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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Large Crown 8vo, cloth, 5/- net each.

History of Ancient Civilization.
History of Mediaeval Civilization.

London : T. FISHER UNWIN.

HISTORY OF
CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION

CHARLES SEIGNOBOS
DOCTOR OF LETTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF PARIS

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
ADELPHI TERRACE
MCMIX

{All righis reserved)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
The New European Powers in the Eighteenth Cen
tury  3-28
The Commencement of Contemporary Civilization, 3 —
Prussia, 4— The Court, g— The Budget of the Kings of
Prussia, 5— The Army, 6 — The Administration, 8—
Origin of the Russian Empire, 10— The Czar, 12 —
Nobles and Peasants, 13— The Russian Church, 16—
Introduction of Western Civilisation into Russia, 17 —
Transformation of the Russian Nobility, 24 — Venality,
26 — The Government of Russia in the Eighteenth
Century, 26. CHAPTER II
Colonial Government in the Eighteenth Century 29-
Government by Monopoly, 29 — The Commercial Com
panies, 30 — The Portuguese Colonies, 32 — The Spanish
Colonies, 33 — The Dutch Colonies, 37— The French
Colonies, 38— The English Colonies, 39— Struggle
Between France and England, 42 — The English Colonial
Empire, 46 — Revolt of the English Colonies in America,
47 — Independence of the Colonies, 49.
CHAPTER III
The Reform Movement in Europe in the Eighteenth
Century  53-91
Industry and Commerce in the Seventeenth Century,
55 — The Mercantile System, 57 — The Economists, 59 —
The English Philosophers, 63— The French Philoso
phers, 67 — The Encyclopaedists, 72 — Influence of the
Philosophers, 73— The Reform. Princes and Ministers,
75 — Joseph II of Austria, 76 — Leopold of Tuscany, 80 —
Catherine II of Russia, 81— Pombal in Portugal, 83—
The Ministers of Charles III in Spain, 86— Efforts at
Reform in France, 88.

vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV PAGE
The French Revolution .  92-120
The Ancient Regime, 92— Monarchy and Absolute
Power, 92 — Society and the Privileged Classes, 100 — Ir
regularity and Routine, 103 — Origin of the Revolution,
106 — The States-General, 111 — The National Assembly,
113 — Taking of the Bastille, 113 — The Night of August
4, 117— End of the Old Regime, 118.
CHAPTER V
The Work of the Revolution  121-134
The Principles of 1789, 121 — Changes in the Social
Order, 122 — Changes in the Economic Order, 122 —
Political Changes, 123 — The Written Constitutions, 126
The Constitution of 1791, 127 — The Constitution of
1793, 131— The Constitution of the Year III, 133.
CHAPTER VI
Contest of the Revolution with Europe , . . 135-149
The Conflict Between the Revolution and the Euro
pean States, 135 — The War, 138 — The French Armies,
142 — The Revolutionary Propaganda, 144 — The
Treaties of Basle and of Campo Formio, 145 — History
of the French Frontier, 147.
CHAPTER VII
The Consulate and the Empire .... 150-169
The Constitution of the Year VIII, 130 — The Empire,
152 — Measures of Napoleon and the Home Govern
ment, 155 — Legislation, 163 — Public Works, 165 —
Science, Letters, Arts, 167.
CHAPTER VIII
Conflict of Napoleon with Europe .... 170-185
Peace in Europe, 170 — The Conflicts with the Great
Powers, 171 — The Coalitions Opposed to Napoleon,
173 — The Blockade of the Continent, 176 — Economic
and Political Consequences of the Continental Blockade,
179— Domination of Napoleon in Europe, 180.
CHAPTER IX
The Restoration in Europe  186-203
Destruction of the System of Napoleon, 186 — The End
of the Empire, 190 — Treaties of 1814 and 18 15, ig2 —
Congress of Vienaa, 194 — Europe in 1815, 201.

CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER X PAGE
Constitutional Government in Europe . . . 204-245
The Restoration, 204 — The Parliamentary , Regime in
England, 207 — The Charter of 1814, and the Restora
tion in France, 221 — The Charter of 1830 and the
Monarchy of July, 231 — Parliamentary Government in
Belgium, 235 — The Parliamentary System in the
Other European States, 239.
CHAPTER XI
The Government of France from 1848 to 1875 .. . 246-265
The Revolution of February, 246— Universal Suffrage,
248 — The Constitution of 1848, 250 — The Empire, 255
— The Republic of 1870, 260 — The Constitution of
1875, 2°2- CHAPTER XII
Transformations in Europe Since 1848 .... 266-306
Nationalities, 266 — Formation of Italian Unity, 269 —
— Formation of German Unity, 281 — Progress of the
Parliamentary Regime in Europe, 299 — The Radical
Party, 301 — Universal Suffrage, 303 — Direct Govern
ment by the Lower House, 304.
CHAPTER XIII
Dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire . . . 307-334
The Ottoman Empire in the Nineteenth Century, 307 —
The Eastern Question in the Nineteenth Century, 312 —
Establishment of the Greek Nation, 326— Formation of
the Servian, Roumanian, and Bulgarian Nations, 328—
Egypt, 331. CHAPTER XIV
The New World  . . 335-354
The United States, 335 — The Spanish Republics in
America, 342 — Brazil, 347 — The Abolition of Slavery in
America, 349— The Monroe Doctrine, 353.
CHAPTER XV
The European Peoples Outside of Europe 1 . . 355-376
France in Africa, 355 — Progress "in Asia of the Rival
European Powers, 363 — European Civilization in the
Orient, 369— English Colonies, 371— Explorations, 375.

377-394

viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVI
Arts, Letters and Sciences in the Nineteenth Cen
tury 
The Romantic School, 377— The Realistic School, 380
— Forms of Literature, 381— Importance of the Litera
ture of the Nineteenth Century, 384— Painting, 385—
Sculpture, 386— Architecture, 387— Music, 388— Pro
gress of the Sciences, 390— The Moral Sciences, 392.
CHAPTER XVII
Industry, Agriculture, Commerce  395-402
Application of Scientific Discoveries to Industry, 395
— Steam and Electricity, 395 — Progress of Agriculture,
397 — Progress of Industry, 398 — Progress of Commerce,
400, CHAPTER XVIII
Economic Reforms in France and Europe . . 403-415
Increase of Wealth, 403 — Money and Paper Money,
405— Organization of Credit, 406— Protection and Free
Trade, 410 — Commercial Treaties, 412 — Universal Ex
positions, 413 — Commercial Crises, 414.
CHAPTER XIX
Democracy and Socialism  416-436
Democratic Ideas, 416 — Abolition of Serfdom, 417 —
Emancipation of Women, 419 — Military Service, 420 —
Public Instruction, 42* — Progress of Democratic Ideas,
424 — Origin of Socialism, 425 — The French Socialists,
428— German Socialism, 430 — The International Assoc
iation of Workmen, 432 — The Anarchists, 433 — Social
Theories and Reforms, 434.
CHAPTER XX
Conclusion  437-451
The Part Taken by France in the Social, Political and
Economic Progress of the Nineteenth Century, 437 —
Position of France Among the Great European Powers,
439 — The Present Condition of the World, 441 —
Characteristics of Contemporary Civilization, 446.
APPENDIX I .  453-456
APPENDIX II .  . 457-460

HISTORY OF
CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION

NOTE.
It has been thought advisable to give as Appendix I ,
the bibliography used by the author. In Appendix II
is to be found a general list of books in the English
language on the topics treated.

CHAPTER I
THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS IN THE EIGH
TEENTH CENTURY
The Commencement of Contemporary Civilization. —
It has been the custom to have contemporary civilization
begin with the year 1789, and, in fact, the great changes
which characterize contemporary civilization appear with
the French Revolution. But a preparation for these
changes was made through a less apparent transformation,
which goes back to the beginning of the eighteenth century.
It was, in fact, at the close of the reign of Louis XIV. that
those new political doctrines were formed, throughout all
Europe, which were to cause the destruction of the an
cient institutions and to bring about reforms and then a
revolution. At the same time the relations of the different govern
ments were transformed. In America, an English colo
nial empire had been founded, which prepared the way
for the appearance of a new and great nation — the United
States. In Europe, three great powers of the seventeenth
century — Spain, Sweden, and Holland — were reduced to
the rank of secondary powers. By the side of France,
which had lost the supremacy, appeared the four other
nations which were to be the great powers of the nine
teenth century— England, victorious over Louis XIV.,

4 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Austria strengthened by the expulsion of the Turks, and
the two new states, the kingdom of Prussia and the empire
of Russia.
Prussia.— The kingdom of Prussia,1 created in 1701,
like almost all the German states, was composed of do
mains gathered together, one by one, through the efforts
of the reigning family. It was not a country but only an
assemblage of territories scattered throughout Germany,
in every direction, and having no communication with each
other; some were far to the west, even on the left bank of
the river Rhine; the province of Prussia was to the east,
outside of the limits of the empire; in the centre was
Brandenburg. All these provinces were poor, and with
a small population (in all about 2,000,000 souls). Prussia
was nothing but a small state. The Hohenzollerns have
made of it a great power. They had no ideas concerning
the nature of government which were different from those
of the princes of their time. They, also, exercised the
"family policy," seeking, above all, to augment the power
of their house by the increase of their domains, and their
power; they, too, determined upon a "state policy,"
employing every means in their power for the accomplish
ment of the purpose in view. But they differed from the
other princes in their manner of living, and that is the
reason for their success. Instead of squandering their
revenues for the purpose of keeping up a court and in
giving extravagant spectacles and feasts, they devoted
them entirely to the expenses of the state, and especially
to the support of an army.
1 The emperor, who had sold this title of king to the elector of Branden
burg, did not want to attach it to any German province. Prussia was
chosen because it was not a part »f the empire, and to the new king was
given the title of King of Prussia.

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 5
The Court.— Frederick I., who was the first to bear the
title of king, had a large court after the style of Louis XIV.
His successor, Frederick William, dismissed it and kept
only four chamberlains, four gentlemen in waiting, eighteen
pages, six lackeys, five valets de chambre. He wore a
blue uniform and white pantaloons; he always had a
sword at his side, and carried a cane in his hand; he had
only benches and chairs made of wood — no arm-chairs
nor carpets; his table was so badly served that his children
seasoned their food with hunger. He spent his evenings
in the company of his generals and his ministers, all
smoking tobacco in long Dutch pipes and drinking beer.
This gross manner of living, which shocked the other
princes, gave him the surname of the "Sergeant-King."
His successor, Frederick II., was, on the contrary, very
well educated. He loved music, wrote French easily —
composing French verses — and read the works of the
philosophers. However, he lived almost as simply as did
his father. He dwelt at Potsdam, only frequenting the
society of his officers, his functionaries, and of several
philosophers. He had no court (he was separated from
the queen, and received no ladies). He wore patched gar
ments, and his furniture was torn by the dogs who were
his constant companions. After his death his entire
wardrobe was sold for 1,500 francs. His sole luxury was
his collection of snuff-boxes; he left 130 of them.
The Budget of the Kings of Prussia. — The money which
the kings of Prussia saved from their personal expenses
they devoted to the use of their army. Frederick William
spent upon himself and his court only 52,000 thaler (less
than 40,000 dollars) per annum. The receipts of the
kingdom, at that time, amounted to 6,900,000 thalers

6 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
(5,200,000 dollars). They should have been almost
equally divided between the military expenses and the
ordinary expenses, but in reality the king took 1,400,000
thalers (1,050,000 dollars) from the ordinary expense ac
count and added it to the amount for the army. So there
was only 960,000 thalers (750,000 dollars) for the ordinary
expenses of the kingdom. The remainder was used to
support the army or to create a revenue fund. The king
had succeeded in maintaining on a war-footing 80,000
men, and at his death he left in hard money a treasure of
8,700,000 thalers (6,500,000 dollars). Frederick IL, like
his father, saved his money for the army and for the re
serve fund; he was able to keep a standing army of 200,000
men, in spite of the " Seven Years' War," which devastated
his kingdom, and at his death the treasury contained
55,000,000 thalers (more than 40,000,000 dollars).
The Army. — The Prussian army, like all the armies of
those times, was composed of volunteers. Recruiting-
officers were sent through all Germany seeking for men;
they opened their offices in the inns, and there received
any who wanted to enlist in the service of the king of
Prussia. These recruits were for the most part advent
urers, or deserters from the army of some German prince.
Often the recruiting-officers secured men through a ruse,
or by violence — making them drunk, and then forcing
them to take the money of the king — or often they carried
off the men while they were intoxicated. One of these
officers, wanting to enroll a cabinet-maker, who had such
a fine figure that the officer wished to make a grenadier
of him, ordered him to make a case large enough to hold
himself. The workman brought the case, and the officer
declared that it was too small; the cabinet-maker, to prove

THE NEW EUROPEAN TOWERS 7
the contrary, lay down in it; immediately the cover was
shut down and the case was sent off. When it was opened
the cabinet-maker was found to be asphyxiated.
These enrolments did not suffice to recruit a sufficiently
large army. In 1733 the king resolved to complete his
regiments with his own subjects. He established a sort
of obligatory military service. All the provinces of the
kingdom were divided into cantons, each canton was to
furnish the recruits necessary to fill out a regiment. All
the inhabitants could be enrolled except the nobles, the
sons of pastors, and the sons of the bourgeois families
who had a fortune of at least 6,000 thalers (4,500 dollars).
(There were hardly any families in Prussia that could count
more wealth.) During the wars of Frederick II. men
became so rare that they enrolled school-boys. When a
child was growing fast, the parents used to say: "Don't
grow so fast or the recruiting-officer will catch you!"
The Prussian soldiers were subject to a very severe
discipline. The officers, with cane in hand, watched the
drilling, and beat whoever did not exactly execute the
movements ordered. Every regiment had to manoeuvre
as one man, with the precision of a machine. The soldiers
were taught to load their guns in twelve movements (this
was the load in twelve). When a battalion fired, one
ought to see but one flash and hear but one report. No
country had an infantry so well trained. The Prussian
drill was celebrated throughout all Europe. Butlhis life
was so laborious that it was necessary to keep the bar
racks under a strict surveillance in order to prevent the
soldiers from escaping, and Frederick II. in time of war
placed a cordon of cavalry around the regiments on the
march so as to be able to arrest the deserters.

8 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
In this army there was no chance of promotion for the
soldier; the officers were taken from among the young
nobles; for all the Prussian nobility were in the service of
the king. But, while in other countries the places for the
officers were given as favors and even sold, in Prussia one
could not become an officer until he had passed through a
military school (the school for cadets), and one could not
secure an office of rank until he had passed through the
inferior grades. Even the princes of the royal family were
obliged to serve and to win all their grades one by one.
No government in Europe had, at that time, so large
an army in proportion to the number of its subjects —
80,000 men for a country of 2,500,000 souls. This was
six times greater than Austria, and four times greater than
France possessed. Now, in the seventeenth century, as
all difficulties between nations were decided by war, the
importance of a power was measured by the strength of its
army. The King of Prussia, with his little state and large
army, became one of the three great powers in Europe.
The Sergeant-King had prepared that army. Frederick
the Great made use of it. He added two provinces to his
kingdom (Silesia and Polish Prussia); he had received
2,240,000 subjects, and he left 6,000,000 to his successor.
The Administration.— The kings of Prussia carried out
the system of absolute authority in their kingdom. They
were more absolute even than the other princes of their
time. No other sovereign exacted as much from his
people. The nobles, who had hitherto been exempt, were
made to pay taxes by order of Frederick William.
They protested and presented a petition, which ended in
these words: "The whole country will be ruined." "I
do not believe it," answered the king; "it is authority of

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 9
the nobles only that will be ruined. My kingdom is
founded on a rock of bronze." He looked upon himself as
the master of his subjects, and wanted to regulate their
costume even; he forbade them to wear cotton stuffs, and
whoever kept any in his house was to be condemned to
pay a fine and to wear an iron collar as a punishment.
He pretended even that he had the right to be loved. One
day he seized by the collar a young Jew who was trying to
run away from him, and giving him a beating with his
cane, said : " You ought not to fear me, do you hear ? You
should love me." Frederick II. established a monopoly
for beverages and gave it to the French farmers, in spite
of the complaints of his subjects. He did not permit any
resistance to his orders. "Argue as much as you like,"
said he, "but obey and pay."
The distinguishing feature of this monarchy was that
the king himself made it his business to be a king. He
watched over his employees, and demanded that everything
should be done with regularity. "The prince," said
Frederick, "far from being the absolute master of the
state, is only its chief domestic." An order of Frederick II. ;
dated 1749, gives an example of this kind of surveillance.
"As different employees have maltreated certain peasants,
beating them with their canes, and as His Majesty is fully
determined not to endure such tyranny over his subjects,
he ordains that when an employee has been convicted for
having beaten a peasant, he shall immediately, without
mercy, be incarcerated in a fortress for the term of six
years, even though said employee should pay better than all
the others." All business of the government was brought
before the king, who read the papers, and set notes on the
margin with his own hand.

10 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Thanks to this regime of frugality and regularity, the
house of Prussia has created, in the midst of the other
absolute monarchies, a new form, the military monarchy,
more durable than the others, because it is better regulated.
Therefore the kings of Prussia have been able to preserve
their absolute authority down to our day and have also
been able to conquer all the other states of Germany.
Origin of the Russian Empire. — The great plains of
Eastern Europe, extending from the Oder River to the
Ural Mountains, have been inhabited, from the beginning
of the Middle Ages, by peoples of Slavic origin. The
Slavs are a white race, from the same stock as the other
peoples of Europe; their language, like the Latin, the Greek,
and the German, is from the Aryan. This Slav race,
the most numerous of all the Western races, is divided into
several nationalities; to the west are the Poles and the
Czechs of Bohemia; to the south the Croats, the Servians,
and the Bulgarians, established in the Byzantine empire.
The Slavs of the east had remained divided into tribes
down to the ninth century. They cultivated the land, and
lived in villages composed of houses made of wood; their
towns were only enclosures surrounded by a wall of earth
and a ditch. Here they took refuge in time of war. It
was the warlike Northmen, coming from Sweden, who
gathered these tribes into one nation; it was called the
Russian nation, as that was the name of the country from
which came their chiefs. The Russian princes organized
an army, were converted to the Greek religion, and ordered
their subjects to be baptized. Thus in the eleventh cen
tury Russia became an orthodox Christian country, joined
to the church at Constantinople. This old Russia included
the country of the lakes and the region of the Dnieper;

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 11
that is, the western part of modern Russia, known as
Little Russia. It had two capitals: Novgorod the Great,
the city of the merchants, on the shore of Lake Ilmen;
and Kiev the Holy, a city with four hundred churches,
on the banks of the Dnieper, where arose the cathedral
of "Saint Sophia," ornamented with Greek frescoes on
a gold ground, and with Greek inscriptions.
This Russia did not succeed in forming a permanent
state; at the death of each prince, the country was divided
among his sons; in the thirteenth century there were
seventy-two principalities. An army of 300,000 Tartar
horsemen came from Asia and destroyed all these small
states, and from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century the
whole of Russia was subject to a Mongol prince, the Great
Khan of the Horde d'Or, who dwelt in a village on the
shores of the Volga. The native Russian princes were
nothing but servants of the khan; they were obliged, on
their accession, to go to his court, prostrate themselves
before him, and receive from him the titles of investiture.
When the khan sent to them any message, they were
obliged to spread down rare carpets for the bearers of the
message, offer them a cup full of gold pieces and on their
knees they must listen to the reading of the letter.
During this time, the Russians of the west had colonized
gradually the desert-like forests in the east and had
created a new Russian nation. The princes of Moscow, in
assuming the burden of collecting the tribute paid to the
Tartar khans, had become the most powerful sovereigns
of the country. For two centuries they, aided by the
Tartar armies, labored to subdue the principalities; they
were called the "Russian land-gatherers." In the six
teenth century the great princes of Moscow became free

12 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
from the Tartar dominion, and Ivan IV. took the title of
czar, that is, king (1547). The true Russia henceforth
is at the east, the country of the Volga River, Greater .Rus
sia. The village of Moscow, built at the foot of the citadel
of the Kremlin, became the capital of the new empire.
The Czar. — The czar, who governs the most widely
extended empire in Europe, has an absolute power of a
very peculiar nature. All his subjects call themselves his
slaves; following the oriental fashion, they present them
selves before him, striking the ground with the forehead
(in Russian a petition is still called "a beating of the fore
head"). All that is in his empire belongs to him, men as
well as things; he has the right to take away the property
of his subjects, or to put them to death without any other
formality than a mere order. There is no law but his will,
the only Russian laws are the "ukases," that is, the orders
of the czars. At the same time the people regard the czar
as a sacred personage in whom Holy Russia is incarnate,
and as a father whom their religion orders them to love.
The peasant even calls him father, and addresses him by
thee and thou. The inhabitants of Pskov had for many
centuries the right to meet and adjust their own affairs,
without interference. When Vasili ordered them to take
away the bell which used to call the assembly together,
they answered him: "We, thy orphaned children, we are
bound to thee until the end of all things. To God and to
thee all things are permitted in this thy patrimony."
The Russians obey their czar with fear and love as a
master, a father, and a representative of God himself.
There is in all Russia no counterpoise to this omnipotent
authority. Russia has neither institutions nor ancient
customs which the czar is obliged to respect; the Russian

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 13
law is only a collection of the ukases of the czar? Russia
has no assembly to discuss the assessment of »>axes, nor
one even to present petitions.1 At the close of the sixteenth
century the family of the czars, descended from Rurik,
became extinct. A Polish and a Swedish prince invaded
Russia and were about to settle, one at Moscow the other
at Novgorod. The Russians rose in revolt against these
strangers, and in 1612 a general assembly of all the great
personages and of the delegates from the towns was called
to choose a new czar, Michael Romanoff; but as soon
as the czar was named the assembly dissolved without
trying to take part in the government. Russia had not
even an established system of justice; the czar had the
right to condemn whom he would to the knout (the knout
is the terrible Tartar whip, with long lashes of leather,
which cut the skin, and a single blow of which may cause
death). Thia was the usual punishment for a long time.
The government of the czars has often been called "the
reign of the knout." An order alone was sufficient for the
decapitation of the accused, even of the greatest personage,
and the czar himself used to cut off the heads with his
own hand. Ivan the Terrible, to the end of his life, had a
list of his victims drawn up so as to recommend them to
the prayers of the church. The list yielded a total of 3,480
persons; 986 only are indicated by name, which is fol
lowed by "with his wife and children," or "with his
children"; the czar had caused the execution of a whole
family with that of their chief.
Nobles and Peasants. — Russia had no cities (Moscow
itself was but a large village) ; it was a nation of peasants,
• The calling of the Doma, in 1 906, makes it necessary to modify this state
ment. — Ed.

14 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
therefore it had no middle class. There were only two
classes, peasants and nobles. The Russian nobility does
not at all resemble the nobility of the other countries in
Europe. It has been from its origin a nobility of the
court (the word "dvoriano," which we translate by noble
signifies a courtier). The nobles were: i, the relatives
of the imperial family, the " kniazes " (very numerous in
Russia); 2, the descendants of the men who had exercised
some function at court, the "boyars." For a long time
precedence was regulated by the office which the ancestors
had held at court; from this arose violent quarrels. The
members of each family made it a point of honor to pre
serve the rank of their family. Even at the table of the
czar, a noble refused to sit down in a place below
another noble whose ancestors had had a less dis
tinguished office than that held by his own family; in
vain the czar ordered the officers to seat him by force, the
boyar arose violently and went out, crying that he would
prefer to have his head cut off rather than to yield his place.
But at the end of the seventeenth century, the czar, in
order to put an end to these quarrels, had only to burn
the books where was inscribed the order of precedence.
Since that time the rank of a noble has been regulated only
by the function which he himself fills at court. The nobles
were nobles only by will of the czar; he had given them
their title, he could take it away from them. "Sir," said
the czar, Paul I., to a foreigner, "I know no great lord here
except the man to whom I am speaking, and while I am
speaking to him."
It was the lands which the czar had given them which
made the importance of the nobles, for in Russia, as in all
the empires of the Orient, the whole territory belonged to

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 15
the czar. The peasants were not proprietors of the soil;
they cultivated it for the benefit of the czar, or for his serv
ants, the nobles, and they formed an inferior class called
" moujiks " (inferior men). Until the sixteenth century they
had had the right to pass from one domain to another each
year on Saint George's day, the 26th of November; they
could in that way change masters; their condition was
that of our farm domestics; they were not proprietors,
but they were free. During the civil wars at the end of
the sixteenth century, in order to prevent the laborers
from emigrating toward the south, the czars forbade the
peasants to change land on St. George's day (1597).
The moujik remained attached to the land which he
cultivated, and forever subject to the proprietor. The
condition of the peasants was at that time more unendur
able in Russia than in any other country of Europe.1
The proprietor exacted from them three days of hard
labor a week, on his own lands, or an annual rent called
the "obrock."
They were subject, without relief, to the caprices of the
master and of his intendant, without having even the
assurance of being left in their village, as was the custom
among the serfs in France. The master could take them
into his house as domestics without giving them any wages;
he could marry them off at his pleasure, send them away
as soldiers, or as farmers, even sell them to distant masters.
He could beat them and imprison them without being
called to account for it. These peasants bore more re-
semhlance to the slaves of antiquity than to the serfs of
1 The peasants remained free in the region of the northeast, where
there were no nobles, and on the shores of the Dnieper, in the Ukraine,
where they continued to live like warriors.

16 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the Middle Ages. They were called in Russian consols;
we call them serfs.
The Russian Church.— The Russian people, converted
by missionaries from Constantinople, had adopted the
religion and the customs of the Greek Church; it was, and
has remained, orthodox. The clergy is divided into two
kinds : the monks, who are called the black clergy, live in
convents, and have not the right to marry; the priests
(popes), who solemnize the service and form the white
clergy, are married; in practice, marriage is almost
obligatory. The black clergy govern the church; for the bishops,
who are obliged to live in celibacy, can be chosen only from
among the monks. The popes are hardly above the peas
ants in rank, and live among them. They have prepared
themselves to be popes through an apprenticeship as if
preparing for some manual labor; they have only learned
to sing and to celebrate the service of the church, they
hardly know how to read. For a long time they were
forbidden to preach sermons.
The Russian Church was independent of Constantinople,
it had its own liturgy, written in the old Slavonic tongue;
in the sixteenth century the czar appointed a patriarch as
head of the whole Russian Church. As the liturgical
books, frequently recopied, had been altered during the
Middle Ages, the patriarch Nicon wanted, in 1654, to
correct the errors and faults of the copyists, and to restore
the text and the ceremonies in all the purity of the ancient
church. Although he was sustained by a council of all the
bishops, this reform caused great offence. The Russians
had been very greatly attached to the exterior observances
of the church; they are so still. They observe the very

the new European powers 17
rigorous rules for Lent ordered by the Greek Church, eating
neither meat nor eggs during the forty days; in each house
there is an image (icon) before which they offer prayers
and burn candles.
Many Russians persisted in their former observances, re
used to accept the corrections of the patriarch and ceased
to frequent the churches where the reformed rites were
celebrated. They were called dissenters ("raskolniks");
they called themselves the "old believers." The difference
between them and the orthodox only bears upon certain
exterior usages; the "old believers" would only make the
sign of the cross with two fingers instead of three; they
pronounced Isous (Jesus), instead of Iissous, and thought
that it was a mortal sin to shave the beard or to smoke.
But for these questions of form, the "raskolniks" let
themselves be persecuted, imprisoned, and put to death.
They have come down through two centuries of persecu
tion and are still very numerous to-day, especially among
the free peasants of the north, and among the merchants
in the cities and towns.
Introduction of Western Civilization into Russia. — At
the close of the sixteenth century the Russians were still an
Asiatic people; they wore long beards and long robes, after
the oriental manner, the women lived secluded in their
apartments, and did not go out, unless closely veiled.
The Russians were not interested in any of the industries
which occupied the nations of the Occident, they detested
the Western peoples, and looked upon them all, Catholics
and Protestants, as heretics.
In the middle of the sixteenth century (1553) some Eng
lish mariners, seeking for a route to China, had discov
ered the White Sea. This was, at that time, the only sea

18 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
to which the empire of the czar had access (the shores of
the Baltic belonged to the King of Sweden, and the
shores of the Black Sea were in the possession of the
Sultan of Turkey). The port of Archangel was for more
than a century the only point through which Europe
could communicate with Russia. The czar had permitted
that a town should be founded there, and had given the
monopoly of the commerce to the English and Dutch
merchants who lived there. Ivan the Terrible had brought
there architects and engineers from Italy, and he had even
established a printing-house.
Nevertheless, the Russians still" remained barbarians,
and the embassies, which the czar sometimes sent to the
courts of Europe, appeared to be only troops of savages.
In 1656 two ambassadors arrived at Leghorn, who as
tonished the Italians by their filth and by their gross man
ners. They slept on the ground in their clothing, which
they did not take off, kept their handkerchiefs in the caps
on their heads; at the table they took the bits of food from
the plates with their fingers and stuck them on the end of
the forks. They were furnished with food and tins of
wine; and ondeparting carried off the empty casks, so as
to increase their baggage train. They drank brandy
until they were intoxicated, and beat their domestics with
heavy sticks. A poet had composed a sonnet in honor of
one of the ambassadors; the other ambassador was very
angry, and to calm him he was presented with a sonnet in
his honor. This time it was the other one who showed his
wrath because his own sonnet was not written on such
beautiful paper. Not only did they know no language but
Russian, they were also ignorant of the geography of the
countries to which they were sent. In their reports, ad-

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 19
dressed to the czar, the names of the towns through which
they had passed were always incorrectly given.
To this ignorance the Russians added a puerile passion
for the forms of etiquette. An embassy was sent to Louis
XIV., in 1681, in order to conclude a commercial treaty.
Every time that the name of the ruler of Russia had to be
used in the treaty the chief of the embassy, Potemkin,
desired that the following formula be repeated: "Your
Imperial Majesty." He complained that the letter writ
ten in response by the King of France was smaller than
the one sent to him by the czar. He was told that the
piece of parchment was quite as large, and that if it ap
peared smaller, it was because the manner of folding it
was different. The day when Louis XIV. received him
in audience, Potemkin, after saying a few words, stopped.
The interpreter said: "If you wish to speak, continue; if
not, I will go on." "You see," said Potemkin, "I pro
nounce the name of the czar, and the king does not stir,
he does not even raise his hat." He wanted Louis XIV.
to lift it every time that the name of the czar was men
tioned. This barbarous people could not always remain aloof
from the Christian civilization. But for more than a
century it was doubtful whether that civilization would
penetrate into Russia by way of Catholic Poland, or through
¦the Protestant countries to the north. Some Russian
seigniors had begun to adopt the Polish costume. The
peoples of the north got the start, because they were intro
duced into the very heart of Russia. The czars, when
they invaded a foreign country, were accustomed to bring
away a part of the inhabitants, in order to have them settle
in their empire. In 1565 Ivan had brought to Moscow

20 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
more than 3,000 Germans, whom he had carried off from
the provinces on the Baltic Sea. Thus was formed a
foreign colony that had its own pastors and churches.
In the sixteenth century it was increased by emigrants
drawn there through the efforts of the czar, or who had
come to make their fortunes — engineers, carpenters, min
ers, doctors, pharmacists, traders, officers; they were
from every country. But the Germans, Dutch, and
English were in the majority. At first they had lived
among the Russians. In 1652 they were thought to be
too proud, too well-dressed; they were forbidden to wear
the Russian dress, and were forced to settle outside of the
town of Moscow, in a quarter by themselves; this was the
" Sloboda" of the foreigners; in 1678 they numbered about
18,000 souls. The Russian people hated these foreigners,
and did not desire to adopt their customs, and the czars,
brought up to respect the Russian religion, had no motive
to induce them to take sides with the civilization of the
heretics. But at the close of the seventeenth century there came
to the throne a czar who had been educated in a very
different manner from his predecessors. Peter I. had been
proclaimed a czar, while he was still a child, but his sister
Sophia had taken possession in his place and had sent him
off to a house in the country. His education was much
neglected, he learned neither Latin nor orthography, he
had no religious instruction; but he made the acquaint
ance of some foreigners, visited their quarter, and was
seized with a passion for an old boat which he had found
abandoned in a granary, and he amused himself at play
ing the navigator and soldier. He went to Archangel,
where he lived among sailors and carpenters. Later

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 21
(1697) he made a journey to Western Europe for the pur
pose of study, taking with him from two hundred to two
hundred and fifty young Russians whom he wished to have
instructed1 in the methods of Western civilization.
From the time of his return to Russia Peter labored in
the effort to transform the Russians into Europeans. He
had no Russian prejudices, no taste for Russian manners,
no respect for the Russian religion; he was full of admira
tion for the civilization of the Occident, and impatient to
introduce it into his empire. Accustomed to the idea that
the czar had only to command in order to be obeyed, he
ordered his subjects to change their customs, threatening
them with the penalty of a fine or the knout in case they
did not obey. He forbade the long beards, and himself
cut off those of the seigniors of his court. Then by a
"ukase" he ordered all the functionaries of the court to
wear the European costume. He permitted the use of
tobacco, which had been forbidden as a "diabolical weed"
by the Russian Church; he himself set the example by smok
ing it. He commanded the women to appear at the
gatherings of the court, to wear the European costume,
with the face uncovered. Later, at St. Petersburg
(17 18), he tried to establish the salon life. He ordered
the principal seigniors to hold, in turn, assemblies; that is,
to give evening parties where the nobles could come with
their wives, and where they could amuse themselves in the
European fashion, dance, play cards, smoke, chat; a
law prescribed the refreshments to be served. Naturally
1 Many legends have grown up around the life of Peter the Great.
Voltaire made a collection of them and caused their adoption into history.
ft is related that he worked for a long time as a common workman in the
ship-yards of Saardam in Holland. He only visited Saardam, staying
but eight days.

22 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
these obligatory assemblies did not at all resemble the
French salons; the Russian ladies, accustomed to a life of
seclusion, stood motionless and silent; the men all got
drunk. Peter had begun reforms which were most offensive
to the people; he wounded at the same time the national
sentiment and the religious sentiment; every one opposed
him. The clergy, seeing him visit the heretics, accused him
of wishing to destroy religion; to suppress the beards
was almost a heresy; one of the patriarchs declared that
a man without a beard looked more like a cat than a
human being. The Russian army (the Strelitzers) was
discontented because the czar gave all the commands to
the foreign officers. The people of Moscow could not
endure to see him visit the "Sloboda" of the foreigners,
and to know that he refused to take his place in the re
ligious ceremonies. His wife Eudoxia, and his son
Alexander, supported the malcontents. Alexander, re
fused to learn any foreign language, and declared that
after the death of his father he would restore the old
customs and manners.
Many Russians could not believe that a Russian czar
would pursue such a line of action. They said that Peter
was not the true czar, but the son of a German woman,
or perhaps, indeed, a foreigner who had come back from
Europe in the place of Peter.
Peter had only his friends and the foreigners on his
side. But he was the czar, and this people, accustomed to
obey the czar, did not know how to revolt against his au
thority. The malcontents complained in secret and they
had to be arrested and condemned to the knout to make
them speak.

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 23
In order to destroy the opposition to his plans, Peter
employed bis usual procedure — force. The " Strelitzers "
had mutinied in his absence; on his return he had them
tortured with the knout, then long pieces of wood were set
up upon which the rebels were laid in rows, and the czar
cut off their heads. In order to rid himself of the clergy
he dismissed the patriarch and would not allow another
to be chosen in his place. In order to quell the opposi
tion in his family he condemned his wife to the knout and
put his son to death. Then he set up a new family,
marrying a Livonian prisoner, Catherine. He had her
crowned as czarina, made his home with her at St. Peters
burg, and had his two daughters educated in the Euro
pean fashion. It was these women who continued his
work. In order to be delivered from the people of Moscow he
created a new capital in a foreign land, near to the Baltic,
to which he gave the German name of St. Petersburg.
He brought people there by forcing a portion of the in
habitants of Archangel to settle in the new capital and com
manded all the seigniors to build mansions for themselves
in that city. Peter passed the period of his reign in in
troducing into Russia the acts and the institutions of Eu
rope which he had greatly admired.
That which he understood best in European civiliza
tion was the material inventions; he himself was carpenter,
soldier, sailor, engraver. The foreigners whom he brought
into Russia were neither artists nor learned men, but work
men and engineers; the schools which he founded were
practical schools (the Marine Academy, Commercial
School). The books which he had had translated into
Russian were technical works and books on political

24 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
economy and geography. He occupied himself with the
details of the trades; he ordered the shoemakers to change
their methods of working under pain of confiscation; he
forbade the wearing of large nails in the boots, and also
the making of boats according to the Russian method, be
cause that used up too much wood; he regulated the form
of the sickles and the hoes, the manner of cutting wood,
and of harvesting the grain. "Our people," said he, in
one of his laws, " are like children who learn their A, B, C's
with effort and repugnance, so that the teacher is obliged
to force them to do it. At first that appears disagreeable
to them but when they have learned, they are very grateful
to their teacher."
Transformation of the Russian Nobility. — Peter did not
diminish the power of the czar; he strengthened it
by employing instruments of government unknown to old
Russia — an army and a systematic administration.
Without taking into account the habits of the Russian
people, he transported into his empire institutions
of the Western countries whose names he had not even
taken the trouble to change. He organized his army
on the German model with field-marshals and generals.
The soldiers were clothed in the European, uniform, armed
like the troops of Europe, and were divided into foot-
soldiers and dragoons (the Cossacks alone have kept then-
national costume and preserved their old methods of
fighting). He created a fleet, modelled upon that of
Holland, by forcing into the service the Russians, who
had a horror of the sea. He created an administration
copied from the administration used in Sweden; a senate
composed of nine members, and assemblies for the purposes
of government; judges and governors for administration,

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 25
and for the police a secret cabinet. In the assemblies,
which were called colleges, the president was a Russian,
the vice-presidents were foreigners.
In order to organize this administration Peter abol
ished the title of boyar and created a table of ranks or
grades. All civil functions were made to correspond with
grades in the army.1 So there were fourteen degrees, each
corresponding to a grade; the chancellor in the civil ser
vice belonged to the first degree or rank, occupying the
same position as the field-marshal in the army; the reg
istrar of a college was in the lowest rank, on an equality
with an ensign. In the civil service they were advanced
from one degree to the other just as in the army. Russian
society to-day is a regiment where each one is ranked ac
cording to his grade. The pupil, coming from college
and entering the university, is already enrolled in the regi
ment; he belongs to the fourteenth degree. All men
provided with a grade, when taken together, are called
" tchine." In Russia there is no longer any other nobility.
Every functionary is a noble because he is in the service
of the czar, and every noble must take part in the functions
of the government. Peter had established it as a law that
every family which for two generations had not taken part
in the service of the government should cease to be noble.
When they wish to honor a merchant who has become
rich, a savant, a writer, a physician, he is given an official
title (candidate, commercial advisor), which assures him
a rank in the " tchine " and puts him on an equality with a
1 Some years ago, a university professor, who was making a scientific
journey through Siberia, visiting one of the military posts commanded by
a subaltern officer, often saw the chief of the post pay him all the honors
due to a superior officer; his title of professor had placed him in the
position of a commandant.

26 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
major or a colonel. The Russian nobility has become an
official nobility. Formerly all the degrees in the " tchine "
were transmitted to the children; to-day the inferior
grades confer only an individual nobility.
Venality.— For a long time the functionaries of the
Russian administration kept the old barbarian customs,
but under European names. Formerly the czar himself,
when he gave employment to a man, used to say to him:
"Live on your office, and gorge yourself." The func
tionaries continued to regard office as a means of getting
money from the people under their jurisdiction. Peter
the Great did not wish that his employees should pay
themselves; they were to be contented with the salary
which he gave them. He forbade them to accept any
presents, he ordered several governors to be beheaded for
bribery, and his chief officer of finance was broken on the
wheel like a common thief; but his administrators did not
mend their ways. One day, it is said, when the czar
was dictating to his attorney-general a law which ordered
the punishment, by death, of every employee convicted of
venality: "Your Majesty," said the attorney, "then wishes
to remain quite alone in the state? We all steal, some
more and more stupidly, others less and more adroitly."
Venality was a trait of the customs of the time, adminis
trators and those under their authority found it very natural
that an employee should pay himself for fulfilling the func
tions of his office. In our day, even, the government has
succeeded in concealing venality but not in suppressing it.
The Government of Russia in the Eighteenth Century. —
Peter the Great had imposed the civilization and the in
stitutions of Europe upon the Russian people. At the same
time he had made a great military and maritime power

THE NEW EUROPEAN POWERS 27
of the empire of Russia. He had destroyed the army of
the King of Sweden, and had conquered all the provinces
on the shores of the Baltic. He had begun a war against
the sultan in order to conquer the provinces along the
Black Sea. He had profited by the invasion of the Swedes,
and entered Poland under pretext of defending it. Through
the Polish nobles he had forced upon the king (17 17)
a law which forbade him to have an army of more than
18,000 men.
At his death, in 1725, he left the Russian people dis
contented, ruined by new taxes, decimated by wars
and enforced labor. But he had succeeded in transform
ing the old, barbarous, and half Asiatic Russia into a
great European empire. This metamorphosis, which
would seem to have demanded a century for its accom
plishment, Peter had brought about in one generation.
This premature work was incomplete and unsubstantial.
The sentiments of the Russians were not changed, and the
will of another czar would have been sufficient to destroy
what the will of Peter had created. It was believed, at
one time, that such a czar had come to the throne. The
grandson of Peter the Great, Peter II. , returned to Mos
cow, where, like the ancient czars, he began to hunt and
to drink; the councils ceased to act, and it was almost neces
sary to abandon the Baltic provinces. But after his death
the authority passed to three women, successively, who
came and settled at St. Petersburg, and who permitted their
favorites to govern the empire. The work of Peter the
Great was saved by the court at St. Petersburg and by
the foreign functionaries, Munich, Biron, Ostermann, and
Lestocq. It was definitely consolidated by a German
woman, Catherine, who had come into Russia as the wife

28 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
of the Czar Peter III., and who got rid of her husband and
had herself crowned czarina.
During the eighteenth century the Russian nobles grew
accustomed to the European manners and usages, and
adopted them cheerfully; they no longer wished to be
boyars, they wanted to be European nobles; their children
learned no other language but French, and then came a
time, when, in the best society, no one could speak Rus
sian. Russian was only the language of the people and
of the domestics.
But this transformation took place only in the ranks of
the nobles and among the public functionaries. The mass
of the people, the peasants and the merchants, kept their
language, their customs, and their attachment to the Greek
religion. Thus the Russian nation has been divided into two
parts — an aristocracy, civilized in the European manner,
which governs a half-civilized Asiatic race, submissive
to that government, but neither understanding it nor
loving it. The Russians are laboring to-day with the
purpose of blending into one single nation these two
superimposed races.

CHAPTER II
COLONIAL GOVERNMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
Government by Monopoly. — From the sixteenth century
the five European powers which had a marine on the
ocean were in possession of colonies. France and Eng
land continued to acquire more of them.
All the states then had the same ideas concerning the
use of colonies and the manner in which they should be
governed. They were not considered simply as unoccu
pied territory, suitable for the reception of a people who
could no longer find anything to live on in the mother
country. Europe was then sparsely peopled, having one-
third of the population of to-day; most of the countries
had not enough inhabitants to cultivate their own soil,
of which the greater part had not been touched by the
peasant-cultivators; no country had so large a population
that any inconvenience was felt on account of numbers.
The governments, in taking possession of the lands of the
New World, had thought only of the benefits which they
might derive from them. The lands most sought for were
those in the tropics, which yielded the most valued prod
ucts — such as spices, sugar, cotton and coffee. The most
healthful countries in North America remained unoc
cupied until the seventeenth century, and no one wanted
29

30 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
anything in Australia. The colonies were the domains of
the state, which were exploited for the benefit of the state.
The government insisted upon reserving for itself all the
profits of these possessions. It then set forth the principle
that it alone had the right to take the products of its col
onies. The Dutch, masters of the islands of the Straits of
Sunda, forbade the Europeans to land there, as they wished
to be the only ones to gather the spices; they did not permit
the cultivation of the spice-trees, which in some islands
could be easily kept under surveillance; forts were con
structed to keep off the smugglers, and the governors
made tours through the other islands in order to pull up
the spice-bushes which had sprouted naturally and
without any culture.
In the eighteenth century, when the colonies began
to increase in population, the colonists began to export
to Europe the products of their own plantations, and in
return received from Europe the manufactured articles
which they needed for their own use. The government
saw in this commerce a new source of revenue; it reserved
to itself the right to buy the produce of the colonists and
to sell to them manufactured goods. It declared that the
commerce of the colony was the property of the state;
such is the principle of monopoly.
The Commercial Companies. — The government did not
itself exploit its monopoly; it ceded this to private parties
who organized companies for that purpose. The model
company was the "India Company," founded in Holland
in 1602. The Dutch went to Lisbon, during the sixteenth
century, in order to secure the productions of the Indies.
After the revolt Philip II. forbade them to carry on com
merce with Portugal, so the Dutch ships began to go di-

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 31
rectly to the ports of the Indies for their commodities.
It was a dangerous performance, for the Portuguese treated
as pirates the European merchants who navigated the
Indian Ocean. Private parties were not rich enough to
organize this commerce in an unknown and hostile coun
try; a fleet of armed ships was necessary in order to with
stand the Portuguese vessels, and a personnel of agents
to keep the traders informed of the conditions and to con
clude treaties with the native princes. The private indi
viduals and the cities of Holland, willing to risk money in
the enterprise, united their capital. Thus several cham
bers of commerce were formed; each one bought and
equipped its own ships, but all were grouped in a single
company, with seven directors named by the government
and charged with the care of the common interests; that
is to say, to support the fleet and the army and to treat
with the princes in the name of the company. The gov
ernment gave to the company the monopoly of the com
merce with the Indies; the company did not admit to its
ports any other ships besides its own. The capital was
divided into 2,153 shares, valued at 3,000 florins per share.
At first the business of the company was not profitable;
between the years 161 1 and 1634 there were thirteen
years out of the twenty-four when the company could
pay no dividends to its shareholders. But at last it suc
ceeded in getting the Spice Islands and the commerce
of the Indies away from the ^Portuguese. At that time
it had seven governors and one governor-general (at
Batavia). This success induced the other countries to organize
similar companies, by giving to them the ownership of the
land and the monopoly of the commerce. The King of

32 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
England founded the North American Company,1 which
received all the sea-coast from the 41st to the 45th
degree, the Massachusetts Bay Company and the Hud
son Bay Company. In France the government distrib
uted the commerce of the whole world among the priv
ileged companies— the East India Company (1604), the
West India Company and the Saint Christopher and
Barbadoes Company (1626), the Isles of America Com
pany, the Cape Verde Company (1639), the Guinea
(1634), White Cape (1635), Orient and Madagascar
(1642), Northern (1665), Levant (1671), and Senegal
(1679) companies. Many companies failed and were re
organized. It has been estimated that down to 1769
fifty-five companies engaged in this monopoly had failed;
the greater number were French.
The Portuguese Colonies. — The Portuguese had founded
their settlements solely for the purpose of carrying on com
merce; they were satisfied to occupy a few ports, and these
they fortified. Their warships served at the same time
to keep away other ships and to carry back to Lisbon the
oriental merchandise, such as spices, calico, silks, porce
lain and ivory. Private individuals could not go to the
Indies unless authorized to do so by an order from the
government; the commerce was not extensive; the Portu
guese preferred to sell merchandise at a high price rather
than to sell a great deal. The functionaries, appointed
only for three years, made haste to get rich, and admin
istered poorly sold justice and prevented individuals from
1 A royal charter wasgranted in 1606 to two corporations; the London
and Plymouth companies. The London Company was given the right
to colonize America between the 34th and 41st degrees of North latitude;
and the Plymouth Company between the 38th and 45th degrees.
The Hudson Bay Company was chartered in 1670. — En

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 33
doing any business. This system brought in little, and
cost much, to the companies. An Enghshman, who was
sent to the Indies in order to establish commercial rela
tions, wrote in 1613: "The Portuguese, notwithstanding
their fine residences, have been reduced to beggary in
maintaining their soldiers."
The Portuguese colonies on the coast of Africa were
penal colonies where criminals were sent, and slave-
markets where the trade in negroes was carried on. About
70,000 were sent off every year from the port of Loanda.
The colony of Brazil, one of the most fertile countries
in the world, was for a long time scorned by the com
mercial companies, as it would have been necessary to set
to work and cultivate it. The sugar-cane was introduced
there by deported convicts and Jews; the mines of the in
terior were exploited by adventurers who founded the
colony of St. Paul without the aid of the government; the
Paolistas formed an independent people in the eighteenth
century. The Spanish Colonies. — The Spanish government,
which had taken possession of immense territories in
America, did not desire to create a new Spain, settled by
Spaniards; it only wished to increase the domains of the
house of Castile, and to convert the pagan savages to the
true faith. The colonies were like a large enclosed es
tate. In order to go to America a Spaniard had first to
obtain a permit from the government. Before a ship
was allowed to depart the captain was obliged to swear
that there was no one on board who had not a license.
In order to obtain this license, a "sufficient motive for
departure" must be given; it was necessary to belong to a
Catholic family of which no me^r^rj^ort^pi-generations,

34 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
had been condemned by the Inquisition; moreover, this
permission was often given for two years only.
Only a very few Spaniards were permitted to settle in
the colonies; in 1550 there were not more than 15,000
of them living in the colonial settlements. Therefore,
Spanish America was inhabited chiefly by natives and
negroes. Even to-day the inhabitants of Paraguay and
of Upper Peru are all Indians, and three-fourths of the
Mexicans are mestizos. The Jesuit missionaries had
organized Indian villages, called reductions or parishes, in
California and in Paraguay, which no whites were allowed
to approach. The government did not seek to attract
farmers or workmen. It had declared itself proprietor of
the soil, and had divided the land into vast domains
which were distributed to the favorites of the king. The
Count Valencianas had lands which were valued at
more than 25,000,000 francs and a mine which brought
him a revenue of 1,500,000 francs per year. On these
domains hardly any one but Indians and negroes were to
be found. "The cultivation of the soil is despised," said
a traveller in the eighteenth century; "each one wants to
live like a gentleman and to lead an idle life." The Span
ish all gathered in the towns; they were the proprietors,
functionaries, lawyers, speculators, and monks. Many of
them were the younger sons of noble families who had come
to America to five in a noble manner and without work.
It was one of the three careers open to the Spanish noble.
The proverb said: "Choose the sea, the church, or the
service of the king." At Lima one-third of the whites
were of noble birth, and there were forty-five families
whose chiefs were either marquis or count. Everything
in these colonies was modelled on Spanish customs and

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 35
modes of government; they had the entailed estates, the
tithes, the Inquisition, the censorship of all printed matter.
(The officers of the Inquisition could at any hour enter
any house in order to search for prohibited literature.)
It was an old society in a new country, and the govern
ment intended not to allow it to be changed. It carefully
kept away all foreigners; even to the middle of the seven
teenth century every foreign ship was treated as a pirate
vessel; the sailors who landed were executed, or sent to
forced labor in the mines. After the interdict had been
lifted the Inquisition continued to repulse all foreigners
on the ground of heterodoxy. The government was even
suspicious of the whites who were born in America and
who are called Creoles. It would not allow them to be
taught. In a speech to the pupils of the colleges at Lima,
the viceroy said: "Learn to read, write, and to say your
prayers; that is all that an American ought to know."
The government would not allow them to have any part
in the administration. All the offices were given to the
"old Spaniards." Out of 160 viceroys only four were
Creoles; out of 369 American bishops until 1673 only twelve
were Creoles. The government, to prevent the Creoles
from acting in concert, preserved an inequality between the
"people of blue blood" (the whites) and the "people of
color" (Indians, negroes, and mestizos).
The state reserved for itself a monopoly of the commerce;
the colonists could not sell their commodities except to
merchants who were licensed, and they must buy manu
factured goods from the licensed traders only. As Amer
ica had been discovered and occupied in the name of the
Queen of Castile, the commerce of America belonged to
the crown of Castile and could be carried on only in

36 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Castilian ports. The good ports in Spain were all cities
of the kingdom of Aragon; but every ship leaving for Amer
ica was obliged to visit the port of Seville; it was a very or
dinary port, but it belonged to Castile.1 In 1 513 a bureau
of commerce was established there; the clerks visited every
ship on the eve of its departure, kept a register, and gave
a patent, which permitted the vessel to make the voyage.
In 1720 the monopoly was transferred to Cadiz. The
vessels sailed in fleets and all landed at the same port.
There were two fleets a year; one sailed for Vera Cruz,
which was the outlet for all the commerce of Mexico, the
other (the galleons) for Cartagena and Porto Bello, where
all South America and even Buenos Ayres came for their
supplies. The admiral of the galleons and the Governor
of Panama fixed the price of all the merchandise. The
merchants who formed the privileged companies bought
the commodities of the colonies at a low price, and sold the
manufactured products of Europe, especially iron and
steel, at a profit of one hundred to three hundred per cent.
The fleet did not suffice as a means of supply for the col
onies, nor for the exportation of the produce, and yet the
colonists were forbidden to buy from foreigners or to sell
to them their commodities. Smuggling was regarded as
a heresy, and was punished by the tribunal of the Inquisi
tion. But as they could not live without it, they carried it
on extensively, and the foreign ships especially profited
by war to come and disembarked their merchandise.
The consequence was that the commerce of the Spanish
colonies was greatly increased by war. In 171 3 the
1 In the same way, during the period when the King of Spain was also
the King of Portugal, the Portuguese of the Moluccas were forbidden' to
trade with the Philippines.

