HISTORY OF FRANCE. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
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HISTORY OF FRANCE. .; 
 
 I 
 
 BY ; 
 
 EMILE DE BONNECHOSE. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE KEVOLUTION OF 1848, 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION, EDITED BY S. O. BEETON, 
 FROM THE THIRTEENTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WAED, LOCK, AND TYLER, 
 
 WARWICK HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1868. 
 

PEEFACE. 
 
 "VTAPOLEON has said, " The history of France must be written in two 
 -i- 1 volumes or in a hundred." The latter task is beyond the powers 
 of one man. "Whilst still young I dared to undertake the former ; and 
 when, a few years after the Revolution of 1830, I first printed this work, 
 we had not in our language any precis of our history continued down to a 
 contemporary period. In writing these volumes, I purposed presenting 
 to my reader, in a compact form, a comprehensive set of events, describing 
 the principal causes and the great men who gave birth to, or who 
 directed them ; and to elicit from the confused mass of details the 
 particular character of each epoch. In a word, to exhibit what, through 
 past centuries, France owes to the force of circumstances, to chance, to 
 the progress of time and civilization. This very arduous task was in my 
 first work but very incompletely carried out. 
 
 In the succeeding editions of my history, I very much extended the 
 "^-Onarrative, and more than once I modified either my exposition of facts, or 
 my deductions from them. There is a wide interval between the tran- 
 sient glances of youth and the clearer observation of mature age ; the 
 historian, as his view becomes wider and his knowledge deeper, 
 feels the necessity for making his reader acquainted with his progress, 
 that he may share in the narrator's more advanced views as to men and 
 ^ things. Besides, what thoughtful man, living in the agitated times in 
 which we have lived, could be vain enough never to correct his first 
 .. judgment by the lessons of events and experience ? Nevertheless, my 
 opinions as to essential points have not varied; and it will not, perhaps, 
 be useless to make here, in a few words, my profession of principles from 
 ; the twofold point of view of morals and policy in history. 
 
 At the present day, as in the past, I believe that the immutable laws of 
 
 . morals are the same for nations as for individuals; and that it is by the 
 
 "*>. light of conscience illumined by Divine agency that we must judge of the 
 
 history of entire humanity. At the present time, as formerly, I believe that 
 
 the upward growths of ideas and of manners, aided by the advances made 
 
 vol. l b 
 
VI PBEEACE. 
 
 in commerce and industry, and recently by so many admirable discoveries, 
 are tending to make the peoples understand better every day that they 
 are not the natural enemies of each other; that the waves and seas are 
 not placed between nations as eternal barriers to separate them, but as 
 the mighty means of bringing together and uniting them. I believe, 
 contrarily from what was believed in pagan antiquity, that the in- 
 dividual is not made for the State, but the State for individuals ; and that 
 the more freely men are allowed to exercise all their rights, under 
 the guidance of religion, of morals, and of law, the more shall we see 
 the State increase in prosperity and in power. I believe, finally, that the 
 best governments are those which elevate the moral and intellectual level 
 of the people, increase the general well-being, and cause the greatest 
 possible number of persons to participate in the benefits of civilization. 
 ' Such are the truths which the historian, according to my lights, is bound 
 to receive and never to lose sight of. 
 
 In the primitive scheme of this work, as in all the subsequent editions 
 of it, I concluded my narrative with the Eevolution of 1830. I showed 
 how monarchical and parliamentary government had been introduced 
 among us, and I briefly recounted the first period of its existence. It 
 remained for me to narrate the latter period, and to say how France, 
 after having possessed parliamentary and monarchical liberty during thirty- 
 four years, lost it. 
 
 During the first years which followed the Eevolution of February, and 
 whilst a return to the fundamental principles . of a representative and 
 parliamentary monarchy appeared chimerical, the duty of the historian 
 was to let the heat of political passions subside, and silently to mature 
 his judgment on recent events. He might thus be able to refrain from 
 recalling painful recollections, especially for those men whose errors, 
 no less than whose services, whose honourable character, whose rare 
 talents, France has never been able to forget. But at this day, when the 
 nation seems about to awake, and when so many eloquent and generous 
 voices recall to mind the ideas and the traditions of free govern- 
 ment, it is no longer seemly in the historian to remain quiescent. He must 
 remember that history is the guide of peoples, and that to aid them, and 
 to preserve them from shipwreck, it must signal to contemporaries the 
 rocks on which others have struck and broken. 
 
 Finally, the more general and ardent the desire to regain lost liberties, 
 the more necessary, at the same time, is the study of the reign which 
 
PEEFAOE. Vll 
 
 alone can tell us how those liberties perished. The truth as to this reign 
 has never been wholly told. It has been distorted by its enemies, and 
 often obscured by its friends, whilst by many mere spectators of events as 
 they happened, and by many who have written on this period, after taking 
 therein a more or less active part, the verities have been presented in a 
 very attenuated form. It could not be otherwise. Rarely, indeed, do we 
 resign ourselves to accept equally the honour of success, or the responsi- 
 bility of disgrace, and it seems a dangerous thing to reveal the wounds 
 of a regime which we aspire to see renewed. Many feel constrained to 
 draw a veil over or keep back the truth, out of a very commendable re- 
 gard for great misfortunes. More are afraid of causing displeasure — 
 either to actors in the events of yesterday, or to those who may be 
 participators in the events of to-day or to-morrow. Each one makes 
 terms with his recollections. We seek to set up an illusion, and the 
 opinion takes root that the greatest political and social deluge of this 
 century was an effect without any necessary or logical cause, — the 
 simple result of an unfortunate concourse of exceptional and fortuitous 
 circumstances. Thus no one has any very serious reproaches to make 
 against himself. Destiny has so designed, Fatality has done it all. 
 
 Is it well that we should write history thus, with posterity before our 
 eyes ? Do we know what we are doing by these compromises, these 
 cowardly evasions ? We forget the truth spoken by Montesquieu, that 
 "behind great events there are always great moral causes;" and we fail to 
 see that if no one be responsible for the misfortunes we deplore, we must 
 demand an account from these very institutions which we regret, from 
 these very lost liberties which we desire to see recalled. Thus become 
 justifiable in the eyes of many men political indifference, distrust, disdain 
 even, for parliamentary government, and for those liberties to which they 
 attribute all our misfortunes. Such must be the inevitable results of 
 the defaults of history, of interested or generous reticence, of com- 
 plaisant and fatal frauds. No ! if the most essential of our political 
 liberties have perished, the fault lies not in these liberties, nor with the 
 charters in which they are written ; the loss is due partly to individuals, 
 partly to causes which will be examined in their place. I shall here indi- 
 cate but one cause, particularly disastrous under a representative form of 
 government, and I shall call public attention, with many other writers, to the 
 abuses of our administrative system, and to the dangers of excessive cen- 
 tralization — the unhappy legacy of the old regime and of the first Empire. 
 
 12 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 I wish not to be misunderstood. In pronouncing at this period, 
 with almost the whole of my countrymen, against centralization without 
 limits, I nevertheless acknowledge all the advantages it has lent, during 
 many centuries, to the unity of public power ; and I do not forget the 
 most characteristic fact of our history which exhibits France, from the 
 days of Charlemagne down to an epoch approaching our own, ever increas- 
 ing in power and extent, according as the power of the Sovereign or of 
 the State grew and absorbed within itself all other powers. No one at 
 the present day can deny that which the royal authority, aggrandized and 
 firmly established, has done in consolidating territory, in putting an end 
 to intestine wars, in delivering the people from feudal oppression. I will 
 go further. In a great country like France, formed out of many states 
 for a long period almost strangers to each other, and surrounded by 
 powerful neighbours, a force capable of maintaining the integrity of the 
 soil, of preserving order and peace within, of acting abroad, and extend- 
 ing afar our relations and our influence, is an incontestible necessity, and 
 one which all judicious men are constrained to admit. 
 
 But when overleaping every barrier, this same central power, in place 
 of widening the sources of a people's life, hinders and limits them, as was 
 the case in France during the second half of the reign of Louis XIY. ; 
 when it contracts or destroys the liberties necessary to the equilibrium 
 of the social forces ; when, instead of stimulating the activity, the 
 vigilance, and the energy of every member of the State, it benumbs and 
 paralyzes them; when it tends, by substituting itself for the combined actions 
 of all, to deprive every individual member of the State of the desire 
 to act, this central power becomes, instead of a means of progress, an 
 obstacle and a danger. 
 
 During the last century we may discover many points of resemblance 
 between the practices of the French administration and the governments 
 of China and of the Lower Empire ; and if there was in the legitimate 
 aspirations of France in 1789 an idea which dominated every other, an 
 idea common to all the three orders of the State, an idea clearly 
 and warmly expressed by all, it was the desire to throw off the yoke of 
 centralized administration. Open the famous records of the period, and 
 at every page we shall see, under one form or another, the same com- 
 plaints, the same hopes. 
 
 The dangers to which excessive centralization gives rise both for 
 governments and the governed have been exposed in our own time by 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 the most eminent men, and the Emperor himself has admitted the evil 
 by displaying the desire to apply a remedy. Of the consequences of such 
 a system I shall confine myself to the recalling the most pernicious, from 
 the double point of view of morals and of policy. On the one hand, 
 we see face to face with the omnipotence of the State the complete 
 separation from power of every non-official man, and his absolute impo- 
 tence, whence most frequently result the forgetfulness of the public weal, 
 the entire absorption of the individual in material and private interests, 
 general apathy and abasement of character. On the other hand, we see 
 the inherent instability of institutions, of laws, of interests, and of 
 affairs when the governmental or administrative machine works in such 
 a way that it needs but the touch of a bold and firm hand upon the 
 principal wheel, upon the chief motor, tc render all resistance impossible, 
 to establish by coercion a victory over order. 
 
 To account for a condition of things rife in revolutions of all kinds, more 
 often under a representative regime than any other, and denounced to the 
 preceding generation in austere and indignant language by the illustrious 
 Roy er- Collar d when passing in review some of the most famous events 
 of the revolutionary, consular, and imperial epochs, he named but a 
 sole cause — administrative centralization — growing and gathering 
 strength under the most diverse forms of government, and planting 
 its foot upon the ruins of every institution where French liberties had 
 found a fleeting refuge. " Monstrous power," said he, " power destruc- 
 tive, among other liberties, of electoral liberty, without which Ministerial 
 responsibility is but a dead letter, and representative government but a 
 fiction and a phantom." Such was the gnawing evil which Royer- 
 Collard pointed out in the state of France under the Restoration, an evil 
 which has existed under every subsequent reign : it has proved a 
 mortal wound to the one regime as to the other. 
 
 To struggle against an evil so deeply rooted, to cripple the action of 
 this absorbing and limitless power, two methods present themselves : we 
 may restrain it by abridging the number of its prerogatives, or by set- 
 ting up beside it other powers and other forces. These two means may 
 be essayed simultaneously ; to speak truly, they are but one and the 
 same, for to abridge excessive powers is to create salutary checks. 
 
 In favour of this view there is the feeling, growing stronger every day, 
 which tells each of us that' our revolution has destroyed too much, has 
 broken too many of our traditions, has toO far forgotten that nations, no 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 less than families and individuals, cannot violate natural laws, and con- 
 sequently cannot, without peril, separate themselves entirely from their 
 past. Further, if it were shown that there was something in the con- 
 stitution of ancient France the loss of which was to-day much regretted, 
 would it be but acting courageously and sensibly if we sought to recover 
 it — at least, if there were anything to be regained, if all had not been so 
 completely destroyed that not a trace could be discovered ? 
 
 It is a fact of the highest importance, according to my view, that there 
 exists in France an opinion favourable to this research — to this examina- 
 tion. We feel, and we acknowledge, that the administrative power, at the 
 present day omnipotent and concentrated about the very heart of the 
 State, can only wisely be limited and balanced by other mighty forces, 
 whose component parts should work freely ; and already our glances are 
 directed towards that one, of all our institutions, where abides some feeble 
 remnants of the liberties of ancient France — I mean the institution of 
 General Councils of our departments. 
 
 Great and legitimate hopes lie in this direction ; there lies the germ of 
 a fruitful institution, as is proved by our esteem for these modest 
 assemblies. But this esteem is only a happy sign, a wholesome presage ; 
 the call to follow in this track is but faint. What, indeed, in a vast 
 empire can these feeble deliberative, or rather consultative bodies, effect 
 — elected only yesterday, without any grave powers, meeting so rarely, and 
 for so short a time ? What a wide interval between them and the 
 ancient meetings in our country of States and of Provincial Assemblies,* 
 the happy attributes of which, before the French Eevolution, an eloquent 
 and able pen has recently recalled to our memory. What are they, in 
 fine, compared with those Provincial States which in neighbouring 
 countries — in Belgium and in Holland — are, through their delegates, 
 permanently and successfully acting as the agents of the executive power ? 
 
 It is not solely as a guarantee of the maintenance of the public 
 liberties that the prerogatives and the authority of our departmental 
 assemblies should be increased ; it is desirable they should possess 
 enlarged powers in order that those who take part in their deliberations 
 should be raised in rank thereby; thus the right to sit in them would 
 become the object of a high and legitimate ambition, the sole means 
 perhaps of mitigating the evil which devours us, of arresting that furious 
 
 * See the remarkable work of M. de Lavergne, on " The Provincial Assemblies of 
 France previous to 1789." 
 
PBEFACE. XI 
 
 and disordered movement which precipitates the provinces upon Paris, 
 •which each day draws away from the limbs of the social body more 
 blood and more vital strength to throw them upon the heart, where the 
 plethora is mortal.* 
 
 Statesmen, celebrated publicists, have understood the necessity of 
 creating or rather of re-establishing throughout the extensive territories 
 of our departments the powerful elements of local forces, and of strong 
 incentives to human activity. 
 
 Already in some parts power has been brought together to act on the 
 springs of justice, of military authority, and of public instruction. It 
 remains to give action to this power. This appears possible only by 
 reanimating in a sufficient degree the representative elements of the 
 country, so that the elective assemblies shall represent not simply de- 
 partments, but vast portions of the soil, called indifferently territorial 
 or seignorial divisions. 
 
 I shall dare to go farther ; and may my presumption be pardoned to 
 one of the historians of our old France ! I shall dare to dispute the 
 right to obliterate some of the names of our ancient provinces, at the risk 
 of wounding that fatal levelling tendency in France beneath which I 
 have always seen, whether under a monarchical or republican form, the 
 most powerful auxiliary to despotism. It has dragged our sires over that 
 dangerous path opened by the author of the " Contrat Social," when out of 
 hatred for privileges they brought down all things to the level of 
 tyrannical unity, and when they thought that in order to be free it 
 sufficed to be equal. The members of the Constituent Assembly at 
 least acted logically : resolved to erase every vestige of the institutions of 
 our country; all powerful in the centre of the State; — it being moreover 
 necessary to their purpose to render all opposition impossible — there were 
 no more effectual means for the execution of their project than those 
 
 * I can only give here a few sketches, and it is not the place to create a system. 
 Preoccupied, in the interests of general liberty, with increasing the power of the great 
 provincial elective assemblies, I have not spoken of the cantonal and communal organi- 
 zation. It will be understood that these will form the basis of the institutions destined 
 to moderate the administrative central force, and to balance it. A celebrated writer, 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill, has said : " In many cases though individuals may not do the 
 particular thing so well, on the average, as the officers of Government, it is never- 
 theless desirable that it should be done by them rather than by the Government, as 
 a means to their own mental education." I invite the reader to peruse the excellent 
 comments of M. Edou'ard Laboulaye, on the system of Mr. Mill, in his w oik, "De 
 l'Etat et de ses limites,'' pp. 53-68. 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 they conceived and carried out. Perceiving an obstacle to their 
 enterprise in the ancient provincial organization of the country, they 
 extinguished our provinces ; they divided them, split them up into 
 scanty fragments, deprived them of all common action, and of all those 
 natural bonds created by heroic names, memorials, and historical tradi- 
 tions. The provinces thus isolated and separated one from the other, 
 it presently needed but the word of a master to prevent their making the 
 least effort without his orders, or of settling for themselves the simplest 
 question or the most trifling affairs. Paris thus became more and 
 more the burning hearthstone of all our interests, of all political contests, 
 and of all ambition ; the equilibrium of the body social has been dis- 
 turbed for the apparent benefit of .a single city ; on the banks of the 
 Seine there has been concentrated movement and life, whilst almost 
 everywhere else there is nought but paralysis and death. 
 
 I am of those who are struck by the perils of such a state of things, 
 and who believe that it is imperative to act against the baleful tendency 
 which dragged our fathers so far. To carry out our purpose, we 
 must show ourselves to be as logical as they were ; they have mutilated 
 and divided the limbs of France in order to enfeeble them ; we must now 
 restore life to them, reunite them and group them together according to the 
 natural affinities indicated by geography and by history. That which 
 has been overthrown to the vital prejudice of local liberties, the 
 veritable ramparts of all political liberties, we must restore in the 
 highest possible degree, for the advantage of those very liberties to which 
 we afresh aspire, and which an august speaker has rightly called the 
 crowning of the edifice. 
 
 Utopia ! cry the clever and superstitious admirers of unity. I am 
 aware how strongly prejudice acts against such a work, against any re- 
 constitution of provincial powers. A writer already cited, M. Lavergne, 
 although he has demonstrated better than any one else the action of the 
 provincial assemblies created under Louis XVI., yet seems to me not to 
 have completely comprehended all the bearings of the act which has 
 destroyed our provinces. " This act," he says, " by which appellations 
 derived from a river or a mountain have been substituted for the ancient 
 names of the provinces of France, had neither advantages nor disadvan- 
 tages, being only revolutionary child's play." No, it is not child's play to 
 substitute for a national name, surrounded by the spell of centuries, a 
 new name which recalls nothing to the mind — to the memory. It is in 
 
PBEFACE. Xlll 
 
 this respect that states and bodies are constituted like historical families ; 
 in snatching from them their past, their traditions, the honour and renown 
 of their acts, you deprive every one of the high ambition of being allied 
 with them, of the legitimate pride of being an off-shoot from them. 
 Alas, France, so jealous of her honour, of her preponderance, towards 
 foreign nations, is afraid of herself and of her past ! Her history, if one 
 of the most humble of those who have written it may be permitted to say 
 so, her history is that of her provinces ; we cannot read a page of it 
 without meeting their glorious names, those of her ancient geogra- 
 phical subdivisions, so familiar to the ears of our ancestors, and so 
 rapidly being effaced from our own minds. The French provinces appear 
 not only in our own history but in the history of Europe, in the literature 
 of all the peoples of the world ; some of these provinces have conquered 
 kingdoms ; they reappear everywhere except in our own official and 
 political language and on our own maps, to the inexpressible astonish- 
 ment of strangers, but not of ourselves ! * This forgetfulness is so great, 
 this sad prejudice so deeply rooted that it is doubtful whether France 
 could of herself open her eyes to the enormity of the injury 
 she has done against herself : a cruel and deep wound which 
 perhaps only a firm will at the summit of the State can close and 
 heal. Come what may, the glory — a pure and lasting glory — 
 will be assured to the prince who, without lessening the proper powers 
 of the State, shall create, or rather re-establish in France, under 
 whatever denomination, numerous centres of interests, of powerful 
 action, and of life ; to him who, like the prophet of old, shall say, 
 "Arise!" to these languishing limbs of the State, to these dry bones ; 
 to him who shall found in various parts of the empire firm institutions, 
 natural protections of the rights and interests of all, and, to use the 
 words of an illustrious man, "capable, should they be wounded, of uttering 
 a loud and succour-bringing cry of anguish. ""j" 
 
 But, as we know, just as the most solid ramparts oppose but a poor re- 
 sistance if they have not behind them disciplined arms and intrepid hearts, 
 
 * That which I believe to be desirable and practicable to save from oblivion the old 
 names of our provinces exists, and has been recently enforced upon a very important 
 point as to territory. The names of Savoy and of Upper Savoy have been given to two 
 new departments of France. What danger can there now be of doing for the interior 
 of the Empire, and for provinces of France centuries old, that which has been done 
 without disadvantage and without fear for a frontier territory of recent annexation? 
 
 + Koyer-Collard. 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 so we see the best institutions offer but a weak defence if those who 
 possess them have not the heart to maintain, and are ignorant how 
 to defend them : they always show themselves feeble and clumsy, if 
 they be not surrounded by moral and temporal interests to watch over, 
 by rights and liberties to demand or to maintain ; sole means by which 
 all can be gradually brought to comprehend and to practise their duty 
 towards their country. It is thus that the men of our workshops and 
 of our fields may rise to a sense of the public weal, above the too 
 material occupations which at this day absorb, without enlarging, their 
 intelligence. 
 
 Among the rights and liberties which every Frenchman has an interest 
 in demanding or in defending, the most sacred are those of conscience 
 and of worship. The noblest minds of our time, belonging to parties 
 the most opposite, but alike animated by love of country and of wise pro- 
 gress, agree in the view that religious liberty is the root and the mother 
 of the most essential of the liberties of modern peoples. Those who 
 are free, and those who aspire to become so ; all, Catholics or Pro- 
 testants, declare the religious sentiment, a firm Christian belief, to be the 
 grand foundation of the liberty, no less than the prosperity of some of the 
 neighbouring peoples, and the most powerful instrument for resisting 
 internal tyranny or foreign oppression.* My voice joins with their 
 eloquent voices in protesting against all trammels imposed upon the free 
 exercise of religious worship ; against maintaining by the edicts of 
 authority, a pretended uniformity of belief, too often only an apparent 
 uniformity, the sad product of indifference or ignorance, and which 
 before long conducts a people to the worst of deaths — by moral and 
 spiritual atrophy. 
 
 It imports very much less whether men belong to this or that Christian 
 community, than that they hold in their hearts the belief in God and the 
 gospel. The chief, the indispensable thing is, that they should be 
 Christians, and Christians by conviction. In vain during modern days, 
 so different from antique times, shall we seek for a free nation outside 
 Christianity, a truth which is comprised in the grand words of De Tocque- 
 ville : "If the people are unbelievers, they must be serfs; if they are 
 free, they must be believers." No perils then in liberty : in throwing off 
 
 * I shall cite only three, because in my eyes they are the most eminent representa- 
 tives of the three distinct religious tendencies — MM. de Montalembert, de Pi-essense", 
 and Laboulaye. All three are unanimous on the point. 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 externally an illegal and tyrannical yoke, men will retain for themselves 
 that of divine law, the most lawful and most sacred of all yokes ; and 
 whilst astonishing the world by prodigies of heroism, they will not terrify 
 it by their crimes. Servants of a living God and of the gospel, they will 
 accomplish what anti- Christian France of the eighteenth century could 
 not achieve. Should liberty be wanting to them, they must conquer 
 it, and having conquered it, they must guard it. 
 
 Stop here. I thought that a profession of principles, clear and 
 distinct, would not be out of place at the head of a work wherein I have 
 endeavoured to draw from events a moral lesson, and to demonstrate 
 under what conditions a people acquires liberty and preserves it. Of 
 these conditions some are universal and immutable, as I have already 
 shown in another work.* Others necessarily vary according to time, 
 circumstances, and the genius of races. But if it be true that popular 
 liberty consists in a whole people participating in the direction of its 
 own affairs, it is but a delusion if this participation be only imaginary. 
 Popular liberty is only possible in our vast modern states by the voice of 
 representation, and we cannot have a Government representative and free 
 save when representation is sincere and thorough. 
 
 The continued violation of this vital condition of free governments 
 necessarily conduces to despotism, or to fresh revolutions ; a formidable 
 truth which cannot too strongly be brought to light during the present 
 period when political liberty appears ready to take root in France. I have 
 essayed this work, the more difficult because of the narrow limits of my 
 framework. I have done my task without anger, most often with sorrow, 
 always with a profound feeling of the duties of the historian, of the dan- 
 ger towards unborn generations of ignoring the truth as to contemporary 
 times. It is undoubtedly fitting that all friends of the public weal, 
 to whatever party they may formerly have belonged, should forget their 
 dissensions ; it is good that they should mutually pardon each other's 
 errors and defects ; but it is needful that they institute a severe scrutiny 
 of these errors and defects. Merely to throw a convenient veil over the 
 past is not to serve but to compromise the cause of those liberties which 
 we love and which we have lost ; — is, as I have already stated, to bring 
 back that very evil which has not been able to preserve these liberties 
 from shipwreck. 
 
 Free institutions and the great principles which they represent, 
 
 * " Histoire d'Angleterre depuis l'origine jusqu'a la Kevolution franyaise." 
 
XVI PEEFACE. 
 
 are the highest expression of political genius among the civilized 
 nations of modern Europe. The governments of the monarchs of the 
 stagnant East, of the Caesars of pagan Eome, of Sultans and of Viziers, 
 are the governments of infant or decrepit peoples steeped in ignorance or 
 brutishness. There is nothing there to imitate, nothing to borrow for the 
 French nation — a viril and Christian nation. The Prince who governs 
 France has already many times expressed the generous desire to increase 
 her franchises. That desire is sincere. I will never admit that an able 
 Prince, knowing his strength, and imbued with the feeling of true 
 greatness, would prefer the enjoyment of absolute power to the honour 
 of reigning over a people truly free ;. I will not believe that any monarch 
 would not, like one of our old rulers, be more happy and more proud to 
 command Freemen than Slaves, Franks than Serfs. 
 
 In extending my work to a recent and very celebrated date, in 
 alluding to deep wounds still bleeding, I have not deceived myself as to 
 the perils of the enterprise. Warnings as to it have not been wanting, 
 and friendly voices have been raised, telling me that notwithstanding my 
 efforts to reconcile truth with the respect due to character, to talent, and to 
 misfortune, it would be rashness in me to display perhaps a wide diver- 
 gence from men very properly highly placed in public esteem : but their 
 acts belong to history, and the time is past when I should be able to pardon 
 in myself the apprehensions of vulgar prudence. I have reached that 
 period of life when duty is endowed in men's eyes with renewed authority, 
 when a single ambition is allowed to reside in our souls — that of being 
 useful to mankind. I have but one thing to ask from men, a very great 
 thing, it is true, and most difficult to obtain from them — their confidence. 
 
 I ask it for the historian very much more than for the work, necessarily 
 imperfect. What a field for errors, indeed, the space of twenty cen- 
 turies ! But in soliciting the indulgence of the reader for my faults, 
 I believe that I have never given to any one the right to place in doubt 
 my veracity, my sincerity as a writer. If, notwithstanding all my efforts, 
 I have not been able, in touching upon a contemporary period, to 
 steer completely clear of reefs or rocks, I make bold to allege in 
 my justification the grand and simple words that have run through 
 the centuries, and which every historian worthy of the name should 
 carefully preserve in the depths of his heart — I believe ; that is why I 
 
 have spoken. 
 
 Emile de Bonnechose. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. GAUL BEFOKE THE ROMAN CONQUEST 1 
 
 II. CONQUEST OP GAUL BY CESAR . .8 
 
 III. GAUL UNDER THE ROMAN DOMINATION 17 
 
 IV. INVASIONS OP THE BARBARIANS — DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE . 23 
 
 FIRST EPOCH. 
 
 REIGN OF THE MEROVINGIAN AND CARLOYINGIAN 
 
 DYNASTIES. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 CHAP. I. THE REIGN OP CLOVIS 37 
 
 — II. PROM THE DEATH OF CLOVIS TO THAT OF DAGOBERT 1 46 
 
 I. THE CUSTOMS OP THE FRANKS — STATE OF GAUL UNDER THE MERO- 
 VINGIANS 46 
 
 II. GAUL UNDER THE SONS OF CLOVIS 51 
 
 III. GAUL UNDER THE GRANDSONS OF CLOTHAIR I. — RIVALRY OF FRE- 
 
 DEGONDE AND BRUNHILDA. — EPISODE OF GONDEVALD . . .55 
 
 IV. REIGN OF DAGOBERT 1 68 
 
 — III. SLOTHFUL KINGS— DECAY AND END OF THE MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY — 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF DAGOBERT I. TO THE DEPOSITION OF CHIL- 
 
 DERIC III 70 
 
 I. THE FIRST SLOTHFUL KINGS — GOVERNMENT OF EBROUIN, MAYOR OF 
 
 THE PALACE IN NEUSTRIA . . . . . . . .70 
 
 II. CONTINUATION OP THE SLOTHFUL KINGS — STRUGGLE BETWEEN 
 
 AUSTRASIA AND NEUSTRIA — MAYORALTY OF PEPIN OF HERISTAL . 74 
 III. THE LAST SLOTHFUL KINGS — END OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN 
 AUSTRASIA. AND' NEUSTRIA — INVASION OF THE MUSSULMANS — 
 GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES MARTEL . . . , . .76 
 
XV1H CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 GAUL UNDER THE CAKLOVINGIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAP. I. PEPIN AND CHARLEMAGNE 85 
 
 I. BEIGN OF PEPIN THE SHORT 85 
 
 II. CHARLEMAGNE 89 
 
 — II, FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE TO THAT OF CHARLES THE FAT . 102 
 
 I. LOUIS THE D^BONNAIRE, OR THE PIOUS 102 
 
 II. FROM THE DEATH OF LOUIS THE DtsBONNAIRE TO THAT OF CHARLES 
 
 THE FAT 109 
 
 III. FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLES THE FAT TO THE EXPULSION OF THE 
 
 CARLO VINGIAN DYNASTY 115 
 
 I. GAUL DIVIDED BETWEEN THE •RACE OF CHARLEMAGNE AND THAT OF 
 
 ROBERT THE STRONG, UP TO THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS IV. . .115 
 II. GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS : LOUIS IV. , CALLED D'OUTRE- 
 
 MER, LOTHAIRE, AND LOUIS V., CALLED THE SLOTHFUL . . . 120 
 
 SECOND EPOCH. 
 
 THE FEUDAL MONARCHY, FROM HUGUES CAPET TO 
 
 FRANCIS I. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF HUGUES CAPET TO THE DEATH OF 
 
 ST. LOUIS. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY AND GRADUAL "WEAKENING OF THE ARISTOCRACY — PROGRESS 
 OF THE ROYAL POWER — CONQUESTS OF THE CROWN — THE CRUSADES — 
 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE COMMUNES — ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JUDICIAL 
 ORDER. 
 
 CHAP. I. EXPOSITION OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 135 
 
 H. REIGN OF THE FIRST CAPETIAN KINGS — HUGUES CAPET, ROBERT, 
 
 HENRY I., AND PHILIP 1 142 
 
 HUGUES CAPET 142 
 
 ROBERT 144 
 
 HENRY 1 147 
 
 PHILIP 1 149 
 
 — III. REIGNS OF LOUIS VI. AND LOUIS VII. .160 
 
 LOUIS VI. 160 
 
 louis vii 163 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 chap. iv. eeign op philip ii., surnamed augustus, and op louis viii. . 167 
 
 philip ii. 167 
 
 louis viii 178 
 
 — v. eeign op louis ix. (saint louis) 180 
 
 vi. general considerations upon the state of france, and upon 
 
 the events which transpired during the past three centu- 
 ries, from the accession of hugh capet to the death of 
 saint louis 192 
 
 BOOK II. 
 FROM THE DEATH OF ST. LOUIS TO THAT OF CHARLES VI. 
 
 DESPOTISM OF THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT AND AUTHORITY OF THE LEGISTS — 
 ACCESSION OF THE VALOIS TO THE THRONE — HUNDRED YEARS' WAR WITH 
 ENGLAND — THE CELEBRATED STATES- GENERAL — DISASTERS IN FRANCE — 
 GREAT SCHISM OF THE EAST — ANARCHY. 
 
 CHAP. I. REIGNS OF THE SUCCESSORS OF SAINT LOUIS, UNTIL THE ACCESSION 
 OF THE VALOIS — PHILIP III. — PHILIP IV. — LOUIS X. — PHILIP V. — 
 
 CHARLES IV. 207 
 
 PHILIP III 207 
 
 PHILIP IV 210 
 
 louis x 220 
 
 PHILIP V. 221 
 
 CHARLES IV., CALLED THE FAIR 223 
 
 — II. ACCESSION OF THE VALOIS — REIGN OF PHILIP VI. . . . . 226 
 
 — III. REIGN OF KING JOHN 234 
 
 IV. REIGN OF CHARLES V., CALLED THE WISE 251 
 
 — V. REIGN OF CHARLES VI 265 
 
 BOOK III. 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLES YI. TO THAT OF LOUIS XII. 
 
 AWAKING OF THE NATION — -EXPULSION OF THE ENGLISH — END OF THE HUNDRED 
 YEARS' WAR — EXTINCTION OF THE GREAT FEUDAL SYSTEM IN FRANCE BY THE 
 UNION OF THE DUCHIES OF BURGUNDY AND BRITTANY WITH THE CROWN- 
 FIRST WARS WITH ITALY. 
 
 CHAP. I. REIGN OF CHARLES VII 286 
 
 II. REIGN OF LOUIS XI 306 
 
 — III. REIGN OF CHARLES VIII 31£ 
 
 — IV. REIGN OF LOUIS XII. ' . . . . 332 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 THIRD EPOCH. 
 
 ABSOLUTE MONARCHY. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION" OF FRANCIS I. TO THE CONVOCA- 
 TION OF THE STATES -GENERAL BY LOUIS XVI. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 FEOM THE ACCESSION OF FRANCIS I. TO THE FIRST WARS OF 
 
 RELIGION IN FRANCE. 
 
 RIVALRY OF FRANCIS I. AND CHARLES Y.~— PREACHING OF THE REFORMATION- 
 CONTINUATION AND END OF THE ITALIAN WARS. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAP. I. REIGN OF FRANCIS I. UNTIL THE SIGNATURE OF THE TREAT! OF 
 
 MADRID 345 
 
 II. COURSE AND END OF THE REIGN OF FRANCIS 1 356 
 
 — III. REIGN OF HENRY II. 372 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF FRANCIS II. TO THE DEATH OF 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS WARS — THE LEAGUE — END OF THE DYNASTY OF THE V ALOIS— ACCES- 
 SION OF THE BOURBONS — REIGN OF HENRY IV. 
 
 CHAP. I. REIGNS OF FRANCIS II. AND CHARLES IX. . . . . . 382 
 
 FRANCIS II 382 
 
 CHARLES IX 388 
 
 — II. REIGN OF HENRY III 405 
 
 — III. FROM THE DEATH OF HENRY III. TO THE PEACE OF VERVINS AND THE 
 
 PROMULGATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES ..... 423 
 HENRY IV 423 
 
 — IV. FROM THE PEACE OF VERVINS TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF 
 
 HENRY IV 439 
 
\ 
 
 HISTORY OF FRANCE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 I. 
 
 GAUL BEFORE THE EOMAN CONQUEST. 
 
 The vast territory contained between the Rhine, the Alps, the 
 Pyrenees, and the Ocean, and which is now almost entirely known 
 as France, originally bore the name of Gaul. In the most remote 
 periods it was occnpied by the Celtic race of the Gaels and by the 
 Iberians. The Gaels formed the basis of the Gallic population, and 
 drove the Iberians back into Spain. Still, the latter people did not 
 entirely disappear from the soil of France, but partly occupied some 
 southern countries, under the name of Aquitanians or Ligurians. 
 
 The Phoceans, a people of Greece, eventually formed important 
 establishments in the south of Gaul ; and one of their colonies founded 
 the city of Marseilles, or Massalia. 
 
 Another nation, that of the Kymrys,* made an irruption into Gaul 
 about three centuries B.C., the greater part of them settling between 
 the Seine and the German Ocean. These Kymrys are identical 
 with the Belgas or Belgs mentioned by Caesar, to whom he attri- 
 butes a German origin. A portion of the Kymrys went even 
 
 * The Kymrys are generally confounded with the Cimbri. This opinion has recently 
 met with learned contradictors ; one of' whom, M. Roget de Belloquet, in his "Gallic 
 Glossary," an introduction to his " Gallic Ethnology," regards the Kymrys as closely 
 related with the Gaels, and considers the Cimbri as an entirely different and essentially 
 Germanic nation. 
 
2 GAUL BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. [INTKODUCTION 
 
 farther, and established themselves upon the seaboard as far as the 
 month of the Loire, where they received the name of Armoricans, or 
 maritime races. All these tribes are indistinctly designated in history 
 by the name of Grauls. They were generally distinguished for frank- 
 ness, courage, and generosity : they were hospitable, but intemperate ; 
 fond of sumptuous repasts, and ready for quarrels, which frequently 
 ensanguined their banquets. They were divided into a multitude of 
 smaller tribes or clans, constantly engaged in war with each other. 
 
 The Grauls originally adored the material forces of nature, thunder, 
 the winds, and the planets ; but as they advanced in civilization they 
 •worshipped the moral powers, and deified the virtues and the arts. 
 Their best-known divinities are, Hesus, the genius of war ; Teutates, 
 the god of commerce and inventor of the arts ; and Oginius, the god 
 of eloquence and poetry. 
 
 Their priests, called Druids, were divided into three orders : the 
 druids, properly so called, who were the interpreters of the laws, 
 instructors of youth, and judges of the people ; next, the vates, or 
 ovates, intrusted with the divinations and sacrifices ; and, lastly the 
 hards, who preserved in their songs the reminiscences of national tradi- 
 tions, which they were forbidden to record in writing, and the exploits 
 of their heroes. 
 
 The priesthood was hierarchical, and had as its head a sole chief 
 elected for life, whose power was unbounded. The ovates and bards 
 lived in public as members of the community ; but the druids of the 
 first class dwelt together in profound retreats, where they initiated into 
 their mysteries and sciences the young disciples who aspired to the 
 sacred functions. The novitiate was painful, and sometimes lasted 
 twenty years ; but the great privileges attaching to the druids, their 
 exemption from taxation, the respect shown to them, and the authority 
 they exercised, concurred to attract numerous disciples. Their books 
 and precepts were composed in verse, "and were learned by heart ; for it 
 was an invariable rule with them that no law should be recorded in 
 writing. They taught the immortality of souls, and their perpetual 
 transmigration, until they deserved admission to the celestial mansions. 
 They were versed in natural philosophy. Cassar, in his " Commentaries 
 on the Gallic War," tells us that they instructed youth in the movements 
 of the stars and the grandeur of the universe, as well as in the nature 
 
I.] GAUL BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 3 
 
 of things and the power of the immortal gods, the most revered of 
 whom was Mercury, inventor of all the arts, guide of travellers, and 
 protector of commerce. 
 
 There were among them druidesses, or females affiliated to their 
 order, some of whom adhered to celibacy. These women were the 
 object of great veneration : they were supposed to have a foreknowledge 
 of events, and were said to be endowed with the gift of curing 
 diseases and commanding the elements. 
 
 At certain periods of the year, and on all solemn occasions, the druids 
 made sacrifices, offering to the gods the fruits of the earth, domestic 
 animals, and human victims. They believed, with the majority of the 
 ancient nations, that human life could alone be ransomed by that of 
 their fellow-men, and that the offering most agreeable to the gods was 
 the blood of criminals. They also sacrificed prisoners of war ; and, 
 in default of culprits or captives, a victim was designated by lot : 
 frequently, too, men devoted themselves in order to appease the wrath 
 of the gods. The sacrifices were effected either by fire, which con- 
 sumed wicker-work monsters in which the priests enclosed the victims 
 or by the sword r upon large stones hollowed out on the surface, and 
 which, laid horizontally on other stones placed in a vertical position, 
 formed altars called dolmans. A great number of these are still in 
 existence, and clumsy representations of trees and animals may be 
 seen carved on them.* 
 
 The druids attributed a medical and magical virtue to vervain, 
 snakes' eggs, and, above all, to mistletoe, which they plucked with 
 mysterious ceremonies from oaks, trees regarded by them as being 
 under the special protection of the gods. They had their retreats 
 and principal sanctuaries in the depths of gloomy forests, where no 
 one was allowed to fell or lop wood. The people believed these sacred 
 retreats inaccessible to wild animals, impenetrable by the storm, and 
 protected from lightning : the ground in them, it was said, trembled, 
 and abysses opened, from whence darted snakes that clung to the 
 
 * In some parts of France, and especially in the west, other druidic monuments are 
 found called pentvans or mencheis ; they are enormous blocks of uncut stones, set up 
 either separately, or arranged in several rows in avenues, as at Carnac, where they form 
 eleven parallel lines covering an immense extent of ground. A third variety of druidic 
 monuments consists of tumuli, ,or conical mounds of earth surmounting a tomb. 
 
 E 2 
 
4 GAUL BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. [Introduction 
 
 trees, which bent and straightened of their own accord, while the 
 whole forest sparkled with fires. The druids kept in these forests the 
 military standards, to which they alone had access ; and it is recorded 
 that they were themselves not uninfluenced by terror on entering them. 
 The power exercised by the druids was not solely religious, but 
 political and social, for they were at the same time priests and 
 magistrates. At a solemn assembly held twice a year on the frontier 
 of the country of the Carnutes (pays Ohartrain), which was reputed 
 to be the central point of Gaul, they delivered judgment and had 
 cognizance of nearly all public and private disputes. If any crime was 
 committed, or a quarrel ensued about an inheritance, they decided it ; 
 and to them also belonged the right of rewarding and punishing. The 
 most formidable punishment was the interdict, and they pronounced 
 it against any man who proved rebellious or indocile to them. Those 
 whom the druids had interdicted from sacrificing were placed in the 
 ranks of criminals, any appeal to justice was closed to them, and they 
 were shunned as though afflicted with a contagious disease. 
 
 Among the Gauls each tribe had, at the first, its special chief, 
 
 who ordinarily assumed the title of king. These princes, almost 
 
 absolute in war, were during peace subject, like the rest of the nation, 
 
 to the despotic authority of the priests, who were for a lengthened 
 
 period omnipotent in Gaul. Each tribe had also a species of military 
 
 equestrian corps, composed of nobles or knights. Around these, men 
 
 assembled — persons of free though inferior condition, who selected from 
 
 - among the nobles a defender or patron, to whom they attached them- 
 
 : selves. They escorted him everywhere, followed him to the wars, and, 
 
 in exchange for the protection and rewards they awaited at his hands, 
 
 • devoted themselves to his person, even more than to his fortune, and 
 
 were ready to die or live for him. The rank of a noble or knight was 
 
 ^estimated by the number of followers who formed his escort. The 
 
 \mass of the population had no participation in public affairs, save in 
 
 revolutions caused by the rivalry of the knights, priests, and nobles, 
 
 which were as frequent as the quarrels and wars between the various 
 
 tribes. Still, in spite of these clannish feuds, the sentiment of a 
 
 common nationality existed among the Gauls; and at certain periods 
 
 deputies from all the tribes assembled to watch together over the 
 
 interests of the whole community. 
 
I.] GAUL BEFORE THE SOMAN CONQUEST. 5 
 
 It was impossible for the numerous tribes, which were more 
 occupied with war than with the cultivation of the soil, to find 
 sufficient resources among themselves. Several of them emigrated 
 en masse. Countless hordes left Gaul at different epochs and spread 
 over the adjacent countries and even remote lands, which they ra- 
 vaged, and where they went to conquer a new country. Among the 
 causes which produced these migrations, the chief, next to want of 
 food, was the temper of the Gauls, to whom repose was disagreeable, 
 and who, rather than remain at home in peace, entered the military 
 service of foreign nations.* Frequently, too, the tribes conquered in 
 civil discords, abandoned their country, and sought fortune far away. 
 
 There arose in various parts of the world, nations originating in 
 Gallic colonies : one of these, in Spain, formed, by fusion with the 
 natives, the celebrated nation of the Celtiberians, who offered the 
 most strenuous resistance to the Roman invasion ; and others settled 
 in different points of Great Britain, peopling, in the course of time, 
 the entire southern seaboard of that island. The Gauls also burst 
 into Italy on several occasions ; one of their tribes, the Umbrians, 
 invading that country about fourteen centuries B.C. and establishing" 
 themselves in that portion to which the name of Umbria has adhered. 
 Eight centuries later (590 B.C.) two brothers, Bellovisus and Sigovisus, 
 nephews of a celebrated king of the Bituriges (inhabitants of Berri), 
 each directed the flood of a formidable invasion, one in Italy, the 
 other in Germany. The army of Bellovisus crossed the Alps, being- 
 attracted, so it is said, by the delicious fruits of the south ; invaded- 
 the country to the north of the Po, and founded Milan. Fresh- 
 swarms of Gauls came one after the other to settle in the entire 
 northern part of Italy, to which the Romans gave the name of Gallia 
 Cisalpina (or Gaul on their side of the Alps). The principal nations 
 that emanated from these various immigrations were — to the north of" 
 the Po, the Insubri and Cenomani, and, to the south of that river, the 
 Boieni, Lingones, and Senones. The last, in the year 390 B.C., de- 
 scended southward, encountered and defeated a Roman army on the 
 banks of the Allia, captured Rome, and attacked the Capitol. While 
 
 * The kings of Egypt, Macedonia, Epirus, Carthage, Syracuse, and the monarchs 
 of Asia, paid a heavy price for the help of the Gauls, whose bravery iWas so highly - 
 esteemed that it was thought impossible to have a good army without them. 
 
6 GAUL BEFOEE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 Italy was thus a prey of the Gauls, Germany was also troubled by 
 them. Those who followed Sigovisus penetrated as far as Pannonia, 
 between the Danube and the Save, whence, at a later date, fresh bands 
 rushed like a torrent over Macedonia and Greece. Other Gauls 
 founded a colony in Thra , and then invaded Asia Minor, where 
 they established themselves under the name of Galatians. " Gaul," 
 says Etienne Pasquine, "like a large tree, thus extended its branches 
 for a long distance, and the terror of the Gallic name spread over 
 all the countries of the universe." 
 
 What Tacitus said of the Britons might equally be said of the 
 Gauls : if they had been united, they would have been invincible. 
 But we have seen how perpetual wars affected the interests of the 
 numerous tribes or clans. They formed great and powerful confedera- 
 tions among themselves for the common defence ; but war was 
 waged among these confederations in the same way as among the 
 separate tribes ; and the Romans ever had the art of securing the 
 support of one to crush the other. They did not venture across 
 the Alps till they had subjugated Cisalpine Gaul ; and they awaited 
 a favourable occasion to extend their conquest further. They were 
 in this matter powerfully seconded, not only by the war which 
 the numerous Gallic tribes waged against each other, but also by 
 the civil troubles and internal dissensions between the various classes. 
 About three centuries before the Christian era, the royal government 
 was abolished in most of the cities of Gaul, in the midst of sanguin- 
 ary revolutions : the warriors and the druids disputed the authority, 
 and the whole of Gaul was weakened by their divisions. 
 
 This intestine contest was still going on when, a century and a half 
 before the Christian era, the Greek inhabitants of Massalia (Marseilles) 
 invoked the assistance of Borne against the enterprises of some 
 Gallic tribes in the vicinity. The Bomans responded to this appeal ; 
 and, after conquering the Gauls, gave their territory to the city they 
 had succoured. Thirty years later, summoned by the Massaliotes 
 against a neighbouring Gallic nation, the Salic Ligurians, the Bomans 
 were again victorious ; but on this occasion t they retained a portion 
 of the conquered territory, and built, to the north of Massalia, a city 
 originally called Aqua? Sextse, which is, at the present day, Aix, the 
 most ancient Roman colony founded in Gaul (b.c. 123). Eventually, 
 
I.] GAUL BEFOEE THE KOMAN CONQUEST. 7 
 
 the Romans, taking advantage of disputes which had broken out 
 between the confederation of the Hsedui and that of the Allobroges 
 and Arverni, gained two great victories over them under the leadership 
 of the consul Fabius. The second battle was fought near the Rhone, 
 and was one of the most sanguinary recorded in history : one hundred 
 and twenty thousand Gauls are said to have lost their lives, either in 
 the waters of the river, or by the sword of the conquerors. A portion 
 of the country of the Allobroges (Dauphine) was reduced to a Roman 
 province, as was the entire seaboard of the Mediterranean as far as 
 the Pyrenees.* 
 
 The Romans founded there, 118 B.C., a celebrated colony, that of 
 Narbonne, and gave the name of JSTarbonensis to the vast and splendid 
 province which they formed in the south of Gaul. For this name 
 that of Septimania was eventually substituted for the country situated 
 between the Pyrenees and the Rhone ; the territory contained between 
 the latter river and the Alps alone retaining the name of Province 
 or Provence. 
 
 The Romans did not cross the limits of the colony until about the 
 middle of the first century B.C. They had in the interval to repulse 
 a formidable invasion, that of the Teutons, who rushed, like a torrent 
 which had overflowed its bed, over the Narbonensis. Marius exter- 
 minated the invaders in the year 102, near the city of Aix. Forty 
 years later, Julius Caesar appeared, and sought to acquire, by con- 
 quering Gaul at the head of the Roman legions, a sufficient title to 
 reduce Rome herself to serfdom. 
 
 *With the Romans, that portion of the Transalpine whose conquest preceded the 
 arrival of Caesar in Gfaul, was the Province. Hence their authors are frequently found 
 ■designating it "by the name Provincia. At a later date the epithet of Narbonensis 
 was added, when Narbonne had become its chief city. From the Latin Provincia is 
 derived Provence, which title, before it was restricted to that portion of the French 
 territory which still retains the name, spread for a long time over the whole of 
 France. Sometimes the province was called by the name of Gallia braccata — 
 derived from the breeches, in Latin braccce, which the inhabitants wore ; and also in 
 opposition to the Cisalpine, where the Roman garment, the toga, was adopted at an 
 early period, whence the Province obtained the name of Gallia togata. That part of 
 Transalpine Graul which still retained its independence was called Hairy Gaul, or Gallia 
 comata, the various tribes being remarkable for their long hair, while the inhabitants of 
 the Province wore theirs short, after the Roman fashion. (Courgeon, " Recite de 
 VHistoire de France" vol. i., p. 43, note 1.) 
 
8 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY CiESAR. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 II. 
 
 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY C^SAE. 
 
 In his immortal work, the " Commentaries," Caesar has himself drawn, 
 the picture of the country, at the period when he arrived in it as Pro- 
 consul. "The whole of Gaul," he says, "is divided into three parts, 
 of which one is inhabited by the Belgae, another by Aquitani, and the 
 third by those whom we call, at Rome, Galli, and who, in their lan- 
 guage, call themselves Celti. These nations differ from each other in 
 language, manners, and laws. The Gauls (Celts) are separated from 
 the Aquitanians by the Garonne, from the Belgians by the Marne and 
 the Seine. The Belgse are the bravest of all these tribes ; strangers 
 to the elegant manners and civilization of the Roman Province, they 
 do not receive from external trade those products of luxury which 
 enervate courage ; and, moreover, as neighbours of the Germans who 
 live on the other bank of the Rhine, they are continually at war with 
 each other. 
 
 " The part inhabited by the Gauls (Celts) begins at the Rhone, 
 and has for its boundaries the Garonne, the ocean, and the country of 
 the Belgee ; it also extends as far as the Rhine on the side of the 
 Helvetii (Swiss) and Sequani (Franche Comte) ; it is situated in the 
 north. The country of the Belgae begins at the extreme frontier of 
 Gaul, and is bounded by the lower part of the course of the Rhine ; its 
 position is in the north-east. Aquitania is bounded by the Garonne, 
 the Pyrenees, and the ocean." 
 
 These three great nations were divided, as we have already seen, into 
 a multitude of independent states, in the majority of which royalty 
 had been abolished for the last three centuries, and which were 
 governed by an aristocratic assembly, called by the Romans the 
 Senate, in which two factions disputed the power. One of the 
 most frequent causes of discord was the choice of alliances which 
 it was necessary to make, in the midst of the general conflagration 
 frequently produced by the rivalry of two tribes. " In Gaul," says 
 Caesar, " each town, each canton, and nearly each family, is 
 divided into factions : before the entrance of the Roman legions 
 into Gaul, .some inclined to the Hsedui, and others to the Sequani. 
 
II.] CONQUEST OF GAUL BY C^SAR. 9 
 
 The latter, too weak of themselves, because the principal authority- 
 had been for a long time in the hands of the Haedui who possessed 
 the largest number of supporters, had united with Ariovistus, king 01 
 the Germans, whom they attached to them by presents and promises. 
 Victors in several battles, in which they destroyed the whole of the 
 Haeduan nobility, the Sequani acquired so much power, that a great 
 number of tribes, formerly allied to the Haedui, went over to their side. 
 They took away as hostages the sons of the chief citizens, imposed on 
 the nation the oath to undertake nothing against them, seized that 
 portion of the territory conquered by their armies, and obtained the 
 preponderance through the whole of Gaul." Such was the internal 
 state of the country when Caesar appeared there. 
 
 The future conqueror first displayed himself to the Gallic nations in 
 the character of a protector. They were menaced by a formidable 
 invasion. Three hundred thousand Helvetians, after burning their 
 own towns, and ruining their own fields, so as to destroy all hope 
 of return, had just invaded the country of the Sequani and the 
 Haedui. These innumerable hordes had already commenced an 
 attack on the neighbouring Allobroges, when, summoned by these 
 nations, Caesar hurried up at the head of his legions, defeated the 
 Helvetians in three sanguinary engagements, and drove them beyond 
 the Jura, into the deserts they had themselves produced. Deputies 
 from nearly the whole of Gaul (Celtica) afterwards came to congratu- 
 late the victorious hero. 
 
 Some time later, after the general assembly of the Gauls had 
 been convened, the same citizens returned to Caesar ; and, throwing 
 themselves at his feet, conjured him to deliver them from Ariovistus 
 and his Germans, who, called in by the imprudent Sequani, were now 
 oppressing their own allies and the whole of trembling Gaul. Caesar 
 alone could save the country from an impending and cruel servitude. 
 The Proconsul responded to their appeal and marched against the 
 terrible Ariovistus. The Germans were defeated, and the debris of 
 their dispersed army only halted on the banks of the Rhine, twenty 
 leagues from the field of battle. This was Caesar's first campaign 
 in Gaul. 
 
 The domination of the Germans was succeeded by that of the 
 Homans; Caesar imposed his will on the country ; and the Gauls (Celts) 
 
10 CONQUEST OP GAUL BY C^SAR. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 soon perceived that they had given themselves a master in this 
 formidable auxiliary. They desired a change, some through patriotism, 
 others through inconstancy and levity of character. # They applied to 
 the Belga3 to deliver them from the Romans, just as they had, in 
 the previous year, called the latter to help them against the Germans. 
 The Belgians entered into a league : but Ca3sar had made an alliance 
 with one of their most important tribes, the Remi ; and, introduced 
 by them into the heart of Belgium, he crushed the confederates on 
 the banks of the Aisne with a frightful carnage, and then exter- 
 minated the Meroii (people of Hainault), beyond the Sambre. Of 
 60,000 combatants scarce 500 escaped, and the name of the nation 
 disappeared. The Adriatici (a people encamped between the Sambre 
 and the Meuse) being, however, still in arms in Belgium, Caesar 
 stormed Mannes, their principal town, massacred a part of its defenders, 
 and reduced the rest to servitude, no less than 53,000 prisoners being 
 sold as slaves. His lieutenant, Crassus, next subjugated Armorica. 
 Caesar had only appeared, and already the whole of Gaul seemed 
 conquered. At the news of this extraordinary success, fifteen days' 
 rejoicings were decreed at Rome. 
 
 But the resolutions of the Gauls were prompt and unforeseen. In 
 the following year (56 B.C.) Caesar, who was then in Illyria, learned 
 that the tribes of Armorica were holding as prisoners the military 
 tribunes who had gone among them as friends to procure provisions 
 for the seventh legion, which was in winter quarters in the territory 
 of the Andes (Augenvins). The Veneti,f reassured by the situations 
 of their towns, which were inaccessible by land and defended by 
 an internal sea (the gulf of Morbihan), with whose ports, isles, 
 and shoals the Romans were unacquainted, had given the signal; 
 and their neighbours at once imitated them : the Britons, inhabiting 
 
 * Commentaries (Book ii.). Caesar frequently dwells on these traits of the Gallic 
 character. "It is the custom in Gaul," he writes, "to compel travellers to stop, 
 in order to interrogate them about what they know or what they have heard said. 
 In the towns, the people surround the merchants, question them about the countries 
 whence they came, and urge them to tell what they have learnt. It is on such rumour 
 and reports that they frequently decide the most important matters ; and they do not 
 fail to repent of having thus put faith in uncertain news, which is frequently invented 
 to please them. " 
 
 f Tribes of Morbihan whose capital was Dariorigum, at the present day Vannes. 
 
II.] CONQUEST OF GAUL BY C^SAK. 11 
 
 the island of Britain, also promised them assistance. Caesar there- 
 upon marched up from Illyria ; and, although the Romans were 
 almost strangers to the navigation of the ocean, a fleet was built by 
 his orders at the mouth of the Loire. Thus prepared, the Romans 
 attacked the enemy's fleet, and captured most of their ships, by 
 boarding them : a calm that set in compelled the rest to surrender. 
 The most distinguished of the warriors were put to death ; and Caesar, 
 entering the capital as an irritated victor, caused the senators to 
 be killed by way of example, and sold the whole of the conquered 
 population by auction. While he was thus subjugating Armorica, his 
 lieutenant Sabinus occupied, after several engagements, all the terri- 
 tory between that country and the Seine ; and Crassus, being also 
 victorious in the south, between the Loire and the Garonne, and 
 from the latter river to the Pyrenees, the whole of Gaul was again 
 conquered, or held in subjection. 
 
 New and innumerable enemies, however, contested his conquest with 
 Caesar. Germany was agitated on hearing of the disasters in Gaul, 
 and 400,000 Usipetes or Teucteres crossed the Rhine. Caesar, in spite 
 of it being winter, marched against these barbarians, surprised and 
 checked them at the confluence of the former river and the Meuse, 
 where he exterminated nearly the whole of the horde. He then 
 crossed the Rhine by a bridge, which he constructed in ten days, 
 and descended the opposite bank, which point no Roman general had 
 ever before reached. 
 
 Caesar presently returned to Gaul, and, proceeding to the sea-coast, 
 where Britain offered itself as a prey, he resolved to invade that 
 island the same year, either to isolate the Britons from Gaul, punish 
 them for the assistance they had given the Yeneti, or in order to obtain 
 a further title to the admiration of the Romans. He crossed the 
 straits with the infantry of two legions only, and landed in sight 
 of the enemy assembled in arms on the shore. The Romans gained 
 several battles ; but a tempest broke up and dispersed a portion 
 of their galleys, and drove ashore eighteen vessels, with all their 
 cavalry on board. Caesar had never found himself in greater danger ; 
 -and never did he display more remarkable daring, resource, and bold- 
 ness. He collected the wrecks of his galleys, and had others built ; 
 and, besieged in his camp by the Britons whom his disaster had 
 
12 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY CESAR. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 encouraged, he repulsed and pursued them, proudly dictating peace, 
 and demanding hostages. But, while speaking as an irritated master, 
 he was preparing to retreat, and soon after re-embarked with his 
 army. 
 
 This precipitate departure, in spite of several victories, resembled a 
 flight; and Caesar consequently returned the following year (b.c. 54), 
 with several legions and a formidable fleet, resolved to make the 
 people of Britain fully feel the power of Rome and his own. Sailing 
 from Portus Itius,* he landed without impediment, sought and 
 pursued the Britons into the interior of the island, fomented divisions 
 among them, attacked, defeated, and subdued them : he imposed an 
 annual tribute on them, received their hostages, and returned with a 
 multitude of captives, and without the loss of a single vessel. Rome 
 derived but slight profit from these two expeditions ; and Caesar, as 
 a great historian remarks, rather pointed out than gave Britain to his 
 successors. Still, he had attained his object, in acquiring the glory 
 which is ever attached to distant enterprises on little-known coasts ; 
 and already he had no equal in the Roman world. 
 
 The Gallic war, in which up to this time most of the nations had 
 fought separately, appeared to be at an end ; but they united, and 
 it broke out again more terrible than ever. The two chiefs of the 
 new confederation, which was first formed in Belgium, were Indu- 
 ciomarus of the Treviri (Treves) and Ambiorix the Eburone (Liege), 
 who arranged to surprise the legions dispersed in their winter 
 quarters. Ambiorix surprised, in a defile, a legion on the march, 
 and exterminated it. This first success inflamed the warlike tribes 
 of the north (Cambresis and Hainault), and they flattered them- 
 selves with the hope of surprising a second legion, quartered in their 
 country and commanded by Q. Cicero, brother of the orator. On this- 
 occasion the Romans did not suffer themselves to be taken off their 
 guard ; but they were shut up in their entrenched camp, which 
 was at once closely invested. Caesar was a long way off, but he im- 
 mediately set out, and on arriving by forced marches, with only 7000 
 legionaries, dispersed the multitude of Gauls, and liberated the camp. 
 
 * The site of Itius, which was situated on the seaboard of the country of the Morini 
 (Picardy), is extremely uncertain. Some "believe that it is Calais, others Mardik. It is- 
 generally thought to be the old port of Wessant, near Boulogne. 
 
jL] CONQUEST OF GAUL BY C^JSAR. 13 
 
 Winter suspended military operations, but both sides prepared for 
 a new war. 
 
 So soon as spring set in, Induciomarus, the confederate of Ambiorix, 
 marched against Labienus, who was quartered among the Remi ; but 
 the barbarian was defeated and his head sent to the general. Caesar 
 completely crushed the Treviri ; and then, marching through the 
 whole forest of Ardennes, fell on the Eburones. It was necessary that 
 their chastisement should be terrible. Caesar wished to destroy even 
 the name of the guilty nation ; and, inviting the neighbouring German 
 tribes to aid him in his vengeance, he left the territory to the first 
 occupant. In a few days this unfortunate people was annihilated, and 
 the whole of northern Gaul appeared, for the time, pacified. In the 
 same year the general assembly of the Gauls, presided over by Caesar, 
 was held at Lutetia, the capital of the Parisii. 
 
 Caesar, however, only imperfectly attained his object by terrorism. 
 So many frightful executions inflamed in the heart of his enemies 
 an inextinguishable thirst for vengeance, and imparted to the con- 
 quered the courage of despair. The barbarities committed in Belgium 
 combined against the Romans all the nations of Gaul. A young 
 Arverucan (Auvergnat) chief, named Yercingetorix, was the soul of 
 the general league. Elected king by his fellow-citizens, he displayed 
 in the contest an activity, an intelligence, and a heroism, which, had 
 he been opposed to any other than Caesar, would have sufficed to 
 liberate his country. 
 
 The Proconsul had recrossed the Alps, his legions were scattered 
 about Gaul, the winter was severe, and the snow impeded any com- 
 munication between them : the moment to shake off the yoke seemed 
 to have arrived. A solemn oath, taken on the collected standards, 
 bound together all the principal nations of Gaul, and the revolt com- 
 menced with the massacre of the Romans quartered in the city of 
 Getabena, now Orleans. The news spread almost instantly to the 
 furthest extremities of Gaul,* and nearly the whole country revolted. 
 
 * " The news soon reached all the states of Gaul ; for, whenever any remarkable event 
 occurs, they announce it to the neighbouring country by shouts, which are repeated from 
 one to the other. Thus what had happened at Getabena at sunrise was known to the 
 Arvernians before the close of the first evening, at a distance of 160 miles." — De Bella 
 Gallico, b. vii. 
 
14 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY CiESAK. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 Yercingetorix took possession of the fortified town of Gergovia 
 (Clermont), whence his emissaries spread among the Gallic tribes, 
 announcing that the hour of deliverance had arrived. His appeal was 
 universally listened to, a supreme council was formed of confederate 
 deputies, and the chief command was entrusted to Yercingetorix, who 
 was speedily surrounded by a numerous and martial army. He 
 divided it into two corps, sent one southward against the Roman 
 province, passed with the other through the country of the Beturiges 
 (Berri), whom he induced to revolt, and prepared to attack the legions 
 scattered through Belgium. 
 
 Suddenly it was learned that Caesar had reappeared in Gaul ; and 
 that, after securing the safety of the Roman province, he had crossed 
 the snows of the Cevennes, ancf was now carrying fire and the sword 
 into Arvernia. Yercingetorix turned back and flew to the defence of 
 his native country, where, however, he wished that the Romans 
 should find only a desert. The Arverni themselves burnt their cities 
 so that they might not fall into the enemy's hands : twenty towns were 
 thus destroyed, and only one, Avaricum (Bourges), the capital of the 
 Beturiges, and one of the handsomest cities in Gaul, was spared. Caesar 
 soon besieged it, took it by storm, and the whole population was 
 murdered without distinction of sex or age. The conqueror next pro- 
 ceeded with his whole army to besiege Grergovia. Yercingetorix had 
 arrived under the wall of the city before him, and his camp was 
 already set up at the foot of the ramparts. Caesar attacked it with 
 his accustomed vigour ; but Yercingetorix drove the Romans in dis- 
 order into the plain, where they were surrounded, and would have 
 been destroyed, had it not been for the immortal tenth legion, which 
 checked the advance of the enemy, and enabled the fugitives to 
 re-enter their lines. 
 
 This success inflamed the Gauls with new courage. Caesar, aban- 
 doned by all their tribes excepting the Remi and the Lingones (in- 
 habitants of Langues), raised the siege and retired beyond the Loire into 
 the country of the Senones (Sens), where four legions were under the 
 command of Labienus. The two armies joined, and Caesar, thus rein- 
 forced, descended the valley of the Saone, in the direction of the 
 Roman province. 
 
 During this period, a meeting took place at Bibracte (Autun) of all 
 
II.] CONQUEST OF GAUL BY CESAR. 15 
 
 the Gallic nations, which by common accord had accepted Vercinge- 
 torix as their supreme commander. Yercingetorix had moved rapidly- 
 forward to intercept the retreat of Caesar, and came up with him. The 
 principal strength of the Gallic army, consisting of cavalry, was sent 
 against the Roman cavalry ; but a corps of Germans in the pay of 
 Caesar turned the enemy's flank, and the Gallic cavalry and infantry 
 were driven into the river. With the relics of his army "Vercingetorix 
 withdrew behind the walls of Alesia, one of the strongest places in 
 Gaul, and Caesar immediately followed him.* 
 
 The siege of Alesia is the most memorable event in the conquest of 
 GauL Caesar undertook it with forces inferior to those of the be- 
 sieged, and carried it on in sight of 200,000 Gauls, who had hurried 
 up from all points to succour the city, which, being already closely 
 invested, and suffering from the horrors of famine, despaired of deli- 
 verance. The conqueror of Gaul never displayed greater vigour, 
 prudence, and genius than upon this occasion. Three deep lines of 
 gigantic circumvallated works, defended by formidable intrenchments, 
 and innumerable caltrops scattered about the trenches, or sharp stakes 
 driven into the ground at regular distances, separated the Roman 
 camp from the city ; while other lines, no less formidable, called lines 
 of countervallation, were formed between the camp and the Gallic 
 army outside, running^for a distance of 14,000 paces. Notwithstanding 
 these immense precautions, the Roman camp was all but surprised, 
 being attacked simultaneously by the army of the confederates and 
 the garrison ; but Caesar, everywhere present, with a clear head in 
 the most extreme danger, surveyed calmly all the points menaced, 
 and, opposing extraordinary efforts to those of the Gauls, repulsed 
 their double attack. At this moment the corps of German horse 
 which he had in his pay appeared, after making a long detour, in 
 the rear of the Gallic army, and fiercely attacked it at the moment 
 when the Roman legions were compelling it to retreat. This final 
 attack, sudden and unforeseen by all but Caesar, decided the fate 
 
 * This town was situated in the territory of the Mandubi. Its site is still undecided, 
 and the question has given rise to numerous and interesting discussions among the 
 learned. Some believe they find Alesia in Alase, to the n ,rtk ot Salins in Franche 
 Comte, while others place it at Alese-Sanite-Eeine in Mouat Auxcis in Burgundy. The 
 latter opinion appears to us the better founded, after a stm y of the text and of 
 topographical charts. 
 
16 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY 02ESAB. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the day, and that of Graul. A panic terror seized on the conquered, 
 who fled in disorder, and fell in thousands beneath the swords of the 
 victorious Romans. Vercingetorix and his army were witnesses of 
 the defeats of those from whom they expected their salvation, and 
 re-entered the city, which was left to itself, without provisions, and 
 incapable of prolonging its defence. 
 
 Superior to his fortune, and even to his victors, Vercingetorix sent 
 a deputation to Caesar, surrendering the fortress to him, and offering 
 himself as a sacrifice to save his adherents. All the chiefs, by the 
 Proconsul's order, were brought before him. Vercingetorix sur- 
 rendered himself. "Wearing his richest armour, and mounted on his 
 war-charger, he went round the tribunal in which the impassive Pro- 
 consul was seated, and, stopping in front of the conqueror, silently 
 threw his javelin, helmet, and sword on the ground. Caesar was 
 pitiless. The hero was thrown into chains and taken to Rome, 
 where he languished in prison for six years : he was eventually 
 brought forth to adorn the triumphal procession of Caesar, and then 
 died by the hand of the executioner. 
 
 Gaul never recovered from the great disaster it had undergone at 
 the siege of Alesia, when, represented by the majority of its tribes, it 
 was, as it were, entirely conquered in one day. A last campaign 
 sufficed for Caesar to extinguish the smouldering revolt in all parts of 
 the vast territory, and he did so with blood. In this way he com- 
 pletely crushed the Beturiges (inhabitants of Berri), the Carnutes 
 (people of the pays Chartrain), and the Bellovaci (people of Beau- 
 voisis) : he passed through the whole of Belgium as a conqueror, 
 and then returned south, grasping and pressing his vast prey in his 
 powerful hands. The last town that resisted him was the small fort 
 of Uxellodunum, in the country of the Cadurci (Quercy), which he 
 took by cutting off the water supply, and barbarously lopped off the 
 hands of all its defenders, whom he sent away in this state, as living 
 testimonies of his anger and his vengeance. 
 
 Such was the end of this terrible war, during which, as Plutarch 
 says, Caesar, in eight campaigns, took by storm 800 towns, subjected 
 300 tribes, and fought against 3,000,000 men, of whom one-third 
 perished in the field of battle, or were massacred, while another third 
 were reduced to a state of slavery. 
 
III.] GAUL UNDER THE ROMAN DOMINATION. 17 
 
 Master of Gaul, which was conquered by his arms, but whose- 
 inhabitants he knew to be too brave to be held in slavery by rigour, he* 
 resolved to win them by entirely different conduct, and rendered their 
 yoke easy. The country was reduced to the state of a Roman 
 province, but Ccesar spared it confiscations and onerous burdens : the- 
 cities preserved their government and laws, and the tribute he imposed 
 on the conquered was paid under the title of "military pay.'* 
 Reckoning on their support for the execution of his ambitious plans, 
 he enrolled the best Gallic warriors in his legions, conquered Rome 
 herself by their help, and gave them in recompense riches and 
 honours. The Roman Senate was opened to the Gauls.* 
 
 IIL 
 
 GAUL UNDER THE ROMAN DOMINATION. 
 
 The Emperor Augustus, who gave an organization to Gaul, main- 
 tained the division of the country into four great provinces, but he- 
 changed their limits, and gave the name of Lyonnese or Lugdunensis 
 to Gallia Celtica, which was restricted to the territoiy contained between 
 the Seine, the Saone, and the Loire ; and detached from it on the east a 
 territory to which he gave the name of Sequanensis, and joined to 
 Gallia Belgica. The latter, when thus enlarged, had for its boundaries 
 the Rhine, the Seine, the Saone, and the Alps. Aquitania, hitherto 
 enclosed between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, extended as far as 
 the Loire ; and, lastly, Gallia ISTarbonensis was comprised between the:. 
 Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, the Cevennes, and the Alps. The entire- 
 country was, in addition, divided into sixty municipal circumscriptions, , 
 or cities, the principal of which, after Lyons, the seat of the Roman 
 government, were : Treves, Autun, Mmes, Bordeaux, ISTarbonne, Tou- 
 louse, Vienne, and Aries. Eventually, under Diocletian, the Roman 
 Empire was divided into four great prefectures : that of Gaul, whose 
 
 * Julius Cissar only admitted into the Roman Senate the principal citizens of Gallia, 
 Narbonensis : it was the Emperor Claudian who, in the year 48, passed the celebrated 
 decree by which public offices and the Senate were thrown open to the inhabitants of 
 Gallia Comata. At a later date the title of Ptoman citizen was given by Caracalla to 
 all the free men of Gaul and the rest of the Empire, which caused a contemporary poet, 
 to say of this Emperor : — 
 
 " Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat." 
 (You have made a city of what was heretofore a world.) 
 
 C 
 
18; GAUL UNDER THE EOMAN DOMINATION, [INTRODUCTION. 
 
 chief city was Treves, comprised three great dioceses of vicarships, 
 Britain, Spain, and Gaul. The latter was divided. for the last time at 
 the beginning of the fourth century, by the Emperor Gratianus, into 
 17 provinces, containing 120 cities. Each province was governed by 
 an officer of the Empire, and the cities or towns received from the 
 Romans their internal administration and civic organization: they 
 were, in addition, governed by municipal assemblies, called curies, to 
 which landowners were alone summoned. Occasionally, the deputies of 
 all the provinces met, but these assemblies never had saij appointed or 
 regular times of meeting, and they fell into desuetude. 
 
 Gaul remained for four centuries subject to the Romans.. Every- 
 thing became Roman there : there were knights and senators, and 
 the druids became priests of " the Greek polytheism. There was 
 indubitably a great difference between the civilization of the Northern 
 and Southern Gauls ; but the religion,* the civil laws, the municipal 
 government, and administrative system of Rome prevailed from one 
 end of Gaul to the other. All those who possessed politeness, civiliza-, 
 tion, learning, or culture, piqued themselves on being Roman. The 
 two nations spoke the same language, and the name of Gallo-Romans 
 bears testimony to their intimate fusion. The old national code of 
 laws disappeared, and in the fifth century there was no trace of 
 Gallic institutions in Gaul. 
 
 The Gauls transferred to the arts of peace that intelligent activity 
 
 which they had for so many years fruitlessly expended in war, and 
 
 Roman Gaul was for a long time flourishing. The axe cut down the 
 
 druidic forests, which made way for cultivation, and numerous roads 
 
 facilitated the progress of commerce and industry. New cities 
 
 were founded, and those already in existence increased in extent 
 
 and opulence, rivalling the cities of Gallia Narbonensis. Treves, 
 
 Mayence, Cologne, Bordeaux, grew and prospered through the 
 
 favour of an advantageous situation for trade or war ; and Lutetia 
 
 (Paris), reserved for such great destinies, became the residence 
 
 of the Ceesars. Most of the Gallic towns were adorned with palaces, 
 
 statues, thermse, and triumphal arches. At various points of the 
 
 Gallic territory may still be seen ruins of Greek art, and imposing 
 
 # Augustus abolished human sacrifices, and only granted the right of citizenship to 
 those who abandoned the druidic rites. 
 
III.] GAUL UNDER THE ROMAN DOMINATION. 19 
 
 remains of aqueducts, temples, amphitheatres, and other monuments 
 of Roman architecture. Schools, which soon became nourishing, were 
 established in several cities. Those of Lyons, Autun, and Bordeaux 
 acquired a great reputation, and produced grammarians, orators, and 
 poets ; but nearly all who distinguished themselves, and, among others, 
 the poets Valerius Cato and Cornelius Gallus,* and the orators Marcus 
 Ca3sar and Domitius Afer, the master of Quinctilian, who lived in the 
 age of Augustus, were descended from the Roman colonies of Gallia 
 Narbonensis. Eventually, Gaul prided itself on having produced, in 
 the fourth century, the poet Ausonius of Bordeaux ; and, in the fifth, 
 Rutilius Numatianus, and Sidonius Apollinarius, who was a poet and 
 bishop, and whose letters are a precious heirloom for history. 
 
 The Emperors imagined they had annihilated druidism by proscribing 
 the druids, abolishing their faith, and declaring all the Gallic gods 
 Roman : but a faith is not destroyed until another has taken its place, 
 and the paganism of Rome had already lost all power overmen's minds. 
 What it was unable to do, Christianity effected; and the last druidic 
 altars fell before the new creed in the recesses of the forests. It was 
 introduced into Gaul, toward the middle of the second century, by 
 some priests of the Church of Smyrna, whom the Bishop St. Poly- 
 carp, a disciple of the Apostle St. John, sent to preach the Gospel 
 in the Transalpine countries, placing at their head the illustrious 
 Pothinus, first Bishop of Lyons. The pious missionaries settled in 
 the latter city about the year 160, and diffused there the light of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 But Rome, while introducing her civilization into Gaul, had, at the 
 same time, introduced her dissolute manners and sanguinary spectacles^ 
 dear to the multitude, but against which the Christians forcibly pro- 
 tested by their language and example. They had thus the whole of 
 Pagan society hostile to them; and, amid the bloodthirsty perse- 
 cutions ordered by the Emperors, no country counted more heroic 
 martyrs than Gaul, and no Church was more fertilized, by their blood 
 than that of Lyons. The persecuting edict issued by Marcus Aurelius 
 against the Christians produced the woes of that Church and its glory. 
 The Bishop Pothinus, ninety years of age, was stoned by the people, 
 
 * Valerius Cato, grammarian and poet, was surnamed the Latin Siren. Cornelius 
 Gallus, an elegiac poet, was the friend of Virgil and Augustus. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 GAUL UNDER THE KOMAN DOMINATION. [Introduction 
 
 and died of his wounds ; forty-seven confessors perished in the midst of 
 torments, at the hands of the executioner, or were rent asunder by wild 
 beasts.* St. Irenaeus, surnamed the Light of the "West, collected at a 
 later date the dispersed members of the Church of Lyons, and the 
 word of Christ was borne into the rest of Gaul, toward the middle 
 of the third century, by seven pious bishops, who, leaving Rome for the 
 most glorious of conquests, proceeded to various points of the Gallic 
 territory, and all of them acquired the crown of martyrdom. Among 
 these the most celebrated was St. Denis, who halted on the banks of 
 the Seine at Lutetia : he was decapitated near that city on the Hill of 
 Mars (Montmartre), and interred in the plain which still bears his 
 name. The work of these holy confessors was successfully resumed 
 in the fourth century by St. Hilarius, Bishop of Poitiers, and by St. 
 Martin of Tours, whose words fructified in the west and centre of 
 Gaul, where Christianity, as everywhere else, was propagated by the 
 very efforts intended to annihilate it. 
 
 Gaul, subdued by the civilization of Rome as much as by her arms, 
 was, under the first Emperors, tranquil and resigned. A few daring 
 chiefs, such as Julius Floras in Belgium, and Sacrovir in the Lyon- 
 nese, tried in vain to rouse the Gallic tribes to revolt. They found 
 themselves abandoned so soon as they took up arms against Rome, and 
 perished by their own hands. But, eventually, Gaul suffered greatly 
 through the disorders of the Empire and the perpetual revolutions that 
 shook it. No law determined the form of accession to the imperial 
 throne : the armies, scattered about the provinces, frequently arrogated 
 the right of electing the sovereign, and victory decided between them. 
 The Gauls took part in these sanguinary quarrels. Thus, on the death 
 of Nero, being influenced by Aquitanus Vindex, they supported Galba, 
 and afterwards Vitellius. On the death of the latter, they dreamed 
 of regaining their independence. Civilis, aided by the prophecies of 
 the celebrated druidess Velleda, collected under his banners the 
 Batavi, his countrymen, and the Belga?. A Gaul of the name of 
 
 * The history of the Church has preserved for us the names of the most illustrious 
 martyrs p of this glorious epoch. Not one of them surpassed in courage the slave 
 Blandina, a maiden of delicate complexion, on whom the executioner exhausted in vain 
 all the refinements of the most cruel barbarity, and who, when under torture, answered 
 all the efforts of her persecutors with the words, "J am a Christian " 
 
HI.] GAUL UNDER THE ROMAN DOMINATION. 21 
 
 Sabimis assumed the title of Emperor ; the druids then emerged from 
 their forests, and announced that the Gallic Empire was about to 
 succeed the Roman. The insurrection spread, and two Roman legions, 
 allowing themselves be led away, marched against Rome. But Ves- 
 pasian was reigning, and his lieutenants, under his firm and vigilant 
 authority, made the rebellious tribes and legions return to their 
 obedience. Civilis defended for some time longer his independence 
 in Batavia; but Sabinus, conquered, and deserted by all, hid himself 
 in a vault, where his wife, Eponina, who immortalized herself by her 
 conjugal tenderness and her courage, buried herself with him during 
 nine years. Sabinus was at length discovered ; and Eponina, in order 
 to save him, embraced the knees of the inexorable Emperor : unable 
 to obtain his pardon, she resolved to follow him to the grave, sharing 
 his punishment, as she had shared, during his life, his prison and his 
 tomb. 
 
 For nearly two centuries Gaul served as the battle-field for the 
 generals who contested the Empire. Already the numerous and 
 formidable tribes, formed into a grand confederation in Germany, had 
 tried, on several occasions, to reach the left bank of the Rhine ; and 
 occupied, on the frontiers, the principal strength of the Roman armies. 
 In this incessantly returning peril, and in the midst of the general 
 disorder, the ties that connected the provinces to the Empire became 
 daily relaxed ; and toward the middle of the third century Gaul made 
 a new effort to detach itself. The legions of the prefecture of Gaul 
 recognized as Emperor, about the year 260, one of their generals, of the 
 name of Posthumus, of Gallic origin, who was assassinated, and had, 
 during thirteen years, several successors, known in history under the 
 name of the Gallic Caesars. Tetricus, who was the last of these, weary 
 of power and its dangers, betrayed his army, and surrendered himself 
 to the Emperor Aurelian. 
 
 After the voluntary fall of the Gallic chief, barbarous hordes rushed 
 upon Gaul, and ravaged it. Devastated by them on the one hand, 
 and, on the other, crushed with taxes imposed by the various 
 candidates to empire, and exhausted of men and money, the Gallic 
 cities at length fell into the most miserable condition. The fields 
 remained sterile, for want of men to cultivate them ; commerce 
 perished ; and so great was the desolation of these countries, that a 
 
22 GAUL UNDER THE ROMAN DOMINATION. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 great number of freemen made themselves serfs or slaves in order 
 to escape the obligation of bearing a share of the public burdens. 
 The serfs revolted toward the close of the third century, and, taking up 
 arms under the name of Bagaudes, burned several towns, and devas- 
 tated the country. Maximian crushed them ; but his victory did not 
 restore life to the Gallic nation, for the decaying Empire imparted 
 its own distress to all the nations it had conquered. 
 
 Gaul breathed again, however, during a few years, under the protect- 
 ing administration of Caesar Constantius Chlorus, who was called to the 
 imperial throne in 305, by the double abdication of Diocletian and Max- 
 imian. After him, Constantine, his son, was proclaimed Emperor by 
 the army, and Christianity began its milder reign. Persecution ceased, 
 and this prince, like his father, made great efforts to restore prosperity 
 to the cities of Gaul, and security to its frontiers ; but the dissensions 
 which troubled the Empire upon his death drew down fresh calamities 
 upon it. The barbarians drove back the legions entrusted with the de- 
 fence of the Rhine, as far as the Seine ; and terror reigned in the ruined 
 cities of Gaul, until Constantius, the son of Constantine, sent the 
 celebrated Julian, his son, invested with the dignity of Caesar, to the 
 help of this unhappy country. Julian, by a memorable victory, gained 
 in 357, near Strasburg, over seven Allemannic kings or chiefs, freed 
 Gaul for some time from the presence of the barbarians. He selected 
 as his residence the capital of the Parisians, which he called his dear 
 Lutetia ; * gained the love of the people by his vigilant administration 
 and justice ; and employed, with indefatigable ardour, the leisure of 
 peace to repair the ravages of war. But he only offered a temporary 
 remedy for continuous evils, which were too profound to be cured by 
 human hands. Julian himself ascended the imperial throne on the 
 death of Constantius. The period of his elevation to the rank of 
 Augustus was also that of his apostasy. He abjured Christianity, and, 
 in his fury, attempted to destroy it. But the light of the Gospel had 
 already penetrated beyond the Roman world ; and Christianity, more 
 powerful than the priests of the Empire, made its irresistible sway 
 felt by the new nations which God had reserved for the over- 
 
 * Paris, called Lutetia at that period, was almost entirely confined to the lie 
 de la Cite ; but a suburb already ran along the left bank of the Seine : here stood the- 
 Palace of the Thermae, inhabited by Julian, and the ruins of which still exist, and have 
 retained their name. 
 
IV.] INVASIONS OF THE BARBARIANS'. g£ 
 
 throw of the Empire. They completed the work of destruction 
 commenced by civil discords, the want of industry, indolence, misery, 
 the cowardice of the multitude, and the corruption of the higher 
 classes. All that was condemned to perish was overthrown by the 
 barbarians ; but they stopped before the Christian Church, which they 
 found erect and established, and which subdued themselves. 
 
 IV. 
 
 INVASIONS OF THE BARBARIANS — DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 406—476. 
 The nations that destroyed the Roman Empire were three in number : 
 the Gothic nation,* the Tartar nation, or Huns, and the Teutonic 
 nation. They were subdivided into a great number of peoples. 
 
 These invasions were at the outset neither voluntary nor simul- 
 taneous, but solely the consequence of other invasions. Thus, the 
 emigration of the Goths in the second century drove back the Germans 
 on to the frontiers of the Empire ; and two hundred years later the 
 arrival of the Huns in Europe forced upon it a portion of the Goths 
 themselves. Up to the Christian era, the Goths and Tartars were 
 unknown to the Romans ; but this was not the case with the 
 Teutonic nation, which occupied, so early as three centuries B.C., the 
 vast space contained between the Rhine, the Danube, the Oder, and the 
 German Ocean. All the men of this race called themselves Germans — 
 
 . * This great people, whose traces are still visible throughout Europe, had settled on 
 the shores of the Baltic ; but were driven thence by the invasion of an Asiatic 
 people led by Odin into the northern countries of Europe toward the second century. 
 The Goths halted on the shores of the Euxine, and there divided into two groups, which 
 derived their name from their geographical position, the Visigoths, or western Goths, and 
 the Ostrogoths, or Eastern Goths. In the middle of the fourth century the invasion of 
 the Huns into these countries took place. The Visigoths then emigrated, and, casting 
 themselves upon the Roman Empire, did not cease to ravage it till the period when 
 Ataulf , brother of the terrible Alaric, founded in Southern Gaul and Spain the monarchy 
 of the Visigoths (412). 
 
 The Ostrogoths, after enduring the yoke of the Huns, went, under ^Theodoric the Great 
 and with the assent of the Emperor Zeno, to reconquer Italy from the Herulians, and esta- 
 blished there, in 493, the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, which perished beneath the blows 
 of Belisarius and Narses in the years between 534 and 553. 
 
 A portion of the Goths had remained in the desert. The name of Gepidse (laggards) 
 was given to them. They were exterminated in the sixth century by the Lombards, at 
 that time their neighbours. 
 
24 INVASIONS OF THE BAKBARIANS. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 welir-m'dnner, a word in their language signifying men of war. In 
 the end, the general denomination of Germany was applied to all the 
 regions which they occupied. This people, however, had been divided, 
 long prior to the Christian era, into two great factions, the Suevi and 
 the Saxons, who were separated by the Hyrcinian forest, situated in the 
 centre of Germany.* These were the Germans, who, before invading 
 the Roman Empire, sustained its attacks, for so lengthened a period, in 
 their gloomy forests. 
 
 Two great historians, Caesar and Tacitus, have depicted these 
 T>arbarians for us. The former shows us a pastoral people living on 
 milk and the flesh of their flocks ; with no other worship than that of 
 the stars, without any permanent political government, and led into 
 action by chiefs temporarily elected, who were arbiters of life and death. 
 The most noticeable thing we find in Tacitus, when we seek in his 
 History the deep and imperishable traits that characterized in his day 
 the majority of the German peoples, is a manly feeling of human 
 dignity, and a love of individual independence, tempered in warlike 
 minds by devotion to the chief and respect for noble blood. What in the 
 highest degree attracts attention in their customs is the division of 
 power between the prince and the people, the sanction of the laws by 
 popular assent, and the trial of accused persons by assessors freely 
 elected. Still, these forms of civilization were blended in the Germans 
 with great barbarity ; and Tacitus tells us that, as the reward of their 
 services, they received from their chiefs copious repasts and took 
 impart in sanguinary orgies ; that they only lived for war and the chase, 
 and performed superstitious rites of the most horrible kind, amid the 
 cries of the human victims sacrificed by them on these occasions. Such 
 was the nation destined to expel the Roraan conquerors from the soil 
 of Gaul, and to found a new and great people by the admixture of 
 Germanic and Gallic blood. 
 
 All the Teutonic tribes did not participate in this work, although 
 
 * The Teutonic people established to the south and west of the Hyrcinian forest, had 
 received the name of Suevi, derived from the verb sckovehen, meaning, to be in motion. The 
 Suevi, in truth, were constantly on the move, and made perpetual efforts to invade 
 neighbouring countries. Those Teutons, on the other hand, who dwelt to the north of 
 the forest, being less nomadic than the others, were known by the name of Saxons, a word 
 ■-derived from sitzen (sass in the preterite), to be seated, or at rest. This great division of 
 Germany subsisted up to the second century of the Christian era, the period when the 
 three great Germanic confederations were formed. 
 
IV.] DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 25 
 
 many of them "invaded Gaul at different points. A small number of 
 clans maintained themselves in the country, after a conquest which 
 was for a long period slow, and limited to the northern frontiers. 
 But before we observe the future masters of Gaul crossing in turn the 
 Yssel, the Rhine and the Meuse, and thus adyancing step by step as 
 far as the banks of the Seine, it is important that we should notice 
 the events which, in the second century of the Christian era, had 
 modified the state of the German tribes. 
 
 The great emigration of the Goths from north to south had just over- 
 thrown central Europe ; and a part of the Suevi, expelled by them from 
 the country of the lower Danube, went up toward the sources of that 
 river, between the Hyrcinian forest and the Rhine. This country 
 received from them the name of Sue via or Suabia; they formed there 
 a confederation of the relics of several peoples of different races, who 
 adopted the general title of Allemanica, or collection of men of all 
 descriptions (Allemanner) . The territory of this southern confederation 
 extended between the Rhine and the Hyrcinian forest, from the Maine 
 up to the Helvetic Alps. 
 
 The peoples of Northern Germany, living to the north of the Hyr- 
 cinian forest, or the Saxons, were also shaken by the Gothic migration, 
 although their territory remained intact. A part of these tribes, 
 nearest to the Scandinavians, being subjected by the sons of Odin, 
 themselves adopted the Odinic worship : they formed a body under 
 the general denomination of Saxons, and this aggregation was joined 
 by the Angles, who inhabited a country called Anglia, to the south of 
 the Cimbric Chersonese. Such was the origin of the Anglo-Saxons, 
 the future conquerors of Great Britain, who established themselves 
 on the shores of the Elbe, the Baltic, and the German Ocean. For- 
 midable pirates, they spread devastation along the coasts of Gaul, 
 Great Britain, and Spain, as early as the third century. 
 
 Pressed between the imperial armies and several powerful 
 •confederations of nations of their own race, the Central Germans, 
 settled between the Weser and the Rhine, also recognized the necessity 
 of uniting for the common defence ; and, toward the middle of the 
 third century, a new confederation was formed in the countries com- 
 prised between the two rivers, under the name of Francs (Franken), a 
 -German word, whose meaning approaches to that of ferox, and 
 
26 INVASIONS OF THE BAKBARIANS. [IntkoducIion 
 
 signifies proud and warlike. These tribes, worthy of their name, were 
 in fact the most celebrated among the barbarians for their bravery, 
 and it is from them that the French have derived their name. "With 
 the exception of the Frisons, who maintained their independence, they 
 included in their confederation all the peoples established between the 
 Rhine and the Weser, and in this number were the Bructeri, the 
 Teucteri, the Chamavi, the Oatti, the Angrivarii, and the Sugambri. 
 The Franks are mentioned in history for the first time in the year 241 ; 
 and a few years later, in 256, a horde of this nation traversed Gaul, 
 crossed the Pyrenees, ravaged Spain, and spread as far as Africa. 
 The Emperor Probus transported a colony of Franks to the shores of 
 the Euxine ; but they soon grew weary of their exile, and, seizing a 
 few barks, they audaciously skirted the coasts of Asia, Greece, and 
 Africa, passed between the Pillars of Hercules, faced the perils of the 
 sea, and, following the coast as far as the German Ocean, they re- 
 entered by the mouths of the great rivers the countries whence they 
 originally came. 
 
 Thus, in the third century of our era, three formidable confedera- 
 tions closed Germany, from the shores of the Baltic to the sources of 
 the Rhine and the Danube, against the imperial armies and fleets — the 
 Saxons in the north, the Franks in the west, and the Allemanni in the 
 south, while the Goths were encamped on the left bank of the 
 Danube. 
 
 All these nations, between which the Roman Empire of the West 
 was eventually divided, did not attack it at the outset with the 
 intention of destroying it. Impelled by violent and irresistible causes 
 to cross its frontiers, they were all eager to have their conquests 
 legitimated by imperial concessions and treaties which incorpo- 
 rated them with the Empire, whose powerful organization and 
 superior civilization filled them with astonishment and admiration. 
 Their kings gladly assumed the Roman titles of patricians, consuls, 
 and chiefs of the militia, dignities with which several of them were 
 invested by the Emperors, as allies of the Empire ; and their highest 
 ambition was to be united by marriage with the imperial family. 
 
 At this period all the frontiers had received numerous military 
 colonies of barbarians, hired, under the name of Letes, for the 
 service of the Imperial Government, which attached them to 
 
IV.] DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 27 
 
 it by the concession of lands, called " letic lands." " The em- 
 perors," Procopius tells us, "could not prevent the barbarians 
 entering the provinces ; but the barbarians, on their side, did not 
 consider they actually possessed the land they occupied, so long as the 
 fact of their possession had not been changed into right by the 
 imperial authority." 
 
 The Franks were among the barbarians who also received great 
 concessions of territory in Gaul long before the epoch assigned to their 
 first invasion by a number of historians. Repulsed from the banks of 
 the Weser by the Saxons, two of the principal tribes of the Frank 
 confederation, the Angrivarii first, and then the Catti, emigrated in 
 the third century, and drew nearer to the banks of the Yssel, the 
 frontier of Batavia. The Romans gave these Franks the name of 
 Salics, or Salii, according to all appearance from that of the Tssel 
 (Isala), on whose banks they had been encamped for a long period.* 
 This people, by favour of the civil wars and revolts which agitated 
 Northern Gaul at the end of the third century, crossed the river, and 
 established themselves in Batavia. The Emperor Maximian, after 
 attempting to expel them from the Empire, saw that it would be more 
 advantageous to have their help in defending it ; and, about the year 
 587, he allowed the Salic Franks to settle, as military colonists, between 
 the Moselle and the Scheldt, from Treves (Augusta Trevirorum) as far 
 as Tournay (Turnacum). 
 
 A few years later, two other Frank tribes, the Bructeri and 
 Chamavi, crossed the Rhine in order to support the claims of the 
 usurper Carausius to the imperial throne. Constantius Chlorus and 
 
 * Archaeologists have supplied different etymologies for the word Salic. I have 
 adopted the one which appeared to me most probable. "M. Gfuerard has proved," says 
 M. de Petigny, ' ' that the Salic land was only the glebe attached to the manor or house, 
 whose name is Sal in all the German dialects, and which, as it could not be divided, did 
 not form part of the inheritance of the daughters." Still, M. de Petigny does not 
 believe, and I agree with him, that we can come to the conclusion that the Salie 
 Franks derived their name from this usage, which was common to them with the other 
 tribes of Germany. " Let us not forget," he says, "that the name of Salii was given 
 them by the Romans : now, the Romans were extremely ignorant of German customs, 
 and would not have sought the designation of a colony of expatriated Germans in a 
 custom which was not even special to them. Is it not more natural to think that the 
 Belgian Franks were called after the name of the country which they had quitted, in 
 order to settle on Roman territory ? This country was the right bank of the Yssel, 
 where they had lived for upwards of a century before entering Batavia. The Latin 
 name of the Yssel was Isala." 
 
28 INVASIONS OF THE BARBAlilANS. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 Constantine his son contended against them for a long time, and the 
 Emperor Julian, after conquering them, allowed them to found a 
 military colony between the Rhine and the Meuse. These Franks 
 were called Ripuarii, from the Latin word ripa,* because they settled 
 along the banks of the Rhine, one of the two great rivers which 
 served the Roman Empire as a barrier against the barbarians. 
 
 The Salic Franks and Ripuarian Franks occupied nearly the same 
 respective positions in the fifth century. At this period the Empire 
 was divided between the sons of the great Theodosius, Honorius 
 reigning at Rome, and Arcadius at Constantinople. Gaul formed part of 
 Honorius's share, and under this weak prince the "Western Empire 
 gave way on all sides. A multitude of causes had hastened its disso- 
 lution, and anarchy was rampant in the State. The barbarians ad- 
 vanced to plunder that which they were badly paid to defend. In 
 vain Rome humiliated herself so deeply as to become their tributary, 
 endeavouring to stop by presents these fierce men, against whom she 
 could no longer effect anything by her arms, or the majesty of her 
 name : the work of destruction commenced, and in spite of a few 
 fortunate days for the Roman arms, the invading flood never halted 
 till it had swallowed up the Empire, and even Rome herself. 
 
 The Suevi and Yandals f burst into Gaul in 406, and from that 
 date up to 4*76, the epoch when a barbarian chief deposed the last 
 emperor, Italy and Gaul were one vast scene of carnage and desola- 
 tion, in which twenty nations of different origin came into furious 
 collision. 
 
 The Suevi and Yandals were followed by the Yisigoths, who, after 
 ravaging one half of the two Empires, and sacking Rome, tore 
 from the Emperor Honorius, who was invested in Ravenna, the con- 
 cession of the southern territory of Gaul, situated to the west of the 
 Rhone. The Western Empire was dismembered on all sides. The 
 island of Britain had already liberated itself from the yoke of 
 the Romans, and the Armorican provinces of Western Gaul rose 
 
 * Ripuarios a ripa Rheni sic vocatos, et primum a Romanis ad defensionem limitis 
 ad versus Gernianis constitutes fuisse, nullus dubitat.— Prcef. Eccardi ad Legem Rip. 
 
 + This most barbarous of the barbarous nations was of Slavonic origin. Their hordes 
 ■wandered about Germany for a while, and eventually joined the Suevi in invading the 
 Empire. After crossing Graul, the Vandals established themselves in Spain, and in the 
 fifth century passed over to Africa, where Belisarius exterminated them. 
 
IV.] DESTKUCTION OP THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 29 
 
 in insurrection. About the same period, the Burgundians, a people 
 of Vandal origin, crossed the Rhine, and in 413, founded, on 
 Gallic territory, a first Burgundian kingdom, between Mayence and 
 Strasburg.* The chroniclers of the eighth century, copied by all sub- 
 sequent writers, have selected this epoch (418) for a new invasion of 
 the Salic Franks, under a chief whom they have named Pharamond, 
 and whose existence is most uncertain. Contemporary writers did not 
 allude to him ; and we have seen the Franks established in the north of 
 Gaul in the third century, where they remained almost stationary up to 
 the fall of the Empire. f 
 
 Valentinian III. succeeded Honorius in 424, and reigned in sloth 
 and indolence at Bavenna, to which city the seat of the Western 
 Empire had been transferred. .^Etius, who had been brought up as a 
 hostage in the camp of the Visigoth conqueror, Alaric, commanded the 
 Roman armies. This skilful general, the last whom Borne possessed, had 
 fought with success, and had subjugated several barbarous tribes esta- 
 blished in Gaul, the Franks, Visigoths, and Burgundians. But at this 
 moment other barbarians poured over that country. The Huns, a Scy- 
 thian people, the most cruel and savage of all, left the shores of the 
 Euxine and followed Attila. Their multitude was innumerable. Guided 
 by the instinct of destruction, they said of themselves that they were 
 going whither the wrath of God called them. They entered Gaul, 
 and fired and devastated everything before them as far as Orleans. They 
 threatened Paris, and the Parisians attributed the salvation of their 
 city to the prayers of Sainte Genevieve. Still, the Romans and 
 Visigoths, allied under the command of ^Etius and Theodoric,J com- 
 pelled the Huns to retreat: Alaric fell back into Champagne, and 
 
 * Questions Bourguignonnes, by Roget de Belloquet. This work, -which the Academy 
 of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres has crowned, offers opinions as profound as they are 
 ingenious, about the origin and existence of the Burgundians in Germany and Gaul. 
 The author has added a map of the first kingdom of Burgundy. 
 
 + Concerning the true or supposed existence of Pharamond, and the authenticity of 
 the passage in the Chronicle of Prosperus, the sole record of the fifth century, in which 
 Pharamond is mentioned, consult the learned and judicious dissertation of M. de 
 Persigny, in his Etudes sur VEpoque Merovingienne. 
 
 % This Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, and successor of Tallin, must not be confounded 
 with the great Tkeodoiic, king of the Ostrogoths, who, a few years later, was destined to 
 conquer Italy. 
 
30 INVASIONS OF THE BARBARIANS. [INTRODUCTION 
 
 there, near Chalons- sur-Marne, on the Oatalaunian plains, a fright- 
 ful battle took place in the year 451, which was won by .iEtius, 
 and followed by a most awful carnage, in which it is said that 300,000 
 men perished. Merovseus, chief of the Franks, joined the Romans and 
 Visigoths on this sanguinary day, and contributed greatly to their 
 victory by his exploits. 
 
 Gaul remained the scene of bloodthirsty struggles between the dif- 
 ferent tribes that occupied the country, and each moment of repose 
 was followed by a new and frightful crisis. Majorienus, proclaimed 
 emperor in 457, had chosen, as his lieutenant in Graul and master 
 of the militia, Syagrius JEgidius, who belonged to one of the great 
 families of the country, and was distinguished by the most 
 eminent qualities.. The exalted dignity of master of the militia 
 was the object of the ardent ambition of the barbarian chiefs, esta- 
 blished in the Empire by the title of colonists, letes, or confederates ; 
 and the latter respected the person invested with it as the delegate 
 of the Emperor, whose supremacy they recognized. An example of 
 this was seen in the time of -ZEgidius, in a fact worthy of attention, and 
 which has, for a long time, been misunderstood. Merovaeus, king 
 of the Salic Franks, having died in 458, was succeeded by 
 his son Childeric, who was proclaimed king in spite of his extreme 
 youth, and soon afterwards dethroned and expelled by the people who 
 had raised him on the shield. The Franks, no longer possessing a 
 prince of the royal race, voluntarily subjected themselves to the Grallo- 
 Roman, ^Egidius, master of the militia, and recognized him as their 
 chief. ^Egidius, having been declared an enemy of the Empire by 
 the Roman Senate, the Franks recalled Childeric, placed him again at 
 their head, and helped in the overthrow of ^Egidius. Childeric, at a 
 later date, was himself invested with the dignity of master of the 
 militia, and fought with glory for the Empire, against the barbarians 
 who were rending it asunder. 
 
 The Empire subsisted for a few years longer, a prey to frightful con- 
 vulsions. On one side were effeminate princes, indifferent to the 
 public calamities, succeeding each other on the throne ; chiefs who rose 
 rapidly, and fell as rapidly, by assassination or revolt ; an army, com- 
 posed of a multitude of men of all nations, who recognized no country, 
 
iy.] . DESTBUCTION OF THE WESTBEN EM2IEE. 31' 
 
 whom cupidity alone attached to tlie Empire, and who ravaged it, 
 when more was to be gained by pillage than by mercenary service • and 
 an ignorant and wretched people, who knew not what laws to obey, 
 who were exhausted by the Emperors, plundered by the armies and 
 barbarian hordes, and who would have long ceased to be Romans, had 
 they known to whom they could submit with security. On the other 
 side, were new and ferocious nations, whose independent and haughty 
 temper contrasted with the effeminate character of the Romans ; 
 tribes which, though differing in manners, language, and worship, as 
 well as origin, seemed to have come to an understanding to hurry 
 from the confines of the world, and rush together on the Empire as 
 their prey. 
 
 Between this worn-out society and these new races, the Christian 
 Church rose, acquired strength, and won over a multitude of men, to 
 whom the world only offered suffering, and who eagerly embraced 
 the hope of a happier existence in a better world. The Church received 
 them all into its bosom,, without respect of rank or fortune, giving its 
 dignities to the most learned and the most able. The Church alone 
 was, in the West, the . depository of some learning ; and laboured to 
 produce a new civilization out of the chaos into which Europe threat- 
 ened to fall. Alone it stood erect and constituted, while everything 
 was crumbling away around it ; and when the Roman magistracy 
 disappeared in Gaul, the title of "defender of the city" passed to 
 the bishops, and the ecclesiastical dioceses were everywhere sub- 
 stituted for the imperial dioceses. : 
 
 The Empire terminated its painful agony between the years 475 
 and 480. The last prince elected by the Senate of Rome and the 
 Emperor of Constantinople, and who, by this double title, had been 
 legally recognized as Emperor of the West, was ISTepos, proclaimed Au- 
 gustus at Rome in 474. An officer of barbarian origin, Orestes, formerly 
 secretary to Attila, placed by Nepos at the head of the imperial troops, 
 (Jrove him from the throne, compelled him to fly, and raised in 
 his stead a son of his own by his marriage with a Roman lady of 
 illustrious race. This son, named Romulus, was recognized as 
 Emperor by the. Senate of Rome ; but his election was not confirmed 
 by the Court of Constantinople.: he only received the shadow of 
 
32 INVASIONS OF THE BARBARIANS. [Introduction 
 
 power, and was called in contempt by the sobriquet of Augustulus. 
 He was overthrown a year after bis election by another barbarian 
 officer of the name of Odoacer. 
 
 Gaul, upon the fall of the Empire, was divided between the Visi- 
 goths under Euric, in the south ; the^peoples of Armorica, in the west ; 
 the Germans and Burgundians, in the east ; and the Franks, in the 
 north. The latter, still divided into two nations, the Salic and the 
 Ripuarian, occupied nearly the same territory they had conquered, 
 and the possession of which had been confirmed to them in the two 
 previous centuries. The Ripuarian Franks, who occupied the two 
 banks of the Rhine, extended on the French side of that river as far 
 as the Scheldt. The Salic Franks occupied, between the Scheldt, the 
 German Ocean, and the Somme, a" territory which they had conquered 
 under their King, Clodion, toward the middle of the fifth century. 
 They were divided into three tribes or small kingdoms, the principal 
 cities of which were Tournay (Turnacum), Cambray (Cameracum), 
 and Therouanne (Theruenna). The chiefs or kings of these tribes all 
 belonged to the royal race of Clodion, and his son Merovasus. The 
 tribe of Tournay had acquired the first rank and predominant 
 influence under King Childeric. 
 
 A portion of Gaul, between the Somme and the Loire, had re- 
 mained Roman, and maintained itself, for some time after the fall of 
 the Empire, independent of the barbarians. This rather extensive 
 country was governed at that time by the Roman general Syagrius, 
 son of the celebrated -<3Sgidius, the ex-master of the imperial 
 militia. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons, at this period, having invaded Great Britain, 
 and established themselves in that island, a great number of the 
 old inhabitants emigrated and settled at the extremity of the 
 western point of Armorica, where they were kindly welcomed by 
 the natives, who had a community of language and origin with them. 
 French Brittany derived its name from these expatriated Britons. 
 About the same period, a colony of Saxons, expelled from Ger- 
 many, established themselves in Lower Normandy, in the vicinity of 
 Bayeux ; while another colony of the same people, hostile to the 
 Britons, occupied a part of Main 3 and Anjou. 
 
IV.] DESTRUCTION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 33 
 
 Such was the state of Granl when, in 481, Clotwig, better known 
 by the name of Cloyis,* son of Childeric, and grandson of Merovig 
 or Merovaeus, who gave his name to his dynasty, was elected king or 
 chief of the Salic Franks established at Tonrnay. 
 
 * Among most of the barbarian nations the proper names of men and women nearly 
 always indicate some distinctive quality. Merowig or Merwig, is formed of the two 
 words mer, great, and wig, a warrior. Clohvig is derived from clot, celebrated, and 
 ioig, warrior ; Clothild or Lothild, from lot, celebrated, and Mid, a boy or girl. The 
 barbarian names are generally harsh or difficult of pronunciation, and they have been 
 transformed by use into softer names. Thus, for instance, of Merowig, the French have 
 made Merc vie ; of Clotwig or Chlodowig, Clovis ; of Brunehild, Brunehaut ; of Theo- 
 dorik, Thierry ; of Gundbald, Grondebaud ; of Karle, Charles ; of Leodgher, Leger ; of 
 Rodulf, Raoul ; of Atlrick, Alaric, &c. 
 
FIRST EPOCH. 
 
 KEIGN OP THE MEKOYINGIAN AND CABLOYINGIAN 
 
 DYNASTIES. 
 
 481-986 (five centuries). 
 
 d2 
 
BOOK L 
 
 GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY, 481-752. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE REIGN OP CLOYIS. 
 
 481-511. 
 The success of the Franks in that part of Gaul which had remained 
 subject to the Romans, was partly due to the state of oppression 1 
 into which the Imperial Government had plunged the people, who, 
 crushed by taxation, impatient to break the yoke, and forced to 
 sustain continual struggles, were yet deficient in resolution and vigour 
 to defend themselves. Other causes favoured their rapid progress 
 in the countries occupied by the Visigoths and Burgundians. These 
 hordes, whose invasion of Gaul had been violent and accompanied by 
 great ravages, had been rapidly softened by the influence of a superior 
 civilization: the Goths, more especially, assumed Roman manners, 
 which were those of the civilized inhabitants of Gaul, and sought 
 to acquire the politeness, arts, and laws of the conquered, whose 
 religion, however, they did not adopt. They were attached to the 
 Arian heresy, while the nations they had conquered were maintained 
 in the orthodox, or Catholic, faith by their bishops.- The latter, 
 children of Rome and inheritors of the administrative power of the 
 Roman magistrates, bound to recognize as their pattern and head the 
 bishop of the Eternal City, to regulate their faith by his, and to con- 
 tribute by the unity of religion to the unity of the Empire, still 
 laboured, at the period of the conquest, to retain under the authority 
 
38 THE EEIGN OF CLOVIS. [Book I. CHAP. I. 
 
 of Rome, by the bond of religious faith, countries in which the bond 
 of political obedience was severed. 
 
 The Yisigoths and Burgundians did not recognize the authority of 
 the bishops, who had greater hopes of a nation still pagan and free 
 from prejudices, as the Franks were at that time, than of tribes 
 who, already converted to Christianity, refused to acknowledge their 
 creed or take them as guides. The Goths and Burgundians, besides, 
 at the moment when they were attacked by the Franks, had lost 
 some of their primitive energy, and had made no progress in the 
 military science of the conquered races ; but the Franks, on the 
 contrary, had retained all the savage vigour of the inhabitants of 
 Germany, and nothing had softened their natural ferocity, or their 
 spirit of independence. When they were conquered, fresh migrations 
 of Germanic tribes incessantly arrived to repair their losses ; when 
 they were conquerors, they had all the superiority which is produced 
 by the boldness of success and the thirst of pillage, peculiar to warlike 
 tribes that have nothing to lose and everything to gain. 
 
 Clovis, elected chief of the Franks, soon seconded the wish of 
 the bishops of Gaul by espousing Glotilda, daughter of Childeric, 
 king of the Burgundians, the only woman of the Germanic race who 
 at that period belonged to the Catholic communion. 
 
 The first enemy he attacked was Syagrius, the Boman general 
 and governor of that part of Gaul still independent of the barbarians, 
 whose capital was Soissons : Syagrius was vanquished, and the 
 Franks extended their limits up to the Seine. Clovis next marched 
 against the hordes of Allemanni, who were invading Gaul to wrest 
 their conquests from the Franks, and fought an aetion at Tolbiac. 
 Defeated in . the early part of the day, he promised to adore the 
 God of Clotilda if he gained the victory: he triumphed, and kept 
 his vow. He was baptized by St. Bemi, bishop of the city of that 
 name. "Sicambrian, bow thy head!" the prelate said to him; " burn 
 what thou hast adored, and adore what thou hast burned." Three 
 thousand Frank warriors imitated their chief, and were baptized 
 on the same day: it was thus that the Boman Church gained access 
 to the barbarians. Clovis at once sent presents to Borne, as a symbol 
 of tribute, to the successor of the blessed Apostle Peter, and. from 
 this moment his conquests extended over Gaul without bloodshed. 
 
481-511] THU EEIGN VF 3L0VIS. 39 
 
 All the cities in the north-west as far as the Loire, find the territory 
 of the Breton emigres, opened their gates to his soldiers. The bishops 
 of the country of the Burgundians soon sent a deputation to the 
 conqueror, supplicating him to deliver them from the rule of the 
 Arian barbarians ; and Clovis, on their solicitation, declared war 
 against the Burgundian King Gondebaud, the murderer of Clotilda's 
 father, and made him his tributary. Gondebaud, when conquered, 
 promised to become a convert to Catholicism ; and most of the towns 
 on the banks of the Rhine and the Saone were united under the 
 authority of the Church of Rome. 
 
 Six years later, Clovis meditated fresh conquests, and turned 
 his attention to the fair southern provinces occupied by the Visigoths* 
 He assembled his warriors on the Field of Mars, and said -to them, 
 " I am grieved at the thought that these Arians possess a part of 
 Gaul : let us go, with God's help, and, after conquering them, possess 
 their territory."* War was at once decided on. Clovis obtained 
 for this expedition the consent of the Eastern -Emperor Athanasius, 
 and was supported by the Burgundian King Gondebaud. He nego- 
 tiated with the Catholic bishops of the provinces occupied by the Visi- 
 goths, kept his troops under strict discipline, and offered himself to 
 the Catholic population of the country as a liberator and avenger. 
 Then, marching southward, he terrified Alaric II. by the rapidity 
 of his progress. This prince called to his aid his father-in-law, 
 the great Theodoric, King of the Yisigoths, who at that time was 
 governing Italy with glory ;f and not daring, before the junction 
 of their armies, to engage in a decisive action with the Franks, 
 retreated before them. Clovis, however, -hurrying on, came up with 
 Alaric's army near Youille, three leagues to the south of Poitiers, and 
 
 * Gregory of Tours {Historic*, Francorum, I. 2). This work, which contains the 
 annals of Gaul from the year 417 to 591, is one of the most interesting memorials of 
 the national history. It is written in Latin, like all the ecclesiastic MSS. of that period. 
 
 + Theodoric had entered into an engagement with the Emperor Zeno to penetrate into 
 Italy, wrest that country from Odoacer, and govern it in the name of the Emperor of 
 the East. He therefore set out with his people, and, in 489, met the army of Odoacer 
 on the banks of the Isonzo. He conquered it, and invaded Lombardy, where Odoacer, 
 after a few successes, followed by numerous reverses, perished by assassination. Theo- 
 doric from that time governed Italy wisely, and tried to re-establish there Roman law 
 and civilization. 
 
40 THE REIGN OF CLOYIS. [Book I. Chap. L 
 
 attacked it. Alaric lost his life in the engagement ; the Franks were 
 victorious ; and, before long, the greater portion of the country occupied 
 by the Visigoths, as far as the sources of the Garonne, obeyed Clovis* 
 Carcassonne checked his victorious army. A portion of his forces, 
 under the command of his elder son, Thierry, marched into Arvernia 
 (Auvergne), in concert with the army of the King of the Burgundians ; 
 and the combined armies subjugated the whole country as far as Aries, 
 the capital of the Yisigothic Empire, to which they laid siege. In 
 the meanwhile, the Ostrogoths of the great Theodoric were approach- 
 ing, and the Franks and Burgundians, retiring before them, raised the 
 siege of Aries and Carcassonne. Peace was finally concluded, after a 
 battle gained by the Ostrogoths. - A treaty insured the possession of 
 Aquitaine and ISTovempopulania (Gascony) to Clovis ; Theodoric, 
 as the price of his services, claimed the province of Aries up to the 
 Durance; the Burgundians kept the cities to the north of that 
 city, with the exception of Avignon ; and the monarchy of the 
 Visigoths was reduced to Spain and Septimania, of which Narbonne 
 was the capital, having, as its nominal head, a child of the name of 
 Amalaric, son of that Alaric II. who was killed at Vouille, and 
 grandson and ward of Theodoric. The latter remained, in reality, 
 and up to his death, the absolute sovereign of the two great divisions 
 of the Gothic Empire on either side of the Alps. 
 
 The Franks, thus checked in the south by the Ostrogoths, marched 
 westward, and arrived at the country of the Armoricans, whose great 
 towns submitted, and consented to pay tribute : the Breton emigres 
 alone defended the nook of land in which they had taken refuge, and 
 managed to retain their independence. 
 
 The campaign in Aquitaine added greatly to the military renown and 
 power of Clovis, who received, at this period, the consular insignia from 
 the Emperor Athanasius, then reigning at Constantinople, and who 
 had approved his expedition against the Goths. Clovis proceeded to 
 Tours in the year 510, in order to inaugurate his consulate in the 
 most venerated sanctuary of Catholic Gaul, in the presence of the 
 tomb of St. Martin. He made his solemn entry into the city on 
 horseback, with a diadem on his head, attired in the chlamys, and 
 scattering gold pieces among the mob : he proceeded in this way from 
 
481-511] THE REIGN OF CLOYIS. 41 
 
 the basilica of St.. Martin to the cathedral, to thank Heaven for his 
 victories ; and from this day he was called Consnl and Augustus. 
 
 Clovis, upon this occasion, made considerable donations to the 
 churches of his states, both in money, derived from the immense 
 possessions of the treasury, and lands taken from the imperial 
 domains, which the barbarian kings seized in all the conquered pro- 
 vinces. The basilica of St. Martin obtained the greater share of his 
 liberality, and he even gave to it his war- charger. 
 
 On his return from his warlike expedition into Aquitaine, Clovis 
 fixed his residence at Paris, in the ancient Palace of the Thermae, 
 formerly occupied by the Caesars. His attention was then turned to 
 the north of Gaul, which was occupied by tribes of his own race, and 
 divided between the puissant kingdom of the Ripeware or Ripuarian 
 Franks, which extended along the two banks of the Rhine, and the 
 kingdom of the Salic, or Salian Franks, who were enclosed between the 
 Scheldt, the Somme, and the sea. Clovis held beneath his authority 
 two-thirds of Gaul; but was still unrecognized by the tribes of his 
 own nation, with the exception of the Salic tribe of Tournay, at the 
 head of which he had gained all his victories. Tournay, where he had 
 alone succeeded in propagating Christianity, had become an episcopal 
 see. The Salic Franks of the two other kingdoms, Cambray and 
 Therouanne, and the Ripuarian Franks, had remained attached to 
 paganism. 
 
 Clovis resolved to subjugate them all. Religion had neither repressed 
 his ambition, nor softened his ferocity ; and he employed cunning and 
 violence to attain success. He had had as his companion in his last 
 exploits, Chloderic, son of his ally, Sigebert, King of the Ripuarians ; 
 and he inflamed the ambition of the young prince by language as flat- 
 tering as it was perfidious. Chloderic, urged to parricide, went to join his 
 father, who was hunting at the time on the right bank of the Rhine, 
 and, surprising him in the wilds of Germany, assassinated him there ; 
 after which he hastened to Cologne, seized the treasury, and had him- 
 self proclaimed king. Clovis, constituting himself avenger > of the 
 murder he had provoked, procured the assassination of Chloderic ; and 
 then, setting out with his army, seized Verdun, and penetrated into 
 Cologne. Taking advantage of the stupor into which the loss of their 
 
42 THE KEIGN OF CLOVIS'. [Book I. Chap/I. 
 
 chiefs, and his sudden march, had plunged the Ripuarians, he affected 
 to be horrified by the crime, and solemnly declared that he was inno- 
 cent of the blood of Sigebert and Chloderic, whose deaths, he said, 
 would expose the Ripuarians to great evils, unless they accepted his 
 protection, and placed themselves under his laws. His words, backed 
 by the presence of a victorious army, were listened to ; and the 
 Ripuarians raised Clovis on the buckler, and proclaimed him their 
 king. He then marched against the Salic tribes of Courtray and 
 Therouanne, whose chiefs, Cararic and Raghenaher, had maintained 
 their independence, and subjugated them, rather by the aid of treachery 
 than by the force of arms. Cararic and his son were surrendered to 
 him without a blow ; Raghenaher, deserted on the battle-field, was 
 thrown into fetters by his own soldiers, and his brother Ricaire shared 
 his fate. Both chiefs were brought before the ferocious conqueror. 
 " Unhappy man ! " said Clovis to Raghenaher, " dost thou thus dis- 
 honour our blood ? a Salian allow himself to be chained ! was it not 
 better to die ? " And, so saying, with one blow of his axe he cut off 
 his head. Then, turning to Ricaire, Clovis said, " Why didst thou not 
 defend thy brother better ? he would not have endured this shame ;" 
 and, raising his blood-stained axe, laid him also dead at his feet. At 
 the first, he did not prove so terrible in his treatment of Cararic and 
 his son. They promised to enter the Church, and he contented him- 
 self with cutting off their hair as a sign of degradation. Cararic, 
 however, unfortunately uttered the imprudent words, " Of what use is 
 it to cut off the foliage of a green tree ? it will grow again." These 
 words, revealing a threat, the significance of which Clovis was not 
 slow to comprehend, were a decree of death to father and son : both 
 of them were massacred, as well as another son of Cararic, named 
 Rignomer, who had taken refuge in the city of Mans. 
 
 After all these murders, the barbarous king exclaimed, " "Wretched 
 man that I am ! I have no relations left ; all have revolted against me, 
 and all have perished. Is there not any member of my family still in 
 •existence to console me in my old days ? " This lamentation, the chro- 
 niclers say, was only an artifice employed by Clovis in order to assure 
 himself that no scion of his race was left whom he might fear and put 
 out of the way. But this pitiless desire was already fulfilled, and of 
 
•481-511] 'THE EEIGN OF CLOTIS. 4B 
 
 all the descendants of Clodion and Merovig, Clovis henceforth remained 
 alone with his children. 
 
 If the chroniclers have told the truth in attributing Clovis' lamenta- 
 tions to interested calculation, which they do not condemn, we may be 
 also permitted to believe that remorse had something to do with them. 
 The Church, doubtless, was most indulgent to Clovis, for it was greatly 
 indebted to him ; and a portion of the clergy applauded the extermination 
 of princes of the royal blood who were still attached to Paganism.* 
 Still, such sanguinary deeds struck the people with horror, and the 
 public cry found an echo in the consciences of a few holy priests, 
 and in that of the culprit. Shortly after the murder of Raghenaher 
 and Cararic, Clovis went to Tournay, where the Bishop St. Eleutherus 
 resided, and proceeded to the church to pray. The bishop, who awaited 
 him on the threshold, said, " King, I know why thou comest to 
 me !" and when Clovis protested that he had nothing to say to the 
 bishop, St. Eleutherus replied, " Speak not so : thou hast sinned and 
 darest not confess it ! " At these words the monarch, deeply affected, 
 confessed that he felt himself guilty, shed tears, and begged the pious 
 prelate to implore from Heaven the pardon of his crimes. 
 
 Everything in the history of Clovis shows that his religious actions 
 were inspired as much by the ardour of a sincere faith as by policy ; 
 and that he carried out his mission as chief and representative of the 
 Catholic party in Gaul, because he was himself attached to the 
 Church of Rome. He constantly mixed up religious undertakings 
 with his warlike expeditions. In the later part of his life he went 
 to Orleans, where he had convened a general council of the bishops 
 of the provinces over which his authority extended. Those of the 
 provinces recently conquered from the Visigoths were present, and 
 one of them, the Bishop of Bordeaux, presided over the council, 
 which cemented an intimate union by mutual concessions between 
 the Catholic clergy and the King of France. Clovis confirmed the 
 gift of immense domains to the Church, which he established on the 
 solid basis of freehold property ; he respected the right of asylum in 
 holy places ; he recognized the privilege of the clergy to be only 
 
 * Prosternebat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub xnanu ipsius et augebat regnum 
 «jus, eo quod ambulabat recto corde coram eo et faciebat quae placita erant in oculis 
 «jus. — [Greg. Tur. Hist., Lib. II.) 
 
44 THE REIGN" OP CLOVIS. [Book I. Chap. I. 
 
 tried by their ecclesiastical superiors, and liberated their property 
 from any seizure by the fiscal authorities. In return for such great 
 concessions, the council decided that no freeman should receive holy 
 orders without the King's permission, and no serf without his 
 master's knowledge. The King limited the right of asylum, pro- 
 hibited the bishops from excommunicating persons who might plead 
 against them, and, lastly, the assembly submitted all its decisions 
 to the monarch's approval. "We have answered," the bishops said, 
 " the questions on which you have consulted us, and the articles pre- 
 sented to us by you, in order that, if your judgment approve of what 
 we have decided, the decrees passed by so venerable an assembly may 
 be strengthened for the future by the assent of so great a king." * The 
 council completed its labours by drawing up canons which regulated 
 the administration and division of the property and revenues of the 
 Church, and settled the share of the inferior clergy, schools, the poor, 
 and the infirm. 
 
 After the closing of the Council of Orleans, Clovis, on returning to 
 Paris, busied himself with the propagation of Christianity among the 
 Frank tribes which he had recently subjected in Northern Gaul ; and it 
 is supposed that the same period should be assigned to the Latin 
 edition which he issued of the Salic law, or, more correctly, of the 
 customs of the Salian Franks, while modifying them so as to render 
 them more in harmony with the new situation which he had made for 
 his people in Gaul. 
 
 The work of Clovis was now accomplished, and in the course of 
 the same year (511) he died at Paris, after bestowing fresh largesses on 
 the clergy, and dividing his states between his four sons, Thierry, 
 Clodomir, Childebert, and Clothair, who were all recognized as kings. 
 
 In order to form a just estimate of the character of this king we 
 must carry back our thoughts to the age in which he lived. We are 
 bound to remember that there were two men in Clovis — the barbarian 
 chief and the Christian neophyte ; and if, on one hand, we are sur- 
 prised to find in some of his actions so many vestiges of barbarity, 
 we are, on the other, astonished at what he did to elevate his people 
 and himself to a higher stage of belief and civilization. An imposing 
 and terrible grandeur marked his exploits as well as his misdeeds, 
 * Concil. Auril., Epist. ad Chlodoveum regem. 
 
481-511] THE EEIGN OF CEOVIS. 45 
 
 He joined to the lively intellect that conceives, the strong and active 
 will that executes ; and God, who allowed him to combine the talents 
 of the warrior with those of the politician, set upon him, at an early- 
 age, the seal of the conqueror. He was the instrument employed by 
 Providence to lead the powerful nation of the Franks to Christianity, 
 and to effect the fusion of the barbarous nations with the civilized 
 peoples of the Roman world, — a fusion which could alone be effected 
 by means of religion, and which was not complete until the con- 
 quering people had adopted the faith of the conquered. The popula- 
 tion of Gaul being subjected to the Church of Rome, Clovis, the 
 disciple of the same Church, was, on that account, better able to 
 subjugate it than were the Arian kings of the Burgundians and Visi- 
 goths, who had separated from the Church. He understood his 
 situation and the part he was called on to play. It was, above all, as 
 chief of the religious party and defender of the national faith that he 
 offered himself to the native tribes and Catholic clergy of Graul : he 
 restored the shaken authority of the Church from the shores of the 
 German Ocean to the Pyrenees, and from the shores of the Atlantic 
 to the forests of Germany. Rome, grateful to Clovis, decreed him 
 the glorious title of " Elder Son of the Church," and he transmitted 
 it to all his successors. 
 
46 CUSTOMS OF. THE FRANKS. [Book I. Chap. M 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CLOVIS TO THAT OF DAGOBERT I. 
 
 511-638. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE CUSTOMS OF THE FRANKS. — STATE OF GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIANS. 
 
 Before continuing the history, of the Franks under the race of 
 Clovis, it will be advisable to take a glance at their religion, laws, and 
 customs, and to explain the relations of the conquerors to the 
 conquered. 
 
 Royalty among the Franks was at once elective and hereditary: 
 the title of king, in the German language,* merely signified chief, and 
 was decreed by election. On the death of a king, the Franks assem- 
 bled for the purpose of choosing his successor : and we have seen 
 that they chose him from one family, that of Merovig, and that, when 
 they had nominated him, they consecrated him by raising him on a 
 buckler, amid noisy shouts. The chief mission of the ruler they gave 
 themselves was to lead them against the foe, and to pillage : he re- 
 ceived the largest share of the booty, frequently consisting of towns 
 with their territory, which constituted the royal domain, and the 
 treasure with which the king recompensed his antrustions or leudes, 
 the name given to the comrades in arms of the prince, who devoted 
 themselves to his fortunes and swore fidelity to him. These leudes 
 formed a separate class, from which the majority of the officers and 
 magistrates was selected. The following anecdote will instruct us as 
 to what were the limits and extent of the royal power. After the 
 battle of Soissons, Clovis wished to withdraw from the division of 
 the booty a precious vase, claimed by St. Remi. All his warriors 
 consented, except one, who, breaking the vessel with a blow of his 
 
 * Konig, a king, derived from the verb konnen, to be able, or powerful. This word 
 still exists among the Scotch, in the modified form of " canny," while we have perverted 
 it into " cunning." — L. W. 
 
51^-638] CUSTOMS OF THE FRANKS. 4£. 
 
 axe, said, brutally, to the King*, "Thou shalt only have, like the rest,, 
 what chance gives thee!" Clovis concealed his passion; but the 
 following year, while reviewing his troops, he stopped before this 
 soldier, and tore from him his weapon, which, he said, was in a bad 
 condition. " Remember the vase of Soissons !" said the King, and 
 cleft his skull with a blow of the battle-axe. 
 
 When a king died, his sons inherited his domain; and being richer 
 than their companions in arms, were in a better position than other 
 persons to secure suffrages. It was thus that the supreme authority 
 was handed down from father to son in the race of Clovis, at first 
 by election, and then by usage, which in time became law. 
 
 The sons of Clovis, having all been recognized as kings, each took 
 up his abode in the chief city of his dominions, so that there were 
 from this time four capitals, Paris, Orleans, Soissons, and Reims.* All . 
 these capitals, residences of kings, were chosen to the north of the 
 Loire, in a rather limited space, because the countries in which they 
 were situated were alone considered the land of the Franks. The 
 provinces to the south of the Loire were still filled with reminiscences 
 of the Romans. The great cities, far richer and more populous than 
 those of the north, and brilliant with the relics of imperial grandeur, 
 struck the barbarous Franks with a stupid astonishment. They found 
 themselves uncomfortable amid the ruins of the civilized world, and 
 hence they only sojourned there with repugnance. They left their 
 administration to the municipal bodies and the bishops, and contented 
 themselves with occupying the country by bodies of troops, which kept 
 it in obedience by the terror which they everywhere inspired. The 
 Church was, at that time, the sole power that contended against 
 barbarism, and the only curb on the ferocious passions of the con- 
 querors ; who, prior to Clovis, had no other faith but that of the 
 Scandinavian Odin, and had only learned to expect in another life the 
 thoroughly sensual joys of the Walhalla, a palace which they believed 
 to exist in the clouds, and where, blending festivity with combats, 
 they promised themselves, as the supreme felicity after death, to quaff, 
 beer or hydromel out of the skulls of their enemies. When, following . 
 the example of Clovis, they were converted in a mass to Christianity, ; 
 without being instructed in it, the majority of them remained igno-.- 
 * Metz was soon after selected as the capital in the place of the last-named city. 
 
48 . CUSTOMS OP THE FEANKS. [Book I. CiiAP. II.,: 
 
 rant of that which, was sublime and spiritual in the religion they 
 had embraced. Coarse and rude, they required an external faith, 
 which terrified them by carnal menaces, and captivated them by the 
 majesty of its spectacles ; and therefore we can easily conceive that 
 Catholicism triumphed over the rival creeds. In fact, the images of 
 saints, the relics of martyrs, the renown of the miracles which were 
 said to be effected by them, and the pomp of the ceremonies, struck 
 the imagination of the barbarians with astonishment and respect. 
 The civil power of the bishops ; the external and visible hierarchy of 
 the clergy, whose head was at Rome, in the Eternal City ; and, above 
 all, the great name of Rome, respected even by her conquerors, 
 gave the Catholic clergy a power over this untameable population, far 
 greater than, the priests of any " other Christian Church could have 
 obtained. The clergy, besides, were distinguished at this time by 
 great virtues, and made energetic efforts to combat the unbridled 
 passions of the people and the kings. The barbarism was, however, 
 still so great that men treated God as they would have liked them- 
 selves to be treated, hoping to disarm His justice and turn away His 
 wrath by giving Him gold, jewels, horses, and estates, with which 
 they enriched the Church, and enabled the clergy to maintain their 
 necessary ascendancy over the converted conquerors. 
 
 At the moment when the Franks invaded Gaul, there were numerous 
 monasteries in that country, the most ancient of which was Mar- 
 moutiers, near Tours, founded by St. Martin, who introduced cenobitic 
 life into Gaul. The following ages witnessed the foundation of a 
 great number of other pious establishments, among the most useful of 
 which we may distinguish those of the illustrious order of the Bene- 
 dictines, founded in Italy in the sixth century by St. Benedict, and 
 which soon spread its numerous ramifications over the whole of Europe. 
 The adepts of this order were subjected to the three vows of chastity, 
 poverty, and obedience ; and St. Benedict had also prescribed for 
 them prayer, study, manual labour, and the instruction of youth. ISTo 
 religious order contributed more than this one to the progress of letters 
 and the sciences. It was necessary, amid the perpetual scenes of fighting, 
 pillage, and crime, that the unhappy should find somewhere an asylum 
 against violence ; and when the soil was bristling with armed men, 
 whose only thought was to destroy each other, it was important that 
 
511-638] CUSTOMS OP THE FRANKS. 49 
 
 large associations, animated by a pious and intelligent zeal, should 
 devote themselves to the fatiguing task of draining marshes, clearing 
 land, collecting the information contained in the scattered manu- 
 scripts which had escaped so many devastations, and in opening 
 schools, and handing down to posterity the knowledge of contem- 
 porary facts. Such was the laudable occupation of the first in- 
 habitants of monasteries, and it was thus that they deserved the 
 respect and gratitude of the nations. 
 
 The authority of the kings was purely military, and the legislative 
 power belonged to the entire nation of the Franks, who assembled 
 under arms in the month of March or May, whence these malls, or 
 national comitia, have been entitled " the assemblies of the field of 
 March" and "the field of May." They took place regularly every year 
 in the early period of the conquest ; but when the Franks, after becom- 
 ing landowners, were rapidly scattered over the soil of Gaul, they 
 neglected to assemble, the kings ceased to convoke them regularly, 
 and the legislative power passed into the hands of the monarchs, their 
 officers, and the bishops. Each city was administered by its own 
 municipality, under the direction of the bishop, who was elected by 
 the people and the clergy of his diocese. 
 
 Justice emanated from the people. All the freemen in each district, 
 designated by the name of armans or rachimbourgs, had the right of 
 being present at the courts, where they performed the duties of 
 judges, under the presidency of the royal officers, men, counts, or cen- 
 turions. No subordination existed between the several courts, and no 
 appeal was admitted. Each of the tribes that occupied the soil of 
 Gaul retained its own laws. The Gallo- Romans continued to be 
 governed, in their civil relations, by the Theodosian code ; * the Salian 
 and Ripuarian Franks and the Burgundians each had a special code. 
 
 The law which the Salic Franks obeyed, and which obtained from 
 them the name of the Salic law, was not drawn up till after- 
 the conquest ; but it was based on maxims long anterior to the 
 invasion of Gaul by the Franks. This law, moreover, ' established 
 offensive distinctions between the races of the Franks and Gallo- 
 Romans. The reparation for the heaviest crimes was estimated in 
 
 * This was the name given to the collection of Roman laws dra,vn up by order of the 
 Emperor Theodoric II., and promulgated in 433. This was the first official code. 
 
 E 
 
50 CUSTOMS OF THE FRANKS. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 money ; and, by consenting to pay a certain snm, any man could with 
 impunity commit robbery, murder, or arson. In this species of com- 
 position the law always valued the life of a Frank at double that of a 
 Roman. Churchmen, however, were respected, and enjoyed several 
 privileges. Under the sons of Clovis, the penal laws became more 
 severe, and the penalty of death was substituted in certain cases for 
 fines. The law of the Ripuarian Franks, promulgated by Thierry I., 
 established compensation for offences on principles similar to those of 
 the Salic law. The law of the Burgundians, called the lot Gombette, 
 after Grondebaud, its first author, was more favourable to the old 
 inhabitants than the laws of the Salic and Ripuarian Franks ; 
 and, resembling in this point the law of the Visigoths, it established 
 no distinction between the Romans and the conquerors, for crimes 
 committed on the person. 
 
 All the laws of the barbarians prove that these nations had an 
 "unbounded faith in the immediate and constant intervention of the 
 Divinity in human interests. Some established as judicial proof the 
 oath of the friends and relatives of the accused person or the debtor ; 
 others the issue of a duel between the parties ; while others, again, 
 prescribed the ordeal of fire and water. The accused was obliged to 
 seize a red-hot iron bar, or plunge his hand into boiling water : his 
 arm was then carefully wrapped up, and, at the expiration of a certain 
 number of days, if the burn left traces the unhappy man was punished 
 as guilty ; but, if no traces were left, his innocence was proclaimed. 
 They believed that the judgment of Grod Himself was thus obtained, 
 just as it was by the duel. 
 
 In Graul, after the conquest, a distinction was made between the 
 freemen (possessors of independent estates or owners of benefices) 
 the colonists, and the slaves or serfs. The first among the freemen, 
 whether Franks or Grallo-Romans, were the leudes, or companions of 
 the kings, and possessors of the royal favour ; after the freemen, or 
 owners of the soil, came the colonists, who cultivated it in considera- 
 tion of rent or tribute ; and, lastly, the serfs, some of whom were 
 attached to the person of the master, and others to the soil, with 
 which they were sold and handed over like cattle. 
 
 The clergy, as we have seen, formed a separate and very powerful 
 class. All the public offices which, to be properly filled, required 
 
511-638] GAUL UNDER THE SONS OP CLOVIS. 51 
 
 learning and knowledge, were given to the clerks or chnrchmen, owing 
 to their superior instruction ; and in this way they found means to 
 increase the wealth which they derived from the liberality and piety 
 of the faithful. 
 
 The territorial estates were divided, among the barbarians, into two 
 chief classes, allodia, and benefices, or fiefs. The allodia were estates 
 free from any charge, and belonging entirely either to the conquerors 
 or the conquered among the Franks : by virtue of the Salic law, they 
 could not be inherited by females. The benefices were lands which 
 the kings detached from the royal domain in order to reward their 
 leudes. The possession of benefices entailed the obligation of 
 military service ; and, being only held for life, they could be recalled. 
 The offices of dukes and counts, possessed by the first lords, were not 
 transmissible by right of inheritance to their children. But, after a 
 time, the bravest warriors, enriched by the royal favour, formed a 
 dangerous aristocracy : they became more powerful in proportion as 
 the royal authority grew weaker, and, their claims having increased 
 with their power, they rendered their domains and titles hereditary in 
 their families. This usurpation on the part of the nobles was one of 
 the principal causes of the downfall of the Merovingian dynasty. 
 
 II. 
 
 GAUL UNDER THE SONS OF CLOVIS. 
 
 Fratricidal wars and frightful crimes marked the reign of the 
 descendants of Clovis. The sons of that prince divided his states 
 among them with barbarous ignorance, and this clumsy division was 
 the source of sanguinary quarrels. 
 
 Thierry resided at Metz, the capital of Eastern France ; Clothair at 
 Soissons ; Childebert at Paris ; and Clodomir at Orleans. The last 
 three also shared among them the lands and cities conquered in Aqui- 
 taine. At this period a great number of German tribes formed an 
 alliance with the Franks, whose confederation extended to the Elbe. 
 The Frisons, Saxons, and Bavarians were included in this league ; the 
 Thuringians, allied with the Varnians and Herules, had spread along 
 the banks of the Elbe and the Neckar, where they had formed a 
 new monarchy. Sullied with fearful atrocities, they resisted the 
 
 e 2 
 
52 GAUL UNDER THE SONS OF CLOVIS. [Book I. Chap. II 
 
 Franks, who marched against them under Thierry and Clothair, and 
 defeated them in two battles, assassinated the Thuringian princes, 
 put a part of the nation to the sword, and attached Thuringia to the 
 monarchy of the Franks. 
 
 Sigismund, son of Gondebaud, who assassinated Chilperic, the 
 father of Qneen Clotilda, was reigning at this time in Burgundy. 
 Forty years had elapsed since the murder, but the widow of Clovis 
 swore to take vengeance for it, although the murderer was no 
 longer in existence. She resolved to make the son expiate the 
 father's crime ; and, collecting her sons together, she made them 
 promise to avenge the death of Chilperic, their grandfather. Clodomir 
 and Clothair at once entered Burgundy, gained a battle, made King 
 Sigismund a prisoner, and threw him down a well with his wife and 
 children. Gondemar, brother of the conquered king, became his 
 avenger. He defeated Clodomir's army at Yeseronce, on the banks 
 of the Rhone, killed Clodomir, expelled the Franks, and was recognized 
 as king by the Burgundians, over whom he reigned till the year 532. 
 Clothair arid his brother Childebert then attacked him, conquered him, 
 and took possession of the kingdom. 
 
 These two princes sullied their character by a frightful crime after 
 the death of their brother Clodomir, King of Orleans, who had left three 
 children of tender age, who were being brought up by their grandmother 
 Clotilda. Clothair and Childebert coveted the inheritance of their 
 nephews; and, in order to get them into their power, promised to have 
 them crowned. The children went in high glee to join their uncles, 
 followed by their servants and tutors ; but all at once, they were sepa- 
 rated from them, and the servants were thrown into dungeons. Clo- 
 thair and Childebert then sent to Clotilda, their mother, a pair of 
 scissors and a dagger — directing her to choose between a monastery 
 and death for her grandchildren. " Sooner death !" replied the heart- 
 broken woman. The kings, on receiving this answer, proceeded 
 straight to their nephews. Clothair murdered two of them with his 
 own hands, and their servants were also massacred. The third son 
 of Clodomir, of the name of Clodoald, escaped from the fury of his 
 uncles, became a monk, and founded the monastery of St. Clodoald 
 (Saint Cloud). 
 
 Thierry I., the eldest of the sons of Clovis, died in 534, after 
 
511-638] GAUL UNDEE THE SONS OP CLOVIS. 53 
 
 ravaging Auvergne, which had tried to shake off his yoke. His son, 
 Theodebert, succeeded him. 
 
 The empire of the Goths was at this period beginning to decline. 
 The great Theodoric was no longer alive. This prince had governed 
 Italy, Spain, and Southern Gaul : he had reconquered from the Franks 
 a large portion of the provinces taken from the Visigoths after the 
 battle of Vouille, and had striven to re-establish in his states the laws, 
 customs, and manners of the Roman Empire ; but he had no son to 
 whom to hand down his immense kingdom. He had only two 
 daughters, Amalasontha and Theodegotha, and by them two grand- 
 sons, Athalaric and Amalaric, between whom he divided his empire. 
 Athalaric had the kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy, with the pro- 
 vinces of G-aul up to the Rhone and the Durance. Amalaric, the son of 
 Alaric II., and Theodegotha, reigned over the Visigoths in Spain and 
 Gaul, from the base of the Pyrenees as far as the Lot and the Rhone. 
 This prince resided at Karbonne, and espoused Clotilda, daughter of 
 Clovis. Clotilda was a Catholic among an Arian people. Outraged 
 by the populace, she was treated still more cruelly by her husband. 
 Her blood flowed : she staunched it with a veil, and a faithful servant 
 conveyed to the Frank kings this blood-stained veil as an appeal to 
 their vengeance. Inflamed with fury at the sight, Childebert set out, 
 and led an army of Franks to the frontier of Septimania,* where he- 
 defeated the Visigoths. Amalaric fled in terror to Barcelona, and 
 perished there by assassination. Childebert gave up Narbonne to 
 pillage, and then returned to Paris, loaded with the spoils of the 
 rich province; but as he neglected to secure the possession, it reverted 
 to the Visigoths eventually. The Franks, a few years later, crossed 
 the Alps, and advanced into Spain, as far as Saragossa. This fortress 
 arrested them, and they recrossed the mountains, without obtaining 
 any serious or durable result from the expedition. 
 
 The race of Theodoric ceased, at about the same period, to reign in. 
 Italy, where his grandson Athalaric died young. The Ostrogoths, after 
 his death, and that of his successor, Theodatus, the second husband of 
 his mother, Amalasontha, selected as their ruler Vitiges, the most 
 skilful of their generals. They were at that time engaged in a war 
 
 * The name of Septimania was beginning to prevail over that of Narbonensis Prima, 
 given by the Romans to the country which was afterwards called Languedoc. 
 
54 GAUL UNDER THE SONS OF CLOYIS. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 ■with. Justinian, the Emperor of the East, who asked the support of 
 the Frank king, Theodebert I., son of Thierry I., against the Ostro- 
 goths. Theodebert, equally appealed to by the latter to help them 
 against Justinian, passed the Alps at the head of a numerous army, 
 and received gold from both sides : then, breaking his engagements, 
 he made a frightful carnage of. both armies, ravaged Lombardy with, 
 fire and sword, burned Genoa and Pavia, and extorted Provence from 
 the Ostrogoths ; whose empire, already tottering, finally succumbed 
 beneath the attacks of Belisarius and ISTarses, the illustrious generals 
 of Justinian. 
 
 Theodebert was meditating an invasion of the Empire of the East, 
 when he died in 548, leaving the throne to his son Theodobald, who 
 only reigned seven years. On the death of the latter, Clothair, his 
 great-uncle, seized his kingdom : his other grand-uncle, Childebert, 
 jealous of this usurpation, set up against Olothair his son Ohrammus, 
 and at first supported him with his army, but himself soon fell ill at 
 Paris and died. Clothair inherited his kingdom, pursued his own 
 rebellious son, and had him burned alive, with his wife and daughters. 
 He had now succeeded his three elder brothers, and held under his 
 sway the whole of Roman Gaul, in which were comprised Savoy, 
 Switzerland, the Rhenish provinces, and Belgium. Septimania alone 
 remained to the Visigoths : Clothair's authority extended beyond the 
 Rhine, over the Duchies of Germany, Thuringia, and Bavaria, and the 
 countries of the Saxons and Prisons. He made no use of this colossal 
 power, and the only memorial that remained of the two years during 
 which he governed the monarchy of Prance alone, was the murder of 
 his son. Clothair was taken ill a year after this horrible execution, 
 and, amazed at the approach of death, exclaimed, " Who is this King 
 of Heaven who thus kills the great kings of the earth ? " 
 
 This princely murderer of his family had among his wives a 
 princess of the name of Radegonde, daughter of the last King of 
 Thuringia, who, owing to her rare education and holy and noble life, 
 presents, on the throne, a remarkable contrast to the barbarous 
 manners and almost general ignorance of her age. Having volun- 
 tarily left the royal residence for a cloister, she founded near Poitiers 
 the celebrated convent of Saint Croix, where she divided her leisure 
 between the cultivation of letters and the duties of piety and un- 
 
511-638] GAUL UNDER THE GRANDSONS OF CLOTHAIR I. 55 
 
 bounded charity. She died there in 589, and her tomb may still be 
 seen.* 
 
 III. 
 
 GAUL UNDER THE GRANDSONS OF CLOTHAIR I. — RIVALRY OF FREDEGONDE 
 AND BRUNHILDA. — EPISODE OF GONDEYALD. 
 
 Clothair I. left four sons — Caribert, Gontran, Chilperic, and Sigebert 
 — who divided his states among them. Caribert lived but a short 
 while, and left no male child : from his death dates a fresh division 
 between the three surviving brothers, which it is important to under- 
 stand thoroughly. The vast country situated between the Rhine and 
 the Loire was divided in two, as if a diagonal line were drawn from 
 north to south, from the mouths of the Scheldt to the environs of 
 Langres, near the sources of the Saone : the part situated to the west 
 of this line was named Neustria (Neuster : west) — and the other part, 
 to the east, was named Austrasia (Ostro : east). Neustria fell, in the 
 partition, to Chilperic, and Austrasia to Sigebert. Burgundy formed 
 the third great division of Gaul, and fell to the share of Gontran. 
 Yast countries, afterwards conquered, were regarded as appendices of 
 the Frank Empire, and it was arranged that a separate division should 
 be made of them : these were Provence, Aquitaine, and Gascony. The 
 first was attached to Eastern France, Austrasia and Burgundy, 
 and was divided between Sigebert and Gontran; the second was 
 divided into three parts, reputed equal, each of which formed a 
 small Aquitaine ; and lastly, Gascony was divided between Chilperic 
 and Sigebert, to the exclusion of Gontran. The German provinces, 
 governed by dukes nominated by the kings, were scarce taken into 
 consideration in this division ; they were allotted, with Austrasia, to 
 Sigebert, who, in order to watch, over them better, transferred his 
 residence from Reims to Metz, which he made his capital. The three 
 brothers made a strange convention with regard to the city of Paris : 
 owing to its importance, they promised that neither should enter it 
 without the consent of his brothers. This celebrated division of the 
 inheritance of Clothair I. was made in the year. 567, and from this 
 
 * We refer our readers to the interesting history of Sainte Radegonde in M. Augustin 
 Thierry's charming Eecits Merovingiens. 
 
56 GAUL UNDER THE GRANDSONS OF CLOTHAIR I. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 moment commenced the long and bloody rivalry between Neustria and 
 Austrasia. 
 
 Chilperic and Sigebert distinguished themselves by their fratricidal 
 hatred ; and were surpassed in audacity, ambition, and barbarity, by 
 their wives, whose names acquired a great and melancholy celebrity. . 
 
 Sigebert had married Brunhilda, daughter of the King of the 
 Visigoths ; and Chilperic, surnamed the Nero of France, jealous of the 
 alliance contracted by his brother, put aside the claims of his mistress, 
 Fredegonde, in order to espouse Gralswintha, sister of Brunhilda. He 
 had, at this period, three sons by his first wife Andovera, whom he 
 repudiated, and imprisoned at Rouen. Shortly after his second 
 marriage, he had Gralswintha strangled, at the instigation of Fredegonde, 
 and took the latter for his wife. Brunhilda swore to avenge her sister, 
 and the enmity of the two queens caused streams of blood to flow. 
 
 After an unsuccessful war against his brother Sigebert, the King of 
 ISTeustria submitted, asked for peace, and accepted a treaty, which he 
 violated almost immediately afterwards by taking up arms again. 
 Sigebert marched on Paris, which city Chilperic had seized, laid the 
 environs of the city waste, took it by storm, and forced his brother to 
 shut himself up in Tournay with his wife and children. The Australian 
 army invested the latter town, and Sigebert declared that he would 
 kill Chilperic ; but he wished first to have himself elected King of 
 Keustria, and designated for this solemnity the royal domain of Vitry, 
 near Douai. Germanus,* Bishop of Paris, tried in vain to move 
 Sigebert by exciting the pity of Queen Brunhilda, who was even more 
 ardent for vengeance than her husband. He addressed the King 
 himself in these words : " King Sigebert, if thou wilt renounce the 
 thought of killing thy brother, thou shalt be victorious ; if thou hast 
 another thought, thou shalt die." Sigebert persisted in his fratricidal 
 projects. He proceeded to Vitry, where he was raised on the buckler, 
 and proclaimed King of Neustria in the assembly of the Franks ; 
 but, in the midst of the rejoicings, two young emissaries of Frede- 
 gonde stabbed the King with poisoned knives. He died, and his army 
 dispersed : Chilperic regained his crown and Paris, into which city he 
 entered as a victor. 
 
 * The Church canonized him, and he is known by the name of St. Germain. 
 
511-638] RIVALRY OF FREDEGONDE AND BRUNHILD A. 57 
 
 The widow of the assassinated King Sigebert, Brunhilda, was still 
 in that city with her two daughters and her youthful son, Childebert. 
 By order of Chilperic she was arrested and kept as a prisoner, with 
 her children, in the old imperial Palace of the Thermae ; but Gronde- 
 baud, an Austrasian noble, contrived the escape of young Childebert. 
 The royal child was let down in a basket from, a window of the palace ; 
 and a faithful servant placed him behind him on a horse, and carried 
 him to Metz, where Child.ebert II. was proclaimed King of Austrasia 
 in 575. 
 
 King Chilperic then sent Brunhilda, with her two daughters, in exile 
 to Houen, where she was joined by Merovic, the son of Chilperic and 
 the unfortunate Andovera, and himself exposed to the furious hatred 
 of his formidable mother-in-law, Fredegonde. Merovic conceived a 
 violent passion for Brunhilda, which she returned ; and they asked for 
 the nuptial blessing at the hands of Bishop Pretextatus, who united 
 them in secret, and thus drew down on himself the implacable 
 vengeance of Fredegonde. Chilperic, speedily informed of the 
 marriage, took umbrage at it, and hastened to Rouen, where he 
 separated the couple. Brunhilda regained her liberty, and fled into 
 Austrasia ; but Merovic was arrested by his father's orders, under- 
 went the tonsure, was ordained priest, in spite of his protests, and in 
 defiance of the canons of the Church, and exiled to the monastery of 
 St. Calais, near Mans. While being taken by an armed body to the 
 place of his exile, Merovic, escaping from his guardians, took 
 refuge in the Basilica of St. Martin of Tours, where the celebrated 
 Bishop Gregory at that time occupied the episcopal see. The 
 right of asylum in churches was, in this utterly barbarous age, the 
 sole safeguard of the oppressed against the violence of the princes. 
 Bishop Gregory maintained this dangerous right in all its rigour, and 
 dared, for a long time, to defend Merovic against his father's arms ; 
 but the young prince at length grew weary of his voluntary seclusion 
 in a church, and, quitting it, with an escort of horsemen, he tried to 
 join his wife, Queen Brunhilda, in Austrasia. But the latter, during 
 the minority of the youthful Childebert, her son, was herself living 
 with him under the formidable guardianship of the Austrasian leudes ; 
 and was powerless to protect her husband against them. They 
 repulsed Merovic, and the fugitive prince was constrained to continue 
 
58 EIVALEY OF FEEDEGONDE AND BEUNHILDA. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 his vagabond route through Neustrian Gaul, pursued by the implacable 
 anger of his father and Fredegonde. At length, surrounded on all 
 sides, and on the point of falling into their hands, he committed 
 suicide, and his servants perished in frightful tortures. Fredegonde 
 was not, however, sufficiently avenged ; and her fury fell even upon 
 the prelate who had dared to bestow the nuptial blessing. The 
 Metropolitan of Rouen, Pretextatus, was, in her eyes, guilty of a 
 crime, and she had him assassinated at the foot of the altar. Only 
 one child, of the name of Clovis, by Chilperic's first marriage, sur- 
 vived Merovic. Fredegonde conspired his ruin. She accused him of 
 witchcraft and casting spells on her own children : his young wife was 
 handed over to the hangman, and Clovis was stabbed to death at Noisy. 
 
 Nothing checked the Merovingian princes in the transports of their 
 unregulated passions and fury : as barbarians, who had attained the 
 enjoyment of Roman luxuries and civilization before they had put off 
 their savage instincts, they set no bounds to their desires, and the pre- 
 mature end of their race could be foreseen. One day, when Chilperic 
 was residing at his palace of Braine, two Gallic bishops, Salrius of 
 Alby, and Gregory of Tours, were walking together round the palace : 
 suddenly Salvius stopped, and said to Gregory, " Dost thou see any- 
 thing over this building ? " 
 
 The Bishop of Tours replied, " I see the belvedere which the King 
 is having built." 
 
 " Dost thou not perceive something else ? " 
 
 " No ! but if thou seest aught, tell it to me ! " 
 
 Salvius sighed, and continued, " I see the sword of the wrath of 
 God suspended over the house." 
 
 Chilperic, after his re- establishment on the throne, set no bounds on 
 his ambition and cupidity. He invaded the states of his brother 
 Gontran during a war that prince was waging against the Lombards, 
 and was supported in his aggression by the people of Aquitaine, a 
 portion of whom were the subjects of Gontran. An army of Aquita- 
 nians, under the command of Didier, Count of Toulouse, marched 
 upon Burgundy; but Gontran had, as leader of his troops, a great 
 captain, the Patrician* Mummoles ; who, after exterminating the 
 
 * The Patrician was, after the King, the first dignitary among the Burgundians. 
 
511-638] RIVALRY OF FREDEGONDE AND BRUNHILDA. 59 
 
 Lombards, attacked tlie Aquitanians, destroyed their army, and recap- 
 tured all the places which Chilperic had seized. Six years later, a new 
 invasion of the Neustrians into Burgundy was repulsed, and Chilperic 
 perished soon after, being assassinated in the forest of Chelles by the 
 orders of Fredegonde. Of all the male children he had by this san- 
 guinary woman, only one, a child of the name. of Olothair, survived him.. 
 His mother undertook the guardianship of him, and, being menaced 
 simultaneously by all the enemies whom her crimes had aroused against 
 her, she placed herself, with her son, under the protection of King 
 Gontran, the best — or, speaking more correctly, the least cruel — of the 
 sons of Olothair I., and who was surnamed "the Good," less on 
 account of his merits, than from a comparison with the other princes, 
 of his race. 
 
 Brunhilda was at this period disputing the guardianship of her 
 young son, Childebert II., with the nobles of Austrasia. She^united 
 to a vast and active genius indomitable passions, and wished at once 
 to punish Fredegonde, her rival, and retain her authority over the 
 Austrasians, who, neighbours of . Germany, the cradle of their ances- 
 tors, were^the most undisciplined nation in Gaul. Brunhilda was fond 
 of Boman civilization : she desired to establish in her son's states the 
 centralization of the monarchical power, and the system of the Boman 
 government in levying the public imposts. But the Austrasian 
 nobles endured with impatience the yoke of the royal authority ; the 
 Boman system of taxation was especially odious to them ; and they 
 regarded imposts as a disgraceful tribute which should only be paid by 
 the vanquished : they, therefore, formed a league against Brunhilda, 
 and became her most dangerous enemies. The Frank kings had, up to 
 this time, been accustomed to set one of their leudes over the officers- 
 of their house, as steward of the royal domains : this officer, who had 
 the title of majordomo, was at a later date called "mayor of the 
 palace of the kings," and was merely their first domestic. But, after the 
 death of Sigebert, the Austrasian nobles, jealous of Brunhilda's 
 authority, elected one of their number mayor of the palace ; and 
 added to his functions that of presiding over them and watching 
 the youthful King. Brunhilda tried in vain to oppose the haughty 
 aristocracy, who claimed a share in the guardianship of her son : she 
 
60 EPISODE OF GONDEVALD. [Book I. Chap. IL 
 
 therefore restrained herself till Cliildebert was of the age to govern by 
 himself, and inspired him with a profound dissimulation. 
 
 It was not alone in Austrasia that a reaction was visible against the 
 descendants of Merovic. Royalty was no longer in Gaul what it had 
 formerly been in the savage forests of Germany. xV multitude of canses 
 had concurred to produce, this change: the conquest of vast countries; 
 the possession of numerous domains and large treasures, the fruit of 
 immense spoils ; the rarity of the national meetings, owing to the 
 dispersion of the conquerors over the land ; and, lastly, the traditions 
 of the majesty of the Roman Empire and the absolute power of the 
 Emperor, — all this fed the ambition of the descendants of Clovis. 
 They believed themselves the legitimate successors of the Ceesars, 
 and gradually usurped an arbitrary and despotic authority over their 
 own comrades in arms and the Frank aristocracy. 
 
 The aristocracy resisted ; they had lost their strength by becoming 
 dispersed, and re-acquired it by becoming landowners. Hitherto 
 floating, they had become fixed; they had acquired perpetuity with 
 property : a multitude of freemen resorted to them for their support 
 against the exactions of the treasury and royal officers ; and this 
 patronage spread in spite of the prohibitions of the kings. The 
 Church itself, though it had at first favoured the progress of the royal 
 authority, grew weary of a despotism which no longer respected its 
 immunities "and privileges, and the bishops leagued, themselves with 
 the principal leudes. 
 
 A formidable conspiracy was entered into against the Kings of: 
 Austrasia and Burgundy. The aristocracy desired a king who would 
 be a passive instrument in their hands, and turned their attention to a 
 natural and unrecognized son of Clothair I., of the name of Gonde- 
 vald. The latter, fearing the suspicious jealousy of the kings his 
 brothers, had sought a refuge at Constantinople, at the court of the 
 Emperor Maurice. No other man was better adapted, by his name 
 and character, to serve the projects of the ambitious nobles of Gaul. 
 An Austrasian lord, whom his treachery has rendered shamefully cele- 
 brated, Gontran Boson, was sent by the leudes of Burgundy and 
 Austrasia to Gondevald, to seduce him by the lure of a brilliant share 
 of the inheritance of Clothair I., his father. He at the same time 
 
511-638] EPISODE OF GONDEVALD. Gl 
 
 flattered the Emperor Maurice with the hope of recovering a portion of 
 his imperial rights over Gaul by favouring the enterprise of Gondevald ; 
 and the latter quitted Constantinople with immense wealth which 
 he received as a present from the Emperor. But the treasures which, 
 in his idea, were destined to aid his success, paved the way for his ruin. 
 They tempted the cupidity of the traitor Boson, who stole them, 
 and, returning to Austrasia, purchased his pardon of King Childebert. 
 Gondevald, however, was enthusiastically received in the south of 
 Gaul. The Aquitanians and Provencaux, among whom Roman 
 civilization had been best preserved, impatiently endured the 
 barbarous yoke of the Franks ; and, attempting to liberate them- 
 selves after the death of Chilperic, the insurrection spread the 
 furthest in those parts of Aquitaine subjected to the Kings of ISTeustria 
 and Burgundy. The most powerful men in those countries espoused 
 the cause of Gondevald ; and he had at the head of his armies Didier, 
 Duke of Toulouse, Bladast, Duke of Bordeaux, and the famous 
 Patrician Mummoles, who, formerly a general of Gontran, had become 
 his enemy. Gondevald announced himself as heir of Clothair I. in 
 those parts of Aquitaine dependent on Neu stria and Burgundy ; but 
 he respected the claims of Childebert II. in Austrasian Aquitaine. 
 Bordeaux, Toulouse, and other large towns, opened their gates to 
 Gondevald, and the larger portion of Gaul to the south of the Loire 
 was gained over or conquered. Deputies then proceeded to King 
 Gontran, and summoned him to give Gondevald the share of the king- 
 dom belonging to him ; " otherwise," they said, " he will come with 
 his army, fight with you, and God will judge whether he is the son 
 of Clothair or not." Gontran, in answer, had them tortured; but, 
 terrified by the progress of the revolution, he invited his nephew 
 Childebert II. to join him against Gondevald, and drew him into the 
 alliance by adopting him as his heir. 
 
 On the approach of the formidable armies of Burgundy and 
 Austrasia, defections commenced in Aquitaine, Duke Didier setting 
 the example. Gondevald, abandoned by a great portion of the 
 Aquitanians, was compelled to seek a refuge in the town of 
 Comminges, where he shut himself up with Mummoles, and a band 
 of valiant warriors. This town, built on a scarped rock, was defended 
 by nature, by formidable ramparts, and above all by the genius of 
 
62 EPISODE OF GONDEVALD. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 the invincible Mummoles. The besiegers saw that they conld not 
 subdue the victor of the Lombards by force of arms, and after use- 
 lessly employing force, they attempted successfully to seduce Mm. 
 Mummoles promised to deliver up Gondevald ; and, proceeding with 
 the principal chiefs to the prince, said to him, " Leave the city, go 
 to your brother, and be not "afraid." Gondevald saw that he was 
 lost ; and replied, with a torrent of tears, " I came to Gaul on your 
 entreaties. I came with immense treasures : they have been taken 
 from me ; and, excepting the aid of Heaven, I placed all my hopes 
 in you. Let God be the judge between you and me ! " 
 
 Mummoles and the chiefs were inflexible. They led Gondevald out 
 of the town, and surrendered him to Ollon, Count of Bourges, and 
 to Gontran Boson, who had despoiled him of his treasures. " Eternal 
 Judge!" exclaimed the unfortunate prince, " Avenger of innocence ! 
 avenge me on those who have surrendered me, an innocent man, to 
 my enemies !" He went toward the army of the besiegers, arrayed 
 on the plain. "Here," said Count Ollon, "is the man who calls 
 himself the son and brother of kings !" and, at the same moment, he 
 ran his spear through him. Endeavouring to rise, he was hurled 
 down again, and killed by a fragment of rock thrown by Boson. 
 Thus perished Gondevald, after a harsh experience of the inconstancy 
 of men, and the most extreme vicissitudes of fortune. 
 
 This treachery was of no advantage to the traitors. The Austro- 
 Burgundian army penetrated into the town, which they fired ; and in- 
 habitants, priests, and soldiers all perished, by the sword, or by fire. 
 Mummoles was not spared : his rebellion had effaced his services, 
 and Gontran ordered that he should be put to death. This powerful 
 chief perished by assassination, in the midst of the army which had 
 gained the victory solely through him ; and with him vanished the 
 great conspiracy which had made the King of Burgundy tremble 
 on his throne. Shortly afterwards, at an assembly held at Andelot, 
 the traitor Gontran Boson was condemned by the two Kings, and a 
 price set on his head. The house of a bishop, in which the proscribed 
 man had taken refuge, was burnt like the lair of a wild beast. Boson 
 came out of it, sword in hand, and expired on the threshold, trans- 
 fixed by a cloud of arrows : when dead, he stood erect, fixed to the 
 wall. Such was the mode in which royal decrees were carried out : 
 
511-638] RIVALRY OF FREDEGONDE AND BRUNHILDA. 63 
 
 acts of justice were not distinguished from those of violence ; but were 
 as barbarously executed as the crimes they were intended to punish. 
 
 The two princes, uncle and nephew, then formed a new compact 
 in the solemn assembly of Andelot. The common interests of the 
 kingdoms of Burgundy and Austrasia were regulated there, and the 
 survivor of the two Kings was recognized as the heir of the other. 
 After this, King Ohildebert, encouraged by his successes in Aquitaine, 
 the support of Grontran, and the genius of his mother, Brunhilda, 
 shook off the yoke of his leudes, and put several of them to death. 
 A conspiracy against his life was detected. A powerful lord, the 
 ferocious Rauking, who had agreed to kill him with his own hand, was 
 summoned to the presence of Ohildebert, and found him surrounded by 
 his guards : the King had the intended assassin killed in his presence. 
 On another occasion, he invited his court, and Magnovald, the most 
 formidable of the nobles, to witness a combat of animals, and while the 
 bull was expiring in the arena, a warrior cleft the head of Magnovald 
 with his axe. 
 
 While the youthful Ohildebert was signalizing his reign in 
 Austrasia by bloodthirsty acts, old King Gontran was terminating 
 his in Burgundy by reverses. His armies were defeated in Septimania, 
 or Languedoc, by the Yisigoths, and fell back in Novempopulania 
 before the Vascons, the ferocious mountaineers of the Pyrenees. The 
 old King died in 593, and Ohildebert, his nephew and adopted son, 
 succeeded him. By his succession to the throne of G-ontran the 
 strength of Austrasia was doubled ; and Queen Brunhilda, thinking 
 the moment favourable to avenge herself on her old enemy, the 
 Austrasian army marched against Neustria, where the youthful 
 Clothair II. reigned, under the direction of his mother, Fredegonde, 
 and Landeric, mayor of the palace. Fredegonde anticipated her 
 rival. She occupied Soissons, and offered battle in the plains of 
 Truccia, near Chateau Thierry. Ohildebert' s army was suddenly 
 seized with a panic at the sight of a moving forest apparently 
 marching against them. It was the ISTeustrian army, the soldiers 
 of which carried in front of them leafy branches, for the purpose of 
 concealing their numbers. The Austrasians took to flight, and Ohilde- 
 bert accepted a peace, which could only be a short truce. He sur- 
 vived his defeat only a few years, and died, after undertaking some 
 
64 
 
 DEATH OF FREDEGONDE. [BOOK I. Chap. II. 
 
 other wai*like expeditions, in 596, leaving two sons of tender age, 
 Theodebert and Thierry. 
 
 At this time the three kingdoms of the Franks recognized as 
 Kings three boys. Clothair II. reigned in ISTeustria, Theodebert II. 
 in Austrasia, and Thierry II. in Burgundy — the first under the 
 guardianship of Fredegonde, the two others under that of their 
 grandmother Brunhilda. The implacable hatred of these two 
 queens rekindled hostilities ; and in a great battle fought at Latofao, 
 near Sens, by Fredegonde and Landeric, against the sons of Childebert, 
 the Austrasians and Burgundians took to flight. Fredegonde entered 
 Paris victoriously ; reconstituted the old kingdom of Neustria in its 
 integrity ; and died, after triumphing over all her enemies, either by 
 the sword or by poison. 
 
 The enterprises of Brunhilda were much more difficult than those 
 of her rival had been, and her genius constantly encountered 
 invincible obstacles. The nobles of Austrasia, for a time subdued by 
 Childebert, tried to render themselves independent during the 
 childhood of his son, and combined once again against the despotism 
 of Brunhilda. The young King himself, as weary as they were of 
 his grandmother's yoke, was their secret accomplice. In order to 
 save her life, the old Queen left the palace of Theodebert and 
 Austrasia as a fugitive, and sought an asylum in Burgundy, where 
 she was received with great honour by her other grandson, King Thierry, 
 and the Burgundian nobles. It is said that she had recourse to crime, 
 and corrupted the morals of the young prince in order to subject 
 him the better to her will. Irritated against Theodebert, who had 
 seconded or permitted the violence to which she had been exposed 
 in Austrasia, Brunhilda deferred taking vengeance on him till she 
 had satiated her hatred of the son of Fredegonde. Excited by their 
 grandmother, the two brothers, Theodebert and Thierry, formed an 
 alliance against Clothair II., and the united Austrasian and Burgundian 
 armies came up with the Ueustrians at Dormeille, in the country of 
 Sens. Clothair was conquered, and the carnage was awful. The 
 chroniclers of the age tell us that the exterminating angel was seen 
 waving his sword of fire over the two armies. Two years later, 
 Brunhilda, at the head of the Burgundians, gained another victory 
 over the Neustrians at Etampes. Clothair had all but fallen into 
 
511-638] RIVALRY OF FREDEGONDE AND BRUNHILDA. 65 
 
 her hands, when she learned that Theodebert, King of Australia, had 
 treated at Compiegne with their common enemy, whom he had it in 
 his power to crnsh. This peace saved the son of Fredegonde, but 
 filled with rage the heart of Brunhilda, who from this moment only 
 thought of punishing Theodebert. She armed Thierry against his 
 brother, and, after a sanguinary war that lasted several years, between 
 the Burgundians and Austrasians, the two armies met on the already 
 celebrated plains of Tolbiac. The contest was horrible : the com- 
 batants, Fredegarius tells us, were so crowded that the dead had no 
 room to fall, but stood erect one against the other as if still living. 
 Theodebert was conquered, and fled ; but fell into the hands of his 
 brother, who put his young son to death before his eyes, while Theo- 
 debert himself was murdered by the orders of his implacable grand- 
 mother. Thierry died suddenly in the following year. 
 
 The priests alone, at this period, raised their voices to brand so 
 many crimes, and their pious courage frequently exposed their lives to 
 danger. The crimes of Fredegonde drew from Pretextatus, Bishop of 
 Rouen, a few Christian and bold remarks ; and she had him assassinated 
 at the foot of the altar. Other Grospel teachers reproached Brunhilda, 
 who was nearly sixty years of age, for her shameful debaucheries ; and 
 one of them, St. Didier, was stoned by her orders. Another, of the 
 name of Columbanus, who enjoyed a great reputation for sanctity, 
 refused, in the presence of Brunhilda, to bless the King's bastards. 
 He broke the festive cup offered him, and poured the wine on the 
 ground, in reprobation of the royal conduct. He was exiled: the 
 people flocked round to bless him, and his progress to the frontier was 
 a triumph. 
 
 Thierry left four sons, of whom Sigebert, the eldest, was scarce 
 eleven years of age. Brunhilda undertook to have him crowned alone, 
 and to maintain the unity of his father's states by evading the custom 
 of division. This attempt excited a rebellion, and the nobles sum- 
 moned to their aid Clothair II., King of Neustria. Clothair was already 
 on the Meuse, and marched upon the Rhine. Brunhilda proceeded to 
 Worms with her great-grandsons, and sought support from the Ger- 
 mans. A portion of the Austrasian leudes had already passed over into 
 Clothair' s camp : the others flocked round their King in order to betray 
 him more easily. The most distinguished of the conspirators were 
 
 F 
 
66 DEATH OF BRUNHILDA. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 two powerful Austrasian lords, whose children became by intermarriage 
 the stem of the second royal dynasty of France. They were Arnolph, 
 afterwards canonized as Bishop of Metz, and Pepin of Landen (a 
 town in Hainanlt), or the Old One. They both, under the authority 
 of the celebrated Warnacharius, Mayor of the Palace in Burgundy, 
 aided the success of the famous plot whose object was the overthrow 
 of Queen Brunhilda and her race. 
 
 The combined Austrasian and Burgundian armies met the ISTeu- 
 strians on the banks of the Aisne in Champagne. The conspirators 
 then declared themselves. Clothair II. was hailed as king by all the 
 Franks, and three of Thierry's sons were surrendered to him. He had 
 the young King Sigebert murdered, with one of his brothers : he 
 exiled another to ISTeustria, but the fourth escaped him, and never 
 reappeared. Lastly, the haughty Brunhilda herself fell into the 
 hands of the son of Fredegonde, who avenged himself as his mother 
 would have done. Brunhilda — daughter, wife, sister, and mother of 
 kings — was abandoned for three days to the executioners-, then carried 
 semi-naked round the camp on a camel, and exposed to the outrages of 
 the soldiery, after which she was fastened alive to the tail of a wild horse, 
 which tore her into fragments. She had been for forty-eight years the 
 terror of her enemies, and eventually succumbed because she tried to 
 impose on a semi-savage nation the government of an advanced civili- 
 zation. The coarse minds of the Pranks did not comprehend the 
 advantages derived from the unity of a vast empire ; and, even had 
 they done so, they would have refused to sacrifice their individual 
 ambition and fierce independence for them. Brunhilda was fond of the 
 arts : she repaired several Roman rOads, and restored many fine monu- 
 ments. In her religious zeal she lavished immense sums on the clergy, 
 and built a prodigious number of churches and monasteries. All that 
 this queen did received from her a gigantic stamp. Her long reign was 
 sullied by many crimes, but it did not pass away without a certain 
 grandeur and some amount of glory. 
 
 After the death of Brunhilda, Clothair II. united under his sceptre 
 the entire Prank monarchy, and was soon able to discover that the 
 unity of his vast empire was only apparent. The nobles of Austrasia, 
 in overthrowing Sigebert, had thought much less about raising Clothair 
 than aggrandizing themselves. They wanted a prince to reside among 
 
511-638] RIVALRY OF FREDEGONDE AND BRUNHILDA. 67 
 
 them, that they might direct him as they thought proper ; and they 
 forced the King to share his throne with his son Dagobert, and give 
 them the latter as their sovereign. Dagobert, who had scarce emerged 
 from infancy, reigned Tinder the gnardianship of Arnolph, Bishop of 
 Metz. 
 
 The most celebrated event in the reign of Clothair II. was the 
 council, or synod, of Paris in 615. In the midst of the chaos into which 
 the Frank conquest had plunged Gaul, everything was in disorder and 
 gloom except the Church, which had alone retained, through tradition, 
 literary associations and ideas of public order and regular government. 
 The bishops were generally respected and feared by the kings, in spite 
 of the violence to which several of them were exposed ; and, in various 
 instances, they combined with the lay nobles to place a check on the 
 foolish and barbarous authority of the Merovingian princes. They 
 held, during the sixth century, numerous councils ; and in the one 
 which assembled in Paris in the reign of Clothair II., two aristo- 
 cracies came together, that of the bishops and that of the lords. The 
 famous edict which this assembly promulgated forms an epoch in 
 history ; for it marked the success of the reaction of the nobles against 
 the kings, by shaking the system of arbitrary government which the 
 latter had tried to found. By this edict canonical elections were 
 established; the clerks remained independent of secular justice; the 
 treasury was prohibited from seizing successions ab intestato and raising 
 the taxation ; and the judges and officers of the king were rendered 
 responsible. The edict further ordered the restitution of the benefices 
 taken from the leudes, protected rich widows, nuns, and virgins, from 
 the caprice and violence of the princes ; and punished any infraction 
 of its provisions with death. One of the chief articles settled that 
 the judges, or counts, should be always selected from the landowners 
 of the parts where their jurisdiction would be exercised ; and from 
 this time, the dignity of count belonged nearly always to the richest 
 proprietor in each county, and the royal choice had narrow limits. 
 "We know but little more about the reign of Clothair II.' Sanguinary 
 wars broke out between him and his son Dagobert, whose independ- 
 ence he was compelled to recognize ; and his life was extinguished 
 in the midst of civil troubles. He died in 628, before he had been 
 able to secure the establishment of his second son, Caribert. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 IY. 
 
 REIGN OF DAGOBERT I. 
 
 The sceptre of Dagobert extended over the three great kingdoms of 
 the Frank monarchy — ISTeustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy ; from which 
 he detached Aquitaine, that is to say, the territory between the Loire, 
 the Rhone, and the Pyrenees, and gave it to his brother Caribert. The 
 latter soon died, and his eldest son was assassinated, it is said, by a 
 faction devoted to Dagobert, who resumed possession of his brother's 
 states ; but left Aquitaine, under the title of duchy, to the two re- 
 maining sons of Caribert, Boggis and Bertrand, reserving, however, all 
 the royal rights over them. The unity of the Frank monarchy was 
 thus once again restored. 
 
 If a Merovingian king could have arrested the fall of his dynasty, 
 Dagobert would have had this glory. He followed in the track 
 of Queen Brunhilda, and supported himself against the nobles 
 by appealing to the Grallo-Roman populations, who detested their 
 tyranny : he made terrible examples in Austrasia and Burgundy, and 
 kept the factions in obedience by the terror he inspired. ~Not one 
 of the kings descended from Clovis caused his power to be more 
 respected, or displayed greater magnificence. The bishops, leudes, and 
 foreign ambassadors, crowded his court ; and the spoils of a portion 
 of Europe, gold, silk, precious stones, were displayed in his country 
 palaces, and in his royal residence of Clichy, near Paris. The splendour 
 of Dagobert nearly equalled that of Eastern potentates. In the early 
 part of his reign, he did not allow his mind to be weakened by the 
 luxury with which he surrounded himself, and devoted his time to 
 useful occupations. He it was who had the Salic and Ripuarian laws 
 revised and written, as well as those of his Allemannic and Bavarian 
 vassals. In the end, however, he gave way to debauchery and cruelty ; 
 he forgot the claims of justice, and imposed heavy tributes on his 
 people. At the same time, his arms were not successful. The Wincli, 
 or Yenedes, a Sclavonic nation, having been liberated from the yoke 
 of the Avarians by the Frank Samo, elected him as their king, took 
 possession of a portion of Bohemia, and established themselves in the 
 valley of the Danube, which was at this period the great commercial 
 route between Northern Gaul and Constantinople and Asia. A large 
 
511-638] REIGN OP DAGOBERT I. 69 
 
 caravan of Franks was plundered and massacred by this people. 
 Dagobert demanded satisfaction ; and, being unable to obtain it, sum- 
 moned the Franks to take vengeance. War was proclaimed in all his 
 states, and among his northern and western vassals ; and the Germans 
 and Thuringians, united with the Franks and Lombards, marched 
 against the Windi. These armies perished in the desert countries, and 
 the power of the Franks was shaken through the whole of Germany. 
 
 Dagobert, from this time, confined his attention to keeping his own 
 subjects in obedience. The Austrasians, ever ready to revolt, forced 
 him to share his throne with his son Sigebert, three years of age, and 
 give him to them as king. Dagobert confided the child to Duke 
 Adalgesil ; but he demanded, and obtained, that Pepin of Landen, 
 and other Austrasian lords, should remain at his court as hostages. 
 He also had another son, of the name of Clovis, designated and 
 recognized as King of Neustria and Burgundy. The bishops and 
 nobles of Austrasia, constrained, as a contemporary historian states, 
 by their terror of Dagobert, swore to sanction the dismemberment 
 of his empire. This prince, in the last year of his reign, repulsed 
 an invasion of the Yascons, repressed a revolt in Aquitaine, and made 
 a treaty with the Bretons, who recognized his supremacy. 
 
 In spite of the reverses of his arms against the Windi, and numerous 
 causes of internal dissolution, Dagobert remained to the end of his 
 reign powerful and feared. He combined, like many of the princes of 
 his race, a great fervour for religion, and a superstitious devotion, 
 with licentious tastes. He made immense gifts to the clergy, and 
 covered France with churches and monasteries. He gave his confidence 
 to the referendary Audouen, and the jeweller Eligius, the master of the 
 royal mint. These two men, better known by the names of St. Ouen 
 and St. Eloi, were both canonized, and their memory has become 
 popular. Dagobert died in 638. He had displayed great generosity 
 to the monastery of St. Denis, whose basilica he covered with gold 
 and precious stones, and where he was buried with great pomp. This 
 king, despite all his vices, surpassed in merit the majority of the 
 princes of his family. When he died, a century and a half had. 
 elapsed since the elevation of Clovis to the throne of the Franks, and 
 this period, marked by so much devastation and so many crimes, was 
 the most memorable during the reign of the Merovingians. 
 
70 SLOTHFUL KINGS. [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SLOTHFUL KINGS. — DECAY AND END OF THE MEEOYINGIAN DYNASTY. FROM 
 
 THE DEATH OF DAGOBERT I. TO THE DEPOSITION OF CHILDERIC III. 
 
 638-652. 
 I. 
 
 THE FIRST SLOTHFUL KINGS. GOVERNMENT OF EBROUIN, MAYOR OF THE 
 
 PALACE IN NEUSTRIA. 
 
 After the death of Dagobert I., the Merovingian family only offers us 
 phantoms of kings, brutalized by indolence and debauchery, and whom 
 history has justly branded with the title of rois faineants. Through 
 their very nullity they had an additional title to the throne in the 
 sight of those who reigned in their name. By the side of royalty 
 grew up the magistrature of the Mayors of the Palace, who, during 
 some of the later reigns, had already several times substituted their 
 authority for that of the monarch. They took advantage of the weak- 
 ness of the Merovingians to usurp de facto the entire power. Elected 
 by the leudes, they had for a long period been supported by them in 
 governing the sovereigns ; but, when their power was thoroughly 
 established, they crushed the nobles, in order that there might be 
 henceforth no other authority than their own. They then transmitted 
 their office to their sons, and it was eventually regarded as the appanage 
 of a family, in the same way as the sceptre seemed to belong by right 
 to the race of Clovis. 
 
 Dagobert, when dying, had recognized Ega as mayor in Neustria, 
 and Pepin of Landen in Austrasia; and had confided to them the 
 guardianship of his two sons, Sigebert III. and Clovis II., between 
 whom his states were divided. Ega died, and Erkinoald succeeded to 
 his office. The childhood and character of the two kings contributed 
 
638-652J GOVERNMENT OF EBROUIN. 71 
 
 to a great extent in establishing the power of the mayors of the 
 palace. 
 
 Sigebert III., who was entirely devoted to religions practices, lived 
 like a monk in his Anstrasian states, and restricted the exercise of his 
 authority to the care of enriching the churches and building monas- 
 teries : he died in the flower of his age. Clovis II., on the contrary, 
 only saw in the royalty of Neustria and Burgundy the fatal facility 
 for satisfying his shameful taste for debauchery. Still, his nominal 
 authority extended over the entire monarchy of the Franks, and 
 Austrasia also recognized him as king. The mayor had been succeeded 
 by his son Grimoald. The latter, on the death of Sigebert III., had 
 tried to get the sceptre into his family. He had the youthful Dago- 
 bert, son of Sigebert, conveyed to Ireland, concealed the place of his 
 retreat, and dared to place the crown on the head of his own son.; but 
 the Austrasian nobles revolted against an authority which was inde- 
 pendent of their choice. They put Grimoald and his son to death, 
 and recognized as their master the weak Clovis II., King of Neustria, 
 who very shortly after followed his brother Sigebert III. to the grave, 
 and left his sceptre and empty royal title to Clothair III., his elder son. 
 
 The famous Ebrouin, gifted with great talents, and of an inflexible 
 character, was at that time mayor of the palace. Still, he did not 
 succeed in long maintaining the apparent unity of the monarchy. 
 The Austrasian lords required a king who, like his predecessors, 
 should be subject to their influence. They summoned the youthful 
 Childeric, second son of Clovis II., greeted him as King of Austrasia, 
 and gave him for guardian the Mayor Wulfoald. 
 
 The nobles had been unable to establish a regular aristocratic 
 government in any one of the three kingdoms forming the monarchy : 
 their power had only tended to render them more and more inde- 
 pendent. Ebrouin saw in the progress of their individual authority 
 a step toward general anarchy. He was jealous of the excess of 
 their power; and, either through policy or personal ambition, he 
 wished to remain sole master in Neustria and Burgundy. His des- 
 potism caused all the nobles to revolt. The celebrated Bishop of 
 Autun, Leger, of whom the Church has made a saint, placed himself 
 at the head of the insurgents in Burgundy, and gave the example of 
 an obstinate resistance. Ebrouin at first subdued the rebellion, but 
 
72 GOVERNMENT OF EBROUIN. [BOOK I. CHAP. III. 
 
 tlie death, of Clothair III. shook Lis power. He did not dare convene 
 the nobles, according to custom, in a national mall, in order to elect 
 a successor to this prince, who died childless ; and he proclaimed as 
 king", of his own authority, the youthful Thierry, third son of Cloyis II. 
 This violation of the old customs of the kingdom armed the nobles 
 against Ebrouin. The lords of Neustria and Burgundy were no more 
 willing than those of Austrasia to see the mayors usurp the right of 
 election to the throne, and they offered the crown of the two king- 
 doms to Ohilderic II., King of Austrasia. 
 
 Ebrouin, abandoned by all, took refuge in a church. His life was 
 spared : he was forced to take the tonsure, and was imprisoned in 
 the monastery of Luxeuil. Thierry III. was led as a prisoner into his 
 brother's presence, and confined -by his orders at St. Denis. 
 
 Childeric II. removed his residence from Metz to Paris. This prince 
 combined with the brutal passions of his degenerate race, the energetic 
 character of his ancestors. Constrained, at first, to subscribe the con- 
 ditions imposed on him by the nobles who had crowned him, he no 
 longer observed them when he felt his strength. He combated the 
 leudes with severity, and shut up Bishop Leger in the same monastery 
 of Luxeuil, into which the latter had thrown Ebrouin. Misfortune 
 reconciled for a time these two great enemies. They formed a conspiracy 
 against the rash Childeric, who had dared to inflict on one of his 
 leudes, of the name of Bodolus, a dishonourable punishment reserved 
 for slaves. Bodolus and the conspirators surprised the King, while 
 hunting in the forest of Bondy, near the royal mansion of Chelles. 
 Their vengeance was atrocious, for they murdered him, with his wife 
 and children. Ebrouin and Bishop Leger came out of captivity 
 together, and became once more deadly foes. Ebrouin eventually 
 gained the victory over his formidable rival, whom he deprived of 
 sight, and then had him tried by an episcopal synod, and condemned 
 to death. Taking from prison the weak Thierry, a useful and blind 
 instrument of his despotic will, he obtained the support of the masses 
 against the nobles, and exercised for a long time an uncontrolled 
 power. He set everything to work to break up the hereditary aris- 
 tocracy. He brought the benefices into circulation again ; he tore the 
 estates of the treasury from the powerful families that had long 
 regarded them as their patrimony : he divided them among new men, 
 
638-652] DEATH OF EBROUIN. 73 
 
 thus interesting a numerous class of poor tenants in the defence of his 
 work. 
 
 Still, a formidable cloud collected against Ebrouin in Austrasia. 
 After the death of Childeric II., this country was again separated 
 from the kingdoms of JSeustria and Burgundy. Y oung Dagobert, son 
 of Sigebert III., was recalled from the monastery where he lived 
 concealed, in Ireland. This young prince, who was greedy and cruel, 
 wished to make victims of the authors of his fortunes, and his 
 rashness was only paralleled by his violence. Imitating the last King, 
 Childeric, he met with a similar fate, and was assassinated by the 
 nobles of Austrasia, without leaving an heir. 
 
 Among his murderers were several partizans and relatives of the 
 old mayor, Pepin of Landen, whose male posterity had become ex- 
 tinct with Grimoald and his son, but whose family for a long time 
 retained great influence. A daughter of Pepin, of the name 
 of Legga, had married the son of the great Arnolph, Bishop of 
 Metz. She had a son by him, who received the name of his maternal 
 grandfather, and whom historians, in order to distinguish him from 
 Pepin the Old, have surnamed Pepin of Heristal, from the name 
 of a celebrated estate on which he lived on the banks of the Meuse. 
 This young man, during the interregnum which followed the death of 
 Dagobert, was recognized as one of the chiefs of the aristocracy of 
 the dukes and counts of Austrasia. The nobles triumphed in this 
 country, and were crushed in Neustria and Burgundy. A multitude 
 of exiles from these two kingdoms demanded vengeance of the 
 Dukes of Austrasia upon Ebrouin, and a fresh and terrible collision 
 took place on the plain of Latafao, which had already been fatal 
 to the Austrasians. Neustria was once more victorious. Ebrouin 
 triumphed : but he was unable to cull the fruits of his victory. A 
 lord, of the name of Ermanfroi, who had been proved culpable in his 
 office, and threatened with death, anticipated Ebrouin, by cleaving his 
 skull with his axe, and fled to Austrasia, where Pepin of Heristal 
 overwhelmed him with honours. The historians of the, age, mostly 
 deadly enemies of Ebrouin, display him to us as very pitiless and per- 
 fidious ; but his memory was honoured in some popular legends. " He 
 violently repressed," Ave are told in them, " all the iniquities that were 
 committed on. the face of the earth. He chastised the misdeeds of 
 
74i STRUGGLE BETWEEN AUSTRASIA AND NEUSTEIA. [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 proud and unjust men, and caused peace to reign : he was a man of a 
 great heart, although he was too cruel to the bishops." * Ebrouin, 
 though he had no sceptre or crown, had reigned for twenty years with 
 a power that no king had exercised before him. 
 
 II. 
 
 CONTINUATION OP THE SLOTHFUL KINGS. STRUGGLE BETWEEN AUSTRASIA 
 
 AND NEUSTRIA. MAYORALTY OF PEPIN OF HERISTAL.'l 
 
 The feeble Thierry was still reigning in ISTeustria, when Waratho, and 
 after him Berthair, succeeded Ebrouin in his office. The reins of 
 government, on slipping from his powerful grasp, were relaxed in their 
 feeble hands. Civil discord agitated Neustria : hope was rearoused in 
 the banished lords. They renewed their applications to Pepin of 
 Heristal, and the other dukes of Austrasia, and another revolution was 
 resolved on. Pepin announced himself as the avenger of the Frank 
 nobles and priests despoiled by the mayors of Neustria, and was pro- 
 claimed commander-in-chief. He encountered the Neustrian army at 
 Testry, in the county of Vermandois, gained a great victory, and made 
 King Thierry a prisoner. Having then assured himself that no one was 
 more fitted than this weak prince to play the part of a puppet king, he 
 recognized him as monarch of Neustria and Austrasia, and governed in 
 his name as mayor of the palace, after destroying the rulers of the 
 party opposed to the nobles. After the death of Thierry, Pepin crowned 
 in succession his two sons, Clovis III. and Childebert III., and then 
 his grandson, Dagobert III. ; but he was the real military chief, and 
 sole grand judge of the nation of the Franks. He restored the old 
 national customs, which had been unregarded by Ebrouin. 
 
 The great medium or annual assembly, which had fallen into desue- 
 tude, was regularly held on the calends of March, and all the members 
 of the nobility were convened to it. The King proceeded thither 
 in a chariot drawn by oxen, wearing the royal insignia, and with his 
 long hair floating down his back. He seated himself in the midst of 
 the assembly, on a golden throne, where the monarch in effigy granted 
 an audience to the foreign ambassadors, and gave them the answers 
 which had been dictated to him. He uttered a few remarks touching 
 
 * Legends of St. Projectus of Auvergne, and St. Martial of Limoges._ 
 
638-652] MAYORALTY OF PEPIN OF HERISTAL. 75 
 
 peace, war, and the duties of government towards churches and orphans ; 
 and then, returning as he had come, was sent by Pepin to one of the 
 large royal farms, where he was guarded with honour and respect. 
 
 This grand scene took place annually : it testifies to the prestige which 
 the memory of Clovis still exercised over the Franks, and to what 
 an extent popular respect attached to the blood of Merovic. This 
 superstitious worship of a degenerate race is a thing difficult to under- 
 stand in our days ; and we do not know which to feel more surprised 
 at — the boldness of the mayors who, in the presence of a people to 
 whom the name of Merovingian was sacred, thus humiliated the last 
 representatives of this family ; or the cowardly imbecility of the latter, 
 who were all recognized as kings, though not one of them took advan- 
 tage of these solemn occasions to be so in reality. 
 
 The empire of the Franks began to be broken up after the battle of 
 Testry. The princes of the Saxons, Frisons, Allemans, Bavarians, and 
 Thuringians, hitherto vassals of the Merovingian kings, considered 
 themselves the equals of Pepin when they had contributed to his 
 victory. Pepin contended against them, and, almost to his death, had 
 to sustain long and sanguinary wars on all the northern frontiers, while 
 the peoples of Burgundy and Provence shook off his yoke in the 
 south. Those of Aquitaine rallied under the celebrated Eudes, Duke 
 of Toulouse, and descendant of the Merovingian Caribert, brother 
 of Dagobert I., to whom they gave the title of king, and rendered 
 themselves almost independent of the Frank monarchy. 
 
 Pepin had two sons, Drogon and Grimoald, by his wife Plectrude, 
 and a third, of the name of Charles, by his concubine, Alpaide. He 
 gave the duchy of Champagne to his eldest son, who died in 708, and 
 during his own lifetime invested his second son, Grimoald, in the 
 office of mayor of Neustria. An implacable hatred subsisted between 
 the mothers of Charles and Grimoald, who became deadly foes. Pepin 
 grew old ; he fell sick, and was all but dead, when his son Grimoald 
 was murdered almost in his presence. He collected all his strength to 
 avenge him ; he sprang from his death-bed, destroyed all the authors 
 of the murder, and shut up his son Charles, whom he suspected of 
 being an accomplice, in Bologna : then he established Grimoald's son 
 Theobald, who was hardly five years of age, as mayor of the palace. 
 This energetic act exhausted his strength. " He died in 714," the 
 
76 THE LAST SLOTHFUL KINGS. [SoOK I. Chap. Ill- 
 
 annals of the Franks tell us, "after commanding for twenty-seven 
 years and six months the whole Frank people, with the kings subject to 
 him — Thierry, Clovis, Childebert, and Dagobert." 
 
 III. 
 
 THE LAST SLOTHFUL KINGS. END OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN AUSTRASIA 
 
 AND NEUSTRIA. INVASION OF THE MUSSULMANS. — GOVERNMENT OF 
 
 CHARLES MARTEL. 
 
 Pepin left at the head of the monarchy two boys — one king, the other 
 mayor — under the guardianship of the aged Plectrude, the grand- 
 mother of Theodebald. The Neustrians grew indignant at such a yoke. 
 They revolted against Plectrude and her son, and chose Raginfred as 
 mayor of the palace : then, allying themselves with the Frisons and 
 Saxons, they attacked and disarmed Austrasia. Pressed on all sides, 
 the Austrasians in their turn deserted Plectrude and her son. They 
 took out of a monastery the youthful Charles, the natural son of 
 Pepin, who was endowed with heroic qualities, and enthusiastically 
 recognized him as king. Still, the name of the Merovingians pos- 
 sessed a certain prestige ; and on the death of Dagobert III. both 
 factions elected a pretended member of this degenerate race as king, 
 Chilperic II. in Neustria, and Clothair IV. in Austrasia. They nomi- 
 nally reigned, while the two real masters of these states, Raginfred 
 and Charles, prepared for war, and marched against each other. The' 
 victory could not be long undecided. The Franks of Austrasia, which 
 country bordered Germany, had lost none of their warlike energy. 
 The advantages they derived from the conquest were a powerful 
 lure for the Grerman tribes in their vicinity, and successive immigra- 
 tions naturally kept up in the Austrasian nation a more energetic 
 military spirit, and more warlike habits, than in Neustria. Charles, at 
 first defeated, took refuge in the Ardennes, and, assembling veteran 
 bands, placed himself at their head : he surprised the Neustrians, 
 committed great carnage among them, pursued them, and by the 
 memorable victory of Vincy, near Cambray, gained in 717, the whole 
 of ISTeustria became his conquest. The Neustrians, vanquished but 
 not subjugated, summoned to their aid Eudes, King of Aquitaine, 
 and offered him the sceptre. The Aquitanians regarded the Franks 
 
638-652] INVASION OF THE MUSSULMANS. 77 
 
 of the Rhine as far more barbarous than those of the Seine. They had 
 cause to fear lest the ferocious bands of Charles might wish, like those of 
 Clovis in former times, to taste the fruits of the south. They con- 
 sequently united with the Neustrians, and marched against Charles, 
 who defeated them near Soissons, and pursued them up to Orleans. 
 Clothair IV., the puppet King of Austrasia, had just died. Charles, 
 the victor over the Neustrians and Aquitanians, had Chilperic II., the 
 imbecile King of Neustria, recognized as sovereign of the whole 
 empire of Clovis ; and on his death, which took place two years later, 
 he gave him Thierry IV. for a successor, and reigned alone in his 
 name. 
 
 The Austrasians, or Ripuarian Franks, triumphed after obstinate 
 wars, and the battles of Yincy and Soissons were the last efforts of 
 the Neustrians. The seat of the Frank Empire was eventually trans- 
 ported to the Meuse and the Rhine ; and this was necessary in order 
 to arrest aud draw back the devastating tide of new Germanic emi- 
 grations. 
 
 A more terrible foe menaced the empire of the Franks. Only a 
 century previously, Mohammed had founded a new religion in Arabia • 
 and already his armies, electrified by religious fanaticism and a spirit 
 of conquest, had invaded Asia, Africa, and Spain, and were advancing 
 into Gaul. Never, since the days of Attila, had a more formidable 
 invasion menaced Europe. The torrent crossed the Pyrenees, and 
 first dashed down upon Septimania. Narbonne succumbed, and the 
 fall of that city decided the fate of the country, where the Arab 
 rule was substituted, as in Spain, for that of the Visigoths. 
 
 The Mussulmans next menaced Aquitaine, and the other possessions 
 of King Eudes. This prince, whom Charles had conquered at Sois- 
 sons, held beneath his sway in Southern France several countries 
 which, up to this time, had not formed part of the duchy of Aqui- 
 taine, and among others the country of the Waskes, or Basques, better 
 known by the name of Gascons. This valiant race, who dwelt in 
 Upper Navarre, and were descended from the ancient Iberi, had 
 occupied for two centuries the two watersheds of the Pyrenees, where 
 for a long period, they defended their independence against the 
 Visigoths and Franks. Toward the middle of the sixth century, they 
 made an irruption into Gaul, and settled in a portion of Novempopu- 
 
78 INVASION OF THE MUSSULMANS. [BOOK I. Chap. III. 
 
 lama., which, received from them the name of Gascony. At the close 
 of the following century, King Eudes, either by victories or treaties, 
 annexed it to Aquitaine, and the two peoples formed but one at the 
 time when Eudes, attacked by the Saracens, gained a great victory 
 over them on the plains of Toulouse. He defeated them a second 
 time, but, being beset by new legions of enemies, he purchased a 
 peace of one of their generals of the name of Munuza,* by giving 
 him in marriage his daughter Lampagia. Munuza went away, and 
 soon after perished in a civil war against Abd-ul Brahman, Yali, or 
 chief, of the Mussulmans in Spain : his wife, daughter of King* 
 Eucles, fell into the power of the victor, who, in his turn, invaded 
 Aquitaine. 
 
 Eudes was still carrying on the war in the north of his states, 
 against the invincible Charles, chief of the Franks, when he was 
 menaced in the south by the enemies of all the Christians : he saw 
 his army destroyed by the Mussulmans before Bordeaux, that city 
 burnt, Aquitaine pillaged, and its inhabitants massacred. Feeling that 
 he was too weak to contend against all these foes, and constrained to 
 submit either to the Franks or Arabs, his religion dictated his choice. 
 He proceeded as a fugitive to the martial court of Charles, recognized 
 him as his suzerain, and obtained at this price the help of the Franks. 
 Charles made a warlike appeal to all the warriors of Neustria, 
 Austrasia, and Western Germany; and the formidable army thus 
 raised encountered that of Abd-ul Rahman, in October, 732, on the 
 plains of Poitiers. The destinies of the human race were about to be 
 staked on this famous field : the army of the Franks was the sole 
 barrier capable of arresting the Mohammedan invasion, and it was 
 soon to be known whether the world would become Mussulman or 
 Christian. 
 
 For seven days the two armies observed each other without fighting. 
 At last, the Mussulmans, whose number the chroniclers estimate 
 at several hundred thousand, deployed on the plain ; and, on a signal 
 from Abd-ul Rahman, his light cavalry commenced the action with 
 a cloud of arrows, and dashed like a whirlwind on the army of 
 the Franks. The latter, motionless on their powerful horses, and 
 
 * The Arabic name of this famous chief was Ebn Abinruca ; according to others, 
 Abi Nessa. 
 
638-652] INVASION OF THE MUSSULMANS. 79 
 
 defended by their heavy armour, for a long time opposed a wall of 
 iron to the repeated charges of the Saracens, and remained firm in 
 close and serried masses. All at once, the battle-cry was raised in the 
 rear of the Arab army; it was the cry of King Eudes and the 
 Aquitanians, who had turned the enemy's flank, and had fired his 
 camp. A portion of the immense army of Abd-ul Rahman faced the 
 Aquitanians, and disorder, the effect of surprise, opened the ranks of the 
 Arabs. Charles, in his turn, gave the signal : the wall of iron broke, 
 the heavy masses of Germans fell on Abd-ul Rahman's squadrons, 
 and the war- axe and broad- swords of the Franks cropped down entire 
 ranks. Abd-ul Rahman, vainly endeavouring to rally his soldiers, fell, 
 in the midst of his picked troops, pierced with lances, and crushed 
 beneath the horses' hoofs. The Arabs sought a refuge in their ravaged 
 camp. Night having set in, Charles arrested the pursuit ; and on the 
 morrow, at daybreak, the Franks saw, in the distance, only a blood- 
 stained plain covered with corpses : darkness had protected the retreat 
 of the Mussulmans, and the Christian cause was gained. 
 
 The Arabs evacuated Aquitaine after their disastrous defeat at 
 Poitiers ; and this day, for ever memorable, on which it was said that 
 Charles had hammered the Saracens, gained him the glorious surname 
 of Martel, which posterity has retained. 
 
 One of the results of this famous campaign was to restore the 
 great province, or kingdom, of Aquitaine and Grascony to the mon- 
 archy of the Franks by the oath of vassalage which King Eudes 
 had made to his liberator.* But in delivering the southern provinces 
 from Mohammedanism, Charles neither saved them from pillage, nor 
 arson, nor massacre : devastation marked the passage of his army, and 
 sullied his victory, for which the Aquitanians did not feel grateful to 
 him; and a profound enmity subsisted between the more civilized 
 nations of the south and the northern barbarians. Charles Martel 
 turned his arms against several tribes of Ganl that had ceased to obey 
 the unworthy successors of Clovis.. He subjugated the Burgundians, 
 penetrated into Septimania, and, bj the capture of two famous cities, 
 
 * Several chronicles, among others the Annahs du Metz, say that Charles returned 
 home after subjugating Aquitaine, that is to say, that Eudes fulfilled the engagements 
 imposed on him by his oath, and doubtless renounced the title of king, the sign of his 
 past independence, and only bore that of Duke of the Aquitanians. See Hist, de France^ 
 by Henrr Martin, years 732, 733. 
 
80 GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES MABTEL, [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 Aries and Marseilles, completed the subjugation of Provence to the 
 monarchy of the Franks. 
 
 Under his government the perpetual progress of the clergy in power 
 and wealth was arrested, or, more correctly speaking, suspended, in Gaul. 
 The army constituted the sole strength of Charles ; and, in order to 
 attach it better to him, he ventured to seize the estates of the Church, 
 and distribute them among his warriors. He did not assume the 
 name of king, but he appointed no successor to Thierry IV., son of 
 Dagobert III., whom he had crowned upon the death of Chilperic II. 
 His most dangerous enemies were the Frisons, Allemans, and Saxons, 
 who were constantly attracted to the Rhine by the success of the 
 previous invasions. Charles succeeded in driving them back by 
 sanguinary and repeated expeditions, and restraining them by the 
 terror of his name. Death surprised him in 741, when he was under- 
 taking an expedition into Italy, to succour the Pope against the 
 Lombards ; but, before expiring, he divided his authority between his 
 three sons, Pepin, Carloman, and Griffo. 
 
 Pepin and Carloman dispossessed their brother, and divided the 
 paternal heritage between them; but they soon saw that Charles 
 Martel had not handed down to them with his power the prestige 
 attaching to his formidable name ; and, in order to support their 
 authority, they drew from the monastery the last of the Merovingians, 
 who was proclaimed King of the Franks, by the name of Childeric III. 
 The two brothers then contended successfully against the Allemans, 
 the Bavarians, the Saxons, and Aquitanians. Carloman soon felt a 
 disgust of terrestrial grandeur ; he became a monk, and entered the 
 monastery of Mont Cassin. Pepin, under the title of Mayor of the 
 Palace, remained sole master of the Frank monarchy. He maintained 
 at this period intimate relations with the Holy See, and gained its 
 gratitude by offering to defend it against the Lombards, and favouring 
 with all his power the success of the missions sent by the Pope into 
 Saxony and Frisia, to convert these still pagan and savage countries 
 to Christianity. At length he grew weary of reigning without sceptre 
 and crown on the steps of the throne ; and, having asked the Pope 
 for the title of king, he obtained it, and was crowned in 752 by St. 
 Boniface, the apostle of Germany. He then assembled the general 
 comitia at Soissons, and, relying on his own power, the name of his 
 
638-652.] GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES MARTEL. 81 
 
 ancestors, and the Papal sanction, he was elected King of the Franks. 
 Childeric returned to his cloister, which his race never left again ; 
 and Pepin founded a second royal dynasty, which was called the 
 Carlovingian, after his father's name. 
 
 The power of the Merovingian kings had attained its apogee under 
 Dagobert I. The Frank Empire had at that time for its boundaries 
 the German Ocean, the Atlantic, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, 
 the Adriatic, the Upper Danube, and the Rhine. The various nations 
 inhabiting this vast territory recognized the authority of the Mero- 
 vingian kings, some as being directly subject to them, others as 
 tributaries. 
 
 The imperial divisions into provinces only existed in the ecclesi- 
 astical order. For this ancient partition of the territory new divisions 
 had been substituted, determined by the successive conquests of the 
 barbarians, and the good pleasure of their chiefs, and which nearly all 
 have ethnographical denominations, that is to say, borrowed from the 
 different nations that had conquered the soil, or occupied it, such as 
 Frisia, Burgundy, Gothia, Yascony, &c. Some, however, derived 
 their name either from the astronomical or geographical situation of 
 the country, as we have seen in the case of Neustria and Austrasia ; or 
 from the configuration of the soil, like Champagne (country of plains). 
 Provence (Provincia) and Aquitaine (Aqruitania) alone retained their 
 Roman names. 
 
 The great divisions of the Frank Empire directly subject to the 
 Merovingian princes, were — Neustria (the country of the West) and 
 Austrasia (country of the East), whose limits, as already described, 
 varied but slightly during the whole existence of the dynasty ; Bur- 
 gundy, which also comprised Provence, and extended from the southern 
 frontier of Austrasia as far as the Cevennes, the Mediterranean, and 
 the Alps ; and Aquitaine, enclosed between the Atlantic, the Loire, and 
 the Garonne. Dagobert ceded this great province to his brother 
 Caribert, and after him to his two sons, in order that it might be held 
 by them and their descendants, with the title of a duchy. , Aquitaine 
 thus remained for a long time excluded frcm the states which dimly 
 recognized the authority of the Merovingian kings or of the mayors 
 of the palace. 
 
 Round these great states were others governed by separate chiefs, 
 
 G 
 
 Wf 
 
82 GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES MARTEL. [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 wlio frequently gave the Frank kings no other sign of submission 
 beyond a' slight tribute. These countries were — to the north of 
 Austrasia, between the Rhine and the Weser, Frisia and Thuringia ; 
 to the east, Allemania and Bavaria; and to the west of Neustria, 
 Brittany. 
 
 Two countries to the south of Aquitaine still contended for inde- 
 pendence : they were Sejptimania (Narbonensis Prima), covered with 
 fortified places, and which, defended by its geographical situation 
 between the Rhone, the sea, and the Pyrenees, could not be torn from 
 the Yisigoths ; and Vasconia or Qascony. This country, which occupied 
 a portion of JSTovenipopulania (Lower Languedoc), again formed, on 
 the death of Eudes, a nearly independent state, which sustained, as we 
 shall see in the reigns of the * descendants of that prince, long wars 
 against Pepin and Charlemagne. 
 
 The territory subject to the Merovingians was divided, as concerns 
 the administration, into duchies and counties, whose limits were more 
 or less extended according to the will of these princes. The dukes 
 and counts nominated by them were their principal military and civil 
 officers. These were the Dukes of Auvergne, Aquitaine, Touraine, 
 Poitou, Burgundy, Provence, &c. The counts were intrusted with 
 the government of the old municipal cities, and also with the admi- 
 nistration of the paoi, or districts forming their territories. The 
 subdivision of the counties into hundreds, or tithings, ' dates from the 
 sixth century. Bodies of one hundred and of ten families were 
 certainly formed under the authority of a civil and military officer ; 
 but the regular organization of hundreds and tithings was only in- 
 troduced under the Carlo vingians. 
 
 The Church alone retained the old Roman division into provinces 
 and cities much as the Empire had formed them. An ecclesiastical 
 province corresponded with each of the seventeen civil provinces. 
 Each old metropolis was the see of an archbishop, and the one 
 hundred and twenty cities or territorial districts were so many 
 dioceses. In the fifth century the Yiennaise had been divided into 
 two provinces, that of Yienne and that of Aries. The number of 
 archbishoprics was thus raised to eighteen. These ecclesiastical 
 divisions of old Graul existed, with but slight modifications, up to the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
638-652.1 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OP THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 
 
 83 
 
 Genealogical Table op the Merovingian Kings. 
 
 Clodion, 428-448 
 
 1 
 Merovic, 448-458 
 
 I 
 Childeric I., 458-481 
 
 I 
 Clovis I., 481-511 
 
 Thierry I. , 
 
 King of Austrasia, 
 
 511-534. 
 
 ! 
 Theodebert I., 
 
 534-547. 
 
 I 
 Theodebald, 
 
 547-555. 
 
 Clodoinir, 
 
 King of Orleans, 
 
 511-524. 
 
 Childebert I., 
 
 King of Paris, 
 
 511-558. 
 
 Clothair I. , 
 
 King of Soissons, 
 511-561. 
 
 Caribert I., Gontran, Sigebert, Chijperic L, 
 
 King of Paris, King of Burgundy, King of Metz, King of Soissons 
 561-567. ' 561-593. 561-575. 561-584. 
 
 Childebert II., 
 
 King of Austrasia 
 
 and Burgundy, 
 
 575-596. 
 
 Theodebert II., 
 
 King of Austrasia, 
 
 596-612. 
 
 Thierry II., 
 
 King of Burgundy, 
 
 596-613. 
 
 Clothair II., 
 
 King of Soissons, 
 
 then sole King, 
 
 584-628. 
 
 Dagobert I., 
 
 King of Austrasia (628), 
 
 sole King 631-638. 
 
 Caribert II., 
 
 King of Aquitaine, 
 
 628-631. 
 
 Sigebert II. , 
 King of Austrasia, 
 638-656. 
 
 I 
 Dagobert II., 
 
 King of Austrasia, 
 
 673-678. 
 
 Clovis II., 
 
 King of Neustria 
 
 and of Burgundy, 
 
 then sole King, 
 
 638-656. 
 
84 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 Clovis II., 
 
 King of Neustria, 
 
 and of Burgundy, 
 
 then sole King, 
 
 638-656. 
 
 Clothair III., 
 
 King of Neustria, 
 
 656-670. 
 
 Childeric II., 
 
 King of Austrasia, 
 
 then sole King, 
 
 660-673. 
 
 Thierry III., 
 sole King, 
 670-691. 
 
 Ohilperic II., 
 715-730. 
 
 I 
 
 Childeric III., 
 
 742-752. 
 
 Last Merovingian King. 
 
 Clovis III., 
 691-695. 
 
 Childehert III. 
 695-711. 
 
 Dagobert III., 
 711-715. 
 
 I 
 Thierry IV., 
 
 720-737. 
 
 His death was followed by an interregnum of five years, after 
 which Childeric III. was crowned. 
 
. BOOK II. 
 
 GAUL UNDER THE CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY, 7o2-987. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PEPIN AND CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 752-814. 
 I. 
 
 EEIGN OF PEPIN THE SHORT. 
 
 The race of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, before commencing 
 the second French dynasty, had been for more than 150 years in 
 possession of everything that attracts and merits human respect. It 
 was distinguished by illustrious birth, and the triple lustre of great 
 services, virtues, and the most exalted dignities. Several of its 
 members had occupied, with glory, the episcopal see of Metz, and 
 were canonized, and we have seen Austrasia growing in power under 
 the two great ancestors of this family, Pepin the Old or of Landen, 
 and Pepin of Heristal. Their services were surpassed by the great 
 deeds of Charles Martel, the vanquisher of the Mussulmans, who 
 transmitted his name to all his descendants, and whose son, celebrated 
 in history by the name of Pepin the Short, was the first king of his 
 race. 
 
 Pepin was the first to grant the Pontiff of Rome the right of dis- 
 posing of crowns. The Lombards at that time possessed the whole 
 northern part of Italy, and there King Astolph was contesting with 
 Pope Zachariah the government of the city of Rome. Zachariah 
 
86 KEIGN OF PEPIN THE SHORT. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 required a powerful supporter, and, counting on the help of Pepin if 
 he could render him favourable to his cause, he declared that the throne 
 belonged to the man who performed the duties of king, even though 
 he did not occupy it. The most respected authority at the time was 
 that of the Church: and Pepin, feeling the necessity of giving an 
 imposing sanction to his usurpation, received for his coronation the 
 ceremonies employed at that of the Jewish kings. This example was 
 followed by his successors. 
 
 Stephen II. succeeded Zachariah as Pope. Menaced by ihe Lombards, 
 he went to Pepin and implored his support. The King treated him 
 with the greatest honours, and the Pontiff consecrated him a second 
 time, with his two sons, Charles and Carloman. In the sermon which 
 Stephen preached on this occasion, he implored the Franks never to 
 elect a king from any other family but that of Pepin, and excommu- 
 nicated those who might be tempted to do so. From this time the 
 papal power daily made rapid progress. The Popes soon believed 
 themselves masters of the world : they demanded the obedience of 
 the sovereigns whom they crowned and deposed according to their 
 caprices ; and streams of blood were'shed in supporting or combating 
 their arrogant claims. 
 
 Stephen had implored Pepin's assistance against Astolph, King of 
 the Lombards. The Frank monarch collected an army, led it to Italy, 
 was victorious, and ceded to the Pope the Exarchate of Ravenna.* 
 
 Pepin successfully waged long and sanguinary wars with the Bre- 
 tons, Saxons, Saracens, and Aquitanians. The latter, more especially, 
 offered him a furious resistance. Their vast province, as we have 
 seen, had been several times detached from the monarchy of the Franks. 
 The families of the conquerors who settled there had adopted the 
 manners and language of the population, who were of Gallic or Roman 
 origin, and spoke a corrupt Latin. The Aquitanians, more civilized 
 than the Franks, ever detested the latter as barbarians. The revolution 
 which, by elevating the Carlovingians, had surrounded the throne 
 with new Austrasian or Germanic bands, gave their government, in 
 
 * The name of Exarchate had been given to this territory because Ravenna was for a 
 long time the residence of the exarchs or viceroys of Italy. The celebrated Pentapolis 
 (five cities), composed of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Smigaglia, and Amona, formed part of 
 the exarchate. 
 
752-814.] KEIGN OF PEPIN THE SHORT. 87 
 
 the eyes of the Aquitanians, an even more savage ^appearance, and 
 redoubled the horror with which it inspired them. 
 
 Still, after the defeat of the Saracens at Poitiers, Duke Eudes 
 remained at peace with Charles Martel, whose suzerainty he had 
 recognized. He died in 735, leaving Aquitaine to his elder son 
 Hunald, and Gascony to his second son Otton. Hunald despoiled his 
 brother of the greater part of his states, and resolved to rend the 
 bonds that subjected him to the Kings of the Franks. He, therefore, 
 waged war against Carloman and Pepin, the sons of Charles Martel, 
 with the greater energy because he was a Merovingian, and regarded 
 them as usurpers of the rights of his family. In 745, however, when 
 Pepin invaded Aquitaine at the head of a formidable army, Hunald 
 ostensibly submitted, laid down his arms, and swore fidelity to the 
 Frank kings. This humiliation to the enemies of his race concealed 
 other thoughts, which were aroused in him. either through the decline 
 of his strength, or the pride and hope which he had in his son Guaifer. 
 This young prince possessed all the qualities that constitute a hero, 
 and Hunald saw in him the only man capable of defending Aquitaine 
 against the Franks. He resolved to abdicate, and, after placing 
 Aquitaine in the valiant hands of his son, he bade him farewell, put 
 on a monk's robe, and shut himself up in the monastery of the Isle of 
 Re, where his father Eudes lay interred. 
 
 The war was suspended for several years between Gruaifer and 
 Pepin : both observed each other and collected their forces before 
 attacking. Gruaifer had opened his states to Greffo, Pepin's brother, 
 who had rebelled against him, but he only kept him a short time. The 
 war between the Franks and Lombards was still going on. Greflb 
 resolved to go to Italy and join King Astolph ; he left Guaifer and 
 perished on his journey. Pepin, after bringing the Italian war to a 
 successful end, resolved to conquer Septimania, before attacking the 
 son of Hunald. He subjected that country, which was weary of the 
 Saracen yoke, recaptured Narbonne, and annexed the whole province 
 to the Frank monarchy, after which he invaded Aquitaine. Then 
 commenced a nine years' war, marked by frightfcd devastations. Pepin 
 ravaged Berri, Auvergne, and the Limousin with fire : Guaifer requited 
 it by ravages on the Franks ; but, at last, having lost Clermont, 
 Bourges, and his principal towns, he levelled the walls of all the 
 
88 REIGN OF PEPIN THE SHOET. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 others. He perished soon after, assassinated by his countrymen. 
 With him the name of Merovingians became extinct in history, and 
 the grand- duchy of Aquitaine was again attached to the crown of the 
 Franks. 
 
 Pepin bestowed great largesse on the clergy, and through his whole 
 life displayed the greatest deference to them. He frequently assembled 
 the comitia of the kingdom, to which he always summoned the 
 bishops, seeking to interest them in the success of his enterprises. 
 He was of short stature, whence his sobriquet : but is said to have 
 possessed great courage and prodigious strength. History gives us an 
 instance which should perhaps be placed amid fables, but which, at 
 any rate, depicts the manners of this barbarous age. Combats of wild 
 animals were the chief amusement at the court of the Frank kings. 
 Pepin was present at one of these, in which a lion attacked a bull. 
 The latter was all but defeated, when Pepin pointed to the savage com- 
 batants, and shouted to the members of his suite, " Which of you will 
 dare to separate them?" No one answered. Pepin leaped into the 
 arena and cut off the heads of the animals. " Well," he said to his 
 lords, as he threw away his blood- dripping sword, " am I worthy to be 
 your king ? " In truth, it was sufficient at that day to be brave and 
 strong in order to merit the throne. Pepin combined with these two 
 qualities moderation and prudence. He asked the advice of his nobles 
 in dividing his estates between his two sons Charles and Carloman, 
 and died in 768, after a reign of seventeen years. 
 
 The assembly of nobles and bishops had recognized Charles as king 
 of the west, and Carloman as king of the east. 
 
 The first expedition of the two brothers was directed, by mutual 
 agreement, against Aquitaine, where an insurrection had been brought 
 about by the aged Hunald, who, to avenge his son Guaifer, emerged 
 from the monastery in which he had lived for twenty- three years. 
 His efforts were powerless, and Hunald, betrayed and conquered,, 
 sought refuge with the King of the Lombards. 
 
 Ambition soon armed Charles and Carloman against each other. 
 The death of the latter, which event took place in 770, stifled the 
 germs of civil war, and Charles usurped the states of his brother, to 
 the prejudice of his nephews. The latter, with their mother, found 
 an asylum in Lombardy. The whole nation of the Franks from this 
 
752-814.] . CHAELEMAGNE. 89 
 
 moment recognized the authority of Charles, for whom his victories 
 and great qualities acquired the glorious surname of Great or Magnus, 
 and who is only known in history by the name of Charlemagne. 
 
 II. 
 
 CHAELEMAGNE. 
 
 Dueing a reign of forty-six years this prince extended his frontiers 
 beyond the Danube, imposed tribute on the barbarian nations, as far 
 as the Vistula, conquered a portion of Italy, and rendered himself for- 
 midable to the Saracens. He first went into Italy, on the entreaty of 
 Pope Adrian I., and marched to assist him against Didier, King of the 
 Lombards, whose daughter he had himself married and repudiated. 
 He made this king a prisoner, and put an end to the Lombard rule in 
 Italy, which had lasted for two hundred and six years. Arigisus, son- 
 in-law of King Didier, continued, however, to defend himself in his 
 duchy of Benevent. Charlemagne, during this expedition, went to 
 Rome, where he humbly presented himself to the Pope, whom he had 
 saved, kissing each step of the pontifical palace. He believed himself 
 called to subject to Christianity the barbarous nations of Europe, and 
 when persuasion did not avail to the triumph of the faith, he had 
 recourse to conquest and punishments. 
 
 The Saxons formed at this period a considerable nation, divided 
 into a multitude of small republics. They were idolators, like the 
 northern tribes. Their colonies had possessed England for a long time 
 past, and had formerly also subjugated some districts in northern 
 Gaul. Their assemblies were held annually on the banks of the 
 Weser. At one of these, in 771, a priest of the name of Libuin 
 invited them to be converted, while threatening them with a great 
 king of the west. The Saxons took no heed of his words, and wanted 
 to massacre him : they burnt the church of Daventer and all the 
 Christians in it. Charlemagne heard of this and marched against 
 them. A great man of the name of Wittikind commanded their army, 
 but his heroism was of no avail. The Saxons were conquered and 
 subjected. Charlemagne, after putting down several revolts, held a 
 celebrated assembly at Paderborn, where he obliged all the Saxons to 
 receive baptism, and divided their principalities among abbots and 
 
90 CHARLEMAGNE. [Book IL Chap. I. 
 
 bishops. Hence dates the origin of the ecclesiastical principalities in 
 Germany. Wittikind took refnge with a northern king. 
 
 After conquering the Saxons, Charlemagne turned his arms against 
 the Saracens. This people, in subjecting Spain, had taken to that 
 country civilization and learning. Civil wars began, in the eighth 
 century, to shake their power there. The Mussulmans were divided 
 between the family of the Abassides, who resided at Bagdad, and that 
 of the Ommiades, who governed Spain. The latter country, how- 
 ever, was agitated by factions, and one of them entreated the aid of 
 Charlemagne against Abd-ul-Rahman, lieutenant of the Caliph Om- 
 miades. This great man seized the opportunity which was offered 
 him of driving back Islamism beyond the Ebro, and thus extinguish- 
 ing a formidable focus of troubles and revolts on his own frontiers : 
 he therefore sent two powerful armies into Spain. Saragossa was the 
 point selected for their junction ; for the Arab Emir who commanded 
 that place had promised to surrender it to the Frank monarch. 
 Charlemagne's expectations were deceived : Saragossa did not open its 
 gates, and was besieged to no effect. The whole province, on which he 
 had reckoned to help him, rose against him. The principal object of 
 this famous expedition proved a failure : other cares, moreover, 
 recalled Charlemagne, and he ordered a retreat. The defiles of the 
 mountains were held at the time by the Basque nation, who resided in 
 Vasconia, a country governed by Duke Wolf IL, son of Guaifer, and 
 grandson of Hunald. This prince had inherited the hatred of his 
 race for the family of Charlemagne, and when he saw the Frank army, 
 on its retreat, entangled in the defiles of Bonce svalles, he had it 
 attacked by his mountaineers, who rolled stones and rocks down on it. 
 The disaster was immense : the rearguard was destroyed to the last 
 man ; and here, too, perished the famous Paladin Boland, who is hardly 
 known in history, and so celebrated in the romances of chivalry. 
 
 Charlemagne completed, in the following year, the conquest of 
 Saxony, which had again revolted and defeated his lieutenants. He 
 subjected it once again in 782, and, in order to keep it in check by a 
 terrible example, he beheaded, on the banks of the Aller, four thousand 
 five hundred Saxon prisoners. This cruel deed exasperated their 
 countrymen. "Wittikind had reappeared among them ; they were twice 
 defeated and cut to pieces at Detmold, near Osnaburg, and remained 
 
752-814.] CHARLEMAGNE. 91 
 
 quiet for several years. Wittikind laid down his arms in 785, and 
 proceeded to Attigny-sur- Seine to do homage to the King of the 
 Franks. 
 
 The Frisons, the Bretons of Armorica, and the Bavarians next 
 revolted: they attacked Charlemagne simultaneously, and tried his 
 power. Tassillon, Duke of Bavaria, was son-in-law of King Didier, 
 and brother-in-law of Arigisus, Duke of Benevent. He summoned 
 the Avarians and Sclavons to his assistance, and, in accordance with 
 Arigisus, rose against the Franks : but he was conquered without a 
 contest, accused of treason at the assembly of Ingelheim, condemned 
 to death, and eventually confined in the monastery of Jumieges. The 
 nationality of the Bavarians was destroyed, as that of the Lombards 
 had been. The duchy of Benevent, protected by the mountains of 
 the south, alone escaped the conqueror. 
 
 Charles had given Aquitaine, with the royal title, to his son Louis, 
 under the guardianship of William Shortnose, Duke of Toulouse. 
 Three other great provinces were equally subject to the authority of 
 the young king. They were — on the east, Septimania or Languedoc, 
 conquered by Pepin the Short ; on the west, Nbvempopulania or Gas- 
 cony ; and lastly, on the south, the marches of Spain. This name was 
 given to the provinces conquered by the Franks beyond the Pyrenees 
 They were divided into the march of Gotkia, which contained nearly 
 the whole of Catalonia ; and the march of Gascony, which extended as 
 far as the Ebro into Arragon and Navarre. The latter provinces had 
 for their chiefs Saracen lords who, according to circumstances, obeyed 
 in turn the Frank king and the Arabic sovereign. This vast kingdom 
 of young Louis', bordered by the Loire, the Ebro, the Rhone, and the 
 two seas, was attacked in 793 by the Saracen general Abd-ul-Malak, 
 who defeated Duke William at the passage of the Orbrin, made a 
 great carnage in the Christian army, and returned to Spain with 
 immense booty. Charlemagne deferred taking his revenge : he was 
 occupied with Church matters, the opinions of the faithful being 
 divided at the time between the second Council of ISTicaea, which, in 
 787, had ordered the adoration of images, and the Council'of Frank- 
 furt, which condemned them in 497 as idolatry. Charlemagne ener- 
 getically supported the decision of the last-named council, and defended 
 it against the Pope in a treatise divided into four books, which were 
 
92 CHARLEMAGNE. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 called the Caroline Books. Adrian, who adopted the opinion of 
 the Council of Nicsea, however, avoided the expression of any view, 
 and evaded the question in order not to offend his powerful pro- 
 tector. 
 
 Charlemagne next turned his efforts against the Avarians, indefa- 
 tigable horsemen inhabiting the marshes of Hungary. After several 
 disastrous expeditions had been undertaken to subdue them, Pepin, his 
 son, penetrated into their country at the head of a Lombardese and 
 Bavarian army, and seized their famous fortified camp called Buy, in 
 which they had collected for a number of years the spoils of the East. 
 Pepin carried them off, and his father distributed them among his 
 favourites and the nobles of his court. 
 
 The Saxons had joined the Avarians in this war ; they had burnt 
 the churches, murdered the priests, and returned in crowds to their 
 false gods. Charlemagne then adopted against them a system of 
 extermination ; he established himself with an army on the Weser, 
 ravaged Saxony with fire and sword, carried off a large number of 
 the inhabitants, either as prisoners or hostages, and transported them 
 to the western and southern countries. But the Saxons were not finally 
 subdued till the year 804, after thirty-two years of fighting, revolt, 
 and massacres. Charlemagne, in order to watch and restrain them 
 the better, transferred his usual residence to Aix-la-Chapelle, which he 
 made the capital of his empire. 
 
 Leon III. succeeded Adrian I. in 795 upon the pontifical throne. 
 Priests conspired to drag him off it. Wounded and imprisoned by them, 
 he escaped and fled to Spoleto, where he implored the help of Charle- 
 magne, who made a last journey to Italy for the purpose of restoring 
 Leon his crown. Charles, on Christmas day, was on his knees and 
 praying in the Cathedral of St. Peter : the Pope went up to him and 
 placed the imperial crown upon his head. The people straightway 
 saluted him with the name of Augustus ; and from this moment 
 Charlemagne regarded himself as the real successor of the Roman 
 Emperors of the West. He adopted the titles and ceremonials of the 
 court of Byzantium, with which he kept up regular relations, and, in 
 order to establish the empire in its integrity, the only thing remaining 
 was for him to espouse the Empress Irene, who, after having her son 
 assassinated, was reigning at Constantinople. Such was Charlemagne's 
 
752-814.] CHARLEMAGNE. 93 
 
 wish, but he was unable to accomplish it, for Irene was dethroned and 
 died in exile. 
 
 Charlemagne, after his coronation as Emperor, had but insignificant 
 wars to wage, and on attaining the supreme dignity, he also reached 
 the end of his most difficult enterprises. He received in his palace at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle the homage of the independent princes of the Veneli 
 and Dalmatians, who ruled at the other extremity of Europe ; and 
 such was the ascendency of his name and fortune that he saw several 
 nations voluntarily range themselves under his laws. 
 
 During the last eight years of his reign he promulgated decrees and 
 instituted numerous administrative, ecclesiastical, judicial, and military 
 institutions, which were all intended to strengthen the social order, 
 and maintain all parts of his immense empire in union and peace. He 
 convened, at the field of Mars, in the year 806, an assembly of the 
 nobles of his kingdom, in order to arrange with them the partition of 
 his states between his three sons, Charles, Pepin, and Louis. To the 
 first he assigned the northern part of Gaul with Germany ; to the 
 second he gave Italy and Bavaria with his conquests in Pannonia ; the 
 third had Aquitaine, Burgundy, and the marches of Spain. This 
 division, consented to by the nobles and the people, was sanctioned by 
 the Pope. 
 
 The last years of Charlemagne were saddened by domestic sorrows. 
 He had to blush at the irregularities of his daughters, and lamented the 
 death of his two eldest sons, Charles and Pepin. The first left no 
 children, the second had a son, Bernard, to whom the Emperor granted 
 the kingdom of Italy. He next wished to have the last of his 
 legitimate sons, whom death had spared, Louis, King of Aquitaine, 
 recognized as his successor, and summoned him to the great Sep- 
 tember assembly at Aix-la-Chapelle. There he presented his son to 
 the bishops, abbots, counts, and lords of the Franks, and asked them 
 to recognize him as emperor. All consented. Then, desirous that his 
 son's power should devolve on him from God Himself, he laid on the 
 altar a crown resembling his own, and after giving Louis an affecting 
 exhortation about his duties to the Church, his subjects, and relatives, 
 he ordered him to take up the crown and place it on bis brow. 
 
 Charlemagne was attaining the close of his glorious career. He 
 devoted the last months of his life to devotional works, and divided 
 
94 CHAKLEMAGNE. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 his time between prayer, the distribution of alms, and the study of 
 versions of the Gospels in different languages. He directed this task 
 up to the eve of his death. He was attacked by fever toward the 
 middle of January, 814. He languished for some days ; then, feeling 
 death at hand, he received the sacraments at the hands of Hildebald, 
 his chaplain, and, arranging his limbs for the eternal rest, he closed 
 his eyes, repeating, in a low voice, " In manus tuas commendo spiriturn 
 meum" and expired. He had entered into his seventy- second year: 
 he had reigned for forty- seven years over the Franks, forty- three over 
 the Lombards, and fourteen over the Empire of the West. He was 
 interred at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the Church of St. Mary, which he built. 
 
 The exploits and conquests of this great monarch, too often 
 stamped with the barbarism of the age, are not his greatest titles 
 to the admiration and respect of posterity. What really elevates 
 him above his age, is the legislative spirit, and the genius of civiliza- 
 tion, both of which he possessed in an eminent degree. Charlemagne 
 undertook to substitute order for anarchy, learning for ignorance, in 
 the vast countries that obeyed him, and to subject to the laws and a 
 regular administration, so many nations, still savage, strangers to 
 each other, differing in origin, language, and manners, and with no 
 other link among them than that of conquest. 
 
 The principal and permanent division which he established in his 
 empire was the county, a division generally responding to the old 
 Roman districts called cities. The counts or principal officers 
 of the state, held all the ^ civil, judicial, and military attributes. 
 Below them were the hundredmen, also called viquiers, or vicars ; they 
 were called liundredmen, because their authority extended over a 
 canton, or territory originally occupied by one hundred families. The 
 Emperor had the permanent officers and magistrates watched by a 
 certain number of high functionaries, called royal envoys or missi 
 dominici, who corresponded directly with him ; they were intrusted 
 with the duty of inspecting the various counties, and presiding over 
 the provincial assemblies. 
 
 In addition to these assemblies, at which local interests were dis- 
 cussed, two great national assemblies were convened annually. These 
 meetings, whose origin dated back to the old customs of Germany, 
 had fallen into desuetude under the last Merovingian kings. They 
 
752-814.] CHARLEMAGNE. 95 
 
 acquired a new authority on the accession of the second race, which 
 was raised to the throne by the Austrasian armies, in which the 
 Germanic element prevailed. These assemblies were almost sovereign 
 after the reign of Charlemagne. But this prince was always able to 
 direct them ; they were inspired with his genius, and generally 
 restricted themselves to sanctioning his wishes. At this epoch they 
 were, besides, but the shadow of the great malls, at which the great 
 nation of the Franks formerly assembled. The influence of Gallo- 
 Eoman civilization, the distances to be covered, and the inequality 
 which was established among the conquerors themselves, modified the 
 composition of these great assemblies, from which the public were 
 soon excluded. " It was the custom," writes Archbishop Hincmar, " to 
 hold two assemblies annually. The first took place in the spring. The 
 general affairs of the kingdom were regulated at it ; and no event, 
 unless it was an absolute necessity, caused any change in what had 
 been settled. At this assembly came together all the nobles (majores) 
 both ecclesiastics and laymen (dukes, counts, and bishops) : they 
 formed decisions, and submitted them for adhesion to the members of 
 fhe second class (minores — the vicars, hundredmen, and royal officers 
 of inferior rank), irho were merely consulted." Hincmar goes on to 
 tell us that " the other assembly, at which the general ^gifts of the 
 kingdom were received, was solely composed of the most important 
 members of the previous assembly, and the king's councillors. At it 
 were discussed affairs for which it was necessary to make provision — 
 war, truce, administrative measures, &c. At both these assemblies the 
 king submitted for deliberation the articles of law, called capitula, 
 which he had himself drawn up, with the inspiration of Grod, or which 
 had been found necessary in the interval between the two assemblies. 
 Messengers of the palace served as intermediators between the 
 assembly and the prince ; still, if the members expressed the desire, 
 the king would go to them, remain as long as they pleased, and they 
 gave him their opinion on all sorts of matters in a most familiar way, 
 questioning him, and recommending each to inform himself of all that 
 was going on within and without the empire during the period before 
 the next meeting." * 
 
 * Epist. ad Proceres regu. pro instit. Carolomanni regis et de ordine palat. ex Ada- 
 lardo. (Hincmar, Opera, Vol. II., pp. 201-205.) 
 
96 CHARLEMAGNE. [Boos II. CHAP. I. 
 
 A part of tlie ordinances to which Hincmar alludes by the name of 
 capitulars has been handed down to us, and, in spite of their confused 
 language, they bear testimony to the wisdom of their author. His 
 genius embraces everything. He provides with equal intelligence for 
 the greatest interests of his people and the administration of his 
 private domains. His chief attention is directed to the clergy, whom 
 he provides for by tithes, in order to compensate them for the 
 spoliations of Charles Martel. He prescribes to ecclesiastics subordi- 
 nation, the obligation of self-instruction, the transmission of their 
 learning to the people, the reformation of abuses, and a prohibition of 
 appearing in arms and fighting. It was a small thing to make wise 
 laws, but their execution had also to be provided for. Charlemagne 
 succeeded in effecting this by means of his envoys. We have seen 
 that they corresponded directly with the Emperor ; he was also 
 informed of everything, and his authority acted simultaneously at 
 each point of his vast estates. 
 
 Charlemagne understood that the most efficacious method of civi- 
 lizing a nation is by instructing it ; he consequently sought to restore 
 a taste for letters and the arts. He encouraged the laborious tasks of 
 the monks, who preserved the celebrated writings of antiquity by 
 transcribing them ; he even obliged the princesses, his daughters, to 
 occupy themselves in this task. He founded and supported schools in 
 a multitude of places ; he frequently inspected them himself, and 
 examined the pupils. He established one in his own palace ; and the 
 following words, addressed by him to the young students who frequented 
 it, have been recorded : — "Because you are rich, and sons of the first 
 men in my kingdom, you believe that your birth and wealth are suffi- 
 cient for you, and that you have no need of these studies, which would 
 do you so much honour. You only think of dress, sport, and pleasure : 
 but I swear to you I attach no weight to this nobility and this wealth 
 which attract consideration to you ; and, if you do not recover most 
 speedily by assiduous study the time you have lost in frivolities, you 
 will never more obtain anything from Charles." 
 
 He employed of preference in affairs of state those persons who 
 were distinguished by their acquirements. A library had been formed 
 by his care in his palace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and, during his meals, he 
 had esteemed works read to him or conversed with learned men. His 
 
752-814] CHAELEMAGNE. 97 
 
 secretary, Eginhard, who lias left us curious details about this reign, 
 was one of the most learned men of his time ; and Charlemagne spared 
 nothing to attract to his court men of letters and clever professors. 
 Among those who enjoyed his favour, the most celebrated is the Saxon 
 Alcuin, a prodigy of learning for the age in which he lived. 
 
 The principal occupation of those who applied themselves at that 
 time to letters was poetry, the study of grammar, theology, the 
 Scriptures, and the Church Fathers. Interminable controversies were 
 carried on about the honours which ought to be paid to images ; these 
 disputes occasioned long wars in the East, and several times shook 
 the throne of Constantinople. Geometry, astronomy, and medicine 
 were cultivated, but charlatanism and superstition disfigured the two 
 last sciences. Exalted men or scamps asserted that they could read the 
 future by examining the planets ; and this false science, studied under 
 the name of astrology, was long held in honour. People were beginning 
 to occupy themselves with sculpture, painting, and goldsmith's work ; 
 and among the fine arts architecture was cultivated. Charlemagne 
 enriched his residence at Aix-la-Chapelle with precious marbles from 
 Ravenna, and the spoils of several other Italian cities ; he also erected 
 numerous buildings, and the vestiges of the edifices of that age display 
 far more solidity than elegance in the processes of the art. 
 
 Among the inventions of this century we must mention paper made 
 of cotton, organs played by water, and Turkey carpets. Clocks with 
 wheels also began to be known in the West ; the Caliph Tlarcun-al- 
 Haschid, one of the greatest princes the Mussulmans ever had, sent a 
 very remarkable and valuable one to Charlemagne. The Church 
 chants contributed greatly to the solemnity of the service ; people 
 went regularly to the divine office in the daytime, and some at night 
 too. Charlemagne decided that the Gregorian Chant should be used 
 in all the churches of his empire ; and the custom established in the 
 eighth century of reckoning the years by the Christian era, or from 
 the birth of the Saviour, became general in his reign. This prince, 
 who was ignorant himself, but worthy, through his genius, of sharing 
 in everything that was great and useful, seconded mental efforts of 
 every description by his assiduous care, praise, and rewards. This 
 was the way in which he employed his leisure between his martial 
 undertakings. 
 
 H 
 
98 CHARLEMAGNE. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 In the Empire of Charlemagne a distinction must be drawn between 
 the countries directly subject to the Emperor and administered by his 
 counts, and those which were only tributary. The former alone con- 
 stituted the Empire properly so called, whose limits were — to the 
 north, the German Ocean and the Baltic, as far as the Island of Rugen ; 
 to the west, the Atlantic, as far as the Pyrenees ; to the south, the 
 course of the Ebro, the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Ebro, 
 in Spain, to that of the Garigliano, in Italy, and the Adriatic, up to 
 the promontory of Dalmatia ; to the east, Croatia, the course of the 
 Theiss, Moravia, Bohemia, a part of the Elbe, and a line which, 
 starting from the angle which the latter now makes when turning 
 westward, would run along the western shore of Rugen. 
 
 The immense country comprised between these limits was adminis- 
 tered by the free counts. We* must, however, except the Armorican 
 peninsula or Brittany, which was only tributary, as well as the country 
 of the Navarrese and Basques, situated between the Elbe and the 
 Pyrenees ; the States of the Church, or Patrimony of St. Peter, 
 governed by the Bishop of Rome ; Gaeta, Venice, and a certain 
 number of maritime cities in Dalmatia, which were dependent on the 
 Greek Empire of Constantinople. 
 
 Along these frontiers was a number of tributary states more or less 
 in a state of dependence on the Emperor. The principal nations were 
 — in Italy, the Beneventines ; in Germany, several Sclavonic tribes on 
 the banks of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic, up to the Oder. 
 The sceptre of Charlemagne also extended, in the Mediterranean, 
 though not without perpetual and sanguinary conflicts, over the Ba- 
 learic Islands, Corsica, and Sardinia. 
 
 Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne, after taking into their 
 own hands the mayoralties of ISTeustria and Austrasia, and overthrowing 
 the hereditary Dukes of Aquitaine, Lombardy, Allemania, Tkuringia, 
 Bavaria, and Frisia, subjected all the states of the Prank Empire to 
 the same political organization. Charlemagne divided them, for 
 administrative purposes, into legations and counties, which responded 
 generally to the old territorial divisions of the Roman Empire into 
 provinces and cities. These, however, were wont to vary according to 
 circumstances, and the will of the prince. The legations, the adminis- 
 tration of which Charlemagne entrusted to his missi or envoys, seem 
 
752-814] CHARLEMAGNE. 99 
 
 to have been the origin of the principal duchies. The Emperor had 
 received the direct administration of the countries between the Rhine 
 and the Meuse, in which the ancient domains of his family were 
 situated. 
 
 Some provinces upon the borders bore, as we have already stated, 
 the name of Marches. They were — the "Western March (Austria) : 
 the March of Oarinthia (the Duchy of Friseli), to which were 
 attached all the countries to the south of the Drave, and the two 
 Marches of Spain, Grothia and Grascony. 
 
 In addition to the great divisions into legations, we have seen 
 that Charlemagne established or reconstituted for his sons Louis 
 and Pepin two kingdoms : that is, Italy, with the March of 
 Carinthia and the Patrimony of St. Peter, and that of Aquitaine, 
 with the Marches of Spain. Still, he kept the two kings in strict 
 dependence ; and though they had a more pompous title and more 
 extensive functions, they were in their states, like the missi in the 
 legations, no more than the first lieutenants and representatives of the 
 Emperor. 
 
 Pepin ceded to the Bishop of Rome the Exarchate of Ravenna and 
 the Pentapolis : Charlemagne confirmed this gift. These two territories, 
 joined to the city of Rome and the surrounding country, formed the. 
 state temporally governed by the Pope, which retained the name of 
 the Patrimony of St. Peter. Authors are not agreed as to the con- 
 ditions on which this donation was made ; but the general opinion is 
 that the Domain or Patrimony of St. Peter was considered, up to the 
 reign of Louis the Debonnaire, a fief dependent on the Emperor. 
 
 The Merovingian princes had laid the foundation of numerous cities 
 in their states, and more especially in Neustria, where their principal 
 residences were. The Carlovingian kings, their successors, made their 
 most important foundations in Austrasia, and beyond the Rhine. 
 Many cities owe their existence to Charlemagne, the best known 
 among them being Halle, Hamburg, Deventes, Tugolstadt, andAix-la- 
 Chapelle. The latter city, which he rendered flourishing in a few 
 years, became his principal residence, and capital of his empire. He 
 also founded several bishoprics, and numerous monasteries, most of 
 which became, in the course of time, important towns. Many other 
 cities were also embellished and enlarged by Charlemagne ; among 
 
 ii 2 
 
100 CHARLEMAGNE. [BOOK II. Chap. I. 
 
 others, Ingellieini and Nimeguen, where lie had two magnificent 
 palaces, Metz, Mayence, Strasburg, Essenfeld, Paderborn, Ratisbon, 
 and Magdeburg, which, being nearly all strongly fortified, served as a 
 defence or barrier to his empire. 
 
 Charlemagne kept his peoples united and under subjection by the 
 ascendancy of his glory and the terror of his arms ; but for vast 
 associations of men to subsist for any length of time with a common 
 centre upon an immense territory, it is necessary either that the 
 peoples should submit to an absolute authority, which was repulsive to 
 the haughty and independent humour of the Frank race, or else that 
 learning and civilization should have made sufficient progress for them 
 to recognize the necessity for their union, as well as the obligation of 
 sacrificing private to general interests. Such was not the state of the 
 nations governed by Charlemagne. Some distinguished men raised 
 their voices in vain : the masses remained plunged in barbarism. A 
 few years do not suffice to make a people pass from a savage into a 
 civilized state, from ignorance to learning. Such a task is one of ages. 
 Charlemagne appeared to the world as a brilliant meteor, which, in 
 disappearing, only leaves behind a reminiscence of its brilliancy, and 
 the vivid light it shed around : but this reminiscence was not useless 
 to the world, and the example which this great man gave bore its 
 fruit among posterity. He himself, however, was able to observe the 
 certain signs of an approaching dissolution. He knew the national. 
 enmities which subsisted between the different nations he had sub- 
 jected ; and the calmness which they had long enjoyed internally was 
 not that of a nation reposing in its strength, but rather a ealm of 
 weariness and exhaustion. His capitularies rendered military service; 
 obligatory on every free man possessed of a meusa of land or twelve- 
 acres, under penalty of paying the enormous fine of sixty pence im 
 gold, or the loss of liberty : a great number preferred slavery. The 
 greater portion of the crown lands had been given to nobles and 
 bishops ; and the right of possession over the inhabitants being at that 
 time confounded with the ownership of the soil, a multitude of 
 labourers had fallen into a condition of serfdom. The free men them- 
 selves, crushed by the weight of taxation and military service, and 
 wearied with so long a reign, eagerly desired its termination. They 
 only performed with repugnance their duty as citizens, and generally 
 
752-814] CHARLEMAGNE. 101 
 
 • 
 
 neglected going to the provincial assemblies or those of the Field of 
 May. 
 
 The expenses of the journey, and the presents demanded of them, 
 rightly appeared to them an intolerable burden ; and they displayed no 
 zeal in supporting institutions, of which they recognized neither the 
 wisdom nor the utility. 
 
 Such were the imminent precursive signs of a rapid dissolution. 
 Charlemagne's presentiments were only too fully justified toward the 
 close of his life. New nations, that came from the north, the Danes, 
 also called Normans, infested the coasts of his empire. In order to 
 repulse them, he had large barques built, which defended the mouth of 
 the rivers. This barrier, and the terror he inspired, sufficed during 
 his lifetime to keep these barbarian invaders aloof. One day, however, 
 ships, manned by Scandinavian pirates, unexpectedly entered the port 
 of a town in Gallica ISTarbonensis, where the Emperor was residing. He 
 saw them, and, going up to a window to watch their flight, he stood, 
 there for a long time with his face bathed in tears. Then, turning to 
 the nobles, who were watching him, he said to them, "Do you know, 
 my faithful friends, why I am weeping so bitterly ? Assuredly I do 
 not fear that these pirates will injure me, but I am profoundly 
 afflicted by the thought that they nearly landed on these shores 
 during my lifetime, and I am tortured by a violent grief, when I 
 foresee all the evils they will inflict on my nephews and their peoples." 
 
 The perpetual wars which Charlemagne waged in order to maintain 
 the unity of his immense empire, and substitute in it civilization for 
 barbarism, originated from his victories themselves : and they rather 
 bear testimony to the greatness of his efforts than to their success. 
 His work remained incomplete, but his glory consists in having under- 
 taken it ; and if he did not complete it, it was because completing was 
 impossible. 
 
102 LOUIS THE DEBONNAIRE. [BOOK II. Chap. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE TO THAT OF CHARLES THE FAT. 
 
 814—888. 
 I. 
 
 LOUIS THE DEBONNAIRE, OR THE PIOUS. 
 
 814—840. 
 
 Charlemagne's object had been to rescue Europe from the anarchical 
 reign 6f brute force : he wished that his will should be everywhere 
 present. "He applied himself," as a modern historian has said, "to 
 render the exercise of power regular and salutary to the people ; * and 
 he everywhere substituted his intelligent and central action for the 
 action of a number of* blind and isolated local authorities, whom he 
 held in check, without destroying. These powers derived their origin 
 and force from old Germanic institutions and customs ; and these did 
 not work in unison either to establish or maintain the unity of a vast 
 Empire. Among these customs, three were quite incompatible with 
 the principle of imperial authority, such as Charlemagne had 
 attempted to re-establish in the West. They were, first, the legislative 
 and, in some cases, sovereign power of the national assemblies ; next, 
 the jurisdiction of the nobles over their vassals, and the right of 
 private war ; and lastly, the custom which shared the succession 
 among all the sons, and which, in default of sons, left the right of 
 succession doubtful between the nephews and uncles. 
 
 Charlemagne did not make any absolute attack on these three cus- 
 toms, though they were so incompatible with the monarchical system 
 which he attempted to introduce. We have seen that he recognized the 
 
 * Gruizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France. 
 
814-888] LOUIS THE DEBONNAIRE. 103 
 
 legislative authority of the national assemblies, and that the latter, 
 which he directed and converted into useful instruments, were regularly- 
 convoked during his reign ; he did not destroy the right of seignorial 
 Jurisdiction, which was a formidable right, and one difficult to separate 
 from the right of private war ; he was even constrained to confirm 
 the latter, by obliging the vassals or liegemen to follow their lord in 
 his private quarrels, under penalty of losing their benefices ; * and he 
 could not prevent the duties of the vassal toward his lord appearing 
 more sacred than those which attached them both to the State. 
 Lastly, in the partition which Charlemagne made at Thionville, of his 
 states among his sons, we do not find that he dreamed of maintaining 
 the unity of his empire after his own death ; he did not raise the 
 eldest above the others ; and, at a later date, when he shared his 
 authority with Louis the Debonnaire, his two brothers were dead : 
 hence, then, the great question of the supremacy attaching to the 
 imperial title, and of the degree of power which the prince invested 
 with it would have to exercise over the kings of his own family, was 
 not settled by Charlemagne. Perhaps he had a foreboding that so 
 many nations, differing in language, origin, and customs, could not live 
 for any length of time, united under the same hand ; perhaps, too, by 
 himself dividing his vast states between his sons, he had hoped to 
 prevent disastrous wars, and he doubtless believed that it would be 
 better to do by common agreement what time and violence would not 
 fail to do after his death. 
 
 If such were Charlemagne's previsions, they were speedily confirmed 
 by the inutility of his son's efforts to retain for any length of time 
 the fiction of imperial unity. The situation was more powerful than 
 the men, and the Carlovingian Empire crumbled away less through the 
 weakness of Louis the Debonnaire and his successors, than through the 
 want of the institutions necessary for its duration, and, above all, by 
 the impossibility of rendering the latter acceptable to the peoples they 
 were intended to govern. The dissolution of this empire, accelerated 
 
 * Et si quis cum fidelibus suis contra adversarium suum pugnam ant aliquod cutamen 
 agere voluerit, et convocavit aliquem de coinparibus suis ut ei adjutorium prsebuisset, et 
 e!le nolu.it et exindo negliques permansit : ipsum beneficium quod babuit auferatur ab 
 eo, et ditur cui in stabilitate et fidelitate su4 permansit.— -Karoli M. Capitularc > 
 a. 813-820. 
 
104 LOUIS THE DEBONNAIEE. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 by so many causes, had as its principal results the complete separation 
 of the peoples of different race, and the subdivision of each of these 
 peoples into a multitude of small principalities, which had no other 
 bond of union than that which was established by the feudal regime. 
 
 Louis I., surnamed the Debonnaire and the Pious, son and successor 
 of Charlemagne, was soon crushed by the burden which his father had 
 left him. Unskilful in his conduct, and of weak character, but 
 animated by a desire for justice and a desire for the right, he hastened 
 to order severe reforms ; and ere he had established his authority on a 
 solid basis, he punished powerful culprits, and tried to destroy a mul- 
 titude of abuses by which the nobles profited. The oppressed nations 
 found in him a just judge and indulgent master. He protected the 
 Aquitains, the Saxons, and Spanish Christians against the imperial 
 lieutenants, and diminished their "taxes, to the injury of their governors. 
 He reformed the clergy, by obliging the bishops to remain in their 
 dioceses, and subjecting the monks to the inquisition of the severe 
 Benedict of Amacia, who imposed the Benedictine rule upon them. 
 Lastly, giving the example of good manners, he tried to avenge morality 
 by disgracefully expelling from the imperial palace his father's 
 numerous concubines, and the lovers of his sisters. But he could 
 not keep either his court or his warriors in obedience, and his weakness 
 for his wives and children occasioned long and sanguinary wars. 
 
 In the hour of danger, all those whose interests he had violently 
 injured leagued against him. The first insurrection took place in 
 Italy. The Emperor had shared the empire with his son Lothair,* 
 with the assent of the Franks assembled at the comitia of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle in 817 ; then he gave the kingdoms of Bavaria and Aquitaine 
 to his other two sons, Louis and Pepin : his nephew Bernard remaining 
 King of Italy. The latter, whose father was the Emperor's elder 
 brother, was jealous at the elevation of Lothair, for he hoped, after his 
 uncle's death, to obtain the imperial crown as chief of the Carlovingian 
 family. A great number of malcontent lords and bishops invited 
 Bernard to assert his rights, and collected troops. Louis marched to 
 meet his nephew at the head of his soldiers of France and Germany. 
 
 *The second race adopted the names of the first, but the German language was 
 beginning to lose its roughness in Graul : thus, the name of Klothair became Lothair, 
 &c. &c. 
 
814-888] LOUIS THE DEBOSNAIRE. 105 
 
 On his approach, Bernard, who was deserted by a portion of his fol- 
 lowers, obtained a safe conduct from the Emperor, and went into his 
 camp, with several chiefs of his army. Louis, impelled to act with 
 unjust rigour by his consort Ermengarde, who coveted Italy for her 
 sons, had Bernard's accomplices tried and executed, while the 
 unfortunate King himself was condemned to lose his sight, and did not 
 survive the punishment. A few years later, the Emperor, in a national 
 assembly held at Attigny, on the Aisin, did public penance for this 
 crime, and, prostrated at the feet of the bishops, asked for absolution. 
 From this period he only displayed weakness. The frontier nations 
 insulted the Empire with impunity ; the Gascons and Saracens in the 
 south, the Bretons in the west, and the Norman pirates in the north, 
 committed frightful ravages, and spread terror around them. Internal 
 discord seconded their audacity : the imperial troops were defeated, and 
 Louis saw his frontiers contracted in the north and south. In this way, 
 the kingdom of Navarre was founded at the foot of the Pyrenees. 
 
 Ermengarde, the wife of Louis the Debonnaire, died in 818, and 
 the Emperor espoused in the following year Judith, daughter of a 
 Bavarian lord. He had by her a son called Charles, for whom his 
 mother asked a kingdom ; and Louis promised him one, although he 
 had given everything away before. After granting to Lothair the 
 kingdom of Italy, the heritage of the unfortunate Bernard, he 
 obtained from that prince the oath to defend his young brother Charles, 
 and maintain him in the possession of the share which might be 
 assigned him ; after which, the Emperor, at the Diet of Worms, held 
 in 829, gave Charles, the son of Judith, Suabia, Helvetia, and the 
 Grisons, which he formed into the kingdom of Germany. 
 
 Lothair soon repented the pledge he had given his father, and 
 sought a mode of destroying the result of the decisions of the Diet. 
 He found an opportunity, in the blind weakness of the Emperor for the 
 Aquitanian Bernard, Duke of Septimania, and son of his old guar- 
 dian, William Shortnose. Duke Bernard was generally considered the 
 lover of Judith and father of Charles. Louis made him his sole coun- 
 cillor and prime minister. The public clamour became general ; a 
 numerous party of malcontents was formed, principally composed of 
 nobles and bishops, and who were joined by the Emperor's three sons, 
 who were irritated at his weakness and anxious about their possessions. 
 
106 LOUIS THE DEBONNAIKE. [Book II. ChAP. II. 
 
 The latter commenced an impious war against their father. He fell 
 into their power at Compiegne. Judith was confined by them in a 
 convent ; Bernard took to flight, and the Emperor was left under the 
 direction of a few monks, while Lothair seized the government of the 
 Empire. 
 
 The peoples were divided between Louis and his sons ; the latter 
 were supported in their revolt by the inhabitants of Gaul, while the 
 Germans remained faithful to the Emperor, who consulted a general 
 assembly of the states for the same year, at one of their cities, 
 JSTimeguen. They pronounced in his favour and against his sons. 
 Lothair was reconciled to his father by sacrificing all his partizans to 
 him. Judith and Bernard were recalled to court, and purified them- 
 selves by oath from the crimes imputed to them ; Louis began to 
 reign again, and once more disgusted the nation by his weakness. His 
 sons — Lothair, Louis, and Pepin — revolted once again, took up arms, 
 and marched against their father. Pope Gregory IV. was with them, 
 and tried in vain to prevent bloodshed. The two armies encountered 
 near Colmar ; all at once the Emperor's troop sdeserfced him. The 
 which this defection took place received the name of the Plain of 
 plain on Falsehood. Th eunfortunate King fell into the hands of his 
 son Lothair, who carried his impiety so far as to make him undergo 
 an infamous punishment under the cloak of a Christian and voluntary 
 humiliation, in order to degrade him for ever. A council of bishops 
 devoted to Lothair was assembled for this purpose at Compiegne and 
 presided over by Ebbon, Archbishop of Reims, a furious enemy of 
 Louis. A list of crimes was drawn up, among which figured that of 
 having ordered the army to march during Lent, and convoking the 
 Parliament on a Good Friday. The captive Emperor was forced to 
 make a public confession. He appeared in the cathedral, pale and 
 bowed down by shame and sorrow. He tottered along through a multi- 
 tude of spectators, and in the presence of Lothair, who had come to 
 enjoy the humiliation of his father and his Emperor. A hair cloth was 
 laid at the foot of the altar ; the archbishop ordered the sovereign to 
 take off his imperial ornaments, belt, and sword, and prostrate himself 
 on the cloth. Louis obeyed : with his face against the ground he 
 demanded a public penance, and read aloud a document in which he 
 accused himself of sacrilege and homicide. A proces-verbal was drawn 
 
814-888] LOUTS THE DEBONNAIRE. 107 
 
 up of this criminal scene, and Lothair conducted his father as a pri- 
 soner to Aix-la-Chapelle, the seat of the Empire, a place which had 
 formerly witnessed his grandeur and now his ignominy. 
 
 Louis the German and Pepin declared themselves the avengers of 
 their outraged father, far less through affection for him than through 
 jealous hatred of their brother ; the latter, deserted by his partizans, 
 took refuge in Italy, while the Emperor, with the assent of the states 
 assembled at Thionville, resumed his crown. He pardoned Lothair, 
 but in 838, at the states of Kersy-on-the-Oise, he for a second time 
 benefited his son Charles at the expense of his elder brother, and Louis 
 the German consented to cede a portion of his provinces to his 
 brother. 
 
 Pepin, King of Aquitaine, died in the course of the year ; he left a 
 son of the same name, dear to the Aquitains, who had seen him attain 
 man's estate among them, and who eagerly recognized him as king. 
 This people always endured with impatience a foreign rule. It nou- 
 rished the hope of forming an independent and separate nation, and 
 hoped to induce Pepin II. to revolt against the Emperor, as his father, 
 Pepin I., had on several occasions been persuaded to do. 
 
 The Emperor, however, had other projects ; he secretly reserved 
 Aquitaine for his son Charles. On his side, Louis regretted the conces- 
 sion which he had made at Kersy of the great portion of his states to 
 his brother, and had taken up arms again ; the Germans had followed 
 his banner to the right bank of the Rhine ; but the armies of Gaul, 
 composed of a mixture of men of the Gallic and German races estab- 
 lished for a long time in that country, and to whom we may henceforth 
 give the name of French, had remained faithful to the Emperor. He 
 crossed the Rhine at their head. On his approach the Germanic army 
 disbanded without striking a blow : his son Louis retired into Bavaria. 
 The Emperor punished him by reducing his inheritance to that soli- 
 tary province. 
 
 The moment had arrived to secure Charles the share which his affec- 
 tion had always desired for him at the expense of his brothers. He 
 resolved to divide the Empire, exclusive of Bavaria, into two parts of 
 equal size, destined for Lothair and Charles, and decided that one of 
 these princes should make this division, and the other have the choice. 
 This new partition was to be sanctioned and proclaimed in a Diet con- 
 
108 LOUIS THE DEBON^ T AIEE. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 voked at Worms in the month of May, 839. Lothair proceeded thither. 
 In the presence of the assembled nobles, he threw himself at his 
 father's feet and asked his pardon for the annoyance he had caused him. 
 Then, having left to his father the task of dividing his Empire, the 
 Emperor effected the partition by aline which, starting from the mouths 
 of the Scheldt, ran along the Meuse up to its source, and the Saone as 
 far as its confluence with the Rhone, and terminated at the mouth of 
 the latter river. The choice was left to Lothair, who took the eastern 
 moiety of the Empire, comprising Italy, Germany, less Bavaria, Pro- 
 vence, and a small part of Burgundy and Austrasia ; Charles had for 
 his share Aquitaine, Neustria, and the rest of Austrasia and Burgundy. 
 The claims of their brother Louis were entirely passed over in this 
 partition, and Pepin II., the Emperor's grandson, was despoiled. These 
 two princes took up arms, and the Emperor, who was already ad- 
 vancing upon Aquitaine, stopped in indecision, not knowing which foe 
 to fight first, his grandson or his son. At length, on seeing the 
 Bavarians, Thuringians, and Saxons, in insurrection on behalf of Louis, 
 the old Emperor turned his army against him ; and he marched into 
 Germany to encounter his son, who had rebelled for the third time, 
 when he was attacked by an illness, which brought him to the grave 
 at the end of forty days. "Alas ! " he said, while expiring, "I pardon 
 my son ; but let him remember that he caused my death, and that God 
 punishes parricides." He died at Ingelheim, at the age of sixty-two. 
 Louis the Debonnaire was not born for the throne ; still, he had 
 some of the qualities of a good prince. His morals were firm ; he paid 
 great attention to the administration of justice and the instruction of 
 his people, made useful regulations, and frequently consulted the 
 comitia of the Empire ; but he possessed neither strength nor dignity, 
 without which the supreme authority is but a vain word. His impru- 
 dent weakness for Charles, the son of his old age, occasioned wars 
 which were only extinguished with his race. In order to ensure him a 
 vast empire, he embroiled all the frontiers of his states ; and this par- 
 tition accelerated the outbreak of frightful calamities. 
 
814-888] DEATH OF LOUIS TO THAT OF CHARLES THE FAT. 109 
 
 II. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF LOUIS THE DEBONNAIRE TO THAT OF CHARLES THE 
 
 FAT. 
 
 After the death, of Louis the Debonnaire, the Empire was plunged 
 for ten years into a horrible anarchy. His three sons and his grand- 
 son, Pepin II., levied troops and carried on an obstinate war against 
 each other. The Emperor Lothair united with his nephew Pepin to 
 despoil his two brothers — Louis, who was called the German, and 
 Charles II., who from this period was surnamed the 'Bald. The former 
 only possessed Bavaria; the second w&s master of the whole of 
 Germany. The deplorable situation of the Empire, thus parcelled out 
 by different masters and torn by their hands, has been eloquently 
 described by a contemporary poet : — " Who could worthily describe," 
 he says, "the asylums of religious life overthrown, the holy spouses of 
 the Lord surrendered to the infamy of the secular yoke, the very 
 chiefs of the Church exposed to the perils of arms and carnage ? 
 .... Once on a time flourished a noble empire, with a dazzling 
 diadem ; it had but one prince, and a great people was subject to him. 
 
 Now the proud edifice has fallen from its height, as crown of 
 
 flowers falls from the brow which it decorated. ..... The unity of 
 
 the empire has perished in a triple partition ; no one is longer con- 
 sidered as emperor ; in lieu of a king there is only a weak prince ; 
 instead of a kingdom the fragments of a kingdom. The wall is 
 threatened with an immense and sudden ruin ; it is already cracked 
 and bulging, and scarce supported by a liquid mud which is about to 
 fall, and the overthrow is universal." * 
 
 The combined armies of the two kings, Louis and Charles, encoun- 
 tered those of the Emperor Lothair and his nephew Pepin near 
 Auxerre, and fought a sanguinary engagement in the Plains of 
 Fontenay ; it is said that one hundred thousand men perished on this 
 day. Lothair was conquered, and the two victorious princes, who 
 were themselves weaker than they had been before the victory, could 
 not pursue him. They proceeded to Strasburg, where they resumed 
 their alliance in the presence of the people. The oath which Louis the 
 
 * Flori cTeaoni Lugdunensis Guertia de divisione imperii post mortem Ludov. Pii. 
 
110 DEATH OF LOUIS TO THAT OF CHARLES THE FAT. [BOOK II. Ch. II. 
 
 German pronounced on this occasion in such a way as to be understood 
 by his brother's Neustrian and Gallo-Roman army, is the oldest 
 memorial history has preserved for us of the Romanic language.* 
 
 A new partition was made soon after at Verdun between the three 
 brothers, and irrevocably separated the interests of Gaul as a power 
 from those of Germany. Charles had the countries situated to the 
 west of the Scheldt, Saone, and Rhone, with the north of Spain up 
 to the Ebro. Louis the German had Germany up to the Rhine. 
 The Emperor Lothair, renouncing all supremacy, connected to Italy the 
 territory situated between his brother's states. The long strip of 
 land, which comprised four populations, and in which four different 
 languages were spoken, formed an entirely factitious division, of such 
 a nature that it could not be perpetuated. The two other divisions were 
 more durable, and henceforth the denomination of France was employed 
 to designate the kingdom of Charles, in which Neustria, Brittany, and 
 Aquitaine were comprised. 
 
 So many commotions and combats completely exhausted the 
 kingdoms formed out of the debris of the empire. The little amount 
 of strength left to them was consumed by these intestine wars, the 
 frontiers were abandoned to foreigners, the land remained uncultivated, 
 famine destroyed entire populations, and the ancient barbarism re- 
 appeared. The Normans, united to the Bretons, in the north and west, 
 the Saracens in the south, laid waste everything with fire and sword ; 
 bands of wolves came after them down the mountains and even 
 entered the towns. Rouen, Bordeaux, and Nantes were burnt ; the 
 Normans reached Paris on board three hundred galleys ; and while 
 terror kept Charles shut up at Saint Denis, they plundered the capital, 
 and only left it to reappear there soon after more numerous aud formid- 
 able. These men of the north, called Danes in England, and Normans 
 in Gaul, had remained pagans, and were still proud, even in the ninth 
 century, of their title as sons of Odin. Their natural ferocity was 
 kept up and incessantly excited by a continual life of brigandage. 
 A law of the country, which was maintained wherever this people 
 founded establishments, tended to perpetuate on the coasts of 
 Denmark and Norway the existence of this race of pirates. It was one 
 
 * This language is composed of a corrupt Latin, mixed up with the idiom of some of 
 the peoples of Frank Gaul. 
 
814-838] DEATH OF LOUIS TO THAT OF CHARLES THE FAT. Ill 
 
 of the principal causes of the frightful evils which they inflicted from 
 the ninth to the eleventh century on European nations ; and to it 
 must be referred the first origin of the empires which these peoples 
 founded. This law, which is still in force in England, gave to the 
 eldest son alone in Denmark and Norway the patrimony of the family. 
 It affected the families of the kings as well as those of the subjects. 
 The eldest son of the chief or king alone inherited his father's sceptre 
 and estates. His brothers, though recognized as kings by the customs 
 of the northern nations, had the ocean as their kingdom, on which they 
 sought their fortune : hence the name of sea-Mngs, which was given to 
 them, and which collected under their banner a multitude of men, 
 who, like themselves, had no other patrimony beyond their sword. 
 One of these chiefs, who was famous for his audacity and ferocity, 
 the pirate Hastings, after ravaging France, penetrated into Italy, and 
 returned to spread desolation and terror on the whole country between 
 the Seine and the Loire. Charles the Bald had intrusted the defence 
 of this territory, with the title of Count of Anjou, to a celebrated 
 warrior, Robert the Strong, who was already Count of Paris* and 
 the glorious founder of the Capitian dynasty.* Robert, whom the 
 chronicles of the time called the Maccabaeus of France, was killed, and 
 nothing arrested the devastating torrent from that moment. 
 
 In the midst of the general weakening of the Empire, the clergy 
 alone increased their fortune and power. The more miserable the 
 people were, the more they directed their thoughts to another future, 
 and respected the men in whom they recognized the power of opening 
 the gates of a better world for them. The real master of Graul was 
 Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims. He it was who defended with the 
 greatest success the authority of Charles the Bald, against those 
 who jareferred to him his brother, Louis the Grerman. The 
 bishops supported the kings they had crowned ; they governed 
 temporal and spiritual affairs, war and peace ; it was Hincmar who 
 
 * After long researches, intended to trace this family back to Childebrand, brother of 
 Charles Martel, it is generally agreed that it was of Saxon origin, since genealogists 
 even wish to give ib as founder the celebrated Wittikind. However this may be, this 
 family, established in the centre of Graul, speedily acquired a great influence there, and 
 was invested in succession with the counties of Paris a^d Orleans, the county of Anjou, 
 the duchy of France, and several other great fiefs. The name of Capitians was not 
 given to its members till after Hugues Capet. 
 
112 DEATH OF LOUIS TO THAT OP CHARLES THE FAT. [BOOK II. Ch. II. 
 
 convoked, in the king's name, the bishops and counts to march against 
 the enemy. 
 
 The Emperor Lothair I. had died in a monastery in 855, after 
 sharing the Empire for the last ten years with his son, Louis II., sur- 
 named the Young, and giving kingdoms to his other sons, Provence to 
 Charles, and the country contained between the Meuse, Scheldt, Rhine, 
 and Franche Comte to Lothair II. It was called, after the name of 
 its sovereign, Lotharingia, whence we have the name of Lorraine, 
 which has adhered to it. The decrees of the councils touching the two 
 marriages of Lothair II. occupied the whole of Christendom during 
 fifteen years. Separated by mutual agreement from his wife, Tentberga, 
 and forced to take her back by Pope Adrian II., Lothair went to Rome 
 in order to justify himself. The Pontiff called down the vengeance 
 of Heaven on him if he did not amend his ways. He died within a 
 week, and the whole of his suite in the year. . His three sons 
 survived him but a short time ; and Louis the Grerman and Charles the 
 Bald divided their estates between them. 
 
 Oil the death of the Emperor Louis II., which event took place in 
 875, his uncle Charles the Bald seized the imperial crown ; but this 
 crown, reduced to a part of Southern Germany and Italy, was, on his 
 brow, but the shadow of that worn by Charlemagne. The Empire was 
 exhausted ; the perpetual wars of Charlemagne, the incessantly renewed 
 quarrels of his grandsons, had decimated the martial population during 
 several generations. In the midst of the constantly increasing anarchy, 
 the freemen, preferring security to an independence full of perils, 
 made themselves the vassals of powerful men capable of defending 
 them ; and so early as 847, the weak Charles the Bald allowed the 
 edict to be drawn from him, known as the Edict of Mersen, to the 
 effect that every freeman can choose a lord, either the king or one of 
 his vassals, and that none of them would be bound to follow the king 
 to war except against foreigners. The king thus remained powerless 
 and disarmed in civil wars. 
 
 Thirty years later, the nobles completed the ruin of imperial and 
 royal authority by obtaining at Kersy from the same King, then 
 Emperor, the celebrated decree which rendered it legal to inherit 
 benefices and offices. For a long time past, the rights of property 
 in the soil had been confounded with the rights of administration 
 
814-888.] DEATH OF LOUIS TO THAT OF CHARLES THE FAT. 113 
 
 and jurisdiction possessed by the counts or officers of the Emperor. 
 The counts, taking advantage of the general anarchy as well as of the 
 ignorance and sloth of the sovereigns of the first and second races, had 
 in the first place contrived to render their offices irrevocable, after 
 the example of holders of benefices; then they transmitted them to 
 their sons. But no law sanctioned this right of inheritance. Charles 
 the Bald, by legalizing it, dealt the last blow to the authority of the 
 sovereigns. This act of his reign has been bitterly reproved by most 
 historians, but in accomplishing it, it is certain that he only yielded 
 to circumstances, and involuntarily consummated a sacrifice which his 
 situation imposed on him. Henceforth, it was not the king who chose 
 the counts, but the counts disposed of the throne. The dismember- 
 ment of the Empire was rapidly effected, and a new order of things, 
 the feudal system, was the consequence of this edict — the last 
 mportant act of the reign of Charles the Bald, who died in the 
 same year (877) at a village on Mount Cenis. 
 
 The last descendants of Charlemagne nearly all proved themselves, 
 in weakness and nullity, the rivals of the last Merovingians. Louis II., 
 called the Stammerer,* and successor of Charles the Bald in Italy 
 and Gaul, lost in turn, through revolts, Italy, Brittany, Lorraine, and 
 Gascony. He recognized the fact that he only owed his title to the 
 election of the lords, bishops, and peoples. He allowed the nobles 
 to fortify their mansions ; and during his two years' reign, Pope 
 John VIII., expelled from Italy, came into France, and governed 
 the kingdom. 
 
 Louis the Stammerer left three sons, Louis, Carloman, and Charles. 
 The first two were recognized as kings in 879 ; the elder, Louis III., 
 reigned over the north of France, and Carloman over the south. 
 These two princes lived on good terms ; but during their reign the 
 Normans committed frightful ravages. At the same period, Duke 
 Boson, brother-in-law of Charles the Bald, seized on Provence, which 
 was also called Cis-peran Burgundy, of which country he was pro- 
 claimed king by an assembly of bishops. 
 
 Louis and Carloman both died very young, the first in 882, in an 
 expedition against the Normans ; the second in 884, while hunting. 
 
 * This Louis II., King of France and son of Charles the Bald, must not he confounded 
 with the Emperor Louis II., called the Young, and son of Lothair. 
 
 I 
 
) 
 
 / 
 
 ; 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 114 DEATH OP LOUIS TO THAT OF CHARLES THE FAT. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 Neither left any male descent, but they had a younger brother of the 
 name of Charles, a posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer, and issue 
 of a second marriage. The crown devolved, by hereditary right, on 
 this boy, who was only five years of age at the death of his brother. 
 His youth caused him to be excluded from the throne by the nobles, 
 who elected in his stead as king the Emperor Charles the Fat, son of 
 Louis the German. This prince, by the death of his two brothers, 
 and the three sons of Lothair, his cousins, had inherited Germany and 
 Italy : he joined Gaul to them, and the Empire of Charlemagne was 
 momentarily re-established in his hand. But the hand was an unworthy 
 one. Charles the Fat was only nominally emperor and king ; and is 
 only known by the lustre shed by the crown of Charlemagne, imbe- 
 cility, cowardice, and misfortunes. The Normans braved him, and 
 carried on their daring inroads under his eyes. Paris sustained a 
 memorable siege against them, in which Eudes, Count of Paris, and 
 Robert distinguished themselves; both sons of the famous Robert 
 the Strong, killed twenty years previously, while fighting the same 
 enemies. Their valour and the heroic efforts of Goslin, Bishop of 
 Paris, ensured the safety of the city, while Charles the Fat, at the 
 head of an army assembled to save his people, made a cowardly com- 
 position with the foreigners, and allowed them to pillage his richest 
 provinces. A cry of indignation was raised against him on all sides. 
 He was deposed at the Diet of Tribur in 888, and died the same year 
 in indigence, deserted by all his friends. # 
 
 * Historians have not counted the Emperor Charles the Fat in the list of sovereigns 
 of the name of Charles who reigned in Graul, because they have regarded his reign as a 
 usurpation. In their eyes the legitimate king was young Charles, son of Louis the 
 Stammerer, who was elected at a later date. 
 
888-987] GATJL DIVIDED. 115 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLES THE FAT TO THE EXPULSION OF THE 
 
 CARLOYINGIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 888-987. 
 I. 
 
 GAUL DIVIDED BETWEEN THE RACE OF CHARLEMAGNE AND THAT OF ROBERT 
 THE STRONG, UP TO THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS IY. 
 
 888-936. 
 
 The definitive partition, which irrevocably completed the dismember- 
 ment of the Empire, took place on the death of Charles the Fat. 
 Italy became a separate kingdom : all the country comprised between 
 the Fancelles Mountains (a transverse chain of the Vosges), the sources 
 of the Rhine, and the Pennine Alps, formed, under the name of Upper 
 or Trans-peran Burgundy, a new kingdom, of which Rodolph Wolf 
 was the founder. Prior to this, Boson, brother-in-law of Charles the 
 Bald, had assumed the title of King of Provence, or Cis-peran Bur- 
 gundy. This kingdom has as its limits the Jura, the Alps, the 
 Mediterranean, the Saone, and the Cevennes.* Lotharingia, or Lor- 
 raine, was restricted between the Fancelles Mountains, the Scheldt, the 
 Rhine, and the German Ocean. Aquitainef extended to the Pyrenees, 
 
 * The kingdoms of Trans-peran and Cis-peran Burgundy were entirely distinct from 
 the part of old Burgundy situated between the Saone and the Loire, and which received 
 and retained the name of Duchy of Burgundy. In 933 these two kingdoms were 
 formed into one, which took the name of the Kingdom of Aries. 
 
 + Carloman, son of Louis the Stammerer, was the last of the Carlovingians who bore 
 the title of King of Aquitaine. This vast state ceased from this time to constitute a 
 kingdom. It had for a lengthened period "been divided between powerful families, tLe 
 most illustrious of which are those of the Counts of Toulouse,- founded in the ninth 
 century by Fredelon, the Counts of Poitiers, the Counts of Auvergne, the Marquises of 
 Septimania or Gothia, and the Dukes of Gascony. King Eudes had given William the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 GAUL DIVIDED. [BOOK II. Chap. III. 
 
 and the greater part of the territory enclosed between these divers 
 states and Brittany henceforth retained the name of France. Abont 
 the same period, the Counts of Vermandois extended their power to 
 the north, while the powerful houses of Poitiers] and Toulouse sprang 
 up in Aquitaine, and opposed a barrier to the incursions of the 
 Saracens. From this last dismemberment of the Empire of the 
 Franks dates the historic existence of the French nation. On the 
 deposition of Charles the Fat, young Charles, third son of Louis 
 the Stammerer, was only eight years old : his age was a second time 
 the cause of his exclusion, and the nobles, alarmed by a new invasion 
 of the Normans, preferred to him Budes, Count of Paris, son of 
 Hobert the Strong ; not through any desire to desert the cause of 
 France, a contemporary historian tells us, but through impatience to 
 march against the enemy. Eudes was already celebrated by his 
 defence of Paris against the Normans : he was elected king in 888. 
 
 With the reign of Eudes commenced a long series of civil wars, 
 which was terminated at the end of a century by the definitive exclu- 
 sion of the Carlovingian race. This prince always had arms in hand, 
 either against the lords of Aquitaine, who tried to render themselves 
 independent, or against Charles, his youthful rival, who was supported 
 by Arnolph, King of Germany. Eudes eventually ceded to him 
 several provinces, and he was about to recognize him as his successor 
 when he died in 898. Charles III. was then proclaimed King of 
 France, and is known by the souhriqiiet of Charles the Simple ;* and 
 history, which is silent as to the majority of events in his reign of 
 twenty-five years, has handed down to us, with his surname, the 
 recollection of his incapacity. The most celebrated act of his life 
 was the cession made by Charles in 912 of the territory afterwards 
 called Normandy, to a formidable Norman chief, who had been dis- 
 inherited by his father, and banished from Norway, his native land. 
 
 Pious, Count of Auvergne, the investiture of the duchy of Aquitaine. On the extinction 
 ' of that family in 928, the Counts of Toulouse and those of Poitou disputed the preroga- 
 \aispes, and their quarrel stained the south with blood for a long time. At length the 
 
 Counts of Poitou acquired the title of Dukes of Aquitaine or Guyenne, which remained 
 
 in their house up to the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry Plantagenet I. 
 
 King of England (1151). 
 
 * The Carlovingian kings of the name of Charles come in the following order : — 
 
 Charles I., or Charlemagne; Charles II., or the Bald, son of Louis the Debonnaire ; 
 
 Charles III., or the Simple, posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer. 
 
88S-987J GAUL DIVIDED. 117 
 
 This chief, who had previously desolated Gaul by perpetual invasions, 
 is celebrated in history by the name of Rollo, and was the first Duke 
 of Normandy. He paid homage to the King, was converted fco Chris- 
 tianity, and divided his vast territory into fiefs. His warriors, whom 
 he kept down by severe laws, became the fathers of a great people 
 which was the firmest bulwark of France against the invasions of the 
 northern races. 
 
 Numerous revolts troubled the end of this reign. For sixty years 
 the French were divided between two families of sovereigns, that of 
 Charlemagne and that of King Eudes. The nobles reproached 
 Charles with giving all his favour to his minister Haganon, whom he 
 had raised from an obscure rank to place him over them, and who at 
 times carried his familiarity so far as to take off the King's hat and 
 place it on his own head. The chief of the malcontents was the 
 brother of King Eudes, Robert, Duke of France,* who repented thai 
 he had not disputed the succession to his brother with Charles the 
 Simple. This Duke formed a league against Haganon : then he told 
 the King that he would not suffer an unworthy favourite to be pre- 
 ferred to the nobles of the kingdom, and that, unless Charles sent 
 him back to his original position, he would hang him without mercy. 
 The King despised this menace. Robert then decreed his deposition 
 with the nobles of the land, and assured himself of the adherence of 
 the King of Germany, Henry the Fowler : he then entered Soissons 
 with a band of conspirators, penetrated to the prince's apartments, 
 and made him a prisoner. On hearing of this, Herve, Archbishop of 
 Reims, faithful to the cause of Charles, armed his vassals, entered 
 Soissons at their head, broke open the palace gates, reached the King, 
 dispersed his guardians, and, taking the hand of the unfortunate 
 prince, said to him, " Come, my king, and command thy servants," 
 He took him away at once, and conducted him to Reims. Charles 
 the Simple, thus delivered by the Archbishop, retired to the heart of 
 Belgian Gaul,-}- the cradle of his family, and took up his residence in 
 
 * This duchy, which, it is said, was conceded in 861 to Robert the Strong by Charles 
 the Bald, comprised, in addition to the counties of Paris and Orleans, the Gfallicois, the 
 Chartrans, the Blaisois, Perche, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, and Beauvoisis. 
 
 •f This was the name given in the tenth century to the greater portion of the kiDgdora 
 of Lorraine. 
 
.118 GAUL DIVIDED. [BOOK II. CHAP. III. 
 
 the city of Tongres. But his reign was at an end : his deposition was 
 pronounced by the nobles at an assembly held at Soissons in 920, and 
 Robert was elected king, and consecrated at the Church of St. Remi, 
 in Reims (922). Charles called his partizans around him. He 
 interested the Belgians or Lorraines in his misfortunes : he marched 
 at their head to meet his rival, and his army encountered that of 
 Robert, near the old royal residence of Attigny, in Champagne. 
 Jlere a sanguinary action was fought, in which King Robert was 
 killed, while fighting. Charles was flying when he heard of Robert's 
 death, but he did not take advantage of this circumstance to secure 
 the crown on his own head ; and not daring to trust to his subjects, he 
 returned with his army to Lorraine. 
 
 Robert, Duke of France, was succeeded by his son, the celebrated 
 Hugues the Great, or the "White, who made kings and would not be 
 one himself. This powerful lord had the deposition of Charles the 
 Simple confirmed, and decreed the crown to his brother-in-law, Raoul, 
 or Rodolph, Duke of Burgundy, and father-in-law of King Robert, 
 who accepted the crown against his wish. Charles the Simple was 
 then drawn into a snare by Herbert, Count of Vermandois, who seized 
 him and retained him a prisoner at Peronne. 
 
 Raoul, elected in 923, reigned for eleven years. He had to contend 
 against the Normans, whom he repulsed, and against the perfidious 
 Herbert, who, master of the person of King Charles, wished to domi- 
 neer over King Raoul, and placed no bounds on his demands. He 
 asked for the county of Leon, and when it was refused him, he set 
 Charles at liberty again. But soon after he again sought the favour of 
 Hugues the Great, who had crowned Raoul ; and on becoming recon- 
 ciled with him imprisoned the unfortunate Charles for the second time. 
 Raoul, however, moved by a feeling of equity, the chronicler says, or 
 by compassion, went to visit the captured king, and begged him to 
 pardon him. He did not restore to him the supreme authority ; but he 
 gave him back, with his liberty, the royal residences of Ponthiou and 
 Attigny. Charles the Simple languished for some time, and died in 
 929, crushed by sorrow and illness. 
 
 Raoul reigned for seven years longer, and the close of his reign was 
 troubled by a bloody war, which Hugues the White, Duke of France, 
 waged against the Count of Vermandois and the Duke of Lorraine. 
 
888-987] GAUL DIVIDED. 119 
 
 The King of France, suzerain of Hugues, and lie of Germany, Henry 
 the Fowler, suzerain of the Duke of Lorraine, were drawn into this 
 war, and appeared more like allies of their vassals than as sove- 
 reigns. 
 
 Germany and Gaul were a prey to frightful calamities : foreign 
 invasion added its scourge to those of intestine dissensions, and the 
 Hungarians ravaged Germany. These ferocious hordes, vanquished in 
 933 by Henry the Fowler in the celebrated battle of Merseburg, 
 returned two years later, crossed Germany, and penetrated into Bur- 
 gundy. King R-aoul marched to meet them. At the rumour of his 
 approach the Hungarians evacuated Burgundy and fell back on Italy. 
 Raoul died the following year. He left no sons to succeed him on the 
 throne, which no member of his family inherited. His duchy of Bur- 
 gundy, the real seat of his power, did not pass in its entirety to his 
 natural heirs. Hugues the Black, his brother, only obtained a part of 
 it ; his brother-in-law, Hugues the Great, Count of Paris, took advan- 
 tage of a civil war to seize the larger portion of it. This powerful 
 noble, son of King Robert, nephew of King Eudes, and brother-in-law 
 of the last King Baoul, governed, as Duke of France, all the countries 
 situated between Normandy and Brittany in the west, the Loire in the 
 south, and the Meuse in the north. He owed the name of Great rather 
 to the vast extent of his states than to his personal merit ; and he 
 surpassed so greatly in power all the lords of Gaul that he only 
 required to stretch out his hand to the crown in order to ensure the 
 possession of it. "But," writes the author who appears to us to have 
 judged the situation most correctly, " Hugues seems to have considered 
 the power of an hereditary lord in his fief as far more satisfactory to 
 ambition than the prerogatives of an elective king among independent 
 vassals. He had already extended considerably the inheritance of his 
 family, and intended to extend it further. But he wished to give all 
 his usurpations the sanction of the royal authority, and he judged 
 that they would be far more respected if he placed between the other 
 vassals and himself the name of a legitimate king, whose master he 
 would be, than if he ran the risk of seeing the acquisitions he had 
 made contested, as well as his own title to the crown. All the nobles 
 of the south of Gaul and Aquitaine had wished, in the last wars, to 
 
120 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS. [Book II. ChAP. IIL 
 
 remain faithful to the blood of Charlemagne ; and Hugues calculated 
 on governing them in the name of a descendant of that Emperor."* 
 
 Hugues the Great, therefore, thought of Louis, son of Charles the 
 Simple. This young prince, who was sixteen years of age, was living 
 at the time in England privately with his mother, the sister of the 
 Anglo-Saxon King Athelstane, and he owed to this circumstance the 
 surname of Louis d* Outre-Mer, or from across the sea. Hugues 
 gave him the crown by agreement with William Longsword, second 
 Duke of Normandy, and with the lords of old Neustria and Aqui- 
 taine. A solemn embassy conveyed their wishes to the court of 
 the King his master, inviting him to come and reign in France. Louis 
 accepted the crown, and was consecrated at Reims in the year 936, at 
 the same period when Otho the Great, of the House of Saxony, suc- 
 ceeded Henry the Fowler, his "father, on the imperial throne of 
 Germany. 
 
 II. 
 
 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS : LOUIS IV., CALLED D ? OUTRE-MER, 
 LOTHAIRE, AND LOUIS V., CALLED THE SLOTHFUL. 
 
 The royal domain was at this period limited to the county of Laon. 
 ■ There alone Louis TV. reigned de facto as well as nominally ; every- 
 where else in Gaul the dukes and counts were more sovereign than 
 the king. Hugues the Great, while doing him homage, did not intend 
 to free him from his guardianship. The young monarch himself 
 claimed his independence : he had the soul of a king, if he had not the 
 power ; and his reign was a stormy and perpetual struggle. 
 
 A formidable invasion of the Hungarians marked its opening. A 
 numerous horde of this savage people passed through the kingdom 
 and back again like a devastating torrent ; and this scourge suspended 
 for a time the rupture on the point of breaking out between Louis and 
 his powerful vassal. Hugues, upon seeing the King escape from his 
 influence, made a close league with several lords of northern Gaul, and 
 more especially with William, Duke of the Normans, Arnolph, Count 
 
 * Sismondi, Histoire des Frangais y Part ii. Cap. iv. 
 
888-987] GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLO VINGIANS. 121 
 
 of Flanders, and the same Herbert, Count of Yermandois, who had 
 for so long a period kept Charles the Simple prisoner. 
 
 The Lorrainers, at this period, had revolted against the Emperor 
 Otho the Great, King of Germany, their suzerain, and transferred 
 their homage to Lonis d'Outre-Mer, who accepted it. A war broke out 
 between the two kings ; and in this struggle the confederate nobles, 
 vassals of Louis, allied themselves against him with the King of 
 Germany, whom they proclaimed King of the Gauls at Attigny. Otho 
 did not retain this title ; but he recovered Lorraine and made peace 
 with Louis, the husband of his sister Gerberge,* a princess of rare 
 merit, who eventually employed her influence with success to maintain 
 friendly terms between her husband and brother. The struggle of 
 Louis against the rebel lords was prolonged for two years more, and 
 was ended by the intervention of Pope Asapete and the Emperor Otho. 
 The latter reconciled Hugues the Great with the King. 
 
 The kingdom was agitated at this period by a famous quarrel 
 between two priests, who disputed the archiepis copal see of Reims. 
 One was Hugues of Yermandois, son of Count Herbert, who was con- 
 secrated almost on leaving the cradle, and protected by the Count of 
 Paris. The other, elected by the people, and a partizan of the King, 
 was the Bishop Artaud. The latter was for a time expelled from his 
 see, and Reims liberated itself from the royal authority. This quarrel 
 was prolonged during the entire reign of Louis d'Outre-Mer. It occu- 
 pies a considerable place in the annals of the epoch ; and in order to 
 understand its importance we must bear in mind that the bishops were, 
 in Gaul during the tenth century, the real masters of the cities in 
 which they had their sees, and that a town at that time was frequently 
 a state, and sometimes almost a kingdom. 
 
 In these barbarous times the violence of the nobles did not stop at 
 assassination, and the law was impotent against the abuses of brute 
 force. The prince who, next to Hugues the Great, was the most for- 
 midable vassal of the crown, William Longsword, Duke of Normandy, 
 himself fell the victim of an odious snare. He was cowardly murdered 
 by the emissaries of Arnolph, Count of Planders, and the murderer, 
 
 * Hugues the Great, Count of Paris and Duke of France, had married another sister 
 of the Emperor Otho, of the name of Hedwig. 
 
122 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOYINGIANS. [BOOK II. Chap. Ill; 
 
 whom the royal justice could not reach, remained unpunished.* The 
 conduct of Louis d'Outre-Mer was not at all loyal in this affair. The 
 Normans had recognized as William's successor a natural son of that 
 prince, the youthful Richard, ten years of age, who was afterwards 
 surnamed the Fearless. Louis hastened to confirm him in the honours 
 and privileges of the ducal rank, and then asked and obtained that the 
 boy should be entrusted to him for the purpose of receiving at his 
 court an education worthy of his fortunes. Master'of his person, Louis, 
 in agreement with Hugues the Great, thought of depriving him of his 
 duchy. They hoped to divide Normandy between them, and made an 
 alliance for that purpose. These culpable hopes were foiled. Osmond, 
 governor of the prince, escaped the surveillance of his keepers by a 
 stratagem. He concealed Richard in a truss of hay, placed him thus 
 on his horse, and, starting at a gallop, reached during the night the 
 castle of Coucy, where he placed the prince in surety. Louis, 
 when he found Richard was at liberty, openly renounced the idea of 
 despoiling him, and Hugues, having nothing further to hope from the 
 King's alliance, became his enemy again. 
 
 Louis, in his turn, became the victim of a trick on the part of the 
 Normans. Receiving an invitation from them, he proceeded to Rouen, 
 and the reception they gave him completely deceived him. The city 
 of Bayeux had at the time as governor an ex-Danish king of the name 
 of Harold, who had been expelled from his states by his son. This 
 Harold requested a conference of King Louis, who went unsuspect- 
 ingly with a small suite to meet him at the ford of Herluin. Here, at 
 a signal from the Norman chief, an armed band suddenly fell on the 
 royal escort, dispersed, and put it to flight. The King's squire was 
 killed in defending him ; and Louis, carried across country by a swift 
 horse, re-entered the walls of Rouen alone, where, instead of a refuge? 
 he found a prison. The inhabitants, who were accomplices in Harold's 
 perfidy, seized the King's person, and made him a prisoner. The 
 Count of Paris pretended to take an interest in the fate of the captive 
 monarch. He interfered in his favour, and demanded as hostages his 
 two sons of Grerberge, their mother. Grerberge would only give one. 
 Hugues induced the Normans to accept him in exchange for King 
 
 * Richer gives us to understand that Hugues the Great, and even the Emperor Otho, 
 were the instigators of this murder. 
 
-888-987] GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOYINGIANF. 123 
 
 Louis, and the latter was delivered over by tliem into his hands. 
 Hugues then threw off the mask, and, having the King in his power, 
 he broke his word, kept him captive, and repulsed the powerful inter- 
 vention of Edmund, King of the Anglo-Saxons, in favour of his 
 nephew.* Hugues unworthily abused his advantage; he overwhelmed 
 the unhappy prince with reproaches, and forced him to surrender Laon, 
 his finest city, as his ransom. 
 
 Delivered, at this price, the King proceeded to Compiegne, where his 
 wife Gerberge, celebrated for her virtues, was awaiting him, and 
 several bishops and a few faithful friends were assembled. Then he 
 could no longer restrain his grief. " Hugues, Hugues ! " he exclaimed, 
 u what property hast thou robbed me of; how many evils hast thou 
 done to me ! Thou hast seized on the city of Reims ; thou hast 
 defrauded me of Laon. In those two cities I met with a good recep- 
 tion, and they were my sole ramparts. My captive father was 
 delivered by death from misfortunes like those by which I am crushed ; 
 and I, reduced to the same extremities, can only recall to mind the 
 appearance of the royalty of my ancestors. I feel a regret at living, 
 and I am not allowed to die !"f Louis, in his distress, implored and 
 obtained the assistance of his brother-in-law, the Emperor Otho the 
 Great, King of Germany, and of Conrad the Pacific, King of Trans- 
 peran Burgundy and Provence. With the assistance of their armies, 
 he recaptured the city of Reims, where he re-established Archbishop 
 Artaud in the archiepiscopal see. Then he invested the city of Laon, 
 and seized it by surprise. 
 
 A council, at which appeared the Kings of France and Germany, 
 assembled at Ingelheim, under the protection of the imperial armies. 
 The principal object of the meeting was, on the one hand to suspend 
 the hostilities of Count Hugues against the King, and, on the other, to 
 settle the too famous dispute between Bishop Artaud and his compe- 
 titor. The latter was deposed, and Pope Asapete confirmed this 
 decision. The council prohibited Hugues from henceforth taking up 
 arms against his lord the King ; and the Count, refusing to obey, was 
 excommunicated. 
 
 * Louis d'Outre-Mer's mother was sister of the Anglo-Saxon Kings Athelstane and 
 Edmund*. 
 
 f Richer, Histoire de son Temps. 
 
124 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLO VINGIANS. [BoOK II. CHAP. III. 
 
 The anathema of the Church, far from disarming this powerful 
 vassal, rendered him more violent and formidable. Joining the 
 Normans, he ravaged the lands of King Louis, fired his castles, and 
 carried pillage and murder into his towns. Louis continued the 
 contest with more courage than success. At length, recognizing his 
 powerlessness, he applied to the Pope, King Otho, and the bishops to 
 effect a reconciliation between him and Hugues. They obtained the 
 signature of a truce. Hugues once again recognized the royal 
 authority, and swore fidelity. Louis d'Outre-Mer did not long enjoy 
 the repose which this peace seemed to promise him. He saw 
 several parts of Romanic France, among others the Yermandois, 
 the diocese of Reims, and Laon, ravaged by the Hungarians, and 
 survived the invasion of these barbarians but a short time. While 
 proceeding from Laon to Reims, a wolf crossed his road. The King 
 dashed in pursuit, but his horse fell, and he was mortally wounded. 
 He died at the age of 33, in September, 954, esteemed for his valour 
 and talents, which, under other circumstances, would have sufficed to 
 keep the crown on his head. The race of Charlemagne displayed its 
 last lustre in the person of Louis d'Outre-Mer : so long as he lived, 
 there was still a king in France, although there was no kingdom 
 left. 
 
 Louis IV. left two sons, of youthful years, Lothaire and Charles. 
 Their mother, Gerberge, sister of Otho the Great, King of Germany, 
 understood that without the assistance of the Count of Paris the 
 throne would slip from her family. She, therefore, asked his support ; 
 and the same motives which had induced Hugues to crown the father 
 determined him also to crown the son, from whom he expected greater 
 "docility. Lothaire, elder son of Louis d'Outre-Mer, was, therefore, 
 proclaimed king at Reims at the close of 954, under the protection of 
 Hugues the Great ; and he recognized this service by adding to the 
 possessions of Hugues the duchy of Aquitaine, with which he 
 invested him, to the prejudice of the orphan children of Raymond 
 Pons, Count of Toulouse, whom he despoiled of their father's heritage. 
 Hugues at once led an army into Aquitaine ; and, after an unsuccessful 
 expedition, he was preparing a second, when death surprised him at 
 the Castle of Bourdon, on the Orge (956). During his lifetime, there 
 was no other power in Gaul comparable to his j he employed it with- 
 
888-987] GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS. 125 
 
 out moderation, but not without prudence. He was the real founder of 
 the grandeur of his family, but he did not attach his name to any 
 useful and really glorious work ; and, if he opened for his son the 
 road to the throne on which his father and uncle had already sat, he 
 also^contributed to dishonour royalty, hj teaching the nobles, through 
 his own example, how to brave and oppress those whom they had 
 crowned. 
 
 Hugues the Great left the duchy of France and the county of 
 Paris to his son Hugues, who was afterwards named Capet.* Henry, 
 his second son, inherited the duchy of Burgundy. Both were children 
 a,t their father's death. Hugues, the elder, was hardly ten years of 
 age. Their mother Hedwig, and Queen Gerberge, mother and guardian 
 of the young King Lothaire, were sisters ; their brother was Otho, 
 King of Germany, and they placed their children under his protection. 
 
 This prince, of the House of Saxony, was, at that period, the most 
 illustrious and powerful prince in Europe. He had conquered Italy 
 from King Beranger II., and he received the imperial crown from 
 the hands of the Pope, as Charlemagne had done. Through his great 
 qualities and victories, he restored all its vigour to the Germanic 
 monarchy. His alliances added to his greatness, and gave him an 
 influence over the greater part of Western Europe. Saint Bruno, his 
 brother, governed Lorraine :f his brother-in-law, Conrad the Pacific, 
 reigned in Trans-peran Burgundy and Provence : lastly, his sisters, one 
 Queen, the other Duchess of France, received advice and instruction 
 from him. His fortune and genius brought together the scattered 
 members of the old Empire, and the latter appeared to be born again 
 in his hands. This great monarch died in 973. His successor was his 
 son, Otho II. ; and his death was followed by sanguinary disorders in 
 several countries which he had kept in peace or subjection by the 
 terror of his arms and his name. 
 
 * There are very many versions of the etymology of this surname, which became the 
 patronymic of the third race. One of the hest accredited is that which derives it from 
 chap ot us (hood), because Hugues, among his other titles, was Abbot of St. Martin 
 of Torss, and wore the insignia. 
 
 T Lotharingia, or Lorraine, Lad been annexed to the Grerman crown about the year 923, 
 by the Emperor Henry L, called the Fowler. On becoming a province of the Empire, 
 its government was given by Otho to his brother, St. Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne. 
 The latter divided it into two parts, Upper Lorraine, in the Mosellaise, and Lower Lor- 
 raine : the latter was almost entirely formed of the countryTwhich is at the present day 
 Belgium. 
 
126 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVTNGIANS. [BOOK II. Chap. III. 
 
 The bonds of blood and gratitude attached King Lothaire and 
 Ungues Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, to the Emperor 
 Otho II., son of the great man who had protected their youth: and 
 both formed fresh bonds with his family by each marrying one of his 
 sisters. Still, the peace between the two kings was of short duration : 
 a dispute broke out on the subject of Belgian Gaul or Lower Lorraine, 
 to which country both asserted a claim. Lorraine, divided by Otho 
 the Great into Upper and Lower Lorraine, and annexed to the German 
 crown by his predecessor, Henry the Fowler, had since been con- 
 sidered a province of the Empire. Charles, brother of King Lothaire, 
 had inherited a few fiefs from his mother ; and after the death of 
 Otho the Great, he claimed them with arms in his hand. The 
 Emperor Otho II., who was troubled on his other frontiers, offered 
 Charles the duchy of Lower Lorraine, to be held by him as a fief of the 
 Germanic crown. Charles accepted it, and Ofcho believed that he had 
 satisfied King Lothaire by this concession : but the latter, on learning 
 the following year that the Emperor was unsuspectingly residing at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, formed the plan of surprising him there ; and an 
 expedition was unanimously decided on against the King of Germany. 
 The army, immediately assembled, was marched upon the Meuse, and 
 King Otho was all but surprised in^ his capital. Lothaire's soldiers 
 occupied the city and palace : the royal tables were overthrown, the 
 imperial insignia removed, and the bronze eagle which Charlemagne 
 had placed above his palace with outstretched wings and turned to 
 the west, was made to face the south-east, as a symbol of the preci- 
 pitate flight of the Germans. Here Lothaire's success stopped, and 
 he led back his army without obtaining any serious advantage. 
 
 Otho II. took revenge for his disgrace : he invaded Gaul at the 
 head of a formidable army of Germans, and, ravaging the whole 
 country on his passage, advanced up to the gates of Paris. Here, oil 
 the summit of Montmartre, he made his soldiers strike up the Canticle 
 of the Martyrs, so as to be heard by the inhabitants, and Count Hugues, 
 who defended the capital against him. This useless bravado was the 
 sole satisfaction which the King of Germany obtained. Despairing of 
 entering Paris, and not daring to remain among a hostile population, 
 he returned to his states ; and his retreat, which was disturbed by 
 Lothaire and Hugues, was asf-precipitate as his attack had been. 
 
 Lothaire understood, however, that there was greater safety for him 
 
888-987] GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS. 127 
 
 in the alliance of the King of Germany, than in his resentment : he, 
 therefore, surrendered to him his claims on Lorraine, and they were 
 reconciled. From this momenet Hugues Capet and Lothaire became 
 enemies. But Hngnes soon saw all the dangers with which the union 
 of the two kings threatened him, and he made up his mind to divide 
 them. He proceeded secretly to King Otho, concluded peace with 
 him, and on his return passed in disguise through Lothaire's posses- 
 sions, contriving to escape his traps. The King and the Duke 
 employed perfidious machinations against each other, and the nations 
 suffered for a long time from their enmity. At length recognizing 
 their impotence to destroy each other, they made peace, and were 
 ostensibly reconciled. 
 
 Lothaire, during his lifetime, shared the throne with his son Louis, 
 who was scarce thirteen years of age. This young prince was crowned 
 in 978 at Compiegne, by Adalberon, Archbishop of Reims, in the 
 presence and with the consent of Hugues Capet and the nobles of the 
 kingdom. Lothaire attempted to secure Aquitaine for his son, by 
 giving him as wife Adelaide, princess of Southern Gaul, and widow 
 of Baymond, Duke of Septimania.* But Louis did not redeem his 
 dissipated habits by any royal quality. The nobles of Aquitaine did 
 not recognize his authority : his wife herself deserted him, and he was 
 in a perilous situation, when King Lothaire entered Aquitaine at the 
 head of an army, and brought back his son. 
 
 Otho II. died at this period (983) at Borne, leaving a son only three 
 years of age, who was crowned by the name of Otho III. Lothaire 
 took advantage of the disorders which paralyzed the strength of 
 Germany during this lad's minority, once more to assert his rights 
 over Lorraine : he led an army into that country, besieged and 
 captured Verdun. On returning to the city of Laon, he was medi- 
 tating a new expedition into Lorraine, when he fell ill and expired 
 (986), in the forty-fifth year of his life, and the thirty- third of his 
 reign, f 
 
 Louis "V., the last king of his race, merely passed over the throne. 
 Comparing his weakness with the power of his vassal, Hugues Capet, 
 
 ^'Several chronicles state that Louis espoused a princess of Southern Gaul, of the 
 name of Blanche, who eventually poisoned him. We have followed the far more detailed 
 version of Richer. 
 
 + We are told in several chronicles that Lothaire was poisoned by Queen Emma, his 
 wife, who was guilty of adultery. 
 
128 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CAELOVINGIANS. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 he went to him, and said, " My father, when dying, recommended me 
 to govern the kingdom with your counsels and yonr help. He assured 
 me that with your assistance I should possess the riches, armies, and 
 strong places of the kingdom : be good enough, therefore, to give me 
 your advice. I place in you my hopes, my will, my fortune." The 
 King thus appeared himself to lay his crown at the feet of his vassal. 
 Still, the historian who has preserved these words for us, adds that 
 the Duke allowed himself to be dragged involuntarily by the King into 
 a war against Adalberon, Archbishop of Reims, to whom the King 
 imputed, among other crimes, that of having facilitated the last 
 invasion of Otho II. during his father's lifetime, and having assured 
 his safety ' and that of the Grermanic army by assisting him in his 
 retreat. The King and Hugues Capet, therefore, laid siege to Reims, 
 and menaced the city and the Bishop with the severest punishment, 
 unless the latter consented to purge himself publicly from the accu- 
 sations brought against him. The Metropolitan promised to justify 
 himself and appear on an appointed day ; he gave hostages, and the 
 siege was raised. 
 
 Another prelate, of the name of Adalberon, Bishop of Laon, was, 
 like him of Reims, exposed to persecutions during this reign. Accused 
 by the public clamour of adultery with Emma, the widow of Lothaire, 
 he was expelled from his see. The Queen shared his disgrace, and both 
 escaped from their enemies by flight ; but they fell into the hands of 
 Charles, brother of Lothaire, Duke of Lower Lorraine, and he threw 
 them into prison. Hugues Capet, in the meanwhile, was secretly 
 forming engagements to the family reigning in Germany ; he drew 
 more closely the bonds attaching him to Otho, and gained over to his 
 ambitious views the Empress Theophania, guardian of the youthful 
 Otho III. 
 
 The crisis was approaching. Louis "V. had a fall at Senlis, the 
 consequences of which were mortal, and he expired only one year after 
 his father's death, May 22, 987, and was buried at Compiegne. 
 
 The nobles of the kingdom, after being present at the King's 
 funeral, assembled in council to elect his successor. Louis had left 
 no children ; but his uncle Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, was his 
 next heir, and put forward his claim to the crown. He had Hugues 
 Capet for a rival, and had made a dangerous enemy of the Metro- 
 politan, the same Archbishop Adalberon who, exposed to the wrath of 
 
888-987] GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS. 129 
 
 the late king had promised to justify himself publicly of the crimes 
 imputed to him. Adalberon appeared at the assembly of Compiegne. 
 No one having come forward to support the accusation, the Bishop 
 was acquitted, and admitted to deliberate on the affairs of the State. 
 Taking his place among the nobles, he voted for the election being 
 deferred for a few days, and convened a general assembly at Senlis. 
 According to the testimony of Richer, this assembly was numerous 
 and imposing : at it were present Frank, Breton, Norman, Aquitanian, 
 Gothic, Spanish, and Gascon nobles. The Archbishop of Reims 
 addressed them. " Charles," he said, "has his partizans, who declare 
 him worthy of the throne by the right which his parents transmitted 
 to him ; but the kingdom is not acquired by hereditary right, and no 
 one ought to be raised to the throne except a man who is not only of 
 illustrious birth, but possessing wisdom : a man sustained by faith and 
 greatness of soul. Are these qualities to be found in this Charles, 
 who is not governed by faith, who is enervated by a shameful torpor, 
 who has sunk the dignity of his person so far as to serve without 
 shame a foreign king, and marry a wife inferior to him, drawn from 
 the rank of simple warriors ? * How could the grand duke suffer a 
 woman, selected from among his knights, to become queen, and domi- 
 neer over him. If you desire the misfortune of the state, then choose 
 Charles ! If you desire its welfare, crown the excellent Duke Hugues. 
 Choose him, and you will find we have a protector, not only of the 
 republic, but also of everybody's interests." Hugues was raised to 
 the throne, unanimously crowned at Noyou, on June 1, 987, by 
 Adalberon, and recognized as king by the different nations of Gaul. 
 
 * If Charles had been very powerful of himself the reproach made by the Archbishop 
 would have been valueless, especially in the mouth of an enemy ; it being the constant 
 practice of lords at that period to possess simultaneously fiefs under several suzerains. 
 But Charles had no personal authority ; the desert domain he inherited in France from 
 his brother only consisted of a few towns ; he derived all his strength from his fief, and, 
 as Duke of Lower Lorraine, he was entirely dependent on his suzerain, the King of Ger- 
 many ; hence there was reason to fear lest the Germanic crown might weigh too heavy in 
 the destinies of France. Charles, moreover, had injured himself in the sight of the 
 nobles of the kingdom, by doing homage for his duchy to the King of Germany at 
 the very time when the suzerainty cf that fief was claimed by King Lothaire. These 
 reasons were among those that led the nobles to prefer Hugues to Charles as king, and 
 there is nothing to support the idea of an asserted opposition to a dynasty of Germanic 
 origin. 
 
 K 
 
130 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 The fall of the Carlovingians was not, as has been stated, the result 
 of a popular opposition to the dynasty, which was deposed by a 
 national feeling as founded on conquest. This opinion, the error of 
 an illustrious historian, and which has been sustained with all the 
 power of talent, is not confirmed by contemporary testimony. If it 
 be true to say that Charles Martel penetrated into Western France at 
 the head of new Germanic bands, it must be also allowed that he 
 found there a people already half German through its government, 
 its laws, and a conquest prior by more than two centuries. The 
 chronicles of the period bear witness that the descendants of the 
 Gauls and Germans only formed, in the tenth century, one people in 
 the northern part of ancient Gaul, and that the traditional respect 
 for the blood of Charlemagne had survived the unity of his empire. 
 In the decomposition of the latter, in the absence of any general 
 idea, and when society was broken up all around, it was natural 
 that the King should be engaged in a contest with his powerful 
 subjects, and that the peoples should support their direct lords 
 against everybody, even were it the King. The same fact has been 
 reproduced in other countries, and, in order to understand it, it 
 is not necessary to base it on the hereditary hatred of the two 
 races. Some writers have pointed out a double cause of dislike 
 of the Carlovingians, and popular sympathy for the descendants of 
 Robert the Strong, in the Germanic origin of the former, and in the 
 support they at times asked of a foreign potentate, the King of 
 Germany, a man of their own race and blood. But long before the 
 accession of the third race to the crown, the family of the Carlovin- 
 gians had disappeared from the Imperial throne and that of Germany. 
 It is also now notorious that the family of Robert the Strong was 
 quite as Germanic as that of Charlemagne ; and if the Carlovingian 
 kings of Gaul had the kings of Germany as allies on various occasions, 
 they found in them at others their most formidable enemies, and 
 finally, towards the close, the Duke of France, and the King, his 
 suzerain, were seen seeking, with equal ardour, the support of the 
 Gemanic crown in their contest. 
 
 The real explanation of the accession of the third race will be found 
 in the state of society, which was assuming another form, and being 
 established on a new basis. Charlemagne had attempted to impress 
 
888-987] GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLOVINGIANS. 131 
 
 on the monarchy a grand character of unity, and these ideas of unity 
 and the concentration of power were the dream and object of the 
 efforts of his successors, either on the Imperial throne, or at the head 
 of the states into which the Empire was broken up, but these proud 
 pretensions were no longer tenable in Gaul at the end of the tenth 
 century : they were opposed to the tendencies of the age, and formed 
 a singular contrast with the feebleness of those who were crushed by 
 the royal title. A subterranean revolution, from which feudalism 
 emerged, was slowly accomplished ; another society was formed ; and 
 any new society can only live and prosper, so long as it has at its head 
 a representative of the principles that constituted it. Hugues Capet, 
 the most powerful of the feudal lords, was in France the natural 
 representative of the new social order based on feudalism : and it was 
 especially for that reason that he was elected king. 
 
 The tenth century is one of the most obscure and disastrous epochs 
 in the history of France : everything became weak simultaneously, the 
 pious zeal and virtues of the clergy, the authority of the laws, and the 
 independence of the inhabitants of cities. The Saracens, Hungarians, 
 Germans, and Normans desolated the country, and burnt the cities j 
 the latter were no longer the seat of government or of subaltern 
 administrations, and the residences of the rich. The castles alone 
 afforded a refuge against foreign invasions and civil wars, and to them 
 retired all those who enjoyed any authority : there, too, justice was 
 done, and the courts were held. Commerce disappeared, and with it 
 the citizen and industrious classes : independent men, rich landowners 
 and manufacturers, were succeeded in most of the cities by a trembling 
 and servile population : the tradesman had no longer any fixed resi- 
 dence; he travelled from manor to manor, carrying his wares with 
 him, and concealing his profit in terror. Around each castle sprang 
 up wretched cabins, inhabited by serfs, who carried on mechanical 
 trades, or cultivated the soil on behalf of the lord : nearly the whole 
 people consisted of serfs, at the mercy of the nobles, and victims of 
 each political commotion. The frightful misery and general desolation 
 seemed at that time to justify the popular belief that the end of the 
 world was at hand, and that it would happen in the year 1000. Still, 
 at the moment of this decadence, and when the old social order 
 perished, another rose on its ruins, founded by the small number of 
 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 GAUL UNDER THE LAST CARLO VINGIANS. [BOOK II. ChAP. III. 
 
 persons who had remained free and powerful, in the protection of their 
 castles. This new order of things, which received the name of feu- 
 dalism, had taken deep root during the past century, and despite its 
 immense abuses prevented the utter dissolution of every social tie, and 
 a return to the barbarism of remote periods. 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE CARLOVINGIAN KINGS. 
 
 Pepin the Short, 
 
 
 752-768. 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 Charlemagne, 
 
 1 
 Carloman, 
 
 768-814. 
 
 768-771. 
 
 Louis I., 
 
 
 called the Debonnaire, 
 
 
 814-840. 
 
 1 
 
 
 l 1 1. 
 Lothaire I., Pepin I., Louis II., 
 
 1 
 Charles II., 
 
 Emperor. King of Aquitaine. called the German, called the Bald, 
 
 King of Bavaria, 840-877. 
 
 was father of 
 
 
 the Emperor Charles, Louis II., 
 
 called the Fat 
 
 , called the 
 
 King of the Grauls Stammerer, 
 
 from 884-888. 
 
 877-879. 
 1 
 
 1 1 
 Louis III. Carloman, 
 
 1 
 Charles III., 
 
 879-882. 879-884. 
 
 called the Simple, 
 
 
 excluded from the 
 
 throne from 884-888 
 
 
 bv Charles the Fat : 
 
 
 from 888-898 by 
 
 
 Count Eudes : 
 
 
 eventually reigned 
 
 
 from 898-923. 
 1 
 
 Louis IV., called d? Outre Mer, 
 excluded from the throne from 933-936 
 by Raoul, Duke of Burgundy, 
 reigned from 936-954. 
 
 Lothaire, 
 954-986. 
 
 I 
 Louis V. , 
 
 called the Slothful, 
 
 986-987, 
 
 last Carlovingian king. 
 
 Charles, 
 
 Duke of Lower Lorraine, 
 
 excluded from the throne 
 
 after the death of 
 
 his nephew, Louis V. 
 
SECOND EPOCH. 
 
 THE FEODAL MONABCHY, FKOM HUGUES CAPET 
 
 TO FBANCIS I. 
 
 987-1515. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF HUGUES CAPET TO THE 
 DEATH OF ST. LOUIS. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY AND GRADUAL WEAKENING OF THE ARISTOCRACY — PROGRESS 
 
 OF THE ROYAL POWER — CONQUESTS OF THE CROWN — THE CRUSADES 
 
 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE COMMUNES ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JUDI- 
 CIAL ORDER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EXPOSITION OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 
 
 The accession of Hugues Capet had for result the development of the 
 feudal system by consolidating it. Under the previous race, the lords 
 had rendered the cession of benefices irrevocable, and made them 
 hereditary in their families ; and as the German customs authorized 
 the possessors of estates to regard as their own property not only the 
 soil acquired, but also everything that existed on the soil at the moment 
 of the cession or conquest, they soon persuaded themselves that they 
 had a right to exercise civil, judicial, and military power in their domains, 
 by virtue of their sole title as owners. Authority was consequently 
 established by possession, and, by a strange fiction, power was attached 
 to the land itself. Such was in France the origin of feudalism. 
 
 Under the second race, the kings, ever sacrificing the future to the 
 present, had in turn abandoned to the dukes and counts all the regal 
 or royal rights — those of raising troops, administering justice, coining 
 money, making peace or war, and fortifying themselves ; and from 
 the moment when they recognized, by the edict _ of Kersy, the trans- 
 mission of offices to the next heir as legal, the dukes and counts 
 
136 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. [Book I. 
 
 regarded themselves as possessors of the provinces in which their will 
 was law. While de facto independent of the crown, the majority, 
 however, still remained subordinate to it by the bond of the oath of 
 fidelity. They distributed, of their own free will, domains among the 
 nobles, who received them on faith and homage : and the latter granted 
 inferior benefices to freemen on the same title. A great number of 
 independent proprietors, alarmed by the ravages of external foes, and 
 the commotion of the civil discords, sought support from their 
 powerful neighbours, and obtained it by doing them homage for their 
 lands, which they received back from the lords to whom they offered 
 them as fiefs, the possession of which henceforth entailed the obligation 
 of rendering faithful service to the suzerain. Thus, he who gave a 
 territorial estate * in fief became the suzerain of him who received it 
 on this title, and the latter was called a vassal, or liegeman. The 
 landholders were thus considered, throughout the entire extent of the 
 kingdom of France, as subjects, or vassals to each other. This system, 
 which extended to the provinces, as well as to simple private domains, 
 established a connecting link between all parts of the territory. In 
 the feudal hierarchy the first rank belonged to the country or state 
 which bore the title of kingdom ; and this title, on the coronation of 
 Hugues Capet, was acquired for the ancient duchy of France, a great 
 fief, which, on account of its central position, the warlike character of 
 its inhabitants, and the extinction of the kingly title in the neighbour- 
 ing states, was in a position eventually to obtain a real-supremacy. 
 
 The feudal system rapidly embraced old Gaul, Italy, and Germany, 
 and afterwards spread over the whole of Europe : it prepared the for- 
 mation of the great states, and, during two hundred and forty years, 
 took the place of the social bond, and of legislation. 
 
 The first portion of this period resembles an interregnum, during 
 which the king was only distinguished from the other lords by 
 honorary prerogatives. Each fortress of any importance gave its 
 owner rank among the sovereigns ; and as the civil discords made 
 
 * It must not be supposed that land alone could be the object of a feudal concession. 
 Immaterial things, such as a large number of rights, were also constituted into fiefs, and 
 conceded on the same conditions. Amongst these may be mentioned the rights of 
 fishing and hunting, of established taxes on highways or rivers, and the exclusive right 
 of grinding corn, &c. 
 
Chap. I.] THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 137 
 
 the nobles feel the necessity of attaching to themselves a considerable 
 number of men for their personal security, they divided their domains 
 into a multitude of lots, which they gave in fief; granting to their 
 vassals the permission to fortify themselves, which they had themselves 
 wrung from Louis the Stammerer ; and a great number of castles 
 were erected round the principal fortress. It is the general opinion 
 that doing homage for a fief ennobled ; and the nobility thus sprang 
 up, to a great extent, from the ninth to the tenth century. The right 
 granted to subjects of providing for their own defence arrested the 
 devastations of foreigners ; strengthened the national character ; 
 revived a healthy feeling of self-respect among the members of a 
 numerous class ; and authorized them in demanding equal politeness 
 from those from whom they held estates, as well as from those to 
 whom they ceded them, the feudal contract being annulled by the 
 violation of the obligations contracted on either side. This new subor- 
 dination was partly based on the faith of the oath ; and respect in 
 sworn fidelity and loyalty thus became one of the distinctive traits in 
 the character of the nobility.* 
 
 The principal obligations contracted by the vassal under this system 
 were to bear arms for a certain number of days on every military 
 expedition ; to recognize the jurisdiction of the suzerain ; and to pay 
 the feudal aids — a species of tax raised for the ransom of the lord, if 
 he were made prisoner ; or on the occasion of the marriage of his 
 eldest daughter ; or when his son was made a knight. Whenever a 
 fief passed from one to another, either by inheritance or sale, a fee was 
 paid to the suzerain, who, on his side, promised his liegeman justice 
 and protection. On these conditions, the vassal was independent on 
 his own land, and enjoyed the same rights, and was bound by the same 
 duties towards his own vassals, as his suzerain. 
 
 In this organization of feudal society the old pleas of the nation 
 were altered into county pleas, in which the vassals united under 
 the presidency of the count, and judicial combat was brought back 
 into use, and became the basis of jurisprudence between gentlemen. 
 
 * The following is the formula of the oath pronounced by the vassal on asking the 
 investiture of his fief : — " Sire, I come to your homage, in your faith, and become your 
 man of mouth and hands, and swear, and promise to you faith and loyalty toward all, and 
 against all, and to keep your right in my power." 
 
138 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. [Book I. 
 
 From this time, the different codes of laws, which had so long subsisted 
 among the various indigenous or conquered nations of Graul, entirely- 
 disappeared. It was generally admitted that no man could be 
 tried save by his peers, by which word was meant vassals of the same 
 rank. The great vassals of the crown — the Dukes of Normandy, 
 Aquitaine, and Burgundy, and the Counts of Flanders, Toulouse, and 
 Champagne — were nominated peers of France ; and to these six lay 
 peers were eventually added six ecclesiastical peers, who were 
 the Archbishops of Reims and Sens, and the Bishops of Noyou, 
 Beauvais, Chalons, and Langres. When a peer of France was 
 summoned before the rest, the king presided at the trial. All these 
 laws, conventions, and usages only concerned the nobility: the 
 people were counted as nothing ; and the nobles and gentry, isolated 
 from them in their habitations and through their privileges, were 
 even more distinguished by their dress and weapons. It was thus 
 that they kept the wretched and defenceless population in subjection. 
 The military art underwent a change, and the cavalry henceforth 
 became the strength of armies : bodily exercises, equitation, the 
 management of the lance and sword, were the sole occupation of the 
 nobility ; and the sale of arms, one of the principal branches of 
 trade in Europe. This first period of the feudal confederation 
 witnessed the birth of chivalry, respect for women, and modern 
 languages and poetry. 
 
 Such were the chief effects of this system as concerns the general 
 policy and the interests of the nobility. We have now to examine it 
 in its relations with the Church and the people. 
 
 After the invasion of Gaul by the Franks, religion, so far as the 
 mass of the people were concerned, mainly consisted in external 
 ceremonies, and in the veneration of relics, of images of the 
 Virgin and the saints, and of pictures representing the mysteries of 
 the faith, the actions of Christ and of the Apostles, and the first 
 believers. The magnificence of the worship exercised a great 
 influence ; and the priests, under the Carlo vingians, imposed on the 
 people, and more especially upon the nobles, by means of their riches 
 and their power. But the Church which, in the fifth and sixth 
 centuries, had alone resisted the invasion of barbarism, was less 
 powerful to restrain the corruption entailed by an excess of wealth. 
 
Chap. I.] THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 139 
 
 Large numbers of barbarians had entered the ranks of the clergy, 
 and virtue and learning almost entirely disappeared from amongst 
 them from the eighth to the tenth century. In default of these claims 
 on the respect of men, the only means the Church possessed of pre- 
 serving its ascendancy in these unhappy times was to remain rich and 
 powerful ; and at the period of the progressive establishment of the 
 feudal system, it saw with terror the great vassals encroaching on its 
 domains. The clergy soon comprehended that, as all the authority 
 was in the hands of the possessors of fiefs, they must themselves 
 form part of the new confederation. They therefore did homage for 
 the Church domains, and then divided them into numerous lots, 
 which they converted into fiefs, thus obtaining suzerains and vassals. 
 As the obligation of military service was inseparable from the pos- 
 session of fiefs, the clergy were subjected to it like all the other 
 vassals ; they took up arms at the summons of their suzerains, and 
 constrained their liegemen to fight for them. From this time a great 
 number of bishops and abbots lived the lives of nobles; arms occu- 
 pied them as much as the religious services ; and they neglected the 
 most sacred duties of religion" for the licence of camps. Wherever 
 the clergy did not embrace a martial life, the temporal lord obtained 
 an immense advantage over them, and the bishops and -abbots often 
 found it necessary to place themselves under the protection of a noble 
 who was paid to defend them ; and who was called advocate, or 
 vidaine. The clergy, through these feudal organizations, were diverted 
 from the object of their institution, the people more rarely obtained 
 consolation and succour at their hands, and most of the dignitaries of 
 the Church joined the ranks of the oppressors. 
 
 An immense majority of the people lived in a servile condition. 
 The class of freemen, as we previously said, had to a great extent 
 disappeared under the Carlovingians ; the citizen class had grown 
 weaker, as the importance of the cities became diminished; and we 
 may fairly say that, at the end of the tenth century, there was no 
 middle class between the nobles, the sole possessors of 'all the enjoy- 
 ments of life, and the wretches whose humble cabins surrounded their 
 castles, and who were called serfs, or men of servitude, attached to 
 the glebe — that is to say, to the land they cultivated. They were 
 bought and sold with the land, and were unable to leave it of their 
 
140 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. [Book I. 
 
 own accord, to establish themselves elsewhere, when they found them- 
 selves too cruelly oppressed. They possessed nothing of their own — 
 neither the huts in which they lived, nor their implements of labour, 
 nor the fruit of their toil, nor their time, nor their children : every- 
 thing belonged to the lord ; and if they were guilty of any fault in 
 his sight, they could not invoke, for their defence, any law or authority, 
 for the right of seignorial justice, of life and death, was absolute. 
 
 The condition of the freemen, who did not hold fief, and lived on 
 seignorial domains, seems to have been equally deplorable. Designated 
 as villains, or " roturiers," they hardly enjoyed the right of marrying 
 whom they thought proper, or of disposing of their property as they 
 pleased. They were gradually crushed by intolerable burdens, or sub- 
 jected to humiliating obligations ; -they had not the slightest protec- 
 tion, and had incessantly to fear the imposition of some fine or new 
 tax, or the confiscation of their goods. A great number of them took 
 refuge in the towns, where equally great evils followed them. The 
 counts exercised there over them an authority equal to that of the 
 seigneurs on their lands ; the tolls and dues of every description were 
 infinitely multiplied ; and the towns were eventually subjected, like 
 the country, to an arbitrary impost called taille ; they were obliged to 
 keep their lord and his people when he came within their walls ; pro- 
 visions, furniture, horses, vehicles — in short, everything they possessed 
 was taken by main force from the inhabitants, at the caprice of the 
 master or his followers, without payment or compensation of any 
 kind. In a word, all social force and influence resided in the possessors 
 of fiefs, who alone had liberty, power, and enjoyment. 
 
