid- ance of religion. State policy silenced religious scruples. The Most Christian King of France who, as it was said, did not hesitate to bind the lilies to the crescent, made use of the Protestants against Austria ; the three Catholic powers Spain, France, and Austria almost always treated each other as irreconcilable enemies. It is none the less true that the Reformation, on the one hand, and the Catholic reaction, on the other, were occasions of war, and that they embittered those wars which they did not cause. The Renaissance was not simply an intellect- ual, any more than the Reformation was simply a religious, phenomenon. The Renaissance also strengthened the authority of the sovereign by re- storing the cult of the ancient state, a state which was self - sufficing, and of which the lex supremo, was self-advantage. The Renaissance, furthermore, diffused over Europe the political manners of Italy, where the principal states were wont to observe, to secretly watch, and to check one another, in order to maintain the equilibrium of their powers. As Italy was open to foreign nations, this scrutiny was also directed abroad. Italy was the birth- place of the ambassador, that pseudo- agent of concord and peace. Europe would certainly have learned political knavery without a master, but OH. iv.] General Characteristics. 83 she profited by the lessons which she received from Italy. She fervently meditated the gospel according to Machiavelli. Thus the discovery of the New World, the Ref- ormation, and the Renaissance made the modern world pay its footing. There was another more specific and direct cause of war. Sovereignty was not a magistracy or office, it was a piece of property. It was ac- quired by marriage or inheritance. Hence it hap- pened that princes obtained possession of provinces and even whole states, outside of their native land. The house of Austria built up a remarkable em- pire, in which, by the side of its German domains, it incorporated Burgundian, Slavic, and Hungarian countries, Spain, and a great part of Italy. The kings of France claimed succession to the duchy of Milan and to the kingdom of Naples. Later, Louis XIV. asserted his rights to the succession of Spain, and exacted instalments of his inheritance before it came into his possession. Thus natural groups, dif- fering very much from one another, were embraced in factitious monarchies. As there also remained from the past the memory of a universal monarchy a phantom haunting the spirit of kings and states- men Charles V., Philip II., and Louis XIV. were ac- cused of aspiring to form a " monarchy of Europe." Royal marriages determined the future of the Continent. If ever nuptials were bloody, it was 84 Modern Times. [CH.IV. those of Maximilian of Austria with Mary of Bur- gundy, those of their son Philip with Joan of Spain, and those of Louis XIV. with Maria The- resa of Austria. In the wake of their bridal trains follow millions of shades of soldiers, killed on hun- dreds of battle-fields, and of other hapless victims of the evils of war. War, which was almost perpetual, completed the work of political concentration in the different countries. Kings were obliged to secure con- siderable resources, which object they sought to attain by means of a better regulated administra- tion. Hence, of necessity, their principal occupa- tions were politics and war. Every prince maintained a throng of political agents, some at home, others scattered in the courts of Europe. The sport of princes, in which " glory " was won, was to carry on successful in- trigue and war. In diplomacy mercenary foreign agents were numerous, and foreign mercenaries abounded in the armies. In fact, throughout all Europe there existed a diplomatic and military " condottierism." The highest offices were some- times attained by civil condottieri, of whom Maz- arin and Alberoni are examples. Military con- dottieri became heroes in the eyes of monarchy, and were rewarded for their services ; of these Prince Eugene of Savoy and Marshal Saxe are ex- amples. Thus there was a political and also a mill- CH. iv.] General Characteristics. 85 tary profession ; statesmen and soldiers led and dis- turbed the world. The object of politics and war was not merely to assure the existence or safety of states ; rulers intrigued because they had diplo- mats, and they made war because they had soldiers. In these quarrels of kings the nations, as such, did not actively participate ; their part was only to suf- fer the evils of war, to pay its costs, and to take pride in the glory of their master when he won victories. Philosophers and savants strove to establish principles and rules of justice above these con- flicts, in order to prevent them or to diminish their violence. They framed the droit des gens, that is to say, international law. They condemned all war which had not as motive the reparation of an offence committed against law; they limited the power of the conqueror over the conquered ; and they taught that treaties between states were in- violable, like contracts between individuals. But this code lacked an authority to suppress crimes against the law of nations, a judge and an agency to execute his decisions. All these fine maxims, without a single exception, were flagrantly violated by the various governments, without a single ex- ception. Wars were waged without lawful reason ; the conquered were treated atrociously ; agree- ments were violated without scruple. Only one general maxim regulated politics. It 86 Modern Times. [CH.IV. was understood among diplomats that it was the interest of all that no state should become strong enough, to oppress the others. This was the prin- ciple of the balance of power in Europe. The idea was excellent, but its application was pecu- liar. If a state increased, and thus destroyed the balance of power, its neighbors did not demand that the newly acquired possessions should be re- nounced : they sought compensation. Poland was a victim of this principle of compensation. She was torn to pieces, and the fragments were weighed in a balance. Maria Theresa found the act evil in itself, but her chief complaint was that Prussia and Russia had taken the best part. There was, then, no counterpoise to all the causes that had as common effect this state of continual war. A peace of several years' duration was rare in these three centuries, and astonished the world as an anomaly. The kings boasted of it, as if it were a sacrifice that they were making for the " repose of their subjects." It remains to show the results of all these con- flicts who gained thereby, and who lost. 2. Italy and Germany. That the modern era pressed heavily on Ger- many and Italy was the result of the logic of events. In the Middle Ages neither Italian poly- archy nor German anarchy was unseasonable ; but en. iv.] Italy and Germany. 87 they became anomalies after the establishment of centralized states, and these countries found by ex- perience that it is not always well to be unlike one's neighbors. They gave to the world the Renaissance and the Reformation, thus acquiring the glory of hav- ing exerted upon Europe a very strong intellect- ual, moral, and religious influence, and of having played a great part in the general history of civili- zation. This glory they owe, in part, to their genius, in part to the very causes of their political sufferings. The Renaissance had more energy and variety because Italy was vigorous and hete- rogeneous. The Reformation spread in Germany, because amid the disorders of this country it did not encounter an authority strong enough to check it, as in France, or to crush it, as in Spain ; also because, of all Christian countries, Germany was the one in which the Church was guilty of the great- est abuses with the least concern as to the result. Thus in both countries great evils produced cer- tain striking compensations ; but these, in turn, aggravated the evils. The Renaissance rendered the defects of the Italian system incurable ; it was almost everywhere the servant of tyranny, whose egotism it developed. The Reformation added religious discord to German anarchy. The decadence of Germany and Italy was very great. The expansion of Germany ceased. The 88 Modern Times. tcn.iv. northeast of Europe was now colonized, and hence had no more allurements for persons in quest of for. tune and adventure. It was a period of adversity for the Teutonic Order and the Hanse, which in the preceding period had been the two great agen- cies of emigration. The knightly orders were impaired in their very principle by the enfeeblement of the Christian idea, of which they were a manifestation. The Teutonic Knights who outlived the Crusades were isolated in an age which no longer comprehended the Crusades. They continued to wear the sign of the Cross ; but, as Luther once said, " What, for- sooth, are crusaders who do not undertake cru- sades ? " This question could not be answered. But it is dangerous to cease to be useful. The Teutonic Knights, having become useless, disap- peared ; a Hohenzollern, their last grand-master, secularized the order, and became Duke of Prussia. The Hanse, which was an international corpora- tion, was seriously impaired by the formation of the states of the North, each of which had its own marine ; and the discovery of the New World completed this work of destruction. Henceforth the Baltic was nothing compared with the great oceans; the streets of Lubeck and Bremen became silent. Moreover, Poland regained strength in the sixteenth century ; in the seventeenth, Swe- den became a military state, and Russia appeared on. iv.] Tl)e Italian Field of Battle. 89 on the scene. Germany again began her onward march in the eighteenth century ; but it was Prus- sia that now made conquests on her own account, and she had to reckon with her Russian partner. The expansion of Italy was also arrested. The Turks, Christopher Columbus, and Vasco de Gama killed Venice. The Adriatic declined in impor- tance even more than the Baltic. Italy and Germany, being thrown upon their own resources, were not capable of withstanding foreign attacks. Their weakness was a danger not merely to themselves but also to Europe. Notwithstanding all these wars, there was, after all, a kind of continental organism. It was bad for all Europe that parts of this organism were unhealthy, that they harbored and nourished the germ of war. The old region of the priesthood and of the Empire, exposed to the enterprises of modern statesmen, was too easily exploited. Italy and Germany had neither a head nor a heart to resent the injuries which they thus received from all quarters. In fact, they were by their own pro- fession battle-fields of Europe. 