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 37
conquered King of Spain was obliged to sign a treaty of
asiento with the English government. He gave to the
English alone the right of carrying on the trade in slaves in
the Spanish colonies, and he gave them permission to
send, every year to the fair at Porto Bello, a vessel of
500 tons, laden with English merchandise. This vessel
became a veritable mart; it remained before the town,
while other English ships went to Jamaica and to Santo
Domingo in search of more merchandise, so that its cargo
was constantly replenished. The commerce of the gal
leons, which had amounted to 15,000 tons, fell in 1737 to
2,000 tons.
The Dutch Colonies. — The people of Holland had formed
their marine from the fleets that were in the habit of going
through the North Sea in search of herring. In the seven
teenth century they owned more merchant ships than any
other nation in Europe; they went to foreign ports, carry
ing their wares from one country to another; they were
called the carriers of the seas. The Dutch colonies were
colonies for commerce alone; they belonged to the great
India Company, which had taken them from Portugal.1
For its trade in the Indies the company, instructed by
the check which the Portuguese system had sustained,
adopted an entirely different regime. It demolished the
fortresses and settled in the open ports, having neither
fortifications nor armies; it entertained amicable relations
with the sovereigns of the countries, keeping out of politics,
and making no attempt to convert the subjects; it gained
the support of the native merchants by purchasing their
1 The islands of Curacao and Saint Eustache were used to carry on
smuggling with the Spanish colonies. Cape Town was a call-port for
vessels going to India. Surinam was a colony of plantations cultivated
by slaves.

38 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
goods and by selling to them, at a low price, the manufact
ured merchandise brought from Europe. The principle
was to be content with small profits. Thus the company
had all the profits of the commerce without any of the ex
pense attendant on occupation. It forbade its employees
to trade on their own account, but it payed them well and
regularly. Becoming a great power, the company gradu
ally returned to the methods pursued by the other govern
ments. It destroyed almost all the natives of the Moluccas,
massacred troops of Chinese in Java (1740), and drove to
revolt the King of Lernate, whom it wanted to force
to pull up all the clove-plants in his domains. It obliged
all ships, returning from the Indies to Holland, to pass
around by the Orkneys instead of through the English
Channel, and the ships going to the Indies had to stop at
Batavia in order to be searched. The clerks began to
trade on their own account; they did more business than
did the company itself, and burdened its ships with their
merchandise. When the King of Holland became director-
in-chief of the company (1748) the administrative offices
were given to men who did not concern themselves with
trade. Finally, the company contracted an enormous
debt; in 1794 its liabilities were 127,000,000 florins and the
assets 15,000,000 florins only.
The French Colonies. — A French colony was organized
like a province. The colonists were not permitted to rule
themselves; an intendant, all-powerful as in France, de
cided the most insignificant affairs. The censorship of
the press and religious persecution were transported to
America; no Protestant was admitted into the colonies,
tithes were established for the benefit of the clergy and
seigniories for the nobles. The colonists had no more

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 39
political and religious liberty than was granted to the sub
jects of the kingdom. More than that, as the monopoly
of the commerce had been given to a licensed company,
they were forbidden to erect factories; they were obliged
to buy the articles sent out from the Fench manufactories;
these were usually inferior goods and were sold at an
immense profit. The colonists could trade only with the
agents of the company.
Under this regime there were flourishing colonies only in
the Antilles, especially in Santo Domingo, where the Cre
oles made the negro slaves do the work. Canada, with
its territory as large as the whole of Europe, had in 1682
only 10,000 souls, in 1774 only 54,000, and at the time
when it was conquered by the English the inhabitants
numbered 70,000 souls; to-day the French-Canadian
population amounts to over 2,000,000.
The English Colonies. — England, the last comer among
the colonial powers, had only small, scattered colonies
along the North American coast. As they produced no
valuable commodity the government took little account of
them; it did not take the trouble to organize them or
govern them. Therefore, the settlement of the colonies
was without restraint. In the North the colonists were
chiefly the persecuted Puritans who had come to America
in the time of Charles I. in order to be free in the exercise
of the worship enjoined by their religion. They had built
Protestant churches, cultivated the land, and had founded
in America a new fatherland which they called New
England. These were religious colonies. "If any one
among us," they said, "values religion as twelve, and the
world as thirteen, he has not the soul of a genuine New
Englander." In the South the country had been occupied

40 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
by planters who lived like country gentlemen in the
midst of their negro slaves.
There were thirteen colonies, each with a distinct gov
ernment of its own. They were divided into three kinds.
The proprietary colonies belonged to one or to several
private individuals who had received them as a donation
from the government; in granting the concession the
state gave up meddling in the affairs of the colony; the
eight proprietors of the Carolinas, for example, had the
right to appoint all the officials, to levy the taxes providing
they had the consent of the colonists, to make war, and to
create a nobility. The chartered colonies belonged to a
privileged company, the crown colonies belonged to the
government. But everywhere the colonists had pre
served the rights of Englishmen; they ruled themselves,
voted their taxes, regulated their religious affairs, and
could be tried only by a jury. The English government
did not concern itself with their affairs, save in the ap
pointment of governors. The cultivation of the land was
open to all. Unoccupied lands were sold to any one who
would cultivate them; the family of Penn, the founder of
Pennsylvania, sold yearly lands to the amount of 30,000
pounds sterling. Thus was formed a population of small
English proprietors. Until the middle of the seventeenth
century the colonists had been free to trade with the for
eign merchants; there was an extensive commerce espe
cially with Holland; but the Long Parliament, to oblige
the English to create a marine service, decided, through
the Navigation Act of 1651, that henceforth no mer
chandise could be brought into an English port save in an
English vessel, equipped by an English shipowner, com
manded by an English captain, and at least three-fourths

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 41
manned by English sailors. Thus the monopoly of com
merce in the English colonies was given to Englishmen.
India. — India, in the eighteenth century, was more
thickly settled than Europe, but it did not form a nation,
and the inhabitants had been for many centuries ruled
by foreign conquerors. The last dominion, founded in the
sixteenth century, had been that of a Tartar prince, estab
lished at Delhi. This prince, the Grand Mogul, had, in the
seventeenth century, united all India in a single empire.
In the eighteenth century this empire had already been
destroyed; there remained no other power in the country
except that of the governors, who had become sovereigns,
and of the chiefs of bands who, with their mercenaries,
were making war on each other.
The two governments, France and England, had each
formed an East India Company for the purpose of carry
ing on a privileged commerce. The two companies, French
and English, were organized in the same way; each
owned some towns on the coast which were defended by
forts, and which were provided with warehouses. They
maintained in these towns an army of commercial em
ployees, some soldiers, and a governor. These companies
were in themselves petty powers. In the eighteenth cen
tury it was necessary for them to defend their establish
ments, to take part in the wars which they carried on with
the petty sovereigns of the country. It was soon evident
that a small army, organized and disciplined in the Euro
pean fashion, could defeat a large native army, and that
an excellent European army could be formed with the
Hindoo soldiers. Regiments of "sepoys" were formed
from the bands of native mercenaries. These were com
manded by European officers, and armed in the Euro-

42 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
pean manner. This idea originated with Dupleix, the
director of the French company. The English company
welcomed the idea and profited by it.
Struggle Between France and England. — At the begin
ning of the eighteenth century the two great powers of
Europe, France and England, found themselves engaged
in a struggle which was to continue for more than a cen
tury. In 1688 William of Orange, becoming King of
England, had put himself at the head of a coalition of the
states of Europe in order to put a stop to the conquests of
Louis XIV. From that moment England had remained
the principal adversary of France, and in all the great
wars where France was engaged, she found England
ranged among her enemies. Before the Revolution there
were five wars between the two rival powers: I. The
League of Augsburg (1 689-1 697); 2. Spanish Succession
(1702-1713);1 3. Austrian Succession (1740-1748); 4.
Seven Years' War (1756-1763); 5. War of American
Independence (1776-1783).
The first four were chiefly continental wars, when
England intervened as an ally of the enemies of France
(of Austria in the first three, and of Russia in the Seven
Years' War). But the war extended beyond the conti
nent; each of the rivals sought to destroy the ships and
conquer the colonies belonging to the other.
These maritime and colonial wars, were to have conse
quences of which no one at that time had even dreamed.
When the contest began, France had the advantage.
The navy was in 1677 composed of 300 ships, not includ
ing the corsairs of Dunkirk and St. Malo, which in time
1 During the first half of the reign of Louis XV. the regent, and after
ward Cardinal Fleury, held the policy of maintaining peace with England.

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 43
of war made it their business to capture the English mer
chantmen. (During the war of the League of Augsburg,
the English lost, in this way, at least 4,200 vessels; their
maritime insurance companies were ruined.)
France had taken the lead also in the colonies. In the
time of Henry IV., Canada and the adjacent regions of
Newfoundland, Acadia and Hudson Bay, had been
occupied. France had just taken possession of the coun
try about the mouth of the Mississippi (Louisiana), and
had just established through the Ohio valley a chain of
forts which bound Canada to Louisiana, that is to say,
the basin of the St. Lawrence with the basin of the Mis
sissippi. So she was mistress of nearly all of North Amer
ica. In the Antilles she owned not only Martinique and
Guadeloupe, but many other islands which have been
taken from her — Saint Lucia, Dominica, and Tabago.
She had acquired the western part of the large island of
Santo Domingo, Hayti, and had begun to grow large
plantations of sugar-cane. She owned, besides, French
Guiana and Senegal. She had tried to rule the great
Island of Madagascar. The establishments created by
Colbert did not last, but at the beginning of the eighteenth
century the two neighboring islands, Reunion and the
Isle of France became flourishing French colonies. In
Asia the East India Company had establishments in
many cities. Thus France became possessed of immense
territories, somewhat like deserts, it is true, but which, one
day, would have been populated and would form to-day
a vast French colonial empire. England, at the same
epoch, had only her colonies on the eastern coast of North
America, bounded on the west by the French possessions
along the Ohio, the island of Jamaica in the Antilles, and

44 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the general factories of Bombay and Madras in the East
Indies. Nothing then indicated that England was to be
come a great maritime and colonial power. England was
not at that time the country of commerce and industry
which we know to-day, and. its marine service was not
superior to that of France.
The wars of the eighteenth century reversed matters
and gave to England maritime and colonial supremacy.
By the Peace of Utrecht (1713), France, completely ruined
by her defeats on the continent, and being incapable of
maintaining a war-fleet, had ceded Acadia, Newfound
land and the Hudson Bay to England. She still retained
the best part of her: possessions. The French company
began the conquest of India, the war-fleet was reorgan
ized and made a glorious struggle against the English fleet
(1740-1748), when the war again began (1756). The
statesmen of neither country had taken into account the
importance which a colonial empire might have for their
governments. At that time the colonies were hardly con
sidered more than domains where one could raise coffee,
indigo, and sugar-cane; the Antilles were esteemed of the
greatest value. The immense territories of North Amer
ica were looked upon as useless possessions, the govern
ment did not care to see its subjects emigrate to these col
onies, it preferred to keep them at home; no one then be
lieved that it would be of any advantage to France to have
millions of French on the other side of the ocean. D'Ar-
genson, one of the ministers of Louis XV., said that if he
were king of France, he would give all the colonies for the
head of a pin, and Voltaire thought it was absurd for the
French and English to go to war "over a few arpents of
snow" — it was thus that he called the countrv of the Ohio.

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 45
England had at this time a minister, William Pitt, who
foresaw the importance of these colonies, then so despised.
He wished England to become the first maritime power
of the world, so that the English ships alone should carry
on commerce. English industry had begun to be estab
lished and it had need of an outlet; the great commercial
interests of England sustained Pitt and induced the House
to vote the enormous sums which were needed to crush
out the marine and conquer the colonies of France. The
French fleet was destroyed; the Minister of Marine de
clared that the vessels which had escaped were not suffi
cient to oppose the English, and he sold them to private
individuals. The English fleet was mistress of the seas,
a"hd could take possession of the French Antilles, which
were left defenseless.
In North America the French woodsmen of Canada
formed an alliance with the Indians, and at first repulsed
the English colonists who were much more numerous.
But the English received reinforcements from their gov
ernment, while the French minister abandoned the
Canadians, who succumbed to overwhelming numbers.
In the Indies the director of the French company, Du-
pleix, had acquired some provinces; the company allowed
itself to be persuaded to abandon them and to recall
Dupleix to France; it was a commercial company which
cared for nothing but to realize a profit on investments;
the government only intervened to decide against Dupleix
(1754). Four years later the English company began the
conquest of Bengal and attacked the possessions of the
French company. The government tried to defend them
but had an insufficient force. By the treaty of Paris, 1763,
France ceded to England Canada and several islands of

46 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the Antilles, to Spain the territory of Louisiana, and
promised to cease the maintenance of an army in India;
this was to give up the possession of a colonial empire.
The English Colonial Empire.— England succeeded
France in America and in India. She was mistress of all
North America as far south as Mexico, and she continued
the conquest of India. The shareholders of the French
company had wanted that it should only be concerned in
commercial affairs, and had brought about the recall of
Dupleix, whom they reproached for having engaged the
company in costly wars. The English company left
their employees free to act, and Clive, in a single battle,
conquered the whole kingdom of Bengal.
The employees, having by a single act, become masters
of a country containing 60,000,000 souls, ruled it like ty
rants, despoiling the inhabitants, and making enormous
fortunes; then they returned to England displaying all
the luxurious splendor of an oriental sovereign; they
were called "Nabobs." The scandal was such that when
the time came for the renewal of the privileges of the
company, which privileges were granted for twenty years,
the English government reserved to itself the power of
naming the governor-general; it left to the company only
the monopoly of the commerce. The governors-general
continued the conquest in the name of the company,
which finally, in the nineteenth century, became the sole
sovereign of India. It seems marvellous, at the first glance,
that a country of 200,000,000 souls should permit itself
to be conquered by a company of foreign merchants. But
in reality India was not a nation; it was only an assem
blage of peoples; some were Brahmins, others Moslems.
There was nothing to bind them together, neither race, nor

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 47
religion, nor government, and they had no reason for acting
in concert. The mass of the population was formed of
peaceable tillers of the soil, who were accustomed to see*
themselves oppressed by foreigners. There was no nation
but only an unorganized body of sovereign princes. The
India Company was only one sovereign fighting against
other sovereigns. It conquered them all, because it alone
had a regular army at its disposal.
Revolt of the English Colonies in America. — The con
quest of Canada changed the situation for the thirteen
English colonies in America; thenceforth they no longer
needed to fear an attack on the part of France, and they
no longer needed the help of England for their defence.
The colonists ceased to feel that they were protected by
the English government, and they began to complain that
they were oppressed. The English Parliament regulated
the commerce of the colonies. It decided the amount of
the customs duty which each kind of merchandise had to
pay. It prohibited commerce in certain kinds of merchan
dise, both exports and imports. The colonists had never
protested against this right of the Parliament, but England
had never demanded that the colonists should pay any
taxes. The English government, burdened with a heavy
debt contracted during the war, thought that it was legiti
mate to ask the colonists to contribute, in a small measure,
to the expenses of England. The colonists protested,
pleading the old English custom, that no one is bound to
pay a tax unless the tax has been voted for by the proper
representatives.1 Now the colonies did not send repre
sentatives to the English Parliament. Parliament took
1 By proper representation, the colonists meant representation in their
own assemblies. — Ed,

48 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
no notice of the protest and voted a light impost in the
form of a stamp-tax (1764). The colonists prevented the
sale of stamped paper, by maltreating whoever dared to
take it upon himself so to dispose of it, and by breaking
to pieces the boxes of stamps; the English government
had no officials in the colonies, and could not protect the
collectors of the impost; if an American was brought to
justice, the jury acquitted him. Parliament removed the
tax.1 In 1767 the government again fixed a tax, but under
the form of customs-duty, to be paid on several articles
of merchandise (glassware, leather, paper, tea) brought
into America. The colonists again began to send in peti
tions and to threaten the customs-officers; they agreed
among themselves not to buy any English merchandise,
and in that way they would punish the English. The
colonists in the North (New England) were the most
excited; in Boston smuggling was carried on openly, a
cargo of Madeira wines, entered through fraud, was
transported through the streets with an escort of armed
men. The government tried to station regiments of sol
diers in America. When the arrival of a garrison was
made known in Boston, the inhabitants held a meeting
where they resolved that no army should remain in the
colony without their consent. When the garrison had
gone into quarters, the soldiers could not go out into the
streets without being maltreated. The government
yielded, withdrew the duty, but allowed the tax on tea to
1 This action was taken chiefly because of the influence of the Stamp
Act Congress which met in New York, October 7, 1765. Delegates from
nine of the colonies were present. A petition was sent to the British
government to withdraw the Stamp Act, and a formal statement of their
rights was prepared. The Stamp Act was repealed March 18, 1 766. — Ed.

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 49
remain in order to support the principle involved in its
action (1770). The colonies resumed their relations with
England. But the colonists had grown accustomed to
violent measures. A vessel, which was patrolling the
coast of Rhode Island, having foundered, was boarded
by a band of men who had embarked in eight small boats.
The captain was wounded and the vessel was burned, and
Although the leaders of the expedition were known, no one
was willing to bear witness against them (1772). Some
time afterward the East India Company sent three ships
laden with tea to Boston. A body of men, disguised as
Indians, seized the ships and threw 342 cases of tea into
the waters of the bay.
The English, irritated by this insult, took measures
against the rebellious colony; Parliament declared the
port of Boston closed, and changed the constitution- of
the colony. The other colonies sided with Boston, con
tributed money, and sent wheat and rice to the people.
Then the assemblies of the colonies ordered a levy of
troops, to resist the English soldiers, and they sent dele
gates to Philadelphia1 for the purpose of coming to some
agreement on the means to be employed in organizing
armed resistance to the movements of England.
Independence of the Colonies. — The American colonists
had been gradually brought to the employment of resist
ance through the use of force by the English government
(the first combat took place in 1775). However, it was not
yet a question of revolt; they wanted to intimidate the
1 The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, September 5,
1774- The Second Continental Congress met also in Philadelphia, May 10,
1775. It made itself a national government. Voted to raise a conti
nental army, ordered a state of defence, and authorized bills of credit.
—Ed.

50 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
English and force them to yield; but they did not desire
to be separated from England. The traders had an in
terest in the preservation of their position as Englishmen,
which permitted them to do business with all the English
colonies. The planters in the colonies of the South, the
well-to-do people in the centre and in the North — all the
rich classes were attached to the king and looked with
horror upon a separation. But a new party was formed
in New England.1 This party was composed chiefly of the
common people, was led by lawyers, and wished to go to
war, and to establish a republic. This party was in the
minority but it acted with vigor. Bodies of men began to
go through the country, expelling the judges and mal
treating the partisans of England who were called Tories.
As they were the party of the king, a judge or a customs-
officer was given a coat of tar and feathers (following the
American custom). Thus a new regime was established
in the greater part of the colonies.
The congress of delegates assembled at Philadelphia
was divided into two almost equal parties. The dele
gates from the North wished to declare their independ
ence and to separate definitively from England; they
said that never would a similar opportunity be found, for
there still remained many colonists who had been in the
war against Canada and who would help to form an
army. The delegates from the South and from the cen
tre did not desire a republic.2 The republican party
succeeded in changing the governments of the resisting
1 It was organized in different sections of the country. Samuel Adams
was a leader in Massachusetts and Patrick Henry in Virginia. — Ed.
3 It is not correct to say that there was a contrast between the views of
the delegates from the different sections. Richard Henry Lee, following
the instructions from Virginia, the colony he represented, introduced the
resolution for independence. — Ed.

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 51
colonies. Then a majority was formed for the declara
tion of 1776, which had been drawn up by Jefferson. In
this declaration, Congress, relying on inherent right, enu
merates the acts wherein the King of England had violated
the rights of the Americans and resolves that in consequence
the colonies should be "free and independent States."
The war between England and her colonies was long
and doubtful as to the result. Parliament had voted
funds for an army of 50,000 men; but the English govern
ment had almost no soldiers; volunteers were enrolled,
troops were purchased from the German princes, and In
dians were employed. Two years were needed to gather an
army ready for action, and how could they act in a coun
try where they must cross an immense uninhabited terri
tory without roads, without provisions, and drawing all
their supplies from England? For a long time the Eng
lish generals were satisfied to occupy the towns along the
coast; one army, which tried to plunge into the interior,
was starved, harassed, and reduced to such exhaustion
that it capitulated.
The government of the Congress was still more feeble.
It had no legal authority, could neither levy troops nor
taxes; the assembly of each colony levied and paid its
own militia, and often refused to place it at the service of
Congress. It had no other resources than to confiscate
the property of the Tories, and to issue the paper money,
which it had created. This paper was continually dimin
ishing in value; in 1778 it was already worth only one-
eighth of its nominal value, in 1780 only one-fiftieth.
In 1777 the army of the Congress was reduced to 1,500
men; the others had deserted, taking their arms with
them. Congress voted a levy of 65,000 men; only 15,000

52 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
could be brought together. They lacked everything;
many had no shoes and were forced to go bare-footed.
The line of march could be traced by blood. In Sep
tember they were two days without any food; in De
cember, having no coverings, the soldiers were obliged to
pass the night around the fires which they had built. The
officers resigned, those who were away on leave refused to
return. Washington, the General-in-Chief, wrote to the
Congress: "One may speak of patriotism, one may draw
from ancient history examples of grand deeds accom
plished under the dominion of that sentiment, but one will
find himself deceived if he relies on that to conduct a
long and bloody war. ... I know that patriotism exists,
and that it has done much in the present contest, but
I venture to declare that a war of some duration cannot
be carried on upon this principle alone."
The Americans were powerless to defend themselves
against an army well organized and provisioned. It was
France who came to the aid of the insurgents, sent them
money, arms, a corps of troops, put them into a condition
so that they could continue their resistance, and helped
them to defend their country. France had no direct inter
est in this war; the wisest of her ministers, Turgot and
Malesherbes, wanted to avoid intervention in the contest.
But Congress had sent to Paris a clever commissioner,
Franklin, celebrated for his invention of the lightning-rod,
who knew how to win public opinion. The Minister Ver-
gennes, who had the confidence of Louis XVI., saw in this
war a means of weakening the power of the English, and
France took sides with the Americans.
England had then to fight France and her ally Spain;
she was obliged to put 300,000 men under arms, and to

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 53
guard against an invasion of Ireland by the French troops.
The majority in Parliament were seized with a disgust of
the war, and obliged the king to make peace. England
recognized the independence of the United States (1783).
France, who had carried the principal burden of the war,
demanded nothing for herself. The French commission
ers would have liked a guarantee for the property and the
liberty of the .Americans, who had supported the English
government and had taken refuge in the English army.
Congress was content to recommend them to the govern
ment of each colony, but made no effort to protect them.
The republicans refused to receive them, and would
not return to them the property which had been con
fiscated. They maltreated those who had remained in
the country and forced them to emigrate. American
society was transformed by these confiscations and emi
grations. The rich and the families in easy circumstances
almost disappeared from New England. At the head of
society were the partisans of the new regime.
The war having come to an end, each colony resumed
its complete independence and governed itself as a sover
eign state. Congress had no longer any authority.
Decrees were made but no one obeyed them. It seemed
as if the confederation were about to be dissolved. The
officers who wanted to preserve the union which had been
created for the common defence, offered to make Wash
ington dictator, but he refused. Finally the partisans of
union succeeded in making the colonies understand that
it was necessary tQ remain united in order to protect their
commercial interests, and in 17871 the government of the
1 The Constitution was adopted by the requisite number of states in
1788, and the new government went into force in 1789. — Ed.

54 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
United States of America was formed. Each state pre
served its "sovereignty, liberty and independence," its
administration and its independent tribunals.1 The Con
gress, composed of representatives from all the states, was
charged with the care of the army and navy, with the
relations with foreign lands, and with the direction of
commerce and the postal service.
1 The states were no longer completely sovereign and independent.
— Ed.

CHAPTER III
THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE NEW IDEAS
Industry and Commerce in the Seventeenth Century. —
In the Middle Ages no one could labor except on condi
tion of being admitted into one of the corporations author
ized by the seignior; no one could make anything unless
he followed the rules laid down by the seignior. The
absolute monarchies had preserved the corporations and
the regulations for trade and manufacture. Throughout
all Europe it was admitted that the state had the right to
regulate all manufactures. A private individual did not
have the right to create any industry. To manufacture
was the privilege of the masters of the trades, established
in the towns. One could, under penalty of imprisonment,
neither set up a factory in the country nor even open a
new work-shop in a town. Even those who had the privi
lege of working could not do so freely; they had to manu
facture according to the old processes and to the pre
scribed measures. The statesmen were accustomed to
say that the industrials needed the guidance of the gov
ernment. In France Colbert had drawn up an industrial
regulation which prescribed what kind of a plane should
55

56 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
be used, and what width every piece of cloth must meas
ure. Inspectors watched over the manufactures; every
product, not conforming to the regulation, was confis
cated and often burned. The government took charge of
the introduction of new industries. It created certain
industries whose superintendent and workmen were paid
by the state. (Of this nature was the Gobelins and the
lace-factories established by Colbert). It was also a
principle in Europe that the state should regulate the
commerce of the country. Private individuals aid not
have the right to transport their commodities, to sell or to
buy, except by permission from the state and according
to its regulations. The French government prohibited
the export of the grains of the kingdom; it even prohibited
them from being carried from one province to another, or
from being stored for future use. This was because it
was concerned in avoiding a famine and because it was
afraid of the monopolists who were accused of concealing
grain in order to raise the prices. Usually the result of this
interdict was that the province where the harvest was a
failure suffered from want because grain could not be
brought in freely; while in the province where the harvest
was abundant, the peasants had grain to spare because
they did not know to whom they could sell it.
In the matter of taxes there was no general principle.
Each state sought to establish the taxes which would
bring in the most money without asking whether there
was any risk of impoverishing the country. Almost
everywhere taxes were very unequally established; the
nobles were almost entirely exempt because the govern
ment was interested in sparing them, while the peasants
were almost crushed by the burden.

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 57
The Mercantile System. — Commerce with foreign lands
was regulated by the principles which were laid down in
the fifteenth century by the statesmen of Venice and of
Florence. "Every state," they then said, "is the com
mercial rival of every other state; commerce is a war."
"Each state ought to labor in the effort to increase its
wealth at the expense of the others. Now wealth consists
especially of gold and silver, for he who has money can
procure everything else. The rule, then, is to bring the
most money possible into a country and to take out the
least possible amount of it. For that it is necessary to
export (that is to say, we must sell to the foreigner) much
merchandise, in exchange for which money is received,
and to import as little as possible, so that one need not spend
his money. Governments are like commercial houses,
each one is enriched by selling much and buying little.
At the end of the year a comparison of the exports and im
ports is made, this is what is called "the balance of trade."
(It is supposed that each state is like a banking-house
which at the end of the year makes a comparison of its
profit and loss, the balance-sheet.) When a state has ex
ported more than it has imported it has realized a profit in
money and the "balance of trade" is in its favor; if it has
imported more, it has lost money and the "balance of
trade" is against it. It is, therefore, a question of increas
ing exportation which enriches, and of diminishing im
portation which impoverishes, especially the importation
of manufactured articles. Each government should take
measures to prevent the sale, in its state, of the products
of these manufactories and replace foreign goods with wares
manufactured in the country. For this purpose two pro
cedures are employed. The most radical is to prohibit

58 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the merchants from introducing certain articles manu
factured abroad. Colbert forbade the sale of Venetian
laces in France. The French could only buy laces which
were made in the French manufactories; this is the pro
hibitory system. Or the country may limit itself to ex
acting the payment on all foreign wares on their entry of a
customs-duty,1 which obliges the traders to raise the price
of the articles. The same articles when manufactured in
the country, not having to pay the tax, may compete ad
vantageously with the wares brought from another coun
try. The duties levied at the frontier by the government,
serve at one and the same time for a revenue to aid the
state and for a protection to aid the industrial class; such
is the protective system.
In the seventeenth century all the states of Europe had
taken measures for prohibition or for protection. The
Navigation Act of 1651 was an application to the English
marine of the prohibitory system. It forbade trade with
England or with any English colony, save by English
ships, owned by English merchants and commanded by
an English captain. Colbert had organized protection in
France. " The customs-duties," said he, "are the crutches,
by the aid of which trade learns how to move, and which
it rejects when it has become strong enough to move
alone." This regime was called the mercantile system.2
Its purpose was to encourage commerce and to make
1 Tax on foreign merchandise had existed as early as the twelfth cen
tury in the Levant. The office charged with assessing this tax was al
ready called the "douane" (from an Arab word). But the tax was only
a means of procuring money. Later came the idea of employing it to
protect industries.
2 Properly speaking, there has never been either a general theory or a
general application of this regime. It was agreed that the maxims and
the methods of the statesmen of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
should be collected under the name of mercantilism.

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 59
money flow into the country. It suited the Italian towns,
which could not grow rich except by manufacturing and
exporting the products, and which had to defend their
commerce from the inroads of hostile cities. It had its
place in the fifteenth century, when money was rare and
much sought after. But it no longer applied to the great
states and at an epoch when the discovery of America
had made gold and silver abundant.
The Economists. — People had begun in the seventeenth
century to study theoretically the means of augmenting
the wealth of a country and a state. This study was
called potitical economy,1 that is to say, the science of the
domestic enconomy of the state. The economists were
searching for a way to regulate industry and commerce in
order to render them more productive and for a tax that
would be of most benefit to the state with the least em
barrassment to the individual. There have been three
generations of economists. The greater number were
Frenchmen :
i. At the close of the reign of Louis XIV., Boisguillebert
in two works, the "Detail de la France" (1697) and the
" Factum de la France " (1707), and Vauban, in the '" Dime
royale" (1707), pointed out the impoverishment of
France. They showed by statistics that the population
had diminished and that the government, in spite of
rigorous measures, could not longer succeed in collecting
the taxes. The default was owing to the system of the
villein tax. This tax was fixed arbitrarily by the in-
tendants and their appointees; the rich found a way of
exemption for their domains, and for those of their ten
ants; the lands of the nobles were exempt by law. The
1 This word was first employed by Monchre'tien in 161 5.

60 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
small proprietors alone remained to sustain the whole
burden; often the tax took one-third of the product
of the harvest (without counting the tithes due to the
clergy and the rents due to the seigniors). The country
was depopulated and the lands remained uncultivated,
for the peasants did not care to work. Vauban and Bois-
guillebert proposed to remedy the evil by establishing an
equitable tax which would be levied without distinction
on all lands. Their books were condemned and burned
by the executioner (1707). But they began to make people
think that the system of taxes in France was in need of
reform. 2. Toward the middle of the reign of Louis XV. the
king's physician, Quesnay, published the "Tableau
economique." Louis XV. was interested in it and, it is
said, even corrected the proof. Political economy be
came the fashion and a group of disciples gathered around
Quesnay. They were seigniors like Mirabeau, or high
officials like the intendant Gournay. Their principle was
that God has set natural laws, which regulate the produc
tion of wealth; these laws are perfect; every law, in these
matters that is made by man, is of less value than the
natural law. The best rule, then, is to let things follow
their natural course. They called their doctrine physi-
ocracy (domination of nature). The physiocrats also
asked themselves whence comes wealth, which led them
to lay down a theory of production.
Gold and silver, they say, are not wealth. They are
only signs of it. Real wealth is found in useful objects.
Quesnay only considered as riches the products of the
land; land is the unique source of wealth; the other econ
omists added all the products of industry. All agreed in

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 61
their disapproval of the measures taken by the state.
The laws, instead of aiding industry and commerce, they
said, only serve as a hindrance to production and to com
merce. It would be better for the government to leave the
manufacturers and the merchants perfectly free, without
trying to protect or to domineer over them, for they were
interested in producing the greatest quantity possible at
the cheapest rate possible, and they knew better than the
ministers wherein lay their interest. One day Colbert
asked a manufacturer what he could do for the wealth
of the country. " Monseigneur," was the reply, "do not
interfere, pay no attention! (laissez faire)." This ex
pression, taken up by Gournay, was the motto of the
economists. They demanded complete liberty for the
producer and for the trader; they said that all corpora
tions and laws which encroach upon industry must be
suppressed and every one must be left free to manu
facture. All monopolies and prohibitory laws which
embarrass commerce must also be suppressed, and every
one must be free to sell and buy. This liberty will
produce a free competition among the manufacturers
and merchants of all countries for the greatest good of
industry and of commerce, as the manufacturer will be
obliged to fabricate better products, and the merchant will
be obliged to sell cheaper than the competitors. Thus all,
to their own interest, will labor to improve the products
and to lower the price for the advantage of the consumer.
The physiocrats said, also, that the state was ruining the
agriculture of the country by forcing the peasants to pay
all the taxes; they demanded that all proprietors, without
distinction, should bear their share of the taxes, and that
indirect taxes and duties should be abolished. Some

62 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
even said that the land was the only source of wealth and
proposed to establish a single tax, to be paid entirely by
the landowners.
3. The most celebrated economists of the eighteenth
century are the last two who appeared at that time : Tur-
got, a Frenchman, and Adam Smith, a Scotchman. They
made a more careful study of economic facts than their
predecessors had done. Turgot showed in what way
paper-money differs from silver, how the division of labor
serves to increase wealth, and what are the relations of
wages and capital. Adam Smith united all the scattered
theories into a very clearly written book, the "Wealth of
Nations" (1776), which made the public understand the
importance of the new science; he showed that land is not
the only source of wealth, and explained how industry
creates wealth in the transformation of raw materials.
We are not able to-day to affirm that the economists
were wholly in the right. It is not certain that individuals
left to themselves would always know what is to their
advantage, and that they would always do it even if they
did know it. A manufacturer or a merchant, already rich,
might, either through ignorance or through idleness, often
allow opportunities to escape which would have enabled
him to perfect his wares, or to extend his commerce.
More than that, the economists hardly considered the in
terests of patrons and consumers, and free competition
may not always be the best system for the workmen. It
may be that good laws tend to cheaper production and to
a more equitable division of wealth than the absence of
laws, absolute liberty, could do. But the economists were
right in their opposition to the governments of their time;
no laws are better than bad laws.

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 63
The English Philosophers. — In Europe, during the sev
enteenth century, there had been some illustrious philoso
phers — Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibnitz. They
were occupied chiefly in the study of mankind in general
(what we call psychology), and they were trying to com
prehend the general laws of the universe (what we call
metaphysics). They purposely abstained from giving
out any ideas concerning politics, saying that the affairs
of the government concerned those who were charged with
governing. In the eighteenth century several talented writers ap
peared in France who gave themselves the name of
philosophers, and called their doctrine philosophy. Con
cerning those great questions, which had until that time
occupied the philosophers, these writers brought forward
no new ideas. They were chiefly interested in practical
questions. They studied the beliefs and the institutions
of their times, and when these beliefs and institutions
seemed to them to be contrary to reason, they sought to
bring them into discredit by attacking them in their writ
ings. They were rather publicists than philosophers.
At that time, in all the countries of Europe, society
rested on the same foundation : the absolute authority of
the state and the absolute authority of the church.
People were accustomed to obey their sovereign. The
king, it was said, had received his power from God; he
had the right to command, and it was the duty of his sub
jects to obey him; there was no limit to the right of the
king, his authority was absolute. In practice, the king
and his ministers, knowing that no one had the means of
resistance, governed without taking into account the de
sires of their subjects or even the interests of the country;

64 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
they went to war purely through ambition; they spent the
money of the country in the support of a luxurious court ;
they imposed odious laws, and they ordered to prison any
one who ventured to criticise their actions. No book could
be published without the permission of the government;
any inhabitant could be arrested and kept in prison
when it so pleased the ministers. There was neither con
trol of the government nor individual liberty; such a
regime is called a despotism.
In the same manner all believers had to obey the
church. This was true in the Protestant as well as in the
Catholic countries. The clergy had the right to decide
upon the dogmas which one must believe, and the cere
monies which one must observe. It was the duty of be
lievers to be submissive in regard to these dogmas and
ceremonies; whoever abstained from the religious rites of
the church was prosecuted as a rebel. Not more than one
religion was permitted in a country, and all the inhabitants
were constrained to practise the religion of the state, to be
present at the service on Sunday, to commune, to fast on
the fixed days; to be married, to be buried, and to have
their children baptized by the church; and in the Catholic
countries they had to confess and to abstain from meats.
This was the regime of intolerance. The state and the
church lent each other mutual assistance; the govern
ment persecuted the heretics, forced its subjects into sub
mission to the church; the clergy made obedience to the
king a religious duty. The two absolute authorities were
united for the purpose of dominion.
In the seventeenth century this system had been greatly
disturbed in England. Church and state, by making
war, had mutually enfeebled each other. The revolu-

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 65
tion of 1688 had destroyed the despotism of the king
and had established tolerance in religion. Beside the
authority of the king arose the authority of Parliament;
beside the officially recognized church dissenting churches
were formed. The partisans of parliamentary power and
the partisans of the separated churches were united in
order to maintain the constitutional monarchy and toler
ation in religion. It was evident, then, that the king could
lose his absolute authority over his subjects, and the
church its absolute authority over believers, without
causing the destruction of society. This experience gave
a mortal blow to the theory of the divine right of kings
and the unity of religion. England had acquired political
liberty and religious tolerance. There were soon English
philosophers who were ready to justify, by theory, what
had just been established in practice. The most eminent
were Locke, author of "Letters on Tolerance," Shaftes
bury, and Bolingbroke.
The Christian religion, they said, should be conform
able to reason, since reason has been given to us by God,
in order that we may find out the truth; the questions
over which the different Christian sects are disputing, are
really of minor importance; the essential point is the doc
trine which is common to all religions. This residuum of
Christianity formed the natural religion; thus they arrived
at two fundamental ideas: There is a God who governs
the world. Man has an immortal soul.
The English philosophers believed that man has re
ceived from God sufficient reason to be able to per
ceive the fundamental truths and a faculty which en
ables him to distinguish between good and evil (the
moral sense); man is naturally reasonable and virtuous,

66 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
for he is the work of God, and all that God has made is
well made.
The English, used to respect the established custom,
did not ask for the suppression of the state or church;
' they agreed that there must be a privileged church, paid
and sustained by the government; but they wanted toler
ance for all the other religious beliefs, that is, the right to
practise publicly without danger of persecution. They
excluded from this right the faiths which were regarded
as dangerous; among the number were atheism and
Catholicism. So their tolerance did not rest on respect
for liberty of conscience; in fact, they as yet only admitted
the right of professing certain beliefs; if they were really
more tolerant, it was because their religion had grown
broader. Natural religion took for them the place of the
Anglican religion.
An analogous change in doctrines took place in politics.
The revolution of 1688 had established a king in England
who held power only by the will of the nation, expressed
through the Parliament. The philosophers invented a
new theory to explain the relations of king and subject.
Locke set forth the theory of contract, "The government,"
said he, " has been formed through a contract between the
citizens constituting the nation; they have made a cove
nant, with each other, for their common advantage."
Locke admits that men have naturally, before entering
into society, sufficient moral strength to serve as a guide
for their conduct, and that they possess natural rights — the
rights of man. These are individual liberty, the rights of
the father of a family, the rights of the proprietor. All
these rights are sacred since they rest upon natural re
ligion. It is for the purpose of guaranteeing these rights

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 67
to each other that men have created governments. The
government should protect these natural rights. It is on
that condition only that it is obeyed. If it tries to violate
these rights, it loses the reason for its existence, the con
tract, to which its power is due, is broken, and every citi
zen has the right to resist. The authority of the state
is then no longer absolute (as in the theory of divine
right); it is limited by the natural rights of the citizens.
As the right of property is absolute, the sovereign has not
even the right to levy an impost that is to take from the
citizens a part of their possessions. When he has need
of money for the public good he must ask for it of the
citizens directly, or through their representatives. He
can then govern only in accordance with the will of the
representatives of the nation, who watch over his move
ments and prevent him from exercising absolute power.
Bolingbroke, while developing this idea, said that every
unique power had a tendency toward absolutism; the
only means of preventing the different powers from tyran
nizing over a nation was to maintain a balance between
them so that there should be a perfect equilibrium.
Thus came into existence, in England, the theory of
political liberty. It is, no more founded upon a general
principle than is religious tolerance. The English phi
losophers did not demand that every citizen should have
the same rights; they admitted the hereditary right of the
king and of the nobles to exercise the power of govern
ment. All that they demanded was that the government
should not go beyond certain limits and should not tres
pass on the private liberty of the citizen.
The French Philosophers. — France had remained, under
Louis XIV. and Louis XV., submissive to an intolerant

68 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
church and to an absolute monarchy. It had no cogni
zance of religious tolerance nor of political hberty. But the
people had grown weary of that regime, and at the begin
ning of the eighteenth century there was formed, espe
cially in the cultivated classes, a spirit of opposition to the
church and to the monarchy. From the end of the reign
of Louis XIV. there were in Paris, and at the court, many
free thinkers (as they called themselves) who, without
openly attacking religion, professed indifference to it;
there were also political malcontents who complained of
the government and of the king.
Under Louis XV. the malcontents made acquaintance
with the new doctrines originating in England; and as
they could not be openly professed without exposmg their
advocate to prosecution, the French writers began by
slipping them into romances, stories, tales x>f travel,
where they were made to appear under fictitious names.
Gradually they proceeded to the development of their
theories and drew from them new conclusions; they ended
by laying down much more general principles, and by
demanding much more extensive reforms than were ever
dreamed of by their English predecessors.
In this manner two generations of philosophers were pro
duced in France : one in the first half of the eighteenth cen
tury, composed of Montesquieu and Voltaire, the other
belonging to the second half of the century, and whose
representatives are Rousseau, Diderot, and the encyclo
paedists. Montesquieu and Voltaire were men of the better
class. Montesquieu was a noble and rich, he occupied
the office of President of the Parlement of Bordeaux and
was a member of the Academy; Voltaire was the son of a
Parisian notary, he had been educated by the Jesuits, and

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 69
was later rich enough to buy the chateau of Femey. Both
men accepted the society in which they lived, not desiring
to overthrow it, but only demanding reforms. Both had
been direct disciples of the English. Voltaire, obliged to
leave France as the result of a quarrel with a great seignior,
passed three years in England, learned English, visited
the English lords, dedicated his "Henriade" to the
queen, and related his observations in his "Lettres
Philosophiques" (1731). He had conceived an admira
tion for the English constitution and especially for tolerance
in religion. During his long career he threw into his stories,
his poems, his pamphlets, his histories, his philosophical
dictionary many observations and criticisms on politics
and on religion.
In general, he was little interested in questions of gov
ernment; he was content with absolute sovereigns, pro
vided the prince would be a disciple of the philosophers.
"It is not a question," said he, "of getting up a revolu
tion as in the time of Luther, but of causing one in the minds
of those who are called to govern." He only attacked the
customs opposed to humanity — the torture, cruel punish
ments, and confiscation of property; he was most occupied
with the struggle for tolerance in religion.
Voltaire was opposed to all the positive religions, he
accepted only natural religion (a belief in God and the
immortality of the soul). He passed his life in writing
against intolerance in all its forms — persecutions, the In
quisition, religious wars; he wanted their privileges taken
away from the clergy. He became more and more violent;
at the end of his fife he was, before everything, an enemy
of the Christian religion, he sought to turn it into ridicule
by comparing it with the other religions; he had taken for

70 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
a device: "Crush out the infamy." The infamy was the
Christian religion.
He did not wish to suppress all religion (he considered
that religion was necessary in order to maintain in the peo
ple an obedience to the law), but he wanted a religion with
out dogma, without mystery, without symbols; in which the
clergy would be confined to the preaching of morals.
His disciples, the Voltairians, have had hardly any po
litical doctrines, but they have continued to attack re
ligion in the name of reason and of humanity.
Montesquieu, on the contrary, troubled himself very
little about religion, although his enemies have accused
him of being a "votary of natural religion." He only
demanded tolerance. He was chiefly a political writer.
After his first work, the " Lettres Persanes," he had travelled
in many of the European countries, and had been much
impressed by the institutions of England. In his "Es
prit des Lois," he described the English constitution in
such a way as to present it as a type of good government.1
The purpose of the state is to maintain the liberty of
the people; and the surest means is to divide the power
between a sovereign and an assembly of hereditary lords,
and an assembly of representatives chosen by the landed
proprietors. It was he who formulated the celebrated theory of the
partition of power; "The surest means of having a well-
governed state," said he, "is to have three separate gov
erning powers — legislative, judiciary and executive."
Montesquieu was the chief of the liberal parliamentary
school. 1 Since the English constitution of the eighteenth century has been
studied, it is acknowledged that Montesquieu gave an inexact picture of it.

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 71
Neither Voltaire nor Montesquieu were revolutionists;
they only demanded reforms:
In matters of religion : that the church should cease the
persecution of dissenters and of unbelievers, that the clergy
should be less wealthy and less powerful.
In political matters : that the sovereign should govern
in harmony with the nobility, and make no more arbitrary
arrests; that the nobihty should consent to pay the taxes;
that the nobihty should give up its rights of jurisdiction
and of mortmain; that torture should be abolished, to
gether with all cruel punishments and secret procedures;
that the taxes should be established and levied more justly.
The philosophers of the second generation were less
moderate. Rousseau and Diderot were men of the people,
one was the son of a Genevese clock-maker, the other was
the son of a cutler at Langres; they had had a precarious
existence in Paris, and did not approve of the existing
organization of society. They troubled themselves little
with regard to the institutions of England; they dreamed
of general principles, and wished for a society constructed
on these principles.
Rousseau accepted neither the government nor the re
ligions of his time. All were bad, because they had been
created by man and were contrary to nature. The prin
ciple of his ethics was, that man is a being essentially good,
loving justice and order. "Nature has made man happy
and good, society depraves him and makes him miser
able." Society is unjust because it does not give the same
advantages to all men; ownership of property is unjust,
as it is taken from the general supply of lands which
should belong to humanity; more unjust still is the gov
ernment, "where a child commands an aged man, and

72 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
an imbecile rules men of wisdom." Therefore society,
ownership, and government must be destroyed, and we
must return to nature. Men will arrange then to found
a society which will rest on an agreement accepted by all —
the "Contrat Social"; they will establish a government
which will give to all the same rights, and which will ad
minister all authority. In place of the sovereignty of the
king, we shall have the sovereignty of the people; all citi
zens will be equal, and the government chosen by all will
be given absolute authority; it will regulate wealth, edu
cation, and even religion. Rousseau rejected the Chris
tian religion, but he still accepted the worship of God, the
Supreme Being. His disciples were those who loved nat
ure and the revolutionists who were partisans of equality.
The Encyclopaedists. — Diderot, one of the most brilliant
writers of the century, after having lived, with difficulty,
in Paris by giving lessons and in doing work for the
booksellers, had begun to make a reputation for himself
by his philosophical writings; he had been arrested and
imprisoned at Vincennes. He conceived the bold idea
of publishing a general dictionary which should be a
compendium of all human knowledge. The title of the
work is, Encyclopaedia or Descriptive Dictionary of the
Sciences, Arts, and Trades, by a Society of Men of
Letters, arranged by Diderot; the part relating to Mathe
matics, by D'Alembert.
Almost all the savants and philosophers collaborated in
this work; Diderot revised all the articles; he himself
wrote a great number of them on philosophy, history,
politics, and especially on the mechanical arts. D'Alem
bert took charge of the mathematics, and wrote the pre
liminary matter (the introduction).

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 73
The publication of this work lasted for more than twenty
years (1751-1772), and consisted of twenty-eight folio vol
umes (eleven composed of engravings). It was necessary
for Diderot to have immense energy in order to complete
this work; the first two volumes had been suppressed
by the censor in 1752, and for eighteen months the
police prevented the publication of the successive volumes.
Diderot finally obtained the authority necessary, but after
the seventh volume, it was withdrawn. The protection
of Choiseul was needed in order to have the interdict re
moved. The Encyclopaedia was distributed throughout
all Europe, and helped to spread the ideas of the French
philosophers. The collaborators had different ideas, but those who
took the lead, especially in the last volumes, were the most
violent, Helv6tius, D'Holbach, Mably, Raynal; those who
are called the encyclopaedists. These, like Diderot their
chief, no longer admitted natural religion or the rights
of man. They said that man is made for pleasure and
should act in his own interest alone; that laws and religions
are shackles which hinder man from the attainment of
happiness; that he must destroy them in order to return
to nature. The philosophers of that school attacked
both church and state, as well as the old social institutions,
the family and the ownership of property; they rejected
belief in the existence of God and in the immortality of
the soul, and declared themselves atheists and materialists.
Influence of the Philosophers. — The strength of this
philosophy lay in the fact that the French philosophers
were excellent writers. They presented their doctrines
in a form clear and witty, in satires, in romances, and
in letters, which frivolous and uneducated men could read

74 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
without being bored, and could comprehend without
effort. Their books were soon the fashion in good society.
Sometimes Parlement condemned one of their books
and had it burned by the hand of the public executioner;
but copies of them continued to circulate even with the
connivance of the authorities. The philosophers were
invited to the salons of the most distinguished personages,
each one was the centre of a little circle which gathered
for supper in order to make sport of religion, and to dis
cuss philosophy and political economy. The fashion had
taken possession even of the princes. Voltaire, Rousseau,
Diderot were in correspondence with Catherine of Russia;
Frederick II. had sent for Voltaire to come to him at
Potsdam. At the same time the people had begun to
read the journals; they were very enthusiastic over the
doctrines of the philosophers, especially over those of
Voltaire and Rousseau. When Voltaire returned to Paris
in 1778, the crowd carried him in triumph.
In the eighteenth century all Europe was imbued with
philosophy. The doctrines thus sown broadcast differed
in many points, but all were in accord as regards
fundamental ideas. Men, down to that time, had obeyed
custom and religion (the philosophers said prejudice and
superstition). Society so constituted is odious and absurd.
"Things cannot remain as they are." The reign of in
telligence has come; men are enlightened by reason.
Reason must henceforth be the foundation of society.
The reason of the eighteenth century was not the knowl
edge and observation of facts, it was only common-sense
and logic. The philosophers had concerned themselves
very little about the society that they wanted to reform, they
did not know the actual man, they knew nothing about the

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 75
peasant and the workingman; they set up for themselves
an imaginary man, made in their own image, without re
ligion, without social habits, who sought for nothing but
happiness, and who acted from abstract motives. They
imagined that men are everywhere the same, that every
where they are reasonable and good. In order to restore
them to their natural condition the only thing to be done
was to abolish the institutions that oppress them. A
decree of the government will suffice and society will be
reformed. Society is badly organized ; it must be changed. In order
to change it the will of the government is sufficient; such
is the resume" of philosophy. This became the rule in the
politics of the eighteenth century. Applied by the states
men it was going to lead to a movement of reform through
out Europe; practised by the subjects themselves in France,
it led to the Revolution.
THE REFORMS
The Reform Princes and Ministers. — Among the states
men who were governing Europe in the latter half of the
eighteenth century, there were several who were seized
with admiration for the ideas of the economists and phi
losophers, and who sought to apply them. Some of them
were sovereigns (Joseph II. in Austria, Leopold in Tus
cany, Frederick II. in Prussia, Catherine in Russia, the
princes of Baden, Weimar, and Mayence), others were
ministers ruling in the names of their king (Tanucci at
Naples, Pombal in Portugal, Aranda and Campomanes
in Spain).
These statesmen regarded the rdle of the sovereign in

76 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
an entirely new light. They no longer considered the state
to be the private domain of the prince, which he could
dispose of according to his caprice. Their principle was
that the sovereign is only the head of the state; he has not
the right to spend the money from the taxes for his own
personal pleasure; he should employ it in useful works;
he has not the right to give the offices to his favorites, he
should give them to intelligent and honest men, who will
look upon themselves as the servants of the state. There
fore they sought to diminish the expenses of the court, to
make the administration more moderate and systematic, to
increase the wealth of the subjects. But, like the phi
losophers, they thought that all men resembled themselves,
and that it only depended upon the government to fashion
them according to its intentions. Accustomed to being
obeyed, they believed that it would be sufficient to com
mand, in order to completely transform society. They
counted on making all trace of barbarism disappear from
the state, and to establish there the "reign of intelligence,"
that is to say, a government founded on "reason." They
enacted their reforms without taking the trouble to consult
with their subjects, without taking into account their cus
toms, often in spite of them. They put the whole force of
the state, as they said, to the service of intelligence. Their
regime has been called an enlightened despotism.
Joseph II. of Austria. — Joseph II. was the most perfect
type of the enlightened despot. From his accession to the
throne he entirely devoted himself to his duties as a sov
ereign. He rose at five o'clock, dressed hurriedly, went
into his cabinet where he set to work dictating to his secre
taries. He worked there until noon; a gallery was thrown
open for the reception of petitioners, Joseph entered and

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 77
received the petitions. After his promenade, toward two
o'clock, he ate alone and rapidly. He, .indulged in a
little music, then set again to work, and gave an audience
until seven o'clock. Toward eleven o'clock he went to
the theatre, and often before going to bed, he read still
more dispatches. He drank scarcely anything but water,
he wore a blue military uniform, with boots; he slept on a
mattress of corn husks with a leather bolster and a cover
ing of deerskin; a horse was always saddled so as to be
ready to carry him wherever he desired to go. He
made frequent tours through his states, going in a post-
chaise by bottomless roads, and always at full trot. As
soon as he arrived in a town he settled down at an inn,
had a work-table arranged, and began to dictate, read, and
sign; then he departed. In the court of Vienna he had
found the luxurious living and etiquette of the monarchies
of his century; in the stables 2^200 horses, a massive gold ser
vice of 225 kilogrammes, an annual expense of 35,000,000
francs; extravagance in the kitchens (it was reckoned that
two casks of Tokay wine were used per year to moisten the
bread of the pet parrots of the empress). He sent away
the chamberlains to eat at their own mansions, had the
coins of collections melted down, and ceased to give ban
quets. At the same time he upset the ceremonial of the
court. At Prague he brought into a circle of nobles a
lady of the bourgeoisie; the noble ladies refused to speak
to her; the emperor danced with her, and with her only.
Following the humane principles of the philosophers,
Joseph abolished serfdom and permitted the peasants to
be married and to leave the domain without the consent of
the seignior. He abolished torture and capital punish
ment, he suppressed the censorship, and even permitted

78 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the printing of libels against himself, contenting himself
with publishing a notice in which he begged his subjects
to judge him not according to the satirical pamphlets of
his enemies, but according to his actions. He established
religious tolerance, and permitted Protestants and Jews
to celebrate their worship in a public manner.
Like the philosophers, he scorned the traditions, and did
not think himself obliged to consider ancient usages and
laws. "An empire, where I am in command," wrote he,
"must be ruled according to my principles. Prejudices,
fanaticism, party-spirit must disappear, and all my sub
jects must return to the exercise of their natural rights."
The states of the house of Austria had been formed of
countries brought together by chance into the domain of
the same family, but they differed in race, religion, and
manners, and there was no reason for uniting them
into a single body. It was an assemblage of diverse
peoples: Germans, Hungarians, Croats, Bohemians,
Poles, Belgians, Italians; some even belonged to the older
nations. Nowhere in Europe could a state have been
formed, where so much consideration of the differences in
the provinces was absolutely necessary, where it was more
absurd to apply a uniform procedure. But Joseph in
tended to reorganize all his states on a new plan, and on
the same plan. He refused to go and take the usual oath
in his kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, then he did
away with the ancient provinces and divided all his states
into thirteen departments, subdivided into circles. He
wanted to establish everywhere the same laws, the same
taxes, and the same methods of administration. He de
cided that in the courts of Hungary the cases should be
tried in the German language, the judges who did not

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 79
know German were to be removed. The Hungarian
assemblies protested; he put an interdict upon them.
He even believed that he had the right to regulate the
religion of his subjects: "Since I have been wearing the
chief diadem of the world, philosophy has become the law
giver of my state." "I do not like," said he, in 1780,
"to have the people whose mission it is to prepare
our salvation give themselves so much trouble in order
to direct our affairs in this one." Consequently he
charged a commission with "abolishing all the super
fluous convents." Out of 2,663 convents he had 624
closed, confiscated their property, and turned the build
ings into hospitals, colleges, barracks, and manufac
tories. He thought that the Austrian churches were
too ornate; he had the laces and jewels taken from the
statues of the saints, and removed the votive offerings in
the chapels which were frequented by pilgrims; the treas
ure, vases, reliquaries, shrines, were sold to the Jews to
be melted down; the manuscripts ornamented with minia
tures, the seals, and the parchments were sold by the
pound. He ordered the altars, which "encumbered the
churches " to be demolished, the crosses and statues to be
carried off, and prohibited pilgrimages and processions.
He regulated the number of masses, and the ceremonies
of Holy Week, he founded general seminaries, where the
priests were to learn religion as the emperor understood it.
"When my projects are realized," said he, "the popula
tion of my empire will be acquainted with their duty
toward God." The pope came in person to Vienna in
order to protest against all this subversion (1782); Joseph
refused to discuss the affair, and went on with his reforms.
He did not recognize any religions that displeased him.