 Such was the system which, under the name of feudalism, weighed 
 down Europe for centuries. But it rescued her from the anarchy and 
 chaos into which she was plunged, and was the first clumsy attempt 
 at social organization made by society itself since the fall of the 
 Roman Empire. In this vast system, the hierarchy often only existed 
 theoretically ; the stronger contrived to make themselves independent, 
 and incalculable evils resulted from this. The territory of Old Graul 
 was for a long time a blood-stained arena open to the ambition of 
 kings and nobles ; but the want of union among the oppressors finally 
 turned to the advantage of the oppressed, who were sustained by the 
 royal authority, when the latter, through its conquest over the aristo- 
 
Chap. I.] THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 141 
 
 cracy, prepared new and more happy destinies for France. An impor- 
 tant progress toward a better order of things was that which consti- 
 tuted a central force, sufficiently powerful to keep all in check, and to 
 destroy the tyranny of the lords, and which, by creating a middle 
 class between the nobility and the serfs, granted one portion of the 
 people the most precious rights of civil liberty. History shows us 
 the French advancing to this double goal through long convulsions, 
 amid internal discords, and foreign wars. For centuries they ap- 
 proached, but did not reach it ; they owed their first progress to the 
 providential concurrence of events as much as to their own efforts, 
 and these combined causes resulted primarily in the rapid growth of 
 the power of the king, the decay of seignorial authority, the restora- 
 tion of industry, and the enfranchisement of the people of the towns. 
 
142 HUGUES CAPET. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REIGN OF THE FIRST CAPETIAN KINGS — HUGUES CAPET, ROBERT, HENRY L, 
 
 AND PHILIP I. 
 
 987—1108. 
 
 HUGUES ^ CAPET. 
 
 On the accession of the third race, France, properly so called, only- 
 comprised the territory between the Somme and the Loire ; it was 
 bounded by the counties of Flanders and Vermandois on the north ; 
 by Normandy and Brittany on the west ; by the Champagne on the 
 east ; by the duchy of Aquitaine on the south. The territory within 
 these bounds was the duchy of France, the patrimonial possession of 
 the Capets, and constituted the royal domain. The great fiefs of the 
 crown, in addition to the duchy of France, were the duchy of Nor- 
 mandy, the duchy of Burgundy, nearly the whole of Flanders formed 
 into a county, the county of Champagne, the duchy of Aquitaine, and 
 the county of Toulouse.* We have already seen that the sovereigns 
 of these various states were the great vassals of the crown, and peers 
 of France, Lorraine, and a portion of Flanders were dependent on 
 the Germanic crown, while Brittany was a fief of the duchy of Nor- 
 mandy. 
 
 The efforts made by Hugues to reach the throne, which was the 
 object of all his wishes, seem to have exhausted his strength, and he 
 appears in history less formidable as king than he had been as vassal. 
 He had, in the first instance, to conquer Charles of Lorraine, his com- 
 petitor ; and he triumphed over him by cunning more than by arms. 
 This unhappy prince exclaimed, as he addressed his followers, with 
 
 * The county of Barcelona beyond the Alps was also one of the great fiefs of the crown 
 of France. 
 
987-1108] HUGUES CAPET. 143 
 
 his face bathed in tears, "My age is advancing, and I find myself, 
 when in years, despoiled of my patrimony. I cannot, without weeping, 
 look upon my young children, the scions of an unfortunate father. 
 my friends, come to my succour — come to the help of my children ! ' ' 
 He had a momentary hope of regaining his hereditary crown ; he 
 made himself master of the city of Laon by the treachery of Arnoul, 
 Archbishop of Reims ; but it was soon afterwards torn from him by 
 another act of treachery, and he fell into the hands of his rival, who 
 threw him into prison^ with his wife and children. Thus the illustrious 
 race of Charlemagne expired in Gaul, as far as history is concerned.* 
 
 Hugues Capet, like his first successors, made a close alliance with 
 the Church, and found it difficult to maintain in obedience the nobles 
 who had raised him to the throne. He contended for a long time 
 against Adalbert, Count of Berigard, one of his most obstinate adver- 
 saries. 
 
 "Who made you count?" Hugues asked him angrily, while re- 
 proaching him with, his rebellion. 
 
 "And who made you king?" was the haughty answer, which, 
 revealed to the King the inconveniences and perils of his situation. 
 Hugues next waged a sanguinary war against his vassal, Eudes, Count 
 de Chartres. He took from him the town of Melun, and, to complete 
 his subjugation, was compelled to unite his forces with tnose of the 
 count's worst enemy, Foulques, Count of Anjou. 
 
 One of the most important occupations of this King was the convo- 
 cation of synods or councils. The bishops at that time had the greatest 
 share in the government of the cities. One of them, the celebrated 
 Arnoul of Reims, who, as we have seen, was guilty of treason against 
 the King in surrendering the town of Laon to his rival, was summoned 
 before a council, and deposed. Pope John XV. quashed this sentence, 
 and the clergy signalized their opposition by submitting the papal 
 decision to a new council. 
 
 Cruel wars between the great vassals and fearful calamities marked 
 the course of this reign, and confirmed the people in the idea that the 
 end of the world was at hand. A horrible pestilence ravaged Aqui- 
 
 * Six hundred years later, the ambitious princes of the House of Guise claimed the 
 French throne, by appealing to the rights of this same Charles of Lorraine, from whom 
 they declared themselves descended. 
 
-4 ROBERT. [BookI.Chap.II. 
 
 taine and a great part of the kingdom, and so great was the suffering 
 of the time, that the expectation of universal destruction inspired 
 many hearts with hope rather than fear. The rich and the great, 
 sharing in the general belief, lavished immense donations on the 
 clergy ; many valiant military chiefs exchanged the sword and cuirass 
 for the frock and hair-shirt of the monk ; and Hugues Capet himself 
 reigned without wearing the diadem, either because he doubted the 
 validity of his royal title, or because he desired to give his people an 
 example of humility and respect for sacred things. He continued 
 during his whole life to wear the cape as titular abbot of St. Martin 
 of Tours. He placed his crown under the safeguard of the Church, 
 and during his lifetime caused his son Robert to be crowned, and 
 recommended to him, above all things, to guard the treasure of the 
 abbeys, and submit himself to the Pope. 
 
 Hugues Capet died in his bed, after a reign of nine years ; he is 
 only illustrious as the founder of a new dynasty, and this great event 
 must be attributed to circumstances, far more than to his genius. 
 
 The custom of appanages, or territorial gifts, of more or less extent, 
 granted to the younger sons of the kings, dates from the accession of 
 the third race. These appanages, restricted at the outset, evidently 
 embraced entire provinces, and this custom became, ■with them, the 
 chief obstacle to the territorial unity of the kingdom. 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 Robert was faithful to the pious instructions of his father. This 
 King seems, through his rare gentleness and his indulgent kindness, to 
 belong to another age. Profoundly moved by the sufferings of his 
 people, he appeared to have undertaken the task of relieving the 
 wretched by unbounded charity ; and disarming the rigour of Heaven 
 by angelic patience, and the practice of the most fervent devotion. 
 Many instances of simple and touching goodness are recorded of him. 
 A beggar, whom he was feeding with his own hand, stealthily 
 removed a fringe of gold from the King's robe, and Queen Constance 
 observed the theft. " The man who stole the fringe from me," said 
 the good monarch to his wife, " doubtless needs it more than I." On 
 another occasion, a thief cut off one half of his cloak while he was 
 at prayers : " Leave the rest for another time," said the King, mildly. 
 
987-1108] HIS SUPERSTITION. 145 
 
 This prince, whose pious zeal equalled his charity, composed sacred 
 hymns, sang at the choristers' desk, and directed the choir of St. 
 Denis on holy days. 
 
 Among other peculiar traits of his simple superstition, it is recorded 
 that he did not believe an oath obligatory, unless made over the relics 
 of saint or martyr, to which he offered special worship. In order to 
 avoid the sin of a violation of faith, he made those in whose word he 
 had no confidence, swear, without knowing it, at a shrine from which 
 the relics had been removed ; and when he himself took an oath upon 
 this empty shrine, he did not scruple to perjure himself. His fervent 
 piety did not protect Robert from ecclesiastical censures ; or from 
 the most violent persecutions of the Court of Rome. The laws of the 
 Church at that time composed the entire civil legislation : the Popes 
 constituted themselves sovereign arbiters of cases in which marriage 
 was permitted ; and this displayed a praiseworthy courage in contend- 
 ing against the unbridled passions of the kings ; and their firmness 
 powerfully contributed towards preserving Christianity from sad dis- 
 orders, and possibly from polygamy. But, by an abuse of their authority, 
 they carried the prohibition of marriage too far, and proved terrible 
 to those who dared to violate their injunctions, which were frequently 
 arbitrary and unjust. Excommunication, and the placing of a territory 
 under an interdict, were among the means most frequently employed 
 by the Pontiffs to compel the submission of sovereigns. No one might 
 eat, drink, or pray with an excommunicated person, under penalty of 
 being himself excommunicated : when the Pope placed a country under 
 interdict, it was forbidden to celebrate divine service, to administer 
 the sacraments to adults, or to bury the dead in consecrated ground ; 
 the sound of bells ceased, the pictures in churches were covered, and 
 the statues of saints were taken down and laid on beds of ashes and 
 thorns. The Court of Rome struck at its enemies with these redoubt- 
 able weapons, not dealing less rigorously with sovereigns than with 
 subjects. King Robert experienced this ; Hugh, his father, disquieted 
 by the Normans established at Blois, who had refused to recognize 
 him, gained them over by making his son espouse the celebrated 
 Bertha, widow of Eudes I. of Blois. This princess possessed claims on 
 the kingdom of Burgundy, bequeathed by her brother Rodolph to the 
 Empire, and had power to transmit them to the reigning family of 
 
 L 
 
146 PERSECUTION OP THE JEWS. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 France. The Einperor Otho III. was alarmed at this, and Pope 
 Gregory "V., alleging a degree of relationship against the marriage, 
 ordered Robert to leave his wife, and on his refusal, excommunicated 
 him. It is recorded that upon this the King was at once abandoned 
 by all his servants ; and it was a popular belief, kept up by the monks, 
 that Queen Bertha was delivered of a monster. Robert, compelled at 
 length to repudiate her, espoused the imperious Constance, daughter 
 of the Count of Toulouse. She reigned in his name, having his 
 authority, and caused the King's favourite, Hugues of Beauvais, 
 to be murdered in his presence. 
 
 Robert, in spite of his habitual gentleness, was an accomplice in the 
 cruelties inflicted on the heretics by Constance, twelve of whom were 
 ordered before a council held at Orleans under his presidency, and 
 sentenced to be burnt alive : amongst them was an ex-confessor of the 
 Queen. The King believed that he was doing a pious deed by being" 
 present at their punishment ; and Constance, who was standing on the 
 road leading to the pyre, put out one of her confessor's eyes with a 
 stick as he passed along. This barbarous fanaticism, one of the cha- 
 racteristic features of the epoch, lasted for six centuries longer in 
 Europe ; and the Jews were, during the greater portion of the time, 
 the object of so much execration, that any act of cruelty to them was 
 regarded as a meritorious deed. Nearly everywhere they were out- 
 raged and plundered with impunity, the people barbarously taking 
 vengeance for their own sufferings on these hapless beings, and think- 
 ing that they honoured God in persecuting them. 
 
 Victims of the perpetual discords of the nobles, the people saw 
 their own crops destroyed and cottages burned : there was for them 
 neither rest nor security. Still, the inhabitants of the towns were 
 already beginning to endure with reluctance the vexatious tyranny 
 of their lords, and to regard with some degree of irritation their 
 precarious condition. The cities which had preserved municipal 
 institutions invoked old and unappreciated rights ; and in others 
 corporations were formed ; the workmen organized a militia, fortified 
 their walls, and guarded the gates. Acts of great injustice caused 
 resentment, which had been too long repressed, to break out, and 
 commotions, which were scarcely recognized, presaged the revolu- 
 tions which in the following century brought the enfranchisements 
 
987-1108] HENEY I. 147 
 
 of the towns. The inexhaustible charity of Robert only afforded an 
 almost imperceptible relief for the misfortunes of his people, not rich 
 enough to remove their wretchedness, and too weak to put down their 
 oppressors. He died in 1031, lamented by the wretched and regretted 
 by the clergy, leaving his kingdom augmented by the duchy of Bur- 
 gundy,* which he had united to it in 1002, on the death of his uncle, 
 Henry the Great. During his reign a wise and learned Frenchman 
 succeeded Gregory V. on the pontifical throne, and renewed the 
 alliance between the holy see and the house of Capet. This was the 
 illustrious Gerbert, who derived from the Moors and the nourishing 
 schools of Cordova all the secrets of the sciences then known : he 
 studied belles-lettres and algebra, learned the art of clock-making, 
 and passed in the eyes of his admiring contemporaries for a magician. 
 First preceptor of the sons of the Emperor Otho, then Archbishop of 
 Rheims and afterwards of Ravenna, he eventually became Pope, under 
 the name of Sylvester II., and exercised the triple authority of the 
 pontificate, of learning, and of genius. 
 
 . HENEY I. 
 
 Heney I., the son and successor of Robert, had, at the commencement 
 of his reign, to sustain a family war against his mother, Constance, 
 who raised her young brother Robert to the throne. The Church 
 declared for Henry ; and the celebrated Robert the Magnificent, Duke 
 of the Normans, lent him the aid of his sword, and placed the crown 
 more firmly on his head. Henry vanquished his brother, forgave him, 
 and granted him the duchy of Burgundy, the first Capetian house of 
 which was founded by Robert. A famine, during this reign, com- 
 mitted such fearful ravages in Gaul, that at several places men were 
 seen devouring one another. After this plague, troops of wolves 
 devastated the country ; and the feudal lords, more terrible than the 
 wild beasts, continued their barbarous wars amid the universal desola- 
 tion : the clergy scarce able to induce them to suspend their fury by 
 
 * The duchy of Burgundy, which must not be confounded with the transjuran and 
 cisjuran kingdoms of Burgundy, comprised Burgundy proper. From 884 to 1001 this 
 duchy belonged to princes allied to the family of Robert the Strong, among whom was 
 Eaoul, King of France. Henry the Gfreat, brother of Hugues Capet, was the last mem- 
 ber of this ducal branch ; and from 1001 to 1032 his states remained annexed to the 
 kingdom of France. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE TRUCE OF GOD. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 threatening the judgments of Heaven, and by asserting a multitude of 
 miracles. At length, the councils ordered all to lay down their arms : 
 they published, in 1035, the Peace of God, and menaced with excom- 
 munication those who violated so holy a law. When in each province 
 a council had established this peace, a deacon announced the fact to 
 the people assembled in the churches ; and after reading the Gospel, 
 he went up into the pulpit, and uttered the following malediction 
 against all who infringed the peace : " May they be accursed, they, 
 and those who assist them to do evil ! may their arms and their 
 horses be accursed ! may they be allotted a place with Cain, the 
 fratricide, the traitor Judas, and Dathan and Abiram, who entered 
 alive into hell ! and may their joy be extinguished at the aspect of the 
 holy angels, just as these torches are- extinguished before your eyes ! " 
 At these words, all the priests, who held lighted torches in their 
 hands, turned them against the ground, and extinguished them ; while 
 the people, struck with horror, repeated, in one voice, " May God 
 thus extinguish the joy of those who will not accept peace and 
 justice ! " 
 
 But passions were too impetuous, ambitions too indomitable, for 
 the evil to be thus totally uprooted. The "Peace of God " multiplied 
 the sacrilege without diminishing the number of assassinations. Five 
 years later, another law, known as the Truce of God, was substituted 
 for it. The councils that proclaimed this new peace no longer at- 
 tempted to arrest the working of all human passions ; but tried to 
 regulate and subject war to the laws of honour and humanity. An 
 appeal to force was no longer prohibited to those who could invoke no 
 other law ; but the employment of this force was subjected to wise and 
 salutary restrictions. From sunset on Wednesday until sunrise on 
 Monday, as well as on festival and fast days, military attack and the 
 effusion of blood were prohibited, and a perpetual safeguard was 
 granted to the churches, and to unarmed clerks and monks : the pro- 
 tection of the truce extended to the peasants, flocks, and instruments 
 of labour. This wise and beneficent lav/, which was first promulgated 
 in Aquitaine, was adopted throughout nearly the whole of Gaul, 
 where the nobles swore to observe it, and although it was frequently 
 violated, and fell too soon into desuetude, it was a great benefit to 
 the nation, whose manners it softened, and was the noblest work of 
 
987-1108] PHILIP i. 149 
 
 the clergy in the middle ages. The rumour was propagated that a 
 horrible disease, called the " sacred fire," was inflicted upon all who 
 broke the " Truce of God." The weak King Henry, through an insen- 
 sate pride, was almost the only one who in his states refused to 
 recognize the Truce, under the pretext that the clergy encroached 
 upon his authority by attempting to establish it. 
 
 This king has left no honourable recollection in history. It is said 
 that, fearing lest he might unconsciously marry a woman related to 
 him by blood, he sought a wife at the extremity of Europe, and that 
 this motive led him to choose as his third wife the Princess Anne, 
 daughter of Jaroslas, Grand Duke of Russia. # He had three sons 
 by this marriage, the eldest of whom, Philip,f he caused to be crowned 
 during his life. Henry I. carried on an unsuccessful war against his 
 vassal, William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, and died in 1060, 
 after a reign of twenty-nine years. 
 
 PHILIP I. 
 
 Philip, at the age of eight years, succeeded his father under the 
 guardianship of Baldwin V., Count of Flanders. The great event of 
 his reign, and with which he was entirely unconnected, was the con- 
 quest of England. 
 
 The Norman knights were distinguished from all others by their 
 immoderate desire for martial adventure, and by their brilliant 
 exploits. Some of them, who had landed sixty years previously as 
 pilgrims on the southern coast of Italy, aided the inhabitants of 
 Salerno to repulse a Saracen army of besiegers. Animated by the 
 success of their countrymen, the sons of a simple gentleman, Tancred 
 of Hauteville, followed by a band of adventurers, conquered the pro- 
 vince of Apulia from the Greeks, the Lombards, and the Arabs, and 
 sustained successfully an equal struggle against the Emperors of 
 Germany and Byzantium. They took prisoner the German Pope, 
 
 * The Russian nation, which had only been converted to Christianity for a century, 
 was composed of almost savage tribes scattered over an immense territory. Still, its two 
 capitals, Kief and Novogorod, already contained the germs of a highly advanced 
 civilization. 
 
 •f It has been asserted that this name, which appears for the first time in the history of 
 France, originated in a presumed connection between the Princess Anne and Philip of 
 Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. 
 
150 CONQUESTS OF THE NORMANS. [Book I. Chap.II. 
 
 Leo IX., who was devoted to tlie family of the Emperor Henry III., 
 and hiimbliiig themselves before their captive, they obtained leave to 
 retain their conquest as a fief of the Church. Robert Guiscard com- 
 pleted the subjugation of Apulia and Calabria, and his brother 
 Roger conquered Sicily : it was thus that the kingdom of the two 
 Sicilies was founded in 1052 by the Normans, and the Pope became 
 its suzerain. 
 
 Nothing was talked of in Europe but the valour of the Normans ; 
 and when "William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, and son of 
 Robert the Magnificent, collected an army to conquer England, war- 
 riors flocked beneath his banners from all sides, full of confidence 
 in his fortune. Great Britain, or England, which had been for several 
 centuries subject to the Saxons, obeyed at this time King Harold, 
 successor of Edward, surnamed the Confessor. A tempest had cast 
 Harold, before he became king, on the coast of Normandy, and he 
 was delivered up to Duke William, in accordance with the custom of 
 the times, shipwrecked men being regarded as abandoned by the judg- 
 ment of Heaven to the lord of the coast on which the tempest drove 
 them, who could keep them captive, and even put them to torture, 
 in order to obtain a ransom. William, when master of Harold's 
 person, made him swear that he would help him, after the death of 
 Edward, to obtain the kingdom of England ; but Harold did not 
 afterwards consider himself bound by an oath which had been extorted 
 by violence. When, therefore, the throne of England became vacant, 
 and Harold, succeeding to it, had been crowned, William reminded 
 Harold of his promise, and appealed to a true or false will of Edward 
 the Confessor in support of his claim, declaring at the same time that 
 he would leave the matter to the decision of the Church. A consistory 
 held at the Lateran pronounced in his favour, and, on the instigation 
 of the monk Hildebrand, adjudged England to him, by sending him, 
 together with a consecrated standard, the diploma of sovereign of that 
 country. A great battle, fought in 1066 near Hastings, between the 
 rivals to the English crown, decided the war. Harold lost his life in it, 
 and England, after an obstinate contest, became a conquest of the Nor- 
 mans. William distributed all the estates as fiefs to his knights ; and 
 from this time feudalism spread over this country the net- work with 
 which it already covered France, Germany, and Italy. A few years after- 
 
987-1108] THE MONK HILDEBRAND. 151 
 
 wards a prince of the house* of France, Henry of Burgundy, founded 
 the kingdom of Portugal, after a long series of victories gained oyer 
 the infidels. These great events inflamed minds, and disposed the 
 nations for adventurous expeditions in remote countries : they were 
 the precursors of the crusades, or wars undertaken for the deliverance 
 of the Holy Land. 
 
 A revolution, of which the celebrated Hildebrand was the principal 
 author, was at this time accomplished in the Church. The tenth cen- 
 tury more especially had been for her a period of desolation ; the see 
 of St. Peter had become the prey of intrigue and violence : and these 
 disorders were not the only evils that afflicted the Church. Prom the 
 time the clergy, in order to defend their domains, had hastened to 
 enter the feudal hierarchy, they had been bound down by the autho- 
 rity of the princes and their great vassals. Nearly all the bishops of 
 Prance held fiefs of the crown, and in the course of the eleventh cen- 
 tury there was an odious traffic in ecclesiastical lands and dignities, 
 which were not given, as formerly, to the most worthy, but to the 
 highest bidder. The Pope himself, who at that epoch was chosen by 
 the clergy and the people, was constrained to demand of the Emperor 
 of Germany, as successor of Charlemagne, the confirmation of his 
 election, and the Emperor Henry III., taking advantage of the intes- 
 tine divisions among the Romans, claimed the sole right of nominating 
 and appointing the successors of St. Peter. Such was the situation of 
 the Church towards the middle of the eleventh century. Nicholas II., 
 who had just ascended the pontifical seat, had as councillor a monk 
 who felt indignant at the vices of the ecclesiastics, the degrada- 
 tion of the Church, and the encroachments of the temporal power 
 on the spiritual authority. This monk, this man so celebrated in 
 religious history, was Hildebrand. He resolved to deprive the feudal 
 lords of every species of influence over the clergy, to strengthen the 
 ecclesiastical hierarchy, and to raise the Pope above the kings of the 
 earth, hoping thus to enable the Church to recover her efficiency, her 
 splendour, and all her power. Such a prospect of universal supremacy 
 was, in the age of Hildebrand, a conception of genius. This great 
 man had consulted the spirit of his age. The rights of humanity 
 were nowhere respected ; the nations, oppressed by a thousand 
 tyrants, had no other representatives, and no other natural defenders, 
 
152 HILDEBRAND CHOSEN POPE. [BookI. Chap. II. 
 
 than tlie clergy. Most of the members of this order come from the 
 lower classes ; and ecclesiastical dignities, and even the tiara itself, 
 were often bestowed on men of the most obscure birth ; so that the 
 voice of the Church combating the temporal power might, to some 
 extent, be regarded as the energetic protest of the people against their 
 oppressors. There was merit and grandeur, under the feudal des- 
 potism, in determining to regenerate the world on a Christian basis, 
 by giving it as guide the man who was universally recognized as the 
 visible chief of Christianity. Hildebrand's honour consists in having 
 re- animated religious enthusiasm by attempting to enfranchise the 
 spiritual authority of the Church from all temporal servitude ; his 
 error consisted in having listened too much to his own ambition, in 
 attempting to render the political government of the princes subser- 
 vient to the ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 Many priests and bishops contracted, by marriage, ties which ren- 
 dered them dependent on the princes. Nicholas broke those ties : he 
 forbade the marriage of priests, and severely punished monks living 
 in a state of concubinage. 
 
 Hildebrand was chosen in 1073, by the people and clergy of Rome, 
 as the successor of Pope Alexander III. At first, he deferentially asked 
 his confirmation of the Emperor Henry IY., and when he had obtained 
 it, he displayed under the name of Gregory VII. his vast and haughty 
 genius and his inflexible character. He withdrew the nomination of 
 the Popes from the influence of the Emperors by establishing the Col- 
 lege of Cardinals, specially entrusted with the election of the Pontiff: 
 he renewed the bull condemning the marriage of priests ; he prohi- 
 bited emperors, kings, and the great vassals from giving ecclesiastical 
 investitures to bishops ; and, finally, he published the famous decretals 
 known by the name of Dictatus J?apce, in which he placed among the 
 papal privileges those of deposing emperors, of making monarchs kiss 
 his feet, of judging without appeal, and of being made holy by the 
 mere fact of ordination. 
 
 Philip I., King of Prance, and Henry IV., Emperor of Germany, 
 were both leading at this time a life full of scandal and violence ; 
 and in order to supply their unbounded extravagance, they carried on, 
 in defiance of Gregory's prohibition, the most disgraceful traffic in 
 Church endowments. The indignant Pontiff threatened Philip with 
 
987-1108] DEATH OF GEEGOEY VII. 153 
 
 excommunication, and laid it upon the Emperor. An obstinate war 
 began between them, which is known in history by the name of " The 
 War of Investitures," because the Pope maintained by it his prohibition 
 of princes investing bishops, and reserved that right solely for himself. 
 In this celebrated war the principal allies of the Pontiff were the 
 Normans of Apulia and Sicily, and the Countess Matilda, sovereign of 
 Tuscany. Gregory VII. liberated the subjects of Henry from the 
 oath of allegiance ; and the Emperor, abandoned by them, found him- 
 self reduced to implore pardon of his haughty victor : he presented 
 himself as a suppliant in the month of January, 1077, at the Castle of 
 Canossa, the residence of the Pope, who insulted his misfortune, and, 
 before granting absolution to him, compelled the Emperor to remain 
 for three days and nights in a court of the palace, exposed to the 
 severe cold, with his bare feet in the snow. At length he deigned to 
 absolve him. But so many outrages had revolted the crowned heads 
 and moved the partisans of the Emperor with indignation. Henry IY. 
 avenged himself, and Gregory VII. died in exile. The colossal edifice 
 raised by this Pontiff did not perish with him ; his successors con- 
 solidated it amid terrible upheavals in the Empire and the Church : 
 he had founded the universal monarchy of the Popes on a durable 
 basis, on the ruling spirit of his age, and this supremacy attained one 
 hundred years afterwards its culminating point. The Crusades con- 
 tributed greatly to its consolidation ; Gregory conceived the idea, but 
 it was not given to him to see its accomplishment : the first of those 
 memorable events had its origin in the time of Philip I., and under the 
 Pontificate of Urban II. 
 
 Palestine, or the Holy Land, held for many ages by the Mussulmans, 
 had been one of the first victories of the disciples of Mahomet, and 
 henceforward the subjugation of that country had been a theme of 
 indignation and sorrow to Christendom. It was believed that an 
 especial sanctity was attached to the places where Christ had suffered 
 death for mankind, and where his tomb was yet to be seen. The pil- 
 grimage to Jerusalem was regarded as the most effectual means for the 
 expiation of sins ; and great numbers of pilgrims journeyed, alone or 
 in bands, to Palestine, to pray at the tomb of the Saviour. Already 
 adventurous knights, after seeking through Europe new fields for their 
 valour, had carried defiance to the Mussulman ; but most of these had 
 
154 PETER THE HEEMIT. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 been slain, only a few returned to Europe, where the recital of their 
 perils, and of their glorious deeds of arms, filled every soul with an 
 ardent and pious emulation. 
 
 Such was the public disposition of feeling, when an enthusiast, known 
 as Peter the Hermit, quitted the town of Amiens, his native place, 
 to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The sight of the holy places 
 excited to the highest degree his pious fervour : he returned to Europe 
 and repaired to Italy. There he exhorted Pope Urban II. to place 
 himself at the head of the nations of Europe, conjoined for the 
 deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, and the rescue of the bones of the 
 Saints from the hands of the Mussulmans. 
 
 He won over the Pontiff to his views, and received from him letters 
 to all the Christian princes, with the mission of stimulating them to 
 this holy enterprise. Peter travelled throughout Europe ; he inflamed 
 the imagination of the nobles and the people, he preached to them 
 salvation, and promised them Paradise if they would go to Palestine. 
 Two years later, in 1095, a council, convoked by Urban, assembled at 
 Clermont, in Auvergne. A prodigious number of princes and nobles 
 of all ranks flocked thither, and three hundred and ten bishops sup- 
 ported the solemnity under the presidency of the Pope himself. After 
 having decided clerical affairs, Urban drew a pathetic picture of the 
 desolation of the holy shrines, he lamented bitterly the afflictions 
 suffered by the Christians of Palestine, and the listening throng burst 
 into sobs and tears. 
 
 The Pontiff next recounted the audacity and insolence of the 
 enemies of Christ, and, indignant at such outrages, exclaimed in the 
 tone of inspiration : " Enrol yourselves under the banners of God ; 
 advance, sword in hand, like true children of Israel, into the Land of 
 Promise ; charge boldly, and doubt not that, opening a path through 
 the armies of the infidels and the numbers of their host, the Cross 
 will ever be victorious for the Crusader. Make yourselves masters of 
 those fertile lands which infidels have usurped ; drive out thence heresy 
 and impiety ; in short, make their land to produce palms only for you, 
 and out of their spoils raise magnificent trophies to Griory, Religion, 
 and the French nation." 
 
 At these words the transport was general, his hearers quivered with 
 indignation, and impatiently desired to arm at once — at once to 
 
f 
 
 987-1108] THE FIRST CRUSADE. 155 
 
 depart : — " Let us go," said the whole assembly: " it is the will of God ! 
 it is the will of God ! " 
 
 "Go then," replied the Pontiff: " go, brave champions of Jesus 
 Christ, avenge His wrong ; and, since all together have cried, ' It 
 is the will of God ! ' let those words be the battle-cry of your holy 
 enterprise." 
 
 The distinctive sign, common to all these warriors, was a cross of red 
 cloth worn on the right shoulder, and from this was derived the word 
 " Crusade.'''' The princes and nobles received such crosses from the 
 hands of the Pope ; the people came in a crowd, and the cardinals and 
 bishops distributed them with their benedictions : to take the Cross 
 was to vow to make the sacred journey. 
 
 The Crusaders separated to prepare for departure and to communicate 
 to all their pious ardour. The general meeting of the ardent host was 
 fixed for the spring of the following year. The enthusiasm extended 
 to every class, each one desired to merit salvation by devoting himself 
 to a desperate undertaking, by essaying an adventurous life in unknown 
 lands. An immense number of serfs, peasants, homeless wanderers, 
 and even women and children, assembled together, and their impatience 
 could brook neither obstacles nor delays ; they divided into two bands, 
 led, the one by Peter the Hermit, the other by a knight named " "Walter 
 the Moneyless." Their fanatic zeal displayed itself on the way by 
 a general massacre of the Jews. They devastated for their support 
 the countries which they passed through, raising up in arms against 
 themselves the outraged populations ; and almost all perished of famine, 
 fatigue, and misery before reaching the Holy Land. 
 
 Notwithstanding, the flower of European chivalry took up arms for 
 the Cross, the nobles pawned their property to defray the expenses 
 of the enterprise ; they divided themselves into three formidable 
 armies : the first was commanded by Robert Curt-Hose, son of 
 William the Conqueror, the second by Godfrey de Bouillon, the hero 
 of his age, the third and last marched under the banner of the Count 
 of Toulouse, Raymond de Saint- Gilles. Godfrey was proclaimed 
 commander-in-chief; ten thousand knights followed him with seventy 
 thousand men on foot from France, Lorraine, and Germany ; the 
 general muster was at Constantinople, where reigned Alexis Com- 
 nenus. This Emperor received them with discourtesy, and hastened 
 
156 DEATH OP WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. [Book I. CHAP. II. 
 
 to give them vessels to cross the Bosphorus, after having cunningly 
 obtained from them the oath of homage for their future conquests. 
 The Crusaders first possessed themselves of Mcea, then of Antioch, 
 through sanguinary struggles, and at length achieved the conquest of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 In 1099, a Christian kingdom was founded in Palestine : Godfrey de 
 Bouillon was its recognized king, but contented himself with the title of 
 "Baron of the Holy Sepulchre." Feudalism was organized in the 
 East ; three great fiefs of the crown of Jerusalem were created : there 
 were the principalities of Antioch and Edessa, and the Earldom of 
 Tripoli ; they had a Marquis of Jaffa, a Prince of Galilee, a Baron of 
 Sidon, and the name of " Franks " became in Asia an appellation 
 common to all Eastern Christians: Such were the principal facts of 
 that first and celebrated Crusade. There only returned to Europe 
 one- tenth of the number who quitted it. 
 
 Philip I. did not associate himself with that expedition. He took 
 no part in the great enterprises which signalized the age in which he 
 lived, and his reign offers nothing worthy of record. In 10 72, the 
 widow of his tutor, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, having been deposed 
 by her son Robert le Trison, had recourse to Philip ; the king took up 
 arms for her, marched against Robert, and suffered an ignominious 
 defeat before Cassel. He also carried on a war for twelve years against 
 William the Conqueror, which was not marked by any memorable 
 event. William gained over the councillors and partisans of Philip 
 by offering them the bribe of large estates in England. Philip, on his 
 side, promised protection to all the Norman malcontents, and espoused 
 the cause of Robert, eldest son of William, in rebellion against his 
 father. After a truce, and during an illness of the duke, he derided 
 him on account of his excessive stoutness, asking when he expected 
 his accouchement. William heard of it, and furious, swore that at his 
 " churching " he would send him ten thousand lances in place of 
 tapers. He assembled a formidable army, and carried fire and sword 
 through Philip's dominions, but at the sack of Mantes his horse 
 stumbled, and the rider was wounded in the fall. They carried 
 William in a dying condition to Rouen, where he expired in 1087. He 
 was scarcely dead when the nobles who surrounded him left hastily for 
 their castles ; his servants pillaged his valuables, carried off even the 
 
987-11081 DEATH OF PHILIP 1. 157 
 
 funeral bed, and left the naked body of the Conqueror on the floor. A 
 poor knight found it in that condition, and touched by compassion 
 undertook the care of the funeral rites for the love of God and the 
 honour of his nation. The body was put into a coffin at his expense and 
 transported to Caen, where it was to be buried in a church founded by 
 William himself. At the moment when the funeral oration was being 
 pronounced, and the body about to be lowered into the grave, a Norman 
 named Asseline advanced, and said : — " This ground belongs to me ; 
 that man whose eulogy you are pronouncing robbed me of it. Here, 
 even here, stood my paternal mansion ; this man seized it against all 
 justice, and without paying the price of it. In the name of God, I 
 forbid you to cover the body of the plunderer with earth that belongs 
 to me." 
 
 Notable example of the vanity of an existence which offers the most 
 singular mixture of grandeur and iniquity, of violent barbarities and 
 useful and fruitful creations ! This William, the conqueror of a great 
 kingdom, who had grasped immense domains in a strange country, only 
 obtained through pity a grave upon his native soil ; those who assisted 
 at his burial were obliged to put down the price of it on his coffin. 
 None of his three sons paid him the last duties, but they made 
 furious war over his heritage ; William Rufus succeeded him in 
 England, and ended by seizing upon Normandy, while Robert was 
 fighting in Palestine. 
 
 The death of the redoubtable William was a great source of joy to 
 Philip, and allowed him to continue his indolent and scandalous career. 
 He had married Bertha, the daughter of Count Plorent of Holland ; he 
 left and imprisoned her ; afterwards he carried off Bertrade, the wife 
 of Foulque le Rechin, Count of Anjou, and married her. Pope Urban 
 ordered the dissolution of this marriage, and on the refusal of Philip, 
 a council, assembled at Autun in 1094, sentenced him to excommunica- 
 tion. Philip was not permitted to carry longer the outward marks of 
 royalty : he was afflicted with grievous infirmities, in which he recog- 
 nized the hand of God; at length, in the year 1100, he associated 
 his son Louis with himself in the kingdom, and reigned only in name. 
 A dreadful fear of hell seized him ; he renounced through humility the 
 regal privilege of being interred in the tomb of the kings at St. Denis, 
 and died in 1108 in the habit of a Benedictine friar. 
 
1-58 THE SEVEN GEEAT FIEFS. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 The extent of the royal possessions, properly speaking, varied little 
 under the first Capets : its limits were those of the ancient duchy of 
 France. The authority of the King was not exercised freely and 
 directly, except in his quality of Duke of France, and only in some of 
 the cities of that duchy ; and between these even the communications 
 were difficult. The great fiefs of the crown to the number of seven 
 were the same as under Hugh Capet, the duchy of France, to the pos- 
 session of which the royal title was attached, the duchies of Normandy, 
 of Burgundy, and of Guienne or Aquitaine, and the baronies of Flan- 
 ders, Champagne, and Toulouse ; to these great states must be added, 
 beyond the Pyrenees, the barony of Barcelona.* The seven great fiefs 
 held each in their tenure inferior fiefs, of whom many were themselves 
 very considerable. 
 
 The duchy of France had for its principal fiefs the baronies of Paris 
 and Orleans, the barony of Maine, and that of Anjou. 
 
 From the duchy of Normandy arose the barony of Britanny, those 
 of Alencon, Aumale, Evreux, Mortain, and many other great 
 seigniories. 
 
 The duchy of Burgundy held in its tenure the baronies of Bar, 
 Nevers, Charolais, &c. 
 
 Upon the vast duchy of Guienne or Aquitaine were dependent the 
 duchy of Gascoigne, the baronies of Berry, Poitiers, Marche, Angouleme, 
 and Perigord, &c. 
 
 The barony of Flanders comprised Ponthieu, Artois, Hainault, &c. 
 
 The barony of Champagne, which in 1019 annexed the vast 
 possessions of the counts of Vermandois, comprised under its tenure 
 the baronies of Meaux, Troyes, Blois, Chartres, Valois, Rhethel, &c. 
 
 The barony of Toulouse comprised within itself the baronies of 
 Quercy and Romagne, the marquisate of Provence, detached from the 
 ancient kingdom of Aries, and which received also the name of the 
 barony of Venaissin. The Seven Great Fiefs became the viscounty 
 of Narbonne, &c. 
 
 All the fiefs of the lower order had themselves in their tenure many 
 
 * Brittany and Anjou have often "been declared as being fiefs to the crown under the 
 early Capetian kings. This is an error. Brittany was directly allied to the duchy of 
 Normandy, and Anjou to the duchy of France. Philip I. received direct homage from 
 the Count of Anjou, not as King, but as Duke of France. 
 
987-1108] THE FIEFS OWNED BY THE CLERGY. 159 
 
 " arriere fiefs," which mostly consisted of " vicomtes des villes," 
 "baronnies," " chatellenies," each one containing parishes or villages ; 
 below these fiefs we find those of simple possessors of chateaux. 
 
 The clergy possessed of itself a great number of very important 
 fiefs. The archbishops and bishops were lords of the city, or part of 
 the city where their seat was situated, and suzerains of many con- 
 siderable baronies and seigniories. Many abbots at length were 
 lords of the cities where their monastery raised its head, and possessed 
 also other seigniories. The abbots of St. Germain, of St. Genevieve, 
 and of St. Yictor, were each one suzerain ofa" quarter" of Paris. The 
 abbot of Fecamp possessed ten baronies, that of St. Martin de Tours 
 had twenty thousand serfs on his domains. And one may gain an 
 idea of the immensity of the ecclesiastical possessions in the twelfth 
 century, when we know that at that time France counted about 2,000 
 monasteries on her soil. 
 
1G0 ACCESSION OF LOUIS VI." [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REIGNS OF LOUIS VI. AND LOUIS VII. 
 
 1108-1179. 
 
 LOUIS VI. 
 
 The reign of Philip I. and of his immediate predecessors had been 
 , nothing; but one long 1 * anarchy ; vet France had not re- 
 
 Accession of ° ° * ' •> 
 
 Loms vi. 1108. mained stationary, she had made great progress at the 
 end of the eleventh century. Her cities were more numerous, more 
 populous, more industrious. Her citizen class began to enfranchise 
 itself, and defended its liberties by force of arms. The language and 
 poetry of France arose ; at length, the clergy encouraged with all their 
 power the progress of literary and scientific instruction ; they crowned 
 v/ith rewards and raised to the highest dignity those who dis- 
 tinguished themselves by their learning ; but the studies of this age 
 consisted solely of subtle discussions on logic and theology. 
 
 The earlier of the Capetian kings had remained ignorant of, and 
 almost indifferent to, the progress of France under their rule, and had 
 outwardly exercised no personal influence. Louis VI., nicknamed at 
 first L'Eveille, afterwards Le Grros and Le Batailleur, understood best 
 the spirit of his times. He was the first knight in his kingdom, and it 
 was with casque on head and lance in rest that he sought and won 
 the esteem of every one. His personal estates, almost confined to the 
 cities of Paris, Orleans, Etamps, Melun, Compeigne and their terri- 
 tories, were bordered on the north by those of Robert le Jerosolymitain, 
 Count of Flanders, and on the east by the estates of Hugues I., Count 
 of Champagne. The dominions of Thibaut, Count of Meaux, Chartres 
 and Blois, and those of Foulque V., Count of Anjou and Touraine, 
 closed in on the south this feeble kingdom of France, which the vast 
 possessions of Henry I., son of William the Conqueror, King of 
 England and Duke of Normandy, confined on the west. During the 
 
1108-1179] WAR AGAINST HIS VASSALS. 1G1 
 
 whole of his life Louis liad to contend with these powerful enemies, 
 of whom the most formidable was Henry I. After a aj _ * , . 
 
 J Stnig-prle ot 
 
 preliminary struggle, unfruitful in any important result, Louis vi. against 
 as to the possession of the Castle of Gisors, he em- of El) o' laud - 
 braced against Henry the cause of his nephew William Clinton, the 
 son of Robert Curt-Hose, and dispossessed, as was his father, of the 
 duchy of Normandy. Louis YI. was vanquished at the battle of 
 Brennevilie, fought in 1119. He made an appeal also to the militia of 
 the cities and of the Church, and found them disposed to second him ; 
 the prelates ordered the inferior clergy to summon their parishioners 
 to arms, and these, led by their pastors, ranged themselves under the 
 royal standard, and entered with Louis "VI. into Normandy, where 
 they committed great ravages. A council was assembled at Bheims, 
 under the presidency of Pope Calixtus II. , with the intention of 
 putting an end to this ruinous war. Louis presented himself there 
 and recited his grievances. The conditions of peace were decided 
 by the council. Henry was to remain in possession of Normandy, for 
 which his son should render homage to the King of France. 
 
 Besides this important war, Louis le Gros sustained an almost 
 incessant contest against his own barons, and amongst , Tr . , 
 
 o ' o War against 
 
 others against Thomas de Maries, son of Enguerrand de lus vassals - 
 Coucy. They infested like brigands the roads around Paris and 
 Orleans, pillaging villages and destroying the traders. The King, b} r 
 force of arms, reduced a great number of them to obedience, or at 
 least rendered them powerless for evil, thus securing public safety in 
 his dominions. But such was the weakness at this period of a King of 
 France, that Philip I. had all his life vainly endeavoured to seize on 
 the castle of the sire de Monthery, six leagues from the capital. This 
 baron was stained with the crime of brigandage, and very 're doubtable. 
 Louis le Gros overcame him in his stronghold, and reunited it by this 
 change of owners to the seigniory of his territories. 
 
 The King associated his elder son Philip with himself in the govern- 
 ment. This young prince, who gave bright promise, was killed acci- 
 dentally, and the King substituted for him his second son Louis, 
 surnamed the Young. He continued without success his war against 
 
 o - o 
 
 Henry I., who died in 1135. A sanguinary struggle ensued for the 
 succession to that prince's crown between Stephen of Boulogne, his, 
 
 M 
 
162 DEATH OF LOUIS LE GEOS. [BOOK I. Chap. III. 
 
 nephew, and his daughter Margaret, widow of the Emperor Henri V., 
 and married a second time to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Connt of Anjon, 
 the founder of the celebrated house of Plantagenet which reigned so 
 long in England. William X., the powerful Duke of Aquitaine and 
 Count of Poitou, supported the pretensions of Geoffrey, and with him 
 carried fire and sword through Normandy, but returned covered with 
 the maledictions of the people. William, overcome by remorse, under- 
 Marriageof took a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, jlu 
 
 ■with S Eieanor U of S Spain, and offered his daughter Eleanor to Louis, son of 
 
 quuame. ^g ]^i n g f France. This alliance promised to double 
 
 the estates of the King, who hastened to conclude it ; he sent his son 
 into Aquitaine with a brilliant cortege, and the marriage was cele- 
 Death of brated between the solemnisation of two funerals ; — that 
 
 Louis vi. 1137. f William X., who sank on his pilgrimage, and that 
 of Louis le Gtos, who died the same year, in 1137. 
 
 We observe in this reign, and more especially after the battle of 
 Brenneville, that the alliance of the King with the Church and with the 
 commons of the kingdom becomes apparent. The support of the King 
 was necessary to the Church and the rising bourgeoisie, to enable them 
 to resist the oppression of the feudal nobility. It was to this com- 
 munity of interests that the kings of France owed in a great measure, 
 firstly, the preservation of their crown, and subsequently their influence 
 and their conquests. The sanction, accorded by Louis "VI. to the 
 enfranchisements of many communes, illustrated the spirit of his reign.* 
 Nevertheless he did nothing but legitimize revolutions already accom- 
 plished, almost always sanctioning, under condition of a pecuniary 
 compensation, arrangements or treaties concluded between the nobles 
 and bourgeoisie ; sometimes even, as we may see in the quarrel between 
 the commune of Laon with its bishop, after having sold to the 
 bourgeoisie for a heavy sum certain privileges, he would receive money 
 from their seigneurs for permitting the latter to revoke them. On this 
 occasion the inhabitants 'of the village revolted, murdered their lord, 
 their bishop, and sought the support of the renowned Thomas de Maries, 
 who defended them for some time against the King, and finished by 
 falling with them. Louis VI. in his conduct towards the bourgeoisie of 
 the cities was in no way actuated by zeal for the public liberty, he cared 
 
 * For an account of the condition of the commons in the twelfth century, see Chap. VI. 
 
1108-1179] ACCESSION OP LOUIS VIJ". 163 
 
 only for the needs of his treasury, which was recruited in this manner, 
 and for the interests of his power, which continued to increase up to the 
 time of his death, especially in the centre of France, where the royal 
 authority had before him been almost disregarded, and where he 
 caused it to be respected. He did not care to accord, within his own 
 dominions, those privileges which he ratified on the territories of 
 others, and we can recognize in him neither the founder of the liberties 
 of the people, nor an enemy to the privileges of the nobility. An 
 illustrious man, the Abbe Suger, acquired at this period er Abb - of 
 a reputation as a statesman, a great politician, and a St - Dems - 
 profound scholar ; he obtained by his individual merit the celebrated 
 abbacy of St. Denis, the sanctuary of the first patron-saint of the 
 kingdom,* and was in the following reign charged with the regency of 
 the State. 
 
 LOUIS VII. 
 
 Louis VII., surnamed the Young, exhibited on ascending the throne 
 a spirit as warlike as his father. He supported Geoffrev * 
 
 r rr J Accession of 
 
 Plantagenet against his rival Stephen, and aided him JjjStSthe 
 to conquer Normandy, for which Geoffrey did homage. Youn s> 1137 - 
 England remained to Stephen, who recognized the son of Geoffrey and 
 Matilda as heir to his crown. Louis kept the barons and the clergy 
 in order : he opposed the usurpations of Pope Innocent II., and re- 
 fused to recognize the Archbishop of Bourges, elected by that Pontiff, 
 "who soon laid an interdict on every place where the King stayed. 
 Louis the Young was the fourth Oapetian King thus struck at by the 
 Holy See. No family had shown more deference towards the Court 
 of Home, none had been treated by her with more rigour. 
 
 The most memorable event of this reign is the second Crusade, 
 preached with immense success by Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 
 and commanded by the King in person. Louis believed that he had a great 
 crime to expiate : in a war with Thibaut, Count of Champagne, his sol- 
 
 * " Montjoie et Saint Denis !" was for a lengthened period the war-cry of the French ; 
 the banner tinder which the vassals of the abbey fought became the national standard. 
 Louis the Fat and his successor took it from the altar on which it reposed when setting 
 forth upon an expedition, and returned it thence in pomp at the conclusion of the war. 
 It bore the name of " oriflamme," because the staff was covered with gold, whilst the 
 edge of the flag was cut into the form of names. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 SECOND CRUSADE. [Book I. ClIAP. III. 
 
 diers liad set fire to the church of Vitry, and thirteen hundred persons 
 Mas=acre of perished in the flames. Terrified at this frightful disaster, 
 
 7 " he asked for absolution from the Pope, and only succeeded 
 
 in obtaining it from Celestin II., successor to Innocent. It effected 
 but little towards calming his conscience. Edessa in Palestine had 
 succumbed to the arms of the Sultan Zinghi. Nothing was heard 
 of throughout Christendom but the fall of this famous city and the 
 massacre of its inhabitants ; exclamations of fury and of vengeance 
 arose on all sides. France was the first to be convulsed by the voice 
 -, „ , of Saint Bernard, and communicated the movement to 
 
 Second Crusade, ' 
 
 1147 * Europe. Louis VII. took up the Cross, and asked per- 
 
 mission to depart from Suger, Abbot of Saint Denis, from whom, by 
 a singular effect of the feudal system, he held Vexin in fief, and 
 received from his hands the oriflamme ; he confided to him the 
 regency of the kingdom and went forth on his journey at the head 
 of a hundred thousand French. But here ended his reputation 
 as king and knight. Conrad, Emperor of Germany, who had pre- 
 ceded him with a formidable army, was treacherously led by Greek 
 guides to Asia Minor ; his troops being surprised and annihilated 
 amongst the defiles of Lycaonia. Louis VII. gathered together 
 the remnants of the host, but himself lost the half of his own forces 
 on the mountain of Laodicea. He fruitlessly undertook many enter- 
 prises, each of which was marked by a disaster ; in fine, the whole of 
 the expedition of Louis VII. was reduced, as far as he was concerned, 
 to a pious pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. He returned to Europe 
 w T ith the Crusader princes, and brought back with him only a few 
 soldiers. His entire host had been annihilated. 
 
 Louis found his kingdom at peace, indeed almost flourishing, thanks 
 to the wise administration of the great and modest Suger. But the 
 deplorable result of that Crusade, for which he had laid a heavy tax on 
 his people, had destroyed all the King's popularity, even his charactei' 
 seemed weakened by it, and from that time history sees in him less of 
 the king than of the monk. Under pretext of too near blood relationship 
 . T . he divorced his Queen, Eleanor, who, thus abandoned, 
 
 Divorce of Louis ^ ' 
 
 o?a rnitaiX an0r £> ave ner nan( ^ to Henry Plantagenet, heir to the crown 
 1152, of England, and carried to him her dowry of Aquitaine, 
 
 taken away from France by this fatal divorce. Louis saw with 
 
1108-1179] RISE OF THOMAS A BECKET. 165 
 
 emotion the half of his territories about to pass to his rival, and 
 sought in vain to throw obstacles in the way of the marriage. The 
 new husband of Eleanor succeeded Stephen on the throne of England, 
 and became the celebrated Henry II. He conquered Ireland, menaced 
 Scotland, and showed himself on the Continent the most redoubtable 
 and powerful of sovereigns. He possessed in France Anjou, Maine, 
 Touraine, Aquitaine, and Normandy. He professed great friendship 
 toward Louis the Young, and united in marriage his son, seven years 
 of age, to the daughter of Louis, still in her cradle. War broke out 
 on the subject of the dowry of this princess, and suddenly Louis 
 obtained a powerful auxiliary in the clergy of England, excited 
 against Henry II. by the famous Thomas a. Becket, Arch- 
 
 Stvu^srle between 
 
 bishop of Canterbury. This prelate, at first a courtier, Hemyand 
 
 n n T7-. n T-i -i • Thomas a Becket. 
 
 afterwards chancellor of the King of England, and in- 
 tended by him to occupy, as his creature, the first episcopal seat of his 
 kingdom, scarcely found himself therein, when he surrendered the 
 pleasures of the court for the austere duties which he regarded as 
 inseparable from his new position. He took in hand and maintained to 
 his death the defence of the cause which Gregory VII. had defended to 
 the last extremity — that of the spiritual authority as opposed to the 
 regal ; and while Pope Alexander III. barely held his own against the 
 anti-Pope Victor, and against the powerful Frederick Barbarossa, Em- 
 peror of Germany, a Becket constituted himself in the West the most 
 intrepid champion of the Church, of which Henry II., by the edict of 
 Clarendon, violated the privileges in suppressing ecclesiastical tribunals 
 and the benefit of clergy. These privileges gave rise, no doubt, to nume- 
 rous abuses and insured immunity to many culprits, but such were the 
 barbarous ignorance and odious corruption of the lay tribunals in the 
 twelfth century, that ecclesiastical jurisdiction alone inspired some 
 confidence in the people, and the least heavy yoke was that of the 
 Church. 
 
 A Becket, pursued by the resentment of Henry II., took refuge in 
 France, where Louis received him with great favour, and the war con- 
 tinued between the two kings until the peace of Montmirail. Thomas 
 a Becket returned to England, and Henry exclaimed one day in a 
 transport of fury : " Will none of the cowards whom I support rid me 
 of this priest? " These words were heard • four knights, devoted to 
 
166 DEATH OF THOMAS A BECKET. [BookI. ChAP.III. 
 
 the King, assassinated Thomas a Becket at the foot of he altar. 
 Death of Thomas There was an universal cry of malediction throughout 
 
 a Becket 1172. 
 
 the Church against the homicidal monarch, and the 
 martyred and canonized prelate became more baleful to Henry II. 
 after his death than he had ever been during his life. Every one 
 turned with horror from the King, who, to appease the public clamour, 
 submitted to a humiliating penance. Then was seen the most 
 renowned prince in Christendom exhibiting tokens of the humblest 
 contrition, remaining fasting and with bare feet during forty- eight 
 hours in the cathedral, the scene of the murder, and submitting to be 
 beaten with rods by the clergy, the monks, and choristers of that church. 
 
 Henceforth Henry II. enjoyed no more quiet ; his wife Eleanor, 
 irritated by his infidelities, incited his three sons to revolt against him, 
 and in accordance with the disgraceful custom of the times, Louis VII. 
 supported them in the unholy war. They rendered him homage for 
 Kormandy, Aquitaine, and Brittany, but they were defeated by their 
 father ; the two kings were then reconciled. Louis placed the crown 
 on the head of his son Philip Augustus, and made a pilgrimage to 
 the tomb of Saint Thomas a Becket ; he died immediately afterwards, 
 
 th f L i leaving the reputation of being a devout monarch, full of 
 vii., 1179 - reverence for the secular orders, and of benevolence to- 
 
 wards his subjects ; but in spite of all his grandeur and his able policy 
 he lived too long for his own glory and for the prosperity of France, 
 which lost in the latter part of his reign those provinces which she 
 had acquired in the beginning of it by his marriage, and which she 
 never finally recovered till after ages of warfare and disaster. 
 
 During the lifetime of this King, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa 
 
 commenced against the cities of Lombardy a sanguinary war, which 
 
 for a long time involved Italy in bloodshed, and weakened the imperial 
 
 power while increasing the influence of the Sovereign Pontiffs. This 
 
 famous war is known in history under the name of the 
 
 War of the J 
 
 Gueiphs and the wars of the Gruelphs and the Grhibellines ; the former 
 
 Ghibellines. L 
 
 were supported by the Emperor, the latter were the par- 
 tisans of the Pope, and fought for the independence of the cities of 
 Lombardy. The Popes contended at this juncture for the liberty of 
 the people against the despotism of the kings and of the feudal aris- 
 tocracy. 
 
1108-1179] ' ACCESSION OF PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 167 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 KEIGN OF PHILIP II., SUENAMED AUGUSTUS, AND OF LOUIS TILL 
 
 1179-1226. 
 
 PHILIP II. 
 
 When Philip II, surnamed Augustus, 5 * ascended the throne, the ter- 
 ritory which composes France of the present day was almost entirely 
 nnder the sway of various powerful princes. The greater part of the 
 provinces, at first independent, had recognized the sovereignty of 
 some monarch; those of the west were subject, in a great measure, 
 to the King of England, those of the east to the Emperor of Ger- 
 many, and those of the north to the King of France ; lastly, Provence 
 and a part of Languedoc pertained to the sceptre of Arragon. Philip 
 saw all the crowns rival to his eclipsed before him, and the glory is 
 his of having been the first of his race who made his influence felt 
 from the Scheldt to the Mediterranean, from the Rhine to the Ocean. 
 Great events mark the course of his reign : there were the third and 
 fourth Crusades ; the sudden acquisition of monarchical power by 
 the seizure of the continental provinces of the King of England ; 
 and lastly, the destruction of the Albigenses, or heretics, of Languedoc 
 and Provence. 
 
 Before the age of fifteen years this prince signalized his accession 
 to the throne by a frightful persecution of the Jews, whom Religious perse . 
 he despoiled and drove from the kingdom. He showed cutlons - 
 himself yet more cruel with regard to a sect of heretics named " Pa- 
 tarins," and condemned them to the flames. These blasphemers found 
 in him a pitiless judge : the rich were compelled to pay twenty " golden 
 sous," the poor being thrown into the river. A series of contests and 
 negotiations with the great vassals of the crown occupied the early 
 years of this reign. Philip espoused the daughter of the Count of 
 * Because he was born in the month of August. 
 
168 THIRD CEUSADE. [BOOK I. OhAP. IV. 
 
 Flanders, and obtained by this marriage the city of Amiens, and the 
 barrier of the Somme, so important to the defence of his stales. 
 He increased his power by unfair means, fomenting civil wars among 
 his neighbours, and exciting, np to the death of Henry II., the 
 children of that king against their father. The latter signed a 
 humiliating treaty with his son Richard and Philip Augustus. He 
 heard of the revolt of John, his third son, and died of grief at Chinon. 
 Richard succeeded him on the throne of England, and won by his fiery 
 and impetuous valour the surname of Coeur de Lion. 
 
 The enthusiasm of the Crusades was rekindled in Europe by the 
 recital of the misfortunes which overwhelmed the kins^- 
 
 Fall of the king- , ( ° 
 
 Oom of Jem- dom of Jerusalem* where Lusie'nan bore rule. Saladin, 
 
 salera. . . 
 
 surnamed the Great, prince or sultan of the Mussulmans 
 in Egypt and in Sjnna, had inflicted numerous reverses on the Chris- 
 tians of Palestine : these, succumbing to the baneful influence of the 
 climate and manners of the East, had promptly degenerated, and most 
 of their chiefs had hastened their misfortunes by conceiving them- 
 selves absolved from the obligation of keeping their oaths with the 
 infidels. Saladin gained over them the celebrated battle of Tiberias : 
 Jerusalem and her King fell before the power of the conqueror. 
 
 This terrible news struck Christendom with consternation, and 
 1C . , filled it with mourning; a formidable expedition was 
 113& prepared : the three greatest sovereigns of Europe, 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany, Richard, King of Eng- 
 land, and Philip, King of France, took up the Cross, and each led 
 into Palestine a numerous army. The results by no means corre- 
 sponded to these grand efforts ; Frederick, before arriving, was 
 drowned crossing the river Selef, near Seleucia. Philip and Richard 
 quarrelled over the siege of St. Jean d'Acre. Philip was jealous of 
 the prodigious exploits of his rival, whilst Richard, indignant and 
 irritated at the superiority which Philip affected towards him as lord 
 suzerain, supported with impatience the feudal yoke. The King of 
 
 * This kingdom, founded by the Crusaders in 1099, had at first been circumscribed 
 "by the limits of the ancient kingdoms of Judah and of Israel ; subsequently it spread 
 itself over almost the whole of Syria. Godfrey of Bouillon was the first King of 
 Jerusalem; Baldwin I., Baldwin II., Foulques, Baldwin III., Amaury, Baldwin IV., 
 Baldwin V., Guy of Lusignan, were his successors. Thenceforward the title of King of 
 Jerusalem became purely nominal. 
 
1179-1226] DEATH OF EICHAED CCEU11 DE BION. 169 
 
 France returned to his kingdom, leaving his army under the com- 
 mand of Richard. He swore, on leaving him, not to undertake any- 
 thing against him in his absence, and to defend his territories as he 
 would his own. Richard pursued his heroic career in Palestine ; he 
 gained brilliant but fruitless victories, wearing out the Crusaders, who 
 murmured, wishing to return to their own country, till at length 
 they compelled him to quit the Holy Land. Saladin offered to the 
 Christians peaceable possession of the plains of Judea, and liberty to 
 perform the pilgrimage to Jerusalem : Richard agreed to these con- 
 ditions, and embarked for Europe ; he landed in Austria, upon the 
 territories of the Duke Leopold, his mortal enemy, wbo 
 
 r J ' Captivity of 
 
 delivered him up to the Emperor Henry VI., whose Richard Coeur tie 
 
 hatred Richard had excited :» Henry imprisoned him in 
 
 the Castle of Dierstein, and sent to inform the King of France of it. 
 
 Philip had returned to his kingdom full of animosity towards 
 the King of England. He had sworn not to attack his dominions 
 in his absence ; nevertheless, he had already applied to the Pope 
 to be absolved from his oath, when he heard of the captivity of his 
 rival. The Pope refused to release him from his word ; but Philip, 
 taking no heed of his refusal, commenced the war. Richard was 
 then betrayed by his brother John, who had possessed himself of a 
 portion of his territories, and who, as well as Philip, offered the 
 Emperor enormous sums of money to keep the English monarch 
 captive ; but the imprisonment of that prince, the hero of the Crusade, 
 outraged all Europe, and the public clamour compelled Henry VI. to 
 give him his liberty, which he sold to him for a heavy ransom. He 
 required of him, in a public diet of the empire, homage as his suze- 
 rain, and released him after ruining him by an exorbitant ransom. 
 Richard returned unexpectedly to his dominions ; he reduced his 
 brother to submission, and avenged himself on Philip by forming 
 an alliance with the most powerful of the barons inimical to the 
 French monarch. The war was prolonged between these two rivals 
 with divers success ; they signed a truce for five years, and Richard 
 was killed at the siege of the small fortress of Chaluz- „ ,-'„.■.., 
 
 ° Death of Eichard 
 
 Chabrol in Limousin (1199). and usurpation of 
 
 v y - John, surnamed 
 
 John, the youngest son of Henry II., seized the crown LacMand » 1199 - 
 of England, and Philip supported against him the just pretensions 
 
170 DEATH OF PRINCE AETHUE. [Book I. Chap. IV. 
 
 of Arthur of Brittany, his nephew, the son of his elder brother ; this 
 young prince promised homage to Philip for all his possessions in 
 France, and ceded Normandy to him. A sangninary war arose* 
 Death of Arthur Arthur with his knights was captured by King John, and 
 of Bnttany. me £ ]^ g (Je^fr by assassination. It is said that his nncle 
 
 came by night to the tower of Rouen where he held him captive, and 
 that after vainly striving to make him cede to him his rights, he 
 stabbed him with his sword, fastened a heavy stone to the body, and 
 himself threw it into the water. This frightful crime excited uni- 
 versal indignation, and it was to the interest of France that he should 
 meet chastisement. It was in fact a measure which served the inte- 
 rests of the crown no less by its immediate results, than by the idea 
 which it gave of the power of the French monarch and of the de- 
 pendence thereupon of his great vassals. John, King of England, 
 and vassal of the crown for his continental possessions* 
 
 Citation of King r 
 
 John before the -^ag cited by Philip, his suzerain, before his peers to 
 answer, among other heads of the accusation, for the 
 murder of his nephew Arthur. He did not repudiate the jurisdiction 
 of the tribunal, but dreading its sentence, he did not appear before it : 
 Condemnati n f ^ e COIIr ^ °^ peers condemned him to death as contu- 
 KingJohn. macious. Normandy, Brittany, Guienne,^ Maine, Anjou, 
 
 SSthientai ms and Touraine, lands which he held in fief from France, 
 theCrown S 7 lth were declared confiscated, pertaining to the King, and 
 reunited to the crown. This reunion, however, did not 
 take place without numerous battles and a vast effusion of blood. 
 In this war John was himself his worst enemy : his cruelties, exac- 
 tions, and avarice roused the people against him ; he attacked 
 the clergy through their property, and was soon excommunicated ; 
 Pope Innocent III. offered his kingdom to Philip, who assembled 
 an army, intending a descent upon England. John, in alarm, became 
 as humble towards the Church as he had before been insolent ; he sub- 
 mitted to the Pope, and did homage to him for his crown. Philip 
 then marched against him in virtue of the Pontifical sentence, but the 
 submission of King John had made a change in the views of the Holy 
 See. It had been for Philip, but was now for the King of England. 
 
 * Guienne, however, remained long subsequently to the kings of England ; but Poitou 
 was detached from it by Philip Augustus, who conquered its territory. 
 
1179-1226] SIGNING OF MAGNA CHAETA. 171 
 
 Pandolpii, legate of the Roman Pontiff, repaired to France and forbade 
 Philip to proceed further ; yet, to calm his resentment, he pointed out 
 the Count of Flanders as a rich prey to promise to his army : Flanders 
 might be accepted in exchange for England. Old grievances existed 
 between Ferrand, count of that province, and Philip ; the King could 
 now obtain satisfaction by force of arms. Ferrand hastened to league 
 himself with John of England, and with his father Otho IY., Emperor 
 of Germany. The French army met that of the enemy between Lille 
 and Tournay. They joined battle at the bridge of Battleof 
 Bouvines ; the Emperor and the King of France com- Bouvmes > 1214 - 
 manding in person, when the latter achieved a brilliant victory; 
 five counts, and among them the Count of Flanders, fell into his 
 hands, the communes of five French cities had sent their soldiers to 
 the battle, and they rivalled the knights in glory. Philip was 
 received in Paris amid the acclamations of his people, and the 
 glorious battle of Bouvines, in which he vanquished three sovereigns, 
 prodigiously increased the consideration and renown of the Capetian 
 dynasty in the eyes of Europe.. 
 
 Nevertheless King John had never intended, in submitting his king- 
 dom to the Church, to sacrifice to it his own criminal passions. He 
 rendered himself so odious and so contemptible that his barons leagued 
 themselves against him, and sword in hand forced him, on the 15th of 
 June, 1215, to sign the charter which has become the basis of the 
 liberties of the English people, and which is known as M charta 
 Magna Charta. By it the King engaged himself not to 13lD • 
 despoil widows and minors confided to his charge, to raise no taxes 
 without the approbation of his Privy Council or of Parliament, never 
 to imprison, mutilate, or condemn to death freeholders, merchants, or 
 peasants without the consent of twelve of their equals. These clauses 
 and some others appeared intolerable to the despotic King : he only 
 made oath to that Charter in the hope of being released from it by 
 the Pope, and in fact he was so released. His barons then offered the 
 crown to Louis of France, the son of Philip Augustus. This prince,, 
 despite his father's vow and the prohibition of the Pope, whose legate 
 excommunicated him, crossed over to England. He was Louig f ^ ^ 
 received with open arms by the barons and possessed m England, 1216. 
 himself of the kingdom ; but King John died at this time, and 
 
172 FOURTH CRUSADE. [BOOK I. Chap. IV. 
 
 his partisans proclaimed his young son Hemy, King. The English 
 people attached themselves to the youth, and Louis, abandoned by his 
 supporters, returned to France, after having contributed to establish on 
 a more solid basis the liberties of England. 
 
 Philip Augustus found himself under the ban of excommunication, 
 the common lot up to that time of almost all his race. He was anathe- 
 matized on the occasion of his third marriage "with Agnes de Meran, 
 during the lifetime of his second wife, Ingeburge of Denmark. He 
 showed signs of resistance : all his possessions were placed under 
 interdict. No one could be married, or receive communion, nor could 
 the dead be buried. The people were seized with terror, and the King 
 was finally driven to submit. 
 
 A fourth Crusade took place under his reign. It was preached 
 
 by the enthusiastic Fulk, cure of JSTouilly-sur-Marne. 
 
 Taking of Con- ' The powerful Counts of Flanders and Champagne set 
 
 the Crusaders, the example and took up the Cross : they were fol- 
 
 1202—1204. . 
 
 lowed by Dampierre, by Montmorency, by the famous 
 Simon de Montfort, and a multitude of nobles from the north 
 of France, to whom the Venetians furnished fifty galleys for the 
 transport of the army ; the Marquis de Montferrat and the Count of 
 Flanders were the recognized chiefs of this expedition, which was 
 really directed by the old blind Doge Dandolo. It was he who, under 
 pretext of having furnished the expense of their transport, carried 
 the Crusaders to the conquest of Zara, the capital of Dalmatia, which 
 he seized in the name of the Venetian Republic ; then, taking advan- 
 tage of a civil war which was desolating the Byzantine empire, and of 
 the promises of a young Greek prince, who came to the camp of the 
 Crusaders to implore their succour, to re-establish on the throne the 
 Emperor Comnenus, his father, Dandolo pointed out to them that 
 Constantinople was a rich prey and easy to seize, and decided them 
 to commence the Crusade by that conquest. In vain the Pope threw 
 obstacles in the way of this adventurous expedition ; in vain a great 
 number of the Crusaders separated themselves from it, and proceeded 
 straight to Palestine. Dandolo threw the army against Constanti- 
 nople, which disputed with Venice the empire of the sea. The 
 Crusaders carried that famous capital by assault, and re-established on 
 the throne Isaac Comnenus, whom an usurper had driven from it; 
 
1179-1226] CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES. 173 
 
 but very shortly a popular tumult took place, the old Emperor was 
 strangled, and the Crusaders were obliged once more to gain the city 
 by assault. This time the Greek empire was divided amongst the 
 conquerors, and Baldwin, Count of Flanders, descendant of Charle- 
 magne, elected Emperor. Thus was founded the Latin , .. , 
 
 ° 7 x Foundation of 
 
 empire of Constantinople, which endured for fifty- seven § e co^m£ plr8 
 years. The Venetians required for their share three of 110ple ' 1204, 
 the eight quarters of that city, and obtained besides the greater part 
 of the isles and sea-board of the empire. The Marquis de Montferrat 
 had the kingdom of Thessalonica. The Morea became a principality, 
 and the territory of Athens a feudal duchy. The Crusaders never 
 crossed the Bosphorus. 
 
 The event which agitated Europe most profoundly during the reign 
 of Philip Augustus was the war of the Albigenses, or the 
 
 Crusade against 
 
 crusade undertaken against the sectarians of the South, the Albigenses, 
 
 ° _ m 1208—1229. 
 
 There was a great number of these in Provence, in Cata- 
 lonia, and especially in Languedoc. The inhabitants of these provinces 
 were industrious, given to commerce, to the arts, and to poetry : their 
 numerous cities flourished, governed by consuls under a somewhat 
 republican form of rule. Suddenly this beautiful region was aban- 
 doned to the fury of fanaticism, its cities were ruined, its arts and 
 commerce destroyed. All these massacres, all this devastation, had 
 for then* end a purpose — the stifling of the first germs of a religious 
 reformation. 
 
 In these countries the clergy were not distinguished, as in France 
 and in the northern provinces, by their zeal in instruction and in 
 diffusing the light of religion. They were notorious for disorderly 
 living, and fell every day into greater contempt. The need for reform 
 made itself felt before long in the breast of the provincial populations, 
 and many reformers had already appeared. Long before this they had 
 formed themselves into associations, which had for their aim the puri- 
 fication of the morals and doctrines of the Church. There were those 
 of the Patarins,* and of the Catharins,'f or "poor" of Lyons, better 
 known under the name of Yaudois. But the operative reforms extended 
 themselves gradually, the dogmas themselves were attacked, the 
 
 * So called from pater, because these sectarians admitted of none but the Lord's Prayer. 
 f From the Greek Jcaiharos, pure, on account of the purity of their liyes. 
 
174 RELIGIOUS DOCTRINES OF THE ALBIGENSES. [Book I. Chap. IV. 
 
 priests exposed to the insults of the people, and the domains of the 
 Church invaded. Such was the state of affairs when the famous 
 Innocent III., aged 39, ascended the Pontifical throne in 1198, bring- 
 ing thereto a domineering spirit, and the fiery energy of a violent and 
 inflexible character. This Pontiff, who kept Europe in fear, sought out 
 and punished any free exercise of thought in religious matters- He 
 was the first to perceive the serious menace to the Romish Church, 
 apparent in a liberty of conscience which went so far as to break into 
 revolt against her tenets. He saw with inquietude and anger the new 
 tendency of feeling in Provence and Languedoc, and proscribed the 
 reformers. Some among them, above all those denominated Albi- 
 genses, were Manicheans, that is to say, they admitted 
 
 Religious doc- ^ 
 
 trinesofthe the dangerous doctrine of two eternal principles and 
 
 Albigenses. ° 
 
 powers of good and evil ; but a great number, known 
 under the name of Vaudois, professed opinions but little different 
 from those which, three centuries later, were preached by Luther. 
 They denied the Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, 
 rejected confession, and the Sacraments of confirmation and marriage, 
 and stigmatized as idolatry the worship of images. These latter were 
 spread over Lyons, Dauphine, and Provence ; the Albigenses occupied 
 more particularly Languedoc : their principal centres of action were 
 Bezisrs, Carcassone, above all Toulouse, a very large, powerful, and 
 industrious city, whose count, Raymond VI., was the richest prince 
 in Christendom ; his nephew, Raymond Roger, a young man full of 
 ardour and courage, was Count of Beziers. Both the one and the 
 other, without breaking with Rome, had favoured the new doctrines. 
 
 Innocent III., impatient to stifle the heresy, sent in the first place 
 inquisitors into the province of ISTarbonne : they were badly received. 
 The legate Pierre Castelnau succeeded them ; he excommunicated 
 Raymond, who, fearing the menaces of the Roman Pontiff, was forced 
 . , to submit and to permit the persecutions. A gentleman, 
 
 Assassination of . 
 
 gentleman of a vassal of the count, indignant at the humiliation of his 
 Toulouse, 1208. suzerain and the cruelty of the legate, assassinated the 
 latter, and by this murder gave the Pope pretext to preach a crusade 
 against the dominions of Raymond VI. and of his nephew. The 
 monks of Citeaux seconded the vengeance of Innocent ; they offered 
 ample indulgences to all those who would bear arms for forty days 
 
1179-1226] MASSACRE OP BEZIBRS. 175 
 
 against the sectarians. A multitude of English, French, and Germans, 
 eager to gain them, nocked under the banners of the Pope. The im- 
 mense preparations of the crusaders struck terror into Raymond VI., 
 who, worn with age and unable to offer a vigorous resistance, sub- 
 mitted himself and went to the Abbot of Oiteaux, the new legate 
 of the Pope. This latter reconciled him to the Church by causing 
 him to be beaten with rods at the foot of the altar ; he ordered 
 him to guide the enemy's columns into the heart of his states, and to 
 deliver up his chief castles. The young Viscount de Beziers, nephew 
 of Raymond, indignant at the pusillanimous conduct of his uncle, 
 declared war, and determined to be buried with his knights in the 
 ruins of his strongholds. The crusaders threw themselves in a body 
 on his lands, seized his castles, burnt all the men they found in them, 
 violated the women, massacred the children, and carried Beziers by 
 assault. An immense number of the inhabitants of the neighbouring 
 country had taken refuge within the walls of that city; the legate 
 being consulted by the conquerors as to the fate of these unhappy 
 creatures, of whom only a portion were heretics, pronounced these 
 execrable words: " Kill them all; God toill know his „ 
 
 Massacre of 
 
 own" A frightful massacre followed these words, and the B(?ziers > 1209. 
 city was reduced to ashes. The army of crusaders marched thereupon 
 to Carcassonne, and was sharply repulsed by the Viscount de Beziers. 
 This young hero afterwards repaired to the legate to treat for peace, 
 and was captured with three hundred knights in spite of a safe con- 
 duct, in virtue of the maxim " that one is not bound to keep faith to- 
 wards heretics and infidels." The inhabitants of Carcassonne evacuated 
 the city by secret subterranean passages unknown to the crusaders, 
 but four hundred and fifty of them were taken and put to death. The 
 crusaders themselves, weary of such horrors, desired to retire at the 
 end of the forty days. The legate made fruitless efforts to detain them, 
 and gave all the conquered country to the ferocious _ ., f , 
 Simon, Count de Montfort ; he delivered over to him also B&iS?* de 
 the Viscount de Beziers, who died by poison. 
 
 A part only of the Albigenses had been subjected and destroyed in 
 this first crusade. The states of the Count of Toulouse remained 
 intact, and against these in following] years the monks of Citeaux 
 preached new crusades throughout Europe. In vain the unfortunate 
 
l'<3 BATTLE OF BIURET. [Book I. Chap. IY. 
 
 Count Raymond wished to allay the storm; the Council of Saint 
 Gilles imposed infamous conditions on him, and ordered him to deliver 
 over to the stake those whom the priests pointed out to him. The 
 aged Raymond remembered his heroic nephew, and the thousands of 
 men slain, whose blood cried out for vengeance ; his indignation re- 
 animated his valour, and he prepared for war to the death. The 
 crusaders arrived from all parts ; Simon cle Montfort was at their head 
 and distinguished himself by frightful cruelties : immense piles were 
 prepared ; the legate and Foulquet, Bishop of Toulouse, confounded 
 in the same holocaust heretics and Catholics suspected of heresy. The 
 n L „ r battle of Muret, fouoht in 1213, terminated this war ; 
 
 Battle of ° 7 7 
 
 Muret, 1213. Don Pedro 5 King of Arragon, who had brought succour 
 
 to the Count of Toulouse, perished there. The Albigenses were 
 defeated, and that defeat gave a mortal blow to their cause. 
 
 The victorious executioners quarrelled among themselves and 
 fought ; the people regained courage. Toulouse rose. Montfort 
 made himself master of it by the horrible treachery of the Bishop, 
 Foulquet ; the latter invited, in the name of the God of peace, all the 
 inhabitants to come out and meet Montfort, who, with his knights, 
 was awaiting them, and put them all in chains. The war was con- 
 tinued with various success, till at last all Languedoc rose in arms. 
 Montfort was killed before Toulouse, which he was besieging ; Count 
 Raymond was recalled, and received in that city with the acclamations 
 of the people : he died, the priests refused him sepulture, and his coffin 
 remained many days exposed at the door of a church. These were 
 the principal events in the wars of the Albigenses, but this was not the 
 end of the misfortunes of that country. The conquerors desired to 
 desolate the very soil which had supported these heretics. The Popes 
 preached new crusades against Raymond VII., son and successor of 
 the old Count Raymond. Great calamities again overwhelmed these 
 people ; their cities were destroyed, their fields desolated : at lengthy 
 after twenty-two years of atrocities, when the language, the arts, and 
 industry of these provinces had disappeared with the 
 
 Cessation of the - . . . 
 
 war against the reformation, the executioners were wearied, and the war 
 
 Albiyeuses. 
 
 ceased under the following reign, to the great advantage 
 of France. Raymond VII. ceded to it a portion of his territories by 
 the treaty of Paris, signed in 1229. 
 
117P-1226] LABOURS OF PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 177 
 
 Philip Augustus took no active part in this war of extermination ; he 
 couffht, on the contrary, to repair its disasters, and while 
 
 * ° m Government and 
 
 fanaticism was steeping the southern countries' with administration of 
 
 Philip Augustus. 
 
 jjlood, he extended his dominions and rendered them 
 flourishing. The national assemblies had fallen into desuetude : 
 pbilip appealed to his chief barons to form his council and sanction 
 his decrees. 
 
 Jle conquered JSTormandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou, 
 formerly forfeited to the King of England ; he conquered also the 
 county of Auvergne. Under his reign Valois, part of Yermandois, 
 
 | all d Amienois, fell to the crown by the extinction of the families who 
 possessed them ; this King also re-annexed Artois to his crown by his 
 
 |: uniou with Isabelle of Flanders and Hainault : finally, he gave the 
 inheritance of Brittany to Pierre Mauclerc, a member of his family, 
 and a Capetian dynasty was founded in that country. Ne D h f 
 Thus was formed the new duchy of Brittany, which be- Brittan y- 
 
 jf came one of the great immediate fiefs of the crown of France. These 
 results were as much the work of his -policy as of his fortune and 
 valour. He caused his great vassals to bend before him, and obtained 
 hy his victories over them the superiority which belonged to him by 
 rioht of his royal title. The citation of King John to his tribunal, 
 and the judgment pronounced against him, dealt a mortal blow to 
 feudal "aristocracy. 
 
 Philip Augustus was occupied all his life in warfare, treaties, re- 
 forms, laws for his fiefs, and secured upon a firm basis the i^g^^^y^an 
 relations between lords and vassals, which until then had Au eastus. 
 hoen only in an unsettled and arbitrary condition, and was thus the 
 principal founder of feudal monarchy. The military/art owed some 
 
 : progress to him ; soldiers received pay, and for this purpose he esta- 
 blished the first permanent imposts, he appointed three maritime 
 armaments, and obtained by his activity, his prudence, and his 
 talents, the respect both of sovereigns and people. 
 
 The important foundation of the University of Paris dates from 
 this prince, who defined its privileges. The name of 
 
 1 ' . Foundation of 
 
 University was given to this celebrated school because the University of 
 
 J & Paris, 1200. ^Z 
 
 It was universal in its scope, and admitted masters. and 
 
 Biudents without regard to the nation to which they belonged ; thus, 
 
1*78 RISE OF THE UNIVERSITY OP PARIS. [Book I. Chap. iy. 
 
 there were found in it the sections of France, England, Normandy 
 and Picardy. Paris saw at this time a multitude of colleges sprino- 
 up in its midst, several of which acquired a great celebrity. All the 
 schools were placed under the authority of the provost of Paris, and 
 Philip Augustus confirmed a bull of Pope Oelestin m. by which 
 the scholars were released from ecclesiastical . jurisdiction. The 
 University thus rose under the double patronage of the Holy See 
 and of Royalty. It alone possessed the right of granting the de- 
 grees of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor in the different faculties of 
 letters and sciences ; and though its rights and privileges were fre- 
 quently the source of great disorders, it acquired a high renown and 
 became one of the great powers of the state. The majority of the 
 students, at that time, devoted themselves to the priesthood : the 
 French Church sought with admirable learning and patience for the 
 scattered memorials of ancient literature, and struggled successfully 
 against barbarism and ignorance. Philip had comprehended the 
 grand effect of the rising University : he encouraged the studies, with 
 all his power, and desired that the abode of those who abandoned 
 themselves to learning should be an inviolable asylum. So much care 
 for an object of such general interest didnot, however, divert his 
 attention from matters of a secondary importance. Paris, especially, 
 was indebted to him for useful alterations. Up till that time all the 
 streets of the capital became, in rainy weather, infectious sewers; 
 but the principal thoroughfares were paved and embellished by his 
 orders. He enlarged the city, enclosed it with walls, built market- 
 places, and surrounded the Cemetery of the Innocents with cloisters ; l 
 he built a palace by the side of the large tower of the Louvre, and con- 
 tinued the Cathedral, which had been commenced prior to his reign 
 He gained by his conquests and institutions the esteem of his con- 
 Death of Phiii "temporaries, and died at Nantes in 1223, after a reign 
 Augustus, 1223. £ forty- three years, leaving a portion of his immense 
 wealth to the priests and crusaders, and also making considerable 
 gifts to the poor. 
 
 - louis vrn. 
 
 Louis Vni., son of Philip Augustus, only reigned three^ years. This 
 prince, whom his flatterers named Cceur de Lion, was descended on^f 
 
1179-1226] ACCESSION OF LOUIS Yin. 1^9 
 
 the female side from Charlemagne, and seemed to unite in his person 
 the claims of the Carlovingian and Capetian houses. Acce . 
 During his father's life he had been recognized King of Louis VIn - 1223 - 
 England by the barons hostile to King John, but being abandoned 
 by his partisans he was obliged to quit the kingdom. On returning 
 to France, he took from the English Poitou, which they had 
 reconquered, as well as several important places in Aunis, Perigord, 
 and Limousin, among others Rochelle, and signalized the end of 
 his reign by a second crusade against the unhappy 
 
 Second crusade 
 
 Albigenses. The principal cities of Languedoc, Beau- against the 
 
 AJuigenses^ 1226. 
 
 caire, Carcassonne, and B6ziers, opened their gates to 
 him, and the south of France, with the exception of Guienne and 
 Toulouse, recognized the royal authority. Louis was marching against 
 the latter eity when an epidemic fever attacked his army, and he 
 died at Montpensier, either from an attack of the .malady, or, as 
 some believed, from poison, administered to him by Death f 
 Thibaut of Champagne, who was violently enamoured of Lom8 VIIL 1226 - 
 Queen Blanche of Castille, whom the " Kin g left a widow, with five 
 children of tender years. The eldest of her sons was St. Louis. 
 
 * 2 
 
180 REGENCY OF QUEEN BLANCHE. [BOOK I. Chap. V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REIGN OP LOUIS IX. (SALNT LOUIS), 1226-1270. 
 
 Louis IX. } justly venerated under the name of St. Louis, was only 
 eleven years of age on the death of his father, and the regency of the 
 kingdom was disputed between Queen Blanche, his mother, and his 
 uncle, Philip Hurepel, son of Philip Augustus and Agnes de Meran, 
 whose marriage the Church had refused to recognize. A great 
 number of the nobility supported the claims of Philip, and Henry III. 
 of England declared "himself their leader ; but the devotion of the 
 powerful Thibaut, Count of Champagne, insured the advantage to 
 the queen-mother, and caused the submission of a portion of the 
 rebels. Blanche had a mind at once ' great, proud, and Christian I 
 Regency of sne g ,aye excellent masters to her children, and had 
 
 ^.ieen Blanche. tliem ^eft^y brought up in the fear of Cod. "My 
 
 son," she said to the young' King, "you know how "dear you are 
 to me, and yet I would sooner . see you dead than gnilty / of a mortal 
 sin." This pious Queen also possessed political talent, and kept a 
 firm hand over the malcontent lords, who wished to oppose the coro- 
 nation of her son. Surprised by their troops on the Orleans road, 
 she took refuge in the tower of Montlhery and summoned to her aid 
 the citizens of Paris, who arrived in arms to deliver her. She enabled 
 Prance to reap the fruit of the horrible war with, the Albigenses. 
 Treaty of Paris ^ ne ^ rea ty °^ Paris, signed in 1229, between ~her and 
 1229, Raymond VII., Count of Toulouse, attached to the crown 
 
 a large portion of Lower Languedoc, forming the -seneschalship .of 
 Beaucaire and Carcassonne, and Raymond recognized as his heir in 
 the rest of his territory his son-in-law Alphonse, one of the brothers 
 of Louis IX., declaring the inheritance should revert to the crown if 
 there were no child of the marriage of Alphonse with his only daughter, 
 Jane : an eventuality which came to pass. Blanche next brought into 
 
1226-1270] INVASION OF THE EAST BY MONGOLS. 181 
 
 obedience the Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy, in spite of the assist- 
 ance afforded them by the King of England ; and a 
 trace, which terminated this civil war, was signed at aqWu da rior- 
 
 _. . raicr, 1231. 
 
 St. Aubin dn Cormier between her, the barons, and her 
 brother-in-law. 
 
 Louis IX. was nineteen years of age when he married Margaret 
 of Provence, then only thirteen. Queen Blanche separated them for 
 six years, and always afterwards showed a jealousy about Margaret's 
 influence over the -King. A few years afterwards the sister of this 
 princess married Henry III., Kong of England, who thus became the 
 brother-in-law of St. Louis. The picture which Erance presents from 
 the treaty of St. Aubin up to the time when the King attained his 
 majority is that of general peace ; but Louis IX. had soon to contend 
 against the great vassals and nobles, to whom his grandfather, Philip 
 Augustus, had dealt such terrible blows. The Counts de la Marche, of 
 Foix, and several . other vassals, united with Henry III., who crossed 
 the sea with an army, and claimed the provinces taken from John 
 Lackland. The English and their allies were conquered by Louis 
 at the bridge of Taillebourg, and again before Saintes, B ttle of Taille . 
 which city he united to the crown, with a part of bour 6» 1242 - 
 Saintonge, by the treaty of Bordeaux. The rebellious lords submitted 
 to a master who generously pardoned them, and Henry returned to 
 England. 
 
 • All the East shook at this time in the expectation of a frightful 
 catastrophe. The Mongols had set themselves in motion, T 
 
 r • o 7 Invasion of the 
 
 and their countless hordes, emerging from Upper Asia, East t»yMongoi!?. 
 exterminated every nation they passed through. Their vanguard had 
 invaded the Holy Land, and gained a sanguinary victory over the 
 Christians and Mussulmans, whom. terror had united: five hundred 
 Templars were left on the field of battle, and Jerusalem B f Gaza 
 had fallen into the hands of the ferocious conquerors. m4, 
 St. Louis was ill and almost dying when the news of this disaster 
 reached Europe. As soon as he felt better, to the astonishment 
 of all, he ordered that the red cross should be placed on his bed 
 and on his garments, and made a vow to go and fight for the 
 tomb of Christ. His mother and even the priests implored hinfto 
 renounce this fatal design : it was in vain ; and no sooner was he 
 
182 . FIFTH CRUSADE. [Book I. Chap.Y. 
 
 convalescent than he summoned his mother and the Bishop of Paris 
 to his bedside, and said to them: "As you believe that I was no! 
 perfectly in my senses when I pronounced my vows, here is my cross, 
 which I tear from my shoulders and hand to yon. Bnt now yon must 
 acknowledge that I am in fall possession of my faculties. Restore 
 me my cross, then; for He who knows all things knows also that 
 no food will enter my lips till I have been marked anew witli 
 His sign." "It is the finger of Grod," exclaimed all present; "His 
 will be done." 
 
 The religious enthusiasm of Louis grew with his years, and domi- 
 nated every other feeling' in him. It is in his conscience. 
 
 Fifth Crnsade. J ° ' 
 
 and not in his interests, that we must seek the motives 
 of all his actions. He joined to an enlightened reason, a tender, pure, 
 and generous mind; but his ardent faith was sometimes blind, 
 and a false scruple on his part caused the greatest misfortunes. 
 Determined on leading an army to the Holy Land, he felt that the 
 safety of that army depended in great measure on the route which lie 
 selected for it. The safest was that by Sicily, a country subject to 
 Frederick II. ; but this Emperor was excommunicated by 'the Pope, 
 his implacable enemy, and Louis, after impotent efforts to procure 
 . absolution for him, was afraid of halting in the states of a reprobate 
 monarch, and resolved to proceed towards Egypt by Cyprus, instead 
 of going to Syria by Sicily. This pious fault was his ruin. After 
 De artureof settling all the affairs of his states and appointing his 
 tiw HoiySmd mother regent, Louis took the pilgrim's staff and the 
 1248, orinamme from St. Denis, and left Paris on the 12th 
 
 of June, 1248, to embark at Aigues-Mortes, a town he had founded at 
 a great cost, in order to have a port in the Mediterranean.* 
 s The King sojourned a year at Nicosium, the capital of Cyprus, and 
 then set out for Egypt. On arriving in sight of Damietta he leaped 
 into the sea, sword in hand, at the head of his knights, repulsed 
 the enemy, and seized this strong city and all its immense rei~$ 
 sources. 
 
 The only course open was to march on Cairo and subjugate Egypt 
 by a rapid invasion ; but the swelling of the Nile alarmed the Khigi 
 
 *. This port is now dried up : the water in retiring has left a space of half a league 
 between the sea and the shore. 
 
1226-1270] CAPTURE OF KItfG LOUIS. 183 
 
 and he remained for five months inactive at Danrietta. At length he 
 left that town, and marched without any precautions on Mansourah, 
 The Turks surrounded him on a burning plain, and hurled on his 
 baggage and camp blazing bitumen, known by the name of *t Greek 
 fire." Louis, in this desperate situation, made a violent B m f M 
 effort : he gave orders for the battle ; the Count Artois, $oural1 ' 1249 - 
 his brother, rushed imprudently on Mansourah and surprised the 
 town, but was surrounded there and killed, with the knights who 
 followed him. The King, who had been unable to relieve them, 
 fell back on a camp of the Saracens, carried it and shut himself 
 up in it, but his position became ' as dangerous there as his pre- 
 ceding one. Disease and repeated assaults carried off one half of 
 his army, and he was himself taken dangerously ill. He ordered 
 a retreat on Damietta, where he had left the Queen and a powerful 
 garrison, but Turkish galleys blocked the passage of the river, and 
 finding himself without resources he fell a prisoner, with all his 
 knights, into the hands of the Mussulmans. A great number of 
 his -soldiers apostatized to escape death, but he, thrown into irons and 
 Trader the most atrocious menaces, preserved the majesty of a king 
 and the resignation of a Christian. Queen Margaret, at Damietta, 
 proved herself worthy of her husband. On hearing of the reverses of 
 the army she shuddered at the thought of falling into the hands of 
 the Turks, and asked an old knight who never left her to grant her 
 one favour, that of running her through with his sword, rather than 
 allow the Mussulmans to seize her. " I had thought of that, Madam," 
 replied the old warrior. But Damietta was not taken by storm : 
 Margaret kept the city as a pledge for the safety of the King, 
 and it was offered with 400,000 livres for the royal ransom. At 
 this price Louis recovered his liberty. His barons returned to 
 * France, but he remained four years longer in Syria, exhorting his 
 knights to rejoin him, and employing his treasures in fortifying 
 Tyre, Sidon, and all the other places in Palestine that belonged to 
 the Christians. 
 
 Before the news of his deliverance became known a crusade of a 
 new description was set on foot. The people felt as much love for the 
 King as hatred for the nobles who oppressed them. A man suddenly 
 appeared who affirmed that he had received from the Virgin a letter, 
 
184 
 
 RETURN OF KING LOUIS. 
 
 [Book I. Chip. V. 
 
 which lie held in one of his hands, which was always closed. She 
 ordered him, so he said, to collect all the Christian 
 
 Crusade of the ' . 1 
 
 Christian shepherds he could find and march at their head to de- 
 
 shepherds. r 
 
 liver the King, victory was refused fco the mighty, and 
 
 promised to the feeble and humble. This uneducated man possessed 
 eloquence, and ere long a multitude of shepherds followed his flag, 
 and outlaws and bandits also joined themselves to him. The priests 
 excommunicated this undisciplined mob, who avenged themselves 
 by massacring a great number of ecclesiastics at Orleans. Queen 
 Blanche, who at first had favoured the association, from this moment 
 did everything in her power to dissolve it. The preachers of the 
 shepherds excite,d the people against the priests. They were in 
 the habit of preaching surrounded by a guard of armed men ; and 
 one day Blanche introduced among them an executioner, who stepped 
 behind their chief, and with one stroke sent his head rolling at the 
 feet of his horrified audience. Knights then galloped up and dis- 
 persed the shepherds, who were massacred by the people who had 
 previously honoured them. 
 
 Queen Blanche died in 1253, after a wise regency, and the King 
 ~ .. ,_ felt the most bitter grief at his loss. He returned 
 
 Death of Queen & 
 
 rJS-fofthe ^° France, an d made his entry into Paris, in Sep* 
 Kmg, 1254. tember, 1254, displaying on his countenance the seared 
 
 impression of all his disasters. 
 
 On his return, Louis occupied himself actively with the reformation 
 
 of his kingdom, and displayed the lofty qualities of a legislator. He 
 
 completelv destroyed the sovereign authority of the nobles 
 
 Legislation and . . . ... 
 
 administration by depriving: them of the right of dealing -justice arbi- 
 
 of Saint Louis. . . . . 
 
 trarily. An important discovery seconded his efforts : 
 the code of Roman laws known by the name of the Pandects of Justi- 
 nian, and which governed the Empire of Constantinople, became known 
 at this period in France. This collection of laws, so justly celebrated, 
 had, at the time, such a superiority over every other code, that it was 
 hailed as written reason. It gave a living impulse to the minds of 
 men, and its application was immediately demanded ; but the igno- 
 rance of the nobles was so great that it was found necessary to call 
 in men versed in the study of the laws to explain it. Saint Louis 
 was the first to introduce these lawyers into a parliament, which he 
 
1226-1270] PROMULGATION OP THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION. 185 
 
 constituted as a court of justice. This court was composed of three 
 kio'h barons, three prelates, nineteen knights, and eighteen clerks, or 
 lawyers, who drew up the decrees. The latter succeeded in securing 
 the entire management of affairs by disgusting the barons through 
 the wearisomeness of the proceedings ; they then exercised a portion 
 of the feudal authority, and wished to render that of the King absolute 
 by actively seconding him in all his projects of reform and attacks 
 upon feudal rights. 
 
 This pious and humane monarch attempted to put an end to the 
 private wars between his barons,' and prohibited judicial combats. 
 He decreed that when an inSult was offered, the two parties, before 
 having recourse to arms, should observe a truce of forty days, called 
 " the king's quarantine," thus granting time for passions to calm. He 
 ordered that judicial debates should be substituted for judicial com- 
 bats ; and considerably enlarged the authority of the crown by esta- 
 blishing "royal cases," in which he himself heard causes between his 
 subjects and their lords. The lawyers gave the greatest extension to 
 these appeals. Nor did the King permit cities to be rendered inde- 
 pendent of his authority ; he transformed many communes into royal 
 towns by the ordinance of 1256, which ordered them to put forward 
 four candidates, from among whom the King should choose the 
 mayor, who was to be responsible to him for his conduct. It was 
 then settled that the King alone had the right to make communes, 
 that they should owe him fidelity against all, and that the title of 
 "King's citizen" should be a safeguard under all circumstances. 
 
 The name of "Establishments of Saint Louis " has been given to a 
 collection of decrees passed by this King for the people of his domains. 
 This celebrated collection contains wise and useful laws against 
 venality in the administration of justice, the greediness of creditors, 
 imprisonment for debt, and usurious profits. Louis IX. also displayed 
 the independence and firmness of his -judicious mind by „ 
 
 J- o j Pragmatic 
 
 publishing the Pragmatic * Sanction, which became the Sauctl0U - 
 basis of the liberties of the Gallican or French Church. This famous 
 ordinance prohibited the raising of money for the Court of Rome within 
 the kingdom without the King's permission, and fixed the cases in 
 which it would be permissible to appeal from ecclesiastic to royal 
 * This word is derived from the Greek pragma, which means "a rule." 
 
186" REFORM OF THE COINAGE. [Book I. Chap.Y. 
 
 justice. Lastly, in spite of his great devotion, he managed to keep 
 in check the extravagant zeal of the bishops. " Several prelates," says 
 Joinville, " having corne to see the King at the palace, the Bishop of 
 Auxerre said to him, ' Sire, the lords here present, archbishops and 
 bishops, have commissioned me to tell yon that Christianity is perish- 
 ing in your hands.' The King crossed himself and asked, ' How so? ' 
 1 Sire,' the bishop resumed, 'because so little heed is paid to-day, and 
 eveiy day, to excommunications, that people "will die excommunicated 
 rather than obtain absolution, and will not give satisfaction to the 
 Church. The prelates enjoin you, Sire, by the love of G-od, to command 
 your provosts and bailiffs that all those who remain excommunicated 
 for a year and a day shall be forced to seek absolution by the seizure of 
 their property.' The King replied that he would readily give such an 
 order with respect to all those who were proved to him to be in the 
 wrong. The bishop said that it was not for the King to judge then 
 causes ; but the King replied that he would not order otherwise, for it 
 would be contrary to G-od and all reason if he forced people to obtain 
 absolution when the clerks acted unjustly to them. ' As an example of 
 this,' the King added, ' I will give you the Count of Brittany, who has 
 pleaded for seven years, while excommunicated, against the prelates of 
 Brittany, and has eventually induced the Pope to condemn them all. 
 Hence, if I had constrained the Count of Brittany in the first year 
 to obtain absolution I should have acted wrongly towards Grod and 
 towards him.' " 
 
 Louis's last reform was that of the coinage. Eighty nobles had the 
 right of coining in their domains, but Louis fixed the value of the 
 coinage in each case, and brought his own everywhere into currency. 
 He also effected greater security on the highways of the kingdom, by 
 obliging the nobles who levied a toll to guarantee the security of the 
 roads through their domains. * 
 
 So much care devoted to the prosperity of the kingdom and to 
 
 the salutary establishment of his authority did not so fully occupy 
 
 the great mind of this King as to divert him from occu- 
 
 datio'ns: The pations of less general interest, but of no less useful 
 
 Quinze-vingts, . , 
 
 the Holy chapel, kind. He founded a public library rn Pans; created 
 
 the Sorbonne. 
 
 the hospital of the Quinze-vingts, intended to receive 
 300 blind people ; and built the Holy Chapel, which may still be 
 
226-1270] PIETY OF LOUIS THE NINTH. 187 
 
 admired at Paris, near the Palace of Justice, at that period the palace 
 of the King. During his reign, Robert de Sorbon also founded 
 the college which bears his name — the Sorbonne, which became the 
 seat of the celebrated faculty of theology, whose decisions were so 
 respected that it was called "the perpetual Council of Gaul." 
 
 This King's truly great and really Christian piety did not solely con- 
 sist in the external observance of the practices of the K ofLouis 
 Church : it sprang from the heart, and consisted chiefly the Nmth - 
 in the love of God and an internal sanctity of the soul. Appro- 
 priate to this, Joinville relates an affecting interview which he 
 had with this prince : " c Seneschal,' the King said to me, in the 
 presence of several priests, ' what is God ? ' And I answered him, 
 1 Sire, so good a thing that there can be nothing better.' c Truly,' 
 the King replied, 'that is a very good answer, for the answer you 
 have made is written in this book which I hold in my hand. 
 Now, I ask you, which would you prefer : to be a leper, or to 
 have committed a mortal sin ? ' And I, who never lied to him, 
 replied, that 'I would sooner have committed thirty, than be a leper.' 
 And when the brothers had departed, he called me aside, made me sit 
 at his feet, and said, l You speak without reflection, like a thoughtless 
 man ; for there is no leprosy so villanous as that of being in deadly 
 sin ; because the soul then resembles the fiend of hell. This is why 
 no leprosy can be so loathsome. When a man dies, he is cured of the 
 leprosy of the body ; but when the man who has committed a deadly 
 sin dies, it is not certain that he has been so penitent as to cause God to 
 pardon him. Thence he should feel a great fear lest this leprosy may 
 endure so long as God is in Paradise. Therefore, I pray you,' he 
 added, ' as strongly as I can, that, for the love of God and myself, 
 you will prefer to have any malady affect your body rather than a 
 mortal 'sin affect your soul.' Then he asked me if I washed the 
 feet of the poor on Holy Thursday ? ' Sire,' I said to him, ' I will 
 never wash the feet of those churls.' ' Truly,' he replied, ' that is 
 wrongly spoken, for you ought not to hold in disdain what God has 
 done for our instruction. Hence I pray you, for the love of God and 
 me, to accustom yourself to wash the feet of the poor.' " 
 
 Joining to this touching piety a great zeal for equity, Louis himself 
 taught the respect due to the laws. He liked to render justice to his 
 
188 ARBITRATION OF LOUIS IX. [Book I. Chap. Y. 
 
 subjects in person. " Many times," Joinville also says, "it happened 
 that in summer he would go and sit in the wood of Yincennes after 
 mass, and leaning against an oak, he made us sit down round him, 
 and all those who had business came to speak with him freely, unim- 
 peded by ushers or others." 
 
 More than once he passed severe sentences on members of his own 
 family, and nobles with whom he was intimate. Still, in spite of such 
 wisdom and pure zeal, he committed several faults, the consequence 
 of errors which belonged to his age rather than to himself: laid 
 cruel penalties on Jews and heretics ; and four hundred and fifty 
 bankers or merchants of Asti were seized by his orders and cast into 
 dungeons for lending money on interest, though at a very moderate 
 rate.* A scruple fatal to France disturbed the mind of this holy 
 monarch. The conquests of Philip Augustus and the confiscation of 
 the property of the English crown oppressed him, and appeared to 
 him in the light of usurpations ; and he concluded at Abbeville, in 
 T t fAbb 1259, contrary to the advice of his barons and his 
 tiolfof a portion f am ily> a treaty, by which he restored to Henry III. 
 of Ph e iiip nqueStS Perigord, Limousin, Agenois, Querey, and Saintonge ; 
 while Henry on his side gave up his claims to Nor- 
 mandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou. The prejudices and 
 scruples of Saint Louis alone urged him to conclude this unfavour- 
 able treaty, which the English monarch could never have obtained 
 by force. This prince was at the time at war with his barons, 
 who extorted from him the concessions known as " the Provisions 
 Arbitration of °^ O x f° ro V' by which they exercised a portion of the 
 tween Henryiii ro y a l authority. Such was the reputation of Saint 
 and his barons. Louis, that by common accord he was selected as arbi- 
 trator between them and their sovereign. He decided in favour of 
 Henry III., and the Provisions of Oxford were annulled. 
 
 Almost at the same time that Louis signed the treaty of Abbeville 
 he signed with the King of Arragon the treaty of Corbeil, by which 
 Treat of Corbeil ^at prince gave up all the fiefs he still possessed in 
 l ' m " Languedoc, and his claims to Provence ; in return for 
 
 which France surrendered her suzerainty over the countries of Bar- 
 
 * According to the Laws of the Church, and in the ideas of the middle ages, lending 
 money on interest was regarded as a crime. 
 
1226-1270] FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 189 
 
 celona, Roussillon, and Cerdagne. The King of Arragon only retained 
 in France the lordship of Montpellier, and the Pyrenees became the 
 frontier of the two States. 
 
 Saint Louis had lost his eldest son, and several members of his 
 family proved to be turbulent and dangerous to France. Charles of 
 Anjou, his brother, an ambitious and cruel prince, heir by his marriage 
 with Beatrice of Provence to the powerful counts of that name,* 
 caused him very great anxiety, and, with the intention of removing 
 him, Louis favoured his projects with regard to Naples and Sicily, 
 then possessions of the Imperial crown. 
 
 The illustrious house of Suabia was humbled ; Frederic II., its last 
 Emperor, met with his death in struggling against the Pope, who 
 sold his heritage, and offered to the King of France the 
 kingdom of Naples, where Manfred, the bastard son of first house of An- 
 
 , jou, at Naples. 
 
 Frederic II., then reigned. Saint Louis refused the offer Battle of Gran- 
 
 ° . della, 1266. 
 
 for himself, but allowed his brother to accept it. Charles 
 of Anjou left France with an army gathered together in Provence ; 
 and six years later, in 1266, the battle of Grandella, where Manfred 
 perished, placed the crown of Naples and Sicily securely on his head. 
 
 The East now attracted more forcibly than ever the attention of 
 Saint Louis. The Roman Empire in Constantinople was no more ; 
 the Creeks had retaken that city in 1261. Taking advantage of the 
 divisions among the Christians in Syria, Bendocdard, the 
 
 ° J ' Fall of the Roman 
 
 sultan of Egypt, made a series of rapid conquests in Empire in Con- 
 
 bJ r ' r ^ stantinople, 1261. 
 
 Palestine : Csesarea, Jaffa, and Antioch, had fallen into his 
 power, and a hundred thousand Christians had been massacred in the 
 last-named town. On receiving intelligence of this frightful disaster, 
 Saint Louis made a vow that he would take up the Cross for the second 
 time. After making pilgrimages to the principal churches in his 
 
 * Provence had for a long time formed part of the kingdom of Aries, composed of the 
 two Burgundies, Cis and Transjuran. In 1033 Conrad II., having joined this king- 
 dom to the German Empire, Provence, which comprised the four republics of Nice, 
 Aries, Avignon, and Marseilles, was detached from it and remained independent under 
 sovereign counts. Raymond Berengarius was the last, and Beatrice, his daughter 
 and heiress, having married Charles, Count of Anjou, Provence passed into the pos- 
 session of the latter, who soon after became King of Naples and Sicily. Such was 
 the origin of the powerful house of the Counts of Anjou, Kings of Sicily, and Counts of 
 Provence, which became extinct with " Good King Rene," who died in 1480. 
 
190 SIXTH CRUSADE. [Book I. Chap. V. 
 
 kingdom, he embarked again at Aigues-Mortes, in 1270, and set sail 
 for Tunis. He had appointed a rendezvous with his 
 
 Sixth Crusade. ; 
 
 Second De- brother, Charles d Anjou, within the walls of ancient 
 
 parture of Saint 
 
 Louis for the Carthage. He disembarked opposite to this ruined town, 
 
 Holy Land, 1270. & ... 
 
 and had to suffer an infinity of evils, from the dryness of 
 the soil, the heat of the sun, and the arrows of the Moors. The plague 
 carried away part of his army, which he was compelled to hold back 
 in fatal inaction ; it struck down his second son, the Count de ISTevers, 
 and he himself was attacked at the end of a month. He employed 
 his last moments in giving good counsels jto Philip, his third son and 
 his heir. " Dear son," said he to him, " the first thing that I wish to 
 impress upon thee is that thou love God ; for without that no one 
 
 can be saved Have a gentle and compassionate heart for the 
 
 poor, for the feeble, and comfort and aid them whenever it is in 
 thy power. Maintain the good customs of the kingdom, and destroy 
 the bad. Do not covet the property of thy people, and do not charge 
 
 it with rates or taxes Be careful to have the society of 
 
 prudent men, and loyal, who are not full of covetousness. Flee and 
 escape from the society of evil men. Listen willingly to the word of 
 God, and retain it in thy heart ; seek also willingly for prayers and 
 pardons. Love thine honour, and hate evil, of whatever nature it may 
 be. Be loyal and firm in rendering justice to thy subjects, neither 
 turning to the right hand nor to the left ; but aid and sustain the 
 cause of the poor until the truth is brought to light. Guard the cus- 
 toms of thy kingdom, and if there be anything to amend, amend it 
 and correct it. Give the livings of the holy Church to good men, 
 with spotless lives, and act under the advice of men of probity. Keep 
 thyself from being moved into war, without great necessity, against 
 Christian men. Take care that the expenses of thy household are 
 reasonable. Lastly, dear son, see that masses are sung for my soul, 
 
 and prayers offered up for thy kingdom I bestow on you all 
 
 the blessings that a good father can give to his son May God 
 
 give you grace to do always His will, in order that after this mortal 
 life we may be with Him, my son, and praise Him together." # 
 
 The King delivered himself up at last entirely to religious observ- 
 ances ; he expressed a wish before death to be raised from his bed and 
 
 * Meinoires du Sire du Joinville. 
 
1226-1270] DEATH OP SAINT LOUIS. 191 
 
 laid upon ashes, and there he expired, holding the crucifix in his arms. 
 " On the Monday, the good King raised his clasped hands to heaven, 
 and said : — i Lord God, have mercy on the people who dwell here, and 
 conduct them into their own land ; let them not fall into the hands of 
 their enemies ; and let them not be led to forswear Thy holy name ! ' 
 Shortly before his death, and while he was slumbering, he sighed 
 and said, in a low tone, ' Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! ' " * His last 
 thoughts were concerning Grod, the Holy City, and France, and he 
 gave up the ghost on the 25th of August, 1270, after having ap- 
 pointed as regents of the kingdom, Mathieu de Saint- Death of gaint 
 Denis and Roger de Nesle. No other king was more Louls ' 12 '°- 
 worthy of the admiration of his fellow- men, and alone, out of all his 
 race, the Church bestowed on him the honours of canonization. 
 
 * Petri Episl. ap. Spicileyium. 
 
192 GENERAL RETROSPECT. [BOOK I. ChAp. VI. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE STATE OF FRANCE, AND UPON THE 
 EVENTS WHICH TRANSPIRED DURING THE PAST THREE CENTURIES, FROM 
 THE ACCESSION OF HUGH CAPET TO THE DEATH OF SAINT LOUIS. 
 
 The two Hundred and ninety years of which we are about to trace the 
 principal events were fertile with calamities and also with progress. 
 Among the latter, the most worthy- of attention are the gradual and 
 constant increase of the royal authority, the birth of the bourqoisie, or 
 the Third Estate, which, almost imperceptible at the end of the tenth 
 century, started into existence suddenly towards the year 1100, as a 
 social power in the first communal revolutions, and finished by 
 absorbing nearly the whole nation. 
 
 We have shown, in the preceding chapters, the gradual and suc- 
 cessive progress of royalty ; we have seen it grow great under Louis 
 the Eat, then afterwards to acquire reality under Philip Augustus, 
 by the prodigious extension given to the possessions of 
 
 Conquests by the 
 
 Crown under the the Crown; bv the building of large ships: and bv the 
 
 Feudal system. ... ... . . 
 
 superiority which public opinion accorded to it in 
 virtue of an ancient right attached to the royal title and majesty. 
 "We see it later adding to its prerogatives by the wise decrees of Saint 
 Louis, and removing from the nobles the essential rights of feudal 
 power, by the restrictions placed on private warfare, and above all 
 by the establishment of a court of justice. The people recognized, in 
 the authority of the monarch, the sole power capable of struggling 
 with success against their numerous oppressors. They desired that 
 this authority should be powerful and awe-inspiring, hoping in case 
 of need to lean upon it, and applauded with fervour its rapid pro- 
 gress, which was then of a noble and incontestible utility. Louis the 
 Eat, in fact, bestowed upon royalty its character of public power 
 and protection ; Philip Augustus reconstructed the kingdom, and in- 
 spired in the people under his sceptre the sentiment of nationality ; 
 
1226-1270] THE ROYAL POWER. 193 
 
 Louis IX. impressed on his government a character of equity, a re- 
 spect for the public rights, and a love for the public welfare, unknown 
 until his time. At this time, then, the development of the royal power 
 had produced an epoch of happiness for France ; but the progress of 
 this power afterwards, without any counterbalance, insomuch as it is 
 considered connected with the true interests and prosperity of the 
 nation, ceased with Saint Louis, and was afterwards suspended during 
 more than a hundred and fifty years. 
 
 This prince did not regard his authority as absolute ; it had, however, 
 no precise limit with him, and the proneness towards despotism was 
 easy. Royalty, upon thus being abandoned to it, created great perils 
 against France and against itself. Before recalling the new destinies, 
 it is necessary to throw a glance at the results which had been produced 
 upon the civilization and manners of the French by the great events 
 which had agitated Europe for three centuries. One of the most re- 
 markable facts of this important period was the rapid development of 
 the middle classes. It will be convenient, in the first place, in order to 
 give an account of this, to examine the principal constituent elements 
 of the communes. of France, and the manner in which the greater part 
 obtained their charters of freedom. 
 
 Ancient Gaul was then divided into two parties, distinguished by 
 their language. The provinces of the North, where they spoke the 
 Roman "Walloon dialect ,* were called Provinces of the ^ . . . „ , 
 
 Division of Gaul 
 
 Langue d'Oil, in consequence of the inhabitants making j?J° l ^ d \^l gilQ 
 use of the word oil instead of oui when answering in the Lan £' ue d'OiL. 
 affirmative ; they were ruled by customs derived probably from ancient 
 Gaul, or perhaps from the German people. The provinces of the 
 South, where they spoke the Roman Provencal, received from the 
 monosyllable oc, of which the meaning is equally affirmative, the name 
 of the Provinces of the Langue d'Oc ; they were ruled by the Roman 
 or written law. A great number of the towns throughout the southern 
 provinces had preserved the form of municipal govern- 
 ment which they had held under the Romans ; others had t0WDS *" the 
 
 •> ' ' eleventh and 
 
 for a long time lost the liberties which that power had twelfth centuries, 
 bestowed on them. As to the towns of recent origin, they were built 
 
 * That is to say, one composed of corrupt Latin mixed with the language of ancient 
 Gaul. The Walloon country comprised a portion of Belgium. 
 
194 STATE OF THE TOWNS. [BOOK I. CHAP. VI. 
 
 •under the auspices of the most powerful noble in the province or 
 neighbourhood, and their inhabitants enjoyed those civil rights and 
 privileges which it pleased that nobleman to grant or guarantee to 
 them. At the time when the feudal system was established, the 
 nobles, both ecclesiastical and lay, opposed with all their power the 
 municipal franchises. They substituted in great part their own 
 authority where franchises existed, and usurped all the rights where 
 the franchises were either destroyed or unknown. Those also who, in 
 the hope of increasing the population of their fiefs, had guaranteed 
 rights and liberties to men who came to settle there, afterwards 
 violated, for the most part, their engagements and their charters. 
 Nearly all raised arbitrary taxes in the towns, forbade the citizens 
 to unite together and arm themselves for the common defence, and 
 usurped the right of high and low justice. They disposed also of the 
 fortunes and the lives of the citizens, and their oppression soon 
 became intolerable. Reduced to despair, the oppressed people fre- 
 quently had recourse to arms ; they recalled their ancient franchises, 
 requested guarantees for their property and persons, and took advan- 
 tage of the avidity of the nobles either to buy back again or conquer 
 their liberties. 
 
 The period when the energy of the inhabitants of the towns roused 
 L itself coincides with that of the first Crusade ; that event 
 
 Enfranchisement 
 
 of the communes. ^^ a powerful though indirect influence upon the enter- 
 prise, and was favourable to it. The nobles needed gold for their 
 distant expeditions ; large numbers consented, on receiving consider- 
 able sums of money, to resign an authority which a great portion of 
 them had usurped. They quitted France for a lengthened period, 
 taking with them in their suite a multitude of knights, who, under 
 their orders, had been the terror of both town and country. The 
 absence of the oppressing party or the weakening of their numbers 
 favoured the citizens in their attempts at independence ; but they did 
 not unite everywhere so easily. Many towns, after having bought 
 their franchises, were obliged to resort to arms in order to preserve them. 
 These liberties differed slightly from those which secured municipal 
 institutions; but they gave to those holding them a certain extension 
 and offered more guarantee. Citizens obtained by them the right to 
 form conjurations or communes, that is to say, to defend themselves 
 
1226-1270] ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE COMMUNES. 195 
 
 with arms, to elect their mayors, their civil magistrates, their council- 
 men, to assess their own taxes, to dispense justice, and manage their 
 own public affairs as they pleased. The engagements which they 
 undertook amongst them indicated a deep feeling for the rights of 
 humanity, and their oath had a grand character of -independence and 
 energy. They assembled in the principal church or in the market- 
 place, and there they swore on holy relics that they would support 
 each other. All those who bound themselves in this manner took 
 the name of communiers or of jures, and these titles expressed the 
 idea of reciprocal devotedness. The liberties which they asked for, 
 however, were not political liberties, such as we understand them at 
 the present day. They did not request the power to make laws and 
 participate in the government of the State, they wished to obtain strong 
 guarantees against servitude, and to free themselves from an insup- 
 portable tyranny. They demanded the right to acquire property and 
 preserve it, to live in security under established laws, and lastly, that 
 civil liberty which at the present day social progress assures to every 
 citizen in nearly every part of Europe. 
 
 After being constituted, the. first act of a commune was to choose a 
 tower in order to establish a bell or belfry, and the first clause of the 
 oath taken by the inhabitants was the obligation to repair to the 
 public place of the town, fully armed, as soon as the sound of this bell 
 was heard. The communes enfranchised by the nobles engaged 
 generally to give them a part of the harvests, to pay a rent for each 
 person, and another for each room in their house, and the monopoly 
 of the mills and ovens, while the inhabitants were bound to a personal 
 service of a fixed number of days. Lastly, the merchants were obliged 
 to hold an open credit with their ancient master, up to a certain sum. 
 Notwithstanding these hard conditions, and the most solemn oaths, 
 a great number of nobles wished to break the treaties, the price of 
 which they had spent, as soon as they felt powerful enough to violate 
 them with impunity. The citizens struggled almost everywhere with 
 courage, but they understood the necessity of obtaining a sanction 
 which would be respected by the nobles themselves. They appealed to 
 the kings, and prayed to be delivered from the charters of enfranchise- 
 ment, and to be taken under their protection. The kings of France 
 saw in this demand a source of riches for themselves and a means of 
 
 o 2 
 
196 ENFRANCHISEMENT OP THE COMMUNES. [Book I. Chap. VI, 
 
 patronage directly opposed to the nobles, whom they distrusted ; they 
 sold, then, their support to the communes of the kingdom, and so 
 added much to their own authority. Louis YI. was the first who 
 granted these charters, but he did not create the communes, nor did 
 he enfranchise their inhabitants. The towns conquered their liberties 
 for themselves, and the King only made legitimate liberties already 
 obtained, by selling his supreme sanction. These royal acts, done with 
 that special motive, strengthened the monarchy, by uniting its cause 
 with that of the people. But at this period the effective royal power 
 only made itself felt between the Somme and the Loire, and the only 
 towns to which Louis VI. sold his charters were Beauvais, Noyou, 
 Soissons, Amiens, Saint- Riquier, Saint- Que ntin, and Abbeville. In 
 the other parts of France proper, the kings, until the time of Saint 
 Louis, had no part in the maintenance of the liberties of the communes, 
 as the counts would not suffer the royal intervention. 
 
 In the towns of the southern country the establishment of communes 
 met with fewer obstacles than in the north, the struggle was shorter, 
 and the success more decisive ; the feudal system laid itself less heavily 
 upon them ; while the greater part preserved something of the ancient 
 municipal institutions which Rome had bestowed on them. These 
 flourishing towns, such as Aries, Narbonne, and Toulouse, kept up, 
 besides, frequent commercial relations with the cities of Lombardy, 
 where the republican spirit commenced to rule, and we see rapidly the 
 consulat municipal * pass from Italy into southern France : there the 
 commercial system only helped to develope and guarantee the liberty 
 of the citizens. 
 
 We have seen the restrictions brought to bear by Saint Louis on the 
 independence of the towns which he preserved from anarchy by 
 maintaining there the royal authority : wisely checked, the communal 
 revolution was fruitful in happy results. The country gentlemen living 
 near the towns envied the fate of their inhabitants ; a large number of 
 them abandoned their seigneurial lands, in order to become themselves 
 members of the communes, and many towns, of which the population 
 increased by this means, placed their walls farther back. It was in 
 
 * Until the French Revolution, the name of consul was preserved by the municipal 
 magistrates of the towns of the south. At Toulouse the hotel-de-ville is still called the 
 capitole. 
 
1226-1270] INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADES. 197 
 
 this manner that the power of the cities increased by degrees, while 
 that of the chateaux was enfeebled. When each person in the towns 
 had obtained security for his life, for his fortune, and for the free enjoy- 
 ment of the fruits of his work, industry arose and commerce extended 
 itself. The bourgeois class became every day stronger, richer, more 
 respectable ; the general feeling of ease increased, and civilization made 
 rapid steps. This progress was more perceptible and more prompt in 
 Flanders than in the other countries of the north. The maritime 
 situation of most of the great cities favoured the establishment of 
 manufactories which enriched the citizens, and accustomed them at 
 all times to unite together all their efforts against ravages by sea. 
 After having ascertained that it was sufficient for them to associate 
 together to rule the ocean, they were all prepared to unite in order 
 to struggle against feudal oppression and to triumph over ifc. 
 
 But among all the events which characterized the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries, those which ruled the epoch, and which exercised 
 the greatest influence upon the spirit, the manners, and 
 the existence of all classes of the nation, were the Crusades, crusades upon 
 
 manners. 
 
 Until then the wild valour of the warriors of the East, 
 excited by a thirst for domination and riches, had only had for its 
 aim conquests of a material kind. The Crusades in the Holy Land did 
 not soften the soldier-rudeness of manners ; but they gave to courage 
 a more noble and more elevated aim. They spiritualized its origin. 
 Men accustomed themselves to fight, to undergo the most cruel priva- 
 tions, to give their lives for something that was immaterial and ideal, 
 for a cause that elevated their souls ; they felt themselves destined for 
 another end than that of gratifying their own gross inclinations. 
 Those distant expeditions, in transporting innumerable multitudes to 
 so great a distance from their country, weakened the national hates and 
 prejudices of the different classes. It was impossible that so many 
 men, armed for the same cause, could close their hearts to all 
 sentiment of fraternity. The manners of the nobility, above all, proved 
 the happy effects of the Crusades. The religious enthusiasm gave 
 birth to chivalry, which shone forth with the most sparkling 
 brilliancy at the end of this epoch. To serve God, and 
 to cherish and respect his lady, to defend intrepidly, lance in hand, 
 towards and against all, this double object of an enthusiastic worship, — 
 
198 ARMORIAL BEARINGS. HERALDRY. [BOOK I. ChAP.VI. 
 
 such was tlie duty of a preuas chevalier. Domesticity was considered 
 noble service ; the court of the sovereign, the castles of the nobles, 
 became schools where young gentlemen learnt to serve under the names 
 of varlets, gallants, knights, and to merit also themselves the supreme 
 honour of chivalry. The study of letters or science did not enter into 
 the education of a gentleman, who passed for an accomplished man 
 when he knew how to pray to Grod, to serve the ladies, to fight, to hunt, 
 and to manage his horse and lance. Beyond that his ignorance was 
 absolute, and we must attribute, above all things, to the want of 
 intellectual instruction, the singular mixture of fanatical superstition, 
 brutal violence, sincere purity, enthusiasm for women, and the mixture 
 of courtesy and ferocity which the chivalresque character displayed for 
 so long a time. 
 
 It is to the first Crusade that we must go back for the usages 
 Armorial bear- concerning the family names of the nobility. It was 
 ings. Heraldry, necessary in these immense collections of men of many 
 nations, that every knight should be recognized by a name that should 
 be proper to himself, and for the most part they adopted that of them 
 fief. Armorial bearings and heraldic emblems are of the same date. 
 An extraordinary brilliancy was connected in public opinion with the 
 exploits of the Crusades. The nobles, in order to perpetuate the remem- 
 brance of them, placed in their castles, in the most conspicuous place, 
 the banners under which they had fought in the Holy Land ; they were 
 the monuments of their glory, and the members of their families, on 
 going out themselves, communicated these signs of illustration. The 
 ladies embroidered the device on their furniture, on their robes, and on 
 those of their husbands ; the warriors caused them to be painted upon 
 their shields, and indicated in an abridged manner the exploits that 
 these ensigns recalled. An arch signified a bridge defended or taken ; 
 by a battlement, a tower was designated ; by a helmet, the complete 
 armour of a vanquished enemy. Each of these distinctive signs 
 became the escutcheon of a family, and the domestics exhibited them- 
 selves bedizened with it on the occasion of ceremonies. Heraldry was 
 the art of interpreting these emblems ; it was in principle a species 
 of language by which alliances and rights to public esteem were 
 made known. 
 
 The first essays of French poetry belong to this time. The trouveres- 
 
1226-1270] POETRY. FINE ARTS. 199 
 
 in the north, and the troubadours in the south, composed songs which 
 the minstrels or singers recited from castle to castle, accompanying 
 themselves on instruments. The trouveres were distinguished above 
 all in the epic style. The adventures of the Crusades or some mar- 
 vellous legend inspired them. Their most celebrated works are : 
 U Alexandre, by Alexandre de Bernay (the originator of the Alex- 
 andrine verse) ; Gerard de Nevers, by Gilbert de Montreuil ; Garin 
 le Loherain, by Jehan de Flagy ; and above all the famous Homan de 
 la Hose, or the Art of Loving, by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean 
 de Meung. To them also we are indebted for several lays, virelays, 
 and fables, remarkable for their natural grace. 
 
 The troubadours, on the contrary, among whom we reckon 
 Bertrand de Born, Raimond Beranger, Arnauld Daniel, William IX. 
 Count of Poictiers, cultivated in preference the lyric style, which 
 they named the "gay science." 
 
 The French language then disengaged itself from the Latin forms, 
 and became that of the legists, of the chroniclers and romancers, or 
 trouveres. The Assises or laws of the kingdom of Jerusalem were 
 written in this language, so also were the chronicles of Ville-Hardouin, 
 Marshal of Champagne, who describes the fourth Crusade ; and that of 
 the Sire de Joinville, a biography of Saint Louis. This latter work, 
 charmingly written, is perhaps the most curious monument of the 
 French language in the thirteenth century. 
 
 The arts also made progress during the period of the Crusades. We 
 see these arising in several of the most curious monu- 
 ments of architecture, called Ogival, which we admire in Sculpture, 
 the Gothic cathedrals. These were decorated with the 
 productions of a statuary, coarse as yet, but full of originality, and by 
 the rich paintings which illuminate their glass, of which the secret, it 
 is said, goes back as far as the tenth century. The greatest progress 
 in painting at this period manifested itself in the chefs-d'oeuvre in 
 miniature which decorated the missals and the livres d'heures, of which 
 a great number have been handed down from age to age, and are 
 still admired at the present day. 
 
 Tournaments also date their birth from the same period. These 
 military games were intimately connected with the 
 manners of chivalry. The times which preceded and 
 followed that of chivalry offer nothing resembling them. People 
 
200 TOURNAMENTS. RELIGIOUS ORDERS. [Book I.^Chap. VI. 
 
 hurried from all parts of the kingdom, as to national fetes ; gentle- 
 men fought there armed cap-a-pie, with lances, axes, and swords, of 
 which the steel had been blunted ; sometimes the combat was allowed 
 to proceed to extremity. The cavaliers sought to surpass each other in 
 the games, not only in magnificence but in strength, in address, and in 
 courage. They appeared there distinguished by their mottoes, under 
 the eyes of kings, of princes, and of ladies, the applause of whom they 
 were ambitious to gain : the ladies gave the prizes to the victors. The 
 tournaments were regulated by a particular legislation, of which the 
 principal author was Geoffroi de Preuilly. 
 
 The most celebrated religious military orders were founded by the 
 
 French on the occasion of the first Crusade, and from France they 
 
 spread themselves over the whole of Europe. The first 
 
 Religious Orders. *„ . 
 
 were the Hospitallers of Saint John and the Temjylars ; 
 they devoted themselves humbly to the service of the Holy Land, and 
 from soldier-monks? as they were at first, they became sovereigns. A 
 third order, that of the Antonines, consecrated themselves to the relief 
 of those who were attacked by a species of plague called holy fire. It 
 is to Christian charity that humanity was indebted for the foundation 
 of Ecclesiastical Orders, which, for the most part, enriched at last by 
 pious largesses, deviated from, their aim? and degenerated from their 
 holy origin. The orders of Hospitallers, instituted for the purpose of 
 ransoming prisoners taken by the Infidels, and for the relief of the 
 sick, were founded later ; also the celebrated order of the Dominicans 
 or Freres precheurs, and also that of the Franciscans or Cordeliers, so 
 called from the cord which served them for a girdle. These two last 
 were called mendicant orders, because they made a vow of poverty and 
 lived upon alms, according to the formal instructions of their illus- 
 trious founders Saint Francois d'Assise and Saint Dominique de Guz- 
 man. They acquired great power in a short time ; in virtue of papal 
 commissions they preached, administered the sacraments, and directed 
 the consciences of kings and people, thus taking away by degrees all 
 the functions of the bishops and of the secular clergy.* Not having 
 anything, they possess all things, said the chancellor Pierre des Yignes 
 
 * The secular clergy was so called because it lived in the world, in the siecle. It 
 was composed of all the ecclesiastics who were not under vows in a religious community. 
 The ecclesiastical members of communities, or inhabitauts of convents, composed the 
 regular clergy. 
 
1226-1270] COMMERCE. 201 
 
 to the Emperor Frederic II. They sapped into the bases of the 
 ancient hierarchy of the Church ; for they annulled in some sort the 
 power of the bishops, whose authority they braved. They wished 
 also to direct the schools and to take to themselves the chairs of the 
 University, where the secular clergy still ruled. The g le f 
 latter resisted, and an obstinate struggle resulted. The ordersT^ainst 
 dispute lasted thirty years, and was prolonged during a the Universlt y- 
 large portion of the reign of Saint Louis. At last, after lengthened 
 storms and reciprocal excommunications, the University was com- 
 pelled to yield by Pope Alexander IY. The mendicant orders 
 obtained some of the chairs in the schools, and the University con- 
 ferred the grade of Doctor upon two illustrious members of these 
 orders, on the Franciscan, Bonaventura, and on the Dominican, 
 Saint Thomas dAquinas, who was surnamed the Angel of the School, 
 and whose theological writings excited the enthusiastic admiration 
 of his contemporaries. 
 
 The religious movement of the Crusades was very favourable to 
 this prodigious increase of the power of the monks, and provoked 
 the establishment of a multitude of pious foundations. The vast 
 and magnificent monasteries of Cluny and Citeaux were gorged with 
 wealth ; they served as places of assembly for the nobility, and the 
 abbes were admitted into the councils of the kings. 
 
 The Crusades communicated in everything a lively and strong 
 impulse to civilization and to manners. Propitious to the enfran- 
 chisement of the communes, they favoured also the progress of the 
 bourgeoisie by the extension which they gave to commerce. The 
 delicacies of the Bast caused new wants to arise ; the _ 
 
 ' Commerce. 
 
 merchants, hitherto despised, acquired more considera- Industi y- 
 tion, and formed the link between Europe and Asia. Maritime com- 
 merce, above all, which scarcely existed before the Crusades, acquired 
 by them a very vast development ; European industry gained equally 
 by the expeditions of the Crusaders. Silk stuffs, spices, perfumes, and 
 the other treasures of the East, were known in Europe from the time 
 of the Carlovingians ; but they were only seen in the courts of princes 
 or the dwellings of the great. During this period the art of dyeing 
 the tissues of silk was brought to perfection, and amongst the principal 
 conquests of industry in the thirteenth century we must reckon saffron, 
 
202 THE SERFS. [Book I. Chap. VI. 
 
 indigo, the sugar-cane, and the art of extracting its precious contents. 
 The rich tissues of Damascus, the glass of Tyre, imitated in Venice, 
 and which was afterwards substituted for metallic mirrors, windmills, 
 and cotton stuffs, were also made known at this period to Europeans, 
 who learnt at the same time damaskeening, the engraving of seals and 
 money, and the manner of applying enamel to metals. The towns 
 had become, partly by the effect of the Crusades, the centres of free 
 „ , „. activity, of commerce, and of wealth ; luxury extended 
 
 Progress of the J ' ' J 
 
 Third Estate. itself in every direction. The manner of living, of fur- 
 nishing, of feeding, became different ; ease increased in the houses of 
 the nobles and the bourgeoisie, and the Third Estate made with these 
 rapid progress. 
 
 In all the towns workmen of different professions formed particular 
 associations, called corporations, in which the members 
 found a support in one another, and an assistance for 
 the aged, the widows, and the orphans. Each of these was instituted 
 under the invocation of a saint, who was looked upon as its patron. 
 They had all chiefs, and syndics or juries, who prevented frauds and 
 watched the observation of the rules. These assured to the members 
 of each corporation the monopoly of their industry after a long and 
 severe apprenticeship. The rules of Saint Louis constituted the chiefs 
 of the trades the police of their corporation, and rendered them 
 responsible for the disorders committed in their body. 
 
 The last and most numerous class of the nation was that which 
 received the least advantages from these expeditions ; 
 
 Thfi serfs 
 
 nevertheless, the unfortunate serfs were not total strangers 
 to their results. The Popes decided that no Christian, in whatever 
 condition he might be born, could be prevented from taking up the 
 Cross and departing for the Holy Land. This was to sever at one 
 blow the ties which bound the serfs to the glebe or the land of their 
 lord. It admitted them to a species of fraternity in arms, and dis- 
 played to their eyes the consoling sentiment of their individual dignity 
 as members of the human family. But although these peasants, who 
 had become soldiers of the Church, obtained their enfranchisement, the 
 establishment of a free class of peasants did not follow as a result. 
 Of that great multitude of men who left for Palestine, only a small 
 number returned to their country ; the greater part perished of misery, 
 
1226-1270] ABEILARD. 203 
 
 of fatigue, and of excess, or were cut down by the scimitars of the 
 Mussulmans. 
 
 The human mind, stimulated by different and powerful causes, 
 made notable progress during the period of the Crusades ; and already, 
 under Louis VI., the schools of Paris had attained great 
 celebrity. This was the first epoch of scholastic phi- 
 losophy* only taught from the chairs of the University, and of the 
 famous quarrels between the philosophic sect of the 
 'Realists and that of the Nominate. The first only Realists and of 
 admitted reality in that which they called the universaux, 
 that is to say, general ideas, collective beings, and attached itself to the 
 Platonic theories ; the second only saw in the universauoc, words, 
 names, simple abstractions of the mind, and depended in preference 
 on the theories of Aristotle. These two schools had for their chiefs 
 two men of great renown. Roscelin de Compiegne professed with 
 brilliancy, in the twelfth century, the doctrine of the JVominals, while 
 his realistic adversary, Gruillaume de Champeaux, was director of the 
 school of the cloister, Notre Dame, at Paris. Then appeared the 
 Breton, Pierre Abeilard, as much celebrated for his 
 amours with Heloise and by his own misfortunes, as by 
 his science and his immortal genius. Profound logician, without a 
 rival in dialectics, and of a marvellous eloquence, Abeilard shone forth 
 in the first ranks of the JVominals. His prodigious success in philosophy 
 did not shake his religious and Christian faith; but he wished to 
 submit the Catholic dogmas to analysis, to comment upon them 
 reasonably. His principles upon different points of theology, and 
 among others upon Free Will, appeared to be in opposition to the 
 decisions of the councils, and for the first time he was condemned by 
 the Council of Soissons for having taught without previously obtain- 
 ing the approbation of the Pope and of the Church. Abeilard retired 
 into the solitary, sandy district of Champagne, where he raised with 
 his own hands an oratory, composed of thatch and rushes, which 
 afterwards became the celebrated Abbey of Paracleti His disciples, 
 and among them the illustrious Arnold of Brescia, discovered his 
 retreat ; they hurried from all parts ; they braved the austerities of the 
 desert in order to follow their master, to hear his words, to pray and 
 
 * The philosophy called scholastic was subordinate in all its affirmations to theology. 
 
204 ABEILARD AND SAINT BERNARD. [Book I. Chap. YI. 
 
 to meditate with him. Persecuted, condemned afresh, Abeilard sought 
 a more profound retreat in the Abbey of Saint- Gildas, in Brittany. 
 Then, suddenly, braving his enemies, he reappeared brilliantly in 
 Paris, where his renown drew together a number of students from all 
 parts of Europe. His books flew from hand to hand, his doctrines 
 spread themselves from the capital to the extremities of the kingdom, 
 his glory was at its height, when a redoubtable antagonist crushed him 
 under the thunderbolts of the irritated Church. This was Saint 
 Bernard, founder of the celebrated Abbey of Clairvaux. 
 
 Stru * *^ between 
 
 Abeilard and This illustrious man pushed the monasterial austerities to 
 an almost unheard-of rigour, living a life more ecstatic 
 than terrestrial. Bearing in a body weak, pale, reduced by watchings 
 and fastings, an incomparable vigour of soul, leaning his words and 
 his acts on the authority that gives the conviction of a holy mission 
 and a supernatural inspiration, no one exercised more power over his 
 contemporaries in an age when the faith of the people was so strong 
 and their reason so weak. The Pope, the emperor, the kings, the 
 bishops, the people, submitted to the authority of his genius ; at one 
 time he extinguished a schism, or drew up in the solitude of his cell the 
 constitution of a religious order ; at another, disposing at his pleasure 
 of the sword of kings, he directed their armies to the east or the 
 south, according to the interests of the Church. His word, they said, 
 was as a law of fire, which went forth out of his mouth, and every- 
 where there were reports of the marvellous cures which followed his 
 steps. This prodigious man taxed with pride the reason which 
 attempted to explore mysteries ; he was irritated with the efforts of 
 Abeilard to explain inexplicable dogmas, and cried out in the bitter- 
 ness of his spirit, — " They would search even into the entrails, the 
 secrets, of God." A new council assembled at Sens, and the two great 
 adversaries appeared there in presence of the King, the princes, and 
 the bishops ; but Abeilard foresaw, without doubt, that the discussion 
 would not be free; he declined the solemn debate, making an appeal 
 to the Pope as he retired from it, and was condemned to seclusion in a 
 convent to the end of his days. Then, bending his head, he confessed 
 himself vanquished, and concealed his life in the monastery of Cluny ; 
 he closed it in 1142, in the priory near to Chalons, where he died, 
 reconciled with Saint Bernard. He had had to combat with a far 
 
 \ 
 
1226-1270] SCIENCE. 205 
 
 niore redoubtable adversary than that great man. Abeilard struggled 
 all his life against the dominant spirit of his age, which regarded 
 every attempt made by human reason to attain at independence as a 
 culpable insurrection. The genius which had animated him survived 
 him, but many years passed away before any part of Europe dared to 
 proclaim and admit the principle of which Abeilard could not assure 
 the triumph — the liberty of examination and discussion in matters of 
 conscience and of faith. 
 
 Already, however, the secrets of nature were studied, but the dark- 
 ness was as yet too profound to permit the human mind 
 
 Science 
 
 to attain its aim. The study of mathematics became 
 that of astrology. Medicine degenerated into sorcery, and natural 
 philosophy into alchemy. Nevertheless, in the midst of these gropings 
 in the dark, science made some important discoveries : the alchemists, 
 who endeavoured obstinately to find the grand ceuvre, or the philoso- 
 pher's stone, discovered by chance various properties of the bodies 
 submitted to analysis, and the world was enriched by these discoveries, 
 which they looked upon as nothing. It is thus that distillation was 
 brought to light, the fabrication of acids, salts, convex lenses, and 
 lastly, gunpowder, the composition of which was discovered by the 
 monk, Roger Bacon, towards the close of the thirteenth century. 
 
 Finally, many sciences are indebted to the Crusades for great pro- 
 gress, among others the military art, navigation, history, and geo- 
 graphy. The aspect of so many different countries, the observation 
 of new and varied manners, and the comparison of a multitude of 
 customs, extended the ideas of the people, and uprooted a great number 
 of errors and prejudices. Nevertheless, a great part of the ameliora- 
 tions of which the Crusades were the cause only manifested themselves 
 very slowly, while others did not bear their fruit until long after 
 Europe had given up these religious expeditions. The Crusades were 
 also accompanied and followed by a great number of calamities, and 
 it is necessary to recognize one of their most mournful results in the 
 sanguinary ardour which they appear to have communicated to the 
 Christians, a disposition entirely contrary to that of the Divine 
 founder of their religion. The Christian people for a long time back, 
 it is true, regarded as accursed of Grod all those who did not belong 
 to their faith ; the Crusades strengthened this fatal tendency of their 
 
206 PEKSECUTION OF HEEETICS. [Book I. ChAP.VL 
 
 minds. People who were reputed heretics were soon persecuted with 
 as much fury as the Mussulmans and Jews, and the extermination of 
 the Albigenses opened the field for a long series of cruel wars. The 
 weakness of the progress of Christianity in the East, and several of 
 the disasters among the Christians in Palestine, ought to be in great 
 part attributed to the barbarities of the Crusaders, who believed them- 
 selves entitled to act as they pleased towards infidels, and did not 
 consider themselves bound to keep their word with them. They 
 forgot that the best proof that men can give of the superiority of 
 their civilization and of the sanctity of their religion is the respect 
 that they show for virtue and truth. 
 
1270-1422] ACCESSION OF PHILIP III. 207 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF ST. LOUIS TO THAT OF 
 
 CHARLES VI. 
 
 Despotism op the Royal Government and Authority of the Legists. 
 — Accession of the Yalois to the Throne. — Hundred Years' 
 War with England. — The Celebrated States-General. — 
 Disasters in France. — Great Schism of the East. — Anarchy. — 
 
 1270-1422. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REIGNS OF THE SUCCESSORS OF SAINT LOUIS, UNTIL THE ACCESSION OF THE 
 VALOIS. — PHILIP III. — PHILIP IV. — LOUIS X. — PHILIP V. — CHARLES IV. 
 
 1270-1328. 
 
 Philip III. 
 
 The third son of Saint Louis, Philip III., called without any known 
 reason Philip the Bold, did not follow the glorious example of his 
 father ; he reigned surrounded by valets, and wholly given up to 
 superstitious practices. 
 
 The same day that Saint Louis died he received Charles d'Anjou, 
 his uncle, who entered into the port of Carthage with a fleet and an 
 army. Notwithstanding this reinforcement the Crusaders rested in 
 inaction, rightly accusing Charles d'Anjou of having directed his 
 brother to Tunis in his own interest, so that he might force the 
 Moorish king to pay to him the tribute which ancient Neapolitan 
 treaties imposed upon him. Peace was concluded that year ; a large 
 sum of money was handed over by the African prince, and all the 
 prisoners given up. Then the army returned to Europe, diminished 
 to one-half by the heat, the fatigue, and the plague. In sight of the 
 
208 INCREASE OF THE ROYAL DOMAIN. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 coast of Sicily, a tempest swallowed up eighteen French vessels, 
 together with all the rich tribute paid by the King of Tunis. The 
 Crusaders saw in this disaster the hand of God, which chastised them 
 for having returned without visiting the Holy Land. Philip re-entered 
 France preceded by five coffins, those of his father, his wife, his son, 
 his brother, the Count of Nevers, and of his brother-in-law, Thi- 
 baut II., Count of Champagne, King of Navarre. His uncle Alphonso* 
 died shortly afterwards without offspring, and his death made Philip 
 heir to the county of Toulouse, which, notwithstanding 
 
 Aggrandizement „ . . 
 
 of the Royal all the disasters of the war with the Albigenses, was 
 
 Domain. , m 
 
 still the most considerable fief m France. It comprised, 
 together with ancient Languedoc, the Marquisate of Provence, or 
 county of Venaissin, the county of Poitiers, the land of Auvergne, 
 the Aunis, and a part of the Saintonge. Gregory X., one of the most 
 venerable men that ever occupied the Pontifical throne, was elected 
 Pope. Philip ceded to him the county of Yenaissin, to which he 
 himself had only doubtful rights, and engaged himself in wars of 
 Cession of the succession. Alphonso X., King of Leon and Castille, 
 siTto 7 the V pope" was dead, without having been able to cause his grand- 
 1274, sons to be recognized as his successors ; they were the 
 
 children of Ferdinand of Cerda, and Blanche, the daughter of Saint 
 Louis. Philip III. appealed in vain concerning their rights to the 
 throne of their grandfather. The Cortes^ of Segovia had designed 
 as the successor of Alphonso, Sancho, his second son, already cele- 
 brated for his warlike talents 5 their decision overthrew all the prin- 
 ciples of legitimacy. 
 
 A thick cloud conceals from us the particular actions of Philip III. ; 
 _. , he appeared to see and to act only through Pierre de la 
 
 Disgrace and ± r •> ° 
 
 execution of Brosse, who had been his chamberlain, and who, raised 
 
 Pierre de la ' ' ' 
 
 Brosse, 1278. ky. J3 ase intrigues to the post of prime minister, had 
 drawn upon himself the hate of all the court. A bloody catastrophe 
 terminated the days of that favourite. Jealous of the influence of the 
 Queen, Marie de Brabant, second wife of the King, he had accused her 
 of the death of Prince Louis, eldest son of his first wife. Philip 
 
 * Alphonso, brother of Saint Louis, had married Jeanne, daughter and heiress of 
 Raymond VII., last Count of Toulouse. 
 t Cortes. The national assemblies of Spain were so called. 
 
1270-1328] THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 209 
 
 ordered inquiries to be made on the subject. t At that time they 
 believed that they could not find out the authors of a crime except 
 by the torture of the accused, or by the intervention of the celestial 
 and infernal powers. Philip consulted those persons whom the super- 
 stition of the time looked upon as being endowed with the power 
 of reading the future. The Vidame of the Church of Laon, a Sara- 
 baite,* and a nun of Nivelles, were considered to have revelations. 
 All three at once began to give credence to the reports spread about 
 against the Queen; but afterwards they retracted, and advised the 
 King to beware of Pierre de la Brosse. Two years passed away, 
 when one day a monk brought to the King at Milan letters sealed 
 with the seal of his minister. The contents of these letters remain 
 a mystery ; but La Brosse was arrested immediately and thrown into 
 prison. Philip appointed as his judges three of the greatest nobles in 
 his court, his enemies ; and La Brosse was condemned, and hanged 
 at the gibbet of Montfaucon in 1278. 
 
 The reign of Philip III. left no glorious souvenir for France, either 
 in the interior of the kingdom or in foreign lands, and this period was 
 marked by the frightful disaster which overthrew the French Grovern- 
 ment in Sicily. Charles d'Anjou, after having caused his rival, the 
 young Conradin, son of Conrad IV. and grandson of Frederic II., to 
 be condemned to death and executed, believed himself securely seated 
 upon his new throne. Conradin was the last prince of the house of 
 Hohenstaufen ; his death left the field clear for Charles d'Anjou, 
 who from that time believed that he could oppress Naples and Sicily 
 under a frightful tyranny. 
 
 Vengeance brooded in every heart"; John of Procida became tho 
 soul of the conspiracy : he was certain of the assistance of the 
 Greek Emperor, Michael Paleologus, and of the King of Aragon,, 
 Don Pedro III. The latter assembled together a fleet, which he 
 entrusted to the celebrated Roger of Loria, his admiral, with the order 
 to await events upon the coast of Africa. Suddenly, on the 30th of 
 March, 1282, the people of Palermo arose at the mo- - „,, „. 
 
 ' x *■ The Sicilian 
 
 ment when the vesper bells sounded. At the stroke of Ves P era , 1282. 
 
 * Monks who did not live in community and did not submit themselves to any rule 
 were so called ; they, however, wore the tonsure and gave themselves out a3 rigorists. 
 (Du Cange : Glossary.) 
 
210 DEATH OF PHILIP III. [BookII. ChAP.I. 
 
 this tocsin, the French were massacred in the streets of Palermo, and 
 in a month afterwards the same thing had occurred throughout the 
 whole of Sicily. Charles d'Anjou, furious, attacked Messina ; Roger 
 of Loria came forward and destroyed his fleet under his very eyes. 
 Charles gave vent to cries of rage, and demanded vengeance from 
 King Philip, his nephew. The Pontiff, Martin IV., sustained his 
 cause with ardour ; he declared Don Pedro deprived of the crown of 
 Aragon, in order to punish him for having assisted the Sicilians, and 
 by the same bull he named Charles de Valois, second son of Philip, 
 successor to Don Pedro, against whom he preached a crusade. 
 Philip III. commanded the expedition, but it was unfortunate : 
 Gironne opposed a long resistance to France, while the 
 
 Crusade of the rr ... 
 
 French into King of Arag-on, with his faithful Almogavares * half 
 
 Aragon. ° ° ° ' 
 
 savage soldiers, held the neighbouring mountains. His 
 unexpected and multiplied attacks, together with dearth and fever, 
 mowed down the army of Philip ; he returned to France ill and 
 almost alone, carried on a litter, and expired in the course of the 
 
 year. Charles d'Anjou died shortly before him, through 
 Philip in., 1284. disappointment at having lost Sicily ; and Martin IV. 
 and the King of Aragon followed Philip closely to the grave. 
 
 During this reign, a simple gentleman, called Rodolph, Count of 
 
 Hapsbure:, was elected Emperor in 1273, and became 
 
 Foundation of r & ' r ' 
 
 the imperial the founder of the new house of Austria. One of the 
 
 house of Haps- 
 
 burg, 1273. most remarkable events of this period was the sudden 
 
 reunion of the Greek and Roman Churches, effected by Gregory X. 
 in 1274, at the second General Council of Lyons. The Emperor, 
 Michael Paleologus, was received by the Pope into the number of the 
 faithful ; but the Greeks did not lend themselves to this reconciliation, 
 which nearly cost the Emperor his life. 
 
 PHILIP IV. 
 
 1284-1314. 
 Philip IV., surnamed the Fair, was sixteen years of age 
 
 Accession of ' 7^0 
 
 Philip iv, 1284. -when ne succeeded to the throne of Philip the Bold, 
 
 * This name, borrowed from the Arabs, was applied in Catalonia to light infantrj 
 soldiers. 
 
1270-1328] ACCESSION OF PHILIP IV. " 211 
 
 his father. His extreme youth did not offer an occasion for any 
 trouble ; and such was the progress of the monarchical spirit in 
 France, that the nobles of the kingdom, instead of claiming to be 
 either his equals or masters, assembled round him as his servants. 
 Philip at once continued the war against Aragon, which his brother 
 had commenced, and which was prolonged for many years w 
 without any decisive success. It was terminated by Ara 8' on - 
 the Treaty of Tarascon, signed in 1291, and confirmed by that of 
 Aragon. These treaties recognized Alphonso III., son of 
 Pedro III., Kins: of Aragon, and Charles II., son of Tarascon and of 
 
 . . . Aragon, 1289. 
 
 Oharles d'Anjou, King of Naples. The new house of 
 Anjou was thus firmly established in the possession of this beautiful 
 kingdom, from which, however, Sicily was detached and given up to 
 the sovereigns of Aragon. Charles II., crowned by the Pope, ceded 
 his hereditary domains, Maine and Anjou, to Charles de Yalois, second 
 son of Philip the Bold. 
 
 The first ordinances of the new King were favourable to the bour- 
 geoisie and the Jews ; but Philip, whose character was hard, irascible, 
 and rapacious, put no curb on his pride and cupidity. He oppressed 
 his subjects without pity, and in his exactions was supported by un- 
 principled men of law, notorious for their skill in the art 
 
 -*■ x Authority of 
 
 of chicanery, as well as for their base servility. These the legists. 
 legists, judges, councillors, and royal officers, were, under him, the 
 tyrants of France ; their work, however, in so far as it touched legisla- 
 tion, had a useful influence which cannot be forgotten. Imbued with 
 the ideas of the Roman imperial law, they proceeded with an impas- 
 sible perseverance to introduce it into the French political law by 
 joining together the privileges of the sovereignty in the sole hands 
 of the prince, and by the equality of the subjects before the law. In 
 civil law they played the same part ; the Pandects always before them, 
 they tried to introduce the same spirit of reason and of natural 
 oquity which had inspired the great jurisconsults of the empire. In 
 this manner they demolished the social order, as it had been created 
 under the feudal system, organized at the same time monarchical 
 centralization, and became the true founders of the civil order in 
 modern times. 
 
 The court of the King, or Parliament, the supreme tribunal of the 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE PARLIAMENT OF PAEIS. [BOOK II. ChAP. I, 
 
 Parliament of kingdom, became the seat of their power. This body-, 
 Paris, 1302. founded by Saint Louis with the political and judicial 
 privileges of the time, was modified by Philip IV. ; the judicial 
 element at this period alone was preserved.* The Parliament in the 
 meantime ceased to be itinerant. An ordinance of the 23rd of March, 
 J 302, fixed it in Paris, and established it in the Cite, at the ancient 
 palace of the kings, which took from that time the name of the 
 Palace of Justice. It was composed of clerks and jurisconsults, all 
 persons of the Third Estate, and it became the focus of the anti- 
 feudal revolution. 
 
 In order to sustain this new form of government, to make it 
 respected, and to execute the judgments of the men of law, it was 
 necessary to have an imposing force. The King had to pay a judicial 
 and administrative army, and the maintenance of the horse and foot 
 sergeants alone cost large sunns, and it was necessary to wrest this 
 money by violence from the unfortunate population. Thence sprang- 
 the despotism, thence the cruel miseries, which held in suspense for so 
 long a time the advantages of the central and monarchical power, and 
 the barbarous rule established by the feudal government. 
 
 No prince employed more iniquitous and odious means of increasing 
 Cui able ^ s t ,reasm y than Philip the Fair. History recounts a 
 
 exactions. thousand instances of his violent and cruel extortions. 
 The revenues of most of the provinces were pledged to two Italian 
 brothers, rich traders, for the price of supplies which they had fur- 
 nished to the King. He, in order to settle with them, caused all the- 
 Italian bankers and traders to be arrested on the same day, under the 
 pretext of usurious traffic, and compelled them to redeem themselves 
 from torture at an enormous sum. He renewed this execrable expe- 
 dient on the French, and the tribunals were the accomplices of his 
 hateful violence. 
 
 This king, far from warlike, saw without emotion the disasters 
 among the Christians, and the capture of Saint Jean d'Acre, their last 
 stronghold in Palestine. He had obtained from the Pope the per- 
 mission to levy tithes upon the clergy for the purpose of undertaking 
 a crusade ; but this impost only profited himself, and he alone reaped 
 
 * It was not so in the course of time ; and a century later, the Parliament recovered by 
 union with the Court of Peers its political privileges. 
 
1270-1328] WAR IN GUIENNE. 213 
 
 the produce. The successes of Edward I., King of England, troubled 
 .him more. That prince, at the death of Alexander III., King of 
 Scotland, caused himself to be recognized as arbiter be- Troubleg . 
 tween the aspirants to the throne, and had awarded it Scotland - 
 to John Baliol, whose weakness he knew. He threatened to invade 
 that kingdom, when Philip caused him to be summoned before the 
 Parliament of Paris as his vassal for Aquitaine. Peace had reigned 
 for thirty-five years between the two crowns, and Philip, in sum- 
 moning his powerful rival to appear, alleged as a pretext certain 
 troubles caused by the rivalry of commerce between the two nations. 
 Edward, indignant, stirred up as enemies to France, Adolph of 
 Nassau, King of the Romans,* and Guy de Dampierre, Count of 
 Flanders. But Philip seized the daughter of that count 
 
 War in Guienne.. 
 
 by treachery, and held her as a hostage, while a French 
 army invaded Guienne, of which Philip the Fair took possession. He 
 pledged himself, on the other side, to King Baliol to take up arms, 
 -and support the celebrated Scotchman, William Wallace, against the 
 F]nglish monarch. 
 
 He afterwards formed an alliance with the revolted Flemings, and 
 excited Albert of Austria, son of Rodolph of Hapsburg, to take up 
 arms against Adolph of Nassau. Many of the electors of the empire 
 supported him. Adolph of Nassau was slain, or perhaps assassinated, 
 in a battle ; Albert of Austria succeeded him in the empire, and de- 
 fended the interests of France. Philip the Fair displayed remarkable 
 talent in all these negotiations. Edward, pressed on all sides, proposed 
 to Philip to submit their differences to the decision of Pope Boni- 
 face VIII. That Pontiff was, in some respects, indebted 
 for his tiara to the King of France, who accepted him as arbiter 
 
 between 
 
 arbiter. Boniface pronounced in his favour, and only Edward i. and 
 ordered the restitution of a part of the lands confiscated 
 under Edward. He imposed a long truce between the two kings, and 
 united their interests by means of marriages. The King of England 
 abandoned the Count of Flanders, and Philip no longer defended 
 Scotland, which Edward seized for the second time. The French 
 .monarch then, with flattering promises, invited the Count of Flanders 
 to place himself at his discretion. That unfortunate nobleman gave 
 
 * The term "King of the Romans" was applied to th chief elected for the empira 
 &i Germany before his coronation by the Pope. 
 
214 WAE IN FLANDERS. [BOOK II. ChAP. I. 
 
 himself up with confidence to the King. He was immediately thrown 
 
 Confiscation of * D ^° P r i son ? arL d all his states were seized by Philip, who 
 
 pianders. g ave to ^ Fi em i n g S Jacques de Chatillon for a governor. 
 
 The French gentlemen despised the bourgeois of that industrious 
 
 country, and believed that they had the right to despoil them. The 
 
 tyranny which they exercised excited the people of 
 
 Revolt of the tti -i i mi 
 
 Flemings, 1301. ± landers to revolt. The trades corporations assembled 
 
 War in Flanders. 
 
 together, massacred the French in Bruges, and in the 
 other towns, restoring independence to their country. The Flemish 
 militia occupied Courtray, in front of which town the French army 
 Battle of Cour- was encanT P e( l. They went out to meet it, and waited 
 cJ3eat S oTthe nary b rave ly f° r the battle. The Flemings attended mass and 
 French, 1302. took the sacrament together. The knights who were with 
 them embraced the chiefs of the trades. They gave no quarter to the 
 French, and repeated that Chatillon was coming with casks full of cords 
 to hang them with. The Constable, Raoul de Nesle, proposed to turn 
 the flank of the Flemings by cutting them off from Courtray ; but the 
 cousin of the King, Robert d'Artois, was indignant at this prudent 
 counsel, and asked him if he was afraid of the Flemings, or whether 
 he had an understanding with them. The Constable, son-in-law of 
 the Count of Flanders, answered haughtily — " Sir, if you come where- 
 I shall go, you will be well in front," and then rushed forward blindly 
 at the head of his cavalry. Each one wished to follow him, those 
 behind pressing on those before. On approaching the Flemish army 
 they found a ditch five fathoms deep, into which they fell huddled 
 together, and pierced through by the stakes of the enemy. In that 
 spot was interred the flower of the chivalry of France — Artois r 
 Chatillon, Nesle, Aumale, Dammartin, Dreux, Tancarville, and a 
 crowd of others. The Flemings had only the trouble of killing them. 
 — smashing in the heads of the conquered with iron mallets. This 
 defeat weakened the feudal power in France, and strengthened royalty. 
 Philip resolved to avenge in person the affronts on his nobility at 
 Courtray. He entered Flanders at the head of a powerful army, and 
 victories of the occupied Tournay. His fleet, united with a Genoese 
 zStoee*and at squadron, overcame the Flemings at Zeriksee, and his 
 Treaty ofpe^e, knights achieved a brilliant victory at Mons-en-Puelle r 
 
 where six thousand of the bourgeois of Flanders were 
 left upon the field of battle. But when he believed that these people 
 
1270-1328] BONIFACE VIII. AND PHILIP IV. 215 
 
 were subdued, lie saw with surprise a new Flemish army, sixteen 
 thousand strong, appear under the walls of Lille, which he was be- 
 sieging. These were the brave bourgeois of Ghent, of Bruges, of 
 Ypres, and of other towns in Flanders, who had bound themselves by an 
 oath never to see their hearths again until they had obtained an honour- 
 able peace or victory. " Better," said they, " to die in battle than live 
 in servitude." Defied in his camp by this formidable army, the King 
 listened to the prudent counsel and advice of his generals. He signed 
 a treaty by which the Flemings gave up to him French Flanders, as 
 far as the Lys, with the towns of Lille and Douai. 
 
 __,.,. t „ , ~ T ,, n _, Reunion of Lille 
 
 Philip set at liberty the new Count of slanders, Robert and Douai with 
 
 . France. 
 
 de Bethune, son of Guy de Dampierre, and recognized 
 the independence of the Flemings. 
 
 The pride of the King had been already deeply wounded by the 
 hauerhty Boniface VIII., who had shown that he was his a , . . . 
 
 o J ' Struggle between 
 
 rival in ambition, violence, and cupidity. Founding his andPiSiiJSe 
 power partly on his wealth, he had, at the expiration of Fair " 
 the thirteenth century, again established the Centenary Jubilee, pro- 
 mising entire remission of sins to every one who visited, during thirty 
 consecutive days, all the churches of Borne. An enormous multitude 
 of pilgrims hurried to place their rich offerings at the feet of the 
 Pontiff. Boniface then extended his hand over all the sceptres: he 
 wished to sell Sicily to Charles II., King of Naples ; he called to 
 justice Albert of Austria for the murder of Adolph of Nassau ; pro- 
 tected the children of La Cerda in Castile ; claimed to interpose 
 between England and Scotland, issued a bull against the King of 
 Hungary, and supported the Bishop of Pamiers, his legate, against 
 the implacable vengeance of Philip the Fair, whom that prelate had 
 insulted. 
 
 Philip had already, on his own authority, levied tithes upon the 
 clergy, and often abused the royal right ; # irritated by the preten- 
 sions of the Pope and the reproaches of the bishop, he caused those 
 of his men of law who were most devoted to his will to obtain an 
 
 * This royal right was one of the causes of frequent quarrels, which took place at 
 different epochs "between the court of France and that of Rome. It was the right 
 bestowed on the King by the Gallican Church to receive the revenues of the bishoprics 
 and abbeys during the vacancy of the sees. 
 
216 THE BULL AUSCULTA, FILL [BookII. ChAP.I. 
 
 accusation against the latter — and in the number of these it is necessary 
 to cite Pierre-- Flotte, his chancellor ; Enguerrand de Marigny, his 
 confidant ; Guillaume de Plaisian and Guillaume de Nogaret. These 
 men, always skilful in finding guilty those whom the King wished 
 to strike, soon discovered charges against the Bishop of Panders 
 sufficient to give a motive for his arrest. Philip ordered it for 
 the crime of lese-majeste, or high treason against the King, and de- 
 manded his degradation from the Archbishop of JSTarbonne, his metro- 
 politan. But Boniface, indignant that the archers of the King should 
 lay hands on a bishop, revoked the judgment, and warned the King 
 of his wrong doings in the bull Amculta,jili (Listen, my son), 
 Bull Auscuita "where these words may be read : — " Do you think, then, 
 ■^ O my son, that you have not a superior, and that you 
 
 must not submit yourself to the supreme hierarchy ? We cannot 
 conceal from you that you disquiet us, that you oppress your subjects, 
 both those in the churches and ecclesiastical persons generally, the 
 peers, counts, and barons, also the universities, and that you scan- 
 dalize the multitude. . . . We have warned you, and far from 
 correcting your errors, we see that your hate has only increased," 
 &c. Philip, excited to fury, supported by the University of Paris, 
 caused the Pope's bull to be burned, and convoked the first States- 
 General where the deputies of the common people # had been sum- 
 
 * For several centuries the great assemblies of all the freemen, the mals, had ceased. 
 Already, at the end of the Merovingian dynasty, the Champs de Mars were almost out of 
 use. Pepin, carried to the throne by a Germanic movement, reinstated with vigour the 
 ancient customs, and the nation was often convoked, no longer at the Champs de Mars, on 
 account of the severity of the weather, hut at the Champs de Mai. Although these 
 assemblies still bore the name of placites generaux of the Franks, the nobles alone 
 participated in the business. Under Charlemagne these assemblies became regular, and 
 were only composed of majors and minors (see the reign of Charlemagne) ; the people 
 were only spectators. The successors of the great Emperor preserved this custom, and 
 it existed until nearly the end of the Carlovingian dynasty, of synods, of plenary courts, 
 and of parliaments held in the name of the people, where the people were never repre- 
 sented. This was one of the assemblies which decreed the crown to Hugh Capet. 
 Under the third race the assemblies continued to be composed of barons and feudal 
 prelates. Philip the Fair was the first of the Capets who recognized the right of 
 suffrage belonging to the Third Estate ; still, this right, even as late as the fifteenth 
 century, only belonged to walled towns, or bonnes villes. Otherwise there was nothing 
 fixed, either concerning the forms of the convocations, or upon the mode of the elections, 
 not only for the Third Estate, but also for the two other orders ; and this uncertainty 
 continued almost till 1788. No law, no ordinance, had regulated these forms. For a 
 
1270-1328] DEATH OF BONIFACE VIII. 217 
 
 moned alongside the barons and bishops. The majors, aldermen, 
 jurats, consuls of the bonnes villes, hurried to Paris, and took their 
 places in Notre Dame, where, on the 10th of April, 1302, the first 
 sitting was opened. The King assisted in person, and, Firat stat 
 after having made known to the assembly the pontifical {hree r ord°ers the 
 bulls, a letter of remonstrance addressed to the court 1302, 
 of Rome was obtained from each order. In it, the nobility, the 
 clergy, and the Third Estate proclaimed the complete independence 
 of the crown. Boniface avenged himself by excommunicating the 
 King ; and the two rivals prepared themselves for an obstinate 
 struggle by reconciling themselves with their enemies, and sacrificing 
 every other interest to that of their hate. The Pope allied himself 
 with Albert of Austria, and Philip restored Guienne in fief to 
 Edward. Strengthened by the support of the States- General, which 
 he convoked for a second time at the Louvre, Philip wished to strike 
 a great blow. His representative, William de Nogaret, 
 betook himself to ,Anagni, where the Pope resided, and ^Jf®* by 
 made himself master of his person ; Sciarra Colonna, Hls death > 1303 - 
 a Roman gentleman who accompanied Nogaret, struck the old man 
 with his iron gauntlet. However, Boniface astonished his enemies 
 by his courage. " Behold my neck — behold my head ! " said he to 
 them ; " betrayed like Jesus Christ, and ready to die, at least I will 
 die Pope ! " Ereed by the people of Anagni, he expired at Rome, 
 a month afterwards, of a fever caused by the shock, and by anger, 
 at the age of eighty- six years. 
 
 Arbiter of the election, in consequence of his influence with the 
 Erench cardinals, after the death of Benedict XL, in 1305, Philip 
 promised to the Cardinal Bertrand de Goth, his enemy in old times, 
 to cause him to be elected Pope if he engaged to hand over to him 
 for five years tithes on the members of the clergy, to render to Philip 
 an important service, which he would claim and name at the proper 
 time, and, lastly, to stain the memory of Boniface VIII. This 
 bargain, which the people called the Diabolical Bargain, was, it is 
 said, concluded in a forest of Saintonge, near Saint Jean d'Angeley. 
 Bertrand de Goth accepted the terms, consented to all, placed himself 
 
 profound research into this subject the reader is referred to the Hisloire des Etats 
 gZneraux de France, by M. E. Rathery. 
 
218 SUPPRESSION OP THE TEMPLARS. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 ■under the discretion of the King in the county Yenaissin, where he 
 was the first to establish the residence of the Holy See, # and be- 
 Eiection of Pope came Pope under the name of Clement V. He did 
 not leave France before he had kept all his promises. 
 The service which Philip had exacted without naming it before- 
 hand was the suppression of the Order of the Tern- 
 Destruction of 
 the Order of the plars. Their power wounded the pride of the monarchy 
 
 Templars, 1309. ... ... 
 
 while their immense wealth tempted his cupidity. Be- 
 fore they had any suspicion of his design, he caused all those in his 
 kingdom to be seized and thrown into dungeons. Then commenced 
 a frightful prosecution against them, where torture furnished the 
 evidence, and where the men of law won over by Philip filled the 
 places of judges. The King confiscated the property of his victims,, 
 while, at the same time, he stained their characters with horrible 
 imputations without legal proofs. The Templars perished by the 
 sword, by hunger, and by fire, retracting in the face of execution 
 the confessions which torture had torn from them. Jacques Molay^ 
 their Grand Master, rendered himself illustrious by his courage ; he 
 protested his innocence in the middle of the flames, and it is said 
 that he summoned both the monarch and the Pontiff to appear before 
 Cxod during the year. 
 
 Philip was then the most powerful king in Europe. He invited 
 all the sovereigns to follow his example ; Edward II., King of Eng- 
 land, and Charles II., King of Naples, acceded to his wishes, and 
 seized upon the Templars in their states : fifteen thousand families 
 were broken up by this terrible measure. 
 
 Philip IV., dishonoured among the people by the surname of the 
 Philip iv alters ^ a ^ se Coiner, continued his hateful and vexatious acts ; he 
 the coinage. levied enormous taxes, and debased the coinage, and,, 
 
 * At first this was at Carpentras, the capital of the county Venaissin, gained by 
 Gregory X., and at which Clement V. established himself in 1308. Avignon did not 
 form a part of this county — indeed did not belong, at this period, to the Holy See. 
 This town, where the Popes had already resided for many years, was sold, in 1348, by 
 Clement VI., to the Countess of Provence, Jeanne de Naples, and her successors re- 
 mained there till 1377. Notwithstanding their return to Rome, and without excluding 
 some temporary occupations, particularly under Louis XIV., the county Venaissin never 
 ceased to belong to the Holy See until the legislative assembly, in 1791, declared its 
 union, together with that of Avignon, with France, thus forming the department of 
 Vaucluse. 
 
• 
 
 1270-1328] DEATH OF PHILIP IT. 219 
 
 after the money was issued, he refused to receive it again thus 
 altered by himself. In one day he caused all the Jews in his kingdom 
 to be imprisoned, and despoiled them of their wealth. He was the 
 most absolute despot who had reigned in France ; yet he was the 
 first of his race who granted a representative privilege to the com- 
 munes. He showed a sort of favour to the bourgeois, consulting 
 their deputies more freely than those of the nobility. 
 
 His policy. 
 
 He knew that men elevated from a low degree, gratified 
 with their prominent position, would offer little resistance ; and it was 
 from among obscure men that he selected his favourites and 
 ministers, of whom the most celebrated was Enguerrand de Marigny. 
 He wanted support in order to sustain him in his perfidious and 
 cruel measures, and, in summoning the bourgeois to the councils 
 of the kingdom, he felt strong enough to fear nothing from a liberty 
 which was only so in name ; torture was used profusely, and the 
 whole nation was ruled by terror. Towards the close of his days he 
 exercised severities upon his own family : the wives of his three sons 
 were accused, at the same time, of adultery ; he threw them into 
 prison, and caused those whom he suspected to be their lovers to be 
 flayed alive. He expired shortly afterwards, recom- 
 
 J . . . His death, 1314. 
 
 mending to his son piety, clemency, and justice. 
 
 Clement V., his accomplice, died shortly afterwards; while Henry YIL 
 
 had expired in the preceding year. 
 
 Under Philip the Fair the domain of the crown was increased by 
 La Marche and Angoumois, which he confiscated; by 
 Lyonnais, which he detached from the empire ; and a part the crown under 
 of French Flanders. He had married Jeanne, heiress of 
 the kingdom of Navarre, of the county of Champagne, and of Brie. 
 The results of that union were favourable to France. 
 
 The reign of Philip is one of the most gloomy in the history of 
 France. At this period — from towards the end of the thirteenth century 
 till the commencement of the fourteenth — the French lived beneath 
 a yoke of iron ; and, notwithstanding the heroism displayed two hun- 
 dred years before in the communal revolutions, they were in general 
 strangers to the spirit of independence which agitated most of the 
 countries around them, and to which Italy and Flanders owed their 
 arts and their industry. Robert Bruce in Scotland, and William Tell 
 
220 ACCESSION OF LOUIS X. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 in Switzerland, had restored freedom to their countries. Still, the 
 great events which then shook some states were caused much less 
 by the spirit of individual liberty than by the love of national 
 independence ; and the greater part of the people of Europe, after 
 constituting themselves nations, fell again under a yoke as hard as 
 that which they had shaken off. 
 
 LOUIS X. 
 
 Philip left three sons and one daughter. Louis X., the eldest, sur- 
 named Le HutinJ* in consequence of his vicious tastes, 
 
 Accession of x 
 
 Louis x., 1314. was twenty-five years of age at the death of his father, 
 and had already worn for fifteen years the crown of Navarre, which he 
 had inherited from his mother, together with that of Champagne and 
 Brie. His two brothers, Philip and Charles, like himself, were given 
 up to vicious habits, and their sister Isabella, wife of Edward II., only 
 distinguished herself by crime and infamy. 
 
 Philip the Fair, as a matter of policy, had entrusted the great 
 offices of the state to obscure men, who owed all they possessed to 
 his favour. His family censured this system, and one of the first acts 
 of Louis was to arrest and bring to judgment the Chancellor Pierre 
 Latelli, who was pardoned, and Enguerrand de Marigny, prime 
 minister of the late King. Charles de Valois, uncle of the monarch, 
 begged that sentence of death should be passed on 
 
 Trial and execu- . . . 
 
 tion of Marigny, JMarigny, m consequence ol a personal injury. Inis 
 
 1315. 
 
 minister, who was held responsible for all the tyrannical 
 acts of his master, and accused of sorcery, was condemned, and hanged 
 at the gibbet of Montfaucon. Marguerite of Burgundy, wife of the 
 King, was shut up in the Chateau Gaillard des Andelys, on a charge 
 of adultery. Louis caused her to be strangled, and afterwards mar- 
 ried Clemence of Hungary. He always lived surrounded by prodigal 
 young noblemen, whom he made the companions of his pleasures ; 
 and the nobility, taking advantage of their influence, obtained from 
 him- the right to be restored in possession of their ancient pri- 
 feeb - entof v^ge 8 - He thus weakened the mainspring of the 
 e roya power. monarc i 1 y j R0 anxiously cared for by his father. The 
 
 f. * An old French word, long out of use. 
 
1270-1328] DEATH OF LOUIS X. PHILIP V. 221 
 
 judicial combat was re-established ; confederations of the nobles 
 were formed in most parts of the provinces, and each obtained a 
 charter, and the nobles of the north recovered their royal rights. 
 But the King, pressed by want of money, issued also some de- 
 crees favourable to the national liberties, offering to the peasants 
 of the crown, and to the serfs held in mortmain, to sell them 
 their liberty ; but he gave no guarantee of the rights that he recog- 
 nized, and such was the misery of the people, and such the distrust 
 that the King inspired, that his decree was only received by a small 
 number, and brought little money into the treasury. Great disorder 
 in the financial department, and the horrors of a famine, accompanied 
 by astounding scandals, marked the rapid course of this reign. Then 
 might be seen the clergy themselves conducting in the provinces pro- 
 cessions of penitents, entirely naked, for the purpose of obtaining 
 from Heaven favourable weather for the harvests. Louis X. died in 
 1316, in consequence of an imprudence, leaving his wife, Death of L j 
 Clemence of Hungary, enceinte. By his first marriage x *' 1316, 
 he had only one daughter, called Jeanne, then six years old. 
 
 PHILIP v. 
 
 Philip V., called the Long, brother of Louis le Hutin, took posses- 
 sion of the regency, to the prejudice of the Queen, who Accession f 
 gave birth to a son, named John. This child only sur- Phlhp v > 1316 - 
 vived a few days, and Philip, uncle of the Princess Jeanne, already in 
 possession of the royal authority, caused it to be decreed by the States- 
 General, and by the Universitv of France, that the law 
 
 - . . The Salic law. 
 
 of succession established among the ancient Franks for 
 the Salic land,* should be applied to the crown of France, and that, 
 in virtue of that law, women should never inherit the throne. This 
 was the first application of that celebrated law. 
 
 The new King felt the want of being supported by the legists, and 
 showed towards them an altogether special favour. He bestowed 
 attention on the administration of the interior, appointed the captains- 
 general of the provinces and the captains of the towns, and organized 
 the militia of the communes, decreeing, however, that the arms 
 
 * See page 27. 
 
22 DEATH OF PHILIP V. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 should remain deposited in the houses of the captains till there 
 
 was a necessity for their use. Save a rapid and useless expedition 
 
 into Italy, he had no interior or exterior war to sustain, and yet blood 
 
 streamed in France under his reign. A new religious fury seized the 
 
 shepherds and inhabitants of the plains, designated under the name of 
 
 Pastoureaux, They met together in crowds, with the 
 Pastoureaux. 
 
 intention of passing into the Holy Land and setting 
 
 free the Holy Sepulchre. From mendicants, however, they turned 
 
 into plunderers, and it became necessary to punish them. They 
 
 offered in a holocaust to God all the Jews that they met, and, after 
 
 having committed a multitude of highway robberies and murders, 
 
 they were nearly all massacred and destroyed by the Seneschal of 
 
 Carcassonne. A horrible proscription included those 
 
 the lepers and of attacked with leprosy, during the same reign ; they were 
 
 the Jews. 
 
 accused of having poisoned the wells of drinking water 
 throughout the kingdom. Philip V. and Pope John XXII. both 
 believed in magic ; they gave credence to the crime of the lepers 
 without any proof except that forced out by horrible tortures. From 
 that time all those who were attacked by skin disease were arrested 
 and accused of sorcery ; and as such, they were forbidden to have 
 recourse to the tribunals of the kingdom. The Jews, suspected of 
 being in complicity with them, perished in the same torments. In 
 the midst of these atrocious executions the King fell ill of a wasting 
 disease. The relics from the Sainte-Chapelle, which they brought 
 Death of Phiii nmi ) an0 ^ which he kissed devoutly, could not revive 
 v., 1322. him. : he died at Longchamp, in 1322. 
 
 Most of the ordinances of Philip V. are remarkable for the con- 
 tinual confusion of the personal interests of the King with those of 
 the kingdom, and for the desire to regulate the use of the sovereign 
 will without at the same time recognizing any limit to it. By a 
 decree of 1318, the King ordered himself to attend mass every 
 morning, and regulated the manner of making his bed ; by another 
 he denied to himself the right to transfer the domains of the crown, 
 Letters of anc ^ rev °ked all the gifts of his father. This prince gave 
 
 nobihty. letters of nobility to persons of mean origin. At last 
 
 these letters were sold for money, and this innovation, in renewing 
 the aristocracy, altered its character and weakened it. Amongst the 
 
1270-1328] ACCESSION OP CHAELES IV. 223 
 
 numerous edicts of Philip V., those which organized the -■/.*.. e 
 
 * ° Useful edicts of 
 
 militia, the chambers of exchequer, the administration of this P riuce - 
 the woods and forests, and the office of the collectors, indicate the 
 progress of order, and the substitution of the despotism supported by- 
 law for the despotism sustained by the sword. 
 
 CHARLES IV., CALLED THE FAIR. 
 
 Philip V. had one son and four daughters when he asked the States 
 to exclude, in perpetuity, daughters from the throne. A few months 
 afterwards he lost his son, and was the first person wounded in his 
 paternal love by the law which he had caused to be passed. His 
 brother Charles inherited the sceptre ; he was the third , 
 
 x Accession of 
 
 son of Philip the Fair, and was then twenty-eight years Charles iv.,1322. 
 of age. He issued ordinances for the purpose of ameliorating the lot 
 of the lepers and Jews ; there are few things besides in his reign 
 that history has handed down to us. The foundation of 
 the Floral Games, at Toulouse, dates from this epoch. 
 
 While the civil war desolated England, Charles, at the instigation 
 of his sister Isabella, wife of Edward II., usurped the rights of that 
 prince in Aquitaine. The English monarch sent his son to him, in 
 order to pay him homage ; Charles held back the young prince at his 
 court, as a hostage, and furnished soldiers and money to his sister in 
 order to fight against her husband. That unfortunate king was made 
 prisoner, and shortly afterwards a frightful death put an end to his 
 days. Charles IV. fell ill at this period, and decreed that if the 
 queen, then enceinte, should give birth to a son, his _.. fC 
 cousin-german, Philip of Yalois, should be regent of the IV; 
 kingdom ; if she gave birth to a daughter, his intention was that the 
 twelve peers and the high barons of France should sit in parliament 
 and decree the crown to whomsoever it belonged by law. He died on 
 Christmas day, in the same year, carried oft', like his brothers, in the 
 vigour of his life. Thus appeared to be accomplished 
 
 & . . 7 . His death, 1327. 
 
 the judgment of God, with which the house of Philip the 
 
 Fair had for a long time been threatened, in the eyes of the people, in 
 
 punishment for its crimes. 
 
 We have seen the successive enlargements of the royal domain 
 
224 HOUSES OF FEUDAL PEINCES. [Book II. Chap. L 
 
 since tlie time of Philip I. It had acquired during these two centuries 
 by conquest, by confiscation, or by inheritance, Berry, 
 
 Recapitulation of _ . . 
 
 the acquisitions or the viscounty of Bourges, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, 
 
 made by the . __ 
 
 royal domain, Poitou, Valois, Vermandois, the counties of Auvergne 
 
 from the end of # 
 
 the eleventh cen- and Boulogne, a part of Champagne and Brie, Lyonnais, 
 fourteenth cen- Angoumois, Marche, nearly the whole of Languedoc, and 
 lastly, the kingdom of Navarre, which, belonging in her 
 own right to Queen Jeanne, mother of the last three Capetians, 
 Charles IV.* united with the crown. But the custom among the kings 
 of giving apanages or estates to the princes of their house detached 
 afresh from the domain a great part of the reunited territories, and 
 created powerful feudal princely houses, of which the chiefs often 
 made themselves formidable to the monarchs. Among these great 
 Princely feudal houses of the Capetian race, the most formidable were 
 houses. — jfo e ]2 0lise f Burgundy, which traced back to King 
 
 Robert ; the house of Dreucc, issue of a son of Louis the Big, and 
 which added by a marriage the duchy of Brittany to the county of 
 that name ; the house of Anjou, issue of Charles, brother of Saint 
 Louis, which was united, in 1290, with that of Valois ; the house 
 of Bourdon, descending from Robert, Count of Clermont, sixth son 
 of Saint Louis ; and the house of Alengon, which traced back to 
 Philip III., and possessed the duchy of Alencon and Perche. 
 
 Besides these great princely houses of Capetian stock, which 
 owed their grandeur and their origin to their apanages, there were 
 other feud l many others which held considerable rank in France,, 
 houses. an( j £ w ] 1 i c } 1 the possessions^ were transmissible to 
 
 women ; while the apanages were all masculine fiefs. The most 
 powerful of these houses were those of Flanders, Penthievre, 
 Chatillon, Montmorency, Brienne, Coucy, Vendome, Auvergne, Foix., 
 and Armagnac. The vast possessions of the two last houses were in 
 the country of the Langue d'Oc. The Counts of Foix were also 
 masters of Beam, and those of Armagnac possessed Fezensac, 
 Rouergue, and other large seigniories. 
 
 Many foreign princes, besides, had possessions in France at the 
 accession of the Valois. The King of England was lord 
 
 Foreign princes . . . n 
 
 landowners in of Ponthieu, of Aunis, of Saintonge, and 01 the duchv of 
 
 France. ' ' & J 
 
 Aquitaine; the King of Navarre was Count of Evreux, 
 
270-1328] FOREIGN LANDHOLDERS IN FRANCE. 225 
 
 and possessor of many other towns in Normandy ; the King of Majorca 
 was proprietor of the seigniory of Montpellier ; the Duke of Lorraine, 
 vassal of the German empire, paid homage to the King of France for 
 many fiefs that he held in Champagne ; and, lastly, the Pope possessed 
 the comity Yenaissin, detached from Provence. 
 
226 ACCESSION OF THE YALOIS. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ACCESSION OF THE YALOIS. — REIGN OF PHILIP VI. 
 
 1327—1350. 
 
 With the new reign commenced a long series of disastrous wars be- 
 tween England and France. When the calamities to which they gave 
 birth had transformed, in the eyes of the two nations, the particular 
 rivalries of their kings to national rivalries, the French and the 
 English persuaded themselves that they were natural enemies, and this 
 prejudice existed, to the misfortune of humanity, for five centuries. 
 Nevertheless, in the fourteenth century, the war only broke out between 
 them, as in the preceding centuries, in the interest of their sovereigns^ 
 who both raised rival pretensions to the succession of Charles IV. 
 
 Jeanne d'Evreux, widow of that monarch, gave birth to a daughter,, 
 and, according to the will of the late King, the Parliament was sum- 
 moned to decide between the candidates for the throne. The two 
 principal were the Regent, Philip of Vaiois,*' grandson of Philip 
 the Bold, and cousin-german of the last three kings of France ; and 
 Edward III., King of England, son of Isabella, sister of 
 
 Accession of the . . 
 
 Vaiois. Philip those princes. The interpretation already twice given 
 
 VI;, 1328. 
 
 during twelve years to the Salic law then received a 
 third and last sanction. Women were declared to be deprived of all 
 right to the crown, which the Parliament solemnly awarded to Philip 
 of Yalois. This decision was from that time recognized as a funda- 
 The s lie la • cental law of the state. Ideas of legality began to make 
 fundamenfafiaw ^ neir wa 7 ^' ^ ne spirit of the nation, and law was ap- 
 of the state. pealed to, supported by force ; however, no constitution 
 
 up to that time had fixed the rights of heirdom to the crown, and 
 Philip, in his office of Regent, had exercised so great an influence 
 on the jurisconsults, creatures of the kings and flatterers of power, that 
 
 * Vaiois, a small tract of country in the He de France, tad been given in apanage, 
 with the title of count, to Charles, youngest son of Philip the Bold, and father of 
 Philip of Yalois. 
 
1327-1350] philip vi. 227 
 
 Edward, in appealing himself to the law, would not recognize the 
 authority of the men charged with its interpretation, and appealed from 
 their decision to his sword. But many years rolled away before he 
 declared war against Philip of Yalois ; and in the meantime he still 
 paid him homage for the fiefs which he possessed in France. 
 
 Philip, Count d'Evreux,* another grandson of Philip the Bold, 
 and husband of Jeanne, daughter of Louis X., the eldest of the last 
 three Capetians, was the third candidate for the crown. He received 
 from the monarch the kingdom of Navarre, to which his wife had 
 legitimate rights through her grandfather^ and which was also 
 detached from the crown of Prance. But the royal The crown of 
 domain, by the accession of Philip of Yalois, gained the *} ^g^mo? 
 county of Yalois, Maine, and Anjou ; these latter yS" Maine*" 1 ' 
 provinces had been ceded by the house of Anjou to the 
 house of Yalois, under Philip IY= 
 
 Philip YI. was thirty-six years old when, in 1328, he was recog- 
 nized as king. This prince was brave, violent, vindictive, and cruel ; 
 skilful in all muscular exercises, he was ignorant of the first notions 
 of the military art and of financial administration. With him the art 
 of reigning was to inspire terror by executions, and admiration by 
 pomp and magnificence. The first acts of his reign were the alteration 
 of the coinage and the judgment of death on Pierre Henry, treasurer of 
 finances under the previous reign. Philip YI. accused 
 
 Execution of the 
 
 him of embezzlement : Remy was executed, and the treasurer, Pierre 
 
 J ' Remy, 1327. 
 
 King took possession of his rich spoils. Soon after he 
 marched into Flanders to the assistance of the ferocious Count Louis, 
 who was always at war with his subjects ; and the bloody Battl f Cagcel 
 battle of Cassel, where thirteen thousand Flemings were 1328- 
 slaughtered, restored to the Count his states. 
 
 The issue of a scandalous lawsuit caused the first germs of discord 
 to spring up between Edward III. and Philip YI. „ ,. . 
 
 * ° x x Preliminaries 
 
 Robert d'Artois, brother-in-law of Philip, had vainlv t f the " undred 
 
 ' ■ r ' J Years War 
 
 bribed witnesses, in order to obtain from the Kins: and bet ^ en England 
 
 ' o and France, 
 
 Parliament that the county of Artois, adjudicated to his 1331-1338 - 
 
 * The county of Evreux had been given in apanage, in 1307, by Philip the Fair to 
 his brother Louis, younger son of Philip the Bold, 
 t See page 224, 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 WAR WITH ENGLAND. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 aunt Mahaut, should be given up to him. Blinded by his fury, after 
 having uselessly employed assassins, he had recourse to demons ; and 
 the King, filled with the superstitious beliefs of that age, learned with 
 fright that he, as well as his son, were envonlte's (bewitched) by his 
 brother-in-law. They then believed that if a little image of wax, 
 representing any person, were baptized by a priest, and afterwards 
 pierced with a needle in the place of the heart, the person whom the 
 figure represented would suffer from the wound, and soon die. The 
 demons were invoked in this magical operation, which was called 
 " making a voult (a vow) against any one," or " Venvoulter." The 
 King was no more exempt than his people from the fear which this 
 superstitious belief inspired. Robert, pursued by his vengeance, 
 found an asylum with Edward,, and never desisted from urging 
 him on to war. 
 
 That monarch was then recognized on the continent by most 
 powerful allies. The cruelties of the Count of Flanders had again 
 caused a revolt among his subjects. Ghent, the richest and most 
 populous town of the Low Countries, had revolted, and placed itself 
 under obedience to the celebrated brewer, Jacquemart Artevelt, who 
 was the soul of a new league against Count Louis and France. 
 Having need of the support of England, Artevelt, in the name of the 
 Flemings, recognized Edward as the King of France. About the same 
 time, the Emperor Louis IV. of Bavaria, irritated against Philip, who 
 had refused homage for the fiefs which he held from the empire upon 
 the left bank of the Rhine, declared solemnly at the Diet of Coblentz, 
 held in 1336, that Philip was entirely deprived of all protection from 
 the empire until he had restored his maternal inheritance to Edward. 
 He also named the latter monarch his representative for all the lands 
 on the left bank of the Rhine held by the imperial crown. 
 
 However, the chivalrous King John of Bohemia allied himself with 
 Philip, and, loaded with wealth, seduced the German princes and the 
 Emperor himself, and held neutrality during the terrible struggle about 
 to take place between the Kings of France and England. He strove 
 also to bring about an excommunication of the Flemings by Pope 
 Benedict XII., but Edward submitted himself to the w r ill of the Pon- 
 tiff, threatening him with the fate of Boniface VIII. 
 
 Edward then took the title of King of France ; he entered Flanders 
 
1327-1350] CIVII WAR IN BRITTANY. 229 
 
 at tlie head of an army, and confirmed all the privileges of the Flem- 
 ings. Philip sustained against him, with superior forces, First hostilities, 
 
 1338. 
 
 a defensive warfare, refusing to engage in any general 
 
 action. The English, nevertheless, took the French fleet by surprise, 
 
 shut up in a narrow creek near Ecluse. They gave them Battle of Ecluse 
 
 battle, and obtained a complete victory. France lost 34 °" 
 
 ninety vessels and more than thirty thousand men. This battle was 
 
 followed by an armistice between the two nations. 
 
 A bloody and fatal war to France broke out in the following year 
 in Brittany. John III., duke of that province, had died 
 
 Commencement 
 
 -without issue, and two rivals disputed his inheritance, of the civil war in 
 
 ' r Brittany, 1341. 
 
 The one was Charles de Blois, husband of one of his 
 nieces and nephew of the King of France ; the other, Montfort, 
 conqueror of the Albigenses : he was the younger brother of the last 
 duke, andmad been disinherited by him. The Court of Peers, devoted 
 to the King, adjudged the duchy to Charles de Blois, his nephew. 
 Montfort immediately made himself master of the strongest places, and 
 rendered homage for Brittany to King Edward, whose assistance he 
 implored. This war, in which Charles de Blois was supported by 
 France and Montfort by England, lasted for twenty- four years without 
 interruption, and presented, in the midst of heroic actions, a long 
 course of treacheries and atrocious robberies. Amongst the most 
 famous combats of this terrible struggle history quotes, during a truce 
 with England, the Combat of the Thirty, a bloody duel 
 between thirty Bretons under Jean de Beaumanoir, and Thirt y- 
 thirty English commanded by Bemborough. Victory remained with 
 the Bretons ; but it had no influence upon the issue of the war. Two 
 women — two heroines — vied in courage at this time with the most 
 celebrated warriors. They were Jeanne la Boiteuse, wife of Charles 
 de Blois, and Jeanne la Flamande, wife of Montfort. They were the 
 soul of their parties ; and the defence of Hennebon rendered Jeanne 
 de Montfort immortal. 
 
 Charles de Blois, nephew of Philip VI., only inherited on the female 
 side the duchy of Brittany. The King' sustained his 
 
 J J ° Perfidy and 
 
 cause for a family interest, and he had recourse to ^ T ue . lt; y of p *J m P 
 
 J ' VI. in regard to 
 
 perfidy and cruelty. In a tournament, to which the aevSedto n ° bles 
 Breton knights had repaired without mistrust, he caused Montfort - 
 
230 BATTLE OF CRESSY. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 twelve of the party of Montfort to be arrested. Oliver Clisson, one 
 of the most powerful nobles of Brittany, was of this number. All 
 were beheaded, without legitimate cause and without a trial. The 
 widow of Clisson immediately took by surprise a fortress belonging to 
 the King, and caused the whole of the garrison to be slaughtered before 
 her eyes. The parents and friends of the knights put to death by 
 treachery all passed over to the side of Montfort, and called their 
 enemies to their assistance. One of them, Geofiroy d'Harconrt, being 
 threatened with the same fate by Philip, obtained from King Edward 
 a vow to avenge them ; and in the year following, an English army, 
 commanded by Edward, and conducted by this same Harcourt, dis- 
 embarked in Normandy, and ravaged the kingdom without obstacle, 
 until they arrived beneath the walls of Paris. 
 
 Philip, appealing to all the nobility of France, assembled round him 
 a formidable army, before which Edward retired. The retreat of the 
 English was difficult ; very inferior in numbers to the French, they 
 passed over the Somme at the ford of Blanquetaque, and, compelled 
 to fight, they fortified themselves upon a hill which commanded 
 the village of Cress?/, and there placed cannons, which 
 
 First employ- & . . 
 
 ment of artillery were then for the first time used in European armies. 
 
 in warfare, 1346. 
 
 The French had come by forced marches. If they had 
 taken some repose, by prudent arrangements victory would have been 
 assured to them ; but the impatient Philip, who had scarcely arrived 
 
 in sight of the enemy, ordered an attack to be made by 
 
 Battle of Cressy, & Ji J 
 
 1346 - his Genoese archers, who formed the advanced guard. 
 
 They endeavoured vainly to make him observe that they were exhausted 
 by hunger and fatigue, and that the rain had rendered their bows 
 useless. He renewed the order ; they advanced with bravery, and 
 were repulsed. Philip, furious, caused them to be massacred, and his 
 brother, the Duke d'Alencon, trod them down under the hoofs of his 
 cavalry. This ferocious act caused the loss of the army ; the English 
 took advantage of the confusion in the front ranks, and rushed upon 
 them, and the advanced guard was thrown back upon the general 
 body of the army, where a frightful carnage took place. Thirty 
 thousand Frenchmen lost their lives, and amongst them eleven 
 princes, twelve hundred nobles or knights, and the chivalrous King of 
 Bohemia, allied with Philip, who, although blind, caused himself to 
 
1327-1350] CAPTURE OF CALAIS BY EDWARD III. 231 
 
 he led into the midst of the affray, in order to perish valiantly. The 
 elite of the nobility was cut down in that bloody day's work. The 
 celebrated Black Prince, fifteen years of age, commanded the English, 
 under King Edward, his father, and powerfully contributed to the 
 victory. Philip, twice wounded, and carried away by his men far 
 from the field of battle, presented himself before the castle of Braye, 
 only accompanied by five knights. " Open" said he, as he knocked at 
 the gate, " it is the fortune of France !"*'+■ 
 
 The taking of Calais was one of the most fatal results of the defeat 
 of Oressy. The inhabitants of that town, reduced by 
 
 Siege and 
 
 famine to capitulate after eleven months of courageous capture of 
 
 r p ° Calais by the 
 
 defence, were summoned to deliver up to Edward six King of England, 
 
 9 r m 1346. 
 
 persons from among them upon whom that King could 
 satiate his vengeance. At this news the people broke out into wailing. 
 " But then," says Froissart, " there uprose the richest bourgeois of 
 the town, whom they called Sieur Eustache de Saint-Pierre, and he 
 spoke thus before them : — ' Great pity and great misfortune would it 
 be to see such a people as this perish. I have so great a hope of 
 having grace and pardon from our Lord if I die to save this people, 
 that I wish to be the first, and I will place myself willingly at the 
 mercy of the King of England.' When Eustache had said these 
 words the crowd was moved, men and women throwing them- 
 selves down at his feet, weeping. Then another bourgeois, who had 
 two daughters, and was called Jean d'Aire, arose, and said that he 
 would accompany his friend Sieur Eustache. "t This noble example 
 Was followed by two brothers named Wissant ; lastly, two other bour- 
 geois, whose names history has not preserved, offered to share their 
 fate. The whole six, with ropes round their necks, and bearing the 
 keys of the town, were conducted by the governor, John de Vienne, 
 to the English camp. Edward, on seeing them, called for the 
 •executioner ; but the Queen and his son interceded for them and 
 obtained their pardon. All the inhabitants of Calais were driven from 
 
 * Some authors have denied, but without sufficient proof, the authenticity of this 
 speech, and also that of most of the historical sayings of our kings and great men. 
 These are, in our view, efforts to he regretted, as they tend systematically to despoil 
 history of its poetry and its grandeur, in order to profit a doubtful and most frequently 
 sterile science. 
 
 f Froissart. 
 
232 THE PLAGUE OP FLORENCE. [Book II. CflAP. IL 
 
 the town, which became an Englisli colony ; and for two hundred 
 
 years it was an entrance-place into France for foreign armies. The 
 
 capture of this important place was followed by a truce 
 
 Truce, 1346-1385. r r r J 
 
 between the two monarchs. 
 The disasters of the war took away nothing from the pride or 
 the magnificence of Philip of Valois. When his treasury was empty 
 he altered the coinage, or else united together the pre- 
 
 New taxes. . . 
 
 lates, barons, and certain deputies of the towns, upon 
 whom he imposed his will. Through them he caused new taxes to be 
 sanctioned, and it was thus that he decreed the tax of the twentieth 
 denier on the price of all merchandise sold, and thus that he estab- 
 lished La Gabelle* transferring to the fiscal power the monopoly of 
 
 salt throughout all the kingdom. The preamble of his 
 
 Establishment of ° ° r 
 
 LaGabeiie. edicts tended to show that they were issued for the 
 
 welfare and in the interest of good people, and by the national will ,- 
 however, the States- General were only on one single occasion legally 
 convoked during this reign, and merely distinguished themselves by 
 their servility. 
 
 The frightful plague, known under the name of The Plague of 
 Florence, spread its ravages throughout France during 
 
 Plague, 1348. ' r to & ° 
 
 the year 1348. It is estimated that the disease cut down 
 about one- third of the inhabitants of the kingdom. The ignorant and 
 ferocious populace accused the Jews of having poisoned the rivers 
 and fountains, and those unfortunates were burnt and massacred by 
 thousands. So many calamities served as food for superstition and 
 fanaticism. Enthusiasts, of both sexes, believed, like the Fakirs of 
 India, that their sufferings were agreeable to the divine power. They 
 could then be seen in numerous bands, traversing, half- naked, the towns 
 and the country, cutting their shoulders with blows from the lash, in 
 order, as they said, to blot out the sins of the world ; they called 
 
 themselves Flagellants. Their sect, persecuted and ex- 
 
 Flagellants. J . 
 
 terminated by the Church, had only a short existence. 
 Philip VI. had rendered the power of the Inquisition formidable in 
 France ; nevertheless, he authorized the appeals from abuse of the eccle- 
 siastical tribunals to the Parliament, f 
 
 * See Book II., Chapter III. 
 
 J This appellation was given, from the time of Saint Louis, to the appeal authorized 
 
1327-1350] DEATH OP PHILIP VI. 233 
 
 In 1350, already well advanced in years, he married the young 
 Blanche de Navarre, sister of King Charles surnamed The Bad, and 
 died in less than a month afterwards, at the age of Deathof Phil; 
 fifty- eight years. He had bought the seigniory of Mont- SonofV?*" 
 pellier, for a hundred and twenty thousand crowns, from MoSpSier and 
 James II., last King of Majorca, and acquired from the withSnclf, 
 Dauphin, Humbert II., the province of Dauphine, which 
 was given in apanage to the eldest sons of the kings of France. 
 From that time they bore the name of Dauphins,* and the frontiers of 
 the kingdom were thus extended as far as the Alps. 
 
 by the Gallican Church against certain ecclesiastical acts in the case of usurpation or 
 excess of power, such as the publication of bulls, pastoral letters, and other despatches 
 of the Court of Rome, without the approbation of the Government, and, in general, all 
 violations of the liberties and customs of the Gallican Church. There were other cases 
 of abuse, which only interested private individuals. In this second category must be 
 ranged the acts which, in the exercise of religion, could compromise the reputation of 
 the citizens, or disturb their consciences by an arbitrary persecution. The injuries pro- 
 nounced publicly from the pulpit, the refusal, without grounds, to proceed to a burial, &c, 
 belong to these cases of abuse. From Philip of Valois to the French Revolution, Parlia- 
 ment always took up these questions ; at the present day they are submitted to the 
 Council of State. 
 
 * This surname had been given to the Counts of Vienne (in Dauphine') on account of 
 the dolphin which they carried upon their helmets and on their armorial bearings. 
 
234 PROGRESS OF THE BOURGEOISIE. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REIGN OF KING JOHN." 
 
 1350-1364. 
 
 The disasters of the last war with the English, the prodigalities, 
 the frauds, the exactions of King John, and the dishonest acts 
 of his ministers, were the principal causes which, under his reign, 
 rendered the States- General independent of the crown, and gave 
 thern a new authority, which was almost absolute. This revo- 
 lution was also partly due to the growing importance of the 
 bourgeoisie, or of the Third Estate, in numbers and in 
 
 Prosrrcss of th.6 
 
 bourgeoisie, or wealth. Continual transactions with the Italians and 
 
 Third Estate. . ■,-. n t •, • -i -n 
 
 people of the East had rapidly developed in the French 
 nobility habits of great luxury. In the fourteenth century, above 
 all, expensive tastes made marked progress, and gave full career to 
 new branches of industry, which added to the welfare of the bourgeois 
 class. They, when they acquired wealth, acquired also the feeling of 
 power, and exercised more courage and perseverance in appealing to 
 and defending the laws of individual liberty and property. 
 
 Until the reign of "King John the members of this class had not 
 appeared to be animated with any national spirit ; they appeared to 
 remain strangers to the political interests of the kingdom. As far as 
 they were concerned, the country was restricted to the walled precincts 
 of the city ; they abandoned to the great vassals and the King the 
 •care of watching over the destinies of the state, and all their energy 
 displayed itself at first, not against the government, which had often 
 protected them, but against the tyrannical oppression of their respec- 
 tive seigniors. However, when in its turn the royal authority crushed 
 them under an intolerable yoke, they seized, in order to resist it, upon 
 the moment when they saw it shaken by unheard-of misfortunes and 
 incredible mistakes, and united together against it with the nobility 
 and clergy. The States- General from that time took an imposing 
 
1350-1364] ACCESSION OF KING JOHN. 235 
 
 aspect ; but the result of their energetic efforts was only transitory. 
 Soon, the first two orders of the nation became frightened at the 
 success obtained in the States against the authority of the prince ; 
 they became indignant at the importance which the order of the Third 
 Estate had suddenly acquired, and began to see that the interests of 
 that order, which tended to social equality, were directly opposed to 
 their own, whose existence depended upon privileges : they aban- 
 doned it to itself. Hostile to the crown in other respects, they united 
 with it against the Third Estate, and the disasters with which the 
 bourgeoisie were burdened, in consequence of some ephemeral 
 triumphs, were turned to the advantage of royal despotism. 
 
 John was more than thirty years of age when, in 1350, he succeeded 
 Philip de Yalois, his father. His education, although . 
 
 r fe ' o Accession of 
 
 it had been carefully conducted, had made him more King John, 1350. 
 a valiant knight than a wise and experienced king. Impetuous 
 in character, irresolute in mind, rash rather than brave, prodigal, 
 obstinate, vindictive, and full of pride, perfectly instructed in the 
 laws of chivalry, and ignorant of the duties of the throne, he was 
 always ready to sacrifice to the prejudices of honour, as then under- 
 stood, the rights of his subjects and the interests of the state. France 
 was exhausted at the time of his accession ; nevertheless, he spared 
 nothing at the fetes of his coronation. The expense was so pro- 
 digious, and the empoverishment of the royal treasury so great, that 
 the King, in the following year, found himself obliged to call together 
 the States of the kingdom. 
 
 The first acts of his reign were characterized by violence and 
 despotism. He seized upon the person of the Count d'Eu, 
 constable, who, a prisoner of the English and free upon despotism of 
 his parole, had come to France to gather together his Execution of the 
 
 _ , , - . „ , Count d'Eu. 
 
 ransom. John accused mm ol treason, and caused his 
 head to be cut off without trial. During the same year he issued 
 eighteen ordinances concerning the alteration of the coinage, increas- 
 ing and diminishing alternately the value of the gold mark, and 
 confiscated to his own profit all the claims of the Jew and Lombard 
 merchants established in 'the kingdom. He forbade his subjects 
 to pay what they owed to them, under penalty of being compelled 
 to pay a second time. These disastrous ordinances struck a blow 
 
236 COMPETITION FOR THE THRONE. [Book II. Chap. ILL 
 
 at the heart of commerce and threatened to destroy it. Through 
 tie Jews and Italians nearly all the commerce of France was nego- 
 tiated : a great number left the country ; the others, in order to. 
 compensate themselves for their risk, exacted enormous profits, which 
 increased the general misery. The King felt no fear, after these 
 iniquitous acts, in summoning together the States of his kingdom ; 
 and such was still, at that period, the ignorance or submission of the 
 deputies, that they did not raise a murmur. The monarch treated 
 with those of each state in particular, obtained from each that which 
 he wished, and then dismissed them.* 
 
 These new resources were exhausted at the moment when the truce 
 concluded between England and France had expired. 
 
 Competition for . 
 
 the throne of Edward reproached Kino* John with having 1 deprived 
 
 France. . r ° ... 
 
 him of the ransom of the Constable by assassinating him,, 
 and swore to avenge himself for that crime. Another enemy, nearly 
 as formidable, declared, about the same time, war against France - y 
 this was Charles, King of Navarre and Count of Evreux. This prince,, 
 as well as Edward, had, on the female side, rights to the throne, and 
 he was, moreover, nearer by a degree, as he was son of a daughter of 
 Lotus le Hutin. King John, of whom he was the son-in-law, had 
 the imprudence to incur his enmity by not paying faithfully over the 
 dower of his daughter, while he himself piled up his wealth, and 
 appointed as Constable the Spaniard Charles de la Cerd r a, the personal 
 enemy of the King of Navarre. That monarch, whose vices and 
 cruelties had fixed upon him the surname of The JBad, took the 
 Assassination f Constable by surprise at Aigle, in Normandy, and assas- 
 Charies S de b ia sinated him. Then calling round him all his barons and 
 Kni- a f Navarre n ^ s Norman nobles, he braved the fury of King John^ 
 iaries the Bad. .^j^ powerless to reduce him by arms, summoned him 
 to the throne. Charles of Navarre consented to appear there, re- 
 ceived the pardon of the King, and became reconciled to him by the 
 treaty of Yalogne. 
 
 • War, however, broke out with England. The King issued new 
 ordinances for the falsification of the coinage • the gold mark mounted 
 
 * This first assembly, of which the roll was afterwards rendered void, was the only 
 one under John where the deputies of the two great divisions of the kingdom, the 
 countries of the Langue d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc, were represented. 
 
1850-1364] THE STATES-GENERAL, 1355. 237 
 
 up frorn four livres to seventeen, and then fell back again to four 
 livres. These odious proceedings only brought into the treasury 
 insufficient resources. The King, in order to create new means, 
 convoked the States- General of the Langue d'Oil to Paris in 1355. 
 
 The States met together on the 2nd of December, in the Great 
 Chamber of Parliament. The Archbishop of Rouen, 
 
 -,-!-, , /-in -n t States-General of 
 
 Pierre de la ±orest, Chancellor oi .trance, opened the the Langue crou, 
 
 1355. 
 
 Assembly, and requested subsidies for the war. John de 
 Craon, Archbishop of Reims, in the name of the clergy ; Gauthier de 
 Brienne, Duke of Athens, in the name of the nobility ; Etienne Marcel, 
 head magistrate of the merchants, in the name of the Third Estate, — 
 requested permission to consult among themselves concerning the 
 subsidies to be granted and the abuses to be reformed. Their first 
 declaration announced that a revolution had taken place T 
 
 * Important acts 
 
 in their minds. They carried, that no rule should have of the states, 
 the force of law until it had been approved by the three orders, and 
 that any order which had refused its consent should not be bound by 
 the vote of the other two. By this famous declaration, the Third 
 Estate caused itself to be recognized as a political power, equal to that 
 of the clergy and the nobility. The demands of the King were 
 solemnly discussed ; and, before subscribing to them, the States 
 enacted that the value of the silver mark should be stable, and remain 
 fixed at four livres and twelve sous. They suppressed the law of 
 taking possession, which gave to the purveyors of the King, to the 
 princes, and to the great officers, the right of taking, without pay- 
 ment, in their journeys, everything that they considered necessary for 
 their convenience. They forbade all prosecution for the recovery of 
 property seized from the Italian merchants, and abolished the monopo- 
 lies established by people in government places. In return, they 
 undertook to furnish thirty thousand soldiers and five millions of 
 livres to make up the balance for a year ; but they wished that this 
 money should remain in the hands of their receivers and be levied by 
 them. They made it also necessary that they should assemble again 
 on the 1st of March in the following year to receive the accounts of 
 the treasurers ; then at the end of a year to renew the taxes, if there 
 were necessity, and to provide for the expenses of the war. The King 
 undertook to respect these conditions. 
 
238 NEW TAXES. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 In this manner the nation appears to have regained its ancient 
 periodical assemblies, and the monarchy was "brought to recognize the 
 share of sovereign power between itself and the three orders of the 
 States- General. But these latter, skilful in reforming abuses, and in 
 gaining for themselves precious rights, showed in the assessment of 
 taxes * a deplorable incapacity. Composed of men without experience, 
 assembled from all parts of the kingdom, and unknown to one another ; 
 only having obtained from the King three days in order to agree upon 
 the means of filling the treasury, of reinsuring confidence, of organiz- 
 ing the army, and of driving the enemy from the kingdom, they 
 raised the tax of the gdbelle, or the tax upon salt, and 
 established an aide of eight deniers in the livre upon 
 the sale of all merchandise. 
 
 The first of these taxes fell upon a commodity indispensable to all, 
 and struck at the poorest and most numerous class ; the second, in 
 
 * From the fall of the Roman Empire, among the Gauls, there no longer existed a 
 general annual revenue, and the feudal taxes, exacted upon the domains of the crown, 
 constituted the only revenues of the King of France, who, in this respect, was looked 
 upon as a simple seignior. The military service at their own expense was the only duty 
 imposed upon the great vassals, and 'the natural consequence of this absence of revenue 
 was that perpetual and arbitrary variation of the market price of money decreed by the 
 sovereigns, in order, fictitiously, to raise the value of their feebl^ resources. However, 
 in certain critical positions, the kings addressed themselves to the States-General, in 
 order to obtain the aides, or extraordinary help, of which the assemblies voted the 
 gathering for a limited period ; the taxes might be upon the revenue, upon the sale of 
 merchandise, or upon landed property. Such was the nature of the taxes established in 
 1335. This system continued until 1439, at which period Charles VII. established an 
 annual and permanent tax. 
 
 There were then in France four principal branches of public revenue, the names of 
 which reappear every moment in this history, and it is of importance to know them. 
 
 1st. The land tax, called taille, because in ancient times, the use of writing being 
 little diffused, they noted the payment of this tax by means of entailles, or notches cut 
 in a piece of wood. It was only collected by people of mean origin. 
 
 2nd. The aides. This name, which at first included all the taxes, ended by being 
 applied specially to the taxes laid upon drinks, beasts, fish, wood, tallow and candles, 
 the weirs of rivers and canals — in one word, to that which we call, at the present day, 
 indirect taxation. 
 
 3rd. The gabelle (from the German word gale, which signifies a tax). This was the 
 tax upon salt. Little burdensome in its origin, this tax became at last the most heavy 
 charge and the most vexatious of the whole ancient system of French finance, every head 
 of a family [throughout the most part of the provinces being compelled to buy very 
 dearly from the royal granaries a certain quantity of salt, fixed by edicts, and repre- 
 senting the supposed consumption of his family. 
 
 4th. The revenues of the domain of the crown. 
 
1350-1364] CIVIL TKOUBLES. 239 
 
 •which persons of every estate and all conditions were included, 
 wounded the pretensions of the nobility and clergy, and caused an 
 intolerable inquisition to weigh heavily upon the mercantile classes, 
 and interfered with every commercial operation. 
 
 Soon fatal symptoms of discord made themselves manifest. The 
 people murmured, the foreign merchants abandoned the 
 
 r r ' a . Civil troubles. 
 
 kingdom, the French merchants gave up their business, 
 and commerce was extinguished ; both town and country were opposed 
 to the gdbelle, and spread complaints against the States everywhere. 
 The ecclesiastics refused to pay the tax, threatening to suspend alto- 
 gether the divine service. Many seditions broke out. Arras arose, 
 and fourteen of the bourgeois were slaughtered by the mob. In the 
 middle of these calamities the time arrived when the States ought to 
 assemble anew ; but already the people, incapable of going back to the 
 source of evil, saw the deputies with mere distrust ; they suspected 
 them of complicity with their oppressors. A large number of the 
 towns abstained from sending representatives to the States ; the 
 Normans and the Picards refused to be represented there, and declared 
 that they would not pay the two established taxes. The King of 
 Navarre and the Count d'Harcourt supported the disaffected. The 
 new States- General, much less numerous than their predecessors, 
 abolished the gabelle and the aide of eight deniers in the pound on the 
 sale of all merchandise, and replaced those imposts by a tax rendered 
 proportional to the fortune of each person. 
 
 However, the King, who had only granted a pardon to Charles of 
 Navarre for the murder of his Constable through impotence to avenge 
 him, seized an occasion to satisfy, at one blow, his ancient and his 
 new resentments. He learned that on a fixed day the Dauphin had 
 invited to his table, at the chateau of Rouen, the King of Navarre, 
 the Count d'Harcourt, and some other noblemen. He immediately 
 left Orleans, where he then resided, entered Rouen on the day ap- 
 pointed, followed by a numerous escort, and presented himself at the 
 entrance of the hall where the nobles were seated at table. Lord 
 Arnould d'Andeneham preceded him, and, drawing his sword, said, 
 " Let no one stir for anything that he may see, unless he wishes to 
 •die by this sword." King John advanced towards the table, and the 
 guests, seized with terror, rose in order to salute him, when, laying 
 
240 ARREST OF CHARLES OF NAVARRE. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 his hand upon Charles of Navarre, the King stopped him, and, shaking 
 
 him with rudeness, " Traitor," said he, "you are not 
 
 of Navarre by ' worthy of sitting at the table of my son. I neither wish 
 
 King John. . 
 
 to eat nor to drink as long as you shall live. A witness 
 of this violence, Oollinet de Breville, a knight of the King of Navarre, 
 pointed his sword at the breast of the King, and said that he would 
 slay him. "Let this man and his master be arrested," said King 
 John. His sergeant-at-arms immediately seized the King of Navarre, 
 who vainly implored mercy. The Dauphin, then very young, threw 
 himself at the feet of his father. "Oh, sire!" said he, "you will 
 dishonour me. What will they say of me, when I have invited the 
 King and the nobles to my house, and you have treated them thus ? 
 They will say that I have been treacherous." " Hold your peace, 
 Charles ! " answered the King ; " they are evil traitors : you know 
 not all that I know." The King then advanced some paces, and, 
 seizing a club, he struck the Count d'Harcourt with it between the 
 shoulders, and said, " Proud traitor ! by the soul of my father you 
 shall not escape." Two nobles of the suite of the King of Navarre 
 were arrested with that prince and his knight. King John caused his 
 prisoners to be dragged outside the chateau, and said to the chief 
 of his guards, " Free us from these men." D'Harcourt and the 
 
 three noblemen were then immediately beheaded before 
 
 Execution of the 
 
 Count d'Harcourt }±i mt Roval dignitv saved Charles of Navarre. John 
 
 and other J ° J 
 
 noblemen, 1355. S p are d his head, but he held him prisoner closely con- 
 fined in a tower of the Louvre, and seized his French apanage.* 
 
 This act of violence drew down great misfortunes on the kingdom. 
 Philip of Navarre, father of King Charles, and Geoffrey d'Harcourt, 
 uncle of the beheaded Count, immediately united themselves with the 
 King of England, and recognized him as the King of Prance, and 
 paid him homage for their domains. Edward proclaimed himself 
 the avenger of the executed gentlemen. He sent a formidable army 
 into Normandy, while the Prince of Wales carried fire and sword into 
 the heart of the country, ravaged Auvergne, Limousin, and Berry, and 
 approached Tours. John, whose vindictive fury had brought down 
 this tempest upon France, made an oath that he would fight with the 
 Prince of Wales wherever he should meet him, and called together all 
 
 * Froissarfc, Chronicles. 
 
1350-1364] BATTLE OF POITIERS. 241 
 
 liis nobility. The army assembled in 1356, in the plains of Chartres, 
 and overtook the English in the neighbourhood of Poitiers. Already 
 scarcity had made itself felt in the camp of the enemy, and the Black 
 Prince offered very advantageous terms for France. If John had not 
 fought, the English would have been conquered by famine and compelled 
 to lay down their arms ; but so much prudence did not enter into the 
 spirit of those chivalric times. Battles were not founded on calcu- 
 lations, but were merely the fruit of an unexpected meeting and a 
 warlike impulse ; they decided less the existence than the honour 
 of nations. The French army, besides, was more than fifty thou- 
 sand strong, while the army of the enemy only consisted of eight 
 thousand. King John, then, resolved to fight : he felt confident of 
 victory. 
 
 The Black Prince had only two thousand knights, four thousand 
 archers, and two thousand foot soldiers, and he saw before him an 
 army of fifty thousand men, amongst whom, besides the King of 
 France and his four sons, there were twenty- six dukes B 
 or counts, and a hundred and forty knights banneret. Poitiers . 1356 - 
 He fixed his camp at Maupertuis, two leagues north of Poitiers, upon 
 a hill covered with hedges, bushes, and vines, impracticable for cavalry, 
 and favourable to sharpshooters ; he concealed his archers in the 
 bushes, dug ditches, and surrounded himself with palisades and 
 waggons. In fact, he converted his camp into a great redoubt, open 
 only in the centre by a narrow defile, which was lined by a double 
 hedge. At the top of this defile was the little English army, crowded 
 together, and protected on every side. There was, moreover, an 
 ambuscade of six hundred knights and archers behind a small hill 
 which separated the two armies. 
 
 The French army was disposed in an oblique line, in three 
 battalions or divisions. The left and most advanced wing was 
 commanded by the Duke of Orleans, brother of the King ; the centre, 
 somewhat further back, by the sons of the King ; the right wing or 
 reserve by the King himself. The cries of the combatants could 
 already have been heard, when two legates interposed their mediation. 
 The Prince of Wales offered to restore his conquests and his prisoners, 
 and not to serve against France for seven years ; but John exacted 
 that he should give himself up as a prisoner with a hundred knights. 
 
 E 
 
242 KING JOHN IS MADE PRISONER. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 The English, refused, and the King, who could have taken him by 
 famine, ordered the battle. 
 
 A corps of three hundred French men-at-arms rushed into the 
 defile ; a shower of arrows destroyed it. The corps which followed, 
 disturbed by this attack, threw itself back upon the left wing, and 
 threw it into disorder. This was only a combat of the advanced guard ; 
 but the English ambuscade throwing itself suddenly upon the centre 
 division, that also was seized with panic and terror, and took to flight 
 without having fought. At this sight, Chandos, the most illustrious 
 captain of the English army, said to the Black Prince, " Ride forward : 
 the day is yours ! " The English descended the hill, and carried 
 everything before them. " Three sons of the King," says Froissart, 
 " with more than eight hundred lances, in good condition and whole, 
 took to flight without ever "approaching their enemies."* The left 
 wing took refuge in disorder behind the division of the King, which 
 was already in trouble, but intact. The English went out from the 
 defile in good order, and advancing into the plain found before them 
 that division where was the King, his youngest son, and his brilliant 
 staff of nobles. The French had still the advantage over their 
 enemies, who were very inferior to them in numbers ; but John, 
 remembering, to his misfortune, that the disaster at Cressy had been 
 caused by the French cavalry, cried out, " On foot ! on foot ! " He 
 himself descended from his horse and placed himself at the head of his 
 •own men, a battle-axe in his hand. The engagement was fierce and 
 bloody ; but the French knights were unable to struggle on foot 
 against the great horses of the English and the arrows of the archers. 
 They fought until they were all killed or taken, but without order, by 
 troops or by companies, as they found. themselves gathered together or 
 scattered. Thus perished all the flower of the chivalry of France. The 
 King remained almost alone, with bare head, wounded, intrepid, 
 fighting bravely with his axe, accompanied by his young son, who 
 parried the blows of his enemies. He was obliged to give himself up. 
 
 The Black Prince, scarcely twenty- six years of age, showed himself 
 
 worthy of his good fortune: he surrounded the van- 
 King- John is J . 1 . 
 made prisoner. quished King with respect, serving mm at table, standing, 
 
 with head uncovered, and declaring that he had deserved the prize 
 
 * Chronicles, 
 
1350-1364] DESOLATION OF THE KINGDOM. 243 
 
 for valour on that memorable day. Such was the disastrous issue of 
 the celebrated battle of Poitiers. The Dauphin, already named by his 
 father lieutenant-general of the kingdom, took the reins of state 
 during the captivity of the King ; he issued six ordinances concerning 
 the coinage, in order to provide for the first wants of the treasury, 
 and assembled at Paris in the same year the States of the Langue 
 d'Oil. 
 
 The disaster of Poitiers and the captivity of the King had plunged 
 the kingdom in sorrow, and every one, at the height of 
 
 to J ' _ ° States-General of 
 
 this dangerous crisis, understood the extreme importance 1356 - 
 of the States- General convoked by the Dauphin in 1356 : eight hundred 
 deputies were sent to it, and it was presided over by Charles de 
 Blois, Duke of Brittany. On the demand for fresh subsidies, they 
 answered by the election of several commissioners, taken from each 
 order, and who in their imperious requests demanded — the sole power 
 in matters of finance throughout the states ; the power to bring to 
 judgment the counsellors of the King ; the creation of a permanent 
 council of four prelates, twelve knights, and twelve bourgeois, in order 
 to assist the young regent ; lastly, the right of the States to meet 
 together without royal . convocation. Upon these conditions they 
 agreed to furnish an army of thirty thousand men. 
 
 Jealous of the authority which the States arrogated to themselves, 
 the Dauphin requested time for reflection ; he dragged out the dis- 
 cussions to great length, flattered the deputies, deceived them by 
 vain speeches, and tired them ; the greater part returned to their 
 homes ; and at last the assembly separated without obtaining any- 
 thing or granting anything. 
 
 The English then desolated the most beautiful provinces of the 
 kingdom ; commerce was annihilated ; the soldiers, dis- - , „ 
 
 7 ' Desolation of the 
 
 banded and without pay, ravaged the country. There kin s dom - 
 was no more safety for the peasants in their cottages, for the monks 
 and nuns in their convents ; the fields abandoned remained unculti- 
 vated, and the towns received a multitude of men without asylum and 
 without bread, who caused famine to enter with them within their 
 walls ; the enemy, in short, was at the gates of Paris. 
 
 In the midst of so much calamity, Etienne Marcel, chief of the 
 
 R 2 
 
244 CONCESSIONS OF THE DAUPHIN. [Book II. Chap. Ill, 
 
 merchants of the capital, a true representative of the Third Estate in 
 the fourteenth century, displayed great courage and the qualities 
 of a superior genius. He reanimated the Parisians, finished and 
 fortified the precincts within the walls of the town, caused iron 
 chains to be stretched across the streets, accustomed the bourgeois 
 to arms, and, strengthened by an immense popularity, he presented 
 himself at the famous States of 1357, convoked at Paris, 
 
 Celebrated 
 
 states-General of in general assembly, by the Dauphin. Robert le Coq, 
 
 xooi* 
 
 Bishop of Laon, spoke for the clergy, John de Pequigny 
 for the nobility, and Etienne for the Third Estate. Assembled in a 
 time of disorder, convoked by a prince who could do nothing without 
 their concurrence, in the heart of an excited country, the new States 
 reproduced the requests of the preceding assembly, adding to them 
 other pretensions, and forcing upon him all their demands. In 
 
 exchange for a subsidy destined to furnish thirty thou- 
 
 Concessionsofthe , .. . - . ., n n 
 
 Dauphin. Ordi- sand men, and which was to be collected and managed, 
 
 nance of 1357. 
 
 not by the people of the King, but by those of the 
 States, the Dauphin engaged solemnly to turn aside nothing for his 
 personal interest, from the money consecrated to the defence of the 
 kingdom, to refuse every letter of pardon for atrocious crimes, no more 
 to sell or farm out the offices of judicature, to seek out and to punish 
 prevaricators in the Chamber of Exchequer and in that of Public 
 Inquiry, to establish good money, and to bring about no further 
 change without the consent of the three States, to prohibit every 
 prize for royal service, and to cause the collectors accused of em- 
 bezzlement to render an account. Such were, in brief, the principal 
 dispositions of the celebrated ordinance of 1357. The Dauphin swore 
 besides that he would conclude no truce without the sanction of 
 the States, and that he would dismiss as " unworthy of all charge," 
 twenty- two counsellors, to whom public hatred attributed all the 
 misfortunes of the country. The States before separating agreed 
 to meet again three times before the end of the year, and appointed 
 thirty-six commissioners, taken from their midst, to administrate 
 finances and direct affairs, in concert with the prince, during the 
 intervals of the sittings. 
 
 By these conditions,, to which the Dauphin consented, we can judge 
 
1350-1864] KING JOHN IS TAKEN TO LONDON. 245 
 
 of the number of grievances raised against the court and the nobles, and 
 of the enormity of the abuses under which the nation Considerations 
 groaned. These reforms were attempted by the prevot ordered by the 
 
 . States, in 1327. 
 
 Etienne Marcel, and by the Bishop Robert le Coq, ancient 
 legist, both of whom used culpable violence to sustain them. The 
 lasting success of their great enterprise was impossible. The only class 
 which could then rightly believe itself interested in the triumph of the 
 principles which they established was the class of the Third Estate, or 
 bourgeoisie, and they did not form a body animated throughout by the 
 same spirit. Disseminated through a great number of towns, feudally 
 in submission to a similar number of powerful nobles, and, for the 
 most part, recently united with the kingdom, the diversity of their 
 customs, their manners, their prejudices, and of their material in- 
 terests, rendered the men of the bourgeois class rivals, and jealous of 
 one another ; no social tie existed between them ; feebly affected by 
 the general destinies of the state, which offered to them no advantage, 
 they revolted against the sacrifices which its defence exacted. When 
 they could do so with impunity, they disavowed their representatives, 
 and did not lend them the support necessary against the jealousy of 
 the privileged orders. It was necessary that the action of a central 
 and energetic power should make itself felt in the time still to come, in 
 order to blend together so many particular wishes in one general will, 
 and before there could arise in France a national spirit wise enough 
 to comprehend the advantages that a vast and powerful association 
 could procure, and the duties that it would impose ; a spirit also 
 enlightened enough to appreciate at its just value public liberty, and 
 strong enough to conquer it and defend it. The year 1357 was the 
 period when the States- General had greatest power during the Middle 
 Ages ; from that time they rapidly declined ; they lost, as did also 
 the Third Estate, all political influence, and for some centuries were 
 only empty shadows of national assemblies. 
 
 King John had been conducted from Poitiers to Bordeaux, thence 
 to London, and during the negotiations on the subject of His ransom 
 a truce of two years was concluded between England and France. 
 About the same time the death of Geoffroy d'Harcourt freed the 
 Dauphin from an implacable foe. Charles breathed again ; he had 
 only given way by constraint to the wish of the States, and he 
 
246 THE KING OF NAVAKEE SET FREE. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 hastened to break from their yoke as soon as he could dispense with 
 dissimulation. He retained the ministers whom he had promised to 
 dismiss and prosecute, and, at their instigation, he encouraged the pre- 
 tensions of the nobles and the murmurs of the people in opposition to 
 the votes of the States. The contributions consented to by them were 
 never paid ; the prince then'declared that he alone ruled, and dismissed 
 the thirty-six commissioners. They, feeling that public opinion, the 
 only power capable of sustaining them, had abandoned them, separated 
 without any resistance. From that time the struggle was only sustained 
 by the bourgeoisie of Paris, and its magistrates stretched their authority 
 over the whole of France.* Troubled with the hostile disposition of 
 the Dauphin, the chiefs of the movement desired to gain a protector 
 capable of defending them, and cast their regards upon the King of 
 Navarre, then a prisoner in the castle of Arleux. John 
 
 The King of ' r 
 
 Navarre set at d e Pequig-nv took the fortress, and set free the Kins', 
 
 liberty by John 1 B J ' ^ °' 
 
 de Pequigny, w k re turned to Paris, where he was received as the 
 future liberator of the kingdom. 
 The new States assembled on the 17th of November, 1357, but they 
 only found a few deputies for the clergy, and not a single noble ; their 
 influence was void, and the struggle continued between the Commons 
 of Paris and the Dauphin, who failed in his promises, and braved 
 public opinion by drawing nearer to his person the ministers and 
 great officers condemned by the preceding States. No tribunal had 
 dared to prosecute them ; they affected the most profound contempt 
 for the nation, threatening to re-establish all the abuses. The moment 
 of the crisis had arrived. The celebrated prevot of the merchants, 
 Marcel, had recourse to violent measures. He made the Parisians 
 adopt a national colour, and gave them for a rallying sign a red and 
 blue hood, the colours of the town of Paris. He appeared, followed by 
 armed men, before the Dauphin, on either side of whom he found the 
 Lord of Conflans, Marshal of Champagne, and Robert de Clermont, 
 Marshal of Normandy, both of whom had been proscribed by the 
 
 * The convocation of the States- General, at Paris, on the 7th of November, 1357, was 
 made conjointly by the Dauphin and hj the prevot of the merchants of Paris. "And 
 sent his letters to the people of the Church, to the nobles, and to the walled towns, and 
 summoned them. The said prevot also sent his letter%, spoken of above, with the 
 letters of my lord the Duke." — Chronicles of Saint-Denis. 
 
1350-1364] ETIENNE MARCEL. 247 
 
 States. Some words were exchanged between the prince and Marcel ; 
 then, upon a sign from the prevot, the men of his 
 
 • t t j_t Murder of the 
 
 suite drew their swords and massacred tne two marshals of 
 
 Champagne and 
 
 marshals. The Dauphin, covered with their blood, mi- Normandy, by 
 
 the order of 
 
 plored his life from Marcel, who placed upon his head Etienne Marcel, 
 
 x A prevot of the 
 
 the red and blue hood, and conducted him to the Hotel merchants. 
 
 7 Marcel makes 
 
 de Ville under the safeguard of the popular colours. h ]™ sel ?™ a , s *F 
 
 ° r jr f pans, 1358. 
 
 There the Dauphin, seized with fright, declared to the 
 
 people that the two assassinated marshals were traitors, and that they 
 
 had deserved their fate. Marcel was king in Paris. 
 
 This double assassination, in restoring for some time power to the 
 States, did not consolidate them, but, on the contrary, only rendered 
 their fall more certain; it raised up implacable resentments in the 
 heart of the Dauphin and amongst the nobility. Already the two 
 privileged orders were indignant at seeing the despised bourgeois 
 exercising a power equal to their own ; secret hates fermented, the 
 prejudices of the nobility divided the three orders, while the murder 
 of the marshals caused discord to break out. The nobles of Champagne 
 assembled together and demanded vengeance from the Dauphin ; he, 
 who had become regent of the kingdom by his majority, profited by 
 these arrangements, so favourable to his designs, and called together 
 the States at Compiegne, far from the centre of agitation ; the 
 nobility alone presented themselves in great numbers, and the reaction 
 became imminent. Marcel foresaw the storm, and prepared for the 
 combat ; he attacked the Louvre, then out of the capital, and took 
 possession of it ; he united the town with the chateau, and fortified 
 the precinct within the walls. The regent called round him the no- 
 bility, and assembled seven thousand lancers, while, by the advice of 
 Marcel, the bourgeois of Paris proclaimed the King of 
 
 . r & Civil war, 1358. 
 
 .Navarre their captam-general. Civil war commenced, 
 and with it a new scourge showed itself. 
 
 The people in the country, utterly powerless against the oppression 
 which presented itself on every side, overcharged with taxes by the 
 nobles, despised by the bourgeois, pillaged by the soldiers, suffered at 
 this period from intolerable evils. A proverb of the time describes 
 with energy their excessive misery. The nobles were in the habit of 
 calling these unfortunate people by the name of Jacques Bonhomme, 
 
248 THE JACQUERIE. [BOOK II. CHAP. III. 
 
 and said ironically, " Jacques Bonhomme does not part with his money 
 unless lie is thrashed j out Jacques Bonhomme will pay, for he knows 
 that he will he thrashed. The disaster of Poitiers increased the evils 
 of this unfortunate class. The barons and gentlemen taken prisoners 
 by the English, and released upon parole, submitted their serfs to 
 atrocious persecutions in order to tear from them the price of their 
 ransoms. Then the instinct of despair united the peasants ; one sole 
 rp. T . sentiment seized their minds, that of a mad vengeance. 
 
 The Jacquerie, ' & 
 
 V3i)8 - In the Beauvoisis* they arose in a mass, and swore 
 
 war to the death against the nobles. They burnt their castles, the 
 inhabitants of which they tortured and massacred ; they violated and 
 murdered women and girls, and pushed their fury even to forcing 
 children to eat the body of their father, which they had burnt before 
 their eyes. In fact, they committed every excess to which ignorant 
 and barbarous men, for a long period victims of a cruel oppression, 
 could abandon themselves to. In a short time they were masters of 
 ail the country between the Oise and the Seine ; many towns, Paris 
 even, received them as allies against the common enemy. This rising 
 received in history the name of the Jacquerie. It was soon suppressed ; 
 the nobility, invincible under its iron armour, exterminated these half- 
 naked wretches. Dispersed before Meaux, they nearly all perished, 
 and the plains throughout many provinces became deserted. 
 
 Paris was then besieged by the army of the Dauphin ; the bourgeois 
 sie"-e of Pms suspected Charles the Bad of treachery, and dismissed 
 theDaupnm. him. Soon the peril of the capital became extreme, and 
 Marcel had no other hope than that which he reposed in the prince 
 whom they had just expelled. He had an interview with the King of 
 Navarre ; he reminded him that on the female side he was the nearest 
 
 * Some people from the rural towns, without any chief, assembled in Beauvoisis, and at 
 first did not number one hundred men, and said that all the nobles in the kingdom of 
 France, chevaliers and knights, disgraced and betrayed the kingdom, and that it would be 
 to the general good if they were destroyed. Then they assembled, and without further 
 counsel, and no arms except sticks tipped with iron and knives, they issued forth. . . . 
 And they multiplied so greatly that they were soon six thousand in number ; and where- 
 ever they went their number increased ; for each one of their own class followed them. 
 (Chronicles of Froissart, Book I., Second Part, chap, lxv.) But they were already 
 so multiplied that if they had been together they would have numbered a hundred thou- 
 sand men. And when they were asked why they acted so, they answered that they did 
 not know, but they vowed to make others do the same, and did it also. —(Ibid. , chap. Ixvi. ) 
 
1350-1364] ASSASSINATION OF MARCEL. 249 
 
 heir to the throne, and invited him to return to Paris. He engaged 
 at the same time to give to him the title of captain-general, perhaps 
 to proclaim him king. The King of Navarre, dazzled, accepted the 
 offer, and it was arranged that, on the night between the 31st of July 
 and the 1st of August, the gate and bastille of Saint-Denis should be 
 delivered up to him. But a bourgeois named Maillard, a partisan of 
 the Dauphin, had discovered the plot. Accompanied by armed men, 
 he presented himself at midnight at the gate Saint-Denis, took Marcel 
 with the keys in his hand, cried out " Treason !" and slew him with a 
 blow on the forehead from a battle-axe. The same blow struck all the 
 party of the tribune. The death of the famous prevot 
 
 -... . The assassina- 
 
 smootlied the way tor the regent, who entered .Paris tionof Marcel, 
 
 . . 1358. 
 
 as a conqueror, leaning on the shoulder of Maillard, and 
 signalized his power by numerous executions. 
 
 Meanwhile, King John, weary of his long captivity, had signed a 
 disgraceful treaty, which gave over half of France to England. This 
 treaty was rejected with one voice by the regent and the States of 
 1359. The Dauphin, who had gained popularity by this patriotic act, 
 then declared that the ministers and great officers proscribed by the 
 preceding States had never lost his confidence, and re-established 
 them in their posts. He received some subsidies, but the people 
 could not pay, and in order to sustain the war against the 
 English — encamped at Bourg-la-Reine, two leagues from Paris — he 
 again altered the coinage. The celebrated treaty of Bretigny (near 
 to Chartres) terminated at last the hostilities between Treat . of 
 France and England. Its principal articles declared that B ^tiguy, 13 ^o. 
 Guienne, Poitou, South Gascony, Ponthieu, Calais, and some fiefs, 
 should remain entirely in the possession of the King of England ; that 
 Edward should renounce his pretensions to the crown of France, to 
 JSTormandy, Brittany, Maine, Touraine and Anjou, possessed by his 
 ancestors, and that John should pay three millions of gold crowns for 
 his ransom. The two sovereigns confirmed this treaty at Calais 
 in 1360. 
 
 Great calamities followed the deliverance of King John. That 
 prince, in granting his daughter to Galeas Yisconti of Milan, had 
 caused him to purchase the honour of his alliance for a hundred 
 thousand florins. This sum was useful to France for the ransom of 
 
250 DEATH OF KING JOHN. [Book II. Chap. III.. 
 
 the King, but was far from being sufficient. The people were laid 
 under arbitrary taxation, and their misery increased. 
 
 Sufferings 
 
 throughout the Numerous companies of adventurers, always in the pay 
 
 kingdom. r . 
 
 of the party who offered the most, and without employ- 
 ment in time of peace, infested the plains; the fields remained 
 uncultiyated ; and famine, followed by a plague of three years' dura- 
 tion, devastated the kingdom. 
 
 In the midst of so many evils a happy circumstance occurred 
 for France. John acquired Burgundy by the death of Philip de 
 Bouvre,* the last duke, to whom he succeeded, in his capacity of 
 nearest relative. But he did not at all understand the importance 
 of this acquisition in the national interest, and hastened to detach 
 this beautiful province anew from his crown, giving it as an apanage 
 ™.m- „.- ™ « to his fourth son Philip, whose valorous conduct at 
 
 Philip the Bold, r7 
 
 ^cond houseof P°itiers had gained for him the surname of the Bold, 
 Burgundy, 1362. an( j ^ Q p a t e rnal predilection. Thus the second house of 
 Burgundy was founded, which rendered itself so formidable in Prance. 
 Each of the acts of this King appears to be marked with the stamp of 
 the most deplorable fatality. After so many faults, and in the midst 
 of cries of distress from the nation, he contemplated uniting himself 
 with the King of Cyprus, who was engaged in a new crusade, and, 
 encouraged by the Pope Urban V., he took up the cross at Avignon; 
 but he soon learned that his son, the Duke of Anjoa, had fled from 
 England, where he had left him as a hostage : from this circumstance he 
 experienced very great affliction. If guilty of complicity with his son, 
 the King would have violated the laws of chivalry, which he respected 
 even to a nicety. Impatient to justify himself, he demanded a safe 
 _ .. . „. conduct, obtained it, and returned to England, where he 
 
 Death of King ' ' o ' 
 
 John, 1364. died in 1364. Pew kings, with his estimable qualities and 
 
 right intentions, have drawn down more evils upon their people. The 
 following beautiful sentiment has been attributed to this prince : — 
 If good faith were banished from the rest of the ivorld, it ought still to 
 be found in the hearts of Icings ; a noble maxim, which would have 
 done more honour to King John if it had always inspired his actions. 
 
 * This name came to him from the castle of Rouvre, where he was born. Philip de 
 Rouvre was the last descendant of Robert, son of Robert King of France, and founder 
 of the first Capetian house of Burgundy. 
 
1364-1380] CHARLES V. 251 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 REIGN OF CHARLES V., CALLED THE WISE. 
 
 1364-1380. 
 
 When Charles V. mounted the throne he was twenty-nine years 
 of age. He had already governed France for nearly 
 eight years. Nothing then announced in him the 
 restorer of the monarchy. Wot much esteemed by the nobility, on 
 account of his unwarlike qualities and his conduct at Poitiers ; hated 
 by the bourgeoisie, which he had subdued by executions ; weak in 
 body, and of a sickly constitution, everything appeared likely to 
 become an obstacle during his reign. And yet, by his address and 
 prudence, more than by great talent, he was enabled to reconquer 
 a large part of the provinces which his father had lost. He re-estab- 
 lished order in the interior of the kingdom ; but all this could only 
 be done at the expense of the authority of the States- General, whom 
 he strove to annul. His principal merit consisted in the sagacity with 
 which he appreciated circumstances and men, arranged useful alliances, 
 seized always the favourable moment to attack his enemies, and 
 attached to himself skilful ministers and great generals, at the head 
 of whom appeared Boucicaut, Olivier de Clisson, and the brave Du 
 Guesclin. He is justly reproached with having neither respected the 
 rights of the people nor the treaties with his enemies ; but, having 
 occupied the throne between two disastrous epochs, he ought to have 
 double credit for the repose which France appeared to enjoy under 
 his reign, and posterity confirmed the surname of Wise which he 
 received from his contemporaries. 
 
 Nothing threw more brilliancy upon the reign of Charles V., and 
 contributed more to his success, than the illustrious Ber- 
 trand du Guesclin. A simple Breton gentleman, with no 
 personal advantages, accomplishments, or fortune, of a mind so little 
 
252 ACCESSION OF CHARLES Y. [Book II. Chap. IV. 
 
 opened that he could never learn to read, he had nothing appa- 
 rently of that which announces a hero, except his valour. This was 
 the man who, after having fought obscurely for Charles de Blois upon 
 the heaths of Brittany, became the first captain of the age, whom 
 God seemed to have caused to be born a contemporary of Charles V. 
 in order to save France. "A strong soul," says his historian, 
 " nourished in iron, moulded under the palms, and in which Mars 
 held school for a long period." His first exploit for Charles was 
 a victory. Boucicaut had just taken by surprise the town of Mantes, 
 which belonged to the King of Navarre ; that of Meulan had like- 
 wise fallen into the hands of the French. The Captal or Seignior of 
 Buch, a brave Gascon captain in the service of Charles the Bad, 
 made arrangements in order to _ take his revenge. He united with 
 John Joel, an English captain, and, afc the head of seven hundred 
 lancers, three hundred archers, and five hundred foot soldiers, he 
 awaited the French in the neighbourhood of Cocherel, near Evreux, 
 B u where he arranged his troops on the height of a hill, 
 
 Cocherel. on j^ 1Q "border of a wood. Bertrand du Guesclin ap- 
 
 proached ; he perceived that the Captal possessed the advantage of 
 the ground ; but his own soldiers were in want of provisions : it was 
 necessary to give fight, and draw the enemy into the plain. Du 
 Guesclin had not his equal in stratagems of war ; he prepared an 
 ambuscade and ordered a precipitate retreat. John Joel, deceived by 
 this artifice, rushed forward, against the orders of the Captal, to the 
 cry of " Forward, Saint George ! Who loves me follows me ! " The 
 Captal saw the peril, and followed John Joel to save him ; but then 
 the French stopped. "Forward, friends!" cried Du Guesclin, "the 
 day is ours. For God's sake remember that we have a new king in 
 France, and that to-day his crown must be handselled by us ! " A 
 fierce combat then took place, and the ambuscade showed itself; thirty 
 knights rushed upon the Captal at a gallop and took him prisoner. 
 The victory was- vigorously disputed : but John Joel fell, wounded to 
 death, and the men of Navarre, without a chief, dispersed, only a 
 small number contriving to escape. The victory of Cocherel placed in 
 submission to Charles Y. nearly the whole of Normandy. He received 
 the news at Reims, in the midst of the fetes of his coronation, and 
 recompensed Du Guesclin by the gift of the county of Longueville. 
 
1364-1380] THE GREAT COMPANIES. 253 
 
 The war went on continuously in Brittany between the two aspi- 
 rants, the son of John de Montfort and of the celebrated Jeanne de 
 Flandres, allied with the English, and Charles de Blois, sustained by 
 France. The celebrated battle of Auray, when the latter 
 was slain, was soon followed by the treaty of Guerande, Treaty of Gu<$- 
 
 . _ n . rande. End of the 
 
 which assured the duchy of Brittany to Montfort. This war in Brittany, 
 
 ,; J 1365. 
 
 treaty, signed with care by Charles V., rendered the 
 
 duchy reversible to the widow and children of Charles de Blois in 
 
 case Montfort died without issue. Thus terminated an atrocious war, 
 
 which had lasted twenty- four years. The Duke of Montfort, under 
 
 the name of John V., hastened to return to Paris, where he did 
 
 homage to the King. 
 
 Charles V. found himself at last at peace with all his neighbours. 
 
 His people began to breathe again, and returned to the work of the 
 
 fields, interrupted for so long a period ; order and peace existed once 
 
 more. But the scourge of the companies of adventurers m . 
 
 o r The great com- 
 
 threatened to arrest this return to a better state, and to P ani8S - 
 
 ruin the kingdom. During this period, when the caprices of princes, 
 a gift, an exchange, or a marriage decided every day the destiny of 
 the people, a multitude of men considered themselves as belonging to 
 no country, and offered their swords to any one who sought their 
 services. The length of the wars, which rendered their services 
 necessary to so many princes ; the feebleness of the laws, which seemed 
 to authorize all kinds of disorder and violence, had, during twenty- 
 five years, prodigiously increased the number of these greedy and 
 licentious men. When France was at peace, they all remained without 
 employment and without means of existence. They then spread 
 themselves like wild beasts over the country, and there committed 
 frightful ravages. The only means of subduing them so far had been 
 by arming against them the national militia of the kingdom ; but 
 experience had taught Charles to fear above all things the influence of 
 the middle classes. He refused to increase their number, and from 
 that time, not being able to exterminate the great companies, he was 
 compelled to employ them. For a considerable time Peter, King of 
 Castile, surnamed the Cruel, had alienated himself from his family 
 and subjects by acts of atrocity. He had poisoned his wife, Blanche 
 of Bourbon, and ordered the murder of his natural brother, Henry of 
 
245 BATTLE OF NAVARETTE. [Book II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 Transtamare ; tlie latter, in the hope of punishing him and of sup- 
 planting him upon the throne, implored the assistance of Charles V., 
 .^ . . and obtained it. Charles seized with eagerness this 
 
 War against ° 
 
 Kin" o^CaSe 1 ' occas i° n 0I> avenging Blanche, his relation, and of 
 1366- giving employment to the great companies, whose 
 
 "brigandages he feared. Du Guesclin commanded the expedition. 
 In charging him with this difficult mission, the King embraced him 
 with all his heart. "Valiant Bertrand," said he to him, "I owe 
 you more than if you had conquered a province for me." 
 
 These terrible adventurers, in passing near Avignon, to which 
 place the popes for half a century had transferred their residence, 
 levied contributions on the sovereign Pontiff. They afterwards entered 
 Spain, and the troops of Peter disbanded themselves before them. 
 That prince, repulsed by his subjects, driven from Portugal, where he 
 sought a refuge with Peter the Justiciary, as barbarous as himself, 
 abandoned his throne to his rival, and retired to the court of the 
 Prince of Wales, who received him at Bordeaux with great honours ; 
 and Henry took possession of the crown of Castile without obstacle. 
 
 But Peter solicited succour from the English, and promised 
 to enrich their captains ; and the Prince of Wales armed in his 
 favour without breaking with France. The great companies, who 
 had just established Transtamare on the throne, rushed now to the 
 side of his brother, drawn by the appetite for gold which he promised 
 them. Du Guesclin supported Transtamare, but the latter was con- 
 Battie of quered by the Prince of Wales at the battle of Nava- 
 
 rette, and Du Gruesclin was made prisoner. Peter the 
 Cruel recovered his kingdom, and his brother, a fugitive, sought 
 refuge with the Duke of Anjou, eldest of the brothers of Charles V. 
 and commandant of Languedoc. That prince, an enemy of the 
 English, received Transtamare as, in the preceding year, the Prince 
 of Wales had received Peter the Cruel. 
 
 Du Gruesclin was only able to recover his liberty by defying the 
 English prince to grant it to him. He himself fixed his ransom at a 
 hundred thousand gold florins, and when the prince asked him how 
 a poor knight could find such a sum : " The Kings of France and 
 Castile will pay it," answered Bertrand; "and there are a hundred 
 Breton knights who would sell their lands to make up that sum; 
 
1364-1380] BATTLE OF MONTIEL. 255 
 
 and the girls who spin, in my country, would make more than my 
 ransom with their distaffs rather than that I should be left prisoner !" 
 The Princess of Wales contributed twenty thousand livres on the spot, 
 and the brave Chandos, rival of Du Guesclin, offered his purse to 
 deliver him. Freed on parole, Du Guesclin departed in order to 
 gather together his ransom. He returned with it ; but whilst on the 
 road he met ten poor knights, who had great difficulty in finding 
 their ransoms. He gave them all, and arrived at Bordeaux with 
 empty hands to retake his place in prison. Charles V. paid his 
 ransom and set him at liberty. He then sent him anew into Spain, 
 at the head of his army ; and Du Guesclin, conqueror Battle of 
 at the battle of Montiel, replaced Transtamare, for a 
 second time, upon the throne of Castile. Peter the Cruel was made 
 prisoner. On recognizing each other, the two rival brothers threw 
 themselves with rage upon one another, and Peter died, stabbed by 
 the hand of Henry, in the tent of Du Guesclin. 
 
 At this period Charles contemplated the recovery of those provinces 
 which had been ceded to the English by his father ; and saw with joy 
 Edward III. enervated, more by pleasures than by age, and his illus- 
 trious son, the Black Prince, the conqueror of Cressy, of Poitiers, and 
 of Navarette, attacked by a wasting disease the symptoms of which 
 were mortal. He deceived the English monarch by demonstrations of 
 friendship, and fomented revolt in all the provinces given over to 
 England by the treaty of Bretigny. The English treated the in- 
 habitants of these countries more as vanquished people than as 
 brothers and fellow-citizens. Hence arose amongst them an ardent 
 desire to be restored to France. 
 
 Charles profited by these inclinations, and attached to himself the 
 most influential nobles. A rising broke out in Gascony on Rising f the 
 the occasion of a hearth- tax, an imposition established by th^E "gifshT nS 
 
 1368 
 
 the English prince upon each fire. The Gascons claimed 
 that, up to that time, they had been free from all taxes, and appealed 
 to the King of France, as sovereign of Guienne and of Gascony. 
 Charles V., in contempt of the treaty of Bretigny, which granted 
 these provinces in complete sovereignty to Edward, received their 
 appeal, and caused the Black Prince to be summoned before the 
 Chamber of Peers, as his subject. He believed he was powerful 
 
256 WAR WITH ENGLAND RENEWED. [Book II. Chap. IV. 
 
 enough at the same time to venture upon some acts of popularity 
 without compromising his power. He dared to convoke the States, 
 states-General, an( l pretended to consult them, being assured beforehand 
 
 1369 
 
 that he would find them docile. They assembled in 
 1369, and approved of all the acts of his reign without restriction. 
 He prosecuted his designs against England ; he increased the privi- 
 leges of the revolted towns,* which gave themselves up to France ; 
 and the clergy, won over by him, raised the people in his favour. 
 Lastly, when he had arranged everything for success, the Court of 
 Peers issued, in 1370, a decision declaring that, in default of having 
 Decision of the appeared before it, Edward was deprived of his rights 
 Stast Edward w ^ n regard to Aquitaine and his other possessions in 
 in., 1379. France, and it confiscated them to the profit of the 
 
 crown. A scullion was entrusted to carry this sentence to the 
 English monarch, who, seized with indignation, prepared for war. 
 
 Charles V. strengthened his position with Scotland and Spain. A 
 „ Castilian fleet, victorious over the English fleet at 
 
 Recommence- ' & 
 
 ™eTwith h0stlll ~ Rochelle, opened for him Poitou ; the Constable Du 
 England, 1370. Gruesclin subdued this province to France. The Duke 
 of Brittany, Montfort, was from his heart devoted to the English, 
 who had restored to him his duchy : he allied himself with Edward. 
 But Charles knew how to manage the friendship of the Breton nobles. 
 Two of their number, Olivier de Clisson and Du G-uesclin, enjoyed his 
 highest favour ; they gained over for Charles the hearts of their com- 
 patriots, and the duke was expelled from his duchy, which allied itself 
 with France against England. Edward, however, assembled together 
 a powerful army ; it disembarked at Calais, under the command of 
 the Duke of Lancaster. Charles V., still struck with the recollec- 
 tion of Cressy and Poitiers, ordered his generals to watch the 
 enemy, to impede his movements, and to decline to give battle. His 
 orders were obeyed. Lancaster encamped before Paris, and an 
 English knisrht planted with impunity his lance in 
 
 New system of ° or r j 
 
 warfare. ^he gates of Saint Jacques. French valour, restrained 
 
 * Royal decrees of 1370. Letters declaring that the inhabitants of Rodez should 
 he able to transact business throughout the kingdom, without paying any rates for 
 merchandise which they purchased (February, 1370); letters declaring that the town 
 of Milhaud should be exempt from taxes for twenty years ; and an order granting 
 privileges to the town of Tulle (May, 1370), &c. &c. 
 
1364-1380] TRUCE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 257 
 
 by the prudence of the monarch, bore the insulting provoca- 
 tions of the enemy from Calais as far as Guienne, where their army 
 arrived exhausted and almost destroyed by disease, fatigue, and 
 scarcity of provisions. The fortune of England tottered : its hero, 
 the Prince of Wales, whose last and sad exploit was the sack of 
 Limoges, was just dead ; Edward III. himself was drawing near to 
 the tomb, and was about to abandon his sceptre to the hands of an 
 infant. His fleet had been conquered at Rochelle ; his powerful army 
 had consumed itself; already the fruits of the victory of Poitiers 
 were lost to him, and France had recovered nearly all its provinces. 
 The old King, so formidable in times of old, and now so humiliated, 
 signed a truce with Charles V., and shortly afterwards Truce of B 
 died in the arms of a courtesan, leaving the throne to England and 
 his grandson, the unfortunate Richard II. France, 1375. 
 
 Freed from his most dangerous enemy, Charles abandoned himself 
 to his revenge against his brother-in-law, Charles the Bad, then in 
 Spain, where he meditated an alliance with England. 
 
 r ' ° Vengeance of 
 
 He compelled the son of that prince, who had come CharlesV - 
 without distrust to his court, to sign an order which gave over to the 
 French all the places possessed by his father in Normandy. He 
 caused also De Rue and Du Tertre to be arrested, the one chamberlain 
 of the King of Navarre, and the other governor of one of his places, 
 and both intimate friends of their master. They were given over to 
 an extraordinary commission, and summoned to confess that their 
 prince was guilty of atrocious crimes, and, among others, of an 
 attempt to poison Charles. They repelled these horrible accusations, 
 but this did not prevent them from being condemned to death and 
 executed as accomplices of these crimes, in order to give a ground to 
 the suspicions which Charles V. wished to bring to bear upon his 
 brother-in-law. Bernay, Evreux, Pont-Audemer, Avranches, Mor- 
 tain, Valognes, opened their gates, and in Normandy the town of 
 Cherbourg alone belonged to the King of Navarre. 
 
 This point seems to give us an opportunity for stopping a- moment 
 to glance at the politics of Charles V. Arriving, as he 
 did, at royalty under the most unfavourable circum- charles "V. 
 stances, burdened with an enormous debt to pay to foreigners, without 
 a treasury, without an army, he had seen Irs subjects diminish to one- 
 
 s 
 
258 THE POLICY OF CHAELES. [BOOK II. Chap. IV. 
 
 half in number, by war, by famine, by pestilence, and despoiled by 
 bands of brigands, masters of the kingdom. Nevertheless, in the 
 course of years, he had succeeded in retaking from the English 
 Ponthieu, Quercy, Limousin, Rouergue, Saintonge, Angoumois,. 
 and Poitou. He had engaged the vassals of Upper Grascony to give 
 themselves over to him, expelled the Duke of Brittany 
 
 His policy. 
 
 from his duchy, and the King of Navarre from nearly 
 all his Norman possessions. Skilful also in exterior politics, he had 
 favoured in Castile a revolution which, in assisting him to get rid of 
 the pest of the great companies, promised to him a grateful ally. 
 He attached Flanders to France, by assuring, through a marriage 
 with his brother, Philip of Burgundy, the succession of that 
 country ; he carefully preserved the friendship of John Graleas 
 Visconti, his brother-in-law, master of Lombardy, and that of the 
 Emperor Charles IV. ; whilst he held the Pope under his subjection at 
 Avignon. The companies of adventurers had disappeared from the 
 kingdom, the roads had become safe, order was re-esfcablished, royal 
 authority was exercised without obstacle, and in all parts, at last, 
 subjects who had been detached from the monarchy by a humiliating 
 treaty, left the foreign yoke to become once more Frenchmen. 
 
 Charles had gathered round him, in order to assist in accomplish- 
 ing these happy changes, men little elevated by their 
 
 Principal . . 
 
 ministers of that birth, but by superior merit. Amongst them must be 
 
 prince, 
 
 mentioned Guillaume and Michel de Dormans, Philip 
 de Savoisy, and Bureau de la Riviere. These men had all his con- 
 fidence ; they were his ministers, and not his favourites : whilst he 
 took advantage of their counsels he always remained their master.* 
 He ceased to alter the money, and did not oppress the people 
 with taxes, substituting for the taille, or land-tax upon villeins, the 
 indirect tax of the aides, which had for its particular object the 
 taxation of both bourgeois and noble. 
 
 This wise conduct ought to be attributed equally to his solicitude 
 for his subjects and the fear with which they inspired him. Never 
 did he forget that the people had made him tremble when he was 
 only Dauphin ; and he rarely pardoned an- offence. However, he knew 
 
 * For this reason, Freret is reported to have said of him, " Never L prince received 
 so many counsels, and allowed himself to be less governed." 
 
1364-1380] DEATH OF POPE GREGORY XI. 259 
 
 liow to put off chastisement, and he was, according to circumstances, 
 master of his pity and likewise of his anger. When the English armies 
 laid waste the country and burnt the villages under his eyes, no sign 
 of pity escaped from him ; and Froissart, the historian of the period, 
 narrates that in all these conflagrations he could only see smoke, 
 which could not drive him from his inheritance. In his connection 
 with the people, lastly, his principal aim seems to have been to compel 
 them to submit to the sovereign will, without hearing a murmur, and 
 without experiencing any resistance. He only once convoked the 
 States- General during his reign, and substituted for them assemblies 
 of the most considerable inhabitants, where he only admitted 
 members of the Parliament and of the university, some prelates, and 
 his great officers of state. The political power of the Third Estate 
 found itself enfeebled; but at the same time Charles V., jealous of 
 keeping the balance between the different classes of the nation, 
 despoiled the nobles of many of their privileges. A Celebrated 
 decree of 1372 exclusively reserved to the crown the decree of 1372 - 
 right of granting charters to the municipalities, and of letters of en- 
 noblement to private individuals. 
 
 It was from the interior of his palace that he mysteriously directed 
 all these intrigues. Prudence had always directed his policy ; and that 
 which was the particular aim which he proposed to himself in all 
 his acts, that which he strove to reach, was the only one which was 
 then suited to the true interests of France. The end of this reign 
 was not free from storms. Charles saw awakening round him in 
 all directions symptoms of that fermentation, of that liberal tendency 
 in men's minds, which he had taken such great care to suppress. 
 Sectarians, known under the name of Beguins or Turlupins, multi- 
 plied in his states : he allowed a large number of these unfortunates 
 to be burnt alive ; but the executions could not restrain the flight of 
 human reason. ISTew sects were formed, and the great Schism of the 
 East stimulated throughout Europe the spirit of doubt and of inquiry. 
 
 Gregory XI. died in 1378 at Rome, and the College of Cardinals 
 gave him for a successor Bartholomew Prognagni, who took the name 
 of Urban VI. The violent conduct of the new Pope soon alienated 
 from him those who had crowned him ; threatened by him, they all 
 
 s 2 
 
260 GEEAT SCHISM OF THE EAST. [BOOK II. Chap. IV. 
 
 declared that his election was illegal ; they chose Robert of Geneva, 
 who took the name of Clement VII., and went to take up his resi- 
 dence at Avignon. Such was the origin of the famous Schism of the 
 Great Schism of East. Europe divided itself between the two popes, 
 the East, 13/9. each kingdom following its own political interests. 
 Charles V. declared himself for Clement, who resided in France ; his 
 allies, the sovereigns of Naples, of Castile, and Aragon, followed his 
 example. The party of Urban VI. was embraced by England, by 
 Bohemia, Hungary, Portugal, and Flanders. Charles, in declaring for 
 one who was hereafter to be declared anti-pope, opened up, in spite 
 of himself, new views to the independence of human reason and 
 unbelief. 
 
 The symptoms of agitation thus visibly arising were not the 
 only alarming movements which he saw in his latter years. Con- 
 queror of the English without having fought them, he thought 
 r, a l-^ c himself master enough over the minds of the Bretons 
 
 Confiscation of ° 
 
 Brittany 7 Revolt ^° confiscate their province and to unite it to his 
 of the Bretons. domain# He deceived himself. The Duke John V., 
 summoned by his order before the court of the Parliament, was 
 judged by it before his summons was notified to him in Flanders, 
 where he resided, and condemned without being heard, as being 
 guilty of an alliance with England against his sovereign. He was 
 declared deprived of his titles in Brittany, and the Parliament confis- 
 cated his duchy in contempt of the rights of the widow and 
 children of Charles de Blois, expressly reserved in the treaty of 
 Guerande. Charles Y. did not gather any fruit from this unjust act. 
 The inhabitants of that country, jealous of their national independence, 
 arose in a body, recalled their duke, and welcomed him as their 
 liberator ; the brave Breton captains left the royal army ; Du Guesclin, 
 always faithful to the King, disapproved of his course, and became 
 suspicious of him : his noble pride made him indignant. It is said 
 that he wished to give up his Constable's sword, and was anxious to 
 retire to Spain, in order to die there ; but, before leaving the standard 
 of Charles, he went to rejoin the Marshal de Sancerre, his friend, and 
 one of the most illustrious warriors of the age, before the little place 
 of Chateau-Randon, in Grevaudan, which he was then besieging. He 
 
1364-1380] DEATH OF DU GUESCLIN. 261 
 
 was attacked by a fatal malady. Feeling that death was approaching, 
 he raised himself upon his conch, and taking in his vic- 
 
 r^ -i-ii-iT Illness and 
 
 torious hands the sword of the Constable, he looked upon death of Du 
 
 Guesclin, 1380. 
 
 it in silence, with tears in his eyes. " It has aided 
 me," said he, "to conquer the enemies of my King, but it has given 
 me cruel enemies near him." Then, turning towards Sancerre, "I 
 deliver it over to you," continued he ; " and I protest that I have 
 never betrayed the honour that the King did me when he entrusted it 
 to me." He bowed his head, kissed his noble sword, and said to the 
 old captains who surrounded him, "Forget not, in whatever land 
 you may be engaged in war, that people of the Church, women, and 
 children, are not your enemies." Upon the point of death, he 
 dictated these words for Olivier de Clisson, his companion in arms. 
 "My Lord Olivier, I feel that death approaches closely, and cannot 
 say many things to you. You will say to the King that I am greatly 
 grieved that I cannot serve him longer, and that, if Grod had granted 
 me the time, I had good hope of clearing his kingdom of his Eng- 
 lish enemies. He has goods ervants, who will exert themselves as 
 much as I have done, especially you, my Lord Olivier, the first before 
 all. I pray you deliver to the King the sword of the Constable ; he will 
 know well how to dispose of it, and make choice of a person worthy 
 of it. I commend to him my wife and my brother. Adieu ! I am not 
 able to do more." The garrison of Randon had promised to give 
 up the town if it were not succoured, and, faithful to its word, 
 it deposited the keys of the town upon the coffin of the great 
 captain. 
 
 Charles persevered in his objects of usurpation ; but his troops 
 were driven from Brittany, and he met everywhere with 
 
 Reverses of 
 
 the same unanimity against himself which a short time diaries v. in 
 
 J ° Brittany. 
 
 ago had been shown in his favour against the English. 
 
 Louis, Count of Flanders, also solicited assistance at the same time 
 
 against his revolted subjects. A formidable rising also „. . , , 
 
 ° J o Rising of La>i- 
 
 broke out in Languedoc, where the Duke of Anjou, £ uedoc « 
 brother of the King, crushed the people by an intolerable oppression, 
 Charles- was compelled to recall his brother, and took his government 
 from him. He, lastly, saw the King of Navarre give up Cherbourg 
 to the English, and a new English army fall upon the kingdom. 
 
262 DEATH OF CHARLES V. [Book II. Chap. IV. 
 
 He ordered that it should be received in the same manner as that 
 Death of Charles wn ^ cn preceded it. In the meanwhile, he died at his 
 v., 1380. Castle of Beauty, on the Marne. His death was that of 
 
 a Christian and of a monarch who had been long tried by the hard- 
 ships of fortune. He assembled round him the prelates, the barons, 
 and the members of his council, and addressed them on the different 
 acts of his policy in a touching discourse, full of wisdom. Then he 
 requested them to bring the crown of thorns of the Saviour, which 
 they then believed that they possessed at Paris among a number of 
 sacred relics. It was placed on high before him, and he prayed for 
 a long time, fixing his eyes upon it. Afterwards, having caused his 
 perishable crown — that used at the coronation of the kings — to be 
 placed at his feet, he said, " O orown of France, that art precious and 
 vile at the same time — precious, as the symbol of justice ; but vile, and 
 most vile of all things, when we consider the labour, the anguish, the 
 perils of the soul, the pains of the heart, the conscience, and the 
 body, which thou castest upon those which bear thee — those who 
 know all these things would rather leave thee lying in the mud than 
 raise thee in order to place thee on their heads!" Afterwards, having 
 received the extreme unction, the King ordered that the doors should 
 be opened to his officers and to the people, and said, " I know that 
 in the government of my kingdom I have given many causes of 
 offence; for that I pray you accord me mercy: pardon me."* He 
 then raised his arms, and stretched out his hands over all, in the 
 midst of sighs and tears. He gave his blessing to his eldest son, the 
 Dauphin, then eleven years old ; and whilst they read the Passion of 
 the Saviour, from the Grospel of Saint John, he expired in the arms 
 of the Lord of La Riviere, whom he tenderly loved, on the 26th of 
 September, 1380, at the age of forty-four years. He had scarcely 
 closed his eyes when his nearest relatives gave vent to the evil 
 passions which they had restrained during his life. The eldest of his 
 brothers and one of the tutors of his son, the avaricious and fierce 
 Duke of Anjou, rushed into his chamber, seized his jewels, and 
 pillaged the palace. The new reign commenced under these 
 darkening auspices. 
 
 * Livre des Faicts et bonnes Mceurs du sage Hoy Charles V. Par Christine de 
 Pisan. 
 
1364-1380] LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 263 
 
 The arts and sciences were still very slightly cultivated in France 
 during the reigns of John and Charles V. ; while at 
 
 • . . General observa- 
 
 the same time they began to nourish in Italy, where tions. Literature 
 
 and science. 
 
 Dante and Petrarch were then famous. The French 
 nobles gave themselves up entirely to warlike exercises, and had the 
 most profound contempt for men of intellect ; the most celebrated 
 captains could only sign their names with difficulty, and Du Guesclin 
 could not read. The principal works of antiquity, however, began to 
 be known ; already there were several translations of Titus Livius, 
 .Sallust, and of Caesar. The historian Froissart lived, 
 and his simple and picturesque chronicle is one of the 
 most precious monuments of modern history. Charles "V., one of 
 the most educated men of his time, may be looked upon as the 
 founder of the Bibliotheque Boyale. His father had only left him 
 twenty volumes ; he collected together nine hundred, a prodigious 
 number for the period. The greater part were books on theology, 
 canon law, and astrology, the only sciences which were then studied. 
 
 From the thirteenth century, clocks with wheels, spectacles, paper, 
 earthenware, and crystal mirrors were known in Italy. The towns 
 of that beautiful country, and also those of Flanders, possessed 
 manufactures and enriched themselves by commerce, whilst war 
 was almost the only occupation of the French. Gunpowder, which 
 was frequently used in sieges, was despised in battles. The nobles 
 did not care to favour the use of an arm which, in neutralizing in- 
 dividual force, must contribute to the levelling of the ranks. 
 
 The studies of the universities only taught the art of sustaining 
 the vain disputes of scholastic theology. Careful to repulse every- 
 thing that could encroach upon the authority of the Church, ihe 
 popes interdicted in the universities the study of civil law, and only 
 tolerated that of canon law. They still often decided the destinies of 
 empires ; it was thus that Urban V., in granting permission to Philip 
 the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, to marry Marguerite of Flanders, the 
 licence for which he had refused to the son of Edward III., firmly 
 assured to the house of France the inheritance of that powerful count. 
 The same Pope was again taken as arbiter by Charles V. and Charles 
 the Bad, on the subject of their pretensions to Burgundy ; and later, 
 Gregory XI. caused his mediation to be accepted between the Kings of 
 
264 ROYAL ORDINANCES. [Book II. Chap. IV. 
 
 France and England. The former, agreeing with the popes in their de- 
 signs against progress and the spirit of independence, resisted them at 
 all times when the rights that they arrogated to themselves encroached 
 npon those which he himself believed that he possessed, and he dared 
 to take the title of King before his coronation. One of the ordinances 
 Ro ai ordi- which does most honour to his memory is that by which 
 
 nances. j^ arme( j justice against his own authority. He forbade 
 
 Parliament to modify or to suspend its judgments in virtue of any 
 order sealed with the royal seal. He had already made the Parlia- 
 ment permanent, which, until then, only assembled twice in the year ? 
 at Paques and Toussaint, and had established it in the ancient Palace 
 of the Kings, in the city of Paris. Another ordinance, equally cele- 
 brated, was issued by this prince. In order to shorten the stormy 
 time which he foresaw would occur during the minority of his suc- 
 cessor, he fixed the majority of the kings at fourteen years. This 
 dangerous innovation was too often fatal to France. 
 
1380-1422] SITUATION OF FEANCE. 265 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EEIGN OF CHARLES VI. 
 
 1380-1422. 
 
 The disasters of tlie last wars Had cut down tlie first nobility of the 
 kingdom : after the defeats of Cressv and Poitiers, _.. .. 
 
 ° J ' Situation of 
 
 amongst the great vassals of France there only remained France - 
 the Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy* who lived in such state that 
 they could hold up their heads with the monarch ; the royal family 
 had profited by the decline of the others. Nevertheless, in spite of so 
 many blows aimed at the high feudal aristocracy, the spirit of feudality 
 existed still in its strength, and at the side of the monarch arose a 
 new aristocracy, as formidable to the throne ; it consisted of princes 
 of the royal family. They had received in apanage the states which 
 the kings ought to have united to their domains, and for the most 
 part they governed with harshness the people who were intrusted to 
 their care. 
 
 From the end of the last reign insurrections had broken out in 
 many parts of the kingdom and in the states feudally . 
 
 obedient to the crown of France. This agitation soon and anarchv - 
 became general. The people suffered, crushed and despoiled by 
 avaricious tyrants, and formidable insurrections were quenched in 
 
 * The duchy of Burgundy, properly speaking, in 1363, at the accession of the house 
 of Valois, only comprised the towns of Dijon, Beaune, Auxonne and Chatillon, with 
 their territories. By his marriage with Marguerite of Flanders, heiress of Count 
 Louis II., Philip the Bold received in 1384 the counties of Flanders, Artois, 
 Rhetel, Nevers, and Burgundy (free county). The vast possessions of this house were 
 extended still further under Charles VII. It acquired hy the treaty of Arras (1435), 
 in the east of France, the counties of Macon and Auxerre, and the seigniory of Bar ; 
 to the north the counties of Guignes and Ponthieu. It finally gained by succession, by 
 marriages, and by purchase, Hainaut, Brabant, Limbourg, Luxembourg, the counties of 
 Frise, of Zealand, of Holland, the towns of Antwerp and Malines, and the duchy of 
 Gueldre. (See Hisloire des Dues de Bourgogne de la Maison de Valois, by Baron de 
 Barante.) 
 
%66 ACCESSION OF CHAELES YI. [Book II. Chap. V. 
 
 streams of blood. A deep exasperation existed between the nobility 
 and the inferior classes ; but the struggle was not equal : the 
 nobles knew how to unite together, to bear down in a body on 
 their isolated enemies, and to strike them separately. The barbarity 
 and the superstition of the people arrested all their efforts to obtain a 
 better destiny, and, when a stroke of fortune threw the power for 
 a moment into their hands, they could not make a better use of it 
 than their noble oppressors. So many causes of dissolution, united 
 together, plunged France into frightful anarchy, and made the reign 
 of Charles "VI. the most disastrous period in French his- 
 
 Sad state of L 
 
 Europe. tory. At the moment when this King, a minor, mounted 
 
 his throne, England, submissive to Richard II., bore also the evils 
 of a minority : the empire of Germany had for a chief, in Venceslas, 
 son of Charles IV., a prince brutified by intemperance ; Charles the 
 Bad reigned in Navarre ; Jeanne I., murderess of her husband, 
 governed Naples, and two candidates for the papacy, Urban VI. and 
 Clement VII., shook the Christian world by discharging at each 
 other mutual anathemas. All the people suffered from frightful cala- 
 mities ; but none of them were more crushed than the French people. 
 Charles VI. had arrived at the age of eleven years and some 
 . . . months when his father died. His three paternal 
 
 Accession of * 
 
 CnariesVL, 1380. u^]^ the Dukes of Anjou, Berry, and Burgundy, and 
 his maternal uncle, the Duke of Bourbon, disputed among themselves 
 concerning his guardianship and the regency. They agreed to eman- 
 cipate the young King immediately after his coronation, which was to 
 take place during the year, and the regency was to remain until that 
 period in the hands of the eldest, the Duke of Anjou, the same who, 
 given by his father as a hostage, fled from England, and whose 
 first act was to appropriate the treasure amassed by the late King. 
 Nature had endowed Charles VI. with amiable qualities ; he was bene- 
 volent and full of grace and affability. His uncles vied with each other 
 in stifling this happy disposition ; they were bent on persuading him 
 that the most glorious triumphs for a King are those which he gains 
 over his own subjects. A wise administration could have closed the 
 wounds of the people. The English army conducted into Brittany 
 by Buckingham was dissolved, and the sixteen millions left by 
 Charles V. would have been more than sufficient to free France from 
 
1380-1422] NEW TAXES. 267 
 
 tlie foreigners. But the Duke of Anjou, adopted by Jeanne of Naples 
 as her successor,* and impatient to be seated on her throne, had 
 received this treasure to defray the expenses of an expedition against 
 Charles de Duras, his rival. He soon raised a numerous army ; it 
 perished in Italy, mowed down by privations, fatigue, and disease, 
 and he himself died miserably in the country which he had come to 
 conquer. 
 
 The beginning of this reign was signalized by popular movements. 
 A report had spread about that the late King on his deathbed had 
 decreed the abolition of all the taxes, and, according to the 
 chronicle of Saint-Denis, each one throughout the kingdom of France 
 ardently desired liberty, and thought only of shaking off the yoke of 
 the taxes. Fearing an insurrection, the governing princes issued a 
 decree abolishing in perpetuity the established taxes, under some 
 name that had existed since the time of Philip the Fair. However, 
 it was necessary to provide for the cost of the war against England, 
 and for other expenses : the treasury was empty, and the revenues of 
 the royal domain were very inadequate. They did not dare to convoke 
 the States- General, and they could draw nothing from the assemblies 
 of the nobles. It was necessary to re-establish a tax 
 
 New t&xcs. 
 
 upon merchandise of every kind. Immediately a for- 
 midable tumult broke out ; the Parisians ran to the arsenal, where 
 they found mallets of lead intended for the defence of the town, and 
 under the blows from which the greater part of the 
 collectors of the new tax perished; from the weapons the Maiiiotins, 
 
 Til- n , 1380. 
 
 used the insurgents took the name of Maiiiotins. Reims, 
 
 Chalons, Orleans, Blois, and Rouen rose at the example of the capital. 
 
 This prince, in favour of whom King John had newly constituted in apanage the 
 duchy of Anjou, reunited to the crown by Philip VI., was the head of the second house 
 of Anjou which reigned at Naples, or rather which claimed that crown. The first 
 house of Anjou, founded by Charles, brother of Saint Louis, was only represented in 
 1380 by Jeanne I., Queen of Naples, and by Charles de Durazzo (or Duras) of Anjou, 
 her cousin. Jeanne, to the detriment of her natural heir, adopted Louis, son of King 
 John ; and from that time commenced a long struggle between the second house of 
 Anjou and the royal branch of Durazzo. Louis I. in 1383, and Louis II. in 1390, 
 both invaded the kingdom, but neither of them could hold it. The Durazzo (or Duras) 
 reigned until 1435. At this period Jeanne II. died : she was daughter and last heiress 
 to Charles de Durazzo, and her succession caused a new war to break out.— See further 
 forward in this volume, The State of Italy at the end of the fifteenth century (Reign of 
 Charles VIII.) 
 
268 AVAR WITH FLANDERS. [Book II. Chap. V. 
 
 The States- General of the Langue d'Oil were then convoked at 
 Compiegne, and separated without having granted anything. The 
 Parisians were always in arms, and the dnkes, powerless to make 
 them submit, treated with tnem, and contented themselves with the 
 offer of a hundred thousand livres. The chastisement was put off 
 for a time. 
 
 The Duke of Berry, Governor of Languedoc, then reduced the 
 ,, T . inhabitants of that province to despair. A crowd of 
 
 New Jacquerie * r 
 
 m Languedoc. wretched men, despoiled of every resource, concealed 
 themselves in the forests and mountains of Cevennes, where they 
 formed themselves into bands, which were known by the name of 
 Tuchins, and which were, for a long period, the terror of the nobles 
 and men of wealth. 
 
 The estates of the north, held under the crown, were neither more 
 peaceable nor more happy. Count Louis of Flanders, driven away 
 by his people, whose municipal franchises he had violated every day, 
 now burning with a desire to avenge himself, obtained the support 
 of the young king, his sovereign. A numerous army of knights 
 assembled together, and Charles marched at its head ; 
 
 War with Flan- . 
 
 ders. Battle of Clisson was appointed Constable, and the brave Sancerre 
 
 Rosebecque, ■*■ x 
 
 1882 - commanded under him. The French army met near to 
 
 Rosebecque an army of fifty thousand Flemings, commanded by 
 Philip Artevelt, son of the famous brewer who was leader of the 
 sedition in 1336. The Flemings occupied an excellent defensive 
 position ; they wished to march against the enemy, and demanded 
 battle with loud cries. Artevelt, compelled to accede to this desire, 
 formed all his army into a square phalanx ; all the men Avere tied 
 together with cords, and he himself took his place in the midst of his 
 brave men of Ghent. Then this enormous and compact mass ad- 
 vanced, their pikes lowered, with a regular and firm step, and without 
 uttering a word. The artillery of the King could not break this 
 terrible phalanx ; the Flemings advanced, so say the chroniclers, with 
 the impetuosity of wild boars. The French line recoiled ; but the 
 enemy presented a smaller front than they did, and were soon sur- 
 rounded on all sides. After the first shock, the two wings of the 
 royal army fell, at the same moment, on this mass, which was 
 incapable of deploying or defending itself; the Flemings were driven 
 
1380-1422] PUNISHMENT OF THE PARISIANS. 2G9 
 
 back upon themselves by the long lances of the knights, and thou- 
 sands of men perished by suffocation without receiving a wound ; the 
 carnage was frightful. Philip Artevelt perished in the fight. The 
 towns of Flanders were given over by the conqueror to flames and 
 pillage ; Ghent alone still resisted. Courtray, guilty only of having 
 been the theatre of an ancient defeat of the French, was, by order of 
 the young King, destroyed from foundation to roof, and all the 
 inhabitants, without distinction of age or sex, were massacred. The 
 victorious army returned to Paris ; the moment for striking the 
 rebels had arrived. 
 
 The Parisians perceived with fear that defence was impossible, and 
 received the order to lay down their arms. The young King of 
 fourteen years entered the town as an irritated conqueror ; refusing to 
 pass through the gates, he caused a breach to be made in the walls 
 of the town, and it was through it that he penetrated to the capital. 
 For many days he remained silent ; Paris was in Chastisement 
 anguish. At last the scaffolds were erected, and the the Parisian s. 
 executions commenced ; one hundred of the richest inhabitants were 
 executed, and among this number was the virtuous John Desmarest, 
 advocate-general to the Parliament, whose crime con- _ ,. . 
 
 o ' Execution of 
 
 sisfced in being desirous to conciliate all parties. " Master John Desmai 'est. 
 John," they said to him, while leading him to execution, " cry to 
 the King, in order that he may pardon you." Desmarest answered, 
 " I have served King Philip his grandfather, King John, and King 
 Charles his father, well and loyally ; never could those three kings 
 reproach me, and this monarch would not have done so if he had 
 had knowledge of mankind ; to God alone I wish to cry for mercy." 
 A crowd of other citizens awaited their sentences. The dukes then 
 threw themselves at the feet of the King, and feigned to beg mercy 
 for the town, begging him to convert the executions into fines. 
 Charles listened favourably to their covetous wishes. The wealth of 
 the bourgeoisie was confiscated, all the taxes were re-established, 
 and Paris lost its municipal privileges, together with the right of 
 electing its prevot and civil magistrates. The soldiers demolished the 
 principal gates, and tore away the iron chains which served as a 
 defence in all the streets. Rouen, Reims, Chalons, Troyes, Gens, 
 and Orleans, were treated in a similar manner, by royal commis- 
 
270 A DESCENT ON ENGLAND PROJECTED. [Book II. ChAP. V. 
 
 sioners, who ordered confiscations and executions. The dukes seized 
 upon all the money from the towns, and spent it in profusion, while 
 the treasury remained empty. 
 
 The revolt of Flanders was not stifled ; so many atrocities com- 
 mitted by the French had excited general horror and indignation; 
 the town of Ghent, which alone contained more than one hundred 
 thousand souls, showed the example of perseverance and courage. 
 Ackermann commanded it ; Pierre Dubois and he reanimated the 
 Flemings, and allied themselves with Richard II., King of England. 
 An English army, commanded by the Bishop of Norwich, descended 
 upon Flanders, pillaged it, and sacked the towns, which were occu- 
 pied by French garrisons contrary to the wish of their inhabit- 
 ants. Charles VI. marched forward to meet the English. Flanders, 
 the victim of its protectors and of its enemies, became a theatre of 
 incendiarism and murder. The heroism of the men of Ghent saved 
 that unfortunate country, and the two parties, gorged with booty, 
 longed for peace on either side. The Count of Flanders alone, 
 furious against the town of Ghent, impeded the negotiations ; while 
 the Duke of Berry, impatient of all delay, stabbed the Count with 
 his dagger and killed him. The death of Count Louis terminated 
 the war : a truce was signed in 1384, and Flanders passed to the 
 Duke of Burgundy, who had married Marguerite, heiress 
 
 Flanders is ° J ' & ' 
 
 transmitted to to that powerful county. Ghent submitted itself to 
 
 the Duke of Bur- x ^ 
 
 gundy, 1384. that prince in the following year, and preserved all its 
 franchises. 
 
 Hostilities commenced, during that year, between France and 
 England. Charles sent an army into Scotland, under the command of 
 John of Vienna, admiral of France; it disembarked near Edinburgh, 
 which then barely contained four hundred houses of a rough appear- 
 ance. Another army marched into Castile in order to oppose John 
 of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, uncle of Richard II. , and claimant 
 of the crown of that kingdom ; lastly, Charles himself, and his 
 uncles, made arrangements for a descent upon England, 
 descent upon Immense preparations were ordered ; in Flanders a 
 
 England; im- 
 
 meuse prepara- formidable army assembled, of which twenty thousand 
 
 tions, 1386. . 
 
 knights and as many archers formed the principal 
 force ; fifteen hundred vessels had to serve for transport. It was 
 
1380-1422] EEVEESES OP THE FEENCH AEMY. 271 
 
 desired that a town should be ready to receive the army when it 
 disembarked; Olivier de Clisson, the Constable, caused one to be 
 constructed, of three thousand paces in diameter, in the forests of 
 Brittany ; it was capable of being taken to pieces, and would then 
 form the cargo of seventy- two vessels. This enormous armament 
 met at the port of Ecluse. But the King forgot himself in the midst 
 of his fetes. He started, but pleasures retarded his march. He only 
 came to the place of meeting at the end of November, and the Duke 
 of Berry caused him to wait for a still longer period. On arriving, 
 he dissuaded Charles from the expedition ; the King gave it up, 
 disbanded the army, and abandoned the supplies to the Disbandi „ ot 
 pillage of the chiefs. Three millions of livres were thus the army - 
 lost, without profit to the nation and without profit to the King. 
 The French army sent to the succour of the Scotch against England 
 was beaten. That which fought in Castile was not more 
 fortunate ; and shame was the only fruit of so many French in Scot- 
 ambitious projects. Two years later, Charles, always and in Guiidre, ' 
 enamoured of war, and directed by his uncles, sustained 
 the Duke of Brabant, and made war for him, without success, against 
 the Duke of Guiidre. Harassed and pursued by German marauders, 
 his army returned to France in distress and burdened with 
 humiliations. 
 
 The King at length opened his eyes ; he attended to the ancient 
 counsellors of his father ; they, and amongst others, Bureau de la 
 Riviere, Jean de Noviant, and the Cardinal Bishop of Laon, Pierre 
 Montargis, showed him that the finances were plundered, justice 
 unknown, public safety without guarantee, instruction of the young 
 abandoned, the roads, the fortified places, and the arsenals falling into 
 ruins for want of being repaired ; above all, they pointed out the general 
 frightful state of disorder, produced by the rapacity of the princes and 
 the nobles, to which they attributed, with justice, so many misfortunes. 
 Charles permitted himself to be convinced, and in a great council, 
 where the Cardinal of Laon requested him to exercise the royal power 
 at once, without participation, he signified to his uncles that he alone 
 would govern. This unexpected declaration announced a happy 
 revolution for the people ; but a few days afterwards a sinister event 
 struck every heart with fear : the Cardinal of Laon died from poison. 
 
272 THE KING EULES ALONE. [Book II. CHAP. V. 
 
 The Duke of Burgundy immediately left for Dijon, and the Duke of 
 Berry, already the murderer of the Count of Flanders, retired into 
 Languedoc. 
 
 After having borne the yoke of his uncles, of which one alone, the 
 „,. v . Duke of Bourbon, deserves some esteem, Charles VI. 
 
 llie Kinggoverns ' ' 
 
 by himself, 1389. foo^ wise measures in the interests of the people. He 
 would have done much more in the same direction if he had had 
 more knowledge, and less taste for pleasure. Bureau de la Riviere, 
 Lamercier, the Lord of ISToviant, Le Begue de Yilaine, all honourably 
 known under the preceding reign, formed the royal council, which 
 was directed by Olivier de Clisson. Soon a crowd of officers, avari- 
 cious despoilers of the people, were destitute. The irritated princes 
 designated under the contemptuous nickname of marmousets (little 
 monkeys), ov petites gens (little women), the members 
 
 Government of . , 1 
 
 the Marmousets, oi the new government, which the nation received 
 
 1389. . & 
 
 with favour and hope. 
 Charles also gave his attention to the extinction of the Grand 
 Schism ; but neither of the two Popes would show himself disposed 
 to sacrifice his pretensions or his rights to the interests of 
 Christianity ; the efforts of the King in this respect were powerless. 
 He turned his attention towards the interior of the kingdom, and 
 undertook a journey to the south of France. Fetes awaited him in 
 all the towns ; but the groans of the people reached him in the midst 
 of his licentious pleasures. He saw Languedoc laid waste ; the 
 
 frightful misery of that beautiful province attested to 
 joimie gU of d the ^e barbarity of the Duke of Berry, his guardian. 
 «iat g provinfe) Betizac, the minister of his extortions, was arrested by 
 lo89 ' order of the King. A general cry was raised against 
 
 him ; the lay judges, however, dared not condemn him, and 
 sentence of death was only obtained by denouncing him in the 
 Church as a heretic. Charles dismissed the Duke of Berry, his uncle, 
 
 and afterwards freed the province from the brigands 
 
 who infested it. Lastly, interesting himself in the 
 progress of the morality of the people and in military instruction, he 
 closed the gaming-houses, and opened everywhere shooting-grounds 
 for the bow and the crossbow. These happy omens of a better 
 future were of short duration. The Consbable de Clisson, chief of the 
 
1380-1422] MADNESS OF CHAELFS YI. 273 
 
 Marmousets, in going out from the royal hotel of Saint Paul, was 
 attacked and struck with many blows by brigands in the Attem ted 
 pay of Montfort, Duke of Brittany, his mortal enemy. Jhe a constab?e 0f 
 Clisson did not die from his wounds, and the King, in De cllsson ' 1393 - 
 a, fury, swore to avenge him. He commanded the Duke to deliver up 
 Craon, the chief of the assassins, who had taken refuge with him ; 
 Montfort refused, and Charles marched into Brittany with an army. 
 He went out from Mans, at the head of his troops, in the month of 
 July, in the year 1392, and passed through a forest, when a man in 
 delirium rushed before the King, seized the reins of his horse, and 
 said: " O King! go not further forward ; you are betrayed ! " The 
 guards removed the man ; the King kept silent and continued his 
 inarch, but the words had taken possession of him. For a long time 
 previously his excesses had shaken his brain. Suddenly, his lance, 
 which was carried by one of his pages, struck against the helmet of 
 his squire. At this noise Charles shuddered ; he turned towards the 
 place, and cried out, "lam betrayed!" Then forcing his Ch ri VI 
 horse into a gallop, he rushed sword in hand upon his becomes mad - 
 officers, and killed those whom he could reach : he was mad. 
 
 Then commenced the third and fatal epoch of that disastrous reign. 
 The faction of the dukes again seized power : the „ .. .,, 
 
 ° r ' Faction of the 
 
 Duke of Burgundy took possession of the right of the P rinces - Anarchy. 
 royal signature and exercised sole authority; the army which 
 marched into Brittany was dissolved ; the council of the King was 
 broken up ; all his ministers were prosecuted and thrown into 
 dungeons ; the Constable took flight, and retired into Brittany, where 
 he recommenced the war against Montfort. The Parliament was 
 subservient to the passions of the Duke of Burgundy ; it banished 
 the Constable as a traitor, and condemned him to pay a fine of a 
 hundred thousand silver marks. The Jews, wisely taken care of 
 by the late monarch, always offered great resources to the state ; 
 but being creditors of the nobles and charged with maledictions 
 by the clergy, they were driven away. Worse than all, the princes 
 caused the shooting-grounds for the crossbow to be closed, and 
 opened the gambling-houses, well knowing that when one wishes 
 to tyrannize over a people it is necessary to disarm it and corrupt 
 it. Such were the first deeds which signalized that horrible period. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE GREAT SCHISM. [Book II. CHAP. V. 
 
 Soon after frightful dissensions "broke out among the princes them- 
 selves. 
 
 No fundamental law existed which could regulate the future of the 
 monarchy and decide between so many rival pretensions. The fate 
 of the state was then abandoned to a royal council,* which was 
 ruled by the uncles of the King, whose barbarous avidity was too 
 well known; by his wife, the Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, whom the 
 people called Lady Venus {Dame Venus), a frivolous and avaricious 
 princess, passionately fond of fetes and pleasure ; and, lastly, by 
 the Duke of Orleans, brother of the King, who had been at first 
 excluded from the government by his uncles, and who quickly 
 showed himself their emulator in despotism and cupidity. Charles 
 was still considered to be -reigning ; each one sought in turn to 
 get possession of him, and each one watched his lucid moments in 
 order to stand well in power. His flashes of reason were still 
 more melancholy than his fits of delirium. Incapable of attending 
 to his affairs, or of having. a will of his own, always subservient to 
 the dominant party, he appeared to employ his few glimmerings of 
 reason only in sanctioning the most tyrannical acts and the most 
 odious abuses. It was in this manner that the kingdom of France 
 was governed during twenty-eight years. 
 
 The malady of the King was attributed to enchantment ; the princes 
 and the nobles profited by this to strike those whom they wanted to 
 put out of the way. Valentina of Milan, wife of the Duke of Orleans, 
 was herself accused of sorcery, and taken away, under that pretext, 
 from Charles, whose confidence she had gained. 
 
 Nevertheless, the unfortunate Charles VI. attributed his disease to 
 
 the schism which desolated Christianity, and believed 
 
 Great Schism of himself punished by Heaven for having neglected to 
 
 the East. State , . ... T 
 
 of Europe and of extinguish it. Tue inflexible Pierre de Luna, who took 
 
 France. 
 
 the name of Benedict XIII., had replaced the anti- 
 
 * This council, besides tlie Queen, the Duke of Orleans, the Dukes of Berry, of 
 Burgundy, and of Bourbon, was composed of Charles III., King of Navarre, and of 
 his brother, the Count of Mortain ; of three princes of the branch of Bourbon, of 
 the Duke of Brittany, and of the Count of Alengon. In 1400, the Duke of Anjou, 
 Louis II., driven from Naples, sat there with the title of King of Sicily; and in 
 1404 the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, caused his two brothers to be 
 admitted. 
 
1380-1422] BATTLE OF NICOPOLIS. 275 
 
 pope Clement VII. In vain the King had recourse to prayers and 
 to force in order to urge him and the legitimately elected Pope, 
 Boniface IX., to a mutual cession. The obstinate Pierre de Luna 
 resisted the soldiers who besieged him in his palace of Avignon, as 
 he had resisted the wishes of the King, of the Sorbonne, and of the 
 clergy. To so many scandals was added an invasion of Europe by 
 the Turks almost as formidable as that under Abderame ; the Greek 
 empire and Hungary were invaded, and the ferocious Sultan Bajazet 
 boasted that he would lead his horse to eat oats in Rome upon the 
 altar of Saint Peter. Sigismund, afterwards Emperor, and then King 
 of Hungary, requested assistance from France. A brilliant army, the 
 chosen of the youth of Prance, set out under the orders of the 
 Count of Nevers, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy ; they crossed 
 the Danube and besieged ISTicopolis, in Bulgaria ; but under the walls 
 of that town the Christian army was exterminated by „ ... . .... 
 
 «/ J Battle of Nicc- 
 
 Bajazet, and the conqueror only spared the lives of pohs ' 13S8 - 
 twenty princes and high nobles, for whom he hoped to receive 
 immense ransoms : that of the Count of ISTevers was two hundred 
 thousand crowns, and the people of Burgundy paid it. 
 
 The principal states of Europe were then the prey to anarchy or 
 civil war ; but the unskilful chiefs who then governed Prance did not 
 know how to profit by this favourable circumstance so as to maintain 
 peace, then so necessary for the kingdom. England had accom- 
 plished a revolution by breaking the absolute power of Richard II. 
 Deposed by the Parliament, that monarch was assassinated; Here- 
 ford, Duke of Lancaster,* cousin of Richard, and proscribed by 
 him, reigned in his place under the name of Henry IV., and struggled 
 against rebellions which sprung up incessantly. It was the in- 
 terest of the council of the King of Prance to keep well with him j 
 but the Duke of Orleans, whose influence increased every 
 
 -. , ' . .. , . , , ,, . ,. Administration 
 
 day, was bent upon exciting Jus anger by deadly insults : of the Duke of 
 
 -> • i p Orleans. 
 
 he broke the truce, and let loose the most frightful 
 calamities upon the kingdom.. 
 
 This prince, after the death of his uncle Philip the Bold, Duke of 
 Burgundy, came up in 1404, and exercised, without curb, an absolute 
 
 * The father of Hereford was the third son of King Edward III. Richard II. was 
 the son of the eldest, the celebrated Black Prince. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS. [Book II. Chap. V. 
 
 power, and decreed an enormous tax, of which he divided the produce 
 with the Queen. The misery of the people became intolerable. The 
 law of taxation was exercised pitilessly upon the cottages, and even 
 upon the hospitals ; the poor and the sick were violently despoiled by 
 all the officers of the nobles. This law was at last suspended for four 
 years by those who had most abused it. The princes dissipated the 
 money of the treasury in fetes and orgies ; while the unfortunate King*, 
 deserted by all, deprived of attention, devoured by vermin, and often 
 famished, alone understood the evils of the people, because he partook 
 of them himself, and compassionated the sufferings which he was 
 unable to soothe. 
 
 The Duke of Orleans soon met with a formidable rival in the 
 
 new Duke of Burgundy, the same John, Count of ISTevers, 
 
 between the who was conquered at Mcopolis, and whose audacity 
 
 Dukes of . . l'li 
 
 Orleans and in that deplorable expedition had bestowed on him the 
 
 surname of John the Fearless, a vindictive, cruel, 
 and ambitious prince, fatal to his race and his country. He 
 arrived from his county of Flanders at the head of an army. At 
 his approach the Queen and the Duke of Orleans retired to Melun ; 
 but Burgundy seized the royal princes and princesses, and guarded 
 them in Paris, where he nattered the popular passions, restored to 
 the bourgeois their arms and their franchises, taken away since 
 the sedition of 1382. His rival, on the contrary, relied on the 
 aristocracy. Both of them assembled troops together, and civil war 
 was on the point of breaking out. The other princes, however, 
 maintained peace. On the same day the two enemies were reconciled, 
 embraced, and conversed together. On the following day the start- 
 ling news was spread that the Duke of Orleans was assassinated. 
 ,. . ,. In the evening; he went out from the hotel of the 
 
 Assassination ° 
 
 OrieM? u i407 f Queen, mounted upon a mule, and followed by a feeble 
 escort, when, near the Barbette gate, a troop of 
 brigands threw themselves upon him, crying out " To death ! to 
 death!" and massacred him in the middle of the street. Terror 
 reigned in the council, from which Burgundy was driven away ; he 
 saved himself in the states, then he returned, followed by an army, 
 and openly proclaimed himself the murderer of his enemy. 
 Already his crime seemed to be forgotten • the interesting Valent.'na 
 
1380-1-122] THE UNDEKHAND PEACE. 277 
 
 of Milan, widow of the assassinated prince, alone demanded ven- 
 geance ; she was obliged to take to flight. John the Fearless was 
 master in Paris, and he chose John Petit, a famous doctor in 
 Sorbonne, to vindicate his crime before the whole court. John 
 Petit maintained publicly that the Duke of Orleans was a despot, 
 and that it was a duty of all men to kill tyrants. " This dis- 
 course appeared very strange to .some of the nobles and priests," 
 says a chronicler of the period, "but there was no one bold enough 
 to speak against it except in secret." The murderer only consented 
 at a later period to demand the pardon of the King and of the 
 young princes of Orleans ; peace was sworn between them at 
 Chartres, and the bad faith of those who signed the treaty caused 
 it to receive the name of the Underhand Peace. That underhand 
 same year, 1409, saw Genoa rise against the French, to eace ' 
 whom it had been offered ; the French were all driven from Italy. 
 
 A slight calm succeeded these storms. But soon the members of 
 the council, jealous of the ever-increasing popularity of the Duke 
 of Burgundy, and disquieted about their own safety, quitted Paris, 
 and rejoined at Gien the young princes of Orleans, of whom the 
 eldest married the daughter of Count Bernard of Armagnac. This 
 pitiless man, who was one of the most celebrated representatives of 
 the great feudal system, became the chief of a party to c . n War 
 which his name was attached. An army of ferocious Burg a undians. nd 
 Gascons marched under his orders, and threatened in- 1410 ' 
 surgent Paris, where John the Fearless caressed the vilest populace.* 5 
 Burgundy relied on the name of the King, whom he held in his 
 
 * The reaction of 1385 had inflicted upon the high bourgeoisie wounds much more 
 deep than those of 1359. The latter had simply struck at its political ambition, but 
 the former had impoverished, dispersed, and deprived it of its lustre and its hereditary 
 influence. The town of Paris, among others, perceived that it was declining in two 
 ways : by the loss of its municipal franchises, and by the ruin of the families which had 
 governed and given counsel in the days of its liberty. This lowering of the superior 
 class, composed of the first merchants and the bar of the sovereign courts, had caused, 
 in a degree, an intermediate class to rise — that of the richest of the men who exercised 
 manual professions— a less enlightened class, grosser in manners, but to whom, however, 
 the force of circumstances gave influence in the affairs of the city. From thence came 
 the character of uncurbed political power, which showed itself suddenly in the Parisian 
 population when, in the year 1412, having recovered its franchises and its privileges, 
 it was summoned by the communes to play a political part. —A ugustin Thierry : Essai 
 suv VHistoire du Tiers-Etat, chap. iii. 
 
2/8 CONVOCATION OF THE STATES-GENERAL. [Book II. Chap. V. 
 
 power, and armed in the capital a corps of one hundred young 
 butchers or horse-knackers, who, from John Caboche, their chief, took 
 the name of CabocJiiens. A frightful war, interrupted by truces 
 violated on both sides, commenced between the party of Armagnac 
 and that of Burgundy. Both sides appealed to the English, and sold 
 France to them. The Armagnacs pillaged and ravaged the environs 
 of Paris with unheard-of crueltie.s, while the CabocJiiens caused the 
 capital they defended to tremble. The States- General, convoked for 
 the first time for thirty years, were dumb — without courage and 
 without strength. The Parliament was silent, the university made 
 itself the organ of the populace, and the butchers made the laws. 
 They pillaged, imprisoned, and slaughtered with impunity, according 
 to their savage fury, and found judges to condemn their victims. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the midst of such an anarchy, the commissioners of 
 the town and of the university laboured at the reformation of the 
 abuses exposed before the last State s-General, and from their hands 
 issued a code of reformed and wise laws — the first sketch of French 
 judicial, administrative, and financial legislation, where the dominant 
 idea was centralization, then so necessary.* Very different from the 
 Celebrated r l cel^rated ordinance of 1357, equally dictated by the 
 25th May 1413 e P°P u l ar spirit, this one, with the exception of the elec- 
 ofdomance Caho- ^ on which it instituted for judicial offices, respected all 
 the attributes of the royal power. Nevertheless, its prin- 
 cipal clauses, which were declared inviolable, and presented as the 
 fundamental law of the nation, only lasted a short time. The dis- 
 orders which accompanied the publication of the new ordinance 
 caused it to be discredited by honest citizens ; it was nicknamed the 
 Ordonnance Cabocldenne. From that time it was condemned, and 
 three months later it was annulled. 
 
 The demagogues pursued their violent course. They besieged in 
 his hotel the Duke of Guienne, Dauphin of France ; a popular orator, 
 a surgeon, John of Troyes, overwhelmed him with reproaches and 
 threats, and the favourites of the prince were massacred. The King, 
 always a slave to the party which ruled near him, approved and 
 
 * This celebrated ordinance, divided into ten chapters, treated of property, of money, 
 of indirect taxation, of the treasuries during war, of the Chamber, of the Exchequer, of 
 the Parliament, of justice, of chancery, of the woods and forests, and of the men-at-arms. 
 
1380-1422] INVASION OF THE ENGLISH. 279 
 
 sanctioned without understanding all these excesses, which terrified 
 even Burgundy himself. The reaction broke out at last. Tired of 
 so many atrocities, the bourgeoisie took up arms, and shook off the 
 yoke of the horse-knackers. The Dauphin was delivered by them. 
 He mounted, on horseback, and, at the head of the militia, went 
 to the Hotel de Yille, from which place he drove out Caboche and 
 his brigands. The counter revolution was established. Burgundy 
 departed, and the power passed to the Armagnacs. The princes 
 re-entered Paris, and Bang Charles took up the oriflmmne (the royal 
 standard of France), to make war against John the Fearless, whose 
 instrument he had been a short time before. His Treaty of Arras 
 
 ■ t-> ^ i',;i ijT between Charles 
 
 army was victorious. Burgundy submitted, and the vi. and John 
 
 the Fearless, 
 
 treaty of Arras suspended the war, but not the exe- 1415. 
 cutions and the ravages. 
 
 Henry Y., King of England, judged this a propitious moment to 
 descend upon France, which had not a vessel to oppose the invaders. 
 They disembarked without obstacle at the mouth of the Seine, and 
 invested Harfleur, then a town of great maritime importance, com- 
 manding the entrance to the Seine, and one of the keys of the 
 kingdom. France, with its mad King, and its court T . , .. 
 
 ° ' & ' Invasion of the 
 
 divided into hostile factions, was. without government, Tafcin?of 
 and all co-operation against a foreign power was, at the Harfleur « l415 - 
 outset, impossible. Harfleur, however, to which rushed a brave 
 nobility, was valiantly defended, and only succumbed after a month 
 of heroic defence. The inhabitants were set free on ransom, and 
 expelled from the town ; and the King resolved to make the conquered 
 place a town altogether English, as was the case already with Calais. 
 During the siege his army had suffered enormous losses, less by the 
 sword than by disease ; dysentery and fatigue had reduced it to one- 
 half, and of thirty thousand men that he had brought before that 
 place, not more than fifteen thousand remained. This number was 
 insufficient to conquer the kingdom ; and, on the other side, part of 
 the French army under the Constable d'Albret, and under the Dukes 
 of Orleans and Bourbon, began to unite together in Picardy. Henry, 
 placing his hope in the slow movement of a divided enemy, believed 
 that he had time to reach Calais hj land, where he reckoned upon 
 halting and receiving reinforcements. 
 
280 BATTLE OF AGINCOTJET. [BoOK II. Chap. V. 
 
 Notwithstanding the careful discipline observed by the English, the 
 population, all French at heart, showed themselves hostile in all direc- 
 tions. They traversed the country of Caux, harassed and decimated, 
 and directed their course towards the Somme, which they crossed. 
 The French army, three or four times more numerous, awaited them 
 on the other side of the river, near to the village of Agincourt. There 
 occurred a battle similar to those of Cressy and Poitiers. The armies- 
 passed the night opposite to each other. On the side of the English, 
 whose peril was imminent, everything, by order of the 
 armies near to King, was said and done in subdued tones and in dark- 
 
 Agincourt, 1415. 
 
 ness. Amongst the French, on the contrary, great fires 
 were lighted, and all was noise, agitation, and confusion. However^ 
 while the French thus awaited "the perils of the morrow, they sun- 
 dered the party hatreds which had for so long separated them, and 
 mutually embraced each other with cordiality, each of them pardoning 
 Battle of ^ e on?ences 0I * ^ ne other.* They engaged in battle at 
 
 Agincourt. break of day. The French cavalry, restricted by want 
 
 of space, flung themselves pell-mell upon a soil moistened by rain,, 
 and, under a shower of arrows, rushed upon the sharp stakes which 
 the English had planted. On seeing the ranks thus overthrown^ 
 the English issued from then' fortified enclosure, and, having at 
 their head King Henry V., penetrated to the middle of the second 
 line of the enemy. The King of England had then run into great 
 danger : twenty- eight noblemen had sworn an oath to join together 
 near him, and strike the crown from his head, or to die in the attempt, 
 as they did. They nearly pushed forward to the King, and one of 
 them delivered so heavy a blow on his helmet that he struck off one of 
 the ornaments of the crown ; but they were surrounded, overpowered 
 by numbers, and perished even to the last man. The rearguard of 
 the French still remained intact, but seeing the first two ranks, 
 overcome, they hardly waited for the shock, but turned their bridles 
 and fled. The battle was finished, when some one came to Henry V., 
 and told him that the camp was attacked by a fresh army, and 
 Henry, seeing the numerous prisoners that he had made, and for 
 whom he expected heavy ransoms, ordered that all the captives 
 should be put to death. The alarm was found to be false, but: 
 
 * Lefevre : Saint-Henri. 
 
1380-1422] PROGRESS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 281 
 
 already nearly all had perished. Extended on the field of battle 
 might be seen ten thousand French, nearly all nobles, of whom a 
 hundred and five bore standards, and seven were princes, together 
 with the Dukes of Severs, Alencon, and Bar, and the Constable 
 d'Albret. Amongst the few surviving prisoners were the Marshal of 
 Boucicaut, the Counts of Eu, Yen dome, and Bichemont, and the 
 Dukes of Bourbon and Orleans. The conqueror King, master of the 
 sad field, cast his eyes slowly around him, and having asked the 
 name of a neighbouring chateau, a voice answered, " Agincourt." 
 " "Well," said he, " this battle will take the name of Agincourt, now 
 and for ever." * . 
 
 Then, more terribly than ever, civil war broke out. The Count of 
 Armagnac, appointed Constable, reigned in Paris by Course of thQ 
 terror only ; he caused a multitude of Burgundians to cml war - 
 be drowned in the Seine, in which river he forbade the Parisians to 
 bathe, in order to protect the secret of his murders. The Queen 
 Isabeau of Bavaria alone could equal the authority of Armagnac ; 
 she was sent into exile by her husband to Tours. Burgundy took 
 away the Queen from her guardians, and proclaimed her regent. A 
 short time afterwards, a bourgeois of Paris, named Perinet le Clerc, 
 delivered [up one of the gates of the capital to Isle- 
 Adam, an officer of John the Fearless. The Burgun- cierc takes 
 
 , -, . -, n i'ii i Paris from the- 
 
 dians entered into the town, from which place the Burgundians, 
 
 1418. 
 
 Prevot Tanneguy - Duchatel carried off the young 
 dauphin, Charles, the last and only surviving son of the King,, 
 enveloped in his bed-clothes. The populace rose again under the 
 leadership of the executioner Capeluche : they seized the Count of 
 Armagnac, with his partisans, and threw them into prison. On 
 Sunday, the 12th of June, 1418, the murderers rushed Massacre of the 
 to the prisons at the Temple, at Saint Eloi, and the two Armagnacs, ui& 
 Chatelets, and then the massacre commenced ; on the following day 
 it continued in the streets and houses in the midst of Paris, and the 
 very pigs were fed on human flesh. The Constable had perished, one 
 of the first, and the people took a hideous pleasure in cutting from 
 his corpse a large strip of skin, in order to represent the scarf of 
 the Armagnacs. The Queen Isabeau, brought back by the Duke of 
 
 * Lefevre: Saint-Remi. 
 
282 THE ENGLISH IN FRANCE. [Book II. ChAP. V. 
 
 Burgundy, made her triumphal entry into the town sullied by so 
 many horrors, and took in hand the sovereign authority. The faction 
 of Orleans then conducted the Dauphin to Poitiers, and recognized 
 him as regent. There were thus in France, in the midst of the 
 calamities of a foreign war, two distinct governments more hostile 
 to one another than the common enemy which infested the kingdom. 
 Henry Y. pursued his ravages into the heart of the kingdom. 
 He had entirely conquered Normandy ; Rouen also, 
 
 Progress of the . ; . 
 
 English in notwithstanding the valour of its inhabitants, sustamed 
 
 France. 
 
 by the heroic Alain Blanchard, had fallen into his 
 power. The French princes seemed at last to perceive the necessity 
 of union. The Dauphin had appointed an interview with the Duke 
 of Burgundy on the bridge of MOntereau ; the Duke, after hesitating 
 for a long time, presented himself, and, as he bent the knee before 
 
 the Dauphin, Tanneguy-Duchatel struck him with an 
 
 Assassination of m . 
 
 John the Fear- axe upon the head, and killed him before the eyes of his 
 
 less, 1419. r ' J 
 
 master. Thus died by assassination John the Fearless, 
 the assassin of the Duke of Orleans. This murder made peace 
 impossible. Philip the Grood, the new Duke of Burgundy, in order 
 to avenge his father, offered the crown to Henry Y., and the guilty 
 Isabeau, unworthy queen and still more unworthy mother, negotiated 
 between her unconscious husband and Henry Y. the shameful treaty 
 Treat of °^ r ^ ro y es j signed in 1420, by which, in contempt of the 
 
 Troyes, 1420. rights of the royal princes of France, the crown was 
 bestowed in perpetuity on Henry and his descendants. This treaty, 
 which could not come into effect until the death of King Charles YL, 
 was immediately sealed by the marriage of her daughter to Henry. 
 The regency of the kingdom, during the malady of the King, was to 
 be entrusted to Henry Y., with the title of regent ; and he swore that 
 lie would maintain the jurisdiction of the Parliament, as well as the 
 rights of the peers, the nobles, the cities, towns, and communities of 
 France, and to govern each kingdom according to its laws and 
 customs. This treaty was received with favour by the Parisians, 
 equally tired of the yokes of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, 
 states-General anc ^ was solemnly approved of by the shameful States- 
 cf 1420. General, convoked in the capital and presided over by 
 
 the King. But Henry Y. took upon himself the task of destroying 
 
1380-1422] COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 283 
 
 the new people whom he ought to have governed, and it was through 
 his cruelties that the heart of the French people was restored to the 
 Dauphin. That young man, sixteen years of 'age, was declared guilty 
 by the Parliament of homicide on the person of the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, and deprived of his rights to the throne. He wandered for 
 a long time in the provinces of the south, flying before the English 
 arms, over whom his generals obtained at Bauge, in 
 
 ° ° Victory of the 
 
 May, 1421, a glorious but useless victory. The sudden French at Bauge, 
 death of Henry V., in 1422, prepared a new destiny J^athof 
 for the Dauphin. Charles VI. died shortly afterwards ; and of Henry v., 
 he had occupied the throne for forty- two years. 
 
 With this deplorable reign ended the scandals of the Great Schism 
 of the East. Innocent VII., then Gregory XII., had Course and en a 
 succeeded in Italy to Boniface IX. The anti-pope, gcMsm^the 
 Benedict XIII., still lived, and Erance remained neutral East ' 
 between him and his rival, until the cardinals of the two courts 
 united together in common agreement and convoked, in _ , f 
 1409, the Council of Pisa, which deposed Gregory and constSwe* 
 Benedict, and proclaimed Alexander V. Alexander died, 1409-1418 - 
 and was replaced by John XXIII. Lastly, the Emperor Sigismund 
 convoked in 1414 the famous Council of Constance, at which there 
 attended with him many princes of the empire, twenty-seven ambas- 
 sadors of sovereigns, and a great number of prelates and doctors. 
 The superiority of the general councils over the popes was there 
 established by a celebrated decree ; John XXIII., convicted of 
 enormous crimes, was deposed, and the assembly, in choosing 
 Martin V. to succeed him, considered him the only legitimate Pope. 
 Gregory XII. had abdicated ; the obstinate Benedict XIII. struggled 
 to the death, and entrenched himself in his fortress of Peniscola in 
 Spain. 
 
 The Council of Constance condemned the criminal doctrine pro- 
 fessed by John Petit, the apologist of the crime of John the Fear- 
 less, and attempted to repair the immense injury which the schism 
 had inflicted upon the Catholic religion ; but the spirit of doubt and 
 of examination penetrated into all quarters. Already John Wycliffe 
 had preached a reform very boldly in England, and his disciples, 
 called Lollards, multiplied every day. John Huss and Jerome of 
 
284 RELIGIOUS REFORMERS. [Book II. Chap. Y. 
 
 Prague, other reformers, less bold than "Wycliffe, fixed the attention 
 of Grermany. The Council of Constance caused them to he burned, 
 notwithstanding the safe conduct which the former had received from 
 the Emperor ; it believed that it could stifle their heresy by their 
 execution ; it deceived itself. The principles established by the men 
 did not die with them ; violence and treachery only engender indig- 
 nation, hate, and revolt. Soon the war of the Hussites broke out, 
 and was the forerunning sign of the conflagration which, in the 
 following century, caused the face of the Christian world to change. 
 jSTo period was more sterile in great characters and more fruitful 
 in scoundrels than the reign of Charles VI. Some men, 
 
 Celebrated men. . 
 
 however, acquired in France a reputation worthy 01 
 
 being transmitted with honour to* posterity. Amongst these were the 
 
 Chancellor of the University, John Grerson, who distinguished himself 
 
 above all by his ardent and disinterested zeal for the 
 John Gerson. # . . i ~ m 
 
 extinction of the schism, and to whom is attributed, but 
 
 without sufficient proof, the admirable book of the Imitation; the 
 
 Advocate- General, John Desmarets, who was borne to the scaffold as 
 
 an accomplice in the seditions to which, on the contrary, he had 
 
 opposed the authority of his power; the magistrate Juvenal des 
 
 Juvenal des Ursins, father of the historian of that name, intrepid 
 
 Ursms ' in braving the fury of the nobles and in repressing their 
 
 criminal violences ; lastly, the great citizen, Alain Blanchard, who 
 
 immortalized himself in the defence of Rouen, and 
 
 Alain Blanchard. 
 
 r y - lost his life in his devotion to France and to his King. 
 
 The nation at this epoch did not honour itself by any useful inven- 
 tion ; but at that time sprang into existence, amid streams of blood, 
 playing cards and the dramatic farces of the Brethren of the Passion 
 and the lawyers' clerks. 
 
 The gloomy picture of the crimes and misfortunes of France during 
 Moral conside- ^~ e hundred and fifty years from the death of Saint 
 rations. Louis to that of Charles YL, fill the soul with horror 
 
 and fear. It is, notwithstanding, fruitful in grave proofs that the 
 frightful calamities had been drawn down upon their authors, whether 
 they were monarchs, princes, nobles, bourgeois, or peasants, on 
 account of so many acts of violence. The cruelty, the frauds, and 
 the brutal despotism of some of the successors of Saint Louis^ 
 
1380-1422] GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 28-5 
 
 .aroused the wars which desolated their kingdom and their lives ; the 
 nobility, assassins and assassinated, expiated with their own blood 
 that which they had shed ; lastly, the violence of the bourgeoisie as 
 soon as it became powerful, the refusal of all personal sacrifice, and 
 the horrible excesses of the Jacquerie, dishonoured and ruined the 
 popular cause for a lengthened period of time. Centuries of mis- 
 fortune taught the nation that which we ought never to forget; it 
 taught them that a people cannot enjoy in peace the advantages of 
 a great, strong, and free nation, until it knows how to understand 
 those of union, of obedience to the laws, and of the sacrifice of 
 particular interests to the general interest of the country. 
 
286 CHARLES YIL [BOOK III. CeAJ> I. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLES VI. TO THAT OF 
 
 LOUIS XII. 
 
 Awaking of the Nation. — Expulsion of the English. — End of the 
 Hundred Years War. — Extinction of the Great Feudal 
 System* in France by the Union of the Duchies of Burgundy 
 and Brittany with the Crown. — First Wars with Italy. 
 
 1422-1515. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REIGN OF CHARLES VII. 
 
 1422-1461. 
 The Kings of France, while becoming more absolute, had lost, by 
 f Fr nc ^ e a ^ nse °f power, that which had in great part made 
 of Charles vn 1 their fortunes from the reign of Louis the Big to that 
 U22 ' of Saint Louis. The people, crushed by taxes arbitrarily 
 
 established, pillaged by mercenary soldiers, and oppressed by the 
 nobles, who constituted the principal force of the armies, ceased to 
 look upon the cause of their sovereigns as their own, and withdrew 
 from them their confidence and their love. This disaffection of the 
 people showed itself in numerous revolts, and aided powerfully the 
 rapid success of the foreigners in the heart of the country. The 
 scourges which desolated France during a century and a half, and 
 which shook the monarchy, were only suspended in the course of 
 the last years of Charles V. ; we have seen how they reappeared 
 more terribly than ever during the long reign of his unfortunate 
 son. At the end of that period the monarchy only existed in name, 
 and appeared to be sinking in general dissolution. God, however, 
 had better destinies in reserve for France. 
 
1422-1461] STATE OP FRANCE. 28? 
 
 A central, energetic, and powerful authority was alone capable 
 of striking the final blow at the feudal arrnv ; of maintaining in the 
 body of the nation, in a durable manner, so many persons of different 
 origin as then composed the kingdom ; and of uniting to the crown 
 the states which, between the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the ocean, 
 were still separated from it. The English themselves assisted in 
 re-establishing the fortunes of France. The intolerable oppressions 
 which they caused to be laid upon the vanquished, and the barbarity 
 of their exterminating government, united against them all the 
 oppressed. A national sentiment was thus created amongst those 
 who were united nnder a common misfortune, and made the people 
 turn anew with hope to the prince who had been proscribed by their 
 tyrants, and who alone could rescue them from a hateful yoke. 
 That prince was Charles VII. From his accession to the throne 
 till the total extinction of the feudal power, during a century, 
 the destinies of the royal power appeared to be newly connected in 
 an intimate manner with those of the nation ; and both went on 
 increasing in strength and in power. 
 
 A blind chance does not preside over the destinies of the world. 
 History, which has shown to us the progress — very slow, it is true, 
 but real — of humanity towards a better order of things, proves 
 sufficiently the existence of a providential action in the midst of the 
 innumerable calamities which we excite by our passions and our 
 vices. This action of divine goodness becomes apparent when it 
 assures the triumph of an apparently despairing cause, and when 
 the means employed to reach the end seem altogether deprived of 
 power and strength. Such was the principal sign in which must 
 be recognized the assistance that God deigned to lend to France 
 after the signature of the fatal treaty of Troyes. On the side of 
 the foreigners there had lately been seen a victorious monarch, in 
 the prime of life, master of two-thirds of the kingdom, strong in 
 the assent of the States- General, and in his close union with the King 
 and Queen of France. However, Henry was no more ; but still 
 among the English party might be reckoned the greater part of the 
 French princes, also the great vassals of the crown, the capital, and 
 a numerous and well-organized army. On the other side there was 
 to be seen a turbulent nobility, undisciplined captains, bands of 
 
288 THE EIVAL KING. [Book III. Chap. I. 
 
 ferocious adventurers, who sought less to save the kingdom than to 
 divide its spoils among§t them; lastly, a young prince of eighteen 
 years, without strength of mind or character, stained with the 
 suspicion of a great crime, disgraced by a decree of Parliament, 
 abandoned by his father and his mother, and only reigning nominally 
 over some provinces which were a prey to anarchy. But the safety 
 and the destiny of France were attached to the triumph of his cause, 
 and God certified it in a few years, contrary to all human fore- 
 sight. : I *> 
 Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI. and wife of Henry V., 
 had brought into the world a son who succeeded his father in 1422, 
 under the name of Henry VI. ; he was then scarcely a year old, and 
 was crowned at Paris as King of France and England. 
 
 Henry VI., 
 
 King of France, The Duke of Bedford, eldest brother of Henrv V., 
 
 1432. \ J 
 
 governed the kingdom in the name of his nephew, 
 and knew how to attach to himself the two greatest vassals of the 
 crown, John VI., Duke of Brittany, and Philip the Good, Duke of 
 Burgundy. The latter, in order to avenge more surely his father's 
 assassination, bestowed the hand of his sister on the Duke of Bedford, 
 and was for a long period the firmest supporter of the English in 
 France. 
 
 The Dauphin Charles, then nineteen years old, had taken, im- 
 Sit ati n f mediately after the death of his father, the title of King, 
 
 Charles vii. an( j res id e d a £ Bourges with the Queen, Marie of Anjou, 
 his wife. The remains of the Armagnacs, in the provinces of the 
 centre and of the south-east, only recognized his authority, and the 
 people, who still remembered tho frightful excesses of that party, 
 hesitated at first to declare in favour of the young prince, who was 
 contemptuously designated by his enemies the King of JBoarges. 
 The soldiers of the army of Charles were for the most part 
 foreigners, like those of Henry VI. ; his army was composed of 
 Scotch, and of ferocious Armagnacs or Gascons, for a long period 
 subjects of England. His constable even, the Count of Buchan, was 
 a Scotchman; and the King, surrounded by savage men, appeared 
 for a long time to take as little interest as the people themselves in 
 his own cause. 
 
 The battle of Crevant-sur-Tonne, lost by his troops, and that of 
 
1422-1461] THE CONSTABLE RICHEMONT. 289 
 
 Verneuil, still more disastrous, where the Constable perished, caused 
 Charles VII. to perceive the necessity of having power- Battles of 
 ful supporters. He fixed his choice upon the famous Yonne, and of 
 
 x x . Verneuil, 1424. 
 
 Richemont, brother of the Duke of Brittany, and 
 offered him the sword of the Constable. Richemont only accepted on 
 condition that the Armagnacs should be driven from the court, and 
 that Charles should separate himself from the assassins of John 
 the Fearless. Tanneguy-Duchatel, the most powerful and the most 
 guilty, left the first, and hastened by his voluntary exile the useful 
 bringing together of Richemont and the King. Freed from the 
 faction which had held him in guardianship, Charles ceased to be 
 looked upon as the instrument of a hateful party, and appeared to 
 reign himself ; but years had still to roll away before he was King 
 in reality, and worthy of the devotion of his people. Character f th 
 Without character and without will, incapable of any KiD £- 
 serious occupation, indolent and voluptuous, he was the plaything 
 and the slave of his favourites, or of all those who obtained an 
 ascendancy over his mind ; and he forgot them as soon as chance or 
 violence had separated them from him. He received successively from 
 the hand of the Constable two favourites, the Lords of Griac and of 
 Beaulieu : to each in turn he granted a blind and foolish confidence, 
 and saw them without anger, one after the other, assassinated by 
 that same Richemont who had placed them near him, 
 
 Violent acts of 
 
 but to whom the confidence bestowed on them by the the Constable 
 
 Richemont. 
 
 King had given umbrage. Richemont had given a 
 third favourite to the King, the Lord of La Tremouille ; but he also 
 met with the fate of his predecessors, through getting out of favour 
 with the Constable ; and Charles saw with indifference his court and 
 his nobility divided between the two rivals. He then lingered at 
 Chinon in effeminacy and pleasures, while his party was weakening 
 every day, and discord reigned in his camp. Already the English 
 threatened Orleans, the most important of the towns still remaining 
 faithful ; they had made themselves masters of the head of the bridge 
 and the outworks, notwithstanding the bravery of La Hire, of 
 Xaintrailles, of Gaucourt, and above all of the famous Dunois, 
 bastard son of Orleans, the last and powerless defenders of the 
 French monarchy. Lastly, the defeat of the French and Scotch at 
 
 u 
 
290 JOAN OF ARC. [Book III. Chap. I. 
 
 the battle of the Herrings * appeared to give the finishing stroke to 
 Battle of the ^ ie "^ °^ ^at ^ 0wn j an( ^ ^° inflict a mortal wound upon 
 
 Herrings, 1429. ^ e cailse f Charles. 
 
 But in proportion with the new triumphs gained by the English, 
 their yoke became more intolerable, and developed in the kingdom 
 a national sentiment capable of working prodigies if ifc were set in 
 action by hope and confidence. Religious enthusiasm mingled itself 
 in the heart of the French, who, seeing in their misfortunes the 
 chastisements of an avenging God, awaited the end of their sufferings 
 from the divinity alone. 
 
 Such were, in 1429, the sentiments of the mass of the nation, 
 when a young girl of twenty years, named Joan of Arc, 
 
 Vocation of 
 
 Joan of Arc, born of poor parents in the village of Domremy, upon 
 the frontiers of Lorraine, announced that she had re- 
 ceived from Grod a mission to cause the siege of Orleans to be raised 
 and to conduct the King to Reims to his coronation. She was 
 beautiful, endowed with a noble and pure soul, and united much 
 reason and humility to a great religious fervour. She was assured 
 that interior voices had revealed to her the heavenly will, and 
 Joan of Ar t requested to be led to Chinon to Charles VII. Brought 
 Chmon. -^q ^ g p reserLCej s ne distinguished him, it is said, upon 
 
 the spot, among all his courtiers, and kneeling before him, she 
 repeated to him the order which she declared that she had re- 
 ceived from heaven. Charles, whom she still called the Dauphin, 
 caused her to be examined by prelates and matrons, in order to 
 assure himself of the truth of her inspiration, and, on their report, 
 placing faith in her word, he caused a complete suit of armour to 
 be given to her. She wished to have a white standard sprinkled 
 with fleurs-de-lis, and declared that in digging into the earth at 
 Saint Catharine de Fierbois, near the principal altar, a sword 
 bearing upon its blade five particular signs would be found. It was 
 found there, and she made the sword her own. She did not wish to 
 use it so as to kill any one, and she often said that although she 
 loved her sword, she loved her standard forty times more. " I have 
 
 * This battle received its name from a convoy of salt fish sent "by the English to those 
 who were besieging Orleans. The French artillery broke open the casks in which the 
 fish were contained, and the field of battle was strewed with herrings. 
 