3. The Italian Field of Battle The Xing of Sardinia. " Italy will act for herself " (Italia fara da sc\ exclaim the Italian patriots of to-day. The po- tentates of modern Europe used to say, " What 90 Modern Times. [CH.IV. action shall we take in Italy ? " Spain, France, and Austria played chess there during three cen- turies. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the kings of France claimed to be the successors of the Vis- conti of Milan and the Angevins of Naples ; but there had been Aragonese at Naples, and the Em- pire had rights over Milan. Thus Spain and Austria played against France, and won the game. In the seventeenth century Hapsburgs of Spain and Austria, and Bourbons of France sought ev- ery occasion for conflict with each other; they met on the soil and seas of Italy. Then came the preparations for the Spanish succession, and the succession itself. Who was to secure possession of Milan and Naples ? The fate of war and it was a dreadful war decided in favor of Austria in 1715. During the remainder of the eighteenth century Italy was at the disposal of Europe. She was the country where principalities were found for throiieless princes. Here Elizabeth Farnese, wife of the Bourbon Philip V. of Spain, provided her sons with a kingdom and a duchy. After the war of the Polish succession Stanislas Leczinski, father-in-law of Louis XV., being without an asy- lum, France provided him with the duchy of Lorraine ; and Francis, Duke of Lorraine, son-in- law of the Emperor, became ruler of Tuscany. The courtesy shown to the father-in-law of Louis CH. iv.] The Italian Field of Baffle. 91 XV. was also extended to the son-in-law of Charles VI. The m.embra mortua of this ca/put mortuum were distributed to every comer. In twenty-one years Sicily changed masters four times ; Parma, three times in seventeen years. Such misery and indignity seemed to be the final destiny of Italy. Nevertheless, an innovation, which in the issue became of great importance, appeared in the northwest of the Peninsula. In the perpetual conflicts between the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons, the state of the dukes of Savoy, situated on two opposite sides of the Alps, played the double role imposed upon it by its geographi- cal situation. There was no prince who could be less trusted than the Duke of Savoy, " the door- keeper of the Alps." Several times Savoy was wrested from him by France, and he had to cede to Henry IV. Bresse, Bugey, Valromey, and the country of Gex. On the other hand, Geneva maintained her independence against him, and the Swiss Confederation became more consolidated. Then the house of Savoy sought its fortune in Italy. To Piedmont it added the duchy of Montferrat and a part of the Milanese territory. In every great European treaty the duke gained something by exacting payment for his alliances, in the trans- ference of which from one camp to another he excelled. While he was occupied in eating the 92 Modern Times. ECH. iv. first scales of the " Italian artichoke," he displayed a remarkable appetite for such a mediocre prince. This was manifested by the fact that he claimed his share of the Spanish and Austrian successions. The War of the Spanish Succession gave him Si- cily, which he soon exchanged for Sardinia ; but he retained the title of king which he had borne during his short possession of Sicily. Thus he en- tered the fraternity of sovereigns ; he was King of Sardinia and even King of Jerusalem. He wore clothes too long and too large for a person of his size, but he was destined to grow until they fitted him. The only ruler in Italy who shared with him the honor of having a royal title was the King of Naples. But Italy proper was in the north. Here was the field of battle between France and Austria ; here laurels were to be o;ath- 7 O ered, provinces to be won; here was Monza, the sanctuary where the Iron Crown awaited a royal head. 4. The German Field of Battle Prussia and Austria. It was in Germany that the great conflicts be- tween the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs occurred. French politics played a winning game in the dis- organized body of the Empire. France subsidized the Electors, and at times was in hopes of purchas- en. iv.] The German Field of Battle. 93 ing the imperial crown. She subsidized the Prot- estant princes, the natural enemies of Catholic Austria. She subsidized the Catholic princes, who as princes were enemies of the imperial power. She knew the exact value of a prince of a given rank, of a minister, counsellor, or mistress ; Versailles, in fact, had a regular tariff of German consciences. In the seventeenth century the armies of Europe overran the region between the Rhine and the Vis- tula, the Alps and the seas of the North. Here, during the Thirty Years' War, French armies went to settle the old quarrel between the Bour- bons and the Hapsburgs, and to ruin the latter's pretensions to the sovereignty of Europe. Here Spanish armies upheld the cause of Catholic orthodoxy. Here Danish and Swedish armies de- fended the Protestant cause, and, at the same time, continued the combat for the Baltic, begun in the Middle Ages. In fact, all these pious Cath- olics and Protestants were greedy and grasping. Finally, Germany, which was divided between the two parties, complicated the horrors of foreign war by engaging in civil war. The evils that this coun- try suffered cannot be described. Here, during thirty years, war maintained war. Friends and enemies subsisted on the soil and its inhabitants, feasting after days of famine, making up for their abstinence by debauchery, for their hunger by or- 94 Modern Times. ten. rv. gies, returning evil for evil. All this they did by force of habit, and because in great crises man returns very quickly to his original instincts, those of a vicious animal. Germany was cov- ered with ruined villages and towns. In more than one province, where everything except the trees had been levelled to the ground, briers, wild beasts, and cannibals made their appearance. When the diplomats of Europe, after five years of ceremony, framed the Peace of Westphalia, it was found that Germany was officially left open to the foreigner. The King of Sweden, as a Ger- man prince, entered the Diet, in which the King of Denmark already had a seat. The King of France became a member of the Rhenish League, which had been organized by him. The sover- eignty of the princes and cities of the Empire was recognized, and the imperial authority was an- nihilated. The high contracting powers had the right to maintain this anarchy, 'for they were the guarantors of the Peace of Westphalia. Hence Germany had no long breathing - time after this terrible war. Bourbons and Hapsburgs met there in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when- ever a war broke out in Europe. England also went there to conquer America and India. Whence was the remedy to come ? For in Germany, as in Italy, the misery and indignity were too much to bear. Either of the two states cn.rv.] The Intermediate Region. 95 of the Eastern frontier was capable of assuming the hegemony ; accordingly they contended for its possession, and their rivalry aggravated the disor- ders of Germany. Moreover, in the eighteenth century, Prussia and Austria were European rather than German powers. We shall soon encounter them again. In the period of the Middle Ages, starting with Ger- many, we turned our attention to the East ; after- ward we passed to the West, and dwelt upon its history, because the West gave birth to France, Spain, and England, and formed the principal the- atre of European history. In the modern period, the most important events happened in the East. Hence it is now necessary to follow a different or- der and begin with the West. 5. The Intermediate Region. In the intermediate region France gained ground. In the South, during the reign of Henry IV., her territory was increased by the addition of various small districts, wrested from the Duke of Savoy. In the centre and North she exacted the price of her victories over both branches of the Haps- burgs. Here she had to contend, in the sixteenth cen- tury, with Charles V., who acted in a two-fold capacity. As Emperor, he defended the rights 96 Modern Times. [CH.IV. of the Empire in Alsace and Lorraine ; as heir of the Burgundian dukes, he was owner of the Netherlands and Franche-Comte", and also claimed Burgundy, which Louis XL had seized. Charles V. did not succeed in securing possession of Bur- gundy, notwithstanding his persistent efforts, for he was as infatuated a Burgundian as his rival, Francis I., was a persistent Visconti. The minds of these first heroes of modern politics were oc- cupied with the ideas and habits of the preceding age. When Charles V. abdicated, the Burgundian provinces, the Netherlands, and Franche-Comte passed to Philip II., King of Spain, while Ferdi- nand, the brother of Charles, succeeded to the im- perial throne, and thus continued the series of Hapsburg emperors. The history of the acquisi- tions of France in the intermediate region mingles, thenceforward, with the history of her long war- fare against the Spanish and German branches of the Hapsburgs. From Spain Louis XIV. took Franche-Comte; but he succeeded in detaching from the Nether- lands only Artois and certain cities of Flanders. From the Empire France won at first the three bishoprics, Metz, Toul, and Verdun ; then Alsace without Strasburg ; and then Strasburg. It was not by pure violence that France made these ac- quisitions. Metz, Toul. and Verdun were annexed en. iv.] Provinces Remaining under Hapsburg Rule. 97 with the consent of German princes, whom Henry II. had assisted in their revolts against Charles V. ; and Alsace was acquired by Richelieu with the army which had, so to speak, made itself propri- etor of this country. It would be disingenuous to vindicate all the political measures of France ; but one can justly assert that the French of the seven- teenth century, in taking Alsace, did not tear men from a fatherland. At that time there was no French fatherland in the present sense of the word ; still less was there a German fatherland. The politics and armies of France did not cut into the living flesh. The acquisition of the three bishoprics and Al- sace rendered inevitable that of Lorraine. This French country was often occupied, during the wars between the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs, by the armies of France before becoming a French province. 