SO CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
A sect had been formed in Bohemia, composed of honest
and industrious peasants who believed in God and styled
themselves deists. The emperor ordered them to be
brought to justice; those who would uphold their belief
were to receive twenty-five lashes, "not because they are
deists," said Joseph, "but because they declare themselves
to be something which they do not comprehend." The
stick not having been enough to convert them, the emperor
had them arrested and deported to the frontier of Turkey,
while recommending them to abandon each other.
Joseph II. had a sincere desire to govern, well. But
his idea was "to do grand things all at once." He de- -
spised all beliefs and customs not in accordance with reason.
Beliefs and customs shattered his authority. Belgium
and Hungary rose in rebellion. Joseph, before his death,
was obliged to publish the celebrated "Revocation of the
Ordinances which are regarded as contrary to Common
Law." It began as follows : " We had brought some modi
fications into the government, through zeal for the public
good, and in the sole hope that being enlightened by ex
perience, you would take pleasure in them. Now we are
convinced that you prefer the ancient manner of govern
ing, and that it appears necessary to your happiness."
The Hungarians received the ordinance joyfully, they tore
up the plans of the government survey of lands, scratched
off the numbers from their houses, and forbade the learn
ing of German.
Leopold of Tuscany. — Leopold of Austria, immediately
on his arrival in Tuscany, had sought to reduce the ex
penses of his petty state; he had disbanded his troops, de
molished the fortifications at Pisa, and done away with his
court. He worked in his cabinet, at an ordinary table made

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE SI
of planed pine planks, instead of at a secretary, and with
a candlestick of common tin. Following the usage of the
enlightened princes he had abolished the torture, the In
quisition, and the confiscation of property; he had founded
hospitals which he went to visit. The convents of Tus
cany had, ever since the Middle Ages, preserved the old
right of refuge, the courts had no jurisdiction within their
walls. The churches of the convents served as a retreat
for bands of adventurers, murderers, deserters, and es
caped convicts, who lived in the church, disturbed the
services, and maltreated the passers-by. Leopold, with
out regard to the privileges, had them all arrested (1769).
Catherine H. of Russia. — Catherine was a German
princess and had become czarina through the murder of
her husband. She was a learned woman, in correspond
ence with the philosophers; she had herself composed some
comedies and a tragedy. "She has the soul of Brutus
under the form of Cleopatra," said Diderot.
She was very active and very vain, consumed with the
desire to be talked about; she wanted to have the reputation
in Europe of being an enlightened sovereign, capable of
governing according to the principles of the philosophers.
She especially admired Montesquieu. She said that
the "Spirit of the Laws" ought to be the breviary of sov
ereigns. " If I were pope I would canonize Montesquieu."
In 1767 she called a general commission for the purpose of
preparing a code of common law for all Russia. She had
herself drawn up the instructions which were to be followed
by the commission, and had introduced in it many pas
sages taken from Montesquieu; she said that she had cribbed
them, but that if he were still at work in the other world,
he would not blame a plagiarism useful to 20,000,000

82 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
souls. On sending a copy of these instructions to the
King of Prussia, she added: "You will see that I have
done like the raven in the fable, which dressed himself in
the plumes of the peacock; the arrangement alone is mine,
and perhaps a line or a word here and there." The com
mission was composed of delegates from all of the prov
inces. After having heard them, Catherine sent them
away and had a code drawn up in which the principles
of the philosophers were set forth: "The nation is not
made for the sovereign, but the sovereign for the nation.
It is better to spare ten culprits than to punish one inno
cent person." She abolished torture and capital punish
ment. Indifferent to all religion, she allowed the Catho
lics and the Dissenters to practise the rites of their religion
without let or hindrance, and she welcomed the Jesuits
who had been driven out of the Catholic states. But
Catherine took only as much of the philosophy as was neces
sary. ' ' With your grand principles, ' ' she wrote to Diderot,
"one can make fine books and wretched work." In place
of capital punishment she used deportation to Siberia; she
did not do away with the knout; she invaded Poland and
ordered the Poles to be massacred.
In 1 77 1 she had a report made of the work accomplished
during her reign (in nineteen years) and sent to the phi
losopher Grimm the following list:
Governments set up according to the new form . . .29
Towns established and built  144
Conventions and treaties concluded  30
Victories won  78
Memorable edicts bearing upon law or establishment . . 88
Edicts for the relief of the people  123
Total 492

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 83
" All this concerns the state and no private affair has a
place in this fist."
Evidently Catherine was anxious to prove that she had
done a great deal. She did not say that the great part of
these laws had not been put in force, and that a great
number of towns consisted only of a stake with an in
scription, that the buildings erected in-such haste had fallen
to pieces. That which chiefly concerned her was, that
she must impress the philosophers and the public with
an idea of her merit; she succeeded, in fact, in obtaining
from the philosophers the surname of the Semiramis of
the North.
Pombal in Portugal. — Pombal, a country gentleman,
born in 1699, after having withdrawn from the army,
had studied history and legislation, then he had entered
diplomacy, and had passed several years in England
and afterward in Austria. In 1750 the king, Joseph
V., made him Minister of Foreign Affairs, and soon after
gave over to him the entire control of the government.
Pombal was the sole master of Portugal until the death of
the king in 1777. Portugal had, ever since the seventeenth
century, been ruled by the Inquisition and the order of
Jesuits; the confessors of the king and of his family con
ducted the court and the government. Ever since the treaties
made with England, Portugal, from an economic point of
view, had been closely dependent upon the English. The
treaty of 1656 gave to the English the right of exporting
cloths to Portugal; the treaty of 1703 stipulated that the
wines of Portugal could be brought into England by pay
ing one-third less than the duty paid by French wines.
The Portuguese were accustomed to receive English
goods in return for their wines and for the gold which

84 CONTEMPORARY. CIVILIZATION
they obtained in their colony of Brazil. They had neither
industry nor commerce; the vessels landing at Lisbon
were English vessels and the merchants established in
Portugal were Englishmen. Gradually they acquired
control of all the commerce, and profited by it to im
pose their conditions on the Portuguese; they bought
no more wine except at very low prices, insufficient
to compensate for the labor. The vine-dressers, dis
couraged and ruined, preferred to let the land lie un-
tilled. Pombal wrote to the English government in 1759:
"Through a stupid act, without parallel in the economic
world, we permit you to dress us and to procure objects
of luxury for us. We thus furnish you with enough to
maintain 50,060 workmen, subjects of King George, who
live at our expense in the capital of England."
Pombal labored to free the Portuguese government
from the domination of the Jesuits, and the Portuguese
people from their dependence on England.
In opposition to the English he founded the general
agricultural company of the vineyards of the Upper
Douro, which alone had the right to buy the wines, but
which was obliged to pay a fixed price for them; he organ
ized a commercial company which alone had the right to
authorize the retail dealers to open a shop. So the gov
ernment intervened in order to reserve for its Portuguese
subjects the trade in wines and the small trade of the
country. In order to incite the Portuguese to establish
industries Pombal adopted the protective system; he pro
hibited the exportation of wools and of other raw materials;
he permitted the exportation, without paying any duty,
of manufactured articles, silks, and sugar.
Pombal employed violent means in opposing the dom-

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 85
ination of the clergy. The Jesuits sought his overthrow,
and he made open war against them. In 1757 he ex
pelled the confessors of the royal family, all Jesuits; pro
hibited the Jesuits from coming to court without a per
mit. He denounced them to the pope for carrying on
commerce and demanded the reform of their order.
The cardinal who had been sent by the pope to visit them
and to reform the abuses in the Society of Jesus, declared
that their commerce was contrary to the laws, human and
divine, and he withdrew from them the right to confess
and to preach. An attempt to assassinate the king, made
in the night of September 8, 1758, gave Pombal an oppor
tunity to begin his prosecution. They found no proofs
that the Jesuits were accomplices in the crime, but the gov
ernment confiscated their property and resolved to expel
them all from the kingdom and from the colonies. They
were put on board ships, which took them to Civita Vec-
chia, in the papal states.
All the schools in Portugal had been kept by Jesuits.
After the expulsion Pombal wanted to reorganize them
with lay professors. He appointed professors of Latin,
Greek, rhetoric, and logic. They were to be paid by the
state and to give gratuitous instruction. The privileges
of the nobihty were given to them. At the University of
Coimbra he created two new faculties, natural sciences
and mathematics, a museum of medicine, a chemical
museum, and an observatory. He was especially anxious
to exalt the teaching of Portuguese and of the sciences.
"The cultivation of the maternal tongue," said he "is
one of the most powerful factors in the education of civil
ized peoples." He tried to reform the discipline of the
University of Coimbra; in 1766 he found 6,000 students

86 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
inscribed on the registers, but on erasing the fictitious
names the number was reduced to 700. In 1772 he ap
pointed 887 professors or teachers (479 for reading and
writing, 236 for Latin, 88 for Greek). He wanted to have
the Portuguese instructed so that they might be placed
on a level with the other peoples of Europe. These re
forms did not last. After the death of the king Pombal
fell from favor and the- government resumed its old
methods. The Ministers of Charles III. in Spain. — Spain was in a
situation analogous to that of Portugal, deprived of com
merce and industry and given over to the domination of
the Inquisition and of the Jesuits. Charles III., who had
left the kingdom of Naples in 1759 in order to become King
of Spain, tried to liberate his new kingdom and to restore
it to its former place among the nations of Europe. At
first he was assisted by the ministers that he had brought
from Italy: Squilace and Grimaldi; afterward by the Span
iards: Aranda, Campomanes, and Florida Blanca.
In order to found an industry in Spain protectionist
methods were employed. Customs-duties were placed
on the foreign merchandise imported, and the entry of
certain articles was prohibited.
In order to restore commerce the contrary method of
free trade was employed. Absolute liberty was granted
to the grain trade (1765), and at last (1778) all Spaniards
were permitted to carry on commerce with the colonies,
which, until that period, had been a monopoly of the
merchants in Seville, and afterwards in Cadiz. The results
were excellent; in 1788 the trade with the colonies had
increased eight to nine per cent.
The new ideas of political economy were spread rapidly

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 87
throughout Spain by the aid of Economic Societies.
The first had been founded by the Basques. Fifty-four
towns demanded permission to organize similar associa
tions. The Madrid Society, established free schools for
the purpose of teaching spinning and weaving to young
girls. The ministers did not dare to suppress the Inquisition.
Aranda had obtained a decree which prohibited the trial
of civil causes by the Holy Office (1770). But the French
encyclopaedists, to be agreeable to him, had the untoward
idea of writing a eulogy on him, and announced that he
was about to destroy the Inquisition. Aranda was dis
mayed; he was afraid of appearing to be the instrument of
the enemies of all religion, and the Inquisition was saved.
In 1778 Olavida, one of the agents of the government, was
condemned to have his possessions confiscated and to
eight years' imprisonment in a convent because he had
read forbidden books and had accepted the system of
Copernicus; but condemnations to death became very
rare. In twenty-nine years only four persons were burned.
In order to fill the place in education occupied by the
Jesuits, the government tried to organize a system of
schools. But the University of Salamanca refused to re
form its method, and transmitted its scheme of study,
founded on the philosophy of Aristotle, saying that the
systems of Newton and Descartes did not at all agree with
revealed truth. It was necessary to work outside of the
universities; several botanical gardens and a museum of
natural history were established. In Spain as well as in
Portugal some wise and .learned men then appeared.
The movement lasted until the epoch of the Napoleonic
wars.,

88 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Efforts at Reform in France. — During all the reign of
Louis XV. (until 1774) the government made only petty
reforms in France. Louis XVI. was very young when he
came to the throne. He desired to be a benefactor of his
people. Two men were recommended to him, who. were
known for their honesty and their love for the public wel
fare; one was a magistrate, Malesherbes, the other an
economist, Turgot. Louis XVI. appointed them to be his
ministers. The general direction of the government re
mained in the hands of Maurepas, an old courtier, but the
king announced his intention of making reforms, and he
asked the advice of Turgot, who wrote out his projects in
a letter to the king (August 24, 1774).
Turgot was comptroller-general, charged with adminis
tering the finances. He summed up his plan as follows:
"No bankruptcy, no borrowing, no increase of the taxes."
He estimated that they could save each year about 20,000,-
000 francs, do away with the deficit, and little by little could
pay the public debt. He succeeded, in fact, in paying
more than 40,000,000 francs in twenty years, and he
lowered the deficit from 22,000,000 to 15,000,000 francs.
He wanted to reform, in general, the economic organ
ization :
1. To abolish the rules which prevented the buying and
selling of grain, to allow the merchants of these com
modities complete liberty.
2. To abolish all the privileged guilds, and to give to all
the inhabitants full liberty to carry on any trade.
3. To abolish privilege in regard to taxes, and to
levy the taxes equally on all proprietors. "The ex
penses of the government," he said, "having for an
object the interest of all, all should contribute to it; and

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 89
the more one enjoys the privileges of society, the more one
should consider himself honored in sharing its burdens."
4. To establish assemblies of proprietors in the com
munes and in the provinces for the purpose of aiding the
functionaries of the king in their administration. "Your
nation," he said to the king, "has no constitution, it is- a
society composed of different orders, not at all united, and
of a people whose individual members have almost no
social bonds of union, where, consequently, each one is
occupied only with his own private exclusive interest in
such a way that Your Majesty is obliged to decide all mat
ters, either personally or through your officials. In order
to do away with this spirit of disunion, it is necessary to
have a plan which will bind together all the parts of the
kingdom." Turgot found himself in a very difficult position. His
projects were displeasing to the people at court and to the
queen, as they did not wish that any economy should be
practised at court; to the nobles and to the parlements,
who did not wish equality of taxation; to the master-
workmen, who did not wish for freedom in the practice of
trades. His only supporters were the authors of books
on economics and philosophy, and they had little influence.
He could not think of making the king adopt all the re
forms at once; he presented them one by one. Louis XVI.
began by approving them: "I give you my word of honor
in advance to enter into all your plans, and always to sup
port you in all the courageous ventures which you have
undertaken." In this way Turgot was able to carry out
several reforms:
1. He established free trade in grain (1774) and main
tained it in spite of disturbance,

90 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
2. He abolished the trade companies and the warden-
ship of the trade corporations, that is, the organization of
the bodies of the, licensed trades, and established complete
liberty of labor (1776).
3. He established equality of taxation for all. Con
cerning the secondary question, he said himself "that it
would be absurd to wish to make the nobility and the
clergy pay the villein tax, because certain prejudices seem
to make this tax a degradation." He had selected a very
small tax; the royal corvie which bore only on the common
people, all the privileged classes being exempt. Turgot
abolished that, and substituted for it a tax in money,
which had to be paid by all the property owners (1776).
Turgot then presented to Louis XVI. a plan to reform
the administration by creating provincial assemblies.
But Louis XVI. was wearied by the opposition which the
reforms had aroused; the parlements had refused to
register the edicts of 1776; the court, the queen, everybody
complained of Turgot. They said that he was a theorist,
that he was going to overthrow the kingdom; and he was
removed from office (1776). The successors of Turgot re
established what he had abolished.
His plan for having provincial assemblies was timorously
taken up again by Necker (1778-1779). In Berri and the
Haute-Guienne an assembly was formed, composed of
the nobility, the clergy, and the gentry. The government
appointed part of the representatives, and the assembly
had no other function than to assess and levy the taxes,
to take charge of the highways, commerce, and agriculture;
it was to assist the intendant in the administration. "All
precautions necessary have been taken," said Necker,
"so that all forms of administration should continually

THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN EUROPE 91
feel that they must have the confidence of His Majesty, and
that they have no force save in this confidence. It is for
the simple administrators, honored by the confidence of
the king, and for the commissioners, credited by the sov
ereign, to second in common his beneficent views.
It was only in 1787 that the government decided to or
ganize provincial assemblies in all the provinces where
they were not already part of the government. But it
was too late, discontent was too rampant; the assemblies
began a conflict with the intendants and tried to overthrow
the administration.
Malesherbes wanted to reform the police and the judiciary
systems; he succeeded somewhat in the betterment of the
prisons, and in having torture abolished. But he could
not suppress the system of the "lettres de cachet." The
adversaries of Turgot were opposed to him, and he was
dismissed about the same time.
The work of reform, begun in the early years of the reign
of Louis XVI., had failed through the resistance of the
privileged classes. The system only became more consoli
dated. In 1781 the minister of war decided that the nobles
alone could become officers. The benefices of the clergy,
bishoprics, abbeys, priories, were reserved for the nobles.
In the country the seigniors had lawyers searching for the
rents which the peasants had ceased to pay. During this
time the deficit still continued to increase. This regime
ended in the Revolution.

CHAPTER IV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
MONARCHY AND SOCIETY AT THE END OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The Ancient Regime. — Society and government was still,
at the end of the eighteenth century, organized according
to the old customs which had gradually grown up since
the Middle Ages. When the French of the eighteenth
century began to reflect on political questions, the greater
part of the institutions in the midst of which they lived
seemed to them no more than grievances against humanity
and reason. The institutions that the Revolution de
stroyed are known under the general name of the ancient
regime. In this regime three conditions were criticised : the mon
archy was reproached for exercising absolute power,
without restraint or control; society, for being founded
upon class privileges; the government, for following a
confused and irregular routine.
Monarchy and Absolute Power. — The methods of gov
ernment had gradually been organized by the kings so as
to concentrate all authority in their hands. The King of
France united all authority in his person; he alone had the
executive power, the right of naming all the officials, even
92

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 93
the members of the clergy; of declaring war or peace, of
making alliances, of levying troops and militia, of conduct
ing the whole administration. He had the legislative
power; an edict of the king was sufficient to change the
regulations of the government, or of justice, for an edict
had the force of law. There were in France no other laws
but the ancient customs and the edicts of the kings.
The king was the source of judicial authority; all justice
was rendered in his name, the judges were understood to be
in his service, he had the right to retire them from office,1 or
to call for legal action in order to have the case tried be
fore a special commission. He had authority over the
finances. He, himself, fixed the amount to be spent and
what imposts should be paid. He levied the taxes accord
ing to whatever procedure he deemed satisfactory.
For the purpose of exercising all these powers the king
was obliged to have functionaries of every kind. In the
centre were the ministers, who formed the council of the
king (they had kept the ancient titles, chancellor for
justice, comptroller-general for the finances, secretaries of
state for the other departments); each province had its
intendant and its sub-delegates. But all these agents
had no authority of themselves; the king appointed and
dismissed them at his own pleasure.
The king and his agents exercised absolute power. It
was said that this power should not be arbitrary, that the
king should govern according to certain customs, which
were called the fundamental laws of the kingdom. But
1 As the functions of the judges had become purchasable offices (in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), the king could not retire them without
reimbursing the purchaser; the kings, always short of money, did not
make use of this right; so the judges were irremovable in fact, but not
in law.

94 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
these fundamental laws were not written, and no one could
exactly tell in what they consisted.
The Parlement, in 1787, had declared that the king
should not establish new imposts without demanding per
mission from the States-General. (This was an entirely new
theory. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had created several
taxes, and yet the States had not been called together
for 165 years.) The chancellor came with the king to the
sitting of the 19th of November, for the purpose of setting
forth, in the name of the king, "the principles of mon
archical government." Those principles, universally ad
mitted by the nation, attested that to the king alone be
longed the sovereign power in his kingdom, that he is
accountable only to God for the manner in which he ex
ercises the supreme power; finally, that the" legislative
power lies in the person of the sovereign, without de
pendence on another and without division of authority.
The result of these ancient national maxims was that the
king had no need of any extraordinary power to aid in
the administration of the affairs of the kingdom, that a
king of France could find in the representatives of the state
only an enlarged council, . . . and that he would always
be the supreme arbiter of their remonstrances and griefs."
The Parlement made respectful opposition to the declara
tion. The king ordered it to register the edict for a loan.
The Duke of Orleans demanded that it should be inscribed
on the register, that the registration was done "at the very
express command of His Majesty." He declared that the
measure was illegal. Louis XVI. said in an undertone,
"It is all the same to me." Then he added: "Yes, it is
legal, because I so will." There was, in fact, no other
rule of government save the will of the king. As he could

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 95
not exercise all his power in person, the ministers and the
intendants in reahty governed the kingdom, and governed
it despotically, for they were subject to no fixed rule, and
did not share the power with any one.
There still remained two remnants of the ancient au
thority: the parlements and the provincial estates. But
the parlements had no power except to dispense justice to
individuals (the cases in which the government was con
cerned were judged before special tribunals or by the state
council); therefore, they could not serve as a check to the
abuse of executive power. The provincial estates existed
only in a few provinces (Brittany, Burgundy, Provence,
Languedoc, small districts of the Pyrenees), and they were
reduced to a session of a few days, their only r61e being
to vote on the land-tax, and apportion it throughout the
province. The officers of the king decided all affairs as if they
were the masters. The communes could not do a single
act, not even repair a bridge, or a church, without obtain
ing permission from the government. In the greater
number of provinces there existed no body higher than the
commune, not even a consulting body. The inhabitants
had not even the means of presenting their petitions and
complaints to the government. The officers exercised
all authority, not only without division, but without sur
veillance. No one had the right to control their actions,
no one had even the means of knowing them. No assembly
was called to examine into the administration of the gov
ernment of a province, or of the general government of
the kingdom (nothing that resembles our general councils
or our chamber of deputies). No journal had the right
to discuss the decisions of the officers, the censor forbade

96 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
that; very often it was impossible even to know them, for
they were rendered in secret. The ministers and then-
employees governed secretly, without the public being in
formed of their movements. "It is from the depths
of the bureaux that France is governed," said Necker.
Even the figures of the expenditures and receipts were not
known. It was a bold act in Necker to have a written
statement made of the expenditures, which, however, was
not exact. So there was no independent power, no pub
licity that could arrest, or at least point out, the abuses of
power; nothing, not even the fear of public opinion, in order
to prevent the all-powerful and irresponsible functionaries
from employing their authority to satisfy their whims, to
favor their friends, or to persecute their personal enemies.
The king handled the receipts of the state as if they were
his personal revenue. When he took money from the
treasury, it was his own that he was spending. Outside
of the sums necessary for the support of his household, he
distributed 40,000,000 francs per year in presents, under
the form of pensions to people of the court (the single
family of Polignac received pensions amounting to 700,000
livres). He had all the funds in the treasury placed at
his service; it was enough for him to sign a receipt, for the
bearer of the receipt had only to draw the money from
the public coffer. This custom made the establishment of a
systematized budget impossible.
The expenditures were not regulated so as to balance
the receipts; almost always the amount received was far
below the expenditures, and the deficit was made up by
loans. The taxes were always left to the discretion of the govern
ment. Each year the council decided what sum of money

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 97
each province should pay; the provincial estates could
discuss the amount of their contributions. They alone,
therefore, had an organization for the apportionment of
the tax among the inhabitants according to their wealth.
In all the rest of France the collections were superintended
by the government officials; the intendant of the province
and his appointees apportioned the "taille" (tax) in the
parishes; often they were accused of releasing from pay
ment the parishes in which their friends had domains.
The "taille" was apportioned to the inhabitants of a
parish, not according to the amount of property, nor after
any fixed rule, but "according to the ability" of each (this
was the old custom). The collectors were master apprais
ers of this ability, indicating what each inhabitant was in
a condition to pay; they increased or diminished at their
own pleasure the share of each one. The peasants were
obliged to appear to be poor, to avoid the increase of
their contribution; they lived in miserable houses and
concealed their provisions. The aides (taxes on bever
ages) and the gabelle (the salt-tax), which the state
farmed out to companies, were levied by the agents of the
companies, who were invested with the same powers as
the government officials. They entered houses searching
for contraband salt. Smugglers (contraband salt-makers)
were condemned to be flogged, or were sent to the galleys.
Every year two or three thousand of them were arrested.
The administration in certain provinces finally fixed the
quantity of salt that each family should buy; this was
the duty-salt. This salt had to be consumed in the
kitchen; it was forbidden to use it in salting pork. There
fore, the -gabelle became odious to the whole population.
The French, in the eighteenth century, paid one-fifth

98 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
of the taxes that they pay to-day, and they bore them with
difficulty, because the tax was apportioned without
taking into account the wealth of those who were taxable,
and it was collected by arbitrary and vexatious methods.
It was the same thing regarding the militia. Ever since
it had been established under Louis XIV. it had remained
in the discretionary power of the intendants who exempted
from conscription the sons of the rich peasants.
The police, created by Louis XIV., were of all the
instruments of authority the most redoubtable for the
subjects of the kingdom- A commission of censorship
examined all writings before they were published. It de
pended on the caprice of the censor whether or no a book
should be allowed to appear. Printers who risked the
publication without having obtained a permit from the
censor, were exposed to condemnation, and were punished
by imprisonment or by being sent to the galleys. Books
published without authority were brought before the
tribunals, condemned to be destroyed, often to be burned
by the hand of the pubhc executioner. This happened
to the "Lettres Philosophiques" of Voltaire, to the
"Lettre sur les Aveugles" of Diderot, and to the "Emile"
of Rousseau. Often the author, without any trial, was
sent to the Bastille. Voltaire was confined there at two
different times; in order to be able to work in security he
resolved to go outside of French territory (in Lorraine, in
Prussia, and at Ferney). Freret had been put into the
Bastille because of his philosophical dissertations on the
Frank kings, in which he demonstrated the falsity of cer
tain traditions concerning the origin of the monarchy.
There was no hberty of the press. The censor rendered
it impossible to publish daily journals; an article could not

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 99
appear until after it had been examined. The journals,
tolerated by the censorship, contained no other informa
tion on the pohtical conditions than was conveyed in the
official communications of the government.
There was no greater hberty of conscience. The Catholic
religion was obligatory. Louis XVI., at his coronation,
repeated the oath "sincerely to exert all his power in the
extermination of the heretics condemned by the church
from all lands of his dominion." Neither Protestants
nor Jews could exercise any public function. Ever since
1685 the Protestant religion had been prohibited through
out the kingdom. The Protestants continued to hold
their secret assemblies "in the desert" (that is, in retired
places), and when these assemblies happened to be dis
covered the pastor was condemned to death and those
present were sent to the galleys.
The Catholics themselves were not free; the inn-keepers
were forbidden to serve meat on Friday or in Lent, work
men were forbidden to work on Sundays and on feast-
days. The personal Hberty of the individual was not
guaranteed. The police, without being accountable to
any one, could arrest and keep in prison any one whom
they wished. An order of arrest in the name of the king
contained in a "lettre de cachet" was sufficient. The
person arrested by virtue of the "lettre de cachet" was
confined in one of those prisons over which the courts had
no surveillance (the most celebrated was the Bastille of
Paris). He remained there until the governor of the prison
received an order for his release; sometimes he was for
gotten for years. Latude, for having offended Madame
de Pompadour, was confined in the Bastille and remained
there thirty-five years. These "lettres de cachet" were

100 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
placed at the disposal of the ministers and their clerks,
who not only made use of them against the opponents of
the government, but against their personal enemies.
They even had recourse to the sale of blanks, where
the purchaser could inscribe the name of the man whom
he wanted to have arrested. It was, therefore, a means
which fathers could employ when they wished to get rid
of disobedient sons. In 1770 Malesherbes said to Louis
XV. : " No citizen in your kingdom is sure of not seeing his
hberty sacrificed by an act of vengeance; for no one is
great enough to be secure from the hatred of a minister,
nor insignificant enough to be overlooked by that of a
revenue clerk." The government of the old monarchy,
wholly concentrated in the person of the king, and con
trolled by bis servants, established in this manner a des
potic and arbitrary regime. No authority limited it, no
surveillance forced it toward moderation, no law was a
guarantee against its abuse.
Society and the Privileged Classes. — The society of the
Middle Ages had been formed of several classes unequal
before the law. The kings, in order to establish their
power over all their subjects, did not need to destroy that
inequality. The people belonging to the superior classes
had, therefore, preserved particular rights (called privi
leges). Three orders were officially recognized in the nation;
that is to say, three classes which were separately repre
sented in the states assemblies.
The clergy, which had the precedence over all the other
orders, had preserved immense domains (nearly one-
fourth of all the lands in the kingdom) and a sort of tax
on the harvest, the tithe (which amounted to about 125,-

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 101
000,000 francs a year). The lands were not subject to
taxation. No contribution was made to the government
except a donation of about 10,000,000 francs which an as
sembly of the clergy voted every five years. The clergy had
the surveillance of the primary schools, hospitals, and chari
table establishments. They kept a registry of baptisms,
marriages, and interments, which held the place of our
civil records. There were church tribunals which tried
ecclesiastics- accused of offences against the discipline of
the church, and which decided suits in regard to marriage.
The nobihty were formerly owners of nearly all the
lands, and had held almost all the authority. They had
still the fragments of that power.
The peasants had gradually become the proprietors
of the lands which they were cultivating; they owned
about one-third of the soil. But, in their relations to the
ancient proprietor (the seignior) they remained subject
to the charges established in the Middle Ages, and which
in the eighteenth century were called feudal rights. The
greater part were only low rents, but some embarrassed
and irritated the peasants, especially the obligation to use
the mill of the seignior and the laws governing the chase,
which latter obliged them to allow the game to devour their
crops, and to permit the hunters to tread down the grain.
Authority had passed into the hands of the officials of
the government. But the nobles still had the advantage
of being able to easily enter into these functions. All the
offices of the court were reserved for them. One had to
be of noble birth in order to become a member of the king's
household. In the army such alone could attain to a
superior rank, and after 1781, such alone might become
officers and might receive the decorations of certain orders

102 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
(Holy-Spirit, Saint Louis, Military Merit). All had re
mained exempt from the ancient taxes, from the taille,
and from the quartering of soldiers. Outside of these
legal privileges, the nobles were generally treated with more
regard in the administrative offices, the tribunals,1 the pub
lic places (in the church of the village the seignior had the
seat of honor). In practice, almost all the important
offices were given to them, through preference, and in
society they could act as the natural superiors of him who
was not of gentle birth. Voltaire had had a quarrel with
the Duke de Rohan. One day, in a house where he was
dining, he was sent for on account of a pressing affair;
hardly had he left the house when he was seized by the
lackeys of the duke, and was given a severe drubbing.
Voltaire could not obtain justice from the great lord, but,
because he wanted to noise the affair abroad, the govern
ment confined him in the Bastille and allowed him to leave
it only with the advice to go abroad and bury himself in
oblivion. After the clergy and the nobility came the third estate
(designated only by the number of the order), In a broad
sense the third estate was the whole nation. But it also
was divided into categories, and several of these were priv
ileged. The kings, in selling the offices pertaining to
justice and the finances, had created a class of gentlemen
of the long robe, owners of the right to dispense justice
and to collect the taxes in the name of the king. The
most important of these hereditary functionaries had be-
1 It is commonly said, that under the ancient regime the noble was be
headed and the non-noble was hung. This is not entirely true, the
punishment depended on the nature of the crime: a highwayman could
be broken on the wheel, even if he were noble, and some examples of this
punishment are on record.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 103
come part of the nobihty (the counsellors in the parle
ments were ennobled in the third generation). But all
the others — judges, treasury officials, clerks, notaries,
prosecutors — remained non-noble, but had, none the less,
besides the authority attached to their office, the privilege
of being exempt from the taille (villein tax) and from
quartering soldiers, just as if they, too, were nobles.
Even among the manual laborers, subject to the taille,
there were privileged classes. The right of carrying on
an industry, or of keeping a shop, had remained a privilege,
just as in the Middle Ages. The people of the same trade,
the masters, formed a close corporation, into which no one
could be admitted until he had served an apprenticeship
of several years and had paid a fixed sum into the treasury.
The number of places being limited, the privilege of follow
ing a trade was finally confined to the sons of master-
workmen. Whoever tried to fabricate or sell, without
first being admitted to a guild, was liable to imprisonment
and to confiscation of goods.
Society was, therefore, founded on inequality. This
inequality was revolting to the bourgeois especially. They
no longer admitted that a man could be superior by mere
fact of birth, they said that a bourgeois was the equal of
a noble, and they demanded a share in the public offices.
Irregularity and Routine. — The enemies of the old
regime criticised also the confused and barbarous organ
ization of the government. The division into govern
ments, dioceses, and generalities,1 had been formed in
time, without any plan of unity, by the successive enlarge-
1 The name "province," which we are accustomed to apply to certain
geographical divisions in France, was not the official name under the old
regime.

104 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
ments, or divisions of territory; the divisions were very un
equal, and were full of "enclaves" (that is, territories lying
within the bounds of another). There were some "gen
eralities" as large as five or six of our departments, others
were the size of a single department. The diocese of
Agde consisted of a score of parishes, that of Rouen had
more than seven hundred. The divisions had no corre
spondence in the branches of service, the diocese, baili
wick, the tax-district (election), the military government —
each division had been created without regard to the others;
they overlapped each other, and were entangled in a
manner very inconvenient for administration.
The different provinces had each kept its usage and its
measures of length, weight, and capacity; there was no
rule, no general, common law. It was very difficult to
carry on business and commerce between the provinces.
The regions on the frontier were, moreover, separated
from the rest of the kingdom by the ancient customs-
boundary, which had been maintained after the annexa
tion. This confusion and these diversities rendered the
administration more difficult and communication less
effective. Intelligent men were displeased with these
conditions. They demanded a regime of uniform and
methodical divisions, and a unity of customs, weights,
and measures.
In the different branches of the administration the au
thorities continued to operate according to the old pro
cedures, which seemed barbarous and unjust. In the
finances, the taxes were apportioned so as to weigh more
heavily upon the poorest; the villein tax remained, organ
ized on the same principles as in the fifteenth century,
and even the taxes created under Louis XIV., the capi-

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 105
tation, and the "vingtieme" (one-twentieth of the revenue),
which should have, borne upon the privileged classes, had
finally been unequally apportioned. The privileged
classes had obtained release from them, to the detriment
of the others. Taxes were levied with severity. If the
tax-payer did not pay, bailiffs were sent to his house,
where they lived at his expense. The collectors of the
villein tax were not paid functionaries, they were the in
habitants of the village, who were forced to do the labor
gratuitously, and yet they were responsible for the sums
which they were unable to collect. The indirect taxes
were farmed out; only one share of the product entered
the coffers of the state. The company kept the remainder,
and abused the power granted it by the state, in order to
extort more from the tax-payers than they owed. The
suits between the company and the individuals were tried
before the special tribunals of the treasury which were
interested in deciding in favor of the company.
In the army, the recruiting officers enrolled, through de
ception, the so-called volunteers. The discipline was cruel,
and the soldier was still subject to punishment by flogging.
Methods of justice were the same as in the sixteenth
century. The offices of the judges were purchasable, the
one who bought or received as a heritage the office of judge
was obliged to pass an examination before his installation,
but no one was ever refused at this examination, at least
on account of incapacity. The seigniorial justice still
existed in the villages and had sufficient power to vex
those under its jurisdiction without being of any service1
1 Something of the old regime still exists in France. The Revolution was
in part the work of lawyers who shrank from.a complete reform of the
judiciary, but the number of lawyers has diminished, trials have become
shorter, and justice is gratuitous.

106 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
to them. There were sometimes as many as four tri
bunals placed over one another in such a way that one
could appeal from one to the other. The trials dragged
along for years; the prosecutors, notaries, and" barristers,
who lived on them, labored for their duration. The judges
themselves were interested in these delays; they received
from the litigants a sum (court-fees) proportioned to the
time it took for the case. It often happened that the ex
penses of the trial exceeded the value of the object in liti
gation. Criminal justice was rendered according to the
ancient procedure. The accused was kept in prison as
long as it pleased the judges, he was put to torture, judged
secretly, without the power to defend himself through an
advocate, and condemned by professional judges who were
always ready to find a culprit in every accused person.
The barbarous punishments of the olden times were still
in use, the brand of the red-hot iron, the pillory, the whip,
the gallows, the wheel. Such are the customs which it is
agreed to class under the name of the old regime.1 In
the eighteenth century they were considered only as abuses,
not alone by those who suffered from them, but by those
who profited by them — the nobles, the clergy, and the rich
bourgeoisie.
THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE
Origin of the Revolution. — The adversaries of the old
regime had hoped that the government itself would under-
1 Of the usages of the old regime, a few only go back as far as the feudal
period. The greater number had been formed since the sixteenth cen
tury under the rule of an absolute monarchy. But the intelligent men
of the eighteenth century detested the Middle Ages, and attributed to it
everything that displeased them; therefore they regarded all abuses of
whatever nature as the work of feudalism.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 107
take a reform. The ministry of Turgot showed them
that the privileged classes would not allow their privileges
to be taken from them without making any resistance,
and they began to say that there must be a revolution to
suppress the abuses and to regenerate the kingdom.
At first it was impossible to see how this revolution could
be brought about. All sorts of people were interested in
preventing it : the king and his officials in order to maintain
absolute authority, the privileged classes in order to con
serve the inequality in their favor. Now all authority
was united in the government and in the privileged
classes, even the power to hinder malcontents from talking.
An Englishman, Arthur Young, who was travelling
through France in 1787, observed that they talked there
much less of the affairs of their own country than they did
of the affairs of Holland. Two years later the Revolution
was an accomplished fact. So the movement had been
very rapid. This was because the government and the
privileged classes, instead of sustaining each other in
order to restrain the malcontents, had fought and mutu
ally weakened each other.
The occasion of the struggle was a question of finance.
For half a century the government had been spending
beyond its resources, and a deficit was the rule. The
amount in arrears kept on increasing; the war in America,
which had cost nearly 500,000,000 francs, succeeded in
disturbing the equilibrium in the budget. At first it was
avoided by loans. In five years Necker borrowed 450,-
000,000 (not counting 40,000,000 advanced, and 45,000,-
000 alienated); his successor, Calonne, borrowed 650,-
000,000. The interest on these loans caused an increase
in the deficit of 80,000.000 francs in 1783, and in 1787, the

10S CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
deficit was increased at least 112,000,000. It was possible
to maintain this system under the direction of a banker
like Necker, who knew the ways and means of obtaining
money. He had been able to inspire confidence in the
capitalists by publishing the accounts of 1781, which had
seemed to indicate an excess of receipts over expenditures.1
But there came a moment when the people who had money
refused to lend it, for fear of bankruptcy. In order to
procure the required amount, it was found necessary
to go back to the system of Turgot — to diminish the ex
penses by cutting off the pensions and the useless officers,
and to increase the receipts by establishing a tax which
would weigh upon rich and poor alike. This was pro
posed by Calonne. He had set forth the necessity of his
reform before an assembly, so an assembly of the notables,
chosen by the government, was called. He relied upon
their approval of his project; the pubhc believed him, so
what did one care for the notables; "they could be sold
at four sous each (they were jointed puppets, who nodded
yes with the head)." But in this affair the government
and the privileged classes had opposing interests. The
government needed to do away with the licensed financiers,
in order that the product of the taxes should be increased.
The privileged classes insisted on not paying taxes,
which seemed to them improper and a disgrace. The
government insisted on preserving its absolute power, and
without any control, it consulted the privileged classes
only to have them approve its measures. The classes
sought to profit by the embarrassments of the govern-
' This excess was fictitious. The account was an act to reassure the
public — what we should call a "bluff." Mirabeau showed that at the
time.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 109
ment for the purpose of controlling its acts, discussing
its policy, and of imposing upon it their collaboration.
The government wanted to estabhsh equahty (at least in
the matter of taxes) and to maintain absolute power.
The privileged classes wanted to establish pohtical hb
erty and to maintain inequality. Therefore the two
powers interested in saving the old regime, in place of
uniting in order to defend it, struggled against each other,
each wanting to destroy a part of it.
The government met successively these resisting forces:
i. The notables, called together by Calonne, refused
to give their approval to his project. Calonne was re
moved and replaced by Brienne who wanted to estabhsh
a new tax and to make new loans. But in order to in
spire confidence in the money-lenders, a decree, ordering
the loan, had to be placed on the registers of t"-e Parlement
at Paris. 2. The Parlement at Paris refused to register the de
cree, at least until the necessity of the tax and of the loan
could be proved in its presence (it exceeded its authority,
never having had the right to offer remonstrances to the
king or to discuss his edicts). Then feeling itself sustained
by the people of Paris, it declared "that the nation alone,
represented by the States-General, has the right to grant
subsidies to the king," and besought the king to " call to
gether the States-General of his kingdom." (This theory,
borrowed from England, had not been in force in France
for more than two centuries.) The government hesitated
in regard to the course it ought to pursue. It sought to
appease the malcontents by promising to call together the
members of the States-General, and by making a few efforts
at reform. (It restored the social status of the Protestants

110 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
and formed provincial assemblies to aid and to watch over
the intendants.) It tried also to make the Parlement yield
to its demands by sending it into exile at Troyes, then by
holding a bed of justice (the sitting of a parlement in the
presence of the king), and, finally, by taking away the right
to enroll the edicts.
3. The provincial estates, and the provincial assemblies,
sided with the parlements and protested against the
despotism of the ministers. There were even riots in
Brittany, Provence, and Dauphiny. The nobles led the
opposition as they wanted to maintain their privileges.
In Dauphiny, however, the nobles united with the
bourgeoisie, and revised the old form of the estates, which
had been abolished in the seventeenth century. The
estates of Vizille demanded pohtical hberty not only for
Dauphiny, but for all of France. Therefore, they could
have been considered as making the first move toward the
Revolution. This opposition served to unsettle the old regime. The
institutions were discussed in every gathering. The cen
sorship of the press almost ceased. In 1787 and in 1788
thousands of pamphlets appeared. They criticised the
absolute authority and the privileged classes. Pubhc
opinion grew more and more powerful. Young, on re
turning to France in r788, found the whole country agi
tated, and it was everywhere said that they were on the
eve of a revolution. The idea and the word were known
even prior to 1789.
The government could not find any money even for
its most pressing needs. There were not 500,000 francs
remaining in the treasury. It had promised to call the
States- General in 1792, and convoked them for the 5th of

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 111
May, 1789; meanwhile it suspended the payment of the
pubhc debt.
The States-General. — In order to procure money, the
government was prepared to ask the collaboration of the
nation and to assemble the representatives of the people.
But two important questions remained that had to be
settled: 1. Should the representatives, who were about to be
convoked, represent the classes of society, or the nation
as a whole? Should the states be composed, as for
merly, of the three orders (clergy, nobihty, third estate),
each order deliberating and voting by itself? In this
case the two privileged estates (clergy and nobility)
would have the majority over the third estate. Or should
a new system be adopted to give to the third estate
force in proportion to its importance? The partisans
of the third estate made the fact known that this order in
cluded nine-tenths of the nation, and that it was only
right that it should be given at least as much power as
was given to the two other orders. By this system the
third estate was to have as many deputies as the other two
orders taken together (this was called doubling the third
estate), and all the deputies were to vote together so that
the votes of the third should balance the votes of the other
two orders (that was the vote by individuals).
2. Upon what subjects should the States-General de
liberate? On questions of finance alone? Or on the
whole administration? Should they confine themselves
to the reformation of the system of taxation ? Or should
they have the right to reform in general all institutions ?
The two questions were closely allied. The privileged
orders consented to accept a reform of the taxes, but they

112 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
wantea to guard their other privileges; if they voted by
order, they would have a majority, and would limit the
reform to matters of finance. The third estate wanted a
general reform; and if they voted by individuals, it would
be the one to direct, and there would be a revolution.
The contest then was between the privileged classes and
the third estate (1788). The parlements, and the nota
bles who came to combat against absolute power, fought
to maintain the existing inequality. They demanded that
the states should be convoked, following the ancient form
(vote by orders). At once they became unpopular.
The government was to decide in what form the states
should deliberate. It could, according as it desired, either
limit the reform by sustaining the first two orders, or pro
duce a revolution by sustaining the third order. It became
the arbiter to decide between the privileged classes and
the rest of the nation. But it had to declare for one or the
other of the two parties. It did not dare to make a decision.
When it was necessary to regulate the representation of
the third estate, Necker tried to remain neutral in regard
to the two parties; he granted the demand for the doubling
of the third estate without deciding as to the vote by indi
viduals. Neither did he decide what should be the rights
of the assembly. The election of representatives to the
States-General was held separately in each baihwick for
each of the three orders. The nobles and the priests voted
directly for their deputies.1 For the third estate, the elec
tion was by two degrees, the inhabitants of each parish
assembled to choose delegates, who were to go to the chief
town in the baihwick, where they were to elect the deputies
for the entire baihwick. Each of these gatherings was
1 The bishops and certain seigniors were members of the Right.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 113
obliged, following the ancient usage, to draw up a record
of all complaints and demands for reform. The demands
closely resembled one another, inasmuch as they concerned
the general government of the kingdom (the resemblance
was the more marked because the assemblies had received
models of such records, a part of which they copied).
The three orders were agreed in considering the States-
General as an assembly charged with representing the
nation; all demanded a reform in the finances and a
written constitution, to assure the rights of the nation,
and to limit the power of the government. The third
estate also demanded the abolition of the privileged
classes and that the three orders should be united in one
single assembly, where the vote should be by person or
individual. The government took no measures for the purpose of
regulating the conduct and prerogatives of the assembly.
The 5th of May, 1789, the states were opened at Versailles,
but nothing had been decided as to the matter or the man
ner of the deliberations.
The National Assembly. — The contest arose between the
two parties on a question of form. The government,
following ancient usage, had ordered that the three
orders should sit separately; the third estate would not
allow the establishment of that separation; for, if the three
orders were once organized separately, the Assembly
would have to vote by orders. It refused, therefore, to
begin its deliberations until the manner of taking the votes
should be settled; the clergy and the nobihty refused to
unite with the deputies of the third estate and the gov
ernment seemed to be more and more inclined to sustain
them. This regime of inactivity lasted for six weeks.

114 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
The third estate put an end to it by deciding on two rules
of conduct:
The 1 2th of June it declared that it was possible to do
without the aid of the deputies from the other orders, for
it represented the nation; and it gave itself the name of
the National Assembly. That was to declare, that the
right of deliberating in the name of the French people
belonged to the representatives of the third estate. It
invited the members of the two privileged orders to come
and sit in the National Assembly with the right to an
equal vote.
The 20th of June, the government having ordered the
hall closed, where the third estate was assembled, the
representatives went to the place known as the "tennis
court" and swore never to separate until the constitution
of the kingdom should be established and fixed on a firm
foundation." This was simply a declaration that the
Assembly could not be dissolved by the king. The third
estate was becoming a sovereign and independent power.
The government then decided to present a programme
of the subjects for deliberation; this was done at the sitting,
in the presence of the king.
June 28th the king proposed to reform the taxes and
to preserve the privileges: "The king wishes that the an
cient distinctions in the three orders be conserved in their
entirety, as essentially bound up in the constitution of
the kingdom." The third estate found this programme
insufficient and began a revolt against the king by refusing
to withdraw from the hall after the declaration had been
read. Then took place a conflict between two powers. The
government decided to support the privileged classes.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 115
It had tradition and material force on its side. But it was
disorganized and it felt itself abandoned by pubhc opinion.
Paris too, sided with the Assembly. The privileged classes
were not united, the priests and the petty nobihty supported
the demands of the third estate and took their seats with
that order. The king himself yielded ; he commanded that
the remainder of the privileged orders should sit in the
National Assembly.
Taking of the Bastille. — The government still had force
on its side. It could use the army to dissolve the Assembly.
The royalists advised Louis XVI. so to employ it, and the
partisans of the Revolution feared lest this should be done.
The government, in fact, brought troops to Versailles,
then wished to have them taken to Paris where there was
extreme disorder.
The harvest in 1788 had been very poor; Paris was full
of famished creatures and of bands of malefactors who had
come in from their retreats in the vicinity. The work
men in the two suburbs, St. Antoine and St. Marceau, had
joined the opposition to the government.
The Parisians feared violence and they prevented the
entrance of the royal troops. Then they organized for
defence. There was, in Paris, near the entrance to the
suburb St. Antoine, a fortress — the Bastille — which served
as a state prison. The people arrested through the
"lettres de chachet" were confined in it; many writers
had been detained there. At this moment in the reign of
Louis XVI. there were but few prisoners and the garrison
was composed of some retired soldiers and several Swiss
guards. But the role which it had played had made it
particularly odious as the symbol of arbitrary and despotic
power.

116 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
The Parisians, as soon as they were armed, moved on
the Bastille. The whole Parisian army had been reduced
to two regiments; one was that of the French guards,
which had been for a long time in the midst of the Parisians
and which mingled with the crowd, in place of fighting
with it. So the population of Paris laid siege to the royal
fortress and one of the chiefs who led the attack was a
subordinate officer of the royal regiment of the French
guards. The governor capitulated, the Bastille was taken and
demolished instantly; the people danced upon the site.
The taking of the Bastille had no importance in itself,
but it was hailed as a great victory by the partisans of the
Revolution. It signified that the people of Paris had
conquered by force the royal government. The king,
indeed, felt that he had been vanquished; he was with
the Assembly at Versailles the 14th of July; the next
morning he went in person to the Assembly and made the
following declaration: "Counting upon the fidelity of my
subjects, I have ordered the troops to leave Paris and
Versailles. I authorize you, invite you, even, to make
this arrangement known at the capital." Then he
withdrew; the Assembly arose and followed him as far as
the palace amid the joyous cries of the crowd.
The king relinquished the employment of the army
against Paris and against the Assembly. At the same time
the Parisians took arms and organized themselves into a
National Guard under the command of a partisan of the
Assembly, Lafayette; the power passed from the king to
the Assembly. The Assembly, defended by the Parisians,
became the only veritable sovereign. This was the reason
why the time of the seizure of the Bastille was taken as

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 117
the official date for the beginning of the Revolution.
The 14th of July, 1789, was made the starting-point of the
Year One of hberty.
The Night of August 4. — From the date of the seizure
of the Bastille the government throughout France was
completely demoralized. There was no longer a police
force to maintain order, bands of marauders scoured the
country for the purpose of pillage. The inhabitants of
the towns organized themselves into national guards for
their own defence. In the country, especially in the east,
the peasants, on learning that the Assembly had proclaimed
liberty, took it upon themselves to establish it in their own
way. The burdens which weighed most heavily on them
were the rents and the " corve*es " which they owed to the
lords and which were called feudal rights. They went
around attacking the chateaux, taking possession of the
rolls (registers of rents) and the archives, and setting them
on fire. In several places the chateau was pillaged and
the seignior maltreated or threatened with injury.
The Assembly, informed of these disorders, charged a
committee to draw up a legal project for the safety of the
kingdom. This project was discussed in a sitting which
began at eight o'clock on the evening of August 4. It
was a question of ' ' arresting the excitement in the provinces,
of assuring to them political liberty, and of confirming
the proprietors in their veritable rights." Several seigniors
proposed that the communes should redeem the feudal
rights and that personal servitude and the "corvees"
should be abolished without any indemnity. A Breton
deputy proceeded to say that the people had burned the
chateaux to destroy the feudal rights and that it was
necessary to recognize the "injustice of those rights which

118 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
were acquired in the benighted times of ignorance."
This speech excited the Assembly; several members of the
privileged orders came in turn offering to sacrifice their
privileges. The Assembly welcomed these offers with enthusiasm;
successively it decided to abolish all the inequalities among
the citizens and in the provinces. In this manner were
abolished all the privileges in regard to the offices, the
seigniorial justice, the rights of the chase, and the dove-cote;
mortmain, the tithes, the privileges of the districts, cities
and villages, the purchase of place and the corporations.
A medal was struck, "to commemorate the sincere
unity of all the orders, the renunciation of all the privileges,
and the ardent devotion of all individuals for public peace
and prosperity."
The night of August 4, in one move, destroyed all the
institutions which maintained a separation of the classes.
It permitted the reconstruction of a new society on the
principle of equality.
The decisions on the principles set forth on that night
were written in a decree which begins thus : " The National
Assembly entirely destroys the feudal regime."
End of the Old Regime. — The old regime was character
ized by three salient traits :
1. The king held power complete, and without control;
he was an absolute sovereign.
2. The inhabitants of the kingdom were divided into
classes having unequal rights.
3. The government was carried on according to old,
complicated, confused and barbarous rules.
The Assembly, in taking away the power of the king
and in abolishing privileges, destroyed the absolute sov-

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 119
ereignty of the king and the inequality among the inhabi
tants. Then it undertook the construction of the whole
government on a simple and uniform plan.
It had given itself the task of regenerating the kingdom.
It began the work by destroying ancient France. Before
going to the work of reconstruction it wanted to clear off
the ground, to abolish the ancient institutions rather than
to reform them. All the usages pointed out as abuses
in the registers of the states were therefore suppressed.
At the head of the new constitution was placed this formal
declaration: "The National Assembly wishing to establish the French
constitution on the principles which it has just recognized,
abolishes irrevocably the institutions which were injurious
to hberty and to an equality of rights.
"There is neither nobility, nor peerage, nor hereditary
distinctions, nor distinctive orders, nor feudal regime, nor
patrimonial judges, nor any titles, denominations and
prerogatives which are derived from them, nor any order
of chivalry . . . nor any superiority except that of public
officials in the exercise of their functions.
"There is neither purchasability nor heredity attached
to any pubhc office.
"There is not for any part of the nation, nor for any
individual, any privilege or exception to the rights which
are common to all Frenchmen.
"There are neither wardenships nor corporations in
the professions, arts, and trades.
"The law recognizes no religious vows nor any engage
ment which would be contrary to natural rights or to the
constitution." From 1790 the old institutions, the council of the

120 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
king, the council of state, intendants, parlements, tri
bunals, farming of taxes — all had ceased their operations.
The domains of the clergy had been declared to be national
possessions. Nothing more remained of the old regime.