1422-1461] HEE EXPLOITS. 291 
 
 seen her," wrote one who lived at that period, u armed at all points, 
 &nd all in white except the head, mount npon a great black steed, and 
 then turn to the door of the church, which was near, saying in a femi- 
 nine voice — ' Yon, the priests and people of the chnrch, canse pro- 
 cessions to be made, and offer np prayers.' Then she turned again 
 to her path, saying, ' Press forward, press forward / ' And she had 
 her standard folded np, and carried by a handsome page, and bore 
 her little battle-axe in her hand." * The report soon spread among 
 the two armies that a being endowed with supernatural power had 
 come to fight for Charles VII. ; and whilst the French saw divine 
 intervention in this prodigy, the English, stricken with terror, only 
 wished to recognize in it the influence of the demon. 
 
 For her first exploit Joan, notwithstanding the strict blockade, 
 conducted into Orleans an army which had left Blois. Orleans delivered 
 "In five days," said she, "Orleans will be free." The 1429. 
 English had encircled the town with formidable fortifications ; almost 
 all of these were carried by assault by the besieged. One only 
 resisted, that of Tournelles, a veritable citadel, where the enemy had 
 concentrated all his forces. The French generals had decided that 
 they would wait till they received reinforcements before they 
 commenced the attack, and signified their resolution to the heroine. 
 She answered, — " You have held your council, but the council of 
 my Lord will be accomplished, while that of men will perish." She 
 carried along with her the people of Orleans, and the soldiery 
 followed by impulse. However, after three hours of terrible fighting, 
 the assault was repulsed, and the retreat sounded. Joan was 
 wounded, and fell at the foot of the parapet, but she raised herself, 
 and going aside into a vineyard remained for a quarter of an 
 hour in prayer. Then she rushed out anew, seized again her standard, 
 and planted it upon the fortress, and in an inspired voice cried out, 
 "All is yours ! enter within." Consternation and fear had seized the 
 defenders; their chief, Grlasdale, perished with the elite of his soldiers, 
 and the French penetrated into all parts of the conquered fortifica- 
 tion. Joan, at the head of the people and of the army, re-entered 
 
 * This letter, written by Guy de Layal, from the place which he held at the court, is 
 one of the most precious monuments of the period, and one of the most perfect models 
 of wit and of chivalric loyalty in the fifteenth century. 
 
 V 2 
 
292 DEFEAT OF THE ENGLISH. [BOOK. III. ChAP. L 
 
 Orleans in the evening, to the sound of the ringing of bells and 
 amid cries of triumph and joy from the delivered city. * 
 
 Suffolk and Talbot, the English generals, had been witnesses of 
 this astonishing reverse, without daring on their side to attempt 
 anything to prevent it. They held a council, and raised the siege 
 on the same night. From that time Joan, under the name of the 
 Maid of Orleans, soon became celebrated throughout the whole 
 kingdom ; France awoke, enthusiasm gained men's hearts, and a 
 Awaidn"- of crowd of soldiers rushed to join the standard of Charles, 
 
 while Bedford saw his English seized with fear. Places 
 on the banks of the Loire, Jargeau, Meun, and Beaugency, were 
 speedily taken ; everywhere the English fell back ; at last Joan and 
 
 her army met thenj at Patav, in the plains of Beauce. 
 
 Defeat of the J # J ' r 
 
 English at Patay, La Hire and Xaintrailles, who led the advance- guard of 
 
 1429. ' ° 
 
 the French, immediately charged the enemy without 
 permitting them to entrench themselves ; the latter were at once; 
 thrown into disorder, and the victory was gained by the main body 
 of the army. In vain Talbot surpassed himself; by his obstinacy he 
 only rendered his defeat more sanguinary. Joan of Arc triumphed 
 over that famous captain ; and then, as on other occasions, she 
 compassionated the sufferings of the conquered, caused the succour 
 of religion to be brought to the wounded, while she herself bestowed 
 her pathetic care upon them. 
 
 After this glorious battle, Joan of Arc went to find the King at 
 
 Gien, and coniured him to march boldly upon Reims, 
 
 Joan of Arc . 
 
 conducts the King there to cause himself to be crowned, and solemnly to 
 
 to Reims. * 
 
 take possession of his kingdom. Charles allowed him- 
 self to be persuaded, and advanced across Champagne with his army. 
 Troyes, situated upon the road to Reims, closed its gates. It was in 
 this town that the last treaty, so humiliating for France, had been 
 signed, and they feared the vengeance of the King. The besiegers 
 were short of provisions, the country round about was all ruined,, 
 everything appeared desperate. The council of war wished to raise 
 the siege, but Joan presented herself; the internal voices, she said,, 
 had assured her that within two days the town would give itself up. 
 
 * A fete was instituted in honour of the raising of the siege, and celehrated on the 
 5 th of May, every year, at Orleans. 
 
1422-1461] CORONATION OF CHARLES VII. 293 
 
 The event followed the prediction : on the following day the town 
 capitulated. Charles VII. went over the town in the grand panoply 
 of war, and then pursued his march. Chalons opened its gates to 
 him, and he arrived at last under the walls of Reims, at the glorious 
 end of his journey. The Burgundian captains who commanded the 
 town evacuated it without giving battle. Charles, on the 16th of 
 July, made his triumphal entry, and he was crowned in the ancient 
 cathedral. The Maid of Orleans placed herself near to 
 
 Coronation of 
 
 the King and the principal altar during the ceremony, Charles vil, 
 standing erect with her standard in her hand. Her 
 mission was accomplished.* 
 
 After the coronation, Joan embraced the knees of the monarch, and 
 ,said to him, " Gentle King, now is the pleasure of God executed. He 
 .desired that you should come to receive your coronation worthily, by 
 showing that you are the true King, and he to whom the kingdom 
 ought to belong. I have accomplished that which was commanded 
 of me, which was to raise the siege of Orleans, and to cause the King 
 to be crowned. I would now wish to go back to my father and 
 mother, to take charge of their sheep and cattle." These simple and 
 touching wishes were not heard favourably ; the captains of Charles 
 Jiad recognized in Joan their most powerful auxiliary, and they 
 prayed that she would remain with them. She consented with regret, 
 but showed still the same courage in action, although not the same 
 confidence in herself. She was wounded at the unfortunate siege of 
 Paris, and lastly taken prisoner in a sortie, whilst heroically defending 
 Compiegne, which the English and Burgundians attacked together. 
 John of Luxembourg', commander of the siege, sold her 
 
 °' & ' Joan of Arc 
 
 to the English for ten thousand livres, and the Regent prisoner of the 
 
 ° ° English. 
 
 Bedford caused a solemn Te Deum to be sung on that 
 
 occasion. Then party spirit exhibited itself in its most hideous form. 
 
 In the rage into which the English lashed themselves against the 
 
 * The King recognized the immense services which it had pleased God 'to render to 
 his cause through the feeble hands of a woman. He ennobled all the family of Joan of 
 Arc in perpetuity, and, by a unique but perfectly comprehensible exception, it was said 
 that nobility transferred itself to this family through females. Joan obtained a short time 
 afterwards the sweetest and purest of recompenses, by the royal edict which exempted 
 for ever from the land-tax the villages of Grreux and Domremy, where she was born and 
 where she had passed her infancy. 
 
294 DEATH OF JOAN OP ARC. [Book III. Chap. I. 
 
 woman who had made them tremble, can be recognized that merciless 
 feeling, the resentment of fear and of humiliated self-respect. 
 
 Delivered over to the Inquisition, as suspected of magic and sorcery, 
 the unfortunate girl was shut up in the dungeons of Rouen, and 
 there was found a Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, who, altogether 
 devoted to the English by vengeance and ambition, lent to their fury 
 m . . . T t his shameful ministry. The trial commenced : inn- 
 
 Trial of Joan of J 
 
 Arc - delities, atrocious threats, and sacrileges, everything was 
 
 used in order to consummate the sacrifice of an heroic virgin ; and 
 while the civil power and the ecclesiastical authority leagued 
 together to convict Joan of imposture and alliance with the devil, 
 she opposed to the subtleties of theology and the plots hatched by a 
 merciless hate, the inspirations of a most open conscience, the lights 
 of a righteous and superior reason, which confounded her enemies 
 themselves. It was to God that she attributed all her successes. 
 The bishop asked her if she was in a state of grace. Joan said, 
 " If I am not, God wishes to put me into that state ; if I am, then God 
 wishes that I should remain so." When interrogated as to her words 
 and acts in the battles, she answered, " I said, Go boldly among the 
 English; and I went myself."- — "Does God hate the English?" 
 asked the bishop. — " Of the love or of the hate that God has for the 
 English," she said, " I know nothing ; but I know that, with the 
 exception of those that die here, all will be driven out of France." — 
 " Was her hope fixed in her standard or in herself? "■ — " It is founded 
 in our Lord, and not otherwise." — "Why did she carry the standard 
 before the King to Beims?" — "It had been in trouble," she said, 
 " and it was right that it should be held up to honour." 
 
 So much reason and good sense did not affect her judges ; they 
 had declared that God could not wish Charles VII. to triumph; 
 after that, the demon alone had inspired Joan. They condemned her 
 to be burnt alive. 
 
 On the 31st of May, 1431, she was led to the place of execution, 
 
 dressed in a long black robe. She forgot neither her King, nor France 
 
 for which she died ; she prayed for them, and requested 
 
 Death of Joan of 
 
 Arc at Rouen, the prayers of all the assistants, and pardoned her 
 
 enemies. Her youth, her tears, and the Christian words 
 
 which fell from her lips, drew tears even from English eyes, and 
 
1422-1461] HATRED TOWARD THE ENGLISH. 295 
 
 filled the minds of her judges with terror. The trouble caused by this 
 frightful spectacle was such that the civil sentence was not even 
 pronounced. "Lead her on! Lead her on!" said the affrighted 
 bailiff to the executioner. The soldiers dragged her away and bound 
 her to the post, the infamous mitre of the Inquisition was placed upon 
 her head, and then the flames brightened. "Jesus!" she cried, and 
 pressed to her heart a wooden cross ; then she asked earnestly that the 
 crucifix from the neighbouring church should be brought to her ; she 
 kissed with fervour the image of the Just One who was sacrificed for 
 sinners, of the Man- God who died for the salvation of the world ; she 
 invoked his name, she invoked all the angels of Paradise, where the 
 saints had promised to conduct her. Perhaps then she understood at 
 last the true sense of their prophetic words : " Joan, Joan, take all 
 things patiently," said the voices, "and have no care for your 
 martyrdom ; you will be delivered by a great victory." That victory 
 was the last which broke her fetters and opened up to her heaven. 
 "Jesus! " she Cried again, in the midst of the flames; then she bent 
 her head, and breathed forth her innocent soul and her last sigh. 
 
 Charles heard of her death with indifference; he did nothing to 
 prevent it or to avenge it, and waited for twenty-five years before 
 ordering that the memory of the heroine should be reinstated. He had 
 again fallen into his culpable indolence. His favourite, La Tremouille, 
 had drawn him away from warlike pursuits, and in order to preserve 
 his ascendancy, kept him at the Chateau of Chinon by the attraction of 
 fetes and pleasures. Charles, surrounded by his mistresses, failed 
 again in his fortune, while his captains fought separately, as chiefs of 
 partisans ; they received from him no order, no pay, no support, and 
 submitted the country where they ruled to frightful exactions. The 
 English, however, were still more odious to the people ; in vain 
 Bedford, in order to hold the capital, called within its walls the young 
 King Henry VI., and caused him to be crowned ; in vain he deposed 
 himself from the title of regent in order to bestow it on a French 
 prince, the Duke of Burgundy; the English and their allies the 
 Burgundians were equally detested, and insurrections broke out in all 
 parts of the kingdom. 
 
 The most skilful of the captains of Charles, the Constable 
 Richemont, fell into disgrace, was restored to favour, and commanded 
 
296 THE ENGLISH LEAVE PARIS. [Book III. Chap. I. 
 
 the army. About the same time, in 1435, Bedford, brother-in-law 
 of the Duke of Burgundy, died, and his death broke the ties of that 
 duke with England. Burgundy sacrificed at last his long resent- 
 ment to the interest of France, and became reconciled to Charles VII. 
 He was exempted from all vassalage during his life ; the King ceded 
 „ , . . to him the counties of Auxerre and Macon, with other 
 
 Treaty of Arras, ' 
 
 1435, places. He promised, besides, to disavow the murder of 
 
 John the Fearless, to deliver up its authors, and to grant an amnesty 
 to all those of his subjects who had taken up arms against him. On 
 these conditions Philip swore to forget the past, and signed with his 
 cousin an offensive and defensive alliance in the town of Arras. The 
 French were united, and the maintenance of the English dominion 
 became impossible. Paris, after belonging to the crown of England 
 for seventeen years, opened her gates to her King, and soon the 
 English only remained in Normandy and Gruienne. 
 
 An extraordinary and complete change was effected in the mind of 
 A akin of Charles VII., and the honour was, in part, to be attri- 
 
 Chariesvu. buted to his mistress, Agnes Sorel. A will full of 
 energy had taken the place of his indolent indifference ; his frivolity 
 was changed into prudence and wisdom, and his voluptuous tastes no 
 longer excluded him from an active perseverance in warlike and 
 political affairs. 
 
 The French, since the union of Charles with the Duke of 
 Burgundy, began to enjoy some repose ; but then, as in the time of 
 Charles V., at the end of the long civil wars, bands of mercenaries, 
 without pay and without employment, infested the kingdom. The 
 captains of Charles VII., and amongst them the celebrated La Hire 
 and Xaintrailles, for a long period accustomed to make war on their 
 own account and without discipline, continued, in despite of the 
 treaty of Arras, to pillage Burgundy, and gloried in the name of 
 Ecorclieurs (horse-flayers), which the hatred of the people had 
 bestowed on them. Charles repressed their disorders, and wished to 
 prevent their recurrence. With this object he undertook a wise 
 measure, which contributed powerfully to the peace of the interior 
 states g n it ailc ^ ^° ^e strengthening of the royal authority. After 
 Orleans, 1439. having convoked the States- General at Orleans, he 
 asked and obtained from them a tax of twelve hundred thousand 
 
1422-1461] PERPETUAL TAX. 297 
 
 livres for the pay of a permanent army. This tax was destined for 
 the support of fifteen hundred men-at-arms, each of 
 
 1 L Organization of 
 
 whom was to be followed by five men on horseback, a permanent 
 
 J army, 1439. 
 
 a page, a cutler, and three archers. The King divided 
 them into fifteen privileged companies, which he disseminated through 
 all parts of the kingdom ; .each being entrusted with the charge 
 of its own garrison. On their part, the soldiers could not separate 
 without leave, and each captain was responsible for the pillages 
 and violences of his men, who were to be in submission to the 
 jurisdiction of the bailiffs and the jprevots. The pay for a man-at- 
 arms and his suite was fifteen livres per month. Some years later 
 Charles completed the organization of the permanent army, by 
 compelling each parish to furnish, at the call of the King, a good 
 infantry soldier fully equipped, and on whom the military service 
 conferred several privileges, high pay, and exemption from taxes. 
 These foot soldiers were called free archers. 
 
 This reconstruction of the military system produced immense re- 
 sults ; the King thus obtained an army always numerous and always 
 ready to run down in mass upon all points menaced by revolt or 
 war. He caused the elite of his captains and soldiers of adventure 
 to enter it ; while terror restrained those who could not be admitted. 
 To the States- General of 1439 must be attributed, in fact, the merit 
 of this creation, for it was by them that the first necessary funds 
 were granted ; however, they had only granted the tax of twelve 
 hundred thousand livres for one year ; the King on his own authority 
 made it perpetual. Thus was established in France, illegally, the 
 direct permanent tax. Nevertheless, the people paid 
 without murmuring. Besides, Charles VII. by his 1439 - 
 ordinance had only made regular a state of things which already 
 existed. The levy of troops had not been interrupted, and the 
 prospect of being delivered from the pillage of the soldiery was 
 an immense relief to the dwellers in the country. The perpetual tax 
 was personal or real, according to the different provinces ; that is to 
 say, either established on all the revenues of the tax-payer or only 
 upon his landed property. At first it was popular, but there were 
 bad readjustments of the impost, its amount was always increasing, 
 and above all the innumerable immunities admitted later on in 
 
298 INSURRECTION OF THE PRAGUERIE. [Book III. Chap. I. 
 
 favour of the privileged classes rendered it hateful throughout the 
 whole kingdom.* 
 
 Crimes of every description multiplied in a fearful manner ; the 
 King gave to the prevot of Paris, Robert d'Estouteville, full power 
 to judge and condemn every person convicted of any crime what- 
 soever. The Parliament, whose rights were forgotten, kept silence ; 
 all liberty was stifled, and the kingdom given over to a despotic 
 power. The people had suffered too long for want of government ; 
 they had passed through a horrible anarchy, and felt the want of 
 a central and vigorous authority. Commerce sprung up again, 
 agriculture became flourishing, and the King was hailed as the 
 restorer of order. 
 
 However, the military aristocracy could not see, without uneasi- 
 ness, the progress of the royal power. It made an insurrection 
 which was called Praguerie. f In this revolt it was 
 
 Praguerie, 1440. m 
 
 necessary to have chiefs ; the Dauphin, who was after- 
 wards Louis XI., the princes of royal blood, and the captains of the 
 JEcorcheurs, offered themselves. They seized several towns and forti- 
 fied places, and wished to recommence a civil war ; but the times 
 were changed. Charles VII., at the head of a disciplined army, 
 marched against the rebels, who one after the other submitted. 
 One only remained formidable, and that was the prince who was heir 
 to the crown. He retired into Dauphine, and from that time a deep 
 enmity existed between father and son. 
 
 After having pacified the interior, Charles VII., profiting by the 
 civil wars which were exhausting England, tried to expel the enemy 
 from the kingdom. Two great provinces, Gruienne and Normandy, 
 were still under the foreign yoke. In a year, half of the fortified 
 places in Normandy were reconquered. The Duke of Somerset, who 
 continued to bear the title of Regent of France, vainly endeavoured 
 to defend Rouen against the army of Dunois. In the following year 
 the Constable Richemont and the Count of Clermont gained a 
 
 * Refer for the taxes in France to Chap. III. ; and further on, under Charles VII. , to 
 the establishment of the Court of Aides. 
 
 t The name of Praguerie, which was given to this revolt, came from Prague, a 
 town in Bohemia, then famous throughout Europe for its seditions during the war of 
 the Hussites. 
 
1422-1461] EXPULSION OF THE ENGLISH. 299 
 
 sanguinary victory at Formigny, between Carentan and Bayeux. 
 That battle decided the fate of the war ; all the towns 
 
 ■ _, Victories of the 
 
 m Lower JN ormandy revolted ; Cherbourg was taken, and French at 
 
 Formigny and 
 
 the entire province, with its two capitals and its hundred at Castnion. 
 
 Expulsion of the 
 
 fortresses, was again united to France. Guienne alone English, 
 
 ' & 1550-1553. 
 
 belonged to England. It was soon conquered by 
 the victorious army ; but as soon as the expedition terminated, the 
 English reappeared, and Bordeaux in receiving them within its walls, 
 rendered a new campaign necessary. Talbot, then eighty years old, 
 commanded the English; he attacked the French army before 
 Castillon, which he besieged: a cannon-ball carried off both the 
 old hero and his son. Their deaths were the signal of a complete 
 defeat. The town was given up ; then Libourne, and lastly 
 Bordeaux, opened their gates. Guienne was for the future French ; 
 and of all its continental possessions England only preserved Calais. 
 The hundred years war was finished, and a long period of 
 internal quarrels and calamities commenced for England in the 
 madness of Henry VI., who had just married the heroic and ambitious 
 Margaret of Anjou. 
 
 A truce had suspended the hostilities between the English and the 
 French, when the Emperor Frederick III. requested the support of 
 France against the republican cantons of Switzerland. The assist- 
 ance of Charles VII. was equally solicited by Bene, Campai „ ns of 
 Duke of Lorraine, against the free town of Metz and s^i^Smd'and 
 against Toul, Verdun, and some other towns, which Lorrame ' 1444 - 
 called themselves subjects of the empire. Charles VII. complied with 
 these requests and sent two armies, one into Switzerland and the 
 other into Lorraine. The Dauphin Louis commanded the first, which 
 was composed of men of all nations, and of a band of adventurers, 
 compelled to be so through the inaction caused by the treaty with 
 England. This army met that of the Swiss Cantons at Saint 
 Jacques, near Bale. The Swiss were then the best 
 
 „ Battle of Bale, or 
 
 infantry in Europe. They were armed with long pikes, Saint Jacques, 
 which they wielded with as much strength as skill ; 
 they had gained great victories for a century over the chivalry 
 of the empire. They advanced with fury against the advance-guard 
 of the French army, and threw it into disorder ; but having ventured 
 
300 THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION. [Book III. ChAP. I. 
 
 imprudently to attack the main body of the army, they were in their 
 turn repulsed and broken up. The Dauphin, struck with their 
 bravery, made peace with them, in spite of the Emperor and the 
 empire ; he desired to attach the Swiss to himself, and concluded an 
 alliance with those whom he had vanquished. 
 
 The events of the campaign in Lorraine were little decisive. The 
 towns of Toul and Verdun recognized the King as their protector ; 
 Metz resisted, was besieged, and bought the maintenance of its 
 liberty by a contribution of war. This rapid campaign gave a proof 
 of the pretensions of Charles VII. upon a portion of Lorraine, but 
 there was no other important result. 
 
 The wounds of France closed, and prosperity began to spring forth 
 anew. The King had taken up the tradition of the government 
 of his grandfather Charles V. ; by his care the whole administration 
 was reformed. After the ordinances upon the military state, there 
 Reforms in the appeared the ordinances concerning the accounts of the 
 .administration, treasury, the assessment of the land-tax, and the render- 
 ing of accounts. A special court was then instituted for every civil 
 and criminal trial connected with the taxes ; this su- 
 
 Royal decrees. 
 
 preme jurisdiction, called the Court of Aides, had soon 
 numerous tribunals. To this prince also belonged the honour of 
 having commenced the regulation of the Customs. Until that time, 
 
 throughout the north of France, then called the countrv 
 
 Court of Aides. ° . J 
 
 Regulation of of Customs, justice was only dispensed according: to a 
 
 the Customs. ... . 
 
 legislation which was not written. By the creation of 
 the Parliament of Toulouse the King restrained the jurisdiction of 
 that of Paris, which then extended itself throughout the provinces. 
 Under the following reign several other parliaments were instituted, 
 one of which, held at Grenoble, replaced the Delphic court. After 
 
 having: organized the army, the treasury, and justice, 
 
 NewParliaments. . . . 
 
 Charles occupied himself with the Church of France. 
 It was he who, in 1438, promulgated solemnly, before the French 
 
 clergy assembled at Bourges, the Pragmatic Sanction, 
 sanction, 1438. proclaiming the liberties of the Grallican Church, such 
 as the council then sitting at Bale had denned. It recognized the 
 superiority of the General Councils over the Pope, restricted to a 
 small number the cases of right to appeal to Rome, forbade the 
 
1422-1461] JAQUES CKEUE. 301 
 
 publication of papal bulls in the kingdom before being registered in 
 Parliament, deprived the pontifical court of the revenue of vacant 
 benefices, and entrusted the election of the bishops to the chapters, 
 of the churches. 
 
 In these works, which were so important and so diverse, the 
 States- General had only a feeble part ; their last meeting had taken 
 place at Orleans, in 1439, and for twenty-two years Charles did not 
 convoke them ; instinctively he hated these assemblies, guilty, in his 
 eyes, of having favoured the troubles of the preceding reigD, and of 
 having sanctioned the shameful treaty of Troyes; but Charles was 
 seconded in his work by skilful counsellors, who, for the most part,, 
 had been drawn from the ranks of the bourgeoisie. The two most 
 illustrious were John Bureau, master- general of ordnance, 
 
 ° _ Jacques Cceur. 
 
 and Jacques Cceur, rendered as much celebrated by his 
 prosperity as by his misfortunes. By commercial speculations in 
 Europe and Asia, Jacques Cceur had acquired immense wealth, with 
 which he generously supported the credit of Charles VII. That 
 prince ennobled him, and named him his treasurer; it is to him 
 that all the financial reforms of "that period are to be attributed. But 
 the avaricious courtiers coveted his fortune and came between the- 
 King and him. His wealth was soon seized and divided amongst 
 those who had been appointed his judges, and amongst them was 
 to be seen the man who succeeded him in his office. Accused 
 of embezzlement, and deprived of all means of defence, Jacques Cceur 
 was condemned without proof, and banished from the kingdom. 
 
 Charles had become the wisest and the most powerful monarch 
 in Europe, but just causes of distrust and resentment with regard 
 to the Dauphin embittered his latter years. Louis, who had married 
 first, Margaret of Scotland, had secondly espoused, contrary to the 
 wish of his father, Charlotte, daughter of the Duke of Savoy. The 
 King ordered him to come and justify himself at his court, where the 
 Count of Dammartin, an enemy of the prince, was all powerful. The 
 Dauphin, fearing all the counsellors of his father, and ndt being able 
 to obtain surety for his person, thought at first to resist with open 
 force, and assembled troops ; but, soon convinced of his 
 
 i 1 n • t ^ ^ « - " . Flight of the 
 
 powerlessness, he took to mgnt, and sought refuge in Dauphin into 
 
 B urgundy. 
 
 the court of Burgundy, where he was received by Philip 
 
 the Good and by Charles his son with honour and munificence. 
 
302 FALL OF THE GEEEK EMPIRE. [Book III. Chap. I. 
 
 The King soon took possession of Dauphine, caused all the revenues 
 to be seized, and. united that province to the states which were held 
 directly from the crown. The Dauphin had implored the pardon 
 of his father, but the King knew his false and perverse heart, and 
 vainly requested that he would ask for pardon verbally ; unfortunately, 
 a formidable example had recently increased the distrust of his son. 
 The Duke of Alencon, prince of the blood royal, was accused by 
 the King of treason and of complicity with England. The peers of 
 the kingdom convoked for his judgment condemned him to death. 
 Charles commuted the punishment, and caused the prince to be shut 
 up in the tower of the Louvre ; the Dauphin declined to expose 
 himself to a similar chastisement. The King, from that time, believed 
 that he lived in the midst of the emissaries of his son and of their 
 ambushes. Lastly, fearing that he would be poisoned by them, and 
 suffering besides from an abscess in the mouth, he refused all 
 Death of Charles nourishment an( i allowed himself to die of hunger. He 
 vii., 1461. expired on the 22nd of July, 1461, in his fifty-eighth year. 
 
 Some years before the death of this prince there was accomplished 
 Fall of the Greek on ^ ne banks °^ ^he Bosphorus the grand catastrophe 
 Empire, 1453. w hich terminated the Middle Ages. Already Bajazet, 
 conqueror of the Christians afc "Nicopolis, had twice encamped before 
 the gates of Constantinople. The invasion of the Mogul Tamberlane 
 into the Asiatic possessions of the Turks, and the famous battle of 
 Agora, where Bajazet fell into the hands of the new conqueror, alone 
 saved the Greek empire, or at least retarded its fall for half a 
 century. Mahomet II. achieved the work which his predecessors 
 had attempted. At the head of an army of 250,000 men he besieged 
 by land and by sea that illustrious capital. The cry of distress of 
 the Greeks was not heard in Christendom, which was then divided 
 by schisms, by revolts, and by wars. Constantinople at length 
 succumbed, and its last emperor, Constantine, perished, buried 
 beneath its ruins, in 1453. Greece, Epiria, Bosnia, and Servia were 
 conquered ; the Isle of Rhodes alone, defended by the brave knights 
 of Saint John, escaped from the infidels. 
 
 At the moment when the Turks had established 
 
 State of Europe . . 
 
 at the end of the themselves m Europe in order to remain there, the 
 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 popedom, after an absence of seventy years, which the 
 historians of the Church called the captivity of Babylon, returned 
 
1422-1461] CONDITION OF EUROPE. 303 
 
 to Rome ; but it saw its spiritual prestige weakened by the scandals 
 of the schism, and its temporal power incessantly shaken 
 by the conspiracies of the Roman nobility and the sedi- 
 tions of the populace. 
 
 For a long time the republics of Lombardy, deprived of their 
 ancient glory, had been the prey of their powerful neighbours or their 
 ambitious citizens. Milan, the most illustrious, bent its head under 
 the Visconti, to whom succeeded the Sforza. Florence, on its side, 
 crushed by the quarrel of the Whites and Slacks, descendants of the 
 Gruelphs and Ghibellines, was by degrees subdued by a race of opulent 
 merchants and patrons of art, the famous Medici. Grenoa and Venice 
 disputed the empire of the sea, and exhausted themselves by that 
 rivalry. Naples, lastly, was conquered under the second House of 
 Anjou by Alphonso V., King of Aragon and of Sicily, who received 
 from the Pope, in 1473, the investiture of that new kingdom. 
 
 The Iberian peninsula, where the Moors still held the kingdom 
 of Grenada, was divided into many small states, which ain 
 were always at war with one another — Portugal, Cas- Portu g al - 
 tile, Navarre, and Aragon. This latter kingdom commenced to 
 predominate ; it extended itself to the exterior by conquests, and, 
 uniting itself with Castile by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
 it soon formed the true kingdom of Spain. 
 
 In the north, England, which Henry V. at the commencement 
 of the century had raised to so high a fortune, exhausted 
 itself under an imbecile king and a haughty queen to 
 preserve its conquests by sea, while, in the heart of the country, 
 already the germs of the terrible Wars of the Roses fermented. 
 
 In Germany, the wars of the Hussites inundated Bohemia with 
 blood. The Emperor Sigismund had succeeded the 
 
 r ° Germany and 
 
 ignoble Yanceslas, but he was powerless in trying to Hungary, 
 extinguish the fire which the funeral pile of John Huss had kindled ; 
 and the fierce Taborites,* commanded by Zisca, the terrible blind 
 man, and by the Procope, only succumbed, after twenty years of 
 struggle, under their own blows. Sigismund died in 1437, and the 
 imperial crown, which encircled the head of Albert, already King of 
 
 * The name of Taborites was given to the Hussites on account of a mountain in 
 Bohemia, where their camp was established, and which they had called Tabor. 
 
304* INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS. [Book III. Chap. L 
 
 Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria, went no longer 
 to the House of Hapsburg. 
 
 France was at peace, but she groaned under a multitude of 
 
 torments and abuses. The new day which had already 
 under Charles enlightened Italy commenced, however, to penetrate 
 
 into the kingdom. French poetry had acquired grace 
 and harmony : the lyrical verses of Charles of Orleans, the prisoner 
 of Agincourt, and of King Rene of Anjou, obtained a merited repu- 
 tation. Among the poets of that time may be reckoned Oliver of 
 La Marche, Alain Chartiers, historiographer of France, and lastly, 
 Francois Villon, who introduced the burlesque style. These men 
 would without doubt have contributed to give to French poetry a 
 national stamp if the greatest event of the fifteenth century had not 
 turned their minds in another direction. The taking of Constan- 
 tinople disseminated throughout the whole of Europe the literary 
 wealth of Greece and Rome, and the powerful genius of antiquity 
 placed his yoke upon the almost newly-born genius of modern 
 literature. 
 
 Commerce and industry also aboiit this period made happy progress 
 
 in France as well as in the rest of Europe. The require- 
 
 !Prosrr6SS or 
 
 commerce and ments of nations were better known ; they knew the value 
 of the different productions, and the extent of their con- 
 sumption in each country ; men who were well informed and pos- 
 sessed of large capital could establish factories in all places of mer- 
 chandise, and embrace Europe and Asia in commercial speculations. 
 It was in this manner that Cosmo of Medicis at Florence, and Jacques 
 Cceur, acquired their riches. Lastly, the time approached for the 
 great discoveries which were about to make the second half of the 
 fifteenth century famous, and to which the darkness of preceding 
 ages gave still more brilliancy. 
 
 " It is the distinctive character of this epoch," says an eminent 
 
 historian, " that it was employed in order to convert 
 
 General conside- primitive Europe into modern Europe ; in this consists 
 
 rations. 
 
 its importance and historical interest. If we did not 
 consider it from this point of view — if we only sought, above all, 
 what came from it, we should not only misunderstand it, but should 
 leave it promptly. Seen by itself, in fact, and in part of its results, 
 
1422-1461] GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 305 
 
 it is a time without character, a time when confusion went on 
 increasing without any one perceiving the causes — a time of move- 
 ment without direction, of agitation without results. Royalty, 
 nobility, clergy, and bourgeois, all the elements of social order, seemed 
 to turn in the same circle, equally incapable of progress or rest. 
 They made attempts of all kinds : all failed ; they tried to settle 
 governments, to establish public liberty; they tried even religious 
 reform : nothing was done — nothing was finished. If ever the 
 human race appeared devoted to an agitated yet stationary destiny, 
 to a ceaseless yet fruitless work, it was from the thirteenth to the 
 
 fifteenth century Considered, on the contrary, in its 
 
 connection with that which followed, this period is bright and 
 animated ; we can discover in it a harmony, a direction, and a pro- 
 gression ; its unity and its interest lie in the slow and concealed 
 work which was accomplished in it."* 
 
 * Ghiizot's Histoire Generate de la Civilisation en Europe. 
 
 X 
 
306 LOUIS XI. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EEIGN OF LOUIS XI. 
 
 1461-1483. 
 
 Louis XI. was thirty-eight years old when he mounted the throne. 
 Policy of Louis His reign formed an epoch, not only by the consider- 
 able extension which the kingdom obtained under him 
 and by the strengthening of the absolute power of the monarch, 
 but also on account of the new tendency of European policy and 
 of the powerful impulse which the character of Louis was able to 
 impress upon it. The art of negotiation was up to that time 
 almost unknown ; the sovereigns, governed by their blind and 
 violent passions, always sacrificed to the present the interests of the 
 future, and force decided everything. Policy, however, began to be 
 for them an object of serious study. Louis was the first who 
 converted diplomacy into a system. Endowed with a subtle and 
 astute mind, he made this art the study of his whole life, and 
 contributed more than any other to the substitution in politics of 
 the power of intelligence for the authority of force. But he mis- 
 understood all the principles of morality, and to his contempt for 
 them was falsely attributed the greater part of his success. The 
 policy which rests upon perfidy is as fruitful in calamities as that 
 which only recognizes brutal violence as law. The custom which 
 caused Louis XL to deceive always, often became fatal to him ; and 
 he was indebted for the greater part of his advantages over his 
 enemies neither to his falsehoods nor his treacheries. He triumphed 
 over all, because he knew how to comprehend his true interests, to 
 understand men, to appreciate merit and to use it, and because, em- 
 bracing in his projects the future and the present, he submitted 
 them nearly always to the calculations of reflection and of con- 
 summate prudence. Finally, it may be said that he drew upon himself 
 
1461-1483] HIS FIRST ACTS. 307 
 
 his reverses by his vices, and that he obtained his most brilliant 
 successes by his intellectual qualities, when allied with wholesome 
 morality. 
 
 Feudalism had regained all its power during the long anarchy of 
 the preceding reigns, and Charles VII. himself, while situation of 
 he held in respect the Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy 
 and the Count of Anjou, the great vassals of the crown, did not 
 obtain from them any pledge of obedience. The houses of these 
 three princes vied with the royal house in power and in splendour. 
 That of Burgundy was mistress of Burgundy, of Flanders, of the 
 Low Country and of the Free County, and was the richest in Europe ; 
 that of Anjou, which had lost the throne of Naples but had acquired 
 Lorraine by marriage, possessed, besides, Maine and Provence, and 
 enclosed the domains of the King in its vast possessions. The 
 south groaned under the tyranny of the counts of Albret, of Foix, 
 of Armagnac, and of a crowd of other noblemen who, for the most 
 part, exercised a despotic and absolute power throughout their lands. 
 The feudal system was then the greatest obstacle to the tendencies 
 which drew together the people who inhabited the same soil, and 
 to the healthy progress of national sentiments ; it had become at 
 last the scourge of Europe, which it had saved in the tenth century. 
 The glory of striking it a mortal blow belongs to Louis XI. 
 
 This prince, who from being a fugitive became a kitig, was 
 informed of the plots hatched against him in the court of his 
 father, and also of the hatred which the most influential men in 
 the kingdom bore him, and, according to the expression of a cele- 
 brated writer, he only saw in the opening of his reign the 
 commencement of his vengeance.* He believed that he had need 
 of the support of the people against his enemies, and promised at 
 his accession to diminish the taxes and to submit the national 
 charges to the approval of the States- General. But „ . 
 
 ° rr First acts of 
 
 his liberalities towards those whom he wished to gain LouisXL 
 exhausted the treasury ; the taxes were augmented, and the States- 
 General left in oblivion. Some insurrections broke out, but Louis 
 knew how to suppress them. One of the first acts of his reign 
 was the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction, which he decreed in 
 
 * Montesquieu, 
 
 x 2 
 
308 LEAGUE OF THE PUBLIC GOOD. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 hatred of the institutions of his father ; at the end of his life, 
 however, he re-established the principal dispositions. Another ordi- 
 nance, apparently of futile interest, profoundly irritated the nobility. 
 The King, passionately fond of the chase, and jealous of his pleasures 
 as of his authority, forbade that sport in the royal forests ; and 
 soon after he added to this edict others which afforded new grounds 
 for discontent. Economical himself, and strict in the administration 
 of finances, he did not permit them to be pillaged by the princes 
 of his family. His yoke bore equally upon all ; his active vigilance 
 surveyed at the same time each part of the kingdom, and he would 
 not suffer any tyrant in the country but himself. 
 
 The irritation became general ; the princes wished for apanages 
 which would render them independent ; the nobles demanded dig- 
 nities and gold : they wished back with all their hearts the anarchy 
 of Charles VI., and leagued themselves against Louis XI. He, in 
 seeking to divide his two most formidable neighbours, Francis II., 
 Duke of Brittany, and the Count of Charolais, son of the Duke of 
 Burgundy, excited them against himself. He had perfidiously given 
 to both of them the government of Normandy, in the hope of seeing 
 them dispute ; however, they united together against him. The resent- 
 ment of the Count of Charolais was, however, more vehement because 
 Louis had been loaded with benefits by Philip the Good, his father. 
 This count, who was afterwards Charles the Bash, and one of the 
 most powerful sovereigns in Europe, offered a striking contrast to 
 Louis XL Violent and untamable, always governed by pride or 
 ano-er, he showed himself during the whole of his life the most 
 ardent and the most terrible enemy of the monarch his sovereign. 
 
 It was around him and the Duke of Brittany that the 
 Public Good, princes of the royal blood rallied, together with the 
 
 great nobles who were discontented, in the number of 
 whom must be reckoned those who had obtained more glory under 
 the late King, and who had served him better*— Dunois, Saint Pol, 
 Tanneguy-Duchatel, and Antoine of Chabannes, Count of Dammartin. 
 They gave to their league the name of the League of the Public Good, 
 Battle of Mont anc ^ pl ace( 3- a ^ their head the Duke of Berry, Charles 
 lhery, 1465. f F rance) brother of the King, who claimed Normandy 
 
 from him as an apanage. The bloody battle of Montlhery, where 
 
1461-1483] POLICY OF LOUIS XL 309 
 
 Louis left the field of battle to the Count of Charolais, was soon 
 followed by the rising of Normandy in favour of the princes. 
 
 The King, seeing himself the weakest, laid down his arms and had 
 recourse to negotiations. No one possessed better than he the art of 
 gaining hearts by insinuating and flattering words. He feigned to 
 stifle his just anger, to forget all his injuries, and signed the treaty 
 of Oonflans, by which he gave Normandy to his brother, Treat f 
 and satisfied the exorbitant pretensions of the princes. Conflans > 1465 - 
 Louis ceded to them towns, vast domains, and governments, and piled 
 up dignities upon the rebel nobles. Saint Pol was named Constable. 
 But Louis only gave with one hand to take back with the other when 
 the moment should arrive. He studied his enemies, and from that 
 time his principal care was to gain at any price the most skilful, and 
 to divide the others and crush them separately. It was thus that he 
 attached to himself the Duke of Bourbon and many ministers of his 
 father, among others the Chancellor, Juvenal des Ursins, and the 
 celebrated Count of Dammartin. He needed the support of the 
 nation, and convoked the States- General at Tours in _. . _, , . 
 
 7 States-General of 
 
 1468 ; however, he only had recourse to the people when Tours, 1468. 
 he knew that they would have no other will than his own. Louis 
 opened the States in person ; and the Chancellor, after having pointed 
 out to the deputies "the great wish which the monarch had always 
 and had still of augmenting and increasing the kingdom and the 
 crown," spoke strongly against the enemies of the nation, who had 
 caused the King's own brother to serve as an instrument for their 
 ambition, and only sought to enfeeble the State by dismembering it. 
 Louis was obeyed ; never did States show themselves more docile. 
 They annulled, according to the wish of the King, the 
 treaty of Conflans, retaking Normandy from Charles of treaty of Con- 
 France, and declaring that the prince ought to consider 
 himself satisfied with his income of twelve thousand livres, fixed 
 by Charles VII. as the apanage of the princes of the blood royal. 
 Louis, having obtained from them all that he wished, was anxious to 
 dismiss them. They only remained in assembly for eight days ; and 
 it was remarked, as a symptom of the progress of the bourgeoisie, 
 that the three orders had voted in common This was the only con- 
 vocation of the States- General under this reign. Louis XI. distrusted 
 public liberty quite as much as feudal power. 
 
310 TEEATY OF PEEEONNE. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 Charles of France, irritated at losing Normandy, nnited again 
 New league of with the Duke of Brittany and with Charles the 
 
 the Princes 
 
 Rash, who had become Duke of Burgundy by the 
 death of Philip the Good, his father. All three treated with England 
 
 9 
 
 Treat of An- against France, and invited King Edward IV. to trans- 
 cems, 1468. port an army into the kingdom. Louis foresaw their 
 
 attack ; he marched unexpectedly against the Duke of Brittany, who, 
 separated from his allies, and, seized with fear, submitted by the 
 treaty of Ancenis. 
 
 The King then sought to gain over his people ; he gave charters 
 to many of the towns, protected commerce by wise ordinances, and 
 reorganized the national militia of Paris, composed of all the men 
 between sixteen and sixty, of whom he made a list ; it numbered 
 eighty thousand men, arranged under sixteen banners, and was 
 placed in possession of the right to elect its own officers. Louis 
 endeavoured afterwards to find allies in the states of his most 
 powerful enemy. The rich, populous, and manufacturing towns of 
 Flanders were prompt to revolt against the cruel violences of the 
 Duke of Burgundy, their sovereign. Ghent, Bruges, and Liege were 
 distinguished amongst them for their power and their energy in 
 seeking after liberty. Louis sent an emissary into the latter town, 
 already irritated against the bishop, its sovereign prince, allied with 
 Charles, and excited it to revolt, promising his support. In the mean- 
 time, in order the better to deceive the Duke and to lull his sus- 
 picions, he demanded from him a safe- conduct, obtained it, and, 
 trusting too much to his own seductive manners, he went close to his 
 enemy at Peronne. Scarcely had he arrived when the revolt of 
 Liege broke out. Charles learnt that the populace had given itself 
 up to the most horrible excesses ; that the bishop, Louis of Bourbon, 
 his relation and his ally, was massacred, and that Louis XI. was the 
 author of the sedition. At this news his rage knew no bounds ; he 
 held the King prisoner, and threatened to kill him. Louis submitted 
 Treat of Pe" ^° e verytlnng i n order to get out of his peril ; he signed 
 ronne, 1468. jfc Q treaty of Peronne, which took away from him all 
 
 sovereignty in the states of Burgundy, and gave to his brother 
 Champagne and Brie as an apanage ; lastly, he oifered to the Duke 
 to march in person against the revolted inhabitants of Liege. On 
 these conditions he was freed ; but first, he was witness of the ruin of 
 
1461-1483] NEW DANGERS TO LOUIS XI. 311 
 
 that unfortunate town which he himself had incited to rebellion ; he 
 saw a part of its inhabitants massacred, and felicitated Charles on 
 his frightful triumph. 
 
 England was then desolated with the war of the Two Roses* 
 Louis XL, having taken the side of the red rose, united against 
 Edward IV., with his relative Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. , 
 and with the famous Earl of Warwick, surname d the King -maker. 
 Edward, conquered, retired to Holland, and implored the assistance 
 of Duke Charles, his brother-in-law. Louis, without anxiety on 
 the part of England, followed up his advantages. He convoked an 
 assembly of the principal inhabitants, whom he took care to choose 
 himself, says Comines, from those who would not contradict his 
 wishes ; and he caused the treaty of Peronne to be annulled by 
 them, under the pretext that Charles had onlv imposed _,. . . , . 
 
 ' . . . r J r The principal m- 
 
 it upon him by causing him to break his word. Louis, theiieXyof* 1 
 in. disengaging himself from his obligations, created for Perorme > 147U 
 himself new dangers. Edward IV., assisted by Charles the Rash, 
 had retaken his crown ; Henry "VI. and his son were „ , 
 
 ' J New dangers to 
 
 assassinated ; the Duke of Burgundy called into France Louls XL 
 the English monarch, and promised Marie, his daughter and heiress, 
 to Charles of France, Duke of Guienne, who had recently received 
 that province from Louis XL as an apanage. The Duke of Brittany 
 renewed his intrigues ; and the Constable Saint Pol sold his services 
 to the two parties, seeking to raise himself at the expense of one or 
 the other. 
 
 The King thus saw himself threatened with a new storm, when his 
 brother fell ill, and died after some months of suffering. Louis was 
 accused of poisoning him, and did not deny it, and _ ._ . .. . 
 
 x ° J Sudden death to 
 
 his memory is stained with the crime. The Duke of hls brother. 
 Burgundy soon caused his troops to march into Picardy, massacred 
 the inhabitants of the town of Nesle, and spread terror before his 
 .steps. But the admirable defence of Beauvais, where Jeanne 
 Hachette immortalized herself by her courage, arrested his army, 
 while the King negotiated separately with each of the rebellious 
 
 * This name was given to the Civil War because the two houses which contested the 
 throne, those of York and Lancaster, both issuing from Edward III., bore in their 
 coat of arms, the first a white rose, and the second a red rose. 
 
312 VENGEANCE OF LOUIS XI. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 princes, and attached to himself by his liberality the two cleverest 
 men of their party, the Lord of Lescun, favourite of the Duke of 
 Brittany, and Philip de Comines, confidant of the Duke of Burgundy. 
 The manoeuvres of Louis spread division among the chiefs of the 
 league : the Duke of Brittany signed a new truce, and the Duke of 
 Burgundy marched against the Constable Saint Pol, who had seized on 
 his own account the town of Saint Quentin. The King took advantage 
 from that moment of every opportunity to crush some of his enemies. 
 He caused the Duke of Alencon to be tried and condemned to death, 
 for the second time, by the Parliament of Paris. The 
 
 Vengeance of ' J 
 
 Louis xi. Cardinal La Balue owed his fortune to Louis XL, and 
 
 had betrayed him ; he was shut up in an iron cage, eight feet square, 
 invented by the Cardinal himself, and there he remained* a prisoner 
 for ten years. Lastly, Cardinal Albi, John Goffredi, formerly Bishop 
 of Arras, and a famous inquisitor in Flanders, where he had perpetrated 
 atrocious barbarities, was ordered by the King to punish the guilty 
 Count of Armagnac, one of the supporters of the League of the Public 
 Good, and who, in marrying his own sister, had added incest to all 
 his other crimes. Besieged in the town of Lectoure, he gave himself 
 up to the Cardinal, who had promised hint safety for his person, and 
 who caused him immediately to be stabbed before the eyes of his wife, 
 who was enceinte ; he caused her to be poisoned ; "and the dreadful 
 Goffredi, wishing to exterminate every witness of his perjury, gave 
 orders that all the inhabitants of Lectoure should be massacred, and 
 the town itself given up to the names. 
 
 Edward IV., King of England, drawn over by the Duke of 
 Brittany, was then in France with a numerous army; Charles, his 
 ally, seconded him badly, and the English remained isolated in the 
 kingdom. Louis XL, always more prompt to negotiate than to 
 fight, gained over by his bribes the confidence of Edward, and was 
 prompt in signing with him a truce of nine years. The King gave 
 seventy- five thousand crowns, ready money, to Edward, 
 
 Mercantile J "* * 
 
 truces, 1475. an( j en g a g e d to pay sixty thousand every year until a 
 
 projected marriage between the Dauphin and the daughter of the 
 English monarch could be accomplished. Charles, abandoned by 
 the English, also signed with Louis a truce for nine years. Each 
 of these two enemies sacrificed on that occasion those on whom his 
 
1461-1483] CONQUEST OP LORRAINE. 313 
 
 adversary wished to take vengeance : Charles delivered to the 
 scaffold the Constable Saint Pol; Louis abandoned his ally, Rene, 
 Duke of Lorraine, whose inheritance Charles the Rash coveted. Con- 
 temporaries saw a matter of traffic only in these two truces, and they 
 were called the Mercantile Truces. 
 
 Sovereign of the duchy of Burgundy, of the Free County,* of 
 Hainaut, of Flanders, of Holland, and of Ghieldre, Charles wished, by 
 joining to it Lorraine, a portion of Switzerland, and the inheritance of 
 old King Rene, Count of Provence, to recompose the ancient kingdom 
 of Lorraine, such as it had existed under the Carlovingian dynasty; 
 and nattered himself that by offering his daughter to Maximilian, 
 son of Frederick III., he would obtain the title of king. 
 Deceived in his hopes, the Duke of Burgundy tried means to take 
 away Lorraine from the young Rene. That province was necessary 
 to him, in order to ioin his northern states with those „ , „ 
 
 ' o Conquest of 
 
 in the south. The conquest was rapid, and Nancy cSStheRasii 
 opened its gates to Charles the Rash ; but it was 14/6, 
 reserved for a small people, already celebrated for their heroic valour 
 and by their love of liberty, to beat this powerful man. Irritated 
 against the Swiss, who had braved him, Charles crossed over the Jura, 
 besieged the little town of Granson, and, in despite of a capitulation, 
 caused all the defenders to be hanged or drowned. At 
 
 . Battles of Gran- 
 
 this news the eight cantons which then composed sou and of 
 
 ° t r Morat, 1476. 
 
 the Helvetian republic arose, and under the very 
 walls of the town which had been the theatre of his cruelty they 
 attacked the Duke and dispersed his troops. Some months later, 
 supported by young Rene of Lorraine, despoiled of his inheritance, 
 they exterminated a second Burgundian army before Morat. Charles, 
 vanquished, reassembled a third army, and marched in the midst 
 of winter against Nancy, which had refallen into the hands of the 
 Swiss and Lorraines. It was there that he perished, betrayed by his 
 mercenary soldiers, and overpowered by numbers. His corpse was 
 found naked and pierced with wounds, lying in a frozen Death of Charles 
 
 tlic Rtisli before 
 
 pool ; u-iid the people learned with transports of delight Nancy, 1477. 
 that they were freed from a tyrant as cruel as he was formidable. 
 
 * The imperial county of Burgundy had acquired by its strong position in the 
 mountains a kind of independence, from which came the name of the Free County. 
 
 
314 TREATY OF ARRAS. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 At this news Louis immediately seized the duchy of Burgundy, 
 and many fortified towns on the Somme, on the pretext that they 
 were masculine fiefs, and he claimed the guardianship of the daughter 
 of Charles, Mary of Burgundy. His cruelty excited him in propor- 
 tion as his security increased. The Duke of Nemours, of a younger 
 branch of the Armagnacs, formerly an accomplice of his enemies, 
 was his prisoner. The Kino- caused him to be tried by 
 
 Execution of the ... 
 
 Duke of Ne- the Parliament, to which he added commissioners en- 
 
 mours. 
 
 riched beforehand with the spoils of the unfortunate 
 Duke. Nemours was condemned to death, and Louis ordered that 
 his children should be placed upon the scaffold during the execution 
 of their father and be sprinkled with his blood. He caused them 
 afterwards to be thrown into dungeons, where they were subjected 
 to horrible tortures. 
 
 The perfidy and ferocity of the King raised all the new states 
 which he had seized against him. Soon a powerful enemy threatened 
 him. This was Maximilian of Austria, recently united to Mary of 
 Burgundy, and who claimed her heritage. The bloody and in- 
 Battie of Gui - decisive battle of Gruinnegate, given in 1479 by the 
 negate, 1479. French to the Flemish and Burgundian troops of 
 Maximilian, was followed by a long truce ; and four years later, on 
 the death of Mary, young Marguerite of Austria, her daughter, 
 then two years old, was promised to the Dauphin. The treaty of 
 Arras, concluded by Louis with the states of Flanders and the 
 Treat of Arras Emperor, confirmed to him the possession of the duchy 
 uvo Burgundies °^ Burgundy, of the Free County or county of Bur- 
 ^?h°the crown g ,im dy, an( ^ ^ ne counties of Macon, Charolais, Auxerre, 
 1482 ' and Artois. 
 
 Old Rene of Anjou, sovereign of Lorraine and Provence and 
 titular King of Naples, had died a few years before. This prince, 
 whose goodness, generosity, and love of fetes had gained for him 
 the name of " Grood King Bene," had for a long period abdicated 
 the ducal crown of Lorraine in favour of Rene, the son of his 
 eldest daughter. He left by will the rest of his estates to his nephew 
 Charles of Maine, the last male scion of the second house of Anjou. 
 He only survived his uncle a short time ; he died without children, 
 and bequeathed his domains in France and his rights to the crown 
 
1461-1483] SUPEESTITION OF LOUIS XI. 315 
 
 of Naples to Louis XI., who had already obtained from Reunion of the 
 
 1 states of the 
 
 the King* of Aragon, as a pledge for a loan of two hun- second house of 
 
 s & ' . Anjou with the 
 
 dred thousand crowns, Roussillon and Cerdagne. crown, i48i. 
 
 However, the King was growing old, and trembled at the thought 
 of dying. After having deceived every one, he sought to deceive 
 himself. Free from the cares which politics had given 
 
 Terrors and 
 
 him, he appeared to be consumed by a fierce and gloomy superstition of 
 melancholy. Shut up in his chateau of Plessis-lez- 
 Tours, his ordinary residence, dreading the approach of his confidants 
 and the members of his family, he redoubled his precautions and 
 executions. Ten thousand mantraps were disseminated through 
 the avenues of the chateau, round which wandered unceasingly 
 the grand prevot, Tristan the Hermit. Every suspected man was 
 hanged or drowned without trial. Scotch archers watched on the 
 walls and struck fatally all those who approached within reach of 
 their arrows ; and, while the neighbourhood of the royal residence 
 resounded with the cries of so many victims, the monarch, whose 
 fanatical devotion equalled his cruelty, multiplied his pilgrimages, 
 despoiled his people in order to enrich the churches, caused relics to 
 be brought at great expense from all parts, and prayed to God and the 
 saints to prolong his miserable life. The Virgin, above all, was the 
 object of his particular worship ; he invented for her the prayer called 
 the Angelus ; he created her Countess of Boulogne ; and he did not 
 meditate an act of perfidy or cruelty without having implored her 
 assistance first. He was the first who bore constantly the name of 
 Very Christian; and no man showed more clearly to what aberration 
 a superstitious faith separated from all morality will lead. No oath 
 was sacred for him unless it had been taken under the cross of 
 Saint L6, which, he believed, had been made from a piece of the true 
 cross. His strange superstitions were those of his time, when it 
 was generally supposed that certain practical externals of devotion 
 were sufficient to efface the most enormous crimes. 
 
 This King, so much dreaded, had joined to the crown Berry, the 
 apanage of his brother, Provence, the duchy of Bur- 
 gundy, Anjou, Maine, Ponthieu, the counties of Auxerre, the crown under 
 of Macon, Oharolais, the Free County, Artois, Marche, 
 Armagnac, Cerdagne, and Roussillon.* He survived the greater 
 
 * The seven latter provinces did not. yet remain irrevocably united with. France : one 
 
316 DEATH OF LOUIS XI. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 part of his enemies, and when the tomb had closed over those who 
 conld have destroyed his work, God, whom he had so much offended, 
 did not permit him to enjoy it. He died on the 30th of Angnst, 1483, 
 Death of leaving the sceptre to his yonng son, Charles. This 
 
 Louis xl, 1843. q^h^ na( j excited his suspicions. Louis had left him in 
 ignorance in order that his ambition, which he feared, might be less 
 dangerous ; and he only taught him one single sentence of the Latin 
 language, which was a faithful resume of his policy : — ■ 
 
 Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare. 4 ' 
 
 France was indebted to Louis XI. for many wise institutions, 
 
 nearly all created with the design of centralizing the action of power 
 
 and beating down the remainder of the feudality. To attain this 
 
 end, he tried to establish in the kingdom uniformity of 
 
 Ordinances of .. 
 
 Louis xl Posts, customs, and of weights and measures ; he created 
 
 New Parliaments. # m ' 
 
 posts, establishing on the great roads couriers, solely 
 destined to carry public news to the King, and to carry his orders ; he 
 replaced the corps of free archers by Swiss corps, and some privileged 
 companies by a Scotch guard. Louis XL instituted three new 
 parliaments, at Grenoble, Bordeaux, and Dijon. The most remark- 
 able edict of his reign is that which declared judicial offices to be 
 
 held for life. That edict founded the independence 
 Qf the judicial and the power of the parliaments, but was not inspired, 
 
 however, by love of justice ; for no one more often than 
 Louis XL had recourse in his criminal trials to commissions and to 
 illegal and violent means. Under his reign legislature became a 
 science ; the schools acquired new life, and letters obtained a con* 
 sideration which they had not enjoyed up to that time. 
 
 Louis sought for a long time, but in vain, to gain the hearts of the 
 people by the simplicity of his manners and the familiarity of his 
 conversations with men of humble condition. He was more hated 
 than any of his contemporary princes ; not that they were much less 
 perfidious or cruel, but they appeared to commit evil by a blind and 
 brutal instinct, while Louis was ferocious in cold blood, and submitted 
 crime to calculation. Jealous of all superiority, he placed round him 
 
 part was given anew in apanage, and the other part restored to foreign sovereigns, and 
 only returned one "by one to the Crown of France. 
 
 * " He who knows not how to dissimulate knows not how to reign." 
 
1461-1483] INVENTION OF PRINTING. 317 
 
 only obscure men. John Cottier, his physician ; Olivier le Dain, his 
 barber ; and Tristan the Hermit, the grand prevot, whom he called 
 his gossip, — these were his confidants. There had not been a great 
 man during his reign ; but history has preserved to us the beautiful 
 answer addressed to the King by the first president, John de la 
 "Vaquerie. That magistrate, considering that a royal edict was con- 
 trary to the public welfare, presented himself before Louis XI. at 
 the head of his corps. " What do you wish ? " said the King to 
 him. " The loss of our offices," answered La Vaquerie, "and even 
 death, rather than betray our consciences." 
 
 Printing, which was about to change the face of the world, was 
 invented in Germany during this reign. That invention, of which 
 many countries dispute the honour, is generally attri- _. ,. n f 
 buted to John Gutenburg, of Mayence. Louis XL, at r nntin =- 
 the request of two theologians, caused the first French printing press 
 to be established at Sorbonne. He gave encouragement to scholars, 
 founded universities, and opened manv schools of law 
 
 ... Schools. 
 
 and medicine. The learned Philip of Comines, who 
 
 lived for a long time in his intimacy, was the historian of his reign. 
 
 Louis XL also protected commerce, created manufactories for 
 precious stuffs, respected the value of the coinage, and „ 
 
 r - Commerce and 
 
 permitted the nobles to devote themselves to commerce industl T- 
 without derogating from their position ; but, although he lived without 
 pomp, and exercised towards himself a sordid parsimony, he exhausted 
 his kingdom by gifts to those whom he wished to gain, to corrupt, 
 or to maintain faithful. The taxes, which only rose in the time of 
 Charles VII. to eighteen hundred thousand livres, were T , . . 
 
 ° liaising of the 
 
 raised under his successor to four millions seven hundred taxes - 
 thousand, a prodigious sum for a time when public credit did not 
 exist, and when agriculture, commerce, and industry, the sources of 
 public wealth, were still in their infancy. 
 
 The principal work of Louis XL was the abasement of the second 
 feudality, which had raised itself on the ruins of the - 
 
 -i-ii i -, Abasement of 
 
 first, and which, without him, would have replunged the nobles under 
 
 . . r o Louis XI. 
 
 Prance into anarchy. The chiefs of that feudality 
 
 were, however, more formidable, since, for the most part, they 
 
 belonged to the blood royal of Prance. Their powerful houses, 
 
318 FOREIGN POSSESSIONS IN FRANCE. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 which possessed at the accession of that prince a considerable part 
 of the kingdom, were those of Orleans, Anion, Burgundy, 
 
 Feudal houses. & ' Via 
 
 and Bonrbon. They found themselves much weakened 
 at his death, and dispossessed in great part, as we have seen in the 
 history of the reign, by confiscations, treaties, gifts, or heritages. 
 By the side of these houses, which issued from that of France, 
 there were others whose power extended still, at this period, in 
 the limits of France proper, over vast domains. Those of Luxem- 
 bourg and La Marck possessed great wealth upon the frontier of the 
 north ; that of Yaudemont had inherited Lorraine and the duchy 
 of Bar ; the house of La Tour was powerful in Auvergne ; in the 
 south the houses of Foix and Albert ruled, the first in the valley of 
 Ariege, the second between the Adour and the Pyrenees. In the 
 west the house of Brittany had guarded its independence ;^but the 
 moment approached when this beautiful province was to be for 
 ever united with the crown. Lastly, two foreign sovereigns held 
 possessions in France : the Pope had Avignon and the county 
 Venaissin ; and the Duke of Savoy possessed, between the Rhone and 
 the Saone, Bugey and Valromey. The time was still distant when 
 the royal authority would be seen freely exercised through every 
 territory comprised in the natural limits of the kingdom. But 
 Louis XL did much to attain this aim, and after him no princely 
 or vassal house was powerful enough to resist the crown by its own 
 forces, and to put the throne in peril. 
 
1483-1498] CHARLES VIII. 319 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REIGN OF CHARLES VIII. 
 
 1483-1498. 
 
 Charles VIII., son and successor of Louis XI., mounted the throne 
 at the age of thirteen years. He had two sisters, of whom the eldest 
 was married to the Lord of Beaujeu, of the house of Bourbon. She 
 had intellect, and certain traits of the character of her father, who 
 had preferred her to his other children, and had specially charged 
 her and her husband to direct the new King. Jeanne, his 
 youngest, not favoured by nature, was married to her cousin the 
 Duke of Orleans. Charles had passed a part of his solitary youth in 
 the chateau of Amboise, where long illnesses had deformed his 
 body. Kept by his father in profound ignorance of everything, he 
 did not know how to fix his attention on anything. Incapable of 
 application and of discernment, and feeling his weakness, he lived 
 for a long time in guardianship, though he was fully of age when 
 his father died, having attained his fourteenth year. 
 
 Anne of Beaujeu, profiting by the influence which long custom 
 had given her over her brother, preserved the guardianship of his 
 person, and took possession of the power conjointly with her husband. 
 This authority was soon disputed by the Dukes of Orleans and 
 Bourbon, and the Count of Clermont, all three princes of the blood 
 royal and chiefs of the feudal reaction. The first was heir pre- 
 sumptive to the throne, and the second eldest brother of the Lord 
 of Beaujeu. At last, in order to put an end. to their dangerous 
 rivalries, with one accord the States-General were convoked at 
 Tours. The deputies separated themselves into six com- s t ates . Generalof 
 mittees under the name of the " Six Nations," France (He 1484, 
 de France), Burgundy, Normandy, Aquitaine, Languedoc, and Langue- 
 doil (centre province), and showed themselves in most respects 
 worthy of the States of 1356 under King John. They laid their 
 
320 MEETING OF THE STATES- GENERAL. [Boon III. Chap. II. 
 
 hands on all abuses, described all the reforms, and invoked the 
 ancient French constitution, which, however, was only written in 
 the hearts of men, and existed only in name. The order of the 
 clergy demanded the liberties of the Grallican Church, contrary to 
 the wish of the bishops ; the nobility claimed anything that could 
 restore to it its ancient military importance ; the third estate 
 solicited the abolition of prevotal justice, the diminution of the 
 costs of law, the moderation of the tolls, and the surety of the roads ; 
 then, presenting the picture of the miseries of the people, it entreated 
 the King to reduce the expenses, and above all to abolish the land-tax 
 (tattle), affirming that the inhabitants of many of the districts of 
 France had fled to Brittany or to England. " Others," they said, 
 " were dead of hunger ; others- in their despair had killed their wives 
 and children and then themselves ; lastly, a great number who had 
 been robbed of their cattle were themselves harnessed to the waggon 
 with their children ; many, in order to escape the seizure of their 
 oxen, only dared to labour in the fields by night." 
 
 Louis XI. had stretched his jurisdiction too strongly, and the reac- 
 tion broke out in every part. The whole of France, by the mouth of 
 its deputies, demanded a return to the government of Charles VII. 
 Emboldening themselves by degrees, the States dared to deliberate on 
 the opportunity of a permanent council of guardianship, taken from 
 their midst, to be charged with the direction of affairs in the name of 
 the King.* However, when threatened by the princes, the States grew 
 weak, and committed themselves to the wisdom of the infant prince 
 to grant their requests. They named the Duke of Orleans president of 
 the council, gave the second place to the Duke of Bourbon, constable, 
 and gave the third to the Lord of Beaujeu ; they decided that the 
 
 * It was in the course of this discussion that an orator, the Lord of La Roche, deputy 
 of the nobility of Bui-gundy, pronounced the following words : — "Royalty is an office, 
 not an inheritance. It was the sovereign people who originally created kings. The 
 state is the affair of the people ; sovereignty does not belong to princes, who only 
 exist through the people. Those who hold the power by force, or in any other manner, 
 without the consent of the people, are usurpers of the rights of another. In case of 
 minority or incapacity, public affairs return to the people, who retake them as their 
 own. The people — that is, the universality of the inhabitants of the kingdom, the 
 States-General — are the depositaries of the will of the kingdom. An act could only take 
 the force of law by the sanction of the States ; nothing is holy, nothing solid, without 
 their approval." — Journal des Etats-Generaux. 
 
1483-1498] LEAGUE OF THE PRINCES. 321 
 
 States alone had the right to tax the people, ordered redactions in 
 the army, and voted a tax of twelve hnndred thonsand livres for two 
 years, declaring that at the expiration of that period it wonld be 
 necessary to convoke them anew, in order to arrange that the tax 
 should be kept np. They established these principles without taking 
 any of the guarantees necessary to cause them to be observed. Soon 
 the discussions degenerated into shameful quarrels concerning the 
 redivision of the land-tax in the provinces. Profiting by these 
 divisions and the lassitude of the deputies, the princes promised 
 everything for the King, and hastened to dismiss the States. "No 
 promise was kept, and none of the wishes expressed heard favourably. 
 The Duke of Orleans, a young prince less occupied with business 
 than pleasure, was soon removed by his sister-in-law, Anne, from 
 the council, of which the deputies had named him president ; and the 
 kingdom was governed by a woman, who held her title 
 
 Anne of Beaujeu 
 
 to power neither by the wish of the States nor the laws governs the king- 
 
 1 J m dom. 
 
 of the kingdom. The wisdom and vigour with which 
 this princess employed the royal authority caused the people to 
 forget that she had usurped it; but a. league was formed against her, 
 composed of the princes of the blood roval : at their head T , , 
 
 r x J League of the 
 
 figured the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, the Prince Princes > U35 - 
 of Orange, Philip de Comines, and the Count of Dunois, son of the 
 famous bastard of that name, and the most skilful negotiator of his 
 century. These confederates, less guilty in having struggled against 
 the usurpation of the regency than in opening the kingdom to 
 foreigners, called to their aid Maximilian of Austria, and Francis II. 
 Duke of Brittany. 
 
 That province was a prey to anarchy. The old Duke Francis II., 
 nearly imbecile, reigned only in name. He had given all his con- 
 fidence to the son of a tailor named Landais, whom he had made 
 his treasurer and favourite. The nobles of Brittany, irritated by the 
 tyrannical yoke of this parvenu, were leagued ^ together against him 
 and against their duke. Anne of Beaujeu, always acting in the nam 
 of the King, made an alliance with them. She united herself in a 
 similar manner with Rene of Lorraine and the Flemings, who had 
 revolted at this period against Maximilian of Austria, their sovereign. 
 
 Richard III., of the house of York, then reigned in England. 
 
 Y 
 
322 END OF THE WARS OF THE KOSES. [Book III. Chap. III. 
 
 Tutor to his nephews at the death of Edward IV., he had commenced 
 by contesting their birth, and then caused them to be killed. The 
 Dukes of Orleans and Brittany united themselves with this monster, 
 and for the price of his assistance engaged to deliver up to him 
 Henry of Richmond, a prince of the royal race, and avenger of the 
 Lancastrians, who was then taking* refusre on the continent. Anne of 
 Beaujeu supported this prince, and furnished him with troops, with 
 which he disembarked in England. Soon the battle of Bosworth, 
 , where Richard III. perished, assured the throne to 
 
 End of the War of _ r ' 
 
 the Two Roses in ki s rival. Henry of Richmond, grandson of Owen 
 
 England. J ' & 
 
 Tudor and Catherine of Valois,* was recognized King 
 
 of England in 1485. He had married Elizabeth of York, and thus 
 
 reunited in person the risrhts of the two families 
 
 Accession of the 
 
 House of Tudor, between whom the kingdom had been divided for so 
 
 1485. ° 
 
 many years. The Wars of the Two_ Roses, or of the 
 houses of York and Lancaster, ended at his accession to the throne. 
 About the same time the Breton nobles triumphed. They seized 
 Landais in the very chamber of their sovereign, who delivered him up 
 while asking for mercy ; it was in vain : Landais was condemned to 
 death and executed, and the feeble Francis II. approved of the sentence. 
 Anne of Beaujeu profited skilfully by the success of her allies. 
 civil war in ® ne s "°-bdued the south, and took Guienne away from the 
 
 trance, i486. Count of Commingle, who had embraced the side of 
 the princes. The latter were in consternation. Dunois reanimated 
 their courage ; he addressed many princes far distant from one 
 another, to whom he gave hopes of gaining the hand of the daughter 
 of the Duke of Brittany, heiress of the duchy. It was thus that 
 lie flattered one by one, and drew over to or maintained on his side, 
 Alain d'Albret, the Lord of Beam, Maximilian of Austria, recently 
 elected King of the Romans, and the powerful Yiscount of Rohan. 
 However, Anne caused her brother to summon to the throne, in the 
 Parliament of Paris, the leagued princes and the principal nobles of 
 their party. They did not appear ; and in the month of May following 
 a sentence was issued by which Count Dunois, Lescun, Count of Com- 
 
 * Catherine, after the death of Henry V., had married, a second time, a Welsh 
 gentleman named Tudor, a descendant on the female side from the third son of 
 Edward III., John of Gfaunt, Duke of Lancaster. 
 
1483-1498] TREATY OF SABLE. 323 
 
 minge, Philip de Comines, the Lord of Argenton, and many other 
 nobles, were condemned as being guilty of high treason against the 
 King. JSTo sentence was pronounced against the princes. 
 
 Anne followed up her advantages. She entrusted the royal army 
 to La Tremouille, who marched into Brittany and met 
 
 ^ . Battle of Saint 
 
 the army of the princes near to Saint Anbin du Aubindu 
 
 J r m Cormier, 1487. 
 
 Cormier. Marshal de Bieux, the Lord d'Albret, and 
 Chateaubriand commanded it ; the Duke of Orleans and the Prince 
 of Orange were in its ranks. They engaged in battle ; it was 
 gained by La Tremouille, and prepared the way for the union of 
 Brittany with France. The Duke of Orleans, the Prince of Orange, 
 and a great number of nobles were taken prisoners. The conqueror 
 invited them to his table, and when the repast was finished two 
 Franciscan monks entered the saloon. The guests were struck with 
 stupefaction : La Tremouille rose and said, " Princes, I send back 
 your sentence to the King ; but you, knights, who have broken 
 your faith and falsified your oath of chivalry, you will expiate your 
 crime with your heads. If you have any remorse in your con- 
 sciences, here are two monks to confess you." The saloon resounded 
 with sobs ; the knights, supplicating, embraced the knees of the 
 princes, who, seized with horror, remained immovable. The con- 
 demned were led out into the courtyard and put to death. The 
 Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Orange were led back into 
 France, where Anne held them prisoners. The treaty _ r .. g w^ 
 of Sable, concluded in the same year, suspended hos- 1487- 
 tilities between France and Brittany. 
 
 The Constable, the Duke of Bourbon, was dead ; his brother, Lord of 
 Beaujeu, had inherited his title and all his power. Anne, who had 
 become Duchess of Bourbon, lived after the battle of Saint Aubin 
 du Cormier in possession of an authority which ceased to be con- 
 tested. This princess had had for a long time in view the union 
 of Brittany with the crown. No project could be more useful to 
 the kingdom, which was constantly in peril through 
 
 . Death of the 
 
 the independence of that great fief. A few months after Duke Francis n. 
 
 Different parties 
 
 the signature of the treaty of Sable, old Francis II. in Brittany, 
 died. Charles VIII. claimed the guardianship of 
 his daughters, of whom. Anne, the eldest, was scarcely twelve 
 
 y 2 
 
324 MARRIAGE OF CHAELES YIII. [BOOK III. Chap. III. 
 
 years old. While princes and powerful nobles disputed her hand, 
 many parties were formed in Brittany, where the different aspi- 
 rants called for assistance from the English and Spaniards. The 
 latter, sent by Ferdinand of Aragon and by the celebrated Isabella 
 of Castile, opposed the pretensions of the Lord d'Albret, who was 
 supported by the English. All were leagued against France, but 
 very much weakened through anarchy. Such was the state of affairs 
 in the duchy, when, in 1490, the young Anne of Brittany, in order 
 to escape from her persecutors, consented to marry the King of the 
 Romans, Maximilian of Austria. That prince was absent, and the 
 marriage was only celebrated by procuration. Deceived in his hopes, 
 the Lord d'Albret betrayed the Bretons, and sold to Charles YIII. 
 the town of ISTantes, of which Jie Avas the governor. The King 
 obtained new advantages, and soon after surprised Rennes, where 
 the Duchess was, and carried her off. Then was seen accomplished 
 a strange fact in the annals of history. Anne of Brittany and 
 Charles VIII. were married, the former to Maximilian, and the 
 latter to Marguerite of Austria, eleven years old, daughter of the 
 same Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy ; but neither of the two 
 marriages had been consummated. Both one and the other were 
 annulled by the Church, and Charles YIII. married, in 1491, Anne 
 of Brittany, who ceded to him all the rights of sove- 
 
 Charles VIII. . . 
 
 marries Anne of reio-nty, ^eneras'ine* herself, if she became a widoAv, to 
 
 Brittany, who 8 ./> 8 8 8^ » . ^ 
 
 cedes to him her marry only the heir to the kingdom. In the following; 
 rights of sove- J J ° ° 
 
 reignty over her year Charles YIII. promised solemnly to respect the 
 privileges of the Bretons ; he swore that he would not 
 raise any subsidy from them without the consent of the States of 
 the province, that no Breton should be called into judgment except 
 before the judges of his country, and that there should be no appeal 
 from the Parliament of Brittany, which they called The Great Days, 
 to the Parliament of Paris, except in cases of denial of justice or false 
 judgment. 
 
 Charles, who was twenty-two years of age, was then the most 
 powerful sovereign in Europe. Since the preceding year he had 
 thrown off the prudent guardianship of his sister. The first act 
 of his authority was to set at liberty the Duke of Orleans, whom she 
 held a prisoner in the tower of Bourges, and on whom he heaped 
 
1483-1493] HIS CONCESSIONS TO FOREIGN STATES. 325 
 
 proofs of his tenderness and confidence. He soon abandoned him- 
 self to his chivalric ideas, and dreamed of distant enterprises and 
 conquests. In order to facilitate the execution of his n . , 
 
 ^ Concessions of 
 
 adventurous projects, he hastened to conclude with the ^^efo-n 111 ' 
 principal sovereigns of Europe onerous treaties, by which soverei s us - 
 he sacrificed some of the most precious acquisitions of his father. 
 Maximilian of Austria, whose wife he had carried off and whose 
 daughter he had repudiated, contemplated a startling vengeance. 
 Charles VIII. appeased him by giving up to him, by the treaty of 
 Senlis, the counties of Burgundv and Artois. The „ ; . „ .. 
 
 '. o J Treaty of Senlis, 
 
 King of England, Henry VII., whom he had assisted 1493 - 
 in conquering his kingdom, repaid him with ingratitude, and, having 
 obtained large subsidies from his people in order to make war against 
 France, he besieged Boulogne with an army. Charles obtained peace 
 by recognizing, in the treaty of Etaples, a debt of seven hundred 
 and forty-five thousand gold crowns, payable to that avaricious 
 monarch, who, according to the expression of the great Bacon, his 
 historian, made his people pay for war and his enemies for peace. 
 He lastly gave up, in the same hope, by the treaty of Treat f 
 Barcelona, to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Barcelona > 1493 - 
 Castile, vanquishers of the Moors, and conquering in Grenada, the 
 counties of Boussillon and of Cerdagne, dearly purchased by Louis XI. 
 In peace with the neighbouring states and with his people, Charles 
 VIII. saw himself able to satisfy his passion for distant adventures 
 and chivalrous conquests. Brought up in ignorance of men and 
 things, possessing no historical instruction, incapable of all calcu- 
 lation and of all foresight, he had only nourished his intelligence by 
 reading romances of chivalry, and gave himself up to no other exercises 
 than those of jousts and tournaments. His imagination, warmed by 
 the recital of the exploits of Charlemagne and of the Norman 
 knights, persuaded him that he was called upon to follow their 
 example. He thought, they say, of conquering Constantinople; but 
 bounded his ambition at first with Italy and Sicily. 
 
 Eor a long time Italy had excited the cupidity of the French. The 
 successive pretensions of the two houses of Anjou had called over, 
 since the time of Saint Louis, in each generation, swarms of French or 
 Provencal adventurers to that beautiful country. Thos3 who did not 
 
326 STATE OF ITALY. [Book III. Chap. IIL 
 
 fall, returned covered with brilliant armour made in Lombardy, or 
 
 with sumptuous stuffs from Florence. They boasted of the delights 
 
 of a splendid climate, of the exquisite wines of the South, the 
 
 wonders of industry and luxury, and of all the wealth 
 
 State of Italy at J J 
 
 *^ "uiof the that had tempted them. This beautiful country seemed 
 
 loth century. x J 
 
 an easy prey to seize, in the midst of the decadence 
 and servitude of all Italy. Venice alone, with its 3,000 vessels, its 
 army of condottieri well paid and well disciplined, its industry 
 flourishing, and its terrible constitution, the safeguard of its liberty, 
 remained independent and formidable, extending its territories from 
 the frontiers of Camiole almost to those of Switzerland. 
 
 The kings of France had never lost sight of Italy; Louis XI., 
 among others, sought to obtain rights over it : it was at his instiga- 
 tion that the old King of Naples,- Rene of Anjou, designated as his 
 heir Charles of Maine, his nephew, to the prejudice of Rene II., 
 Duke of Lorraine, son of his eldest daughter. Charles of Maine, on 
 taking the title of King of Naples, named Louis, in his turn, his 
 sole heir. This will was the only title on which Charles Till. 
 rested his pretensions to the crown of Naples and Sicily, then 
 possessed by a prince of Aragon, Ferdinand I., son of Alphonso the 
 Magnanimous.* 
 
 o 
 
 There was always in the kingdom of Naples a party favourable to 
 the house of Anjou, and which was called the Angevin party. It was 
 composed for the most part of barons who had revolted against the 
 atrocious tyranny of Ferdinand. They appealed, uselessly, to Rene of 
 Lorraine to come into the kingdom ; in place of him they addressed - 
 themselves to Charles VIII., and offered to him the crown. This 
 prince had still another supporter in' Italy. Louis the Moor, son of 
 the great Francesco Sforza, was all-powerful at Milan. He had made 
 
 * The Queen of Naples, Jeanne II. of Duras, had separately adopted Louis IIL, of 
 the second house of Anjou, and afterwards Alphonso V., King of Aragon. Louis died 
 while disputing the inheritance with the King of Aragon, and his brother Eene succeeded 
 to his lights. The struggle continued between him and Alphonso, who ultimately gained 
 the victory. He was the first who bore the title of King of the Two Sicilies. It was known, 
 in fact, that from the time of the Sicilian Vespers, Sicily had ceased to belong to Aragon. 
 At the death of Alphonso (1458), the kingdom was again dismembered. The island 
 returned to Aragon, where John succeeded his brother, and Naples remained to Fer- 
 dinand, a natural son of Alphonso. 
 
1483-1498] INVASION OF ITALY. 327 
 
 himself master of the regency of this duchy in 1479, supplanting 
 in power Bonne of Savoy, sister-in-law of Louis XI. Situationand 
 and mother of the young Duke John Galeas, brutified gS ° f r ^ t ouis 
 by sensual pleasures, and incapable of reigning himself. Mllan - 
 Louis the Moor, uncle of John Galeas, had left to him the title and 
 apparel of sovereign power ; but he held all the authority in his own 
 hands. Afflicted by the divisions in Italy, he thought of uniting it 
 into one body; but his genius provoked the jealous hate of all the 
 sovereigns of that country. Threatened by the Venetians, and 
 distrusting the new Pope, Alexander VI., who was always ready to 
 sell himself to the party that offered most, he believed that he needed 
 the support of the French, and called them into Lombardy. 
 
 From that time Charles VIII. no longer hesitated ; encouraged by 
 his two favourites, the Cardinal Briconnet, Bishop of Saint Malo, and 
 of Vesc, Seneschal of Beaucaire, and vainly opposed hy Anne of 
 Bourbon and her husband, he resolved to depart. Already he thought 
 that after having conquered Italy he would, through the Pope, set 
 free the Sultan Zizim, whom his brother Bajazet II., Emperor of the 
 Turks, had driven from the throne, and intended with the support of 
 his name to march upon Constantinople. About this time Ferdinand 
 died at Naples, leaving two sons — Alphonso II., who succeeded him, 
 already celebrated in his wars against the Turks ; and Frederic, to 
 whom his brother entrusted the command of the Neapolitan fleet. 
 
 It was in the month of August, in the year 1494, that the French 
 army began to pass over the Alps. It was composed of 
 three thousand six hundred men-at-arms, of twelve Charles vnr. for 
 
 ' Italy. First 
 
 thousand archers or cross bowmen, eight thousand hostlllties > 1494 - 
 Gascon foot soldiers armed with arquebuses, and eight thousand 
 Swiss and Germans, forming in all thirty-two thousand men, acconi-„ 
 panied by a formidable artillery, then the best in Europe. Italy rose 
 at their approach. 
 
 On arriving at Milan, the King saw in the citadel Duke John 
 Galeas, who, nearly deprived of sense, and exhausted by his 
 debauches, was sinking, attacked by a disease which poison had 
 probably caused, and which shortly afterwards bore him to the tomb. 
 Louis the Moor soon took the title of Duke of Milan. The French 
 army continued its march across Lombardy, and arrived upon the 
 
328 FALL OF FLORENCE AND PISA. [BOOK III. Chap. III. 
 
 territory of Florence, where some places which barred its progress 
 were carried. The Swiss committed frightful barbarities there, 
 massacring- all the prisoners, both inhabitants and soldiers. Terror 
 went before the army. Alarmed by the recital of these atrocities, 
 Peter di Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent and chief of the 
 Florentine republic, delivered to the French many towns and 
 strong castles. The people, indignant, rose against him, while that 
 young man, incapable and presumptuous, sought a refuge in Venice, 
 and the Florentines believed themselves free. They hailed the 
 French with acclamations as their liberators. Pisa and Florence 
 opened their gates, and Charles, admitted into the towns as an ally, 
 entered them as a conqueror. A stranger to the revolution that was 
 being enacted around him, ignorant of the motives of the kind 
 ci ri viii t rece P Jc i° n °f ^ ne people, he spoke as a master to their 
 Florence, 1494. deputies, and told them in answer to their friendly 
 speeches, that he did not know yet whether he would give them as 
 governors the Medici or French counsellors. The indignation of 
 the Florentines was at its height. "If it be so," said Peter Caponi, 
 chief of the deputation, " sound your trumpets, and we will sound 
 our bells." The people ran to arms : the houses and the vast palaces 
 of Florence were filled with soldiers. Charles VIIL perceived the 
 danger, and renounced his pretensions. He recalled Caponi, obtained 
 a subsidy to help him in his enterprise, and promised to restore at 
 the end of the war the fortresses delivered up by the Medici. 
 
 Ferdinand, son of Alphonso II., charged by his father to stop the 
 French, was supported neither by the Pope nor the Florentines. 
 Too weak to struggle alone, he recoiled before the enemy, and 
 Charles VIII. arrived almost at Home without drawing sword. 
 Alphonso, whose armies melted away without fighting, reduced to 
 despair, abandoned his people and his throne, and thenceforth only 
 thought about his treasures and his conscience. Minister to the 
 cruelties of his father, he saw arranged before him the shadows of 
 his victims, and recognized the hand of God in his disasters. 
 Agitated by a superstitious terror, he abdicated in. 
 
 Abdication and 
 
 tiight of favour of his son Ferdinand ; then he embarked with 
 
 Alphonso II., 1495. _ 
 
 his riches, and sailed towards Mazarra, in Sicily. There 
 he shut himself up in a house of the religious Olivetans, passing his 
 
1483-1498] CHARLES VIII. ENTERS NAPLES. 329 
 
 clays in fasting and prayers ; he died during the same year. Fer- 
 dinand II. saw his army seized with fear. A sedition broke out in 
 Naples. He left in order to calm it down, and entrusted his army 
 to the Milanese Trivnlzio, who betrayed him, and sold the army to 
 Charles VIII. Ferdinand only came back in time to be witness of this 
 infamous treachery ; he returned to Naples, which shut its gates 
 upon him, and embarked with his family for the island of Ischia. 
 Charles VIII. arrived before Naples, all of the privi- E 
 leges of which he confirmed, and made a triumphal ^Jj^f J^ 11 ' 
 entry into the town. 149 °' 
 
 The French warriors, intoxicated with their glory, thought only 
 of enriching themselves promptly. Their captains had demanded 
 from the King the highest dignities and the most important fiefs in the 
 kingdom, and Charles refused nothing. He knew neither the names 
 of the Angevin barons to whom he owed gratitude, nor those of 
 the barons of Aragon, the proper treatment of whom was of great 
 importance to him. He offended all, and there was scarcely a 
 gentleman whom he had not thrown into the party of malcon- 
 tents by a denial of justice or by some imprudent outrage. Still, 
 the storm growled behind him. The powers of Europe became 
 alarmed at his rapid successes. Spain, Maximilian, Venice, and the 
 Pope leagued themselves secretly together against him, Europeanleague 
 and the soul of this league was his ancient ally, Louis vlii 8t y$* TlQa 
 the Moor. The conduct of the French in his respect 
 was as injurious as it was rash. Forgetting his services, and the 
 need that they still had for him, they haughtily reproached him 
 with the death of John Galeas, refused to recognize his title, and the 
 Duke of Orleans, invoking the rights that he held from Valentina 
 Visconti, his grandmother, entitled himself the Duke of Milan. 
 Louis the Moor only waited for the moment of vengeance, and 
 that moment soon presented itself. Philip de Comines, ambassador 
 from the King to Venice, was informed of the projects of this 
 formidable league, and hastened to give a warning to the King, 
 who slept upon his triumph in the midst of the most frivolous 
 and foolish occupations. Charles ordered an immediate Retreatofth 
 retreat, and, rejecting the offer that Ferdinand II. had French - 
 made to him io hold for him in fief the crown of Naples, he named 
 
330 EATTLE OP FOENOVO. [Book III. Chap. III. 
 
 his relation Gilbert de Montpensier viceroy of the kingdom, and 
 entrusted to him a portion of the army. 
 
 The Duke of Orleans, whom Charles had left at Asti in order to 
 preserve communications with his kingdom, had compromised by 
 his imprudence the retreat of the French. Impatient to seize the 
 ducal crown of Milan, he had attacked Louis the Moor, who, after 
 having repulsed him, held him in blockade at ISTovarre. All Lom- 
 bardy arose ; the Venetian army arrived and united itself with the 
 Milanese ; Francis cli Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, commanded their 
 united forces, and the retreat was cut off. The French army, very 
 inferior in numbers, met them near Fornovo ; it was attacked in 
 the pass of Taro, and gained a signal victory. This battle of 
 Battle of FomoYo ^' orilo ^ r o, where a multitude of Italians lost their lives, 
 1495, made safe the retreat of Charles VIII. The King, by 
 
 the treaty of Verceil, made peace with Louis the Moor, and recog- 
 Treaty of Verceii I1 ^ ze ^ mm as Duke of Milan, and that prince declared 
 himself in return a vassal of the crown of France for 
 the fief of Genoa.* 
 
 While Charles returned to his states, ' Ferdinand and Gonzalvo of 
 Cordova — the conqueror of Grenada, and the greatest captain of his 
 century — attacked the French left in the kingdom of jSTaples. The 
 The French lose Y ^ CGT0 Ji Gilbert de Montpensier, was compelled to 
 Naples and Sicily, ev acuate the capital. He permitted himself to be shut 
 up in Atella; reduced to capitulation, he with five 
 thousand soldiers laid down their arms, and engaged to leave the 
 kingdom after having restored all the captured places with the 
 reserve of Gaeta, Venosa, and Tarentum. An epidemic cut down 
 his troops ; he himself was attacked by it, and died at Pozzuolo : 
 barely five hundred soldiers survived him. Charles VIII. received 
 the news of these disasters at Lyons and Tours, in the midst of 
 licentious fetes. He projected a second expedition, when in 1498 
 Death of Charles ^ e was s ^ ruc ^ with apoplexy, in consequence of a 
 viii., 149S. violent shock. He died in his chateau of Amboise, 
 
 at the age of twenty- eight years. 
 
 * A-ter the revolt of 1409, the republic of Genoa was given anew to France. Charles 
 VIII. ceded it to the Duke of Milan ; Louis XII. recovered it ; and Francis I. lost it 
 definitively. 
 
1483-1498] CHARACTER OF CHARLES VIII. 331 
 
 One of the distinctive traits of his character was an extreme 
 kindness of disposition. " The most humane and the sweetest word 
 of man that ever existed," wrote Comines, "was his; for never 
 did he say to any man a thing that conld displease him." His 
 incapacity was generally known, and his military successes in the eyes 
 of his contemporaries were looked upon as prodigies. His gentleness 
 and goodness were appreciated ; France knew that there was good in- 
 tention in that which he wished to do for her, and dropped tears to 
 his memory. He had in the space of two years lost three sons at 
 a very early age. The Duke of Orleans, grandson of the brother 
 of Charles VI., was his nearest relative. 
 
332 LOUIS XII. [Book III. Chap. IY. 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 REIGN OF LOUIS XII. 
 
 1498-1515. 
 The Duke of Orleans was thirty-six years old wlien he ascended the 
 Accession of throne nnder the name of Louis XII. He soon took 
 Louis xil, 1498. the titles of King of France, of Jerusalem, and the Two 
 
 Sicilies, and Duke of Milan, in order that there might be no 
 doubt in Europe as to his pretensions with regard to Italy. The 
 accession of this prince restored to the crown the apanage of 
 Orleans, of which part constituted the duchy of Orleans, .the county 
 of Blois, and that of Valois. Louis XII. bestowed the latter county 
 in apanage on Francis, Count of Angouleme, his cousin, and who was 
 his successor. He treated with kindness La Tremouille and his 
 ancient enemies, saying that the King of France could forgive the 
 injuries of the Duke of Orleans ; and he gave all his confidence to 
 Georges d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, and afterwards cardinal. 
 
 The first acts of Louis XII. were wise and useful. He diminished 
 the taxes, re-established order in the finances and the administration, 
 and confirmed an ordinance that the Chancellor Guy de Roquefort had 
 made Charles VIII. sign, for the creation of a sovereign court or 
 great council. This court, composed of the chancellor, twenty 
 m , „ , counsellors, ecclesiastical or lay, and the masters of the 
 
 The Great ' J ' 
 
 Council. petitions of the royal mansion, was destined, said the 
 
 King, to sustain his rights and prerogatives. It strengthened and 
 adjusted the royal authority, and Louis XII. deserved the gratitude 
 of the people on account of the wise reforms which it brought into 
 the legislation. It restrained the abusive privileges of the university, 
 by which the jurisdiction of the tribunals and the gathering of the 
 taxes were continually impeded. The four faculties assembled on 
 this subject, and pronounced, as customary, the cessation of the 
 studies and of preaching. The King and his ministers severely 
 
1498-1515] HIS MARRIAGE. SSS 
 
 reprimanded their deputies. The struggle lasted for eight months, 
 after which the university submitted, and ceased to have recourse 
 to that scandalous expedient. 
 
 Queen Anne had retired into Brittany soon after the death of 
 Charles VIII., her husband, and hastened to make an Marriage of the 
 
 , „ ..,.. , IT"!- Ki "S Wlth AllUe 
 
 act of sovereignty by issuing moneys and publishing of Brittany, 
 edicts. Her duchy was about to escape from France if 
 she did not espouse the King, and Louis resolved to accomplish this 
 marriage. He was .married to Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI. ; and 
 although there was no legal motive for a divorce, he solicited from 
 Pope Alexander VI. the rupture of the first engagement, and caused 
 him to be favourable by promising the duchy of Valentinois to Caesar 
 JBorgia, his son. Jeanne, who lived apart from her husband, given up 
 Entirely to exercises of piety, opposed conscientiously an unexpected 
 resistance to a project which appeared culpable to her, and the 
 scandal of a shameful trial became public. All the motives alleged 
 by the King were false or deceptive ; however, the judges pronounced 
 the divorce, and the dispensation for a new marriage was brought to 
 Louis by Csesar Borgia, who delivered to Greorges d'Amboise the 
 cardinal's hat. Louis XII. immediately married Anne of Brittany, 
 and the contract proved that he had again acted more in the interest 
 of his own greatness than that of France, for the duchy was not 
 irrevocably united with the crown, but was declared transmissible to 
 the second child of the Queen, or, in default of a second child, to her 
 nearest heir. 
 
 Soon after this union, Louis made his claims upon the Milanese 
 profitable, although he could only invoke them in quality of being 
 grandson of Valentina Visconti. The duchy of Milan was an 
 imperial masculine fief; the rights invoked by Louis XII. were there- 
 fore void. They were sustained by a powerful army, which, with the 
 support of the Venetians and the Pope, subdued the Milanese in 
 twenty days. Louis Sforza, or the Moor, abandoned by _ 
 
 »> J 7 7 J Conquest of 
 
 all, took refuge with his son-in-law, the Emperor ^e Milanese, 
 Maximilian. The administration of the French at 
 Milan was oppressive ; a revolt soon broke out ; Louis Sforza re- 
 turned with imposing forces, and La Tremouille, at the head of a new 
 army, passed into Italy. Louis the Moor was defending Novarre with 
 
334 WAR WITH SPAIN. [Book III. Chap. IV. 
 
 numerous troops when La Tremouille appeared before that place. 
 Swiss fought in the two armies, and composed the principal force of 
 Louis ; they betrayed him, capitulated shamefully in spite of him, and 
 delivered him up to the French. Louis XII. abused the rights of a 
 conqueror with respect to his prisoner ; he held him until his death 
 locked up iu the tower of Loches in strict captivity. Master of the 
 Milanese, he assisted the Pope and Caesar Borgia in subduing the 
 Romagna ; then he turned his eyes towards Naples, the ephemeral 
 conquest of Charles VIII., where Frederic, in 1496, had succeeded 
 his nephew Ferdinand II. 
 
 Louis XII. was not alone in covetiug this beautiful country ; 
 Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Aragon, wished for his part. In spite 
 of the ties of family which united him with Frederic, the Kin< 
 Treat of °^ ■^- ra o 0n acceded at Grenada to a secret treaty by 
 
 Grenada, 1500. which Naples and the Abruzzi were chosen by France 
 and the southern provinces by Spain. 
 
 Frederic, menaced by the French armies, solicited the support of his 
 relative, that same Ferdinand who had just despoiled him, and who 
 hastened to send to him the celebrated Gonzalvo of Cordova. The 
 latter promptly introduced the Spaniards into the principal fortresses, 
 and then showed to the unfortunate Frederic, so shamefully deceived, 
 ^ . . the treaty of division. The war between the despoilers 
 
 War between J x 
 
 |P a j^ e and was the only result of this detestable conquest. The 
 
 French and the Spaniards disputed about the revenues of 
 the kingdom, and, when Gonzalvo believed that he was strong enough, 
 hostilities broke out. He gained two consecutive victories, the one at 
 Aubigny, in Seminara, and the other at Cerignoles, where the Viceroy 
 Nemours, the last of the Armagnacs, perished, and the 
 
 Battle of . . . 
 
 cerignoles, French only preserved in the kingdom the single town 
 
 of Gaeta. Louis XII. assembled three new armies, of 
 which two marched upon Spain ; the third advanced towards Naples, 
 when suddenly the death of Alexander VI. unsettled all Italy ; Caesar 
 Borgia fell dangerously ill at the same time. The illness of Caesar 
 Borgia at the moment of his father's death annulled his power and 
 took from him all the fruit of his iniquitous intrigues. Louis XII. 
 lost his most powerful ally in Italy in the person of Alexander VI. ; 
 and the irascible Julius II., successor to the Pontiff, soon created 
 
1498-1515] TREATY OF BLOIS. 335 
 
 for him in that country new perils and insurmountable obstacles. 
 The French army, commanded by the Marquis of Mantua, was for a 
 long time held in check by Gronzalvo on the banks of the Garillan ; 
 but at last, when attacked by that great captain, it took to flight. 
 Gaeta opened its gates to the Spaniards, and the French were every- 
 where repulsed, in spite of the exploits of La Palisse, of Aubigny, 
 of Louis d'Ars, of D'Aligre, and the heroic valour of the Chevalier 
 Bayard, the most celebrated amongst these illustrious 
 warriors. The kingdom of Naples was thus lost a S^Sn^dom^f 
 second time to France. Naples. 
 
 While France experienced in the exterior such great reverses, a 
 greater danger threatened her in the interior. Queen Anne, an 
 ambitious and haughty princess, altogether occupied with the 
 interests of her family, was little affected by the grandeur and 
 prosperity of the kingdom. She wished for her daughter Claude, 
 heiress of the duchy of Brittany, a husband who had in per- 
 spective the sceptre of universal monarchy, and destined for her 
 young Charles of Austria, who was then Charles Quint. 
 
 This prince, son of the Archduke Philip, sovereign of the Low 
 Countries, inherited Spain through his mother, Jeanne the Foolish ; 
 and Louis XII., by the secret treaty of Blois, ceded to him, as a 
 dowry for the Princess Claude, Brittany, part of the in- . 
 
 heritance of the dukes of Burgundy united with France, 1505- 
 all his rights over the Milanese, and the kingdom of Naples. The 
 King signed this treaty, which would have rendered him guilty of 
 treason towards France if Louis when signing it had had the use 
 of his reason ; but he was then dangerously ill at Blois : it was 
 thought that his end was approaching, and the Queen, only thinking 
 of her own interests, arranged immediately for her retirement into 
 Brittany. Already had she embarked on the Loire with her 
 treasures, when the Marshal of Grie, governor of Angers, and super- 
 intendent of the education of young Francis of Angouleme, prevented 
 her flight, which threatened to infringe the integrity of the king- 
 dom. He caused the vessels laden with the riches of the Queen to be 
 seized, and signified to her that he would arrest her if she passed 
 beyond the boundary. Louis XII. recovered ; but the Marshal, accused 
 of the crime of high treason against the crown for this act of firmness, 
 was punished by the loss of his offices. 
 
336 LEAGUE OP CAMBRAY. [Book III. Chap. IV. 
 
 Feudalism expired. However, such was still the respect for its 
 customs that in the year 1505 Louis XII. did homage to the Emperor 
 Maximilian for the duchy of Milan, and made him an oath of 
 obedience. In the following year he received from the States- 
 General assembled at Tours the surname of Father of the People? 
 and was entreated by them to marry his daughter 
 Princess Claude Claude to his cousin Francis, Count of Angouleme, 
 
 with Francis of . . . . , 
 
 Anprouieme. heir presumptive to the crown.* This request antici- 
 
 Definite union 
 
 of Brittany with pated the secret desire of the King, who, reproaching 
 
 France, 1506. 
 
 himself with the sad treaty of Blois, had already seized 
 an opportunity to break it. He heard with favour the wish of the 
 States, and the royal betrothals were immediately celebrated. 
 
 Louis XII., in spite of his reverses, had always fixed his eyes on 
 Italy. Genoa then was in submission to the French, who, carrying into 
 that republic all the prejudices of the feudal nobility, were indignant 
 at seeing the bourgeois exercising the power conjointly with the 
 nobles. The latter, sustained by the French Government, insulted 
 the people, and walked about with poignards upon which they had 
 caused to be engraved an insulting device. The people revolted, 
 took a dyer for Doge, and drove away the French, 
 chastises revolted Louis XII. swore that he would have vengeance, and 
 
 Genoa, 1507. . 
 
 soon appeared under the walls of Genoa with a brilliant 
 army. He entered, sword in hand, into the vanquished city, caused 
 seventy-nine of the principal citizens together with the Doge to be 
 hanged, and pardoned the others, burdening them with a tax of 
 three hundred thousand florins, a sum sufficient to ruin the republic. 
 
 Venice served as the bulwark for France against Germany, and 
 had shown itself her faithful ally in the campaign of Italy. The 
 King ought to have kept on good terms with Venice as much for 
 policy as for gratitude ; but the hate which animated the sovereigns of 
 Europe against republics stifled every other sentiment in the heart 
 of Louis XII. He excited without motive the Emperor Maximilian, 
 the Pope, and the King of Aragon, against the Venetians. The 
 Cardinal d'Amboise was the soul of this league, known under the 
 League of Ca - name 0I " ^ ne League of Cambray, a town where the 
 bray, 1509. treaty of alliance was signed between those sovereigns 
 
 and Louis XII. The French soon marched against Venice, and 
 
 * Louis XII. had no male chill. 
 
1498-1515] COUNCIL OP PISA. 337 
 
 gained the victory of Agnadel. The King, putting in practice the 
 odious principles of the Florentine Machiavelli, subdued _ ... . . 
 
 -l Jr 7 Battle of Agna- 
 
 his enemies by terror and treated the vanquished with del > 1509 - 
 pitiless cruelty. The Venetian state, as far as the lagunes, was soon 
 conquered. But the design of Pope Julius II. was to make the pon- 
 tifical state dominant in Italy, to free the Peninsula from the foreign 
 yoke, and to constitute the Swiss guardians of its liberties. He 
 had only entered with regret into the treaty of Cambrai, in order to 
 subdue some places in the Romagna, and through jealousy with regard 
 to the Venetian power. It was, however, only with the assistance of 
 the Venetians that he could deliver Italy from its most dangerous 
 enemies. He connected himself with them after their reverses, and, 
 detaching himself from the League of Cambrai, he formed another, 
 which he called The Holy, with the Venetians, the Swiss, and Ferdi- 
 nand the Catholic. All together attacked the French ; _ _ . 
 
 o ' The Holy 
 
 nevertheless the latter obtained some brilliant advan- Lea & ue > 151 °- 
 tages under the young and impetuous Gaston de Foix, Duke of 
 Nemours, nephew of the King, who achieved three victories in three 
 months. The glorious battle of Ravenna, where this hero of twenty- 
 three years, " a great captain before he had been a ' ... , „ 
 
 •r 7 -o r Battle of Raven- 
 
 soldier,"* perished, dying at the moment of his triumph, na > 1512 - 
 was the end of the successes of Louis XII. in Italy. 
 
 A council held at Pisa by some schismatic cardinals, partisans 
 of the king of France and the emperor, had suspended c 
 the authority of the Pope. Louis XII. , in spite of the 1511 - 
 scruples of his conscience and the profound discredit which fell 
 upon this council, had caused its declaration to be published in 
 France, in the hope of compelling the Pontiff to sue for peace. 
 The inflexible Julius II. responded to this boldness on the part of 
 the King by signing the Holy League, and by convoking the council 
 of Lateran, where eighty-three bishops from all parts of Christendom 
 recognised him as head of the Church. New disasters for France 
 marked out the course of that year, Genoa revolted, and elected as 
 doge Janus Fregosi, proscribed by the French. Ferdinand the 
 Catholic conquered Navarre, where the house of Albret, an ally of 
 France, reigned. Julius II., however, did not enjoy for any length. 
 
 * Gfuicciardini. 
 
338 THE BATTLE OP THE SPUES. [Book III. Chap. IV. 
 
 of time the disgrace of Louis. He died in 1513 ; and the cardinal 
 de Medici, as great an enemy of France, succeeded him, under the 
 name of Leo X. Taught by experience, Louis XII. at last became 
 reconciled with Venice, and united himself with that republic by 
 the treaty of Orthez, while the Emperor Maximilian, Henry VIII. 
 king of England, Ferdinand the Catholic and the Pope formed 
 T , the coalition called the League of Malines against him. 
 
 League of a o 
 
 Maimes, 1513. ^ a Tremouille conducted into Lombardy a French army, 
 which was defeated by the Swiss at ISTovara : it recrossed the 
 Alps, abandoning the Venetians to themselves, and Italy was lost 
 for ever. 
 
 The English army then gained in Artois the battle of Gruinegate, 
 known in history under the name of' the Journee des ej>erons 
 (Battle of the spurs) on account of the complete rout of the French 
 Battle of Guine- -^ 0Ya l troops. The most illustrious captains, and 
 gate, 1513. among others La Palisse, Bussy d'Amboise, and the 
 
 Chevalier Bayard, were taken prisoners. Pressed at the same 
 time by the Swiss, who beseiged Dijon, by the Spaniards, and by 
 the English ; deprived of his ally by the death of James IV. King 
 of Scotland, killed at the battle of Flodden ; and lastly, tormented 
 by his conscience, Louis XII. renounced the schism, abandoned 
 the Council of Pisa, removed to Lyons, and signed, in 1514, a truce 
 at Orleans with the Pope and all his powerful enemies. 
 Hostilities ^ke cos * an( ^ ^ e misfortunes of so many wars had ■ 
 
 truce of e o5eans e com P ene d the King to increase the taxes, to reclaim 
 1514, his gratuitous gifts, and alienate his domain. Queen 
 
 Anne was no more, and in order to insure peace between England 
 and France, Louis demanded and obtained in marriage the hand of 
 Mary, sister to Henry VIII., engaging himself to pay during ten 
 years a hundred thousand crowns per annum to the English 
 monarch. This marriage between a young princess of sixteen 
 Death of Lo xi y ears an ^ a man of fifty- three, exhausted and sickly, 
 xil, 1515. wag f a tal to Louis XII. He died, without leaving a 
 
 son, on January 1, 1515, a few months after the celebration of his 
 marriage. 
 
 Many brilliant sayings and traits of courage are narrated of this 
 prince. At the battle of Agnadel, when the Venetian artillery was 
 
1498-1515] CHARACTER OF LOUIS XII. 339 
 
 directed towards the position where lie was, it was said to him that he 
 exposed himself too much. " Not at all," said he, " I have 
 no fear; but whosoever is afraid, let him put himself 
 behind me."* Louis XII. loved the people, and sustained without 
 prodigality the dignity of his crown. He was economical ; his court 
 accused him of being avaricious, and caused him to be represented 
 as such on the stage. He heard of it without anger : "I like better," 
 he said, "to see my courtiers laughing at my avarice than to see 
 my people weeping at my extravagance." He had recourse to a 
 dangerous expedient — the sale of the public posts — in order to 
 increase his revenues without burdening the people ; still, he did 
 not extend this practice to the offices of judicature. The importance 
 of the parliament of Paris, already diminished under the preceding 
 reigns by the creation of the parliaments of Toulouse, Grenoble, 
 Bourdeaux, and Dijon, was again weakened under Louis XII. by the 
 creation of the parliaments of Rouen and Aix. The wise regulations 
 of the King for the administration of justice and the finances ren- 
 dered him worthy of the great name of Father of the People, which 
 the States of Tours had bestowed upon him. In 1510 he had lost 
 his minister and friend, the cardinal Georges d'Amboise, 
 
 7 ° 7 Georges 
 
 who had the rare happiness, for a prime minister, to see d'Amboise. 
 his name blessed by the people. " Let no one interfere with Georges," 
 said they. Archbishop of Rouen and friend of the arts, he covered 
 Normandy with elegant structures, the first attempts of the Renais- 
 sance, and he would have merited a place in the rank of great 
 citizens, if his counsels for foreign policy had not drawn France, his 
 king, and himself into a fatal course, in which a wise and good 
 prince and a devoted minister were to be seen abandoning towards 
 strangers the maxims which made their glory in the interior of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 The example and the principles of Louis XII. had made a school 
 in Europe, and diplomacy was born before the science of the rights 
 of the peoples was known and respected. Nations believed that 
 they had no moral duty to fulfil towards one another, and thought 
 that personal interest and success justified fraud, treachery, and the 
 most atrocious violence. The celebrated Florentine Machiavelli had 
 
 * Memoires de Brantome. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 STATE OF EUROPE. [Book III. Chap. IV. 
 
 made a science of this frightful policy, of which the most famous 
 disciples were Ferdinand the Catholic, Alexander -VI., and the 
 execrable Ca3sar Borgia, his son, the hero of Machiavelli. Louis XIL 
 Policy of Louis was their T wal in violence and perfidy, bnying, betray- 
 X1L ing, and sacrificing peoples withont scruple according 
 
 to the interest of the moment. He only gathered, as did the most 
 part of these sovereigns, bitter fruits from so many shameful acts. 
 It was still necessary that Europe and its kings should suffer long- 
 calamities before finding out that nations, like individuals, are allied; 
 between themselves by sacred obligations, and that morality alone,, 
 in strict union with policy, can guarantee to them peace and security. 
 During the century which had just passed away the world had 
 put on a new aspect. Great, wars had weakened the 
 
 General consider- 
 ations upon aristocracv, rallied the people round their sovereigns-,. 
 
 Europe in the . 
 
 15th century. an( j giyen a prodigious development to the sentiment of 
 national independence. The three great nations, Spain, England, 
 and France, had become firmly constituted, and all authority had 
 passed into the hands of the kings. The military republic of the 
 Swiss was elevated for a short time by the fall of the house of Bur- 
 gundy, but the powerful republican states of the North and of the 
 South had disappeared. The Hanseatic League, composed of eighty 
 towns, occupying all the southern borders of Germany, had lost its 
 commercial preponderance, which had passed to the rival towns of 
 the Lower Rhine and Belgium, then subject to the house of Austria, 
 of which Frederic III. and Maximilian founded the future greatness. 
 Venice was humiliated, Florence and Genoa were enfeebled. In the 
 midst of this fusion of all political powers into one only, under the 
 triumph of the monarchical principle in Europe, there germinated the 
 seed, of the greatest revolution which has shaken the Christian world. 
 This event was the emancipation of human thought, of which up to 
 that time spiritual power had restrained the flight. 
 . The Catholic Church was the only authority generally recognized 
 which had survived the fall of the Roman empire. She alone had 
 been able to subdue the barbarians, to struggle effectually against 
 state of the ^e frightful anarchy of that period by the principles 
 
 Church. £ or( j er an( j f Christian virtue and by the merit of a 
 
 great part of her clergy ; she alone thus preserved a power of social 
 
1498-1515] ADVANCEMENT OF CIVILIZATION. 341 
 
 organization in the midst of the general upheaving, and founded the 
 governments of the Middle Ages by arrogating to herself an all- 
 powerful authority over human reason at a time when men recog- 
 nized no other law between them than that of brute force. It was 
 thus that the Romish Church fulfilled a double mission, which was 
 that of constituting modern society on a Christian basis, and of giving 
 to it the tie of a common faith, powerful enough to enable Europe 
 to stem the flood of the Mussulman invasion, the destroyer of Chris- 
 tianity in Asia. "When this double aim was attained, and when the 
 Church had directed the reaction of the crusades, a thousand causes 
 threatened her power each day, while a rival authority grew great 
 at her side. The theological disputes raised by the great schism of 
 the West provoked among the faithful the progress of the spirit of 
 examination. Already the clergy were no longer looked upon as the 
 only dispensers of knowledge, the fall of Constantinople had dispersed 
 the writings of antiquity over the whole of Europe. The expeditions 
 into Italy, so unfortunate in a political sense, introduced the French 
 nation to a more advanced civilization, to an acquaintance with the 
 masterpieces of Raphael and of Michael Angelo, and to the treasures 
 of a literature created by Boccaccio, Dante, and Petrarch, and recently 
 enriched by Machiavelli and Ariosto. The admiration excited by 
 ancient literature and by that of Italy inspired the taste for philo- 
 logical studies ; and lastly, printing, newly invented, powerfully 
 seconded the work of investigation, of research, and of examination, 
 and spread, with an unheard-of rapidity, all the new opinions. During 
 this period, and almost without interruption, the throne of Rome was 
 occupied by a succession of pontiffs whose minds were little conformed 
 to the spirit of Christianity. After Alexander VI. appeared Julius II., 
 the warrior pope, whose ambitious pride caused streams of blood 
 to pour forth ; the magnificent and frivolous Leo X. came afterwards, 
 and added to the afflictions of the Church. Meanwhile, some bold 
 reformers, Wycliffe in England, John Huss and Jerome of Prague in 
 Germany, had reproduced some of the doctrines of the Waldenses, 
 and the horror excited by the funeral pile of John Huss prepared the 
 way for new reformers, when the odious traffic in indulgences com- 
 menced. The building of the magnificent structures of Leo X., and 
 above all, of the church of Saint Peter at Rome, required immense 
 
342 ORIGIN OF THE REFORMATION. [Book III. Chap. IV. 
 
 sums. The Pope sold his pardons to the faithful ; monks by his order 
 overran the whole of Europe, and sold the Roman indulgences in 
 the wine-houses and places of debauch. Luther then appeared. This 
 Origin of the famous man, a monk of the order of the Augustins, 
 Reformation. thundered against the culpable traffic of the pontifical 
 court, and tried to reform the abuses of the Church. It was this 
 circumstance that gave the name JReforin to the revolution that he 
 worked. It required nearly two centuries to accomplish it, and its 
 origin dates from the period when feudalism expired in France, and 
 when monarchical power obtained its highest degree of influence 
 in the great states constituted in the fifteenth century. 
 
 This epoch is, moreover, that of the greatest enterprises and the 
 most celebrated inventions. The Genoese Christopher Columbus 
 ra . . . had discovered America in 1492, and had afiven a new 
 
 Discoveries, tac- ' & 
 
 tics, diplomacy. WO rld to Spain; and soon after, in 1497, the Portuguese 
 Vasco di Gama found the route to India by doubling the Cape of 
 Good Hope. Maritime commerce quitted the Mediterranean Sea in 
 order to cover the ocean with its fleets ; new military tactics were 
 created ; the use of gunpowder, which had become generally spread, 
 entirely took away from the aristocracy their superiority of strength ; 
 diplomacy had sprung into existence ; the sovereigns began to com- 
 prehend that it was necessary to balance mutually their influence in 
 order to prevent the most powerful from aggrandizing themselves at 
 the expense of the weakest ; lastly, printing was about to establish 
 new and indestructible bonds between men. All the forces created 
 by the great discoveries of the fifteenth century were to be tried and 
 developed simultaneously with religious reform and the new birth 
 of art in the sixteenth : everything announced that the new century 
 would be an age of intellectual development, of movement, and of 
 combat. 
 
THIRD EPOCH. 
 
 ABSOLUTE MONARCHY. 
 
 FEOM THE ACCESSION OF EBANCIS I. TO THE CONVOCA- 
 TION OE THE STATES-GENEBAL BY LOUIS XVI. 
 
 1515-1789. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF FRANCIS I. TO THE FIRST WARS 
 OF RELIGION IN FRANCE. 
 
 RIVALRY OF FRANCIS I. AND CHARLES V. — PREACHING OF THE REFORMA- 
 TION. CONTINUATION AND END OF THE ITALIAN WARS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REIGN OF FRANCIS I. UNTIL THE SIGNATURE OF THE TREATY OF MADRID. 
 
 1515-1526. 
 
 Under Francis I. all was silence around the throne: the States- 
 General were no more convoked ; the parliaments Accession of 
 proclaimed the doctrine of absolute power ; the submis- "' 
 
 sive clergy invoked the protection of the sceptre, and the expiring 
 genius of the old armed feudality was reduced to powerlessness by 
 the irrevocable union of Brittany with the Crown. Thenceforth 
 from the Ocean to the Alps, from the Somme to the Mediterranean 
 and the Pyrenees, was to be under the hand of one sole master. 
 
 This Prince, twenty years of age at his accession, was the son of 
 Louisa of Savoy and Charles of Angouleme, cousin- Characterof 
 german to Louis XII., both descendants of the Duke FranclsL 
 of Orleans, brother of Charles VI. Brought up by his mother, a 
 violent, covetous, and not entirely chaste woman, he was from his 
 infancy absolute master of his own actions. The romances of 
 chivalry formed his only study, and he wished, like Charles VIII., 
 to march upon the tracks of Roland and of Amadis. He derived 
 from the same books his notions upon the prerogatives of the Crown. 
 
346 FIEST ITALIAN CAMPAIGN. [Book I. Chap. I. 
 
 He maintained that every order that emanated from his month was 
 a decree of destiny, and conld not conceive that the Parliament, 
 Princes, Nobility, or States- General conld have the right to restrain 
 his anthority. Nevertheless, in spite of his absolnte character, he 
 abandoned himself without reserve to Lonisa, his mother, and to the 
 Chancellor Antoine Dnprat, a venal and corrnpt man : these two 
 governed France for a long period in his name. 
 
 Scarcely had Francis I. seized the sceptre, than, following the 
 example of Lonis XII., he tnrned his eyes towards Italy ; he wished 
 to conqner Milan, where a Sforza still reigned, and raised a for- 
 midable army of two thonsand five hundred men-at-arms, ten 
 thonsand Gascon and twenty-two thonsand German foot- soldiers. 
 Among them might have been distingnished Charles de Montpensier, 
 Duke of Bonrbon, the Marshal de Chabannes, J. J. Trivnlzio, La 
 Tremouille and his son Talmond, Imberconrt, Teligny, Lautrec, 
 Bnssy d'Amboise, and Bayard, the " knight withont fear and withont 
 reproach." 
 
 Francis I., at the point of departure, named his mother Regent 
 of France ; then he took the command of his army, and arrived at 
 the foot of the Alps, of which the Swiss, allies of the Dnke of Milan, 
 guarded all the defiles ; but under the leadership of the celebrated 
 engineer Pedro Novaro, and after unheard-of fatigues, the French 
 passed over the mountains by a road that no other army had 
 taken before them. On descending into the plains, Chabannes 
 and Bayard, as a first exploit, surprised at table and 
 
 First campaign . _. 
 
 of Francis i. in carried ol .Prosper Oolonna, general 01 Maximilian 
 
 Italv 1515 
 
 Sforza, Duke of Milan. This important capture threw 
 disorder and discouragement amoug the enemy; but twenty thousand 
 Swiss rushed from their mountains and engaged the king at the 
 ^ . , * ™ . terrible battle of Marignano, under the walls of 
 
 Battle of Marig- ° 7 
 
 nano; conquest of Milan. Without other arms than pikes eighteen feet 
 
 the Milanese, r ° 
 
 1515 - long and heavy two-handed swords, they threw them- 
 
 selves in serried columns upon the artillery, in spite of the ravages 
 it made in their ranks, and sustained without being broken many 
 charges of the French royal troops. They surrounded Francis I., 
 who had fought like a hero, and broke up the different corps of his 
 army. The latter rallied during the night, and the combat recom- 
 
1515-1526] CONQUEST OF THE DUCHY OF MILAN. 347 
 
 menced with. fury. The Swiss then heard the war-cry of the Vene- 
 tians, Marco I Marco ! They believed that the allies of the French 
 had come to their succour, and retired in good order. This bloody 
 battle cost the lives of six thousand French and twelve thousand 
 Swiss ; the remains of the conquered army abandoned Italy. 
 Francis I. asked, on the morrow of the battle, to receive the 
 order of chivalry from the hand of Bayard, who was the most 
 distinguished among his most valiant captains at Marignano. The 
 rapid conquest of the duchy of Milan was the result of this de- 
 cisive victory. In order to ensure its possession, the King con- 
 cluded an alliance with the Swiss, which for a long Alliance with the 
 period protected the weakest frontier of the kingdom ; Swiss ' 1515 - 
 in like manner he treated with Pope Leo X., engaging himself 
 to maintain at Florence the authority of Lorenzo and Julian de 
 Medici, near relatives of the Pontiff, and to abolish the Pragmatic 
 Sanction, which founded the liberties of the Gallican Church upon 
 the decrees of the Council of Bale. 
 
 Charles VII. had constituted these decrees a law of the State ; 
 they proclaimed the superiority of the Councils over the Popes, 
 refused to the Pontifical court the revenue of the vacant sees and 
 benefices, and entrusted to the chapters of the churches and monas- 
 teries the election of the bishops and abbes. Louis XL had after- 
 wards abandoned that doctrine, but it was always recognized by the 
 Parliament and the University of Paris. The Court of Borne had 
 constantly protested against these decrees, and they were definitely 
 suppressed by the Concordat which Leo X. and Francis I. 
 
 m x r J . Concordat, 1516. 
 
 signed in 1516. This celebrated treaty admitted the 
 superiority of the Popes over the Councils, and restored to the 
 Pontifical court the immense revenue of the Annates* It took 
 away from the chapters the nomination to the prelatures, and gave 
 it to the King, reserving the third of the vacant benefices for the 
 graduates of the French universities. This Concordat, in order to 
 bind equally the Church and France, ought to have been accepted 
 by the fifth council of Lateran, then sitting at Borne, and by the 
 Parliament of Paris. The Council accepted it without deliberation ; 
 
 * The first year's revenue of the benefices which happened to he vacant, was called 
 the Annates. 
 
348 ABASEMENT OP THE PARLIAMENT. [Book I. CHAP. I 
 
 but the Parliament and the University resisted the orders of the 
 King, invoking the Pragmatic of Charles VII. Offended at any 
 opposition to his will, as an outrage against royal majesty, Francis I. 
 commanded absolute obedience. A deputation of magistrates came 
 to address remonstrances to him. He was furious, and threatened 
 to throw them into an underground dungeon. The Parliament 
 submitted, and registered the Concordat, but protested against 
 ,, L , . the violence which compelled them to do it. It was 
 
 Abasement of the £ 
 
 Se rl Ro m ai ltunder constrained in the following year to sanction a barbarous 
 authority. j aw ^ ^^j^ punished offences connected with the chase 
 
 by whippings, confiscation, or death. " Obey," said the Chancellor 
 Duprat to the magistrates, " or the King will only look upon 
 you as rebels, and will chastise you as the lowest of his 
 subjects." Prom that moment" all yielded in silence, and the 
 monarch glorified himself in having made kings their own masters. 
 
 The young rival of Francis I., he who was about, for so many 
 years, to dispute with him the first rank in Christendom, now 
 commenced to show himself upon the scene of the world. Ferdinand 
 the Catholic died in 1516, leaving the throne to his daughter 
 Joan the Simple, naming as Regent of Castille, Cardinal Ximenes, 
 who, notwithstanding his great age, grasped the reins of the State 
 vigorously, and bowed down the people and the rebellious nobility 
 under his iron will. Charles of Austria, sixteen years old, son of 
 Joan the Simple, was associated on the throne with 
 
 Inheritance of 
 
 Charles of his mother, by the Cortes of the kingdom. This young 
 
 prince, known in after- time under the name of Charles V., 
 was, through his father Philip the Handsome, inheritor of the Low 
 Countries, and in 1516, the Emperor Maximilian, his grandfather, 
 left him his hereditary states. Before he was twenty, Charles found 
 himself master of Spain, of the Low Countries, of Austria, of the 
 kingdom of ^Naples, and the Spanish possessions in America ; he was 
 already the most powerful monarch in Europe. Ruled at this period 
 by the Seigneur of Chievres, his governor, nothing as yet indicated the 
 great faculties of his mind ; but soon his prudence, his ambition, 
 the depth and perseverance of his policy, gave to his name as much 
 brilliancy as his numerous crowns. The King of France, by the 
 geographical situation of his states, their compactness, and their 
 
1515-1526] THE HOLT ROMAN EMPIRE. 349 
 
 resources, more than by their extent, was the only one able to rival 
 him in power, and he asserted his equality often with more audacity 
 than prudence or good fortune. His long and bloody rivalry with 
 Charles of Austria occupied a great part of the sixteenth century. The 
 relations between these two sovereigns commenced, however, by a 
 treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, signed at T f • 
 Noyon in 1516, at the moment when Charles inherited 1516 - 
 the Crown of Spain. This Prince promised Francis I. to marry 
 his daughter, then in the cradle ; the marriage was to be accomplished 
 when she was twelve years old ; and Francis had to give her as a 
 dowry all his rights over the kingdom of Naples. 
 
 The death of the Emperor Maximilian caused the breaking out 
 between the two monarchs of the first svmptoms of the 
 
 J r Election of 
 
 struggle that was only to finish with their lives. Both 9 harles of 
 
 & ° J Austria to the 
 
 of them had pretensions to the Empire*. Francis was Im P erial throne 
 
 * The Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic nation, founded in 800 
 "by Charlemagne, comprehended, in 1518, all Germany and Bohemia. After the 
 extinction of the Carlovingian family, the Imperial throne ceased to be hereditary, and 
 election carried it successively to princes of the Houses of Franconia, Saxony, Suabia, 
 Luxembourg, Bavaria, and lastly to the House of Hapshurg or Austria. Until the 
 fourteenth century, the numher and the prerogatives of the great feudatories having 
 the right to vote for the election of emperor was undecided. The celebrated golden bull 
 published in 1357 by the Emperor Charles, regulated the political rights of Gfermany and 
 founded the constitution, which existed almost without change for foiir hundred and 
 fifty years. From that time there were seven Electors ; the Archbishops of Treves, 
 Mayence, and Cologne, the Dukes of the Palatinate, Brandenburg, and Saxony, and the 
 King of Bohemia. At each vacancy of the throne these seven Electors united together, 
 and decreed the Imperial crown either to a compatriot or to a foreigner. The power of 
 the emperors thus chosen was far from being absolute, for they could neither make 
 laws, nor levy taxes, nor declare war, without the concurrence of the Diet or National 
 Assembly. This Diet was divided into three colleges ; the Electoral College where the 
 prince-electors sat ; that of the lay and ecclesiastical princes when non-electors ; and a 
 third, that of the free towns. 
 
 Besides this central government, the constitution for the protection of local interests 
 had created in the midst of the great confederation many small confederations, called 
 circles of the Empire, each comprising a certain number of agglomerated states, 
 electorates, principalities and free towns, of which the representatives united together in 
 circular assembly under the presidency of a Director. The number of the circles varied 
 for a long time ; but Maximilian, in 1512, divided the Empire definitely into ten circles : 
 Austria, Bavaria, Suabia, Franconia, upper and lower Saxony, the upper and lower 
 Rhine, Westphalia, and Burgundy. The last was soon only nominal. 
 
 We have said that the Empire was elective. Many emperors, in order to maintain 
 the crown in their families, used their influence, while living, to cause a prince of their 
 House to be elected as successor. The heir presumptive thus elected bore, until his 
 
350 THE EIVAL MONAECHS. [Book I. Chap. I. 
 
 prodigal witli his gold among the Electors ; but Germany, threatened 
 by the Turks, had need of an Emperor whose states would serve as 
 a barrier to the Mussulman invasion, and the Elector of Saxony, 
 Erederic the Wise, having refused the Imperial crown, caused it 
 to be given to the young Austrian Prince, so celebrated from that 
 time under the name of Charles V.* Erancis I., wounded to the 
 heart in his ambition, forgot the treaty of ISToyon, re- demanded 
 Naples taken by Eerdinand the Catholic from Louis XII., and 
 summoned the new Emperor to do him homage for the county of 
 Elanders, while Charles V. claimed Milan as an Imperial mascu- 
 line fief, and the Duchy of Burgundy as the inheritance of his 
 grandmother Marie, daughter of Charles the Bold. The two rivals 
 both sought the support of Henry VIII. , King of England. The 
 interview between Francis I. ancL the English monarch took place 
 at Gruines, near Calais. The excessive magnificence which was dis- 
 played on both sides caused the name of the Field of the Cloth oj 
 Gold to be given to the place of conference. After three weeks of 
 rejoicing and splendid fetes, the two kings "signed a 
 of Gold, 1520. treaty of alliance, which became illusory; for Charles V., 
 having himself first visited Henry VIII., had seduced by his 
 largesses, and by the hope of the Papacy, Cardinal TVolsey, minister 
 and favourite of that Prince. So much eagerness, on the part of 
 the two most powerful monarchs in Europe, to gain Henry to their 
 cause, made him adopt this proud motto : — He on whose side I am is 
 Master. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of so many motives of discord and jealousy, 
 neither of the two rivals was anxious to commence the war. Erancis 
 occupied himself with his pleasures, and Charles with the care of 
 subjugating his people. Spain looked upon him as a foreigner, and 
 rose in defence of its political rights ; while Germany, indignant 
 at the shameful traffic in indulgences, commenced to agitate through 
 
 accession, the title of King of the Romans. This was the ancient Caesar of the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 Napoleon, in 1806, destroyed the old German constitution, and suppressed the title of 
 Emperor of Germany, which since 1458 had continued in the family of Hapsburg, 
 or the House of Austria. 
 
 * He was the fifth Emperor of the name of Charles, and the first King of Spain of 
 the same name. 
 
1515-1526] BUKNING OF THE PAPAL BULL. 351 
 
 the voice of Luther. This famous monk had just burned in public 
 at Wittenburg, in 1517, the bull of excommunication 
 
 • Bc^innin^s of 
 
 issued against him by the Pope. An act so audacious Luther. Diet of 
 
 . , -r, . , . , Worms, 1521. 
 
 seized Europe with astonishment, and Charles V. con- 
 voked a Diet at Worms, in order, as he said, to repress the new 
 opinions, which were dangerous to the peace of Germany. Luther 
 appeared at this Diet with a safe-conduct from the Emperor, and 
 under the more efficacious protection of the Elector of Saxony, 
 Frederic the Wise, and of a hundred armed knights. He energetically 
 defended his doctrines, in which, more than all, he attacked auricular 
 confession, the intercession of the saints, the dogma of purgatory, 
 that of transubstantiation, the celibacy of the priests, and the 
 authority of the Church. The Diet permitted him to retire, and 
 soon afterwards outlawed him. The Elector of Saxony caused him 
 to be carried away by men in masks, and conducted to the fortress 
 of Wartburg, where he lived shut up for nine months, concealed 
 from his friends and enemies. It was there that he commenced his 
 translation of the Bible, and composed a multitude of writings 
 stamped with his genius, which was logical, impetuous, irascible, and 
 yet perfectly fitted, even by its triviality, to govern the still coarse 
 mind of his age. 
 
 While these great interests divided Europe, Leo X., always 
 frivolous and inconsiderate, excited the French to the conquest of 
 Naples, promising them his support ; then he treated almost im- 
 mediately with Charles V. At last hostilities commenced. A 
 French army commanded by L'Espare had just lost Navarre after 
 having invaded it ; and the captains of the Emperor, Nassau and 
 Sickingen, had violated the French territory, in order to Firgt hostmties 
 attack Robert de La Marck, au ally of that kingdom. ^Sf^cSl, 
 War broke out in the North and in the South. The 52L 
 Imperial troops took Mourzon, and besieged Mezieres, which was 
 saved by Anne de Montmorency and the Chevalier Bayard. Lautrec, 
 lieutenant-general of the King, failed to receive money for the pay of 
 his army. Four hundred thousand crowns had been promised him 
 for this purpose by Francis I. ; but Louisa of Savoy had compelled the 
 superintendent-general, Semblancay to deliver up to her that sum, 
 without the knowledge of the King, her son. The Spaniards then 
 
352 THE FtfENCH DEIVEN FROM ITALY. [BOOK I. Chap. I. 
 
 attacked Lautrec, who, badly supported by the mercenary troops, 
 was beaten at Bicoque. The malcontent Swiss returned 
 
 Battle of Bicoque, . . A , 
 
 1522. The French to their homes, and Milan was again lost. At the same 
 
 driven from Italy. 
 
 time Henry VIII. united with the Emperor against 
 Francis I., and both declared war against him, while Adrian VI., 
 former preceptor of Charles V., ascended the pontifical throne. His 
 predecessor, Leo X., had in Italy bequeathed his name to the cen- 
 tury. He was great by his magnificence and the enlightened pro- 
 tection that he accorded to art and literature ; no monarch was 
 ever surrounded by so many celebrated artists, or knew better 
 how to animate their genius ; but few men were less fit than he to 
 sustain the combat against Luther or to represent a successor of the 
 Apostles. 
 
 Exhausted by the prodigalities of the King and the thefts of the 
 nobles more than by the war, the treasury was empty, and money 
 was necessary. Recourse was, in the first place, had to the ordinary 
 means, in raising the land taxes and in borrowing money, but these 
 were not sufficient. Under the fatal inspiration of the minister Du- 
 prat, the offices of the magistracy, the number of which 
 offices of e was doubled, were sold for money. In vain the Parlia- 
 
 ments protested ; the new magistrates were maintained, 
 and this deplorable custom of venality, for the first time avowed and 
 recognized, lasted until the French Revolution. Two parties then 
 divided the court ; the one, that of Louisa of Savoy, directed by the 
 Chancellor Duprat and Admiral Bonnivet, both far advanced in the 
 favour of the King ; at the head of the other party were the Duchess 
 of Chateaubriand, mistress of Francis I., and her brothers Lescuns 
 and Lautrec, sustained by the Constable Duke of Bourbon, the richest 
 and most powerful noble of the kingdom. Louisa of Savoy, forty- 
 seven years old, proposed to the Duke to marry her. Bourbon rejected 
 these offers, adding irony to the refusal. The Princess, furious, swore 
 that she would be avenged, and her resentment was fatal to France. 
 She brought an unjust action against the Duke ; the Parliament did 
 not dare to declare its opinion ; but Francis, urged on by his mother, 
 seized and united to the Crown the immense possessions 
 
 Action against 
 
 the Constable of of the Constable, which comprehended, anion a- other 
 
 Bourbon, 1523. ' ....... ° 
 
 seignories, Bourbonnais, Dauphine, Auvergne, Forez, 
 
/ 1515-1526] FRESH CAMPAIGN IN ITALY. 353 
 
 Marche, and Beaujolais. He immediately treated secretly with. 
 Henry VIII. and Charles V., and invited them both to divide the 
 kingdom. Informed of these negotiations, the King tried to seize 
 his person; Bourbon escaped into Germany, and re-appeared soon 
 afterwards at the head of the armies of the Emperor. 
 
 The war then commenced, with advantages to France on all the 
 frontiers. The Germans attacked Champagne and Franche-Comte 
 without success ; the Spaniards were repulsed in the South, while 
 La Tremouille successfully defended Picardy against an English army. 
 
 In spite of so many perils, Francis I. still dreamed of conquest 
 in Italy ; he sent a brilliant army there, under the 
 
 Second and third 
 
 command of Admiral Bonnivet. This favourite was campaign in 
 
 Italy, 1524, 1525. 
 
 not a skilful captain, and each of his steps was marked 
 by a fault or by a reverse. Francesco Colonna compelled him to 
 raise the blockade of Milan, and to fall back on Ticino. In a few 
 months the French army was in great distress, deprived of provisions 
 and decimated by the plague. Bonnivet ordered a retreat, and got 
 away, actively pursued by the Imperial troops, commanded by the 
 best of the enemy's captains, Lannoy, Pescaire, and the Duke of 
 Bourbon. Bayard commanded the rearguard ; a shot struck him 
 in the back, and he was carried to the foot of a tree, his face turned 
 towards the enemy. Bourbon ran towards him and ^ , , 
 
 J Death of 
 
 expressed his deep compassion. "It is not I," answered Ba y ard > 1524. 
 Bayard, " but you who ought to be pitied, you who fight against 
 your king, your country, and your oath." Thus perished the 
 knight who was dearest to France, and the most accomplished 
 among all those of whom history has preserved the remembrance. 
 
 Bourbon and the Marquis of Pescaire invaded Provence, and a 
 number of towns submitted. Marseilles heroically sustained a long 
 siege ; it was defended by Renzo de Ceri, chief of a legion of patriotic 
 Italians, an old remnant of the party of liberty crushed out at 
 Florence and Pisa. After forty days of useless attack, the Imperial 
 troops drew off, having been informed of the approach of Francis I., 
 and of the successes of Andrea Doria, a celebrated Genoese Admiral 
 in the service of that monarch. Francis inarched into Italy at the 
 head of a third army; he rapidly recovered the whole. of the Milanese 
 territory, and besieged Pavia. He remained for a long time before this 
 
 A A 
 
354 BATTLE OF PAVIA. [Book I. Chap. L 
 
 place, when the Imperial troops approached, under the orders of 
 Lannoy, Pescaire, and Bourbon. Francis I. waited for them in his 
 lines, and the armies remained in presence of each other for a long- 
 period without coming to blows. At length, on the 25th of February, 
 Battle of Pa 'a 1^25, they engaged in battle, and the imprudent excite- 
 1525> ment of the King lost it. His artillery made great ravages 
 
 in the Imperial troops : obliged to pass within range, the latter endea- 
 voured to gain, in open order, and at the top of their speed, a small 
 valley where they would be sheltered from this murderous fire. Francis 
 did not understand this movement: "See where they fly," said he; 
 "let us charge ! let us charge ! " and immediately rushed, at the head of 
 his retinue, between the guns and the enemy. The artillery, 
 masked, ceased its fire ; the enemy rallied and waited with firm 
 composure. At that instant the Swiss of the French army, being 
 attacked in flank, lost ground, and the Duke of Alencon took flight 
 with the rearguard. The Imperial army entirely surrounded the 
 King. In vain Francis I. and his knights performed heroic 
 exploits ; Bonnivet, La Palisse, Lescuns, old La Tremouille, and 
 Bussy d'Amboise were killed before his eyes : he himself, thrown 
 from his horse, covered with blood, and twice wounded, was recog- 
 nized by Pomperan, a gentleman of the Duke of Bourbon, and 
 summoned to surrender. Francis refused to give himself up to a 
 renegade ; he caused the Viceroy Lannoy to be called, and gave up 
 his sword to him. It was on the occasion of this bloody battle of 
 Pavia that the King wrote a letter to his mother in which he used 
 a phrase which has since been celebrated : " Madame, all is lost, 
 except honour." Young Henry II. d'Albret, King of Navarre, 
 had been taken prisoner with the King of France. He was im- 
 Ca tivit of prisoned in the citadel of Pavia, from whence he 
 Francis L, 1525. contrived to escape. Francis was concealed from ob- 
 servation in that of Pizzighettone, and from there transferred to 
 Madrid by order of Charles V. 
 
 The interests of the kingdom were then confused with those- of 
 the persons of the kings. France had learned neither from the 
 misfortunes of King John nor from the madness of Charles YI. 
 the importance of a monarchy protecting itself from the calamities 
 which might befall the monarch. The state seemed to be mad when 
 
1515-1526] TREATY OP MADRID. 355 
 
 tlie King was mad, and it appeared to be in the hands of the enemy 
 when the King was captive. Francis I., before his departure, had, 
 it is true, conferred the regency of the kingdom upon his mother, 
 Louisa of Savoy, so that a legitimate authority was recognized in 
 France in spite of his captivity ; but the sovereignty remained 
 entirely in his person ; he alone could accept or reject the conditions 
 imposed on his deliverance ; he alone, in fact, represented the will of 
 France, when danger, fear, or weariness no longer permitted him 
 the free use of his own will. The Emperor saw in the captivity of 
 Francis I. the humiliation and ruin of France, and resolved to profit 
 to the utmost by his victory. The King fell ill in prison ; Charles, 
 who had, until then, refused to see him, visited him and consoled him 
 by affectionate words ; but soon after his recovery he set him at liberty 
 upon sad and dishonourable conditions for France. Overcome with 
 *ief, the King thought of abdicating, but had not strength to 
 >ersist in so noble a resolution ; he protested against the treaty which 
 '-as imposed on him, and signed it, secretly resolved not to 
 observe it. By this treaty of Madrid he ceded all his T __ 
 
 rights upon Italy; renounced the sovereignty of the drid ' 1526 - 
 counties of Flanders and Artois ; abandoned to the Emperor, as 
 the descendant of Charles the Bold, the duchy of {Burgundy 
 and the county of Charolais, with other seignories. He engaged 
 to marry Eleanor, Dowager Queen of Portugal, sister of the 
 Emperor ; he pardoned the Duke of Bourbon, and established him 
 in his rights ; finally, he concluded an offensive and defensive league 
 with the Emperor, promising to accompany him in person when he 
 went upon a crusade against the Turks or against heretics. Charles Y., 
 on his side, gave up the towns on the Somme which had belonged 
 to Charles the Bold. 
 
 After the signature of this treaty the King was exchanged at the 
 frontier for his two sons, and on the same dav reached ^ ,. 
 
 ' J Deliverance of 
 
 Bayonne, where he found his mother and all his court. Francis ?■> 1526 - 
 He believed that in escaping from his enemies he was equally free 
 from the obligations which he had contracted with them, and 
 replied to the messengers of the Emperor that he could not ratify 
 the treaty of Madrid without the consent of the States of the 
 kingdom and of the duchy of Burgundy. 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 THE HOLY LEAGUE. [Book I. ChAP. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 COURSE AND END OF THE EEIGN OF FRANCIS I. 
 
 1526-1550. 
 
 Francis I. alleged the rights and wishes of his kingdom as a reason 
 for exempting him from keeping his engagements ; he had, however, 
 no intention of consulting France ; he would have believed that he 
 was putting himself under the tutelage of the States- General if 
 he had convoked them. Desiring always to oppose to the Emperor 
 a will that should appear national, he called together at Cognac 
 the princes, the nobles, and bishops who then formed part of his 
 court. This assembly disengaged him from his word. The States of 
 Burgundy, on their side, declared that they did not wish to separate 
 from France. Being informed of these declarations, 
 
 Rupture of the 
 
 treaty of Madrid, Charles V. answered: — "Let not Francis I. throw his 
 
 1526. 
 
 want of faith upon his subjects ; in order to keep his 
 word, he ought to die in Spain ; let him do it." 
 
 Italy, however, had only escaped from the French to fall into the 
 _,, „ , „ avaricious hands of the Imperial troops. Francis then, 
 
 The Holy League, -*- < x 
 
 1527 - impatient for vengeance, presented himself to the people 
 
 of Italy, no longer as master but as an ally ; he offered the sword of 
 France in order to free them. Venice, Florence, Francis Sforza, Duke 
 of Milan, and the Pope appealed to him as a liberator, and the King 
 of England himself, afraid of the colossal power of Charles V., entered 
 into the Holy League. In the name of the independence of Italy, the 
 Duke of Urbino raised an Italian army ; but before the French troops 
 had crossed the Alps, fifteen thousand German infantry, soldiers of 
 the Emperor, descended like a torrent upon Italy ; crossing Lombardy, 
 Tuscany, and the Romagna, they threw themselves upon Rome, the 
 centre of the Holy League. The Constable de Bourbon, the idol of 
 these adventurers, and the Lutheran George Frondsberg, who carried 
 
1526-1550] CAPTURE AND SACK OF ROME. 357 
 
 round his neck a gold chain, destined, he said, to strangle the Pope, 
 marched at their head. The assault was made on the 6th May, 1527. 
 Bourbon perished while placing a ladder at the foot of the ramparts ; 
 but Rome was taken, and the Imperial troops avenged 
 
 A *■ ° Capture and sack 
 
 their General by sacking the eternal city and by a of Rome, 1527. 
 frightful massacre. Eight thousand Romans perished on the first 
 day, and the Pope had to sustain a long siege in the Castle of Saint 
 Angelo. 
 
 Henry VIII. and Francis I. resolved to set free the Pontiff and 
 Italy. Francis was to furnish the troops, and Henry a subsidy ; this sum 
 was far from sufficient, and the King convoked in a "bed of justice" 
 an assembly of the principal personages of the Parliament ; he explained 
 to them his conduct, and requested money and their approval. He 
 obtained both, and raised a new army, which he entrusted to Lautrec. 
 The Kings of Prance and England declared war against the Emperor, 
 who heaped reproaches on Francis I., and received a challenge in 
 answer. Lautrec entered Lombardy, commenced the war with 
 success, and penetrated into the kingdom of Naples. Fourt h campaign 
 There he remained without money ; an epidemic cut ln Italy ' 1528# 
 down his army, already exhausted by fatigue and privations ; he 
 himself was attacked and died. Another French army, commanded by 
 Saint-Pol, shared the same fate. Scarcely had it entered Milan when 
 it was defeated and dispersed at Landriano ; Saint-Pol was taken 
 prisoner. France also lost, about the same time, the assistance of the 
 celebrated Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, the first sailor of his 
 age. Discontented with the imprudent disdain of Francis I., he quitted 
 his service for that of Charles V., and replaced Genoa, his country, 
 under the protection of the Emperor. 
 
 Europe, at this period, was in fear of a new Mussulman invasion. 
 Rhodes, looked upon as the bulwark of Christianity, had sustained, in 
 1523, a memorable siege against two hundred thousand Turks, 
 commanded by Soliman the Magnificent. The heroic valour of the 
 Knights of Rhodes, and of their grand-master L'lie- „ . . . , . 
 
 ° ° Celebrated siege 
 
 Adam, had proved powerless against their numbers. After of Rhodes > 1523 - 
 six months' siege, Rhodes surrendered, and the Turks advanced 
 into Europe. Charles V., pressed by them and threatened by the 
 Reformers, who had commenced to call themselves " Protestants," on 
 
358 THE IMPERIALISTS IN ITALY. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 account of their protestation against Rome, modified his pretensions 
 with regard to France. The misery of the peoples was frightful, and 
 the resources of the two rival sovereigns seemed exhausted. New 
 negotiations were opened at Cambrai, by the conferences between 
 Louisa of Savoy, in the name of her son, and Marguerite of Austria, 
 The Ladies' ruler of the Low Countries, in the name of the Emperor, 
 
 Peace, 1529. ^er nephew. A treaty was concluded, less onerous, but 
 more shameful in some respects, than that of Madrid, in which the 
 clauses in regard to Artois and Flanders were maintained ; the King 
 abandoned the sovereignty of those countries ; he engaged, besides, 
 to pay two millions of gold crowns, renounced all rights upon Italy, 
 and abandoned all his allies to the resentment of the Emperor. At 
 this price his two sons were freed, and the duchy of Burgundy still 
 remained to the kingdom. This peace, which threw discredit on 
 France throughout Europe, was signed in 1529, and called The Ladies' 
 JPeace. 
 
 All Italy fell again, almost without resistance, under the yoke of 
 Italy ref alien Charles V., who disposed of crowns at his pleasure. 
 of n the r imperial Florence alone repulsed the Medici, whom the Emperor 
 roops. wished to impose on them, and sustained for a year an 
 
 heroic siege. The illustrious sculptor Michael Angelo conducted the 
 defence, and immortalized himself as much by his patriotism as by 
 his genius ; but at last the Florentines were compelled to yield. The 
 glory of Michael Angelo alone saved his head ; all the best citizens 
 were banished or put to death. In this way the Florentine Republic 
 was subdued. 
 
 The fatal Ladies' Peace was a new misfortune, that France owed to 
 Louisa of Savoy and her confidant the Chancellor Duprat. The 
 The Chanceii r l a ^er, only a short time in orders, had become Arch- 
 Duprat. bishop of Sens and Cardinal ; but that was not enough, 
 
 and he almost died with chagrin when he was not raised to the 
 Pontifical throne; his cupidity, too, exceeded his ambition; in his 
 hands the royal treasury was pillaged, and he made himself master of 
 the richest benefices. The Parliament, which he tried vainly to 
 corrupt by the addition of members devoted to himself, dared to 
 raise its voice against him. The King immediately convoked that 
 body in a bed of justice, and threateningly forbade it to interfere in the 
 
1526-1550] SITUATION OF ETJKOPE. 359 
 
 acts of tlie chancellor and the distribution of benefices. At the 
 request of Duprat he prosecuted the financiers pitilessly, and brought 
 before a commission, Poncher, Treasurer- General, and Semblancay, the 
 retired superintendent of finances. Poncher, during his ministry, had 
 drawn upon himself the hatred of Duprat ; Semblancay had excited 
 that of Louisa of Savoy, by revealing the abstraction by her of four 
 hundred thousand crowns intended to defray the expenses of the war 
 in Italy. Chosen from among the enemies of the „ • .. ■' 
 
 J o Execution of 
 
 accused, the judges decreed a sentence of death. The gemwanS? 
 two old men were hanged in 1527, at the gibbet of 1527 ' 
 Montfaucon, and their property was confiscated. 
 
 Duprat, whose administration was so shameful, promoted one 
 measure of high utility. Francis I. until then had governed Brittany 
 only in the quality of duke of that province ; Duprat counselled him 
 to unite this duchy in an indissoluble manner with the crown, and he 
 prevailed upon the States of Brittany themselves to request this 
 reunion, which alone was capable of preventing the breaking out of 
 civil wars at the death of the King. It was irrevocably 
 voted by the States assembled at Yannes in 1532. The Brittany with 
 King swore to respect the rights of Brittany, and not declared indis- 
 to raise any subsidy therein without the consent of the 
 States Provincial. 
 
 The situation of Europe was then almost everywhere threatening 
 or agitated. The greater part of the princes and the 
 
 Political and 
 
 states of Germany had admitted the new religious religious state of 
 
 . & Europe. 
 
 opinions. Many of these princes believed that in 
 adopting them they were justified in seizing for their own profit the 
 property of the Church, and were suspected of having embraced the 
 cause more on account of embarrassed finances than from their 
 hatred for the abuses of the Court of Rome. Already Frederic I. 
 had accorded freedom of conscience to Denmark, while Gustavus 
 Yasa adhered, with the Church of Sweden, to the confession of faith 
 drawn up at the Diet of Augsburg by Melancthon, a disciple of 
 Luther and the most gentle of the Reformers. The German princes, 
 who were partisans of the Reformation, united together in 1531, 
 against the Emperor, by the celebrated league of Smal- T e a . 
 
 x 1 J <=> League of Smal- 
 
 calde. Lastly, Henry YIIL, to whom the Court of calde » 163L 
 
360 THE ANABAPTISTS. [Book I. Chap. IL 
 
 Rome had not dared to grant permission for his divorce from 
 Catharine of Aragon, aunt of the Emperor, repudiated that princess 
 in order to marry Anne Boleyn, opposing at the same time the Pope 
 and Luther by executions, and causing himself to be proclaimed 
 by his servile Parliament the head of the Auglican Church. The 
 populace of a great number of countries became agitated, renewing 
 the war of the Jacquerie, and the pretensions of the Levellers; a 
 crowd of visionaries took up arms ; the rallying word was the 
 necessity of a second baptism ; the aim, a terrible war against property, 
 which, they said, constituted a perpetual spoliation with regard to 
 the poor, and against science, which they accused of destroying the 
 natural equality among men. According to them, books, pictures, 
 and statues were the inventions of the devil ; they ran from church 
 to church, breaking the images" and overturning the altars. The 
 peasants of Suabia and Thuringia rose in insurrection ; the latter, 
 under the name of Anabaptists, followed the fanatical Muntzer, and next 
 John of Ley den. They tried to join themselves with the insurgents 
 of Franconia, Alsatia, Lorraine, and the Tyrol ; they everywhere 
 deposed the magistrates, and seized the property of the nobles and 
 the rich, whom they subjected to frightful treatment. They did an 
 immense injury to the cause of the disciples of Luther, who united 
 with the Catholics in order to fight and exterminate them. 
 
 Such was religious state of Europe when Francis I. commenced 
 his violent persecution of the Lutherans or Protestants. For a long 
 time his court and his family were divided in opinion. His sister, 
 Marguerite of Valois, and Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess d'Etampes, 
 his mistress, protected the new belief; Louisa of Savoy had con- 
 demned it, inflicting great severities upon its disciples ; Francis I. 
 appeared at first to be himself undecided ; but his eyes were always 
 glancing back to Italy, the conquest of which the Pope could 
 facilitate for him. This motive, as much perhaps as religious 
 feeling, joined to his antipathy towards the spirit of independence, 
 decided his conduct. He closely united his cause with that of Rome 
 by causing his second son, Henry IL, to marry Catherine de Medici, 
 niece of Pope Clement VII. He did not, however, obtain the ad- 
 vantages that he had hoped for from this union. The pontiff only 
 survived the marriage a short time, and had as successor Alexander 
 
1526-1550] SEVERITIES OF FRANCIS I. 361 
 
 Farnese, who became Pope under the name of Paul III.* Francis I. 
 persevered, nevertheless, in the rigorous course that he had traced out, 
 and proved himself in France a cruel persecutor of the Protestants. 
 Jean Morin, a criminal magistrate, seized a great number in the 
 year 1535, and the King, who found a violent diatribe 
 against the mass affixed to his door, resolved upon Francis i. with 
 
 . regard to the 
 
 appeasing heaven by taking vengeance on this crime. Protestants, 
 A procession went out one morning from the church of 
 Saint- Germain, preceded by the relics of saints preserved in Paris ; 
 the King followed the Holy Sacrament, his head bared, and a torch 
 in his hand ; after him walked the queen, the princes, two hundred 
 gentlemen, the parliament, and all the officers of justice ; the am- 
 bassadors were also present. The procession passed through all the 
 quarters of the town. In each of the six principal places were erected 
 a temporary altar, and near, a scaffold and a pile. At these six 
 places six unfortunates perished, burnt alive amidst the curses of the 
 people ; and the King declared that if his own children were to 
 become heretics, he would immolate them. This horrible procession 
 took place on the 21st of January. It was followed by an edict which 
 proscribed the Reformers, confiscated their goods to the profit of their 
 denunciators, and forbade them to print any book on pain of death. 
 
 In spite of this ardent zeal for the Catholic faith, Francis main- 
 tained active relations with the Lutherans of Germany and the 
 Protestant princes of the league of Smalcalde. They, however, 
 indignant at his severities, wished to break with him ; he calmed 
 them by giving them to understand that those whom he exterminated 
 were similar to the fanatical followers of Muntzer and John of 
 Leyden. Calvin, the apostle of reform in France, had just ap- 
 peared ; he avenged his outraged brethren by establishing, through 
 his work On the Christian Institution, dedicated to the King, that if 
 the French Reformers passed the bounds set by Luther, they at least 
 partook of the same principles, and that their doctrines were 
 
 * This Pope promulgated during the reign of Francis I. the hull which- instituted the 
 order of the Jesuits, of which Ignatius LSyola was the founder. The aim of this order 
 was to struggle against the progress of heresy, to convert the world to the Romish 
 faith, and to subject it to the Pope, of whom the Jesuits recognized the infallibility 
 in all that concerned faith. The sovereign pontiff named the general of the order, and 
 all the members took an oath of obedience towards him. 
 
362 THE BROTHERS BARBAROSSA. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 reconcilable with public order and the purest morality. The King 
 recognized the necessity for relaxing these persecutions, and during 
 the same year issued an edict of toleration, attributed in part to 
 the influence of Antoine du Bourg, successor to Duprat in charge 
 Of the chancellorship. 
 
 Charles Y. always persevered in his intention of stifling Protes- 
 tantism, and he would, perhaps, have anihilated it in his States, if 
 other enemies had not suspended his attacks and drawn upon them- 
 selves the efforts of his arms. 
 
 The Mussulman invasion had made rapid progress ; an innumerable 
 Turkish army, conducted across Hungary under the walls of Yienna, 
 had been repulsed in 1529 ; but the treatment of the Christians by 
 the corsairs of Barbary, a pest, until then unknown, desolated the 
 banks of the Mediterranean. Two brothers, named Barbarossa, 
 famous corsairs, had taken possession of Algiers and Tunis, and, co- 
 vered the sea with their vessels, pillaging the coasts of Spain, France, 
 and Italy, and carrying off into slavery a multitude of Christians 
 every year. One of the brothers, chief admiral of Soliman, alarmed 
 the whole of Europe. Charles "V". armed a formidable 
 
 Expedition of 
 
 Charles v. to fleet against him, commanded, under his orders, by 
 
 Tunis. . . 
 
 Andrea Doria ; he conquered Barbarossa, took Tunis, 
 and set free twenty thousand Christians. In the meanwhile, Sforza, 
 Duke of Milan, died without issue ; Francis claimed the inheritance 
 for his second son, the Duke of Orleans. Already, for some 
 time, France, without plausible motive, had declared war against 
 Charles III., Duke of Savoy,* brother-in-law of Charles Y. Turin 
 
 and all Piedmont were rapidlv invaded bv Admiral 
 
 Conquest of r J J 
 
 Piedmont by the Chabot de Briou, and the French and Imperial troops 
 
 French, 1536. L x 
 
 soon found themselves in each other's presence upon 
 the frontiers of Milan. Hostilities broke out ; the army of Chabot, 
 very inferior in number, fell back upon France, leaving garrisons in 
 the conquered places. But the Emperor, without stopping to besiege 
 them, crossed the Yar at the head of fifty thousand men, announcing 
 that he was going to march upon Paris, and commenced by invading 
 Provence ; but there he only found a desert. All the country of 
 
 * Savoy was created a duchy during the reign of Charles V. 
 
1526-1550] CHARLES Y. IN FRANCE. 363 
 
 Provence had been laid waste by the French armies themselves ; 
 everywhere they had torn down the vines, destroyed Invasionof 
 the wells, and burnt the [harvests. The towns had not Ej^Jj^Jf 
 been more fortunate ; Even Aix, the capital, was 1536 ' 
 sacked and abandoned. The Imperial army, exhausted by famine 
 and disease, retraced its steps without having fought. 
 
 The Dauphin of France had just died, and although his death 
 appeared natural, Montecuculli, his cup-bearer, was accused of poison- 
 ing him j he confessed the crime in the midst of atrocious tortures, 
 named the Emperor as his accomplice, and was dismembered. The 
 war redoubled its fury in the Low Countries and Piedmont ; at last, 
 Pope Paul III. arranged that a truce of ten years should be signed 
 between the rival monarchs, who divided the estates _ 
 
 Treaty of Nice, 
 
 of the unfortunate Duke of Savoy, and agreed to see 1538> 
 each other at Aigues-Mortes. These two sovereigns, who had in- 
 undated Europe with blood on account of their quarrels, and one of 
 whom accused the other of poisoning his son, presented the strange 
 spectacle of a perfectly friendly conference, approaching each other 
 with open arms, and lavishing on each other every evidence of esteem 
 and affection. 
 
 A revolt of Grhent soon called Charles V. into Flanders ; he 
 was then in Spain, and his shortest route was through France. He 
 requested permission to cross the kingdom, and obtained it, after 
 having promised the Constable Montmorency, that he would give 
 the investiture of Milan to the second son of the King. His sojourn 
 in France was a time of expensive fetes, and cost 
 the treasury four millions; yet, in the midst- of his Charles v. in 
 
 *; . . . France, 1539. 
 
 pleasures, the Emperor was not without uneasiness. 
 Kings, authorized by the customs of those still barbarous times, 
 rarely sacrificed their interests to their word. The Duchess 
 d'Etampes and all the court blamed the scruples of the King : his 
 jester Triboulet * said one day that, hearing of the arrival of 
 
 * The King's Jester was a buffoon, very often deformed by nature, whose office 
 it "was to amuse the monarch by his sallies. He carried upon his head and in his hands 
 the attributes of Folly, and, in virtue of his title and his costume, he was permitted 
 to say to the king truths that the most respected and the wisest men dared not have 
 uttered. 
 
364 RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 Charles in France, he had inscribed his name in his tablets in the 
 list of fools. "Were I to allow him to pass through," answered the 
 King, " what would yon do ? " "I would efface his name," replied 
 Triboulet, " and I would place your name in its place." Francis, 
 however, respected the rights of hospitality ; but Charles did not 
 give to his son the investiture of Milan. The King, indignant, exiled 
 the constable for having trusted the word of the Emperor without 
 exacting his signature, and avenged himself by strengthening his 
 alliance with the Turks, the most formidable enemies 
 
 Alliance of 
 
 Francis i. with of the empire. Alreadv, in 1536, Francis I. had opened 
 
 the Turks. f . . 
 
 up negotiations, the first in Europe, with the Sultan 
 Ibrahim, and a Turkish fleet had been directed upon Naples. The 
 treaty of Nice had put an end to the alliance, without severing the 
 relations between the courts of France and Constantinople, and 
 when a new rupture between Charles Y. and Francis I. had become 
 imminent, the Sultan Soliman, successor to Ibrahim, was the first ally 
 to whom the King of France addressed himself. The Turks at this 
 period caused the empire to tremble ; they entered triumphantly 
 into Buda, the capital of Hungary, and their fleets covered the 
 Mediterranean. A formidable expedition undertaken by the Emperor 
 against Algiers had just failed, and the terror spread by the 
 Ottoman name increased still more. Francis I. then turned to 
 the Lutheran princes of Germany ; but his advances were coldly 
 received by men who only saw in him a cruel persecutor of their 
 brethren. 
 
 The hatred of the two rnonarchs was carried to its height by these 
 last events ; they mutually outraged each other by injurious libels, 
 and submitted their differences to the Pope. Paul III. refused to 
 decide between them, and they again took up arms. The King 
 invaded Luxembourg, and the Dauphin Rousillon ; and while a third 
 
 army in concert with the Mussulmans besieged ISTice, the 
 
 Renewal of J ° 
 
 hostilities be- last asylum of the dukes of Savoy, by land, the 
 
 tween Charles Y. J d J 
 
 and Francis i., terrible Barbarossa, admiral of Soliman, attacked it 
 by sea. The town was taken, the castle alone resisted, 
 and the siege of it was raised. Barbarossa consoled himself for this 
 check by ravaging the coasts of Italy, where he made ten thousand 
 captives. The horror which he inspired recoiled on Francis I., his 
 
1526-1550] TREATY OF CRESPY. 365 
 
 ally, whose name became odious in Italy and Germany. He was 
 declared the enemy of the empire, and the Diet raised against him 
 an army of twenty-four thousand men, at the head of which Charles 
 V. penetrated into Champagne, while Henry VIII., coalescing 
 with the Emperor, attacked Picardy with ten thousand English. 
 The battle of Cerisoles, a complete victory, gained during the 
 same year, in Piedmont, by Francis of Bourbon, Duke Battle of Ceri . 
 d'Enghien, against Gast, general of the Imperial troops, soles > 1544 - 
 did not stop this double and formidable invasion. Charles V. 
 advanced almost to Chateau-Thierry. But discord reigned in his 
 army ; he ran short of provisious, and could easily 
 
 J x New invasion of 
 
 have been surrounded; he then again promised Milan France by 
 
 ° x Charles V., 1544. 
 
 to the Duke of Orleans, the second son of the King. 
 This promise irritated the Dauphin Henry, who was afraid to see 
 his brother become the head of a house as dangerous for France as 
 had been that of Burgundy ; he wished to reject the offer of the 
 Emperor and to cut off his retreat. A rivalry among women, 
 it is said, saved Charles V. The Duchess d'Etampes was the 
 mortal enemy of Diana of Poictiers, mistress of the Dauphin, and 
 desired, in case the King should die, to secure the powerful protec- 
 tion of his second son. It is declared that she resisted the opinion 
 of the Prince, and Charles was able to retire in safety as he came. 
 
 The war was terminated almost immediately afterwards by the 
 treaty of Crespy in Valois. The Emperor promised his T f _ 
 daughter to the Duke of Orleans, with the Low in Yalois > 1544 - 
 Countries and Franche-Comte, or one of his nieces with Milan. 
 Francis restored to the Duke of Savoy the greater part of the places 
 that he held in Piedmont ; he renounced all ulterior pretensions 
 to the kingdom of >Taples, the duchy of Milan, and likewise to the 
 sovereignty of Flanders and Artois ; Charles, on his part, gave up 
 the duchy of Burgundy. This treaty put an end to the rivalry 
 of the two sovereigns, which had ensanguined Europe for twenty-five 
 years. The death of the Duke of Orleans freed the Emperor from 
 dispossessing himself of Milan or the Low Countries ;' he refused 
 all compensation to the King, but the peace was not broken. 
 
 Francis I. profited by it to redouble his severity with regard to 
 the Protestants. A population of many thousands of Waldenses, 
 
366 TREATY OF GUINES. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 an unfortunate remnant from the religious persecutions of the 
 thirteenth century, dwelt upon the confines of Provence, and the 
 County Venaissin, and a short time "back had entered into com- 
 munion with the Calvinists. The King permitted John Mesnier, 
 Terribi massa- Baron d'Oppede, first president of the Parliament of 
 sian°popSion n " ^ X ' ^° execil -te a sentence delivered against them five 
 1546- years previously "by the Parliament. John d'Oppede 
 
 himself directed this frightful execution. Twenty- two towns or 
 villages were burned and sacked ; the inhabitants, surprised during 
 the night, were pursued among the rocks by the glare of the flames 
 which devoured their houses. The men perished by executions, but 
 the women were delivered over to terrible violences. At Oabrieres, 
 the principal town of the canton, seven hundred men were murdered 
 in cold blood and all the women were burnt ; lastly, according to 
 the tenor of the sentence, the houses were rased, the woods cut 
 down, the trees in the gardens torn up, and in a short time this 
 country, so fertile and so thickly peopled, became a desert and a 
 waste. This dreadful massacre was one of the principal causes of 
 the religious wars which desolated France for so long a time. 
 
 Charles V. then crushed the Lutherans in Germany, and 
 maintained the Catholic faith in Spain by the Inquisition, while 
 Henry VIII. struck equally at both Romish and Lutheran sects. 
 The war continued between him and Francis I. The English had 
 taken Boulogne, and a French fleet ravaged the coasts of England, 
 after taking possession of the Isle of Wight. Hostilities were 
 Treat of terminated by the treaty of Guines, which the two 
 
 Gmnes, 1547. kings signed on the edge of their graves, and it was 
 arranged that Boulogne should be restored for the sum of two 
 millions of gold crowns. Francis I. had suffered for a long time 
 in consequence of a shameful disease, brought from America into 
 Europe by Spaniards, and which brought him to his tomb. When 
 he felt death approaching, he addressed, according to the custom of 
 kings, wise advice to his successor. He caused the only son 
 who survived him, Henry, then twenty-nine years old, to draw near 
 to his bed. He recommended him to free his people from the 
 tributes with which he had been compelled to burden them, and 
 to profit by the good state in which he had left the finances. He 
 
1526-1550] DEATH OF FKASTCIS I. 367 
 
 was indebted, lie said, to the wisdom of his ministers for this good 
 administration, above all to Admiral Annebaut and to the Cardinal 
 de Tournon, and recommended Henry always to follow their counsels, 
 whilst he warned him against the pernicious policy of the Constable 
 Montmorency, against the ambition of the Guises, and advised him 
 to exclude them from power. Henry wept at the Death of F 
 bedside of his father, but avoided giving him any L ' 1547 - 
 promise. Henry VIII. and Francis I. died in the same year ; the 
 latter had reigned for thirty-three years. 
 
 The chivalric bravery of Francis I., his magnificence, and the 
 protection he afforded to talent, gave popularity to his name ; he 
 was called, The father and restorer of letters. But the » .. t . 
 
 u u Considerations 
 
 brilliant qualities of this prince were tarnished by great upon this reign - 
 faults and an odious abuse of power. His cruelty with respect to 
 the Protestants ought to be attributed, in part, to the manners and 
 prejudices of his age. But it is very doubtful whether a sincere 
 faith inspired these frightful persecutions, seeing that in Germany 
 he energetically supported those whom he struck in his own kingdom. 
 He sacrificed the blood of his people to the purposes of his ambition, 
 and their gold to his pleasures. In order to defray his expenses he 
 multiplied and sold the offices of judicature, alienated the royal 
 domains, instituted the lottery, and created by a loan of two hundred 
 thousand livres the first perpetual annuities on the Hotel de Ville, 
 the origin of the public debt in France. He prosecuted by illegal 
 means, and before commissions arbitrarily chosen, many 
 
 • Origin of the 
 
 men of eminent rank, among others the Chancellor Poyet public debt in 
 
 France; an- 
 
 and Admiral Chabot, and in the judgment against the cities on the 
 
 * .7 Hotel de Ville - 
 
 latter the King substituted his own will for the decision 
 
 of the judges. He softened, without doubt, the rudeness of the 
 
 national character by encouraging the progress of the arts ; but by 
 
 abasing the magistracy, placing his caprices above the law, and 
 
 making a display of adultery, he corrupted the manners of his court 
 
 and his people, and this corruption increased until the end of the 
 
 reign of the Valois. The long struggle between Francis I. and 
 
 Charles V. brought no lasting advantage to the kingdom. His 
 
 severities against the Reformers prepared the way for bloody civil 
 
 wars, and, in fine, his reign was less useful than fatal to France. 
 
368 THE BOURBONS AND THE GUISES. [Book I. Chap. II. 
 
 France, However, had been increased by a part of Savoy and 
 
 Piedmont,* and the royal domain since the death of Louis XII. had 
 
 acquired Brittany, which was completely and legally 
 
 Increase of the *- J ' r */ o j 
 
 royal domain. united to France under Francis I. in 1532; it was 
 augmented on the accession of Louis XII. hy the apanage of Orleans 
 and of Valois, containing the county of Blois, and the duchies of 
 Orleans and "Valois, and had gained the county of Angouleme at 
 the accession of Francis I. That prince, lastly, confiscated to the 
 profit of the crown the great possessions of the eldest branch of the 
 House of Bourbon, which comprehended the duchies of Bourbon, 
 Auvergne and Chatelleraut, Forez, the county of Clermont, the 
 dauphine of Auvergne, and a multitude of secondary fiefs. 
 
 France, up to that time, had been divided into bailiwicks in the 
 countries of the north, and into seneschalships in those of the south, 
 for the administration of justice. In the fourteenth century Gene- 
 ralites were established for the collection of the imposts ; Francis I. 
 completed this organization of ancient France by the creation of nine 
 great military governments, formed for the most part in the frontier 
 provinces, and with a view to the defence of the kingdom. These 
 governments were those of Normandy, Gruienne, Languedoc, Provence, 
 Dauphine, Burgundy, Champagne, Picardy, and He de France. f The 
 power was thus centralized more and more. There still existed, 
 The Bourbons however some great feudal houses. The first among 
 and the Guises. a ]| wag jfagj. Q f Bourbon, the issue of the blood royal, 
 which had just been weakened by the disgrace of the celebrated 
 Constable, which extinguished the eldest branch ; the marriage of 
 Antoine of Vendome, chief of the younger branch, with Jeanne 
 d'Albret, heiress of Beam, of Armagnac, of the county of Foix, and 
 the kingdom of Navarre, raised the fortunes of the family. As well 
 as the Bourbons another princely family grew great, the Cruises, a 
 branch of the sovereign House of Lorraine. Claude, fifth son of Duke 
 Bene of Lorraine, had made himself illustrious in the service of 
 
 * Savoy and Piedmont, divided between France and Spain in virtue of the treaty of 
 Nice, were restored in the year 1562 to the princes of the House of Savoy, except some 
 towns which remained annexed to France until 1574. 
 
 f At the time of the French revolution the number of the governments in the pro- 
 vinces was thirty-two. 
 
1526-1550] TRANSFORMATION OF FEUDALISM. 369 
 
 France. To recompense him, Francis I. erected the lands of Guise 
 into a Duchy and Peerage in his favour. He soon perceived the 
 error he had committed in establishing that foreign race in the 
 kingdom, and we have seen how, on his death-bed, he advised his son 
 to separate it from the government; but it was too late, and never 
 were vassals more formidable to the Kings of France than the 
 ambitious Lorrains. The foreign Houses of Cleves and Savoy had, 
 like that of Lorraine, possessions in France. The first ■ 
 
 ' L Possession of 
 
 possessed the counties of Eu, Nevers, and Bethel ; the forei s n pnnces. 
 second, the Duchy of Nemours, in Gatinais ; and the third, that of 
 Bar, held under the crown. Calais always belonged to the English ; 
 Avignon and the county Venaissin belonged to the Pope ; and the 
 Principality of Orange belonged to the House of Nassau. 
 
 There were still considerable fiefs held in France ; but, with the 
 exception of the Bourbons and Guises, the great Feudal _ 
 
 i ' ° Transformation 
 
 system, rival of the crown, almost always in a struggle of Feudalism. 
 with it, and very often formidable, existed no longer. The great 
 French barons had lost the most part of their regal rights which 
 the crown had nearly everywhere reserved ; they had ceased to coin 
 money, to exercise legislative power, to make war on their own 
 account, and found their judicial powers restrained by the royal 
 judges. All political power was taken from them, but a brilliant 
 bondage was offered them at the court, and Francis L, in forcing them 
 to' seek his favour as the source of riches and power, had commenced 
 the work of Louis XTY. 
 
 Another course concurred towards the same end, manners were 
 softened and minds enlightened. In the course of mi „ 
 
 ° The Renaissance 
 
 the Italian expeditions, the knights of Charles VIII, and its influence, 
 of Louis XII. , and Francis I., had brought back to the depths of their 
 Feudal keeps the remembrance and the taste for the elegant 
 civilisation which flourished beyond the Alps, and it could be said 
 of conquered Italy, as formerly of Athens, that she ruled her con- 
 querors. The fall of Constantinople had spread abroad throughout 
 Europe, at the same time, the chief works of antiquity, and printing, 
 scarcely discovered, soon multiplied them to infinity. They formed 
 the delight of the sixteenth century, and a new world was revealed 
 to the sons of men, in the Middle Ages. With the treasures or 
 
 13 B 
 
370 CELEBRATED MEN. [Eook I. Chap. II 
 
 Greek and Latin literature, the chief works of antique art were 
 drawn from the dust where they had lain forgotten, and before these 
 great models, a young school of painters, of sculptors, and ol 
 architects was formed, which in its turn produced new marvels. It 
 was this return to the healthy traditions of taste, and this restoration 
 of the beautiful, after so many centuries of darkness and barbarity, 
 that was called the Renaissance. 
 
 Francis I., above all the princes of Europe, and this was his 
 greatest glory, encouraged this grand movement of the human mind. 
 His mother, Louisa of Savoy, had died, leaving the prodigious sum 
 of fifteen hundred thousand gold crowns, the fruit of her exactions 
 and sordid economy. This treasure passed almost entirely into the 
 hands of poets and artists ; but Francis I. had too exalted a soul to 
 believe that gold was sufficient to recompense genius, and it was by 
 his respect and by honours, that he expressed his admiration for the 
 great men whom he loved to have around him. It was thus that he 
 named Leonardo da Yinci his father, and that he wished to close his 
 eyes. Inspired by his charming* sister, Marguerite of 
 
 Celebrated men JL \ J . °. ' . & 
 
 in arts, literature, Navarre, who herself cultivated literature with success, 
 
 and science. . 
 
 he drew into France a great number of literary and 
 artistic celebrities. Some, like the learned Lascaris, were Greek ; 
 Others, like the poet Alamanni, and the historian Michael Bruto, were 
 illustrious exiles from the republics of Italy. In the first rank of 
 Italian celebrities called into France, Leonardo da Yinci might be 
 distinguished ; William Cop, principal physician to the King, was a 
 Swiss. Among the number of Frenchmen whose works he encou- 
 raged, must be cited the learned William Bude, first professor of 
 philology in France ; the brothers Bellay, negotiators and historians ; 
 the poet Clement Masot, and the great printer, Henry Estienne. 
 About this time also, the celebrated Rabelais, Cure of Meudon, wrote 
 his satirical works. Dumoulin, Cujas, great jurisconsults, might then 
 have been heard, and the chief works of the sculptors John Goujon, 
 Germain Pilon, and John Cousin, sculptor and painter on glass, might 
 have been admired. Pierre Lescot commenced the new Louvre and 
 Philibert Delorme the Tuileries. Under the eyes of Francis I. arose, 
 in part, the Palaces of Fontainbleau and Chambord. But among all 
 his creations those which threw most brilliancy on his reign were Vhq 
 
1526-1550] THE RENAISSANCE. 371 
 
 foundation of the royal printing office, and that of the College of France, 
 then called the Royal College. Until this period the Sorbonne and 
 the University of Paris had alone the right of spreading 1 
 
 J m o ± o Foundation of 
 
 knowledge abroad. Chairs of Greek and Hebrew, next th e College of 
 
 ° France. 
 
 of Latin eloquence, and of the Arabian and Chaldean 
 languages were first created ; mathematics, medicine, and Greek 
 philosophy had their professors in due course. The King desired to 
 place at the head of this college the celebrated Erasmus, the finest 
 mind, and the most learned man of his century, but he could not 
 seduce him by his offers. Francis I., by his cultivated tastes, by his 
 laudable efforts, and his noble aspirations, associated himself with 
 all hie strength in the great movement of the Renaissance, he thus 
 raised himself in the eyes of posterity, who without that perhaps, 
 and in spite of all the interest which his heroism, his bravery, and his 
 misfortunes inspired, would have inclined rather to look upon him as a 
 despot, without scruple, without breeding, and without pity. Happy 
 are the Kings who love literature 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 ACCESSION OF HENRY II. [Book I. Chap III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EEIGN OF HENEY II. 
 
 1547-1559. 
 
 Henry II., son of Francis I., was twenty-nine years of age when lie 
 . ascended the throne. He despised the counsels of his 
 
 Accession of - 1 
 
 Henry ii., 1547. father, changed the counsellors of the Crown, and 
 recalled near to him the Constable Montmorency, whom he named 
 his gossip, and who ruled him'during all his reign. The Duchess of 
 Etampes was exiled and sent back to her husband ; her partisans only 
 redeeming themselves from death, prison, or exile by ceding their 
 castles, their lands, and their offices to the new favourites. The 
 Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, his brother ; Mont- 
 morency ; Diana of Poitiers, styled the Mistress of the King ; lastly, 
 the Queen, Catherine de Medici, endowed with a supple and pro- 
 foundly dissimulating mind, were at the head of each of the four 
 factions which divided the court. 
 
 One of the first edicts of the new king condemned blasphemers to 
 „ . .. A have the tongue pierced with a red-hot iron, and heretics 
 
 Despotic edicts. ° r 
 
 to be burnt alive. Another edict assigned to the 
 prevots of the marshals, assisted by a commission of judges chosen in 
 the tribunals, the trial of assassins, smugglers, poachers, and people 
 who were not known. This edict despoiled the parliament of its 
 special attributes and delivered over the lives of the citizens to 
 arbitrary judgment. The magistrates made ineffectual remon- 
 strances ; but, compelled to yield, they registered it with this clause : 
 in consequence of the malice of the time. A serious revolt broke out in 
 the provinces of Outre- Loire, where the tax upon salt had been 
 recently established by Francis I. Poitou and Guienne rose ; at 
 
 Bordeaux, above all, the populace committed great ex- 
 Revolts in Poitou ' 5 r r o 
 
 and Guienne, cesses. They repulsed the garrison of the Chateau 
 Trompette and massacred its commandant, whose body 
 
1547-1559] BORDEAUX PUNISHED. 373 
 
 they tore into pieces. The King promised justice and satisfaction ; 
 the people were appeased, and the parliament punished the seditions. 
 Montmorency was charged by the King to render the justice which 
 he had promised, or rather to exercise his vengeance upon them. 
 "Behold my keys" said he to the Bordelais, showing them his guns; 
 and he entered Bordeaux as into a conquered city. All the bourgeois, 
 tried by commission, perished by executions ; all colonels of the 
 communes were broken on the wheel alive, with a crown of red-hot 
 iron upon their heads. The whole town, attainted and convicted of 
 felony, lost its privileges ; its bells were taken down, and the fronts 
 of the walls ; a hundred and twenty of the principal inhabitants were 
 condemned to dig up with their nails the body of the slaughtered 
 officer, and the inhabitants paid two hundred thousand livres for the 
 expenses of the expedition. Montmorency visited the district more 
 as an executioner than a judge of the provinces which had revolted^ 
 and everywhere his passage was marked by gibbets. Bordeaux only 
 recovered its privileges in the following year. 
 
 France had hardly taken breath for a year, when war broke out 
 anew. Henry II. supported Ottavio Farnese, Duke of r 
 Parma, against Pope Julius III. and the Emperor. The declares war 
 
 7 o tr c agam>t the Pope 
 
 latter, without disquietude on the part of France, had a^nhe Emperor, 
 gained, in 1547, the famous battle of Muhlberg over the 
 confederates of Smalcalde. The venerable Frederic, Elector of 
 Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, had fallen into his power. 
 Charles V. compelled the former to cede his Electorate, which 
 he gave to Maurice of Saxony, son-in-law of the Landgrave. Ger- 
 many was yielding, and the Protestant League had no other hope than 
 in France ; it implored the support of Henry II., who granted it on 
 condition that he should occupy the town of Cambrai and the three 
 bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, to guard them as TT 
 
 x ' ' ' o He seizes the 
 
 vicar of the Empire. He soon seized them; then, SS^TcSi'and 
 placing on his flag, as the symbol of liberty, a red cap Verdun > lo ° 2 - 
 between two daggers, he declared himself the defender of German 
 independence and protector of the captive princes ; but, following the 
 example of his father, condemning at home that which he encouraged 
 among foreigners, he caused the Edict of Chateaubriand to be pub- 
 lished, which aggravated all the punishments of heretics, authorized 
 
374 MILITARY OPERATIONS. [Book I. ChAp. III. 
 
 secret prosecutions regarding individual opinions, and established an 
 inquisitor of the faith. 
 
 An unexpected success rendered the support of Henry II. un- 
 necessary to the Lutherans of Germany. Young Maurice of Saxony, 
 cried down in his country as a traitor and usurper, preferred the role 
 of Chief of the Protestants to that of a creature of Charles V. 
 A profound dissimulation covered his projects. When he believed 
 . himself strong enough, he raised the mask and marched 
 
 Reverses of o © ' 
 
 Charles v. j n f orce d journeys upon Inspruck, where the emperor, 
 
 ill and almost alone, was nearly taken by surprise. Compelled to 
 
 ' . yield, Charles signed, with the Protestants, the Con- 
 
 Convention of *> 7 ° ' 
 
 Passau. 1552. vention of Passau, changed three years later, at the 
 Diet of Augsburg, into a definite peace. The era of religious liberty 
 in Germany dates from that tiine. 
 
 France had no part in these great events ; but she preserved the 
 price of her alliance, in keeping the three bishoprics, in spite of the 
 efforts of the emperor to take them. Hostilities were still prolonged 
 „ '. . , between that prince and Henry II. for three years, with 
 
 Continuation of r J J ' 
 
 Uw'n 6 * varied success, in Piedmont, Italy, Corsica, upon the 
 
 France 6 aud frontiers of the North and East, and on the sea. The 
 
 principal events of the war were : — the immortal defence 
 of Metz by the Duke of Guise, in 1552, against Charles V., who 
 
 besieged that place with a hundred thousand soldiers 
 
 Military oppra- ° 
 
 tions, 1552-1555. an( j a formidable artillery ; the raising of that siege 
 when the emperor lost forty thousand men ; the invasion of Picardy 
 by the imperial army, and of Hainault by the French army ; the 
 conquest of Hesdin by Henry II.; the loss of Therouenne, which 
 Charles V. razed to the ground; the battle of Renti, in Flanders, 
 between these two sovereigns — a glorious combat, but of little advan- 
 tage to the French, where Guise, Coligny, and Tavannes distin- 
 guished themselves ; lastly, the defence of Sienna by Montluc, the 
 ravaging of the coasts of Italy by Dragut, an Ottoman admiral allied 
 with the French, and the fine campaign made in Piedmont against 
 the Duke of Alba by Marshal Brissac, the most humane among the 
 generals of his time. 
 
 After these wars, the advantages of which were equally balanced, 
 and in the course of the great troubles in Germany caused by the death 
 
ment of the 
 religious peace, 
 1555. 
 
 1547-1559] DIET OF AUGSBURG. 375 
 
 of Maurice of Saxony, and the rivalry between Charles Y. and his 
 brother Ferdinand, King* of the Romans and hereditary sovereign of 
 Bohemia, there was opened at Augsburg a celebrated D? tof 
 Diet, which ought to have followed immediately after Au s sbur £> 1555. 
 the Convention of Passau. The emperor, burdened with his affairs 
 and maladies, left the presidency of the Diet to his brother Ferdinand, 
 whose language on that occasion was very different from that which 
 he ordinarily used. " They could no longer expect," said he, " from 
 a General Council a religious peace which the Council of Trent had 
 not been able to establish, and it would be still more difficult to bring 
 the German ecclesiastics to an unanimity of feeling in a national 
 council ; it was, then, from the Diet itself that it was necessary to 
 demand this work of prudence and of charity." The Diet then took 
 into consideration the state of religion. It was decreed that the 
 Catholic and Protestant States should exercise their Ce]ebrated 
 worship in freedom; that the Catholic clergy should for^VstaSSt 
 renounce all spiritual jurisdiction over the States 
 professing the Confession of Augsburg ; that the 
 ecclesiastical goods seized before the Treaty of Passau should be left 
 to their actual possessors ; that the civil power of each State should 
 regulate its doctrine and religion, but that it should give entire 
 liberty to every German who would not conform to the regulations to 
 retire in peace whither he pleased with his fortune. Such was, in 
 great part, the decree of tne Diet of Augsburg of the 25th of September, 
 1555, and upon it, for a long time, the religious peace of Germany 
 reposed. This decree struck a fatal blow at the policy of Charles V. 
 whose object was always to maintain the unity of the Church 
 under his sole dependence. Tormented by his disgraces as much as 
 by his infirmities, incapable of work, and convinced that all would 
 perish when he could not direct everything himself, he convoked the 
 Chiefs of the Low Countries at Brussels, and there, on the 25th of 
 October, 1555, he solemnly abdicated his hereditary crown, and 
 placed it in the hands of Philip II., his son. He still AM ; cation of 
 held the Imperial crown for six months ; then he ^5 rlesV '' 
 retired to the Convent of the Hieronymites of Saint Just, 
 where he died, after having caused the Office for the Dead to be sung 
 around his coffin while he was still living. His brother Ferdinand, 
 
376 RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES. [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 King of the Romans, was his successor in the empire. Philip II. had 
 married, in the preceding year, Mary, Queen of England, daughter of 
 Henry VIII. and of Catherine of Aragon. Husband and wife vied 
 with each other throughout their possessions in supporting Catholicism 
 by the Inquisition and by funeral piles. 
 
 As soon as Philip had ascended the throne, Henry II. signed a 
 Contradictory "treaty with him at Vaucelles, of which the principal 
 SfeTand Rome c ^ aiise was a truce of five years. The people received 
 355d ' the news with transport ; but their joy was short. It was 
 
 from Rome that the new germs of discord arose. A contradictory 
 treaty had been concluded between Henry and the Pope, some 
 months before that of Vaucelles. Paul IV., whom his nephews, the 
 Caraffi, urged on to outrageous severities, in order to provoke to 
 their profit confiscations, and to stir up a war between the Empire 
 and France, suspected Charles V., before his abdication, with 
 having wished to kill him ; he declared him a poisoner in full con- 
 sistory, and invited Henry II. to avenge him, promising to him, by a 
 treaty signed at Rome, the investiture of the kingdom of Naples. 
 
 Two parties then divided the Court of France ; the one, stimulated 
 
 by the Cardinal Caraffa, nephew of the Pope, demanded the carrying 
 
 out of the treaty of Rome ; the other, the maintenance of that of 
 
 Vaucelles. All the young nobility wished for war ; Montmorency 
 
 was inclined for peace, and, partaking in this respect 
 
 Re-commence- . . .__. 
 
 ment of iiostiii- the wishes of the people, he wisely advised the King to 
 
 ties, 1557. ... 
 
 maintain it. Hostilities broke out suddenly between the 
 Pope and the Spaniards, and war was resolved upon. 
 
 A French army, under the orders of the Constable and his nephew, 
 Coligny, entered into Artois, and another into Italy, under the Duke 
 of Guise. The first gave battle near Saint Quentin, to Philibert, 
 Batti of Saint ^ u ^ e of Savoy, chief of the Spanish and English forces ; 
 Qumtin, 1558. ^ wag completely vanquished through the fault of the 
 Constable Montmorency. A charge of cavalry which the Counts 
 of Egmont and Horn commanded, decided the victory. The French 
 lost ten thousand men, their baggage, and the convoys, the road 
 to Paris was open ; the indecision of the conquerors saved France 
 from great disasters. Guise was soon re-called from Italy, and 
 signalised his return by a memorable exploit ; he surprised Calais and 
 
1547-1559] ' BATTLE OF GRAVEL1NES. 377 
 
 took possession of it. This town, which had so often 
 
 . The Duke of 
 
 introduced foreigners into the kingdom, had remained Guise retakes 
 
 . Calais, 1558. 
 
 for two hundred and ten years in the power of the 
 English. France lost in the same year the battle of Gravelines, when 
 the old Marshal Thermes was conquered by the Count of Egmont. 
 These two events were followed by the peace of Cateau- _ . ., „ _ 
 
 J L Battle of Grave- 
 
 Cambresis, signed in 1559. It was called The TJnfor- rfCatiaSc^ 
 tunate Peace. Henry II. gave up his conquests with wars inTtai? th ° 
 the exception of the three bishoprics ; he renounced all 15 ° 8 ' 
 his rights upon Genoa, Corsica, the kingdom of Naples, and only 
 retained in Piedmont Pignerol, and some fortresses. This treaty, far 
 from glorious, but necessary, terminated the wars in Italy. Their 
 principal results have been to hold in check the House of 
 Austria, and to prevent it from subduing Germany by 
 occupying its forces in Italy. They initiated the French in the 
 progress of civilization and of the arts in that country, and also in its 
 corrupt policy, without permitting it to make any durable establish- 
 ment ; they increased and fortified the royal authority, and rendered 
 it absolute by the continual employment of numerous armies, per- 
 manent and paid. These wars were prolonged over four reigns, and 
 lasted sixty-five years. 
 
 France would have been happy, if it had known how to turn to 
 profit this peace with the foreigner. Its finances were exhausted, 
 and Henry, in order to provide for the expenses of the war and 
 those of a prodigal aud dissolute court, had recourse to deplor- 
 able expedients. He sold by auction the offices of the presidials 
 or inferior tribunals, which he created and multiplied in the 
 provinces. He established with the same aim and bv 
 
 * . J Sale of offices. 
 
 the same means a Parliament in Brittany, caused an 
 
 edict of inquisition to be bought by the clergy, sold a multitude of 
 
 new offices, ordered that the titles or provisions of a -„ . 
 
 * Exactions of 
 
 crowd of public officers should be revised, and compelled Hem 'y IL 
 them to buy them anew ; he authorised the towns extraordinarily 
 taxed to create annuities upon themselves ; lastly, he dared to give 
 the name of States- General to an assembly of notable persons, chosen 
 by himself aud devoted to his will, and he disguised under the name 
 of loans, the taxes that he exacted from them. 
 
378 PEOGRESS OP PROTESTANTISM. [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 The Edict of Inquisition which he sold to the clergy was not 
 executed. Already, however, the Inquisitor, Matthew Ori, had 
 been named by the Pope; but the Parliament of Paris made an 
 energetic resistance. This was not because it felt any pity for 
 the Sectarians; its severities against them were excessive; but it 
 Was jealous of its rights, and did not wish that another tribunal 
 should have the privilege of prosecuting heresy and punishing it. 
 Henry did not support his edict and the inquisition did not take 
 root in France. 
 
 The foreign war had, towards the end of this reign, wrought some 
 
 relaxation in the Catholic persecutions. The Protestants grew bold, 
 
 religious zeal served as a mask to the ambition of 
 
 Progress of Pro- 
 
 testantismin some ; many princes of the Blood Royal, and with them 
 Francs. 
 
 illustrious warriors and magistrates embraced the new 
 
 belief. Taking confidence in their forces, they assembled openly in 
 
 Paris itself. The promenade of the Pre aux Clercs was 
 
 the I'leuux used as their place of meeting ; there they would be met 
 
 Clercs. 
 
 singing ma loud voice the Psalms, translated into French 
 by Clement Marot. 
 
 The court and the clergy feared above all that the Parliament, 
 Exhortation of charged with the punishment of heresy, would not allow 
 SwrSinetoT 10 ' itself to be forced. The powerful Cardinal of Lorraine 
 iienry ii. then persuaded the King that it was necessary that he 
 
 should summon the Parliament to the throne, in order to propose 
 a Mercuriale for the purpose of censuring many magistrates who 
 adhered to the doctrine of Luther, and allowed those convicted of 
 heresy to escape without condemning a single one to death ; which 
 was contrary to the decree of the late King, who prescribed them to 
 be burnt and reduced to ashes. " Then that would only show," said 
 the Cardinal, " to the King of Spain that you are firm in the faith ; 
 further, you ought to do it boldly and promptly, for the purpose of 
 giving pleasure to the Princes and Lords of Spain who have accom- 
 panied the Duke of Alba, in order to solemnize and give honour to the 
 marriage of their King with madame your daughter. I recommend the 
 death of a half-dozen counsellors at least, who must be burnt in 
 public, like heretic Lutherans, as they are, and who destroy that 
 excellent body the Parliament. But if you do not adopt these 
 
1547-1559] AEREST OF ANNE OP BOURG. 379 
 
 means, all the court will soon be infected, even to the ushers, proctors, 
 and clerks of the palace." The King listened to this advice and 
 made arrangements to call together the Parliament on the morrow ; 
 but having, in the evening, communicated his project to his counsellor, 
 Vieilleville, the latter gave advice that he should leave the matter to 
 the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Bishop of Paris. " It belongs to 
 the priests," said he, " to do that which belongs to the office of the 
 priest ; if you go, Sire, to perform the office of a theologian or 
 inquisitor of the faith, the Cardinal of Lorraine must come -to teach 
 you how to run in the lists, and how to manage weapons. Further, 
 Sire, you will mingle sadness with joy ; for to cause executions of 
 justice so sanguinary and cruel in the midst of the wedding fes- 
 tivities, would be a bad augury." The King accepted these reasons, 
 and said that he would not go ; but the Cardinal of Lorraine, hearing 
 of this resolution, entered in fury. Vieilleville relates also, in his 
 memoirs, the continuation of this tragic event. " At the rising of the 
 King," he says, "the Cardinals of Bourbon, Lorraine, of Guise, and 
 of Pelve, the Archbishops of Sens, and of Bourges, the Bishops of 
 Senlis, three or four doctors of Sorbonne, and the inquisitor of the 
 faith, who threatened him so strongly with the anger of God, that he 
 thought himself already damned if he did not go. And so he marched 
 
 with all his guards, the drum beating, without forgetting ~ , , t , „ 
 
 a 9 to' to to Celebrated Mcr- 
 
 the Swiss, and the hundred gentlemen of the house, in cunale > 15a0 - 
 great magnificence. Having gone down to the Augustincs, where the 
 Parliament was assembled, he ascended into the great chamber and 
 sat on the throne, under the canopy, and commanded his attorney- 
 general to propose the mercurialc. The latter soon attacked five or 
 six counsellors, badly disposed to the faith, among whom was one 
 Anne of Bonrg, who sustained so audaciously before the King his 
 religion to the disparagement of Catholicism, that His Majesty swore, 
 in great anger, that he would see him, with his own eyes, burnt alive 
 before six days were over, and ordered him to bo taken prisoner to 
 the Bastille, with five or six others ; then he rose, 
 
 Arrest of Anne 
 
 ordering the assembly to proceed with the rest. Arrived of&um-g, ami of 
 
 ° J * t LouU of Faur, 
 
 at Tournellcs, he repented not having believed M. 15 ^ 
 
 Vieilleville; for in the streets he heard many who murmured at this 
 
 enterprise, on account of the counsellors who had been made prisoners, 
 
380 ARREST OF LOUIS OF FAUR. [Book I. Chap. III. 
 
 and who were of the better families of Paris, and who administered 
 justice to all parties, very conscientiously." * 
 
 The counsellor, Louis of Faur, was in the number of the magistrates 
 arrested in their seats. Henry placed them all in the hands of Mont- 
 gommery, captain of his guards, and made him give instructions for 
 their trial. 
 
 The French Calvinists held at this period their first Synod, and 
 „. . „ , ... regulated the constitutions which should maintain in 
 
 First Calvanistic ° 
 
 Synod, 1559. union their scattered societies, and rule them under the 
 same discipline. The King received the news in the midst of the 
 fetes of the marriage of Elizabeth, his daughter, with Philip II., 
 widower of Queen Mary Tudor of England. He swore that he would 
 punish those whom he considered as rebels. His death prevented the 
 Death of accomplishment of his vow. Wounded in the eye, at a 
 
 Henry ii., 1559. j ous t, by the lance of Montgommery, he died of the 
 wound after a reign of twelve years. He left four sons, of whom 
 three wore the crown. Francis, the eldest, had married Mary Stuart, 
 Queen of Scotland, celebrated as much for her misfortunes as for her 
 beauty. 
 
 Henry II. had in his character neither grandeur nor virtue. 
 Intimidated by the Guises, and ruled by Montmorency, the slave of 
 his mistress and his favourites, he poured out on them the treasures 
 of the State, introduced an unrestrained licentiousness into his court, 
 
 * Vieilleville became Marshal of France, and honoured his country by his tolerance, 
 and the nobility of his character. Receiving one day a brevet, by which the King 
 granted to him and five other gentlemen, among whom were MM. Aphem and de Biron, 
 the confiscated goods of all the Lutherans of the countries of Guienne, Limousin, Quercy, 
 Perigord, Saintonge and Aunis, of which the product would be at least 20,000 crowns 
 for each, he answered, "that he did not wish to enrich himself by so odious and 
 sinister a means, that he found in it no trace of dignity, and still less of charity . . . ." 
 " Behold us, then, registered in the Courts of Parliament with a reputation of destroyers 
 of the people, besides having, for 20,000 crowns each, the curses of an infinity ot 
 married women, maidens, and little children, who will die in the hospitals through the 
 confiscation, right or wrong, of the persons and goods of their husbands and father's : that 
 would be to plunge into the abyss of hell cheaply." That said, he drew his dagger, and 
 plunged it into the brevet in the place of his name. M. Aphem, reddening with shame, 
 drew his likewise, and across his own appointment ; M. de Biron did not do less. And 
 all three went away, drawing each one on his own side without saying a word, leaving 
 the brevet to any one who wished to take it, for it had fallen to the ground. (Memoirea 
 de Vieilleville.) 
 
1547-1559] . CHARACTEE OF HENRY II. 381 
 
 already corrupted by his father, he oppressed the people without pity, 
 violated the rights of the magistracy, obtained no personal military 
 glory, and left the kingdom forty millions in debt.* The ignorance 
 and the misery of the people, the increasing embarrassment of the 
 finances, the scandals of the court, the Protestant proselytism on the 
 one part, and on the other the Catholic intolerance, prepared the 
 volcanic field, where great talents and great ambitions came to clash 
 together under the following reigns The struggle lasted thirty-six 
 years, and covered France with ruins. 
 
 * This sura would be equivalent to 160 millions at the present day, specie then 
 having a quadruple value of that existing at the present time. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF FRANCIS II. TO THE DEATH 
 
 OF HENRY IV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS WARS. THE LEAGUE. — END OF THE DYNASTY OP THE YALOIS. 
 
 ACCESSION OP THE BOURBONS. — REIGN OF HENRY IV. 
 
 1559-1610. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REIGNS OP FRANCIS II. AND CHARLES IX. 
 
 1559-1574. 
 
 F R A N C I S II. 
 
 Francis II. ascended the throne at the age of sixteen years, and under 
 this reign and the following one was seen anew the dangers of the 
 law formed by Charles V., which "fixed the majority of the Kings at 
 their adolescence. The reigns of Charles VI. and Charles VIII. , 
 already sufficiently attested that the power, in the young age of the 
 Kings, belonged, in spite of their legal majority, to any one who knew 
 how to seize it. Under Francis II. there were the Guises, princes of 
 the House of Lorraine, and uncles of the young- Queen 
 
 Power of the •> o ~c 
 
 Guises, 1559. Mary Stuart, who divided all the authority with 
 Catherine de Medici, one of them, the Cardinal, had a cruel and 
 haughty spirit; the other was the famous Francis, Duke of Gruise, 
 whose prudence equalled his intrepidity, already illustrated by the 
 fine defence of Metz, and the taking of Calais, and dear to the French 
 by his great qualities. The two brothers, however, showed themselves 
 
1559-1574] TRIUMPH OF THE GUISES. 883 
 
 equally ungrateful towards Diana of Poitiers, their benefactress. It 
 was by sacrificing her that they bought the favour of Catherine de 
 Medici. The characteristic trait of this Queen, who played so great 
 a part under the reigns of her three sons, was a profound dissimulation, 
 united with an intriguing and corrupt spirit.* Nurtured in^ Italy in 
 the school of Macchiavelli, and the Borgias, she set in operation from 
 the throne their fatal policy, of which the misfortunes of France 
 attested the impotence, while at the same time they unveiled its 
 infamy. The party opposed to Catherine and the princes of Lorraine, 
 was that of Anthony of Bourbon, King of Navarre, and 
 
 ... . Political parties 
 
 of Louis of Conde, his brother, both princes of the Blood 
 
 Royal, issue of Bobert, Count of Clermont, youngest son of Saint 
 
 Louis ; it was to them that the old Constable of Mont- 
 
 Ori.ain of the 
 
 morency, without credit at the court, and disgraced by House of bout- 
 the queen-mother, came and rallied against the Guises. 
 A great number of French nobles, indignant at seeing all the authority 
 usurped by princes of the foreign House of Lorraine, increased the 
 party of the royal princes ; secret conferences were held at Yendome, 
 between all the Malcontents, the object of which was to convoke the 
 States- General, and take away the power from the Guises. The latter, 
 informed concerning these hostile projects, and knowing the weakness 
 of Anthony of Bourbon, prevented the danger by intimidating that 
 prince. Invited by Catherine to defend her government, the King of 
 Spain, Philip II., had answered that, should it cost him forty thousand 
 men, he would sustain, in Prance, the authority 'of the King and his 
 ministers. His letter, read in full council before the King of Navarre, 
 frightened that feeble prince, who accepted the mission to conduct to 
 the frontier the sister of Francis II., Elizabeth of France, in order to 
 place her in the hands of the King of Spain, her husband, and was 
 happy so to escape from the peril of his own resolutions. 
 
 The Guises triumphed; they then hastened to work out the 
 destruction of Protestantism in France, and caused the trial of the 
 counsellor Anne of Bourg to be proceeded with. This great cause 
 
 * She appeared indifferent to power when she was most covetous of it ; incapable 
 of a sincere affection, she deceived equally friends and foes. There was for her neither 
 security nor pleasure, if she did not incite, renew, or perpetuate discords. (Charles 
 Lacratelle, Eistoire de France pendant les gucrres de religion.) 
 
384 THE BURNING CHAMBER. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 Trial f a f ^olcl public attention, not only in Paris, but in Europe. 
 Bourg, 1559. rj\^ Q p ro testant party became agitated ; the queen- 
 mother received alarming warnings ; many princes of Germany also 
 were moved in favour of the accused, and wrote in order to save 
 him. The Guises, aware that Bourg would be more formidable 
 if he died a martyr to his faith than if he lived abjuring it, set to 
 work so that he should consent to recant. The advocate charged 
 with his defence confessed in his name that he had offended God and 
 the Church, and that he was ready to reconcile himself with it ; the 
 judges immediately, and without wishing to hear Bourg himself, held 
 council in order to grant his pardon. While they deliberated, a note 
 from his hand was delivered to them. Bourg disavowed the conclu- 
 sions of his advocate, and persisted in his faith, which he was ready to 
 confirm with his blood. From that time his fate was sealed ; still, he 
 could not perish without being avenged ; it was unfortunately by an 
 assassin. The President, Minard, his enemy, and one of his judges, 
 was killed by a pistol-shot. This was the sinister signal 
 
 Assassination of i i i " j_- a , o -i n 
 
 the President lor a bloody persecution, feentence ot death was soon 
 
 Minard. . . 
 
 pronounced against Bourg ; he heard it read with heroic 
 constancy, and answered by the cry of the martyrs, " I am a Christian ! 
 I am a Christian ! " His eloquent farewell drew tears from his judges. 
 „ .. . He was executed on the next day, the 23rd of December ; 
 
 Execution of >> ' ' 
 
 Auneof Bourg. they spared him the pain of the fire, having the grace to 
 strangle him before throwing him into the flames. 
 
 The death of Bourg seemed to give a new activity to the persecu- 
 tion. The Cardinal of Lorraine designed, as he had already done for 
 Francis I., a particular chamber, charged with punishing the 
 mu , . reformers. Fire was the chastisement which it pro- 
 
 The burning r 
 
 chamber. nounced against them, and the cruelty of its judgments 
 
 gave to it the frightful nickname of the Burning Chamber. 
 
 The peace of Cateau-Cambresis had left without employment a 
 crowd of gentlemen and soldiers, whose only resource was war. A 
 great number came to the court to petition, some for that which 
 was due to them, and others for pensions and pardons. Impor- 
 tuned by their demands and their misery, the Cardinal of Lorraine 
 caused a gibbet to be erected, at the entrance to the Chateau of 
 Fontainbleau, with a threat that he would hang those petitioners who 
 
1559-1574] THE CHATILLONS. 385 
 
 had not left the court on the following day. They moved away, but 
 they promised to present to the Lorrains * complaints of another 
 sort. These men, among whom were many people without name, 
 united with the nobles who were enemies to the tyranny of the 
 Guises, and formed with them the party of Malcontents, which 
 doubled its forces by allying itself with the Protestants. The .latter, 
 counted with pride in their ranks the Prince of Conde, a man of heart 
 and head, brother of the King of Navarre, and the three 
 
 ° . _ ^ . The Chatillons. 
 
 brothers Chatillon, of whom the eldest, Admiral Coligni, 
 of austere manners, of an immovable firmness, skilful in repairing his 
 reverses without ever despairing, was the most illustrious among the 
 Protestant chiefs of France ; Audelot, one of his brothers, celebrated 
 for his bravery, commanded the French infantry ; his other brother, 
 Odet Chatillon, a skilful diplomatist, had secretly embraced the 
 reformed faith and was married, although he was Bishop of Beauvais, 
 and Cardinal. The ability of the three brothers, their offices and 
 alliances, soon rendered formidable the party which had adopted 
 them as chiefs, and who reckoned already on the tacit concurrence of 
 the Prince of Conde. 
 
 A vast plot, known in history under the name of the Conspiracy of 
 Amboise, was then formed in secret by the enemies of the government, 
 Catholic and Protestant. Both one and the other bound n 
 
 Conspiracy of 
 
 themselves by an oath to attempt nothing against the Amboi se, 1560. 
 King, the Queen, or the authority of the laws. Their object was to 
 carry off the King, to remove him from the influence of the Guises, to 
 arrest the latter, and to cause them to be tried as guilty of high 
 treason. An adroit and bold gentleman, named Benandi, was chosen 
 as the apparent chief of the enterprise, which he conducted with great 
 skill. The real chief, known only under the name of the Dumb 
 Captain, was the Prince of Conde. From all parts bands of armed 
 men were set in movement, without being in the secret of the con- 
 spirators. The Guises, under vague suspicion, removed the court from 
 the Chateau of Blois to that of Amboise. The conspirators persevered 
 in their project with an incredible audacity. An advocate,- named 
 Avenelles, a friend of Benandi, revealed their design ; and while this 
 
 * The Guises, Princes of the House of Lorraine, were commonly designated by this 
 name. 
 
 C C 
 
386 VENGEANCE OF THE GUISES. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 news still held the Guises and their court in stupefaction, the 
 conspirators, informed of the treachery, marched forward and directed 
 the courses of the different bands upon the Chateau of Amboise, on 
 the 16th of March, 1560. Already the town was filled with troops 
 called together in haste by the Guises. Coligni and Conde found 
 themselves both one and the exposed to an extreme defiance. Conde, 
 overlooking closely, received the order to defend some posts. 
 Combats then took place, and were unfortunate for the conspirators; 
 Defeat of the ^ e ^ u ^ ses rusn ed upon a crowd of men, who ran 
 conspirators. according to the order of their chiefs and conspirators, 
 without knowing the reason why; the party was dispersed and the 
 executions began. 
 
 Whatever name is given to this enterprise, whatever motive is 
 supposed for it, it was culpable, since it tended to overthrow by 
 violence a government legally established. However, the barbarities 
 exercised upon the captives, and the constancy with which they held 
 firm, excited interest for them and horror for their executioners. The 
 vengeances of the Guises were atrocious. The waters of the Loire 
 . carried away a multitude of corpses, which floated fastened 
 
 Vengeances of * r ' 
 
 the Guises. together with long poles ; the streets of Amboise ran 
 
 with human blood. The Conspirators marched boldly to death ; some 
 were killed without even having heard their sentence. One of the 
 principal, the Lord of Castelneau, gave himself up to the Duke of 
 Nemours, with fifteen of his companions, on condition that he should 
 do them no harm ; the Guises caused them to be condemned like 
 the rest. Nemours interposed vainly to save them, they all died. 
 Castelneau dipped his hands on the scaffold into the blood of his 
 decapitated companions, and, lifting them to Heaven, all wet with 
 blood, he cried to God for vengeance upon those who had betrayed 
 him, and upon the Chancellor Olivier who had condemned him. The 
 latter, secretly attached to the conspirators, had been compelled to 
 exercise against them the vengeance of the Guises. " In listening to 
 the words of Castelneau, whom he had loved, he wept, and, siezed 
 with remorse, he fell ill of an extreme melancholy, which made him 
 sigh without ceasing, and murmur against God, afflicting his person 
 in a strange and dreadful manner. While he was in this furious 
 despair, the Cardinal of Lorraine came to visit him, but he would 
 
1559-1574] DEATH OF FRANCIS II. 387 
 
 not see him, and turned on the other side, without saying a word; 
 when he knew that he was far off," he cried ont : — "Ah! cursed 
 Cardinal! you damn yourself and us along with you." Two days 
 afterwards he died.* For a month they did nothing but behead, 
 hang, and drown. Conde himself was in peril ; he prayed for his 
 audacity by justifying himself before the King ; he caused his 
 accusers to be silent, but not the suspicions, and civil war appeared 
 imminent. 
 
 The two parties met together in arms at Fontainebleau, where the 
 Guise had convoked the principal magistrates to consult 
 concerning the means of establishing peace. Coligni in Fontainebleau, 
 this assembly presented uselessly a petition in the name 
 of fifty thousand Belisionaires^ who supplicated that temples should 
 be granted to them, and the permission to pray to God according to 
 their hearts. The assembly requested the States- General, and the 
 Princes of Lorraine acquiesced in this wish. On both sides plots 
 were woven. Orleans had been fixed upon as the place of meeting 
 for the States; the King betook himself there with a S(atesof Orleans 
 threatening display. The two Bourbon Princes were 1560- 
 drawn there by the Guises. The King of Navarre ran the risk of 
 his life in an audience which Francis II. gave him, and 
 
 C-i / -, . . . . , -, ., Condemnation of 
 
 onde was made prisoner. A commission, appointed by the Prince of 
 
 the Guises, and presided over by Christopher of Thou, 
 
 father of the historian, condemned Conde to lose his head. The 
 
 death of the feeble Francis II., whom a disease of 
 
 Death of Fran- 
 
 exhaustion consumed away, prevented the execution of cisIL >i560. 
 the prince. 
 
 This reign finished under the most, sinister auspices. If one man 
 could have conjured down the tempest that was about to burst, it 
 would have been the wise and virtuous Michael of the Hospital, 
 ancient superintendent of the finances, and successor to Olivier in 
 charge of the chancellorship of the kingdom; he belonged to those 
 men who present a beautiful type in the moral order, and who seem 
 born to soften down the evils of humanity. J He made the greatest 
 
 * De Vieilleville, Memoires. 
 
 + All those of the reformed religion were designated by this name. ~ 
 
 X ''He was," says Brautome, "another Cato the Censor, who knew very well hew 
 
 c c 2 
 
Accession of 
 Charles IX. 15G0. 
 
 388 ACCESSION OF CHAELES IX. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 efforts to prevent the Guises from introducing into France the 
 execrable tribunal of the Inquisition, but he could only succeed in it 
 Edict of Rom - ^y Polishing the Edict of Romorantin, which attributed 
 rantm, 1560. ^ -j-j^ p re i a tes of the kingdom the knowledge of the 
 
 crimes of heresy (May, 1560). The Parliament modified this Edict 
 before registering it, and permitted the laity to have recourse to the 
 judge royal. 
 
 CHARLES IX. 
 
 Charles IX. was only ten years old when he succeeded his brother, 
 Francis II. The States- General were still assembled 
 at Orleans, and only took a feeble part in political 
 affairs ; however, it decreed the regency to Catherine of Medicis, and 
 recognised the King of Navarre in his quality as Lieutenant- General 
 of the Kingdom. The Chancellor L'Hospital exercised a wise 
 influence upon the States, and he leant upon them in order to cause 
 the ordinance called that of Orleans to be issued. It was celebrated 
 for the excellent arrangements touching ecclesiastical matters, the 
 administration of justice, and the police of the kingdom. This 
 ordinance re-established the ordinances proscribed by the Pragmatic 
 Sanction for the election of the bishops ; but its arrangements in this 
 respect were not observed for any length of time. L'Hospital had 
 refused to sign the arrest which condemned to death the prince of 
 Conde. Medicis, by her counsel, declared Conde innocent of the 
 crime of which he was accused, and Montmorency was recalled to 
 the court, where, nevertheless, the Guises remained powerful and 
 formidable. 
 
 The queen-mother played fast and loose between the two parties, 
 at one time relying on the Guises and the Catholics, and at another 
 attaching herself to the Protestants and the Bourbons against the 
 Guises. The latter sought the support of the gloomy and cruel 
 Philip II., King of Spain, the firmest champion of Catholicism in the 
 
 to reprove and correct the corrupt world. He showed it in all his outward appearance, 
 with his great white beard, his pale face, and his grave expression, so that one would 
 have said that to see him, was to see a true portrait of Saint Hierosone : so said many 
 at the Court." 
 
1659-1574] - CONFERENCE OF POISSY. 389 
 
 whole of Europe, and who already, under the preceding reign, had 
 declared himself protector of the kingdom of France. The Guises 
 felt equally the want of again attaching to themselves the Constable. 
 They knew that in the eyes of this old warrior, all interest disappeared 
 before that of the Catholic religion. They showed to him that it was 
 in peril, and he entered into their views. The Marshal of Saint 
 Andre was also gained over to the side of the Lorraine princes, and 
 formed, with the Constable and Francis of Guise, a The Triumvirate> 
 league which received the name of the Triumvirate. 
 
 o 
 
 Then appeared an edict, dated in the month of July, which granted 
 to the Protestants an amnesty for the past, and ordered them to live 
 in the Catholic religion, nnder pain of prison and exile ; Ef1ict of Jul 
 death would no longer be pronounced against them. 156 • 
 This edict only made malcontents, and was never observed. The 
 Queen endeavoured to bring together Francis of Guise and Conde ; 
 they embraced each other, bnt remained mortal enemies. 
 
 The States- General assembled in the course of the year at Pontoise. 
 The electors were assembled by province, and not by states f 
 bailiwick, and each of the thirteen provinces having Pontolse ' 156L 
 only named one deputy from each order, thirty-nine members alone 
 sat in the States. They voted for the election of the prelates by the 
 chapters, and the abolition of the Annates, and caused the greater 
 part of the public offices to fall to the clergy. That order, fearing the 
 most severe measures with regard to its immense wealth, taxed itself 
 with fifteen millions, which it offered as a free gift. In the meantime, 
 a celebrated assembly was held, under the name of the „ . 
 
 J ' Conference of 
 
 Conference of Poissy. Anxious to cause his eloquence Poiss y> 1561 - 
 and erudition to shine, the Cardinal of Lorraine had invited the 
 Protestant ministers and Calvin himself to open with him and the 
 Catholic bishops' conferences, where the principal points of the two 
 religions should be dilated. Poissy was designated as the scene of 
 this theological struggle. Many French cardinals, forty bishops, and 
 a great number of doctors appeared there ; not more than twelve 
 Protestant ministers were there. Calvin did not present himself; he 
 sent in his place Theodore of Beza, the most distinguished of his 
 disciples. The discussion finished like all theological disputes ; each 
 pne remained more firmly fixed than ever in his own opinion. 
 
390 MASSACRE OF VASST. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 . The Edict of July was not observed in any part ; the Protestants 
 braved it openly, and nnited together in a great number of places. 
 Catherine of Medicis then gave an order to all the parliaments to 
 appoint deputies who should assist in forming an edict more suitable 
 to the circumstances. This new assembly was presided over by 
 Efforts of the L'Hospital, who spoke these beautiful words : — " Try 
 l "Hospital to an( ^ nn( ^ ou V sa ^ ne ? " if a man can be a good subject 
 secure peace. f ^ e ^ n g w £thout being a Catholic, and if, after all, it 
 
 is impossible for men who are not of the same belief to live in peace 
 with each other, do not then tire yourselves with searching as to 
 which religion is the best ; we are here, not to establish the faith, but 
 to regulate the State." 
 
 The wise Edict of January was the result of the efforts of the chan- 
 Edict of eel] or. It was therein decreed that the Calvinists should 
 
 January 08 !^ £^ ve U V ^ ne usurped churches, the crosses, the images and 
 
 ^he relics, and that they should submit to the collection 
 of tithes ; it ordered them to keep the fete days, and to respect the ex- 
 terior acts of the Catholic religion. It permitted them, nevertheless, 
 to meet together, in order to exercise their religion outside the towns, 
 and without arms ; it enjoined upon the magistrates to watch lest 
 they caused any disturbances. The parliaments of Rouen, Toulouse, 
 Bordeaux, and Grenoble, with little difficulty registered the Edict; 
 that of Burgundy resisted it ; those of Paris, Landguedse, and 
 Dauphine offered a long resistance. This celebrated Edict was 
 welcomed by the Calvinists with an enthusiasm which doubled their 
 confidence ; while the Catholics received it in a stern and mournful 
 silence. The peace that it maintained between them was of short 
 duration ; each party strengthened and prepared itself for war. The 
 Guises had drawn to them the King of Navarre, whom Philip II. 
 flattered by promising to him Sardinia ; while Conde, his brother, 
 declared himself chief of the Protestants, towards whom the queen- 
 mother appeared then to incline. The Catholics, alarmed at the 
 favour which Conde enjoyed, called Guise to Paris. He hastened 
 from Joinville, and passed through the little town of Yassy, in 
 
 Champagne, at the time when the Protestants were 
 
 Massacre of j. o 
 
 Vassy, 1562. assembled in worship. His fanatical troops fell upon 
 
 them sword in hand j the Duke of Guise was wounded in the cheek 
 
1559-1574] • ADMIRAL COLIGNY. 391 
 
 in the tumult, and sixty Calvinists were slaughtered ; this massacre 
 became the signal for war. 
 
 Guise entered Paris as a conqueror, amid -the cheers of the people; 
 Catherine, jealous and troubled concerning her influence, drew nearer 
 to the Protestants, without giving herself opening to them. The 
 two parties, in arms, watched each other for many days in Paris, and 
 the Queen, in order to prevent the shedding of blood, arranged with 
 their chiefs, Guise and Conde, that they should leave the capital ; 
 they obeyed, but this was in order to unite their partisans and to 
 prepare themselves for war. 
 
 However, the great captain who was then in France, the firmest 
 supporter of reform, the Admiral Coligny, hesitated to take up arms ; 
 his brothers, the Cardinal of Chatillon and Audelot, pressed him 
 to join ; but he himself thought over all the evils of civil war ; 
 he thought with fear of the number of his adversaries, and the 
 weakness of his party and the greatness of the peril. For two days 
 he resisted, when he was awakened at night by the sobs of his wife. 
 It was not on account of herself that she wept, but on account of her 
 husband's wish to abandon his brothers in Jesus Christ, whom she 
 looked upon beforehand as men condemned to die by executions. 
 " To be wise for men," said she, "is not to be wise for God, who 
 has given you the science of captain for the service of his children." 
 Coligni related to her all his just motives and fears, and added : — 
 "Place your hand upon your heart, sound well your conscience, and 
 see if you can put up with general disasters, the outrages of your 
 enemies, the treachery of your own side, flight, exile, your hunger, 
 and that which is harder, that of your children, perhaps, even your 
 death by an executioner, after having seen your husband dragged 
 along and exposed to the ignominy of the vulgar ****.! 
 give you three weeks to try you." " These three weeks are passed," 
 replied that heroic women ; " you will never be conquered by the 
 virtue of your enemies ; use your own, and do not have upon your 
 head the deaths of three weeks."* Coligny departed on the following 
 day with his brothers and joined Conde. 
 
 The prince thought of making himself master of the person of 
 Charles IX., the Triumvirate prevented him ; they removed the 
 
 * Daubigne, Notice sur Coligni. 
 
392 THE HUGUENOTS. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 First civil war young king to Pontainebleau, and conducted him to 
 1562, Paris, where Catherine herself accompanied him. The. 
 
 Constable could no longer restrain his fanatical zeal ; he advanced 
 into the Faubourgs at the head of his troops, attacked the Protestant 
 churches, and with his own hand set fire to their temples, which were 
 consumed amid the joyous and barbarous criqs of the populace. It 
 was thus that the first war was declared. Conde, Admiral Coligny, 
 and his brother Audelot, hastened immediately to Orleans, and 
 assembled there their forces. Both sides had recourse to foreign 
 aid ; the Guises were supported by the King of Spain, and they 
 Alliance of the bought, at the price of the town of Turin, the support 
 £SSf wM of the Duke of Savoy; the Calvinists negotiated with 
 Elizabeth; they wished to sell to her Dieppe and Havre, 
 and called into Prance a body of German knights, known by the 
 name of Beitres, a great number of nobles, besides the Chatillons, 
 embraced their side ; among their ranks might be distinguished 
 Anthony of Croi, La Rochefoucauld, Rohan, Montgommery, Gramont, 
 the one drawn by the true zeal for reform, the others by their hate of 
 the Guises, and by the chances which a civil war offers to all who 
 are ambitious. The army of the Huguenots,* or Protestants, was 
 remarkable for its fine and severe discipline. No games of hazard, 
 0.0 women of bad reputation, and no marauders were to be seen 
 there ; swearing was rigorously forbidden ; ministers went amongst the 
 companies and conversed there with religious enthusiasm ; but under 
 this austere exterior fermented a fanatacism as gloomy and as cruel 
 as that of the Catholic army. Woe to the vanquished ! Woe to the 
 towns taken by either one or the other army ! The most frightful 
 atrocities were committed by them in cold blood. Beaugency was 
 carried by assault by the Protestants ; Blois, Tours, Poitiers, and 
 Rouen experienced first all the fury of this atrocious war. The 
 town of Rouen, defended by Montgommery, the involuntary murderer 
 of Henry II., had been besieged by the King of Navarre, Anthony of 
 Bourbon, who was slain under its walls. The only glory in this 
 prince is that he was an ancestor of Henry IY. of Prance. 
 
 * They began then in France to give 'the name of Huguenots to the reformer, 1 ?, by 
 which name they distinguished themselves. This word comes from the German word 
 cidgenossen, which signifies confederates, and which they used among themselves. 
 
1559-1574] DEATH OF FRANCIS OF GUISE. 393 
 
 Of all the great towns of France which, he had taken, Conde only 
 possessed Lyons and Orleans, when the two armies, the one com- 
 manded by that prince, and the other by the Constable, met together 
 near to Dreux. They engaged in battle, which was sanguinary. The 
 Constable charged first impetuously ; his squadrons were Battl of Dr 
 broken by Coligny ; -Montmorency, surrounded on all 1562- 
 sides, remained a prisoner ; the Marshal of Saint Andre was killed in 
 going to his assistance. One part of the Catholic army took to 
 flight, and the Protestants dispersed themselves in pursuit of the 
 vanquished. Then Francis of Guise, up to that time immovable 
 with his cavalry, ran his eyes rapidly over the field of battle. " They 
 are ours ! " he cried, and plunged in' a gallop upon the astonished 
 Protestants. This unexpected charge decided the victory ; Conde 
 himself was made prisoner. This new triumph, the captivity of the 
 Constable, and that of Conde, the death of Anthony of Bourbon, and 
 of Marshal Saint Andre, rendered Francis of Guise the most 
 powerful man in the kingdom. He was appointed Lieutenant- 
 General, and hastened to march upon Orleans, the siege of which 
 he pressed. This was the end of his success and of his life. A 
 Protestant, John Poltrot of Mere, "assassinated him by ~ ., , „ 
 
 ' ' J Death of r raucis 
 
 shooting him with a pistol ; his death was the safety of of Gulse ' 15G2 - 
 Orleans. Guise terminated his illustrious career by pardoning his 
 murderer, and in seeking to justify himself for the massacre of Vassy. 
 The assassin, in the midst of the most frightful tortures, designated 
 Coligni as his accomplice ; but he varied in his confessions, and the 
 grand character of Coligni sufficed to shelter him from the suspicion 
 of being an assassin.* Henry, son of Francis of Guise, however, 
 received this accusing evidence as a proof, and vowed an implacable 
 hatred against the Admiral. 
 
 o 
 
 Desolation weighed heavily upon the towns and the country of 
 France ; bands of fierce soldiers covered its soil ; the finances were 
 pillaged and commerce destroyed. These calamities, and above all, 
 the ascendency which the death of Francis of Guise had given to 
 
 * M. Charles Lacratelle has perfectly appreciated the value of the denudation of 
 Poltrot, in his Histoire de France durant les guerres de religion (Book V.) ; the opinion 
 which he emits, and the motives on which he supports it, do not appear susceptible of 
 refutation. 
 
394 CONTENTION OF AMBOISE. [BOOK II. Chap. I. 
 
 Conde, led Catherine to propose peace. The Prince, unknown to 
 Coligni, and without sufficient guarantee, which granted to the 
 Protestant seignors and nobles the right to exercise their religion in 
 their seignories or houses. The bourgeois obtained the liberty of 
 conscience ; but they could only exercise their religion in one town of 
 each bailiwick and in the places which were in possession of the 
 Protestants. The death of the Duke of Gruise had placed the party 
 of Conde in a position to dictate peace, and this treaty, called the 
 « « . Convention of Amboise, was received with indignation by 
 
 Convention of u ? o «/ 
 
 Amboise, 1563. Coligni, by Calvin, and by the Protestant chiefs. " Be- 
 hold ! " said the Admiral, " a dash of the pen which overthrows more 
 churches than the enemy's forces could have destroyed in ten years." 
 
 The Protestant army was dissolved and the Retires had returned to 
 Germany. Catherine gave them a safe conduct, and attempted to 
 cause them to be massacred on the road. This period only presents 
 a course of prejudice and cruel vengeances. Montluc, among the 
 Catholic chiefs, and the Baron of Adrets, among the Protestants, 
 distinguished themselves by their barbarity, " One could recognise ," 
 says the former, in his Memoirs, " by which way he had passed ; for the 
 signs ivere to be found on the trees by the road-side.'''' The second 
 compelled his prisoners to throw themselves from the summit of 
 towers on the pikes of the soldiers. 
 
 Peace was taken advantage of, in order to attack the foreigners. 
 The Constable, at the head of the rest of the royal army, drove the 
 English from Havre, and the clergy paid the expenses of the 
 expedition. Its goods, by the advice of L' Hospital, were alienated 
 to the value of a hundred thousand crowns per annum. This was 
 the first time that such means had been employed in 
 
 First alienation 
 
 of the -nods of or{ j er to provide for the resources of the State. The 
 
 the clergy. * 
 
 expenses of that year were valued at eighteen millions, 
 the receipts promised no more than eight, and there was deficit of 
 forty-three millions in the Treasury. Charles IX. entered into his 
 fifteenth year, and his majority was declared. Catherine preserved 
 the power ; Conde forgot himself at the court among pleasures, while 
 the Constable, little sought after by the Queen, strove to break the 
 peace by exciting the people anew to massacre the Protestants. 
 Three hundred death judgments were, it is said, signed by his hand ; 
 
1559-1574] END OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 395 
 
 the Queen baffled this frightful plot. Danville, son of the Constable, 
 Governor of Languedoc, Tavannes, Governor of Burgundy, and 
 many other commandants of provinces, supported the projects of 
 Montmorency. The thunders of the Vatican, the anathemas of the 
 Council of Trent, th.3 entreaties of foreign princes, all excited the 
 passions of the Catholics, and everything presaged that peace would 
 be of short duration. Pope Pius IV. summoned before him many 
 French bishops who had been accused of having embraced reform ; 
 among this number was Cardinal Chatillon, Saint Bomain, Arch- 
 bishop of Aix, and Montluc, Bishop of Valence, brother of the redoub- 
 table captain of that name. At the same period Jeanne d'Albret, 
 Queen of Navarre, and widow of Anthony of Bonrbon, having 
 been suspected and convicted of heresy, a bull declared her deprived 
 of her royal dignity, and delivered up the States to the first occupant. 
 
 The Council of Trent approached its end, after having existed 
 twenty-one years from its first session. Before dissolv- Last acts and 
 ing, it issued some important decisions concerning council of Trent, 
 dogmas and discipline. The bishops drew up clear and 56 ' 
 precise canons, which defined, in an invariable manner, the articles 
 of faith of the Catholics ; but they refused all concession to the 
 spirit of the times. France accepted the acts of the council relative 
 to dogmas ; it was not the same with regard to dicipline, and many 
 articles having been judged, under the opinion of the great juris- 
 consult Dumoulin, contrary to the principles of the Gallican Church, 
 the Parliament of Paris refused to admit them, and did not allow 
 them to be published in the kingdom. The Council was dissolved in 
 December, 15G3. 
 
 In the following year the Queen made a voyage to the provinces of 
 the east and south, and took with her the King and all his court. State 
 affairs were forgotten during this journey, and they passed through 
 ruined towns, and devastated country, in the midst of rejoicings, of 
 festivals, and spectacles. The Duke of Alba came to visit the 
 King at Bayonne, and, in a conversation that he had with the Queen 
 on the means of destroying the Calvinists, he used the following 
 words, which afterwards became famous : — ■" Ten thousand frogs are 
 not worth the head of a salmon." It was in this mannei that ho 
 spoke of the principal chiefs of the Protestant party. 
 
396 BATTLE OF ST. DENIS. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 Charles IX., on his return, assembled at Moulins an assembly 
 of the principal inhabitants, to which were summoned 
 
 Assembly of 
 
 chief inhabitants for the purpose of conciliation, the Duke of Guise, 
 
 at Moulins, 1564. . 
 
 Admiral Coligni, and a great number of princes and 
 seignors , also the presidents of the different parliaments. During 
 the session of this assembly, L'Hospital caused many celebrated 
 ordinances to be passed, known under the name of the Edicts of 
 ~ ,. . Moulins. One of them, in eighty-six articles, was a 
 
 Ordinances of ' & J ' 
 
 Moulins, 1564. code of reformation for justice, based on principles full 
 of moderation and equity ; another ordinance recalled the ancient 
 principles of the monarchy, in so far as it touched the inalien- 
 ability of the crown domain ; # but all the efforts of L' Hospital 
 failed in bringing together the Guises and the Chatillons. The 
 latter had only too much cause for alarm ; everywhere the Conven- 
 tion of Amboise was violated by the Catholics, and the infractions 
 remained unpunished. Catherine negotiated with Philip II. for the 
 destruction of the Protestant chiefs, and redoubled the injurious 
 suspicions with regard to them. The creation of the French guards 
 dates from this period ; they were composed of ten companies of fifty 
 men ; the Swiss guards, created by Louis XI., were at the same time 
 strongly augmented. These precautions gave umbrage to the 
 Protestants ; they had warning of the project of their enemies, and 
 sought to prevent them. Medicis suspected their design, and 
 charged some of her trusty followers to act as spies over the Admiral. 
 They found him, on the 26th of September, in his working dress, 
 gathering in his vintage ; and on the 28th, fifty places were in his 
 power. The King, nearly taken by surprise at Monceaux, by Conde, 
 gained Meaux in all haste, then Paris, under the protection of six 
 second civil war thousand Swiss. The cavalry of Conde hovered con- 
 1567, stantly round the escort, and the second civil war was 
 
 declared. 
 
 The battle of Saint Denis followed closely these first hostilities. 
 _ „. , a . . The advantage rested with the Catholics, but it cost 
 
 Battle of Saint & 
 
 Denis, 1567. them dear; the old Constable there lost his life. He 
 
 * Etienne Parquier said the ordinances of L'Hospital surpassed everything of the 
 kind that he had previously seen, and the Chancellor Aguesseau, made this eulogy, that 
 they had been the cause of all the ameliorations obtained in French legislation. 
 
1559-1574] EEFOEM OF THE CALENDAR. 397 
 
 had been famous under four reigns ; no illustrious warrior of that 
 period had shown more devotion to his kings ; but his intolerant and 
 fierce zeal for religion, rendered him guilty of great acts of violence. 
 The battle of Saint Denis had no decisive result. 
 
 The Duke of Anjou, brother of the King, was proclaimed 
 Lieutenant- General of the kingdom, although he was only sixteen 
 years old, and Prince Casimir, of the Palatine House, at the head of a 
 numerous body of Reitres, joined the Protestants. The latter, 
 animated by the example of their chiefs, despoiled themselves of 
 their jewels and money in order to pay these useful allies. Catherine, 
 seeing them in force, again made advances for peace, offering 
 permission for the exercise of the reformed religion by replacing the 
 Convention of Amhoise in vigour, and to pay the Germans, if the 
 places taken were restored. These conditions were accepted, 
 contrary to the advice of the principal chiefs, and the two parties 
 signed a second peace at Longjumeau. The people, who foresaw the 
 motives and results, gave to it the name of the badly 
 
 77-7 7 ' -j -i -i i i'ti' -jiT/m i, The badly estab- 
 
 estab Us tied peace ; it suspended hostilities with, dimcuity, lished peace, 
 but assassinations multiplied. 
 
 L' Hospital once more uttered words of wisdom, and endeavoured 
 to struggle against passionate feelings ; but he opposed them with a 
 powerless rampart. Crime was reigning ; it was necessary to get rid 
 of L' Hospital,* and soon the seals were demanded from him.f He 
 retired into his lands, where he sought, in literature and in the 
 practice of domestic virtues, a distraction of the calamities which 
 afflicted his attention, and from the still greater evils which he 
 foresaw. Prance owes to him among other useful 
 
 ° Reform of the 
 
 reforms, that of the calendar ; by a decree of 1563, calen( *ar, 1563. 
 he caused it to be decreed that the year, which, until then, had 
 commenced at Easter, should begin on the 1st of January. % 
 
 L' Hospital having retired from public affairs, nothing could restrain 
 the rage of the factions. He was not ignorant of it, and displayino* 
 
 * J. Droz, Notice sur Michel de V Hospital. 
 
 f He nevertheless preserved to his death the dignity of Chancellor, which was 
 immovable. 
 
 X This reform, of which the advantages were only properly appreciated a little later, 
 was not definitely carried out and adopted till 1587. 
 
398 DEATH OF LOUIS OF CONDE. [BOOK II. Chap. I. 
 
 one day his long white beard to those whom his old age troubled : — 
 "When this snow shall be melted," said he, "there will be nothing 
 remaining but mud." Moderate men, like himself, received the derisive 
 name of poliliques, and were hated by all parties. Medicis herself 
 seemed to have renounced temporising and prudence. She endea- 
 voured, but vainly, to take by surprise the Protestant chiefs. Then 
 there appeared edicts thundering against the Calvinists, and their 
 religion was forbidden throughout the kingdom. They took up arms 
 T . . in all parts ; in their fury they profaned the altars, they 
 
 1568# devastated, burnt the churches and the convents, and 
 
 committed many atrocities. Briquemont, one of their chiefs, excited 
 them to murder, carrying himself, hung round his neck, a necklace 
 composed of the ears of priests ; but Louis of Bourbon, Duke of 
 Montpensier, a Catholic general, was far above all in barbarity, and 
 history refuses to repeat the frightful executions, of which he gloried 
 in being the inventor. 
 
 The Catholic army, under the Duke of Anjou and of Marshal 
 Tavanne, met the Protestant army, commanded by Conde, upon the 
 banks of the Charente, near to Jarnac. There a sanguinary and 
 Battle of Jarnac, unequal combat took place, sustained by the cavalry 
 of the Prince alone, against all the forces of the Catholics, 
 Conde, wounded in the evening, wore his arm in a sling ; at the moment 
 of action an impetuous horse broke his leg. " Go on, noble French !" 
 said the Prince to the nobles who surrounded him, "behold the combat 
 which you have so much desired ; remember in what state Louis of 
 Bourbon entered into it for Christ and his country." Thrown from 
 his horse, Conde defended himself like a hero ; among those who 
 made a rampart of their bodies might have been seen an old man, 
 named La Vergne, with twenty-five young men, his sons, his grand- 
 sons, and his nephews ; all fought valiantly until La Yergne had 
 perished with fifteen of his relatives ; the others were made prisoners. 
 Conde then gave himself up ; but soon Montesquiou, captain of the 
 guards of the Duke of Anjou, rushed in and assassinated the Prince 
 Death of Louis of in a cowardly manner by a pistol-shot. Thus died Louis 
 of Conde, who had scarcely attained thirty- nine years. 
 The Protestants were beaten, and the Court abandoned itself to all 
 the intoxication of triumph, when the Queen of Navarre, Jeanne 
 
1559-1574] BATTLE OF MONCONTCUR. 399 
 
 d'Albret,* a woman of great piety and of noble conrage, Jeanne d'Aibret 
 
 presents &s chiefs 
 
 reanimated the hopes of her party. She repaired to to the Protestant 
 Cognac, in Augonmois, where the remains of the Calvan- Henry, Prince of 
 
 i Beam, and the 
 
 istic army were assembled, and took with her Henry her young- Prince of 
 
 J . Conde", 1569. 
 
 son, Prince of Beam, and Henry, son of Prince Lonis of 
 Conde, both sixteen years old. Jeanne presented herself to the sol- 
 diers, holding by the hand the two young men. " I offer to you," said 
 she, " my son, and I entrust to you Henry, son of the Prince whom 
 we regret. May Heaven grant that they both show themselves worthy 
 of their ancestors." The Prince of Beam advanced immediately, and 
 said : "I swear to defend the religion and to persevere in the common 
 cause, until death or victory has restored to us all that liberty for 
 which we fight." Conde signified by a gesture that a similar resolu- 
 tion animated him, and immediately the Prince of Beam was pro- 
 claimed General-in-Chief, amid the applause of the army under the 
 direction of Coligni. 
 
 The Duke of Deux-Ponts, at the head of a considerable body of 
 Germans, came to join the Calvanists, whose forces were raised to 
 more than twenty -five thousand men. The combat of Roche- Abeille, 
 the first where Henry of Beam distinguished himself, Combat of Roche- 
 
 .A-beiUe. 
 
 w^as to their advantage. Soon the two armies found 
 themselves in presence of each other, near Moncontour, in Poitou ; a 
 simple defile separated them. The Calvanists were the most numerous, 
 but they occupied a bad position. Coligni wished to BattleofM 
 change it ; the soldiers wished to fight. The action tour ' 157 °- 
 commenced ; the carnage of the Protestants was frightful, and, in 
 half an hour, of twenty- five thousand men only five or six hundred 
 rallied round Coligni. That warrior, severely wounded, showed him- 
 self in that battle, so fatal to his party, above himself even. He had 
 recently lost his brother and saved all the remnant of his army. He 
 took them back into Languedoc together with the young Princes, 
 where Montgomery rejoined them with his troops. The Calvanists 
 reappeared once more in an imposing attitude, and Coligni conducted 
 them towards Paris by forced inarches. On both sides the need for 
 
 * A queen who had nothing womanly hut her sex ; her soul was entirely devoted to 
 manly concerns, her mind was powerful in great affairs, and her heart invincible in adver- 
 sity. (D'Aubigne, Hint, univ., t. II., liv. Ier, Ch. II.) 
 
400 . DEATH OF JEANNE D'ALBRET. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 Peace of St. Ger- rest was extreme, and peace was signed at Saint Germain, 
 where the Court was then being held. 
 
 The Calvanists, besides the advantages accorded by preceding 
 treaties, obtained their choice of four places of safety ; they chose 
 Hochelle, Montauban, Cognac ; and Charite, which they engaged to 
 restore at the end of two years. Charles IX, married almost imme- 
 diately Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II., and from 
 that time he profoundly concealed his hatred of the Reformers. 
 The gloomy Philip, at the same period, practised the most atro- 
 cious cruelties on his subjects. The Moors who composed the most 
 industrious portion of the inhabitants of Spain, had been, on 
 account of their religion, reduced to the most miserable condition 
 Cruelties of under Philip II. they were decimated by the sword 
 
 and by fire. The Spanish monarch, assured against 
 the attacks of the Mussulman by the victory of Lepanto, wished 
 also to extirpate heresy in his states, and the Duke of Alba was the 
 worthy minister of his fury in Belgium. Philip, glorying in the 
 frightful triumphs of his General, did not cease to excite Charles to 
 imitate him ; but Charles had no need of his advice in order to 
 become his rival. 
 
 Peace called back into France order and security ; the people 
 hoped that they had seen the end of so many evils. The attentions 
 and benevolent proceedings of the Court towards the Protestants, in 
 Perfidious atten- place of making them more circumspect, appeared to 
 
 tions paid by the . . „ , p T 
 
 Court to the Pro- them to be so many guarantees or a nappy future. J eanne 
 d'Albret, the young Princes, and Coligni, were invited to 
 the Court, and went there. The King lavished upon them the most flat- 
 tering words. " I hold you," said he graciously to the Admiral, " and 
 you shall not quit us when you wish." The marriage of the Prince of 
 Beam with Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles, was projected. The 
 difference of religion presented an. obstacle, but the King himself 
 smoothed away all difficulties. Jeanne d'Albret died in the middle of 
 Death of Jeanne these negotiations. Some persons affirmed that she had 
 marriage of the been poisoned; but little attention was given to such an 
 
 Prince of Beam, 
 
 King of Navarre, event in a time when death by poison or by the poignard 
 
 with Margaret of . m • 
 
 Vaiois. was almost a natural kind of death. The projected 
 
 marriage was conducted between Margaret and young Henry, who 
 
1559-1574] ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE COLIGNY. 401 
 
 immediately after the death of his mother, had taken the title of the 
 King of Navarre. 
 
 The Catholic, troops were on the march on all points of the kingdom. 
 The Court effected loans with foreigners, and redoubled its attentions 
 towards the Calvinists. The latter, nevertheless, remained in profound 
 security. Coligny, consulted by Charles IX., advised him to stop the 
 progress of the Spanish power, by sustaining insurgent Flanders 
 against him. The King appeared to approve of this project, and 
 troops took the road for Belgium. Then Medici and the Duke of 
 Anjou — whether they were surprised at the hesitation in the mind of 
 Charles, and wished him to compromise himself altogether with the 
 Calvinists, or whether they desired, above all, to get rid of Coligny — 
 posted an assassin, named Maurevel, who wounded him dangerously by 
 a shot from an arquebuse. The Admiral was brought Attempted 
 
 r ~ . •!! assassination of 
 
 home bleeding. Charles was playing at tennis when he Colony by 
 
 Maurevel. 
 
 learnt this news. " Am I then always to see fresh 
 troubles ?" cried he, throwing away his racket with fury. He accom- 
 panied his mother to the house of the Admiral, and overwhelmed him 
 with perfidious caresses and false evidences of regret and indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 Medeci already had fixed the day for the greatest of the enormities. 
 Supported by the Duke of Anjou, she convinced the King that the 
 moment for striking had arrived. Charles immediately plunged into 
 a gloomy fit of anger. " Let the Protestants perish, then !" said he, 
 " but do not allow any one to remain to reproach me." 
 
 Every means was taken to draw to Paris the greatest number of 
 Protestants possible. Charles, with this intention, designedly inspired 
 some inquietude, and made them understand that it was necessary that 
 they should be in force, in order to be safe from all surprise and all 
 peril. They flocked together in crowds, and soon the arrangements 
 for the work of blood were finished. A council was held at the 
 Tuileries between the Queen, the Duke of Anjou, the Duke of Nevers, 
 Henry d'Angouleme, Grand-Prior of France, Rene de Birague, Marshal 
 Tavannes, Albert de Gondi, and Baron de Retz. The distribution of 
 the different parts was accomplished, and it was settled that the exe- 
 cution would commence on the following day, at dawn, Saint Bar- 
 tholomew's day. Tavannes gave the order, in the presence of the King, 
 
 D D 
 
402 MASSACBE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 to tlie prevot of tlie merchants, John Charron, to cause the companies 
 of bourgeois to be armed, and to unite at midnight, at the Hotel- de- 
 Ville, and to throw themselves upon the Calvinists at the first sound of 
 the tocsin bell. The murderers, in order to recognize each other, were 
 obliged to carry a scarf on the left arm and a white cross in the hat. 
 At break of day, Medici, impatient, caused the signal to be given, by 
 the clock of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois. At the gloomy sound of the 
 Massacre of bell, the town was filled with assassins, and first of all a 
 
 mew, 24th band of soldiers, directed by Henry of Guise, sought out 
 
 the house of Coligny. The gates were opened in the name 
 of the King; the murderers went up and found the Admiral at prayers. 
 " Are you Coligny ?" asked their chief, a man named Berne, threatening 
 Murder of him with his sword. "Yes, I am he;" answered the 
 
 latter ; "young man, you ought to respect my gray hairs ! " 
 Instead of answering, Berne struck him with repeated blows, mutilated 
 him, and threw his corpse into the street, where Henry of Guise waited, 
 and trampled it under his feet. Already death was everywhere in 
 Paris ; the Huguenots left their houses, half naked, at the sound of the 
 tocsin, amid the cries of their murdered brethren, and perished by 
 thousands. Tavannes, the Dukes of Angouleme and Anjou, Henry of 
 Guise, and Montpensier, stirred up the executioners to the carnage. 
 * Bleed, bleed !" cried Tavannes, "the doctors say that bleeding is as 
 good in the month of August as in May." The bourgeois were rivals 
 in ferocity with the greatest seignors. The goldsmith, Cruce, boasted 
 of having killed more than four hundred Huguenots in one day. He 
 who had ordered the crime, wished to partake in a part of its execu- 
 tion. "The King might be seen," says Brautome, "firing from a 
 window in the Louvre, on the fugitives." He afterwards went, with a 
 brilliant cortege, to the gibbets of Montfaucon, where were suspended 
 all that was left of the Admiral, half consumed. He appeared to enjoy 
 the spectacle, and repeated, it is said, the frightful saying of Vitellius : 
 "The body of a slain enemy always smells well." The massacre lasted 
 three days in Paris, where five thousand persons lost their lives. On 
 the third day Charles summoned the Parliament ; he dared to justify 
 his conduct, and the President, Christopher de Thou, had the shame- 
 less weakness to approve of it. Royal orders were hurried into all the 
 provinces, commanding similar massacres. Meaux, Angers, Bourges, 
 
1559-1574] - FOURTH CIVIL WAR. 403 
 
 Orleans, Lyon, Toulouse, and Rouen became the theatres of horrible 
 scenes ; many governors, however, refused to obey. The Viscount 
 d'Orthez, commander of Bayonne, wrote the King : — " Sire, I have 
 found in the town only good citizens and brave soldiers, but no execu- 
 tioner." The Count of Tendes, in Provence, made a similar answer: 
 the deaths of both of them were sudden and premature. The young 
 King of Navarre and Henry de Conde ran the risk of their lives during 
 the massacre ; Charles made them come into his presence, and said to 
 them, in a terrible voice, " The mass or death ! " Yielding to neces- 
 sity, the two princes apparently recanted and remained prisoners. Such 
 were the principal scenes of that frightful day, in which the Roman 
 court thought they saw a triumph, but of which L'Hospital said, in 
 causing his doors to be opened to the assassins, "Perish the memory 
 of this execrable day ! " * 
 
 Medici and Charles IX. had hoped for a peaceable reign as the 
 result of their crimes ; they deceived themselves ; a most terrible civil 
 war broke out, and a great number of Catholics embraced the 
 reformed religion on account of the horror inspired „ .. . .. 
 
 & a Fourth civil war, 
 
 in them by Saint Bartholomew. The party of the lo72 - 
 JPolitigfues raised themselves against the court, and soon there were to 
 be reckoned in their ranks many of the most illustrious seignors of 
 France, to whom Damville and Thore, sons of the Constable Mont- 
 •morency, added their names. The thirst for vengeance, carried to 
 rage, doubled the forces of the Protestants. The weakest places 
 resisted the royal troops, whom the insurgents insulted from the top 
 of their walls: — "Approach, assassins," cried they to them; "come 
 on, murderers, you will not find us asleep like the Admiral." La 
 Rochelle was the principal place of the Protestants ; Charles felt the 
 necessity of taking it. The Duke of Anjou departed on this ex- 
 
 * That day struck him with such a horror that it could only be called death. When 
 he was informed of so many atrocities: "I recognise," cried he, "the councils that 
 were given to the King for a long time ; it is necessary to die when one cannot prevent 
 such misfortunes." The assassins of Admiral Coligny approached very slowly the dwell- 
 ing of the Chancellor L'Hospital. His domestics came to tell him that an armed band 
 directed its course from Etampes towards his Chateau. " Open the doors to' them " said 
 he, "let no one offer any resistance, and let them be conducted to my apartment ! If the 
 little gate is not sufficient, open the great one , I have seen enough of life." 
 
 (C. Lacretelle, Histoire dc France pendant les guerres de religion, liv. VII.) 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 DEATH OP CHARLES IX. [Book II. Chap. I. 
 
 pedition at the head of a numerous army, and led the two captive 
 princes to the siege. The defence was heroic, it lasted six months, 
 and cost, uselessly, immense sums, and twenty thousand men to the 
 Catholics. Sancerre also sustained a memorable siege ; Montauban, 
 Nismes, and other towns, were in the power of the Protestants. A 
 Fourth peace fourth peace was signed ; it granted to the reformers in 
 1572 ' these places the most part of the advantages guaranteed 
 
 by the preceding treaties. 
 
 The Duke of Anjou had just been chosen King of Poland, and 
 
 soon he left the kingdom. An enterprise called des jours gras, 
 
 (Shrovetide,) because it was made in the time of the 
 
 The enterprise 
 
 des jours gras, Carnival, was attempted in the following year, in order 
 to free the two princes. It partly miscarried, and cost 
 the lives of La Mole and - Coconnas ; they were beheaded. The 
 Queen of Navarre and the Duchess of ISTevers, whose lovers they 
 had been, caused their bleeding heads to be brought to them, and 
 abandoned themselves to fierce transports. Conde alone was able to 
 escape ; Henry of Navarre was watched still more closely till the 
 death of the King. 
 
 Charles IX. pined away after the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 
 Often he appeared to be the prey of a furious delirium ; he then 
 thought that the spectres of his victims were ranged before him. In 
 the last night of his life, says L'Estoile, when there only remained* 
 in his chamber two persons besides his nurse, whom he loved much, 
 she heard the King complaining, weeping, and sighing. She softly 
 approached the bed and drew the curtain, and the King said to her, 
 with a great sigh, and weeping so much that his sobs interrupted his 
 words : — " Ah ! my nurse, my nurse, what blood ! what murders ! 
 Ah ! but I have followed an evil counsel ! O my God ! pardon me!" 
 His own blood came out from his skin and inundated 
 
 Death of 
 
 Charles ix., 1574. t j ie bed. He died on the 30th of May, 1574, when only 
 twenty-four years of age. 
 
1574-1589] ACCESSION OF HENRY Ul« 405 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REIGN OF HENRY III. 
 
 1574-15S9. 
 
 The Duke of Anjou succeeded his brother under the name of 
 Henry III. He was in Poland when Charles IX. died, Access5on of 
 and Catherine de Medici again siezed the regency. Helliy IILj J574- 
 One of the first acts of her authority was to order the execution of 
 Montgommery, made prisoner at Domfront, the accidental murderer of 
 Henry II., and one of the most illustrious of the Protestant chiefs. 
 His execution provoked new acts of vengeance on the part of 
 the Protestants. 
 
 Informed of the death of his brother, Henry deserted his kingdom 
 of Poland, and then allowed himself to sleep, during four months, in 
 the midst of the fetes given to him by the monarchs through whose 
 states he passed, and scattered gold and diamonds on the road. On 
 arriving at Turin, he had nothing more to give ; but he ceded to the 
 Duke of Savoy, the towns of Pignerol, Savigliano, and Perouse, the 
 only fruit that France had gained for all the blood poured out in 
 Italy. Henry arrived at last, and showed himself in public for the 
 first time in Avignon, in the procession called the Bat I us, with 
 Catherine de Medici and the Cardinal of Lorraine, all 
 three dressed in sackcloth, as penitents. The king and 
 his courtiers walked with bare feet, a crucifix in their hands, and 
 scourged themselves as they inarched. The Cardinal of Lorraine was 
 seized with fever at the conclusion of this ridiculous ceremony, and 
 died almost immediately afterwards. No person had fanned the fire 
 of the civil wars more than he, and no one had shown himself more 
 cruel. Medici appeared to breathe again after his death; but on the 
 following night they heard her crying out in terror; her women "mi 
 
 Procession of the 
 
 Battus. 
 
406 FIFTH CIVIL WAR. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 to her and found her delirious. "Deliver me from this sight," cried 
 she. " See ! the Cardinal pursues me ; he drags me down to hell ! " 
 
 A new war was announced ; the Protestants saw with horror one of 
 The Huguenots ^ e P rmc ip a l authors of Saint Bartholomew upon the 
 a2?n U i57Tfifth "t nrone 5 one wno had signalized himself the most on 
 civil war. those execrable days. Conde* assembled his forces and 
 
 negotiated with the Elector Palatine, in order to obtain considerable 
 support. Many nobles of the Moderate party were united with the 
 Protestants, and among them, in the front rank, the two sons of the 
 Constable Montmorency, Damville, and Thore. Suddenly the Duke 
 of Alencon, brother of the King, suspected by the Queen since the 
 enterprise of the jours gras, in which he had joined, escaped from the 
 court, though closely guarded ; joined the Confederates, and reappeared 
 before the gates of Paris. Soon after, the King of Navarre, baffling 
 also the watchfulness of Medici, and snatching himself away from 
 the voluptuous snares with which she surrounded him ; succeeded 
 in concealing his flight ; joined the princes, and abjured Catholicism 
 in their camp, where he found Prince Casimir at the head of a 
 numerous corps. Henry III. had already signed a truce with the 
 Confederates ; he engaged to deliver to them six towns, and to pay 
 the garrison maintained under the Duke of Alencon and the Prince 
 of Conde. 
 
 In the midst of so many agitations and dangers, it is difficult to 
 h r in nd explain the contemptible life then led by the effeminate 
 ins court. monarch. He divided his time between unrestrained 
 
 debauchery and the punctilious practices of a puerile devotion. Sur- 
 rounded by young favourites, whom he called his minions, and by 
 dissolute women, at one time he caused the shrines of saints to be 
 carried before him, while he followed, dressed as a penitent, mingling 
 obscene buffooneries with the litanies of the Church ; at another he 
 ran into the places of debauch, telling over, to the light of the orgies, 
 his rosary of death's-head beads. Often he ran through the streets, 
 insulting the passers by, or begged for the Church from door to door, 
 with his queen, and a number of little dogs, monkeys and parroquets, 
 in which they both took delight. Historians say that Henry III. 
 followed a deeply-considered plan in the midst of these shameful 
 disorders ; the book of Macchiavelli was his gospel, as, following him 
 
1574-1589] 
 
 PEACE OF MONSIEUR. 407 
 
 he wished to rule the great by all the allurements of vice. However 
 that may be, his mother in this respect gives him both precept and 
 example, surrounding him with maids of honour, skilful in seducing 
 those whose ambition or resentment she wished to lull; without 
 religious faith, she believed in witchcraft and sorcery; astrologers, 
 and one above all — Cosmo de Ruggieri, were in high favour at the 
 court. To these imposters was attributed the power of giving death, 
 by pricking to the heart figures of wax, over which they pronounced 
 mysterious words. The practices of a superstitious devotion mingled 
 itself with poisonings and debaucheries in this infamous court. Sen- 
 sual pleasures were the price of crimes, and Marguerite de Valois, 
 worthy of her brother and her mother, thus bought the death of 
 Dugasfc, her enemy, and one of the favourites of the King, who saw 
 him stabbed at his feet, and forgot to punish the assassin. 
 
 Catherine de Medici alone showed some resolution in the party of 
 the King. She repaired, at the head of his women, whom she called 
 her "flying squadron," to the camp of the Confederates, and first 
 seduced her son, whose apanage she tripled, and who took for that 
 time the title of the Duke of Anjou. The submission of this prince 
 led the reformers to accept peace, which borrowed from him its name, 
 and was called the Peace of Monsieur* The Confederate States 
 separated, going into quarters, the King of Navarre into 
 Ghiieime, Conde into the environs of Rochelle, Damville called that of 
 
 Monsieur, 1576. 
 
 into Languedoc, at the head of the Moderates, and the 
 Prince Casimir on the frontier of Champagne. 
 
 The shameful conduct of the King rendered him an object of 
 contempt even in the eyes of his own friends, and made even his most 
 zealous friends forget his exploits on Saint Bartholomew. For a long 
 time there had been formed in the princes particular leagues for the 
 defence of the Catholic religion ; soon they joined together and formed 
 themselves into one only, which had for its apparent aim the 
 maintenance of Catholicism, the safetv of the King', and „ . . . . 
 
 ' J °' Origin and aim 
 
 the destruction of Protestants. But secretly the authors of the Lea 8' ue « 
 intended to depose the unworthy Henry III., descendant of the 
 usurper Hugh Capet, and to shut him up in a cloister ; then to transmit 
 
 * The brother of the King, and first prince of the royal house, was called Monsieur. 
 
£08 FIRST STATES OF BLOIS. [BooKlI.CniP.il. 
 
 the crown to Henry of Guise, snrnamed the Balafre (on account of 
 having a scar on his face), son of the great Francis of Guise, who 
 was said to be descended from Charlemagne. Some words of the 
 formula of the oath of the Leaguers were as follows : — " we bind 
 Oath of the ourselves to employ our wealth and our lives for the 
 
 Leaguers. success of the Holy Union, and to follow even to the 
 
 death who ever wishes to hinder it. A chief will soon be elected to 
 whom all the Confederates are to hold themselves in submission. 
 Those who will not join the Holy Union will be treated as enemies, 
 and pursued sword in hand. The chief alone will decide the disputes 
 which may arise between the Confederates, and they will only have 
 recourse to the ordinary magistrates, by his permission." The 
 Leaguers thus transferred all the royal power to their future chief, 
 who was to be the Duke of Guise. Pope Gregory XIII. encouraged 
 them, and Philip II. promised to support them both with men and 
 money. 
 
 This League had already become formidable when Henry came to 
 
 know of it, and understand the aim of the association. He assembled, 
 
 in 1576, the States- General at Blois, which he inaugurated by an 
 
 - ,._. , , address filled with dignity. The greater part of the 
 
 First States of o «/ o I 
 
 Biois, 1576. deputies were attached to the League. The King, by 
 
 the advice of his mother, baffled their schemes and deceived the hopes 
 of Henry of Guise, by declaring that he himself was the chief of the 
 Holy Union. They drew up a formulary ; the monarch swore to it, 
 caused it to be accepted by the States, and ordered that it be signed 
 in Paris, and in the whole of France. At this news the absent Duke 
 of Guise made all haste to push on the war. The three orders 
 demanded that the Roman religion should be the only one tolerated 
 in France ; but the Third Estate protested against the employment of 
 violence and arms in order to gather the Protestants into the heart of 
 the Church. This wise restriction not having been carried by the 
 expressed wishes of the two other orders, the King interpreted their 
 votes according to his own desire, as an adhesion to war, for which he 
 asked subsidies from the States. The nobility offered its services and 
 nothing more ; the clergy promised to maintain four hundred foot 
 soldiers and a thousand cavalry, on condition that the government 
 granted to them the publication of the decrees of the Council of 
 
1574-1589] EDICT OF POITIERS. 409 
 
 Trent, and the election to the prelacies. The Third Estate refused 
 every new tax. Nevertheless, the King raised by letters patent the 
 sum of one million two hundred thousand livres to meet the expense, 
 said he, for the war resolved upon by the States ; he revoked the 
 edict of pacification and took up arms. The three orders were 
 already separated, and it was only three years later (1579), that the 
 Ordinance of Blois appeared, drawn up according to the instructions 
 of the last States. This edict renewed some wise Ordhianceof 
 arrangements of the Ordinance of Orleans, and in- Bluls - 
 trodnced into the legislation, administration and police, some new 
 and useful reforms^ The Ordinance of Blois published also, under 
 the discipline of the Church, some of the arrangements of the 
 Council of Trent, that council having never been completely admitted 
 into the kingdom. 
 
 New hostilities had broken out between the parties since the 
 dissolution of the States of Blois, and two Catholic Sixfh civil war 
 armies entered upon a campaign, the one under the lo "* 
 Duke of Anjou, the other under the Duke of Mayenne, brother of 
 Henry of Guise. Many places were taken from the "Confederates, 
 and intrigue separated from them Damville and his partisans, the 
 JPoIiliques, or Moderate party. These successes and this defection 
 were followed by a new peace, which prepared the way for the 
 celebrated Edict of Poitiers and of Bergerac. Henrv III. „,. t .„ ... 
 
 1:5 J Edict of Poitiers, 
 
 granted to the Protestants by this edict the public U77 ' 
 exercise of their religion in each chief place of the bailiwick, and in 
 each royal jurisdiction outside of Paris ; he re-established them in 
 their citizens' privileges, with right to the offices and dignities, gave 
 them particular judges in each parliament, and granted them nine 
 places of safety. The King permitted besides, on certain conditions, 
 the marriage of priests, repudiated Saint Bartholomew, and prescribed 
 the League. 
 
 The Edict of Poitiers, soon confirmed by the treaty of ITerac, could 
 have pacified the kingdom, if the Kins: had watched m ,„. 
 
 ~ o ' o Trraty of ^crac, 
 
 over its execution; but, freed from the cares of war, be lo ' 7 - 
 plunged again into his shameful pleasures. All his liberality, all his 
 dignities, were lavished upon his minions, from whom he exacted 
 
410 SEVENTH CIVIL WAE. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 tv , . infamous compliances and acts of fierce bravery. A 
 
 Dissolute man- r J 
 
 ners- furious infatuation siezed the whole court, where the 
 
 time seemed to be divided between prostitution, duelling and murder. 
 The King bestowed extravagant honours on the memory of two of 
 his favourites, Quelus and Maugiron, killed in a duel ; another, named 
 Saint-Mesgrin, was assassinated by the Duke of Mayenne, while Bussy 
 d'Amboise, a bold and sanguinary man, favourite of the Duke of 
 Anjou, and mortal enemy of the minons of the King, was drawn into 
 a snare and slaughtered. All these murders remained unpunished. 
 The King sold his clemency ; the scaffold was only erected for the 
 people and the Huguenots, and it was an act of clumsiness or 
 absurdity to be condemned for the crime of assassination. The Duke 
 of Villequier stabbed his wife, who had repulsed the lawless desires of 
 the King : he was named Governor of Paris. Licentiousness had 
 no longer a curb, and debauchery presided at the banquets of the 
 Queen-Mother, where Henry III., himself disguised as a woman, 
 affected to imitate the language and the affectionate manners of the 
 sex whose costume he wore. 
 
 Soon, upon frivolous pretexts, war rekindled in all parts. The love 
 intrigues which, in part, occasioned it, caused it to be named the war 
 of tlie Lovers. Henry III. had written to the King of Navarre, with 
 Seventh civil ^ e intention of imbroiling him with his wife Margaret. 
 warof theLovers ^ ^^ no ^ Sliccee( ^) an( l the King of Navarre answered 
 1580, him by the heroic taking of Cahors. Conde soon 
 
 showed himself in arms in Languedoc, ready to sustain him. An 
 advantageous peace for the reformers was signed in the following 
 f year at Fleix, through the intervention of the Duke of 
 
 158L Anjou, whose views upon Belgium, Henry III. promised 
 
 to second. Philip II. had just taken Portugal, and all his forces 
 
 were then employed in subduing the Low Countries, and 
 United Pro- ' in struggling against the celebrated Prince of Orange, 
 
 William the Silent, who had torn away the Western 
 Provinces from the tyranny of the Spaniards. The great Captain, 
 Alexander Farnese, succeeded the conqueror of Lepanto, Don John of 
 Austria, in the post of governor of that country. The Flemings were 
 reduced to extremities, and implored the support of the French 
 
1574-1589] HENRY OF NAVARRE, 411 
 
 Protestants. The Duke of Anjou, to whom Queen Elizabeth had 
 given hopes of her hand, could assure to them by this marriage the 
 support of England. They proclaimed him Count of Flanders, and 
 Duke of Brabant. Profiting by the Peace of Fleix, and furnished 
 with the consent of the King, the duke recruited an army among the 
 French reformers. With it he freed Cambray and took 
 
 Campaign of the 
 
 Ecluse: then he exercised in Flanders a despotic power, Duke of Anjou in 
 
 ' m . . ■ Flanders, 1581. 
 
 chastised the towns which opposed his pretensions, and 
 covered himself with blood in the massacre of the inhabitants of 
 Antwerp, executed by his orders. Driven away by those who jbad 
 called him, he retired into his own domains, and there he died. A 
 month later, the illustrious William of Orange perished 
 
 His death 1583. 
 
 at Delft, assassinated by the hand of Balthazar Gerard, 
 
 a fanatical emissary of Philip II., who, after having paid for this 
 
 murder, applauded it highly. 
 
 The King of Navarre, chief of the House of Bourbon, became, by 
 the death of the Duke of Anjou, the nearest heir to the TT 
 
 •J ' Henry of Bour- 
 
 throne : * but in the eves of the people his religion bon becomes 
 
 J r I o heir presumptive 
 
 rendered him incapable of holding it. This circumstance jy 3 he Clwn » 
 reanimated the boldness and efforts of the League. 
 Henry III., although in the vigour of his life, was reputed to be in- 
 capable of having children ; and the zealous Catholics turned their 
 regards towards the old cardinal, Charles de Bourbon, uncle of the 
 King of Navarre? they depended upon his name, until they could 
 throw away the mask and declare openly for the Duke of Guise. The 
 latter placed himself again boldly at the head of the Leaguers ; 
 however, he hesitated to break out ; Philip II. decided „ . 
 
 7 L Rousing of the 
 
 him. That monarch knew that the revolted Flemings Lea c ue - 
 had offered to look upon themselves as subjects of Henry III., and 
 that the best means to remove from them the support of France was 
 to foment the interior troubles of that kingdom. He then incited 
 Henry of Guise by promises and threats. Paris became the focus of 
 the League, and, from that centre, the leaders stretched out their 
 ramifications over the whole of France. They made the preacher 
 thunder forth from the pulpit against the heresy of Henry of Navarre 
 
 * Henry of Bourbon, King of Navarre, was descended in a direct line from Robert de 
 Clermont, fifth son of Saint Louis. 
 
412 EIGHTH CIVIL WAR. [Book II. Ciiap. II. 
 
 and the effeminacy of Henry III. ; they placarded in all the streets 
 representations of the frightful tortures to which, the Catholics, they 
 said, would be delivered over if the heretic prince ever became king-. 
 The people, rendered furious, demanded war and the extermination of 
 the Calvinists. The League addressed itself to Pope Sixtus V., who 
 fulminated a bull of excommunication against the King of Navarre, and 
 Sextus v de- declared him unable to succeed to the throne. Terrified 
 of a Navarr?mi- a * ^ s popular effervescence, Henry III., after long hesita- 
 to'the°Uirone ^ on believed that he ought to draw closer to him Duke 
 
 Henry of Guise ; he had the weakness, by the Treaty of 
 Nemours, to admit all his pretensions. He forbade, under pain of 
 death, the exercise of all religions' except the Roman, throughout the 
 kingdom ; delivered the places of safety to the duke, and paid his 
 foreign troops. Almost immediately the Calvinists took up arms, and 
 this eighth war was called, the War of the three Henries. 
 
 The Princes of Conde and Conti, La Rochefoucauld, Rohan, the four 
 brothers Laval, the intrepid, La Noue, La Tremouielle, Roquelaure, 
 
 and Biron, drew their swords for Henry of Navarre ; the 
 
 Eighth civil war, 
 
 caiiMitiH?! war of faithful Rosny sold his woods, and in the face of a thou- 
 
 the Henries, 158G. 
 
 sand perils, laid the price at his feet. That prince, after 
 having, in order to save the blood of the people, vainly proposed to 
 his enemies the assembly of the States, a council or a duel, astonished 
 them by his adroit manoeuvres, and caused his authority to be re- 
 cognized in many provinces of the south. But Conde was less skilful 
 and less happy ; he marched rashly to meet the Catholics who met him 
 on the Loire ; he could not cross the river, and his army was dispersed 
 without having fought. The brilliant Duke de Joyeuse, favourite of 
 Henry III., commanded the Catholic army ; he met the Calvinistic 
 troops of Henry of Bourbon near Courtras, in Perigord. A multitude 
 of young courtiers had wished to follow Joyeuse ; gold and precious 
 b ttie of Co r- s t° nes sparkled upon their arms, while Henry had only 
 tras, 15S7. £ ron ^ pp 0Se them. Before the action, a minister of 
 
 the Gospel went out from the ranks, and represented to the young King 
 of Navarre that he had brought trouble into an honest family by 
 a criminal liaison, that he ought to make public reparation for this 
 scandal to his army, and a humble confession of his fault to God, 
 before whom, in an instant, perhaps, he would appear. Henry con- 
 
1574-15S9] EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OP SCOTS. 413 
 
 fessed himself to the minister Chaudieu, and said to the nobles of his 
 court, who wished to dissuade him : — " We cannot humiliate ourselves 
 too much before God, nor dare too much among men." He then fell 
 on his knees with his protestant soldiers ; the pastor offered up a 
 prayer. Joyeuse, at the head of the Catholic army, saw them, and 
 cried : — " The King of Navarre is afraid ! " — ' ; Do not take it so," 
 answered Lavardin ; " they never pray unless they are resolved to 
 conquer or die." Henry rose ; he animated his troops by gesture and 
 voice, and, addressing himself to Conde, to Conti and the Duke of 
 Soissons, his cousins :• — " To you, I have nothing else to say, except 
 that you are of Bourbon blood, and, with God's help, I will make you 
 see that I am the eldest." The battle took place, and the whole of the 
 army of Joyeuse was destroyed ; he himself perished fighting. After 
 the victory, Henry showed himself as humane and generous as he had 
 shown himself brave during the action ; but he did not know how to 
 profit by his triumph and forgot himself in effeminacy. A German 
 army that he endeavoured to rejoin was repulsed by the Duke of 
 Guise, and his own was dispersed through want of pay. The Prince 
 of Conde survived this victory only a short time ; he died poisoned. 
 
 Elizabeth, the Protestant Queen of England, then tarnished her 
 glory bv ordering; the execution of Mary Stuart, widow, 
 
 & J J f m . Trial and execu- 
 
 by her first marriage, of Francis II., and Catholic Queen tion of the Queen 
 
 J . . of Scotland, 
 
 of Scotland, who, flying from her revolted subjects, Mary stuart, 
 sought a refuge in the states of her rival. Elizabeth 
 never pardoned either the superiority of her charms nor the title of 
 Queen of England, which she had given to herself. She held her 
 captive for nineteen years, and ended by sending her to the scaffold. 
 The tragical death of this Queen, sister-in-law of the King of France, 
 contributed as much as the defeat of Courtras to increase the fanatical 
 zeal of the Leaguers and their contempt for Henry III. That Prince 
 had given to his favourite, d' Epernon — hated by the people — the spoils 
 of Joyeuse, and abandoned himself again to shameful or frivolous 
 occupations, studying grammar, and learning to decline nouns amidst 
 his little dogs, parroquets and minions. Henry of Guise, however, 
 as prudent as he was brave and ambitious, always skilful in watching 
 his advantage, increased in public favour, and the boldness of the 
 League was doubled. The Faction of the Sixteen began particularly 
 
414* COUNCIL OF THE SIXTEEN. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 to render itself formidable. Paris was then governed by a nranicipal 
 regime; the bourgeois had the guardianship of the walls and the 
 principal ports ; the magistrates held the keys of the ports. In each 
 of the sixteen wards of the town, there was established a kind of 
 council, where they considered the interests of the Holy Union. 
 The chief of the assembly then sent in his report to the Council 
 General of the League. All these chiefs having the same passions and 
 the same interests, accustomed themselves to unite together ; thus was 
 .. . iU formed the celebrated Council of the Sixteen, of which 
 
 Council of the 
 
 sixteen. Bussy Le Clerc, an old master- of-arms, was one of the 
 
 most violent members. They laid a great number of plots against the 
 liberty of Henry III. ; but, constantly betrayed by one of the con- 
 spirators, named Nicholas JPoulain, they failed in all their projects. 
 The King, perfectly informed as to all their intentions and power, and 
 secretly pressed by Henry of Navarre to join with him, thought of 
 seeking a refuge in his army ; then taking suddenly a bold resolution, 
 he forbade Guise to approach Paris. But such was the poverty of the 
 treasury, that it could not furnish twenty-five crowns to send a courier- 
 to the Duke. The letter of the King was sent by the post, but he 
 denied that he had received it. 
 
 Called by the Leaguers, Guise entered Paris amid the acclamations 
 of the multitude ; his feeble escort increased to an idola- 
 Guise returns to trous crowd, eager to see him and to touch his person 
 or his dress. The people called him the new Gideon, the 
 new Maccabeeus. "France," says an historian of the time, "was 
 foolish about that man." He descended at the house of Medici, who 
 conducted him, without guards, to her son at the Louvre. The 
 King deliberated as to whether he would stab him on the spot. 
 Colonel Alphonse offered his arm, and Henry hesitated. " Why have 
 you come here, in spite of my orders?" said he to the Duke on 
 perceiving him ; Guise feigned that he was ignorant of them, and 
 answered that he came to justify himself for the calumnies of which 
 he had been the object ; then alarmed at the fierce looks of those 
 around, he bowed and disappeared ; on the morrow he returned to the 
 Louvre, but well accompanied, and more disposed to give than to 
 receive the law. He requested that a war to the death should be made 
 against the Huguenots, and that the favourites Epernon, La Yalette 
 
1574-1589] BATTLE OF THE BARRICADES. 415 
 
 and all suspected people, should be driven from the court. The feeble 
 monarch yielded, on condition that the Duke would assist in purging 
 Paris of foreigners and people without occupation. Guise promised 
 it, and the people murmured loudly. The King ordered the nobles to 
 place themselves in arms round him, and sent for four thousand Swiss 
 to come to Paris. They arrived, carrying their arms raised and 
 their banners unfolded. The sight of them rendered the people 
 furious, and excited a general uprising ; the streets were 
 
 Battle of the 
 
 soon unpaved, and the windows furnished with stones ; Barricades, 
 
 r . . /12th May, 1588. 
 
 they stretched chains across and behind them the multi- 
 tude improvised a thousand barricades ; the royal troops saw them- 
 selves invested and attacked on all sides, without hope -of retreat or 
 safety. The King, in consternation, entreated the Duke of Guise to 
 stop the disorders and effusion of blood. " They are escaped bulls," 
 coldly replied the Duke of Guise ; "I am not able to restrain them," 
 at last, when he thought that it was time to act, he left his hotel, and 
 showed himself to the people, with a slight cane in his hand. On 
 seeing him the crowd gave itself up to frantic transports of delight, 
 and the barricades fell before him. Guise thus penetrated almost as 
 far as the posts of the unfortunate Swiss ; he caused the fighting to 
 cease, opened up a road for them and saved their lives. Medici 
 hastened to meet him ; they carried her over the barricades, almost 
 close to Guise ; she negotiated with him. He asked that the Bour- 
 bons be deprived of their privileges, for places of safety, for money, 
 and for war. Medici prolonged the interview, in the midst of which the 
 Duke learnt that the King had fled from Paris. At this unexpected 
 news, " I am dead, madam e," said he ; " the King is going to destroy 
 me." Taking advantage of the tumult, Henry III. had left Paris at a 
 gallop, and did not believe himself in safety till he was at Chartres, 
 when he was rejoined by his troops and court. This famous day, when 
 the people delivered Paris to the Duke of Guise, was called in history 
 the Battle of the Barricades. 
 
 Guise set to work to gain profit out of his victory by exercising the 
 functions of the King before taking the title. He assembled the 
 people, caused new town officers to be created, and other captains ; 
 then he prayed the first President, Achille de Harlay, to assemble the 
 Parliament, in order to undertake measures suitable to the circum- 
 
416 EDICT OF UNION. [Book II. CnAP. IL 
 
 tances. But that magistrate only answered his requests by these 
 bold and severe remarks : — " It is a great pity," he said, 
 
 Excellent re- . . & r J ' 
 
 m.rxs of Achiiie " when the valet drives away the master ; but, my soul 
 
 deilarlay. . • . . . 
 
 is God's, my heart is the King's, and my body is with 
 the wicked." Guise insisted. " "When the Majesty of the Prince is 
 violated," boldly replied Harlay, " the magistrate has no more 
 authority." President Brisson showed himself more flexible, and lent 
 himself to the wishes of the Duke of Guise. The latter, however, 
 having failed in his project of carrying off the King, endeavoured to 
 repel every suspicion of violence. He did not wish to be reproached 
 with having driven away his master before he was able to crush him. 
 He then thought, secretly counselled by Medici, to appease the anger of 
 Henry, and he inspired the same desire in the people. The Parisians, 
 informed of the taste of the King for processions, thought of leading 
 one almost to Chartres, and the chiefs of the League lent themselves 
 to this caprice. Their impetous friends, monks of every order, the 
 most dissolute women dressed in sackcloth, wished to join this 
 extravagant procession. Henry de Joyeuse, a courtier who had become 
 
 a monk, marched at the head, under the name of Frere 
 
 Procession 
 
 called that of the Anne (brother Angel). Two capuchins were on either 
 
 Beaten, 15S8. . . . 
 
 side, representing one the Virgin the other the Magdalen. 
 Frere Ange carried with difficulty an enormous cardboard crucifix, and 
 four vigorous attendants scourged him when he showed signs of 
 weakness. Trumpets and kettles announced the march of the pro- 
 cession. The frivolous monarch, contrary to general expectation, only 
 regarded it with disgust, and saw in the pretended penitents none 
 but rebels. Nevertheless, the negotiations continued. Henry con- 
 sented to meet with the Duke of Guise ; the famous Edict of Union 
 appeared, and the King seemed to be delivered over to his enemy. 
 He engaged by this edict to destroy the heretics even to the last man ; 
 he disinherited Henry of Bourbon from the throne, named Guise 
 Generalissimo, with absolute power, and gave over to him, for many 
 years, several places of safety. 
 
 These accessions concealed the designs of the King. He had 
 already taken, without consulting his mother, an extreme resolution, 
 and to accomplish it, the States- General were convoked again at Blois. 
 Henry of Guise and the Cardinal his brother, presented themselves 
 
1574-1589J THE DUKE OF GUISE. 417 
 
 there boldly. The deputies were numerous ; more than geC0Tld state of 
 five hundred came, and amongst them might be dis- Bl01s ' 1588, 
 tinguished Guy-Coquille, a celebrated jurisconsult and writer on the 
 laws of foreign nations ; the Advocate- General, Etienne Pasquier, 
 author of JRecherches sur France, and Michael Montaigne, whose 
 Essays are still one of the most precious monuments of the French 
 language. The election had been made under the influence of the 
 Guises, and the greater part of the deputies belonged to the League. 
 The King opened the States on the 16th of October in the great saloon 
 of the Chateau of Blois ; he protested, in a very remarkable discourse, 
 his ardent desire to root out heresy and remedy the evils of the coun- 
 try, " which he had not altogether caused," said he, " but for all of 
 which he was not going to excuse himself." He deplored the 
 necessity that there was for asking from the States new subsidies, and 
 he threw back the fault upon those who had wished to use violence 
 towards himself, and who stirred up troubles in the State by means of 
 leagues and illegal associations, pointing out clearly the Duke of 
 Guise, upon whom every eye was turned. The latter appeared to be 
 the king of that imposing assembly of which he was the soul. An 
 historian of the time has depicted him " piercing with his eyes the 
 density of the assembly, in order to recognize and distinguish his 
 followers, and with one glance alone to strengthen them in hope of 
 the advancement of his designs, of his fortune, and his greatness, and 
 to say to them without speaking : — " I see you." * After the meeting*, 
 the Duke of Guise forced from the King a humiliating concession ; he 
 enacted and obtained that Henry should cut out from his harangue, 
 in publishing it, the passages where he and his followers were 
 designated as factious. His project, which he little disguised, was to 
 depose the feeble monarch and to cause himself to be proclaimed in 
 his place. His pride was flattered by listening to his imprudent 
 friends, who compared him to Pepin, while they dishonoured the 
 monarch by the name of the Idler-King. His sister, the ardent 
 Duchess of Montpensier, transported with rage against Henry III., 
 carried at her girdle golden scissors, destined, she said, to make a 
 monk's tonsure for the new Chilperic. 
 
 * Mathieu, Histoire de France. 
 
 E E 
 
418 DEATH OF THE DUKE OF GUISE. [Book II. Chap. IT. 
 
 These rash speeches were reported to the King, and confirmed him 
 in the violent resolution that he had taken. He took the sacrament 
 with his enemy, and, in dividing the host at the holy table, he swore 
 in public friendship for the future and forgetfulness of the past ; he 
 had secretly resolved upon his death. A murderer was necessary for 
 Henry ; he sounded the brave Crillon, he refused nobly ; he offered to 
 call the Duke of Guise out in a duel, he would fight at the peril of his 
 life, but he would not be an assassin. Henry ordered him to keep his 
 secret. Loignac, chief of the gentlemen of the guard, was proposed ; 
 the King reckoned upon his arm. The hour and place were fixed ; 
 but rumours were circulated, the partisans of Guise were alarmed, 
 and threatening notices came to him from all parts. One day he found 
 under his napkin a note, which informed him of the designs of the 
 King ; without troubling himself he wrote underneath, He dare not, 
 and threw the note beneath the table. On the morrow, the 23rd 
 December, he presented himself to the council ; the doors were closed, 
 he guard seized their arms, and an officer notified to him that he 
 was required at the house of the King. He directed his steps towards 
 the cabinet of the monarch ; just as he entered, Montlhery, one of the 
 Assassination of forty- five, plunging a dagger into his breast, cried : — 
 auct <rf the Cardi- " Traitor, you shall die !" others threw themselves upon 
 loss. • him and struck him, while Loignac thrust his sword into 
 
 his back. Feeling himself wounded from behind, the Duke cried out, 
 Misericorde ! and, although he had, says the historian of the time, his 
 sword entangled between his mantle and his seized limbs, he would 
 not allow the assassins to drag him from one end of the chamber to 
 the other. He walked with outstretched arms, blinded eyes, and his 
 mouth open, as if he were already dead. He fell upon the bed of the 
 Kino-. The Cardinal of Guise, seated at the council with the Arch- 
 bishop of Lyons, heard his brother, who cried for mercy to God. " Ah! " 
 said he, " they are killing my brother !" And as he rose, the Marshal 
 d'Aumont, with his hand upon his sword, said : — " Do not stir, 
 Monsieur ; the King has business with you." The Cardinal and the 
 Archbishop were transferred to the Tower of Moulins. 
 
 After the event, Henry went out from his cabinet to see the body of 
 the victim. He trampled it under his feet, as Guise himself had 
 trampled under his the corpse of Coligny. He contemplated it for a 
 
1574-1589] STATES OF ELOIS DISSOLVE. 419 
 
 moment, and said : — " My God ! what a great man ! he appears still 
 greater dead than living !" L'Esfcoile relates that he pushed him with 
 his foot a second time, and said to Loignac : — " Does it appear to yon 
 that he is dead, Loignac?" The latter, taking the corpse by the head, 
 answered to Henry of Yalois, "Yes, Ib^lie^e it, Sire." "And," con- 
 tinues the chronicler, "I think that, if M. de Guise had only breathed 
 when he pushed him with his foot, the King would have fallen down 
 beside him through fear." All the relations and friends of Guise that 
 could be seized were arrested, and on the morrow the Cardinal, his 
 brother, perished by assassination in the Tower of Moulins. Seeing 
 the murderers enter, he threw himself on his knees, covered his head, 
 and said: — " Do your ^commission." He was killed by blows from 
 halberds. 
 
 Such was the bloody catastrophe of the States of Blois, which 
 separated, a month later, without having resolved upon or granted any- 
 thing. Medici only survived the Lorraine princes a few days. Faith- 
 ful to her custom of seeking for force when she believed she recognised 
 it, she had never completely broken with them, and perhaps she 
 betrayed her son more than once in order to acquire the homage and 
 support of the Guises. Their death cast trouble into her mind ; on 
 hearing of it she said to the King : — " It is well cut, my son, but it 
 is necessary to join again." Henry did not profit by the counsel; he 
 remained undecided, did not march upon Paris, where the storm was 
 brewing, and swear anew in the States, to the Edict of Union, before 
 dissolving them. He had allowed many prisoners of high, importance 
 to escape. His two -most formidable enemies, the Dukes of Mayenne 
 and Aumalc, brothers of the assassinated Guises, remained at large, 
 although closely pursued, and they hastened to raise the people and 
 the army. 
 
 The rage of the Parisians had no need for being excited. The news 
 of the gloomy events of Blois provoked the explosion of their hate and 
 of their fury. Fanatical propheciers, at the head of whom the Cure 
 Lincestre, thundered from the pulpit against the assassin, and pro- 
 nounced curses on his head; children, women and men, half naked, 
 ran together in procession, with w r ax tapers in their hands, to the 
 cemetery of the Innocents ; there extinguishing their lights, they 
 might be heard crying, " So may the detestable race of the Yalois be 
 
 e e 2 
 
420 ASSASSINATION OF HENRY III. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 extinguished ! " They proclaimed the Duke of Mayenne Lieutenant- 
 General of the kingdom ; the powers of the Sixteen were confirmed ; 
 the enthusiastic Bussy Le Clerc, Governor of the Bastille, enclosed in 
 it the greater part of the members of the Parliament who were 
 mimical to these disorders, and a new Parliament was instituted. 
 From that time all hopes of conciliation with the Partisans of the 
 Guises faded away before Henry III. 
 
 Pope Sixtus V. redoubled the audacity of the enemies of the 
 monarch by refusing to absolve him for the murder of the Cardinal, 
 and he excommunicated him by the famous bull In Coena Domini. On 
 the point of being invested by Mayenne in the town of Tours, one 
 resource only remained to Henry, and he seized it by joining himself 
 with the King of Navarre, whom he had just disinherited. " Against 
 the thunderbolts of Rome," said the Navarrese king to him, " there is 
 no other remedy than to conquer." The interview of the two monarchs 
 took place at the Chateau of Plessis-lez-Tours. The frankness and 
 loyalty of the King of Navarre soon gained the confidence of Henry 
 III., and touched his heart. After a glorious success at La Noue, in 
 Senlis, the kings marched together upon Paris ; Bourbon pitched his 
 camp at Meudon, and Henry arranged his upon the heights of Saint 
 Cloud : where, contemplating his capital, he gave vent to his anger in 
 these words : — " Paris, head of the kingdom, but too big and too 
 capricious a head, you have need of bleeding, in order to cure you ; 
 also the whole of France, from the frenzy which you have communi- 
 cated to her." Time and force failed him in carrying out his threat. 
 The Monks, the Jesuits, and the priests openly preached regicide 
 in Paris. A miserable enthusiast, named Jacques Clement, rendered 
 fanatical by them and also by the Duchess of Montpensier, who, in 
 her mad hatred, drew from him a promise of murder, made a vow to 
 assassinate the King. This wretch repaired, on the 1st of August, to 
 the camp of Henry III., and requested to speak with him ; introduced 
 into his tent, he fell on his knees, delivering a petition to the monarch, 
 and at the same time he stabbed him in the pit of the stomach with a 
 . x . e knife. The King withdrew the weapon from the wound 
 
 Assassination of ° x 
 
 Henry in., arLC i W ounded on the forehead the assassin, who was soon 
 
 August, lo89. 7 
 
 killed by the guards. 
 Henry of Navarre, when informed of the event, hurried from his 
 
1574-1589] , HENRY OF NAVAERE, KING. 421 
 
 quarters at Meudon. The life of the King was not yet despaired 
 of, and Bourbon left him after a friendly interview. However the 
 doctors soon declared the wound mortal, and Henry III. prepared 
 himself for death ; he received absolution, and then caused the doors 
 to be opened and the nobles to enter. He exhorted his officers to 
 recognize as his successor the King of Navarre, the legitimate heir to 
 the throne, without stopping at the difference of religion ; then he 
 expired, in his thirty-eighth year, after reigning fifteen years. Henry 
 of Bourbon returned with all haste to receive the farewell of the 
 dying King : but he was- too late. As he entered into Saint Cloud 
 with twenty five gentleman-at-arms, amongst whom were Bosny, 
 d'Aubigne and La Force, they heard in the street this cry; "we are 
 lost ; the King is dead ! " They advanced and met the Scotch 
 Guard, who fell at the feet of Henry of Navarre, saying : — " Ah ! Sire, 
 you are now our master." Biron, Bellegarde, Dampierre, and many 
 others, soon came to salute Henry IV. ; but afterwards, at ten paces 
 from him, they were heard to say : — " That they would rather give 
 themselves up to every kind of enemy than suffer a Huguenot King ! " * 
 This remark alone expresses all the difficulties of the new reign. 
 
 Never had France been seen nearer to ruin than at the end of this 
 situation of the re % n j when it was divided into three parties, desperately 
 kingdom. bent on destroying each other ; the Royalists, the 
 
 Leaguers, and the Calvinists or Huguenots. Then provinces, cities,t 
 
 * Sully, Economies royalcs. — D'Aubigne, liv. II. 
 
 f Division of the provinces and towns between the League, the Royalists, and the 
 Huguenots. In nearly all the provinces there were some towns belonging to each of the 
 three factions which divided the State. The League ruled in the North in Normandy, 
 Picardy and Ile-de-France ; in the East in Burgundy, in the West in Brittany, and in 
 the South in Provence; it possessed in the other provinces among various important 
 place?, Mayenne, Le Mans, Chartres, Orleans, Verdun, Bourges, Perigueux, Cahors, 
 Agen, Narbonne, Toulouse, Montpelier, Alby, and Valence. The Royalists did not 
 possess any great province, but they were disseminated throughout all. Their principal 
 places were : Dieppe, Coutances, Caen, and Saint-L6, in Normandy ; Calais, Boulogne 
 and Compiegne, in Picardy ; in the centre they held Charite, Blois, Tours, Angers, 
 Saumur, Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges ; in the South, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and 
 Carcassonne ; lastly, in the West, Brest, Vannes, Rennes, and Saint- Malo. The Huguenots 
 ra'eJ in half of Dauphine" and in almost all Poitou and Gruienne, of which the great 
 towns belonged to the Royalists. In the North they only had Sedan and' the Prin- 
 cipality of Bouihon ; many towns in Brittany, Roche-Bernard, Rieux and Rochefort, were 
 in their power, also the important place of Rochelle in Aunis, and that of Saumur in 
 Anjou. They also possessed Saint-Jean d'Angely, in SaintODge, Tulle, and some other 
 places. 
 
422 FAILURE OF THE HOUSE OF VALOTS. [Book II. Chap. II. 
 
 and families, which were often divided, might be seen armed against 
 one another. War was everywhere dragging in its wake misery and 
 anarchy. The great nobles, quartered in their governments, aspired, 
 in the midst of the general confusion, to see arise again to their 
 advantage the ancient feudality ; they coined money, levied armies 
 and taxes, braving the authority of the monarch and the laws, and 
 recognizing no power but their own. Such. was the nearly desperate 
 state of the kingdom in 1589, at the death of the last Prince of the 
 House of Valois ; but Henry IV. was about to reign and become the 
 deliverer of France. With him the branch of the Bourbons mounted 
 the throne; that of the Valois had reigned two hundred and sixty- 
 one years, and died out after having given thirteen Kings to France. 
 
1589-1598} • ACCESSION OF THE BOURBONS. 423 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF HENRY II [. TO THE PEACE OF VERYINS AND THE 
 PROMULGATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 1589-159S. 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 
 This history has often saddened the reader by showing in it the lot 
 of people abandoned to feeble, unskilful sanguinary hands. AcCfSSion of 
 To the cry of humanity — too frequently outraged or j^" 8 ^^ Bour " 
 misunderstood— is now to succeed love for the most 
 truly French King who had ever occupied the throne. To him provi- 
 dence had reserved the double task of pacifying his country and 
 healing its deep wounds. 
 
 This prince had been brought up by his pious and noble mother, 
 Jeanne d'Albret, in the fear of God and the principles of virtue. 
 Torn away by her, while still very young, from the corruption of 
 the court of Charles IX., he passed his tender years in the plains of 
 Beam, surrounded by companions of his own age. He knew the 
 men by living from his infancy among them ; it was thus that he 
 learned to love them and compassionate their misfortunes. Tried 
 early by adversity, Jie knew how to support it with courage and to 
 conquer it. No prince had found himself in a more difficult position 
 than was his after the death of Henry of Valois ; having before 
 him the League, the anathemas of the Pope, the gold of Philip II., 
 and the half of his own army ; and while his predecessor had scarcely 
 breathed his last sigh, he was exposed to a hard trial. The Catholic 
 chiefs held council, and declared to the King, by the mouthpiece 
 of d'O, superintendent of the finances, that the moment had now 
 come to choose between the misery of a King of Navarre and 
 
424 DEFECTION OF CATHOLICS. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 Declaration of tne high condition of a King of France ; but that, if he 
 to e t C h a eKing Ch o? f wished to reign over the kingdom he must become a 
 Catholic. The King turned pale at these words ; then, 
 having recovered his presence of mind, he pronounced these words : — 
 " Among the astonishments which God has brought upon us during 
 Excellent answer * w e n ty-four hours, I receive one from you, Messieurs, 
 of Henry iv. w hi c h I had not expected. Are your tears already dried 
 up ? Have the memory of your loss and the prayers of your King 
 vanished away in three hours, with the respect which we owe to the 
 words of a dying friend ? It is not possible that all you who are here 
 would consent to all the points that I have just heard. And from 
 whom could you expect such a change in his belief except from one 
 who had none ? Would it be more agreeable to have a King without 
 a God ? Will you assure yourselves in the faith of an atheist, and, in 
 the days of battle will you follow with assurance the wishes and the 
 auspices of a perjurer and an apostate ? Yes, the King of Navarre, 
 as you say, has suffered great miseries, and is not astonished at it ; 
 but can he despoil heart and soul for the entry of royalty? Those 
 who will not take a more mature deliberation, those whom their fear 
 and the brief prosperity of the enemies of the state have removed 
 from us, to them I freely g'ive leave to seek salaries under insolvent 
 masters. I will have among the Catholics those who love France and 
 honour." In spite of this noble answer, eight hundred gentlemen-at- 
 arms and nine regiments left his banners. A small number of 
 devoted friends, with the Swiss, and some companies of cavalry, 
 formed the permanent foundation of his forces. His followers 
 came one by one to arrange themselves under his banner, and, in 
 default of pay, they returned to their own homes, to remain for some 
 months. It was necessary too, to run from town to town, struggling 
 and negotiating without intermission. 
 
 Fanaticism and delirium were carried to their height in Paris when 
 ,, , . . „ . thev learnt that Henry III. was assassinated. The 
 
 Mad joy in Paris «/ •> 
 
 Henr* 'ni ealh ° f Duchess of Montpensier flung herself upon the neck 
 of the first man who bore the news ; then she entered a 
 carriage, with Anne d'Este, her mother, and rode through the streets, 
 crying, " Good news!" and inciting the people to rejoice. They 
 lighted bonfires ; the preachers made eulogies on Jacques Clement 
 
1589-1598] THE LEAGUE. 425 
 
 whom they called a martyr. They ran in crowds to see his mother, a 
 poor villager, welcomed by the Duchess of Montpensier. The 
 portrait of the regicide was placed on the altar while the people 
 before it, on their knees, cried: — Saint Jacques Clement, pray for us! 
 Blessed, said (in the language of the Scripture, the haranguers of the 
 Sixteen) blessed is the womb that bore thee, blessed the breasts that gave 
 thee suck I Then they insulted the memory of the Yalois, and spread 
 abroad furious invectives against Henry of Bourbon, recalling the 
 Edict of Union, the bull of the Pope, and the decrees of the Sorbonne, 
 which declared him deprived of the throne. They sought a chief, and 
 their regards turned towards Mayenne, brother of Henry of Guise, 
 and alone in his family capable of directing affairs. Mayenne took 
 the title of Lieutenant- General of the kingdom, and mi _ ^ , 
 
 ° ' The Duke of 
 
 caused to be proclaimed King, under the name of eleJtedcli^ef of 
 Charles X., the old Cardinal of Bourbon, whom Henry J{J| cardinal of d 
 IV., his nephew, held a prisoner at Tours. He went out ciahne^iSif"" 
 from Paris afterwards at the head of twenty-five oiChVrkVxT 
 thousand men, making it public that he was going to 
 take the Bearnais. He met, near Dieppe, with all his forces, the 
 feeble army of the King, composed altogether of seven thousand 
 soldiers. Henry sustained many attacks in his camp, and won a 
 signal advantage in a bloody combat which took place near the 
 village of Arq lies. Three flags fell into the hands of „ L , c A 
 
 o • t. o Battle of Arques. 
 
 Mayenne, who hastened to send them to Paris as pledges 
 of a victory, announcing that he was going to lead Henry into the 
 capital bound and tied. The intoxication of the Parisians lasted until 
 Henry IV., strengthened by five thousand English and a numerous 
 nobility, appeared before Paris, attacked the faubourgs, and took pos- 
 session of them, driving back the Parisians into the interior of the 
 town. He allowed the pillage of the faubourgs, in order that the 
 booty might serve as pay to his soldiers ; but he prevented murder, 
 incendiarism, and extreme licentiousness, and caused the churches and 
 monasteries to be preserved. In vain he offered battle to the Duke 
 of Mayenne, and quitted Paris in order to subdue Lower Normandy, 
 of which he made himself master. The ambassador of Venice at 
 this time presented to him letters of credence. This republic was the 
 6rst Catholic power which recognized him as King of France. 
 
426 BATTLE OP IVRY. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 Discord reigned in France; some wished to crown Mayenne ; others 
 Compptitorsfor declared themselves for the old Cardinal of Bourbon, 
 
 the throne. . 
 
 prisoner of Henry IV., his nephew ; the gold of Philip II. 
 intrigups of corrupted the Sixteen and the population. That King 
 
 claimed the throne for his daughter, Isabelle- Claire- 
 Eugenie, niece of the four last Valois by her mother Elizabeth. 
 Pope Sixtus V., struck with the madness of the Leaguers and with the 
 great character of Henry of Navarre, had sent into France a legate 
 named Caetan, with an order not to pronounce in favour of one of the 
 two parties, except with the entire knowledge of the case. Caetan, 
 neglecting his instructions, hastened to embrace the party of the 
 League : pursued by Henry IV., he entered Paris as a fugitive, and 
 was received as a martyr. The Sorbonne thundered against the 
 Soivcnceof the Bearnais, declaring that he was in a state of mortal sin, 
 Hcmy iv. b and excommunicated all those who should think of 
 
 adopting him. for King, even if he became a Catholic. The Parlia- 
 Tiio. two pariia- ment of Paris, presided over by Brisson, ordered the 
 
 incuts. 
 
 recognition of Charles X. ; the parliament sitting at 
 Tours, and presided over by Achille de Harlay, recently escaped from 
 the Bastille, annulled the arrests of that of Paris, and proclaimed 
 Henry IV. King. The faction of the Sixteen added to these many 
 causes of disorder, and carried the distraction to such a pitch that 
 Mayenne broke it up, and renewed that Council, of which the suc- 
 ceeding members continued to constitute a formidable cabal. 
 
 Henry IV. again approached the capital, and Mayenne closed up the 
 Bnttie < f ivry, road. The two armies met near Dreux, in the plain ot 
 
 Ivry. On the morrow, at break of day, arrangements 
 were made for the battle ; Henry made none for retreat. " No other 
 retreat," said he, " than the field of battle." Both sides betook 
 themselves to prayers. Henry, advancing before his on horseback, 
 armed at all points, but with his head bare, cried : — " Lord ! you know 
 my thoughts, if it be advantageous to my people that I reign, favour 
 my cause and protect my army." Then, after the acclamations 
 excited by these words had ceased, " Children," said he to the 
 soldiers, "if the ensigns should fail, you follow my white plume ; you 
 will find it always on the road of honour." He ordered the charge, 
 and the army of Mayenne, although very superior in numbers, was 
 
1589-1598] SIEGE OF PARIS. 427 
 
 almost destroyed. * The conquerer immediately marched upon Paris, 
 and caused the town to be blockaded by his troops. The old Cardinal 
 Bourbon, rival and prisoner of Henry IV., whose rights, Death of Cardie 
 
 , . ,.. nal Bourbon. 
 
 however, he recognized, died at this time ; but Henry 
 knew his weakness, and feared that he would only serve as an instru- 
 ment for the Leaguers if he fell into their hands. 
 
 The blockade of the capital brought famine and mortality into its 
 walls : each day lightened up new horrors. The people, siege and 
 
 •1.1-11 in • n /*n -i blockade of 
 
 without bread, sought for nourishment among the onai p>uu-, famine, 
 and the cemeteries ; a mother was known to roast her 
 dead child, to devour it, and to die after this horrible repast. Henry 
 suffered greatly wben he saw the extremity to which these unfor- 
 tunate people were reduced ; he often permitted provisions to be taken 
 to the besieged. Two peasants were surprised taking a waggon of 
 bread through a postern gate ; they were going to be hanged when 
 Henry met them ; they threw themselves at his feet, pleading misery 
 as their excuse. " Go in peace," said the King to them, giving them 
 all the money he had about him; "the Bearnais, if he had more 
 would give it to you." During this siege the monks, in order to reani- 
 mate the courage of the besieged, made processions, bearing in one 
 hand an arquebuse and a crucifix in the other, mingling discharges 
 of musketry with the chant of sacred hymns. At last, conferences 
 were opened at the Abbey of Saint Anthony-in-the-Fielcls, between 
 Henry and many deputies of the League. Gondi, bishop of Paris, went 
 there with the design of conciliating both parties ; but he had no 
 power to treat, and these conferences were useless. Alexander 
 
 * After the Battle of Ivry, Henry IV., meeting near the field of battle the illustrious 
 and faithful Rosny, covered with wounds, addressed to him these words, in which this 
 good and generous heart depicts itself to the life :— " Brave soldier and valiant knight, 
 your remarkable actions on so important an occasion have surpassed my expectation, 
 and therefore, in presence of these princes and captains who are here around me, I 
 wish to embrace you with both arms, and to declare you, in their sight, a true and free 
 knight, not so much from the accolade which I have just given, nor of the Holy Ghost nor 
 Saint Michael, but from my whole and sincere affection, which, united to the long years 
 of your useful and faithful services, makes me promise to you, as I do to all these brave 
 and valiant men who listen to me, that I shall never have good fortune nor increase of 
 grandeur without your participating in it. Fearing, however, that speaking too much 
 might be prejudicial to your wounds, I return to Mantes ; therefore, adieu. My friend, 
 take care of yourself, and be assured t«hat you have a good master." (31emoires de 
 Sully.) 
 
428 VIOLENCES OF THE SIXTEEN. [Book II. CnAP. III. 
 
 Farnese, Duke of Parma, celebrated by bis exploits in Flanders, and 
 The Duke of by tbe taking of Antwerp, advanced upon Paris with 
 
 Parma forces the _ 
 
 Royal lines at Mayenne, and penetrated as far as M_~iix. He compelled 
 
 Lagny, and 
 
 revictuais the the King- to raise the blockade, forced his lines at Lag-ny, 
 
 capital, 1590. . . ° J 
 
 and revictualled the capital. Incapable of coming to an 
 understanding with the Sixteen, and docile to the injunctions of King 
 Philip, Farnese retreated and returned into Artois, harassed in his 
 retreat by the Royal army. Nearly an equal number of English and 
 Spanish troops remained in the kingdom. 
 
 Henry returned to establish his quarters at Saint Denis, and 
 attempted to surprise Paris by means of soldiers concealed under 
 sacks of flour. This abortive attempt and the stratagem to which 
 the King had recourse, gave to this engagement the name of 
 The Flour battle foe joum&e des Farines (the Flour battle). Discord 
 
 reigned in Paris ; Mayenne agitated on one side 
 for his house ; on the other the Sixteen and the populace agitated for 
 Spain, who paid them. A new chief divided the members of the 
 League ; the young Duke of Guise, son of the Balafre, recently 
 escaped from prison, was received with transports in Paris, and 
 many opposed him to Mayenne. Nevertheless, he played no 
 important part. The new Pope, Gregory XIV., eager to sustain 
 the League, sent him a reinforcement of soldiers, who only sig- 
 nalized themselves by the most horrible brigandage. The most 
 fanatical chiefs were once more masters of Paris, in spite of the 
 violences of the purifying effected by Mayenne in the Conciul of the 
 fui excesses, 3 Sixteen ; that council modified and rendered more numer- 
 
 1591 
 
 ous, called itself the Great Council of the Union ; a 
 committee of ten members, elected by all, directed its affairs. These 
 ten had been chosen out of the most violent and enthusiastic. The 
 cures and the preachers drove the fury of the spirit of party almost 
 to madness ; they excited the people to massacre, and pointed out 
 openly from the pulpit the men suspected of moderation as wretches 
 unworthy of pity. The president, Brisson, and the counsellors, John 
 Tardif and Claude Larcher, endeavoured to oppose so much excess ; 
 they were assassinated; the Committee of Ten pronounced their 
 sentence ; Bussy Le Clerc executed it. The three magistrates were 
 taken and hanged at the very gates of the palace where they had 
 
1589 1598] BATTLE OF AUMALE. 429 
 
 administered justice. Tims perished the chief of the parliament of the 
 League, the famous president who had pronounced the penalty of for- 
 feiture on Henry III., but whose violent acts were blotted out by the 
 new violences of his party. His death was the signal for cruel perse- 
 cutions, and the power passed from the bourgeois to the populace. The 
 magistracy and the army were purified by the Great Council, and all 
 moderate men trembled for their lives. Warned by them, Mayenne 
 hurried from Soissons, aimed his cannon upon the Bastille, of which 
 Bussy Le Clerc was governor, took possession of that place, caused 
 the four most culpable agitators to be taken in their beds, and ordered 
 them to be hanged on the spot. Bussy Le Clerc escaped, abandoning 
 the treasure which he had gained by his peculations. Mayenne 
 re-established in their posts the magistrates and officers Chastisement of 
 dismissed from office by the Sixteen ; the bourgeois 
 recovered their ascendency, and the parliament acquired in the League 
 an influence that it had not before obtained. 
 
 The war continued with ferocity, and the Duke of Parma re-entered 
 France by skilful marches. Henry rashly exposed himself in the 
 battle of Aumale, where he was wounded ; Farnese nearly took him 
 prisoner, and compelled him to raise the siege of Rouen. Battle of 
 The misunderstanding between Mayenne and the Duke 
 relaxed the efforts of the Royal army, and gave them time to breathe. 
 Although very inferior in forces, Henry sustained the war with advan- 
 tage, displaying a marvellous activity, and the resources of a fertile and 
 indefatigable genius, escaping from the enemy when the skilful manoeu- 
 latter thought they were about to seize them, and falling and Alexander 
 upon them unexpectedly, when they thought that he was Parma, 1592. 
 far off. It was thus, that by a course of prudent and bold manoeuvres, 
 he shut up Farnese near Dieppe, between the sea, the Seine, and 
 the three main bodies of his army. The Duke of Parma, suffering 
 and broken down with fever, under these circumstances re-animated 
 his own genius, then almost extinguished. Unknown to the King, he 
 constructed a bridge in one night, deceived his vigilance, crossed the 
 Seine, and covered his retreat. 
 
 Marshal Biron, slain in the same campaign, was suspected of 
 favouring this bold operation. His son requested from him two thou- 
 sand knights, so that he might cut in pieces the Spanish rear-guard. 
 
430 PRETENSIONS OF PHILIP II. [BOOK II. CHAP. III. 
 
 The marshal refused, and it is reported that he afterwards said : — " If 
 you had done so, the wai would have been finished, and you and I 
 would have nothiug more to do than plant cabbages at Biron." This 
 Dispositions and sentence will make apparent the innumerable obstacles 
 chiefs of the which stopped Henry IV. and the causes of the prolonga- 
 
 nobility. . 
 
 tion of the war. A crowd of gentlemen-at-arms joined 
 in it for their own advantage, and wo have already seen that the great 
 nobles indulged in the hope that by it they would rebuild to their own 
 profit the edifice of feudalism. They flattered themselves that they 
 would preserve their governments with the title of sovereignty. It is 
 thus that the Duke of Mercosur hoped to be recognized as Duke of 
 Brittan}^, and that the Dukes of Nemours, Guise, Joyeuse, and Aumale 
 thought of dividing the other provinces of the kingdom. 
 
 Henry again approached Paris, when the States- General of the 
 League, convoked by Mayenne at the request of Philip 
 theL<;i2ueat II., assembled together to elect a King. He caused him- 
 self to be well informed in the Catholic religion, and 
 Mayenne, in the midst of the factions which divided the States, 
 remained undecided between the two principal, of which the one con- 
 sented to proclaim Henry IV. if he abjured, while the other was 
 devoted to Spain. The Duke of Faria and the jurisconsult Mendoza 
 audaciously sustained, in the midst of the States, the interests of 
 Philip II. That monarch insisted, together with the Cardinal de 
 Plaisance, legate of Clement VIII., that Henry, being infected with 
 heresv, ouo-ht to be excluded from the throne even if he 
 
 Pretensions of J 7 ° 
 
 Phihp ii. abjured, and that by the fact of this exclusion the Salic 
 
 Law was abolished in France. He then requested that his daughter 
 Isabella, niece of the three last Kings, should be proclaimed Queen ; 
 but Farnese had just died, and no Spanish army could sustain the 
 pretensions of Philip. Mayenne fought against them. The Catholic 
 Seigneurs of the Royal army had been invited by him to the States. 
 Conferences were held at Surenes, and afterwards in the faubourg of 
 La Villette, between them and many deputies. Henry declared to the 
 last of these that he was disposed to abjure his faith. This news 
 crushed all ambitions and raised a tempest in the assembly of the 
 States- General. The Spaniards hastened to point out that, if the 
 Infanta were proclaimed King, he would fix upon a French Seigneur 
 
1589-1598] THE MENIPPEAN SATIRE. £31 
 
 for her husband. By not naming any one before-hand, the ambitious 
 
 hopes of many were roused. Charles of Savoy, the Duke of JSTemours, 
 
 half-brother of Mayenne, and the Duke of Guise, allowed themselves 
 
 to spring at this brilliant bait, and the States hesitated. It would have 
 
 detracted from the greatness and power of the kingdom, if Spain 
 
 had obtained the coronation of the Infanta. Philip consented to 
 
 everything to ensure the sceptre to himself, and France would have 
 
 been dismembered among the most powerful Seigneurs. 
 
 Henry IV., in this critical moment, obtained a support upon which 
 
 he had not reckoned. The parliament humiliated by the Sixteen, and 
 
 intimidated by the execution of many of its members, only issued 
 
 servile decrees, imprints of fanaticism, and dictated by a furious 
 
 populace sustained by the chiefs of the Spanish garrison. All of a 
 
 sudden this parliament roused itself from its stupor, and displayed a 
 
 noble energy upon the advice of Edward Mole, Attorney- 
 
 ^ J r m . Excellent con- 
 
 General ; it ordered the President, John Lemaitre, to (l ^ ct of the par- 
 liament, 1593. 
 
 present himself to the Lieutenant- General, in order to 
 recommend him to watch so that no foreign house, under the pretext 
 of religion, should place themselves on the throne, declaring all the 
 treaties made with this aim null and contrary to the Salic Law and 
 the constitution of the kingdom. This unexpected declaration sur- 
 prised and irritated Mayenne, but John Lemaitre sustained this decree 
 before him with courage. The Spanish faction did not lose all hope, 
 and in order to assure itself of the support of his powerful family, it 
 offered the hand of the Infanta to the young Duke of Guise, in case the 
 latter should be recognized as Queen. Mayenne, however, only feebly 
 supported the proposition of Spain and the pretensions of his nephew. 
 He himself aspired to the crown and made differences in the election. 
 The Parisians began to tire of so many struggles, intrigues, and 
 sufferings. They read greedily a book where the follies and the 
 selfishness of the chiefs of the League were brought forward in 
 evidence and devoted to . redicule. This book, entitled Catliolisme 
 iVEpagne, or the la Satire Menippee, struck a mortal blow Th . 
 at the Leaguers and the Spanish faction. Mayenne Mtui PP e ' e - 
 persisted in keeping power, and, although uncertain which side he 
 should tak3, he united his efforts with those of the legate of the Pope 
 to prevent the abjuration of the King, declaring that his conversion 
 
432 ABJURATION OF HENRY IV. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 did not open the road to the throne. A trace had been proposed by 
 Henry, who fixed the day of his abjuration on the 2oth of July. 
 Mayenne forbade the Parisians to be witnesses, and ordered them to 
 close their doors ; they violated his order and assisted in a crowd at 
 the ceremony. Henry made his abjuration at St. Denis, under the 
 hands of the Archbishop of Bourges. He promised to live and to die 
 in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church, and to defend it against 
 all ; he repeated his profession of faith at the foot of the 
 
 Abjuration of 
 
 Henry iv, 25th great altar, then the Te Dev/m burst out, while the people 
 
 July, 1593. & f ' y r 
 
 interrupted with cries of Vive le roi ! 
 The conversion of Henry IV. confounded all those in Paris who 
 only lived for disturbances, and whose strength existed only in their 
 audacity ; they gave themselves # up to the last excesses on hearing of 
 his abjuration. The cure John Boucher, preached during nine 
 consecutive days in the church of Saint Merry, seeking to persuade the 
 Parisians that this act was the work, of the devil; but the people 
 sighed for rest. It remained unmoved by these fanatical declarations, 
 the last convulsions of an expiring faction. A truce of three months, 
 -oroposed by Henry IV., was accepted by both parties. The Duke of 
 Mayenne caused the oath of union to be repeated in the States, and 
 prorogued them till September. Determined by personal motives to 
 prolong the war, he alienated himself from the Parliament and the 
 people, and sought his support among the Spaniards and the Sixteen. 
 He quitted Paris in the following year, to receive new troops on the 
 frontiers of Champagne, while Henry IV. waited at St. Denis until 
 the gates of the capital should be opened to him ; they soon were. 
 Charles de Cosse, Count of Brissac, son of the marshal of that name, 
 and one of the authors of the famous barricades under Henry III., 
 had been named by Mayenne governor of the town ; he negotiated in 
 secret with the King, deceived the League by false appearances of zeal, 
 came to an understanding with the prevot of the merchants, and on the 
 night of the 22nd March he delivered up the town to the Royal troops. 
 The soldiers entered in silence, passed through the streets in order of 
 battle, and made themselves masters of the open spaces and cross 
 roads. One corps of the Spanish guard alone resisted, it was put to 
 the sword. Surprise and fear held back the factions. At length 
 Henry presented himself. The prevot of the merchants and the Count 
 
1589-1598] ENTRY OF HENRY IV. INTO PARIS. 433 
 
 of Brissac offered him the keys of the town ; he advanced 
 
 Entry of Henry 
 
 in the midst of a corps of nobles with lowered lances. Iv - »»to Paris, 
 
 1 22nd March, 1594. 
 
 His march was a triumph, and from that day he looked 
 upon himself among the Parisians as in the middle of his children. 
 " Leave them alone ! " cried he, to those who pushed back the crowd, 
 " Leave them alone ! they are famished to see a king." His clemency 
 extended itself to all his enemies, and he permitted the legate to take 
 away under his safe-guard the Pere Varade, rector of the Jesuits, and 
 the cure Aubry, whose fanatical exhortations had driven almost to 
 regicide a wild enthusiast named Barriere. The Spanish garrison left 
 Paris on the same day with the honours of war ; the Duke of Faria 
 and the other ministers of Philip left with them. The King placed 
 himself at a window to see them pass, and, when they departed, 
 he said to them, laughing, " Gentlemen, my compliments to your 
 master, but do not return here again." He received the Bastille 
 on terms of war, welcomed the repentant and submissive Sorbonne, 
 and united to the parliament of Paris the magistrates of the par- 
 liaments which he had established at Chalons and Tours. 
 
 As to the situation of the King between the Catholics and Protest- 
 ants, the former had seen his conversion with distrust, 
 
 Difficult situa- 
 
 and accused him of hypocrisy. He could only gain them tionof Henry 
 
 J r J J & IV., 1594. 
 
 over by lavishing on them numerous favours. The latter, 
 irritated at his abjuration, looked with impatience on the honours and 
 bribes heaped upon the Catholics, which they considered that they 
 alone had a right to obtain, and they accused the King of ingratitude. 
 Paris, however, was far from possessing the importance which it 
 possesses at the present day ; war, in spite of the submission of the 
 capital, continued in all parts of the kingdom. However, Amiens, 
 Beauvais, Cambrai, and Chateau-Thierry gave themselves up sepa- 
 rately after the taking of Laon ; soon, Montmorency, Epernon, the 
 Duke of Guise, LaChatre, and Bois-Dauphin submitted, but they fixed 
 their submission at an enormous price. It was necessary 
 
 ,, , , -j-r. 1 . He buys the sub- 
 that the King should deposit in their hands immense mission of many 
 
 ° . . cniefa 
 
 sums and an authority which nearly rendered them 
 
 sovereign in their own governments, and which, later on, was the 
 cause of great troubles. 
 
 About the same time a new attempt placed the life of the monarch 
 
 F F 
 
434 EXILE OF THE JESUITS. [Book II. CllAP. III. 
 
 Attempted * n P er ^ > J onn Chatel, a pupil of the Jesuits, given up to 
 
 fhe a K?n n gbyJo°hn depraved habits, believed that he could save himself from 
 Chatei, 1594. ^ RQ p a i ns f k e Tj -fay assassinating him. Henry, on the 
 
 27th December, received in pardon two gentlemen, ancient Leaguers. 
 They were at his feet, and the King stooped in order to raise them, 
 when he found himself wounded in the mouth by a blow from a knife. 
 The bloody weapon was seized upon John Chatel. His confession in- 
 culpated the Jesuits, his masters, and revealed a fanaticism which was 
 not altered by the atrocious horrors of the torture and execution of 
 regicides. A Jesuit, the Pere Guignard, was hanged, the parliament, 
 f tii* prosecuted the entire order, and condemned all its 
 Jesuits, 1595. members to exile. They quitted the kingdom with the 
 hope of a speedy return. Philip II. would then have consented 
 to a peace if Henry had wished to leave to him certain possessions 
 in France ; the French nobles of his party were equally willing on 
 condition that they were allowed to keep the provinces of which they 
 were masters, at the charge of homage to the crown. The King 
 energetically repulsed these pretensions, and, in order to remove all 
 pretext and every excuse from the allies of Spain, he declared war 
 against Philip, whose most powerful supporters were the Duke of 
 Mercosur in Brittany, of Aumale in Picardy, and Mayenne in Bur- 
 gundy. The last of the three, not long ago chief of the League, and 
 an aspirant to the crown, had become the instrument of Spain ; he 
 was accompanied by Valasco, Constable of Castille, when the King 
 bore down rapidly to receive him near Dijon. 
 
 The glorious battle of Fontaine- Francaise, where Henry, with only 
 
 three hundred horse, held ground against two thousand, 
 
 taine-Francaise, and exposed his life in order to save that of Biron, con- 
 
 1595. 
 
 founded the hopes of Mayenne, who declared himself 
 ready to recognise Henry as soon as that prince should have received 
 the absolution of the Pope. A negotiation on this subject had already 
 commenced; Clement VIII. seized that occasion to re-establish the 
 authority of the Church over that of the King's. By the counsels of the 
 
 Jesuit Toredo, who already entreated the recall of his 
 recognition of order into France, he showed himself favourable to the 
 Pope Clement Kins', but he made him pay dearly for his absolution. A 
 
 VIII 1595 
 
 vast scaffolding was erected in the basilica of St. Peter ; 
 
1589-1598] SUBMISSION OF MAYENNE. 435 
 
 there, tinder a magnificent tent, in the sight of an immense number of 
 people, Clement VIII. struck with his wand, in sign of chastisement 
 the abbes Duperron and d'Ossat, representatives of the King, and 
 declared null the absolution given to Henry by a French prelate, gave 
 it to him anew, and proclaimed him King of France and Navarre. 
 
 This solemn act took away all motive for war and all hope for the 
 Leageurs. Mayenne obtained from the King that his family should be 
 declared absolved from the crime of complicity with the murder of 
 Henry III. ; he placed his submission at this price. The edict was 
 promulgated ; Mayenne recognised Henry IV., and from 
 that time served him faithfullv. The King" soon the Duke of 
 
 J ° Mayenne, 1596. 
 
 assembled all his forces against the Spaniards, who had 
 just taken Calais and many other places. The Royal army was 
 weakened by the defection of a large number of Calvinists, ashamed 
 of the humiliation imposed on the King by the Pope. La Tremouille, 
 Bouillon, and Rohan, encouraged these murmurs. Henry, under 
 those circumstances, convoked an assembly of the principal inhabitants 
 of Rouen. " I have not called you together," said he to Assemb]y of the 
 them, " as my predecessors have done, in order to make fantsof^Eouen 1 " 
 you approve my will. I have assembled you here in 1598 ' 
 order to receive your counsels, to believe in them, to follow them ; 
 in short, to place myself in guardianship into your hands — a fancy 
 which does not often take possession of kings with grey beards who 
 have been victorious. But the violent love I bear towards my 
 subjects makes me find everything easy and honourable." The acts 
 of this assembly answered badly to these noble words. Nothing was 
 requested for the finances, no resources were provided for the 
 war, and Henry himself appeared to forget altogether his duties when 
 near to Gabrielle d'Estrees, whom he publicly named his mistress, and 
 whose children he brought up with a magnificence altogether royal. 
 The Spaniards dragged him away from his shameful pleasures by 
 surprising Amiens. Henry, without money, made an appeal to his 
 people. The faithful Rosny, Duke of Sully, assisted him in raising 
 some millions and an army. Amiens was retaken in the following 
 year ; the Duke of Mercosur treated then with the King, and Brittany 
 laid down its arms. These happy successes prepared the way for a 
 general peace. Philip II., a prey to a frightful malady, that of Sulla, 
 
 F f 2 
 
436 EDICT OF NANTES. [Book II. Chap. Ill 
 
 commenced to have a distaste for human blood. In 1598, six months 
 before his death, he signed the Peace of Vervins, delivering over to the 
 Peace of Vervins, King of France all the places occupied by his troops, 
 1598 ' with the exception of Cambrai. 
 
 Henry, freed from the cares of foreign wars, issued during the same 
 Edict of Nantes, y ear tlie celebrated Edict of Nantes, which fixed the 
 1598, rights of the Protestants in France. This edict, drawn up 
 
 by Jeannin, Schomberg, Colignon, and the historian Jacques-Auguste 
 de Thou, granted to the Protestants the exercise of their religion ; it 
 certified to them admission to all employment, established in each 
 parliament a chamber composed of magistrates of each religion, 
 tolerated the general assemblies of the reformers, authorising them to 
 raise taxes among themselves for the wants of their Church ; lastly, 
 it indemnified their ministers and granted them places of safety, the 
 principal of which was La Rochelle. The Protestants were compelled 
 to pay tithes and to observe the holy- days of the Catholic Church. 
 The Edict of Nantes, registered by the parliaments after long re- 
 sistance, put an end to the disastrous wars which for thirty- six 
 years had desolated the kingdom. 
 
 Henry IY. then left the part of warrior for that of peace-maker. 
 The last twelve years of his life belong to another series of events,- to 
 that which re-established calm in the interior, strengthened the Royal 
 authority, and gave to it a vigorous impulse, which allowed it to 
 absorb all the other powers until the period of the French revolution. 
 That revolution is connected, in some respects, with the religious 
 revolution of the sixteenth century, and we can see in it a distant 
 consequence of the principles taught by Luther. 
 
 The detailed examination of the immense results of the Reformation 
 „ .,, M . does not enter into the plan of this work ; it is sufficient 
 
 Considerations x 
 
 audtiT^ TT' f ^° sa y ^ ia ^ ^ e memorable event, in spite of the bloody 
 Europe. wars which were among its immediate consequences, 
 
 communicated a great movement to the human mind. It assisted 
 almost everywhere to separate the spiritual from the temporal power, 
 broke the yoke of the scholastic spirit, and replaced it by a critical and 
 philosophical spirit, the influence of which finished by endowing the 
 people with civil liberty, and prepared the way for their political eman- 
 cipation. This revolution, provoked by the abuses of the Church, 
 
1589-1598] SPAIN UNDER PHILIP II. 43? 
 
 undertaken by Luther and other eager spirits, and continued after- 
 wards by the efforts of reason and by the letting loose of all the 
 human passions, could not accomplish itself without long tortures and 
 frightful convulsions. The principles of the reformers were only 
 imperfectly naturalised amongst us ; however, they deposited in our 
 soil a seed which bore its fruits later, under the favouring warmth of 
 the liberty of conscience, that the Edict of Nantes assured to France. 
 
 The internal convulsions to which France was a prey during so 
 many years, took away from it its political ascendency in the 
 equilibrium of Europe, and Philip II. had, for some time, the hope of 
 making France one of the provinces of his immense monarchy. Don 
 Sebastian, King of Portugal, had perished with the flower of his 
 nobility on the coast of Africa, and his grand-uncle, who succeeded 
 him, had died without children ; Philip violently made himself master 
 of Portugal, joined it to his vast estates, which he had inherited 
 from Charles V. in the two worlds. Spain then 
 
 Grandeur and 
 
 attained the apogee of its power. Its formidable armies, decadence of the 
 
 Spanish mona v '- 
 
 its skilful generals, and its inexhaustible treasures chy under Philip 
 from America appeared to prepare for Philip the views 
 of a universal monarchy ; but the part that France could not 
 sustain, England and rising Holland divided. The first of these 
 two nations fixed in this century, under Queen Elizabeth, the 
 foundations of its maritime greatness and future grandeur ; its fleets, 
 aided by the tempest, destroyed in 1588 and dispersed on the coasts 
 of the British Channel the formidable armada, or the invincible fleet . 
 of Philip II. ; eight years later the Earl of Essex planted the British 
 ensign on the walls of Cadiz. The second people who held Spain in 
 check were the people of Holland, who inscribed in that fearful 
 struggle, for the first time, its name among the nations of Europe. 
 Strong in its love of independence, in its religious belief, in its 
 geographical situation, it separated itself violently from Belgium, and, 
 protected by the genius of William, Prince of Orange, and of his 
 son Maurice, a very great general, and quite as great a citizen, it 
 formed the republic of Holland, or of the united provinces, a-nd 
 met without yielding, every effort of the Spanish power. 
 
 At the end of the sixteenth century, Protestantism and „. . . 
 
 J ' Division oi 
 
 the Roman religion, the principle of the liberty of exami- catho'uds^S 
 nation, and the dogma of authority in matters of faith 
 
 reform. 
 
Decline of the 
 Ottoman 
 
 438 SCIENCE, ART, AND LITERATURE. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 divided Europe into two nearly equal portions. The greater part 
 of the States of the north, England, Scotland, Holland, Sweden 
 and Germany, had adopted the principles of the reformation ; the 
 States of the south, Austria, Italy, France and Spain, remained faithful 
 to Catholicism. The religious wars added much to the military force 
 of Christian Europe. Each man became a soldier to defend his belief, 
 and from this period dates the decline of the Ottoman power. It 
 
 never recovered from the mortal blow which Islamisim 
 power, received in 1571 at the battle of Lepanto. 
 Great discoveries marked the course of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The most illustrious is that of the true system of the 
 
 Discoveries, J 
 
 sciences and world, made by Copernicus in 1543. It was followed by 
 the definite reform of the calendar, decreed by Pope 
 Gergory XIII., after it had already been commenced in France, 
 and the reformed calendar was known under the name of the 
 Gregorian Calendar. Among the useful inventions which enriched 
 science in this century we must mention telescopes, thermometers, and 
 pendulum clocks. 
 
 Literature, science, and the arts throw little brilliancy on France 
 during* the long torment of the religious wars. However, 
 
 Literature. to ° & 
 
 the Satire Menippee was written under the League, 
 which it attacked in a manner quite as bitter as it was ingenious. 
 It had for its principal authors the Canon Leroi, the learned 
 Pithou, and the poets Hapin and Passerat. But among all the poets 
 of the period none was more celebrated than Ronsard, who was a 
 rich genius, but whose reputation is not sustained The name of 
 the Pleiades was given to a group of poets of his school and his 
 contemporaries. The best known are Joachim Dubellay, surnamed 
 the French Ovid, and Jodelle, whose style is in the worst taste, to 
 whom, however, and to his successor Gamier, belongs the honour 
 of having founded the tragic art in France. The bishop Amyot, 
 teacher of the children of Henry II., rendered himself illustrious by 
 his translation of the works of Plutarch, at the same period when 
 Michael Montaigne caused his immortal Philosophical Essays to appear, 
 the finest literary monument of the century. 
 