6. Provinces Remaining under Hapsburg Rule. Franche-Comte, Alsace, Lorraine, Artois, and French Flanders were the districts acquired by France in the intermediate region during the modern period ; the remainder of this region es- caped her grasp. But Spain did not retain the Netherlands ; and the latter did not remain united. In spite of geographical contiguity, there were 98 Modern Times. [CH.IV. great differences between the seventeen provinces. Some were maritime, others continental; some were rich, others poor ; some were municipal, oth- ers feudal ; and some were German, others Wal- loon. In each of them, and in each of the frag- ments of which they were composed, in the various fiefs, communes, and corporations, life was too in- tense for all these individual beings to long endure the system of the Spanish monarchy. They endured it during the lifetime of Charles V. The vaster and more heterogeneous the mon- archy became, the less was the oppression of an absolute ruler to be feared. Moreover, Charles V. had the rare merit of reflecting in his person the diversity of his Empire. He spoke all the languages of his subjects, and knew how to com- port himself, according to the occasion, as emperor, king, count, nobleman, or burgher. But when he detached the Netherlands from the Empire to give them to Spain, the dire consequences of matrimo- nial politics appeared. The marriage of Maximilian of Austria with the daughter of the Burgundian, Charles the Bold, was comprehensible ; the states of Burgundy bordered on the Empire, and were, in large part, even countries of the Empire. Charles V., pos- sessor of the Netherlands by right of inheritance, was also sovereign by virtue of his title of Emperor. But when, through the sole right of ownership, CH. iv.] Separation of the Netherlands. 99 the Netherlands were given to a Spanish and Ital- ian king, violence was done to the natural order of things, and produced a revolt. 7. Separation of tlie Netherlands. The political resistance offered by the Nether- lands to the despotism of Philip II., who violated their ancient privileges, was strengthened by re- ligious passions. The Northern provinces had adopted Protestantism with fervor and with a sort of sombre enthusiasm; whereas their sov- ereign was the enthusiastic and sombre champion of Catholicism. During the conflict with Spain these provinces united. They tried at first to con- form to European traditions by placing a prince at their head ; afterward they were content to be merely, " Their High Mightinesses the States Gen- eral of the United Provinces." As to the provinces of the South, after many revolts they remained subjected to the King of Spain. At the close of the sixteenth century the separation of the North and the South was accomplished. Thenceforth the future Holland and Belgium followed their separate destinies. The latter, cur- tailed on the south by France, was severed from the Spanish monarchy and given to Austria by the treaties that regulated the Spanish succession. Thus it passed from the elder branch of the Haps- 100 Modern Times. [CH.rv. burgs to the younger, which still possessed it at the outbreak of the French Revolution. 8. The United Provinces. The United Provinces became a European pow- er. They had colonies, an admirable marine, a great commerce, prosperous industries, and hence money, which, especially in the seventeenth centu- ry, formed the sinews of politics and war. Their politics were conducted by men who employed all the finesse of diplomacy in the difficult gov- ernment of a federation of provinces, each of which had its own privileges, and was itself only an aggregate of privileged entities. This dan- ger, to which a little, rich, republican state was exposed in the midst of arrogant and famished monarchies, kept its political spirit constantly awake. For purposes of war they had an aristo- cratic military force, the heads of which belonged to the house of Orange. In time of danger, when it was necessary to arouse and unite the national forces, the princes of Orange, who were related to the royal families of Europe, were able tem- porarily to transform the republic into a monarchy under the form of the stadtholdership. For all these reasons, and because the republic was young, because it had the vitality of the many political bodies which it allowed to subsist within CH.IV.] The Swiss Cantons. 101 itself, because its energy was sustained by passions which were at once provincial, feudal, municipal, and corporative, as well as political and religious, the United Provinces wrested from the Kino- O of Spain the recognition of their independence. They defended it against Louis XIV., formed a strong coalition against France, aided their stadtholder, William of Orange, to ascend the throne of England, and finally humiliated the great King of France. This was the heroic pe- riod of their history. Such efforts, however, could not long be sustained. If, by an extraordinary combination of circum- stances, a state occupies a position in the world disproportional to its real powers, it will be brought back to the limits which it has over- stepped. Holland, which in the seventeenth cen- tury was a powerful ship of war, was in the eigh- teenth century only a " sloop which England had in tow." 9. The Swiss Cantons. During this same period another republican state, the league of the Swiss cantons, developed in the intermediate region. But this remarkable body could not, like the United Provinces, adopt a European policy. It had neither seaboard, nor a great commerce, nor great industries, nor 102 Modern Times. CCH. iv. much money. While Switzerland, which was formed of fragments of nations, awaited the time when she was to become neutral among the na- tions, she sold her soldiers to any one who paid for them. The King of France finally obtained the preference in this trade. The Swiss were to be the last defenders of the flag of the fleur-de-lis in August, 1792, and in July, 1830. The United Provinces and the Swiss Confedera- tion both secured the recognition of their indepen- dence in 1648, the former by a separate treaty with Spain, the latter by the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia. Thus both derived great profit from the victories of France over the Hapsburgs. Moreover, France had aided the United Provinces in their revolt against Spain. This was not, in- deed, due to disinterested motives on the part of France. When her kings made themselves the protectors of the small and the weak, they were not actuated by chivalric sentiment. Nevertheless, it is an honor to France that her victories indirectly resulted in giving to the political world two new and free states. 10. France. In modern times France followed the impulse which had already been given to her destiny in the Middle Ages. The French kings completed en. iv.] France. 103 the formation of the national territory by acquir- ing Brittany through marriage, Rousillon by con- quest, Beam and Navarre on the accession of Henry IV. We have followed their progress in the intermediate region. The acquisition of Cor- sica, made at the same time as that of Lorraine, completed France as she was constituted before 1789. Within this monarchy the provincial differences were gradually effaced, though they never wholly disappeared. The old privileges of the various coun- tries, where they had not been abolished, became a dead letter ; likewise those of the manors and com- munes. But these empty structures provinces, municipalities, and feudal lordships cumbered France, and incommoded her life. The power that turned them into ruins would not, or could not, remove the debris, which caused much disorder in the constitution of France. The resistance of such vestiges of the past was encountered by the great ministers of France, by those of the time of her full glory, and by those of the close of the ancient re- gime, for example, Colbert and Turgot. The old monarchy shone in Europe with great brilliancy. It contributed to the sum total of the greatness of France the majesty of Louis XIV., which was a real majesty. But the monarchy did not estab- lish a system of government and administration adapted to a unified country. It did not provide 104 Modern Times. [en. iv. itself with a good financial and military system ; it did not give the country a good judicial and economic system. To speak the truth in all its nakedness, French kings knew how to exact obedi- ence, but they did not know how to govern. In their foreign policy they met with consid- erable success, and they also made great mis- takes. The conflict with the house of Austria was at first imposed upon them. In attempting to break the circle enclosing France, Francis I., Henry II., Henry IV., Richelieu, and Mazarin maintained a proper and legitimate line of policy and warfare ; and it was their good fortune to save the indepen- dence of Europe, while thus working for the great- ness of France. But the monarchy, victorious in the middle of the seventeenth century, soon abused its victory. The claim to the Spanish succession, which at the present day is regarded as a chimera, was in accordance with the spirit of former poli- tics ; but it required a prudence and an attitude of conciliation that were wanting. Foreign nations, one after another, or all simultaneously, became imbued with hatred against France. Europe, thus united against the French by the French them- selves, watched every measure and every intention of the King of France. The progress, slow but constant, which he had made during a century along the frontiers of the North and East, was ar- rested. France ceased to be the directing power CH. iv.] France. 