CHAPTER V
THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION
The Principles of 1789. — The Constituent Assembly, be.
fore making laws for "regenerated France," decided, at the
demand of Lafayette, to proclaim the principles upon
which it intended to found the new society. This was the
object of the Declaration of the Rights of Man which,
after long discussions, was published in October, 1789.
Here are some of the important articles:
"Men are born and remain free and equal in their
rights. "The rights are liberty, ownership of property, security,
and resistance to oppression. Liberty consists in being
able to do anything which is not injurious to another.
"The principle of all sovereignty rests in the nation.
"Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens
have the right to cooperate personally or through their
representatives in the formation of laws. The law should
be the same for all.
" All citizens being equal in the eyes of the law are equally
admissible to all dignities and pubhc offices according to
their probity and talents.
"No man can be accused, arrested, or detained in prison
except in cases determined by law, and according to the
forms prescribed by the law.
"No one is to be molested on account of his opinions,
121

122 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
even those on religion, provided that their manifestation
does not trouble the pubhc order as prescribed by law.
Every citizen can speak, write, and publish with perfect
freedom. "The common contribution must be equally appor
tioned among the citizens according to their ability.
"Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one
can be deprived of it, except when the pubhc necessity,
legally certified, evidently demands it, and then only on con
dition of a just and previously arranged indemnity."
The principle of the Revolution is that the nation is
sovereign, that all its members have equal rights, but that
all are free, and should be protected in person and in prop
erty, even against the government. Its device is : Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity.
Changes in the Social Order. — All inequalities had dis
appeared; the law no longer made any difference between
Frenchmen. The law admitted no privilege in the matter
of taxation, or in primogeniture, or in the rights of one
proprietor over another. The nobility was no longer
recognized by the law. All offices were open to all, with
out distinction of birth, and the greater number were
given to the third estate. Indeed most of the men who
have governed France in the nineteenth century have
been neither noble, nor even people of the upper third
estate. Changes in the Economic Order. — The lands of the
peasants, released from the seigniorial rights and from
the taille, have increased in value. The national pos
sessions, formed from the domains of the clergy ceded to
the nation in 1789, and the confiscated lands of the
"emigre's" have been sold; one-third of the lands of France

THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION 123
have passed into the hands of the small proprietors.1 In
dustry has become entirely free, each one can manufacture
whatever he pleases and in the way he pleases. Commerce
is free, there are no longer any monopolies, or any restric
tions on sales. Taxes are apportioned equally among
the inhabitants, according to their wealth. The "Con
stituent Assembly" replaced the taille by the tax on real
estate, which is laid upon the lands and houses of the own
ers without any distinction; the capitation, by the tax on
person and furniture (house tax). It suppressed the
indirect tax on beverages (the aides). Napoleon re
established them under the name of excise tax, but the
state did not farm them out to individuals, they were col
lected by the government officials. The budget is regu
lated each year in advance, so that the expenditures and
receipts may be balanced. No sum can be paid by
the treasury except on a regular warrant. The creditors
of the state are sure of regularly drawing the interest on
their money, all the debts of the state are inscribed on the
Great Register of the Public Debt. It was begun in 1793
so that one could distinguish between the debts contracted
by the republic and those of "despotism."
Political Changes. — The Revolution had established the
principle that the nation only is sovereign. But as the
nation cannot itself govern, from this principle have come
very different systems, according as the sovereign nation
has delegated the government to a king assisted by a parle
ment, to a single assembly, or to an emperor. (Napoleon
I., the most absolute monarch ever seen in France, had
only taken the title of emperor after having appealed to
1 It is possible that there are to-day in France as many large land
owners as before 1789. They have been formed since 1800.

124 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the people and demanded it from them; this kind of
monarchy was not contrary to the principles of the Revo
lution.) The Revolution created a form of administration regu
lar as a machine. Each of the departments of the state
led to a ministry which received all communications and
issued all the orders. The number of these varies, be
cause certain departments are sometimes detached from,
sometimes united under, one minister, but the departments
are unchangeable. They are: administration, justice,
finances, foreign affairs, war, navy, commerce, agriculture,
religion, education, fine arts, public works. Whoever ex
ercises any function in France is dependent on the minister
to whom his function corresponds. In order to make a
more systematic division of authority, uniform limitations
applying to all the departments have been established. The
whole of France has been divided into departments, the
departments into districts, the districts into cantons, and
the cantons into communes. Each functionary exercises
his authority within the limits of these divisions. The de
partment has its prefect, treasurer, and court of assize; the
arrondissement has its deputy-prefect, collector, and tri
bunal. All the departments are completely centralized
and organized on a uniform plan. The functions and
duties of the officials are the same throughout France.
The officials may be sent from one end of the country to
the other. The same orders are given to them and all
under the form of circulars. There is no longer any
differences of administration in the various districts of
France; the least details may be regulated in a uniform
manner by the ministry in Paris. The centralization
begun by the kings has thus been completed. No other

THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION 125
country in the world has gone as far as France in this
direction. The Constituent Assembly had given over the adminis
tration to chosen councils; each commune had its common
council, each district and each department had its directory.
The judiciary has been remodelled. The custom of
the old regime has been kept, that of having the judgment
pronounced by a body (every tribunal is composed of
at least three judges). But the judges are no longer pro
prietors of their office; they are only functionaries of the
government. The Constituent Assembly ordered that
they should be chosen by the inhabitants and for a period
of several years. In the place of the petty seigniorial
tribunals there is in each canton a justice of the peace,
whose duty is to try to conciliate the parties and to pre
vent them, if possible, from going to law. Criminal
justice is no longer rendered by the tribunals but is a
function of Jthe court of assizes, which is organized on the
model of the English jury-system; twelve jurors taken
from among the citizens of the department decide whether
the accused is guilty, and a magistrate presides over the
debates and pronounces sentence. The public and oral
procedure of the Middle Ages has been reestablished, the
accused has once more the right to have his case pleaded
by an advocate. The Constituent Assembly abolished
all the customs peculiar to the provinces. In all the
courts justice must be rendered according to the same
rules. Justice has become gratuitous; that is to say, not
that the suits cost nothing, but only that the judges must
receive nothing from the litigants. The Revolution
changed even the relations of church and state. The
Constituent Assembly had decreed the civil organization

126 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
of the clergy, which suppressed the dioceses and estab
lished chosen bishops. The Convention did away with
the Christian Church and wanted to set up the worship of
the Supreme Being. Then it set forth the principle of
liberty in worship and of the complete separation of
church and state. "No one can be hindered from prac
tising, in conformity to the laws, the worship that he has
chosen; no one can be forced to contribute to the expenses
of any other worship." The republic pays the salary of
no church official.
The Written Constitutions. — The partisans of the
Revolution reproached the old regime more on account of
its arbitrary government. They desired that henceforth
the powers of the government should be fixed by a written
law, similar to the laws which regulated the relations of
private individuals. The resolutions of the States-General
asked for a written constitution and the deputies regarded
each other as charged with the service of writing it. The
Assembly took the name Constituent.
An Englishman, Arthur Young, who was travelling
in France, thought that the idea of making a constitution
was very ridiculous. "They fancy there is a recipe for
making a constitution just as there is for a black pudding."
Young was accustomed to regard the political constitu
tion in England as civil law resting on the ancient
customs respected by all the English people. But in
France no real tradition existed. A law in writing was
the only barrier they could imagine against the despotism
of the government.
Since the first constitution (1791) France has often
changed the form of government, but never has she re
mained without a written constitution. Gradually all

THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION 127
other civilized peoples (England excepted) have also
adopted the custom of writing their constitutions.
The Constitution of 1791. — The National Assembly
took an oath that it would not separate until it had drawn
up a constitution. This work occupied two years and the
Constitution was promulgated in 1791. The king took
an oath to obey it.
The Constitution of 1791 was the work of the party
which had brought about the Revolution. They did not
want to do away with royalty, but they were suspicious of
the powers which up to that time had dominated in society
and in the government. They feared the aristocrats — that
is to say, all the hereditary bodies and despotism — that is to
say, the royal authority; besides, they admitted, as a rule,
the theory of the separation of the different powers, which
theory had been made popular by Montesquieu.1
Therefore this fundamental principle was set down,
that "the sovereignty belongs to the nation." (This was
the destruction of the foundations of the old monarchy
where the only sovereign was the king.) But "the nation
from which all these powers emanate cannot exercise
them except by proxy." Authority is then to be entirely
exercised through representatives. It was admitted that
the king represented the nation by virtue of an hereditary
right and that he had the right to choose his ministers.
All the other authorities had to be elected. But they did
not wish to give the right of suffrage to all the inhabitants.
It was decided that to be an elector one must pay a tax
1 Montesquieu, following the English jurists, believed that in England
the authority was really divided between the king and the Parliament;
that the king had the executive power, and the Parliament the legis
lative; to these powers he had added the judiciary, which idea had been
furnished him by the parlements of France.

128 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
equal to the value of three days' labor. The citizens were
thus divided into two classes, active citizens (the electors)
and passive citizens (those who were deprived of the
suffrage). According to the theory of Montesquieu three powers
were created — executive, legislative, and judicial. The
judicial power was delegated to judges, chosen by the
people for a term of years. The executive power was
"delegated to the king in order to be exercised by the min
isters under his authority." The legislative power was
delegated to an assembly of chosen representatives. Two
questions were vigorously discussed: i. Was it necessary
to give the legislative power to two assemblies as in Eng
land, or to one alone ? 2. Was it necessary to take the
ministers from the Assembly as in England, or outside of
that body?
Experience has, for more than a century, proved that
a single assembly is tempted in a moment of excitement to
take measures of which it afterwards repents, and all the
civilized states have finally come to the system of having
two assemblies. But at the close of the eighteenth cen
tury no country had yet had such an experience, and it
seemed strange to create a power with two heads,1 The
most distinguished American statesman, Benjamin Frank
lin, made sport of the system. "A serpent," said he,
"had two heads and desired to go for a drink, but there
was water in two directions, one of the heads wanted to
go to the right, the other wanted to go to the left, the ser
pent remained on the spot and died of thirst." Moreover,
those who demanded a second assembly thought of it only
as an aristocratic hereditary body like the House of Lords,
1 England and the United States must be excepted. — Ed.

THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION 129
and the Constituent Assembly did not want to destroy
one aristocracy in order to constitute another. There
fore it adopted the system of a single assembly. Like
wise, experience has proved that a minister, taken outside
of the Assembly, has not the influence over it necessary to
the welfare of the government, and that conflicts without
issue are produced between the government and the
Parliament; while the ministers taken from the majority
in the House, naturally have its support and confidence.
But in 1789 the doctrine of the separation of the powers
hindered the giving of the government into the hands of
the representatives of the people. It would have been
necessary to unite in the same hands the executive and
the legislative powers. A trial of it had been made in
England and the system had been condemned. Many
Englishmen then attributed to this custom the parlia
mentary corruption which reigned in their country; the
ministers, in order to have the support of the majority,
purchased the representatives by granting favors to them,
and the king could be tempted to purchase the chiefs of the
opposition by the offer of a place in the ministry. In
vain did Mirabeau supplicate the Constituent Assembly
not to take away from the king the power of appointing
the ministers from the members of the Assembly. That
in itself was one more reason for the decision that the
ministers must not be chosen from among the repre
sentatives. It was feared that Mirabeau might become
a minister, and his relations with the king had begun to
be a subject of distrust. In order to complete the separa
tion of the powers it was decided that the ministers should
not be permitted to speak in the Assembly on any subject
not within the province of their functions.

130 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
The part which the king should have in the legislative
power was the cause of much discussion. Should he have
the right to reject a law which had been voted by the As
sembly? The royalists demanded that he should have
an absolute veto; the right to annul the law. The enemies
of royalty did not wish to leave any legislative power in
the hands of the king. A compromise was agreed upon.
The constitution gave to the king a suspensive veto, that
is, the right to stay a law during two legislative periods.
Thus the government was confided to the care of three
powers which were so organized that each was independent
of the other. The Constituent Assembly had wanted to
respect the doctrine of the division of power, it feared the
encroachments of the executive, that is, of a king accus
tomed to despotic rule, and it was determined to weaken
this branch and to restrain it within well-defined limits.
The result was that all authority was taken away from the
ministry. The sole veritable power was found in the As
sembly. In matters of administration the Constituent Assembly
gave to the electors in each district the right to choose their
administrators. But as much distress had been caused
by functionaries who were too powerful (intendants and
subdelegates), the assembly was not willing to put a
single official in control, and all the degrees of authority
were put in charge of corporate bodies, a municipality in
the communes, and a directory in the departments and dis
tricts. Along with these executive bodies were established
deliberative boards or councils. To these local authori
ties was given not only the power to regulate the affairs
of their districts, but to set and levy the taxes and to recruit
the National Guard. In this manner the communes of

THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION 131
France became so many petty and almost independent
republics. The fear of oppression, on the part of the king and the
ministers, was the cause of great concern to the Constitu
ent Assembly. Therefore it organized the government
so that the superiority of the Assembly over the executive
was assured, and the provinces were rendered almost in
dependent of the central authority. The constitution of
1 79 1 created a central government, weak almost to im-
potency, and the local powers were strengthened almost
to the verge of anarchy. Besides, the Constituent Assembly
in deciding that none of its members would be eligible for
the Assembly, obliged the electors to send inexperienced
representatives. The Constitution of 1793. — The Constitution of 1791
still retained the king and the ministers. Enfeebled as
they were, they tried to protest against the legislative as
sembly that wanted to exercise all the power. The
special question concerned the priests and the emigre's.
The Assembly regarded them as enemies and passed laws
in regard to them to which the king opposed his veto.
During this contest a republican party was formed, few in
numbers, but which, with the aid of the suburbs of Paris,
took possession of the Tuileries and forced the Assembly to
proclaim the dethronement of the king and to convoke a
new assembly, the Convention (August 10, 1792).
The Convention took the government in hand and ruled
by means of committees chosen from among the mem
bers. It had to make over a constitution without a king.
This was the Constitution of 1793, drawn up rapidly by a
committee, and without a long discussion, voted upon by
the Convention.

132 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Its authors were disciples of Rousseau. They started
from the principle that the people alone is sovereign, and
should directly exercise the sovereignty. The people
meant all men of twenty-one years and over (for the differ
ence between active and passive citizens had been abol
ished in 1792). The electors were to be gathered in
primary assemblies not only for the purpose of choos
ing their representatives but to dehberate on the laws.
The Assembly was replaced by a legislative body, chosen
for one year only, which had not the right to make the
laws, but only to propose them. It was the primary as
semblies which accepted the laws, and they were consid
ered to have been accepted when in half the departments
plus one there could not be found one out of ten as
semblies protesting against the acceptance. Instead of
the ministry an executive council was created. It con
sisted of twenty-four members and was chosen by the
House of Deputies from a hst drawn up by the primary
assemblies. This constitution set aside, at the same time, the central
government and the Assembly, and invited all the citizens
to oppose the legal authority. "When the government
violates the rights of the people, insurrection is, for the
people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred
of rights and the most indispensable of duties."
As France was at this time invaded by the armies of
all Europe, and had need of a strong government for its
defence, it was agreed that the constitution should not be
put into operation until after the end of the war. It had
no time to perform its functions; the war was still going
on when the party which had drawn up the document was
overthrown and dismissed from power.

THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION 133
The Constitution of the Year HI. — The Convention, be
fore separating, had, therefore, to make a new constitu
tion. It was engrossed with the effort to avoid the de
fects of the Constitution of 1791, and especially to prevent
the arrival at power of the royalist party.
The constitution took away all authority from the pri
mary assemblies, which were restricted to the privilege of
designating the electors who were to choose the deputies.
The electors were required to possess property yielding a
revenue of about 200 francs.
The constitution abandoned the system of the single
assembly and established two councils, the Five Hundred,
which proposed the laws; the Ancients (250 members),
which approved them. No law could be adopted except
by the agreement of the two assembhes. Both were elec
tive, but to avoid sudden changes, only one-third of the
members were elected each year. Moreover, to maintain
the republican party in power it was decided that, in the
first legislature, there should be at least two-thirds of the
former members of the Convention.
The executive power was given to a Directory, made up
of five members chosen by the Council of the Ancients
from a hst of ten candidates presented by the Five Hun
dred. One new member was elected each year. The
Directory named the ministers, generals, ambassadors,
and held sittings in full dress in order to receive pe
titions. But to remain faithful to the idea of the division
of power they continued to keep the executive power apart
from the assembhes, the ministers could not be taken
from among the deputies, the Directory had no right to
propose any laws.
The two powers had no means of operating over one

134 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
another. When they entered into dispute they found them
selves led to employ violent measures. The Directory
twice set aside the elections to the councils, and the con
stitution was at last no longer respected by any party.

CHAPTER VI
CONTEST OF THE REVOLUTION WITH EUROPE
The Conflict Between the Revolution and the European
States. — In 1789 France was at peace with all the states
of Europe. There were at that time five great powers:
two in the West, France and England; two in the centre,
Austria and Prussia; one in the East, Russia. They were
separated by small weak states which the great powers
were striving to appropriate or to dominate. Austria
wished to acquire Bavaria in exchange for Belgium,
Prussia wished to prevent the change.
Russia desired to rule Poland, Austria and Prussia
preferred to dismember it.
Austria and Russia agreed to divide the Turkish em
pire between themselves; Prussia did not wish to permit
the aggrandizement of Austria.
England wanted to rule upon the sea. She claimed
to have the right, in time of war, to take into custody the
ships of neutral nations found on the seas, and to force
them to submit to an examination in order to prove that
they had no merchandise, belonging to the hostile nation,
concealed on board. This pretension brought her into
conflict with the maritime states of the North — Denmark,
Sweden and Russia — which, together with France and
Spain, demanded liberty on the high seas.
There were causes of conflict, therefore, between all
135

136 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the great powers. All had made war upon one another
during the eighteenth century. Divided in their interests
they were not united on any common principle. Each
one chose allies according to the interests of the moment.
The system of the ancient alliances had been overthrown
by the Seven Years' War, when France had given aid to
Austria, her old enemy, against her former ally, the King
of Prussia. No other system could have been set up; the
states were all suspicious of one another; they could not
unite in any common movement.
France found herself in a very advantageous situation;
she was engaged in none of the principal conflicts; she was
in possession of a territory sufficiently large and perfectly
united; she had along her whole frontier only small or
feeble states (Belgium, the German electorates, the king
dom of Sardinia, Spain) which could not make war upon
her, but served her as a buffer in a collision with the great
states. It was, therefore, easy for her to maintain peace.
This was the policy of Vergennes, the minister of Louis
XVI. for foreign affairs. It was also the policy of Mira
beau and Talleyrand. The Constituent Assembly,- after
a solemn discussion, adopted it. May 12, 1790, it voted
the following declaration: "The French nation renounces
the idea of undertaking any war with the prospect of mak
ing conquests, and will never employ its forces against
the hberty of any people."
This declaration was inserted in the Constitution of 1791.
But it did not depend on the Assembly to maintain har
mony with the governments of Europe. The Revolution
was in itself an act of hostility against absolute monarchies.
The "rights of man," which were proclaimed by the Con
stituent Assembly, were not only the rights of Frenchmen

REVOLUTION AND EUROPE 137
but of all men. France set the example in recognizing
these rights in her citizens; she expected that the other
nations would do as she had done. She did not desire
to employ her force against the hberty of the peoples,
but it was very difficult for her not to help them in their
efforts to obtain hberty. In the adjacent countries the
subjects who were discontented with their governments
began to hope for deliverance, and many Frenchmen en
couraged them, as they did not see why the reign of hberty
should stop at the frontier of France.
The first conflict took place with the pope in regard to
the inhabitants of Avignon, who had revolted and asked
to be annexed to France, another was with the emperor
on account of the German princes, proprietors of the seig
niories in Alsace, who were protesting against the aboli
tion of their seigniorial rights. The Constituent Assembly
yielded on the question of Avignon; but it maintained the
right of the Alsatian people to be freed from their seigniors.
"The Alsatian people," said the report presented to the
Assembly, "were united to the French people because
the nation so desired; it was that will alone, and not the
Treaty of Minister, which legitimatized the union." This
was establishing the pubhc right on a new principle, the
will of the sovereign people, while the other governments
recognized only inheritance and the contracts between
kings, without taking into account the will of the subjects.
There was no conciliation between these diametrically
opposed principles, but more direct motives were necessary
in order to bring on a war. The great mass of the French
nation did not desire it, and the monarchies of Europe
needed to be reconciled among themselves before acting
in common against the revolutionists. In 1790 the

138 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
King of Prussia had gathered an army in Silesia for the
purpose of attacking Austria.
The War. — Two years were necessary in which to bring
about a war in Europe. Two parties, both French,
produced it. A party of French nobles, displeased with
the Revolution, emigrated to Germany and stirred up the
governments in order to induce them to send armies into
France for the deliverance of Louis XVI. who was a pris
oner of the people of Paris and of the Assembly. The
friends of the Republic, on their side, urged on the war
so as to compromise Louis XVI. whom they believed to be
the secret ally of the foreign sovereigns. The Emperor
Leopold, whom the emigre's at first sought to influence,
did not desire war, but he did not wish to openly break
with the French refugees, whose leader was the brother of
Louis XVI.j the Count d'Artois. He happened to be at
the Chateau of Pilnitz, in Saxony, in company with the King
of Prussia and the Elector of Saxony when the Count
d'Artois came to ask for his support and to lay before him
the plan of the campaign against France. The sovereigns
decided not to take part in this adventure, but in order to
satisfy the emigres, they consented to publish a manifesto
in favor of the reestablishment of order and of the mon
archy in France (August 27, 1791). Therein it was said
that the emperor and the King of Prussia hoped that the
other powers of Europe would not refuse to help them
in this restoration. "Then, and in that case," they added,
"Their Majesties, the emperor and the King of Prussia,
have resolved to act promptly in mutual accord, and with
the necessary forces to obtain together the proposed
result." The two sovereigns counted, indeed, upon the
refusal of the other powers to intervene, and that they

REVOLUTION AND EUROPE 139
themselves would consequently be released from all en
gagement since they had promised to act only in case
the others would do so. "These words: then, and in that
case, are for me the Law and the Prophets," wrote Leopold.
This manifesto of Pilnitz was thus only an "august
comedy," as Mallet-Dupan said. But the e'migre's took
care to present it to the public as a formal promise. A
letter from the princes was published wherein it was
stated: "The powers whose aid they have asked are deter
mined to employ all their forces in giving it, and the emperor
and the King of Prussia have just contracted a mutual
engagement to that effect."
The partisans of the Revolution took the declaration
of the e'migre's literally, and became used to the idea that
the sovereigns of Europe had formed a coalition for the
purpose of forcing France to restore the old regime.
From 1 791 the Assembly was occupied in strengthening
the army, which had not been increased since 1789.
Besides the former soldiers who wore the white uniform,
they created the volunteers with a blue uniform.
The Legislative Assembly, composed partly of young
deputies, was soon controlled by the republican party
(the Girondists and the Club of the Cordeliers of Paris),
who desired war that royalty might be overthrown. "A
people, who, after ten centuries of slavery, has won its
liberty, has need of war," said Brissot, "to confirm that
hberty, to be purged from the vices of despotism, to banish
from its bosom the men who would be capable of destroy
ing it."
The e'migre's were then settled on the left bank of the
Rhine in the states of the Elector of Cologne, where they
had formed a small army whose headquarters were at

140 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Coblentz. The Assembly demanded that Louis XVI.
should have the e'migres expelled. Louis XVI. and his
minister for war, Narbonne, did not fear a short war with
the Elector of Cologne, for it would have the advantage of
giving strength to the army. But it was to the emperor
that the demand was addressed, asking him to summon
the ecclesiastical electors to send away the e'migre's. The
emperor refused, and the Legislative Assembly declared
war against him.
So that France began the war against the European
sovereigns without being directly threatened by an in
vasion. But it is certain that the sovereigns looked upon
the France of the Revolution as a danger for Europe, and
they would have liked to see the restoration there of the
old regime. February 7, 1792, the emperor and the King
of Prussia had signed a treaty of "friendship and defensive
alliance"; the 17th they wrote to the King of France:
"Europe would have permitted the peaceful accomplish
ment of reform (in France) if the crimes against all laws,
human and divine, had not forced the powers to act in
concert for the maintenance of pubhc peace and for the
safety of their crowns." In this first war of 1792, France
had as yet opposed to her only the emperor, the King of
Prussia, the German princes, the King of Sardinia, and
the King of Sweden, Gustavus III., who looked upon the
Revolution as an insult to all monarchs.
The operations on both sides were wretched enough.
The French army disorganized, demoralized, unskilfully
commanded, took to flight at the first encounter and left
the frontier open to the enemy.
The Prussian army was able to reach Champagne; but
it moved with so much prudence that it dared not march

REVOLUTION AND EUROPE 141
upon Paris, and fell back on the French army, which
Dumouriez had posted in its rear, then withdrew without
having made an attack. The French then took the
offensive and occupied Belgium, the left bank of the
Rhine, Savoy, and the county of Nice.
The execution of Louis XVI. made the war general. In
1793 France, having become a republic, had against her,
besides the coalition of 1792, England, Holland, Spain,
Portugal, the Italian States — that is, all Europe excepting
Switzerland, Denmark and Venice (Catherine of Russia
had declared herself to be the enemy of the Revolution,
but she refused to send any troops; she said that she
kept her soldiers to fight the "Jacobins of Poland."
Sweden had withdrawn from the coalition).
It was a sort of crusade against the republicans of France,
the enemies of the monarchy and of the church, a crusade
to restore the authority of the king and the clergy. But
the allies wanted to profit by the occasion for their own
aggrandizement at the expense of France, and, as Francis
II. of Austria said: "procure for ourselves all the recom
pense that we have the right to demand." Each sought
to conquer a province and to settle there. This caused
the failure of the coalition. The forces on the two sides
were unequal. The French army had been disorganized.
The larger number of the former officers had emigrated.
They had found no time to educate new ones. The volun
teers had not yet become real soldiers. During the first
eight or ten months of 1792 the French were always
beaten, and retreated to the frontier. But the allied
armies, in place of marching on Paris, separately or to
gether, delayed to subdue the provinces which the for
eign sovereigns counted upon appropriating. The gen-

142 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
erals, used to manoeuvring according to the regulations,
would advance only after they had occupied all the strate
gic points, and stopped to besiege each fortified place.
Thus the French armies were given time to reorganize.
At the close of 1793 they had already taken the offensive.
The year 1794 was decisive; the Austrian army was
driven from Belgium; the Prussian army withdrew from
the war.
Peace with Prussia was signed in 1795,1 with Austria
in i7973.
The French Armies. — The Revolution had destroyed
the organization of the French army. When France
had to sustain a war against the allied powers, the govern
ment tried at first to recruit the army by voluntary enlist
ments, as in 1791, by making an appeal to patriots.
The chamber declared that the fatherland was in danger,
and offices were opened to receive recruits. In Paris there
were eight of them in the public squares, where a mag
istrate, wearing a tri-colored scarf, was seated upon a
platform, and inscribed their names on the roll. The re
cruits themselves chose their officers. Thus it was hoped
that the government would have, in place of the mercen
aries, who made war a business, citizen soldiers who would
fight from a sense of duty. But the volunteers of 1792
were not numerous enough for the needs of the army.
The campaign of 1792 was made by the old soldiers and
the volunteers of 1791. In 1793 the Convention adopted
the system of obligatory service. "Until the time when
the enemies shall have been driven from the territory of
the Republic, all Frenchmen are levied en masse for ser
vice in the armies." The first requisition of the Conven-
1 Peace of Basle. — Ed. ' Treaty of Campo Formio. — Ed,

REVOLUTION AND EUROPE 143
tion was for 300,000 men, just as many as was necessary
to fill the lists, and the Directory had them sent off at the
rate of 100,000 a year. The recruits of 1793 were a mix
ture of old soldiers and of the volunteers of 1791 and 1792.
Carnot and Dubois-Crance abolished the old regiments
and made an amalgamation of the different battalions.
All the soldiers were gathered into a single corps, which
was uniformed in blue and divided into demi-brigades,
orregiments, all alike, each designated by a simple number,
There were at that time 198 battalions of the line and 725
battalions of volunteers; 198 demi-brigades of the line
were made, and 15 demi-brigades of light infantry. Na
poleon revived the name of regiment, but he preserved the
system which is in use to-day. The former subaltern
officers were made generals in the armies of 1793. Ad
vancement was so rapid that Hoche, departing a sergeant,
became a general before the end of the campaign.
In this manner, France had in these wars of the Revo
lution the advantage of forming, at a small expense, great
armies which were composed of soldiers who, for advance
ment, sought to distinguish themselves in battle.
These improvised soldiers could not manoeuvre with the
precision of old soldiers. They instinctively adopted new
tactics. They fought without regular order, sometimes
dispersed as skirmishers, sometimes together rushing
upon the enemy crying, "Charge bayonets!" The gen
erals no longer stopped to lay siege to the fortified places,
they made a war of invasion. The government sent to
the armies neither money, provisions, nor clothing. During
the first campaigns the soldiers lacked everything. The
men who invaded Holland in jnid-winter were not all pro- '
vided with shoes, many of them had to march in wooden

144 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
sabots. To provision the armies, the generals, according
to the customs of the time, made requisitions on the in
habitants of the countries that were invaded. In Italy
the generals transformed the requisitions into organized
pillage. Bonaparte in his famous proclamation of 1796
had said: "Soldiers, you are naked, ill-fed; the government
owes you much and can give you nothing. I am going to
lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. Vast
provinces, great cities will be in your power, you will find
there riches and honor." In the cities where they arrived
the generals levied contributions; they carried off the treas
ures from the churches, the plate and the works of art be
longing to the sovereigns, they even stipulated that pict
ures should be delivered to them; in this way Bonaparte
filled the museums of Paris with pictures taken from the
galleries in foreign lands. From 1795 to 1798 pictures
worth nearly 2,000,000,000 francs were taken by requi
sition. The Revolutionary Propaganda. — The French Revo
lution, unlike that of England, was not a national revolu
tion. It was made in pursuance of general principles;
therefore it took on the form of a religious movement.
The Rights of Man which the constitution set forth were
not the rights of Frenchmen alone, but those of all men.
The revolutionists were not content to have reorganized
France accordmg to the principles of 1789; they also
wished to revolutionize Europe, to destroy abuses, and to
establish everywhere the reign of justice and equality.
At first they hoped that the example of the French
people would inspire the other nations. There were,
indeed, many admirers of the Revolution to be found
among intelligent men, especially in Germany. When

REVOLUTION AND EUROPE 145
the war began the government declared that it was fighting
only "against tyrants," not against the people. When
the French armies entered upon the territory of the enemy,
the generals declared that they had come to dehver the
people from their tyrants. Everywhere they went a revo
lution was brought about. They abolished feudal rights
and privileges, deposed all the authorities, convened
in assembly the inhabitants so that they could choose their
councils and magistrates, and organized a new govern
ment copied from that of France. The common people
were treated as friends, but the privileged classes — nobility,
clergy, bourgeoisie, the "aristocrats," as the Jacobins
called them, were all looked upon as enemies. Carnot
wrote: "The contributions must be made to bear upon
the rich exclusively, the people ought to see in us their
liberators." The Treaties of Basle and of Campo Formio. — The war
had been undertaken to subdue the French Republic.
From 1794 it was evident that the project was a failure.
Some of the allied powers were disgusted with the futile
attempt and demanded peace. Prussia made the first ad
vance. She had no interest in the war; the king alone
had desired it; the Prussian statesmen finally induced him
to return to the policy of Frederick the Great, to maintain
peace, and to maintain the influence of Prussia over the
states of Northern Germany.
The only country with which the French Republic had
continued diplomatic relations was Switzerland. The
French agent in Switzerland, Barthelemy, was charged
with opening negotiations with the Prussian agents, and
the treaty was signed at Basle in Switzerland (1795).
The King of Prussia gave up the domains that he had

148 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
held on the left bank of the Rhine. France promised that ne
should receive an indemnity on the right bank; the treaty
did not indicate how this was to be arranged. They
purposely did not explain it openly, but both sides under
stood that the indemnity was to be paid by the ecclesiasti
cal princes. Thus Prussia set the example of destroying
the old empire and yielded to France a portion of Germany.
The treaty fixed a line of demarcation, and it was agreed
that all the German states to the north of that line should
be included in the peace with France. Thus the treaty
of Basle cut Germany in two. Southern Germany,
united to Austria, remained at war with France. Northern
Germany became neutral under the guarantee of Prussia.
Spain also signed the treaty of Basle.
France, rid of the war in the North and in Spain, sent
all its troops against Austria. The Austrians were at
tacked at the same time in Southern Germany and in
Italy (1796). The attack in Germany was repulsed, but
that in Italy was successfuL Bonaparte drove out the
Austrian armies, occupied all of Northern Italy, invaded
Austria by way of the Alps, and marched on Vienna.
Austria was forced to ask for peace; Bonaparte signed it,
paying no attention to the orders from the Directory.
This was the peace of Campo Formio (1797).
The emperor gave up Belgium and the Milanais. In
exchange Bonaparte gave him the territory belonging to
the republic of Venice, which the French army had occu
pied in spite of the protestations of the Venetian Senate.
As chief of the German Empire, the emperor "recognized
the boundaries of France as they were defined by the laws
of the French Republic," that is to say, the annexation to
France of the left bank of the Rhine. He promised to

REVOLUTION AND EUROPE 147
call a congress of the German states far the purpose of
acknowledging the new frontier, and to arrange for the in
demnity to be pakl from the right tiajok of the river. So the
emperor pledged himself to the destruction of the empire.
In consequence of this treaty, all the states of the Ger
man Empire were convoked at Rastadt to a "Peace Con
gress of the Empire." The Congress assembled. France
sent agents to negotiate a peace, but before the negotia
tions were ended, Austria had declared war, and had
formed a new coalition with England and with the new
Czar of Russia (170S).
History of the French Frontier. — The territory of France,
completed by the acquisition of the duchy of Lorraine, was
in 17S91 almost the same as in the nineteenth century
(until the changes of i860 and 1S71). The French states
men a: that time regarded it as of sufficient size and gave
up the idea of increasing ft. The role of France, they
thought, should be to maintain the peace of Europe in
defending the petty states against the great powers. France
was then surrounded by a belt of small states (the Austrian
Low Countries, the three ecclesiastical electorates on the
left bank of the Rhine, the Palatinate, the duchy of
Baden, Switzerland, the kingdom of Sardinia) which
formed a sort of buffer and preserved ft in the attacks of
the great powers.
The wars of the Revolution put an end to this pacific
policy. Beginning with 1792 the French armies had con
quered all the adjacent countries (Savoy, the County of
Nice, the left bank of the Rhine, Belgium) from the Rhine

1 In 1789 Fiance was m possession of several isnfalrri fmtiCal towns
(in the North, PinEppeviOe and Marissixsng; fa ibe East, Tanrian and
Sanekxris), which were taken away in 1815-

148 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
to the Alps. They had occupied them almost without
resistance. The disorganized governments were not able to
defend them, and the inhabitants had welcomed the French
gladly, as they had come in the guise of liberators, an
nouncing that their purpose was to destroy all abuses in
the governments. A new question arose, What should
France do with the countries occupied by her armies?
The Convention decided to consult the inhabitants, who
alone had the right to regulate their condition. They were
required to vote, but by setting aside, as suspected of
aristocratic sentiments, all who had occupied offices under
the old regime. The people, thus consulted under the
direction of the French agents, demanded that their coun
tries should be annexed to France. Every country from
the Rhine to the Alps was incorporated in the French
Repubhc (1792).
These acquisitions were soon taken away from France
by the allies. But in 1794 the French armies had again
occupied them, and again the question arose, What should
be done with them? Thus two parties were formed in
the government; one, returning to the policy of Louis
XVL, found France large enough, and wished to establish
peace without delay, in giving up Belgium and the left
bank of the Rhine. This was the Old Boundary party.
France, they said, is exhausted and ruined by war, the
French desire peace, and as for the inhabitants of the
other countries, since they have been tormented and
ruined by French soldiers and functionaries, they no
longer desire annexation. The other party had adopted
the victorious policy of Richelieu and of Louis XIV. :
France, they contended, should extend to her natural
frontiers — the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees; and she

REVOLUTION AND EUROPE 149
could not cease fighting until she had obtained them.
This was the Natural Frontier party, and in favor of war.
It carried the day. As the French government had no
money to sustain a war, the occupied countries had to
bear the expense incurred. The instructions to the com
mander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine were: "It is
a general principle in war that armies should live at the
expense of the enemy. You are therefore to employ all
the means at your disposition in order to have your army
furnished in this way with all possible supphes." This
system did not make the people of those countries love
France, but the government did not think itself obliged
to consult those who had already been annexed in order
to annex them again. The war alone decided the fate of
the countries.
Therefore France annexed all the territory that lay
within the limits of the Rhine and the Alps. She took
Belgium from Austria, the countries to the south of the
Rhine from Holland, which countries the Dutch had
held since the seventeenth century, and from the German
princes she took all their domains on the left bank of the
river Rhine. Geneva was taken from Switzerland, and
Savoy and the County of Nice from the King of Sardinia.
All these annexations were made under the form of laws,1
and were ratified by treaties.
The complicated and artificial frontier, which was made
by the acquisitions of the French kings, was replaced by
a simple and natural frontier, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the
Jura and the river Rhine.
1 The Genevese government demanded the annexation of Geneva,
but it had held its deliberations, surrounded by a detachment of French
soldiers,

CHAPTER VII
THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE
The Constitution of the Year VTH. — The Constitution
of the Year III., estabhshed by the Convention, did not
last for more than four years and a half (i 795-1799).
It had been planned in such a way as to make for the
duration of the Repubhc by leaving the authority in the
hands of the former members of the Convention. But
at each election the republicans who left the two councils
were replaced by royalist deputies or at least by those who
were hostile to the government. When the Directory saw
that the majority had turned against it, by means of the
coup d'etat of Fructidor, aided by a detachment sent
from the army in Italy, it got rid of the hostile deputies.
Henceforth the constitution was no longer respected, and
the two parties sought to obtain, or to hold, the reins of
government by illegally setting aside the elections. The
population was discontented with the never-ending war,
with the bad condition of the highways which were infested
by brigands, with the bankrupt condition of commerce,
with the persecutions of the priests. It cared nothing
for the Republic, but was afraid of the return of the Bour
bons, which would have brought back the old regime.
The soldiers alone remained attached to the Republic
for which they had fought, but they obeyed their generals
far more readily than they did the civil government.
150

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 151
The French statesmen felt that the Directory could not
maintain itself, and looked about for a general who could
be placed at the head of the government. Bonaparte,
having become celebrated through his campaigns in Italy
and in Egypt, returned to Paris, agreed with the Directory
and Council of the Ancients, and had his soldiers expel the
Council of the Five Hundred. This was the 18th of
Brumaire (1799). The Constitution of the Year III was
destroyed, a commission was charged with drawing up
a new one. This was the Constitution of the Year VIII.
It was according to the desires of Bonaparte. France
remained a repubhc in name; but the executive power was
confided to a first consul, chosen for two years, who ap
pointed all the officials, commanded all the armies, made
the treaties of peace and of alliance. He was given two
assistant consuls who were to aid him and who had no
authority; in reality the First Consul was an absolute
sovereign. The legislative power remained distinct according to
the principle laid down in 1789. Sieyes, who loved com
plicated mechanism, had divided the labor of making the
laws among four different bodies; the Council of State
prepared the projects for a law; the Tribunate discussed
them; the Corps Legislatif (Chamber of Deputies), after
having listened in silence to the discussion, voted upon
them, the Senate examined them and rejected them if
it found that they did not conform to the Constitution.
The Council of State and the Senate were appointed by
the consuls; the Tribunate and the Chamber were formed
from members chosen by the consuls from lists of notables
designated by the electors in a series of superposed elec
tions.

152 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
On first view, the authority seemed to be well divided—
the executive power between the First Consul and his two
colleagues, the legislative power between the consuls and
the four law-making bodies. But the two consuls were
only figures, the councillors of state and the senators were
directly named by the First Consul. It was the Senate
that voted the budget and that levied the conscripts for
the armies; it could, besides, as the constitution declared,
order the decrees which took the place of laws. Even
the Tribunate and the Chamber, which apparently was
recruited by elections, depended on the choice of the govern
ment. All this complicated apparatus served only to
conceal the absolute authority of the First Consul.
Bonaparte came forward only as the representative
of the French people; he declared that the nation alone is
the sovereign. Every time that he modified the constitu
tion he submitted the changes to a vote of the electors.
But this appeal was never anything but a ceremony.
From 1800 Bonaparte was the absolute master of France.
That was the meaning of the Constitution of the Year VIII.
The Empire. — The rule of the Consulate lasted four
years. In 1802 Bonaparte had himself named Consul for
life. But authority for life and the title of Consul were no
longer sufficient for him. At first he had not dared to
suppress the republican forms, believing that the French
people cared about them; the greater number of the high
officials were formerly members of the Convention; he
had even kept the republican calendar and the appella
tion "citizen." But after the execution of the Duke
d'Enghien, in 1803, he desired to make his power hered
itary in order to discourage any attempt to assassinate,
and he wished to have a title that would enable him to

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 153
treat with the sovereigns of Europe as their peer. The
Senate proposed the title of Emperor, which was declared
hereditary in his family. This was the Constitution of
1804. The name of French Repubhc was preserved until
1808, then replaced by the name Empire.
The structure of the government demanded by the Con
stitution of the Year VIII was gradually simplified. In
1802 Napoleon found that some of the tribunes spoke
out too freely, and he obliged them to leave the Tribunate.
Then he suppressed the Tribunate itself, by fusing it with
the Chamber of Deputies (1807). The Senate gradually
became the real legislative power — the measures which
the emperor did not venture to take by a simple edict
were promulgated under the form of a decree of the
Senate. Napoleon wanted to give to the new monarchy an ex
terior splendor which would make it resemble the ancient
monarchies. He broke away from the republican forms
and returned to the usages of the European kingdoms.
He reestablished the court, and surrounded his wife
with ladies of honor. He gave great entertainments,
and sought to set up again the etiquette of the old French
court. He sent for Madame Campan, who had attended
Marie Antoinette, and ordered that the information that
she could give concerning the usages of the court of
Louis XVI. should be noted down. Having been present
at a ceremony in Germany, when the people of the court
had passed before the King of Bavaria, stopping to make
a profound bow, or courtesy, he wished that the same
reverence should be shown at his court. During the so
journ of the court at Fontainebleau the emperor issued
this regulation : Each of the princes and the grand digni-

154 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
taries must in turn give a reception, and the form of this
reception was regulated. On fixed days hunting parties
should be given, and the ladies were to be present in the
costume prescribed. This court had been improvised
from the generals and their wives, almost all born in the
ranks of the people, and who felt themselves out of place
in the midst of all this luxury and ceremony. "At that
time," said Madame de Remusat,1 " everything had really
to be made over. The freedom of the Revolution had
banished all the ceremony of politeness from society.
No one knew any more how to bow on approaching
another, and all of us who were ladies at court discovered
suddenly that how to courtesy was a point greatly lacking
in our education. Despreaux, who had been dancing-
master to the queen, was sent for and gave each one of
us lessons."
The only experienced courtiers were the old lords
and grand dames of the royal court, who had returned
from foreign lands and had consented to appear at the
imperial court. Napoleon sought for them, in order to
have them fill the functions of chamberlains and of ladies-
in-waiting. "It is only such people who know how to be
of service," said he.
He soon found that he could not have a monarchy with
out a nobility, and he created an imperial nobihty (1806).
He took again the ancient titles of prince, duke, count, and
baron, omitting that of marquis, which Moliere had
rendered so ridiculous;2 he also resumed the custom of
primogeniture, that is, of inalienable domains passing
1 Lady-in-waiting to the empress.
2 Under the Restoration many families of the imperial nobility asked
to be permitted the title of marquis to conceal their origin and to become
part of the old nobility.

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPHIE 155
from eldest son to eldest son. He gave tides to the gen
erals and to the head officials, also to members of the In
stitute. The dukes received in addition a dowry, almost
all formed at the expense of the Italian towns from which
they had taken their names (the Duke of Rovigo, of
Treviso, of Feltre, etc.). These titles were hereditary.
Napoleon pretended, however, to have done a demo
cratic work. " I set up a monarchy," said he, "in creating
an hereditary class; but I stand by the Revolution, because
my nobility is not exclusive. My tides are a sort of civic
crown; one can win them through his own efforts."
Measures of Napoleon and the Home Government. — On
taking possession of the government Napoleon had said:
"The Revolution was settled by the principles which
began ft. It is ended" "We have finished the romance
of the Revolution," he said again; "we must begin the
history of it, seeing in it only what is real and possible in
the application of its principle." Napoleon assumed
from that time, and always assumed, that he was the
successor of the Revolution; but the Revolution had been
disorderly, and he wanted to restore order.
He began by measures of immediate reparation. The
government of the Directory had found France a prey
to disorders, produced by civil and foreign wars, and it had
not been able to abate them: i. There was a deficit in
the budget, and the country was flooded with paper money.
The taxes were paid in assignats, or not paid at all;
it was necessary to cover expenses by issuing paper
money in ever-increasing quantity; it had reached the
sum of forty milliards in assignats — 338 francs in assignats
were worth one franc in silver. The territorial warrants,
with which the Directory had replaced the assignats, had

156 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
finally become as depreciated as the money they were to
replace. As there was no money to pay the interest on
the public debt, the payment of two-thirds was forfeited,
and the creditors of the state were reduced to one-third
(a funded third), but this third, even, was no longer paid
and the credit of France was destroyed. The source of
all subsistence was the war contribution levied on the con
quered countries. 2. The police had become disorganized.
The Directory had reorganized at Paris a system of surveil
lance over those suspected of sympathy with the monarchy,
but there was no police on the highways, and bands of
deserters and malefactors formed companies of brigands
who stopped and attacked the stage-coaches. 3. The
clergy and the nobles had been persecuted; the Directory,
without prohibiting Catholic worship, had continued to
deport the priests, and to shoot the refugees who were
returning to France.
Bonaparte restored order to the finances by organizing
a treasury. The treasurers were chosen from among
men who were solvent, and who were obliged to advance
the sums which they were to recover; thus the state had
enough coin to pay the debt, and could put an end to the
regime of paper money. To restore security on the pub
lic roads, troops were sent out, several brigands were shot,
and then they set to work to repair the roads. To calm
the irritation of the Catholics, Bonaparte left the priests
free to return and to celebrate their services. The perse
cution of the refugees diminished also, but did not cease
entirely. A list of the e'migre's was made even as late as
1807. This work of reparation began the very first year. At
the same time Bonaparte set about a work of reconstruc-

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPEIE 157
tion which continued until 1811. He made over all the
institutions of France. The work was prepared by the
Council of State or by special commissioners; but Bona
parte had confidence in no one; he had all the projects pre
sented to himself, examined them, and decided upon the
reforms. The whole organization of the country was re
modelled on a plan conformable to the ideas of Napoleon,
in which he combined the creations of the assembhes
of the Revolution, some traditions of the old regime, and
some institutions conceived by himself.
The government remained centralized at Paris; each
department, as before 1789, had at the head a minister
(the office of Minister of Police was created). The Coun
cil of State recovered its authority; as before 1789, it was
charged with preparing the acts of the government and of
judging the cases of private individuals against the state
and against officials.
In the provinces Napoleon preserved the division into
departments — arrondissements, cantons, and communes,
which was fixed by the Constituent Assembly, but he did
not wish to leave the administration to the elective as
sembhes (which had been the idea during the Revolution).
"To rule is the business of one person only," said he, so
he returned to the system of intendants, in use during the
old regime. In each territorial division he put an agent
of the government, named by himself, and removable at
bis will — prefect in a department, subprefect in an arron-
dissement, mayor in a commune. For mere form he kept
the general council with the prefect, the council of the arron-
dissement with the subprefect, but these councils were no
longer elected, and had no authority; only the municipal
council with the mayor remained an elective body. To-

158 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
gether with the general administration Napoleon kept
the special services, but he reorganized them.
For the judiciary he kept the justices of the peace, the
arrondissement tribunals, the assizes, the criminal jury
in the departments, the court of appeals — all creations of
the Constituent Assembly — but he took from the old
regime the courts of appeal, charged with the revision of
the judgments of the inferior courts. He did not wish
to have the judges elected, and adopted the permanent
magistracy of the period before 1789. He restored all the
personnel that the Revolution had suppressed, the pubhc
prosecutor (with the old names of prosecuting-attorney
and deputies), the order of barristers, advocates, clerks,
and notaries, giving thus to the corporation of lawyers a
greater influence than ever, since the other classes of the
old regime were no longer there to counterbalance it.
However, the manner of dispensing justice remained as
it was during the Revolution, justice was gratuitous, the
procedure was public; and Napoleon did not dare to do
away with the jury.
Napoleon also restored the administrative justice of the
Council of State and of the Court of Accounts. Officials
could not be prosecuted except before the Council of State.
In each department was established a Council of the Pre
fecture. In the finances, over the district-collectors were the
collectors-general, in each department. The taxes were
no longer apportioned by elective assemblies, but by gov
ernment officials.
Napoleon preserved the system of direct taxes, such as
he had found established (taxes on real and personal
property, individual or poll-tax), and the tax on licenses

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 159
or patents by the law of the Constituent Assembly, taxes
on doors and windows by the law of the Directory. He
created the office of tax-collector, or receiver, for the levy
ing of the impost, and ordered that an official statement
be drawn up of the quantity and value of all real property
for the purpose of assessing the tax on real estate. He also
preserved the customs duties which existed along the fron
tier. But as the receipts were insufficient he restored the
indirect taxes of the old regime. At first he reestablished
the tax on beverages, under the name of excise tax, then
on salt, and, finally, the monopoly on tobacco was added
to the list (1810).
The credit of France, destroyed by the Revolution, was
retrieved. The Great Register of the Public Debt, be
gun by the Convention, was preserved, but the depreci
ated paper money of the Revolution was no longer issued.
In order to issue a paper currency on a solid basis, Napo
leon, returned to a procedure already tried under the mon
archy — he created the Bank of France. This bank had
the privilege of issuing notes, but on the condition that there
should be in its coffers a quantity of specie sufficient to
guarantee the value of these notes. The bank was a state
institution. The military organization remained in the condition
to which it had been brought by the governments of the
Revolution, with the division into demi-brigades (only
the old name of regiment was resumed), and promotion
accordmg to merit and seniority, taking no account of
rank by birth. Napoleon formed a troop of picked men
— the Guard (consular, afterward imperial). The National
Guard itself was kept for home service. The army
was recruited on the principle of obligatory service laid

160 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
down by the Convention. Napoleon retained the system
of conscription adopted by the Directory, but he permitted
drawing by lot and the use of substitutes, as was done in
the old militia.
As for the police organization, Napoleon went back to
the procedure of the old regime. He reappointed a pre
fect of police in Paris, restored the censorship of the press
and the state prisons.
As regards customs, he Tiept the metric system, created
by the Convention, and returned to the calendar of the
old regime. He also wanted to establish an order of
knights, but in opening it to all without distinction of
birth. Thus was formed under an antique name the order
of the Legion of Honor. Any one was admitted to the order
who had distinguished himself either in war, in his official
duties, or in the sciences, arts, and industries. It com
prised several degrees, chevalier, officer, commander, etc.
Later the imperial nobility was created (1806).
Napoleon also wanted to reorganize and to subject to his
authority the church, education, and the press. During
the Revolution the church had ceased receiving support
from the state: Napoleon reconstructed it on the old basis
by making a concordat with the pope (1800), which he
perfected by the "Fundamental Articles"; these were
provisions which the French government set forth, on its
own authority, and which it imposed on the French clergy.
The Concordat set up a compromise between the church,
as the Constituent Assembly would have made it, and the
church of the old regime, as before 1789 the church rested
not on the French law but on the treaty between France
and the pope (the Concordat). The government had the
right, just as before 1789, to nominate the bishops, and

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 161
the pope had the right to appoint them. But the church
gave up its domains, which had become national property.
As in the Constitution of 1791, the state was charged with
the support of the clergy, so the clergy were obliged to take
the oath of the government, and the limits of the dioceses
were the same as those of the departments. Catholicism
was no longer, as before 1789, the religion of the state.
It was characterized as the "religion of the majority of
the French people." This arrangement placed the French
clergy in the hands of Napoleon. It was necessary, in
order to induce the pope to accept it, to threaten the de
struction of all that remained of Catholicism in France.
Napoleon always looked upon the ecclesiastics as func
tionaries of the government. He said, "my bishops,"
just as he said, "my prefects." He dealt cautiously with
them in the early years. "You do not know," said he to
a councillor of state in 1804, "all that I have brought about
by means of the priests, whom I know how to win over to
my side. There are in France thirty departments with
sufficient religious sentiment so that I would not care to
be forced into a contest there, for authority, in opposition
to the pope." But beginning with 1808, when he was in
open war with the pope, he sought to force the bishops to
unite in a council to take his part, removed and arrested
those who resisted, and had all the pupils of a seminary
enrolled in the army because they had protested against
his methods.
The system of education had occupied a large part of
the Convention, which had established three grades —
primary, secondary, and superior. It had only time to cre
ate a few special high schools, some central schools for
secondary education, and the Institute, which was to be
M

162 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
at one and the same time a learned body and an establish
ment for the higher education. Napoleon united all the
grades of teaching into a single body, which he called
the University (turning aside from its signification the old
name). At the head he put a grand-master. France was
divided into districts which he called academies, each of
which was entrusted to a rector, who had authority over
all the personnel The faculties for the higher education
were taken from those of the old regime. He rees
tablished the colleges for secondary education, which the
bourgeoisie demanded (the colleges of the principal towns
were called lyce'es). He also returned to the system of the
boarding-school by adding the use of the uniform and of
military discipline. He wished the professors to be
bachelors, as was the custom in the old ecclesiastical col
leges, and that they should be subject to the au^^-aty
of the head-master and censor (titles borrowed from
the Jesuit colleges). The regulations partooJ^sLche con
vent and barracks. He did nothing- for the primary
schools, and refused to do anything for the education of
women. "Pubhc education does not befit them," said
he, "since they are not called to live in public, and mar
riage is their sole destination."
The press appeared to be a dangerous power in the eyes
of Napoleon, and he desired to control it. He began by
suppressing all the journals except thirteen, and established
a press-bureau in the ministry of police. This bureau
had charge of the surveillance of the journals. By
threatening the proprietor with the suppression of his news
paper they obliged him to publish only those articles ap
proved by the government. Then Napoleon proceeded to
name the directors of the journals, making them function-

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 163
aries of the state. " One has the right to exact," he wrote
in 1804, "that the journals should be wholly devoted to the
reigning dynasty, and that they should oppose everything
that would tend to bring back favorable memories of the
Bourbons  Every time that a disagreeable piece of
news comes to the government it should not be published
until one is so sure of the truth that one need not tell it,
for it will be known by everybody." In 1805 he wrote,
during the war, to the minister of police: "Restrain the
journals a little more; make them put in good articles.
Make the editors of the "Journal des Dehats" and of the
"Publiciste" understand that the time is not far distant
when perceiving that they are not useful to me, I shall
suppress them along with the others, retaining only one
of them. The epoch of the Revolution is ended, there is
only one party in France, and I shall never permit my
journals to say or do anything opposed to my interests."
In 1807 he ordered the arrest of Guirarel for having
written an article for "The Mercury" which was against
the liberty of the Gallican Church. " One should not be
concerned about the church except in sermons." The
"Publiciste" had spoken of the Count de Lille (Louis
XVIIL). "The next time that he speaks of that indi
vidual," said Napoleon, "I shall take away from him the
direction of the journal."
Legislation. — The Constituent Assembly had accepted
the principle that all France should be subject to the same
law. "There shall be made a code of civil law common
to the whole kingdom," said the constitution. The
principle could not be applied. The representatives from
the South were afraid to be deprived of the Roman law
and of being subjected to the common law.