1593-1610] PEACE OP VERVINS. 439 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 FROM THE PEACE OP VERVINS TO THE END OP THE REIGN OP HENRY IV. 
 
 1598-1610. 
 
 Henry IY. was tlie only prince who, upon the death of Henry of 
 Yalois, was able to set up a legal claim to the throne of France. 
 One section of the French nation recognized him as their King 
 immediately after that event : but in reality his reign only com- 
 menced at the period of his abjuration, and of the downfall of the 
 League. 
 
 The treaty of Yervins gave peace with the foreigners ; internal 
 tranquillity was re-established by the Edict of Nantes : it became 
 necessary henceforth, whilst healing the deep wounds of the nation, to 
 recruit its wealth, to restore its strength and its position in Europe. 
 Henry IY. worthily carried out this noble task, and, in twelve years, 
 elevated France to the highest degree of power she had yet attained ; 
 an everlasting subject of surprise and admiration on the part of 
 those who are not acquainted with the immense resources which her 
 soil possesses, and which require only a skilful and prudent hand to 
 render productive. 
 
 Two causes of agitation and disorder threatened, however, to 
 arrest the course of this reviving prosperity : one was 
 
 ,-..._. _ Causes of trouble. 
 
 the dissatisfaction oi a large number of Catholic and 
 Protestant nobles, former enemies of the King, or his companions 
 in arms, most of them suffering from the severe and economical 
 measures of the monarch, and affected either in their fortunes or 
 their political importance by the diminution which peace brought 
 about. They all cherished the dangerous remembrance of the feudal 
 times, and still clung to the hope of dividing France among them- 
 selves. Henry energetically contended against them, and neglected 
 
440 
 
 CONSPIRACY OF BIRO¥. [Book II. Chap. IT. 
 
 no means of raining or enfeebling their pretensions. The second 
 canse of disorder in the State sprang from the personal weaknesses 
 of the monarch himself. Frequently, during the war, his intrigues 
 of gallantry, and the attractions of pleasure, had snatched from him 
 the advantages derived by his valour; the same faults afterwards 
 disturbed the peace of his reign ; they afforded the malcontent nobles 
 a pretext for revolt, and for embittering the course of his latter years. 
 The marriage of this prince with Marguerite de Valois proved barren, 
 Marguerite, taking no pains to coneeal the scandals of her conduct, 
 lived separate from her husband ; and the austere Rosny, Duke de 
 Sully, the confidant and prime minister of the King, would, long ago, 
 have pressed her divorce, had he not dreaded the King's weakness 
 towards Gabrielle d'Estrees, Duchess of Beaufort. Henry had already 
 permitted the children, the fruits of this intercourse, to be baptized 
 with royal pomp, and more than once he manifested a desire to raise 
 their mother to the throne. Gabrielle died suddenly in 1599 ; and 
 from that time the King's ministers were actively employed in 
 Divorce of Henry Dr i n gi n g about the rupture of his marriage, which was 
 rile devSoif Ue " pronounced, the year following, by the Church of Rome. 
 
 During these negotiations the King commenced a new 
 intrigue with Henrietta d'Entragues, who, actuated bj an ambitious 
 father, exacted a promise of marriage. Henry was imprudent enough 
 to sign one, engaging himself to marry her if she brought him a son 
 within the year. He showed this document to Sully, who had the 
 courage to tear it up. The monarch retired to his closet, wrote 
 a second promise, and sent it to Henrietta, naming her Marquise de 
 Verneuil. This guilty and unfortunate connection, particularly the 
 fatal engagement that sprang from it, reanimated, at a later period, 
 the hopes of the factions, and became a source of uneasiness to the 
 State, and of bitter grief for the sovereign. 
 
 At the head of the malcontent nobles there were, in the Pro- 
 testant party, the Dukes of Bouillon and La Tremouille \ among the 
 Catholics, the Duke d'Epernon, Charles de Yalois, Count d'Auvergne, 
 natural son of Charles IX., and uterine brother of the Marquise de 
 
 Verneuil, and last, but not least, Charles de Gontaut, 
 
 First conspiracy 
 
 of the Duke de Duke de Biron, son of the famous marshal of that name, 
 
 Biron, ' 
 
 and himself one of the most illustrious and ible generals 
 
159,3-1610.] TREATY OP LYONS. 441 
 
 of Henry IV. He had been loaded with, riches and honours in re- 
 compense for his glorious services, and named, at thirty-three years 
 of age, Marshal of France and Governor of Burgundy ; but his ambi- 
 tion was as immoderate as his pride, and it was upon him, in parti- 
 cular, that the enemies of France counted. Charles Emmanuel, Duke 
 of Savoy, retained possession of the Marquisate of Saluces, which he 
 had usurped ; summoned by the King to make restitution of it, he 
 came to the court of France to hatch plots, and to this end, entered 
 into a close alliance with the Count de Fuentes, the personal enemy 
 of Henry IV., and Governor of the Duchy of Milan for Philip III., 
 the new King of Spain. One of the daughters of Emmanuel was 
 offered to Biron, with the full sovereignty of Burgundy as a dowry ; 
 on this condition the Marshal promised, in case of war, to arouse 
 and gather to his standard all the malcontents against the King. 
 Emboldened by these assurances, which were carried to him by Lafin, 
 secretary and confidant of the Marshal, Emmanuel refused to make 
 restitution of the Marquisate of Saluces, and Henry declared war 
 against him. Sully, recently appointed Grand Master of artillery, 
 disposed everything, so that the war might be glorious Cam ai(rn . 
 and rapid. The King set two armies in motion, he took Savu ^ 160a - 
 the command of one, and confided the other to the Marshal de Biron. 
 The latter was forced to conquer in spite of himself, in vain he fore- 
 warned the enemy's generals of his marches and attacks, their troops 
 were beaten, their fortresses taken. Emmanuel sued for peace, and 
 by a treaty, concluded at Lyons, was permitted to T fL-ons 
 retain the Marquisate of Saluces in exchange for Bresse, 1601 - 
 Bugey, and De Gex, which were ceded to France. Henry IV. had 
 received intelligence of the trafficking of Biron with his enemies. 
 In a conversation he had with him at Lyons he revealed his sus- 
 picions : the Marshal did not deny his crime, and was generously 
 pardoned. The King, however, had been but imperfectly informed, 
 and Biron made only an incomplete avowal : this was one of the 
 causes of his downfall. He renewed his guilty correspondence with 
 the Duke of Savoy, Count Fuentes, and drew into his conspiracy 
 the Duke de Bouillon, and the Count d'Auvergne, natural son of 
 Charles IX. They fomented disturbances throughout the western 
 drovinces, whilst Limoges and many towns of Guienne rose against 
 
442 NEW PLOT OF BIRON. [Book II. Chap. IV- 
 
 a recently imposed tax of a son per livre, and known nnder the name 
 of the " Pancarte Tax." They at the same time spread the rumour 
 that the odious tax of " the Gabelle " was to be re-established in 
 Guienne, and in the other districts which had been freed from it. At 
 last, Biron and the Duke of Savoy flattered themselves with the 
 belief that an approaching insurrection was about to aid their 
 projects. 
 
 Meanwhile, the King had become acquainted with the intrigues of 
 
 the Marshal, whilst the latter believed himself in profound security. 
 
 Lafin, made acquainted with the suspicions of the King, 
 
 New plot of the 
 
 Marshal <ie fearful for himself, and wounded by the coldness of his 
 
 Biron, 1601. . 
 
 master, resolved to betray him. He had preserved the 
 written proofs and details of the crime, and these he gave up to the 
 King. Biron was immediately summoned to Fontainebleau, where the 
 court was held ; he repaired there. Lafin was there before him, and 
 on his arrival said to him : — " Take courage ; they know nothing ! " 
 These perfidious words emboldened Biron. Henry received him 
 graciously : during a long walk which they took together he strove 
 in vain ' to touch his heart, and induce him to confess ; he offered 
 him, if he would confess, an unconditional pardon and his favour ; 
 but Biron remained inflexible. He tried the influence of friends 
 upon him, he was still unsuccessful. Taking Sully on one side, 
 "My friend," said the King to him, "what an unfortunate man is 
 the Marshal ; I am anxious to pardon him, and to forget all that 
 is past, and to do all in my power for him, I pity him." He made 
 a final effort, and, towards nightfall, sent for him to his chamber. 
 There he entreated him to speak out plainly. "Confess everything 
 freely! " said lie to him, " and I will cover you with my protection, 
 and I will forget everything for ever." The Marshal became in- 
 dignant at these entreaties, as though they were insults. " Farewell, 
 Baron de Biron," replied the King, "you know what I have said to 
 you." He then left him alone in the apartment, where immediately 
 entered Vitry, Captain of the Guard, who took from him his sword, 
 and made him prisoner. . "My sword!" cried Biron, "my sword, 
 which has done such good service ! " He desired to speak to the 
 King, but the time was past. The Count d'Auvergne was arrested 
 the same day : both were conveyed to the Bastille, and the par- 
 
1598-1610] EXECUTION OF BIRON. 443 
 
 liament received orders to proceed to their trial. Biron pro- 
 tested Ms innocence up to the moment that he was confronted 
 with Latin ; then, seeing that all was lost, he invoked the pardon 
 which he had obtained from the King at Lyons, declaring that, since 
 that time he had never conspired. Every presumption was contrary 
 to this declaration of the Marshal ; but there existed m . n , 
 
 ' Trial and con- 
 
 no proof of his last intrigues. The King retracted d ,? rai1 , at f °? of 
 
 •- o o Marshal de 
 
 the pardon he had granted without knowing the extent Biron - 
 of his crimes, and Biron was condemned to death. On hearing 
 this, he became furious, then implored the clemency of the King ; 
 all in vain ; his head was cut off on the 2nd December, in the Court 
 of the Bastille. Henry pardoned the Count d'Auvergne, the others 
 escaped justice. 
 
 The sentence of the parliament, and the merited death of the 
 Marshal dealt a fatal blow to the hopes which the old feudal spirit 
 had cherished in the kingdom. Elizabeth sent to felicitate Henry 
 upon this subject. Philip III. disavowed all participation in the 
 intrigues of the Count de Fuentes, and complimented the King 
 upon the issue of the conspiracy. The two sovereigns remained 
 not the less enemies. Henry constantly afforded succours to the 
 Dutch against Spain, and Philip, according to the words of a con- 
 temporary, continued to irrigate in France " the bad roots which 
 were not yet dead." 
 
 Henry was then at the height of his fortune. After his divorce he 
 had espoused Marie de Medici, niece of Francis II. , reigning Henry iv., 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany. The new Queen had arrived at de MedicCi600. 
 Marseilles, accompanied by a magnificent fleet, and escorted by a bril- 
 liant suite. The year following she gave to her husband a son, who 
 became Louis XIII. * The kingdom prospered by the vigilant atten- 
 tions of the monarch, by his economy, and above all, in consequence of 
 the cares of Sully. It is an immortal honour to the Administration 
 
 n tt n -i t t -i i • • °f Henry IV. and 
 
 memory of Henry that he should have given all his con- of Sully. 
 fidence to this austere minister, who had so little indulgence for the 
 frailties of his master. After the signature of the treaty of Vervins, 
 
 * The other children by this union were Gaston, Duke of Orleans ; Elizabeth, wife of 
 Philip IV., King of Spain ; Christine, married to Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, and 
 Henrietta, wife of Charles I., King of England. 
 
444 BTATE OF PEANCJJ. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 lie found in his kingdom neither an organized army, nor commerce 
 nor industry ; forests and marshes still covered immense portions of 
 the soil, through which ran neither roads nor canals. An enormous 
 debt weighed upon the treasury, large pensions had, besides, been 
 granted to the leaders of the League, and the credit of France was 
 annihilated. Sully, grand-master of artillery, and superintendent of 
 the finances, created in a few years an imposing war materiel, and 
 placed the army upon a formidable footing ; he exposed the frauds of 
 the farmers of the revenue, who scarcely allowed one-tenth of the 
 public revenue to find its way into, the treasury ; suppressed the system 
 of underletting, together with a multitude of offices of finance ; broke 
 all the old leases and drew up others more advantageous for the Crown. 
 Lastly, he established order and the strictest economy in all branches 
 of the administration ; revised the funds of the state, and quickly 
 abolished many vexatious imposts. Agriculture became the object of 
 his particular care: he permitted the exportation of corn, and, inspired 
 by the security of his administration, he almost doubled the price of 
 land by causing the fall of the interest of money. 
 
 " Tillage and Pasturage," said Sully — " these are the breasts from 
 which France is nourished, the true mines and treasures of Peru ! " 
 Manufactures not the less attracted Sully's attention, he gave them a 
 powerful impulse by suppressing the tax of a percentage upon all mer- 
 chandize sold ; but it was against his advice that the King encouraged 
 the fabrication of stuffs made for the luxurious. Henry established 
 manufactories for high-piled wool and for silk enriched with gold ; 
 he introduced into France a great number of mulberry trees, and very 
 soon the silks of Lyons acquired great celebrity. About the same 
 time, small mirrors, after the fashion of those of Venice, began to be 
 manufactured in France. The King loved the luxury of palaces and 
 gardens, without neglecting any of the useful labours of the state. By 
 his cares and those of Sully, numerous communications were estab- 
 lished throughout the kingdom, bridges were constructed, the roads 
 were repaired ; Paris was enlarged and embellished ; Henry IV. 
 joined the faubourg Saint Germain to the city, and caused it to be 
 paved ; he commenced the Place Royale, and finished the Pont Neuf, 
 and the beautiful facade of the Hotel de Ville, as well as the gallery 
 which unites the Louvre to the Tuileries ; he excavated the canal of 
 
1598-1610] THE KING AND SULLY. 445 
 
 Briare, which, unites the Loire to the Seine, and conceived the project 
 of uniting the two seas. The people were not long in tasting the 
 fruits of such wise administration ; their burthens were lightened to 
 the extent of four millions, and we cannot recall without emotion the 
 well-known saying of the good King, " If I live, there shall not be a 
 peasant who cannot put a fowl into his pot every Sunday." 
 
 So many useful works and such sage reforms were not carried out 
 without a violent opposition on the part of those who were interested 
 in the waste of the public money. Numerous combinations were 
 formed at court against Sully. One day, at Fontainebleau, the King's 
 confidence appeared shaken ; before setting out for the chase he took 
 his minister aside and demanded an explanation of his conduct. In a 
 very short time his friendship triumphed over his suspicions : he told 
 Sully who his enemies were, showed him their written denunciations, 
 and talked with him with all the effusion of his heart. Sully, pro- 
 foundly moved, threw himself at his knees to embrace them. " What 
 are you doing, my friend ?" said the King, pointing to the courtiers a 
 little distance away — " they will believe I am pardoning you." Then, 
 advancing towards them, "Gentlemen," said he to them, "know that I 
 love Rosny* more than ever, and that between him and me it is for 
 life and until death ! " 
 
 Sully retained to the end the confidence and friendship of Henry IV., 
 who unfolded to him his grand projects for the establishment of a 
 balance of political power, and the religious pacification of Europe. 
 The King was desirous of allying himself with Elizabeth, Queen of 
 England, who, under divers circumstances, had afforded him, somewhat 
 parsimoniously, useful succour. Like himself, she designed to strike a 
 blow at the House of Austria, her irreconcilable enemy, and her projects 
 for assuring the peace of the world by abasing that power were iden- 
 tical with those of Henry IV. This prince made a journey to Calais 
 at the commencement of the year 1601 ; the Queen of England des- 
 patched some of her highest ministers to invite him across the channel, 
 and in order to facilitate their interview she herself went to Dover ; 
 but the King, nevertheless, was unable to pay her the expected visit. 
 
 * Sully bore at first the name of his family seat, the burgh of Rosny, where he himself 
 was born, and was long known in history as Baron de Rosny, 
 
446 CONSPIRACY OF D'ENTRAGUES. [Book. II. Chap. IV. 
 
 Mission of Sully ^ ^ s P^ ace ? ne . seirt ^is minister Sully, who received 
 Convention • from Elizabeth the warmest reception. It was arranged 
 iv^and Eifza^ between them that the two sovereigns should use all 
 ing th^poiitlcai their efforts to decide the protestant succession of Kings 
 power in Europe, hi Scotland, Denmark, and Sweden, and to join them in a 
 league with France, England, and Holland ; that these 
 six states, in close alliance, should work in common to complete the 
 independence of Holland and of Switzerland ; that they should enlarge 
 these two republics by provinces snatched from the House of Austria, 
 giving to Holland the ten Belgian provinces, to Switzerland, Eranche- 
 Comte, Alsace, and the Tyrol ; that the confederation, strengthened by 
 this accession of territory, should cut off the Empire from the German 
 branch and restore the elective monarchies of Bohemia and Hungary. 
 It was arranged, moreover, that the confederation should support with 
 all its power the progress of the three religions, Catholicism, Protes- 
 tantism.;, and Lutheranism, subsisting simultaneously without being 
 antagonistic to each other; that finally, the allies should labour to 
 form among the principal states of Europe an equality of power which 
 should guarantee the independence of the whole. Such was the cele- 
 brated convention which, although never settled by regular treaty, was 
 formally agreed upon between Henry and Elizabeth, and which had 
 spared Europe a half-century of war if the execution of it had not 
 been stayed and rendered impossible by the death of its authors. 
 
 Henry IV., notwithstanding his advancing years, still listened to his 
 passions, and fresh frailties were nearly proving fatal to him. He 
 became smitten with the youngest daughter of the Count d'Entragues, 
 sister of the Marquise de Verneuil. He put on a disguise to meet her, 
 and went by night, and almost alone, through woods to the meetings 
 she appointed. The Count d'Entragues saw in this new passion of 
 the King a means of rendering valid the promise which the Marquise 
 de Verneuil had formerly obtained from Henry IV., of nullifying his 
 marriage with Marie de Medici, and thus declaring the Dauphin illegiti- 
 mate. His principal accomplices were the Count d'Auvergne, and the 
 Conspiracy of the Duke de Bouillon ; the former put himself in communi- 
 gucs and of s'ove- cation with the court of Madrid, and they all counted 
 
 ral other nobles, . _ _ . , u-n j 
 
 1601. upon the intervention oi a bpanisn army ; cl Jcmtragues 
 
1598-1610] RECALL OF THE JESUITS. 447 
 
 was to carry off the King during one of his love adventures ; the 
 throne was promised to the eldest son of his daughter Henrietta. The 
 King was, in fact, attacked in the heart of a wood by a number of 
 masked men, and only owed his safety to his presence of mind and to 
 his courage. The conspirators were discovered : the Counts of Entra- 
 gues and Auvergne were arrested, with the Marquise de Verneuil and 
 a vast number of subordinate conspirators. The King extended his 
 grace to the two counts, who had been condemned to death, and 
 granted a pardon to Henrietta. The penalties of the law fell upon 
 their accomplices, and the heads of the minor conspirators paid forfeit 
 upon this, as upon so many other occasions for the crime of their 
 chiefs. The Duke de Bouillon soon afterwards made his submission ; 
 and Henry had now reached the zenith of his glory and of his 
 strength. Master of a flourishing kingdom, of a treasury of forty 
 millions, of a numerous army containing the finest artillery in Europe, 
 he found himself possessed of the respect of all his contemporary sove- 
 reigns. Henry decided between them as an arbitrator, and reconciled 
 their disputes. During the five previous years, he had enjoyed the 
 favour of the Papal court, having regained it by the Recall 
 recall of the Jesuits at the pressing solicitations of his ^ance i603 
 confessor, Father Cotton. 
 
 The last days of his reign were less happy. Marie de Medici, of a 
 haughty and jealous temper, incensed at her husband's infidelities, 
 maintained with him relations which were ever embittered by the 
 remembrance of her wrongs. The Italians of her suite possessed her 
 entire confidence, and formed a powerful faction at court ; this party 
 was headed and directed by the celebrated Galagai and Concini her 
 husband, both of obscure birth and owing their rise to their intrigues 
 and the favour of the Queen, whose pride they flattered, and whose 
 resentments they fostered with a subtle art. Most of the old compan- 
 ions of Henry IV. had disappeared ; some were dead, others had 
 turned rebels ; many others, again, discontented with him, kept them- 
 selves at a distance from the court, and among these last, the King 
 saw with regret the brave Duplessis-Mornay, who had just compro- 
 mised his dignity in a theological dispute with the Abbe Duperron. 
 The King had also lost his faithful ally, Queen Elizabeth, who died in 
 
448 THE EVANGELICAL UNION. [Book II. Chap. VI. 
 
 1603, and the feeble James I., her successor, did not replace her in the 
 esteem of either his own subjects or of those of Henry IV. But he 
 had still Sully, who daily added greater lustre to his reign. The King 
 had, moreover, the glory of acting, in 1609, as mediator 
 as mediator between Spain and Holland. The new-born, but already 
 
 between Spain 
 
 and the United formidable navy of that republic, attacked the Spanish 
 
 Provinces. 
 
 Twelve years' and Portuguese establishments in the Indies, whilst her 
 
 truce, 1609. ° _ ' 
 
 armies triumphed under the famous Maurice of Nassau, 
 son of William of Orange. Henry IV. brought about a truce of twelve 
 years, signed in 1609, between the two nations. 
 
 It was at this period that he committed the greatest fault of his 
 reign, that which most troubled his peace of mind and stained his 
 glory. Loving to infatuation Charlotte de Montmorency, whom he 
 himself had caused to be married to the young Prince de Conde, he 
 could not master his fatal passion. Conde, alarmed, took flight, aban- 
 doned the kingdom with his wife, and requested the protection of the 
 Archduke Albert, governor of the Low Countries. Upon receiving this 
 unexpected news, Henry burst forth into menaces, and summoned the 
 Archduke to send back to him the fugitives. Conde left Flanders and 
 repaired to Germany, whilst the Archduchess Clairer Eugenie, took 
 the young princess under her safeguard to Brussels, keeping her out 
 of the reach of the emissaries of the King, who suddenly declared war 
 against Spain and Austria. 
 Declaration of For long past, he had been desirous of lowering the power 
 
 year against 
 
 Spain and of the two kingdoms, and he now prepared to deal against 
 
 them a terrible blow ; but this sudden declaration of war, 
 the apparent motive of which was personal vengeance and the desire 
 to gratify a guilty passion, evoked a general outcry against him. Henry, 
 notwithstanding, formed some useful alliances. John William, last 
 Duke of Cleves, was just dead, without children ; several pretenders 
 disputed his heritage, and the Emperor Rudolph II. had summoned the 
 decision of the cause to his tribunal. The Protestant prince would not 
 accept of him as judge, and formed against him, at Halle, a celebrated 
 league, known under the name of the " Evangelical Union." They 
 Evangelical asked for the support of France, and obtained it. Henry 
 
 also allied himself with the Duke of Savoy, with the 
 
1598-1610] DEATH OF HENRY IT. 449 
 
 petty sovereigns of Italy and with the Grisons. Philip III., justly 
 alarmed, talked of peace, and offered his daughter, the Infanta, to the 
 Dauphin. Henry rejected this pacific proposal ; he was alive to his 
 own wrong- doings ; but though he suffered he could neither justify 
 himself nor change his conduct. Disquieted, irritated, his sole 
 thought was of the young princess whom he pursued, and he hastened 
 the warlike preparations, impatient to command his army and to 
 march upon the frontier of Flanders. 
 
 He designed that the Queen should assume the regency during this 
 campaign, and, either in accordance with her wishes, or because he 
 desired to render her authority more imposing, he ordered that she 
 should be crowned. This ceremonial took place on the 13th of May. 
 Throughout the whole day the King was restless and melancholy. 
 For a long time past, the estrangement of his old companions, the 
 plots incessantly springing up about him, and the wickedness and 
 ingratitude of those whom he had loaded with kindness, crushed his 
 heart with sorrow. Sometimes he thought of punishing his enemies ; 
 but his goodness soon inspired other ideas, and he contented himself 
 with saying : — "When I am no more, they will see what I am worth." 
 Upon the 14th of May his melancholy increased ; he was agitated with 
 painful presentiments, which his friends could not remove. After 
 dinner, about four o'clock, the officer of his guard, whom he had 
 summoned, said to him : — " Sire, your Majesty is quite pensive ; it 
 would be better to take a little air — it would revive you." " That is 
 well said," replied the King; "order my carriage, I will go to the 
 arsenal to see the Duke de Sully, who is unwell." The King left the 
 Louvre, followed only by a small number of gentlemen, and footmen. 
 The carriage was open on both sides, the weather being fine, and the 
 King, wishing to see the preparations being made in the city for the 
 solemn entry of the Queen. On entering the Rue de la Ferronnerie, 
 a confusion, occasioned by two vehicles, obliged the royal carriage to 
 stop, and dispersed the royal servants. At this moment, a man 
 named Francis Ravaillac mounted upon the wheel, and D , of 
 dealt the King a blow with a knife, between the second Henr y IV -» 161 °- 
 and third ribs. Henry cried out : — " I am wounded ! " but the assassin, 
 not disconcerted, dealt the King a second blow stabbing him 
 through the heart, of which the King, heaving a deep sigh, died 
 
 G G 
 
450 STATE OF LETTERS AND OP AETS. [Book II. Chap. IV. 
 
 immediately. The monster made no effort to escape, but remained 
 immovable, as if tie desired to be seen by every one, and to take glory 
 from this, the foulest of assassinations. Thus perished Henry IV., at 
 the age of fifty-seven. The Emperor, the King of Spain, the Queen 
 of France, the Duke d'Epernon, the Jesuits, were all in turn sus- 
 pected of having instigated the crime, because they all profited by it ; 
 but the assassin declared that he had no accomplices. The idea of 
 murder had taken possession of his mind, in consequence of certain 
 sermons that he had heard. He believed that the King was at heart 
 a Huguenot, and thought that in ridding France of this monarch he 
 was rendering a great service to his country. Condemned to the 
 usual form of execution of regicides, his wonder was extreme when he 
 saw the people ready to tear him in pieces themselves, and offering 
 their horses to quarter him. Never did the death of a King cause 
 such a general stupor, or cause more tears to flow. France was 
 plunged into mourning, trade was suspended in Paris, work of all 
 kind ceased, the country-folks everywhere flocked to the high roads 
 to inquire the news, and when assured of their misfortune, they cried 
 with sobs : — " We have lost our father ! " Henry was worthy of the 
 grand and endearing title of " father of the people," for the happiness 
 of his subjects was the aspiration of his heart, and the end of his 
 whole life. He ameliorated their condition, created for them new 
 sources of wealth, and rendered his kingdom, whose limits he enlarged, 
 as flourishing as it was possible to make it in twelve years after the 
 horrible calamities of the wars of religion. The wise administration 
 of this good King, as well as the heroic qualities which distinguished 
 him, well merited the surname of " Great," which posterity has 
 bestowed upon him. 
 
 Letters and the arts progressed in France under his reign, and he 
 f l tt was ^ ne ^ r Patron. The Presidents De Thou and Jeannin, 
 and of arts. fa e Cardinals d'Ossat and Duperron, were members of 
 
 his Council; Pierre Pithou, one of the authors of the Menippean 
 Satire, wrote a treatise upon the liberties of the Grallican Church; 
 Jerome Bignon commenced his great works upon jurisprudence ; 
 Arnaud and Etienne Pasquier were the glory of the bar; Begnier 
 distinguished himself by his wit in satire. Henry added greatly to 
 the riches of the Royal Library ; he gave a powerful impulse to works 
 
1598-1610] CHAEACTER OF HENRY IV. 451 
 
 of architecture ; lie enlarged and embellished the royal residences of 
 Saint- Germain, of Monceaux, of Fontainebleau, and, above all, the 
 Louvre, in which palace he gave apartments to artists of all kinds ; 
 Paris, in a word, owes to his fostering care much of her beauty. 
 When Don Pedro of Toledo was sent by Philip III. as ambassador to 
 the court of Henry IV., he failed to recognize once more the city he 
 had formerly known so wretched and degraded. " That was because 
 the father of the family was not at home," said the King to him, "but 
 now that he takes care of his children, they prosper ! " To the end of 
 his days, Henry IV. might be reproached for his guilty frailties, for 
 which he paid the bitter penalty. History is bound to record that he 
 regretted them, and that sometimes he was able to conquer them. 
 His reproof of Gabrielle d'Estrees is well known: — "I tell you, 
 madame," said he to her, in presence of Sully, whom she accused, " I 
 tell you that I would far rather consent to lose ten mistresses like 
 you, than a single servant like him ! " 
 
 The barbarous practice of duelling was at this period one of the 
 pests of the kingdom, costing. France, it is said, the lives of four 
 thousand gentlemen in a single year. Henry IV. promulgated some 
 severe edicts with regard to this practice ; he condemned duellists to 
 the penalty of death, and ordered that the tribunal of the Marshals of 
 France should arbitrate upon the differences between gentlemen ; he 
 nevertheless, succeeded in only partially overcoming a ferocious pre- 
 judice too deeply rooted in the national manners. According to the 
 evidence of his minister, he meditated, towards the end of his reign, 
 the abasement of the House of Austria, and formed important plans for 
 the political and religious balance of power in Europe. " Henry IV.," 
 says a contemporary historian, " believed himself endowed Character of 
 with the great mission of the religious moderator of Henr y IV - 
 Europe. The principal traits of his character were firmness, courage, 
 active energy, and the dignity which springs from the sentiment of 
 duty, and of a great mission to fulfil." * This prince has often been 
 reproached with having made an insincere abjuration from motives of 
 ambition entirely personal ; and it has been averred, without a plausible 
 foundation, that he might have reigned without changing his religion. 
 
 * Leopold Ranke, " History of France during the 16th century." 
 
 GG 2 
 
452 RELIGIOUS FACTIONS IN FRANCE. [Book II. Chap. IV. 
 
 It is probable that if Francis I. bad adopted tbe Protestant religion, 
 he might have continned to reign over France ; but when the people 
 were persuaded that by the sole fact of being of different creeds, men 
 were the mortal enemies of each other — when Catholics and Protes- 
 tants threw themselves upon one another like wild beasts, tearing 
 each other to pieces, during nearly forty years, the fatal mistrusts and 
 implacable resentments thus given birth to, rendered all reconcilia- 
 tion for a long time impossible. It was as if they were two nations 
 upon one soil ; and it is not probable that the weaker would ever have 
 been able to impose its chief upon the stronger ; it became necessary, 
 then, that after the death of Henry III. Henry of Bourbon should 
 pronounce himself a Catholic, or that the civil war should not be 
 ended. "We have authority for our belief that in openly embracing 
 Catholicism, he was actuated by sincere affection towards his people. 
 His abjuration was, doubtless, regarded as a frightful act by those who 
 did not believe in its sincerity, and who saw in it the sacrifice of 
 convictions to interest ; but Henry had not inherited the deep piety of 
 his mother together with her heroic qualities. Men whose profound 
 convictions ; like Coligny, Duplessis-Mornay, La Noue, whose faith in 
 Protestantism was as invincible as their courage, were not numerous 
 in the ranks of the French nobility. The princes antagonistic to the 
 Guises, as well as the greater portion of the gentlemen who ranged 
 themselves under their banners, from the outset believed that Protes- 
 tantism was a political party rather than a creed; many adhered to 
 it — and this was a great misfortune — from the force of circumstances, 
 from motives of interest, or of ambition, remaining for a long time 
 faithful rather from loyalty than from religious conviction. Every- 
 thing tends to assure us that Henry IY. believed, as when after the 
 death of Henry of Valois he spoke the beautiful phrases we have 
 already read, he would have been dishonoured by an immediate abjura- 
 tion. But when at length he lost all hope of establishing peace in 
 his kingdom, otherwise than by a public adhesion to Catholicism, after 
 having shared during four years the fortunes of his former compan- 
 ions in arms, he doubtless believed that having satisfied his honour, 
 he was now enabled to listen to his sentiments of compassion for his 
 eople, and to his ardent desire to assuage the troubles of France. 
 If there was anything in his abjuration — which we have detailed, 
 
1598-1610] CHARACTER OF HENRY IV. 453 
 
 -without pretending to have explained, if Henry did violence to his 
 sincere convictions, if an entirely vulgar and personal ambition stifled 
 in his breast the cries of conscience, we are not in a position to decide, 
 and it belongs only to God to pronounce a severe judgment. France, 
 whom he loved, and whom he saved from the horrors of civil war, will 
 always honour, in Henry IV., one of the best princes that ever reigned 
 over her, and the greatest King of his age. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABASSIDES and Ommiades, the, 90 
 Abbeville, treaty of, 188 
 Abd-ul-Malak, 91 
 Abeilard and St. Bernard, 204 
 
 „ history of, 204 
 
 „ Pierre, 203 
 Abjuration of Henry IV., 432 
 Absolute monarchy, 345 
 Accession of Hugues Capet, 135 
 Achille de Harlay, celebrated reply of, 416 
 Adalberon, Archbishop of Kheims, 129 
 Adalbert, Count of Berigard, 143 
 Adelaide, Princess of Southern Gaul, 127 
 Administration, reforms in the, 300 
 Adolph of Nassau, 213 
 
 „ „ death of, 213 
 
 Adrian VI., 352 
 
 Adventurers, companies of, 253 
 Agincourt, battle of, 280 
 
 „ meeting of the armies near, 280 
 
 Aguadel, battle of, 1509, 337 
 Agnes Sorel, 296 
 Aides, the court of, 300 
 Aix, founded by Romans, 6 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 92 
 Aix, sacking of, 363 
 Alain Blaachard, 282 
 Alaric II., death of, 40 
 Alba, Duke of, 395 
 Albigenses, crusade against the, 173 
 „ defeat of the, 176 
 
 „ second crusade against the, 179 
 
 „ religious doctrines of the, 174 
 
 Alcuin, 97 
 
 Alencon, Duke of, 302 
 Alesia, 15 
 
 „ siege of, 15 
 Allemania, 25 
 Allodia and benefices, 51 
 Alphonso II., abdication and flight of, 328 
 Alp3 crossed by Franks, 53 
 Amboise, convention of, 394 
 
 ,, the conspiracy of, 385 
 
 „ defeat of the conspirators, 386 
 Amiens retaken, 1599, 435 
 Anabaptists, 360 
 Anarchy, 273 
 
 Aneenis, treaty of, 1468, 310 
 Andelot, assembly of, 62 
 Andrea Doria, 353 
 Angelus, invention of the, 315 
 Angevin party, the, 326 
 Anglo-Saxons, origin of the, 25 
 AnjoUj house of, founded, 189 
 
 „ states of, reunited with the Crown, 315 
 Annales du Metz, 79 
 Annates, revenue of the, 347 
 Anne de Pisselen, 360 
 Anne of Beaujeu, 319 
 
 ,, France governed by, 321 
 
 Anne of Bourg, arrest of, 379 
 
 Anne of Bourg, execution of, 384 
 
 „ trial of, 384 
 
 Anne of Brittany, 324 
 
 ,, marriage of, 324 
 
 Antoine du Bourg, 362 
 Antoine Duprat, chancellor, 346 
 Antonines, 200 
 Antrustions, or leudes, 46 
 Apanages, 224 
 Appanages, date of, 144 
 Appeals from abuse instituted, 232 
 Aquitanians, 1 
 
 „ and Franks, hatred between, 86 
 
 Aquitaine and Gaseony, 40 
 
 „ annexed to the Frank monarchy, 87 
 „ campaign in, 40 
 „ evacuated by Arabs, 79 
 „ pestilence in, 144 
 „ restored to the Frank monarchy, 79 
 Aragon, war with, 21 1 
 „ treaty of, 211 
 Architecture, 199 
 
 Archbishop Hincmar on the National Assem- 
 blies, 95 
 Archbishops, persecutions of, 128 
 Aristocracy, power of the, 60 
 
 ,, supremacy and weakening of the, 135 
 
 Armagnac, Count of, 1418, 281 
 Armagnac, Count of, 312 
 Armagnacs and Burgundians, 277 
 Armagnacs, massacre of the, 281 
 Armans, or rachimbourgs, 49 
 Armoricans, conquered by Clovis, 40 
 Armorial bearings, 198 
 Arnauld, Daniel, 199 
 Arnold of Brescia, 203 
 Arnolph, Bishop of Metz, 66 
 Arnoul of Kheims, treason of, 143 
 Arques, battle of, 425 
 Arras, treaty of, 279 
 „ treaty of, 296 
 „ treaty of, 314 
 Arriere fiefs, 169 
 Arthur of Brittany, 170 
 
 ,, ,, murder of, 170 
 
 Artillery, first employed in warfare, 230 
 Artois and Burgundy reunited with the Crown, 314 
 Arts and sciences, general observations on the, 263 
 Assembly of the Druids, 4 
 
 ,, of the States at Nimeguen, 106 
 Astolph conquered by Pepin, 86 
 Attiguy, battle of, 118 
 Attila, 29 
 
 Augsburg, diet of, 375 
 Aumale, battle of, 1592, 429 
 Auray, battle of, 1365, 253 
 Austrasia, 55 
 
 Austrasia and Neustria, struggle between, 74 
 Austrasians, defeat of the, 63 
 Austrasian nobles, 59 
 Austrasian3, revolt of, 69 
 
456 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Austrasians, triumph of, 77 
 Auvergne, Limousin, and Berry ravaged, 240 
 Avarians, the, 92 
 
 Awful carnage at Chalon-sur-Marne, 30 
 „ „ at Dormeille, 64 
 
 BALE, battle of, 1444, 299 
 Baldwin V., Count of Flanders, 149 
 Barbarians impressed by Catholicism, 48 
 Barbarity of royal decrees, 62 
 Barbarossa, 362 
 Barbary, the corsairs of, 362 
 Barcelona, treaty of, 325 
 Bards, 2 
 
 Baron of Adrets, barbarity of, 394 
 Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, 156 
 Barony of Champagne, fiefs of, 158 
 
 ,, of Flanders, fiefs of, 158 
 Barony of Toulouse, fiefs of, 158 
 Barricades, battle of the, 1588, 415 
 Basilica of St. Martin, 57 
 
 ,, of St. Martin of Tours, 57 
 Battle of Cocherel, detail of the, 252 
 „ of Fontenoy, 109 
 „ of Tolbiac, 65 
 Battus, procession of the, 405 
 Bauge, victory of the French at, 283 
 Bavarians, nationality of, destroyed, 91 » 
 
 ,, revolt of the, 91 
 
 Bayard, death of, 1528, 353 
 Beaten, procession of the, 418 
 Beauvais, defence of, 311 
 Begums or Turlupins, 259 
 Beigse, mentioned by Csesar, 1 
 Belgians, 10 
 
 Bellovisus and Sigovisus, 5 
 Benedict, St., order of, 48 
 Benefices, restitution of, 67 
 Benevent, duchy of, 91 
 Beranger, Kaimond, 199 
 Bernard, King of Italy, 104 
 
 ,, second crusade preached by, 164 
 Berri and Auvergne ravaged, 87 
 
 „ Chartrain, and Belgium conquered, 16 
 Bertha of Blois, 145 
 Berthair, 74 
 Bertrand de Born, 199 
 Beziers, massacre of, 175 
 Bicoque, battle of, 352 
 Biron and Bosny, 412 
 Biron, first conspiracy of, 440 
 
 ,, new plot of the Marshal de, 442 
 „ trial and condemnation of the Marshal de, 
 443 
 Bishop Artaud, 121 
 „ Gregory, 57 
 
 ,, „ defends Merovic, 57 
 
 ,, Pothinus, 19 
 „ Pretextatus, 57 
 Bishoprics, seized by Henry II,, 373 
 Bishops, council of, 44 
 Black Prince, the, 231 
 
 „ chivalrous conduct of, 242 
 
 ,, illness of the, 255 
 
 Blaudina, 20 
 Blois, ordinance of, 409 
 
 „ second state at, 1588, 417 
 ,, treaty of, 1505, 335 
 Boniface VIII., arbiter between Edward I. and 
 Philip IV., 213 
 „ conduct of, 215 
 
 „ death of, 217 
 
 ,, outraged by Nogaret, 217 
 
 ,, and Philip the Fair, struggle be- 
 
 tween, 215 
 Bonnivet, Admiral, 353 
 Bordeaux, burning of, 78 
 Bourbon, the Cardinal, 425 
 
 Bourbon, death of the Cardinal, 427 
 
 „ Henry of, 411 
 
 „ Houses of, accession of the, 423 
 
 ,, origin of the House of, 383 
 Bourbons and the Guises, the, 368 
 Bourges, 14 
 
 „ King of, 288 
 Bourgeoisie, progress of the, 234 
 Bouvines, battle of, 171 
 Bretigny, treaty of, 249 
 Bretons, revolt of the, 260 
 Briconnet, the Cardinal, 327 
 Briquemont, 398 
 Britain conquered by Csesar, 12 
 
 ,, invaded by Caesar, 11 
 Brittany, a prey to anarchy, 321 
 
 ,, and France, definite union of, 336 
 
 „ and France united, 324 
 
 „ civil war in, 229 
 
 ,, confiscation of duchy of, 260 
 
 ,, different parties in, 323 
 
 „ new duchy of, 177 
 
 „ united indissolubly with France, 359 
 
 ,, war in, 253 
 Bructeri and Chamavi, 27 
 Bruges, truce of, 257 
 Brunhiida, ambition of, 59 
 
 „ conduct of, 65 
 
 „ conquered, 66 
 
 ,, conspiracy against, 64 
 
 „ exile of, 57 
 
 „ death of, 66 
 
 ,, imprisonment of, 57 
 
 ,, marriage of, 56 
 
 ,, plot against, 66 
 
 „ second marriage of, 57 
 
 „ summary of life of, 66 
 
 ,, vengeance of, 65 
 
 Buch, Captal de, 252 
 Bull, Ausculta, &c, burned by Philip, 216 
 
 „ Ausculta, fili, 216 
 Burgundy, duchy of, 147 
 
 „ duchy of, seized by Louis, 314 
 
 „ second House of, founded, 250 
 
 ,, Lorraine and Aquitaine, limits of, 115 
 
 Bussey d'Amboise, 338 
 
 „ le Clerc, 414 
 
 pABOCHIENS, 278 
 
 \J Caesar's account of Gaul, 8 
 
 „ cruelty, 16 
 
 ,, first campaign in Gaul, 9 
 
 Csesar Borgia, illness of, 334 
 Caetan, 426 
 
 Cahors, the taking of, 410 
 Calais, retaken by the Duke of Guise, 377 
 
 ,, siege and capture of, 231 
 Calendar, reform of the, 1563, 397 
 Calvin, 361 
 
 Cambray, league of, 1509, 336 
 Canonical elections established, 67 
 Canon Leroi and Pitnon, 438 
 Capetian race, great houses of the, 224 
 Capitulars, 96 
 Caponi, Peter, 328 
 Cardinal de Laon, death of, 271 
 Caribert, death of, 56 
 Carloman, death of, 88 
 
 ,, king of the east, 88 
 „ at Mont Cassin, 80 
 Carlovingian dynasty, Gaul under the, 85 
 
 „ ,, founded. 81 
 
 Carlovingian s, fall of the, 130 
 Caroline Books, 92 
 Cassel, battle of, 1328, 227 
 Castelneau, the Lord of, 386 
 Castile, war against the king of, 254 
 Castillon, battle of, 1553, 299 
 
INDEX. 
 
 457 
 
 Catherine de Medici, 360, 383 
 
 , , conduct to Guise and 
 
 Conde, of, 391 
 „ „ death of, 419, 
 
 „ „ flying squadron of, 407 
 
 „ „ policy of, 388 
 
 Celebrated decree of 1372, 259 
 
 „ royal ordinance, 278 
 Centenary jubilee, 215 
 Central Germans, 25 
 Cerda, Charles de la, appointed constable, 236 
 
 „ „ assassinated, 236 
 
 Cerignoles, battle of, 334 
 Cerisoles, battle of, 1544, 365 
 Cession of Normandy, 116 
 Chamber, the burning, 384 
 Chalot de Brion, 362 
 Champagne and .Normandy, murder of the 
 
 marshals of, 247 
 Chancellor 1' Hospital, efforts to preserve peace, 
 of, 390 
 „ Olivier, the, 386 
 
 Chandos, 242 
 Charolais, Count of, 308 
 Charlemagne, 89 
 
 ,, buried at Aix, 94 
 
 „ cities founded by, 99 
 
 „ conquests of, 89 
 
 „ countries subject to, 98 
 
 „ „ tributary to, 98 
 
 „ cruelty of, 90 
 
 „ crowned emperor, 92 
 
 „ empire divided, 110 
 
 „ domestic sorrows of, 93 
 
 „ dream of unity, 130 
 
 „ employment of leisure, 97 
 
 „ government of, 96 
 
 ,, greatness of his efforts, 101 
 
 „ in Spain, 90 
 
 „ last eight years of, 93 
 
 ,, last words of, 94 
 
 „ legislative spirit of, 94 
 
 „ objects and wishes of, 102 
 
 ,, position of his states, 93 
 
 „ previsions of, 103 
 
 „ ' schools established by, 96 
 
 ,, the eagle of, 126 
 
 ,, and Carloman, quarrel of, 88 
 
 Charles and Pepin, Charlemagne's sons, death 
 of, 93 
 „ of Austria, inheritance of, 348 
 (Quint), 335 
 I. the Bald, death of, 113 
 ,, „ celebrated decree of, 112 
 
 ,, d'Anjou, 209 
 „ II. the Fat, 114 
 ,, „ cowardice of, 114 
 
 „ „ death of, 114 
 
 „ „ deposition of, 114 
 
 „ King of the West, 88 
 ,, of Lorraine, 143 
 ,, Martel, church estates seized by, 80 
 ,, „ conquests of, 79 
 
 „ „ death of, 80 
 
 „ „ enemies of, 80 
 
 ,, „ government of, 79 
 
 ,, „ sons of, 80 
 
 „ of if avarre arrested, 239 
 „ the Rash, death of, 313 
 ,, son of Pepin, 76 
 
 III. the Simple, death of, 118 
 „ „ deposed, 118 
 
 „ „ deposition of, confirmed, 118 
 
 ,, „ most celebrated act of, 116 
 
 „ „ prisoner at Peronne, 118 
 
 „ ,, revolt against, 117 
 
 Charles III., Duke of Savoy, 362 
 Charles IV., the Fair, accession of, 1322, 223 
 
 Charles IV., death of, 223 
 
 „ wars of, 223 
 
 „ will of, 223 
 
 Charles V. (the Wise), character and conduct of, 
 251 
 
 „ death of, 1380, 262 
 
 „ his policy, 258 
 
 „ ordinances of, 264 
 
 „ politics of, 257 
 
 „ principal ministers of, 258 
 
 „ reverses in Brittany, 261 
 
 ,, success of, 257 
 Charles V. (of Germany), abdication of, 375 
 
 „ and Francis I., first hostilities be- 
 tween, 351 
 
 „ „ renewal of hostilities 
 
 between, 364 
 
 „ death of, 375 
 
 ,, expedition of, to Turin, 392 
 
 ,, new invasion of France by, 365 
 
 ,, reverses of, 374 
 
 „ sojourn in France, 363 
 
 „ vengeance of, 257 
 
 „ visits Henry VIII., 350 
 Charles VI., accession of, 1380, 266 
 
 „ celebrated men of the reign of, 284 
 
 „ death of, 283 
 
 „ government of, 271 
 
 „ journey of, through Languedoe, 272 
 
 ,, madness of, 273 
 
 „ nature of, 266 
 
 „ reflections on the reign of, 284 
 
 „ situation of France at his ac- 
 cession, 265 
 
 „ sufferings of, 276 
 
 „ uncles of, 266 
 
 „ useful reforms of, 272 
 Charles VII., accession of, 1422, 286 
 
 ,, awaking of, 296 
 
 „ character of, 289 
 
 „ conducted to Rheims by Joan, 292 
 
 „ coronation of, 293 
 
 „ death of, 302 
 
 „ general consideration of the reign 
 
 of, 304 
 
 „ indolence and indifference of, 295 
 
 „ progress of commerce and industry 
 
 under, 304 
 
 ,, state of France at this period, 286 
 
 „ state of letters under, 304 
 
 „ situation of, 288 
 
 Charles VIII., 319 
 
 „ at Florence, 1494, 328 
 
 ,, character of, 331 
 
 „ concessions of, 325 
 
 „ death of, 1498, 330 
 
 „ departure of, for Italy, 327 
 
 „ entry into Naples of, 1495, 329 
 
 ,, European league against, 1495, 
 
 329 
 
 „ ignorance of, 319 
 
 ,, marriage of, 324 
 
 Charles IX., accession of, 1560, 388 
 
 „ death of, 404 
 
 „ during the massacre of St. Bar- 
 
 tholomew, 402 
 
 „ marriage oi', 400 ' 
 
 ,, perfidy of, 400 
 
 Charlotte de Montmorency, 448 
 Chateaubriand, duchess of, 352 
 Chateaubriand, edict of, 373 
 Chatillons, the, 385 
 
 Cherbourg given up to the English, 261 
 Chevalier Bayard taken prisoner, 338 
 Childebert I., acts of, 53 
 Childebert II., 57 
 
 Childebert III., crowned by Pepin, 74 
 Childeric I. proclaimed king, 30 
 
45S 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Childerie, son of Clovis II., 71 
 Childeric II., character of, 72 
 
 „ murdered, 72 
 
 Childeric III., 80 
 Children of Clodomir murdered, 52 
 Chilperic I., 55 
 
 „ ambition of, 58 
 „ and Sigbert, characters of, 56 
 „ death of, 59 
 Chilperic II., 76 
 Chivalry, birth of, 138 
 Chloderie killed by Clovis, 41 
 Chrammus, death of, 54 
 „ revolt of, 54 
 
 Christian army defeated, 91 
 Christianity in Gaul, 19 
 Christopher Columbus, 342 
 Church, authority of the, 263 
 „ donations to the, 41 
 „ endowments, traffic in, 152 
 „ privileges, confirmed by Clovis, 43 
 „ situation during 11th century, 151 
 „ revolution in the, 151 
 „ state of, in the 15th century, 340 
 Cisalpine Gaul, 5 
 Civil troubles, 1355, 239 
 „ war between Armagnac and Burgundy, 277 
 „ „ 1358,247 
 „ „ the second, 1567, 396 
 „ „ the third, 1568, 398 
 „ „ the fourth, 1572, 403 
 „ „ the fifth, 1574,406 
 „ ,, the sixth, 1577, 409 
 „ „ the seventh, 1580, 410 
 „ „ the eighth, called the war of the Hen- 
 ries, 1586, 412 
 „ „ in France, 1486, 322 
 Clannish feuds, 4 
 Claude, son of Duke Kene\ 368 
 Clemence of Hungary, 220 
 Clement Marot, 378 
 
 „ VII., 360 
 Clergy, learning of the, 50 
 „ power of the, 50 
 „ the secular, 200 
 „ virtues ot the, 48 
 Clermont, council at, 154 
 Ciisson, Oliver, 230 
 Clodomir, death of 52 
 „ defeat of, 52 
 Clothair I., 54 
 
 „ and Childebert, crime of, 52 
 „ death of, 54 
 „ four sons of, 55 
 Clothair Ii., 64 
 
 „ conquered, 64 
 
 „ and Dagobert, wars between, 67 
 
 „ son of Chilperic, 54 
 
 Clothair III., 71 
 Clothair IV., 76 
 
 „ death of, 77 
 
 Clotilda avenged by Childebert, 53 
 „ daughter of Clovis, 53 
 „ religion of, 53 
 „ revenge of, 52 
 „ veil of, 53 
 Clovis 1., 33 
 
 „ at war with Visigoths, 39 
 
 „ baptism of, 38 
 
 „ death of, 44 
 
 „ conversion of, 38 
 
 ,, crowned by Pepin, 74 
 
 ,, cruelty of, 42 
 
 „ marriage of, 38 
 
 ,, murders his relatives, 42 
 
 ,, proclaimed King of the Ripuarians, 42 
 
 „ receives consular insignia, 40 
 
 „ reign of, 37 
 
 Clovis, religious policy of, 43 
 „ remorse of, 43 
 „ repentance of, 43 
 „ sons of, 44 
 
 ,, summary of character of, 45 
 „ title of, 45 
 Clovis II., 70 
 
 „ debauchery of, 71 
 „ condition of the descendants of, 60 
 CochereL, battle of, 252 
 Coinage, falsification of the, 236 
 
 „ reform of the, 186 
 Cologne taken by Clovis, 41 
 Colonization of Britain, 5 
 
 „ Spain, 5 
 
 Colonna Francesco, 353 
 College of France, foundation of the, 378 
 Collinet de BreVille, 240 
 Coligny, 376 
 
 „ attempted assassination of, 401 
 Coligny, the Admiral, 385 
 Coligny, murder of, 402 
 „ the wile of, 391 
 Colours, the national, 246 
 Columbanus exiled, 65 
 Combats of wild beasts, 88 
 Combat of the Thirty, 229 
 Comines, Philip de, 312 
 Commerce and industry in 1270, 201 
 Comminges, fortifications of, 61 
 Communes, constituent elements of, 1 93 
 „ enfranchisement of the, 194 
 
 „ establishment of, 196 
 
 „ rights and privileges, 195 
 
 ,, transformation of the, 185 
 
 Coinpiegne, Assembly of, 129 
 Comte d'Harcourt, execution of the, 240 
 Concordat, 1516, 347 
 
 Conde, condemnation of the Prince de, 387 
 Conde" and Conti, 412 
 Conflans, treaty of, 309 
 
 ,, „ annulled, 309 
 
 Conquest meditated by Clovis, 39 
 „ of Gaul by Caesar, 8 
 „ of Saxony completed, 90 
 Conrad, defeat of, m Lycaonia, 164 
 Constable d'Albret, 279 
 
 „ of Bourbon, action against the, 352 
 
 „ de Ciisson, attempted assassination of 
 
 the, 273 
 „ Montmorency, policy of the, 395 
 
 „ death of the, 1567, 396 
 
 Constance of Toulouse, 146 
 Constantinople carried by assault, 172 
 Consulate inaugurated by Clovis, 40 
 Consular insignia received by Clovis, 40 
 Conspiracy against Childeric, 72 
 Continuation of hostilities between the Empire 
 
 and France, 374 
 Corbeil, treaty of, 188 
 Corporations, 202 
 Cosmo de Ruggieri, 407 
 Council of Nicaea, the Second, 91 
 „ of Orleans, 44 
 
 „ of Trent, last acts and end of the, 395 
 „ the Great, of Louis XII., 332 
 Count d'Eu, execution of, 235 
 
 „ d'Entragues, conspiracy of the, 446 
 Courgeon's Recits de 1'Histoire de France, 7 
 Courtras, battle of, 1587, 412 
 Courtray, battle of, 214 
 County, the, 94 
 Craon, John de, 237 
 Crespy in Valois, treaty of, 1544, 335 
 Cressy, battle of, 1346, 230 
 Crevant-sur-Yonne, battle of, 289 
 Crown, conquests of the, 135 
 
 „ conquests under the feudal system, 192 
 
INDEX. 
 
 459 
 
 Crown offered to Childeric, 72 
 
 „ of Naples ana Sicily, French pretensions 
 to the, 326 
 Crusade of the Christian shepherds, 184 
 
 „ of the French into Aragon, 210 
 
 Crusades, precursors of the, 115 
 
 „ the first, 153 
 
 „ fate of the first, 155 
 
 „ the second, 163 
 
 „ the third, 168 
 
 „ the fourth, 172 
 
 „ the fifth, 182 
 
 „ the sixth, 190 
 
 „ derivation of the word, 154 
 
 „ effect on the sciences, 205 
 
 „ impulse given to commerce by the, 201 
 
 „ influence of the, 197 
 Customs, regulation of the, 300 
 
 DAGOBERT I., 67 
 „ death of, 69 
 
 „ generosity of, 69 
 
 „ laws revised by, 68 
 
 „ losses in war of, 68 
 
 „ possessions of, 68 
 
 „ power of, 68 
 
 „ splendour of, 68 
 
 ,, terror inspired bv, 69 
 
 Dagobert II., 73 
 Dagobert III., 74 
 Dammartin, Count of, 309 
 Dampierre, 172 
 
 Danes, and Scandinavian pirates, 101 
 D'Artois, Robert, cause of war, 227 
 Dauphin, concessions of the, 1357, 244 
 „ dissimulation of the, 246 
 „ flight of the, Louis, 301 
 „ of France, death of, 1536, 363 
 „ surname of, 233 
 Danphine, seized by Charles VII., 302 
 Daventer, church of, burnt, 89 
 Defeat of Gontran, 63 
 De Rue and Du Tertre, arrest of, 257 
 Desmarets, John, execution of, 269 
 Descendants of Merovic, reaction against the, 60 
 Destruction of the Western Empire, 23 
 De Thou and Jeannin, 450 
 Deux-Ponts, Duke of, 399 
 Diabolical Bargain, the, 217 
 Diana of Poictiers, 365 
 Dictatus Papae, 152 
 Diet of Augsburg, Edict of the, 375 
 „ of Worms, 839, 108 
 „ of Worms, 1521,351 
 Discord of the nobles, 1031, 146 
 Discoveries in the fifteenth century, 342 
 Divisions into provinces, 638, 81 
 Dolmans, 3 
 Dominicans, 200 
 
 D'O, superintendent of finance, 423 
 D'Ossat and Duperron, the Cardinals, 450 
 Dreux, battle of, 1562, 393 
 Druids, 2 
 
 „ books and precepts, 2 
 „ Caesar's account of the, 2 
 „ doctrines of the, 2 
 „ exempt from taxation, 2 
 „ political and social power of the, 4 
 „ privileges of the, 2 
 „ superstitions of the, 4 
 Druidesses, 3 
 
 „ endowments of the, 3 
 
 Druidical interdict, effect of, 4 
 
 „ sacrifices, 3 
 Druidic monuments, 3 
 „ sanctuaries, 3 
 Duchess d'Etampes, 365 
 
 „ of Montpensier, scissors of the }> 417 
 
 Duchy of Burgundy, fiefs of, 158 
 
 „ of France, fiefs of, 158 
 
 „ of Guienne, fiefs of, 158 
 
 „ of Normandy, fiefs of, 158 
 Duelling in France, 451 
 Du Guesclin, Bertrand, 251 
 
 „ generosity of, 255 
 
 ,, illness and death of, 261 
 
 ,, last words of, 261 
 
 „ made prisoner, 254 
 
 „ ransom of, 254 
 
 Duke of Anjou, campaign of the, 411 
 
 „ Bernard, 105 
 
 „ „ prime minister, 105 
 
 „ Boson, 113 
 
 „ d'Enghien, the, 1544, 365 
 
 „ Eudes, 87 
 
 „ ,, sons of, 87 
 
 „ Francis II., death of, 1488, 323 
 
 „ de Nemours, execution of the, 314 
 
 „ of Orleans, administration of, 1404, 275 
 
 „ „ assassination of the, 276 
 
 „ „ set at liberty, 324 
 
 „ Wolf II., 1492, 90 
 Dunois, 289, 322 
 Duperron, the Abbe, 447 
 Duplessi3-Mornay, 447 
 Duprat, Minister, 352 
 
 „ the Chancellor, 358 
 Dynasty, decay of the Merovingian, 70 
 
 EAST, feudalism organized in the, 156 
 „ great schism of the, 1379, 260 
 Ebro, 90 
 Ebrouin, 71 
 
 „ death of, 73 
 „ despotism of, 71 
 „ and Leger conspirators, 72 
 ,, historian's account of, 73 
 „ obliged to become a monk, 72 
 ,, personal ambition of, 71 
 Eburones annihilated, 13 
 Ecclesiastical divisions of Gaul, 82 
 
 „ principalities, origin in Germany 
 
 of, 90 
 „ provinces, 82 
 
 Ecluse, battle of, 1340, 229 
 Ecorcheurs, 296 
 Edessa, in Palestine, 164 
 Edict of Mersen, 112 
 Edward the Confessor, will of, 150 
 Edward III. of England, 228 
 
 ,, „ decision of the Court of Peers 
 against, 256 
 Ega, Mayor in Neustria, 70 
 Eginhard, 97 
 
 Egmont and Horn, the Counts, 376 
 Eight Campaigns of Caesar, 16 
 Empire, the, 349 
 
 „ after the death of Louis the Debonnaire 
 
 109 
 ,, dismemberment of the, 877, 113 
 „ of the Goths, decline of the, 53 
 ,, termination of the Roman, 31 
 Empress Irene, 92 
 
 ,, ,, dethroned, 93 
 
 England, 15th century, 303 
 „ conquest of, 149 
 „ conquered by the Normans, 150 
 „ offered by Innocent III. to Philip, 170 
 „ projected descent upon, 1386, 270 
 ,, revolution in, 1349, 275 
 English and French, truce between, 1453, 299 
 „ confined to Normandy, 1436, 296 
 ,, expulsion of the, 1453, 299 
 „ in France, progress of the, 1451, 282 
 Erkinoald, 70 
 Ermengarde, 105 
 
460 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Etaples, treaty of, 325 
 Etienne Marcel, conduct of, 243 
 Etienne Pasquier, 450 
 
 ,, Pasquine on Gaul, 6 
 Etudes sur l'Epoque Merovingienne, 29 
 Eudes, 78 
 
 „ oath of, 79 
 
 „ Count de Chartres, 143 
 
 „ Count of Paris, 116 
 
 „ elected King, 116 
 
 „ King of Aquitaine, 76 
 
 „ wars and death of, 116 
 Europe, division of religion in, 437 
 
 ,, in the 15th century, 340 
 
 ,, political and religious state of, 1532, 359 
 
 „ state of, in the reign of Charles VL, 
 266 
 Evangelical union, 1609, 448 
 Exarchate of Ravenna, 86 
 Exarchates, 86 
 Excommunication, 145 
 
 FALL of the Carlovingians, causes of, 130 
 Ealse coiner, the, 218 
 Father and restorer of letters, the, 367 
 
 ,, of the people, 336 
 Ferdinand and. Isabella, 324 
 Ferdinand II., 329 
 
 „ son of Alphonso II., 328 
 Feudal aids, 137 
 
 ,, aristocracy, a blow to, 177 
 
 ,, concessions, 136 
 
 ,, houses, 224 
 
 , , system, advantages of the, 140 
 
 ,, „ condition of the people under 
 
 the, 139 
 ,, ,, effects of, 138 
 
 ,, „ exposition of the, 135 
 
 „ „ jurisprudence during the, 138 
 
 „ „ misery under the, 131 
 
 ,, „ relations with church and people, 
 
 139 
 Feudalism, cessation of, 336 
 „ origin of, 132, 135 
 
 ,, transformation of, 369 
 
 Fiefs of the Crown, 158 
 
 „ the seven great, 158 
 Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520, 350 
 
 ,, of March and May, 49 
 Fifth peace, called that of " Monsieur," 407 
 First Capetian kings, reign of, 142 
 „ civil war, 1562, 392 
 „ hostilities (Hundred Years' War), 1338, 
 
 229 
 „ States-general of the three orders, 1302, 
 217 
 Flagellants, 232 
 Flanders, confiscation of, 214 
 
 j, Dampierre, Count of, 213 
 „ „ stabbed, 1384, 270 
 
 „ towns of, pillaged, 269 
 ,, transmitted to Burgundy, 270 
 ,, war in, 1311, 214 
 „ war with, 1382, 268 
 Flemings, revolt of the, 1301, 214; 1485, 321 
 Fleix, peace of, 410 
 Floral games, institution of, 223 
 Flour battle, the, 428 
 Fontainebleau, assembly at, 387 
 Fontaine- Francaise, battle of, 434 
 Foreign princes landowners in France, 224 
 Formigny, battle of, 1550, 299 
 Fornovo, battle of, 1495, 330 
 Foulque3, Count of Anjou, 143 
 Foulquet, Bishop of Toulouse, 176 
 
 „ horrible treachery of, 176 
 Four capitals in France, 47 
 France, name, 110 
 
 France and Brittany, hostilities suspended be- 
 tween, 1487, 323 
 „ and England, war between, 1113, 161 
 „ and Europe, state of, 1396, 274 
 „ awakiDg of, 1428, 292 
 „ boundaries under Hugues Capet, 142 
 „ Duchy of, 158 
 
 „ during Francis I.'s captivity, 354 
 „ invaded by Henry V., 279 
 „ possessions of foreign princes in, 368 
 „ state of, ia 1226, 192 
 Francis I., accession of, 1515, 345 
 
 ,, alliance with the Turks, 364 
 „ captivity, 1525, 354 
 „ celebrated men of the reign of, 370 
 ,, character of, 345 
 ,, considerations upon the reign of, 367 
 „ death of, 1547, 367 
 „ deliverance of, 355 
 ,, first campaign in Italy of, 346 
 „ increase of the royal domains of, 368 
 „ knights of, 346 
 „ last words of, 366 
 „ severities of, 361 
 Francis II., accession of, 382 
 „ death of, 387 
 
 „ Duke of Brittany, 321 
 
 „ political parties in the reign of, 383 
 
 Franciscans, 200 
 Frank army defeated, 90 
 Franks and Gallo-Romans distinct by law, 49 
 „ customs of the, 46 
 „ empire, boundaries of the, 81 
 ,, „ divisions of, 81 
 
 „ kings, tributaries of the, 82 
 ,, monarchy of the, united, 68 
 „ origin of, 26 
 „ power of, shaken, 69 
 ,, royalty among the, 46 
 ,, state of, before Clovis' reign, 47 
 „ warriors of the, baptized, 38 
 Freemen, assemblies of the, 216 
 „ condition of, 100 
 
 „ colonists and serfs, 50 
 
 „ or villains, 140 
 
 Fredegonde and Brunhilda, rivalry of, 55 
 
 ,, death of, 64 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa, death of, 168 
 
 „ of Naples, 1496, 334 
 
 French at Palermo, massacre of, 210 
 „ army in Italy, 1494, 327 
 „ ,, Scotland, 270 
 
 „ driven from Italy, 1409, 277 
 „ Guards, creation of the, 396 
 „ Government in Sicily overthrown, 209 
 „ language, the, 199 
 „ nation, awaking of the, 286 
 „ ,, historic existence of the, 116 
 
 „ retreat of the, 1495, 329 
 Frere Ange, 416 
 Froissart, the historian, 263 
 From the death of Charles the Fat to the expul- 
 sion of the Carlovingian dynasty, 115 
 From the death of Clovis tothatof Dagobert I.,46 
 Fulk, cure of Nouilly-sur-Marne, 172 
 Fuentes, Count, 441 
 
 n ALEAS, Visconti of Milan, 249 
 
 \J Gabelle and aide taxes abolished, 239 
 
 Gabrielle d'Estrees, 435 
 
 Gaels and Iberians, 1 
 
 Galatians, 6 
 
 Gallica Narbonensis, 101 
 
 Gallic Caesars, 21 
 
 „ martyrs, 19 
 
 „ name, terror of the, 6 
 
 ,, nations combined against Rome, 13 
 
 „ poets of the fourth and fifth centuries, 19 
 
INDEX. 
 
 461 
 
 Gallic revolt, E.G. 56, 13 
 
 „ war, B.C. 54, 12 
 Gallo- Romans, 18 
 Galswintha murdered, 56 
 Gascons, rising of the, 1368, 255 
 Gascony, 78 
 
 „ independence of, 82 
 Gaston de Foix, Due de Nemours, 337 
 Gaul and Germany, interests of, separated, 110 
 Gaul, a scene of combats, 30 
 „ before the Roman Conquest, 1 
 „ Caesar's rule in, 17 
 „ divided against herself, 6 
 „ „ between the race of Charlemagne 
 and that of Robert the Strong, up 
 to the accession of Louis IV., 115 
 „ division after the fall of the empire, 481, 32 
 „ „ of, 589, 55 
 „ „ ,, 1200,193 
 
 „ entered by Caesar, 7 
 „ incited to revolt, 20 
 „ invaded by Roman3, 6 
 „ miserable condition of, 276, 21 
 „ organized by Augustus, 17 
 „ priesthood in, 2 
 „ protected by Caesar, 9 
 „ „ „ C. Chlorus, 22 
 
 „ reduced to submission by Caesar, 11 
 „ Roman invasion of, 7 
 ,, ruled four centuries by the Romans, 18 
 „ state of, under the Merovingians, 46 
 „ under Clothair I.'s successors, 55 
 ,, „ the last Carlovingians, 120 
 „ ,, ,, Merovingian Dynasty, 37 
 „ under the Roman domination, 17 
 ,, „ „ sons of Clovis, 51 
 Gauls, character of the, 2 
 
 „ chiefs and kings of the, 4 
 „ divinities of the, 2 
 „ emigration among the, 5 
 „ levity of character, 10 
 „ tribes so designated, 2 
 Gaza, battle of, 1244, 181 
 Gauthier de Brienne, Duke of Athens, 237 
 Genealogical Table of the Carlovingian kings, 132 
 ,, ,, „ Merovingian „ 83 
 
 Gene'ralite's, 368 
 Genoa chastised by Louis XII., 1507, 336 
 
 „ revolt of, 1511, 337 
 Geoffroi de Preuilly, 200 
 Georges d'Amboise, 339 
 George Frondsberg, 356 
 Gerberge, Princess, 121 
 German and Frank League, 51 
 „ people, dignity of, 24 
 Germanus, Bishop of Paris, 56 
 Germany overrun by Gauls, 5 
 
 „ ravaged by Hungarians, 935, 119 
 ,, and Hungary, 303 
 Gerson, John, 284 
 Ghent, heroism of tbe men of, 1384, 270 
 
 „ revolt of, 1539, 363 
 Gilbert de Montpensier, 330 
 
 „ „ death of, 330 
 
 Godfrey de Bouillon, 155 
 
 ,, ,, crusade under, 1098, 155 
 
 Gondeband converted by Clovis, 39 
 Gondevald, 60 
 
 „ betrayal of, 62 
 
 „ death of, 62 
 
 „ proclaimed heir of Clothair L, 61 
 
 ,, reception of, 61 
 
 Gonsalvo of Cordova, 334 
 Gontran, 55 
 
 „ the Good, 59 
 
 „ Boson, 60 
 
 „ alarmed by the revolution, 61 
 
 „ „ death of, 62 
 
 Good King Rene", 314 
 
 Goods of the clergy, first alienation of the, 394 
 
 Gothic nation, the, 23 
 
 Goths, religion of the, 37 
 
 Grandella, battle of, 1266, 189 
 
 Gravelines, battle of, 1558, 377 
 
 Granson and Morat, battles of, 1476, 313 
 
 Great days, the, 324 
 
 „ schism of the East, course of the, 274 
 
 „ „ „ and end of, 
 
 1422, 283 
 Greek and Roman churches, union of, 1274, 210 
 " Greek fire," 183 
 Greek empire division of the, 1204, 173 
 
 „ „ ' fall of the, 1453, 302 
 
 Greffo, 80 
 
 „ Pepin's mother, death of, 87 
 Gregorian calendar, the, 438 
 
 „ chants established, 97 
 Gregory of Tours, 58 
 
 „ VII., death of, 1177, 153 
 „ XL, death of, 1378, 259 
 Grenada, treaty of, 1500, 334 
 Grimoald, son of Ega the Mayor, 71 
 
 „ murdered, 71 
 
 Guaifer of Aquitaine, 87 
 
 ,, joined by Greffo, 87 
 Gnelphs and Ghibellines, descendants of the, 303 
 
 „ „ wars of the, 1179, 166 
 
 Guerande, treaty of, 253 
 Guesclin, valour of Du, 252 
 Guines, treaty of, 1547, 366 
 Guienne, war in, 213 
 Guinnegate, battle of, 1513, 338 
 „ battle of, 1479, 314 
 
 Guillaume de Champeaux, 203 
 Guise, death of Francis of, 1562, 393 
 
 „ return of the Duke to Paris, 1 588, 414 
 
 „ acts of the Duke of, 1588, 415 
 
 ,, murder of the Cardinal of, 1588, 418 
 Guises, power of the, 1559, 382 
 
 „ triumph of the, 1559, 383 
 
 „ vengeance of the, 1560, 386 
 
 ,, and Condes, alliances of the, 1562, 392 
 Gustavo s Vasa, 359 
 Guy de Dampierre, 213 
 
 HAGANON, league against, 117 
 Hanseatic league, the, 15th century, 340 
 Harfieur, taking of, 1415, 279 
 Harold of England, death of, 1066, 150 
 
 ,, shipwreck of, 150 
 Hastings, battle of, 150 
 
 ,, the pirate, 111 
 Helvetians conquered by Caesar, 9 
 Hennebon, defence of, 229 
 Heraldry, 198 
 
 Henrietta d'Entragues, 1600, 440 
 Herrings, battle of the, 1429, 290 
 Henry and Thomas a Becket, struggle between, 
 
 165 
 Henry of Guise, murder of, 1588, 418 
 „ Navarre, King of, 421 
 „ of Transtamare, 254 
 Henry I., marriage of, 149 
 „ reign of, 147 
 
 „ wars of, 149 
 
 Henry II., accession of, 1547, 372 
 „ character of, 380 
 
 „ children of, 380 
 
 „ cruelty to the Bordelais of, 373 
 
 „ death of, 380 
 
 „ despotic edicts of, 372 
 
 „ exactions of, 377 
 
 „ marriage of, 377 
 
 „ state of France at the death of, 381 
 
 „ war declared against the Pope bv. 
 
 1551,373 
 
462 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Henry II. of England married to Eleanor, 
 164 
 „ penance of, 166 
 
 „ possessions of, in Erance, 165 
 
 „ revolt against, 166 
 
 Henry III. of Valois, accession of, 1574, 405 
 „ assassination of, 1589, 420 
 
 „ and his court, 406 
 
 „ dissolute manners of, 410 
 
 „ mad joy in Paris at the death of, 424 
 
 „ situation of the kingdom at the death 
 
 of, 421 
 „ supposed policy of, 406 
 
 Henry IV. and Elizabeth of England, connexion 
 between, 1601, 446 
 „ and Sully, administration of, 443 
 
 „ as peace-maker, 436 
 
 „ attempted assassination of, 1595, 
 
 434 
 „ conversion of, 1593, 432 
 
 „ death of, 1610, 449 
 
 „ difficulties of, 430 
 
 „ discoveries, sciences and arts in the 
 
 reign of, 438 
 „ divorce of, 440 
 
 „ early life of, 423 
 
 „ entry into Paris of, 433 
 
 „ frailties of, 451 
 
 „ improvements in Erance under, 444 
 
 „ literature in the reign of, 438 
 
 „ manoeuvres of, 1592, 429 
 
 „ marriage with Marguerite de Valois, 
 
 440 
 „ mediator between Spain and Hol- 
 
 land, 1609, 448 
 „ Paris entered by, 425 
 
 „ passion for the Princess de Conde', 
 
 of, 448 
 „ presentiments of, 449 
 
 „ recognised by Pope Clement VIII., 
 
 1595, 434 
 „ religious ministry of, 452 
 
 ,, second marriage of, 1600, 443 
 
 „ sentence of the Sorbonne against, 426 
 
 „ si -uation of, 1594, 433 
 
 „ sorrow in France at the death of, 450 
 
 „ state of letters and of art under, 450 
 
 „ submission of chiefs bought by, 433 
 
 Henry IV. of Germany, excommunication of, 
 153 
 ,, humiliation of, 153 
 
 Henry V. of England, death of, 1422, 283 
 
 „ Kegent of Erance, 1420, 282 
 Henry VI. of England, King of Erance, 1432, 
 
 288 
 Herv£, Archbishop of Reims, 117 
 Hesdin, conquest of, 1553, 374 
 Hildebrand, the monk, 151 
 Hincmar, real master of Gaul, 111 
 History, reflections on, 287 
 Holy chapel founded, 186 
 Hospitallers of St. John, 200 
 Hostilities, recommencement of, 1557, 376 
 
 „ with England, recommencement of, 
 
 1370, 256 
 House of Tudor in England, accession of the, 
 
 1485, 322 
 Hotel de Ville, annuities on the, 367 
 Hugues Capet, 125 
 
 „ accession of, 135 
 
 „ and Lothaire, reconciled, 979, 
 
 127 
 „ conduct of, 126 
 
 „ crowned, 129 
 
 „ death of, 144 
 
 ,, events of the reign of, 143 
 
 Huguenots, the, 392 
 
 „ arms taken up again by, 1574, 406 
 
 Huguenots, nobles among the, 392 
 Hugues the Great, excommunicated, 124 
 
 ,, „ death of, 124 
 
 „ „ or White, 118 
 
 „ ,, States of, 119 
 
 „ of Beauvais, murder of, 146 
 
 ,, of Vermandois, 121 
 Hunald, 87 
 
 „ abdication of, 768, 87 
 
 „ betrayed and conquered, 88 
 Hundreds and tithings organized, 82 
 Hundred Years' "War, preliminaries of the? 
 
 1331-1338, 227 
 Hungarians, formidable invasion of the, 120 
 Human sacrifices, 3 
 
 TDLER KING, the, 417 
 
 A. Imperial crown seized by Charles the Bold, 
 875, 112 
 „ house of Hapsburg, foundation of 
 
 1273, 210 
 „ unity, the fiction of, 103 
 " In Coena Domini," the famous bull, 420 
 Ingelheim, council of, 123 
 Innocent III., 174 
 
 „ vengeance of, 174 
 
 Inquisition, the edict of, 378 
 Insurrection and anarchy, 1380, 265 
 „ in Aquitaine, 768, 88 
 
 Interdict, laws of, 145 
 
 „ „ the Druidical, 4 
 
 Internal state of Gaul in Caesar's time, 9 
 Intestine contest in Gaul, 6 
 Invasion of the barbarians, 406, 23 
 
 „ of Burgundy (Chilperic's), 85 
 „ of the English, 1415, 279 
 „ of the Mussulmans, 732, 76, 78 
 Investiture of fiefs, 137 
 Italy— 15th century, 303 
 ,, a separate kingdom, 888, 115 
 „ first campaign in, 1522, 351 
 „ fourth campaign in, 1528, 357 
 ,, invaded by Gauls, 5 
 ,, second and third campaign in, 1524-1525, 
 
 353 
 „ state of, at the end of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, 326 
 „ the French driven from, 1522, 352 
 ,, under the Imperial troops, 358 
 Itius, site of, 12 
 Ivry, battle of, 1590, 426 
 
 " TACQUES BONHOMME," 248 
 „ Cceur, 301 
 „ Molay, 218 
 Jacquemart Artevelt, 228 
 Jacquerie, the, 1358, 248 
 
 „ war of, renewed, 360 
 January, 1562, edict of tolerance of, 390 
 Jarnac, battle of, 1569, 398 
 Jean d'Aire, 231 
 Jeanne d'Albret, 368 
 
 ,, „ conduct, 399 
 
 „ „ death of, 400 
 
 „ „ of Navarre, 395 
 
 „ la Boiteuse, 229 
 „ la Flamande, 229 
 „ Hachette, 311 
 „ of Navarre, 219 
 Jerome Bignon, 450 
 
 „ of Prague, 283, 341 
 Jesuits, exile of the, 1595, 434 
 
 „ recall to France of the, 1663, 447 
 Jews, cruelty of Philip IV. to the, 219 
 Joan of Arc, 1429, 290 
 
 „ at Chinon, 290 
 
 „ compelled to remain with the army, 
 293 
 
INDEX. 
 
 463 
 
 Joan of Arcj courage of, 291 
 
 „ death of, 1431, 294 
 
 „ last words of, 295 
 
 „ Orleans delivered by, 291 
 
 „ taken prisoner, 293 
 
 „ trial of, 294 
 
 Joachim Dubellay, 438 
 Jodelle, 438 
 John Bureau, 301 
 
 „ Boucher, 432 
 
 „ Chatel, 434 
 
 „ Cottier, 317 
 
 „ Galeas, Duke of Milan, 327 
 
 „ Goffredi, 312 
 
 „ Gutenburg, 317 
 
 „ Huss, 283, 341 
 
 „ Lackland, usurpation of, 1199, 169 
 
 „ Lemaitre, 431 
 
 „ Petit, 283 
 
 „ Poltrot of Mere, 393 
 
 „ ofProcida, 209 
 
 „ Tardiff and Claude Larcher, death of, 428 
 
 „ the Fearless, 279 
 
 „ ,, assassination of, 282 
 
 „ Wycliffe, 283 
 John, King of England, 234 
 
 „ accession of, 1350, 235 
 
 „ captivity of, 242 
 
 „ citation of, before the Court of Peers, 170 
 
 „ condemnation of, 170 
 
 „ death of, 250 
 
 „ made prisoner, 242 
 
 „ maxim attributed to, 250 
 
 „ ransom of, 249 
 
 „ reunion of his continental possessions with 
 the crown of France, 170 
 
 „ release of, 249 
 
 „ submission to Pope Innocent III., 170 
 
 „ violence of, 240 
 
 „ „ and despotism of, 235 
 
 „ of Bohemia, 228 
 Journal des Etats G£neraux, 320 
 Jours Gras, the entreprise des, 1573, 404 
 Judicial combat, 137 
 
 „ offices, irremovability of the, 316 
 „ order, establishment of the, 135 
 July, edict of, 1561, 389 
 Julius II., 341 
 
 Justinian, Emperor of the East, 54 
 Juvenal des Ursins, 284 
 
 KING Astolph, 85 
 „ and church, alliance of the, under 
 
 Louis VI., 162 
 „ Henry of Navarre declared to be ex- 
 cluded from the throne, 
 1585, 412 
 „ „ declaration of the Catholic 
 
 chiefs to the, 424 
 „ „ reply of the, 424 
 
 „ „ set at liberty, 1358, 246 
 
 „ Raoul, death of, 118 
 Kings of the Franks, authority of the, 49 
 " King's citizen," 185 
 "King's Quarantine," the, 185 
 Kingdom of France, desolated by the English, 243 
 „ of Jerusalem, fall of the, 168 
 „ of Navarre, lost by the crown of 
 France, 227 
 Konig, derivation of, 46 
 Kymry and Cimbri, 1 
 Kymrys established, on the Loire, 2 
 „ identical with the Belgse, 1 
 „ irruption of the, 1 
 
 LA BALUE, Cardinal, 312 
 Lafin, 442 
 La Gabelle, establishment of, 232 
 
 Lancaster, Duke of, 256 
 
 Landais, 321 
 
 death of, 322 
 
 Languedoc, deplorable state of, 272 
 „ new Jacquerie in, 268 
 
 „ rising of, 261 
 
 Langue d'Oil, States-General of the, 237 
 
 La Mole and Coconnas, deaths of, 404 
 
 La Nome, Senlis, successes at, 420 
 
 Laon, surrendered and retaken, 123 
 
 La Palisse, 338 
 
 La Riviere, Lord of, 262 
 
 La Rochelle, siege of, 403 
 
 La Rochefoucauld and Rohan, 412 
 
 Last slothful kings, the, 76 
 
 Latin empire of Constantinople founded, 173 
 
 Latafao, 73 
 
 La Tremouille, 295 
 
 „ captivity of, 334 
 
 ,, Roquelaure, 412 
 
 Laval and La Nome, 412 
 
 La Vergne, devotion of, 398 
 
 Lautrec, 352 
 
 League against Abdul-Rahman, 78 
 
 League, origin and aim of the, 407 
 „ Paris the focus of the, 411 
 „ Rovalists and Huguenots, division of 
 
 France between the, 421 
 „ rousing of the, 411 
 „ the Holy, 1510-1527, 337, 356 
 
 Leaguers, oath of the, 408 
 
 Legate, Pierre Castelnau murdered, 174 
 
 Legations and counties of the French empire, 98 
 
 Legists, the, 211 
 
 Legga, daughter of Pepin, 73 
 
 Leo X., 338 
 
 Leon III., 92 
 
 ,, assisted by Charlemagne, 92 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, respect of Francis I. for, 370 
 
 Lepers and Jews, persecution of the, 222 
 
 Lescurjs, 352 
 
 L'Espare, 351 
 
 Letic lands, 27 
 
 Letters, arts, and sciences in 8th century, 97 
 „ of nobility, 222 
 
 " L'envoulter," 228 
 
 L'Hospital, retirement of, 397 
 
 Library at Aix-la-Chapelle, 96 
 
 Ligurians, 1 
 
 L'lle, Adam, 357 
 
 Lille and Douai, reunited to France, 215 
 
 Lincestre, the cure, 419 
 
 Literature of the 14th century, 263 
 
 Loi Gombette, the, 50 
 
 Lollards, the, 283 
 
 Longjumeau, peace signed at, 397 
 
 Lombardy, cities of, 166 
 
 „ ravaged by Theodebert, 54 
 
 Lorraine, campaign in, 300 
 
 ,, conquest of, by Charles the Rash, 313 
 
 Lorrainers, revolt of the, 121 
 
 Lorraine, the cardinal of, 378 
 
 Lothair I. and Lorraine, 112 
 ,, impiety of, 106 
 
 ,, pardoned, 107 
 
 Lothair II., death of, 855, 112 
 ,, marriages of, 112 
 
 Lothaire III. crowned king, 124 
 death of, 127 
 
 Louis I. le Debonnaire, character of, 104 
 „ „ death of, 108 
 
 ,, ,, morality of, 104 
 
 ,, ,, _ or the Pious, 102 
 
 ,, „ second marriage of, 105 
 
 „ ,, weakness of, 105 
 
 „ ,, defeated by Lothair, 106 
 
 ,, „ first insurrection against, 
 
 104 
 
464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Louis I. le Debonnaire, humiliation of, 106 
 
 ,, ,, reinstated, 107 
 
 Louis II., the Stammerer, 113 
 
 „ „ sons of, 113 
 
 Louis III., 882, 113 
 Louis IV., of Bavaria, 228 
 Louis IV., d'Outre-Mer, character of, 120 
 „ „ crowned king, 120 
 
 „ „ death of, 124 
 
 „ „ made prisoner, 122 
 
 „ „ sons of, 124 
 
 Louis V., 128 
 
 „ called the Slothful, 120 
 
 ,, son of Lothaire, 127 
 
 ,, _ life and death of, 128 
 Louis Vl., accession of, 1108, 160 
 
 „ character of, 160 
 
 „ death of, 1137, 162 
 
 „ nicknames of, 160 
 
 „ Normandy ravaged by, 161 
 
 ,, personal estates of, 160 
 
 ,, sons of, 161 
 
 ,, struggle of, against Henry I. of Eng- 
 
 land, 161 
 
 ,, war against his vassals, 161 
 
 Louis VII. , 163 
 
 „ accession of, 163 
 
 „ death of, 1179, 166 
 
 „ divorce of, 164 
 
 „ interdict laid on, 163 
 
 Louis VIII., accession of, 179 
 
 „ death of, 1228, 179 
 
 „ marriage of, 179 
 
 ,, reign of, 179 
 
 Louis IX., anecdotes of, 187 
 
 „ arbitrator between Henry III. and 
 
 his barons, 188 
 
 „ crown disputed, 180 
 
 „ death of, 1270, 191 
 
 ,, marriage of, 181 
 
 ,, piety of, 187 
 
 „ (St. Louis) reign of, 180 
 
 „ Damietta taken by, 182 
 
 „ departure of for the Holy Land, 1248, 
 
 182 
 
 ,, establishments of, 185 
 
 ,, last words of, 190 
 
 ,, legislation and administration of, 184 
 
 ,, ransom of, 183 
 
 ,, religious enthusiasm of, 182 
 
 , , sons of, 189 
 
 ,, taken prisoner, 183 
 
 ,, wars of, 181 
 
 ,, zeal of the bishops restrained by, 186 
 
 Louis X., accession of, 220 
 
 „ death of, 1316, 221 
 
 „ events of the reign of , 221 
 
 „ (Le Rutin), 220 
 
 ,, accused of poisoning his brother, 
 311 
 
 ,, situation of France under, 307 
 Louis XL, abasement of the nobles under, 317 
 
 „ accession of, 1461, 306 
 
 ,, acquisitions of the crown under, 315 
 
 „ character of, 316 
 
 „ commerce and industry in the reign 
 
 of, 317 
 death of, 1483, 316 
 
 ,, feudal houses under, 318 
 
 „ first acts of, 307 
 
 „ irritation against, 308 
 
 ,, jurisdiction of, 320 
 
 „ mercantile truces of, 312 
 
 „ misery of the people under, 320 
 
 „ new dangers to, 311 
 
 ,, new Parliaments instituted by, 316 
 
 „ ordinances of, 316 
 
 „ porta established by, 316 
 
 Louis XL, policy of, 306 
 
 ,, schools established by, 317 
 
 ,, taken prisoner, 310 
 
 ,, taxes raised by, 317 
 
 „ terrors and superstition of, 315 
 
 Louis XII., accession of, 1498,332 
 „ character of, 339 
 
 ,, claims upon the Milanese of, 333 
 
 „ death of, 1516, 338 
 
 „ first acts of, 332 
 
 „ generosity of, 332 
 
 „ marriageof,withAnneofBrittany,333 
 
 „ „ „ Mary of England, 338 
 
 ,, policy of, 340 
 
 „ of Bourbon, cruelties of, 398 
 „ of Conde, death of, 338 
 Louis of Faur, arrest of, 379 
 
 „ of France in England, Prince, 171 
 
 „ the German, revolt of, 109 
 
 „ the Moor, 326 
 
 „ „ at Milan, situation and policy 
 
 of, 327 
 „ and Pepin, conduct of, 107 
 „ son of Charlemagne, 91 
 „ „ „ crowned his success- 
 
 sor, 93 
 Louisa of Savoy, death of, 370 
 
 ,, „ resentment of, 352 
 
 Lutetia, 22 
 
 Luther, commencement of the career of, 351 
 „ Martin, 342 
 ,, outlawed, 351 
 Luxembourg, invasion of, 364 
 Lyons, treaty of, 1601, 441 
 
 MACHIAVELLI, disciples of, 340 
 „ the Florentine, 339 
 
 Madrid, rupture of the treaty of, 356 
 
 „ treaty of, 1526, 355 
 Magna Charta, clauses of, 1215, 171 
 
 ,, signed, 171 
 
 Magnavald murdered, 63 
 Maillard, 249 
 
 Maire du Palais, hereditary office, 70 
 " Maillotins," insurrection of the, 1330, 267 
 Mallum, the, 74 
 Malcontents, the, 385 
 Malines, league of, 1513, 338 
 Mannes stormed by Caesar, 10 
 Mantes taken by Bouoicaut, 252 
 Mansourah, battle of, 1249, 1 83 
 March, assemblies of the field of, 49 
 Marcel, Etienne, 237 
 
 ,, assassination, 1358, 249 
 ,, Master of Paris, 247 
 Marches, 99 
 March of Gascony, 91 
 ,, Gothia, 91 
 
 Marguerite of Burgundy, 220 
 
 „ Valois, 360 
 
 Marie de Medici, 443 
 
 „ coronation of, 449 
 
 ,, faction of, 447 
 
 Marius at Aix, 7 
 
 Marmousets, government of the, 1389, 272 
 Marriage of Louis the Young with Eleanor of 
 
 Aquitaine, 162 
 Marseilles, or Massalia, 1 
 
 „ siege of, 353 
 
 Marshal Biron, 429 
 „ of Gie. 335 
 Marshals, murder of the, 1358, 247 
 Marignano, battle of, 1515, 346 
 Marigny, Enguerrand de, 219 
 
 „ trial and execution of, 220 
 Martin IV., Pope, 210 
 Mary of Burgundy, 314 
 
 „ Stuart, trial and execution of, 1587, 314 
 
INDEX. 
 
 465 
 
 Matilda of Tuscany, 153 
 Mayenne, Duke of, 429 
 
 , „ elected chief of the league, 
 
 425 
 „ „ submission of, 435 
 
 Mayor of the Palace of the Kings, 59 
 
 „ Wulfoald, 71 
 Mayors of the Palace, 70 
 Medici (see Catherine de), 401 
 Meeting at Bibracte, 14 
 Melancthon, 359 
 
 Memory of Clovis, prestige of the, 75 
 Mendicant Orders, struggle of, against the Uni- 
 versity, 201 
 Menippee the Satire, 431 
 Mercuriale, a, 378 
 
 „ the Celebrated, 1559, 379 
 
 Merovic, escape of, 57 
 „ death of, 58 
 
 „ made priest, 57 
 
 Merovig, family of, 46 
 Merovingian dynasty, end of the, 70 
 „ kings, power of the, 81 
 
 „ name extinct, 88 
 
 „ princes, character of the, 58 
 
 „ „ cities founded by, 99 
 
 „ „ territory of the, 81 
 
 „ territories, duchies and counties of, 
 
 82 
 „ ,, government of, 82 
 
 Metz, defence of, 374 
 M^zieres besieged, 351 
 Michael of the Hospital, 387 
 Middle Ages, state of Europe at the end of the, 
 
 302 
 Milan, blockade of, raised, 1524, 353 
 ,, founded, 6th century B.C., 5 
 Milanese, conquest of the, 1499, 333 
 Military colonists, 27 
 
 „ equestrian corps, 4 
 ,, operations (1552-1555), 374 
 Minard, assassination of the president, 384 
 Mistletoe, virtues attributed to, 3 
 Mohammed, invasion of, 77 
 Mole, Edward, 431 
 Monasteries founded in Gaul, 48 
 Monastery of St. Cloud founded, 52 
 
 the Isle of Ke, 87 
 Moncontour, battle of, 1570, 399 
 Mongols, invasion of the East by, 181 
 
 ,, Jerusalem conquered by, 181 
 Monks, occupations of the, 49 
 Mons-en-Puelle, 214 
 Montaigne Michael, 438 
 Montauban, siege of, 404 
 Montiel, battle of, 1369, 255 
 Montlhery, battle of, 308 
 Moatluc, cruelties of, 394 
 Montmirail, peace of, 165 
 Montmorency, 172 
 Montpellier and Dauphine* reunited to France, 
 
 233 
 Montpensier, 330 
 Morat, battle of, 1496, 313 
 Moulins, assembly of chief inhabitants of, 396 
 
 ,, ordinances of, 1564, 396 
 Mourzon taken, 351 
 Moving forest, a, 63 
 Mummoles murdered, 62 
 avlunuza, 78 
 Muret, battle of, 1213, 176 
 
 NANTES, edict of, 1598, 436 
 Naples lost by the French, 330 
 „ lost by the French a second time, 
 335 
 Narbonne founded, 7 
 National assemblies, 94 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Navarette, battle of, 1367, 254 
 
 Navarre, the King of, recognised as lieut.-gene- 
 
 ral, 1560, 383 
 Nerac, treaty of, 1544, 409 
 Neustria, 55 
 
 New divisions of territory substituted for im- 
 perial, 81 
 
 „ cities founded by the Gauls, 1380, 18 
 
 „ taxes, 267 
 Nicea, Antioch, and Jerusalem conquered, 156 
 Nice, treaty of, 1538, 363 
 Nicholas Poulain, 414 
 Nicopolis, battle of, 1396, 275 
 Nominal kings, 76 
 Norman knights, conquest of, 149 
 
 „ treachery to Louis IV., 1066, 1.22 
 Normans, ravages of the, 9th century, 110, 113 
 
 „ valour of the, 150 
 Northern Italy possessed by the Lombards, 85 
 Novem populania, 82 
 Noyon, treaty of, 1516, 349 
 
 OFFICES, sale of, by Henry II., 377 
 „ of judicature, sale of the, 1522, 352 
 
 Olivier le Dain, 317 
 Orders, religious military, 200 
 Ordonnance Cabocbienne, 278 
 Oriflamme, the, 163 
 
 ,, unfurled by Charles VI,, 279 
 
 Orleans and Burgundy, rivalry between the 
 Dukes of, 278 
 „ delivery of, 291 
 „ Maid of, 290 
 „ threatened, 289 
 „ truce of 1514, 338 
 Orthez, treaty of, 338 
 Ostrogoths, 23 
 Otho the Great, 123 
 „ „ death of, 973, 125 
 
 ,, ,, power of, 125 
 
 Otho II. surprised at Aix, 126 
 
 „ revenge of, 126 
 
 Otho III., 983, 127 
 Ottoman power, the decline of the, 16th century, 
 
 438 
 Oxford, the provisions of, 188 
 
 PALACE of the Thermse, 41 
 Paladin Koland, death of, 90 
 Palestine, Christian kingdom founded in, 156 
 
 ,, or the Holy Land, 153 
 Pamiers, Bishop of, 216 
 Pandolph, Legate, 171 
 
 Paper, organs, Turkey carpets, and clocks in- 
 vented, 8th century, 97 
 Parliament a court of justice, 185 
 
 „ abasement of the, 1519, 348 
 „ conduct of the, 1593, 431 
 Parliaments, new, under Charles VII., 300 
 
 „ the two, of Paris and Tours, 426 
 
 Parma, the Duke of Farnese, 429 
 Partition of the Empire, 108 
 Paris, famine in, 1590, 427 
 
 „ loBt and regained by Chilperic, 66 
 „ parliament of, 1302, 212 
 ,, residence of Clovis, 41 - 
 „ schools of, under Louis VI., 203 
 „ siege and blockade of, 1590, 427 
 „ siege of, under Charles the Fat, 114 • 
 „ siege of, 1358, 248 
 „ siege of, raised, 1590, 428 
 „ submission of Charles VI., 269 
 „ synod of, 615, 67 
 
 „ taken from the Burgundians, 1418, 281 
 „ treaty of, 1229, 180 
 Parisians, chastisement of the, 269 
 Passau, convention of, 1552, 374 
 Pastoureaux, 222 
 
 E H 
 
466 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Pastoureaux, destrnction of the, 222 
 «'Patarins,"167 
 
 „ and " Catharins," 173 
 
 Patay, defeat of the English at, 1429, 292 
 Patrician Mummoles, 58 
 Patrimony of St. Peter, 99 
 Paul III. (Alexander Earnese), 360 
 Pavia, battle of, 1525, 354 
 Peace, "badly established," the, 1568, 397 
 
 „ of Cateau - Cambresis, the unfortunate, 
 
 377 
 „ of God, the, 1035, 148 
 „ the Ladies', 1529, 358 
 Peers, lay and ecclesiastical, 138 
 Pentvans or mencheis, 3 
 Pepin and Carloman, 80 
 ,, the Short, ancestors of, 85 
 „ „ death of, 768, 88 
 
 „ „ father of, 85 
 
 „ „ nine years' war of, 87 
 
 „ „ race of, 85 
 
 „ ,i reign of, 85 
 
 „ „ wars of, 86 
 
 n „ sons of, 88 
 
 „ Mayor of the Palace, 80 
 u bravery of, 88 
 „ coronation of, 86 
 n consecrated again, 86 
 „ conduct of, 88 
 
 „ king of Aquitaine, death of, 838, 107 
 „ last act of, 714, 75 
 ,, of Landan, 66 
 
 „ „ mayor in Austrasia, 70 
 
 „ of Heristal, 73 
 „ sons of, 75 
 „ son of Charlemagne, 92 
 Pepin II., 107 
 P^quigny, John de, 246 
 Perinet le Clerc, 281 
 
 Permanent army, organization of a, 1439, 297 
 Peronne, treaty of, 1468, 310 
 
 „ „ annulled, 1470, 311 
 
 Pescaire, Marquis of, 353 
 Peter the Cruel, King of Castile, 253 
 M ,, abdication of, 254 
 
 „ the Hermit, preaching of, 154 
 Pharamond, 418, 29 
 Philip I., 149 
 
 „ death of, 157 
 „ marriages of, 157 
 „ possessions of, 158 
 
 „ events of reign of, 156 
 
 Philip and Eichard of England, quarrels of, 168 
 Philip Augustus II., 1179, 167 
 
 „ conquests of, 167 and 177 
 
 „ death of, 178 
 
 „ excommunicated, 172 
 
 •* government and administration 
 
 * of, 177 
 
 „ labours of, 177 
 
 „ marriage of, 168 
 
 „ power of, 167 
 
 „ reign of, 167 
 
 „ treachery of, 169 
 
 „ third marriage of, 172 
 
 Philip III., the Bold, 207 
 
 „ death of, 1284, 210 
 
 „ reign of, 208 
 
 Philip IV., the Fair, accession of, 1284, 210 
 „ acquisitions of the crown under, 219 
 
 ., character of, 211 
 
 t , coinage altered by, 218 
 
 „ cruelty of, 219 
 
 „ death of, 1314, 219 
 
 „ extortions and exactions of, 212 
 
 „ policy of, 219 
 
 Philip V., accession of, 1316, 221 
 „ death of, 1322, 222 
 
 Philip V., ordinances of, 222 
 
 ,, useful edicts of, 223 
 Philip VI., accession of, 1328, 226 
 „ character of, 227 
 
 „ marriage and death of, 1350, 233 
 
 „ new taxes of, 232 
 
 „ perfidy and cruelty of, 229 
 
 „ superstition of, 28 
 
 Philip de Rouvre, death of, 250 
 
 ,, Count d'Evreux, 227 
 Philip of Spain, cruelties of, 400 
 „ „ intrigues of, 426 
 „ „ pretensions of, 430 
 „ the Bold, duke of Burgundy, 1362, 250 
 Phoceans, 1 
 
 Picardy defended by La Tremouille, 353 
 Piedmont, conquered by the French, 1536, 362 
 Pierre de la Brosse, disgrace and execution of, 
 1278, 208 
 „ de la Foret, chancellor of France, 237 
 ,, de Luna, 275 
 „ Pithou, 450 
 Pilgrimages to the Holy Land, 1077, 153 
 Pisa, Council of, 1511, 337 
 
 „ and Constance, councils of, 1409-1483, 283 
 Plague of Florence, the, 1348, 232 
 Plantagenet, House of, founder of the, 162 
 Playing-cards, invention of, 284 
 Pleiades, the, 438 
 Poissy, Conference of, 1561, 3S9 
 Poitiers, Arabs and Franks at, 732, 78 
 „ „ defeat of, 1356, 79 
 
 „ battle of, 241 
 „ detail of battle of, 241 
 „ edict of, 1577, 409 
 Poitou and Guienne, revolts in, 1550, 372 
 
 ,, province of, subdued, 1370, 256 
 Poncher and Semblancay, execution of, 1527, 
 359 
 „ Treasurer, General, 359 
 Pontoise, states of, 1561, 389 
 Pope Afapete, 121 
 „ Clement V., election of, 218 
 „ Gregory VII., 152 
 ,, John VIII. expelled from Italy, 113 
 „ Julius IL, designs of, 1510, 337 
 „ Urban II., 154 
 Popes, power of the, 145 
 
 „ universal supremacy of the, conceived by 
 Hildebrand, 151 
 Portugal, kingdom of, founded, 1070, 151 
 Pragmatic sanction, 1256, 185 ; 1438, 300 
 ,, „ abolished, 1515, 347 
 
 Praguerie, insurrection of the, 1440, 298 
 Pre aux Clercs, promenade of the, 378 
 President of the Council, 1484, 320 
 Pretextatus assassinated, 58 
 Priests, courage of the, 600, 65 
 „ in Gaul, habits of, 2 
 „ marriage of, forbidden, 1073, 152 
 Priesthood, novitiate for, among the Druids, 2 
 Prince of Beam, 1560, 399 
 
 „ „ and Margaret of Valois, mar- 
 
 riage of the, 400 
 „ Cond6, "the dumb captain," 1560, 
 
 385 
 „ „ death of Henry of, 1587, 413 
 
 Princes, faction of the, 1392, 273 
 
 „ league of the, 1468, 310 ; 1485, 321 
 Princess Claude, marriage of, 1506, 336 
 Princely feudal houses in the 14th century, 224 
 Principal duchies, origin of, 99 
 
 „ cities of Gaul, 17 
 Printing, indention of, 317 
 Progress of the Franks, causes of the, 481, 37 
 Proper names, meaning of, 481, 33 
 " Protestants," 357 
 Protestantism in France, progress of, 373 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Provence conquered by Charles Martel, 732, 80 
 
 ,, derivation of, 7 
 
 „ invaded by the imperial troops, 1536, 
 363 
 Public debt in Franco, origin of, 1547, 367 
 "Public good," league of the, 1465, 308 
 
 QUEEN ANNE, projected flight of, 1505, 335 
 „ Blanche, death of, 1254, 184 
 „ „ regency of, 1226, 180 
 
 „ ,, jealousy of, 181 
 
 ,, Bertha repudiated, 146 
 „ Isabeau of Bavaria, 1418, 281 
 „ Margaret, courage of, 1249, 183 
 Quinze-vingts, hospital founded, 186 
 
 RADEGONDE, tomb of, 589, 55 
 „ wife of Clothair, 54 
 
 Raoul, Duke of Burgundy, 118 
 „ elected king, 923, 118 
 „ death of, 119 
 „ wars in the reign of, 1 18 
 „ de Nesle, 1302, 214 
 Eapin and Passerat, poets, 438 
 Kauking, death of, 63 
 Eavaillac, Francis, 1610, 449 
 Ravenna, battle of, 1512, 337 
 Kaymond, Count of Toulouse, 1095, 155 
 Eealists and Nominals, schools of the, 203 
 Rebellion of Austrasian leudes, 65 
 „ of the Gauls, 56 B.C., 10 
 Reformation, origin of the, 342 
 Reforms ordered by the States, considerations 
 
 upon, 1327, 245 
 Reformers, persecution of the, 1535, 361 
 " Reitres," 392 
 
 Religious persecutions of the Jews, 167 
 Relisionaires, 387 
 
 Renry, execution of Pierre, 1327, 227 
 Renandi, 385 
 
 Renaissance, and its influence, the, 369 
 ,, first attempts of the, 339 
 
 Revolt of the Frisons, 785, 91 
 Richard of England, betrayed by Duke Leopold, 
 
 169 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, captivity of, 169 
 „ killed at Chaluz-Chabrol, 1199, 169 
 ,, ransom of, 169 
 Richemont, violent acts of the Constable, 289 
 Rhe.ms, see of, disputed, 121 
 Rhine crossed by Caesar, 11 
 Rhodes, siege of, 1523, 357 
 Right of Asylum, 575, 57 
 „ to dispose of crowns granted to Rome, 
 85 
 Rise of the Christian Church, 31 
 Robert, Count of Paris, 111 
 
 „ Curt-Hose, son of William the Con- 
 queror, 155 
 „ d'Estouteville, prevot of Paris, 298 
 ,, Duke of France, 10th century, 117 
 ,, of Paris crowned king, 922, 118 
 „ son of Capet, 144 
 „ „ death of, 147 
 
 „ „ mildness and virtues, 144 
 
 „ „ piety, 145 
 
 „ „ superstition, 145 
 
 „ „ marriage of, 145 
 
 „ „ religious persecutions of, 
 
 146 
 Roche-Abeille, combat of, 1570, 399 
 Rodolph of Hapsburgh, 1273, 210 
 Rois faineants, 70 
 
 Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, 912, 117 
 Roman empire, destroyers of the, 406, 23 
 
 „ in Constantinople, fall of, 1201, 
 
 189 
 Roman Gaul, Clothair King of, 548, 54 • 
 
 Romanic language, 110 , 
 
 Roman names retained in parts of France, 81 
 
 „ Senate open to the Gauls, 17 
 Romans besieged by Gauls, 12 
 Rome, capture and sack of, 1527, 357 
 „ deluged by barbarians, 28 
 „ invaded by Gauls, 5 
 „ sacked by Visigoths, 424, 29 
 Romorantin, the edict of, 1560, 388 
 Ronsard, the poet, 438 
 Roscelin de Compiegne, 203 
 Rosebecque, battle of, 1382, 268 
 Roses, wars of the, in England, 311 
 Rosny, Henry IV.'s speech to, 1590, 427 
 Rouen, Bordeaux, and Nantes burnt, 9th century, 
 
 110 
 Rouen, assembly of the principal inhabitants 
 
 of, 1598, 435 
 Ruy, fortified camp of, 92 
 " Royal cases," 1256, 185 
 
 „ council, 14th century, 274 
 
 „ decrees, 1444, 300 
 
 „ domain, aggrandizement of the, 1274, 
 
 208 
 „ domain, recapitulation of couquests of 
 the, in 1327, 224 
 Royalty, elective and hereditary, among the 
 
 Franks, 46 
 Royal ordinances, 1380, 264 
 
 „ power, progress of the, 987, 135 
 „ „ enfeeblement of the, 1315, 220 
 
 " Royal right," the, 215 
 Royalty, progress of, under the feudal system, 192 
 
 SABINUS and Eponina, 21 
 Salviusof Ally, 58 
 Sabl£, treaty of, 1487, 323 
 Saint Aubin du Cormier, battle of, 1487, 323 
 
 „ „ peace of, 1231, 181 
 
 „ Bartholomew, massacre of, 1572, 402 
 
 „ Bartholomew's Day, plans for, 401 
 
 „ Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 163 
 
 „ Croix, founded by Radegonde, 54 
 
 „ Denis, 20 
 
 „ „ battle of, 1567, 396 
 
 „ Didier, death of, 65 
 
 „ Germain, the peace of, 1570, 400 
 
 „ Hilarius, 20 
 
 „ IreDseus, 20 
 
 „ Jacques Clement, 425 
 
 „ Jean d'Acre, siege of, 168 
 
 „ Martin of Tours, 20 
 
 „ Owen and St. Eloi, 69 
 
 „ Pol, the constable, 311 
 
 „ Quentin, battle of, 1558, 376 
 Saladin, prowess and conquests of, 168 
 Salic law in the 6th century, 49 
 
 „ fhe, 1316, 221 
 
 „ first application of the, 221 
 
 „ etymologies for the word, 27 
 
 „ Franks, 49 
 
 „ law fully recognised, 226 
 Sancerre, Marshal de. 1380, 260 
 
 „ siege of. 1572, 404 
 Saracens in the 8th century, 90 
 Saragossa, siege of, 90 
 Saxons, the, 771, 89 
 „ baptized, 89 
 
 „ conquered by Charlemagne, 89 
 Saxony finally subdued, 804, 92 
 
 „ ravaged by Charlemagne, 92 
 Saxons, Franks, andAUemanni, 26 
 Savoy, campaign in, 1600, 441 
 Schools established in Gaul, 19 
 Sciences in the 13th century, 205 
 Sctland, troubles in, 13th century, 213 
 Sculpture and painting during the Crusades, 199 
 ** Sea kings," 111 
 
468 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Seigneur de Chievres, 348 
 
 Semblancay, 1521, 351 
 
 Senate, causes of discord in the, 8 
 
 „ in Gaul, the, 8 
 Senlis, treaty of, 1493, 325 
 Sentiment of nationality, 4 
 Septimania, 82 
 
 „ conquered by Pepin, 87 
 
 Serfs, the, in the 13th century, 202 
 „ condition of, under the feudal system, 
 
 139 
 Sicilian vespers, 1282, 209 
 Siege of Aries raised, 40 
 Siege of Gergovia raised, 14 
 
 „ Paris, 1429, 293 
 Sieur Eustache de St. Pierre, the, 231 
 Sigebert I., 55 
 
 „ and Bishop Germanus, 56 
 „ assassinated, 56 
 Sigebert III., accession of, 70 
 „ character of, 71 
 
 „ religious practices of, 71 
 
 Sigismund, murder of, 52 
 
 „ son of Gondeband, 52 
 
 Simon de Montfort, 1202, 172 
 Sire de Monthery, 161 
 " Six Nations," the, 1484, 319 
 Sixteen, council of the, 1588, 414 
 „ excesses of the, 1591, 428 
 „ faction of the, 1587, 413 
 Slothful kings, the first, 638, 70 
 Smalcalde, League of, 1531, 359 
 Sons of Clovis, 51 
 
 „ Louis I. make war against him, 106 
 Sorbonne founded, 187 
 Spain, apogee of power of, 437 
 
 „ and France, war between, 334 
 „ and Portugal, 1473, 303 
 Spanish monarchy, grandeur and decadence 
 
 under Philip II., 437 
 State of Europe, considerations upon, 436 
 State of the towns in the eleventh and twelfth 
 
 centuries, 193 
 States-General, the, 1350, 234 
 „ of 1355, 237 
 
 „ of 1356, 243 
 
 „ of 1369, 256 
 
 „ of 1420, 282 
 
 „ of 1484, 319 
 
 „ at Orleans, 1439, 296 
 
 „ celebrated, 1357, 244 
 
 „ convoked at Blois, 1588, 416 
 
 „ of the League at Paris, 1593, 430 
 
 ,, of Tours, 1468, 309 
 
 States, important acts of the, 237 
 States of Blois, first, 1576, 408 
 States of Orleans, 387 
 Stephen II., Pope, 86 
 Suevi and Saxons, 24 
 Suger, Abbe" of St. Denis, 163 
 Sully, combinations against, 445 
 
 „ mission to England of, 1601, 446 
 Surenes and Villette, conferences of, 1593, 430 
 Suzerain, the, 136 
 Swiss, alliance with the, 1515, 347 
 
 „ bravery of the, 1444, 299 
 Switzerland, campaigns of the French in, 1444, 
 
 299 
 "Sword of the wrath of God," the, 58 
 Syagrius attacked by Clovis, 38 
 Synod, first Calvinistic, 1559, 380 
 Synods or councils, 10th century, 143 
 Sylvester II., 147 
 
 TABORITES, 303 
 Tactics, diplomacy in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, 342 
 Taillebourg, battle of, 1242, 181 
 
 Tamberlane, 302 
 
 Tarascon, treaty of, 1289, 211 
 
 Tassillon, Duke of Bavaria, 91 
 
 Tax, perpetual, 1439, 297 
 
 Taxation, direct and indirect, 1439, 238 
 
 Templars, the, 200 
 
 „ destruction of the order of the, 1309, 
 
 218 
 Tentberga, 112 
 
 Tenth century, disasters of the, 131 
 Territorial estates, 51 
 Testry, battle of, 75 
 Tetricus, 21 
 Teutonic people, 24 
 Teutons, invasion of the, 7 
 " The Plain of Falsehood," 106 
 Theodobald, 53 
 
 Theodebert, son of Thierry I., 53 
 „ death of, 54 
 „ the First, 54 
 
 „ treachery of, 54 
 
 Theodebert II., 596, 64 
 
 „ murder of, 65 
 
 Theodoric the Great, daugh'ers of, 53 
 „ extinction of race of, 53 
 
 „ King of the Visigoths, 39 
 
 „ summary of life of, 53 
 
 Thierry I., 534, 52 
 Thierry II., 64 
 
 „ imprisoned by Pepin, 74 
 „ sons of, 65 
 
 Thierry III., made prisoner by his brother, 72 
 
 „ proclaimed king, 72 
 
 Third Estate, progress of the, 13th century, 202 
 Thirteenth century, inventions of the, 263 
 „ „ literature of the, 263 
 
 Thomas a Becket, champion of the Church, 165 
 death of, 1172, 166 
 „ de Maries, 161 
 Throne of France, candidates for the, 1328, 226 
 „ „ competition for the, ] 350, 236 
 
 „ ,. competitors for the, 1590, 426 
 
 Thuringia annexed to the Frank monarchy, 52 
 Time necessary for civilization, 100 
 Tournaments, 199 
 Tournay, an episcopal see, 41 
 Treaty of peace, 1304, 214 
 Trial by ordeal, 50 
 
 Tribes, division among the of Gaul, 6 
 Tristan the Hermit, 317 
 Triumvirate, the, 1561, 389 
 Trivulzio, the Milanese, 329 
 Troubadours, most celebrated works of the, 199 
 Trouveres and Troubadours, 199 
 Troyes, treaty of, 1420, 282 
 Truce of God, the, 1040, 143 
 
 „ ofl346tol385, 232 
 Truccia, battle of, 63 
 Tumuli, 3 
 
 Turks, invasion of the, 1396, 275 
 Twelfth century, ecclesiastical possessions in the, 
 159 
 
 UMBRIANS, invasion of the, 14 B.C., 5 
 Underhand peace, the, 1409, 277 
 Union, edict of, 1558, 416 
 United Provinces, liberation of, 1581, 410 
 University of Paris founded, 1260, 177 
 
 „ rights and privileges of the, 
 178 
 Urban II., effect of eloquence, 154 
 
 „ Pontificate of, 153 
 Urban VI., 259 
 
 VALENTINA of Milan, 276 
 Valois, accession of the, 1328, 226 
 Valois, Maine and Anjou gained by the crown of 
 France, 227 
 
INDEX. 
 
 469 
 
 Vaquerie, John de la, 317 
 
 Vasconia, 90 
 
 Vasco di Gama, discoveries of, 342 
 
 Vasconia, or Gascony, 82 
 
 Vase of Soissons, the, 46 
 
 Vassals, obligations of, 137 
 
 Vassy, massacre of, 390 
 
 Vates, or Ovates, 2 
 
 Vaucelles and Eome, contradictory treaties of, 
 
 1555, 376 
 Venaissin ceded to the Pope, 1274, 208 
 Vendome, conferences at, 1559, 383 
 Venice in the 15th century, 326 
 „ ally of France, 1509, 336 
 Verceil, treaty of, 1495, 330 
 Verdun besieged and captured, 127 
 Vercingetorix, 13 
 
 „ death of, 16 
 
 „ defeat of, 16 
 
 „ surrender of, 16 
 
 Verneuil, battle of, 1424, 289 
 Vervam, snakes' eggs, medical virtues of, 3 
 Vervins, effect of the treaty of, 439 
 
 „ peace of, 1598, 436 
 "Very Christian king," the, 315 
 Vesc, Seneschal of Beaucaire, 327 
 Vielleville, Marshal of Prance, 380 
 Vincy, battle of, 717, 76 
 Virgin, a letter from the, 183 
 Viscount de B^ziers poisoned, 1209, 175 
 Visible hierarchy of clergy, 48 
 Vitiges, general of the Ostrogoths, 53 
 Vitry, massacre of, 164 
 
 WALDENSES, massacre of, 1546, 366 
 Waratho, 74 
 
 War against the Albigenses, cessation of the, 
 
 1229, 176 
 " War of Investitures," the, 153 
 War of the Lovers, 410 
 Warnacharius, 66 
 
 Wars of the Albigenses, events in the, 1213, 176 
 „ in Brittany, end of, 1365, 253 
 „ in Italy, end of the, 1558, 377 
 „ „ the results, 377 
 
 „ of the Roses, end of the, 1485, 322 
 Warfare, new system of, 1375, 256 
 William the Bastard, 1052, 150 
 William the Conqueror, burial of, 157 
 
 „ „ "churching" of, 156 
 
 „ „ death of, 156 
 
 „ „ sons of, 157 
 
 William Longsword, Duke of Normandy, 120 
 
 „ „ murder of, 121 
 
 William of Orange, death of, 1583, 411 
 William the Silent, 410 
 William Wallace, 2U 
 William IX., count of Poictiers, 199 
 William X., duke of Aquitaine, 162 
 Wissart, bouigeois, 231 
 Wittikind defeated at Detmold, 782, 90 
 
 „ reappearance of, 90 
 
 Wycliffe in England, 341 
 
 ■yiMENES, Cardinal, 348 
 
 ZACHAEIAH, Pope, 85 
 Zara, capital of Dalmatia, seized by the 
 Doge Dandolo, 172 
 Zeriksee, victories of the French at, 1304, 214 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
HISTORY OF FRANCE. .« 
 
 BY 
 
 EMILE DE BONNECHOSE. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE B'EVOLUTION OF 1848. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION, EDITED BY S. O. BEETON, 
 FROM THE THIRTEENTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WARD, LOCK, AND TYLER, 
 
 WARWICK HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1868. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 SAVILL, EDWAEDS AND CO., PBINTEES, CHANDOS STEEET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 THIRD EPOCH— continued. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 REIGN OP LOUIS XIII. — RICHELIEU'S ADMINISTRATION — THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 
 — REIGN OE LOUIS XIV. — MAZARIN's ADMINISTRATION — WAR OP THE PRONDE 
 — GOVERNMENT AND CONQUESTS OF LOUIS XIV. — SPLENDOUR AND POWER OP 
 THE MONARCHY — REVOCATION OP THE EDICT OP NANTES — PRENCH REVERSES 
 — ENORMOUS DEBT — A GREAT LITERARY AGE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. I. THE EEIGN OF LOUIS XIII. TO RICHELIEU'S MINISTRY ... 1 
 
 — II. RICHELIEU'S MINISTRY . . 15 
 
 — III. MINORITY OF LOUIS XIV. — MAZARIN's MINISTRY — WAR OF THE FRONDE 49 
 
 — IV. THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV., FROM THE DEATH OF MAZARIN TO THAT OF 
 
 COLBERT 68 
 
 — V. CONTINUATION AND END OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. . .85 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS XV. TO THE THRONE TO THE 
 CONVOCATION OF THE STATES- GENERAL UNDER LOUIS XVI. 
 
 ENPEEBLEMENT OP ALL THE POWERS — GAMBLING IN GOVERNMENT SECURITIES — 
 GENERAL CORRUPTION OF MORALS — RUINOUS WARS — DESTRUCTION AND RE- 
 ESTABLISHMENT OP THE PARLIAMENTS — DISSOLUTION OP THE MONARCHY — 
 INFLUENCE EXERCISED BY THE PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 CHAP. I. REGENCY OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS AND MINISTRY OF THE DUKE OF 
 
 BOURBON . 114 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAP. II. CONTINUATION OF THE EEIGN OP LOUIS XV., FROM THE COMMENCE- 
 MENT OF THE MINISTRY OF FLEURY TO THAT OF THE SEVEN 
 YEARS' WAR 133 
 
 — III. FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SEVEN YEARS* WAR TO THE DEATH 
 
 OF LOUIS XV. 154 
 
 — IV. FROM THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS XVI. TO THE THRONE TO THE CONVOCA- 
 
 TION OF THE STATES-GENERAL 171 
 
 FOURTH PERIOD. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION FROM 1789 TO THE PRESENT 
 
 TIME. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE STATES-GENERAL — THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY — THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 
 
 — FALL OF THE MONARCHY. 
 
 CHAP. I. FROM THE OPENING OF THE STATES- GENERAL TO THE DISSOLUTION OF 
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 197 
 
 — II. THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 217 
 
 book n. 
 
 THE FKENCH EEPUBLIC TO THE CONSULATE. 
 
 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION — THE REIGN OF TERROR, — VICTORIES OF THE FRENCH 
 ARMIES — CONQUEST OF BELGIUM, HOLLAND, SWITZERLAND, AND ITALY — 
 REACTION OF THE MODERATE AND ROYALIST PARTY — THE DIRECTORIAL 
 GOVERNMENT — ANARCHY — DEFEATS — EXPEDITION TO EGYPT — FALL OF THE 
 DIRECTORY. 
 
 CHAP. I. FROM THE OPENING OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION TO THE FALL OF 
 
 THE GIRONDISTS 229 
 
 — II. FROM THE FALL OF THE GIRONDISTS TO THAT OF ROBESPIERRE. . 245 
 
 — III. FROM THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE 
 
 EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY 261 
 
 — IV. FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DIRECTORY TO THE PEACE OF 
 
 CAMPO-FORMIO 272 
 
 — V. FROM THE PEACE OF CAMPO-FORMIO TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE 
 
 CONSULATE .'•'""'. . • 294 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 
 
 BOOK III. 
 CONSULAR AND IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULATE — COMPAIGNS OP 1800 IN ITALY AND GERMANY 
 — VICTORIES — PEACE OP AMIENS — CONSPIRACIES — ELEVATION OP NAPOLEON 
 BONAPARTE TO THE IMPERIAL CROWN — THIRD AND POURTH COALITION — 
 
 campaigns pp 1805, 1806, 1807, in Austria, Prussia, and Poland- 
 military TRIUMPHS — CONQUESTS — UNFORTUNATE WAR IN SPAIN — FIFTH 
 . COALITION— CAMPAIGN. OP 1809 IN AUSTRIA — FRESH VICTORIES — CONTINENTAL 
 SYSTEM — SIXTH COALITION — WAR IN RUSSIA — DISASTERS — CAMPAIGNS OF 1813 
 AND 1814 IN GERMANY AND FRANCE — NAPOLEON'S ABDICATION — HIS DE- 
 PARTURE FOR THE ISLAND OP ELBA. 
 
 PAGB 
 CHAP. I. CONSULATE 307 
 
 — II. FROM T.HE ACCESSION OF NAPOLEON TO THE THRONE TO THE SEIZURE 
 
 OF SPAIN 334 
 
 — III. FROM THE CONFERENCE AT ERFURT TO NAPOLEON' S ABDICATION OF 
 
 FONTAINEBLEAU 360 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 FIRST PERIOD OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND PARLIAMENTARY 
 
 MONARCHY. 
 
 FIRST RESTORATION — REIGN OF LOUIS XVIII. — GRANT OF THE CHARTER OF 1814 — 
 RETURN OF NAPOLEON — THE HUNDRED DAYS — THE SECOND RESTORATION — 
 CONTINUANCE AND END OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XVIII. — REIGN OF CHARLES X. 
 — REVOLUTION OF JULY — CHARTER OF 1830 — ACCESSION OF LOUIS -PHILIPPE. 
 
 CHAP. I. FIRST RESTORATION — THE HUNDRED DAYS. . . . . .412 
 
 — II. FROM THE CAPITULATION OF PARIS AND THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII. 
 
 TO THE CAPITAL, TO THE FALL OF THE MINISTER DECAZES . . 437 
 
 — III. FROM THE FALL OF THE MINISTER DECAZES TO THE DEATH OF 
 
 LOUIS XVIII. , . . . . 458 
 
 IV. THE REIGN OF CHARLES X. — THE REVOLUTION OF 1830 — ACCESSION 
 
 OF LOUIS-PHILIPPE 482 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 SECOND PERIOD OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND PARLIAMENTARY 
 
 MONARCHY. 
 
 THE REIGN OF LOUIS-PHILIPPE — THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY, 
 1848 — THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY. 
 
 CHAP. I. FROM THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS-PHILIPPE TO THE DEATH OF 
 
 CASIMIR PURLER 511 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 chap. ii. the compte- rendu — conflicts op the 5th and 6th june — civil 
 war — the ministry from the llth october to the general 
 elections op 1834 530 
 
 iii. ministerial crisis — reconstruction of the cabinet of the llth 
 
 october — the laws of september — dissolution of the cabinet 544 
 
 iv. first ministry of m. thiers — ministry of m. molf till the 
 
 coalition 554 
 
 — v. the coalition — ministry of the third party — second ministry 
 
 op m. thiers 568 
 
 — vi. the ministry op the 29th october till the general elections 
 
 op 1846 582 
 
 vii. the general election — the spanish marriages— the position 
 
 of affairs at home and abroad — preludes to the revolu- 
 tion of february 594 
 
 — viii. legislative session of 1848 — revolution of february . . 608 
 
 — ix. remarks on the constitutional and parliamentary monarchy 
 
 IN PRANCE PROM 1814 TO 1'848 619 
 
HISTOKY OF FKANCE. 
 
 [Continuation of the Third Epoch?) 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Reign of Louis XIII. — Richelieu's Administration. — The Thirty Years' 
 
 War. — Reign of Louis XIY. — Mazarin's Administration. — War 
 
 of the Fronde. — Government and Conquests of Louis XIV. — 
 
 Splendour and Power of the Monarchy. — Revocation of the 
 
 Edict of Nantes. — French Reverses. — EnorxMOus Debt. — A great 
 
 Literary Age. 
 
 1610-1715. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIII. TO RICHELIEU'S MINISTRY. 
 
 1610-1624. 
 
 Henry IV. left his kingdom in a nourishing state — treasure amounting 
 
 to fifteen millions, large bodies of well-disciplined troops, 
 
 strong places abundantly supplied with the materials of war, France at the 
 
 secession of 
 
 firm alliances with other kingdoms, and a well-composed Louis xin., 
 
 lolO. 
 
 council of state. After his death, the feebleness of the 
 Government, the quarrels of the princes, and the jealous ambition and 
 caprices of the Queen- mother, had speedily scattered all these elements of 
 prosperity. The great nobles had acquired during the intestine dissen- 
 
 VOL. II. ' B 
 
2 BEGENCY OF MAEIE DE MEDICI. [BoOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 sions habits of independence and sovereignty, levied on their own account 
 troops and imposts in the provinces and cities which they governed, and 
 subsidized a certain number of gentlemen, who were always ready to 
 support them, sword in hand, against the royal authority. The greater 
 number of the nobility had lost during the wars of religion their former 
 inviolable respect for the person of the Prince, and even any conscious- 
 ness of their duties towards him. There had thus been formed a powerful 
 class of men which did not constitute — as has been too often asserted — a 
 new feudalism, since it possessed no power which did not emanate from the 
 Crown, and which was not revocable at will, but which arose from the cir- 
 cumstance, that those who possessed the more important posts, and whom 
 Henry IV. had known how to keep in check, had, since his death, abused 
 their trust. Patriotism had died out ; every thought, every effort of the 
 princes and great nobles was directed towards their own aggrandisement ; 
 and no other age could present more shameful examples of unbridled 
 ambition and insatiable cupidity amongst the first persons of the State. 
 In spite of so many elements of ruin and anarchy, no shock was felt at 
 the first announcement of a change in the monarchy. Marie 
 
 Marie de Me- ... . . ° ... 
 
 <iici, Regent, de Medici, an imperious, violent, and vindictive woman, 
 at once claimed the right to assume the regency of the 
 kingdom. There was no law, however, by which she could legally claim 
 this office, and none which defined its attributes. The monarchy had no 
 fundamental constitution, and it was from this fact that arose the nume- 
 rous plagues which afflicted France on each occurrence of a minority. 
 On the other hand, none of the members of the Bourbon family were in 
 a position to dispute her authority. Conde, the first prince of the blood, 
 was abroad ; the Prince of Conti was infirm and imbecile ; the Count de 
 Soissons lived at a distance from the Court. The Duke d'Epernon, 
 colonel-general of infantry, had the hall in which the Parliament, ex- 
 ceptionally convoked, was already debating, surrounded with troops ; and, 
 three hours after the death of the King, his widow was declared to be the 
 Eegent. On the following day, at a bed of justice, presided over by the 
 infant King, that assembly pronounced its decision. 
 
 Marie de Medici at first followed the advice of Villeroi, who had been 
 Minister during the four last monarchies, and retained the council of the 
 late King ; although she, at the same time, weakened it by admitting into 
 it many ambitious pretenders. 
 
1610-1624.] TAKING OF JTJLIEKS. 3 
 
 The question of war or peace was the first which had to be decided. 
 Sully wished to persist m the path followed by Henry IV., and to 
 maintain to the death the war with the House of Austria; but his 
 advice was only followed in part. The Duke of Savoy was abandoned 
 to the resentment of Spain, although he had compromised himself on behalf 
 of France ; and he was compelled to sue for pardon to Philip III. In 
 Germany, operations were confined to the prosecution of the siege of 
 Juliers, a city which had been seized by the Archduke Leopold, and 
 which capitulated to Marshal de la Chatre and Maurice, TakinJ . of j lier 
 Prince of Orange, who placed it in the hands of the two 161 °* 
 principal competitors for its possession, the Elector of Brandenburg and 
 the Count Palatine of Neubourg, the brother-in-law of the last Duke of 
 Cleves and Juliers. This campaign had no other results; and the 
 Eegent hastened to abandon the policy of Henry IV. ; the deplorable 
 state into which France had fallen in the space of a few months offering, 
 it may be added, serious obstacles to the accomplishment of those vast 
 projects which can only be successfully pursued when a nation is calm 
 and prosperous in itself. 
 
 Conde had re-entered France, and, as the price of his adhesion to the 
 regency of Marie/de Medici, had demanded immense pecuniary compen- 
 sation. All the courtiers, following his example, had claimed gold or 
 honours, and Medici believed that, to secure the peaceful possession of 
 the regency, it was only necessary to enrich her friends and her enemies. 
 Possessed by this unfortunate idea, she converted into gifts and pensions 
 the treasure left by the late King, and when it was exhausted, found her- 
 self deprived of the means of defence against those whose cupidity or 
 ambition she had excited without possessing the means of satisfying them. 
 Never had the highest members of the aristocracy displayed Exactions f th 
 so greedy a desire for wealth ; and in fact the whole of France nobles - 
 appeared to be delivered over to the mercy of a number of plunderers 
 whose numbers insured them immunity. The nobles demanded tolls on 
 roads which were free, and taxes in cities which were exempt from them. 
 They created offices, patents of nobility, and privileges of all sorts for 
 money, and secretly increased the amount of every species of duty and 
 excise. 
 
 Sully left a council which connived at these proceedings, and was 
 forced to resign the superintendence of the finances and the government 
 
 B 2 
 
4 RISE OE CONCINI. [Book III. Chap. I. 
 
 of the Bastille, although he still remained grand-voyer of France, and 
 Eetfrementof grand-maitrise of artillery, and retained the governorships 
 u y ' of Poitou and La Eochelle. From this time he seldom 
 
 visited the Court, remaining in retreat at his estates, where he lived 
 respected until the age of eighty-two.* 
 
 The Guises and the Condes, the Bouillons and the Epernons, therefore, 
 remained the sole masters of the kingdom, and vied with each other in 
 Elevation of cupidity, egotism, and violence. But in the midst of these 
 disorders Marie de Medici had raised her favourite Concini 
 to the highest pinnacle of honour and fortune. He was a Marshal of 
 France although he had never borne arms, was first gentleman of the 
 chamber, Governor of Amiens, Peronne, and many other places ; had pur- 
 chased the marquisate of Ancre, of which he bore the title, and directed 
 the Queen's counsels as he chose. 
 
 This shameful prosperity excited the envy of the great nobles rather 
 than their indignation ; and at this time the court consisted of three 
 parties ; those of the Conde, of Guise, and of Concini, which were by 
 turns united or divided, according to the interests or caprices of their 
 leaders. Money edicts were commonly speculated on ; Signora Galigai, 
 the wife of Concini, openly sold the decrees of the Council ; those of the 
 Parliament had long since fallen into contempt, and crimes remained 
 generally unpunished. In the open day, in the street Saint Honore, the 
 Chevalier Guise assassinated the Baron de Luz, suspected of having be- 
 trayed the House of Lorraine ; and the son of the victim, having attempted 
 to avenge his father's death, perished by the same hand, without a single 
 voice being raised against the double crime. 
 
 A revolt burst forth at length, but it was not the excess of the public 
 -.„. e misfortunes which lit its flame. At the commencement of 
 
 Rebellion 01 
 
 Conde, 1614. 1614) tlie p rince p f Conde, the Dukes of Nevers, Mayenne, 
 Bouillon, and Longueville, being leagued against Concini, seized Mezieres 
 in the Ardennes, and raised the standard of insurrection. Conde was at 
 the head of the movement, and published a manifesto which exposed in 
 
 * Having been summoned on a certain occasion by Louis XV. to an audience, he 
 perceived that bis old-fashioned costume excited the ridicule of the young courtiers. 
 "Sire," said he to the King, "I am too old to change my habits. When the late 
 King, your father, of glorious memory, did me the honour to summon me to an 
 audience on affairs of State, he used first to dismiss the buffoons and mounte- 
 banks." 
 
1610-1624.] THE PALTET PEACE. 5 
 
 bitter terms the ill administration of the Queen. It reproached it with 
 having broken off the projected union between the young King and the 
 House of Savoy, for the purpose of concluding two unpopular alliances 
 with the House of Austria, in allusion to the project of a double alliance, 
 on the one part between the Infanta of Spain and Louis XIII., and on the 
 other part between the Princess Elizabeth of France and the Prince of 
 the Asturias ; reproached it with having failed to observe the Edict of 
 Nantes ; with having overwhelmed the poor with taxes ; and openly 
 attacked the insolent foreigners in whose hands was the government of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 This movement, made by grandees in the name of the popular interests, 
 attracted, however, but little popular sympathy. The mass of the 
 people and the Protestants, enlightened by Duplessis-Mornay, perceived 
 beneath this mask the real passions and aims of ambitious and discon- 
 tented men, and remained deaf to the appeal. Villeroi advised the Queen 
 to make an immediate attack on the Confederates, and his advice was 
 good ; but Concini preferred to deliberate. The opinion of Malotrue p eace 
 the latter was followed, and the treaty of Sainte-Menehould, 161 ' 
 surnamed the " Malotrue Peace" (Paltry Peace), was concluded in 1614. 
 By this treaty the Queen increased the dignities and pensions of the rebel 
 lords, and promised a prompt assembly of the States-General. 
 
 Louis XIII. was now in his fourteenth year, and was recognised as of 
 age, but it was long after this ere he was anything save King in 
 name; and at the bed of justice at which his majesty was proclaimed, the 
 young Louis said to his mother — " I consent and wish that you should be 
 obeyed in everything and everywhere, and that, after me, you should be 
 the head of my council." Marie de Medici still, therefore, retained her 
 power ; and for the purpose of executing the treaty of Sainte-Menehould, 
 she convoked the States-General for the 26th October of that year. 
 These States were the last which assembled before those ot 1789. On 
 this occasion it consisted of nearly five hundred deputies of sta{es . General 
 the three orders. The Queen and her Ministers endea- 1614# 
 voured to paralyse their influence by setting them against each other, and 
 in this they were successful. Each order urged its own claims. The 
 clergy, in whose ranks figured an orator already distinguished, and soon 
 to become celebrated — Armand du Plessis, Bishop of Lucon — demanded 
 that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be recognised in France 
 
6 PEOCEEDINGS OE THE STATES-GENERAL. [BOOK III. CHAP. L. 
 
 in their entirety ; the nobility asked for the abolition of the Droit de 
 paulette ;* and the Third Estate desired the suppression or diminution of 
 the pensions which weighed so heavily on the Treasury. The latter 
 order found itself cruelly humiliated by the two others. It was little that, 
 according to custom, the sheriff of the merchants, Miron, who was its 
 president, was only allowed to address the President on his knees ; he was 
 reproached for having compared the three orders of the Assembly to a 
 great family, of which the nobility and clergy were the elder branches,, 
 and the Third Estate the younger. The Queen herself treated the 
 deputies of this order with rudeness and arrogance, although they were 
 the most zealous defenders of the royal prerogatives ; not only demanding- 
 that it should be established as a principle that sovereigns should not be 
 deposed on account of heresy, but 'even expressing a wish that the Crown 
 should be rendered, by a formal law, independent of the spiritual power. 
 The clergy, by the mouth of Cardinal Duperron, formerly Minister to 
 Henry IV., energetically combated those propositions, and the Assembly 
 evaded coming to any decision on the subject. 
 
 The Assembly was dissolved in the course of the following year without 
 having achieved any important result ; and the deputies were dismissed 
 with a vague promise that the Government would examine their 
 memorials and take into consideration their demands. The memorials of 
 Memorials of ^ ie Third Estate contained the elements of a portion of the 
 the Third Estate. re f orms accomplished, at the close of the following century, 
 by a more celebrated Assembly. These were, an uniform system of 
 customs and weights and measures, the abolition of masterships and 
 warderships, the suppression of farmers-general of the finances and of 
 exceptional tribunals, and the diminution of the excise duties, and of aids. 
 But, of all these wise and legitimate demands, not one was granted. 
 
 The States- General were unable to pacify the kingdom, in which every 
 kind of abuse remained unchecked ; and the first ebullition of discontent 
 arose in the bosom of the Parliament itself, secretly encouraged by the 
 princes who had signed the Malotrue peace. This great judicial body, of 
 
 * According to this privilege or custom, the financial and judicial offices we re- 
 hereditary on condition of the payment of an annual tax, amounting to the sixtieth 
 part of the price at which they had been purchased. The nobility were jealous of the- 
 hereditary nature of these offices, because they were in the hands of members of the 
 Third Estate. The paulette received its name from Charles Paulet, by whom it was 
 introduced. 
 
1610-1624] BENEWED CIVIL TKOTJBLES. t 
 
 which many of the members were deputies of the Third Estate, eagerly- 
 laid hold of an opportunity of avenging the humiliations to which that 
 order had been exposed, and of increasing its own importance, and 
 invited, by a formal decree, princes, dukes, peers, and all in fact who 
 had a right to do so, to assist them in deliberating on the state of public 
 affairs. As many of the Queen's personal enemies were contained in this 
 class, she saw in this hitherto unheard-of step a direct attack against 
 her person and authority, and prohibited the proposed as- 
 
 rr . 1 —. . , . t t n i T7- • Celebrated re- 
 
 sembly. The Parliament immediately addressed to the King monstrances of 
 
 J . , . Parliament, 1615. 
 
 energetic remonstrances, which were read to him in the 
 presence of his mother and his Ministers. It represented that it held the 
 place of the Council of the great Barons of France, and that, by virtue of 
 this, it had always taken a part in the conduct of public affairs. It 
 entreated the King to follow, in domestic as well as in foreign affairs, the 
 policy of his father ; to provide that the sovereignty should be guaranteed 
 against Ultramontane doctrines ; and that the Government should not be 
 influenced by foreign counsels. It censured the Queen's policy, the prodi- 
 galities of the Court, the obstacles thrown in the way of the due execution 
 of justice by both the Court and nobles, and the insatiable avarice of the 
 Eoyal officers and Ministers. It demanded that all abuses should be 
 redressed, that no edict should be carried into execution without previous 
 registration and verification by the Sovereign Courts, and that the 
 Parliament should be at liberty to convoke the peers and princes 
 whenever it should think proper. It further demanded the King's 
 authority to name to him the authors of the existing disorders, and 
 to expose their shameful malversations. These famous remonstrances, 
 excited the anger and indignation of the Queen, the Ministers, and 
 the courtiers ; and on the following day there appeared a decree of the 
 Council by which they were suppressed. The Parliament resisted ; but, 
 having received Royal letters of command, was compelled to give way, 
 and left its decree of convocation unexecuted, without, however, 
 revoking it. 
 
 The discontented party, and Conde especially, offered an energetic 
 opposition to the marriage of Louis XIII. with the Infanta. -p resh . .j 
 They recapitulated the evils with which France had been troubles » 1615 « 
 overwhelmed by Spain, and urged the necessity of crushing the House 
 of Austria rather than adding to its strength. The Queen treated these 
 
8 MAEEIAGE OF LOUIS XIII. [BOOK III. CffAP. I. 
 
 representations with contempt, and the marriage was resolved on. Conde 
 immediately withdrew to Clermont in Beauvoisis, Bouillon to his princi- 
 pality of Sedan, Mayenne to Soissons, Longueville to Picardy. They no 
 longer hoped for success save by force of arms, and prepared for the 
 conflict. The Protestants, excited to action by the Duke de Rohan, 
 ranged themselves on their side, and began to levy troops. The prin- 
 cipal Ministers of the King were at that time the aged Villeroi, the 
 President Jeannin, and the Chancellor de Sillery. They treated the above- 
 mentioned hostile demonstrations with indifference, and hastened the con- 
 clusion of the marriage. Louis XIII. went to meet the Infanta as far as 
 Bordeaux, and his progress was at once festive and warlike. Bois- 
 Dauphin, Marshal de Laval, protected it by an army, which followed 
 that of the insurgent nobles and Calvinists, commanded by Bouillon 
 under the orders of Conde. The people took no part in the war, and the 
 armies never came into actual collision. The Duke of Guise conducted to 
 Spain the Princess Elizabeth, the King's sister, intended for the Infant, 
 and brought back with him the future spouse of Louis XIII., celebrated 
 _. . _ under the name of Anne of Austria. This marriage was 
 
 Marriage of ° 
 
 L °th Anne^of n0 ^ a fo^unate one, and the two spouses, who speedily 
 Austria, 16: 5. acquired a dislike for each other, lived almost entirely 
 apart. Medici, immediately after the marriage of her son, entered into 
 negotiations with the young King's enemies, and signed the treaty of 
 Treaty of Lou- Loudun, the terms of which were entirely to their advan- 
 un, 1616. tage. The Prince and his adherents were declared innocent 
 
 and good servants of the King ; considerable sums of money were be- 
 stowed on them ; and a certain measure of satisfaction was accorded to 
 the Calvinists and the Parliament. The article of this treaty which was 
 most grievous to the Queen-Mother was that by which the King engaged 
 himself to give no offices or dignities to strangers. 
 
 The old Ministers, whom the Court nicknamed the dotards, were 
 immediately dismissed. Du Plessis,* Bishop of Lucon, entered the new 
 Council, which was under the chief direction of Conde, who speedily 
 became all powerful, and made his power felt by Medici and her 
 favourites, and especially so by Marshal d'Ancre. 
 
 * Du Plessis entered the Council as Secretary of State for "War and Foreign Affairs. 
 He had for some time been the Queen's Almoner. He became a cardinal in 1022, and 
 from that time bore the name of Kichelieu. 
 
1610-1624] AEEEST OF CONDE. 9 
 
 The partisans of the prince believed they were at liberty to do 
 what they pleased, and the Duke de Longueville pushed his insolence 
 so far as even to seize upon Peronne, of which Concini was governor. 
 The Queen sent troops to retake it, and Longueville defended it against 
 her. Marie de Medici then perceived that Conde" intended to deprive her of 
 any influence in the Government, or with the King. Conde, as well as 
 the chiefs of his faction, Vendome, Bouillon, and Mayenne, were conscious 
 of the peril they ran, and resolved to present themselves no more at 
 the Louvre, where the Prince was arrested in the name of the Arrest of Conde, 
 King, on the 1st September, as he was entering the council 
 chamber. Orders had been given to seize his partisans, but they escaped 
 and flew to arms. 
 
 The King held a bed of Justice at the Parliament, where he ex- 
 plained the reasons for his cousin's arrest, alleging his criminal hopes, 
 so incompatible with the duty of a subject ; the pretensions of his par- 
 tisans, so subversive of the Royal authority; and their audacious rallying 
 cry of Down with the har* which intimated that the throne was the object 
 of the Prince's ambition. The Parliament made no observations. Conde 
 was shut up in the Bastille, and the Queen sent into the field three armies 
 against the insurgents, who had fled to Soissons. Concini reappeared at 
 the court more powerful than ever, inflated with the most unbounded 
 pride, and so rich that he was able to maintain an army of five or six 
 thousand men at his own expense. 
 
 The young King, however, whose wishes he frequently thwarted, bore 
 the tyranny of the Marshal as impatiently as that of the Prince, and re- 
 solved at length to release himself from his state of pupilage. He might 
 have achieved this purpose by legal methods, but his dark, vindictive 
 spirit preferred assassination. On Monday, April 26th, as the Marshal 
 was entering the Louvre, to attend the council, Vitry, the captain of the 
 guards, stopped him, and demanded his sword. Concini made M , fC 
 a movement, but immediately fell, pierced by three balls, cml » 1617# 
 and expired on the spot. The crowd of his flatterers disappeared, and 
 Louis XIII. showed himself at a window of his palace, as though to take 
 openly upon himself the responsibility of the murder. The courtiers ex- 
 
 * The arms of Conde were only distinguished from those of the King by a bar, and 
 to ask for the removal of this bar was almost to demand that the Prince should be 
 King. 
 
10 THE NEW EAVOURITE. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 pressed their delight with acclamations, and hastened to offer the King 
 their congratulations. From that moment he believed himself to be a 
 monarch in reality, and having disarmed his mother's guards, he had 
 the door which gave access from his mother's apartments to his own 
 fastened up. 
 
 The people detested Concini as a foreigner, and an insolent upstart, 
 and accused him of being the author of all their misfortunes. Their 
 fury on the occasion arose to the highest pitch ; they tore the Marshal's 
 remains into fragments, put the gory morsels up to auction and devoured 
 them. He was further pursued with hostility in the persons of his rela- 
 tives. Signora Galigai, his widow, was dragged before the Parliament, 
 and, in the absence of any other great crime, was accused of practising 
 magic, and condemned as a sorceress. The judgment pronounced against 
 her declared that she should have her head cut off, and that her remains 
 should be consumed by fire. She bore her execution with fortitude. 
 The Marshal's house was rased to the ground, his immense property 
 confiscated, and, by the sentence of the Parliament, his son was declared 
 degraded from the rank ol nobility, and incapable of holding any office 
 or dignity in the kingdom. 
 
 When informed of the great catastrophe, the insurgents, who had fled 
 to Soissons, laid down their arms and gave themselves up to the King 
 without making any terms, imputing to the Italian Tyrant all the troubles 
 and misfortunes of France. The late Ministers, Villeroi, Sillery, Jeannin, 
 and Duvair, returned with them. The Queen-mother was exiled from 
 the Court, and selected Blois as her place of residence. The able Du 
 Plessis, who had been Minister under Concini, demanded permission to 
 follow her, apparently, the devoted servant of a protectress, of whom, 
 at a later period, he was the most implacable enemy. 
 
 He who had the greatest share in this revolution, and who profited 
 by it the most, was the young Charles d'Albert de Luynes, the com- 
 panion of the King's pleasures, who had risen rapidly in the Royal 
 favour. He was created a duke, overwhelmed with honours and riches, 
 and became the possessor of all the possessions, and all the power of the 
 late Marshal. 
 
 Conde, in the depths of his prison, and the Queen, in the place of her 
 exile, continued to brew plots, and instigate their partisans ; but the Duke 
 de Luynes neutralized their influence by setting them one against the other. 
 
1610-1624.] A NEW CONSPIEACY. 11 
 
 Now he menaced Conde with the recal of the Queen to Court, and now 
 he threatened the Queen that Conde should be set at liberty. 
 
 A skilfully-contrived conspiracy speedily changed the whole aspect of 
 affairs. An Italian, named Euccelai, a man of pleasure, resolved to 
 assist the Queen, and to rescue her from the chateau of Blois, where she 
 was kept in confinement, and he succeeded in persuading the Duke 
 d'Epernon to join him in the enterprise. The Duke d'Epernon, the 
 possessor of an immense fortune, Governor of Metz and several 
 provinces, colonel-general of infantry, and always discontented, was 
 better fitted than any other to assist in such a project, and to place 
 the Queen in a position in which she might defy her enemies. He set 
 out from Metz one morning at the head of a hundred well-mounted 
 cavaliers, after having asked of the King permission to proceed to his 
 governments of Saint onge and Angouleme. In his rapid and secret 
 progress he met with no hindrance ; and when the Queen was informed 
 that D'Epernon was at hand, she escaped from one of the windows of the 
 chateau by means of a rope-ladder, entered a carriage, and, escorted by 
 Euccelai and fifteen gentlemen, at Loches met the Duke d'Epernon, who 
 conducted her to Angouleme. When, at length, the Court received 
 information of the Queen's escape, Luynes was for immediately pursuing 
 her with an armed force ; but the King preferred to temporize, and an 
 able peace-maker presented himself in the person of Du Plessis, who, 
 after having secretly obtained the King's consent, persuaded the Queen to 
 confide in him by the aid of the jealous D'Epernon himself, and a peace 
 was in due course arranged by his exertions. The Queen obtained the 
 government of Anjou, with regal rights, and three towns which were 
 given her as places of safety. 
 
 France was desolated by ever fresh troubles, and to remedy them the 
 iron hand was necessary, which at a later period bore down so heavily 
 upon its turbulent and corrupt aristocracy ; but the hour of Du Plessis 
 had not yet sounded, and De Luynes, more a courtier than a statesman or 
 soldier, was not equal to the work required. The disturbance had 
 scarcely subsided before it again arose ; the partisans of the Queen, or 
 rather the enemies of the favourite, seized a number of places, and were 
 speedily in possession of half the kingdom. A final conflict appeared 
 imminent, and Mayenne and D'Epernon, fearing a surprise at Angers, 
 were prudently anxious to convey the Queen to Guienne, where they 
 
12 WAE AGAINST THE HUGUENOTS. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 would be able to oppose a rampart of small fortresses to the progress of 
 the Royal army. But Du Plessis, who was secretly in the King's interest, 
 resisted this measure, and the Queen remained at Angers. 
 
 Louis XIII. set out at the head of his army, and having first reduced 
 Normandy, arrived before Angers with all his forces. An engage- 
 ment took place at Pont-de-Ce between his troops and those of the Queen, 
 in which the latter were immediately routed. Peace was now concluded 
 by the King's Ministers and Du Plessis ; and a reconciliation took place 
 between Marie de Medici and her son, which appeared to be cordial and 
 sincere. The Queen returned to Paris, and Du Plessis received the 
 promise of a cardinal's hat in return for his double treason ; whilst a 
 great number of the inferior leaders paid for their rebellion with their 
 heads. The King led his army into Beam,* where the revolt had found 
 a certain number of partisans, and having re-established in this province, 
 by a solemn decree, the Catholic religion, which had been abolished by 
 Jeanne d'Albret, he restored to the clergy all their possessions. Finally, 
 he bestowed a Parliament on Pau, with all the attributes of the other 
 sovereign courts of the kingdom. He then returned to Paris, where he 
 was received in triumph. 
 
 The reformed party in the kingdom became more and more disquieted 
 by the manifest Catholic tendency of the Government. At a meeting 
 held by them at Loudun in 1619, they had taken up the cause of their 
 threatened brethren in Beam. Their remonstrances were in vain, and 
 two years later, at the General Assembly of La Rochelle, they distributed 
 their seven hundred churches in eight circles, and drew up a species of 
 constitution, in forty-seven articles, which regulated, under the King's 
 authority, the levy of the taxes and the discipline of the troops, and which 
 was, in fact, the creation of a distinct government in the bosom of the State. 
 Louis XIII. marched against them, and subdued Saintonge and Poitou. 
 Rochelle was invested, and Montauban, defended by the Marquis de la 
 War aeainst the Force, resisted a siege which cost the Catholics the useless 
 Huguenots, 1621. logs f eight thousand men and the Duke of Mayenne, the 
 son of the famous chief of the League. 
 
 There was a universal outcry in France against the Duke de Luynes, 
 to whom was attributed the blame of this reverse. In the course of this 
 
 * Beam had formed part of the hereditary domains of Henry IV., but was not 
 really one of the Royal possessions till 1630. 
 
1610-1624.] DEATH OF DE LT7YNES. 13 
 
 expedition the favourite had still further aggrandised his position, and had 
 added to his numerous offices those of constable and keeper of the seals. 
 He knew that if he would retain his influence with the King 
 
 i i i • -i-iTi i i • Death of the 
 
 he must be everything; but he did not long enjoy his new Constable De 
 
 . Luynes, 1621. 
 
 dignities, for a fever carried him off in four days. 
 
 The Protestant Lesdiguieres, commander-in-chief of the Royal army, 
 became a convert to Catholicism, and was created Constable. His con- 
 version was the signal for numerous defections in the Protestant party. 
 The Marquis de la Force and the Count de Chatillon, 
 Coligny's grandson, surrendered, the one Montauban and the several Pro- 
 
 _ . lir . _. . iii testant chiefs. 
 
 other Aigues-Mortes, m return for large sums and marshals 
 batons. Rohan, however, remained incorruptible and desired peace. It was 
 signed at Montpelier, despite Conde, through the influence of Medici, who 
 was jealous of a prince whose power diminished when affairs were tranquil, 
 and increased in the time of national troubles. The Edict of Nantes was 
 confirmed ; the King at the same time allowing the Protestants to assemble 
 for the purposes of their worship, but prohibiting them to meet for political 
 objects. Du Plessis, after the peace of Montpelier, obtained p eaC eofMont- 
 the cardinal's hat, and thenceforth became known under the peher > 1622> 
 celebrated name of Cardinal Richelieu, and was soon after made a 
 member of the council by the Marquis de la Vieuville. La Vieuville 
 inherited a portion of the favour enjoyed by the Duke de Luynes ; per- 
 formed the functions of Prime Minister without possessing the name, and 
 maintained his credit by flattering the King's tastes and cherishing his 
 dislike for his mother and jealousy of Gaston his brother. He was guilty 
 of a great crime towards the latter, with the complicity of the King, by 
 depriving him of an excellent governor he had, and whom he replaced by 
 the Count de Lude, a man of pleasure, extraordinarily fitted to corrupt 
 the mind and heart of his pupil. But this infamous action turned out to 
 the profit neither of the King nor his minister. La Vieuville soon re- 
 pented of having opened the council chamber to Richelieu, who obtained 
 a great influence over the young King's mind by pointing out to him the 
 vices of his Government, the immense resources of France, and the secret 
 of its strength. La Vieuville was disgraced, and shut up in the chateau 
 of Amboise. Richelieu became all-powerful, and possessed the great art 
 of rendering himself indispensable to the King, although the latter by no 
 means liked him. Louis XIII. hated any manifestation of a spirit of 
 
14 EICHELTETj'S E1SE. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 liberty amongst his subjects; refused to admit that they possessed any 
 rights independent of his will ; and was inspired, in fact, with a passion 
 for arbitrary power, whilst nature had only rendered him capable of obey- 
 ing. He found in Eichelieu the strength of mind in which he was defi- 
 cient, and believed that, with his aid, he was an absolute monarch, whilst 
 in reality he was a slave all his life. 
 
1624-1643.] FIBST STEP IN FRENCH DIPLOMACY. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Richelieu's ministry. 
 
 1624-1643. 
 
 The great evils which oppressed the kingdom were, the moral weakness 
 
 of the King ; the ambition of the members of the Royal 
 
 family, who were all clamorous for a share in the Govern- kingdom before 
 
 . _ .. . . the Ministry of 
 
 ment ; the pride and avarice oi the great nobles, who were De Richelieu, 
 
 . . 1624. 
 
 accustomed to sell their services and obedience, and who 
 were certain to increase their power and fortunes if they could render 
 themselves indispensable to some powerful prince formidable to the 
 monarch. Under these circumstances the forces of France were incessantly 
 divided, the government uncertain, the treasury pillaged, and the kingdom 
 a prey to anarchy. The Spaniards, assisted by Queen Anne, always 
 a foreigner at heart, took advantage of these calamities to obtain the chief 
 influence in the council, and their powerful political influence held the 
 Protestant party in a constant state of alarm, although unable to crush it. 
 The result was that the latter became accustomed to regard itself as a 
 people distinct from the bulk of the nation, and that France contained one 
 element of danger the more. Many strong places were" in the hands of 
 the Calvinists, and the success of the United Provinces had inspired them 
 with the chimerical desire of forming themselves into a Republic, of which 
 Rochelie should be the bulwark and capital. 
 
 All became changed in France as soon as Richelieu seized with a firm 
 hand the direction of affairs. The resolutions of the council, which the 
 Spaniards had hitherto always known, were now kept secret. The am- 
 bassadors were instructed to speak and act with boldness. The ambas- 
 sadors from Rome having pointed out to the Cardinal the various steps 
 which he should take in his negotiations with that Court, Richelieu replied, 
 " The King is not willing to be trifled with ; you will tell the Pope 
 that an army will be sent into the Valteline." This was the first step in 
 the new path of French diplomacy. 
 
16 SECOND WAB AGAINST THE HUGUENOTS. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 The Valteline, a valley of the Tyrolean Alps, serves as a passage between 
 France, Germany, and Italy. The two branches of the House of Austria 
 well understood the strategic importance of this pass as a means of com- 
 munication between their States in the north and the south, the Tyrol and 
 the Milanese territory. The people of this valley, who were Catholics, had, 
 therefore, been incited to revolt against the Protestant canton of the Grisons, 
 to which they belonged ; and the Count de Fuentes, the Spanish Governor 
 of Milan, who had so long been in desperate antagonism with Henry IV. 
 and France, had raised forts so as to command the passage of this valley, 
 and the Pope, in accordance with an agreement with Spam, kept a body 
 of troops there to defend it. Without interfering openly, as yet, in the 
 celebrated struggle known as the Thirty Years' War, which already shook 
 Germany to its centre, France observed with dissatisfaction the successive 
 encroachments of her old enemy, the House of Austria. The Marquis de 
 Coeuvres, in pursuance of orders from Eichelieu, arrived suddenly in the 
 Valteline with a body of troops, repulsed those of the pontiff, and rapidly 
 took possession of the forts and all the strong places. The Pope's nuncio 
 burst into loud remonstrances against the support which had been afforded 
 to the Protestant Grisons. " You will find it difficult," he said, " to defend 
 the course you have taken in the council." — " Not at all," replied the Car- 
 dinal ; " when I was created Minister, the Pope authorized me to say and 
 to do, with a safe conscience, anything that might be useful to the State." 
 — " But," replied the nuncio, " suppose it be a case of assisting heretics ?" 
 — " I believe," rejoined Eichelieu, "that the Pope's authorization extends 
 even to a case of that kind." 
 
 The Spaniards avenged themselves by promising their support to the 
 Calvinists, who complained that the conditions of the peace of Montpelier 
 had been ill observed; and that new forts had been erected around 
 Eochelie. On this occasion they were the aggressors. Soubise, with a 
 _ fleet, made a descent upon and seized the Isle of Ehe, and 
 
 Second war ot ' r 7 
 
 Louis xiii. Eohan raised a revolt in Languedoc. Eichelieu sent against 
 
 against the ° ° 
 
 Huguenots, 1625. them D'Epernon, Themines, and Montmorency. The latter 
 dispersed their fleet, Toiras wrested from them the Isle of Ehe, which was 
 the defence of the port of Eochelie, and the Minister granted a fresh peace 
 to the vanquished. Public clamour reproached him for not having 
 taken this opportunity to crush once for all the Calvinist party, which 
 seemed now to be completely broken, and he was spoken of as the Cardinal 
 
1624-1613.] LEAGUE AGAINST EICHELIEU. 17 
 
 of Eochelle, or the Protestant Pope. " I shall have," said Richelieu, on 
 this occasion, " to scandalize the world once more first ;" by which words 
 he alluded to the marriage which he concluded between Madame, the 
 King's sister, and the Protestant heir of the throne of England, so unfor- 
 tunately famous under the name of Charles I. 
 
 The Valteline war was terminated by the treaty of Moncon, in 
 Aragon, by which the Valteline was restored to the Grisons. Treaty of Mon- 
 Richelieu hastened to put an end to it, that he might be 9 ° n ' * 
 the better able to face the storm which was brewing against himself and 
 the Court in the interior of the kingdom. The two queens, Marie de 
 Medici and Anne of Austria, were in the highest degree 
 
 Powerful league 
 
 jealous of his influence over the King, and condemned his against Kiche- 
 
 lieu,1626. 
 
 policy of hostility towards the Pope and Spain. Gaston, 
 the King's brother, hated Richelieu because he had refused him any 
 place or authority in the council; and the courtiers, from whom 
 Richelieu withheld any access to the public treasury, overwhelmed him 
 with insults and accusations. It was against this formidable league that 
 the Cardinal now had to contend. It was his policy to heap favours and 
 honours on the nobles of high birth and distinguished merit ; but as soon 
 as they displayed any hostility towards him they found no mercy at his 
 hands. The accomplices in the conspiracy, known by the name of its 
 principal concocter, the young and imprudent Chalais, speedily ex- 
 perienced the truth of this fact. As a passionate admirer of the Duchess 
 of Chevreuse, one of the Cardinal's enemies, Chalais was the Con9p ,- racy of 
 soul of this conspiracy, in which even the King's brother Cbalals * 
 took part at the instigation of his governor, Ornano. The latter had, 
 nevertheless, been loaded with honours by Richelieu, who, for the purpose 
 of securing some influence with the heir-presumptive to the crown, had 
 bestowed upon Colonel Ornano a marshal's baton. With Gaston 
 and Chalais were joined the Duke of Vendome, governor of Brittany, 
 the grand-prior of Vendome, his brother, both natural sons of 
 Henry IV., the Queen Anne, of Austria, herself, and a multitude of 
 inferior accomplices, amongst whom were the Abbe Scaglia, ambassador 
 from Savoy, and an English agent, the creature of the frivolous Duke of 
 Buckingham. This duke, the favourite of James I. and of Charles his 
 son, had been sent into France to espouse Henrietta, the King's sister, in 
 the name of Charles I., who had succeeded his father. He displayed 
 vol. ii. • C 
 
18 ANNE OF AUSTRIA. [BOOK III. CHAP. I- 
 
 during his embassy an unheard-of magnificence and an audacious 
 gallantry, of which even the Queen herself became the object. Richelieu, 
 himself suspected of having a tenderness for this princess, avenged the 
 King, or himself, by adopting measures which were humiliating towards 
 Buckingham ; who, in his turn, entertained a deep resentment against 
 the Cardinal, and entered into the cabal which had been formed against 
 him. The object of this league was to overthrow the minister ; and 
 those of whom it was composed were even accused of a desire to depose 
 the King, crown Gaston in his stead, and marry the latter to Anne of 
 Austria. 
 
 Informed of this vast conspiracy, Richelieu made the King ac- 
 quainted with its existence, and cunningly frightened him by a prospect 
 
 of dangers which- only threatened his own ministry. He 
 of Richelieu," pointed out to him that his dignity as a king and as a 
 
 husband were equally outraged, and thus rendered him the 
 implacable instrument of his own vengeance. The feeble Gaston 
 had betrayed his accomplices, and Ornano was, in the first place r 
 thrown into the prison of Vincennes. The brothers Vendome were 
 arrested and sent to the Chateau of Amboise. Chalais, discovered to 
 have been guilty, by his letters to the Duchess of Chevreuse, of having 
 insulted the King, and given seditious advice to Gaston, was condemned 
 to death by a commission, and executed. Marshal Ornano died at 
 Vincennes, and the grand-prior at Amboise; whilst the Duke of 
 Vendome was only released from prison after having made all the con- 
 fessions required of him. The King made Anne of Austria appear in 
 his council chamber, and severely reproached her with having wished to 
 obtain a new husband in Gaston of Orleans ; upon which she coolly replied, 
 " I should not have gained enough by the change." She was subjected 
 to the observance of a severe system of etiquette ; and the entrance of 
 men into her apartments in the King's absence was strictly forbidden. 
 A great number of nobles were disgraced ; and amongst the most dis- 
 tinguished of them was Baradas, the monarch's favourite, whose eleva- 
 tion had been as sudden as was his fall. The keeper of the seals, 
 d'Aligre, was dismissed, and Madame de Chevreuse was banished to r 
 Lorraine. A guard of musqueteers was granted to the Cardinal, 
 together with the town of Brouage as a place of safety. Finally, Gaston 
 in return for the confessions which he made, and his consent to espouse 
 
1624-1643.] ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES. 19 
 
 Mdlle. Bourbon Montpensier,* received the rich Duchy of Orleans, in 
 exchange for the Duchy of Anjou, of which he had hitherto borne the 
 title. The result of this great intrigue was to increase the power of 
 the Minister, and he was suspected of having designedly aroused it 
 against himself as a means of enabling him to punish and crush his 
 enemies. He exercised the sovereign authority without any of those 
 who possessed the great offices of the Crown being able to counter- 
 balance his authority. There was no longer any constable, that office 
 having been abolished after the death of Lesdiguieres, and that of grand 
 admiral had been converted into a general superintendence of commerce 
 and naval affairs, which Richelieu had adjudged to himself. 
 
 An Assembly of Notables, convoked in 1626, was opened at the 
 Tuileries by the Chancellor Marillac, keeper of the seals.f It Asgem i )1 f 
 sanctioned all the proceedings of the Cardinal, the suppres- Notable3 » 1626 « 
 sion of the great offices, the repurchase of royal domains, which had been 
 alienated for a trifling price, and the reduction of the pensions. It ex- 
 pressed hopes that the taxes would be more equitably arranged ; that the 
 expenses of the State would be kept down to a level with its income ; 
 that plebeians would be permitted to obtain commissions in the army, in 
 order that the military spirit might be spread through the unennobled 
 classes; and that the interior fortresses would be demolished. The 
 nobles further demanded that the national power should be supported by 
 a standing army; that the commercial spirit and traffic with distant 
 parts should be encouraged by the establishment of great companies; 
 and that the classes engaged in peaceful pursuits should be protected 
 against the outrages of the military. They finally voted with enthusiasm 
 the equipment of two fleets, the one for the high seas, and the other for 
 the Mediterranean — France at this period possessing only a few galleys. 
 The Assembly only showed itself stubborn on one point, and even on 
 that its apparent opposition was an act of accordance with the Cardinal's 
 
 * Mademoiselle Montpensier, whom Gaston long refused to marry, from political 
 motives, was one of the richest heiresses of Europe. She brought to him as her dowry 
 the sovereign principality of Dombes, the Earldom of Eu, the Duchy of Chatellerault, 
 &c. The issue of this marriage was an only daughter, the celebrated Mademoiselle. 
 
 f All the Notables, to the number of fifty-five, were nominated by the Cardinal. 
 There were twelve members of the clergy, fourteen of the nobility, and twenty-seven 
 members of the sovereign courts. Gaston, the King's brother, presided over the^ 
 assembly, the vice-presidents being the Marshals de la Force and Bassompierre. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 ORDOKffANCE OP 1629. [Book III. Chap. II. 
 
 wishes ; for when Richelieu affected to desire the abolition of capital 
 punishment for political offences, the Assembly comprehended his real 
 wishes, and insisted on the necessity of exemplary punishments. 
 
 The Notables separated in February, 1627, and a commission was im- 
 mediately appointed to reduce to a code or body of laws the reforms 
 promised either to the last Assembly or to the States of 1614. Two 
 years were devoted to this great work, and at length, in January, 1629, an 
 Ordonnance of ordonnance was promulgated, consisting of 46 1 articles, which 
 1629 ' is one of the great monuments of old French Legislation. It 
 
 referred to the laws, as well civil as criminal, to the general police, to affairs 
 ecclesiastical, to the management of the law courts, to the finances, to in- 
 struction, to the naval and military armaments ; and gave extensive 
 encouragement to industry and commerce. It not only enabled the 
 nobles to traffic without loss of dignity, but afforded the privileges of 
 nobility to every plebeian who should maintain upon the seas during five 
 years, a vessel of at least 200 tons burden ; and rendered military com- 
 missions accessible to all private soldiers who should show themselves 
 worthy of them. This code met on many points the necessities of 
 the period ; but afforded no relaxation to the shackles of the municipal 
 regime, which it subjected to one uniform rule for the whole kingdom ; 
 and we here see that tendency to centralisation which is doubtless useful 
 when its action is limited to matters which properly come under the 
 notice of the State, but which, when abused, has led France into excesses, 
 and all the dangers of modern civilization. 
 
 Richelieu was tolerant neither of contradiction nor obstacle ; and he 
 had especially at heart to make it thoroughly understood throughout 
 France that no one, whatever his rank, was beyond the reach of the law ; 
 a principle which, in the very year in which theAssembly of the Notables 
 was dissolved, received a striking example, hitherto unheard-of in the 
 . annals of our history. Francois de Montmorency, Count 
 
 Counts deBou- de Bouteville, who had already fought twenty-two duels, 
 Chapelies, 1627. having slain in private combat the Count de Bussy, was tried 
 and condemned to death, together with Francois de Rosmadec, Count des 
 Chapelies, his second, by virtue of an edict of Henry IV. against private 
 combats, which were so murderous to the nobility. Their execution 
 afforded an example, rare in France, of the punishment of great nobles 
 for having offended, not the prince, but the laws. 
 
1621-1643.] SIEGE OE EOCHELLE. 21 
 
 Fresh conspiracies were speedily formed against Richelieu, and were, infact, 
 the expression of the proud Duke of Buckingham's hatred for the Cardinal. 
 Under pretence of the oppressions suffered by the Protestant churches, 
 a rupture took place between France and England, and D tofthe 
 Buckingham with a formidable fleet descended upon the ^^isle de Ehe 
 coasts of Aunis. Many Calvinist leaders supported the 1627, 
 invasion, but their rising cost them dear. 
 
 The English had disembarked near Rochelle, in the Isle of Rh6, where 
 they asserted that they intended to found a colony. The Marquis 
 de Toiras defended with distinguished valour the Citadel of Saint- 
 Martin, and afforded the Marshal de Schomberg time to bring up 
 numerous reinforcements. Buckingham set sail and abandoned his im- 
 prudent allies. 
 
 The moment had now come for the Cardinal to destroy a perpetual 
 source of disturbance and the Protestant party : and he laid 
 
 J Memorable Siege 
 
 siege to Rochelle, commanding the forces in person. The ofEochelie.1627- 
 siege was a remarkable one, for the courage and per- 
 severance which were displayed on each side. 
 
 Rohan, an illustrious soldier, and chief of the party, was at this time 
 absent from the town. His mother and sister, however, encouraged the 
 inhabitants by their words and their example. Full of enthusiasm for 
 their religion and liberty, they had chosen, as mayor one named 
 Guiton, who, before accepting the magistracy, had shown them a 
 poniard, and said, " I will not accept this office save on condition that I 
 shall be at liberty to plunge this dagger into the first who shall speak of 
 surrendering, and that I shall be treated in the same way if I dream of 
 surrendering." Lines of circumvallation three leagues in extent enclosed 
 the town on the land side ; but on the side fronting the sea, the Rochellois 
 hoped to be furnished by the English with munitions and reinforcements. 
 Richelieu, however, frustrated the fulfilment of this hope by a gigantic 
 piece of engineering — a mole in the sea four thousand seven hundred feet 
 long.* The besieged allowed it to be constructed without interruption, 
 in the belief that the waves would destroy it ; and, in fact, they did so 
 twice ; but the Cardinal had the work commenced a third time, and it 
 was at length successfully accomplished. Louis XIII. animated the 
 operations by his presence. 
 
 * The Engineers under whose direction it was constructed were Mdtezeau and Tiriot. 
 
22 FALL OP THE PEOTESTANT PAETY. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 An English, fleet, commanded by the Duke of Buckingham, was 
 equipped for the purpose of affording succour to the town ; but just as 
 the Duke was about to embark, he was assassinated by an Englishman 
 named Felton. The fleet nevertheless set sail, and after having cannon- 
 aded the mole without effecting any important result, withdrew. The 
 besieged after a time became a prey to the horrors of famine, but 
 Guiton, the mayor, replied to every complaint, "If there were but one 
 man left in the town, it would be his duty to shut the gates against the 
 enemy." At length, after an heroic defence of a year's duration, the 
 FaiiofEochelle R° c hellois, driven to despair, consented to surrender. The 
 1628, result was, that their town lost its privileges, but that they 
 
 retained the right of worshipping according to their faith. 
 
 The Protestant party was not the only one on which Richelieu inflicted 
 a severe blow by the capture of Rochelle, for the whole of the factious 
 princes and nobles admitted that the fall of this city had crushed them 
 even more severely than it had the Huguenots. Richelieu had now torn 
 from the spirit of revolution, under whatever flag it might choose to rise, 
 a stronghold which was reputed to be impregnable, and which possessed a 
 free 1 communication with foreign countries, and he had consequently de- 
 prived the disaffected of the resources without which they could not 
 hope to obtain any permanent success. 
 
 France, delivered at length from the apprehension of civil war, now 
 ardently desired peace ; but, if there had been no longer any national 
 difficulties and perils, there would have been an end of Cardinal 
 Richelieu's administration. Louis XIII. bore his yoke with impatience ; 
 his flatterers urged him to dismiss his Minister, and to take the govern- 
 ment into his own hands ; and he promised to be a king in reality, but at 
 the same time he was resolved not to endure the fatigues and troubles of 
 actual rule. It was to Richelieu's interest, therefore, to create an inces- 
 sant series of fresh embarrassments, and only to put an end to one war 
 for the purpose of commencing another. The national pride was in 
 accordance with Richelieu's views for his personal aggrandizement, for it 
 inherited the projects formed by Henry IV. against the house of Austria, 
 and desired that France should be the first nation in Europe, sincerely 
 believing that not only its safety but even its honour demanded that all 
 other States should be prostrate at its feet. A pretext for war was not 
 long wanting. 
 
1624-1643.] PEACE OF ALAIS. 23 
 
 Vincent de Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat, died in 1627, 
 :and his cousin, Charles de Gonzaga, Duke of Never s, whose 
 
 n i ^ t^ -i'-it-i- Succession of the 
 
 familv had been long resident m France, claimed to be heir Duke of Mantua, 
 
 J .... 1627. 
 
 of his States. But the Emperor, the Spaniards, and the 
 Duke of Savoy set up in opposition to him the Duke of Guastalla, a 
 member of the elder branch of the Gonzaga family, and supported his 
 pretended rights by the invasion of the two principalities. The whole of 
 Montferrat was speedily conquered, with the exception of Casal, its 
 capital. Eichelieu pointed out to the King how much it was to the 
 honour and interest of France to assist a prince who was half French, and 
 especially to counterbalance the influence of Austria in Upper Italy. 
 
 Louis XIII. arrived with his army, in the depth of winter, at the foot 
 of the Alps. The only road at this part was the pass or The of Susa 
 defile of Susa, which nature and art seemed to have °P ened » 1628 - 
 combined to render impracticable. Redoubts crowned the heights, and 
 the pass was closed by three entrenchments, behind which were ensconced 
 a Piedmontese army. The Musqueteers of the King's household, led on 
 by three marshals, effected a passage through the whole of these defences, 
 and the Duke of Savoy, terrified, abandoned the Spaniards, and signed at 
 Susa a treaty which secured to the Duke of Nevers the Treaty of Susa 
 peaceable possession of Mantua and Montferrat. 1628 ' 
 
 During this campaign the Calvinistic party attempted a final effort. 
 The Duke of Rohan maintained his position in the South by the aid of the 
 ^Spaniards. The Count Duke of Olivarez, faithful to the policy of the 
 time, thought it well to protect in France the remains of this unhappy 
 party, and promised Rohan three hundred thousand ducats; but this 
 assistance came too late. Louis XIII. , on his return from Piedmont, fell 
 rapidly upon the small number of strong places still possessed by the 
 Protestants, and burnt or destroyed those which still existed. Rohan 
 now sent in his submission, and peace was concluded, on , . . 
 
 7 - 1 ' Submission of 
 
 the 27th June, at Alais. He received a hundred thousand BeBohanand 
 
 ' ruin ot tne Jrro ■ 
 
 crowns from the King to enable him to pay off his troops, Saceofffi's, 
 and then retired to Venice. 1629, 
 
 From this moment the Protestants no longer formed a State, separated 
 from the general body of the kingdom. They had been reduced to this 
 necessity, so fatal to the country, by the odious violence of the sons of 
 -Henry II. ; but France could not without peril remain thus divided, and 
 
24 TEACE OE EATISBON. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 the ruin of the Calvinists, as a political party, justly did honour to 
 Cardinal Richelieu. They ceased to possess a government of their own, 
 and to treat with that of the King as one power treating with another. 
 At the same time, they preserved the right of worshipping according to 
 their own tenets, and all their privileges, as established by the Edict of 
 Nantes. 
 
 The flame of war was speedily relighted in Italy. The Empire and 
 Spain had refused to recognise the Treaty of Susa: the 
 
 Tsew War against o j > 
 
 the Empire and ambitious Duke of Savoy had hastened to support anew his 
 
 Spain, 1630. .... 
 
 former allies in their designs upon Mantua and Montferrat. 
 His son, Victor -Amadeus, husband of the Princess Christina, sister of 
 Louis XIII., succeeded him in 1630, and adopted his policy. The 
 presence in Piedmont of a French army, and the conquest of many 
 important places — amongst others, of Pignerol — could not prevent the 
 capture of Mantua, defended by its sovereign himself and the Marshal 
 d'Estrees. The capitulation of Casal speedily followed this catastrophe, 
 Toiras, deprived of help, surrendering the city to the Imperialists, and 
 retaining the citadel. The signing of peace, at the Diet of Ratisbon, put 
 an end to this war of succession. The Emperor undertook to put the 
 Duke of Nevers in possession of Mantua and Montferrat ; and France 
 f Ea- promised to restore the conquests made at the expense of 
 at chenSco rmed Victor- Amadeus, and to form no alliance with the enemies 
 1631, of the Empire. Marshal Schomberg, who was ready to give 
 
 battle to the Spaniards under the walls of Casal, refused at first to 
 acknowledge this treaty, when a young man, merely secretary to the 
 Pope's nuncio, threw himself between the two armies at the commence- 
 ment of the action, in the midst of a shower of balls, and stopped the 
 French troops, who, eager for the fray, cried out, "No peace! no 
 Mazarin /" This young man was, in fact, the future Cardinal Mazarin. 
 He succeeded in persuading the leaders, and the Treaty of Ratisbon was 
 confirmed at Cherasco by the Marquis of Sainte-Croix for Spain, and 
 Marshal Schomberg for France. 
 
 Louis XIII., who had rejoined his army in Piedmont, on the signature 
 of peace returned to France, and fell dangerously ill at Lyons. Richelieu 
 thought himself lost ; but the King recovered and returned to Paris 
 where his Minister was threatened by an equal danger. The Queen- 
 mother, always hostile to the Cardinal, and enraged at the results of the 
 
1624-1643.] DISCOMFITUKE OF EICHELIEU. 25 
 
 war in Piedmont, undertaken against her son-in-law, Victor-Amadens, 
 demanded of the King, with indignant tears, that he should disgrace the 
 Cardinal in her presence, and overwhelmed him with bitter reproaches. 
 Louis XIII., to put an end to this painful scene, abruptly ordered 
 Richelieu to retire. The latter considered himself disgraced, and the 
 Queen looked upon her triumph as certain. This was the opinion of the 
 whole Court ; and whilst the Cardinal was burning his papers and secur- 
 ing his treasures, the courtiers flocked in crowds to Marie de Medici to 
 congratulate her, and express their delight at what had happened. The 
 King had retired to Versailles,* and Richelieu, encouraged by his friends, 
 determined, before departing, to make a final effort. He followed the 
 King, obtained an interview, justified himself, received orders to remain 
 at the helm of the State ; and whilst his enemies were already triumphing 
 over his fall, reappeared more powerful than ever. This day is known 
 by the name of The Day of Dupes. 
 
 The first act by which Richelieu attested his re-establishment in power 
 was the arrest of the two brothers Marillac — the one a 
 
 Arrest of trie 
 
 Marshal of France, the other the Keeper ot the Seals — who Brothers Ma- 
 
 rillac. 
 
 owed their elevation to the Cardinal, and had shown them- 
 selves his most bitter enemies. Before punishing them, however, 
 Richelieu sought to abate or put an end to the hostility of his powerful 
 foes, and overwhelmed with favours and promises the friends of Gaston of 
 Orleans; especially distinguishing Puy-Laurens and the President, Le 
 Coigneux, the confidants of the prince, whose favour he thus sought to 
 gain. But, urged on by the two queens, Gaston visited the Minister at 
 the head of a crowd of gentlemen, insulted him, and threatened him with 
 the full weight of his vengeance. After this violent and ridiculous scene, 
 during which the Cardinal believed himself to be in peril of his life, 
 Gaston retired to his appanage of Orleans and began to 
 
 , , , . _ . , _ Gaston of Or- 
 
 levy troops; but, at the approach of the Royal army, he leans takes re- 
 
 n j . -, a- • . ^ u S e i^ Lorraine. 
 
 lied without ottering any resistance, and passed into 
 Lorraine. 
 
 It was not yet enough. So long as the Queen-mother, imbued with 
 the intriguing, jealous, and vindictive spirit of the Medicis, remained at 
 the Court, Richelieu could never be sure of the morrow. Perceiving that 
 he was sufficiently strong to make a daring stroke, he told the King that 
 
 * Versailles was at that time a mere shooting-box. 
 
26 FLIGHT OE MAETE DE MEDICI. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 he must choose between his mother or himself. The King, cold of heart 
 and feeble in mind, did not hesitate. He proceeded to Compiegne, 
 accompanied by his mother; departed from it without her knowledge, 
 and left her alone with her women in that residence, where she was 
 informed of his will respecting her. 
 
 Blinded with rage, the Queen-mother committed the error ofwithdraw- 
 Fiieht of Marie * n S * nto Spanish Flanders, whence Eichelieu prudently 
 de Medici, 1631. a n owe d ] ier a f ree passage, and where, to the Minister's 
 great satisfaction, she demanded refuge and protection. To do this, 
 was to break with her son and with France. The King replied to her 
 complaints by the following letter. " The course which you have taken, 
 madame, does not allow me to doubt what have been your intentions during 
 the past, and what I have to expect of you in the future. The respect 
 which I owe you, permits me to say no more." Marie de Medici never 
 again re-entered France. 
 
 Free from henceforth to listen to the dictates of his wrath, and to satisfy 
 his vengeance, Richelieu gave conciliatory tactics for the most vigorous mea- 
 sures. All those who had hesitated between his party and that of the Queen- 
 mother were forced to quit the Court and their offices, and the trial of 
 , Marshal de Marillac was conducted at Verdun by a com- 
 
 Sentence and J 
 
 Marshai'de* mission, which, being slow to find him guilty, was replaced 
 Marillac, 1632. ky another, hostile to the Marshal, and presided over by 
 the Keeper of the Seals, Chateauneuf, his personal enemy. Chateauneuf 
 was a sub-deacon, and, as such, incapable of sitting as a judge ; but he 
 obtained a dispensation from Rome. Marillac was transported to Ruel, 
 to the Cardinal's own house, where he was tried, and condemned to death, 
 as having been guilty of peculation, extortion, and tyranny, in the exercise 
 of his office. His real crime was his having attempted to destroy 
 Richelieu, his benefactor, by making the last war in Piedmont a failure. 
 He was beheaded, and his brother, the Keeper of the Seals, died in 
 prison. The Cardinal's vengeance was still further signalized by 
 numerous proscriptions. The Count de Moret, the Marquis de la 
 Vieuville, the Dukes of Elbeuf, and of Bellegarde, were condemned to 
 lose their estates and their heads, for having joined the Duke of Orleans 
 and Marie de Medici in foreign countries ; the possessions of the Queen- 
 mother were also seized, and an inventory was made of them as though 
 she had been dead. 
 
I624r-1643.] BATTLE OF CASTELNATTDARY. 27 
 
 Whilst Richelieu thus executed his vengeance, the Queen-mother and 
 her emigrant son continued their intrigues, both within and Bevolt of Gaston 
 without the kingdom, but Gaston, heir to the Crown, and in De Mon?nw> 
 that respect formidable, seemed only bent upon compromis- 
 ing his friends and leaving them to their fate. He only distinguished him- 
 self in Lorraine by his frivolous gallantry ; and having become a widower, 
 secretly married Princess Marguerite, sister of Duke Charles IV. Finally, 
 after having wandered about all the frontiers of the kingdom, he entered 
 France at the head of a band of deserters and adventurers, and joined 
 Marshal Duke de Montmorency, in Languedoc. The latter, a descendant 
 of the Constables Montmorency, a gallant soldier, and a brother-in-law 
 of Conde, allowed himself to be seduced by the prince, and, whether 
 he considered it his duty to deliver France from Richelieu's domination, or 
 whether he wished by making himself feared, to be able to sell his sub- 
 mission at the price of a constable's sword, he resolved to raise Languedoc, 
 of which he was governor, in favour of Gaston. But Richelieu anticipated 
 his enemies, and the Marshals de la Force and Schomberg entered 
 Languedoc at the head of two Royal armies, at the moment when Gaston 
 was effecting his junction with Montmorency. 
 
 The hostile troops met near Castelnaudary. Montmorency, very 
 inferior in the number of his troops to the enemy, threw him- ^ ■ ' „.. 
 
 r J ' Battle of Castel- 
 
 self upon the latter with a feeble detachment ; was n audary, 1632. 
 surrounded, captured, and carried away a prisoner under the very eyes 
 of Gaston, who made no effort to rescue him, and whose whole army im- 
 mediately disbanded itself. Those loi the friends and partisans of the 
 Prince who were seized with arms in their hands, were treated without 
 mercy, but terms were made with those who remained with him, and 
 amongst others with Puy-Laurens. Richelieu never failed to regard 
 Gaston as the heir-presumptive to the crown, and he permitted him to re- 
 tire to Tours, where the Prince arrived more disgraced by his cowardice 
 than by his rebellion. Montmorency was taken before the Parliament 
 of Toulouse, condemned to death and executed, and died as 
 a repentant and sincere Christian. A crowd of others lost Montmorency, 
 their heads on the scaffold, and Gaston, terrified at the 
 Cardinal's rigour, once more quitted France. 
 
 The King, who had hitherto been ignorant of his brother's second 
 marriage with the Princess Marguerite in Lorraine, on being informed 
 
28 INVASION OF LOEEAINE. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 of it, refused to sanction it, and invaded the duchy -with a demand that 
 Charles IV. should give his sister into his hands. The 
 
 Invasion of Lor- 
 raine by the latter, however, escaped, and joined her husband at Brussels. 
 
 French, 1632. .... 
 
 where Marie de Medici received her as a daughter. The whole 
 of Lorraine was overrun, and Nancy fell into the hands of the French. The 
 unfortunate Duke Charles* abdicated in favour of Cardinal Nicolas Francis, 
 his brother, who hastened, without consulting Rome, to lay aside the hat, 
 and to marry his cousin Claude. Soon afterwards he retired from 
 Lorraine with his wife, abandoning his states to the French King, who 
 everywhere established garrisons, pending the surrender of the Princess 
 Marguerite. 
 
 Whilst Louis XIII. thus endeavoured to annul this alliance by force, 
 the Parliament of Paris, to whom he had referred the matter, 
 
 The Parliament 
 
 of Paris annuls declared Gaston's marriage void, decreed the duke guilty of 
 
 the marriage of 
 
 the Duke of violence to the person of the Duke of Orleans, and confis- 
 
 Orlcans. x ' 
 
 cated his inheritance. A year later the Assembly of the 
 Clergy confirmed the judgment in opposition to the Court of Rome, 
 which recognised the marriage as valid. 
 
 The King's brother had now returned to France, having abandoned 
 his mother as readily as he had abandoned his friends, and visited the 
 Court, when Richelieu, in the midst of brilliant fetes, endeavoured, but 
 in vain, to obtain from him an avowal that his marriage was illegal. 
 Monsieur in this matter displayed, for the first time, some firmness, and 
 retired to Blois with Puy-Laurens, his favourite, on whom Richelieu had 
 lavished favours and honours. He had married him to one of his relatives, 
 on whom he bestowed a magnificent dowry, and had made him a duke and 
 peer, in the hope that he would induce the Prince to yield to the King's 
 wishes ; but as Puy-Laurens would not serve the Cardinal's views, he 
 enticed him to Paris, and had him seized and cast into the Bastille, where 
 he died. 
 
 His master did not remain the less obstinate on this account, but an 
 event occurred three years afterwards, which reduced him to a secondary 
 position. Anne of Austria lived apart from Louis XIII., and had no 
 children. It is said that a young girl, Mdlle. de la Fayette, who was be- 
 loved by the monarch, and sought in the Convent of the Visitation an 
 
 * Charles IV. was the twenty -fourth duke of the house of Lorraine, issue of Gerard 
 d J Alsace. Besides the reigning branch, there were many other branches of this illus- 
 trious house, as those of Vaudemont, De Guise, De Mercceur, De Mayenne, D Aumale, &c. 
 
1624-1613.] THE THIRTY TEARS WAR. 29 
 
 asylum from his solicitations, endeavoured to remove the King's spirit of 
 hostility towards his Queen, and in time brought about a good understand- 
 ing between them. However this may be, Anne of Austria Birfchofa D 
 after twenty-two years' sterility, presented to the world on P hm » 1638 - 
 the 5th September, 1638, a son, who became Louis XIV. 
 
 At the period when the reins of Government passed thus under a king 
 in a perpetual state of pupillage, from the hands of Concini to the hands 
 of De Luynes, and from those of the latter to those of Richelieu, in which 
 they remained, great events, in which France had not as yet interfered, 
 were taking place in Germany. 
 
 The Emperor Mathias, having no children, had chosen as his successor 
 his cousin- german, Ferdinand, of Styria, grandson of Ferdinand I., 
 brother of Charles V., and had had him elected King of Bohemia, in his 
 own life-time. This [Prince, educated by the Jesuits, and an admirer of 
 Philip II., wished to deprive the Protestant Bohemians of liberty of 
 conscience. The latter, greatly irritated, complained to the Council of 
 Prague, and threw four officers of the Government out of the windows. 
 
 In the meantime, Mathias died, and Ferdinand, besieged in Vienna by 
 the victorious Bohemians, could not dispute the possession 
 
 Origin of the 
 
 of the Imperial Crown. The Diet was divided between the Thirty Years' 
 
 1 '. War, 1618. 
 
 Protestants and the Catholics, but the defection of the Elector 
 
 of Saxony made the balance incline in favour of the latter, and Ferdinand 
 
 was proclaimed Emperor at Frankfort, on the 28th August, „. * , ' 
 
 x x o » Election to the 
 
 1619. The Bohemian States replied to this election bv offer- Empire of Fer- 
 
 x ■» dinand III., 
 
 ing their Crown to the Elector Palatine* Frederick V., son- 1619# 
 
 in-law of the King of England, and nephew of the Stadtholder of Holland. 
 
 The whole Evangelical Union or Confederation of the 
 
 .... Frederick V. re- 
 
 Protestant states of Germany recognised him as their head, calves the crown 
 
 . . . . . t, of Bohemia. 
 
 and set mm up in opposition to the Emperor, who supported 
 the Catholic League. 
 
 Frederick, a prince without talents or energy, lost, in a bloody battle 
 fought on the White Mountain, near Prague, not only his new crown, 
 but also his hereditary estates. Emboldened by this success, the Emperor, 
 closely allied with Spain, carried war into the Palatinate, and threatened 
 to extirpate Protestantism throughout the whole of Germany. 
 
 * The Palatinate, one of the Electorates of Germany in the circle of the Upper Rhine, 
 extended along the two shores of the river, and had Manheim for its capital. 
 
30 DIET OF EATISBON. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 To save its liberties, the Evangelical Union, which had been without a 
 leader since the fall of the Palatine, chose in that capacity Christian IV., 
 King of Denmark, and Duke of Holstein (1625) ; and then commenced 
 the second period of the Thirty Years' War, called the Danish Period. 
 It was no less fatal than the first to the Protestant cause ; for Christian, 
 vanquished by the celebrated imperial generals Tilly and Wallenstein, was 
 driven back into his islands ; saw the whole of Jutland, Schleswig, and 
 Holstein invaded by the conquerors ; and to save the remnant of his 
 dominions, was compelled to sign the humiliating peace of Lubeck, in 
 1629. The whole of Protestant Germany was under the yoke, and the 
 cause of liberty of conscience seemed desperate. 
 
 Then assembled the imperial Diet of Eatisbon (1630), to discuss the 
 Diet of Eatisbon g reat questions which for twenty years had agitated the 
 German empire ; and now there came a check to the fortunes 
 of the House of Austria. In the place of allies Ferdinand only found adver- 
 saries amongst the Catholic Electors, who were alarmed at his ambition 
 and his despotism. They demanded of him the disbandment of his army 
 of a hundred and fifty thousand men, which was now useless, and the 
 dismissal of the invincible General Wallenstein. It was at Eatisbon, also, 
 that was regulated the succession of Mantua, which the Emperor had 
 pretended to dispose of as an imperial fief. This was the second step 
 which France took in its interference with the affairs of the empire ; the 
 first being the occupation of the Valteline. 
 
 Eichelieu saw with disquiet the progress of the House of Austria ; but 
 the time was not yet come for France openly to interfere. 
 
 Continuation of . -i/».i •• -i • i 
 
 the Thirty Years' Eichelieu contented himself with promising as a subsidy 
 
 War, 1630-1635. __. 
 
 1,200,000 livres a year to the young King of Sweden, 
 Gustavus Adolphus, already famous by reason of his victories over the 
 Muscovites and the Poles, and towards whom the eyes of all Protestant 
 Europe were now turned. This Snow Xing — as Ferdinand called him, in 
 his profound blindness — hurled himself upon Germany. Victorious at 
 Leipsic, in 1631, and again at the passage of the Leek, where Tilly lost his 
 lifej he retaliated upon the Catholic League all the evils they had inflicted 
 on the Evangelical Alliance, and prepared to strike a final blow by 
 attacking Ferdinand in his capital. The Emperor, in terror, then recalled 
 the illustrious Wallenstein, whom he had disgraced ; and the two rivals 
 in glory encountered each other at Lutzen in 1632. Gustavus was the 
 
1624-1643.] TBEATY OF WESTPHALIA. 31 
 
 victor, but died on the field of battle, leaving the command to another 
 hero, Duke Bernard de Saxe- Weimar. The latter, however, after great 
 successes, lost in 1634 the decisive battle of Nordlingen against the Arch- 
 duke Ferdinard, the Emperor's eldest son. The conquests of Gustavus 
 Adolphus were nullified, and the House of Austria became once 
 more all-powerful. Here ends the Swedish period of the Thirty Years' War, 
 and commences the fourth and last epoch, to which has been given the 
 name of the French period. 
 
 At the moment when Eichelieu was engaging France in this sanguinary 
 struggle, which terminated only with the Treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, 
 it will be as well to cast a glance at the state of Europe in 1635. 
 
 Italy — occupied in the north and south by the Spaniards, who were 
 masters of the Milanese territory and the kingdom of Naples — was destitute 
 of strength or will. England, on the eve of a revolution, took no part in 
 the affairs of the Continent. Holland, at the expiration of the truce of 
 twelve years, had renewed against Spain her glorious war of inde- 
 pendence. Queen Christina pursued with the Swedes the work of her 
 father, Gustavus Adolphus ; whilst Denmark, exhausted by the war of 
 1625, held aloof. As for Germany, she was more than ever divided. 
 The Elector of Saxony had, by the Peace of Prague, abandoned the 
 Protestant cause; but the four circles of Upper Germany, Franconia, 
 Swabia, the Palatinate, the Upper Rhine, and the Elector of Branden- 
 burg, still defended it. Bohemia was crushed, and all the rest of the 
 empire was in the interest of the Catholic League, of which the nominal 
 chief was the Duke of Bavaria, recently invested with the Palatinate, but 
 who was but an instrument in the powerful hands of the Emperor Fer- 
 dinand. This Prince, in whom an indomitable ambition was united 
 with a furious fanaticism, was always, in spite of the Swedish invasion, 
 the master of Germany, and pursued the ruin of the Evangelical Alliance 
 in common with his cousin,* Philip IV., King of Spain, or rather with 
 his minister, Olivarez. 
 
 Spain, at this period, had already lost much of the power it had pos- 
 sessed under Charles V., but, on the other hand, she possessed a new 
 
 * We have seen that Charles V. divided his dominions between his brother Ferdi. 
 nand, his successor to the empire, and his son, Philip II. This was the origin of the 
 two branches of the House of Austria, the one reigning at Vienna, the other at Madrid. 
 Ferdinand was the grandson of Ferdinand I., and Philip IV. the s;reat-s;randson of 
 Charles V. 
 
32 POLICY OE KICHELIET7. L^ 00K IIL Ch ^« H. 
 
 kingdom, Portugal ; and Philip IV. still reigned beyond the Peninsula, 
 over Naples, Sicily, and the Milanese territory in Italy ; over the whole 
 of Belgium; over Roussillon, Franche Comte, Flanders, and Artois, 
 French frontiers ; over a portion of the northern coast of Africa ; and 
 over the whole of the New World. Heir, in accordance with a strict 
 alliance with the Emperor, of the remainder of the states of Charles V., 
 the ancient monarchy of the House of Austria found itself re-established, 
 and possessed too great a weight in the destinies of Europe, when 
 Richelieu threw into the balance the sword of France. Though a 
 Catholic, and the vanquisher of the Protestants in France, he took 
 them under his protection in Germany, and made the Evangelical 
 Alliance in that country his weapon by which to break the power 
 of the House of Austria. ' Continuer as he was of the policy of 
 Henry IV., Richelieu, as was the case with that great King, did not 
 live long enough to reap all its fruits ; but before his death he at least 
 had the glory of adding a new province to his country. We find 
 this recorded in the history of the Thirty Years' War, from 1635 to 
 1642. 
 
 Richelieu made the greatest efforts to secure the success of his military 
 plans. He formed an offensive and defensive alliance 
 
 Commencement r 
 
 of the French -yyith Holland and Sweden, by which he secured the 
 
 period ot the 7 J 
 
 Wa?7 Mmtary assistance of the army of the Prince of Orange in the Low 
 K?cSeiieu n i635- Countries, and of that which Duke Bernard de Saxe 
 Weimar commanded on the Rhine. He signed, at the 
 same time, fresh treaties with the Dukes of Savoy, Mantua, and Parma, 
 amongst whom he promised to divide the Milanese territory. His plans 
 for war embraced at once Flanders, the Rhine, the Valteline, and Italy ; 
 and he formed four armies, intended to act simultaneously on all those 
 points. He thus at one stroke raised the military force of the kingdom 
 to a point greatly superior to that which it had hitherto obtained. 
 Believing himself to be as great a general as he was a statesman, the 
 Cardinal resolved to direct from his cabinet all the movements of the 
 armies in the field. In his eyes the chief quality of a general was 
 obedience, and he divided the command of each army, that the generals 
 might be a mutual check upon each other, and that neither of them 
 should consider himself sufficiently powerful to act upon his own 
 responsibility. 
 
1624-1643.] CAMPAIGN OP 1635. 33 
 
 The army of the north, under Marshals de Chatillon and de Breze, was 
 to join in Luxembourg that of the States- General of Holland, Campaign of 
 for the purpose of driving out of Belgium the Spaniards, 163 °* 
 commanded by Prince Thomas of Carignan, who had enlisted in 
 the cause of the House of Austria ; whilst the Duke of Savoy, Victor- 
 Amadeus, his brother, was compelled, in his own despite, to 
 
 . *•./"••- i -1-11-11 Operations of 
 
 serve France. The Prince oi Carignan advanced boldly the armies in 
 
 Belgium. 
 
 with fifteen thousand men between the two divisions of the 
 army of the north, in order to crush them separately. But his temerity 
 was punished, for they fell upon him simultaneously in the plain of 
 Avaine, took from him fifty flags, and effected their junction with the 
 Dutch, commanded by the Prince of Orange, before Maastricht. The 
 united army presented a force of fifty thousand combatants, and might 
 have effected great things, but it gave itself up to the most frightful 
 excesses. The sack of Tirlemont roused the Belgians, undecided until 
 then whether to join the French or the Spaniards ; they ran to arms, and 
 thus gave time for the arrival of the Imperial army, under Piccolomini. 
 This army forced the French to raise the siege of Louvain, and com- 
 pelled them to remain in a state of inaction till the end of the 
 campaign. 
 
 The French-Swedish army of Germany divided into several corps, 
 under the command of Marshal de la Force and the Duke operations in 
 Bernard of Saxe- Weimar, had in front of it, on the one side, German y- 
 the Duke Charles of Lorraine, whose States, since the marriage of the 
 Princess Marguerite, continued to be occupied by French garrisons; 
 and on the other, the celebrated Gallas, who blockaded a portion of 
 Bernard's army in Mayence, and held that general himself in check at 
 Sarrebruck. Kichelieu confided a second army of fifteen thousand men 
 to the Cardinal la Valette, who succeeded in effecting a junction with 
 Bernard, and relieving him from his position. The blockade of 
 Mayence was raised, but famine and disease had afflicted this army with 
 direful force ; and when, after its disastrous retreat, it re-entered Metz 
 it was reduced to one half. The Duke of Lorraine, although beaten at 
 Montbelliard by La Force, recovered a portion of his duchy, from which 
 he was immediately afterwards expelled by a third army, which Louis XIIL 
 commanded in person. The King attempted to effect no great move- 
 ment on the Rhine ; he never crossed the river ; and what remained of 
 
 VOL. II. . D 
 
34 INVASION OF FBANCE. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 the three armies acting upon this frontier covered Champagne and 
 Lorraine, now threatened by the Imperialists. 
 
 Italy was the third theatre of Richelieu's strategical operations. The 
 Operations in princes allied with France, the Dukes of Savoy, of Parma, 
 ta y ' and of Mantua, were to take possession of the Milanese ter- 
 
 ritory, and Marshal de Crequi, at the head of fifteen thousand men, was 
 to assist them. Frequent altercations, however, with the Duke of 
 Savoy paralysed every movement ; and after the army, having failed in its 
 attack on Frascorolo, had been compelled to raise the siege of Valanza, 
 Crequi retreated towards France, abandoning the allied princes, whose 
 States were immediately invaded. 
 
 The French arms were only successful in the Valteline, where the com- 
 Operationsinthe man( l was ^ n tne hand of the Duke de Rohan, who had 
 acquired a great military reputation in the civil wars, and 
 who succeeded in cutting off all communication between the imperial 
 troops of Lombardy and Austria. He made head with five thousand men, 
 in an insurgent country, against the generals Serbelloni and Fernamont, 
 who attacked him with superior numbers. Victorious at Morbegno, he 
 repulsed Fernamont in the Tyrol, and then drove Serbelloni and the 
 Spaniards from the Valteline, after the glorious battle of the Val de Presle. 
 At this point only was the campaign of 1635 honourable for France ; and 
 it was at this point that the command had not been divided, and that the 
 intelligence which had conceived a plan was always united with that by 
 which it was to be carried out. 
 
 Richelieu entered upon the following campaign with as many armies 
 Campaign of as ne na( ^ * n * ne preceding, and he suffered great reverses. 
 He hoped to gain possession of Franche-Comte, a Spanish 
 province against which he had directed his best troops, under Prince 
 Conde, but this army was promptly recalled to make head against 
 the Imperialists, who had invaded France. The Cardinal-Infant, brother 
 of the King of Spain, Piccolomini, and John der "Werth, a Bavarian general, 
 had entered France at the head of forty thousand men. 
 
 The line of the Somme was forced ; Corbie, the last strong place on 
 this frontier, fell into the hands of the Imperialists, whose 
 
 Invasion of 7 * ' 
 
 im an eriaUrnfies Croat cavalry appeared on the banks of the Oise, whilst a 
 1636 - second army, under Gallas and the Duke of Lorraine, en- 
 
 tered Burgundy. Terror reigned in Paris, and the popular fury was 
 
1624-1643.] VICTORY OF BRTNEFELD. 35 
 
 directed against the Cardinal, who was accused of all the ills of France 
 But the latter, superior to fear, traversed the masses of irritated people 
 unguarded, and proceeded to the H6tel-de-Ville, from whence he called 
 to arms the noblesse and the various trading bodies for the defence of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 A universal enthusiasm, such as was witnessed in darker days, now 
 seized upon the nation. Money, provisions, and arms poured in from all 
 directions ; nobles, citizens, and artisans enrolled themselves as volun- 
 teers, and at the end of a month an army of forty thousand men marched 
 to drive the enemy from the kingdom. 
 
 The imperial generals did not await the onslaught. Their army, bur- 
 dened with plunder, was weakened by indiscipline and desertion, and they 
 hastened to recross the frontier ; upon which all the fortresses of Picardy 
 were retaken by the French; the valiant defence made by Saint -Jean de 
 Losne having already checked the progress of the invasion in Burgundy. 
 A third attempt made by the Spaniards on the side of the Pyrenees was 
 not more fortunate, and French soil was delivered from foreign invaders. 
 It was there, however, merely a defensive war. In Italy, a bloody victory 
 obtained by Marshal de Crequi and the Duke of Savoy over the Im- 
 perialists near Lake Maggiore had no result. 
 
 The following year (1637) was distinguished by the death of several oi 
 the sovereigns engaged in the war. The Emperor Ferdi- 
 
 , __ _. ., _ , . , . ,_. „ __ . . Death of Ferdi- 
 
 nand II. died after having had the King ot Hungary, his nand ir. and of 
 
 m the Dukea of 
 
 son, elected as his successor, and France lost its two Italian Savoy and 
 
 Mantua, 1637. 
 
 allies, the Dukes of Mantua and Savoy. The war had con- 
 tinued on all the frontiers without success as without any formidable re- 
 verses, and the only important military fact of this campaign was the evacua- 
 tion by the Duke de Rohan of the Valteline, from whence he was driven 
 bj the old allies of France, the Grisons, who had now turned against her. 
 The war was continued in 1638 with results unfavourable to France. 
 In the north it was found necessary to raise the siege of Cam ai of 
 Saint-Omer, and on the Spanish frontier, despite the mari- 1638# 
 time successes of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Sourdis, the French were 
 beaten by the Admiral of Castille and forced to abandon the siege ot 
 Fontarabia. The victory obtained by their ally, Duke Victor fth 
 Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, alone compensated them on the Weimar at** 6 " 
 Rhine for so many disasters. Duke Bernard besieged Rhine- lihinefeld > 1638 - 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE FLANDERS CAMPAIGN". [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 feld. John der Werth hurried to the relief of this town, vanquished the 
 Weimarians, and forced them to raise the siege, when suddenly Bernard, 
 who was looked upon as vanquished, reappeared under the walls of Rhine- 
 feld, surprised the Imperialists in the intoxication of triumph, cut 
 them in pieces, and made prisoners of their four generals, amongst whom 
 was the celebrated John der Werth. It was in this engagement that 
 perished the Duke de Rohan, the hero who had been the leader of the 
 French Calvinists, the general of the army of the Valteline, and then a 
 simple volunteer in the army of Duke Bernard. 
 
 The victory of Rhinefeld was the last achievement of Duke Weimar, 
 who died in the following year (1639) of typhus, at the age of thirty-six 
 years, leaving unaccomplished all the vast projects which he had con- 
 ceived for the aggrandizement of his house. France purchased his con- 
 quests in Germany, and his army — the command of which was given to the 
 Duke de Longueville — crossed the Rhine, in concert with the Count de 
 Guebriant, and carried on the campaign during two years beyond 
 the river, without any decided success, and at the same time without any 
 disgrace. 
 
 In 1639 the King desired to be present in person at the operations of 
 Operations in * ne armv m Flanders ; but the success on the side of the 
 Flanders, 1639. French was confined to the capture of Hesdin, which La 
 Meilleraye, the King's grand-master of artillery, carried under the 
 Monarch's own eyes (for which he received the marshal's baton on the 
 breach) ; whilst Piccolomini vanquished near Thionville another French 
 army under Feuquieres. Thus ended in the north the campaign of 1639. 
 It was somewhat more brilliant in Piedmont. This country was at that 
 time a very nest of intrigues. Cardinal Maurice and Thomas, Prince 
 of Carignan, brother of the late duke, disputed the regency with his 
 widow, Christine, daughter of Henry IV. The brothers-in-law of Christine 
 obtained the support of the King of Spain, and promised to deliver the 
 strong places of Piedmont into his hands. The regent implored the 
 assistance of the King of France her brother ; and Richelieu placed an 
 army under the command of Cardinal Yalette, who, under pretence of 
 protecting the son of Victor- Amadeus, invaded the half of his States, and 
 then died of a contagious fever. Richelieu appointed an able successor 
 to him in the person of Henry de Lorraine, Count of Harcourt, who re- 
 victualled Casal, then besieged by the Spaniards, and effected in admirable 
 
1624-1643.] BATTLE OF LA BOTTA. 37 
 
 order a difficult retreat from Chiari to Carignan, in the presence of the 
 much larger armies of Prince Thomas and De Leganez, the Spanish 
 governor of the Milanese territory, whom he vanquished at the glorious 
 battle of La Rotta. 
 
 The principal belligerent powers, France, the Empire, and Spain, in 
 spite of some partial successes, reaped no fruits from this disastrous war, in 
 which the ministers of Philip IV. and Louis XIIL, Olivarez and Richelieu, 
 so desperately contended. The two kingdoms were exhausted, and in each 
 there occurred simultaneously a popular outbreak which led to very dif- 
 ferent results. 
 
 During the last years the taxes in France had been raised to a hundred 
 millions, which was double the amount levied in the time of Misery in France 
 Henry IV. The inflexible Cardinal made himself equally for- durin ° the war ' 
 midable to all classes of the nation, to the poor and the rich, to the weak 
 and the powerful. He seized the rents of the H6tel-de-Ville, shut up in the 
 Bastille the renters who dared to complain, and prohibited the Parliament 
 from affording them protection. But it was the people above all who were 
 ruined by the war, and the taxes — of which the heaviest burden fell upon 
 the peasants — had become intolerable. The poll-tax, especially, was levied 
 upon them with frightful rigour. They were held to be bound for each 
 other in their villages, and frequently, when the unhappy wretches had 
 exhausted their resources in paying their own share, they found their 
 crops, their goods, and even their persons seized, in order to satisfy what 
 was due from others even poorer than themselves. Many of these unfor- 
 tunate persons, thus cruelly thrown into prison, were protected and set at 
 liberty by the Court of Aids of Rouen, whose judgments were cancelled 
 by the King's Council. These rigorous measures were pursued with 
 increased severity, and at length, driven to despair, many of the inhabi- 
 tants of Lower Normandy, who were contemptuously denominated Va-nu- 
 pieds (Go naked-feet), at length took up arms and entrenched themselves 
 on the slopes of Avranches. 
 
 Foreign troops, under Colonel Gassion, drowned this insurrection in the 
 blood of the insurgents. After the soldiers came the judges and execu- 
 tioners. Richelieu selected the Chancellor, Seguier, to avenge the Royal 
 authority. The parliament of Normandy was suspended, all franchises 
 suppressed, and an enormous sum levied on the city of Rouen. Seguier 
 declared that the whole province should be governed by the absolute will 
 
38 SEPABATION OF POETUGAL FEOM SPAIN. [BOOK III. Chap. II. 
 
 of the King, without limit and without control; and presided over a 
 tribunal chosen by himself, which delivered a multitude of judgments of 
 confiscation, exile, and death. Such was the insurrection of Normandy, 
 which found no echo in the other parts of the kingdom, and was promptly 
 stifled by the iron hand which then weighed so heavily on France. 
 
 The revolts in Spain were more serious, and exercised a great influence 
 insurrection in on tne results of the war. Catalonia, with its annexed 
 oma, . districts of Eoussillon and Cerdagne, by reason of its many 
 franchises, formed a province almost independent of the Spanish 
 monarchy. Treated harshly by Olivarez, the Catalans rose in insurrec- 
 tion, and gave themselves to the Crown of France. 
 
 Another insurrection burst forth at the same time at the other ex- 
 tremity of the Peninsula. The Portuguese, enslaved bv 
 
 Portugal re- J ° ' J 
 
 covers her inde- Spain for sixty years, threw off the detested yoke : John of 
 
 pendence, 1641. r J J i J "> 
 
 Braganza, descendant of their ancient monarchs, was elected 
 king, and he hastened to ally himself with France and Holland against 
 Spain. 
 
 The war continued to rage in Germany, where Guebriant maintained 
 his position with honour ; but the two principal scenes of military opera- 
 Campai<m of tions were Artois and Piedmont. A numerous army, which 
 640 ' was assembled in Picardy under the three marshals, La 
 
 Meilleraye, Chatillon, and Chaulnes, entered Artois and invested Arras 7 
 when Louis XIII. and Eichelieu arrived in person, to encourage the 
 besiegers. It was there that, by a noble action, the illustrious Fabert, a 
 soldier of fortune, who raised himself solely by his own merits to be a 
 marshal of France, first made himself known. Eichelieu having asked 
 him if he knew of any one who would venture, for a hundred thousand 
 crowns, to enter and reconnoitre the besieged place, Fabert replied — " I 
 will do it for honour !" and he kept his word. After the Cardinal-Infant 
 had made fruitless attempts to force the French lines and to drive back 
 the besieging army, Arras capitulated. A young hero, the Duke 
 d'Enghien, who became the great Conde, made his first essay in warfare 
 in this campaign, under the orders of Marshal Meilleraye. 
 
 The campaign of Piedmont was still more glorious to our arms. 
 Success in Piea. Count d'Harcourt, with ten thousand men against twenty 
 mont, 1640. thousand, forced the Marquis de Leganez to raise the siege 
 
 of Casal ; and then, advancing rapidly and boldly upon Turin, which was 
 
1624-1643.] COINSPIKACY OF SEDAN. 39 
 
 defended by Prince Thomas, he invested it. Leganez made an attempt 
 to relieve it ; and the French besieging army found itself in its turn be- 
 sieged in its own lines by an army very superior in numbers, and closely 
 pressed between it and the garrison. D'Harcourt, however, by the 
 rapidity of his movements deceived the two generals, vanquished them in 
 turn, and forced Prince Thomas to capitulate. He had been worthily 
 seconded by the younger brother of the Duke de Bouillon, the Viscount de 
 Turenne, who was one day to be reckoned amongst the greatest captains 
 of Europe. 
 
 A new insurrection broke forth in France at the commencement of 
 1641, the enemies of Richelieu joining the national enemies conspiracy of 
 against him. From the heights of his ramparts at Sedan the Sedan ' 1641, 
 Duke de Bouillon awaited a favourable moment to arouse again in France 
 the flame of civil war ; the Count of Soissons, a prince of the blood, and 
 the Duke of Guise, a grandson of Balafre, joined him in his retreat ; and 
 all three, allying themselves with the Imperialists, marched upon Paris at 
 the head of a small army. Lamboi, the Emperor's general, commanded 
 their troops, which encountered at Marfee, on the Meuse, the army of 
 Marshal de Chatillon, which Richelieu had directed towards Sedan, in 
 anticipation of the rebel movements. The Royal army dispersed without 
 fighting, and the road to Paris lay open to the rebels. But they had no 
 longer any flag under which to fight, for the Count of 
 
 o . tii -im-i-i' • i •! n i • Death of the 
 
 boissons had been killed in action, in the midst of his count of Sois- 
 
 ~, . sons, 1641. 
 
 officers, by a pistol-shot, by some hand which was never 
 discovered. This circumstance rendered the power of the Cardinal and 
 the peace of the kingdom secure. The campaign of 1641 had not been 
 interrupted by this event, and France retained the advantages ac- 
 quired during the preceding one in Artois and in Piedmont. Guebriant 
 covered himself with glory in Germany, and succeeded in effecting 
 a junction, after a long and difficult march, at Zwickau, on the Mulda, 
 with the illustrious Swedish general, Bonner, who, already grievously 
 sick, died almost immediately after this junction, which saved his 
 army. 
 
 The active Tarsterson, who, being affected by paralysis, was borne in a 
 litter in the midst of his army, succeeded Bonner in the command and in 
 the career of victory. The two armies separated, and each flew to new 
 triumphs. Guebriant vanquished Piccolomini at Wolfenbiittel and 
 
40 YICTOET OF LERIDA. [BoOE III. CHAP. II. 
 
 Lamboi at Kempen. Their armies once more effected a junction, and 
 all Saxony was reduced to subjection. 
 
 In spite of the revolutions of Lisbon and Barcelona, the house of 
 Conquest of Austria still resolutely maintained the struggle; and 
 
 Koussiiion, 1642. Ri c i ie ii eu resolved to strike at the very heart of its power. 
 The invasion of Spain was decided on, and the Royal army poured 
 towards the Pyrenees. Before crossing the mountains, however, it was 
 important to complete the conquest of Roussillon, a dependency of Cata- 
 lonia, where Philip had still retained some important strongholds. 
 
 King Louis XIII. went in person to conduct the siege of Perpignan. 
 
 Spain exhausted herself in her endeavours to save this place ; but she 
 victory of was vanquished both by land and sea, and after an heroic 
 
 Lenda, 1642. resistance of four months, the governor capitulated on the 
 9th September, 1642; and the battle of Lerida, in which the Spanish 
 general Leganez was beaten by Lamothe-Houdancourt, completed the 
 conquest of Roussillon, which henceforth formed a portion of the kingdom 
 of France. Louis XIII. and his Minister survived the victory but a short 
 time. 
 
 After having thus rapidly described the various phases of the struggle 
 
 maintained by Richelieu during seven years against the 
 
 ties respecting house of Austria, it is time that we should throw a retro- 
 internal affairs. . . - , 
 
 spective glance on the interior affairs or the kingdom. 
 
 When the French period of the Thirty Years' War began, the Queen- 
 mother, the Duke of Orleans, and the other princes of the blood, were 
 exiled or submissive; but the reverses of 1636 reanimated the hopes of 
 the discontented, and fresh plots were formed against the life or authority 
 of the terrible Cardinal, who responded to them by measures of increased 
 rigour. The most formidable of these conspiracies was that of Sedan. 
 
 The prison, the scaffold, exile — and even, it has been said, poison — 
 were employed to deliver him from his enemies. He had England and 
 Holland closed against the Queen-mother, now poor and humble. He 
 drove from the kingdom the Duke of Vendome, the natural son of 
 Henry IV., and the Duke of Guise ; had condemned to death for contu- 
 macy the Duke de la Valette, accused of having been guilty of treason 
 during the siege of Fontarabia ; and extended the punishment even to his 
 father, the old Epernon, whom he deprived of his government of 
 Guienne. 
 
I624r-1643.] INTENDANTS CREATED. 41 
 
 Whilst Richelieu thus inflicted heavy blows on the high aristocracy, he 
 multiplied for the classes beneath them offices of honour and public em- 
 ployments ; and one of the most noticeable of his acts is the creation of 
 Intendants of Finance, whom he invested with very extensive administra- 
 tive and judicial powers, and thereby almost completely annihilated the 
 remains of feudal power possessed by the provincial gover- Creation of In . 
 nors. These Intendants were chosen from amongst men of tendants > 163 °- 
 no personal importance, and were the mere creatures and docile instru- 
 ments of the King's Council, which incessantly endeavoured, either by 
 violating or misinterpreting a mass of privileges and acquired rights, to 
 extend its authority in every direction, and to subject all the forces of the 
 State to its sole and central control. After having thus abased the aristo- 
 cracy, Richelieu urged the King to deprive the Parliaments of all political 
 power, and Louis XIII. ordered them forthwith to register his edicts 
 without any preliminary examination, and barely permitted them to make 
 a few observations on questions of finance. Many magistrates, having 
 exclaimed against such a despotism as this, their offices were suppressed, 
 in order that the whole body of the magistracy might understand that it 
 merely existed by the King's gracious permission. 
 
 The Cardinal, according to his own expression, detested the shams and 
 delays of those bodies which raised difficulties about every- The cle 
 thing. He opposed also the pretensions and privileges of taxed - 
 the clergy, who up to this period had never paid taxes ; and, at the same 
 time that he was prohibiting, in the name of the liberties of the French 
 Church, the sending of Peter's-pence to Rome, he laid an enormous impost 
 upon it, and enforced payment in spite of the anathemas of the Holy See. 
 The clergy, the nobility, the parliaments, however, dared to utter no 
 murmur, for France and its King had been enslaved by Richelieu. The 
 description given by this Minister of his own policy has a terrible signifi- 
 cance. " I never venture to undertake anything," he said, " without having 
 well considered it ; but, when once I have formed a resolution I advance 
 straight to my end ; I overthrow, I mow down everything in my path, 
 and then I cover all with my red robe." 
 
 His pride would allow no rival either in power, in magnificence, or in 
 talents. A friend, as is every truly great man, to literature, p , . 
 and desiring to fix and polish the language, he had the glory Ac e adero nch i635 
 of founding with this view the French Academy, of which 
 
 \ 
 
42 CONSPIEACY OE CINQ-MAES. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 Balzac, Voiture, Vaugelas, and the most eminent writers of the period 
 were members. He embellished the Sorbonne, and encouraged artists by 
 honours and pensions ; but, having himself composed a bad tragedy named 
 " Miramme," out of jealousy he compelled the French Academy to criticise 
 the " Cid," the masterpiece of the great Corneille. 
 
 He had an instinctive dislike for every independent and proud spirit, 
 and on this account took umbrage at the celebrated Duvergier de Hau- 
 ranne, Abbe of St. Cyran, whom he honoured for the austerity of his 
 character and his morals. St. Cyran had been the fellow-pupil and re- 
 mained the friend of Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, author of a famous work on 
 the doctrine of St. Augustine. Some of the propositions contained in this 
 book were attacked by the Jesuits at the instigation of the Cardinal. St. 
 Cyran had approved of the work, and was firmly resolved to support it. 
 He ventured to defend it against Richelieu himself, and the latter avenged 
 himself by shutting him up in 1638 in the Bastille. In this same year 
 the Cardinal lost his most confidential agent, Father Joseph, 
 
 Father Joseph. , m ° ' ~ 
 
 a simple Capuchin monk, who had been surnamed " His 
 Grey Eminence," and who knew, better than any one, how to influence 
 kings and discover their secrets. " I have lost my right arm," said 
 Richelieu, when he was informed of his death. From henceforth, without 
 a confidant, the Cardinal carried out his plans alone. 
 
 During the campaign of Roussillon a final and bloody catastrophe raised 
 Richelieu's power, and the terror inspired by his name, to their height. 
 The King's favourites were such as he selected ; and the Cardinal selected 
 such as would inform him of the monarch's secret wishes, and crushed 
 them as soon as they ceased to be useful to him, or manifested any desire 
 to aggrandize themselves without his support. He had thus placed 
 Conspiracy of near ^e King tne J oxm S Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, 
 Cmq-Mars, 1642. twenty- one years of age. This young man, appointed master 
 of the horse, made rapid progress in the good graces of the Sovereign, and, 
 discovering the King's antipathy for the Cardinal, conceived the hope of 
 overthrowing him. With this object he allied himself with the Queen, with 
 Gaston d'Orleans, and the Duke of Bouillon, who always flattered himself 
 that he should one day replace Richelieu. The Cardinal, whom the King 
 had for some time treated with coolness, prudently withdrew for a time 
 from the Court, and, whilst he resided at Tarascon, allowed the imprudent 
 Cinq-Mars and his accomplices to implicate themselves with Olivarez. He 
 
1624-1643.] DEATH OF KICHELIEIT. 4& 
 
 became possessed at length of the copy of a treaty of alliance between the 
 Spaniards and the conspirators, and sent it to Louis. 
 
 Cinq-Mars was immediately seized, together with the yonng De Thou, 
 a son of the celebrated historian of that name, his friend and confidant, 
 but not his accomplice. The Duke de Bouillon was made prisoner in the 
 midst of the army of Italy, to the command of which he had been ap- 
 pointed. The King quitted the Perpignan camp, and had himself trans- 
 ported to Tarascon, where lay the Cardinal, as afflicted with sickness and 
 infirmities as himself. Richelieu broke forth in a torrent of reproaches ; 
 and Louis, after excusing and justifying himself, ordered his subjects to 
 obey his Minister as himself. The Cardinal proceeded to Lyons by the 
 Ehone, in a bark which towed one containing his two young prisoners. A 
 commission was opened to try them. The crime of Cinq-Mars was not 
 proved ; but the cowardly confessions of the Duke d'Orleans destroyed 
 him. Cinq -Mars was condemned to death and executed J : . ; ; •'; ; 
 
 1 Execution of 
 
 with the young De Thou, who was guilty of not having £^5£ rs and 
 denounced his friend. The Duke of Bouillon lost his prin- 1642, 
 cipality, but obtained his pardon in exchange. Gaston of Orleans ob- 
 tained permission to live at Blois in private. 
 
 Eichelieu, satisfied and avenged, set out for Paris, and journeyed in 
 triumph. His guards carried him on their shoulders in a species or 
 furnished chamber, and on his entrance into cities he had the gates which 
 were too narrow to receive him pulled down. It was thus that he- 
 traversed France from Lyons to his own palace, where he displayed 
 luxury very superior to that of the monarch. 
 
 The Queen-mother died in indigence at Cologne, and Richelieu 
 followed her shortly afterwards to the tomb. The King 
 
 Death of Marie 
 
 was seen to smile during the Cardinal's aeronv, and after de Medici and or 
 
 ° JJ Eichelieu, 16-12. 
 
 his Minister's death coldly observed — "See, how politic 
 is death !" Richelieu's eyes had scarcely been closed, when the 
 King at once abandoned the course pursued by the Cardinal. The 
 prisons were thrown open, and banishments ceased. Vendome, Elboeuf, 
 Bassompierre, and Guise reappeared at Court, and preluded by empty 
 quarrels the storms which were to disturb the reign about to commence. 
 Louis XIII., in fact, only survived his terrible minister six D eat n f Louig 
 months, and died at Chateau-Neuf, Saint Germain, at forty- XIIL » 1643 - 
 two years of age. A few days before expiring he had nominated Anne 
 
44 CHAEACTEE OF THE KING AND EICHELIETJ. [BOOK III. CHAP. II 
 
 of Austria regent, and Gaston, his brother, lieutenant-general of the 
 kingdom ; joining with them a Council of Regency, under the presidency 
 of Conde. On the following day he had the Dauphin, then five years of 
 age, baptized, and having had him brought into his chamber, asked 
 him how he would be named. "I call myself Louis XIV.," replied 
 the child. "Not yet, my son — not yet!" said the expiring monarch. 
 This word alone announced a king. "People were so weary," 
 says a contemporary, " of his government, that all the world, even 
 including those who were under obligations to him, were anxious for 
 his death." 
 
 This king, although braver than his brother, was as destitute as he 
 of moral strength and firmness. He loved no one, and, 
 
 The characters 
 
 of Louis xiii. gloomy, suspicious, 'jealous, and inconstant as he was, his 
 
 and Richelieu. 
 
 favour exposed its object to as many dangers as his hatred. 
 Too feeble to reign by himself, he was conscious of the fact, and this was 
 the secret of the long ascendancy over him possessed by Cardinal 
 Richelieu, who was even accused of having excited troubles at home and 
 abroad in order to render himself still more indispensable to the feeble 
 monarch, the accomplice of his tyranny. Among the acts which 
 emanated from the actual will of the Prince, whom flatterers have sur- 
 named " The Just," history cites the vow by which, on recovering from 
 an illness, he placed his kingdom under the protection of the Virgin. 
 Louis XIIL, in the eyes of posterity, is but a shadow by the side of 
 Richelieu; and we have an instructive picture in this feeble monarch 
 voluntarily bowing even until his death before the genius of a haughty 
 Minister whom he hated, and without whose assistance he felt that he was 
 incapable of governing. 
 
 In the character and acts of Cardinal Richelieu we see good and bad 
 intimately blended ; light and shade strikingly contrasted. To support 
 his undertakings and his luxury he pitilessly ground down the people ; and 
 the expenses of his household alone amounted to more than four millions. 
 On the other hand, he increased the power of the kingdom by organizing 
 its military forces on a formidable scale, by creating a Royal navy, and by 
 crushing the French Protestants as a political party without interfering 
 with their religious belief. He was the first to render France the most 
 influential power in Europe ; and it owed to him, amongst other con- 
 quests, that of Roussillon in the south, and in the north that of the prin- 
 
1624-1643.] EICHELIETJ'S ADMINTSTKATION. 45 
 
 cipality of Sedan, which had been a perpetual focus of intrigues, and the 
 establishment of nourishing colonies in Canada and the Antilles. It was 
 he also who, by supporting the Protestants of Germany against Austria, 
 consolidated the famous system of the balance of power in Europe ; but 
 if, in many respects, his foreign policy was able and firm, he is justly re- 
 proached with having neglected the opportunities which occurred to him 
 of lightening the intolerable burden borne by the people for so many wars. 
 Eichelieu not only desired that the balance of power should be main- 
 tained, but that all the nations except his own should be humiliated ; and 
 he was really the author of that violent and aggressive policy which was 
 but too well followed by his successor, Mazarin, by Louis XIV., and, in 
 our own days, by a conqueror destined for ever to be famous, and 
 which made the glory of a nation consist in the abasement and humilia- 
 tion of all those around it — a policy always fatal in the long run, 
 and a source of terrible reactions and perpetual wars ; for the love of 
 country, independence, and national honour is implanted in the hearts 
 of all peoples. For them, as for individuals, liberty and honour are the 
 most precious possessions ; and when a nation, humiliated or enslaved, 
 signs a peace or accepts a truce, it does but adjourn the day of its 
 vengeance. 
 
 Richelieu, by the enlightened protection which he aiforded to literature 
 the arts, industry, and commerce, contributed much to the emancipation 
 of the Third Estate, and to the progress made by the bulk of the citizens 
 in importance and consideration. Whilst with one hand he humiliated 
 the proud, with the other he elevated personal merit, even when it 
 existed in the most humble ranks. It is on this account that his memory 
 is justly honoured, and that it is especially dear to a school which has too 
 often confounded liberty with equality. This school has given him un- 
 bounded praise for having established the Royal power on the ruins of 
 feudalism ; but, in fact, Louis XL, before Richelieu, had humbled the 
 haughty aristocracy, and amongst the successors of that monarch all those 
 who knew how to reign were absolute kings. Henry IV. himself, from 
 the day that he was recognised as king, acknowledged no limits to his 
 authority ; and if Louis XIII. had possessed a soul of any firmness, he 
 might have reigned as absolutely ; but it was seen that he was king only 
 in name, and that Richelieu reigned for him. It was against the Minister 
 that the greater number of the conspirators directed their machinations, 
 
46 EICHELTETJ'S ADMINISTRATION. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 with the intention of hurling him from power and succeeding him. 
 They did not attack the throne, but disputed, so to speak, with 
 Richelieu the possession of the regency under a king whom they knew 
 to be too feeble and incapable to be ever able to escape from a 
 state of pupilage. Richelieu, there can be no doubt, inflicted upon 
 the factions terrible blows, and deprived them for a time of the means 
 of succeeding in their projects ; but by taking away from them also 
 all chance of pardon, he drove them into extreme and desperate enter- 
 prises. He had to struggle against revolts all his life, and his death 
 was followed by troubles as great as those which had preceded his 
 ministry. 
 
 It was not Richelieu, therefore, who fortified the Royal authority in a 
 durable manner ; and it was not he who forced the princes and haughty 
 nobles to bow before the majesty of the throne, whoever might be its 
 occupant. This end could not be attained but by the combined influence 
 of a great renown and long habit, and to attain it nothing less was 
 required than the imposing character of Louis XIV. and the long dura- 
 tion of his reign. Carried away by his passion for power, for the unity 
 of France, and for magnificence, Richelieu overstepped all those limits 
 within which the action of a Government should be restrained. If it is 
 of importance, on the one hand, that the central power should be strong 
 and factions repressed, it is not the less necessary, on the other hand, for 
 the preservation of vigour in the social body, that the life should circulate 
 freely and abundantly through all its members. Richelieu neglected this 
 principle, and contributed more than any one to introduce in France that 
 terrible centralization, which, when in excess, has been a great peril for 
 many peoples on the Continent. His political testament is the code of 
 despotism. By crushing beneath a despotic power the municipal fran- 
 chises of the cities, and violating the rights of the provinces annexed to 
 the Crown, Richelieu overthrew those salutary boundaries which, wisely 
 maintained, would have prevented the Royal authority from abusing 
 its prerogative. He in like manner trampled under foot the authority of 
 the Parliaments, and, to secure the peace of the kingdom, had recourse 
 only to arms and punishments. He thus laboured much more for the 
 present than the future; and the troubles which ensanguined France 
 during almost the whole of his Ministry, and more especially those which 
 burst forth so violently after his death, prove that to keep a nation within 
 
1624-1643.] GREAT MEN. 47 
 
 the bounds of discipline, terror is not alone sufficient ; that no force can 
 be a substitute for wise institutions, the protection of actual rights, and 
 legitimate interests. That, in short, kings, as the rulers of empires, 
 can scarcely ever found, by the aid of soldiers and executioners, an 
 order of things which will remain in existence after them, when 
 they have neglected to lead all to respect the laws by respecting them 
 themselves. 
 
 Eeason and the spirit of fitness had not, so early as the reign of 
 Louis XIII., regulated the distinct attributes of each pro- social state of 
 fession. The parliament, deprived of its natural functions, France * 
 decided on matters of science and war. In 1621, it passed a decree of 
 death against those who should teach anything contrary to the doctrines 
 of Aristotle ; and at a later period it decided on the means which should 
 be taken for the defence of the capital against the enemy. At the same 
 time, cardinals were seen in the command of armies, and ambassadors were 
 found serving in the field under the friendly powers to whose courts they 
 had been sent. 
 
 The nation still gave itself up at this period to the most deplorable 
 superstitions. Richelieu had condemnation of death passed upon Urbain 
 Grandier, Cure of Loudun, as a magician; and the wife of Marshal 
 d'Ancre had, but a short time previously, suffered the same fate. 
 Great importance was always ascribed to astrological predic- 
 tions; and at the moment of the birth of Louis XIV., an science, and the 
 
 arts. 
 
 astrologer was posted in the chamber of Anne of Austria to 
 watch the heavens. On the other hand, in every part of Europe, modern 
 genius was making vigorous flights in the sciences, literature, and the 
 arts. Shakespeare and Bacon had rendered England illustrious in this 
 respect; and they had as contemporaries in Spain, Michel Cervantes, 
 Lope de Vega, the historians Mariana and Herrera ; in Italy, the poets 
 Marini, Tassoni, and the immortal Tasso, the historian Davila, and the 
 learned physicists Galileo and Torricelli; in Holland, the great philo- 
 sopher Grotius ; in Denmark, the astronomer Tycho Brahe, whose pupil 
 was Kepler. The great painters Rubens, Vandyke, and Teniers were 
 at this time the glory of the Flemish school ; whilst Guido, Albano, 
 Lanfranc, and Domenichino added lustre to the Italian. French 
 manners, as yet half barbarous, had especial need of the softening 
 influence of art and literature. The country had already produced 
 
48 GKEAT MEN. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 Descartes, who brought about a revolution in philosophy and science 
 by following the experimental method introduced by Bacon and 
 Galileo. Malherbe and Rotrou, also, had acquired a well-deserved 
 glory, the one as the precursor of the great Corneille in tragedy, and 
 the other as the veritable creator of our poetical language. At 
 length Corneille appeared, and with him commenced the great literary 
 age of France. 
 
1643-1661.] THE QUEEN APPOINTED KEGENT. 49 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MINORITY OF LOUIS XIV. — MAZARIN'S MINISTRY WAR OF THE FRONDE. 
 
 1643-1661. 
 
 The reign of Louis XIV. may be divided into three principal periods : 
 the first comprising the time which elapsed between the accession of the 
 King and the death of Cardinal Mazarin, during which the young King 
 took no direct part in the Government ; the second, embracing the 
 most glorious years of his reign, from 1661 to 1685; the third, com- 
 mencing when great faults threatened danger to the prosperity of the 
 kingdom and the glory of its sovereign, and extending from the death of 
 Colbert to that of Louis XIV. 
 
 Anne of Austria, the regent, appointed the Duke of Beaufort, second son 
 of the Duke of Vendome, and grandson of Henry IV., governor of her 
 two children,* and selected as her Minister Augustin Potier, Bishop of 
 Beauvais, a man of small talents, and totally unacquainted with public 
 affairs. She then applied to the Parliament to dissolve the Council of 
 Regency. Glittering promises gained over the followers of 
 
 . . -rt t f Bed of Justice. 
 
 Richelieu, as well as their adversaries ; and at a Bed of The Parliament 
 
 recognises Anne 
 
 Justice, held on the 18th May by the young King, who of Austria as 
 
 Regent, 1643. 
 
 was then five years of age, the Queen was recognised as 
 
 Regent, and acknowledged to be at liberty to compose her council as she 
 
 chose. This was the second time that the Parliament had been called 
 
 * The early education of the young Prince was much neglected. He himself 
 related that, when a child, he fell into a basin in the Palais Royal without any one 
 having noticed it. He was often without common necessaries, and the pages of his 
 chamber were dismissed because there were no means of supporting them. During the 
 troubles of the Fronde, the Regent deprived the Duke of Venddme of his place as 
 Governor, and gave it to Marshal Villeroi. The latter made the clever Abbe* Perefixe 
 de Beaumont the young King's preceptor; but civil wars are not conducive to the 
 progress of education, and the royal pupil learned little more than gymnastic exercises, 
 in which he excelled. " He was delighted, however," says Voltaire, " with verses and 
 romances treating of gallantry and glory, which, without his knowing it, portrayed 
 his character." 
 
 VOL. II. • E 
 
50 PEACE IN EEANCE. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 upon during a minority to decide whose hand should exercise the supreme 
 power. The States-General, however, had alone inherited the political 
 rights of the old Parliament, or general assemblies of the freemen of the 
 nation, held under the kings of the two first races. The Parliament of 
 Paris, although the peers sat in it, was but a simple court of justice, and 
 possessed no functions superior to those of the provincial parliament. 
 Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria, by voluntarily inviting its deci- 
 sion, had given it an exaggerated opinion of its political importance ; and 
 from this resulted great troubles and serious perils to the State. 
 
 Cardinal Mazarin, who was a member of the Council of Regency, was of 
 opinion that it ought to be dissolved. The Queen rewarded his devotion 
 by making him her First Minister ; and the favour with which she re- 
 garded him was made the pretext for fresh intrigues. The persons whom 
 Richelieu had proscribed returned in crowds to the Court, when they 
 complained that the Regent, who had been persecuted along with them- 
 selves, treated them with but scant favour. Augustin Potier, jealous of 
 Mazarin, joined this discontented party, which was called the Cabal of the 
 Importants, and the leaders of which were the Guises, the Vendomes, 
 the Epernons, the famous Duchess of Chevreuse, and her mother-in-law, 
 the Duchess of Montbazon. The latter having offended the Duchess of 
 Longueville, sister of the Duke d'Enghien, already celebrated, was dis- 
 graced by Anne of Austria, and made the Duke of Beaufort sympa- 
 thize in her desires for vengeance. The Regent was furious against them 
 and their partisans ; exiled many from the Court ; imprisoned Beaufort 
 at Vincennes ; and sent the Bishop of Beauvais to his diocese. She 
 destroyed the Cabal of the Importants by these rigorous measures, and 
 bestowed all her confidence on Cardinal Mazarin. France now enjoyed 
 some peace, as far as domestic affairs were concerned, for three years. 
 
 The war with the Empire and Spain continued to the glory of France on 
 ,,.„ all her frontiers. Louis of Bourbon, Duke d'Enghien, so 
 
 Military opera- " ° ' 
 
 tions, 1643— 1648. ce i e "b ra t e d under the name of the Great Conde, had gained 
 in Flanders, five days after the death of Louis XIII., the battle of Rocroi 
 over the Spaniards, who were commanded by Don Francisco de Melos. In 
 this engagement the famous Count de Fuentes was slain, and the brilliant 
 Spanish infantry, which had been invincible since the days of Charles V., 
 Batti f e i was destroyed. The victor only owed his success to his own 
 l6M * genius, and he was but twenty-two years of age. The im- 
 
1643-1661.] BATTLE OF LENS. 51 
 
 portant capture of Thionville was the first fruit of this victory, and was 
 quickly followed by the death of Marshal de Guebriant and the defeat of 
 the Count de Rantzau, his successor, who was vanquished at Duttlingen by 
 the Duke of Lorraine and the two illustrious generals, John de Werth and 
 Mercy. There now remained but five or six thousand men of an army 
 which had long made the Empire tremble, and Marshal Turenne was sent 
 to rally what remained of it. 
 
 Brilliant successes atoned for this reverse ; and in the first place 
 D'Enghien, with Turenne under his orders, vanquished 
 
 _ .. ml ^ . - Battles of Fri- 
 
 Mercy at Fnbourg. The Prince, to excite the courage of bourg and Nord- 
 
 lingen, 1644. 
 
 his soldiers in this great battle, threw his baton of command 
 into the enemy's entrenchments, and recovered it sword in hand. In the 
 following year he marched to the assistance of Turenne, who had been 
 surprised and beaten at Mariendal, and gained the battle of Nordlingen, 
 the death of Mercy deciding the victory. The great talent of Conde con- 
 sisted in forming on the instant the boldest resolutions, and executing them 
 with prudence and rapidity. The Duke of Orleans, the King's uncle, and 
 the Count d'Harcourt, had also carried on the war with fair success, the 
 one in Flanders, the other in Catalonia. The first, aided by Marshal de 
 Gassion, had- seized Gravelines and Courtray, and taken Mardick in the 
 presence of an enemy's army. On the sea, also, the French arms had been 
 successful. Twenty of their galleys had vanquished in 1646 the Spanish 
 fleet on the coast of Italy, and in the same year the Duke d'Enghien, 
 assisted by the celebrated Van Tromp, the Dutch admiral, gave Dunkirk 
 to France. He then set sail for Spain, where he met with a repulse before 
 Lerida, the siege of which he was forced to raise. Naples 
 rose in insurrection at the voice of the fisherman Masaniello ; under 
 and the Duke of Guise, surrounded by the Neapolitans, threw 
 himself into it. But France failed to support him ; he was made prisoner 
 by Don John of Austria, the natural son of Philip IV., and Naples fell again 
 beneath the Spanish yoke. 
 
 The years 1647 and 1648 were fatal to the House of Austria. Turenne, 
 with the assistance of the Swedes, gained the battle of Som- Battle of Lens 
 merhausen ; General Wrangel took Little Prague ; and the 1648 ' 
 battle of Lens terminated the war. This battle was fought by the Duke 
 d'Enghien, now Prince of Conde, in 1648, against the Archduke Leopold, 
 the Emperor's brother. As he advanced towards the enemy he uttered only 
 
 e 2 
 
52 ADMINISTRATION OP MAZAPIN. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 these words — " Soldiers ! remember Rocroi, Fribourg, and Nordlingen." 
 He routed the Imperialists and the Spaniards, took a hundred flags and 
 Ihirty- eight pieces of cannon; and gained so complete a victory that 
 Leopold was left without an army. Broken down by so many reverses, 
 Ferdinand III. consented to negotiate, and peace was at length signed at 
 Peace of Munster in Westphalia. By this peace it was agreed that 
 
 Westphalia France should retain a great part of Alsace, the three bishop- 
 
 1648, rics and the two fortresses of Philisbourg and Pignerol, the 
 
 keys of Germany and Piedmont. The principal articles of the treaty, 
 relative to the allies of France, declared the sovereignty of the various 
 States of Germany throughout the extent of their territory, defined their 
 rights at the general diets of the Empire, and bestowed upon the Calvinists 
 the same privileges that were- possessed by the Lutherans. Sweden ob- 
 tained a portion of Pomerania, many strong places, and five millions of 
 crowns. The Swiss cantons were declared free of the Germanic Empire, 
 and the independence of the United Provinces in respect to this Empire 
 and to Spain was formally recognised. The Peace of Westphalia put 
 an end to the Thirty Years' War in Germany ; but Spain refused to accede 
 to it, and the war continued between that country and France. 
 
 At the time when the celebrated peace was signed, the interior of 
 Administration tne kingdom was much disturbed. Mazarin, having be- 
 ofMazann. come all powerful, had roused against himself an almost 
 
 universal hatred and indignation. In the character of this Minister much 
 indolence and frivolity were joined with distinguished talents. Ridiculous 
 by his accent and his manners, and odious as a stranger, he was the object 
 of numerous cabals. He wished, in common with Richelieu, that the Royal 
 power should be absolute, and his despotism excited as much hatred as 
 did that of his predecessor. But whilst Richelieu by his cruelties filled 
 all with terror and frightened many into obedience, Mazarin, on the 
 contrary, by his perpetual falsehoods, and his tortuous policy, added con- 
 tempt to the hatred which already filled the hearts of his enemies, and 
 emboldened them to attack him. The regent was openly accused of 
 having given all her confidence to an Italian who was acquainted neither 
 with the genius nor the laws oi the country, and had composed her 
 council less in accordance with the necessities of the State than with the 
 wishes of her Minister. A Siennois, Particelli Emeri, a contemptible 
 fellow, to whom Mazarin had confided the management of the finances, 
 
1643-1661.] THE EDICT OF TJNIOK. 53 
 
 disgusted the French by his luxury, his debaucheries, and his hateful 
 resources. He created ridiculous offices, which he put up to auction ; 
 he raised the tariff of the rights of entrance, and exhumed an edict 
 of 1548 which prohibited the extension of Paris, and which punished 
 its infractors with the destruction of the buildings erected within the 
 defined limits, and the confiscation of the materials. Many persons who 
 had disobeyed this edict, long since forgotten, had now to pay heavy sums 
 to save their property. The operation ordered in respect to this matter 
 by the Government was called the toise (French measure of a fathom), and 
 excited great indignation. The Parliament was informed of it, and the 
 edict was withdrawn. 
 
 In addition to all this Mazarin desired to keep back four years 1 salaries 
 from the members of all the sovereign courts, with the exception of the 
 Parliament of Paris, and he threatened to suppress the law known by the 
 name of the Paulette, which secured to the families of magistrates the 
 possession of their offices in perpetuity. This arbitrary proceeding 
 aroused a universal clamour ; and the Grand Council, the Court of 
 Accounts, and the Court of Aids, pointed out to the Parliament, that the 
 decision which excepted it from the operation of this measure had been 
 only taken for the purpose of disuniting them. The Parliament assembled 
 and passed the celebrated Edict of Union, in accordance with 
 which two councillors chosen from each of its chambers and important ' 
 
 • • t t Totes of the 
 
 were to confer with deputies from the other bodies in the Chamber of 
 
 St. .Louis. 
 
 common interest of all. Mazarin declared that such a 
 decree was an attack on the rights of the Crown, and Anne of Austria 
 wished to inflict immediate punishment on all those who had signed it. 
 This Queen, said Mazarin, was as brave as a soldier, who knows not the 
 reality of the danger, and he with difficulty restrained her wrath. The 
 Parliament, whose zeal was stimulated by the young magistrates of 
 enquetes, devoted all its time to the affairs of the State, and conciliated 
 public favour by calling for the due execution of the laws and adopting 
 many popular resolutions. The Chamber of St. Louis voted twenty-seven 
 articles, which were to be submitted for the approbation of the' Parliament 
 and the sanction of the regent. In many of the articles the magistrates 
 showed their jealousy of the financiers, and their ignorance of public affairs 
 and all the principles of credit ; but the principal ones were devoted to 
 useful reforms or wise measures. Some secured to private persons the 
 
54 THE RIVAL FACTIONS. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 payment of their bonds on the H6tel-de-Ville, relieved commerce of odious 
 monopolies, and reduced by one-fourth the odious tax of the taille, which 
 only fell on the humbler classes. Other articles prohibited, on pain of 
 death, the levying of any tax save by verified edicts sanctioned by the 
 sovereign courts; and declared that none of the King's subjects should be 
 in custody more than twenty-four hours without being interrogated and 
 taken before his proper judge. The propositions of the Chamber of Saint 
 Louis were practically the bases of a national constitution, and the citizen 
 classes received them with enthusiasm. The people saw its own cause in 
 that of the magistrates who had adopted them, and the Parliament delibe- 
 rated upon them, in spite of the prohibition of the regent, who called these 
 articles so many attempts at assassination of the Royal authority. The 
 Court, the army, and the multitude were now divided into two factions, 
 that of the Mazarins and that of the Frondeurs,* or partisans 
 
 TIig IVXuzfiriDs 
 
 and the Fron- of the Parliament. The first president, Mathieu Mole, a 
 
 deurs, 164S. . . , 
 
 man of high character, interposed in vain between the two 
 parties ; his moderation and love of peace only brought upon him the 
 insults of all. Amongst those who were the most eager in urging forward 
 the magistrates, were the members of the ancient Cabal of the Importants, 
 the ex-Keeper of the Seal, Chateauneuf, with Montresor and Saint-Ibal, 
 who had both formerly offered to assassinate Richelieu ; Chavigny, who 
 was the author of the favour Mazarin now enjoyed, and who had been 
 disgraced by him ; Fontrailles, and, above all, the famous Paul de Gondi, 
 coadjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, and at a later period known by 
 the name of Cardinal de Retz, an able man, possessed of a just and 
 profound intellect, and who was especially ambitious of being at the head 
 of a party. His magnificent charities had long before gained him the heart 
 of the people ; at the commencement of the political disturbances he had 
 offered his support to the Regent, who had the imprudence to despise it, 
 and he immediately passed over to the Parliamentary side. 
 
 Anne of Austria, determined though she was to repel every attack on 
 the absolute power of the Crown, restrained herself at present, awaiting 
 with concentrated wrath for a favourable opportunity ; and the Parliament 
 
 * The magistrates opposed to the Court were, at the commencement of the troubles, 
 compared to the schoolboys who fought each other with slings in the moats of Paris, 
 and dispersed as soon as they saw the Watch coming. The word took the public 
 fancy, and remained in use, although its application soon ceased to be just. 
 
1643-1661.] COMMENCEMENT OE CITIL WAR. 55 
 
 proceeded boldly to discuss the articles drawn up by the Chamber of 
 Saint Louis, when news arrived of the celebrated victory of Conde at 
 Lens. The Queen thought she had found in the midst of the enthusiasm 
 excited by the success of the Royal arms, a favourable moment for strik- 
 ing the meditated blow, and whilst the Te Deum was being sung for this 
 victory, she gave a verbal order to the lieutenant of her guards to seize the 
 three most factious members of the Parliament, the presidents Charton and 
 Blancmenil, and the councillor Broussel. The first escaped, but the two 
 others were arrested. The fact soon became widely known, . „ ._, 
 
 J 1 Arrest or Blanc- 
 
 and the people rose. Chains were thrown across the streets, j^j£& p opu . 
 barricades were erected, the carriage of the Cardinal was lar tumult > 1Q48 - 
 pursued, and soldiers were massacred, amidst cries of Broussel and liberty ! 
 The Parliament proceeded in a body to the Palais-Royal, energetically 
 represented to the Queen the danger which she incurred, .and, supported by 
 Mazarin, obtained the freedom of the two magistrates. The Treaty of 
 Westphalia was not yet signed, the treasury was empty, and the Court 
 found itself without resources to support at once a war abroad and a 
 conflict within. Mazarin saw very clearly that moderation was necessary, 
 and, guided by his advice, Anne of Austria dissimulated, and sanctioned 
 on the 24th October, 1648, in a celebrated declaration, the greater number 
 •of the articles of the Chamber of Saint Louis. On the same day peace 
 was signed with the Empire at Munster. Spain alone remained at war 
 with France. A certain number of regiments were immediately recalled 
 from Flanders to the environs of the capital. 
 
 In consequence of a quarrel with the Duke of Orleans, the Prince of 
 Conde had joined the party of Mazarin, whom he detested, ^ 
 
 u x J 7 ' Commencement 
 
 and promised him his support; and Anne of Austria now °f ci vil war, 1648. 
 believed herself to be able to crush her enemies. Accompanied by the 
 Cardinal, she suddenly quitted Paris for Saint Germains ; where she de- 
 nounced the magistrates of the Parliament as guilty of a conspiracy 
 against the Royal authority, and of being in league with the enemies 
 of the State, and moved troops upon the capital. The Parliament, 
 on its side, raised money and soldiers, and published a decree, which 
 declared Mazarin to be a disturber of the public peace, and ordered him 
 to quit the kingdom within eight days. This was the commencement of 
 the civil war. 
 
 Conde commanded the Royal army. The greater number of the princes 
 
56 DIFFICULTIES WITH THE MOBILITY. [BOOK III. CHAr. III. 
 
 and great lords of the kingdom, as Conti, Longueville, Nemours, Beaufort, 
 d'Elbceuf, and Bouillon, embraced the cause of the magistracy and liberty, 
 but neither from regard for the laws, nor from respect for the rights of 
 the citizens ; being influenced, rather by ambition, or the caprices of mad 
 love for some woman or another of high rank, brilliant beauty, and 
 loose morals. The greater number affected the most profound contempt 
 for the lower orders, and had no concern for the public liberties. But 
 the remembrance of the independence which the grandees had enjoyed in 
 the feudal times was always present to their thoughts, and they detested 
 a despotism which pressed upon themselves. They devoted their wealth 
 to the maintenance of a multitude of gentlemen, who thus became their 
 clients, and who considered it their duty to serve them even against the 
 King himself. The enthusiasm for royalty, the loyal devotion to the 
 Crown, which Louis XIV. at a later period made a sort of religion for the 
 nobility, were then almost unknown, and the best proof of this fact may 
 be drawn from the example of a man who then did the most honour to 
 France. Turenne declared himself for the Parliament against the Court, 
 forgetting everything for the sake of pleasing the beautiful Duchess de 
 Longueville, Conde's sister, and after having endeavoured, without success, 
 to raise an army against Anne of Austria, he fled from France and 
 joined the Spaniards. 
 
 France now presented a deplorable spectacle ; anarchy was everywhere 
 rampant, and there was a confusion in men's minds, equal to that which 
 prevailed in actual events. On the one side were invoked the prerogatives 
 of the Crown, which were never attempted to be legally and clearly defined, 
 whilst, on the other side, appeal was made to the rights of the citizens and 
 magistrates, which were absolutely established by no positive incontestable 
 law. The course pursued by the most famous of the magistrates who then 
 raised their voices in defence of their privileges and the public liberties, 
 testifies to their uncertainty with respect to the justice of their cause. The 
 first president, Mathieu Mole, the Advocate- General, Omer Talon, noble 
 and eloquent interpreters of the national will, and ardent defenders of their 
 order, believed that laws were in existence which the Crown could not in- 
 fringe ; but at the same time they carried their respect for the Prince, in 
 whose name they administered justice, to a much higher point than did 
 the noblesse. They saw with regret the people arming itself for the Par- 
 liamentary cause, and only joined with extreme reluctance in a struggle 
 
1G43-1661 ] WAR OF THE EROKDE. 57 
 
 against the Crown. The Parliament of Paris, moreover, did not represent 
 the nation, as was the case in England ; the self-love of the members and 
 their esprit de corps did not prevent them from perceiving that the States- 
 General alone possessed a legal right to regulate in concert with the 
 regent the important aifairs of the State, and that to substitute themselves 
 for them, would be a very bold proceeding. Thus, they desired that 
 which was impossible ; for they desired that the Royal authority should 
 be confined within certain limits without being themselves firmly resolved 
 to have recourse to those extreme measures which alone could secure 
 their triumph. They were destined, therefore, to succumb ; and their weak- 
 ness finally deprived the people of any guarantee or any security for their 
 property or liberty, and contributed much to the long continuance ot an 
 arbitrary regime in France, it being natural to power continually to swell 
 and to overstep every limit after each fruitless effort to restrain or 
 suppress it. 
 
 The almost total absence of any deep conviction in men's hearts during 
 the troubles of the Fronde, gradually influenced the conduct Warofthe 
 of the two parties ; the frivolity of the motives which induced Froude - 
 the greater number of the leaders to take up arms, frequently betrayed 
 itself in a strange lightness of language, which the multitude imitated. 
 This war desolated the kingdom, and made oceans of blood to flow, and 
 yet the most serious events were the subject of songs, and turned into 
 ridicule. The Duke of Beaufort, whose familiar manners delighted the 
 populace, was surnamed the King of the Halles ; the coadjutor of Paris, 
 Bishop of Corinth, in partibus, raised a regiment, which the people called 
 the regiment of Corinth, and when it was routed by the Queen's troops, 
 the defeat was called the " first of the Corinthians." The coadjutor carried 
 a dagger at his waist, and this was spoken of as " our Archbishop's breviary." 
 The Parisians sallied gaily from their walls, decorated with scarfs from 
 the hands of the Duchesses of Longueville and Bouillon, and a few 
 Eoyalist troops were sufficient to put them to flight. 
 
 A first compromise took place, without any decisive result to the ad- 
 vantage of the Parliament. The Queen and the Cardinal ', , „ * 
 
 ° Blockade of 
 
 having re-entered Paris, found themselves insulted by Paris - 
 frightful libels. They left it once more, with the young King, and deter- 
 mined to blockade it and to reduce it by famine. Conde directed the 
 military operations against Paris, and Mazarin sent to the Parliament a 
 
58 AEEEST OF THE PRINCES. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 lettre de cachet which banished it to Montargis. The Parliament replied 
 by a decree which declared Mazarin an enemy to the King and the State, 
 and a disturber of the public repose, and ordered him to quit the kingdom 
 within eight days. Already, however, the Parisians were weary of war 
 and hunger ; the civil troubles proved advantageous to the Spaniards, who 
 were in league with the Fronde, and the parties made a peace at Eueil on 
 „ _, ., the 11th March, 1649. which satisfied no one. The Parlia- 
 
 Peace of Eueil, ' 
 
 1649# ment remained at liberty to assemble, and the Queen 
 
 retained her Minister. 
 
 Conde, presuming on his great services, became insupportable to the 
 Queen on account of his pride and exaggerated pretensions. He imposed 
 hateful obligations on Mazarin, demanding that the Count of Alais, his 
 relation, Governor of Provence,, and guilty of violent atrocities, should be 
 supported against the Parliament of Aix, and that the Duke of Epernon, 
 whom he hated, should be condemned by that of Bordeaux. The Prince 
 kept around him a number of gentlemen adventurers, attracted to him by 
 his high military reputation, and scarcely cared to hide his project of 
 rendering himself independent in France, and by these proceedings 
 alienated both the Regent and her Minister. The Frondeurs vainly 
 sought to attach him to themselves ; he despised them, and commenced a 
 process against the coadjutor, the Duke of Beaufort, and Broussel, whom 
 he accused of having attempted to murder him. Mazarin effected a re- 
 conciliation with the coadjutor, and chose the moment when Conde had 
 rendered himself as hateful to the Fronde as himself to crush him. An 
 insult from him to the Queen determined her to take the most rigorous 
 measures against him. He himself unconsciously signed an order for his 
 f arrest ; and having been enticed to the Palais Eoyal, on the 
 
 Princes, 1650. j 8th January, under the pretence of the holding of a council ; 
 he was arrested with his brother the Prince of Conti, and his brother-in-law 
 the Duke of Longueville. A detachment of light horse conducted them to 
 Vincennes, from whence they were transferred to Marcoussi, and thence to 
 Havre. 
 
 The Duchess of Longueville fled to Normandy, hoping to arouse that 
 province, of which the Duke, her husband, was governor. Mazarin, how- 
 ever, had taken precautionary measures, and having failed in this project, 
 she proceeded to Stenay, to Turenne, whom she once more roused against 
 the Court. This great man, allied with the Spaniards, was beaten at 
 
1613-1661.] THE TWO FRONDES. 59 
 
 Bethel by Duplessis-Praslin. The young Princess of Conde, assisted by 
 the Dukes of Bouillon and De la Eochefoucauld, was more fortunate at 
 Guienne. She entered Bordeaux, which she induced to revolt, and raised 
 the whole province. Mazarin persuaded Anne of Austria to proceed 
 thither with the young King. The rebellion was suppressed, but Bordeaux 
 remained attached to the Princes. Necessity alone had reconciled Mazarin 
 with the coadjutor and his friends, who detested him ; and in his absence 
 fresh plots were contrived against him. The party of the Frondes 
 
 Princess, which was called the Little Fronde, was united with ^f^^arm. 
 the Fronde of the Parliament, or Great Fronde, through the 
 exertions of the Princess Palatine, Anne of Gonzaga, second daughter of 
 the Duke of Mantua, a woman born for intrigues; the coadjutor, who was 
 in high favour with Gaston of Orleans, attached him to the Parliamentary 
 party, and when Mazarin returned to Paris, he found a formidable league 
 armed against him. The people received him with murmurs ; the Parlia- 
 ment, at the instigation of the coadjutor, demanded the freedom of the 
 captive Princes, and the Duke of Orleans demanded the banishment of 
 Mazarin. Anne of Austria was ready to fight in the Cardinal's defence ; 
 but he bowed before the storm, and quitting Paris, he proceeded to Havre, 
 where he set free the Princes, who treated him with contempt. Banished for 
 ever by the Parliament, he refused the asylum offered him by £ etirement of 
 the Spaniards, and sought refuge with the Elector of Cologne, Mazarm > 1651 « 
 at Bruhl, whence he continued to govern the Queen and the State. 
 
 The enemies of Mazarin soon ceased to be friends with each other. 
 Conde controlled the Parliament, and offended the Queen by his pride 
 and suspicions. He accused her of having allowed herself to be 
 directed by Mazarin, reproached her for retaining as her Ministers Le 
 Tellier, Lyonne, and Fouquet, creatures of the Cardinal, and demanded their 
 dismissal. Anne of Austria, thoroughly enraged, sent for the coadjutor, 
 and entreated him in the most urgent manner to employ his influence in 
 favour of Mazarin against the Prince. Gondi, a mortal enemy of the Car- 
 dinal, resisted all the Queen's appeals, and refused to aid her to recal 
 her favourite ; but he promised to remove Conde, raised the people of the 
 capital against him, and succeeded in dividing the Great and Little Fronde. 
 The two rivals for power presented themselves at the Parliament on the 
 21st August, each accompanied by a numerous troop of armed partisans; 
 threats were exchanged ; thousands of swords and daggers were drawn in 
 
GO EETT7RN OP MAZAKIN. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 the precincts of the palace, and the coadjutor was on the point of being 
 assassinated. The Parliament pronounced in his favour, and Conde, find- 
 ing the Queen, the Fronde, and the people all against him, quitted Paris 
 and proceeded to Guienne. Pride and ambition carried him into criminal 
 excesses, and, in concert with Spain, he prepared for war. Almost all the 
 provinces beyond the Loire, Guienne, Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois, 
 declared in his favour. Turenne, and the Duke de Bouillon, his brother, 
 yielded to the urgent entreaties of the Queen, and were faithful to her. 
 Anne of Austria now once more quitted Paris, in order to reduce the 
 revolted provinces to obedience. Having reached Bruges, she from thence 
 despatched to the Parliament an edict, which declared Conde a rebel and 
 traitor to the King and France ; and the Parliament registered this edict, 
 for although it was hostile to jthe regent, it held it a point of honour to 
 repel any idea that they were in league with the enemies of the State. 
 
 Once at a distance from the Cardinal's adversaries, Anne of Austria felt 
 all her old tenderness for him return ; she kept his creatures constantly 
 Eetum of about her, and exhorted him to revisit France. He accord- 
 
 Mazann, i6o2. ingly came back, accompanied by an army of seven or eight 
 thousand men, whose officers wore his colours, and who were commanded 
 by Marshal d'Hocquincourt. The coadjutor immediately perceived the 
 fault which he had committed in permitting the Court to remove from 
 Paris ; and he raised the people against the partisans of Mazarin and the 
 Queen. The mansion of Mathieu Mole, the First President of the Parlia- 
 ment, and Keeper of the Seals, was assailed by a furious 
 of Mathieu mob. Mole had the gates opened to them, advanced towards 
 
 Moie. 
 
 them alone and unarmed, threatened to have them all 
 hanged, and cowed them by the simple influence of his character and 
 language. He joined the Court at Poitiers, and the Parliament put a price 
 on Mazarin's head. The latter continued his march upon Poitiers, and 
 the King, with his brother, advancing to meet him, received him with 
 every distinction. Anne of Austria eagerly replaced in his hands the 
 burden of public affairs, and he returned to be more powerful than ever. 
 Gaston of Orleans, the most feeble of men, and the puppet by turns of 
 every party which his age and name ought to have restrained, again 
 declared against the Regent, effected a reconciliation with Conde, then in 
 Guienne, and joined to the troops of that Prince, which were commanded 
 in his absence by the Duke de Nemours, all those at his own disposal. The 
 
1643-1661.] BATTLE OP BLENEATT. 61 
 
 Parliament did not revoke its decree against Conde, and from this time 
 this assembly, hostile to all parties, seemed not to know what to do or 
 what it wished, and only displayed irresolution and weakness. 
 
 Nemours at the head of an army of twelve thousand French, Germans, 
 and Spaniards, marched upon Guienne, which Conde at that time de- 
 fended against D'Harcourt. His intention was to place the Court between 
 two armies, whilst Anne of Austria, with the object of re-entering Paris, 
 approached Orleans. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, sent by Gaston of 
 Orleans, her father, to defend this place, entered it by a sewer, presented 
 herself suddenly before the citizens engaged in deliberation, gained their 
 votes, and had the gates of the city closed against the King. 
 
 The Royal army, under the command of Turenne and D'Hocquincourt, 
 ascended the Loire, and crossed it at Gien, in the environs of Bleneau, 
 almost in the face of the rebels, who were commanded by two disunited 
 princes, Nemours and Beaufort. Marshal d'Hocquincourt, contrary to 
 the advice of Turenne, divided his troops amongst several villages around 
 Bleneau. Turenne took up his quarters and entrenched himself at Gien, 
 where were the Court and the King. He perceived with uneasiness the 
 faults committed by his colleague, but was somewhat reassured when he 
 remembered the want of union and experience in the enemy's army. 
 Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a furious attack was Battle of Bien- 
 made upon the royal army, the villages were set on fire, and eau ' 16oi ' 
 five of Marshal d'Hocquincourt's positions were carried in succession. 
 He saw his troops beaten and dispersed, and with difficulty rallied them at 
 Bleneau. Turenne, informed of this disaster, mounted his horse and gal- 
 loped to a neighbouring eminence. By the light of the flames he was 
 enabled to judge of the enemy's movements, and with the unfailing instinct 
 of genius, he cried " The Prince has arrived ; it is he who commands that 
 army ! " Nor did he deceive himself, for the Prince of Conde had marched 
 with incredible rapidity from the banks of the Garonne to those of the 
 Loire, and, when he was believed to be twenty leagues distant, was then 
 face to face with Turenne. He carried Bleneau and marched upon Gien ; 
 but his formidable adversary awaited him there so skilfully posted, that 
 Conde found his progress stopped. Turenne had torn from him the prize 
 of his victory, and had saved the King and army. The Court gained Lens, 
 and established itself in the environs of the capital. 
 
 Conde followed the Royal army and drew near to Paris. Braving the 
 
62 TEEEOE IN PAEIS. [BOOK III. CHAP. Ill, 
 
 decree of the Parliament which condemned him and closed the gates of the 
 city against his troops, he entered the city with his principal officers, 
 Beaufort, Nemours, and La Rochefoucauld. He then transferred his head- 
 quarters from Etampes to Saint- Cloud. After this he re-entered the 
 capital, and, in concert with Gaston, had recourse to violence to obtain 
 money and troops. They both kept in pay a band of ruffians, whom they 
 ironically called the Parliament cut-throats, and whom they 
 princes defend employed to insult and beat such of the magistrates as re- 
 
 Paria against the r j o 
 
 KlD 2- sisted their will. Paris was desolated by famine, and the 
 
 Royal army was at its gates ; but the Princes and their partisans gave up 
 their hours to balls and festivities. Marshal de la Ferte, who was faithful 
 to the King, approached the city with his troops, with the intention of 
 effecting a junction with Turenne, who was encamped at Saint-Denis. 
 Conde, fearing to be surrounded, wished to retreat upon Conflans by 
 skirting the Avails of Paris, unobserved by the Royal army. Turenne, 
 however, perceived the movement, and falling with his forces on the 
 Prince's troops, gave him battle in the Faubourg Saint- Antoine ; a despe- 
 rate conflict ensued, in which these two great captains displayed equal 
 bravery and skill. Conde, whose troops were much inferior in number, 
 was about to suffer defeat, when the populace, harangued by Mademoiselle, 
 the daughter of Gaston, rose in favour of the Prince. Mademoiselle has- 
 tened to the Council at the Hotel- de-Ville and induced it to grant that 
 Paris should serve as an asylum for the vanquished. From thence she went 
 to the Bastille and had the cannon directed against the King's troops. The 
 gates of the city were opened, and the Prince's army was saved. 
 
 Paris now became the scene of frightful disorders. Conde's troops 
 rendered the two Princes for a time all-powerful ; and they excited the 
 populace against the council, which was adverse to them. The people 
 besieged the H6tel-de-Ville, and prepared to set it on fire. Many 
 magistrates issued forth in terror, and were slain. The accusation of 
 Mazarinism was sufficient to put him against whom it was brought in 
 peril of death. Anarchy and terror reached their height. 
 
 The Princes took advantage of the general trouble and consternation 
 to change the Council of Aldermen ; and, at the same time, they made 
 T dp ri Broussel provost of the merchants, and the Duke of 
 1652, Beaufort governor of Paris. The famous coadjutor, Paul 
 
 de Gondi, always hostile to the Prince of Conde, put the archbishopric 
 
1643-1661.] MAZARIN AGAIN BETIBES. 63 
 
 in a state of defence, and furnished the towers of the cathedral with instru- 
 ments of war. The magistrates scarcely dared to proceed to the Par- 
 liament. Those whom self-interest or fear made submissive to the 
 Princes feigned to believe that the King was a prisoner in the hands of 
 Mazarin. They proclaimed Gaston lieutenant-general of the kingdom, 
 until the expulsion of the Cardinal, and Conde generalissimo of the 
 forces. The King annulled this decree, and ordered the Parliament to 
 transfer itself to Poitiers. Many members obeyed this order and went 
 there, where they were presided over by Mole. Each army, therefore, 
 was now supported by a parliament, as in the time of the League. 
 
 The two parties were weary of this disastrous war ; and Mazarin 
 seemed to be the only obstacle to the conclusion of a peace. Charles de 
 Lorraine approached with an army to the assistance of the Princes ; and 
 the Regent was already meditating a retreat beyond the Loire. The wise 
 men who were about her dissuaded her from putting in practice this 
 fatal project, and urged her yet once more to do violence to her affec- 
 tions. At length she dismissed Mazarin; and quitting the 
 Court a second time, he retired to Sedan, leaving his ment of Mazarin,. 
 
 1652. 
 
 creatures about the Queen, and through them still con- 
 tinuing to direct her counsels. The people of Paris received the 
 news of the Cardinal's dismissal with enthusiastic delight. Conde, whom 
 it accused of all its sufferings, was forced to quit the capital. The 
 Spaniards made overtures to him, and setting out with the Duke of 
 Lorraine, he threw himself into their arms. The coadjutor visited the 
 King, received the red hat, and arranged the Royal return to Paris, which 
 Louis XIV. re-entered on the 21st October, amidst the The Kino- enters 
 acclamations of the people. The King confined his Pans - 
 vengeance to the banishment from the capital of the Duke of Orleans 
 and the leaders of the revolt. The coadjutor, henceforth known as 
 Cardinal de Eetz, almost alone opposed the return of Cardinal Mazarin. 
 He desired to appear formidable, and never went abroad without being 
 surrounded by a numerous guard. Discontented with the Court, in 
 spite of the brilliant offers which were made him, he meditated a 
 fresh attack against it ; but Anne of Austria anticipated him by having 
 him arrested and lodged in Vincennes. 
 
 The Spaniards had profited by the civil troubles in France; for 
 Casal, in Italy, Gravelines, Mardick, and Dunkirk, had fallen into their 
 
64 MAZARIN AGAIN RETURNS. [BOOK TIL CHAP. III. 
 
 hands ; and Conde advanced at the head of an army. Turenne, at the 
 head of a smaller number of troops, checked his march, and protected 
 France in a campaign which the talent of the two illustrious adversaries 
 Mazarin again rendered celebrated. Anne of Austria then recalled Mazarin 
 recalled, 1653. to p ar i s? w h ere s he received him with transport ; whilst the 
 city gave him brilliant fetes, and the populace received him with joyous 
 acclamations, and thus added to the profound contempt with which he 
 always regarded them. The Cardinal assumed an absolute authority, 
 and subjected the revolted provinces. Bordeaux, where the Prince of 
 Conti and the Duchess of Longueville were in command, was still, with a 
 portion of Guienne, in open rebellion. The Count d'Harcourt had left 
 his army before this city, and wishing to follow the example given by the 
 Princes, and render himself independent, had seized upon Brisach and 
 Philisbourg, in Alsace. He surrendered them ; and Bordeaux, after 
 being the theatre of most sanguinary scenes, was compelled to submit. 
 Mazarin triumphed over all his enemies ; had Conde condemned to death 
 by the Parliament ; and gave one of his nieces in marriage to the Prince 
 of Conti. Monsieur remained at Blois in retirement. Mademoiselle de 
 Montpensier wandered about obscurely from province to province, and 
 after having aspired to the hand of a king, ended by marrying a simple 
 gentleman. The Cardinal de Retz, after having been transferred from 
 Vincennes to the castle of Nantes, succeeded in escaping, and quitted 
 the kingdom. The Duke of Beaufort bowed to circumstances with a 
 good grace ; and the famous Duchess of Longueville, reduced to poli- 
 tical inaction, embraced the quarrel of the Jansenists against the Jesuits, 
 and ended by giving herself up to the austere practices of the most 
 End of the War fervid devotion. Thus terminated the war of the Fronde, 
 
 of the Fronde, 
 
 1653. unequalled in the annals of history by the incidents which 
 
 characterized it, and presenting a strange picture, in which we see 
 amongst the combatants in the foreground, an archbishop, magistrates, 
 and the most brilliant women, side by side with the two greatest captains 
 of Europe. Conde alone still kept the field ; and Louis XIV. made his 
 first campaign against him in Picardy under the guidance of Turenne. 
 The issue was successful, for Turenne attacked the enemy's lines before 
 Arras, carried them, and obliged Conde to raise the siege of that place. 
 
 Hitherto the King's youth had not allowed him to take an active part 
 in affairs, but they had, nevertheless, had their influence on the re- 
 
1643-1661.] ALLIANCE WITH ENGLAND. 63 
 
 mainder of his reign. It is to the impressions and remembrances 
 
 which he preserved of the times of anarchy above described, that must 
 
 be attributed that passion for order, which he pushed even to despotism, 
 
 and his dislike for Paris. On his return from his first campaign, he 
 
 gave some indication of what he was likely to be. The people groaned 
 
 under the weight of the imposts rendered necessary by the war, and 
 
 fresh edicts of finance appeared in 1655. The Parliament, which had 
 
 registered them in a bed of justice before the King, wished to revise 
 
 them, and to reverse their first decision. The King, informed of this, 
 
 appeared in the great chamber, in a hunting costume, with 
 
 a whip in his hand, and said : " Gentlemen, everv one the Parliament, 
 
 . . . . 1657 - 
 
 knows the misfortunes which have been caused by sittings 
 
 of the Parliament. I wish to prevent their recurrence. I order, there- 
 fore, that an end should be put to those which have commenced to dis- 
 cuss the edicts which I have had registered in a bed of justice. I 
 prohibit you, sir, the chief president, to permit these sittings, and any 
 one else to demand them." These haughty words overawed the Par- 
 liament, and the murmurs which they provoked were stifled by the 
 prudence of Turenne. That great captain soon commenced a fresh 
 campaign in Flanders, in which he took the offensive, and was com- 
 pelled by Conde to raise the siege of Valenciennes. 
 
 France and Spain at this time contended with each other for the 
 alliance of England, now become a republic, and governed by Cromwell 
 as Lord Protector. Charles I. had perished on the scaffold in 1649, 
 for having endeavoured to render his authority absolute, and sought 
 to abolish the Presbyterian worship in Scotland. Cromwell had very 
 greatly contributed to this great catastrophe, and exercised all that 
 ascendency which, in times of revolution, is sure to fall to the lot of an 
 intellect at once deep and crafty, enthusiastic and audacious. In a few 
 years he succeeded in making England a flourishing state, and highly 
 influential in the affairs of Europe. He put a price on its alliance, and 
 Mazarin carried it off from Philip IV. by promising to MV 
 deliver Dunkirk to the English, if this place should be re- Cromwell > 16 58. 
 taken by France, and to abandon the cause of the two sons of Charles I. 
 who were both, through their mother, grandchildren of Henry IV., and 
 who passed from the camp of Turenne to that of Conde. On these con- 
 ditions Cromwell furnished the French with a fleet and six thousand 
 
 VOL. II. , F 
 
<>6 MAERIAGE OF LOUIS XIV. [BOOK III. ClIAP. III. 
 
 troops. Flanders was still the theatre of war; and the battle of the 
 Battle of the Dunes, in which Turenne triumphed over his illustrious 
 Dunes, 1658. jival, caused Dunkirk to fall into the hands of the victor, 
 who immediately transferred it to the English. This victory, followed by 
 the capture of a great number of towns and fortresses, decided Philip IV. 
 in favour of peace, which was equally necessary to the two kingdoms. 
 Conferences with this purpose in view were held on the Isle of Pheasants, 
 off Bidassoa, between Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro ; and they are 
 famous on account of the diplomatic talents displayed by the two nego- 
 tiators. The peace, signed on the 7th November, 1659, and known as 
 
 Peace of the t ^ ie ^ eace °f tne Pyrenees, was the most useful and memorable 
 Pyrenees, 1659. ^ of Mazarin > s life# By it Pllilip Iv CO nfiraied the ces- 
 
 sion of Pignerol, and a great portion of Artois and Alsace to France, 
 which restored Lorraine, but retained the duchy of Bar, Roussillon, and 
 Cerdagne, up to the foot of the Pyrenees, and many towns in Luxembourg. 
 It was stipulated that Conde should submit to the King, with the 
 Marriage of assurance of a pardon and the government of Burgundy, and 
 Louisxiv.,1660. that Louig Xl y should espouse Maria-Theresa of Austria, 
 
 the daughter of Philip IV. The dowry was fixed at five hundred 
 thousand crowns, and Philip made it a condition that his daughter should 
 renounce for herself and her descendants every right she might have to 
 the succession. 
 
 Cromwell died, and England was once more plunged into a state of 
 anarchy. Charles Stuart, who on this occasion had in vain solicited the 
 support of Mazarin, who thought his cause desperate, was recalled to 
 England a few months afterwards, and proclaimed King by the title of 
 Charles II. Leopold, at seventeen years of age, had obtained the 
 Imperial dignity in 1657, on the death of Ferdinand III., his father; 
 and Charles G-ustavus had reigned in Sweden since 1654 ; Christina, his 
 relation, and daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, having abdicated in his 
 favour, in order to devote herself exclusively to literature and science. 
 Europe was at peace, and France had arrived at the moment when 
 I uis XIV. was to take the reins of government into his own hands. 
 Mazarin, absolute ruler of the kingdom, and possessed of a colossal 
 fortune, was drawing near the close of his life. Full of anxiety on 
 account of his ill acquired riches, which some authors declare to have 
 amounted to fifty millions — equivalent to more than a hundred at the 
 
1643-1661.] DEATH OP MAZAKIN, 67 
 
 present day, he offered them to the King, declaring that he no longer 
 wished to possess them. What he foresaw took place : Louis XIV. 
 returned him his fortune; and Mazarin died 1661, after D eat h f 
 having secured the most brilliant positions for his five azarin » 16 6i. 
 nieces, of whom one, Marie de Mancini, had been beloved by the 
 young monarch. 
 
 France was partly indebted to Mazarin for the advantages she derived 
 from the peace of Westphalia and that of the Pyrenees ; and it is impos- 
 sible to deny the possession of great talents to him who signed these 
 treaties, who twice governed France from the depths of his exile, and 
 preserved the supreme authority to the close of his life under such a 
 prince as Louis XIV., and with such men as Cardinal de Retz and the 
 Great Conde for his opponents. He deserves, however, great reproach for 
 having frequently made the interests of France subordinate to his own. 
 A better diplomatist than administrator, and full of contempt for the 
 people, Mazarin enriched himself without scruple at its expense, did 
 nothing for the internal prosperity of the State, and left France without 
 credit, and almost ruined. He was skilful in reading men's characters, 
 and this was in great part the secret of his power. He gave Colbert to 
 Louis XIV., and divined the proud and domineering spirit of that 
 monarch. The negligent manner in which he had been educated was a 
 crime against him as against the State ; and he purposely kept his Sove- 
 reign in ignorance, that he might himself be so much the longer necessary 
 to him. He taught him how to look and act the king ; but to be one in 
 reality was, for Louis XIV., the work of Nature alone. " There is stuff 
 in him," said the Cardinal, one day, " sufficient for four kings ;" and the 
 monarch of twenty years of age announced on the day following the 
 death of his Minister, in whose hands was henceforth to be the chief 
 authority. 
 
 Harlay de Chanvallon, President oi the Council of the Clergy, having 
 asked him to whom he was now to apply with reference to affairs of State, 
 Louis XIV. replied, " To me" From this moment he became the sole 
 ruler of France, and continued to be so till his death. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 LOUIS XIV. AS STJPEEME BULEB. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV., FROM THE DEATH OF MAZARIN TO THAT OF COLBERT. 
 
 1661-1683. 
 
 Louis XIY. was endowed by nature with an instinctive love of glory, order, 
 and power. His character possessed the national characteristic of an in- 
 satiable need of admiration, and at the moment when he took the 
 government into his own hands, there was a fortunate and remarkable 
 coincidence between his own inclinations and the wishes of his people. 
 After having endured the scourges of intestine and foreign war, France — 
 without interior administration, finances, or credit — was especially in need 
 of some centralizing power which should subdue all factions, and make 
 the immense resources of the kingdom promote, not the interests of a few, 
 but the glory and prosperity of the nation at large. Louis XIV. founded 
 this power on fear and admiration. He re-established order in the State, 
 and as long as the demands of his pride were in accordance with the in- 
 terests of his kingdom, his reign offered an uninterrupted series of marvels 
 and triumphs. He raised France to a hitherto unheard-of degree of 
 power and splendour. 
 
 The first acts of his Government revealed the jealousy entertained by 
 the Prince with respect to his authority, and his determination to retain 
 it exclusively in his own hands. In accordance with the advice given him 
 by Mazarin, he declared, in the first place, that he would have no Prime 
 Minister. His council, formed by the Cardinal, consisted of the Chan- 
 cellor Seguier, Keeper of the Seals ; de Le Tellier, Minister of War ; De 
 Lyonne, Minister of Foreign Affairs ; and De Fouquet, Minister of Finance. 
 The King, convinced by Colbert of the criminal exactions of the latter, 
 and perhaps more indignant at his luxury and magnificence than at his 
 want of honesty, formed the resolution to have him seized in the midst of 
 a sumptuous fete which he gave at his country seat at Vaux, on the day 
 of the marriage of Henrietta of England, sister of Charles II., with the 
 Duke of Orleans, the King's brother. He refrained from this, however 
 
1661-1683.] HIS POLITICAL PRIDE. 69 
 
 and Fouquet was shortly afterwards arrested, by his orders, at Nantes, and 
 tried before a tribunal appointed for the purpose. The punishment to 
 which he was condemned by his judges was banishment, but Louis XVI. 
 changed it to one of perpetual detention. His friend Pelisson distin- 
 guished himself by the courage with which he defended him, but failed to 
 save him. The finances were entrusted to Colbert, with Colbert Com 
 the title of Comptroller-general; and from this moment ^j^^^ieki 
 order took the place of chaos in all the branches of the 
 public administration. 
 
 Louis XIV. displayed an excessive jealousy with respect to the honour 
 of his crown, and a great impatience to give to France the p olit i ca i pr ia e f 
 rank which she ought properly to occupy amongst European om8 
 nations. The ambassador of Spain having, at a public ceremony in 
 London, made use of cunning and violence for the purpose of taking pre- 
 cedence of the Count d'Estrades, the French ambassador, Louis, greatly 
 irritated, threatened Philip IV. with war, and forced him to make a 
 public reparation, and to acknowledge that his was the inferior power. 
 He carried his vengeance still further with respect to the Court of Eome. 
 In consequence of an affront given to his ambassador by the Pontiff's 
 body guard, he demanded and obtained that this guard should be 
 cashiered, that the Pope's nuncio should go to France to ask his pardon, 
 and that a pyramid should be erected at Rome in remembrance of the 
 affront, and the atonement for it. Certain military expeditions abroad at 
 the same time added fresh force to the monarch's words. Brought up by 
 Mazarin in the principles of the Italian school, imbued with that prejudice 
 which is so fatal to the happiness of humanity, that power is the only law 
 in politics, Louis successfully supported Portugal against Spain ir. defiance 
 of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. He afforded a more honourable assistance 
 to the Emperor Leopold against the Turks. A French corps, under the 
 command of the Counts Coligni and La Feuillade, covered itself with 
 glory at the battle of Saint- Gothard, where Montecuculli completely de- 
 feated the Grand-Vizier, and by this victory procured a truce of twenty 
 years' duration between Turkey and Austria. 
 
 The King, by the advice of Colbert, concluded a useful commercial 
 alliance with Holland, and supported this republic against England untif 
 the peace of Breda, in 1667. He entrusted, at the same period, to the 
 Duke of Beaufort a fleet which freed the Mediterranean of pirates, and 
 
70 ADMINISTEATION OF COLBEET. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 carried the terror of the French arms even to Algiers. These expeditions 
 to a certain extent employed and removed the old undisciplined bands of 
 the time of the Fronde. Louis created a new army, and, with the assis- 
 tance of his minister, Louvois, son and successor of Le Tellier, gave to this 
 army an organization which was the admiration and envy of Europe. 
 The governors of provinces were deprived of the power of levying troops, 
 and of disposing of them at their will ; the great military offices were sup- 
 pressed, as well as rank as distinct from employment. The bestowal of 
 commissions and all promotions were made the special attributes of the 
 monarchy ; the troops received a uniform ; all the branches of the service, 
 and especially the artillery and engineers, the commissariat, and the 
 equipment of the infantry, received a regular organization. The army 
 ceased to be an instrument in tjie hands of the factious. With the King 
 for its sole head, it contributed powerfully to fortify his authority at a 
 time when it was necessary that the Eoyal authority should be strong, in 
 order that the nation might be great. 
 
 France thus began to taste the fruits of Colbert's vigilant supervision of 
 , ... x. every branch of the administration. Brought up at a counter, 
 
 Administration J o j. 7 
 
 of Colbert. an( j the son of a wool merchant of Rheims, he succeeded in 
 
 effecting the most difficult reforms and the execution of all his plans by the aid 
 of a strong will and indefatigable industry. He established a Chamber of 
 Justice, whose duty it was to inquire into the conduct of the old farmers of 
 the revenues, who had amassed enormous fortunes, and to reduce annuities 
 acquired at an exceedingly low price — a measure frequently unjust, but 
 always popular. He suppressed a multitude of useless offices, which took 
 away so many contributions to the taille, and reduced, in the course of his 
 ministry, the burdensome amount of taxes from fifty-three millions to 
 thirty-two millions. He drew up the first statistical tables which had been 
 seen in Europe, reduced the legal interest to five per cent., and sub- 
 jected the accountants to a rigid supervision. By these means he effected 
 an immense financial amelioration. At the time of Mazarin's death, the- 
 revenue amounted to eighty-four millions and the salaries to fifty-two, 
 leaving only a surplus of thirty-two millions for the Royal treasury ; but 
 at Colbert's death the revenue amounted to a hundred and sixteen millions,, 
 whilst the government offices absorbed but twenty-three, and the Royal 
 treasury received ninety-three. Colbert opened to France new sources of 
 wealth, and laid the foundations of its prosperity in commerce and industry. 
 
1661-1683.] THE PBENCH NAYT. 71 
 
 He established manufactories for the production of the French points, the 
 looking-glasses of Cherbourg, the fine cloths of Louviers, Abbeville, and 
 Sedan, the Gobelins tapestries, the carpets of Savonnerie, and the silks of 
 Tours and Lyons. France owes to his care the perfection it has attained 
 in watch-making, the improvement of its breed of horses, and the cultiva- 
 tion of madder. He took pains to secure outlets for the products of the 
 various manufactories; founded colonies; and established chambers or 
 commerce and insurance, storehouses, means of transit, and a new system 
 of customs favourable to commercial transactions. On the other hand, he 
 has been justly reproached with having too greatly sacrificed the agricul- 
 tural interests to those of commerce, not only by prohibiting the exporta- 
 tion of grain, but also by prohibiting its free circulation in the interior. 
 
 A navy was necessary for the protection of commerce ; and Colbert in a 
 short time displayed, before the eyes of astonished Europe, a hundred ves- 
 sels of war, and an army of sailors. He had the port of Rochefort, on the 
 Charente, dug out, and those of Brest and Toulon, which were fortified by 
 Vauban, deepened. It was he who devised for the recruiting of the navy, 
 the Maritime Inscription, or system of classes, which is still in force, and 
 which subjected the maritime population of the coasts, in return for the 
 many advantages afforded them by the State, to the service of the Royal 
 navy during a certain number of years.* Finally, his mode of administra- 
 tion furnished the King with the means of covering our frontiers on the 
 north and east with a line of fortresses, and of regaining Dunkirk, that 
 city so necessary to the defence of the kingdom, which was shamefully sold 
 to Louis XIV. by Charles II., in defiance of all the interests of England. 
 
 The King lost Anne of Austria, his mother, in 1669. Philippe IV., his 
 father-in-law, had died in the preceding year, and Louis, without paying 
 attention to the formal renunciation made by Maria- Theresa, immediately 
 set up claims in her name to Flanders, to the exclusion of the rights of 
 Charles II., the younger son of Philippe IV. His pretext was that the 
 dowry of the Queen not having been paid, her renunciation was null and 
 void, and he set up with respect to this country a right of devolution, which 
 resulted from a custom in force in parts of the Low Countries, which gave 
 the paternal heritage to children of the first marriage in preference to those 
 
 * This population is divided, according to each man's age and the position of his 
 family, into various classes, which are gradually called into active service, as they may 
 be required. 
 
72 FRESH CONQUESTS. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 of the second. Maria-Theresa, his wife, was a child of her father's first 
 marriage, whilst Charles II. was a child of the second. He claimed for her 
 that portion of the Low Countries in which this custom prevailed, and 
 failing to obtain it, had recourse to arms. He gained over the Emperor 
 Leopold to his side by making him hope that he would obtain a share oi 
 the spoils wrung from Charles II., and took the field at the head of his 
 army. Turenne commanded under him ; and he was accompanied by 
 War for the pos- "Vauban and Louvois. Spain, then in a great state of weak- 
 Fkndersf ness > was governed by a Jesuit, Father Nithard, the Queen's 
 
 confessor, and opposed but a feeble resistance to the arms of 
 Louis XIV., who, in the space of three weeks, had rendered himself master 
 
 of French Flanders. The conquest of the Franche-Comte, a 
 Flanders and of province ruled by 3pain under a Republican form of govern- 
 
 Franche-Comtd. . " . _.,. 
 
 ment, was immediately resolved on, and achieved within a 
 month. Europe became alarmed at these rapid successes, and a triple 
 • : t _ ,-.;. alliance was formed against Louis between Holland, England, 
 
 Fust Coalition. ° * ° 
 
 and Sweden. The Grand-Pensioner of Holland, John de 
 Witt, became the soul of this league, and it forced the King to sign the 
 Treaty of Aix-la- Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), in accordance with Avhich 
 
 ape e ' he retained Flanders, but was compelled to restore the 
 
 Franche-Comte. 
 
 During the continuance of the peace, Louis XIV. devoted his attention to 
 the internal administration of the kingdom, and to the affairs of the Church of 
 France, which was then disturbed by the quarrels respecting Jansenism.* 
 He then considered how to avenge himself upon Holland, and punish her for 
 having taken part in the Triple Alliance. He cherished a profound disdain 
 for every other government except his own, and whilst he ought to have 
 treated with every consideration a number of industrious citizens, who traded 
 with us annually to the extent of sixty millions, he could only regard them 
 with hatred and contempt. This was one of the great faults of his reign. 
 Everywhere and always he found in his path this population of merchants, 
 heretics and republicans whose very existence filled him with indigna- 
 tion, and whose wealth raised up against him enemies in the two hemi- 
 
 * Five propositions on grace, attributed to Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, and con- 
 demned by Innocent X. in 1653, lighted up a war in the Church of France. The 
 subject of dispute is a mystery beyond the reach of human reason. The Jesuits 
 attacked these propositions ; and their most famous adversaries were Arnauld, and 
 Pascal, author of the " Provincial Letters." 
 
1661-1683.] BENEWED WAES. 73 
 
 spheres. Offended by some medals which represented the United Provinces 
 as the arbiters of Europe, and irritated at the impertinence of certain 
 gazetteers, the King seized upon these frivolous pretexts and declared war 
 upon the Dutch : at the same time detaching; from their __ . . 
 
 1 ° War against 
 
 alliance Charles XL, King of Sweden, and Charles II., King Em U tr^'and 
 of England, always ready to sell his support, and to sacrifice SjJJJgjg, 
 the interests of his people to his pleasures.* 
 
 The Dutch fleets covered the seas and secured the commercial pros- 
 perity of Holland by protecting its magnificent establish- 
 
 Formidable 
 
 ments in the East Indies. Louis XIV. reinforced his own preparations of 
 
 Louis XIV. 
 
 by fifty English vessels, and entered Holland at the head of 
 
 * Charles II., a Catholic in his heart, aspiring to absolute power, was hostile to the 
 United-Provinces for the very reasons which rendered their alliance precious to 
 Cromwell. He hated them as forming a Republican and Protestant State ; and he 
 was irritated against the States-General, which had deprived the young Prince of 
 Orange, his nephew, of the dignity of Stadtholder, borne so proudly by his family. 
 These various motives, and especially the hope of finding in the interested munificence 
 of Louis XIV. resources which would enable him to dispense with the necessity of 
 asking aid from his Parliament, drew him towards France ; and he had scarcely 
 ratified the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle when the Duke of Buckingham and the Princess 
 Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans, began to discuss the means of bringing the 
 two Courts into a strict alliance. A more secret negotiation, however, and one 
 unknown to Buckingham himself, was being carried on in London. The King had 
 already confided his sentiments respecting religion to certain Catholic gentlemen of 
 high position in his kingdom : to Sir Thomas Clifford, and the Lords Arundel and 
 Arlington, who were his intimate companions. Charles II. informed them, in the 
 presence of his brother, of his intention of entering into negotiations with Louis XIV., 
 with a view to the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in England, and soon after- 
 wards, at the commencement of the year 1670, the two kings concluded a famous 
 treaty, which remained secret during half a century. By this treaty Charles II. bound 
 himself: 1st, to establish the Catholic religion in his States; 2ndly, to unite his forces 
 with those of France for the destruction of the Republic of the United-Provinces, 
 immediately after the work of conversion should have been effected in Great Britain. 
 The conquests to be made were divided in anticipation between the two powers, with 
 the exception of a principality reserved for the Prince of Orange. Louis XIV. on his 
 side undertook to give to the King of England 200,000Z., payable quarterly, to enable 
 him to effect the conversion of his subjects. But when Charles II. thus entered into an 
 engagement to convert his people, he had taken counsel of his zeal for his new religion 
 rather than of his prudence. He was soon forced to recognise the extreme difficulty of 
 commencing, by the accomplishment of this enterprise, the execution of his -agreement, 
 whilst Louis XlV.y on the other hand, was eager to gain possession of Holland. An 
 important change was made in the secret convention between the two kings, through 
 the intervention of the Princess Henrietta of England, who went to Dover to confer 
 with the King Charles II., her brother. It was agreed that the conversion of England 
 .Bhould be adjourned to a more favourable opportunity, when the conquest of Holland 
 •should have placed the King in a position in which he might undertake it with success. 
 
74 CONQUEST OF HOLLAND. [BOOK III. CHAP- IV. 
 
 a hundred thousand men, accompanied by Turenne, Vauban, Luxem. 
 bourg, and Louvois. The latter provided with admirable forethought for 
 the equipment and subsistence of the troops by the establishment, till then 
 unheard of, of magazines of clothing and provisions. Conde was in com- 
 mand of the army. Never had such formidable preparations been made for 
 the conquest of a little State, and nothing is more to the honour and glory 
 of Holland than the immensity of the preparations made to crush it. 
 
 To a hundred thousand troops, supported by a formidable artillery, and 
 Situation of commanded by the most celebrated generals, the United- 
 lioiian . Provinces had but to oppose a young Prince of a feeble con- 
 
 stitution, who had seen neither sieges nor battles, and about twenty-five 
 thousand troops ill accustomed to war. Prince William of Orange at 
 twenty-two years of age was elected by the voice of the nation Captain- 
 General of the land forces, and the Grand-Pensioner, John de Witt, who 
 viewed the influence of the House of Orange with suspicion, had found it 
 necessary to consent to this choice. William nursed beneath an appa- 
 rently phlegmatic temperament an ardent ambition, and a great thirst for 
 glory. His intellect was active and penetrating ; his courage intrepid and 
 undaunted by reverse. He could not check the torrent which flowed down 
 upon his country ; and all the places on the Khine and the Yssel fell into 
 the hands of the French. 
 
 The Prince of Orange, in default of sufficient troops to support the cam- 
 paign in the open field, hastily formed lines beyond the Rhine, which he 
 soon saw it would be impossible to defend. The passage of 
 
 Passage of the x . 
 
 E uestof HoSand *^ s r i yer > more b° aste( l of than really glorious, was achieved 
 1672 - without peril under the eyes of the King, in the presence 
 
 of the Dutch, who were too inferior in numbers to make any resistance. 
 An imprudent charge cost the life of the Duke of Longueville. Conde 
 received a wound and resigned the command to Turenne. Within a few 
 months three provinces and forty strong places had been taken, and Am- 
 sterdam itself was threatened. In addition to the evils of war, internal 
 dissensions racked the interior of Holland ; for whilst the party of the 
 Grand-Pensioner John de Witt wished for peace, William, who was a 
 candidate for the Stadtholderate, and could only raise himself in the field, 
 declared for war. John de Witt prevailed, and advances were made to 
 Louis XIV. by a deputation which reckoned amongst its members the 
 sons of the illustrious Grotius. Advantageous propositions were made to 
 
1661-1683. J NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS. 75 
 
 the King, but Louis demanded yet more ; demanding the re-establishment 
 in Holland of the Catholic religion, the devotion of a portion of the 
 churches to the Romish worship, twenty millions to defray the expenses 
 of the war, the cession of all that, the United Provinces possessed on the 
 Wahal and the Rhine, and finally, the presentation to him every year of 
 expiatory medals as an acknowledgment that the seven Provinces retained 
 their existence and liberties through his clemency alone. These demands, 
 for the most part exorbitant, excited the Dutch to the greatest fury. 
 They turned their wrath against John de Witt and Admiral Cornelius de 
 Witt, his brother ; accused them of being in league with Louis XIV. ; 
 massacred them, tore them in pieces, and heaped upon their remains a 
 thousand insults. Despair lent strength to the vanquished. They opened 
 their dykes and laid the country under water, for the purpose of compelling 
 the French to evacuate it. The Dutch Admiral Ruyter struggled glori- 
 ously against the combined squadrons of France and England, and the 
 battle of Saultsbay secured the coasts of the Republic from ^- aval fi ht at 
 any chance of attack. Saults ay ' 
 
 Europe rose in favour of Holland. The Emperor Leopold, the Kings 
 of Spain and Denmark, the greater number of the Princes of the Empire, 
 the Elector of Brandenbourg, Frederic William, the founder of the high 
 fortunes of his House — all, alarmed at the ambition of Louis XIV., leagued 
 themselves against him, whilst Charles II. himself was compelled by his 
 Parliament to break off his French alliance. Louis XIV., in accordance 
 with the advice of his Minister Louvois, had committed the fault of dis- 
 tributing his troops amongst a number of the places taken, the fortifica- 
 tions of which Turenne and Conde very prudently wished to destroy. 
 Threatened by so many enemies, he could not collect together sufficient 
 troops to carry on the campaign, and in a short time the whole of Hol- 
 land was evacuated with the exception of Grave and Maestricht.* 
 
 * The plan of the campaign of 1672 had been drawn up with profound skill, and yet 
 the issue was not fortunate. Faults of execution caused the loss of the fruits of the 
 success which had been at first obtained. An irresistible inclination to make sieges 
 caused the King to lose the opportunity of entering Amsterdam. Garrisons were 
 posted in a crowd of places which should have been destroyed as soon as taken. The 
 army, like the Rhine and the Meuse, which divide and spread themselves in all direc- 
 tions on their entrance into Holland, covered a portion of the enemy's territory, and 
 could not make a step further towards the conquest of the rest. Germany, alarmed, 
 interfered in favour of the Provinces, and France was compelled to abandon her con* 
 quests. 
 
76 EVACUATION OF HOLLAND. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 The Franche-Comte, however, indemnified him for so many losses. 
 Evacuation of ^ouis marched to the conquest of this Austrian-Spanish 
 p r ° e n a c ^ bytbe province, Noailles commanding under him. Besancon with- 
 Franche^Comte stood the genius of Vauban no more than nine days, and 
 
 to France, 1674. ,-, r i . -, . . , , 
 
 the whole province was conquered m six weeks, and a 
 second time wrested from Spain, never to return. 
 
 The Great Conde, having the Prince of Orange in front of him, now 
 fought his last battle near Senef in Flanders. The French gained the 
 victory, but William rallied his troops and held the victors in check. 
 Three times Conde attacked him without being able to drive him from 
 his last and impenetrable position. The loss on each side was frightful ; 
 twenty-seven thousand dead were left on the field of battle ; Conde had 
 three horses killed under him ? the contest lasted fourteen hours, and was 
 a drawn battle. 
 
 Turenne had then to defend the frontiers on the side of the Rhine, and 
 he displayed in this campaign all the resources of art and 
 
 Skilful cam- 
 paigns of genius. After a rapid and skilful march he crossed the 
 
 Turenne in 
 
 Alsace. His Rhine at Philisbourg, fell upon Sintzheim, forced that city, 
 
 victories, 1674. . 
 
 and at the same time encountered and put to flight Caprara, 
 the Emperor's general, and the old Duke of Lorraine Charles IV. After 
 having vanquished him, Turenne pursued him and cut up his cavalry at 
 Ludenburg ; from thence he prevented, by a rapid manoeuvre, the junction 
 of the two bodies of Imperial troops. He attacked near the city of Ensheim 
 the Prince of Bournonville, who commanded one of these corps, and forced 
 him to retreat. He then retreated himself before superior forces com- 
 manded by the Elector of Brandenbourg, and took up his winter-quarters 
 in Lorraine. The enemy believed the campaign to be at an end ; but for 
 Turenne it had only commenced. He resisted Louvois and Louis XIV., 
 who, alarmed at his perilous position, urged his retreat. Brisach and 
 Philisbourg were blockaded, and seventy thousand Germans occupied 
 Alsace ; but Turenne had formed his plans, and knew how to surprise and 
 vanquish them. With twenty thousand men and a few cavalry sent him 
 by Conde, he traversed by Thanus and Belfort the mountains covered with 
 snow, and suddenly appeared in Upper Alsace in the midst of the enemy, 
 who believed him to be still in Lorraine. He vanquished successively at 
 Mulhausen and at Colmar the corps which offered resistance. A for- 
 midable body of German infantry remained intact. Turenne awaited it 
 
1661-1683.] DEATH OF TTTKENltE. 77 
 
 at Turkheim in a favourable position and routed it. In this way a for- 
 midable army was destroyed in a few months with little effort. Alsace 
 remained in the King's possession, and the generals of the Empire re- 
 crossed the Rhine. This campaign extorted a burst of admiration from 
 Europe ; but Turenne stained his glory by permitting the 
 burning of the Palatinate. Two cities and a multitude of First burning of 
 
 _ _ t *k Palatinate, 
 
 villages became a prey to the names, and no attempt was 1674. 
 made to check the barbarities of the soldiers. 
 
 At length the Emperor sent against Turenne Montecuculli, the first of 
 his generals and the vanquisher of the Turks at Saint-Gothard. The two 
 great opponents at first made proof of each other's skill by a multitude of 
 skilful manoeuvres which are still the admiration of military tacticians. 
 They were on the point, at length, of giving battle to each other near the 
 village of Salzbach, in Baden, and Turenne was confident of victory, when, 
 on visiting a battery, he fell dead, struck by a cannon ball. The same 
 ball carried away the arm of M. de St. Hilaire, lieutenant- Death of 
 general of infantry, who said to his son, weeping by his side, Turenne » 1685 « 
 " It is not for me, my son, but for that great man you should weep." 
 Turenne died at the age of sixty-four. Born a Protestant, he had adopted 
 the Catholic faith, and was buried in the tomb of the kings at Saint-Denis. 
 Montecuculli, informed of his death, compelled his two successors, 
 Generals de Lorges and Vaubrun, to repass the Rhine. Vaubrun was killed 
 whilst crossing the stream, and Lorges conducted the retreat. The free 
 city of Strasbourg immediately offered the use of its bridge Last cam ft . ng 
 to Montecuculli, who penetrated into Alsace. Conde" alone ofCond ^ 1675 - 
 could encounter this great captain with success, and was sent to oppose 
 him. He displayed as much skill as Turenne, and by two encampments 
 was able to check the progress of the Imperial army, and to force Monte- 
 cuculli to raise the sieges of Haguenau and Saverne. Alsace was evacu- 
 ated, and this brilliant campaign was the last conducted by the two illus- 
 trious rivals. The Great Conde henceforth lived in glorious retirement at 
 Chantilly, where he died in 1688; whilst Montecuculli withdrew from 
 the Emperor's service. 
 
 The Duke de Crequi allowed himself to be beaten in this same year at 
 Consarbruck, near Treves, by the Duke of Lorraine ; but excellent suc- 
 cesses followed this reverse. Messina had shaken off the yoke of Spain, 
 and had placed itself under the protection of France. Assisted by the 
 
78 CAMPAIGN" IN FLANDEES. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 Dutch fleet, the Spaniards endeavoured to retake it; but Duquesne, 
 in command of the French fleet, defeated their project, and gained the 
 Victories of Du- navai victories of Stromboli as well as Agosta, which cost 
 Srand^gostT; the life of Admiral Ruyter. Marshal de Vivonne completed 
 1676, the destruction of the enemy's fleet as it issued from 
 
 Palermo. These glorious operations were followed by two brilliant cam- 
 Campaign in P ai g ns > conducted by the King in Flanders. The heroic 
 Flanders, 1677. ca pt U re of Valenciennes, made in the open day by the 
 Musqueteers — those of Cambrai and St. Omer — and the victory of Cassel, 
 gained by the King's brother over the Prince of Orange, terminated this 
 war, which was unjustly commenced, but was gloriously concluded. 
 Louis now found himself the arbiter of Europe. The States- General of 
 Holland were weary of a struggle which had been maintained but by their 
 subsidies ; and a Congress assembled at Nimeguen, at which peace was 
 Peace of Nime- signed on the 10th August, 1678. Holland recovered all 
 guen, 1678. tikart had been taken from her during the war ; Spain aban- 
 
 doned the Franche-Comte, and many places in the Low Countries ; the 
 Emperor gave up two Imperial cities which had been taken by Marshal 
 La Feuillade, and gave Fribourg in exchange for Philisbourg ; the right 
 of France to the possession of Alsace was confirmed. The young Duke 
 of Lorraine, nephew to Charles IV., refused to be subject to Louis XIV., 
 and rejected the conditions on which he might have been re-established 
 in his States, which remained in the occupation of the French. Sicily 
 was evacuated. 
 
 To the advantages secured by the Peace of Nimeguen Louis added 
 others, not less important, and which he had obtained by fraud and 
 violence. It was said in the Treaty that the countries ceded should be 
 accompanied by all their dependencies. The negotiators had supposed that 
 these cessions would be settled by mutual agreement ; but Louis XIV. 
 assumed that he had a right to settle them in his own way, and accord- 
 ingly he established a Sovereign Chamber at Besancon, and two equally 
 Sovereign Councils, the one at Brisach, the other at Metz, which were 
 empowered to decide without appeal respecting all cessions to his Crown. 
 By this arbitrary measure the King of Sweden, the Duke of Wurtemburg, 
 of De Deux-Ponts, the Elector Palatine, the Elector of Treves, and a 
 number of other princes, were deprived of a portion of their domains and 
 summoned to render homage for their other possessions. Louis seized 
 
1661-1683.] EESTOKATION OF STBASBOTJRG TO FBANCB. 79 
 
 upon the free city of Strasbourg in a manner no less violent. Louvois 
 and the Marquis de Montclar suddenly appeared before it at gur riseofst 
 the head of twenty thousand men. Induced to capitulate J^fh^pSce 
 by mingled threats and intrigue, it was united to France, to Prance » 1681 - 
 and Vauban fortified it so as to make it the rampart of the kingdom 
 against Germany. 
 
 Justly irritated at these usurpations, the powers of Europe formed a 
 fresh league on the day of the capture of Strasbourg. But three hundred 
 thousand Turks at the same time poured down upon the Empire ; and 
 Vienna, reduced by them to the last extremity, would have been forced 
 to succumb had not the king of Poland, John Sobieski, and Prince 
 Charles of Lorraine come to its assistance. Leopold, therefore, and the 
 greater number of the powers, being too feeble to recommence the war, 
 protested, without taking any active measures. Spain alone dared to enter 
 the field, and lost Courtray, Dixmude, and Luxembourg. Truce of Eatis- 
 A truce of twenty years, to which the Emperor and Holland bon ' 1684# 
 acceded, was concluded at Ratisbon, according to which the King was to 
 retain, during his life, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, and all the annexations pro- 
 nounced legitimate by the Sovereign Courts. It was thus that Louis XIV., 
 extending his conquests by illegitimate means, accumulated the enduring 
 resentment which was destined to burst upon him in the day of adversity. 
 
 Everywhere the terror of his arms prevailed. The ships of Spain 
 lowered their flags before his ; and Duquesne freed the Mediterranean of 
 the pirates which infested it, and twice destroyed the city of Algiers with 
 the then newly-invented bombs. Algiers, Tunis, and _ , , , „ 
 
 J g 7 i Bombardment of 
 
 Tripoli made their submission. Genoa was accused, falsely gJjjUJJ JJJgj, 
 perhaps, of having assisted the pirates. Fourteen thousand 1G8i * 
 bomb-shells crushed its marble palaces, and its Doge was forced to go to 
 Versailles to implore the compassion of Louis XIV. That monarch had 
 now reached the giddiest height of his power and glory, and his name 
 excited throughout Europe mingled sentiments of hatred, terror, and ad- 
 miration. The Roman Court, already deeply humiliated by him, was 
 beaten a second time on the subject of the Droit de regale.* This law, up 
 
 * This was the name given to the privilege enjoyed by the Kings of France, and by 
 no other monarchs, of possessing during the vacancy of episcopal sees, and until the 
 registration of the oaths of new bishops, the revenues attached to them, and also of 
 conferring certain benefices as belonging to these sees. 
 
80 LOTJIS XIV. AN ABSOLUTE MONAltCH. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 to the time of Louis XIV., did not affect the churches of certain provinces 
 which had been long separate from the kingdom, such as Guienne, 
 Provence, and Dauphine ; but by a Koyal edict, issued in 1673, they were 
 now all rendered equally subject to it. The Pope, Innocent XI., 
 vigorously opposed this innovation, and a long-continued struggle ensued; 
 but at length, in 1682, an assembly of the French clergy drew up, at the 
 instigation of Bossuet, the four famous Articles, in which is 
 the Four Articles set forth the doctrine of the Gallican Church. They are to 
 
 of Clergy, 1682. 
 
 the effect — 1st, That the ecclesiastical power has no autho- 
 rity over the temporal power of princes ; 2nd, That the General Council 
 is superior to the Pope, as was determined by the Council of Constance ; 
 3rd, That the exercise of the Apostolic power should be regulated by the 
 canons and the usages in vogue in particular churches ; 4thly, That the 
 judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff in matters of faith is not infallible until 
 sanctioned by the Church. The King immediately had these four articles 
 registered in all the Parliaments, and the professors in the schools of 
 philosophy were bound to subscribe to them. The Pope condemned 
 them, and refused bulls to all those who had been members of the 
 Assembly of 1682. The bishops nominated by the King continued, how- 
 ever, to administer their dioceses, by virtue of the powers conferred on 
 them by the chapters. This expedient, suggested by Bossuet, prevented 
 perhaps a complete schism between the Church of France and the Church 
 of Eome. 
 
 Louis XIV., feared by Europe, was an absolute king in his own 
 
 dominions, and could say with truth, " The State — it is I!" 
 
 Power and gran- ' " . . 
 
 deur of Louis He had destroyed the few national franchises which had 
 
 XIV., 1661-1633. J 
 
 hitherto been preserved rather by custom than by law. 
 Every body and everybody in the State rivalled each other in testifying 
 their devotion and obedience to him. The high clergy, to whom Louis 
 closed his Council and refused any part in the command of his armies, 
 had lost all political influence ; and this body considered it fortunate, in 
 fact, that they had preserved a shadow of independence in being allowed 
 to pay, under the title of " gratuitous gifts," the sums which they would 
 have considered it beneath their dignity to have paid as taxes. The high 
 nobility, considerably diminished by so many wars, and naturally attracted 
 to the Court, was kept under by the habit of a brilliant servitude to the 
 monarch, and the enticements of Court pleasures and fetes. The nume- 
 
1661-1683.] CREATION OE THE POLICE. 81 
 
 rous provincial nobility, almost wholly employed in the army, learned 
 that it could only preserve any authority in the State by means of its 
 commissions, and that its hereditary privileges would no 
 longer afford it any real influence. The Parliament found Nobles and of 
 its functions limited to the administration of justice; all 
 political power was taken from it, and the King only allowed to it the 
 illusory power of addressing to him remonstrances on his edicts eight days 
 after they had been registered. The Third Estate lost its municipal 
 liberties by the definitive establishment of intendants and the sale of the 
 perpetual mayorships. The three orders were finally reduced to a 
 political nullity by the King's prejudice against the States- General, and 
 his invincible resolution never to convoke them. The chains of a central 
 administration, the occult power of the police, newly esta- creation of the 
 blished,* and the maintenance of a numerous standing army, P olice » 1667 * 
 completed the reduction of the kingdom to a state of passive obedience — 
 a state in which the King kept it by the dazzling glory of his victories, 
 and the marvellous works effected during his reign. Aspiring himself to 
 every species of renown, he had in the midst of his reign obtained that of 
 a conqueror, and the superior glory of being a protector of literature, 
 science, and commerce. With Colbert's assistance he had leei8lative 
 issued celebrated decrees with respect to waters and forests, works * 
 naval affairs, and all branches of industry, as well as to civil and criminal 
 proceedings in the courts of law. The various Regulations were distorted 
 by the errors and barbarous prejudices of the time, but they grouped 
 under their proper heads matters which had hitherto been confounded 
 together ; and it is especially in this respect that they were admired, and, 
 in great part, adopted by Europe. 
 
 The King seconded Colbert's efforts by giving an impulse to industry, 
 and giving the first place of honour at his Court to French fabrics. At 
 his voice manufactories arose, our vessels covered the ocean, and France 
 
 * The King appointed, in 1667, a magistrate, who, under the name of Lieutenant of 
 Police, was entrusted with the duty of watching over the safety of Paris. Nicolas de 
 la Reynie was the first Lieutenant of Police, and he was succeeded by the Marquis 
 d'Argenson. The watch and the fire-brigade were also established. The police scruti- 
 nized all writings, and multiplied the employment of lettres de cachet, which, by 
 suppressing the forms of justice, deprived the citizens of every guarantee for their 
 liberty. A lettre de cachet was a letter written by order of the King, and counter- 
 signed by a secretary of State, by virtue of which the police seized any person and 
 conveyed him to prison, where he was confined as long as the Government pleased. 
 VOL. II. (J 
 
82 GEAtfDETTB, OF LOUIS XIV. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 took the first rank amongst the maritime powers. She had not as yet any 
 colonies ; for though the French had, it is true, a century since, founded 
 many colonies in the New World, at the Floridas, in Canada, at the 
 Antilles, in Guiana, at Senegal, and in Africa, they had remained inde- 
 pendent of France. Colbert purchased the establishments at the Autilles 
 in the name of Louis XIV., and placed under the protection of the French 
 Government a portion of the great isle of St. Domingo, which had been 
 taken by French filibusters from the Spaniards. A West Indian 
 company, established by his efforts in 1G64, purchased the French pos- 
 sessions in America, from Canada to the Amazons, and in Africa, from 
 Cape Verde to the Cape of Good Hope. Another company, called the 
 East Indian, also arose at this period. Founded at first at Madagascar, it 
 soon quitted that isle and planted itself in the Indies. It established a 
 factory at Surat and founded Pondicherry, which became the centre of 
 our operations in India. 
 
 The genius of Louis XIV. associated itself with every grand and useful 
 creation. He devoted equal care to our fortresses, our roads, our ports, 
 and our canals. At the instigation of Colbert and Yauban, he defended 
 our frontiers on the east and the north by a triple line of fortresses. He 
 ordered the construction of important works at Brest, Toulon, and Eoche- 
 fort. He adopted the plans of Riquet, and dug the Languedoc Canal, 
 which unites two seas. He completed the pavement of the capital, and 
 provided it with a police, and with light during the night. He enlarged 
 and enriched the Jardin des Plantes, traced out the Boulevards, built the 
 Hotel des Invalides and the Observatory, the Gates of St. Denis, and St. 
 Martin, and the admirable facade of the Louvre, erected after the plans of 
 Claude Perrault. He surrounded himself with the elite of the great men 
 of his day, borrowed from them a part of their glory, and did honour to 
 himself by covering them with favours. His benefactions sought out foreign 
 artists and men of learning, many of whom he induced to take up their 
 abode in France. He founded at Rome a school for painters, and in 
 Paris academies of sculpture, painting, and architecture. At the suggestion 
 of Colbert he founded the Academy of Sciences, and that of Inscriptions, 
 placed the Eoyal library in an ample building, and raised the number of 
 its volumes from sixteen thousand to forty thousand. Finally, he com- 
 manded the voyages of Tournefort, and caused the meridian of Paris to 
 be measured. His renown extended to the extremities of Asia, and the 
 
1661-1683.] GEE AT MEN OF THE AGE. 83 
 
 King of Siam sent a solemn embassy to offer his congratulations to the 
 French Monarch, and to enter into an alliance with him. 
 
 The works executed by Colbert, Louvois, and Vauban ; the conquests 
 of Turenne and Conde ; the halo of a brilliant literature : the >. , ,.,, 
 
 7 ' Ureat men oi the 
 
 eloquence of Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fleshier, and Fenelon ; P eriod - 
 the writings of Corneille, Moliere, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, and 
 so many other celebrated men ; the profound works of the great thinkers 
 and moralists, such as Pascal, Descartes, Malebranche, La Bruyere, and 
 La Rochefoucauld ; the marvellous artistic productions of the sculptors 
 Girardon, Puget, Coysevox, and Coustou ; the artists Lesueur, Nicolas 
 Poussin, Claude Lorraine, and Le Brun, and the architects Perrault, the 
 two Mansards,* and Le Nostre;| the scientific discoveries of the great 
 mathematicians of this period,! * n * ne nrs ^ ran ^ OI * whom may be placed 
 Pierre Fermat ; and finally, the labours undertaken by the astronomers 
 Picard and Cassini for the purpose of measuring the globe — throw an 
 incomparable lustre upon that portion of the reign of Louis XIV. which 
 we have rapidly sketched, and contributed to lead posterity to apply to 
 the Monarch the epithet of Great$ and to speak of the age in which he 
 reigned as the age of Louis XIV. 
 
 Beneath so much grandeur, however, there were concealed many vices 
 and numerous perils. Louis XIV. believed that he possessed an absolute 
 right over the lives and fortunes of his subjects, and called himself God's 
 lieutenant upon earth. Dazzled by the prodigies effected in his reign, 
 intoxicated by incessant praise, victorious over all opposition, he almost 
 
 * Francis Mansard, the author of the Val-de-Grace, must not be confounded with 
 his nephew, Jules Hardouin Mansard, who constructed Versailles, Marly, the Place 
 Vendome, &c. 
 
 f Le Nostre was the creator of French landscape-gardening, and laid out the gardens 
 of Versailles. 
 
 % Amongst the great geometricians who have rendered themselves illustrious by the 
 importance of their discoveries in the mathematical and physical sciences are Descartes 
 and Pascal. A mechanician, whose name has since become famous, also lived at this 
 period. It was he who first devised the plan of employing steam as a motive power, 
 and he made experiments, on a river in Germany — the Fulda — with a real steamboat, 
 which ascended the current. The importance of this discovery, and of the machine 
 called " Papin's," have only been appreciated in our own day, when the results are 
 incalculable. 
 
 § At the Hotel-de-Ville of Paris, in 1680, it was solemnly decreed that the surname 
 of "Great" should be applied to the Monarch, and that this should be the only title to 
 be in future inscribed upon any public monument. 
 
 g2 
 
84 DEATH OF COLBERT. [BOOK III. CHAP. IV. 
 
 reached the point of believing that he was of a nature superior to that of 
 the rest of humanity, and of persuading himself that his glory rendered 
 lawful on his part, what, in the case of other men, was most criminal in 
 the sight of God. He was to be seen, in the midst of the splendour of his 
 fetes, in the sight of the people and the army, driving about with his wife 
 — Maria-Theresa and two of his mistresses, and the prestige which covered 
 his adulterous amours with Mademoiselles la Valliere and Fontanges, and 
 Madame Montespan, inflicted almost as fatal a blow on the national 
 manners as the shameful dissoluteness of his successor. 
 
 He prided in triumphing over difficulties, and in undertaking what 
 seemed impossible things ; and Colbert, who encouraged his taste for build- 
 ing, saw with terror the public treasure engulfed at Versailles in gigantic 
 and useless works. It was easy- to foresee all the miseries with which France 
 was threatened, if the will of the Prince, without counterpoise, should 
 cease to be guided by the councils of genius, and should yield to those of 
 ignorance and fanaticism ; if his indomitable pride should listen some day 
 to the suggestion of a narrow and blind devotion ; and if, finally, his pre- 
 judices, and the interests of his power and those of his family, should ever 
 be in antagonism with the interests and requirements of France. These 
 gloomy forebodings of superior minds were too soon justified. Colbert 
 died in 1683, in the same year as Maria- There sa ; and from 
 Theresa and of* that time the rising prosperity of the reign received a check. 
 The prodigalities of the King, and the expenses of the late 
 war, which had been undertaken against the advice of Colbert, had already 
 obliged the latter to have recourse to loans, to the sale of a multitude of 
 offices, and to vexatious taxes, which excited the murmurs of the people. 
 After his death, the finances fell into a frightful state of confusion, and it 
 almost seemed as though this great Minister had carried with him into 
 the tomb the fairest portion of his Master's glory and good fortune. 
 
1683-1715.] EEVO CATION OF THE EDICT OE NANTES. 85 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONTINUATION AND END OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. 
 
 1683-1715. 
 
 The health of Louis XIV. had suffered since 1682 an alteration which, 
 whilst it soured his temper, inclined him to abandon himself without 
 reserve to the fatal suggestions of Louvois and Madame de Maintenon. 
 The former, an egotistical, proud, and cold-hearted man, had been the 
 personal enemy of Colbert, and the latter, by her ambition and a certain 
 stiffness, made the French almost forget the rare qualities of her mind. 
 A Catholic granddaughter of the Protestant leader Agrippa Preponderating 
 
 - influence of 
 
 d Aubigne, widow of the poet Scarron, and instructress of Louvois and of < 
 
 Madame de 
 
 the children of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan, she Maintenon. 
 speedily raised herself from that obscure post to the most elevated rank. 
 There is no doubt that the King, yielding to personal scruples as much as 
 to the voice of public morality, thought that he might satisfy at once his 
 passion and the claims of duty by secretly marrying her ; and the year 
 1685 is that in which this clandestine marriage is said to have taken 
 place. From that moment Louis XIV. appeared to have survived him- 
 self. Great talents still shone around him, and produced brilliant works ; 
 glorious victories checked the current of his adversities ; but his resolu- 
 tions were ever subject to pride or superstition ; most of them hurried on 
 the ruin of the monarchy, and none of them really tended either to his 
 greatness or prosperity. 
 
 One of the first and most disastrous acts of the Third Period of his 
 reign was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Pro- 
 testants, since the capture of La Rochelle, lived peaceably the Edict of 
 
 , . . , ~ , ,. Nantes, 1685. 
 
 and submissive to the Government, and were as dis- 
 tinguished for the purity of their morals as their active industry. 
 Louis XIV., however, had always regarded them with anger and dislike. 
 Far from being well informed as to the differences between the two 
 systems of worship, he was nevertheless offended that opinions should 
 
86 PERSECUTIONS OP THE PEOTESTANTS. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 be publicly professed in his kingdom which were not his own ; and he 
 assumed over the consciences of his subjects the same absolute authority 
 which he believed he possessed over their lives and fortunes. His cruel 
 persecutions of the reformed party were instigated by his pride rather 
 than by his devotion. He had long meditated the ruin of their churches, 
 and numerous conversions had been obtained by threats, violence, or 
 bribery. The unhappy Protestants found themselves successively 
 deprived of all their rights and all their privileges. Their ministers 
 were prohibited from wearing the ecclesiastical habit, from attending the 
 sick, or visiting the prisons. Their professors were allowed to teach 
 neither languages, philosophy, nor theology ; their schools were broken 
 up; and the gifts bestowed on the consistories were transferred to 
 Catholic hospitals ; cunning and force were employed to prevent them 
 from having the bringing up of their own children. 
 
 Eefused admission to any public offices, they had devoted themselves to 
 industry, which owed to their zeal its most rapid development. Colbert 
 protected them ; but at his death, Louvois, his envious rival, in concert 
 with Michel Le Tellier, his father, Chancellor of France, and with 
 Madame de Maintenon, urged Louis XIV. to destroy them. The 
 numerous blows already inflicted upon them by the King had deprived 
 them of the means of making any effort in their own defence ; when, on 
 the 22nd October, 1685, appeared the decree which suppressed the Edict 
 of Nantes. It interdicted throughout the whole kingdom the exercise of 
 the Eeformed religion, ordered all its ministers to leave the kingdom 
 within a fortnight, and enjoined parents and tutors to bring up the 
 children in their care in the Catholic religion. Emigration on the part 
 of the Protestants was prohibited under pain of the galleys and con- 
 fiscation of property ; Catholic preachers traversed the towns peopled by 
 Protestants, and in the places where these missionaries were unable to 
 effect conversions, the secular arm was called in to effect them by force. 
 Frequently, even before the issue of this decree, dragoons had been sent 
 to obstinate Protestants with permission to act towards them with every 
 imaginable licence until they had become converted. Innumerable and 
 atrocious acts of violence were committed against them, those who 
 resisted being condemned to the gibbet or the gallows ; whilst their 
 ministers were broken alive. A hundred thousand industrious families 
 escaped from France ; and the foreign nations which received them with 
 
1683-1715.] FRANCE OPPOSED BY EUROPE. 87 
 
 open arms became enriched by their industry at the expense of their 
 native country. This odious decree intensified the hatred of the Pro- 
 testants for their King, and increased their resources and their strength, 
 whilst it enfeebled those of the kingdom ; for there were formed many 
 regiments of French refugees who inflicted more than one severe blow 
 on the persecuting Monarch. 
 
 The conduct of this Prince in respect to strangers was neither more 
 just nor more prudent. He had found in medals which he thought 
 insulting a sufficient motive for urging war against Holland; and yet he 
 permitted Marshal la Feuillade to erect on the Place des Victoires, in 
 Paris, a monument, on which a light burnt before his statue, at the 
 foot of which all the nations of Europe were represented as vanquished 
 and enchained. He maintained at Rome, in spite of the Pope, a right of 
 asylum for all the vagabonds or malefactors who sought protection at the 
 French Embassy; although the other powers possessed of the same 
 privilege had renounced so scandalous a right. Pressed by the nuncio 
 to follow the example of the latter on this point, Louis XIV. haughtily 
 replied, that " He never followed any one's example, God having, on the 
 contrary, appointed him to be an example to others." His ambassador 
 was excommunicated by Pope Innocent XI., who, at the same time, 
 refused to nominate to the Electorate of Cologne, Cardinal Furstemberg, 
 the candidate protected by the French Monarch ; upon which Avignon, 
 an ancient possession of the Popes, was at once seized. Louis XIV. 
 believed that he atoned for his offences against the Court of Rome by 
 the rigour with which he treated the Calvinists ; but his recent usurpa- 
 tions, maintained with so much arrogance, disgusted all Europe. The 
 Prince of Orange, against whose consent the peace of Nimeguen had been 
 concluded, had become the soul of a new league, which took the name 
 of the League of Augsbourg, from the name of the city in which 
 it was agreed upon. The Emperor, the Empire, Spain, Holland, 
 and Savoy, formed a coalition against France ; and Louis 
 
 , • , y-t i i i /» i Second Coalition 
 
 sent a large army into Germany under the orders of the League of Augs- 
 
 t\ i • //Ti/r • t i -rr- • bourg. War 
 
 Dauphin. " My son, said the King to him, on his against Europe, 
 
 . . 1688-1698. 
 
 departure, " in sending you to command my armies, I 
 afford you an opportunity of making your merits known. Go, and so 
 act in the face of Europe that when I am no more it shall not perceive 
 that the King is dead." 
 