105 which grouped around her the most diverse forces, guided events, and, when necessary, brought them into existence. The seventeenth century belonged to the Bourbons in combat with the Hapsburgs ; the eighteenth century belonged to new powers. It is always to be regretted that the foreign policy of France was absorbed in the affairs of the Continent, to the neglect of the rest of the world, whose history had become implicated in that of Europe. France, an oceanic and a Medi- terranean power, was destined to play a very im- portant role in Africa, Asia, and America. She had undertaken crusades ; she early had bold explorers; she possessed Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, and Havre ; and she had excellent seafar- ing populations the Normans, Bretons, Basques, arid Provencals. She is calumniated when ac- cused of being incapable of colonization. Her colonial history is a glorious one. She made an excellent beginning in the formation of a French empire beyond seas. Francis L, Henry IV., Rich- elieu, and Colbert saw what France could and should do; but continental politics absorbed all her strength and thought. To humble the house of Austria was at first a necessity ; and this afterward became a watch- word mechanically handed down from king to king. The great successes of the French diplo- mats and generals in the sixteenth and seven- o 106 Modern Times. [cn.iv. teenth centuries aroused the emulation of their suc- cessors, even when Austria was no longer an enemy. The habit had been formed of waging war in the Netherlands, in Germany, and in Italy. It seemed as though glory could not be acquired on other fields of battle. The desire was to win it on this classic theatre of war, whence the tidings of victory would be brought to Versailles by a courier galloping at full speed. To this must be added the circumstance that in France the third estate counted for almost nothing in the body pol- itic ; the merchants could not make their voices heard, as in England. The French nobility had ceased to be a feudal body, and had become a brilliant military society ; but it had never become accustomed to marine ser- vice. Its chiefs served only in the army. " The admiral," when there was one, was usually a cour- tier, who was not even a fresh-water sailor. In- deed, Versailles, where monarchy slept, was not even washed by a river. The labors of Hercules were necessary to furnish it with drinking-water. 11. Spain. The formation of the Spanish state was com- pleted at the beginning of modern times, a single absolute monarchy being substituted for the old feudal monarchies. Thereupon Spain, emerging CH. iv.] Spain. 107 from the lists in which she had so long fought the infidel, suddenly conquered the richest parts of the New World. She was at the same time entangled in all the affairs of the Continent by the family alliance concluded between Castile and Austria. To people and organize her colonies, to conduct a line of policy which involved her in conflicts with other European states, to protect her possessions in Italy, Franche - Comte, and Flanders, all the pOAvers of Spain, even if nourished and increased, would not have sufficed. Her government ruined her by the exercise of a sombre, solemn, and stupid despotism, and by the infatuation of a religious fanaticism that offered up to God an auto-da-fe not merely of thousands of individuals, but also of the commerce, industry, and activity of Spain. During the Middle Ages the Orientals had pro- duced in this country marvels of labor ; but mod- .ern Spain was invaded by an Oriental somnolence, which ended in lethargy. This kingdom, the val- iant adversary of France in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, was forced to pay the expenses of all the French wars, arid France supported all the revolts against Spain. In 1700, when the Spanish branch of the Haps- burgs was withered, Louis XIV. gave to Spain an off-shoot of his dynasty. To fix it in the soil, twelve years of war were necessary, at the end of which period the ruin of Spain was completed. 108 Modern Times. ten. iv. When Europe settled the Spanish succession, she rendered Spain a service by relieving her of her Belgian and Italian dependencies. A policy of repose and repair would have restored Spain, rich in the gifts of nature ; but the new king from Versailles was a sort of lazy monk, tormented by dreams of love and ambition. Moreover, the habit of mingling in European politics was established at the Escurial. Herein also tradition asserted its sway over the mind, and led it astray. Spain had not time to restore her strength. At first ad- O venturers and then ministers of state attempted to rejuvenate her. They desired to diminish the number of court parasites, who devoured what little substance remained ; to drive the plunder- ers from the administration ; to reform taxation ; to pay the judges ; to clothe, arm, and feed the soldiers ; to build arsenals ; to place ships in the ports, cannon on the ramparts, workmen in the factories, and husbandmen in the fields. The boldest of them also undertook to recover the Spanish intellect from the sway of the Church. They met with successes, but of a moderate and transient nature ; they galvanized the body politic, which then relapsed into lifelessness. England made a breach in the colonial empire of Spain, a remarkable empire, which the mother- country did not colonize, which she desired only to exploit, and which she did not know how to ex- CH. iv.] England. 109 ploit. Into these colonies she introduced all the vices of her political, social, and religious life, her despotism which carefully hindered all expansion of commerce and industry, her idle and arrogant nobles, her ignorant officials, her monks, and her lethargy. 1 2. England. The history of England was exactly the reverse of that of Spain. The constitution established in England was that of a free country. She went through crises of extreme violence, such as the Wars of the Roses, the religious revolutions of the sixteenth century, and the religious and political revolutions of the seventeenth century. Sects and parties abounded in the land. On the Continent a little country thus troubled would have paid for such violent disorders with the loss of life and independence. But the sea performed its func- tions, and protected the island which was to rule over it. Three passions animated England : loyalty, ha- tred of popery, and attachment to certain princi- ples of political liberty. The first two were the most active ; they determined England's history and explain its contradictions. Loyalty, on sev- eral occasions, made Englishmen support a despot- ism such as was unknown in monarchical France. 110 Modern Times. ccn. iv. Thus it protected Charles I. for a long time ; re- called Charles II. from exile ; permitted this king and his brother to commit the greatest offences ; sulked with George III., and disturbed the secur- ity of the house of Hanover. Hatred of popery raised up Cromwell, killed Charles L, and exiled James II. From the conflict between these two chief pas- sions England's liberty finally emerged. The na- tion, even when it allowed the kings to do as they pleased, retained a faithful recollection of the charter of John Lackland. It was always peril- ous for the king, except in great emergencies, to deprive an Englishman of trial by jury; and it was still more perilous for him to raise a tax without the consent of Parliament. Thus, when the quarrel between the loyalists and the anti- papists had been settled, and foreigners, first a Dutchman and then the Hanoverians, succeeded to the throne of England, the dominant passion became that of liberty. Then England began to govern herself. Parlia- ment furnished the king with a ministry, which could do almost everything without the king, but which could do nothing without Parliament. Against its own government the country defended itself by means of its rights and liberties. It had private rights, whereby the person of an Eng- lishman, his domicile, and his purse were rendered CH. iv.] England. Ill inviolable against all illegal acts ; and public rights, namely, the right of complaint and petition, the right of meeting, the right of association, the right to speak and to write. But this magnificence concealed certain weaknesses and deformities : an irrational electoral system, scandalous corruption of the voter by the candidate and of the member elect by the ministry ; and the persistence of re- ligious intolerance and of strange vestiges of the past. No matter ! England was free ; indeed, in the eighteenth century she was the only free na- tion in the world. After the death of Elizabeth, Scotland and Eng- land had the same king. Ireland had been re- duced to the condition of an ever-suppurating wound ; of all English deformities this was the ugliest. But the personal union with Scotland, which prepared the way for the fusion of the two countries, delivered England from the neighbor- hood of a possible enemy, and assured her free- dom of action abroad. Her national policy interrupted and disturbed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by in- ternal revolutions was directed by various mo- tives : by the proud remembrance, preserved on the royal escutcheon, of the time when an English king ruled over France ; by the ambition to pa- rade on the Continent ( " The one whom I protect is master," said Henry VIII.) ; by the feeling 112 Modern Times. [CH. iv. against the Catholicism personified in Philip II. ; and by commercial interests. The Stuarts sold the foreign policy of the crown to Louis XIV., in order to employ its market price against the pub- lic liberties and religious convictions of their sub- jects. But as soon as England was her own mis- tress, she cast aside all prejudices, fantasies, and weaknesses. She followed without scruple a practical line of policy. She mingled in the af- fairs of the Continent, where she played an im- portant role, without self-sacrifice, since she in- curred no danger, and did not employ her vital forces. She worked for the maintenance of the balance of power, her efforts always being directed against France, to prevent the latter from extend- ing her sway over the Netherlands, and from dom- inating over Spain. And she always created or seized opportunities to increase her colonial em- pire. In fact, her vocation had been revealed to her ; the sea had at length seduced England. She was the last of the colonizing powers to set to work ; but it was fortunate for her that others had taken possession of the countries of gold and spices. Her first colonists established themselves on the coasts of North America on stubborn soil. She had no occasion to deprive them of the products of their labor ; and she allowed them to work in their own way. Among these colonists were many who en. iv.] Prussia. 113 went beyond sea to seek, not profit nor adventure, but freedom to worship God according to their conscience. Gradually the elements of a people were gathered there. It is true that this people finally claimed the right of independence ; but it is no small honor to have entirely created a na- tion like the United States. England found, more- over, some consolation in her greatly increased commerce with these Anglo-Saxon lands after they secured their independence. Besides, she retained Canada, which she had conquered from France. She took possession of islands, and secured well-situated stations, in all the seas. She wrested from France the empire of India. In short, at the outbreak of the French Revolution, with her navy, her merchant marine, her immense commerce, and her awakening manu- facturing activity, she was the great maritime na- tion of Europe. Protected from the convulsions of the Continent by her isolation, her solid consti- tution, and her customs, she was destined to be the most formidable enemy of France. 