164 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
The Convention reasserted the principle! "The code
of the civil and criminal law is uniform for the whole re
public." The 22d of August, 1793, the discussion over
this code was begun. A project known as the Code of
Cambaceres was voted on, then put into the hands of a
commission. This project discussed at three different
times, had not yet become a law when Bonaparte came into
power. From 1800 the Council of State was charged with the
preparation of a civil code; a commission of jurisconsults
was formed which began the discussion; the First Consul
was often present at the sessions, listening to the argu
ments, and giving advice. The commission found the
ground prepared for them by the labors of the Convention,
and it was able in a short time to present a civil code
which was voted on by the Chamber and then promulgated.
It was drawn up in a series of numbered articles in order
to facilitate research and quotation. It established uni
form rules of action for all France. These rules were
taken from those in use during the two regimes which had
governed the country before 1789; property rights and con
tracts were regulated according to the principles of Roman
law; as for the law concerning the individual and inheri
tances the custom of Paris was followed; for marriages they
retained the regulation for community of goods, taken
from the common law, and the dowry regulations as set
down in the Roman law. The civil code so rapidly became
incorporated into the habits and customs of daily life that
the countries which had been annexed asked permission
to keep it even after the separation in 1814. The Code
Napoleon as it was called has continued in use through
out Belgium, along the left bank of the Rhine, and in

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 105
Italy. The other codes were more slowly drawn up.
The work was not finished until 1811. France found
herself supphed with a complete system of laws, the five
codes — civil, commercial, civil procedure, penal, criminal
procedure. In this series of codes legislation had organized France
on the basis of the principles of the Revolution. 1. Every
part of the country was subject to the same regula
tions. There was at last the unity of law so long desired
by the kings and which they had not been able to estabhsh.
2. The law was the same for all. It no longer recognized
any privileges. There was equahty before the law; equahty
of the citizens, who were to be admitted to the same offices,
to endure the same burdens, and to be judged by the same
rules; equahty of children in regard to inheritance, division
to be made equally, without regard to sex or age; equality
of foreigners, who could do business and inherit property
in France just like a French citizen; equahty in religious
worship; equahty in property rights, which could no longer
be encumbered by personal servitude. 3. The law pro
tected the hberty of the individual. It gave to the accused
the right of being publicly judged by his peers and of being
defended by an advocate; it gave to the child complete
liberty on arriving at his majority; to the married it gave
the right of divorce; it left each one free to choose his own
religion, to labor, to cultivate, to manufacture, to transport,
to lend money on interest. It was the enactment of the
liberty of the individual. France had gained in unity,
equahty, and liberty.
Public Works. — Napoleon, like the Romans, had a taste
for great public works. In this he saw a means of making
his government splendid and popular. Like the Romans,

1G6 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
he had highways constructed for the purpose of transport
ing his armies and of bringing all parts of his empire into
communication with each other; and monuments for
the purpose of transmitting his glory to posterity. The
principal roads were the Corniche or Cornice Road, cut
in the rock along the coast of the Mediterranean, between
Toulon and Nice, in order to estabhsh communication
between Provence and Italy; the route over the Simplon,
which, going up through the upper valley of the Rhone
and across the Simplon Pass, descends into the upper
valley of the Ticino in Italy.
The principal monuments were erected in Paris. The
Column Venddme, an imitation of the column of Trajan
at Rome, was cast from the bronze cannon taken from
the enemy in the campaign of 1805. It is covered with
bas-reliefs of scenes in that war. The triumphal Arc
du Carrousel, built on the Place des Tuileries, is also
an imitation of the antique. It reproduces the Arch of
Titus. It was surmounted by the two bronze horses of St.
Mark which Napoleon had brought away from Venice.
They were sent back in 181 5. The Arc de PEtoile,
constructed on the elevation which overlooks Paris on the
west, is yet another work destined to preserve the memory
of the wars of Napoleon. On it are inscribed the names
of his generals. Napoleon had put up for competition
a plan for a monument — a Temple of Glory — where all
his generals were to be represented. The edifice, con
structed on the model of a Greek temple, was almost
finished in 1814; from it was made the Church of the Mad
eleine. From this period also dates the Rue de Rivoli with
an arcaded facade, the Fountain Desaix, the Corps Legis-
latif, the Exchange, and the Wine Warehouse at Bercy.

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 167
Science, Letters, Arts. — Napoleon desired that his reign
should be marked by great scientific and artistic works,
as well as by great conquests and great creations. He
sought to encourage scholars, writers, and artists by
rewards and honors. "If Corneille had lived in my time,"
said he, "I would have made him a prince." The paint
ers, Gros and Gerard, the savants, Lagrange, Laplace,
Monge and others, were made barons, and he insisted that
the Legion of Honor should be open to all, savants and
artists as well as to soldiers and public officials. He be
stowed pensions and founded decennial prizes of 100,000
francs. But he tried to manage science and art just as he
managed war and politics. He wanted every one to under
stand art and science as he understood them. He perse
cuted the two principal writers of his time, Chateaubriand
and Madame de StaSl, and ordered their works to be seized
because they expressed ideas which did not suit him. He
openly abused the naturalist Lamarck because he was oc
cupied with the study of meteorology. He withdrew his pro
tection from Cherubini because he found his music too noisy.
He acted as if he were the absolute master of the theatre.
He forbade the presentation of two dramas by Duval
because they might serve as a pretext for demonstrations in
favor of or against the nobihty. A drama with a Spanish
title, "Don Sancho," was prohibited because the Span
iards had just revolted; the author was obliged to change
the scene of it to Assyria and to call it "Ninus." The
greater number of the dramas of J. Chenier and of N. Le-
mercier could not be presented, as their authors were dis
pleasing to Napoleon. Napoleon did not have the share that
he imagined he exercised in the science and art of his time.
The sciences made great progress; but in France, as in

168 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
England, they continued to develop in the direction they
had taken before the time of Napoleon.
In mathematics this was the epoch of Lagrange, La
place, Monge, and the astronomer Lalande; but all had
appeared before the end of the century, and it was under
the Directory that the two important works of Laplace
were published which have made over astronomy, viz.:
the "Exposition du systeme du monde" (1796), and the
"Traite" de la mecanique celeste" (1799). In physics,
Gay-Lussac and Arago; in chemistry, Guy ton de Morveau,
Berthollet, Fourcroy, Vauquelin, Thenard; in natural
science, Lamarck, Cuvier, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the
botanist Laurent de Jussieu; the physiologists, Bichat and
Cabanis, were all men of the eighteenth century also, and
only continued, under Napoleon, the labors already begun.
The influence of Napoleon was much more felt in liter
ature. The official encouragement contributed to the dura
tion of certain literary styles of the eighteenth century
from which the pubhc had begun to turn away — the classic
tragedy after the fashion of Voltaire, represented by Ray-
nouard, Jouy, Luce de Lancival; the epic poem (Campe-
non, Fontanes, Briffaut, Dorion, etc.); descriptive poetry
(Delille, Saint-Lambert, Legouve", Chenedoll£); the lyric
ode represented by Lebrun surnamed Pindar. In these
classes no remarkable work was produced. But new
forms came into being — the historic drama, the song,
the romance. Two celebrated writers, Chateaubriand
with the "Martyrs" (1809) and the "Genie du Christian-
isme" (1802), Madame de Stael with "L' Allemagne"
(1810), began the romantic1 movement in France. Both
1 Two French writers of this period, Joseph and Xavier de Maistre,
were noblemen from Savoy, subjects of the King of Sardinia.

THE CONSULATE AND THE EMPIRE 100
were in conflict with Napoleon and were obliged to live
outside of France. The emperor realized in a measure his
impotency. "I have on my side," said he to Fontanes,
" the insignificant literature, and the important is opposed
to me."
Napoleon was more fortunate with the artists; his taste
agreed with that of his time, and he encouraged the arts in
the course upon which they had naturally entered.
The imitation of the antique, which had dominated in
architecture ever since the seventeenth century and in
sculpture since the eighteenth century, extended even to
painting. The most celebrated painter of the period was
David (1748-1828), who usually treated subjects taken
from antiquity — the Sabines, Leonidas at Thermopylae, etc.
The school of David was dominant in painting during the
Revolution and the Empire; the chief representatives were
Gerard, Girodet, Gros (painter of battles). Prud'hon
(1758-1823) had remained outside of the school; and of the
young artists Gericault and Ingres began to depart from it.
Sculpture produced few great works. The French sculp
tors, Cartellier, Esparcieux, Glraud, remained inferior to
their contemporaries, the Dane, Thorwaldsen, and the
Italian, Canova.
The architects, Percier, Fontaine, Chalgrin, Brongniart,
whom Napoleon charged with the building of his monu
ments continued to copy the antique forms; no original
art came into existence.
In music there appeared no great composers save those
of the revolutionary period — Mehul, Lesueur, and Cheru
bim. Napoleon encouraged the Italian musicians, Paisiello,
Paer, and Spontini.

CHAPTER VIII
CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE
Peace in Europe. — The war between republican France
and monarchical Europe lasted until 1801. Napoleon
had found France struggling against a new coalition
formed in 1798, which was a union of three out of the
four great powers (England, Austria, Russia) and the
Italian princes. The allies had reconquered Italy and
had tried to invade France, but before they had reached
the frontier they were repulsed in Switzerland and in
Holland (1799). Then Napoleon had induced the Czar
of Russia to withdraw from the war, had driven the
Austrians from Italy and from Southern Germany, and
had given up the protection of Egypt against the Eng
lish. Thus he was able to set France at peace with
Russia, Austria, and England. The wars of the Rev
olution were ended. The peace ardently desired by
all the nations was reestablished throughout the whole
of Europe, France retained the new institutions, which
she had adopted in spite of Europe, the countries which
she had conquered, the allies which she had acquired and
placed under her influence (Holland, Switzerland, coun
tries of Italy, Spain); England yielded to France and
her allies the colonies which she had conquered, but
she remained the greatest colonial and maritime power.
170

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 171
The three great powers in the east, Austria, Prussia, and
Russia, driven back from the west by France, had in
demnified themselves by making a division of Poland,
(1793 and 1795); Austria, besides, had extended her
borders as far as the Adriatic, by the annexation of the
Venetian possessions.
The Conflicts with the Great Powers. — The peace
lasted only two years. Two questions were brought
forward which the wars of the Revolution had not been
able to settle. 1. Who should rule the petty states of
central Europe (Germany and Italy) ? 2. Who should
be master of the seas and of the colonies?
On these two questions the policy of Napoleon was
in conflict with that of the other great powers.
1. In central Europe he intended to rule, and alone to
regulate the boundaries and the domestic government of
the petty states; by his authority alone, the constitutions
of the Batavian, Helvetian, Ligurian and Cisalpine
republics were wholly transformed; he imposed on all of
his neighbors an alliance, offensive and defensive, with
France, obliged them, in case of war, to put their fleets,
their armies, and their treasuries at her disposal. This
made Holland, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain vassals of
France. He made over territories at his own pleasure;
with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany he created the kingdom
of Etruria. In 1802 he had annexed Piedmont to France,
thus going beyond the natural frontier of the Alps.
In Germany he was obliged to determine the indemnities
promised to the lay princes who had lost their domains
on the left bank of the Rhine. This was to have been
done by the Diet or by a German congress. But the
emperor could have had sufficient influence to prevent

172 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the destruction of the ecclesiastical states. These states
gave the Austrian and Catholic party a majority in the
Diet. Napoleon preferred to have a direct understanding
with the German lay princes. They sent to Paris to nego
tiate, each for himself, with France (the king of Prussia
and the Duke of Bavaria were the ones who set the
example. Napoleon disposed of the German countries
as if they had belonged to him. He destroyed almost all
the petty states (ecclesiastical states, free cities, countries,
and seigniories), and gave their territories to the principal
lay princes of Germany, who received not only indemnities,
as had been agreed upon, but also an increase of territory
and of power (1803). Then, on a journey to Aix la Chapelle,
which at that time belonged to France, he had the same
honors paid to him that were given to an emperor of
Germany. The Austrian Government was not willing
to yield to Napoleon the countries of Italy and Germany,
where for more than a century the influence of the emperor
had been recognized.
2. On the sea and in the colonies Napoleon did not
pretend to reign alone, but he wanted to share the domina
tion with England. He had in his service not only the
French fleet, but also the fleets of Holland and of Spain.
He wanted to restore a colonial empire to France; he
had Louisiana (that is North America west of the Missis
sippi) returned by Spain; since 1793 he had reconquered
the large island of Hayti from the revolting negroes. He
wanted to open to French commerce not only the colonies
of France, but also those of Spain and of Holland. During
the war the English had occupied the colonies of France
and of her allies; they had destroyed her navy and put
an end to her commerce; as they were masters of the

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 173
seas they alone could send out merchantmen. They had
gained for themselves almost all the commerce of Europe,
America, and the Indies. The war, then, had enriched
the English ship-owners and manufacturers. The peace,
by taking away the monopoly of the commerce, had
diminished their profits. The French were free to compete
with them in all the markets; they had even the advantage
of being favored by their allies. The treaty of Amiens
had not even stipulated for the restoration of the former
privileges to the English merchandise. France and her
allies were able to put them aside by establishing a high
tariff. The English merchants and statesmen were soon
aware that peace had been a bad commercial operation
for England, and they seized thefirst opportunity for re
suming the war. The war was resumed in 1803.
The Coalitions Opposed to Napoleon. — Through his
commercial policy Napoleon was the enemy of England;
through his European policy he was the enemy of Austria
and of the allied powers. But England had no army,
Austria and Russia had not enough funds to sustain a
war. They could act against Napoleon only by forming
a union. Common interests brought them together, and
for ten years there was a succession of coalitions of the
great powers in opposition to the French empire. The
English Government made war upon the sea. It furnished
money to the great states so that they could make war on
the Continent. Thus on two fields of conflict were opened
at the same time two similar contests, but this war was
more especially a duel between England and Napoleon.
England began alone, and by a maritime war. Napo
leon saw that his fleet, even when united with the fleets
of Holland and Spain, would still be inferior to the English

174 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
fleets, and he wished to transfer the conflict to land. At
first he made two attempts to invade Ireland, in August
and in October, 1804. Then he assembled his army at
Boulogne and prepared to transport it to England whenever
the united fleets should succeed in clearing the English
ships from the Channel; two days should have sufficed,
but his fleets were unable to escape from the attacks of
the English squadron, which pursued them and finally
destroyed them at Trafalgar (1805). Napoleon was
obliged to give up not only the taking of the offensive against
England but even the defense of the French commercial
marine; the English remained masters of the sea. Na
poleon, disappointed in regard to the mastery of the sea,
fell back upon the Continent. He had deeply irritated
the sovereigns of Europe by causing the arrest on neutral
territory and the execution of the Duke d'Enghien, a
prince of the royal family of France (1803). The Em
peror Francis of Austria, Alexander L, Czar of Russia,
and Frederick William III., King of Prussia came to
gether and sought to arrive at an agreement to put a stop
to the career of Napoleon, who threatened to alone become
more powerful than all the others.
The emperor and the czar concluded an alliance purely
defensive, in which the King of Prussia had no part
(November, 1804). The Czar Alexander, without in
forming his ally, treated directly with England (April,
1805); Austria then found herself engaged in a war
without being prepared for it. In this manner was
formed the first coalition — against Napoleon — between
England and the Eastern powers. It was not complete,
the King of Prussia dared not enter it. He felt himself
in greater danger from Alexander on account of Poland

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 175
than from Napoleon on account of Germany; when he
had come to a decision, after the first defeats of the Aus-
trians at Ulm and on the Danube, it was too late; Na
poleon had just destroyed the Austro-Russian army at
Austerlitz (December 2, 1805), and had forced the emperor
to sue for peace.
Napoleon, delivered from the power of Austria, suc
ceeded in establishing his authority in all the countries
whose possession had been in dispute with Austria. He
took the kingdom of Italy from the Bourbons, and gave
it to bis brother Joseph. He turned the Dutch Republic
into a kingdom, which he gave to his brother Louis.
In Germany he effectively destroyed the old Germanic
empire. As in 1803, he treated directly with the German
lay princes; he increased their territories at the expense
of what had remained of the free cities and of the domains
of the church; to the leading princes he gave new titles
(he created two kings and two grand dukes); then sixteen
German princes declared that they were no longer a part
of the empire and united to form the Confederation of
the Rhine; they recognized Napoleon as Protector of the
Confederation, and pledged themselves to furnish him
with 60,000 men in case of war. Francis gave up the
title of Emperor of Germany and called himself hence
forth the Emperor of Austria (1806).
Napoleon thus became master of Southern Germany,
and of the west, and he sought for the control of Northern
Germany. At the commencement of the war with Eng
land, in 1803, he had caused the occupation of Hanover
(possession of the family of the English king); he obliged
the Prussian king to take it in exchange for the duchy
of Cleves, thus pledging the Prussian Government, in

176 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
spite of itself, to undertake a war with England (December,
1805); then he entered into negotiations with the English
Government, promising the restitution of Hanover (1806).
So the King of Prussia was treated as a petty German
prince, his kingdom was no longer counted among the
great powers, he was even on the point of losing the in
fluence which Prussia had exercised since the time of
Frederick II. over Northern Germany. He decided to
risk another war in order to keep his rank among the other
princes. But Napoleon had still an army in Germany.
Prussia had no time to form another coalition; she had
to carry the whole burden of the war, her army was de
stroyed, and the entire kingdom was occupied by the
French (1806).
The year 1806 brought a change in the attitude of Na
poleon. 1. The negotiations with the English Govern
ment were broken off. Napoleon no longer thought of
making peace with England, but was working her ruin;
2. Napoleon, who up to that period had been content with
the domination of Central Europe, became interested in
the affairs of Eastern Europe and wanted to dispose of
Northern Germany, Prussia, and Poland.
The Blockade of the Continent. — Napoleon, seeing that
for want of a fleet he could not make a direct attack on
England, sought to injure her by destroying her com*
merce. Before he had ended the war with Prussia he
published the Berlin Decree (December, 1806), which
established the Continental blockade.
A principle admitted by all the European peoples was,
that when a port belonging to a country at war is blockaded
by the fleet of a hostile power no ship, not even from a
neutral natiqn, was to enter that port. The English

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 177
Government pretended to prevent the entrance of the
neutral vessels, when there was no actual blockade, satisfied
with the mere declaration that such a port was in a state
of blockade. Napoleon extended this pretended claim
to the whole Continent. He declared that no one in
Europe should any longer trade with England. No
English ship was to be received in a Continental port, no
European vessel was to land at any port of England or of
the colonies. The prohibition extended over all English
merchandise. French subjects and those of all the
Continental countries were forbidden to transport English
goods. Napoleon hoped to ruin the English by pre
venting the sale of their manufactured products, the
disposition of their colonial wares and mine products, and
to keep them from procuring for themselves the grains and
woods which they could not well do without.
The English Government met this decree by orders in
council which forbade all ships, of whatever nation, to trade
in any Continental port without first having visited an Eng
lish port. The penalty was confiscation. That is to say all
commerce had henceforth to be carried on through
England. Napoleon declared that any neutral vessel
visiting England would be denationalized and considered
as an English ship, therefore would be confiscated. This
measure overturned all the customs of Europe. Since
the wars of the Revolution all European nations had been
accustomed to receive from England all their stuffs, iron
goods, colonial products, coffee, tea, sugar. They found
themselves suddenly deprived of things which they
could not do without. The merchants, especially those
of Holland and of the Hanseatic towns (Bremen
and Hamburg), who were living from their trade

178 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
with England, saw themselves condemned to complete
ruin. It was impossible to carry out exactly the provisions
of the decree. In the countries where the administration
was in the hands of the French officials, English mer
chandise entered secretly, smuggled into the country.
The merchants deceived or bought the officers charged
with the surveillance of the imports, or perhaps they
got around the prohibition by the following procedure:
They sent into a French port a cargo of English goods,
the authorities confiscated the cargo and had the goods
sold to the highest bidder; the merchants for whom they
were destined bought them, and then felt at hberty to sell
them again. In order to prevent this fraud it became
necessary to issue orders for the burning of all confiscated
merchandise. Thus the inhabitants saw the objects of
which they were obliged to be deprived destroyed under
their very eyes. It was still more easy to smuggle into
the countries which did not belong to France. It was
carried on with the aid or connivance of the functionaries,
who did not consider themselves obliged to sacrifice the
interest and comfort of their compatriots to the policy of
Napoleon. Napoleon himself was obliged to modify the prohibitive
order. There were some articles which England alone
produced, and which France would not do without. Na
poleon authorized the merchants, French or foreign, to
buy these articles in England. The government gave
them a license, that is, a special permission to do so. In
exchange it obliged them to sell in England a sufficient
quantity of French wares to equal their purchases in value.
The traders carried out this obligation in their own way;

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 179
they made up a cargo of cast-off merchandise, and on
arriving at an English port dumped it into the sea, then
returned to France laden with supplies of English goods.
Stuffs and hardware were manufactured in France for
that purpose.
Economic and Political Consequences of the Continental
Blockade. — At first the blockade produced a commercial
crisis. All kinds of business was injured by these pro
hibitions and confiscations. All countries suffered from
them. In England the manufacturers, finding that they
could no longer sell their products, were forced to send
away their workmen or to keep up in their warehouses
quantities of merchandise which brought in no profit.
The misery was great; bands of idle workmen went about
the country destroying the looms which they said were
depriving them of bread. However, England was rich
enough to pass through this crisis, to the end of the block
ade, without any serious disaster. On the Continent
there was much suffering on account of the deprivation of
English goods, and especially of colonial wares. The
price of coffee and sugar increased so that many bourgeois
families, already impoverished by the long wars, were
obliged to give up the use of these articles. The Germans
and the people of Holland suffered most, and without
any compensation. When the blockade was lifted they re
sumed their relations with England, but they found them
selves poorer than before.
In France the high price of the goods which up to that
time had been brought from England induced the manu
facturers to make those articles and to sell them to the
French consumers. They set up spinning, woollen, and
cotton mills, and forges for iron and steel. In order to

ISO CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
replace the sugar-cane they began to manufacture sugar
from beets. Thus French industry, which had been
ruined by the wars of the Revolution, began to revive.
The blockade, by keeping away the foreign goods, acted
on production as a protective law. But these industries
in textiles and metals, originating in prohibition, could
not go back to free trade. Even after the fall of Napoleon
the iron-masters and the mill-owners continued to demand
prohibition, and as they had a strong influence over the
chambers, they succeeded in maintaining it for a long
time. The blockade had also pohtical consequences. The
countries of the North Sea (Holland and the great German
ports) were not resigned to ruin. They continued their
commerce with England; the authorities favored smuggling,
even the King of Holland, Louis, brother of Napoleon,
sided with his people. Napoleon, in order to have the
blockade observed, resolved to put those countries under
French administration. So he annexed all of Holland
and the coast of Germany as far as Denmark to the
French empire, going beyond the natural frontiers on
that coast as he had done in Italy.
This desire to increase the territory included in the
blockade acted as well on the foreign policy of Napoleon.
He engaged in a war with Portugal in order to force the
closing of her ports to the English. He wanted to impose
the same regime on his ally, the czar, and that was the
chief cause of the rupture with Russia.
Domination of Napoleon in Europe. — Beginning with
1806, Napoleon acted as if he were master of Europe.
The King of Prussia, conquered and pressed back to the
eastern extremity of his kingdom, appealed to the czar

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 181
for aid, and a new coalition was formed between Russia,
Prussia, and England. It was incomplete, however.
Austria was too exhausted to take part in it. The war
brought the French armies even to the frontier of Russia,
at Tilsit (1807). Then the czar changed his policy, and
abandoning Prussia, entered into an alliance with Na
poleon. The two allies divided Europe between them.
Napoleon left Alexander master in the East. He allowed
him to conquer Finland from Sweden, and Roumania
from the Turkish empire. He promised him that
he would not again set up the kingdom of Poland.
Alexander left Napoleon master of all the rest of Eu
rope. Napoleon began by reducing Prussia to the rank of a
secondary state. He took away the provinces, old and
new, which were to the west of the Elbe, and the Polish
provinces on the eastern border, leaving only four prov
inces.1 He wanted to make this fragment of a kingdom a
part of the " Confederation of the Rhine." The King of
Prussia was opposed to it; he neither wanted to give up
his army nor to become an ally of Napoleon. The em
peror, not being able to subdue him, tried to ruin him.
He left his army as a garrison in the fortresses, and through
out the country oppressed the inhabitants with requisitions
and demands for contributions (it is estimated that the
amount of money thus contributed was near to one
milliard francs), and he forbade the king to keep on a
war-footing more than 42,000 men.
Of the Prussian provinces on the west and Hesse, which
he had taken from its sovereign, Napoleon made up the
kingdom of Westphalia and the Grand Duchy of Berg.
1 Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia.

182 CONTEMPORARY CD7TLIZATION
He gave the former to a brother and the latter to a brother-
in-law, and made them enter into the Confederation of
the Rhine. Thus he controlled all of Germany as far as
the Elbe. Returning to France, he became occupied in
making himself master of the Spanish peninsula. At
first he obliged the Spanish Government to give him a
share of Portugal. When the French army had entered
Spain, he profited by it in order to make himself master
of the country. The Spanish Government had always
acted the part of a submissive ally, but it was incapable,
and allowed its fleet and army to go to ruin. Napoleon
thought that a French administration would turn to better
account the resources of Spain. He profited by the
quarrels between King Charles and his son Ferdinand, in
order to have them both withdraw their claims to the
throne, and he gave the crown to his brother Joseph.
But the Spanish, who endured without revolt the bad
government of a Spanish king, could not endure the
idea of a foreign king. In a few days all the cities re
volted and proclaimed Ferdinand VII. king. This was
the first national uprising against Napoleon. The in
surgents, unfortunate in their leaders -and without regular
armies, could not prevent the French from subjugating
Spain and Portugal. But they continued a kind of guerilla
warfare, which used up the French forces; besides, having
become allies of England they consented to allow the
landing of an army from England, which fixed its quarters
in Portugal behind entrenchments from which the French
army could not dislodge it.
This example excited the patriotism of the Germans;
they began to murmur against the French domination;
in Prussia especially preparations for deliverance were

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 183
begun. Then it was that the philosopher Fichte, a pro
fessor at Berlin, pronounced his " Discourse to the German
Nation," and Scharnhorst began to reorganize the Prus
sian army. In Austria the peasants of the Tyrol revolted
against the King of Bavaria, to whom Napoleon had given
their country. This was the second national uprising
(1809). It was quickly suppressed. The Austrian Gov
ernment thought that the moment had come for a renewal
of the contest. This time it tried to profit by an appeal to
patriotism, and called upon the "German nation" for
help. But this appeal brought forward only some volun
teers and a battalion of Prussian hussars, who deserted
with their major, Schill, in order to join in a campaign
against Napoleon. Austria joined forces with England,
but they were alone in the coalition. The czar remained
on the side of Napoleon, and the King of Prussia, held
in check by 160,000 French troops, refused to go to war.
Austria was conquered and invaded in 1809, as she
had been in 1805; she was obliged to give up her provinces
on the Adriatic.
The domination of Napoleon was complete: he had
crushed out two of the three great Continental powers
(Prussia and Austria); the third he had made his ally
(Russia). Then he made the Emperor of Austria give
him a daughter in marriage, so as to enable him to become
one of the family of European sovereigns.
In Italy he broke off with the pope, who had refused
to obey him, had him carried off and transported to
France, annexing his states to the French empire. He
also annexed Tuscany. In Germany, he annexed the
coast of the North Sea and Holland as well. The
French empire, governed directly by Napoleon, had then

184 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
130 departments, and extended from the Elbe to the
Tiber.1 All of Central Europe and Spain were divided into
secondary states, which Napoleon governed indirectly;
the most considerable, the kingdoms of Spain, Italy,
Naples, and Westphalia, had relatives of Napoleon for
their sovereigns. In domestic affairs which did not con
cern his policy, Napoleon permitted each state to have
the control, but all were obliged to maintain an army in
the service of Napoleon, to aid him in all his wars, and
to carry out in their own country the decree for the block
ade. Moreover, the French princes had brought into
the country French functionaries, who administered the
government in the French manner.
The two great states, Austria and Prussia, which in
the eighteenth century shared with France the control of
Central Europe, were still independent in name, but dis
membered, ruined, reduced to the second rank among the
powers, incapable of resisting the orders of Napoleon,
who maintained an army garrisoned in Prussia, and had
obliged the Emperor of Austria to give him his daughter
in marriage.
Napoleon felt that he was master of Europe. He ap
peared not only as emperor of the country of France, but
of the Occident. In the decree by which he took possession
of the Papal States he declared that he had taken away
from the pope what Charlemagne, "our predecessor,"
had given to him. There was to be only one great state
in Europe, the French empire; all the rest would be divided
into petty states, whose princes would each have a palace
1 Napoleon had besides kept the Alpine countries to the north of the
Adriatic, whic h he had taken from Austria in 1809. From them he made
the Illyrian P rovinces governed directly by French generals.

CONFLICT OF NAPOLEON WITH EUROPE 185
in Paris; all the archives of Europe would be gathered
also into one single palace in Paris, which was to be con
structed of stone and iron.
However, the two extremities of Europe still continued
to resist these encroachments. In the west the English
still remained unassailable in their island; the Portuguese
and the Spanish Government, which had taken refuge at
Cadiz, defended themselves with the aid of the English
armies. In the east Sweden and Russia kept their inde
pendence and opened their ports to the Engish ships.
Napoleon wanted to force the czar to join in his system
by closing Russia to the American ships, which were bring
ing in English merchandise. Alexander refused. Napoleon
would no longer allow Alexander to carry on at his own
pleasure the governments in Turkey and in Poland. The
alliance of 1807 was broken, and Napoleon declared war
against Russia.
He drew with him all the states of Europe, not only his
allies of Germany, Italy, and Spain, but Prussia,, which he
occupied, and Austria, which had just become bankrupt
and could not expose herself to a war against Napoleon.
The army that invaded Russia was a European army;
out of twelve corps, six were entirely composed of foreigners.
The other six were composed of French and foreigners.
There were 80,000 Italians, 147,000 Germans, 60,000
Poles (from the Grand Duchy of Warsaw), 30,000 Aus-
trians, 20,000 Prussians.
In 1793 allied Europe had invaded France. In 181 2
France, allied with Europe, was invading Russia. But
in 1793, it was France that declared a national war; in
181 2 the national war was made by the enemies of the
French empire.

CHAPTER LX
THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE
Destruction of the System of Napoleon. — Following his
custom, Napoleon marched straight toward the capital,
counting that, after having occupied it, he would receive
proposals for peace. In fact, he entered Moscow (Sep
tember, 1812). But his plans were frustrated by condi
tions whose existence he had not foreseen. Moscow
was only the religious and national capital of Russia;
the seat of government was St. Petersburg. The loss of
Moscow did not paralyze the Russian Government. Alex
ander did not make any demands for peace. Napoleon
decided to make the advances; he sent propositions for
peace. Alexander replied that he would make no treaty
until the enemy had departed from Russia. It would
have been necessary to wait; Napoleon could not do so.
His army, ill-disciplined from its origin, composed of men
from every land, had melted away in crossing those great
plains, destitute of resources, where the men, unprovided
for, could not five without dispersing for the purpose of
marauding. Before the battle of the Moskova there re
mained no more than 155,000 combatants. They ad
vanced slowly, encumbered with carts laden with booty
like a horde of barbarians.
At Moscow the army could not be reorganized. The
inhabitants, seized with horror for the heretical invaders,
186

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 187
had abandoned the city; there remained only the foreign
merchants. The very evening that the French entered the
city it was destroyed by fire. It was not possible to pass
the winter there — a return to Europe was necessary.
Napoleon did not decide upon the retreat until after the
18th of October. That year the winter was forward and
severe. The army was obliged to go back through a
country that it had just ravaged, and it perished from cold
and hunger. Only a remnant of disbanded and unarmed
soldiers returned. Russia was relieved, and Napoleon
had lost his army. This was the first act in the drama of
defeat. Not only had Russia resisted him, but his allies
began to escape from his thraldom. The Prussian army-
corps negotiated with the Russian- army and promised
to remain neutral. Then the King of Prussia, under
pretext of going to organize a war against Russia, escaped
from Berlin, where he was under the surveillance of a
French garrison, withdrew into Silesia, and made an alli
ance with Russia and with England (January-February,
1813). The King of Prussia made an appeal to his people, who
responded by subscriptions and enrolment of volunteers;
beside the army was organized the "landwehr," which
was clothed and armed at the expense of the provinces.
The united armies of Russia and Prussia marched upon
Germany to rouse it against Napoleon. The princes
who should refuse to join the allies were to be dispossessed.
Saxony was first invaded, and remained the great battle
field. The Elector of Saxony, whom Napoleon had made
king, dared not decide for either of the two parties. Na
poleon forced him to remain an ally. The campaign of
the spring of 1813 consisted of two bloody battles (Lutzen

188 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
and Bautzen) ; Napoleon remained master of Saxony, but
he had no cavalry, and he demanded an armistice of three
months. He could only obtain one of six weeks. The
allies had shown that they were strong enough for the
struggle. The "landwehr," on which there had been
little dependence, had fought desperately. The Austrian
Government, which up to that time had remained neutral,
for fear of a sudden attack, took courage on seeing Na
poleon held in check. It declared that it would be the
mediator between the belligerents. Napoleon accepted
the mediation in order to regain the confidence of Austria.
But it was impossible to come to any agreement. Na
poleon was willing to conclude a peace with the Conti
nental powers, excluding England. The allies would
accept nothing but a general peace; they were pledged
to England, who furnished them money, and they could
make no treaty without her consent. The Congress of
Prague was therefore nothing but a comedy. Austria
had pledged herself in advance to join the allies should
Napoleon reject her advances, and they knew that he
would do so. The ioth of August, the Emperor of
Austria entered the coalition. It was henceforth complete.
For the first time the four great powers of Europe operated
in common against France. This was the second act of
the drama of defeat (March-August, 1813).
The allies (for this was the name they now took) resolved
to take away all Germany from Napoleon. They aban
doned the methods and slow manner of making war
which had led to their defeat in 1793 and adopted the
strategy of Napoleon. They had three great armies,
in all about 480,000 men. It was decided that the principal
army should take the offensive, march straight on the

THE RESTORATION ttf EUROPE i89
enemy and destroy his army without stopping to lay any
siege. "All the allied armies," said the plan of July 12,
"will take the offensive and the camp of the enemy will
be their rendezvous." The war of that summer was
carried on in three different districts — Saxony, Silesia, and
Brandenburg. Napoleon, conqueror at Dresden, main
tained his power in Saxony, but his other armies were
destroyed or forced back into neighboring territory.
September 9 the allies resolved upon the plan, which
they were going to apply to Germany; to reestablish
Prussia and Austria as they were in 1805; to return Han
over to Brunswick; to restore to their former condition the
German countries which had been annexed to the French
empire, or had been given to French princes; to dissolve
the Confederation of the Rhine; to assure the absolute
and entire independence of the small states as far as the
Alps and the Rhine. It was a matter of the destruction
of the power of Napoleon in Germany by taking from him
his allies. The King of Bavaria set the example, withdrew
from the Confederation, and joined the allies. This was
the third act of the drama of defeat (August-September,
18x3). The three armies of the allies marched together on
Leipsic, the head-quarters of the French; there was a
battle lasting three days. Napoleon escaped with 100,000
men, whom he led back to France. The French princes
fled; the German princes joined the coalition; Germany
was lost to Napoleon. This was the fourth act of the
drama (October-November, 181 3).
The allies, arriving at Frankfort, offered to leave to
Napoleon the France of 1800, but they reserved to them
selves the right to continue their advance pending the

190 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
negotiations. Napoleon having ordered a levy of 300,000
men, the alhes published the manifesto of Frankfort.
"The Powers," said they, "are at war, not against France,
but against the domination, openly proclaimed, that
Napoleon has exercised outside of the limits of his empire.
They guaranteed to France an extent of empire unknown
under the kings." Then the three allied armies crossed
the Rhine, invaded France, and marched upon Paris —
from the south by the way of Franche-Comte' and the
Seine, from the centre by way of the Marne, and from the
north by the Netherlands and the Oise River. Napoleon
had allowed his soldiers to be scattered in the fortresses of
Germany, and had only his guard and the debris of a few
regiments. By enrolling with them some conscripts and
national guards he created an army with which he made
the campaign in France. During this campaign the alhes
again offered to negotiate, this time at Ch&tillon. They
left nothing more to France than the frontier of 1792.
Napoleon had been resigned to accept their proposition,
then he refused, and the Congress of CMtillon was closed
March 18, 1814.
Through intercepted dispatches the allies learned that
Paris could not be defended. They marched directly
upon the city, which capitulated after a half-day's combat.
France was in the power of the allies. This was the fifth
and last act. At the beginning the allies only thought of
expelling the French from Germany. They only wanted
to destroy the work of Napoleon, but victory had led
them into France, and they had just destroyed the work
of the Revolution.
The End of the Empire. — The allies, masters of Europe
and of France, took it upon themselves to adjust the fate

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 191
of France and of Europe. They began with France.
They wanted nothing more of Napoleon, and did not
dream of restoring the Repubhc, but looked about for a
sovereign who would again set up a monarchical regime
and conclude a peace with the rest of Europe. Three
plans were proposed: i. The son of Napoleon and
Mary Louise; but they feared to give too much influence
to his grandfather, the Emperor of Austria. 2. Berna-
dotte, whom Alexander of Russia tried to propose; but
none of the other powers would listen to that. 3. The
Bourbons; but the alhes, since their entrance into France^
had observed that no one in the country was any longer
concerned about the Bourbons; during the twenty years
of war, they had been completely forgotten. Now the
English Government declared that no government should
be imposed upon the French, that the nation should
remain her own mistress and choose her own sovereign.
The Austrian minister Metternich, already very in
fluential among European statesmen, took sides with the
Bourbons, and worked in their interest. He received their
envoys and brought about the decision that the French
provinces, as soon as they were occupied by the allies,
should be given into the hands of the partisans of the
Bourbons, if they declared for Bourbon rule. After the
entry of the alhes into Paris the sovereigns decided to
place Louis XVIII. on the throne, and by the advice of
Talleyrand they declared "that they would no longer treat
with Napoleon or with any member of his family; that
they would respect the France of the 'ancient regime,'
such as she was under her legitimate kings; that they
would recognize and guarantee the constitution which the
French nation would adopt." Consequently tbey " invited

192 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the Senate to designate a provisional government, which
would be charged with the administration and to prepare
a constitution." The appeal was made to the two consti
tuted bodies, the Senate and the Corps Legislatif, or
rather to the members of the two assembhes who were
known to be favorable to the Bourbons. The Senate,
represented by sixty-three members out of one hundred
and forty-two, declared that Napoleon was dethroned, and
the people and army were released from their oath. A
provisional government consisting of five members was
created. The Corps Legislatif, represented by seventy-
seven members out of three hundred and three, ratified this
decision. The army having retired to the south-east of
Paris, received the decrees of the assembhes; the marshals
themselves, who were with Napoleon at Fontainebleau,
urged him to abdicate.
The Bourbons could then take possession of the govern
ment. The alhes bound them to establish a liberal form
of government, to accept the changes which had taken
place in France since 1789, and not to employ the exiled
nobles in the administration. Louis XVIII. was to be
recalled by virtue not of hereditary right but of the Constitu
tion drawn up by the Senate. In this act it was said:
" The French people of their own will call Louis of France
to the throne." The Senate had stipulated that the
king should respect the rights of the army, the pubhc debt,
the sales of national properties. After such a declaration
Louis returned to France and was recognized as king by
the Senate and the Corps Legislatif.
Treaties of 1814 and 1815. — The new government
made treaties in the name of France. First, an armistice
was signed (the French armies were to evacuate all the

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 193
fortified places which they had occupied), afterward a
treaty of peace. The allies only exacted that the limits
of France should be those of 1792 (they conceded some
additions) ; they did not demand any war indemnity (they
refused to have the 169,000,000 francs paid which were
due to Prussia; they even left in the French museums
the works of art which Napoleon had carried off from the
conquered countries. They wanted to avoid humiliating
the French. They declared "that in order to show their
desire to efface all traces of these unhappy times, the
powers yield any claims for money which they could have
demanded." The allies did not wish to leave any gar
risons in France. As soon as Louis XVIII. had promul
gated the new Constitution they left Paris and evacuated
France. These conditions were modified in 1815. As soon as
the return of Napoleon from the Island of Elba was known
at Vienna, the European governments declared "that
Napoleon Bonaparte had placed himself beyond civil and
social relations, and that as an enemy and a disturber of
the peace of nations he should be given over to public
prosecution." Not for a moment did they think of entering
into any treaty with him; their armies were not yet dis
banded, and they were immediately turned toward
France, which they invaded in every direction. After
the defeat of Napoleon the allies considered that the
treaty of 1814 had been broken. Since the Bourbons
could not be answerable for the strength necessary to main
tain their authority, the allies decided to impose new
guarantees and charges, which would still keep France
dependent on them. They agreed to exact a considerable
war indemnity, to have the works of art restored to the

194 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
countries which had been despoiled by Napoleon, to leave
troops in garrison, and to construct, at the expense of
France, a line of fortresses along the frontier in the ad
jacent countries. Then they divided the French territory;
each power had certain provinces to which it sent armies
to be quartered upon the inhabitants. This occupation
was to last two years, until the indemnity was paid.
It was also agreed that the frontiers should be changed.
The Prussians and some of the small German states
wanted to take Alsace and Lorraine and even Flanders
from France. Of these a state would have been set up for
the Archduke Charles; Austria demanded that at least
the fortresses on the frontier should be destroyed. The
English Government and the Czar of Russia opposed any
dismemberment. They contented themselves with taking
several fortresses, Savoy, and the county of Nice (Sep
tember 28, 1815). This relatively advantageous treaty
was at that time considered very disastrous by the French.
The Duke de Richelieu, who had succeeded in obtaining
it, signed it "more dead than alive." France paid a
milliard of francs and two years of occupation for the
return of Napoleon, but she escaped dismemberment.
Congress of Vienna. — After the affairs of France the
alhes had to regulate the affairs of Europe. They met
at Vienna, where a general congress was held. Repre
sentatives from all the states were present (ninety from the
sovereign states and fifty-three from the governments of
the mediatized princes). After so many years of war, this
reunion of diplomats was an occasion for festivity and
ceremony. The Austrian Government had appointed a
commission from the court charged with rendering the
sojourn at Vienna as agreeable as possible.

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 195
The Congress was to have been opened the 30th of
May, 1814, then the 1st of October, then the 1st of
November; in fact, it was never opened. The allies
did not want to allow a discussion of the affairs of Europe
by the petty states; they intended to decide the questions
among themselves. The work was to be done by two
committees; thus they would have the decisions brought
before the Congress, which would have nothing to do but
to ratify them. Talleyrand, representing France, pro
tested against this procedure, and against the expression
"the alhes" (which had no meaning except during war).
He succeeded in having an announcement made that the
Congress would be formally opened November 1 "in
accordance with the principles of public right." The
Prussian envoys protested; Hardenberg, standing, his fists
on the table, cried: "No, gentlemen, public right is
useless. Why should we say that we act according to
public right? That goes without saying." Talleyrand
replied, "that if that went without saying, it would go
better with saying." Humboldt cried: "What is public
right doing here?" "It has placed you here," responded
Talleyrand. And he wrote to Louis XVIII.: "They
pretend that we have carried off a victory because we
have had the expression pubhc right introduced. This
opinion ought to give you the measure of the spirit that
animates the Congress." It was only a victory in form.
The principles of public right had never been firmly
established in Europe, and the last wars had completely
unsettled them. Talleyrand declared in the name of
Louis XVIII., "that he would not recognize the principle
that conquest alone gives sovereignty," but he himself, during
the time of Napoleon, had applied no other law but the

196 CONTEMPORARY CD7DLIZATION
right of conquest. France having ceased to be a con
queror, he tried to return to the ancient custom; each
country, said he, belongs by right to the legitimate, that is,
hereditary, sovereign. One should then return to each
princely family whatever had belonged to it. But the
alhes, having become conquerors, in their turn, had lost
all respect for legitimacy. The ancient principle was
destroyed, and no new principle had yet taken its place.
No statesman would have wished to consult the inhabi
tants themselves concerning their fate. That was a
revolutionary proceeding, and they were then trying to
efface the traces of the Revolution. There remained,
then, but one rule, the will of the allies, what the czar
called the "expediency of Europe." Talleyrand went to
him to ask his intentions. "Each should find what is
expedient there," said Alexander. "And each one his
rights," responded Talleyrand "I shall keep what I
occupy." "Your Majesty will desire to keep only what
is legitimately your own. I place right first, and ex
pediency afterward." "Expediency for Europe is right,"
said Alexander.
In fact, the Congress was not opened; the questions
were decided by commissions formed only from the
representatives of the great states, sometimes from those
of the five great powers (the four alhes and France);
sometimes from the eight, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal,
in addition to the allies and France. The other gov
ernments were not consulted. Territories were dis
tributed among the sovereigns, taking into account the
wealth of the country, the number of souls, but not what
was expedient for the people. The regulations fixed
by the commissions were drawn up in the form of certain

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 197
treaties between the different powers, then all the treaties
were united in a general act, which was called the Final
Act of the Congress of Vienna.
Napoleon had dominated all Europe and had com
pletely demoralized it. The alhes had taken it back
from him, but they could not and would not restore it to
its former condition, such as it was in 1800, so they de
cided to make it over again. From the 30th of May,
before leaving Paris, they had, by a secret treaty, agreed
to exclude France, and to regulate among themselves,
according to certain general conditions, the government
of the countries taken from France. These countries
were Belgium, the left bank of the Rhine,1 Holland, Switzer
land, Germany, Italy, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
The alhes at first settled the questions upon which they
were agreed.
Holland was restored to the family of Orange, and
united with Belgium to form the Netherlands; Switzerland
became again a confederation, and three cantons were
added: Geneva, the Valais, and Neuchatel. The left
bank of the Rhine was destined to serve as indemnity
for the German princes. In Spain and in Portugal the
former sovereigns had been already restored. In Italy
everything was reestablished as before the Revolution,2
except in the two republics of Genoa and Venice. Genoa
was given as indemnity to the King of Sardinia; Venice
remained in possession of Austria. The King of Sweden,
in compensation for Finland, received Norway, which
1 Savoy and the county of Nice were left to France.
' Murat was provisionally allowed to remain King of Naples as a
reward for having abandoned Napoleon, but he was not officially recog
nized; in 1815 the Bourbons of Naples were restored. Murat having
tried to return was taken and shot

198 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
was taken from the King of Denmark, the ally of Na
poleon. Three questions were reserved, upon which the powers
could not agree on account of opposing interests: i.
The organization of Germany (Prussia wanted to restore
the empire, Austria preferred a confederation). 2. The
indemnity to be given to Prussia, this kingdom wanted
to annex Saxony; Austria did not want the Prussians on
the Bohemian frontier; the other allies feared to make
Prussia too powerful in Germany. 3. The Grand
Duchy of Warsaw (Alexander wanted to keep it, and
from it set up the kingdom of Poland; England and
Austria opposed the advancement of the power of the
czar in the west). These three questions were debated at
Vienna, and Talleyrand, profiting by the disagreement,
brought France back into the European concert. He
declared himself against the project of taking Saxony
from the legitimate king. Prussia relied upon the help
of Russia, and Alexander permitted the taking over of
Saxony in order that he might have Poland. Talleyrand
agreed with England and Austria, France was admitted
into the commission and all three concluded a defensive
alliance. Talleyrand wrote to Louis XVIII. : "Now,
Sire, the coalition is dissolved, and forever. France is no
longer isolated in Europe." There was even a talk of
war. Then peace was established; Alexander obtained
Poland and abandoned Prussia, whose demands were
not complied with. They refused to dispossess the King
of Saxony. In exchange for his estates the Prussians
promised to give him a new kingdom, which would be
formed on the left bank of the Rhine; it was then the
desire of the Prussian statesmen to avoid the immediate

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 199
neighborhood of the French frontier. It seemed ad
vantageous to France to have between her borders and
Prussia a feeble state, governed by an allied sovereign.
It was Talleyrand, however, who refused assent to this
arrangement, as it was contrary to the system of legitimacy
and a menace to the balance of power in Germany.
Finally, the Prussians were satisfied to accept an indem
nity, composed of four parts : the northern part of Saxony,
with 782,000 souls; 810,000 souls in Poland; 829,000 in
Northern Germany; 1,044,000 on the left bank of the
Rhine. Prussia, notwithstanding her opposition, found
herself extended to the French frontier and obliged to
defend the Rhine.
In Germany the patriots who had urged on the "war
of deliverance" against Napoleon desired that the old
Germanic empire should be reestablished; the Prussian
statesmen proposed to make the Emperor of Austria
sovereign of the empire. The two great states would have
formed a directorate, in order to govern with Germany,
Prussia in the north, and Austria in the south. The
Emperor of Austria refused to take again the title of
Emperor of Germany, and did not want any general
government where he would have been obliged to share
the power with Prussia. The petty sovereigns of the other
German states insisted especially on keeping the sovereignty
which they had acquired in 1806; they were not anxious
again to place over them a superior authority nor to obey
the King of Prussia, whom they regarded as their equal.
Now, in 1813, in order to draw the German princes into
the coalition, the alhes, through treaties, had promised
them that their territory and sovereignty should remain
intact. These sovereign states could not form a single

200 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
nation. Therefore the restoration of the empire, destroyed
by Napoleon, was given up. It was sufficient to create a
confederation (the Deutscher Bund), that is to say, a
perpetual affiance among the states with a diet (Bundestag),
a permanent conference of envoys from each state.
Such was the work of the Congress at Vienna, where
all the governments of Europe were represented. It
was completed in 1815, after the second fall of Napoleon.
Not only were measures taken to prevent France from
again going to war, by taking away her conquests and
establishing a line of fortresses on her frontier, but an
effort was made to prevent war between the sovereigns
in the future. Metternich, who at that time was the leader
of all the other statesmen, sought to have accepted this
principle, unknown in the eighteenth century, that all
sovereigns form one great family, and that all governments
have an interest in sustaining each other against their
subjects, and in regulating their differences by arbitration.
It was decided that congresses should be frequently held
for the purpose of maintaining a perfect understanding
between governments and to take measures against dis
content among the people. This was called the Metter
nich system. It was carried out quite regularly for about
ten years. The diplomats held several congresses, and
repressed several revolts; the Congress sent an Austrian
army to the support of the King of Naples, and a French
army to aid the King of Spain, during revolts of their
subjects. The treaties of 181 5 remained, during forty years, the
basis of international law (till the war of the Crimea);
and during that' period there was no great war in Eu
rope.