88 THE PALATINATE BURNED. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 This campaign commenced at the period of the second revolution in 
 Second English England. James II., brother and successor of the immoral 
 Revolution, less. c^astea II., had made an ostentatious display of his attach- 
 ment for the Catholic faith, and had raised his subjects in revolt against 
 him by endeavouring to re-establish it in his kingdom. The Prince of 
 Orange, his son-in-law, summoned by the general voice of the English 
 people, crossed the sea at the head of a fleet, and accompanied by a French 
 army. James II. abandoned the throne, which was declared vacant by 
 the Peers and Commons of the kingdom. The two Chambers then drew 
 up an act, which is famous in history, under the name of the Declaration 
 of Eights, by which the ancient political rights and liberties of England 
 were denned, and solemnly sanctioned. They then proclaimed William 
 of Orange and Mary, the daughter of James II., King and Queen of 
 England. Thus was accomplished the revolution which maintained in 
 England the union between the State and the Protestant Church, which 
 consecrated anew, in a pacific manner, the free institutions which had 
 existed in the kingdom for ages, and which prevented in that country 
 any fresh contests between the Eoyal authority and the Parliamentary 
 power, by establishing in a formal and incontestible manner that the first 
 derived all its rights and all its prerogatives from the Parliament and the 
 nation. 
 
 After he had quitted a throne which he could no longer defend, 
 James II. sought an asylum in France. Louis XIV. received him with 
 royal magnificence, and immediately took up his cause, in spite of all the 
 enemies who on the north, the east, and the south, threatened his 
 frontiers. The Dauphin, assisted by Henri de Durfort, Marshal Duras, 
 and Catinat and Vauban, had already taken Philisbourg, and before the 
 end of the campaign had become possessed of Mayence, Treves, Spire, 
 Worms, and a multitude of other places, which Cardinal Furstemberg 
 gave up to him in the Electorate of Cologne. Thus, at the com- 
 mencement of the war, Louis XIV. found himself master of the three 
 ecclesiastical electorates, and a portion of the Palatinate. This unhappy 
 province, by an order of Louis XIV., signed by Louvois, was a second 
 time inhumanly ravaged, 1689, with the intention of 
 of thePaiatinafe, keeping back the enemy. Forty cities and a multitude of 
 
 1689. 
 
 boroughs and villages were given to the names, the cemeteries 
 
1683-1715.] CAMPAIGN IN FLANDEES. 89 
 
 themselves were profaned, and the ashes of the dead given to the winds. 
 Germany burst into a cry of horror, and at once sent into the field three 
 large armies, the command of which was entrusted to the Duke of 
 Lorraine, Charles V., a sovereign without a kingdom, but 
 endowed with great talents, the Prince of Waldeck, and the Luxembourg, in 
 
 Flanders. 
 
 Elector of Brandenbourg. Charles V. retook Bonn and 
 Mayence, drove Marshal Duras back into France, and died in the midst 
 of his successes. Waldeck vanquished Marshal d'Humieres in Flanders. 
 Luxembourg was then appointed to the command of the grand army of 
 the north ; and this great general, who, by his fiery genius and 
 keen and rapid judgment, recalled the memory of the Great Conde, 
 whose pupil he was, justified the King's choice in the most brilliant 
 manner. 
 
 Two French armies protected the northern frontier. Luxembourg 
 with one occupied a portion of the valley of Sambre ; whilst the other, 
 under Marshal d'Humieres, protected that of the Moselle. The Prince of 
 Waldeck, at the head of superior forces on the Sambre, near Fleurus, held 
 Luxembourg in check, and awaited the arrival of the Elector of Bran- 
 denbourg to attack and destroy both armies. Luxembourg divined his 
 plan, and prevented it. Strengthened by a reinforcement, secretly drawn 
 from the army of the Moselle, he suddenly offered battle to the Prince, 
 and then marching openly with a front of equal extent to that of the 
 Germans, he transferred the whole of his cavalry to one of his wings, on 
 the flank of the enemy, from whom this manoeuvre was concealed by 
 a slight eminence. Waldeck, attacked in front and in flank, was astonished 
 at finding himself outflanked by an army which he supposed to be inferior 
 in number to his own ; and the disorder occasioned by the suddenness of 
 the attack became a rout. Six thousand slain, and eleven thousand 
 prisoners, were the result of this victory, which seemed to be a decisive 
 one, but which, nevertheless, had no decisive result. The remains of 
 the vanquished army joined at Brussels the army of the Elector; whilst 
 Louvois, jealous of the victor, deprived him of a portion of his troops. 
 The enemy was thus enabled to regain his supremacy ; and Luxembourg 
 was reduced to acting on the defensive. 
 
 Catinat now gained in Piedmont the battle of StafParde against Victor 
 Amedee, Duke of Savoy, whose States were lost for France as soon as 
 
90 BATTLE OP THE BOTNE. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 won. The Duke of Bavaria and Prince Eugene,* a general in the 
 service of the Emperor, compelled Catinat to recross the Alps. 
 
 James II. had gone in the preceding year to Ireland, where the 
 Catholic population remained faithful to him, and still hoped, with the 
 aid of Louis XIV., to recover his Crown. Chateau-Renaud went to his 
 aid with twelve ships of the line and eight thousand soldiers, whom the 
 Duke of Schomberg, a Protestant refugee, held in check till the arrival 
 of the Prince of Orange, who had already been recognised and pro- 
 claimed as King of England by the title of William III. It was in vain 
 that Admiral Tourville, with eighty ships of war, vanquished at Beachy-head 
 Battle of the t ^ ie English and Dutch fleets ; for on the following day, the 
 oyne, 69 . decisive battle of the Boyne ruined the hopes of James II. ; 
 and in the following year, the result of the battle of Aghrim planted the 
 crown firmly on the head of William III. 
 
 Louis XIV., with Luxembourg and La Feuillade, made a campaign in 
 Flanders in 1691, the only important results of which were 
 
 Campaign of 
 
 Louis xiv. in the capture of Mons by the Kino;, and the glorious battle of 
 
 Flanders, 1691. r # J & ' fe 
 
 Leuze, in which Luxembourg, at the head of twenty-eight 
 squadrons, put to flight fifty-five squadrons of the enemy, under the 
 command of the Prince of Waldeck. This success, however, was of no 
 permanent advantage to France. 
 
 The distress which prevailed throughout the kingdom was now extreme. 
 Claude le Pelletier, then Phelipeux de Ponchartrain, who succeeded 
 Colbert in the general management of the finances, endeavoured in vain 
 to fill up the frightful void in the Treasury occasioned by the King's pro- 
 digalities, and the maintenance of four hundred and fifty thousand men 
 in the field. A loan was opened for six millions of funds ; a multitude of 
 offices were created, which financiers were compelled to purchase ; con- 
 siderable donations were demanded of the cities ; by the King's order the 
 silver articles at Versailles were coined into money; he redoubled his 
 efforts, and made immense preparations for carrying on the war. He 
 marched into Flanders himself at the head of eighty thousand men, with 
 Luxembourg and the Marquis de Boufflers under his orders, whilst 
 Catinat carried on the war in Piedmont. Louis XIV. now had before 
 
 * Prince Eugene was the son of the Count de Soissons, of the House of Savoy, and 
 of a niece of Mazarin. Upon being refused, by Louis XIV., first an abbacy, and next 
 a regiment, he entered the service of the Emperor. 
 
1683-1715.] BATTLE OP LA HOGUE. 91 
 
 him his illustrious rival, King William, who had returned to command 
 his army in Flanders after having securely fixed the crown of England on 
 his head. 
 
 The King in person took the important fortress of Namur, whilst 
 Luxembourg, on the banks of the Mehaigne, covered the y ictories of 
 siege, and held the forces of William in check. After this aSo?CaSt 
 exploit Louis XIV. quitted the army, and resigned the 1692_1693 * 
 command to Luxembourg, who covered himself with glory at the battle 
 of Steinkerque. A spy having been discovered in William's camp, he 
 was forced to write a false despatch to Marshal Luxembourg, and the 
 latter immediately took measures which placed him in peril. His army, 
 almost buried in slumber, was attacked at the break of day, and one 
 brigade was put to flight. Luxembourg was ill, but danger revived his 
 strength ; and, rapidly changing his ground, he three times rallied his 
 forces and charged at their head. Many princes of the blood distin- 
 guished themselves on this occasion. Philippe, Duke of Orleans, then the 
 Duke de Chartres, and afterwards Eegent of the kingdom, was foremost 
 amongst the foremost. Scarcely fifteen years of age, he charged at the 
 head of the Household Brigade, was wounded, and returned to the charge 
 in spite of his wound. At length King William's English Guards gave 
 way ; and Boufflers, coming up with his cavalry, completed the victory. 
 William, however, retired in good order, and continued the campaign ; 
 his genius, full of resources, enabling him to derive greater advantages 
 from a defeat than the French frequently obtained from a victory. In the 
 following year (1693), at Nerwinde, Luxembourg again obtained a signal 
 victory over this prince, but again failed to derive any particular advan- 
 tage from it. William once more made an admirable retreat, and 
 Louis XIV., who had formerly made so many conquests almost without 
 fighting, could now scarcely achieve the conquest of Flanders after so 
 many bloody victories. Catinat, no less successful than Luxembourg, 
 was victorious in Piedmont. But all these glorious successes were coun- 
 terbalanced by the disastrous invasion made by Victor- Naval battle f 
 Amedee into Provence and the fatal battle of La Hogue, in La Ho s ue - 
 which T our ville, in obedience to the King's distinct orders, attacked Admiral 
 Russell with a force inferior by one-half to that of the English. After making 
 the most heroic efforts his ships were dispersed or sunk, and Eussell burnt 
 thirteen of them in the defenceless ports of La Hogue and Cherbourg. 
 
92 PEACE OP ETSWICK. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 This ruinous war was still prolonged during three years, during which 
 Europe hurled back on Louis XIV. the evils he had made her suffer. 
 The Dutch seized Pondicherry, a colony founded at a great expense by 
 Colbert, and ruined French commerce in the Indies. The English 
 destroyed our plantations at Saint Domingo, and bombarded Havre, Saint 
 Malo, Calais, and Dunkirk, and reduced Dieppe to ashes. 
 
 Duguay-Trouin and Jean Bart avenged these disasters at the expense 
 of the enemy's maritime commerce, and Commodore Pointis surprised the 
 city of Carthagena, the depot of the treasures which Spain obtained from 
 Mexico. These successes, however, but ill repaired the great losses 
 suffered by France. Louis XIV. ordered the re-melting of all the coin in 
 circulation, and raised the value of the silver mark from twenty-six livres 
 fifteen sous to twenty-nine livres four sous — an operation which only 
 resulted in a gain of forty millions to the Treasury in four years. He 
 imposed a capitation tax on all the heads of families, who were divided 
 into twenty-four classes, according to the amount of their fortunes, and 
 inscribed his own name amongst those liable to contribute. At length, 
 after the ineffectual campaigns of Boufflers on the Rhine and of Vendome 
 in Catalonia, Louis entered into negotiations for peace. He first of all 
 succeeded, in 1696, in detaching from the League the Duke of Savoy, Victor- 
 Amedee, who gave his daughter in marriage to the Duke of Burgundy, 
 grandson of Louis XIV. Secure on the side of Italy, the King marched 
 considerable bodies of troops into Flanders, under Marshals Catinat, 
 Boufflers, and Villeroi, and carried on the war actively in Catalonia, 
 where Vendome, after many successes, achieved the important conquest of 
 Peace of Barcelona. These last events, and especially the defection 
 
 Eyswick, 1697. f ^ Q jj u k e f Savoy, hastened the progress of the negotia- 
 tions for peace, and at length it was signed at Ryswick on the 20th 
 September, 1697. By this treaty the King of Spain resumed possession 
 of many places in the Low Countries ; the Piince of Orange was acknow- 
 ledged as King of England, and Louis promised to disturb him no more in 
 the possession of his kingdom. The possession of Strasbourg was con- 
 firmed to France, but she gave up Kehl, Philisbourg, Fribourg, and 
 Brisach, agreed to raze the fortifications of Huninguen and Neuf-Brisach, 
 and to restore all the annexations with the exception of Alsace. The 
 Elector Palatine resumed possession of his domains, and the Duke of 
 Lorraine that of his duchy, now diminished by Longwy and Sarrelouis, 
 
1683-1715.] DEATH OF CHABLES II. OP SPAIN. 93 
 
 which remained in the hands of France. Finally, the Dutch restored 
 Pondicherry, and signed an advantageous treaty with France, which 
 kept her colonies and preserved her possessions at Saint Domingo. 
 
 The power of Louis XIV. was so shaken by this long and bloody war 
 that he could no longer support in Poland his relation, Prince de 
 Conti, who had been elected King of that kingdom in opposition to 
 Augustus, the Elector of Saxony. Europe now at length enjoyed a 
 period of repose. The battle of Zenta, gained by Prince Eugene at the 
 head of the Imperial troops over the Turks and the Grand Vizier in 
 person, was followed by the peace of Carlowitz, which was humiliating 
 for Turkey. Then there followed two years of general tranquillity for 
 Europe. The King of Sweden, Charles XII. , and Peter I., Czar of 
 Eussia, were the first to break it in the North ; and the South soon 
 showed signs of coming troubles. 
 
 Charles II., King of Spain, languished in expectation of approaching 
 death. He had no children, and the Kings of France, will of Charles 
 England, and the Emperor Leopold, coveting his vast II -» 1698 - 
 domains, had entered into a secret agreement to divide them ; when 
 Charles, by a will made in 1698, appointed as his heir the Electoral 
 Prince of Bavaria, then six years of age, who died in the following year. 
 The dying Monarch, after long consulting the Pope, the Universities of 
 Spain, and his own Council, then nominated as his successor Philip, 
 Duke of Anjou, grandson of his eldest sister, Maria-Theresa, and second 
 son of the Dauphin of France. If Philip should decline to renounce his 
 eventual rights to the throne of France, then the Duke de Berry, his 
 younger brother, was substituted for him, and, in the next place, the 
 Archduke Charles, the Emperor's second son. In no case did the 
 testator permit the dismemberment ot the Spanish monarchy. He died 
 in 1700. 
 
 Louis XIV. knew that to accept this testament was to break the 
 agreement which he had previously signed, and to expose France to a 
 new war with Europe, which was always ready to reproach him with 
 aspiring after universal monarchy. He could not resist, however, his 
 desire to place so brilliant a crown on the head of his grandson; and 
 therefore, after some hesitation, he accepted the will, recognised the 
 Duke of Anjou as a King under the title of Philip V., and sent him to 
 Spain with the memorable words — There are no longer any Pyrenees. 
 
94 WAE OF THE SUCCESSION OP SPAIN. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 The Emperor immediately protested ; and a year had scarcely elapsed 
 before Holland, England, and the Empire had made common 
 cause with him against Louis XIV. This Monarch had 
 committed two enormous faults : the one being that he had sent to 
 Philip V. letters patent, by which his rights to the throne of France were 
 preserved to him, contrary to the express will of the testator ; and the 
 other, that, on the death of James II., he had recognised as King of 
 England the Prince of Wales, his son, in spite of a formal clause in the 
 treaty of Eyswick. The tears of the widow of James II., and the insti- 
 gation of Madame de Maintenon, prevailed in this matter with the 
 King, against the unanimous advice of his Council. The Confederate 
 powers immediately made preparations for the terrible war, known in 
 history as the War of Succession, in which the North of 
 cession of Spain, Europe, then divided between Peter the Great and 
 Charles XII., took no part. Louis XIV. and Philip V. had 
 as their allies against this formidable league only the King of Portugal, 
 the Duke of Savoy, the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne, and the Dukes 
 of Parma, Modena, and Mantua. 
 
 "Within the kingdom numerous signs of decadence were already 
 visible. The King, now a sexagenarian, and living somewhat in retire- 
 ment saw things at too great a distance with eyes which were not only 
 enfeebled by prolonged prosperity, but which time had somewhat dulled. 
 Madame de Maintenon possessed neither the strength nor greatness 
 of mind necessary to sustain the glory of the State. The great Ministers 
 and many illustrious generals were dead ; and Luxembourg, the pupil of 
 Conde and whom his soldiers believed to be invincible, had followed his 
 master to the tomb. Barbezieux, the son and successor of Louvois, had 
 sunk beneath the weight of his duties during the last war, and had died 
 in his turn ; whereupon Madame de Maintenon had united, 
 Minister of War j n 1701, the Ministry of Finance with that of War in the 
 
 and of Finance, * 
 
 1701. hands of Chamillart, her creature, a man ot very moderate 
 
 ability, who owed his fortune to the most frivolous talents. The King, 
 too confident in his own intelligence and strength, pretended to direct his 
 Ministers, and to keep the reins of Government strictly in his own hands. 
 Together with Chamillart he directed the military operations from 
 Madame de Maintenon's cabinet, and thus made his generals miss fortunate 
 opportunities more than ever. 
 
1683-1715.] CAMPAIGN IN PIEDMONT. 95 
 
 Chamillart, unknown to the armies, which he had never seen, en- 
 feebled the military discipline, so rigidly maintained by Louvois, by 
 blindly and prodigally scattering dignities and rewards. A great number 
 of young gentlemen purchased regiments when they were still mere boys ; 
 and the cross of St. Louis, a reward devised by the King in 1693, was sold 
 at a very low price at the War Office. The number of officers and 
 soldiers in the various corps ceased to be up to the standard ; the pro- 
 visions, carelessly inspected, ceased to be of good quality ; and these 
 faults, committed as they were in the face of the greatest generals 
 which Europe had yet opposed to the fortunes of Louis XIV., 
 afforded grounds for the most gloomy anticipations. The King, 
 however, made prodigious efforts : he promptly recruited his armies,, 
 and repaired the losses suffered by his navy; whilst many illus- 
 trious commanders, such as Catinat, Villars, Berwick, and Vendome, 
 showed themselves to be worthy successors of Turenne, Conde, and 
 Luxembourg. This disastrous war, commenced in Italy, speedily ex- 
 tended itself to the two Continents, to the isles, and to every point, 
 in fact, at which the French and Spaniards had establishments. It 
 lasted eleven years, with continual alternations of successes and re- 
 verses. 
 
 Hostilities first commenced in Lombardy, where Prince Eugene com- 
 manded the Imperial army of forty thousand men. The „ „ , 
 
 r J J Unfortunate 
 
 Duke of Savoy, generalissimo of the French troops, was JjJJjSEJ™ 1 
 opposed to him, and had as his seconds in command the 1701# 
 illustrious Catinat and Villeroi, the latter of whom was a courtier rather 
 than a general, and a favourite of Louis XIV. The defeat of the French 
 at Chiari, on the Oglio, was the first event of this war, and was caused by 
 the imprudence of Villeroi, who rashly gave orders for the attack of 
 impregnable intrenchments, when success itself could have had no 
 decidedly advantageous results. Catinat paused until the order for the 
 attack had been three times repeated ; and then he said to the officers 
 under his command: "Let us go, gentlemen! we must obey." The 
 troops rushed to the intrenchments, and a multitude of men perished 
 uselessly in this rash attack. Catinat was wounded ; but seeing that the 
 soldiers were disheartened, and Villeroi thoroughly discouraged, he 
 directed a retreat, and led the French across the Adda. Winter sepa- 
 rated the two armies. 
 
96 VTCTOEIES AND EEVEESES OF THE FEENCH. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 In the following year, Eugene surprised Cremona, where Villeroi, 
 Surprise of Cre- commander-in-chief, was made prisoner. The French 
 monaby Eugene. S p ee dily retook this city ; and the King appointed Vendome, 
 who was adored by the soldiers, to the command of the army. Vendome 
 victory of Ven- reanimated the courage of his troops, and signalized 
 dome at Luzara. hig arr i va i am0 ngst them by the victory of Luzara. 
 
 A formidable enemy for France now arose in England in the person 
 of Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the favourite of Queen Anne. 
 William III. had died at the commencement of the year ; and Anne, his 
 sister-in-law, second daughter of James II., and wife of the Prince of 
 Denmark, had been acknowledged as Queen of England. Marlborough 
 ruled her, but less by the superiority of his talents than by the 
 ascendancy acquired over the Queen by his Duchess. France had no 
 more terrible enemy. In the campaign of 1702, he vanquished in 
 Flanders the Duke of Burgundy, heir -presumptive to the Crown, and 
 Marshal Boufflers, and freed the course of the Meuse from the occupation 
 Eeversesofthe °^ Spanish troops. In the same year, the French and 
 F[anders" r i702- n Spanish fleets were defeated in the port of Vigo, in Galicia, 
 1 by Admiral Rooke and the Duke of Ormond, who seized 
 
 the rich galleons of Havana. Villars, however, who commanded as a 
 lieutenant-general a corps in Alsatia, partly counterbalanced in Germany 
 these reverses. The Prince of Baden, at the head of the Imperial army, 
 took Landau, and made successful progress. He had the advantage of 
 numbers, and had already penetrated the mountains of Brisgau, which are 
 contiguous to the Black Forest. This immense forest separated the 
 Imperial troops from the French. Catinat commanded in Strasbourg, 
 but dared not advance to encounter the Prince of Baden, since in the 
 midst of so many disadvantageous circumstances a failure of success 
 might have decided the campaign, and have opened Alsatia to the 
 enemy. 
 
 Villars hazarded that which Catinat had not dared to do, and march- 
 victories of m S against the Imperialists with inferior forces, fought the 
 velars. battle of Friedlingen. Skilful and rapid manoeuvres made the 
 Prince of Baden abandon the defence of the Rhine ; and he fell back 
 upon the mountains in his rear. The French rapidly crossed the stream ; 
 their infantry scaled the heights, and drove the Germans into the plain. 
 The battle was already gained, when a voice cried out, "We are cut off!" 
 
1683-1715.] DEFEAT OF TALLAED. 97 
 
 and the French troops, hearing it, took to flight. Villars ran through the 
 ranks exclaiming, " The victory is ours! Vive le Eoi!" and succeeded at 
 length in rallying the victors. A gallant cavalry charge completed the 
 victory ; and Villars was saluted by his soldiers as Marshal of France on 
 the field of battle. The King awarded him this high recompense, which 
 Villars justified anew by the victory of Donawerth, which he gained over 
 the Imperialists in the plains of Hochstett, in concert with the Elector of 
 Bavaria. Tallard was almost at the same time victorious at Spirbach ; 
 and the road to Vienna appeared open to the French, but there their 
 successes ceased. 
 
 The Duke of Savoy abandoned France, and supported against Philip V. 
 and the Duke of Burgundy, his two sons-in-law, the cause of the Emperor. 
 Villars seemed to be, on account of his genius, the fittest man to be at 
 the head of the armies, but the want of concord between him and the 
 Elector of Bavaria, whose troops were united with his own, occasioned 
 his recall. The Count de Marsin succeeded him, and Villars was sent to 
 put down the Protestants who had fled to the Cevennes, and who had been 
 driven to revolt by despair. Portugal then broke its alliance with France 
 for the purpose of forming one with England, and from this period dates 
 the famous treaty of commerce entered into between the two nations, by 
 which the wines of the one and the wool of the other were declared to 
 be freely exchangeable. The many reverses France had now suffered 
 were speedily followed by a still more terrible check. Marshal Tallard 
 had led an army into Germany, and had effected a junction with the 
 Elector of Bavaria and Count de Marsin. The three commanders 
 found themselves at Hochstett, in the presence of the enemy's army 
 under Eugene and Marlborough, and numbering, as did their own, about 
 eighty thousand men. The battle between them took place almost on the 
 anniversary of that which Villars had gained at the same 
 place in the preceding year ; but this time the event was S^ochstetf 181 ^ 
 fatal to France. Tallard fell into the hands of the enemy, ■ ° 4 " 
 and remained their prisoner. The Elector and Count de Marsin 
 immediately ordered a retreat, carelessly leaving behind them in 
 the village of Blenheim a considerable body of infantry and four 
 regiments of cavalry, who were compelled to lay down their arms. 
 The retreat soon became a frightful rout. This unfortunate battle 
 cost the French fifty thousand men and a hundred leagues of 
 
 VOL. II. H 
 
OS THE CAMISABDS. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 country. The enemy advanced into Alsatia, and took Traerbach and 
 Landau. 
 
 The frontiers had been crossed by the enemy, and every day the war 
 of the Cevennes became more formidable. The Calvinist 
 
 ~W&t of the 
 
 Camisards, mountaineers had formed themselves into regular regi- 
 
 1 709—1 704 
 
 ments, under the name of Camisards. Louis XIV. so far 
 bent his pride as to treat, as one power treats with another, with their 
 leaders just escaped from the scaffold, and one of them named Cavalier, 
 celebrated for his invincible courage, who had formerly been a butcher's 
 boy, received from the King a pension and a colonel's commission. 
 Villars arranged this necessary pacification. 
 
 Spain lost at this period the important fortress of Gibraltar, which the 
 English seized, and which has ever since remained in their possession. 
 Immediately after the capture of this place, the Anglo-Dutch fleet, now 
 mistress of the sea, attacked, within sight of Malaga, the Count of Toulouse, 
 a natural son of Louis XIV., and admiral of the kingdom, 
 Malaga, 1705- who was in command of fifty vessels of the line, and twenty- 
 four galleys. This battle was a drawn one ; but in the follow- 
 ing year the French fleet sent under Marshal Tesse to retake Gibraltar 
 vifas destroyed by the English and by tempests. This was the end of the 
 naval power of Louis XIV., and in spite of the exploits of some valiant 
 captains, amongst whom Duguay-Trouin was the most illustrious, the 
 French navy fell back into almost as bad a state as that from which he 
 had rescued it. 
 
 In the following year, the English, led by Peterborough, one of the 
 most remarkable men that Great Britain has ever produced, landed in 
 Catalonia, and in concert with the Prince of Darmstadt, attacked Barcelona. 
 The capitulation of this place was marked by an unheard-of circumstance. 
 Whilst the Governor was negotiating at the gates with Peterborough, a 
 cry was heard in the town, " You are betraying us, and whilst we are 
 capitulating the English are murdering us !" — " No !" replied Peter- 
 borough, "they must be the Germans of the Prince of Darmstadt. Let me 
 enter with my English, and I will return to treat with you." The truth- 
 ful accent with which Peterborough spoke, convinced the Governor of his 
 sincerity, and he opened the gates to the English, who drove the Germans 
 from the town. When this had been accomplished, Peterborough, 
 already master of the place, quietly returned to sign the capitulation. 
 
1683-1715.] MAELBOEOTTGH VICTOBIOTTS. 99 
 
 The Archduke Charles was proclaimed King of Spain in Barcelona 
 
 Vendome, in Piedmont, victorious over Eugene at the 
 
 bridge of Cassano on the Adda, alone interrupted the victory of Ven- 
 
 dome at Cassano, 
 
 torrent of misfortune which now swept over Louis XIV. i? 05 - 
 and Philip V. 
 
 The year 1706 was still more fatal to these two monarchs, although 
 the campaign opened in the North and South under the most favourable 
 auspices. Vendome having gained, in the absence of Eugene, the victory 
 of Calcinato over the Imperials, marched upon Turin, the only important 
 place which remained in the hands of the Duke of Savoy. Villars drove 
 before him the Duke of Baden as far as the German frontier, and Villeroi 
 in Flanders, at the head of eighty thousand men, nattered himself that he 
 would be able to wipe out the memory of his former reverses ; but unfortu- 
 nately these reverses had not diminished his self-confidence, 
 and his opponent was Marlborough. Villeroi had en- roi at Eamilies, 
 camped his army near the Mehaine, at Eamilies, in an unfa- 
 vourable position, and was resolved to risk a battle in spite of the re- 
 monstrances of his generals. The manner in which he posted his troops 
 was fatal, for he placed in his centre the raw and ill disciplined troops, and 
 posted his left behind an impassable morass. Marlborough perceived this 
 error, and immediately carried his right, which was in no danger of being 
 attacked, to Eamilies, to overwhelm the centre of the French army with 
 superior forces. Lieutenant-General Gassion entreated Villeroi to 
 change his order of battle ; but the latter obstinately refused, and Marl- 
 borough speedily forced his lines. The loss on the side of the French 
 was frightful; twenty thousand were slain or taken prisoners. The 
 whole of Spanish Flanders was lost; Marlborough entered Brussels 
 in triumph, and Menin surrendered. " Marshal," said Louis XIV., to 
 the vanquished Marshal, " at our age we cannot expect to be fortunate." 
 The King now transferred Vendome from Italy to Flanders, as the only 
 man capable of maintaining an equal struggle with Marlborough, and 
 this measure, by depriving the army of the South of a good general, was 
 the cause of a new and terrible disaster. Eugene had already crossed 
 the Po, in spite of the French army which closed against him the road to 
 Turin, and he marched to the assistance of this place which La Feuillade 
 was besieging with a considerable body of troops and ample artillery. 
 Eugene effected at Asti his junction with the Duke of Savoy. Marshal 
 
 H 2 
 
100 EEENCH EEVEESES. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 Marsin had succeeded Vendome in the command of the army, with which 
 was the Duke of Orleans, and being unable to check the progress of 
 Eugene, had joined La Feuillade before Turin. The opinion of the 
 generals was, that it would be advisable to march to meet the enemy ; but 
 the Marshal having shown an order to the contrary, drawn up by 
 Chamillart, and signed by the King, it was necessary to await the attack 
 of the Imperialists in lines which were difficult to defend. Eugene 
 assumed the offensive, threw himself upon the French entrenchments, and 
 Eontofthe carried them. The rout became general; the Duke of 
 
 Turin h i706 Cre Orleans was wounded ; Marshal Marsin was killed ; sixty 
 thousand French troops were dispersed ; and the military 
 chest, together with a hundred and forty pieces of cannon, fell into the 
 hands of the enemy. The Milanese territory, Mantua, and consequently 
 the kingdom of Naples, were lost for Philip V. Eugene marched unopposed 
 upon France ; whilst Lord Galloway took possession of Madrid, where he 
 proclaimed the Archduke. 
 
 The Emperor Leopold had died in the preceding year ; but his son 
 and successor, Joseph I., carried on the war with vigour. Proud, 
 ambitious, and violent, he placed of his own mere will the Electors of 
 Bavaria and Cologne under the ban of the Empire, and deprived them of 
 their electorates. France, without allies, lay open to the enemy ; when 
 Villars, reappointed to the command-in-chief of the army, took the lines 
 of Stalhoffen, and advanced into Germany ; but being unsupported, he was 
 compelled to retreat and re-enter France. Marshal Berwick, a natural 
 ^. . _w son of James II., and one of the first tacticians of the 
 
 Victory of Ber- ' 
 
 wick at Aimanza, a g Gj g ame d i n Spain the battle of Almanza, which re- 
 opened to Philip V. the road to his capital ; and Marshal 
 Tesse forced the Duke of Savoy and Prince Eugene to raise the siege 
 of Toulon. 
 
 A fresh effort was made in 1708 by Louis XIV. in favour of James II. 
 He embarked six thousand men in eight vessels of war and seventy trans- 
 ports. The Chevalier Forbin-Janson was in command of the fleet and 
 Matignon of the troops. The English were informed of the projected 
 descent. The Chevalier de Forbin arrived off the Scotch coast, but failed 
 to see the signals which had been agreed on, and very skilfully withdrew 
 his fleet to Dunkirk. The whole expense of the expedition was throw* 
 away. 
 
1683-1715.] DISTEESS TS EEANCE. 101 
 
 The army of Flanders, under the orders of the Duke of Vendome, 
 amounting to a hundred thousand men, was the last hope of France. 
 Louis XIV. appointed his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, to command 
 it jointly with Vendome. An unfortunate misunderstand- 
 
 t'-i-i-i i ti i -iir- Defeat at Oude- 
 
 ing divided the two generals, and the result was the defeat narde. Taking 
 
 of Lille, 1709. 
 
 of Oudenarde and the capture of Lille, in spite of the gal- 
 lant defence made by Boufflers. The army, profoundly discouraged, 
 allowed the enemy to take Ghent and Bruges, and all its military posts in 
 succession. The road to Paris was now unprotected, and a Dutch corps, 
 advancing as far as Versailles, took prisoner on the bridge of Sevres the 
 King's master of the horse, whom it mistook for the Dauphin. 
 
 The war had exhausted all the resources of France. Credit was de- 
 stroyed; the public debt amounted to two milliards; there were five 
 hundred millions of billets e'chus, the annual expenses re- stress in 
 quiring two hundred, and the revenue only bringing in a rance » ' • 
 hundred and twenty. Desmarets, the successor of Chamillart as Comp- 
 troller-General, in vain had recourse to anticipations of revenue, to loans, 
 to tontines, and to an income-tax of ten per cent., to supply the immense 
 deficit in the revenue. Certain merchants brought from Peru thirty 
 millions, which they lent to the King at ten per cent., but the assistance 
 was of no avail; and the severe winter of 1709 carried the general 
 misery to its greatest depth. Louis XIV. and the great nobles sent their 
 plate to the mint. Many illustrious families at Versailles eat nothing 
 but oaten bread, the example being set them by Madame de Maintenon. 
 The people in many provinces perished of famine ; revolts broke out in 
 every direction ; payment of the taxes was refused ; bands ot peasants 
 took the town of Calais by assault ; and a great number of the inhabitants 
 of Perigord and Quercy, renouncing all allegiance to the Government, 
 which taxed even marriages and baptisms, fell back into a state of nature, 
 marrying without formalities and baptizing their children themselves. 
 Louis XIV. sent to propose peace to the Dutch, whom he had formerly 
 so cruelly humiliated, but his envoy, the President Rouille, was received 
 in Holland with haughtiness and contempt. For some time he could not 
 even obtain an audience, but at length it was intimated that the King 
 must himself force his grandson to abdicate his throne. This humiliating 
 proposition was transmitted to the King's Council, composed of the Dauphin, 
 the Duke of Burgundy, his son, the Chancellor Pontchar train, the Duke 
 
102 DEFEAT OF VILLABS. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 of Beauvilliers, the Marquis de Torcy, Cliamillart, and the Comptroller- 
 General, Desmarets. The Chancellor was in favour of peace at any price ; 
 the Ministers of War and Finance declared that they were without 
 resources, and Beauvilliers drew tears from the eyes of the Duke of 
 Burgundy by describing to him the miseries suffered by the people at 
 large. 
 
 Torcy, an able negotiator, offered to share the painful task entrusted 
 to the President Rouille, and set out for Holland, where Heinsius was the 
 Grand-Pensioner. Formerly Minister to William in France, Heinsius 
 had been insulted more than once, and had been threatened with the 
 Bastille by Louvois. He had not forgotten it. Prince Eugene and 
 Marlborough, who were only powerful in time of war, formed, with 
 Heinsius, a triumvirate leagued together to continue it.. They rejected 
 the propositions of Louis XIV., who offered to abandon the Monarchy of 
 Spain, and to grant to the Dutch a barrier which should separate them 
 from France ; and demanded that Louis XIV. should give up Alsatia and 
 a part of Flanders, and insisted that he should assist them against his 
 grandson. The President Rouille was ordered to convey this ultimatum to 
 Louis XIV., and to quit Holland within four-and-twenty hours. " Since 
 I must be at war," said the old Monarch, " I would rather that it were 
 with my enemies than with my children." By his orders the extravagant 
 demands of the enemy were published throughout the kingdom ; where- 
 upon indignation aroused patriotism, and France redoubled its efforts ; 
 but, on the other hand, Villars lost in Flanders, against Eugene and 
 Marlborough united, the sanguinary battle of Malplaquet 
 
 Defeat of Villars 
 
 at Malplaquet, (1710), although the enemy's loss was twenty thousand men 
 and his own only eight thousand. The result was that 
 many strong places fell into the hands of the allies ; whilst, in Spain, the 
 defeat of Saragossa compelled Philip a second time to fly from his capital 
 and to traverse his kingdom as a fugitive. 
 
 Louis humbled himself yet again. He sent as his envoys into Holland, 
 the Abbe de Polignac, one of the cleverest men of the age, and Marshal 
 d'Uxelles, and offered through them to the Congress of Gertruydenberg, 
 to refrain from affording any assistance to his grandson, to give up Stras- 
 bourg and Brisach, to renounce the sovereignty of Alsace, to raze all the 
 fortresses from Basle to Philisbourg, to fill up the port of Dunkirk, 
 and to allow Holland to possess Lille, Tournay, Ypres, and many other 
 
1683-1715.] CONQUESTS OF EUGENE. 103 
 
 places in Flanders. He even humbled himself so much as to offer 
 a million a month to assist the allies to dethrone his grandson. But 
 all was in vain. They made it an ultimatum that he should himself en- 
 gage to drive his grandson from Spain. 
 
 At this juncture unexpected events occurred to save France. Vendome 
 reappeared in Spain, where his name effected prodigies. His victory of 
 Villaviciosa destroyed the army of the Archduke Charles, and saved the 
 crown of Philip V. It was after this battle that Vendome said to Philip, 
 worn out with fatigue and manifesting every desire to 
 sleep, "Sire, I will make you the most glorious bed on ddme at vniavi- 
 
 . . , ciosa, 1711. 
 
 which a King has ever slept ;" and beneath the shade of a 
 
 tree he prepared for him a couch composed of flags taken from the 
 
 enemy. 
 
 A revolution which took place in the English Court was even more 
 serviceable to France. The Duchess of Marlborough offended Queen 
 Anne, and her disgrace led to that of her husband, the leader of the 
 Whigs,* then all-powerful. The Tories came into power, and for the pur- 
 pose of completing the ruin of Marlborough, they inclined the Queen 
 towards peace. 
 
 The death of the Emperor Joseph assisted them in their designs. The 
 Archduke Charles, his brother, the competitor of Philip V., obtained the 
 Imperial Crown, and incurred in his turn the reproach oi aspiring to 
 universal monarchy. From this time England was no longer interested 
 in supporting his claims to the throne of Spain, and agreed to a truce 
 with France. Marlborough was recalled, and the Duke of Ormond, his 
 successor, received orders to remain neutral. At the same time, 
 Duguay-Trouin, who was at the head of a small fleet, but who had no 
 commission in the navy, captured Rio Janeiro, the capital of 
 
 J , . r Taking of Kio- 
 
 Brazil. Eugene, however, continued his career of conquest Janeiro by 
 
 ° ' ? ^ Duguay-Trouin. 
 
 in Flanders. Although deprived of the support of the 
 English, he was at the head of an army which exceeded that of the 
 French by twenty thousand men, and was master of Bouchain and 
 Quesnoy ; and between him and Paris there was no strong fortress. 
 
 * English politicians were divided into two parties — that of the Whigs and that of 
 the Tories. The Whigs were less devoted than the Tories to the maintenance of the 
 prerogatives of the Crown and the privileges of the Anglican Church, and took the 
 chief part in the Kevolution of 1688. 
 
104 BATTLE OP DENAIN. [Book III. CHAP. V. 
 
 Louis saw his capital threatened, and the more completely to embarrass 
 him, domestic troubles were added to those which afflicted his kingdom, 
 for in the space of a year he lost the Dauphin, his son, the Duke and 
 Duchess of Burgundy, and their eldest son. The death of the Duke of 
 Burgundy, the pupil of Fenelon, was a calamity for France. Ven- 
 dome died in Spain. The Court and the kingdom were paralysed 
 with fear ; and it was then that Louis XIV., who was advised to retire 
 behind the Loire, spoke of putting himself at the head of his nobility, 
 leading them against the enemy in person, in spite of his seventy- 
 four years, and perishing in their midst. Villars was the saviour of France. 
 
 This general maintained the campaign in Flanders at the head of a 
 hundred and forty battalions against Eugene, who commanded a hundred 
 and sixty, and who, after having taken possession of Quesnoy, besieged 
 Landrecies. The Scheldt, the Sambre, and the Seille covered Eugene's 
 army, and he had, moreover, an entrenched camp at Denain, on the 
 Scheldt. The Duke of Albemarle, the Dutch general, guarded the lines 
 which joined the camp to the stream. Villars determined to attack them, 
 with the object of afterwards forcing the camp of Denain. He masked 
 this project by pretended attacks upon the Sambre, whilst the rest of his 
 army crossed the Scheldt between Bouchain and Denain, and rapidly car- 
 ried the lines of Albemarle. He then immediately advanced against the 
 formidable entrenchments at Denain, and was hurrying up towards them 
 when the head of Prince Eugene's columns was seen debouching on the 
 other bank of the Scheldt. Time pressed, and Villars overhearing a 
 voice demanding fascines with which to fill up the trenches at Denain, 
 exclaimed, " Our fascines will be the bodies of those of us who shall first 
 Victory of Villars ^ e s ^ ruc k down into the trenches — forward !" The French 
 at Denam, 1712. } n f an t r y advanced under a terrible fire without wavering, 
 threw itself upon the redoubts, and carried them. Having entered 
 Denain as a victor, Villars immediately sent the Count de Broglio to 
 Marchiennes, whence the enemy procured his provisions and munitions of 
 war, whilst he himself pursued the vanquished along the Scheldt. The 
 bridges broke down under the crowds of fugitives ; all were taken or 
 slain; and Eugene himself could not cross the stream. Marchiennes, 
 Douai, and Quesnoy successively surrendered, and the frontiers were 
 secured against attack. 
 
 This great success hastened the conclusion of peace, Avhich was signed 
 
1683-1715.] PEACE OE BADEN. 105 
 
 at Utrecht in 1713. Its principal provisions were, that Philip V. 
 should be acknowledged as King of Spain, but that his p eaC e of Utrecht 
 monarchy should be dismembered. Sicily was given to the - ' 
 Duke of Savoy, with the title of King. The English obtained Minorca 
 and Gibraltar ; France also ceding to them Hudson's Bay, New- 
 foundland, and St. Christopher. Louis XIV. guaranteed the succession 
 to the English throne to the Protestant line, promised to demolish the 
 port of Dunkirk, the construction of which had cost him immense 
 sums ; abandoned a portion of his conquests in the Low Countries ; and 
 recovered Lille, Aire, Bethune, and Saint- Venant. The Elector of 
 Brandenbourg was recognised as King of Prussia, and obtained the upper 
 Guelderland, the principality of Neufchatel, and many other districts- 
 The Emperor Charles VI. refused at first to join in this peace; but 
 Villars forced him to do so by crossing the Ehine ; whilst Eugene 
 entrenched himself in the lines of Etlingen, where he waited to be 
 attacked. A forced march of sixteen leagues in twenty hours beyond 
 the stream delivered into the hands of the French Spire, Worms ; and 
 all the ferries of the Rhine above Mayence, Landau, and Fribourg were 
 invested, and were also taken by our troops. Eugene, however, had 
 already received orders to negotiate, and a preliminary treaty was 
 signed between Villars and himself at Rastadt ; peace being definitively 
 concluded on the 7th September following at Baden, between France, the 
 Emperor, and the Empire. By this peace the Emperor Peace of Baden 
 obtained the Low Countries, the Milanese, and the kingdom 714 * 
 of Naples, dismembered from the monarchy of Spain ; and also recovered 
 Fribourg and all the forts on the right bank of the Rhine. France re- 
 tained Landau and the left bank of the Rhine. The Elector oi Bavaria 
 was re-established in his rights and dignities. All the sovereign Princes 
 of the Empire recovered their States. Holland obtained, by a third and 
 final treaty, which was signed in 1715, the right of garrisoning many 
 places in the Low Countries which France restored to it ; but it retained 
 the principality of Orange, with respect to which the House of Nassau 
 had ceded its rights to that of Brandenbourg. Such were the results of 
 this disastrous war of twelve years' duration. France preserved its 
 frontiers by the peace of Utrecht ; but its immense sacrifices had opened 
 an abyss in which the Monarchy was finally engulfed. 
 
 The reverses he had suffered in the war, and the distress suffered by 
 
106 POET EOTAL SUPPRESSED. [BOOK III. CHAP. V, 
 
 his people, did not make Louis XIY. discontinue his religious persecu- 
 tions. Many of those persons who have been termed Jansenists refused 
 to admit that the five propositions attributed to Jansenius, and condemned 
 by the Pope, were to be found in the works of that bishop ; and of this 
 number were the pious hermits ot Port Eoyal, and the religious women 
 of that celebrated house. The King, irritated at finding his own opinion 
 on this point controverted, and yielding to the instigations of his con- 
 fessor, Father La Chaise, and the influence of Madame de Maintenon, drove 
 the peaceable inhabitants of Port Royal from their retreat, razed their 
 dwelling from its foundations, and had the plough drawn over its site. 
 KuinofPort Fenelon, the illustrious author of " Telemachus," was 
 oy ' } 9 ' looked upon by him with no favour. Bossuet reproached 
 
 him with sharing the errors of Madame Guyon, whose mystical ideas had 
 given birth to the sect of the Quietists, and had condemned at Rome his 
 work entitled " Maxims of the Saints." Fenelon submitted himself to the 
 decision of the Pope, and from thenceforth lived in disgrace with the 
 King in his diocese of Cambrai. The reign of Louis died out in 
 the midst of theological controversies. Father Quesnel having pub- 
 lished a book of moral reflections on the New Testament, his work 
 had excited the wrath and hatred of Father Tellier, a furious theologian, 
 who, since the death of Father La Chaise, ruled the conscience of 
 Louis XIV. At his instigation the King demanded of Pope Clement the 
 condemnation of Quesnel, and one hundred and one of his propositions 
 were condemned in 1713 by the famous bull Unigenitus. A hundred 
 and ten bishops, in obedience to the King, accepted this bull, but others 
 resisted it, and amongst them Cardinal Noailles. Louis in vain combated 
 their resistance by " lettres de Cachet," and other despotic acts. These 
 wretched disputes, excited by himself, continued beyond his own reign, 
 and disturbed that of his successor. 
 
 Whilst the King was thus displaying his intolerant zeal in behalf of 
 religion, he was setting, for the sake of his family, his own personal will 
 above the laws of the kingdom, and every moral consideration. He had 
 already married several of his natural children to princes and princesses 
 of his house, and, amongst others, Mademoiselle de Blois to the Duke of 
 Orleans, his nephew, then Duke de Chartres. His legitimated sons, 
 the Duke du Maine and the Count de Toulouse, both by Madame de 
 Montespan, and the children of a double adultery, had already, by his 
 
1683-1715.] WILL OP LOUIS XIY. 107 
 
 command, been endowed with precedence over all the first nobles of his 
 kingdom ; and he went yet further, for by an edict issued in 1714, he 
 gave to them and their descendants a right of succession to the Crown of 
 France, in default of legitimate princes. 
 
 The King, however, was now growing feebler day by day. His 
 great-grandson, who was to succeed him on the throne, was only five 
 years of age, and the Eegency would devolve upon his nephew, Philip of 
 Orleans. Anxious with respect to the future prospects of the two Princes 
 whom she had brought up, Madame de Maintenon persuaded wm of Louia 
 the King to make a will which limited the power of the 
 Regent by the establishment of a Council, of which the Duke du Maine and 
 the Count de Toulouse were to be members. Louis XIV. himself had little 
 confidence that obedience would be paid to this testament, which he confided 
 to the Parliament, with orders that it was not to be opened before his death. 
 
 Blinded by pride and the habit of enjoying absolute power, Louis 
 gradually drew near to the tomb with a brain filled with disastrous 
 projects. Death, as it approached him, found him planning the assembly 
 of a National Council for the purpose of enabling one portion of his 
 clergy to proscribe the other, engulfing immense sums in useless build- 
 ings at Marly, fomenting a revolt in England, and attempting, in despite 
 of his solemn promise, a final effort in favour of the son oi James II. 
 Towards the end of his life, however, renouncing terrestrial interests, he 
 fell into a better frame of mind, and becoming solely occupied by a sense 
 of his mere humanity, was often heard to cry, " When I was King I" 
 With respect to his death, which was remarkable for the resignation and 
 majesty he displayed in the supreme moment, and which may be re- 
 garded as a great lesson, we shall here borrow some details from an eye- 
 witness :* — u About the beginning of August, 1715, the King com- 
 plained of a sciatica in the leg, which was found to be an incurable 
 wound. On the 14th, the malady declared itself; but he nevertheless 
 continued to work in his bed, rising from time to time. On the 24th 
 August, he confessed himself to Father Tellier ; and on the following day, 
 feeling very ill, he received extreme unction from Cardinal ' Eohan. 
 Then, having had all the great officers of his household gathered about 
 him, he said to them : " Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the bad 
 example I have given you. I have to thank you for the manner in 
 * "Memoirs of the Duke de St. Simon." 
 
108 DEATH OF LOUIS XIV. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 which you have served me, and for the attachment and fidelity yon have 
 always displayed towards me. I am sorry that I have not been able to 
 do for you what I should have wished; but unfortunate circum- 
 stances have prevented me. I beg of you to serve my grandson with 
 the same zeal and the same fidelity with which you have served myself. 
 He is a child who will probably have to endure many troubles ; may the 
 kindness you will show him be an example followed by the rest of the 
 kingdom. Obey the orders of my nephew ; it is he who will have to 
 govern the kingdom ; and I trust that he will govern it well. I hope that 
 each of you will contribute, as far as in him lies, to a general unanimity 
 of purpose, and that if any one among you should fall away from his 
 duty, the others will do all in their power to bring him back to it. I 
 feel that I am yielding to my 'feelings, and that I am too much exciting 
 yours. I beg your pardon. Farewell, gentlemen ! I shall hope that 
 you will sometimes think of me." He then received the Princes and 
 Princesses of the blood, and had a private interview with Marshal 
 Villeroi, whom he had appointed governor of the young Dauphin, with 
 the Duke du Maine, the Count de Toulouse, and finally, the Duke of 
 Orleans, the future Eegent. He had sent for the Dauphin some time 
 previously, and had said to him : " My child, you are going to be a 
 great King ; do not imitate me in my fondness for erecting vast palaces 
 and for war; endeavour, on the contrary, to be at peace with your 
 neighbours. Render to God that which is due to Him ; acknowledge 
 how much you owe to Him, and incline your subjects to honour Him. 
 ■Follow good advice, and endeavour to assuage the miseries of your 
 people — which I, unfortunately, have been unable to do. My dear child, 
 I give you my benediction with all my heart." When the little child 
 had been removed from the Monarch's bed, the latter asked for him 
 again, embraced him once more, and, raising his hands to heaven, once 
 more blessed him. The King still languished some days, and calmly 
 contemplated his approaching end. He said to his attendants, " Why do 
 you weep ? Did you think that I was immortal ?" And to Madame de 
 Maintenon : "I should have thought that it was a more difficult thing to 
 die. Before I depart, I have no restitution to make to any individual ; 
 but for all that I owe to the kingdom I hope for the mercy of God." 
 Death of Louis ^ e ^ e ^ at' Versailles on the 1st September, 1715, in his 
 iv., 1715. seventy-seventh year, after a reign — the longest recorded 
 
1683-1715.] EEELECTIONS ON HIS EEICKff. 109 
 
 in history — of seventy-two. Madame de Maintenon, eighty-two years of 
 age, retired to the house of St. Cyr,* which she had founded for the 
 education of three hundred daughters of the nobility of slender fortune, 
 and she remained there till her death. *f 
 
 Much more anxious to inspire fear and to excite admiration than to 
 gain the affections or to promote the happiness of his sub- _, „ . 
 jects, Lotus XIV., in the greater number of his enterprises, thls reign - 
 had only sought his own glory. A small portion only of the edifice he 
 had reared survived him. He himself saw during the second part 
 of his reign, France descend from the height to which he had raised it 
 during the first part, and his acts brought about results in the future 
 directly contrary to those which he had so strenuously striven for. Thus, 
 being anxious to confirm the Catholic faith in his kingdom, he really in- 
 flicted upon it a serious blow by the violence which he committed in its 
 name, and by the favours which he too frequently heaped upon hypocrites. 
 Again, he had endeavoured by enrolling gentlemen in the newly disciplined 
 regiments, and in special companies, as well as by establishing the Order 
 of St. Louis, to make the nobility the firmest rampart of the monarchy. 
 But he really injured it in popular estimation by the brilliant servitude 
 which he imposed on the great nobles, and the sale of ridiculous 
 offices which gave to their possessors the rank of nobility. A declared 
 enemy to the authority of the Parliaments, he kept them silent during 
 
 * This celebrated mansion was not turned into a military school till after the 
 Eevolution. 
 
 + The clandestine union between Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon produced 
 no offspring. The Monarch was only once publicly married, aud we have already seen 
 that he espoused in 1660 Maria-Theresa, the daughter of Philip IV., King of Spain, 
 and Elizabeth of France. The only child of this marriage which had lived was Louis 
 the Dauphin, who married a Princess of the House of Bavaria, who bore him Louis, 
 the Duke of Burgundy (father of Louis XV.), and two other children, Philip, Duke of 
 Anjou, who became King of Spain, and Charles, Duke of Berry. Louis XIV. had 
 numerous bastards. By Mademoiselle la Valliere he had three children, of whom the 
 female, known by the name of Mademoiselle de Blois, married the Prince of Conti. 
 By Francoise de Bochechouart Mortemart, wife of the Marquis de Montespan, he had 
 the Duke of Maine, the Count of Toulouse, Mademoiselle de Nantes, who married 
 the Duke of Bourbon-Conde*, the second Mademoiselle de Blois, who married Philip, 
 Duke of Orleans, Kegent of France. Mademoiselle de Fontanges bore him a child 
 which died in the cradle. He had also an obscure liaison with a girl whose name is 
 not known, and whom he married to a gentleman of the environs of Versailles, named 
 Le Queue. Finally, it was suspected with much show of reason, that a nun of the 
 Abbey of Moret was his daughter. 
 
110 GBEAT MEN OF THE AGE. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 the continuance of his reign ; and yet, by depositing his will with that of 
 Paris, he opened to them the road by which they regained their political 
 importance. He expected that by introducing Spanish etiquette into his 
 Court, he would fortify the Royal authority and aggrandize it in the eyes 
 of the multitude ; but the contrary was the result, for by isolating it 
 he enfeebled it. Finally, contemptuous as he was of the Third Estate, he 
 very greatly contributed to its political emancipation by the encourage- 
 ments which he gave to industry and to literature. It was by these 
 means that he partly displaced the source of the wealth and power of the 
 State, by assisting to create moveable property, and to awake public 
 opinion ; a twofold power which rapidly raised the Third Estate to a 
 level with the privileged orders, and which has at the present day so im- 
 portant an influence over the -destinies of the people. 
 
 In spite of the egotism which inspired Louis XIV. with so many disas- 
 trous resolutions, and notwithstanding the numerous errors of his reign, 
 it nevertheless shines with a lustre which no other surpasses. This 
 monarch, a celebrated writer has said, had at the head of his armies, 
 Turenne, Conde, Luxembourg, Catinat, Crequi, Boufflers, Montesquion, 
 Vendome, and Villars; Chateau-Renaud, Duquesne, Tourville, and 
 Duguay-Trouin commanded his fleets ; Colbert, Louvois, and Torcy 
 were his ministers ; Bossuet, Bourdaloue and Massillon were his preachers ; 
 his first Parliament was presided over by Mole and Lamoignon, and had 
 Talon and Aguesseau for its orators ; Vauban planned the defences of his 
 fortresses; Riquet dug his canals; Perrault and Mansard reared his 
 palaces; Puget, Girardon, Poussin, Lesueur, and Le Br unadorned them; 
 Le Nostre laid out his gardens ; Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Quinault, La 
 Fontaine,LaBruyere, and Boileau enlightened andamusedhim; Montausier, 
 Bossuet, Beauvilliers, Fenelon, Huet, Flechier, and the Abbe de Fleury 
 educated his children. It is in the midst of this brilliant array of im- 
 mortal genius that Louis XIV. presents himself to the notice of posterity.* 
 So many advantages were doubtless the result of a marvellous concurrence 
 of circumstance and of an unheard-of piece of good fortune which rendered 
 this Prince the contemporary of so many eminent men. But the King who 
 knew how to distinguish them, who opened his palace and his treasury to 
 genius under whatever form it presented itself, and whose strong will 
 
 * Abbe Maury, Discours de Becepiion d> VAcademie Frangaise. 
 
1683-1715.] CHARACTEB OP LOTJIS XIV. Ill 
 
 inspired so many great things during sixty years, has an incontestable 
 right, if not to the love of France, at least to its respect and its 
 admiration.* 
 
 Amongst the works of Louis XIV., those which produced the results 
 he expected oi them, which survived him the longest, and were the most 
 useful for France, almost wholly date from that glorious period ot his 
 reign in which Colbert was still alive. His best achievements consisted 
 in his vigorous central administration ; his legislation, although in many 
 respects stained by barbarisms ; the new organization he gave to his army; 
 his academical foundations ; his canals ; and his maritime constructions. 
 This Monarch established by himself a Government which he alone knew 
 how to maintain. Surrounded by great men, whom he knew how to 
 interest in his glory ; the protector of literature and the sciences ; of the 
 fine arts and industry ; long a fortunate warrior, and magnificent in 
 his fetes, the imposing Louis XIV. seemed to have been born to be obeyed. 
 But he left to his successors a burden difficult to be borne, oi which he 
 himself felt the weight, and the end of his reign was deplorable. His 
 genius became feeble, success abandoned his arms, his treasury became 
 exhausted. The widow 01 Scarron ruled him, a vexatious and cruel 
 bigotry prevailed in his councils and rendered him a persecutor ; a huge 
 wave of misery inundated France, and bore masses of poverty-stricken 
 wretches to the very gates of Versailles. His long reign resembles a day 
 which during some hours is brilliant with dazzling light, but which is at 
 length lost in darkness."]" 
 
 The direction given to the national morals by the Court of Louis XIV. 
 has been wrongly attributed to him as a merit. It is true that he did 
 much towards the civilization of his country by polishing its language 
 and its manners ; but the improvement was distinguished rather by the 
 elegance of exterior forms than by delicacy of sentiment. The writings of 
 Bruyere and Rochefoucauld, of Saint-Simon, and the poets of the period, 
 
 * A work of great interest, entitled " The Works of Louis XIV.," was published for 
 the first time in 1806. It consisted of a portion of his correspondence and historical 
 and political pieces, some extracted from his words and his writings, and the others 
 either dictated by him or drawn up by his own hand, either for his personal use, or for 
 the instruction of the Dauphin and the King of Spain, Philip V. This collection has 
 been appreciated with much talent and intelligence by M. Dreyss, who has recently 
 issued a new edition of it. 
 
 f Joseph Droz. 
 
112 BALANCE OF POWEB IN ETJKOPE. [BOOK III. CHAP. V. 
 
 are sufficient proofs of this. A general contempt for marriage ; an eagerness 
 to acquire gold at a time when almost all distinctions were to be purchased ; 
 an indifference as to the source of fortune, however shameful ; a rage for 
 gambling ; indulgence with respect to vices ; and finally, a religious 
 hypocrisy, characterized the courtiers at the close of this reign. These 
 deplorable examples, rendered still more dangerous by the brilliant hues 
 with which they were coloured, exercised over the nation a most disastrous 
 influence. These times were rendered illustrious, however, by the 
 brilliancy of high virtues, especially in those directions in which the in- 
 fluence of the Court had not penetrated. The provincial nobility, the 
 magistracy, and a portion of the clergy, offered an example of purity of 
 morals, integrity, and contempt for money. But it was in vain that many 
 respectable men resisted the general torrent. The following reign aggra- 
 vated the wounds which had been opened during that of the Great King, 
 and the corruption of the Court contributed as much as the confusion in 
 the finances to shake the monarchy to its foundation. 
 
 The reign of Louis XIV. was one of the great periods of the system of 
 the balance of power in Europe. Two States, Prussia and Savoy, attained 
 in the course of it a double portion of power. The first, raised to the 
 rank of a kingdom, was fitted to counterbalance in the north of Germany 
 the influence exercised by Austria in the south of that country ; and the 
 second, augmented by Sicily, was destined to close Italy against Austria 
 and France. The latter took possession, under Louis XIV., of the part 
 which during the previous period had been played by Spain, and was 
 long the dominant power in Europe, by reason of its extent, the strength 
 of its government, the influence of its civilization, and the marvellous 
 concourse of superior intellects which rendered it illustrious. 
 
 It is from the accession of William III. in 1688, that the era of English 
 liberty really dates. Since that time England has not ceased to increase 
 in population and in power. Queen Anne, who owed all her glory to the 
 celebrated men of her reign, preceded Louis XIV. by a few days to the 
 tomb, and the Elector of Hanover succeeded her by the name of George I.* 
 Russia, which had been raised by the genius of Peter the Great into a 
 
 * This Prince was descended from the daughter of James I., wife of the Elector 
 Palatine. The son of James II. being excluded from the throne as a Catholic, and 
 his sisters, Mary and Anne, having left no children, George of Hanover was the next 
 heir. 
 
1683-1715.] STATE OF EUROPE IN 1715. 113 
 
 new Empire, was firmly rooted in the north at the expense of Sweden, 
 now deprived, by the rash wars undertaken by Charles XII., of the high 
 rank to which it had been raised by Gustavus Adolphus. Austria 
 languished under the rule of Charles VI., and Germany peaceably obeyed 
 its numerous sovereigns. The Spanish monarchy, which had been de- 
 prived by the Peace of Utrecht of many of its possessions, continued to 
 decline, whilst Holland, rendered illustrious by its wars against Louis XIV., 
 and sharing with England the empire of the ocean, attained the highest 
 point of its wealth and power. Such was the state of Europe in 1715, at 
 the death of Louis XIV. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
1H 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS XV. TO THE THRONE 
 
 TO THE CONVOCATION OF THE STATES -GENERAL 
 
 UNDER LOUIS XVI. 
 
 Enfeeblement of all the Powers — Gambling in Government Securi- 
 ties — General Corruption of Morals — Ruinous Wars — Destruction 
 and Re -establishment of the Parliaments — Dissolution of the 
 Monarchy — Influence Exercised by the Philosophers. 
 
 1715-1789. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REGENCY OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS AND MINISTRY OF THE DUKE OF 
 
 BOURBON. 
 
 1715-1726. 
 
 Whilst Louis XIV. was still living, all eyes were turned towards the Duke 
 of Orleans, his nephew, who, by his birth and the customs of the kingdom, 
 would be naturally summoned to the regency during the minority of the 
 Duke of Anjou. Philip of Orleans, endowed with military talents, which 
 the jealousy of Louis XIV. rarely allowed to be exercised, distinguished 
 for his wit, his agreeable and facile manners, and his varied acquaintance 
 with languages and the sciences, affected a cynicism with respect to re- 
 ligion and morality which had already more than once exposed him to 
 odious suspicions. Heir as he was to the throne, in case of failure of the 
 issue of Louis XIV., public opinion held him responsible for the mortality 
 which struck down the Royal family during the last years of the preceding 
 reign, and saw an additional motive for accusing him in the then unusual 
 
1715-1726.] COUNCIL OF EEGENCT. 115 
 
 chemical studies to which he devoted himself. His conduct in respect to 
 the young King eventually gave the most decided refutation to these 
 calumnies. Louis XIV. refused to believe them, but being, nevertheless, 
 entirely absorbed by anxiety for the interests of his legitimate children, 
 he only bestowed upon his nephew, by his will, a title, without any real 
 power. He separated the Eegency from the tutorship of the young King, 
 which, together with the command of the Eoyal household troops, was 
 confided to the Duke du Maine. A Council of Eegency, formed of 
 courtiers and former Ministers, and in which the Duke of Orleans was 
 only to have a deliberative voice, was to exercise the real sovereign 
 authority. 
 
 Whatever egotism there might be in the motives of the King's fina 
 resolutions, men of serious minds and austere morals could not but have 
 seen with anxiety the supreme power pass without control into the 
 hands of a man who was regarded with so much suspicion by public 
 opinion. But this Prince cherished lofty pretensions, and with good 
 reason reckoned that he would be enabled to sustain them by the 
 assistance of the courtiers, who were weary of the mask of devotion 
 imposed on them by the old King, and full of hope in the regency of a 
 man of pleasure ; of the Parliaments, which were impatient to throw 
 off the state of political nullity in which they had remained for fifty 
 years ; and finally, of that crowd of the sycophants of fortune, who, 
 without principles or settled opinions, are always ready to veer round 
 with it, and are particularly acute in perceiving which side is the 
 stronger. 
 
 On the day following the death of Louis XTV\, after a night passed in 
 intrigues and making lavish promises on every side, the Duke of Orleans 
 presented himself before the Parliament, accompanied by the Princes, the 
 peers of the kingdom, and a numerous following of courtiers and officials, 
 whom he had gained over to his interests. In a very skilful harangue 
 the Duke displayed his anxiety to receive from the Parliament the title 
 to which, by his birth, he had a right ; and then, after having given this 
 assembly to understand that he would attend to their suggestions, lie read 
 the will. The greater number of the magistrates, and, amongst others, the 
 advocates-general William de Lamoignon, Peter Gilbert des Voisins, 
 Henry-Francis d'Aguesseau, who afterwards became Chancellor, and 
 Joly de Fleury, procureur-general, were devoted to the Duke ; and in 
 
 i 2 
 
11G FIEST ACTS OP THE EEGKENCY. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 spite of the efforts of the First President Mesme, who defended the 
 
 will of Louis interests of the legitimate Princes, the testament was una- 
 
 xiv., 1715. nimously set aside. The Parliament acknowledged the 
 
 Duke as Regent of the kingdom, with full power and liberty to compose 
 
 Council of Ee- tne Council of Regency as he might think proper. Orleans 
 
 gency. summoned to it those whom Louis XIV. had selected, and 
 
 constituted it of the Princes; the Chancellor Voisins; the Marshals 
 
 Villeroi, D'Harcourt, Tallard, and Besons ; the Duke de Saint- Siraon, and 
 
 de Cheverny, formerly Bishop of Troyes ; the last alone being the new 
 
 selections made by the Regent. The Duke du Maine retained the 
 
 superintendence of the education of Louis XV., who was being brought 
 
 up at Vincennes ; but he was deprived of the command of the household 
 
 troops. 
 
 The various Ministries were suppressed, the Regent substituting for 
 them six distinct Councils; that of conscience, and those of war, finance, 
 marine, foreign, and home affairs, which were presided over by Cardinal 
 de Noailles, Marshal Villars, the Duke de Noailles, Marshal d'Estrees, 
 Marshal Uxelles, and the Duke d'Antin. It was soon perceived that the 
 commercial interest had been overlooked in the formation of those six 
 Councils ; and a seventh was created, entitled the Council of Commerce. 
 It was remarked that these Councils were composed of men who varied 
 much from one another in birth, intelligence, and character. In the first 
 place, there were the great nobles, skilled in intrigues, but unused to the 
 conduct of affairs ; then the friends of the Regent, the highest among the 
 dissipated courtiers, who were at once ignorant, witty, and perverse ; and 
 finally, beneath them, the State Councillors and Members of Parliament, 
 who were experienced and laborious, and upon whom devolved the duty 
 of repairing the errors committed by their colleagues. The Regent 
 reserved to himself personally the superintendence of the Academy of 
 First acts of the Sciences. His first measures were generally approved of: 
 Eegency. j^ res t ore( j to the Parliament the right of remonstrating, of 
 
 which he subsequently, however, deprived it. He had the whole amount 
 of the pay due to the soldiers given to them ; ordered judicial inquiries 
 into the conduct of the financiers ; fixed the value, which had hitherto 
 been vacillating, of the various gold and silver coins; inspected the 
 Royal prisons; exiled Father Tellier and some other Jesuits, and re- 
 voked the arbitrary judgments passed by the late King against their 
 
1715-1726.] THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 117 
 
 numerous victims. Many bishops, and a crowd of priests and laymen, 
 who had been proscribed on account of the wretched theological dispute s 
 were recalled ; and finally, the Eegent ordered the publication of the 
 " Telemachus." It was under these happy auspices that his government 
 commenced. 
 
 The influential men were divided into two parties : the one, having at 
 its head Marshal Villeroi, the young Monarch's governor, faithful to the 
 policy of Louis XIV., wished to maintain a strict alliance with Spain, 
 then governed by the famous Cardinal Alberoni, who from being a simple 
 country cure had risen to be the First Minister of Philip V. ; whilst the 
 other inclined to an alliance with England. Dubois, in the pay of this 
 power, a cynic, and a skilled intriguer, who, after being the Regent's 
 tutor, had become the minister of his debaucheries, and ruled him 
 through the triple agency of an energetic will, vice, and habit, was the 
 soul of the latter party, which he represented as being, in case of a 
 vacancy of the throne, the strongest barrier against the pretensions of 
 Philip V. to the throne of France ; although that Prince had formally 
 renounced them when he accepted that of Spain. Lord Stair, the 
 English ambassador, a companion of the Regent's pleasures, drew him 
 into this alliance, and made him purchase it by the expulsion of the 
 Pretender, the son of James II., and the demolition of the port of 
 Mardick, which Louis XIV. had intended to be a substitute for that of 
 Dunkirk. A triple alliance was formed between France, 
 England, and Holland. In the following year, these three England and 
 
 , . . , . , , ^ Holland, 1717. 
 
 powers signed conjointly with the Emperor a new treaty, 
 
 known by the name of the Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance; 
 
 and Spain was summoned to accede to it within three Quadruple Alli- 
 ance, 1719. 
 months. 
 
 The Regent, always anxious on the subject of the pretensions of 
 Philip V. and the intrigues of Alberoni, had in the heart of his 
 kingdom many enemies, some of whom had been roused against him by 
 the force of circumstances, and others by the errors of his Government 
 and his personal misconduct. His debaucheries and the scandal of his 
 orgies, which were presided over by his daughter, the Duchess de Berri, 
 as well as the shameful rank and influence acquired by Dubois, had dis- 
 gusted every honest heart, and excited against the Regent the general 
 public indignation. His partiality for England, and the rigorous measures 
 
118 PERSECUTIONS OF THE RICH. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 taken by him against the legitimated Princes, whom he had deprived of 
 the rank of Princes of the Blood at the request of the dukes and peers, 
 had alienated from him their numerous partisans, as well as those who 
 adhered to the policy of Louis XIV. . But nothing caused so wide- 
 spread a feeling of anger against the Eegent as his financial operations. 
 
 The public debt left by Louis XIV. amounted to nearly five milliards 
 -p.. , » of our present money ; the revenues were consumed three 
 
 Disorder ot * J ' 
 
 D^ptorabieex- Y ears - n advance, and all credit was destroyed. The 
 pedients, 1718. Regent had, therefore, at the very commencement of his 
 government, to struggle against immense difficulties. The only means 
 known to, and habitually followed by governments, for the purpose of 
 releasing themselves from their liabilities, were bankruptcy, alterations in 
 the value of coin, and prosecutions against farmers-general. The Regent 
 made use at first of the latter means, through the agency of a Chamber of 
 Justice appointed to search out and prosecute this species of delinquents. 
 This Chamber, at first regarded with favour, speedily made itself odious 
 by the atrocity of the measures which it took in the course of its 
 inquiries. Denunciations were encouraged by the offer of a portion of 
 the confiscated properties, and the punishment of death for all the crimes 
 of the justiciaries. Domestics were allowed to accuse their masters under 
 feigned names, and the utmost punishments were inflicted upon those who 
 ventured to decry such denouncers. The inquiry extended over twenty- 
 seven years. To be rich was to render a man liable to accusation ; and 
 four thousand four hundred and seventy heads of families were inscribed 
 on twenty lists, which appeared successively as so many tables of pro- 
 scription. A multitude of applications flowed in from all directions ; 
 petitioners of every condition of life and every rank assailed the Eegent ; 
 and, as has been observed by a judicious and witty writer* — " Indulgence 
 had its tariff, just as vengeance had its part to play ; and the Court of 
 France became the scandalous market of the spoils of a kingdom." Every 
 one concealed his fortune, and industry disappeared at the same time as 
 luxury. At length an universal disgust was felt that the liberty of robbing 
 should have been merely transferred from one set of hands to another, 
 and the Chamber of Justice fell into universal contempt. 
 
 Eecourse was also had to other means equally arbitrary and violent. 
 The contracts concluded with the former Government were annulled ; 
 * Lemontey, " History of the Kegency." 
 
171 5-1726.] FINANCIAL OPERATIONS. 119 
 
 the rents, as well as all pensions amounting to more than six hundred 
 livres, were reduced to one-half; and a multitude of offices and privileges 
 created and sold by the late Government were pitilessly suppressed with- 
 out any return of the price which had been paid for them. This reform 
 (restored to the communes the choice of their administrators. The re- 
 minting of the coin appeared to offer to the Government immense advan- 
 tages, and it was ordered ; but this proceeding, which only deceived the 
 multitude for a moment, had results which were long a source of the greatest 
 troubles. Confidence was destroyed, the circulation of specie checked, 
 .-and the foreigner derived immense profit from his own reminting of the 
 decried coinage. Such was the result of the reminting undertaken by the 
 Duke de Noailles. He had calculated on the recoinage of a thousand 
 millions, but only three hundred and sixty-eight thousand were brought 
 :in ; the consequence being that instead of the two hundred millions of 
 profit which he had hoped for, he only obtained seventy-two, whilst the 
 gold coin of the kingdom became rapidly depreciated abroad. 
 
 A third financial operation had for its object a general review of the 
 public funded property, of which the amount was unknown. It was re- 
 solved to turn it all into a single species of State bonds; and this work was 
 entrusted to the four brothers Paris, who in such matters were remarkably 
 sagacious. Six hundred millions were examined, which were reduced by 
 law to two hundred and fifty millions, bearing interest at four per cent., 
 -of which only one hundred and ninety-five were delivered to the owners 
 of the examined public funds. After these violent measures, the Duke 
 de Noailles had recourse to others likely to corrupt the public mind, and 
 resorted to lotteries. The crisis, however, was by no means less imminent ; 
 equitable impost of a tenth upon all goods was suppressed ; the cash- 
 boxes of the collectors were empty ; and the pay of the troops could no 
 longer be liquidated. In the midst of this general confusion of affairs the 
 Scotchman Law began to rise into notice. This adventurer, who 
 eventually became so famous, and who united to high financial conceptions 
 errors which were the result of practical inexperience, enticed the 
 Regent by the novelty of his theories, detailed as they were with so much 
 clearness. At first, however, (in 1716,) his genius was limited to opera- 
 tions with a bank of which the funds, divided into twelve hundred shares, 
 amounted only to six millions. Law obtained the monopoly of it for 
 twenty years. It managed the financial business of private persons, dis- 
 
120 FKESH FINANCIAL SCHEMES. [Book IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 counted bills of exchange, received deposits, and issued notes payable at 
 sight, and in coin of a fixed amount. It had a prodigious success, and in 
 spite of the reasonable distrust of sensible persons, the fixed value of this 
 new species of money caused the current of commerce once more to flow. 
 The Regent, anxious to make the Government share in the profits of this 
 bank, ordered that its notes should be received in payment of taxes, and 
 wished to be himself one of its directors. A fictitious species of money 
 issued by private persons, as well as the State revenues, was then seen 
 confided to the good faith of an independent Company ; and Law from 
 thenceforth was entitled to be regarded as the founder of the science of 
 public credit in France. 
 
 Law, however, encountered a lively opposition, and especially from the 
 Parliament. His most formidable adversaries, the Chancellor d'Aguesseau 
 and the Duke de Noailles, had been dismissed, and the former Lieutenant 
 of Police, D'Argenson, and Dubois, were at the head of affairs, when the 
 Eegent resolved to strike a decisive blow at once against the enemies of 
 Law, and the legitimated Princes. Orders were given for the sitting of 
 a Bed of Justice on the 26th August, 1718, and the magis- 
 of Justice, 26th trates accordingly proceeded to the Tuileries to the number 
 of a hundred and seventy. The Eegent desired the Duke 
 du Maine and his brother the Count de Toulouse to retire ; and then 
 read letters patent which annulled the last decrees of the Parliament, and 
 deprived it of the right of remonstrating with respect to matters of finance 
 and policy. An edict was then read which reduced the legitimated 
 Princes to the simple rank of their peerage ; and the Duke du Maine 
 was finally deprived by a decree of the superintendence of the education 
 of the King, which was given to his nephew and enemy the Duke de 
 Bourbon, a prince of depraved manners, singularly avaricious, and of the 
 most limited intellect. The First President having requested that the 
 Parliament should be permitted to consider the edict which concerned 
 itself, the Keeper of the Seals replied, " The King desires to be obeyed, 
 and immediately." Three days later rigorous measures signalized the 
 Regent's victory ; three magistrates were imprisoned, whilst several Par- 
 liaments, and amongst others that of Brittany, suffered similar outrages. 
 
 The Councils established by the Duke of Orleans at the commencement 
 of the Regency were suppressed, and replaced by Departments, at the head 
 of which he placed Secretaries of State, who were more directly dependent 
 
1715-1726.] CONSPIRACY OP CELLAHAEE. 121 
 
 on himself. The Duke du Maine yielded without a struggle to the 
 storm, but the Duchess, his wife, burst forth into complaints and threats, 
 whilst her magnificent residence of Sceaux became the rendezvous for all 
 persons discontented with the Government and the focus of all intrigues. 
 An intimate union had long existed between this little factious court and 
 the Spanish Ambassador, the Prince of Cellamare. The 
 
 .,-,. . .,., Conspiracy of 
 
 latter, m accordance with the instructions given mm by Cellamare, 
 
 1718 
 
 Alberoni, conspired against the Regent, and employed 
 every means in his power to bring about a revolution against his Govern- 
 ment. Deceived himself, he exaggerated in his reports the importance 
 and number of the revolutionary party, and the audacious Cardinal 
 conceived a plan, according to which Philip V. should prevail upon 
 Louis XV. to renounce the Quadruple Alliance, deprive the Duke of 
 Orleans of the Eegency, and convoke the States-General ; and at the 
 same time proposed to himself a war against England, for the purpose of 
 reseating the Stuarts upon the throne, which should be under the manage- 
 ment of the warrior-king, Charles XII. By these propositions he flattered 
 the ambition of Elizabeth Farnese, the second wife of Philip, and 
 maintained himself in her favour by encouraging her hopes of acquiring 
 thrones for her children. He had cast his eyes upon many States which 
 had been dissevered from the Spanish monarchy by the Treaty of Utrecht, 
 and an army had already invaded and subjected Sicily. In 1718, how- 
 ever, an English fleet of twenty sail, commanded by Admiral Byng, 
 attacked the Spanish fleet of twenty-seven sail in the Mediterranean, and 
 took or destroyed twenty-three. Alberoni, much disturbed by this check, 
 and perceiving that his power was tottering, wrote to Cellamare to " set 
 fire to the mines." But Dubois, who received information from a clerk 
 in the Spanish embassy, held all the threads of the intrigue in his hand ; 
 and having allowed the conspirators to make considerable progress in 
 their plans, on the 5th December he ordered the arrest of the Abbe" 
 Portocarrero, as he was on his way to Alberoni with despatches and 
 papers from the imprudent Cellamare, relative to this absurd intrigue. 
 The Ambassador was immediately sent to the Castle of Blois, to await 
 the orders of his Court. The Duke and Duchess du Maine were arrested, 
 and sent respectively to the Castle of Dourlens and to Dijon ; and many 
 of their accomplices were imprisoned. After having had the letters of 
 the King of Spain printed, the Regent showed indulgence towards his 
 
122 DISTURBANCES IN BRITTANY. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 enemies. He demanded of them an acknowledgment of their fault, 
 made the Duchess du Maine sign an elaborate confession, and then re- 
 leased his prisoners without taking any further vengeance. A magnani- 
 mous forgetfulness of injuries was the noblest quality of his soul. 
 
 An intrigue similar to that of Cellamare was at the same time being 
 conducted in Spain by the Duke of Saint-Aignan, the 
 
 Similar con- .— , _ . .^ «•,-.-•_ . 
 
 spiracy in Spain, Kegents ambassador in Spam, its object bemg the over- 
 throw of Alberoni, and to prepare for the House of 
 Orleans the succession to the valetudinarian Philip V. These projects, 
 however, failed without any publicity. Saint-Aignan quitted Spain 
 before the disgrace of Cellamare was known there, and whilst the Regent 
 was reaping all the fruits he could expect to gain from the rash im- 
 prudence of that ambassador. . The party of the Old Court remained in 
 a state of consternation. There was but one feeling throughout France 
 and Europe respecting the bad faith of the Spanish Ambassador, and 
 war with Philip V. was resolved on. 
 
 Disturbances now broke out in Brittany, which was still, to a great 
 Distitrbances in extent > uncultivated, and where there languished a poor and 
 nttany, i . ignorant population in subjection to five or six thousand 
 gentlemen. The latter, indignant at the domineering spirit of the 
 governor of the province, Marshal de Montesquiou, made great re- 
 sistance to the payment of " the gratuitous gift," and in the following year 
 opposed an edict of the Council relative to the droit d'entree. The Par- 
 liament registered their decision, and were punished by some lettres de 
 cachet for their attempt to preserve their independence. Alberoni saw 
 in these sparks of revolt the hope of a powerful diversion in favour of 
 Philip V., and supported the leaders in their factious projects. The 
 latter signed an agreement of armed confederacy, and called the Spanish 
 troops to their aid ; but the lower classes, indifferent to a quarrel which 
 in no way concerned their own interests, refused to have anything to do 
 with it, and the Government had no difficulty in stifling the revolt. A 
 Chamber of Justice was established at Nantes ; four gentlemen, con- 
 demned to death by it, were executed at night by torchlight with great 
 ceremony; and when the Spanish fleet, commanded by the Duke of 
 Ormond, appeared within sight of the coasts of Brittany, it found them 
 lined with troops, and defended by a population faithful to the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
1715-1726.] EISE OF THE KINGDOM OF SARDINIA. 123 
 
 In the meantime an army commanded by Marshal Berwick had 
 entered Spain, where Alberoni was only prepared to 
 
 War between 
 
 intrigue, and not only took a great number of places, but France and 
 
 Spain. Disgrace 
 
 destroyed the Spanish navy in its ports. About the same of Alberoni, 
 time, sixteen thousand Imperial troops, led into Sicily by 
 General Mercy, drove the Spaniards from that island. Crushed by these 
 numerous reverses, Alberoni saw that he was lost. The Queen turned 
 against him, and no longer saw anything in this Minister but the 
 obscurity of his birth. In vain he threatened the French Government 
 with an alliance between Spain, England, and Austria. His disgrace 
 was resolved on, and demanded, by the Regent; and in December, 
 
 1719, Philip V. signed a decree which ordered him to quit Madrid 
 within eight days. The populace celebrated his banishment as the 
 deliverance from a scourge ; and the fall of the Cardinal was the 
 security for peace. Philip sent in his adhesion to the Treaty of the 
 Quadruple Alliance, and it was signed by his Minister in February, 
 
 1 720, at the Hague. By this treaty the Emperor Charles VI. ^hesion of 
 renounced the Spanish monarchy, and Philip V. abandoned QuadrupieAM- 
 all the States which, by the Peace of Rastadt, had been n ' 
 severed from it. The Emperor undertook to bestow the sovereignty of 
 Tuscany on Don Carlos, the son of Philip V. and Elizabeth Farncse, 
 after the death, which was considered imminent, of the last of the 
 Medici. By the same treaty, Sicily was given to the House of Austria, 
 the Duke of Savoy receiving in exchange for it Sardinia, which was 
 raised to the rank of a kingdom. The Regent now acted as 
 
 a, mediator in the North. He had assisted Sweden, kiDgdomof Sar- 
 exhausted by the ruinous rashness of Charles Xn., and 
 over which reigned Ulrica, that monarch's sister. He hastened the con- 
 clusion of a peace between her and the Czar Peter, who offered his 
 daughter in marriage to the Duke de Chartres, the Regent's son, with the 
 prospect of succession to the throne of Poland, at that time occupied by 
 King Augustus. The Duke of Orleans, however, rejected this alliance, 
 .and found himself, for a time, the arbiter of Europe. This powerful in- 
 fluence was partly due to the ephemeral and prodigious success of the 
 system established by Law, which having been adopted by the Regent, 
 enjoyed the highest degree of public favour, and placed immense 
 pecuniary resources in the hands of the Government. 
 
124 FINANCIAL KEVOLTJTION. [BOOK TV. CHAP. I. 
 
 Law's bank had been declared the Royal Bank at the close of the year 
 1718. It had acquired the privileges belonging to the old 
 
 Law's system ; T1 .^ ,... 1 . 
 
 financial revolu- India Company, which, in addition to vast possessions m 
 
 tion, 1719-1720. . . .' . .. .','*'«. 
 
 Louisiana, possessed the sole right of trading with Africa 
 and Asia ; and the Government also bestowed on it the monopoly in 
 tobacco, the excise duties of Alsatia and Franche-Comte, the profit derivable 
 from the coinage of money, and lastly, the recettes and the farms general. 
 Its first care was to depreciate the current coin by subjecting it to fifty 
 consecutive variations, whilst its own notes alone appeared to be invari- 
 able in value, and thus superior to the money value which they repre- 
 sented. Led away by Law's first successes, a credulous multitude 
 purchased shares in his Company, and exchanged its gold for his bank- 
 notes. This gold served to reimburse the creditors of the State, and 
 they, embarrassed by their capital and full of a blind confidence, readily 
 exchanged it in their turn for shares the value of which increased in 
 proportion to the number of purchasers. The public credulity soon 
 reached its height, and eighteen thousand livres were given for a share 
 the original value of which was no more than five hundred. The street 
 named Quincampoix now acquired a shameful celebrity by being the 
 ignoble scene of the dealings in these bank shares. It was 
 there that scandalous fortunes were amassed, and that 
 those which seemed the most solid were speedily dissipated. It was there 
 that from the very cellars to the garrets of the houses, were massed con- 
 fusedly together a multitude of persons of each sex, of every age and 
 every condition, solely occupied in trafficking in their notes and shares. 
 From the most distant provinces, and even from foreign lands, crowds re- 
 sorted thither, and the whole nation, in short, appeared to have become 
 one vast army of speculators. 
 
 This excitement, however, scandalous as it was, had some favourable 
 effects. The rehabilitation of so much decried paper-money gave an un- 
 usual impulse to commerce and industry ; the amount of manufactures 
 increased by three-fifths, agriculture and the treasury were enriched by 
 the influx of strangers and the increased consumption of every species of 
 produce. Everything was easy to the Government when it had the gold 
 of the kingdom at its command. French diplomacy became dominant, and 
 its navy, which till lately had consisted of but a few vessels, and 
 entrusted to the Count de Maurepas, who was only eighteen years of 
 
1715-1726.] FALL OF LAW'S SYSTEM. 125 
 
 age, was restored to a state in which it would be able to protect our 
 commerce. The Regency annexed colonies to the mother-country, and 
 joined to it the Isle of France, which was coveted by the English. The 
 foundation of New Orleans, on the banks of the Mississippi, dates from this 
 period. Useful works were undertaken in France, such as many Royal 
 roads of a magnificence until then unknown, and the canal of Montargis ; 
 finally, the University of Paris offered a course of gratuitous instruction. 
 Law, at the period in which he was most in favour, received the homage 
 of all Europe. The son of James II., known by the name of Chevalier 
 de Saint-George, solicited his friendship, and Law paid him out of his 
 own pocket the pension which France had ceased to bestow upon him. 
 
 At the commencement of 1720 Law found himself at the height of 
 his fortune, and after having abjured the Protestant faith, was made 
 Comptroller-General ; but from this time dates his fall. His principal error 
 had been, that he looked upon paper-money as a perfect equivalent for 
 coin, and the fatal consequences of this error had been 
 aggravated by the ignorance and cupidity of the Govern- Stem the 
 ment. Law was not allowed to regulate the movements 
 of his system ; a frightful mass of notes, out of all proportion with the 
 coin of France, was fabricated and launched into circulation in spite of 
 his remonstrances. It amounted to the nominal value of many thousand 
 millions, and it was soon perceived with terror that it would be impos- 
 sible to redeem it by actual coin. The confidence which had been 
 inspired by the declaration of the existence of gold-mines in the plains of 
 Louisiana and on the banks of the Mississippi, was dissipated at the same 
 time. Law then had recourse, for the purpose of bolstering up his 
 system, to violent methods, which ended in its destruction. Private 
 persons were prohibited to have in their possession more than five 
 hundred livres in ready money, or to convert their gold into pearls or 
 diamonds; and finally, on the 21st of May, there appeared an edict 
 which reduced the shares in the Company to half their value. From 
 this moment all illusion with respect to the Company was at an end. It 
 was in vain that the Duke d'Antin, the Regent's brother-in-law, pro- 
 cured the revocation of the decree ; it was impossible to reinspire con- 
 fidence ; and Law having been arrested, was summoned to give in his 
 accounts, which he did with an admirable clearness which confounded 
 his enemies. The direction of the Bank and of the Company was 
 
126 EXILE OE THE PARLIAMENT. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 restored to him, but Law refused to resume it, and proposed to th 
 Recent, as a means of restoring public confidence, the recal of his old 
 opponent, the Chancellor d'Aguesseau, (1720.) He went 
 d'Aguesseau, himself to Fresne, that venerable magistrate's retreat, and 
 
 1720 
 
 entreated him to return. D'Aguesseau sacrificed his repose 
 
 for the public good, and the day on which he did so was the most 
 
 glorious of his noble life. But this illustrious man possessed neither 
 
 genius nor power sufficient to quell the storm, and misfortunes succeeded 
 
 each other in rapid succession. The pestilence which broke out in 
 
 France closed almost all ports to our vessels, and threw upon the 
 
 Company enormous losses, the discredit into which it had fallen being at 
 
 the same time even more injurious to it. At length the Parliament 
 
 rejected without deliberation the last edicts which afforded any prospects 
 
 of the Bank's solvency; whereupon Dubois, although hostile to Law, 
 
 avenged the Government for this bold attack by exiling the 
 
 Parliament 6 Parliament in a body to Pontoise, an affront to which that 
 
 body had not been subjected since its first establishment. 
 
 Stock-jobbing was prohibited, but it was furiously carried on in spite 
 of sabres and bayonets. There were scenes of violence and murder, and 
 a threatening mob proceeded to the Palais-Eoyal, the gates of which 
 were opened to it at its approach by the Eegent's orders. The scene of 
 this odious traffic was transferred from the Eue Quincampoix to the 
 Place Yendome, and from thence to the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons. 
 It was in this latter place that the bank-notes lost their money value, 
 and that in September, nine shares, which a year previously had been 
 worth sixty thousand livres, were purchased for a gold mark. Greedy 
 and skilful calculators still speculated on old and new fortunes, and their 
 frightful stock-jobbing came to be called the Mississippi renverse. Law 
 then offered to the Regent to quit France, abandoning to him all his 
 fortune, with the exception of five hundred thousand crowns, which he 
 had brought with him. The Prince did not detain him, and this cele- 
 brated stranger, after having been adored as a god, disappeared from the 
 kingdom as a fugitive, and went to finish his days in obscurity in Venice, 
 leaving behind him nothing but a diamond ring worth some forty 
 thousand livres, which had often been in pledge, and a few pictures. 
 
 The Government endeavoured, by means of a number of violent 
 edicts, to restore to the notes of the Bank a value which nothing but 
 
1715-1726.] THEOLOGICAL DISPUTES. 127 
 
 credit could have made them sustain ; but these methods were of no 
 avail, and in 1721 the Government had again recourse to the operation 
 of examination, to ascertain the real amount of the State 
 debt, and the titles of its creditors. This work was again ^|Y" vlsa " 
 confided to the Brothers Paris. Two thousand two hundred 
 millions worth of paper securities were deposited at their offices, one- 
 third of which was declared null, whilst the remainder were reduced to a 
 value much below that which they nominally bore. Those capitalists who 
 obstinately retained their notes and bills in their desks without taking 
 them to be examined, lost the whole of their debts. The professional 
 stockjobbers, who had made enormous profits, were violently deprived of 
 the larger portion of their gains. The debts which had to be liquidated 
 amounted to seventeen hundred millions, and the State found itself much 
 more indebted than it had been at the death of Louis XTV. 
 
 Such was the end of this famous system, the fall of which was 
 hastened much more by the ignorance and despotism of the Government 
 than by the errors of its inventor. Its results were to change the public 
 manners and the distribution of wealth, to render the people eager after 
 gain and bold in speculation, to initiate the general use of banks, and to 
 give a new life to commerce, whilst, on the other hand, it confirmed the 
 prejudices of the Government against every new idea and every project 
 for the improvement of its finances. 
 
 The pestilence at this time (1720-1721) was executing frightful 
 ravages in Provence. The number of its victims is un- 
 known ; but the four cities of Marseilles, Aries, Aix, and Provence, 1720- 
 
 1721. 
 
 Toulon alone lost seventy-nine thousand five hundred of 
 their inhabitants. Belzunce, the Bishop of Marseilles, the Chevalier 
 Rose, and the Aldermen Estelle and Moustier, immortalized themselves 
 by the heroism they displayed in the midst of this frightful calamity. 
 
 In the meantime the public misfortunes by no means diminished the 
 bitterness of the theological disputes. Cardinal Noailles was 
 ever the foremost of the opponents of the bull Unigenitus p£t ° 3 lo8ical dis " 
 of Pope Clement XI., which he regarded as an attack on 
 the liberties of the Gallican Church; and the Parliament refused to 
 register it. But Dubois broke through this double obstacle. This 
 cynical intriguer, who had already had himself nominated to the 
 Bishopric of Cambrai, was ambtious of the purple, and hoped to gain 
 
128 DEATH OF THE DUKE OE OELEAKS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 the Cardinal's hat by procuring the recognition of the Bull in France. 
 He surrounded Cardinal Noailles with adroit theologians, and the latter, 
 by captious reasonings, obtained his submission, which was followed by 
 that of many of the opposing bishops. It remained to obtain the sub- 
 mission of the Parliament, which was then exiled to Pontoise, and Dubois 
 frightened this body by the threat of a fresh exile to Blois, whilst Law, 
 who at this time was still in the Ministry, spoke of reimbursing the price 
 of the magisterial offices with his depreciated notes, and of establishing a 
 fresh body of magistrates who should have no other functions but that of 
 the administration of justice. The Parliament no longer resisted, but 
 registered the Bull, without prejudice, however, to the " Maxims of the 
 kingdom upon appeals to the future council." It was recalled to Paris in 
 the course of the following year. 
 
 After prolonged intrigues, the Pope, Innocent XIII., made Dubois a 
 Cardinal. The Regent, who despised this man without being able to do 
 without him, raised him to the pinnacle of fortune by appointing him 
 Prime Minister three months before the consecration of Louis XV., who 
 
 was declared of age by the Parliament held on the 22nd 
 Louis r xv 0f i723 J anuar y> 1723. The young Infanta of Spain, four years 
 
 old, then arrived at the Court, being destined by the Regent 
 for the King's wife, whilst his own daughter went to Spain as the future 
 wife of the Prince of the Asturias. In appointing Dubois as First 
 Minister at the period when Louis XV. attained his majority, the Duke 
 of Orleans' intention was to retain in his own hands the entire direction 
 of affairs; but death frustrated his hopes, for Dubois, after having 
 effected some wise measures, expired in the course of the year, leaving 
 an immense fortune. The Duke of Orleans succeeded him in his office, 
 
 but died himself almost immediately afterwards, from an 
 Duke of Orleans, attack of apoplexy, (1723.) The King, although naturally 
 
 cold-hearted and insensible to emotion, nevertheless re- 
 gretted his tutor, and displayed much feeling at the remembrance of the 
 tender and respectful testimonies of affection which he had never ceased 
 to receive from him.* Fleury, Bishop of Frejus, and the young King's 
 preceptor, possessed an absolute influence over him, and, having an 
 understanding with the Duke of Bourbon, persuaded his pupil to make 
 
 * See the remarkable portrait of the Regent in the " History of the Seventeenth 
 Century," by Charles Lacretelle, Book IV. 
 
1715-1726.] bourbon's ministry. 129 
 
 that Prince his First Minister. Louis XV. assented with a nod of the 
 head. Thus the Government passed from the House of Orleans to that of 
 Conde. 
 
 Three persons only constituted the King's Council ; and these were the 
 Duke of Bourbon, the Bishop of Freius, and Marshal Yillars. » . 
 
 ' r J ' Ministry of the 
 
 A woman of scandalous manners, the Marchioness de Prie, P ake n £f. Bour " 
 
 ' 7 bon, 1724. 
 
 the First Minister's mistress, ruled his narrow mind, which 
 was stupefied by debauchery and an insatiable cupidity. Duverney, the 
 youngest of the brothers Paris, was selected by her to administer affairs, 
 and the Duke, of Bourbon accepted, at her instigation, this Minister, who 
 was the author of some wise measures, but was at the same time the ac- 
 complice in, and the instrument of, odious acts of violence. 
 
 Odious acts of 
 
 The first laws made under the authority of this Ministry were tne new Ministry, 
 
 j j 172 i. 
 
 both foolish and wicked. The legal value of the coin was re- 
 duced to one-half, and the rate of interest to the denier trente. Duverney 
 was determined that the habits of the nation should vary as speedily as the 
 decrees of the Council. Troops were sent to slaughter the Parisian work- 
 men who defended their wages ; and the shops of those tradesmen who 
 would not make their prices accord with the change in the value of 
 money were walled up. After a time the disastrous effects of this measure 
 were perceived, and after having plunged the kingdom into confusion it 
 was repealed. France also suffered at this period, and for the last time, 
 under the grievous tax of the joyous event of the King's accession, which 
 the Duke of Orleans had wisely declined to levy, and which was farmed 
 out for twenty-three millions. It paid, also, besides its innumerable other 
 burdens, two per cent, on all the productions of the soil. It was from 
 the midst of the ruinous fetes of Chantilly, the brilliant residence of 
 the Condes, that were issued these edicts of spoliation ; and it was from 
 thence also that went forth barbarous laws against the Protestants. 
 These laws assumed as true, as did the edicts of Louis XIV., the lying 
 supposition that there were no more Protestants in France, and conse- 
 quently treated as perverts all who were convicted of heresy. They 
 branded marriages between Calvinists, authorized the seizure of their 
 children, deprived them of the rights of succession, and with respect to 
 them, punished with death and the galleys, flight, hospitality, and 
 the most generous actions. These laws surpassed even, in cruelty, those 
 of the late King ; for they prohibited the intervention of the officers of 
 VOL. II. . K 
 
130 philip Y. OF Spain. [Book IV. Chap. I. 
 
 justice, and delivered over the Calvinists as victims to the discretion of 
 their enemies. 
 
 The two motives of the actions of the Duke of Bourbon were avarice 
 and ambition. It was for the sake of his own fortune that he supported 
 the India Company, which had been severely shaken by the fall of Law, 
 and in which he possessed a great number of shares ; and it was from a 
 jealous hatred of the House of Orleans, and the fear that it might succeed 
 to the Crown, if the King should die without a direct heir, that he broke 
 oiF the marriage which had been projected between the King and a Prin- 
 _, T e ' cess of tender age. He sent back the Infanta to Spain, sub- 
 
 The Infanta sent . 
 
 back. Louis xv. gtitutinp; for her Maria Leczinski, the daughter of Stanislaus, 
 
 espouses Maria ° jo j 
 
 Leczmsiri, 1725. formerly crowned king of Poland by Charles XH., and who, 
 stripped of his royal state, lived in obscurity at Weissemberg. 
 
 This affront was keenly felt in Spain. The weak Philip V., a victim 
 to the narrowest scruples of conscience, and the mere tool of his con- 
 Phiiip v. abdi- fessors, had abdicated the throne in the preceding year, in 
 wards regains his accordance with the instigations of his confessor, the Jesuit 
 Bermudez. His son, sixteen years of age, succeeded him 
 by the name of Louis I., and died of the small-pox after a reign which 
 had only lasted seven months. If Philip did not re-ascend his throne his 
 crown would, too, now devolve upon his second son, Ferdinand, who was 
 ten years of age, whilst a Eegency, composed of grandees of Spain, would 
 govern the kingdom. The Court of France regarded such an arrangement 
 with no favour, and instructed its ambassador, Marshal Tesse, to use all 
 his influence to induce the King to revoke his abdication. Theologians, 
 who were called in to combat the arguments of Bermudez, decided that 
 the King ought to resume the sceptre under pain of committing a mortal 
 sin. Laura Pescatori, his nurse, gave them important assistance by the 
 boldness of her language ; and at length Philip, on the 5th of September, 
 1724, consented to resume his sceptre. A few months later, he learnt the 
 rupture of the projected marriage between his daughter and Louis XV. 
 At this news his anger was extreme ; and he immediately sent away the 
 two daughters of the Regent, one of whom was the widow of the young 
 King Louis I., whilst the other, Mademoiselle de Beaujolais, had been 
 intended to be the wife of the Infant Don Carlos. This was too little to 
 satisfy his vengeance ; and one of his emissaries, the adventurer Ripperda, 
 concluded in his name a treaty with the Emperor Charles VI., who was 
 
1715-1726.] THE PEAGMATIC SANCTION. 131 
 
 irritated at the obstacles thrown in his way by the Powers to the establish- 
 ment of the Compaprnie d'Ostende, and to his pragmatic sane- Pragmatic sanc- 
 
 . . . . tionoftheEm- 
 
 tion, a law by which, in default of leaving male children, peror Charles VI. 
 he appointed his daughter Maria-Theresa to succeed him. Alarmed at 
 this treaty, France, England, and Prussia signed, in 
 1725, that of Hanover, the basis of which was a neutral overtms. **' 
 guarantee and alliance. 
 
 The moment was drawing near when Philip would be able to avenge the 
 insult to his family. The Duke of Bourbon endeavoured to release him- 
 self from the importunate censures of the Bishop of Frejus, and had pre- 
 vailed upon the young King to assist him in this design. In the meantime 
 the misery of the people was extreme : in every direction outcries were 
 heard against the Government, and Fleury was entrusted to put an end 
 to the public misfortunes. The universal clamour was heard, and a minis- 
 terial revolution was effected. On the 11th June, the young King, as he 
 was setting out for the chase, said to the Duke, with a gracious smile, 
 " Cousin, do not make me wait supper," and a few minutes afterwards the 
 Duke of Charost delivered to him, on the part of the Monarch, a formal 
 letter, which commanded him to retire to Chantilly. The 
 
 J Dismissal of the 
 
 Prince immediately obeyed, and the Parisians received the Due de Bourbon, 
 news of his fall with inexpressible transports. The brothers 
 Paris were dismissed; Duverney was shut up in the Bastile; the Marquise de 
 Prie was exiled. The King declared that henceforth he would have no First 
 Minister, and would hold the reins of government in his own hands ; and 
 thus terminated the ten years during which was prolonged the pupillage 
 of Louis XV. under the heads of the two collateral branches of his House. 
 In the midst of the violence, the scandals, and the calamities which 
 distinguished this period, a few wise measures were adopted, and many 
 useful works undertaken. Duverney was the real founder of the National 
 Militia, which was established by him on an excellent footing, 
 
 ' J ° National Militia. 
 
 and raised to sixty thousand men, who were selected by 
 lot. The people also were relieved from the burden of maintaining the 
 troops in their own houses, nearly five hundred barracks being constructed 
 in this short period. The Regency planned a vast and splendid system of 
 roads, the carrying out of which it confided to a special commission; 
 and also supported the philanthropic aims of the illustrious 
 
 , Christian schools. 
 
 Father Delasalle, the founder of the Christian schools. 
 
 k2 
 
132 FRANCE UNDER THE REGENT. [BOOK IV. Chap. I. 
 
 On the other hand, the manners of the Eegent's Court inflicted a serious 
 blow on public morality ; and the infatuated love of gaining especially, 
 the fatal example of which was given by the Princes, rapidly spread 
 through the kingdom, and carried ruin and despair into the bosoms of a 
 multitude of families. 
 
 The Eegent, who was a well-educated man, did honour to himself 
 by being the protector of literature and the sciences. The 
 latter threw but little glory on his period of government by 
 the discoveries of their professors; but under the head of the former may be 
 reckoned some illustrious names and several famous works. At that time 
 Fontenelle and La Motte were the arbiters of literary taste. Rollin wrote 
 his excellent " Traite" des Etudes;" Vertot, his " Roman Revolutions ;" 
 and Gerard, his " Synonymes.' 1 Destouches, Marivaux, and Boissy were 
 at the same time distinguishing themselves in comedy. Crebillon and 
 Jean-Baptiste Rousseau still wrote; and Massillon was immortalizing 
 himself by his sermon of the "Petit Careme." Voltaire and Montesquieu 
 had already appeared upon the scene ; but the two celebrated works, the 
 "Henriade" and the "Persian Letters," had given the world but a slight 
 idea of the immense talent^of their several authors, and of the enormous 
 influence they were destined to exercise over their age. 
 
1726-1757.] CAEDINAL FLETJEY. 133 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XV., FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 THE MINISTRY OF FLEURY TO THAT OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 
 
 1726-1757. 
 
 Louis XV. had been born with a strong antipathy for pomp and sIioav, 
 and displayed from his tenderest years an exclusive taste for the details of 
 private life. Fleury, his preceptor, took pains to gain his confidence by 
 an extreme indulgence, and at the same time endeavoured to secure for 
 himself a long ascendancy over him by keeping him apart from every 
 influence that could elevate his mind and soul. The young King's 
 studies, as well as his amusements,* were calculated to harden his heart, 
 and contributed as much as the natural coldness of his disposition to 
 render him an ungracious master. The Regent, careful to retain an 
 absolute influence over his pupil after he had attained his majority, had 
 dismissed his governor, Marshal Villeroi, who w r as an obstinate and vio- 
 lent man. The Bishop of Frejus, more compliant and adroit, inspired 
 the Prince with less distrust, and retained his post near the young 
 Monarch, whom he instructed with profound dissimulation, and in 
 whose good graces he insinuated himself more deeply day by day. He had 
 brought his young charge at last to see only with his eyes and to do only 
 what he dictated; and when therefore Louis XV. declared, after the 
 disgrace of the Duke of Bourbon, that he would have no First Minister, 
 and Fleury was made a Cardinal, it might easily be foreseen that the 
 latter, in spite of his seventy-three years, would rule the c ,. , 1Fle 
 State, and exercise in reality the Royal power. One of his Mmister » 1726 - 
 first acts was to abolish the tax of the fiftieth, and to fix the value of the 
 silver mark at fifty-one livres, from which it has since but slightly varied. 
 
 * The favourite amusements of Louis XV. were games of cards, and cruel hunting 
 sports in large halls, where birds of prey launched amidst thousands of sparrows made 
 a hideous slaughter. — Lemontey, History of the Regency. 
 
134 THE JASTSENIST SCHISM. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 He was anxious also to carry out some wise economical plans, but being 
 totally ignorant of financial affairs, he inflicted a dangerous blow on 
 public credit by arbitrarily diminishing the life annuities. The Cardinal- 
 Minister used his utmost endeavours to maintain peace. A general con- 
 gress was opened at Soissons in 1728, but was dissolved in the following 
 year without having achieved any practical result. Whilst the deputies 
 France <*uaran- °f tne several Powers were discoursing Fleury was negotiat- 
 the S Emp C eror's ° m g- He formed an alliance between Spain and France, and, 
 pragma ic, . .^ 173]^ fresh treaties, entered into at Vienna between 
 France, the Emperor, Spain, and Holland, guaranteed to Charles VI. the 
 execution of his pragmatic in favour of his daughter ; to Don Carlos, the 
 possession of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and the succession to 
 Tuscany. By them also the Emperor promised to revoke the privileges 
 accorded to the Ostend Company. 
 
 Europe was at peace, but the miserable quarrel between the Jansenists 
 t, .. . and Molinists continued to scandalize Paris, and, in fact, alL 
 
 Rehgious quar- ; 7 ' 
 
 rela, 1709-1732. France. Fleury caused the meeting of a Council at Embrun, 
 before which was cited and condemned Jean Soanen, one of the four last 
 bishops who continued to oppose the bull Unigenitus. Fresh troubles 
 were excited by the intolerant zeal of M. de Vintimille, who succeeded 
 Cardinal Noailles as Archbishop of Paris. A dispute arose between him 
 and the corps of advocates, who then assumed the title of Order, and sup- 
 ported the Parliament. The King refused to hear the magistrates, and 
 many of them were exiled, and then recalled, without any decisive result 
 to either party. The Jansenists, in this little war so fatal to the Church, 
 endeavoured to support their cause by strange scenes, of which the 
 cemetery of Saint Medard was the theatre. A Jansenist deacon, named Paris, 
 having been buried there in 1727, was pre-canonized as a saint, and a 
 report was spread abroad that miracles were worked at his tomb. Crowds 
 consequently resorted to it, and a vast number of sick persons experienced 
 at it extraordinary sensations. It appears, indeed, pretty certain that the 
 contagion of sympathy and the excitement of the imagination produced 
 actual effects. " It is the work of G-od !" cried some. " It is the work of 
 the devil !" exclaimed others. The incredulous drew from this circum- 
 stance fresh weapons against the faith, and at length the Archbishop 
 prohibited any public homage to Deacon Paris, on the ground that he 
 was not canonized. The advocates appealed from this decision as an 
 
1*726-1757.] WAR FOR POLAND. 135 
 
 abuse of power, and the Parliament admitted the justice of their appeal. 
 The excitement on the subject now rose to its utmost height; the ceme- 
 tery became the general rendezvous of the multitude, who thronged it at 
 all hours in such a tumultuous manner that at length the Government had 
 to close it. 
 
 In spite of the efforts of Cardinal Fleury peace was broken in conse- 
 quence of the death of Augustus I., Elector of Saxony and Eupture of 
 King of Poland, in 1703. This Prince, famous for his pro- Peace > 1733 ' 
 digious debaucheries, had been raised to the throne of Poland when 
 Charles XII. had ceased to maintain on it Stanislaus Leczinski. The 
 latter, father-in-law to Louis XV., now conceived the hope of recovering 
 the sceptre which he had lost. He proceeded in disguise to Warsaw, 
 and was immediately proclaimed king there. But the Count de Munich 
 was sent into Poland by the Czarina Anna Ivanovna, the niece of Peter 
 the Great, and the heiress of his throne ; and the Count caused the elec- 
 tion of Frederick Augustus, the son of Augustus I. This Prince 
 guaranteed the pragmatic of Charles VI., who assisted him with troops ; 
 whilst France could only assist Stanislaus, besieged by the Eussians at 
 Dantzig, with fifteen hundred French soldiers. Their support proved but 
 useless ; in spite of the heroism of Count de Plelo, who perished at their head, 
 Dantzig capitulated, and Stanislaus, upon whose head a price 
 
 & r ' . ' r r . War for Poland. 
 
 was set, escaped through the midst of a thousand perils. 
 Louis XV. avenged himself on the Emperor by seizing Lorraine. He 
 also formed an alliance with Spain and Savoy, the throne of which 
 had been abdicated by Victor Amadeus, and was now possessed by his son 
 Charles Emmanuel III. Berwick and Villars led armies into Germany 
 and Italy. Berwick took the fortress of Kehl, and Milan fell before the 
 arms of Villars. In the course of the following year the careers of these 
 two illustrious generals came to a close. 
 
 The Duke of Noailles and the Marquis of Asfeld replaced Berwick, 
 whilst Marshal Coigny and the Count de Broglie succeeded Villars in the 
 command of the army of Italy. The two Belle Isles, grandsons of the 
 famous Fouquet, and the Count Maurice of Saxony, a natural son of 
 Augustus I., King of Poland, served in the army of the Duke of Noailles, 
 who had for an opponent Prince Eugene, under whom served the Prince- 
 royal of Prussia, then twenty-one years of age, who afterwards became 
 Frederick the Great. Don Carlos, the son of Philip V. and Elizabeth Far- 
 
136 TREATY OF VIENNA. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 nese, seized Naples and Sicily ; and the French troops, commanded by 
 Battles f P rm ^ e Marquis of Asfeld, took Philisbourg in the very face of 
 Trea^of** 11 *' Prince Eugene. These successes were followed by the battle 
 Vienna, 1738. £ p arma? m w hi c h Coigny was the victor, and that of 
 Guastalla, which was won by Marshal Broglie. The peace proposed in 
 _, . 1735, when Prince Eugene died, was concluded on the fol- 
 
 France acquires ' ° ' 
 
 Sedich a of lowing conditions. Stanislaus renounced the throne of Poland, 
 Bar, 1738. receiving in exchange the duchies of Lorraine and Bar, 
 
 which were to revert to France. The Duke of Lorraine, Francis Etienne, 
 receiving in his turn, in exchange for those duchies, that of Tuscany. 
 Don Carlos, renouncing his claim to Naples and Sicily, obtained from the 
 Emperor Naples and Sicily, when he was crowned King. Charles VI. 
 resumed possession of Milan and Mantua, and France formally accepted 
 his pragmatic, solemnly engaging to defend it against all. This treaty was 
 not signed until 1738, and was not agreed to by Spain until 1739. 
 Troubles in During these negotiations great disturbances broke out in 
 Corsica. t j ie j s i an( j f Corsica, then possessed by the Genoese, which 
 
 led to its annexation to France. The cruel tyranny of the Genoese 
 raised a revolt in this island, and a German adventurer, Baron von Neuhoff, 
 contrived to have himself proclaimed king there, and reigned for some 
 months under the title of King Theodore ! Driven, however, by a tempest 
 into the Bay of Naples, he was made king there ; and then the Corsicans 
 appealed for assistance to the French, who invaded the island, and soon 
 afterwards evacuated it without having derived any advantage from their 
 expedition. 
 
 The Emperor Charles VI. died in 1740, in the confident hope that his prag- 
 -, matic, guaranteed as it was by all the powers, would be carried 
 
 European war ' ° J r 7 
 
 succestion Strian out > an{ ^ tnat n * s daughter, Maria-Theresa, Queen of Hungary, 
 1740-1748. would inherit his State. But he had scarcely closed his eyes 
 
 when a crowd of princes put forward pretensions to his vast possessions, 
 and verified the remark made by Prince Eugene that " in such a case the 
 best guarantee would be an army of a hundred thousand men." 
 
 Pretenders. 
 
 Amongst these princes the foremost were Charles Albert, the 
 Elector of Bavaria, and the Elector of Saxony, Augustus III., who 
 claimed the whole inheritance, the one as the descendant of a daughter of 
 Ferdinand I., and the other as the husband of the eldest daughter of the 
 Emperor Joseph. The King of Spain, Philip V., revived absolute claims 
 
1726-1757.] wae or SUCCESSION. 137 
 
 to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, in the hope of thereby being 
 enabled to bargain for establishments in Italy for the children he had by 
 his second wife, Elizabeth Farnese. The King of Sardinia, Charles 
 Emmanuel, claimed the duchy of Milan ; and finally, Frederick II., 
 King of Prussia, sought to obtain Silesia, which belonged, he said, by the 
 right of reversion, to the Electors of Brandenbourg. Possessed of a full 
 treasury, the captain of a numerous and well-disciplined army, and strong 
 in his genius, Frederick first of all launched his battalions Erederick n 
 upon this province, and then bade Maria-Theresa sur- invades Silesia, 
 render it to him, promising her, in case she complied, to afford her his 
 support. Maria-Theresa refused, and Frederick thereupon took Breslau, 
 gained in 1741 the battle of Molwitz, and reduced the greater part of 
 Silesia to subjection. 
 
 France had not yet declared itself. It was solemnly engaged to support 
 the pragmatic of Charles VI., but Louis XV., entirely occupied with his 
 pleasures, and Cardinal Fleury, enfeebled by age, and having very few 
 scruples with respect to the faith due to treaties, had allowed the ambitious 
 Count de Belle Isle to obtain the chief influence in the Council. The 
 latter put forward the old fear lest the House of Austria should become 
 too powerful, and the King's Council devised a shameful subterfuge by 
 which it might reconcile hostile projects with its engagements. It did not 
 declare war directly against the daughter of Charles VI., but it concluded 
 a treaty with the Elector of Bavaria, the principal claimant to the succession 
 of Charles and the Imperial crown. Spain, which coveted the Austrian 
 possessions in Italy, entered into this alliance, which was also joined suc- 
 cessively by the Kings of Prussia, Sardinia, and Poland. The partition 
 to be made was thus arranged. Charles, the Elector of Bavaria, was to 
 have the imperial crown, the kingdom of Bohemia, Upper Austria, and 
 the Tyrol ; the Elector of Saxony, Moravia and Upper Silesia — the rest of 
 this latter province was to be given to the King of Prussia ; and finally, the 
 Austrian possessions in Italy were to be given to the King of Spain, as an 
 establishment for the Infant Don Philip. To Maria-Theresa, 
 
 who had married Francis de Lorraine, Grand-Duke of with France, 
 
 1740. 
 Tuscany, were left Hungary, the Low Countries, and Lower 
 
 Austria. This Princess had no other ally than George II., Elector of 
 
 Hanover and King of England. Two French armies, each forty thousand 
 
 strong, entered Germany. The Count de Belle Isle, who had become a Mar- 
 
138 CAPITULATION OF PEAOUE. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 shal, commanded one ; and the other was confided to Marshal Maillebois, 
 who during this campaign compelled England to remain inactive by- 
 threatening Hanover. The war commenced by great successes in favour 
 of the allied powers. The Elector of Bavaria and the French threatened 
 Vienna. Maurice of Saxony, then a lieutenant-general in the service of 
 France, and the celebrated Chevert took possession of Prague, where the 
 Elector of Bavaria was proclaimed King of Bohemia. A month 
 afterwards he was elected Emperor at Frankfort, by the name of 
 Charles VII. 
 
 In the meantime, Maria-Theresa, although deserted by all, was true to 
 herself. She convoked the States of Hungary, presented 
 arms of Maria- herself before them, holding in her arms her son, then only a 
 few months old, and demanded their assistance. "I place 
 in your hands," she said, " the daughter and the son of your Kings, who 
 hope to find in you their safety." Her address, which was in Latin, 
 idiome des Etats, electrified all hearts, and the Hungarian nobles, drawing 
 their swords, exclaimed, " We will die for our Sovereign, Maria-Theresa." 
 Prompt results followed these words. An army was raised for her, 
 which retook Austria, invaded Bavaria, forced the Marquis de Segur to 
 capitulate at Lintz, and deprived the Elector of all his States. The King 
 of Sardinia had already renounced the League, and declared in favour of 
 Maria-Theresa. The King of Prussia in his turn treated with her, on 
 obtaining the cession of Silesia, and the French found themselves reduced 
 in Bohemia to thirty thousand men, shut in between two armies. Prague 
 was blockaded by the Austrians. Marshal de Maillebois, who was sent 
 to the assistance of that city, could not reach it, and was replaced by 
 Marshal Broglie, who escaped alone from Prague to take the command. 
 The defence of this capital was entrusted to Marshal Belle Isle, and the 
 latter, finding it impossible to hold it, evacuated it at the head of twelve 
 thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, and effected a brilliant 
 retreat on Egra in the depth of a rigorous winter. Chevert, who re- 
 mained in Prague with six hundred sick, concealed his weakness from the 
 enemy and obtained an honourable capitulation. 
 
 Marshal Noailles received orders to watch on the Main the English 
 and Hanoverian armies, commanded by Lord Stair, and with which were 
 also the English Sovereign, George IL, and his son the Duke of Cumber- 
 land. The English were driven as far as Aschaffenbourg, above Hanau, 
 
1726-1757.] BATTLE OF DETTINGEtf. 139 
 
 between the mountains of Spessart and the Main, the course of which, both 
 above and below, was in the hands of the French. Their army, already tor- 
 mented by famine,and on the point of being enclosed on all sides, retraced its 
 steps; Marshal de Noailles watching them from the other side of the Maine, 
 and following all their movements. He threw numerous corps across the 
 river in front of the village of Dettingen and a narrow defile through which 
 the enemy would have to pass. There the Duke de Gramont, the Marshal's 
 nephew, concealed with all the maison du roi in a deep ravine, into which 
 the English army must necessarily descend, was to await it and check 
 its advance, whilst the artillery were to be placed on the other bank in 
 such a manner as to crush them. Had this plan been followed out the 
 English army must have been destroyed, but the rashness of Gramont 
 saved it. Before it was fairly enclosed, and before the Marshal had given 
 the order for the attack, Gramont left his post and threw himself upon 
 the English, who crushed his troops with their artillery, which was 
 advantageously posted on a hill. Gramont endeavoured to take it, but 
 in vain, and by throwing his troops between the French artillery and the 
 English, compelled the former to discontinue its fire. So D e f ea tof Mar- 
 many faults were irreparable, and the Marshal, in order to at Dettingen, eS 
 rescue his nephew, had to employ all the resources with which 
 he had intended to crush the enemy, and had to throw his army across 
 the river into a narrow plain, which was incapable of holding it. At 
 length, after a sanguinary engagement which had no decisive results, 
 he ordered the retreat, and the English remained masters of the field of 
 battle. 
 
 In the meantime Marshal Broglie had been unable to maintain his 
 position on the Danube against Prince Charles of Lorraine, brother of the 
 Grand Duke Francis. Bavaria was evacuated, and it was impossible for 
 Marshal Noailles, after Broglie's retreat, to maintain his position in 
 Franconia, where he had, during two months, held the army of the allies 
 in check. Such was the unfortunate conclusion of the campaign of 1743, 
 which carried the war to the frontiers of France. The Emperor Charles 
 VII. no longer possessed any states, and this unfortunate Prince signed a 
 treaty by which he renounced all his pretensions to Austria, engaging 
 himself, as well as the Empire, to remain neutral during the continuance 
 of the war, and leaving his hereditary possession, Bavaria, until a general 
 peace, in the hands of Maria-Theresa, whom he had endeavoured to 
 
140 DEATH OF CARDINAL ELEURY. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 despoil, and who, by the Treaty of Worms, strengthened her alliance with 
 England and the King of Sardinia. 
 
 France in this struggle, from which she could hope to gain no advantage, 
 had lost all her allies. Fleury, who now died more than ninety years old, 
 had been opposed to this burdensome war, but had had the weakness to 
 jremain nominally at the head of the government when he had lost the 
 power to maintain peace. 
 
 The year 1744 saw the whole of Europe taking part in the war. Spain, 
 Cam aien of wn ^ cn was already contending with England in the interests 
 1744. f ] ier commerce, united her navy with that of France, and 
 
 the two fleets, numbering thirty vessels, under Admiral Court and Joseph 
 de Novaro, attacked Admiral Matthews, who, with thirty-four vessels, 
 was blockading the port of .Toulon. The result was a drawn battle. 
 About the same time twenty-four French vessels left Brest to convey to 
 England twenty-four thousand men and Prince Charles, the heir of the 
 Stuarts. But a tempest dispersed the fleet, and the expedition had no 
 success. 
 
 Genoa, despoiled by the Treaty of Worms, declared itself against Austria, 
 and Frederic II., anxious with respect to the safety of Silesia, promised to 
 retake the field. According to the plan of campaign adopted by France, 
 the Prince of Conti was to command in the Alps, and to assist Don Philip 
 and the Spaniards, whilst Marshal Coigny remained on the defensive in 
 Alsatia, and the chief effort was to be directed against the Low Countries, 
 where Marshal Noailles was ordered to besiege the strong places, whilst 
 his operations were covered by Maurice of Saxony, who had been recently 
 made a French Marshal. The King accompanied the army in person ; 
 a hundred thousand French soldiers threw themselves upon the Low 
 Countries, and a great part of Flanders had already been taken, when 
 information was received that Prince Charles, at the head of eighty 
 thousand men, had crossed the Rhine at Spire, that he had taken the 
 lines of Wissembourg, and had repulsed Marshal de Coigny. It was now 
 necessary to change the plan of the campaign, to direct the principal part 
 of the forces upon Alsatia, and in Flanders to remain on the defensive. 
 Maurice of Saxony only retained forty-five thousand men, whilst with 
 the rest of the army Marshal Noailles moved upon the Rhine. The King 
 wished to accompany him ; but a serious illness compelled him to remain 
 at Metz. 
 
1726-1757.] DEA.TH OF CHAELES Til. 141 
 
 Already for many years past Louis XV., giving way to his passions 
 and the perfidious instigations of those who speculated in Illnesg of 
 his vices, had abandoned himself to a course of loose plea- Lou,s xv > 1745 - 
 sures. Four sisters of the Baron de Nesle were successively his mistresses ; 
 and the last of them, who had received from him the title of Duchess of 
 Chateauroux, had accompanied the Court to Metz, where the King had 
 fallen seriously ill. Whilst he was still in danger, and the people, who 
 were fond of him and called him the well-beloved, were addressing fervent 
 prayers to heaven in all the churches for his restoration to health, 
 Bishop Fitz-James, in the proper discharge of his duty, demanded and 
 obtained the dismissal of the Duchess. When the King recovered, how- 
 ever, the bishop was disgraced, the favourite recalled, and Louis, who was 
 more surprised than moved at the emotion which France had displayed 
 during his illness, not unreasonably inquired what he had done to deserve 
 so much affection. Nevertheless they were noble words which he 
 addressed during his illness to Marshal Noailles, who was at that time 
 opposed to Prince Charles — "Write to him," he said, "that whilst 
 Louis XIII. was being carried to the tomb the Prince of Conde won a 
 battle." 
 
 Frederic now made a fresh expedition into Bohemia and Moravia, and 
 within twelve days had forced the garrison of Prague, consisting of eighteen 
 thousand men, to capitulate. Prince Charles left the Ehine in all haste, 
 and was supported by a diversion which the King of Poland made in the 
 rear of the Prussian army ; but their united efforts were not able to 
 prevent the evacuation of Bavaria by the Austrians and the invasion of 
 Piedmont by the Prince and Don Philip, after heroic exploits in imprac- 
 ticable defiles. The Emperor Charles VII. for a third time entered 
 Munich, his capital, worn out by chagrin and sickness, and died there in the 
 following year, forty-seven years of age, " leaving," says Voltaire, " this 
 lesson to the world, that the height of human greatness is 
 
 Death of the 
 
 compatible with the depth of human misery." His son Emperor Charles 
 
 VAX, j J./^to t 
 
 Maximilian- Joseph, taught by the misfortunes of his 
 father, deceived the hopes of those who flattered themselves that they 
 would be able to oppose him to Maria-Theresa; for he entered into 
 negotiation with her, and promised his support to the Grand Duke 
 Francis, her husband, whom she hoped to raise to the Imperial throne. 
 Louis XV., irritated at this pretension, continued the war. 
 
142 BATTLE OE EONTENOY. [BoOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 He resolved to conduct the campaign with the greatest activity in Italy 
 „ and Flanders, and to keep his army in Germany on the 
 
 Campaign of 7 x J J 
 
 1745. defensive. Marshal Saxe invested Tournay, which was 
 
 defended by a Dutch garrison ; and an English army, under the com- 
 mand of the Duke of Cumberland, made great efforts to raise the siege. 
 Marshal Saxe immediately drew up his troops in order of battle beyond 
 the Scheldt ; with the village of Fontenoy in front of his centre, that of 
 Antoigne* on his right, and the wood of Barri on his left. All these 
 positions were defended by formidable batteries. On the 11th May the 
 enemy advanced to attack the French in this strong position ; the English 
 occupying the centre, the Austrians holding the right under Count 
 Koenigsberg, and the Dutch forming the left under the Prince of Waldeck. 
 The two armies were each about forty-five thousand strong ; but Marshal 
 Saxe was sick, and, being incapable of mounting his horse, was borne 
 through the lines in a litter. Louis XV. and the Dauphin were present 
 with the army, and his head-quarters were established at the village of 
 Antoigne*. After a long and ineffectual cannonade the English advanced, 
 and rushed forward to take the village of Fontenoy under the protection 
 of a terrible fire. HI supported by their auxiliaries, they changed the 
 direction of their attack and advanced alone against the French lines, 
 which extended between Fontenoy and the wood of Barri. They closed 
 up into a formidable column, so as to offer a less frontage to the artillery, 
 and overthrow the feeble corps opposed to them. Two lines of French 
 infantry were pierced, and the column, now out of the reach of the 
 batteries, was on the point of turning the French left and taking the 
 village of Antoign6, in which was the King, who was urgently entreated to 
 retreat ; he refused, however, and the Marshal coming up, secured the 
 victory. The enemy's column suffered enormous loss ; four pieces of 
 artillery in reserve were directed against it, and made a frightful gap in 
 
 its ranks. The French cavalry threw themselves upon it at a 
 Victory of Mar- -.•-.. • -, -, i i 
 
 shaisaxe at gallop, surrounded it on every side and swept what remained 
 
 Eontenoy, 1745. ° r " J _' . 
 
 of it before them. Nine thousand English, wounded or slain, 
 remained on the field of battle. A few days later Tournay was taken, 
 whilst almost the whole of Flanders was occupied, and its principal 
 towns and cities became the prize of this important victory. 
 
 The French arms were no less fortunate in Italy under Marshal 
 Noailles and the Infant Don Philip. All the Austrian possessions in Italy 
 
1726-1757.] BATTLE OF CTLLODEN. 143 
 
 fell into the hands of the French, with the exception of a few fortresses, 
 and the King of Sardinia found himself reduced to his capital. In Ger- 
 many, however, the Austrians made head against the French, and recovered 
 Frankfort, where, on the 15th September, the Grand Duke Francis was 
 proclaimed Emperor. The King of Prussia had, three months previously, 
 obtained a great victory at Friedburg ; and the cession of the province of 
 Glatz, which was annexed to Silesia, rendered this Monarch neutral. 
 
 Charles Edward having landed in Scotland, after having been declared 
 Regent by his father, obtained victories at Prestonpans and 
 Falkirk, and caused at this time (1745-1746) much anxiety feat of the Pre- 
 
 ~ ___-._.„ _ . ._, _ /-.-i-i-i, tender,l745-l746. 
 
 to George II. The defeat of the Pretender at Culloden by 
 the Duke of Cumberland, however, ruined the hopes of himself and of 
 those who had supported his cause. After enduring great perils and 
 sufferings, he succeeded in returning to France, and from thenceforth for 
 ever abandoned England, where his formidable appearance was the cause 
 of and the pretext for the infliction of terrible cruelties on his fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 Germany, Flanders, and Italy continued to be the scenes of a desperate 
 war. The Austrians drove the French from Piedmont, seized Genoa, and 
 invaded Provence. Genoa, subjected by them to a yoke of iron, heroically 
 threw it off; and when it was again besieged, Boufflers and Richelieu 
 flying successively to its assistance, secured its safety. Marshal Belle Isle 
 forced the Austrians to evacuate Provence, and Maurice of Saxony, 
 victorious over Prince Charles at Rocoux, made the conquest of 
 Brabant (1747). 
 
 The terrors of this sanguinary war also extended to the East. La 
 
 Bourdonnais, Governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon, _,.,„ 
 
 1 ' Military opera- 
 
 entered on an enterprise which was calculated to inflict a and S f LaB PleiX ' 
 terrible blow on the commercial interests of England in donnais in India ' 
 the East Indies. Having armed, without any assistance from his govern- 
 ment, nine vessels, he vanquished a division of the English fleet, and, 
 keeping the rest at a distance, boldly landed some thousands of troops 
 in the very face of Madras, where the English had one of their principal 
 factories. The city was besieged and capitulated, but con- „ 
 tradictory instructions had been given by the French Minister Madras - 
 to La Bourdonnais and to the famous Dupleix, Governor-General of the es- 
 tablishments of the French East India Company, and the latter, jealous of 
 
144 occupation or madeas. [Book IV. Chap. II. 
 
 his brilliant colleague, and relying on his secret orders, refused to recognise 
 the capitulation which La Bourdonnais had signed, and depriving him of 
 his conquest, took possession of it himself. Denounced by Dupleix, La 
 Bourdonnais on his return to France was loaded with chains in return 
 for his glorious services, and was thrown into the Bastile. Nevertheless, 
 Dupleix, in spite of his weaknesses and his errors, was a great man, and 
 was the first to conceive and put in practice the system afterwards fol- 
 lowed with indefatigable perseverance by the English, and which gave 
 them their Indian Empire. This system was analogous to that which 
 had enabled Cortez and Pizarro to achieve the conquests of Mexico and 
 Peru, and consisted in taking advantage of the rivalries existing between 
 the various native princes, and in declaring in favour of those who seemed 
 most likely to subserve the interests of the East India Company. The 
 political state of India at this period was very propitious to the success of 
 such a plan. The Empire of the Mogul was but a phantom. The in- 
 vasion of Jhanso Kouli-Khan had deprived the Court of Delhi of all its 
 prestige ; and a species of feudality had been established in India which 
 rendered the nabobs or governors almost as independent of the subahdars 
 or viceroys, as the latter were of the Grand Mogul himself, by whom 
 they were invested with their sovereignties. Success had crowned the 
 arms of a crowd of usurpers, and from them arose pretensions without 
 bounds, and conflicts without number. Usurpation was to be found in 
 every direction, positive right nowhere ; and it was on the basis of this 
 state of things that Dupleix formed his plans. He resolved to transform 
 simple factories, a few weak and penurious possessions, into a vast and 
 powerful kingdom, and did, indeed, lay the foundations in India of a 
 French Empire ; but he was supported neither by the Company nor his 
 Government, and had to succumb after he had maintained during several 
 years a most heroic struggle in a most unequal conflict. 
 
 The continental war absorbed all the attention and resources of the 
 French Government. 
 
 The unfortunate engagement of the Col d'Exilles in Dauphine, in 
 which the Chevalier Belle Isle, a brother of the Marshal of that name, 
 was slain, with four hundred men, whilst attempting to force an impreg- 
 nable position, was atoned for by a brilliant victory gained at Lawfeld 
 by Maurice of Saxony over the Duke of Cumberland, which opened to 
 that great general the road to Holland. The conquest of many cities 
 
1726-1757.] PEACE OP APX-LA-CHAPELEE. 145 
 
 was the result of this glorious battle ; Bergen-op-Zoom, which had resisted 
 the Duke of Parma and Spinola, being, amongst others, taken Battle o{ Law . 
 by General Lowendahl. The English, on the other hand, feld ' 1747, 
 inflicted terrible blows on our navy, the French fleet, after an heroic con- 
 test, being destroyed off Cape Finisterre. Some months later a second 
 squadron, the last which France possessed on the ocean, succumbed in its 
 turn in an unequal struggle near Belle-Isle, with a fleet of fourteen 
 vessels of the line under Admiral Hawke, every one of the French ships 
 being captured. France now sighed for peace, and Maurice of Saxony, 
 as the best means of bringing it about, hastened to invest the city of 
 Maestricht ; whereupon the preliminaries of the much-desired peace were 
 almost immediately signed at Aix-la-Chapelle. By the Peaceof Aix-ia- 
 terms of this peace the King of Prussia retained possession cha P elle > 1748 - 
 of his conquests; Don Philip, the brother of Don Carlos, obtained the 
 duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla ; and finally, the English the 
 position they had held in Asia and America before the war. They 
 recovered Madras in India, and in the New World gave up Louisburg and 
 Cape Breton, but acquired the whole of Acadia. France restored Savoy 
 to the King of Sardinia, the Low Countries to the Empress Maria- 
 Theresa ; and to the Dutch all the places she had taken from them. By 
 a secret article she undertook not to afford an asylum to Charles Edward, 
 who was forthwith expelled by an order of the Government ; and the final 
 result of this sanguinary and unjust war, which had lasted so many years, 
 was an enormous addition to the French debt of twelve hundred millions. 
 Prussia alone gained by this war a considerable increase of territory and 
 influence, and suddenly became one of the great powers of the Continent. 
 Some salutary edicts were issued during the years which immediately 
 followed the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle ; and amongst this 
 
 Royal edicts, 
 
 number may be mentioned the law of Mortmain, the last 1745-1748. 
 sealed by the illustrious DAguesseau, which restrained the clergy from 
 accumulating additional wealth. Argenson, the Minister of War, son of 
 the former Keeper of the Seals of that name, established in 1751 a mili- 
 tary school for five hundred gentlemen without fortune, and Machault, 
 the Comptroller- General, issued the famous edict authorizing the free 
 commerce within the kingdom in grain, which had hitherto been subjected 
 to a thousand shackles injurious to agriculture. Machault, an honest 
 man and an able administrator, was undoubtedly the greatest of the 
 vol. n. L 
 
146 PROJECTS OF MACHATJLT. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 fourteen comptrollers-general who succeeded each other in the reign of 
 Louis XV. It was he who established the tax of five per cent., destined 
 p to form a sinking fund ; strongly impressed by all the evils 
 
 ^ai^sfonof 5 wn i° n resulted from the unequal distribution of the taxes, 
 taxation. an( j ^ 1Q un f a i r privileges enjoyed by the two first orders, he 
 
 proposed to render the tax of five per cent, perpetual, and to substitute 
 it, with a great extension, for the taille and other unfair and burdensome 
 imposts. Machault had already overcome the strenuous resistance 
 opposed to his wise plans by the Parliaments, the pays d'etats, and the 
 clergy, when the King's mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, whose 
 pride Machault had not sufficiently conciliated in an important matter, 
 procured his dismissal. The clergy preserved the privilege it enjoyed 
 of determining what charges -it would bear, and maintained its right of 
 only paying its share of the taxes under the name of " free gifts." 
 
 Louis XV., solely occupied by his scandalous pleasures, had but a slight 
 share in the wise measures of his Council. Madame de Pompadour 
 exercised over him the most complete influence, and it was she who, 
 flattering his shameful caprices, had a great share in forming the infamous 
 seraglio branded by the name of the Parc-aux-Cerfs, the expenses of which 
 absorbed enormous sums. Nevertheless, Louis XV. was extremely 
 scrupulous in respect to the outward observances of religion, and took an 
 active part in the religious quarrels by which France was agitated. They 
 were renewed with scandal by the intolerance of M. de Beaumont, 
 Archbishop of Paris, who pushed his hatred of Jansenism so far as even 
 to order that extreme unction should be refused to dying persons who 
 should be not only not convicted, but even suspected of adhering to the 
 opinions condemned by the bull Unigenitus. Confessional tickets were 
 demanded of the sick, and their orthodoxy was esteemed according to the 
 names of their spiritual directors. The Parliament, supported by public 
 opinion, protested against these measures, and decided that the cure of 
 Saint-Etienne du Mont should be tried for having refused to administer the 
 sacraments. The King's Council, however, annulled this decree, and en- 
 joined respect to the bull as the law of the Church and the State. Violent 
 discussions followed between the Parliament and the Archbishop, and, on 
 the refusal of the sacrament to a nun, the temporalities of the prelate were 
 seized, he himself summoned to appear, and the Court of Peers convoked. 
 The King prohibited the Peers from attending to this summons, ordered 
 
1726-1757.] SUPPRESSION OP COURTS OP REQUESTS. 147 
 
 the Parliament to stay its proceedings, refused to listen to its remonstrances, 
 and exiled it. In the place of the exiled Parliament a Eoyal Court was 
 established, composed of Councillors of State and Masters of Requests ; but 
 the Chatelet refused to acknowledge its authority ; the advocates, attorneys, 
 and registrars refused to obey it, and the course of justice was thus 
 interrupted during four months. 
 
 The King perceived at length that he must effect a compromise, and, 
 on the 23rd August, 1754, amidst the rejoicings on the occasion of the birth 
 of the Duke of Berri, who was the unfortunate Louis XVI., the Parliament, 
 recalled to Paris, re-entered it amidst the acclamations of the Jansenists, 
 the philosophers, and the populace. The Archbishop and many cures 
 thereupon displayed with additional violence their inquisitorial zeal. 
 Being admonished by the Council they gloried in exposing 
 
 i -i i -itai-i'-i'-i' Quarrels between 
 
 themselves to martyrdom, and the Archbishop m his turn the Clergy of 
 
 f Paris and the 
 
 was exiled, with two other prelates and the furious cure of Parliament, 
 
 1 r 1748-1756. 
 
 Saint-Etienne du Mont. The Procureur- General appealed 
 against the bull Unigenitus itself as an abuse, and the King's Council 
 again censured the Parliament. The latter ventured to suppress a concilia- 
 tory brief of Pope Benedict XIV. ; and, its boldness increasing with its 
 irritation, it refused to register the edicts for fresh taxes on the breaking 
 out of a war with England. It then leagued itself with the other Parliaments 
 of the kingdom against the great Council, endeavouring to form of all the 
 superior courts of the French magistracy one single body, which should be 
 divided into different classes, and which should be sufficiently strong to 
 resist the arbitrary measures of the Court. The Chancellor Lamoignon 
 insisted in the King's Council on the danger which might result from 
 these bold measures, and on the 13th December, 1756, in a Bed of 
 Justice, the King had three edicts registered, the principal purport of 
 which was to renew the injunction of respect to the bull, to deprive 
 every magistrate of less than ten years' standing of a deliberative voice, 
 to enforce the registration of edicts after the permitted remonstrances, to 
 prohibit any interruption to the course of justice under the penalties of 
 disobedience, and to suppress the major portion of the Courts of Inquests 
 and Requests, the usual sources of the most violent measures. 
 
 These acts of Royal power, and especially the last, struck the Parliament 
 with dismay. The people, whom the remonstrances against the fresh 
 taxes strongly interested in the resistance of the magistrates to the Court, 
 
 l 2 
 
14S THE KING STABBED. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 encouraged them in their opposition by the most noisy testimonies in its 
 favour. It became enthusiastic in the cause of the Parliament, launched 
 invectives against the prodigalities and scandalous life of the King, and 
 became exasperated to the highest pitch when it found that all the 
 magistrates, with the exception of thirty-one members of the great 
 chamber, had given in their resignation. Such was the state of popular 
 feeling in the capital when, on 5th January, 1757, an unhappy wretch, 
 named Damiens, stabbed the King at the gates of the 
 assassinate the palace of Versailles. The wound was only slight, but it 
 
 King, 1757. . ._ 
 
 was feared that the weapon was poisoned, and the King 
 himself believed that he had reached his last moments. The opinion of 
 the Court attributed this crime to the popular excitement caused by the 
 violent opposition of the Parliament ; and the magistrates trembled at the 
 extent of their peril. Most of those who had sent in their resignations 
 hastened to offer their services at Versailles and to protest their devotion. 
 In the course of the assassin's trial there appeared good reason to suppose 
 that he had no accomplices. The Court of Peers, formed of the peers of 
 the kingdom, and the magistrates who had retained their seats, tried the 
 criminal, and condemned him to the frightful punishment inflicted on 
 regicides. He had his right hand burnt in a fire cf sulphur, his flesh was 
 torn with red-hot pincers, and molten lead was poured on his wounds ; 
 he was then, whilst still living, torn asunder by four horses ; when the 
 fragments of his body were burnt to ashes and their cinders thrown to 
 the winds. 
 
 After this frightful proceeding Louis XV. endeavoured to conciliate 
 the popular feeling ; the greater number of the magistrates were recalled, 
 and the Parliament resumed its habitual functions. 
 
 The Marquise de Pompadour, who was dismissed from the palace whilst 
 
 . the King considered himself in danger, returned in triumph, 
 
 de Poh^oadour an( j t fc e Minister Machault, who had contributed to her 
 
 restored to 7 
 
 favour. temporary disgrace, and Argenson, who had openly exulted 
 
 in it, were sacrificed to her anger. These two Ministers were the most 
 able members of the Council, which, now that it was deprived of all 
 its talent and strength, remained under the direct influence of the 
 Marquise. 
 
 At this period a general war had already broken out in the two worlds. 
 The governments of France and England had long since ceased to ex- 
 
1726-1757.] DTJPLEIX AND CLITE. 149 
 
 change pacific assurances, whilst their agents were disputing in Asia and 
 America for the possession of immense territories. Dupleix 
 
 War in India 
 
 had filled the whole of India with his name, and France, by his between the 
 
 ' 7 \ English and 
 
 talents and courage, had been rendered the ruler over thirty Erench Com- 
 
 ° ^ pames. 
 
 millions of men occupying the Deccan from the river Kristna 
 to Cape Comorin. The English, through the whole extent of that magnifi- 
 cent territory, only possessed at that time the city of Madras with its environs, 
 and a few fortresses, of which the principal was Fort Saint David. Chunda- 
 Sahib, a creature of Dupleix's, was, under the latter's authority, recognised 
 as Nabob of the Carnatic ; a single city, Trichinopoly, alone D Up i e i x an ^ 
 still declared for his rival, Mahomet Ali, who was protected c lve ' 
 by the English, and had taken refuge within its walls. Chunda-Sahib 
 advanced to besiege it with his army ; it resisted ; and from that time 
 declined the fortune of Dupleix and French Empire in India. They 
 fell before the genius of a single man, who had been born to give an 
 empire to England, and whose name was Robert Clive. This extraordi- 
 nary man, after some brilliant preliminary exploits, marched to the relief 
 of Trichinopoly, which was besieged by an army composed of Indian and 
 French troops, and by his skilful tactics drove the besiegers into a 
 position in the island of Seringham, on the river Cauvery, in which they 
 found themselves besieged, and were forced to lay down their arms. The 
 Nabob Chunda-Sahib surrendered himself to a Hindoo chief, and was 
 poniarded; his rival, Mahomet Ali, was presented with his head, and 
 Trichinopoly was saved. 
 
 At this point there is a pause in Clive's brilliant career. Fatigue had 
 seriously affected his health ; and after some other operations, which 
 were equally successful, he returned to England (1753), where he met 
 with the reception he deserved. Very different was the conduct of the 
 Government and the Company towards Dupleix, who, in spite of the 
 severe blow inflicted on French interests in the Carnatic, had courageously 
 pursued his skilful policy, and begun to repair his losses. He took 
 advantage of a struggle which had arisen between Mahomet Ali and the 
 Mahratta and Mysorian chiefs, and with indefatigable activity and bound- 
 less generosity made prodigious efforts. His object was not wealth, but 
 renown ; he desired to obtain for his country power and glory, and with 
 this aim in view he lavished the remains of his fortune. He formed and 
 disciplined a new army ; nominated and supported a new Nabob of the 
 
150 DUPLEIX DISGBACED. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 Carnatic ; again invested Trichinopoly, and besieged Arcot, whilst 
 the most illustrious companion of his labours, the heroic Bussy, continued 
 to fight and to conquer for France. 
 
 If, under these circumstances, the French Government and the India 
 Company had afforded Dupleix some effectual assistance, France might 
 at this day have been reigning from the coast of Malabar to that of 
 Coromandel. But Dupleix was abandoned. The Company, finding its 
 dividends diminished by reason of the troubles in the Carnatic and Clive's 
 victories, no longer received his reports with confidence, and showed but 
 little disposition to support him ; whilst at the same time public opinion, 
 which had been intoxicated by the news of his first successes, suffered an 
 instantaneous reaction when it was informed of his first reverses, lent 
 a ready ear to the eloquent complaints of La Bourdonnais, a prisoner in 
 Disgrace of ^ ne Bastile, and saw in Dupleix, who had contributed to 
 upeix. liig ruin, nothing but a jealous and cruel tyrant. At length 
 
 the feeble Government of Louis XV. began to fear that the rivalry in 
 India between the two Companies might lead to hostilities between the 
 two nations, and that France might thus, in spite of herself, be dragged 
 into a war with England. France wished for peace, and flattered 
 herself that this might be preserved by timid concessions ; but these 
 delusions were dispelled by England. Dupleix disquieted it by his 
 ambition, his genius, and his successes. It feared the marvellous power 
 of this man ; and the terror with which he inspired the English, who saw 
 in him the chief obstacle to their progress in India, induced them to 
 demand of France that he should be sacrificed. An understanding Was 
 come to between the two Governments, in spite of the earnest remon- 
 strances of the French East India Company, that everything in the East 
 should be placed on the same footing on which it stood before the late 
 struggles, and that the acquisitions of territory made on either side since 
 the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle should be exchanged, although the English 
 had acquired scarcely anything, and the conquests of the French, and 
 especially the concessions they had obtained, were very considerable. 
 At this price England led the French Government to believe that peace 
 would be maintained, although it had already fitted out and sent to 
 India a squadron of ships of war. 
 
 The French Government still had time to render Dupleix's position in 
 India tenable ; all that was required for this being that the Government 
 
1726-1757.] FBANCE LOSES HER CONQUESTS. 151 
 
 should permit the Company to support its Governor at its own expense ; 
 in which case nothing would have been definitely compromised or lost. 
 Clive had returned to London, and we have already seen that Dupleix 
 lavished his own resources with incomparable generosity, and made the 
 most tremendous exertions to repair the reverses which had been 
 sustained. Trichinopoly, again besieged, was on the point of falling into 
 his power, and to take it he only awaited a reinforcement of twelve 
 hundred men, enlisted and paid by the Company, which had long been 
 promised. They arrived at length, but accompanied by a Government 
 commissioner named Godeheu, who had been sent to treat with the 
 English, to supersede Dupleix, and to send him to France. Dupleix, who 
 had long foreseen his fall, at once obeyed, and surrendering his authority, 
 quitted for ever the scene of a prosperity which was extraordinary as his 
 disgrace. After having been the possessor of immense treasures, extended 
 his sway over thirty millions of men and vast territories, he returned to 
 France, stripped by his own hands, because he had wished to bestow an 
 empire on his country. He appealed in vain to his glorious services, his 
 rights, and his immense sacrifices, and after a few years died in poverty 
 and neglect, as did his rival and victim, La Bourdonnais. 
 
 Dupleix had scarcely quitted the soil of India when an ignominious 
 treaty, which was afterwards ratified in Europe, was con- 
 cluded at Madras by the commissioners of the two MaS^LoL 
 Governments (October, 1754) ; the principal clauses of which Cf Dupieix, U i754. 
 stipulated : 1st, that neither of the Companies should inter- 
 fere in the internal politics of India ; 2nd, that the agents of neither 
 Company should accept from the native governments either dignities, 
 offices, or honours ; 3rd, that all places and territories occupied by them 
 should be restored to the Grand Mogul, with the exception of those which 
 they had severally possessed before the late war ; 4th, that the two 
 Companies should divide between them the important district of Masuli- 
 patam, and that all their possessions should be placed on a footing of 
 perfect equality — and thus were lost in a few days the fruits of so many 
 remarkable exploits, of the profound policy and of the astonishing efforts 
 of a great man. England inherited in the Indies all the influence of which 
 France deprived herself, and she could now freely and fearlessly lay in 
 the East the foundation of her future empire there. 
 
 The state of things was not more propitious to the maintenance 
 
152 HOSTILITIES IN AMEEICA. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 of peace in North America, where, during the preceding hundred 
 
 and fifty years, England and France had founded con- 
 
 of the English and siderable colonies. On the one hand, the boundaries 
 
 French in North at at o 
 
 America, of Acadia or Nova Scotia, which was ceded to England by the 
 
 1753-1754. . ° J 
 
 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, were ill denned, and on the other, 
 French, who were the possessors of Canada, had ascended the St. Law- 
 rence as far as the lakes Erie and Ontario, and now wished, by means of a 
 ehain of strong forts on the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi, to 
 connect their establishments in Canada with those which they had in 
 Louisiana, whilst the colonists of Virginia or New England demanded 
 as a dependency of their territory the vast district to the south of 
 the St. Lawrence, from the Alleghany or Blue Mountains to the bank s 
 of the Ohio. From these rival pretensions arose perpetual quarrels 
 _. , tT . between the colonists of the two nations ; and already, in 
 1753-1754. 1753, a Virginian major, ordered to dislodge the French from 
 
 Fort Duquesne, on the Ohio, had been surrounded by a superior force in a 
 place named Great Meadows, and had been forced to capitulate. This 
 major was George Washington, and the affair in which he makes his first 
 appearance in history, was to be one of the principal causes of the war 
 which was soon to set the world in flames. 
 
 In the following year a French officer, M. de Jumonville, sent to 
 demand the surrender of a fort in the occupation of the English, perished, 
 together with thirty of the men under his command, and this catastrophe 
 was regarded in France as an odious violation of the rules of war and the 
 law of nations. 
 
 The French colonists, in alliance with the native tribes, speedily exacted 
 a bloody revenge on a body of twelve hundred troops sent by the English 
 Government, under the command of General Braddock, to the assistance 
 of Virginia. Braddock, a rash and haughty man, disdaining the pre- 
 cautions necessary in a war of skirmishes, to which he was unaccustomed, 
 was assailed whilst on his way to attack Fort Duquesne, in the midst of 
 a defile clothed in the wood, by a troop of French and Indians, who, 
 invisible themselves, fired on his own exposed men from 
 
 Defeat and death 
 
 of General Brad- every direction. Braddock himself, and seven hundred of 
 
 dock, 1755. J 
 
 his soldiers, perished in this ambush. 
 The sea was less propitious to the French arms. The squadron of 
 Admiral Boscawen attacked a French division off Newfoundland, and 
 
1726-1757.] THE EALSE PEACE BEOKEtf. 153 
 
 took two vessels ; and shortly afterwards, by an order of the English 
 Admiralty and in accordance with an odious system, the English ships 
 of war fell upon the French mercantile marine, and took three hundred 
 merchant vessels without any previous declaration of war. 
 
 Thus the pacific hopes of the French Court were frustrated in every 
 direction ; and at length the scales fell from the eyes of the King, as he 
 witnessed the disappearance one by one of the illusions to which he had 
 sacrificed in the Indies the prospect of an empire, by recalling Dupleix, 
 and abandoning that great man's undertaking. His Government de- 
 manded an explanation of the English Government of the acts of violence 
 of which the English navy had been guilty by the seizure of our mer- 
 chant ships ; its complaints were treated with contempt ; and war was 
 soon afterwards declared. 
 
154 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAB. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR TO THE DEATH OF 
 
 LOUIS XV. 
 
 The war which broke out in 1756 between England and France speedily- 
 embraced the whole of Europe, and its ravages extended over the entire 
 world. Maria-Theresa, regretting the loss of Silesia, which had been 
 ceded to Prussia, and hoping to recover that province, had formed an 
 alliance with Elizabeth Petrowna, the Empress of Russia, Augustus HI., 
 the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and the King of Sweden, 
 Frederic Adolphus. Louis XV., who had been long in alliance with 
 the King of Prussia against Maria-Theresa, had no feeling of resentment 
 against that Prince, but the support of France was especially desired by 
 the Queen of Hungary, and as she knew how to natter Madame de 
 Pompadour, who was much incensed at some ridicule directed against 
 her by Frederic, she contrived to procure an alliance between the two 
 crowns. They reciprocally undertook to furnish a contingent of twenty- 
 four thousand men to aid in repelling the attacks by which either might 
 be threatened ; and soon all the forces of the kingdom were placed at 
 the disposal of Austria. 
 
 This terrible and deplorable war, known under the name of the Seven 
 The SevenYears' Years' War, commenced with circumstances favourable to 
 War, 1756-1773. France> The Du k e of Richelieu, who had hitherto been 
 only known for his gallantries, at once made the scandal of his vices 
 forgotten by the conquest of Minorca, an island in the Mediterranean, 
 which the English had taken possession of during the war of the succes- 
 sion in Spain. The French Government equipped at Toulon a formid- 
 able expedition, destined apparently for America, but in reality intended 
 for Minorca. At the commencement of April everything was ready; 
 the Duke of Richelieu was entrusted with the command of the expedi- 
 tion, whilst Admiral Galissoniere with twelve ships of war, was to escort the 
 
1756-1774] FLIQHT OF BYNG. 155 
 
 transports, protect the disembarkation, and cover the attack. The English 
 Ministry had received numerous intimations of what was intended without 
 paying any attention to them, and at length, only when it was too late, 
 made hasty and insufficient preparations of defence, and sent Admiral 
 Byng to the assistance of the threatened island. When Byng arrived off 
 Minorca the French were besieging the formidable citadel of St. Philip, 
 which commands Mahon, the capital of the island, and its magnificent 
 port. The garrison numbered about three thousand men, and in the 
 absence of its Governor, his lieutenant, old General Blakeney, in spite of 
 his age and infirmities, made an obstinate defence. The hopes of the 
 besieged lay in Byng's fleet, which was almost equal in number and 
 strength to that of the French ; and on the 20th of May 
 
 Naval victory of 
 
 they fought. The left wing of the English, under Admiral the French be- 
 
 J ° & ° ' fore Minorca. 
 
 West, had at first the advantage, but was badly supported. 
 The French line of battle, which had been temporarily broken, was 
 speedily reformed, and by superior tactics was victorious over all the 
 efforts made by Admiral Byng, who, losing all hope of being able to 
 relieve it, abandoned Minorca to its fate, and sailed with his squadron for 
 Gibraltar.* The French now redoubled their efforts. Richelieu ordered 
 an assault, and, encouraging the besiegers by his own example under a 
 most murderous fire, carried all the outer works, sword in hand, forced 
 the fortress to capitulate, and won Minorca for France. The victory 
 obtained by the French fleet off Mahon subsequently cost 
 
 . . . Taking of Port 
 
 Admiral Byng his life : for his defeat was imputed to trea- Mahon by 
 
 J ° \ r Eichelieu. 
 
 son, and having been tried and found guilty, he was shot. 
 
 Frederic II. did not wait to be attacked by his enemies, but in reply 
 to the new league formed against him, hastened to invade skiifuioperations 
 Saxony, and took Dresden, from which the King of Poland ofFredericI • 
 was forced to fly. He then encountered, at Lowositz, Marshal Brown, 
 at the head of fifty thousand Austrians, and with only half that number 
 of troops compelled him to repass the Eger. He next hastened to 
 Pima, where the Saxon army was blockaded, and compelled it to 
 
 * The French Admiral followed the English fleet as far as the island of Ivica. On 
 the 21st he returned to resume his post at the entrance of the port, to bar the passage 
 to the reliefs which might have entered in his absence. He wrote to Marshal Eiche- 
 lieu: — "I have preferred your glory to my own, and the principal object of our expe- 
 dition to any honour I might myself have acquired by the pursuit of a few of the 
 enemy's vessels, which appear to be in a very distressed condition." 
 
156 PEENCH TICTOEIES. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 capitulate. Besides the twenty-four thousand men promised to Austria, 
 and commanded by the Prince of Soubise, sixty thousand French troops 
 entered Germany under Marshal d'Estrees, and threatened the Electorate 
 of Hanover, a possession of the King of England. D'Estrees vanquished 
 Cumberland at Hastemberg, at the moment when a Court intrigue re- 
 placed him by Marshal Kichelieu, who followed his plans for the cam- 
 paign, drove the Hanoverians into a corner near Stade on the Elbe, and 
 forced Cumberland to sign the capitulation of Closterseven 
 Closterseven, (1757) ; which sent one portion of his army to its homes, 
 
 1757 
 
 condemned another portion to inaction, and placed the 
 Electorate of Hanover at the mercy of France. 
 
 Frederic, victorious over Prince Charles of Lorraine at the sanguinary 
 battle of Prague, was afterwards himself vanquished by Marshal Daun 
 at Chotzemitz, and lost twenty-five thousand men, when he learned the 
 successive defeats of his generals and the disastrous capitulation of 
 Closterseven. A check for Frederic, however, was only the prelude 
 to a victory ; he multiplied his troops, so to speak, by carrying them with 
 the utmost rapidity from one portion of his states to another ; and when 
 vanquished and pursued, he always showed himself in force where least 
 expected. This memorable war put the crowning touch to his glory : he 
 had to contend with, simultaneously and alone, the French, Austrians, 
 and Eussians, commanded by able generals ; he saw armies twice as 
 strong as his own invade his states ; he lost his capital, and was himself 
 frequently surrounded ; but, displaying in the midst of all his perils 
 the most astonishing skill, he issued victorious from every trial, and 
 found his power only the more firmly established after a struggle 
 in which, according to all human foresight, it was destined to be 
 destroyed. 
 
 Overwhelmed by the reverses of his generals in this terrible campaign 
 of 1757, and still more by the capitulation of the English at Closterseven, 
 surrounded by several armies in Saxony, and held in check by Marshal 
 Daun, Frederic appeared to be without any resource, and for a moment 
 believed himself lost, but his genius still contrived to win fortune to his 
 side. He escaped the Marshal with admirable skill, and boldly went to 
 reconnoitre the French army commanded by Soubise, and that of the 
 Imperialists, which, united, were advancing to surround him. By a 
 series of able manoeuvres before them he induced them to believe that 
 
1756-1774.] THE BATTLE OE LISSA. 157 
 
 he was anxious to avoid them, and at length encamped in an advantageous 
 position at Rosbach. Soubise endeavoured to surprise him and 
 
 , . i t i i • n Victory of 
 
 strove to turn his camp ; but all his movements were fore- Frederic at 
 
 T-i-i-i -ii-r. • i it Eosbach, 1757. 
 
 seen. Frederic changed his front without the knowledge 
 of the enemy, whom he allowed to approach his columns, and when the 
 French and Imperialists arrived within reach of his cannon, Fredericks 
 tents dropped to the ground, and the Prussian army appeared between 
 two hills, from which volleyed a murderous fire. The assailants were 
 struck with stupor, and the Imperial troops fled without fighting. Their 
 example was followed by the French infantry, which retired in disorder 
 before six Prussian battalions, and left behind them three thousand dead 
 and seven thousand prisoners. The Marquis de Castries, at the head of 
 the cavalry and two Swiss regiments, alone did his duty in this battle, 
 which is almost unexampled in the military annals of France. 
 
 Frederic took no repose after this unhoped-for victory, but flying into 
 Silesia, which was almost lost, won, against Prince Charles and Daun, the 
 bloody battle of Lissa, near Breslau. The English then broke the capitu- 
 lation of Closterseven, and the Hanoverian army reappeared under 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick, its new commander, who asserted that he had 
 nothing to do with this military convention. Such were on the Continent 
 the principal results of this first campaign, during which the master of a 
 kingdom which had been scarcely half a century in existence, overcame 
 almost unaided the power of France and Austria, and deserved the 
 surname of Great by vanquishing the armies of the two most formidable 
 powers on the Continent. 
 
 The Count of Clermont lost in the following year the battle of 
 Crevelt, against Ferdinand of Brunswick, and was super- Battle of Crevelt 
 seded by the Marquis de Contades : Soubise, and, under him, 58 ' 
 the Duke de Broglie, partly repaired, however, at Sondershausen and at 
 Lutzelberg, the disasters of this bloody battle, and the French re-entered 
 Hanover; but in 1759, Brunswick, vanquished by the Duke de Broglie 
 at Berghen, vanquished in his turn the Marshal de Contades at Minden in 
 Westphalia. Frederic then fought with varied success against the Aus- 
 trians and Russians; and the most murderous battle of this campaign 
 was that of Zorndorf, where thirty-three thousand men, of whom twenty- 
 two thousand were Russians and eleven thousand Prussians, remained on 
 the field of battle. 
 
158 EEFORMS IN THE ADMINISTRATION. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, the Minister of George II., was at this 
 time at the head of the English Cabinet. He directed his 
 
 IjOSSPS of *Fl*flTlCG 
 
 in America and attention to the colonies, and gave fresh vigour to maritime 
 
 Asia, 1757-1759. . . . -•.**•■»» 
 
 operations. Acadia, in spite of the efforts of the Marquis 
 de Montcalm, remained in the power of the English ; Quebec was taken 
 after a battle fought under its walls, in which perished the two comman- 
 ders-in-chief, Wolfe and Montcalm, and in 1760 the English snatched from 
 the grasp of France the whole of Canada. Our arms had not been 
 more fortunate in Africa, where we lost Senegal ; or in Asia, where 
 the English became masters in 1757 of the French establishment of 
 Chandernagore on the Ganges. Count de Lally, who was of Irish origin, 
 but of a violent and despotic character, was entrusted by Louis XV. 
 with the duty of avenging our defeats in the East. His first exploit 
 was to seize Fort Saint David, on the coast of Coromandel, and to raze 
 its defences ; but differences which arose between him and the commander 
 of the naval squadron, Count d'Ache, were fatal to the interests of 
 France. 
 
 England was at this time threatened by the descent upon her coasts of 
 two French armies, under Chevert and the Duke d'Aiguillon, which 
 NaTai disasters, were to be protected by two French squadrons. The first of 
 these, however, which was commanded by M. de la Clue, was destroyed 
 by Admiral Boscawen off Cape Saint Vincent, whilst two months later 
 the second, under Marshal de Conflans, underwent the same fate within 
 sight of the coast of Brittany. A division of this fleet entered the river 
 Vilaine and was obliged to remain there. This defeat was regarded as 
 ignominious, and the defeat was disgracefully known as the Battle of M, 
 de Conflans. 
 
 The Duke de Choiseul, a friend of men of letters and philosophers, 
 whom he protected, supported by Madame de Pompadour,, 
 
 Ministry of the ._ -,,-,,/, Mn . -»«■•• r -n 
 
 Duke de Choi- had succeeded the Abbe de Bernis as Minister tor 1 oreign 
 
 seul. 
 
 Affairs; the general direction of affairs being under M. 
 de Silhouette, who commenced his duties by some useful measures, by one 
 of which he reduced the enormous profits of the Farmers General to one 
 half; creating seventy-two thousand shares of a thousand livres each, 
 amongst which he divided the other half. The whole of them were taken 
 up immediately, and within four-and-twenty hours the Comptroller- 
 General had obtained seventy-two millions. Overwhelmed with praises 
 
1756-1774.] LALLT EXECUTED. 159 
 
 on this occasion by every mouth, he was equally decried when, in 1759, 
 his reforms attacked the rights of the upper classes. On the 22nd Sep- 
 tember he had registered at a Bed of Justice an edict of Territorial Sub- 
 vention, which subjected to taxation without exception all the classes 
 which had previously been exempt from it. The outcry was general, and 
 the Magistracy was the first to exclaim against the wise measure with so 
 much violence that it was never carried out. M. de Silhouette then 
 suspended a portion of the payments due from the Treasury, and invited 
 the citizens to take their silver plate to the Mint to be coined. England, 
 informed of this penury, believed that France was without resources, and 
 refused to treat with her. 
 
 The campaign of 1760 was glorious in Germany for Marshal Broglie, 
 who vanquished the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick at Campateno f 
 Corbach, near Cassel, for the capture of which he was pre- 176 °* 
 paring. One of the corps of his army, commanded by the Marquis de 
 Castries, took up its position near to Rhumberg, on the river bank, and being 
 attacked by the Prince, gained a brilliant victory which delivered WeseL 
 A sublime instance of self-devotion immortalized this battle. The Cheva- 
 lier d'Assas, a captain in the regiment Auvergne, having been sent out 
 during the night to reconnoitre, was surprised by the Hanoverians within 
 ear-shot of the French camp, and twenty bayonets directed against his breast 
 To speak he knew was to die, but " Help, Auvergne!" he cried; "it is 
 the enemy !" He fell, pierced through and through by the bayonets of the 
 enemy, but the French camp was not surprised. Frederic now escaped 
 in Saxony from the numerous armies which surrounded him, and van- 
 quishing successively Laudhon at Lignitz, and Daun at Torgau, retook 
 Silesia. 
 
 Pondicherry, which numbered eighty thousand inhabitants, whom the 
 governor, Lally, had alienated by his pride and despotism, Taking of Pondi- 
 fell in the course of this year into the hands of the English. c erry * 
 Count d'Ache, who was called upon to relieve this place, did not appear, 
 and seven hundred soldiers were all that remained for its defence. The 
 town was taken, and its fortifications razed; and Lally, returning to 
 France, was accused of treason, and paid for his defeat with his life. The 
 Parliament condemned him, and he was even insulted bv 
 
 J Trial and execu- 
 
 being conveyed to the scaffold gagged. He left behind him *j°j °L?o nera2 
 a son who was a worthy avenger of his memory. 
 
160 DUKE DE BROGLIE DISGRACED. [Book IV. CHAP. I1T. 
 
 Choiseul, who became Minister of War after the death of Marshal 
 Belle Isle, offered to make peace with George III., who now suc- 
 ceeded George II. on the English throne. Lord Bute, who was 
 Prime Minister, was willing to accede to his wishes, but Pitt opposed 
 his views, and his counsels prevailed. The Duke de Choiseul, after 
 having in vain attempted to reanimate the national enthusiasm, 
 endeavoured to secure the support of Spain, where Charles III. 
 now reigned; and on the 16th of August, 1761, his exertions were 
 crowned by the signature of the celebrated Family Treaty. This treaty, 
 which was arranged in secret, stipulated that the various branches of 
 the House of Bourbon should reciprocally assist each other, and declared 
 that the enemies of any one branch should be regarded as the enemies of 
 the others. France had lost in the course of the last war thirty-seven 
 ships of the line, and fifty-six frigates, and the assistance of the Spanish 
 fleet was but a feeble balance to a loss so enormous. 
 
 On the 16th of July, some days before the signature of the Family 
 Treaty, Marshals de Broglie and Soubise, having effected a junction, 
 threatened the Prince of Brunswick, whose army they encountered at 
 Filingshausen, near the Lippe, when the want of concert between these 
 two generals deprived them of the victory. They then had a serious 
 quarrel, and the Prince's mistress constituted herself the judge between 
 them. Those who most sedulously courted Madame de Pompadour were, 
 in her eyes, the best generals ; and we may judge by this example how 
 far the deplorable weakness of Louis XV. weakened the power of his 
 throne. Soubise paid great court to the favourite, and gained the day. 
 The vanquished general of Rosbach triumphed in the Royal boudoir 
 
 over the victor of Berghen ; and the Duke de Broglie, who 
 the^Duke de was dear to France for his talents and his successes, was 
 
 banished and superseded by old Marshal d'Estrees. 
 In the meantime, pressed close by the Imperial army and the Russians, 
 Frederic was driven to bay, when the death of the Empress Petrowna, 
 which took place on the 2nd of January, 1762, released him from his 
 perilous position. Elizabeth left her throne to Peter III., her nephew, 
 who was a passionate admirer of the King of Prussia, and of whom he 
 declared himself the friend and protector ; but yielding unreservedly to 
 his passion for innovations he wounded the prejudices of his people, and 
 was dethroned, after a reign of six months, by his own wife, Catherine of 
 
1756-1774.] ABOLITION OF THE JESUITS. 161 
 
 Anhalt-Zerbst, who assumed the crown by the name of Catharine II., 
 and some days afterwards the unfortunate Peter III. was assassinated. The 
 Empress declared herself neutral ; and the results of the campaign of 1762, 
 the last of this bloody war, left each party in the same state as before. 
 England, France, Spain, and Portugal then signed preliminary conven- 
 tions, which were converted into a definitive peace on the 10th of 
 February, 1763, by the Treaty of Paris, which was disgraceful to 
 France. This power ceded to England a portion of Louisiana,* Canada 
 and its dependencies, the island of Cape Breton, and all the other 
 islands in the Gulf, and the river St. Lawrence. England 
 
 Peace of Paris. 
 
 retained Senegal, in Africa : and in the East Indies, each Surrender of 
 
 077 7 nearly all the 
 
 nation resumed possession of the territories they had held French Colonic 
 
 1 J in America, 1763. 
 
 previous to the commencement of the war, on condition that 
 France should not send troops there. The island of Minorca and Port St. 
 Philip were restored to England, and France gave up to King George his 
 Electorate of Hanover. The English who, a century before, had only pos- 
 sessed, beyond the British Isles, the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, now 
 found themselves masters of a multitude of islands and strong naval 
 stations in every sea ; whilst the French navy was almost annihilated, and 
 the empire of the ocean was given over to England. Peace was at the 
 same time signed between the Empress Maria-Theresa, the Elector of 
 Saxony, and the King of Prussia ; and after seven sanguinary campaigns the 
 three powers stood on the same footing as before the war. Frederic re- 
 tained Silesia and Glatz, by promising his support to the son of Maria- 
 Theresa, the Archduke Joseph, who was selected as King of the Romans, 
 and succeeded to the Empire on the 18th of August, 1765. 
 
 The last years of this war were signalized by the abolition of the Order 
 of the Jesuits in the kingdom of France. The philosophers 
 
 . t-, ,. , . . , , f. Abolition of the 
 
 and the Parliaments were their enemies, and sought ior an Order of Jesuits 
 
 in France, 1764. 
 
 opportunity of striking them a mortal blow, which they found 
 in the failure of the Jesuit Lavalette for many millions. The Society, for- 
 mally summoned to be answerable for him, refused to do so ; whereupon the 
 Procureur- General, and especially La Chalotais, the Procureur- General of 
 the Parliament of Brittany, launched against the members of the Order an 
 immense number of suits. The Jesuits defended themselves but feebly ; 
 
 * The remainder of Louisiana was ceded by France to Spain, to recompense her for 
 3 cession of Florida to England. 
 VOL. II. > M 
 
162 DEATH OF MADAME DE POMPADOUB. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 numerous sequestrations were made, and their constitution, examined in 
 detail, was vehemently attacked at every point. An assembly of Bishops, 
 convoked by the King's command, pronounced in favour of the maintenance 
 of this Order, which was secularized by the Parliaments in 1762. The Duke 
 de Choiseul vigorously supported the magistracy, and the King sacrificed 
 the Jesuits to his repose. Their Order was suppressed throughout the 
 kingdom by an edict of 1764, which gave them permission to reside * in 
 France as simple private persons. All the Bourbon Courts declared them- 
 selves at the same time against this famous society ; the Jesuits were suc- 
 cessively driven from Portugal, Spain, Naples, and Parma; and 
 
 Total destruction , , , -. . „ ,, ~ , ,, ,. . - 
 
 of the Order of the total suppression oi the Order was earnestly solicited at 
 Rome by the Duke de Choiseul, who, on this condition, pro- 
 mised the restoration to the Holy See of the Venetian province. Refused 
 by Clement XIII., this request was complied with by the celebrated Ganga- 
 nelli, who was Pope by the name of Clement XIV., and who thus 
 destroyed the firmest support of the rights of the Court of Rome. Two 
 sovereigns who were not Catholics, Frederic II. in Prussia, and Catharine 
 in Russia, were the only ones who gave to the Jesuits an asylum and 
 protection in their states. 
 
 Madame de Pompadour, who was the cause of the unfortunate part 
 which France bore in the Seven Years' War, died in the year following 
 the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris, and was soon after succeeded as 
 mistress to Louis XV. by a woman of low origin, whom an infamous 
 alliance decorated with the name of the Countess du Barri, and whom 
 the King introduced with the greatest effrontery into his Court and the 
 bosom of his family. In the course of the next four years he lost the 
 Dauphin, the Dauphiness, his father-in-law, Stanislaus-Leczinski, who 
 perished by an accident at an advanced age; and the Queen, Maria 
 Leczinski, who only survived her father two years. 
 
 By the death of Stanislaus-Leczinski, Lorraine had become incorporated 
 
 with France, and Corsica was also added to the French 
 
 Lorraine with Crown two years later. Gafforio, who had driven the 
 
 France, 1766. . . 
 
 Genoese from the isle, died by assassination in 17 bo. The 
 intrepid Pascal Paoli succeeded him as the head of the party of Inde- 
 pendence. The French, who had descended upon Corsica in 1756 under 
 pretext of foiling the designs of England upon this island, obtained the 
 
1756-1774.] DISSENSIONS OF THE COURT AND PARLIAMENT. 163 
 
 delivery into their hands of the maritime places as protectors. In 1768 
 Genoa surrendered all its rights over Corsica to France, and 
 
 Acquisition of 
 
 M. de Chauvelin immediately proclaimed Louis XV. King Corsica by 
 
 • r ° France, 1768. 
 
 there. The indignant inhabitants, aroused by the voice of 
 Paoli, immediately ran to arms ; but their courage was powerless against 
 a French army commanded by the Count de Vaux. Paoli was exiled, and 
 Corsica submitted ; but it obtained its elevation into a pays d'etat, and 
 preserved the right to regulate its own taxes. 
 
 The Seven Years' War added thirty-four millions of annual interest to 
 the national debt. In each year the expenses exceeded the receipts by 
 thirty-eight millions, and the taxes which had enormously increased 
 during the war were not lessened at the peace. The Parlia- 
 ment of Paris endeavoured to procure some relief to the SeCcrart iSd* 11 
 public burdens, that of Besancon refused to register the vjQ^>ji m6uis " 
 Eoyal edicts; and many of the opposing magistrates 
 were exiled. Speedily, however, all the Parliaments took up the cause 
 of Besancon, and the Parliament of Paris energetically maintained, 
 to the great displeasure of the Court, that the whole magistracy of the 
 kingdom formed but a single body, divided into various classes. Louis XV., 
 at a Royal sitting held in 1766, denied to the Parliaments that association 
 to which they made pretensions, and laid down the following maxims : — 
 " We hold our crown directly from the hands of God ; and the King pos- 
 sesses solely, and without dependence on any other authority, the legisla- 
 tive power." It will be seen from these facts, that the King wished to 
 establish an absolute monarchy, and that the great judicial bodies, although 
 possessed with ideas more or less vague as to the object of their efforts, 
 were endeavouring to form a parliamentary monarchy which should hold 
 the King and nation in subjection. 
 
 Disturbances broke out in various provinces, and especially in Brit- 
 tany, where the Duke d'Aiguillon, governor of the province, rendered 
 himself odious by his stern and despotic administration. The Parliament 
 of Eennes took cognizance of the complaints which were brought against 
 him, and as they could obtain no satisfaction from the Court, the greater 
 number of the members gave in their resignation. The procureur-general, 
 La Chalotais, who had vehemently denounced the governor, was arrested 
 and taken with his son and three councillors to the citadel of St. Malo. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 CHANCELLOESHIP OF MATJPEOT7. [BoOZ IV. Chap. 1TI. 
 
 A commission was appointed to try the prisoners, who were accused of 
 having held illegal assemblies, spread abroad defamatory libels against the 
 Government, and carried their audacity so far as even to send to the 
 King himself anonymous letters filled with insults. It was urged upon 
 Louis XV. that the Bretons were a turbulent and rebellious race, and 
 that it was necessary to make an example of them. In the meantime the 
 Parliament of Paris took energetic measures in favour of the accused, 
 and the Duke de Choiseul, who declared himself the protector of the 
 magistrates, hastened to suspend the powers of the commission of St. 
 Malo, and to have the matter brought before the regular judges. The 
 accused protested against being tried by the Parliament of Brittany, on 
 the pretext that it was not sufficiently numerous, and were transferred to 
 the Bastile. At length, in December, 1766, all prosecution of them was 
 stopped, and they were declared innocent, but were nevertheless exiled. 
 The Parliament exclaimed against this arbitrary punishment, which was 
 a triumph for the Duke d'Aiguillon, who now acted with redoubled 
 violence. He now even had the boldness to present for acceptance by 
 the States of Brittany a regulation which would have deprived them of 
 the right of fixing and levying their own taxes. This produced a general 
 outcry, and an address presented to the King produced the recal of the 
 Duke d'Aiguillon, and the re-establishment of the Parliament of Brittany 
 in its integrity, with the exception of Chalotais, who was not restored to 
 his office. 
 
 The first act of the restored Parliament was to commence a prosecu- 
 Cbaracter and ^ on °^ tne Duke d'Aiguillon, whom it accused of abuse of 
 chanc C eUo°r fthe power and of enormous crimes. The King had recently 
 Maupeou. raised to the dignity of Chancellor, Maupeou, the chief 
 
 president of the Parliament of Paris. This man, at once bold and supple, 
 was capable of adopting hazardous resolutions, and of securing their suc- 
 cess by the most immovable firmness, united to great powers of intrigue. 
 After having displayed some character in an exile from his assembly, he soon 
 preferred the road to fortune to every other, and drew upon himself the 
 contempt of the magistrates, who regarded him as sold to the Court. 
 Devoured at once by ambition and a desire for vengeance, he was resolved 
 to humiliate the magistrates, and circumstances favoured his design. 
 The King, in accordance with his suggestions, ordered that the Duke 
 d'Aiguillon should be tried by the Court of Peers, and that the sittings at 
 
1756-1774] DISGEACE OF BE CHOISEUL. 165 
 
 which he wished to be present should take place at Versailles. He then 
 converted the Court of Peers into a Bed of Justice, and justifying the 
 Duke d'Aiguillon, ordered that the whole process against him should be 
 annulled. The Parliament then issued a decree which attacked the Duke's 
 honour. The King annulled it ; had the whole process struck off the rolls ; 
 and at another Bed of Justice, held on the 7th of December, prohibited 
 the Parliament to make use of the name of class when speaking of the 
 other bodies of the magistracy ; to suspend all its proceedings, and to 
 give in its resignation. The remonstrances with reference to this rigo- 
 rous edict were treated with contempt, and the Parliament ceased to 
 exercise its functions. A Court revolution deprived it also of its most 
 powerful protector. The Duke de Choiseul had never paid any court to 
 the favourite, Madame du Barri, and she, irritated at his manifest con- 
 tempt, did all she could to bring him into discredit with the King, espe- 
 cially accusing him of having endeavoured to lead France into a war with 
 England in favour of the American colonies, then disposed to rebel. 
 The King, enamoured of a scandalous ease, yielded to the demands of the 
 favourite, and the Duke de Choiseul, together with his relative, M. de 
 Praslin, was disgraced and banished to his estate at Chanteloup. It was 
 then, for the first time since the Fronde, that a portion of the Court 
 and the highest classes of society, displayed a formidable D . . M 
 
 spirit of opposition to the Government. All that was most de Choiaeni,i77i. 
 distinguished in France did itself honour by paying court to the Duke 
 de Choiseul in his retreat, and by giving an air of triumph to his 
 disgrace. The dismissal of the Duke de Choiseul was followed by the 
 appointment of the Duke d'Aiguillon to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 
 and shortly afterwards of the Abbe Terray as Comptroller- General of the 
 Finances. These two men formed, together with the Chancellor Maupeou, 
 a triumvirate celebrated for the revolution which it effected in the judi- 
 cial order. 
 
 On the 19th January, 1771, each of the members of the Parliament 
 were awaked by two musketeers, who presented to him an order to resume 
 his functions and to sign an agreement or refusal to do so by a simple 
 " Yes" or " No." The greater number of them refused, and the small number 
 who, either from fear or astonishment, gave in their consent, retracted on 
 the following day. On the following day they received an intimation 
 that their offices were confiscated ; and each was exiled by a lettre de 
 
166 ABOLITION OF THE OLD PABLIAMENTS. [BOOK TV. CHAP. III. 
 
 cachet to some different place. Maupeou nominated in their place Coun- 
 cillors of State and Masters of Requests, whom he himself installed in the 
 midst of an irritated crowd. The Chancellor then employed himself in 
 the formation of an assembly which had less resemblance to a judicial 
 body, composed of the members of the great council, and men taken 
 from the various bodies in different classes, who henceforth composed the 
 Parliament. Maupeou assembled them on the 13th April, 1771, at a Bed 
 of Justice, which had been secretly prepared, and there registered two 
 edicts which abolished the old Parliament and established the new. The 
 public wrath burst forth against a minister who tore from France, in the 
 persons of her independent magistrates, the last guarantees against 
 despotic power. Lambert, the senior of the great council, 
 
 Destruction of • . ... n i i • r\ 
 
 the ancient Par- distinguished himself amongst all by his courage. Con- 
 
 liaments, 1771. . . 
 
 strained by a lettre de cachet to take his seat in the new 
 Parliament, he did so, but said — " I can perform here no act of magistracy ; 
 I abandon to the King my fortune, my liberty, and my life ; but I will 
 keep my conscience pure, and will not appear again in this place." On the 
 same evening he was exiled. All the princes of the blood, with a single 
 exception, and thirteen peers of the kingdom, lodged a protest against acts 
 in which they saw the overthrow of the laws of the State. The 
 provincial Parliaments made courageous remonstrances ; and a large 
 number of bailliages who had no other means of subsistence but what they 
 derived from their offices, refused obedience to those who were substi- 
 tuted for the former magistrates. When the Council of State sat in the 
 Parliament hall, the advocates ceased to appear at the bar, and the 
 greater number of the suitors refused to plead. The most distinguished 
 remonstrances were made by the Court of Aids, and that assembly was 
 dissolved. The Chatelet of Paris was reorganized ; the provincial Par- 
 liaments and the noblesse,^and especially those of Normandy and Brittany, 
 raised complaints to which Maupeou replied by lettres de cachet, which 
 sent the murmurers either into exile or to the Bastile. Then there 
 arose a loud demand for the convocation of the States- General. Maupeou, 
 however, overcame all resistance. The old magistrates had alienated the 
 philosophers by many judgments which bore the stamp of barbarity and 
 fanaticism, such as those upon Calas and the Chevalier de Barre. 
 Maupeou took care to remind the public of these judgments, and endea- 
 voured to allay the popular indignation by promising the reduction of the 
 
1756-1774. J terray' s maladministration. 167 
 
 immense authority of the Parliament of Paris, the gratuitous administra- 
 tion of justice, the abolition of the sale of offices, and the revisal of the 
 criminal laws. He thus secured the execution of his vast projects, and 
 induced many of the members of the provincial Parliaments to register 
 edicts which suppressed them, the prices they had paid for their offices being 
 repaid, and to register others which reclothed them with their functions, 
 with wages and appointments. At the close of 1771, in the space of less 
 than a year, the new judicial arrangements were in force over the whole 
 surface of the kingdom, and Maupeou boasted that he had withrawn the 
 Crown from the registrar's office. 
 
 Whilst Maupeou thus violently altered the French magisterial system, 
 Abbe Terray dealt with the finances in a rnanner no less arbitrary and 
 despotic. He formed no financial system, but endeavoured only to avoid 
 making payments and to procure resources, and to effect „. M 
 
 these objects he had recourse only to rapacity and bad o^^^g 011 
 faith. No retrenchment was made in the luxuries of the Terra y- 
 Court, and Louis XV. never ceased to exhaust the country by his prodiga- 
 lities. The only attempt at reform consisted in an arbitrary reduction of 
 the dividends payable by the State, and was in fact a shameful act of 
 bankruptcy. The taxes were at the sanfe time raised to an exorbitant 
 amount, and Terray destroyed the most glorious achievement of Marchault 
 — the law which authorized the free circulation of corn throughout the 
 kingdom, in order that he might engage in infamous speculations, the 
 success of which was secured by the fears and wretchedness of the 
 people.* 
 
 The Duke d'Aiguillon, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the third member 
 of this triumvirate, at the same time allowed three Powers to 
 make a serious attack on the rights of peoples and the balance 
 of power in Europe. The last Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, died 
 in 1763. The dissensions amongst the Poles gave to Catharine II. and 
 the King of Prussia a great influence over the following election. The 
 religious quarrels amongst the Catholics and the Nonconformists were 
 added to the political discords to hasten the ruin of this unfortunate 
 country, and Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, one of the Empress's old 
 
 * Terray prohibited the exportation of corn from a certain province, and when its 
 price had fallen there, he purchased it and sold it in some other province which he had 
 famished by exciting the exportation of corn from it to the utmost. 
 
168 YICES Or LOUIS' COITKT. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 favourites, was elected King through the influence of Eussian bayonets. 
 The two foreign sovereigns had concerted to remove all the most formida- 
 ble and independent competitors, and some senators, opposed to Catharine's 
 views, were seized and transported to Siberia. Indignant at this violence, 
 _ , , , . e a Polish party seized Cracow and Bar : and in this latter city 
 
 Confederation of r J ' J 
 
 Bar, 176S. a confederacy was formed in 1768 for the purpose of deli- 
 
 vering the country from its foreign yoke. The confederates implored 
 the assistance of France, which only sent them an insignificant contingent 
 of fifteen hundred men, commanded by Dumouriez, who subsequently 
 became so famous. At the same time, at the instigation of the French 
 ambassador, Count de Vergennes, the Ottoman Porte entered upon an 
 unfortunate war with Russia, uie results of which were the destruction 
 of the Turkish fleet, the capture of Bender, and the conquest of the 
 -,.,,... , Crimea by the Russian arms. Strong in this success, in 
 
 First division of J ° ' 
 
 Poland, 1772. her amity with Frederic II. and Maria-Theresa, and the 
 supine indolence of Louis XV., Catharine II. signed in 1772, with the 
 Courts of Prussia and Vienna, a treaty for the dismemberment of Poland. 
 This preliminary division deprived the country of a third of its territory, 
 and led to other treaties which effaced Poland from the number of 
 independent nations. In the same year Gustavus III. effected in Sweden 
 a revolution which substituted the monarch's will for the sovereign 
 authority of the States. 
 
 Louis XV., utterly apathetic in the midst of these serious events, 
 continued to present to the world an example of shameful debauchery, and 
 an even more disgraceful example of a complete indifference to scandal. 
 Nevertheless, when he heard of the partition of Poland he was in- 
 dignant at being considered as of no account in Europe. " Ah !" he 
 said, " if Choiseul had been here things would have been different !" and 
 then he went to forget his anger and his shame in fresh and unexampled 
 orgies. He had Madame du Barri publicly presented at Court, and gave 
 her a distinguished place at the table at which were present, for the first 
 time after their marriage, his grandson, the Dauphin, and his young 
 Death of Louis spouse, Marie- Antoinette of Austria. In the composition 
 XV., 1774. o £ j£ s c h aracter a sordid avarice was joined to depraved 
 
 tastes, and he formed a private treasury which he increased by the most 
 culpable means. At length, worn out by ennui, weary of pleasure, and 
 disgusted with all things, he died of the small-pox in the sixty-fourth year 
 
1756-1774.] KISE OF THE ATHEISTIC SCHOOL. 169 
 
 of his life, and after a reign of fifty-nine years, which is one of the most 
 deplorable recorded in history. 
 
 The old order of things crumbled in every direction around a throne 
 disgraced by scandals which were unredeemed by any gleam of either 
 virtue or glory. The great bodies which had so long formed the strength 
 and contributed to the splendour of the monarchy faded General reflec 
 away and perished. The clergy aroused against them- 
 selves the murmurs of all enlightened persons and the indignation of 
 the middle class, by their violence towards the Jansenists, their cruel 
 proceedings on the subject of the bull Unigenitus, and the vices of many 
 of their number. The high nobility lost day by day more and more 
 of its prestige in the eyes of the nation, through its state of servitude 
 in a Court which was disgraced in public opinion, whilst the shameful 
 traffic which was carried on in patents of nobility contributed to deprive 
 the provincial noblesse of all estimation. Finally, the old Parliaments, 
 which had so long and so happily defended the rights of the Crown, and 
 which had formerly strengthened the throne when even they for a time 
 opposed the Government, had been destroyed by the Eoyal authority. 
 The finances of the kingdom were in a deplorable state, and the treasury 
 showed a deficit of forty millions. The wretchedness of the people, 
 overwhelmed with taxes and vexatious burdens, was excessive ; many 
 of the inhabitants of the country districts abandoned agriculture for 
 contraband trade ; and France seemed, in short, to have sunk back into 
 that state of spoliation and ruin from which it had been rescued by 
 Henry IV. and his ministers. 
 
 In the midst of so many calamities and signs of dissolution there grew 
 up a spirit of inquiry and analysis, which was not unattended with danger. 
 Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire, the leaders of a 
 powerful school, attacked with the magic strength of genius the excesses 
 of arbitrary power, and summoned the people of France to the enjoy- 
 ment of their political rights. A crowd of distinguished men suddenly 
 arose from the ranks of the people and fought under the same flag. 
 D'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, Condillac, Mably, and many others, 
 overthrew the existing order of things. The greater number, following 
 the example of Voltaire, too often confounded the good with the evil in 
 their violent attacks, and thus, after having denounced the abuse of the 
 clerical power, endeavoured to shake Christianity to its deepest foundations. 
 
170 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 Criticism was in the ascendant at this period, and was found in the 
 most widely different species of literature, in the works of the poets as in 
 those of the philosophers, and even in the best theatrical pieces, amongst 
 which those by Voltaire were the most prominent. In the arts we can 
 reckon at this time but few illustrious names; amongst the most cele- 
 brated are the composers Gretry and Monsigny ; the painters, Watteau, 
 Boucher, and Joseph Vernet, and the architect Soufflot, who erected the 
 Hotel-Dieu and the Pantheon. But this age was fruitful in scientific dis- 
 coveries ; Buffon and Saussure immortalized themselves by their studies 
 in natural science ; the first being as great as a writer as he was great as 
 a naturalist. Lavoisier created a new system of chemistry ; and Hatiy 
 propounded the true theory of the composition of crystals. Many 
 learned men and philosophers 'undertook to collect all human knowledge 
 into one vast publication, to which they gave the name of " Encyclopaedia ;" 
 and Diderot and the mathematician D'Alembert took the largest share 
 in the immense undertaking, which was conceived in a spirit of hostility 
 for the old faith. Since several ages France had witnessed no more 
 deplorable reign than that of Louis XV., and yet the vices of its Govern- 
 ment had never been more clearly brought into view. A social and 
 political revolution was imminent, and was announced by several infallible 
 foreshadowings. 
 
1774-1789.] accession or louis xyi. 171 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PROM THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS XVI. TO THE THRONE TO THE CONVOCATION 
 
 OF THE STATES-GENERAL. 
 
 1774-1789. 
 
 Louis XVI. ascended the throne on the 11th of May, 1774, at the age of 
 twenty. His morals were pure, his intentions upright and generous ; but 
 to complete inexperience he added a great want of decision of character ; 
 and, unfortunately, no Prince had more need of strength of will and per- 
 severance. He found on his accession the finances in disorder, the 
 Government regarded with contempt, public opinion excited and irritated, 
 and the privileged bodies leagued together against every species of reform. 
 The King still further increased the difficulties of his position by choosing 
 as his mentor old Maurepas, who had been the object in the preceding 
 reign of the hatred of Madame de Pompadour, whom he had offended. 
 Louis XVI. hoped that he had selected a sage, but in fact had obtained only 
 a frivolous courtier. This Minister thought that he would render himself 
 popular by recalling the old Parliaments, but knew not how to make 
 them submit to useful and efficient reforms. They were reinstalled on the 
 12th of November, and Maurepas, for the sake of procuring for the Royal 
 authority a fleeting popularity, raised up against it serious dangers in the 
 future. 
 
 Maupeou and Abbe* Terray had fallen before the clamours of the 
 people, and Maurepas, who at that time was anxious for the support of 
 public opinion, replaced them by men who possessed its confidence. His 
 choice fell upon Turgot, a man of a firm and judicious character, already 
 famous for his large political views, who had recently obtained a place in 
 the King's Council as Minister of Marine, and whom Maurepas now made 
 Comptroller-General of the Finances. In the following year the Council 
 was opened to Lamoignon de Malesherbes, a magistrate of the highest merit 
 
172 ttjegot's mischievous policy. [Book IV. Chap. IV. 
 
 and a friend of Turgot, whom he assisted in his vast operations. His 
 department was the King's household, and the disposal of the lettres de 
 cachet, no abuse of which was to be feared whilst they remained in his 
 hands. The other influential members of the Council were Htie de 
 Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals ; the Count of Saint Germain, Minister of 
 War, and Vergennes, Minister for Foreign Affairs. 
 
 Louis XVI. on ascending the throne had suppressed the impost of the 
 
 joyous occasion, and yielding as much to the dictates of his own heart as 
 
 to the advice of wise ministers, abolished tortures, and the law which 
 
 rendered the taillables alone liable to pay duties. But Turgot planned 
 
 more extensive reforms, and devoting all his care to the 
 
 Operations of . _ . ■ •_ •■ ■ ; . _ _ . 
 
 Turgot, 1774- promotion oi the happiness of the people, undertook the 
 suppression of a vast number of servitudes and burdensome 
 privileges, and it was of him that Malesherbes said, " He has the head of 
 Bacon and the heart of L'Hopital." He wished to make the noblesse 
 contribute to the taxes in the same proportion as the Third Estate ; and 
 desired also by means of provincial assemblies, to accustom the nation 
 to the discussion of matters relating to the public welfare. He 
 planned with Malesherbes a system of administration which would have 
 spread a spirit of calm throughout France, by destroying all abuses, and 
 towards this end he procured the issue of edicts which replaced the 
 corvees by a rate equally levied upon all classes, re-established free-trade 
 in grain throughout the whole interior of the kingdom, and abolished 
 wardenships and corporations. The privileged classes immediately burst 
 forth into complaints and murmurs, the Parliaments refused to register 
 these wise edicts, and it was necessary to make use of the powers of a Bed 
 of Justice. The philosophers and the economists triumphed ; but a 
 powerful league was formed at the Court against the ministers of reform. 
 Placed between a young King of no experience, and an old courtier- 
 minister, Turgot found himself in a difficult position. If he had hastened 
 to explain his projects, he would not have been understood, and would 
 have uselessly compromised his credit. He never ventured to reveal his 
 vast plan for the reform of the general administration, but confined him- 
 self to preparing Louis XVI. to listen to it at some future period, to the 
 reform of the most serious abuses, and to pointing out to the King the 
 storms which threatened his reign should not the throne be strengthened 
 by salutary institutions. The fault of Turgot's plan was that it required 
 
1774-1789.] neckee's administbation. 173 
 
 for its execution that Turgot himself should live twenty years, and that 
 the Prince should possess sufficient firmness of will to retain its author in 
 his counsels, in spite of the opposition of his family, his Court, and the 
 privileged classes. Its success was impossible under a monarch so readily 
 accessible as was Louis XVI. to diverse and contrary interests. Males- 
 herbes himself, although inspired with the best intentions, had not suc- 
 ceeded in abolishing lettres de cachet, which deprived citizens of their 
 liberty without any trial, or in suppressing the monstrous abuse of letters 
 of respite which were granted to debtors in favour at Court, to enable 
 them to delay or defeat their creditors. He was scarcely able to make 
 some slight reduction in the ruinous luxury of the King's household, 
 and his most just proceedings had already given rise to a thousand 
 clamours. 
 
 Soon, jealous of the popularity enjoyed by Turgot, and of his influence 
 over the King, Maurepas himself aroused enemies against the Fall of the 
 two ministers, and alarmed the King with respect to the mis ry * 
 dangers that might arise from the spirit of the new system. Malesherbes 
 perceived the workings of the Prince's feeble mind, and sent in his resig- 
 nation, whilst Turgot awaited to be disgraced. Louis XVI. had said of 
 him, " It is only M. Turgot and I who love the people," and he dismissed 
 him. To the popular ministers succeeded courtier ministers ; the system 
 of government was altered and the reforms were abandoned. Clugny, 
 formerly governor of St. Domingo, and then Taboureau, replaced suc- 
 cessively, and without success, this great minister ; and after them the 
 general management of the Government again fell into the hands of an 
 upright man who was endowed with great financial abilities. Necker, a 
 Genevese banker, the envoy of his republic, was made the colleague of 
 Taboureau, and succeeded him in 1777. Louis XVI. had according to 
 ancient custom taken the oath to exterminate heretics, and Necker was 
 a Protestant; but such were his reputation and the imminence of the 
 peril, that he was placed by Maurepas himself at the head of the finances 
 with the title of Director- General. Necker made good faith and probity 
 the basis of his system, which consisted in the reduction of erat ; ong f 
 the expenditure to a level with the receipts, to make the Necker > 1777 - 
 national taxes serve to defray the national expense in ordinary times, to 
 have recourse to loans only when circumstances imperiously required them, 
 and to have the taxes assessed by the provincial assemblies. These plans 
 
174 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 were wise ; and capitalists had conceived so high an opinion of the talents- 
 and honesty of Necker, that his name alone was a sufficient guarantee in 
 their eyes, and re-established confidence amongst those to whom the 
 Government applied for loans. 
 
 Necker placed France in a financial position which enabled her to 
 support a war which had a great influence on her destinies by accelerating 
 the current of its intellect and the progress of liberal ideas. This war was 
 that occasioned by the revolt of the English colonies of North America 
 against their mother country. England, overburdened by debt after 
 the peace of 1763, had endeavoured to make its American colonies con- 
 tribute to its taxes ; and the latter, having been in the habit 
 
 Rebellion of the /,., , -i r» • i -i • i i • 
 
 American Colo- oi taxing themselves, and oi seeing the sums levied on their 
 soil expended to, defray the expenses of their Government,, 
 made an energetic resistance to the new pretensions of the mother country. 
 The struggle commenced in 1773 on the imposition by the English 
 Government of a considerable tax on tea, which was consumed in enor- 
 mous quantities in America. The inhabitants of Boston, the capital of 
 Massachusetts, refused to give admittance into their ports to cargoes bur- 
 dened with this tax, and the populace, roused to a state of irritation, threw 
 them into the sea ; whereupon the English Government immediately 
 ordered General Gage to keep that port in a state of blockade. But the 
 spirit of resistance had been aroused, and deputies from all the principal 
 districts of the colonies assembled at Philadelphia at a general Congress, at 
 which was drawn up and accepted in September, 1774, the famous Declara- 
 tion of Rights, which was the type of all those which were soon after- 
 wards made in Europe. The Congress annulled the powers of all the 
 English officials, ordered a levy of the national militia, and proclaimed 
 George Washington generalissimo of the forces. Some first successes of 
 the American militia excited the enthusiasm of the colonists ; the insurrec- 
 tion became general, and the capture of Boston by the insurgents raised 
 the popular excitement to its height. At length the Congress published, 
 in 1776, the Act of Independence, by which it constituted itself a free 
 power, and independent of the English power. Diplomatic agents were 
 immediately despatched to the various courts of Europe, to obtain the 
 recognition of the independence of the American Colonies, and Benjamin 
 Franklin, as celebrated for his discoveries in science as for the services he 
 rendered to his country, was selected by his country to plead the national 
 
1774-1789.] LAFAYETTE IN AMEBICA. 175 
 
 cause at the court of Versailles, and to solicit the support of France 
 against England. The simplicity of his costume and his manners created 
 a great sensation in Paris, and the general feeling in his own favour has- 
 tened the conclusion of the negotiations between France and the insurgent 
 colonies. 
 
 The youth of France, eager for glory, burnt to repair on the 
 American soil the losses suffered in the late war, and Lafayette, then 
 twenty years of age, distinguished himself by his generous, although 
 frequently belied, devotion for the cause of the freedom of peoples. 
 Renouncing the pleasures of a most brilliant and enviable 
 
 . , . , , , . , Devotion of La- 
 
 existence, he equipped a vessel at his own expense, and fayettetothe 
 
 re t i • i • ii • i cause of Ameri- 
 
 oirered the assistance of his sword to the American colo- can indepen- 
 dence, 
 nists just when they were crushed by many reverses. He 
 
 was willing to serve as a simple private in the ranks, but received a com- 
 mission as Major-General and the friendship of Washington. Many 
 Frenchmen of the most distinguished families followed his example. 
 The English Government, of which Lord North was then the head, com- 
 plained of this, and avenged itself by some acts of aggression against 
 France. Louis XVI. hesitated for some time to enter upon hostilities ; 
 but at length, in 1778, after the memorable battle of Saratoga, in which 
 General Burgoyne, at the head of six thousand men, was compelled to 
 lay down his arms, France concluded a treaty of alliance and commerce 
 with the Americans; whereupon England recalled her ambassador, and 
 war was resolved on. 
 
 A fleet of twelve ships of the line, commanded by the Count d'Estaing, 
 set sail from Toulon for America, and made a vain attempt, . 
 
 in concert with Washington's army, to take Newport, in dence » 1778-1783. 
 Rhode Island, one of the English arsenals. On the 27th July, in the 
 same year, the French Admiral d'Qrvilliers encountered Admiral 
 Keppel at the entrance of the Channel. The two fleets consisted seve- 
 rally of thirty vessels, and after having fought for a whole day parted to 
 refit without having lost a single vessel on either side. This battle was 
 at first celebrated in France as a brilliant victory. The conduct of the 
 Duke de Chartres, subsequently famous by the name of the Duke of 
 Orleans, who commanded the rear guard of the fleet, after having been 
 extravagantly praised, was afterwards unjustly decried, and the King 
 removed him from the navy by making him a colonel general of hussars* 
 
176 ALLIANCE AGAINST ENGLAND. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 This appointment, under the circumstances, was an insult, and the Duke 
 had still more bitter affronts to suffer, and thenceforth appeared devoted 
 by a species of cruel fatality to an unfortunate celebrity. 
 
 France concluded with Spain, in the folloAving year, an alliance which 
 doubled its naval strength. Admirals d'Orvilliers and Don 
 
 Alliance with 
 
 Spain. Military Louis Cordova united their fleets, and threatened, without 
 
 Operations,177U. 
 
 result, a descent upon England, whilst Count d'Estaing, 
 supported by Count de Grasse and La Motte-Piquet, seized in the 
 Antilles the islands of St. Vincent and Granada. This success retarded 
 his arrival in the United States, and the unfortunate Georgian expedition 
 ended the campaign. Count d'Estaing, in concert with General Lincoln, 
 made a rash attack upon Savannah, the capital of the province of that 
 name, and was repulsed with loss, in spite of prodigies of valour. He 
 raised the siege and returned to France, to be succeeded by Count de 
 Guichen, who honourably maintained the struggle against the English 
 Admiral, George Rodney. 
 
 The war ensanguined the four quarters of the globe. The French 
 c h n . troops under Vaudreuil and Lauzun, seized upon Senegal, 
 
 quests m Africa. Q am i)i a) an d Sierra Leone, but suffered, on the other hand, 
 fresh disasters in India. Its establishments in Bengal fell into the hands 
 of the English, and Pondicherryhad to yield forty days after the trenches 
 had been opened against it. Such were, during two years (1778-1779), 
 in the two hemispheres, the principal events of this great struggle, which 
 had hitherto been prolonged without decisive results, but which was as 
 disastrous, through its expense and its duration, for England as for its 
 late colonies. 
 
 In the following year (1780), England found the number of its enemies 
 
 still further increased. The Northern powers, the Empress 
 
 Declaration of _ _ . . . 
 
 armed neutrality, ot Kussia, the Kings of oweden and Denmark, formed a 
 
 1780. . . . .,'.-.- 
 
 league to resist its pretensions respecting the dominion of 
 the seas, and signed a declaration of armed neutrality, by which it was 
 agreed that the neutral powers should be at liberty to sail from port to 
 port of, and to sail on the coasts of, the belligerent nations ; that mer- 
 chandize belonging to the latter should be free from capture, if not 
 contraband or intended for admission into a port actually 'blockaded. 
 The Northern powers announced that they would enforce respect for their 
 declaration by warfare if necessary, and England, after having made a 
 
1774-1789.] EEYEESES OF THE AMERICANS. 177 
 
 futile attempt. to obtain the alliance of Holland, where the Republican party- 
 was more powerful than that of the Stadtholder which was favourable to 
 England, had to struggle against the combined fleets of France, the United 
 States, and Spain. 
 
 The majority of the French Ministry was at this time composed of men 
 of merit and talent. Vergennes made the kingdom respected Min ; sterial A t 
 abroad; Segur and Castries, soldiers worthy of high esteem, l78i - 
 carried on the war with energy; and Necker afforded the King the means 
 of continuing it. His celebrated compte rendu of January, 1781, showed 
 for the first time an excess of ten millions of receipts over the ex- 
 penditure, and produced a sensation and favourable public opinion, 
 which inspired Maurepas with a great degree of jealousy. 
 
 Deeply offended by the unanimous praises lavished on a Minister whom 
 he regarded as his creature, Maurepas persuaded the King that danger 
 might arise from the public discussion of the proceedings of his Govern- 
 ment which would naturally arise from the publication of Necker's compte 
 rendu, and from that moment all the plans of that statesman were received 
 with disfavour. The Council opposed them, and the privileged classes 
 struggled against the carrying out of his judicious reforms. He never- 
 theless succeeded, by the simple credit attached to his own name, in 
 effecting two loans which amounted to ninety millions ; but perceiving 
 that he no longer possessed his Sovereign's confidence, he sent in his 
 resignation, which was accepted on the 23rd May. He left in hand suffi- 
 cient funds to complete the decisive campaign of 1781, and his retirement 
 was regarded as a public calamity. 
 
 The assistance which France had hitherto accorded to the United 
 States had only been by sea, but on the 11th July, 1780, a first French 
 division, numbering six thousand men, disembarked at Rhode Island under 
 Count de Rochambeau.* The arrival of this powerful reinforcement, 
 which had been long expected, re-animated the courage and enthusiasm 
 of the Americans ; the English, however, succeeded in blockading the 
 port at which the French had disembarked, and thus, till 
 
 • ProorGSs of tht? 
 
 the close of the year, rendered their assistance almost useless. English in South 
 
 r™ • n t -i -i i n i • Carolina, 17S0. 
 
 This campaign, m fact, only brought to the Colonists vain 
 
 hopes or reverses. The conqueror of Saratoga, General Gates, was beaten 
 
 * In order that the military operations might have uniformity of plan, Louis XVL 
 made Rochambeau subordinate in command to Washington. 
 
 VOL. II. . N 
 
178 WASHING-TON AND EOCHAMBEATJ. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 at Camden, in Southern Carolina, by Lord Cornwallis, and the whole of 
 this province was consequently lost. In the North treason deprived the 
 Americans of one of their most able generals, Benedict Arnold, who was 
 led into crime by the necessities arising from a dissolute life. 
 
 France now came to the aid of the Colonists with a generosity more 
 magnanimous than prudent, considering the condition of her own finances, 
 and advanced to the United States on the simple word of Congress, the 
 large sum of sixteen million francs. About the same time a new French 
 fleet of 22 vessels, under Admiral de Grasse, set sail for the Antilles 
 (March, 1781). Washington was then rendered by the severity of the 
 season almost inactive in the North, where he had been joined by Rocham- 
 beau, whilst the English pursued their advantages in the South, in the 
 two Carolinas. The powerful assistance rendered by France enabled 
 Washington to determine upon a plan which decided the campaign and 
 the war. 
 
 General Greene, one of the ablest generals the Americans possessed, 
 continually harassed the victorious army of Lord Cornwallis. 
 
 Able manoeuvres 
 
 of GeDerai Ine Lnglisn had the advantage m most oi the engagements 
 
 Greene, 1781. ,".-,, . 
 
 which took place between the two armies, without, however, 
 being able to obtain any decided results in their favour, and were at 
 length so enfeebled by these incessant and futile conflicts, that Greene 
 was enabled to cut off their communications with North Carolina. 
 Cornwallis then resolved to abandon Carolina, and, in concert with 
 the traitor Arnold, to subdue Virginia. He marched to the North r 
 effected a junction with Arnold's corps, and then consolidating his forces 
 at York Town, a little town at the entrance of the river York, entrenched 
 himself there with the purpose of awaiting a favourable opportunity. 
 This proved his ruin. 
 
 Washington from his camp before New York followed all the move- 
 ments of the various hostile corps, and on learning the situation of Corn- 
 wallis and his army at York Town, immediately conceived the hope of 
 performing a brilliant feat by effecting their capture. He put himself into 
 communication with Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse, and, in 
 order the better to deceive the enemy with respect to his plans, invested 
 New York, and began to besiege it ; then suddenly withdrawing with the 
 bulk of his army, and only leaving behind him one division to hold the 
 enemy in check, he traversed Philadelphia at the head of the combined 
 
1774-1*789.] CAPITULATION OE CORNWALLIS. 179 
 
 French and American forces, embarked at Cape Elk, and arrived at 
 Williamsburg, where he joined Lafayette and his army. Washington 
 now had sixteen thousand men under his command, including Eocham- 
 beau's corps, and on the 28th September, 1780, the allied armies 
 appeared under the ramparts of York Town, and invested it Avhilst the 
 sea was shut against the English by the fleet under Admiral de Grasse. 
 The British troops made a desperate defence, but there was , 
 
 a generous emulation between the French and Americans T own . b y the 
 
 ° Americans and 
 
 which made them perform prodigies. The murderous fire :French > 1781 - 
 from two redoubts checked the attack, and it was necessary that they 
 should be taken. An American column under Generals Lafayette and 
 Lincoln took, at the sword's point, one of these redoubts, into which 
 Colonel Hamilton was the first to throw himself ; whilst the French, led by 
 Viomenil and the Chevalier de Lameth, carried the second. The capture 
 of these redoubts involved the fall of the. place. Cornwallis driven to 
 bay, made an attempt to save his army by the river York, but a 
 tempest destroyed or scattered his frail vessels, and on the Ca itulation of 
 19th October Cornwallis found it necessary to capitulate, ^Yo^kiwnf 
 and surrendered with eight thousand men between the two c ° ei ' 
 French and American armies, the one distinguished by its splendid drill 
 and glittering uniforms, whilst the other, no less martial in bearing, 
 inured to trials and dangers, was justly proud of its ragged garments, 
 the glorious traces of the sufferings it had endured for its country. 
 Washington ordered that a solemn service should be performed on the 
 following day in every brigade and division of his army to thank Provi- 
 dence for his victory, which was a decisive one. Hostilities still continued 
 for some time between the belligerent powers and ensanguined other parts 
 of the globe, but the American war might be considered at an end, and 
 Lord Cornwallis, when he signed the capitulation of York Town, may really 
 be considered to have then signed the independence of the United States. 
 
 The Duke de Crillon having captured the island of Minorca and the 
 town of Mahon, in 1781, undertook in the following vear 
 
 ' ° J Taking of Mahon, 
 
 the siege of Gibraltar, which was closed against Admiral lj781 ' 
 
 Howe by the fleets of France and Spain, united under Don Louis Cordova. 
 
 Floating batteries, invented by Chevalier d'Arcon, were . 
 
 J 5 7 Siege of Gibral- 
 
 constructed for the purpose of bombarding this fortress, tar » 1782 - 
 which was defended by the brave General Eliott ; but they were set on 
 
 n2 
 
180 SIEGE OE GIBRALTAR. [l3oOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 fire by a storm of shells and red-hot shot, and the flames produced 
 a frightful amount of damage. A few days after, Admiral Howe, taking 
 advantage of the dispersion of the French fleet by a gale, by skilful manoeu- 
 vres succeeded in entering the port and revictualled the fortress, the siege 
 of which was abandoned. In the same year a naval engagement, which 
 ended disastrously for France, took place on the open sea. There remained 
 in the possession of the English, in the Little Antilles, but two islands ; 
 Jamaica itself was threatened, and would have been compelled to yield, 
 if Kodney, with twelve vessels, had not hastened to those latitudes. He 
 succeeded, in spite of the efforts of the French admiral, De Grasse, in 
 effecting a junction with Hood in the sea of the Antilles ; and the two 
 English squadrons together formed a formidable fleet of thirty-six sail. 
 De Grasse, who had but thirty-three, awaited the arrival of the Spanish 
 fleet to meet the enemy with sixty. Eodney skilfully prevented the junc- 
 tion of the two fleets, encountered De Grasse on his way to St. Domingo, 
 near the island of St. Lucia, and forced him to fight. Hood was in com- 
 mand of the English vanguard, and Drake of the rear-guard ; Admiral 
 de Grasse having for his seconds in command, Bougainville and Vaudreuil. 
 The battle took place on the 12th April, 1782, and lasted ten hours. 
 Eodney, favoured by the wind, boldly broke through the French line, 
 and by this able manoeuvre secured the victory. The French fleet, how- 
 ever, continued to fight long after it was thrown into disorder with the 
 utmost heroism, and several vessels sank rather than surrender. Seven 
 English ships simultaneously attacked the magnificent vessel of the French 
 Admiral, la Ville de Paris, of 120 guns, and when at length, after a 
 desperate conflict, there remained on board only three men unwounded, 
 De Grasse struck his flag. He lost six vessels in the course of the action, 
 two others foundered on the following day, and those which were captured 
 by the enemy had suffered so greatly that they sank before reaching the 
 British ports ; amongst these was the Ville de Paris. 
 
 India had been during four years the scene of a sanguinary war. The 
 English, in 1778, had taken Pondicherry from the French 
 
 Campaigns m ° ' ' J 
 
 India, 1778-1783. an( j i n fli c ted severe injury on the Dutch, their allies. 
 Haider Ali Khan, Sultan of Mysore, and his son Tippoo Sahib, supported 
 the French in these regions; and these famous chiefs had marched too 
 late to the relief of Pondicherry ; although, at the head of eighty-six 
 thousand men, partly disciplined in the European manner, they had 
 
1774-1789.] ACCESSION OP TIPPOO SAHIB. 181 
 
 obtained numerous successes. Having been four times vanquished, bow- 
 ever, by Sir Eyre Coote, they beat a retreat, and evacuated the Carnatic 
 after having plundered all the English possessions. 
 
 The British power in the East had never been in greater peril than at 
 this period. The French fleet, the arrival of which had been long 
 announced, appeared at length at the commencement of 1782 on the coast 
 of Coromandel. It was commanded by Suffren, the bailli of the Order 
 of Malta, one of the greatest seamen of whom France can boast. SufFren 
 had already rapidly provided for the defence of the Dutch colony of the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and three glorious although indecisive battles which 
 he fought with his worthy rival, Sir Edward Hughes, had made his name 
 famous. His presence reanimated the hopes of Haider Ali, who still 
 meditated, by means of a league between all the native princes, the 
 expulsion of the English from Hindustan. His death put a sudden end 
 to these projects; the formidable Sultan of Mysore expired at the close of 
 the year (1782), leaving to his son, Tippoo Sahib, his throne, his army, 
 his courage — everything except his genius. 
 
 SufFren, in the meantime, pursued his glorious career on the coast of 
 Coromandel ; Tippoo Sahib seconding his operations by land. He van- 
 quished the English general, Matthews, famous for his atrocities, and who 
 had massacred, in the city of Omanpore, the whole of the inhabitants, 
 and the four hundred wives of Haider and Tippoo. Gondelour, being 
 besieged by the English, Suffiren hastened to its relief, and encountered, 
 within sight of this city, the fleet of Sir Edward Hughes. Although the 
 former had but fifteen vessels against eighteen, he gained the advantage, 
 and Gondelour was saved. 
 
 The preliminaries of peace were now signed in Europe. The Whigs 
 succeeded the Tories in the English Ministry. Lord North, who had 
 displayed the utmost ardour in carrying on this bloody war, had been 
 succeeded by Rockingham, Charles Fox, and Burke ; and a few months 
 afterwards, the son of Lord Chatham, William Pitt, was entrusted with 
 the care of the finances. The new administration urged George III. to 
 make a peace, which was signed at Versailles on the 3rd Peace si ned at 
 September, 1783, between England on the one part, and Ver3ailles » 1783 - 
 France, Spain, and the United States, whose independence was recog- 
 nised by it, on the other. France derived little profit for herself 
 from the immense sacrifices she had made. England restored to her, 
 
182 MINISTRY OP CALOKNE. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 in America, the isles of St. Lucia and Tobago ; and in India, Pondicherry ; 
 and guaranteed to her, in Africa, the possession of the river Senegal and 
 its dependencies ; and on the coast of Malabar, Mahe and an establish- 
 ment at Surat. The two nations signed, moreover, a treaty of commerce. 
 England did not conclude peace with Tippoo Sahib and Holland until the 
 following year. France was indebted for important assistance to the 
 latter power, and especially to its Eepublican party; and rewarded its 
 services by a shameful abandonment when, in 1788, the ardent Frederic 
 "William II., King of Prussia, Frederic the Great's nephew, and brother- 
 in-law of the Prince of Orange, supported the Orange party, and restored 
 the Stadtholder by force of arms. From that time the influence of 
 Prussia and England was substituted in Holland for that of France. « 
 
 Maurepas died shortly after the disgrace of Necker ; and France and 
 her Government then presented a strange spectacle of extraordinary con- 
 tradictions, and of the most complete disagreement between its laws and 
 its actions. Thus, when the French army went to the assistance of a 
 Republic, the constitution of which was founded on the principle of 
 equality, a rule was made that none should be allowed to obtain the rank 
 of officer but those who could prove four degrees of nobility (1781) ; 
 and thus, when public opinion was running strongly in favour of the 
 philosopher whose irreligious writings contributed for the most part to 
 the destruction of Christianity, the Government maintained the rigour 
 of a Draconian code against the Protestants, and the latter could not even 
 obtain from the Parliament, in 1778, a legal means of establishing their 
 marriages and securing the social position of their children. The deficit 
 of the Treasury had increased during the war ; and it was in vain that, 
 for the purpose of decreasing it, Louis XVI. gave an example by relin- 
 quishing a portion of his household and his guard ; for no one followed 
 it. Joly de Fleury and D'Ormesson succeeded Necker in turn without 
 Mini tr of being able to discover a remedy for this ; and Calonne suc- 
 
 Calonne, 1783. ce eded them in the management of the finances. This man, 
 who was brilliant and eloquent, and whose character was a combination 
 of frivolity and audacity, adopted a system directly opposed to that of 
 Necker ; endeavouring to keep himself in power by the favour of the 
 courtiers, and to strengthen the Government credit by prodigalities. A 
 lavish expenditure of money at first supported his system, and punc- 
 tuality in payments for a certain time deceived capitalists; but after 
 
1774-1789.] FIRST ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES. 183 
 
 the peace he made numerous loans, and exhausted credit ; and then, 
 when forced to allow the enormous difference which existed between 
 the expenditure and receipts, he insinuated that the fault was due to 
 the proceedings of his predecessor, Necker. The latter published an 
 energetic reply to these indirect attacks ; and Calonne avenged himself 
 by having him exiled. When it was no longer possible to obtain loans, 
 it was necessary to have recourse to new taxes, and these the Parliament 
 refused to register. Upon this Calonne, to enforce its sub- FirstAssembl of 
 mission, convoked an Assembly of Notables (1787), hoping Rotables, 1787. 
 that, as it would be selected from the higher classes by the Govern- 
 ment, from whom it would hold its powers, it would be more docile 
 than the Parliaments and the States-General. Pie laid before this 
 Assembly a proposition to increase the duty upon stamps, and to convert 
 that of the Vingtieme into a territorial tax, which should be levied equally 
 upon all landed property without excepting even that of the clergy. The 
 Minister also submitted to the Notables a plan already presented to them 
 by, and which tended to realize a grand idea of, Fenelon and Turgot. 
 According to this plan, throughout the whole kingdom, with the excep- 
 tion of some ancient pays cFetats, provincial assemblies were to be con- 
 voked, consisting of members elected from amongst the three Orders, 
 whose particular duty it was to superintend taxation, and to discover and 
 express the wishes of their several provinces. Calonne could not conceal 
 from the Notables the fact that the loans had amounted within a few 
 years to an enormous sum, and that there was a deficit of a hundred 
 and fifteen millions in the revenue. This startling revelation excited 
 a general burst of indignation, and Calonne resigned. 
 
 He Avas succeeded by Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of Sens, who 
 adopted most of the measures proposed by Calonne to the M . . 
 Notables. This Assembly rejected the edicts respecting the Brienne > 1787 - 
 stamp duty and the land-tax, which was to be paid by all the orders in- 
 discriminately ; and separated after having approved the creation of pro- 
 vincial assemblies. On establishing the latter, the King abolished the 
 system of forced labour for the roads. The provincial assemblies, elected 
 by the three Orders, but containing a double number of representatives 
 of the Third Estate, devoted their attention to the reform of the taxes, 
 public works, and the improvement of agriculture. They carried on 
 their functions successfully from 1787 to 1790, when the new division of 
 
1S4 THE ENFORCED LOANS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 France into departments took place ; and it is to be regretted that they 
 were not continued. The two edicts rejected by the Notables, with 
 respect to the stamp duty and the land-tax, were presented by Brienne 
 to the Parliament, which refused to register them, and declared the 
 States- General alone competent to decide in the matter of taxes. Their 
 registration was enforced at a Bed of Justice held at Versailles ; and at 
 the same time Louis XVI. promised the annual publication of an account 
 of the state of the finances, and the convocation of the States-General 
 before five years. The magistrates protested against the violence to 
 which they had been subjected, and the edicts were not executed. The 
 Parliament was exiled to Troyes on the 15th August, and recalled on 
 the 20th September, on the tacit understanding that it would consent 
 to edicts creating a series of gradual and successive loans up to the 
 amount of four hundred millions. 
 
 A Royal sitting was appointed for the 19th November. The King 
 Eoyai sittiog. opened it with a conciliatory speech. The votes were 
 tration of edicts taken, and the oldest magistrates were in favour of the 
 registration of the last edicts. Abbe Sabatier was of a 
 different opinion, and proposed the registration of only the first loan, and 
 that the King should be requested to name an earlier date for the 
 convocation of the States-General. Freteau supported this view, and 
 D'Epremesnil appealed to the Monarch's heart. He supported the re- 
 gistration of the edicts, and entreated Louis XVI. to promise the con- 
 vocation of the States-General. It appeared certain that there would 
 be a majority in favour of the edicts, when the new Keeper of the Seals, 
 Lamoignon, faithful to the principle that when the King was in his 
 Parliament his will should be laAv, approached the throne. Louis XVI., 
 after having heard him, ordered that the edicts should be registered with 
 the form only used in the Beds of Justice. A murmur of surprise arose 
 from every side, and the Duke of Orleans, rising, said, in a hesitating 
 manner : — " Sire, such a registration appears illegal ; it must be recorded 
 that the registration is by the express command of your Majesty." The 
 Prince spoke with much emotion. Louis XVI., equally moved and 
 agitated, replied, after muttering some broken words — " Yes, it is 
 legal, because it is my will." He then had another edict registered, 
 which bestowed upon non- Catholics the power of properly registering 
 their births, marriages, and deaths. 
 
1774-1789.] SCHEME TO SUPPRESS PARLIAMENT. 185 
 
 When the King had departed, the agitation of the Assembly became 
 extreme. Malesherbes and the Duke of Nivernois in vain attempted to 
 restore calm, and the sitting was terminated by a decision that the Par- 
 liament would take no part in the illegal registration of the edicts relative 
 to the loans. The King ordered that this decision should be erased from 
 the registers ; the Duke of Orleans was exiled to one of his estates ; the 
 Abbe Sabatier and Freteau were arrested and lodged in the State prisons. 
 The Parliament protested against the lettres de cachet, and demanded the 
 recal of its members and the Prince. This protest was rejected by the 
 King, and reiterated by the Parliament, which was supported by public 
 opinion and the whole of the French magistracy in its imprudent struggle 
 with the Government. 
 
 Brienne perceived that it was only possible to overcome the resistance 
 of the Parliament by suppressing it ; and in conjunction with M. de 
 Lamoignon, the new Keeper of the Seals, he persuaded the King to agree 
 to a plan which destroyed the political authority of the magistracy. The 
 most profound secrecy was necessary to secure the success of this plan ; 
 but it oozed out before it was ripe. One of the most energetic members 
 of the parliamentary Opposition, by means of a lavish expenditure, ob- 
 tained proofs of the Ministerial project, and immediately communicated it 
 to the Chamber. It appeared that, in accordance with this plan, edicts 
 were to be issued creating an Assembly composed of the princes, peers, 
 and marshals of France, and of a certain number of distinguished persons, 
 chosen from amongst the clergy, the nobility, and the magistracy, which 
 was to be endowed with all the authority enjoyed by the plenary courts 
 in the time of Charlemagne. This Court was to regulate the general 
 police laws, and the edicts, which were no longer to be submitted to the 
 Parliaments, the judicial functions of which were henceforth to be limited. 
 The Parliament of Paris would thus be deprived of its title of a Court of 
 Peers, and four Sovereign Councils, named grand bailliages, were to be 
 established within the district under its authority, and to confine its juris- 
 diction within very narrow limits. The magistrates heard of this threat- 
 ening project with the greatest indignation; invoked the fundamental 
 although unwritten laws of the kingdom, demanded the regular convoca- 
 tion of the States-General, protested against arbitrary imprisonments, and 
 decreed their own inviolability. Brienne immediately obtained from the 
 King an order for the arrest of two of the magistrates who were most 
 
186 EIOTS IN THE PROVINCES. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 prominent in their opposition, Duval d'Epremesnil and Montsabert. On 
 the 5th August the captain of the guards appeared before the Parliament, 
 and demanded the delivery of these two gentlemen in the name of the 
 King. " We are all of us Montsabert and d'Epremesnil," replied the in- 
 dignant magistrates. But then, in order to prevent their colleagues from 
 being compromised, the two Councillors in question arose and surrendered 
 themselves, and were conveyed the one to Pierre-en-Cise, near Lyons, and 
 the other to the isles Ste. Marguerite. The fact of their arrest was soon 
 spread abroad and excited an universal indignation ; the populace crowding 
 to the place of sitting and overwhelming the magistrates with acclamations. 
 On the 8th May, however, the edicts in question were registered, and a 
 ■court possessed of plenary powers was established. But the excitement 
 of public opinion continued to increase, the Chatelet protested, and the 
 populace was in a state of commotion. It was declared that all the mem- 
 bers of the new court were connected with the Court, and that to bestow 
 upon it the right of registration was equivalent to placing the public for- 
 tunes solely at the mercy of the Ministers. 
 
 The provinces of Brittany, Beam, and Dauphiny distinguished them- 
 selves amongst all by the energy of their resistance. The 
 
 Disturbances in 
 
 theprovinces, Parliament of Rennes protested, and was threatened with 
 a forced dissolution. A crowd of gentlemen, followed by 
 the populace, hastened to its defence, and most of the noblemen residing 
 at Rennes signed a declaration in these terms : — u We, members of the 
 nobility of Brittany, denounce as infamous all those who should accept 
 of any place under any new form of judicial administration or new form 
 of government which should not be in accordance with the laws and the 
 provincial constitutions." A denunciation of the Ministers was also drawn 
 up, and the deputies who were charged with its presentation to the King- 
 were thrown into the Bastile. Civil war now appeared imminent in 
 Brittany, and the disturbances in Beam were no less serious. The Moun- 
 taineers descended armed into the town of Pau, forced the gates of the 
 Palace of Justice, which had been closed by the King's orders, and, 
 terrified by their threatening cries, the governor himself entreated the 
 Parliament to assemble. The nobility and the magistracy made vehement 
 protests. In Dauphiny the disorders were even greater. The Parliament 
 resisted the new edicts, and the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, the governor 
 of the province, exiled the magistrates by the authority of lettres de cachet 
 
1774-1789.] CONCILIATOBT POLICY OF BKIENKE. 187 
 
 which had been previously placed in his hands. A furious mob filled the 
 streets of Grenoble, detained the exiled magistrates, rushed to the go- 
 vernor's house at the sound of the tocsin, and holding an axe over his 
 head, forced him to convoke the Parliament. A great number of members 
 of the Nobility, the Clergy, and the Third Estate fixed the 21st July for the 
 meeting of the etats particuliers of Dauphiny. Marshal de Vaux, the 
 governor of the province, although he had twenty thousand men under 
 his command, did not venture to oppose the popular will, and the States 
 assembled at the Chateau de Vizille, the ancient residence of the Dauphins. 
 There the three Orders unanimously denounced all who should aid in the 
 execution of the new edicts ; determined that the tax substituted for the 
 corvee should be paid in Dauphiny by the three Orders indiscriminately, 
 and gave a double re presentation to the Third Estate. Before separating, 
 they entreated the King to withdraw his edicts, to abolish the lettres de 
 cachet, and to convoke the States-General. All the provinces were in a 
 state of agitation, and almost everywhere the privileged classes, for the 
 sake of preserving their own privileges, gave to the masses of the people 
 a dangerous example of resistance and insurrection. It was in this way 
 that through the accumulated faults of the Government the nation became 
 familiarized with inquiring into and resisting the acts of the Government, 
 and became practised, as it were, in civil war. Brienne, not knowing 
 what measures to adopt, convoked an assembly of the clergy, and asked 
 of it a pecuniary assistance, which was refused, with a . ,, y,v 
 strongly- worded declaration against the plenary court. cler sy> l788 - 
 Then, perceiving that the deficit in the Treasury increased day by day, 
 and that there were no means of replenishing it, he endeavoured to seduce 
 the nation by promises, and to acquire a right to their gratitude by 
 issuing a decree (8th August, 1788,) directing the assembly of the States- 
 General on the 1st May, 1789, and suspending until then the action of 
 the plenary court. 
 
 Brienne obtained no advantage for himself by this decree ; for, as is 
 almost always the case when the Government, instead of seizing the op- 
 portune moment for reform and popular measures, only consents to them 
 in an incomplete manner, under extreme pressure, his concessions were 
 received without thanks, and only increased the determination with which 
 what he refused was demanded. The Minister, to strengthen his position, 
 now condescended to the lowest expedients. He seized the funds of the 
 
1S8 EECALL OE KECKEK. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 InvalideSy and the money produced by a charitable lottery set on foot 
 for the benefit of the sufferers by a terrible storm, issued paper money for 
 the State payments, and vainly endeavoured to conceal a bankruptcy by 
 this disastrous measure. Brienne was resolved, at any price, to remain 
 in power ; the public burdens, if so greatly increased by his want of skill, 
 had not as yet destroyed his credit ; but a Court intrigue overthrew him. 
 Jealous of his influence with the Queen, Madame de Polignac declared 
 herself his enemy, and the Count d'Artois, the King's second brother, de- 
 rail of Erienne nianded his dismissal. Brienne resigned, at the same time 
 1 ' 88, advising Louis XVI. to recal Necker, as the only man 
 
 capable of restoring the finances to a satisfactory state. His retirement 
 was received by the public with enthusiastic delight ; but when it was 
 known that it had been accompanied, on the part of the Crown, with the 
 demand for a cardinal's hat for him, and that he had left the Court over- 
 whelmed with favours, no credit was given to the feeble Monarch for the 
 sacrifice he had made, and public opinion was only irritated by the honours 
 which had been granted to a man who was the object of almost universal 
 reprobation. Louis XVI., in accordance with Brienne's 
 
 Eecal and 
 
 second Ministry advice, recalled Necker : the Parliaments resumed the ex- 
 
 oi Necker, 1788. ' ' 
 
 ercise of their functions, and the edicts were annulled. 
 "When informed of these measures the people became wild with joy. A 
 number of young persons burnt the cardinal in effigy in the Place 
 Dauphine, seized the Pont-Neuf, and compelled all the passers-by to bow 
 before the statue of Henry IV. The multitude then proceeded to the 
 house of the Archbishop's brother, with the intention of burning it ; and 
 having been repulsed by the military, turned their fury against the 
 captain of the watch, and marched towards his dwelling with the inten- 
 tion of plundering it and burning it to the ground. A desperate conflict 
 took place ; and instead of expressing itself with severity, as it should 
 have done, against the promoters of these outrages, the Parliament passed 
 resolutions condemnatory of the troops which had repressed them. 
 
 Necker, having resumed the direction of affairs, was enabled, through 
 the confidence he enjoyed with capitalists, to procure sufficient funds for 
 the opening of the States- General. But, skilful as he was as a financier, 
 this Minister was not equal, as a politician, to the task of grappling with 
 the perilous circumstances by which France was now surrounded. He 
 did not know how to convoke the delegates of the French nation in a way 
 
1774-1789.] CONVOCATION OE THE STATES-GENERAL. 189 
 
 suited to the existing state of manners and to public opinion ; neither did 
 he know how to conceive and announce a plan of indispensable and suffi- 
 cient reforms. He long hesitated to grant to the Third Estate a double 
 representation — that is to say, a number of deputies equal to those of 
 the two privileged Orders together ; and this vast question, being unde- 
 cided, became in every portion of the kingdom the subject of the most 
 vehement discussions. The mass of the citizens, who had taken but 
 a slight interest in the quarrels between the magistracy and the Court, 
 understood on this occasion that the matter in dispute referred to their 
 own particular interests, and all reforms would be merely illusory if 
 the Third Estate, of which they were a portion, did not have a number 
 of deputies equal to those of the two first Orders. This desire found 
 an echo in the ranks of the noblesse ; and thus the question became trans- 
 formed, not without peril, into a question of figures. It was asked in 
 every direction if twenty-four millions of Frenchmen made exaggerated 
 pretensions when they demanded a number of representatives equal to 
 those of four or five hundred thousand of their compatriots. The un- 
 certainty on this subject became every day more dangerous. It excited 
 universal agitation, inflamed the passions of the middle classes, and 
 enabled those who had the greatest interest in obtaining the double 
 representation of the Third Estate to obtain the greatest influence over 
 public opinion. 
 
 Such was the state of things in France when, on the 27th September, 
 1788, the Parliament registered the edict which convoked 
 
 _ _. . _, 'itt • Edict of Convo- 
 
 the states-General. But as soon as it had done so, it cation of the 
 
 . , States-General, 
 
 appeared terrified at its own work, and to recoil before 27th September, 
 
 . . . l 788. 
 
 a measure which it had itself energetically demanded. It 
 
 seemed to see the ancient monarchy tottering on its foundations, and 
 
 thought itself called upon to lend it its support. With this object it 
 
 decided that the States- General should be convoked according to the 
 
 form used at the time of their first Assembly in 1614. The deputies 
 
 at that period were equal in number for each Order ; and as they gave 
 
 their votes, not individually, but by order, the result of the divisions 
 
 was necessarily always in favour of the privileged classes. Necker's 
 
 system was to make the latter contribute, in proportion to their fortunes, 
 
 to the expenses of the State ; and to procure the adoption of this 
 
 system, it was necessary that the deputies of the Third Estate should 
 
190 SECOND ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 be double in number to those of the representatives of the two other 
 Orders, and that the votes should be taken individually. The public 
 had declared almost universally in favour of this opinion ; and the clause 
 added by the Parliament to the edict of the 27th September deprived it 
 at once of almost all its popularity. The Parliament now, it was said, 
 egotistically resisted the wishes of the people, after having at first resisted 
 the Court only for the purpose of obtaining power, or retaining that 
 which it had usurped. It was soon deserted by the lawyers who had 
 been its success and had achieved its successes. 
 
 The Noblesse itself became divided into two parties, of which one 
 energetically supported the cause of the Third Estate. The latter, 
 which numbered in its ranks the Duke of Orleans and most of the 
 gentlemen who had fought in America, formed in all the principal towns 
 associations for the purpose of securing the triumph of this cause ; an 
 immense number of incendiary pamphlets were circulated in the pro- 
 vinces ; paid brigands overran the provinces ; disorderly mobs were 
 guilty of the greatest excesses in Paris ; and some months later filled 
 the capital with terror by the burning and pillaging the Eeveillon 
 manufactory. Whilst the secret leaders of a violent and democratic 
 faction endeavoured to arouse the populace, and to subdue the Court 
 by means of threats, the bourgeoisie and a -large portion of the 
 young nobility seized every opportunity of applauding the most 
 popular maxims. Many writers, following the example of Condorcet, 
 proposed in their works a state of social order based on an equality of 
 rights and on liberty. A multitude of pamphlets, and amongst them a cele- 
 brated one by Abbe Sieyes, entitled " What is the Third Estate ?" added 
 to the general excitement. The moment of the crisis drew 
 
 Second Assembly ° 
 
 of Notables,i788. near w hen the King convoked the Second Assembly of the 
 Notables, to which was submitted the question as to how the States- 
 General should be convoked. It commenced its sittings on the 9th 
 November, 1788, and, as had been the case with the preceding one, 
 divided itself into six committees, one of which alone — that jDresided 
 over by Monsieur the King's brother — declared in favour of the double 
 representation of the Third Estate. Necker did not follow the advice 
 of the Notables. He hoped, by exciting a struggle between the pri- 
 vileged classes and the Third Estate, to remain master of the position ; 
 and he submitted a report to the Sovereign in accordance with which 
 
1774-1789.] PHILOSOPHERS OE THE AGE. 191 
 
 there appeared on the 27th December, 1788, a Royal declaration, entitled 
 the Resultat de Conseil, in which the long-vexed question Avas but partly 
 solved. Louis XVI. decided that the deputies of the Third Estate 
 should be equal in number to those of the other two Orders together, 
 but left the question of the general method of deliberation in abeyance. 
 This declaration was received with favour, although it left the question 
 of the greatest importance undecided. The Third Estate now perceived 
 its strength ; it reckoned with good reason on the support of a portion of 
 the Noblesse and the Clergy, and foresaw that it would be able to control 
 the method of deliberation. From this moment the Revolution was 
 inevitable. 
 
 The philosophers of the age had a great share in bringing about this 
 result. The most famous of them, Voltaire, Jean Jacques 
 
 r» t>w-i -i-oA-ii i • Philosophy, lite- 
 
 Kousseau, Diderot, D Alembert, were no more, but their rature, arts, 
 
 it- • ry • an< ^ sciences. 
 
 school still flourished. It effected the suppression of abuses 
 and privileges, but at the same time destroyed, indiscriminately, the most 
 respectable institutions as well as those which were the most justly decried. 
 At this period literature was cultivated with success. The Abbe Barthe- 
 lemy published his learned " Journey of Anacharsis," and Bernardin de St. 
 Pierre his charming " Studies of Nature ;" whilst Lebrun, Roucher, Andre 
 Chenier (then scarcely known), and Delille maintained the honour of the 
 French school of poetry. Ducis, still more remarkable for his noble 
 character than for his talents, rendered himself famous on the stage, now 
 enriched by the works of Voltaire, on which Marie- Joseph Chenier was 
 already known, and to which Beaumarchais had given his " Mariage de 
 Figaro," a work which gave a powerful and dangerous impulse to the 
 revolutionary tendency of men's minds. The genius of the arts, after 
 having slumbered during the last reign, reawoke under the chisels of 
 Houdon and Chaudet, and the forcible pencils of Vien, of David, and his 
 vigorous school. A greater number of distinguished men had never ap- 
 peared on the theatrical boards, on which Talma now first made his ap- 
 pearance, and on which Contat, Fleury, Mole, and Brizard carried the art 
 of dramatic diction to its highest point. The ranks of scientific men were 
 adorned by many illustrious names ; and foremost amongst them appear 
 those of the mathematicians Monge, Lagrange, and Laplace ; the chemists 
 Lavoisier, Fourcroy, Vauquelin, Berthollet, and Guy ton de Morveau, who 
 rendered himself one of the benefactors of the human race by 
 
192 EISING DISCOKTE^T. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 liis discovery of methods for disinfecting air ; of the physicist 
 Coulomb, who immortalized himself by his researches into the qualities 
 of the loadstone ; of the naturalist Daubenton. the fellow-labourer and 
 successor of BufFon ; of the learned doctor Vicq d'Azyr ; and finally, of 
 the astronomer Delambre — one of the men to whom France owes the 
 adoption of the metrical system — and of Silvain Bailly, the author of the 
 " History of Ancient and Modern Astronomy." The public attention was 
 attracted at this period by the voyages and discoveries of the Count de 
 Choiseul in Greece, as well as by those of Bougainville and the unfor- 
 tunate La Perouse, and indulged in dreams of important advantages to be 
 derived by the human race through the theories of Mesmer with respect 
 to magnetism, and the invention of balloons by Mongolfier. Literary 
 men, learned men, and philosophers, were admitted to intimacy with men 
 of the highest birth, and the latter displayed a great eagerness for general 
 information. The manners of the upper and more enlightened classes 
 had never been more refined than at this period, when French politeness, 
 celebrated throughout Europe, formed the greatest charm of social life, 
 and had acquired a noble and gracious perfection, of which the remem- 
 brance only was soon to remain. But a deep gulf was being opened by 
 the deficit in the finances and the faults of the Government beneath the 
 feet of this brilliant society. There was behind it a discontented middle 
 class, whose voice scarcely concealed the sullen murmurs of an ignorant 
 and wretched multitude. From the latter quarter the storm speedily 
 burst forth to overthrow an edifice already mined to its foundations, and 
 which disappeared before the breath of the popular fury. 
 
FOURTH PERIOD. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION FROM 1789 TO 
 THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
FOUBTH PEEIOD. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 The history of the French Revolution is the history of France in a state 
 of revolt against a material and traditional system, and endeavouring to 
 establish in the midst of ruins an ideal and rational order of things, a 
 new civil and political system founded on the principles of humanity, 
 liberty, common right, and natural equity.* 
 
 In the first we see the struggle maintained by the Third Estate for the 
 abolition of feudal servitudes and the privileges of the two first Orders — 
 an imposing and terrible struggle, the object of which was far more than 
 attained, and which ended in the triumph of the multitude and the fall of 
 the throne. The second presents to us France under the scourge of a 
 foreign Avar, and the reign of a mob headed by bloodthirsty leaders, to 
 which succeeded a violent and incapable government. It is the period 
 during which France was a prey to terror and anarchy ; that of the Con- 
 vention and the Directorate up to the 18th Brumaire. The Revolution, 
 in its third stage, shows us the nation, exhausted by so many sufferings, 
 weary of so many excesses, seeking, at the feet of a Great Captain, 
 refuge in a military despotism. It seemed then to be transformed into 
 one vast camp, and during twelve years signalized its reaction against 
 Europe by an uninterrupted series of triumphs. This is the period of the 
 Consulate and Empire. Finally, when the application of some of the 
 principles in the name of which the Revolution was effected had received 
 from time a species' of consecration, when so many men, agitated by so 
 many contrary ideas, had learned to live together in peace under the iron 
 hand of the conqueror, the latter fell in his turn, and the Bourbons were 
 restored, on the condition that they would endow France with political 
 liberty, and respect the interests inherent to the new order of things. There 
 
 * France presents herself to our view, therefore, during half a century, under four 
 principal and very diverse phases. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 IsEW ORDER Or AFFAIRS. [BOOK I. 
 
 was ground for the hope that this last period would have resulted in the 
 establishment of a new government, more fitted than any other to secure 
 to France the lasting possession of all the fruits she had gathered after so 
 many storms. 
 
 If, at the commencement of the reign of Louis XVI., the counsels of 
 Turgot, of Malesherbes, and of men equally distinguished for their 
 patriotism and enlightenment, had been followed, France would probably 
 have enjoyed from that time all the advantages for which she subse- 
 quently paid so much treasure, so much blood, so many tears. But it is, 
 alas ! with nations as with individuals ; their experience is always dearly 
 bought, and it is not until they have suffered grievous trials that they will 
 consent to follow the advice of the wise. Each party in France was 
 willing to listen only to its own egotistical passions, and each perished in 
 succession, a victim to its own fury and excesses. In the blood-stained 
 period of which we are about to give a rapid sketch, the French nation, 
 by its frightful Saturnalia and astonishing victories, by its increase in 
 population and wealth in the midst of terrible convulsions, and also by 
 the definitive adoption of a portion of the great principles introduced by 
 the Eevolution, was by turns an object of horror, envy, terror, and ad- 
 miration to the universe. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 The States-General. — The Constituent Assembly. — The 
 Legislative Assembly. — Fall of the Monarchy. 
 
 5th May, 1789, to 1st September, 1792. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM THE OPENING OF THE STATES-GENERAL TO THE DISSOLUTION OF 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 
 
 6th May, 1789, to 20th October, 1791. 
 
 The States- General commenced their sittings on the 5th May, 1789, in 
 the hall of the Menus Plaisirs at Versailles. The deputies 
 
 i i t^ i r<s t • Ti Opening of the 
 
 were summoned to the Koyal beance, and introduced ac- states-General, 
 
 . 5th May, 1789. 
 
 cording to the form established in 1614; but the time had 
 passed when the Third Estate, speaking on its knees and uncovered, ac- 
 knowledged its humiliating inferiority in the presence of the other Orders. 
 It hastened, on the contrary, to assert its equality, and when, following the 
 King's example, the two other Orders had covered, the deputies of the 
 Third, contrary to custom, immediately did the same. This action was a 
 sufficient indication of the change which had taken place in public feeling 
 and manner. The deputies of the Third Estate would have gained but 
 little, however, by proclaiming their equality with the other Orders, if 
 they had not established it by facts. The first and most important ques- 
 tion to be decided was, whether the votes should be received by Orders or 
 individually. By the adoption of the first method, the deputies of the 
 Third Estate would have lost the advantage of their numbers, which were 
 double those of each of the privileged Orders. The Court, the 
 majority of the nobility, and a great number of the clergy considered it 
 of the highest importance that each Order should vote separately on all 
 political questions ; but amongst the nobility there were a certain number 
 
198 POPULAR EXCITEMENT. [BOOK I. CHAr. I. 
 
 who adopted the popular view ; the opinions of the cures, who formed a 
 considerable portion of the deputies of the Clergy, were very similar to 
 those of the Third Estate ; and the unanimity of opinion and nume- 
 rical strength of the latter gave it an immense advantage. The latter 
 proceeded to verify their powers, after having invited the Noblesse and 
 Clergy to verify theirs in common with them ; and then, at the instigation 
 of Sieyes, they constituted themselves, on the 17th June, a 
 
 Formation of the . . , . . 
 
 National Ass em- JNational Assembly. This important decision was lmme- 
 
 bly, 17th June. ,.,„,, . 
 
 diately folloAved by acts of authority. The Assembly, con- 
 sisting of the deputies of the Third Estate and the dissenting portion of 
 the Nobility and Clergy, sanctioned the temporary levy of the existing 
 taxes, but declared all those which it should not have sanctioned before 
 its dissolution to be null and void. It consolidated the public debt, nomi- 
 nated a committee of " subsistences," and proclaimed the inviolability of 
 its members. 
 
 The general excitement was extreme when a Eoyal sitting was an- 
 nounced, and when, under pretence of the necessary preparations, an 
 order was given to close the hall in which the States held their sittings. 
 Bailly, the president of the Assembly, famous for his literary and scientific 
 works, and esteemed for the honesty and firmness of his character, pre- 
 sented himself on the 20th June, 1789, accompanied by a great number 
 of his colleagues, at the door of the hall of meeting, and found it closed. 
 The violent measures proposed by the Court were now evident, and the 
 deputies resolved to prevent their being carried into execution. They 
 followed their president to a neighbouring tennis court, and 
 
 The oath of the , . . , . , 
 
 Tennis Court, there, with one exception, unanimously swore, with raised 
 
 June 20th, 1789. J . . , . 
 
 hands, that they would not separate until they had bestowed 
 a constitution upon France. Two days afterwards the majority of the 
 Clergy joined the deputies of the Commons in the church of St. Louis, 
 where they had provisionally assembled. Necker had conceived a plan 
 which would tend to bring the several Orders to amicable terms with 
 each other, and to calm the public excitement. The King had consented 
 to adopt it, and to mention it in his address to the Assembly ; but the 
 influence of the Court prevailed over the counsels of Necker. Terrified 
 at the immense power over public opinion acquired by the Third Estate 
 by its first proceedings, the party opposed to Necker, which was that of 
 the Princes, inspired Louis XVI. with its own terrors, and persuaded him 
 
1789-1791.] RESISTANCE OE THE NOBILITY. 199 
 
 to annul the decrees of the Assembly, to command the separation of the 
 Orders, and to decide alone upon all the reforms which were to be 
 eifected by the States-General. 
 
 Such were the preludes to the Royal sitting which took place on the 
 23rd June. The King proceeded to it with all the outward Ro al sitfcin 
 pomp of majesty, and was received by a portion of the deputies 23rd June * 
 with an icy silence* He only recognised the Assembly as the Order of the 
 Third Estate, and commanded its dissolution. The members of the Nobi- 
 lity and Clergy who were present immediately obeyed after the departure 
 of the King ; but those of the Commons retained their seats. The Grand 
 Master of the Ceremonies reminded them of the King's order, when Mira- 
 beau exclaimed, " Go and tell your master that we are here by the order 
 of the people, and we shall not depart unless driven away by bayonets." 
 Sieyes then addressed his colleagues, and calmly said to them, " You are 
 to-day what you were yesterday ; let us deliberate." The Assembly per- 
 sisted in maintaining all its resolutions, and, on the motion of Mirabeau, 
 decreed the inviolability of all its members. From thenceforth the Eoyal 
 authority was at an end. The greater number of the deputies of the 
 Clergy resumed their seats in the Assembly. The No- Eesistance of 
 bility persisted in their refusal to do so, in spite of* the the Nobllit y- 
 remonstrances of Count Clermont de Tonnerre and the more vigorous 
 exhortations of Lally-Tollendal, the son of the unfortunate General Lally, 
 and already celebrated for the talents he had displayed in vindicating the 
 memory of his father. " Consider, gentlemen," he said, " that in the 
 progress of revolutions there is a force of circumstances which is superior 
 to that of men. There has been a period when it has been necessary that 
 servitude should be abolished, and it has been ; another when it has been 
 necessary that the Third Estate should form a portion of the National 
 Assembly, and it has formed a portion of it. In these facts we per- 
 ceive the progress of reason, which enforces the rights of man, too long 
 neglected, which enforces the respect which an imposing mass of twenty- 
 four millions of men ought to give to the Third Estate, and which demands 
 for them the proportion of rights which justly belongs to them. 'This third 
 Revolution has commenced, and nothing can prevent its accomplishment. 
 I firmly believe that it now only depends upon the Nobility to clothe 
 itself with honour, and to invest itself with a glory more brilliant than 
 any which it has yet acquired, by now becoming for ever the bene- 
 
200 EXILE OF NECKEB. [BOOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 factors of the nation. It is for this reason, gentlemen, it is for the sake 
 of your own best interests, that I entreat you to acquiesce in the motion 
 of M. Clermont de Tonnerre." These remarks of Lally were energeti- 
 cally replied to by d'Epremesnil and Cazales, and the motion was rejected. 
 „ .... But on the following day 47 members of the Noblesse, 
 
 .Reunion of the ° J 7 
 
 ci er^ S with d the with tlie I)uke of Orleans at their head, joined the Third 
 Third Estate. Estate, and the majority of the Clergy, and were received 
 with enthusiasm. 
 
 The fusion of the several Orders, however, in a single assembly was not yet 
 complete, and as this circumstance produced an extreme state of agitation, 
 Necker again advised the union of the three Orders, and as the Queen and 
 many influential persons supported his views, Louis XVI. yielded, and 
 annulled his declaration of the 23rd June as readily as he had formerly 
 abandoned the counsels of Necker for those of the courtiers. He sent for 
 the Duke of Luxembourg, president of the Order of the Noblesse, and com- 
 municated to him his new wishes. Luxembourg opposed the proposed 
 measure ; and pointed out to the Monarch that the disunion between the 
 several Orders was the sole means which remained of preserving the 
 authority of the Crown. " Your faithful nobility," said the Duke in con- 
 clusion, " has now the alternative of sharing, as your Majesty invites them 
 to do, with their co-deputies the legislative power, or of dying in defence 
 of the prerogatives of the Crown. There can be no doubt as to its deci- 
 sion." " M. de Luxembourg," the King firmly replied, " my determination 
 is made. I am resolved to submit to every sacrifice. I am unwilling 
 that a single man should perish for my sake. Tell the Order of Noblesse, 
 therefore, that I pray them to join the other two Orders. If this be not 
 sufficient, I will command them to do so as their King. I will it to be 
 so." The King was obeyed, and after the 27th June the Clergy, the 
 Noblesse, and the Third Estate only formed one assembly, which was 
 indiscriminately named the National and Constituent Assembly. The 
 deliberations were henceforth general, and the distinction between the 
 Orders became extinct. 
 
 All moral authority having passed from the Monarch to the Assembly, 
 the advisers of Louis XVI. imprudently persuaded him to have recourse, 
 too late, to force. Troops were assembled in large bodies around Ver- 
 sailles ; Necker was exiled ; Marshal de Broglie, Galisson- 
 niere, the Duke of La Vauguyon, Baron de Breteuil, and 
 
1789-1791.] THE COMMITTEE OE ELECTORS. 201 
 
 the Intendant Foulon were appointed Ministers; and all of them 
 were imbued more or less with the views of the Court. The approach of 
 the troops and the exile of Necker produced a great feeling of excitement 
 in Paris. Camille Desmoulins, a young and ardent demagogue, harangued 
 the populace in the garden of the Palais Royal, and exhorted 
 
 , t«* i • i i i i t i i Camille Desmou- 
 
 tnem to run to arms. Pistol in hand he jumped upon a table Hns at the Palais 
 
 , . . Royal. 
 
 and denounced the designs of the Court against the patriots. 
 " This very evening," he said, " Swiss and G-erman battalions are issuing 
 from the Champ de Mars to destroy us. One resource alone remains to 
 us. Let us arm !" The crowd replied with acclamations ; and he then 
 proposed that a patriotic colour should be adopted — green, the symbol ot 
 hope. The orator tore a leaf from a tree and attached it to his hat ; every 
 one followed his example, and the trees of the garden were almost entirely 
 denuded of their foliage. From thence the mob ran to a sculptor's studio 
 to obtain the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans,* which were veiled 
 with crape and borne through the streets of Paris. The Prince of Lam- 
 besc, Colonel of the Royal Allemand, interrupted this oration by charging 
 the mob with his troops ; but the French Guards took the part of the 
 people, and the Prince's troops, refusing to fire upon their companions 
 in arms, retreated. In the meantime the tumult and disorder in the 
 capital grew greater and greater ; the barriers were set on fire, and many 
 houses were pillaged. The populace was without bread, and there was 
 every prospect of the occurrence of the greatest calamities. 
 
 m i o iiii tta i i Formation of the 
 
 lo prevent them, a few electors assembled at the Hotel de Committee of 
 
 _. 1 Electors. 
 
 Ville, assumed authority, and rendered great services m these 
 first moments of the Revolution by their firmness, activity, and prudence. 
 The National Assembly, after having in vain attempted to bring about an 
 understanding between itself and the Court, unanimously decreed the 
 responsibility of the Ministers and all the King's councillors, of whatever 
 rank they might be ; voted expressions of sympathy with Necker and 
 the other disgraced Ministers ; placed the public debt under the protection 
 of French honour, and constituted itself a permanent assembly. The 
 Archbishop of Vienne was its president, and Lafayette was elected its 
 vice-president. 
 
 The populace of Paris, excited by the hostile attitude of the Court, 
 was eager to follow up its first successes, and demanded arms. The 
 
 * At this time it was supposed that the Duke of Orleans had been exiled. 
 
202 TAKING OP THE BASTILE. [BoOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 Committee of Electors sitting at the Hotel de Ville organized the 
 
 National Guard, which it raised to the number of forty-eight thousand 
 
 men, and to which, on the proposal of Lafayette, it gave the tricolored 
 
 cockade.* Each district had its battalion. Fifty thousand pikes were 
 
 manufactured, and the arsenal of the Invalides was pillaged. " To the 
 
 Bastile ! — to the Bastile !'" became the cry of the excited populace ; and 
 
 the siege of the Bastile was immediately commenced. The French 
 
 Guards revolted, aided the mob with cannon, and secured the capture of 
 
 the citadel, the feeble garrison of which surrendered. The people, raising 
 
 in their hands the bleedino; trophies of their triumph, re- 
 Taking of the o i ^ x 
 Bastile, 14th turned with immense uproar to the Hotel de Ville, and 
 
 July, 1789. ... 
 
 speedily signalized their victory by many assassinations. 
 The unfortunate Delaunay, Governor of the Bastile, the prisoner of the 
 multitude, was slain by them. A letter found upon him caused Flesselles, 
 the provost of the merchants, to be accused of treason, and, after having 
 been brought up to trial before the mob, he was killed by a pistol-shot. 
 The excitement was noAV at its height. The regularly-constituted autho- 
 rities were everywhere insulted, the law was despised, blood flowed in all 
 directions, and a civil war was imminent. 
 
 The Court only regarded the insurrection in Paris as a riot. The King 
 proposed to dissolve the Assembly, and gave to Marshal Broglie, the com- 
 mander of the arm}^ unlimited power. Informed in the middle of the 
 night, by the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, of the capture of the 
 Bastile and the other events of the 14th July, the King exclaimed — " It 
 is a revolt." " It is a Eevolution," replied the Duke. The King's resolu- 
 tion gave way before the serious aspect of affairs, and on the following 
 day he proceeded in person to the Assembly. " The silence of the people 
 is a lesson to the King," Mirabeau had said, and the deputies at first re- 
 mained perfectly mute in the Monarch's presence ; but when he had said 
 that he was but one with the nation, that the troops should be withdrawn, 
 and added in a firm voice, "It is to you that I trust myself," loud 
 applauses burst forth, and the Assembly rising, reconducted the King to 
 his palace. 
 
 Louis XVI., perceiving the necessity of appeasing the capital himself, 
 announced that Necker should be recalled, and that he would proceed on 
 
 * This cockade united white, the ancient colour of the city of France, with red and 
 blue, the colour of the city of Paris. 
 
1789-1791.] ABOLITION OF PRIVILEGES. 203 
 
 the following day to Paris, where Bailly had been appointed mayor, and 
 Lafayette commander of the Civic Guard. It was by them that the 
 Monarch was received. " Sire," said the first, as he presented him with 
 the keys of the city, " Henry IY. recovered his people ; here the people 
 have recovered their King." Louis entered the Hotel cle Ville unaccom- 
 panied by guards, received the tricolored cockade amidst the acclama- 
 tions of the multitude, and did not return to Versailles until he had 
 sanctioned the acts of the people. But to sanction such acts, and to 
 recognise, as he did, authorities elected without any Eoyal warrant, 
 whose avowed office it was to limit his own power, was in itself to 
 abdicate. 
 
 And now commenced the first emigration. The Count d'Artois, the 
 Ivinor's second brother, the Prince of Conde, the Prince of ~ 
 
 ° ' ' First emigra- 
 
 Conti, and the Polignac family gave the example and quitted tlon ' July ' 1789 - 
 France. The return of Necker to Paris was a triumph for him, but it 
 was also the last day of his prosperity. He believed himself to be the 
 ruler of a party which only looked upon him as an instrument, and 
 endeavoured to save Bezenval, the second in command of the troops, and 
 a prisoner in the hands of the people. The Intendant Foulon and his 
 nephew Berthier had already perished, victims of the popular fury. 
 Bezenval was more compromised than they, and Necker, by proposing an 
 amnesty, at once lost all his popularity. From thenceforth he endea- 
 voured, but in vain, to struggle against the Revolution. The insurrec- 
 tionary movements in Paris extended to the provinces. Everywhere the 
 people formed themselves into municipalities and national guards. Troops 
 of armed men traversed the country, pillaging and burning the chateaux, 
 and giving to the flames the title-deeds of the seigneurs. The Assemblv 
 hoped to calm this fury, and in part to remove its cause by abolishing 
 the most detested privileges, and proceeded to effect this reform on the 
 celebrated night of the 4th of August. Vicomte de Noailles gave the 
 signal for sacrifices by proposing the redemption of the 
 feudal rights, and the suppression of villein services. The Privileges, 4th 
 privileged classes rivalled each other in making liberal pro- 
 posals, and apparently also in patriotism. But many of the deputies of 
 these Orders, members of the right side of the Assembly, only contributed 
 to destroy everything in the ancient social system in the hope of over- 
 throwing everything, and thus bringing about a reaction which they 
 
204 NATIONAL DIVISIONS. [BOOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 believed to be inevitable. Abuses and privileges were suppressed; votes 
 were passed for the redemption of the tithes and their conversion into a 
 pecuniary tax, for the suppression of exclusive hunting rights, the aboli- 
 tion of seigneurial justices, the sale of magisterial offices, the inequality 
 of taxation, the annates of the Court of Rome, and of the plurality of 
 benefices. Finally, the wardenships and masterships were suppressed, 
 and the Assembly bestowed upon Louis XVI. the title of the Restorer of 
 French Liberty. On this memorable night all Frenchmen were rendered 
 equal in the eye of the law, and were all declared equally admissible to 
 all offices and employments, without any other distinction than that 
 which might be bestowed by virtue or talent. But whilst the Assembly 
 thus swept away many unreasonable shackles and unjustifiable obstacles 
 in the way of private advancement, it at the same time lighted an unex- 
 tinguishable flame of ambition in every heart, by setting no bounds to 
 men's hopes but those which they themselves could perceive in the limits 
 of their own merits. 
 
 The Assembly was divided at this period into three principal parties; 
 Parties in the ^ ia ^ °^ ^ e Court and the privileged Orders, consisting 
 Assembly. chiefly of the Clergy and the Noblesse, of which the most 
 
 prominent orators were the Abbe Maury and Cazales, a cavalry officer, 
 and which desired a Constitution modelled on that of England. Necker, 
 Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, and Malouet were at the head of the second 
 party, which consisted chiefly of the minority of the Noblesse ; and the 
 remainder of the Assembly formed a third party, which was opposed to 
 the existence of any aristocratic distinction between the various classes of 
 the nation. This last party was divided within itself into various fac- 
 tions, between which there was little harmony. In one of them Bailly 
 and Lafayette were prominent ; in another the most noticeable were 
 the members of a famous triumvirate, which was always ardent in the 
 support of the most popular propositions, and which consisted of Duport, 
 a councillor of Parliament, of Colonel Alexander de Lameth, and of 
 the eloquent Barnave. Finally, some few of this third party dis- 
 tinguished themselves by their revolutionary violence, but their influence 
 was still weak ; and amongst these was one whose name, then obscure, 
 has since become but too famous — Robespierre. A fourth party might 
 be reckoned as existing in the Assembly, that of the Duke of Orleans. 
 But it was vague and undecided in its views, and if it really existed, only 
 
1789-1791.] DECLAEATTOK OF RIGHTS. 205 
 
 consisted of some individuals greatly attached to the Prince, and who 
 were supposed to wish to transfer the crown to his head. The principal 
 leaders of the Assembly were two men who did not belong to the Third 
 Estate, but were adopted by it, Abbe Sieyes and the Marquis de Mirabeau. 
 The first ruled it by means of his philosophical intellect, The Abh6 Sieyes 
 abounding in new and seducing but abstract ideas, which 
 were difficult of practical application, sometimes chimerical, and too often 
 suggested by an implacable hatred for the privileged Orders. He was 
 all-influential in the committees. The second was predominant at the 
 tribune. Abandoning himself in early youth to the most unbridled 
 passions, a victim to his own excesses, accustomed to struggle against all 
 restraints, devoured by a constant need for a sphere of activity commen- 
 surate with his vast powers, and as bold as he was eloquent, the revolu- 
 tions were his element. Disowned by the noblesse of Provence, he 
 threw himself into the arms of the people, who received him with trans- 
 port. For some time his influence was felt by every party, and he 
 exercised over the Assembly the sovereignty of genius. 
 
 Royal power, practically suspended, was at this time exercised by the 
 National Assembly, which appointed various committees to provide for all 
 the branches of the public service. It in the next place adopted, on the 
 motion of Lafayette, a declaration of the rights of man. \ •: i ;-_ ;. 
 
 J ° ' Acts of Consh'u- 
 
 drawn up in the spirit of the celebrated declaration of the Declaration of 3 ' 
 American Congress, which served as the basis of the consti- Ptl 8 hts - 
 tution. Louis XVI. hesitated to accept it, and only did so with regret. 
 The Assembly decreed the permanence of the legislative body, and after 
 a very animated discussion, in which Necker, Mounier, and Lally- 
 Tollendal insisted upon the division of this body into a Senate and a 
 Chamber of Representatives, it was resolved that it should be indivisible 
 and composed of a single chamber. 
 
 It then remained to be determined what part in the legislature should 
 be possessed by the King. Some wished that the Monarch should have 
 the power of actually rejecting the resolutions of the Assembly, whilst 
 others were willing that he should have only a suspensive veto.' This 
 question was the subject of the most violent debates. Paris was still in 
 a state of great agitation, the natural consequence of the victory of the 
 14th July. The Assembly of Electors, which had formed a provisional 
 municipality, had been superseded. A hundred and eighty members, nomi- 
 
2C6 EISING OP THE POPULACE. [BOOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 nated by the districts, had constituted themselves legislators and repre- 
 
 Comnrnneof senta tives of the commune, whilst the committees of the 
 
 Pans. sixty districts of Paris, from whom they received their 
 
 authority, also assumed a legislative power and one superior to that of 
 
 their proxies. The mania for public discussions had become general; 
 
 clubs of every description were formed throughout the city ; soldiers, 
 
 tailors, hairdressers, domestics, had all their special places of assembly. 
 
 The most animated debates took place on the Palais Royal, where the 
 
 populace controlled those of the National Assembly, and it was there that 
 
 t,. . the discussion on the Royal veto created the most violent ex- 
 
 Discussion on J 
 
 the Eoyai veto. c itement. The middle class, which composed the National 
 Guard, did not as yet possess complete control over Paris, and the 
 Ministry, terrified at the menacing demonstration of the multitude, advised 
 the King to abandon the unlimited veto for the suspensive veto. The 
 Assembly then decided that the refusal of the Monarch's sanction should 
 have no effect beyond two sessions, and then despoiled the throne of the 
 little that remained of its former prestige. Those who saw that this was 
 the case wished the King to seek a refuge in the midst of his army ; a 
 suggestion to which Louis XVI. refused to listen. Troops, however, 
 were brought up to Versailles ; and when the dragoons and the Flanders 
 regiment had arrived there, the adversaries of the new regime felt some 
 return of confidence. 
 
 The oificers of the newly-arrived regiments were feted by their 
 comrades in the Salle de Spectacle of the chateau, reserved for great 
 solemnities ; the King and Queen, the latter holding the Dauphin in 
 her arms, appeared in the midst of this noisy party, and their presence 
 excited the greatest enthusiasm. White cockades were distributed, and 
 the tricolored emblems were trampled under foot. Such was the 
 Ban uetofth f am01is banquent of the 1st October, the consequences of 
 1st October. which were to be so fatal to the Royal family. What had 
 occurred at it was speedily known in Paris and created the greatest 
 excitement. The arrival of the regiments, their hostile demonstrations, 
 the dread of conspiracies, and especially famine, created the most for- 
 midable rising of the masses. A girl of the town gave the signal, on 
 the 5th October, by traversing the streets with a drum. A mob of 
 women followed her, demanding bread and uttering the most frightful 
 vociferations. A furious multitude soon collected around them from 
 
1789-1791.J THE PEOPLE MAECH TO YEBSAILLES. 207 
 
 every direction ; it was resolved to march to "Versailles, and a man named 
 Maillard offered to conduct them. Withheld from its purpose by La- 
 fayette during seven hours, it set out at length, and filled Versailles with 
 terror. A conflict had already taken place between it and 
 the Royal Body Guard, when Lafayette arrived at the head Versailles, 5th 
 of the National Guard of Paris, and by his presence restored 
 order. Whilst every one was asleep, however, some of the populace 
 found one of the gates of the palace open, and entered, calling to their 
 comrades to follow. The alarm was given, and a fight took place between 
 the people and the Life Guards, many of whom heroically died at their 
 post, crying, " Save the Queen !" Marie Antoinette, informed of the 
 danger, fled half-dressed to the King. Lafayette hurried to the scene of 
 action. The French Guards had already gone to the assistance of the 
 Life Guards ; and Lafayette succeeded, at the peril of his life, in removing 
 the mob from the palace apartments. The multitude demanded with 
 loud cries that the King should appear, and Louis XVI. showed himself 
 on the grand balcony of the chateau. But it was the Queen especially 
 who was the object of the popular excitement ; and Lafayette, appearing 
 with her beside the King, kissed her hand with respect. The crowd 
 applauded, but vehemently demanded that the King should set out for 
 Paris. Louis XVI. yielded to this demand also, and on the very same 
 day proceeded thither with his family, escorted by his Guards, and 
 accompanied by a hideous and blood-stained mob. The principal result 
 of this event was to place the Court at the mercy of the multitude ; and it 
 filled with horror and affright all those who dreaded, with good reason, 
 a mob government, and it made many members of the National Assembly 
 resolve to abandon it. Lally-Tollendal and Mounier were of this 
 number, and the latter endeavoured, without success, to raise Dauphiny, 
 his province, against the National Assembly. 
 
 This attempt by Mounier, although unsuccessful, excited fears of the 
 dangers that might arise from provincial organizations. Several provinces, 
 irritated at having lost, with their privileges, the guarantees which they 
 had possessed, since their union, against the arbitrary power of the 
 Crown and the Central Government, formed, in the opinion of the 
 Assembly, states too vast and independent, and it desired to reduce 
 their extent and to subject them to an uniform mode of administration. 
 With this object it adopted, in December, 1789, a project which, 
 
208 NEW ELECTORAL SYSTEMS. [BOOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 although serviceable as a preventive of civil war, had very unfortunate 
 results. 
 
 This plan, which was devised by the metaphysician Sieyes, divided 
 
 France into eighty-three departments, each of almost equal 
 
 France into De- extent. Each department was divided into districts, and 
 
 partments and . . . 
 
 New Electoral each district into cantons. They were to be governed in a 
 
 Systems. . 
 
 hierarchical and uniform manner. Each department and 
 district had an administrative council, and an executive directory, those 
 of the district being subservient to those of the department. The canton, 
 composed of five or six communes, was a simple electoral division. The 
 administration of the commune was confided to a municipality consisting of 
 a number of members proportioned to the population. Everything in this 
 plan had an electoral basis, but it had many degrees. The citizens who 
 paid taxes equal in value to three days' labour were considered active 
 citizens, and formed preliminary assemblies to select the electors ; the 
 latter, who were selected from amongst the citizens who paid taxes of the 
 value often days' labour, selected the deputies for the National Assembly, 
 the administration of the department those of the district. The 
 municipal elections were conducted on the same principle. This division 
 „ of France into small portions named departments, contri- 
 
 Grave conse- *■ - 1 7 
 
 ifew Territorial "°uted eventually more than any acts of the most absolute 
 Divisions. Kings or Ministers to increase the power which, under the 
 
 name of central administration, threatens at the present day to subject to 
 itself all rights and to lead the State to interfere in all private matters.* 
 It was this division which broke in France the chain of traditions, 
 which by destroying throughout the kingdom the prestige of a past 
 history and the influences possessed by localities, rendered Paris the 
 burning focus of all ambitions and all intrigues, as it was that of all 
 power. There was no longer any centre of action left to counterpoise the 
 despotism of the capital ; the life of the nation was drawn more and more 
 from its extremities, and Paris absorbed France. 
 
 Some large provinces attempted to repel an organization so opposed to 
 their interests and destructive of their privileges ; but the provincial 
 States and Parliaments protested in vain, and were suppressed. To the 
 resistance of these was also added that of the clergy, whom the Assembly 
 
 * The result was especially manifest after the establishment of the prefectures 
 under the Consulate. 
 
1789-4791.] THE CLERGY DEPRIVED OE ITS PROPERTY. 209 
 
 deprived of their property by a measure no less violent and spoliative. 
 To the adoption of this latter measure, however, the Assembly was 
 urged by a necessity which, in times of Revolution, is often considered, 
 in defiance of all moral right, as the supreme law of peoples. The 
 deficit, in fact, was immense, the taxes produced scarcely anything, and 
 it was almost impossible to obtain loans. Necker, after many expe- 
 dients which were merely unproductive, had suggested to the Assembly 
 an extraordinary tax of a fourth part of every one's income, the amount 
 of which was to be estimated by each person for himself; and Mirabeau, 
 influencing his colleagues by the picture of the frightful bankruptcy 
 by which France was about to be devoured, it was resolved to 
 sanction this useful measure ; but this was far from being sufficient to 
 fill the void in the Treasury, and from this time covetous eyes were 
 thrown upon the immense possessions of the clergy as the only resource 
 which could supply the existing necessities. Already the tithes, which 
 had at first been rendered redeemable, had been suppressed, when 
 Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, proposed to the clergy to give up its pos- 
 sessions, valued at many hundreds of millions, for the benefit of the 
 nation, which would employ them in the payment of its debt and the 
 support of religion. The clergy refused, and thereupon the Assembly 
 declared that the clergy were not proprietors, but only 
 
 The clergy de- 
 
 trustees of the property consecrated to the service of reli- prived of its 
 
 property. 
 
 gion, and that the nation on taking on itself the mainte- 
 nance of public worship, might repossess itself of what was really its 
 own property. The public expenses required in this first year four 
 hundred millions, State votes were rated to the amount of this sum, 
 the currency of which was enforced by law, and which were mortgages 
 on the gross property of the clergy. Such was the origin of the assignats, 
 which, issued at first with prudence, facilitated the accom- 
 
 , . , „ . , First assignats. 
 
 plisnment of many important matters at the commencement 
 
 of the Revolution, but afterwards became discredited by the odious abuse 
 
 which now was made of them. 
 
 This violent spoliation of the clergy, contrary to all justice, and speedily 
 followed by the suppression of the religious orders, filled this important 
 body with profound irritation, and the Assembly rendered its opposition 
 more vigorous and inflexible by imprudently attacking its discipline and 
 the conscience of its members by the fatal vote determining the civil 
 
 VOL. II. p 
 
210 fete of the federation. [Book I. Chap. I. 
 
 constitution of the clergy. This vote established a bishopric in each 
 department, gave to the people the right of electing bishops 
 
 CitiI Constitu- o i 
 
 tion of the Clergy, an( j curates, and allotted to ecclesiastics salaries in the room 
 
 12th July, 1790. 
 
 of the property which they had formerly possessed, and 
 which the nation had seized. A schism now took place in this Order ; 
 many of its deputies immediately abandoning the Assembly, and joining 
 the dissenting noblemen. 
 
 The Assembly continued incessantly to effect changes, and to reor- 
 ganize the social and political constitution of the kingdom. It drew over 
 the army to the cause of the Eevolution by declaring that military rank 
 and promotion should be independent of titles of nobility. It abolished 
 all these titles at the instigation of the popular members of the nobility, 
 and organized the judicial -body on a new basis. It established a 
 Criminal Tribunal for each department, a Civil Tribunal 
 the Judicial for each district, and a " Tribunal de Paix" for each canton ; 
 
 Body. 
 
 and, following the English example, it introduced juries in 
 the criminal trials. It rendered all magisterial offices temporary and 
 conferable by election, in the same manner as the political and adminis- 
 trative ones ; and based its whole legislation, in short, on the principle of 
 the sovereignty of the people. The King was allowed to retain the 
 initiative in respect to questions of peace or war ; but the final decision 
 upon them was reserved for the Legislative Council. 
 
 As the anniversary of the capture of the Bastile approached, it was 
 
 resolved to celebrate it with extraordinary brilliancy, 
 ration, 14th July. D e p U ties sent from the eighty-three departments assembled 
 on the Champ de Mars, and there, in their presence, in that of the 
 National Assembly, the Parisian Guard, the deputies from the army, 
 and an immense multitude, Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, celebrated 
 a solemn mass on a vast altar, decorated according to ancient usage, and 
 of which the extremities were occupied by four hundred priests clothed 
 in white albs with tricolored girdles. Lafayette, as Commander-in- 
 Chief of the National Guards of the kingdom, advanced first of all to take 
 the civil oath, and was followed by all the deputies, amidst the roar of 
 artillery, and prolonged cries of" Vive le Roi ! Vive la Nation !" Louis XVI. 
 then arose, and said, " I, King of the French, swear to use all the power 
 which is delegated to me by the Act of the Constitution of the State, to 
 maintain the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted 
 
1789-1791.] FOUNDATION OF THE CLUBS. 211 
 
 by me." " Behold my son !" said the Queen with much emotion, as she 
 raised the Dauphin in her arms and showed him to the people, " Behold 
 my son ! He joins with me in the same sentiments." The populace 
 again burst forth into enthusiastic acclamations, and a canticle of actions 
 de graces terminated this fete, which was the last day of hope for 
 Louis XVI. and his family, if indeed the King could still hope when all 
 his power was reduced to a shadow. 
 
 Party intrigues were renewed on the following day. Necker, whose 
 methodical ideas were in incessant collision with the violent and precipi- 
 tate measures of the Assembly, sent in his resignation on the 4th of 
 September. A great number of the nobility emigrated at this period, 
 and the spirit of insurrection made each day further progress amongst the 
 people and in the army. Three regiments in garrison at Nancy muti- 
 nied, and were with difficulty reduced to submission by General 
 Bouille, who wished the King to join the army under his command on the 
 northern frontier. 
 
 The King had sanctioned, after making a violent effort over himself, 
 the Civil Constitution of the Clergy ; but the Pope refused to acknowledge 
 it ; and from this time the Archbishops and Bishops formed a league 
 which the Assembly imprudently strengthened by demanding that all the 
 priests in office should take the oath of fidelity to the Nation, the Law, 
 the King, and the Civil Constitution. Those who refused were to be 
 immediately degraded. This fatal measure attacked consciences and 
 created a schism. There were now two classes of clergy in the kingdom, 
 the constitutional and sworn, and the refractory and unsworn. The 
 members of this latter class refused to desist from the performance of 
 their functions, and thundered against those appointed to succeed them. 
 They employed all their influence with the population, who obeyed them 
 as well from habit as from faith, to attach them to their cause, and thus 
 a violent struggle was being prepared in various parts of the kingdom, 
 and every hope of order and conciliation was vanishing under an appa- 
 rent calm. 
 
 The creation of clubs multiplied the seeds of agitation, and precipitated 
 France towards anarchy. The clubs at first were private 
 assemblies, without any political authority, in which the clubs, 12th July 
 
 1790. 
 
 members discussed the affairs of the nation. The first 
 formed with this object was that of the Breton deputies, which was 
 
 p2 
 
212 BETUBN OP MIBABEATT. [BOOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 held at the ancient convent of the Jacobins, from whence it received its 
 name ; but this club soon extended its views, and desired to exercise an 
 influence over the Assembly, the municipality, and the populace. Its 
 first members abandoned it, and were replaced by violent and ambitious 
 men, the friends of disorder, members of the commune, or simple 
 citizens. They formed alliances with similar associations in the pro- 
 vinces, and raised side by side with the legal power, one which was still 
 more powerful, and which successively overruled and destroyed the 
 other. 
 
 The emigration continued. The King's aunts left France ; and Louis 
 XVI., who was suspected of wishing to join them, was arrested by the 
 people, and detained in Paris at the moment when he was preparing to 
 quit the capital for Saint Cloud. The Assembly, whilst proclaiming the 
 inviolability of the Monarch, declared that his flight from the kingdom 
 would lead to the forfeiture of his throne. And now the deputies, having 
 destroyed all privileges and completed the Constitution according to their 
 own idea, became terrified at the immense void which they had created 
 around the throne, and manifested a more monarchical tendency. 
 
 This reaction in favour of a chief authority was due in a great measure 
 M' abeau's re- *° Mirabeau, whose support had been purchased by the 
 turn to Court. Court, and who desired at the same time to strengthen the 
 throne and to secure all the valuable results of the Revolution. But in 
 order that his words should be respected, it was necessary that his cha- 
 racter should be respectable. The guilty gold which he had received 
 wherewith to supply his dissolute expenses, deprived him of that respect 
 without which politicians are in most cases rendered incapable of exer- 
 cising any influence. The confidence which was due to his genius was 
 refused to him on account of his character ; and the King himself, whilst 
 acknowledging the value of his advice, followed it with terror. No one 
 deplored more than Mirabeau the fatal situation which he had himself 
 created. "I pay very dearly," he often said, "for the faults of my 
 youth ! And you, poor Prince, will have to pay dearly for them also!" 
 11 Look around you," he one day said to one of the Crillons, in a tone of 
 profound conviction ; " it is I, I alone, who am capable of holding in 
 check the anarchy which is about to devour you, your friends, the throne, 
 the Prince. I must be listened to, I must be followed, or we shall all 
 perish." Discoursing on another occasion with Cabanis, he threw a sad 
 
1789-1791.] DECLABATTON OE MANTUA. 213 
 
 and prophetic glance on the future of the country, and broke a solemn 
 silence with these words, " Oh, if I could have brought into the Revolu- 
 tion such a character as that of Malesherbes, what a destiny might I have 
 secured for my country ! How glorious might I have made my name !" 
 In spite of his faults his genius still made him a predominant member of 
 the National Assembly, and he succeeded in procuring the rejection — on 
 the ground that it was an infringement of individual liberty — of a violent 
 decree proposed against the emigrants. This, however, was his last triumph. 
 Although he was only forty years of age his constitution had been de- 
 stroyed by every species of excess, and he awaited and expected death in 
 the midst of the most frightful sufferings. In his agony he still thought 
 and spoke of France, and of the state in which he left her. " I bear within 
 my heart," he said, "the mourning weeds of the monarchy, ^ th f M - 
 the remnants of which are about to be destroyed by the beau ' 179L 
 factions." A few minutes after uttering these words he died. The Na- 
 tional Assembly attended his funeral in a body, and had his remains 
 conveyed to the new church of St. Genevieve, which was destined, under 
 the name of the Pantheon, to receive the remains of many great men. 
 Mirabeau, after having made the greatest efforts to set in motion the 
 revolutionary torrent, had alone been capable of temporarily moderating 
 its violence, and his death was in this respect a public calamity, and the 
 nation went in mourning for him. 
 
 The sullen murmurs of the storm already began to be heard on the 
 frontier. The emigrants petitioned all Europe to assist them against 
 France, and formed two bodies, the one under Condi at Worms, and 
 the other under the Count d'Artois at Coblentz. This Prince went 
 with Calonne, his Minister, to the Emperor Leopold, and the secret de- 
 claration of Mantua, signed on the 20th Mav, 1791, was _ 
 
 ° **■•■» Declaration of 
 
 the result of their deliberations. It promised to Louis XVI. Mantua » WM- 
 the assistance of a coalition of which Austria, the circles of Germany y 
 Switzerland, and the Kings of Sardinia, Spain, and Prussia were to be 
 members. But Louis was anxious to restore the monarchy by his own 
 exertions, and for this purpose he endeavoured to reach Montmedy, to 
 join this army under the command of Bouille. He formed his plan of 
 escape in concert with the general, who posted detachments at intervals 
 along the road which the King was to proceed by. On the 20th June, at 
 night time, the Royal family issued forth disguised from the Tuileries, 
 
214 PLIGHT AND ARREST OP THE KING. [BOOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 escaped the notice of the guards, passed the barriers of Paris without 
 
 interruption, and immediately proceeded by the road leading 
 
 Royal family, to Chalons and Montmedy. On first receiving information of 
 
 20th June, 1791. . . -r> • -i i * i , r. -, , 
 
 this event, raris and the Assembly were stupefied ; but the 
 
 latter immediately assumed the executive power, assured the various powers 
 
 of its pacific intentions, and sent commissioners to the troops to receive their 
 
 oaths of fidelity in its own name. After a short interval news arrived of 
 
 the King's arrest. The unfortunate Monarch had been recognised and 
 
 arrested at Varennes. All the National Guards of the neigh- 
 Arrest of the ° 
 
 Kmg at Va- bourhood ran to arms: the detachments of troops stationed 
 
 rennes, and his ' £ 
 
 return to Pans. on the road were repulsed or were afraid to act. Bouille" 
 himself hastened up at the head of a regiment, but he was too late, 
 the King having already, many hours since, been on his way back to 
 Paris. The Assembly had sent forward three of its members to secure 
 his- return. These were the Count de Latour-Maubourg, Petion, and 
 the younger Barnave. From this time the latter, touched by the gracious- 
 ness and the sad fate of the Royal family, resolved to give it his best 
 advice and support. 
 
 The King was received in Paris with a sinister silence. The Assembly 
 provisionally suspended its functions ; appointed a committee to interro- 
 gate him, and subjected him to a rigorous surveillance in his palace. The 
 question then was, whether Louis XVI. should continue to reign or should 
 be declared dethroned. Lameth and Barnave, with the object of defending 
 the Monarch, joined the Moderate party, and established the Club of the 
 Feuillants, for the purpose of counteracting the Jacobin Club, which was 
 under the control of Petion and Robespierre, the leaders of the Repub- 
 lican party. The Assembly, at the instigation of Barnave, declared that 
 it was not competent to try Louis XVI. or to pronounce his dethronement ; 
 but at the same time, for the sake of calming the popular excitement, it 
 decreed that the King would have abdicated de facto, and have ceased to 
 be inviolable if he should wage war against the nation or suffer it to be 
 done in his name. This decree of the Assembly irritated the populace. 
 The agitators prepared a petition in which they appealed to the sovereignty 
 of the people, and spoke of Louis XVI. as having ceased to reign since 
 
 his flight. It was drawn up by Brissot, and was carried 
 Champfo Mars, on the 17th July to the Champ de Mars, to the " altar of 
 
 the country," where the demagogues Danton and Camille 
 
1789-1791.] TREATY OE PILKETZ. 215 
 
 Desmoulins harangued an immense crowd, and excited them to insur- 
 rection. The peril now became imminent, and the Assembly directed the 
 municipality to watch over the public safety. Lafayette and Bailly 
 proceeded to the Champ de Mars at the head of a numerous body of 
 National Guards. Bailly pronounced the legal summons, and had the 
 red flag displayed. The multitude responded by a shower of stones ; and 
 then, as all means of conciliation were at an end, and it became necessary 
 to have recourse to force, Lafayette gave orders to the troops to 
 fire. The second discharge was of murderous effect, and dissipated the 
 crowd. The multitude fled, and never forgave either Lafayette or Bailly 
 for having performed their duty on this fatal day. 
 
 These deplorable dissensions led the adversaries of the Revolution to 
 the committal of imprudent acts, and the only thought of the F t a ii tion 
 emigrants was how to stifle it by the united aid of all 1791 - 
 Europe. Monsieur assumed at Brussels the title of Eegent ; Bouille sent 
 a fierce letter to the Assembly. The Emperor, the King of 
 
 . . . Treaty of Pil- 
 
 Prussia, and Count d'Artois met together at Pilnitz, nitz, 27th July, 
 
 • . 1791. 
 
 where they signed, at the risk of compromising the King 
 
 whom they wished to defend, the treaty of the 27th July. In the docu- 
 ment they treated the cause of Louis XVI. as their own, demanded that 
 he should be replaced upon the throne, and that the Assembly should be 
 dissolved ; threatening that if this were not done, they would inflict the 
 most terrible calamities upon France. The Assembly, greatly irritated, 
 replied to these threats by levying a hundred thousand National Guards, 
 and putting its frontiers in a state of defence. In the meantime the end 
 of its term of office drew near, and the convocation of the electoral 
 colleges was fixed by it for the 5th August. A fatal decree, which had 
 been passed before the departure of the King for Yarennes, had inter- 
 dicted any of the members from forming a portion of the next Assembly. 
 In vain had Duport exclaimed, " Since we are establishing principles, 
 how is it that we do not recognise the fact that stability is also a principle 
 of government ?" The decree was passed, and the mania of disinterested- 
 ness becoming contagious, Bailly resigned the mayoralty, and Lafayette 
 the command of the National Guards. It was in this way that the 
 guidance of the Revolution was given over to new men who commenced 
 another for the purpose of obtaining for themselves notoriety and fortune. 
 Before dissolving, the Assembly condensed its constitutional decrees 
 
216 CLOSING OE THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. [BOOK I. CHAP. I. 
 
 into a single code, declaring that France had a right to review its consti- 
 tution, but that it would be prudent not to put it in force before thirty 
 years. The King accepted the Constitutional Act without reserve ; and on 
 the 29th September he closed the Assembly with some 
 Assembi ent 29th toucnm g words, which were received by it with accla- 
 September,i79i. ma ti ns, and every testimony of respect and love. Then, 
 Thouret, addressing the people, pronounced these words, " The Consti- 
 tuent Assembly declares that its mission is accomplished, and that at this 
 moment it terminates its sittings." 
 
 Thus came to an end this celebrated Assembly, after it had accomplished 
 in two years the most important things both for good and evil. It brought 
 to its work the most praiseworthy intentions, but many illusions, and 
 was not guided by the light of experience or a sufficiently pure moral 
 sense. Led away by the passion of reducing everything to an equality, 
 and for effecting reforms, rather than by a due sense of what was 
 just, it too often confounded rights which were worthy of respect with 
 privileges which were abuses, and necessary guarantees of order with 
 oppressive institutions ; it overthrew a traditional and secular past with 
 blind precipitation, and when building on its ruins, had the misfortune 
 to forget or misconceive what was necessary to give vitality and duration 
 to its work. The greatest faults of the constitution which it drew up 
 were the assembly of the members of the Legislative Corps in a single 
 chamber, and the complete subordination of the Royal authority to the 
 popular power. At the same time, whilst recognising the people as the 
 source of power, the Assembly had hoped to save France from the dan- 
 gerous consequences of this principle by preserving two degrees in the 
 elections, and its work perished less by reason of its defects, which were 
 great and numerous, than through the rage of factions, which raised up 
 the whole of Europe against the Revolution, and admitted the intervention 
 of the multitude in the government of the State. 
 
1791— 1792.J THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 217 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly. 
 
 From the 1st October, 1791, to the 20th September, 1792. 
 
 The Court, the Noblesse, and the Clergy, had no influence over the new 
 elections, which were conducted simply in accordance with _ . „ ' 
 
 r J Opening of the 
 
 the popular will, and the Assembly opened its sittings on JjjJS^jJj: ^c- 
 the 1st October, 1791. It declared itself as soon as it was toheT > l ™ [ - 
 assembled the Legislative Assembly, and took in accordance with the 
 provisions of the Constitutional Act, amidst the applause of composition of 
 the spectators, the oath either to live free or to die. The e ssem 7 ' 
 minority of the last Assembly was the majority of this, and the parties 
 into which it was divided did not fail to be speedily apparent. The 
 Right, composed of men firmly attached to the Constitution, formed the 
 Feuillant party, which was supported by the club of that name, the 
 National Guard, and the army ; but it was no longer dominant in the 
 Assembly, and it speedily yielded the important affairs of the munici- 
 pality to its adversaries of the Left, which composed the Girondist party, 
 at the head of which shone the celebrated orators of the Gironde, from 
 which it took its name, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Brissot, Condor- 
 cet, and the furious Isnard. This party was disposed to have recourse 
 to the most violent measures, and to appeal to the multitude to aid it in 
 carrying forward the Revolution. The Centre of the Legislative Assembly 
 was attached to the new order of things ; but the want of concert 
 amongst its members and their fears rendered them submissive to the 
 violent decisions of the Left. Without the doors of the Assembly the 
 Democratic faction supported the Girondists, and led the clubs and the 
 multitude. Robespierre ruled at the Jacobins ; Danton, Camille Desmou- 
 lins, Fabre d'Eglantine, were the leaders at the Cordeliers, which was still 
 
218 SCHISM AMONG THE CLEBGY. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 more violent than the preceding, and the brewer Santerre was the popular 
 chief in the faubourgs. Such were the principal chiefs of the popular 
 party, and their power was rapidly increased by the audacious and cul- 
 pable proceedings of the leaders of the Revolution. 
 
 The emigration increased day by day. The King's two brothers had 
 protested against the acceptance of the Constitutional Act by Louis XVI., 
 and at their summons nobles had quitted their chateaux, and officers 
 their regiments; distaffs were sent to those who hung back. Hostile 
 gatherings took place in the Austrian Low Countries, and in the neigh- 
 bouring Electorates. Preparations for the counter revolution were 
 made at Brussels, Worms, and Coblentz, under the protection of foreign 
 Courts. Whilst the emigrant nobility were making every preparation 
 for war without the kingdom, $he clergy were doing all they could to 
 Schiam among influence the people in favour of the Royal cause within 
 er gy, • ^ The Bishops prohibited the people from receiving the 
 sacrament from the Constitutional priests, termed intruders. Thundering 
 circulars against them were spread throughout the country, and meetings 
 took place in Calvados, Gevaudan, and La Vendee. The Assembly, greatly 
 irritated, adopted on the 30th October a decree which declared Louis 
 Stanislaus Xavier, the King's brother, deprived of all right to the Regency 
 unless he should return to France within two months ; it next declared 
 that the Frenchmen assembled beyond the frontiers were suspected of 
 conspiring against their country, and that if on the 1st of January, 1792, 
 they were still assembled in that hostile manner they would be treated as 
 conspirators, and punished with death. Finally, it declared that the 
 - i, refractory ecclesiastics should be deprived of their salaries 
 
 Decree on the •> x 
 
 ciriFoShzott* ^ e ^ refused to take the civil oath, and should be sub- 
 October, 1791. jected to confinement in case religious troubles should 
 arise in their communes. The King sanctioned the first decree, but placed 
 his veto on the two others. At the same time he expressed himself ener- 
 getically against the emigration ; but the Court placed all its hope in Europe, 
 and was the focus of all the plots contrived against the Assembly. 
 Unfortunately, inspired by its hatred for the Constitution and its prin- 
 cipal authors, it committed the fault of withdrawing all its confidence 
 from the Constitutionals when they alone devoted themselves to its defence ; 
 and thus it placed the Girondist Pltion in the mayoralty in preference 
 
1791-1792.] FORMATION OE THEEE ARMIES. 219 
 
 to Lafayette, and opened the Commune of Paris to men of the 
 multitude. 
 
 The national irritation was at this time greatly excited by the conduct 
 of the Princes of the neighbouring States, who received the emigrants 
 with favour and countenanced their military preparations. It was 
 desired that Louis XVI. should make a solemn declaration against them, 
 and Isnard terminated a speech delivered on this subject at the tribune 
 with these emphatic and fiery words : — " Let us tell Europe that if the 
 monarchs are engaged in a war against the peoples by their ministers, we 
 will engage the peoples in a war to the death against the monarchs. Let us 
 tell them that all the conflicts which take place between the peoples by the 
 orders of despots only resemble the blows which are exchanged between 
 two friends in the dark, at the instigation of some perfidious adviser. As 
 soon as the light appears they throw down their arms, and chastise him 
 who has deceived them ; and so, if at the moment when the arms of the 
 enemy were struggling with ours, the light of philosophy should strike 
 their eyes, the people would embrace in the sight of dethroned tyrants of 
 a happy world, a satisfied heaven." The proposed measure was decreed, 
 unanimously and enthusiastically ; and Louis XVI. approved it. " If 
 my representations are not listened to," he said, " it will only remain for 
 me to declare war." The Assembly voted twenty millions for this 
 object. A hundred and fifty thousand men were raised ; preparation for 
 three armies were formed, which were posted on the north- tion ofthree" 1 *" 
 era and eastern frontiers, under the command of Eocham- 
 beau, Luckner, and Lafayette. The emigrant Princes were at the 
 same time impeached, and Monsieur deprived of his rights to the 
 Eegency. Austria, then ruled by the Prince Kaunitz, the principal 
 Minister, replied to this decree by ordering Marshal Bender to support 
 the Elector of Treves if he were attacked, and demanded the reintegra- 
 tion of the German Princes who were formerly possessors in Alsatia. 
 It demanded the re-establishment of the feudality of this province or 
 war. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly now accused the Ministry of weakness and 
 bad faith, and an intrigue having sacrificed Bertrand de Moleville, the 
 Minister for Naval Affairs, who was justly suspected, and Narbonne, 
 the Minister for War, who was sincerely attached to the Constitution, 
 
220 THE GIKONDIN MINTSTKY. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 there followed a total dissolution of the Council. The King, yielding to 
 
 pressure of circumstances, now formed a Girondist Ministry, the most 
 
 remarkable members of which were General Dumouriez 
 
 Girondist 
 
 Ministry, March, and Roland. The first, accustomed from his youth to 
 
 1792. _ ' J 
 
 intrigue, was determined to succeed at every cost. He 
 was audacious, fickle, and without any political convictions, but endowed 
 with powers of keen observation, and an intellect which was as active as 
 it was fertile in resources. The second joined to austere morals a 
 great simplicity of manners ; but his mind was somewhat narrow, and he 
 allowed himself to be controlled by his wife, who herself yielded to the 
 control of a dangerous enthusiasm, and was the life and soul of the 
 Girondist party. 
 
 The first measure of the new Ministry had reference to war. The 
 Emperor Leopold was dead ; Francis II., King of Bohemia and Hungary, 
 succeeded him in the Empire, and his elevation made no change in the 
 Austrian policy in respect to France. The Prince de Kaunitz demanded 
 in the name of his Court, the restoration of the Church property to the 
 clergy, the lands of Alsatia to the German Princes, and Venetia to the 
 Pope. Such was the Austrian ultimatum. Louis XVI. replied by pro- 
 posing war, and the Assembly so determined. The invasion of Brussels, 
 
 which was in the occupation of the Prussians, was resolved 
 against Austria, on, and Rochambeau was ordered to undertake it. The 
 
 April, 1792. , . . 
 
 two first invading columns, however, were seized with 
 terror at the sight of the Prussian army, and took flight. Rochambeau 
 resigned the command, and the war assumed a defensive 
 character. Two armies covered the French frontiers on the 
 north and the east, under Lafayette and Luckner. The army of 
 Lafayette extended from the sea to Longwy, and that of Luckner from 
 the Moselle to the Jura. 
 
 The first reverse suffered by our troops excited great anxiety and 
 violent discontent. The Court was accused of being in complicity with 
 the enemy, and the Assembly declared its sitting permanent. It ordered 
 the dismissal of the King's constitutional guard, which had been raised by 
 him from eighteen hundred men to six thousand, and passed two decrees 
 contrary to the King's wishes. The one exiled the priests who refused 
 the oath, the other established a camp of twenty thousand men under the 
 walls of Paris. The Ministers entreated the King to deprive the refrac- 
 
1791-1792.] THE FETJILLANT MLNTSTKY. 221 
 
 tory priests of all hope by receiving himself the sworn priests ; but their 
 efforts were useless, and a split took place in the Ministry on the subject. 
 Roland wrote to the King a severe letter on the subject of his constitu- 
 tional duties, and exhorted him to make himself frankly the Letter of R i an( i 
 King of the Revolution. This letter wounded the King, and to the King * 
 determined him to dissolve the Cabinet. The Girondist Ministers were 
 accordingly dismissed ; and a few days afterwards the two decrees were 
 rejected by the King. The Assembly immediately declared that the 
 three late Ministers, Roland, Servan, and Claviere, had the sympathy of 
 the nation. 
 
 The new Ministry was chosen from amongst the " Feuillants," who only 
 reckoned in their ranks men who were suspected by the 
 
 ,., „ , ,. „,..., "Feuillant" 
 
 multitude on account of the moderation of their principles, Ministry, June, 
 
 1792. 
 
 and who were odious to the Court on account of their 
 attachment to the Constitution. They were wanting in strength, and the 
 King, who knew their weakness, and who had no hope but in the inter- 
 vention of Europe, sent Mallet-Dupan on a secret mission to the allied 
 Princes. The partisans of the Constitutional Monarchy, at the head of 
 which were Lally and Malouet, made a final effort to check the tide of 
 revolution. Duport, Lameth, Barnave, and Lafayette endeavoured to re- 
 establish the King's authority. Lafayette wrote to the Assembly denounc- 
 ing the Jacobins as the fomenters of all kinds of disorders, and conjuring 
 it to adopt only legal measures ; but the only effect of this letter was to 
 shake the general's own credit. The various parties became more and 
 more divided ; every hope of reconciliation vanished ; and each sought 
 to be victorious by the most discreditable means. The Court reckoned 
 upon Europe for the restoration of its power, and the Girondists relied 
 upon the populace to enable them to secure theirs. Chabot, Santerre, 
 and the Marquis de Sainte-Hurugue kept the faubourgs in a state of com- 
 motion ; and as the anniversary of the " Jeu de Paume" drew near, pre- 
 parations were made for a formidable insurrection. On that day, the 
 20th June, thirty thousand men, armed with pikes, de- 
 
 . The people at the 
 
 scended from the faubourgs, and marched towards the Tuiieries, 20th 
 
 . June, 1792. 
 
 meeting place of the Assembly, where their leader made a 
 threatening speech. His hideous troop then denied into the hall, singing 
 the sanguinary refrain of " qa 2*ra," and crying " Long life to the Sans- 
 culottes ! Down with the veto !" Santerre and Sainte-Hurugue then led 
 
222 ARRIVAL OF THE MARSEILLATS IN PARIS. [BOOK I. CHAP. IT, 
 
 it to the Tuileries, the gates of which it shook. The King had them 
 opened, and presented himself alone before the insurgents. Summoned by 
 the mob to sanction the two decrees, he refused with admirable courage ; 
 but he dared not decline the red cap which was presented to him at the 
 end of a pike, and he placed it on his head amidst the applause of the 
 populace. Petion, the Mayor of Paris, had taken no steps to prevent the 
 insurrection ; and during several hours he feigned to be ignorant that 
 Louis XVI. and his family were exposed in their own palace to the 
 greatest insults. He arrived at length, and harangued the multitude, 
 which readily dispersed, satisfied for the time with having outraged 
 majesty with impunity. 
 
 The Constitutionalists, indignant at this occurrence, entreated the King 
 to grant them his confidence, and to accept their support. The Duke de la 
 Eochefoucauld-Liancourt proposed to escort him to Rouen, where he was 
 in command, and Lafayette besought him to place himself at the head of 
 his army. But a fatality blinded the unfortunate Monarch, and he re- 
 fused. Lafayette hastened to Paris and demanded of the Assembly the 
 destruction of the Jacobin sect, and the punishment of the leaders in the 
 affair of the 20th June. But the Assembly did not even invite him to 
 attend their deliberations until they had debated whether they should not 
 try him as a deserter from his post. Lafayette relied upon being able 
 to close the Club by the aid of the National Guards, but the National 
 Guards did not respond to his appeal ; and he then returned to his army,, 
 having lost all his influence and popularity. 
 
 The foreign sovereigns continued to concentrate formidable masses of 
 troops on the French frontiers ; and the divisions in the interior of the 
 kingdom rendered its position more and more alarming. The King was 
 the object, in the debates of the Assembly, of the most violent invectives, 
 and the question of his dethronement was already discussed, when, on the 
 5th July, the Assembly declared the country in danger. All the citizens 
 capable of bearing arms were summoned to enrol themselves ; pikes were 
 distributed ; a camp was formed at Soissons ; the revolutionary excite- 
 ment was at its height, and was still further increased by the arrival of 
 the F6der6s Marseillais in Paris. Potion became the object of the people's 
 adoration, and on the anniversary of the 14th July the only cry of the 
 Federation was " Potion or death !" The Club of the Feuillants was 
 
1791-1792.] ATTACK ON THE TTJILEBIES. 223 
 
 closed; the companies of grenadiers and chasseurs of the National 
 Guard, which formed the strength of the bourgeoisie, were dissolved; 
 the troops of the line and the Swiss were removed from the capital, and 
 everything betokened some catastrophe. 
 
 The Duke of Brunswick, preceded by a fiery manifesto, was now 
 advancing at the head of seventy thousand Prussians and 
 
 Manifesto of the 
 
 sixty-eight thousand Austrians, Hessians, and emigrants. Vuke of Bruns- 
 The manifesto contained the most terrible threats against 
 Paris, and against all the cities which should venture to defend them- 
 selves, and its effect was to produce a general rising of the whole 
 French people. In Paris the popular party wished to annul the King's 
 authority at once. Eobespierre, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Fabre 
 d'Eglantine, and the infamous Marat harangued the people and excited 
 them to a state of delirium. On the 3rd August, Petion appeared before 
 the Assembly and demanded the dethronement of the King in the name 
 of the commune and the sections. This petition was referred to a com- 
 mittee of twelve members. A few days afterwards a discussion took 
 place as to whether Lafayette should be put upon his trial. It was 
 decided in the negative by a small majority. The people insulted those 
 who had voted in his favour ; the scenes of disorder grew more frequent 
 day by day, and the insurgents fixed the morning of the 10th August 
 for the attack on the Tuileries. 
 
 The Faubourg Saint- Antoine, whither the Jacobins proceeded in pro- 
 cession, was the centre of the insurrection ; and it was there 
 determined that Petion and the Council of the Commune J opula r + 4. a P fca * 
 
 tion. Attack on 
 
 should be relieved of all responsibility by being replaced by j^of the 63 ' 
 an insurrectional municipality. The agitators at the same ^ngSt, 1792?* 
 time proceeded to the barracks of the Federes Marseillais 
 and the Bretons. Informed of these threatening demonstrations, the 
 Court had put the Tuileries in a state of defence ; the interior was 
 guarded by from eight to nine hundred Swiss, and a body of gentlemen 
 armed with swords and pistols. Several battalions of National Guards, 
 and amongst others, those of the quarter of Filles Saint Thomas and 
 Petits-Peres, which were distinguished for their Eoyalist sentiments, 
 occupied the court-yard and the exterior posts, but an unfortunate blow 
 shook their resolution. Mandat, their commander-in-chief, was summoned 
 
224 MASSACBE OF THE SWISS. [BOOK I. CHAP. II 
 
 before the new Council of the Commune to render an account of his 
 conduct, and the mob murdered him on the steps of the Hotel de Ville. 
 Santerre, the brewer, immediately succeeded him in his command, and 
 the Court thus found itself deprived of one of its most reliable defences. 
 The insurgents, aroused in every direction by the terrible Danton, 
 advanced in several columns, and pointed their guns against the Tuileries. 
 The King, with grief imprinted on his countenance, reviewed the troops, 
 but in the ranks of the National Guard the cries of " Long live the King" 
 were drowned by those of " Long live Petion ! Down with the veto ! 
 Down with the traitor !" The procureur syndic, Roederer, then went 
 to meet the insurgents, and read to them the article of the law which 
 enjoins that force should be repelled by force. The National Guards 
 supported him but feebly, and the insurgents became inspired with fresh 
 audacity. Roederer returned to the palace and declared to the Royal 
 family that its only place of safety was in the bosom of the Legislative 
 Assembly. " Let us go, sir," said the Queen to the King, as she offered 
 him a pistol ; " this is the moment for us to show ourselves." Louis XVI. 
 remained silent for a few moments, and then gave the signal for departure, 
 and proceeded to the hall of the Assembly amidst the vociferations of the 
 populace. Vergniaud presided, and the King took his seat beside him ; 
 but Chabot having reminded the Assembly that it could not deliberate 
 in the presence of the King, Louis XVI. and all his family passed behind 
 the president into the dark box of the Logographe. 
 
 After the departure of the King for the Assembly there was no cause 
 for a conflict, but a furious one nevertheless took place between the 
 Swiss and the assailants, of whom the Marseillais and the Bretons formed 
 the advanced guard. A desperate man named Westermann, who had 
 formerly been an officer in the army, directed the attack, and the Swiss, 
 whom a first volley had made master of the Carrousel, were driven back 
 by the multitude, dispersed, and exterminated. This was the last day of 
 the Monarchy. The new municipality proceeded to the Assembly 
 to obtain a recognition of its powers, and terminated its address 
 to that body by demanding the dethronement of the King and the 
 establishment of a National Convention. Vergniaud replied by pro- 
 posing the convention of an Extraordinary Assembly, the dismissal of 
 the Ministers, and the suspension of the King's authority. These 
 measures were approved of, and the Girondist Ministers were re-estab- 
 
1791-1792.] IMPRISONMENT OE LAFAYETTE. 225 
 
 lished in power. The unfortunate Louis XVI. was taken to the Temple 
 with his family, and the 20th September was appointed as 
 the day for the opening of the Assembly which was to T™ ly le mthe 
 decide the destinies of the nation. 
 
 The enemy's army continued to approach, and there was reason to fear 
 a civil war. Lafayette, preferring to resign his command to engaging in 
 such a war, left his army and crossed the frontier with Bureau de Pusy, 
 Latour-Maubourg, and Alexander de Lameth. Being recognised by the 
 Austrian outposts, he was arrested, and the Emperor had him first 
 confined at Magdeburg, and then at Olmutz, in defiance of the law of 
 nations. During four years of a cruel captivity he displayed 
 
 i ■. TT m . , , ... Captivity of 
 
 the most noble courage. He was offered his liberty on the Lafayette at 
 
 t • • • • Olmutz. 
 
 condition of making certain retractations ; but he remained 
 
 in chains rather than deny the principles to the triumph of which he had 
 
 devoted his fortune and his life. 
 
 On the 10th of August the victorious party proceeded to establish its 
 power in Paris by the most violent methods. It had all the statues of 
 Kings pulled down, abolished the departmental directory, and abolished 
 the conditions demanded by the law to render a man an active citizen. 
 Finally, it demanded of the Assembly the establishment of an extra- 
 ordinary tribunal for the trial of those whom it termed the conspirators 
 of the 10th of August. This tribunal was established, but its pro- 
 ceedings appeared too dilatory to the terrible Commune, which was 
 under the influence of Marat, Panis, Sergent, Jourdeuil, Collot-d'Herbois, 
 Billaud-Varennes, and Tallien, and especially under the control of the 
 fiery and formidable Danton, who had been recently appointed Minister 
 of Justice, and was surnamed the Mirabeau of the populace. 
 
 The Prussians, supported by thirty-six thousand Austrians and ten 
 thousand Hessians, threatened the frontier of the north, 
 
 .Foreign inva- 
 
 and six thousand French emigrants, under the command Bion » August, 
 
 ° 1792. 
 
 of the Prince of Conde, marched against France in concert 
 with them. The army of Sedan was without a chief, and the advance of 
 the enemy was rapid. Longwy, being invested by them, capitulated; 
 Verdun was bombarded ; and thenceforth the road to Paris was open. 
 Terror reigned throughout Paris, and it was already a question with the 
 Executive Council whether it should not retire behind the Loire ; Danton 
 maintained with good reason that Paris is France, and that the Govern- 
 
 VOL. II. • Q 
 
226 MASSACBE IN THE PEISOKS. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 ment must maintain its position there at any price, and he ended his speech 
 with these sinister words : — " My opinion is, that to confound the agitators 
 and to check the progress of the enemy, we must terrify the Eoyalists." 
 
 Numerous arrests were immediately made by order of the Commune. 
 The prisoners were selected from the ranks of the dissenting noblesse 
 and the clergy. Troops marched towards the frontier. Ill-omened 
 rumours chilled every soul ; the Commune exerted itself, and measures 
 were taken for a general levy of the citizens. Vergniaud appeared 
 before the Commune and made the following speech : — " It appears that 
 it is the plan of the enemy to march directly upon the capital, leaving 
 the strong places behind him. Well ! this plan will lead to our safety 
 and his own destruction. He will find the Parisian army in order of 
 battle under the walls of the .capital, and then, surrounded in every 
 direction, he will be devoured by this land which he has profaned. 
 Parisians, it is to-day that you must display all your energy I Why 
 are not the entrenchments in a more forward state ? Where are the 
 spade and the pick which raised the altar of the Federation and levelled 
 the Champ de Mars ? You have sung and celebrated liberty, and now 
 it is necessary to defend it. We have not now to overthrow kings of 
 bronze, but living Monarchs armed with all their power. I demand, 
 then, that the National Assembly should give the first example, and send 
 twelve deputies, not to make addresses, but to work with their own 
 hands in the sight of all." This proposition was unanimously adopted. 
 Danton followed Vergniaud, and proposed fresh measures ; whilst he was 
 speaking the generate was heard, and the firing of cannon. " That 
 cannon which you hear," exclaimed the fiery orator, " is not the cannon 
 of alarm ; it is the signal to charge the enemy ! and what is necessary to 
 enable us to vanquish and to crush them ? Courage ! still courage ! always 
 courage ! " 
 
 The news of the capture of Verdun reached Paris on the night of the 
 1st September, and filled it with a species of stupefaction. The Commune 
 seized that moment to execute its execrable projects. The tocsin was 
 sounded, the barriers were closed, and the massacres of the prisons 
 commenced. During three days the nobles and the priests who had 
 >/r . i, been imprisoned at l'Abbaye, the Conciergerie, Carmes, and 
 
 Massacre in the r J ' ° ' 
 
 tember' i792 Sep " ^aforce, were murdered by a band of three hundred 
 ruffians in the midst of a hideous parody of judicial forms. 
 
1791—1792.] DEATH OP THE PEINCESS LAMBALLE. 227 
 
 On the part of the victims there were displayed almost innumerable 
 instances of noble resignation and heroic devotion, and on the part of the 
 executioners the most atrocious acts of delirious cruelty. Skilful in the 
 invention of moral tortures for those whom their hands could not reach, 
 they made horrible saturnalia around the Temple, and displayed under 
 the windows of that Royal prison, in the sight of the Queen, the head of 
 her friend, the unfortunate Princess Lambaile. The Assembly wished to 
 check the massacres, but found itself unable to do so. The mayor, 
 Petion, was suspended from his functions ; the better class of citizens 
 groaned in terror; and the Commune reigned alone in Paris. These 
 horrible scenes did immense injury to the cause of the Revolution ; the 
 chastisement of them fell after a time upon their ferocious authors, and 
 amongst them was perceived with horror the special guardian of justice 
 and the laws, the demagogue Danton. 
 
 The Prussians continued to advance. Dumouriez, who had been ap- 
 pointed to the command of the army of the Moselle, threw 
 
 .../».. -in n Dumouriez 
 
 his troops, by an inspiration of genius, into the forest of cheeks the Prus- 
 
 . , , ...,.,, niii siansatArgonne. 
 
 Argonne, the only position in which he could check the 
 progress of the enemy, posted his principal forces at Grand-Pre and 
 Islettes, and wrote to the Assembly : — " I await the Prussians ; the camp of 
 Grand-Pre* and that of Islettes are the Thermopyles of France ; but I shall 
 be more fortunate than Leonidas." The Prussians were, in fact, com- 
 pelled to halt ; but an error committed by Dumouriez forced him to 
 abandon his position, and to fall back upon the camp of Sainte-Mene- 
 hould, where he concentrated his forces, and received reinforcements 
 under the command of Beurnonville and Kellermann, which raised his 
 army to seventy thousand men. On the 20th September the Prussian 
 army attacked Kellermann at Valmy, with the intention of 
 cutting off the retreat of the French army, the warlike 20th September^ 
 aspect of which terrified the Duke of Brunswick. The 
 action consisted only in a lively cannonade which lasted till the evening, 
 and the honour of the day remained with the French. This first success, 
 although of little real importance, encouraged the French army, and gave 
 it confidence in itself ; whilst it astonished the enemy, to whom the French 
 emigrants had declared that the campaign would be a mere military 
 promenade. The Duke of Brunswick was without magazines, the 
 season was beginning bad, and he offered to withdraw from France 
 
 q2 
 
228 EETEEAT OF THE PETTSSIAN ABMY. [BOOK I. CHAP. II. 
 
 if the French would replace the constitutional King upon the throne. 
 
 The Executive Council replied that it could not listen to any proposals 
 
 before the Prussian troops had withdrawn from French soil, and the 
 
 Duke of Brunswick then ordered a retreat, which was begun 
 
 Eetreat of the ' ° 
 
 3othSe n tember on t ^ ie 30th September. The French resumed possession of 
 1792# Verdun and Longwy, and the enemy repassed the Rhine 
 
 at Coblentz. Other successes attended the French arms in the course 
 of this campaign. Custine, on the Rhine, took possession of Treves, Spire, 
 and Mayence ; Montesquiou invaded Savoy, and Anselme the county of 
 Nice. Our armies everywhere assumed the offensive, and were victorious. 
 
229 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE FRENCH REPUBLIC TO THE CONSULATE. 
 
 The National Convention — The Reign of Terror — Victories of the 
 French Armies — Conquest of Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, 
 and Italy — Reaction of the Moderate and Royalist Party — 
 The Directorial Government — Anarchy — Defeats — Expedition 
 to Egypt — Fall of the Directory. 
 
 20th September, 1792, to 10th November, 1799 (19*7* Brumaire, Year VIII.) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 from the opening of the national convention to the fall of the 
 
 girondists. 
 
 20*7* September, 1792, to 2nd June, 1793. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly had dissolved itself, and that which succeeded 
 it commenced its sittings on the 20th September, 1792, and 0pen ; ngoftlie 
 took the name of the National Convention. Its first act was to JJjjjgJJf Con ~ 
 abolish Royalty, and to proclaim a Republic ; and it then 
 declared that it Avould date its proceedings from ^the first year of 
 the French Republic. These measures were decreed unani- 
 
 , , i • • i • i i 1- • i • Tne Republic 
 
 mously, but the two sections into which the Legislative proclaimed, 20th 
 
 September, 
 
 Assembly was divided at its close, speedily commenced a 1792. Factions 
 
 in the Assembly. 
 
 desperate war against each other, the issue of which was 
 fatal to both of them. These parties were that of the Girondists, which 
 sat on the right in the Assembly, and that of the Mountain, which occu- 
 pied the upper benches on the left, from whence they derived their name. 
 The first party desired a legal and constitutional form of government in the 
 Republic, which was the object of their wishes, and which they had 
 
230 THE THREE PARTIES IN THE CONTENTION. [BOOK IT. CHAP. I. 
 
 themselves assisted to establish. They looked with anxiety on the abyss 
 which was open before them, and after having themselves unloosed the 
 populace against the throne, they endeavoured to hold it in check. They 
 wished in vain that it should disarm and resign its power into their 
 hands. The Mountain, less enlightened and less eloquent than the Gi- 
 rondists, were more audacious and less scrupulous as to the means 
 by which they attained their ends. The most extreme democracy 
 seemed to them to be the best form of government, and they had for their 
 principal leaders, Danton, Robespierre, and Marat. The two latter were, 
 with good reason, held in especial horror by the Girondists. Robespierre, 
 a man of moderate talents but full of envy and ambition, had until now 
 held aloof, pronouncing, whether it were in the Constituent Assembly or 
 in the Jacobin Club, where he was supreme, or in the Convention, against 
 all who by turns were in the ascendant. He aspired to the first rank, and 
 associating the cause of his personal vanity with the popular passions, he 
 triumphed over all superiority by branding it with the th en odious name of 
 aristocracy. He distinguished himself in the eyes of the multitude by a 
 show of austere patriotism, and captivated it by lavishing upon it the pro- 
 perty and blood of the vanquished. Marat, a furious fanatic, had rendered 
 himself the apostle of murder by his discourses, and in his infamous 
 journal— the FriencVof the People — he advocated recourse to a dictatorship 
 for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the people, and exterminating 
 them in a body. These two leaders, worthy of each other, had already left far 
 behind them Danton and his partisans, who would have preferred in the ca- 
 reer of murder to have stopped short at the massacres of September. The 
 Girondists were stronger in the Assembly than their rivals, and the depart- 
 ments were favourable to them, but the Commune of Paris was devoted to 
 the Mountain, which ruled by its aid and that of the Jacobins the sections 
 and the faubourgs. A third party, with no decided opinions and no sys- 
 tematic action, hesitated between the two others. This party was that of 
 the plain or the marsh, and was composed of men who were for the most part 
 well-intentioned, but had no strengthof character. They voted for the Giron- 
 dists, and gave them the majority as long as they were without fears for 
 themselves ; but fear at length threw them into the opposite ranks. 
 
 The Girondists, and amongst others the Marseillais Barbaroux, accused 
 Robespierre of seeking to establish a tyranny. This accusation, ill sup- 
 ported, fell also upon Marat, who every day advocated fresh massacres. 
 
1792-1793.] BATTLE OE JEMAPPES. 23.1 
 
 He attempted to justify himself. His appearance at the tribune excited 
 a feeling of horror ; and when this atrocious man, remaining perfectly 
 unmoved, said, " I have a great number of personal enemies in this 
 Assembly," there was a general cry of "All ! all !" and yet this attack upon 
 him had no result. It was resumed some days later against Eobespierre. 
 " No one," he said, " will dare to accuse me to my face." " Yes ; I do !'" 
 cried Louvet ; and running to the tribune, he overwhelmed Robespierre 
 by a most eloquent and improvised denunciation, prefacing each new 
 series of accusations by the terrible formula, " Robespierre, I accuse you 1" 
 The future tyrant would have been crushed on this occasion, but he 
 demanded and obtained a week for the preparation of his defence, and the 
 order of the day put an end to the struggle. It was thus that the Giron- 
 dists, by their attacks, themselves increased the importance of their 
 adversaries ; failing to perceive that they must vanquish and crush them, 
 or perish themselves. Powerless against the Commune, they yielded also 
 to their enemies the Club of the Jacobins, and irritated the populace of 
 Paris by demanding that the protection of the] Assembly should be confided 
 to troops drawn from the departments. From thence they obtained the 
 name of Federalists, and were accused of wishing to excite the provinces 
 against the capital, whilst the Mountain had proclaimed the unity and 
 indivisibility of the Republic. 
 
 The French arms triumphed in Belgium. General Clairfait had 
 joined the Archduke Albert before Mons, and their united 
 armies covered the heights on which are situated the mounez, at Je- 
 
 o mappes, otn 
 
 villages of Jemappes, Cuesmes, and Berlaimont. The November » im- 
 position of the Austrians, defended by numerous abatis, steep slopes, 
 woods, fourteen redoubts, and a powerful artillery, seemed impregnable. 
 Their cavalry, posted in the hollow between the hills, especially between 
 Jemappes and Cuesmes, held itself in readiness to sweep away our columns 
 as soon as the artillery should have broken them. Dumouriez drew up 
 his army in a semicircle parallel to that of the enemy ; and the Generals 
 Ferrand and Beurnonville commenced the attack at the wings. The 
 French left drove back the enemy, and Dumouriez then immediately 
 carried the centre against Jemappes. His infantry advanced in close 
 columns under a murderous fire ; but then the Austrian cavalry advanced, 
 and at this movement a French brigade gave way, and laid open the 
 flank of our columns on the right. The attack was on the point of fail- 
 
232 CONQUEST OF BELGIUM. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 ing when young Baptiste Renard, simply a servant to Dumouriez, 
 hastened to point out the danger, and led back the brigade against the 
 enemy. The alarm had already spread to the attacking battalion of the 
 centre, and they were shaken by the fire from the batteries. But the 
 Duke de Chartres, the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, rallied them, 
 gathered a body of picked troops around him, and resumed the conflict. 
 Dumouriez hastened to the right at the moment when the intrepid Dam- 
 pierre was leaping into an enemy's redoubt. He assembled some scattered 
 battalions, repulsed the enemy's cavalry, and chanting the " Marseillaise " 
 at the head of his battalions, threw himself upon the Austrian entrench- 
 
 Con uest of men ^ s > forced them, and took the village of Cuesmes. The 
 
 Belgium. battle was now won; the Austrian s were driven beyond the 
 Roer, and the victorious general entered Brussels on the 14th, whilst his 
 lieutenants took Namur and Antwerp. The whole of Belgium was subdued. 
 
 From this time began the dissensions between the victorious Dumouriez 
 and the Jacobins. The latter threw themselves upon the conquered 
 provinces as their prey. The Flemings, weary of the Austrian yoke, 
 had received the French with enthusiasm, and as liberators. But the 
 Jacobins speedily alienated them by demanding heavy contributions, 
 and gave them up to a frightful anarchy. Dumouriez, indignant, 
 returned to Paris with the double object of repressing their violence 
 and saving Louis XVI. ; but his efforts were vain. 
 
 The unfortunate Monarch languished during four months in the Tower 
 of the Temple, with the Queen, his two children, and his virtuous 
 sister Elizabeth ; passing his time in reading and the education of the 
 young Dauphin. The Commune exercised a cruel surveillance over its 
 captives, and made them drink deep of bitterness. The debate on the 
 King's trial commenced on the 23rd November. The principal charges 
 against him were founded on the documents found in the Tuileries, in 
 an iron chest, the secret of which had been pointed out to the Minister 
 Roland. By means of these were discovered the counter-plots of the 
 Court against the Revolution, as well as the arrangements made with 
 Mirabeau and General Bouille. Other papers found in the offices 
 of the civil list, seemed to prove that Louis had not always been a 
 stranger to the efforts made by Europe in his favour. But, as King, the 
 Constitution declared him inviolable ; moreover, he was dethroned, and 
 could not be condemned, save in defiance of all the principles of law, for 
 
1792-1793.] TRIAL OF LOUIS XVI. 233 
 
 acts committed before his dethronement. The Mountain themselves per- 
 ceived the illegality of the proceedings directed against him. Robespierre, 
 in demanding his death, rejected all forms of law as illusions, and with 
 St. Just, relied solely on reasons of policy. " What would not the good 
 citizens, the friends of liberty," said the latter, "have to fear, if they 
 saw the axe trembling in your hands, and a people, on the first day of its 
 liberty, respecting the memory of its chains !" 
 
 The Mountain, urging with the utmost energy the condemnation of the 
 King, wished to crush the Girondists, who had openly expressed their 
 desire to save him. The great majority of the Assembly persisted in 
 conducting this great trial according to judicial forms; and Louis XVI., 
 already separated from his family, appeared as a prisoner before the 
 Convention, whose jurisdiction he did not deny. His bear- TrialofLouig 
 ing was firm and noble, his replies precise, touching, and XVI - 
 almost always victorious. On being reconducted to the Temple, he 
 requested to be allowed counsel, and named Target and Tronchet. The 
 first declined to act, but the venerable Malesherbes offered to take his 
 place, and wrote to the Convention these memorable words : " I have 
 been twice summoned to the councils of him who was my master in the 
 times when to be so was an object of ambition to all the world ; and I 
 owe him the same service when it is an office which most persons would 
 consider dangerous." The Convention granted his request, by which 
 Louis XVI. was deeply touched ; when he saw him he pressed him in 
 his arms, and said with tears in his eyes, " You are risking your own 
 life and will not save mine." Malesherbes, holding the King's hand 
 pressed to his lips, said that he was happy thus to bestow the remainder 
 of his days. He then endeavoured to inspire the august captive with 
 hope in the justice of his judges and the confusion of his persecutors ; 
 " No ! no !" replied the King, " they will kill me, I am sure ; they have 
 both the power and the will; but never mind, let us consider the subject 
 of my defence as though it were certain to be successful — and in fact it 
 will be successful, since it will leave my character without a stain." 
 
 Tronchet and Malesherbes immediately commenced the preparation of 
 the King's defence, and took counsel with Deseze, an advocate of Bordeaux, 
 established in Paris. 
 
 Since the commencement of his trial, Louis XVI., separated from his 
 family by the orders of the Convention, and kept a close prisoner, was 
 
234 DEFENCE OE LOUIS BY DESEZE. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 not able to communicate with any of those who were so dear to him. 
 Their sufferings, their perils, and their love were ever present to his. 
 thoughts. On the 19th December he said, at breakfast time, to Clery, 
 his single servant, in the presence of the four municipal guards, " Fourteen 
 years ago you were earlier than you are to-day." A sad smile revealed 
 to Clery the meaning of these words. " It is the day," continued the 
 King, " on which my daughter was born. And to think that I should 
 not be able to see her !" Tears filled his eyes. The municipal guards 
 seemed silently to respect this remembrance of happy days which entered 
 his prison but to render it more sombre. 
 
 On the following day Louis XVI. wrote his will, the sublime testament 
 of a Christian soul ready to appear before its God. He left his grateful 
 remembrances to his attendants, his pardon to his enemies. " I pardon," 
 he said in it, " with all my heart those who have become my enemies 
 without my having given any cause to be so, and I pray God to pardon 
 them, as well as those who from a mistaken zeal have done me so much 
 harm. I beseech Him to look with compassionate eyes on my wife, my 
 children, and my sister, who have so long suffered with me, and to sup- 
 port them by His grace if they should lose me, so long as they shall 
 remain in this perishable world. I recommend to my son, if he should 
 ever have the misfortune to become a King, to remember that he ought 
 to devote himself entirely to the welfare of his co-citizens, that he ought 
 to banish from his mind every feeling of hatred or resentment, and 
 especially to do so with respect to any miseries I may myself have 
 suffered. I conclude by declaring before God, and as ready to appear 
 before Him, that I do not reproach myself with any of the crimes laid 
 to my charge." 
 