13. The East Prussia. Let us now return to the North and East, where events of the greatest importance had happened. Among the old powers some had decayed; others, like Austria and Prussia, had prospered. Russia, 114 Modern Times. LCH. iv. a new power of considerable importance, had ap- peared on the scene. The Hohenzollerns had completed the formation of Prussia. As Electors of Brandenburg they had, early in the seventeenth century, inherited Rhenish duchies and the Prussia of the Teutonic Knights, now transformed into a duchy. Thenceforth a single prince ruled on the Vistula, the Elbe, and the Rhine. Nothing was less necessary or less natural ; for these three countries scarcely knew one another, had no common traditions, and did not resemble one another. But all three were harassed by war in the seventeenth century. The Rhenish duchies formed a field of battle for France and Holland against Austria and Spain ; Brandenburg served the same purpose for Sweden against Austria ; and in Prussia there were con- flicts between Poles, Swedes, Austrians, and Rus- sians. The necessity of being ready for all conflicts, since the Hohenzollerns were sure to be implicated in them, imposed upon these princes constant effort, a constant combat for existence. To fuse into one state provinces whose history and customs were so different, to employ their powers for common ends, to unite the links of the broken chain, was the plan which was en- joined by circumstances, and which was executed. Magdeburg, Halberstadt, and Minden, which were acquired in 1648, were successive steps on the CH. iv.] Prussia. 115 route from Berlin to the Rhine. Pomerania, ac- quired in two instalments, gave Brandenburg a seaboard. After the conquest of Silesia the realm was flanked by mountains. After the spo- liation of Poland, Brandenburg and Prussia, the two essential parts of the state, were amalgamated. After these annexations the state of the Hohen- zollerns remained a singular edifice, consisting of a body and two wings, one of which stretched out, broken in fragments, to the Rhine, and the other to the Nieinen ; but the government held together this scattered power. Rulers whose territories were fields of battle were necessarily military au- tocrats, who exacted passive obedience from their subjects. Nicht raisonniren, " No reasoning here," was their motto. It was also very necessary for them to be frugal and to turn to account all their productive powers. And in this Germany, in which the smallest potentates took pride in disfiguring the splendors and in parodying the vices of Versailles, patriots looked with pride upon princes who were always toiling, and who boasted that they were the first servants of their state. Moreover, the Hohenzollerns were distinguished among German rulers by a superior dignity. The Teutonic Order, after its defeat in the fifteenth centuiy, had been obliged to become the vassal of the Kins? of Poland. Thus the Duke of Prus- O sia, the successor of the Order, did homage to 116 Modern Times. ECU. iv. a foreigner. But the Electors of Brandenburg, after inheriting the duchy, desired to free them- selves from this humiliating obligation. A war having broken out between the kings of Sweden and Poland soon after the Peace of Westphalia, the Elector-Duke allowed his allegiance to vacil- late from the one to the other, that is to say, he betrayed the one after the other, in order to secure from both the recognition of his sovereignty. At the end of the war he was, in fact, a sovereign. There was a corner of the earth where the Hohen- zollern had above him no one except God. In the Germany of that time, however, there could be no king, because the Emperor was, in theory, the sole sovereign; but a German prince could be king of a foreign country. The Elector of Saxony was King of Poland ; the Elector of Brandenburg had the ambition to be King of Prussia, and he was crowned in 1YOO, with the as- sent of the Emperor. A few years later a Hano- verian inherited the throne of England. Prussia was insignificant compared with England, or even with Poland. The rulers of these two countries regarded themselves as exalted potentates by the side of their brother of Prussia, but they were not masters in their own kingdoms, and their quality of foreign king almost effaced that of prince of the Empire. Prussia, though considered a foreign land, was German ; the royal power was CH. iv.] Prussia, 117 absolute ; the kingdom, just because it was small and modest, did not absorb the Hohenzollerns. They became European princes, but remained princes of Germany, and the royal dignity gave them greater authority in the Empire. For these reasons they were in a less brilliant but more favorable position than the Electors of Hanover and Saxony. Brandenburg had for a long time been marked out as the enemy of Austria, and had, since the sixteenth century, inspired the latter with a feeling of inquietude. Their inequality was great, but Brandenburg represented the opposition of North Germany against Southern Germany, of Protes- tantism against Catholicism. When the elector was made king, a conflict between the two houses became inevitable. Moreover, Prussia found com- pensation for her greater feebleness in the superi- ority of her government. The second King of Prussia, Frederick William I., was still very insig- nificant and humble compared with the Emperor. But he ruled over 2,500,000 subjects ; he had an army almost equal in number to that of Austria, and consisting of better material ; his finances were in very good order, he had no debts, and savings had accumulated in the treasury. To all these resources Frederick II., King of Prussia, added genius. He had an intellect and a will that wielded power. He professed the great- 118 Modern Times. ten. iv. est contempt for custom, traditions, and rights; and defeated the Emperor more frequently and more completely than was proper for a member of the Empire ; he, a new-comer, vanquished old monarchies. He not only increased his territory by annexing Silesia and Polish provinces, but also created modern Prussia, and forced an en- trance into the fraternity of the great powers. His work had the character, the promptitude, and the importance of a revolution. His state, which he advanced to the first rank, did not resemble any other. It was German without being German. It was an upstart, and yet it had ancient tradi- tions. The Hohenzollerns were old like the Em- pire ; Brandenburg had been an electorate since the thirteenth century ; and Prussia was the heroic domain of the mediaeval German knights. This state was at once old and young. It had the choice between two destinies, for it was adapted to the work of reaction or to the work of revolu- tion. It was a formidable two-edged weapon, which struck with the one edge or the other ac- cording to time and place. 14. Austria. When we left Austria, the domain of the Haps- burg house consisted of Austria, Styria, Tyrol, Carinthia, and Trieste. Partly German, partly on. iv.j Austria. 119 Slavic, partly Italian, these lands formed the foun- dation of the future tower of Babel, at the base of which a confusion of tongues was to burst forth ill our day. Four causes determined the modern destiny of the Hapsburgs : the marriages which made Charles V. heir of the house of Burgundy and of the Spanish crown ; the loyalty of Austria to Cathol- icism ; the custom that became established in Germany of always giving the Empire to Austria ; and, finally, the acquisition of Bohemia and Hun- gary in the sixteenth century, and of a portion of Poland in the eighteenth. o It was the union of the Austrian, Burgundian, and Spanish inheritances that brought the Haps- burgs and the Bourbons into conflict. It was be- cause Austria was the champion of Catholicism that France found allies in Germany, and, waging war there, was able to aid the German princes to become petty sovereigns. The imperial office gave some cohesion to the incongruous aggregate of the monarchy. Finally, the acquisition of Bohemia, Hungary, and a part of Poland made Austria a state that marked a transition between Western and Eastern Europe. 120 Modern Times. LCH. rv. 15. Essential Difference between Prussia and Austria. By acquiring the Hungarian kingdom, a Slavic kingdom, and the fragment of another Slavic country, the head of the house of Hapsburg seemed to be performing the functions of the old march of Austria, erected in the Middle Ages to defend the frontiers of Christianity against the Slavs of the Danube and against the Avars. His prosperity had been more brilliant than that of the King of Prussia, successor of those margraves of the North whose early function was to oppose the Slavs of the Elbe ; but his prosperity was also less substantial. The King of Prussia ruled over several coun- tries that were not German in origin Branden- burgh, Lusatia, Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia, and Poland; but, excepting Poland, all had become German. The last of the old Prussians were dead ; a few words of their language survived, an object of curiosity to philologists. Dead also were the Slavs of Brandenburg and Pomerania. Slavs survived in Lusatia and Silesia, but submerged in the German population, an object of curiosity to ethnographers. The King of Prussia, Elector of Brandenburg, had taken for his electoral title the name of Brannybor, a Slavic town, and for his OH. iv.] Difference between Prussia and Austria. 