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 201
The work of the Congress of Vienna was destroyed
between i860 and 1870, but the custom of having a
European congress and the idea of a tribunal of arbitra
tion, which would prevent wars, have been preserved.
Europe in 1815. — Europe had been made over by the
four great allied powers and in their own interests. In
principle, it was to be restored to the conditions previous
to the Revolution. In fact, France alone was reduced
to her territory of 1792. All the other great states came
out of the readjustment much larger, or with territory
rounded out at the expense of the petty states, especially
at the expense of the republics of Italy and of the ecclesias
tical dominions in Germany, which Napoleon had de
stroyed and which had not been restored. Poland, dis
membered during the Revolution, remained divided be
tween the three great powers in the East; only the city of
Cracow was raised to a free independent city.
Austria in exchange for the Low Countries, which she
did not care to hold, kept the state of Venice, which
extended her territory to the south-west as far as the
Adriatic, and carried it into Italy as far as the Ticino. In
exchange for her domains, scattered through the Black
Forest, she kept the bishopric of Salzburg, which joined
her frontier on the south-west.
Prussia kept Pohsh Posen, which she had acquired in
the division of 1793, in exchange for the other Pohsh
provinces which she had appropriated in 1795. She
received the province of Saxony and the province of the
Rhine; she kept Westphalia, which she had received as
indemnity for some small domains on the left bank of the
Rhine. Thus she had four provinces more than in 1789,
and her territory was no longer composed of isolated

202 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
strips, but was in an almost compact J mass extending over
all of Northern Germany, from Russia west to France.
The Czar of Russia kept the dismembered provinces
of Poland and Finland, which he had taken from the
King of Sweden in 1809; he took back the portion of
Poland which had been given to Prussia in 1795, in order
to make out of it the kingdom of Poland, whose sovereign
he remained.
England demanded nothing in Europe except the small
island of Heligoland; she had taken her indemnity at the
expense of the colonies of France and Holland. Between
the three powers in the east (Russia, Austria, and Prussia)
and the two in the west (France and England) Central
Europe was divided into petty states. Germany was no
longer that empire, without force, made up of three hun
dred territories encroaching on each other, divided among
three hundred governments, dissimilar, with dependent
rulers. She had remained simplified ever since the passage of
the French, relieved of her sovereign lords, of all the princes
of the church, and of almost all the free cities. She became
what Napoleon had made of her, a confederation of princes,
but the guidance of these princes was returning to Austria.
Italy was again portioned out into small sovereign
states: in the south the kingdom of Naples; in the centre,
the States of the Church, and the three duchies of Tuscany'
Parma, and Modena; in the north Sardinia, increased by
the addition of Genoa, and the two Austrian provinces,
the Milanais and Venetia, united under one administration
with the name of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venice.
1 There were two indentations, to the east Mecklenburg, and to the
west the three states, Hanover, Hesse, and Nassau.

THE RESTORATION IN EUROPE 203
Austria, mistress of the basin of the Po, and controlling
the three duchies which belonged to Austrian princes,
held Italy in her power. Germany and Italy remained
in the condition they had occupied since the Middle Ages
— nations in pieces. Both were under the influence of
Austria, who was interested in continuing this parcelled-
out condition. Since she no longer desired to increase
her own territory it was much more easy to lead the feeble
states. On the French frontier two small dismembered states
of the ancient Germanic empire were preserved. Switzer
land, increased by the addition of Geneva, the Valais, and
Neuchatel, had become a confederation of twenty-two
cantons; Holland had become, with the territory of
Belgium, the kingdom of the Netherlands. Both were
declared neutral and were placed under the protection of
all the European powers.
In the east, Poland was suppressed. Sweden was
thrust back into the Scandinavian peninsula, but the
kingdom of Denmark lost Norway, which was attached
to Sweden.
The Europe of 1815 was organized like the Europe of
the eighteenth century so as to maintain an equilibrium
among the powers and the weakness of the central region,
where the influence of the great states was to act as a
counterpoise. This arrangement lasted half a century,
until the time when the desire for equilibrium yielded to
the desire for unity in Germany and in Italy.

CHAPTER X
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE
The Restoration. — The sovereigns of Europe, who again
took possession of their states in 1814, restored the govern
ment to the conditions existing before the Revolution.
Some would have liked to go back to the original system:
the King of Sardinia thought of destroying the Corniche
Road, because it was the work of Napoleon; the Elector
of Hesse thought to reduce to their former grade all the
officers who had been promoted during his absence. In
fact the reestablished governments retained a part of
the reforms made during the Revolution: the liberty in
agriculture and in the industries, the unity of the laws,
the uniformity in administration; in general, all that
had already been begun by enlightened despotism, and
which did not diminish the power of the state. But they
laid down as a principle, that the Revolution had been an
illegal attempt against order, and that the absolute mon
archy must be restored. Louis XVIII. called Napoleon
the usurper, and counted 181 5 as the twenty-first year of
his reign.
It was this return to absolute monarchy that was called
the Restoration. Since that time there have been two
opposite opinions in Europe in the understanding of
government — the absolute theory and the constitutional
204

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 205
theory. In each country there have been two opposing
parties — the party in favor of an absolute regime and the
party in favor of a constitutional regime, which calls
itself hberal. The difference between the two is not in
the form of government; the constitutional party does not
prefer a repubhc to a monarchy; the difference is in the
principle of power.
The theory of absolutism is almost the same as the
ancient theory of the divine right — the king alone has all
authority in the country; God has conferred it on his
family, and has desired that it should be transmitted from
father to son. The king holds his rights through religion
and through tradition; he has not received them from his
subjects; he is therefore not accountable to them. He
governs as seems to him good, following his own conscience;
he is not restrained by any rule of law. All authority
comes from him; he has the right not only to govern, but
to make laws, and to levy taxes. In certain states the
subjects have preserved the custom of electing representa
tives, who meet in an assembly. The sovereigns usually
seek to govern in harmony with that assembly; but if
the sovereign and the deputies cannot agree the deputies
must yield, for sovereignty does not belong to the nation
but to the prince.
The absolutists do not admit that the king can enter
into any agreement with his subjects, therefore they reject
the idea of a written constitution; they accept no other
law save tradition and the will of the king. As they think
that religion inspires respect for the sovereign, they want
to make religion obligatory, and preserve a pohtical
power for the church (this is called the union of church and
state). As they distrust the journals, which can criticise

206 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the acts of the government, they want to keep them under
continual surveillance; usually they are in favor of a
censorship which examines all articles before allowing
them to be published.
The absolute party in every country was composed of
the people of the court, and the functionaries; on its
side were nearly all of the nobility, the clergy, and the
peasants. The dominant sentiment was respect for the
past, and love of order.
The constitutional theory originates in the principle of
the sovereignty of the nation; it is almost that of the
English parliamentary government. It recognizes that
the king has the right to reign, but he reigns only by
consent of the nation, and by virtue of a contract. He
has the right neither to make laws, nor to levy taxes, nor
to choose his ministers as he pleases; he can only govern
in harmony with the assembly which represents the
nation, and if there is a conflict between the king and the
nation, it is the king who must submit, for the nation is
the sovereign.
In order to guarantee the rights of the nation a written
constitution is drawn up, which becomes the fundamental
law of the land; the king and his ministers must pledge
themselves to observe it. If they fail to do so the nation
has the right to resist, and the ministers are held re
sponsible. As the surest means of preventing the abuse
of power is the publishing of such acts, the constitutional
party demands the liberty to speak, to write, and to as
semble as may seem good. It also demands hberty of
conscience and even equahty among religious sects.
The constitutional party was recruited chiefly in the cities;
it included the bourgeois or citizens in trades, the working

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 207
men, the lawyers, and the writers. Its watchword was
"Progress and Liberty."
Immediately after the Revolution a contest began
between the two parties. It bore especially upon two
questions: i. The liberals demanded that the governments
should promulgate a written constitution, in order to
establish the rights of the subjects. The governments
refused to enter upon an engagement contrary to the
law and to the dignity of the prince.
2. The liberals demanded the hberty of the press.
The governments refused to permit the publication of
subversive articles (those which attacked the organization
of society, or of the state), and they continued the censor
ship. The absolutists were, in 1815, in power in nearly all
the states of Europe. They brought before the tribunals
the writers of the opposition, prohibited the importation
of foreign books and journals, and ordered to prison those
who read them. In Germany the governments became
afraid of the student pohtical associations. The Congress
of Carlsbad was called expressly for the purpose of dis
solving the "Burschenshaft," to establish a system of
surveillance in the universities, and to forbid any gather
ings of students. Many students were confined in fort
resses. The liberals, on the other hand, organized secret so
cieties, and tried by plots or insurrections to overthrow
the government or to force it to grant a constitution for
the nation.
The Parliamentary Regime in England. — England is the
original country of the parliamentary regime. It was

208 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
there that it was estabhshed. And it is the English usage
which the other nations have adopted.
The parliamentary regime was already estabhshed in
England in the eighteenth century. It was in operation
under the first two Georges (1715 to 1760) almost as
it is in the nineteenth century. Then, as to-day, there was
no written constitution, but rules estabhshed by usage.
The government was supposed to be divided between
three powers — the hereditary king, the chamber of the
hereditary lords, and the lower chamber, composed of
elected representatives. It was considered that Parlia
ment had no other r61e than to vote the laws and the
budget; that the king should choose his ministers and
exercise the executive power. He was, and has remained,
irresponsible. It is admitted that if he commits an
illegal act it is because he has had bad counsel and it is
the ministry, and not the king, that is held responsible
before the Parliament. In fact, the king took for his
prime minister the chief of the party which was in the
majority in the House, charged him with choosing his
colleagues, and allowed him to govern so long as he
retained the majority. Thus the power belonged entirely
to the House of Commons; the king and the lords were
little more than ornaments.
Under the reign of George III., from 1760, and espe
cially during the wars with France, the system of govern
ment was changed. The king began to exercise his
rights. He chose his ministers at his own pleasure, even
outside of the majority; he dismissed them, even when
they were sustained by the majority. He began to be
present at the council of the ministers and to impose his
will upon them. The Whig party, which governed until

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 209
1715, lost definitively the majority in 1783, and during
the war was reduced to sixty members. The Tory party,
favorable to the royal prerogative, allowed the king to
direct the policy of the state; it was then a question of
resistance to France. The measures against the Conti
nental blockade were taken not under the form of laws
but from the simple orders of the king in council.
The French Revolution, which had shed the blood of a
king, disorganized the church, confiscated private fortunes,
overturned the constitution and the throne, had filled the
English with such horror that they were seized with an
aversion to any change in methods of governing; for
thirty years it was impossible to have the least reform
accepted in England. While the French were destroying
their ancient regime, the English consolidated " old Eng
land." When peace was reestablished, in 181 5, a double
movement began for the purpose of obtaining from the
government reforms in the old organization and to re
constitute the parliamentary system by taking away the
authority of the House of Commons, and by diminishing
the influence of the king.
These demands for reform bore: 1. On the penal
laws, which dated in part from the sixteenth century.
(They preserved the cruel punishments of branding, the
pillory, the whip; the death penalty was imposed for
more than two hundred misdemeanors; it was a capital
crime to steal even five shillings' worth of goods from a
shop-window, to take a wild rabbit, or to cut a tree.)
A reform in part was secured in 1820.
2. On the economical system organized by Cromwell
and perfected during the wars of the Empire. (It was

210 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
forbidden to receive in any English ports any other than
English ships; the duties on foreign merchandise were so
high and complicated that there was a tariff on more than
1,200 articles; the importation of grain was forbidden
until the price of grain should reach a high figure, although
the country had not enough for its own consumption.)
Reform was brought about between 1823 and 1828.
3. On religion, which was still subject to a system
of persecution, organized in the seventeenth century.
(Catholics were excluded from all functions and could
not sit in Parliament, for whoever entered as a member
was obliged to make a declaration against the dogmas of
the Catholic Church. The emancipation of Catholics
was voted in 1829.)
4. The reform, which required the longest time for
its establishment, was that of the electoral system, which
was fixed in the fourteenth century. The representatives
were chosen, some by the county assembhes, formed by
the landed proprietors of the whole county, others by
the inhabitants of certain privileged boroughs. But
neither the apportionment of the representatives to be
elected nor the procedure of election had been changed
since the Middle Ages; therefore, the system was full of
abuses and absurdities.
At first the seats of the representatives were apportioned
very unequally. Out of 658 members Ireland sent 100,
Scotland 45, Wales 21. England alone had 492. In
England, the ten southern counties, with less than 3,000,000
souls, elected 237 representatives; the others with more
than 8,000,000 only elected 252; Scotland, with 2,000,000
inhabitants, sent 45; Cornwall, with 300,000, sent 44.
The inequality between the counties and the boroughs

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 211
was especially striking; the counties which comprised
almost the entire population had only 186; the boroughs
chose 467; the county of Middlesex, which included the
whole city of London, had no more representatives than
had the borough of Old Sarum, where only one family
remained. The greater part of the boroughs had only an
absurd number of electors; 46 had less than 50 voters,
19 had less than 100, 46 less than 200; and 34 depopulated
since the Middle Ages had no electoral body; they were
the rotten boroughs; Baralston had one house, Galton had
nothing but a park, Dunwich had been under water for
centuries, and all continued to send their representatives;
usually two in number. On the other hand, cities which
had been founded since the sixteenth century, among them
Liverpool and Manchester, which had more than 100,000
inhabitants, were not represented. It was estimated that
in 1793 there were in the House 294 members chosen by
electoral bodies of 260 electors, representing less than
15,000 voters. The result was that the representatives,
at least those from the boroughs, were not the true repre
sentatives of the people; in fact, they were designated by
the proprietor of the borough, or by the government.
Out of 658 seats 424 were, therefore, at the disposition of
252 landlords or of the government. These lords of the
soil regarded themselves as the proprietors of the seats,
and they kept them for themselves or for their children, or
gave them to their dependents. In 1829 the Duke of
Newcastle, proprietor of the great borough of Newark,
had obliged the representative to resign, and had pre
sented his candidate to the inhabitants, who were all
farmers; 587 dared to vote for the rival candidate; they
were all dismissed. Some one complained to the House

212 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
of Commons; the Duke replied: "Have I not the right
to do what I please with my own property?" Often the
seats were sold At the close of the eighteenth century
many of the parvenues, having become rich in the Indies
(the nabobs) or in commerce, gave themselves the luxury
of a seat in Parliament. There was a current price which
rose or declined
Even in the counties and in the boroughs where the
electors were independent, they were usually absurdly
small in numbers. In all Scotland there were only 2,500;
one county had nine, another twenty-one, and only one of
these lived in the district. One day an assembly was
called by the sheriff for an election in the county of Bute,
only one elector came. He took the chair, declared the
session open, called the roll, answered to his name, spoke
in favor of his candidacy, put it to vote, and unanimously
elected himself.
The election still took place after the old methods.
The candidates mounted the platform and made speeches
in the midst of cries and tumult; for it was the custom to
give something to drink to the electors, and that the
electors of the two parties should come and show them
selves; often they came to blows. All the electors gathered
in the open air, but often those who were not electors
slipped into the crowd. The sheriff made them vote by
holding up the hand, and he proclaimed die result Most
frequently the result was known in advance, for there was
but one candidate; when there were several candidates, if
one of them demanded it, the poll was taken, each elector
came and declared aloud his choice and this was reg
istered. The transaction frequentiy continued for some
weeks.

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 213
Since the eighteenth century electoral corruption had
been complained of, and it had increased with the wealth
of the country. The House of Commons, which ought
to have represented the nation, only represented the
families of the seigniors and the great fortunes. The
Whigs had demanded a reform almost every year since
1808; but the Tory party, which was in the majority
from 1783 to 1830, always spurned the project.
The Whigs labored to win over the public to the plan of
reform. Until that time the citizens generally had not
been interested in politics, the sittings of Parliament were
secret, the newspapers had rather a small circulation.
But at the end of the eighteenth century a change had
taken place; the population of the cities had greatly in
creased since the industries had been revived by the aid
of machines, and a pubhc eager for news had grown up.
From 1769 to 1792 six large daily journals had been
founded, which began to report what went on in the House
of Commons. The number of copies sold rose annually
from 7,000,000 in 1753 to 16,000,000 in i8oi,and 25,000,000
in 1825. In 1808 and 1809 two great reviews1 were
founded. The publication of reports of parliamentary
proceedings began in 1801. After 1815 the parties began
to stir up pubhc opinion by holding in the open air great
pohtical meetings, where the orators spoke from platforms
or from a carriage. These meetings were preceded or fol
lowed by processions composed of the followers of the party,
who passed through the streets carrying banners and proc
lamations. There were organized pohtical associations,
whose members paid a subscription and named a committee
lThe "Edinburgh Review, "by the Whigs, the "Quarterly Review,"
by the Tories.

214 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
to make a propaganda in favor of reform — in 1823, the
Catholic Association for the abolition of the test oath; in
1830 the Birmingham Association for electoral reform. Thus
were organized in England two new1 forces, the press and
public opinion, which in counterbalancing the influence
of the king and of the great lords, returned the majority
to the hands of the Whigs and restored the authority of
Parliament. To-day we could no longer conceive of a
parliamentary government without the journals and
without public opinion. It is said that the principal
English journal, the "Times," is the fourth power, and
also that public opinion is a sovereign.
This transformation led finally to an electoral reform
in 1832. The king, George IV., who had obstinately
opposed any change, died in 1830. The Whigs united
with the discontented Tories and formed a majority;
they demanded reform. The chief of the Tory ministry
was an old general, the conqueror of Waterloo, the
Duke of Wellington. He ascended the tribune and de
clared that he had heard nothing which proved that the
system of representation should be modified; he went
still further: if he were charged with making a law for a
country he could not find a better than the one then ex
isting, for human nature is incapable of such excellence.
After that declaration the House voted against the min
istry, which withdrew. The Whig ministry which suc
ceeded were two years in bringing about a reform; they
presented the bill three times.
The reform of 1832 was a compromise. They did not
1 It has been represented for a long time that the English political life
of the eighteenth century was like that of the nineteenth. The difference
is, that in the eighteenth, everything was done secretly, and that in the nine
teenth everything was done in the light of day. What is new is the publicity.

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 215
desire to estabhsh a regular system founded solely on the
number of the inhabitants.
They reserved the custom of pubhc vote, but it was
decided that the balloting could last only two days.
The same number of representatives was preserved
(658) and the two categories of representatives from
counties and from boroughs, but they were satisfied to take
away from the boroughs some of their seats and give them
to the counties: 56 rotten boroughs, with less than 2,000
souls lost their in representatives, 30 boroughs with less
than 4,000 souls had only 1 representative instead of
2, and two boroughs were reduced to 3. Thus 143
seats were gained which were reapportioned, 65 were
given to the counties (which, in place of 94, now had 159),
44 were given to 22 large cities, which had been hitherto
unrepresented, 20 were given to 20 medium-sized cities;
the remainder were divided between Ireland and Scotland.
The right of the elector remained a privilege reserved
for those who possessed an income from landed property;
they were satisfied to enlarge the franchise by giving the
right to vote to all the proprietors in the counties who had
a revenue of forty shillings and to all the farmers whose
revenue amounted to fifty pounds, in the boroughs to
every tenant of a lease of ten pounds.
This reform increased the number of electors 50 per
cent.; instead of one elector to every thirty-two inhab
itants there was one for every twenty-two. The new
electors were chiefly farmers and shop-keepers. The
workmen still were excluded from the right of suffrage.
Many were discontented and formed the great Labor
Association. Already, in 1816 and in 1819, a party
called radical had made some manifestations for the pur-

216 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
pose of demanding universal suffrage; in 1837 the dis
contented workingmen again took up the programme
of the radicals and drew up a petition to Parliament,
where they set forth the demands of their party. They
called it the People's Charter. It demanded that all the
inhabitants should have the right to vote and to be chosen
members of Parliament, that the representatives should
be paid, that the country should be divided into districts,
with an equal number of inhabitants, that the vote should
be secret, by depositing a ballot instead of subscribing
the name on a pubhc register. The chartists also com
plained of the misery of the people. "The English
constitution," said they, "signifies nothing for us but forced
labor or starvation." They held large meetings at night;
carried arms, and marched through the streets with torches.
Three different times (1839, 1843, 1848) they got up a
monster petition signed with 3,000,000 names. They
obtained nothing from Parliament. In 1872 only was it
possible for the prime minister Gladstone to establish
the system of the secret ballot.
The House of Commons since the reform has been
much more obedient to the will of the people, more docile,
more careful of the interests of the mass of the population,
and more active. The printed proceedings of the House
from 1824 to 1832 filled thirty-one volumes, since 1832
the number is about fifty volumes. The discussions of
Parliament have been better known to the pubhc; the old
law which ordered them to be held secretly has not been
repealed, but the custom has been estabhshed of allowing
a stenographic report to be pubhshed in the journals, and a
place was provided for the accommodation of the reporters.
As for the votes of the representatives, which had been

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 217
withheld from the pubhc, the House itself has had them
pubhshed ever since 1836. At the same time the journals
have lowered their price since the suppression of the
stamp duty (they have been put at one penny); by the
railways and the post they have been able to pene
trate rapidly everywhere. Whatever is done in the
House of Commons in the evening is known the next
day throughout all England. The journals have re
mained few in numbers (seven or eight in London), but
they sell a great many copies, which greatly increases the
power of each. Meetings have become more frequent,
the associations stronger and better organized. Nothing
has been changed in the forms, no written constitution has
been drawn up, the House continues to deliberate accord
ing to the same customs, the acts are conceived accordmg
to the same formula. The Speaker always wears a wig,
he is assisted by the herald, who places on the desk the
mace, the representatives continue to speak from their
seats. But according as the pohtical life has become more
active the importance of the Lower House has increased,
and the less have the Lords dared to oppose the repre
sentatives of the nation. The greater number of Lords
excuse themselves from sitting in their House; often there
are not more than fifteen; usually they accept, without
opposition, the laws voted by the Commons. The king
has kept his prerogative, all the acts of the government
are done in his name; he has the right to choose his
ministers and to dissolve Parliament. But it is a firmly
established custom to-day that the king must choose his
ministers from the leaders of the majority, and that the
ministers withdraw altogether as soon as one of them is
placed in the minority. Queen Victoria, who ascended

218 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the throne in 1837, never departed from that custom.
It is doubtful whether a king could evade it in the
future. Since 1832 the power has always depended upon the
majority in the House of Commons, that is, indirectly
upon the will of the voters. Therefore, it has changed
hands at each change in public opinion. From 171 5 to
1832 two parties, the Whigs and the Tories, held the
ministry, each one for half a century; between 1832
and 1896 each party has fallen from power ten times
and returned ten times. Both have been organized in
such a manner as to be united in the opposition as well
as in the government; each has its recognized chief or
leader, who becomes prime minister when his party is in
power; each has its ministry all ready.1
Thus was fixed in England, during the nineteenth cen
tury, the system of parliamentary government, which had
only been outlined in the eighteenth century. Thus were
established all the fundamental customs which people
in Europe have been accustomed to regard as inherent in
this regime.
There is a hereditary sovereign in whose name the
country is governed, but who exercises no power. "The
king reigns, he does not govern." The Parliament is
composed of two chambers, but the non-elective chamber
(the House of Lords) has no other power but to ratify or
reject the laws. The Commons alone votes the budget
and controls the conduct of the ministry.
The cabinet is chosen from the party of the majority,
and has for a chief the leader of the party; eleven officials

that

1 After 1832 the Tory party took the name Conservative, and the Whig
,at of Liberal.

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 219
always have seats in the cabinet, and usually from three
to five others. The ministers consider together in council
the measures to be taken, and when the majority of the
council has come to a decision, each minister is obliged to
sustain it or to withdraw.
The ministers are responsible to the House of Commons;
not only can they be accused by the House, but the mo
ment that the vote is against their measure they must
resign. They are jointly and severally responsible; all
must retire at the same time as soon as one of them is
put in the minority. As soon as Parliament is assembled
it listens to a speech from the throne, where the minister
in the name of the king sets forth the situation of the
country and indicates his policy. It responds by an ad
dress, in which the sentiments of the representatives are ex
pressed. Each year the budget for the following year is
voted. No tax can be levied until voted for; the refusal
to vote is an arm which the House could use against the
ministry, provided it obstinately remained in office when
no longer supported by the majority. In reference to each
project for a law or for credit the ministry may ask for a
vote of confidence from the House, that is, it may declare
that it will withdraw unless the House gives it a majority.
The House may, on its part, manifest dissatisfaction by
an order of the day. The subjects for consideration at
each sitting are arranged in advance by the order of the
day; but before the discussion begins any member has
the right to ask for an interpellation of the ministry. The
interpellation ends with a vote of the House to pass to the
order of the day, but often the House expresses its opinion
concerning the interpellation in some phrase which pre
cedes the formula: "Pass to the order of the day," and

220 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
if that opinion be unfavorable to the ministry, it must
withdraw. The ministry, when placed in the minority, has the right
to ask of the king the dissolution of the Parliament.
This is a procedure for making the electors judges between
the members and the government. The ministry remains
in place during the elections. If the new House does not
give it a majority, it must retire. To dissolve the newly
elected House would be regarded a "coup d'&at,"
since the nation has pronounced, and it is the sovereign.
(In England the duration of a Parliament is fixed by law,
and the time is seven years; but it is the custom to dis
solve it before the limit is reached. No House of Com
mons has existed beyond six years.)
Usually the projects for new laws are presented to the
House by the ministers, but every member has the right to
propose a new project or to amend an old law. This is
called parliamentary initiative.
Every measure, before it is brought forward for public
discussion, has to be examined by a committee. (The
House often constitutes itself the committee; in that case
there is no vote, only discussion.) The other committees
are formed of several members designated by the presiding
officer.1 Every project for a law must be discussed three times,
in three readings, and each article must be voted upon
separately each time, unless the House has voted that there
is urgency; then one reading is sufficient.
In order that the deliberation or vote may be valid
1 In the European countries which have adopted parliamentary gov
ernment, the committees are chosen by the House divided into bureaux
or sections. This system has been employed in France since 1789.

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 221
there must be a certain proportion of numbers, a quorum,
present at the sitting or taking part in the vote.
A project passed by the House does not become a law
until it has been voted upon by the upper House and has
been signed by the king, but it is not customary for the
king to refuse his signature.
All this mechanism was organized in England during
the reciprocal government of the two parties. It has
worked with regularity because there were only two parties,
both respecting usage and ready to yield place to the
rival party the moment that the majority had changed.
These parties are similar to two constituted governments,
between which the electors must choose without being
able to get rid of the alternative. Any sudden change is
therefore impossible, and yet neither of the two parties
can abuse its power for a very long time, for such abuse
causes dissatisfaction among the electors, and sends them
over to the adverse party. Therefore this game of reci
procity between the two parties is considered to be one
of the fundamental conditions in parliamentary govern
ment. The Charter of 1814, and the Restoration in France. —
In 1814 the Bourbons, on returning to power, had prom
ised to respect the institutions of the Revolution and of
the empire. The condition of society was not changed —
it remained democratic. The French were to be equal
before the law, and to be eligible to all the offices. The
ancient privileges were abolished, and the national pos
sessions remained in the hands of the new proprietors.
The administration was not changed. It remained cen
tralized; all public service, the finances, the judiciary,
the government, the police, the army, even the division

222 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
into departments, remained just what they had been made
during the Revolution; the creations of Napoleon, the
Code, the Legion of Honor, the Bank, the University,
were preserved. The populace had revolted against the
empire to the cry of " Down with conscription and the tax
on beverages." These two detested institutions had to be
abolished; in their places were created a recruiting system
and indirect taxes.
Consequently France was, from 1814, provided with an
administration and social organization which has hardly
been changed since, and which has formed a solid basis
for the life of the French people. But it had not yet a
systematized mechanism of government, such as existed
in England. It was necessary to fix some rules by which
the power could be divided, to give a constitution, as they
said, and to make it a part of their principles. It took
sixty years to do it (1814-1875). The first constitution
dates from 1814; the allied sovereigns and the French
statesmen, enemies to the absolutism of Napoleon, ad
mired the English parliamentary system. They advised
Louis XVIII. to introduce it into France. The Senate
even drew up a constitution which set forth the principles
of the sovereignty of the people: "The French people,
without constraint, calls to the throne Louis Stanislas
Xavier, brother of the last king. The constitution ac
cepted by the people, the king must swear to obey it,
and must sign it before being proclaimed sovereign."
The new king refused to ratify this constitution. He
wanted first to take possession of the throne, and it was
only after he had been recognized as king that he ordered
a new instrument drawn up. Intentionally he avoided
the name constitution, and took again a name from the

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 223
Middle Ages. He called it "Constitutional Charter."
Himself he entitled Louis XVIII., by the grace of God
King of France, and dated the charter in the "twenty-
first year" of his reign. All these forms were chosen to
indicate that in the eyes of the king none of the govern
ments in France since the death of Louis XVI. had been
legal; the real sovereigns had been his nephew, Louis
XVIL, and himself, since the death of his nephew; the
authority belonged to him of divine right by heritage, and
it was an absolute power which he alone had the right to
limit, by an act of his will solely. That was, the sover
eignty of France belonged to the king, not to the nation.
From this arose the discontent of the liberals. But under
its absolutist forms the Charter of 1814 estabhshed a con
stitutional government. It transplanted into France the
pohtical usage of England, such as was practised by the
Tory party. The government was shared by three powers :
the king and the two chambers. The king had the executive
power, he nominated and dismissed the ministers, he had
the right to dissolve the Chamber, the ministers were re
sponsible. The Upper Chamber was formed of peers
designated by the king, then hereditary like the Lords;
it ratified the laws. The Lower Chamber was elective,
it voted the laws and the budgets; the peers and the depu
ties received no pay. The press was free, as in Eng
land. It was the English system copied in detail (speech
from the throne, address of the House, commissions, etc.).
The Charter left in suspense two practical questions
which had to be regulated by laws : 1. How should the
Chamber of Deputies be chosen? 2. How should the
hberty of the press be regulated ? These laws, not being
incorporated in the charter, could always be brought up

224 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
for discussion. The Enghsh system itself, at the epoch
when it served as a model, was still more undecided on
one point : What were the rights of the king in his relations
to the House of Commons? Was he obhged to take his
ministers from the majority? The question. was not yet
decided in England, still less was it decided in France.
Therefore, from 1814 to 1835, the electoral law, the laws
concerning the press, and the power of the king were the
great fields for parliamentary conflict.
For the electoral system, and for the press as well as
for the constitution, the French statesmen found their
model in England.
There was no disposition to give all the people the
right to choose their deputies; the Revolution had aroused
a terror of universal suffrage; a right as dangerous as that
of choosing their own representatives could be given only
to a small number of picked men. On the principle ac
cording to which this choice was to be made, there was no
hesitation. As in England, the amount of wealth was
made the basis in deciding that it should be estabhshed
according to the direct tax the quit-rent became (until
1848) the measure of the right of suffrage; the only electors
were those who held rent-rolls. From 1814 the quit-rent
was placed at a high figure; it was necessary to pay 300
francs direct tax to become an elector, and 1,000 francs to
be eligible for an office. The electors gathered in the chief
city of the department or of the arrondissement. This
system lasted until 1830; during that period there were not
more than 110,000 electors out of a population of 25,000,-
000 to 30,000,000 souls. The French found themselves
divided into two classes : the masses of the nation excluded
from all pohtical rights, and the tax-payers, who were

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 225
furnished with the privilege of, in themselves, representing
the entire nation. (After 1830 the tax-payers were
called the legally constituted country; before the political
law they were in fact the whole country.)1 The pohtical
press was also organized in the English fashion; each
number was to bear a stamp of five centimes, carriage
by post then cost ten centimes; the sale of single copies
was then unknown — there were only subscribers. The
journal was therefore a costly luxury reserved for the
bourgeoisie; in 1830 there were not more than 60,000 or
70,000 subscribers. The people did not read. They
were kept in complete ignorance of political life, which
was a privilege belonging to the bourgeoisie. In order
to found a journal it was necessary to deposit a heavy
security; therefore, there were very few journals, three or
four for each party; each had so much the more powerful
influence over its readers. What increased that influence
still more was that, according to Enghsh usage, the articles
were not signed. Restrained within these limits the
press was declared to be free as in England, but with a
prohibition against attacking the king and the constitu
tion. In this manner was the English system transplanted
into France. But it was impossible to transplant Eng
lish manners, and parties were organized in a way totally
different from the Enghsh method. The French dep
uties, less amenable to discipline, were not willing to
be massed into two parties; they were gathered in several
1 The principal difference was in the application of the common prin
ciple that fortune alone gave the right of suffrage; the English electoral
franchise was much less than the French "quit-rent"; with less popula
tion England had twenty times as many electors; political life there w.13
not exclusively bourgeois.

226 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
small groups; the groups were in France just what the
parties were in England, the dominant trait of the public
life. As each group followed its own policy, and wanted
to have the authority, the English system of reciprocity
was impracticable, at least until one group should have
in itself a majority. No leader of a majority could be
found in order to form a ministry. A ministry could
not be maintained except by uniting several groups
for its support, and even this compromise gave it but a
precarious existence, for all the groups excluded from
power could form a coalition, and by voting contrary to
the ministry, cause its downfall. For the ministers this
was a strong temptation to corrupt or to intimidate the
electors in order to secure for themselves a sure majority.
Therefore, the government in France has always, much
more than in England, used political pressure in elections,
and has had more means of doing so, because, since the
time of Napoleon, all the authority in every province is
exercised by the functionaries, who are numerous and
dependent upon the ministers.
The parliamentary government then had need of quite
moderate parties in order to respect the usages which
made up the constitution. It seemed in 1814 that the
charter would be accepted by all; compared with the
government of Napoleon it appears very hberal. The
Bourbons were incontestably the family which brought
the greatly desired peace. The personnel of the govern
ment was not changed. Louis XVIII. kept Napoleon's
ministers, eighty-four of the Senators, and the entire
Chamber of Deputies. New France seemed to be recon
ciled to old France in this system of parliamentary govern
ment.

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 227
The lack of tact of the Bourbons and the return
of Napoleon made reconciliation impossible. Without
touching any of the new institutions, the Bourbons al
lowed their friends, the emigres, to use such language
as to frighten or wound all the people interested in main
taining things as they were — those who had acquired
national domains, the nobles of the empire, the function
aries, the officers, and the peasants. The army espe
cially was irritated, the officers for having been put on
half-pay, the soldiers for having lost the tricolored flag,
which had been replaced by the white flag of the Bour
bons. That is the reason why Napoleon found at once
on his return to France that the army and the peasants
were on his side, and why the parliamentary system of
the charter crumbled to pieces. Napoleon, in order to
have the support of the Republicans, established a con
stitutional government, which he had ratified by univer
sal suffrage. After Waterloo this system fell, in its
turn, and the charter was reestablished. But that
Revolution of the Hundred Days had left ineffaceable
traces. The excited royalists persecuted the men who
had rallied about Napoleon and tried to destroy the work
of the Revolution. The partisans of the new institutions,
through hatred of the royalists, grouped together — im
perialists and republicans — around the tricolored flag;
Napoleon, whom the republicans had detested as a tyrant,
was regarded as the defender of the Revolution against
the Bourbons, who wanted to bring back the old regime.
Thus two extreme parties were formed in France, the
ultra-royalists (called the Ultras), who talked of establish
ing the old regime, the absolute authority of the king,
and the privileges of the nobility and clergy; the Republican

228 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Bonapartists (they called themselves the Liberal party),
who wished for the downfall of the Bourbons. Neither
of these two parties respected the Charter. The Liberals
were a revolutionary party; they demanded not only, as
did the Whigs, the liberal reforms, but they were ready
to overthrow the monarchy created by the constitution;
the Ultras were the reactionary party; for they were not
contented as were the Tories, with rejecting all attempts at
reform; they wanted to go back to the old forms of gov
ernment, to a regime which could not be restored save
through revolution. Between these two parties hostile
to the constitution were formed two constitutional groups,
the moderate royalists (the Right), partisans of the con
tinuance of the present order, like the Tories, and the
liberal royalists (Doctrinaires), partisans of a government
based on the English model.
In 1815, the elections having been held during the in
vasion and the White Terror, the Ultras had the majority
in the Chamber (this was the "Matchless Chamber").
It demanded that the national domains be returned to the
clergy, the public debt be repudiated, the hberal magis
trates be removed, and that the University be suppressed.
The king opposed them; the Doctrinaires, in order to
save the work of the Revolution, took sides against the
Chamber and with the king. The Chamber demanded
that the king should take his ministry from the majority.
The Doctrinaires maintained that the king was free to
choose his ministers. Royer-Collard said in 1816:
" From the day when the government should only be com
posed of the majority in the Chamber, and when it should
be an established fact that it could dismiss the ministers
of the king, it would be all over not only with the consti-

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 229
tution, but with independent royalty. From that day
we should have a Republic." The Chamber wanted to
lower the "quit-rent" to fifty francs, which would have
made 2,000,000 electors. The Doctrinaires insisted upon
the continuance of the "quit-rent" at 300 francs, because
they had more confidence in the defence of hberty by the
upper bourgeoisie than by the small proprietors. Louis
XVIII. got rid of the Ultras by suddenly dissolving the
Chamber, and by issuing an ordinance which restored the
electoral law of 1814. The institutions were saved, but
the nation remained separate from the political govern
ment, and the king kept the control of affairs in his own
hands, which prevented the establishment of the true
parliamentary system.
Between 1816 and 1829 the Constitution was regularly
in force; the Liberals stirred up the country, organized
secret societies and military conspiracies, wrote pam
phlets and manifested their opposition to the existing gov
ernment, but they had only a few deputies in the Chamber;
the Ultras, too, formed only a small group. The two
constitutional centres composed almost the whole Cham
ber. The ministry chosen by the king was sustained by a
majority; the ministry Decaze by the Doctrinaires, from
1816 to 1820 (this was the period of liberal reforms); the
ministry Villele by the Right, from 1820 to 1827 (the
reforms were stopped, the Chamber even voted for re
actionary laws, some of which were rejected by the peers).
In 1827 all the enemies of the Villele ministry formed an
alliance and obtained a majority in the Chamber (360
against 70). Charles X. would not have a ministry from
the Left, and he took one from the Right Centre (Mar-
tignac). The government of the Restoration perished in

230 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
a conflict between the two extreme parties. Charles X.
did not accept the parliamentary system of government.
"I should prefer to saw wood," said he, "rather than to
be king under the same conditions as the king of Eng
land." "In France it is the king who governs; he asks
counsel of the Chambers, he considers seriously their
opinions, and their representations, but when he is not
convinced it is his will which must rule." In 1829 he
chose a ministry from the Ultras (Polignac), which had
all the other parties for its enemies. The Chamber
pronounced against it by the address of the 222; the king
kept his ministers and dissolved the Chamber. The new
Chamber, ichosen in 1830, was about to be still more
hostile. Charles X. wanted to do the same thing that
had succeeded under Louis XVHL, in 1816. Article 14
of the charter said: "The king shall issue the necessary
decrees for the execution of the laws and for the surety of
the state." Charles X. issued three decrees: he dissolved
the new Chamber before it had assembled, changed the
electoral law, and established the censorship of the press
(July, 1830). The general opinion was that the king had
exceeded his authority, that the decrees were veritable laws,
and that not having been voted on by the Chambers,
they were illegal. The journalists of Paris signed a
protest, the deputies present in Paris decided upon legal
resistance. But these legal means could not prevail
against the government armed with force.
A Republican party was formed in Paris. It was re
cruited among the workingmen and the students, few in
numbers (from 8,000 to 10,000 men), without a deputy,
without a journal, but organized and armed. It was this
body which made the Revolution of 1830; they took

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 231
arms, constructed barricades1 in the narrow streets in
the eastern part of Paris, and raised the tricolor. The
government had not forseen the disturbance. There
were not more than 11,000 troops stationed in Paris. In
three days the insurgents had possession of the city.
Charles X., "losing his head," did not try to retake it, but
left France. The deputies assembled in Paris during the
combat, and, having negotiated with Charles X., preferred
to take up another royal family and accepted the Duke
of Orleans, who promised again to set up the tricolor and
to defend parliamentary government. The tricolored flag
had remained popular, all the cities and towns raised it,
and Louis Philippe was recognized without resistance.
The Charter of 1830 and the Monarchy of July. — The
Revolution of 1830 had been organized in the name of
the sovereignty of the nation. The new king had ac
cepted it. He had himself called "Louis Philippe I.
by the grace of God, and by the will of the nation, king
of the French." It was necessary to make a new constitu
tion. This was the Charter of 1830. It was no longer
granted to the nation by the will of the king; it was es
tabhshed by the nation, and received the assent of the king,
who swore to respect its requirements. Article 14, that
Charles X. had invoked, was abrogated. The censorship
of the press was forever prohibited. The Chamber re
ceived the right to elect its own -presiding officer. The
charter promised laws concerning the jury system, the
national guard, the administration, and hberty of in
struction. This promise was effected by two laws of 1831 ;
the Chamber of Peers, which was hereditary, was given
' They had already in 1827 constructed some barricades, the first since
the time of t*«> F-"nde There were none during the Revolution.

232 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
a life tenure ; the electoral quit-rent was lowered from
300 francs to 200 francs. There were then 150,000 electors
(200,000 in 1848).
The question was thus decided in favor of the Chamber.
It was the Chamber, not the king, who was sovereign.
Parliamentary government seemed to be established
in France. But there always remained two extreme
parties who were hostile to the constitution, on the right
the Legitimists, who would not recognize the usurping
king, on the left the Republicans, who complained that
they had been deceived in 1830. The king, while affecting
all the time a submission to the majority in the Chamber,
was not resigned to his r61e of constitutional king; he
wanted to choose his ministers, to work with them, to
direct the policy of the ministry; instead of conforming
his government to the will of the majority, he tried to
make the majority docile to the royal will.
From 1830 to 1835 the two parties, the royalist Left
and the Republicans, disputed over the control of the
parliament. Louis Philippe, in order to make himself ac
ceptable to the Republicans, masters of the Hotel de
Ville, had formed a friendship with the leaders, Lafayette
and Laffitte, and had formed a ministry composed of five
Republicans and four Royalists. The contest went on
even in the ministry; the party of "progress" (Re
publicans) wanted a democratic policy and intervention
in favor of the insurgent peoples in Europe; the party
of " resistance " (Royalists) wanted to preserve the domi
nation of the bourgeoisie, and also preserve peace with
the great powers. The king, who was a partisan of re
sistance, wanted to let the men who were in favor of
agitation wear themselves out. He allowed Republicans

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 233
alone to remain in the ministry (Laffitte) and to be masters
of Paris. It was thought that they were going to war with
Europe. The country became afraid, the three per cent.
"rentes" fell to 52 francs 70 centimes; the 5 per cent, to
82 francs 50 centimes. The Chamber abandoned Laffitte,
and the king chose a royalist ministry (Casimir Perier,
1831). The Republican party had lost every chance of
getting into power through the Chamber. It tried to
renew the revolution of 1830, organized societies of work-
ingmen, founded a journal, and stirred up several dis
turbances in the city of Paris. The government ordered the
condemnation of the journals and the secret societies;
aided by the National Guard it suppressed the riots, at
the same time it crushed out the uprising of the Legiti
mists in the west. Order was reestablished in 1835.
From 1835 to 1840 the contest was transferred to the
Chamber of Deputies between the two constitutional par
ties, the Left Centre (Thiers) and the Doctrinaires, who
had become the Right Centre (Guizot) ; but there was an
intermediate group, the Third party, and two extreme
groups. Besides, the king, instead of giving the ministry
to the party that had the majority, and retaining it until it
should be put in the minority, chose for ministers his
friends outside of the majority, or dismissed the ministers
who would not follow his policy. The ministries fell quick
ly before a coalition or before the opposition of the king;
from 1832 to 1840 there were eight of them. This was
the time of brilliant combats in oratory; the discussion of
the address to the king in 1838 lasted twelve days; 128
speeches were made. But the parliamentary regime did
not succeed in founding a lasting government.
In 1840 the king made a definite alliance with the Right

234 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Centre and gave the ministry in charge of Guizot. His
policy was to assure himself of the support of the Cham
ber by having deputies elected who had no opinions, and
who were always induced to vote for the ministry. He
did not appeal to the political convictions of the electors,
but to their personal interests, giving to the electors the
tobacco-shops, pensions, employment, and to the deputies
appointments. This plan was so much the more effective
as the deputies did not receive any salary. Nearly one-
half of the Chamber was composed of officials. The
policy of Guizot was to avoid all trouble with Europe and
to make no reforms in France. This regime lasted eight
years, the majority ever increasing; never was it greater
than in the elections of 1846. But the mass of the nation
proved to be more and more discontented; the govern
ment was reproached for its narrow-minded policy and
for its system of corruption. A reform was demanded.
1. The " cense " should be lowered and " capacity " added,
that is, to the electors who had a certain income should be
added people of education (they had been on the lists of
jurors since 1827). 2. The deputies should be for
bidden to hold office. France was divided into two camps.
On one side the king, the ministry, the Chamber, and the
qualified electors agreed to refuse everything, they who
alone had all the power, for they composed the " legal
nation " ; on the other side the opposition, composed of
all the rest of the country, who had political opinions, but
who were deprived of any means of action.
In appearance it was parliamentary government, pure
and simple; the king seemed to be the executor of the will
of the majority of the elected Chamber of Deputies; but,
thanks to the tax-rating and to electoral corruption, the

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 235
Chamber, instead of representing the nation, was nothing
but the assembly of the king's servants. The English
parliamentary regime, under the direction of a minister
who had been professor of English History, was nothing
but a "facade" behind which was preserved the personal
government of the king.
Parliamentary Government in Belgium. — The kingdom
of the Netherlands, to which Belgium had been annexed
in 1814, had a constitutional government, but it was very
imperfect; the king had kept the right to choose his min
isters, who were irresponsible, and to direct the govern
mental policy. The king, a native of Holland and living
there, favored his own people, and [aroused discontent
among his Belgian subjects to such a degree that they
united, revolted, and drove the Dutch troops from their
territory (1830). France took them under her protection,
and obtained permission from the Great Powers for Belgium
to be detached from the Netherlands and to be organized
as a constitutional monarchy.
A congress of deputies was summoned, a king was
chosen, and a constitution was drawn up, which was not
modified until 1893. Society in Belgium as well as in
Holland had been transformed by the twenty years of
French domination; there remained neither privileges
nor classes nor provinces. The constitution established
equality before the law, and all provinces were organized
in the same manner.
The Belgians were divided into two parties, the Liberals,
partisans of a constitutional government by the laity;
the Catholics, partisans of the authority of the Church;
in 1830 the two parties had been united and the revolution
was declared in the name of liberty.

236 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
All kinds of liberty were then inscribed in the consti
tution, hberty of person, domicile, speech, press, worship,
education, assembly, and association.
The Belgians admired the English system, such as it
was, carried out by the Whigs; the Congress declared:
"For a form of government the Belgian people do adopt
a representative constitutional monarchy under a hered
itary chief." There were three powers, the king, the Sen
ate, and the Chamber of Deputies; the king was hereditary
and irresponsible, but he was not sovereign. Sovereignty
belonged to the nation represented by parliament; the
king nominated his ministers and could dissolve the Cham
ber, but the ministers were responsible to the Chamber,
they would withdraw when in the minority; the Chamber
voted the budget. Contrary to English usage, the Senate
was elected by the same voters who elected the Chamber;
it could be dissolved, and both were renewed in sections.
As in England, the right to vote was allied to the tax-roll.
To be an elector one must be a rate-payer, the rate vary
ing according to the district or place, but it could not be
less than 42 francs.
The most difficult question to regulate was the or
ganization of the church. The Liberals would have
liked to keep the control of the church in the hands of
the state, as is the case among almost all civilized
peoples. The Catholic party demanded in the name
of liberty the complete independence of the church.
Nothomb, one of the leaders, said to the Congress: "It
depends upon ourselves to exercise a glorious initiative
and to unreservedly ordain one of the greatest principles
of modern civilization. For centuries two powers have
been in conflict, the civil power and the religious power;

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 237
they dispute over society as if the rule of the one excluded
that of the other. The whole of Europe is interested in
this conflict which we have been called upon to stop.
There are two worlds face to face, the civil and the religious.
They coexist without mingling, touching each other at
no point. We want the law to be declared incompetent
in religious affairs. There is no more relation between
rehgion and the state than there is between geometry
and the state. Let us mark our progress by a great
principle, let us proclaim the separation of these two pow
ers." The Liberals yielded and the Congress proclaimed
the separation of church and state.
In Belgium the understanding of this measure was as
follows. The church was freed from the authority of the
laymen, the bishops were directly appointed by the pope,
and themselves appointed the priests; religious orders
could be formed in the country, could acquire property,
and could receive legacies. They were subject to no re
striction nor surveillance. But the church preserved
all the privileges that she had received from the state
before the separation; the ecclesiastics continued to receive
their salaries from the state, to be exempt from military
service, to receive military honors; the clergy kept
possession of the cemeteries and of the right to watch over
the schools. There were henceforth in Belgium two
official powers, the government and the clergy, both in
dependent and sovereign. They were not long in com
ing into conflict.
From 1831 to 1845 parties for the contest were not yet
organized. They were busy arranging a peace with
Holland (which was not definitive until 1839), and in
recovering from an economical crisis which had followed

238 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the revolution. Like the English of the eighteenth century,
they still had the idea that the government should not
belong to one party only. And with this intention, they
formed the ministry of Liberals rand Cathohcs; they
hoped thus to destroy the parties which were regarded as
sources of danger to the government. "The country,"
said the Minister for Justice in 1848, "is exposed to dis
astrous divisions that will develop soon, if they are not
stopped in time; this classification of Catholic and Liberal
has no meaning in the presence of the great principles
of liberty, which are consecrated by one constitution."
The Catholic party, more thoroughly organized, thanks
to the clergy, profited by this system in order to pass the
law of 1842, which established religious instruction in all
the primary schools, and confided it to the care of the
clergy. "No primary instruction without moral and re
ligious education," said Nothomb. " We break away from
the philosophical doctrines of the eighteenth century,
which have professed to completely secularize instruction
and to constitute society on a purely rational basis."
The Liberals, disturbed by the influence of the clergy,
organized their party; in 1846 a Congress of 320 Liberal
delegates from all Belgium gathered at the Hdtel de Ville
in Brussels, formed an alliance and discussed the pro
gramme of the party. Its device was ' ' Independence of the
civil power." It demanded the organization of a system
of public instruction in all grades, under the exclusive
direction of the civil authority, while giving to this au
thority constitutional means to maintain a competition
with private establishments, and to repel the intervention
of the ministers of public worship in the system of ed
ucation organized by the civil power." This is called to-

eoxsrnrrioNAi. goyfrxmfxt in firoff ass
day lay education. TV Liberals demanded, in addi-
ion, "the lowering of the rates, and the amelioration
which the conditions of the working classes imperiously
demand." From 1^46 the Chamber had remained divided iiito
two parties which alternately had had a majority, and
had formed a ministry <from iim* to 1^4 each one arose
and fell three timosh Fhe Catholic party, more thor
oughly otga»**ed< had for its support all the rural dis
tricts of Flemish Helium: the 1 iberal party, move clam
orous, com rotted the whole of French Belgium. The
great Flemish cities, Ghent and Antwerp, oscillated be
tween the two parties, ami decided the majority; the
victory in those cities teas the prelude to a victory in the
country. The eoniftet bore upon all the elections, for
the Senate, the Chamber, the provincial and the com
munal councils.
Thus, the Belgian parliamentary sxstem. like the Eng
lish, seemed to rest upon the equilibrium ot the two panics.
But the difference between these two parties was much
greater in Belgium; this was not only a struggle between
two political systems, but it was a combat between two
social concisions, whoso education and principles weje
absolutely opposed to each other. Therefore the irri
tation continued to increase, a«d it was not at all certain
that the parties would continue to respect the constitu
tion. Th* ParSansentary System in the Other European
States.— The three great monarchies of the East, which
m 1S15 had formed the Holy Alliance — Russia. Austria,
and Prussia— had remained absolute mcoarchios down to
the year '<Xi>; the ministers chosen by the seveie^n

240 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
governed without any control, the nation was not repre
sented by any elected body; the provincial assemblies,
where they were preserved, had no other r61e but to aid
the government in levying the taxes. The King of
Prussia, who, in 1815, had promised to give his subjects
a written constitution, had refused down to the time of
his death (1840) to keep his promise, and his successor,
in calling the provincial assembhes to Berlin (1847), nad
declared that the assembly was not sovereign, and that
he did not want any written constitution.
The three absolute governments regarded each other
as ever interested in maintaining the absolute monarchy
in the states subject to their influence; the constitutional
regime among foreign peoples seemed to them a very
dangerous example to set before their subjects; they
strove, therefore, to prevent the sovereigns of Central
Europe, Germany and Italy, from granting constitutions.
Austria succeeded in this measure until 1847 in Italy;
no sovereign would consent to the establishment of a con
stitution or to the election of a representative assembly;
when the subjects, in rebellion, obhged their rulers to
accept a hberal government (at Naples in 1820, in the
States of the Church and in the duchies in 1830), the
Austrian arms came to reestablish by force the absolute
authority. In Germany the action of the Congress declared that in
the territories belonging to the Confederation "there
should be representation of the states." The original
text declared: "There should be (soil) representation,"
and it fixed the period "at the end of one year;" but this
was erased and "soil" was replaced by "wird." This
wak, nothing more than an invitation, it was not a law.