 The King was taken a second time before the Convention, and appeared 
 at the bar accompanied by his counsel. Deseze read the defence, and 
 concluded his pathetic address with these solemn and true words : " Louis, 
 ascending a throne at the age of twenty years, sat there an example ot 
 morals, justice, and economy. He carried to it no weakness, no corrupt 
 passion, and was the constant friend of the people. The people wished 
 that a disastrous tax should be abolished, and Louis abolished it ; the 
 people desired the abolition of servitude, and Louis abolished it; the 
 people solicited reforms, and he made them ; the people wished to change 
 its laws, and he consented to the change ; the people wished that millions 
 
1792-1793.] DIVISIONS IN THE ASSEMBLY. 235 
 
 of Frenchmen should recover their rights, and he restored them ; the 
 people wished for liberty, and he bestowed it on them. It is impossible to 
 deny to Louis the glory of having anticipated the wishes of the people by 
 
 his sacrifices ; and it is he that it is proposed to you to But, citizens, 
 
 I will not complete what I was about to say. I pause in the presence of 
 history. Eemember that it will judge your judgment, and that its ver- 
 dict will be that of all ages to come." 
 
 Louis XVI. left the hall with his counsel, and a violent storm imme- 
 diately arose in the Assembly. Lanjuinais, in a state of great indignation, 
 rushed to the tribune, and demanded that the whole proceedings should 
 be annulled. He exclaimed that the time for ferocious men had gone by ; 
 that to make the Assembly try Louis XVI. was to dishonour it ; that no 
 one in France had the right to do so ; that if the Assembly desired to act 
 as a political body it should only take measures of precaution against the 
 late King ; and that if it were to act as his tribunal it would do so in 
 disregard of all principles, for in that case the vanquished would be 
 judged by the vanquisher, since most of the members present were the 
 declared conspirators of the 10th August. These words were followed 
 by a terrible tumult, and from all sides arose the cry, " Order ! To the 
 Abbaye with him !" Lanjuinais, calm and intrepid, added, " I would 
 rather die a thousand deaths than condemn, contrary to law, the most 
 abominable tyrant." A crowd of speakers succeeded Lanjuinais. Saint- 
 Just influenced the hatred of the unfortunate Prince's enemies by re- 
 presenting him, with an air of hypocritical gentleness, under the most 
 abominable colours. Rabaud-Saint-Etienne, a Protestant minister who 
 had already honourably distinguished himself as a member of the Con- 
 stituent Assembly, expressed himself, on the other hand, as indignant at 
 the accumulation of powers exercised by the Convention. " As for 
 myself," he said, " I am weary of my share in despotism; I am tormented 
 at the idea of the tyranny of which I form a portion, and I sigh for the 
 moment when you shall have established a tribunal which shall relieve 
 me of the appearance of being a tyrant. If you seek for political rea- 
 sons, they are to be found in history. The citizens of London, after 
 having so earnestly sought for the punishment of their King, were the 
 first to curse his judges and to prostrate themselves before his suc- 
 cessor. People of Paris, Parliament of Paris, have you heard what I 
 have said ?" Sullen Eobespierre then arose and said, with an accent of 
 
236 SPEECH OE VERGNIAUD. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 the deepest wrath and malice, " The chief proof of devotion which we 
 owe to our country is, to stifle in our hearts every sentiment of com- 
 passion." He then broke forth into invectives and perfidious insinuations 
 against the deputies of the Gironde, who at this critical moment pre- 
 served a prudent silence, whilst Robespierre expressed himself without 
 reserve, demanded that Louis XVI. should be condemned, and did not 
 conceal his desire that his blood should be shed. 
 
 These stormy debates were prolonged during three days, and at length 
 Vergniaud, the greatest orator of the Girondist party, arose to speak, and 
 was listened to in profound silence. He declared in favour of an appeal 
 to the people, repelled the perfidious insinuations of Robespierre, and 
 predicted all the dangers which must result to France from a precipitate 
 condemnation. a The European powers," he said, " but await this 
 pretext to throw themselves in a body upon France ; we should doubt- 
 less be able to vanquish them, but victory itself would demand an 
 increase of efforts and expenses. What gratitude would the country owe 
 to you should you cause its blood to flow in torrents on the Continent and 
 on the ocean, and should exact an act of vengeance in its name which 
 should overwhelm it with calamities ? The social system, wearied by the 
 assaults of enemies from without and factions within, will fall into a 
 mortal languor. Beware lest in the midst of her triumph France should 
 come to resemble those famed Egyptian monuments which have subdued 
 time ; the passing stranger is astounded by their grandeur, but if he 
 penetrate within them, what does he find ? — lifeless ashes and the 
 silence of the tomb." Vergniaud then demanded whether " it were not 
 to be feared that the people would attribute all its miseries to the Con- 
 vention. Who will guarantee," he said, " that at the sound of the seditious 
 cries of a turbulent anarchy, the aristocracy eager for vengeance, 
 wretchedness eager for change, and the compassion which indomitable 
 prejudices will have excited for the fate of Louis XVI., will not be banded 
 together against us ? Who will guarantee that, in the midst of this 
 coming storm, we shall not see the murderers of the 2nd September 
 emerging from their haunts, to present to you that protector, that chief, 
 who is said to be so necessary? A chief! Ah ! if their audacity were 
 so great, he would appear only to be pierced on the instant by a thousand 
 swords. But to what horrors would not Paris be surrendered ? Who 
 could dwell in a city in which terror and death should be kings ? What 
 
1792-1793.] THE KING SENTENCED TO DEATH. 237 
 
 hands could wipe away our tears and succour our despairing families ? 
 Would you then go to those false friends, those perfidious flatterers who 
 had cast you into the abyss? And if you did, what would be their 
 reply ? If you asked of them bread they would say, ' Go to the quarries 
 to dispute with the earth some gay fragments of the victims whom you 
 have slain !' Or will you have blood ? See here, take it. Blood and 
 dead bodies ; we have no other nourishment to offer you !' " 
 
 The impression produced by this discourse was profound, and the 
 Assembly, divided into two parties, hesitated. Brissot, Gensonne, Petion, 
 advised an appeal to the people ; Barrere opposed this course, and his 
 cat-like cunning, his cold and cruel logic, triumphed over the eloquence 
 of Vergniaud. The conclusion of the discussion was declared, and a 
 decree fixed the nominal vote for the 14th of January. Three questions 
 were then submitted to the decision of the Assembly : — " Was the King 
 guilty ? Should there be an appeal to the people ? And if guilty, 
 what should be the King's punishment ? " The Assembly was blinded 
 by passion, and implacable, and Louis was unanimously declared guilty. 
 The appeal to the people was rejected, and it remained to determine 
 what punishment Louis should suffer. The excitement was at its height 
 in Paris, and a furious multitude, collected at the doors of the Assembly, 
 hurled terrible menaces against those who were inclined to clemency. A 
 large number of the deputies appeared to be intimidated, and Vergniaud 
 himself, who presided, lost the courage which he had displayed during 
 the preceding days, and in a cowardly manner declared for death. At 
 length, after forty hours of a nominal collection of votes, he declared 
 the result of the division. Of seven hundred and one voters, the sen- 
 tence of death was pronounced by a majority of twenty-six. The 
 counsel of Louis XVI., Deseze and Tronchet, protested against the 
 decree ; Malesherbes endeavoured to speak, but sobs choked his voice. 
 A motion for reprieval and delay was negatived two days later by a 
 majority of three hundred and ninety against three hundred and ten, 
 and the execution was fixed for the 21st of January. 
 
 Louis had requested the services of a priest, and had named the Abbe 
 Edgeworth de Firmont. The request was granted. M. Edgeworth pro- 
 ceeded to the Temple, and as soon as he saw the King, threw himself at 
 his feet. Louis raised him and clasped him in his arms. A last inter- 
 view with his family had been permitted to the unfortunate Prince ; and 
 
238 DEATH OP LOT7IS XVI. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 the municipal officers, unwilling to lose sight of him for an instant, 
 determined that the interview should take place in a room to which 
 was a glass door, through which everything could be seen that took 
 place within. At eight o'clock Louis entered this room, and for 
 
 some time walked up and down, anxiously expecting the 
 of Louis xvi. arrival of those who were so dear to him. At half-past 
 
 eight the door opened, and the Queen appeared, leading the 
 Dauphin by the hand ; his daughter and Madame Elizabeth followed ; 
 and all four threw themselves simultaneously into the King's arms, with 
 the most bitter sobs. After a long and painful interview, the King 
 rose and put an end to this cruel scene by promising to see his family 
 on the morrow. In spite of this promise, which could not be fulfilled, 
 the farewells consisted only of sobs and lamentations. Louis XVI. tore 
 himself at length from these agonizing emotions, and in the company of 
 Abbe Edgeworth found resignation and calm. His only thought now 
 was how best to prepare himself for death. About midnight he went to 
 bed and slept. Clery, his sole and faithful servitor, remained by him, 
 watching the peaceful slumbers of his master on the eve of his execu- 
 tion. At five in the morning the King awoke. Clery lit a fire and 
 made an altar of a chest of drawers. The Abbe* Edgeworth said mass. 
 Louis XVI. received the communion on his knees from the priest's 
 hands, and rose with the courage of the Christian and the just man. 
 
 The drums were already beating in the streets of Paris, and the 
 sections were assuming their arms. At eight o'clock Santerre, accom- 
 panied by a deputation from the commune, the department, and the 
 criminal tribunal, proceeded to the Temple. The King prepared 
 to depart. He spared himself and his family a fresh separation, 
 which would have been more painful than that of the previous day, and 
 charged Clery to give his last farewell to his wife, his sister, and his 
 children. He sent to them some locks of his hair and a few jewels, and 
 handed his will to a municipal officer. He then gave the signal for depar- 
 ture. Two rows of armed men lined the road as far as the Place de la 
 Revolution, and a profound silence accompanied the passage of the fatal 
 carriage. At half-past ten Louis XVI. arrived at the Place de la Revolu- 
 Death of Loui ^ on * a vast s P ace na( ^ Deen kept vacant round the scaffold, 
 5Sy 1793 Ja " cannon were planted in every direction, and armed troops 
 
 kept back the populace which, at the sight of their victim, 
 
1792-1793. J EESULTS OF THE KING'S EXECUTION. 239 
 
 uttered the most ferocious cries. The King undressed himself, and when 
 lie refused to allow the executioner to bind his hands, the Abbe Edge- 
 worth said to him, " Suffer this outrage, which is but a final point of 
 resemblance between your fate and that of the God who will be your 
 recompense." Louis submitted, and allowed himself to be bound and 
 led upon the scaffold. When there, he suddenly stepped aside from the 
 executioners, and, addressing the multitude, said, "I die innocent; I 
 
 pardon my enemies, and you, unhappy people " The rolling of 
 
 drums then drowned his voice, and the executioner seized him. " Son of 
 Saint Louis, ascend to heaven !" said Abbe" Edgeworth ; and Louis XVI. 
 had already ceased to live. 
 
 Thus perished, on the 21st of January, after a reign of eighteen years' 
 duration, one of the Monarchs who have most honoured the General u e fl ec . 
 throne by their virtues. He had every disposition to aeTtltfthe 
 introduce useful reforms, but he had not sufficient strength mg ' 
 of character to maintain them, to direct the course of the Revolution, and 
 to lead it into a safe haven. His execution was a great crime, of which 
 Erance was not guilty, but of which she bore the punishment. It ren- 
 dered the perils of the Eevolution manifold, excited the mutual hatred of 
 parties, and the first punishment fell upon its principal authors. The 
 Girondists, on the 10th of August, had hurled the King from the throne ; 
 they would have been glad to save his life, but the greater number 
 did not venture to undertake his defence ; they feared to be accused of 
 being counter-revolutionists and the accomplices of tyrants ; and many, 
 even, among whom was Vergniaud, in spite of themselves, gave a pledge 
 of their devotion to the Revolution by voting for the death of the King. 
 Eventually they became the victims of their own cowardice. The 
 iniquity of the execution of Louis XVI., whilst it multiplied the dangers 
 which surrounded the Convention, also had the effect of leading it into a 
 course of violence in which it at length found it impossible to check its 
 own progress. We shall see that each fresh crime committed by this 
 famous Assembly created fresh enemies around it, and forced it to have 
 recourse to cruel and tyrannical measures to hold them in check. It is 
 only in this way that can be understood the fatal narrative of the events 
 of the Revolution. If, after the battle of Jemappes, the life of Louis 
 XVI. had been the pledge of peace between France and Europe, 
 who would venture to say that the atrocious dictatorship of the 
 
240 THE EEYOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL . [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 Committee of Public Safety would have become indispensable for the 
 public safety ? 
 
 After what occurred on the 21st January, indignant Europe flew to 
 „ , . . arms with one accord. Thenceforth the Revolution had for 
 
 General rising 
 
 agafnsTiYance, * ts declared enemies England, Holland, Spain, the whole 
 1793, German Confederation, Naples, the Holy See, and Eussia; 
 
 whilst almost at the same time La Vendee arose in formidable revolt. 
 The French Government had now to contend with, beside the domestic 
 enemy, three hundred and fifty thousand of the best troops in Europe, 
 who were moving upon the frontiers in every direction. To meet such 
 a combination of perils, Danton and the Mountain, who had chosen him 
 for their leader, at first made every effort to excite the enthusiasm and 
 fanaticism of the people in the. name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; 
 and strove to keep them in a state of violent agitation, so as to be the 
 better able to turn their unbridled passions to the furtherance of their 
 own ends. It was Danton who established the despotism of the multi- 
 tude under the name of a Revolutionary Government. A levy of 300,000 
 men was ordered, and an extraordinary and revolutionary tribunal 
 Creationofa of nine members, whose decrees were to be without appeal, 
 trib°unai°20tn was established for the purpose of punishing the members 
 arc • of the Counter-Revolution. The Girondists resisted the 
 
 establishment of a tribunal so arbitrary and formidable, but their re- 
 sistance was useless. Branded by the name of intriguers and enemies of 
 the people, their destruction was already resolved on. Marat and Robes- 
 pierre made the greatest efforts to direct the popular feeling against them, 
 and a plan for assassinating the whole of them by night was formed at 
 the Jacobin and Cordelier Clubs, but was never carried into execution. 
 On the following day Vergniaud ascended the tribune and denounced 
 such murderous projects. "We advance," he said, "from amnesties to 
 crimes, and from crimes to amnesties. Many citizens have come at length 
 to confound seditious insurrections with the great insurrection in favour 
 of liberty, to regard the provocations of brigands as the generous expres- 
 sions of energetic souls ! Citizens, it is to be feared that the Revolution 
 will, even as Saturn did, devour successively all its children, and will 
 finally produce despotism with all its customary calamities." Prophetic 
 but useless words ! 
 
 The insurrection in La Vendue redoubled the fury of the Jacobins. 
 
1792-1793.] WAR IN LA VENDEE. 241 
 
 Partial disturbances had already burst forth in that portion of Brittany, 
 Anjou, and Poitou, which, being densely wooded, and 
 
 War in La 
 
 almost without roads or commerce, possessed a middle class Vendee, 1792- 
 
 7 l 1794. 
 
 only partially developed, and without access to new ideas. 
 There the manners of old times were maintained together with the feudal 
 customs ; there the country populations remained submissive to the 
 priests and nobles, the latter of whom had not emigrated. The call for 
 three hundred thousand men excited a general insurrection in Vendue, 
 the chief leaders being a waggoner named Cathelineau, a naval officer 
 named Charette, and Stofflet, a gamekeeper. Nine hundred communes 
 rose at the sound of the tocsin, and the nobles Bonchamps, Lescure, La 
 Rochejaquelin, d'Elbee, and Talmont joined and supported the movement 
 with the utmost energy. They vanquished the troops of the line, and 
 the battalions of the National Guard which were sent against them. 
 Everything gave way before the fiery courage of the Vendean peasants ;; 
 and, unarmed, they even seized artillery, by throwing themselves upon 
 the cannon which were mowing down their ranks. The Republican 
 Generals Marce, Gauvilliers, Quetineau, and Ligonnier were beaten by 
 them one after the other. The Yendeans, victorious and masters of 
 many strong places, formed three corps of from ten to twelve thousand 
 men each. The first, under Bonchamps, occupied the banks of the Loire^ 
 and was called the army of Anjou ; the second, commanded by Elbeej. 
 being in the centre, was named the grand army ; and the third, called the 
 Marais, was under Charette, and occupied Lower Vendee. A council 
 was appointed to direct the operations of the war, and Cathelineau was 
 made generalissimo. This formidable insurrection provoked the Con- 
 vention to still more cruel measures against the priests and nobles ; every 
 one who took part in any riot was put beyond the pale of the law ; the 
 property of the emigrants was confiscated, and the Revolutionary tribunal 
 commenced its frightful functions. 
 
 Another enemy now appeared. Dumouriez, after an unsuccessful inva- 
 sion of Holland, had been vanquished at the battle of Ner- 
 winde by the Prince of Coburg, the Austrian commander- winde, 18th 
 
 V 1 1 • March, 1794- 
 
 in-chief, and had been compelled to evacuate Belgium. 
 Long since at open war with the Jacobins, he had meditated their over> 
 throw, and the re-establishment of the constitutional monarchy. When, 
 after the defeat of Nerwinde, he had become more than ever the object/of 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
242 DEFECTION OE DTTMOTJKIEZ. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 their furious animadversions, he resolved to desert from the existing 
 government, and to march upon Paris in concert with the Austrians, 
 with the intention, it was supposed, of crowning in the capital the young- 
 Duke de Chartres, who was then in his camp, and had distinguished 
 himself in the battles of Valmy and Jemappes. He promised the 
 Austrians the possession of many fortified places as a guarantee of his good 
 faith ; but he failed in his attempts to gain possession of them, and at 
 length made his projects visible to the Convention. The latter imme- 
 diately summoned him to appear at its bar, and on his refusal to do so, 
 sent the Minister for War, Beurnonville, and four deputies, Camus, 
 Quinette, Lamarque and Bancal, to bring him before it, or to arrest him 
 in the midst of his army. When they arrived Dumouriez gave them up 
 to the Austrians ; but he had relied too much on the affection of his sol- 
 diers ; for they had caught the Revolutionary fever, and 
 mouriez, April, Dumouriez, abandoned bv them, found himself compelled 
 
 1793. , 
 
 to pass over to the enemy's camp. 
 
 The Girondists made as severe animadversions on his conduct as did the 
 Mountain, but they were nevertheless accused of being in complicity 
 with him. Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet, Gensonne*e, and Pe*tion were 
 more especially denounced by Robespierre and Marat. For a moment 
 they displayed some vigour, and brought Marat before the Revolutionary 
 tribunal ; but he was acquitted and borne in triumph to the Assembly. 
 From this time the Sans-culottes took possession of the avenues leading 
 to the Chamber and the Tribunes. Guadet, with the object of freeing 
 the Assembly from the tyranny of the Jacobins and the Commune, 
 proposed bold measures, such as the dissolution of the municipality, 
 and the assembling of the Convention at Bourges. Barrere, however, pro- 
 cured the adoption of another measure, according to which the Assembly 
 established a committee of twelve members, entrusted with the duty of 
 watching over the safety of the Commune, and arresting all who should 
 form any plots against the national representatives. 
 
 A war to the death, fatal to the Gironde, soon took place between itself 
 and the municipality. The Committee of Twelve terrified its enemies at 
 once by arresting the infamous Hubert, the deputy of the procureur- 
 general of the Commune, and the editor of the execrable paper, Pere 
 Duchesne. The Jacobin and Cordelier Clubs and the sections declared 
 .their sittings permanent, and organized a formidable insurrection under 
 
1792-1793.] FALL OE THE GIBONDINS. 243 
 
 the direction of Danton. The Girondists resisted, but the Mountain and 
 the Sans-culottes burst forth into vociferations and menaces against 
 them. The sitting was continued in a state of the most frightful disorder »' 
 and at length toward midnight, the petitioners, mixed on the same 
 benches with the Mountain, voted for the dissolution of the Committee 
 of Twelve, and the freedom of the prisoners. 
 
 This decree was revoked on the following day. The Commune, the 
 Jacobins, the sections, again began to agitate ; Eobespierre, i nsnrrec ti OIl 
 Marat, Danton, Chaumette, and Pache, the Mayor of Paris, ^on^S 5 sist 
 leagued themselves together for the purpose of carrying out May ' 1793# 
 a second insurrection more formidable than the previous one. Henriot 
 was appointed to the command of the armed force. Forty sous per day 
 were promised to the Sans-culottes as long as they should be under 
 arms. The alarm gun was fired, the tocsin was sounded, and the armed 
 mob was led towards the Convention. The Tuileries, where it sat, was 
 besieged, and its deliberations were interrupted. Barrere and the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety then demanded the suppression of the Committee 
 of Twelve, and it was definitely resolved on. This was sufficient for 
 Danton, but it did not satisfy Eobespierre, Marat, and the Commune. 
 " We must not, 7 ' said a deputy of the Jacobin Club, " allow the people to 
 grow lukewarm." Henriot placed the armed force at the disposal of the 
 club, and the arrest of the Girondist deputies was resolved f *h Gi 
 
 on. Marat himself sounded the tocsin, and Henriot took dists » 2nd June - 
 the general direction of the movement. On the 2nd June, sixty thou- 
 sand armed men surrounded the Convention. The intrepid Lanjuinais 
 ran to the tribune, and there, in the midst of the most furious denuncia- 
 tions, he denounced the projects of the factions. " Paris is pure," he 
 said; " Paris is good, but Paris is oppressed by tyrants who thirst after 
 blood and power." He concluded by moving that all the Eevolutionary 
 authorities in the capital should be deposed. The insurgent petitioners 
 entered at that moment, and demanded his arrest and that of his col- 
 leagues in the Committee of Twelve. A violent debate took place, in the 
 midst of which Lacroix rushed into the hall, complaining of outrages to 
 which he had been subjected by the mob, and declaring that the Con- 
 vention was not free. The Mountain itself was indignant; Danton 
 exclaimed that the national majesty must be avenged. The whole of 
 the Convention arose, and set forth with the president at its head. On 
 
 b 2 
 
244 WEAKNESS OE THE CONTENTION. [BOOK II. CHAP. I. 
 
 the Place du Carrousel it met Henriot on horseback, sword in hand. 
 " What does the people require ?" said to him the President Herault 
 de Sechelles ; " the Convention only desires to promote its happiness." 
 " The people has not arisen to listen to mere phrases," replied Henriot. 
 u It demands that twenty-four criminals should be delivered up to it." 
 " We will all be delivered up, rather !" cried the deputies. Henriot had 
 his cannon pointed against them, and the Convention fell back. Sur- 
 rounded on every side, it re-entered the Hall of Assembly in a state of 
 profound discouragement, where it no longer opposed the arrest of the 
 proscribed deputies, and Marat constituted himself dictator as to the fate 
 of its members. Twenty-four Girondists were arrested in the midst of 
 the Assembly, and the satisfied multitude dispersed. From this day the 
 Girondist party was crushed, and the Convention was no longer free. 
 
1793-1794.] DEATH OF MARAT. 245 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM THE FALL OF THE GIRONDISTS TO THAT OF ROBESPIERRE. 
 
 2nd June, 1793, to 27th July, 1794 (9 th Thermidor, Year III.) 
 
 The Girondists Petion, Barbaroux, Guadet, Louvet, Buzot, and Lan- 
 juinais succeeded in escaping, and tock advantage of the indignation 
 excited throughout France by the events of the 31st May and the 2nd 
 June to arouse the departments to arms. Brittany took part in the 
 movement, and the insurgents, under the name of the Assembly of the 
 Departments, assembled at Caen, formed an army commanded by General 
 Wimpfen, and made preparations for marching upon Paris. It is from 
 thence that set out the heroic Charlotte Corday, a young girl endowed 
 with an ardent soul, as courageous as it was enthusiastic. Indignant at 
 the misfortunes inflicted by a few monsters on France and the cause of 
 liberty, she had conceived the idea that she would render an immense 
 service to her country by delivering it from Marat, the most atrocious of 
 all; she killed hiin with a dagger in his bath, and died D eatho f Marat 
 on the scaffold with exemplary courage. But the horrible July 13th > 1793, 
 system introduced by Marat did not perish with him ; the violent situation 
 of the Republic had set the sanguinary passions of the multitude in a 
 ferment ; Marat, slain, became their idol ; his remains were borne in 
 triumph to the Pantheon, and in every popular assembly his bust was 
 placed side by side with that of the Deputy Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, 
 whom a soldier of the Guard, named Paris, had punished for his regicide 
 vote by assassinating him. 
 
 In the meantime the dangers by which the Convention was surrounded 
 become greater every day ; the principal cities of the king- 
 dom and more than sixty departments were in a state of Lyons and the 
 revolt. A wretched fanatic, named Charier, emulous of of the interior, 
 
 • • June, 1793. 
 
 Marat, endeavoured to renew at Lyons the proscription of 
 
 the Commune of Paris ; a conflict took place ; the municipality was taken 
 
Success of the 
 Allies. 
 
 246 CONSTITUTION OE THE TEAK II. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 by assault by the sections, and Chalier was beheaded. Lyons, however, 
 still acknowledged the authority of the Convention, till the 2nd June, 
 when it declared itself against it, and twenty thousand men took up arms 
 within its walls. Marseilles rose at the same time ; Toulon, Nimes, and 
 Montauban followed this example, and in all those cities the Eoyalists 
 headed the movement. They summoned the English to Toulon to 
 their aid, and Admiral Hood entered that place to proclaim the young 
 Dauphin, son of Louis XVI., King, by the name of Louis XVII. 
 Bordeaux, equally in a state of revolt, declared in favour of the 
 deputies proscribed on the 2nd June. The insurrection extended to 
 the West; the Vendeans became masters of Bressuire, Argenton, 
 and Thouars ; forty thousand men under Cathelineau r 
 revolt in La Lescure, Stomet, and La Rochejaquelin, took Saumur and 
 
 Vendee. 
 
 Angers, and threw themselves upon Nantes. The position 
 of the Republic was no more happy abroad. There was a complete 
 want of harmony between the generals, who were for the most part 
 Girondists, and the Mountain which was victorious in the 
 Convention. It was in vain that Custine was appointed to 
 the command of the army of the North ; Mayence capitulated after a 
 splendid resistance, which obtained for its defenders the title of the 
 Mayencais ; the enemy took Valenciennes and Conde ; the 
 French army frontier was entered, and the French army, greatly dis- 
 couraged, retired behind the Scarpe, the last defensive 
 position between the enemy and Paris. 
 
 The Convention resolved boldly to face all these perils which it had 
 itself excited. It voted within the space of a few hours the 
 
 Constitution of iti r •• -i-i-iti /*■ 
 
 the Year II., establishment ot a constitution which placed the power 01 
 
 1793 
 
 the State in the hands of the multitude, but which, as its 
 impracticability was evident even to its own concoctors, in a time of 
 general war was suspended till the resumption of peace. It renewed at 
 the same time a formidable committee, of recent creation, the aim of 
 whose members was power, to meet the necessities of the moment. This 
 committee, exclusively composed, since the 2nd June, of the most vio- 
 lent members of the Mountain, is famous in history by the name of the 
 Committee of Public Safety. Its principal members were Robespierre, 
 Saint-Just, Couthon, Collot-d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Carnot, 
 Cambon, and Barrere. The latter was the official mouthpiece of the 
 
1793-1794.] laws or maximum and or the suspected. 247 
 
 committee ; Cambon watched over the finances, and Carnot was Minister 
 for "War. 
 
 The excitement of the people was now extreme. The deputies of the 
 municipalities demanded at the bar of the Convention the arrest of al 
 suspected persons, and a levy-en-masse of the whole nation. " Let us 
 grant what they desire !" exclaimed Danton ; " it is by the cannon's roar 
 that we must proclaim our constitution to our enemies. This, this is 
 the moment when we should swear to devote the last drop of our 
 blood to the annihilation of tyrants!" The oath was taken, and Barrere 
 then, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, proposed urgent 
 measures which were to be carried into execution by the most odious 
 methods. All the young men of from eighteen to twenty years of age 
 were summoned to join the army, and France speedily had at her com- 
 mand fourteen armies and twelve hundred thousand soldiers. But terror 
 was employed to obtain means for their support. Violent and incessant 
 requisitions were made upon the middle classes ; and two The odious law3 
 abominable laws were passed, the law of the maximum, jSjSJj^ and 
 which compelled, on pain of death, all proprietors and mer- P ersons * 
 chants to furnish at a certain price all the provisions which the Government 
 might require, and the law of suspected persons, which authorized the 
 preliminary and unlimited imprisonment of every person suspected of 
 conspiracy against the Eevolution. France, transformed into a camp for 
 one portion of its population, became a prison for another. The men of 
 commercial pursuits and the bourgeoisie furnished the prisoners, and 
 were placed, as well as the authorities, under the surveil- 
 
 Revolutionary 
 
 lance of the mob, as represented by the Club, which the organization of 
 
 the country. 
 
 Convention desired at any price to attach to itself. Every 
 poor person received forty sous a day to be present at the Assemblies of 
 his section ; certificates of citizenship were given out, and each section 
 had its Revolutionary committee. 
 
 By these violent methods the Convention obtained temporary resources 
 sufficient to enable it to triumph over its enemies. The Mi ii tar y Succe g 3 
 army under Calvados was put to flight at Vernon, and a tfo^ioth^ 611 " 
 solemn retractation was made by the insurgents at Caen. in enor " 
 Bordeaux submitted ; and Toulon and Lyons, after a desperate struggle, 
 fell in succession before the Republican arms. La Vendee War . q Vend(5(? 
 alone, long continued, in the name of the altar and the 1793 ' 
 
248 DEFEATS OF THE VENDEANS. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 throne, an heroic and terrible contest. Repulsed in an attack on Nantes, 
 in which they lost the intrepid Cathelineau, the Vendeans fell back 
 behind the Loire, and vanquished in succession the Republican Generals 
 Biron, Rossignol, and Canclaux. At length, seventeen thousand men 
 of the old garrison of Mayence, reputed the best troops in France, were 
 sent into Vendee, commanded by Kleber, under the nominal command 
 of the incapable Lechelle, who had been made generalissimo of the 
 Republican armies. The Royalists vanquished Kleber and the Mayencais 
 in one battle, but suffered four consecutive defeats at Chatillon and 
 Chollet, in which their leaders Lescure, Bonchamps, and Elbee received 
 mortal wounds. Surrounded on every side in La Vendee, the insurgents 
 now demanded aid of England, which, before acceding to their request, 
 „. made it a condition that they should first seize some 
 
 Disastrous en- - •> 
 
 Vendeans fthe sea " P ort - Eighty thousand Vendeans marched from 
 against Granville. their devastated country upon Granville; but they were 
 repulsed from before this place from the want of artillery, were routed 
 at Mans, and destroyed as they attempted to cross the 
 Mans and Save- Loire at Savenay. Charette continued the war, but lost the 
 
 nay, 1793. 
 
 island of Noirmoutiers. The Achilles of La Vendee, the 
 heroic Henri De la Rochejacquelin, was killed by a soldier whom he had 
 spared. His death had the result of rendering the Republicans masters of the 
 country, and the latter immediately commenced there a frightful system 
 of extermination. La Vendee vanquished, was surrounded by General 
 Thureau by sixteen entrenched camps, and twelve flying columns, 
 known by the name of the infernal columns, traversed this unfortunate 
 land, carrying everywhere death and fire. 
 
 The Republic was at the same time victorious on the frontiers. 
 
 That of the North was the most seriously threatened. The 
 
 Oampaign of J 
 
 1793, Duke of York besieged Dunkirk with thirty-three thousand 
 
 men ; Freytag covered the siege with another army posted on the Yser ; 
 the Prince of Orange commanded fifteen thousand Dutch at Menin; and 
 a hundred thousand soldiers of the allied armies, extending from Quesnoy 
 to the Moselle, besieged the strong places which defended the passes. 
 
 To prevent the invasion of France, it was necessary to cut 
 th^lraay of the this formidable line and to raise the siege of Dunkirk. 
 
 Houchard, in command of the army of the North, suddenly 
 
1793-1794.] SIEGE OF DUNKIBK EAISED. 249 
 
 marched from this place with very inferior forces, and after a sanguinary 
 attack on Menin, advanced in the first place against the corps of observation 
 under Freytag. At the first encounter Freytag gave way, and his centre 
 repassed the Yser ; after which he returned to the charge for the purpose 
 of disengaging his right wing. A second and desperate conflict took 
 place, and the enemy retired in a body upon the Furnes road, where 
 were the head quarters of the Duke of York, and halted at the village 
 of Hondschoote, where he occupied a formidable position. 
 
 "Victory of 
 
 Houchard followed him, and on the following day an attack Houchard at 
 
 Hondschoote. 
 
 took place along the whole line. Some dense thickets 
 
 which covered the enemy became the central point of the action, and at 
 
 length, the enemy's positions being taken, Freytag fell back in disorder 
 
 upon Furnes. The raising of the siege of Dunkirk was 
 
 one 01 the fruits of this victory, the news of which was Dunkirk raised, 
 
 J September, 1793. 
 
 received with enthusiasm. 
 
 In the meantime the allies had fallen back upon their line of opera- 
 tions, and were posted in imposing masses on the Scheldt and the Meuse. 
 Valenciennes, Conde, and Le Quesnoy having fallen into their power, 
 gave them an important position on the Scheldt ; and they desired to 
 obtain one also on the Sambre, for the purpose of enabling them to 
 advance with safety. The capture of Maubeuge would render them 
 masters not only of the basin of the Sambre, but also of all the space 
 between that river and the Meuse ; and they accordingly invested that 
 place. The Prince of Coburg, Commander-in-Chief, divided his army 
 into two corps ; the one, consisting of thirty-five thousand men, sur- 
 rounded Maubeuge, whilst with the other corps, of almost 
 
 i i t . Maubeuge in- 
 
 equal strength, Coburg covered the siege by occupying vested by the 
 
 . Till Austrians. 
 
 the positions of Dourlens and Wattignies. Houchard, the 
 
 victor at Hondschoote, had been superseded in command of the army 
 
 of the North by Jourdan ; and Carnot, in concert with that 
 
 general, directed the operations. An attack on Wattignies Jourdan at 
 
 Wattigniea. 
 
 was resolved on, and after a vigorous resistance that 
 
 village was carried. This success led to the raising of the siege 
 
 of Maubeuge, concentrated the allied army between the 
 
 Scheldt and the Sambre, and enabled Jourdan to resume Maubeuge raised, 
 
 October, 1793. 
 
 the offensive. Kellermann at the same time drove the Pied- 
 
250 THE REIGN OE TEEEOE. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 montese beyond the Alps. France lost on the Pyrenees the lines of 
 the Tech, and its army was forced to fall back in front of 
 
 j?rs*iGG Iosps flip 
 
 lines of the Tech Perpignan. The lines of Weissemburg were also forced 
 
 in the south, and 
 
 of Weissemburg by the Prussians, in conjunction with the Austrians under 
 
 in the east. 
 
 Brunswick and Wurmser. But the young and intrepid 
 
 Hoche, at the head of the army of the Moselle, arrived by a skilful 
 
 march on Wurmser's flank, and having driven him back, 
 
 Junction of the . . . •'■*,-, r»-i-i-*i- -^ 
 
 armies of the effected his junction with the army of the Rhine. Bruns- 
 
 Rhine and Mo- 
 selle. Retreat of wick followed Wurmser's retrograde movement ; and from 
 the allies, 1793. ° 
 
 thenceforth the two French armies, combined, advanced 
 and encamped in the Palatinate. France, in its struggle with Europe, 
 recovered all that it had lost, with the exception of Conde, Valenciennes,, 
 and a few strong places in Jloussillon. The allied princes obtained 
 nothing, and reciprocally accused each other of being the cause of their 
 mutual defeats. 
 
 The glory of France at this time consisted entirely in its armies ; 
 which seemed to rival each other in their efforts to efface the oppro- 
 brium with which an atrocious government had branded the Republic 
 in the eyes of Europe. The Committee of Public Safety 
 
 The Committee /.,,...., „ t „ T . „ 
 
 of Public Safety, followed its pitiless career of murder. "It is necessary, 
 
 March, 1793. . , . 
 
 said the execrable Saint-Just, when procuring a decree for 
 the continuance of the decemviral power until the conclusion of peace — 
 "it is necessary that the sword of the law should fall in every direction 
 as rapidly as possible, and that the weight of your arm should be every- 
 where felt." And thus was created that terrible power which ended by 
 destroying itself. The executive authority was concentrated in the hands 
 of this committee, which held the lives and fortunes of every one in its 
 power ; and which was supported by the populace, whom it bribed by 
 means of the maximum, and who governed its action by means of the 
 
 Revolutionary committees. After each victory obtained 
 ror, 1793-1794. over ^s enemies within by the Republic, it ordered 
 frightful executions or horrible massacres. Barrere announced a frightful 
 
 anathema against the city of Lyons, the very name of which 
 geanceofthe he declared should be annihilated, and replaced by that of 
 
 the Commune Affranchie. Collot d'Herbois, Fouche", and 
 Couthon were the barbarous executors of the decrees of the committee 
 against this unfortunate city. The scaffold was too slow an instrument 
 
1793—1794.] THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR. 251 
 
 for their vengeance, and the vanquished insurgents were mowed down by 
 musquetry in the public places. 
 
 Toulon, Caen, Marseilles, and Bordeaux became the theatre of horrible 
 scenes. At Paris the most illustrious men and the leaders of all parties were 
 dragged to the scaffold ; the Queen, the noble Marie- Antoi- 
 nette, and Bailly, perished thus within a few days of each Queen Marie- 
 
 ,,.,,. it , , Antoinette, 
 
 other ; and abominable circumstances were added to the loth October, 
 
 1793. 
 
 horror of their condemnation and punishment. The Giron- 
 dists who were proscribed on the 2nd June soon followed them, and walked 
 to their death with the most stoical courage. The Duke of p^g^^t f 
 Orleans was not spared ; Barnave and Duport-Dutertre were the Girondists - 
 immolated, and with them the Generals Houchard, Custine, Biron, Beau- 
 harnais, and many others. Petion and Buzot destroyed themselves, and 
 their dead bodies were found half eaten by wolves. Madame Roland 
 died on the scaffold, and when her husband heard of it he killed himself 
 on the highway. All the fugitive Girondists were put beyond the pale 
 of the law. Two hundred thousand suspected persons were imprisoned ; 
 blood flowed in all the cities ; country mansions, convents, and churches 
 were destroyed ; monuments of art were broken in pieces ; there were no 
 hands left to cultivate the earth, and famine was added to the scourges 
 which desolated France. The public credit was annihilated ; and the 
 expenses of the Government were supplied by the sale of the property of 
 the proscribed persons, and by despotic measures which were enforced by 
 threats. It was desired to consecrate, by the establishment of a new era, 
 a revolution unexampled in history, and the divisions of the year, the 
 names of the months and days, were changed, and the Christian calendar 
 was replaced by a Republican calendar. The new era was The Re ublican 
 dated from the 22nd September, 1792, the period at which calendar - 
 the Republic was founded. According to this new arrangement the year 
 was divided into twelve months of thirty days each — Vendemiaire, 
 brumaire, and frimaire, for the autumn; nivose, pluviose, ventose, for 
 the winter ; germinal, floreal, prairial, for the spring ; and finally, 
 messidor, thermidor, and fructidor, for the summer. The five supple- 
 mentary days of the year received the odious name of the Sans-culottides. 
 But this was not enough for the Commune of Paris, then under the 
 direction of the infamous Chaumette, of his still more infamous substi- 
 tute Hebert, of Ronsin, a general of the Revolutionary army, and of the 
 
252 
 
 FALL OF THE COMMUNE. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 atheist, Anacharsis Clootz. It demanded that the Constitutional bishop of 
 
 Paris and his vicar-general should abjure Christianity at the bar of the 
 
 Convention, decreed the worship of Eeason, and established fetes which 
 
 .] : became scandalous scenes of debauchery and atheism. It 
 
 The worship of •> 
 
 Eeason. im- wa s only when its career of crime and folly had reached its 
 
 pious festivals. J J 
 
 height that the Eevolutionary movement of the Commune 
 received a check. When its madness had reached a certain point the 
 Committee of Public Safety declared itself against it, and Robespierre was 
 prohibited by the Convention from taking any measures against freedom 
 of worship. 
 
 Danton and his friends, Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Lacroix, 
 Fabre d'Eglantine, and Westermann demanded much more. They 
 wished to establish a legal system of order, and for the better accom- 
 plishment of this purpose desired to suspend the functions of the Revo- 
 lutionary tribunal, to empty the prisons of the suspected persons, and to 
 dissolve the committees. Camille Desmoulins published, with a view to 
 this end, a journal which bore the name of the Old Cordelier, devoted 
 to denunciations of the despotism of the dictators. Robespierre was the 
 most formidable amongst them, and Camille and his friends endeavoured 
 to gain him over to their views ; but Robespierre played with them, and 
 whilst affecting to be neutral towards the various antagonistic parties, 
 really plotted the destruction of their chiefs one after the other. His 
 colleagues in the Committee of Public Safety were furious against 
 Camille and the Dantonists. He delivered the latter into their power, 
 and obtained in return the heads of Hebert, Clootz, Chaumette, Ronsin, 
 and the principal anarchists of the Commune. When this compact had 
 been concluded, he ascended the tribune and denounced to the Conven- 
 tion as enemies of the Republic, in the first place the ultra-Revolutionists, 
 and in the second the Dantonists, whom he called the Moderates. Saint- 
 Just supported him, thundering against those whom he styled the 
 enemies of virtue and terror, and demanding that the Government should 
 be endowed with the most extensive powers for the purpose of punishing 
 them. The anarchists of the Commune, Hebert, Clootz, Ronsin, and 
 their accomplices, were the first of all seized and con- 
 mune, March 24, demned ; and most of them died as cowards (24th March, 
 
 1794. 
 
 1794.) The Revolutionary army was dissolved ; and the 
 
1793-1794. ATEOCITIES IN THE PEOYISTCES. 253 
 
 Convention compelled the Commune to appear at its bar to thank it for 
 the very acts which destroyed its power. 
 
 The turn of Danton and his friends had now come. As famous repre- 
 sentatives of the old Mountain, their names, and especially that of the 
 leader, appeared to be all-powerful. Informed of the projected 
 attacks of his enemies, Danton replied, as the Duke of Guise had for- 
 merly done, " They will not dare!" But the Committee reckoned with 
 good reason on the fears of the Assembly. The Dantonists were arrested 
 on the 10th Germinal, and Robespierre prevented their Arrest of the 
 being heard in the Assembly. "We shall see to-day," he an oms s ' 
 said, " whether the Convention will know how to break a pretended idol 
 which has too long been in a state of decay, or whether this idol will 
 crush the Convention and the people in its fall." Saint-Just read the 
 accusation against the accused, and the Assembly, a prey to a stupor of 
 fear, decreed their trial. On being brought before the Revolutionary 
 tribunal, they distinguished themselves by their openly expressed 
 contempt for their judges. When they had been condemned, Danton 
 exclaimed, " They immolate us to the ambition of a few villanous 
 brigands, but they will not long enjoy their success. ... I drag 
 
 Robespierre along with me. . . . Robespierre follows me " They 
 
 walked boldly to their punishment through the midst of a Their execution 
 silent crowd. From that time no voice was raised for some pr ■' . 
 time against the Decemvirs, and the Convention decreed that "Terror 
 and all the virtues were the order of the day." 
 
 During four months the power of the two formidable Committees, that 
 of the Public Safety, and that of the General Security, continued to be 
 unlimited, and death became the only instrument of Government. The 
 agents of the Committee of Public Safety were substituted for those of 
 the Mountain in the departments ; and it was then that the proconsuls 
 Carrier, in the city of Nantes, Joseph Lebon, in that of Arras, and 
 Maignet, at Orange, distinguished themselves by their 
 atrocities. At Orleans, the principal inhabitants were slain ; frenzy of the 
 at Verdun, seventeen young girls, accused of having danced Committee of 
 
 t « • ' • i"i i «• Public Safety in 
 
 at a ball given by the Prussians, perished on the scaffold on the departments, 
 
 the same day ; at Paris, amongst the most illustrious victims 
 
 of this period may be mentioned the octogenarian Marshals Noailles and 
 
254 TRIUMPH OF BOBESPIEBRE. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 Maill6, the ministers Machault and Laverdi, the learned Lavoisier, the 
 venerable Lamoignon de Malesherbes, three members of the Constituent 
 Assembly, D'Epremesnil, Thouret, and Chapelier ; and finally, the 
 angelic Princess Elizabeth, whose blood was demanded by Billaud- 
 Varennes. " It is only the dead who never come back," said Barrere. 
 " The more the social body perspires," added Collot-d'Herbois, " the 
 better is its health." It was by means of this system that the infernal 
 Robespierre and the fanatic Saint-Just declared that they desired to 
 establish the reign of virtue. They associated with themselves the 
 paralytic and pitiless Couthon, and formed together, even within the 
 committee itself, a formidable triumvirate, which, by isolating, destroyed 
 itself. But before they became disunited, the Decemvirs endeavoured 
 to lay the foundations of a new code of morals and new institu- 
 tions. Eobespierre, whilst reigning by means of murder, neverthe- 
 less perceived that it was necessary to the existence of society that it 
 should have a religious basis ; and he consequently caused the Con- 
 vention to decree, that the French people acknowledged the existence of 
 a God and the immortality of the soul. He then had fetes dedicated to 
 the Supreme Being, to truth, justice, virtue, friendship, frugality, good 
 faith, and misery. Regarded by his fanatical admirers as the chief 
 founder of a moral democracy and as the new pontiff of the Eternal, he 
 now attained the height of his power. 
 
 The 20th Prairial, the day consecrated to the f£te of the Supreme 
 Being, was the culminating point of Robespierre's triumph. 
 
 The fete of 
 
 the Supreme As president of the Convention he walked at its head alone, 
 
 Being, the 20th . 
 
 Prairial (June and twenty paces in advance of the other members. He 
 
 8th, 1794.) . 
 
 was the object of general attention, his countenance was 
 radiant with pride and delight; he bore flowers and ears of corn in 
 his hands, and advanced to the altar, from whence he addressed the 
 people in the character of their high-priest. It was hoped that from 
 thenceforth the Government would be of a gentle character, but he 
 concluded his address with these words : " People, let us surrender 
 ourselves to-day to the transports of an unmixed joy ; to-morrow we 
 will renew our conflict with vices and tyrants." On the following day, 
 the 21st Prairial, the executions were recommenced, and Robespierre 
 caused Couthon to propose an execrable law, the sanguinary purport of 
 
1793-1^94] THE WAE IN ELAffDERS. 255 
 
 which might be applied at pleasure to every French subject. Accord- 
 ing to this law, accused persons were to be refused the advice of 
 counsel, and to be tried in batches, while the juries were to be 
 bound by no other rule than that of their own consciences. It was 
 adopted; and now Fouquier-Tinville, the public accuser, and the 
 judges, his accomplices, members of the Revolutionary tribunal, 
 scarcely sufficed for the condemnation of those who were proscribed. 
 In Paris alone fifty victims a day were dragged off to punishment. 
 The scaffold was transferred to the Faubourg Saint- Antoine, and an 
 aqueduct was constructed to receive and carry off the blood that was 
 shed on it. 
 
 The immortal campaign of 1794 was commenced under this execrable 
 Government; and the northern frontier was still, in this „, 
 
 ' The campaign 
 
 year, the chief theatre of the war. The principal positions ofl794 - 
 occupied by the French were Lille, Guise, and Maubeuge ; and they 
 were under the command of Pichegru, Jourdan having left Q . . ^ 
 the command in chief of the army of the North for that of Flanders - 
 the army of the Moselle. The Prince of Coburg, the Commander-in- 
 Chief of the allied armies, commenced operations by the Th bl ck , 
 blockade of Landrecies with an army of about a hundred Landrecies - 
 thousand men. The English, under the Duke of York, covered the 
 l)lockade on the side of Cambrai, and Coburg himself, with a numerous 
 corps, posted himself on the side of Guise, whilst the Austrian general, 
 Clairfait, extended his forces in front of Menin and Courtray. Such were 
 the positions of the two armies when the invasion of Flanders by the 
 left wing of the French army was resolved on. General 
 Souham and Moreau marched rapidly from Lille towards Souham and 
 
 Moreau at 
 
 the enemy's right, and obtained at Mouscron a first victory Mouscron and 
 over Clairfait. Jourdan then received orders to detach 
 forty-five thousand men from the army of the Moselle, and to advance 
 by forced marches on the Sambre and the Meuse, for the purpose 
 of crushing the allied left. The adoption of this plan secured the 
 success of the campaign. The allies in vain endeavoured to cut the 
 French forces in twain by a bold march upon Turcoing, which lies 
 between Lille and Courtray, General Souham obtaining a complete 
 victory over the Duke of York at Turcoing. The enemy, how- 
 
256 BATTLE OF FLEUBT7S. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 ever, rallied before Tournay, and held our victorious army in check, 
 T .. „ whereupon Landrecies fell. Jourdan now came up with 
 
 Junction of a r * 
 
 arav 9 ?f th? e ^e arm y °f tne Moselle and effected a junction with the 
 Sy U o e fThe h the arm y of tne North - The victory of Turcoing was a 
 presage of others, and our two wings threatened to 
 envelope the enemy. Pichegru advanced upon the Austrian left, 
 and besieged Ypres, with the design of inducing 
 triumphant at Clairfait to advance to its succour ; the plan suc- 
 ceeded, and he vanquished the latter at Hooglede, 
 whilst Jourdan invested Charleroi and occupied the banks of the 
 Sambre. 
 
 The Prince of Orange and Coburg marched successively to the relief 
 of this important place. Jourdan, after having been frequently repulsed, 
 again crossed the river, and seized the heights bordering the plains of 
 Fleurus, which had already become associated with the 
 S U of Jourdan S^ 0Y J °^ tne French arms in the reign of Louis XIV. In 
 16th June, 1794. ^-g p 0S iti n a battle took place between the opposed forces 
 on the 16th June, 1794. The two armies were almost equal, and eighty 
 thousand men on either side took part in the action. Charleroi fell into the 
 power of the French, and the enemy, ignorant of this reverse, threw the 
 combined forces of the Prince of Orange and Coburg upon those of 
 Jourdan, with the object of delivering it. Kleber, Championnet, Le- 
 febvre, and Marceau commanded our divisions. Kleber, by a vigorous 
 charge, repulsed the allies' right, and Jourdan drove back their centre 
 and left. The enemy, already broken, having discovered at length that 
 Charleroi, which it was endeavouring to save, had fallen, hesitated, and 
 then gave way, and the victory was won. Coburg ordered a retreat, 
 and determined to concentrate all his forces in the direction of Brussels 
 for the purpose of covering that capital, but Pichegru ad- 
 invasjon o^Bel- vanced more quickly than he, and Brussels was speedily 
 jourdan occupied by the army of the North under himself, and the 
 
 en^myf of * e army under Jourdan, which received the name of the army 
 of the Sambre and Meuse. The enemy, dispersed, fell 
 back towards the Meuse and the Rhine ; and France not only recovered 
 all the places she had lost, but made new conquests. 
 
 Our armies in Belgium had never been more numerous or formidable. 
 Pichegru had seventy thousand men under his command, and Jourdj 
 
1793-1794.] FBENCH VICTORIES ON THE RHINE. 257 
 
 a hundred and sixteen thousand. The administration, exhausted by such 
 efforts, could neither properly support the troops, nor supply them with 
 sufficient equipments ; but the soldiers managed to dispense with what 
 are generally considered the greatest necessaries. They no longer en- 
 camped in tents, but bivouacked beneath the branches of trees. The 
 officers, left without pay, lived as did the private soldiers, ate the same 
 kind of bread, and marched on foot as they did, with their knapsacks on 
 their backs. The enthusiasm of victory was the support of these 
 immortal armies. 
 
 Pichegru continued his march towards the mouth of the Scheldt and the 
 Meuse, driving back the English towards the sea, whilst Jourdan occu- 
 pied the Meuse between Liege and Maastricht, in front of Clairfait and 
 the Austrians. To enable Jourdan to reach the bank of the Rhine, it 
 was necessary that he should cross the Meuse, and before he could do 
 this it was necessary that he should force the enemy's lines on the Ourthe 
 and the Roer, tributaries of the Meuse. He fought two 
 battles in succession on these two streams, and was victo- J 10 * ™ 58 of 
 
 ' Jourdan on the 
 
 rious in each, pursued Clairfait as far as the Rhine, took Ro6r h Conquest 
 Cologne, and besieged Maastricht. The army of the North ^Rhin^ ° f 
 thus obtained possession of the line of that river, and Bois-le- 
 Duc and Venloo fell before it. The Duke of York, unskilful and unsuc- 
 cessful in all his tactics, evacuated the district between the Meuse and the 
 Wahal, one of the branches of the Rhine, and fell back towards Nime- 
 guen on the Wahal, where Pichegru speedily arrived to 
 engage him. On the 8th November, this place fell into the 1 E I a u ua i ion ^ 
 
 ° ° ■•- left bank of the 
 
 hands of the French ; and with this last and brilliant sue- fjukeo?Yo?k 
 cess terminated this glorious campaign in the north. The Sre^Nkneguen 
 army went into cantonments, and the overflowing of the 
 waters at the approach of winter compelled the suspension of the invasion 
 of Holland till the spring. 
 
 The effect of these successes was felt by the armies of the Moselle and 
 the Upper Rhine, commanded by General Michaud. The 
 Prussians, whom they faced, being no longer supported by ^ ec |ss of .JMK- 
 the Austrians on the north, did not venture to make head east '- of - *" 
 
 7 gomier and 
 
 against these armies in the Vosges, and recrossed the Rhine ; 2oSt£f y m the 
 where there only remained in the possession of the allies on 
 the left bank of that river, Luxemburg and Mayence, the blockade of 
 VOL. it. s 
 
258 REACTION AGAINST ROBESPIERRE. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 which was immediately ordered by the Committee of Public Safety. The 
 French arms triumphed simultaneously in the north, the east, and the 
 south. Dugommier and Moncey promptly repaired the first reverses on the 
 frontiers of Spain, and having driven the Spaniards out of France, invaded 
 the peninsula, where Moncey took Saint Sebastian and Fontarabia. 
 
 Such was the prosperous state of France abroad, when, weary and dis- 
 gusted at the atrocities which disgraced the country at home, a certain 
 number of members of the Mountain resolved to put an end to them, and 
 to avenge Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and their other 
 against murdered friends. At the head of this party were the 
 
 Robespierre. 
 
 Conventionalists Tallien, Bourdon de l'Oise, and Legendre ; 
 and they were supported, in the Committee of Public Safety, by Billaud- 
 Varennes, and Collot-d'Herbois, who were both jealous of the power of 
 the triumvirate, and in that of the General Security by Vadier, Voulant, 
 and Amar, who belonged to the overthrown faction of the Commune. 
 Eobespierre, irritated at their sullen resistance to his views, was resolved 
 to crush and destroy them, and they perceived that they must either anti- 
 cipate his designs or be his victims. They first accused him of tyranny 
 in the committees, and spoke of him under the name of Pisistratus ; they 
 then reproached him with intending to make himself pass as an apostle sent 
 by God by favouring the meetings held by the old Chartreuse dom Guerle 
 and a ridiculous fanatic named Catherine Theot, whom they sent to the 
 scaffold in spite of him. From this time Eobespierre appeared but rarely in 
 the Committees, and making the Jacobin Club the central point of his sway, 
 denounced there those whom he termed the Dantonists. All-powerful in 
 this club, master of the mob, and supported by the Mayor Fleuriot, by 
 Henriot, the commander of the armed force, and by the Revolutionary 
 tribunal, all the members of which were his creatures, he believed himself 
 to be powerful enough to attack his enemies in the very midst of the Con- 
 vention, and on the 18th Thermidor denounced there the committees. 
 He was listened to in silence, and then received a first repulse ; his ad- 
 dress being referred for examination to the very committees whom he 
 accused. He went on the same evening to the Jacobin Club, where he 
 gave way to his rage, and where he was received with enthusiasm. Every 
 preparation was made at this club during the night for an insurrection ; 
 and at the same time a league was formed between the Conventionalists, 
 the Dantonists, the Right, and the Marais. 
 
1793-1794.] EOBESPIEEEE AEEESTED. 259 
 
 The sitting of the 9th Thermidor (27th July, 1794) opened under the 
 most threatening auspices. Saint- Just ascended the tri- p a n fR bes- 
 bune, and opposite him was seated Eobespierre ; Tallien and Thermidor (July 
 Billaud interrupted Saint-Just and commenced the attack. ' 
 Eobespierre jumped forward to reply to them, when a cry arose 
 from every side of " Down with the tyrant !" Tallien brandished a 
 dagger, and threatened to plunge it into the heart of him whom he desig- 
 nated as the modern Cromwell, and persuaded the Assembly to order the 
 arrest of Henriot, and to declare its sitting a permanent one. " Let us 
 now consider the conduct of the tyrant," continued Tallien. A thousand 
 threatening cries prevented Robespierre from being heard, when he made 
 a final effort, and exclaimed, " President of assassins ! For the last 
 time, will you obtain me a hearing ?" Finding that he could not obtain 
 it, he ran amidst the benches of the Assembly like a madman, addressing 
 supplications to the members of the Right, who repulsed him with horror, 
 till at length he fell back into his seat exhausted and speechless. 
 " Miserable wretch !" said a member, w it is the blood of Danton that 
 stifles you !" His arrest was immediately proposed. His brother and 
 Lebas requested to be allowed to share his fate, and the Assembly unani- 
 mously ordered that they should be arrested along with Robespierre, 
 Couthon, and Saint- Just. " The Republic is lost," said Robespierre ; 
 " the brigands are triumphant." 
 
 The victory, however, was still uncertain. The Jacobins had also 
 declared their sitting permanent, and had sworn to die, according to their 
 own expression, rather than live under a criminal government. The 
 municipal deputies proceeded to their club, and Henriot ran through 
 the streets with a drawn sabre in his hand, crying " To arms !" Bu\ 
 he was arrested, together with the national agent Payan, and loaded with 
 chains. The sections took up arms, and the Convention summoned them 
 to its defence. During the day they were successful, and during the 
 hours of darkness the insurgents obtained the advantage. The latter 
 marched in a body to the prisons, and set free Robespierre, Henriot, and 
 their accomplices. Henriot immediately had the Convention surrounded, 
 and cannon pointed against it. Terror reigned in the Assembly, but the 
 imminence of the danger gave it courage ; Henriot was put beyond the 
 pale of the law ; his gunners refused to fire, and retreated with him to 
 the Hotel de Ville. This refusal decided the fate of the contest. The 
 
 s 2 
 
260 END OF THE KEIGN OE TEEEOE. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 Convention, in its turn, assumed the offensive, attacked the Commune, and 
 put its members beyond the pale of the law. Barre was appointed Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the armed force ; the battalions of the sections swore 
 to defend the Assembly, and marched through its midst, whilst they were 
 addressed by the President, who said to them, " Go ; and take care 
 that the day does not break before the head of the conspiracy has fallen !" 
 It was midnight when the sections marched upon the Commune, to which 
 Eobespierre had been carried in triumph, and where he now sat motion- 
 less, and as though paralysed by terror. The proclamation of the 
 Assembly, which placed the Commune beyond the pale of the law, was 
 posted up in the Place de Greve, and the groups collected there imme- 
 diately dispersed and left it empty. The Hotel de Ville was surrounded 
 by cries of " Long live the Convention !" Despair and rage took posses- 
 sion of those who had been proscribed. Lebas killed himself; young 
 Eobespierre threw himself from a third floor window and survived his 
 fall ; Couthon struck himself with a trembling hand ; Cofnnhal over- 
 whelmed Henriot with execrations, and threw him from a window into a 
 sewer ; and Robespierre remained motionless, and as though petrified by 
 irresolution and terror. The assailants forced the doors and rapidly 
 ascended the stairs. A gendarme fired a pistol at Eobespierre and broke 
 nis jaw-bone.* He was seized, together with his colleagues and the 
 principal members of the Commune ; and on the following day they were 
 tried by the same Eevolutionary tribunal which they had so long fed 
 with victims, and which now sent them in their turn to the scaffold. An 
 immense crowd collected round the car in which Eobespierre, his head 
 enveloped in a bloody cloth, sat, between Henriot and Couthon, who 
 were as mutilated as himself. The spectators cursed him, and con- 
 gratulated each other at the approaching end of the tyrant before his 
 eyes ; and at the moment when his head fell beneath the knife, prolonged 
 shouts of applause filled the air. France once more breathed freely, and 
 the Eeign of Terror was at an end. 
 
 * It has been very generally believed that Robespierre made an attempt to commit 
 suicide ; this, however, is an error which M. de Lamartine ("Hist, of the Girondists") 
 has done much to dissipate. 
 
1794-1795.] KEACTION AGAINST THE TEREOBISTS. 261 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EXECUTIVE 
 
 DIRECTORY. 
 
 21th July, 1794 (9th Thermidor, Year III.), to 26th October, 1795 
 (Ath Brumaire, Year IV.). 
 
 The Revolutionary movement attained its greatest power on the 9th 
 Thermidor, and on the same day the reaction against it set Reaction a ainst 
 in. The committees had overcome themselves when they the Terronsts - 
 overcame Robespierre. Two new parties were now formed : that of the 
 Committees, and that of the Mountain, which had contributed with Tallien 
 to the victory of the 19th Thermidor, and which hence was called the 
 Thermidorians. The first party relied on the Jacobin Club and the 
 faubourgs, and the second on the majority of the Convention and the 
 National Guard, or armed sections. 
 
 A great number of prisoners were set free during the days which 
 followed the 9 th Thermidor, and seventy- two members of the Commune 
 perished on the scaffold. The members of the Revolutionary tribunal 
 were replaced, and the powers of the committees were diminished. The 
 odious law of the 22nd Prairiai, relative to the criminal procedure, was 
 abolished. Only three assemblies of the sections were allowed a month, 
 and the gratuity of forty sous a day given to the poor citizens who 
 attended them was suppressed. Finally, the affiliation of the parent- 
 society of the Jacobins with all the other Jacobin Clubs in France was 
 prohibited. At the same time Fr6ron summoned the young men to arms 
 against the Terrorists in the columns of his journal, The Orator of the 
 People ; and in answer to his appeal a crowd of young men belonging to 
 the wealthier and middle classes, who received the name of the " Gilded 
 Youth," traversed the streets in numerous bands, armed with loaded 
 clubs, and waging desperate war against the Jacobins. The club of the 
 latter was attacked and taken after an energetic resistance, and all Paris 
 
262 BENEWED INSTTKEECTIONS. [BOOK II. CHAP. III. 
 
 became but one field of battle. The Convention supported all these 
 reactionary proceedings, and sent for trial the atrocious Fouquier- 
 Tinville, the public accuser, as well as Joseph Lebon and Carrier, who 
 had fulfilled their missions, the one at Arras and the other at Nantes, as 
 demoniacal exterminators. All three paid the penalty of their crimes on the 
 scaffold, and their atrocities being publicly revealed, added still more to 
 the horror inspired by their late accomplices. The Convention recalled 
 to its Assembly seventy-three deputies who had been proscribed for 
 having protested against the condemnation of the Giron- 
 
 Kecall of the 
 
 proscribed dists ; revoked the decrees of expulsion issued against the 
 
 Girondists. 
 
 priests and nobles ; re-established public worship ; sup- 
 pressed the maximum ; and had the bust of Marat in its own hall broken. 
 A new crop of evils, however, was produced by the sudden reaction. 
 Eight millions of assignats had been sent into circulation, and when there 
 Bankruptcy of were no longer any violent laws to enforce their currency, 
 the assignats. Qmj immediately fell fifteen times below their first value ; 
 cash disappeared from circulation, and the prodigious fall in the value 
 
 ,*..., of the assignats was followed by a wild system of specula- 
 
 stock-jobbing. ° . 
 
 tion which ruined a multitude of families. Monopoly 
 succeeded the terrible law of the maximum, and the farmers avenged 
 themselves for their long and cruel oppression by holding back all 
 
 species of provisions. Famine now made its appearance, 
 
 Famine. Jr r rr 
 
 and the lower orders of the faubourgs regretted the time 
 when the system of government gave them bread and power, and once 
 more had recourse to tumults. 
 
 Several of the most .famous Terrorists, Billaud-Varennes, Collot- 
 d'Herbois, Barrere, and Yadier, were condemned to transportation, and 
 were taken to the fortress of Ham, together with seventeen members of 
 the Crete, who had supported a first insurrection, the object of which was 
 to save them. A second insurrection, which took place on the 12th 
 Germinal, had no better success; but at length on the 1st Prairial, a 
 The people and ttiird was organized on a very formidable plan. On that 
 StfiffiSr^' da y tne conspirators declared that "In the name of the 
 p ' '}. insurgent people they would obtain bread and resume their 
 rights — the re- establishment of the Constitution of '93 ; the release of the 
 patriots ; and the suspension of all authority which did not emanate from 
 the people." They resolved to create a new municipality^ to seize the 
 
1794-1795.] THE CONSTITUTION ABOLISHED. 263 
 
 barriers, the telegraph, and the tocsin ; and never to pause in their 
 work until they should have procured for every inhabitant of France 
 food, security, and happiness. They invited all the troops to join their 
 ranks, and marched rapidly upon the Convention, which, taken by sur- 
 prise, called the sections to arms. The doors of the Hall of Assembly 
 were broken through, and the multitude, accompanied by a furious mob 
 of women, invaded the tribunes, crying out, " Bread ! and the Constitu- 
 tion of '93 !" The hall of the Assembly speedily became a field of 
 battle. The deputy Auguis, sword in hand, at the head of the veterans 
 and the gendarmes, at first repulsed the assailants, but they returned to 
 the charge. The president, Boissy d'Anglas, was aimed at, and deputy 
 Feraud, who rushed forward to protect him, was himself wounded, 
 dragged away by the crowd and beheaded. The greater number of the 
 deputies took to flight, but Boissy d'Anglas remained calmly seated, pro- 
 testing against the outrages committed by the mob. The mL 
 
 00 ° J The courage or 
 
 insurgents thrust their weapons against his breast and Boiss y d'Anglas. 
 demanded that he should put their propositions to the vote. When he 
 refused, they presented to him on a pike the bleeding head of Feraud, 
 and he uncovered and bowed before it. The deputies of the Crete, who 
 were favourable to the insurrectionary movement, put an end to this 
 terrible scene by seizing the bureaux, and decreeing by themselves alone 
 the articles contained in the insurgents' manifesto. But the battalions of 
 the sections now arrived, possessed themselves of the Carrousel, entered 
 the Hall of Assembly with fixed bayonets, and drove the crowd before 
 them. The members returned in a body, annulled the votes which had 
 been passed during the tumult, and ordered the arrest of fourteen of 
 their number who had been accomplices of the insurgents. On the fol- 
 lowing day the armed faubourgs made a vain attempt at a fresh attack, 
 and at length, on the 4th Prairial, after a tumult of which the object was 
 to set free the murderer of the deputy Feraud, the faubourgs were sur- 
 rounded and disarmed. The Convention then suppressed the Eevolu- 
 tionary Committee, and abolished the Constitution of '93. 
 Thus ended the rule of the People, and from this time the Constitution of 
 
 1793 
 
 Girondist party became predominant in the Assembly. 
 
 The reaction which commenced in Thermidor did not check the success 
 of our troops, whose audacity was seconded by a severe campaigns of 
 winter. During the last days of 1794 the cold became 1794andl7 9 5 - 
 
264 TEEKCH successes. [Book II. Chap. III. 
 
 excessive, and the ice rendered the Meuse and the Wahal, which were 
 the enemy's defences, passable at several points. The French troops, 
 destitute of clothes and shoes, and worn out by the fatigues attendant on 
 their brilliant feats of arms, had scarcely been a month in their winter 
 cantonments, when, at the sight of the rivers enchained in ice, their 
 ardour, excited as much by the consternation of the enemy as by the 
 wishes of the Dutch patriots, acknowledged no obstacles. Under Pichegru's 
 c uestof command they entered Holland at several points, upon 
 
 p£hegra b Ja- which the Duke of York and his army retreated in disorder 
 nuary, i79o. upon Deventer ; whilst the Prince of Orange, stupified by 
 
 dismay, remained immovable at Gorcum. The patriots who were 
 hostile to the Stadtholder supported the efforts of the French army, and 
 within a short time the whole of Holland was conquered. The Stadt- 
 holder fled to England, and the States- General governed the Republic, 
 which formed a close alliance with France. Prussia, being now threatened, 
 Peace of Basle concluded a peace at Basle, and Spain, in which country the 
 pn ' 6 * French were in possession of many places, speedily followed 
 the example of Prussia by signing a treaty, the principal condition of 
 which was that the French conquests in the Peninsula should be exchanged 
 for the Spanish portion of St. Domingo. 
 
 France was less fortunate in the course of this year on her eastern 
 frontier. Pichegru had resigned the command of the army of the North 
 to take that of the army of the Ehine ; he occupied the left bank of 
 that river from Mayence to Strasburg ; whilst Jourdan, with the army 
 of Sambre and Meuse, was cantoned on the Rhine, in the direction 
 of Cologne. The allies had lost the whole of the left bank,, with the 
 exception of Luxemburg and Mayence. The first of these places was 
 reduced by famine on the 24th June, and thenceforth it was the object 
 of the French to cross the river, the right bank of which was defended 
 by the Austrians, under Clairfait and Wurmser. But their armies were 
 
 not only in want of absolute necessaries, but of war mate- 
 Passage of the r i e \ an( j ^he means of constructing bridges. It was necessary, 
 sSreand therefore, to delay this operation many months, and at 
 
 JoTdan^and by length, on the 6th September, Jourdan effected the pas- 
 Khiae^nder e sage at three points, in the environs of Dusseldorf ; whilst 
 tember™795. P " Pichegru crossed it almost at the same time above the 
 
 strong fortress of Manheim, which immediately surren- 
 
1794-1795.] EBENCH SUCCESSES. 265 
 
 dered. Had the two armies now acted in concert and effected a junc- 
 tion in the valley of the Main, they would have been able to repulse 
 Clairfait and Wurmser, and to have vanquished them in succession ; but 
 this plan was not followed. Pichegru had an understanding with the 
 Prince of Cond6, the leader of the emigrant party ; he already plotted 
 the betrayal of the Republic, and compromised his own army and that 
 of Jourdan by the weakness of his movements. He allowed Clairfait 
 time to concentrate superior forces against him, to allow himself to be 
 beaten disgracefully, and then shut himself up in Man- 
 heim. Clairfait now marched against Jourdan, who, sepa- Pichegru at 
 
 j, . , Heidelberg. 
 
 rated from Pichegru, shut in between the Rhine and the 
 
 neutral ground of Prussia, and in want of the means of supporting his 
 
 troops, was forced to retreat and recross the river. Thirty thousand 
 
 French troops continued to invest Mayence ; but Clairfait 
 
 by a skilful manoeuvre forced their lines and drove them armies of the 
 
 Rhine an ^ °f 
 
 to the foot of the Vosges, on the left bank of the Rhine. Sambre and 
 
 Meuse. Loss of 
 
 Manheim, Dusseldorf, and Neuwied now alone remained the lines of 
 
 77 Mayence, 1795. 
 
 in the possession of the French on the right bank, and 
 after the conclusion of an armistice, which was the necessary conse- 
 quence of this reverse, the French troops went into cantonments. 
 
 Brilliant successes counterbalanced this check suffered by the armies 
 of the Rhine. The important treaty concluded with Spain x ,. ' , 
 
 i- J r Junction of the 
 
 enabled the armies of the Pyrenees and of the Maritime a rmiesofth e 
 
 J Pyrenees and 
 
 Alps commanded by Kellerman to effect a junction; and Maritime ^P 3 * 
 when these forces were united they were enabled to assume the offensive. 
 The object now was by a decisive victory to force the passes of the 
 Apennines aod to force Piedmont to be neutral. Kellerman was 
 superseded by Scherer, whose army, shut in between the sea and the 
 chain of the Apennines, was faced by the Piedmontese army under 
 Colli, and the Austrian army. The former extended from the crest of the 
 Apennines to the basin of Loano, as far as the sea, whilst the latter 
 occupied the opposite side of the mountains towards the Po, and was 
 strongly entrenched in the camp of the Ceva. Scherer now attempted a 
 bold stroke. Massena, by his orders, crossed the crest of the Apennines 
 and divided the two hostile armies, whilst Serrurier deceived _ . 
 
 ; Victory of 
 
 Colli by a feigned attack and drove the Austrians into the Scherer at 
 
 J ° Loano, Novem- 
 
 basin of the Loano. A complete victory was the result ber > 1795 - 
 
266 DEFEAT OF THE BOYALISTS. [BOOK II. CHAP. IIT. 
 
 of this skilful manoeuvre ; and although a tempest accompanied by 
 a dense fall of snow covered their precipitate retreat, twenty pieces of 
 cannon and immense magazines fell into the hands of the victors, and 
 Italy lay open before them. 
 
 The Republican arms were no less successful in Vendee, where the 
 want of harmony between the two principal leaders, Charette and Stofflet, 
 enfeebled the insurgent forces. The Marquis de Puisaye, the active agent 
 of the Royalist party in Brittany, requested and obtained the aid of 
 England, and Admiral Bridport set sail with the two first divisions of 
 emigrants, commanded by Count d'Hervilly and M. de Sombreuil ; a 
 third following under the orders of Count d'Artois. An 
 
 The Quiberon _,. _ . . _ . in o 
 
 Expedition. engagement took place on Belle-Isle between the fleet ot 
 
 Destruction of 
 
 the Koyaiist Admiral Bridport and that of the Republican Admiral Villa- 
 
 army, June, 1795. 
 
 ret-Joyeuse. Bridport having gained the victory, effected 
 
 the disembarkation of the two divisions in the Bay of Quiberon, near 
 Vannes. One of them immediately took possession of Fort Penthievre, 
 which commanded the narrow peninsula, almost island, of Quiberon, on 
 which the disembarkation had taken place. The emigrants immediately 
 marched against the Republican army, in the absence of Hoche who com- 
 manded it. On being informed of this sudden attack he immediately 
 hastened up, and the Royalists were repulsed, and mowed down by 
 artillery. Sombreuil arrived too late with his division to support so 
 unequal a fight ; a storm had driven away the fleet, and retreat was 
 impossible. The Republican troops had obtained possession of Fort 
 Penthievre by the aid of treason ; the night came on, and a frightful 
 massacre took place. D'Hervilly was slain, and Sombreuil and eight 
 hundred of his troops were compelled, after an heroic resistance, to capi- 
 tulate. But the representative, Tallien, having arrived on the field of 
 battle and assumed the chief command, would not recognise capitulation, 
 and the vanquished emigrants, after having been thrown into prison, in 
 defiance of all the engagements entered into with them, were tried by 
 military law, and shot. 
 
 England made a fresh effort to support the civil war in the west, and 
 an English fleet carried thither a French prince, the Count d'Artois, and 
 several regiments. At the summons of the intrepid Charette all the coast 
 line of Brittany took up arms in the expectation of the Prince's disem- 
 barkation, and it seemed probable that this great movement might change 
 
1794-1795.] REACTION AGAINST THE CONVENTION". 267 
 
 in that part of the kingdom the fate of the war. But after having re- 
 mained for some weeks at Isle-Dieu, Count d'Artois returned to England 
 without having set foofc on the Continent. The English 
 
 ° ° The Count 
 
 fleet, driven about by contrary winds, could afford no d'Artois at isle- 
 
 J J Dieu, 1795. 
 
 assistance to the Chouans,* and none of the hopes inspired 
 by this expedition were realized. 
 
 Thus, then, with the exception of the check suffered by our arms in the 
 East, the Republican armies were everywhere successful in the course of 
 1795. They had conquered, in the north, the whole of Holland, and in 
 the south the passage of the Apennines, the Gate of Italy. The hopes 
 which Brittany and La Vendee had founded on the assistance of England 
 had vanished at Quiberon ; and three powers had laid down their arms — 
 Prussia, Holland, and Spain. The Royal cause seemed desperate, and in 
 this year it had also lost the Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI., who had 
 been proclaimed King of France by the Royalists after the 
 
 J % J . Death of Louis 
 
 21st of January, by the title of Louis XVII. This Prince, xvn., June, 
 aged only eight years at the death of his father, had been 
 torn from the arms of his mother, his aunt, and his sister, and confided 
 to the care of a wretch named Simon, a shoemaker by trade, and an 
 outrageous Republican, who, under the pretext of giving the Royal 
 child a Republican education, treated him with outrageous and brutal 
 violence. The early death of this young prince was attributed to the 
 cruel treatment he had suffered at the hands of this frightful man, and 
 took place in June, 1795. His right to the throne passed to his uncle, 
 Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Count de Provence, whom the emigrants and 
 foreign powers thenceforth recognised as King of France, under the title 
 of Louis XVIII. 
 
 After the failure at Quiberon all the hopes of the Royalists depended 
 on the reactionary movement taking place in the interior Keaetion against 
 of the kingdom. This movement, at first guided by the <*e Contention, 
 moderate Republicans, soon became so violent as to bear comparison 
 with the Revolutionary fury. Too many crimes had been committed in 
 the name of the Convention for that body, in spite of its late proceedings, 
 
 * The name of Chouans was given to those peasants who formed the principal 
 Royalist forces in Anjou and Lower Brittany. The origin of this name has given 
 rise to various suppositions, but the most probable is that it is derived from a family of 
 that name which was the first to rise in Anjou. 
 
268 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE TEAR III. [BOOK II. CHAP. III. 
 
 not to be the object of the indignation and hatred of a multitude of 
 generous spirits. This feeling was warmly cherished by the journalists, 
 who formed a powerful confederacy against it, and whose principal mem- 
 bers were Charles Lacretelle, La Harpe, Richer de Serisy, and Troncon 
 du Coudray. The Gilded Youth abandoned the Convention, and the 
 bourgeoisie displayed an equally hostile spirit ; crowds collected on the 
 Boulevards, singing the " Reveil du Peuple," and pursued the Jacobins with 
 furious cries of "Hunt the Terrorists!" and great excesses were com- 
 mitted. The Convention put a stop to this vengeance in the capital, but 
 in the provinces its authority was powerless to prevent its being exacted. 
 In the South, especially, its enemies committed frightful acts of violence. 
 Associations were formed under the names of Jesus and The Sun, which 
 devoted themselves to the most sanguinary reprisals. The prisons 
 were filled with men accused of having taken an active part in the 
 Reign of Terror, and at Lyons, at Aix, at Tarascon, and Marseilles, 
 such were pitilessly destroyed. This Revolutionary movement pro- 
 duced serious disturbances, and placed the Convention in peril 
 within the kingdom, whilst it was so triumphant abroad. The Emi- 
 grant party, having lost all hope of being able to overthrow it by 
 force, now had recourse to the sections of Paris, and endeavoured 
 to bring about a counter-revolution by means of the Constitution of 
 the Year III. 
 
 This Constitution was less defective than those which had been esta- 
 blished or projected in 1789. It placed the Legislative power 
 the Year in. in two councils, that of the Five Hundred, and that of the 
 
 (1795.) 
 
 Ancients ; whilst the executive power was entrusted to a 
 Directory of five members. It re-established the two degrees of election, 
 and made it necessary for a man to possess a certain amount of property 
 before he could become a member either of the primary or electoral 
 Assemblies. The initiative in the proposal of laws was given to the Five 
 Hundred ; and the power of either passing or rejecting them resided in 
 the Council of the Ancients. The first consisted of five hundred members, 
 who were thirty years old at least, and the second of two hundred and 
 fifty, who were over forty years of age. The five Directors were chosen 
 by the two Councils. Each of the directors was President for three 
 months, during which he possessed the seals. Each year the Directory 
 
1794-1795.] EETOLT OE THE PAEIS SECTIONS. 269 
 
 was renewed "by a new member. It had a guard, and was lodged in the 
 Palace of the Luxembourg. The frightful memories of the Reign of 
 Terror, which inflamed the reactionary feelings of the middle classes, and 
 drove the Convention to the necessity of defending itself, became fatal to 
 the new Constitution, which perished chiefly through the hatred and detes- 
 tation felt for those by whom it had been drawn up. The latter perceived 
 the danger of their position if the new Councils should be chosen in accor- 
 dance with the prevailing opinions, and in order therefore to secure for 
 themselves a majority in the choice of the Directors, they determined, 
 by the decrees of the 5th and 13th Fructidor, that two- decree- of th 
 thirds of the members of the Convention should be members f^JS<LJ. 3th 
 of the new Councils. (Aug,lst ' i795 -> 
 
 These decrees, as well as the scheme of the Constitution, were sub- 
 mitted to the primary Assemblies, and were approved by the departments. 
 Paris, however, being under the direct influence of the Journalists, 
 accepted the new Constitution, but rejected the decrees, the adoption of 
 which by the majority of the primary Assemblies of the Republic was 
 proclaimed on the 1st Vendemiaire. This was the signal for Bevoitofthe 
 a serious commotion. The Journalists and the Royalist ans ectlons * 
 chiefs of the sections loudly exclaimed against the Convention's tyranny ; 
 the burgesses composing the National Guard nominated a College of 
 Electors, and swore to defend it to the death. The Convention, justly 
 alarmed, declared its sitting permanent, summoned the troops encamped 
 on the plain of Sablons to its aid, armed eighteen hundred patriots, and 
 dissolved the College of Electors. The section Lepelletier was the first 
 to declare itself opposed to these measures, and to excite the other 
 sections against the Convention by inspiring them with fears of a return 
 of the Reign of Terror ; a first attack upon them was ill managed by the 
 Convention's officer, General Menou, and the insurgents regarded them- 
 selves as victors, and forty thousand burgesses were soon under arms, 
 ready to march against the Convention. The latter made Barras Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and Barras requested and obtained the assistance of 
 a young general who had particularly distinguished himself at the siege 
 of Toulon — Napoleon Bonaparte. It was he who in Vendemiaire 
 (October) made all the preparations for the defence of. the Convention. 
 He extended his line of defence from the Pont Louis XV. to the Pont 
 
270 THE CONTENTION CLOSED. [BOOK II. CHAP. III. 
 
 Neuf, and posted cannon at all the principal points of attack. The in- 
 surgents advanced in several columns, under the command of Generals 
 Danican, Duhoux, and the ex-guardsman Lafon. General Danican sum- 
 moned the Convention to make its troops retire, and to disarm the 
 Terrorists. It was still deliberating on this demand when the sound of 
 musketry and cannon was heard, and the Convention, putting an end to 
 its debate, had seven hundred muskets brought, and formed themselves 
 into a corps of reserve. The most murderous conflict took place at the 
 Pont Koyal and in the Eue St. Honore ; the artillery at these two 
 principal points broke the lines of the insurgents, and 
 
 The Convention . 
 
 victorious over put them to night. At seven o clock m the evening 
 
 the Sections, 
 
 13th Vendemiaire, the troops of the Convention assumed the offensive, 
 
 October 5, 1795. ... 
 
 and were victorious in every direction. On the follow- 
 ing day they disarmed the section Lepelletier, and reduced the rest to 
 order. 
 
 Such was the conflict of the 13th Vendemiaire, the whole success of 
 which, on the part of the Convention, was attributed to Bonaparte. This 
 victory enabled the Convention immediately to devote its attention to the 
 formation of the Councils proposed by it, two-thirds of which were to 
 ™ „ ,, consist of its own members. The first third, which was 
 
 Election of the ' 
 
 Directory. freely elected, had already been nominated by the Reac- 
 
 tionary party. The members of the Directory were chosen, and the de- 
 puties of the Convention, believing that for their own interests the regicides 
 should be at the head of the Government, nominated La ReVeillere- 
 Lepeaux, Sieyes, Rewbel, Le Tourneur, and Barras. Sieyes refused to 
 
 act, and Carnot was elected in his place. Immediately after 
 Co°nveIt?on, Oc this, the Convention declared its session at an end, after it 
 
 had had three years of existence, from the 21st September, 
 1792, to the 28th October, 1795 (4th Brumaire, Year IV.). Those who 
 endeavour to justify this Assembly, allege in its defence the dangers to 
 which the country was exposed and the stern necessities of the moment ; 
 but when it commenced its sittings the campaign of Argonne and the 
 cannonade of Valmy had saved the Republic ; the Prussians had been 
 put to flight, and the French arms were victorious on all the frontiers ; 
 and the battle of Jemappes preceded by two months the 21st January. 
 The Convention was the most cruel and tyrannical of all the governments 
 
1794-1795.] THE ACTS OE THE CONTENTION. 27l 
 
 which had crushed France. It had, no doubt, to contend with innume- 
 rable enemies, but it had aroused them against itself by its misgovern- 
 ment, and if it found itself compelled to have recourse to terrorism for 
 the purpose of holding their enemies in check, it was only because the 
 criminal deeds which it had permitted had excited universal indignation, 
 and compromised the cause of the Revolution even in the eyes of its most 
 enthusiastic partisans. 
 
272 INSTALLATION OF THE DIRECTORY. [BOOK. II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DIRECTORY TO THE PEACE OF CAMPO- 
 
 FORMIO. 
 
 27th October, 1795 (4th Brumaire, Year IV.), to 11th October, 1797 
 (26^ Vendemiaire, Year VI.). 
 
 « 
 
 The Directors were all, with the exception of Carnot, of moderate 
 capacity, and concurred in rendering their own position the 
 
 Installation of ^. . •'-,•, 
 
 the Directory, more dimcult. At this period there was no element of order 
 
 October 27, 1795. . x 
 
 Distress of the or good government in the Republic ; anarchy and uneasi- 
 
 G-overnment. 
 
 ness everywhere prevailed, famine had become chronic, 
 the troops were without clothes, provisions, or horses; the Convention 
 had spent an immense capital represented by assignats, and had sold almost 
 half of the Republican territory, belonging to the proscribed classes, for 
 the purpose of providing for the support of the people and the armies ; 
 the excessive degree of discredit to which paper money had fallen, after 
 the issue of thirty-eight thousand millions, had destroyed all confi- 
 dence and all legitimate commerce ; the treasury was empty, the 
 Government couriers were frequently unable to go on their missions for 
 want of money, and finally, such was the general poverty, that when the 
 Directors entered the palace which had been assigned to them as a 
 dwelling, they found no furniture there, and were compelled to borrow of 
 the porter a few straw chairs and a wooden table, on the latter of which 
 they drew up the decree by which they were appointed to office. 
 
 Their first care was to establish their power, and they succeeded in 
 „. A „,. doing this by frankly following at first the rules laid down 
 
 First acts of the ° J J ° 
 
 Directors. -fay fae Constitution. In a short time industry and com- 
 
 merce began to raise their heads, the supply of provisions became tole- 
 rably abundant, and the clubs were abandoned for the workshops and 
 the fields. The Directory exerted itself to revive agriculture, industry, 
 
1795-1797.] second war or la vendee. 273 
 
 and the arts, re-established the public exhibitions, and founded primary, 
 central, and normal schools. One of its members, Reveillere-Lepaux, 
 entrusted with that portion of the government of the nation which 
 related to morality, attempted to found a distinct worship Theo M 
 under the name of " Theophilanthropy," but his efforts in thr °py- 
 this direction were ridiculed and fell to the ground. This period was 
 distinguished by a great licentiousness in manners. The wealthy classes 
 who had been so long forced into retirement by the Reign of Terror, now 
 gave themselves up to the pursuit of pleasure without stint, and indulged 
 in a course of unbridled luxury, which was outwardly displayed in balls, 
 festivities, rich costumes, and sumptuous equipages. Barras, who was a 
 man of pleasure, favoured this dangerous sign of the reaction, and his 
 palace soon became the rendezvous of the most frivolous and corrupt 
 society. In spite of this, however, the wealthy classes were still the 
 victims, under the government of the Directory, of violent and spoliative 
 measures. The necessities of the Republic were so vast and imperious, 
 that to meet them the Government had recourse to forced 
 
 ... Forced loans. 
 
 loans, and to Territorial edicts, the latter of which were 
 to be employed for the purpose of withdrawing the assignats from circu- 
 lation on the scale of thirty to one, and to bring cash into circulation. 
 They possessed the advantage of being immediately exchangeable for the 
 national domains which they represented, and furnished the Government 
 with a temporary resource. But they subsequently fell into discredit, 
 and conduced to a prodigious bankruptcy of thirty-three thousand 
 millions. 
 
 The war in the West was now only carried on by a few leaders, the 
 chief of whom, Charette and Stofflet, were weakened by 
 
 J The second war 
 
 their want of harmony. In this new campaign Hoche of La Vendee, 
 
 t i /• -> •!• « • i 1795,1796. 
 
 displayed a great amount of ability, separating the 
 Royalist from the religious cause, he neutralized the influence of the 
 priests, and the masses of the population no longer responded to the 
 appeals of their military chiefs. Hoche vanquished Charette, and took 
 him prisoner ; and Stofflet^ was soon after given up to the guC g ess of 
 Republicans by treachery. The heroism of each of them charette'wfd ° f 
 was maintained at the hour of death, which took place in 
 the case of Charette at Nantes, and in that of Stofflet at Angers. Georges 
 Cadoudal still kept the field in Morbihan, but Hoche soon crushed this 
 VOL. II. T 
 
274 caenot's campaigns. [Book II. Chap. IV. 
 
 new focus of insurrection by directing against it all his forces ; and after 
 this most of the insurrectionary leaders laid down their arms and sought 
 a refuge in England. 
 
 The Directory in Paris was now the object of the most violent demo- 
 cratic androyalist attacks. Its members, who had taken a part in all the 
 excesses of the Convention and the events of the month of Thermidor, 
 were held in equal horror by the two opposed parties, and by all those 
 who shared in the reactionary sentiments which were now everywhere 
 becoming predominant. The Directory in the first place took proceedings 
 against the Democrats, who had opened a club in the Pantheon. A 
 
 fanatic, emulous of Eobespierre, named Gracchus Babeuf, 
 Babeuf. an( j ^q proclaimed himself tribune of the people, endea- 
 
 voured to excite the populace by demanding an agrarian law, and pro- 
 mising to establish universal happiness by means of liberty, equality, and 
 the Constitution of 1793. The conspirators gained over to their side the 
 police, tampered with the troops in the camp of Grenelle, and were on 
 the point of marching against the Councils and the Directory, when they 
 were betrayed and seized in their place of meeting ; Gracchus Babeuf 
 paying the penalty of his life for this desperate enterprise. A distur- 
 bance took place at the same time in the camp of Grenelle, which was 
 checked by Malo, the officer in command. His dragoons sabred the 
 insurgents, and the Directory had the ringleaders tried by a military 
 
 commission. A Royalist conspiracy was at the same time 
 
 Royalist con- •> 
 
 spiraey. formed by the Abbe Brothier and Lavilleheurnois ; but that 
 
 likewise failed, and its authors, on being found guilty, were leniently 
 dealt with by their judges, who had been elected under the influence of 
 the insurrectionary movement of Vendemiaire. A struggle then took 
 place between the Directory and the authorities who had been freely 
 nominated by the sections ; and the former, finding themselves 
 overcome by the electoral power, had recourse to military force, 
 and gave the dangerous example of allowing it to interfere in State 
 politics. 
 
 In this year, again, the glory of France was solely supported by its 
 armies : Carnot had formed a plan of campaign in accor- 
 
 The immortal 
 
 campaigns of dance with which the armies of the Ehine, of the Sambre 
 
 1796 and 1797 : 
 
 Camot's plan. an( j M eusej an d of Italy, might march upon Vienna in 
 concert, and afford each other mutual support. The two first were 
 
1795-1797.] BONAPABTE AT NICE. 275 
 
 commanded by generals who were already celebrated — Moreau and 
 Jourdan. The third was entrusted to the young hero of Toulon and 
 defender of the Convention in Vendemiaire — Napoleon Bonaparte. This 
 latter army, devoid as it was of materiel of war, food, and raiment, had 
 not been able to take advantage of its victory of Loano, and found itself, 
 in the spring of 1796, in front of the Austrians under Beaulieu, and the 
 Piedmontese under Colli, in a situation similar to that which it had 
 occupied in the previous year before its victory. Colli occupied, in the 
 entrenched camp of Ceva, the side of the Apennines in the direction 
 of the Po ; and Beaulieu's troops, extended from the valley of the 
 Bormida and the hill of Montenotte to the sea, intercepted the road 
 to Genoa. 
 
 Bonaparte arrived on the 27th March at his head-quarters at Nice, 
 where he found the army destitute of every necessary, but 
 
 . Arrival of 
 
 strong m its courage and experience. The soldiers oi this Bonaparte at 
 
 the Italian army, 
 
 army had become hardened in the gigantic conflicts which 27th March, 
 J p & & 1796. 
 
 had taken place in the Alps and Pyrenees, and they were 
 commanded by Massena, Augereau, La Harpe, Serrurier, Murat, and 
 Joubert. The first words which the young general addressed to them 
 were a presage of victory. "Soldiers," he said, "you are ill fed and 
 almost naked. The Government owes you much, but can do nothing for 
 you. Your patience and courage do you honour, but obtain for you 
 neither advantage nor glory. I will now lead you to the most fertile 
 fields in the world ; where you will find great cities, rich provinces, 
 honour, glory, and riches. Soldiers of Italy ! have you the courage 
 to follow me ?" Bonaparte, who had but thirty-six thousand men with 
 which to meet sixty thousand, perceived, as his predecessor had, that it 
 was first of all necessary to separate the Piedmontese from the Austrians, 
 and to crush them one after the other. He carried his head-quarters to 
 Savona, and threw the division La Harpe upon the sea-coast, for the 
 purpose of directing the enemy's efforts on that side ; but whilst the 
 Austrian left advanced against La Harpe, their centre advanced against 
 the French army by the hill of Montenotte. Twelve hundred men only, 
 under Colonel Rampon, occupied the pass there ; Rampon saw the peril 
 to which the army would be exposed if that position were forced, and, 
 throwing himself with his brave comrades into an old redoubt, made 
 them swear that they would die rather than surrender, and thrice re- 
 
 T 2 
 
276 BONAPARTE' S EARLY VICTORIES. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 pulsed the whole force of the Austrian infantry ; thus affording time to 
 
 the French divisions to arrive. Bonaparte immediately 
 
 victories at Mon- threw back his right, which he marched upon Montenotte 
 
 tenotte, Dego, p ,.,,,... 
 
 MiUesimo, and in front of the enemy, whilst the division Massena, by 
 
 Mondovi, 1796. . , . . 
 
 turning the crest of the Apennines, might surprise them 
 in the rear. His orders were executed ; the Austrians, attacked and 
 surprised, fell back in disorder, and Bonaparte, master of the pass and 
 the crest of the Apennines, now had in front of him the Austrians, who 
 rallied at Dego and guarded the road to Lombardy, and on his left the 
 Piedmontese, who occupied the formidable gorges of MiUesimo, the valley 
 of the Bormida, and intercepted the road to Piedmont. Unless some 
 decisive blow could be inflicted on the two armies the fruits of the 
 victory of Montenotte would be lost, and on the morrow the conflict 
 was resumed. La Harpe and Massena attacked the Austrians at Dego, 
 whilst Augereau impetuously penetrated the gorges of Millesimo. The 
 latter separated Provera, who defended them, from the Piedmontese 
 army, and drove him back into a fort, in which after a desperate 
 conflict of two days, he and fifteen hundred men were forced to lay 
 down their arms. The defile was now carried, the Austrian army 
 was in flight on the road to Milan, and the Piedmontese retreated upon 
 Mondovi. 
 
 Bonaparte, victorious at every point, had gained three victories in three 
 days, and filled his army with astonishment and admiration. From the 
 heights of the Apennines he contemplated with emotion the rich plains of 
 Piedmont and Italy, watered by so many beautiful rivers. He pointed 
 them out to his soldiers as another promised land, and cried " Hannibal 
 crossed the Alps ; and we, we have turned them !" The whole plan of the 
 campaign is compressed in these words. The victor now went in pursuit 
 of the Piedmontese, and was again victorious at Mondovi, after which he 
 reached Cherasia, an important position at the confluence of the Tanaro 
 and the Stura, and threatened Turin, from which he was only distant ten 
 leagues. King Victor Amadeus, in fear for his capital and his crown, now 
 ... „ made offers of peace, and Bonaparte signed an armistice by 
 Sy of pSdmont wn i° n ne was P ut m possession of Coni, Tortona, and Alex- 
 1796, andria, with the immense magazines which they contained, 
 
 whilst he preserved his communications with France. Numerous flags, 
 fifty-five pieces of artillery, five victories, fifteen thousand prisoners, ten 
 
1795-1797.] THE BRIDGE OE LODI. 277 
 
 thousand of the enemy killed or wounded, and peace with Piedmont, 
 were the results of a campaign of fifteen days. Paris was enthusiastic at 
 the news, and the two Councils voted that the army of Italy had deserved 
 well of its country. 
 
 Bonaparte followed up his success. He deceived Beaulieu by feigned 
 manoeuvres, crossed the Po, and laid the Duke of Parma under contribu- 
 tion. Lombardy was before him and could not but submit, but it was 
 first necessary to complete the defeat of Beaulieu, and for this purpose 
 he endeavoured to cut in two his army, a portion of which occupied Lodi 
 on the Adda. He marched rapidly against this place and 
 
 Bonaparte vie- 
 
 took it. Tne Austnans fell back upon the opposite bank, and tor at the 
 
 , _ . bridge of Lodi 
 
 defended the bridge which they had crossed, with twelve 
 thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, and a formidable artillery. 
 Such an obstacle as this appeared to be insurmountable, but the young 
 General inspired with his own ardour six thousand grenadiers whom 
 he formed into a column and threw upon the bridge, through a storm of 
 round shot and musketry, whilst the cavalry forded the river above Lodi 
 and attacked the Austrians in the rear. The latter fled in disorder, and 
 thenceforth the army of Italy was invincible. Beaulieu retreated, 
 leaving behind him Cremona, Milan, Pavia, Como, and Conquesto f 
 Cassano, which the French entered. Bonaparte immediately tfiSSj % the 
 seized the important line of the Adige, a river which issues ge ' 
 from the Rhetian Alps, falls into the Adriatic, and protects Lombardy 
 against Austria ; and then retraced his steps to receive submission of 
 Genoa and of Hercules d'Este, Duke of Modena, who 
 
 Submission of 
 
 gave him ten millions, and withdrew to Venice. General Genoa, Modena, 
 
 . . . m JNaples, and 
 
 vaubois took Leghorn, in which were six hundred Corsican Rome. Revolt in 
 
 Corsica. 
 
 fugitives, whom Bonaparte sent to their own island to make 
 
 it revolt against the English. They did so, and the English were driven 
 
 away. 
 
 The Court of Naples, ruled by Queen Caroline, the sister of the 
 Unfortunate Marie Antoinette, and inspired with the most bitter hatred 
 against France, had commenced formidable preparations for war, but it 
 trembled at the news of Bonaparte's victories, and resigned itself to neu- 
 trality. The Pope himself was compelled to submit, and Bonaparte 
 levied upon him, as a contribution of peace, twenty-one millions, and a 
 hundred of the most famous works of art in his museums. 
 
278 VICTORY OF RADSTADT. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 In the meantime the Austrians had made a fresh effort, and the Archduke 
 Charles, the Emperor's brother, marched towards the Rhine at 
 the^rm^ 8 °^ the head of seventy thousand men. Upon this, in accordance 
 the siX e an and witn Carnot's plan, the armies of the Rhine and Sambre and 
 Germany, 1796. Meuse, commanded by Moreau and Jourdan, moved forward 
 in concert, and crossed the river with the object of sur- 
 rounding the enemy, and then marching in concert with the army of 
 Italy upon the centre of the Austrian monarchy. The enormous dis- 
 tance which separated the two armies, of which the one effected the pas- 
 sage of the river at Dusseldorf, and the other at Strasburg, the immense 
 space which would separate each of them from its basis of operations, and 
 the obstacles which they could not fail to encounter in a difficult and hostile 
 country, rendered this plan an extremely hazardous one, and yet at 
 victo ofM ^ rs ^ *■* a PP earec '- to- succeed. Moreau gave battle to the 
 reauatBastadt. Archduke Charles at Rastadt, between the Rhine and the 
 Black Mountains. The victory was staunchly disputed on either side, 
 but at length the French having obtained possession of the heights and 
 the passes into the valley of the Necker, the Archduke feared lest he 
 should be separated from the hereditary States of the Austrian monarchy, 
 and for the purpose of covering them fell back hastily upon the Danube 
 „ , „ between Ulm and Ratisbon, allowing Moreau to march 
 
 Re-entry of the ' ° 
 
 ch^i^t th against him by the valley of the Necker, and Jourdan by 
 
 Danube* 116 ^ na * °^ ^he Main, and then, towards the middle of the year 
 
 1796, the French armies, masters of Italy, and of half of 
 Germany as far as the Danube, threatened to invade the rest. 
 
 The old Austrian General Wurmser now re-entered the Tyrol at the 
 head of a new and formidable army of sixty thousand men, 
 
 Re-entry of the . 
 
 Austrians under and prepared to force the lines of the Adige, to raise the 
 
 Wurmser into 
 
 the Tyrol and blockade of Mantua, and to crush the French army of Italy? 
 
 Lombardy, 1796. ' ' j J 
 
 which was only half as strong as his own, and which was 
 shut up in a narrow space between the Lake of Garda on the north, the 
 Adige on the east, and the Po on the south. Wurmser had the choice of 
 three routes. The first crossed the Adige at Roveredo, above the Lake of 
 Garda, and turning behind that lake followed its western shore, where 
 the only obstacle he would have to overcome would be the military posi- 
 tion of Salo. The second route passed between the lake and the Adige, 
 along the heights of Montebaldo, which separated them and defended 
 
1795-1797.] victoet or lonato. 279 
 
 the important positions of Corona and Kivoli ; and the third, following the 
 left bank of the Adige, ran into the plain in the direction of Verona, and 
 led to our line of defences. The army of Italy had never found itself in 
 such imminent peril, and the partisans and subjects of Venetia and Austria, 
 who had been so deeply grieved at the sight of our national flag in Lombardy, 
 repeated the old and formidable proverb — Italy is the tomb of the French. 
 Wurmser sent twenty thousand men, under Quasdanovitch, to operate in 
 the rear of the Lake of Garda, whilst he himself advanced 
 
 Wurmser divides 
 
 with forty thousand men between the lake and the Adige. his army into two 
 
 columns of at- 
 
 Bonaparte, whose head-quarters were at Castel-Nuovo, tack : their re- 
 
 x x spective routes. 
 
 at the southern end of the lake, soon learned that the 
 positions of Salo, Corona, and Eivoli, which defend its two shores, 
 had been taken, and that he was on the point of being surrounded. 
 All the generals, with the exception of Augereau, were in favour of a 
 prompt retreat, but Bonaparte resisted this advice, and, inspired by his 
 genius, saw that it would be possible to strike a decisive blow before the 
 two hostile columns had had time to effect a junction. To do this, how- 
 ever, it was necessary that he should act without delay, and with all his 
 strength. He gave up, therefore, the siege of Mantua, which was on 
 the point of surrendering under the compulsion of famine, and recalled 
 in all haste the division Serrurier, which was employed in its blockade. 
 It was first of all important to check the progress of Quasdanovitch, who 
 was on the point of entering the plain to the west of the lake, for the 
 purpose of closing against us the road to Milan. Bonaparte, therefore, 
 proceeded in this direction, crossed the Mincio, and marched with the 
 bulk of his forces to Lonato, where were gathered the y ictory of Bona . 
 Austrian columns. A sanguinary conflict ensued; the SndalCastS* 
 enemy was repulsed, and the French resumed possession 
 of the important position of Salo on the west of the lake. Quasdanovitch 
 halted, and a division sufficed to hold him in check. Bonaparte imme- 
 diately changed the front of his army, and, falling back upon the divisions 
 which had turned the lake by the other shore, fell upon them like 
 lightning and dispersed them. But, although victorious, his task was 
 not yet accomplished. Wurmser, who with twenty thousand men had 
 raised the blockade of Mantua, rallied his soldiers and prepared to crush 
 us. Each of the two armies rested, one wing on the Lake of Garda, and 
 another on the heights of Castiglione ; and it was on the celebrated 
 
280 RETREAT OF THE AUSTRIAN. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 plains of the latter name that was now to be decided the fate of Italy. 
 Bonaparte guessed that Wurmser, whose right rested on the lake, would 
 endeavour to effect a junction on this side with Quasdanovitch, who was 
 still held in check at Salo, and he ordered, therefore, the division Serrurier 
 to make a detour and attack the enemy in the rear. The action commenced 
 at daybreak on the 4th August. Bonaparte allowed Wurmser to enfeeble his 
 line by extending his right, and as soon as he heard Serrurier's cannon in the 
 rear of the Austrians he launched the divisions Augereau and Massena 
 against their centre. The enemy, caught between two fires, recoiled, and 
 Retreat of the Wurmser having ordered a retreat, re-entered the Tyrol, 
 
 after having lost twenty thousand men and Italy. 
 
 Not satisfied with having vanquished Wurmser, Bonaparte resolved to 
 
 destroy him. Twenty days' repose were sufficient for his army, and it 
 
 then entered the mountains of the Tyrol. But Wurmser had received 
 
 reinforcements, and resumed the offensive. The two armies met at 
 
 Eoveredo, and Bonaparte was again victorious, taking 
 
 Bonaparte vic- 
 torious at Rove- the whole of the Austrian artillery and four thou- 
 redoandBassano. 
 
 sand prisoners. Wurmser stole away with thirty thou- 
 sand men, and descended the Valley of the Brenta to force the 
 Adige, and throw himself between the French army in the Tyrol and 
 Mantua, which had been again blockaded. Bonaparte saw through his 
 plan, and leaving ten thousand men under Vaubois to guard the Tyrol, 
 he went with twenty thousand men in pursuit of the enemy, followed 
 him into the basin of the Brenta, attacked him unexpectedly, and obtained 
 another victory at Bassano with the divisions Augereau and Massena. 
 Wurmser, whom he hoped to reduce to extremities between the Brenta 
 and Adige, crossed that river at Legnago, forced the lines of the 
 
 blockading division in front of Mantua, and shut himself up 
 
 Wurmser shuts 
 
 himself up in in that city with fifteen thousand men. Bonaparte had 
 
 Mantua. 
 
 now again taken or slain twenty thousand Austrian troops 
 within a few days, and destroyed a third army. Colli, Beaulieu, and 
 Wurmser had one after the other been vanquished by him within four 
 months. An immense amount of baggage had fallen into his hands, and 
 his name was everywhere repeated with admiration and terror. 
 
 Bonaparte, inspired with a presentiment of the extraordinary prosperity 
 Political conduct wn i° n awaited him, neglected no means by which he 
 of Bonaparte. might achieve success and renown. In the intervals which 
 
1795-1797.] EBENCH BEVERSES IN GERMANY. 281 
 
 elapsed between his battles he discoursed with men celebrated in litera- 
 ture and the arts, devoted his attention to the details of politics and 
 government, developed profound views on all subjects, and already gave 
 promise of his future power. Affable with his subordinate officers and his 
 soldiers, he treated the Directory with haughty reserve, and triumphed 
 over their jealousy by rendering himself indispensable to them, at the 
 head of his victorious army. Relying upon the popular hatred for 
 despotic governments, he imposed a Republican form of government on 
 all his conquests. He declared the Duke of Modena, who had allied 
 himself with Austria, deprived of his sovereignty ; and uniting his States 
 with the territories of Reggio and the legations of Bologna and Ferrara, 
 formed with them on the south of the Po a Cispadane Republic, whilst on 
 the north of that river he made of Lombardv a Trans- _ , .. „ 
 
 J Foundation ox 
 
 padane Republic. These two Republics formed in the fol- ?3spadane nd 
 lowing year but one Republic, under the name of the Ee P ubUc3 - 
 Cisalpine Republic. All Italy trembled before the vanquisher of 
 Austria. Its princes, despite their just grounds of complaint, scrupulously 
 observed the treaties which they had made with the French Republic, 
 and at the conclusion of the last campaign the Court of Naples 
 tremblingly signed a treaty which was too soon to be broken (October, 
 1796). 
 
 Germany was at this time the scene of events which were almost as 
 important as those above narrated, but which were adverse to our 
 arms, and there seemed reason to fear that the reverses suffered by 
 the armies of the Sambre and Meuse would make France lose all 
 the unexpected advantages which she had derived from the campaign 
 in Italy. 
 
 Moreau reached the banks of the Danube at the beginning of August, 
 and Jourdan followed the course of the Naab, one of its tributaries. 
 The Archduke Charles, after having been vanquished by Moreau at 
 Neresheim, concentrated all his forces on the Danube, and 
 formed a plan which ended the campaign in his favour. He manoeuvre of the 
 
 Archduke 
 
 resolved to prevent the junction of Jourdan and Moreau, Charles. Check 
 
 ot the armies of 
 
 and to defeat them one after the other with superior the Rhine an( * 
 
 x Sambre and 
 
 forces. The army of Sambre and Meuse, under Jourdan, Meuse in Ger- 
 
 ■' ' ' many, 1796. 
 
 being the feeblest, the Archduke advanced against 
 
 that. He first repulsed its advanced guard, commanded by Bernadotte, 
 
282 EETREAT OF MOEEATJ. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 and compelled him to retreat. Jourdan halted to give battle at Wurtz- 
 burg, but he was vanquished, and driven in disorder upon 
 
 Defeat of .... 
 
 Jourdan at the Rhine, his point of departure. In the meantime Moreau 
 
 Wurtzburg. 
 
 had skilfully conducted his troops towards the Danube, and 
 was approaching Munich, when he heard of the reverses suffered by Jour- 
 dan, by whose aid alone he could have maintained his position there. 
 The Archduke returned against him by forced marches, and the army 
 of the Rhine, put in peril in its turn, had to fall back. Moreau ordered 
 the retreat, and gained great glory to himself by the manner in which he 
 Celebrated - ^ad exec " ll ted it. He traversed more than a hundred leagues 
 treat of Moreau. £ g roun( j j n the presence of a formidable army, in the 
 midst of a hostile population, and re-entered France, after having gained 
 in the Black Mountains the battle of Biberach, and without having 
 allowed himself to be once outmanoeuvred. 
 
 This retreat left the army of Italy exposed alone to the attacks of the 
 Austrian s, and consequently to great danger. Davidovitch had assembled 
 about twenty thousand men in the Tyrol, and Alvinzi was advancing 
 with forty thousand on the Piave. To resist their sixty thousand troops, 
 Bonaparte had only thirty- six thousand, of which twelve thousand were 
 in the Tyrol, under Vaubois, ten thousand on the Brenta and Adige, 
 under Massena and Augereau, and the rest around Mantua. All these 
 corps, overwhelmed with the fatigues of so laborious a campaign, were to 
 a certain extent exhausted by their own victories. The reinforcements 
 promised by the Directory, and eagerly expected, did not arrive, and 
 Alvinzi was approaching. 
 
 The plan of the Austrians was to attack simultaneously the mountains 
 of the Tyrol and the plain. Davidovitch was ordered to 
 
 New plan of 
 
 campaign of the drive Vaubois from his position, and to descend along the 
 
 Austrians, 1796. r D # 
 
 two banks of the Adige as far as Verona, whilst Alvinzi on 
 his side was to cross the Piave and the Brenta, and then effect a junc- 
 tion at Yerona with Davidovitch, that they might march in concert to the 
 deliverance of Wurmser and Mantua. This plan was at first successful ; 
 for Yaubois, vanquished by Davidovitch, fell back as far as Corona and 
 Rivoli, and this reverse forced Bonaparte, although victorious over Alvinzi 
 on the Brenta, to retreat to Yerona. Alvinzi hastened to occupy a formi- 
 dable position in front of Caldiero, which Bonaparte endeavoured in 
 vain to carry by fighting the unfortunate battle of Caldiero, after which, 
 
1795-1797.] CHECK OF THE FRENCH AT CALDIERO. 283 
 
 his army being now only fourteen thousand against forty thousand, 
 he was again compelled to retreat to Verona. His brave 
 
 Check of the 
 
 soldiers now began to murmur, and to ask what advantage French at 
 
 Caldiero. 
 
 they had derived from all their victories — what prospects 
 they had but to be driven as fugitives upon the Alps ? Bonaparte shared 
 in their disappointment, and wrote to the Directory : — " All our superior 
 officers, all our best generals, are disabled ; the army of Italy, reduced to a 
 handful of men, is exhausted. The heroes of Millesimo, of Lodi, of 
 Castiglione, and Bassano, have died for their country, or are in hospital. 
 All that still belongs to it is its reputation and its pride. Joubert, 
 Lannes, Victor, Murat, and Rampon, are wounded. We are abandoned 
 in the heart of Italy ; and for the brave remnant of our army in its pre- 
 sent weakened state there is no prospect but death. Perhaps the hour 
 of the courageous Augereau, of the intrepid Massena, is on the point of 
 striking ; and then, what will become of these brave people ? This idea 
 renders me reserved; I do not venture to speak. of death, lest it should 
 discourage those who are the objects of my solicitude. . . ." Bonaparte 
 again demanded reinforcements, and finished with these words, " To-day 
 let our troops repose ; to-morrow we "shall act !" 
 
 Whilst he was looking upon his position as desperate, a sudden inspi- 
 ration of genius suggested to him one of the great ideas which govern the 
 results of campaigns and the fate of kingdoms. Marshes surround the 
 district of Verona beyond the Adige, and they are traversed by two 
 causeways which lead from Ronco, some leagues south of Verona, to the 
 positions then occupied by the enemy. In the case of a conflict taking 
 place on these causeways, numbers could be of no avail, whilst courage 
 and audacity would be everything ; such a field of battle is the only one 
 on which a handful of brave men can vanquish an army, and it was 
 chosen by Bonaparte. He issued forth from Verona on the 14th of 
 November by the southern gate, crossed the Adige at Ronco, returned to 
 the north by the causeways, and was on the point of making his troops 
 defile by the enemy's rear, when they were checked at the bridge of 
 Arcole, on the Alpone, and Bonaparte perceived with terror that a portion 
 of the results of his skilful manoeuvre had escaped him. The enemy, 
 aroused by the sound of sharp firing, had hastened up from Caldiero, and 
 a formidable array of artillery defended the opposite bank. Augereau 
 seized a flag, and rushed with it on to the bridge at the head of his brave 
 
284 ARCOLE. [Book IT. Chap. IV. 
 
 troops, but a storm of shots drove them back. Bonaparte saw that the 
 
 whole of the enemy's line was on the move, and that now or never the 
 
 passage must be effected. Galloping up to the front he 
 
 victory at threw himself from his horse, and addressing the soldiers 
 
 Arcole. 
 
 crouched on the edge of the causeway, he cried, " Are you 
 still the victors of Lodi ? " Then seizing a flag he exclaimed, " Follow 
 your general !" and threw himself upon the bridge in the midst of a 
 shower of balls and bullets. His generals surrounded him. Lannes 
 received his third wound whilst covering him with his body, and 
 Muiron, Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, fell dead at his feet. A fresh 
 discharge swept the bridge ; the soldiers carried back their general in 
 their arms, and it was hopeless to endeavour to surprise the enemy 
 before they should be entirely drawn up in line on the plain. In the 
 meantime, however, General Guyeux had found a ford below Arcole, 
 and having crossed the Alpone took the village on the opposite bank. 
 The bridge was now carried, and a terrible battle commenced, which 
 lasted two days. Massena, Augereau, and the immortal thirty-second 
 demi-brigade, rivalled each other in courage and energy; and the 
 Austrians, half destroyed, were put to flight. Bonaparte then re-entered 
 Verona in triumph, and immediately marched against Quasdanovitch, 
 who had taken the positions of Corona and Eivoli, and had driven 
 Yaubois as far as Castel-Nuovo. He attacked him on all sides, and com- 
 pelled him to retreat in disorder into the gorges of the Tyrol. France 
 and Italy were again filled with admiration at these almost fabulous 
 exploits, and the two Councils, on declaring, according to custom, that 
 the army of Italy had deserved well of its country, decreed to Bonaparte 
 and Augereau a reward worthy of an heroic age, bestowing upon them as 
 heirlooms the flags which they had carried at the bridge of Arcole. 
 
 This wonderful campaign, which in fact comprised four, if we reckon 
 the number of armies destroyed in it, was not yet ended. Austria knew 
 that Wurmser was without resources in Mantua, and that to lose this 
 city was to give up Lombardy to France. Emboldened by the success 
 achieved by Prince Charles against the armies of the Ehine and Sambre 
 and Meuse, she resolved yet once more to dispute with Bonaparte the 
 possession of Italy. With this object she entrusted another army to 
 Alvinzi, and urged the Pope to send his own to the aid of Mantua, with 
 Colli for its general. Bonaparte had, therefore, towards the end of 1796 
 
1795-1797.] VICTOBIES AT EIYOLI AND SAINT GEOKGE. 285 
 
 to defend himself at once against the army of the Pope, the ill-will of 
 Venetia, which was only neutral perforce, and sixty-five thousand men 
 under Alvinzi and Provera. In the meantime, however, he had himself 
 received the reinforcements which he had so long expected, and had 
 about forty-five thousand men at his command. He marched in the 
 first place in person to Bologna, and took measures for holding the 
 troops of the Roman States in check. He then hastened towards the 
 Adige, and re-entered that theatre of a desperate struggle which he was 
 soon about to terminate by the most decisive measures. Twenty thou- 
 sand men advanced under Provera by the Lower Adige, with the purpose 
 of forming communications with the army of the Pope and with Mantua ; 
 whilst Alvinzi, with forty-five thousand troops descended from the Tyrol 
 by the route which runs along the foot of Montebaldo, 
 which separates the Lake of Garda from the Adige, and ^ a T clx . of ... 
 
 1 o ' Alvinzi with a 
 
 a small body of troops marched along the opposite shore. S^AdSe °ihe 
 The famous military position of Rivoli was the only one Eiyon. 011 at 
 at which the enemy could be held in check between the 
 lake and the river. This position, consisting of a semi-circular plateau 
 which commanded the road, was itself commanded by the heights of 
 Montebaldo, which spread around it in the form of an amphitheatre, but 
 were inaccessible to artillery. The Adige re-entered the foot of the 
 plateau, and the road traversed it, rising and turning frequently on 
 itself. 
 
 Bonaparte perceiving the importance of this position, posted Joubert 
 there, who bore the first shock of the Austrian army, and made an heroic 
 resistance with ten thousand men against forty-five thousand. Swarms 
 of enemies climbed the heights of Montebaldo, which com- 
 mands the plateau in a semicircle, and descended from vicTonesat 8 
 this amphitheatre in close columns. A formidable mass of George, January, 
 
 1797 
 
 cavalry and artillery advanced by the road on the plateau ; 
 another corps, under the orders of Lusignan, turned it for the purpose 
 of falling upon the rear of the French army ; and Vukassovitch poured 
 upon it a stream of fire. But this plateau was the only point 'at which 
 Bonaparte could prevent the junction of the various corps of the enemy's 
 army. He re-animated therefore, by his own presence, Joubert's soldiers, 
 who were exhausted by forty-eight hours' fighting, and directed his 
 cannon against the columns which from the Montebaldo heights over- 
 
286 CAPITULATION OF MANTUA. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 threw them. Our left gave way, but the 14th demi-brigade and the 
 invincible 32nd, with Massena at their head, drove back the enemy in 
 their turn. Leclerc and Lasalle threw themselves with their squadrons 
 upon the formidable column of artillery and cavalry which was already 
 defiling by the road on the right of the plateau ; a brigade of light 
 artillery directed against it a shower of grape, which speedily covered 
 the slope with wounded men and horses. Bonaparte and Joubert then 
 fell upon the semicircle of Austrian infantry, the gathered masses of 
 which were rushing on to the invaded plateau, and after a fierce conflict 
 forced it to fly into the mountains. The Austrian corps under Lusignan, 
 which was intended to cut the French in two, was itself treated in 
 this way, and was compelled to lay down its arms. The victory was 
 now won ; and Bonaparte and Massena immediately hastened towards 
 Provera, who with his twenty thousand men had crossed the Adige and 
 marched to the relief of Mantua. A second battle took place opposite the 
 Faubourg Saint- George, whilst Serrurier repulsed a furious attempt made 
 by Wurmser to force his lines, and drove him back into Mantua. Provera, 
 surrounded by Victor and Massena, surrendered with six thousand men. 
 These prodigious battles, together with the prodigies already performed by 
 . . the French, decided the fate of Italy, and Wurmser, reduced 
 
 Mantua, 1797. to extremities in Mantua, gave up the city and his sword 
 to the young victor.* 
 
 In the meantime the Pope had broken the armistice concluded in the 
 previous year with France, and had sent a division of his army to Mantua. 
 Bonaparte marched against it, encountered it near Imla, at Castel-Bolog- 
 nese, and, after a brief conflict, put it to flight. The remainder of the 
 small pontifical army, commanded by the Austrian General Colli, de- 
 fended, but immediately surrendered on the approach of a French division 
 under General Victor. Ancona opened its gates, and the capital and 
 its arsenal fell into the power of the French. Bonaparte and his army 
 marched against Rome, and had already reached Tolentino, 
 
 Treaty of To- & ' J 
 
 ^ntino between w hen the Pope offered to negotiate, and a treaty of peace 
 Pope, 1797. was s ig ne d i n that city between the Holy Father and the 
 
 French Republic. By this treaty, the Pope surrendered to France Avig- 
 
 * Bonaparte would not take Wurmser' s sword, and in drawing up the articles of 
 capitulation of Mantua showed every courtesy towards that officer. 
 
1795-1797.] THE CISALPINE BEPUBLIC. 287 
 
 non, the Comitat Venaissin, and the territory known by the name of the 
 legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Eomagna. He also engaged to pay a 
 fresh war-contribution of fifteen millions, and to abstain from entering 
 into any alliance with the enemies of the Republic. 
 
 Bonaparte now proceeded to form the conquests which he had made 
 in the South and the North, and of which he had already made the Cispa- 
 dane and Transpadane Eepublics into one State, consisting of Lombardy 
 and the territories of Modena, Rep-gio, and the Legations. He 
 
 - . . . Formation of the 
 
 called this new State the Cisalpine Republic, and made Cisalpine 
 
 r r ' Republic, 1797. 
 
 Milan its capital. Relieved from other cares, he now pro- 
 jected the subjection of Archduke Charles, the generalissimo of the impe- 
 rial armies. He had received numerous reinforcements from France, and 
 marched against the Austrian capital, having the Archduke in front of 
 him. Massena was in command of his vanguard, and immortalized 
 himself by his victories on the Piave and Tagliamento. Carinthia, Styria, 
 and Friuli were rapidly subdued, terror reigned at Vienna, and Bona- 
 parte only awaited the movements of the other armies to march directly 
 against it. Hoche was in command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, 
 Moreau in that of the army of the Rhine, and their advance was tardy ; 
 whilst Joubert, left in the rear by Bonaparte for the purpose of defending 
 the Tyrol, was vanquished by Prince Charles and compelled to retreat. 
 Bonaparte, upon being informed of this reverse, sent to Vienna to 
 make offers of peace, and an armistice was concluded 
 at Leoben. The French General restored to Austria Leoben, April, 
 
 1797. 
 
 Mantua and a portion of Venetian Lombardy which he 
 
 had conquered, in exchange for the Cisalpine Republic which he had 
 
 founded. 
 
 The Directory refused to sanction these arrangements, and Bonaparte 
 pointed out Venice to Austria as a recompense for Mantua. The fate 
 of that Republic was decided. French emissaries aroused the people 
 against the Venetian senate. But at Verona, a town independent ot 
 Venice, the French garrison was slain in a popular revolt. Bonaparte, 
 who only sought a pretext for an act of spoliation, burst upon the Venetian 
 Republic with fury, and demanded vengeance for the massacre of Verona. 
 General Baraguay d'Hilliers was deputed to march upon Venice ; the 
 Senate, terrified at his approach, voted a constitution for the purpose of 
 
288 PEACE OE CAMPO-EOEMIO. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 pacifying France, and then dissolved, whereupon the French took pos- 
 session of this famous city, to deliver it to Austria in exchange for the 
 Belgian and Lombard States. Bonaparte signed, at length, 
 
 Fall of Venice : & ^ fo ' ° ' 
 
 ceded to Austria, with that power (17th October, 1797), at Campo Formio, 
 an advantageous and famous peace, of which he dictated 
 the principal conditions. In accordance with this treaty, the Emperor 
 Peace of Cam o- surren dered to France Belgium and Mayence, and con- 
 Pormio, 1797. se nted that she should take possession of the Ionian Islands, 
 ancient dependencies of Venice. It also recognised the Cisalpine 
 Eepublic, to which were added the Valteline in the North, and a part of 
 the Lombardo-Venetian territory in the East. France, in return, gave up 
 to Austria, on the east of the Adige, Venice, with several of the Venetian 
 possessions, Istria, Dalmatia, and the mouths of the Cattaro. The release 
 of General Lafayette and his three companions in misfortune was also 
 demanded by Bonaparte as one of the conditions of the peace of Campo- 
 Formio. All the allied powers, with the exception of England, had now 
 laid down their arms, France had extended its own system of government 
 over a large portion of Europe, and a large extent of its frontiers, from 
 the North Sea to the Gulf of Genoa, was bordered by Republican States. 
 Immediately after the signature of the peace with Austria, a Con- 
 gress was opened at Rastadt, to negotiate another with the German 
 Empire. 
 
 France received with enthusiasm the news of the glorious treaty of 
 Campo-Formio ; but the inevitable dissension between the executive 
 power and the electoral power had already displayed itself at the con- 
 l_. ,. fli , elusion of the elections of the Year V. The elections were 
 
 Elections of the 
 
 rear v. (1797.) made for the most part under the influence of the reac- 
 tionary party, which, whilst it refrained from conspiring for the over- 
 throw of the new Constitution, saw with terror that the executive power 
 was in the hands of men who had taken part in the excesses and crimes 
 of the Convention. Pichegru, whose intrigues with the princes of the 
 House of Bourbon were not yet known, was enthusiastically made Presi- 
 dent of the Council of Five Hundred, and Barbe-Marbois was made 
 president of the Ancients. Le Tourneur having become, by lot, the 
 retiring member of the Directory, Barthelemy, an upright and moderate 
 man, was chosen in his place. He, as well as his colleague, Carnot, were 
 
1795-1797.] THE DIEECTOEY AND THE COUNCILS. 289 
 
 opposed to violent measures ; but they only formed in the Directorate a 
 minority which was powerless against the Triumvirs 
 
 . 1 , Struggle of the 
 
 Barras, Rewbel, and La Reveillere, who soon entered Councils and 
 
 the Directory. 
 
 upon a struggle with the two Councils. The latter 
 voted pardons for many classes of proscribed persons ; and a deputy of 
 Lyons, named Camille Jordan, pleaded with great eloquence in the 
 Council of Five Hundred for freedom of worship, and its re-establish- 
 ment in the Republic. His proposal was entertained, and a vote was 
 passed in its favour in spite of the energetic opposition of the Revolu- 
 tionary party. The same deputy demanded the abolition of the Civic 
 Oath, which a fatal law had demanded from the priests ; and although 
 his motion was lost, it was by a very small majority. This latter ques- 
 tion was, in the eyes of the Directorate, of very great importance, and it 
 saw that the new elections would inevitably give the majority to their 
 opponents. There were, doubtless, amongst the latter, in the two 
 Councils, some Royalists, and ardent reactionists, who desired with 
 all their hearts the restoration of the Bourbons ; but according to the 
 very best testimony, the majority of the names which were drawn from 
 the electoral urn since the promulgation of the Constitution of the Year 
 HI., were strangers to the Royalist party. " They did not desire," to use 
 the words of an eminent and impartial historian of our own day, " a 
 counter-revolution, but the abolition of the revolutionary laws which 
 were still in force. They wished for peace and true liberty, and the 
 successive purification of a Directorate which was the direct heir of the 
 Convention. , . . . But the Directorate was as much opposed to the 
 Moderates as to the Royalists."* It pretended to regard these two par- 
 ties as one, and falsely represented them as conspiring in common for the 
 overthrow of the Republic and the re-establishment of monarchy. It 
 represented itself as the defender and avenger of the principles of 1789, 
 and the interests born of the Revolution, whilst it was in reality only 
 anxious to defend itself in defiance of all law and justice, and to retain 
 the chief power in the hands of the members of the Convention and the 
 heirs of their violent and revolutionary policy. 
 
 If there were few Royalists in the two Councils, there were also few 
 men determined to provoke on the part of the Directors a recourse to 
 violence against their colleagues. But as a great number of their 
 
 * De Barante, "Life of Royer-Collard." 
 VOL. II. U 
 
290 THE ARMY INTERFERES. [BOOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 members had sat in the Convention, they naturally feared a too complete 
 
 reaction, and, affecting a great zeal for the Constitution, they founded 
 
 at the Hotel Salm, under the name of the Constitutional 
 
 Club of Salm. 
 
 Association of Club, an association which was widely opposed in its spirit 
 and tendency to that of the Hotel Clichy, in which were 
 assembled the most ardent members of the reactionary party. The latter 
 were the proposers of a few bold resolutions which were as displeasing 
 to the Directors as to the generals of the armies, and especially so to the 
 young conqueror of Italy. 
 
 The Councils saw with anxiety their generals revolutionizing Europe, 
 exciting in the neighbouring kingdoms the democratic class against the 
 upper classes, founding Republics, and creating abroad a state of things 
 incompatible with the spirit of the old monarchies, and which threatened 
 to lead to a perpetual state of war between the Republic and the other 
 European Powers. The Council of Five Hundred, on the motion of a 
 member of the Clichy Club, energetically demanded that the Legislative 
 power should have a share in determining questions of peace or war. No 
 general had exercised, in this respect, a more arbitrary 
 
 Interference of 1 . . . . 
 
 the army in Do- power than had Bonaparte, who had negotiated of his own 
 
 mestie Politics. 
 
 mere authority several treaties, and the preliminaries of 
 the peace of Campo-Formio. He was offended at these pretensions on 
 the part of the Council of Five Hundred, and entreated the Government 
 to look to the army for support against the Councils and the reactionary 
 press. He even sent to Paris, as a support to the policy of the Directors, 
 General Augereau, one of the bravest men of his army, but by no means 
 scrupulous as to the employment of violent means, and disposed to regard 
 the sword as the supreme argument in politics, whether at home or 
 abroad. The Directory gave him the command of the military division 
 of Paris. The crisis was now approaching. A few influential members 
 of the two Councils, Portalis, Simeon, and Matthieu Dumas, endeavoured 
 to obtain some changes in the Ministry, as a guarantee that the Directory 
 would pursue a line of conduct more in conformity with the wishes of 
 the majority; but the Directory, on the contrary, summoned to the 
 Ministry men who were hostile to the Moderate party ; and henceforth a 
 coup d'etat appeared inevitable. 
 
 The Directors now marched some regiments upon the capital, in 
 defiance of a clause of the Constitution which prohibited the presence of 
 
1795-1797.] coup d'etat. 291 
 
 troops within a distance of twelve leagues of Paris, unless in accordance 
 with a special law passed in or near Paris itself. The Councils burst 
 forth into reproaches and threats against the Directors, to which the 
 latter replied by fiery addresses to the armies, and to the Councils them- 
 selves. It was in vain that the Directors Carnot and Barthelemy 
 endeavoured to quell the rising storm ; their three colleagues refused to 
 listen to them, and fixed the 18th Fructidor for the execu- coup d'etat of 
 tion of their criminal projects. During the night preced- tl&r/TearvT) 
 
 (1797 \ 
 
 ing that day Augereau marched twelve thousand men into 
 Paris, and in the morning these troops, under his own command, sup- 
 ported by forty pieces of cannon, surrounded the Tuileries, in which 
 the Councils held their sittings. The grenadiers of the Councils' guard 
 joined Augereau, who arrested with his own hand the brave Ramel, who 
 commanded that guard, and General Pichegru, the President of the 
 Council of Five Hundred. Many of the members of the Councils were 
 driven away or taken prisoners just as they were on their way to the 
 Tuileries. The Directors appointed the Odeon and the School of 
 Medicine as the places of meeting for the now mutilated Councils ; pub- 
 lished a letter written by Moreau, which revealed Pichegru's treason ; 
 and at the same time nominated a Committee for the purpose of watching 
 over the public safety. In accordance with this law, which was declared 
 to be one of public necessity, forty-two members of the 
 
 Proscriptions. 
 
 Council of Five Hundred, eleven members of that of the 
 Ancients, and two of the Directors, Carnot and Barthelemy, were con- 
 demned to be transported to the fatal district of Sinnamari. Amongst 
 those who were the victims of this cruel measure, were Pichegru, Boissy 
 d'Anglas, Camille Jordan, Pastoret, Simeon, Barbe-Marbois, Lafon- 
 Ladebat, Portalis, and Troncon du Coudray.* The Directors also made 
 the editors of thirty-five journals the victims of their resentment. They 
 had the laws passed in favour of the priests and emigrants reversed, and 
 annulled the elections of forty-eight departments. Merlin de Douai and 
 Francois de Neufchateau were chosen as successors to Carnot and 
 Barthelemy, who had been banished and proscribed by their col- 
 leagues. 
 
 * It was evident, from the instructions which the Directors gave to the officers who 
 arrested these prisoners, or to those who received them, that when they transported 
 them they intended to destroy them. See De Barante, " History of the Directory.'' 
 
 u 2 
 
292 RATIFICATION OF TREATY OF CAMPO-FORMIO. [_BoOK II. CHAP. IV. 
 
 That which took place on the 18th Fructidor ruined the Constitutional 
 
 and Moderate party, whilst it resuscitated that of the Revo- 
 
 on the isth lution. It long frustrated the hopes which had been 
 
 Fructidor. * , u' j, 
 
 formed of a return to the regular forms of a representative 
 government ; it re-established a dictatorship, and armed the dictators 
 with absolute power, and at the same time made them rely on brute 
 force, and deprived them of the moral authority of right and justice. This 
 odious proceeding was in reality a revolution ; it led the army to interfere 
 with violence in the internal affairs of the kingdom, and it established 
 a formidable precedent against the Directors by preparing public opinion 
 to sanction at a future period the employment against themselves of the 
 violent measures to which they had now had recourse to strengthen their 
 authority. The 18th Fructidor was pregnant with the 18th Brumaire. 
 
 This revolution preceded by a few days only the treaty of Campo- 
 Formio, which had been signed by Bonaparte against the wishes of the 
 Directors. The latter could not see without alarm a young General 
 raised to the highest rank by a single campaign, arbitrarily deciding 
 questions of peace and war ; but public opinion exulted in his triumphs, 
 and the Directory, as they did not dare to disavow him, wished to appear 
 to share his glory by bestowing upon him in Paris the honours which 
 no General had hitherto received. 
 
 A triumphal fete was prepared for the ratification of the treaty of 
 
 Campo-Formio. This imposing ceremony took place in the 
 
 the Luxem- court-vard of the Palace of the Luxembourg. The Directors, 
 
 bourg, in the J ° ' 
 
 Year VI. clothed in Roman costumes, sat at the end of the court on 
 
 a dais at the foot of the altar of the country. Around them were the 
 Ministers, the Ambassadors, the members of the two Councils, and the heads 
 of the public offices, and over them floated innumerable flags taken from 
 the enemy. Expectation was at its height, when to the sound of warlike 
 music, of the roar of cannon, and the acclamations of the populace, there 
 appeared the man who had signed so glorious a peace, after having en- 
 forced it by hi3 skill and valour. Bonaparte appeared, accompanied by 
 Talleyrand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The slight and delicate 
 figure of the young hero strikingly contrasted with the idea which his 
 gigantic exploits had caused to be formed of his person ; but his spark- 
 ling eye, his pale and heroic countenance, exhibiting genius and determi- 
 nation in every trait, produced an indefinable effect on the spectators. 
 
1795-1797.] BONAPARTE ENTERS PARIS. 293 
 
 As soon as he appeared there was a great shout of " Long live the Republic ! 
 Long live Bonaparte !" Talleyrand, in a brief address, praised the modesty 
 of the hero who attributed all his glory, not to himself, but to the Revo- 
 lution, the valour of his troops, and to France. Then Bonaparte spoke : 
 " Citizens," he said, " you have organized a great nation which is only 
 circumscribed by the limits which nature herself has established. I have 
 the honour to present to you the treaty signed at Campo-Formio, and 
 ratified by the Emperor. This peace secures the liberty, the prosperity, 
 and the glory of the Republic. When the happiness of the French 
 people shall be based on the best possible system of laws, the whole of 
 Europe will become free." Enthusiastic applause greeted this address, 
 and Barras replied to it, pointing out England to the young hero as 
 a fertile field in which he might reap new laurels. A patriotic hymn 
 by the poet Chenier was then chanted with the accompaniment of a 
 magnificent orchestra and the roar of cannon. After this Joubert and 
 Andreossy advanced, bearing a flag, the homage paid by the Republic 
 to the army of Italy. Its exploits and its conquests were inscribed upon 
 it in letters of gold, which told that it had taken fifty thousand prisoners, 
 sixty-six flags, eleven hundred pieces of artillery, forced numerous 
 treaties on the Italian sovereigns, exacted a tribute of the most splendid 
 works of art, fought sixty-seven glorious battles, and obtained eighteen 
 decisive victories. 
 
294 EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. [BOOK II. CHAP. V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM THE PEACE OF CAMPO-FORMIO TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE 
 
 CONSULATE. 
 
 17th Oct., .1797 (26th Vendemiaire, Year VII.), to 10th Nov., 1799 
 (10th Brumaire, Year VIII.) 
 
 The treaty of Campo-Formio and the coup d'etat of the month of 
 Fructidor raised for a short time the power of the dictators, amongst 
 whom Treilhard succeeded Francois de Neufchateau, to a great height ; 
 but its strength, which was more apparent than real, rested entirely on 
 the army, and this false and dangerous position compelled the Directors 
 to keep troops in the field and continue the war. Barras, in his address 
 to Bonaparte, had pointed out England as a field for new conquests, 
 and an invasion of that kingdom was projected, but speedily abandoned 
 for an invasion of Egypt, which was resolved on in spite of the neutrality 
 which had been observed by the Ottoman Porte. Bonaparte was 
 entrusted with the command of this adventurous expedi- 
 receivesthe tion, which gratified the Directors because it removed a 
 
 command of the 11 . 1 -i-ii i 
 
 Expedition to man whom they feared, and which was desirable to the 
 Egypt. .«•■,. 
 
 young conqueror because it offered him an opportunity of 
 
 still further impressing France with the idea it had conceived of his 
 
 immense talents. He set forth from Toulon with a fleet of four 
 
 hundred vessels and a portion of the army of Italy. Many celebrated 
 
 ^ „ and learned men accompanied the expedition. The fleet 
 
 Departure of x x 
 
 the fleet, 1798. set sa ^ on the 19^ jy^ 1793^ un der the command of 
 
 Admiral Brueys, and first of all took possession, in defiance of the law 
 
 of nations, of the island of Malta, which then belonged 
 
 Capture of 7 " 
 
 Malta - to the order of the Knights of St. John. 
 
 The island of Malta was the third kingdom which had been 
 violently invaded by the French armies since the peace of Campo- 
 Formio. The policy of the Directors, which was tyrannical in 
 
1797-1799.] FBANCE AND SWITZERLAND. 295 
 
 France and aggressive abroad, could not but tend to a state of per- 
 petual war, whilst anarchy, civil disturbances, successive oressiveand 
 bankruptcies, forced loans, the stagnation of commerce, and polw of the 7 
 the ruin of the public credit, had exhausted all the resources Director y- 
 of France. The Government was in a condition of extreme difficulty, 
 and as it could provide neither for the support of the army or the 
 expenses of the state by legitimate means, it had recourse to those which 
 were violent and illegal, and to unjust and rapacious proceedings towards 
 other nations. It coveted the treasure of the city of Berne, valued at 
 more than thirty millions, and the riches existing in Eome, and all the 
 resources, whether in money or material of war, possessed by Piedmont. 
 These three states were allies of France, and the Directory formed a 
 pretext for laying hands upon their possessions. It had 
 long since aroused the revolutionary spirit in Switzerland, ditkm of Swit- 
 " Liberty was not absent from Switzerland," says an author 
 already quoted, " but in most of the Cantons the superior authority and 
 the offices of government were confided to the aristocracy ; but in spite 
 of this unequal division of political rights, Switzerland had always pre- 
 served the love of true liberty, that is to say, of justice, of respect for 
 religion, of family authority and the rights of property, of humanity and 
 good morals, and especially a love of their own country, a proud remem- 
 brance of their ancient glory and the battles they had fought for their 
 independence. The aristocracy had lost its old feudal character, even in 
 those Cantons where it was most powerful, and only exercised authority 
 by means of the magisterial offices in its possession." The French 
 Revolution, nevertheless, aroused in Switzerland a desire for equality not 
 only in the Cantons where the aristocratic element was dominant, but 
 especially amongst those populations which had been conquered or 
 obtained in other ways at various periods, and who on that account were 
 looked upon as subject populations, and did not enjoy the same rights 
 as the Cantons with which they were incorporated. In this way the 
 district of Vaud was subject to the Canton of Berne, and the Vaudois, 
 like the population subject to the other Cantons, were indignant at their 
 political inferiority. 
 
 The Directory openly offered (January, 1798,) its protection to the 
 democratic party in Switzerland against the aristocracy, to the partisans 
 of a central government against those who were in favour of a federal 
 
296 INVASION OE SWITZERLAND. [BOOK II. CHAP. V. 
 
 government, and to the subject populations against the Cantons to which 
 
 they belonged. By its intrigues and incendiary proclamations it threw 
 
 the country into a state of disorder, then marched troops into it, and 
 
 under pretence of freeing Switzerland from every kind of 
 
 Violence of the . v-i i • • -i -i t • n -i • 
 
 Directory in oppression, and bestowing upon it the blessings of equality 
 
 Switzerland, 1798. . . . 
 
 and liberty, it took possession 01 the whole country, seized 
 the treasury at Berne, crushed the inhabitants beneath the burden of 
 forced contributions, and gave up the whole country to pillage. Several 
 portions of Switzerland and the free town of Geneva were violently 
 annexed to the French Republic, as the Yalteline, taken from the 
 Grisons, had already been annexed to the Cisalpine Republic. All the 
 subject populations were declared independent and placed on a footing 
 of complete equality with the paramount Cantons., The town of Aarau 
 TT ., was selected as the meeting; place of an Assemblv, which 
 
 Unitarian con- or j i 
 
 posed on Swit- v °ted for the whole of Switzerland a constitution (April, 
 zeriand, 1798. 1793^ modelled after that of France, and placed the exe- 
 cutive power in the hands of a Helvetian Directory, which was installed 
 in office under the protection of French bayonets. This constitution was 
 rejected by the small Cantons, and threw all Switzerland into a state of 
 disturbance. The French army was directed to re-establish order, and 
 to enforce obedience to the new Constitution, and entered upon a course of 
 the most frightful tyranny. 
 
 This Directory at the same time brought about a revolution in the 
 Roman States. It had been without any pretext since 
 
 Revolution in. _ 
 
 the Roman the treaty 01 Tolentmo for the overthrow 01 the Ponti- 
 
 States, 1798. 
 
 ncal Government, but it speedily found one. It directed 
 its Ambassador at Rome to display, contrary to usual custom, the flag of 
 the Republic in front of his mansion. This demonstration, which was 
 exceedingly offensive to the Romans, provoked a popular demonstration 
 against the Ambassador ; and the French General, Duphot, perished on 
 the very threshold of the embassy in the tumult which he was endea- 
 vouring to quell. It was in vain that the Pontifical Government made 
 the most humble offers of atonement for this murder ; the Direc- 
 tory resolved to exact vengeance at the point of the sword, and General 
 Berthier was ordered to march upon Rome. A French corps entered 
 the city unresisted ; the temporal authority of the Pope was declared 
 abolished, and replaced by a Republican Government, the public 
 
1797-1799.] SECOND ETTEOPEAN COALITION. 297 
 
 treasury was seized, the churches and convents were despoiled of their 
 wealth, the city of Rome was laid under a fresh contribution, and the 
 Pope, Pius VI., was made prisoner. This venerable Pontiff, po e p iugVI 
 who was more than eighty years old, ill and feeble, was jJJJJJ directory 
 violently torn from his palace by the French troops, sub- at Valence > im 
 jected to the greatest insults, and dragged into exile to Valence, where 
 he died (August 20, 1799,) imploring pardon for his enemies, and blessing 
 France, from which he had suffered so many injuries. 
 
 The invasion of Switzerland and the Roman States at a period of 
 complete peace, excited the indignation and just alarm of the European 
 powers, and made them perceive that there was no durable peace to be 
 hoped for with the Directorial Government. They again formed an 
 alliance against France, and the celebrated English Minister, William 
 Pitt, induced Austria and Russia to become members of mi 
 
 ' The second 
 
 the new coalition. The uniust attack on Egypt caused the Coalition of 
 
 J c x .Europe against 
 
 Ottoman Porte to join this league, and the Court of Naples France > 1798 - 
 did so also. The latter, governed by Queen Caroline, the wife of 
 King Ferdinand, ventured to risk incurring the fate with which it was 
 threatened, and declared war against France (November, 1798). 
 
 The Directors immediately marched upon the Peninsula the army 
 of Italy ; but before invading the south, they were anxious to con- 
 firm their power in the North of Italy, and resolved to take Pied- 
 mont from an inoffensive Prince, Charles Emmanuel IV., the son and 
 successor of Victor Amadeus III., who had faithfully observed the treaties 
 concluded by his father with France. The Directors did all that 
 could be suggested by the spirit of violence and cunning to reduce this 
 prince to despair. They had already excited at the gates of Piedmont, 
 in the city of Genoa, a revolutionary movement, which surrendered it 
 into the hands of the Democrats, and the Genoese State had become, 
 under the protection of France, the Ligurian Republic. A similar 
 revolution was set on foot in Piedmont by French agents ; and the 
 Directors everywhere fomented rebellion, supported revolts, prohibited 
 the King from suppressing and punishing them, forced him 
 
 Invasion of 
 
 to ffive up the city of Turin, the citadel and the arsenals, Piedmont and 
 
 & r J m the Two Sicilies 
 
 and then under various pretexts, seized his fortresses by the French, 
 
 x 1797-1799. 
 
 (December, 1798). At length Charles Emmanuel, already 
 
 deprived of all his power, was compelled to abdicate the throne of Pied- 
 
298 DIFFICULTIES OE THE DIKECTOKY. [BOOK II. CHAP. V. 
 
 mont. He abandoned his States on the Continent to the French army 
 commanded by Joubert, and retired with his family to the 
 
 Abdication of 
 
 the King of island of Sardinia, the last remnant of his possessions, where 
 
 Piedmont, who 
 
 retires to Sar- he protested against the shameful violence to which he had 
 
 dinia, 1798. 
 
 been subjected. 
 A French army, commanded by Championnet, now marched upon 
 Naples, and entered that capital after a desperate conflict with the lazza- 
 roni, of whom it slew great numbers. Championnet 
 
 Expulsion of the 
 
 King of the Two declared the Bourbons deprived of the throne, and com- 
 
 Sicilies. ... 
 
 pelled the King to retire to Sicily. The kingdom of 
 Naples became a Republic, as had the other States of the Peninsula, 
 under the name of the Parthenopean Republic ; and the whole of Italy 
 was for some time in the power of the French armies. 
 
 The Directorial Government, although victorious abroad, and possessed 
 apparently of arbitrary power, had in reality but a doubtful tenure of 
 office in France. The coup d'etat of Fructidor had suppressed for a 
 time the reaction supported by the Royalists and Moderates, and given 
 fresh life to the hopes of the demagogues and Jacobins. The elections of 
 the Year VI. were made under the influence of the latter, in a spirit 
 
 directly opposite to that which had ruled the elections of the 
 
 Elections of the 
 
 Demagogues for previous year, and were nevertheless no less hostile to the 
 
 the Year VI.. r J ' 
 
 Directors. The latter annulled a great portion of them, in 
 the hope of procuring a state of equilibrium between the various factions, 
 and, employing the most despotic measures, arbitrarily selected in many 
 departments the candidates who had received the minority of votes. This, 
 however, could not prevent many violent Democrats from joining the 
 Council of Five Hundred, and rendering their party predominant. As 
 the Directors had defied all law by their proceedings on the 18th 
 Fructidor, they could now only suppress violence by violence, and at 
 length roused public opinion against them. They had already alienated 
 the numerous class of public creditors by the late bankruptcy, which 
 reduced the interest of the national debt to the tiers consolide, and soon, 
 as always happens in the case of a feeble Government, they were held 
 responsible for all the disgraces and misfortunes of the kingdom. 
 
 Their situation became more and more perilous, and if the 
 
 Difficulties and 
 
 perils of the resources of the Government appeared immense, the obsta- 
 
 Directory. x x 
 
 cles against which they had to struggle were still greater. 
 
1797— 1799.J MILITARY ARRANGEMENTS. 299 
 
 They had to govern, not only France, but Holland,* Switzerland, and 
 the many Bepublics into which Italy was now divided ; whilst for want of a 
 proper organization, they conld obtain neither men nor money. It was, 
 nevertheless, necessary to defend these various kingdoms, and for that 
 purpose to carry on war upon a line which extended from the Texel to 
 the Adriatic, and which, attacked in front by Austria and Russia, was 
 exposed on the other side to the English fleets. It was from France 
 alone that forces could be drawn for the defence of so vast a territory. 
 Forty thousand of her best soldiers and her greatest captain were in 
 Egypt ; the other armies were diminished to one-half by sickness and 
 desertions ; the conscription, now first put in use, had failed to supply 
 the vacancies in the ranks ; the deficiency in the treasury incessantly 
 increased ; the disputes which continually took place between the civil 
 and military authorities of the conquered countries rendered the execu- 
 tion of the orders of the Government very difficult ; whilst the insubordi- 
 nation of the troops, who saw that their services were necessary, the 
 rapacity of a multitude of agents, and the incendiary principles which a 
 crowd of Democrats disseminated through the new Republics, gave the 
 greatest reason to fear that, in the case of any reverse, insurrections 
 would take place amongst their several populations. Nevertheless the 
 re-establishment of peace was impossible, for Austria and England were 
 more terrified at the revolutionary doctrines of France than at its arms, 
 and there could be no doubt that the Russian and Austrian armies would 
 speedily march against Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. 
 
 The Directory resolved to anticipate them, and with this object distri- 
 buted the French armies from the mouth of the Rhine to the ,!*#. 
 
 Military 
 
 gulf of Tarentum. But instead of concentrating formidable arran g ements - 
 masses on any one point, it endeavoured to act on the offensive, on 
 many points at once, with two hundred thousand against 
 three hundred thousand, and naturally failed to achieve the campaign, 
 
 1799. 
 
 success. Ten thousand men defended Holland under Ge- 
 neral Brune ; the army of the Rhine was confided to Bernadotte ; that 
 of the Danube, consisting of forty thousand men, to Jourdan ; Massena 
 occupied Switzerland with thirty thousand troops ; Scherer commanded 
 
 * A revolution had been effected in Holland by the democratic or patriotic party. 
 The Stadtholdership had been abolished, and the United Provinces, now called the 
 Batavian Republic, had a Government closely resembling that of the French Republic. 
 
300 EEYEBSES IN ITALY. [BOOK IT. CHAP. V. 
 
 the army of Italy, which now amounted to fifty thousand men ; and Mac- 
 donald was at the head of that of Naples. It was on the Danube and 
 the Adige that the Austrians were about to make their principal efforts, 
 for they wished first of all to dispossess the French of the chain of the 
 Alps. The Directory, in their anxiety to anticipate the enemy, ordered 
 Jourdan to advance ; and to advance by the Black Forest as far back as 
 the sources of the Danube. At the same time they ordered Scherer to cross 
 the Adige and to traverse the defiles of the Tyrol. Their Generals obeyed 
 these orders in the presence of very superior numbers, and the disasters 
 suffered by the armies speedily made manifest the faults in the plan of 
 the campaign. The Archduke Charles, with sixty thousand men, checked 
 Jourdan at the moment when he was about to advance between the Danube 
 and the Lake of Constance, and defeated him. A few days 
 dan at stockach, afterwards Jourdan engaged the enemy at Stockach, near 
 
 March, 1799. . 
 
 the river of that name, and at the strategical point at which the 
 Swabian and Swiss routes meet. Prince Charles was the conqueror; and the 
 French army fell back upon the Rhine in the direction of the Black Forest. 
 Scherer now marched upon the Adige with fifty thousand men against 
 sixty thousand Austrians. Twenty thousand troops were about to rein- 
 force the enemy, and the famous General Suwarrow was approaching with 
 sixty thousand Russians. Baron De Kray, an excellent General, com- 
 manded the Austrian army in Upper Italy ; whilst Scherer, 
 
 Eeverse of the . 
 
 army of Italy, who had succeeded the victor of Arcole and Rivoli, had a 
 
 1799. 
 
 doubly difficult task to perform, and conducted his com- 
 mand in a manner which contrasted most unfavourably with the brilliant 
 qualities of his predecessor. He was incapable of winning either the 
 affections or the confidence of his soldiers, and his own knowledge of his 
 unpopularity rendered his natural want of firmness still greater. After 
 much hesitation he endeavoured to cross the Adige, but was vanquished 
 
 on the plains of Magnano ; and after having been beaten in a 
 
 JJ6lG&t3 01 
 
 Scherer at number of combats, which resulted in the loss of the 
 
 Magnano, April, ' 
 
 1799 - Adige, the Mincio, and the Adda, and the reduction of his 
 
 army to twenty thousand men, he resigned the command to Moreau. 
 
 This illustrious General, who was in disgrace with the Directors, and 
 who had been made a simple General of Division under Scherer, had fre- 
 quently, by his own skill, saved the army from total destruction in the 
 course of this terrible campaign. He showed his devotion and patriotism 
 by accepting the command when the army was reduced to a handful 
 
1797— 1799.] THE TRENCH DEFEATED BY STTWARROW. 301 
 
 of men, and when the Russians united with the Austrians appeared to be 
 able to annihilate that army by a single blow. Moreau never displayed 
 more talent, coolness, presence of mind, and force of character, than in 
 the terrible position in which Scherer's rashness had placed the army. 
 Moreau first of all covered Milan, and then marched to cross the Po. 
 Maintaining a formidable position at every halt, he concentrated his forces 
 below Alexandria, at the confluence of the Po and the Tanaro, and halted 
 in an admirable position at the foot of the Genoese mountains. He took 
 possession of the fortresses of Casal, Valencia, and Alexandria, and 
 planted a chain of military posts on the two rivers ; on the one 
 side he kept his communications open with France, whilst on the 
 other he rested on Tuscany, by which the army which Macdonald 
 was bringing by forced marches towards the Alps would be able 
 to defile from Rome and Naples. The junction of the two armies 
 under two such Generals as Macdonald and Moreau would permit 
 of offensive operations against the enemy — most probably alter the issue 
 of the campaign. 
 
 The very day on which Moreau commenced his splendid retreat was 
 marked by a shameful violation of the law of nations in Assass i nat i on of 
 respect to the French Plenipotentiaries at Rastadt. The plenipotentiaries 
 Congress assembled at this city was not dissolved, for 
 France, which was then at war with the Emperor, was still at peace 
 with the Princes of the German empire. Many of the latter, however, 
 had already yielded to the influence of Austria, and had recalled their 
 envoys ; upon which the Directory had thought right to recall its own, 
 and ordered the Plenipotentiaries, Roberjot, Bonnier, and Jean Debry to 
 leave Rastadt. As they were leaving that city, they were pursued by 
 Austrian hussars and massacred. Jean Debry alone, although terribly 
 wounded, escaped death. The Directory loudly declared its determina- 
 tion to avenge this outrage ; but it had yet long to wait, and the Italian 
 campaign concluded for France, as it had commenced, by heavy reverses. 
 Macdonald, so long impatiently expected, at length, on the 18th of June, 
 met Suwarrow face to face in the Valley of the Trebbia, and unfortunately 
 gave him battle before he had completely effected his junction with 
 Moreau. The banks of that river were the scene of a terrible D efeat of the 
 battle, which was maintained during three successive days Tre ia ' 1799 ' 
 by the forces of Macdonald alone against Suwarrow's army. The French, 
 after performing prodigies of valour, were driven back beyond the 
 
302 DISSOLUTION OP THE DIRECTORY. [BOOK II. CHAP. V. 
 
 Apennines upon the Nova, at the moment when Moreau, forcing his way- 
 through all obstacles, denied from Novi. He hastened up to the support 
 of his unfortunate colleague, but could only cover his retreat. The two 
 L s fitai battles of Magnano lost Italy for the French, as that of 
 1799, Stockach had deprived them of Germany. The con- 
 
 federates, commanded by the Archduke Charles, now attempted to cross 
 the barrier of Switzerland, defended by Massena, whilst the Duke of 
 York landed in Holland with forty thousand men. 
 
 Such was, at the period of the elections of Floreal, in the Year VII., 
 the position of France abroad. These elections were in favour of the 
 Democrats, whilst at the same time Sieyes, the chief opponent of the 
 Directory, succeeded Rewbel. The Councils declared their sittings per- 
 manent, and demanded of the Directors an account of the state of the 
 Republic ; displaying especial animosity towards Treilhard, Merlin de 
 Douai, and La Reveillere. Treilhard was deprived of his office on a 
 frivolous pretext, and was succeeded by Gohier, ex-Minister of Justice. 
 The Councils continued to attack Merlin and La Reveillere. 
 
 Forcible dissolu- 
 tion of the Diree- Barras abandoned them, and on the 30th Prairial they were 
 tory, 30th Prai- * ... . 
 
 rial, Year vii. compelled to resign the Directorial authority, and were 
 
 (June 18, 1799.) x ■ . 
 
 succeeded by General Moulins and Roger -Ducos. This 
 completed the disorganization of the Year III. ; and Sieyes henceforth 
 laboured to destroy what remained of it, being supported in the Directory 
 by Roger-Ducos, in the Legislature by the Council of Ancients, and by 
 the army and middle classes without. The Constitutional party was 
 supported by the Directors Moulins and Gohier, by the Council of Five 
 Hundred, and the Manege Club, formed of the wrecks of the Salm, the 
 Pantheon, and the Jacobin Clubs. - It was by the aid of the army and 
 of some great military leader that Sieyes was enabled to succeed ; and 
 Bonaparte opportunely presented himself. 
 
 The Egyptian expedition had been brilliant. At the period when it 
 took place Egypt was oppressed by the Mamelukes, a 
 
 Campaign of 
 
 Egypt, 1798- cavalry militia independent of the Porte, and all-powerful 
 there. They alone made an intrepid resistance. The first 
 
 struggle took place at the village of Chebreiss ; the French were vic- 
 torious, and this first victory was speedily followed by another 
 
 Battles of Cheb- 
 reiss and of the at the foot of the Pyramids, which Bonaparte pointed out 
 Pyramids, 1798. < J 
 
 to his troops with these magnificent words — " Soldiers ! 
 
1797-1799.] THE BATTLE OE THE NILE. 303 
 
 from the heights of those monuments forty ages loook down upon you]" 
 He continued to conquer. Cairo opened its gates ; Rosetta and Dami- 
 etta submitted ; and Mourad-Bey, the Mameluke chief, retired into 
 Upper Egypt, where Desaix, who was sent in pursuit of him, displayed 
 the greatest talents, and caused his justice and moderation to be blessed. 
 In the meantime the English Admiral Nelson inflicted a mortal blow on 
 the French maritime power. Admiral Brueys having im- 
 
 ii -i-i-ni • t t n Destruction of 
 
 prudently posted the French navy m the roadstead of the French fleet 
 
 . i n the Bay of 
 
 Aboukir, Nelson bore down upon it and almost entirely Aboukir, July, 
 
 r J 1798. 
 
 destroyed it 
 
 In spite of this great disaster, Bonaparte completed the subjugation of 
 Egypt, and took great pains to gain the affections of the inhabitants by con- 
 forming to their customs, and citing the Koran in support of his decrees. At 
 the same time he raised the Christians named Copts, and regarded as the de- 
 scendants of the ancient Egyptians, from a state of hereditary oppression. 
 When the fighting was at an end he turned his attention to the sciences, 
 and founded an Institute at Cairo. Then, after having suppressed a for- 
 midable revolt excited in that city against his army, he withdrew from 
 his conquest, and entered upon that of Syria, in the hope of penetrating 
 as far as India, and striking the English at the source of ^ 
 
 ' & b Expedition to 
 
 their power. His army traversed sixty leagues of arid de- gt 1 Jean^Fr^ 
 
 sert and marched upon Gaza, which opened its gates. Jaffa 
 
 and Ca'ifa were carried, and Saint Jean d'Acre invested. As Bonaparte, 
 
 however, was without siege artillery, he made seventeen desperate assaults 
 
 in vain upon the latter place, which was defended by the talents of the 
 
 French engineer Phelippeaux and by the English commodore Sir 
 
 Sidney Smith. Junot vanquished the Turks at Nazareth, 
 
 and Bonaparte, supported by Kleber and Murat, obtained not at Nazareth, 
 
 -, />Ti/r mi » • an< * °f Bonaparl e 
 
 the celebrated victory of Mount Tabor ; after which he at Mount Tabor, 
 
 April, 1799. 
 
 raised the siege of Saint Jean d'Acre, and returned to 
 
 Cairo, where he learned, through the journals, the unfortunate position 
 
 of the Republic, and the events of the 30th Prairial. 
 
 Anarchy reigned in France ; another forced loan had excited the in- 
 dignation of the classes in good circumstances, whilst the odious law of 
 hostages, which rendered the relatives of the emigrants responsible for 
 the acts of violence committed by the Chouans, once more armed the 
 Royalists of the West and the South against the Directors. Italy, with 
 
304 CONSPIRACY AGAINST NAPOLEON. [BOOK II. CHAP. V. 
 
 the exception of Genoa, was lost 5 Joubert had been killed at the bloody- 
 battle of Novi, which had been gained by Suwarrow ; and 
 French at Novi. the allies marched towards our frontiers through Holland 
 Suwarrow. Au- and Switzerland, where they were stopped by Brune 
 
 gust 15 1799. 
 
 and Massena. Bonaparte having learned the condition of 
 affairs and the state of public feeling, resolved to return to France 
 immediately, and to overthrow the Directorial government. He was 
 preceded thither by the report of a fresh and brilliant victory. Eighteen 
 -d , thousand Turks having made an attack in the roadstead of 
 
 Bonaparte con- • ° 
 
 atTboukir Turks Aboukir, Bonaparte, supported by Murat, Lannes, and 
 Return? t'o 17 "' Bessieres, routed and annihilated them. Directly after 
 9th, 1799. this ne se t out, leaving Kleber in command of the army in 
 
 1 -Egypt? traversed the Mediterranean in. the frigate Muiron, 
 escaped the English fleet as by a miracle, and disembarked in the gulf 
 of Frejus on the 9th October, 1799, a few days after the 
 
 "Vict on ps of IVTsS" 
 
 sena at Zurich, celebrated victories of Zurich and Berghem, the first of 
 
 and of Brune at 
 
 Berghem, Sep- which had been obtained by Massena over the Russians, 
 
 tember, 1799. _ J 
 
 whilst the second had been won in Holland by General 
 Brune over the Duke of York. 
 
 Bonaparte passed through France in the character of a hero, and was re- 
 ceived by the Moderate party with enthusiasm. He would not declare him- 
 self the adherent of any particular party, but, affecting a great simplicity, 
 took a modest lodging in the Rue Chantereine, to which he invited the 
 chiefs of each party, and where he deceived them all in turn with respect to 
 his projects. Sieyes feared him ; but the aid of a distinguished general 
 was necessary to the success of his projects, and as Bonaparte was the 
 sort of man he required, he formed an alliance with him. The object 
 
 was to overthrow the existing constitution ; all the generals, 
 Sieye^and" ° with the exception of Bernadotte, were gained over, and on 
 agSfthe the 18th Brumaire, on the demand of Regnier, one of the 
 
 conspirators, the Council of the Ancients determined that, 
 by virtue of the powers which it possessed under the constitution, it would 
 transfer the Legislative body to Saint Cloud, in order, it said, that the 
 deliberations might be more free. Bonaparte was charged with the 
 execution of this measure, and obtained the military command of the 
 division of Paris. He then immediately attacked the Directors by his 
 proclamations and by word of mouth. " What have you made," he said, 
 
1797-1799.] DISSOLUTION OE THE LEGISLATIVE BODY. 305 
 
 " of this France which I left so brilliant ? I left you at peace, and I 
 have come back to find the country involved in war. I left you vic- 
 torious, and on my return I find the reverse. What have you done with 
 the hundred thousand French soldiers whom I knew so well ; who 
 were my companions in glory? They are dead!" It was thus that 
 he aggrandized himself whilst accusing his adversaries. Sieyes and 
 Koger-Ducos proceeded to the Tuileries on the same day and laid down 
 their authority. Their three colleagues attempted to resist, but the 
 guard refused to obey them. Barras, in despair, sent in his resignation ; 
 whilst Moulins and Gohier were made prisoners ; and now there com- 
 menced a struggle between Bonaparte and the Council of the Five 
 Hundred. 
 
 On the 19th Brumaire the Legislative Corps proceeded to Saint-Cloud, 
 accompanied by a strong military force. Bonaparte presented himself 
 first of all to the Council of the Ancients ; and then, when summoned to 
 take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution, declared that it was 
 vicious, that the Directory was incapable, and appealed to his companions 
 in arms. He afterwards proceeded to the Council of Five Hundred, who 
 sat in the Orangery, where the excitement was already at its height. His 
 presence there created a furious storm, and from all sides were heard 
 threatening cries of " Beyond the pale of the law ! Down with the 
 Dictator !" Bonaparte, more accustomed to brave the enemy's fire than 
 the threats of a deliberative assembly, grew pale, and trembled, and was 
 carried off by the grenadiers who accompanied him. Lucien, Bona- 
 parte's brother, who presided over the Assembly, was on every side 
 ordered to put it to the vote whether his brother should not be put 
 beyond the pale of the law. Lucien attempted to defend his brother, 
 but finding his efforts useless, quitted his seat of office and laid down his 
 magisterial insignia. Bonaparte had them brought forth from the hall ; 
 and then both having mounted horses, they harangued the soldiers, the 
 one as the conqueror of Italy and Egypt, and the other as the pre- 
 sident of a factious assembly. The troops became enthusiastic. " Sol- 
 diers ! can I rely on you?" cried Bonaparte. "Yes! yes!" they 
 unanimously replied. Bonaparte immediately gave orders for the 
 clearance of the hall in which sat the Council of Five Hundred. A 
 troop of grenadiers entered the hall under the command of Murat, who 
 said, "In the name of General Bonaparte, the Legislative Body is dis- 
 
 VOL. II. x 
 
306 VIETUAL FALL OF THE EEPTJBLIC. [BOOK II. CHAP. II. 
 
 solved. Let all good citizens, therefore, retire. Grenadiers, forward !" 
 The drums stifled the cries of just indignation which arose on every 
 side. The grenadiers advanced, and the deputies escaped from before 
 them by the windows, to the cry of u Long live the Republic !" There 
 was no longer any free representative system in France, and the Republic 
 existed only in name. 
 
307 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CONSULAR AND IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Establishment of the Consulate — Campaigns of 1800 in Italy and 
 Germany — Victories — Peace of Amiens — Conspiracies — Elevation 
 of Napoleon Bonaparte to the Imperial Crown — Third and 
 Fourth Coalition — Campaigns of 1805, 1806, 1807, in Austria, 
 Prussia, and Poland — Military Triumphs — Conquests — Unfortu- 
 nate War in Spain — Fifth Coalition — Campaign of 1809 in 
 Austria — Fresh Victories — Continental System — Sixth Coali- 
 tion — War in Russia — Disasters — Campaigns of 1813 and 1814 
 in Germany and France — Napoleon's Abdication — His Departure 
 for the Island of Elba. 
 
 (10th November, 1799—20^ April, 1814.) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CONSULATE. 
 
 (10th November, 1799— 18tk May, 1804.) 
 
 The Revolution of Brumaire was an offence against law; but after 
 having experienced so many violent shocks and struggles, Eatablishment 
 France, exhausted, without credit, and a prey to anarchy, jfoJSSS" lit**' 
 perceived the necessity of some strong central power ex- l799 ' 
 ercised by an able hand, and forgave much to him from whom she 
 expected everything. Every party, moreover, hoped to find in Bona- 
 parte a supporter. The Royalists looked upon him as a new Monk, the 
 future restorer of the monarchy ; and the Moderate Republicans loved 
 him as a hero born of the Revolution, and flattered themselves that by 
 
 i2 
 
.308 CONSTITUTION OE SIEYES. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 his means liberty would be established upon solid and durable founda- 
 tions. All these causes tended to blind the public eye, and although 
 Bonaparte had shown what his ambition might lead him to undertake, 
 there was, in general, but little suspicion of him. People were more 
 frightened of anarchy than of despotism, and no one had calculated as yet 
 how far he might trample liberty under foot for the sake of his own 
 aggrandizement. This illusion, however, was but of short duration. 
 
 Those of the members of the two councils who had been Bonaparte's 
 accomplices, or were favourable to the Revolution of Brumaire, hastened 
 to establish the new government. Three Consuls were provisionally ap- 
 pointed, Bonaparte, Sieves, and Roger-Ducos, and at the same time two 
 Legislative Committees were selected to prepare a Constitution. The 
 first act of the provisional government was the abolition of the odious 
 law of hostages, and that of forced loans. The first rendered the relatives 
 of the Vendeans and Chouans responsible for the deeds committed in 
 the revolted provinces, subjecting some to imprisonment and others to 
 transportation. Bonaparte went in person to the prison of the Temple, 
 where many were confined, and restored them to liberty. The priests 
 and a great number of emigrants were allowed to return to France, and 
 at the same time arbitrary and rigorous measures were taken with respect 
 to fifty-eight ardent Republicans. These, however, were soon mitigated, 
 and subsequently revoked. 
 
 The absolute character of Bonaparte's mind became very manifest during 
 the discussion relative to the new Constitution, the plan 
 tution drawn up of which had been drawn up by Sieves. The principle 
 which Sieves had followed was, that confidence comes from 
 below, and power from above. He recognised, on the one hand, the 
 serious inconveniences and dangers of universal suffrage, and on the 
 other hand he perceived the necessity of giving a wide basis to the hier- 
 archy of the great public authorities; and, whilst permitting all respectable 
 citizens to concur in a certain measure in the selection of those who should 
 be invested with them, he had recourse to the system of election by 
 several stages for the formation of the final lists of candidates and the 
 choice of the upper officers of state. There were three lists of candida- 
 ture. The first, called the list of communal notability, consisted of a tenth 
 of the active citizens, and this tenth was elected by universal suffrage. 
 The second list, entitled the list of departmental notables, was formed by 
 
1799-1804.] SCHEME OE GOYEENMENT. 309 
 
 the vote of all the members of the preceding list, of which it only com- 
 prised a tenth ; finally, the candidates on the departmental list selected 
 from this list a final tenth, which became the list of the first notables of 
 the people. 
 
 The great authorities entrusted with the drawing up of and the main- 
 tenance of the laws of the state were, the Council of State, Th reat ublic 
 the Tribunate, and the Legislative Body. The Council P owem 
 of State, the original of that which still exists, drew up the laws, pre- 
 sented them to the Legislative Body, and sent three of its members to 
 discuss them with it. The Tribunate, consisting of a hundred members, 
 publicly discussed the laws which were proposed, and voted their accep- 
 tance or rejection ; and in this latter case it sent three of its members to 
 discuss the matter with the three members of the Council of State in the 
 presence of the Legislative Body. The Legislative Body, after having 
 heard this discussion in silence, voted on the one side or the other. 
 Finally, there was the Senate, consisting of a hundred members, of a 
 certain age, and endowed with large salaries, who took no part in the 
 preparation of the laws, but who were empowered to annul, either of 
 their own accord or at the suggestion of the Tribunate, every law or act 
 of the Government which might appear to them to be an infringement of 
 the principles of the Constitution. The Senate was a self-elected body, 
 choosing its members from the list of the national notables. It also 
 selected from this same list the members of the Legislative Body, the 
 Tribunate, and the Tribunal of Cassation. 
 
 At the head of the executive power, according to Sieyes' scheme, 
 there was a grand- elector, a magistrate entrusted with the duty of repre- 
 senting the country in its intercourse with foreign nations, and whose 
 only real power consisted in the appointment of two consuls who were to 
 select the ministers, whilst these, in their turn, were to select all the 
 government officials from the three lists of notables. 
 
 Sieyes had endeavoured, by means of the institution of the almost 
 passive grand-elector, to introduce into this carefully elaborated con- 
 stitution a certain balance of power, without which political: liberty is 
 impossible. But Bonaparte's ambition would allow him to be content 
 neither with the magnificent but inactive position of grand-elector, nor 
 with the subordinate position of one of the two Consuls. He accepted 
 most parts of the scheme, but placed at the head of the Executive 
 
310 CONSTITUTION OE THE TEAR VIII. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 power, three Consuls, the first of whom, himself, was to have the initiative 
 in, and the supreme direction of, all public affairs. The Constitution of 
 c nsf t t" f t ^ ie Year "VIII* was then adopted, and its principal arrange- 
 the Year viii. men ts, with the exception of those which established the 
 Tribunate and the Consuls, were the basis of the Constitution in existence 
 from that time to the end of the Empire. " If, at the commencement of 
 the Consulate, when so many things had to be done," says an illustrious 
 historian, " Bonaparte was right in refusing to allow his talents to be 
 shackled, he also had reason, when sublimely unfortunate at Saint- 
 Helena, to regret the liberty he had enjoyed of exercising them unre- 
 strictedly. Had he been limited in the exercise of his faculties he could 
 not have done such great things as he did ; but neither could he have 
 attempted such extravagant things, and his sceptre and sword would 
 probably have remained in his glorious hands till his death." 
 
 When Bonaparte had been proclaimed chief Consul, he selected as 
 second and third Consuls, Cambaceres, formerly a member of the Plain, 
 in the Convention, and Le Brun, formerly a coadjutor of the Chancellor 
 Maupeou. An article of the Constitution permitted the nomination of 
 the chief public functionaries as a matter of necessity, without waiting 
 for the drawing up of the election lists. The Consuls having been thus 
 appointed, they nominated thirty senators, who elected sixty more. The 
 . . Senate then chose a hundred tribunes and three hundred 
 
 Acceptance of 
 
 of e the n Year ti0n legislators. The Constitution of the Year VIII. was sub- 
 viii. (1799.) mitted for the approval of the people, and received more 
 than three millions of votes in its -favour. 
 
 Bonaparte, in compliance with the general wish of the nation, offered 
 to make peace with England, but that power refused this offer chiefly 
 and almost solely for the sake of her commerce. It desired a mono- 
 poly for its products over the whole world ; it saw with fear and 
 jealousy that France was mistress of Belgium, and dreaded lest that 
 country should rival it in industry and trade. Abusing 
 
 France and Eng- 
 land on the the power given it by its fleets, England exercised a gross 
 
 tyranny on every sea, and violated with impunity all the 
 
 principles of the law of nations. It refused to admit that a neutral 
 
 flag could cover merchandize which had come from an enemy's port, and 
 
 seized it by main force, exercising even against neutrals an unlimited 
 
 right of blockade and confiscation. It believed that ruling the sea as it 
 
1799-1804. J MAEITIME ALLIANCE AGAINST ENGLAND. 311 
 
 did by the right of the strongest, and keeping down the commerce of 
 powerful rivals, it might extend its own so far as to recompense it for the 
 immense cost of an European war borne by its Government. England's 
 Prime Minister was at this time the celebrated William Pitt, Policyof William 
 who, infusing all the energy of an inflexible will into his Pltt " 
 animosity against France, persevered unflinchingly in this desperate 
 policy. He skilfully kept alive the fear and dislike which the conti- 
 nental monarchs felt for the First Consul, pointed out to them how much 
 danger there was to their crowns in a Eepublic which every day 
 increased in strength and extent of frontier, and finally seduced them 
 into an adherence to a system of extermination against France by the 
 payment of enormous subsidies. 
 
 In this way he long secured the support of Russia and Austria. The 
 first of these powers, however, indignant at finding England obedient to 
 no law on the ocean but that of force, abandoned it in the campaign of 
 1800, and towards the end of the- same year, the Czar, touched by a 
 generous proceeding on the part of Bonaparte, who sent back his pri- 
 soners to him without ransom, and influenced, moreover, by admiration 
 for the military skill of the First Consul, declared himself his ally against 
 England. Deeply irritated by the numerous acts of piracy committed 
 by the English fleets, he made himself the head of a mart- „, L_ ... 
 
 J ° ' The Maritime 
 
 time alliance, which was joined by Sweden, Denmark, and Alliance > 180 °. 
 Prussia. These powers acted in concert with France and the United 
 States, and renewed the celebrated declaration of an armed neutrality, 
 signed in 1780, for the purpose of protecting the freedom of commerce, 
 and freeing the ocean from the tyranny of the English. Austria alone 
 persevered on the Continent in the struggle aganst France, and English 
 gold supported her armies. 
 
 Bonaparte threw the whole military strength of the Republic upon the 
 Rhine and the Alps. Moreau had the army of the Rhine, „,. 
 
 x J 7 New plan of 
 
 and the First Consul reserved to himself the army of Italy. ?J I ? paig ? ( | n 
 The object of the campaign was to gain possession of the maD y» 1800 « 
 two valleys of the Danube and the Po, and instead of endeavouring to 
 outflank the enemy by attacking him at all points at once, Bonaparte 
 concentrated the movements of his armies. His efforts had for their 
 object the separation of Baron Kray, Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Austrian army in Germany, from Field-Marshal Melas, who commanded 
 
312 PASSAGE OF THE ALPS. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 in Italy a hundred and twenty thousand men, against whom the intrepid 
 Massena defended Genoa and the Maritime Alps with a handful of brave 
 troops. Moreau being ordered to invade the defiles of the Black Forest, 
 took the important position of Stockach, which had been recently lost by 
 Jourdan, and gained several victories in succession. Baron Kray, 
 deceived by his vigour and tactics, believed that the principal point of 
 the French attack would be on the Danube, and concentrating his forces, 
 therefore, rendered himself unable to aid the Austrian army in Italy. 
 Upon this Bonaparte, who had taken means to deceive the enemy by 
 making Dijon the rallying point for an army of reserve, executed a 
 gigantic project. Hastening from Paris to take the command of the 
 troops assembled at Geneva, he proceeded to carry the war suddenly 
 upon the Po, between Milan, Genoa, and Turin. IJe intended to make 
 the further sides of the Simplon and Saint-Gothard the bases of operations, 
 and to seize the defiles of the Alps, so as to be able to fall upon the rear of 
 Melas' forces, which were distributed from Genoa to the 
 
 Passage of the 
 
 Alps by the banks of the Var. The passage of the army and its for- 
 
 Frencn Army. x ° J 
 
 midable artillery was effected over the crest of the Alps, at 
 an elevation of upwards of seven thousand feet above the level of the 
 sea. The baggage was placed on the backs of mules, whilst the cannon 
 were taken off their carriages and placed on the trunks of trees, a 
 hundred men being harnessed to each. On the 17th of May thirty 
 thousand men were led by Bonaparte up the Saint-Bernard. Moncey 
 marched with fifteen thousand men towards the Saint-Gothard, with the 
 purpose of descending at Bellinzona, and two other corps were directed 
 upon the Simplon and Mount Cenis respectively. Lannes commanded 
 the advanced guard. The French troops displayed on the edge of 
 precipices, in the midst of glaciers and eternal snows, the most heroic 
 courage. They animated each other by warlike songs, and when any 
 almost insurmountable obstacle presented itself, the charge was beaten, 
 and it was immediately overcome. At length, after unheard-of efforts, the 
 infantry, cavalry, baggage, and artillery reached the summit of the Alps, and 
 the army speedily found itself at the foot of the further side of the Saint- 
 Bernard, whilst Melas, without any fear, occupied with a portion of his 
 forces the line of the Po. Seventeen thousand Austrian troops were on 
 the Var, in France, and General Ott, at the head of twenty-five thousand 
 men, was pressing forward the siege of Genoa, which still held out, in- 
 
1799-1804.] BATTLE OE MAKENGO. 313 
 
 trepidly defended by the feeble army of the Maritime Alps, under Mas- 
 sena, Soult, and Suchet. 
 
 The pass of Susa was speedily traversed by the French army, and 
 Bonaparte rapidly moved upon the Po, between the mouth of the Tessin 
 and the confluence of the Tanaro and the Bormida. He dispersed several 
 corps of the enemy whom he encountered on his passage, took possession 
 of Bergamo, and crossed the Adda. Made conscious at length, by the 
 reverses suffered by his generals, of the storm impending over him, 
 Melas hastened to summon his lieutenants to the Tanaro, at the very 
 moment when famine compelled G-enoa to surrender. But Bonaparte 
 continued his march r and without waiting until all his army should have 
 crossed the Po, attacked General Ott at Montebello before he had had 
 time to effect his junction with Melas, and obtained a first victory. 
 Lannes had the greatest share in this success, and its glorious name was 
 subsequently to become his own. 
 
 On the 13th of June the French traversed the plains of San Giuliano, 
 and took up a position between Bormida and the village of B na a t » 
 Marengo, which they rendered so famous. On the follow- Saremjo* 
 ing day, at dawn, the Austrians defiled by the bridge across June 18 ' 1800 ' 
 the Bormida, and fell upon the two wings of the French army, which 
 were commanded by Lannes and Victor. They were already giving way 
 before the assault of forty thousand men, when the First Consul dashed 
 into the plain, towards the right, eight hundred grenadiers of the consular 
 guard. These formed square, checked unaided the enemy's columns, 
 which broke against them, and well earned the glorious name of the 
 " Granite Redoubt " which the conqueror bestowed upon them. Their 
 magnificent resistance afforded time to the other divisions to come up. 
 Desaix, who had recently returned from Egypt, and sent on the previous 
 evening to another point, was hastily summoned to the field of battle, 
 and at length appeared with his division and fifteen pieces of cannon, 
 when the conflict was renewed with fresh fury. In the meantime five 
 thousand Austrians were detached in close column to crush the French 
 left and to cut off its retreat. Desaix rushed forward to prevent them, 
 and fell struck by a ball. His soldiers, eager to avenge him, threw 
 themselves upon the formidable column and broke it, whilst General 
 Kellerman attacked it in the rear with his cavalry and dispersed it. 
 Electrified by this success, the whole French line advanced and drove the 
 
314 DEFEAT OE THE AUSTBIANS. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 enemy beyond the Bormida. Melas in vain attempted to defend Ma- 
 rengo, which was taken, and gave its name to this celebrated victory, 
 Convention of which rendered the French masters of Italy. Melas, in a 
 Alexandria. state of consternation, asked to negotiate, and the Conven- 
 
 tion of Alexandria speedily restored to France all that had been lost 
 within the preceding fifteen months, with the exception of Mantua. 
 
 As this treaty was only a military convention, it was necessary that the 
 
 army of the Danube should force Austria to ratify it. Mo- 
 Victories Of fell T 
 
 Moreau at reau forced the passage 01 Lech, took Augsburg, re-estab- 
 
 Hochstadt, 
 
 Neuburg, and lished, after a century's interval, the glory of the French 
 
 Hohenlinden, 
 
 November and arms on the plains of Hochstadt, and obtained another 
 
 December, 1800. * 
 
 victory at Neuburg. Austria now summoned its whole 
 virile population to arms, whilst England still subsidized it, and would 
 not permit it to ratify the Convention of Alexandria. Several armies 
 were now in the field. The Archduke John advanced with a hundred 
 and twenty thousand men to meet the triumphant army under Moreau, 
 and encountered it between the Irun and the Iser. He advanced upon 
 Hohenlinden, and endeavoured to check the French on the vast plains of 
 Anzing, where his army, very superior in strength, would be able to 
 surround them. Moreau perceived his object, and by a series of skilful 
 manoeuvres confined the enemy to a narrower space between the defiles of 
 the Tyrol, the village and the forest of Hohenlinden. He then rendered his 
 victory secure by sending the division Richepanse to turn the Austrians, so 
 as to take them between two fires in the defiles, where they could not derive 
 advantage from their superiority in numbers. On the 6th of December 
 the battle commenced. When the action was at its height, Richepanse 
 threw himself into the forest With the forty-eighth demi-brigade, and 
 carried disorder and terror into the enemy's rear. Three Hungarian 
 battalions, however, rallied, and attempted to hold them in check. 
 " Grenadiers of the forty-eighth," said Richepanse, pointing to the Hun- 
 garians, " what say you of those fellows there ? " " That they are dead 
 men," replied the grenadiers, and they overthrew them, whilst they 
 defeated the Austrians in Hohenlinden. The enemy's centre and a 
 portion of his left was destroyed, and eleven thousand prisoners and a 
 hundred pieces of cannon fell into the power of the French. 
 
 This brilliant victory and the capture of Salzburg opened to Moreau 
 
1799-1804.] PEACE OE LUNEVILLE. 315 
 
 the road to Vienna. The victor pursued his march and obtained a fresh 
 victory at Schwanstadt. The lines of the Irun, the Salza, 
 
 Fresh successes 
 
 and the Fraun were crossed. The fortress of Linz was ofMoreauin 
 
 Germany, 1800. 
 
 taken, and the French were now only a few marches 
 distant from Vienna. In this extreme peril the Archduke Charles, who 
 had been in disgrace since the victory of Campo-Formio, was recalled to 
 the command-in-chief of the Imperial armies ; but it was too late, for 
 the line of the Ems, the last defence of the capital, was threatened. The 
 Prince demanded a truce, and only obtained it on condition that Austria 
 should renounce its alliance with England. Such was this memorable 
 campaign of 1800, in which the glory of Moreau almost paled that of the 
 hero of Marengo. Within twenty-five days he had conquered ninety 
 leagues of ground, forced four formidable lines, twice vanquished a 
 hundred thousand men, taken a hundred pieces of cannon, and made 
 twenty-five thousand prisoners. He had reduced the Emperor to sue 
 for peace, and compelled Austria to renounce her alliance with 
 England. Peace was the result of the battles of Marengo and Hohen- 
 linden. 
 
 This peace, signed at Luneville on the 9th of February, 1801, between 
 France, Austria, and the Empire, secured to France the 
 
 . Peace of Lune- 
 
 possession oi Belgium and the German provinces on the wile, February, 
 left bank of the Rhine. The valley of this river, from its 
 source in the Helvetian territory to its mouth in the Batavian territory, now 
 formed the boundary line between France and Germany, and it was said 
 that the hereditary Princes who had lost territory on the left bank of the 
 Rhine should be ultimately compensated. The Emperor abandoned the 
 Milanese to the Cisalpine Republic, retained the Venetian States as far 
 as the Adige, and lost Tuscany, now made into the kingdom of Etruria 
 for the Spanish branch of the House of Parma. Separate treaties were 
 signed by France with the courts of Spain and Naples, by which the 
 latter powers engaged to close their ports against English vessels. In 
 that with Spain, moreover, that power undertook to keep off such 
 vessels from the coasts of Portugal, and received for this purpose a 
 French army, which the First Consul placed under the orders of the 
 Spanish Government. 
 
 England now found itself alone in arms against the whole of the 
 
316 KLEBEE IN" EGYPT. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 maritime powers, but whilst Italy and Germany had again been the 
 
 theatre of glorious victories for France, her influence in 
 
 the French in Egypt had been severely shaken. Kleber and Desaix had 
 
 Egypt, 1800. V. .''.,, . 
 
 at first maintained their ground, and the second, as much 
 esteemed for his justice as for his courage, had completed the conquest 
 of Upper Egypt ; but his army, which was decimated by disease, received 
 from France neither supplies nor reinforcements. Kleber addressed 
 energetic remonstrances to the Government, described his position and 
 that of his troops in the most gloomy colours, and at length declared his 
 intention of evacuating Egypt. This letter fell into the hands of the 
 English, who believed from it that the condition of the French army was 
 desperate. A treaty was then concluded between Kleber and the Grand 
 Vizier. The negotiator on the side of France was Desaix, surnamed in 
 
 Egypt the Just Sultan, and he agreed, by the Convention 
 
 Convention of 
 
 Ei-Arisch, of El-Arisch, that the French army should evacuate Egypt, 
 
 January, 1800. "' a l 
 
 on terms honourable to itself; that it should return to 
 France with its arms, baggage, and eifects ; and that the fortresses and 
 positions occupied by the French troops should be successively given 
 up at certain intervals. The army was reluctant to abandon its con- 
 quests, but Kleber, faithful to his promise, enforced the execution of the 
 Convention. 
 
 A rumour now grew current that an English fleet was blockading the 
 ports of Egypt, and soon afterwards Admiral Keith wrote to Kleber to 
 inform him that England refused to recognise the Convention of El-Arisch, 
 and that it would consent to no capitulation unless the French troops 
 laid down their arms and surrendered themselves prisoners. Upon thi^ 
 Kleber recovered all his burning energy, and was once more a hero. 
 His order of the day consisted of the Admiral's letter, with this addition — 
 " Soldiers ! such insolence can only be replied to by victories ! Prepare for 
 battle !" The Grand Vizier, Joussef Pasha, advanced, in defiance of the 
 treaty, at the head of eighty thousand troops, whilst Kleber only had ten 
 
 thousand : but these were sufficient, for he knew how to 
 
 K liber's victory 
 
 at Heiiopolis, conquer. He encountered the enemy at the ruins of Helio- 
 
 March20. ^ J 
 
 polis ; the battle lasted twenty-four hours ; the Turkish 
 army was destroyed, and pursued to the edge of the desert. Cairo was 
 in a state of revolt, a numerous body of Mamelukes having excited the 
 fanaticism of a furious populace. That city became, therefore, the 
 
1799-1804.] BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN. 3l7 
 
 theatre of new exploits, and Kleber took it after a frightful carnage. 
 He speedily recovered in Egypt all the ground and all the influence 
 which he had lost, and displayed marvellous energy in organizing the 
 reconquered territory and creating fresh resources. Mourad Bey, 
 admiring his conqueror, entered into a treaty with him, and Kleber 
 caused his government and his justice to be universally loved. If he 
 had lived Egypt would have become securely annexed to France, but his 
 death caused her to lose all the fruits of the victory of Heliopolis. 
 Kleber fell beneath the dagger of a fanatic on the very day on which 
 Desaix, his rival in glory, expired at Marengo. General Menou suc- 
 ceeded him as Commander-in-Chief, but being equally devoid of talent 
 or energy, he only committed faults without knowing how to retrieve 
 them, and allowed himself to be surrounded by an English 
 
 J ° The battle of 
 
 army. After the unfortunate battle of Canopa, Cairo capi- Canopa, April, 
 
 tulated ; Alexandria, in which Menou had shut himself up, 
 
 speedily shared the same fate, and the whole of Egypt was lost. The 
 
 French army, however, obtained free liberty to return to Evacuation of 
 
 France with its arms and baggage ; and the learned men E syP t - 
 
 who had accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt preserved, in spite of the 
 
 English, their manuscripts and precious collections. 
 
 England had obtained other victories in Asia, where it had completed 
 the conquest of India. Its fleets had taken possession of the fine Dutch 
 colonies of Sinnamari, Guiana, the Cape of Good Hope, and Ceylon, 
 together with the French colonies ; and Malta had fallen into its power. 
 Nelson had inflicted a terrible blow on the maritime league of the neutral 
 powers by forcing the passage of the Sound for the purpose 
 
 x HSS^f^G Of toO 
 
 of attacking Copenhagen, and burning with prodigious bold- Sound, and 
 ness the floating batteries of the Danes, whom he forced Jagen by NdBon, 
 to lay down their arms. An event as tragic as unexpected 
 completed the ruin of the league of the neutral powers. The Czar, 
 Paul I., its most powerful supporter, perished by assassina- 
 
 Assassination of 
 
 tion, and his young successor, Alexander, adopted a the Czar Paul, 
 different policy. The league was then dissolved by the 
 force of circumstances, and England remained sovereign of the seas, 
 although the French navy began to recover its strength, and was 
 enabled to make its flag respected in the Mediterranean, Battle of Alge- 
 where Admiral Lenoir, with three vessels only, had beaten 
 
318 PEACE OF AMIENS. [BOOK III. CHAP. 1. 
 
 six English vessels at the glorious battle of Algesiras (1801). In the 
 meantime powerful motives rendered England desirous of peace. It 
 had suffered during two years from famine ; it was crushed beneath the 
 weight of taxes ; its debt already amounted to more than twelve 
 thousand millions of francs ; and it found itself, to its great dismay, 
 
 threatened with a formidable invasion. The First Consul 
 potions at pre " na( i collected at Boulogne for this purpose an immense 
 invasion oi Eng- flotilla of gun boats, which Nelson had attacked without 
 
 being able either to destroy or disperse, and a French 
 army was ready to cross the Channel. All these causes rendered peace 
 as desirable for England as it was for France, and the dismissal of 
 William Pitt, who was replaced in the Cabinet by Addington, rendered 
 negotiations feasible. England offered to treat, and the First Consul 
 accepted the offer. 
 
 The preliminaries of peace were signed by the two Governments in 
 September, 1801. It was agreed that England should recognise the 
 Continental limits of France as being those which were recognised by the 
 treaties of Luneville, and that it should also restore all the territories 
 which it had taken from France, or her allies, Spain and Holland, with 
 the exception of the islands of Ceylon and Trinidad. It was agreed, 
 also, that Egypt should be evacuated by the troops of both nations, 
 and restored to the Porte, and the independence of Portugal was 
 guaranteed. 
 
 Peace of Amiens This peace, which was so glorious for France, was defini- 
 March, 1802. tiyely s j gne( j on t h e 2 5 t h of March, 1802, at Amiens, by the 
 
 plenipotentiaries of France and England, Joseph Bonaparte, a brother of 
 the First Consul, and Lord Cornwallis. Separate treaties, the natural con- 
 sequences of the peace of Amiens, were signed by France with Portugal, 
 Bavaria, Eussia, the Ottoman Porte, Algiers, and Tunis ; and thus the 
 world was for a time — alas ! too short — at peace. 
 
 Being now freed from all cares abroad, Bonaparte endeavoured to 
 Ex edition to st su bjugate tne island of St. Domingo, which had revolted 
 Domingo, 1802. against the whites, and was governed by blacks, at the head 
 of whom was the famous Toussaint-Louverture. Forty thousand men, 
 under General Leclerc, were sent to effect this object ; but after some 
 first successes they were decimated by yellow fever, and St. Domingo was 
 lost for ever. 
 
1799-1804.] AMNESTY TO EMIGRANTS. 319 
 
 The First Consul had striven with all his energy to suppress factions 
 at home. He revoked by a decree of amnesty the law 
 
 " J Amnesty, 1800. 
 
 which prevented a hundred and fifty thousand emigrants 
 from returning to France. He gained over many royalist leaders, and 
 confided important offices to several proscribed persons of Fructidor — to 
 Simeon, Portalis, and Barbe-Marbois. Some Vendean chiefs, — Chatillon, 
 d'Autichamp, Suzannet, and the famous Abbe Bernier, cure of St. Lo — 
 had already signed their submission by the treaty of Montlucon. La 
 Prevalaye and Bourmont followed their example ; Frotte was taken and 
 shot, Georges Cadoudal capitulated, and the war in the West was at an 
 end. 
 
 The war, however, was succeeded by conspiracies. Bonaparte had 
 rallied to his government the moderate members of all parties; but 
 these parties were chiefly made up of violent and implacable men, who, 
 as they could no longer hope to overthrow the First Consul by open 
 violence, had recourse to the most secret and formidable means for that 
 purpose. 
 
 Some violent Eepublicans formed a plot, of which the Corsican, Arena, 
 was the principal author, according to which the First conspiracy of 
 Consul was to be assassinated in his box at the theatre. This 
 plot was discovered before it could be carried out, and the conspirators 
 were executed. Another conspiracy, more dangerous still, was formed 
 hy the Royalist party, and Bonaparte escaped the assassins as by a miracle. 
 On the third Nivose (24th December, 1800) they placed a barrel of 
 powder on a cart, which they stationed in the Rue Saint Nicaise at the 
 moment when the Consul was passing through it on his way to the opera. 
 He owed his life to the skill of his coachman and the speed of his horses, 
 and had only just passed the fatal spot when the barrel exploded. Many 
 persons perished, but Bonaparte suffered no harm. This plot is known 
 by the name of the Infernal Machine, and caused a great feeling of indig- 
 nation against the extreme men of all parties. It was at first attributed 
 to the Republicans, and the Government proposed to transport a hundred 
 and thirty-two persons in an arbitrary manner, and to authorize this mea- 
 sure had recourse to a dangerous expedient, borrowed from the Roman 
 Senate at the period of the decline of the Roman Empire ; and a simple 
 Senatus Consultum decreed, without any parliamentary trial, 
 
 Arbitrary aets. 
 
 the transportation of a hundred and thirty-two suspected 
 
320 THE CIVIL CODE. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 persons.* After this act of violence, several of the real conspirators were 
 discovered, and were recognised as emissaries of the Royalist party, and 
 agents of Georges Cadoudal. Fouche, Minister of Police, had suspected 
 the truth, but nevertheless he had offered no opposition to the violent 
 measures taken against the Republicans, and the decree which condemned 
 the latter was not revoked after the discovery of the really guilty parties. 
 Such a fact sufficiently characterises a period in which a government, for 
 the purpose of reestablishing order and security, did not scruple to have 
 recourse to means as little consistent with justice as with law. Bonaparte 
 from this time forth displayed on many occasions a violent and despotic 
 character ; and a party hostile to his government was formed in the great 
 bodies of the State, which had at its head, in the Senate, Lanjuinais, 
 Gregoire, Garat, Cabanis, and in the Tribunate, Isnard, Daunou, Andrieux, 
 Chenier, Benjamin Constant. This party committed the fault of syste- 
 matically opposing the First Consul, of closing its eyes to some of the 
 best conceptions of his genius, and of failing to recognise 
 government of m hi m ^he only man whom France could not do with- 
 
 Bonaparte, J 
 
 First Consul. \ynt 
 
 The difficult circumstances in the midst of which his authority had 
 come into existence rendered it almost indispensable that the dictatorship, 
 of which at this period he generally made a salutary and glorious use, 
 should remain for some time in his hands. Anarchy prevailed in every 
 direction, and he everywhere restored order, applying to every subject 
 his strong will, his active and fertile intelligence. He established regu- 
 larity in the civil and military administration, and the Civil 
 
 Civil Code. 
 
 Code which he now projected was a monument of genius, 
 and became a model of legislation for Europe. Bonaparte reconstructed 
 judicial order on a new basis ; he replaced the four hundred and 
 seventeen correctional tribunals, and the ninety-eight civil tribunals, by a 
 tribunal of first instance for each arrondissement, which was to take cog- 
 nizance of both civil and police affairs, and which would render the 
 access to justice easier to all classes of the citizens. Besides these there 
 were created twenty-nine courts of appeal, and each department had a 
 criminal court, whilst the Court of Cassation received some new powers. 
 
 * It is worthy of remark that the violation of law by a Senatus Consultum to which 
 Bonaparte had recourse on this occasion to strengthen his power, was used fourteen 
 years later to decree his fall. 
 
1799-1804.] LEGION OF HONOUR FOUNDED. 321 
 
 France was now governed after an improved method. A prefect, who 
 
 had under him sub-prefects, advantageously replaced the administrators 
 
 of the departments. The subjects of public instruction, the Public i ng t ruc - 
 
 Institnte, commerce, industry, the roads, the ports, and the 10n# 
 
 arsenals, also attracted the notice and the thoughtfulness of the First 
 
 Consul. With the assistance of Monge and Berthollet he gave a better 
 
 organization to the Polytechnic School, which had been established during 
 
 the government of the Convention. He divided the French Prytanee 
 
 into four colleges, one of which he retained in Paris, whilst he transferred 
 
 the others to Fontainebleau, Saint Germain, and Versailles. In each of 
 
 them he determined that there should be a hundred gratuitous admissions 
 
 for the children of men who had deserved well of their country either in 
 
 the career of arms, or in the performance of civil functions. Assisted 
 
 by the able Minister Gaudin, he reestablished order in the finances, and 
 
 created a caisse d 1 amortissement and cautionnements, the mar- 
 Finances, 
 nagement of which he confided to M. Mollien, and which had 
 
 an excellent influence on the public credit. Regarding the clergy as an 
 
 indispensable auxiliary of the chief power, Bonaparte made great efforts 
 
 to gain them over to his side ; and being convinced that religion is the 
 
 surest support of morality, he reestablished public worship in France, 
 
 and signed with Pope Pius VII. a concordat, by which the 
 
 Concordat. 
 
 Catholic religion was recognised as that of the majority of 
 the French. The hundred and fifty- eight episcopal seats which existed 
 before the Revolution were reduced to sixty, of which ten were arch- 
 bishoprics. Those who were to fill these seats were to be appointed by 
 the First Consul, and confirmed by the Pope. After this great act of 
 reparation Bonaparte established a similar mode of reward- The Legion oi 
 ing merit in whatever rank he might find it, and for this Honour - 
 purpose established the Order of the Legion of Honour, of which he de- 
 clared himself the head. This creation, as being opposed to the principle 
 of equality, was violently opposed in the Legislative Body and the Tri- 
 bunate, but was ultimately adopted by them. 
 
 The First Consul, whilst, so active in promoting the national interests, 
 neglected nothing which might confirm his authority. We have already 
 seen by what arbitrary acts he either put down or prevented conspiracies ; 
 and he did more ; for after causing the Senate to eliminate the most ener- 
 getic tribunes, and after having obtained for his Consulate ten years' 
 
 VOL. II. t 
 
322 FBANCE UtfDEB THE CONSULATE. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 prolongation, he caused himself to be appointed Consul for life, and 
 
 obtained the privilege of appointing his successor. Two days later 
 
 the Constitution of the Year X. was decreed by a Senatus 
 
 S^S&SS! 1 Consultum. The electors were for life: the First Consul 
 
 the 16tn Tner- ' 
 
 Year r 'x n ^on- ^ad tne P ower of augmenting their number ; the Senate 
 August, 1802. 6 ' was a ble to change the institution, to suspend the func- 
 tions of the jury, to place the departments beyond the 
 pale of the Constitution, to annul the decisions of the Tribunals, and to 
 dissolve the Legislative Corps and the tribunate. The number of the 
 Tribunes, which had been already diminished, was reduced to fifty, and 
 Bonaparte selected for himself, in addition to the Council of State, a privy 
 council, small in numbers, whose principal duty was to deliberate on 
 affairs which required secrecy. All the citizens had been invited to give 
 their opinions with respect to the establishment of the Consulship for life, 
 and out of 3,577,299 votes on the registers, only 8000 were given 
 against it. 
 
 France now presented an hitherto unseen spectacle of power and glory, 
 
 and if England had acquired in the preceding ten years the empire of 
 
 India, France had changed the face of Europe to her own 
 
 Boundaries of 
 
 France under advantage. She had acquired the whole left bank of the 
 
 the Consulate. 
 
 Rhine, from its source to its entrance into Holland, and 
 the line of the Alps, including Piedmont. She had considerably reduced 
 the power of Austria by taking from her, besides the Low Countries, many 
 fine provinces in the north of Italy, out of which were formed the Cisalpine 
 Republic ; and her influence was dominant in Holland, Spain, Switzerland, 
 Germany, and in the whole of Northern Italy, and was rendered too pro- 
 minent, perhaps, at this period by several political acts of the highest 
 importance. 
 
 In January, 1802, the First Consul convoked the deputies of the Cis- 
 alpine Republic, which had been formed of Lombardy so far as the Adige, 
 the Legations, and the State of Modena ; and having assembled them at 
 Lyons in a constituent assembly, named a Consultum, he presented to it a 
 new constitution, which was adopted, while he received for himself from 
 this assembly the title of President of the Italian Republic, a new name 
 
 which he had substituted for that of the Cisalpine Republic. 
 First Consul in In the course of the same year, 1802, Bonaparte interfered 
 
 in the character of mediator in the affairs of Switzerland, 
 
1799-1804.] THE ACT OF MEDIATION. 323 
 
 which was torn to pieces by factions, and where the Unitarian party and 
 that of the Oligarchy obtained supreme power by turns.* He compelled 
 the cantons to accept the celebrated Act of Mediation, which was based 
 on the principles of 1789 with respect to the equality of rights not only 
 between the various classes of citizens, but also between the different 
 portions of the Helvetian territory. \ The Act of Mediation preserved 
 the sovereignty of the Cantons, whilst it established a national Biet for 
 the purpose of superintending the general interests of the Confederacy ,. 
 and this has remained almost the same to the present day. It was unfor- 
 tunately necessary that a French army of thirty thousand men should' be 
 sent to Switzerland for the purpose of compelling it to. accept the advan- 
 tages which it derived from this celebrated Act, and the First Consul 
 gave himself the appearance in the eyes of terrified Europe of a victor 
 disposing of Switzerland as a conquered country. But it was. more 
 especially by the skilful manner in which he interfered in the affairs of 
 Germany that the First Consul showed to what a lofty place he had 
 elevated France in Europe. 
 
 As a consequence of the conquest on the left bank of the Rhine, of 
 many States the possession of which had been secured to the French Re- 
 public by the peace of Amiens, a crowd of princes had found themselves 
 deprived of their states, and amongst them three ecclesiastical electors — 
 the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves. The principle that 
 some indemnity should be made in their case had been admitted by the 
 contracting powers, and it was not possible to give any except by secula- 
 rizing a great number of ecclesiastical states. 
 
 The latter formed about a sixth part of the surface ^of Germany. The 
 French conquests had naturally resulted in secularizing 
 
 . . Secularization 
 
 some important territories, and it now remained to secula- of the German 
 
 States. 
 
 rize many others, and to divide them between the sovereigns, 
 
 small or great, who had been dispossessed of their states during the war, 
 
 * The Unitarian or Democratic party was inclined to suppress all the separate con- 
 stitutions of the Swiss cantons, and to form them into a single State. The Oligarchic 
 party, on the contrary, was the federal party. 
 
 f The Swiss territory was formerly divided into sovereign cantons and subordinate 
 or subject states, and the latter were formed by the Act of Mediation into new cantons. 
 The number of cantons, which was only thirteen in 1789, was raised to nineteen by the 
 Act of Mediation. Since that period the powers of the Diet have been much extended, 
 and three new cantons, including that of Geneva, have been added to the Confedera- 
 tion. 
 
 y2 
 
324 DIET OF RATISBOtf. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 whether in Germany or Italy. It remained, however, to remodel the 
 whole constitution of the German empire, which rested entirely on 
 the old geographical divisions of Germany, which had now been for the 
 most part destroyed or seriously altered. This double work presented 
 innumerable difficulties, either in respect to the difficulty of satisfying 
 the many claims, or of maintaining a state of equilibrium between Prussia 
 and Austria when satisfying these numerous claims, or finally of preserv- 
 ing the interests of France herself uninjured. The First Consul was 
 the only man capable of effecting this laborious task, and of intervening 
 with sufficient authority between the various claimants. For the purpose 
 of effecting these great objects he induced the Diet at Ratisbon to accept 
 the mediation of France and Russia, and he succeeded, after a long series 
 of difficult negotiations, in inducing the Diet there assembled to vote 
 the act or recez of January, 1803, which, whilst regulating the indemnities 
 to be granted to the several princes, gave a new constitution to the Ger- 
 man empire, and modified in a manner favourable to the interests of 
 France the composition of the Diet and that of the imperial body of 
 electors. The chief result of this celebrated recez was to make the 
 balance, which had hitherto inclined too strongly to the side of Austria 
 and the Catholic party, turn in favour of Prussia and the Protestant party. 
 The policy of the First Consul already embraced the whole world, and 
 he considered himself sufficiently strong to take a step in respect to the 
 „ . „ most important of the colonies which France still retained 
 
 Cession of r 
 
 uSd'stateJ 116 * n America — Louisiana— of which no preceding Govern- 
 1803. ment had been willing to accept the responsibility. Judging, 
 
 with good reason, that her possession was too burdensome to France, and 
 fearing that it might soon fall into the hands of England, he sold it to the 
 Republic of the United States for eighty millions. Bonaparte thus in- 
 terfered in the two hemispheres as powerfully in matters of peace as in 
 those of war, and he now seemed to the jealous eyes of foreign nations, 
 as well as to the dazzled eyes of France, to have attained the height of 
 his power. At this period, says the historian of his reign, he could still 
 deceive France and the world. Some of his councillors only, who were 
 constantly with him, and who were capable of seeing the future in the 
 present, were seized with affright as much as- with admiration at his inde- 
 fatigable activity of mind and body, the energy of his will, and the im- 
 petuosity of his desires. They trembled even when they saw good 
 
1799-1804.] GENIUS OE BONAEABTE. 325 
 
 effected in the way he effected it, he was so eager to have it done quickly 
 and on an immense scale. The wise Tronchet, who both admired and 
 loved him, and who regarded him as the saviour of France, nevertheless 
 said sadly one day to Cambaceres, " That young man has commenced 
 like Cassar, and I fear that he will finish as he did." * 
 
 He already cherished in his heart, perhaps unconsciously, the germs 
 of a most immoderate ambition. His pride had increased in proportion 
 to the humiliations to which he had subjected Europe, and the very 
 facility with which it had yielded to his designs had given him an im- 
 mense confidence in his own strength, and was the primary cause of the 
 misfortunes endured by the world during ten years, and of his own ruin. 
 To induce England to accept with resignation the immense changes which 
 had been made on the Continent since the signature of the preliminaries 
 of the peace of Amiens, and which would very possibly prove seriously 
 injurious to the interests of British commerce, it was important that the 
 First Consul should display much moderation in his dealings with the 
 English Government, and take care not to hurt the jealous susceptibility ot 
 that nation. He did not act in this way, however, but complained, haughtily 
 and with threats, of the attacks upon his Government in the English 
 press. The latter, free and bold as usual in its language, in the habit of 
 pandering to the popular passions, and exaggerating the acts which it 
 denounced, indulged not unreasonably in bitter recriminations against 
 the aggressive policy of France in Europe, while the journals edited in 
 London by the French emigrants were equally virulent against the First 
 Consul. The Opposition, finally, vehemently attacked in Parliament the 
 conduct of the minister, who, it said, had negotiated peace during many 
 months at Amiens without having made a single serious remonstrance 
 either against the principles of the policy of France, or against its invasions 
 of Switzerland, of Italy, as well as in Germany. 
 
 In the meantime England had observed all the clauses of the treaty 
 with one exception. The island of Malta was not yet evacuated, and 
 this fatal delay was caused by the omission on the part of the French 
 Government of a necessary formality,! and not by a premeditated want 
 
 * Thiers' " History of the Consulate and Empire." 
 f In the Treaty of Amiens, it was said that Russia and Prussia should be invited to 
 guarantee its execution before the island of Malta should be evacuated by the English, 
 and the Minister for Foreign Affairs had forgotten to request this guarantee. — Thiers' 
 ' History of the Consulate and Empire.'' 
 
32$ THE PEESS IN FEANCE AND ENGLAND. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 of good faith on the part of the English Government. To all these 
 causes of jealousy and irritation which the First Consul had recently 
 given to England by his almost despotic interference in the affairs of 
 the Continent, was now added another by the sudden annexation to 
 France of Piedmont, which had been occupied by our 
 
 Eeunion of ., n 
 
 Piedmont to troops during more than two years, without any corn- 
 France, 1803. 
 
 pensation to the king, Charles Emmanuel, the ally of 
 
 England, and who was now despoiled for having desired to remain faithful 
 
 to that alliance. So arbitrary an act raised the exasperation of the 
 
 English people to its height, and the outcries of the public press and of 
 
 the members of the Opposition in Parliament, who were led by Grenville 
 
 and Canning, would not permit the English Government to evacuate 
 
 Malta before it had obtained from the First Consul ex- 
 
 Eespective * 
 
 F™anee and° f pl ana ti° ns with respect to these aggressive acts, and of his 
 England. encroachments in Europe. But Bonaparte had already 
 
 reached the height at which an attack of vertigo is to be feared, and 
 where the obstacles which passion encounters are so far from repressing, 
 that they increase and inflame it. After having completely stifled the 
 liberty of the press in France, Bonaparte could not understand how it 
 could still exist in a free and neighbouring country. He could not under- 
 stand that a government which, by its very nature, is the object of 
 attacks in the journals, cannot be held responsible for their attacks on 
 foreign governments, whilst that, in countries where the press is enslaved 
 or controlled, the administration is always an accomplice in the violence 
 which it tolerates. He keenly wounded the just susceptibilities of the 
 English people by causing the insertion in the Moniteur of articles filled 
 with invectives and threats against England, whilst he demanded that 
 the British Government should chastise the pamphleteers, withdraw the 
 pensions granted to the Chouans and emigrants living in England, -and 
 expel the Bourbons from a soil the inhabitants of which had considered 
 it an honour for ages to grant an asylum to exiles. He had in his own 
 palace a violent scene with the English Ambassador, Lord Whitworth, 
 and at length dictated to his minister in London notes couched in the 
 most imperious style, calculated to envenom the relations between the 
 two countries, and to render extremely difficult the fulfilment of the 
 clause in the treaty respecting the island of Malta. Too weak to resist 
 the popular clamour so imprudently provoked, the English minister 
 
1799-1804.] RUPTURE OF THE PEACE OE AMIENS. 327 
 
 attempted to temporize, and endeavoured to obtain the concession of Malta 
 in exchange for other advantages to be granted to France. " The treaty ; 
 nothing but the treaty!" replied the First Consul ; to which the English 
 Government rejoined, " The state of Europe before the treaty ; nothing 
 more and nothing less !" It made, however, a final effort, and proposed, 
 for the purpose of soothing public opinion, to accept in exchange for Malta 
 a small island in the Mediterranean, at the same time demanding by a 
 secret article that it should be allowed to retain Malta for two years pro- 
 visionally, after which it would surrender it. But Bonaparte remained 
 inflexible. The honour of France, which he already too frequently con- 
 founded with the demands of his own pride, would not allow, he said, of 
 such a concession. He chose rather, for the sake of the immediate 
 possession of a rock in the Mediterranean, to tear in pieces 
 
 i -, . , . , -n i -, ■• Rupture of the 
 
 the most glorious treaty which France had ever signed, peace of Amiens, 
 
 1803. 
 
 and Europe was plunged into the horrors of an endless 
 war. 
 
 Thus was broken, in June, 1803, the peace of Amiens, a disastrous 
 event which was productive during twelve years of many frightful 
 troubles, the responsibility of which rests equally upon the two peoples. 
 If England has to bear her share for not having executed one of the 
 clauses of the treaty, it must be admitted that France by her own acts 
 rendered the immediate execution of the treaty almost impossible. It is 
 not, however, upon France, then prostrated at the feet of a master, that 
 must fall the greatest weight of this terrible responsibility ; but upon that 
 master himself, who, inebriated with power, born for war, and incapable, 
 as Louis XIV. had been, of treating scurrilous pamphlets with disdain, 
 already dreamt of a resurrection for himself and his race of the Empire 
 of the Gauls and Charlemagne.* 
 
 The war commenced on either side by savage acts unworthy of civilized 
 nations. The English fleet, on the one hand, fired on ships of merchandize 
 in various seas before hostilities had been openly declared, and the French 
 Consul, on the other hand, ordered, as a reprisal, the arrest of all the 
 
 * The opinion which I express with respect to the rupture of the peace of Amiens is 
 not in conformity with the conclusions of M. Thiers on the subject, except in the 
 retrospect which he makes of the Consular and Imperial Government at the end of 
 vol. xvii. of his splendid work. In that rapid sketch the later and calm reflections 
 of the celebrated historian differ on many essential points from the judgments wtiich he 
 delivers in the volumes written at an earlier date. 
 
328 DEATH OF THE DTJKE d'e^GHTEN. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 English travelling on the Continent, many of whom remained prisoners 
 until the close of this long and frightful war. 
 
 It was on the English soil that Bonaparte had resolved to subdue Eng- 
 land, and he once more planned a descent upon its coasts, collecting for 
 this purpose a formidable armament at Boulogne. 
 
 At the same time a dangerous plot was formed against the life of the 
 Conspiracy of First Consul, and for the restoration of the Bourbons, by the 
 Georges' 1 *" Chouan and Royalist chiefs. Pichegru and Georges Cadoudal 
 
 were at their head, and Moreau was their confidant, but 
 not their accomplice. The conspiracy was discovered in February, 1804, 
 and Moreau, Pichegru, and Cadoudal were arrested. This event had 
 caused a great excitement, when suddenly there spread through Paris a 
 sinister rumour that the blood of a Bourbon had flowed, that a French 
 prince, the Duke d'Enghien, had been immolated to the 
 
 Arrest and exe- 
 cution of the vengeance of the First Consul. Deceived by false reports 
 
 Due d'Enghien. ° . . 
 
 with respect to the intentions of the Prince, and informed, 
 moreover, that a gathering of emigrants was taking place on the Rhine 
 frontier, in the country of Baden, Napoleon resolved to terrify his enemies 
 by one terrible blow. Violating, in defiance of the law of nations, the 
 Baden territory, by sending thither two detachments of cavalry, he de- 
 sired them by orders drawn up with his own hand to advance rapidly 
 upon Ettenheim, where the Prince resided, to seize him, and to convey 
 him to France. The Duke d'Enghien reached Paris on the 20th March, 
 and was then taken to Vincennes, where he was tried at night by a mili- 
 tary commission, and condemned to death. The sentence was immediately 
 executed, and Bonaparte had the tomb of the last of the Condes dug in 
 the moat of Vincennes.* All Bonaparte's glory has not served to 
 obliterate the remembrance of this bloody catastrophe, which was the 
 principal cause of the third general war. 
 
 * Europe, at once offended and emboldened, now looked with new eyes on France 
 and her chief. At the sound of the fusillade at Vincennes, Prussia, which was about 
 to form with France a formal alliance, drew back, and renounced an alliance which 
 could be no longer honourable. Austria, more calculating, profited by the occasion, by 
 no longer observing any reserve in the execution of the recez of 1803. The young 
 Emperor of Russia, honest and full of honour, alone dared, as a guarantor of the Ger- 
 manic Constitution, to demand an explanation of the violation of the Baden territory. 
 Napoleon replied by an offensive allusion to the death of Paul I. The Czar made no 
 rejoinder, but resolved to avenge this outrage. 
 
1799-1804.] DEATH OE PICHEGKRU. 329 
 
 Paris, France, and Europe were still deeply moved by so gross an 
 outrage, when the trial of Pichegru and Moreau commenced. . l f eon _ 
 The conqueror of Holland, faithless to his own renown, had s P u " ators » 1804 - 
 condescended to play the part of a conspirator : the proofs were over- 
 whelming, and he foresaw his fate. His brave soul, said Bonaparte him- 
 self, could not face the infamy of punishment. Pichegru, despairing of 
 pardon from the First Consul, or disdaining it, strangled _ b f 
 himself in prison. Georges Cadoudal bore a brave front in Pichegru. 
 the presence of his judges, and astonished them by the energetic concise- 
 ness of his replies. " Where did he lodge ?" M Nowhere." " What was 
 his object in coming to Paris ?" " To attack Bonaparte." " By what 
 means ?" " By open force." " With the dagger ?" " No ; with a force 
 equal to the Consul's escort." But he who attracted the attention of all 
 was the victor of Hohenlinden. The illustrious Moreau, either through 
 jealousy or through ambition, had lent his ear to the conspirators. He 
 nattered himself that he would succeed the First Consul, and, if he had 
 conspired, he had done it for himself, and not for the Bourbons. He con- 
 fessed that he had known the conspirators ; but honour, he said, did not 
 permit him to name them, and he displayed before the tribunal the 
 strength of mind which had never failed him on the field of battle. Bona- 
 parte, there can be no doubt, desired that he should be condemned to 
 capital punishment, that he might afterwards overwhelm him with his 
 clemency ; and a hint was given to the judges that they might safely 
 aggravate the sentence without risk to the accused, as the First Consul 
 intended to pardon him. " And who will pardon us ?" answered one of 
 the judges. This fine rejoinder was made by the learned Clavier. 
 Moreau was condemned to two years' imprisonment, which Bonaparte 
 commuted to exile to the United States. Out of forty-seven persons tried, 
 seventeen were condemned to death, and amongst these were Georges 
 Cadoudal, Charles de Riviere, and Armand de Polignac. The punish- 
 ment of the two latter was commuted ; but the first died, as he had lived, 
 without giving a sign of weakness. 
 
 The war against Great Britain and Pichegru's conspiracy assisted 
 Bonaparte to raise himself from the Consulate to the Imperial Crown ; 
 but first of all he added to the powers of the Senate, which had already 
 been so greatly extended. This body was but a docile instrument in his 
 
330 EOUNDATIOtf OF THE EMPIEE. [BOOK III. CHAP, ll 
 
 hands, and all the authority which it gained in appearance was in reality 
 , , , . an addition to the power of the First Consul. At this. 
 
 Laudable acts r 
 
 oflheConsuiar 8 P er i 0( i, however, as at the commencement of his power, 
 Government. Bonaparte made every effort to lighten his yoke by doing 
 all he could to supply the necessities and forward the interests of the 
 nation. He recompensed every useful discovery, every service, every 
 talent. His vast mind embraced at once the most various objects. On 
 the very day on which he bestowed pensions on some old workmen, 
 he established decennial prizes as encouragement for all the branches of 
 knowledge, for all the arts which embellish and enrich the nation. He 
 favoured as much as possible the system of vaccination, which had been 
 recently introduced into France by the worthy Duke of La Rochefoucauld- 
 Liancourt, one of the benefactors of humanity ; and there was scarcely 
 any branch of the civil or military administration in which his genius 
 did not develop some happy germ of amelioration. France opposed no 
 resistance to Bonaparte, because his personal ambition had long been 
 identified with the interest, the glory, and the prosperity of the nation ; 
 and he obtained the good will of his fellow-citizens as much by his 
 pacific achievements as by his military exploits. 
 
 When he had thus triumphed over all resistance, he caused the 
 Establishment of Senate to request him to govern the Republic under the 
 cinSSSioiTSf name of Napoleon Bonaparte, and with the title of heredi- 
 ditary Emperor. Carnot, faithful to the Republican cause, 
 vainly opposed in the Tribunate the wishes of most of his colleagues ; 
 and the empire was proclaimed on the 2nd Floreal, Year XTI. The Con- 
 stitution now underwent fresh modifications, and whilst the throne was 
 raised aloft, some guarantees were granted to the citizens in recompense 
 for the loss which many of them believed they had suffered of the 
 remains of public liberty by the fall of the Republican Government. 
 The Senate was constituted guardian of individual liberty, of the liberty 
 of that part of the press which was not periodical.* The freedom of 
 debate was restored to the Legislative Corps : in the secret committees 
 were six members who were authorized to discuss every proposed law. 
 At the same time the powers of the members of the Tribunate were pro- 
 
 * The guarantees which were thus given to these liberties would have been of value 
 at any other time, but they were absolutely worthless under a despotism universally 
 accepted. 
 
1^99-1804.] CORONATION OF BONAPAKTE. 331 
 
 longed from five to ten years ; but this latter body was divided into 
 three sections, and it was forbidden to debate in a general ffi . r rial 
 assembly. Finally, a High Imperial Court was created, Court * 
 with the object of adding as much to the safety of the Court as to that 
 of the Government. This Court was endowed with most of the judicial 
 attributes which were subsequently possessed by the Court of Peers, and 
 protected the Government against the authors of conspiracies, whilst it 
 protected the citizens against the Government officials. It consisted of 
 a hundred and twenty members, princes, great dignitaries, senators, 
 magistrates, and councillors of state. The new Constitution recognised 
 the Emperor's two brothers, Louis and Joseph, as French princes, and 
 capable of being his successors. Six great dignitaries were ; nitari 
 
 created; the Grand-Elector, the Arch- Chancellor of the of the Empire. 
 Empire, the Arch- Chancellor of State, the Arch- Treasurer, the Con- 
 stable, and the Grand- Admiral, who were empowered to represent the 
 Emperor in his absence, either in the Senate, the Councils, or the 
 armies, and formed with him the great Council of the Empire. Finally, 
 in case of failure of heirs to the Emperor, these dignitaries would have 
 the power of electing an Emperor ; and if the Sovereign were a minor, 
 would form the Council of Eegency. The brothers of Napoleon, Joseph 
 and Louis, were nominated respectively Grand-Elector and Constable. 
 The posts of Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, and of Arch-Treasurer, 
 were given to the second and third Consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrun. 
 Beneath these six great dignitaries were fifty grand officers, partly civil 
 and partly military, at the head of whom were eighteen 
 
 Marshals. 
 
 Marshals of the Empire, who were Berthier, Murat, Moncey, 
 
 Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Broune, Lannes, 
 
 Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessieres, Kellerman, Lefebvre, Perignon, and 
 
 Serrurier. 
 
 Napoleon desired that his reign should be sanctioned as well by the 
 clergy as the people, and he obtained the approval of each. 
 The new Emperor was accepted by an immense majority pJPJ^Jjfcfer 
 of the French people, and at his earnest request Pope Pius Dec ' 1804, 
 VII. went to Paris to bestow upon his unheard-of success the seal of 
 religious consecration. On the 2nd of December, 1804, in the Church 
 of Notre Dame, Napoleon, accompanied by his wife, and surrounded by 
 the great bodies of the State and the great dignitaries of the Church, was 
 
332 PROTEST OP LOUIS XVIII. [BOOK III. CHAP. I. 
 
 consecrated Emperor of the French by the Sovereign Pontiff; but 
 instead of receiving the crown from the Pope's hands, he took it from the 
 altar himself and placed it on his own head, whilst he pronounced this 
 solemn oath : — " I swear to maintain intact the territory of the Republic ; 
 to respect and to enforce respect for the laws of the Concordat and the 
 liberty of worship ; to respect and to enforce respect for the equality 
 of rights, political and civil liberty, and the irrevocability of sales of the 
 national property ; to levy no tax or duty save in accordance with the 
 law ; to maintain the Order of the Legion of Honour, and to govern 
 solely with a view to the interests, the happiness, and the glory of the 
 French people." 
 
 Whilst a new prince was erecting, as he thought, an imperishable 
 P t t d tb * nrone f° r n ^ s dynasty, a fugitive prince, heir to the ancient 
 theHotsfof kings, neglected by the sovereigns of Europe, and forgotten 
 Bourbon. by the servants of his house, protested, in the face of Heaven 
 
 and the world, against the decrees of fortune. The following is the oath 
 which was at this time pronounced in an obscure town of Sweden by him 
 who was subsequently to reign by the name of Louis XVIII. : — "In the 
 bosom of the Baltic, in the face and under the protection of Heaven, 
 strong in the presence of our brother and that of the Duke d'Angou- 
 leme our nephew, and in the assent of the other princes of our blood, 
 bringing to witness the royal victims and those whom fidelity, honour, 
 piety, innocence, patriotism, and self-devotion have rendered victims to 
 revolutionary madness or the jealousy of tyrants; invoking the manes of 
 the young hero whom impious hands have torn from his country and 
 from glory ; offering to our people, as a pledge of reconciliation, the 
 consoling angel to whom Providence, for the purpose of giving us a great 
 example, has thought proper to assign fresh adversities by bearing 
 her to chains and the scaffold : We swear, Frenchmen, that we will never 
 break the sacred knot which inseparably unites our destinies with your 
 own, which allies us to your families, your hearts, and your consciences. 
 We will never resign the heritage of our fathers, never abandon our 
 rights. Frenchmen, we call upon the Judge of judges, the God of St. 
 Louis, to witness this oath." 
 
 This oath of a soul truly loyal was at the time scarcely heard, and the 
 feeble echo which it excited in France expired in the midst of the noisy 
 pomp of the coronation and of a thousand adulatory shouts. Not only 
 
 
1799-1804.] POLICY OP NAPOLEON. 333 
 
 was the throne, which had been empty for twelve years, now filled, but 
 he who occupied it desired that the interval which separated the new 
 times from the old monarchy should be apparently annihilated. He de- 
 sired to resuscitate in France the old customs of the other Courts of 
 Europe. He surrounded himself with pomp, with chamberlains and 
 pages. But whilst endeavouring to revivify around the throne the forms 
 of the ancient regime and to suspend the public liberties, he respected the 
 genuine results of the Revolution ; which were, the division of property, 
 the equal payment of taxes by all classes, the equality of all in the eyes of 
 the law, the equal right of all to fill public offices, the freedom of public wor- 
 ship and the separation of the civil state from the clergy. He also enforced 
 in several States which he had subdued, the recognition of many of the 
 principles which are the basis on which rest at the present day our political 
 constitutions, and from which will eventually spring the liberal institu- 
 tions of the French people, at a period when it will no longer be possible 
 to impose despotism upon it in the name of glory. 
 
COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES. [BOOK III Chap. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROM THE ACCESSION OF NAPOLEON TO THE THRONE TO THE SEIZURE OF 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 1804-1808. 
 
 ■If Napoleon after the peace of Amiens had preferred the interests of 
 France to his own ambition, he would have been able to secure the fruits 
 of twelve years of anarchy and war, and to become the moderator of 
 Europe ; but he preferred to be its master, and keeping his eyes fixed on 
 the great image of Charlemagne, believed that he was called to the same 
 destinies. He first of all desired to add to the title of the Emperor of the 
 French that of the King of Italy, and the representatives of the Italian 
 republic decided that that country should be made a separate kingdom. 
 Napoleon immediately repaired to Milan, and girding his brows with the 
 iron crown of the Lombard Kings, declared that he only temporarily 
 added it to his own, and appointed Eugene de Beauharnais, his stepson, 
 Viceroy of Italy. The establishment of this kingdom, the sudden and 
 violent annexation of the city of Genoa and the principality of Lucca to 
 the empire, at the moment when he solemnly protested against having 
 any design of adding to the French territories, together with the immense 
 exertions of the English Government, now again directed by Pitt — all 
 these things aroused Austria, revealed the intensity of the indignation 
 Tbi d lit" excited in Europe by the death of the Duke d'Enghien, and 
 1804, resulted in the formation of a third coalition against France 
 
 by England, Austria, and Russia. Bavaria made common cause with 
 France ; Prussia remained neutral ; and Spain also was unwilling to join 
 the enemies of France. England declared that the latter power had 
 committed an infraction of its neutrality by affording a refuge to some 
 French vessels blockaded in the ports of Ferrol and Cadiz, and demanded 
 that the Spanish Government should expel them. Upon its refusing to 
 do so, England declared war against it, and commenced 
 
 Commencement 
 
 of hostilities. hostilities by the capture of the rich galleons laden with 
 
1804-1808.] PROPOSED INVASION OF ENGLAND. 335 
 
 the piastres of Mexico. It thus drove Spain into an alliance with 
 France, and the union of the Spanish fleet with that of France 
 increased the Emperor's confidence in the success of a descent upon 
 England. 
 
 Napoleon had caused the formation of the new coalition not only by- 
 exciting an universal sentiment of horror by the seizure and execution of 
 the Duke d'Enghien, but more especially by the rash usurpation of the 
 crown of Italy and the violent annexation of Genoa and Lucca to his 
 empire, at the time when he meditated the execution of his gigantic en- 
 terprise against England. He again proceeded with this „ f 
 object to the camp of Boulogne, and completed his for- Boul °g ne > 1803 - 
 midable preparations. He had assembled on this coast a hundred thou- 
 sand of the best infantry in Europe, fifteen thousand cavalry, and fifty 
 thousand sailors ; two thousand light boats had been constructed and 
 armed with an enormous quantity of cannon, for the pur- _. „. 
 
 * J r Plan of invasion 
 
 pose of conveying the army of invasion across the Channel of En g land ' 
 and landing it on the opposite coast. But an English fleet defended the 
 passage, and several of its divisions blockaded our squadrons in the 
 ports of Brest and Ferrol. A second English fleet, under Nelson, cruised 
 in the Mediterranean, and watched the French fleet shut up in the port 
 of Toulon. For the flotilla to attempt the passage without the certainty 
 of incurring some disaster, it was indispensable that it should do so under 
 the protection of a French fleet ; but that at Brest, commanded by Ad- 
 miral Ganteaume, was blockaded by the English, and too weak to defend 
 the passage by itself. Napoleon conceived the idea of transferring to the 
 Channel the fleet of Toulon, which a favourable wind might then enable 
 that of Brest to join. The first was ordered, after it should have passed 
 the straits of Gibraltar, to rally the French and Spanish vessels shut up 
 in the port of Cadiz, and then to sail towards Martinique, so as to deceive 
 the enemy as to its real direction. It was then to await the arrival of the fleet 
 of Admiral Ganteaume, return with it to Europe, raise the blockade of 
 Ferrol and the coast of Spain, and finally return to the Channel, where 
 the united fleets, consisting of sixty vessels, would be superior to that of 
 the English. Napoleon believed that this plan would render him master 
 of the Channel for four-and-twenty hours, which would be sufficient time 
 to enable him to land his army on the opposite coast, when England 
 would be already conquered. 
 
336 THE TRENCH FLEET UNDEE VILLENEUVE. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 This plan, whatever might have been its results, was a conception of 
 Extraordinary genius ; but an astonishing concurrence of circumstances, 
 circumstance? m which we may recognise the hand of Providence, made 
 faiiur/ofthe * ° i* ^ a ^- To carry it out required an admiral at once firm, 
 active, and bold, and Napoleon had found such a man in 
 La Touche-Treville, whom he intended to command the Toulon fleet and 
 to lead it into the Mediterranean. This admiral, however, died on the 
 eve of setting sail, as did also, soon afterwards, Admiral Brueys, to whom 
 was entrusted the direction of our operations in the Channel. By a 
 strange fatality La Touche-Treville was replaced by Admiral Villeneuve, 
 an honourable, scientific, and brave man, but devoid of the qualities most 
 indispensable for such an enterprise — coolness, resolution, and confidence 
 in himself. He was fortunate, however, in the execution of the first and 
 most difficult portion of his task ; for he escaped Nelson in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and joined Admiral Gravina and the Spanish squadron in Cadiz. 
 The combined fleets sailed to the Antilles, and after having waited in 
 vain for Admiral Ganteaume, sailed together to Europe, and fought a 
 glorious battle off Ferrol with the English fleet commanded by Admiral 
 Calder, after which they formed a junction with two fresh divisions, the 
 one French and the other Spanish. But at this point the good fortune of 
 Villeneuve left him, and he seemed to be struck by a species of stupor at the 
 moment which was the most important of all, and which had been so 
 eagerly expected by Napoleon. An unexpected, and indeed an unheard- 
 of circumstance had detained the fleet of Admiral Ganteaume at Brest ; he 
 had confidently expected that an equinoctial gale would have compelled 
 the English fleet to leave those waters, but the weather, for the first time 
 in the memory of man, was continually calm and fine. This being the 
 case, Villeneuve was ordered to sail to Brest, to raise the blockade of that 
 port and release the fleet there. Failing the success of this manoeuvre, 
 all those which had preceded it would be useless, and its success would 
 alone, in Napoleon's opinion, secure the success of his gigantic enterprise, 
 since it would give to the French, for some days at least, a superiority of 
 force in the Channel. " Sail with all your forces into the Channel," said 
 Napoleon to Villeneuve ; " engage the enemy, lose half your fleet if neces- 
 sary, and with the rest protect my passage." Villeneuve could not under- 
 stand that these orders were to be obeyed at any hazard ; and disquieted 
 by the bad state of the Spanish fleet, disturbed by the conviction that the 
 
1804-1808.] SECRET TREATIES. 337 
 
 French sailors were inferior from want of practice to the English, persuaded 
 that the enemy's squadrons were united in the Channel, and firmly 
 believing that the result of a battle was much more likely to be the destruc- 
 tion of the French navy than the conquest of England, he lost all confi- 
 dence, and instead of sailing towards Brest, and from thence to the 
 English Channel, he made for the high seas, and whilst the eager eye 
 of Napoleon longed to discover his fleet on the horizon, Villeneuve was 
 taking it to Cadiz. When informed of this fact, which frustrated the 
 most formidable, as well as ~ perhaps the rashest of his conceptions, the 
 anger of Napoleon was equal to his grief, and it burst forth against 
 Villeneuve in the most vehement and terrible expressions. No enterprise 
 had ever been planned with more complete care and on a more complete 
 scale, and in respect to none had destiny ever been pleased so completely 
 to baffle the vain projects of man. 
 
 It was in London that Napoleon had hoped to defeat the new coalition 
 of Russia and Austria subsidized by England, of which Prussia shortly 
 afterwards became a member by a secret treaty signed at secret treaty 
 Potsdam between Alexander and Frederick William;* andT^si^ 
 and now that the road to London was closed, it became 
 necessary to march against the Russians and Austrians. A hundred and 
 twenty thousand Austrians were marching in three corps Campaio . n of 
 under the Archdukes Ferdinand, John, and Charles towards 180 °- 
 the Rhine and the Adige, and two Russian armies were advancing to join 
 them. Napoleon, who was still at the camp of Boulogne, divined the 
 combined movements of the enemy; his genius suggested to him the 
 strategy necessary to enable him to vanquish them, and he immediately 
 dictated the plan of an immortal campaign. Within twenty days the French 
 armv passed from the edge of the ocean to the shores of the Rhine. Napo- 
 leon crossed that river in October, 1805, with a hundred and sixty thousand 
 men, divided into six corps, and advanced by the Alps and Suabia across 
 Germany. The Danube was crossed in its turn, and Napoleon's lieutenants 
 fought a series of glorious conflicts. Murat was victorious at Wertingen and 
 
 * By this treaty it was stipulated between the two sovereigns that Prussia should 
 offer in December her mediation to the two belligerent parties on conditions which it 
 was known that Napoleon would not accept, and that, if he did not accept this offer, 
 Prussia should join the Allied Powers, alleging as an excuse the violation of her terri- 
 tory by the French army. The able Prussian minister set out with regret with these 
 instructions for Napoleon's head-quarters. 
 
 VOL. II. Z 
 
338 THE EEENCH ENTEE VIENNA. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 at Giinzburg; General Dupont, subsequently so unfortunate, with 
 five thousand men vanquished twenty-five thousand Austrians at 
 the battle of Hasslach, and made five thousand prisoners ; Ney 
 was victorious at Elchingen, and the Austrian army under General 
 Mack was driven back to the city of Ulm, which Napoleon in- 
 Capitulation of vested, and where, on the 20th October, Mack capitu- 
 IJlm ' lated with three thousand men. This capitulation 
 
 opened to Napoleon the road to Vienna, which was occupied by forces 
 too inferior long to hold him in check. Another Austrian army, however, 
 then occupied Lombardy, and might attack the French with success by in- 
 tercepting them on their road to the capital. Prince Charles had in front 
 Battle of °^ n ^ m Massena, who, to stop him, fought the bloody 
 Caidiero. battle of Caldiero. The victory was doubtful, but the Arch- 
 duke was checked, compelled to fall back southwards, and could no 
 longer hope to arrest Napoleon's hasty march upon Vienna. The 
 Grand Army, after the surrender of Ulm, passed across Bavaria, passed 
 the Inn and the Tann, driving before it the feeble 
 
 Entry of the . 
 
 French into Austrian corps which opposed it, and at length, after 
 
 Vienna. 
 
 having taken the bridges of the Danube, made its en- 
 trance into Vienna. 
 
 The Russians now entered Moravia, where they rallied the ranks of 
 the Austrian army. Napoleon marched towards them and encountered 
 them in the environs of Brunn, on the plain of Austerlitz, where he 
 awaited a new triumph. On the 1st December he formed his line of 
 battle between Austerlitz and Brunn ; resting his right on the lake of 
 Menitz, and his left on the mountains between the basins of the Schwartza 
 and the Marche. In front of this line is the Santon Hill, and from this 
 Napoleon watched all the movements of his army. The Russians and 
 Austrians debouched by Wischnaw and posted themselves between the 
 French line and the village of Austerlitz. Napoleon rejoiced to see them 
 strip their right which crowned the mountains, and concentrate all their 
 strength on the left, so as to cover the plain and overlap his right flank. 
 He had made every preparation for crushing them should they abandon 
 the heights on which each of the two armies rested one of its wings, and 
 when he saw their first movements towards the left he cried, " Before to- 
 morrow evening that army will be at my mercy !" Towards nightfall the 
 Emperor visited, without being announced, the bivouacs of his soldiers ; 
 
1804-1808.] THE BATTLE OF AUSTEKLITZ. 339 
 
 they recognised him, and saluted him with acclamation. The whole line 
 sparkled with fires, for his troops were celebrating the anniversary of his 
 coronation, and that great day brought with it a presage of victory. 
 Napoleon returned to his tent and made his final arrangements for the 
 morrow. "Bernadotte will command the centre, and Soult the right; 
 where must be made the decisive effort ; Lannes will defend the left and 
 the strong position of Santon, armed with a battery of sixteen guns ; 
 and finally, Davoust will hold in check the enemy's left wing. All the 
 cavalry is under the orders of Murat ; and twenty of the best battalions 
 will form the reserve." 
 
 On the 2nd of December, 1805, at the moment when the sun was 
 rising upon this famous plain, on which three hundred B , f 
 thousand men were about to enter upon a death struggle, lltz - 
 and on which was to be decided the fate of the Austrian monarchy, 
 Napoleon passed along the front of his regiments, and said — " Soldiers ! 
 We must finish this campaign with a thunderclap !" Enthusiastic shouts 
 replied to him, and the battle commenced. The enemy, still resolved to 
 turn the right of the French army, abandoned, in the centre of their new 
 line, the heights of Pratzen. Soult received orders to occupy them, and 
 immediately carried them. Kutusoff, the general of the Eussian army, 
 immediately perceived his error, and endeavoured to repair it, but all his 
 efforts were fruitless, and the French continued to occupy these heights, 
 which divided the enemy's line, whilst Davoust held him in check on the 
 right on the plain, and Murat, Lannes, and Bernadotte carried his prin- 
 cipal positions on the left. But now the cavalry of the Eussian Imperial 
 Guard rushed upon the field of battle, dispersed many of the bravest of 
 the French battalions, and turned the tide of conquest. Napoleon saw 
 the danger, and sent forward Eapp at the head of the cavalry of his 
 guard. After a terrible shock the Eussians were broken and dispersed, 
 and Eapp, with a broken sabre and a horse covered with blood, galloped 
 back to report his victory. The* rest of the enemy's army was driven 
 back upon the lake on to a fhp, and surrounded by a circle of fire. 
 Crushed by case-shot they attempted to escape over the ice, which broke 
 beneath them, and engulfed them. Fifteen thousand Austrians and 
 Eussians perished, twenty thousand were taken prisoners, and forty 
 flags with two hundred pieces of cannon were the trophies of this memo- 
 rable victory. 
 
 z2 
 
340 BATTLE OF TBAIALGAB. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 Triumphant on the Continent, France suffered terrible disasters at 
 Battle of Tra- sea - Her fleet, united with the Spanish fleet under the 
 command of Admiral Villeneuve, after having been beaten 
 at Cape Finisterre, lost, on the 21st of October, the celebrated battle of 
 Trafalgar. Thirty-three French and Spanish ships and seven frigates, 
 were beaten by twenty-seven English ships of the line and four frigates ; 
 and thirteen vessels only of the combined fleets escaped. This great 
 victory, which cost the life of the English Admiral, secured to England 
 the sovereignty of the seas, and Napoleon no longer attempted to 
 vanquish her on that element. 
 
 The victory of the English at Trafalgar was productive of the most 
 serious consequences to the Court of Naples, which was under the control 
 of the violent and vindictive Queen Caroline, the wife, of Ferdinand I. This 
 Court, intimidated by Napoleon, had recently bound itself by treaty to 
 neutrality ; but before it could learn the news either of the battle of 
 Austerlitz, or of the capitulation of Ulm, it received information, unfor- 
 tunately for itself, that Prussia was about to join the coalition, and that 
 the French fleet had been destroyed at Trafalgar. It concluded from 
 this that Napoleon was lost, and immediately received into the kingdom 
 twelve thousand English and six thousand Russians, with whom were 
 joined forty thousand Neapolitans, for the purpose of exciting Italy to 
 revolt in the rear of the French army in Austria. This provocative and 
 rash conduct caused the fall of the Bourbons of Naples, who were aban- 
 doned by Prussia, by Russia, and by Austria in the negotiations for peace 
 which the Emperor Francis went in person to demand of his vanquisher 
 after the battle of Austerlitz. 
 
 Napoleon granted an armistice to the Austrians and Russians, and first 
 of all negotiated peace with Prussia. He had received information of the 
 treaty concluded by that power with Alexander at the commencement of 
 the campaign, and to punish it by embroiling it with England, he 
 Treaty of Schon- resolved to humiliate its pride by forcing it to accept part 
 /ranee and een °f the spoils of its old ally. Thus, on the 14th December, 
 1805, was signed at Schonbrunn an alliance offensive and 
 defensive, by which France, regarding Hanover as its conquest, ceded it 
 to Prussia in exchange for the Duchy of Cleves, the Principality of 
 Neufchatel, and the Marquisate of Anspach, which Napoleon soon 
 exchanged with Bavaria for the Duchy of Berg. 
 
1804-1808.] NAPOLEON EETUENS TO PAEIS. 341 
 
 Ten days later, the 25th December, Napoleon forced on the Emperor 
 Joseph the hard treaty of Presburg, by which Austria lost peace Preg 
 Venetia, Frinli, Istria, Damiatia, territories in which were prance^n!* 11 
 comprehended Trieste and the mouths of the Cattaro, Austria > 1805 - 
 so important for navigation and commerce. It was stipulated that all 
 these States should be annexed to the kingdom of Italy, of which Napo- 
 leon wore the crown, and which was to be subsequently separated from 
 the Crown of France ; but no period for this separation was fixed. 
 
 Austria ceded the Tyrol to Bavaria, and received in exchange, for the 
 Archduke Ferdinand, the ecclesiastical principality of Wurzburg. It ob- 
 tained also for the advantage of another Grand-Duke the secularization of 
 the profits of the Teutonic Order, valued at one hundred and 
 
 „ ,, , -in- n r> Tlie Electorates 
 
 iifty thousand florins a year. The two electorates of Bavaria of Bavaria and 
 
 Wurtemburg 
 
 and Wurtemburer were raised to the rank of kingdoms, and erected into 
 
 ° _ ° kingdoms, 1805. 
 
 the Emperor Francis gave up to the Sovereigns of these States 
 and to the Grand-Duke of Baden the ancient rights of the Germanic Empire 
 over the nobility contiguous to their territories. Finally, Austria had to 
 pay for the expenses of the war a contribution of a hundred millions, 
 which was subsequently reduced to one half. 
 
 The treaty of Presburg, so glorious in many respects for France, was 
 nevertheless, as were most of the treaties signed by Napoleon, only a 
 pause in the war. It was impossible that the state of things which he had 
 created upon the Continent should ever be regarded as final by Prussia, 
 which was far more humiliated than gratified at having received Hanover 
 in exchange for one of its own provinces ; by Austria, which it exaspe- 
 rated by forcing it to make immense sacrifices ; or finally, by England, 
 which, as well as Eussia, remained armed, and which had lost in Hanover 
 the patrimony of its kings. Napoleon believed himself at this time to be 
 the master of Europe, and as he saw no limit to his power, he set none to 
 his ambition. 
 
 On returning to Paris after a brilliant campaign of three months' dura- 
 tion, Napoleon excited there universal enthusiasm. Intoxicated with his 
 good fortune, he now set to work to remove the last vestige of ■ the Revo- 
 lutionary institutions. The Republican Calendar was replaced by the 
 Gregorian Calendar, which was endowed with a new saint by a decree 
 which ordered that on the 15th of August the fete of Saint Napoleon 
 should be celebrated throughout the empire. Another decree directed 
 
342 REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS DESTROYED. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 that the Basilica of St. Denis should bethe burial-place of the Emperors ; 
 whilst the Pantheon was restored to the Catholic worship, and the Tribu- 
 nate ceased to exist. Napoleon, who had created by the peace of Presburg 
 the kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemburg, declared that 
 claims the down- the House of Naples had lost its crown as punishment for 
 
 fall of the Bour- . 
 
 bons in Naples, the part it had taken in the late coalition, and transferred 
 
 He crowns his 
 
 brothers. the Neapolitan sceptre to his brother Joseph. He made the 
 
 Joseph is made x r A *■ 
 
 King of Naples, republic of the United Provinces a kino;dom for his brother 
 
 and Louis King x ° 
 
 i806 Olland ' Louis, and made Prince Murat, his brother-in-law, Grand- 
 
 Duke of Cleves and Berg. Only one republic now remained 
 of all those which, in the time of the Directory, had surrounded France ; 
 and this was Switzerland, of which Napoleon declared himself the 
 Mediator. He endeavoured to establish the military hierarchic regime 
 Great fiefa of °^ ^ eu ^ a l times, and transformed various provinces and 
 the Empire. principalities into grand fiefs of the empire, which he be- 
 stowed as rewards upon his ministers and most illustrious generals. In 
 this way were erected into duchies — Dalmatia, Istria, Friuli, Cadore, 
 Belluno, Conegliano, Treviso, Feltre, Bassano, Vicenza, Padua, Rovigo ; 
 whilst Neufchatel, Benevento, and G-uastalla were made principalities. 
 Two years later Napoleon struck the final blow at Republican institutions 
 „ , ... by creating a new series of hereditary nobility, in which 
 
 New hereditary J ° J J 1 
 
 nobility. those who were illustrious of old took rank for the most 
 
 part after the celebrities of the day. This was setting himself up as the 
 principle and source of a new social order, which was, nevertheless, 
 clothed with ancient forms ; no account being taken of the consecration 
 which illustrious names have received from time and history. But at 
 that time there was no such thing as censure, for all liberty of the press 
 was stifled ; Napoleon had only his flatterers to fear, and as his faults 
 were covered with laurels they were pardoned. 
 
 Great works were executed or commenced at this period, during which 
 the Emperor also made some important additions to, and useful changes 
 in, the various branches of the general administration and public service. 
 He gave a new organization to the bank and the treasury ; he modified 
 the duties of the Council of State, and rendered it more complete by the 
 useful addition of the masters of requests. He established, 
 
 Foundation of . , v . . , * , , 
 
 the imperial under the name of the Imperial University, a body en- 
 
 University. . , 
 
 trusted with the superintendence of public instruction 
 
1804-1808.] NEW CIVIL CODE. 343 
 
 throughout the empire ; finally, he caused the legislative power to intro- 
 duce a code of civil procedure replete with excellent New code of 
 arrangements, in accordance with the simplification of the cml P rocedure - 
 law and with the new form of the tribunals. 
 
 In the year 1806 everything seemed to meet the Emperor's wishes. 
 Pitt, his irreconcilable enemy, was dead, and Fox, the leader of the 
 parliamentary opposition, had succeeded him. Pacific negotiations were 
 immediately commenced between the two powers, and actively pursued 
 by the minister Talleyrand. But pride had already blinded Napoleon, 
 and he was resolved to complete the ruin of the Bourbons, who, although 
 driven from the Continent, still reigned in Sicily. He demanded that 
 that island should be annexed to his brother's State, and to induce 
 England not to oppose this fresh conquest, he offered in exchange the 
 restoration of Hanover, which had already been ceded to Prussia. This 
 demand, which nothing could justify, was too much opposed to the 
 honour and the commercial interests of England to be accepted. Fox 
 himself, in spite of his inclination for peace, could not depend, if he 
 signed it at such a price, upon the support of Parliament, and the nego- 
 tiations were broken off. 
 
 In the meantime Napoleon, pursuing his project of obtaining unlimited 
 rule in Europe, completed the organization of his military empire by ren- 
 dering the old Germanic confederation dependent on him. On the 12th 
 of July, 1806, fourteen princes of the south and the west of Confederation of 
 Germany formed the Confederation of the Rhine, and recog- the Ehlne » 1806 - 
 nised Napoleon as their protector. The Act of Confederation established 
 that there should be between the French empire and the Confederated 
 States an alliance by virtue of which either of the contracting parties 
 which might have to engage in a continental war was to be supported by 
 the other ; and it conferred upon the princes who signed it rights of 
 sovereignty over the multitude of princes and counts supported by the 
 German territory, and who, as members of the noblesse immediate, had 
 formerly only been subservient to the Emperor or Germany. This con- 
 federation enfeebled Prussia and Austria as much as it added -apparently 
 to the power of Napoleon. He thought that he should strengthen his 
 empire by covering it on the right bank of the Rhine with a circle of 
 states, the chiefs of which would be so much the more devoted to his 
 interests that he alone could guarantee the continued possession of that 
 
344 THE EOTJKTH COALITION. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 which he alone had given, and he forgot that he deeply wounded and 
 excited against him the national feeling of their peoples, who were Ger- 
 mans at heart, by forcing them, in spite of themselves, to join a con- 
 federation which was wholly French. The Emperor Francis II. was, 
 amongst the sovereigns of Germany, the one whose rights were most 
 infringed upon by the formation of the Confederation of the Ehine, but 
 he was too weak to make any opposition to it, and, submitting to the 
 decree which had been declared at Austerlitz, he abdicated 
 
 Fall of the Ger- ' 
 
 man Empire, the title of Emperor of Germany, and retained only, under 
 the name of Francis L, the title of Emperor of Austria, 
 which he had assumed in 1804, and thus ended the Germanic Em- 
 pire, after it had existed for a thousand years. Napoleon now saw the 
 fairest portion of Europe either incorporated with France or its vassal. 
 He believed that he had realized his dream, and was, in his own eyes, 
 the Emperor of the West, and the genuine successor to Charlemagne. 
 
 In the meantime the King of Prussia, Frederick William — greatly irri- 
 tated against Napoleon, who, after having guaranteed him the possession 
 of Hanover, had offered it to England, and moreover, with good reason, 
 alarmed at the encroachments of France and its ever-increasing influence 
 
 in Europe — had resolved to form in Germany a Con- 
 Confederation of 
 the States of the federation of the States of the North, in opposition to the 
 
 North. _ _ ' rr 
 
 Confederation of the Rhine, and he sent an ultimatum to 
 the Emperor in which he demanded, as a first condition of the main- 
 tenance of peace, the retreat of all the French troops in Germany to the 
 further side of the Ehine. Napoleon, indignant at a coalition which he 
 regarded as an insult, would not allow Saxony and the Hanseatic towns to 
 join the Northern League, and rejected the Prussian ultimatum, upon 
 which Frederick William determined upon war. This prince invaded 
 Saxony ; the French ambassador was insulted in Berlin, and the young 
 and beautiful Queen of Prussia rode through the streets of that city in 
 military costume, to excite the warlike enthusiasm of the populace. 
 " She resembles," said Napoleon in reference to her, " Armide setting 
 The fourth ^ re to ^~ eT P a ^ ace -" These words were prophetic, for 
 
 coalition, 1806. France was destined to crush this fourth coalition, which 
 was formed by Eussia, Prussia, Sweden, and England. The death of 
 Fox, which occurred soon after that of Pitt, had destroyed all hope of 
 reconciliation between the latter power and France. 
 
1804-1808.] TKESH CAMPAIGN IN GKEEMANY. 345 
 
 Napoleon entered upon the campaign on the 28th of September, at the 
 head of a hundred and ninety thousand men, and marched to meet the 
 Prussian army, which had already invaded Saxony, and which, including 
 twenty thousand Saxon troops which had joined it, consisted of a hundred 
 and twenty thousand soldiers, who considered themselves invincible, as 
 being the heirs of the tactics and the glory of the Great Frederick. Its 
 Commander-in-Chief was the old Duke of Brunswick, who had been cele- 
 brated in the Seven Years' War, but a great number of the troops were 
 under the immediate command of the young Prince of Hohenlohe, whom 
 the King had rendered almost independent of the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 Napoleon manoeuvred with extreme celerity so as to surround the 
 enemy, cut off his communications, and close against him his „ . „ 
 
 J 1 ' ° Campaign oi 
 
 line of retreat. The enemy was successively driven back 18U8, 
 to Schleitz and to Saalfeld. The last of these two conflicts cost the life 
 of the young Prince Louis of Prussia, one of the most eager instigators 
 of this war, which was so disastrous for his country. A feAV days 
 afterwards the French army, as it was preparing to cross the Saale at 
 three points, encountered at Jena a great portion of the Prussian army 
 under Prince Hohenlohe, whom Brunswick had ordered to avoid a 
 general action, and to retreat upon the Elbe. It was too late to obey 
 this order ; Napoleon ordered the attack and a general 
 engagement ensued. His victory was as complete as it was and Averstadc - 
 rapid ; the Prussians lost in a few hours twelve thousand men killed or 
 wounded, fifteen thousand prisoners, a multitude of flags, and two 
 hundred pieces of cannon. On the same day, four hours later, Marshal 
 Davoust, who occupied a strong position at Averstadt, had to sustain, 
 with twenty-five thousand men and a few batteries, the assault of sixty 
 thousand Prussians commanded by Brunswick. He made an heroic 
 defence, beat off the enemy, took almost all his artillery, and put ten 
 thousand men hors de combat. These two great battles decided the cam- 
 paign. A portion of the victorious army marched rapidly upon Erfurt, 
 which capitulated ; and a reserve corps of the enemy, under the Prince 
 of Wurtemberg, was surprised and completely vanquished at -Halle by 
 General Dupont. The disorganization of the Prussian army was already 
 complete ; its various corps marched as though at hazard and in different 
 directions, under their several generals, the Duke of Weimar, Blucher, 
 and Kalkreuth. The King, after the battle of Averstadt, in which the 
 
346 COMPLETE CONQUEST OF PBTJSSIA. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 Duke of Brunswick was mortally wounded, had bestowed the chief com- 
 mand upon the Prince of Hohenlohe, but the latter had seen his troops 
 dispersed or destroyed, and with the force that remained proceeded to 
 Magdeburg. 
 
 Nothing now prevented Napoleon from marching victoriously onward. 
 
 He occupied in succession Leipzig, Wittemberg, and 
 
 leon into Berlin, Dessau ; crossed the Elbe at three points, and on the 28th 
 
 Oct., 1806. 
 
 of October, 1806, at the head of an army, and accom- 
 panied by Marshals Berthier, Duroc, Augereau, and Davoust, entered 
 Berlin in triumph.* The line of the Oder was promptly 
 
 Conquest of all r _ x x J 
 
 Southern and occupied. Murat with his cavalry, Soult, Lannes, and 
 
 WesternPrussia. x ^ ' / 
 
 Bernadotte, with their invincible infantry, completed the 
 conquest of Western and Southern Prussia as far, as the shores of the 
 Baltic. The Prince of Hohenlohe capitulated, and surrendered with 
 sixteen thousand men at Prenzlow. Blucher fled for refuge into the free 
 town of Lubeck, which was carried by assault, and surrendered to Murat 
 with his corps. The fortresses of Stettin, Custrin, and Magdeburg opened 
 their gates to the French troops. What remained of the great Prussian 
 army was taken, together with an immense materiel of war ; and of the 
 hundred and sixty thousand men who formed that army at the com- 
 mencement of the war, not one repassed the Oder. The unfortunate 
 Frederick William retreated to Konigsberg, where he concentrated his last 
 reserves, and the despotic and military monarchy of Frederick the Great 
 appeared to have been within a month almost annihilated. 
 
 Napoleon, everywhere victorious, traversed the field of the battle of 
 Eosbach, where his presence effaced the affront to which the French 
 arms had been subjected in the last century. He visited at Potsdam 
 the tomb of Frederick the Great, and took possession of his glorious 
 
 * Napoleon respected the city of Berlin, and showed the greatest regard for the 
 inhabitants of that city, which he honoured by a great act of clemency. He left the 
 municipal authority in the hands of the Prussian magistrates, at the head of whom was 
 the Prince of Hazfeld, the civil governor of Berlin. The latter wrote to Blucher some 
 information with respect to the situation of the French troops. His letter was inter- 
 cepted, and the prince, by Napoleon's orders, was tried by a court-martial as a spy and 
 a traitor. His execution appeared certain, when his wife, the Princess of Hazfeld, 
 threw herself at the Emperor's feet. "Do you recognise your husband's handwrit- 
 ing ? " said the Emperor, showing her his letter. She remained silent, and seemed 
 overwhelmed with despair. " Throw the letter into the fire," said the Emperor, hand- 
 ing it to her, " and the court-martial will be compelled to acquit him." 
 
1804-1808.] THE CONTINENTAL BLOCKADE. 347 
 
 sword. He then used the rights conferred upon him by victory, and 
 disposed of crowns by his decrees. The Elector of Hesse before the war 
 had refused to disarm at his demand, and, without openly declaring 
 against Napoleon, had only awaited until some reverse should overtake 
 the Imperial arms to unite his troops with those of Prussia; and Napo- 
 leon now punished him by depriving him of his States. The Elector of 
 Saxony, an estimable Prince, whose States were to a certain extent 
 dependent on Prussia, had been compelled to follow the fortunes of that 
 monarchy. It was with regret that he had taken up arms against 
 France, and after the war he became a member of the Con- „ , , 
 
 ' Saxony created 
 
 federation of the Ehine. The Emperor declared his States a MD g dom ' 
 independent of Prussia, and raised them to the rank of a kingdom. 
 
 Victorious, however, as he was on the Continent, his victories could 
 have no durable result until England should be forced to make peace. 
 That power would have accepted it if Napoleon had been willing to im- 
 pose some sacrifices on himself or the members of his family, and give up 
 those territories which, without bestowing any real advantages on France, 
 were in his hands a perpetual source of humiliation to the sovereigns of 
 Europe. But Napoleon preferred to have recourse to a fresh despotism, 
 to an unheard-of plan, to force England to submit. On the 21st Novem- 
 ber, 1806, there appeared at Berlin the famous decree for 
 
 Decree of the 
 
 the blockade of the British isles. This decree stated the Continental 
 
 blockade, 1806. 
 
 violations of the law of nations committed by England, 
 the abuse of the right of conquest committed by her on the seas in 
 respect to ships of commerce, and her abuse of the law of blockade, in 
 preventing at her will international maritime communications. It then 
 proceeded to declare the British isles themselves in a state of blockade ; 
 interdicted any commerce or communication with them ; and ordered the 
 seizure of all English persons and English merchandize which should be 
 found on the territories of France, or on those of her allies. Every 
 nation which did not submit to the system set forth in this decree was 
 declared by it to be an enemy of France. Thus was established the 
 Continental System, so called because the obligations which Reflections n 
 it imposed must affect the whole Continent. It was in- 
 jurious to the interests of every nation, and was pregnant with one great 
 evil which Napoleon failed to take sufficiently into account. To attempt, 
 in fact, to prevent the merchandize of England from entering any Euro- 
 
348 THE FRENCH ENTEE, POLAND. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 pean port, was to compel the English, in self-defence, to close the seas of 
 which they were the masters against the vessels of every nation. This 
 was, in its turn, to inflict the greatest misery upon the populations of the 
 north and the south, to whom commerce with England was a vital neces- 
 sity, and to sow the seeds of an obstinate resistance and implacable hatred. 
 This system doubtless inflicted immense loss upon England, and forced 
 upon her expenses which prodigiously increased her already enormous 
 debt ; but it did not place that power at her rival's discretion, as Napoleon 
 had hoped, but led her, on the contrary, to adopt a series of violent and 
 gigantic measures which precipitated his fall. 
 
 Frederick William, although vanquished and almost entirely dispossessed, 
 had not lost all hope. Pie had collected, between Thorn and Konigsberg, 
 under General Lestocq, about thirty thousand men, his last resource, 
 and Eussian troops under old General Kraminski advanced to his aid 
 across Poland. Divided into two corps under Generals Benningzen and 
 Buntofden, they approached the Vistula, and w r ould have attacked the 
 French in concert with the Prussians if they had not been prevented by 
 their rapid movements. Victorious on the fields of Jena and Averstadt, 
 Napoleon enters Napoleon had resolved to march to fight the Eussians on the 
 Poland. plains of Poland. Eeceived with enthusiasm by the Poles, 
 
 and especially in the Duchy of Posen, he proposed to repair the great 
 wrong committed in the last century, and to re-establish theancient king- 
 dom of Poland. Nevertheless, he did not ignore the numerous perils 
 attending such an enterprise ; three powers, Eussia, Prussia, and Austria, 
 being interested in the division of that kingdom, and the maintenance of 
 the existing order of things. The Poles themselves appeared to be divided 
 on the subject. The great nobles of Warsaw seemed to be but little in 
 unison with the nobles of the provinces, and to distrust both the sincerity 
 of Napoleon's intentions and his powers of achieving success. Before 
 exciting and taking part in a popular movement, it desired that Napoleon 
 should proclaim the freedom of Poland, and give it a king from his own 
 family ; whilst the Emperor, on the other hand, demanded that a simul- 
 taneous rising of the whole population should precede his declaration of 
 its independence. Being unable to obtain this, he thought it prudent to 
 defer to a future period his designs with respect to this ancient kingdom. 
 
 Two French armies, each consisting of about eighty thousand men, and 
 
1804r-1808.] THE FRENCH IS POLAND. 349 
 
 divided into nine corps, marched upon the Vistula at the commencement 
 of November. Murat, Davoust, Augereau, and Lannes commanded the 
 first ; and Napoleon in person commanded the second, which consisted of 
 Ney's, Soult's, and Bernadotte's corps, the guard, and the reserves. On 
 the 2nd December, the anniversary of his coronation, he addressed these 
 words to his army : "Soldiers ! It is a year to-day, and this very hour, that 
 you were on the memorable field of Austerlitz. The Kussian battalions 
 either fled in terror before you, or, unable to fly, laid their arms at the 
 feet of their vanquishers. On the following day they begged for peace. 
 But they were treacherous. They had scarcely escaped from the dangers 
 to which the third coalition had exposed them when they formed a fourth. 
 But the ally on whose tactics they founded their principal hopes is no more. 
 His fortresses, his capitals, his magazines, his arsenals, two hundred and 
 eighty flags, seven hundred cannon, and five great fortresses, are in our 
 possession. Everything has given way before you. It is in vain that the 
 Russians have attempted to defend the capitals of old and illustrious 
 
 Poland; the French eagle hovers over the Vistula On the banks 
 
 of the Elbe and the Oder, we have conquered the Indian colonies 
 belonging to the English, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spanish 
 colonies. What will enable the Russians to reverse so great a destiny as 
 ours ? Are we not the soldiers of Austerlitz ?" This haughty address 
 sufficiently manifested that peace between England and Napoleon was 
 impossible. 
 
 A great number of indecisive conflicts, in which the French generally- 
 had the advantage, took place at the commencement of this campaign ; 
 and on the 6th of December the French obtained a decisive victory atPul- 
 tusk, where Marshal Lannes, with twenty-three thousand men and a few 
 pieces of artillery, vanquished and repulsed Benningzen's division, which 
 was much more numerous. The inclemency of the season and the marshy 
 nature of the soil, which was rendered impassable by rain 
 
 i n i tvt i i i • -n. t t t -, Cantonment cf 
 
 and snow, compelled JNapoleon to halt m Poland, where he the French ar.^iy 
 
 in Poland. 
 
 passed the winter. He posted his various corps in front of 
 the Vistula, between Elbing, near the Baltic, up to Warsaw. At the 
 same time he attacked the principal fortresses in Silesia, which fell suc- 
 cessively into his hands, whilst a tenth corps, under Marshal Lefebvre 
 was detached to invest Dantzic. 
 
350 THE BATTLE OE EYLATT. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 The Russian general, Benningzen, however, deceived the Emperor's 
 expectations ; he ventured to carry on the campaign during 
 1807 pa, March of *^ e w i nter > anc * endeavoured to surprise the French army 
 turiftheposi- ^ n ^ s cantonments by turning its positions on the shore of 
 Erenclfarmy. tne Baltic, and crossing the Vistula with the Prussian 
 corps of General Lestocq, between Thorn and Marien- 
 burg. But his plan was divined and frustrated. Ney discovered the 
 Russians, and Bernadotte stopped their advance at Mohrungen. Then 
 Benningzen hesitated, and he concentrated his forces at Lubstadt, 
 from whence he marched to the strong position of Jonkorvo, in the 
 rear of Allenstein, where he entrenched himself, whilst Napoleon broke 
 Na oieon renews n P ^ s cam P s an< ^ resumed the offensive with a hundred 
 the offensive. thousand men. The Emperor ascended the Narew, and 
 then proceeded across the frightful marshes of Poland towards Allen- 
 stein, in order to turn, in his turn, the left of the Prussians and Rus- 
 sians, and drive them into the sea. He attacked the enemy in his 
 formidable entrenchments at Jonkorvo. But Benningzen dared not await 
 his approach, and fell back before the French, who descended the course 
 of the Alle in pursuit of him, and had several desperate engagements 
 with the Russian and Prussian armies. Benningzen halted beyond 
 Eylau and took up a position, resolved to give battle as soon as General 
 Lestocq and the Prussians should arrive. 
 
 The action commenced by a frightful cannonade on both sides, and 
 Tn b ttl f ^ e -French artillery especially made frightful ravages in 
 Eylau. ^q R uss i an army, which presented in front of Eylau a 
 
 compact and formidable front. Napoleon, having Soult's corps on his 
 left, in the city of Eylau itself, and Davoust on his right, occupied the 
 centre of the position with his right, and placed himself in a ceme- 
 tery defended by a few battalions. Davoust had already turned the 
 enemy's left, when an enormous mass of Russian infantry was thrown 
 against the French centre. Napoleon ordered Saint-Hilaire and Auge- 
 reau to meet this formidable column with their divisions. But the snow 
 fell in masses and blinded Augereau's soldiers, so that they lost their way, 
 and misled the divisions which were to support them. The Russians 
 threw themselves into the intervals, and suddenly unmasked ninety 
 pieces of artillery which mowed down half Augereau's corps with grape. 
 The enemy's column advanced in masses, and a short distance only inter- 
 
1804-1808.] FALL OE DANTZIC. 351 
 
 vened between it and the cemetery in which Napoleon had taken up his 
 position. The Emperor, perfectly tranquil at this critical moment, 
 launched against the Russians the whole of his cavalry, which was com- 
 manded by Murat, and under him by Grouchy, d'Hautpoul and Lepic. 
 Murat, at the head of eighty squadrons, fell upon the enemy with a 
 tremendous dash and broke his foremost regiments, driving those which 
 followed back upon the main body and into the neighbouring woods with 
 frightful carnage. 
 
 This peril having been thus removed, the French left wing under 
 Davoust succeeded in turning the Russians, when the Prussians appeared 
 and held it in check. The night came on ; Benningzen, who had lost the 
 third part of his army, hesitated to retire ; but Ney, who had followed 
 the Prussians, appeared in his turn in the rear of the Russian army, and 
 the latter immediately began to retreat. It carried away with it fifteen 
 thousand wounded, leaving more than twelve thousand men on the 
 ground, and many thousand prisoners in the hands of the victors. The 
 loss of the French, without counting their wounded, was about ten 
 thousand men. 
 
 The plains of Eylau, over which the flames of burning hamlets and 
 villages threw a lurid glare, was strewn with a multitude of arms, projec- 
 tiles, and military debris of all kinds, as well as with an immense multi- > 
 tude of men and horses dead or dying in the midst of the blood-stained 
 snow ; and when on the morrow the day broke on this plain of death, it 
 lighted up a scene of incomparable horror, such as even moved the 
 soul of the victor himself. 
 
 Napoleon pursued the Russians as far as Kbnigsberg, and beyond the 
 Pregel ; after which he returned to take up his winter quarters beyond 
 the Lower Vistula, between Elbing and Thorn, in order to cover the 
 siege of Dantzic, which he pressed forward with the 
 
 Siege and capi- 
 
 utmost vigour. This fortress, the most important belong- tuiation of 
 ing to the Prussian monarchy, was besieged during four 
 months, and in spite of all the efforts made by Benningzen to relieve it, 
 surrendered on the 24th May, 1807, to Marshal Lefebvre, whom Napo- 
 leon created Duke of Dantzic. 
 
 Turkey was at this time the scene of serious events. The French 
 ambassador at Constantinople, General Sebastiani, was making great 
 efforts to induce the Sultan Selim to ally himself with France, 
 
352 "WAR IN POLAND CONTINUED. [BOOK III, CHAP. II. 
 
 when forty thousand Russians suddenly crossed the Dniester, the 
 Turkish frontier, under pretence of securing the execu- 
 
 Peril of the . „ . _ ■ ,, . , . . . 
 
 Turkish empire, tion oi treaties, but really with the intention of assisting 
 
 Menaced by the . . . _ 
 
 Russians and the Servians who had revolted against the Porte. This sud- 
 
 English, 1807. 
 
 den invasion of Turkey had been concerted with the English 
 Government, who proposed to send its own fleet through the strait of the 
 Dardanelles ; and when the Sultan ordered the Russian envoy to leave 
 Constantinople, the English ambassador threatened to have that city 
 bombarded by the English fleet if this order were not revoked ; and if 
 the Sultan did not immediately, by sending away the French ambassador, 
 ally himself with England and Prussia against France. This threat 
 rendered the Sultan extremely indignant, but he hesitated to incur the 
 
 threatened peril, when Sebastiani revived his couraare and 
 
 Defence of Con- x ' ° 
 
 stantmopieby displayed immense energy in arming Constantinople with 
 bassador, 1807. formidable batteries; so that when, in March, 1807, the 
 English fleet appeared before Constantinople, a terrible fire compelled it 
 to repass the Dardanelles considerably damaged. France, nevertheless, 
 derived but little advantage from this success and the favourable dispo- 
 sition of the Sultan towards her, for a revolt of the Janissaries soon after- 
 wards took place at Constantinople, and SeHm was deposed. 
 
 The war continued in Poland and Eastern Prussia, where the Russians, 
 
 under Generals Benningzen and Bagration, reopened the campaign in the 
 
 spring with thirty thousand men, and Napoleon, after the fall of Dantzic, 
 
 resumed the offensive. He marched upon Konigsberg ; his 
 
 March of the 
 
 French on generals defeated the enemy in the battles of Gudstadt and 
 
 Konigsberg. 
 
 Spanden ; and at Heilsburg, on the Alle, thirty thousand 
 French troops, commanded by Murat and Soult, maintained their position 
 against ninety thousand Prussians. Benningzen having retreated for the 
 purpose of covering Konigsberg, Napoleon followed him, and on the 14th of 
 . fE : ' June, the anniversary of Marengo, the Russian army defiled 
 land, June, 1807. ^y j^ e F r i e dland bridge over the Alle and offered battle. 
 Napoleon accepted the challenge, and assigned to his generals and his 
 various corps their several places. On the right was Marshal Ney, sup- 
 ported by the cavalry under Latour-Maubourg ; in the centre Marshal 
 Lannes, and on the left Mortier and Grouchy's cavalry. The imperial 
 guard and Victor's corps formed the reserve. The Russians rested 
 their left on Friedland, and their right extended far into the plain. 
 
1804-1808.J NAPOLEON AND ALEXANDER. 35$ 
 
 Napoleon ordered that the city should be taken, since its capture would 
 enable him to crush the Prussians both in front and flank, and would 
 secure the victory. Ney's corps on the right wing was the first in 
 motion, and after having vanquished the enemy's cavalry, it followed the 
 Prussians into Friedland, where flames announced his success. Lannes, 
 M or tier, and Victor then made a vigorous charge ; and the enemy, 
 attacked by them in front, was enveloped on its left by the victorious 
 division of Marshal Ney. It fled in disorder, and a multitude of Prussian 
 troops, driven into the Alle, perished in its stream. The Prussian army 
 lost at Friedland eighty pieces of cannon and twenty-five thousand men, 
 killed, wounded, or drowned. Konigsberg, after this bloody battle, opened 
 its gates, and there remained nothing more of the Prussian monarchy. 
 
 Napoleon now marched towards the Niemen in pursuit of the Russians, 
 and on the 19th of June came up with them on the banks of that river,, 
 which flowed between the two armies. But there his victorious march 
 came to a halt; for Alexander, vanquished, asked for peace, and expressed 
 a desire to see his conqueror. A raft was constructed near T , . , 
 
 * Interview be- 
 
 Tilsit, on the Niemen, for the solemn interview between the and Aie^ande^at 
 Czar and the Emperor, and this interview took place in the Tllsifc ' 1807 ' 
 sight of the two armies assembled on the river's banks. The two sove- 
 reigns approached each other with marks of mutual esteem, and agreed 
 to remain together for some time at Tilsit for the purpose of determining 
 upon the bases of a treaty of peace. The King and Queen of Prussia 
 were requested to attend, but Napoleon displayed but little pity for their 
 misfortunes. The French emperor employed every effort to induce the 
 young Alexander to coincide with his views, exciting his ambition, and 
 fascinating him by the influence of his own genius and glory, as well 
 as by the bait of certain long - coveted provinces. Alexander, be- 
 guiled, sacrificed every other interest to the desire to have Napoleon 
 some day sanction the annexation to Russia of Finland, a Swedish 
 province, and of Moldavia and Wallachia, provinces of the Turkish 
 empire.* He but feebly defended the cause of his unfortunate ally, 
 King Frederick William, and Napoleon was extremely harsh towards this 
 prince, whom he regarded as the provoker of the recent sanguinary war. 
 
 * Napoleon received information on the 24tli of June at Tilsit of the revolt of the 
 Janissaries and the deposition of his ally, Sultan Selim, and then thought himself at 
 liberty to dispose of a portion of the provinces of the German empire. 
 
 VOL. II. A A 
 
354 THE TREATY OE TILSIT. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 Peace of Tilsit, 
 1807. 
 
 He restored to Mm only half his states, and burdened those which he left 
 to him with an enormous war contribution. Peace was at 
 length concluded at Tilsit by treaties signed by France, 
 Russia, and Prussia. The principal clauses of this treaty were — the 
 restoration to Prussia, out of consideration to the Emperor of Russia, of 
 Old Prussia, of Pomerania, of Brandenburg, and of Silesia ; the cession to 
 Prance of all the provinces on the left of the Elbe, for the purpose of incorpo- 
 rating them with the grand duchy of Hesse, and making of the whole a 
 kingdom of Westphalia ; the conversion of Posen and "Warsaw into a 
 Polish state, which, under the title of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 
 should be given to the King of Saxony, and should form part of the 
 Confederation of the Rhine ; the recognition of this Confederation by 
 Russia and Prussia ; and the recognition of Napoleon's brothers, Louis, 
 Joseph, and Jerome, as the Kings of Holland, Naples, and Westphalia. 
 Some secret clauses were added to the treaty concluded 
 
 Secret clauses. 
 
 with Russia, which stijoulated, amongst other things, the 
 restoration of the mouths of the Cattaro to the French empire, 
 and a formal engagement on the part of Russia and France that . they 
 would make common cause against the Porte, if the latter would not 
 accept the mediation of France, and in that case to reduce the Ottoman 
 empire in Europe to Constantinople and Roumelia ; and finally, to call 
 upon the European powers to adhere to the continental blockade, or, in 
 other words, to close their ports against England, and declare war against it. 
 Such were the celebrated treaties of Tilsit, which created in Europe, 
 for the sake of the Bonaparte family, three kingdoms, 
 
 Considerations . 
 
 on the treaty of vassals of the empire, and extended the Confederation of 
 
 Tilsit. t f . 
 
 the Rhine as far as the Vistula, at the expense of Prussia 
 and Austria. Napoleon, by persisting in thus creating a new Germany 
 with which neither of the two great German powers should have any 
 connexion, and which should be subordinate to his own empire, aban- 
 doned the Avise policy of the consulate, which had consisted in preserving 
 an equality between the influence of Austria and that of Prussia, and in 
 respecting the interests of the peoples and the secular princes ; and he so 
 deeplv wounded the national feeling of the whole German population, 
 that he inspired them with an unanimous and irreconcilable hatred. 
 The edifice which he had raised only rested on the alliance of Russia and 
 a good understanding between himself and its young sovereign. But it 
 
1804-1808.] PARTITION OF POETTJGAL. 355 
 
 could hardly be durable, since its only basis was a state of things which 
 excited the ambition of Alexander without satisfying it. The two great 
 contracting parties only partially explained to each other their ulti- 
 mate intentions, and each was inwardly resolved not to permit the 
 accomplishment of that which the other intended — viz., on the one hand, 
 the fall of Constantinople, and on the other, the re-establishment of the 
 kingdom of Poland. But these dangerous rocks ahead of the alliance 
 formed at Tilsit were then scarcely seen. Alexander, on taking leave of 
 Napoleon, appeared to have been completely fascinated by his genius and 
 testimonies of regard, and the Emperor returned to Paris intoxicated 
 with his immense glory and prodigious good fortune. 
 
 England was much dismayed when she found Eussia withdrawn from 
 her influence. Wishing to retain at any price a footing in the Baltic, she 
 demanded that Denmark should form with her an alliance offensive and 
 defensive, and that, as a guarantee of good faith, she should surrender her 
 fleet and her capital into her hands. The King refused, and Bombardment of 
 on the 2nd September, 1807, Copenhagen was subjected to SlngK* by 
 a frightful bombardment, which laid three hundred houses 
 in ashes. The Danish fleet also, consisting of fifty-three sail, fell into the 
 hands of the English. Denmark avenged herself for this iniquitous and 
 barbarous act by immediately adhering to the continental system. 
 Sweden alone in the north had remained armed after the peace of Tilsit, 
 its weak King, Gustavus IV., having declared himself the avenger of 
 Europe against Napoleon ; but he now saw Eussia, lately his ally, 
 snatch from under his eyes Stralsund and the Isle of Eugen, and by his 
 foolish pride he alienated the affections of his subjects. All the shore of 
 the Baltic was now subject to the yoke of France. 
 
 There only remained on the Continent at the end of 1807 a single 
 state which was under the direct influence of Great Britain ; this was 
 Portugal, and Napoleon, who by the decree of the conti- Treaty of Fon- 
 nental blockade had arrogated to himself the right of dis- tSion. i^Portu^"" 
 posing at his will of every nation, signed on the 27th Sep- g ' ep * 
 tember, 1807, at Fontainebleau, an iniquitous treaty with Spain, in accord- 
 ance with which Portugal, as a punishment, for her alliance with England, 
 was to be divided almost entirely between the King of Etruria and 
 Godoy, the Prince of Peace, who governed the Spanish monarchy. This 
 treaty declared Charles IV., King of Spain, suzerain of the two states 
 
 a a 2 
 
356 INSTJREECTIOK IN SPAIN. [BOOK III. CHAP. II.. 
 
 thus to be formed out of Portugal. A proclamation announced on the 13th 
 
 December, 1807, that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign. 
 
 Twenty-eight thousand French troops, under the orders of 
 
 Embarcation of __.•'. 
 
 the Prince Junot, were charged with the execution of this sentence, 
 
 Regent of Por- 
 tugal. The a, n d before their arrival at Lisbon the Prince Recent of 
 
 Prenchiu Lisbon. ° 
 
 Portugal embarked for the Brazils, abandoning to the in- 
 vading army his capital and fleet. 
 
 This rapid success, and the scandalous divisions in the Spanish Royal 
 family, inflamed Napoleon's ambition, and he accustomed 
 
 Dissensions in 
 
 the Royal family himself to look upon the Peninsula as his conquest. The 
 
 of Spain. 
 
 weak Charles IV., who was entirely under the influence of 
 Godoy, Prince of Peace, the Queen's favourite, had rendered himself con- 
 temptible in the eyes of all his subjects, whilst his son, Ferdinand, Prince 
 of the Asturias, had become their idol by declaring himself the opponent 
 of the odious favourite. Napoleon, now at the height of his prosperity, 
 had already acted as the arbiter of their differences, and the Prince of the 
 Asturias had solicited the honour of an alliance with his family. The 
 Emperor might have exercised over Spain by pacific means a sovereign 
 influence, and have turned the hatred with which the Spaniards regarded 
 the English on account of numerous maritime disasters, to the profit of 
 his system. But he wished more ; and whilst all the members of the 
 French entry Royal family were looking towards him with hope, a French 
 into Spain, 1808. armyr under Murat> G< ran a-duke of Berg, passed the Pyre- 
 nees, and the news speedily reached Madrid that the fortresses of Barce- 
 lona, Figueras, Pampeluna, and Saint-Sebastian, were in the hands of the 
 French. Immediately afterwards Napoleon, forgetting the Treaty of 
 Fontainebleau, demanded the surrender to the French empire of the 
 provinces on the left bank of the Ebro. Charles IV. and the Queen were 
 struck with consternation. Godoy advised them to follow the example 
 of the Prince Regent of Portugal, and to go to their possessions in 
 America. They agreed; and every preparation had been made for 
 their departure, when Ferdinand opposed its execution, and calling the 
 
 population of Aranjuez to arms, denounced the advice 
 
 Popular insur- # . 
 
 rection in given by Godoy as a fresh treachery. An insurrection took 
 
 Aranjuez. 
 
 place, the troops took part in it, and Ferdinand placed him- 
 self at its head. He arrested Godoy, made his father prisoner, and forced 
 him to abdicate, and then made a triumphal entry into Madrid as King, 
 
1804-1808.] THE SPANIARDS EISE. 357 
 
 •of Spain. But on the following clay, 23rd March, Murat, without waiting 
 for the Emperor's orders, entered that capital with his army. Charles IV. 
 protested against his forced abdication, and Murat refused to recognise 
 Ferdinand as King. Napoleon alone should decide between them. The 
 Emperor went to Bayonne, where he invited King Charles 
 
 . . . Napoleon arbi- 
 
 and his son to meet him, m order that as supreme arbiter trating between 
 
 Charles IV. and 
 
 he might decide upon their differences and their destinies, his son, seizes 
 
 the Spanish 
 
 When they had arrived, Napoleon, master of their persons, crown for him- 
 decided in favour of the King, forced Ferdinand to re- 
 nounce the throne and restore the crown to his father, and then obtained 
 it from the latter for himself. Charles IV. was sent to live at Com- 
 piegne, and his son was detained a prisoner in the Chateau of Valencay. 
 Thus was consummated by means of a piece of perfidy, an odious act of 
 usurpation, the results of which were fatal to its author, and struck the 
 first blow at his prosperity. In the meantime Murat kept possession of 
 Madrid, and the Council of Castile, under the pressure of French in- 
 fluence, requested that Joseph, Napoleon's eldest brother, would become 
 King of Spain. 
 
 An assembly of Spanish notables was immediately convoked at 
 Bayonne, where the Emperor organized a Junta to carry on a provisional 
 government. Joseph gave up to Joachim Murat the crown 
 
 Joseph Bona- 
 
 of Naples, and immediately quitting that capital, reached parte becomes 
 
 King of Spain, 
 
 Bayonne on the 7th of June, when he was declared King of and Murat King 
 
 \ ' ° of Naples, 1808. 
 
 Spain by the Duke of Infantado and a deputation of gran- 
 dees and various state bodies. The Assembly at Bayonne voted a con- 
 stitution, which Joseph swore to observe, and on the 9th of July he was 
 on his way to Spain. But already the Spaniards, indignant and furious, 
 had flown to arms. The clergy led the revolt, declaring that Heaven 
 itself was interested in the cause of Ferdinand, and denouncing Napoleon 
 as Antichrist ; the whole army joined it, and a provisional government 
 assembled at Seville annulled all the acts of the Junta at Bayonne. On 
 Saint Ferdinand's day a new Sicilian vespers sounded against 
 the French throughout Spain. Their squadron at Cadiz pSSm^CTdl. 
 was seized, and its sailors slain. The Spaniards signalized nand vn - 
 their vengeance in many places by massacres and atrocities, declaring Avar 
 to the death against the French ; and the Portuguese followed their 
 example. In the meantime Bessieres was victorious at Medina de Rio- 
 
358 EISItfG OP PORTUGAL. [BOOK III. CHAP. II. 
 
 Secco, and his victory opened the gates of Madrid to King Joseph, who 
 made his entrance into that capital on the 20th of July. But imme- 
 diately afterwards General Dupont made a disgraceful 
 
 Capitulation of . ' , .. 
 
 General Dupont capitulation at Baylen, and surrendered with twenty-six 
 
 at Baylen. J 
 
 thousand troops. This terrible check shook the power of 
 the French in the Peninsula, and reanimated the Spaniards, the result 
 being that Joseph had to quit Madrid eight days after he had entered it 
 in solemn state. 
 
 Portugal also rose, and an English army disembarked there under the 
 orders of Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Lord Welling- 
 
 Eising of Portu- 
 gal. Landing of ton. Junot, with ten thousand men only, ventured to fight 
 
 an English army. 
 
 the battle of Vimeira against twenty-six thousand English 
 and Portuguese. He was vanquished, and soon after, signed the capitu- 
 „...,.. e lation of Cintra, which at least allowed him to retreat to 
 
 Capitulation of ' 
 
 Junot at Cintra. i? rarLC e with honour. Portugal was now evacuated by the 
 French. Joseph's only possessions in Spain were Barcelona, Navarre, 
 and Biscay, and the English, who had lately been the Spaniards' 
 enemy, were now received by them with open arms. Napoleon chafed 
 when he learnt the reverses suffered by his arms in the Peninsula, and 
 experienced a feeling of mingled grief and rage at this first affront suffered 
 by his eagles. He resolved that his best generals and his German and 
 Italian armies should cross the Pyrenees to efface the disgrace suffered at 
 Baylen, and stifle at its birth an insurrection so threatening and unex- 
 pected. He recalled them from the banks of the Niemen, the Spree, the 
 Elbe, and the Danube, and in a proclamation addressed to his warriors 
 uttered this cry of war and vengeance : — " Soldiers ! I have need of you. 
 
 Let us carry our eagles in triumph to the columns of 
 
 Hercules, for we have insults to avenge there. You have surpassed the 
 renown of modern armies ; but have you equalled the armies of Eome, 
 which in a single campaign triumphed on the Rhine and the Euphrates, 
 in Illyria and on the Tagus ? A long peace, a durable prosperity will be 
 the fruit of your toils. A true Frenchman should not, cannot take 
 repose until the seas are open and free. Soldiers! all that you have done, 
 all that you shall yet do for the French people and for my glory, will be 
 eternally treasured in my heart !" 
 
 Although only general interests were referred to in these proud words 
 as the sole object of the war, it was too evident that it had another cause, 
 
1804-1808.] THE SPANISH INVASION. 359 
 
 and that was personal ambition. If Napoleon, in fact, had only desired 
 to close Spain against English commerce, he could have effected that 
 object by allowing Ferdinand to reign tinder his influence, or by strength- 
 ening the sceptre in the hands of Charles IV. By despoiling both the 
 one and the other, he aroused against himself the ardent passions of an 
 enthusiastic people, and revived the animosity of the European cabinets, 
 which were with good reason alarmed at so unexpected an usurpation, and 
 saw no limit to his invasions. Napoleon entered at hazard upon a bound- 
 less path, where he lost himself and encountered a precipice. Already, at 
 the point of his history at which we have now arrived, his star began to 
 pale, and the prestige of the invincibility of his arms was destroyed. 
 
360 CONEERENCE AT EEEUET. [BOOK III. CHAP. TIT. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE CONFERENCE AT ERFURT TO NAPOLEON'S ABDICATION AT 
 
 FONTAINEBLEAU. 
 
 1808-1814. 
 
 Napoleon being resolved to subdue Spain, confirmed at Erfurt in Sep- 
 „ , . . tember and October, 1808, bis alliance with Alexander, and 
 
 Treaty between » ' 
 
 AlSande^at 1 ^ ie ^ w0 em P erors appeared at this celebrated interview so 
 Erfurt, 1808. much the more inclined to come to a good understanding, 
 because they wished to obtain from each other a mutual guarantee for 
 their recent usurpations, which had been but impatiently borne by the 
 rest of Europe. The Russian troops had taken possession of Finland in 
 the North, and in the South had invaded the provinces of Moldavia and 
 Wallachia, whilst the French troops invaded Spain. The two sovereigns 
 signed a treaty by which Napoleon recognised the three provinces 
 invaded by Russia as an integral portion of that empire ; and Alexander, 
 in return, recognised the Napoleonic dynasty in Spain, and, in case 
 France should be at war with Austria, engaged to assist her against the 
 latter power. This treaty, which was drawn up without any regard to 
 moral principles, was only founded on the ambition of the monarchs who 
 signed it, and naturally could only last as long as those interests should be 
 identical. This being the case, it was almost impossible that it could be 
 of long duration. Nevertheless, being satisfied that Alexander's inten- 
 tions were pacific, Napoleon joined his legions in Spain. 
 
 Palafox, Castanos, and Blake commanded the enemy's army, which 
 
 consisted of a hundred and eighty thousand men, and extended from the 
 
 coast of Biscay to Saragossa ; but Napoleon marched accom- 
 
 The war in Spain. 
 
 First successes, panied by his great captains and at the head of his veterans, 
 and victory, therefore, was certain. Soult obtained a vie- 
 
1808-1814.] FIFTH COALITION. 361 
 
 tory on the 1 0th of November, at Burgos, where he routed the enemy's 
 centre ; and on the following day Victor crushed their left at Espinosa, 
 whilst their right was put to flight by Marshal Lannes at Tudela. The 
 narrow pass of the Sommo-Sierra was henceforth the only obstacle 
 between the French army and Madrid. Sixteen pieces of artillery swept 
 this defile, which seemed impregnable ; Napoleon sent forward his Polish 
 lancers to the charge, and it was taken with a rush. On the 3rd of 
 December the French army entered Madrid. A division of the English 
 army in Portugal, under the orders of Sir John Moore, was on its march 
 to cover this capital, but at the news of the disasters suffered by the 
 Spanish armies, it retreated before Napoleon upon Astorga and Corunna. 
 Marshal Soult was ordered to pursue it to its place of embarcation, and, 
 to use Napoleon's expression, " to drive it into the sea — the sword in its 
 loins." He drove it before him as far as Corunna, but when he had 
 reached that place, Sir John Moore, occupying a strong position, gave 
 battle to the enemy, was vanquished, and died as a hero. On the fol- 
 lowing day his army embarked. Spain, with the exception of a few 
 cities, now appeared to be submissive. Napoleon had brought back his 
 brother Joseph to Madrid, and believed that he would gain the affections 
 of the Spaniards by abolishing the Inquisition, promising them franchises, 
 and abolishing the feudal system. But he addressed a people who 
 scarcely understood him, who only listened to their priests, and whose 
 heroism chafed under the yoke of the stranger. It soon replied to the 
 liberal promises of the usurper by cries of rage and a new and more 
 formidable insurrection. 
 
 In the meantime Austria was emboldened by the absence of Napoleon, 
 by the removal of his veterans, and by the revolt of the Tyroleans 
 against the Bavarians, the new masters to whom France had given 
 them, and she formed a fifth coalition with England. The 
 
 Fifth coalition 
 
 Archduke Charles accepted the command of the troops, against France, 
 which amounted to five hundred thousand men, divided into 
 eight corps. Two, under the Archduke Ferdinand, were to invade 
 Poland ; three others, under the Archduke John, were to march into Italy 
 and the Tyrol ; whilst the other corps, assembled on the Bohemian frontier, 
 were to march upon the Ehine, arousing on their way the whole of 
 Germany, in which many secret societies, the most famous of which was 
 the Tungenbuncl, in Prussia, only awaited the signal to run to arms and 
 
362 CAMPAIGN Itf GEKMANY. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 free their country. The French troops in these countries did not 
 amount at this time to more than a hundred and thirty thousand 
 men, who were dispersed from the Baltic to the Danube, under the com- 
 mand of Bernadotte, Davoust, and Oudinot. Eugene occupied Piedmont 
 and Italy with a few divisions. 
 
 At the first rumour of the intention of Austria, and the movement of her 
 armies, Napoleon quitted Spain for Paris, from whence he directed the 
 tactics of his numerous troops in Italy and Germany. The vast theatre 
 of his operations extended from Poland, where Poniatowsky was in 
 command, to Italy, where Eugene was at the head of sixty thousand 
 troops. Napoleon quitted Paris on the 10th of April, and was on the 
 Danube on the 17th ; but his orders for the concentration of his troops 
 having been misunderstood by Berthier, the Major-jG-eneral, they had not 
 been executed. The Emperor, on arriving, found his army divided into 
 many masses, the two principal of which were thirty leagues from each 
 n • ,, M(1 other. The first, under Davoust, being at Eatisbonne, and 
 
 Campaign of 1809 " ' ° 
 
 m Germany. ^ Q secon d ? under Massena, at Augsburg. At a central 
 point between these two armies were the allies of France, the Bavarians, 
 the Wurtemberg troops, and the rest of the army of the Confederation of 
 the Rhine. But these auxiliary troops were small in number, and incapable 
 of resisting the shock of the enemy, who was preparing to attack them 
 as soon as he should have defiled by Landstadt, on the right of the 
 Danube. The intention of the Archduke was to force the centre of the 
 French army by passing between the corps of Davoust and Massena. 
 Napoleon saw the peril, and displayed all the resources of his genius. 
 He took advantage of the hesitation shown by the enemy on his arrival, 
 and kept him for two days almost motionless, concealing from him the 
 weakness of the forces at his disposal in the centre in front of him. He 
 ordered Davoust and Massena to approach each other as fast as possible, 
 and to join the army of the Confederation in the environs of Neustadt, so as 
 to threaten the front and left flank of the Archduke Charles, who, astonished 
 at these rapid and skilful manoeuvres, dared not risk a forward movement, 
 and marched towards the right bank of the Danube, in the direction of 
 Ratisbonne, which Davoust was quitting, and of which the enemy took 
 possession. Victorious at the battle of Thann, Davoust effected a junc- 
 tion with the centre, and on the 19th of April Napoleon saw the whole 
 
1808-1814.] NAPOLEON" AT DXRSTEIM. 363 
 
 of his army concentrated under his hand. The four following days were 
 
 marked by four fresh victories. At the battle of Abensberg 
 
 the Emperor broke the Archduke's line at Landshut, took berg, Landshut, 
 
 and Eckmuhl. 
 
 possession of his base of operations, routed his left, and 
 took its artillery and magazines ; at Eckmuhl, on the 22nd of April, he 
 vanquished the whole of the enemy's army, and drove it back between 
 the Iser and the Danube. The Austrians escaped by Ratisbonne, which 
 Napoleon took on the following day after a bloody battle, in B „ 
 which he received a slight wound on the heel. Prince bonne - 
 Charles retreated upon the frontier of Bohemia, and the French marched 
 upon Vienna. 
 
 One day, during this rapid march, whilst Napoleon was talking with 
 Lannes and Berthier, a guide pointed out to them the Castle of Dirsteim, 
 in which Richard Coaur-de-Lion had been imprisoned on his return from 
 the Holy Land. The Emperor halted, and after having gazed for some 
 time at these celebrated ruins, said, as he continued on his way, " He 
 also made war in Palestine and Syria; he was more fortunate than we 
 were at Saint Jean d'Acre, but not more valiant than you, my brave 
 Lannes. He vanquished the brave Saladin, and yet he had scarcely 
 touched the shores of Europe before he fell into the hands of those who 
 were nothing in comparison to him. He was sold by a duke of Austria 
 to an Emperor of Germany. . . . The last of his courtiers, Blondel, 
 alone remained faithful to him, but his nation made many sacrifices to 
 effect his deliverance."* Napoleon once more turned his eyes towards 
 those celebrated ruins, and, referring to the generous course he had 
 pursued towards the kings whom he had conquered, said that a sove- 
 reign in modern times would escape the fate which had befallen Richard ; 
 and then fell suddenly into a deep and melancholy silence. Reflecting, 
 perchance, on the hatred of his enemies, he in his own mind anticipated 
 that which actually took place. He had a presentiment, perhaps, that that 
 which had befallen Richard would some day befall himself, and that 
 there would be no new Blondel to release him. But such a time was 
 yet far off, and before it should arrive fresh triumphs awaited him. On 
 the 1 3th May, a month after the commencement of the brilliant campaign, 
 
 * "Recollections of the War of 1809," by General Pelet. 
 
364 BATTLE OE ESSLING. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 he entered for the second time the Austrian capital. The war, however, 
 , was not at an end : for the Emperor Francis had retreated to 
 
 Second entry ' x 
 
 of Napoleon Znaim with lame forces, and the Archduke Charles inarched 
 
 into Vienna, o J 
 
 1S09, towards the capital by the left bank of the Danube, 
 
 and soon took up a position opposite Vienna on the famous plains of 
 Wag-ram. To terminate the war and be able to dictate terms of peace, 
 Napoleon had to crush this army ; but the bridges of the Danube had 
 been destroyed, the river, divided into many arms, rolled its broad 
 waves between the two armies, and the enemy could only be reached by 
 means of immense works and great and perilous efforts. 
 
 Numerous islets divide the waters of the Danube in the neighbourhood 
 of Vienna. The largest is the island of Lobau, four leagues in circum- 
 ference, almost opposite the city, from which it is separated by two 
 branches of the stream, the first of which is three hundred metres broad, 
 and the second about five hundred. Opposite this island, on the further 
 bank, are the villages of Aspern and Essling, between which and the 
 island of Lobau the Danube is not more than about a hundred metres 
 broad. It was across this island that Napoleon resolved to march his 
 army. Nineteen bridges were thrown across the stream at Ebersdorf, 
 and on the 20th the island was carried. Napoleon gathered his troops 
 together and watched the completion of the bridges. Scarcely thirty 
 thousand men, under Lannes and Massena, had passed over to the left 
 bank of the stream, when they took the villages of Essling and Aspern, 
 where they sustained during two days the assault of a hundred thousand 
 Austrians. The villages were five times taken and retaken, and gave 
 their names to these terrible battles. At length another portion of the 
 army effected the passage, and joined the intrepid divisions of Lannes and 
 Massena. That under Davoust followed, but Napoleon, without awaiting 
 his arrival, in his impetuosity attacked an enemy twice as strong, nume- 
 B . „ rically, as himself. His words and his example electrified 
 Essimg. ^-g ]3 rave soldiers. He threw himself, as he had done at 
 
 the battles of Areola and Lodi, upon the Austrians, who broke and 
 fled before him. The intrepid Lannes pierced their centre ; the Arch- 
 duke was in full retreat, and Napoleon followed up his victory. All 
 at once he heard that Davoust's corps, on which he had implicitly 
 relied, had been unable to effect the passage of the Danube, and that 
 the bridges over that river had been broken. He now found himself 
 
1808-1814.] THE EKENCH CEOSS THE DANUBE. 365 
 
 placed in a position of difficulty by his victory, since it had led him 
 too far and separated him from the bulk of his army. He halted and 
 ordered a retreat, upon which the Austrians rallied and returned against 
 the French in formidable masses, with the intention of surrounding the 
 latter and driving them into the river. But the communications of the 
 French with the isle of Lobau had not been cut off, and it was to this 
 island that Napoleon now led back his troops. He saw thousands of his 
 veterans fall around him ; he lost the heroic d'Espagne, the brave Saint- 
 Hilaire, and Lannes, who had both legs crushed by a cannon ball, and 
 expired in his arms. In the meantime Massena, firm as a rock, presented 
 an undaunted front to the Archduke, held him in check, and covered this 
 perilous retreat. Napoleon, and all the corps which had crossed the stream, 
 re-entered the island of Lobau, and it became the French head-quarters, 
 Eugene, who was Commander-in-Chief of the army of Italy, was at 
 this time marching at its head to join Napoleon on the 
 
 March of the 
 
 Danube. Macdonald, Grenier and Baraguay d'Hilliers, were army of Italy 
 
 under Eugene. 
 
 his companions in glory, and his army had not only been 
 victorious at the battles of Piave, Tarwitz, and G-oritz, but had driven 
 before it in these various encounters eighty thousand Austrians, under 
 the Archduke John, whom it prevented from effecting a junction with the 
 army of Prince Charles. And finally, on the 14th June, the anniversary 
 of the battles of Marengo and Friedland, it succeeded in vanquishing 
 them at the battle of Eaab, took the fortress of that name, 
 
 Junction of the 
 
 and ioined the Emperor in the island of Lobau. This army of Eugene 
 
 J with Napoleon. 
 
 victory enabled Napoleon to resume the offensive. 
 
 After forty days' labour, three immense bridges spanned the Danube 
 and united the islands, to which the Emperor had given the names of 
 Lannes, d'Espagne, and Saint-Hilaire, who had been killed at Essiing, 
 and opened a passage for fifty thousand troops and five hundred pieces of 
 cannon. The army crossed the river on a stormy night, on the 4th July, 
 exposed to a terrific cannonade, and on the following day was in battle 
 array on the enemy's left, and carried the formidable entrenchments which 
 had been erected opposite the island, between Ebersdorf, Essiing, and 
 Aspern. A vast plain extended beyond these positions in front of the 
 French army; the hills which surround it on the west and the east 
 were in possession of the Austrian army, which defended a formidable 
 position on the left bank of the Russbach. Wagram was in the centre of 
 
366 THE BATTLE OE WAGRAM. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 the enemy's arm}' - . On the first day of the battle Davoust, Laniarque, 
 and Oudinot, made a fruitless attack on the heights in the occupation of 
 the enemy. The two armies encamped on the field, and on the morrow 
 the destinies of Europe were to be decided there. 
 
 At the break of day three hundred thousand men were face to face on a 
 line of some three leagues in extent. Napoleon galloped through the ranks 
 of his battalions, and pointed out to them the hills of Wagram and the 
 „ JX1 „ tower of Neusiedel on the steep banks of the Eussbach. It 
 
 Battle of x 
 
 Wagram, 1809. was j n ^hat direction that was the chief danger, and it was 
 there that the battle was to be decided. Davoust and Oudinot on the 
 right were ordered to carry these positions. Eugene and the army of 
 Italy, Bernadotte and the Saxons were in the centre, and Massena was 
 in command of the left, towards the Danube. The Archduke's right, 
 preceded by sixty pieces of artillery, advanced against the rear of the 
 Erench army, and the Saxons under Bernadotte were put to flight. 
 Napoleon ordered a change from the front to the left, and launched 
 against the enemy's column the divisions of Massena, Macdonald, and 
 the cavalry of the Imperial Guard, under the valiant Bessieres. But 
 these troops, supported by the fire of a hundred cannon, were unable 
 to check the advance of the enemy's column, and an aide-de-camp 
 informed Napoleon that the enemy was already in the rear of his army. 
 The latter, however, remained unmoved, and kept his eagle glance turned 
 towards the right, in the direction of the heights of Eussbach. All at 
 once the firing of Davoust's troops, in front of the tower of Neusiedel, 
 announced the success of his right wing, and the dangerous position o± 
 the enemy. " Go as fast as possible," said Napoleon to an aide-de-camp, 
 " and tell Massena that he has only to attack with energy to secure the 
 victory." He then gave orders to Macdonald to throw himself upon the 
 Austrian centre, to Oudinot to take the Eussbach position, and to Davoust 
 to continue his attacks as hotly as possible. The heroic Macdonald fell 
 like a thunderbolt in the midst of the enemy's line and broke it, whilst 
 Massena, whose troops occupied the bank of the river, held the Austrian 
 column in check and drove it back. The Austrians were now in flight 
 along their whole line. Davoust took Wagram, and Macdonald then 
 advanced to Brunn, and Napoleon had his victorious tents pitched on the 
 field of battle. He embraced Macdonald and made him a marshal, as 
 well as Oudinot and Marmont. The victory had been hotly disputed, 
 
1808-1814.] PEACE OE VIENNA. 367 
 
 and twenty-five thousand men on the two sides had been slain or 
 disabled. 
 
 This sanguinary, battle decided the fate of Austria. The Archdukes 
 John and Ferdinand had been beaten in Lombardy and Poland respectively, 
 and Francis I. had to obtain peace by means of the most serious sacrifices. 
 He ceded on the various frontiers of his states, to Italy, Bavaria, and 
 Eussia, several circles and provinces, and three millions of subjects; he 
 promised, moreover, to pay a heavy war contribution, and to adhere to 
 the continental blockade. This treaty, which was so in- p ea ce of Vienna 
 jurious to Austria, was signed at Vienna on the 12th 
 October, 1809, and whilst its conditions were still being discussed, 
 Napoleon ran a narrow risk of being assassinated by a j^oung fanatic 
 named Staps. This young man was seized, armed with a dagger, at the 
 moment when he demanded an interview with Napoleon, and asserted that 
 he had received a commission from God to deliver Germany, and to execute 
 vengeance on the person of the oppressor of his country and the world. 
 
 The English, in the course of this campaign, had sent out immense 
 fleets, and a hundred ships of war had landed in Holland, in the island of 
 Walcheren and of South Beveland, fortv-five thousand men. m , „ r , . 
 
 ' J The Walcheren 
 
 Flushing had fallen into their hands after a desperate re- thTE^neKsh^ 7 
 sistance, and they already threatened Antwerp. A levy of the 1809, 
 National Guards of the Department of the North and the approach of 
 Bernadotte's corps covered this important place, whilst fever mowed 
 down the English by thousands in the island of Walcheren, and they 
 were compelled at length to evacuate Zealand, where the town of Flushing 
 alone remained in their power. Napoleon heard of the failure of this 
 formidable expedition a few days after the signature of the Treaty of 
 Vienna ; fortune was still faithful to him, and he returned in triumph to 
 Paris, where he found that there were serious misunderstandings with the 
 Court of Rome. 
 
 Pope Pius VII. had not closed his ports against the English, and justly 
 displeased at Napoleon's encroachments on his territory, had resolved to 
 refuse the Pontifical Bulls to the new French bishops. The Emperor, 
 irritated at this, forthwith deprived the Pope of his temporal power, and 
 was excommunicated. The excitement of the Roman populace at this 
 proceeding, kept alive as it was by the presence of the Pope, placed the 
 French troops in Rome in a position of great peril. General Miollis, 
 
368 MASSENA IN POETTJGAL. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 the Governor of the city, considered that the removal of the Pope was 
 necessary ; and Pius VII., after having been violently torn 
 
 Arrest and im- 
 prisonment of from the Pontifical Palace, was first removed to Savona 
 
 Pope Pius VII. 
 
 and then to Fontainebleau. At the latter place he bore with 
 admirable Christian fortitude an imprisonment of four years' duration, 
 and the ancient capital of the world was transformed into the chief town 
 of a French department. 
 
 The Spanish insurrection had become much more general immediately 
 
 after the Emperor's departure ; and a rumour which was 
 
 Course of the 
 
 war in Spain, spread abroad that Napoleon demanded the annexation of 
 
 1809-1810. r r 
 
 the left bank of the Ebro to France, redoubled the popular 
 indignation and rage. The insurgents organized themselves into bands of 
 guerillas, and made the French soldiers experience *a second Vendee in 
 Spain. The populace arose in every direction, and the desire for national 
 independence was a bond which united all parties against France. It was 
 in vain that Napoleon's generals obtained numerous victories ; that Sebas- 
 tiani triumphed at Ciudad-Real, Victor at Medelin, and Soult at Oporto, 
 where thousands of Portuguese remained on the field of battle ; for the 
 example of Palafox, the defender of Saragossa, and the heroism of its inha- 
 bitants, who allowed themselves to be buried under its ruins rather than 
 submit, excited the enthusiasm and patriotism of the Spaniards, whilst the 
 English successfully seconded their efforts. On the 28th July, Joseph 
 fought with Sir Arthur Wellesley the indecisive battle of Talavera, which 
 the English claimed as a victory; Sebastiani was victorious on the 21st 
 August at Almonacid, and Mortier, with twenty-five thousand men, de- 
 feated fifty thousand at Ocana, and Andalucia fell into the power of the 
 French. 
 
 Spain, however, was not yet conquered, and in 1810 was commenced 
 a fresh campaign as murderous as the preceding. It was conducted in 
 the north by Marshal Suchet, who invested the fortresses of Aragon, and 
 held that province in check whilst Marshal Soult completed the subjec- 
 tion of Andalucia. The latter took in succession Granada, Seville, and 
 Malaga, and compelled the provisional Junta of Seville to retire to Cadiz, 
 which French troops besieged. A third army, under the 
 sena on Portugal, orders of Massena, Prince of Essling, was at the same time 
 
 and retreat of tit i 
 
 the English marched against Portugal, and had to struggle against the 
 
 arm y« 
 
 Anglo-Portuguese army of Wellington, which was very 
 
1808-1814.] THE LINES OE TOEKES VEDEAS. 369 
 
 superior in numbers, and which nevertheless retreated before it towards 
 Lisbon. Massena sustained defeat at the bloody battle of Busaco, and 
 was stopped by Wellington before the lines of Torres Vedras, 
 
 Check before 
 
 which protected the capital, and received, on the 10th of Torres Vedras, 
 October, the whole British army. The plan of these lines 
 had been designed by Wellington, and during more than a year thousands 
 of men had been raising these formidable defences.* Massena, considering 
 them impregnable, posted his army in observation on the Tagus, between 
 Alhandra, Santarem, and Abrantes, and awaited the Emperor's orders. 
 
 Whilst the Peninsula devoured the best troops of the French army, 
 Napoleon attained the highest point of his prodigious destiny. Equally 
 influenced by his desire to have an heir, and by his ambition to be allied 
 with the old dynasties of Europe, he repudiated Josephine 
 
 .... . ... , Divorce of Na- 
 
 de BeauharnaisjT his first wife, and married, on the 30th poieon. He 
 
 marries an 
 
 of March, 1810, Maria-Louisa, Archduchess of Austria, the Austrian Arch- 
 
 ' > ' duchess, 1810. 
 
 daughter of the Emperor Francis. 
 
 In the course of this year Holland was annexed to 
 
 Annexation of 
 
 France ; Napoleon dethroning his brother Louis, whose Holland to 
 
 ' r s ' France, 1810. 
 
 kingdom had become a depot for English merchandize. The 
 Moniteur declared on this occasion the Emperor's policy in respect of 
 those on whom he bestowed crowns. " Understand," he said, to the 
 kings his brothers, " that your first duty is towards me and France J' 
 This policy being thus proclaimed to Europe, powerfully contributed to 
 arouse it. One of his generals was at the same time called to the suc- 
 cession to the crown of Sweden. The imprudent and hot-headed 
 Gustavus had been driven from the throne, to which, in 1809, his uncle, 
 the Duke of Sudermania, had succeeded by the title of Charles XIIL, and 
 this latter prince, having no children, adopted as his son, in 1810, Berna- 
 dotte, Prince of Ponte-Corvo, who was elected by the States B . 
 General Prince-Eoyal of Sweden. Napoleon looked upon fKjS^tf TmCS ' 
 this election as an event which would complete the subjec- SwedeD » 1810 - 
 
 * They extended in three lines over a space of several leagues between the Tagus 
 and the sea, and consisted of a hundred and fifty-two redoubts, which supported each 
 other, and were defended by nine hundred pieces of cannon and a hundred thousand 
 men, of whom ninety thousand were English. 
 
 f "Josephine," says Charles Lacretelle, "had long had a presentiment of her fate, 
 and the clause referring to divorce which had been inserted in the Code by Napoleon's 
 direct desire, had been a perpetual subject of anxiety to her." 
 
 VOL. II. B B 
 
370 napoleon's labotjes. [Book III. Chap, III. 
 
 tion of the north to his system, for he never supposed that his general, 
 formerly his enemy, would one day prefer the interests of his people to 
 those of his first country, and he permitted him to accept the proffered 
 crown. Sweden, since the accession of Charles XIII., had adhered to 
 the continental system, and for a moment the blockade was observed over 
 the whole of Europe. 
 
 At this point of our narrative it may be as well to pause for a moment 
 to cast a glance over the immense works achieved by 
 
 General remarks 
 
 on Napoleon Napoleon, and to examine some of the causes of his eleva- 
 
 and his reign. 
 
 tion and his fall. He was raised to the pinnacle of glory 
 by his genius, his victories, and the will of a people who Avere 
 dazzled by the prestige of a new name surrounded by a glorious 
 aureole, and which sighed for order and repose after having suffered 
 so many troubles; but he was raised in reality by that hidden 
 Providence which produces on the theatre of the world the necessary 
 men when their time is come, and which, too often misunderstood 
 by themselves, directs and supports them till their work is accomplished. 
 France applauded the great good fortune of Napoleon because she had need 
 of him, and because, after having secured her power abroad, and done 
 much for her glory, he had perceived what she required for her internal 
 prosperity. We have recounted his exploits, his conquests, his adminis- 
 .trative and legislative works, and space would fail us were we to attempt 
 to enumerate those which he effected of particular and special interest. 
 His vast intellect embraced everything. He passed without effort, and 
 
 with marvellous facility, from one subject to another, and 
 
 Home affairs. J1 J 
 
 no detail was too small for his vigilant attention. Now 
 combining the interests of a large youthful population with the military 
 interests of his empire, he founded schools for the army and navy, gave a 
 military organization to the prytanees and lyceums, opened these estab- 
 lishments gratuitously to the sons of the brave men who 
 Schools. & J 
 
 fell on the field of battle, and founded several special 
 establishments for their daughters ; and now devoting his attention to 
 the commercial and industrial interests of the country, he established the 
 Trade and Council General of Fabrics and Manufactures, bestowed 
 industry. honours and rewards on the authors of useful inventions, 
 gave a hundred thousand francs to the chemist Proust for his discovery of 
 grape sugar, decorated Ternaux with the cross of the Legion of Honour 
 
1808-1814.] GREAT PUBLIC WORKS. 371 
 
 for improvements in the manufacture of cloths, and offered a million to 
 any one who should invent a machine for spinning flax. The woollen 
 and silk manufactures were immensely encouraged by him, and the culti- 
 vation of cotton was attempted by his orders in Corsica and Italy. To 
 such matters as the provisioning of towns and armies, the clothing of his 
 troops, the sanitary condition of the capital, and the abolition of men- 
 dicity, he by turns directed his attention. 
 
 Napoleon's thoughts were not wholly absorbed by material matters, 
 but found time to dwell on subjects of a higher species of interest, and 
 France owes to him the erection or first suggestion of as &reat ubU 
 many imperishable monuments as useful establishments. works - 
 Wherever there appeared a necessity for them he constructed roads, dug 
 canals, built bridges, and this not only in France, but in the foreign 
 lands which had been annexed to his vast empire. The famous Simplon 
 road, the canal of Saint-Quentin, and the harbours of Antwerp and 
 Cherbourg, show what he was able to do in matters of the kind. The 
 Bourse, the Madeleine, the column of the Place Vendome, the Etoile 
 triumphal arch, and the bridges of Austerlitz and Jena were built or 
 planned during his reign. Napoleon enriched the national library, had 
 the works of the Pantheon continued, ordered the Pont de la Concorde 
 to be decorated with statues of those of his principal generals who had 
 died on the field of honour, and formed the idea of consecrating at Saint 
 Denis three principal expiatory altars for the three royal races which had 
 succeeded each other on the French throne. 
 
 Although he was his own Foreign Minister, Home Secretary, Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, and Minister for War, he found time for every detail, 
 and had an exact account of everything sent in to him. He possessed in 
 an eminent degree the faculty of judging of the characters and capacities 
 of those who served him, and it was to this precious faculty that he owed 
 the fact that he almost always found his ideas well understood and well 
 carried out, and that he rarely had to change his Ministers, Millisterg and 
 administrators, or councillors. The men who, out of the officials - 
 ranks of the army, had the chief share in the great things accomplished 
 by his orders, were — in respect to foreign affairs, Talleyrand and Cham- 
 pagny, Duke of Cadore ; in financial matters, Gaudin, Duke of Gaeta, 
 Mollien, and Barbe-Marbois, whose integrity equalled their intelligence ; 
 in home affairs, the Count de Montalivet, who, at first director- 
 is b 2 
 
372 napoleon's coadjutoes. [Book III. Chap. III. 
 
 general of roads and bridges, was made a Minister, and performed his 
 duties with integrity and high-mindedness ; and finally, the Minister of 
 Public Instruction was Fontanes, the Grand Master of the University, a 
 distinguished poet, who had been brought up in the old school of litera- 
 ture and manners, and who lavished upon the representative of the new 
 times ingenuous homage which too often resembled servile flattery. 
 Besides these, there were in possession of high dignities or great employ- 
 ments, Lebrun, the Duke of Piacenza; Eeynier, Duke of Massa; Maret, 
 Duke of Bassano ; and Daru, who united to a marvellous aptitude for 
 The c until of wor ^ a courage which was proof against any assault. The 
 state. Council of State which Napoleon had organized in a manner 
 
 justly admired, was rendered illustrious during his reign by great talents, 
 being adorned by the high qualities of the lawyers Portalis and Tronchet, 
 the compilers of the civil code, and of Joubert, Allent, Eegnault de Saint- 
 Jean d'Angely, and the immortal Cuvier. Most of these men have left 
 lasting memorials of their labours. Napoleon, by the vigour of his 
 genius and the combination of eminent qualities, contrived to be superior 
 to them all, and it was by making use of their talents, by surrounding 
 himself with all the illustrious men of France, that he had reached, in 
 1810, the highest degree of power and glory ever attained by any sove- 
 reign in Europe. His empire after the last annexations contained a 
 population of fifty millions, who were distributed amidst a hundred and 
 thirty departments. 
 
 In the meantime, beneath all this grandeur and prosperity a great evil 
 Cause3ofhis was g ra( ^ uan y digging an abyss, and this evil was the Em- 
 peror's own unbounded ambition. If he had never sepa- 
 rated his personal interests from those of France, there is reason to believe 
 that he might have finally triumphed over all resistance ; but during 
 these later days his perpetual invasions, undertaken either for his own 
 sake or that of his family, had redoubled the fears and jealousy of foreign 
 princes, without producing any other result to France than a perpetual 
 sacrifice of men and money. Party hatred then reawoke with renewed 
 hatred in the interior of the kingdom, and found an echo amidst the 
 classes who had assisted to raise and maintain the imperial throne. The 
 resentment, moreover, of the aristocracy and the friends of liberty did 
 not want for pretexts and genuine causes. The old aristocracy ever 
 
1808-1814.] NAPOLEON'S AMBITION. 373 
 
 regarded Napoleon as a parvenu, born of a revolution which it held in 
 
 horror, forgetting that he had been a chief agent in its sup- ... 
 
 ' ° ° o . i At home. 
 
 pression ; and the democrats cursed in him the man who had 
 renounced all their principles after having obtained his power under the 
 order of things which they had established. The creation of a new 
 nobility was equally offensive to the old nobles and to the patriots. The 
 complete suppression of the liberty of the press rendered the irritation 
 stronger by keeping it confined in men's hearts, and although Napoleon 
 had not ceased to conquer, he was not able to silence his enemies by his 
 victories, the very number of which enfeebled their prestige. The 
 frightful void caused by the war in the ranks of the younger generation 
 became day by day more visible ; the consumption of men was frightful, 
 and after each victory public attention was directed less to the territory 
 conquered than to the blood spilt ; and the despairing cries of mothers 
 were heard above the triumphal shouts. 
 
 Abroad the power of Napoleon, more apparent than real, rested on no 
 solid foundation. His brothers even, who had been crowned 
 
 7 Abroad. 
 
 by his own hand, were indignant at being only regarded by 
 him as his lieutenants, and perceived that when he granted them the 
 title of king without allowing them royal power, he had rendered it 
 impossible for them to reign. One of them abdicated, and the others 
 hesitated between abdication and revolt. The populations of the annexed 
 countries were overwhelmed with the burden of conscription, war taxes, 
 and the maintenance of troops. It was in vain that the Emperor num- 
 bered great sovereigns amongst his allies. The latter could not forget 
 that his alliance had been forced upon them by victories, and their 
 wounded honour demanded some revenge. Austria and Prussia had 
 cruel affronts to efface and numerous provinces to regain. Great excite- 
 ment prevailed throughout all the universities and secret societies in 
 Germany, and Napoleon had already, in 1809, whilst residing at Schon- 
 brunn, been on the point of perishing, as has been mentioned above, 
 under the dagger of a young fanatic. Spain, from which he sought to 
 tear the left bank of the Ebro for the purpose of annexing it to France, 
 and Portugal, which he had assumed the power of dividing at his will, 
 rejected his yoke, and, supported by England, opposed an invincible resis- 
 tance to Napoleon, who exhausted himself in his efforts to maintain three 
 
374 LEAGUE AGAINST NAPOLEON. [BOOK III. CHAP. Ill, 
 
 armies on a formidable footing. The fatal continental system finally 
 aroused against him every commercial interest, and blinded himself by 
 giving him an apparent pretext for his continual usurpations. He per- 
 ceived that this system imposed so heavy a burden, so direct an inconve- 
 nience, upon both sovereigns and peoples, that he could nowhere entrust its 
 execution to any one but himself. After having, with this object, annexed 
 Holland and the Eoman States to France, and made irreconcilable enemies 
 SenatusCon- of the Pope and the clergy, he ventured still further, and 
 cemwis? 6 " on tne 13tn of December, 1810, without any preliminary 
 Annexation of announcement, annexed to his empire, by a Senatus Con- 
 Towns and the sultum, the Valois, the Hanseatic Towns, and the coasts of 
 Baltic to the the Baltic from the Ems to the Elbe. Circumstances, said the 
 Emperor, demanded such a measure, and he made vague pro- 
 mises of indemnity to the princes despoiled by this fresh usurpation. During 
 the prevalence of such a policy as this there was no longer security for 
 any sovereign or guarantee for the observance of any treaty, and it was 
 evident that either France must be vanquished by Europe, or that the 
 whole of Europe must become France. An immoderate ambition com- 
 pelled the Emperor incessantly to fight against the league of dynasties, 
 peoples, the priesthood, and commerce, and when he believed that all 
 were gained over to his views because all were submissive to him, he 
 found that he had sown in every direction the germs of an opposition 
 which was destined to explode in a terrible manner on the very first day 
 on which he should suffer a reverse. 
 
 Amongst all the Sovereigns of Europe, it was Alexander who at this 
 period was capable of causing Napoleon the most anxiety. This prince, in 
 fact, was at once the most powerful on account of his armies, and the most 
 difficult to subdue on account of the geographical position of his empire. 
 For some time past, for the purpose of maintaining a good understanding 
 with Napoleon, he had to resist the solicitations of the English Govern- 
 ment and his old allies on the Continent, and to struggle against the 
 remonstrances of the Russian aristocracy, which, since the Czar's adhesion 
 to the continental system had been unable to find outlets for the pro- 
 ducts of their estates. Alexander had obtained Finland, Moldavia, and 
 Wallachia, so long coveted, and was anxious that the French Emperor 
 should declare in a formal manner against the future re- establishment of 
 the kingdom of Poland. He was already complaining of Napoleon's 
 
1808-1814.] BATTLE OE EUENTES d'ONOEO, 375 
 
 refusal to do this, when the Senatus Consultuni of the 13th December, 
 1810, added a serious item to his causes of complaint. Amongst the 
 princes who had been deprived of their possessions was his uncle, the 
 Grand-Duke of Oldenburg, and Alexander regarded this 
 decree, which forcibly dispossessed a member of his family, Alexander to- 
 
 ,"','. wards Napoleon. 
 
 as a personal insult to nimseii. He now listened to those 
 about him who were most eager that he should break with France ; and 
 on the 31st December replied to the Senatus Consultum by a commercial 
 ukase which closed Russia against a large number of French products, 
 and opened its ports to the products of the English colonies when con- 
 veyed in neutral bottoms. Fresh levies of troops were ordered throughout 
 his dominions, his armies marched upon the Niemen, and Europe awaited 
 fresh and sinister events. 
 
 Whilst Napoleon, deaf to the counsels of prudence, thus provoked 
 fresh war with Eussia by successive and rash invasions, the _. ,. 
 
 J 7 Continuation of 
 
 Peninsula, at the other extremity of Europe, devoured the anjportu af am 
 armies and resources of France. Suchet retained the 1811, 
 upper hand in Aragon and Catalonia ; but in Estremadura, Andalucia, and 
 Portugal, the armies of Soult and Massena endured great hardships 
 and struggled against immense difficulties. Soult, after a long and mur- 
 derous conflict, had captured Badajoz, and from thence had marched to 
 Cadiz, to hasten the reduction of that important place, which was 
 invested by Victor ; but the English speedily besieged Badajoz in their 
 turn, and compelled Soult to return to Estremadura. Massena having 
 failed to force the formidable lines of Torres Vedras, after 
 
 Retreat of Mas* 
 
 having remained encamped many months on the right sena before the 
 
 English. 
 
 bank of the Tagus, in front of the English army, had found 
 himself compelled to return to Spain, and had retreated to Salamanca, 
 closely pursued by Wellington. At the end of April, 1811, he received 
 a reinforcement of some thousands of the Imperial Guard, under Marshal 
 Bessieres, the Duke of Istria, and then, resolving to resume the offensive, 
 made an effort to relieve Almada, an important city on the Portuguese 
 frontier which the English were besieging. He marched to the assistance 
 of this place with forty thousand v erans, the heroic remnant of several 
 armies, and encountered the enemy on the 3rd of May at Batt i eo f Fuente3 
 the village of Fuentes d'Onoro, half way between Almada d ' 0noro > 1811 - 
 and Ciudad-Rodrigo. There Massena engaged Wellington, and a terrible 
 
376 PIUS VIT. AND NAPOLEON. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 battle took place, which at the end of three days was still undecided, and 
 which he would have gained, apparently, if his supply of ammunition 
 had not failed, and if the generals under him had better obeyed his 
 orders. The English retained their positions, and Massena, who was 
 much weakened, having retained possession of the field of battle for some 
 days, ordered a retreat, and then fell back upon Salamanca. Napoleon 
 reproached him for not having been victorious, and replaced him in his 
 command by Marshal Marmont. 
 
 The Empire was in a state of decline ; but fate still granted to the 
 Birth of the Emperor a great and much longed for favour. He had a 
 
 King of Eome. son ^orn to him in March, 1811 ; and the birth of this child, 
 who was proclaimed King of Eome in the cradle, appeared, by assuring 
 him of a successor, to have consolidated his fortunes. Napoleon now r 
 desired to terminate his protracted differences with the Court of Rome, 
 and wished to assemble a General Council in Paris on the day on 
 which his son should be baptized, for the purpose of regtilating, with the 
 assistance of that assembly, the ecclesiastical affairs of his empire. 
 