121 royal title the name of Prussia, a Lithuanian coun- try ; but these foreign names were like rich spoils spolia opima worn by a German king in mem- ory of the victory of his race over hostile races. In the Austrian monarchy, on the other hand, there was a Bohemia entirely inhabited by Tsechs, a Hungary entirely inhabited by Hungarians, and a Transylvania entirely inhabited by Roumanians. The Slavs were alive in all Illyria; the Italians, in the Italian dependencies ; and the Poles, in Poland. When, later on, the national spirit, at the time of its awakening, rebelled against the compacts which had included in one body so many diverse entities, Austria found herself seriously menaced. But in the period with which we are now dealing, this danger was not yet perceptible, for the Hapsburgs ruled tranquilly in the eigh- teenth century. The monarchy suffered from a certain sluggishness ; it was clumsy and not well in hand, but it obeyed. Only two facts remain to be noted. Austria allowed Frederick II., King of Prussia, to secure possession of Silesia, and this monarch organized a coalition of German princes against Austria, when she undertook to claim Bavaria ; in fact, he for- bade all increase of Austrian territory in Germany. On the other hand, the head of the Austrian house, having become King of Hungary, regarded it as his mission to drive back the infidels, and to re- 122 Modern Times. CCH. iv. cover from them the Hungarian territory, the greater part of which was in possession of the Turks. Austria did, in fact, recover it, and the empire of the Hapsburgs thus became a great Danubian power. Note the omens : a route closed toward the North and West, and opened toward the East. 16. Mediaeval Russia. While the two German states of the East were thus advancing on Slavic soil, a new Eastern state was completing its formation, a great Slavic power was being organized. Thus far we have been able to neglect Russia. She had almost nothing in common with Europe, which terminated with the frontiers of Germany and her dependencies. During the whole of the Middle Ages Russian history is lost in the con- fused annals of Eastern Europe. In the ninth century Russia was separated from the Baltic by tribes of the Finnish and Lithuanian race. Be- tween her and Carolingian Germany were the Slavs of the Elbe, of the Oder, of Bohemia, of Moravia, of Lusatia, and of Poland. Her inter- course with the Euxine and the Danube was inter- cepted by Asiatic tribes, which successively occu- pied these regions. Thus ramparts of tribes stood between the Rus- CH. rv.] Mediceval Russia. 123 sians and the Elbe and Danube, which were then the frontiers of history ; also between the Rus- sians and the Baltic and Euxine, those two gulfs of the two great historic seas. It was necessary to pierce these masses in order to reach Europe. It was Europe that first advanced toward Rus- sia. At the close of the ninth century adventu- rers coming from Sweden established their sway over the Slavs of Novgorod. They quickly for- got their Scandinavian origin. Thus the first Rus- sian country, of which Novgorod, and then Kief, were the principal cities, appeared on the map of the great plain of the Northeast. Germany advanced toward Russia by land : the margraves of Brandenburg subdued the tribes be- tween the Elbe and the Oder. Western culture and Christianity penetrated into Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary. But the religious organization of Russia was received from the schismatic Greeks It was Constantinople that converted the great Prince Wladinrir, at the close of the ninth cen- tury. It was now settled that Russia would not, like Poland and Bohemia, enter the system of the Western Church. On the other hand, as she was separated from Constantinople by masses of barbarians, she did not, like the Slavs of the Bal- kans, place herself under the protection of the Greek Empire. She thus indicated that she was something new and original. This, however, was 124 Modern Times. [en. iv. only the first uncertain gleam. Russia dissolved into principalities and republics. In the thir- teenth century she fell almost entirely under the sway of the Mongols. Asia spread over Europe, and wrested Russia from her. Europe continued to advance. Scandinavians, Germans, and Poles overcame the barrier formed by the tribes of the Baltic. The Swedes took possession of Finland ; the Germans, of Livonia and Prussia. The Russians were now in direct contact with the West. At one time the whole coast from the Gulf of Finland to Pornerania be- longed to the Teutonic Order, whose grand -mas- ter was a vassal of the Pope and of the Emperor. But in the fifteenth century Poland, which was then united to Lithuania, placed herself between Germany and Russia, and wrested from the Mus- covite empire a vast extent of territory. It then seemed that Poland was to have the honor of rep- resenting the Slavic race in Europe in the form of a great and independent state. Nevertheless, Russia disengaged herself from the embrace of the Mongols. In the fourteenth century a new state was formed around Moscow, which had regained its independence. While this new state was subordinating to its sway Russian principalities, it encroached upon European Mon- golia, fragments of which were to survive long afterward north of the Euxine. Finally, when CH. rvvi Modern Russia. 125 the Greek Empire disappeared, tlie Tsar was the heir of the Greek schism and, at the same time, the representative of Eastern Christianity against the infidels, and by this two-fold right he was suc- cessor of the Byzantine Caesar. He saw before him a great future. 17. Modern Russia. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the conflict between the Germans, Scandinavians, and Poles continued without interruption on the shores of the Baltic. The Russians intervened several times with an energy which revealed their desire to occupy this territory, but Sweden was at the summit of her strength. She converted the Baltic into a Swedish lake. Russia, finding the route blocked in this direction, began to recover from Lithuania and Poland a part of the land that she had lost. But it was toward the East and the South that she made the greatest progress. The conquest of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan extended her frontier to the Caspian. Though the khans of the Crimea still cut off communication with the Black Sea, the supremacy of the Tsar was extended over the Cossacks of the Don, and the conquest of Siberia was begun. In the eighteenth century the Russian colossus prospered upon the ruins of Sweden, Poland, and 12G Modern Times. ten. iv. Turkey. From the first of these countries she took Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, and portions of Carelia and Finland ; from the second, the old Russian Lithuanian provinces and a large part of the Polish territory ; from the third, the Crimea and the country between the Bug and the Dniester. At the same time Russia encroached upon Persia, and acquired Georgia first, and then the country of the Khirgiz. Henceforth she had access to the Baltic and the Black Sea. She was near the heart of Europe, and also extended to the heart of Asia. She was the only country of the Continent that could increase indefinitely by absorbing bar- barian lands. Her Asiatic empire was contigu- ous to Europe, and consisted of a connected, natural, and, one might almost say, inevitable ag- gregation of peoples and territories. 18. Characteristics of Russia. At the close of the period of the Middle Ages we enumerated the states which had been added to Europe. In the modern period two new states appeared : the United Provinces, whose power was of short duration, and Russia, a country with a great future. But did Russia really form a part of Europe ? In the ninth century, when Western Europe, ruled by the learned Carolingians, was deliberating CH. iv.] Characteristics of Russia. 127 in synods and assemblies on important matters, the Slavs of the Russian plain, in their wretched vil- lages, were barbarians, in fact, almost savages. In the thirteenth century, when France, in the ful- ness of mediaeval civilization, was governed by St. Louis, whose political motto was " Deprive no one of his right," Russia obeyed the Golden Horde, whose capital was a wooden town on the banks of the Volga. At the close of the fifteenth century, in the period of the Renaissance, Ivan the Terrible caused to be decapitated, or decapitated with his own hand, thousands of his victims, whom he afterward commended to the prayers of the Church. In the seventeenth century were the Russians those men with long, flowing beards and garments, those women hidden under veils in closed litters the contemporaries of Louis XIV. ? Peter the Great suppressed their beards and veils, but he did not change their natures ; nor did he desire to do this. He introduced into his empire the instruments of administrative exploitation and the expedients of war employed in Europe; but he remained the Tsar, the lord with unrestricted power, the father who was addressed as " Thou," like God, and who was obeyed like God. Against his power no other was pitted no burghers who sounded the belfry bell and stretched chains across street cor- ners ; no body of judges who, while charged with 128 Modern Times. ten. iv. the administration of the law, defended it against arbitrary power ; no class of nobles whose pride of blood at times went to their heads, and who preferred war to the indignity of servile obedience. In Russia a person was a slave or a noble, but a person was noble because he served, and in propor- tion to the extent of his service. In this immense country an ignorant clergy chanted prayers which they did not understand, and lighted candles be- fore images, which the masses adored with heads bowed to the earth. Russia had entered the sphere of European affairs, but she was not a part of Europe. She was something different : she was Russia. 19. Concluding Reflections The Three Re- gions. At the beginning of modern times England was confined to her island ; France and Spain were commencing to expand abroad ; Holland came into existence, and took her place among the states that were of importance ; Germany and Italy were in disorder ; the Scandinavian states had been drawn into general history by the contest for the Baltic and by the Reformation ; Poland was strong; Bohemia and Hungary still main- tained their independence ; and Turkey was ad- CH. iv.] Western Europe. 