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 241
Each prince was independent and could estabhsh the order
that he desired.
In the states of the South (Wurtemberg, Baden;
Bavaria), which the French domination had reorganized
and increased, and in the Grand-Duchy of Weimar, the
princes (from 1816 to 1819) had ordered that written con
stitutions should be drawn up, and this was done not
withstanding the warnings of the Great Powers. Each
state had its parliament, usually formed of two Chambers;
the Chamber elected by the rate-payers voted the tax and
the laws; but it was the prince who appointed the minis
ters, without any consideration of the majority. In these
poor countries, where there were few wealthy burghers,
the electors found scarcely any one capable of being a
deputy who was not a functionary; even the opposition was
recruited from among the employees of the government;
it was admitted that an official could as deputy oppose
the government. But the ministry had a means of break
ing up the opposition, as he could refuse leave of absence
to the functionary deputy.
In the states of Northern Germany the princes preferred
to keep the former aristocratic assembhes of the state,
which they rarely convoked, at intervals of several years,
when a new law had to be made or a new tax levied.
Some princes persisted in governing alone, without
being willing to grant a constitution. Their subjects
rebelled in 1830 and succeeded in obliging them to accede
to their demands; but Austria intervened and restored
absolute power.
Therefore the parliamentary system could not take root
in Germany. During the period from 1815 to 184S the
hberal Germans were accustomed to hate the governments

242 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
of Austria and Prussia, which oppressed them, and to
admire France as a country of equality and liberty.
In the western extremity of Europe the kingdoms of
Spain and Portugal had, in 1814, restored absolute au
thority, and also the Inquisition, which had been destroyed
during the French occupation. They were despotically
governed, Spain by the "advisers" of the king (camarilla)
and by his confessor, Portugal by an Enghsh general
and a commission of regents, in the absence of the king,
who remained in Brazil. Modern books were forbidden,
and the members of secret societies were condemned as
criminals. The officers becoming more hberal through
contact with the French and English armies, stirred up
the soldiers of both countries to demand, in 1820, a
constitution. The King of Spain again took up the con
stitution of 181 2, an imitation of the French constitution
of 1 791, and the Cortes of Portugal voted for the same
constitution in 1822. But the "servile party" (Abso
lutists) revolted in Spain to the cry of "Long live
the absolute king! Down with the constitution!" The
French government, in order to make a public demon
stration of the doctrine of legitimacy, sent an army into
Spain which restored the absolute party to power. The
liberals were executed or deported (1823).
In Portugal the heir to the throne, having become
Emperor of Brazil, sent his daughter to reign in his stead,
and granted a charter to the country (1826). She es
tablished equality before the law, and all liberty save that
of worship, for the Catholic was the only religion per
mitted. The government was organized according to the
parliamentary type; the king, the Chamber of Hereditary
Peers, the Chamber of Deputies, chosen by indirect elec-

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 243
tion through two series of electors, responsible ministers,
the right of suffrage reserved for the property owners who
had a revenue of 600 francs. To the three powers, ad
mitted by the theories of the epoch (legislative, executive,
judicial), was added a fourth, the modifying power,
invented by a French writer, Benjamin Constant. This
was the right to convoke and dissolve the Chamber, to
choose ministers, to grant an amnesty or pardon; this
power was confided to the king. Before the acts of this
charter could be put in force, Miguel, the uncle of the
young queen, had taken possession of absolute power.
The parliamentary system had been introduced into
Spain and Portugal about the same time (1833) as a re
sult of the divisions in the royal family and under the in
fluence of the two great parliamentary states, England
and France. In Spain Ferdinand died in 1833, and left
a daughter, Isabella, and a brother, Carlos. According
to the Salic law, which had been recognized in the king
dom since the advent of the Bourbons, the real heir was
Carlos; but Ferdinand had issued a pragmatic sanction,
which restored ancient usage in Spain, and gave the
crown to Isabella and the regency to her mother, Cris-
tina. The absolutist party supported the claims of
Carlos. Cristina was obliged to look to the liberal party
for support and to take her ministers from its ranks.
Likewise in Portugal the young Queen Maria, on reach
ing her majority, was again set on the throne, through an
insurrection which expelled her uncle, Miguel. Civil
war began in the two countries between the absolutist
partisans of the two pretenders and the liberal partisans
of the two queens. The pretenders had the support of
the three absolute monarchies of Europe, the queens were

244 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
sustained by England and France, which formed with
them the quadruple alliance of 1834.
The Portuguese government restored the Charter of
1826. The Spanish government drew up the Royal
Statute of 1834, in which the regent promised to have
the Cortes vote the laws and the taxes. The Cortes
which became the Spanish Parliament, was composed
of two chambers, the grandees (proceres) and the deputies
(procuradores), chosen for three years by an indirect elec
tion through two series of electors. The electors were the
rate-payers, the deputies were to have no salaries, and
were obliged to possess an income of 12,000 francs.
In the two countries the absolutists had been van
quished (in Spain a bloody war of five years' duration
was necessary to conquer the Carlists of the Pyrenees).
The Liberals had divided into two parties: in Spain the
Moderates (adherents of the royal power), and the Pro-
gressivists (partisans of the Cortes); in Portugal, the
Chartists and the Septembrists. Under these names were
concealed the ambitions of the party leaders. For a long
time the two kingdoms had hardly anything but the mere
form of a constitutional system, for the ministers were not
responsible to the Chamber, and the government retained
so much influence that in Spain and in Portugal the elec
tors have always elected the candidates of the ministry.
Besides the generals, rendered influential through the civil
wars, intervened in the party quarrels and forced the sov
ereign to take them for ministers. There were in Spain,
from 1833 to 1855, 47 presidents of the Council and 96
ministers of war. But the new regime has brought with
it two great changes : the authority has been exercised by
ministers and generals instead of by favorites and the con-

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE 245
fessors; the Liberals have abolished the Inquisition and
have taken the property of the convents in order to pay
the national debt (in Portugal, 1834; in Spain, 1836), thus
destroying the absolute domination of the clergy.

CHAPTER XI
THE GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE FROM 1848
TO 1875
The Revolution of February. — In 1848, as in 1830, the
government had two kinds of adversaries — the dynastic
Left demanded electoral reform and the dismissal of
the Guizot ministry; but while preserving parliamentary
monarchy the Republican party wished for the overthrow
of royalty.
The Left, led by Thiers and Barrot, had organized,
for the purpose of stirring up public opinion, a series of
banquets at which reform was demanded, but the usual
toast to the king was always proposed. This party was
supported by the journalists, the bourgeoisie, and the
National Guard of Paris, all tax-payers. After 1840, the
Republican party had been reformed; it was represented by
a single deputy (Ledru-Rollin) and by a single journal
"The Reform" (with less than 2,000 subscribers), but it
had for support a 'part of the Paris workingmen, dis
ciples of Louis Blanc, who were anxious for social re
form. The Socialists (as they were called) complained
that workmen in order to secure labor were obliged to
accept conditions made by their employers, proprietors
of the factories; they wanted the state to take upon itself
the organization of labor, by establishing national work
shops, where laborers would be employed by the state.
The struggle had begun over the question of electoral
246

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 247
reform, the Chamber had rejected it (February n, 1848);
then the government had prohibited a banquet, and the Left
had protested without attempting any resistance. As in
1830, it was the Republican party that began the revolu
tion; it took up arms, and shut itself up in barricades in
the eastern quarter of Paris. The National Guard, in
command of the western quarter of the city, took sides
against the Guizot ministry. At this time the National
Guard was supposed to represent public opinion in Paris,
the only opinion of which any account was taken. In
1830 it had helped to establish the Orleans family in power,
and in the constitution was inscribed: "The Charter and
all the rights which it secures are confided to the patriot
ism and courage of the National Guard." Louis Philippe
yielded to the demands of the National Guard, dismissed
Guizot, and chose a ministry from the Left. The Reform
party had conquered (February 23).
But the Republicans continued " the revolution. A
demonstration for the evening was organized; the troops,
surprised, fired on the crowd. Some of the participants
were killed, and the Republicans carried the bodies in
carts through the boulevards of Paris. The next morn
ing they took the offensive; the crowd seized the Tuileries,
invaded the Palais Bourbon, and forced the Chamber to
proclaim the fall of the royar house, and to establish a
provisional government (February 24). The alliance
of the Left with the Republicans had at this time brought
victory to the latter party. Outside of the city the country
was royalist, and afraid of a Republican form of govern
ment. But it was so accustomed to have its government
arranged for it in Paris that the revolution was accepted
without any opposition, and the delegates sent by the

248 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
provisional government were allowed to assume full au
thority throughout the provinces.
Universal Suffrage. — The provisional government pro
claimed by the Chamber was composed of seven Moderate
Republicans. Among them was Lamartine. At the
same time another government was installed in the H6tel
de Ville; this was formed of Social Republicans. Among
them was Louis Blanc.1 The provisional government
was obliged to go to the H6tel de Ville and to accept the
Socialist members of the government. They were given
the title of secretary. ^
The contest between the two parties began immediately.
The Socialists wanted a democratic and social2 repubhc,
with organization of labor by the state, and for a symbol
the flag of the revolutionary workingmen, the red flag. The
Moderates (the National party) wanted only a democratic
republic, which would change nothing in regard to prop
erty, and they insisted upon retaining the tricolor as a
symbol. The democratic Republicans carried off the
victory on the question of the flag. The Repubhc re
tained the tricolor. They attempted to organize labor;
national workshops were organized which were managed
by a commission from the government, and were to employ
workmen at the expense of the state. The revolution
had put an end to all business; Paris was full of idle
laborers; the state employed them at i franc 50 centimes
per day; but as there was no work for them to do, they
were set to work on the terraces of the Champ de Mars.
1 The same thing had occurred at the time of the Revolution of 1830;
but in 1830 the government formed in the Chamber had absorbed that
of the Hdtel de Ville.
* Their enemies often called them communists, confounding them with
the sects who proposed to establish community of goods.

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE- 1848-1875 249
The laborers were soon disgusted with this useless toil,
to which they were unaccustomed, and they remained idle
in the shops. There were 40,000 of them in the month
of March, and 60,000 by the 16th of April. This ex
perience under such conditions rendered the Socialists
and the idea of the organization of labor unpopular.
There was the same disagreement in regard to the
finances. The revolution had brought about a deficit
in the receipts. The minister of finance proposed to se
cure the money by increasing the indirect taxes. The
Progressive party refused because the burden of these taxes
fell especially on the laborers; the government preferred
to add to the direct tax an extraordinary tax of 45 centimes
per franc. This tax made the peasant detest the Republic.
The two parties could not agree on the duration of the
government. The Progressives wanted to delay the
elections until the Republican party was organized. In a
country that had had, they said, centuries of monarchical
government, one year of a repubhc would not be too
long a delay. The opposite party wanted to have a repre
sentative assembly at the earliest possible moment.
The two parties tried to frighten each other by demon
strations. The Socialists were supported by the work
ingmen, and the democratic Republicans by the National
Guards, the bourgeois, and the students. They gained
their point; and the government ordered an election,
April 23d, for representatives to a constituent assembly.
Every Frenchman of twenty-one years had the right to
vote. They were not content with the electoral reform
demanded by the opposition. In order that the Republic
should be democratic the government was established
on a new basis, universal suffrage. It already existed

250 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
in the United States and in Switzerland, where it had
been gradually established; it had been tried in France
for the election of the Convention of 1792. It was a part
of revolutionary traditions and of republican usage. The
Socialists demanded it in order to give the laborers
power to demand of the government legislative reforms
to ameliorate their condition. Universal suffrage seemed
to be the necessary consequence of the institution of a
republic, it was proclaimed as an incontrovertible prin
ciple. The Republicans of the government did not
appear to have asked themselves, What use will the peas
ants make of this new power ?
The Constituent Assembly was composed of 900 mem
bers, elected by general ticket in each department. A
relative majority was sufficient for a choice. The electors
went to the chief town of the canton for the purpose of
depositing their ballots. The deputies received 25 francs
a day for their services.
The Assembly consisted of a majority of moderate
Republicans. They opposed the policy of the Socialists
and ordered the closing of the national workshops. The
Socialists, sustained by the dismissed laborers, invaded
the Assembly (May 15th) and demanded a dissolution.
The two parties engaged in a three days' combat in the
streets of Paris (the Days of June). The army and the
National Guards recaptured the quarters in the east
from the insurgents. The Socialist party was definitively
beaten, but the workingmen ceased to be interested in
the "bourgeoise Repubhc," as they called it.
The Constitution of 1848. — The Constituent Assembly,
delivered from its Socialist adversaries, set to work to
draw up a constitution. It wanted to break away from

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 251
the aristocratic parliamentary regime,, but without touch
ing any social institutions. At the head of the Constitu
tion was placed a declaration of principles. "In the
presence of God, and in the name of the French people, the
National Assembly proclaims: France is constituted a
Republic. The French Republic is democratic. It
recognizes rights and duties, anterior and superior to
positive law. Its principles are Liberty, Equahty, and
Fraternity; its foundations the family, labor, property and
public order." A Legitimist deputy demanded an inter
pretation of the word democratic. "I desire that the
word be understood in such a manner that it may not be
held a pretext for gun-shots." The answer was: "Direct
and universal suffrage is the interpreter of the word."
The Constitution recognized all individual liberties, the
right to form associations, to petition, to publish, it abol
ished negro slavery, the censorship of the press. More
over, it proclaimed that it was the duty of society to
assist its members in obtaining an education and in earn
ing a livelihood. "The Republic must protect the citizen
in his person, his family, his religion, his property, his
labor, and must put within the reach of each one the
instruction indispensable to all men. It must with frater
nal aid assure the existence of needy citizens either by
procuring them work within the limits of their capabili
ties, or by assisting those who are unable to work."
The Assembly had refused to proclaim the rights of
labor. The Constituent Assembly declared that all public
powers emanate from the people and cannot be delegated
by inheritance. This was the sovereignty of the people in
republican form.

252 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
For the organization of the government it returned to
the theory of Montesquieu: "The division of powers is
the first condition of a free government." (Art. 19.)
In consequence the French people "delegated the legis
lative power to a single assembly" and "the executive
to one citizen," the President of the Republic. The
two powers were entirely independent. The Assembly
alone voted the budget and prepared the laws, and could
not be dissolved. The President alone chose the minis
ters, who were not responsible. They had wanted to
imitate the system of the United States. The Assembly
was composed of one Chamber, elected on the general
ticket. They did not want two Chambers, because a
second House seemed to be an aristocratic institution.
The president was elected directly by universal suffrage
for a term of four years. The minority had proposed
that he should be elected by the Assembly, pointing out
the danger of confiding the executive power to inexperi
enced electors. The nephew of Napoleon L, Louis
Napoleon, had just been elected deputy, and there was a
fear lest he should try to seize the reins of the government.
But Lamartine had fascinated the Assembly by an elo
quent speech: "Even should the people choose the one
whom my unenlightened foresight would perhaps fear
to have elected, 'alea jacta est!' Let God and the nation
speak. Something must be left to Providence. Let us
invoke that aid; let us pray that the nation may be en
lightened, and submit ourselves to that decree. And if
the nation is deceived ... if it will abandon its safety,
dignity, and liberty to the care of a reminiscence of the
empire, well, so much the worse for the nation; it will not
be ourselves, it will be the nation which has been wanting

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 253
in perseverance and in courage." They were satisfied to
add that the president was not to be eligible for reelection.
The election for president of the republic was ordered for
the ioth of December, 1848. The Moderates selected
Cavaignac for their candidate, the Socialists had Ledru-
Rollin. But the peasants, having been out of politics,
knew but one name, that of Napoleon; they all voted for
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who received 5,500,000 votes
out of less than 7,000,000. Napoleon had become master
of the executive power by a single voting, and he held
in his hands the ministry, the officials, and the army.
The legislative assembly, chosen at the time when belief
in the republic had ceased, was composed of 500 Monarch
ists and 250 Republicans (70 only were Moderates, 180
Progressives, elected in the east, who called themselves
the party of the Mountain).
The royalist majority, in harmony with the president,
who had chosen Orleanist ministers, began to attack the
Mountain. It sent an army to Rome to make war on the
Republicans and to restore the authority of the pope.
It voted for the law of 1850, establishing confessional in
struction in primary schools; the law concerning the press,
restoring the system of security; the law of May 31, which
took away the right of voting from two-fifths of the electors
by requiring three years' residence for each elector, to
be verified by the tax-lists of the departments. In 185 1
the majority, having crushed the Republican party,
entered upon a struggle with the president. He no longer
desired the parliamentary regime and laboured to gain
the absolute control of the government. He had dis
missed the Orleanist ministry and had taken his ministers
from his personal supporters. He had attached to him-

254 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
self many officers, and began at the reviews to permit
the cry of "Long live the Emperor!" At a banquet,
given June, 1851, he had said: "France will not perish
in my hands." His term of office expired in 1852, and he
wanted to be reelected for a new period. The constitu
tion prohibited it; he demanded a revision by the Assembly,
but a two-thirds vote was necessary for such a revision,
and this number he did not have. The Monarchists
were seized with fear, and the questors proposed to give
to the President of the Assembly the right to summon
armed service to protect the deputies, but the Mountain
united with the deputies who were partisans of Napoleon,
and the proposition was defeated.
Then the two powers created by the Constitution found
themselves involved in a conflict, and the Constitution did
not indicate how such a difficulty could be adjusted.
The president, who had the executive power, that is,
force, employed it by the "coup d'6tat" of December 2,
1851. He declared the Assembly dissolved, universal
suffrage was restored, and an election ordered for ap
proval of a constitution which would give the president
absolute power for a term of ten years.
The Constitution had provided for this contingency.
It determined that the president would immediately for
feit his position as executive and the power would pass
into the hands of the Assembly; it even created a High
Court of Justice, which was to assemble at once for his
trial. But Napoleon had the army and the police under
his control. He ordered the arrest of the leaders of the
parties. The deputies who had escaped gathered together
to endeavor to carry out the Constitution; the soldiers
expelled them. The Constitution was defended only by

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 255
the Republicans of the Mountain, who, in several of the
departments of the east, took arms and marched against
the authorities. This uprising gave the president an
opportunity to come forward as the defender of order
against the attacks of the Reds. Thirty-two departments
were declared to be in a state of siege, special tribunals
were created — mixed commissions; the Republicans were
condemned to forced labor, to be deported, to confine
ment in the country, or to exile (the number of condemned
is estimated at 10,000, of which 3,400 were transported
to Algeria).
The electors being consulted in regard to the Constitu
tion responded "Yes," and Napoleon remained absolute
master of France.
The Empire. — The Constitution of 1851 was an imita
tion of that of the year VIII. It gave all the executive
power to the president; he could appoint ministers and
functionaries at his own pleasure; he could declare war,
make treaties, place the country in a state of siege. He
was made responsible, but only to the people, and it was
well known that the electors would never dare to vote
against the head of the government. The ministers were
not responsible to the Chamber and could not even be
deputies. The legislative power was given in appearance to three
different bodies: a "Council of State" which prepared the
laws; a Legislative Assembly which discussed the bills
and voted on them; a Senate, composed of the illustri
ous men of the country, "guardian of the fundamental
compact and of the public liberties." But of these three
bodies the Council of State and the Senate were directly
appointed by the president. Only the legislative body

256 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
was elected by universal suffrage, with individual ballots,
at the chief town in the commune. And this Chamber
had not the right to introduce any bills, the initiative
lay with the president; it could pass upon bills which he
laid before it. Besides the Senate could " annul any arbi
trary and illegal act." It was a democratic absolutist
regime. "The essence of democracy," said Napoleon,
"is to become incarnate in a personality."
In 1852 Napoleon was, by a senatorial decree, proclaimed
emperor, the power to be hereditary, and he took the name
of Napoleon III., Emperor of the French. The mon
archy was restored, but it was a democratic monarchy,
for universal suffrage was never called in question.
The art of the imperial government consisted in pre
serving absolute power for the emperor and for his min
isters, at the same time respecting the forms of the repre
sentative regime. The sovereignty of the people was
proclaimed, the sovereign people were even called upon
to manifest their will by "plebiscite"; but the question
was put by the government, and it only remained with
the electors to answer yes. There was an elective body,
but this Chamber had not the power to elect its presi
dent; nor to make its own regulations, nor to add an
amendment to laws presented for its vote, nor to decide
the budget; for it had to accept or reject "en bloc" the
appropriations of a whole ministry. Its debates were
published only in the form of an official report, and the
session lasted only three months.
All male citizens were voters. But the government
controlled them in their choice. It presented in each
district an official candidate for whom the prefect and
the mayors were to get votes. The opposition candidates

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 257
had no chance in the contest. All election meetings
were forbidden as a violation of the freedom of the'electors.
Ballots could not be freely distributed, and after 1858
every candidate was obhged to sign in advance a declar
ation of fidehty to the emperor. The electoral districts
were fixed every five years by a simple order of the gov
ernment, and were laid out in such a way as to give a
majority to the official candidate. Two towns suspected
of opposition were cut in two. The election took place
in the chief town of the commune; the voting lasted two
days; the place was designated by the prefect and in the
evening the mayor carried off the ballot-box to his own
house. The pohtical press was still in existence, but the
government did not permit it to publish freely its opinions.
In order to establish a journal a permit was necessary.
All journals were under the direct supervision of the pre
fects. As soon as an article displeasing to the government
appeared the prefect sent a warning to the journal; at a
second warning the paper might be suspended; if the
article was repeated the paper could be suppressed. In
fourteen months (1852-1853) there were ninety-one warn
ings. The least allusion or criticism of the government
was sufficient to draw forth a warning. One journal was
warned on account of an article where Napoleon I.
was called the missionary of the Revolution, an "article
which is an outrage to truth as well as to the hero-legislator
to whom grateful France owes her salvation"; another
for a "sharp criticism on the sugar-laws"; the " Journal de
Loudeac," because "the open discussion in that journal
on the subject of manufactured fertilizers was of such a
nature as to invalidate the results and value of the ex-

258 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
periments made by the administration, and could only
cause indecision in the minds of buyers"; two journals
of the Loire-Inferieure, for having "gone beyond the
limits of good taste."
Individual liberty was proclaimed in the Convention,
but the police watched all malcontents, and had them
arrested on the least suspicion. The comedian Grassot
was kept in prison for having been overheard to say in a
cafe, when he was awaiting his breakfast: "This is like
Sebastopol; one cannot take anything." In 1858, after
the attack of the Italian Orsini, the government forced
the Chamber to vote a law which would confer the right
to take into custody without trial whoever had been com
promised as a republican between 1848 and 1851. General
Espinasse, who had been appointed minister of the in
terior in order to carry out these measures, ordered each
prefect to arrest a certain number of suspected persons in
his department (from 4 to 20).
By all these means the government so completely
dominated the country that in the Chamber from 1857
to 1863 there were only five deputies in the opposition
(the Five). The ministers and prefects governed with
out any control; the Chamber had been elected under
their direction, and the press published only what they
allowed to be placed before the public.
The wars undertaken by Napoleon III. changed little
by little the home policy. Until i860 he depended upon
the clergy, who induced the peasants to vote for the official
candidates; but on setting up the kingdom of Italy, which
was opposed to the pope, he alienated the Catholic party,
which began to oppose him.
In order to offset the loss of this party the emperor

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 259
sought to win over the Liberals. He began by the am
nesty of 1859, permitting the return of all the exiles, and
from i860 to 1867 by a series of concessions he increased
in a small measure the power of the Chamber, and abated
the surveillance of the press.
Then a party was formed in addition to the Republican
party, a Liberal opposition, composed of monarchists,
partisans of a parliamentary regime. In the Chamber,
elected in 1869, there were 116 deputies ready to sign an
address demanding a parliamentary system. United to
the forty Republican members they would have formed a
majority. Napoleon III. yielded. The decree of the
Senate (September 6) transformed the imperial regime
into a parliamentary system of government. The Cham
ber had the right to elect its officers and make its own
rules, to vote the budget clause by clause. The ministry
could be chosen from among the deputies. It was organ
ized like the English system, led by the president of the
council, and was responsible to the Chamber.
The Senate ceased to be the guardian of the constitution.
It became a Chamber of Peers, charged only with the
duty of approving the laws voted by the Chamber. The
constituent power was to be directly exercised by the
electors. The new constitution was presented to them
under the form of a "plebiscite" (May 6, 1870), and ap
proved by 7,500,000 votes.
This regime, which restored the sovereignty of the
Chamber, was called the Liberal Empire. It began
with some new men. The head of the Council was one
of "the Five," Emile Ollivier, but the Republican party
did not accept this change. It voted "Non," by the
"plebiscite." The deputies called themselves the Ir-

260 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
reconcilables, and the party manifested its hostility by
riots in the streets of Paris.
The Repubhc of 1870. — What constituted the strength
of the empire was the army. It engaged in a war with
Prussia and lost everything; one part of it was shut
up in Metz; the remainder, with Napoleon III., was
taken prisoner at Sedan (September 2, 1870). The Re
publicans invaded the Chamber (September 4th), and
before it had the time to declare the fall of the empire, the
Government of the National Defence was formed, com
posed of deputies from Paris. A Republic was proclaimed,
which was recognized by the whole country without any
opposition. The government organized for defence was besieged
in Paris by the Germans. It had to combat a revolutionary
socialistic party, which had for symbol a red flag, and which
stirred up a riot(/October 31. A delegation from the gov
ernment took charge in the provinces, where the officials
of the Empire were replaced by Republicans. Gam-
betta, the most active member of the delegation, directed,
at the same time, the administration and the war.
After the capitulation of Paris an armistice with the
Germans was signed, so that the French could elect a
National Assembly. The elections were held according
to the system of 1848, with the vote by cantons. The
peasants suspected that the Republican party, ruled by
Gambetta, wanted to continue the war, to the last ex
tremity. They voted for the peace candidates, a coalition
of royalists and moderate republicans. The National
Assembly was royalist. It appointed Thiers head of
the executive power (avoiding with intention the name
Republic).

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 261
The Socialists in Paris refused to recognize the author
ity of the Assembly. They revolted and set up a new
form of government, the Commune. Like the other types
originating in the Socialist party, it was a revolutionary
government, hostile to the bourgeoisie and intending to
reform property rights in favor of the workingmen.
Until this time the Socialists had always demanded a very
strong central power which could force reform on the
whole country. In 1871, under the influence of foreign
revolutionists (and the disciples of Proudhon), the com
plete sovereignty of the communes was proclaimed.
Each commune regulated its own government; they were
associated in order to form a federation (hence the name
" federes " ). The programme of April 19, 1871, declared :
"The autonomy of the commune shall only have for a
limit the law of autonomy uniform in every commune
adherent to the contract whose association is to secure
French unity." The Commune of Paris was organized
on this basis, and was to be governed by a council whose
members were elective. An attempt was made to establish
the Commune of Lyons, Marseilles, and of several large
cities. But for the first time the provinces were not willing
to accept a revolution which took place in Paris. The
government and the Assembly fled to Versailles, and formed
an army, which laid siege to Paris, then defended by the
national guards, and took it by force. The revolutionists
were shot or deported. The party of the red flag was no
longer in a condition to attempt a revolution. The
national guard was definitively suppressed.
Then a struggle took place in the Assembly between
the monarchical rnajority and the republican minority.

262 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
The majority declared that the Assembly had been elected
in order to draft a constitution, and notwithstanding the
petitions for dissolution, it retained control until 1876.
The Constitution of 1875. — The monarchical majority
was a coalition of three parties — Legitimists (partisans
of the Count de Chambord, Henry V., grandson of
Charles X.); Orleanist (partisans of the Count de Paris,
grandson of Louis Philippe); Bonapartist (partisans of
the son of Napoleon III.). The Republican minority
was also divided into three groups — Left Centre, Repub
licans, and Radicals.
Leadership in the government depended on the group
ing of the parties. They hesitated for two years. The
Right Centre (Orleanist) at first decided to unite with the
Left Centre (Republican) in order to support the Thiers
government. This was the policy of the union of the
Centres. Then the Right Centre grew afraid of the
Radical party. It found that the government was not
combatting, with sufficient energy, the Radical agitation,
and did not decidedly support the clergy; it joined with
the other monarchical parties and voted against the min
istry. Thiers would not remain at the head of the state
and resigned May 24, 1873. The coalition of the groups
on the Right took possession of the power and retained it
until 1876.
The Assembly had to make a constitution. The
groups of the Right tried to restore the monarchy. The
Count of Paris recognized the Count of Chambord as
the legitimate king of France; this was called the fusion
of the Legitimist and Orleanist parties. But the Count
of Chambord, to whom the majority offered the crown,
made a solution of the question impossible by demand-

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 263
ing that the white flag should be restored (October 27,
1873)- In default of a monarchy, the majority created the office
of executive for seven years (the Septennate), and then
began to draw up a constitution. It did not want to ac
cept a republican form of government, but after a long
discussion a small group retired from the Right Centre
and united with the Republicans, passing, by a majority
of one, an amendment wherein was found the expression,
"President of the Republic." Thus the constitution
estabhshed indirectly the form of government for France.
The organization of 1875 has been adopted from
parliamentary monarchies. The President of the Republic
is chosen for seven years by the Assembly, and his role
is that of a constitutional king; he chooses his ministers.
The ministry deliberates in Council, and as a whole is re
sponsible to the Assembly, that is to say, the ministers
must all retire together if any of the ministers are placed
in the minority. The president may dissolve the Chamber,
but only with the consent of the Senate.
The power belongs to the two Assembhes, the Chamber
of Deputies and the Senate, whose members receive
twenty-five francs a day. The Chamber is elected by
universal suffrage by district1 ticket (from 1885 to 1889
by general ballot). It makes the laws and votes the
budget. The Senate, made up of 300 members, is divided
into two parts; 225 members are chosen by the electoral
colleges (delegates from municipal councils, deputies,
councils from arrondissements gathered at the chief
town of the department), seventy-five members are elected
• The -system introduced in 1885 was like that by which we vote for
presidential electors in the states — a general ticket. In 1889 voting by
districts was again established.

264 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
by the Assembly. The seventy-five are elected for life,
the 225 are elected for nine years. The Senate has ex
actly the same powers as the Chamber, voting the budget
and the laws, but the budget must be voted in the first
instance by the Chamber, and the vote of the Senate does
not affect the existence of the ministry. The result is that,
as a matter of fact, the Chamber is supreme, and upon
the action there the ministers depend. Every deputy
and every senator has the right to propose amendments,
to introduce bills, or to interpellate the government.
In case of conflict between the Chamber and the presi
dent the Senate serves as arbitrator, for it has the right
to dissolve the Chamber on the demand of the president.
The seat of parliament and of government 'had been
fixed at Versailles to avoid any conflict with the people of
Paris. The Republican party brought it back to Paris.
The constitution cannot be changed save by agree
ment of the two Chambers. Each must separately decide
that "there is a reason for the revision of the constitu
tional law." The revision is made by the Congress (union
of the senators and deputies).
The regime created by the constitution of 1875 has been
an adaptation of the parliamentary system of hberal
monarchies to a democratic country.
As in the parliamentary regime, there are three powers.
The chief executive takes the place of the king, having
only the power to choose his ministers and to dissolve the
Parliament. The sovereign power belongs to the Assembly
(composed of the two Chambers), which takes the initiative
in making the laws and in voting the budget. The Cham
ber, directly elected by the people, guides the policy, and
to that body the ministry conjointly is held responsible.

GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE— 1848-1875 265
But it was necessary to introduce some democratic
innovations. i. The chief executive not being hereditary, the Parlia
ment elects the president for a term of seven years.
2. No one was willing to give the president alone the
right to dissolve the Chamber, so he can only do it with
the consent of the Senate.
3. The Chamber is elected not by privileged electors,
but by all the ritizens.
4. In order that the office of representative may be
accessible to all, the members receive pay for their services.
5. As an upper aristocratic chamber could not be cre
ated, the Senate has been, like the Chamber, an elective
assembly; the deputies represented the people, tne sen
ators have represented the territories. "The Senate,"
said Gambetta, "is the Grand Council of the communes
of France."
6. The Senate has been assigned a more active r61e
than the House of Lords; it not only must supervise the
Chamber, but duplicate it. It has the right to vote the
budget and to vote for dissolution, which the Upper
House usually does not have. The forms are those of the
parliamentary monarchy, concealing the real government
of the country by a democratic assembly.

CHAPTER XII.
TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848.
Nationalities. — The principle of the sovereignty of
the nation has given rise to the new theory of nationality
by the side of the former constitutional theory. Since the
nation alone has the right to govern itself, it may demand
that it should not be governed by foreigners, or be incor
porated in any foreign nation; it may also demand that
there should be no parcelling out among other governments.
Each nation should form an independent state; all the
parties of the same nation ought to be united in a single
state. This is the declaration of the principle of nation
ality. No regard was paid to this idea until the nineteenth
century. The states had been formed, by the accident
of heritage, or of conquest, without any scruple in the
matter of gathering together peoples of different tongues,
races, or customs, or even to breaking in pieces the various
races. This had been the procedure in 1814, at the Con
gress of Vienna. When they determined to make exchanges
between the states, only the richness of the soil and the
number of inhabitants were taken into account. There
were in Europe, therefore, a number of states, formed
from several nations, foreign and even hostile to each other
(the Turkish empire, Prussia, Austria), and some nations
were divided among several states (Germany, Italy).
A short time after the Restoration the patriots began
266

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 267
to stir up an agitation against the governments. Wher
ever a small nation had been incorporated into a large
foreign state (in the Turkish empire, or the empire of
Austria) the patriots sought to detach the nation from
the foreign state that governed it; and, on the other hand,
when a large nation had been parceled out among petty
states (in Germany and in Italy), the patriots laboured
to destroy the petty states in order to reunite them into a
single nation. The movement went on then in an in
verse sense, sometimes toward separation, sometimes
toward concentration. Some demanded enfranchisement,
others unity.
T is agitation went on in almost every country. In
order to be freed from the Turkish empire, the Greeks,
Servians, Roumanians, Bulgarians; to be freed from
Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Lombardy, Croatia; in order
to free Ireland from England, Belgium from Holland,
Poland from Russia. The movement for unity was con
fined to Germany and Italy. Only France and Spain,
where unity had already been established, escaped from
this agitation.
The principle common to all national parties is that
the state should be one with the nation. But what is
meant by a nation? There had been in Europe two
methods of regarding a nation. One regarded the nation
as the ensemble of men who wanted to make part of one
and the same state. It was, therefore, the inhabitants
of a country who were to decide to what nation they would
belong. The nation existed only by the will of its mem
bers. The other method declared that the nation was
formed according to race, and independent of the will of
man; people of the same race ought to be united, even

268 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
when they did not desire such a union. The theory of
voluntary nationality was especially French. France ap
plied it in 1861 ; before annexing Savoy and the county of
Nice, it had the inhabitants vote on the subject of annex
ation. The theory of the race nationality has found its
supporters chiefly in Germany and in Russia. Those
who wanted to gather into one state all people of the
Germanic races are called Pan-Germanists; those who
wanted to unite all the Slav peoples are called Pan-
Slavists. The German government has applied this
theory in annexing the people of Alsace, in spite of their
objections, because they are of Germanic blood. Dur
ing the Bulgarian War, in 1877, the Russians hung as
traitors the Poles who had taken service under Turkey,
because, being Slavs, they had fought against other Slavs.
The theory of race seems to be abandoned to-day. Russia
herself has aided the petty Slav nations of the Balkans
to constitute themselves into states.
Almost everywhere the National party has united with
the Liberal to oppose the government policy, so that the
agitation has been at the same time national and constitu
tional. It has lasted for half a century, and has taken
on many forms. Sometimes the agitators have rebelled
(in Greece, Lombardy, Belgium, Poland, Ireland, Hun
gary), sometimes they have formed the opposition in the
Chambers (in Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, Ireland),
sometimes they have made a sufficiently strong appeal to
the state, to bring about unity.
Almost everywhere the National party has been finally
victorious; in Servia, Greece, and Belgium, through in
surrection; in Roumania, Bulgaria and Lombardy with
foreign support; in Italy and in Germany by forming a

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 269
group about the kingdom of Sardinia and about the king
dom of Prussia. Poland and Ireland are the only coun
tries that have not succeeded in gaining their freedom,
and where the agitation still continues.
Formation of Italian Unity. — Italy, in 1815, had re
lapsed into the condition where she happened to be be
fore the Revolution and from which France had relieved
her. The country was cut up into seven small states:
in the north the kingdom of Sardinia, and the Lombardo-
Venetian kingdom; in the centre the Duchies of Parma,
Modena, Tuscany, and the Papal States; in the south the
kingdom of Naples. Even the name Italy, given by
Napoleon to the great kingdom in the north, had disap
peared. Metternich said, when some one spoke to him of
Italy: "That is a geographical term." All the petty
Italian states were absolute monarchies, governed despot
ically by the ministers of the sovereigns and subject to a
vexatious police supervision. The pope had reestab
lished the Inquisition, he prohibited all secret societies,
forbade the introduction and reading of foreign books,
and the lighting of the streets of Rome was suppressed
as a French institution. The King of Sardinia had re
established the censorship, which did not permit even the
writing of the word constitution; he removed the function
aries who had been excommunicated by the church, and
ordered surveillance of the universities. He had ordered
the destruction of the botanical garden at Turin, which
had been the work of the French. The King of Naples
suppressed the former constitution of Sicily, and promised
Austria that he would not establish any institution op
posed to those of Lombardy; that is to say liberal. Italy
was living, then, under an absolute regime, and the despot-

270 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
ism did not even procure for her tranquillity. The gov
ernments in the south and in the centre were not capa
ble of suppressing brigandage. The kingdom of Naples
and the States of the Church were a prey to marauders.
In 1872 there were 30,000 brigands in Naples, and in the
States of the Church a price was set on fifty-seven heads.
In the north of Italy the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom,
formed by the Milanais, and the former territory of
Venice, belonged to Austria, which sent Austrian officials
and soldiers to govern the country. Austria controlled
indirectly the three Duchies whose sovereigns were Aus
trian princes; she protected the pope and the king of
Naples against the revolts of their subjects; she had been
on the point of forming all the Italian princes into a con
federation which she would have controlled. Italy was
a dependency of the foreigner.
This condition lasted until 1848. In imitation of the
neighboring peoples there were two attempts at revolt.
In 1820 the officers, following the example of the Spaniards,
wanted to force the kings of Naples and of Sardinia to
grant a constitution. (The king of Naples even accepted
the Spanish constitution.) In 1831 the Liberals, follow
ing the example of the French, forced the pope and the
three dukes of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena to estabhsh
a Liberal regime. But the movement succeeded only in a
part of Italy, and each time the Austrian armies came and
restored absolute government.
Mazzini, an Italian revolutionist, who had taken refuge
in France, organized a secret association with the purpose
of overthrowing all of the monarchies in Europe, and of
making independent repubhcs out of every nation, which
should be united with each other in a fraternity. Its

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 271
device was: "Liberty, Equality, Humanity; one God, one
sovereign, the law of God." The society was called
Young Europe; each nation formed one section: Young
Italy, Young Poland, Young Germany, etc. Young
Italy, which had been founded in 1831, had supporters
especially in Genoa and in Rome. It became famous
through the plots and riots of 1844 and 1845. Its purpose
was to unite all of Italy into one republic.
Towards 1843 another movement began, this time in
the world of letters. The Italians called it the resur
rection (Risorgimento). The idea was to lift Italy from
her misery and disorder by giving her a Liberal govern
ment, and to deliver her from foreign domination by
getting rid of the Austrians. The representatives of this
movement, Balbo, Massimo d'Azeglio, Durando, Gioberti,
did not dream of removing the Italian princes; on the con
trary, it was to them that they turned, begging them to
grant a constitution to their peop.le, and to be united
among themselves in order to form an Italian nation.
Italy would have taken the form of a federation among
the monarchical constitutional states.
Three sovereigns were persuaded to join in the Liberal
and National movements : the King of Sardinia, the Duke
of Tuscany, and Pope Pius IX., who was elected in 1846.
In 1847 the duke and the pope granted to their subjects
a milder censorship of the press, a national guard was
organized, and a Council of State, charged with the refor
mation of the laws, was created. The three sovereigns
concluded a treaty in order to establish a customs union
between their states. Austria responded by an alliance
with the dukes of Parma and Modena.
The Italian states had been grouped in two parties, the

272 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Austrian and the National. The princes in the National
party did not conceal their desire for the expulsion of the
foreigners. The Italians hoped at this time that they
would be strong enough to drive away the Austrians
without the aid of any other state. The King of Sardinia,
Charles Albert, while talking with d'Azeglio, who asked
him how the deliverance of Italy could possibly be ac
complished, replied: "Italia fark. da se" (Italy will do it
alone). In 1848 the Liberal regime was at once estabhshed in
all the states : in the kingdom of Naples by a revolt of the
Liberals at Palermo in the month of January; in Sardinia
in February; in Tuscany and in the States of the Church
the revolt was in March and by the will of the princes.
The sovereign in each of the four states granted a consti
tution to the people, and all four formed an alliance for
defence of their independence from foreign dominion.
The Austrian government was at that time disorganized
by the revolution of 1848, and was occupied with a general
uprising of all its different nationalities.
The moment seemed well chosen. Count Cavour
wrote in the Turin Journal: "The hour has struck
for the kingdom of Savoy, the hour of bold resolu
tions upon which depends the existence of the kingdom.
We, people of cool reason, accustomed to listen to the
commands of reason rather than to the emotions of the
heart, declare openly for the nation, the government, and
the king; war, and immediate war."
This was a national war against Austria. The Italians
of the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom revolted. The Sar
dinian troops occupied all of Lombardy abandoned by
the Austrians. The inhabitants got up a "plebiscite,"

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 273
and through 560,000 votes demanded that Lombardy
be annexed to Sardinia. At Venice the insurgents pro
claimed a repubhc; then an assembly composed of 127
members demanded annexation.
The Austrian army had been concentrated in the heart
of the kingdom in the "Quadrilateral" formed by the
four fortresses, Mantua, Legnago, Pesciera, Verona, sepa
rating Venice from the rest of Italy. But the Italian
armies were not able to resist the Austrian forces, and
they did not act in concert. United in the one desire of
driving away the foreigner they were divided in regard to
the manner of the reorganization of Italy. The Royalist-
Liberals wanted a federation of the princes; the Repub
licans of the Mazzini faction demanded a national assem
bly chosen by all the Italians for the purpose of establish
ing the Repubhc of Italy. The royalist federated party
ruled in the North where it was sustained by the Sardinian
army. The Republican party of unity prevailed in the
centre. The Constituent Assembly elected by the sub
jects of the pope proclaimed a Roman repubhc (February,
1849), and gave the government into the hands of trium
virs (Mazzini and Garibaldi); the Duchy of Tuscany
was organized into a repubhc. In the south the Absor
lutists regained the ascendency; the King of Naples
abolished the constitution, and conquered Sicily by force;
he bombarded Messina, which act gave him the name of
"II Re Bomba," King Bomba, and he ordered the Liber
als sent to the galleys.
In the north and in the centre, foreign armies inter
vened to combat the advance of the Nationals and Liberals.
The pope, frightened by the revolution, had become an
Absolutist, and had called upon all the Catholic states of

274 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Europe to aid him in the conflict with the Republicans.
The King of Naples, Spain, France, and Austria sent their
armies to Italy. The French army laid siege to Rome, the
Austrians occupied the Romagna. The old regime was
restored in the Papal States.
The King of Sardinia, remaining alone in the presence
of the Austrians, was driven from Lombardy (1848).
He tried to retake it in 1849 while Austria was occupied
in her struggle with Hungary. His army was dispersed
at Novara and he abdicated. Venice, although isolated,
defended herself until August, 1849. The Austrians and
the victorious Absolutists restored the regime of 1815.
The Liberals were disheartened. D'Azeglio wrote: "At
the present writing all is over. After having labored all
one's life with one single idea in view, without even the
hope of an opportunity to see it realized, to see that op
portunity come, surpassing all reasonable foresight, then
to feel that the whole edifice is crumbling to pieces in
one day! After such rebuffs, one only seems to live, to
exist. I see nothing to do at present. We must roll to
the bottom of the abyss to see where we shall stop and
recognize our situation. Then we shall begin once more.
But I shall never gather in the fruit of this conflict."
However, there remained one result of this movement
of 1848. The Statute given in February, 1848, by Charles
Albert to the kingdom of Sardinia, which estabhshed a
parliamentary regime similar to that of Belgium, a re
sponsible ministry, a senate, a chamber chosen by election,
and charged with voting the laws and the budget, the
hberty of the press. Austria offered better conditions
for peace to the new king, Victor Emmanuel, if he would
abohsh the Statute. He refused, and the kingdom of

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 275
Sardinia remained the only Liberal constitutional state
in all Italy. It was also the only really Italian state.
The king preserved the tricolor, green, white, and red,
which had been the flag of the National party of 1848.
He chose for his prime minister one of the leaders of the
National movement, d'Azeglio, and welcomed the Italian
refugee patriots. There was henceforth in Italy a Liberal
National state around which the Liberal patriots could
gather. The failure of the revolution of 1848 served also as an
experience for the participants. The Italians had brought
about this failure because they could not agree and wanted
to act alone. They found that they must organize for
common action and must procure aid for themselves from
a foreign power. This was the work of Count Cavour,
premier of Sardinia in 1850. Cavour was a Piedmont
noble who could hardly be called an Italian. He spoke
only French and the Piedmont dialect. After having
served as officer in the artillery he retired to his estates,
whose value he had greatly increased; then he travelled in
France, where he was seized with a great admiration for
a hberal monarchy, and in England, where he became
an advocate of free trade. In 1848 he was supposed to be
a Conservative because of his scorn for a republic. But in
1850 he united the Left Centre, and overthrew the ministry
of d'Azeglio. The new ministry (Left Centre), whose first
chief was Ratazzi, instituted a number of reforms; it
abolished the church tribunals in 1850, secularized 300
convents in 1885. (In this small kingdom there were
41 bishops, 1,417 canons, 14,000 monks.) It also es
tabhshed a bank, made commercial treaties, and re
organized the army on the Prussian model. The Italian

276 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
patriots gradually rallied to the standard of Sardinia.
The former dictator of the Republic of Venice, Manin,
having taken refuge in Paris, wrote in 1854, to an Eng
lish statesman, who had urged him to be resigned to the
domination of Austria, which had grown less oppressive:
"Resignation is cowardice for a people who are under
foreign domination. We do not demand a milder gov
ernment from Austria, but we do demand that she leave
our borders." He saw that a repubhc was impossible,
the King of Sardinia would never consent to it; no other
solution remained. They must unite under one king.
"Princes of the House of Savoy, make Italy, and I am
with you. 'Independence and Unity,' that is our motto."
The Republican party of Mazzini had grown weak and
a National party was formed, which desired unity under
the King of Sardinia. This party founded the National
Union, a society which found adherents throughout Italy.
The secretary, a Sicilian, La Farina, in the early morning
had secret interviews with Cavour. "Do what you can,"
said Cavour to him, "but before the world I shall deny
you, as Peter denied his Lord."
In order to carry on a war with Austria it was necessary
to have a powerful ally. Cavour said: "Piedmont has
often had to congratulate itself on its alliances, never on
its neutrality." He knew that he could not count on
England. He tried to win over Napoleon III. In order
to please him, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the
merchants of Genoa, he involved the kingdom of Sardinia
in the war against Russia, and sent 15,000 men to the
Crimea. He profited by the result, so that, at the Con
gress of Paris, which reestablished peace in 1856, Sar
dinia was able to send an envoy, who was the peer of the

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 277
representatives of the great powers, and who presented,
in the name of the Italians, their griefs against the govern
ment of Austria. In order to keep the support of Na
poleon, Cavour, after the attack of Orsini (1858), consented,
in opposition to the Liberals, to prosecute the journals
which showed hostility to the emperor.
Finally, in 1858, Napoleon was frightened by Orsini,
who had reproached him for not keeping his promises
(Napoleon had been in 1831 a member of a secret Italian
society which had been founded for the purpose of freeing
Italy). He had Cavour come to Plombieres, and an
alliance was formed. Napoleon promised to Sardinia
a free Italy as far as the Adriatic. He received in ex
change Savoy and the County of Nice. The unification
of Italy was at once begun, and was completed in eleven
years, 1859-1870. In 1859 Napoleon declared war
against Austria and drove the Austrian army from Lom
bardy; but instead of following it to the Adriatic, accord
ing to the agreement, he stopped before the "Quadri
lateral." His army was disorganized, and he feared an
attack from Prussia. He was content, therefore, to
receive from Austria, Lombardy, which he turned over to
Sardinia; Austria kept Venetia. Cavour was desperate,
he wanted to continue the war, but Piedmont could not
fight alone, and he approved of the peace. During the
war the partisans of unity, led by the members of the
National Union, had stirred up the people in the duchies
of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma, and in the Romagna,
one of the papal provinces, and had organized in each one
a provisional government which exercised a dictatorship
in the name of the Sardinian government, The govern
ments of the Romagna, of Parma, and of Modena, had

278 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
grouped the three countries under the name of the royal
provinces of Emilia, the Sardinian constitution was
adopted, the customs on the frontier of the kingdom of
Sardinia were abolished, and the postal service was again
placed in the hands of the Sardinian employees. Then
all fouf became allies and demanded annexation to
Sardinia. Napoleon would have preferred an independent
Duchy of Tuscany. In order to influence him an appeal
was made to the people. They answered "Yes," Tus
cany by 366,000 votes against 15,000, Emilia by 426,000
against 756. He demanded Savoy and Nice. Cavour
decided to cede them if the people were willing. Savoy
agreed by a vote of 130,000 against 2,000, Nice by 25,000
against 160. In i860 a parliament of the deputies from
the augmented kingdom of Sardinia was convoked. It
had as yet received no name, so it was called the National
Parliament. The King of Naples and the pope were hostile to the
National movement, and they had only the ill-organized
Swiss Guards as a defence. (The Swiss Government,
humiliated at seeing its citizens in the pay of the foreigner,
had taken from them the national flag.) But the Sardin
ian government did not venture to make an attack. The
Italian Republicans were allowed to begin the war.
Sardinia affected to disown them. Garibaldi, with
1,067 volunteers, embarked for Sicily. The Governor of
Genoa was ordered not to allow them to depart. Cavour
wrote to the Sardinian admiral, "Monsieur le Comte, try to
place yourself between Garibaldi and the Neapolitan
cruisers; I hope you understand me." "Monsieur le
Comte," replied the admiral, "I believe I do understand
you. In case of need, send me captive to the fortress at

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 279
Fenestrella." The volunteers conquered Sicily without
resistance and entered the kingdom of Naples. The
king fled. The naval officers in favor of union purposely
forgot to have their rudders in order and to have water in
the boilers. The kingdom of Naples was in the power
of Garibaldi, who had been proclaimed dictator.
The Papal States were defended by a Catholic army
of 20,000 volunteers coming from every country, chiefly
Frenchmen. The Garibaldi republicans came up from
the south to conquer them. The Sardinian government
took the lead, dispersed the Catholic army, and occupied
two provinces, the Marches and Umbria. Only the prov
ince of Rome was left to the pope. Then all the
countries, whether conquered by Garibaldi or by the
Sardinian army, were consulted under the form of
a "plebiscite," and all demanded annexation, Sicily
by 430,000 votes against 700, the kingdom of Naples by
1,301,000 against 10,000, the Marches and Umbria by
230,000 against 1,600. In 1861 the first Italian parlia
ment was opened at Turin and Victor Emmanuel was pro
claimed "King of Italy by the grace of God and by the
will of the people." Then the Parliament declared that
Rome should be the capital of Italy.
The new kingdom was burdened by a larger army,
which caused a deficit in the budget, and the Italians
eagerly desired to complete the unification. But they
could expect nothing more from France. Napoleon did
not want to take away from the pope the last vestige of
his temporal power. He maintained in Rome a French
garrison, which he did not withdraw (1864) until Italy
had promised not to attack the pope. Cavour turned to
Prussia, which offered to unite with him in opposition to

280 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Austria. After two fruitless attempts (1862 and 1865)
an alliance was arranged for three months only (1866).
This gave sufficient time to force Austria (which had been
invaded by the Prussian army) to sue for peace. Although
she had defeated the Italians, she ceded Venetia to Na
poleon, who gave it to the kingdom of Italy.
There still remained the patrimony of St. Peter. The
Garibaldians tried to conquer it. They attacked the
army of the pope, but France sent troops, which drove
off the Garibaldians (1867) and a French garrison was
left at Rome. The Italian government no longer dared
to proceed against it.
It was Prussia which restored to her freedom to act.
After the first defeats in the war of 1870 France withdrew
its troops from Rome. The Italians occupied the city
without meeting any opposition, after having, on the
demand of the pope, made a breach in the wall, which
signified that they had entered by force. The inhabitants
were consulted and voted for annexation by 130,000 against
1,500. Rome became the capital of Italy. The pope
remained in his palace of the Vatican, with all the honors
due to a sovereign, a body-guard, the right to receive
ambassadors, and ^with an income of 3,000,000 lire,
which he refused to receive.
The union of Italy, which the Republicans and Feder
alists, dependent on their own strength alone, had been
unable to obtain because of the opposition of Austria,
was established in eleven years through the influence of
Sardinia, and by the aid first of France and then of Prus
sia. Since 1870 a party has been formed which demands
that all countries speaking Italian should belong to the

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 281
Italian kingdom — Italian Tyrol and Trieste, which
belong to Austria; Corsica and Nice, which belong to
France; Malta, which is a dependency of England; and
Ticino, a Swiss canton. The party calls these coun
tries unredeemed Italy, hence its name, the Irredentist
party. Formation of German Unity. — Germany in 1848 was,
like Italy, a mere geographic term. It was cut up still
more than was Italy, divided into thirty-six sovereign
states bound to one another in a sort of confederation.
The only common power was the Diet at Frankfort, a
permanent conference of diplomats appointed each to
act in the common interests, taking his instruction from
his own government and demanding special orders for
each affair. In all important questions, and even in
lesser affairs, no decision could be taken save by unani
mous consent of the whole body, as it was necessary to
await advices from all the home governments. Each
state had the means of delaying a settlement by withholding
its response. The governments of the small kingdoms,
jealous of their sovereignty, sought to paralyze the action
of the Diet. The slowness of the Assembly soon became
proverbial. The supporters of the ancient tribunal of
the empire, who since 1816 had demanded payment of
their salaries which were in arrears, were paid in 1831.
The debts of the wars from 1792 to 1801 were settled in
1843, those of the Thirty Years' War were not paid until
1850. The regulations for the federal army were not
drawn up until 1821, and the army corps of the smaller
states were not organized until 1 830-1 836. The federal
fortresses decided on in 181 5 were not constructed in
1825. The Confederation could not serve even as a frame-

282 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
work for the German nation. It had been formed, not
by the different Germanic peoples, but by the sovereigns.
Two princes who were not even German were members
of it — the King of Denmark as Duke of Schleswig and
Holstein, the King of Holland as Duke of Luxemburg.
Two others had a part of their possessions outside of the
Confederation — the King of Prussia the province of
Posen, the Emperor of Austria the kingdoms of Hungary,
Galicia, Dalmatia, and the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom —
without these foreign countries being distinctly separated
from the Confederation by a different government and
a rigorously established frontier.
The wars with Napoleon had given rise to a party of
German patriots who desired to see all countries speak
ing the German idiom united in one nation, in order to
defend German territory and German interests from the
encroachments of the neighboring states, especially
from those of France. This party, recruited chiefly
from the class of writers and students, dreamed of the
restoration of the empire and had taken for an emblem
the red, black, and gold flag. This party was opposed by
all the governments as being revolutionary, and was
soon swallowed up by the Liberal party. Until 1840
intelligent Germans were more occupied in trying to
secure a liberal government than to establish national
unity. Some individual writers pointed out a means of restor
ing the German nation. The Confederation, they said,
was only a federation of states (Staatenbund) of which
each one remained sovereign. It must give place to a
Federal state (Bundesstaat), when all would be subject
to a central sovereign power. The desire for German

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 283
unity spread between 1840-18481 in university circles,
the- Germanist Congress of 1846 was a real national
congress of German savants. The revolution of 1848
dismayed the governments. In March there were revolts
in Vienna and in Berlin. The sovereigns, frightened,
granted hberal constitutions and convoked constituent
assembhes. The Liberals in Southern Germany profited
by it. An assembly of fifty-one notables of the party
(held at Heidelberg) summoned a preliminary parlia
ment to meet at Frankfort. It was composed of deputies
who had sat in any assembly of one of the German states
(the majority were Germans from the south). This
assembly, in its turn, decided to form a regular parlia
ment representing all the German states, and which was
to serve as a constituent assembly, the deputies to be
chosen by universal suffrage, one to each 50,000 inhabit
ants; all the provinces of Prussia and Bohemia to be
represented. The Diet accepted these propositions and
the government ordered the election.
The Parliament at Frankfort (May, 1848), led by
authors and professors, wanted to make a hberal and
federal state of Germany; its emblem was the flag of the
liberals, black, red, and gold; but it had only a moral
authority in the presence of the old governments, which
maintained their authority, and it could not execute its
projects. It resembled a conference of savants, gathered
together to debate upon the best constitution which should
be given to Germany. It created provisionally the office
of Imperial Administrator, and elected an Archduke of
1 It was in 1840, when the Thiers ministry was contemplating a war
with Europe, that two patriotic songs were composed, "The German
Rhine," and the "Guard on the Shore of the Rhine" ("Wacht am
Rhein").