 The Sovereign Pontiff, deprived of his temporalities, was still detained 
 ,. . in his old captivity, in which he persisted in refusing to 
 
 Contentions be- 
 
 ti^Po^and* institute the French bishops appointed by the Emperor, 
 the Emperor. ^q number of which had been raised to twenty-seven.* 
 Napoleon desired that the Pope should accept at the expense of France 
 a sumptuous but dependent establishment at Rome, at Paris, or at 
 Avignon,f and should thus renounce his temporal power. He demanded, 
 moreover, on the ground of the necessities of the several dioceses, that 
 the bishops should be canonically instituted, and sought some legal 
 method of providing for their institution should the Pope refuse to 
 bestow it. 
 
 Pius VII. thought that by agreeing to the Emperor's first proposition 
 he would be failing in his duty, and betraying the sacred rights of the 
 Holy See, which he had sworn to maintain, and nobly refused to submit 
 
 * Napoleon had ordered the Chapter to bestow the quality of vicars capitular upon 
 the nominated bishops, which enabled the latter to govern their dioceses, at least as 
 administrators. Cardinal Manz, who had been nominated Archbishop of Paris, 
 governed his diocese in this way. 
 
 t At Avignon, however, Napoleon was willing that the Pope should be independent, 
 if he would accept the famous declaration of 1682, which declared the liberties of the 
 Gallican church. 
 
1808-1814.] COUNCIL OF EBENCH PKELATES. 377 
 
 to his own deposal at the expense of a magnificent establishment. "It is 
 not," he said, "the Vatican that I demand, but the catacombs. Let 
 me but return with a few old priests to enlighten me with their counsels, 
 and I will continue my Pontifical functions whilst submitting to Cassar, 
 as did the first apostles." He was more yielding on the second point, 
 the institution of the bishops, and appeared, in words at least, to have no 
 desire to oppose the institution of the nominated bishops by a metropo- 
 litan, after a delay of six months. 
 
 Such was the serious question which the Emperor intended to regulate 
 in a definitive manner by convoking in Paris, in a National Co u , ., 
 Council, all the French prelates. The Council commenced Paris » 1811, 
 its sittings in Paris on the 19th of June,* and wishing to commence by an 
 act of deference towards the Emperor, appointed as its president Cardinal 
 Fesch, Napoleon's uncle, the Archbishop of Lyons and Primate of the 
 Gauls. Violent debates, however, speedily arose in the bosom of the 
 Council with respect to its competence to decide with respect to the 
 great question which had been submitted to its consideration. A com- 
 mittee, nominated by the Assembly, sent in a report opposed to the 
 wishes of the Emperor, and the reading of the report aroused a violent 
 storm ; some members protesting with indignation against the shameful 
 treatment to which the Pope had been subjected, and alluding to the 
 Bull by which Napoleon had been excommunicated. At this unex- 
 pected news the Emperor, yielding to his rage, dissolved the Coun- 
 cil, and had three prelates, the Bishops of Troyes, Tour nay, and 
 Ghent, imprisoned in Vincennes. Then, by the advice of Cardinal 
 Maury, he had them all summoned separately, and had their individual 
 adhesion demanded to the declaration formerly approved of, by word of 
 mouth, by the Pope, and which authorized the metropolitan to grant 
 institution to the bishops nominated by the Emperor, if, after an interval 
 of six months, they had not obtained it from the Court of Rome. 
 Eighty-five bishops out of a hundred and fifteen having approved this 
 plan, the Emperor again assembled the Council, and now obtained from 
 it an almost unanimous vote in favour of his wishes. The Council, how- 
 ever, without reviving the question of competence, expressed a wish that 
 the Sovereign Pontiff should be requested to approve of this decree. A 
 
 * The Council had not been able to meet, as Napoleon bad wisbed, on his son's 
 baptismal day, but assembled in the following week. 
 
378 STTFEEKINGS OP ETJEOPE. [BoOE III. CHAP. III. 
 
 Commission consisting of cardinals and bishops took it accordingly to the 
 Pope at Savona, and begged him to sanction it. The Pope, fearing to 
 place the Church in a position of still greater danger if he refused, pro- 
 mised to institute the twenty-seven bishops, and accepted the decree by 
 a brief, which he supported, however, by considerations contrary to the 
 recognised principles of the Gallican Church. Napoleon published the 
 purport of the Pontifical brief, without the reasons given by the Pope for 
 issuing it ; and having submitted the latter to the Council of State for 
 examination, he procured in all haste the execution of the last formalities 
 necessary for the completion of the institution of the nominated prelates 
 Dissolution of P rom i se d by the Pope. The assembly of prelates was then 
 the Council. dissolved ; and other cares forthwith absorbed the thoughts of 
 the Emperor, who once more seized his formidable sword for a gigantic 
 struggle, and marched with blind confidence to meet the storm which his 
 mad ambition had raised in the East. 
 
 Whilst insisting with offensive haughtiness that Alexander should 
 withdraw the ukase of the 31st December, Napoleon chose to ignore the 
 much more serious wrong which he had done to the Czar by annexing 
 the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg to his empire without according any 
 indemnity to the Duke. His pride made him see an insult to France 
 and himself in Alexander's refusal to withdraw the ukase in question ; 
 he believed that this work would not be accomplished until he should 
 have rendered all the sovereigns of Europe, even the greatest, dependent 
 on his will; and to effect this object he drew down innumerable 
 calamities upon France and himself. 
 
 Before declaring war, however, he wished to put his vast kingdom in a 
 state of defence at every point. He visited Belgium, where he ordered the 
 Journe of the excution of magnificent works, and Holland, which had 
 island been recently annexed to his empire, where he put many 
 Holland. important places in a state to sustain a long siege, and 
 
 made immense preparations in every direction. France suffered at this 
 time from a scarcity of grain, and the excessive dearness 
 ings of France of many objects of consumption which she had formerly 
 obtained from the colonies — there was no maritime com- 
 merce ; and to these causes of disaffection were added the most cruel of 
 all, the tax of blood, and immense, unlimited, endless sacrifices of human 
 
1808-1814.] IMPERIAL TYRANNY. 379 
 
 life. Deaf to every remonstrance Napoleon aggravated the famine by 
 
 laying a tax upon grain ; and, entirely absorbed by his 
 
 warlike projects, he formed the few men who had escaped the imperial 
 
 rule, 
 
 the conscriptions of the last years, into a national mobile 
 guard, and pitilessly pursued, by means in use during the Eeign of 
 Terror, sixty thousand refractory conscripts who had not joined their regi- 
 ments. Their unhappy families, thoughout France, were rendered re- 
 sponsible for their absence or their flight, subjected to cruel exactions, 
 and compelled to support at their own expense troops who were the 
 objects of the public hate under the name of garnisaires. The conse- 
 quences of these proceedings were revolts, which were severely repressed 
 at several points. Paris, even, made complaints, and the Emperor 
 retired to Saint Cloud so as to be out of hearing of the murmurs which 
 arose from the people as he passed amidst them. And if such evils were 
 intolerable in France, they were much more so in the unhappy countries 
 which Napoleon had conquered, which were crushed by taxes and 
 devastated by the continual passage of armies ; and the French name 
 became odious to the peoples who submitted in despair to the rule of 
 France or its oppressive ascendancy. It was on these peoples, however, 
 and their sovereigns, that Napoleon thought he could rely in his enter- 
 prise against Russia, and it was in this belief that he had imposed his 
 alliance upon Austria and Prussia, with whom he had concluded fresh 
 treaties. He then assembled his army behind the Vistula, and, for the 
 purpose of increasing it, withdrew from Spain a portion of the troops 
 which were already scarcely sufficient to support his brother on the 
 throne. From every point of Europe, from the shores of the Ocean 
 and the Mediterranean to those of the Baltic, innumerable troops were 
 marched upon Poland, and the Emperor resolved to superintend their 
 movements himself. He confided his royal powers to the Arch- Chancellor 
 Cambaceres, and, on the invitation of the King of Saxony, he set out 
 from Paris in May, 1812, and established himself with his Court at 
 Dresden, under pretext of assembling the other sovereigns congress of 
 at a Congress, but in reality with the purpose of drawing res eD ' 
 near to his army and being in a position to surprise the enemy by a 
 sudden attack at the commencement of the campaign. The Emperor of 
 Austria, the King of Prussia, and many of the Sovereigns of Europe went 
 
380 NORTHERN ALLIANCES. [BOOK III. CHAP. I1T. 
 
 to Dresden to meet Napoleon ; and then, at the height of his power, he 
 tasted once more the triumph so sweet to his pride, for he saw himself 
 surrounded by kings as his courtiers, and many crowned heads bowing 
 before his own. 
 
 Napoleon had resolved not to commence the campaign until the month 
 of June, since he required the interval for the purpose of deceiving 
 Alexander, and being able to cross the Niemen before he could be pre- 
 pared to resist him. He sent to that monarch, through his ambassador, 
 M. de Narbonne, continual assurances of his amicable feelings towards 
 him, whilst he was constantly making the most enormous preparations 
 for waging war against him. He at length succeeded in assembling 
 behind the Vistula his immense army, consisting of four hundred and 
 t, {.. twenty- three thousand men, of whom three hundred 
 
 Reassembling J ' 
 
 army e inPoiand thousand were infantry, seventy thousand horse, and 
 1812 " thirty thousand artillerymen, accompanied by a thousand 
 
 pieces of artillery, six pontoon equipages, and a month's provisions. 
 This army, composed of men of almost all the nations of Europe, 
 French, Austrian, Prussian, "Wurtembergian, Bavarian, Dutch, Polish, 
 and Italian, was divided into eight great corps, and supported by two 
 hundred thousand reserve troops who were distributed between the Elbe 
 and the Vistula. This formidable assembling of troops had already justly 
 aroused the alarm of the Emperor Alexander, and now, foreseeing the 
 danger which threatened him, in spite of all Napoleon's efforts to lull 
 him into a deceitful sense of security, he formed an alliance with England, 
 in order to resist the storm ready to burst upon his country. He formed 
 with England, Spain, and Portugal, a new coalition, into 
 
 Sixth coalition . . , . -i i • i • a -i i • i 
 
 against France, which he succeeded m drawing Sweden, which was 
 
 1812 
 
 governed in the name of Charles XIII. by the new Prince 
 Royal, Bernadotte. The latter, who had long since been jealous and the 
 secret enemy of Napoleon, coveted Norway, which was possessed by 
 Denmark, an old ally of France. Napoleon had refused to accede to 
 Bernadotte's views on this point, and provoked his resentment not only 
 by this refusal, but by treatment which was imprudently disdainful, 
 
 and by permitting Marshal Davoust to enter with his army 
 Russia with Swedish Pomerania. Alexander obtained the Swedish 
 
 alliance by the sacrifice of Norway, and concluded with 
 
1808-1814.] RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 3bl 
 
 Sweden an alliance offensive and defensive, which Napoleon at first 
 despised, and which was in reality fatal to him. 
 
 Napoleon now no longer concealed his hostile designs, and setting forth 
 from Dresden in the month of June, 1812, he proceeded to his head 
 quarters at Thorn, from whence he directed the march of his armies 
 upon the Niemen. Before crossing that river he alleged, as a reason for 
 his aggression, a recent and formal demand which he had received from 
 Alexander to remove the French troops from Western Prussia. He 
 spoke of this demand as an insult to his crown, and it was for this 
 frivolous motive and for Alexander's infraction of the continental 
 blockade, that he plunged France into a distant and frightful war. " The 
 Russians," he said, " the Russians whom we have always vanquished 
 have assumed the tone of conquerors, and provoke us to the conflict . . . 
 let us accept this impertinence as a favour and cross the Niemen." On 
 the 22nd June, in a proclamation to his army, he spoke of a state which 
 had been blotted from the map of Europe, for he had proved the courage 
 of the people Of that country, and he required them as an advanced 
 guard and a barrier against colossal Russia. " Soldiers !" he said, 
 " the second Polish war has commenced. The first was brought to a 
 close at Friedland and Tilsit. Russia has sworn an eternal alliance with 
 France and war to the death against England ; and now she has violated 
 both those oaths. . . . Russia is in the toils of some fatality, and her destiny 
 must be accomplished." It was to Napoleon rather than to the Russians 
 that these words were applicable ; he was blinded by some fatality, and he 
 was led by it to the fulfilment of his destiny. 
 
 On the 25th June, the Emperor commenced the campaign at the 
 head of four hundred thousand soldiers. He crossed the Campai g n of 
 Niemen with the larger portion of his forces, and on the 1812 m Ku9sia - 
 28th he entered Wilna, where he received a final letter from Alexander 
 suggesting peace, and promising to continue his alliance with France if 
 Napoleon would evacuate the Russian territories. But to have retreated 
 a step would have been a humiliation in the eyes of Napoleon.- He sent 
 a reply in the negative and halted seventeen days at Wilna — a delay 
 which was fatal. 
 
 In the meantime the Diet of the Duchy of Warsaw proclaimed the re- 
 establishment and freedom of Poland as a nation. A deputation sent to 
 
382 BATTLE OF THE MOSKYA. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 the Emperor entreated him to declare that Poland existed ; and Napoleon 
 hesitated to accede to the request, for a portion of the old Polish pro- 
 vinces was incorporated with Austria and Prussia, and at this time 
 Austria and Prussia were the allies of Prance. To recognise the existence 
 and independence of the Polish nation would be to spread the fire of in- 
 surrection throughout the incorporated provinces. At a later period, 
 perhaps, he might accede to the wishes of the Diet, but at present it was 
 his duty to decline to do so, and he gave his answer in such a manner as 
 not to offend his allies. 
 
 The Emperor continued his march, and arrived at Witepsk after a 
 series of glorious conflicts. The enemy's army retired before him, under 
 the command of Bagration and Barclay de Tolly ; the Dnieper was 
 speedily crossed, and a bloody battle took place- at Krasnoe, before 
 Smolensk, which was carried after a murderous conflict, and delivered to 
 the flames. The Eussians still fell back, and Napoleon followed them in 
 the direction of Moscow. The plains of Valoutina, Gorodrezna, and 
 Polotzk were the scenes of desperate combats, in which the French 
 arms were triumphant ; but the Eussians declined any decisive battle, 
 and, retreating after each defeat, led the French troops, who pursued them, 
 into the heart of old Eussia. 
 
 The army arrived at length, on the 5th September, on the plains of 
 Borodino, some leagues distant from Moscow, near the banks of the 
 Moskva, and found itself face to face with the whole Eussian army, 
 which was under the command of the old general Kutusof. A general 
 Battle of the engagement was resolved on for the day after the morrow, 
 Moskva. an( j on ^ m0 rning of that memorable day, Napoleon, 
 
 issuing from his tent, said to his officers — " See what a fine sun we have ! 
 It is the sun of Austerlitz !" Then, in an address to his soldiers, he said 
 to them — " At length you will fight the battle you have so longed for ! 
 Behave as you did at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at Witepsk, Smolensk, and 
 the most distant ages will speak with admiration of your conduct in this 
 battle. Let it be said with pride of each of you — ' He was at that great 
 battle on the plains of Moscow !' " The action commenced almost imme- 
 diately, and was terrific. Ney, Murat, Eugene, Davoust, Gerard, and 
 Poniatowski did deeds of the utmost heroism. Auguste Caulaincourt was 
 struck down whilst charging a redoubt at the head of his cuirassiers. The 
 
1808-1814.] ENTRY OF FRENCH INTO MOSCOW. 383 
 
 Russians yielded at length, after a desperate conflict. Napoleon held back 
 his guard, and allowed the Russians, whom he might have crushed, to 
 escape. Twenty-two thousand French and fifty thousand Russians were 
 killed or wounded in this battle, and a great number of generals perished 
 on the field. But the victory was on the side of the French, and Marshal 
 Ney was created Prince of Moskva on the field of battle. Another 
 battle took place at Mojaisk, half a league from Moscow, in which the 
 Russians were again vanquished, and their army only entered that ancient 
 capital immediately to evacuate it. From the heights of Mount Salut, 
 which command Moscow, the French beheld that famous city, half Asiatic, 
 half European, with its eight hundred churches, its thousand bell-towers, 
 and its gilded cupolas glittering in the sun. At this spectacle the French 
 troops were filled with astonishment and admiration. Moscow ! Moscow ! 
 they cried, and for a moment Napoleon joined in this enthusiasm; a 
 gleam of joy illumined his countenance, and a cry of happiness escaped 
 his lips. Moscow ! the reward for so many glorious efforts, the end of 
 so many toils. After a time the French entered the silent _. f . 
 streets of this vast city, and were astonished to find them ^ffmSSS 
 utterly deserted. The inhabitants had quitted it in a body. 1812, 
 Napoleon entered the citadel of the Kremlin unresisted. He had believed 
 that Moscow would be the term of his labours, and of the sufferings of his 
 army. It contained great stores, and he resolved to establish his winter 
 quarters there, and enjoy the fruits of his victory. But during the night 
 a frightful conflagration burst forth. Rostopchin, the B . 
 governor of the city, had determined, when he evacuated Moscow, 
 it, to make a great sacrifice for the purpose of saving his country. Russia 
 must be lost if the French could find a refuge in Moscow, and at a given 
 signal, therefore, convicts were sent throughout the city, torch in hand, 
 to fire it in a thousand places. Moscow crumbled beneath the flames, and 
 was speedily nothing but a heap of ashes. 
 
 The winter approached, and the French had no asylum against its 
 rigours. Napoleon still flattered himself with hopes of peace. Alex- 
 ander designedly prolonged the negotiations which were entered upon 
 with this object, and in the meantime signed a treaty with Sultan 
 Mahmoud, the successor of Selim, who had been slain by the Janissaries, 
 which assured him the support of the whole Russian army against Napo- 
 
384 RETREAT EROM MOSCOW. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 leon. The negotiations were at length broke off, and Napoleon ordered 
 a retreat, quitting the city at the head of a hundred 
 
 from Moscow, thousand troops, after a useless delay of forty days. " Your 
 attack is at an end," said old General Kutusof to the French, " and now 
 ours will begin." His army intercepted the old Kalouga route, towards 
 which Napoleon directed his march, and five days after the evacuation of 
 Moscow, on the 25th of October, he fought with the French at Maloja- 
 roslawetz a battle which was very bloody and very indecisive, and at the 
 close of which the Emperor was nearly taken by a band of Cos- 
 sacks in the midst of his staff.* A second battle would have been 
 necessary to open the road to Kalouga, and Napoleon was inclined to 
 fight it ; but, yielding to the advice of his generals, he directed the retreat 
 towards Smolensk. The winter suddenly came on wiih a rigour which 
 was very uncommon even in the heart of Eussia ; and the French troops, 
 paralysed with cold, were pursued and harassed in their retreat by innu- 
 merable enemies, and covered the line of march with their frozen 
 corpses. 
 
 However, the army continued its march in tolerably good order as 
 far as the Beresina, which it had to cross in the face of 
 
 Passage of the 
 
 Beresina. Kutusof, Wittgenstein, and Tchitchagof, and their three 
 
 armies, which occupied and barred all the fords. The river was only 
 partly frozen, and was filled with large masses of drifting ice ; and it was 
 necessary to build bridges under the enemy's fire and to fight inces- 
 santly. Victor and Oudinot protected the passage of the army, and still 
 performed prodigies of valour ; but the French troops, too inferior in 
 number, gave way on the right bank before the army commanded by 
 Wittgenstein, whilst a Eussian battery played upon the bridges and 
 opened a chasm in the compact mass of stragglers and unarmed wretches 
 who blocked up the way. Victor succeeded, at length, in driving this 
 terrible battery back, but was himself surrounded on every side and 
 almost crushed, when Fournier and Latour-Maubourg advanced at the 
 head of the cavalry, and breaking through the enemy's centre, set Victor 
 free. The bridges, however, were obstructed by an innumerable 
 number of soldiers of every arm, and an immense quantity of baggage, 
 
 * After this incident, in order to escape the misfortune of falling alive into the hands 
 of the Russians, Napoleon constantly carried about with him an active poison enclosed 
 in a ring. 
 
1808-1814.] PROPOSED CONGBESS AT PEAGUE. 385 
 
 and, breaking down, plunged thousands of men into the Beresina. At 
 length, after incredible efforts, the army crossed this formidable barrier ; 
 but the moral energy of the greater number of the French troops was 
 destroyed, and the retreat became one vast and fearful rout. 
 
 Paris had now been one-and-twenty days without news of the Emperor 
 and the Grand Army, and a political prisoner, General _ . „ 
 
 J ' * - 1 - Conspiracy of 
 
 Mallet, supposing that Napoleon was dead, had nearly Mallet > m Pans - 
 succeeded in superseding his Government by a conp-de-main. The 
 Emperor perceived that his presence was necessary in Paris, for the pur- 
 pose of defeating such plots and procuring fresh military resources. 
 On the 8th December he left his unfortunate army, which he had placed 
 under the command of the King of Naples, and which Marshal Ney 
 endeavoured to reanimate by his heroic example, exposing his life on 
 every occasion, now as a private soldier, and now as a general. 
 
 The reverses suffered by the French army were followed by desertions. 
 The Prussians, who covered the right of the French army, _. 
 
 1 ° V ' Desertion of 
 
 abandoned Macdonald at Tilsit ; and the Austrians, com- France b y th | 
 
 7 7 Jrrussians and 
 
 manded by Schwartzenberg, followed this example, leaving Austrians - 
 open our left, whilst Murat, the Commander-in-Chief, abandoned his post 
 and deserted. Eugene took the command and reestablished order. 
 France made a supreme effort, and, anticipating by a year the legal age 
 for the conscription, gave a new army to Napoleon, who marched with it 
 to meet Eugene. Austria, seized with fear, renewed its protestations of 
 fidelity, whilst Prussia negotiated with Russia at Kalisch ; and EDgland 
 promising Norway to Sweden, obtained the active co-operation of 
 Bernadotte against France. Napoleon, now threatened in 
 every direction, rejoined at Lutzen, on the 30th April, 1813, in Germany. 
 
 _i -.. •r>i/"ii» -i-i First successes. 
 
 Eugene and the remains of the Grand Army, and gained 
 with conscripts against the veteran troops of Europe the brilliant victories 
 of Lutzen, Bautzen, and Wurschen. He then renewed his negotiations for 
 peace. It was arranged that a Congress should meet at Prague on the 4th 
 of June, and Napoleon accepted the mediation of Austria, who demanded 
 as the price of her alliance that Napoleon should cede to her 
 the Illyrian provinces ; that the duchy of Warsaw should Congress at 
 be broken up and divided between Russia, Austria, and 
 Prussia ; that the kingdom of Prussia should be reconstructed with a 
 tenable frontier on the Elbe ; that the independence of Germany should 
 VOL. II. c c 
 
386 THE BATTLE OE LEIPSIC. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 be restored by the abolition of the Confederation of the Khine, and that 
 
 the cities of Hamburg and Lubeck should be reestablished as free 
 
 Hanseatic towns. These conditions were proposed by M. Metternich to 
 
 the Emperor in a celebrated interview ; and although they deprived 
 
 , France of scarcely anything, Napoleon's pride made him 
 
 hesitation, hesitate to accept them, and this hesitation was fatal. The 
 
 Congress was suddenly dissolved without any result, and Austria declared 
 
 _. . .. „ war against France. The allies had five hundred thousand 
 
 Dissolution of ° 
 
 the Congress. men un( j er Schwartzenberg, Blucher, and Bernadotte, the 
 Prince Eoyal of Sweden, whilst Napoleon had only three hundred thousand 
 divided into eleven corps under Vandamme,. Victor, Bertrand, Ney, Lauri- 
 ston, Marmont, Eeynier, Poniatowski, Macdonald, Oudinot, and Saint- 
 Cyr ; the cavalry was commanded by the King of Naples, Latour- 
 Maubourg, Sebastiani, and Kellerman; and Mortier and Nausouty led 
 the guard. These forces were the last hope of France. Wherever 
 Napoleon fought in person he was victorious. He fought the enemy 
 under the walls of Dresden, and was victorious; but Vandamme 
 Battle of sustained a terrible check at Kulem, where he was 
 esden. ma d e prisoner and lost ten thousand men. The three 
 sovereigns, Alexander, Francis, and Frederick William, negotiated at 
 Toeplitz a triple alliance. The allied armies grew larger day by day, 
 and many conflicts took place between unequal forces. Oudinot was 
 Keversesofthe vanquished at Grosberen, Ney at Dennewitz, Macdonald at 
 French armies. Katzbach. The King of Bavaria declared war against 
 Napoleon, and the French troops, surrounded on all sides, retreated to 
 Leipsic. The Emperor now suffered the consequences of his system of 
 oppression. Europe, which for some time had been bowed in the dust 
 before him, now rose en masse and prepared to crush him. A terrible 
 battle, which lasted two days, and was the greatest and most 
 
 The battle of _ _ , , • , . . 
 
 Leipsic. Terri- murderous of the age, took place under the walls of Leipsic. 
 
 hie disaster. 
 
 A hundred and thirty thousand French struggled against 
 three hundred thousand enemies, and they were abandoned by the 
 Saxons, whose old King alone remained faithful to France. This defec- 
 tion compromised the safety of the army, and Napoleon ordered a 
 retreat, which was effected by the only bridge over the Elster. Sud- 
 denly, in accordance with an order which was ill understood and too 
 promptly executed, the bridge was blown up before the army had wholly 
 
1808-1814.] THE EEENCH DEIVEN EEOM SPAIN. 887 
 
 passed over, and this disaster decided the fate of the campaign. Fifty 
 thousand men had perished on either side in its frightful battles. Twenty 
 thousand French were taken prisoners in consequence of the destruction 
 of the Elster bridge, two hundred pieces of artillery and an immense 
 amount of baggage fell into the hands of the allies, and a multitude of 
 brave men, including the heroic Poniatowsky, were drowned. 
 
 Napoleon retreated upon the Rhine, close pressed by the allied armies. A 
 corps of sixty thousand Austrians and Bavarians, under General Wrede, 
 endeavoured near Hanau to intercept the French retreat, but „, . , , . 
 
 1 ' Glorious battle 
 
 Napoleon obtained a glorious victory, dispersed the enemy, at Hanau - 
 and encamped his army on the Rhine,* whilst the allies took up a position 
 opposite to him, and selected Frankfort as their head-quarters. 
 
 Spain shook off the rule of France. Two great battles lost there 
 by the latter, Arapiles (Salamanca) by Marmont, in 1812, and Vittoria 
 by King Joseph, in 1813, enabled "Wellington to march _ „ 
 
 J ° r ' ' ° Continuous mis- 
 
 at the head of a hundred thousand English, Portuguese, ^TTs Sn tlie 
 and Spaniards to the Western Pyrenees, where Soult, after 1812 ' 1813- 
 having struggled gloriously in the Peninsula with very unequal forces, 
 could now only oppose to the enemy fifty thousand troops, who were tried 
 veterans indeed, but worn out by continued reverses. Suchet, with 
 twenty-five thousand men of the army of Aragon, defended the Eastern 
 Pyrenees against forces three times superior. 
 
 At the end of 1813 the whole of Spain was lost to France, with the 
 exception of a few places which were still held by French garrisons, and 
 Joseph Bonaparte was a King only in name. In this extremity Napoleon 
 did not hesitate to sacrifice his brother's crown, which had been acquired 
 by so much injustice and bloodshed, and in the faint hopef of arresting 
 the progress of the Anglo-Spanish army at the Pyrenees, he Treat „ 
 engaged, by a treaty signed at Valencay, where he still kept vaieneay. 
 King Ferdinand captive, to acknowledge him as King of Spain and the 
 
 * Napoleon retreated upon the Rhine with forty thousand armed and sixty thousand 
 unarmed men, leaving on the Vistula, the Oder, and the Elbe, a hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand Frenchmen, who were condemned to defend foreign walls whilst the walls of their 
 country were no longer defended but by the weak arms of youth and old age. 
 
 f Spain and England being allied to each other could only treat in concert, and it 
 was very improbable that the English Government and the Spanish Regency would re- 
 nounce the advantages they had gained on account of a treaty extorted from a captive 
 prince. 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 DEPLOBABLE CONDITION OF SPAIN. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 Indies, and to open the doors of his prison as soon as the treaty should be 
 accepted by the Regency at Cadiz and the Cortes. 
 
 Prince Eugene, faithful to France and to misfortune,* still struggled at 
 .„ [ , this period in Italy, and heroically defended the course of 
 
 Magnificent de- x - •/ * ./ 
 
 f ?th e Ad^i" 8 *^e Adige 5 but n * s army was reduced to thirty- six thousand 
 Prince Eugene. menj whilst a hundred thousand Austrians and Germans 
 poured down upon Italy, and the weak Murat, to save his crown, declared 
 against Napoleon. 
 
 France now found itself threatened on the north and the east with in- 
 vasion of its ancient boundaries, just as it had been in 1789. 
 
 Deplorable con- , . ... 
 
 dition of the But its population was no longer inspired by that enthusiastic 
 spirit which enabled it to keep its territories sacred, and 
 already those who had applauded or consented to the-Emperor's elevation 
 held aloof from him. The celebrated historian so often quoted, describes 
 in the following terms the situation of the country at this unfortunate 
 period. " France," he says, " which had been disgusted with liberty by 
 ten years of revolution, was now disgusted with despotism by fifteen years 
 of a military government, and the effusion of blood from one end of Europe 
 to another. The violence of the prefects tearing away the children of the 
 people for the conscription, and those of the higher classes for the guards 
 of honour, torturing, by means of the garnisaires, the families whose sons 
 did not join their regiments, employing moveable columns against the 
 refractory conscripts, often treating the French provinces as though they 
 had been conquered provinces, converting pretended voluntary gifts into 
 compulsory imposts, and seizing by means of requisitions, forage, horses, 
 and cattle ; a suspicious police, catching up the slightest words uttered 
 against the Government, arbitrarily imprisoning those who were accused 
 of having uttered such, and always assuming the guilt of the accused ; 
 a frightful state of misery in the ports, the result of the closing 
 of the seas ; and on the land frontiers, where tens of thousands of foreign 
 bayonets prevented the passage of a single bale of merchandize ; finally, 
 an indescribable and universal dread of invasion — all these evils, resulting 
 
 * Eugene had married a daughter of the King of Bavaria. Being entreated to 
 abandon Napoleon's cause by his father-in-law, who guaranteed him a principality in 
 Italy, he nobly replied that it was possible he might soon have to seek an asylum 
 at Munich, and that he was sure the King of Bavaria would rather receive a son- 
 in-law without a crown than one without honour. 
 
1808-1814.] THE FRANKFOBT PROPOSITIONS. 389 
 
 from the arbitrary will of one man, were a cruel lesson, which Aveakened 
 the remembrance of that which had been taught by the misfortunes of the 
 Revolution, and which, without rendering France republican, rendered it 
 desirous of a liberally constituted Government. All the parties which 
 had been so long forgotten now reappeared, and the Royalists, the partisans 
 of the House of Bourbon, reanimated by hope, excited by the priests, and 
 much more numerous and bold at this period than the Revolutionists, 
 began to speak aloud and to be listened to."* 
 
 The functionaries of high position, finding their fortunes threatened, 
 ventured to display a certain degree of independence ; whilst the courtiers 
 and old generals, including even Ney, Marmont, and Macdonald, openly 
 spoke of peace as indispensable, and pressed the Emperor to conclude it. 
 A final opportunity presented itself for concluding it advantageously. The 
 Ministers of England, Russia, and Austria — Lord Aberdeen, Nesselrode, 
 and Metternich — assembled at Frankfort, proposed in concert 
 
 Proposition of 
 
 to Napoleon, on the 13th November, the immediate convoca- the Powers at 
 
 r _ ' Frankfort. 
 
 tion at Mannheim of a congress, for the purpose of nego- 
 tiating peace on the basis of the reestablishment of the kingdom of 
 France within its ancient limits — the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the 
 Rhine — as they had been guaranteed in 1801 by the glorious peace 
 of Luneville. 
 
 These conditions were more advantageous than Napoleon, after so many 
 disasters, had a right to expect at the hands of irritated and victorious 
 Europe, but his pride would not consent to give way at the proper time. 
 He gave an ambiguous reply to the propositions of the foreign Ministers, 
 and after three weeks' delay, when, being better informed . , ' ', 
 
 J 7 ' ° Accepted by 
 
 with respect to the distress and state of public feeling in £ n p °a e °a att6 He 
 France, he sent in his assent to the proposal made at Frank- 1S t0 ° late " 
 fort, it was too late. The cry of the neighbouring populations which had 
 been so long oppressed rose against him, and was followed by violent 
 measures. Holland arose in insurrection, and chose the head of the House 
 of Orange for its King ; Murat separated his fortunes from those of 
 Napoleon ; and Count Pozzo di Borgo, the Emperor's most formidable and 
 determined personal enemy, had enlightened the Sovereigns and their 
 Ministers with respect to the actual state of affairs and public feeling in 
 
 * Thiers' "History of the Consulate and Empire," Vol. xvii. p. 39, 40. 
 
390 DISTRESS THROUGHOUT FRANCE. [BoOE III. CHAP. III. 
 
 the exhausted empire, and had promulgated an opinion that Europe could 
 have no repose till Napoleon had been torn from his throne. At the same 
 time England, perceiving how readily Holland had freed herself, conceived 
 the hope of depriving Napoleon of Antwerp and Belgium. Thus the op- 
 portunity of signing an honourable peace at Mannheim was lost, as it had 
 been six months before at Prague, before the disaster at Leipsic, and by 
 the same causes — the mad obstinacy of an indomitable pride, and an 
 ambitious hope of regaining at once and by a single blow what had been 
 lost by so many faults and reverses. 
 
 Immense resources were now required for the defence of France, which 
 Distress of was exnauste( i both as regarded men and money. The de- 
 France, ficiency in the finances amounted to two hundred and forty 
 millions, there was no credit to be obtained, and the Treasury notes, 
 which had been issued in large numbers, were already at a discount of 
 twenty per cent. ; and it was necessary to demand many hundred millions, 
 of property which was already overburdened, and six hundred thousand 
 soldiers, of a population which had been mowed down on so many fields 
 New demands for °^ battle. ^ n ^ ne 15th November, Napoleon demanded the 
 men and money. a ^ f ^ g ena t e alone, which, was as servile to him as ever, 
 and granted it without discussion. The Emperor had not ventured to 
 submit his demands to the Legislative Body, not because it was wanting in 
 docility, but because Napoleon perceived that in the existing state of 
 public feeling the members of an elective assembly could not entirely 
 ignore it. He had suspended the elections for the retiring series,* and 
 adjourned the meeting of the assembly. He neglected to conciliate it, 
 and behaved so arbitrarily towards it as even to impose upon it a presi- 
 dent who was not one of its own members, in contravention of all 
 propriety and law.f This violent and untimely measure was exceedingly 
 obnoxious to the legislators ; who had just arrived from their departments 
 deeply impressed with the spectacle of the public misery, the exhausted 
 state of the country, and the universal discontent ; and when Napoleon per- 
 ceived the necessity of seeking the support of public opinion, he reaped the 
 bitter fruits of so many arbitrary and violent acts. Having assembled the 
 
 * The Legislative Body, which was elected for five years, had been divided into five 
 series, of which one was renewed each year. 
 
 + Having made Count Mole Minister of Justice in the place of Keynier, Duke of 
 Massa, he appointed the latter to the presidency of the Legislative Corps, of which he 
 was not a member. 
 
1808-1814.] MAECH OP THE ALLIES. 391 
 
 Senate and Legislative Corps on the 19th December, he explained to them 
 the necessities and perils of the country, and desired their gllbmigsi n f 
 assistance. The reply of the Senate was moderate and sub- the Senate - 
 missive ; but the Legislative Corps resolved to make the Emperor hear 
 the just complaints which had been too long repressed, and, 
 
 Resistance of 
 
 on the report of M. Lame, an advocate of Bordeaux, an up- the Legislative 
 
 • it Body. 
 
 right and eloquent man, it voted, m answer to the speech 
 from the throne, an address in which it demanded, in respectful but firm 
 and distinct terms, the abandonment of conquests and the restoration of a 
 legal form of government. 
 
 This opposition, which was moderate though unexpected, was deno- 
 minated treason by the Emperor, and provoked his wrath. By his orders 
 all the copies of the address were seized ; he prorogued 
 the Legislative assembly, and on the following day, the anger of the 
 1st January, received a deputation from that body with a 
 storm of reproaches. From this time parties hostile to the Emperor 
 were formed throughout the empire, and Europe understood from this 
 imprudent outbreak on the part of Napoleon that France no longer sup- 
 ported him as one man. 
 
 The whole virile population of the State was summoned to arms ; 
 thirty thousand national guards of Paris were mobilised and incorpo- 
 rated with the active army ; and the last resources of the nation were 
 called into requisition. Napoleon declared Maria Louisa Maria Louisa 
 Regent, confided his wife and child, whom he was destined declared Regent, 
 to see no more, to the national guard, and took the field, after having 
 given the command of the capital to his brother Joseph. 
 
 The English and Spaniards advanced on the south, and were already 
 at the Pyrenees; whilst the two great armies of the st Ten gthofthe 
 coalition invaded the eastern frontiers. One of the latter, aUied armies - 
 called the army of Bohemia, consisting of sixty thousand men under 
 Schwartzenberg, marched upon France by Switzerland and inundated the 
 Franche-Comte ; whilst sixty thousand Russians and Prussians, forming 
 under Blucher the army of Silesia, penetrated into Lorraine and Alsatia 
 after having crossed the Rhine at three points, Mannheim, Mayence, 
 and Coblentz. The northern frontier was also broken into, a hundred 
 thousand Swiss and Germans having already invaded Belgium under 
 Bernadotte. The united strength of these three invading armies on the 
 
392 DEEEAT OE ELTJCHEE. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 north and the east, was three hundred and twenty thousand men, and 
 within a few months they were raised to six hundred thousand by the 
 addition of fresh German and Russian corps. 
 
 The plan of campaign formed by Schwartzenberg and Blucher was 
 Campain-nof ^° " un ^ e their armies between Chaumont and Langres, 
 France, 1814. an( j ^hen to advance upon Paris from the angle formed by 
 the Seine and the Marne. It was in the space comprised between these 
 two rivers that Napoleon hoped to stop and vanquish them. He confided 
 to General Maison the defence of the frontier of the north, and that 
 of Lyons to Augereau, and whilst Soult and Suchet still faced the 
 enemy at the Pyrenees, he ordered Marshals Ney, Victor, Marmont, 
 Macdonald, and Mortier to fall back with the feeble remnants of 
 their various corps to the environs of Chalons, where he arrived him- 
 self on the 25th January. With all his efforts he could only gather 
 together fifty thousand men, consisting of the veteran remains of his old 
 armies and inexperienced conscripts, with which to meet forces three 
 times as numerous. When fortune seemed already to have abandoned 
 him he showed himself superior even to himself. His boldness and activity 
 increased ; and to meet so many perils, he still conceived some of those 
 brilliant ideas which were the first cause of his glory, as of his faults and 
 misfortunes. 
 
 Blucher was hastening with his army to meet that of Schwartzenberg, 
 and quitting the course of the Marne for that of the Aube, had advanced 
 on that river as far as Brienne. Napoleon perceived that it was neces- 
 sary at any price to prevent the junction of the two armies by occupying 
 himself the line of the Aube, and driving back Blucher upon the Marne. 
 With thirty-two thousand men, commanded by Marmont, Ney, Victor, 
 and Lefebvre-Desnouettes, he marched rapidly from Chalons to Saint- 
 Dizier ; from thence he pursued Blucher and encountered him under the 
 Battle of walls of Brienne,* where he gave him battle and gained a 
 Bnenne. glorious victory. Blucher was dislodged from Brienne 
 with great loss and driven back upon the Eothiere, from whence he 
 retreated as far as Tranne. Informed of Blucher's defeat and perilous 
 position, Schwartzenberg turned his columns, which were marching 
 
 * Blucher had already passed Brienne, and was marching upon Arcis, when, upon 
 being informed of Napoleon's march, he retraced his steps for the purpose of stopping 
 him at Brienne. 
 
1808-1814.] EEESH DISASTEBS. 393 
 
 towards Troyes, to the right, for the purpose of effecting a junction with 
 Blucher opposite the plateau of the Rothiere, where the Emperor had 
 halted. At this spot there took place on the 1st February, 1814, a 
 desperate conflict between one hundred and seventy thousand Austrians, 
 Prussians, Eussians, and Bavarians, and thirty-two thousand French 
 only, commanded in chief by Napoleon, and under him by Oudinot, 
 Marmont, Victor, and Gerard. The battle lasted eight hours and ended 
 without any decided result ; the enemy being unable to carry the posi- 
 tions of the French, but retaining their own. It was necessary to fall 
 back before such formidable masses, and during the night Napoleon 
 effected in good order a retreat upon Troyes. 
 
 He received from various directions, and especially from Paris and the 
 armies in Spain, important reinforcements, which raised the number of 
 troops at his disposal to eighty thousand men ; but the enemy now had 
 three hundred and twenty thousand, and from all sides came news of 
 fresh disasters. Murat declared openly against Napoleon, 
 and was marching to crush Prince Eugene ; the Spanish against Napo- 
 Regency of Cadiz refused to recognise the treaty of 
 Valencay, as Ferdinand would remain in captivity, and the Anglo- 
 Spanish arms retained a large portion of the French troops on the Adour 
 and Pyrenees. Schwartzenberg and Blucher continued their march, and 
 hostile forces already made their appearance at a few leagues' distance 
 only from the capital. Paris was in consternation, and Maria Louisa, 
 affrighted in the midst of her terrified councillors, had prayers continually 
 offered up in all the churches during forty hours. Napoleon saw around 
 him his generals beaten continually, and the populations of the provinces 
 a prey to the most extreme sufferings ; he foresaw at length the fate 
 which awaited him should the allies gain a decisive victory, and he 
 already suffered the cruel strokes of the avenging goad at the reflection 
 of the evils which he had brought upon himself and upon his country. 
 Nothing, however, could crush him. He opposed an indo- 
 mitable energy to the rigours of fortune, and the anguish sures taken by" 
 of his heart could not obscure his thoughts, which were 
 as ready and lucid as in his happiest days. He made his preparations 
 with marvellous activity ; directed his brother Joseph to fortify Paris, to 
 defend it to the last extremity, and to place in safety, if necessary, his 
 wife, his son, and his treasure, behind the Loire; ordered Suchet to 
 
394 NAPOLEON DEFEATS BLTTCHEB. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 withdraw the French troops from Barcelona, and from all the places 
 which they still occupied in Catalonia, and to send them to him without 
 delay ; recalled Eugene, ordering him to evacute Italy and to unite his 
 forces with those which Augereau had assembled at Lyons; had the 
 Pope conducted back to Italy,* and set at liberty Ferdinand VII., 
 after having obtained his promise that he would execute the treaty of 
 Valencay ; sent Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, to represent France and 
 to negotiate peace at the Congress of Chatillon ; "f and at the same time 
 formed an admirable plan of campaign for the purpose of crushing the 
 two great hostile armies. He believed that they would separate, and 
 that he would be able to beat them in turn and drive them back upon 
 the Rhine. 
 
 These armies did in fact separate — Blucher taking his own to the right 
 and marching upon Paris by the Valley of the Marne ; whilst Schwart- 
 zenberg followed the course of the Seine. Napoleon followed them with 
 his eagle glance, and seized the decisive moment for victory. Leaving a 
 portion of his forces in the basin of the Seine, in the environs of Nogent 
 and Montereau, under Victor, Oudinot, and Gerard, to watch and hold in 
 check Schwartzenberg, he threw himself with thirty thousand men, com- 
 manded under himself by Ney, Marmont, Mortier, and Lefebvre, upon 
 the army under Blucher. The latter, whilst driving back Macdonald as 
 far as Meaux, marched at an equal distance from the Aube and the 
 Marne, and followed the road which joins Chalons and Ferte-sous- 
 Jouarre, passing by Champ- Aubert and Montmirail. Four days sufficed 
 Napoleon to overtake and vanquish the four corps of this army one after 
 Napoleon crushes t]ie otlier - 0n tne 10tn of February he engaged and de- 
 tTe e four r e a o n rps h of stro ye<l the Russian corps of Olsouvieff at the glorious 
 siieslaTcom- battle of Champ- Aubert ; on the following day he fought 
 Blucher, Feb- General Sacken, at Montmirail, where he gained a brilliant 
 victory, slaying and taking eight thousand of the enemy; 
 and then, without pausing, he marched upon Chateau-Thierry, the ap- 
 proaches to which were defended by General Yorck and Prince "William of 
 
 * Napoleon sent back the Pope to Italy that he might be a powerful obstacle there 
 to the pretensions of Murat. 
 
 f A Congress had been assembled at Chatillon on the demand of England and 
 Austria, for the purpose of considering the conditions of peace. It was the last time 
 that the allied powers would consent to treat with Napoleon. Their demands were 
 not known, but sinister rumours on the subject were abroad. 
 
1808-1814.] NAPOLEOK DEFEATS SCHWARTZENBEEG. 395 
 
 Prussia with twenty thousand men. Napoleon defeated them, slew a 
 great number of them, made five thousand prisoners, and entered the 
 town, victorious, in pursuit of the enemy, whose retreat was covered by 
 the Marne. Three of Blucher's generals had thus been put to flight, with 
 an immense loss in men, horses, and artillery. It remained to vanquish 
 Blucher himself, who was now advancing with the rest of his army by 
 the Montmirail road. Napoleon, indefatigable, retraced his steps, en- 
 countered Blucher at Vauchamps, and there, on the 14th of February, 
 fought with him a desperate battle, vanquished him, took or slew twelve 
 thousand of his troops, and drove him at the sword's point beyond Etoges, 
 six leagues from Chalons. 
 
 The army of Silesia was thus completely disorganized and half de- 
 stroyed, having lost thirty thousand men and a great portion of its 
 artillery. Napoleon thus victorious, resolved to advance without delay 
 from the Marne to the Seine, the passage of which had been forced at 
 Bray by the Grand Army of Bohemia, under Schwartzenberg, who 
 already occupied its two banks from Nogent to Fontainebleau. It marched 
 divided into several corps, of which two held the right bank of the river, 
 the one, under Wittgenstein, at Provins, the other, under De Wrede, at 
 Nangis. The other corps of Schwartzenberg's army occupied Montereau, 
 Bray, and Nogent. Napoleon, with his victorious army, now increased 
 by Macdonald's corps and numerous reinforcoments, arrived on the 15th 
 of February at Guignes. On the 17th it assumed the offensive, attacked 
 the enemy, and put him to flight with considerable loss at 
 the battles of Mormont, Nangis, and Villenenve. It then He repeatedly 
 
 ' o 7 overcomes tne 
 
 marched rapidly upon Montereau, where the hill which Set°lch£S 
 commands the Seine was occupied by a numerous corps JebrXry, 1814. 
 under the Prince of Wurtemberg. There then took place, 
 on the 18th, a furious conflict ; the hill was several times taken and re- 
 taken, under a terrible fire ; at length Generals Gerard and Pajol suc- 
 ceeded in carrying it ; the Wurtembergians were precipitated from the 
 plateau into the river, which they repassed after having lost seven thou- 
 sand men in killed, wounded, or prisoners. Napoleon then threw his 
 cavalry beyond the bridge of Montereau, in search of the Austrian corps 
 under Colloredo, which it was on the point of capturing, but which was 
 protected in its retreat by the Yonne. The Grand Army of Bohemia 
 was thus in its turn completely beaten. Schwartzenberg ordered a retreat 
 
396 schwaetzenbeeg's plans. [Book III. Chap. III. 
 
 upon Troyes, which he only passed through, and which Napoleon re- 
 entered as a victor on the 24th of February. In fifteen days he had 
 vanquished two great armies, killed or wounded twenty thousand of 
 the enemy, taken five-and-twenty thousand prisoners, an immense num- 
 ber of cannon, and a multitude of flags. 
 
 The representatives of the powers at the Congress of Chatillon had by 
 this time drawn up definitive conditions, which might serve 
 
 Proposals of the 
 
 Congress of as the basis of a treaty of peace, and the Duke of Vicenza 
 
 Chatillon. m J r ' 
 
 immediately transmitted them to the Emperor. According 
 to these France was to re-enter the boundaries within which she had 
 been confined in 1790, and should take no part in the arrangement of 
 the other states of Europe. This was to deprive her of the Ehine and 
 Alp boundary lines, which had been left her by Jhe Frankfort pro- 
 positions, and of her rank as an European power. Napoleon received 
 these offensive propositions at Montereau in the exultant moment of 
 Napoleon re- victory, and, rejecting them with anger and contempt, re- 
 jec s em. plied that he would be signing his own disgrace should he 
 sign a treaty which would leave France less great than she was when he 
 received her. It is possible that he might have obtained better conditions 
 if his recent victories had not deceived him with respect to his real con- 
 dition. He was determined to have the Ehine boundary, which had been 
 offered at Frankfort, and demanded that which his enemies had already 
 resolved not to grant him. 
 
 It was in vain that he mowed down his enemies by thousands, for 
 Europe, thoroughly aroused and enraged, vomited forth against him ever 
 fresh and inexhaustible floods of battalions, whilst he was being exhausted 
 by his very victories. The grim problem which now had to be resolved 
 could only have two solutions; either the Emperor's sword must be 
 broken in his hands, or he must, by winning some great battle, be 
 enabled to drive back the armies of the coalition upon the Ehine. It 
 
 Schwartzen- was suc ^ a ^ att ^ e tnat ne ardently desired to fight, and 
 berg's plan. w hi cn Schwartzenberg offered him. This prudent general 
 preferred the postponement of success to the incurring of any risk with 
 so terrible an enemy. He retreated beyond Troyes towards Chaumont 
 and Langres, in order to give time to the armies of Bohemia and Silesia 
 to fill up the vacancies in their ranks and to double their strength, and 
 
1808-1814.] TREATY BETWEEN THE ALLIES. 397 
 
 resolved when this should have been accomplished to fall upon the com- 
 mon enemy in concert with these armies, and stifle him in one final and 
 invincible grasp. 
 
 Such was the position of the belligerent parties, when, on the proposi- 
 tion of Lord Castlereagh, the allied powers signed at Chau- 
 
 T-i i c Treaty signed at 
 
 mont a new treaty of alliance, by which each of them en- Chaumont by the 
 
 . allied powers. 
 
 gaged to furnish a contingent of a hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand men until the conclusion of the war, independently of the troops to 
 be furnished by the minor powers, which would raise the general force 
 of the coalition to eight hundred thousand men. England engaged to 
 furnish her contingent in the shape of troops in her pay, and, moreover, 
 offered an annual subsidy of six millions sterling, to be divided between 
 Russia, Prussia, and Austria. She desired, in fact, by the greatness of 
 her sacrifices and her efforts, to secure to herself the preponderance in 
 the arrangement of the terms of peace, and to ensure the fulfilment of 
 her favourite idea of the establishment of an important kingdom 
 on the northern frontier of France by the union of Holland and 
 Belgium. 
 
 The powers mutually agreed, moreover, that they would severally 
 keep up, during twenty years after the signature of peace, an army of 
 sixty thousand men, to be at the disposal of that of them whom France 
 should attack. This treaty, so fatal to France, served as the basis of the 
 famous treaty subsequently known by the name of the Holy Alliance. 
 With reference to the proposals made at the Congress of Chatillon, a term 
 was fixed after which, it was declared, the negotiations with Napoleon 
 would be broken off and never renewed. The latter, whilst rejecting the 
 proposals of the Congress with anger, nevertheless endeavoured to deceive 
 the enemy as to his real intentions, and to gain time by ordering Cau- 
 laincourt to continue the negotiations, whilst he himself proceeded once 
 more to try the fortune of war. 
 
 Blucher, half destroyed, but rivalling the Emperor in energy and 
 activity, had already almost repaired his disasters. He had approached 
 Schwartzenberg and occupied the right bank of the Seine at Mery, when 
 he learned that two numerous corps, numbering together 
 fifty thousand men, under Bulow and Witzingerood, had ^rBuiow and" 
 been detached from Bernadotte's army to reinforce his own, Wltzm g erood - 
 
398 JUNCTION" OE THE ALLIES. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 and that these troops would arrive by way of Soissons and Eeims. To 
 
 join them the more promptly Blucher again left the army 
 
 marches towards f Bohemia, and marched rapidly from the Seine to the 
 
 Soissons to join ' r J 
 
 them. Marne, which he crossed, when he was stopped by Marshals 
 
 Marmont and Mortier, who were strongly entrenched behind the Ourcq 
 canal. Napoleon perceived with delight that Blucher had again isolated 
 himself, for he hoped to destroy him before he could effect a junction 
 with the corps of Witzingerood and Bulow, and leaving before Troyes, 
 for the purpose of masking his movements, half his army, under the 
 ^ T , command of Macdonald, Oudinot, and Gerard, he hastened 
 
 Napoleon pur- ' ' ' 
 
 rounds^ S " r " with thirty-five thousand men, commanded by Ney, Victor, 
 Blucher. an( j D rono t ; in pursuit of a sure prey. He crossed the 
 
 Marne in his turn, and Blucher found himself enclosed in a perilous 
 position, between the Aisne and the Marne, having on one side the corps 
 of Mortier and Marmont, and on the other Napoleon with the bulk of his 
 army. 
 
 The bridge of Soissons over the Aisne was the only outlet by which 
 Blucher could escape, and that city, which was carefully provisioned, 
 was also the only point at which a junction could be effected between 
 Blucher's army and that of Witzingerood and Bulow, who marched to 
 and invested it. Napoleon believed himself certain of victory, when 
 suddenly a calamity as unexpected as fatal overthrew all his hopes. 
 . Soissons capitulated, and opened its gates to the enemy.. 
 
 juncS of the Blucher escaped, effected a junction with Witzingerood and 
 hostile armies. Bulow, and found himself at the head of a hundred thou- 
 sand men in safety behind the Aisne, which had been an obstacle in his 
 path, and was now his protection. Napoleon, in spite of this cruel 
 reverse, did not yet renounce all hopes of victory. He followed Blucher 
 on the right bank, entered Soissons, and attacked the enemy, who was 
 strongly entrenched on the plateau of Craonne, which extends ever a 
 space of several leagues between Soissons and Laon, 
 
 Craonne. an( j wn i cn Blucher defended with all his army. The 
 French army was but half as numerous as that of the enemy, but 
 Napoleon nevertheless ordered the attack, and after the most heroic 
 efforts and a frightful carnage, he gained possession of the heights of 
 Craonne, compelled Bulcher to retreat, and hotly pursued him. But a 
 
1808-1814.] BATTLE OF AECIS-STJB-AUBE. 399 
 
 more formidable obstacle now presented itself. Blucher, after having 
 rallied his various corps, occupied the country round Laon, and that 
 city itself, which is situated on a rock from whence the eye commands 
 a vast plain. This was a formidable position, and one which it was 
 necessary that the French should carry for the purpose of B .,j f L 
 closing against the enemy the road to Paris ; and then there March > 1814 - 
 took place during two days a fresh battle more bloody even than the 
 preceding. But it was in vain that Ney, Drouot, Charpentier, Mortier, 
 and Friand rivalled each other in courage ; in vain that the heroic guard, 
 formed for the most part of young recruits, seized the faubourgs, and 
 made five desperate assaults on the place under the most terrific fire. An 
 unfortunate manoeuvre of Marmont's deprived the French of all chance of 
 success ; it was necessary to yield to numbers ; and Blucher retained his 
 position. JNapoleon now ordered a retreat, and the man who aspired to 
 renew the old Carlovingian empire thus saw his fortunes perish beneath 
 the walls of the ancient city where had expired that of the last descendant 
 of Charlemagne. This forced retreat, after two murderous battles, de- 
 cided the fate of the campaign, in which Napoleon, with only seventy 
 thousand men, had so long made head against and vanquished three 
 hundred thousand. He had not been able to destroy Blucher at Craonne 
 and Laon, and now Schwartzenberg was approaching. The Emperor 
 saw that he was powerless either to prevent the junction of the enemy's 
 immense armies, or to prevent their combined march upon Paris, 
 and that he was in danger of being stifled in the gigantic arms 
 of the coalition. His genius then conceived a fresh combination,, 
 and for the purpose of carrying it out, he ordered his generals to 
 make for the town of Arcis, on the left bank of the Aube, where he 
 arrived the first, and where he suddenly encountered the whole army of 
 Bohemia on its march to join that of Silesia. He had only a portion of 
 his forces at hand, but did not hesitate with twenty thou- 
 
 n , . T , . Battle of Arcis- 
 
 sand men to engage the enemy s ninety thousand. In this sur-Aube, 
 
 ° J J ^ March, 1814. 
 
 extreme peril he displayed indomitable resolution ; held in 
 check the enemy's immense army by the marvellous exploits of his guard 
 and his generals, slew nine thousand of them, losing three thousand him- 
 self, and established the fact of his victory by retaining his position till 
 the night. But these were useless laurels, and all these prodigies of 
 
400 THE ENGLISH IN BOEDEAUX. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 valour had not rendered Napoleon's position less perilous between the 
 
 great coalition armies, which were speedily united. Napoleon withdrew 
 
 with his thirty thousand men by a secret and rapid march 
 
 New plan of r * 1 
 
 Napoleon. ^o Saint-Dizier, and proceeded to carry out a new plan 
 
 Kapid march on x j y 
 
 Saint-Dizier. which he had conceived, and which was, to gather to his 
 own army the garrisons which occupied many places in Alsatia and Lor- 
 raine ; to cut off the communication of Blucher and Schwartzenberg with 
 Germany and the Rhine, from whence they received their supplies and 
 reinforcements ; to entice them in pursuit of himself, or to allow them to 
 march upon Paris ; and, whilst they should be seated before the capital, to 
 return against them with a hundred thousand men and annihilate them. 
 
 But Napoleon deceived himself. Led away by flatterers, the corrupting 
 influence of absolute power, and the complete silence of the press, he did 
 not know to what a degree Paris and France were weary of despotism, 
 and how little probability there was that the Parisians would make an 
 energetic resistance for the purpose of defending a detested government. 
 He had, besides, allowed the fatal period to expire without replying to 
 the proposals of the Congress of Chatillon ; the Congress was now dis- 
 solved, and the allied Sovereigns had loudly declared that they would 
 treat no more with Napoleon. They were not at war with France, they 
 said, but only with Napoleon, whom they regarded as an insuperable 
 obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe. They had already 
 been invited to Paris by many persons of distinction,* 
 
 Secret negotia- 
 tions of Talley- and especially by the former Bishop of Autun, Talleyrand 
 rand with the . 
 
 allied Sove- Prince of Benevento, and a dignitary of the empire, and it 
 
 was to Paris that they resolved to march without delay for 
 the purpose of dethroning the Emperor. 
 
 France was equally invaded on the south, and the Anglo-Spanish 
 army, consisting of eighty thousand men, had already crossed the 
 
 The battle of Py renees > "under Wellington. Soult, at the head of a very 
 
 Orthez. inferior force, gave them battle at Orthez, and the result was 
 
 doubtful ; but Soult, nevertheless, was compelled to order a retreat, and 
 
 to fall back upon Toulouse, leaving Bordeaux uncovered. The latter 
 
 city opened its gates to the English, and on the 12th March 
 
 eiaresforthe declared for the Bourbons with the most enthusiastic 
 
 Bourbons. 
 
 manifestations. 
 * They were transmitted through the Baron de Vitrolles. 
 
1808-1814.] THE ALLIES BEEOEE PAEIS. 401 
 
 Consternation reigned in Paris, which now had only between itself and 
 the two great armies of the coalition the feeble corps of Marmont and 
 Mortier, consisting of no more than fifteen thousand men altogether, and 
 which had fallen back upon Paris, after having sustained a sanguinary 
 defeat at the unfortunate battle of Fere Champenoise. No obstacle now 
 hindered the march of the allies, and on the 29th March 
 
 . , , , . . The allied armies 
 
 their immense columns deployed, and took up positions encamp around 
 
 Paris. 
 
 around the great capital, in which they hoped to avenge the 
 humiliations and defeats of twenty years. 
 
 No preparations had been made for the defence of the city ; no works 
 protected its approaches. The regular troops under Marmont and Mortier r 
 including the depots of the various corps, did not exceed in number 
 twenty-two thousand. The National G-uard, which the suspicious policy 
 of the Emperor had reduced to twelve thousand men, possessed only 
 three thousand muskets, and the people of the faubourgs were completely 
 without arms. Consternation reigned in the immense city, and the 
 Government itself was in a state of profound stupor. The Council of 
 Regency assembled under the presidency of Maria-Louisa, and there King 
 Joseph read the secret orders of the Emperor, which directed the Empress, 
 in case of extreme peril, to retire with her son behind the 
 
 Ketreat of the 
 
 Loire. Maria-Louisa obeyed, and set out for Blois, carry- Regent, Maria- 
 Louisa, to Blcis. 
 ing with her the King of Rome, then three years old, who 
 
 asked where he was being taken to, and who, in giving way on this occa- 
 sion to his infantine grief, seemed to foretell the sad destiny which 
 awaited him. 
 
 The flight of Maria-Louisa completely paralysed the defence. Paris 
 was already invested on every side, and on the following 
 day, the 30th March, the attack commenced. The army of Paris, March 30, 
 the allies consisted of one hundred and seventy thousand 
 men, to which Paris could only oppose twenty-five thousand, under Mar- 
 shals Marmont and Mortier, who, strangely and fatally, engaged the enemy 
 outside the walls in a most disadvantageous position, if we consider the dis- 
 parity in point of numbers. The attack was made at two principal points 
 — on the one side, in front of La Villette, La Chapelle, and Montmartre r 
 and on the other, between Yincennes, Charonne, and the heights of Belle- 
 ville. It was in the centre of these positions that the contest was the most 
 desperate and sanguinary. 
 
 VOL. II. D D 
 
402 AREIVAL OP NAPOLEOK. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 A few battalions of the National Guard of Paris, under Marshal Moncey, 
 and the valiant Polytechnic school, vied in courage with the regular 
 troops, and several times repulsed the enemy's columns ; but what could 
 a few thousands of men do against two hundred thousand, before a place 
 which was on every side open ? The enemy suffered enormous loss, but 
 continued to advance, and the French battalions had to fall back, till 
 Joseph, considering that a longer defence would be impossible, and fearing 
 to fall into the hands of the allies, authorized Marmont to capitulate, and 
 set out for Blois, with all the Ministers of the Imperial Government. The 
 l, •• ' x . „ battle lasted till the evening, when at length, to stop the 
 
 Capitulation of ° 7 ° ' x 
 
 Paris, which is effusion of blood and to spare the capital the horrors of 
 
 evacuated by the r * 
 
 French army. capture by assault, the Marshals capitulated, having ob- 
 tained a free retreat for their troops, and quitted Paris during the 
 night. 
 
 Napoleon now hurried up, in advance of his troops, and on this fatal 
 , . , i night of the 30th he arrived at Fromenteau, near Essone, 
 
 Arrival of & 7 
 
 Napoleon. -where he met the advanced guard of the army which had 
 defended the capital, and which had retreated upon Fontainebleau, and 
 where also he was, as it were, thunderstruck at hearing simultaneously of 
 the flight of his Empress and Government to the Loire, of the sanguinary 
 battle which had taken place on the previous evening, the capitulation of 
 Paris, and the retreat of the army. He did not, however, even yet 
 despair of escaping from all his perils, for his sword and his genius 
 remained to him. He formed a new plan. The heroic army which he 
 had preceded would have rejoined him in three days, and he would then 
 have seventy thousand soldiers at his command, with whom he might 
 attack the coalition troops dispersed around Paris and in its neighbour- 
 hood. The Parisians, he thought, would arise at his summons, and he 
 might not only annihilate his enemies, but recover by one blow all that 
 he had lost during the campaign. He made his arrangements accordingly, 
 and whilst, to gain time, he ordered Caulaincourt to enter upon negotia- 
 tions with the allied Sovereigns, he posted on the Essone 
 5mseif at Fon- ^e cor P s which had evacuated Paris under the orders of 
 statSnshisSmy Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, and then proceeded to Fon- 
 Essone* e tainebleau, which he made his head- quarters, and where he 
 
 awaited his army. 
 
1808-1814.] THE ALLIES IN PARIS. 403 
 
 Paris now received within its walls the Allied Sovereigns, at the head of 
 their armies.* Alexander behaved as a generous victor ; 
 satisfied with his triumph he endeavoured to please the position of 
 French and acquire their esteem. Peace was his object, he 
 said, and he had come to obtain it in Paris by overthrowing the man with 
 whom any durable peace was impossible. He desired that France should 
 be powerful and free within her ancient limits, and that she should herself 
 choose her new form of government. He promised to ratify her choice, 
 and that it should be ratified by his allies, who were much less well dis- 
 posed towards France, but who were not powerful enough to oppose him. 
 As a pledge of his favourable disposition towards France, Alexander, 
 when he received, at the Chateau of Bondy, the Municipal Council of 
 Paris, acceded to the wish it expressed that it might continue to superin- 
 tend the city police, and that the inhabitants might be released from the 
 burden of lodging the allied troops. The day following the capitulation of 
 Paris, the 31st March, he entered the capital, together with f 
 
 the King of Prussia, at the head of the allied armies. He ^P^TSS 
 appeared to listen with favour to some noisy demonstrations 31 » 1814 " 
 in favour of the House of Bourbon, and alighted at the hotel of Prince 
 Talleyrand, the most active as well as the most powerful of all who 
 endeavoured to restore the crown to that ancient dynasty. 
 
 A single constituted body, the Senate, alone seemed at this time, in 
 spite of the discredit into which it had fallen, to express a will in the 
 name of the nation ; but the Senate, habituated to tremble in the presence 
 of an absolute master, did not consider that he was yet sufficiently low to 
 be safely abandoned. Alexander perceived that it was necessary to 
 dissipate any idea that Napoleon's fortunes would revive, and with this 
 intention he published, in the name of the Allied Sovereigns, a celebrated 
 declaration that they would never negotiate with Napoleon Bonaparte or 
 with any member of his family, that those Sovereigns would recognise and 
 guarantee the constitution which France should choose for herself, and 
 that the Senate was invited to form a provisional government to provide 
 for the government of the country and to prepare the new constitution. 
 
 * These sovereigns were the Emperor of Russia, Alexander, and the King of Prussia, 
 Frederick William. The position of the Emperor of Austria iu his son-in-law's capital 
 would have heen too difficult ; he had halted, therefore, at Dijon. 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 The Senate ventured, upon this, to respond to the invitation which had 
 Nomination of thus been made to it. It appointed a provisional govern- 
 go^emmentby ment of five members, who were — the Prince de Talley- 
 rand, the Duke de Dalberg, General Beurnonville, the 
 Abbe de Montesquiou, and M. de Jancourt. The new govern- 
 ment immediately formed a ministry by appointing, with the title of 
 Commissaries General, for the finances, Baron Louis, a man of vigorous 
 mind, more fit than any one to establish public credit; for war, 
 General Dupont, an excellent officer, who was unfortunately celebrated in 
 connexion with the capitulation of Baylen ; for the interior, M. Beugnot, 
 an old imperial official ; for foreign affairs, a distinguished diplomatist, 
 M. de la Forest ; for justice, M. Henrion de Pansey, an upright magis- 
 trate ; and, as minister for naval affairs, one of the wisest and most en- 
 lightened members of the Constituent Assembly, M. Malouet. An old 
 staff-officer, General Dessolles, was appointed to the command of the 
 National Guard of Paris. 
 
 On the following day, the 2nd April, the Senate proceeded to declare 
 The Senate Napoleon's dethronement. It had been the servile accom- 
 
 dethrOTement^f plice of all the arbitrary and violent acts which it now 
 apo eon. attributed as crimes to the man whose fall it decreed ; and 
 
 the better to make this fact forgotten it appeared to forget it itself. Napo- 
 leon, it said, had oppressed private and public liberty, had arbitrarily 
 imprisoned citizens, suppressed the public press, levied men and taxes in 
 a manner contrary to the law, spilt the blood of France in foolish and 
 useless wars, covered Europe with dead bodies, and violated all the laws 
 by virtue of which he had been called to the throne. For these reasons 
 the Senate declared Napoleon deprived of the throne, and released all 
 French subjects from their oaths of fidelity to him and his family. 
 
 Napoleon, however, still had powerful resources at his command — the 
 army under Auger eau at Lyons, the armies of Soult and Suchet in the 
 south, that of Eugene in Italy, and seventy thousand men, under his own 
 direct command at Fontainebleau. On learning that Paris was in the 
 power of the coalition, and that his dethronement had been decreed by 
 the body whose adulation towards him had hitherto been unbounded, his 
 genius became stimulated by despair and gloomy rage. He felt sufficiently 
 strong to recover his sceptre by some wondrous victory, or to bury his 
 enemies with himself beneath the ruins of Paris ; and he determined upon 
 
1808-1814.] DEFECTION OF THE GENERALS. 405 
 
 one of those supreme actions which send thunderous echoes through the 
 ages. But an obstacle which he had not foreseen completed the destruction 
 of his fortunes, and struck from his hand his hitherto invincible sword. 
 
 In the midst of his reverses, as in the midst of his triumphs, Napoleon 
 was loved and worshipped by his soldiers. The latter im- Spirito f t h e 
 puted all his misfortunes to treason, and could not under- filers "at Fon- 
 stand that it was possible he could be vanquished at their ame eau ' 
 head. When the Emperor reviewed the various corps as they arrived 
 at Fontainebleau, the private soldiers and non-commissioned officers 
 saluted him with enthusiastic acclamations, waving their weapons, and 
 demanding to be led on to Paris. Their enthusiasm, however, was not 
 shared by the superior officers, who, having grown old in the midst of in- 
 numerable battles, satiated with glory and honours, and weary of follow- 
 ing during so many years across the whole of Europe, from the Tagus to 
 the Baltic, from the Nile to Moscow, an imperious master whose in- 
 satiable ambition had ever rendered it impossible to enjoy the rewards he 
 had showered upon them, now saw all that they had won slipping from 
 their grasp. They feared to risk the remnant of their fortunes by a 
 useless and desperate resistance ; and feared even to obtain a victory, 
 which could but be the prelude of a fresh series of adventures, and which 
 could but be obtained at the risk of seeing their houses, their families, 
 and their dearest interests buried beneath the ruins of the capital in 
 flames. Summoned to a council of war by the Emperor, at the moment 
 when the whole of the army had been assembled and was ready to 
 march, they did not hesitate to declare to Napoleon, that if he persisted 
 in his desperate enterprise he must not reckon upon their 
 assistance. He understood them, and could no longer in- refuse the Em- 
 dulge in any illusion. Finding himself alone, surrounded in marching on 
 
 . Paris. 
 
 by Europe m arms, and on the point of being abandoned 
 by the illustrious companions with whom he had so often been victorious, 
 his resolution gave way. He offered to abdicate in favour of his son, who 
 would reign under the regency of his mother, and sent Caulaincourt, 
 Ney, Macdonald, and Marmont* to Paris, to negotiate on this new basis.f 
 
 * "His real object," says M. Thiers, "was to gain two or three days, and then to 
 break off these negotiations with the sword." 
 
 + The former was then at Essone, but Napoleon authorized Ney and Macdonald to 
 take him with them if they should think it necessary. 
 
406 MAKMONT BETRAYS NAPOLEON. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 Napoleon did not as yet know all the peril of his position, and whilst 
 
 he believed that he was only threatened by the refusal of his marshals to 
 
 assist him, one of them had already betrayed him. Faithless to his duty 
 
 and the honour of a soldier, Marmont, seduced by the 
 
 Treason of Mar- 
 mont, Duke of pressing solicitations of Talleyrand, and the offer of a 
 
 splendid fortune under the Bourbons, had secretly arranged 
 with Schwartzenberg to surrender to him the important position which he 
 occupied at Essone, and which covered Fontainebleau, the Emperor, and 
 the army. Without absolutely revoking this promise, he suspended its 
 execution whilst he went with his colleagues to defend at Paris the cause 
 of Maria Louisa and the King of Rome, and reserved to himself the right 
 of acting according to circumstances. But whilst he was negotiating in 
 Paris his generals hastened to execute the first orders which he had given 
 Defection of the tnem > quitted their positions, and marched the sixth corps, 
 ix corps. -which was composed of their troops, to Versailles.* This 
 
 sudden defection of a third part of the army put an end to all debate 
 with respect to the abdication of Napoleon in favour of his son and the 
 Regency of Maria Louisa. Alexander told Caulaincourt and the mar- 
 shals that Napoleon must make an unconditional abdication, and that, in 
 return, he should be treated with all due consideration. The negotiators 
 were consequently sent back to Fontainebleau to demand and obtain such 
 an abdication. 
 
 When informed of the treason of Marmont, and the defection of the 
 sixth corps, Napoleon gave no outward sign of the poignant emotions 
 which tore his iron soul. Pride enabled him to conceal his grief and 
 anger. Marmont, his old fellow-pupil, upon whom he had showered the 
 greatest favours, whom he had called his child, and whom he had brought 
 up under his own tent, was the only man, said the Emperor, whom he 
 could not have believed capable of betraying him. He did not deceive 
 himself with respect to the consequences of this defection. With the 
 forces which still remained under his command, he could, doubtless, by 
 retiring upon the Loire, prolong a sanguinary conflict ; but it could only 
 
 * The troops of the sixth corps discovered at Versailles that tbe Emperor was be- 
 trayed, and, rising against their generals, demanded to be led back to Fontainebleau ; 
 Marmont, however, at the request of the allied sovereigns, hastened to quell this revolt, 
 and the defection of the sixth corps was complete. " By his conduct at Versailles," 
 says M. Thiers, " Marmont took upon himself the whole responsibility of this unfortu- 
 nate occurrence, and must bear the burden of it in the eyes of posterity. 
 
1808-1814.] NAPOLEON ABDICATES. 407 
 
 be at the price of the greatest evils, and with little hope of saving his 
 crown, Or of recovering for France her frontiers. He resigned himsalf 
 to his fate, therefore, and signed his abdication. Then, sum- Napoleon signs 
 moning around hiin his marshals, who had been impatient 
 to obtain it, he addressed to them a few sad and serious words, and read 
 to them his deed of abdication, which he had drawn up in this form— 
 " The allied powers having declared that Napoleon is the only obstacle to 
 the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful 
 to his oaths, renounces for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France 
 and Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice, even to that of his life, 
 which he would not be ready to make in the interests of France." Napo- 
 leon gave this document to Caulaincourt to exchange it in Paris for one 
 in which should be set forth the fate reserved for himself and his family. 
 
 The Senate had already, in anticipation of Napoleon's abdication, voted 
 for France a Constitution by which it voluntarily recalled to 
 the throne, under the title of the King of the French, Senatorial Con- 
 
 ' o ) stitution sum- 
 
 Louis-Stanislas Xavier, the brother of Louis XVI., and Sro^thechief 
 conferred upon him the hereditary royalty, with the reser- Bourbon? 1 " 6 ot 
 vation that he was not to be possessed of it until he should 
 have taken an oath faithfully to observe the new Constitution. The latter, 
 styled the Senatorial Constitution, established on the throne an inviolable 
 King, the sole depository of the executive power, which he was to exercise 
 by means of responsible ministers, and who was to share the legislative 
 with two chambers ; an hereditary one, consisting for the most part of 
 the members of the Senate, and an elective one. It also provided for an 
 irremovable magistracy, liberty of worship, individual liberty, and the 
 liberty of the press. These main articles, which, with many others, 
 were repeated in the Constitutional Charter granted by Louis XVIII., 
 were in accordance with the necessities of the times, and consecrated the 
 principles of 1789, which had been generally admitted by the wisest 
 members of the Constituent Assembly. Immediately after the publica- 
 tion of the Senatorial Act, the Provisional Government drew tip, at the 
 urgent request of Alexander, a treaty which assigned the Thet at ofthe 
 island of Elba to Napoleon in full sovereignty, gave Parma llthof A P nl - 
 and Piacenza to the Empress and the King of Borne, promised a prin- 
 cipality to Eugene, and finally bestowed incomes on Napoleon and his 
 family. This treaty, which was signed on the 11th of April by the 
 
403 THE BATTLE OE TOTTLOTTSE. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 ministers of the allied sovereigns, and by Talleyrand in the name of the 
 Royal Government, was immediately exchanged for the Emperor's deed 
 Entr of the °^ abdication ; and on the following day Count d'Artois, 
 SrPa^Aprii tne brother of Louis XVIII. , entered Paris, when the white 
 12th, 1814. fl a g wag su "b s tituted for the tricolour. The Prince received 
 
 a cordial welcome from the National Guard, and large groups of royalists 
 greeted him with the most enthusiastic shouts. The news of Napoleon's 
 abdication had not yet reached the armies of the West and South, when, 
 on the 10th of April, the very day before that on which was signed the 
 treaty which declared the lot awarded to the Emperor and 
 
 Battle of Tou- 
 
 louse, April ioth, the Imperial family, a sanguinary battle took place under 
 the walls of Toulouse, between the French army of Marshal 
 Soult, consisting of only thirty-six thousand men, and sixty thousand 
 English, Spaniards, and Portuguese commanded by Wellington. Fifteen 
 days sufficed our soldiers for the formation of a vast entrenched camp 
 around the city, and in the very face of the enemy. Wellington ordered 
 an attack, and his troops, which were at first repulsed, only regained the 
 advantage by means of their superior numbers, and at length succeeded 
 in forcing the positions of the French army ; when the latter fell back 
 upon Villa-Franca for the purpose of joining the army of Marshal 
 Suchet, having lost about three thousand five hundred men before 
 Toulouse, and inflicted a still greater loss on the enemy. 
 
 What could avail the heroic efforts of a few thousands of men isolated 
 
 at the extremity of the kingdom, when destiny had already declared 
 
 against their Emperor. The treaty of the 11th of April had already 
 
 been executed by all the allied powers, one signature alone, that of the 
 
 Na leon hesi Emperor, being yet wanting ; and on the evening of that 
 
 trettY o?Aprii e ver J ^J ** was demanded. But Napoleon hesitated. In 
 
 llth# the course of the night he had had with Caulaincourt a 
 
 final interview, in which, regarding his career as finished, he seemed to 
 
 have freed his soul from all the veils of passion, and to be 
 
 view with Cau- enabled to judge of new circumstances, and himself, with 
 
 laincourt. . 
 
 the most perfect lucidity. His vast mind passed in review 
 
 the whole course of his existence. After having cast a retrospective 
 
 glance on his greatness and his glory, he fathomed the depth to which he 
 
 „ , had fallen : perceived that he himself had been the chief 
 
 Sorrowful re- ' r 
 
 flections. cause of his fall, and acknowledged his faults, the melan- 
 
1808-1814.] NAPOLEON" ATTEMPTS HIS OWN LIFE. 409 
 
 choly result of an ambition which the whole world could not have 
 satisfied, and of an unbounded pride which now found itself compelled to 
 accept a barren rock in the Mediterranean in exchange for the noblest 
 empire in the universe. And this was not all; for he left France 
 diminished in size and exhausted, and had not even been able to pre- 
 serve its glorious flag. Was it for this, then, that he had been victo- 
 rious in all the capitals of Europe, that he had humiliated so many kings, 
 broken up so many empires, gained so many bloody victories, decimated 
 several generations, spilt the blood of three millions of men, and assumed 
 the responsibility of innumerable calamities? To these poignant recol- 
 lections were added gloomy anticipations of shameful outrages at the 
 hands of the exasperated populations of the Southern provinces which he 
 would have to traverse on his way to exile ; and his stoicism abandoned 
 him, life appeared to him insupportable. He bade adieu to Caulain- 
 court, thanked that faithful friend for the unalterable devotion he had 
 displayed towards him when so many others had abandoned him ; gently 
 dismissed him ; and then, remaining alone, resolved to preserve himself 
 by suicide from his frightful fate, and the humiliating necessity of signing 
 his own dethronement and that of his descendants. 
 
 Napoleon had now recourse to the poison with which he had provided 
 himself during the Moscow campaign as a security against falling alive 
 into the hands of the Russians, and which he had carefully T7 . u 
 
 7 J Vain attempts 
 
 preserved as a last resource. He prepared it with his own °o commTt Pei ° r 
 hands, drank it, and threw himself upon a couch in the belief smcide - 
 that he should never rise again. But his attempt was in vain, for the 
 lapse of time had diminished the virulence of the poison, and, after a 
 violent crisis he fell into a deep lethargy which calmed his despair and 
 dissipated the symptoms of approaching death. It is said that, when 
 the Emperor awoke, astonished at finding himself alive, he remained for 
 some moments pensive, and then exclaiming " God does not will it," 
 resigned himself to his new destiny.* He placed without further resis- 
 tance his signature to the treaty, and some days later, on the 20th of 
 April, at Fontainebleau, in the presence of the Foreign Commissioner 
 charged with the care of his person, took leave of his brave army. 
 Having traversed his apartments, followed by the Dukes of Vicenza and 
 Bassano, his faithful Generals, Drouot, Bertrand, and Belliard, Baron 
 * A manuscript of 1814, by Baron Fain, Napoleon's private secretary. 
 
410 NAPOLEON DEPAKTS EOB ELBA. [BOOK III. CHAP. III. 
 
 Fain, his secretary, and a few superior officers, the last remains of a 
 Court which had been the most brilliant in Europe, he hastily descended 
 the staircase, and advancing into the midst of his guard, which were 
 Na oieon's fare- ran S e ^ m a circle round the palace courtyard, he gazed 
 well to im guard, ^j^ emo ti on n those veteran warriors, and said to them, 
 " Soldiers, my old companions in arms, whom I have always found on the 
 road to glory, we must at length part. I could have remained longer in 
 the midst of you, but it must have been at the price of a crue] struggle, 
 of the addition, probably, of a civil war to a foreign war, and I could 
 not resolve to distract any longer the bosom of France. Enjoy the 
 repose which you have so justly earned, and be happy. As for me, do 
 not pity me. I have a mission still to perform, and to fulfil it I consent 
 to live. This mission is to recount to posterity the great things which 
 we have done together. Adieu, my children ! I would willingly 
 press each of you to my heart, but I can at least embrace your flag." 
 At these words, General Petit, who carried the flag, advanced, and pre- 
 sented the eagle. Napoleon pressed the General and the flag against his 
 breast, and the troops burst into tears and sobs. Napoleon, deeply 
 moved, made an effort over himself, and in a firmer voice said, " Yet 
 TT . , „ once more, my old companions, adieu ! Let this kiss pass 
 
 His departure for ' J r ' r 
 
 Elba ' April 20th * nto vour Hearts !" He then threw himself into his car- 
 1814,# riage, and set out for the island of Elba, which was be- 
 
 stowed upon him in full sovereignty, and whither he was preceded by a 
 battalion of his guard. He arrived at his destination on the 4th of May, 
 after a painful journey through the departments of the South, through the 
 midst of populations whom long and cruel wars had exasperated, and 
 who did not spare the illustrious exile the insults he had too truly 
 anticipated. 
 
 Thus fell, a first time, the colossus of power and of glory which had 
 governed France fourteen years, and had for some time seen almost the 
 whole Continent submissive to his laws. It had been given to no man 
 to attain a more brilliant destiny, and no one ever had greater influence 
 over Europe. Great as a general, and great as a statesman, he had raised 
 France to an extraordinary position in the eyes of foreigners by means of 
 his victories ; but he had done more for her by means of his pacific works 
 than by his conquests, for he had restored order to her society ; and it 
 is the re-establishment by him of public worship, the civil code, the 
 
1808-1814.] BEELECTIONS TTPOK ffAPOLEOtf. 411 
 
 reorganization of the judicial and administrative powers, and the favour 
 which he showed towards merit and talent, which are his most glorious 
 titles to the admiration of posterity. Napoleon was endowed with an 
 astonishing strength of will, and, as was the case with Louis XI V., when 
 his genius sought for its inspirations in the necessities and wishes of the 
 nation, it produced only fortunate and durable results. But his activity, 
 fertile in great achievements, was stimulated by a devouring ambition, 
 which was as unscrupulous as it was boundless ; and it is worthy of remark 
 that, whenever his actions were not in accordance with morality or the- 
 true interests of France, they were disastrous to himself, and paved the 
 way to his fall. Too confident, however, in his genius and his power, he 
 isolated himself from public opinion by repressing its expression with 
 unheard-of violence, and thus deceived himself with respect to the 
 resources which the nation could afford him in the time of his adversity. 
 At the point at which this history has now arrived Napoleon had fallen, 
 but his part was not yet played out. The giant was to rise once more, 
 and by his second fall once more shake the world. 
 
412 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 FIRST PERIOD OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND PARLIA- 
 MENTARY MONARCHY. 
 
 First Restoration — Reign of Louis XYHI. — Grant of the Charter 
 of 1814 — Return of Napoleon — The Hundred Days — The 
 Second Restoration — Continuance and End of the Reign of 
 Louis XVIII. — Reign of Charles X. — Revolution of July — 
 Charter of 1830 — Accession of Louis Philippe. 
 
 1814-1830. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST RESTORATION. THE HUNDRED DAYS. 
 
 April, lSU—Juhj, 1815. 
 
 When a political restoration is effected after a very long period, the princes 
 in whose favour it is accomplished have too frequently become strangers 
 to the new ideas and manners of the nation which they are called upon to 
 govern. Their affections and preferences are for the persons and circum- 
 stances of a period the remembrance of which is intimately bound up in 
 their minds with that of their old grandeur and prosperity, and it is very 
 difficult for them not to regard with distrust or aversion everything which is 
 the fruit of the ideas to which they attribute their misfortunes. The new 
 generation, whose interests are allied with the new order of things, regard 
 these natural sentiments and prejudices as a crime, whilst the party 
 whose wishes have led to the re-establishment of the fallen dynasty is 
 filled with the idea that there must necessarily be a strict uniformity be- 
 
1814-1815.] THE BOTTKBON EOTAL FAMILY. 413 
 
 tween its own desires and those of the princes whose restoration it has 
 hailed. From thence there arise, on the one side, foolish hopes, impru- 
 dent threats, rash projects, and on the other, gloomy anxiety, disaffec- 
 tion, and conspiracies. When to these sources of civil disturbances there 
 are added, in the minds of the people, the feeling of humiliation inseparable 
 from the restoration which has been accomplished, and when the restora- 
 tion is preceded by great national disasters, and is supported by foreign 
 bayonets, then, before a word has been uttered, or a single fault been 
 committed, it may be considered certain that formidable resistance and 
 peril are imminent. Such were the unfortunate circumstances that, in 
 1814, accompanied the restoration of the Bourbons, and before any of 
 the members of that family had set foot on the soil of France, it was possible 
 to foresee the obstacles which they would have to overcome and the storm 
 which was ready to burst over their heads. 
 
 The head of the Royal house, Louis Stanislas Xavier, whom the 
 Senate called upon to reign under the name of Louis 
 
 Royal family. 
 
 XVIII. , was endowed with a judicious mind, and was quite 
 capable of appreciating the spirit of his age. He had acquired in his 
 youth, as Count de Provence, a certain popularity by voting, in the second 
 assembly of the Notables, for the double representation of the third estate ; 
 and he had, moreover, whilst in exile, nobly resisted the republic, and 
 protested against Napoleon by claiming his rights to the crown. Driven 
 from the Continent, he had found an honourable asylum in England, 
 where he had long since lived at Hartwell with a few friends, when 
 the disasters suffered by the French army opened to him the path to the 
 throne. Most of the members of his family, Monsieur, the Count d'Artois, 
 his brother, the Dukes d'Angouleme and de Berry, sons of Monsieur, 
 and finally, the two princes of the house of Conde, the father and grand- 
 father of the unfortunate Duke d'Enghien, had only made themselves 
 known by their vain efforts to triumph over the Revolution by means of 
 civil war and foreign arms. Alone of all the princes of the House of 
 Bourbon, the Duke of Orleans, the first prince of the blood,, had borne 
 the national colours and fought the enemies of France. Amongst the 
 members of the Royal family specially to be distinguished was the daughter 
 of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette, married to her cousin the Duke 
 d'Angouleme, a princess worthy, by reason of the greatness of her soul 
 and of her misfortunes, of deep and universal interest, but who had too 
 
414 BTJBBENSOME CONVENTION. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 much to forget and to pardon to enable a large portion of the nation to 
 regard her return to French territory without anxiety. 
 
 The Count d'Artois had preceded, as we have already seen, the King, 
 his brother, and had entered Paris on the 12th April with the title of 
 Lieutenant- General of the Kingdom. Some happy sayings which fell 
 from his lips disposed public opinion in his favour ; " there is nothing 
 changed in France," he said on disembarking at Calais. " There is only 
 one Frenchman the more." And this mot had received an immense and 
 most favourable echo. The Prince invited the provisional government to 
 form his council, to which were added three fresh members, 
 
 Nomination of 
 
 the superior w no were Marshals Oudinot and Moncey, and General 
 
 royal Council. * 
 
 Dessoles, who had formerly been General Moreau's chief of 
 the staff. This council, which was named the Upper Eoyal Council, set 
 to work as soon as it was constituted, and the government of the Bour- 
 bons commenced. 
 
 The first care of the Prince and his councillors was to afford some im- 
 mediate relief to the provinces devastated by war, and still occupied by 
 the enemy. The prompt evacuation of the French territory by the 
 enemy was, in their eyes, the first measure to be effected towards this 
 end ; but it was evident the allies would not evacuate the soil of France 
 until the French troops had evacuated the numerous places which they 
 occupied on their own territories. 
 
 These fortresses, fifty-three in number, contained, besides their gar- 
 risons, an immense amount of materiel, and some of them, such as Ant- 
 werp, Flushing, Mayence, Magdeburg, Mantua, Alexandria, Venice, and 
 Hamburg, were accounted the best in Europe. The Eoyal Council, 
 however, did not hesitate to hasten the abandonment of these places for 
 the purpose of obtainiug the prompt liberation of the French soil from 
 foreign occupation ; and with this praiseworthy object it signed a burden- 
 some convention, by which France undertook to surrender 
 
 Burdensome 
 
 Convention of to the allied powers, within the briefest possible space of 
 
 April 23. . ... 
 
 time, all the places which her troops still occupied on their 
 several territories, with all the materiel of war which they contained, 
 in return for the immediate release of the soil of France from foreign 
 troops. 
 
 This convention, which had been dictated by an irresistible necessity, 
 but which unfortunately deprived France of so many precious pledges 
 
1814-1815.] LOUIS XYIII. ENTEKS PAEIS. 415 
 
 "before the concession of a general peace, was signed on the 23rd of April. 
 On the following day Louis XVIII. arrived in his kingdom, 
 
 & J . Landing of 
 
 and was received by General Maison at Calais, which he L°, ui . s xviii. at 
 
 J 7 Calais. 
 
 entered amidst the enthusiastic acclamations of the popu- 
 lace, and from whence he set out for Paris. 
 
 Jealous of his hereditary privileges, the King would not acknowledge 
 that the Senate had a right to impose a constitution upon him; but never- 
 theless, yielding to the earnest representations of the Emperor Alexander 
 and the advice of Talleyrand, he preceded his entry into his 
 
 capital by a celebrated declaration, dated at Saint-Ouen, by dated Saint- 
 
 Ouen. 
 which he guaranteed to France the liberties promised by the 
 
 Senatorial Constitution. On the following day, the 3rd May, the King, 
 
 the Duchess d'Angouleme, and most of the Princes of the a , , „ 
 
 ° ' Solemn entry ot 
 
 family of the Bourbons entered Paris in solemn procession. ^to^Pa^May 
 No foreign soldier appeared in the royal cortege, which was 3 ' 1814# 
 escorted by the old guard, on whom much of the public interest centred, 
 and whose air of deep melancholy contrasted strongly with the popular 
 joy. The cry of " Vive la garde IV was often mingled with that of 
 "Vive le Roi !" Louis XVIIL, however, received everywhere a warm 
 reception, for the declaration of Saint-Ouen began a new era for France ; 
 reliance was placed on the royal promises, and the hearts of the people 
 were open to hope. 
 
 The King confirmed in its attributes the consultative superior council 
 established by his brother under the name of the Royal Council, and in 
 subordination to which another council, that of the Ministers, exercised 
 the executive power. Two very different and opposite tendencies speedily 
 became visible, and it was perceived with anxiety that, together with 
 many very eminent men sincerely attached to the Constitution, there sat 
 some who were very opposed to the liberal spirit, and who had been selected 
 by the monarch on account of personal liking or of services rendered 
 before the Revolution. Of this latter number were Dambray, „,, „ 
 
 J ' The first 
 
 who had been made Chancellor of France and Keeper of Ministers of the 
 
 r Kestoration, 
 
 the Seals, the Abbe Montesquiou, Minister of the Interior, 1814, 
 
 and the Count de Blacas, Minister of the King's Household. General 
 
 Dupont was Minister for War ; Talleyrand, for Foreign Affairs ; Malouet, 
 
 for the Naval Department ; Baron Louis, of Finance ; and Beugnot, of 
 
 Police. 
 
416 THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHAETEE. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 Active negotiations for the establishment of peace were immediately 
 „ n . commenced, and it was concluded on the 30th May, 1814, 
 
 Treaty of Paris, ' j i i 
 
 1814 - by a treaty signed at Paris, by which France was restricted 
 
 to the limits within which she had been confined in 1790. A slight 
 extension of territory was given her on the northern frontier, which was 
 increased by the addition of three places — Philippeville, Marienburg, and 
 Sarrelouis ; she retained the boundaries of Avignon and Montbelliard, and, 
 in the east, obtained a portion of the Pays de Gex, near Geneva, and half 
 Savoy, including Auncey and Chambery. She had to surrender three of 
 her colonies — Santa-Lucia, Tobago, and the most important of her 
 possessions in the Indian Sea — the Isle of France. The firm resistance of 
 the King and his Council relieved the kingdom from any war contribu- 
 tion, and Paris retained in its museums the works of art which had been 
 exacted from all the countries of Europe by her victories. It was agreed 
 that France should pay twenty-five millions to the allies as an indemnity 
 for them, and finally, that the vessels constructed by order of her Govern- 
 ment in foreign parts should be divided between herself and the Allied 
 Powers. Shortly after the signature of the treaty of Paris, the French 
 soil was freed from the presence of foreign troops. 
 
 On the 4th June the King convoked the Senate and the legislative body, 
 which had been violently dissolved by Napoleon, and on the same day, in 
 their presence solemnly bestowed upon the French a constitutional 
 charter, which was in the main a repetition of the Senatorial Constitution 
 and the declaration of Saint-Ouen, and which established a representative 
 government composed of a King and two Chambers, one of which con- 
 sisted of peers nominated by the monarch, whilst the other consisted of 
 the deputies of departments.* It abolished confiscation and the odious 
 conscription law, secured individual liberty, the freedom of the press and 
 
 * It was understood that the King would choose from amongst the senators for the 
 composition of the Chamber of Peers such as could make a suitable appearance there, 
 and that those of the senators who should not be made members of that Chamber 
 should retain their incomes. The peers were to be nominated for life or rendered here- 
 ditary as the King pleased. The second chamber, or Chamber of Deputies, consisted 
 of the whole legislative body, and was to be renewed annually by a fifth part of its 
 members. It was determined, moreover, that the latter should be chosen by the 
 electoral colleges by electors paying direct taxes to the amount of three hundred 
 francs, and should be selected from amongst persons paying direct taxes to the amount 
 of a thousand francs. The two chambers were to be convoked every year. The King 
 might dissolve that of the Deputies, but in this case he was bound to convoke a new 
 one within the space of three months. 
 
1814-1815.] RENEWED DANGERS. 417 
 
 of public worship, the inviolability of property, the irrevocability of the 
 sales of the national property, the responsibility of the ministers, the 
 annual voting of taxes, and the payment of the interest on the national 
 debt, and re-established the old nobility in their rights whilst it maintained 
 those of the new. This charter, which was to be sworn to by the Kings 
 of the French at the period of their consecration, fulfilled in general the 
 wishes expressed during the preceding twenty-five years by the most 
 enlightened men in France. Immediately after it had been read the 
 Chancellor produced the decree which established the Chamber of Peers, 
 which was composed of most of the old Senators, of the Marshals, and a 
 great number of dignitaries of the old court and noblesse. 
 
 The promulgation of this charter was accompanied by one serious fault. 
 The King had refused to accept it as a condition of his elevation to the 
 throne, and had granted it simply as an act of his sovereign will, and had 
 dated it the nineteenth year of his reign. This was to ignore all that 
 had taken place in France during twenty-five years, and to expose the 
 charter to peril by placing it at the mercy of the supreme power. In 
 fact, if the prince who granted this constitution only regarded it himself 
 as a benevolent act emanating from his own good pleasure and sole 
 authority, it was to be feared that an ill-advised king might some day 
 think himself at liberty to revoke it by virtue of the same hereditary and 
 inalienable authority. The first results of this fault were, to exaggerate 
 the premature anxiety of some, and to inflame the audacious hopes of 
 others, and it is to it that are to be attributed the misfortunes by which 
 the revolution was accompanied. 
 
 The dangerous nature of the ground on which the monarch rested his 
 power soon became manifest. A number of persons who Dangers of the 
 had been dissatisfied with the return of the Bourbons, Sltuatl0n - 
 were persuaded that the latter, whilst accepting, in spite of them- 
 selves, the state of things created by the Eevolution, did not regard it 
 as an irrevocable fact. They received the new order of things with 
 distrust, and the press, implacable and violent, spread abroad their 
 alarms and threats. But whilst the authorities, arbitrarily interpreting 
 one of the articles of the constitution, subjected the journals which did 
 this to a censorship, the partisans of the old order of things indulged in 
 their own journals in violent enunciations of their own views, and, as 
 always happens when the liberty of the press is suspended, the intem- 
 vol. n. E E 
 
418 REACTIONARY MEASURES. [BOOK IV. Chap. I. 
 
 perate articles which it did not suppress were attributed to the instiga- 
 tion of the Government. Imprudent expression frequently escaped the 
 lips of the ministers and government officials, and those who assumed as 
 exclusively their own the name of Royalists exploded in bitter invectives 
 not only against the charter and its guarantees, but also against its royal 
 author, whom they accused of having behaved unjustly and ungratefully 
 towards the emigrants by declaring the sale of the national property 
 irrevocable. It was, in other respects, almost impossible that the King, 
 in spite of his experience and intelligence, should not sometimes yield to 
 old prejudices, and submit to the influence of less enlightened and less 
 prudent members of his family, as well as to that of the men who 
 had returned with him from exile, and who possessed his confidence. 
 The latter, through the King's partiality or by virtue of their ancient 
 titles, obtained most of the great offices of the crown, and surrounded 
 the monarch in a close circle. Louis XVIII. committed the fault of re- 
 establishing at a great expense the old military appendages to the Eoyal 
 Household, the companies of household troops and the musqueteers, 
 which were composed of young men of family, who were all recognised 
 as officers at the commencement of their career, in the presence of an 
 army in which during twenty years military rank had only been obtained 
 at the price of blood and glorious services. 
 
 Many decrees were issued which were either offensive to the army 
 Reactionary an( * tne P eo pl e > or peddling and vexatious. Expiatory 
 decrees. mourning was ordered for the Royal victims of the revo- 
 
 lutionary storms, and in the language of official proclamations as well 
 as in that of the pulpit, the whole of France seemed to be incessantly 
 accused of the atrocities committed during the reign of terror. The 
 clerical party ordered the police to prevent any commercial transactions 
 or labour on Sundays and fete days ; a measure which was praiseworthy 
 in principle, but rendered untimely and unpopular by the manner in 
 which it was carried into effect. The suppression of the Concordat was 
 negotiated at Rome, and there seemed reason to fear that the clergy 
 would be reinstated in their old privileges. Many priests expressed 
 hopes of recovering their titles and domains, and thundered against the 
 present proprietors of the national property ; and finally, many bishops 
 openly expressed their adherence to the bull of Pope Pius VII. which re- 
 established the order of the Jesuits. The army, stationed in obscure 
 
1814r-1815.] INTBIGTTES AND POLITICAL PAETIES. 419 
 
 garrisons, bemoaned its old eagles, which were now replaced by the 
 fleurs de lis, and wrathfully hid the tricolour under the white cockade. 
 It found itself deprived by General Dupont of a multitude of officers 
 who had grown old in its ranks, and who were succeeded by men whose 
 only title to honours of command was their birth or services in foreign 
 ranks. The new comers, full of memories of the old monarchy, spoke 
 of the white plume of Henry IV. and the Christian virtues of Saint 
 Louis to men who had followed Napoleon to all the capitals of Europe, 
 but who were for the most part ignorant even of the names of Saint 
 Louis and Henry IV. 
 
 Irritation and anxiety filled the breasts of all whose interests allied 
 them virtually with the Eevolution, and they formed two 
 
 ~ i .. ., T • l • j , i«i Political parties. 
 
 powerful parties ; the Imperialist party, which was sup- 
 ported by almost the whole of the army, and whose leaders intrigued in 
 Paris under the auspices of Queen Hortense, the daughter of the 
 Empress Josephine and the wife of Louis Bonaparte ; and the Revo- 
 lutionary or Eepublican party, filled with ardent men, and sympathized 
 with by most of those who were now in possession of the national 
 property. Opposite to these parties was a third, not the least dangerous 
 of the three, and which was entitled the Ultra-Royalist party, and 
 was led by Monsieur, the King's brother. The Counts Blacas and 
 Vaublanc were its most active members, and, together with Monsieur, 
 never ceased to urge Louis XVni. to unpopular acts, which were as 
 contrary to the spirit of the charter as to the monarch's personal inclina- 
 tions. This party, supported by the most of the old noblesse and the 
 clergy, had ramifications in La Vendee, Brittany, and Anjou, and was 
 strongly sympathized with in some cities of the south, such as Lyons, 
 Toulouse, Nimes, and Avignon, and especially in the maritime cities of 
 Bordeaux and Marseilles, whose commerce had been ruined by the 
 Revolution and the Empire. Finally, a fourth party, named the Con- 
 stitutional party, consisted of all the men whose wishes and necessities 
 were satisfied by the charter, and who, sufficiently enlightened to perceive 
 the difficulties inseparable from the existing state of affairs, believed that 
 they would be triumphed over in the course of time by the firmness of 
 the people and the wisdom of the King. This party, at the head of 
 which were La Fayette, Royer-Collard, Lanjuinais, Carnot, Benjamin 
 Constant, Madame de Stael, the Duke de Broglie, Boissy d'Anglas, &c, 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 new laws. [Book IV. Chap. I. 
 
 and which was supported by the National Guard of Paris, was powerful 
 L . j ,. amongst the citizens of the chief cities and had the majority 
 
 Session of 1814. | n fo e two cnam b ers . The latter assembled on the 4th 
 June, Chancellor Dambray being the president of the first, that of the 
 Peers, and M. Laine that of the second, and proceeded with their labours, 
 in the midst of many obstacles, with resolution and perseverance. Public 
 ojoinion in Paris acknowledged their persevering efforts to keep in a con- 
 stitutional course a Government which had been composed, as we have 
 seen, of so many different elements. 
 
 Amongst the men who, in the King's Council, rendered the greatest 
 services to the country, Baron Louis, the Minister of Finance, occupied 
 the foremost place. His system was based on the principle of paying the 
 Financial scheme debts of the kingdom, and even those of the empire, in full, 
 of Baron Louis. an( ^ on ^q maintenance of the existing taxes, including the 
 droits reuntSj the most objected to of all the taxes, and which Count d'Artois 
 had given reason to hope would be suppressed when he landed on the 
 French coast. The Minister supported this system with as much talent 
 as energy, and presented to the two Chambers the budget for the present 
 year, which amounted to six hundred millions. He created resources by 
 means of numerous economies and financial combinations of great skill, 
 and had the honour of being, in France, the true founder of public credit. 
 The two Chambers adopted the Minister's measures, which were demanded 
 by an imperious necessity ; but their execution was accompanied by much 
 suffering, for it was necessary, for economy's sake, to suppress a multitude 
 of offices, and to reduce to half-pay a number of good officers who over- 
 flowed Paris and moved its inhabitants by their complaints and their 
 wretchedness, whilst extreme irritation was caused by the continuation of 
 all, even the most vexatious taxes, the suppression of which had been 
 either promised or hoped. 
 
 The censorship of books and journals was one of the most serious 
 
 questions discussed in the Chamber. The charter promised that the 
 
 press should be free, whilst reserving to the Government the right to 
 
 suppress abuses of this freedom by legal methods; a 
 
 press. royal decree had nevertheless previously placed the press 
 
 under the laws in force with respect to it during the Empire ; and now, 
 yielding to the demands of the Chamber of Deputies, it submitted a law 
 on the subject, according to which only books in octavo, and of at least 
 
1814-1815.] UNPOPULAR MEASURES. 421 
 
 thirty sheets, should be exempted from the censorship. This law under- 
 went, in the Chamber of Deputies, great modifications, which were all in 
 favour of the principle of a free press ; and it was, moreover, declared 
 that the censorship was only to be maintained as a temporary measure 
 till the end of 1816. In this shape the law was voted by a considerable 
 majority. Another proposed law presented to the Chamber by M. 
 Ferrand, Minister of State, for the restoration to the emigrants of a por- 
 tion of the property taken possession of by the State, raised a violent 
 storm, not so much on account of itself as on account of what it seemed 
 to foreshadow. The Minister was so imprudent as to present this law as 
 the precursor of still more complete measures of reparation, described the 
 King as doing great violence to his own feelings by confining himself 
 within the limits of the charter, and spoke of the emigrants as the only 
 Frenchmen who during the past twenty-five years had never deviated 
 from the straight path of the road of honour. The Chamber did not pass 
 this measure until it had undergone considerable modifications, but the 
 ill-judged expressions of the Minister were regarded as the expressions of 
 the King and his Government, and, spreading rapidly through France, 
 gave a fresh and unfortunate activity to the dangerous hopes of some and 
 the sullen rage of others. 
 
 The public excitement was great, and was increased by many alarms. 
 There was no end of rumours of conspiracies, either to drive away the 
 Bourbons and to replace them by a Republic, or to restore the Emperor ; 
 and a plot for this latter purpose was actually formed by some imprudent 
 generals without Napoleon's connivance or even knowledge. The army 
 was the most formidable focus of discontent, and instead of doing all in 
 its power to attach it to itself, the Government was constantly putting 
 measures into execution which could not fail to alienate it. Peace 
 having succeeded to war, it was necessary, as the only pos- u , 
 sible means of effecting any considerable economy, to reduce measures - 
 the army, to put large numbers of officers on half-pay, and to discharge 
 many of the troops. There was considerable peril in the adoption 
 of this measure, and the peril was still further increased. The Minister 
 proposed to the Chambers to suppress many branches of the Hotel des 
 Invalides, and to compensate the veterans who should be expelled by an 
 annual dotation quite insufficient to meet their wants ; a similar measure 
 was proposed with respect to some establishments for the education of the 
 
422 DISTURBED STATE OE PUBLIC EEELING. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 children of members of the Legion of Honour ; and the Government at the 
 same time created a pension list for the Yendeans and Chonans, and the 
 officers who had served in Conde's army against France. Public indig- 
 nation was excited by these projects. The economical measures relative 
 to the Invalides and the orphans of the Legion of Honour were rejected, 
 and raised a storm of unpopularity against General Dupont, the Minister 
 for War, which he could not withstand. He was succeeded by Marshal 
 Soult, and the latter behaved even still more imprudently and harshly 
 towards his old companions in arms. Amongst the latter, General 
 Exelmans was one of the most esteemed and the most popular. 
 Devoted to King Murat, at whose hands he had received many favours, 
 and who, by virtue of his desertion of the Emperor, still occupied the 
 throne of Naples, he knew that this prince was threatened with the loss 
 of his crown, and offered him the services of his sword. The letter in 
 which he made this offer was intercepted, and it was regarded as an act 
 of treason, although Murat was then at peace with France. Exelmans 
 was tried by a court martial, and acquitted amidst the public applause, 
 but the circumstance caused a deep and dangerous feeling in the ranks of 
 the army. Nevertheless, in spite of so many imprudences, there was no 
 reason to despair of the future, for these faults were much more the 
 results of the unfortunate circumstances in which the King was placed 
 than of his own will, and he was capable not only of recognising, but of 
 repairing them. The army, moreover, although to a great extent 
 alienated, was kept to its duty by the bridle of discipline as well as by 
 the habit of obedience, and the dangerous influence of old recollections 
 would naturally diminish in its ranks as they became filled by fresh con- 
 tingents. The Elective Chamber had rejected or blamed the most 
 unpopular measures of the Council ; it was the power which had the most 
 to gain by the lapse of time ; it had gained the popular confidence, and 
 had judiciously and moderately pursued a constitutional and liberal 
 course, which was grateful to the middle classes, the friends of peace, 
 who were terrified at the idea of anarchy, and were disgusted with 
 the Empire. No irrevocable harm had been done at the commencement 
 of 1815, and it would not have been impossible for the Bourbons to 
 retain their position, had they only had to contend with a distrust which 
 was only too natural, or with the resentment provoked by their first 
 acts. 
 
1814-1815.] THE CONGRESS OE VIENNA. 423 
 
 The sittings having been closed and adjourned to the 15th May, the 
 Minister continued to act without any well-conceived plan, and without 
 either unity or strength of purpose. Talleyrand no longer sat in the 
 Council, as he at this time represented France in the Con- Con egs f 
 gress of Sovereigns, which had been assembled several Vienna, 
 months at Vienna, for the purpose of dividing* the immense spoils col- 
 lected by Napoleon. This Congress, presided over by the Emperor 
 Alexander, and in which M. de Metternich for Austria, Castlereagh, and 
 after him "Wellington, for England, and Iiardenberg for Prussia, exercised 
 the most influence, had already excited wide-spread and deep discontent. 
 It was not the extent of territory, but the number of souls in each 
 city and each country, which was to form the basis of the division ; no 
 account was taken of the distinctions established between populations 
 by differences in their manners, their national characteristics, their reli- 
 gions, or species of commerce ; and the interests of the States of the 
 second order were constantly sacrificed to those of the great powers. 
 The unfortunate King of Saxony, whose crime was his fidelity to Napo- 
 leon, was despoiled for the profit of Prussia and Russia, the first of whom 
 obtained, beside the Electorate of Saxony, Swedish Pomerania, and a 
 great portion of the territory between the Rhine and the Meuse. Russia 
 acquired the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, under the name of the Kingdom 
 of Poland, and on condition of ruling it only by means of a special and 
 constitutional government. Austria recovered Lombardy and all its old 
 possessions on the two shores of the Adriatic. Tuscany was given to the 
 Archduke Ferdinand, Genoa to the King of Sardinia, and Parma to 
 the ex-Empress Maria Louisa, but only for her life.* The foreign 
 policy of all the States of Germany was rendered subject to the decisions 
 of a Federal Diet, of which Austria was to have the perpetual presi- 
 dency. Sweden obtained Norway at the expense of Denmark, from 
 whom also Heligoland had been taken by England. This latter power, 
 enriched by the colonies it had seized during the war, also retained the 
 Cape of Good Hope, the Isle of France, Malta, and the Ionian Islands. 
 It devoted great care to the formation of the kingdom of the Low 
 Countries, which was composed of Holland and Belgium, under the rule 
 of the House of Orange, and which seemed to it to offer" a formidable bar- 
 rier against France. In Italy the Legations were secured to the Pope ; 
 * The reversion of the Duchy of Parma was given to the Queen of Etruria. 
 
424 HAPOLECXN" ESCAPES EEOM ELBA. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 and in Switzerland the Congress maintained the state of things which 
 had been established by the Act of Mediation of 1803, in spite of all 
 the efforts of the Cantons whom this celebrated Act had deprived of 
 their rights and privileges. Three new Cantons, those of Neivfchatel, 
 Glaris, and Valais, were formed of some fragments of Napoleon's empire, 
 and raised the total number of Cantons to twenty-two. At the same 
 time declaration was made of the neutrality of Switzerland, and of some 
 great principles of international law relative to the abolition of the slave 
 trade and the free navigation of navigable rivers ; principles which are 
 still in force, to the advantage of the cause of humanity, of all the peoples 
 of Europe, and the recognition of which was the best thing effected by 
 this celebrated Congress. 
 
 The boundaries of France having been established by the peace of 
 Paris, that power had but a very secondary influence over the resolu- 
 tions of the Congress ; nevertheless, Talleyrand opposed the encroach- 
 ments of Russia, and in accordance with the instructions of Louis XVIII., 
 pointed out that the island of Elba was too close to Italy and France, and 
 insisted that Napoleon should be removed to a greater distance. He 
 also demanded that Murat should be dethroned, and that the House of 
 Bourbon should be replaced in possession of the kingdom of Naples and 
 of the Duchy of Parma. His efforts had at first but little success ; but 
 Murat was informed of them, and being justly alarmed with respect to 
 the retention of his possessions, he became reconciled with the great man 
 whom he had abandoned, invited him to Italy, and promised him powerful 
 support. Such was in February, 1815, the general position of Europe, 
 when an astounding event suddenly startled it throughout its length and 
 breadth. 
 
 On the 27th of February a brig of war was sailing cautiously up the 
 Ketum of Napo- Mediterranean, followed by six light barks. Quiet reigned 
 eon rom a. Qn ^ g ^ QQ ^ on ^ki^ could be seen the glitter of arms, and 
 it contained a few hundred men with bronzed faces, and of a most martial 
 bearing. Anxiously and attentively they scanned with their eyes every 
 sail which appeared on the horizon. Many of their heroic countenances 
 paled as they discovered in the distance some ships of war, and already 
 the words Elba and return passed mournfully from mouth to mouth. But 
 in the midst of them there was one man who was apparently unmoved, 
 
1814-1815.] NAPOLEON LANDS IN FKANCE. 425 
 
 upon whom all intently gazed, who rejected every proposal for the delay 
 of an immense and fatal enterprise, and who, pointing to France, said, 
 " Forward !" It was Napoleon, who was once more about to appeal 
 to fortune. On this occasion, as on his return from Egypt, but on 
 this occasion to the misfortune of France, he escaped the enemy's 
 cruisers, and on the 1st of March he disembarked in the Gulf of Juan, 
 between Cannes and Antibes, with eleven hundred men, four pieces 
 of cannon, and his three brave generals, Bertrand, Drouot, and Cam- 
 bronne. 
 
 Napoleon, there is no doubt, had serious causes of complaint against 
 the Bourbon Government, which had not paid him the annual subsidy 
 of two millions stipulated for in the Treaty of the 11th of April, and 
 which was necessary to him for the support of his household and the 
 officers and soldiers who had followed him to Elba. He was not ignorant 
 that the transfer of his person to the Azores, and the deposition of Murat, 
 which had been eagerly urged by the representatives of Louis XVIII., 
 had been discussed in the Congress of Vienna, and his anxiety respecting 
 the future fate intended for him by the allies had been excited. Nothing, 
 however, contrary to his interests had as yet been resolved on, and 
 if Napoleon had listened to the dictates of humanity, the voice of 
 France, and his duty towards her, he would doubtless have re- 
 coiled from the frightful idea of precipitating her, all exhausted as 
 she was, and still bleeding from the wounds of twenty-five years' 
 warfare, into the horrors of a new strife in which she must struggle 
 alone against all. But still again his personal ambition and interests 
 hardened his heart and blinded his eyes and his conscience. He heard, 
 he said, an appeal in the complaints and clamours of those whom a re- 
 actionary government had disquieted or injured ; and he failed to say to 
 himself that his return was, with few exceptions, only desired by the 
 army, and that, in fact, whatever might be the sufferings of France, his 
 present proceeding could only plunge her into a sea of calamities, and 
 bring upon her troubles infinitely greater than those which now excited 
 her complaints. By tearing up the Convention of April 1 1th, he annulled 
 all the obligations of Europe towards him, and whilst he was about to 
 involve France in a criminal enterprise, and drag her to her ruin, he 
 declared that he was about to deliver and avenge her ! 
 
426 napoleon's mabch. [Book IV. Chap. I. 
 
 The news of his landing spread around Louis XVIII. terror and con- 
 sternation. The King convoked the two Chambers; and 
 JfThe^?aiGo- t ^ ie Count d'Artois, with the Duke d' Orleans, was ordered 
 hearS^oTtSe to advance with troops upon Lyons in concert with Marshal 
 turn. ei ° r 8 re " Macdonald. Ney accepted the command of the troops 
 spread over Franche-Comte, and took an oath of fidelity 
 to the King. The Duke de Feltre replaced Marshal Soult as minister 
 of war ; and a royal decree declared Napoleon Bonaparte a traitor and 
 a rebel, and enj oined all Frenchmen to treat him as such. 
 
 In the meantime Napoleon advanced by forced marches, and after 
 having feigned to follow the Toulon and Marseilles road, 
 
 Napoleon's 
 
 march on Paris, had taken that of Grenoble, through the midst of popula- 
 
 March,1815. _ 1 ° 1 r 
 
 tions amongst whom he hoped to find the most sympathy for 
 himself and his cause ; and he captivated them by the magical charm of his 
 name, by the tricoloured flag which he displayed, and by the eloquence 
 of his proclamations. He said to the people, " Citizens ! I owe all to the 
 people ; as soldier, general, consul, Emperor, I am nothing but by the 
 grace of the people. Eaised to the throne by your choice, all that has 
 
 been done without your consent is illegitimate Your wishes shall 
 
 be satisfied, and the cause of the nation shall even yet triumph. My 
 return guarantees to you the possession of all the rights which you have 
 enjoyed during the past five-and-twenty years." To the army he said, 
 " Soldiers ! In my exile I have heard your voice, and at its summons I 
 have passed through all obstacles, all dangers. Tear down the colours 
 which the nation has proscribed, and hoist this tricoloured cockade which 
 you have borne in our great battles. The veterans of the armies of 
 Sambre and Meuse, of the Ehine, of Italy, of Egypt, and of the West, 
 are humiliated, their honourable wounds are disgraced. Soldiers! 
 hasten to range yourselves beneath the banners of your chief; victory 
 will march with us ; side by side the eagle and the national colours 
 shall fly from turret to turret till they rest on the towers of Notre- 
 Dame." .... 
 
 All Napoleon's hopes rested on the affection of the soldiers for his 
 person, or the enthusiasm with which he had inspired them, and it was 
 on their return to him that depended the success of his enterprise. A 
 first attempt made on the garrison of Antibes had failed, and for some 
 days Bonaparte marched without encountering any troops either friendly 
 
1814-1815.] NET JOINS NAPOLEON. 427 
 
 or hostile. On the 3rd March he crossed the Durance by the Sisteron 
 bridge, through a narrow defile, which a very feeble garrison in the 
 fortress might have held against considerable forces ; but the fort was 
 undefended, and Napoleon passed through unopposed. In all the cities 
 of the South the authorities, struck with stupor at the news of the 
 Emperor's landing and of his approach, knew not what to resolve on, 
 being equally incapable of acting in concert or of making themselves 
 obeyed. It seemed to them as dangerous to oppose Napoleon as to allow 
 him to advance unopposed. It was resolved, however, that Grenoble 
 should be defended, and all the disposable troops in Dauphine were con- 
 centrated there. A detachment formed of various species of troops, and 
 commanded by a resolute officer, named Lessard, was sent some leagues 
 beyond Grenoble to destroy the bridge of Ponthaut. This order had not 
 been executed when, on the 7th March, the Imperial advanced guard, 
 under General Cambronne, reached the Mure, and took up a position 
 there. Commander Lessard fell back with his detachment into a strong 
 position, closed the road against Cambronne's soldiers, refused to hold 
 any communication with him, and threatened to fire if he advanced. 
 Napoleon soon afterwards reached the spot, saw the danger _ leon 
 of the situation, and perceived that the decisive moment Mure - 
 had come. He ordered his grenadiers to reverse their arms, and advancing 
 alone to within hearing distance of the battalion which blocked his path, 
 he opened his overcoat and said, " Soldiers, it is I ! do you recognise 
 me ? If there be one amongst you who wishes to kill his Emperor, here 
 he is. He comes with bare breast to offer himself to your weapons." 
 Admiration and enthusiasm took possession of every heart. The cry of 
 u Vive l'Empereur !" arose, and was a thousand times repeated. The two 
 bodies of troops fraternized, hoisted the same flag, and H 
 marched together to Grenoble. Soon afterwards, in the Grenoble, 
 neighbourhood of Vizille, Colonel la Bedoyere hastened up with his 
 regiment to join Bonaparte, whom the unfortunate young man almost 
 worshipped. Grenoble and Lyons opened their gates in succession, and 
 in the latter city Count d'Artois was so utterly deserted that he had to 
 leave it with a single attendant. The soldiers everywhere responded to 
 the appeal of their old general; Ney's corps followed the Is - oinedb 
 example ; Ney himself was induced to do the same ; Napo- Marshal Ne y- 
 leon embraced him, and continued his march towards Paris. Monsieur 
 
428 NAPOLEON MAECHES Ols PAEIS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 now took, in the presence of the two Chambers, an oath to keep inviolate 
 the charter of the Constitution ; but it was in vain that Marshal Mortier 
 and the garrison of La Fere repressed in the east a revolt excited by 
 Generals Lallemand and Lefebvre-Desnouettes ; in vain that Marseilles 
 energetically declared in favour of the Bourbons ; in vain that the Duke 
 d'Angouleme in Languedoc and Madame at Bordeaux, the city in which 
 the Bourbons were first proclaimed, gathered a few troops in support of 
 the royal cause — Napoleon was already only a few marches distant from 
 the Tuileries. 
 
 Louis XVIII. held a review in Paris, but the troops would not respond 
 
 to the cry of " Yive le Eoi!" The Monarch understood this silence, and, 
 
 yielding to the force of necessity, he precipitately quitted 
 
 flies from Paris his palace on the night of the 19th March, and hastened to 
 
 to Ghent. 
 
 Ghent, where Talleyrand soon afterwards joined him, and 
 whither he was also followed by a few politicians who perceived all the 
 rashness of Napoleon's enterprise, and in whose eyes the interests of 
 France were identical with the House of Bourbon. 
 
 On the evening of the 20th March Napoleon re-entered his capital, 
 
 without having fired a single shot. His rapid march had 
 
 Napoleon re- 
 enters Paris, been one continued triumph, and yet, perhaps, a sovereign 
 
 March 20, 1815. l ' J ' r L ' ° 
 
 resuming possession of his crown had never found himself 
 in a more critical position than the Emperor on his return from the Island 
 of Elba, during that period which is so unfortunately celebrated as the 
 _,.__ .^ . Hundred Days. France was exhausted and divided by fac- 
 
 Difficulties of J J 
 
 the situation. tions ; the immense majority of enlightened Frenchmen, 
 satisfied with the promises of the charter of Louis XVIII., which they 
 hoped to see faithfully carried out, remembered with terror the Imperial 
 despotism ; civil war threatened the South ; the formidable Vendee arose 
 in insurrection ; the La Eochejacquelins, the Sapinauds, the Autichamps, 
 raised the Bocage ; the working classes in Paris, Lyons, and other cities 
 began to utter sinister cries which recalled the worst times of the Revolu- 
 tion ; and the whole of Europe was still in arms. Napoleon had accepted 
 the Treaty of Paris, and had protested his intention of keeping the peace ; 
 but his couriers were arrested on the frontiers, the Allied Sovereigns 
 placed no reliance on his assurances, and by a fresh treaty, signed on the 
 25th March, renewed amongst themselves the alliance of Chaumont. The 
 Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon to be out of the pale of public and 
 
1814-1815.] ERESH IMPERIAL DECREES. 429 
 
 social law, and a million troops were preparing once more to pour down 
 upon France. It was necessary, therefore, that Napoleon, if he were to 
 reign, should receive from the hands of victory fresh and bloody 
 consecration. 
 
 In such circumstances an almost unlimited authority was necessary to 
 the head of the Government ; but, constrained as he was to conciliate 
 public opinion, Napoleon sought for the support of the constitutional 
 party, many of whose members cherished republican sentiments, and would 
 not have cared to entrust even a momentary dictatorship to the hero of 
 the 18th Brumaire. The Emperor nattered its leaders, selected from 
 amongst them most of his Ministers, and used the language of a 
 friend towards the national liberties. But such language in his mouth 
 was but a feeble means of success, for public opinion is only influ- 
 enced by language which, if it be not sincere, may at least be accepted 
 as such. 
 
 The first imperial decrees, dated at Lyons, were energetic. They 
 declared the Chambers of Louis XVIII. dissolved ; convoked the Elec- 
 toral Colleges in an extraordinary assembly for the purpose of modifying 
 the constitution of the empire in the interests of the people ; abolished 
 the old noblesse ; declared all the property of the Bourbons seques- 
 trated ; and proscribed eleven persons, amongst whom were Talleyrand 
 and Marmont. Resigning himself to an alliance forced upon him by 
 necessity, Napoleon admitted into his council the celebrated Conven- 
 tionalist, Carnot, as Minister of the Interior, and appointed Minister of 
 Police, Fouche, Duke of Otranto, a man then influential with the Consti- 
 tutionalists, and the only one capable, it was said, of directing the police 
 in times of such difficulty. Finally he requested the celebrated Publi- 
 cist, Benjamin Constant, to draw up an " act Additional to the Constitu- 
 tions of the Empire." This act created, in the first place, two legislative 
 Chambers, those of the Peers and the Representatives, the first hereditary, 
 nominated by the Emperor, and the second elective. The other clauses 
 of this act were transcripts of the principal portions of the charter of 
 Louis XVIII. Napoleon submitted it to the people for acceptance, and 
 a million consented to it, whilst four thousand ventured to reject it. The 
 Emperor swore to keep inviolate this new constitution in a solemn 
 assembly of the Electoral Colleges on the Champ de Mai, 
 where the eagles were distributed amongst the regiments, Mai# 
 
430 THE ALLIES A.GA1S ASSEMBLED. [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 and where Napoleon appeared with all the pomp of the Empire. The 
 L .. . elections, which were almost entirely in favour of the con- 
 
 elections, stitutional party, were concluded, and the Chamber of 
 Eepresentatives assembled on the 3rd of June under unfavourable 
 auspices for the Emperor. La Fayette reappeared there on the political 
 stage, after twenty years of honourable retreat. The votes for the presi- 
 dency were divided between him and Lanjuinais, and it was Lanjuinais, who 
 was most hostile to the imperial government, who obtained the majority. 
 Military measures now occupied Napoleon's whole attention. The 
 South seemed quiet, for Madame, after having for some time offered a 
 courageous resistance in Bordeaux, had been compelled by General 
 Clausel to abandon that city and quit the kingdom. The Duke d'An- 
 gouleme had been to some degree successful, and had made a rapid and 
 perilous campaign on the Rhone ; but soon, abandoned by his troops, he 
 had found himself surrounded and made a prisoner, and having been set 
 at liberty by the Emperor's orders, he had left France. But La Vendee 
 was still in a state of insurrection, and, although kept in check by General 
 Lamarque, it compelled Napoleon to detach twenty thousand men to 
 occupy and reduce it. In the meantime his fortunes had already suffered 
 a terrible blow in Italy, for the imprudent Murat, in spite of his advice, 
 had attacked the Austrians at Tolentino, lost his army and 
 
 Murat defeated 
 
 at Tolentino. his crown, and now wandered about a fugitive, whilst his 
 
 1815. ' ° ' 
 
 vannquishers replaced the Bourbons on the throne of the 
 Two Sicilies. These preliminary events, so disastrous to the imperial 
 cause, compelled Napoleon to assemble an army on the southern frontier 
 for the purpose of stopping the progress of the enemies whom Murat 
 could alone have held in check, had he not by his foolish rashness pre- 
 cipitated his ruin. All Europe was now advancing with menacing front ; 
 „, , ;■„ the English under Wellington, and the Prussians under 
 
 March of the ° 9 ' 
 
 enemy's forces. Blucher, occupied Belgium ; a frantic enthusiasm for liberty 
 excited the German Universities against Bonaparte ; the whole of Ger- 
 many rose against him at their summons, and behind it the Eussian 
 columns and Tartar hordes were already in motion. 
 
 Napoleon again collected within a few days a formidable army from 
 the soil of France. According to his own calculations, he 
 
 operations, required six hundred thousand men for the purpose of van- 
 June, 1815. 
 
 quishing Europe, and he had already gathered together by 
 
1814-1815.] THE BATTLE OE LIGNY. 431 
 
 prodigious efforts an army of three hundred thousand. Of this number 
 a hundred and twenty thousand were marched upon Belgium. On the 
 12th of June he set out in person for his army, to give battle to Welling- 
 ton and Blucher, who were each at the head of ninety thousand men. 
 He hoped to be able to vanquish them separately, by throwing himself 
 suddenly between them, after which he would be free to meet the Aus- 
 trians and Eussians. On the 16th he succeeded, by means of a rapid and 
 secret march, in surprising the Prussians isolated from the English, and a 
 sanguinary battle took place round the village of Ligny, on T]ie b tl f 
 the plains of Fleurus, always glorious for the French arms, ^sw* 
 The Prussians were vanquished by Napoleon, and lost a third of their 
 army, about thirty thousand men, of whom eighteen thousand were 
 killed or wounded ; ten thousand French troops also fell on this fatal 
 field. On the same day, at a few leagues' distance, another Battle of 
 battle took place at the farm of Quatre-Bras, on the road Quatre * ras - 
 from Charleroi to Brussels, between a portion of the English forces and 
 the French troops under Ney. This position was a very important one 
 as a rallying point for the various corps of the English army ; Ney could 
 not take it until after heroic efforts which succeeded fatal hesitations,. 
 and the battle remained a drawn one. Nevertheless, Napoleon's principal 
 object had been obtained by the results of the battle of the 16th of June, 
 for he had separated the enemy's two armies. The Prussians were 
 beaten, and the English might also be so before it could be possible for 
 their routed allies to advance to their assistance. 
 
 The Emperor detached on his right Grouchy with thirty-five thousand 
 men, commanded under him by Gerard and Vandamme, and ordered him 
 to keep himself in constant communication with himself by his left, 
 whilst at the same time he vigorously pursued the Prussians. The Em- 
 peror then marched in person with the rest of his forces, by Quatre-Bras, 
 to meet the English, who fell back and occupied the position of Mont 
 Saint- Jean in front of the forest of Soignies, which was several leagues in 
 extent, and covered the city of Brussels. On the 17th a frightful storm 
 broke up the roads, delaying the march of the French troops for many 
 hours, so that it was only at the close of the day, and after great fatigue, 
 that they could reach the foot of Mont Saint- Jean, which was occupied 
 by the troops under Lord Wellington. The English army was partly hidden 
 from the French by the undulations of the ground on the other side of 
 
432 THE BATTLE OE WATERLOO. [BOOK. IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 the hill, but at night the bivouac fires showed the whole extent of its 
 position, and gave Napoleon reason to hope that he might fight it on the 
 morrow before the Prussians, whom he believed to be held in check by 
 Grouchy, should have time to join it. 
 
 The high road of Charleroi, traversing the forest of Charleroi, divided 
 the plateau of Mont Saint- Jean and the valley which separated the two 
 armies. A little in the rear of the English, and at the very extreme of the 
 forest, stood the village of Waterloo, which was to give its name to the 
 disastrous battle of the morrow. Wellington had very skilfully posted 
 Position of the n ^ s arm y on * ne plateau on each side of the Brussels road. 
 piam8of°Mont Trusting in the speedy arrival of the Prussians on his left, 
 he had concentrated the bulk of his forces on his right and 
 centre, and had occupied with a few battalions the Chateau d'Hougoumont 
 and the farms of La Haye-Sainteand Papelotte, which were in front of his 
 position, and which, being surrounded by orchards and woods, formed 
 excellent natural defences. His arrangements having been completed, he 
 held himself on the defensive, whilst Napoleon, drawing up his army at 
 the foot of the hill, prepared to attack him. 
 
 The Emperor's plan was to take in the first place the advanced works, 
 Napoleon's plan then to throw his right wing against the weak side of the 
 English army, their left wing, to drive it back upon their 
 centre, and to take possession of the Brussels road by driving the British 
 army into the forest of Soignies. Napoleon reckoned that the arrival of 
 Grouchy on his right, with at least a portion of his troops, would secure 
 the victory. This plan of attack, says the historian of the Consulate and 
 Empire, was worthy of the genius which conceived it, and would have 
 been crowned with success if the Emperor's lieutenants had understood 
 and executed his orders. The whole French army was deployed in a 
 fan-shape, in three lines, in front of the English at the foot of the hill of 
 Mont Saint- Jean. Ney commanded the first line, of which Reille's corps 
 occupied the left, supported by Kellerman's cuirassiers, whilst D'Erlon 
 was on the right, having behind him the magnificent division of the 
 cuirassiers under Milhaud. Lobau's corps, on the second line, formed 
 a reserve at the centre. The infantry and all the cavalry of the guard, 
 posted on each side of the Brussels road, formed the third line, which 
 was less in extent, but deeper than the two others. Seventy thousand 
 French were thus opposed to seventy-five thousand English, Dutch, and 
 
1814-1815.] BATTLE Or WATERLOO. 433 
 
 Germans. Wellington had his head- quarters at Waterloo, and Napoleon 
 at the farm of La Belle -Alliance, which commanded the whole of the 
 position, and whence he could conveniently direct the attack. 
 
 It commenced by impetuous assaults on the advanced works which 
 covered the enemy's position. The wood of Hougoumont, 
 
 J r m . Battle of Water- 
 
 On the left, was first of all carried by General Reille, and loo, June isth, 
 
 7 J \ 1815. 
 
 desperate conflicts took place around La Haye-Sainte, 
 which was many times taken and retaken, whilst Count d'Erlon's infantry 
 attacked the English left. A formidable charge of the English, Scotch, and 
 Irish dragoons — the celebrated Union Brigade — penetrated the serried 
 masses of infantry, took two flags, and mowed down whole regiments with 
 their sabres. The dragoons, however, were charged in their turn and 
 cut down by the French cuirassiers and lancers. Meanwhile, Ney 
 had taken La Haye-Sainte, and, excited by this success, had asked of the 
 Emperor reinforcements, to enable him to make a decisive assault on the 
 plateau itself, in the centre of the English army. But already, an hour 
 since, Napoleon had perceived a moving shadow on the edge of the forest 
 of Soignies, which he had hoped in vain to be the eagerly longed-for 
 troops of Marshal Grouchy. The latter, fatally misled in his pursuit of 
 the Prussians, had sought them on the right, in the direction of Wavre, 
 whilst they were marching on the left to join the English at Mont Saint- 
 Jean. In the meantime the sombre mass approached, vomiting fire upon 
 the French troops, and turned out to be a portion of the Prussian army, 
 the corps under Bulow. Napoleon instead of one army had now two to 
 combat, and, before he could assist Ney on his left, it was necessary that 
 he should cover and fortify his right. Lobau's corps, which was very 
 inferior in numbers, was ordered to check the advance of the Prussians. 
 The Emperor, however, granted to Ney the eight regiments of Milhaud's 
 cuirassiers, although at the same time he ordered him to await his own 
 directions before risking an attack. These fine regiments advanced to 
 occupy the new position which had been assigned to them between the 
 corps of Reille and d'Erlon, and drew along with them, in consequence 
 of an unfortunate error, the whole of the cavalry of the guard. Ney, 
 on perceiving this enormous and splendid mass of cavalry at his disposal, 
 and seeing sixty pieces of English artillery ill protected before him, 
 anticipated the Emperor's orders, took the cannon, fell like a tempest 
 on many squares of English infantry, and destroyed them. Then, taking 
 
 VOL. II. F F 
 
434 BATTLE OP WATERLOO, [BOOK IV. CHAP. I. 
 
 with him, in spite of the remonstrances of their commander, Kellerman's 
 cuirassiers and the last squadrons of reserve, he commanded and led 
 eleven furious charges against the new squares of the enemy. He found 
 before him living walls, which fell, half- destroyed, but which he could 
 not drive back. Already a multitude of servants and persons in charge 
 of the baggage covered the road to Brussels, and cried out that the battle 
 was lost, but Wellington remained firm at the head of the third line, 
 and opposed a calm and admirable tenacity to Ney's feverish impetuosity. 
 Infantry was necessary to Ney to enable him to be victorious, and he 
 urgently demanded it ; but the Prussian corps of Bulow employed on the 
 right all the infantry which Napoleon still possessed, with the exception 
 of some battalions of his guard. Napoleon deplored the rashness of Ney 
 as much as the absence of Grouchy-; but as the audacity of despair was 
 now prudence, he himself threw these heroic battalions, his sole reserve, 
 on to the plateau on which Ney was in peril, and thus made a final 
 effort to obtain the victory. 
 
 At this moment fresh Prussian columns debouched on the right. 
 Blucher, who had concealed his movements from Grouchy, led them in 
 person. His innumerable cavalry overflowed the plain and the sides of 
 the hill, the theatre of this frightful struggle, and, enveloping our last 
 battalions, which it isolated from each other, rendered the Emperor's 
 charge impossible. Wellington now took the offensive in his turn. 
 His third line, which was intact, was set in motion, and charged and over- 
 threw the remains of the corps of Eeille and d'Erlon, and of the French 
 cavalry, which was now but an unformed and confused mass. The guard 
 alone, formed in square, still fought in the midst of this moving sea of 
 men, horses, cannon, and wreck of all kinds. Crushed by a storm of iron 
 and fire, riddled with shot, and summoned to surrender, it closed its 
 ranks at the very mouths of the cannon turned against it, and hurled 
 back upon the English the heroic cry, " The guard dies, but does not 
 surrender !" And thus ended this frightful battle, which was the funeral 
 of the First Empire, and in which sixty thousand men, killed or wounded, 
 were stretched upon the field. Napoleon, after having vainly invoked 
 death, and exposed himself as much as the humblest soldier to shot and 
 ball, was borne away in the general rout. He named the city of Laon as 
 the rallying point of the remains of the army, and then quitted it, 
 returning to Paris to inform the two Chambers himself of the disaster 
 
1814-1815.] TREASON OF FOUCHE. 435 
 
 of Waterloo, and to concert with them the means of defending the French 
 territory. 
 
 Already sinister rumours of the battle of the 18th of June had circu- 
 lated through the capital when Napoleon arrived at the Returno f^ a . 
 Palace of the Elysee, and, whilst he was consulting with leontoI>ans ' 
 his brothers and his Ministers, the Elective Chamber commenced its 
 
 sittings. The bearing of the representatives, already ill- 
 Resolutions of 
 disposed towards Napoleon, was sombre and threatening, the chamber of 
 
 Representatives. 
 
 Secretly instigated by Fouche, who, whilst he was the 
 Emperor's Minister, betrayed him and treated with Louis XVIII., the 
 representatives persuaded themselves that Napoleon was ,. 
 
 about to dissolve them. Lafayette shared in this fear, Fouche. 
 and, ascending the tribune, he laid before the Chamber a plan which 
 would secure to the Chamber freedom of debate, and concentrate in 
 them the sovereign power. This plan was accepted, and the Chamber 
 decided, on the demand of Lafayette, that every attempt to dissolve it 
 should be treated as a crime of high treason, and invited the Ministers to 
 join it. These resolutions were also adopted by the Chamber of Peers. 
 Seeing, in the next place, that Napoleon was the only obstacle to peace 
 with the Allied Powers, who were ready to march upon Paris, the re- 
 presentatives, secretly instigated by Fouche, expressed a wish that 
 the Emperor should abdicate, and threatened, in case he should refuse, 
 to decree his dethronement. Napoleon saw his friends themselves in a 
 state of consternation. The population of the faubourgs alone still 
 greeted his ears with the cry of " Vive 1'Empereur !" mingled with 
 furious outcries against foreigners and traitors ; but Napoleon could not 
 resolve to summon them to his aid, and to sully his glory by letting them 
 loose against the representatives of the nation. He rejected, to his 
 great honour, the advice of those who urged him to attempt another 1 8th 
 Brumaire, and signed a second abdication in favour of his 
 son. He did not deceive himself, however, with respect to second abdica- 
 the efficacy of this act, and perceived that the crown which 
 he could not retain on his own powerful brow would not pass to his son, 
 a prisoner in the hands of Austria, a feeble infant who seemed to have 
 only lived to render his father's fall more inevitable and rapid, by 
 offering to all a spurious pretext for deserting the Emperor without 
 betraying the cause of the Empire. The Chamber accepted the Act of 
 
 f f 2 
 
436 NAPOLEON SURRENDERS TO ENGLAND. [BOOK IV. Chap. I. 
 
 Abdication, but nevertheless avoided declaring themselves in any abso- 
 lute manner for Napoleon II., and formed a Government composed of the 
 Ministers Carnot and Fouche, Duke of Otranto, Generals Caulaincourt 
 and Grenier, and the old Conventionalist Quinette. Fouche, who had 
 betrayed the Emperor, was appointed President of this Provisional 
 Government. 
 
 Napoleon quitted Paris, and from Malmaison, to which he retired, he 
 turned his eyes towards America. Behind him innumerable enemies pre- 
 cipitated themselves upon France ; the roads to Paris were open, and the 
 English and Prussians entered them, leaving a dangerous interval between 
 their columns. Napoleon followed on the map their rash course. He knew 
 that Grouchy's corps, which had lost itself in pursuit of the Prussians on 
 the occasion of the battle of Waterloo, had remained intact, that it had 
 returned, and that in a few days a hundred and sixty thousand men 
 might be assembled under his command, and cut oif the enemy's retreat. 
 His warlike genius was once more aroused ; he wrote to the Provisional 
 Government that he had conceived an infallible plan for the defeat and 
 annihilation of the enemy, and asked to be allowed to fight them as a 
 simple general only. This offer, however, was rejected, and the Emperor 
 resigning himself to the necessity of quitting France, proceeded towards 
 Rochefort, under the protection of General Becker. But the English 
 cruisers blockaded the port, and there appeared no chance that Napoleon 
 would be able to escape them. And now, giving way to a strange illu- 
 sion, he flattered himself that a noble confidence on his part would 
 triumph over political exigencies, and he wrote to the Prince Regent to 
 demand of him to be allowed to sit, like another Themistocles, at the 
 hearth of the British people, under the protection of their laws ; and then 
 .embarked with his suite on board the English vessel, the 
 renders to the Bellerophon,, His letter was left unanswered ; but orders 
 
 English. He is . 
 
 conveyed to were sent to conduct the illustrious suppliant to oaint 
 
 Saint Helena. 
 
 Helena, and he was almost immediately conveyed, for the 
 repose of the world, to the rock which was to be his prison and his tomb. 
 And thus disappeared this wonderful man, for the last time, from the 
 political stage ; leaving behind him a great void, in which soon clashed 
 together various and irreconcilable interests, the shock of which was 
 long productive of a frightful turmoil, even as the sinking of a great 
 vessel causes the waters to surge from their very depths. 
 
1815-1820.] PROCLAMATION OT? LOTUS XYTII. 43* 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FROM THE CAPITULATION OF PARIS AND THE RETURN OF LOUTS XVIII. TO 
 THE CAPITAL, TO THE FALL OF THE MINISTER DECAZES. 
 
 3rd July, 1815— 20th February, 1820. 
 
 The Allies a second time opened France to the Bourbons. Louis 
 XVIII., in a proclamation of the 28th of June, dated „ , 
 
 x ' Proclamation ot 
 
 from Cambrai, said, " I come a second time to recall my Loui8 xv ni. 
 misled subjects to their duty, to assuage the evils which I could 
 have wished to prevent, and to place myself a second time between 
 the allied armies and the French, in the hope that the regard which 
 I believe to be felt for me may turn to their profit. I, who have 
 never promised falsely, promise to forgive my misled subjects all that 
 has taken place since the day when I quitted Lille, in the midst of so 
 many tears, to the day when I re-entered Cambrai in the midst of so 
 many acclamations. But the blood of my children has been made to 
 flow by means of a treason such as the world has never yet witnessed, 
 and the authors of this horrible plot will be pointed out to the Chambers 
 as fit objects for the vengeance of the law." 
 
 Louis XVIIL, however, had not yet been proclaimed in the capital. 
 The French army, consisting of a hundred and twenty thousand men and 
 five hundred pieces of cannon, encamped under the walls of Paris, and 
 the Chamber of Representatives continued, amidst the clamour of arms, to 
 discuss abstract constitutional theories, and to establish guarantees for 
 the freedom of the nation. The English and the Prussians had, as we 
 have seen, rashly advanced, leaving behind them a triple line of for- 
 tresses, and the victory might still have been disputed. Filled with the idea 
 however, of the horrible fate to which a fresh reverse might subject the 
 capital of France, the Chambers and the head of the Government judged 
 
438 PRUSSIAN BRUTALITIES IN PARIS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 it more prudent to negotiate than to fight, and on the 3rd of July a 
 
 capitulation or military convention was signed at Saint- 
 Surrender of . . . . 
 Paris, July 3, Cloud by three commissioners, m the name of the Jrrovi- 
 
 1815. 
 
 sional Government, and by Wellington and Blucher, the 
 generals in command of the English and Prussian forces. By this con- 
 vention it was agreed " that the French army should evacuate Paris, and 
 retire behind the Loire, that private property should be respected, and 
 public property also, with the exception of such as was connected with 
 war, and the inhabitants of the city at the time of its capitulation should 
 be in no way disturbed or annoyed in respect to their affairs, their con- 
 duct, or their political opinions." 
 
 On the 8th July the King once more entered Paris. Talleyrand was 
 made president of the new ministry, and the regicide Fouche, who, by 
 betraying Napoleon, had greatly conduced to the return of Louis XVIII., 
 was rewarded by a place in the Council and the portfolio of police. 
 
 Lists of Two lists of proscribed persons were immediately drawn 
 
 proscription.- U p an j published in a celebrated decree dated the 24th of 
 July. By one of them seventeen generals and officers were summoned 
 before a military tribunal ; whilst the other contained the names of thirty- 
 nine persons who were to be under the surveillance of the police until 
 the Chambers should have come to a decision respecting them. Carnot 
 was amongst them, and Fouche, his colleague in the ministry of the 
 Hundred Days, signed the lists of proscription. 
 
 The allied troops had entered the capital before the King, and their 
 angry bearing gave reason to believe that they imagined 
 
 Return of the 
 
 allied troops to that, this time, they had entered it less by virtue of a 
 treaty than by right of conquest, and from the first day 
 every one could understand how great were the evils which this second 
 invasion had drawn upon France. The Prussians, especially, regarded 
 with ferocious looks the monuments which were the trophies of the 
 French victories, and it required a noble resistance on the part of Louis 
 XVIII. to preserve the bridge of Jena from their brutal violence. In- 
 sulting at once the public mourning and braving its resentment, an 
 insolent order of the day issued by General Muffling, the governor of 
 Paris, directed the sentinels to fire upon any who should offend them by 
 word, gesture, or look. M. Decazes, prefect of police, had this barbarous 
 
1815-1820.] THE ARMY DISBANDED. 439 
 
 order torn down, and this act of courage became the source of his high 
 elevation. In spite of the capitulation the museums were p iUageoftlie 
 pillaged ; every State, every city in Europe demanded the museums - 
 restoration of the pictures and statues of which they had been despoiled, 
 and Paris beheld with stupefaction the works of art which had been paid 
 for by French blood seized and carried off. 
 
 The army of the Loire being at this time a source of continual terror 
 to the invaders, the latter demanded its disbandment. It 
 
 , ... , n . 1 - I . 1 Disbandment of 
 
 lowered its eagles and laid down its arms at the order of the army of the 
 Marshal Macdonald, and no disorders accompanied its re- 
 turn to its hearths. Gouvion Saint-Cyr, the Minister for War, then 
 planned the creation of a new army, and it was at this period that took 
 place the organization of the Royal Guard. 
 
 The composition of the Chambers underwent important modifications. 
 The peerage, which in 1814 was hereditary or for life, 
 
 New composition 
 
 according to the will of the monarch, was rendered, in Au- of the two 
 
 „ . ■ . Chambers. 
 
 gust, 1815, entirely hereditary. Many peers of the first 
 restoration who had sat during the Hundred Days were deprived of their 
 positions, and the King nominated ninety-two new ones. A decree dated 
 the 13th of July submitted many articles of the charter to the revision of 
 the legislative power, and convoked the electors on the following 14th of 
 August for the purpose of electing a new Chamber of Deputies. The 
 elections were to be made in two stages, by Cantonal Colleges and De- 
 partmental Colleges. The old electoral lists were filled up at the will of 
 the prefects ; a great number of old Knights of Saint Louis TT1 , ... 
 
 U 1l1"3»" xCCVV&AlSt 
 
 were arbitrarily appointed electors, and transmitted to the electlons °t*i8i5. 
 new Chamber the violent reactionary spirit by which thev were them- 
 selves animated. Most of the elected members belonged, in fact, to the 
 class called Ultra-Royalist, and joined the Chamber not only with ideas 
 most hostile to the Revolution, but also with a desire for vengeance, and 
 with the confidence, too often rash, inspired by victory after a cruel 
 defeat. 
 
 It was now that became manifest the inextricable difficulties in which 
 the Government of the Restoration was involved. Whilst blaming the 
 reactionary Chamber of 1815, we must not confound with the mass of 
 passionate men who formed its majority the superior minds which en- 
 
440 duke of richeliett's ministry. [Book IV. Chap. II. 
 
 deavoured, by inspiring it with their own ideas, to bestow upon Prance 
 an organization founded on elevated principles, but which had ceased to 
 be in harmony with the manners and interests of the greater number. 
 _ Vi . , .». Men of talent and of high character, such as Messieurs 
 
 Political parties. ° ' 
 
 whoSandthe Bonald, Bergasse, and Montlosier, figured at the head of the 
 Liberal school. loyalist school, the doctrines of which they formulated in 
 their writings. This school based its political system less on the rights of 
 the people than on tradition and facts consecrated by time. The Liberal 
 school, on the contrary, regarded liberty as the natural possession of 
 human nature, and based its theories on logic and the general will. The 
 especial object of the first of these schools was to extend the influence of 
 the aristocracy and the clergy ; whilst the second, as regarded in its best 
 aspect, had for its aim to bestow upon the greatest possible number of men 
 the social advantages and rights which had formerly only belonged to a 
 limited number of privileged individuals. There was, therefore, a re- 
 ciprocal and invincible opposition between the fundamental opinions of 
 the Royalists and those of the Liberals, and, at a period when there were 
 so many bitter memories in men's minds, it was very difficult to establish 
 a stable order of things in France, under a dynasty connected by its past, 
 its affections, and even by gratitude, to the men whose principles were 
 rejected by the new generation. The struggle between the two parties 
 lasted fifteen years, and commenced in 1815. Each appealed to what was 
 obscure and ill-defined in the charter, either with the object of destroying 
 it or of exacting from it more than it really promised. The Royalists at 
 first had the advantage. It was difficult for Talleyrand to maintain his 
 position in a Chamber fraught with the resentments of the Hundred Days, 
 and the Duke de Richelieu was ordered to form a new Cabinet. 
 
 This statesman, a friend of the Emperor Alexander, whose life had 
 been passed almost entirely abroad, had acquired in his government of 
 Odessa a great administrative reputation ; he was but slightly acquainted 
 with France and the mode of action proper in a representative govern- 
 ment, but he often supplied what he wanted in this respect by the inspira- 
 tion of an upright and generous heart. President of the Council and 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, he selected as his colleagues — 
 
 Composition of ° ' °' ' 
 
 the Ministry of M Barbe-Marbois as Minister of Justice ; M. de Vaublanc 
 
 the Duke de 7 
 
 Richelieu. an{ } subsequently M. Laine, as Minister of the Interior ; M. 
 
 Dubouchage as Minister of Marine ; and M. de Corvetto as Minister of 
 
1815-1820.] EEANCE AT THE MEECT OF THE ALLIES. 441 
 
 Finance. The direction of the police was entrusted to M. Decazes ; and 
 Clarke, Duke de Feltre, was for some time Minister for War, being suc- 
 ceeded by the illustrious Gcuvion Saint-Cyr. In May, 1816, M. Barbe- 
 Marbois retired, when the Ministry of Justice was temporarily given to 
 M. Dambray, Chancellor of France, who was succeeded by Baron Pasquier, 
 a member of the preceding Cabinet under the presidency of M. de Talley- 
 rand. About the same time M. Mole succeeded M. Dubouchage as 
 Minister of Marine. The position of affairs was deplorable and difficult. 
 France, entirely disarmed, seemed to be at the mercy of the European 
 powers, and the latter only sought how to turn their victory to its ruin. 
 The division of our territory was the subject of the secret deliberations of 
 their Ministers, and the draught of a treaty on the subject was drawn up. 
 Louis XVIII. was informed of the fact, and a copy of the proposed treaty 
 was clandestinely obtained and submitted to his inspection. The Monarch, 
 who was wanting neither in dignity nor patriotism, was exceedingly in- 
 dignant, and demanded an interview with the Emperor Alexander and 
 Wellington. " My lord," he said to the latter, " I believed when I re- 
 entered France that I was to reign over the kingdom of my ancestors ; it 
 appears that I was deceived, and I cannot remain here under any other 
 conditions. Will your Government consent to receive me if I seek an 
 asylum in England V There was greatness of soul in these words of the 
 old King, and Alexander, deeply moved, exclaimed, " No ! no ! your 
 Majesty shall not lose your provinces; I will not allow it!" 
 
 The powers renounced the project of partition, and M. de Richelieu 
 hastened the conclusion of the treaty which finally defined 
 the burdens and sacrifices which they imposed on France. 20th of Novem- 
 Their demands were reduced to five heads — 1st. The cession 
 of the territory comprising the fortresses of Philippeville, Marienburg, 
 Sarrelouis, and Landau; 2nd. The demolition of the fortifications of 
 Hunningen ; 3rd. The payment of an indemnity of seven hundred 
 millions, without prejudice to the debts due from the French Government 
 to the private persons of all the States of Europe ; 4th. The restoration 
 of the department of Mont Blanc to the King of Sardinia ; 5th. The 
 occupation between three and five years, if the allies should think fit, of 
 a line along the French frontiers by an army of a hundred and fifty 
 thousand men, to be supported by France. This sad treaty was signed 
 on the 20th November, 1815. 
 
442 civil waes. [Book TV. Chap. II. 
 
 The insolent tyranny and cruel demands, supported by a million of 
 „. ., foreign troops, were not the only evils which France had to 
 
 Civil wars. or? j 
 
 Massacres in the su ff er m consequence of the disastrous events of the Hun- 
 Assassinations. ^ re( j j) a y S Several departments of the south were long a 
 prey to civil war and a bloody anarchy ; and this fatal period was also 
 distinguished by some horrible assassinations. After the battle of Water- 
 loo free companies assailed Marseilles, gave themselves up to the most 
 furious excesses, and massacred a corps of Mamelukes who were in garri- 
 son within its walls. A ferocious mob murdered Marshal JBrune at 
 Avignon ; and the brave General Ramel was assassinated at Toulouse. 
 In the department of Gard the reaction manifested itself under an appear- 
 ance of religious fanaticism ; and at Nimes, at Uzes, and other places, 
 assassins ran through the streets in the open day, crying out, " Death to 
 the Protestants !" Monsters led on by a Trestaillon, a Trupheme, and a 
 GrafTan, renewed the massacres of the 2nd September, massacred the Cal- 
 vinists even in the prisons, outraged their wives, and burned their houses ; 
 and all these atrocities remained unpunished, although committed before 
 the very eyes of the local authorities. The Government, powerless to 
 repress them, long remained silent on the subject, and the Chamber of 
 1815 called to order deputy d'Argenson, who demanded an enquiry into 
 them. The voice of justice and humanity arose from a foreign House of 
 Assembly. Lord Brougham invoked the intervention of the English 
 Government in favour of the Protestants in France, and the English 
 Parliament was moved by his indignant accents. In many places intended 
 victims were only saved from the butchers by Austrian bayonets. At 
 Nimes General Lagarde was assassinated by the ruffians whom he en- 
 deavoured to restrain, and a prince of the royal family, the Duke 
 d'Angouleme had twice to hasten to this desolated city before he could 
 succeed, by firmness and prudence, in stopping the effusion of blood. The 
 session was opened on the 7th October, and the Chamber of 
 
 The Legislative 
 
 session, 1815— Deputies, which received the name of introuvable, gave a 
 free vent to its violent and reactionary passions. Opposed 
 to the immense majority in this Chamber, at the head of which were 
 Messieurs Villele, Corbiere, and La Bourdonnaye, was a minority of sixty 
 members, led by Messieurs Serre, Eoyer-Collard, and Pasquier, who 
 eloquently, though vainly, opposed most of the acts of this too famous 
 session. The Chamber demanded exceptional laws, which were adopted 
 
1815-1820.] EXECUTION OE NEY. 443 
 
 as soon as presented. One of these suspended individual liberty, another 
 punished seditious cries with transportation, and a third sub- 
 jected periodical publications to the censorship ; Provostal actionary 
 
 ,,.,,,, 1#1 . , measures of the 
 
 Courts were established from which there was no appeal ; chamber of 
 
 Deputies. 
 
 and finally, on the discussion of a law of amnesty, Messieurs 
 La Bourdonnaye and Duplessis-Gr6nedin proposed to form various cate- 
 gories of criminals which might be arbitrarily made to include many 
 thousands of Frenchmen. The committee directed to make a report 
 respecting this law sanctioned the plan of categories, as well as that by 
 which it was proposed that the war contribution imposed by the allies 
 should be defrayed by confiscations. It proposed, moreover, through its 
 speaker, M. de Corbiere, that the regicides should be excluded from the 
 amnesty. The two first projects were rejected by very small majorities, 
 but the Chamber adopted the last, and condemned to perpetual banish- 
 ment the regicides who had signed the " Acte Additionnel," or who had 
 been employed by the Government of the Hundred Days. This measure 
 touched Fouche himself, who was then the French Ambassador at Dresden' 
 and who died in exile. 
 
 Bloody executions preceded the passing of this vote of amnesty. The 
 young La Bedoyere was the first victim ; and after him Ney, 
 
 Execution of La 
 
 the bravest of the brave, invoked in vain before the Chamber Bedoyere and of 
 
 Marshal Ney. 
 
 of Peers the benefit of the capitulation of Saint-Cloud ; he 
 was condemned to death and executed. 
 
 Lavalette, Director- General of the Posts during the Hundred Days, only 
 escaped capital punishment through the devotion of his Escape of 
 wife and the aid of three generous Englishmen who Lavalette - 
 favoured his escape. When the Chamber of Deputies learned that he 
 had eluded its grasp it burst out into menaces against the ministers, 
 whom it held responsible for the event. 
 
 In the course of the year 1816 many persons who had been mentioned 
 in the decree of the 24th of July were arrested and tried. Numeroug eon . 
 The brothers Faucher, of La Reole, both generals, insepa- iSfSS* 10 
 rable in death as in life, were shot at Bordeaux ; Generals or ure ' 
 Mouton-Duvernet and Chartrand suffered the same punishment ; and 
 General Bonnaire, still more unfortunate, had to bear a gross degrada- 
 tion. Some others, Lefebvre-Desnouette, the two brothers Lallemand, 
 Rigaud and Savary, were condemned to death par contumace. About the 
 
444 PEOPOSED ELECTOEAL LAW. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 same time a vast conspiracy was the cause of much bloodshed at Gre- 
 noble. A practised intriguer, named PaulDidier, hoisted the tricoloured 
 Didier's plot at flag ostensibly in the name of Napoleon II., but really with 
 
 Grenoble 
 
 the object of substituting the Duke of Orleans for Louis 
 XVIII. He got together a band of peasants and endeavoured to raise 
 Grenoble, which was under the command of General Donnadieu, who 
 speedily put down this mad attempt. Under his orders moveable columns 
 spread terror through the country, and made numerous prisoners, 
 twenty-five of whom, after having been tried by a provostal court, were 
 put to death. In several departments the reactionary spirit manifested 
 itself in disgraceful acts of violence and odious scandals. In the Gard, 
 for instance, the court of assizes acquitted the assassin of General Lagarde, 
 Trestaillon, and his accomplices, whilst the councils ^ of war passed sen- 
 tence of death against many Protestants suspected of Bonapartism. 
 
 The Chamber, amidst all this bloodshed, continued to advance towards 
 the achievement of its objects, which were, first, the reestablishment of 
 legitimate royalty on its old basis ; second, the formation of local inde- 
 pendent administrations, so organized as to give great influence to the 
 territorial and ecclesiastical interests ; third, the creation by law of a 
 powerful territorial aristocracy ; fourth, the reestablishment, financially 
 and politically, of the French clergy. 
 
 If this Chamber had proposed to itself to diminish the excess of ad- 
 ministrative centralization by establishing a new order of things in har- 
 mony with the new and legitimate interests created by the Revolution 
 and the progress of time, its object would have been worthy of praise. 
 But it was not so. It desired to build up a political and social system 
 which should be entirely in favour of the old aristocracy and the influence 
 of the clergy ; and hence it resulted that its aims could only be produc- 
 tive of struggles which had no useful or durable result. 
 
 Amongst the laws submitted to the Chambers by the Government none 
 Proposed elec- seemed, an( ^ with good reason, more important than the elec- 
 toral law. toral law. The law proposed by the ministers retained the 
 indirect system of election, and the cantonal and departmental colleges 
 gave votes to a multitude of officials, and renewed the Chamber of 
 Deputies by fifths. If this plan were adopted the Government would 
 have the supreme influence over the elections. A committee appointed 
 by the Chamber of Deputies, of which M. de Villele was the mouth- 
 
1815-1820.] THE REACTIONARY PARTY. M5 
 
 piece, made important modifications in this plan proposed by the Govern- 
 ment, and, subject to these modifications, the Chamber adopted it; but 
 the Chamber of Peers rejected it, and the electoral law was 
 
 Its rejection. 
 
 therefore lost. The reactionary tendencies of the majority 
 reappeared in the discussion on the budget. 
 
 The elective chamber, in spite of a formal engagement entered into 
 by the King in the previous year, deprived the State creditors of the best 
 guarantee for the payment of their debts, by declaring that the State 
 forests should not be alienated, and that the church should recover pos- 
 session of the property not yet sold which had belonged to the old clergy 
 of France. 
 
 A series of measures tinged with the same spirit was voted or pro- 
 posed by the majority. The law of divorce was abolished ; the clergy 
 were authorized to accept every species of gift ; and finally, it was pro- 
 posed to place the university under the superintendence of the bishops, 
 and to bestow the civil registrarships upon the parish priests. 
 
 The prudent resistance which the King opposed to the hastiness of the 
 elective chamber was odious to the members of the majority. Louis was 
 suspected by them ; they openly accused him of revolutionary tendencies ; 
 boasted that they were more royalist than himself, and leagued themselves 
 with the members of his own family for the purpose of opposing and 
 frustrating his wishes. It was this chamber which first appealed to the 
 example of England when claiming a species of omnipotence for the 
 legislative power, and attempting to reduce the monarch to a position 
 which was afterwards described in the celebrated maxim — " The King 
 reigns, but does not govern." 
 
 The King had announced, on his return from Ghent, that thirteen 
 articles of the charter would be submitted for revision, and it was evident 
 that the chamber intended to make this a pretext for annihilating the 
 charter altogether. The Count d'Artois and his friends of In fl uetlce of the 
 the Pavilion Marsan, who accused the King's government cSofthfre-' 
 of being too Liberal in 1814, and who imputed to this cause ac lonary P art y- 
 the catastrophe of the Hundred Days, shaped the course pursued by the 
 Chamber in 1815. The Prince already exercised a great influence by 
 means of a society which was at the same time political and religious, the 
 ramifications of which extended from the court to the depth of the 
 provinces. To this first and skilful organization he added the no less 
 
446 MABEIAGKE OF THE DUKE DE BEEEI. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II, 
 
 powerful one of the National Guard ; all the inspectors and all the 
 officers of which immense body were selected by himself from amongst 
 the extreme royalists. France now found herself pursuing a course con- 
 trary to her new institutions, and the representative monarchy was itself 
 in peril. 
 
 Listening, therefore, to the suggestions of his own reason, and the 
 earnest advice of the ministers, Richelieu, Decazes, and Laine, Louis 
 Decree of Sep- XVIII. issued the famous decree of the 5th September, 
 tember 5, 1816. ^^h dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, fixed, according 
 to the text of the Constitution, the number of deputies at two hundred 
 and sixty, and declared that no article of the charter should be revised. 
 This decree was a thunderbolt for the violent portion of the reactionary 
 party, who received it with indignation and rage. M. de Chateaubriand, 
 the most eloquent and enlightened member of this party, and the only 
 member of it, perhaps, who, relying upon legitimacy as the foundation 
 of the social order, sincerely desired the maintenance of the Constitution, 
 replied to the decree of September by " The Monarchy according to the 
 Charter," a work which created a great sensation in Europe, and caused 
 its author's disgrace.* The command of the National Guard was taken 
 from Count d'Artois, and the result of the new election was such as 
 answered the hopes of the ministry. 
 
 Shortly before he confirmed his authority by the decree of the 5th 
 
 Marria e of the September, the king had endeavoured as far as possible to 
 
 Duke de Bern. secure kh e perpetuity of his race, and had demanded for his 
 
 nephew, Charles Ferdinand, Duke de Berri, the hand of the Princess 
 
 Marie Caroline de Bourbon, daughter of the King of the Two Sicilies. 
 
 The marriage was celebrated in the month of June, 1816. 
 
 In the meantime the miseries of the country were at their height. 
 Oppressed by a hundred and fifty thousand foreign troops, who, distributed 
 amongst her fortresses, overburthened it with ruinous charges, and torn by 
 domestic factions, France had, in addition, to bear the horrors of famine. 
 The continual rains of 1816 inundated the plains, destroyed the hopes of 
 the farmers, and spread contagious diseases amongst the cattle. All these 
 
 * " In this celebrated work," says the author of a recent and excellent history of this 
 period, " the most advanced principles of modern Liberalism were strangely allied 
 with ideas the most repugnant to new France," — Viel-Castel, " History of the 
 Restoration." 
 
1815-1820.] NEW ELECTORAL LAW. 447' 
 
 calamities failed to stifle the explosions of political hate, and in the year 
 1817 the late tragic scenes of Grenoble were reproduced at 
 
 T n _, . . _ .. . 1 Disturbances at 
 
 .Lyons, where General Ganuei was m command, and where Lyons. More 
 a conspiracy was discovered. The voice of vengeance, 
 rather than of justice, was heard at the trial of the accused, and the 
 political scaffold was inundated with blood. 
 
 A new concordat had been signed at Eome, through the 
 exertions of M. de Blacas, the French ambassador to the seEk^m***' 
 
 • • 1818 
 
 sovereign pontiff. This treaty considerably extended the 
 number of bishoprics, which had been fixed at fifty by the concordat 
 made with Napoleon ; but a law on the subject being presented to the 
 Chambers, was rejected, and the king limited the number of bishops to 
 that of the departments. 
 
 Some political laws were adopted in the course of this session, and 
 one of them fixed certain prudent limits to the law passed in the previous 
 session, which suspended individual liberty. But the most Eleetoral Law 
 important legislative act of this session was the electoral 1817 ' 
 law, which, for the first time since the restoration, sanctioned a legal 
 course in the nomination of deputies. It established direct elections, and 
 fixed the qualifications of electors at three hundred francs, and of those 
 eligible for election at a thousand francs. The Chamber was to be 
 renewed by fifths, and there was to be but one college for each depart- 
 ment. This law, proposed by the Government, was adopted ; it was the 
 greatest concession which had yet been made to the constitutional spirit, 
 and its results proved the extreme nature of the difficulties by which the 
 reigning dynasty was surrounded. The discussion of the budget was 
 stormy, and the Government, which was vehemently opposed on this 
 point by MM. Villele and Bonald, proposed to give, as a dotation to the 
 caisse d'amortissement, the 150,000 hectares of woods which a previous 
 majority had given to the clergy. Four millions of rents, only, secured 
 by the old property of the church, which still remained unsold, were 
 voted for the clergy as an indemnity for what they had lost. The 
 Chamber of Peers ratified this plan; and two days later, on the 26th 
 March, the session was closed. 
 
 Laws of great importance were introduced in the following year. 
 France possessed at this period an army only in name ; volunteers 
 but ill supplied the voids in our legions, and there was an urgent necessity 
 
448 THE ARMY KEOKGANTZED. [BOOK IV. Chap. II. 
 
 for reestablishing the military forces of the kingdom on a respectable 
 
 footing. Marshal Gouvion Saint- Cyr, Minister for War, proposed 
 
 for this object the law of recruits. Its principal objects 
 
 Law on the or- 
 ganization of the were to restore the law of conscription as it prevailed under 
 
 army. L x 
 
 the empire, to deprive the King of the unlimited power of 
 granting commissions, of which a third were to be given to non-com- 
 missioned officers, and to render promotion very greatly dependent on 
 seniority. This law was contrary to the article of the charter which 
 abolished the conscription throughout the kingdom ; but it nevertheless 
 greatly softened for young soldiers, as well as their families, the odious 
 rigours of the Imperial conscription, and its necessity being generally 
 felt, it was adopted. Individual liberty ceased to be suspended, but the 
 periodical press remained subject to the censorship. By means of an 
 artifice, however, which took from many journ'als their periodical 
 character, men of talent were enabled to express their party views almost 
 unshackled. The Liberal and Eoyalist opinions had for their 
 
 principal organs, respectively, La Minerve and La Conser- 
 and the Con- vateur. The spirited pens of Benjamin Constant, Jay, 
 
 servateur. . . 
 
 Etienne, and de Jony, secured the immense success of 
 the first of these publications, and the second owed its popularity to 
 the talents of MM. Chateaubriand, de Lamennais, and Fievee. 
 
 The two sets of opinions by which France was now so unequally 
 divided, seemed to become from day to day more irreconcilable. The 
 Ultra-Royalist party testified the most bitter resentment against the 
 decree of the 5th September, and its irritation increased when the King, 
 on the urgent representation of M. Decazes, deprived the Count d'Artois 
 of all real authority over the National Guard, of which he was only 
 allowed to retain the honorary command. This measure raised a fresh 
 storm against its author, and the Ultra-Royalists unanimously demanded 
 either the dismissal of the ministry or serious alterations in its 
 composition. 
 
 The illustrious head of the cabinet, the Duke de Richelieu, deserved 
 ftte well of his country at this time, by successfully employing 
 f qk toSSrte n ^ s influence with Alexander and his allies for the purpose 
 French territory. f obtaining the prompt withdrawal of the foreign troops 
 from the French soil. This measure, moreover, was nearly being 
 adjourned in consequence of an imprudent and unfortunate step, which 
 
1815-1820.] THE ALLIES QUIT FRANCE. 449 
 
 was disavowed by all the prudent men of the Royalist party, and the 
 author of which was one of the confidants of the Count d'Artois, M. de 
 Vitrolles, a Minister of State, and a zealous conductor of the first nego- 
 tiations which led in 1814 to the return of the Bourbons. At the insti- 
 gation of the Prince, M. de Vitrolles wrote a memoir addressed to the 
 allied sovereigns and their ministers, in which he expressed the most 
 serious anxiety with respect to the internal state of the kingdom. 
 " Everything was to be feared," he said, " from the explosion of revolu- 
 tionary passions as soon as the allied armies should have been withdrawn, 
 if their retreat should not be accompanied by a change in the ministry, 
 and the dismissal of those of its members who had exacted from the 
 King the decree of the 5th of September, and the dissolution of the 
 Chamber of 1815." This memoir, entitled " A Secret Note," came to the 
 knowledge of the Minister of Police, M. Decazes, who published it in the 
 Government journals, invoking the condemnation of France upon the 
 party by which it had been dictated, and showing that that party was in 
 favour of the occupation of France by foreign troops. Nothing contri- 
 buted more than this Secret Note to increase the distance which separated 
 the independents or Liberals from the Royalists, and to render the 
 Bourbons unpopular by representing them as possessing their crown 
 at the will of foreigners, and only retaining it by the aid of their 
 support. 
 
 The useful influence of M. de Eichelieu combated the evil effects pro- 
 duced on the minds of the allied sovereigns by the memoir of M. de 
 Vitrolles. Thanks to him, the Emperor Alexander and his allies, 
 assembled in conference at Aix-la-Chapelle, consented to 
 
 Evacuation of 
 
 evacuate the French fortresses and to recall their armies, France by the 
 
 foreign armies. 
 
 and fifteen millions of stocks inscribed in the great book of 
 
 the public debt sufficed to liquidate the debt which France owed 
 
 abroad. Shortly after this great event, which distinguished 
 
 n . . Resignation of 
 
 the year 1818, and to which M. de Richelieu had the glory the Luke de 
 
 •■"''.". . .'.'-.«' Kichelieu. Hia 
 
 of attaching his name, that Minister gave in his resigna- disinterested - 
 
 ness. 
 
 tion, believing as he did that he ought to retire in favour 
 of the popular names of Manuel and Lafayette, which had recently 
 issued from the electoral urn. In return for the services which he had 
 rendered to his country, the Chambers voted him a gift of fifty thousand 
 livres of stocks ; but although' Richelieu had no fortune he declined to 
 
 VOL. II. 6S 
 
450 BESIGOTATION OF THE DUKE DE EICHEL1EU. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 accept for himself this magnificent reward.* He was at the head of the 
 Government at a very difficult period, and the imperious force of circum- 
 stances frequently compelled him to be deaf to his own generous 
 impulses. On quitting the head of affairs he left behind him the repu- 
 tation of a man of honour, whose character was superior to all the dig- 
 nities and lofty functions which he had filled. Alarmed at the result of 
 the last elections, which were for the most part in favour of the Liberals, 
 he had expressed a desire that the Ministry should form an alliance with 
 the Right of the Chamber, j" and that the law of elections should be 
 modified. His wishes in this respect were not shared either by M. 
 Decazes, who was then in high favour with Louis XVIH., or by some 
 others of his colleagues. The Chamber of Deputies, at the commence- 
 ment of the new session, having declared itself' energetically in its 
 address to the King against any modification of the electoral law, the 
 retirement of the President of the Council was decided. The Chamber of 
 Peers, however, on the proposition of one of its members, M. Barthe- 
 lemy, one of the proscribed directors of the 18th Fructidor, voted a 
 resolution in favour of a change in the electoral law. This resolution, 
 which was vehemently opposed by the ministers and Eoyer-Collard, was 
 rejected by the deputies. The conflict between the two Chambers 
 
 * The following is an extract from the nohle letter sent by Richelieu on this occa- 
 sion to the President of each of the two Chambers : — 
 
 "Monsieur le President, — 
 
 " I am too proud of the testimony of good-will bestowed upon me by the 
 King, with the concurrence of the two Chambers, to think of declining to accept it ; 
 but I learn from the journals that it is intended to bestow upon me, at the expense of 
 the State, a national recompense. I cannot prevail upon myself to allow the burdens 
 by which the kingdom is already oppressed to be increased on my account. If, during 
 my ministry, I have been able to do any service to France, and to contribute to the 
 release of its territory from foreign occupation, I am not the less distressed at the 
 knowledge that my country is oppressed by enormous debts. Too many calamities 
 have fallen upon it, too many of its citizens have suffered misfortunes, and it has still 
 too many wounds to heal, for me to suffer my own fortunes to be increased at its 
 expense. The esteem of my country, the good-will of the King, and the testimony of 
 my own conscience, are sufficient recompense for M. Richelieu." 
 
 In spite of this letter the Chambers voted M. de Richelieu a dotation of fifty thousand 
 livres of stocks, which he accepted as a national reward, and then transferred as an 
 endowment to the hospitals of Bordeaux. 
 
 f The Right side of the Chamber was that on which sat the extreme members of the 
 Royalist party. The extreme members of the Liberal party sat opposite them on the 
 left. The moderate members of each party formed two great factions, which were 
 named the Right and Left Centre. 
 
1815-1820.] DISSOLUTION OF THE CABINET. 45i 
 
 became day by day more virulent, and it appeared urgently necessary 
 for the purpose of reestablishing quietude in the bosom of the Legisla- 
 ture, to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, or to modify the votes of the 
 Chamber of Peers. 
 
 Several members of the Cabinet, MM. Laine, Mole, Pasquier, and 
 Roy,* withdrew with the Duke of Richelieu ; and the 
 King, at the suggestion of M. Decazes, appointed General £e CabinS °a f nd 
 Dessolle President of the Council. M. Serre received SjfiS^' 
 the seals, and Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr retained the SeBBoiiefis'is. 
 portfolio for war. M. Louis was placed at the head of the 
 finances, and M. Portal at the head of the marine. M. Decazes obtained 
 the portfolio of the Interior, and was in reality the head of the new 
 Ministry. The result of the elections of 1817 and 1818 was to give a 
 majority to the moderate Libera] party, and it was to be feared that 
 there would no longer be any species of harmony between it and the 
 Chamber of Peers. 
 
 Relying on the support, in the Chamber of Deputies, of the Left, which 
 gave it a Liberal and constitutional majority, the Ministry Legislative Ses- 
 presented in the course of the session several laws favour- S10n ' 
 able to the public liberties ; the most important of which were those 
 referring; to the press and the journals, the independence of T 
 
 or j 7 r Law respecting 
 
 which had been hitherto provisionally suspended. They the P ress - 
 were proposed by M. Serre, Keeper of the Seals, and tended to secure the 
 liberty of the press, whilst at the same time guaranteeing the mainte- 
 nance of order and the public peace. The first of these proposed laws 
 authorized the free publication of all non-periodical writings, whilst at the 
 same time it declared every attack on good morals to be punishable. Two 
 others contained the regulations to be enforced in the case of periodical 
 publications and journals, in respect to which M. Serre was content to 
 demand the registration of the names of the proprietors and responsible 
 editors, and the deposit of a moderate security. The principal articles 
 of those proposed laws prohibited the anticipatory seizure of journals and 
 periodicals, and referred to the judgment of a jury all crimes committed 
 through the press, with the exception of libels against private persons, 
 which remained subjects of inquiry by the correctional police. No one, 
 finally, was to be allowed to prove the truth of defamatory allegations, 
 
 * M. Koy had shortly before replaced M. Corvetto as Minister of Finance. 
 
 G G 2 
 
452 FACTIONS OE THE LIBERALS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 except in cases in which they were made against persons acting in a 
 public character. This latter article, which rendered persons in autho- 
 rity responsible to all for the manner in which they performed their 
 duties, was supported by Royer-Collard, especially, with the most vehe- 
 ment eloquence. ... " If you determine," he said, " that it is not to be 
 permitted to tell the truth with respect to the acts of the public autho- 
 rities, you will consequently decide that society does not belong to itself, 
 that it is the property of officials, and that they possess it as they might 
 possess a feudal territory. . . . If you reject this article, you must either 
 resolve that for the future you will have no history, or at least must fix 
 a certain number of years after which it will be lawful to speak the truth 
 with respect to the actions and the words of public men. But to-day the 
 nature of our Government and the necessities of the nation demand that 
 our history should every day commence for us, and that posterity should 
 be our public." The three laws proposed by the Keeper of the Seals 
 were adopted, after an animated discussion, by a large majority in each 
 Chamber. 
 
 The state of the nation now began to be tranquil ; foreign troops no 
 longer encumbered its soil ; commerce, industry, and agriculture flou- 
 rished, and public credit began to revive; everything, in fact, gave 
 promise of a happy future. But party spirit was still ardent and im- 
 placable. The Royalists refused any species of alliance with the sincere 
 Constitutionalists, and were unwilling to make the slightest liberal con- 
 cession ; whilst the Liberals, for their part, knew not how to be patient, 
 and compromised the future for the sake of obtaining a temporary 
 triumph. There were many distinct factions in the bosom 
 
 Different factions r> 1T -ii i • *» i • 
 
 of the Liberal of the Liberal party, the most violent of which was the revo- 
 
 party. 
 
 lutionary party, which, looking upon the Bourbons as the 
 irreconcilable enemies of the Revolution, hoped to overthrow them. 
 The deputies belonging to this party sat at the extreme Left in the Cham- 
 ber, whilst at the Left Centre were the Constitutionalists, who holding 
 above all things to the guarantees given by the charter, believed that in 
 its rigorous observance alone lay the safety of France. In the bosom of 
 the latter party there existed a small group of men whose political 
 opinions were based on certain theories of an elevated and abstract 
 nature, and who allied themselves with the wiser members of the Right, 
 refusing to regard the rights of the crown as distinct from those of the 
 
1815-1820.] ELECTION OE LIBEBALS. 453 
 
 country, and considering them as equally inviolable. The members of this 
 party were named the Doctrinaires, and the most prominent The D 
 of them were MM. Eoyer- Collar d, de Broglie, Camille Jor- trmai res. 
 dan, and de Barante, in the Chambers, and M. Guizot in the press. The 
 Ministry, during the legislative session of 1818 and 1819, was constantly 
 in harmony with this party. Towards the end of that session, however, 
 a violent rupture took place between the Cabinet and the extreme portion 
 of the Liberal party. Many petitions had been presented for the purpose 
 of obtaining the formal revocation of all the exceptions made in the last 
 law of amnesty. The object of these petitions was to obtain the recall of 
 all who had been banished, not by means of individual pardons such as 
 were frequently solicited and obtained, but by a general act of the 
 legislature. M. Serre rejected those petitions which sought 
 
 T-i n •! Eejectionofa 
 
 to open France to all who had been proscribed without petition in favour 
 
 -!••• i • -ri r>i ••! °^ *k e exiles. 
 
 distinction, and exclaimed, " In the case of the regicides, 
 never !" This expression deeply irritated the Left of the Assembly, and 
 was the first sign of the complete rupture which soon took place between 
 M. Decazes and the independent or Liberal party. In the same session 
 the budget was first divided into two distinct laws, that of ^ 
 
 ° ' Expenses and 
 
 expenses, and that of receipts. The first were fixed at recei P ts - 
 a sum of eight hundred and sixty-nine million four hundred and sixteen 
 thousand francs, and the latter were estimated at eight hundred and 
 ninety-one million four hundred and thirty -five thousand francs. The 
 legislative session was closed on the 17th of July, 1819. 
 
 The elections which took place in this year for the renewal of the third 
 series of the Chamber of Deputies, were chiefly made under T ., . , .. 
 
 1 ' J Liberal elections, 
 
 the ever-increasing influence of the Liberal party. The 1819, 
 electors yielded, as too often happens, to the suggestions of violent and 
 passionate men. Many of the members chosen were openly hostile to the 
 Bourbons, and the name of the Conventionalist Gregoire ^, ,. „ 
 
 7 ° Election of 
 
 was one of those drawn from the urn.* The Koyalist Gr ^» oire > 1819 « 
 party uttered a cry of horror, and repulsed Gregoire from the 
 Chamber. 
 
 Seriously alarmed at the result of the elections and at the imperious 
 demands of the Liberals, Louis XVIII. yielded to the solicitations of his 
 
 * The Abbe Gregoire was an old Conventionalist bishop of Blois, who in the first 
 sitting of the Convention had demanded the abolition of royalty. 
 
454 ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE DE BEERI. [EOOK IV. CHAP. II. 
 
 brother and family, and resolved to modify the electoral law ; and M. 
 M D , Decazes, now considering as necessary what he had some 
 
 opSn°and months before looked upon as useless and dangerous, 
 thTsfiht WardS thought he should best forward the monarch's views by 
 withdrawing from the Left and allying himself with the 
 Right Centre. This frequent oscillation according to the necessities of 
 the moment, to which was given the name of " see-sawing," although often 
 useful on the part of a king, could not but compromise the character of 
 a Minister under a constitutional government. Several of the colleagues 
 of M. Decazes understood that, if they could no longer persevere in the 
 line of conduct on which they had entered, they should give in their 
 resignations ; they did so, and retired with the public esteem. These 
 were Messieurs Dessolle, Louis, and Gouvion Saint-Cyr, who were re- 
 placed by MM. Pasquier for foreign' affairs, Roy for the 
 
 Modification of _ , _ _ _ 
 
 the Cabinet. management of the finances, and Latour-Maubourg for war. 
 
 M. Decazes , 
 
 President of the M. Decazes formed the new Cabinet, and received the title 
 
 Council. 
 
 of President of the Council. His course of conduct, which 
 had become undecided and wavering, irritated the Liberals without con- 
 ciliating the Royalists ; and the latter never relaxed in their attacks until 
 a frightful event enabled them to overthrow him, and transferred the 
 government to their hands. 
 
 The Duke de Berri, second son of Count d'Artois, was assassinated on 
 
 the evening of the 13th of February, 1820, as he was leaving 
 the Duke de the opera, by a wretch named Louvel. He lived but a 
 
 Berri, 1820. . . 
 
 few hours after receiving the fatal wound, and expired in 
 the arms of the royal family, pardoning his murderer. This prince, who 
 was endowed with noble qualities, and had been married but a few years to 
 a young princess, the grand- daughter of the King of Naples, had been looked 
 on as the last hope of the eldest branch of the Bourbons.* His death, 
 the results of which were at once foreseen, spread terror throughout Paris 
 and all France. The Royalists held M. Decazes responsible for it, and one 
 deputy, M. Clausel de Coussergues, even carried party passion so far as to 
 accuse him of the crime at the tribune. In vain did the Minister, for the 
 purpose of appeasing his enemies, hasten to submit to the Chambers ex- 
 ceptional laws directed against individual liberty, and against the press, 
 
 * Louis XVIII. had no children, and the marriage of the eldest of his nephews, the 
 Duke d'Angouleme, with the daughter of Louis XVI. was sterile. 
 
1815-1820.] EICHELIETJ AGAIN MINISTER. 455 
 
 as well as a new law for the regulation of elections. He was unable to 
 quell by these means the storm on the Eight, whilst he raised another 
 tempest against him on the Left. Royalists and Liberals combined to 
 bring about his fall. He still resisted, for his power was rooted in the 
 affection felt for him by the monarch ; but the Count d'Artois and the 
 Duchess d'Angouleme so earnestly demanded of the latter 
 
 . FallofM.De- 
 
 the dismissal of his favourite, that their wishes were at last cazee, and second 
 
 Ministry of the 
 
 granted. M. Decazes received a dukedom, and the em- DukedeRiehe- 
 
 ° . lieu, 1820. 
 
 bassy to London, and M. de Richelieu accepted the presi- 
 dency of the Cabinet, which retained all its members with the exception 
 of its head, and in which M. Simeon replaced M. Decazes as Minister of 
 the Interior. 
 
 The greater portion of Europe was at this time in a state of violent 
 effervescence, and the prediction expressed by the celebrated 
 saying, "The French Revolution will make the tour of the effervescence in 
 
 Europe. 
 
 world," seemed about to be verified. The convulsive move- 
 ments which had so long agitated France extended far and wide, and its 
 volcanic shocks made themselves felt from the shores of the ocean to 
 those of the Adriatic. The European sovereigns had induced their 
 peoples to share their own hatred for Napoleon by flattering their love of 
 independence, and promising them liberal institutions as a reward for a 
 vigorous resistance to the encroachments of the French Emperor. But 
 when the struggle was over, when the common enemy had been crushed, 
 they saw danger in those very sentiments by means of which they had 
 lately obtained such powerful support ; forgot their promises ; refused to 
 their subjects the concessions demanded by the progress of time and 
 the advance of the popular intelligence ; and exerted themselves to the 
 utmost to stifle or to punish their subjects' liberal tendencies. Thus, 
 Ferdinand VII. appeared to have only returned to Spain for 
 the purpose of chastising a portion of those who had 
 defended his throne. He had promised, not the maintenance of the Con- 
 stitution drawn up by the Cortes of Cadiz in 1812, and studded with the 
 defects of the French Constitution of 1791, but the gift of institutions in 
 accordance with the enlightenment of the people, and favourable to the 
 public liberties. He had scarcely, however, resumed the crown after 
 having escaped from the prison of Valencay, when he reestablished the 
 Inquisition, reigned without constitutional control, and behaved like t 
 
456 DISTURBED STATE OE EUEOPE. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IT. 
 
 despot towards the most distinguished men of his kingdom — the Martinez 
 
 de la Rosas, the Torrenos, and the Arguelles — whom he exiled to the 
 
 burning rocks of Africa ; whilst his defenders found themselves mixed up 
 
 in the same prisons with the partisans of King Joseph, against whom they 
 
 had fought. The army, deprived of its best officers, revolted, and the 
 
 Isle of Leon was the first scene of the insurrection which burst forth, in 
 
 January, 1820, amongst the troops intended to subdue the Spanish colonies 
 
 of South America. Catalonia arose almost at the same time at the voice 
 
 of Mina ; Galicia had already proclaimed the Constitution of the Cortes ; 
 
 and the insurrection spread in succession to every city. Finally, Count 
 
 d'Abisbal, who was sent to fight the rebel army of the Isle of Leon, 
 
 hoisted the same flag as it at Ocana. Madrid received the news of this 
 
 event with enthusiasm, and Ferdinand, having no other alternative but to 
 
 abdicate or to swear to maintain the Constitution, swore to maintain it. 
 
 Arguelles, Torreno, and Martinez de la Eosas passed suddenly from the 
 
 prisons of Africa to the Council Chamber of the monarch, and inaugurated 
 
 their Government by abolishing the Inquisition and suppressing the order 
 
 of Jesuits in Spain. The Government was without resources, and decreed 
 
 the sale of the immense possessions of the monks, the result of which was 
 
 that sixty thousand religious persons actively excited the populace against 
 
 it. The contre-coup of this vast movement made itself felt 
 
 in Portugal. This kingdom, since the flight of the family 
 
 of Braganza, and during the war, had been subjected to an English 
 
 Regency, which governed it as though it had been a colony of the British 
 
 isles. The Portuguese, aroused by a feeling of nationality, drove away 
 
 the English authorities, and recalled their old sovereign, John IV., who 
 
 left the Regency of the Brazils to his son, Don Pedro, and returned to 
 
 reign over his old subjects, at the price of accepting a liberal charter drawn 
 
 up on the model of the Spanish Constitution. 
 
 Italy, groaning under the Austrian sceptre, was equally agitated. In 
 every portion of that kingdom there were formed societies of Freemasons 
 and Carbonari, linked together by the determination sooner or later to 
 free their country from foreign domination, and to form the various States 
 of the peninsula into a federal Republic. The kingdom of 
 Naples was in a state of the greatest excitement. Ferdinand 
 IV. had recovered in 1815 the sceptre of that country, where Murat, after 
 the battle of Waterloo, had been taken and shot. There, also, secret 
 
1815-1820.] DISTURBED STATE OE ETTBOPE. 457 
 
 societies plotted a political revolution, and the signal for it appeared at the 
 town of Nola. The Bourbon regiment sallied forth from the barracks of 
 that town on the 2nd July, 1820, with flying ensigns, and with cries of 
 " Vive la Constitution !" Two other regiments joined it, the Carbonari 
 gathered in masses, and General Pepe raised the capital. At his summons 
 the people invested the palace, and proclaimed the Constitution of the 
 Spanish Cortes. Ferdinand IV. and his son adopted it, and swore to 
 maintain it. This revolution in Sicily was accompanied by frightful 
 massacres. 
 
 Whilst Europe thus .burst forth in revolution in the south, there was 
 great agitation in Prussia and the Northern States of Ger- 
 
 Germany. 
 
 many, which in vain awaited the liberal institutions which 
 had been promised by their respective sovereigns. No satisfaction being 
 granted to actual necessity and legitimate desires, guilty passions were 
 aroused, and stirred society to its depths. Everywhere, in fact, where 
 princes refused to their peoples political liberties and a national represen- 
 tation, conspirators formed plots and secret assassinations. It was in the 
 name of liberty and equality that their members banded together, and 
 what they demanded was a political and social revolution. A violent 
 demagoguism inflamed the universities. The poet Kotzebue, the defender, 
 in his writings, of the rights of monarchs, fell at this period beneath the 
 dagger of the young Charles Sand, who had distinguished himself in the 
 war of German independence. Tens of thousands of voices enthusias- 
 tically repeated the name of the assassin, and tens of thousands of hearts 
 vowed to worship his memory. The revolutionary fever which overran 
 the Continent threatened England also, and spread rapidly in the East, 
 where it aroused from their long lethargy the descendants of 
 the Greek heroes. There, at least, the insurrection was 
 really a movement in favour of freedom. Its object was the deliverance 
 of Christian Greece from the foreign yoke of the Mussulmans ; the genius 
 of Miltiades and Themistocles reawoke in its ruined cities after a slumber 
 of two thousand years, and the cry of patriotism and liberty, springing 
 from the walls of Souli and the rocks of Epirus, already awoke the echoes 
 of Marathon and Salamis. 
 
458 THE HOLT ALLIANCE. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE FALL OF THE MINISTER DECAZES TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS XVIII. 
 
 IWi February, 1820— 16th September, 1824. 
 
 Three absolute monarchs, the Emperor of Austria, the Czar, and the 
 The Holy Alii- King of Prussia, had signed in 1815 a treaty famous under 
 
 the name of the Holy Alliance, by which they undertook 
 to base their mutual relations on the most sacred 'principles of Chris- 
 tianity, and to have no other objects in their policy but the interests of 
 their subjects, the maintenance of religion, peace, and justice. This 
 treaty had appeared after the Congress of Vienna, and its real object was 
 the repression of the revolutionary spirit, which had displayed itself in 
 every direction in a manner very threatening to social order. M. de 
 Metternich, in the name of the Emperor of Austria, his master, convoked 
 
 with this object, at Carlsbad, a congress at which were pre- 
 Carifbadandof sent all the members of the Germanic Confederation, and 
 Powers given to at which he himself exercised a sovereign influence. This 
 
 the Germanic .. . _ 1 1 _ 
 
 Diet. 1820, 1821. congress took energetic measures ior the destruction ot 
 secret societies, and armed the Diet with formidable powers 
 for the exercise of an active surveillance and the establishment of 
 rigorous police regulations in the various States which were members of 
 the Germanic body, without reference to their particular constitutions. 
 A few months afterwards the sovereigns of Eussia, Austria, and Prussia 
 consulted together at Troppau in Silesia, on the means of stifling the 
 Congress of revolution in Spain, Portugal, and the kingdom of Naples. 
 Laybach, 1820. j> eui g assem bled at a later period at a new Congress at 
 Laybach, they invited the old King of Naples, Ferdinand IV., to pro- 
 ceed thither to join them. 
 
 Whilst the three allied sovereigns thus set themselves in direct opposi- 
 
 Legislative ^ on to tne revolutionary spirit, France was enduring the 
 
 ession, 1820. unfortunate consequences of some of the elections of 1819, 
 
1820-1824.] NEW ELECTOEAL LAW. 459 
 
 and the fatal catastrophe of February, 1820. M. de Richelieu supported 
 in the Chamber the exceptional laws presented by M. Decazes, the 
 first of which suspended individual liberty. In speaking against this law 
 General Foy uttered these eloquent words — "Let us act," 
 he said, " so that the profit of a sublime death be not lost £S?SJL^ W 
 to the royal house and the public morality ; and so that uber°y and'cenf 
 posterity may not be able to cast upon us the reproach, ^Laf ° 
 that at the funeral obsequies of a Bourbon the liberty 
 of the citizens was immolated to serve as a hecatomb." His efforts, and 
 those of the whole Left of the Chamber, were powerless, and individual 
 liberty was again suspended. The second exceptional law presented by 
 the Minister reestablished for a year the censorship of the journals. 
 Eoyer- Collar d, in the course of the discussion of this law, poured forth 
 the grief and terror which he felt at seeing the Government depart from 
 the course on which it had entered by the decree of the 5th of September, 
 and abandon the moderate Liberals for their opponents. He could expect 
 nothing but disorder and confusion from this change of tactics on the 
 part of the Government. " Anarchy," he said, <" which had been driven 
 from society by the universally felt necessity for order and repose, had 
 found refuge in the very heart of the State. It seemed as though the 
 Government ignored it, and had no consciousness of its strength. . . no 
 enduring will, no well-defined object. The royal standard which the 
 decree of the 5th of September had planted in the midst of the nation 
 seemed to wander about inconstant and uncertain. Where it was seen 
 yesterday, it could not be found to-day. In the meantime the minds of 
 men became desponding or irritated, and filled with gloomy presenti- 
 ments. An irrepressible anxiety oppressed them. Whilst still full of life 
 the citizens of France were present, as it were, at their own obsequies, 
 without power or courage to interrupt them, and time was flowing on 
 and each day was devouring them. ..." The law was adopted, and 
 the discussion respecting it was succeeded by still more angry debates on 
 the new electoral law. 
 
 This last law was, in fact, of decisive importance to the destinies of the 
 Eestoration ; for it was evident that its result would be to 
 
 . , , Electoral law. 
 
 deprive the middle and industrial classes of almost all their 
 
 political influence, to the profit of the great landed proprietors. M. de 
 
 Richelieu and his colleagues flattered themselves that by supporting it 
 
460 KIOTS IN" PAEIS. [Book IV. Chap. III. 
 
 they secured the preponderance of the Right Centre or Royalist party, on 
 which they now relied ; but eventually it was seen that all the influence 
 lost by the Left speedily passed from the Right Centre to the extreme Right 
 or counter-revolutionary and Ultra- Royalist party, which was no less 
 dangerous to the Crown than the Ultra-Liberal party. The project drawn 
 up by M. Serre, which was afflicted by an incurable disease, was greatly 
 modified by a committee of the elective Chamber, and .still more so by 
 the Chamber itself. The law, as it was adopted, raised the number of 
 deputies to four hundred and thirty, of which two hundred and fifty- 
 eight were to be nominated by the district colleges) consisting of electors 
 paying taxes to the amount of three hundred francs ; whilst a hundred 
 and seventy-two were to be elected by the colleges of departments, which 
 were to consist of a fourth part of the most heavily-taxed electors of the 
 department. The latter voted in the two colleges, and thus possessed a 
 privilege over the others which was considered as a deviation from the 
 charter, and which caused this new electoral law to receive the unpopular 
 name of the law of the double vote. It was eloquently defended by the 
 Ministry, and the most eminent members of the Right and Right- Centre, 
 MM. de Villele, de la Bourdonnaye, Laine, &c. All the 
 
 Stormy discus- 
 sions. Kiots factions into which the Liberal party was divided, united 
 
 in Paris. 
 
 for the purpose of opposing it, and were represented at the 
 tribune by General Foy, Benjamin Constant, Casimir Perier, Royer- 
 Collard, Camille Jordan, Lafayette, and Manuel. During the three 
 weeks occupied by this memorable debate, the Chamber was a field of 
 battle in which the opposed parties fought with each other to the death. 
 The excitement of these debates spread beyond the walls of the 
 Chamber ; and violent conflicts took place between the troops and the 
 pupils of the schools, who were supported by a portion of the Parisian 
 populace. The law was eventually passed by a small majority in the 
 midst of sanguinary emeutes, and the session was closed on the 22nd of 
 July. 
 
 The stormy debates on the electoral law caused a most disastrous 
 feeling of excitement throughout the whole of France. The Liberal 
 party found itself disarmed by it, and appeared to believe that all the 
 fruits of the Revolution were threatened with destruction. It lost all 
 hope of obtaining any preponderance in the State by legal methods, and, 
 as too frequently happens Jn the case of those who despair of obtaining 
 
1820-1824.] ROYALIST ELECTIONS. 461 
 
 the victory by legitimate means, it had recourse to dark and guilty 
 tactics, to conspiracies and plots. The army, influenced by the same 
 motives which had alienated it from the Bourbons in 1814, was still 
 filled, in spite of much necessary weeding, with discontented men, full of 
 anxiety with respect to their future fortunes, ready to second any move- 
 ment hostile to the Government, and connected with many secret socie- 
 ties. A vast military conspiracy, which had ramifications 
 
 t t . -, t t . -r» Military conspi- 
 
 m every part of the kingdom, was discovered in Paris on racy m Paris, 
 
 August, 1820. 
 
 the 20th of August, 1820. The leaders of the plot in the 
 garrison of Paris were Major Bernard and Captain Nantil ; the first 
 made revelations, the second fled, and the conspiracy was crushed. A 
 great number of their accomplices in every rank of life were arrested and 
 taken before the Court of Peers. In the midst of the profound excite- 
 ment caused by the discovery of this plot and the debates of the pre- 
 ceding Session, the Duchess de Berri gave birth to a son who received 
 the title of the Duke de Bordeaux, and whose birth, hailed with 
 enthusiasm by the Royalists, seemed to promise a prolonged possession of 
 the throne of France to the eldest branch of the Bourbons. 
 
 The elections which now took place, in which the colleges of depart- 
 ments for the first time made their numerous selections, *, ,. , , 
 
 7 Key ah st elee- 
 
 were almost all favourable to the Royalists. The majority tlons ' 182 °- 
 of the deputies thus elected belonged to the extreme Right of the 
 assembly, and the chief political influence speedily passed from the 
 moderate members of the Royalist party to be possessed a second time 
 by the men of 1815 and the reactionists. Disappointed in his hopes, 
 M. de Richetieu felt compelled to give a new pledge to the Royalists by 
 admitting to the council M. Laine, as well as MM. de Villele and 
 Corbiere, who exercised great influence over the Right side of the elec- 
 tive chamber. They all three entered the chamber as ministers without 
 portfolios, and the general direction of public instruction was given to 
 M. Corbiere. The following legislative session showed how vain were 
 the hopes in which the Ministry still indulged that they would be able 
 to carry on the government by the aid of the moderate men of the two 
 parties, or, in other words, of the two Centres of the Assembly. The 
 members of the Left Centre who remained faithful to them formed a very 
 insignificant portion of the Assembly, the whole Left having been reduced 
 by the late elections to a hundred deputies, who were all deeply irritated 
 
462 PABTY. ANIMOSITY. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 at the conduct of the moderate ministers, and who, after having taken 
 part in the compilation of the decree of the 5th of September, had, by- 
 means of the electoral law, paved the way for the victory of the party 
 against which that decree had been directed. But although deprived of 
 the power given by numbers the deputies of the Left possessed the strength 
 which is given by passion when united with talent. They numbered 
 amongst them men devoted to the principles of 1789, which they 
 eloquently defended. All the factions of the Liberal party, from the 
 Doctrinaires to the irreconcilable enemies of the Bourbons, were repre- 
 sented amongst them by their leaders. Opposite to them were con- 
 founded, under the name of Royalists, the men attached to the legitimate 
 monarchy as it had been made by the charter, and the much larger 
 number who, looking upon the charter as an unfortunate legacy of the 
 Eevolution, hoped, as they could not destroy it, at least to be able greatly 
 to modify, by the aid of fresh laws, the effects of its principal clauses. 
 It is impossible for us to understand the difficulties of the situation, and 
 the impossibility of procuring the acceptance of a reasonable 
 
 Party animosity. . 
 
 and moderate policy, if we do not transport ourselves in 
 imagination to the midst of this stormy period, and if we do not remem- 
 ber that the opinions of the immense majority of men are formed by 
 their recollections, their habits, their private interests, and their passions. 
 The whole of the generation which had been in existence at the close of 
 the last century was not yet in the tomb. Many of those who had lost 
 everything by the Revolution were now opposed face to face to those 
 who had gained everything by it, and for these two classes of men ideas 
 had a vastly different mode of expression, and words themselves, even, 
 had a different meaning. The former saw in every deliberative assembly 
 a National Convention, in every Liberal a Jacobin, and in the charter the 
 written and odious sanction of the outrages of which they had been the 
 victims. In the eyes of the latter the Bourbons were but the repre- 
 sentatives of a detestable system of government, and the old emigrant 
 royalists, the enemies of France, men whose influence could not but be 
 the source of continual danger. The very same actions were lauded, or 
 branded as infamous, according as they were accomplished under the 
 white flag or the tricolour ; and religion, invoked by the one party as a 
 main support of their cause, was hated by the other as the inseparable 
 auxiliary of privileges and absolutism. The former closed their eyes to 
 
1820-1824.] LEGISLATIVE MEASUBES. 463 
 
 the necessities of the present times, and the latter could not comprehend 
 the teachings of the past, or the influence of tradition on political and 
 social order. Each party was equally inspired by blind hatred, fury, and 
 illusions, so much the more profound, because neither party could 
 perceive the dangerous consequences which must result from the reali- 
 zation of their extreme and opposite views. 
 
 What could be done, in such a state of things, by the upright, ex- 
 perienced, and wise men who sat in the Cabinet, the Richelieus, Pasquiers, 
 and Serres, incessantly beaten as they were by the waves of conflicting 
 passions, and almost equally hated by the Ultra-Royalist and Ultra- 
 Liberal parties, each of whom regarded as a crime any concession granted 
 to the other ? The three Ministers who were members of the Right, and 
 whom M. de Richelieu had admitted to the Council at the close of the 
 late elections, and especially MM. de Villele and Corbiere, remained 
 immovable and silent in the midst of the most irritating debates, and 
 systematically refrained from giving any support to the Ministry, which 
 had solicited their aid, but was not sufficiently in accordance with their 
 genuine opinions. During the previous session, and the first months of 
 the new session (1820-1821), however, the troubled state of many por- 
 tions of Europe bordering on France, where the cause of the foreign 
 revolutionists received the deepest sympathy, was a salutary check to the 
 Ultra-Royalists. The spirit of insurrection might triumph in Spain, at 
 Naples, and in Piedmont, and then cause an explosion in France, and the 
 Right of the Elective Chamber did not as yet venture to treat as entirely 
 vanquished the Revolution, with which it was possible that they might 
 have to deal on the morrow. But in the spring of 1821, when all the 
 insurrections of the populations of Italy were crushed, and the Austrians, 
 after an easy triumph, were masters of the whole Peninsula, the Royalist 
 party in France regarded itself as victorious along with them, and the 
 majority in the Chamber of Deputies again openly displayed the 
 ardent passions which had animated the Chamber of 1815. 
 
 The new intentions of the Royalist party manifested Le islative 
 themselves in May, 1821, during the debate on a proposed Session > 1821 - 
 law, which was one of the great events of the session, and the only object 
 of which was to apply the amount of extinct ecclesiastical 
 pensions to the endowment of twelve new bishoprics, the dowment for the 
 
 i . . clergy. 
 
 improvement of vicarages and' curacies, and the repair of 
 
464 STOEMT DEBATES. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 churches. This project, although dictated by the most benevolent inten- 
 tions with respect to the interests of religion, was nevertheless violently 
 opposed by the members of the Right, as insufficient and too restrictive 
 of the rights of the church and the monarch. These deputies, in fact, 
 cherished a secret hope of obtaining the execution of the concordat con- 
 cluded in 1817 between the Holy See and France, but which had not 
 become a law of the State. The opposition attempted, through the lips 
 of M. de Bonald, the speaker of the committee, to completely change 
 the character of the ministerial plan, but the eloquent efforts of 
 M. Pasquier succeeded in preserving its principal clauses. The number 
 of new bishoprics, which the Government had proposed should be twelve, 
 was, in principle, raised to thirty, and the choice of the places where 
 these sees should be founded was left to the King. The proposed law, as 
 thus modified by the Chamber of Deputies, was adopted by that of the 
 Peers, and the condition of the clergy was then made pretty much what 
 it remains at the present day. 
 
 The Royalist opposition in the Elective Chamber burst forth in the 
 
 most furious manner on the occasion of the proposal of a law relative 
 
 to the hereditary grants bestowed by the Imperial Govern - 
 
 Lawonthegrants . . 
 
 of the imperial ment, as rewards tor glorious military and civil services. 
 
 Government. 
 
 These grants had been secured on the property, in conquered 
 territories, which formed part of the Emperor's " extraordinary domain," 
 and the remains of which, valued after the peace of 1812 at four millions 
 of " rentes," had been incorporated with the State property by a financial 
 law of 1818. The State had thus become the debtor, although in a very 
 diminished proportion,* of all those on whom grants had been bestowed 
 under the Empire. The law proposed by the Government in March, 
 1821, granted rentes inscribed on the great book of the public debt to all 
 the surviving grantees, divided into six classes ; those coming under the 
 first class to receive a thousand francs of rente, and those of the latter a 
 hundred. This proposed law was an act of reparation which gave some 
 slight recompense for enormous losses, and offered some slight alleviation 
 to great sufferings, especially in the case of a multitude of poor invalided 
 soldiers, widows, and orphans. The Right of the Chamber, 
 however, vehemently opposed it, and demanded that the 
 
 * The " extraordinary domain " produced, before the peace of Paris, forty millions of 
 rentes. 
 
1820-1824.] TEIAL OF CONSPIBATOES. 465 
 
 soldiers of Conde's army, the Vendeans and the Chouans, should be 
 allowed, as well as the old grantees of the Empire, to become sharers in 
 what remained of the Imperial " extraordinary domain." In the course of 
 the debate the most outrageous expressions were made use of on either 
 side of the Chamber. The Emigrants and Vendean heroes on the one 
 side, and the glorious veterans of the Eevolution and the Empire on the 
 other, were alternately stigmatized as traitors and rebels. It was an 
 unfortunate period, in fact, in which the dominant party regarded 
 patriotism as treason against the sovereign. General Foy eloquently 
 replied to the bitter invectives of the Ultra-Eoyalists, and each of his 
 words found an echo in new France. 
 
 The Ministry, blamed and insulted even by both parties, was unable 
 to preserve to the new law its original character, and, as passed, it recog- 
 nised the possession of no absolute rights by the grantees, and only 
 bestowed life pensions on those and the children of those who were still 
 living, whilst it also equally rewarded out of what remained of the Im- 
 perial domain the services rendered by the armies of the Vendeans 
 and that of Conde. These violent debates were brought to a close at the 
 moment when the trial of the persons concerned in the con- m . . '■". , 
 
 1 Trial and judg- 
 
 spiracies of the 20th of August was about to commence in ^toatOTs^Au-™" 
 the Court of Peers. The latter reckoned amongst its s ast2 °- 
 members many of the most illustrious men of the Empire. A large por- 
 tion of its members bitterly resented the insults which had been heaped 
 on the old army in the other Chamber, and were thus inclined, perhaps, 
 to look less harshly on the military conspirators brought before them for 
 judgment. Most of the conspirators were acquitted, and the indulgent 
 tendencies of the judges displayed in the sentences passed on those who 
 were found guilty, one of whom only, Captain Nantil, who had fled, was 
 condemned to death. The Chamber of Peers, however, had accepted the 
 laws passed by that of the Deputies, whilst nevertheless displaying a 
 great desire to struggle against the encroachments of the Ultra-Eoyalists. 
 This germ of resistance was developed at a later period, when the latter 
 had become possessed of the supreme power, and the Chamber of Peers 
 became the focus of a serious and popular opposition. 
 
 The revolutionary spirit, which had but recently worn so serious an 
 aspect throughout Europe, was now everywhere crushed. As has already 
 been stated, it had had to succumb in every portion of the Italian 
 
 VOL. II. H H 
 
466 DEATH OF NAPOLEON. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 Peninsula. It had been resolved, in the preceding year, at the Congress 
 of Laybach, by the three allied sovereigns and the King of the Two 
 Sicilies, that an Austrian army should be sent to Naples. This army, in 
 . . . , the spring of 1821, had entered the Abruzzi. The Pied- 
 
 Auatna crushes r ° ' 
 
 the Revolution in mon tese, ill advised, had chosen this moment for an insur- 
 
 Naples and Pied- ' ' 
 
 m rection, and, a military revolt having burst forth at 
 
 Alexandria, the constitution of the Cortes of Spain was proclaimed at 
 Turin. The King of Sardinia, Victor-Emmanuel, immediately abdicated 
 in favour of his brother, Charles-Felix, who, instead of joining the 
 insurgents, hastened from Modena at the head of the Austrian troops 
 to combat them. Austria triumphed in Piedmont as at Naples ; the 
 Neapolitan army, commanded by General Pepe, was shamefully defeated 
 at the very first onset, and the whole of Italy, at the end of May, 1821, 
 was in the power of the foreigner. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander was then informed of the insurrection of the 
 Greeks. This revolution had no connexion with the one 
 
 Continuation of 
 
 the Greek revo- which had just been suppressed in Italy; but he saw in it 
 
 only a new conspiracy of Carbonarism, and abandoned his 
 
 unfortunate co-religionists. The heroic city of Souli succumbed before 
 
 the ferocious Ali Pasha ; and England, by an odious treaty, sold to the 
 
 barbarian the city of Parga, in which, to satisfy the vengeance of the 
 
 Massacre of Sultan Mahmoud, eighty priests, together with the vene- 
 
 Parga. rable Patriarch of Constantinople, and a multitude of 
 
 Greeks, perished in that capital by the most ignominious punishments. 
 
 The Klephtes of the Mountains, the Greeks of Moldavia and Wallachia, 
 
 relied on the support of the Czar, and ran to arms at the instigation of 
 
 Botzaris, Mavrocordato, and Ypsilanti. Overwhelmed by numbers, they 
 
 were almost all destroyed. The brave Ypsilanti, after having performed 
 
 the most heroic actions for the faith of the cross and liberty, was taken 
 
 prisoner by the Austrians, and languished for four years in chains, from 
 
 which he only escaped to die. 
 
 A great event, the news of which had only recently reached Europe, 
 caused a powerful sensation there. Napoleon had ceased to 
 
 Death of Napo- r A 
 
 leon at Saint exist. The man who had been victorious in fifty-two battles, 
 
 Helena, 1821. _ . 
 
 and disposed of the sceptres of the universe, had expired 
 at Saint Helena- on the 5th of May, 1821, in the midst of a few faithful 
 friends, after several months of frightful agony, and after a captivity of 
 
1820-1824.] THE JESUITS EETTJEN. 4C7 
 
 six years. Napoleon had been sent to the grave by a liver complaint, 
 the progress of which had been accelerated by an unhealthy climate, by 
 the cruelty of his gaoler, Sir Hudson Lowe, the governor of the island, 
 and, more especially by the devouring activity of a genius which, after 
 having had the whole world for its sphere of action, could now only feed 
 on bitter regrets. The reestablishment of order in France, and the great 
 creations of Napoleon, are his best titles to renown, although his mar- 
 vellous victories have carried the glories of the French arms to the 
 highest point they have ever attained. But his unbounded ambition 
 brought great disasters on the country which he had saved by his 
 wisdom, and twice laid it open to the inroads of foreign armies. The 
 calamities which followed these invasions, and the blood of two millions 
 of men spilt during his reign in innumerable battles, show at what price 
 a victor acquires his glory. Such was the prestige attaching to this 
 wonderful man, that when eighteen hundred leagues distant from Europe, 
 he still filled it with his name, whilst his mighty image seen from afar on 
 its solitary rock in the midst of the ocean, was a perpetual object of terror 
 for some, and of hope for others. His death hurried many of the latter 
 into culpable and desperate enterprises, whilst by delivering their adver- 
 saries from a salutary fear, it allowed them to abandon themselves with 
 less reserve to imprudent or rash reactionary projects. 
 
 At the same time a secret power invaded the court, the Chambers, and 
 all the branches of the public administration. During the _ . . „ ., 
 last ten years men of sincere piety, such as the Viscount de Congregation. 
 Montmorency and the Abbe Legris-Duval, had formed in France an 
 influential society, which was generally named " the Congregation," the 
 object of which, at first, was simply the performance of good works and 
 the duties prescribed by a fervent spirit of devotion. It had affiliated 
 itself to the Jesuits ; and the latter, who were not permitted to reside in 
 France as members of the order, had founded many reli- „ , . 
 
 J Entry of Jesuits 
 
 gious houses there under the name of "Fathers of the into France > 
 Faith." They had powerful supporters amongst the members of the 
 Royal Family itself, and Louis XVIII. having been earnestly entreated 
 in their behalf, consented to tolerate them, without, however, recognising 
 their legal existence. The Congregation, being imbued as they were 
 with the most reactionary principles, became, under the patronage of 
 MM. de Polignac and de Riviere, a most formidable obstacle to the 
 
 H h 2 
 
468 POLITICAL COALITIONS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 Ministers Decazes and Kichelieu. The Restoration had opened to it the 
 field of politics, and from thenceforth religion, which is so holy and 
 respected when its aims are but spiritual and moral, was mixed up 
 with the intrigues of ambition. Hypocrisy, which had been so fatal to 
 morals at the close of the reign of Louis XIV., reappeared in that of 
 Louis XVIII. and his successor. Outward acts of devotion performed by 
 disbelievers, became for many a means of obtaining honours and fortune ; 
 the Government thereby lost much of its moral authority in the eyes of 
 the people, and the French had the misfortune to blame religion for the 
 scandalous acts of those who outraged it by pretending to invoke it. 
 
 The elections of 1821 still further increased, in the Chamber of De- 
 Elections of Pities, the Right side at the expense of the Liberal Left, and 
 1821> the Ministers without portfolios, MM. LainS, de Villele, 
 
 and Corbiere, now quitted the Cabinet, to which they were no longer 
 willing to lend the support of their names, and which they left, at the 
 commencement of the new session, face to face with an ardent Royalist 
 c ... majority resolved to overthrow it. The Liberals, still 
 
 uitra-Ro^Hsts more irritated against the Government, whom they accused 
 Ssdon! 6 ^ 81 ^ 1 ™ °f having given up the elections into the hands of their 
 adversaries, openly leagued themselves with the latter for 
 the purpose of procuring its fall. They combined to insert in the ad- 
 dress, in answer to the speech from the throne, a phrase which attacked 
 the policy of the Crown in its relations with the European powers at the 
 Congresses of Troppau and Laybach, and this phrase, although vehe- 
 mently opposed by the Cabinet, was retained by a majority of a hundred 
 votes. 
 
 Louis XVIIL, when the address was presented to him by a deputation 
 of the Chamber, refused to receive it, and uttered some words which 
 showed the offended dignity of the monarch. The Count d'Artois, the 
 recognised leader of the Ultra-Royalists, would have been much better 
 able than his brother to defend the Cabinet against his too ardent friends, 
 and he had promised M. de Richelieu to moderate their zeal and their 
 demands, but he forgot his promise, and abandoned the Minister to their 
 resentment. M. de Richelieu and his colleagues, strong in the favour of 
 the monarch, endeavoured in vain to carry on the struggle, and presented 
 to the elective Chamber two laws for the prolongation of the censorship 
 and the increased stringency of the law repressive of the abuses of the 
 
1820-1824.] BEACTIOtfAKY MEASURES. 469 
 
 press. The extreme Royalists, whose new object was to overthrow the 
 Cabinet, affected an ardent love for the liberty which they wished to 
 restrict, and a horror of the censorship, greatly resembling in this a 
 certain number of their colleagues of the Left, who, after having been but 
 recently the humble servitors of imperial despotism, disguised themselves 
 as champions of the public liberties. A fresh vote of the Chamber ren- 
 dered the resignation of the Government indispensable. M. de Richelieu 
 surrendered his portfolio into the hands of the King ; his 
 
 Resignation of 
 
 colleagues followed his example, and a new Cabinet was m. de Kicheiieu. 
 
 Dissolution of 
 
 formed in December, 1821, by the exclusive influence of the Ministry. 
 
 ' ' J December, 1821. 
 
 the extreme Right. The supreme power thus returned to 
 the hands of the Ultra-Royalists, and constitutional France entered upon 
 a new crisis from which she was destined only to issue when the throne 
 should have been overturned upon the charter torn to shreds. 
 
 The most influential members of the new Cabinet were M. de Pey- 
 ronnet, the Keeper of the Seals, M. de Villele, Minister of ultra _ Ro alist 
 Finance, and M. de Corbiere, Minister of the Interior. Ministr y- 
 Viscount Matthieu de Montmorency obtained the portfolio for Foreign 
 Affairs, and the Duke de Belluno that for War. M. de 
 
 M. de Villele. 
 
 Villele already possessed great influence in the Council, and 
 was not long before he became its head. His rise had been rapid, and 
 he united to remarkable talents a great knowledge of public affairs ; but 
 he had not strength sufficient to check the fury of those whose blindness 
 he deplored. He attempted to struggle against them in vain, and was 
 hurried away by the dangerous passions which he did not share. The 
 Congregation, satisfied that it would be able to control him in spite of 
 himself, aided him to power, with the intention of exercising it itself. 
 The appointment of the pious Viscount de Montmorency as one of the 
 Ministers gave it a place in the very bosom of the Cabinet, and its mem- 
 bers obtained the principal employments and offices under every Ministry. 
 Thenceforth the Government and the Chamber of Deputies followed 
 unanimously a reactionary course. It is not probable that they proposed to 
 themselves to provoke a counter revolution, and to suppress the- constitution ; 
 but their fatal policy tended to limit, to sap, and to a certain extent to 
 annul, most of the guarantees given by the charter to the public liberties 
 and the interests born of the Revolution. One of the first ^ ,. . , , 
 
 Political laws of 
 
 acts of the Ministry was to take from juries the right of de- 1822 - 
 
470 plots. [Book IV. Chap. III. 
 
 ciding respecting crimes committed by the press, and to pass two mea- 
 sures respecting it of a very serious nature. According to the first, the 
 political tendency of a series of articles might constitute an offence against 
 the laws, although no one of them taken by itself could be so construed; 
 and according to the second, the censorship, in certain serious circum- 
 stances, might be reestablished. This law, which was presented in 
 1822, was passed by a great majority. 
 
 In the meantime secret societies were organized in every direction, and 
 ■ hJ _, Carbonarism extended its vast ramifications throughout the 
 
 Progress of the ° 
 
 Carbonari. kingdom in every direction. Its dangerous spirit rapidly 
 
 penetrated the schools and the army, and the military conspiracy suppressed 
 Conspiracies of a ^ P ar i s m August, 1820, was followed, during the two ensu- 
 ing years, by many military plots, excited by the Carbonari in 
 various corps and various parts of the kingdom. Seditious outbreaks took 
 place in the cavalry school of Saumur, which, although they were sup- 
 pressed, attracted the hopes of rash conspirators in this direction. General 
 Berton assembled a troop of voung men, soldiers and half- 
 
 The Bonapartist r J ° ' 
 
 plot of General armed peasants, and marched at their head beneath the tri- 
 colour. He seized the city of Thouars in the name of 
 Napoleon III., and marched upon Saumur, which he could not carry. 
 Being now abandoned by most of his followers, he took to flight and was 
 Mii'ta v it arrested. About the same time there burst forth a military 
 at Beitort. revolt at Belfort, to which the illustrious General Lafayette 
 
 himself was not a stranger. The Government speedily crushed this 
 revolt, and at the same time most culpably laid a snare, of which the ex- 
 Colonel Caron was, at Colmar, the imprudent victim. Two squadrons, 
 with the intention of discovering his accomplices and compromising him, 
 set forth one evening from Colmar and Neuf-Brisach, under the command 
 of quartermasters, the officers being disguised in the ranks. This troop, 
 Plot of Caron traversing the neighbouring country, induced Caron and a 
 a Eoger. friend of his, a riding-master named Eoger, to join it. It 
 
 marched under their orders, and drank with them, and when the latter, 
 deceived by these perfidious demonstrations, uttered the cry of " Vive 
 l'Empereur !" the soldiers threw themselves upon them, bound them, and 
 handed them over to the authorities. A few days afterwards Caron was 
 shot. No circumstance did more than this at this period to compromise 
 
1820-1824.] PLOTS. 47l 
 
 the Government and to dispose men to regard the Ministers and the police 
 as the sources and originators of all disturbances. 
 
 The year 1822 witnessed still more executions for political crimes. 
 Berton was taken before the Court of Assizes at Poictiers, Trial of General 
 and the Attorney-General Mangin pointed out, without ert0D * 
 actually naming them, the most influential deputies of the Left as the 
 General's accomplices. His words excited in the Chamber stormy dis- 
 cussions, which, whilst failing to throw any light upon the subject, still 
 further envenomed the party animosities. Berton and two of his accom- 
 plices lost their heads upon the scaffold ; a third committed suicide. Paris 
 was soon afterwards the theatre of an afflicting scene. Four „ . „ 
 
 ° Conspiracy of 
 
 young sub-officers in garrison at Rochelle, having been con- J^j garrSoof 
 victed of Carbonarism and accused of having been engaged La Rochelle - 
 in a revolutionary plot, excited the sympathy of the public by their youth 
 and their firmness. Their guilty project had not been carried into execu- 
 tion, but they were nevertheless condemned to death, and 
 
 ^ Their execution. 
 
 marched to the scaffold through the midst of a populace 
 inspired at once by pity and resentment. It was thus that the Govern- 
 ment of the Eestoration thought that it might once more obtain protection 
 against criminal plots and too real perils by means of rigorous chastise- 
 ments. 
 
 A new Congress of Sovereigns now assembled at Verona, at which was 
 discussed the important question of the Spanish revolution. Critical gtate ot 
 Great disturbances, rendered inevitable by the weakness and s P am - 
 the perfidy of Ferdinand VII., had broken forth in the capital of that 
 country, and atrocious crimes — the assassination of the Canon Vinuesa, 
 amongst others — had been committed, and compromised the revolutionary 
 cause. It was in vain that Morella and Ballesteros endeavoured to restrain 
 the men of violence, and to reestablish calm. Sanguinary combats took 
 place between the populace and the Royal Guards, and recalled the 
 frightful scenes which had taken place in Paris on the 10th of August. 
 Ferdinand, whose life was in danger, carried his dissimulation so far, it 
 was said, as even to sign decrees of death against his too- faithful but 
 powerless defenders. In the meantime the monks, who had been partially 
 despoiled of their possessions, roused the inhabitants of the provinces, 
 organized guerillas, and directed a vast counter-revolutionary movement 
 
472 CONQKESS OF VEEONA. [BOOK IV. CHAP. ITI. 
 
 in Catalonia. A famous Trappist, Don Antonio Maragnon, had formed a 
 
 formidable band of guerillas and marched at their head, crucifix in hand. 
 
 He had taken by assault the fortress of Seu d'Urgel, and a 
 
 Kegency esta- 
 blished at the Regency was established there, consisting; of the Marquis de 
 Seu d'Urgel. . . 
 
 Mataflorida, Baron d'Eroles, and the Archbishop of Tarra- 
 gona, which borrowed loans, and issued proclamations in the name of the 
 King, whom it supposed to be in captivity. In a short time it found 
 Army of the itself at the head of an army of twenty-five thousand men, 
 who assumed the name of the Army of the Faith, took pos- 
 session of many places in Navarre and Catalonia, and penetrated into 
 Aragon. The Constitutional General Mina put this army to rout, retook 
 the places which it had seized, and left no hope to the Royalists save in 
 French intervention. The yellow fever, which desolated Barcelona, had some 
 time since made Louis XVIII. resolve to post a cordon of troops on the Pyre- 
 nees frontier under pretext of sanitary precautions, and these troops might 
 at any moment be converted into an army of invasion. Such was the state 
 of things in Spain when the Congress commenced its sittings at Verona. 
 MM. de Chateaubriand and Matthieu de Montmorency represented 
 Con ress of France at Verona, whilst M. de Villele obtained at Paris the 
 Verona, 1822. p res ia e iicy of the Council. Lord Wellington was the re- 
 presentative of England at the Congress. The suicide of Lord Castlereagh 
 and the elevation of Mr. Canning to the Premiership of the English 
 Ministry were grounds for expectation that the foreign policy of that 
 power would undergo great modifications. When, accordingly, French 
 intervention in Spain was proposed, Lord Wellington opposed it, and M. 
 de Villele hoped that it might even yet be avoided or adjourned. But 
 the Congregation and the majority in the Chamber of the Deputies were 
 eager for war ; M. de Chateaubriand was inclined for it, and the efforts of 
 M. de Montmorency rendered it inevitable. The contagion of the Spanish 
 revolution appeared dangerous to France, and more especially to Italy, in 
 the eyes of the Royalists, of M. de Metternich, and the three Allied 
 Sovereigns, and they unanimously resolved to suppress it. The Ambas- 
 sadors of Russia, Austria, and Prussia immediately quitted Madrid. The 
 Ambassador of France, General Lagarde, was not yet recalled ; M. de 
 Chateaubriand succeeded M. de Montmorency at the head of Foreign 
 Affairs. 
 
 The movement which carried the French Government into a counter re- 
 
1820-1824.] THE FRENCH ENTER SPAIN. 473 
 
 volutionary course triumphed over the pacific inclinations of M. de Villele. 
 Louis XVIII., bowed down by infirmities and age, no longer reigned save 
 in name. Monsieur really wielded the sceptre, and wished for war ; and 
 the Chamber of Deputies, which was completely in accord T .'J ' 
 
 x ' i. j Legislative 
 
 with him on this point, displayed its zeal by the violence of Ex^uSion""^! 3 ' 
 the debates which took place on the vote of supplies for the chamber*?™ tbe 
 expedition. It expelled Manuel, the deputy of La Vendee, De P uties - 
 a man very hostile to the Bourbons, who had made a speech which the 
 majority of the Chamber considered to be a justification of regicide. The 
 Chamber interrupted him and voted his expulsion. Manuel declared that 
 he would only yield to actual force, upon which the President Ravez 
 called upon the National Guards on duty to remove him, and Sergeant 
 Mercier, their commander, having refused to exercise the will of the 
 Assembly, Manuel was seized by gendarmes on his bench and dragged out 
 of the Assembly. The whole of the members of the Left followed him, 
 and declared that they all considered themselves assaulted and expelled in 
 the person of Manuel. 
 
 The extraordinary credits asked for the Spanish campaign were granted, 
 and from thenceforth war appeared inevitable. A numerous army was 
 already assembled on the Pyrenees frontier, the command of which was 
 taken at the end of March by the Duke d'Angouleme, who had under 
 him, as chief of his staff, G-eneral Guilleminot. The duke found the army 
 on his arrival unprovided either with sufficient means of transport or pro- 
 visions, and entered into onerous obligations to a wealthy banker, who 
 offered to provide what was wanting, and who imposed upon the prince 
 most grossly. The army entered the field on the 6th April, The Spanish 
 and on the frontier, at the pass of Bidassoa, encountered a war ' 1823, 
 battalion of insurgents bearing the tricolour flag. Frenchmen who had 
 been engaged in the military conspiracies, and amongst others Captain 
 Nantil and Colonel Fabvier, marched at their head, and advanced towards 
 the troops to fraternize with them, crying "Vive l'Empereur !" "Vive la 
 France !" General Valin, however, dispersed the insurgent battalion with 
 his artillery, and the success of the campaign was secured. The' army, in 
 fact, was under the orders of the Oudinots, Monceys, and Molitors, old 
 heroes of the empire, and the Spanish guerillas, so fatal formerly to the 
 French veterans, this time fought with France. The victory could not 
 be doubtful. 
 
474? END OP THE SPANISH WAR. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 The French army speedily arrived at Madrid, which the Cortes had 
 quitted, carrying with them Ferdinand VII., first to Seville and then to 
 Madrid, after having declared him dethroned on account of imbecility. 
 This audacious and guilty measure was very likely to prolong the war. 
 Negotiations were entered into with the moderate constitutional generals, 
 such as Ballesteros, Morillo, and d'Abisbal, and about the same time the 
 prince generalissimo formed, in a spirit of conciliation, a Spanish Regency 
 at Madrid, under the presidency of the Duke of Infantado, with the inten- 
 tion of keeping in check the members of the old Junta of Seu d'Urgel, whose 
 blind violence, excited by the fanaticism of the Army of the Faith, 
 threatened Spain with a murderous reaction. This army and the 
 populace only awaited the arrival of the French troops to give themselves 
 up to acts of cruel and base vengeance. The French soldiers interfered 
 between them and their victims, and were speedily looked upon with 
 hatred and distrust by the very persons they had come to assist. It was 
 with the intention of preventing these scenes of brigandage and murder 
 that the Duke d'Angouleme issued the celebrated decree of 
 
 Decree of at- i-i -i • 
 
 .Andujtr, Andujar, which prohibited the Spanish authorities from 
 
 August, 1823. 
 
 arresting any one without the sanction of the French officers, 
 and placed the editors of the journals under the direct protection of these 
 officers. This decree was full of wisdom, and in conformity with the 
 prince's whole course of conduct during this campaign; but it deeply 
 offended the Regency at Madrid, and by no means tended to render the 
 Cortes at Cadiz more tractable. The latter, thoroughly acquainted as they 
 were with the character of Ferdinand, had no faith in the effect of the 
 promises of the Duke d'Angouleme, who pledged himself to obtain liberal 
 institutions for them from their King. They rejected all the propositions 
 
 which their weakness should have induced them to accept, 
 
 Capture of the 
 
 Trocadero. End and the French troops then performed some gallant feats of 
 
 of the Spanish 
 
 war. October, arms. They attacked the formidable batteries of the Isle of 
 
 1823. J 
 
 Leon ; the Trocadero was taken in the prince's presence ; 
 Cadiz submitted ; and Ferdinand VII. was immediately set free. 
 
 The war was at an end, and punishments began. Ferdinand chose 
 as his Ministers men inspired with the most violent party spirit. The 
 execution of Riego signalized his return to the throne, and the inter- 
 vention of the French in favour of other victims was unavailing. No 
 precautions had been taken, in fact, at the Congress of Verona to pre- 
 
1820-1824.] GOVEBNMENTAL INTIMIDATION. 475 
 
 serve Spain from the misfortunes of a sanguinary reaction. The im- 
 mense expenses of the war remained a burden on France, and the only 
 fruit she gathered from this brilliant and onerous campaign was the in- 
 gratitude of those for whom she had made so many sacrifices. Such is 
 the prestige, however, which in France always attaches to victory, that, 
 during the first moments which followed the success of the French arms 
 in Spain, the impression caused by that success was very favourable to 
 the Ultra-Royalist party, the sole authors of the war. It enabled them 
 to carry most of the partial elections which followed the campaign, and 
 M. de Villele conceived the idea of establishing his power on a mutual 
 good understanding between the Government and a septennial Chamber, 
 or one elected for seven years. 
 
 Besides the opposition of the Left, there was now formed in the Cham- 
 ber another, which was no less hostile to the Ministers, whom it accused 
 of being lukewarm in the Royalist cause. MM. de la Bourdonnaye and 
 Delalot were its energetic leaders. Each of these men was imbued with 
 ideas which were rather aristocratic than monarchical, and demanded 
 that the landed interest should have a great share in the direction of 
 affairs. They violently accused M. de Villele of having failed to fulfil his 
 pledges with respect to this matter, and the latter hoped that, by con- 
 voking a new Chamber whilst the impression produced by the Spanish 
 campaign was still recent, he might procure one entirely devoted to his 
 views, and thus be enabled to crush a double and fatiguing opposition. 
 The King and his Council shared the opinions of the Minister ; the Cham- 
 ber was dissolved, and every preparation was made for a general elec- 
 tion. 
 
 Nothing could be more scandalous or more fatal to the moral authority 
 of the Government than the manner in which were con- 
 ducted the elections of 1824, which took place at the com- 
 mencement of the year. Circulars threatened the officials who had the 
 superintendence of the elections with dismissal if they did not support the 
 ministerial candidates, and many of them responded to the wishes of the 
 Council by having recourse to fraud and displaying the most base ser- 
 vility. Cavillings of every kind with respect to the Liberal electors, 
 arbitrary erasures and insertions in the electoral lists, and the issue of 
 false polling tickets, were abuses which were permitted, encouraged, and 
 even rewarded by the Ministers, who, obstinately persisting in governing 
 
 Elections of 
 1824. 
 
476 EESTJLTS OF BAD GOVEBNHENT. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 in a spirit opposed to the general feeling of the nation, could only main- 
 tain their position by calling to their aid trickery, bribery, and violence. 
 Some eminent men took an active part in these deplorable manoeuvres, 
 and a mandate issued by Clermont Tonnerre, Archbishop 
 
 Mandate of the /» m i i i -i • i i 
 
 Archbishop of oi Toulouse, showed the end to which they tended, and be- 
 
 Toulouse. m . 
 
 trayed the secret hopes and intentions of the victorious 
 party. The Archbishop demanded the restoration of the ancient privi- 
 leges of the Church of France, the reestablishment of all the solemn 
 fetes, of the rights of the clergy as they formerly existed, and of many 
 religious orders which at this period were not allowed to reside in 
 France. Finally, he expressed a hope that the civil power would be- 
 come lodged in the hands of the clergy. This rash manifesto was sup- 
 pressed by the Council of State, at the suggestion of M. Portalis ; but it 
 revived the old disputes between the clergy and the magistracy, and 
 aroused the opposition of the Royal Courts to the encroachments of a too 
 violent party and the demands of the Cabinet. 
 
 The result of the elections surpassed the hopes of the Royalists, and 
 
 nineteen Liberal deputies only were elected. This mon- 
 abuseofadminia- strous abuse of the influence of the Government over elec- 
 during the tions had always been in France, since the fall of the old 
 
 system of things, one of the most fatal effects of an excess of 
 administrative centralization, and the successive governments who have 
 momentarily obtained a factitious support in the suffrages exacted by 
 themselves have always ultimately found in them one of the decisive 
 causes of their fall. It is in this that consists, perhaps, the greatest 
 danger of such parliamentary and representative governments as that of 
 the Restoration in France. Under these forms of government, in fact, it 
 is understood that the nation is to take part in the conduct of its own 
 affairs, and it is by means of the elections that it exerts its influence ; but 
 if those elections are not the genuine expression of public opinion, they 
 represent only the party which is in power ; and then the latter, intoxi- 
 cated with its own apparent strength, and released from every salutary 
 check, no longer holds public opinion in any account, but crushes and 
 represses it until, like steam, it explodes, overthrows everything in its 
 way, and threatens destruction not only to the monarchy, but to social 
 order. Such is the spectacle presented to us by the history of the Re- 
 storation during its last years. 
 
1820-1834.] LEGISLATIVE SESSION. 477 
 
 The electoral law of the double vote had already given far too large a 
 proportion of the seats in the elective Chamber to that class of rich landed 
 proprietors amongst whom were many men belonging to the old families 
 which had been victims of the Eevolution, and who regarded the charter 
 either as a fatal legacy of a detested period or a temporary necessity. 
 The Government had fallen once more into the hands of their friends, 
 and the general elections of 1824, conducted, as they were, under the 
 immediate influence of the Government, had given to their party an im- 
 mense majority in the elective Chamber, from which the Liberal opposi- 
 tion had almost disappeared. But the ground which the latter had lost 
 in the Chamber it had gained beyond its walls in public opinion, which 
 had become disquieted and irritated by the reactionary tendencies of the 
 Government, by its subservience to the clerical party, by many of its 
 past acts, and by all those which it was proposing to accomplish. 
 
 As the court and the ministry refused to take into any account the 
 general opinion or the wishes of the country, the problem which remained 
 to be solved was, how to reduce public opinion to silence by a series of 
 counter-revolutionary measures, by the aid of which the Congregation 
 and the Ultra- Royalists flattered themselves that they might increase the 
 authority of the territorial aristocracy and the clergy, and render their 
 influence in the kingdom dominant and enduring. Time was an indis- 
 pensable element in the solution which was to be effected of this difficult 
 problem by the aid of a devoted majority. The period of five years 
 assigned by the constitution as that during which the deputies were 
 to sit was, in the opinion of the Government, too small for the accom- 
 plishment of this great purpose, and at the opening of the legislative 
 session, in March, 1824, the king, in his speech to the Chamber, 
 announced that two laws of great importance would be Legislative 
 submitted to them. The object of one of these laws was to session - 
 substitute for the quinquennial and partial renewal of the elective chamber 
 directed by the charter, its entire and septennial renewal ; and the other 
 referred to the conversion of the rents inscribed on the great book of 
 the public debt. The adoption of this latter law, the monarch asserted, 
 would allow of a great diminution in the taxes, and close the last wounds 
 left by the Revolution. 
 
 These two proposed laws were simultaneously presented by the 
 ministry, the first to the Chamber of Peers, and the second to that of the 
 
478 THE CONVERSION OF RENTES. [BOOK IV. CRAP. III. 
 
 Deputies. To the objections that the entire and septennial renewal of 
 the charter would be contrary to certain articles of the charter, it was 
 replied that those articles were not fundamental ones, and the law, after 
 The septennial having been accepted by the peers, was submitted to the 
 laws. Elective Chamber, in which it was energetically opposed by 
 
 the Liberal opposition, and especially by Eoyer- Collard, who carefully set 
 Speech of Rover- ^ or ^ n a ^ the advantages of the partial renewal prescribed by 
 the charter and the danger of violating it by the suspension 
 of the elections during seven years. He pointed out that the entire and 
 simultaneous renewal, if effected freely, would be too rude a shock for 
 any government, and that if it were not effected freely it would throw 
 the whole of France into the hands of the Ministers by means of the 
 administrative centralization at their disposal. " It is to centralization," 
 said the orator, " to that monstrous power which has been raised on the 
 ruins of all our institutions, that is confided the guardianship of all 
 our political rights. ... In the absence of freedom of elections all 
 ministerial responsibility disappears, and it is thus that the representative 
 government has been disgracefully perverted ; instead of elevating it 
 degrades us ; instead of encouraging the common energy and cherishing 
 the principle of honour which is our public spirit and the dignity of the 
 nation, it stifles and proscribes it." Royer-Collard demonstrated with all 
 the eloquence of conviction and of talent the urgent necessity which 
 there existed, for the purpose of holding in check an oppressive and un- 
 limited centralization, institutions which should be the guardians of the 
 rights of all, and which would be capable of sounding the alarm when- 
 ever society should find itself attacked. Without such institutions, he 
 said, representative government was but a phantom and a name. All his 
 efforts, however, were fruitless, and the law was passed by a large majority. 
 The second project met with a very different fate. It was connected, 
 in the minds of its authors, with a plan for the reimburse- 
 tor the conver- ment of the losses suffered by the old emigrants or their 
 
 sion of rentes. „ . . ., ,.,. ,. 
 
 families by means of the resources which its adoption 
 would give to the treasury. Its object was the conversion of the five 
 per cent, rentes, which amounted to a hundred and forty millions, into 
 three per cents., at the price of seventy-five per cent. ; and bankers 
 were engaged to furnish the necessary funds for the repayment at par of 
 those holders of five per cent, rentes who might decline to accede to the 
 
1820-1824.] JOURNALISTS BEOUGHT TO TRIAL. 4*79 
 
 proposed exchange. This plan, useful as it would be to the Government, 
 appearing in some respects opposed to the engagements entered into by 
 them, and adverse to the interests of the numerous class of " rentiers," 
 excited much angry feeling. The Chamber of Deputies adopted it; 
 but it was rejected by the Chamber of Peers ; a fact which 
 
 Its rejection by 
 
 was in some degree due to the tacit opposition of M. de the chamber of 
 Chateaubriand. M. de Villele immediately demanded the 
 dismissal of his colleague, which he obtained, and by this violent pro- 
 ceeding hastened his own fall. Chateaubriand, extremely dismissal of 
 irritated at his dismissal, at once commenced a conflict with chateaubnand ' 
 his late friends and colleagues, the motives of which were by no means 
 justifiable, but which was not the less implacable and to the death. He 
 attracted to his side many deputies of the Eight, and the nucleus of a 
 new party was formed, which was styled by their adversaries the party of 
 defection, and of which the Journal des Debats became Part of def 
 the active and formidable organ. tlon ' 
 
 M. Hyde de Neuville, the French ambassador at Lisbon, adopted at this 
 period an extremely bold line of conduct. On the 30th of April the 
 Infant Don Miguel, who was the representative of the abso- Disturbances in 
 lute party, and supported by the queen mother, had put Portu s al - 
 himself at the head of the troops in that capital, and kept King John VI., 
 his father, a prisoner in his own palace ; at the same time throwing several 
 ministers and many eminent persons into prison, and loudly announcing 
 his intention of restoring to the royal authority its ancient prerogatives. 
 M. Hyde de Neuville, together with the English Ambassador, assisted John 
 VI. to recover his sceptre, and Don Miguel was driven from Portugal. The 
 French Ambassador incurred the blame of the Ultra-Royalists for having 
 declared against the prince, who appeared, although a rebel, to be the in- 
 carnation of the principles of absolute power ; and whilst the Liberal press 
 reproached the French Government with its retrograde tendencies, the 
 journals of the opposite party bitterly accused it of dilatoriness in satisfy- 
 ing the demands of the extreme Royalists. 
 
 The Government now put into force those articles of the law which 
 permitted it to prosecute journals on account of the general tendency of 
 their articles. It brought several editors to trial in the 
 
 Prosecution and 
 
 Royal Courts, and in almost every case the magistrates acquittal of nume. 
 
 J # rous journalists. 
 
 made common cause with the press against the Court and 
 
480 DEATH OF LOUIS XVIII. [BOOK IV. CHAP. III. 
 
 Cabinet. The Government rendered the opposition of the judges still 
 
 more determined by censuring their judgments. The law of 1822 enabled 
 
 it to reestablish the censorship in case serious circumstances 
 
 Reestablishment tit -i ,-i • t ,i -»«-• • , 
 
 of the censor- should render this measure necessary, and, as the Ministers 
 saw a serious danger in the acquittals pronounced by the 
 Royal Courts, they reestablished the censorship on this ground alone, and 
 thus declared themselves in direct opposition to the magistracy. The 
 clergy obtained at this period the appointment of a Minister for eccle- 
 siastical affairs. The first appointed was a bishop, M. de Frayssinous, and 
 the direction of public instruction was made one of his functions. 
 
 The King was now at the edge of the tomb. On Sunday, September 
 10th, he could not hold an audience, and a few days later he 
 
 Last moments of 
 
 Louis xvni. was stretched on his death-bed, surrounded by the members 
 
 September, 1824.. ' _ * 
 
 of the royal family. He directed his Ministers to act in 
 concert with his brother ; and in the last interview which he had with 
 Monsieur, he said to him, " I have been as Henry IV. was, and I have the 
 advantage over him, in that I am dying in my bed at the Tuileries ; do as 
 I have done, and you will also have as peaceful and tranquil an end. 
 I forgive you any annoyances you may have caused me, by reason of the 
 hopes I have formed of what will be your conduct as king." The old 
 monarch then called down upon all his relations the benediction of heaven, 
 and laying his hand on the Duke de Bordeaux, the last and feeble offspring 
 of his race, he said with a voice full of emotion, as he looked at his 
 
 brother, " Let Charles X. preserve the crown for this child." 
 
 He gave his last sigh, after a protracted agony, and Charles 
 X. was King. 
 
 During many years past Louis XVIII. had been unable to walk. 
 
 Suffering from incurable disease in his legs, and tormented 
 
 His character. 
 
 by the gout, he had perceived, long before his death, that 
 his intellectual faculties were failing him, and was compelled to abandon 
 the direction of public affairs to his brother. It was at the close of the 
 Spanish war that the King's health was most seriously affected, and it is 
 not to him that is to be attributed the course pursued by the Government 
 after the elections of 1824. 
 
 Louis XVIII. was not exempt from a strong and natural predilection 
 for the system of things under which he had been born, but he could 
 appreciate the necessities of France, and the charter to which he affixed 
 
1820-1824.] CHARACTER OE LOUTS XYIII. 481 
 
 his name was the foundation in France of political liberty. Endowed with 
 a judicious and cultivated mind, he sought the society of men acquainted 
 with ancient and modern literature ; he was ready of speech, and many 
 happy sayings fell from his lips. When he had appointed a certain time 
 for an audience or a ceremony, he was always present at the exact time 
 named. "For punctuality," he said, u is the politeness of kings." He was 
 almost always present, even to the close of his life, at the grand court 
 receptions, and when he was urged to spare himself this fatigue, he said, 
 " A King of France ought to die openly." He is reproached with having 
 been cold-hearted, and the blood of some of the victims of the dissensions 
 in France is a burden upon his memory ; but when he permitted those 
 persons to be executed he regarded their death less as an act of vengeance 
 than as one of political necessity. Sincerely attached to the Constitution 
 which he had adopted, it is only just to take into account the strong family 
 influences against which he had to struggle. The charter was, in his eyes, 
 the anchor of safety ; relying upon it, he braved many storms and escaped 
 numerous rocks. Overwhelmed at length, however, by many infirmities, 
 and a naturally indolent nature, which was more ready to be influenced 
 than to influence others, he displayed in his latter years more solicitude 
 for repose than for the possession of power. He resigned his sceptre, to a 
 certain extent, and unhappily for France, into the hands of his relatives 
 and those of his favourite Minister, in the presence of a factious and re- 
 actionary majority, and thus abandoned himself, as much through weakness 
 as conviction, to the dangerous current which in his best days he had 
 known how to direct and govern. 
 
 VOL. II. - II 
 
482 ACCESSION Of CHABLES X. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE REIGN OF CHARLES X. THE REVOLUTION OF 1830 ACCESSION OF 
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 16th September, 1824 — 9th August, 1830. 
 
 The nearer this history approaches its conclusion the greater are the diffi- 
 culties with which the writer has to contend. When under the impression 
 of facts caused by passions which are not yet extinct, and in the presence 
 of men who have survived them, and who have the right to appeal to 
 posterity from the precipitate judgments of their contemporaries, it is 
 necessary to remember that the first duty of an historian is to be true, not 
 for the sake of any one set of opinions or any one party, but solely for the 
 sake of morality and the interests of all. It is, therefore, of the highest 
 importance that the narrator of facts should never lose sight of the source 
 from which they have risen ; that he should acknowledge, on the one 
 hand, that popular views have not always been inspired by disinterested, 
 generous, and sincerely patriotic motives ; and, on the other, that many 
 acts, the results of error or prejudice, and justly condemned by public 
 opinion, were free from any criminal intention. 
 
 Some of these considerations are applicable to Charles X. Attached by 
 all his feelings to the ancient system of things whilst reign- 
 opinions of ing under the new, and a Catholic monarch and devoted to 
 
 Charles ^K 
 
 Catholicism at a period when the most influential portion of 
 the nation regarded it with much more distrust than favour, he looked 
 upon all who had defended the principles of the Revolution as indiscrimi- 
 nately guilty of the prolonged calamities of France, always suspected 
 them in spite of the devotion which many of them had displayed for the 
 monarchical cause, and constantly refused to enter into relations with 
 them. Averse to all violent reaction, and naturally benevolent, he loved 
 popularity, and protested his respect for the charter ; but at the same 
 time, whilst accepting and swearing to maintain it, he would not admit 
 
1824-1830.] HIS POLITICAL THEOEIES. 483 
 
 that it had established in France powers which were rivals of his own, or 
 a government which did not spring from his own sole authority. He 
 only regarded the two Chambers as bodies in possession of political powers 
 more extensive, doubtless, than those of the Parliaments and the ancient 
 States of the kingdom, but which did not possess more extensive rights 
 than those assemblies. "In France," he said, u the King consults the 
 Chambers, and pays great attention to their advice and remonstrances ; 
 but when he does not think fit to accept their advice, his own will must 
 be accomplished." From this false idea which he had formed of the 
 representative government founded on the charter, arose all the distur- 
 bances which took place during his reign, and the ruin of the monarchy. 
 Finally, Charles X. regarded as dangerous and humiliating to his crown 
 any concession to public opinion ; and whilst the latter clung with ever- 
 increasing eagerness to the articles of the charter respecting civil equality, 
 the balance of power, and the public liberties, and angrily protested 
 against the interference of the Church in the affairs of the State, the 
 King was full of anxiety to reconstruct upon their old foundations, as far 
 as possible, the authority of the throne, the aristocracy, and the clergy. 
 He believed that this was the only means of securing the safety of the 
 monarchy and of France ; and that he was fulfilling a holy duty by ad- 
 vancing towards this end, whilst he failed to observe the abyss which 
 opened before him. 
 
 This prince, in the course of a long career, had been one of the small 
 number of men whose political career had never varied, and who had but 
 very seldom had reason to reproach themselves with having made con- 
 cessions to opinions which they did not share. The French had long 
 foreseen the storms of the new reign ; and yet such is the power of 
 gracious words and pleasant manners, and such the facility with which 
 the French, forgetting first impressions, frequently pass from a feeling of 
 prejudice to one of hope, that the accession of the new King at first ap- 
 peared popular. " No more halberds ! " he had said to the guards who 
 had prevented the crowd from approaching him. This saying, and others 
 equally happy, together with the suppression of the censorship, were re- 
 garded as favourable omens at the commencement of the reign. But 
 whilst releasing the press from the censorship, Charles X. did not repu- 
 diate the acts of a Minister whom it condemned, but on the contrary, 
 accepted them, by maintaining him in power. Then those of the mode- 
 
 ii 2 
 
484 INDEMNITY TO THE EMIGRANTS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 rate Liberals who had been too ready to hope, were disabused, and public 
 opinion, which had every day become more irritable and 
 
 Legislative , , . „ , 
 
 session of more exacting, was exasperated by a series 01 unpopular 
 
 projects presented in succession to the Chambers during 
 the sessions of 1825 and 1826. We will only here refer to the most im- 
 portant of them. 
 
 The first of these plans, already announced by the late King in his last 
 
 speech to the Chamber, proposed to grant to the emigrants 
 
 an indemnity to or their heirs a milliard of francs, as an indemnity for the 
 
 the exiles. m # , 
 
 possessions of which they had been dispossessed during the 
 Revolution. This plan, equitable though it was in itself, was never- 
 theless rejected by the Liberal party and the citizens as anti-national, 
 because, of all the victims of the Eevolution, it only indemnified those 
 who had passed over to the side of the foreigner, or taken up arms 
 against France. It was vehemently attacked in the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties, and, from very different motives, by members of the extreme Right 
 as well as by those of the Left. The first, and amongst them were MM. 
 de la Bourdonnaye and de Beaumont, did not consider that the plan 
 offered the emigrants sufficient reparation. The King, they said, had 
 not the right to declare them dispossessed of their confiscated estates, by 
 bestowing upon them a totally inadequate remedy. General Foy, on the 
 other hand, attacked the plan bitterly and passionately; reminded the 
 Assembly that the immense majority of its members were at once judges 
 of and interested in the proposed plan of indemnity ; and presented a 
 petition from the members of the Legion of Honour who had been de- 
 prived of their allowances from 1814 to 1821. " At the time," he said, 
 " when you are preparing to serve up so sumptuous a banquet to the emi- 
 grants, it would be as well to give a few morsels of bread at least to the 
 old mutilated and distressed soldiers who had carried the glory of the 
 French name to the end of the world." The two Chambers 
 
 Th© lnw is votsd 
 
 passed to the order of the day, and adopted the law which 
 gave an indemnity to the emigrants or their heirs. 
 
 While this law was being discussed in the Chamber of Deputies, that 
 of the Peers was deliberating with respect to a project re- 
 Chamber of Peers latinor to the female religious communities. The principal 
 
 of a project re- ° o jt x 
 
 reHgfous commu- °ty ect °f tne proposed law, which legalized the communities 
 n,tie8, already established, was to render a simple royal decree 
 
1824-1830.] session oe 1828. 485 
 
 sufficient for the establishment of new ones. An analogous proposition 
 had been discussed in the previous year in the same Chamber, and it was 
 sufficient evidence of the pressure exercised on the Government by the 
 religious party, the real object of which was to establish a precedent 
 which would subsequently allow the authorization, by a simple decree, of 
 communities of men, and sanction the existence of the Society of the 
 Jesuits, and of the numerous establishments which they already pos- 
 sessed in numerous parts of France in despite of the laws to the contrary. 
 No law on this subject could be more unpopular than that presented by 
 the Keeper of the Seals. M. Pasquier pointed out its dangers in several 
 remarkable speeches, and succeeded in defeating it by means of an amend- 
 ment which forbade the establishment of any new female community 
 without the sanction of the law, and which was adopted. To this pro- 
 posal succeeded one on the law of sacrilege, which punished 
 with death the theft of sacred vessels from churches, and the punishment 
 
 . • f° r sacrilege. 
 
 the profanation of the consecrated host with the punishment 
 inflicted on parricides. This law, the proposal of which had been exacted 
 from the Government by the Congregation, and which was even more 
 unpopular than the previous one, was supported by M. de Bonald with all 
 the violence of theological passion, and encountered in each Chamber 
 numerous and eloquent adversaries, and, amongst others, MM. de Broglie r 
 Lanjuinais, Pasquier, and Portalis, in that of the Peers, and Koyer-Col- 
 lard in that of the Commons. It was denounced as a return to the bar- 
 barities of another period, as mixing up theology with legislation, and 
 especially as being contrary to the equal liberty of worship established 
 by the charter. The two Chambers, however, passed the law ; that of the 
 Peers simply cutting out the clause which inflicted the aggravated punish- 
 ment suffered by parricides, mutilation before death. 
 
 In the following session (1826) the Government proposed a law, accord- 
 ing to which, in default of the formal expression of any wish 
 
 , „ , -iii Session, of 1926. 
 
 on the subject on the part 01 the testator, a considerable 
 privilege would be created in favour of primogeniture in the case of all 
 estates paying land taxes of three hundred francs or up- 
 wards. If the authors of this scheme had confined them- therfght of S ° 
 selves to the prevention of an indefinite division, which, pr " 
 by reducing patrimonial possessions to dust, as it were, is destructive to 
 the existence of families of influence ; if they had, with this object, 
 
486 COEONATION OP C SABLES X. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 confirmed the paternal authority, and allowed to fathers a greater free- 
 dom in the disposal of their property, the plan would have satisfied a 
 necessity which was more and more felt every day. But the endeavour 
 to substitute the power of the law for the will of the head of the 
 family, for the purpose of re-establishing in France a territorial aristo- 
 cracy, wounded one of the most nervous fibres of a democratic people, 
 and betrayed a design to drive France back towards the social order of 
 the old system. On this account, especially, it excited a great feeling of 
 animosity against its authors ; few acts of the Restoration 
 
 Debate thereon . . 
 
 in the Chamber were more strongly opposed to public opinion, and how 
 
 of Peers. 
 
 violently can scarcely be understood but by those who 
 lived in those agitated times. Presented to the Chamber of Peers by 
 the Keeper of the Seals, it was strongly opposed, and none of its oppo- 
 nents displayed more skill and talent than Baron Pasquier. 
 
 Speech of M. r J .... 
 
 Pasquier. He set forth the absurdity of a project which, in case of its 
 
 adoption, would bestow upon the Government the unheard-of power of 
 making or unmaking eldest sons by raising or lowering by a centime only 
 the taxes on land, and thus giving it a new and most formidable influence 
 over families. He showed that all the efforts that might be made to re- 
 establish an aristocracy in France must fail, if they were not the genuine 
 offspring of the social system and of public opinion ; and he pointed out 
 that the best means of attaining this end would be the extension of the 
 paternal power, and the enlargement of the functions and independence 
 R . . „ , of the general and municipal councils and the royal courts, 
 proposed law. rp^g Chafer f Peers rejected the law, with the exception 
 of the clause which extended the rights of a testator as to the disposal 
 of a portion of his property. This decision made a great sensation 
 throughout the kingdom ; Paris illuminated, and the Chamber of Peers 
 shared for a time with the chief magistracy the popular favour. 
 
 This long series of reactionary measures, which were so fatal to the 
 Coronation of moral authority of the Government, was interrupted in 
 '* ' 1825 by the solemnities of the consecration. Charles X. 
 appeared at Reims, surrounded by all the old pomp of the royal majesty, 
 took there an oath to preserve the charter inviolate, and received the 
 crown at the hands of the archbishop, in the midst of an ancient cere- 
 monial, which was little in harmony with the ideas of the age, and in 
 
1824-1830.] ATTEMPT TO CHANGE ELECTORAL LAW. 487 
 
 which the new generation, unfortunately, could only see an inopportune 
 act of deference towards the clergy. 
 
 The Liberal party in France had soon afterwards to deplore a great loss 
 in the death of Foy. A hundred thousand citizens, includ- 
 
 < ' Funeral of 
 
 ing the most distinguished merchants, lawyers, soldiers, and General Foy, 
 
 1825. 
 
 men of letters, attended his funeral, and adopted his chil- 
 dren in the name of the country, at the open tomb of their father, the 
 most eloquent opponent of the Government. The Court regarded this 
 manifestation of feeling as a seditious movement, and continued to follow 
 the dangerous path along which it was urged by the impatient wishes of 
 those by whom it was surrounded, when a formidable adversary of the 
 Congregation and the Jesuits suddenly appeared to contend with them. 
 M. de Montlosier, an old defender of the ancient feudal 
 
 M. de Montlosier 
 
 liberties and the prerogatives of the aristocracy, de- denounces the 
 
 J 6SU1XS, 
 
 nounced the vast organization of the Congregation as 
 dangerous to the existence of religion in France and to the safety 
 of the State ; and M. de Frayssinous having let fall at the tribune 
 an avowal of the existence of Jesuits in the kingdom, M. de 
 Montlosier appealed to the laws against their re- establishment in France 
 in the Royal Court of Paris. The latter having declared itself incompe- 
 tent to proceed against them, M. de Montlosier immediately applied to the 
 Chamber of Peers, which, at the suggestion of M. de Portalis, received 
 the petition, as far as it referred to the existence in the kingdom of a 
 society not legally authorized, and referred it to the president of the 
 council. Upon this the Government resolved to shackle the press, which 
 denounced the Jesuits to the country, and to stirle the opposition in the 
 Chamber of Peers, which invoked against it the rigours of the law. 
 
 To effect its objects, it was now necessary for the Government to 
 reduce the number of electors who were most lightly taxed, Proposed c b an ge 
 and who belonged to the classes most attached to the liberal in eiectoral law - 
 cause ; and it accordingly presented a proposition for the reduction of 
 the land-tax, which was most vehemently opposed by Royer-Collard. 
 "This reduction," he said, "would diminish by many ^ ^ecii^of korei- 
 thousands the number of electors, and especially of those CoUard - 
 who, being most in contact with the working classes, place the Elective 
 Chamber in relation and harmony with the masses of the people. 
 
488 POLITICAL TENDENCIES. [BOOK IV. Chap. IV. 
 
 Should such relations continue, and the elective power be more and more 
 absorbed by the upper classes, the representative character of the Govern- 
 ment would be destroyed, and the Chamber would no longer be anything 
 but a senate, which would not know France, and which France would 
 not recognise." 
 
 The session of 1826 was closed in July. Public opinion, irritated by 
 so many measures dictated by a policy contrary to the national feeling 
 state of the anc ^ su ^ serv i ent to tne Congregation and the Jesuits, burst 
 pubhe feeling. f or t n m t complaints and menaces. From this profound 
 discontent, which was in itself a great evil, there sprang also, as the 
 consequence of a natural reaction of the public mind, an unfortunate ten- 
 dency to confound Royalty and the Government in one common blame ; 
 a fatal disposition which is but too readily recognisable in many publica- 
 tions of the period. The great philosophical and literary movement which 
 commenced under the Empire, on the one hand, in the first works of Maine 
 de Biran and Royer-Collard, and on the other in those of Chateaubriand 
 and Madame de Stael, had received from the shock of political opinions 
 in the following period a powerful impulse ; and the brilliancy of the 
 literature of the Restoration would alone attach to it a sufficient share of 
 glory. But as time went on the productions of the traditional Royalist 
 and Catholic school became rarer and rarer, whilst those of the Liberal 
 school multiplied and inundated France. In all the speeches, in all the 
 writings of the Liberal Constitutionalists, a tribute of praise was paid to 
 the charter and to the free institutions of England, and to the respect due 
 to national rights. There was thus formed a public feeling which 
 powerfully inspired the eminent professors of the Sorbonne, the great 
 publicists, the romance writers, and the poets, and which 
 
 Political ten- 
 dencies of the was the life-blood of many works and periodical publica- 
 
 univcrsities, 
 
 literature, and tions, amongst which were distinguished "The Encyclo- 
 
 Tjiig press. 
 
 psedia of the Nineteenth Century," " The Censor," and " The 
 Globe." The latter especially attracted attention, and counted the Doc- 
 trinaires amongst its most eminent contributors. These journals inserted 
 in their columns brilliant articles, very liberal in tone, and containing 
 very elevated views with respect to political matters, administrative and 
 financial, and did not then foresee that they would so soon have to apply 
 their own theories to practice, and to answer to France for their acts. 
 But whilst in these productions, some of which were justly celebrated, 
 
1824-1830.] THE EEVOLUTION UPHELD. 489 
 
 whilst others were worthy of respect for various reasons, elevated, bold, 
 and more or less adventurous doctrines were associated with a sentiment 
 of respect for the monarchy, the latter was attacked at its foundations by 
 other works which were very popular, and which were fraught with pro- 
 found irony, systematic bitterness, and all the prestige of talent. Amongst 
 these writings, some of which had the importance of political facts, the 
 most spoken of and widely read were the famous pamphlets of Paul- 
 Louis Courier, and some of the songs of the national poet Beranger. 
 About the same time two men of rare intellect, MM. Thiers and Mignet, 
 appeared in the literary world, and founded in France a new literary 
 school. They had devoted themselves to the mission of elevating the 
 character of the French Eevolution by excusing the faults of that period, 
 by the aid of a doctrine as false as it was dangerous, that of fatalism. 
 Their works, which they have themselves subsequently judiciously modi- 
 fied, were received at first with enthusiasm by a public animated by a 
 thousand various passions. They overstepped their own object, and 
 powerfully assisted to revive in France the Republican party ; a formi- 
 dable phantom which was soon to stand face to face in the political arena 
 with those who, without intending . to do so, had invoked it. Some 
 Utopians, in the first rank of whom were Saint Simon and Charles 
 Fourrier, dreamt at this period of the reconstruction of the social edifice 
 on principles as remote from the genuine principles of Christianity as 
 from the laws sanctioned by the study of human nature and the experience 
 of ages. Their doctrines slowly penetrated the masses, and found favour 
 with minds which in other times would only have treated them with 
 indifference or disdain. It would be unjust to hold the Government of 
 the Restoration responsible for the manifestation of these ideas ; but it 
 may fairly be said that the extreme irritation caused amongst almost all 
 classes by a long series of imprudent and unpopular acts, disposed an 
 over-excited and passionate public to accept blindly too many writings 
 whose only title to favour consisted in an ardent and irritated opposition 
 to the ministerial policy. 
 
 In the meantime M. de Villele, in spite of his increasing unpopularity, 
 persisted in clinging to power, and his ambition became day by day more 
 violent and jealous. Determined to be the sole master of the position, 
 he had successively removed from power the most eminent men, MM. 
 Decazes, Laine, Richelieu, and Chateaubriand, all of whom had powerful 
 
490 LAW AGAINST THE PRESS. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 friends in the Chamber of Deputies. He at the same time stood aloof from 
 
 the extreme members of the old Right, and by this exclusive and personal 
 
 policy the number of his opponents increased. Finally, he had lost the 
 
 majority in the Chamber of Peers, and already found himself very weak 
 
 in that of the Deputies. He resolved to strike in the person of the press 
 
 the most formidable opponent of his power, and at the commencement of 
 
 the following session, Peyronnet, the Keeper of the Seals, presented to the 
 
 Deputies a law, the object of which was to restrain the liberty of the 
 
 press within the narrowest limits in respect to pamphlets and books, and 
 
 Proposed law *° s ^ e ^ altogether in respect to journals and periodicals. 
 
 Srtyofthe "^e P ro posed law excited an almost universal feeling of 
 
 pres indignation, and, at the suggestion of Charles Lacretelle, 
 
 who was zealously supported by Chateaubriand, Lemercier, Jouy,Michaud, 
 
 Joseph Droz, Alexander Duval, and Villemain, it ap- 
 
 Protestofthe . . . 
 
 Freuch pointed a committee of its members to draw up a petition 
 
 Academy. 
 
 to the King for the withdrawal of the project. This peti- 
 tion Charles X. refused to receive, and replied to it by the infliction of 
 punishments ; depriving MM. Villemain, Lacretelle, and Michaud of their 
 offices. The law, which was adopted by the Chamber of Deputies, was 
 vehemently opposed in that of the Peers. The Cabinet foresaw that, even 
 if this Chamber accepted it, it would at least reject its most rigorous 
 clauses, and saved it from so dangerous an operation by withdraw- 
 ing it. 
 
 This news was received with acclamations by the populace of Paris, 
 
 already a prey to a formidable excitement, the symptoms of 
 bectm^general. which were displayed in the midst of feux de joie and 
 symptoms e popular cries. Fresh and irrefragable signs of the general 
 
 Mmistersfi827. feeling were manifested every day ; and it was impossible 
 
 to doubt the sincerity or the power of a public opinion 
 which was supported by all the greatest and most esteemed bodies in the 
 State, the peerage, the high magistracy, the Institute, the ministry, and 
 even the wisest and most eminent men of the Royalist party. There was 
 a species of insanity in the refusal to recognise all the dangers of the 
 course on which the Government had entered, when there were seen in 
 the ranks of the Opposition all the great incorporated bodies, which are 
 the Conservative elements of states, that fact being in itself an infallible 
 sign that a revolution was imminent. And yet the Cabinet persevered, 
 
1824-1830.] THE NATIONAL GUARD DISBANDED. 491 
 
 determined to brave everything, as though struck by blindness and 
 fascinated by the deceptive prestige of a factitious parliamentary majority, 
 the result of the double vote, and torn from France by an unlimited 
 administrative centralization. 
 
 Charles X., whilst thus opposing every liberal feeling, was never- 
 theless anxious that the French should be personally attached to him. 
 He had long been hurt at the silence of the people when he passed 
 amongst them, and after having witnessed the enthusiasm of the Pari- 
 sians on the occasion of the withdrawal of the law respecting the press, 
 he ordered a general review of the National Guard for the 
 
 Review and dis- 
 
 following Sunday. On that day the whole of Paris pro- bandmeut of the 
 
 ° J J r National Guard. 
 
 ceeded to the Champ de Mars, where sixty thousand men 
 were under arms. The King passed through the ranks and appeared 
 satisfied with the manner in which he was received, but in almost every 
 instance the cry of " Vive le roi !" was mingled with a shout of hostility 
 against the ministers. Some voices even insulted the princesses present 
 at the review, and whilst defiling before the Minister of Finance, a 
 battalion uttered threatening imprecations. The King had already uttered 
 some gracious words when, at the instigation of the princesses and MM. 
 de Villele and Corbiere, he felt bound to avenge the offended members 
 of his family and his Council ; but he did not distinguish the innocent 
 from the guilty, and confounded them in the same punishment. Paris 
 learnt on the following day that its National Guard was dissolved. The 
 Liberal press and the Opposition journals vehemently reproached the 
 President of the Council with being the author of this inconsiderate act 
 of vengeance, and immediately after the session the censorship was arbi- 
 trarily re-established. A strong opposition against the decree which so 
 abruptly dissolved the National Guard arose in the Chamber of Peers, 
 and appeared also in the Chamber of Deputies, where the minority hostile 
 to the Ministers increased every day in strength. Already many mem- 
 bers belonging to every party had declared that although a recent law 
 had sanctioned the septenniality of the legislature, the trust they had re- 
 ceived at the hands of the electors was only for five years-, and that, 
 consequently, they could not retain their seats for any longer time in 
 the chamber. M. de Villele now, therefore, resolved to secure the 
 duration of his power and the execution of his plans by the election of 
 a new septennial parliament which should be more docile than the 
 
492 CHAMBER OP DEPUTIES DISSOLYED. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 existing one. He consulted the prefects with respect to the state of 
 public feeling in their departments, and received from them complaisant 
 answers which were in many cases inexact, but which in most cases 
 assured him that the results of the elections would be favourable to his 
 plans. Relying on these assurances, he no longer hesitated, and in 
 v. . November, 1827, appeared the decree by which the Cham- 
 
 Dissolution of 7 ' rr J 
 
 the Chamber of ber of Deputies was dissolved. The Electoral Colleges were 
 
 Deputies. Crea- x ° 
 
 is°27° f PeerS> convoked, and seventy-six peers created, most of the latter 
 being members of the majority of the old Chamber and 
 large landed proprietors whose great fortunes recommended them to the 
 Royal favour. 
 
 The Cabinet had overstepped the mark, and the hour had arrived in 
 which it would have to come to a serious account with public opinion. 
 There had already been formed, since some time; with a view to the 
 approaching general elections, a society which became celebrated under 
 the name of the society Help Yourself and Heaven will Help You, of 
 which many eminent members of the Liberal party, and amongst others 
 M. Guizot, were the most active founders. Its object was to prevent 
 electoral frauds, to watch the electoral lists, and to stimulate the zeal of 
 those electors who belonged to the Liberal party. Its efforts were power- 
 fully supported by the periodical press, which, according to law, became 
 released from all its shackles as soon as the elective Chamber was dis- 
 solved. Three influential journals — the Debats, the Constitutionnel, and 
 the Courier Franqais* — waged a desperate war against the Cabinet, 
 whilst a multitude of other publications at Paris and in the departments 
 Outburst of were the passionate organs of the general feeling. Public 
 L^beraf eiec- n * opinion, so long misconstrued, crushed, and braved, now 
 tions, 1827. exploded simultaneously in every part of the kingdom. Its 
 
 force was irresistible, and it triumphed, this time, over the administrative 
 centralization. All the members of the Left who had been rejected in 
 the preceding election reappeared, and were sent back to the Chamber by 
 the arrondissement colleges. Many of them returned to it deeply irritated, 
 disposed to make the most violent resistance to the policy of the Cabinet, 
 
 * The Debats was conducted at this period by its proprietors, the brothers Bertin, 
 with the assistance of Bequet, Hoffman, Salvandy, and Chateaubriand. The principal 
 writers on the Constitutionnel were Jouy, Arnaud, &c. A distinguished publicist 
 named Chatelain edited the Courier Francais. 
 
1824-1830.] FALL OF THE VILLeLE MINISTRY. 493 
 
 and with this object to adopt measures little compatible with the necessi- 
 ties of the moment and the dictates of wisdom. The choice of the de- 
 partmental colleges was in general favourable to the Royalist party, which 
 had recently become dominant in the bosom of the Chamber ; but, never- 
 theless, an imposing constitutional majority had issued from the electoral 
 urn. It was in vain that M. de "Villele still endeavoured to retain office 
 by sacrificing those of his colleagues who were the most compromised ; 
 and in vain that he exhausted every species of combination for the 
 formation of a Council in harmony with the new Chamber, and in 
 which, at the same time, he might himself have a place. He 
 
 x Fall of the Villele 
 
 was compelled at length to confess his powerlessness, and Ministry, 
 
 1 .... . December, 1827. 
 
 fell before that public opinion which he had too haughtily 
 disdained. 
 
 The Council of which he was a member had, during the administration 
 of five years' duration, injured numerous interests dear to the middle classes ; 
 and, whilst it day by day aroused fresh and formidable hatreds against the 
 Government, it also day by day deprived the people of some of their 
 natural strength and means of resisting authority. By transforming the 
 Government officials into blind instruments of electoral manoeuvres, it 
 lowered them in public estimation. It offended the army by the favour 
 it displayed towards those who speculated on religious conversions in the 
 regiments ; and alienated the Eoyal Courts by condemning their judgments, 
 whilst it disgusted the University by closing the normal schools, and 
 suspending the course of lectures delivered by the two illustrious pro- 
 fessors, MM. Guizot and Cousin, whose learned teachings at that time 
 shared with the eloquent lessons of M. Villemain the attention of studious 
 youth. Finally the Government, by dissolving the National Guard of 
 Paris at a time when the institution was still very popular, aroused an 
 enemy to itself in every family in the capital. 
 
 A few more satisfactory measures, however, were effected by the 
 Ministry in its financial operations and its foreign policy. M. de Villele 
 favoured the increasing credit which France now began to enjoy, the 
 efforts of its manufacturing industry, and its trade with other nations. It 
 was not able, as it desired, to follow the example of England, by causing 
 the recognition bv France of the independence of the Spanish _' 
 
 c J l x Independence of 
 
 colonies, but it at least emancipated the old colony of Saint j^*^™*!) 80 
 Domingo, on condition of the payment of a considerable in- • France « 
 
494 THE BATTLE OE NAVAEJNO. [Book IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 demnity to the dispossessed colonists; and by the treaty of the 6th July 
 the French Government ioined with those of England and 
 
 Treaty of Eng- J ° 
 
 land, France, and R US sia for the purpose of putting a stop to hostilities 
 SrMce P jS n 6° f Detween Turk ey and Greece. The son of Mehemet-Ali, 
 1827# Ibrahim Pacha, having been summoned to his aid by 
 
 the Sultan, arrived in the Morea with a formidable fleet, in which was 
 embarked a great portion of the military strength of Egypt, and had 
 it not been for the intervention of the powers, the Greeks, who were 
 utterly exhausted, must have been lost. Ibrahim refused to observe the 
 
 armistice prescribed by the powers, and this refusal led to 
 Favarino, the celebrated battle in which the French squadron, under 
 
 Admiral de Rigny, together with the English and Russian 
 squadrons, attacked and destroyed the Egyptian fleet in the port of 
 Navarino. This victory saved the Greeks and raised them to the rank 
 of a nation. France learned the news with joy, and hailed it as a bril- 
 liant dawn for resuscitated Greece. Its enthusiasm was shared by 
 the English people, who were pleased to attribute the honour of this 
 triumph to the great Minister whose loss it deplored. Canning was no 
 more. 
 
 Signs of storm now began to appear at the two extremities of Europe. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander had died in 1825, and the Emperor Nicholas, 
 
 raised to the throne by the renunciation of his elder brother Constantine, 
 
 had not ascended it till after terrible conflicts, which gave every expecta- 
 
 , . . _, tion of an agitated reign. About the same time, in Portugal, 
 
 Troubles in Por- o o o 
 
 tugai. Abdication a f ter t ^ e fe^ Q f £ing j^ yj Tj on Pedro, the eldest of 
 
 of Don Pedro in ° " ' 
 
 daughter Donna ^is sons > renouncing the crown of that kingdom in favour of 
 tSof Don Urpa " nis daughter Donna Maria, had bestowed a Constitution on 
 igue , 1826. ^at kingdom under the auspices of England. The friends 
 of Don Miguel, the partisans of absolute power, prepared to run 
 to arms, and civil war had already burst forth amongst the Portu- 
 guese, whilst in the neighbouring kingdom of Spain the people 
 hovered between anarchy and despotism. The other parts of Europe 
 were peaceful. France then entered, but too late, upon a more con- 
 stitutional course ; the Government which it had now obtained appeared 
 to understand the situation, and took pains to satisfy the wishes of the 
 country. 
 
1824-1830.] GKBEECE MADE EEEE. 495 
 
 The new council was formed on the 4th January, 1828, and consisted 
 of MM. de Martiffnac, Portalis, De la Ferronnays, De Caux, 
 
 ° ' ' «f ' ■' * Accession ot the 
 
 De Saint- Cricq, and Hyde de Neuville, to whom the King ^Jf™^ 1 " 8 ' 
 added M. de Yatimesnil and Feutrier, Bishop of Beauvais. 1828- 
 There was no president of the council, but M. de Martignac, a talented 
 and judicious man, who was very ready of speech and full 
 
 Legislative 
 
 of tact, gave his name to the new Cabinet. The Chamber session, 1828,1829 
 of Deputies, presided over by M. Koyer-Collard, who had been elected 
 by seven colleges, blamed in the first place, in its address to the King, 
 the acts of the late Government, and was on the point of bringing 
 against it a formal accusation. The position of the new Cabinet was 
 doubly difficult ; most of its members had hitherto given too few pledges 
 of devotion to the liberal cause to be able completely to reassure public 
 opinion, and did not offer sufficient to the extreme Eoyalist party to 
 satisfy the Court. From thence arose distrust on the part of the Court, 
 and impatient demands on the part of a twofold opposition. The 
 Government, however, being loyal, skilful, and prudent, and supported 
 by the right Centre, made great and honourable efforts to surmount the 
 difficulties of the position, and the Chambers, at its suggestion, adopted 
 some important laws conceived in a liberal spirit. One of 
 
 -, . Legislative 
 
 these abolished the censorship, and others sanctioned the enactments, 
 system of speciality in the great divisions of the budget, and the per- 
 manence of the electoral lists, and controlled the action of Government 
 officials in respect to elections. Finally, the right of interpreting the 
 laws was recognised as belonging to the three branches of the Legislature. 
 In respect to foreign affairs, the Government responded to the wishes 
 of France for the safety of Greece by sending fifteen 
 
 J jo Expedition to the 
 
 thousand men to the Morea, under General Maison. Morea. Enfran- 
 chisement of 
 
 Ibrahim fell back before them, Greece was freed, and Greece « 
 Capo d'Istria established a regular Government there. In respect to 
 domestic affairs, the obstacles in the way of the Government became 
 more numerous day by day, but they nevertheless courageously worked 
 at their painful task. Their most difficult achievement was the issuing 
 of two decrees, which prohibited the Jesuits to take part in the instruc- 
 tion of youth. By one of these decrees the secondary ecclesiastical 
 schools were placed under the common law, and by another it was 
 
496 THE MINISTET AND MONAECH. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 ordained that no one should either teach in, or direct them who belonged 
 _. ,. to any society not authorized by law. These decrees were 
 
 Decrees touching j j j 
 
 the Jesuits. fo e most painful concession which Charles X. made to the 
 
 demands of the age, and no sacrifice could have cost him more. The 
 Congregation felt itself wounded by them to the heart, and the King was 
 surrounded by cries of anger and indignation. The remembrance of the 
 forced concessions which the monarch had made to his ministers speedily 
 changed to aversion the distrust with which they had inspired him, and 
 from thenceforth he watched with secret satisfaction the imprudent con- 
 duct of the Left, which, alarmed at the presence in the Chamber of a 
 numerous minority imbued with principles irreconcilable with the wishes 
 of the middle classes, and conscious of the indissoluble links which con- 
 nected this minority with the reigning dynasty, was more eager in its 
 demands for strong guarantees against the return' of its adversaries to 
 power, than for the passing of laws for the good of France. It was this 
 feeling which principally tended, in 1828 and 1829, to give an unfortu- 
 nate character of impatience and irritation to that party in the Elective 
 Chamber. The Ministry eagerly desired to increase its strength by 
 „ . ,. associating with itself some of the eminent men of the left 
 
 Grievous dissen- ° 
 
 sionsbetweenthe Centre: but all its attempts in this direction were frustrated 
 
 King and the ' r 
 
 Ministry. ^y the King's invincible dislike for every portion of the 
 
 Liberal party.* Charles X. regarded the prerogatives of his crown as 
 superior to the charter ; he was indignant at the very idea that his right 
 to select his ministers was shackled and limited by circumstances ; and 
 to yield on this point was, in his opinion, equivalent to abdicating. He 
 had already done violence to his feelings by taking from the extreme 
 Eight a minister whose opinions were not the pure expression of his own 
 sentiments, and he was resolved not to take another step towards the 
 Left. In his eyes, in fact, a cabinet belonging to the right Centre, and 
 composed of men who were equally devoted to the King and attached to 
 the charter, was the veritable representative of the Constitutional party ; 
 he was astonished, therefore, at the opposition which his Government still 
 
 * The Ministers submitted to the King a note in which they described their posi- 
 tion and the necessity there was of securing the support of the majority by conciliating 
 the moderate Liberals and the Koyalists, and presenting laws which would obtain their 
 votes. This note concluded with some sad and prophetic words respecting the dangers 
 which threatened the crown of Saint Louis, were any different policy adopted. 
 Charles X. left it unanswered. — Barante's "Life of Koyer-Collard." 
 
1824-1830.] THE POLIGtfAC MINISTRY. 497 
 
 encountered, and he was fond of repeating that no concession which the 
 crown could make would satisfy the liberals. He hoped that the moment 
 would come when the ministers who, he considered, had been forced 
 upon him by public opinion, would be condemned by it, and he trusted 
 to be able to find in their dismissal by the popular voice a reason or a 
 pretext for returning to the men of his choice. 
 
 Charles X. made at this period a journey in the Eastern departments 
 where the favourable reception bestowed upon him by the populace, 
 at all times eager to see a king, deceived him with respect to the state of 
 public feeling, and a check suffered about the same period by the Ministry 
 made him resolve to carry into execution his fatal designs. Two impor- 
 tant laws, one of which related to the organization of the municipal 
 councils, whilst the other regulated those of the departments and the 
 arrondissements, were submitted to the Chamber of Deputies. The 
 extreme Right refused to support them, forgetful of the doc- „ lVt . 
 
 ° rr ° Coalition to over- 
 
 trines entertained by it in 1815 with respect to local fran- tumtheMmistry. 
 chises ; and a portion of the moderate Liberals, on the other hand, made 
 common cause on this occasion with the revolutionary Liberals, who were 
 not less dangerous than the Ultra-Royalists to the constitutional monarchy. 
 In acting thus they committed a great fault, and did not sufficiently take 
 into account the difficult position of, and the praiseworthy efforts made 
 by, a Ministry in every respect worthy of esteem, and even more liberal 
 than it had ventured to appear. The latter, bound to conform to the 
 formal orders of the King, had announced that no modification of the 
 proposed laws would be permitted; and a small majority having declared 
 in favour of an amendment, they were immediately with- _ . ._.. „ 
 
 7 J J EefeatoftheMar- 
 
 drawn. The Court rejoiced in the defeat thus suffered by tigaac Ministry. 
 the Cabinet, Charles X. resolved to dismiss his Council, and on the 8th 
 August, 1829, after the vote for the budget of 1830, and the close of the 
 session, appeared the decree which created a new cabinet. 
 
 Three noteworthy men, the Prince de Polignac, and MM. de la Bour- 
 donnaye and De Bourmont, were made members of the new 
 
 Formation of 
 
 cabinet, as a species of defiance to public opinion. The first, the-Poi.gnac 
 
 x . ministry, 1S29. 
 
 who was endowed with some most estimable qualities, was 
 the living expression of the Congregationist party ; the second repre- 
 sented all that was most violent in the unpopular chamber of 1815 ; and 
 the third, an old leader of the Chouans, was only known to the people 
 
 TOL. II. - K K 
 
498 THE ADDBESS TO THE KING. [fioOZ IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 and the army as a deserter from the French camp at Waterloo. MM. de 
 Blacas and de Damas had had the chief share in the formation of the 
 new cabinet ; and the latter, known for his anti-constitutional opinions, 
 was made governor to the Duke de Bordeaux. The counter-revolution 
 . was thus openly announced ; but the classes most attached to the consti- 
 tution had acquired strength, for they had obtained from the Martignac 
 ministry, by means of the law relating to the press and the electoral law, 
 two powerful arms, and, being now capable of resisting, they resisted. 
 On the 8th of August the monarchy was launched on a rapid slope, and 
 hurled into the abyss. 
 
 As soon as the names of the new ministers were announced the press 
 passed by turns from expressions of rage to those of insulting pity, from 
 disdain to threats. The society of " Help yourself and Heaven will help 
 you" prepared, in case of a dissolution, to make a vigorous resistance to the 
 Court by means of the elections ; and in every part of the kingdom a vast 
 association was formed for the prevention of the dreaded imposition of 
 illegal taxes. The Court only saw in these great and formidable move- 
 ments a conspiracy, of which the object was the overthrow of the throne; 
 when the truth was, that if there were any conspiracy, it was a con- 
 spiracy on the part of a great part of France to save the charter which it 
 believed to be in danger. The object, as it was, of so much distrust and 
 such violent attacks, the Council continued to protest its respect for the 
 institutions of France, and M. de la Bourdonnaye was even sacrificed by 
 his colleagues to public opinion. M. de Montbel succeeded him, and the 
 ministers, presided over by M. de Polignac, appeared at length before the 
 Chambers. 
 
 On the 2nd of March, Charles X., displaying for the last time all the 
 pomp of royalty, declared, in the presence of the assembled deputies and 
 peers, his firm intention to maintain equally intact the institutions of the 
 country and the prerogatives of the crown. The composition of the 
 Address of the address from the deputies in answer to the speech from the 
 221, 1830. throne gave rise to a very animated debate, in which two 
 
 already famous men, MM. Guizot and Berryer, made their entrance, on 
 opposite sides, into parliamentary life. The address which was proposed 
 pointed out to the King that the composition of his new cabinet was 
 dangerous and threatening to the public liberties; explained that the 
 necessary harmony between the political views of the Government and 
 
1824-1830.] THE CHAMBEBS DISSOLVED. 499 
 
 the views of the nation did not exist, and entreated him to re-establish it. 
 An amendment tending to soften this phrase, which was considered as 
 irritating, was proposed, and M. Guizot rose to combat it. " By the 
 frankness of our words, gentlemen," he said, " by the frankness of our 
 words, we can alone inform the Government of the truth, gain its atten- 
 tion, and dissipate its illusions. Let us beware, then, of diminishing 
 their force; the truth has already sufficient difficulty in gaining ad- 
 mittance into the council chamber ©f kings; let us not send it thither 
 pale and enfeebled." The amendment was rejected, and two hundred and 
 twenty-one members, against a hundred and eighty-one, voted for the 
 memorable address. Charles X., after having heard it, displayed much 
 irritation, and declared that his resolutions were known and would re- 
 main immutable. The Chamber was prorogued and then dissolved. The 
 King issued a decree which again convoked the electoral 
 
 Dissolution of 
 
 colleges ; the two hundred and twenty-one signers of the the chambers. 
 
 General election. 
 
 address were almost all re-elected, and the Opposition was 
 reinforced by many new members. 
 
 In the meantime the Cabinet had endeavoured to obtain some popularity 
 by means of a great military success, and an affront offered to the French 
 consul gave the ministry a fortunate opportunity of purging the sea of 
 the Barbary pirates. An expedition against Algiers was determined 
 on, the command of the army being given to M. de Bourmont, and that 
 of the naval forces to Admiral Duperre. The city was taken, and the 
 Cabinet and Court received with delight the news of this capture of 
 brilliant conquest ; but Paris shared but very slightly in giers ' 183 °" 
 their joy, for it understood that this victory would render them still 
 more rash, and feared that it would take more from the liberties of the 
 nation than it would add to its glory. 
 
 The political struggle at length approached its termination ; the general 
 result of the elections was known, and the Ministry found itself in front 
 of a majority still more compact, impatient, and hostile. Most of the 
 members of the majority, however, did not wish for the overthrow of 
 the throne, and were sincerely attached to the constitution ; but at this 
 period, as in 1791, the Court, to its misfortune, could not distinguish 
 between the Constitutionalists and the Revolutionists, and was obstinately 
 resolved to look upon the charter, which was the buckler of the dynasty, 
 as the scourge of France. To be devoted to the Constitution was, in the 
 
 kk2 
 
500 MANIFESTATIONS OF DISORDER. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 eyes of the Court, to be the enemy of the Court ; and thus, by refusing 
 its support to the men who wished for the charter with the Bourbons, it in- 
 clined them to join those who wished for the charter without the Bourbons. 
 The dynasty now hung on the edge of the abyss, and had reached that 
 fatal point at which the fall of a government is foreshadowed 
 
 Alarming omens. 
 
 by the most infallible symptoms. Almost all the men eminent 
 for knowledge and talent had passed over to the ranks of the Opposition, and 
 those even who had originally been the most energetic in the support of this 
 dynasty, and who had the greatest personal interest in keeping it on the 
 constitutional path they had traced out for it, had for the most part 
 become the chiefs of the Opposition. Finally, inspiring the citizens, as 
 it did, with an invincible feeling of distrust by means of the very success 
 which in other times would have confirmed its authority, it saw the 
 country reject the glory which it offered it, and found that many imputed 
 to it as crimes, not only the faults which it had really committed, but 
 even the calamities which it endeavoured to prevent. Many departments, 
 in fact, were at this period desolated by numerous fires, and public rumours 
 went so far as even to accuse the Government of being the author of them. 
 
 The period for the assembling of the Chambers drew near, and that 
 _.. ,, .', species of madness which is the sure forerunner of the ruin 
 
 Blindness of the r 
 
 CoLirt * of empires filled the palace of the King of France. Strange 
 
 reports circulated at Saint- Cloud, the residence of the Court, where the 
 manifestations of public feeling were attributed only to the pernicious 
 influence of a Committee which really existed, but to which the Royalists 
 attributed an exaggerated power. It was that alone, they said, which 
 alienated France from its King. Had the public funds fallen in value 
 since the appointment of the new Ministry ? It was the work of the 
 Committee. Did the inhabitants of the South give a brilliant reception 
 to General Lafayette on his return from the United States ? It was the 
 Committee which had ordered their acclamations. Did the people, on 
 the contrary, remain cold and almost indifferent at the news of the con- 
 quest of Algiers? u It was," said the Eoyalists, "because the Committee 
 had commanded them to be silent." The discovery of the members of this 
 Committee, and the punishment of some of them, was all that was 
 wanting, according to the Eoyalists, for the restoration of order and the 
 suppression of the Eevolutionists. The name of Napoleon was in every 
 mouth, and those who had formerly overwhelmed it with insults now 
 
1824-1830.] CONVOCATION OF THE CHAMBEES. 501 
 
 could not sufficiently laud it. " There must be another 18th Brumaire," 
 said the courtiers; "force and boldness must be employed, and the sup- 
 port of the populace might be relied on." A few charcoal burners and 
 market porters had gone in procession to Saint-Cloud, and had made use 
 of an expression which was repeated by the Court with much com- 
 placency. Maitre charbonnier est maitre ckez luu After that, was it 
 possible to doubt that the people were Royalist at heart, and would sup- 
 port the cause of the crown ? 
 
 Such were the expressions of most of those whom the King admitted 
 to his intimacy. The only person who might have been able successfully 
 to oppose a rash resolution which it is not probable she would have 
 approved, Madame the Dauphiness, was absent, and everything contri- 
 buted to deceive the unfortunate Prince, who was only too inclined 
 to deceive himself. His spirit obeyed a higher and 
 
 •n • • -i i • <nrt i ' -wr • Personal dispo. 
 
 still more irresistible influence. Charles X., and in this sit ion of the 
 
 . . . . Khig. 
 
 his minister resembled him, believed that he had a great 
 mission to fulfil, and that a great duty had devolved upon him to stifle 
 Liberalism, to establish his government on exclusively religious and 
 monarchical bases. He had persuaded himself that the fourteenth article 
 of the charter, which authorized the King to issue decrees for the safety 
 of the State, also authorized him to leave the path of legality if the State, 
 being in peril, could not be saved by legal measures. In his eyes the 
 safety of the monarchy depended on the continuance in office of the 
 ministers he had appointed, and the triumph of the throne over a 
 Chamber which he accused of wishing to overthrow it. At the same 
 time he was not conscious that he was tearing the charter or perjuring 
 himself when he made the article above named an excuse for violating it. 
 The blood-stained form of his brother was incessantly before him. 
 " Louis XVI.," he said, " was taken to the scaffold because he always 
 yielded ;" and Charles X., forgetting that the great art of governing con- 
 sists in knowing when to yield and when to resist, thought that he should 
 save his crown and his head by never yielding. 
 
 During the last days of July the King remained inflexible-; but his 
 Ministry still deliberated, and either because it hesitated or because it 
 wished to change public opinion, sealed letters were sent Convocation f 
 to the members of the two Chambers convoking them for §jSSSrf 
 the 3rd of August. Five members of the Council spoke of Au s u8t » 
 
502 REVOLUTION of 1830. [Book IV. Chap. IV*. 
 
 the danger of having recourse to violent and illegal measures ; but as the 
 King, by interpreting every refusal as a sign of weakness and an aban- 
 donment of himself at the moment of danger, had thus transformed the 
 question of State into one of honour, a blind feeling of devotion was alone 
 attended to. On the 28th of July the Moniteur published an explanation 
 Dec ees an drawn up by M. de Chantelauze, and followed by the famous 
 
 Charter* July 26 decrees signed on the previous evening, which suppressed 
 the liberty of the press, annulled the late elections, and 
 arbitrarily created a new electoral system. All the members present in 
 Paris were willing to share the responsibility of these decrees, and they 
 were countersigned by the Prince de Polignac, Chantelauze, the Count de 
 Peyronnet, de Montbel, de Guernon-Eanville, Baron Capelle, and Baron 
 d'Haussez. The member of the Council most capable of making the 
 military arrangements necessary to the carrying 'out of these decrees, 
 Bourmont, the Minister of War, was still in Africa; the Prince de Polignac 
 took his place, and was so certain of success that he took no extraordinary 
 means to secure it. 
 
 A prolonged and sullen murmur spread through Paris at the publica- 
 tion of these decrees, and on the following day there appeared in the 
 Protest of th opposition journals an energetic protest, signed by forty- 
 Joumahsts. three of their principal contributors or editors, amongst 
 
 whom were MM. Charles de Remusat, Thiers, Mignet, Armand Carrel, 
 Bande, and Chatelain. They declared that they could not submit to 
 illegal decrees, and urged the deputies to resist them ; to regard them- 
 selves as legally elected, and to protest with themselves. Orders were 
 given for the destruction of their presses, and a struggle took place in 
 the printing offices, which was speedily transferred to the streets, in 
 which the multitude on the same evening broke down the 
 insignia of monarchy, with the cry of " The Charter for 
 ever !" and improvised numerous barricades. Paris was declared in a 
 . - f state of siege, and Marshal Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, was 
 three da^of placed in command of the King's household troops, of the 
 July * guards, and of the troops of the line, the total number of 
 
 which in Paris did not exceed twelve thousand. He led them against the 
 insurgent populace, occupied all the strategical points, and summoned 
 additional regiments from the neighbouring garrisons. But already the 
 Hotel de Ville, abandoned by the two prefects, had fallen into the hands 
 
1824-1830.] BEVOLTJTION OF 1830. 503 
 
 of the insurrectionists ; new men, without any regular authority, com- 
 manded there in the name of the people j the tricolour was raised there, 
 and the word " Republic " was echoed again and again by the excited 
 crowd. A portion of the Opposition deputies who were in Paris, having 
 assembled at the house of one of them on the morning of the 28th, recog- 
 nised the necessity of determining on some common plan, and of seizing 
 the reins of authority for the purpose of saving France from despotism 
 and anarchy. Of this number were MM. Casimir Perier, Lafitte, 
 Lafayette, the elder Dupin, Charles Dupin, Guizot, Villemain, Sebastiani, 
 Benjamin Constant, Salverte, Audrey de Puiraveau, Maugin, &c. They 
 voted, with some modifications, a declaration drawn up by - , ,. 
 
 ' ' e J Declaration of 
 
 M. Guizot, in which they forcibly protested against the ^ e ^f e P 081tlon 
 decrees of the 26th, and declared themselves legally elected, Jul y 28 - 
 and incapable of being replaced save by virtue of elections conducted 
 according to the forms ordained by the law. Sixty-three signatures were 
 appended to this protest, being those of the deputies actually present, and 
 of those of their absent colleagues whom the first supposed willing to join 
 with them. 
 
 On the 28th almost the whole of Paris fell into the hands of the in- 
 surgents. Numerous uniforms of the recently dissolved national guard 
 had appeared, adorned with the tricoloured cockade, in the midst of the 
 populace, and the pupils of the Polytechnic and the other great schools, 
 forcing the gates of their establishments, had everywhere become leaders 
 of the insurrection. No military precaution had been taken by the 
 Government before the conflict ; the soldiers were left without food, and 
 murmured; and some companies of the line laid down their arms and 
 fraternized with the people. The royal guard and the rest of the troops, 
 assailed in every direction, and overwhelmed with projectiles hurled 
 from the house-tops, and with musket balls fired from behind walls by 
 invisible enemies, fought valiantly, and fell back upon the quarter of the 
 Louvre and the Tuileries, to which, on the evening of the 28th, the 
 defence on the part of the authorities was already limited. 
 
 On the morning of the 29th the deputies who had drawn up the pro- 
 test signed on the previous evening, in compliance with the wishes of the 
 chief citizens, made Lafayette commander-in-chief of the national guard, 
 and nominated a municipal committee charged with the Munici ai 
 duty of providing for the safety of life and property, and of communion. 
 
504 BEVOLT7TION or 1830. [book IV. ChAp. IV. 
 
 providing for the government of the city. This committee, with 
 Lafayette and his staff, immediately took possession of the Hotel de Ville, 
 where it installed itself in the midst of a crowd excited by victory, but 
 which knew how to respect itself by prohibiting on pain of death devasta- 
 tion and pillage. 
 
 Beside the spectacle of a capital rebelling in the name of the charter 
 and of the violated laws, that which was presented at Saint- 
 
 Tbe Court and . ■ . . M . 
 
 the King during Cloud in the interior oi the royal residence was not less in- 
 
 the thred days, 
 
 teresting. Some courtiers of high rank, whose intelligence was 
 quickened by the imminence of the danger and the experience of misfor- 
 tune, had been terrified when they saw the decrees of July, and confined 
 their secret apprehensions beneath an uneasy silence, whilst the men 
 who at every moment had access to the ear of the prince, and those of an 
 inferior rank who peopled his court, had for the most part abandoned 
 themselves to a mad delight. Charles X., in their opinion, began at length 
 to act as a monarch, and at this time only was a king. This rash crowd 
 passed swiftly to a state of despair as blind as had been its exultation. 
 But he who almost alone of all in the palace attracted any real interest was 
 the King, the author and first victim of the prodigious catastrophe which 
 was now enacting. He hid from every eye, under a calm, unmoved 
 countenance, the secret of his distracting emotions. Filled with the ideas 
 with which the heart is affected when it is about to perform a solemn and 
 painful duty, inspired with a confidence in the celestial protection, and 
 deaf apparently to the mournful sound of the tocsin which sounded afar 
 the last hour of the monarchy, Charles X. sought at the foot of the altar 
 for the confidence which he could no longer derive from those around 
 him. He would doubtless have reproached himself w r ith destroying the 
 slight remains of confidence which still lingered in the breasts of 
 his followers had he himself shown any signs of despair. There 
 was a strange rashness in his conduct during the latter part of his 
 reign, but there was also majesty in the serene glances of the old 
 monarch as he stood, still firm and resigned, on the crumbling ruins of 
 his throne. 
 
 On the morning of the 29th the struggle still continued in the capital 
 with all that increasing audacity with which the multitude had been 
 inspired by the success of the previous evening. The country around 
 
1824-1830.] THE KING EETIRES. 505 
 
 Paris had risen, and cut off communication with the city. The royal 
 army was devoid of the necessary supplies, and as it received neither 
 provisions nor reinforcements, was much discouraged ; and, reduced in 
 numbers by wounds, death, and desertion, it was unable to maintain its 
 position in Paris. The Louvre, which was ill defended, was ,. 
 taken by the people, and Marmont ordered a retreat upon ^on oiTpwS 011 *" 
 Saint- Cloud. The King, however, remained inflexible in Jul y 29 - 
 the midst of those who entreated him to revoke his fatal decrees. Men of 
 great weight — M. de Semonville, grand referendary of the Chamber of 
 Peers, and M. d'Argout — hastened to him in the hope of overcoming his 
 resistance. Their efforts were seconded by those of M. de Vitrolles, an 
 old servant and friend of Charles X., who in 1814 had taken a very active 
 part in the negotiations for the recall of that prince and his family. They 
 united in entreating the monarch to pronounce the only word which, they 
 said, could save the crown, whilst the conflict in the capital still lasted. 
 The King refused to believe in the extent of the peril, but at length, 
 when Marmont had evacuated Paris, and had reappeared at Saint-Cloud 
 with the remains of his battalions, Charles X. yielded, re- Th , » 
 
 voked his decrees, and ordered the Duke de Montemart to Jul y 26 revoked - 
 form a Ministry. But it was too late ; too much blood had been spilt, 
 and the Municipal Committee of Paris rejected the Court's overtures. 
 The danger of the latter grew greater every hour ; whole regiments 
 appeared in the ranks of the insurgents, and Paris was preparing to 
 march upon Saint-Cloud. During the night of the 29th 
 
 Eetreat of tbe 
 
 Julv Charles X. retreated to Versailles. When, at day- KingtoVer- 
 
 J «* sailles. 
 
 break, he traversed, for the last time, the palace which had 
 so long witnessed the royal pomp and splendour ; when, surrounded by 
 his family, he gazed at the infant whose glorious destinies had been 
 hailed by so many thousands of voices ; when he saw him prepared 
 to go with him to the land of exile, tears ran down the cheeks of the 
 old discrowned man, and a painful anguish stifled his words. A few 
 hours later Charles X. was at Trianon, and the Parisian victors at Saint- 
 Cloud. 
 
 There was, however, much reason to fear that the union maintained 
 amongst the citizens of the immense capital during the conflict would be 
 broken at the moment of selecting a new Government. Some wished to 
 
506 DUKE Or OBLEASTS IN PAEI8. [BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. 
 
 establish a republic ; and others, who were the immense majority of the 
 citizens, desired to retain a monarchical and constitutional government. 
 But to effect this it was necessary to find a man already elevated above, 
 all by his private position, and who had given incontestable pledges of 
 _, his devotion to the public liberties. Such a man existed, 
 
 moned^toParis anc ^ France possessed him in the person of the Duke 
 SenSaU^e ^'Orleans. Still young at the period of the Revolution, this 
 Dg om. prince had adopted the national colours, and fought in the 
 
 first great battles in which the French arms distinguished themselves. 
 When proscribed he had known how to preserve, by the aid of his talents, 
 an honourable independence. When re-established in his titles and digni- 
 ties, he gave his sons a popular education. He had been the intimate 
 friend of General Foy, and was still the friend of the men most eminent 
 in literature, science, and of the tribune; and he alone, after the three 
 days' struggle, appeared capable of rallying France by the influence of his 
 name, and restraining the revolutionary flood which was ready to burst 
 all bounds. This opinion was that of the deputies who had spontaneously 
 assembled at the Palais Bourbon, and, at the suggestion of Benjamin 
 Constant, they voted a declaration to the effect that his Royal Highness 
 the Duke of Orleans should be requested to proceed immediately to the 
 capital for the purpose of exercising there the functions of Lieutenant- 
 General of the kingdom.* The declaration at the same time expressed a 
 wish that the colours raised by the insurrectionists should be retained as 
 those of the nation. 
 
 A deputation which was appointed to carry this declaration to the 
 prince found him at the Chateau de Neuilly, his usual summer residence, 
 and succeeded in overcoming his hesitation. He. promised to go to Paris, 
 and had his appearance there preceded by a proclamation addressed to the 
 inhabitants of the capital, in which he repeated the wish expressed by the 
 deputies. " I will do all I can," he said, " to preserve you 
 
 Proclamation of r 7 7 l J 
 
 the Duke from civil war and anarchy. . . . The Chambers are about 
 
 d Orleans. J 
 
 to reassemble, and they will consider the means of making 
 the laws respected and maintaining the rights of the nation. The charter 
 will henceforth be a truth." On the following day the prince entered 
 Paris. Time pressed, for the insurrectional movement in defence of the 
 
 * M. Villemain abstained from voting, as he did not consider, he said, that he was 
 furnished with any authority to change a dynasty. 
 
1824-1830. LAFAYETTE AND ORLEANS. 507 
 
 charter threatened every moment to become a republican movement. 
 The royal insignia were trampled under foot, and everywhere were written 
 on the walls in great letters these too-significant words, " No more Bour- 
 bons ; France chooses to have a Republic !" The Place de Greve and its 
 neighbourhood were filled with numerous groups heated and excited by 
 demagogic orators, whilst the busts of democrats of sinister memory — 
 Robespierre, Marat, and Saint- Just — were carried through the streets. At 
 the same time the Hotel de Ville was occupied by men in blouses or with 
 naked arms, brandishing their guns and sabres, and who had seen with much 
 anger the installation of the Municipal Committee. The latter exercised 
 their functions with difficulty, and ran great risk of being overpowered. 
 Lafayette alone, through the prestige attached to his name, preserved 
 some authority over the tumultuous and threatening mob ; but, surrounded 
 and even overpowered as he was by Republicans, he appeared a prey to 
 a fatal irresolution. The cause of monarchical government seemed only 
 capable of being saved by the immediate presence of the Lieutenant- 
 General ; for it was certain that otherwise a Republic would be proclaimed. 
 The deputies, informed of the real state of affairs, proceeded in a body 
 to the Palais Royal, where they read to the prince a declaration, which 
 he approved, respecting the new guarantees claimed for 
 
 The deputies 
 
 France : and from thence went in procession to the Hotel accompany the 
 
 1 Duke d' Orleans 
 
 de Ville, opening with some difficulty a passage through an *° the H6tel de 
 armed and wrathful multitude. The Duke d'Orleans then 
 visited the Municipal Committee, which resigned its powers into his hands 
 after which Lafayette handed to the duke a tricoloured flag, conducted 
 him to a balcony, and presented to the assembled people the Lieutenant- 
 General of the kingdom. The prince displayed the flag and embraced 
 the old general amidst the acclamations of the moved and appeased crowd. 
 From this moment the Duke d'Orleans was recognised without opposi- 
 tion in Paris and the departments as the head of the new Govern- 
 ment.* 
 
 The 3rd of August had been appointed by the fallen Government as 
 the day for the opening of the Chambers ; this day had already come, 
 
 * If we may quote a very well-known saying, the genuineness of which, however, has 
 been often contested, Lafayette, on presenting the Duke d'Orleans to the people, 
 said— " Behold the best of Republics." 
 
508 new laws. [Book IV. chap. IV. 
 
 and a great number of peers and the majority of the deputies were in 
 Paris. They commenced their sittings, and the first care of the deputies 
 was to render the charter harmonious with the new position of the country 
 by introducing into it certain modifications, some of which had been long 
 desired, whilst the others were now demanded by public opinion or public 
 clamour. 
 
 The Chamber, at the suggestion of one of its members, M. Berard, 
 Modification of y °ted the following resolutions : — The too-famous article 
 the charter. fourteen disappeared from the charter ; the Catholic religion 
 ceased to be recognised as the religion of the State ; the liberty of the 
 press was irrevocably established by the abolition of the censorship ; the 
 Chambers were endowed, equally with the monarch, with the initiative in 
 the presentation of proposed laws ; it was decreed that no more com- 
 missions and extraordinary tribunals should be created, and that France 
 should resume the tricoloured standard ; the age of Deputies was fixed at 
 thirty, and the duration of their office to five years. It was agreed that 
 the constitution of the Chamber of Peers should be settled at a later 
 period, and the effect of this decision was the abolition of the hereditary 
 peerage. Finally, the preamble by which Louis XVIII. declared that he 
 granted the charter to his subjects was suppressed as injurious to the 
 .,,.,. , national dio-nitv. The charter, thus modified, was followed 
 
 Additional enact- o j ' ' 
 
 ments. -j^ particular enactments, by which the Deputies abolished 
 
 all the peerages established by Charles X., and declared that it was neces- 
 sary that France should obtain by separate laws : — 1. That all crimes of 
 the press, and political crimes, should be submitted to the judgment of a 
 jury; 2. The responsibility of ministers and other Government officials; 
 3. The re-election of Deputies promoted to salaried offices; 4. The 
 annual voting of the contingent for the army; 5. The organization of the 
 National Guard, and their right to take part in the appointment of their 
 own officers; 6. The legal confirmation by the State of officers in the 
 army; 7. Departmental and municipal institutions founded on the 
 elective system; 8. The freedom of education; 9. The abolition of 
 the double vote in the election of Deputies. The acceptance of the 
 charter thus drawn up was made the formal condition of the elevation 
 of the prince to the throne. 
 
 In the meantime the fugitive royal family, which had retired from 
 
1824-1830.] CHARLES X. LEAVES FRANCE. 509 
 
 Versailles to Rambouillet, and which was threatened in this last retreat 
 by twenty thousand Parisians, who had run to arms to force them to 
 fly, abandoned this plan, and went slowly and for the last 
 
 •ijuz-x , - n , ,, . iti Retreat and em- 
 
 time into exile.* On the 16th of August it embarked barkation of the 
 
 .. >*iii ■' i royal family at 
 
 at Cherbourg for England. Before quitting France Charles Cherbourg 
 
 Abdication of 
 
 sent to the Chambers his abdication, and that of the Dau- Charles x. and of 
 
 the Dauphin. 
 
 phin, his son, in favour of the Duke de Bordeaux ; but 
 whatever may be the advantage in a regular government of the principle 
 of hereditary right in the transmission of the sceptre, it only has absolute 
 control over those who admit the divine right of kings, and in order that 
 this principle should be practically applied at the close of a successful 
 revolution, it must be admitted and recognised by the victors themselves. 
 On this occasion it was not so, and what other power was at the disposal of 
 the partisans of the hereditary succession ? The Royal Guard no longer 
 existed ; a portion of the troops of the line had fraternized during the con- 
 flict with the National Guard and the people ; many regiments had driven 
 away their officers, and all had spontaneously adopted the tricolour, and 
 given in their adhesion to the Revolution. In this state of complete 
 disorganization, in the midst of a blood-stained capital, in which raged so 
 many furious passions hostile to the eldest branch of the Bourbons, and 
 even to monarchy itself, the accession of the Duke de Bordeaux was a 
 chimera, whilst the proclamation of the royal infant would have provoked 
 an irresistible explosion which would have led to the proclamation of a 
 republic and a civil war. The Deputies thought thus, and, rejecting the 
 clause to which Charles X. and the Dauphin had attached their abdica- 
 tion, called to the throne his Royal Highness Louis Philippe d'Orleans 
 and his male descendants in perpetuity. The Peers immediately assented 
 to the views and acts of the other Chamber, and salvos of artillery an- 
 nounced the royal sitting of the morrow. On that day, the 
 9th of August, 1830, the Duke d'Orleans, accompanied by Accession'of' 
 his eldest sons, the Dukes de Chartres and de Nemours, August 9th, 
 
 . 1830. 
 
 went in solemn procession to the Palais Bourbon, where 
 
 were assembled the Peers, the Deputies, the diplomatic corps, and nume- 
 
 * The Prince de Conde*, who was in ore than seventy yearsof age, did not accompany 
 his family from Prance. He recognised the new Government, and a few days after- 
 wards was found dead, hanging to ihe fastening of one of the windows of his bed-room. 
 This death has been attributed to suicide, the cause of which is unknown. 
 
510 THE KING OF THE FBENCH. [BOOK IV. CHAP. 1V» 
 
 rous other persons. He took his place on a seat placed before the vacant 
 throne, and after the reading of the declaration of the two Chambers, he 
 uncovered, and raising his hand, said, " Before God, I swear faithfully to 
 observe the constitutional charter with the modifications expressed in the 
 declaration ; to govern only in accordance with the laws, to give good and 
 exact justice to every one according to his deserts, and in every action 
 to have in view only the interest, the happiness, and the glory of the 
 French nation." 
 
 The prince, after having formally signed this oath, ascended the throne, 
 and from this moment was recognised as King of the French, under the 
 name of Louis Philippe I. 
 
611 
 
 BOOK Y. 
 
 SECOND PERIOD OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND PARLIA- 
 MENTARY MONARCHY. 
 
 The Reign of Louis Philippe — The Revolution of February, 1848 — 
 The Fall of the Monarchy. 
 
 1830—1848. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE TO THE DEATH OF CASIMIR PERIER. 
 
 August, 1830— May, 1832. 
 
 It is less a history than a simple sketch of the last reign which I here 
 propose to present to the reader. These times are too close to us to be 
 seen in a sufficiently clear light, and for impartial hands to be able to 
 remove the veils which have been thrown over facts by enthusiasm, in- 
 terested feelings, or the prejudices and implacable hatreds of another age. 
 Having arrived, however, at the close of my task, I should be afraid of 
 leaving it too incomplete if, after having shown the vicissitudes which 
 had preceded the establishment of the Constitutional and Parliamentary 
 government in France in 1830, I did not attempt to give a brief descrip- 
 tion of the immense difficulties which it encountered in the second period 
 of its existence, the great things which it accomplished, and the circum- 
 stances and faults which caused its fall. I will confine myself to narrat- 
 ing the principal facts, and will only enter into details when they are 
 indispensable to a comprehension of the general course of events. 
 
 The Revolution of July is amongst those of which the reason will be 
 recognised bv the wise spirits of posterity ; but every „ .. . 
 
 o j i i J i J Preliminary re- 
 
 political or social revolution, whatever may be its causes, mark8 « 
 
512 NEW ORDER OE AEEAIRS. [BOOK V. CHAP. I. 
 
 and within whatever limits it may be confined, contains within itself 
 dangerous germs of agitation, discord, and anarchy ; excites an infinitely 
 greater number of even legitimate desires than it is able to satisfy ; places 
 in the rank of the victors, side by side with those whose only desire is to 
 make the right prevail, all those who are inspired with a feeling of ani- 
 mosity for the system of social order, either by misery, a spirit of pride, 
 hatred, or envy, — the crowd of men, in fact, who esteem their rights com- 
 mensurate with their pretensions, and who consider it so much the easier 
 to overthrow a new government because it has only cost a few efforts 
 to destroy that which seemed firmly established by a long existence. 
 
 The Revolution of 1830 did not escape the perils which are more or 
 less incident to all revolutions ; but whilst the object of the latter is 
 generally the overthrow of established institutions, the purpose of the 
 Revolution of July was, on the contrary, the defence of the constitution 
 and the violated laws. This was, doubtless, a great advantage, but it 
 nevertheless concealed a danger, for it disposed many eminent men who 
 had assisted or sanctioned the work of July to misconceive the nature of 
 that great event, and to persuade themselves that it only remained to 
 keep the victors within proper bounds, and to resume on the morrow the 
 conduct of affairs at the precise point at which the previous Government 
 had left them. A great and fatal error ! Society had been too deeply 
 shaken by this prodigious revulsion to allow it to pass over without the 
 creation of new necessities and interests, and together with many illusions 
 some legitimate and great hopes. The Revolution of 1830, although it 
 had for its principal object the maintenance of the charter, was neverthe- 
 less, when we consider its first causes and its general bearing, a powerful 
 and almost unanimous reaction of the country against the acts which the 
 last Government had accomplished by the aid of the electoral and aristo- 
 cratic law of the double vote. This great movement was favoured and 
 accelerated by all the liberal and popular theories extolled during fifteen 
 years by the men of the left Centre and of the Left, now in power. Its 
 principle was eminently democratic, in the best acceptation of the word;* 
 and this fact it was necessary to take into account, and perilous to forget. 
 
 * I have already said that, in my eyes, the principle of democratic government rests 
 on the obligation to elevate the moral status of the peoples, to increase the general 
 comfort, and to make the greatest possible number of persons sharers in the benefits 
 of civilization. 
 
1830-1832.] tactions m 1830. 513 
 
 The new Government thus found itself placed — more completely, perhaps, 
 than any other Government — between the danger of exaggerating its 
 principle and that of deserting it — of losing its friends without gaining 
 over its adversaries. 
 
 Cruel deceptions towards the working classes followed the Revolution 
 of 1830. They were seriously injured by the commercial perturbations, 
 the interruption to labour, and the stagnation of affairs, which are the 
 inevitable results of all revolutions, and they were irritated at having 
 obtained only an increase "of suffering and wretchedness from an event 
 which was the result of their own victory. The new Government was 
 thus condemned, at its birth, to defend itself against the hostility of a 
 portion of the masses, without being able to rally to its side the most 
 conservative forces of human society. It was supported neither by the 
 territorial aristocracy, which was almost wholly attached to the fallen 
 Government, nor by the clergy, whose secret distrust or open hostility it 
 had almost incessantly to contend with. It had to struggle, even amongst 
 the middle classes, with many parties equally hostile, with the partisans 
 of legitimacy or hereditary succession, with the Republicans, with whom 
 were confounded the Bonapartists, at that time few in numbers, and with 
 the members of secret societies, in which were elaborated communism 
 and socialism, and which, after having assisted to destroy one Govern- 
 ment, sought to destroy all. It appeared before a multitude of enemies, 
 in the midst of a population over excited by a victorious insurrection, 
 without the prestige either of traditional right or legitimacy, or of the 
 authority of a great affirmative and national vote, which it unwisely did 
 not seek to obtain. Its error in this latter respect was so much the 
 greater because it would certainly have obtained such a vote if it had 
 demanded it, and because many of those who had concurred with the 
 Elective Chamber in placing the dynasty of Orleans on the throne, 
 denied that that Chamber possessed the absolute right of disposing of 
 the crown without first appealing to the country.* 
 
 * I am very far from sharing the opinion of Rousseau with respect to the power of 
 universal suffrage, and I know all that can be said with respect to the abuses and 
 dangers which would result from its daily application either to foreign or domestic 
 affairs. I believe, however, that it would have been wise to have had recourse to it in 
 1830, on the occasion of the accession of a new dynasty to the throne. Louis 
 Philippe had, doubtless, been accepted as its sovereign by France, but in not having 
 this acceptance sanctioned by a popular vote, his Government was led astray, in my 
 
 VOL. II. ' L L 
 
514j the great citizen class. [Book V. Chap. I. 
 
 The Government of July, threatened as it was by so many enemies 
 within, had also declared and secret enemies in most of the foreign 
 Governments, which looked upon its establishment as a danger to all 
 thrones. Amongst the European Powers it had but one ally, Great 
 Britain, which was then engaged in the great question of its Parliamen- 
 tary Reform, and whose sympathies were enlisted in favour of a revolution 
 in some respects analogous to that which had confirmed its own liberties 
 and power. 
 
 The new Monarchy necessarily derived its chief strength from the 
 middle or citizen class, for whom, in our own days, there has been so 
 much affectation of contempt. This citizen class, it must be admitted, 
 possessed but little breadth of view, and but a very moderate practical 
 experience in free government ; it was easily led away by party feelings, 
 and accessible, as much by reason of its pretensions as its necessities, to 
 the seductions of power, without the salutary restraint of religious belief, 
 which, by purifying and moderating our desires, leads us to follow the 
 paths of duty, resignation, and sacrifice. But, on the other hand, it was 
 the offspring of those men of ardent and liberal convictions who were the 
 chief agents of the prodigious movement of '89; it was anxious to con- 
 tinue their work, and it found in the Charter and the principles 
 avowed by the new Government the faithful expression of its wishes. 
 Enlightened by its interests, it had recognised order and security as the 
 very conditions of its existence. A stranger to every spirit of caste, it 
 had no defined limit, but was everywhere, being connected by more than 
 one link with the aristocracy, and having profound ramifications amongst 
 the whole of the labouring classes. All-powerful in the cities and towns 
 of any importance, it possessed the larger portion of the moveable pro- 
 perty of the nation, and reckoned amongst its ranks the most enlightened, 
 intelligent, and influential men of the country. It loved itself in the man 
 
 opinion, by the example of England in 1688. This was a great error. In the neigh- 
 bouring country the Houses of Parliament have always, and at various periods, dis- 
 posed of the crown. But in France, where, since the accession of the Third Bace, we 
 find no analogous precedent, an opinion has become established that the nation alone, 
 consulted in a body, has the right to dispose of the sceptre, and substitute one dynasty 
 for another. During the first moments which succeeded the days of July, whilst the 
 Royalist party was, as it were, stupefied by its defeat, and Austria held Napoleon's 
 heir in its power, Louis Philippe might certainly, had he wished, have derived powerful 
 support from universal suffrage. Though we may safely decline the use of a useful 
 weapon for ourselves, it is dangerous to leave it in the hands of our enemies. 
 
1830-1832.] POLICY OF THE MONARCHY. 515 
 
 of its choice, in the able and experienced Prince whom it had raised to 
 the throne ; and the new Government, which took for its motto Order, 
 Liberty, and Peace, was accepted by it as the best guarantee against the 
 spirit of revolution and of conquest. It rested upon all the threatened 
 interests of society, and prepared to strengthen itself by means of admi- 
 nistrative centralization, the inheritance of two centuries, a power very 
 dangerous to the hand which makes a bad use of it, although capable, it 
 is true, of struggling for some time against public opinion and keeping it 
 under, but invincible and irresistible when supported by it. 
 
 This Government was bound, more than any other, to rest upon a 
 basis which might vary according to circumstances, but which should 
 always be at an equal distance from extremes ; and the policy indicated 
 by circumstances demanded that the members of the Government should 
 be endowed with qualities which are rarely united. It was necessary that 
 the Government should be, with respect to domestic affairs, very firm, 
 and decidedly opposed to the spirit of disorder and anarchy ; prompt to 
 prevent as well as to restrain the acts of demagogues, and nevertheless the 
 friend of free institutions and of progress; very sympathetic with respect to 
 the lot of the labouring classes, and deeply anxious to ameliorate their 
 moral and physical condition. Its task with respect to foreign nations 
 was equally complex, for it was requisite that it should be at once proud 
 and moderate, liberal and yet non-revolutionary, patriotic, bold and 
 yet pacific. The difficulties in the way of the new Government were 
 immense ; but according as the dykes which could be opposed to the 
 agitated waves and the rage of parties were the less strong, by so much 
 was it more important that the new order of things should have bases as 
 large as possible amongst the classes more particularly interested in main- 
 taining it — namely, those which 1830 had placed in possession of power, 
 and in whom was the real focus of public opinion. The latter, which 
 must not be confounded with mere popular favour, had doubtless need of 
 being enlightened ; but it was, nevertheless, necessary to take it into 
 account, and at any cost to rally it to the side of the Government. The 
 Charter, finally, could not become a reality if the country did not take a 
 genuine share in the conduct of its own affairs, and if the Government 
 did not remain faithful to its principle and mission. 
 
 Such were the problems which the Monarchy founded in 1830 had to 
 solve, and such the conditions on which alone it could endure and last. 
 
 ll2 
 
516 divisions m the new keGime. [Book V. Chap. I. 
 
 Its task, as we see, was very difficult and complicated, and few even of 
 those who were sincerely attached to the new order of things, and who, 
 after having taken part in establishing it, wished to defend it, understood 
 its full extent. Although unanimous with respect to the end to be 
 attained, they were not so with respect to the means. Some, who had 
 perceived the greatness of the peril, considered that, in the midst of the 
 effervescence of a victory which had excited the most foolish hopes and 
 the most subversive ambitions, the first thing to be done by a society 
 whose foundations trembled beneath itself was to strengthen them, to keep 
 down the revolutionary spirit, and to oppose to demagogism a resistance 
 as courageous as obstinate. Many others saw more danger in resisting 
 the current than in following it. Being too much inclined, moreover, to 
 confound the multitude with the people properly so understood, they 
 were disposed to regard all its demands as expressions of the national will, 
 and, being too jealous of their popularity, displayed a greater desire to 
 increase the liberties acquired in July than to confirm them. The policy 
 of the members of the two parties was also very different with respect to 
 the relations with foreign nations. Those of the former party, seeing 
 Europe disturbed at what had taken place, were anxious to re-assure it 
 to conciliate its various Governments ; they joined with the King in desir- 
 ing the maintenance of treaties and of peace, and dreaded a revolutionary 
 propagandism, the inevitable consequence of which would have been a 
 general conflagration and calamities without number. The latter, on the 
 other hand, thought that the France of July was called upon to support 
 insurrection everywhere, and that the hour had come when, relying upon 
 the sympathies of peoples, a striking revenge should be taken for the 
 affronts of 1815. These two tendencies, in many respects so opposite, 
 caused the partisans of the new regime to be classified as the men of 
 resistance and the men of movement. The opinions of the first were 
 dominant in the two Chambers ; were those of many eminent and wise 
 men who had made a name in politics, in the magistracy, in letters, and 
 at the bar ; and were those also of the doctrinaires who, especially at this 
 period, added to the great party of Order a strength as considerable as it 
 was incontestable. In the number of the second were some of the prin- 
 cipal leaders of the old Left — Dupont de 1'Bure, Jacques Laffitte, Salverte, 
 Benjamin Constant, &c. In the minds of most of the members of this 
 party many illusions were mingled with genuine convictions, and an 
 
1830-1832.] THE BELGIAN BE VOLUTION. 51 7 
 
 ambition for popularity with a very sincere liberalism ; but they were 
 deficient, in general, in that practical sense and that spirit of order and 
 discipline which are only acquired by experience in the conduct of affairs 
 and by habits either of command or obedience. One of the most distin- 
 guished of them was M. Odillon Barrot, a brilliant orator, who was as yet 
 new to the political arena, and destined to become the chief of a powerful 
 party in the parliamentary opposition. At their head, finally, was the 
 illustrious citizen in whom were, in a certain sense, incarnated the prin- 
 ciples of the American Revolution — General Lafayette, the Commander- 
 in-Chief of the National Guards. 
 
 Louis Philippe, at the commencement of his reign, displayed much 
 ability in selecting the most influential members of these two parties to 
 form his Council. The men of resistance were the more numerous in 
 the first Council presided over by the King, in which, by 
 the side of Dupont de i'Eure, the Keeper of the Seals, sat 
 M. Mole as Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Guizot, Minister of the 
 Interior, and M. de Broglie, Minister of Public Instruction and 
 Worship.* 
 
 The existence of this Ministry was brief and agitated, but it provided 
 with intelligence and courage for the necessities of the moment, and it 
 took the steps imperiously demanded by the confusion and stagnation in 
 the state of affairs. At its suggestion five millions of francs were voted 
 by the Chambers to be distributed amongst workmen, and they voted 
 a credit of thirty millions as a guarantee for loans and advances to persons 
 engaged in commerce. Other urgent laws were prepared, and the 
 Cabinet at the same time carried on active negotiations with foreign 
 powers. Success crowned its efforts, and the new Monarchy was recog- 
 nised by all the powers. 
 
 A very serious event, however, occurred to place the 
 peace of Europe in peril. Belgium, which had been united Eevoiution, 
 
 ^ • -.n • n -.oik i -, i September, 1830 
 
 to the Dutch territory by the treaties 01 1815, had long 
 since been in a state of discontent. Driven to revolt by the imprudent 
 and oppressive conduct of King William, it severed its connexion with 
 Holland. The object of the Allied Powers in establishing the kingdom 
 
 * In this Ministry, General Ge'rard had the portfolio of War, General Sebastiani 
 of Marine, and the Baron Louis of Finance. There were four ministers without port- 
 folio — Messieurs Jacques Laffitte, Casimir Perier, Dupin the elder, and Bignon. 
 
518 CONFERENCE IN LONDON. [BOOK V. CHAP. I. 
 
 of the Low Countries had been to create in Europe a barrier against 
 France ; one of the principal achievements of the Congress of Vienna had 
 been annihilated by this Eevolution, and the news of the latter, therefore, 
 was received by France with enthusiasm. The French Government 
 followed at that time the only path indicated by circumstances and public 
 opinion, and King William having demanded the assistance of the 
 Prussian troops, M. Mole put forward the doctrine of non-intervention, 
 and checked the advance of the Prussian army by declaring that if it 
 set foot on the Belgian territory the French army would enter it also. 
 To prevent an European war the Great Powers thereupon agreed to 
 _ , „ decide between Holland and Belgium. A Conference took 
 
 Conference of ° 
 
 London. place for this purpose in London, and Louis Philippe sent 
 
 Prince Talleyrand to represent France. 
 