129 vancing with vigorous strides. Russia had not yet found a place among the European powers. All these states during the modern period were brought into mutual relation by politics and war. There was thenceforth one Europe, the individual members of which knew each other and each other's designs, entered into alliances when they had common interests, and fought when their in- terests conflicted. Nevertheless, Europe was divided into three very distinct political regions : England, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe. 20. Western Europe. The history of Western Europe was dominated by the consequences of matrimonial politics. Dur- ing two centuries this region was disturbed be- cause Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, had mar- ried the daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and had united his son to Joan the Mad, heiress of Spain. Spain and France exhausted themselves in mutual combat, the one to guard the benefits of family alliances, the other to ward off the dangers which these alliances involved, and to remove the obstacles which they placed in the way of her growth. All these efforts, wars, and negotiations, in which great princes, statesmen, and generals distinguished themselves, 130 Modern Times. [CH. rv. ended in little more than the restoration of the statu quo ante helium. Spain and Austria again became distinct powers ; Spain was confined to her old limits ; France remained what she had been, with some additions of territory ; and the Neth- erlands belonged, as before, to neither of the two rivals. This was certainly a meagre result ! It is a mistake to admire so ardently what the epi- tomes of history call " the grand politics of modern times." These politics were evolved in a time near our own. They are clearly revealed in the full light of history. We know the actors therein inti- mately, through the information which they have given concerning themselves, or which others have handed down to us. Almost all of them have a certain charm, and some are great personages. The documents of the period are not merely easy to read ; many of them are French classics. It is for this reason that we are apt to exaggerate the im- portance of the episodes of this period of history. After the lapse of some hundreds of years, when these glorious wars and great treaties are viewed Avith a proper perspective, the historian will not assign an important place in the general history of the world to these two centuries, which West- ern Europe put to such poor use. In fact, after the Western states had settled their quarrels, it was found that the interest of en. iv.] Eastern Europe. 131 history lay elsewhere in the extreme West, where England was becoming the great colonial power ; and in the East, where certain powers, old and new, were gaining ground. 21. Eastern Europe. The organization of the East is, on the whole, the capital fact of modern times. In the Middle Ages the East was the scene of irregular efforts and brilliant improvisations. It is true that the king- doms of Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland had been formed in this region ; and that they, together with the Scandinavian states, which were necessarily implicated in the affairs of the East on account of the Baltic, constituted a series of new entities. But the colonization of the coasts had been accom- plished in a disorderly way, the work having been divided between the Scandinavians and the Ger- mans ; the latter had founded two knightly states, which, though reduced in extent and decaying, still subsisted in the fifteenth century. In the Southeast, Turkey completed the incoherent and picturesque aspect of the East at the close of the Middle Ages. At the close of the modern period all these states were in decay, or had ceased to exist. Poland had died of political anarchy, which had been cynically nourished by her neighbors. Bohemia and Hun- gary were dependencies of the Austrian monarchy. 132 Modern Times. CCH. iv. Sweden had been, in the seventeenth century even earlier than Prussia a state organized for the production of an army; but the kings over- taxed the country's strength, and expended their energies upon enterprises that were too extensive. Prussia's ambition, on the other hand, was always directed to some precise, circumscribed, and very tangible object; as soon as an advantage was attainable, she attained it. There was always something chimerical and adventurous, after the Norman fashion, in Swedish ambition. Sweden attempted to dominate Germany, to arrest the progress of Russia, to make the Baltic a Swedish lake ; her king wished to become King of Poland. This was going too far, and Charles XII. lost his army on the steppes of Russia. Then, as if realiz- ing the prediction made at Vienna at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, the snow-king melted. Turkey inundated Europe in the sixteenth cen- tury, in the first fervor of her success. After- ward she defended herself and maintained her position, with some fortunate returns to the of- fensive, thanks to a military organization which was barbarous but very potent. This organization gradually declined. When the janissaries married and became fathers of families, they ceased to be a formidable military force, and Turkey became enervated. On this foundation of decayed and ruined states CH. iv.] Eastern Europe. 133 Prussia, Russia, and Austria were aggrandized. These three military powers divided the East among themselves, and substituted, after their fashion, order for chaos. Hence their desti- nies were, to a certain extent, associated. To- gether they modified the political history of Europe by breaking down the preponderance of France. This they accomplished by destroying or weakening the kingdoms which French state-craft held at the end of its guiding - strings, namely, Sweden, Poland, and Turkey. Thus there was an Eastern Europe massed against Western Europe, but divided against it- self. The ambitions of the Eastern courts were discordant. After the suppression of the inter- mediate countries, Prussia and Austria bordered on Russia, while Austria and Russia approached each other along the Danube. To whom shall the spoils of Turkey fall ? Who shall have the honor of awakening the people who were asleep under the Ottoman yoke ? Of the three partners in the division of Poland, which one will prevail over the other two ? The kings of Prussia, successors of the margraves of the North, and the Hapsburg emperors, successors of the margraves of the East, trafficked with the Slavic enemy, and extended the German frontier ; but they brought the Rus- sian frontier nearer to theirs. Who made the best bargain, Prussia, Austria, or Russia ? The three 134 Modern Times. ICH. iv. potentates who had been guilty of this dreadful abuse of power were occupied with the partition of Poland at the moment when the era of the French Revolution dawned upon the world. 22. New Manners and New Ideas. The political history of modern times is thus replete with war. It certainly has some admira- ble pages. It moves us when it is animated by religious passions, and when there are martyrs in the multitude of the slain. It interests us when it shows either the development of a nation, like France or England, or the creation of an arti- ficial state, like Prussia. It displays the employ- ment of the natural gifts of the different coun- tries, and the operation of genius, discipline, and courage. But it is without principles, without the restraint of probity or honor, without gener- osity, and without pity. The nations dwelt to- gether like men in the state of nature. The last great political act of Europe before the French Revolution was an assassination, tranquilly pre- meditated and executed in cold blood. The intellectual and moral life of modern times was, however, preparing the way for the intro- duction of other ideas into politics. Since the fifteenth century manners had been softened and polished. Men and castles had been CH. iv.] New Manners and New Ideas. 135 divested of the habiliments of war ; the chevalier had become a cavalier, and the tournament a carousal. The denizens of the castles and com- munes, who in former times had been isolated from their fellow-men, acquired a taste for " society " and "politeness." Art formerly the product of guilds philosophy, literature, and science for- merly the property of the Church and the schools emerged from these privileged bodies, and were freely diffused throughout society. The Renaissance studied man and nature, and won them back from the dominion of faith and from the disinclination to observe. In the com- mon effort for the attainment of truth, every country accomplished something ; but a common spirit, international by its very name humanism circulated everywhere. The expression of the human mind in the Middle Ages had been scholasticism, that is to say, the in- terpretation of texts; the expression of the hu- manistic spirit was reason, that is to say, the affirmation of truth, evident or demonstrated. Reason could not fail to be revolutionary, because it denied tradition and built on a tabula rasa. It seemed at first to be entirely disinterested, lofty, and serene, but very soon it stooped to regard life, manners, and politics. Finding these unreason- able, it began to wage war against unreason, and became the philosophy of the eighteenth century. 136 Modern Times. ton. iv. This new power was dangerous. Though ap- plying itself to practical life, it remained absolute ; it was also ignorant, not knowing the historical legitimacy of existing things. It did not compre- hend the cathedrals, and it enveloped their ori- gin, or, rather, the causes of their origin, in very frivolous disdain for " Gothic barbarism." It did not discern the various nations, and it claimed to impose upon all humanity, as upon a single real being, the uniformity of its principles and the ba- nality of common sense. These errors were to be cruelly expiated. But we should not forget the beneficial results of " philosophy." While the thought of the eighteenth century was active in each of the countries of Europe, it was also, in various ways, preparing profound mod- ifications in international relations. The theories of the economists concerning the efficacy, dignity, and freedom of labor, their laissez faire, laissez passer, were the absolute contradiction of the old commercial policy. The idea everywhere ex- pressed and imposed upon the kings, that sover- eignty was not property of which a person had the usufruct, but a magistracy prescribing duties, was lowering the prince to the second plane, was placing the country above him, and was, sooner or later, to substitute for the politics of the sover- eigns that of the nations. Philosophy, by preach- ing tolerance and rejecting religion, was seculariz- cH.rv.] New Manners and New Ideas. 137 ing politics. Finally, philosophy was preparing, in a confused way, a future of innovations, by its general and generous ideas of humanity and jus- tice ; by Utopias, like that of the Abbe de Saint- Pierre ; by the very prejudices against the past ; by thoughtless hatred of all customs and the alliance of sarcasm against " the traces of barbarism ; " by the affirmation that " things cannot continue as they are," and that the next generations " will see great things ; " by the Adveniat regnum tuum addressed to " the light." At the close of the eighteenth century France no longer guided general European politics. The last two great conflicts the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War had been disastrous to her; the second of these had im- paired her fame. By land and by sea the power of France was curtailed. The revenge that she wreaked on England, in the American War of In- dependence, did not compensate for her earlier dis- asters. That war was, however, something else than an act of reprisal. It was the work of the new spirit, a very noble action undertaken with sincere enthusiasm. France had declined in the old political world ; but it was she who had de- nounced and disowned that world with the great- est energy. She held, and was about to sound, the trumpet of judgment. CHAPTER V. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1. Destruction of Europe. No country ever influenced Europe as France did between 1789 and 1815. Impelled by two dreams the dream of a war against the kings on behalf of the people, and the dream of the founda- tion of an empire of the Caesarian or Carolingian type the French armies overran the Continent, and trampled under foot, as they went, much rank vegetation, which has never risen again. Non-commissioned officers promoted to the rank of generals, dukes, and kings, and a subaltern who became emperor, were novelties compared with generals taken from the ranks of lords, archdukes, and princes. The former emerged, fully armed, not from a court, but from the very marrow of a people. Both generals and emperor attacked an- cient institutions. The generals threw into the Rhine the mitres of the electoral archbishops, and covered Italy, the classic land of tyrants, with re- publics. The emperor, on the day of the battle of CH. v.] Destruction of Europe. 139 Austerlitz, destroyed the Holy Eoraan Empire of the German Nation. Some years later he decreed that " whereas " the temporal power bestowed by Charlemagne, his " glorious predecessor," upon the Pope was being put to a bad use, it should be taken from him. Napoleon covered the Revolution with an ar- chseological mantle. The recollections of Koine haunted his memory only less than those of Char- lemagne, whose name he often uttered. The last gleams of the past penetrated to him, mingling with his glory and deranging his mind ; but the Revolution imbued him.. He served it when he disembroiled the chaos of Germany, when he made Northern Italy a kingdom, when he imprisoned the Pope who had been forced to crown him in Notre-Dame, and when he vaguely thought of wresting Poland from the eagles that were sharing her territory. He also served it, despite and in opposition to himself, when, oppressing Europe to satisfy his caprice, he aroused the souls of the Spaniards and the Germans. He was the Revo- lution and the destroyer of the ancient regime, to such an extent that his fall was followed by a return to the offensive on the part of old Europe. The great despot was saluted during his captivity in St. Helena as a deliverer, and was venerated as such after his death, because he had made pope, emperor, and tsar tremble. 140 The Nineteenth Century. CCH. v. 2. Restoration of Europe. After their victory, in 1815, the old monarchies repaired, as well as they could, the Europe that France had shattered. The East was restored almost to the condition in which it had been in the eighteenth century. The grand - duchy of Warsaw, which was an attempt to reconstruct Poland, vanished. Russia and Austria remained the vanguards of Europe against Turkey, which continued to lose ground. Italy was again di- vided among princes, dominated over by Aus- tria, which seemed to recover the old imperial rights over the Peninsula. Spain regained her wretched dynasty. England, which had been the leading spirit in the formation of a permanent coalition against France, was more than ever the undisputed sovereign of the seas. Thus the work of the Revolution appeared to be destroyed. Nevertheless, the restoration was not complete. Austria did not recover Belgium ; the latter was united to Holland, in order that the kingdom of the Netherlands should have considerable weight along the frontier of France. Germany could not be restored to her three hundred princes, for most of those that the Revolution and the Empire had crushed, remained buried in the ruins. Ger- many, which before the Revolution was neither a t'H. v.] Patriotism of the Revolution. 141 monarchial nor a feudal nor a federal state, be- came a confederation with thirty-nine members. This confederation contained within itself the germs of death ; for the princes were the only ones who had any weight in its councils, and they were very unequal in power. Prussia, ag- grandized, and charged with the defence of the <_j / o Rhine against France, was more than ever the rival of Austria, whose old titles to glory and pre- eminence had given her the presidency of the Diet at Frankfort. But badly constituted as she was, Germany had been simplified. She felt that she was nearer the great object of the ambition of her patriots, who aspired to become a nation. Thus the old regime was not able to recover possession of the whole of Europe. The treaties of 1815 accepted accomplished facts. Whatever their work was, the princes found it good, vi- derunt quod esset bonum. Like the Creator, they wished to rest, after having appointed the Holy Alliance guardian of reconstructed Europe. But ideas had been diffused through the world that were to engender new revolutions. 3. Patriotism of the Revolution. Excepting England, a country of slow and con- tinuous transformations, in which the present is not separated from the past by visible lines of demar- 142 The Nineteenth Century. [CH. v. cation, Europe has been transformed since the Revolution. Before 1789 she had no real nations. At the present day they are abundant. In France, the loyalty of the nobility, a very noble sentiment, and the love of the people for the king, a very touching sentiment, used to take the place of patriotism. When, owing to the faults of its kings, the country detached itself from royalty, it raised itself all at once to the idea of humanity. French writers of the eighteenth century rediscov- ered this idea, which had been lost since the time of Plato, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, or, at least, had been replaced in the Middle Ages by the ec- clesiastical idea of Christianity, and later on by the political idea of Europe. The Revolution created the fatherland, or patria, as we understand the term at the present day. In vain had the revolutionists been the disciples of the philosophers, in vain had they guided them- selves by general principles and made laws of pure reason ; in spite of their philosophy, they were French patriots. For the kingdom of France they substituted the French nation in other words, a moral entity for a political expression. They declared the national soil to be sacred and indi- visible, treated emigration as a crime, invasion as a sacrilege, and proclaimed, with tragic enthusiasm and tocsin-like declamation, that all men owed a duty to their native country in time of danger. CH. v.] The Principle of Nationality. 143 4. The Principle of Nationality. Nevertheless, on becoming self-conscious, the French nation could not escape the effects of its philosophical education. In the code of principles forming the " Declaration of the Rights of Man," France did not legislate merely for her own ben- efit. The " Declaration " asserts that " the prin- ciple of all sovereignty resides in the nation." Whence it follows that the nations, being collect- ive entities composed of men who desire to live under the same laws, ought neither to be governed by foreigners nor to be incorporated, wholly or in part, with foreign states : they are independent and indivisible. Moreover, they are free. " Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to co-operate personally or by their representatives in its formation." The nation, as thus defined, forms an absolute contrast with the states of former times, which grouped together, but did not unite, nations or fragments of various nations, no one of which made its own laws. These two maxims of the " Declaration " have, in part, guided the history of our century. In the sixteenth, and even in the seventeenth, century there were international religious parties ; in the nineteenth century political parties and pas- sions overstep the frontiers. The Holy Alliance 144 The Nineteenth Century. ECH.V. of sovereigns was " international." Its purpose was to maintain the work of reaction accomplished at Vienna against the principle of nationality based upon consent and that of political freedom. In every country of Europe this Alliance had adher- ents and also opponents, the latter known as " na- tionalists" or "liberals." The conflict between the two camps was directed by France. Since the Revolution France has lived in a state of political instability. Her enemies and even her own sons have reproached her for the number of her constitutions and for her periodical revolutions. Nevertheless, if she needs more than a century to establish herself firmly under the new regime, it should not cause much astonishment. The Eng- lish Revolution, properly understood, lasted longer. But, amid all these fluctuations, France has had fixed ideas. Though faithless once to the cause of political freedom, the ways of which are not to be learned in fifty years, she is constantly progress- ing as a democracy. On the other hand, she has defended against all comers, even against her own interests, the principle of nationality. That is why she has been, during the greater part of this cen- tury, a motive power. Her liberals have set the fashion for the liberals of Europe ; her revolutions have disturbed the whole Continent. Those of 1830 and 1848 emboldened liberals and nationalists of all countries ; nor did the year 1851 discourage CH.VO The New Nations. 145 the latter. Since 1870 France has represented, more than ever, the principles of freedom and nationality. 5. The New Nations. Let us now consider what obstacles were ob- structing the principle of nationality in 1815. Belgium had been united, against her will, to Hol- land. The assignment of Holstein to the King of Denmark had placed Germans under the govern- ment of a Dane. Germany and Italy had been divided into sovereign states that were hostile to every form of national constitution ; moreover, one of the fairest portions of the territory of Italy was under the Austrian yoke. Poland was divided among three states ; Bohemia and Hungary re- mained incorporated, without special rights, in the Austrian empire ; on the Danube and in the Balkan Peninsula various nationalities were under the government of the Sultan. Thus the most formidable powers were leagued against the new principle. Nevertheless, it has made great progress. Europe of 1891 no longer resembles that of 1815. Greece was the first to recover her national life, and Belgium has been separated from Holland. The German duchies have been taken from the King of Denmark. Hungary has secured a con- 10 146 77;