 Whilst the position of affairs was thus disturbed abroad, it was still 
 more alarming at home. The necessity for the re-establishment of order 
 had led to the creation in every part of the kingdom of battalions of the 
 National Guard. The latter were continually kept on the alert by^ the 
 clubs, emeutes, and popular manifestations, one of which in Paris was 
 the signal for the most lamentable disorders. At the conclusion of an 
 expiatory ceremony celebrated on the Place de Greve in honour of 
 the memory of the four unfortunate sergents of Eochelle, a petition 
 for the abolition of capital punishment was circulated through the 
 crowd ; it was covered with signatures, and the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties sanctioned the wish which it expressed. A rumour spread abroad 
 that this petition had been issued at the instigation of the Government 
 for the purpose of saving the Ministers of Charles X. who had signed the 
 decrees of July. Four of these Ministers — MM. de Polignac, de Chante- 
 lauze, de Peyronnet, and Guernon de Ranville — had been arrested and 
 imprisoned in Vincennes, and the Court of Peers was about to try them. 
 The suspicion of this manoeuvre on the part of the Government excited 
 Tumults in *^ e faubourgs and produced formidable emeutes, in which 
 Paris. were h ear( j cr i es f « Death to Polignac ! " " Death to the 
 
 Ministers ! " The prefect of the Seine, M. Odillon Barrot, censured the vote 
 of the Deputies in favour of the abolition of capital punishment as injudi- 
 cious, and, when threatened with deprivation of his office, was supported by 
 several of the Ministers in opposition to their colleagues. There was 
 discord, therefore, in the highest regions of power ; the Elective Chamber, 
 
1830-1832.] TEIAL OF THE MTNISTEES. 519 
 
 presided over by Casimir Perier, was wavering, and Paris was in a state 
 of partial insurrection when the trial of the Ministers was about to com- 
 mence. The King, in these critical circumstances, thought it prudent to 
 form his Council of men whose opinions were those of the masses, and 
 resembled those of each other. He perceived the necessity of having 
 recourse to men possessed of great popularity for the purpose of resisting 
 the popular torrent, and accepting therefore the resignation 
 of MM. de Broglie, Guizot, and Louis, he made M. Jacques Ministry. 
 Laffitte Minister of Finance and President of the Council.* 
 
 The head of the new Ministry, a banker celebrated for his devotion to, 
 and expenditure in favour of, the liberal cause, was in great favour both 
 with the King and the citizen classes. A Conservative by instinct and 
 position, M. Laffitte was nevertheless closely connected with the party of 
 movement by his immense craving for popularity. He was well-informed, 
 facile of speech, and most affable in manner ; but he was deficient in 
 firmness, moderation, and experience. The trial of the 
 Ministers was at this period the most, serious affair on hand, Ministers of 
 
 Charles X. 
 
 and whilst it lasted disturbances in Paris continued to 
 rage with a ferocity which called to mind the most fatal days of the 
 Revolution. Calm in the midst of this frightful crisis, and unanimously 
 refusing to pass a capital sentence, the Court of Peers condemned M. de 
 Polignac to transportation, and his three colleagues to perpetual imprison- 
 ment, j* But a savage mob demanded their heads, and threatened to 
 inflict the most desperate outrages on the prisoners and their judges, and 
 its rage was with difficulty held in check by the National _ regli dig _ 
 Guard and the youths of the schools, who rallied round the trances, 
 municipal authorities. The Minister of the Interior and General Lafayette 
 were foremost in striving to defend the condemned men, and for this 
 purpose nobly risked their lives. When told that he would probably 
 lose his popularity if he attempted to save the ministers, Lafayette 
 replied — " Popularity is a precious possession, which, like all other 
 possessions, we should be ready to expend in the public service." Their 
 efforts were successful ; Paris was preserved from the horrors of a new 
 
 * M. de Montalivet replaced M. Guizot as Minister of the Interior ; M. Mold was 
 succeeded as Minister for Foreign Affairs by Marshal Maison ; and General Gerard 
 resigned the portfolio for War to Marshal Soult. 
 
 •J- In this memorable trial the Prince de Polignac was defended, at his own request, 
 by the minister whom he had replaced, M. de Martignac. 
 
520 INSURRECTION IN POLAND AND ITALY. [BOOK V. CHAP. I. 
 
 2nd September ; and the condemned Ministers were conveyed from 
 Vincennes to the castle of Ham to undergo their punishment. 
 T . . .. Durinar the short existence of this Ministry the Chambers 
 
 Legislative ° J 
 
 enactments. p asS ed the most liberal and popular laws of the new reign. 
 One law decorated the citizens who had particularly distinguished them- 
 selves in the days of July ; and others submitted oiFences committed by 
 the press to the judgment of a jury, rendered the municipal councils 
 elective, and gave a new organization to the National Guard. This latter 
 law confided arms to every one without distinction, and rendered the 
 appointment of most of the officers a mere matter of election, without any 
 interference on the part of the Crown, and created therefore a great 
 danger to the Crown. The democrats of the Opposition and the popular 
 societies desired much more than this. Bringing forward a so-called 
 Programme de l'Hotel de Ville, which had been accepted, they said, by the 
 Duke of Orleans, but the existence of which the latter denied, they 
 demanded that Republican institutions should be the foundations of the 
 throne. They wished that the people should directly appoint all the 
 magistrates, and that the budget should be diminished by the reduction of 
 official salaries, and that many taxes should be immediately suppressed. 
 They also insisted upon the propagandism of revolutionary ideas and 
 an European war. 
 T , . ,. Italy fell into a state of insurrection, and a vast move- 
 
 lnsurrection 01 J ' 
 
 Italy and Poland. men ^ which rapidly spread through the minor states 
 of the Peninsula, tended to convert them all into one great Eepublic ; 
 a Provisional G-overnment was formed, and the Pope had already lost a 
 great portion of his provinces when, being threatened themselves with the 
 loss of their Lombard and Venetian possessions, the Austrians hastened 
 to interfere, stifled the insurrection, and re-established the shaken throne. 
 About the same time an insurrection burst forth in Poland. The Constitu- 
 tion bestowed in 1815 by the Emperor Alexander on this unhappy country 
 had ceased to be observed, and was now only a dead letter. In no direction 
 was the influence of the days of July felt more than in Warsaw, where it 
 produced, in the course of December, a sudden and irresistible explosion, 
 and almost the whole of the kingdom of Poland fell into the hands of the 
 insurgent nation. The Polish regiments made common cause with the 
 people ; the Russian garrisons were taken prisoners or massacred ; the 
 Grand-Duke Constantine, the viceroy of Poland, took flight ; the duchy of 
 
1830-1832.] LEGITIMIST DISTURBANCES. 521 
 
 Warsaw and its capital believed that they were freed ; and the dethrone- 
 ment of the KomanofFs was shortly afterwards declared by the Diet. 
 
 In France these great events were sympathized with by almost all 
 classes of the population. They excited, especially amongst the men of 
 movement, ardent and enthusiastic ideas, and provoked bellicose mani- 
 festations on the part of those who assumed that they alone were 
 entitled to the honourable appellation of patriots. The latter wished 
 that France should simultaneously oppose Eussia (now preparing to 
 fall upon Poland) ; Austria, the Conference in London, and the 
 Pope; and loudly demanded war at a time when France had 
 only a disorganized army, when its finances were in the worst possible 
 state, and when its credit was at the lowest ebb. It is to the honour of 
 Louis Philippe that he energetically opposed this dangerous course, and 
 that universal spirit of propagandism with which some members of his 
 Cabinet were inspired, and in which rash inclinations were mingled with 
 the purest sentiments and noble wishes in the cause of the oppressed 
 and feeble. He did his duty by negotiating in their favour, and by 
 abstaining from threatening demonstrations, which, to have been 
 effectual, must have been followed by the revolutionary measures of a 
 sinister epoch. 
 
 The existence of a state of war on all the French frontiers had given 
 a fresh impulse to the volcano which was burning in the interior, and 
 which was continually throwing around it sombre gleams and burning 
 lava. It burst forth with renewed violence in Paris on the 
 13th February, 1831, on the celebration of a funeral service p'Sage of Saint- 
 for the Duke de Berry at Saint- Germain l'Auxerrois by a errois and the 
 
 , . i Archbishop's 
 
 great number of the partisans of the late regime, who now Paiace,February, 
 began to be commonly called Carlists or Legitimists. Some 
 of the persons who took part in the ceremony wished to render it a 
 political and counter-revolutionary demonstration, and the picture of the 
 young heir of the eldest branch, represented as Henry V., was impru- 
 dently displayed in the church before the crowd assembled there. The 
 report of this circumstance speedily spread, and was the signal for a 
 fierce riot, which the authorities might, in all probability, have 
 been able to prevent, and which they were slow to suppress. The 
 church and the sacristy were shamefully pillaged. On the following 
 morning the crowd rushed to the archbishop's palace, which they destroyed 
 
522 ANAECHY IN PAEIS. [BOOK V. CHAP. I. 
 
 from top to bottom, and thence hurried to the churches and palaces to 
 tear down the crosses from the towers, mutilate the royal insignia, and 
 compel the Monarch himself to repudiate his glorious blazon. 
 
 The Chambers, justly indignant, held the Government and the 
 municipal authorities responsible for these odious and barbarous acts, and 
 at the conclusion of debates which were as stormy as they were 
 disgraceful, the two prefects of Paris, MM. Baude and Odillon Barrot, 
 were deprived of their offices. At the same time the Deputies them- 
 selves, finding that they were accused of immoderately prolonging their 
 possession of office, and were the object of violent recriminations, acknow- 
 ledged that the end of their mission had arrived, and opened the way for 
 the formation of a new Chamber by remodelling the electoral 
 law. This law abolished the double vote, reduced the 
 amount of taxes the payment of which qualified a man to be eligible 
 as a member of the Chamber of Deputies to five hundred francs, and 
 gave the electoral vote to all who paid two hundred. 
 
 The frightful scenes which had taken place in Paris were repeated in 
 many of the departments ; they were re-echoed in the most deplorable 
 manner in several parts of Europe, and to many causes of discontent, 
 trouble, and disquietude were added those arising from the alarming state 
 of the finances. Already, in the budget presented by M. Laffitte before 
 the last-recounted events, the expenses for 1832 were set forth as 
 amounting to ten thousand one hundred and sixty-seven millions, 
 figures which exceeded by about three hundred millions the last budget 
 of the Eestoration ; and this in itself was an irrefutable and sad proof 
 of the expense of revolutions, even when they are legitimate and neces- 
 sary. At a later period, on the eve of the dissolution of the Chamber 
 and the Cabinet, M. Laffitte demanded a supplementary credit of two hun- 
 dred millions for the purpose of meeting the extraordinary necessities of 
 the State ; and this supply he only obtained with much difficulty at the 
 hands of an uneasy and angry majority. This Minister, who had so 
 lately been rich, magnificent, and popular, but who was now seriously 
 injured in his private fortune, and had lost his favour with the people as 
 well as with the King, perceived that power was escaping from his grasp, 
 but could not persuade himself to resign it. The state of anarchy, how- 
 ever, made frightful progress ; the emeute which was now permanent in 
 
1830-1832.] THE PeEIEK MINISTBY. 523 
 
 Paris disturbed the principal cities in the kingdom, and paralysed 
 commerce and industry. The evil, in fact, was at its height, Fall f th 
 and the very existence of the monarchy seemed in peril, when LaffifcteMmis toy. 
 the King entrusted to Casimir Perier the formation of a new Ministry. 
 In the new Cabinet, which was presided over by Casimir Tl , . __. . , 
 
 7 *- J Perier Ministry, 
 
 Perier as Minister of the Interior, the principal portfolios — March 13, 1831. 
 those of Justice, Foreign Affairs, War, and Finance — were confided to 
 MM. Barthe, Sebastiani, Soult, and Baron Louis.* The head of the 
 Cabinet had been for fifteen years one of the most eminent members of 
 the liberal party. Strongly opposed to arbitrary power, Court influences, 
 and the old system of things, he was equally averse to disorder and 
 anarchy ; he wished for a strong Government supported by just laws ; he 
 was resolved to make this principle triumph, and to this task he brought 
 a mind which was rather just than extensive, a will of iron, and a 
 burning courage which inspired an honest and resolute heart with a sense 
 of duty and a contempt for popularity. Perier laid before the Chambers 
 a statement of the policy he intended to pursue ; demanded a vote of 
 confidence for the purpose of enabling him to pass the provisional 
 clauses of the budget ; and with their concurrence took energetic 
 measures for the re- establishment of equilibrium in the finances and peace 
 in the streets. The Elective Chamber was soon afterwards ~ , 
 
 Dissolution of 
 
 adjourned, and then dissolved (30th April), whereupon the <ge chamber of 
 King convoked the electoral colleges for the following A P ri130 - 
 month of July. Casimir Perier wished that the new Chamber should 
 faithfully represent the opinions of the country. He agreed that the 
 Government might legitimately employ a certain amount of influence for 
 the purpose of assisting the electors to make a wise use of their suffrage, 
 but in his electoral instructions he guaranteed that they should be "at 
 perfect liberty to vote as they pleased, and that the rights of conscience 
 should be held inviolate. His conduct in this respect did not give a 
 scandalous and dangerous lie to his words. 
 
 The dangers which existed within the kingdom were 
 complicated with others which threatened it abroad, and principles of 
 the President of the Council had already presented the 
 
 * M. de Montalivet passed from the Ministry of the Interior to that of Public 
 Instruction and Worship. 
 
524 FEENCH DIPLOMACY. [BOOK V. CHAP. I. 
 
 Chamber of Deputies with an outline of the course he intended to pursue 
 with respect to irritated Europe, in these remarkable words : — " We desire 
 peace, which is so necessary to France ; but we would wage war if the 
 honour or safety of France were to be threatened, for then liberty itselt 
 would be threatened, and we should appeal with patriotic confidence to 
 the courage of the nation. We adopt the principle of non-intervention 
 — that is to say, we maintain that foreigners have no right to interfere by 
 force in a nation's internal affairs. We will on all occasions support this 
 principle by means of negotiations, and in support of the interests or 
 dignity of France alone will we take up arms. We will not allow that 
 any nation has a right to drag us into a war for its sake, for the blood of 
 Frenchmen only belongs to France." This policy, which was also that of 
 the King, was followed with firmness and not without success in respect 
 to Central Italy after the failure of the insurrection, which was sup- 
 . , pressed bv the presence of the Austrian army. French 
 
 Advantages r J r j 
 
 obtained. diplomacy, adding its efforts to those of the other powers, 
 
 obtained from the new pope, Gregory XVI., a formal engagement to intro- 
 duce into his States many necessary reforms which had been long ardently 
 desired, and persuaded the Austrian Government to withdraw its troops 
 from Italian territory. 
 
 France, in spite of the sombre jealousy of England, made its power felt 
 in Portugal, where the usurper Don Miguel had inflicted the most dis- 
 graceful ill-treatment on French subjects. All satisfaction having been 
 t, .... , . refused to the French consul, Admiral Roussin, under the 
 
 Brilliant action ' 
 
 fleet'before 011 nre °^ tfl e Portuguese cannon, forced the mouth of the 
 Lis on, 1831. Tagus, which had been hitherto regarded as impregnable, 
 destroyed the batteries of the forts, and by this brilliant feat obtained for 
 the French arms a complete reparation for their reverses. 
 
 The great question pending between Holland and Belgium kept a 
 portion of Western Europe in continual disquiet and in arms, and the 
 enmity created between the two countries by the decisions of the 
 -r, . . „., London Conference might at any moment give rise to a 
 
 Decision ol the a j o 
 
 London relative g enera l conflict. The Conference imposed upon Belgium 
 ofBdS'aff tn e abandonment to Holland of a portion of Limburg 
 and the surrender of Luxemburg, which was an here- 
 ditary possession of the House of Nassau, and which formed, more- 
 over, a portion of the Germanic Confederation. It also divided the 
 
1830-1832.] LEOPOLD, KING OF THE BELGIANS. 525 
 
 national debt equally between the two countries ; and on these conditions, 
 which were for a long time rejected, it undertook to procure the recog- 
 nition of the independence of the new country by the five powers. Bel- 
 gium yielded at length, and offered the crown to the Duke de Nemours, 
 the second son of the King of the French. As Louis Philippe, however, 
 rejected this offer out of respect for engagements which he had previously 
 entered into with Great Britain, the Belgians elected as T ., „ . 
 
 ° Leopold, Prince 
 
 their king Leopold Prince of Coburg, widower of the 2e§ed2iLjof 
 Princess Charlotte, who had been heir-presumptive to the Belgians. 
 English throne ; and the marriage of that monarch in the course of the 
 following year with the eldest daughter of the King of the French doubly 
 strengthened the alliance between France and Belgium. 
 
 Leopold had scarcely accepted the crown when King jj a ^ ma cii of 
 William, refusing to acknowledge the armistice, advanced into^pTeiSum™ 7 
 with his troops, put to flight the Belgian army, which was the French army^ 
 chiefly composed of volunteers, and marched upon Louvain, 
 where he took up his position. Leopold in this extremity demanded the 
 aid of France, and Marshal Gerard immediately entered Belgium at the 
 head of an army of fifty thousand men, before whom the Dutch army fell 
 back without fighting, to resume the position which it had occupied 
 before its rapid and brilliant campaign, which was called " The Ten 
 Days' Campaign." Belgium was thus a second time saved by France, 
 and three months later (on the 15th November), a treaty consisting of 
 twenty-four articles, regulating in a definitive and irre- 
 
 . r- Treaty of the 
 
 vocable manner the separation of the two kingdoms, was Twenty-four 
 
 _ ■ . *»,*•'.«. -i i Articles, 1831. 
 
 signed by Belgium, and the Conference guaranteed to the 
 King of the Belgians the execution of its clauses. At the same time 
 France obtained from the four other great powers, at whose expense 
 several Belgian fortresses had been constructed and maintained since 
 1815 as a rampart on our frontiers, that the defences of those places 
 should be demolished.* The Treaty of the Twenty-four Articles, how- 
 ever, was not accepted by the King of Holland, whose troops occupied 
 Antwerp, and peace was not as yet re-established. 
 
 The Legislative Session had been open in Paris from the r 
 
 ° x Legislative 
 
 commencement of hostilities. Two hundred new Depu- Session > 1831 « 
 ties had been elected ; and the majority, at first in a state of indecision, 
 * These fortresses were Menin, Ath, Philippe ville, Moris, and Marienbourg. 
 
526 FALL OF WAESAW. [BOOK V. CHAP. I. 
 
 was, by the firm and prudent conduct of the Government, rallied to its 
 side. The Chamber passed, amongst other financial laws, one which 
 fixed the civil list for the reign at twelve millions, an amount less by 
 more than one-half than that of the previous civil list. Nevertheless 
 it was regarded as enormous, and was the object in some too-celebrated 
 pamphlets* of the most outrageous allegations. But the chief business 
 of the session was the revision of the article of the charter 
 
 Law on the orga- . . . . 
 
 nization of the relating to the peerage. Casimir Perier perceived the lrre- 
 
 peerage. . 
 
 sistible power of that public opinion which had declared 
 against hereditary rank, and on this point he did violence to his personal 
 convictions. The peerage was changed from an hereditary one into one 
 for life ; and although the Crown preserved the right of nominating its 
 members, it could only select them from certain classes. f 
 
 The Chamber had sat for some weeks only when a great catastrophe 
 awoke throughout France sympathies as noble as they were painful, and 
 -c „ , ^ filled all generous hearts with sorrow. Warsaw had fallen 
 
 Fall of Warsaw, & 
 
 183L before the Eussian troops commanded by Paskiewitch. 
 
 Unhappy Poland, after heroic exploits and prodigious but fruitless efforts, 
 had once again been overcome. She had rendered reconciliation with 
 her vanquishers impossible by imprudently proclaiming the dethronement 
 of the Romanoffs, and now the vengeance of the Czar was about to fall 
 upon her. A general cry in favour of assisting her arose in Paris, and 
 the public wish became manifested in noisy demonstrations which soon 
 became seditious, and which had to be suppressed by force. But at six . 
 hundred leagues' distance France could only offer the good offices of her 
 diplomacy and an asylum and assistance to the vanquished fugitives. She 
 nobly acquitted herself of this double duty ; the exiles received in France 
 an enthusiastic welcome, and the Government, with the aid of the 
 Chamber, provided for their necessities. 
 
 The great excitement produced by the affairs of Poland was not calmed 
 
 when a formidable insurrection burst forth in Lyons, the 
 
 cause of which was not any political motive, but misery. 
 
 Trade in articles of luxury generally, and especially in the article of silk, 
 
 had suffered much from the shock communicated to all Europe by the 
 
 * " Letters on the Civil List," by M. de Cormenin. 
 f In order to obtain the consent of the Peers to this important point, the Govern- 
 ment was compelled to create thirty-six new ones. 
 
1830-1832.] THE FKENCH IN ITALY. 527 
 
 Revolution of 1830, and in the city of Lyons alone eighty thousand 
 operatives employed in silk manufacture were out of work and in 
 want of the means of subsistence. They arose to the sound End f h 
 of that distressing and terrible cry, " Work or bread ! " ^^rection. 
 drove away the authorities and the garrison, and for some time, during 
 which they abstained from injuring either persons or property, remained 
 masters of that great city. An army of twenty thousand men, under the 
 orders of Marshal Soult and the Duke of Orleans, the heir-presumptive to 
 the throne, marched upon Lyons, retook it, and re-established order there ; 
 but no important relief was afforded to the distress of an immense popu- 
 lation ; and when we read the language either of the Government organs 
 or of the Chambers with reference to this fratricidal struggle, we cannot 
 but regret to find in it no expression of a wish to relieve, by the aid of 
 the law, the misery which had been its cause. 
 
 The victory thus gained by the army strengthened the Ministry, and 
 in Paris the emeutes having been suppressed were succeeded by con- 
 spiracies. Conspiracies were formed for the restoration of the Republic, 
 of the Empire, and of the eldest branch of the Bourbons ; but the energy 
 of the Government enabled it to triumph over all these plots, and its 
 attention was speedily called to foreign affairs in respect to Italy. 
 
 The promises exacted from the Pontifical Government by the interven 
 tion of the great powers had not been kept, and no reform had been 
 made in an administration which was arbitrary, oppressive, and absolute. 
 The irritated people again rose in the Pontifical States, and the papal 
 army, recruited by mercenaries from every country, and 
 
 The Aus- 
 
 several times victorious, committed at Cesena and Forli trians in Bo- 
 
 -r» • logna. 
 
 horrible excesses. Bologna arose in its turn, and the 
 Austrians, having been called to his aid by Gregory XVI., took possession 
 of it. The French Government, indignant at finding its intervention 
 despised and the most formal engagements ignored, resolved to enforce by 
 arms in Central Italy the principle of non-intervention. A naval division 
 carrying troops, under the command of Colonel Combes, was ordered to 
 proceed to and take possession of Ancona. This order was _ 
 rapidly executed, and on the 22nd February the city of j£ench %? ° 
 Ancona, with its citadel, were in the hands of the French. 1832, 
 
 By this bold and violent act of aggression Casimir Perier left the path 
 followed by his predecessors, and thus provoked not only the anger of the 
 
528 DEATH OF CASIMIR PERIER. [BOOK V. CHAP. I. 
 
 Court of Rome but the loud remonstrances of the other European 
 powers. He wished to show that engagements entered into with France 
 could not remain a dead letter, and that he did not intend to abandon 
 Italy to the all-powerful protectorate of Austria. Under this twofold 
 aspect the occupation of Ancona was popular in France ; the Chambers 
 approved the act of the Minister, and the bitter complaints made against 
 the Government abroad strengthened it at home. 
 
 La Vendee, where Madame the Duchess de Berry announced that she 
 would soon arrive, was at this time the scene of sanguinary 
 
 Political troubles .... ^ ,, . , ,, 
 
 in La Vendee and disturbances, and some heroic victims fell m the first 
 
 Marseilles. . . 
 
 conflicts which were the precursors of a civil war. 
 The Legitimists were thus agitating in the south for the purpose of 
 raising the Duke de Bordeaux to the throne, and an attempt at insurrec- 
 tion had been suppressed at Marseilles (April, '1832), when a fresh 
 
 scourge fell upon France. After having desolated many 
 c^imir^rier^ countries in Europe, the cholera appeared in Paris, where 
 May, 1832. « t ma d e g rea t ravages. It carried off Casimir Perier, and 
 
 to all the private causes for mourning there was thus added a great 
 public one. 
 
 Perier had appeared at his right hour ; he displayed great and rare 
 
 qualities in the accomplishment of his task, and he was 
 
 Remarks on his .,,.. i i ■ -in i i i i 
 
 character and aided m it even by his very detects, by the rude and 
 
 actions. 
 
 impetuous vehemence of an obstinate will and an ardent 
 and inflexible character. He did not, however, complete his work ; for, 
 though he successfully combated emeutes and seditions, he vanquished 
 without extirpating the evil, and after his departure the spirit of insurrec- 
 tion reappeared menacing and formidable. But he had replaced the 
 Government at the head of society, and had shown that, in hands at once 
 firm and just, the power of the law is superior to all the efforts of 
 conspirators and insurrectionists. This great task was the one he had to 
 perform, and he devoted himself to its accomplishment even to the time 
 of his death. In other respects he was not perhaps sufficiently strong 
 for the situation. Casimir Perier was one of those who had seen in the 
 revolution of July only a disastrous although necessary event, the sole 
 object of which was a change of government and not extensive reforms in 
 the institutions of the country. He expressed no desire to place these in 
 closer relation with the ideas and necessities produced by so new a pos- 
 
1830-1832.] END OE LEGISLATIVE SESSION". 529 
 
 ture of affairs, and, with the exception of the modifications introduced 
 into the composition of the peerage, he made no preparation even for the 
 carrying out of the resolutions passed after the acceptance of the charter. 
 The latter were equally forgotten or neglected by the Chambers, and the 
 legislative session, which closed a few days before the death of Casimir 
 Perier (April, 1831), left France in a precarious and disturbed state, a 
 prey to the same divisions, to the same agitations, but at least inspired 
 with the salutary conviction that a general war might be avoided, and 
 that the demon of civil war, revolt, and anarchy was not invincible. 
 
 vol. ii. - MM 
 
530 THE COMPTE-BENDTJ. [BOOK V. CHAP. II. 
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 THE COMPTE-RENDU— CONFLICTS OF THE 5TH AND 6TH JUNE CIVIL WAR 
 
 THE MINISTRY FROM THE llTH OCTOBER TO THE GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 
 
 1834. 
 
 May, 1832— June, 1834. 
 
 The death of Casimir Perier altered but very slightly the composition of 
 the Cabinet, in which M. de Montalivet, who gave up the portfolio of 
 Public Instruction to M. Girard, became Minister of the Interior. But 
 the great Minister whom France had lost was one of those who are suc- 
 ceeded but cannot be replaced. The situation of the country was serious, 
 and its perils, as well as the faults which had been committed, were 
 pointed out with much bitterness in a document celebrated under the 
 name of the Compte-rendu, which was signed by the Deputies of the 
 Opposition. The latter, almost entirely composed of men of movement, 
 was divided into two distinct portions — the extreme Left, and the Left 
 properly so called. The first, some of the members of 
 
 The extreme Left . . , , . n p .,. „ „ 
 
 and the dynastic which were openly m favour of a republican form of 
 
 Left. 
 
 government, had as its leaders in the Elective Chamber, 
 amongst others, Dupont de l'Eure, Yoyer d'Argenson, Cormenin, Gamier 
 Pages ; and as its principal organs in the press Armand Carrel, director 
 of the National, and Armand Marrast and Godefroi Cavaignac, editors of 
 the Tribune. The second portion of the Opposition had frankly accepted 
 the Monarchical Government together with the youngest branch of the 
 Bourbons, and called themselves for a time " The Dynastic Left." 
 M. Odillon Barrot was its principal orator and recognised leader. Most 
 of its members, perfectly understanding the position, recognised those 
 important phases of it which were too much neglected by the Conserva- 
 tives, and generous sentiments were allied in them with a sincere devotion. 
 They inspired, however, but little confidence amongst the partisans of 
 order ; for they were too closely connected by their antecedents and their 
 
1832-1834.] INSURRECTION OP THE REPUBLICANS. 531 
 
 friendships with the extreme Left — the republican Left — whose illusions, 
 bitter resentments, and rash impatience they shared. This mixture of 
 good and evil, of truth and exaggeration, was visible in the Com te _ rendu of 
 Compte-rendu, which was drawn up by MM. Odillon Barrat the Opposition, 
 and Cormenin, and signed by the members of each portion 'of the Left. 
 To arrive at this result the dynastic Opposition had to make disgraceful 
 concessions to the republican Opposition, which greatly increased the 
 distance between the former and the Conservatives. The just views 
 expressed in this document were regarded as dangerous utopianisms when 
 they were seen mingled with violent recriminations, disrespectful expres- 
 sions towards the monarch, and exaggerated reproaches that the principles 
 of '89 and 1830 had been completely abandoned; the whole being signed 
 by the declared enemies not only of the Government but of the monarchy. 
 This was a great evil as well for the present as the future ; and M. 
 Odillon Barrot, who, by confining himself within just limits, might have 
 been able to exercise a great and useful influence, lost all power of serious 
 action with the majority of the members of the two Chambers. What 
 was true in this document was misconstrued and did not bear fruit, 
 and what was false and dangerous in it did much harm. The Compte- 
 rendu inflamed the popular passions to the highest point, and hastened, 
 perhaps, the explosion of a republican insurrection which placed the 
 monarchy in the greatest peril. 
 
 After the death of Casimir Perier hope returned to the parties which 
 had been held in check by his vigorous hand ; they became eager to try 
 their strength once more ; and they found an opportunity of doing so at 
 the funeral ceremony of General Lamarque, an able and Puneral of G 
 valiant soldier, in whom despotic instincts were concealed ral Lamar <i ue - 
 beneath a cloak of democracy, and whose obsequies attracted, on the 5th 
 June, 1832, an immense concourse of persons. All the popular societies, 
 including those of " The Rights of Man," " The Friends of the People," 
 u The Union of July," &c, were gathered together, and all came armed. 
 An insurrection suddenly burst forth to the cries of 
 " Down with Louis Philippe ! " " Long live the Eepub- surfection. July 
 
 5 and 6, 1832. 
 
 lie !"* Some detachments of troops were taken and others 
 
 * General La Fayette was in the funeral procession, and the mob, taking the horses 
 from his carriage, took possession of his person, and wished to inflict upon him the 
 honour of being their leader. He had much trouble in escaping from the grievous 
 
 M M 2 
 
532 PAEIS IN A STATE OP SIEGE. [BOOK V. CHAP. II. 
 
 massacred ; the conflict raged at several points, and a portion of the city- 
 fell into the hands of the insurgents. The King quitted Saint Cloud at 
 nightfall to hasten to the scene of danger. He reviewed, amidst the 
 crash of musketry and by the light of torches, the troops and the National 
 Guard. The latter, rallying at the sight of the red flag, under their 
 heroic commander General Lobau, fought valiantly, and spilt their blood 
 as freely as the regular troops in support of the cause of order. The 
 struggle lasted two days, and on the evening of the 6th June the insur- 
 gents, shut in in the quarter of the Cloitre Saint-Mery, and enclosed 
 behind some loopholed barricades, defended themselves with prodigious 
 courage and with all the fury of despair. 
 
 Civil war had at the same time burst forth in the west, whither the 
 „. ., Duchess de Berry had proceeded in spite of the advice of 
 
 Civil war in j r k 
 
 the west. ^g m0S £ illustrious partisans of the cause of Henry V. The 
 
 castle of Pennissiere fell a prey to the flames, and its defenders died 
 beneath its embers on the very day on which the republicans yielded, in 
 the capital, behind the barricades of Saint-Mery. 
 
 The Government, after its victory, indulged in some violent and 
 much-to-be-regretted acts. A royal decree placed Paris in a state of 
 siege, and took the prisoners from their natural judges to subject them to 
 the decisions of military tribunals. A second decree was couched in the 
 spirit of another age, and ordered the surgeons and physicians to 
 denounce the wounded whom they had attended. The Court of Cassa- 
 tion declared that, under the circumstances in which it was issued, the 
 decree which placed Paris in a state of siege was illegal, and this first 
 decree was immediately revoked, whilst the second was suppressed by 
 the unanimous condemnation of public opinion. 
 
 To all these causes of agitation and alarm were added great anxiety 
 with respect to the opposition made by the King of the Netherlands to 
 the Treaty of the Twenty-four Articles, which settled the separation 
 between Holland and Belgium. It was proposed to deprive the Dutch of 
 the citadel of Antwerp and some fortresses which were still occupied by 
 their troops, and three of the powers represented at the Conference ot 
 London — Russia, Prussia, and Austria — refused to take coercive measures 
 
 persecution. He died two years later at his chateau, La Grange, leaving a great and 
 respected name, and a remarkable example of the power exercised over the public mind 
 by an honest heait sincerely devoted to the popular cause. 
 
1832-1834.] SOTJLT'S MINISTRY. 533 
 
 against King William for this purpose. France and England, however, 
 agreed to overcome his resistance by force, and the siege of Antwerp was 
 resolved on. 
 
 In the presence of so many perils the new monarchy had more than 
 ever need of the strength derived from unity, and it sought more especially 
 the support of all to whom public opinion and themselves gave the name 
 of Conservatives. The common danger overcame, in the case of the 
 principal leaders, the rivalries of ambition and personal enmities; it over- 
 ruled differences of opinion as well as incompatibilities of temper, and 
 there was formed the Ministry of October, 1832. 
 
 In this Ministry, the nominal head of which was Marshal Soult, the 
 most eminent of the doctrinaires, MM. de Broglie and M - nigl of 
 Guizot, were united with some very important members of 0ctober > 1832 - 
 the Left Centre, MM. Thiers, Barthe, and Humann. The new Ministry 
 pursued the same policy as Casimir Perier, and the particular character- 
 istic of their administration was the resistance made to the Legitimist 
 party and the revolutionary demagogues by the various fractions of the 
 Conservative party. The general spirit and political tendency of this 
 Cabinet, which was several times broken up and reformed, continued 
 to hold power with little interruption and alteration so long as there 
 was no rupture or important disagreement between the important men by 
 the concurrence of whom it had been formed ; and this period lasted 
 about four years and a half from the death of Casimir Perier. 
 
 The general position of affairs was as difficult as towards the close of 
 1832. In the west there was civil war, and in Paris as well as in many 
 of the great cities of the kingdom there were republican conspiracies and 
 a furious prevalence of demagogic passions. It was the period in which 
 Saint- Simonism loudly proclaimed, even in the sanctuaries 
 of justice, its doctrines, subversive alike of religion, morality, 
 and family ties ;* when Charles Fourier, conscientiously rejecting the 
 restraints of moral law, made pleasure the basis and fittest object of 
 worship of the whole of society in a system which was named after him 
 and was called Fourierism ; when Lamennais, destroying that which he 
 had adored, set forth with fiery eloquence the new dogma of the infalli- 
 bility of the sovereign people ; and when, finally, the programmes of the 
 
 * The leaders of the sect were sentenced to fine and imprisonment in August, 1832, 
 by the Court of Assize in Paris ; and shortly afterwards the sect broke up. 
 
534 AEEEST OF DUCHESS DE BERET. [BOOK V. CHAP. II. 
 
 terrorists and communists were set forth in the order of the day in 
 innumerable secret societies. In the presence of this general unloosing 
 of foolish or criminal doctrines or subversive passions, the Government 
 fulfilled its duty by taking energetic measures for the purpose of defeating 
 the plots formed by demagogues and anarchists and pacifying Brittany, 
 where the Duchess de Berry kept up a state of civil war, and where six 
 departments were placed in a state of siege. 
 
 The princess, soon betrayed and given up by a wretch named Deutz, 
 
 was taken prisoner at Nantes and shut up in the citadel ot 
 
 Duchess de Blaye, whence she issued after having given birth to 
 
 Berry at Nantes. 
 
 Her captivity at a child, the fruit of a second marriage with the Count 
 
 Blaye. . - . . 
 
 Luchesi Palli. The civil war which her presence had 
 aroused in the bosom of the west died out during the first days of her 
 captivity. 
 
 The foreign policy of France, although accused of weakness by some, 
 Eorei n li was never theless wanting neither in force nor dignity. 
 1832-1834- rp^g Q overnmen t everywhere showed itself, in a just and 
 
 moderate manner, favourable to the constitutional cause, whilst it avoided 
 putting the peace of Europe in peril, and with this object strengthened 
 its alliance with England. It had, as we have seen, under- 
 
 Belgium. 
 
 taken, in concert with that power, to enforce the execution of 
 the clauses of the Twenty-four Articles relating to the separation of Bel- 
 gium and Holland. Consequently, a French army of seventy thousand 
 men, having at its head Marshal Gerard, and under him the King's two 
 eldest sons, the Dukes of Orleans and Nemours, crossed the Belgian 
 f.ontier on the 15th November, 1832; after which it invested and 
 besieged the citadel of Antwerp, which was most bravely defended by the 
 Dutch general Chasse. This important fortress, the key of the Scheldt, 
 was compelled to capitulate towards the close of December, and given 
 over by France to the Belgian Government. 
 
 The conduct of the cabinet was no less firm and liberal in respect to 
 the affairs of Spain, where Ferdinand VII., abolishing the 
 
 Spain. 
 
 Salic law introduced by Philip V., had reestablished the old 
 traditional usage in favour of the succession of women. On the death of 
 Ferdinand, his widow, the Queen-mother Regent, Maria- Christina, relied 
 upon the liberal party for the defence of the rights of the Infanta Isabella, 
 then two years old, against Don Carlos, her uncle and rival to the throne, 
 
1832-1834.] THE QTJADBTTPLE ALLIANCE. 535 
 
 whose triumph would have been also that of the retrograde, absolute, and 
 monarchical party. She solicited the support of King Louis Philippe, 
 who upon this occasion sacrificed the private interests of his dynasty to 
 the constitutional cause, by recognising the young Queen in prejudice to 
 the eventual rights of his own house. He promised his assistance to the 
 Queen-regent, and by his orders an army of observation assembled at the 
 foot of the Pyrenees, ready to cross the frontier in case an armed demon- 
 stration should be made in favour of Don Carlos either by the French 
 Legitimist party or by one "of the great powers. 
 
 The Government acted in the same spirit in its relations with Portugal, 
 where Don Miguel, who had been already chastised by 
 
 . . , . . Portugal. 
 
 France, had seized the throne in defiance of the legitimate 
 rights of his niece, the young Queen Donna Maria, daughter of the Emperor 
 of Brazil, Don Pedro, eldest brother of Don Miguel. Don Pedro abdicated 
 the throne of Brazil for the purpose of proceeding to defend the rights of 
 his daughter in Portugal ; he offered a charter to the Portuguese and 
 appealed to the liberal party, whilst the absolutist party supported his 
 brother. The army of Don Miguel, commanded by Marshal de Bour- 
 mont, was vanquished under the walls of Oporto, whilst the constitutional 
 army took possession of Lisbon, with the concurrence of France 
 and England. These events were followed by a treaty negotiated in 
 London by Prince Talleyrand between England, France, 
 Spain, and Portugal, by which the Eegent of Portugal and Quadruple 
 
 . _ „ _. . . . . . _, Alliance, 1834. 
 
 the Queen-regent of opam undertook to unite their efforts 
 for the expulsion of the Infants Don Carlos and Don Miguel. The King 
 of Great Britain and the King of the French promised to assist towards 
 this end in a defined and limited manner. Such was the famous treaty of 
 the Quadruple Alliance, which was signed in April, 1834, between the 
 four constitutional Courts of the West. 
 
 The East also attracted the attention of Europe, which looked on with 
 anxiety at the unequal struggle maintained by the Sultan 
 Mahmoud against the Pasha of Egypt, Meh'emet Ali, his gle between the 
 revolted vassal. Almost the whole of Syria had already Pasha of Egypt, 
 
 1832-1833. 
 
 fallen into the hands of Ibrahim, the son of Mehemet, 
 when the European powers, at the Sultan's request, interfered in his 
 favour. Ibrahim, however, continued his career of conquest, crossed the 
 Taurus, and in December, 1832, obtained a decisive victory at Konieh. 
 
536 PBENCH policy. [Book V. Chap. II. 
 
 The whole Turkish army was annihilated ; and Mahmoud, in his distress, 
 
 implored of Russia some immediate and efficacious assistance. The Czar 
 
 replied favourably to this appeal, and a Russian fleet speedily entered the 
 
 Bosphorus. France and England made great efforts to 
 
 kiar-skeiessi, render the assistance afforded her by Russia useless to the 
 
 July, 1833. 
 
 Porte, and France especially eagerly insisted that the Sultan 
 should make large concessions of territory to his powerful vassal. She 
 
 obtained for Mehemet the whole of Syria and the important 
 the European district of Adana beyond the Taurus. A French envoy 
 
 then proceeded to Ibrahim's camp to invite him to agree to 
 a suspension of arms ; and the latter, satisfied with the concessions which 
 had been obtained for him chiefly by the powerful intervention of 
 France, checked the progress of his army and recrossed the Taurus 
 (May, 1833), whilst, by the Sultan's orders, the Russian fleet left the 
 Bosphorus. Such was the position of affairs in the East when it became 
 known that a secret treaty had been concluded at Unkiar-Skelessi (July, 
 1833,) between the Ottoman Porte and Russia, by which the Sultan 
 undertook, in return for the Czar's perpetual protection, to close the Dar- 
 danelles against all foreign ships of war. Europe was much disturbed by 
 this treaty, which placed Constantinople and the whole of the Turkish 
 empire under the exclusive protection of Russia ; England and France 
 vehemently protested against it, and being supported by Austria, forced 
 the Czar to refrain from availing himself of the advantages exacted by 
 this convention from the weakness of the Sultan. 
 
 Whatever opinion may be formed of the conduct of France in the first 
 phase of the great Eastern question, it must be admitted that she obtained 
 for the Pasha of Egypt more than England could have wished, and that 
 she disputed with Russia courageously and firmly. It was not with 
 truth that the Opposition, at this period, accused the French Government 
 of weakness in its relations with Europe ; for, mindful of its origin, it 
 took into account the influence appertaining to ideas as to the relations 
 of modern peoples towards !! each other. It maintained in respect to the 
 absolute powers a noble and proud attitude, which was as free from 
 weakness as from provocation ; it offered the hand of friendship to the 
 free peoples and those who wished to be free ; and it formed a strict 
 alliance with the only great European power which had not viewed with 
 terror or displeasure the popular movement from which it had resulted. 
 
1832-1834.] ENLABGED SYSTEM OE EDUCATION. 537 
 
 Such was, with respect to foreign affairs, the conduct of the Ministry of 
 the 11th October ; it persevered in this conduct until its dissolution, and, 
 towards the close of 1833, the Courts of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, 
 having communicated to the French Government a threatening note, in 
 which they declared that they held it responsible for the progress of 
 revolutionary propagandism in their own and the neighbouring states, 
 the Duke de Broglie, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs, vehemently 
 protested against this note, declaring that France would not suffer, under 
 any pretext, any armed intervention in Switzerland, Belgium, or Pied- 
 mont ; and that, moreover, the only advice as to her course of action 
 which she could follow would be such as might be dictated by circum- 
 stances and a regard to her own interests. 
 
 The Cabinet of the 11th of October in its home policy during the 
 years 1833 and 1834, exposed itself to criticism less Home policy of 
 perhaps by what it accomplished than by its forgetfulness ^»ber" et 
 of certain important measures, and its neglect to carry out enactments 
 others which it had itself proposed. Supported by a 
 majority in each of the two Chambers, it procured the adoption of some 
 useful and important laws. The finances were restored to a regular 
 state by means of the almost simultaneous vote of the budgets of 1833 
 and 1834. This vote put an end to the continual demands for supple- 
 mentary credits, and M. Humann at the same time strengthened the 
 bases of public credit by a judicious law respecting the amortissement. 
 The Ministers of War and the Navy presented laws which had long been 
 desired, and which, by making rank independent of actual service, 
 improved the position of the officers of each service. The statutes in 
 force respecting the exercise of civil and political rights by the colonists 
 were also modified in a liberal spirit. The Councils of Departments and 
 Arrondissements were reorganized, and their members made elective ; 
 but the functions of these councils were left unchanged, and remained 
 much too restricted. The principal law passed at this period was that 
 regarding primary instruction, the excellent work of M. G-uizot, which 
 opened in all the communes in France schools for male children, and at 
 the same time created a nursery of well-informed and capable masters 
 by means of the admirable organization of the normal primary schools 
 in the chief places of the departments. But this law, which was to have 
 so beneficial an influence on public morality when the generation which 
 
538 SECRET societies. [Book V. Chap. II. 
 
 was then in a state of childhood' should have arrived at a mature age, 
 could not for the moment ameliorate the state of things, and as it 
 slightly increased the communal taxes, the poor country population 
 looked upon it at first rather as a new charge than a benefit. 
 
 The working classes still suffered from the great disorder in indus- 
 trial and commercial affairs caused by the Eevolution of 1830 ; and the 
 Government, for the purpose of alleviating their wretchedness, demanded 
 and obtained of the Chamber a hundred millions to be employed on 
 works of public utility ; thus contributing, very involuntarily, and under 
 the pressure of an imperious necessity, to the propagation amongst those 
 classes of the principle of the rights of labour, the very corner-stone of 
 socialism ; whilst it failed to take pains to attach them to the new order 
 of things, either by lightening those taxes which pressed most heavily 
 on them, or by introducing legislative measures which would have 
 lowered the price of raw materials and the necessaries of life.* It 
 entirely neglected, also, the means which were placed at its disposal by 
 an exaggerated system of centralization for exerting a moral and 
 powerful influence over the working classes by means of the periodical 
 press, and thus enlightening them with respect to their own true 
 interests. "With singular blindness it left this powerful instrument 
 entirely in the hands of its adversaries, and the latter made use of it 
 With all the ardour which in some was inspired by ardent convictions 
 and chimerical hopes, in others by disappointed ambition and injured 
 vanity, and in all by implacable hatred. 
 
 The most formidable haunts of insurrection were the innumerable 
 Secret societies secre t societies, which were for the most part born of the 
 &sStyoftE devolution of 1830. A decree of the Court of Assize of 
 Eights of Man. Parig had ia lg32 dissolved tlie Society of the Friends of 
 
 the People ; but it speedily reappeared under the name of the Society of 
 the Rights of Man, which was organized in sections consisting of twenty 
 members each, the number of which in Paris alone was one hundred and 
 sixty-two. A multitude of other associations, called the Union, the 
 Eights of the People, the Protesters of July, &c. &c, had established in- 
 timate relations with the Society of the Rights of Man, and acted in unison 
 with it. The object of the latter was to reestablish the Republic of 1792. 
 
 * M. Duchatel, however, had entered, although very timidly, upon the path of free 
 trade, by slightly modifying, in June and July, 1834, the duties on raw materials. 
 
1832-1834.] PREVENTIVE LAWS. 539 
 
 It had openly adopted as its programme the declaration of the rights of 
 man made by Eobespierre at the National Convention ; and some of the 
 sections, in order to render the object at which they aimed the more 
 manifest, took names which awoke frightful remembrances, such as Marat, 
 Couthon, Saint-Just, and others no less significant. These societies were 
 closely connected with the editorial committees of the democratic journals, 
 and their principal organ was The Tribune, which every day exploded in 
 outrageous and furious declamations against the new Government and the 
 established authorities. The Government brought against Trialofthe 
 these journals a multitude of actions, in which it was not P enodlcal P ress - 
 always successful, and they seemed to derive an increased boldness, as 
 well from the judgments which condemned their conductors as from those 
 which acquitted them. 
 
 The most celebrated of these trials was that which the Elective 
 Chamber, which had been shamefully abused by The Tribune, and called 
 a the prostituted Chamber," brought in 1833 against the conductor of 
 that paper, whom it cited before it for defamation. The conductor was 
 condemned, but his defenders, Godefroi Cavaignac and Armand Marrast, 
 were much raised in public estimation by this struggle in which one of 
 the great powers of the State had engaged with them, and the Chamber 
 was more injured by the insulting audacity of the defence than it had 
 been by the virulence of the incriminated article. The popular passions 
 were influenced by the expression of hatred and fury of parties, not only 
 in the journals, but also in a multitude of frightfully cynical pamphlets, 
 which were cried in the public streets and distributed by tens of 
 thousands under the protection of the law. It was necessary T 
 
 1 J Law on public 
 
 to modify the existing state of the law on this point,* and criers - 
 the Chambers passed a law which submitted the profession of crier and 
 seller of writings on the public ways to the surveillance of the municipal 
 authorities. The Government also submitted to the Chambers another 
 preventive law, which was much to be regretted, especially as a permanent 
 measure, for its ulterior effects. The law forbade the exis- 
 
 7 Law on 
 
 tence of any association for religious, political, or other association, 
 purposes unless sanctioned by a Government licence, which was always 
 revocable. This law could not touch secret societies, whilst it over- 
 
 * The tribunals, on being applied to on the subject, had declared that the law im- 
 posed no restraint upon criers in the exercise of their calling. 
 
540 EEANCE AND THE UNITED STATES. [BOOK V. CHAP. II. 
 
 stepped its object by depriving peaceable citizens of natural and vital 
 liberty, and seriously attacked the liberty of worship granted by the 
 charter. The presentation of this law was received with legitimate dis- 
 quiet by many of those in whose breasts the attachment to the new order 
 of things had not enfeebled the love of public liberty ; it carried the irri- 
 tation of parties to its height, and probably precipitated the crisis which 
 it was its object to prevent. Having been adopted on the 25th March by 
 the Deputies, it passed the Chamber of Peers on the 9th April (1834). 
 But during this short interval an unexpected vote of the Deputies had led 
 to important modifications in the composition of the Cabinet, without 
 altering either its tendency or course of action. This vote was caused by 
 the presentation of a proposal for the payment of an indemnity demanded 
 by the United States for American vessels captured by French ships 
 during the Empire. The amount of this indemnity, which was acknow- 
 ledged to be justly due by Napoleon himself, had been reduced in 1831 
 to twenty -five millions by a treaty executed between France and America. 
 A portion of the Opposition, nevertheless, denounced the 
 
 Refusal of the in- r rr 
 
 demnity due to proposal as an act of weakness, and it was rejected by a 
 
 the United r r > J J 
 
 states changes majority of six. M. de Broglie, the Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs, would not submit to this rebuff, and resigned his 
 portfolio. The Ministerial crisis, considering the troubled state of the 
 Government and of France at that time, was of short duration. Admiral 
 de Rigny succeeded the Duke de Broglie ; M. Thiers, whilst retaining 
 the portfolio of Public Works, became Minister of the Interior ; M. Du- 
 chatel had the portfolio of Trade ; and M. Persil replaced M. Barthe as 
 Minister of Justice. 
 
 Everything now conspired to bring about a final struggle with the Re- 
 publicans. One is astonished at the present time at the indomitable 
 audacity of these men, almost all of whom were neither demagogues nor 
 mad disciples of Babceuf and Robespierre, and many of whom were dis- 
 tinguished for their talents and their private virtues. To understand it 
 we must take into consideration the influence of enthusiastic hearts, 
 thoroughly convinced of their truth. The theories of the Republicans 
 were doubtless dangerous and inapplicable, but they dreamt of a com- 
 plete social regeneration, thought that they had solved the greatest pro- 
 blems of the organization of modern times, and many of the best of them 
 displayed the devotion of heroes and martyrs in their endeavours to 
 
1832-1834.] EEPTJBLICAN TNSUKEECTIONS. 541 
 
 realize their ideas. They were indignant at the indefinite and fatal 
 adjournment of many popular measures which had been promised in 
 principle by the charter of 1830, and at the neglect of many others which 
 had been extolled by the men now in power. They had not taken into 
 account the imperious necessity of reestablishing order before giving fresh 
 guarantees to liberty, and they saw treason in every delay. They were, 
 moreover, disgusted at the sudden elevation of those advocates — those 
 professors or writers with whom they had been associated for fifteen years, 
 either in the journalistic committees or in political clubs, and who, now 
 that they had attained power and honours, had, they said, deserted the 
 cause of the people, whilst they were themselves persecuted and pro- 
 scribed for having remained faithful to it. Finally, imbued as they were 
 with the principle that the sovereignty properly resided in the people, 
 they regarded the new power as an usurped power, which the people had 
 not been called upon to sanction, and, as has been very truthfully ob- 
 served, nothing appears more intolerable to a man than to have to obey 
 those who appear to him to have no right to command his obedience. 
 
 The struggle commenced in the departments. Lyons and many other 
 cities, such as Saint Etienne, Clermont Ferrand, Vienne, Republican in- 
 Chalons, Artois, Luneville, Grenoble, and Marseilles, were surrec 10n * 
 almost simultaneously the theatres of insurrections or serious distur- 
 bances. In every direction the branches of the secret societies gave the 
 signal for revolution, calling all the enemies of the Government to arms, 
 rallying under the Republican flag a multitude of strangers and political 
 refugees, and instigating to revolt the sub-officers and soldiers of the 
 army. The Society of the Rights of Man had an affiliated association, 
 known under the name of The Mutual, which had been founded for the 
 purpose of mutual aid and assistance, and without any political object. 
 The latter made the law respecting associations the occasion for inflaming 
 the popular passions ; and the wages of the workmen engaged in the rug 
 manufactory having been slightly reduced by the master manufacturers, 
 the Mutuallists ordered a general strike. Some of the ringleaders were 
 arrested and brought to trial, and the commencement of proceedings 
 against them was a signal for the Republicans to make an attack. 
 Divided into three great bodies, they rapidly covered the Republican in- 
 city with barricades. General Aymar, commander of the Lyons and in the 
 
 , _ "U, . . , . departments, 
 
 division, and the Prefect, M. de Gasparm, resisted the msur- 1834. 
 
542 INSTJREECTION IN PAEIS. [BOOK V. CHAP. II. 
 
 gents with as much firmness as prudence; and after Lyons had been a 
 prey to the horrors of civil war for five days, the insurrection was put 
 down, April, 1834, It had been vanquished in all the departments, 
 when it appeared in Paris, where it had already lost its principal leaders. 
 M. Thiers, Minister of the Interior, in order to stifle it at 
 
 Insurrection in. ... 1 , 7 
 
 Paris, April, its very source, had sealed up the presses of the Iribune 
 journal, whence there issued every day incendiary mani- 
 festoes ; and by his orders, at the commencement of April, the prin- 
 cipal members of the Society of the Rights of Man and the affiliated 
 societies were seized and imprisoned.* The Republican army thus found 
 itself disorganized and much enfeebled ; but nevertheless, on the 13th 
 April the signal was given for the attack, and the Republicans opened 
 fire on the military. The struggle was intrepidly maintained by the 
 National Guard and the troops of the line, who were brigaded together 
 under the orders of Marshal Lobau. His stringent movements, which 
 were as skilful as they were rapidly executed, speedily thrust back and 
 enclosed the insurrection in the same quarter of Saint-Mery in which it 
 had already been enclosed in the days of June, 1832. On this occasion 
 the insurgents made a desperate defence. The troops, assailed with 
 musketry from the windows in this labyrinth of narrow and sombre 
 streets, and rendered furious by the fire of an invisible enemy, only 
 listened to their rage, and the Rue Transnonain became the scene of a 
 frightful massacre, which is a lamentable episode in our civil wars. The 
 conflict lasted two days, and on the 14th April the insurrection was put 
 down in Paris, 
 
 Many prisoners had been made in all the cities in which it had burst 
 forth, and as their guilty attempts all referred to one vast conspiracy, 
 their trial was referred to the Court of Peers. To prevent the recur- 
 Eepression laws rence of similar attempts, the Government presented to the 
 Chambers the projects of two laws, which were passed in the 
 following session, one of which increased the strength of the army, whilst 
 the other prohibited the possession of arms and munitions of war. A few 
 days afterwards the budget for 1835 was voted, and the 
 
 Close of the legis- . . . 
 
 lative session, session was brought to a close. The Elective Chamber now 
 
 1834. ° 
 
 approached the end of its term of office ; its dissolution was 
 
 * Two only escaped — Godefroi Cavaignac and Kersausie ; but the latter, the most 
 formidable of all, was arrested a few days later. 
 
1832-1834.] GENEBAL ELECTIONS, 543 
 
 announced, and the Government appointed the 21st of June as the day 
 for the general elections. A very small number of the members who 
 were publicly known to be Republicans were reelected ; General eleo . 
 but the combined efforts of the Republicans and the par- tion8 ' 1834 ' 
 tisans of the late Government introduced twenty Legitimists into the new 
 Chamber, and in the first rank of those was one of the most eminent mem- 
 bers of the French bar, M. Berry er. Many new members swelled the 
 Conservative majority, but what it gained in numbers it lost in unanimity. 
 The opinions of its members were more diverse, and many deputies 
 wished that the victories of April, which had been simultaneously gained 
 by the party of order, should serve as a starting point for a conciliatory 
 and more popular policy. 
 
544 THE ALGERIAN QUESTION. [BOOK V. CHAP. III. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 MINISTERIAL CRISIS RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CABINET OF THE llTH OCTOBER 
 
 THE LAWS OF SEPTEMBER DISSOLUTION OF THE CABINET. 
 
 April, 1834 — February, 1836. 
 
 The state of Algeria gave rise, immediately after the elections of 1834, 
 to a fresh ministerial modification, the real cause of which 
 
 Ministerial crisis 
 
 on the Algerian was the incompatibility of character and want of a good 
 
 question. 
 
 understanding between Marshal Soult, the President of the 
 Council, and its most influential and eloquent members, MM. Guizot and 
 Thiers. Too long absorbed by the difficulties attending their home and 
 foreign policy, the Government had given but very insufficient attention 
 to Algeria during the first years which had followed the Revolution. 
 The French power in that country was disputed by the Arabs and the 
 Turks with alternate success and defeat over the whole territory of the 
 old Government between Bona and Oran ; and as the retention of this 
 possession demanded considerable sacrifices without offering any imme- 
 diate return, many voices were in favour of its abandonment. But, on 
 the other hand, the retention of Algeria was, with respect to Europe and 
 posterity, a point of honour for France and of general interest to 
 Christianity. Regarded from this twofold point of view, the abandon- 
 ment of the conquered province was impossible, and it was determined 
 that France should not only retain its conquest, but increase and confirm 
 it. But the entirely military nature of the Government of the French 
 possessions in Africa, which was obstinately defended by Marshal Soult, 
 the Minister for War and President of the Cabinet, had given rise to 
 numerous abuses, and in the eyes of many the moment seemed to have 
 come when it ought to be replaced by a civil administration. This 
 opinion was that of MM. Thiers and Guizot, as well as of the majority of 
 the members of the Council. The Marshal, persisting in his views 
 
1834-1836.] THE THIED PARTY. 545 
 
 tendered his resignation. The King accepted it, and appointed as his 
 
 successor Marshal Gerard, one of the most eminent mem- 
 Marshal Gerard 
 bers of a party which began to be openly constituted replaces Marshal 
 
 oOU.lt £IS Xa 6S1~ 
 
 at this period, and which it is now time to make dentoftheCoun- 
 
 * ■ ' r ' cii, 1834. 
 
 known. 
 
 Many Conservative Deputies, at the commencement of the new 
 session, began to believe that if the so-called policy of resistance had 
 at first saved the country from anarchy and the fury of 
 
 J J J The Third Party. 
 
 political factions, that same policy might eventually become 
 insufficient and irritating, and therefore dangerous. Their ideas respect- 
 ing the necessary results of the Eevolution of 1830, in many respects 
 resembled those of the dynastic Left, from whom, however, they held 
 aloof, fearing the illusions and aggressive language of that portion of the 
 Chamber, and especially regarding with aversion the links which con- 
 nected them with the extreme Left. Their number, imperceptible at 
 first, increased day by day, and they gradually formed out of the several 
 minor parties in the Elective Chamber a Third Party, which was not 
 without a certain analogy with the political groups to which the same 
 name was given at various portions of the history of France in the 
 sixteenth century, and in the Constituent Assembly, — moderate parties 
 standing between the absolute and exclusive parties, and for this reason 
 decried and censured by all ; and which, although chiefly consisting of 
 mere waverers and persons skilful in spying out opportunities of 
 furthering their own views without risking anything, nevertheless 
 reckoned in their ranks and at their head some of the best and most 
 enlightened men of their several periods. The Third Party, under the 
 Government of July as at former periods, advocated conciliatory 
 measures, and sought to effect a compromise between ardent and irre- 
 concilable opinions. 
 
 The elections of 1834 raised the numerical strength of the Third 
 Party to eighty deputies. One of its most eminent members, 
 M. Dupin, senior, was, at the commencement of the legislative 
 session (August, 1834), summoned to the presidential chair; and 
 in his thanks to the Chamber for having elected hint, as in the 
 address voted by the latter in answer to the speech from the throne, 
 there was a strain of blame, only partially concealed beneath equi- 
 
 VOL. II. N N 
 
546 MINISTERIAL CRISIS. [BOOK V. CHAP. Ill 
 
 vocal language. The session was prorogued to December, and in 
 the interval a great question, that of an amnesty, was debated in the 
 Council. 
 
 Marshal Gerard thought that the time had come for the declaration of 
 a general amnesty. He had already expressed a wish that it might be 
 granted ; and, now that he had become the head of the Cabinet, he 
 insisted upon obtaining it, being in this supported by the Third Party, 
 but opposed by the majority in the Council and the two Chambers. The 
 marshal's wish, in fact, appeared to be premature ; for any amnesty 
 granted by a prince fails to effect its object and is dangerous if, instead 
 of proving his generosity or strength, it is only regarded as a sign of his 
 weakness. Such was the light in which an amnesty would have been 
 regarded at the period we treat of by the persons amnestied. Dema- 
 gogism, although defeated in the streets, was still' entrenched in secret 
 societies, and had lost none of its illusions or audacity. Its rage, driven 
 to the last paroxysm, exploded in furious menaces. The two thousand 
 accused persons who had been taken with arms in their hands, relying on 
 their numbers, and encouraged from without, for the most part protested 
 in advance against any pardon, and defied the Government to try them. 
 Under these circumstances an amnesty was impossible, and the King was 
 right in refusing it. This refusal caused the retirement of Marshal 
 Dismissal of Gerard, which was speedily followed by the resignation 
 ftSongedE^ °f amiost tne whole Cabinet; and then began one of 
 those crises in which the reins of power pass rapidly from 
 hand to hand, and are tossed about at hazard, the men capable of holding 
 them being unwilling to do so, and at the same time unwilling that they 
 should be held by others; and in which there is a display of the most 
 pitiful and jealous passions, and the gravest interests are subordinated 
 to miserable and selfish calculations. This state of things is to be found, 
 unfortunately, more especially in representative governments, and, in the 
 eyes of superficial observers, throws discredit upon them ; not; however, 
 that these same passions are not to be found elsewhere, but because in re- 
 presentative governments there are more opportunities for and more 
 stimulants to their growth. 
 
 The crisis lasted eight months, during which we find a Ministry of 
 three days' duration, under the presidency of the Duke de Bassano, and 
 
1834-1836.] TEIAL OF THE RIOTERS. 547 
 
 then the old Cabinet, reconstructed under the Duke de Treviso, which 
 lasted three months. At length, on the 12th March, 1835, Eeconstruetion 
 the policy of the 11th October still prevailing, the Duke uctobe/under 
 de Broglie accepted the presidency of the Council, and was ot the Duke°ie 
 joined by MM. Thiers and G-uizot.* 
 
 This Ministry, containing as it did the most eloquent and influential 
 members of the Conservative party, seemed to possess within itself all 
 the elements of strength and longevity; but nevertheless it survived but 
 a short time, and its brief existence was almost wholly taken up with the 
 trial of the April insurrectionists and the discussion of the serious 
 measures which were soon demanded by the commission of one of the 
 greatest outrages. 
 
 The persons inculpated in the great trial now to be carried on before 
 the Court of Peers, numbering about two thousand, were m . . .^ :, 
 
 7 ° Trial of the April 
 
 divided into classes according to the cities in which the in- rioters - 
 surrection had broken out. With respect to the greater number it was 
 declared that there was no evidence against them, and they were set at 
 liberty. The Court, admirably presided over by Chancellor Pasquier, 
 now more than seventy years of age, summoned before it a hundred 
 and sixty-four accused persons, only forty-three of whom were con- 
 tumacious. No other Court in the kingdom could have fitly conducted 
 this memorable trial, in which the accused, who indulged in out- 
 bursts of incredible rage, were supported by twenty journals be- 
 longing to various sections of the Opposition, and the openly avowed 
 sympathy of many members sitting on the extreme Left in the Elective 
 Chamber. 
 
 The whole of the Republican party had unanimously agreed to 
 render the debates stormy if not impossible. Enthusiastic men, some 
 of them very obscure and others of them already known, all declared 
 enemies of the new monarchy, made themselves officious defenders of the • 
 accused, fully resolved to spare the peers neither invective nor insult, 
 and to hurl back the accusations from the bench of the accused to that of 
 
 * The Duke de Broglie had very reasonably made the passing of a vote for the pay- 
 ment of the indemnity due to the United States a condition of his return to the Council. 
 The question had become much envenomed, but nevertheless the law relative to this 
 debt was presented to the Chamber in 1835 and passed. 
 
 N N 2 
 
548 ATTEMPT or fieschi. [Book V. Chap. III. 
 
 the judges.* For the purpose of preventing this intolerable scandal, the 
 President of the Court, the Chancellor Pasquier, decided that the accused 
 could only be defended by regular advocates, whom they were at liberty 
 to select from the whole of the French bar. The accused protested 
 unanimously against this decision, and, declaring that they were not 
 permitted to defend themselves, refused to plead. Then, bursting forth 
 into vociferations and violent gestures, they practically rendered all dis- 
 cussion impossible. It was necessary to suspend the sitting, and the 
 Court declared that in future the trial would be carried on in the absence 
 of those who interrupted the proceedings by their violence."]" Another 
 decision of the Court, issued in July, declared that the causes should be 
 disjoined, and that each category of the accused should be tried 
 separately. This decision gave rise to scenes the violence of which 
 passed all bounds, but which failed to weary either the patience or the 
 firmness of the judges. A few days afterwards twenty-eight of the 
 principal prisoners in the Paris class contrived to escape, and then the 
 trial proceeded without any fresh incidents. A hundred and six accused 
 persons, including many who were tried in their absence, were found 
 guilty and sentenced to various punishments, the severest of which was 
 transportation. The Court of Peers displayed, in the conduct of this 
 difficult matter, as much moderation as courage, and was really the 
 rampart of threatened society. 
 
 The trials lasted nine months, and long before their conclusion public 
 attention was diverted from it by an execrable crime. 
 
 Louis Philippe had already escaped several attempts at assassination, 
 ... f and other plots, formed with the same object, had been 
 
 Fieschi, 1835. discovered, when, on the 28th July, 1835, the King, in 
 spite of some vague warnings, resolved to hold a grand review of the 
 National Guards on the Boulevards, according to his custom, on the 
 anniversary of the Eevolution of 1830. The royal cortege had already 
 arrived as far as the Boulevard du Temple, when suddenly a jet of 
 name, followed by a loud report, issued from a neighbouring house. On 
 
 * Amongst these defenders were Armand Carrel, de Cormenin, Andre de Puygraveau, 
 Voyer d'Argenson, the abbe' de Lamennais, and others whom subsequent events bave 
 rendered well known, such a3 August© Blanqui, Ledru-RDllin, Kaspail, Trelat, Flocon, 
 Hyppolite Fortoul, and Pierre Leronx. 
 
 f It was said, however, that the accused would be brought into Court, either together 
 or separately, to hear the witnesses and be heard in their defence. 
 
1834-1836.] NEW ENACTMENTS. 549 
 
 every side of the King there arose frightful cries. The monarch and his 
 sons were spared ; but the ground around them was covered with killed 
 and wounded. Forty persons were struck, and eighteen mortally injured ; 
 Marshal Mortier, Duke of Treviso, General Lachasse de Verigny, two 
 colonels, several National Guards, and a young girl, being amongst the 
 latter. A ball had grazed the King's forehead ; another had penetrated 
 the coat of the Duke de Broglie ; and five generals were amongst the 
 wounded. Louis Philippe preserved on this field of carnage all his 
 usual calmness, and continued on his way amidst the acclamations of the 
 indignant crowd. The instrument of the crime was an infernal machine 
 armed with twenty-five barrels directed towards the boulevard, and had 
 been invented by a Corsican named Fieschi, the principal author of the 
 plot. He was seized, together with his accomplices Marcy and Pepin, and 
 tried by the Court of Peers. All three were condemned to death, and 
 died upon the scaffold. 
 
 This great crime excited throughout Paris and the whole of France a 
 feeling of horror mingled with stupefaction, and if the Government had 
 then confined itself to the proposal of laws for guaranteeing the persons 
 of the King and the members of the royal family from similar attacks in 
 the future, they would have been received with general approbation. But 
 it was not so. A few days after the solemn funeral of the victims the 
 Chambers were convoked (4th August), and after the , ca 
 
 x o /' Laws of Septem- 
 
 delivery of a luminous and conscientious explanation of ber ' 1835, 
 their objects by the Duke de Broglie, the President of the Council, the 
 Keeper of the Seals presented to the deputies the drafts of three laws 
 relative to the courts of assize, to juries, and to the press. These laws, 
 in the opinion of their authors, were all intended to protect the King, his 
 family, and the new monarchy against the hatred and fury of their 
 enemies, and some of their clauses tended directly to this end. The 
 latter abridged the proceedings before the courts of assize ; gave greater 
 independence to juries by means of the introduction of the system of 
 secret voting; rendered the representation of dramatic works or the 
 sale of drawings and engravings unlawful without a Government licence ; 
 prohibited the journals from making any attack upon the persons of the 
 King and the members of his family, or the principle even of the esta- 
 blished government, and increased the responsibility of the conductors of 
 them. But to these measures, which circumstances rendered reasonable, 
 
550 DEBATE ON THE NEW LAWS. [BOOK V. CHAP. III. 
 
 the Government had added others in which could be perceived a spirit 
 of extreme irritation against the periodical press and much distrust of 
 the popular institution of trial by jury. They diminished in the courts 
 of assize the chance of acquittal hitherto possessed by the accused, 
 demanded enormous securities from the journals, and subjected them 
 to exorbitant fines, which recalled in some degree the odious system 
 of confiscation abolished by the charter ; and finally, in certain cases, in 
 direct opposition with the sixty-ninth article of the charter, removed the 
 consideration of crimes of the press from the consideration of juries 
 by enabling the Government at its will to declare them to be outrages 
 against the Crown, and thus cause them to be tried by the Court of 
 Peers. 
 
 It was difficult to regard these latter clauses as logical consequences 
 of the crime committed by Fieschi, and they were regarded rather as 
 projects which had been long conceived, and for the production of which 
 this outrage was far less a cause than an opportunity and a pretext. 
 Defended with all the warmth of conviction and eloquence by MM. de 
 Broglie, Guizot, and Thiers, these three projects encountered in the 
 Chambers a vehement opposition, the most illustrious inter- 
 laws of Septem- preter of which was the old and venerable chief of the 
 
 ber. 
 
 doctrinaires, Royer-Collard, who, sad and discouraged and 
 even soured by great deceptions, had shut himself up for many years in 
 a much-to-be-regretted retirement. His noble language was, as it always 
 was, inspired by a high moral tone, although blaming too bitterly, perhaps, 
 the acts of the Cabinet, and speaking too slightingly of the evils which 
 had suggested them. Profound regrets thus mingled themselves with 
 legitimate wishes, and this was the true expression of the feeling which 
 began to prevail. The orator reminded his hearers that the reference of 
 offences committed by the press to the judgment of a jury had been 
 regarded as a great national conquest and recognised as established for 
 ever after July, 1830, and he feared that, by removing them from their 
 natural judges to try them before the Peers, the authority of that Cham- 
 ber would be much diminished ; then, arriving by degrees at the moral 
 situation, at the state of public feeling, he said: — " The evil is great, I 
 Speech of Ko er- know, an ^ ^ shall not attempt to describe it; but is it of 
 Cuiiard. yesterday only, and is it entirely due to the licence of the 
 
 press ? A great school has been opened during the last fifty years, and 
 
1834-1836.] THE LAWS OE SEPTEMBER. 551 
 
 this school consists of the events which have during that time almost 
 incessantly taken place before our eyes. Let us review them : the 6th 
 October, the 10th August, the 21st January, the 31st May, the 18th 
 Fructidor, the 18th Brumaire; and there I pause. What do we see in 
 this series of revolutions ? Victory gained by force over the established 
 order of things, whatever it might be, and doctrines always ready to 
 defend this. We have obeyed the governments imposed by force ; we 
 have received and celebrated in turn the contrary doctrines on which 
 
 they were based And it is thus that authority — the creation of 
 
 Providence, which has formed society — has been plucked up by its roots 
 
 and has been pursued as a prey to be devoured by force The 
 
 remedies on which the President of the Council relies are the illusions of 
 a good man under irritation, are the acts of despair, and will inflict a mortal 
 wound on that liberty which has been purchased at the expense of so 
 much misery, toil, and blood. I reject these fatal remedies, these legisla- 
 tive measures, which are redolent of cunning, the sister of violence, and 
 of another school of immorality. Let us have more confidence in the 
 country ; let us give it due honour ; let us remember that it abounds in 
 honest sentiments ; let us address ourselves to those sentiments, and they 
 will respond to us. Let us be candid and upright, strictly just and 
 judiciously merciful. If that be a revolution the country will be grateful 
 to us for it, and Providence will bless our eiforts." 
 
 These words of Royer-Collard produced a profound sensation, and the 
 Minister of the Interior endeavoured to refute them by arguing that the 
 public liberties would be protected and ;not threatened by laws which 
 would prevent them from degenerating into licentiousness. M. Thiers 
 was energetically replied to by the president of the Chamber, M. Dupin, 
 senior, and MM. Dufaure and Odillon Barrot. Nevertheless, the three 
 projects having been adopted by the Deputies and then voted by the 
 Peers, in spite of the eloquent efforts of MM. Villemain and de 
 Montalembert, were converted into laws which have remained famous 
 under the name of the Laws of September. 
 
 As regarded from the present day the fury of the controversy produced 
 by these laws appears astonishing ; but to appreciate them properly, 
 as in the case of all laws considered from a distance, we ought to 
 view them in all their bearings, and when we form our judgment 
 of them to take care not to separate them either from the effects 
 
552 FALL OF THE CABINET. [BOOK V. CHAP. III. 
 
 which they produced or the circumstances in which they were esta- 
 blished. 
 
 In the laws of September there were joined with some wise and 
 necessary enactments others in which, in spite of indignant 
 
 Remarks on the 1 . 1 .. n . 
 
 laws of Septem- denials that it was the case, there could be seen as much 
 
 ber. 
 
 resentment against as distrust of a free press and trial 
 by jury, both of them institutions which had been long vaunted by 
 the authors of these very laws as the best constitutional guarantees of 
 modern society. We may safely say that in this respect they over- 
 stepped their object, and the event proved that it was not concentrating 
 in a few powerful journals, by means of securities and fines, all the 
 strength of the periodical press, that its explosive force could be 
 moderated. The laws of September, in fact, announced a determination 
 on the part of the Government to persevere in a course of severity, and 
 to render permanent a policy of intimidation which, in the opinion of 
 many men devoted to the Monarchy, could not but be transitory. The 
 irritation which they caused was manifested in the votes of many of the 
 councils-general of the departments ; it strengthened the disastrous links 
 which connected the dynastic Left with the extreme Left, and increased 
 the want of harmony amongst the Conservatives ; and at the same time 
 these rigorous legislative measures did not strengthen the Ministry. 
 France was, it is true, peaceable during the four months which followed 
 their promulgation, but this calm was only the natural result of the 
 depression felt by the republican party after so many defeats, and the 
 Cabinet was overthrown at the commencement of the following session 
 (1836). 
 
 Whilst the Elective Chamber was discussing the address in reply to 
 the speech from the throne, the Finance Minister, M. Humann, introduced 
 into the discussion the inflammatory question of the conversion of the 
 Rentes without having consulted his colleagues. The latter declared 
 Fall of the Cab* a g ams ^ the advisability of this conversion, and imprudently 
 net, Feb., 1836. ma( j e the decision of the Chamber on this serious subject 
 a question as to their Ministerial existence. A majority of two was 
 against them, and they gave in their resignation. 
 
 ' This vote was generally regarded as a mistake. The Cabinet which 
 retired had doubtless on many points failed to satisfy the necessities and 
 legitimate demands of the country. A desperate struggle with impla- 
 
1834-1836.] EEMAEKS ON THE CABINET. 553 
 
 cable enemies had absorbed the greater portion of its time and strength ; 
 and yet, by its courageous energy, its unanimity, and the talents of its 
 principal members, it had inspired confidence, and on the arrival of a 
 calmer period might have been able to render other services. The weak 
 majority which overthrew it without being itself capable of forming a 
 Cabinet, showed that it had not sufficiently calculated the consequences 
 of its vote ; and thus, from an incident of very small significance in 
 itself, arose serious and unexpected consequences, and the fall of the 
 Cabinet marked the close of that policy of union and mutual support 
 which was inaugurated on the 11th October, 1832, by the combination 
 of the various portions of the great Conservative party against the 
 adversaries either of the monarchical institutions or of the monarchy 
 itself. 
 
554 MINISTRY OF M. THIERS. [BOOK V. CHAP. IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST MINISTRY OF M. THIERS MINISTRY OF M. MOLE TILL THE 
 
 COALITION. 
 
 February, 1836— December, 1838. 
 
 The principal fact which marked the formation of the new Ministry was 
 the separation of M. Thiers from M. Guizot and the doctrinaires. 
 None of the latter had places in the Cabinet formed by M. Thiers, in 
 which he was himself Minister for Foreign Affairs, and in which sat three 
 members of the Third Party, who were all Vice-Presidents of the 
 Elective Chamber, MM. Sauzet, Pelet (of La Lozere), and Passy, who 
 were respectively Ministers of Justice, Public Instruction, and Com- 
 merce.* There was not, as far as home policy was concerned, any 
 serious difference of opinion between M. Guizot and M. 
 M. Guizot from Thiers ; for if there Avere more flexibility about the latter, 
 
 M. Thiers. . „ , . „ . . 
 
 if his form of action were less dogmatic, and if he had 
 less repugnance to recur, should occasion demand it, to revolutionary 
 methods, and to ally himself with the Left, with which he was connected 
 by his antecedents and ancieDt sympathies, than was the case with M. 
 Guizot, he detested, as much as the first, demagogy and anarchy ; he was 
 as much as M. Guizot in favour of a very decided system of centraliza- 
 tion, or of the substitution of the action of the State for individual 
 action in matters of worship, education, and administration, and both as 
 Minister and simple Deputy he had supported during six years the policy 
 of resistance ; but there was an incompatibility of temperament and 
 ambition between these talented men, and the perils of the situation no 
 longer appeared sufficiently great to constrain them to walk side by side. 
 Whilst withdrawing, however, from the doctrinaires, M. Thiers did not 
 
 * The other members of the Cabinet were — M. Montalivet for the Interior, 
 M.d'Argout as Minister of Finance, and Marshal Maison and Admiral Duperre as 
 Ministers for Military and Naval Affairs. 
 
1836-1838.] FKESH ATTEMPT OK THE KING'S LIFE. 555 
 
 abandon their principles, and at this price only could he secure that 
 support from them which he considered indispensable to his maintenance 
 of power. At the commencement of their functions by the new Cabinet, 
 the President, in the course of a debate on the secret service money, made 
 an explicit declaration that there could be no alteration in the conduct of 
 the Government, and that it still adhered to the policy of resistance. No 
 concession was made by him to the more conciliatory views of his 
 colleagues of the Third Party, whose influence in the Cabinet was con- 
 fined to procuring for it the support of the votes of their friends or 
 partisans. 
 
 This Ministry lasted a still shorter time than the preceding one, and, 
 amongst the small number of measures carried into execution during its 
 administration, we should mention one useful law for facilitating the 
 construction of chemins vicinaux, and a praiseworthy sacrifice made to 
 public morality of a revenue of about six millions by the suppression of 
 gaming houses.* A fresh project of a law relating to 
 
 Legislative 
 
 Ministerial responsibility was presented by the Cabinet to enactments, 
 
 r ■ J r J 1836. 
 
 the Chamber of Peers ; j but it suffered the fate of the pre- 
 ceding projects on this subject and failed to leave the archives of the 
 Chamber. The session was brought to a close in June, 1836, and a few 
 days afterwards the King providentially escaped another The attempt of 
 attack made against his person. The author of this crime Allbau • 
 was a young fanatic named Alibaud, who, being tried and condemned by 
 the Court of Peers, lost his head upon the scaffold. 
 
 Tranquillity now began to be re-established in the interior, but the 
 political horizon was gloomy abroad. The last remains of the ancient 
 independence of Poland perished with the republic of 
 
 Fall of Cracow. 
 
 Cracow. The two powers of the North and Austria, under 
 the pretence of stifling and destroying a focus of political troubles, took 
 possession of Cracow, and France protested feebly against this infraction 
 of the clause of the treaties of 1815, by which the independence of 
 Cracow was guaranteed by all Europe. 
 
 Switzerland at this time appeared an asylum to the revolutionists and 
 
 * Lotteries had already been abolished under the preceding Ministry. 
 t Drafts of laws relating to the responsibility of Ministers had already been 
 presented to the Deputies in 1832, 1833, and 1835, but none of them had been 
 accepted. 
 
556 FOREIGN POLICY OE ERANCE. [BOOK V. CHAP. IV. 
 
 conspirators of all the countries in Europe, and maintained upon our 
 „ . .. frontiers as well as upon those of other countries a dange- 
 
 Foreign policy r ° 
 
 in s h ain a and et roils focus of agitation. M. Thiers in demanding their ex- 
 Switzeriand. pulsion yielded to the fears of the Conservative party, as 
 well as to the wishes of Austria and the Northern Powers, and the 
 conclusion or decree which he exacted by threats from the Federal Diet 
 for the purpose of forcing the cantonal governments, excited in Swit- 
 zerland an unfortunate feeling of resentment against the French 
 Government. 
 
 In Spain, to look in another direction, were seen the horrors of civil 
 war, added to the hideous spectacle of anarchy and a demagogic revolu- 
 tion. The counter-revolutionary party made every day, by the aid of 
 stormy condi- skilful generals, fresh progress ; whilst Don Carlos held his 
 tion of Spam. CO urt in Spain, master of all the mountainous portion of 
 the country comprised between the Pyrenees, the Ebro, and the ocean. 
 Armed bands traversed the provinces in his name, committing every- 
 where frightful ravages. Carlists and Christinos rivalled each other in 
 fury and cruelty. The Liberal and progressionist party formed in all the 
 cities independent juntas, which demanded that the Cortes should be 
 convoked in a Constituent Assembly, for the purpose of revising the 
 Statut Royal, and the Prime Minister, Mendizabel, supported their 
 threatening demands. The Queen-mother replaced him by Isturitz, 
 who attempted to restrain the demagogic torrent, and invoked, in July, 
 1836, the clauses of the treaty of the quadruple alliance for the purpose 
 of obtaining the aid of the powers who had signed it against Don Carlos. 
 The only foreign auxiliaries of the constitutional cause at that time in 
 the Queen's armies consisted of a legion of about three thousand men 
 of various nations, called the Foreign Legion, and a small body of 
 English volunteers, under General Evans. King Louis Philippe, con- 
 sidering the deplorable position in which Spain was now placed, was 
 reluctant to engage the French Government in the sanguinary struggle 
 now going on between the Revolutionists and the Carlists. M. Thiers 
 adopted a middle course, which consisted in permitting the Spanish 
 Government to recruit from the army of observation of the Pyrenees a 
 sufficient number of volunteers to raise the Foreign Legion to ten 
 thousand men, who were to be placed under the orders of a French 
 general, and who, acting in concert with the corps under General Evans 
 
1836-1838.] DISMISSAL OF M. THIEES. 557 
 
 and some Spanish and Portuguese regiments, would form the nucleus of 
 an imposing corps oVarmee. Louis Philippe sanctioned this project, but 
 before it was carried into execution, a military insurrection burst forth, in 
 the month of August, in Spain. The Queen-Regent, besieged with her 
 daughter, the Queen Isabella, in the palace of La Granja by a furious 
 soldiery, was compelled to subscribe to the constitution of 1812, in which 
 royalty was a mere phantom. Madrid rose in its turn, and was the 
 theatre of horrible scenes. General Quesada perished, torn in pieces by 
 that populace, and Isturitz was pushed from power. In this new crisis, 
 Louis Philippe refused to aid a government which had fallen into the 
 hands of a revolutionary demagogism, and wished the volunteers 
 incorporated in the Foreign Legion to be dismissed ; whilst M. Thiers 
 insisted that they should be retained at their flags, to be Dj smiS3a i of M. 
 ready to act when order should be re-established. As his co iieaguea, 
 views were directly opposed by the King he resigned his ugu ' 
 portfolio ; all his colleagues, with the exception of M. Montalivet, followed 
 his example, and the Ministry was dissolved. 
 
 The formation of a new Ministry was now entrusted to an eminent 
 member of the peerage, M. Mole. Formerly a high functionary of the 
 Empire, a statesman and a courtier, M. Mole was one of the small 
 number of the new monarchy who were superior to 
 
 J r Ministry of M. 
 
 high offices ; if not always by reason of their personal Mo;e, Septem- 
 character, at least by their rank and fortune. He was a 
 friend of the King, but nevertheless he did not carry his deference for 
 the royal wishes so far as to sacrifice to them his personal convictions or 
 the interests of the country. As Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1830, at 
 the period of the Belgian revolution, he preserved Belgium from a 
 Prussian invasion ; and, by being the first to proclaim the principle of 
 non-intervention, had displayed a clear sense of what circumstances 
 demanded, and of the national will. M. Mole joined to skill in the 
 conduct of important affairs the art of managing men; and, without 
 possessing great parliamentary eloquence, was in his manner clear, facile, 
 insinuating, and sometimes cutting. A Conservative by position and 
 by principle, he had hitherto remained attached to the policy of resis- 
 tance, without, however, having formed any violent resolution to remain 
 so. He thought that the best species of policy was to watch the times, 
 and to regulate his conduct according to circumstances. He did not 
 
558 conspiracy or lottis kapoleon. [Book V. Chap. IV. 
 
 consider that the moment was come as yet for making any change in the 
 system when he resumed in 1836 the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, with 
 the title of President of the Council ; and as, although he had no 
 sympathy with the doctrinaires, their support appeared to him to be 
 indispensable, he made three of them members of his Cabinet; M. 
 Guizot had the portfolio of Public Instruction, M. de Gasparin that of 
 the Interior, and M. Duchatel that of Finance.* 
 
 The existence of this Cabinet was a very agitated one. The relations 
 between France and Switzerland became embittered ; and the irritation 
 _ .;' , of the cantons was increased, not without cause, by the 
 
 Case of the spy 7 7 J 
 
 Conseii. discovery of a French spy, named Conseil, a secret agent of 
 
 the late Cabinet, who was discovered and bitterly denounced by the 
 Diet, as the abettor of disturbances and the promoter of demagogic 
 excesses, at the very moment when it was receiving from the French 
 Government imperious injunctions to expel all demagogues and anarchists. 
 The serious discontents caused in Switzerland and the contiguous 
 French departments by those irritating negotiations, precipitated, pro- 
 bably, the execution of a plot, the author of which was Prince Louis 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, son of the ex-King of Holland, and subsequently 
 summoned to such high destinies. This prince, who had been brought 
 up in Switzerland at the castle of Arenenberg by the Queen Hortense, his 
 mother, had associated himself in 1831, whilst still very young, with the 
 
 disastrous enterprise of the Italian patriots, and had after - 
 PrKLouis wards made himself known by some works on politics and 
 strasburg, the art of war. Since the death of the Duke of Reichstadt 
 
 (Napoleon II.), which took place in 1832, Louis Napoleon 
 Bonaparte considered himself heir to his uncle's imperial throne, and did 
 not doubt that he should some day sit on it. Deceived by the perpetual 
 risings of the Republican party, and the virulent declamations of the 
 Opposition journals, and seduced also by the secret encouragements 
 of various influential persons, he believed that France was ready to 
 substitute an imperial government for that of July, and that he would 
 only have to appear, to secure a fortress and a few regiments, and to march 
 to Paris, to be saluted Emperor by the whole of France. He cast his 
 
 * M. Persil had the Seals. The Ministry of Naval Affairs was given to Admiral 
 Rosamel, and that of War to General Bernard. M. Martin ^of the North) was Minister 
 for Commerce and Public Works. 
 
1836-1838.] EEYERSES IN AFBICA. 559 
 
 eyes upon Strasburg, and gained over Colonel Vaudrey, commander of 
 the Fourth Regiment of Artillery, and some subaltern officers of the 
 garrison. During the night of the 30th October the prince secretly 
 entered the city, gathered together his accomplices, was received as 
 Emperor by Colonel Vaudrey's regiment, by order of its commander, and 
 endeavoured to raise all the troops and the inhabitants to the cry of 
 u Long live Napoleon! Long live liberty!' 1 '' The attempt, however, 
 proved a failure, for the garrison and the inhabitants proved faithful to 
 the King, and, after a short struggle, the prince and the principal con- 
 spirators were made prisoners. The latter were given over to the hands 
 of justice ; but Louis Napoleon, the author and whole soul of the plot, 
 was set at liberty, as had formerly been the Duchess de Berri, to the 
 great discontent of all those to whom equality before the law appears of 
 the highest importance. Thus ended this rash enterprise ; but never- 
 theless it was not without some important results for its author, for it 
 seized hold of men's imaginations, and by its 23ry rashness drew upon 
 the prince and his pretensions the attention of France. 
 
 The French arms at this period experienced a great disaster in 
 Africa, where Marshal Clausel had recently succeeded Count d'Erlon as 
 Governor-General of Algeria. The war was carried on ,,•.'•.. 
 
 ° Algeria. 
 
 with the utmost vigour during the whole of the old 
 Regency ; and whilst Abd-el-Kader, the Emir of Maskara, who was 
 considered by the Arabs as the leader of the Holy War, held our troops 
 in check in the province of Oran, they had to repulse in the east, in the 
 province of Bona, the continual and murderous attacks of the Bey of 
 Constantine. The capture of this latter place, which was especially 
 formidable from the strength of its position, which was almost on the 
 edge of a rock, was considered by Marshal Clausel as indispensable to 
 the security as well as to the development of the French possessions in 
 Africa. A considerable reinforcement of troops had been promised for 
 this expedition by the previous Ministry, but was refused by the new 
 one. The Marshal, however, allowed himself to be persuaded that the 
 tyranny of Achmet Bey of Constantine, had wearied the inhabitants, 
 and that at the approach of the French army the city would be delivered 
 up by the Arabs themselves. He considered, therefore, that 
 
 r J _ \ First Constan- 
 
 the troops which he had at his disposal were sufficient, tine expedition, 
 and prepared to march upon Constantine with 8000 in- 
 
560 ACQUITTAL OP CONSPIKATOKS. [BOOK V. CHAP. IV. 
 
 fantry, 1500 horse, two batteries of howitzers, and eight field pieces. 
 This weak corps commenced the campaign on the 13th November, under 
 the command of Marshal Clausel, whom the Duke de Nemours, the 
 King's second son, accompanied as a volunteer. The march from Bona 
 to Constantine, across a hostile and insurgent country, was a very 
 painful one ; fever, fatigue, and Arab weapons decimated the little 
 French army, and Constantine did not open its gates. To capture it, it 
 would be necessary to besiege it, and as a regular attack without siege 
 pieces was impossible, the Marshal attempted unsuccessfully the bold plan 
 of an assault. A retreat had already become difficult from the want of 
 provisions and ammunition ; the Marshal ordered one, and it was dis- 
 astrous.* At length the army, after having endured great sufferings, 
 reentered Bona, thoroughly exhausted, and diminished by one-third, 
 having lost three thousand men and a great portion, of its war material. 
 
 The Legislative Session opened in December, 1836, under the painful 
 
 impression caused by this reverse, and by a fresh attempt against the 
 
 King's life. "J" The address of the two Chambers in reply to 
 
 Se^sion, 1 ]^- the speech from the throne had scarcely been voted, when 
 
 1837 
 
 there arrived news of the strange result of the trial of 
 Colonel Yaudrey and the other accomplices of Prince Louis Napoleon at 
 Strasburg. They were acquitted on the pretext that the principal person 
 accused had been withdrawn from his judges and the verdict of the jury. 
 To this unexpected result the Ministry replied by an act of rage and fresh 
 
 rigours. It presented a law, called the law of disjunctions, 
 produced in the the effect of which was to disjoin for the future the trials 
 
 Chambers. Law . . „ , ... . - ,. 
 
 of disjunction, of civilian prisoners trom the trials or military prisoners 
 
 1837 
 
 who should be accused of having been concerned in the 
 same crime, the latter being handed over to military tribunals. Two other 
 laws were presented, the one for punishing with solitary confinement the 
 non-revelation of plots against the safety of the State, and the other for 
 increasing the punishment of transportation by changing it, at the will of 
 the Government, into that of solitary confinement ; and at the same time, 
 by an unfortunate coincidence, the Ministers demanded of the Chambers 
 
 * Commandant Chansrarmer covered himself with glory in the course of this 
 retreat, which he protected at the head of an heroic battalion of the» 2nd light 
 infantry, which formed the rear-guard. 
 
 f The assassin's name was Meunier. The King forgave him. 
 
1836-1838.] FEW MINISTRY. 561 
 
 a sum of a million for the dowry of the Queen of the Belgians, and an 
 allowance for the Duke de Nemours — relying on the law relating to the 
 civil list, which, in case the private possessions should be insufficient, 
 authorized an appeal to the country for a provision for the princes and 
 princesses of the royal family. 
 
 The public mind was excited by all these projects, at which the 
 Opposition displayed both surprise and irritation, and the enemies of the 
 dynasty seized the opportunity for again pouring calumny and insult 
 upon the Eoyal person in -a too famous series of pamphlets. To these 
 more or less legitimate causes of agitation and discontent were added 
 dissensions in the bosom of the Cabinet itself, where the doctrinaires 
 complained of not possessing an influence either equal to their political 
 importance or to the share which they had to bear in unpopular 
 acts.* 
 
 The difficulties of the position were still further increased by the rejec- 
 tion of the law of disjunction, which the Chamber of 
 
 Its rejection. 
 
 Deputies threw out on the 9th March by a majority of 
 two. M. Mole perceived that the moment had come for moderating the 
 rigorous system which had hitherto been in force. A ministerial crisis 
 ensued, during which the King applied successively to M. Guizot and 
 to M. Thiers, the leaders of the Right and Left Centre, inviting them to 
 form a cabinet which would have the support of a majority ; but each of 
 them, after fruitless efforts, had to give up the task. The King then 
 returned to M. Mole, who, resolved to adopt a conciliatory „, 
 
 7 *■ J Changes in the 
 
 policy, eliminated from the Cabinet the doctrinaire element, Mol ° Cal > inet - 
 in which was more particularly personified the policy of resistance. He 
 took four new colleagues, MM. Barthe, Montalivet, Salvandy, Lacave- 
 Laplagne, and they held respectively the portfolios of Justice, the Interior 
 Public Instruction, and Finance. Thus was formed the Ministry of 
 the 15th April, 1837, under the presidency of M. Mole, ,,. . 
 
 r ' r j j Ministry of April 
 
 who committed the fault of not opening the new Cabinet 15 ' 1837> 
 
 to any of the members of the Third Party, whilst he began to adopt their 
 
 views and many points of their programme. 
 
 This party, which then formed the most considerable element of the 
 
 * M. de Gasparin having expressed an intention of resigning the portfolio of the 
 Interior, M. Guizot thought, not unreasonably, that he had a claim to it from M. Mole" 
 ■who was already convinced of the necessity of a change of system. 
 
 VOL. II - 
 
562 GOVERNMENTAL OPPOSITION. [BOOK V. CHAP. IV. 
 
 Left Centre, had been represented, as we have already seen, in several 
 cabinets, withont having possessed sufficient strength to 
 character of the maintain itself in power, or to give its own peculiar impulse 
 to the conduct of affairs. It reckoned in its ranks some 
 important and celebrated men — MM. Dupin, senior, Dufaure, Sauzet, 
 Hyppolite Passy, and, somewhat later, Alexis de Tocqueville. The 
 essential object in their eyes was to judge, in a revolutionary and demo- 
 gogic spirit, of the true source of the Revolution of 1830, considered in 
 its best tendencies, and to grant a just satisfaction to the healthy ideas 
 and new necessities which this great event had stimulated or produced. 
 The Government, said the Third Party, had neglected many of the 
 engagements entered into at this period, and had only partially fulfilled 
 others. For the success of their views it was necessary in the opinion of 
 the Third Party that great modifications should be made in the electoral 
 law, which, after having suppressed the double vote, had merely reduced 
 from three hundred francs to two hundred the amount of taxes payable 
 to qualify a man to be an elector. The most prominent men of the Third 
 Party were of opinion that the smaller tradesmen, and even the better 
 class of the working men, could not, without danger, be debarred from 
 all personal intervention in the affairs of the country; and many, and 
 these were the most far-sighted, were in favour of a method of election 
 which would enable the people generally to share in a certain measure 
 in the election of deputies, whilst at the same time giving a large share 
 of influence over these elections to intelligence and property. With this 
 object they would gladly have substituted direct election for the method 
 of electing by two degrees. 
 
 The opponents of the Third Party reproached it with being chiefly 
 composed of uneducated and jealous men, who, incapable of wielding 
 power themselves, were skilful only in decrying and weakening it. Its 
 leaders, they said, were inspired with honest intentions and vague aspira- 
 tions instead of good common sense and practical ideas, and were the 
 heads of a coterie rather than of a party. 
 
 These reproaches, however, although more or less true with respect to 
 most of the members of the Third Party, did not sufficiently explain its 
 want of power, and to discover its cause it was necessary to look elsewhere. 
 What was wanting in these eminent men was not oratorical talent, but 
 
1836-1838.] DIFFICULTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 563 
 
 the all-powerful influence of Parliamentary eloquence, which fascinates, 
 subjugates, and entrances, and which was possessed in such high perfec- 
 tion by the leaders of the Party of Eesistance ; that determined and 
 ardent ambition which is less careful of the means than the end ; that 
 consummate ability to create, govern, and discipline a party, to influence 
 men as well through their bad as their good instincts, and to inspire them 
 with confidence by means of the confidence which one has in one's self. 
 The chiefs of the Third Party were intellectual, but timid ; they were 
 almost always inspired by a genuine desire to further the popular 
 interests, but were at the same time constantly held in check by their 
 devotion to the new Monarchy. To have enabled them to form a power- 
 ful homogeneous party, capable of carrying out bold measures, a close 
 alliance must have been necessary between them and the dynastic Left, 
 whose views in many respects resembled their own, but whose ante- 
 cedents, adventurous tendencies, and dangerous connexions with the 
 Radical or Republican Left were not unreasonably held by the Third 
 Party in considerable suspicion. The Third Party, moreover, did not 
 dissimulate its intention of modifying the electoral law in such a manner 
 as to effect very great alterations in the composition of the Elective 
 Chamber ; and this alone was sufficient to deprive them of many votes 
 in a Chamber in which selfish personal views became more and more pre- 
 dominant, and in which too many of the subordinate members had already 
 begun to disregard the general interests in favour of their personal ones.- 
 The Ministry of M. Mole did not reckon amongst its members 
 anv of the great orators of the Elective Chamber, but it was Au .■-''■. 
 
 ■J ° ' Abnormal posi- 
 
 composed of capable and enlightened men, who were ani- tlonof>M - Molfe - 
 mated by a desire for the general welfare. Its head no doubt departed 
 from Parliamentary usage by remaining in power to support a policy in 
 some respects different from that which he had hitherto defended or 
 maintained ; and, to be enabled to govern, he was reduced to seek sup- 
 port in every direction, and to form a majority by bringing over to his 
 new policy men sitting on different and even opposite benches. But this 
 course was naturally justified by the loudly avowed inability of his 
 adversaries or rivals to carry on the Government themselves with a suffi- 
 cient majority, an important fact which was ignored or unknown by the 
 Conservative members, who in this and the following session attributed 
 
 o o 2 
 
564 GENERAL ELECTIONS. [BOOK V. CHAP. IV. 
 
 to : the Minister his abnormal position as a crime.* A more conciliatory 
 policy was inaugurated by the first acts of the Ministry of the 1 5th April. 
 The irritating projects recently presented to the Chamber relative to a 
 settlement on the Duke de Nemours, the punishment of persons who 
 wthd i f snon ld fail to reveal conspiracies, and the substitution of 
 pana & r and other son ^ary confinement for transportation, were withdrawn, 
 projects, 1827. an( ^ ^ Q jQ n g g Tan ted an amnesty to all persons accused of 
 political offences. No important change, however, was made in the 
 general conduct either of home or foreign affairs. After 
 
 General amnesty. 
 
 the session the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved, and the 
 
 month of October appointed for the general elections. The Radical 
 
 party, abandoning at length the hope of carrying its theories' 
 
 Dissolution of. . i' ■ « ••. i -i • i -it-it 
 
 the chamber of into execution by forcibly overthrowing the established 
 
 Deputies, 1837. * . 
 
 order of things, resolved to attain its object gradually, and 
 by means of the established institutions. It loudly declared, in defiance 
 of the laws of September, its Republican principles, and concentrated all 
 its forces for the electoral struggle which was about to commence. The 
 dynastic Left separated on this occasion, but too late, from the extreme 
 Left, the latter being alone represented in the Electoral Committee of the 
 Opposition, in which figured, by the side of the most zealous adversaries 
 of Louis Philippe and his monarchy, two former Ministers, Jacques 
 Laffitte and Dupont de l'Eure. The Ministry, thus threatened, violently 
 „ . , .. stretched, for the purpose of combating its avowed or dis- 
 
 General elections 1 r r o 
 
 November, 1837. g U i se d enemies, all the resources of administrative centraliza- 
 tion, and many of its agents overstepped the necessary or permitted 
 limits. In committing this serious fault it followed the example of many 
 other Cabinets; but it must be remembered, in extenuation, that the 
 struggle in which it was now engaged with the Revolutionary or Repub- 
 lican party was a conflict of principles and of the future, in which the 
 general interests were at stake, and that it might not unreasonably suppose 
 
 * M. de Nouvion, in his " History of the Reign of Louis Philippe," vol. iv. p. 259, 
 has not taken this fact into account, but severely reproaches M. Mole' for having 
 endeavoured to draw to his side men of all parties. ... "A party worthy of the 
 name," he says, " no more abandons its leader to support a ministry, than a regiment 
 deserts its flag to join the enemy." This doctrine, taken absolutely, is as false as it is 
 dangerous ; for there are times when no party has sufficient strength in itself to carry 
 on the government, and the obstinacy of a few ambitious leaders would render all 
 government impossible. We must not lay down as an absolute law, " Perish the State 
 leather than a principle." 
 
1836-1838.] LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS. 565 
 
 that the fate of the Monarch and of society itself was dependent on the 
 issue. 
 
 All the efforts of the Republican Opposition only resulted in the return 
 of a few more Republican deputies. The Third Party also gained many- 
 new members, and the various parties in the Chamber remained, in 
 spite of the introduction of many fresh members, almost of the same 
 respective strength as formerly. 
 
 The Ministry of M. Mole did not make much greater efforts than pre- 
 ceding ministries to carry out in a liberal spirit the promises of the 
 charter, and it failed to pay any more attention than they had paid to 
 the social questions, properly so called, which had for their especial 
 object the amelioration of the condition of the working classes, and which 
 now began to occupy public attention. Whatever reproaches, how- 
 ever, the Ministry of M. Mole may have justly incurred, it must be 
 acknowledged that the period which elapsed from the 15th April, 1837, 
 the date of the rupture of its head with the doctrinaires, to its fall, was a 
 prosperous period, the most fruitful in useful laws in proportion to its 
 duration, and the most tranquil of all the reign. 
 
 After the amnesty, the laws which, of those presented or adopted 
 during this short period, deserve the most praise, are those which 
 improved the Bankruptcy law, increased the guarantees 
 given by the Tribunals of Commerce, improved the regu- Legislative 
 
 . . , enactments. 
 
 lations in force respecting lunatics, enlarged the powers 
 of justices, and regulated the functions of the Councils of depart- 
 ments, arrondissements, and communes. These latter laws especially 
 were impatiently expected, and although even now very insufficient, were 
 a first and happy effort against the excess of administrative power. The 
 rise in the public funds now announced that public confidence, as well as 
 the material and financial condition of the kingdom, were improving.* 
 The industry of the country had been immensely developed, and the con- 
 struction of some of the great French railways commenced at this period. 
 France, in the meantime, maintained its rank and influence abroad. 
 Ancona, indeed, was evacuated before the accomplishment 
 of the reform promised by the Roman Government ; but 
 this evacuation, which was advanced against the Cabinet by its adver- 
 saries as a crime, was in strict conformity with diplomatic conventions, 
 * The Five per Cents were at 111, and the Three per Cents over 81. 
 
566 FBENCH TRIUMPHS. [BOOK V. CHAP. TV. 
 
 and only took place after the evacuation of the Pontifical territory by 
 the Austrians themselves * The Dutch-Belgian question was finally 
 settled at this period by the acquiescence of the King of the Netherlands 
 in the Treaty of the Twenty-four Articles. By virtue of this treaty 
 Belgium had to consent to the painful sacrifice of some portions of its 
 territory, but it obtained, through the intervention and the influence of 
 France at the Conference of London, the reduction to one half of the 
 sum payable by her to Holland.f The Cabinet displayed at first some 
 Algeria, 1837-38. weakness in its conduct with respect to Algeria. It com- 
 rea y o a a. m i tte( j ^ f au j_t f ratifying the Treaty of Tafna, concluded 
 between Abd-el-Kader and General Bugeaud, May, 1837, a convention 
 by which the Emir acknowledged indeed the sovereignty of France in 
 Algeria, but by which also a considerable portion of the old territory 
 occupied by the French troops was ceded to the Arabs. This unfortu- 
 nate treaty, however, was gloriously atoned for by the brilliant success 
 of a new expedition made bv the French army against 
 
 Capture of Con- L J J & 
 
 stantine, Constantine. The town was carried by assault, October, 
 
 Ocrober, 1837. J ' ' 
 
 1837, and its possession extended and confirmed the power 
 of France over all the tribes of that province.^ 
 
 France had at this time just demands to make or offences to punish 
 in various countries of the new world ; at Haiti, in the Argentine 
 Republic, now tyrannized over by the President Eosas, and in Mexico ; 
 and she everywhere made her power respected. The French navy in 
 particular covered itself with glory in the expedition directed against 
 „ . . Mexico by Admiral Baudin, who was valiantly seconded 
 
 JN aval campaign J ' •> 
 
 B g rniiant M attack ^7 tne P rmce de Joinville, the third son of the King of the 
 
 SaiuWeln 1 ° f ' French. This rapid campaign was terminated by the 
 
 attack on, and glorious capture of, the Fort Saint Jean 
 
 * The convention of the month of April, 1832, specified that the evacuation of 
 Ancona should take place immediately after the evacuation by the Austrians of the States 
 of the Holy See. 
 
 f Head the pages of M. de Nouvion's work relative to the evacuation of Ancona and 
 the settlement of the Dutch-Belgian question. "History of the Reign of Louis 
 Philippe," vol. iv. p. 248. 
 
 X The Commander-in-Chief, Damremont, was killed by a ball at the commence- 
 ment of the siege, and replaced by General Valee. The expeditionary corps consisted 
 of four brigades, under the command of the Duke de Nemours, Generals Ruhliere and 
 Trezel, and Colonel Combes. The first column of attack was led by Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Lamoriciere, and the second by Colonel Combes, who received a mortal wound 
 at the breach, and died like a hero of antiquity. 
 
1836-1838.] CULMINATION OE THE KING'S POWEB. 567 
 
 d'Ulloa, the principal defence of Vera Cruz. That place capitulated, 
 and the victory obtained by the French squadron was subsequently fol- 
 lowed by a treaty the conditions of which were dictated by France. 
 
 Louis Philippe was at this time at the height of his greatness. He 
 celebrated at Fontainebleau the marriage fetes of his eldest son, the 
 Duke d' Orleans, who espoused Princess Helen of Mecklenburg Schwerin, 
 the rare qualities of whose mind and heart rendered her worthy of the 
 throne. The same year witnessed the splendid inauguration of the historical 
 galleries of Versailles, the "happy realization of a truly royal idea, and a 
 work of conciliation and justice by which Louis Philippe presented for 
 the homage of posterity all the glories of the country. Fortune con- 
 tinued to smile upon him ; a grandson was born to him, and no mourn- 
 ing had yet fallen upon his brilliant family ; no sombre cloud, in spite 
 of the existence in the country of so much implacable hatred, hung 
 between the King and his people. At the first signal Paris arose in 
 arms, its magnificent legions pressed around the Monarch, and his reviews 
 were fetes. Insurrectionary mobs were no longer heard of; the assas- 
 sins even seemed to be vanquished or tired out. Astonished at so rare 
 and constant a happiness, Europe,- which had long been distrustful 
 and hostile, began to believe that it saw in Louis Philippe the man of 
 Providence or destiny. Europe, no less than the irritated and discouraged 
 adverse parties in the kingdom itself, seemed to think that political 
 disturbances were adjourned to the close of the King's life, and that 
 the safety of France and the peace of the world depended on its pro- 
 longation. 
 
 When we glance in thought at the rapid and complete ruin which 
 followed so much prosperity and greatness, we tremble, and ask with 
 affright why there was so terrible a fall from so astonishing an 
 elevation. 
 
568 COALITION AGAINST M. MOLE. [BOOK V. CHAP. V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE COALITION MINISTRY OF THE THIRD PARTY SECOND MINISTRY OF 
 
 M. THIERS. 
 
 1839—1840. 
 There was, in a parliamentary point of view, as we have already 
 acknowledged, something abnormal in the position of M. Mole and his 
 Cabinet after his rupture with the doctrinaires. The most eminent 
 Deputies of the Conservative party found themselves deprived of any 
 share of power unless the general policy should be greatly modified; 
 n ,.:. ' , and it was, therefore, on the members of the two Centres, 
 
 Coalition formed ' ' 
 
 against M. Mote. w j 10 were m ore particularly under the influence of MM. 
 Guizot and Thiers, that the President of the Council found himself forced 
 to rely. But the motive spirit of the Government no longer came from 
 them, and appeared, too openly, to emanate beyond the walls of the 
 Chambers from the Royal will, which was obeyed by the officers of the 
 Crown and the crowd of functionaries who sat on the Conservative 
 benches. The leaders of the old majority, although far from satisfied 
 with the secondary position in which they were placed, appeared at first 
 to be resigned to it, and the Ministry held power so long as they 
 afforded it their support. 
 
 They became weary, at length, of this state of affairs, and being too 
 weak to govern by themselves, formed a league against the Cabinet with 
 the Third Party and their old adversaries of the dynastic Left. It was 
 difficult to find a common cry for men of such different opinions ; but at 
 length they adopted as a general device a principle which, in France 
 especially, cannot be accepted save with numerous restrictions, and 
 which they formularized in these words, " The King reigns but does not 
 govern." Thus was formed, of factions astonished at finding themselves 
 united, a too famous coalition, which was as natural and as easy to com- 
 prehend as to justify, on the part of the various portions of the Left, but 
 which was less so with respect to the Right Centre and the doctrinaire 
 
1839-1840.] DEBATES Itf THE CHAMBERS. 569 
 
 Deputies, hitherto so monarchical and so docile themselves to the pressure 
 of the Royal hand which weighed on the Cabinet. 
 
 The struggle openly commenced in the journals in the interest of the 
 now united parties. M. Duvergier de Hauranne, a zealous spokesman of 
 the doctrinaire party, accused the administration of M. Mole in the 
 Revue Franqaise of incapacity and weakness ; whilst the Conservative 
 journals, with the exception of the Presse and the Debats ) rivalled the 
 violence, in this intestine war, of the papers most hostile to the 
 monarchy. All imputed it as a crime to the Government that it had 
 abandoned the foreign policy of 1830, and sacrificed to the preservation 
 of peace the interests and dignity of France in Italy, Switzerland, and 
 Belgium ; whilst both the one set of journals and the other denounced, 
 although in very different terms, the encroachments of the Crown in the 
 conduct of affairs.* The Cabinet, said the latter, was too feeble or too 
 servile to resist these encroachments; whilst the former declared that 
 its inefficiency rendered this violation of constitutional forms too 
 apparent. The King, according to them, was not sufficiently covered by 
 his Cabinet, and yet they themselves showed him holding the reins of 
 power behind his Ministers ; they declared him irresponsible, and yet 
 dragged him into the arena of furious party warfare. 
 
 From the very commencement of the Session the virulent attacks of 
 the press were reproduced in the debates in the two 
 Chambers on the discussion of the address to the King, Session, 1838- 
 and were almost entirely concentrated on these two chief 
 points : the inefficiency or cowardice of the Cabinet in its relations with 
 the Crown, its bad management of foreign affairs, its forgetfulness of 
 French interests and of the Liberal cause in Italy, where 
 Ancona had been evacuated without any guarantee, and in 2k£e!w 0nthe 
 Belgium, which had been compelled to sacrifice two pro- 
 vinces ; and finally, the abuse of the name of France in Switzerland, 
 where the Government had offended the Diet by forcing upon it the ex- 
 pulsion of Prince Napoleon in most imperious and insulting terms. f M. 
 
 * The sacrifice of a portion of Luxemburg and Limburg had been im- 
 posed upon Belgium by the Conference of London, by the Treaty of the Twenty, 
 four Articles. It did not, however, become obligatory until, in 1838, the King of 
 Holland had subscribed to this treaty, which had been previously accepted by Belgium. 
 
 + Prince Louis Napoleon, after having gone to America at the termination of his 
 rash enterprise at Strasburg, had returned to live in Switzerland where he had been 
 
570 ^r. gttizot osjromrCBfl ~sl. :mole. [Booe V. Chap. V 
 
 Mole had to reply on all these points in the Chamber of Peers, where his 
 policy encountered, amongst other opponents, MM. de Broglie,* de Monta- 
 lernbert, Yillemain, and Cousin : the latter adding to the number of his 
 charges against the Cabinet, the dangerous concessions it had made to the 
 clergy, whose unreasonable pretensions, he said, it encouraged by its 
 weakness. 
 
 The struggle was most violent in the Chamber of Deputies, which 
 appointed to draw up the address to the King a committee chiefly con- 
 sisting of members of the lately united parties. The latter drew up the 
 address in terms very hostile to the Ministry, whose responsibility it 
 declared not to be sufficiently genuine, and its language was somewhat 
 insulting to the King himself, whom it invited, in an indirect manner and 
 Stonnv debate "^ith a show of respect, to confine himself, with the other 
 CabSe^andthe P°^ ers of the State, within constitutional limits. Xo orator 
 was more zealous in supporting all the points of this address 
 than the illustrious leader of the doctrinaires, who was the first to 
 ascend the tribune for the purpose of denouncing the administration of 
 M. Mole as essentially fatal to the country and the throne. u With you 
 at the head of affairs," said M. Guizot, "there is anarchy everywhere; 
 it is by you that it has been introduced into the Chamber, and through 
 your acts that it has grown to such dimensions. . . . The proper condition 
 of representative governments is, that the country and the Government 
 should be in harmony with each other, and have the same objects 
 in view ; but through the manner in which aifairs have been managed, 
 the Government and the country together have fallen lower d 
 bv day. and this is an immense evil, a frightful danger. . . . There 
 are times when public opinion appears to slumber: but it ever awakes 
 sooner or later, and sometimes it awakes powerful and menacing." The 
 orator concluded bv applving to M. Mole and some of his colleagues this 
 sentence from Tacitus, " The courtiers do anything that is servile for the 
 sake of attaining power" (omnia serviliter faciunt pra dominatione). M. 
 Mole replied : " It was not to the courtiers, but to the men of ambition 
 
 legally made a citizen of the country. This circumstance rendered the demand of the 
 French Government that he should be expelled all the more insulting in the eyes of the 
 Diet. 
 
 * The speech of M. de Broglie was remarkable for its moderation ; and his blame 
 of the Government was almost entirely confined to the subject of the evacuation o f 
 Aneona. 
 
1839-1840.J M. MOLE EEPLIES TO M. GETZOT. 571 
 
 that Tacitus applied these words. You have been told, gentlemen, that 
 the Cabinet, its existence and its conduct, are regarded as fatal. TTe have 
 been accused of rendering representative government a sham, and of 
 establishing anarchy within the Chamber. . . . But after a revolution in 
 which the whole society has been shaken, there is a period when re- 
 sistance is the truest policy, and a period also when conflicting parties, 
 being thoroughly wearied, are glad of a pretext for disarming. It is for 
 you to say whether, in granting the amnesty, we have recognised this 
 growing spirit. ... As for me, I attribute to the orator who has just 
 preceded me all the evils which he details. . . . Yes! I do not hesitate 
 to attribute to you. to you who accuse me, all the catalogue of ills which 
 is contained in the draft of the address, and of which it will always 
 remain an irremovable portion. How is it possible that anarchy should 
 not enter this very Chamber when men such as you are seen holding out 
 the hand to their eternal adversaries. . . . when they are seen marshal- 
 ling their flags side by side, leaguing together, and with one voice 
 crying out to the country that all the prosperity which it enjoys is in 
 danger ? And what are you doing, then ? What efforts are you making 
 to preserve it ? You only wish to destroy, and you do not see that you 
 are commencing the operation on yourselves!" 
 
 The most prominent men of the Coalition. MM. Thiers, Odillon Barrot, 
 Dufaure, Passy, and some others ascended the tribune for the purpose of 
 attacking the Cabinet. M. Duvergier de Hauranne drew a frightful 
 
 CO o 
 
 picture of electoral corruption ; M. G-arnier Pages in his turn ap- 
 plauded in the name of the Eadical party the draft of the address, the 
 accusations in which, he said, were facsimiles of those which had been 
 brought by the Left against its authors when they were in power. 
 
 The Ministry had an eloquent and warm defender in M. de Lamartine, 
 who denounced as unconstitutional the draft of the address drawn up by 
 the Coalition, which had outstepped all legal limits. " The charter," 
 said the orator, " has established three powers, but to follow the system 
 indicated by the address, one of these powers, that of royalty, would be 
 destroyed — would become an inert, crowned abstraction. . . . The King 
 would no longer be anything but a wooden idol, and the Ministers would 
 batten on the holocausts immolated before him. . . .- The preceding 
 Cabinets fell," added the orator, " because the majority withdrew from 
 them to rally on the side of conciliatory measures. ... It is now said 
 
5^2 STRUGGLE IN THE CHAMBERS. [BOOK V. CHAP. V. 
 
 that this majority totters. . . . Yes, I admit that it totters, since so many- 
 eminent men have withdrawn their support from the Government ; but I 
 ask them themselves, should they triumph by the aid of the heterogenous 
 elements which compose the Coalition, what they will do ? They will 
 create a chaos, and rule it with a whirlwind." Two orators, MM. 
 Berryer and Bechard, were the , interpreters at the tribune of the 
 Legitimist party. The first supported the address with all the eclat of 
 his brilliant eloquence. The second saw in the attacks of the Coalition 
 the best proof of the incapability of the Government of July to fulfil 
 its promises. He showed it to be feeble and precarious, evading or 
 adjourning by necessity every plan of reform, every genuinely liberal 
 measure, compelled to rest for support upon an odious electoral and 
 administrative monopoly, the true sources of that anarchical corruption 
 which invaded the electoral colleges, the various branches of the admi- 
 nistration, and even the army ; and which threatened at once the liberty, 
 the power, and the dignity of the country. 
 
 M. Mole displayed in this memorable struggle the most admirable 
 qualities. Deriving strength from his consciousness of being in the 
 right, and from a too legitimate resentment, and indefatigable in replying 
 to every attack, he rose fully up to the level of those who called him 
 weak and incapable. Ascending the tribune for a last time and address- 
 ing his adversaries, he said : " According to you, we are not capable of 
 governing ; but are you who accuse us any more capable ? If so, come 
 up here ; come and tell us at this tribune what is the future which you 
 are prepared to bestow upon us. When I see bound up in a Coalition 
 so many men of such various opinions, when I see those who have fought 
 so vehemently against each other uniting for the purpose of overthrow- 
 ing the Ministry, I demand of them that they should frankly tell us what 
 they wish, what is the system which they are bent on introducing. To 
 affirm, as they do, that the Ministry does not suffice to cover the Crown, 
 is to say that the Crown shares its responsibility. . . . Such insinuations 
 are fatal, and these debates are disastrous for you who have provoked 
 them ; it is you who have introduced in your address the question of the 
 responsibility of the Crown, and France has understood you." 
 
 M. Mole, with the assistance of MM. de Salvandy, Marthe, and Monta- 
 livet, the Ministers of Public Instruction, Justice, and the Interior, 
 
1839-1840.] GENERAL ELECTIONS. 573 
 
 succeeded in procuring some modification of the hostile paragraphs of the 
 address drawn up by the committee, but he could only obtain a majority 
 of eight votes in favour of the modification; and as this majority did not 
 appear to him sufficiently strong to enable him to carry on the govern- 
 ment, he procured from the King the dissolution of the D . 
 Chambers, and appealed to the country by means of a the Chamljer3 
 general election. 
 
 The electoral struggle now descended from the high ground of the 
 general interests to angry and personal debates between the 
 members of the old Conservative party. The Coalition tl0ns > 1839 - 
 formed as many managing committees as there were political parties 
 within it, and these committees were agreed to give the preference to the 
 candidates of the most extreme Opposition over those of the Ministry. 
 There now appeared to a greater extent than generally appears in these 
 crises a deplorable unloosing of egoistical passions ; and in this 
 sad conflict of vulgar interests, a serious and indignant voice — that of 
 Royer-Collard — was heard for the last time : — " The spirit of agitation," 
 he said to his college of electors, " after having been driven from the 
 streets, has found refuge and is entrenched in the heart of the State. 
 There, as in a place of safety, it debases and paralyses the Government. 
 . . . The institutions of the country, wearied out and betrayed by the 
 ideas of the age, are ill prepared to resist such attacks. Impoverished 
 society is no longer defended by strong fortresses or positions reputed 
 
 impregnable See how our faith is decried in the face of Europe. 
 
 .... See how the throne of July is attacked — I should be sorry to say 
 shaken ; that throne which my hands have not raised, but which is to-day, 
 I am convinced, our only safeguard against the most shameful enter- 
 prises." The Cabinet, driven to bay, made a supreme effort, em- 
 ployed without stint against its adversaries all the dangerous weapons 
 which centralization placed in its hands, and made use of its whole 
 administrative strength to influence the elections. But it was no longer 
 in a position in which it was capable of controlling them. The Govern- 
 ment officials, intimidated, and irresolute between the danger of disobey- 
 ing the Ministers of the day and those who might be the Ministers of 
 the morrow, were too doubtful as to the position of the first to be induced 
 to give them a hearty support ; and the Cabinet, already weak, came out 
 
574 EESTJLTS OE THE COALITION. [BOOK V. CHAP. V. 
 
 of the struggle much enfeebled. The consequence was, therefore, that 
 M. Mole was vanquished by numbers, although the public 
 
 Resignation of .. n t • -i • -i -i i • i tt 
 
 the Mole Minis- opinion or his talents was considerably raised. He sent in 
 
 try, March, 1839. 7 . . . 
 
 his resignation, and it was accepted. 
 To enable the reader to understand the decay and fall of the Government 
 of July, I have been compelled to extend beyond the limits suitable to a 
 work such as this the history of the Coalition which was in many respects 
 
 so fatal to it. The accusations brought by it against the 
 
 Remarks on the _ . r> i • 
 
 Coalition and its Ministry of M. Mole were not entirely without foundation, 
 
 results. m i 
 
 and the Cabinet could not have complained if it had not 
 found its recent allies, its old colleagues, who had themselves incurred 
 similar reproaches, uniting with their natural enemies to destroy them. 
 The Coalition did not succeed in rallying the majority to its side after its 
 victory ; and was so far from establishing its policy on a firm basis and 
 advancing along a broad path towards a certain end, that it only suc- 
 ceeded in throwing everything into confusion and thrusting the Govern- 
 ment into that abyss of anarchy from which it had pretended to release 
 it. In a moral point of view it had also consequences equally deplorable, 
 for it shook to the centre all respect for the constitutional and represen- 
 tative system, and led the electoral body into forgetting more and more 
 the great interests of the country, and regarding the right to elect and 
 be elected as mere privileges to be used for their own advantage. The 
 public refused to believe in the really perilous nature of a political posi- 
 tion relatively calm and prosperous ; for it was not sufficiently initiated 
 in certain parliamentary theories which have been too generally considered 
 as consecrated by constant occurrence in the history of a neighbouring 
 country. It did not understand what different and better policy the 
 doctrinaires would be able to substitute for that of the Cabinet which 
 they overthrew, and it understood it still less when it saw them subse- 
 quently attempting the work. The confidence of honest men was thus 
 shaken, and the feeling of doubt which already began to spread abroad 
 with respect to the disinterested patriotism of parties and their leaders 
 in parliamentary struggles, took more and more a fatal possession of men's 
 minds. 
 
 The weakness of the three principal leaders of the Coalition, after a 
 doubtful victory, showed the rashness of their enterprise. Incapable of 
 uniting for the purpose of governing, they were severally powerless to 
 
1839-1840.] MINISTEY OF MAESHAL SOTJLT. 575 
 
 govern alone. By none of the numerous combinations attempted by the 
 King could MM. Guizot, Thiers, and Odillon Barrot be so associated as 
 to give to each that share of influence or authority which he had a right 
 to claim. They all failed, one after the other, and as it was found 
 absolutely impossible to form at this juncture a durable administration, 
 recourse was had to an intermediate or transition Cabinet, which died 
 only a few weeks after its creation, without leaving any trace. 
 
 In proportion as the friends of the constitutional Monarchy became 
 discouraged, the hopes of the demagogues became raised ; 
 and from all this chaos there resulted, on the 12th May, a insurrection, 
 furious emeute, which was set on foot by the members of the 
 secret society of the Seasons.* The latter, which was very skilfully 
 organized, had succeeded that of the Families, which was itself the suc- 
 cessor of the Society of the Eights of Man, and was formed with the 
 object of promoting the pure communism of Gracchus Baboeuf — that is, 
 the equal division of property and the abolition of all laws which 
 guaranteed its possession. The King and his children were the first 
 victims devoted to death by its incendiary publications. The principal 
 leaders of the Society of the Seasons were Blanqui, Barbes, and Martin 
 Bernard ; and these men, forced to act with rash premeditation by those 
 whose hopes they had cherished, ordered a general rising for the 
 12th May, 1839. The insurgents hoisted the red flag, thronged the city 
 on the two banks of the Seine, and surprised the Hotel de Ville and 
 several other important positions. The National Guards and the regu- 
 lar troops, however, repressed the outbreak, and order was speedily 
 reestablished. 
 
 This audacious attempt hastened the conclusion of the Ministerial 
 crisis : and on the very day on which the insurrection burst ,„..., 
 
 ' J J Ministry of the 
 
 forth, a Ministry consisting of members of the two Centres ™ r e ^i rt . y h 
 was formed under the presidency of Marshal Soult. The Soult ' May > 1839 * 
 dynastic Left remained excluded from any share in the Government ; but 
 the doctrinaires were represented in the new Cabinet by MM. Duchatel 
 and Cunin-Gridaine, who were respectively Ministers of the Interior and 
 
 * In this society, for the purpose of rendering secrecy the more secure, seven 
 members formed a so-called week, four weeks a superior group called a month, three 
 months formed a season, and four seasons a year, consisting of three hundred and sixty- 
 five members, under the orders of a revolutionary agent. The men composing a week 
 only knew their immediate chief, who was called Sunday. 
 
576 RENEWED DIFEICTTLTIES. [BOOK V. CHAP. V. 
 
 of Commerce, and the Third Party by M. Hyppolite Passy, whom the 
 Chamber of Deputies had recently elected as its president, and MM. 
 Teste and Dufaure.* The principal leaders of the Coalition had, there- 
 fore, no share in the new Ministry ; and the Elective Chamber made M. 
 Sauzet its president in the room of M. Passy. 
 
 The new Cabinet lasted but nine months, and its short career was 
 marked by few incidents ; the principal one being the trial of the insur- 
 gents of the 12th May before the Court of Peers. Sentence of death was 
 passed on Barbes and Blanqui ; but the King commuted this punishment, 
 against the advice of his Ministers, into that of solitary confinement. 
 
 Some useful laws were passed under the auspices of this Ministry for 
 _ , v;. the better organization of the staff of the army, the im- 
 
 Legislative en- ° J ' 
 
 actments, 1839. provement of the ports, and the increase of the strength of 
 the navy. The interesting establishment of Mettray for young criminals 
 was also established by this Government ; and during its possession of 
 office the Chambers discussed important laws relating to literary property, 
 railways, and parliamentary reform, which were incessantly adjourned 
 and became every day more desirable. 
 
 To turn to foreign affairs, the Government made peace with Mexico, 
 from which country it obtained a war indemnity, and hostilities continued 
 in La Plata without any decisive result. In Africa Marshal Valee made 
 a reconnaissance, with the Duke d'Orleans, of the celebrated wall or 
 chain of rocks called the Gates of Fire, between Algiers and Constantine, 
 and in spite of the devastating incursions of Abd-el-Kader in the plain of 
 the Metidja, French dominion in Algeria made peaceful progress. 
 
 The Cabinet appeared to have gained the support of a strong majority 
 „ , when it struck against an unforeseen rock on the occasion 
 
 Law of endow- ° 
 
 Duke de the $ ^ e marr i a g e of the Duke de Nemours. A draft of a law 
 Nemours. wag p resen t e d to the Deputies the object of which was to 
 
 settle on the prince an annual income of five hundred thousand francs, 
 and to secure to his wife, in case she should survive him, an annuity of 
 three hundred thousand francs. This proposal aroused in the press a 
 furious outburst of odious insinuations directed even against the person 
 
 * Marshal Soult was President of the Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. 
 Passy was Minister of Finance, M. Teste Keeper of the Seals, and M. Dufaure Minister 
 of Public Works ; the other members of the Cabinet being General Schneider, Admiral 
 Duperre', and M. Villemain, who were respectively Ministers of War, Naval Affairs, and 
 Public Instruction. 
 
1839-1840.] THIEES' SECOND MINISTRY. 577 
 
 of the monarch ; and on such questions a deplorable credulity always 
 comes to the aid of malevolence. The proposed law was perfectly consis- 
 tent with the conditions of the charter ; nevertheless it would have 
 been wise to have abstained from presenting it. The Opposition, whilst 
 rejecting the project, refused to discuss it ; and the Ministry which had 
 presented it committed the fault of not supporting it at the 
 
 mi -t • rm • Fall of the Minis- 
 
 tnbune. The law was silently rejected. This defeat led to try of the Third 
 
 , . . . Party, Feb.,1840. 
 
 the fall of the Cabinet, and all the Ministers gave in their 
 resignation (Feb. 1840). 
 
 The moment appeared to have come for the formation of a new admi- 
 nistration under M. Thiers. The principal reason which had kept him 
 aloof from the preceding Ministerial combinations no longer existed. The 
 assistance of a French army was no longer required to support the 
 constitutional cause in Spain. The pretender Don Carlos ^ , „ , 
 
 x x * End of the civil 
 
 having been expelled from that country by the Queen's warm Spain, and 
 armies, had taken refuge in France, where the Government Carlos > 1839 - 
 kept him confined in Bourges. M. Thiers, faithful to his convictions, 
 had hitherto made the intervention of a French army in Spain the 
 condition of his resumption of office. As this eventuality appeared 
 indefinitely adjourned, there was no longer any serious cause of disagree- 
 ment between the King and M. Thiers, who accepted the portfolio of 
 Foreign Affairs, and was entrusted with the formation of a new Ministry. 
 He selected all his colleagues from the Left Centre. The 
 
 IST. TliiGrs* 
 
 portfolios of Justice and Worship were given to M. Vivien, second Ministry. 
 
 i n t t a«- i -r. o -n. ,»- March 1, 1840. 
 
 that oi the Interior to M. de Kemusat, of finance to M. 
 Pelet (of La Lozere), and of Public Instruction to M. Cousin. General 
 Despans-Cubieres was made Minister of War, and Admiral Duperre 
 retained the portfolio of Naval Affairs and the Colonies. M. Guizot, who 
 had lately become the French ambassador in London, promised the 
 Cabinet the support of himself and his friends, on condition that M. 
 Thiers would resign any idea of electoral reform or of the dissolution of 
 the Chamber. The natural tendencies of the new Ministers led them 
 towards the Left, whilst the most imperious necessity forced them to be 
 leagued with the Right, and the result was that the Cabinet was driven 
 into a state of utter inertness. 
 
 Amongst the useful laws which it presented to the Chambers may be 
 mentioned the one for regulating and diminishing the number of the 
 
 VOL. II. p p 
 
 . 
 
578 ESPARTEBO REGENT OP SPAIK. [BOOK V. CHAP. V. 
 
 hours of labour of children in manufactories, which was passed in the fol- 
 lowing year. A fresh project for the conversion of the Five per Cents 
 was accepted by the Deputies, but rejected by the Peers. In the same 
 session M. Thiers presented a law the object of which was the transfer 
 _ '■ . from St. Helena to France of Napoleon's remains. The 
 
 Law for transfer- ■*- 
 
 ofN^oieoTto 18 Chambers received this proposal with enthusiasm, which 
 France, 1840. wag doubtless gratifying to the national pride, but which 
 was more generous than prudent on the part of the new Sovereign, and 
 the dangers of which were eloquently and prophetically pointed out by 
 M. Lamartine.* 
 
 The English Government did not offer any obstacle to the accomplish- 
 ment of this great national act, the execution of which the King entrusted 
 to one of his sons, the Prince de Joinville, who worthily fulfilled his 
 mission. The remains of the Emperor, which were brought to Paris in 
 December, 1840, in the midst of an immense concourse of people, were 
 deposited with great pomp at the Hotel des Invalides. Three months after 
 the passing of this law Prince Louis Napoleon made a fresh attempt to 
 gain possession of the throne, which he considered to be his by inheri- 
 tance. The town of Boulogne-sur-Mer was the theatre of 
 
 Expedition of .. i • i t -it 
 
 Louis Napoleon this expedition, which was even more adventurous than that 
 Bouiogne-sur- which failed at Strasburg, and was equally unsuccessful. 
 
 Mer. His trial 
 
 and captivity, The prince, now once more a prisoner, was on this occasion 
 tried by the Court of Peers, condemned to perpetual im- 
 prisonment, and shut up in the fortress of Ham, where he awaited with 
 imperturbable confidence the fulfilment of his prodigious destinies. 
 
 Very serious events had taken place in the course of this year in Spain, 
 where the authority of the Queen-Kegent, Maria Christina, was overthrown 
 Events in Spain by the Progressionist party. The Queen-Kegent was forced 
 Eege^tf Ma°rii be to abdicate, and fled to France, whilst a new Government 
 vernment of Es- was established in Madrid, under the presidency of General 
 par ero, . Espartero, Duke of Vittoria, who was soon afterwards him- 
 
 * " Our Ministers," said the orator, " assure us that the throne of our new constitu- 
 tional monarchy has nothing to fear from the presence of such a tomb, from this impulse 
 given by themselves to the feelings of the masses, from these orations, these processions, 
 and from these posthumous crownings of what they call a legitimacy. . . . But, for my 
 part, I am not without anxiety, for I fear that all this will make the people too inclined to 
 say, '' Behold, there is nothing popular but glory, there is no morality but in success. 
 Only win battles, and you may make a plaything of the institutions of the country.' * 
 
1839-1840.] MEHEMET ALI AND THE SULTAN. 579 
 
 self proclaimed Regent of the kingdom. But the chief question which 
 at this period absorbed the attention of the politicians, not only of 
 France but of all Europe, was that of the East. It put the peace of 
 Europe in peril, and left in men's minds the unhappy traces of a feeling 
 of irritation against England, then governed by the Whigs, and where 
 the young Queen Victoria had lately succeeded her uncle, William IV. 
 Hostilities had again broken out between the Sultan and his powerful 
 vassal, Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt. Ibrahim, Mehemet's son, 
 having crossed the Euphrates, gained in Syria the victory 
 of Nezib, June, 1839. The Turkish army was destroyed, question again, 
 
 J J ' 1839-1840. 
 
 and a few days afterwards the whole of the Sultan's fleet, 
 under the Capitan Pacha, surrendered to the Egyptians, and was carried 
 into the port of Alexandria. The Sultan now had neither ships nor 
 troops, and his whole empire appeared to be on the eve of dissolution. 
 Europe was disquieted by the state of affairs, the effect of which was to 
 place the Turkish empire at the discretion of Russia ; and, at the earnest 
 request of the Prussian and Austrian Governments, French diplomacy 
 checked Ibrahim's victorious march. The question now was as to what 
 share of the Sultan's spoils the Pasha of Egypt should be allowed to 
 retain.* England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, having proposed to 
 France that she should enter with them into a Convention for the pur- 
 pose of depriving Mehemet of Syria, which he had acquired by the valour 
 of his arms, the French Government refused, on the ground that, as she 
 had herself stopped the advance of Ibrahim's army and promised its 
 good offices to Mehemet, its ally, the honour and interests of France alike 
 demanded that she should afford the Pasha her protection, and not allow 
 his kingdom to be curtailed. The four powers then negotiated without 
 the concurrence of France, and entered into a treaty with 
 
 ,.,,. . n ,. Treaty concluded 
 
 the Sultan, 15th July, 1840, which limited Mehemet Ah to between the 
 
 powers, July 15, 
 
 the hereditary possessions of Egypt, deprived him of a portion i840,to the exclu- 
 of Syria, and only left him a life interest in the remainder ; 
 and made it incumbent on the Pasha to withdraw his troops from that 
 country within a certain time, under pain of dethronement. This treaty, 
 which was concluded at the instigation of Lord Palmerston, the Eng- 
 
 * Abdul-Medjid, who was sixteen years of age, had recently succeeded his father, the 
 Sultan Mahmoud. One of his first acts was the issue of a decree or Hatti Scherif, 
 published at Gulhane', which gave important guarantees with respect to taxation, the 
 administration of justice, &c. 
 
 p p 2 
 
580 FALL OP THE THTEBS MINISTRY. [BOOK V. CHAP. V. 
 
 lish Minister of Foreign Affairs, left France in the state of isolation in 
 
 which she found herself in 1830 ; and she was, with good reason, 
 
 seriously offended. The French Cabinet protested, added threats to 
 
 complaints, and made formidable preparations for war, 
 
 French arma- # x ± 
 
 ments. whilst, pending the assembly of the Chambers, which were 
 
 prematurely convoked for the month of October, royal ordinances created 
 a number of fresh regiments, and decreed that Paris should be fortified by 
 a continuous wall and a series of detached forts.* 
 
 In the meantime, the period fixed for the evacuation of Syria by 
 Mehemet having elapsed without Ibrahim's withdrawal, an English 
 squadron bombarded the city of Beyrout, which was in the possession 
 i of the Egyptians, and the dethronement of Mehemet Ali was declared by 
 the Sultan. Upon this the French Government immediately declared 
 that any attempt to deprive the Pasha of Egypt would be regarded by it 
 as a signal for war, and the fleet was ordered to prepare for sailing. 
 The session opened in the midst of these serious events, and the excite- 
 ment caused by a fresh attempt on the King's life.j" The Cabinet had 
 inserted in the speech to be delivered by the King from the throne some 
 expressions which were a species of threat or defiance to Europe ; but 
 Louis Philippe, although firmly resolved to go to war in case Mehemet 
 should be attacked in Egypt, thought it better to assume a less provoking 
 attitude in respect to the other powers. He refused 
 
 Dismissal of the i-i»-ii« ■»*■•'• 
 
 Thiers Ministry, to use the language suggested to him by his Ministers, and 
 
 October, 1840. * n . . 
 
 recalled his fleet, which was already sailing for Syria, upon 
 which the Cabinet resigned. 
 
 It was the wisest course, whilst effectually protecting Mehemet, and 
 making every war preparation for the purpose of defending him, not to 
 renounce the hope of an honourable peace. Whatever ground the 
 French Government might have to complain of the treaty of July, which 
 had been signed without its participation, and which deprived the Pasha 
 of Syria, it would have been madness for France to have plunged herself, 
 for the sake of preserving it to him, into a general war, in which she 
 would have been alone against all. The national pride of England had 
 
 * The construction of these forts in the environs of Paris had been long proposed, 
 but had hitherto encountered amongst the people of Paris and in the Chambers the most 
 determined opposition. 
 
 + The King was not touched. The assassin's name was Darmes. 
 
1839-1840.] FEW MINISTET. 581 
 
 been, in its turn, deeply wounded by the threatening language of the 
 President of the Council and his bellicose demonstrations, and M. Thiers 
 would have found it difficult to retract or soften his too irritating speech. 
 It was necessary, however, as a first condition of the maintenance of 
 peace, in order that France should lose nothing of her dignity, that a 
 new treaty should be drawn up, in which she should be associated with 
 the other powers. This was the opinion of M. Guizot, the French 
 ambassador in London, and he was naturally entrusted with the nego- 
 tiation of such a treaty. The King accepted the resignation of M. Thiers 
 and his colleagues, and transferred the portfolio of Foreign Affairs to M. 
 Guizot, whom he requested to compose, in concert with the Duke of 
 Dalmatia, a new Ministry. Thus was formed under the 
 
 •i n -»*- i t n i t n i t * t /> Formation of the 
 
 presidency oi Marshal feoult, who had the portfolio for War, Ministry of Oct. 
 the Cabinet of the 29th October.* M. Guizot was its 
 most influential member. He ultimately became its President, and the 
 chief power did not leave his hands until the end of the reign. 
 
 * The other members of the Cabinet were M. Martin, who was Minister of Justice 
 and Worship ; the Count Duchatel, Minister of the Interior ; M. Humann, Finance ; 
 M. Villemain, who had the portfolio of Public Instruction ; Admiral Duperre - was the 
 Naval Minister, M. Cunin-Gridaine that of Agriculture and Commerce, and M. Teste 
 that of Public Works. 
 
582 TREATY ON EASTERN AFFAIRS. [BOOK V. CHAP. VI. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TEE MINISTRY OF THE 29th OCTOBER TILL THE GENERAL ELECTIONS 
 
 OF 1846. 
 
 October, 1840— July, 1846. 
 
 Men of talent and of great personal value were members of the new 
 Ministry, the last of the reign ; and although belonging to various 
 political groups, they nevertheless worked harmoniously together, because 
 they were unanimous in supporting a peace policy abroad, and in offering 
 an obstinate resistance to all plans of reform at home. They had to bear 
 the consequences of Parliamentary intrigues, and the negotiations of the 
 previous years, as well as the burden of the enormous expediture of the 
 late Cabinet when it was preparing for war. They found in the deeply 
 prejudiced public opinion but little respect or sympathy for authority, a 
 very feeble confidence in the majority on which they rested for support, 
 and an excessive susceptibility in respect to everything which affected 
 the national honour, or the relations of France with other powers. This 
 disposition of the public mind caused the Cabinet to make common cause 
 with those of the Conservatives, who, whilst desiring the maintenance of 
 peace, nevertheless desired that it should be an armed peace. It brought 
 European treaty France once more into combined action with the European 
 Affairs, July™ powers, by signing with them and Turkey the treaty of the 
 184 °- 13th July, 1841, which reestablished Mehemet Ali in the 
 
 hereditary possession of Egypt, without restoring to him Syria, and 
 which closed against the fleets of all nations the Dardanelles and the 
 Bosphorus. The grand project relative to the fortifications was 
 resumed by the Cabinet in the session of 1841, and sanctioned by 
 the Chambers. 
 
 The first expenses caused by these immense works, as well as the 
 decrees of the preceding year, which created new regiments* and 
 
 * M. Thiers wished the strength of the army to be raised from three hundred and 
 fifty thousand men to five hundred thousand ; and according to his view it was 
 
1840-1846.] DEATH OF THE DUKE OE ORLEANS. 583 
 
 largely augmented the material of the army, raised the amount of the 
 budget by more than one hundred and seventy-two millions, and raised 
 the ordinary and extraordinary expenses to one thousand two hundred 
 and eighty-eight millions. To meet these heavy charges the Minister of 
 Finance, M. Humann, demanded and obtained authority to 
 
 J Enormous 
 
 negotiate at various periods a loan representing a capital of charges in the 
 four hundred and fifty millions, and it was found necessary 
 to abandon for some time the hope of effecting an equilibrium between 
 expenses and receipts. The Ministry neglected or rejected all projects 
 relative to the internal policy of the kingdom, but it presented in 
 this and the following session (1841, 1842) several useful 
 
 i -t -t'it it Legislative 
 
 laws respecting literary property, judicial sales, and the enactments, 
 
 1841-1842. 
 
 great lines of railway. Amongst all the laws passed in 
 1842, the most important in its results was that which ceded to private 
 enterprise the principal railways over the whole surface of the kingdom, 
 and divided the expenses between the State and the various companies 
 formed to work them. The Cabinet failed, however, to 
 
 i ', . . . . . . Great distur- 
 
 calm the spirit of agitation ; many important cities, such as baneesinthe 
 
 Departments. 
 
 Lille, Clermont, Macon, and Toulouse were the scenes of 
 serious disorders, and publications of great virulence provoked during 
 two years numerous prosecutions of the editors of journals and 
 writers of pamphlets. An odious attempt to assassinate one of the 
 King's sons, the Duke d'Aumale, on his return from a glorious expedition 
 in Algeria, failed in its object, and gave rise to a criminal prosecution before 
 the Chamber of Peers, which resulted in the condemnation of the would-be 
 assassin and his accomplices.* 
 
 The Elective Chamber was dissolved in June, 1842, and the general 
 elections, greatly influenced by the Cabinet, returned a new Chamber, 
 which consisted of almost precisely the same elements as 
 
 , t t . mi • ill • Dissolution of 
 
 the preceding. This year was marked by a circumstance the Chambers. 
 as fatal as unforeseen. The Duke d'Orleans, Prince Eoyal, tions, June, " 
 being run away with by his horses, fell whilst throwing 
 himself out of his carriage, had his head fractured in the ' fall, and 
 
 necessary to have eight hundred thousand on the roll for the purpose of having five 
 hundred thousand ready to take the field. 
 
 f The assassin's name was Qudnisset. An unfortunate circumstance in respect of 
 this trial was the condemnation of a journalist by the Court of Peers, for complicity in 
 a crime of which he was entirely ignorant. 
 
584 VISIT OF THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. [BOOK V. CHAP. VI. 
 
 expired a few hours afterwards (13th July, 1842). The sudden death of this 
 ^ prince, who was heir presumptive to the crown, so much 
 
 Duke d'Orieans, esteemed by the people and the army, and of age to reign, 
 
 -L rices rvoy&l, 
 
 July, 1842. was an immense public misfortune and a fatal blow to the 
 
 dynasty of Orleans, which had already been beaten by so many storms. 
 He left behind him two very young children, the Count de Paris and the 
 Duke de Chartres, and in anticipation of a minority, which the advanced 
 age of the King rendered probable, the Chambers were convoked for the" 
 purpose of passing a regency law. They decided, in 
 
 Extraordinary 
 
 PessioD. Law of concert with the Government, that in case the Sovereign 
 
 Regency, 1842. 
 
 should be a minor the regency should belong to his nearest 
 relation in the paternal line, and the royal majority was fixed at eighteen 
 years. 
 
 Few years were so sterile in legislative measures of great interest as' 
 the following year (1843), during which Louis Philippe received at the 
 Chateau d'Eu a friendly visit from the young Queen of England, an 
 event which was regarded as of good augury to the maintenance of 
 amicable relations between the two countries.* 
 
 The Government of July found open adversaries declaring themselves 
 at this period in a considerable portion of the clergy and the clerical 
 party.t It had at all times displayed an extreme deference for the 
 wishes of the clergy. It had especially favoured the presence, in 
 the primary schools of both sexes, of the brothers and sisters* 
 of the various religious societies, for the purpose of giving instruc- 
 tion in the Christian doctrines ; whilst it had strictly prohibited in the 
 university establishments for secondary and classical instruction all 
 teaching at which the clergy might take umbrage. It had taken pains to 
 raise to the episcopate only priests of merit and such as would be 
 agreeable to the Eoman Court ; and out of consideration for this same 
 Court, for a great number of prelates and the clerical party generally, it 
 had allowed the laws prohibiting the presence of the Jesuits in France as 
 
 * Some ministerial modifications took place in 1843. M. Dumont replaced M. Teste 
 as Minister of Public Works, and Admiral Duperre' was succeeded as Naval Minister by 
 Vice-Admiral Roussin, and after him by M. de Mackau. In the preceding year, M. 
 Lacave-Laplagne had already succeeded M. Humann, who had died suddenly, as 
 Minister of Finance. 
 
 t The men who were most ardent, either in the two Chambers or elsewhere, in the 
 support of the Romish Church, were improperly designated by this name. 
 
1840-1846.] LAWS AS TO EDUCATION. 585 
 
 a religious society to slumber. But on one capital point it resisted the 
 ardent and legitimate wishes of the clergy and a number of pious 
 families, and without taking into account the formal engage- . ., ,. 
 
 ' o oo Agitation on 
 
 ment contained in the charter of 1830, it maintained the S»erSr bj o7educa- 
 university monopoly, with the tacit assent of a very tlOD ' 184 " 
 influential portion of the Liberal party, which dreaded lest the priests 
 should gain possession of the education of the youth. M. G-uizot, 
 however, had already (in 1836) presented to the Chamber of Deputies 
 the draft of a law, which, Whilst preserving the university establishment, 
 would have taken away its monopoly, and carried out, so far as was then 
 possible, the promises of the charter. Coldly received, however, by the 
 deputies, who only passed it after it had undergone many modifications, 
 this project, which was conceived in a liberal spirit, failed to reach the 
 Chamber of Peers, fell with the Cabinet, and was forgotten. 
 
 This important question remained in abeyance for several years, but it 
 was revived with much vigour in 1843, and freedom of education was 
 imperiously demanded both in the press and at the tribune by the power- 
 ful and passionate party of which M. de Montalembert was, in the 
 Chamber of Peers, the most eloquent organ. A fresh project with respect 
 to secondary instruction, accompanied by a luminous expo- „ , , 
 
 J ' i. J r Proposed law on 
 
 sition of the reasons on which it was founded, was presented ^^^ £* 
 to this Chamber in 1844 by M. Villemain, the Minister st ™ ction > 1844 - 
 of Public Instruction. His project, conceived in a spirit of wisdom, and 
 answering, apparently, the necessities of the moment, granted to every 
 individual furnished with a certificate of fitness the right of opening a 
 pension, maintained the right of the State to the general surveillance and 
 the collation des grades, and rendered it necessary for every person pro- 
 posing to open an educational establishment that he should make a preli- 
 minary declaration that he did not belong to any religious society not 
 legally authorized. The proposed law exempted, as did that of 1836, eccle- 
 siastical schools or small seminaries from some of the conditions imposed 
 on lay educational establishments. It underwent, at the hands of the 
 committee, of which the Duke de Broglie was chairman, great 'modifica- 
 tions, the most serious of which was the suppression of the immunities 
 granted to the ecclesiastical schools already existing, and being passed in 
 this altered state by the Peers, its effect was to cause fresh anxiety to the 
 Liberal party. At the same time it was far from satisfying the clergy and 
 
586 LEGITIMIST MANIFESTATIONS. [BOOK V. CHAP. VI. 
 
 the clerical party ; and when carried down to the Chamber of Deputies it 
 was the subject of a learned disquisition by M. Thiers, who was the 
 reporter of the committee appointed to examine it. Before the subject 
 was discussed, however, a serious illness compelled M. Villemain to quit 
 the Ministry, in which he was succeeded by M. de Salvandy, and the law 
 of free education was indefinitely adjourned. 
 
 A serious incident, brought about by some important men of the 
 Legitimist party, occupied the attention of the Chamber at the com- 
 mencement of the session. In this party, as in others, there were distinct 
 shades. Some of its members were openly allied with the Republicans 
 for the purpose of opposing the new dynasty; the greater number 
 awaited the progress of events in a reserved and dignified attitude, and 
 refrained from taking any active part in the politics of the day ; and a 
 few eagerly sought in the institutions of the country the means of over- 
 throwing the Government. 
 
 The hopes of this party had been revived after the death of the Duke 
 d'Orleans ; and the Count de Chambord,* having visited London in 
 _!■ ... •. . . 1843, there became, in his residence in Belgrave-square, 
 
 Legitimist mam- ' ' o ~x 
 
 festation m Bel- ^ e ofy"^ f an enthusiastic demonstration on the part of a 
 
 grave-square, J ^ 
 
 1843, crowd of Legitimists who had hastened from France to pay 
 
 homage to him whom they regarded and honoured as the true heir to the 
 erown of Charles X. A French peer, M. de Richelieu, and several Depu- 
 ties, amongst whom was M. Berryer, were of this number, in spite of the 
 oath they had taken to King Louis Philippe, and associated themselves 
 with this noisy and significant demonstration. 
 
 The Government thought it their duty to censure their conduct 
 in a sentence of the speech from the throne at the commencement of the 
 new session. This sentence excited an animated debate in the two 
 Chambers, and especially in the Elective Chamber, where 
 Chamber^? 16 ^ Berryer alleged as an excuse, in respect to the oath 
 Deputies, ism. taken b y ^ m to t}ie King and the c h arter of 1830, certain 
 
 reservations in his own mind which too much resembled the mental 
 
 reservations which have been so much blamed in the case of the members 
 
 eech „ of a famous order. M. Guizot, whilst strongly censuring 
 
 M. Guizot. m kjg eloquent reply, what had been done, set forth the 
 
 * The Duke de Bordeaux, the son of the Duke de Berry, assassinated in 1820, and 
 grandson of the late King, had assumed the title of the Count de Chambord. 
 
1840-1846.] M. GUIZOT AND THE LEGITIMISTS. 587 
 
 principle which distinguished the Government of July from that of Legi- 
 timacy. " Our government," said the orator, " is founded on the prin- 
 ciple of a contract between the prince and the country, and on a 
 reciprocity of rights ; whilst the principle of Legitimacy, of which you are 
 so fond, and in the name of which you have spoken and acted in Belgrave- 
 square, is the principle that there is a right superior to all rights, — that 
 there is a power which can never be destroyed, however foolishly it may 
 be exercised, and which the peoples are compelled to respect, whatever 
 it may do. . . . For my part, I consider such maxims to be shameful, 
 absurd, and degrading to humanity ; and that when any attempt is made 
 to put them in practice and to push them to their extreme consequences, 
 a nation does well to reestablish at any risk and peril, by some heroic and 
 powerful act, its forgotten rights and offended honour. This is what we 
 did in 1830, and this is what you wish us to undo to-day. What took 
 place the other day in Belgrave- square could have no other object." 
 The paragraph which in the Chambers' address to the King censured 
 the conduct of the inculpated Deputies, was adopted; and the latter 
 immediately resigned their seats, but were reelected. 
 
 The new hopes of the Legitimists, so openly manifested by this incident, 
 aroused the apprehensions of the Liberals, and had something to do, 
 probably, with the cold reception given by the latter to the law presented 
 to the Chamber on the subject of secondary instruction, the adoption of 
 which would have given over the instruction of a portion of the young 
 people of the kingdom to the enemies of the Government of July. On 
 the other hand, the vehemence with which the great subject of freedom in 
 the matter of education had been pleaded by its warmest partisans, in 
 the number of whom were many members of the episcopacy and many 
 priests and laymen openly favourable to the Jesuits, provoked an inevi- 
 table reaction against this society in the constitutional party, and rendered 
 it extremely anxious respecting the neglect into which Debate on the 
 the laws relative to the Jesuits had been allowed to fall. f^Sngto 
 In the following session (May, 1843), M. Thiers, who had the Jesuits ' 1843 - 
 become the leader of the Opposition in the Left Centre, demanded that all 
 enactments in existence against the Jesuits should be put inforce; and named 
 twenty-seven houses which were in their possession in defiance of the 
 laws of the kingdom. MM. Hebert and Dupin, senior, strenuously sup- 
 ported the arguments of M. Thiers, and M. de Lamartine carried the subject 
 
588 LAMAETI^E ON THE JESUITS. [BOOK V. CflAP. VI. 
 
 to the higher ground of the existence of real liberty. He reminded his 
 hearers of the immemorial right to liberty of conscience, and added that 
 the only possible guarantee of this liberty was the neutrality of the State 
 in matters of religion. He concluded with these words, which are worthy 
 Speech of m de °^ atten ti° n : — "You cannot prevent the Jesuits from 
 Lamartine. praying and living in common ; but if they persist in living 
 
 as a society unauthorized by law and in holding possession of property 
 in mortmain in defiance of the law, put the law in force against them as 
 you would against any other society. On the other hand, do. not refuse 
 to them the rights common to all; do not put in force against them 
 any exceptional measures." M. Thiers then submitted a proposition 
 that the Chamber relied upon the Government for the execution of the 
 laws, and it was carried by an immense majority. Two months later, 
 and whilst the same question was being discussed in the Chamber of 
 Peers, M. Guizot cut short the discussion by declaring that the result of 
 negotiations between the Pontifical Government and M. Rossi, the 
 French ambassador at Rome, had been that the Pope himself had per- 
 suaded the Jesuits in France to conform to the laws of the kingdom. 
 
 The satisfaction thus given by the Government to the opposition of the 
 
 Left was far from appeasing the irritation caused by the policy of the 
 
 Government at this period with regard to England on the 
 
 The affair of 
 
 Tahiti and ex- subject of Tahiti or the Society Islands, in the Pacific. 
 
 pulsion of the 
 
 missionary Prit- Louis Philippe had been in the habit during several years 
 
 chard, 1842-1843. rr ° J 
 
 past of sending a squadron into these latitudes for the pur- 
 pose of protecting the Catholic missionaries and the French residents. 
 The admiral of this squadron, Dupetit-Thouars, had taken possession, in 
 1842, in the name of France, of the Marquesas Islands, where the French 
 vessels found a port and a convenient station; and he subsequently 
 thought proper, for the sake of effectually protecting his compatriots, 
 to establish the protectorate of France over the Society Islands, where the 
 English and Protestant missionaries had long since exercised over Pomare, 
 the Queen of Tahiti, and the principal native chiefs, a civilizing in- 
 fluence. The latter shortly afterwards, at the instigation of the English 
 missionaries, arose in defence of their national independence. The insur- 
 rection was promptly put down ; but Admiral Dupetit-Thouars, consider- 
 ing the protectorate of the French flag insufficient, took complete possession 
 of these islands in the name of France, and hoisted there the French flag,in 
 
1840-1846.] DIFFICULTY WITH ENGLAND. 589 
 
 spite of the vehement remonstrances of the Protestant missionaries and a 
 merchant named Pritchard, who was the English consul. The latter 
 resigned his office, but continued his intrigues with the chiefs and endea- 
 voured to raise the country. He was arrested and put into solitary 
 confinement by the French authorities, and ultimately sent back to 
 England, where he gave vent to loud and bitter complaints, and demanded 
 of France an indemnity for his commercial losses, as well as for the 
 treatment he had undergone at the hands of her officers. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the French Government, considering that 
 the possession of the Society Islands would be much more burdensome than 
 advantageous to France, had disavowed the conduct of its admiral in 
 respect to this matter, and had rehoisted its flag at Tahiti as simply that 
 of a protecting power. As, moreover, the English press and the British 
 Parliament reechoed the complaints of the ex-Consul Pritchard, the 
 French Cabinet, while allowing that their officers had had a right to expel 
 him, nevertheless censured the violence with which his expulsion had 
 been accomplished, and decided that an indemnity was due to him. This 
 concession on the part of the Government aroused a violent storm against 
 it, the whole of the Opposition uniting in accusing it of sacrificing the 
 honour of France to the English alliance. The question was reopened 
 during the discussion of the address, at the commencement ^ , , 
 
 ° ' Debate on the 
 
 of the following session, 1844-1845, and gave rise to the p^^mm^ 
 most stormy debates, the Government only obtaining in 18i5, 
 the Chamber of Deputies, on the subject of the indemnity to Pritchard, a 
 majority of eight votes. 
 
 The general irritation, now much envenomed by political passion and 
 national susceptibility, rendered impossible the maintenance of the 
 right of search, which had been reciprocally exercised by virtue of old 
 treaties, by the navies of France and England, for the abolition of the slave 
 trade.* M. Guizot had perceived in 1841 the necessity of giving a 
 greater extension to this right, and had negotiated a new treaty on the 
 subject with all the great powers. The complaints, however, which 
 were raised in France on this occasion were so loud that the Government 
 did not venture to give to this treaty the ratification so eagerly desired 
 by England. The Opposition was still more vehement on this point 
 in 1845, after the unfortunate occurrences in Tahiti, and the English 
 
 * These treaties were signed in 1831 and 1833. 
 
590 TEENCH BOMBAED TANGJEBS. [BOOK V. CHAP. VI. 
 
 Cabinet had to give way in its turn. It abandoned the right of 
 Abandonment of searcn ? an( ^ a tr eaty negotiated on other bases, and 
 searcn ght New ^ ess efficacious f° r the repression of the slave trade, was 
 prefJon r of e tne P ' signed by the two powers on the 29th May, 1845. 
 s ave tra e, 1845. England thus made a painful sacrifice for the sake of 
 friendly relations with France, and her regrets on this subject were mingled 
 with the dissatisfaction which she felt at the progress made by the French 
 power in Africa, under the energetic and able administration of Marshal 
 Bugeaud,* who was worthily seconded by Lamoriciere, d'Aumale, Bedeau, 
 
 Changarnier, Cavaignac, and many others, at the head of 
 under Bugeaud, the young and valiant French army. The numerous Arab 
 
 tribes raised in revolt by Abd-el-Kader were chastised, and 
 made their submission ; the enemy was everywhere driven to extremities ; 
 and in 1843 the Duke d'Aumale, at the head of a handful of men 
 
 against forces ten times as numerous, took the Smala of the 
 Smaia r of°Abd^el- Emir."]" Abd-el-Kader when vanquished fled into Morocco, 
 
 where he preached a holy war, and persuaded the Em- 
 peror Muley-Abder-Rhaman to take up his cause. The Morocco cavalry 
 commenced hostilities, had many conflicts with the French troops, and, 
 whilst its leader was having an interview with General Bugeaud on 
 the Oued-Mouilah treacherously attacked the French troops, and were 
 . . Mo _ repulsed with loss. As the Emperor refused to give any 
 rocco, 1844. satisfaction for this perfidious attack, Marshal Bugeaud, after 
 
 a certain fixed period, crossed the frontier with his army, whilst the 
 naval division, under the orders of Prince de Joinville, spread terror along 
 dment tne coast 0I> Morocco in spite of the vehement remonstrance 
 Mo T ador e Aug.^ of tne English Government. The prince attacked Tangiers, 
 18M - the granary of Gibraltar, ruined the defences of that place, 
 
 then took possession of the island of Mogador, and bombarded the 
 city of that name, which was the personal property of the Emperor, and 
 the central point of the Morocco commerce. 
 
 On the same day (the 14th August) Marshal Bugeaud, with only 12,000 
 
 f theisi men an< ^ s i xteen pieces of cannon, encountered on the banks 
 
 August, 1844. Q £ ^e Isly the Morocco army, which was three times as 
 
 * Appointed in 1840 Governor-General of Algeria, 
 f The Arabs gave the name of " smala" to the assemblage of tents containing their 
 families and flocks. 
 
1840-1846.] BEJECTED MEASURES. 591 
 
 numerous as his own, and commanded by one of the Emperor's sons. 
 He at once crossed the Isly and gave battle, and gained a complete vic- 
 tory, the Morocco army losing three thousand men in killed or wounded, 
 eighteen flags, eleven cannon, and the whole of its materiel. This 
 glorious battle was followed in September by the treaty of Treaty of Tan- 
 Tangiers, which gave to France all the satisfaction she de- giers ' ep ' 
 manded, and put Abd-el-Kader out of the pale of the law in the 
 Empire of Morocco. No indemnity, however, was demanded 
 for the expenses of the war, so unjustly provoked by Morocco, France 
 being, said the Cabinet, rich enough to pay for her glory. This treaty 
 was the subject of vehement attacks on the part of the Opposition in 
 the following session, and the satisfaction caused by the victory of Isly 
 was drowned by the serious discontent produced by the affairs of Tahiti 
 and the persistent refusal, on the part of the Government, 
 to make any real reforms. The legislative sessions of measures of re- 
 
 n , - , . , , ., form, 1844-1845. 
 
 1844 and 184o were in this respect completely sterile. 
 A few laws of general utility were passed, but almost all those pro- 
 posed which bore the impress of a really liberal spirit were rejected, 
 or at least deferred. Some of them were adopted by one of the two 
 Chambers and rejected by the other, and the greater number of them 
 were entire failures. Of this number were the projects relative to the 
 penitentiary system, freedom in respect to secondary instruction, the 
 responsibility of officials, and the proposal presented by M. Saint- Marc 
 Girardin for the purpose of restraining the ever increasing abuse of 
 Parliamentary influence, by fixing certain rules for the promotion of 
 officials. Amongst them, also, was one repeatedly proposed by M. 
 Eoger, for the purposs of giving the necessary guarantees to individual 
 liberty ; some wise measures for the reduction of the duty on salt ;* the con- 
 version of the Five per Cents ; a law for the reform of the postal system, 
 on the basis of an uniform and infinitely reduced charge ; and a plan 
 for reform which became every day more necessary, andwhich was 
 reintroduced every year with much distinction to himself, but without 
 success, by M. de Remusat, with respect to the inconvenience attending 
 the possession of Government offices by deputies to the Elective 
 Chamber. 
 
 * The measures for the reduction of the duty on salt and the conversion of the Five 
 per Cents, were passed hy the Elective Chamber hut rejected by the Peers. 
 
592 EREFCH REVERSES Bf ALGERIA. [BOOK V.CHAP. VI. 
 
 Various circumstances concurred to aggravate the serious aspect of 
 affairs at the commencement of the following year. There 
 
 Serious aspect of 
 
 affairs. Financial was a state of almost famine in the country districts, pro- 
 catastrophes. t J i. 
 Reverses in Al- duced by a failure of the potato crop and a very bad corn 
 
 harvest; and great disturbances had been caused in the 
 industrial world by extravagant speculations in railway property. To 
 these causes of anxiety were added the discontent caused by the ever 
 increasing charges of the Treasury, and some reverses suffered by our 
 arms in Algeria, where General Lamoriciere had replaced for a time 
 Marshal Bugeaud. Many tribes had risen in revolt at the summons of the 
 Cherif Bou-Maza ; the Kabyles had again taken up arms ; Abd-el-Kader 
 had reappeared in Algerian territory, and raised the province of Oran ; 
 and a French column of five hundred men, commanded by Colonel 
 Montagnac, had fallen into an ambush on the Morocco frontier, and had 
 been almost entirely destroyed. The insurrection made rapid progress, 
 and extended even as far as the environs of Tlemcen and Mascara. 
 Lamoriciere, at the head of very insufficient forces, vanquished the 
 Kabyles, and drove the Emir back toward Morocco ; but this was only a 
 feigned flight, and the Emir soon afterwards reentered the province of 
 Oran, and threatened that of Algiers. These events recalled the Governor- 
 General to Algiers, and Marshal Bugeaud took the field with all the 
 forces at his disposal. At his approach the insurrection began at once to 
 subside, and numerous tribes made their submission. Fresh sacrifices, 
 however, were demanded of France for the purpose of securing its con- 
 quests in Africa, and the great efforts she had made, and still had to make, 
 appeared to her people to be out of all proportion to the results hoped 
 for or obtained. 
 
 All these subjects united occupied public attention at the com- 
 
 _ . i-Lia mencement of the new session, 1846, which was only re- 
 Session of 1846. ' 7 J 
 
 CentrewiSi 6 Sw* mar kable for the union effected between the dynastic Left 
 dynastic Left. an( j t k e j^fl. c en t re , the result of which was the formation 
 of a powerful Opposition, under the leadership of MM. Thiers and 
 Odillon Barrot. The first, in reply to M. Ledru-Rollin, in the course of 
 Declaration of the debate on the address to the King, detailed the prin- 
 ciples on which this union was based. He had joined, said 
 the orator, the dynastic Left when he had found it openly separated 
 from the Radical Left, after which such an union became natural and 
 
1840-4846.] THIERS ON FRENCH POLICY, 593 
 
 beneficial, and was necessary for the salvation of the future. He spoke 
 forcibly against a foreign policy which subordinated every other interest 
 to the English alliance ; and the French Government having recently 
 protested, in conjunction with England, against the annexation of Texas 
 by the United States, M. Thiers censured this protest as untimely, and 
 contrary to the true interests of France, whose liberty of action in the 
 world and power on the seas were, he declared, inseparably connected with 
 the increasing greatness of the United States and the pacific progress of 
 revolution in Europe. 
 
 The most important law passed in this session gave the Government 
 an extraordinary credit of ninety-three millions, for the purpose of in- 
 creasing the strength of the navy, both in men and ships. Many projects 
 of local or private interest were clothed with legal sanction, and some 
 others of great political or social interest were voted by the one or the 
 other Chamber in the course of this session, but did not become law. 
 The Cabinet met the repeated attacks to which it was subjected with a 
 devoted majority, which was chiefly composed of men dependent upon it, 
 either by reason of holding office under it, or by reason of the support 
 they hoped to obtain from the Government in their financial or industrial 
 enterprises. Thus became day by day more apparent the chain which, 
 according to the expression of M. Thiers, united the height of power with 
 the most vulgar interests, and connected the deputy with the Minister 
 and the elector with the deputy. Absorbed in the difficult operation of 
 consolidating its power, the Ministry rejected or adjourned every pro- 
 posal the adoption of which might have had the effect of weakening its 
 majority in the next Elective Chamber. It was under these circum- 
 stances that the elections of 1846 took place. 
 
 VOL. II. Q Q 
 
594 GENERAL ELECTION. [BOOK V. CHAP. VII. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GENERAL ELECTION THE SPANISH MARRIAGES THE POSITION OF AF- 
 FAIRS AT HOME AND ABROAD — PRELUDES TO THE REVOLUTION OF 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 July, 1846 — December ■, 1847. 
 
 The influence of the administrative power over the electoral body had 
 General elec- never been more marked since 1830 than at the general 
 tions, July, 1846. elections of 18 4 6< ^11 moral influence having been lost by 
 
 the Cabinet of the 29th October, it could only regain the ground it had 
 
 lost in public opinion by appealing to individual interests ; and we have 
 
 to look as far back as the elections conducted in 1824, under the Ministry 
 
 of MM. de Villele and Corbiere,* to find in the constitutional history of 
 
 France administrative practices similar to those of 1846. 
 
 The consequence of these manoeuvres was that the elections were 
 
 not only not the faithful expression of the opinion of the country, 
 
 but were in direct opposition to the general feeling ; and there 
 
 now reappeared an alarming phenomenon, the presage of the greatest 
 
 misfortunes, which was, that in proportion as the Cabinet became 
 
 more unpopular in the country, its majority became greater and greater 
 
 in the Elective Chamber — a great danger both for the state and the 
 
 throne. 
 
 In the midst of these serious internal affairs, grave dissensions 
 
 arose between France and England, the only great power which the 
 
 Government of July had had for an ally since 1830. This alliance 
 
 was much weakened and almost annihilated by the important and unfor- 
 
 * It would be a strange mistake to judge of the administrative practices of this 
 period by the official circular, sent by the Minister of the Interior to the prefects, 
 with respect to the elections. All the means employed to influence electors in 1824 
 were again set in motion ; but it must be added that the law was not violated 
 by the introduction of false electors into the electoral colleges. 
 
1846-1847.] THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 595 
 
 tunate affair known as the Spanish marriages. The Regent Espartero 
 had fallen after three years' military despotism, and in g ^^mar- 
 1844 had fled from Spain, whither the Queen-mother had ria § es > 1846 » 
 been recalled, and where, in 1845, the Cortes had declared her daughter, 
 Queen Isabella, of age. There were numerous aspirants for the hand of 
 this princess, when suddenly, in August, 1846, Europe heard simultane- 
 ously of the marriage of Queen Isabella II. with her cousin, Francis 
 d' Assise de Bourbon, and the union of her sister, the Infanta Donna 
 Luisa, with the Duke de Montpensier, the fifth son of the King of the 
 French. These two marriages, which were a double guarantee for the 
 maintenance of the Crown of Spain in the House of Bourbon, had been 
 the subject of protracted negotiations between the courts of France, 
 Spain, and England whilst the head of the English Cabinet was Sir 
 Robert Peel, and Lord Aberdeen was its Minister for Foreign Affairs. 
 This Cabinet had seen with much dissatisfaction the candidature of the 
 Duke de Montpensier for the hand of the heiress presumptive of the 
 Spanish throne. The French court, on the other hand, had feared that 
 Queen Isabella might marry a prince of the House of Coburg, and the 
 English Government had undertaken, through Lord Aberdeen, to prevent 
 such an occurrence, on condition that the marriage of the French 
 prince with the Infanta should be delayed until the Queen should have 
 a child. The negotiations on this subject were still proceeding when the 
 Tory Cabinet was succeeded by a Whig Cabinet, in which the Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs was Lord Palmerston, who did not adhere to the 
 engagement entered into by his predecessor, hut sanctioned the candida- 
 ture of the Prince of Coburg for the Queen's hand. The King of the 
 French then, not unreasonably, considered that he was relieved from 
 his promise, and authorized the simultaneous publication of the two 
 marriages. 
 
 On receiving this unexpected news the English Cabinet burst forth into 
 reproaches and threats, and the marriage of the Duke de Montpensier 
 was openly denounced in Parliament as a dishonourable act and a direct 
 violation of one of the clauses of the treaty of Utrecht, which declared 
 that the crowns of France and Spain should never rest on the same 
 head. These accusations were evidently ill-founded, but nevertheless 
 found an echo in the two French Chambers, the Cabinet of October 
 29th having sunk to a degree of unpopularity which disposed public 
 
 Q q 2 
 
596 ANNEXATION OF CRACOW. [BOOK V. CHAP. VII. 
 
 opinion to involve all its acts in an indiscriminate and blind condemna- 
 tion. At the same time it must be acknowledged that the Government 
 rashly imperilled, for the sake of a very remote advantage, an alliance 
 on which depended, according to its own idea, the safety of France and 
 the peace of Europe. This was a serious fault, and it was severely 
 reproached for it by the very persons who had recently accused it of 
 striving to maintain peace at any price for the sake of preserving this 
 alliance. The Government, it was said, after having recently, in the 
 Pritchard affair, sacrificed the honour of the country for the sake of 
 remaining on cordial terms with England, had now sacrificed this alliance 
 for the sake of dynastic advantages, or, in other words, for mere family 
 interests. 
 
 This unfortunate misunderstanding between the t iwo countries ren- 
 dered the Northern powers less apprehensive of offending 
 
 Sad eonsequen- 
 
 ces of the Spanish the French Government, and compelled the latter to enter 
 
 marriages. 
 
 into closer relations with them and to close its eyes to 
 proceedings the policy of which was in direct opposition to the liberal 
 tendencies and sympathies of the nation. This perilous state of things 
 was almost immediately afterwards aggravated by the ruin of the last 
 remnants of Polish nationality. At the close of the insurrection which 
 had burst forth some years previously in Galicia, and led to the occupa- 
 tion in common of the city of Cracow by the three Northern powers, the 
 
 latter did what they had not hitherto ventured to do, and 
 
 Annexation of . 1 _ . . 
 
 Cracow to Austria annexed Cracow with the assent of Russia and 
 
 A list 1*3 ft 
 
 Prussia. France and England protested against this pro- 
 ceeding, but separately ; and by refusing to act in concert in this matter 
 they rendered their dissensions more apparent, and protested in vain. 
 The Opposition made this circumstance a ground for redoubling its 
 violence, and public opinion as well as the most influential journals were 
 unanimous in condemning the Government for having isolated France 
 in Europe by its errors, and for having been as imbecile in its manage- 
 ment of foreign as home affairs. 
 
 In the meantime the necessity for certain reforms was so generally 
 felt, and the public feeling on the matter was so loudly expressed, that 
 a considerable portion of the Conservative deputies who were devoted to 
 the Government of July perceived that the moment had come for making 
 certain concessions, and were thenceforth designated as Conservative 
 
1846-1847.] STJPISTEKESS OF THE GOVERNMENT. 597 
 
 Progressionists. M. G-uizot himself at length, in a celebrated speech 
 delivered at Lisieux after his re-election, showed himself extremely 
 favourable to a wisely progressive policy. After this solemn declaration 
 made by the moral head of the Cabinet, France had reason to hope 
 that the Ministry would support, in 1847, the liberal measures and 
 reforms acknowledged to be the most urgent; but it was not so, 
 and this session surpassed the preceding in insignificance, and the majo- 
 rity of the new Chamber, following the example of all majorities which 
 are their own judges, ignored the numerous remonstrances excited by the 
 manoeuvres of the Government agents in the course of the elections from 
 which it had issued. 
 
 Two attempts against the King's life, and the escape of Prince Napoleon 
 from the fortress of Ham, had recently caused fresh Legislative se8 . 
 anxiety in the public mind, and the session opened in the Slonof1847 - 
 midst of the general dismay caused by fearful inundations, a partial 
 famine caused by bad harvests, and a financial crisis. It was necessary 
 to provide for these disasters at a time when the treasury was empty ; 
 every resource had been exhausted for the purpose of supplying the 
 deficiencies of preceding budgets 5 new credits were demanded, and the last 
 budget of the reign, voted in July, 1847, raised the expenses to one 
 thousand four hundred and forty-four millions. It was difficult, doubt- 
 less, under the pressure of the financial necessities of the moment, to make 
 any serious and immediate reforms in the taxation of the country, and 
 the Cabinet made this circumstance a pretext for rejecting all that were 
 proposed. At the same time it refused to listen to all the other reforms, 
 all the great measures which were considered urgent even by its own 
 more enlightened supporters ; and the public, now thoroughly impatient 
 and irritated, almost unanimously re-echoed the eloquent declaration of 
 M. de Montalembert when he summed up the results of the g eech f M de 
 session in the three celebrated words, " Nothing, nothing, Montalembert « 
 nothing ! and that, too," said the orator, " at a most critical period — 
 at the period of a financial crisis, of a year of famine, and of an increasing 
 deficit. . . The great evil," he said, " is in the want of any moral feeling 
 in the Government, in its corruption, and in its abuse of its influence. Is 
 it not deplorable to see how electoral considerations have invaded every 
 branch of the administration? Every office, every employment in the 
 hands of the Government is sought for and given for considerations con- 
 
598 LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN EUROPE. [BOOK V. CHAP. VII. 
 
 nected with the elections. The time has come, however, for the nation 
 to shake off the double yoke which renders the deputies subservient to 
 the Ministers and the Ministers subservient to the deputies." He con- 
 cluded with these words : — " I say to the Ministry, enter resolutely on 
 the path of wise reforms. You may fall from power, perhaps, as did Sir 
 Robert Peel, but by entering on such a path in a large and liberal spirit, 
 and by rendering it necessary for your successors to follow you upon it, 
 you will be securing your own triumphant return to office. This is a 
 glorious mission, worthy of all who represent the Revolution of July, 
 which created you, and a system of policy from which there would result 
 to France two great things — peace and order."* 
 
 This immorality on the part of the French Government was so much 
 
 the more astonishing because it was in strange contrast with the liberal 
 
 movement which was at this time taking place in all the 
 
 Liberal move- . . _ 
 
 ment in Europe, countries oi Europe. Germany was m a state of movement ; 
 
 1844-46. 
 
 its people were again demanding the fulfilment of the 
 promises made in 1813, and most of its states were engaged in establish- 
 ing new constitutions. Holland had introduced great modifications into 
 its own ; Spain, at length purified, was attempting, under its young 
 Queen, to enter upon a constitutional and parliamentary course ; in Italy 
 the venerable Pius IX., who had been recently elevated to the pontifical 
 throne, was inaugurating a new era of liberty, after having commenced 
 his reign by a general amnesty ; similar reforms were being made in 
 Piedmont by King Charles- Albert ; and Great Britain now began to reap 
 the fruits of her great parliamentary reform. In the latter country a 
 large portion of the aristocracy gave a noble example by making the 
 amelioration of the material and moral condition of the working classes 
 the object of their strenuous efforts, and a distinguished Minister, Sir 
 
 * To avoid repetitions in the text, I will mention in a note the principal propositions 
 which were adjourned, resisted, or rejected in the course of this session. The objects 
 of these propositions and projects were : the reform of prisons and the penitentiary 
 system ; freedom in matters of education, which had been so often promised and 
 adjourned ; amelioration of the conscript law, or blood tax, so burdensome to the 
 poor ; useful measures for regulating the relations between employers and their 
 workmen ; postal reform ; reduction of the tax on salt ; reduction of the stamp 
 duties on journals ; the establishment of indispensable guarantees for personal liberty ; 
 the substitution of a legal for an arbitrary system of forming jury lists ; the declaration 
 of the responsibility of the Ministers of the Crown ; and finally, electoral and parlia- 
 mentary reform. 
 
1846-1847.] GOYEENMENTAL EEEOES. 599 
 
 Robert Peel, withdrawing from the Tory or Conservative party, had 
 secured the triumph of the celebrated league formed by Richard Cobden 
 for the repeal of the laws which forbade free trade in cereals and other 
 of the more important articles of food. The general necessity for reform 
 was felt even in the Turkish empire, and the Sultan Abdul-Medjid had of 
 his own accord granted a charter to his subjects. 
 
 The state of Europe, however, presented serious dangers ; for behind 
 the men who wished for useful reforms and indispensable ameliorations in 
 the laws there were others who declared that there could be no liberal 
 progress without the systematic and complete remodelling of the whole of 
 the institutions of society. Such were, in England, the Chartists; in 
 Germany, the revolutionary Radicals ; in Italy, the Mazzinians, or dis- 
 ciples of Mazzini ; and contemporaneously with these the members of 
 secret societies were busy in France, in Switzerland, and everywhere 
 else ; demagogism, powerfully aided by universal suffrage, being already 
 rampant in Vaud, Berne, Geneva, and several other Swiss cantons. 
 
 Louis Philippe's Government at this time followed the policy which had 
 been fatal to that of the Restoration by confounding in an _, . istake of 
 almost equal condemnation all the opponents of the Cabinet the Government - 
 with the enemies of the monarchy. It feared that if it made concessions 
 to the former it might be hurried by the latter into a revolutionary 
 course, and forgot that pernicious and false doctrines derive their force 
 from the mixture of good and of truth which is to be found in them ; 
 that demagogues and anarchists only become formidable when the parti- 
 sans of necessary reforms are forced into union with them ; and that the 
 surest way of provoking wild and culpable wishes is to refuse any satis- 
 faction to serious interests and legitimate desires. This perseverance in 
 a policy of statu quo at a time when Europe generally was in a state of 
 movement and in the presence of numerous questions which urgently 
 demanded solution — this dangerous obstinacy, against which not only a 
 great portion of the Conservative party protested, but even the principal 
 organ of the Government, and the moral head of the Government — at 
 length led the disquieted and anxious nation to look for its cause in a 
 quarter which was higher than the Ministry. The protecting veil which 
 the constitution had drawn around the crown had long been in rags, and 
 at no period had the sovereign been less shielded by his Ministers 
 than now. 
 
600 CONDUCT OP THE XING:. [BOOK V. CHAP. VII, 
 
 The King was now growing old, and had attained that age at which a 
 man's opinions become permanently fixed, and at which 
 
 The political . , . t,t i imi 
 
 conduct of the his impressions are no longer liable to change, whilst tne 
 remembrances of his early years return to his heart with 
 increased force. The memories of Louis Philippe kept him constantly 
 in mind of the bloody episodes of the revolutionary period, and showed 
 to him, as was also the case with Charles X., a virtuous but feeble King, 
 led through one concession after another to the scaffold, his family 
 slaughtered or in exile, and France ruined and twice invaded. Then 
 he remembered that in former stormy days he had heard himself 
 called the man of Providence and of destiny; and that when he had 
 received the crown he had calmed the tempest, reintroduced order and 
 prosperity within the kingdom, and maintained peace abroad. He 
 remembered that France and all Europe had attributed these great 
 results to his wisdom and to the inflexible resistance made by his 
 Government to factious attempts as well as to the exaggerated demands 
 of parties, and he believed that it was now necessary to continue this 
 policy, and to adhere to it irrevocably and constantly. 
 
 In the elevated sphere in which he lived, and whither the truth 
 
 found it difficult to ascend, Louis Philippe had failed, in common with 
 
 so many others, to take sufficiently into account the new necessities and 
 
 interests created in France by the prodigious shock of 1830 ; he had 
 
 found it difficult to comprehend that, in the case of modern society, 
 
 the law of progress is inexorable in its demands ; and he was too much 
 
 disposed by his character, his remembrances, and his royal position to 
 
 confound legitimate wishes born of real necessities with the illusions of 
 
 parties and demagogic declamation. Faithful, at the same time, to his 
 
 word and the charter, and attentive to and scrupulous in the performance 
 
 of his duties as a sovereign, he was too much inclined to regard France as 
 
 consisting solely of what was then called " the loyal country," of that limited 
 
 portion of the country which was alone in possession of political rights ; 
 
 he was too much inclined, also, to regard the limits especially marked out by 
 
 the constitution as the only limits to his personal authority. The truths 
 
 which he refused to comprehend or to listen to, which fell from the lips of 
 
 his most devoted partisans and from those of his sister and the princes of 
 
 his family, might perhaps have found acceptance with him if the men who 
 
 were officially honoured with his confidence and invested with authority 
 
1846-1847.] ACTS OF THE MINTSTEBS. 601 
 
 had resolved either to make him listen to them or to resign. Whatever 
 resolution the King might then have come to, he would never have 
 opposed his sovereign will to truths thus constitutionally expressed. But 
 he had recently appealed to the loyal country, and it had replied by giving 
 to his Cabinet the strongest majority it had as yet obtained. In the eyes of 
 the King this was sufficient, and he did not inquire whether this majority 
 was a genuine expression of public feeling, nor how it had issued from the 
 electoral urn ; for it supported a Ministry which was according to his 
 heart, and it seemed to have been obtained by his own unflinching policy. 
 Louis Philippe continued to follow the policy which he considered infal- 
 lible, and advanced towards the abyss. 
 
 As this prince nevertheless observed, under every circumstance, the 
 strict letter of the constitution, the honour of having done 
 
 . . The Minister 
 
 so remains his in history, although it was powerless to alone responsible 
 
 for events. 
 
 preserve his throne against the course of events. The legal 
 responsibility belonged entirely to his councillors, to the Cabinet of the 
 29th October, and especially to the doctrinaires who, during the last seven 
 years, had had the direction of the home and foreign affairs of France. 
 God alone sounds human hearts, and He alone knows by what strange 
 infatuation for the possession of power, or by what just and formidable 
 apprehensions, the King's councillors were induced to abstain from having 
 recourse to the only means of enlightening him indicated by the charter. 
 They refused to do so, although various warnings were no more wanting 
 to them than there had been to the men whom, twenty years before, they 
 had hurled from power. They themselves being at that period zealous 
 champions of Liberalism, and at the head of the constitutional opposition, 
 had vehemently lauded in numerous publications the institutions which 
 they now seemed to dread. At that time they, in common with all the 
 friends of the constitutional cause, regarded the verdict of a jury as the 
 utterance of the public conscience, a free press as the nation's grand voice, 
 Paris as the heart and head of France, and the National Guard as France 
 itself ; and now they had come to fear, in political causes, the verdicts of 
 juries — to see all the organs of public opinion, all the great journals, with 
 one exception, opposed to them — to reckon amongst their adversaries the 
 whole of the deputies sent to the Elective Chamber by Paris, and to be 
 afraid to assemble that National Guard to which they had themselves 
 confided the national institutions. They had aroused against their system, 
 
602 TRENCH INTERVENTION. [BOOK V. CHAP. VII. 
 
 in the Elective Chamber, the Left Centre and the Third Party, the Left 
 Dynastic, and those of the old and new Conservatives, who perceived the 
 necessity of founding the policy of the Government on larger and more 
 liberal bases ; whilst at the same time they had to encounter, besides the 
 extreme and irreconcilable parties, the majority of the clergy as well as 
 most of the celebrated men who had sincerely served or accepted the 
 new monarchy, and saw, in the front rank of the parliamentary 
 Opposition, M. Thiers, who had been so long immovable in the policy 
 of resistance. 
 
 Whilst the action of the Government seemed thus paralysed, as it 
 were, within the country, it was also powerless abroad in consequence 
 of its fatal dissension with England on the subject of the Spanish mar- 
 riages. The two powers were, however, agreed in supporting in Portugal 
 the throne of the young Queen Donna Maria, which had been shaken by 
 the twofold insurrection of the Miguelists and the Ultra-Radical party. 
 The Queen in this extremity invoked the aid of the powers who had 
 signed with her the Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance. 
 
 Armed interven- , ~ . . n n11 „ 
 
 tion in Portugal, England, France, and Spam interfered, and the throne ot 
 Donna Maria was saved. But the French Government 
 was powerless in Switzerland, where Radicalism had overthrown the con- 
 stitutions of many cantons, and had obtained the ascendancy in the Diet 
 assembled at Berne. The latter having sent to the canton of Lucerne a 
 formal order for the expulsion of the Jesuits, a league called the 
 Sunderbund was then formed between the seven Catholic 
 
 The Sunderbund . . 
 
 league in Swit- cantons for the purpose or preserving; their cantonal autno- 
 
 zerland, 184,7. 
 
 rity against the usurpers of the federal power, and the Diet, 
 at the instigation of the revolutionary and Radical party, threatened to 
 have recourse to force for the purpose of dissolving it. France and the 
 other powers interposed between the two parties and offered their media- 
 tion ; but difficulties put forward by Lord Palmerston, who was always 
 eager to neutralize French influence, caused this mediation to fail in its 
 object, and rendered fruitless all the efforts of France to prevent a 
 fratricidal struggle on its frontiers. The Diet sent a formidable army 
 into the field under the command of General Dufour, and the league of 
 the Sunderbund was in a few weeks broken and dissolved. 
 
 A circumstance still more injurious to the influence of France had 
 
1846-1847.] M. GUIZOT MADE PRESIDENT. 603 
 
 recently taken place in Italy. Astonished and disturbed by the liberal 
 reforms of Pius IX. in the Papal States, and emboldened also by the 
 rupture between England and France, Austria had entered the possessions 
 of the Holy See for the purpose of preserving her Italian possessions from 
 the contagion of Liberalism. Her troops had entered 
 
 -p, „ , . /> t t i Occupation of 
 
 Jb errara, in spite oi the energetic protests ot the cardinal Ferrara by the 
 
 i /* n • r> Austrians, 1847. 
 
 legate (August, 1847), and the occupation of that fortress 
 
 by the Austrians had thus all the characteristics of an armed invasion.* 
 
 Irritated public opinion associated this fact with the deplorable act by 
 which the republic of Cracow had been, in the course of the preceding 
 year, annexed to Austria, with the consent of Russia and Prussia ; and it 
 bitterly reproached the Cabinet with its abandonment of the liberal 
 cause in Europe, with its ill will towards Italy, and its weakness and 
 powerlessness in its relations with Austria and the other great powers of 
 Europe. 
 
 Such was the position of home and foreign affairs when, in consequence 
 of the retirement of Marshal Soult,j" M. G-uizot became President of the 
 Council, September, 1847. The eminent man who had 
 
 Guizot made 
 
 hitherto been only the moral head of the Cabinet now became President of the 
 
 J Cabinet. 
 
 so ostensibly and really ; and this event was very fairly re- 
 garded as a proof of a determination to persist indefinitely in a policy the 
 unpopularity of which had now reached its height.^ The Opposition 
 then did what had been done often and successfully in a neighbouring 
 country. It organized an agitation throughout France ; its forces, con- 
 
 * A clause in the treaties of Vienna authorized Austria to retain a garrison in 
 Ferrara, but not to seize it by force and establish herself there in spite of the pontifical 
 authority. 
 
 t Marshal Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, was promoted to the dignity of marshal 
 general. 
 
 X The Ministry had already been entirely remodelled. The King had summoned to 
 his Council some men of merit, who were all in possession of the public esteem, and for 
 various reasons deserved it. M. Hubert had recently succeeded M. Martin as Minister 
 of Justice, General Trezel was made Minister of War in 1847, the Duke of Montebello 
 Minister for Naval Affairs, and M. Jayr replaced as Minister of Public Works M. 
 Dumon, who himself succeeded M. Lacave-Laplagne as Minister of Finance. Of all 
 the members of the Cabinet of October, 1840, there only remained three, M. Cunin- 
 Gridain, Minister of Agriculture and Commerce (who confined himself exclusively to 
 the details of his department), MM. Guizot and Duchatel, in whom were personified 
 during seven years the political tendencies of the Cabinet. 
 
60-4 BEFOKM BANQUETS. [BOOE V. CHAP. VII. 
 
 centrated in consequence of imprudent legal and fiscal measures, in a small 
 number of powerful journals, formidable instruments of warfare,* all ex- 
 ploded at the same moment. It had recourse also to other means for rousing 
 Agitation of the an d agitating the people. To this end, for two months past, 
 
 reform banquets. n j. i i i i • -r» i,i • • i 
 
 banquets had been organized in Fans and the principal 
 towns in the kingdom, at which those who wished to strike the dynasty 
 at its roots had unhappily mixed with many who desired, by reforming, 
 to strengthen it. In the first rank of these political agitators was M. de 
 Lamar tine, whose work on the G-irondins was at this period creating an 
 immense and fatal noise.f The author had three years previously 
 openly separated himself from the political measures of the Cabinet, 
 preserving an independent position in the midst of the Opposition. The 
 celebrated banquet over which he presided at Macon, where he 
 threatened the Government with a new revolution, which would be 
 that of public conscience, the revolution of contempt, was a frightful 
 symptom of the general state of public opinion, and had all the character 
 of a veritable political event. But the principal and most ardent 
 organizer of the agitation and the banquets was M. Duvergier de Hauranne, 
 an old and zealous partisan of the doctrinaires, and first instigator of the 
 coalition of 1838, and who now, in his impassioned and indignant 
 polemics, both in the tribune and the press, overwhelmed his old political 
 allies, the Ministers of the 29th October, with the same reproaches which 
 he had formerly hurled at the Mole Cabinet, his heaviest charge being 
 that it was only by means of bribery and corruption they maintained 
 themselves in power and carried on the Government. The prejudiced 
 opinion of the public led them to receive and to credit the most absurd 
 and often the most unfounded charges, and a fatal concurrence of cir- 
 cumstances during the year 1847 gave dangerous food to the popular ill 
 
 * It is a political axiom in many free countries that the power of the periodical 
 press is weakened by being disseminated among a large number of journals. These 
 are, instead of being the guides of the public, nothing more than its echoes ; they 
 must follow the popular opinion, but are powerless to direct it. 
 
 *f* This book, in throwing a poetical gloss over sinister characters, and over some of 
 the darkest days of the Eevolution, produced in the public mind a sensation analogous 
 to that which had been attained by different means in 1830 by other works still cele- 
 brated. It familiarized minds with the thought of a new revolution, and weakened the 
 horror of crimes committed in the first. 
 
1846-1847.] PEE SAGES OE EYIL. 605 
 
 will and irritation. The votes of the majority of the Elective Chamber 
 had dismissed a lame number of complaints respecting „ , • , 
 
 ° Eemarkable con- 
 
 the electioneering manceuvres, the abuse of ministerial <! urrence of un- 
 
 ° 7 fortunate events, 
 
 favour and of parliamentary influence, but they had not 1847 ' 
 carried conviction to the public mind. Many facts were made manifest, 
 whilst, on the other hand, various inquiries, forced on by the public 
 outcry, unveiled, in some of the offices under the Ministers of War and 
 Marine, considerable frauds committed, to the great injury of the state, 
 by subaltern agents of those in power.* These revelations, grave enough 
 in themselves, proved but the prelude to still greater scandals. Two 
 peers of France, M. Teste and M. Despans de Cubieres, both of them 
 formerly Ministers, and till recently members of the Cabinet, j" were de- 
 nounced, with their accomplices, and sent to trial, the former for receiving 
 bribes in the exercise of his duties, the second for having facilitated the 
 concession of a mine by means of corruption exercised on a Minister of 
 State. The Court of Peers did not shrink from their duty, and pronounced 
 them both guilty. M. Teste, before judgment was given, attempted to 
 commit suicide. Another suicide, the cause of which was unknown, that 
 of Count Bresson, our ambassador at Naples, was the object of strange 
 and mysterious commentaries ; when, in the highest grade of society, a 
 crime, unheard of and frightful, froze the public with stupefaction and 
 horror. The Duchess de Praslin, daughter of Marshal Sebastiani, was 
 found dead, murdered in the most barbarous manner. The murderer 
 was her husband, who prevented his arrest by poisoning himself. Never 
 in the days of pagan antiquity were the fall and obsequies of empires 
 presaged by more numerous and more sinister omens than appeared in 
 France at the approach of the year 1848. All these facts made a deep 
 and remarkable impression en the labouring classes. These, too much 
 neglected by the great public powers,! an( * deceived, after 1830, in their 
 
 * The Ministers of War and of Marine were then M. Moline de Saint- Yon and M. 
 Mackau. Their high probity sheltered them from all suspicion, but their confidence 
 had been abused and they were responsible. They considered it their duty to send in 
 their resignations, and they were succeeded by M. Trezel and M. de Montebello. 
 
 t M. Teste had been Minister of Public Works and of Justice, and M. Despans de 
 Cubiere Minister of War. 
 
 X If any one doubts this let him see all that has been done in England to ameliorate 
 the condition of the numerous classes during the last half-generation, and without 
 
606 PUBLIC CALAMITIES. [BOOK V. CHAP. VII. 
 
 legitimate hopes, received with avidity innumerable productions, literary, 
 economic, and historical, in which society at large was held up in the 
 most ludicrous colours to their hatred and contempt. These suffering 
 classes, irritated and deprived of all instruction, offered also in almost all 
 cases a too easy prize to the new theorists, successors of Saint Simon, of 
 Fourier, of Babceuf. They intoxicated themselves with the poison of 
 the socialists, with paradoxical doctrines subversive of religion, of family 
 ties, of property, destructive at length of liberty itself; and in their 
 unknown haunts the secret societies, compressed and conquered but not 
 destroyed, still counted numerous recruits quivering with passion, with 
 vengeance, and with lust. 
 
 To great scandals were then added great misfortunes ; the perturba- 
 tions brought into commercial affairs ,in the train of the 
 
 Public calamities. 
 
 troubles of the two preceding years, and still more the un- 
 bridled abuse of speculation and the fever of stockjobbing, had caused 
 in all ranks numberless failures. The very elements seemed now to be 
 charged with human passions, to increase the public miseries. Very 
 frequent conflagrations at the end of the preceding reign desolated our 
 fields, and never had so many shipwrecks shattered the trade and the 
 shipping of France as in that fatal year 1847. The Ministry, as often 
 happens after a long and unpopular possession of power, was made re- 
 sponsible for its own powerlessness and the miscarriage of its best inten- 
 tions, and the very weapons it had called into existence were now used 
 against itself; and in spite of the majority they had created, the 
 Ministers, particularly those who personified the politics of the Cabinet, 
 encountered an opposition so much the more violent and pitiless that 
 they, when in opposition, were exacting and implacable, and had now 
 shown themselves incapable of doing other or better than their opponents. 
 In vain our valiant army in Africa threw a last lustre upon the reign ; it 
 _ . . . „ had subdued the Kabyles and driven the Emir to his last 
 
 Submission of J 
 
 Abd-ei-Kader. retreat. Abd-el-Kader surrendered to Lamoriciere, thus 
 brilliantly inaugurating the Duke d'Aumale's government of Algeria. 
 But at this epoch, alas! as under Charles X., after the conquest of 
 Algeria, the country showed itself but little touched by a glory of which 
 
 going as far as this, and without leaving France, let him learn all the legislative 
 measures adopted by us during the past fifteen years in the interest of the working 
 population. 
 
1846-1847-] SUBMISSION OP ABD-EL-KADEB. 607 
 
 some part redounded on an unpopular Ministry, which, by holding 
 on to power after the opinion of the country was against it, had in- 
 flamed, strengthened, and rallied against itself the entire opposition united 
 at the numerous banquets which agitated France in the name of parlia- 
 mentary and electoral reform. Such were the events forerunning the 
 legislative session of 1848, the last of the reign. 
 
60S MINISTERIAL POLICY. [BOOK V. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LEGISLATIVE SESSION OF 1848 REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 
 
 January and February, 1848. 
 
 At the end of the year 1847 nothing was irrevocably lost. Matters, 
 „ .. . it is true, weie pushed to an extreme both from within 
 
 Preliminary re- r , 
 
 marks - and from without; but the elasticity of constitutional 
 
 institutions is great, and the throne of July, although tottering and 
 threatened, might still have recovered itself. The Ministry, while alto- 
 gether slighting the spirit of the charter, to retain their own power by 
 the aid of a factitious majority, had still scrupulously observed in its acts 
 all legal forms, and had taken none of those irreparable steps which place 
 an abyss between a people and a dynasty, and against which there is no 
 possible resource but in a revolution. If at this period, and before the 
 assembling of the Chambers, the Ministry had retired without violent 
 pressure, if it had constitutionally given way to an administration of a 
 very moderate character, and one prepared to make some indispensable 
 concessions to public opinion in the path of reform, it is not too much to 
 say that the year 1848 would never have had its three days, and that 
 the dynasty of July might have remained on the throne. Sixteen years 
 before this period England had passed through one of her great crises. 
 She had energetically pronounced for a fundamental and complete reform 
 in the electoral law. The Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister of the 
 Tory Cabinet, believed it prudent not to prolong a resistance which he 
 considered dangerous, and retired before the national vote. The chief of 
 the French Government in 1848 did not consider it his duty to act thus 
 under analogous circumstances. That which the illustrious warrior in 
 possession of the most popular renown had not dared to do with our 
 neighbour, M. Guizot dared with us under the weight of an immense 
 unpopularity. He resisted the wishes universally expressed for modify- 
 
Jan. and Feb. 1848.] STORMY DEBATES. 609 
 
 ing the electoral law and the qualification for candidates for the Chamber 
 of Deputies.* Impotent to gain the public vote for himself, he disdained 
 it, he braved it ; and while the storm was growling from every 
 point of the political horizon, the Cabinet presented itself before the 
 re-assembled Chambers with its head erect and bold, and with death at 
 its roots. 
 
 It accelerated the tempest by inserting at the commencement of the 
 session in the address to the throne, after some promises of progressive 
 ameliorations, an imprudent phrase, by which the Opposition considered 
 that all the opponents of the administration were accused of cherish- 
 ing blind or guilty passions, and were stigmatized as enemies to the 
 monarchy. The drawing up of the address in answer to this speech gave 
 rise to a discussion in the two Chambers which was rendered solemn by 
 the serious position of affairs. The principal interest of the debate in 
 the Chamber of Peers was centred in the foreign policy of 
 
 Foreign policy. 
 
 the Cabinet, which was accused of having displayed, in the 
 speech from the throne, too much deference for Austria, by remaining 
 silent with respect to the reforms promised by Pope Pius IX. and some 
 other of the Italian princes. M. Guizot replied to this reproach by 
 paying homage to the efforts of the Holy Father, whilst at the same time 
 he pointed out the danger of exciting the revolutionary passions already 
 too much inflamed in Italy, where demagogism, rallied under Mazzini's 
 flag, threatened, as usual, to compromise, by lamentable excesses, the 
 reforms already effected or projected. 
 
 The Duke de Broglie defended the policy of the Ministry on the Swiss 
 question. He drew a gloomy picture of the progress of Radicalism in 
 many of the Swiss cantons, in which it had been rendered triumphant by 
 violent revolutions and the recent victory obtained by the arms of the 
 
 * Of these two reforms, the second, relative to the incompatibility between the 
 duties of deputy and many public and salaried offices, seemed to all the most urgent. 
 On electoral reform opinions were very divided. According to the most general 
 expression of opinion this should have consisted in admitting as electors all citizens 
 whose names appeared on the jury lists, and by consequence all those who held any 
 public employment, or who had taken their grades in the liberal professions, and those 
 designated under the name of capacites. On the other hand, by the Legitimist Party 
 and the Third Party, it was suggested to give the right of the suffrage to all citizens 
 inscribed on the roll of direct taxation, combining this mode of election with 
 V election a deux degres. I am inclined to believe that if some such reform had been 
 effected under King Louis Philippe, Prance would have been spared the catastrophe of 
 1848. 
 
 VOL. II. * E R 
 
610 AMENDMENT IN THE ADDRESS. [BOOK V. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Diet over the league of the Sunderbund. He spoke of this war, under- 
 taken on the pretext of expelling the Jesuits from the Catholic cantons, 
 as an impious war, subversive of the cantonal rights and independence, 
 and as contrary to liberty as to justice. He extolled the efforts made by 
 the Cabinet to prevent it, and expressed vehement regrets that it had not 
 been prevented by the mediation of France and the other European 
 powers. 
 
 These great questions were discussed with even more force and vehe- 
 mence in the debate on the address which took place in the Elective 
 Chamber. Many of the most eminent orators, including MM. de Lamar- 
 tine, Odillon Barrot, and Thiers, denounced the Cabinet to the country 
 as guilty of having sacrificed to Austria the liberal cause in Poland, Italy, 
 and Switzerland. M. Gruizot had recourse, in his defence, to the principal 
 arguments already produced in the Chamber of Peers, and produced 
 proofs that, in respect to Poland, his wishes had been overruled by the 
 force of circumstances, and that in Italy and Switzerland he had defended 
 really liberal interests; but added that he could not blame Austria 
 for opposing the rash and dangerous attempts of the revolutionary Radi- 
 cals. Finally, he very skilfully put M. Thiers in antagonism with himself, 
 by reminding the Chamber of the acts of his Ministry in 1836, and his 
 formal orders for the expulsion of those whom he now protected. He 
 was less happy, however, when he contended that the Spanish marriages 
 had compelled France to strengthen her alliance with the powers of the 
 North, and to allow them to assume a wider influence in the policy of 
 Europe. 
 
 The Ministry displayed still greater weakness when it attempted to 
 rebut the reproach of electoral corruption hurled against it 
 
 Home policy. . • . . 
 
 by eminent orators on every bench of the Opposition, and, 
 amongst others, by M. Billault, who put himself forward as the avenger of 
 outraged public morality, and who submitted the following amendment to 
 
 the draft of the address: — " We associate ourselves, Sire, 
 
 Amendment ot 
 
 M, Billault to ^th the wishes of your Majesty by demanding of your 
 address. Government that it should before all things exert itself to 
 
 the utmost to develop the morality of the people, and no longer to enfeeble 
 it by fatal examples." M. Billault then appealed to the conscience of the 
 Chamber, by showing that the electors sold their votes for offices ; that the 
 deputies looked to the Ministers to reimburse them for the expenses of 
 
Jan. and Feb. 1848.] de tocqtteville's speech. 611 
 
 their election ; and that the Ministers, although, doubtless, honest them- 
 selves, governed by these detestable means. The orator also reproached 
 the doctrinaires in the Cabinet, MINI. Guizot and Duchatel, with having 
 abandoned their principles on various occasions for the sake of retaining 
 power. In support of these accusations he enumerated a long series of 
 facts which were already known, and the fatal consequences of which to 
 the morality of the country he forcibly set forth. But M. de Tocqueville 
 had already, in a prophetical discourse, branded with 
 emotion and indignation these corrupting examples. "lam lo^ue °iie f ' de 
 dismayed," he said, " at the conclusions deduced by 
 Europe against our principles by the circumstances which are going on 
 under our eyes ; and if such conclusions are deduced by Europe, what 
 will not be deduced by the population which watches us as we act in the 
 political theatre ? What effect will such a spectacle have upon them ? 
 Do you not see that social passions are already being substituted for 
 political passions, and that every day gives greater strength to the 
 doctrines whose whole tendency is the destruction of all the foundations of 
 society ? My profound conviction is that we are sleeping on a volcano. 
 It would be wrong to assert that the Government has produced all this 
 evil, but it has certainly had some share in producing it, and has very 
 greatly contributed to produce profound disturbance in public morals, 
 which has reacted on private morals. I do not accuse the members of 
 the Cabinet of bad intentions, but I assert that they have effected a 
 revolution by immoral means, by influencing men through their passions 
 and their interests, and even their vices, and they have thus drawn 
 around them a circle of dishonest men. . . . Ministers have never be- 
 fore possessed such means of corruption, as none have ever before been 
 in the presence of a class so open to corruption. I know that they have 
 been drawn by a species of fatality to the edge of a dangerous precipice, 
 but it is their own fault that they have allowed themselves to be so 
 drawn. It is a fatality by which they have been induced to create so 
 many new offices, a fatality which has led them to divide already existing 
 offices, and a fatality which has caused them arbitrarily to create new 
 ones." The orator cited many recent facts which showed that function- 
 aries had not only been deprived of their offices, for having voted 
 according to their consciences, but that notorious agents of Government 
 corruption had been scandalously well rewarded ; and then added : — 
 
 R r 2 
 
612 
 
 DEBATE ON BEEOBM. [BOOK V. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 " It is by such acts as these that great catastrophes are brought about. 
 Search through history for the causes which have deprived the governing 
 classes of power, and you will find that the latter have only lost it when 
 they have rendered themselves, by their egotism, unworthy of retaining 
 it. . . . The evils which I point out have already produced the most 
 serious revolutions; and do you not now perceive that the soil of 
 Europe is trembling beneath your feet? Do you not feel the breath 
 of revolution in the air ? My firm conviction is that public morals 
 have come to that point of degradation at which fresh disturbances 
 are inevitable. Do you know what will probably come to pass 
 within the next two years, within the next year, and even, perhaps, 
 to-morrow ? What you know only is that a tempest is brooding 
 over the horizon, that it is advancing towards and will soon be upon 
 you. . . . Retain your laws if you choose, but, for God's sake, change 
 the spirit of your government — that spirit which is plunging you into 
 the abyss." 
 
 A still more violent debate took place respecting the answer to that 
 ,, phrase of the speech from the throne, by which many 
 reform banquets. p eers an( j a hundred deputies, who had taken part in the 
 banquets by which France had been agitated, considered themselves to 
 be particularly attacked ; and the legality of those banquets was at the 
 same time discussed with extreme violence. The Keeper of the Seals, 
 M. Hebert, in an eloquent and sensible speech, enumerated the grounds 
 on which the Government would have the right to prevent such 
 assemblies when they tended to disturb the public peace, and declared 
 that it would not give way before any seditious manifestation. To this 
 defiance M. Duvergier de Hauranne replied by another. 
 
 Defiance of M. 
 
 Duvergier de He would not yield, he said, to the ukase of a Minister, and 
 
 Hauranne. 
 
 he was ready to join all who, by some decided act of resis- 
 tance, would prove that the rights of Frenchmen might not be destroyed 
 by a mere decree of the police. This proof was to consist in the assembly 
 of the principal deputies of the opposition at a reform banquet which had 
 been already arranged to take place in the 12th Arrondissement of Paris, 
 and which had been interdicted by the authorities. This formidable 
 defiance, which had the effect of transferring the debate from the floors 
 of the Chambers to the public thoroughfares, was followed by the vote 
 
Jan. and Feb. 1848.] agitation IK erance. 613 
 
 of the address, in which the Opposition had not succeeded in procuring 
 a single amendment, or the insertion of any decided promise of reform on 
 the part of the Ministry. 
 
 The day for the announced demonstration drew near. Paris, anxious 
 and agitated, without foreseeing any great catastrophe, was nevertheless 
 in expectation of the occurrence of serious events, and of one of those 
 blows the shock of which, says Bossuet, is felt so far around. The 
 stormy debates on the address had caused the greatest excitement 
 amongst the numerous classes of the population which were Agitation inParis 
 already disturbed and inflamed by the speeches delivered 
 at the seventy reform banquets which had taken place in the principal 
 cities of the kingdom. The Eepublican and Legitimist enemies of the 
 dynasty, so long held in check by a citizenship so long devoted 
 to the maintenance of the existing state of affairs, at the present 
 time found its citizenship discontented and divided. The hope of obtain- 
 ing the revenge so long adjourned had returned to them ; and the secret 
 societies, the anarchists, and the political refugees, recruited by the 
 demagogues, resumed their courage, silently armed themselves, and pre- 
 pared for the final struggle with the Monarchy. 
 
 Intimidated, with too much reason, by these terrifying symptoms, the 
 deputies of the dynastic Opposition and the Cabinet itself hesitated to 
 provoke a dangerous explosion, and they agreed that the banquet demon- 
 stration should be reduced to a simple meeting, and such formal proceed- 
 ings as would be sufficient to enable the legal authorities of the country 
 to decide the question of the right of holding public meetings. The 
 Radical Opposition, however, which desired to struggle at any price, 
 would not rest contented with so peaceable an arrangement. Its jour- 
 nalists, its deputies, and its orators, amongst whom, unfortunately, was 
 numbered M. de Lamartine, resolved to call upon the schools, the 
 National Guard, and all Paris, in fact, to take part in a decided, although 
 
 pacific demonstration, which was announced on the 21st _ ;;.. , „ 
 -t 7 Political Demon- 
 
 February for the morrow in the Radical journals, The ^Ju^d^r 
 National and The Reform. On the unexpected appearance ' Februar y 22 « 
 of this programme, M. Odillon Barrot and his friends of the Dynastic 
 Opposition determined not to take part in the banquet. Being divided, 
 however, between the honest sentiment which led them to abstain from 
 
614 OTTTBTJEST OP THE EETOLUTIOK. [BoOK V. ChAP. VIII. 
 
 what they thought might cause public misfortunes and a dread of losing 
 their popularity by appearing to shrink from danger, and being at the 
 T same time controlled by their antecedents and a fatal 
 
 Impeachment of J 
 
 the Cabinet. position, they deposited in the bureau of the Chamber a 
 formal accusation against the Cabinet, which, without proving of any ad- 
 vantage to themselves, added fresh fuel to the popular excitement. The 
 dreaded Kevolution burst forth on the 22nd February, amidst shouts of 
 " Long live Eeform !" " Down with Guizot !" 
 
 I shall give but few details of these sad days, and I shall not describe 
 
 at length the mournful fall of the dynasty which had been 
 
 1848, February for eighteen years triumphant, and which now, abandoned 
 
 22, 23, and 24. , ... . 
 
 by all those who had received it with acclamations, was 
 destroyed by an insurrection. A few days sooner a Ministry which, had 
 been long in power, and which had not retained office until driven from 
 it by a violent revolutionary pressure, might have succeeded another 
 Cabinet less compromised in public opinion. But it was now too late ; 
 the hour for regular concessions had gone by. Feeble at first, and un- 
 certain, the insurrection appeared, on the first day, at several points at 
 once ; at the Champs Elysees, on the Place de la Concorde, and in cer- 
 tain faubourgs, where barricades were erected and abandoned. The 
 flames which were everywhere sullenly brooding, were slow to burst 
 forth, but, being only timidly suppressed, they speedily grew fierce, and 
 on the second day had involved all Paris. All hope, however, was not 
 yet lost ; the resources of the Government were great, the garrison did 
 its duty, and various regiments hastened to march upon the capital. 
 But the National Guard answered badly to the Government summons, 
 and the few weak battalions which took up arms manifested too evident 
 sympathies for an insurrection the apparent object of which was electoral 
 reform, and appeared much more disposed to interfere between the 
 regular troops and the insurgents than to oppose the latter. The 
 adoption of this attitude by the National Guard at length made the King 
 resolve to yield to necessity, and on the evening of the 22nd February 
 
 it became known that he had invited M. Mole to 
 
 M. Mole invited 
 
 to form a new form a new Cabinet. Paris now immediately illuminated, 
 and this news was everywhere received with tremendous 
 acclamations as a happy omen of conciliation and peace. But on this 
 same evening a fatality caused everything to be lost. 
 
Jan-, and Feb. 1848.J . spread oe insurrection. 615 
 
 A column of the populace descended by the Boulevards, the Faubourgs 
 Saint Martin and the Temple, and, preceded by the red flag, encountered 
 a battalion of infantry of the line, stationed in front of the Foreign Office, 
 in the Boulevard des Capucines, and there a detestable pistol-shot fired 
 against the troops provoked them ; without awaiting the orders of their 
 officers, they fired upon the mob which crowded the Boulevard and the 
 adjacent streets, and in an instant the ground was strewn 
 
 Bloody episode 
 
 with victims of every age and either sex. At this sight on the Boulevard 
 
 des Capucines. 
 
 the fury of the people was once more aroused to its utmost 
 
 pitch ; the dead were lifted up before the soldiers, who were themselves 
 
 seized with horror ; placed, bleeding and half naked, on dead carts, 
 
 which seem to have been present in anticipation, and promenaded 
 
 through the Boulevards and the most remote quarters of the city by 
 
 torchlight, to the cry of " Vengeance ! Vengeance !" and the sound of the 
 
 tocsin, which spread its funeral reverberations through the horrors of 
 
 this frightful night. The fatal news flew from mouth to mouth ; the 
 
 Faubourgs arose; Paris became covered with an inter- 
 Rapid progress 
 minable network of barricades : and bv the morning the of the insurrec- 
 
 quarter of the Tuileries was almost entirely covered with 
 them. Before such perils as these M. Mole was powerless, and withdrew; 
 whilst the Court perceived that a vigorous and desperate resistance had 
 become absolutely necessary. 
 
 The victor of the Isly, Marshal Bugeaud, was appointed before day- 
 break to the command-in-chief of the troops. He had under his orders 
 Bedeau, Lamoriciere, and other tried generals, and every preparation 
 was made for a bloody and decisive struggle. In the meantime the 
 King entrusted the conduct of affairs to the leaders of the 
 
 MM. Thiers and 
 
 Parliamentary Opposition, MM. Thiers and Odillon Barrot, Barrot invested 
 
 with power. 
 
 who, trusting too implicitly to their popularity, believed 
 that they could appease the Revolution by their mere words and 
 presence. They put a stop to the firing of the troops, and recalled 
 Bugeaud, who, with grief and rage, saw his sword broken in his hands. 
 Distracted by contrary orders, the soldiers remained some time in a state 
 of indecision and inaction, then abandoned the barricades to the insur- 
 gents, and to a great extent fraternized with them. After this the 
 latter became innumerable, and advanced in a dense mass towards the 
 Tuileries. 
 
616 CEISIS OF THE INSUEEECTIOIS'. [BOOK V. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Louis Philippe, at the instigation of the Queen, mounted his horse, 
 The Kine's last anc ^ rev i ewe d a ^ the Carrousel several regiments and a few 
 review. weak battalions of the National Guards. The regular 
 
 troops received him with cries of ■" Vive le Roil" But the National 
 Guards replied with the cry of " Eeform ! Eeform !" the password of the 
 Revolutionists, and the discouraged Monarch re-entered his palace. 
 
 The conflict had already ceased everywhere except at the Palais 
 Eoyal, at the Chateau d'Eau, where a handful of brave men, well 
 commanded, listened only to the voice of honour and duty. The 
 post was ultimately set on fire, and most of its brave defenders were 
 slain. 
 
 I abridge the recital of those lamentable scenes in which are seen a 
 monarch so horrified at bloodshed as to refuse to alj.ow it for his own 
 safety and that of the monarchy ; generals prohibited to act ; hitherto 
 popular statesmen, such as MM. Thiers and Barrot, attempting in vain 
 to save the throne, and everywhere ignored and insulted ; regular troops 
 giving way without fighting ; and the citizen militia, ! madness ! so 
 blinded as not to perceive that the cause which was falling was their 
 own, and so far forgetful of their duty as not only to fail to respond to the 
 summons of the Government, but even to permit some of their own 
 members, in their own uniform, to appear amongst the insurgents.* There 
 was madness everywhere, and an unfortunate chance kept at a distance 
 from France two valiant and popular princes, the Dukes d'Aumale and 
 de Joinville, who alone were capable, at this period, of checking and 
 vanquishing sedition. The insurrection incessantly increased, filled all 
 the approaches to the Palace, knocked at its doors, and was at the point 
 of bursting through v them."j" What a spectacle then was presented by 
 the ancient home of the French sovereigns ! Louis Philippe still de- 
 liberated. Beside him was the Queen, filled with inexpressible grief, but 
 resigned. Around him were the princesses in tears, stupefied courtiers, 
 mute generals, powerless and terrified ministers. The word abdication 
 
 * Scarcely a tenth part of trie citizen militia assumed their arms in the days of 
 February, and of this number a very small portion made common cause with the insur- 
 rectionists. It is untrue, therefore, that the National Guard overthrew the Government 
 of July, the defence of which was confided to it ; but it is too true that it allowed it to 
 perish, and this was an. immense fault which has not been yet forgotten. 
 + Apparet domus intus et atria longa patescunt ; 
 Apparent Priami et veterum penetralia regum. 
 
JAN. AND FEB. 1848.] ABDICATION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 6l7 
 
 was uttered ; many voices repeated it, and urged the King to consent 
 
 to and sign it. Louis Philippe, apparently calm and emotionless, 
 
 took his pen and wrote these words, " I abdicate, in favour 
 
 of the Count de Paris, my grandson ; and I hope that he Louis Philippe, 
 
 may be happier than I have been." After he had signed 
 
 this act of abdication the King retired by the only means of exit which 
 
 remained free, and the mob forthwith burst into the Palace. 
 
 A woman clothed in mourning — the Duchess d'Orleans — was the last 
 to leave the Tuileries with her two children, and in this extremity many 
 voices expressed a wish that the regency, which the law gave to the Duke 
 de Nemours, could be conferred on the Duchess. Courageous, and 
 resolved to brave death in the fulfilment of a great duty, 
 
 . . The Duchess 
 
 she passed though the threatening crowd m order to pre- d'Orleans andher 
 
 children at the 
 
 sent her son to the two Chambers. She proceeded, under chamber of 
 
 Deputies. 
 
 the escort of the Duke de Nemours and the protection of 
 a few friends, to the Chamber of Deputies, where M. Dupin introduced 
 her as the Regent of the kingdom ; and when the Duchess took a seat in 
 front of the tribune with her brother-in-law Nemours and her two 
 sons, M. Dupin and M. Odillon Barrot endeavoured to procure such an 
 enthusiastic reception for the new King by the deputies as had been 
 accorded, after the Revolution of July, to the Duke of Orleans. 
 But in 1830 the majority of the Elective Chamber really represented 
 the nation, which had elected it in spite of all the efforts of the Govern- 
 ment, and for this reason was respected by the victorious multitude ; but 
 in 1848 it was not so, for the majority of the deputies having been 
 elected by means of the abuse of Government influence, in spite of 
 a national and almost universal opposition, only represented an authority 
 which was near the end of its existence. For this reason it not only 
 had no influence with the public, but was also penetrated with a sense of 
 its own weakness. Its place of assembly was violated, whilst it was 
 actually sitting, by armed bands, and its president, M. Sauzet, himself 
 abandoned it. Four deputies — MM. Cremieux, Marie, Ledru-Rollin, and 
 de Lamartine — demanded the nomination of a Provisional '•„... „ 
 
 .Nomination of 
 
 Government, the members of which were immediately Qo^nmeM 
 pointed out with acclamations by the voices of the insur- e * 24 ' 
 gents, and those of a few deputies mingled together. Chambers, regency, 
 royalty, all, disappeared in the tempest. 
 
618 . THE BEPUBLIC THE EMPIEE. [BOOK V. CHAP. VIII* 
 
 On the following day (the 25th February) the Provisional Government 
 proclaimed the Republic ; and France was thus once more 
 
 Proclamation of . • r» n m 
 
 the Republic, given up to every species of danger until, in accordance 
 
 Eeb. 25, 1848. & . . . 
 
 with the inflexible law of history, anarchy produced a 
 master, and Louis Napoleon Bonaparte obtained, by universal suffrage, 
 the presidency of the Republic, and, at a subsequent period (December, 
 1853) the Imperial throne. 
 
1814-1848.] THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 619 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REMARKS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND PARLIAMENTARY MONARCHY IN 
 FRANCE FROM 1814 TO 1848. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 It is fit, at the conclusion of this work, that we should throw a simulta- 
 neous glance at the constitutional government of the two branches of the 
 House of Bourbon, as well as at the principal causes which led to its fall. 
 During the first part of this period the sun of prosperity shone on the 
 Restoration, and the dark clouds thrown by violent passions over the 
 agitated period began to separate as soon as the Restoration took place. 
 France owes to it, let us remember, its constitutional charter of 1814, 
 its first essays in the path of political liberty, its deliverance from the 
 scourge of foreign invasion, and the enjoyment of a long peace, after a 
 quarter of a century of frightful warfare. It owes also to the Restora- 
 tion the establishment of its public credit, the re-establishment of its 
 maritime commerce, and the development of its industry and internal 
 prosperity — benefits too frequently unappreciated or ignored. It owes to 
 it also the foundation of an empire in Africa which will doubtless be 
 some day called to great destinies. And finally, it must be acknow- 
 ledged, to the honour of the Restoration, that it was a period fertile 
 in all the fields of human activity — in the sciences, the fine arts, in 
 oratory, and in literature, including those branches for which the French 
 intellect had hitherto shown no great aptitude, lyrical poetry and history. 
 The genius of the country appeared at the period of the Restoration to 
 awake from a long sleep, it received fresh life from the electric shock of 
 ideas, and produced numerous chefs cVoeuvre — a brilliant proof of that 
 well-known truth, that the arts of peace may flourish in very agitated 
 times, provided that the agitation be accompanied by circumstances of 
 grandeur, and that it be caused by powerful convictions and generous 
 passions. 
 
620 EEMAEKS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL [BOOK V. CHAP. IX. 
 
 The following period — that of the Government of July — was doubtless 
 as fruitful in parliamentary eloquence as that of the Eestoration ; but 
 most of the men who had then acquired a name in literature had become 
 politicians or officials. On this account, and on others which I will not 
 mention here, French literature was less fertile in this second period than 
 in the first,* producing few remarkable works, except a celebrated one by 
 Alexis de Tocqueville, out of the regions of criticism and romance ; this 
 latter species of writing especially being cultivated with much success by 
 men of various talents, but too often, it must be added, to the prejudice 
 of good morals. This period also saw industry flourish in various 
 branches, the public credit established, the public wealth developed to 
 the highest point, and the efforts of the Government united with those of 
 private individuals to endow the country with its principal railways. A 
 great extension was also given during this reign to French conquests 
 in Africa, which, however, it must be admitted, were always less produc- 
 tive than costly ; and although Louis Philippe, to his honour be it said, 
 had preserved the general peace of Europe, everywhere where France 
 showed her flag, under this prince as under the Bourbons of the elder 
 branch, it acquired honour. 
 
 These two monarchies have fallen, and have one after the other been 
 engulphed before our eyes. The mind grows giddy in the contemplation 
 of their fall, and is strongly inclined to attribute it to ill-fortune and 
 fatality. But the world is not governed by fortune. " There are general 
 causes," says Montesquieu, "both moral and physical, which act upon 
 every monarchy, and either elevate and preserve it or hurl it to destruc- 
 tion." This great truth becomes manifest to those who examine atten- 
 tively the catastrophes which have overtaken our monarchical and 
 parliamentary governments. There were in each, from the moment of 
 their origin, as we have already said, fatal causes of ruin inherent to the 
 position in which they were placed and inseparable to the nature of 
 things. It was a great misfortune for the first of these Governments that 
 it appeared to issue from foreign invasion and the humiliation of France, 
 and it was a danger for the other that it had been born of a successful 
 Revolution. The Liberals, Bonapartists, Republicans, &c, closing their 
 eyes to the immense services rendered to the country, decried the first as 
 
 * Amongst the causes which contributed to this result, political debasement holds 
 the first place. 
 
1814-1848.] AND PARLIAMENTARY MONARCHY. 621 
 
 the natural ally of foreigners and the enemies of France ; whilst the 
 cause of the second was identified by them with those of all revolutions, 
 and too many of them believed that they were in permanent possession of 
 the right to resort, for the purpose of overthrowing it, to the means by 
 which it had been established. 
 
 There was a danger to the Restoration in the very principle from which 
 it derived its force, the hereditary and traditional principle, which is 
 doubtless very well calculated to consolidate a Government and to gain 
 for it the respect of peoples, but which, when ill understood and regarded 
 as a species of divine principle, superior to all others, is almost certain to 
 plunge a monarchy into the abyss. The contrary principle — that of a 
 national sovereignty — has also its fictions and its dangers ; but, in the 
 case of the failure of traditional right, it is nevertheless the only basis on 
 which new governments can be established. The Government of July 
 invoked in its favour the national will, but it neglected to consult it by 
 means of an universal vote, and to establish it by the only forms which 
 were formerly and are now in use. It thus remained, in the eyes of the 
 masses, in an equivocal and false position, deprived, on the one hand, of 
 the strength which is transmitted with the legal and traditional principle, 
 and on the other of the power afforded by a decided demonstration of the 
 popular will ; and this was one of the rocks on which it struck. But the 
 most dangerous rock for each of the two Governments existed in the very 
 state of society, in the composition of the classes whose duty it more 
 particularly was to support and defend them. The Restoration brought 
 into the political arena men whom the events of a quarter of a century 
 had rendered hostile to each other, and whom the iron hand of Napoleon 
 had held in check and disarmed, some still bleeding from their wounds 
 and eager to repair and avenge their losses, and others determined to 
 defend their conquests ; whilst all were equally intractable and implacable, 
 and much more occupied in forging for themselves, by means of legislation, 
 arms which would enable them to acquire power, than in supporting the 
 constitution and the crown by developing the resources of the country. 
 
 Victorious at length, in 1830, by the aid of the mob, the bourgeoisie who 
 disposed of the sceptre in the name of France, and on a too small portion 
 of whom the Government relied in the elections, were constantly held in 
 check between the representatives of the old privileged classes who had 
 been vanquished with the traditional monarchy, and a portion of the 
 
622 EEMAEKS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL [BOOK V. CHAP. IX. 
 
 popular classes who had been deceived in their hopes and were excited 
 by their three days' victory. They thus found themselves beset with 
 equal fury both from above and from below, whilst they were deprived 
 within their own body of most of the conservative elements of empires, 
 and had no other strength than that afforded by an union which was the 
 result of common interest and common danger — a variable and pre- 
 carious strength, which is enfeebled in proportion as the community of 
 interest and the imminence of danger themselves decrease. 
 
 Such were the obstacles and the principal difficulties which were 
 encountered in 1814 and 1830 by the Governments of the elder and the 
 younger branch of the House of the Bourbons — difficulties inherent to the 
 state of things which existed before any fault had been committed, and 
 which were even independent of any vice in the constitution. They 
 were great without being insurmountable, and imposed upon the Minis- 
 ters of the two Governments the absolute necessity of being prudent, of 
 seeking the support of the body of the nation, and of displaying great 
 attention to the real wishes of the nation ; this necessity being so much 
 the greater because the very characteristic principle of constitutional and 
 free states is that the Government should be the faithful expression of the 
 interests, the necessities, and the morals of the society over which it 
 presides. 
 
 The scrupulous observance of these conditions of existence would have 
 probably prevented the events of 1830 and 1848 ; but these conditions 
 were not observed. Ambitious or too confident, Ministers disdained 
 public opinion, some of them attempting to displace the centre of gravity 
 of the social body, whilst the others sought for a foundation for the 
 Government where there was none. They were kept in possession of 
 their offices by means of that unlimited administrative power of which 
 they had equally made a long and continual use to crush down public 
 opinion to the point at which it becomes furious and ungovernable. 
 
 Do not let us attempt to darken the picture by showing men to be 
 more guilty than they are. There are fatal circumstances which, com- 
 bined with certain opinions, frequently hurry along, in spite of them- 
 selves, the best as well as the ablest men. When a prince, in fact, who 
 has been brought up in the doctrine of the policy consecrated to Bossuet 
 and the divine right of kings, occupies a constitutional throne, the moment 
 must come sooner or later when he will consider himself bound both by 
 
1814-1848.] AKU PAELIAMENTARY MONAECHY. 623 
 
 honour and conscience to override botli the constitution and the laws of 
 his country. Charles L, James II., and Charles X. did this, and I might 
 cite a great and living example on the banks of the Ehine. In like 
 manner, when the central administration possesses an almost uncontrolled 
 and unlimited power, there will always be some man amongst those who 
 direct it who will believe that the safety of his country depends on the 
 maintenance of his own policy, and who will put in motion all the wheels 
 of this great power for the purpose of perpetuating it. The more 
 personal ability such a man possesses the more inclined he will be to assist 
 himself by this formidable machine. Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert, 
 Louvois, Turgot himself, all made use of it, and no one can affirm 
 that the adversaries of MM. de Villele and Guizot would, in their place, 
 have resisted the temptations of power any more strenuously than they 
 did. It is the instrument, therefore, that should be blamed rather than 
 those who make use of it, and who did not abuse it for the purpose of 
 consolidating their power until they had shaken the latter by their faults. 
 
 If the dangers which presented themselves in these difficult times could 
 have been surmounted by high intelligence, great talents, good intentions, 
 untarnished integrity, devotion to country, few governments would have 
 been more prosperous than those of the last three reigns. The most 
 eminent men of the Restoration and the following period were dis 
 tinguished for these qualities ; but what was most rarely found amongst 
 them was a genuine and serious love of political liberties considered as 
 guarantees of individual, religious, and civil liberty ; they had not 
 an intuitive sense of the influence of moral forces in the affairs 
 of this world; and finally, they knew not that compassion for 
 every species of distress which, in England, upwards of twenty 
 years since, after the suppression of the corn laws, inspired the great 
 Minister who was overthrown by his own victory, with these touching 
 words — "I -shall leave a name," he said, "which will be held in horror by 
 those who only regard their own interests, but which will be, perhaps, 
 mentioned affectionately in the humble dwellings in which live those 
 whose lot is labour, and who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow." 
 
 It must be acknowledged that the egotism of party spirit and cold 
 political calculations too often stifled that benevolent sympathy for 
 suffering humanity, that profound respect for the human conscience and 
 dignity in others, and that love of truth, which are the fruitful sources of 
 
624 EEMABKS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL [BOOK V. CHAP. IX. 
 
 the best resolutions in our modern democracies. And yet these elevated 
 moral dispositions, these virtues which are always so rare, although so 
 necessary, in the heads of empires, were not more frequent during the 
 late reign in the ranks of the Opposition than on the Ministerial benches. 
 This was a great misfortune. There were, doubtless, amongst the mem- 
 bers of either party very honourable exceptions ; but in general we find 
 the Opposition much more eager to defend the institutions and laws by 
 means of which it hoped ultimately to arrive at power itself, than eager 
 in unanimously demanding those which would allow mankind freely to 
 develop their moral and physical faculties. It was thus that the liberty of 
 the press and electoral reform had their champions not less numerous than 
 devoted ; yet the extension of communal and departmental liberty was but 
 faintly demanded ; fewer voices were raised with persevering energy in 
 favour of that religious freedom guaranteed by the charter than sufficed 
 to give it a practical existence, to break the shackles which crippled the 
 right of association, or to render education liberal and commerce free. 
 Too few men, in fact, pleaded with generous constancy for the numerous 
 and suffering classes to obtain for them a remission of their burdens, or 
 any amelioration either of their moral condition or of their general 
 welfare. 
 
 If, however, an Opposition representing a great majority had thus 
 comprehended the principles of liberty and progress, it might have 
 restored strength and courage to a multitude of men sunk in dangerous 
 indifference ; it might have rallied all generous hearts not selfishly de- 
 voted to their own interests, or to a base and personal cause, but to a 
 cause which was really popular, great, and Christian. But alas ! a de- 
 plorable political school, which was completely a stranger to the true 
 principles of modern liberty — the school of Rousseau — had left too many 
 germs in men's minds. Liberty was only understood in France on the 
 surface, as has been said by an eminent publicist of our own day. Its 
 inhabitants were determined, in fact, to see liberty only in political 
 liberty, which never exists long if it be not supported, through the whole 
 extent of the country, by a series of strong and liberal institutions. 
 
 Political liberty is not an object in itself, but a means of protecting 
 those other liberties, the possession of which is indispensable to the expan- 
 sion of the faculties and forces of men. These other liberties themselves 
 would be but useless and inert instruments without the ideas, the 
 
1814-1848.] AND JPARLIAMENTABY MONABCHY. 625 
 
 sentiments, and the beliefs which require them as the conditions of their 
 existence ; and, amongst all these great influences on human actions, the 
 most powerful and indispensable in the midst of a free people are the 
 Christian beliefs, which elevate, fortify, and purify souls, and inspire 
 self-abnegation, self-respect, and respect for others. Without these 
 beliefs there has never been, from the times of pagan antiquity to our 
 own, any true or durable liberty for any people ; and wherever they have 
 been seriously entertained, they have rendered men capable of accom- 
 plishing prodigies, and of obtaining for themselves a liberty which has 
 been the mother and the guardian of all the others. 
 
 What a far distance still separates us from the end to which tend all 
 our aspirations, and how many are the obstacles which still separate us 
 from it ! A grievous truth to utter, but one which is not only manifest 
 to-day, but was manifest even at a time when the country was in com- 
 plete possession of political liberties. 
 
 May an evil from which France has suffered during the last sixty 
 years be promptly remedied ; may a salutary equilibrium be established 
 between the central and individual forces ; may the life blood which now 
 flows in excess to the heart of the country be distributed fairly amongst 
 all its members ; may the Constitution be so established as to guarantee 
 the genuineness as well as the freedom of votes ; may the latter become 
 the faithful expression of the moral interests as well as the physical 
 necessities of the country ; and may those who give them be raised to a 
 proper sense of the moral responsibility of their acts! Finally, may 
 France bear her thoughts aloft, and remember that man does not live 
 by bread alone, but by the words of justice and of life. .Then liberty, 
 a plant of rare and difficult growth, will become acclimatized on 
 a soil which has been shaken by many tempests, and will be, to use 
 words which have fallen from august lips, the promised crown of the 
 political edifice. More fortunate than their fathers, our sons will reap 
 the benefits which ever result from liberty, and will bear upon their 
 banner, with legitimate pride, to the ends of the world, our immortal 
 and glorious device, " Dieu protege la France ! " 
 
 VOL. II. < S S 
 

 INDEX. 
 
 ABD-EL-EADEK in Algiers, 559 
 „ retires to Morocco, 590 
 
 „ submission of, 1847, 606 
 
 Abdication of Bonaparte, 1814,-407 
 Academy, French, protest of the, against the 
 
 censorship of press, 1826, 490 
 Act of Mediation, 1802, 323 
 Address to the king, debate on the, 1839, 569 
 Afiica, French conquests in, 176 
 
 „ losse 3 of the French in, 1757, 1760, 158 
 „ war in, 1843-4, 590 
 Agosta, victory at, 78 
 
 Agricultural interests disregarded by Colbert, 71 
 Aguesseau, recall of d', 1720, 126 
 Aignan, St., Duke, conspiracy of, in Spain, 1718, 
 
 122 
 Aiguillon, Duke d', trial of, 165 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, conference at, 449 
 „ peace of, 1748, 145 
 
 „ treaty of, 1668, 72 
 
 Alais, peace of, 1629, 23 
 Alberoni, Cardinal, disgrace of, 1719, 123 
 Alexander, benevolence of, 403 
 
 „ coolness to Bonaparte, 375 
 
 „ interview with Bonaparte, 1807, 353 
 
 „ proposes peace, 1812, 381 
 
 Alexandria, convention of, 314 
 Algeria, progress of, 576 
 „ the war in, 559 
 ,, reverses in, 1845, 592 
 Algerian question, crisis on the, 1834, 544 
 Algiers bombarded, 1683, 79 
 
 „ captured, 1830, 499 
 Algesiras, battle of, 1801, 318 
 Alibaud, attempt of, to assassinate Louis 
 
 Philippe, 1836, 555 
 Aligre, dismissal of d', 18 
 Allied armies, advance of, 1814, 391 
 
 „ encamp around' Paris, 1814, 401 
 
 „ in Paris, 1815, 438 
 
 Allied sovereigns in Paris, 1814, 403 
 Allies, advance of, 1815, 430 
 Almansa, victory at, 1707, 100 
 Alps, passage of the, 1800, 312 
 America, indemnity for vessels captured, de- 
 manded by, 540 
 „ loan to, 178 
 
 „ losses of the French in 1757, 1760, 158 
 „ operations in, 1780, 177 
 
 „ treaty with, 175 
 
 American colonies, revolt of, 1773, 174 
 Amiens, peace of, 1802, 318 
 
 „ rupture of the peace of, 1803, 327 
 Amnesty of,' 1800, 319 
 
 „ proposed, 1834, 546 
 „ for political offenders granted, 1837, 
 664 
 Ancona, capture of, 1832, 527 
 Andalucia in the power of the French, 1810, 368 
 Andujar, decree of, 1823,474 
 Anjou, Duke of, recognised as King of Spain, 93 
 
 Anne of Austria, 8 
 
 „ death of, 1669, 71 
 
 ,, insulted by libels, 57 
 
 „ proceeds to revolted provinces, 
 
 60 
 „ regent, 44 
 
 „ recognised as regent, 49 
 
 „ reproached in the council 
 
 chamber, 18 
 Anne, Queen of England, 96 
 Antwerp, occupied by the Dutch, 1831, 525 
 „ siege of, resolved on, 1832, 533 
 „ siege of, 1832, 534 
 
 April rioters, trial of the, 547 
 Archbishop's Palace, pillage of the, 1831, 521 
 Arcis-sur-Aube, battle of, 1814, 399 
 Arcole, victory at, 1796, 283 
 " Arena, conspiracy of the," 1800, 319 
 Argomme, Prussians checked at, 227 
 Aristocracy abased by Richelieu, 41 
 "Armed neutrality," 1780, 176 
 Armies, junction of the hostile, 1814, 398 
 Arms of France, success of the, 250 
 Army, dissatisfaction of the, 1814, 419 
 „ enteeblement of the, 95 
 „ interference of the, in domestic politics,290 
 „ law on the organization of the, 448 
 " Army of the faith," 472 
 Army and na^y, laws regarding the, 537 
 Arras invested, 1640, 38 
 
 „ siege of, raised, 64 
 Arrondissements, new law relating to, 1829,497 
 Art, works of, returned, 439 
 Arts, the, during the ministry of Eichelieu, 47 
 Artois, Count d', enters Paris, 1814, 408 
 „ „ influence of, 445 
 
 „ „ at Isle Dieu, 1795, 267 
 
 Asia, losses of the French in, 1757 — 1760, 158 
 Assas. Chevalier d', gallantry of, 159 
 Assassinations of Protestants, 1815, 442 
 Assembly, parties in the, 204 
 Assignats, issue of, 209 
 Association, law on, 539 
 Atheistic school, rise of the, 169 
 Atrocities of Committee of Public Safety in the 
 
 Departments, 1794, 253 
 Augereau, valour of, at Arcole, 283 
 Augsbourg, League of, 87 
 Austerlitz, battle of, 1805, 339 
 Aumale, Duke d', attempt to assassinate the, 
 1841, 583 
 „ „ takes the Smala of Abd-el- 
 
 Kader, 1843, 590 
 Austria declares war against France, 1813, 386 
 
 ,, war declared against, 1792, 220 
 Austrian army defeated by Bonaparte, 276 
 
 „ succession, war for the, 1740 — 1748, 136 
 Austrians re-enter Italy, 278 
 
 „ withdraw from Italy, 1831, 524 
 Averstadt, battle of, 1806, 345 
 Avignon seized, 87 
 
INDEX. 
 
 627 
 
 BABEUF, plot of, 274 
 Badajos, capture of, 1811, 375 
 Baden, peace of, 1714, 105 
 Bankruptcy law improved, 1838, 565 
 Banquet of 1st October, 206 
 Bar, confederation of, 1768, 168 
 Baradas disgraced, 18 
 Barbary pirates destroyed, 1830, 499 
 Barcelona, conquest of, 92 
 Barracks erected, 131 
 Barri, Countess du, favourite, 162 
 Barricades formed, 1848, 615 
 Basle, peace of, 1795, 264 
 Bassano, de, Duke, ministry of, 546 
 Bastile, taking of the, 1789, 202 
 " Battle of M. de Conflans," 158 
 Baude,M., deprived of prefectureof Paris,1831, 522 
 Bavaria erected into a kingdom, 1805, 341 
 
 „ evacuation of, 1743, 139 
 Baylen, capitulation of General Dupont at, 358 ' 
 Be'lfort, military revolt at, 1822, 470 
 Belgian crown offered to Duke de Nemours, 
 
 1831, 525 
 Belgians, queen of the, dowry for the, 1837, 561 
 Belgium, operations in, 1635, 33 
 „ conquest of, 1792, 232 
 „ invasion of, 1794, 256 
 „ visit of Bonaparte to, 1812, 378 
 ,, march upon, 1815, 431 
 „ revolution in 1830, 517 
 „ Dutch attack on, 1831, 525 
 „ French army in, 1832, 534 
 Bellegarde, Duke of, executed, 26 
 Belle Isle, battle of, 1747, 145 
 „ battle of, 1795, 266 
 
 Beranger the national poet, 489 
 Beresina, passage of, 1812, 384 
 Bergen-op-Zoom, taking of, 145 
 Berghem, victory at, 304 
 
 battle of, 1759, 157 
 Berlin, entry of Bonaparte into, 1806, 346 
 Bernadotte, Prince Royal of Sweden, 1810, 369 
 Berri, Duke de, birth of, Louis XVI., 1754, 147 
 „ marriage of, 1816, 446 
 
 „ assassination of, 1820, 454 
 
 Berry, Duchess de, rising under the, 1832, 532 
 
 „ arrest of, 534 
 
 Berryer, entrance into public life of, 1830, 498 
 Berton, General, plot of, 1822, 470 
 „ trial of, 1822, 471 
 
 Beyrout, bombardment of, 1840, 580 
 Bil'lault, M. de. speech of, 1848, 610 
 Blancm^nil arrested, 1648, 55 
 Blaye, captivity of Duchess de Berry at, 1832, 534 
 Blaneau, battle of, 1652, 61 
 Blockade of Paris, 57 
 
 Blois, retreat of Maria Louisa to, 1814, 401 
 Blucher defeated at Brienne, 1814, 392 
 
 „ on the Marne, 1814, 394 
 „ „ at Ligny, 1815, 431 
 
 Boissy d'Anglas, courage of, 263 
 Bologna, Bonaparte marches to, 285 
 
 „ in possession of the Austrians, 1831, 527 
 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, King of Naples, 1806, 342 
 „ King of Spain, 1808, 357 
 Louis, King of Holland, 1806, 342 
 „ „ deposed, 1810, 369 
 
 „ „ Napoleon, conspiracy of, 1836, 
 
 558 
 ti „ „ expulsion of, from 
 
 Switzerland, 1839 
 569 
 „ „ expedition of, 1840, 
 
 578 
 „ imprisoned atHam, 
 
 1840, 578 
 
 „ escape from Ham, 
 
 1847, 597 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, at defence of Convention 
 
 at Paris, 1795, 269 
 ,, „ in command of army in 
 
 Italy, 1796, 275 
 ,, „ behaviour to Directory, 
 
 281 
 „ ,, at Arcole, 284 
 
 „ „ returns from Egypt, 1799, 
 
 304 
 „ ,, conspiracy with Sieyes 
 
 against Directory, 304 
 „ „ proclaimed chief consul, 
 
 310 
 ,, „ plots against, 319 
 
 „ „ public works of, 321 
 
 „ „ consul for life, 1802, 323 
 
 „ „ President of Italian Re- 
 
 public, 1802, 322 
 ,, „ genius of, 325 
 
 „ „ and English press, 326 
 
 „ „ useful acts of", 330 
 
 ,, „ Emperor, coronation of, 
 
 1804, 331 
 „ „ policy of, 333 
 
 „ „ enters Berlin, 1806, 346 
 
 „ „ enters Poland, 348 
 
 ,, „ interview with Alexander, 
 
 1807, 353 
 „ „ arbitrates between Charles 
 
 IV. of Spain and his 
 
 son, 357 
 „ „ seizes crown of Spain, 357 
 
 „ ,, at Dirstein, 363 
 
 „ „ second entry into Vienna, 
 
 1809, 364 
 ,, „ attempted assassination 
 
 of, by Staps, 1809, 367 
 „ „ divorce of, 1810, 369 
 
 „ ,, second marriage of, 1810, 
 
 369 
 „ „ character and works of, 
 
 370 
 „ „ and Pope Pius VII., 1811, 
 
 376 
 ,, ,, haughtiness to Alexander, 
 
 378 
 j, ,, rule of, tyranny of, 379 
 
 „ „ leaves the army, 1812, 385 
 
 ,, ,, assents to propositions of 
 
 powers at Frankfort,389 
 ,i 3, Fresh demands for men 
 
 and money by, 390 
 j, » energetic measures taken 
 
 by, 1814, 393 
 jj » arrives at Fromenteau, 
 
 1814, 402 
 jj „ dethronement of, pro- 
 
 nounced, 1814, 404 
 ,, „ offers to abdicate,1814, 405 
 
 „ j, abdication of, 1814, 407 
 
 j, j, hesitates to sign treaty of 
 
 11th April, 1814, 408 
 >» jj last interview of, with 
 
 Caulaincourt, 408 
 jj j j sorrowful reflections of, 
 
 409 
 ji 5 j attempts suicide, 1814, 409 
 
 jj jj farewell of, to the guard, 
 
 1814, 410 
 >j u departure of, for Elba, 
 
 1814, 410 
 ,, „ reflections on, 411 
 
 jj u returns from Elba, 1815, 
 
 424 
 jj „ landing of, 1815, 425 
 
 j» jj march of, on Paris, 1815, 
 
 426 
 jj jj enters Grenoble, 1815,427 
 
 s s 2 
 
628 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, re-enters Paris, 1815, 428 
 „ „ difficult position of, 1815, 
 
 428 
 „ „ return of, to Paris after 
 
 Waterloo, 435 
 „ „ second abdication of, 1815, 
 
 435 
 „ „ proceeds to Roehforte, 
 
 1815, 436 
 „ , surrenders to the English, 
 
 1815, 436 
 „ „ senttoSt.Helena,1815,436 
 
 „ „ death of, at St. Helena, 
 
 1821, 466 
 „ „ removal of remains of, to 
 
 Paris, 1840, 578 
 Bordeaux, revolt of, 59 
 
 „ submission of, 64 
 
 „ English in, 1814, 400 
 
 „ declares for the Bourbons, 1814, 400 
 
 Bordeaux, Duke de, birth of, 1820, 461 
 
 „ nominated to throne, by Charles X., 
 
 509 
 Bonfflers, defence of Lille by, 1709, 101 
 Bouillon, Duke of, rebels, 1614, 4 
 Boulevard des Capucines, episode on the,1843, 615 
 Boulogne-sur-Mer, preparations at, for invasion 
 of England, 1801, 318 
 „ camp at, 1803, 335 
 
 ,, Louis Napoleon at, 1840, 578 
 
 Bourbon, Duke de, Ministry of, 1724, 129 
 „ dismissal of, 1726, 131 
 
 Bourbon royal family, 413 
 Bourdonnais, imprisonment of La, 144 
 Bouteville, Count de, executed, 1627, 20 
 Boyne, battle of the, 1691, 90 
 Brabant, conquest of, 1747, 143 
 Braddock, G-eneral, defeat of, 1755, 152 
 Brandenburg, Elector of, 3 
 Bresson, Count, suicide of, 1847, 605 
 Brest improved, 71 
 
 ,, blockade of, 335 
 Brienne, battle of, 1814, 392 
 
 „ Lomenie de, ministry of, 1787, 183 
 „ fall of, 1788, 188 
 
 Brittany, disturbances in, 1719, 122 
 
 ,, disturbances in, 164 
 Broglie, Duke de, disgrace of, 160 
 „ ministry of, 547 
 
 „ ministry, fall of, 1836, 552 
 
 Brouage granted to Richelieu, 18 
 Brunswick, Duke of, manifesto of, 223 
 Broussel, de, arrested, 1648, 55 
 Buckingham, Duke of, in France, 17 
 
 „ gallantry of the, to the 
 
 Queen, 17 
 „ death of the, 22 
 
 Budget for 1832 presented, 522 
 
 ,, of 1833-34, 537 
 Bugeaud, Marshal, in Algiers, 590 
 
 „ in command of troops, 1848, 
 
 615 
 Burgundy,Duke andDachessof,death of the,104 
 Busaco, battle of, 1810, 369 
 Byng, Admiral, defeat of, 155 
 ,, shot, 155 
 
 " /1ABAL of the Importants, the," 50 
 
 \J Cabinet, impeachment of the, 1848, 614 
 Cadiz, siege of, 1810, 368 
 Caldiero, battle of, 1796, 282 
 
 „ battle of, 1805, 338 
 Calonne, ministry of, 1783, 182 
 Calvinistic party make a final effort, 23 
 Calvinists promised support by Spaniards, 16 
 
 ,, retain right of form of worship, 24 
 Cambrai, capture of, 78 
 Camisards, war of the, 1702-1704, 98 
 
 Campaign of 1635, 33 
 „ of 1636, 34 
 
 „ of 1638,35 
 
 „ of 1640, 38 
 
 „ in Piedmont, 1701, 95 
 
 „ of 1794, 255 
 
 „ of 1796-97, 274 
 
 „ of 1807, 350 
 
 Campo Formio, Peace of, 1797, 288 
 
 ,, ratification of the treaty of, 292 
 
 Canning, death of, 1827, 494 
 Canopa, battle of, 1801, 317 
 Capital Punishment, petition for abolition of, 
 
 1830, 518 
 Carbonarism, progress of, 470 
 " Cardinel of Roehelle" Richelieu, 17 
 " Carlists," 521 
 Carlowitz, peace of, 93 
 Carlsbad, congress of, 1820, 458 
 Caron and Eoger, plot of, 1822, 470 
 Carthagena surprised, 92 
 Casal, siege of, raised, 1640, 38 
 Casimir Perier, president of elective chamber, 
 1830, 519 
 „ ministry of, 1831, 523 
 
 „ death of, 1832, 528 
 
 ,, character and actions of, 528 
 
 Cassano, victory at, 1705, 99 
 Cassell, victory of, 78 
 Castelnaudary, battle of, 1632, 27 
 Castiglione, victory at, 279 
 Catherine II., Empress, 161 
 Catalonia, insurrection in, 1644, 38 
 
 „ war in, 92 
 
 Catholic religion restored in Beam, 12 
 Catinat in Piedmont, 89 
 
 „ victories of 1692-1693, 91 
 Cellamare, conspiracy of, 1718, 121 
 Cevennes, revolt in, 97 
 Chalais, conspiracy of, 17 
 
 ,, executed, 18 
 Chalons, Bonaparte at, 1814, 392 
 Chambers convoked, 1830, 501 
 Chamber of Deputies dissolved, 1827, 492 
 „ dissolved, 1830, 499 
 
 „ dissolved, 1831, 523 
 
 „ dissolved, 1837, 564 
 
 „ dissolved, 1839, 573 
 
 „ entered by mob, 1848, 617 
 
 Chamber of St. Louis, important votes of the, 53 
 Chambord, Legitimist manifestation to Count de, 
 
 in London, 1843, 586 
 Chamillart, minister of war and finance, 1701, 94 
 Champ deMai, assembly at, 1815, 429 
 Chapelles, Count des, executed, 1627, 20 
 Charles I. of England, marriage with the King's 
 sister, 17 
 „ death of, 1649, 65 
 
 Charles IT. of England, proceedings of (note) 73 
 Charles II. of Spain, will of, 1698, 93 
 Charles V., successes of, 89 
 Charles VII., death of, 1745, 141 
 Charles X., political opinions of, 482 
 ,, coronation of, 1825, 486 
 
 ,, disagrees with ministry, 1828, 496 
 
 „ personal character of, 501 
 
 „ during " the three days," 504 
 
 „ movements of, in retreat, 505 
 
 „ abdicates and leaves Erance, 1830, o09 
 
 ,, trial of ministers of, 5 19 
 
 Charles Edward, defeat of, 1745-6, 143 
 Charles Kmmanuel of Piedmont, abdication of, 
 
 1798, 298 
 Charlotte Cord ay kills Marat, 1793, 245 
 Charter, modification of the, 1830, 508 
 Chartists in England, 599 
 Chatillon, congress of, 1814, 394—396 
 Chateaubriand, dismissal of, 479 
 
INDEX. 
 
 629 
 
 Chateauneuf, keeper of the seals, 26 
 
 Chafceau-Renaud aids James II., 90 
 
 Chateauroux, Duchess of, 141 
 
 Chatre, Marshal de la, takes Juliers, 1610, 3 
 
 Chartres, Duke de, gallantry of the, 91 
 
 Chaumont, Treaty of, 1814, 397 
 
 Cuiari, retreat from, 37 
 
 „ defeat at, 95 
 Cholera in Paris, 183 i, 528 
 Chouan and Royalist conspiracy, 1804, 328 
 Christian IV., King of Denmark, chosen leader 
 
 by the Evangelical Union, 1625, 30 
 Christian schools, 131 
 Cboiseul, Duke of, Ministry of the, 158 
 
 „ „ disgrace of, 1771, 165 
 
 Cinq-Mars, conspiracy of, 1642, 42 
 
 „ executed, 1612, 43 
 
 Cintra, capitulation of, 1808, 358 
 Cisalpine Republic, 1797, 287 
 Cispadane Republic, 281 
 Civil code projected by Bonaparte, 320 
 „ list, law regarding the, 1831, 526 
 ,, war commenced, 1648, 55 
 Clausel, Marshal, in Algiers, 559 
 Clergy, assembly of, 1788, 187 
 
 „ civil constitution of, 1790, 210 
 
 „ deprived of its property, 209 
 
 ,, law for endowment of, 1821, 463 
 
 „ schism among the, 1791, 218 
 
 „ the, taxed by Richelieu, 41 
 
 „ and Parliament quarrels of the, 1748 — 
 1756, 147 
 Clichy, association of, 290 
 Clive, Robert, 149 
 Closterseven, capitulation of, 1757, 156 
 
 ,, capitulation of,brok en byEnglish,157 
 
 Clubs, foundation of, 1790, 211 
 Cobden, Richard, and corn laws, 599 
 Coin, reminting of, 119 
 Colbert, legislative works under, 81 
 
 „ Comptroller-General of Finance, 1661,69 
 
 „ administration of, 70 
 
 „ death of, 1683, 84 
 Col d'Exilles, engagement at, 144 
 Colonies, 125 
 Commercial loans, 1830, 517 
 
 „ protection demanded by nobles, 19 
 
 Committee of electors, 201 
 
 „ of public safety, 246 
 
 „ of public safety, 1793, 250 
 
 Commune, fall of the, ] 794, 252 
 Compiegne, Marie de Medici, at, 26 
 " Compte-rendu," the, 530 
 Concini raised to honour, 4 
 
 „ reappearance of, 9 
 
 „ murder of, 9 
 
 „ fury of people against, 10 
 Cond6, manifesto by, 4 
 
 ,, rebellion of, 1614, 4 
 
 „ arrest of, 1616, 9 
 
 ,, success of, in Flanders, 50 
 
 ,, talent of, 51 
 
 ,, joins Mazarin, 55 
 
 ,, presumption of, 58 
 
 ,, arrested 1650, 58 
 
 ,, controlling Parliament, 59 
 
 ,, proceeds to Guienne, 60 
 
 „ declared a rebel and traitor, 60 
 
 ,, enters Paris, 62 
 
 ,, joins the Spaniards, 63 
 
 ,, proclaimed generalissimo of forces, 63 
 
 ,, condemned to death, 64 
 
 ,, in command of army in Holland, 74 
 
 ,, wounded, 74 
 
 „ last battle of, 76 
 
 ,, „ campaign of, 1675,77 
 
 ,, death of, 1688, 77 
 
 „ Princess, at Guienne, 59 
 
 Condition of the kingdom before Richelieu's 
 
 ministry, 1624, 15 
 " The Congregation," origin of, 467 
 Conscription put in force, 299 
 Conseil, case of the spy, 1836, 558 
 Conspiracies of 1822, 470 
 
 in Paris, 1831, 527 
 Conspirators of 20th August, trial of the, 465 
 Constautine expedition, the first, 1836, 559 
 
 „ capture of, 1837, 566 
 
 Constantinople, defence of, by General Sebastian, 
 
 1807, 352 
 Constituent assembly, closing of the, 1791, 216 
 Constitution of the year II., 1793,246 
 „ of 1793 abolished, 263 
 
 „ of the year III., 1795, 268 
 
 „ plan of, drawn up by Sieyes, 308 
 
 „ of the year VIII., 310 
 
 Constitutional charter granted, 1814, 416 
 Consulate, establishment; of, 1799, 307 
 Conti, Prince, arrested, 1650, 58 
 
 „ Prince of, married to Mazarin's niece, 64 
 Continental blockade, the, 1806, 347 
 Contracts annulled, 118 
 Convention, reaction against the, 268 
 „ closing of the, 1795, 270 
 
 „ of April 23, 1814, 414 
 
 „ and the people, 1795, 262 
 
 Copenhagen, attack on, 1801, 317 
 
 „ bombardment of, 1807, 355 
 
 Corbach, battle of, 1760, 159 
 Corbie, fall of, 34 
 Corn laws in England, 599 
 Corn, tax levied on, 1812, 379 
 Corneille, appearance of, 48 
 Cornwailis, Lord, capitulation of, 1781, 179 
 Corsica, acquisition of, 1768, 163 
 ,, revolt in, 277 
 „ troubles in, 136 
 Corunna, battle of, 361 
 Coup d'etat, 1797, 291 
 Council, resolutions of, kept secret, 15 
 „ of Regency, 44 
 
 „ of Trent, recognition of decrees of, 
 demanded, 1614, 5 
 Councils, arrest of members of, 1797, 291 
 
 „ in lieu of ministries, 116 
 
 Court, blindness of, 1830, 500 
 Cracow, fall of, 1836, 555 
 
 ,, annexed to Austria, 596 
 Craonne, battle of, 1814, 398 
 Cremona surprised by Eugene, 96 
 Cx-oveit, baltle of, 1758, 157 
 Crimea, conquest of, 168 
 Cromwell, success of, in England, 65 
 
 ,, alliance with, 1668, 65 
 
 Cross of St. Louis sold, 95 
 Cubieres, M. Despans de, tried for corruption, 
 
 1847, 605 
 Culloden, battle of, 1745, 143 
 Cumberland, Duke of, in Germany, 138 
 
 DAMPENS stabs Louis XV., 1757, 148 
 " Danish period" of thirty years' war, 30 
 Danton, minister of justice, 225 
 Dantonists, arrest and execution of, 1795, 253 
 Dantzic, siege and capitulation of, 1807, 351 
 Danube crossed by the Frepch, 1809, 364 
 Dardanelles closed to foreign ships of war, 536 
 Dauphin, birth of, 1638, 29 
 
 „ successes of the, 88 
 
 ,, death of the, 104 
 
 „ proclaimed Louis XVII. at Toulon, 246 
 "Day of Dupes," "25 
 Decazes, M., president of council, 1819, 454 
 
 „ fall of, 1820, 455 
 Declaration of rights, 1774, 174 
 
 „ of rights of man, 205 
 
630 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Decrees of the council openly sold, 4 
 „ of July 26, 1830, 502 
 „ of July 26, 1830, revoked, 505 
 Delaunay, Governor, death of, 202 
 Denain, victory at, 1712, 104 
 Departments, France divided into, 208 
 Deputies, declaration of opposition, July 28, 
 
 1830, 503 
 Desmoulins, Canaille, at the Palais Boyal, 201 
 Dessolle, General, ministry of, 1818, 451 
 Dettingen, hattle of, 1743, 139 
 Didier's plot at Grenoble, 444 
 Directory, election of the, 1795, 270 
 „ first acts of the, 272 
 
 „ employ military force in State politics, 
 
 274 
 „ principles of the, 289 
 
 „ perils and difficulties of the, 298 
 
 „ dissolution of the, 1799, 302 
 
 Dirsteim, Bonaparte at, 363 
 Distress of the government, 1795, 272 
 Disturbances in the departments, 1841, 583 
 
 ,, in the provinces, 1788, 186 
 
 St. Dizier, march on, 1814, 400 
 St. Domingo, expedition to, 1802, 318 
 
 „ emancipated, 493 
 
 "Down with the bar," rallying cry, 9 
 Dresden, Congress of, 1812, 379 
 
 battle of, 1813, 386 
 " Droit de paulette," abolition of the, demanded, 
 
 1614, 6 
 "Droit de regale," 79 
 Dubois, Cardinal, 128 
 
 „ death of, 128 
 
 Duelling punished, 1627, 20 
 Dumouriez, defection of, 1793, 242 
 Dunes, battle of the, 1658, 66 
 Dunkirk taken, 1646, 51 
 
 „ siege of, raised, 1793, 249 
 Dupleix in India, 149 
 
 ,, disgrace and death of, 151 
 Duquesne, victories of, 1676, 78 
 Dutch, peace proposed to tbe, 101 
 
 „ the, driven back in Belgium by French 
 
 army, 1831, 525 
 „ the, march into Belgium, 1831, 525 
 Dykes opened in Holland, 75 
 
 EAST India Company, 82 
 Eastern affairs, European treaty on, 582 
 „ departments, Charles X. visits the, 
 
 1829, 497 
 „ question, the, 1839-1840, 579 
 
 Eckmuhl, battle of, 1809, 363 
 Edict of .Nantes confirmed, 13 
 
 ,, revoked, 1685, 85 
 
 Edict of union, 53 
 
 Edicts, registration of, enforced, 1787, 184 
 Education, agitation regarding, 1843-1844, 585 
 
 „ law respecting, 537 
 Egra, retreat on, 138 
 Egypt, expedition to, 1798, 294 
 „ campaign in, 1798-1799, 302 
 „ condition of French army in, 1800, 316 
 „ evacuation of, 3l7 
 . „ and Turkey, struggle between, 1832-3, 535 
 El-Arisch, convention of, 1800, 316 
 Elba given to Bonaparte, 1814, 407 
 ,, Bonaparte's departure for, 1814, 410 
 ,, return of Bonaparte from, 1815, 424 
 Elbceuf, Duke of, executed, 26 
 Elections of the year V, 1797, 288 
 „ of 1821, 468 
 „ liberal, 1827, 492 
 „ general, 1830, 499 
 „ annulled, 1830, 502 
 Electoral law, 1817, 447 
 
 „ remodelled, 1831, 522 
 
 Emigration of nobles, 1790, 211 
 
 „ increase of, 218 
 
 Emigrants, law for reparation to, 421 
 Empire, establishment of the, 1804, 330 
 Encyclopaedia, the, 170 
 Enghien, Duke d' (Cond£), 38 
 
 „ arrest and execution of, 1804, 
 
 328 
 England, second revolution in, 1688, 88 
 
 „ truce with, 103 
 
 „ alliance with, 1717, 117 
 
 ,, war declared with, 1756, 153 
 
 „ war with, 1778, 175 
 
 ,, treaty of commerce with, 182 
 
 ,, imasion of, projected, 294 
 
 ,, power of, at sea, 310 
 
 ,, declines peace, 310 
 
 „ invasion of, prepared for, 1801, 318 
 
 „ peace with, 1801, 318 
 
 ,, declares war against Spain, 334 
 
 „ proposed invasion of, 335 
 
 ,. . negotiations lor peace with, 1806, 343 
 
 ,, interferes to protect Protestants, 1815, 
 442 
 
 „ alliance with, strengthened, 1832, 534 
 
 ,, disagreement with, 1846, 595 
 English disembark in isle of Khe, 16i7, 21 
 Enthusiasm of the nation, 3*5 
 Epernon, Duke d', assists Marie de Medici, 11 
 Erfurt, capitulation of, 1806, 345 
 
 „ treaty of, 1808, 360 
 Espartero, General, government of, in Spain, 
 
 i840, 578 
 Essling, battle of, 1809,364 
 Eugene, army of, joins Bonaparte, 365 
 Eugene, Prince, in Italy, 388 
 Europe, state of, in 1635, 31 
 
 „ at peace, 66 
 
 „ rises iu favour of Holland, 75 
 
 „ war against, 1688-1698, 87 
 
 ,, in repose, 93 
 
 „ state of, 1715, 112 
 
 ,, general rising of, against France, 1793, 
 240 
 
 ,, second coalition of,against France,1798, 
 297 
 
 „ sufferings of, 1812, 378 
 
 „ liberal movement in, 1844-1846, 598 
 European league against Louis XIV., 79 
 Evangelical union, 30 
 Exactions of nobles, 3 
 Exiles, indemnity to, 1825, 484 
 Eylau, battle of, 1807, 350 
 
 FAB ERT, bravery of, at Arras, 38 
 Factory law, 1840, 578 
 " Family Treaty " signed, 1761, 160 
 Famine in Paris, 262 
 
 Farmers-general, prosecutions against, 1718, 118 
 " Feuillant" Ministry, 1792, 221 
 Fayette, De la, Mdlle., 28 
 Fayette, La, reappearance of, 1815, 430 
 Federation, Fete of the, 210 
 Feder6s Marseiliais in Paris, 222 
 Fenelon, 106 
 
 Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, 29 
 Ferdinand II., death of, 1637, 35 
 Ferdinand III. proclaimed Emperor, 1619, 29 
 Ferdinand VII. proclaimed King of Spain, 1808, 
 357 
 „ liberated, 1814, 394 
 
 Fere Champenoise, battle of, 1 814, 401 
 Ferrara occupied by the Austrians, 1847, 603 
 Fieschi, attempt of, to assassinate Louis Philippe, 
 
 1835, 548 
 Fifth coalition against France, 1809, 361 
 Finances, disorder of, 1716, 118 
 Fire Brigade established in Paris, 16G7, 81 
 
INDEX. 
 
 631 
 
 First Emigration, 1789, 203 
 Flanders, operations in, 1639, 36 
 
 campaign commenced in, 65 
 war for possession of, 1667, 1668, 72 
 conquest of, 72 
 campaign in, 1677, 78 
 reverses of French army in, 1702, 
 1703, 96 
 „ operations in, 1794, 255 
 
 Fleets voted for by nobles, 1626, 19 
 Fieurus, battle of, 1794, 256 
 Fleury, Cardinal, Minister, 1726, 133 
 Flight of the royal family, 1791, 214 
 Fontaine bleau, treaty of, 1807, 355 
 
 „ Bonaparte at, 1814, 402 
 
 Fontarabia, siege of, abandoned, 35 
 Fontenoy, victory of, 1745, 142 
 Foreign .foliey, 183:4-1834, 534 " 
 „ „ 1838, 565 
 
 ,, „ of France. Note from Eussia, 
 
 Prussia, and Austria concern- 
 ing the, 1833, 537 
 j } „ ofGovernmentdiscussed,1848,609 
 
 >> ,, of Perier Ministry, 523 
 
 Fouche, treason of, 435 
 
 „ death of, 443 
 Fouquet, De, condemned to perpetual deten- 
 tion, 69 
 Four articles of clergy drawn up, 1682, 80 
 " Fourierism," 533 
 Fourth coalition, 1806, 341 
 Foy, General, death and funeral of, 1825, 487 
 France, condition of, at death of Henry IV., 
 1610, 1 
 „ in miserable condition, 56 
 „ distress in, 90 
 „ signs of decadence in, 94 
 „ distress in, 1709, 101 
 „ under the Eegent, 132 
 „ commences hostilities, 1740, 137 
 „ invaded, 1792, 225 
 „ boundaries of, under Consulate, 322 
 „ deplorable condition of, 1813, 388 
 „ evacuated by Allies, 1818, 449 
 „ distress in, 1845, 592 
 Franche-Comte, restored to France, 1674, 76 
 Francis, Duke, proclaimed Emperor at Frank- 
 fort, 143 
 Frankfort, proposition of powers at, 389 
 Frauklm, Benjamin, minister at Paris, 174 
 Frascorolo, attack on, 34 
 Frauds in the offices of the Ministers of War and 
 
 Marine, 1847, 605 
 Frederick II. invades Silesia, 137 
 „ operations of, 155 
 
 ,, •victor}' at Bosbach, 1757, 157 
 
 Frederick V. receives the Crown of Bohemia, 29 
 French Academy founded, 1635, 41 
 „ armaments, 1840, 580 
 „ arms, successes of, 35 
 „ army, successes of, 228 
 „ colonies, 82 
 „ fleet in Mediterranean, 69 
 „ in Spain, success of, 1808, 361 
 „ period of thirty years' war, 31 
 „ prelates, council of, 1811, 377 
 ,, troops engaged against Turkey, 69 
 Fribourg, battle of, 1644, 51 
 Friedlaud, battle of, 1807, 352 
 Friediingen, battle of, 96 
 Fronde, war of ttie, 57 
 Frondes, union of the two, 59 
 " Fronueurs, the," 1648, 54 
 *' Frondeurs," origin of the term {note), 54 
 Fuentes d'Onoro, battle of, 1811, 375 
 
 GALIGAI, Signora, wife of Concini, 4 
 „ „ executed as a sorceress, 10 
 
 Gaming houses suppressed, 1836, 555 
 Gaston, of Orleans, betrays his accomplices, 18 
 „ „ marries Mdlle. Montpensier, 
 
 19 
 „ „ insults Richelieu, 25 
 
 „ „ flies to Lorraine, 25 
 
 „ „ revolt of, 27 
 
 „ „ at Tours, 27 
 
 „ „ married to Princess Mar- 
 
 guerite, 27 
 „ „ returns to France, 28 
 
 „ „ proclaimed Lieutenant- Ge- 
 
 neral of Kingdom, 63 
 General elections, 1846, 594 
 Generals refuse to march on Paris, 1814, 405 
 Genoa bombarded, 1684, 79 
 
 „ surrender of, 313 
 George II. of England on the Maine, 138 
 George III. of England, 160 
 George, St., battle of, 1797, 286 
 Georges Cadoudal, trial of, 1804, 329 
 Gerard, Marshal, in Belgium, 1831, 525 
 
 „ „ president of council, 1834, 545 
 
 „ „ dismissal of, 546 
 
 Germain, Si., l'Auxerrois, pillage of, 1831, 521 
 German Lmpire, fall of the, 18u6, 344 
 
 „ States, secularization of the, 323 
 Germany, events in, 29 
 
 „ operations in, 33 
 
 „ campaign in, 1800, 311 
 
 „ successes in, 1805, 338 
 
 „ campaign in, 1809, 362 
 
 „ successes in, 1813, 385 
 
 „ disturbances in, 1820, 457 
 
 Gertruydenberg, congress of, 102 
 Gibraltar, French fleet destroyed at, 1706, 98 
 
 „ siege of, 1782, 179 
 
 " Gilded Youth, the," 261 
 Girondist Ministry, 1792, 220 
 Girondists, insurrection against and fall of the, 
 1793, 243 
 „ punishment of the, 251 
 
 „ recall of the, 262 
 
 Gondi, De, Paul (Cardinal de Betz), 54 
 
 M „ arranges return of the King to 
 
 Paris, 63 
 Governmental intimidation, 1824, 475 
 Grants of Imperial Government, law on, 464 
 " Gratuitous Gift, the/' 122, 
 Gravelines seized, 51 
 
 Great men during the reign of Louis XIIL, 47 
 Greece, insurrection in, 1820, 457 
 
 „ enfranchised, 1828, 495 
 Greek revolution, continuance of, 466 
 Greene, General, manoeuvres of, 1781, 178 
 Gregoire, election of, 1819, 453 
 Gregory XVI., Pope, introduces reforms, 1831,524 
 „ „ promises of, not carried 
 
 out, 1831, 527 
 Grenoble, Bonaparte enters, 1815, 427 
 Guastalla, battle of, 1738, 136 
 Guebriant, success of, in Germany, 39 
 Guise, Chevalier, 4 
 
 Guizot, entrance of, into public life, 1830, 498 
 „ obtains a law respecting education, 537 
 „ attack on the Ministry of Mole, 1839, 
 
 570 
 „ Ambassador in London, 1840, 577 
 „ President of Cabinet, 1840, 581 
 1847,603 
 Gustavus, Adolphus, victories ot, 30 
 „ „ death of, 1632, 31 
 
 HAGUENATJ, siege of, raised, 77 
 Haider Ali, death of, 1782, 181 
 Hall of Assembly, attack on the, 263 
 Ham, Louis JMapoieon imprisoned at, 1840, 578 
 Hanau, battle ot, 1813, 3»7 
 
632 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hanover, treaty of, 1725, 131 
 
 Hanseatic towns annexed, 1810, 374 
 
 Hauranne, M. Duvergier de, agitation by, 1847, 604 
 
 Havre bombarded by English, 92 
 
 Heidelberg, defeat of Pichegru at, 265 
 
 Helena, St., Bonaparte sent to, 1815, 436 
 
 „ death of Bonaparte at, 1821, 466 
 
 Heliopolis, Kleber's victory at, 316 
 "Help yourself and Heaven will help you" 
 
 Society, objects of the, 1 827, 492 
 Helvetian Directory, 1798, 296 
 Hesdin, capture of, 1639, 36 
 Hoche, success of, 273 
 Hochstadt, victory at, 314 
 Hochstett, defeat at, 1704, 97 
 Hogue, La, battle of, 91 
 Hohenlinden, victory at, 314 
 Hohenlohe, Prince of, surrender of, 346 
 Holland, commercial alliance with, 69 
 
 ,, war against, 1672, 73 
 
 „ situation of, 74 
 
 „ conquest of, 1672, 74 
 
 „ evacuated, 75 
 
 ,, alliance with, 1717, 117 
 
 ,, treatment of, by France, 182 
 
 „ conquest of, 1795, 264 
 
 „ annexed to France, 1810, 369 
 
 „ visit of Bonaparte to, 1812, 378 
 
 ,, rises against France, 389 
 Holy alliance, 397, 458 
 Home policy of Cabinet, 1833, 537 
 
 „ of Government discussed, 1848, 610 
 
 Huguenots, war against, 1621, 12 
 „ „ 1625, 16 
 
 Hundred days, the, 412 
 
 „ „ 1815, 428 
 
 T BRAHIM PASHA, rising of, 1832-3, 535 
 JL „ „ concessions to, 1833, 536 
 
 Illustrious men during the reign of Louis XIV., 83 
 Imperial decrees, first, 1815, 429 
 
 „ University, foundation of the, 342 
 Hidia, operations in, 143 
 
 „ war with England in, 149 
 
 „ campaigns in, 1778-1783, 180 
 Individual liberty, law for suspension of, 1820, 459 
 Infanta, the, returns to Spain, 1725, 130 
 " Infernal Machine," plot of the, 1800, 319 
 Inquisition, the, abolished in Spain, 361 
 Insurgents give themselves up, 10 
 
 „ trial of, 1839, 576 
 
 Intendants, creation of, 1635, 41 
 Inundations, 1847,597 
 Invasion of England, failure of the, 337 
 
 „ of France, 1636,34 
 Isabella recognised Queen of Spain by Louis 
 
 Philippe, 535 
 Isle of Rhe' seized by Soubise, 16 
 
 „ retaken, 16 
 
 Isly, battle of the, 1844,590 
 Italy, war in, 1630, 24 
 
 „ operations in, 34 
 
 „ Bonaparte's success in, 277 
 
 „ state of French army in, 282 
 
 „ lost to the French, 1 799, 302 
 ■ „ campaign in, 1800, 311 
 
 „ state of, 1820, 456 
 
 „ disturbed state of, 1821, 466 
 
 ,, insurrection of, 1830, 520 
 
 JAMES II. of England in France, 88 
 ,, in Ireland, 90 
 
 „ assisted, 1708, 100 
 
 Jean, St., position of English at Mont, 1815, 432 
 Jean, St., d' 4 ere, siege of, 303 
 Jean, St., d'Ulloa, fall of, 1838, 566 
 Jena, battle of, 1806, 345 
 Jemappes, battle of, 1792, 231 
 
 Jesuits, abolition of the ord9r of, in France, 1764, 
 161 
 
 „ total extinction of the order, 1773, 162 
 
 „ re-entry of, in France, 467 
 
 „ denounced by M.de Montlosier, 1825,487 
 
 „ forbidden to teach, 1828, 495 
 
 „ debate on laws concerning the, 1843, 587 
 John der Werth, capture of, 36 
 Joinville, Prince de, attacks Tangiers, 1844, 590 
 Joseph, Father, 42 
 Josephine, divorce of, 1810, 369 
 Journalists, trials of, 1824, 479 
 
 „ protest of, 1830,502 
 
 Judicial arrangements, reorganization of,1771,167 
 
 ,, ,, organization of, 210 
 
 Juliers, capitulation of, 1610, 3 
 Junction of orders in Assembly, 200 
 Just, St., arrest of, 1794, 25£ 
 Justice, bed of, 1718, 120 
 
 KING of the Halles (Duke of Beaufort), 57 
 King of Rome, birth of the, 1811, 376 
 "The king reigns but does not govern," 445, 568 
 Kleber, position of, in Egypt, 1800,316 
 
 „ death of, 317 
 Konigsberg, march of the French on, 352 
 Konieh, battle of, 535 
 
 LAFAYETTE in America, 175 
 „ restores order, 5th October,1789, 
 
 207 
 „ captivity of, at Olmutz, 225 
 
 „ general, release of, 288 
 
 „ made Commander-in-Chief of 
 
 _ National Guard, 1830, 503 
 „ influence of over mob, 507 
 
 „ General, death of, 1831(note), 531 
 
 Laflfitte Ministry, 519 
 
 fall of, 1831, 523 
 Lally, General, execution of, 1760, 159 
 Lally-Tollendal, address to the nobility by, 199 
 Lamarque, General, funeral of, 1832, 531 
 Lamartine, De, M., defence of Ministry of Mole" 
 by, 1839, 571 
 „ „ speech of, concerning Jesuits, 
 
 1843, 588 
 „ „ threatens a revolution, 1847, 
 
 604 
 Land-tax, proposed reduction of the, 1825, 487 
 Landrecies, blockade of, 1794, 255 
 Languedoc, revolt in, 16 
 ,, rising in, 27 
 
 ,, Canal constructed, 82 
 
 Lannes at Montebello, 313 
 Xaon, battle of, 1814, 399 
 Lavalette, escape of, 443 
 Law, appearance of, 1716, 119 
 „ opposition to, 120 
 „ made Comptroller- General, 125 
 „ system, fall of, 125 
 „ arrest of, 125 
 „ retirement of, to Venice, 126 
 „ system, result of, 127 
 " Law of Disjunction," 1837, 560 
 „ of hostages abolished, 308 
 „ of maximum and suspected persons, 247 
 „ of September, 1835, 549 
 Lawfeld, victory at, 1747, 144 
 Laybaeh, congress of, 1821, 458 
 La Bedoyere, execution of, 443 
 Leek, the passage of the, 30 
 Legion of Honour established, 321 
 Legislative acts, 1817, 1818, 447 
 
 ,, assembly, opening of the, 1791, 217 
 
 „ assembly, 1815, 1816, 442 
 
 ,, body, dissolution of the, 1 799, 305 
 
 „ Corps, resistance of the, to Bonaparte, 
 
 391 
 
INDEX. 
 
 633 
 
 Legislative enactments of 1828 and 1829, 495 
 „ „ 1832-1834,537 
 
 ,, session, 1831, 525 
 
 „ „ end of, 1832, 529 
 
 „ „ close of, 1834, 542 
 
 „ „ 1836-1837, 560 
 
 „ „ 1848, 608 
 
 "Legitimists," 521 
 
 „ disturbances in Paris, 1831, 521 
 
 „ agitation by the, 1832, 528 
 
 „ demonstration, debate concern- 
 
 ing, 1844, 586 
 Leipsic, battle of, 1631, 30 
 „ 1813, 386 
 Lens, battle of, 1648, 51 
 Leoben, armistice of, 1797, 287 
 Leopold, Emperor, death of, 100 
 
 King of the Belgians, 1831, 525 
 Lerida, battle of, 1642, 40 
 „ siege of, raised, 51 
 Lesdiguieres created constable, 13 
 Leuze, battle of, 1691, 90 
 Liberal elections, 1819, 453 
 „ laws passed, 1831, 520 
 „ literature, increase of, 1826, 488 
 „ party, factions of, 452 
 Ligny, battle of, 1815, 431 
 Ligurian Eepublic, 297 
 Lille, taking of, 1709, 101 
 Lisbon, the French in, 356 
 
 _ „ French fleet at, 1831, 524 
 Literature during Ministry of Eichelieu, 47 
 
 „ state of, during the Eegency, 132 
 
 Loano, 'victory of Scherer at, 1795, 265 
 Lobau, Marshal, movements of, 1834, 542 
 Lodi, Bonaparte at Bridge of, 277 
 Lonato, victory at, 279 
 London, conference of, 1830, 518 
 
 „ decision of conference of, 1831, 524 ■ 
 Longueville, Duchess of, at Stenay, 58 
 „ Duke of, rebels, 161 4, 4 
 
 „ „ seizes Peronne, 9 
 
 „ „ arrested, 1650, 58 
 
 „ ,, death of, 74 
 
 Loire, army of the, disbanded, 1815, 439 
 Lorraine, invasion of, 1632, 28 
 
 „ incorporated with France, 1766, 162 
 Lotteries abolished (note), 555 
 Loudun, treaty of, 1616, 8 
 
 ,, meeting at, 1619, 12 
 
 Louis XIII. of age, 1614, 5 
 
 „ marriage of, with the Infanta op- 
 
 posed, 7 
 ,, marriage of, 1615, 8 
 
 „ reasons for arrest of Cond£, 9 
 
 ,, before Angers, 12 
 
 „ reconciled with Marie de Medici, 
 
 12 
 „ urged to dismiss Eichelieu, 22 
 
 „ ill at Lyons, 24 
 
 „ letter to his mother in Flanders, 26 
 
 ,, in Lorraine, 33 
 
 „ at siege of Perpignan, 40 
 
 „ visits Eichelieu at Tarascon, 43 
 
 „ death of, 1643, 43 
 
 ,, character of, 44 
 
 Louis XIV., accession of, 49 
 „ early days of, 49 
 
 ,, bed of justice, 1643, 49 . 
 
 ,, minority of, 49 
 
 „ first campaign of, 64 
 
 „ at the Parliament, 1657, 65 
 
 ,, marriage of, 1660, 66 
 
 ,, sole ruler of France, 67 
 
 „ his character and success, 68 
 
 „ political pride of, 69 
 
 „ threatens Pnilip IV. of Spain with 
 
 war, 69 
 
 Louis XIV., disagreement with the Pope, 69 
 „ vigorous reforms by, 70 
 
 „ claims Flanders, 71 
 
 „ hatred of the Dutch, 72 
 
 „ formidable preparations of, 73 
 
 „ his demands on Holland, 75 
 
 „ fraud of, 78 
 
 „ arbiter of Europe, 78 
 
 „ at the height of his power, 79 
 
 „ power and grandeur of, 80 
 
 „ arts and sciences encouraged by, 82 
 
 „ " The Great," 83 
 
 „ character of, 84 
 
 „ marriage with Madame de Mainte- 
 
 non, 85 
 „ hatred of Protestants, 85 
 
 „ conduct to other nations, 87 
 
 „ in Flanders, 1691,90 
 
 ,, propositions of, rejected, 102 
 
 „ further propositions by, 102 
 
 ,, religious persecutions by, 106 
 
 „ last days of, 106 
 
 „ will of, 107 
 
 „ death of, 1715, 108 
 
 „ reflections on reign of, 109 
 
 „ character of, 110 
 
 „ will of, 1715, 116 
 
 Louis XV., majority of, 1723, 128 
 „ marriage of, 1725, 130 
 
 „ taste for private life, 133 
 
 „ illness of, at Metz, 1745, 141 
 
 ,, at Fontenoy, 142 
 
 „ edicts of 1745, 1748, 145 
 
 „ attempt to assassinate, 1757, 148 
 
 „ disagreement with Parliament, 163 
 
 ,, prodigality of, 167 
 
 „ death of, 1774, 168 
 
 Louis XVI., accession of, 1774, 171 
 
 ,, has recourse to force, 200 
 
 ,, conducted to his palace by the 
 
 Assembly, 202 
 ,, at Versailles, 206 
 
 „ with his family proceeds to Paris,207 
 
 „ detained in Paris, 2 12 
 
 ,, arrest of, at Varennes, 214 
 
 ,, dethronement of, discussed, 222 
 
 ,, at the Assembly, 224 
 
 „ and his family iu the Temple,1792,225 
 
 „ trial of, 1792, 232 
 
 „ will of, 234 
 
 „ last interview with his family, 238 
 
 „ death of, 1793, 238 
 
 Louis XVLL, death of, 1795, 267 
 Louis XVIII, 267 
 
 protest of, 332 
 
 recalled to the throne, 1814, 407 
 landing at Calais of, 1814,415 
 entry into Paris, 1814,415 
 dangerous position of power of, 
 
 lai4,417 
 injudicious decrees of, 1814,418 
 unpopular measures under, 4ii2 
 measures of, on return of Bona- 
 parte, 1815, 426 
 leaves Paris for Ghent, 1815, 428 
 proclamation of, 1815,437 
 patriotism of, 441 
 
 decree of, 5th September, 1816, 446 
 death of 1824, 480 
 character of, 480 
 Louis Philippe, declaration of, on accession, 510 
 policy of Monarchy under, 515 
 first Miuisiry of, 517 
 recognises Isabella, Queen of 
 
 Spain, 535 
 attempted assassination of, 1835, 
 
 548 
 attempt to assassinate, 1836, 555 
 
634 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Louis Philippe, at the height of his greatness, 
 1838, 567 
 „ receives Queen Victoria, 1843, 
 
 584 
 „ attempts on the life of, 1847, 597 
 
 „ pol tical conduct of, 600 
 
 „ last review of, 616 
 
 „ abdication of, 1848,617 
 
 Louis, Baron, financial schemes of, 4:20 
 Louisiana ceded to United States, 1803, 324 
 Louvain, siege of, raised, 33 
 Louvel murders DuUe de Bern, 1820, 454 
 Louvois, influence of, 85 
 
 „ establishes commissariat in Dutch cam- 
 paign, 74 
 Lubeck, peace of, 1629, 30 
 Lude, Count de, made governor to G-aston, 13 
 Lunatics, laws regarding, improved, 1838, 565 
 Luneville, peace of, 1801, 315 
 Lutzen, battle of, 1632, 3a 
 
 „ Bonaparte joins the army at, 1813, 385 
 Luxembourg, campaign of, 89 
 
 „ Marshal, victories of, 1692, 1693, 91 
 
 Luynes, Charles D' Albert de, created duke, 10 
 
 death of, 1621, 12 
 Luz, Baron de, assassinated, 4 
 Luzara, victory of, 96 
 Lyons, insurrection in, 1793, 245 
 „ disturbances at, 1817, 447 
 „ rising in, 1831, 523 
 „ insurrection in, 1834, 541 
 
 MACHATJLT, financial projects of, 146 
 Madras, taking of, 143 
 
 ,, convention of, 1754, 151 
 Madrid taken by the Preoch, 1808, 361 
 Maastricht, junction of armies before, 33 
 Magnano, defeat or Scherer at, 1799, 300 
 Maine, Duke du, tutor to Louis XV., 115 
 Maintenon, Madame de, influence of, 85 
 „ example of economy by, 101 
 
 „ retirement of, to St. Cyr, 109 
 
 Malaga, naval battle off', 1705, 98 
 Malesherbes, De, member of council, 171 
 
 „ devotion of, "Z33 
 
 Mallet, conspiracy of, in Paris, 1812, 385 
 Malojaroslawetz, battle of, 1812, 584 
 " Malotrue Peace," 1614, 5 
 Malplaquet, defeat at, 17 10, 102 
 Malta, capture of, 1798, 294 
 
 ,, taken by the English, 317 
 Mans, defeat of Vendeans at, 1793, 248 
 Mantua, capture of, 24 
 
 „ declaration of, 1791, 213 
 „ capitulation of, 1797, 286 
 „ Duke of, succession of, 1627, 23 
 ,, ,, death of, 1637, 35 
 
 Manuel expelled from Chamber of Deputies, 
 
 1823, 473 
 Manufactures encouraged under Colbert, 71 
 Marat, leader of the Mountain, 230 
 
 „ death of, 1793, 245 
 Marengo, battle of, 1800, 313 
 Marie Antoinette, execution of, 1793, 251 
 Maria Christina of Spain, abdication of, 1840, 578 
 Maria Leczinski, marriage of, with Louis XV., 
 
 1725, 130 
 Maria Louisa, marriage of, 1810, 369 
 
 „ declared Eegent, 1814, 391 
 
 „ retreat of, to Blois, 1814, 401 
 
 Maria Theresa, marriage of, 16(50, 66 
 „ death of, 1683, 84 
 
 ,, success of, 138 
 
 Mariendal, Turenne defeated at, 51 
 Manllac, the brothers, arrest ot, 25 
 
 ,, Marshal, executiou of, 1632, 26 
 Maritime alliance, 18U0, 311 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 96 
 
 Marlborough, at Eamilies, 99 
 
 ,, recall of, 103 
 
 Marmont, treason of, 1814, 406 
 Marquesas Islands, possession taken of, 1842, 588 
 Marseilles, troubles in, 1832, 528 
 Martignac ministry formed, 1828, 495 
 
 „ dismissed, 1829, 497 
 
 Martin, St., defended by de To ; ras, 21 
 Masaniello revolting at Naples, 51 
 Massacre in the prisons, 1792, 226 
 Massena superseded by Marshal Marmont, 376 
 Maubeuge, siege of, raised, 1793, 249 
 Maudat, murder of, 223 
 Maurepas, administration of, 171 
 Maupeou, Chancellor, character of, 164 
 Mayenee, blockade of, raised, 33 
 Mayenne, Duke of, rebels, 1614, 4 
 
 „ „ death of, 12 
 
 Mazarin at Casal, 24 
 „ ministry of, 49 
 ,, made first minister, 50 
 ,, administration of, 52 
 „ character and policy of, 52 
 ,, insulted by libels, 57 
 ,, retirement of, 1651, 59 
 ,, banishment of, demanded, 59 
 ,, price set on his hpad by parliament, 60 
 „ return of, 1652, 60 
 „ second retirement of, 1652, 63 
 ,, recalled, 1653, 64 
 „ death of, 1661, 67 
 ,, character of, 67 
 " Mazarins," the, 1648, 54 
 Mazzinians in Italy, 599 
 Mecklenburg- Sehwerin, marriage of Princess 
 
 Helen of, 1838, 567 
 Medici, Marie, de declared Eegent, 1610, 2 
 ,, retains power, 5 
 
 ,, exiled from court, 10 
 
 „ assisted by Euccelai and Duke 
 
 d'Epernon, 11 
 ,, obtains government of Anjou, 11 
 
 „ reconciled with Louis XIII., 12 
 
 ,, hostility of, to Eicheiieu, 25 
 
 ,, at Compiegne, 26 
 
 „ flies to Flanders, 1631, 26 
 
 „ possessions of, seized, 26 
 
 death of; 1642, 43 
 Mehemet Ah, dethronement of, 1840, 580 
 Menehould, Sainte, treaty of, 5 
 Messina seeks protection of France, 77 
 Mettray, establishment of, founded, 576 
 Metz, army re-enters, 33 
 Meunier, attempt on the fife of Louis-Philippe 
 
 by, 1836, 560 
 Mexico, campaign against, 1838, 566 
 Mezierei seized, 1614, 4 
 Mignet, early writings of, 1826, 489 
 Miguel, Don.usurps Portuguese throne,! 826, 491 
 Military arrangements for campaigns of 1799,299 
 „ conspiracy in Paris, 1820, 461 
 „ expenditure, 1841,582 
 „ operations, 1643-1648, 50 
 „ preparations of assembly, 219 
 Minden, battle of, 1759, 157 
 Ministers at the Eestoration, 1814, 415 
 Ministry, changes in the, 540 
 „ of 29th Oct., 1840, 581 
 ,, responsibility of the, 601 
 Minorca, capture of, 154 
 
 „ defeat of Admiral Byng at, 155 
 Mirabeau, Marquis de, leader in assembly, 205 
 „ return of, to court, 212 
 
 „ deataof, 1791, 213 
 
 Miracles at cemetery of St. Medard, 134 
 Mogador, bombardment of, J 844, 590 
 Mole, Mathieu, president of parliament, 54 
 „ firmness of, 60 
 
INDEX. 
 
 635 
 
 M0I6, Mathieu, ministry of, 1836, 557 
 
 „ cabinet, changes in and difficult 
 
 position of, 561 
 „ coalition against ministry of,l 839, 
 
 568 
 „ reply to coalition by, 1839, 570 
 
 „ ministry, resignation of, 1839,574 
 
 „ invited to form a new ministry, 
 
 1848, 614 
 Monarchy, fall of the, 1792, 224 
 
 ,. of France, remarks on the, 619 
 
 " Monarchy according to the charter, the," 446 
 Moncon, treaty of, 1625, 17 
 Mons, capture of, 1691, 90 
 Montecuculli sent against Turenne, 77 
 Montalembert,Ue,spet-ch of, on retorms, 1847,597 
 Montalivet, De, minister of interior, 1832, 530 
 Montauban, siege of, 12 
 Montemart ministry formed, 1830, 505 
 Montferrat conquered by Spaniards, 23 
 Montmorency, De, revolt of, 27 
 
 „ execution of, 1632, 27 
 
 Montpelier, peace of, 1622, 13 
 Montpensier, Duke de, marriage of, 1846, 595 
 
 „ Mdlie., enters Orleans, 61 
 
 Moore, Sir John, death of, 361 
 Morbegno, victory at, 34 
 Morea, expedition to the, 1828, 495 
 Moreau, celebrated retreat of, 282 
 
 j, takes command of army in Italy, 300 
 } > further success of, in Germany, 1800, 315 
 . „ trial of, 1804, 329 
 Moret, Count de, executed, 26 
 Morocco, war with, 1844, 590 
 Mortmain, law of, 145 
 
 Moscow, entry of French army into, 1812, 383 
 „ burning of, 1812, 383 
 „ retreat from, 1812, 384 
 Moskva, battle of the, 18 12, 382 
 Municipal commission, 18i0, 503 
 
 „ committee resign, 1830, 507 
 
 Munster, peace of, 1648, 52 
 Murat, King of Naples, 1808, 357 
 „ deserts Bonaparte, 389 
 „ declares against Bonaparte, 1814, 393 
 „ fall of, 1815, 430 
 Murder of Concini, 1617, 9 
 Mure, Bonaparte at, 18l5, 427 
 Mutuallists, strike of workmen ordered by 
 society of, 1834, 541 
 
 NAMUK, capture of, 91 
 JN hncy taken by the French, 28 
 Nantes, arrest of Duchess de Berry at, 1832, 534 
 Naples, rising at, 51 
 
 ,, treaty with, 1801, 315 
 Napoleon, St., fete of, instituted 1805, 341 
 National Assembly, formation of, 1789, 198 
 „ Convention, 1792, 229 
 „ debt, increase of, 163 
 „ guard organized, 202 
 „ „ disbanded, 1826, 491 
 
 „ ,, reorganized, 1830, 508 
 
 >, ,, increased, 1830, 518 
 
 „ „ disaffection of, 1848, 614, 616 
 
 „ militia, 131 
 Navarino, battle of, 1827, 494 
 Havy formed under Colbert, 71 
 „ French, decadence of the, 98 
 „ increase of the, 124 
 ,, extraordinary credit for, 1846, 593 
 Necker, operations of, 1777, 173 
 „ resignation of, 1781, 177 
 „ second ministry of, 17t>8, 188 
 „ exile of, 200 
 „ recall of, 202 
 Nelson in Egypt, 1798, 303 
 
 „ at Copenhagen, 1801, 317 
 
 Nemours marches against Guienne, 61 
 
 „ Duke de, Belgian crown offered to-, 
 
 1831, 525 
 „ „ in Belgium, 1832, 534 
 
 „ „ allowance for, 1837, 561 
 
 „ ,, law of endowment for the, 576 
 
 Nerwinde, battle of, 1794, 241 
 Netherlands, King of the, difficulties with the, 
 
 1832, 532 
 Neubourg, Count Palatine of, 3 
 Neuburg, victory at, 314 
 Nevers, Duke of, revolts, 1614, 4 
 
 „ „ supported by Kichelieu, 23 
 
 „ „ in possession of Mantua and 
 
 Montferrat, 23 
 Ney, Marshal, devotion of, 1812, 385 
 ,, ,, joins Bonaparte, 1815, 427 
 
 „ ,, executi .n of, 443 
 
 Nile, battle of the, 1798, 303 
 Nimeguen, peace of, 1678, 78 
 
 ,, capture of, 257 
 
 Nobles abased, 81 
 Nordlingen, battle of, 1634, 31 
 1644, 51 
 Normandy, insurrection in, 37 
 North America, hostilities in, 152 
 Notables, assembly of, 1626, 19 
 „ „ 1787,183 
 
 ,, second assembly of, 1788, 190 
 Novi, defeat of the French at, 1799, 304 
 Nuncio, remonstrances of Pope's, 16 
 
 OATH of the Tennis-court," 1789, 198 
 Odillon-Barrot, deprived of prefecture of 
 Paris, 1831, 522 
 „ „ leader of the opposition, 
 
 1834, 530 
 Omer, St., siege of, raised 1638, 35 
 
 „ capture of, 78 
 
 Opposition, the, strengthened, 1830, 500 
 Orange, Maurice, Prime of, takes Juliers, 1610, 3 
 
 „ assistance of Prince of, secured, 32 
 Ordonnance of, 1629, 20 
 
 Orleans,Duchesse d', and children at theChamber 
 of Deputies, 1848,617 
 „ marriage of the Duke of, annulled, 28 
 „ Duke or, character of the, 114 
 „ „ before Parliament, 115 
 
 „ ,, public indignation against, 117 
 
 „ „ death of, 1723, 128 
 
 „ „ summoned to Paris, 1830, 506 
 
 „ „ his chat acter, 506 
 
 „ „ elected Lieuienant-General of 
 
 Ki> gdom, 1830, 506 
 „ „ proclamation of, 1830, 506 
 
 „ „ in Belgium, 1832, 534 
 
 „ ,, marriage of, 1838, 567 
 
 „ ,, death of, 1842, 583 
 
 Ornano, Marshal, governor to Gaston, 17 
 
 „ ,, death of, 18 
 
 Orthez, battle of, 1814, 400 
 Oudenarde, defeat at, 1709, 101 
 Ouen, St., declaration of, 1814, 415 
 Outbreak of the Queen's partisans, 11 
 
 PALATINATE burned, 1674, 77 
 „ ravaged, 1689, 88 
 
 Parga, massacre of, 466 
 Paris, the brothers, 119 
 Paris, terror in, 34 
 
 ,, edict against extension of, 1548, 53 
 
 ,, defended by tne Princes against the King, 
 
 62 
 ,, terror and anarchy in, 62 
 „ blockaded, 57 
 „ treaty of, 1763, 161 
 „ military preparations in, 226 
 ,, allied armies encamp around, 1814, 401 
 
636 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Paris, battle of, 1814, 401 
 
 „ capitulation of, 1814, 402 
 „ entry of Louis XVIII. into, 1814, 415 
 „ treaty of, 1814, 416 
 ,, . Bonaparte's march on, 1815, 426 
 „ Bonaparte re-enters, 1815, 428 
 ,, surrender of, 18 15, 438 
 „ riots in, 1820, 460 
 ,, declared in state of siege, 1830, 502 
 ,, in hands of insurgents, 1830, 503 
 ,, evacuation of, by Royalists, 1830, 505 
 „ tumults in, 1830, 518 
 „ cholera in 1832, 528 
 ,, placed in a state of siege, 1832, 532 
 „ insurrection in, 1834, 542 
 ,, Bepublican insurrection in, 1839, 575 
 „ agitation in, 184S, 613 
 Parliament, remonstrances of, 1615, 7 
 „ of Paris, weakness of, 57 
 
 „ banished to Montargis, 58 
 
 ,, powers of, limited, 81 
 
 „ exile of, 126 
 
 „ recalled, 128 
 
 exile of, 1771, 165 
 ,, destruction of the old, 1771, 166 
 
 ,, threatened suppression of, 185 
 
 Parthenopean Republic, 298 
 Particelli, Emeri, 52 
 Party animosity, 1820, 462 
 Pasquier, Chancellor, at trial of rioters, 547 
 Pau, Parliament bestowed on, 12 
 Paul, Czar, assassination of, 1801, 317 
 FauLette, threatened suppression of, 53 
 Parma, battle of, 1738, 136 
 Peace of Alais, 16a9, 23 
 Peel, Sir Robert, and corn laws, 599 
 Peerage, hereditary, abolished, 1830, 508 
 „ law on organization of the, 526 
 Peers, creation of new, 1827,492 
 Pennissiere, destruction of castle of, 1832, 
 
 532 
 Pensions, diminution of, demanded, 6 
 People, the, at Versailles, 5th October, 1789, 
 
 207 
 Peronne, seizure of, 9 
 Perpignan, capitulation of, 1642, 40 
 Pestilence, outbreak of, 126 
 
 in Provence, 1720, 1721, 127 
 Peter III., assassination of, 161 
 " Peter's pence " impounded for French church, 
 
 41 
 Peterborough, magnanimous conduct of, at 
 
 Barcelona, 98 
 Potion, Mavor of Paris, suspended, 227 
 Petition of "the Cbamp de Mars, 1791, 214 
 Petrowna, EmDress, death of, 1762,160 
 Philippe IV., death of, 1668, 71 
 Philip V. of Spain, anger of, 1725, 130 
 Pichegru, death of, 1804, 329 
 Piccolomiui, arrival of, 33 
 Piedmont, success in, 1640, 38 
 „ neutrality of, 1796, 276 
 „ invasion of 1797—1799, 297 
 „ annexation of, 1803, 326 
 Pilnitz, treaty of, 1791, 215 
 Pitt, William, policy of, 311 
 Pius VI. made prisoner, 1799, 297 
 
 „ death of, 1799, 297 
 Pius VII., concordat with, 321 
 
 „ imprisonment of, 1809, 368 
 
 „ and Bonaparte, 1811,376 
 
 , „ return to Italy of, 1814, 394 
 
 Plata, La, hostilities in, 576 
 Plenary Court, established, 185 
 Plessis, Armand du, Bishop of Lucon, 5 
 
 „ „ arranges a peace between 
 
 Louis XIII. and Marie de 
 Medici, 11 
 
 Plessis, Armand du, promised Cardinal's hat, 12 
 „ „ obtains Cardinal's hat, 1622, 
 
 13 
 
 „ „ now known as Richelieu, 
 
 1622, 13 
 Poland, war on behalf of, 1733, 135 
 „ first division of, 1772, 168 
 „ French army in cantonments in, 349 
 „ „ in, 1812, 380 
 
 „ insurrection of, 1830, 520 
 „ conquest of, 1831,526 
 Police established, 1687, 81 
 Policy of Henry IV. abandoned, 3 
 Polignac Ministry formed, 1829,497 
 Political demonstration announced for 22nd 
 
 February, 1848, 613 
 Political parties, 1814, 419 
 „ „ 1815, 440 ' 
 
 Poll tax in France, 37 
 Pomare, Queen of Tahiti, 588 
 Pompadour, Madame de, influence of, 146, 148 
 
 _ „ „ death of, 1764, 162 
 
 Ponticherry seized by Dutch, 92 
 
 ,, taking of, 159 
 
 Poniatowsky, death of, 1813, 387 
 Ponchartrain, Philipeux de, 90 
 Pont de Ce, engagement at, 12 
 Pope deprived of temporal power, 1809, 367 
 Port Royal, ruin of, 1709, 106 
 Portocarrero, Abbe, arrest of, 121 
 Portugal recovers her independence, 1641, 38 
 „ supported against Spain, 69 
 „ partition of, 1807, 355 
 „ rising in, 1808, 358 
 ,, rising in, 1820, 456 
 ,, disturbances in, 1824, 479 
 ,, French action in, 1831,524 
 ,, throne of, seized by Don Miguel, 535 
 ,, French interference in, 535 
 „ armed intervention in, 1847, 602 
 " Pragmatic Sanction," 131 
 Prague, capitulation of, 141 
 
 ,, propositions for a congress at, 1813, 385 
 Praslin, Duchess de, murder of the, 1847,605 
 Presburg, peace of, 1805,341 
 Press, law as to the, 1814, 420 
 „ censorship of the, 448 
 „ law respecting the, 451 
 „ law for censorship of the, 1820, 459 
 „ censorship of the, re-established, 1824, 480 
 „ liberty of the, proposed law against, 1826, 
 
 490 
 „ censorship of the, abolished, 1828, 495 
 „ liberty of the, suppressed, 1830, 502 
 „ liberty of the, established, 1830, 508 
 „ actions against the, 1833, 539 
 „ law regarding the, 1835, 550 
 „ attacks of the, on the administration, 1839, 
 569 
 Pretender, expulsion of the, 117 
 Prie, Marchioness de, 129 
 
 Primogeniture, proposed law relating to, 1826,485 
 Printing presses ordered to be destroyed,1830,502 
 Pritchard, expulsion of, from Society Islands, 589 
 Privileges, abolition of, 1789, 203 
 Proscription, lists of, prepared, 1815, 438 
 Protestant chiefs, defection of, 13 
 „ party, ruin of, 1629, 23 
 " Protestant Pope" Richelieu, 17 
 Protestants, persecution of, 129 
 
 „ unhappy condition of, 86 
 
 Provera, surrender of, 1797, 286 
 Provincial assemblies, 183 
 Provisional government nominated, 1814, 404 
 ,, nominated, 1843, 617 
 
 Prussia, conquest of, 1806, 346 
 Prussian army, retreat of, 1792, 228 
 Public calamities, 1847, 606 
 
IEDEX. 
 
 637 
 
 Public criers, law on, 539 
 
 ,, works, 125 
 
 ,, works, grant for, 538 
 Pultusk, victory at, 349 
 Puy-Laurens, death o?, 23 
 Pyramids, battle of the, 1798,302 
 Pyrenees, peace of the, 1659, 66 
 
 ^UADEUPLE Alliance, 1719, 117 
 
 1720, 123 
 
 1834, 535 
 Quatre-Bras, battle of, 1815, 431 
 Quiberon expedition, 1795, 266 
 Quincampoix, Kue, 124 
 
 EAILWAYS commenced in France, 1838, 
 565 
 
 ,, law respecting, 1841, 583 
 
 Eamilies, defeat of Villerois at, 1706, 99 
 Eastadt, assassination of French plenipoten- 
 tiaries at, 1799, 301 
 ,, victory at, 278 
 Eatisbon, peace of, 1631, 24 
 
 „ peace of, confirmed at Cherasco, 24 
 „ Diet of, 1630, 30 
 „ truce of, 1684, 79 
 Diet of, 1803, 324 
 „ battle of, 1809, 363 
 Eeactionary measures, 418 
 
 ,, measures, 1815, 443 
 Eebellion of Conde, 1614, 4 
 Eeform banquets, agitation of the, 1847, 604 
 
 ,, debate on, 1848, 612 
 
 Eeform, miscarriage of measures of, 1841-1845, 
 
 591 
 Eeformed party disquieted, 1619, 12 
 Eegency, council of, formed, 115 
 „ first acts of, 116 
 „ law of, 1842, 584 
 Eeign of Terror, the, 1793-1794, 250 
 
 end of the, 260 
 Eeims, Charle3 X. crowned at, 1825, 483 
 Eeligious communities, proposed law relating to, 
 1825, 484 
 „ quarrels, 1709-1732, 134 
 Eentes, proposed law for conversion of, 478 
 Eepresentatives, resolutions of chamber of, 1815, 
 
 435 
 Eepressive laws, 1834, 542 
 Eepublic proclaimed, 1792, 229 
 „ proclaimed, 1848, 618 
 Eepublican calendar instituted, 251 
 „ institutions destroyed, 342 
 
 ,, insurrection, 1832, 531 
 
 ,, insurrection, 1834, 541 
 
 Eestoration, the first, 412 
 " Eestorer of French liberty," Louis XVI., 204 
 Eesultat de Conseil, 1788, 191 
 Eetz, Cardinal de, arrested, 63 
 ,, escapes, 64 
 
 Eeverses of French army, 1792, 220 
 Eevolution inevitable, 191 
 
 „ of 1789, commencement of, 201 
 
 „ of 1830, 502 
 
 „ of 1830, observations on, 511 
 
 of February, 1848, 614 
 
 Eevolutionary organization of the country, 247 
 
 ,, state of Europe, 1820, 456 
 
 Ehine, confederation of the, 1806, 343 
 „ operations on the, 105 
 „ passage of the, 74 
 „ passage of the, 1795, 264 
 Ehinefeld, victory at, 1638, 35 
 Eichelieu enters council, 1616, 8 
 
 „ formerly Du Plessis, 1622, 13 
 
 „ gains influence over the King, 13 
 
 „ ministry, 1624, 15 
 
 ,, reply to ambassadors from Eome, 15 
 
 Eichelieu reproached by the public, 16 
 
 „ spoken of as " Cardinal of Rochelle' > 
 
 and "Protestant Pope," 17 
 „ powerful league against, 1626, 17 
 „ guard granted to, 18 
 „ and Buckingham, disagreement of, 18 
 ,, severe revenge of, 1626, 18 
 ,, power increased, 19 
 ,, besieges Rochelle, 1627, 21 
 ,, insulted by Gaston, 25 
 „ disgraced, 25 
 ,, reinstated in favour, 25 
 „ military dispositions of, 32 
 „ popular fury against, 34 
 „ conduct under reverses, 35 
 ,, internal policy, 40 
 „ desire to advance literature, 41 
 „ description of his policy, 41 
 „ progress to Paris from Lyons, 43 
 „ death of, 1642, 43 
 ,, character of, 44 
 Eichelieu, Duke of, ministry of, 1815, 440 
 
 „ efforts of, to liberate French. 
 
 territory, 448 
 „ resignation of, 449 
 
 „ second ministry of, 1820, 
 
 455 
 „ resignation of, 1821, 469 
 
 Right of search abandoned, 1845, 590 
 Eights of man, society of the, 538 
 Rio Janeiro, capture of, 103 
 Eivoli, victory at, 1797, 285 
 Eobespierre, leader of the " Mountain," 230 
 
 „ demands the death of Louis XVI., 
 
 233 
 „ at height of his power, 254 
 
 „ conspiracy against, 258 
 
 „ fall and arrest of, 1794, 259 
 
 „ death of, 260 
 
 Eochelle invested, 12 
 
 „ siege of, 1627-1628, 21 
 ,, fall of, 1628, and its consequences, 22 
 ,, conspiracy at, 1822, 471 
 Eochefort constructed, 71 
 Eochejacquelin, Henri de la, death of, 248 
 Eocroi, battle of, 1644, 50 
 Eodney, Admiral, victory of, 1782, 180 
 Eohan, Duke de, obtains a peace, 13 
 
 „ submission of, 1629, 23 
 
 „ successes of, 34 
 
 ,, death of, 36 
 
 Roland, letter to the King, 221 
 Roman States, revolution in, 1798, 296 
 Rosbach, victoi'y of Frederick II. at, 1757, 157 
 Rotta, La, battle of, 37 
 Rousillon, conquest of, 1642, 40 
 Eoussin, Admiral, forces the Tagus, 1831, 524 
 Eoyal Bank, 1718, 124 
 Eoyal sitting, 1789, 199 
 Eoyal veto, discussion of, 206 
 Boyalist conspiracy, 274 
 „ elections, 1820, 461 
 „ literature, decadence of, 1826, 488 
 Eoyer-Collard on electoral law, 1825, 487 
 
 „ address to electors, 1839, 573 
 
 ,, speech of, 1835, 550 
 
 Euccelai assists Marie de Medici, 11 
 Eueil, peace of, 1649, 58 
 Eupture between France .and England, 1627, 
 
 21 
 Eussia and Prussia, secret treaty between, 1805, 
 
 337 
 Eussia, war with, provoked, 375 
 „ campaign against, 1812, 381 
 „ advance of French army into, 1812, 382 
 „ assists Turkey, 536 
 Euyter, Admiral, death of, 1676, 78 
 Eyswick, peace of, 1697, 92 
 
638 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 SACKILEGE, new law relating to, 1825, 485 
 Salamanca, battle of, 1812, 387 
 
 „ retreat of Massena to, 375 
 
 Salic law abolished in Spain, 534 
 Salm, club of, 290 
 Saragossa, defeat of, 102 
 Saratoga, battle of, 1778, 175 
 Sardinia, kingdom of, created, 123 
 Saultsbay, battle of, 75 
 Savannah, attack upon, 176 
 Saverne, siege of, raised, 77 
 Savoy, Duke of, abandoned, 1610, 3 
 
 „ sues Philip III. for pardon, 3 
 
 „ death of, ] 637, 35 
 
 Saxe- Weimar, Duke Bernard de, assistance of, 
 
 secured, 32 
 Saxe, Marshal, at Fontenoy, 1745, 142 
 Saxony created a kingdom, 347 
 Schonbrunn, treaty of, 1805, 340 
 Schomberg, Marshal, at Casal, 24 
 Schwartzenberg, defeat of, oo the Seine,1814, 395 
 Science during ministry of Eichelieu, 47 
 Science and Art at death of Louis XV., 169 
 Scierce, art, and literature, 191 
 Scotland, descent on, 1708 100 
 Seasons, secret society of the, 1839, 575 
 Sebastiani, General, defends Constantinople, 
 
 1807, 352 
 Savenay, defeat of Vendeans at, 1793, 248 
 " Secret note, a" 449 
 Secret societies, 1833, 538 
 
 ,, members of, arrested, 1834, 542 
 
 Sedan, conspiracy of, 1641, 39 
 Senatorial constitution, 1814, 407 
 Senef, battle of, 76 
 Septennial laws, 478 
 Session of 1846, 592 
 Seven years' war, 1756-1773, 154 
 Sicily evacuated, 1678, 78 
 Sieves, Abbe, leader in assembly, 205 
 Sieyes' conspiracy with Bonaparte against direc- 
 tory, 304 
 Silver mark, value raised, 92 
 " St. Sirnonism," 533 
 Sixth coalition against France, 1812, 380 
 Slave trade, treaty lor suppression of, 1845, 590 
 Smala, the, of Abd-el-Kader, capture of, 1843, 590 
 " Snow King," the, 30 
 Social condition of France, 47 
 Soissons, Count de, death of, 1641, 39 
 Soissons, capitulation of, 1814, 398 
 Soldiers flock to Bonaparte, 1815, 427 
 Somme, line of the, forced, 34 
 Sommerhausen, battle of, 51 
 Soubise seizes Isle of Bhe, 16 
 Soult, Marshal, movements of, in Spain, 1811, 375 
 „ ministry of, 1832, 533 
 
 „ resignation of, 1834, 545 
 
 ministry of, 1839, 575 
 „ ministry of, fall of, 1840, 577 
 
 Spain, war against, 1630, 24 
 
 „ invasion of, 40 
 
 „ refuses to accede to terms of peace of 
 Westphalia, 52 
 
 „ weak state of, 1667, 72 
 
 „ war with, 1719, 123 
 
 „ alliance with, 1731, 134 
 
 „ alliance with, 1779, 176 
 
 „ treaty with, 1801, 315 
 
 „ French enter, 1808, 356 
 
 „ insurrection in, 1808, 356 
 invasion of, 1808, 358 
 
 „ war in, 1808, 360 
 
 „ course of the war in 1809, 368 
 
 „ lost to France, 1813, 387 
 
 „ disturbed state of, 1820, 456 
 
 „ critical state of, 1822, 471 
 
 „ Salic law abolished in, 534 
 
 Spain, civil war in, 1836, 556 
 „ end of the civil war in, 1839, 577 
 „ and Portugal, war continued in, 1811, 375 
 Spaniards, successes of, 63 
 Spanish Foreign Legion, 556 
 „ marriages, the, 1846, 595 
 „ war, 1823, 473 
 Speculation, wild, 124 
 Staffarde, battle of, 89 
 Stair, Lord, English Ambassador, 117 
 Standing army demanded by nobles, 19 
 Staps' attempt to assassinate Bonaparte,1809, 367 
 States General, convoked, 1614, 5 
 
 „ „ assembly of, dissolved, 1615, 6 
 
 „ ,, convoked, 1788, 189 
 
 „ ,, opening of, 1789, 197 
 
 States of the North, Confederation of the, 344 
 Steinkerque, battle of, 91 
 Stock jobbing, 126 
 
 Stockach, defeat of Jourdan at, 1799, 300 
 Strasbourg seized and united to France, 1681, 79 
 „ fortified by Vauban, 79 
 
 „ conspiracy of Louis Napoleon at, 
 
 1836, 558 
 Stromboli, battle of, 78 
 Subsidy to Gustavus Adolphus, 30 
 Sully, retirement of, 3 ' 
 ,, anecdote of (note), 4 
 Sunderbund league, 1847, 602 
 Superstitious state of the people, 47 
 Suppression of religious orders, 209 
 " Supreme Being, Fete of the," 1794, 254 
 Susa, pass of, opened, 1628, 23 
 
 „ treaty of, 1628, 23 
 Swedish period of thirty years' war, 31 
 Switzerland, internal condition of, 295 
 
 „ violence of Directory in, 1798, 296 
 
 „ Bonaparte mediates in, 1802, 322 
 
 „ a refuge for conspirators, 556 
 
 „ policy regarding, 1836, 556 
 
 „ disturbances in, 1847, 602 
 
 TAFNA, treaty of, 1837, 566 
 Tahiti, the affair of, 1842-1843, 588 
 
 Talavera, battle of, 1809, 368 
 
 Tallard, Marshal, made prisoner, 97 
 
 Talleyrand, Minister for Foreign Affairs, 292 
 
 „ negotiations of, with Allies, 1814, 400 
 
 „ President of New Ministry, 1815, 438 
 
 „ at conference of London, 1830, 518 
 
 Tangiers, bombardment of, 1841, 590 
 „ treaty of, 1844, 591 
 
 Tarsterson, Swedish General, 39 
 
 Taxes increased in France, 37 
 „ reduced under Colbert, 70 
 
 " Telemachus" published, 117 
 
 Tellier, Father, and Jesuits exiled, 116 
 
 "The Ten Days' Campaign," 1831, 525 
 
 Terray, Abbe, maladministration of finances by, 
 167 
 
 Territorial subvention, edict of, 159 
 
 Terrorists, reaction against the, 261 
 
 Teste, M., tried for bribery, 1847, 605 
 
 Thann, battle of, 362 
 
 Theological disputes, 127 
 
 " Thermidorians, the," 261 
 
 Thiers, M., early writings of, 1826, 489 
 „ Minister of Interior, 540 
 
 „ withdrawal of, from Doctrinaires, 
 
 1836, 554 
 „ Ministry of, 1836, 554 
 
 „ Ministry dissolved, 1836, 557 
 
 „ second Ministry of, 1840, 577 
 
 „ Ministry, dismissal of, 1840, 580 
 
 „ French policy, 592 
 
 Thiers and Barrot invested with power, 1848, 615 
 
 Thionville, battle near, 1639, 36 
 „ capture of, 51 
 
INDEX. 
 
 639 
 
 Third coalition of Eui'opean powers, 94 
 
 „ „ 1804, 334 
 
 "The Third Estate," 190 
 
 ,, „ memorials of, 6 
 
 „ „ treated with indignity, 6 
 
 Third party, the, 1834, 545 
 Thirty years' war, origin of, 1618, 29 
 
 „ „ ended in Germany, 52 
 
 Thou, De, executed, 1642, 43 
 Three days of July, the, 1830, 502 
 Tilly, death of, 30 
 Tilsit, Alexander, and Bonaparte at, 1807, 353 
 
 „ peace of, 1807, 354 
 Tippoo Sahib, 181 
 Tirlemont, sack of, 33 
 Tocquevilie, M. de, speech of, 1848, 611 
 Toiras, De, defends St. Martin, 21 
 Tolentine, battle of, 1815, 430 
 
 „ treaty of, 1797, 286 
 
 Torres Vedras, lines of, 1810, 369 
 Toulon improved, 71 
 
 „ siege of. raised, 100 
 „ battle of, 1741, 140 
 ,, blockade of, by Nelson, 335 
 ,, escape of French fleet from, 336 
 Toulouse, battle of, 18 1 4, 408 
 
 „ Mandate of Archbishop of, 476 
 
 Tourville, Admiral, succ-ss of, 90 
 Trafalgar, battle of, 1805, 340 
 Transnonain, Rue, massacre in, 542 
 Transpadaue Republic, 281 
 Treaty of 11th April, 1814, 407 
 
 „ 20th November, 1815, 441 
 
 „ 6th July, 1827, 494 
 
 „ 1840 on Eastern Question, 579 
 Trebia, defeat at the, 1799, 301 
 Treves, reverses near, 77 
 Treviso, Duke de, ministry of, 547 
 " Tribune, The," trial of conductor of, 1833, 539 
 
 „ presses of, sealed, 542 
 
 Trieoloured cockade adopted, 202 
 Triple alliance against Louis, 72 
 Trocadero, capture of, 1823, 474 
 Tronchet counsel for Louis XVI., 233 
 Troppau, Congress of, 1821, 458 
 Troyes, retreat upon, 1814, 393 
 Tuiieries, attack on the, 1792, 223 
 
 „ the mob at the, 1848, 617 
 
 ,, the people at the, 1792, 221 
 Tumult, popular, 1648, 55 
 Turcnng, victory at, 255 
 Turenne, Marshal, 51 
 
 „ declares himself for Frondeurs, 56 
 
 ,, defeated at Retht-1, 59 
 
 ,, in command of army, 74 
 
 „ victories of, 76 
 
 ,, in Alsace, 76 
 
 „ death of, 1685,77 
 Turgot, operations of, 1774—1776, 172 
 
 ,, dismissal of, 173 
 Turin, capitulation of, 1640, 38 
 ,, siege of, 100 
 
 „ rout of the French before, 1706, 100 
 „ armistice of 1796, 276 
 Turkey invaded by Russia, 1807, 352 
 Turkey and Egypt, struggle between, 1832-3, 535 
 Turks attack Austria, 79 
 
 "Twenty-four Articles," treaty of the, 1831, 525 
 Two hundred and twenty-one, address of the, 
 1830, 498 
 
 ULM, capitulation of, 338 
 Unkier-Skelessi, treaty of, 1833, 536 
 Upper Royal Council nominated, 414 
 Utrecht, peace of, 1713, 105 
 
 VALENCAY, treaty of, 1813, 387 
 Valanza, siege of, raised, 34 
 
 Val de Presle, battle of, 34 
 Valenciennes, capture of, 78 
 
 ,, siege of, raised, 65 
 
 Valette, army under Cardinal la, 33 
 Valmy, battle of, 1792, 227 
 Valtehne, The, possession taken of, 16 
 „ restored to the Grisons, 17 
 „ operations in the, 34 
 ,, evacuation of the, 35 
 Van Tromp acting with Conde,51 
 Varennes, arrest of Louis XVI. at, 214 
 Vauban attached to army in Holland, 74 
 Vendee, La, war in, 1792, 1794, 241 
 „ progress of revolt in, 246 
 
 „ second war in, 1795, 1796, 273 
 
 „ troubles in, 1832, 528 
 
 Vendome, the brothers, arrested, 18 
 „ in command of army, 96 
 „ death of, 104 
 Venetia, attack upon, 287 
 Venice ceded to Austria, 1797, 288 
 Verdun, capture of, 226 
 Verona, slaughter of garrison at, 287 
 
 „ Con-ress of, 1822, 472 
 Versailles, Dutch corps at, 101 
 „ peace of, 1783, 181 
 „ openiug of historical galleries at, 1838, 
 567 
 Victor Emmanuel, abdication of, 1821, 466 
 Victoria, Queen of England, 579 
 
 „ „ visits France. 1843, 584 
 
 Vienna, French army enters, 338 
 „ „ march on, 1809, 363 
 
 „ peace of, 1809, 367 
 j, congress of, 423 
 Vieuville, Marquis de la, in favour, 13 
 „ „ disgraced, 13 
 
 „ „ executed, 26 
 
 Vigo, defeat at, 96 
 Viliars, General, victories of, 96 
 
 j» „ defeated at Malplaquet, 1710, 
 
 102 
 „ „ victory at Denaiu, 1712, 104 
 
 ,, „ death of, 135 
 
 Villaviciosa, victory of Vendome at, 1711, 103 
 Villele, M. de, Ministry of, 1821, 469 
 
 „ „ dissolved, 1827, 493 
 
 Villemain, M., educational project by, 1844, 585 
 Villeneuve, Admiral, in command of French fleet, 
 
 336 
 Villeroi retained in office, 1610, 2 
 
 „ defeated at Ramifies, 1706, 99 
 Vimiera, battle of, 1808, 358 
 Vincent, battle off Cape tit., 158 
 " Visa" in 1721, 127 
 Vittoria, battle of, 1813, 387 
 
 WAGR 4M, battle of, 1809, 366 
 Walcheren expedition, 1809, 367 
 Waldeck, Prince of, on toe Samire, 89 
 Wallenstein, General, dismissal of, demanded, 30 
 
 „ „ recalled, 30 
 
 War of the Fronde, 57 
 
 „ „ end of the, 1653, 64 
 
 War of independence, 1778—1783, 175 
 War of succession, 1701 — 1713, 94 
 Warsaw, fall of, 1831, 526 
 Washington, George, 1753, 152 
 
 „ Commander-in-Chief of American 
 
 forces, 175 
 Waterloo, battle of, 1815, 433 
 Wattignies, victory at, 249 
 Weimar, Duke, death of, 1639, 36 
 Wellesley, Sir Arthur, in Portugal, 358 
 Wellington crosses the Pyrenees, 1814, 400 
 Westphalia, peace of, 1648, 52 
 West Indian Company established, 1664, 82 
 Whigs and Tories, 103 
 
640 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 William III. of England in Flanders, 91 
 
 „ ,, death of, 96 
 
 William of Orange elected Captain-General, 74 
 Wilna, halt of French army at, 1812, 381 
 Witts, De, massacre of the, 75 
 Worms, treaty of, 140 
 Worship of Reason, 252 
 
 Wounded to be denounced by surgeons, 1832, 532 
 Wurmser in Mantua, 280 
 
 Wurtemburg erected into a kingdom, 1803, 311 
 Wurtzburg, battle of, 282 
 
 YORK TOWN, siege of, 1781, 179 
 
 ZENTA, battle of, 93 
 Zorndorf, battle of, 1759, 157 
 Zurich, victory at, 304 
 
 THE END. 
 
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.yume^*