284 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Austria, who formed an imperial ministry. Then began
the vote on the constitution.
They easily agreed on the principles. The fundamental
rights of the citizens were regulated on the model of the
liberal regimes; equality before the law was proclaimed;
all liberties, independence of jurisdiction, the right of the
people to be represented by deputies. They also agreed
to establish a federal state. There were two questions
on which they could not agree.
i. What countries should form the German empire?
The frontier of the German countries had always been
doubtful. It had been admitted since 1815 that Ger
many extended as far as the German1 language was spoken.
But the two principal states had subjects who did not
speak German: one of the provinces of Prussia, Posen2,
was Polish, and three-fourths of Austria were Slavs,
Magyars, or Roumanians. What was to be done with
all these foreign districts? Parliament had decided that
they could not belong to the empire, that they should
be united only through a personal union with the German
provinces under the same sovereign. The Austrian
government refused. It wanted to come with all its
provinces into the new empire.
2. What sovereign should be entrusted with the con
trol of the empire? The two great powers, Austria and
Prussia, had been able to remain in competition in the
Confederation, but in a federal state one must have
precedence. Should it be Austria or Prussia? This
question was closely connected with the first. If Austria
1 This was the idea expressed in the celebrated patriotic song: "What
Is the German Fatherland?"
a The province of Posen was at that time outside of the boundaries
of the empire, but it had been Germanized.

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 285
was to be set aside, the head of the empire would be the
King of Prussia.
The Parliament was divided into two parties. One
party wanted to preserve the union, with 8,000,000
Germans from Austria and form a federation sufficiently
large to admit the whole Austrian empire. Austrian
influence would have dominated in this case. (This was
called the "Greater Germany party.) The other renounced
their German brothers in Austria for the purpose of cre
ating with other states a smaller but better organized
empire under the direction of the King of Prussia (this
was the Little Germany party).
The Prussian party prevailed by 261 votes against 224,
and the Parliament decided to create the office of hereditary
emperor. The King of Prussia was elected. But he
would not accept a liberal constitution, and he refused
the crown offered by the people, "a crown of clay and
wood." " If any one is to award the crown of the German
nation," said he, "it is myself and my peers who shall
give it." He refused. The Republicans revolted, the
princes withdrew their subjects from the Parliament, and
only 105 Republican deputies remained. They took refuge
at Stuttgart, and became the last defenders of the consti
tution, while the Prussian soldiers proceeded to crush out
the Republicans in Saxony, in Baden, and in all Germany.
Thus the attempt to create German unity by means of a
federal and liberal state came to naught. Certain govern
ments caused the failure by refusing to recognize the consti
tution, and by treating as rebels their subjects, who had
tried by force to give life to the movement.
The King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Austria, each
labored with the petty sovereigns for the purpose of

286 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
reconstituting the Confederation which had been broken
in 1848, and each wanted to take control of it. The
King of Prussia created a union with a military chief,
a council of representatives from all the governments,
and an elective Parhament; seventeen of the small northern
states accepted the terms. The Parhament met at
Erfurt (March, 1850), and a government was organized
at Berlin under the direction of the King of Prussia. But
the Emperor of Austria, delivered from the war with
Hungary, united with the princes of the small kingdoms
of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, who did not
want to obey the King of Prussia. But as they would not
accept his plan, he agreed with them to a reconstitution
of the Confederation as it was before 1848.
The King of Prussia, left alone, was afraid of war,
yielded, and joined the Confederation in 1850. It was
understood then that Germany could not form a single
nation as it would have two heads. This partition was
maintained through the rivalry between Prussia and
Austria. They could not go on indefinitely, living in this
state of semi-hostility, but it was necessary to wait until
one had conquered the other, in order to be able to settle
the fate of Germany. In this duel between Prussia and
Austria, it was believed that Austria would finally win.
It had twice the territory and a population double that of
Prussia, 36,000,000 against 18,000,000, and had besides
the advantage of being considered by the German princes
as the natural head of the Confederation (the Austrian
emperor was the heir of the ancient Germanic emperors).
The King of Prussia, who was considered much less power
ful by the rest of Europe, had, however, two advantages.
He could enter much farther into the affairs of Ger-

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 287
many, for all his states and one province were German.
He drew more resources from his subjects, because all
the various forces in the country had been organized for
the contest.
This organization dated from the rule of Napoleon.
The kingdom had been reduced to four provinces and
5,000,000 souls. The king, who had chosen for his
ministers the German patriots, Stein of Nassau, Harden-
berg and Scharnhorst of Hanover, allowed himself to be
persuaded to enter upon a reform of the remnant of his
kingdom in order to render it capable of maintaining
itself in the rank of the great powers. The government
demanded new sacrifices from its subjects, and these
sacrifices were made possible by a reform in the institu
tions.1 A more centralized government was created.
Impediments to agriculture and commerce were removed.
New fiscal sources were created, taxes levied after the
system used in France (license and personal tax), tax
on luxuries. An armed police service was created — this
was the work of Hardenberg — and a military system was
set up — this was the work of Scharnhorst.
The principle was thus stated: "Every inhabitant
is the born defender of the kingdom." Scharnhorst re
stored an old custom of the Middle Ages and also the old
name Landwehr (Defence of the Country). All Prussians
owed military service; but as Napoleon had forbidden the
king to keep more than 43,000 men, the duration of ser
vice was reduced to three years. The men were sent
1 In France the reforms of 1789 had been made to ameliorate the
condition of the people, whom the government recognized as the true
sovereign; therefore, they were preceded by a declaration of rights. In
Prussia, on the contrary, the sovereign was the king. He effected the
reforms by a royal ordinance, in order to increase the strength of the state;
therefore, he only spoke of the duties of his subjects.

288 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
home, but the right was reserved of calling them out in
time of war. The officers alone remained with the
army. In this way the army ceased to be a corporation
of professional soldiers, separated from the rest of the
people. It became a military school for all the young
men, and in time of war a centre whither the nation re
paired to take its stand. Thus the division into two parts
was made, the army in active service and the reserve.
Scharnhorst had wanted to form in addition a landwehr
from the men able for duty, and who were not in the army.
It was not organized until 1813. The uniform was
very simple, the litevka (a sort of blue blouse) and a cap.
This system, created only for the war, was preserved
after the establishment of peace. Prussia kept a per
manent army of only 115,000 men, but thanks to the three
years' service, the reserve, and the landwehr, she could
triple this number in time of war. The king refused to
permit the use of substitutes for young men of wealth.
Those who had finished their studies were required to
serve only one year, and could lodge at home; but the
principle that every man in the kingdom must do military
service was insisted upon. The landwehr was so organ
ized that it resembled still more the army, and had to be
drilled at the manoeuvres so that it could enter at once on
a campaign if need be. Of all the European states
Prussia was the one which made ready, in proportion, the
greatest number of soldiers. It was also necessary to
reorganize the finances. The state in 1815 was ruined by
war, failure in crops had produced misery and want,
the products of the Enghsh manufactories, accumulated
during the Continental blockade, were now so abundant
and were sold so cheap in Germany that the Prussian

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 289
manufacturers could not enter into competition with the
foreigners. Prussia, like all the other states, had at that
time a complicated system of customs tariff. There were
sixty-seven different tariff areas in the various provinces,
and the Prussian territory was so irregular in boundary
lines that it was impossible to surround it by a cordon of
custom-houses. The Prussian government boldly resolved to establish
a scale of moderate and simple duties: ten per cent, on
manufactured products; twenty per cent, on colonial
products, to be estimated by weight. This was the
most hberal commercial policy that had ever been es
tabhshed in any European state. It gave renewed life
to trade in Prussia, and put her in a position to control the
commerce of all the German states.
The petty princes, whose territories were encroached
upon by the circle of custom-houses, protested. The
Prussian government offered to share with them the
revenue collected on the basis of population. Prussia
kept control, fixed the tariff, made the commercial treaties
and appointed the officers. The first treaty of this kind
(1817) served as a model for all the other treaties with the
other states whose territories were inclosed in Prussia.
In 1828 a more important state, not within Prussian
bounds, Hesse-Darmstadt, asked for a treaty. The
agreement was made, and in addition to the sharing of the
revenue Hesse-Darmstadt had the right to appoint the
customs officers on her frontier, but Prussia fixed the tariff.
This continued to be the model for the treaties with all
states not within Prussian territorial lines. Thus be
gan slowly and through difficulty the Customs Union
(Zollverein) of Germany.

290 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Two other unions had been formed, one between the
southern states and one between those in the centre. A
conflict arose between these three divisions. The Prus
sian union, being the stronger, drew toward it the others.
In 1836 all the German states had joined the union except
Hanover, its adjacent provinces, and Austria. In 1841
the Zollverein treaty was renewed for twelve years. At
the renewal in 1852 many of the states sought to have
Austria admitted into the union. But Prussia would not
consent, as it would have brought in the Slav and Magyar
countries. She turned to Hanover and the neighboring
provinces, which remained outside because they had found
the tariffs too high, and had them join the union. All
the other states gave up coming to an agreement with
Austria because of her paper currency. They resumed
their relations with the Zollverein and the union con
tinued until 1865, including all of Germany except Aus
tria. Prussia had taken in charge the direction of Ger
man commercial interests.
From 1850 to i860 the political life in Germany showed
little vigor. The governments, frightened by the move
ment of 1848, prevented any national or liberal demonstra
tions. In i860, after the defeat of Austria, it was the
general opinion that the Confederation was inadequate.
Princes and subjects feared lest Napoleon III. should
try to take away from Germany the left bank of the
Rhine. They agreed to demand a stronger organiza
tion, which would permit resistance to the foreigner, but
they could not agree on the necessary reforms.
Austria proposed to create a federal tribunal and a
council of representatives from the several governments,
and to give the control to the great states alternately.

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 291
The project discussed by the princes at Frankfort ended
in the creation (1863) of a Council of twenty-one delegates
and a Directory of six members with a Parliament of 302
deputies. Twenty-four princes agreed to this proposition.
In Prussia, William, who became king in 1861, had
given over the government into the hands of Bismarck,
a nobleman of old family, an enemy to all liberal consti
tutions and parliaments, a partisan of government by a
king, and a great admirer of Prussian institutions. He
had been for several years a representative of Prussia in
the Diet, and had brought back from Frankfort scorn for
the Diqt, for the Confederation, and for Austria. He had
seen t^at it was forJPrussia's interest that the Confedera
tion should be dg^foyelliLas she would always be held in
check by^ustna and be tHS, victim of the jealousy mani
fest^ by the other states. He^nted to replace it with a
clo/er union, with an elective Parlian^t) where the king
of Prussia should have the leadership uncommercial and
in nfiilitary matters, and where Austria would-be excluded.
Ass early as 1862 he advised Austria to with35aw from
Germany and to "transfer her centre of gravity to~Buda-
pest." But he saw clearly that Austria would not retire.
without a war, and he prepared for it. Two conditions
seemed to him to be necessary: 1. The Prussian army
must be reenforced (this was the purpose of his home
policy). 2. An alliance with or the neutrality of the
European powers must be assured (this was the purpose
of his foreign policy).
In 1861 the Prussian army was on the same footing
that it was in 181 5, and as the population had increased
the service had ceased to be universal. Out of 63,000
conscripts submitted each year to obligatory military duty

292 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
only 40,000 were taken, and since 1840 they had served
only two years. The Landwehr service, organized as
in 1815, lasted from the age of twenty-five to forty. The
reserve was made up of two-year men. King William
instituted three reforms. He reestablished the universal
service for every rank and for three full years. He
lengthened the term of service in the reserve until the age
of twenty-seven. He limited the service in the Landwehr
to retirement at thirty-two years. Thus in time of war
an army of 440,000 men was provided for, including the
reserve, in place of 200,000, the former limit. To pro
vide for these new soldiers the king created new regiments,
which necessitated an increase in the budget. Since the

revolution of 1848 there had begrf an elective chaauber in
Prussia, called the Landtag, which had lioTaisappeared
in the reaction of 1849., ^ was not a parliament as i^ the
constitutional governments. The ministry was noh re
sponsible, and the House of Representatives had onlfy to
vote the laws and the budget; besides the government had
acquired the habit of not presenting the budget for, the
vote until it had already been spent, which made this con
trol wholly fictitious. Its power was then confined to
rejecting bills and new taxes proposed by the govern
ment. Therefore no one took any notice of its existence.
Little consideration was shown to a deputy who in public
ceremonies ranked below a captain.
The proposed reform in the army for the first time per
mitted the deputies effectively to oppose the government.
The Lower House, from 1858 to 1861, had not dared to
refuse provision for the increase in regiments organized
by the king. It had voted to maintain provisionally the
enlarged army. In 1862 a new party, the party of Prog-

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 293
ress {Fortschritt), had just acquired the majority. It
desired to avoid war and to carry out some schemes for
economy. It thought the army large enough, and wanted
to reduce the service to two years. So the House refused
to vote for the increase. .The king declared that being
charged with the defence of the country, he was in a posi
tion to judge of the needs of an army; that the sums
mentioned in the budget were necessary, and that the
House had no right to refuse him the means for carry
ing on the government. The House responded that if it
was obliged to vote all the sums which the king thought
necessary, its deliberations would be a farce; it would no
longer be a representative Assembly, but merely a consulting
Council. The disagreement came from the fact that the
House created in 1848 was a foreign institution. It had
been borrowed from a country which admitted the sov
ereignty of the people, and was introduced into a military
state where the king alone was sovereign. It was neces
sary, therefore, either that the House should force the king
to yield, that is, to recognize the sovereignty of the people,
or that the king should oblige the House and the people
to recognize his sovereignty.
The conflict continued from 1861 to 1866. The
House twice dissolved, was always reelected, and still
refused to vote. But the king would not yield. Bismarck,
having become prime minister in 1862, supported him.
He declared that the unity of Germany would only be
brought about "by blood and iron." "We are fond,"
said he to the House, "of wearing a suit of armor too
large for our slender body, so we ought to make use of it,"
He resolutely entered upon the struggle with the House.
"All constitutional life is a series of compromises," he said

294 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
one day; "if compromises are out of the question because
one of the powers insists on its own will with a doctrinaire
absolutism, then the series of compromises is interrupted,
and instead we have conflicts; and as the life of the state
cannot be arrested the conflicts become questions of force,
and the one who has force at his disposition carries out
his idea." Bismarck and the king had force. They
kept the regiments, and continued to levy the taxes, just as
if the bills had been voted by the House. During all this
time Bismarck was working for the isolation of Austria.
He had won the support of the Emperor of Russia by
helping him, in 1863, to subdue the people of Poland.
He gained the favor of Napoleon III. by allowing him to
think that he would be aided in his efforts to annex either
Belgium or the borders of the Rhine. He drew the support
of Italy by promising to give her Venetia. As for Eng
land, he realized that there was nothing to be gained there.
The question of unity was decided, as Bismarck had
predicted, by iron and blood, in three wars. In 1864,
Prussia and Austria made war on the King of Denmark,
in order to take from him the duchies of Holstein and
Schleswig; but instead of returning them to the German
heir, they kept them and divided them provisionally be
tween themselves, Austria taking Holstein. In 1866,
under the pretext that Austria was favoring revolutionary
ideas in Holstein, that country was occupied by Prussia.
Austria appealed to the Diet, which decided in her favor.
The Prussian government declared that it considered the
federal compact broken, and war was declared. Bis
marck had already said, in 1865, to the Bavarian minister:
"It is only a duel, which will be quickly finished if Ger
many remains neutral; Austria is not prepared and has no

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 295
means for preparation. One battle will suffice." For
the war of 1866 he had secured an alliance with Italy.
The Germans hesitated between the two enemies.
The sovereigns preferred Austria, as she did not want to
take away from them the sovereign power. The patriots
had hoped to establish unity by the aid of Prussia. Fol
lowing the example of the Italians they had, in 1859, organ
ized a "National Union," which had, up to this time,
20,000 members, and which had declared its purpose " to
push Prussia along the right road." But when they saw the
government in the hands of Bismarck, and in conflict with
the House, the Liberals were disgusted with Prussia.
A Union for Reform was organized in 1862, which again
took up the plan for a Greater Germany. Austria became
popular, the emperor was enthusiastically received at
Frankfort in 1863. Therefore, in 1866, nearly all the
German states sided with Austria against Prussia. The
war of 1866, decided by a single battle, had three results :
1. Austria withdrew from the Confederation, leaving
Prussia mistress of Germany. She gave up all claims to
the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.
2. Prussia annexed these duchies, also the. states of
northern Germany which she had occupied during the
war (Hanover, Hesse, Nassau, Frankfort), in a way to
round out her own territory. The motives given were as
follows: "These governments have rejected the proposi
tions of neutrality or alliance, which were offered them
by Prussia. They have taken an active part in the war
against Prussia, and have invoked for themselves and their
country the decision of arms. The issue has gone against
them by the decree of God. Political necessity compels
us not to restore to them the authority of which they have

296 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
been deprived by the victorious march of our armies.
These countries, if they kept their independence, could, by
reason of their geographical position, create for the policy
of Prussia embarrassments which would far exceed the
extent of their power and importance." The Prussian
House demanded that search be made for another reason
for annexation than that of "mere force, which is not suf
ficient to-day as a basis for the foundation of states."
Bismarck rephed: "Our right is the right of the German
nation to exist, to breathe, to unite, the right and duty of
Prussia to give to the German nation the foundation neces
sary for her existence."
3. Prussia organized with the states of northern Ger
many, which had remained independent, a Confederation
(Bund) at the same time German and Prussian. A coun
cil of delegates from the several states, and a parhament
of deputies elected by universal suffrage, formulated
the constitution in agreement with the Prussian gov
ernment. Each of the states belonging to the North
German Confederation preserved its own individual gov
ernment, but all were subject to a superior federal govern
ment. The King of Prussia was made permanent presi
dent of the Confederation, and exercised his executive
power through one single individual chosen at his pleasure
from the Prussian ministers. This officer was the Chan
cellor of the Confederation. The legislative power be
longed to two assembhes, the Federal Council consisted
of delegates from the several governments, who were
compelled to vote according to their instructions, and the
Reichstag, which was composed of delegates elected by
universal suffrage. Bismarck had insisted on universal
suffrage, but he refused to allow any pay to the members,

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1S4S 297
or to institute a responsible imperial ministry. The
powers were divided between the federal and local govern
ments as follows: each state preserved its system of justice,
police administration, pubhc worship, finances, and edu
cation. The federal government has charge of:
The army and navy. The King of Prussia is com
mander-in-chief of the army. All the states had to adopt
the Prussian military system (obligatory service for three
years), and the Prussian method of organization.
International relations. The King of Prussia makes
war, peace, treaties, and appoints all the personnel.
Commerce and the means of communication, customs,
coinage, banks, weights and measures, posts, telegraphs
and railways.
Commercial law, criminal law, and judicial procedure.
The regulation of the practice of medicine, and of pub
lic hygiene.
For the federal needs, a federal budget was created,
composed of the revenues from the customs, and of con
tributions paid by the several states. The appropriation
is made for several years in advance. "If the organi
zation of the federal army could be brought into question
bv an annual vote," declared Bismarck, '" I should feel as
if before a dike syndicate,1 where the vote was taken every
year bv poll, even including non-property owners, on this
question: 'Should the dike be cut at the time of great
freshets or not?'"
Prussian victory put an end to the opposition in the
Prussian House. The Progress party lost the majority.
1 In the lowlands of Northern Germany, which are exposed to great
inundations of the large streams or of the sea, the inhabitants are obliged
to form associations in order to keep up the dikes at the common expense.

29S CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
In its place was formed a party which declared its inten
tion to sustain Bismarck in his policy without abandoning
the principles of Hberty and unit}". It called itself the
National-Liberal party.
The four states in the south, Bavaria, Wurtemberg,
Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt, had not joined the Con
federation. They had concluded treaties of alliance with
it, and had remained in the Zollverein.
Unity has been achieved through the war with France.
During the siege of Paris the princes gathered at Versailles
and proclaimed the King of Prussia Emperor of Germany
i January, 1S71). The four states of the south became a
part of the Confederation, which took the name of Empire.
It was hardly anything more than a change in name.
The organization was the same, no constipation for the em
pire was drawn up, but a new flag was adopted, the black,
white, and red. When France sued for peace, the Prus
sian government demanded the cession of Alsace and of
a part of Lorraine. Instead of annexing them to Prussia
they were made into an Imperial Province, which is con
sidered as belonging to Germany and is governed by the
chancellor. In none of the countries annexed in 1866, or in 1S70,
were the inhabitants consulted. The government has
always remained satisfied with the right of conquest.
Thus has been realized, 'through iron and blood,"
the unit}- of Germany, for the benefit of Prussia. The
new empire is only the kingdom of Prussia enlarged to
the limits of the territory of the Zollverein.
The new German empire is not established on the
lines of race or of a willing nationality. It does not in
clude 8,000,000 of Austrian Germans, and does include

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 299
2,000,000 Poles, who were incorporated as a part of it, being
considered subjects of the King of Prussia. People were
compelled to enter it, who are still protesting against the
connection, Poles, Hanoverians, Danes, and Alsatians.
TRANSFORMATIONS IN GOVERNMENT
Progress of the Parliamentary Regime in Europe. — In
1848 the parliamentary regime was in force only in England,
France, Belgium. There was an incomplete form of it
in the secondary states of Germany, and in Holland, and
a semblance of it in Spain and Portugal. Excepting the
few South German states it had not penetrated to the
centre or to the east of Europe. The revolution of 1848
had shaken every country, Russia excepted, where there
was absolute government. The governments, frightened
by the riots, promised constitutions and called constituent
assembhes. There was such an assembly in Prussia, in
Austria, and in Hungary. A parhament in Germany, and
constitutions in all the Italian states. But the govern
ments were quickly reassured, and in 1849 they withdrew
almost all that they had granted.
There remained nothing of this movement but the parlia
mentary system in Holland, organized in 1848, that of the
kingdom of Sardinia, and the Prussian constitution of
1850, which was almost a reproduction of the constitution
of 1848, itself an imitation of the Belgian constitution.
It proclaimed equality before the law, and the liberty of
the individual, estabhshed a parliament, consisting of a
House of Lords and an elective Lower House, but in fact
the power of the king was still absolute.
The reaction against the movement of 1848 lasted until
i860. From that time the constitutional system made

300 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
rapid progress, according to the increase in numbers,
wealth, and intelligence of the bourgeoisie. It followed
the example of the most civilized countries of the west and it
was supported by a national movement. It profited by the
growing weakness of Austria, which led in the restoration
of absolute power. The parliamentary system was es
tablished in Italy in 1 860-61, in Austria from 1862 to
1867, and in Hungary in 1866.
In the countries where the constitutional system had
been introduced, the power of the sovereign and of the
Upper House was waning, and that of the elective body
was increasing. The sovereignty of the people was effa
cing the sovereignty of the prince. Everywhere the au
thority rested in the two houses. The constitution regu
lated the rights of the citizens, the press was free. There
was no longer an absolutist party. All the politicians,
even the princes, rallied about the constitutional principle.
The parties henceforth called each other openly Conserva
tives and Liberals. The only disagreement was on the
influence, more or less great, which should remain in the
hands of the families, which were of aristocratic lineage
or wealth, and were denominated the ruling classes.
The only country of Europe which has retained the
absolute system of the seventeenth century is Russia.1
The government is exercised by the ministers of the czar
without the aid of any chosen assembly (the consulting
councils of the provinces are no longer called together),
the journals are submitted to censure, and the police de
port to Siberia, "by administrative process," without
any trial, people who are suspected of revolutionary senti
ments. •The first "Duma" assembled in May, 1906.

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 301
As for the empire of Germany, since 1866 it has been
following an intermediate system. There is a general
parliament, the Reichstag, and there are parliaments in
each province, the Landtags; these are elective, and vote
the taxes. But the Parliament is not sovereign. The
emperor, following the traditions of the Prussian royal
family, looks upon himself as sovereign, and superior to
the will of the Reichstag.
The Radical Party. — The constitutional party did not
want to break away from the traditions. It admitted that
a nation should be governed according to the ancient
methods, and not attempt alone to regulate its affairs.
It only demanded the reforms necessary so that the nation,
in case of need, could impose its will on the government.
Toward 1830 a party was formed, which was not con
tented with partial reforms, but demanded a radical
change in the system of government. This was called
the Radical Party. It was first organized in England
(181 5) and in Switzerland; afterward in the western coun
tries of Europe. In each country there was an effort to
convert the electors so as to obtain a majority in parlia
ment, and be able to reorganize the government, accord
ing to the principles of the party.
The Radical Party has no respect for traditions. It has
formulated the principle that a people should not allow
itself to be governed according to ancient methods, but
should establish new rules suited to the present time.
Of these rules, some are drawn from humanity and justice
(this was especially the belief of the French radicals),
while others want to draw them from science (this is the
English method). Therefore, the Radicals differ greatly
in opinion concerning the system which should be estab-

302 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
lished. They also differ in regard to the purpose of gov
ernment, and so completely that they bring up two quite
antagonistic theories.
One theory regards the definite purpose of the govern
ment to be the assurance of hberty to the individuaL
Individuals should be allowed to develop without re
straint, they will be happier and more active, they will be
able to make more progress, society will regulate itself
better than under established rules. The state should be
content to assure to each one personal liberty, and should
constrain no one beyond what is necessary for the protec
tion of the rights of others. It is only an organization
for mutual defence. It should not be burdened with
works useful to the community; they belong to private in
dividuals who are interested in them. A weak govern
ment is therefore necessary, so that there should be no
temptation to violate the hberty of the individual. Such
is the theory of the Liberal-Radicals.
The opposing theory is based on the idea that it is the
mission of the state to render men happy, and to see that
justice reigns. It has the right to regulate everything in
the interest of the greatest number, since it has received
its authority from the sovereign people. It is not obhged
to respect personal liberty if it interferes with the fulfil
ment of the mission of government. As far as the state
is concerned the individual has no rights. Therefore
the government must be a strong one in order to break
down the resistance of the individuaL This is the theory
of Authoritarian-Radicals. These two theories correspond
to two opposing sentiments — love of progress and love of
order. The Liberals desire indefinite progress; the
Authoritarians want a perfect society, and allow progress

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1848 303
only up to the moment when perfection is attained.
Between these two extreme theories there are many in
termediate opinions. One party of Liberal-Radicals
asserts that the functions of a state are not only to main
tain peace, but to undertake all works useful to society
in which private individuals are not interested. The state
should build the bridges, the harbors, the highways, pre
serve the forests, support scientific and educational estab
lishments. There is no agreement as to the support of
the church; the usual theory advanced is that of separa
tion of church and state.
The large majority of European radicals belong to the
Authoritarian faction.
Universal Suffrage. — The principle of the parliamentary
system is that, the power belongs to an elective parliament,
but it is not necessary that all the inhabitants should have
the right to vote, neither that all the electors should have
equal suffrage. In England the land owners and large
farmers alone used to vote, and the vote of an elector in a
borough had more weight than that of one in the county.
The countries which have adopted the English system
have all restricted the right of suffrage to the inhabitants
who paid the tax fixed by law. They only could vote,
be voted for, and take part in the government; they
only formed the "pays legal," the others were not con
sulted. Such was the system of restricted suffrage.
To this system the partisans of democracy have op
posed universal suffrage, which constitutes all men electors.
Universal suffrage was at first exercised only in some of
the Swiss cantons, where it was the custom in the Middle
Ages, and in the United States, where it was gradually in
troduced between 1783 and 1830. The French Repub-

304 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
licans had tried it in 1792, but it was soon abandoned in
France. The Radicals of every country have demanded
it, on the principle of equality before the law.
Universal suffrage had been established all at once in
France through the revolution of 1848, in Germany after
the victories of Prussia (1866) through the chancellor,
Bismarck, who hoped to use it in forwarding his plans
for unity. The other countries, without abandoning the
principle of restricted suffrage, have enlarged the bounda
ries little by little, until all the inhabitants have become a
part of the electoral body. Suffrage has become almost
universal in England through two reforms, in 1865 and
1885. Not more than about 1,800,000 Englishmen are
non-electors. In Italy the tax exacted by the Constitution of Sardinia
as a voting requisite has been lowered (1882) to a point
that increased the number of electors from 500,000 to
2,500,000. In Spain universal suffrage, established after
the revolution of 1868, abolished by the restoration of
1874, has been reestablished (1890). In no country is
the voting tax high.
Direct Government by the Lower House. — In the states
which have a republican form of government, the principle
of the sovereignty of the nation has given rise to two differ
ent forms of parliamentary regime. In the United States
the nation elects (by a suffrage in two stages) a President
of the Republic, who is charged with the executive power
for four years; the cabinet is chosen by him, and is not
responsible to Congress. Congress makes the laws and
votes the appropriations. The President nominates the
officials * and exercises the executive power. Congress and
1 Not all officials, see Constitution, Article II, Section II, Clause 2.

TRANSFORMATIONS IN EUROPE SINCE 1S4S 305
the President have both sovereign and independent powers:
Congress in voting against the President does not cause
his fall, and the President cannot dissolve the Congress.
This system makes the government more independent
of the two houses than is the parliamentary regime. It is
true that in the United States, where each state regulates
almost all pubhc affairs, there remains very little authority
in the central government. ' According as the parlia
mentary system grew older, and the House became more
powerful, there was a tendency to transformation. There
is an approach to a system which leaves with the House
the authority to name the ministers, to dismiss them, and
to give them their orders. There is. then, no longer a min
istry, only executives of the will of the House. This is
direct government by the House, it was practised by the
Convention in France, and is very different from the parlia
mentary system.
The principle of the parliamentary system is that the
leader of the majority should choose the ministers, his
colleagues, and should direct affairs according to a plan
which constitutes a 'ministerial policy." The House
can overthrow the ministry by voting against it, if there is
a disapproval of its policy; but it cannot give orders to,
or direct, and dictate the action of the ministers. The
chief of the Council is in the position of a contractor whom
the House has employed to govern. For this purpose
there must be a fixed majority in the House, decided to
always vote in favor of the ministry.
So long, therefore, as there are only two parties in
parliament, one always has a majority. Such has been
1 The author here minimises the power of the central government in
the Veiled States.— Ed.

30G CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the case in England for a century and a half. But in
the countries where several parties have been formed, it
becomes difficult to preserve a majority; for unless one
party is very much larger than all the others together,
the parties opposed to the ministry unite in order to
vote against it, and form a coalition. The ministry falls
and there is nowhere to choose another from, for no min
istry can have a majority. This has been the case in
England since, beside the two old parties, the Irish and
Radical parties have been organized. It is, then, be
coming more and more difficult to practice a parliament
ary government, which is replaced by direct government
by the House. '
1 A new system, government direct by the people, has been experimented
upon in Switzerland, under the form of referendum and initiative. • It is
as yet only the germ of a new political system.

CHAPTER XIII
DISMEMBERMENT OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
The Ottoman Empire in the Nineteenth Century. — The
Ottoman empire, founded near the close of the Middle
Ages by a family of Turkish sultans, had preserved its
immense territory: in Europe the peninsula of the Balkans,
and to the north of the Danube, Roumania (this country
was all called European Turkey). In Asia Minor and
the country of the Euphrates as far as Persia (Asiatic
Turkey), Syria and the protectorate of Arabia; in Africa
Egypt and Tripoli. But this empire, disorganized since
the seventeenth century, was threatened with ruin. Like
all the Oriental states it was subjected to a despotic and
lawless government. The sultan's power was arbitrary,
but as he lived shut up in his seraglio, ignorant of the
affairs of the government, all authority was in the hands
of the grand vizier and of the sen ice chiefs chosen
from among his favorites. The army was formed of
cavalry (spahis) who lived on lands given them by the
sultan, and of foot-soldiers (janissaries) who were divided
into 199 companies, and were stationed at Constantinople.
But the spahis would no longer serve, and the janissaries,
instead of being recruited from the slaves of the sultan, and
remaining celibate, married, and transmitted their posts
to their sons, who looked upon the office as hereditary and
occupied themselves at the same time with other business.
307

308 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
It was a very undisciplined troop in time of war, and very
turbulent in peace, which held the sultan a prisoner in
his own capital.
Each province had a military governor, sent from
Constantinople, who had absolute power and bore the
title of pasha. The pashas were the slaves of the sultan,
who could, by giving the order, have their heads cut off,
and brought to the seraglio. But the majority had bought
their provinces from the favorites, who made the appoint
ments, and those in command of an army corps often
revolted against orders coming from Constantinople.
The finances were as rudely organized as in former
times. There was no system of bookkeeping or auditing;
the papers were kept in sacks. As there was no budget,
the sultan and his favorites took all the money which they
desired from the treasury. There was no regular assess
ment nor systematic collection of taxes. The tax on the
Christians and the Jews, the rents of the sultan's domain,
the customs, all were farmed out to collectors, who op
pressed the people.
To the vices of a despotic Oriental regime the Ottoman
empire added causes of weakness which were a part of its
own character. It was an empire exclusively Mussulman.
The sultan had succeeded the Caliphs. He was head of
the faith. As in all Mussulman countries the Koran
was the only law, religious, civil, or political. The state
was subject to the church. Religion was obh'gatory.
Every Mussulman, who denied Islam, was put to death
by order of the government. Mussulmans alone formed
the Ottoman nation. But unlike the Christian states
of the Middle Ages, which allowed only Christians within
their boundaries, the Mussulmans tolerated Christians

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 309
and Jews in their midst. These infidels, not having the
power to be citizens, lived in a very inferior position,
deprived of every political right, outside of the law, since
the Koran was the law of the empire. This is the meaning
of the name rates (herd). They were subject to a heavy
tax, the Kharadj, and to forced labor (corvee). They
were not admitted into the army nor allowed to hold any
civil office.
This was not a distinction of race. The Christian
European descendant of the conquered peoples, when he
became a Mussulman, became also the equal of the Turk
ish Mussulman; the Koran does not admit inequality
among believers, so there were Albanian and Slav Mussul
mans (the Bosnians and the Pomaks of Bulgaria).
With a democratic organization the empire had then
an aristocracy; the equahty was complete, but among
Mussulmans only; they formed, so far as the infidels were
concerned, an aristocracy of religion. Society was di
vided into two necessarily unequal classes, the Mussul
mans and the rates, which could not unite, and which re
mained forever hostile to each other.
The sultan could count upon the Mussulmans, but the
oppressed Christians could not be faithful subjects.
Now in conquering them, the empire had left them their
religion and political organization. They had retained
their language, customs, even their clergy and their village
administration. The Christian peoples of the fifteenth
century had been preserved intact under the domination
of the sultans, just as the pictures in the Church of Saint
Sophia were preserved under the coating of whitewash,
which had been given them by order of Mahomet II.
In Asia the majority of the population was Turk and

310 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Mussulman. There were no ra'ias except Greeks, Jews,
and Armenians, dispersed in small communities, pacific,
and incapable of revolt. But in Europe the Mussulmans
were few in number, and under them were all the small
nations that it had taken a century for the sultans to sub
due. North of the Danube the Roumanians were tributary
only, but had been governed since the seventeenth cen
tury by the Greeks of the Phanar (the Greek quarter of
Constantinople), who bought their functions from the
government of the sultan. No Mussulmans had settled
in the country. South of the Danube, the Serbians,
exploited by the Mussulman warriors, who were pro
prietors of all the lands, formed a nation of peasants.
Their neighbors to the east, the Bulgarians, occupied
the two slopes of the Balkans, the three provinces of
Bulgaria, Roumelia and Macedonia; they, too, were
nothing but peasants, but they were almost the sole in
habitants of the country. Back in the mountains re
ligions and conditions were more mixed. Bosnia had
remained Slav, but almost the half of the Bosnian Slavs
had become Mussulmans in the fifteenth century, and
they formed a class of warlike land-owners, strong enough
to keep the Christian peasants in a state of servitude.
Epirus had kept its former population (the Albanians),
and its parent tongue, the primitive Greek. Part of the
Albanians had become Mussulmans, the others had re
mained Christian; but all had kept their ancient customs,
half-peasant, half-brigand. They formed small armed
bands, almost independent in their mountain fastnesses.
The Turkish government demanded little of them except
to come to arms when they were called upon to do so.

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 311
In the south, and in the archipelago, the Greeks had
again formed a nation, and the most intelligent began to
consider themselves direct descendants of the ancient
Hellenes. All these peoples had been subdued by force, and force
only could keep them submissive.
Finally the Ottoman empire, being a Mussulman state,
had never been admitted into the concert of the Christian
European powers. The Christian sovereigns formed a
sort of family, the sultan remained a stranger; he had
only one ally, the King of France. He had settled in
Europe by right of conquest; the other sovereigns could
have expelled him by force. His states remained outside
of international law, just like a vacant domain, which
could be occupied by any one. In 1 787 Russia and Austria
had become allies in order to conquer, and to share with
each other the country of Turkey in Europe.
The empire was thus menaced with many dangers:
the rioting of the janissaries at Constantinople, revolts of
the pashas in the provinces, uprisings of the Christian
nations, conquest by Russia or Austria.
During the wars in Europe against France the danger
diminished on the part of Europe. The Austrian govern
ment, occupied in the west, gave up the plan of aggrandize
ment in the Orient; it forgot the interests of Austria along
the Danube, and instead of conquering the Ottoman
empire, it sought to preserve it. England, which until
that time had taken little interest in Oriental affairs,
found herself brought, through an expedition by the French
to Egypt, into an alliance with the sultan; then, when the
English had finished conquering India, they grew accus
tomed to the idea that they ought to prevent the other

312 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
nations of Europe, France and Russia, from mingling in
the affairs of the Orient. The Ottoman empire had
henceforth three allies in Europe, all desirous of maintain
ing it intact. These were France, Austria, and England.
Only one enemy remained, Russia, which had tried to
take away Roumania (1806-1812); but during the con
flict with France the czar had been obliged to put off his
projects for conquest.
The Eastern Question in the Nineteenth Century. —
When peace was reestablished in Europe, in 1814, the
Ottoman empire became again the object of a contest
between the European powers. The Austrian govern
ment had demanded, at the Congress of Vienna, that they
should guarantee to the sultan the integrity of his territories,
which would have admitted the Ottoman empire into the
European concert. Russia refused. So the empire re
mained outside of international law and exposed to dis
memberment. But as each one of the great powers
was interested in the fate of the territories forming that
vast empire, all maintained that they should be con
sulted in the regulation of the affairs of the Orient. The
statesmen began to keep on the watch for any events
which might risk the bringing about of a change in the
Turkish empire, and in the projects of the European
governments, so as to be ready to interpose at the moment
any power should seek to intervene in Turkey. From 181 5
the constant preoccupation of the diplomats was the
Eastern Question, as it was henceforth called.
The Eastern Question could be expressed thus: The
Ottoman empire : shall it be maintained or dismembered ?
If it was to be dismembered, two questions arose : 1. What
power will take possession of the dismembered territories ?

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 313
2. What will become of the petty Christian nations,
which are subject to the sultan ? Of these two questions
the first alone occupied the attention of the diplomats.
Accustomed to consider only the sovereigns and their
difficulties, they troubled themselves very little about the
people of Turkey. They were thinking of hardly any
thing but the rivalry among the European states, and were
laboring to maintain a condition which would relieve
them from seeking for a new solution of the question on
which they would have to agree. Therefore, the inter
vention of the European states resulted in a continuation
of the Eastern Question.
But, notwithstanding the efforts of the diplomats, the
power of the sultan was threatened many times, and by
enemies sufficiently dangerous to oblige the powers to
come to his defence. Each time the Eastern Question
is presented in a new form.
i. From 1825 to 1829 the question concerned Greece.
The Greek rebels had asked the protection of the
Christian states against the Mussulman Turks. Metter-
nich pledged the great powers to send a refusal. He
insisted on preserving the Ottoman empire, and saw in the
Greeks only revolutionists, and rebels to their legitimate
sovereign. He succeeded, in fact, with the Czar of Russia,
Alexander. The Turkish soldiers massacred the peace
able inhabitants of the island of Chios; in Constantinople
the sultan had the Christian patriarch, together with three
archbishops and three priests, hanged at the door of the
principal church. Metternich was hardly moved by it.
"I do not care much about the 300,000 or 400,000 men
hanged, strangled, or impaled beyond our eastern borders."
But in most of Europe the public, especially the intelli-

314 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
gent, cultivated men, were seized with compassion for
this Christian people, descendants of the Hellenes of
antiquity. Societies of Philhellenes were formed; a
Geneva banker got up subscriptions; money and arms
were sent to the Greeks; French, English, German volun
teers went to Greece to aid in her defence. Then gradu
ally the pubhc compelled the statesmen to intervene in
favor of the Greeks. Nicholas I., the new Czar of
Russia, declared himself for them as they were Christians
(1825); and Russia and England agreed to demand the
independence of the Greeks from the sultan. The
negotiations lasted three years. Divers solutions of the
question were proposed. The sultan refused them all,
fourteen different times. He sent against Greece the fleet
and the army of the Pasha of Egypt, which ravaged and
subdued the whole of the Morea. The Russian and
English governments then joined with the French gov
ernment, and all three sent a fleet, not to make war on
the sultan, but to compel the Egyptian fleet to retire
(1827). This brought on the battle of Navarino. In
1828 the czar sent two armies against Turkey, declaring
that he would make neither conquest nor revolution.
The Ottoman empire was enfeebled by the loss of the
janissaries. The ordinary allies of the sultan, England,
France, and Austria did not dare to take up his defence.
France even sent an army corps to the Morea in aid of
Greece. The Russians, in 1829, were able to cross the
Danube and to march on Constantinople. The sultan
sued for peace. He gave up Greece, and promised to
leave the navigation of the Danube and the Dardanelles
free. He also promised to pay an indemnity to Russia.
As he could not pay it, he became a dependent of Rus-

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 315
sia. The Ottoman empire became the protege" of the
czar. 2. From 1831 to 1833, the Eastern Question was pre
sented in the conflict against Mehemet AH, Pasha of.
Egypt. In exchange for his expedition against Greece,
Mehemet was given the government of St. Jean d'Acre.
His personal enemy, Chosrew Pasha, having become grand
vizier, interfered. Mehemet decided to take it by force.
He was declared a rebel, but his army conquered Syria,
and vanquished the army of the sultan in Asia Minor.
The sultan, influenced by the enemies of Mehemet,
asked help of the czar. A Russian army came and
camped before Constantinople. The English and French
governments, fearing to see the sultan fall entirely into
the hands of Russia, persuaded him to accept the con
ditions of peace proposed by Mehemet; that is, to let
him have the government of Syria during his lifetime.
The czar profited by his influence with the sultan and ob
tained the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (1833). The czar
and the sultan promised mutual defence, but the sultan
was not required to send troops to aid Russia, and instead
opened the straits to the Russian navy. This pretended
treaty of alliance put the Ottoman empire under the pro
tection of Russia.
3. In 1839-1840 the Eastern Question once more came
up on account of Mehemet Ali. Chosrew, returning
from an expedition against the Kurds, in the mountains
of the Tigris, had made an attack on Syria. War was
renewed, and, as in 1833, the army of Mehemet invaded
Asia Minor. Mehemet declared that he was not making
war on the sultan, his master, but on the servants of his
master; that he hoped to overthrow the grand vizier

316 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
and that he himself would become prime minister to the
sultan. But the Enghsh government interfered at this
time, and in concert with the czar. The Enghsh as well
as the Russians were enemies of Mehemet — the Russians
because they feared lest in taking possession of the empire
he would fortify it and render it capable of resisting them;
the Enghsh, because Mehemet once master of Egypt,
could cut off their communication with India. " If India
is vulnerable," said Palmerston, "it is through Egypt."
England and Russia united with Austria and Prussia to
form the "Quadruple Alliance," which declared for the
defence of the sultan and ordered Mehemet to withdraw
into Egypt. France supported Mehemet. She hoped
that he would regenerate Turkey as he had reorganized
Egypt, and, therefore, she refused to unite with the
other powers. The whole system of alliances was thus
destroyed. Since 1830 the two constitutional monarchies,
France and England, had been united against the abso
lutist governments; in 1840 France found herself alone
against England and the other three powers just as in
1814. The Liberals brought up in admiration of Na
poleon I. wanted to declare war. They would have
profited by this Eastern Question for the purpose of break
ing the treaties of 1815, and of retaking the left bank of
the Rhine. The Thiers ministry supported this policy,
and encouraged Mehemet not to yield, but the king wanted
peace, and Thiers himself knew that it was impossible to
make war against all Europe. The French government
withdrew its fleet from the Levant, England sent a fleet
which compelled Mehemet to accept the conditions laid
down by the Quadruple Alliance, to give up Syria (1840).
In order to deprive Russia of her protection of the sultan

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 317
England secured the Straits Convention (1841), in which
all the powers pledged themselves not to allow ships of
war to enter either the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles,
and they also promised to guarantee to the sultan all his
territory. Thanks to the intervention of united Europe
the Ottoman empire remained intact. For the first time
it was treated as a European state, and was protected by
international law.
The government of the sultan itself tried to strengthen
the Ottoman empire, and to bring it into favor with
Europe by the introduction of European institutions.
The reform had begun in 1826. Sultan Mahmoud com
pared himself to Peter the Great, who had introduced
modern civilization into his empire. In order to imitate
the Europeans he drank wine and made his ministers
drink it, notwithstanding the prohibition of the Koran.
He ordered that the beard should be cut an inch below
the chin. He especially wanted to have a European army.
In 1826 he had got rid of the janissaries; after having ar
ranged with their chiefs he had ordered them to furnish
150 men from each company in order to form a new corps
of troops. The janissaries had mutinied, cannon were
fired on them in their barracks, but the back doors were
left open for their escape. An army of 70,000 men was
organized after European models. A Prussian officer,
the celebrated von Moltke, who aided in creating this
army, thus described it: "An army after the European
model with Russian tunics, French regulations, Bel
gian guns, Turkish turbans, Hungarian saddles, Enghsh
sabres, and instructors from every nation — an army com
posed of timariots, of soldiers for hfe, of reserves
with indeterminate service, in which the leaders were

318 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
recruits, and the recruits enemies of those of the day
before." Reschid Pasha, who governed in the name of Mahmoud,
then in the name of his successor, attempted more serious
reforms. He ordered light-houses built, and estabhshed
a sanitary quarantine at Constantinople. He had a uniform
customs tariff adopted, which enabled foreigners to trade
with Turkey (up to that time the merchants had been sub
jected to different tariffs according to the nation from which
they came). He procured a decision that officials should
receive a fixed salary. He even wanted to introduce civil
liberty into Turkey. November 2, 1839, the sultan as
sembled, at his palace of Guhlane, all of the principal
dignitaries, the representatives of the Christian churches,
the European diplomats, to hear read the hatti-cherif, in
which he promised a general reform. The misfortunes
of Turkey, said this act, came from abandoning old
customs. In order to repair them there must be a new
constitution estabhshed. (The government found itself
caught between the old Turks, who insisted upon the old
customs, and the Europeans, who recommended reforms.
It got out of the difficulty by a phrase, the end of which
contradicts the beginning.) The sultan promised security
to the individual, and equality of taxation. He announced
the abolition of monopolies, of confiscation, of the farm
ing out of taxes, and added, "These royal concessions are
secured to all of whatever religion they may be." At a
reception of the chiefs of the Christian communities,
Reschid declared that Mussulmans and Christians were
all alike subjects of the sultan. That was to announce a
revolution. The old Turks, indignant at seeing the in
fidels treated as the equals of believers, began to intrigue

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 319
against Reschid Pasha and caused his dismissal. Reschid
returned to power, but could only maintain his position
by avoiding a conflict with the beliefs of the Mussulmans.
A young Armenian Christian, who in a moment of wrath
had become a Mussulman, returned to the Christian faith.
Now the Koran declares that every renegade Mussulman
deserves death. The European governments demanded
pardon for the young man. He was executed. "I know,"
said Reschid to the European diplomats, "that my gov
ernment is still far from efficient, but I prevent its being
worse." To carry out a veritable reform, a personnel on
whom dependence could be placed was necessary. The
Mussulmans were too ignorant to understand the new
regime. " A Turk, who knows how to read and write,"
said von Moltke, "poses as a Hafiz — savant." He added
that it was impossible to employ foreigners, for " the best
gift is an object of suspicion if it comes from the hand of
a Christian." At last, however, a regular army was created, with a
term of five years (Nizam) and the reserve (R6dif) for
seven years. The Ottoman bank was founded, but with
a European personnel. By the establishment of a single
tariff of nine per cent, the empire was opened to Euro
pean merchants. The nations began to hope that the
Ottoman empire would reform itself and thus be saved
from dismemberment. The Eastern Question was not
again raised for a period of twelve years. l
4. The question again arose in 1852. The Czar
Nicholas had never given up the idea of conquest so far as
the Ottoman empire was concerned. He called it the
1 There were only some difficulties between the Greek and Latin
Churches over the possession of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre.

320 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
"Sick man of Europe." On a journey to England (1844)
he said: "There are two opinions in my cabinet on the
subject of Turkey. According to one she is dying; the
other maintains that she is already dead. In either case,
nothing will prevent her speedy end." In 1852 he said
to the English ambassador that "it was time for them to
agree about the funeral," and that he had decided to oc
cupy Constantinople, not as a possession, but as a pledge.
The Turkish empire was again menaced with invasion
by Russia. The English government determined to
save it by force, and looked about for allies. The King
of Prussia did not dare to intervene; Austria contented
herself with protests. But Napoleon III., having be
come emperor, seized this opportunity of again restoring
to France an active rdle in the affairs of Europe. He
won over the King of Sardinia, who was anxious to please
him, and an alliance was formed between England,
France, and Sardinia. The Russians had invaded the
provinces along the Danube. The three powers sent a
fleet, then an army, to Turkey. The Russians withdrew
almost without a combat. However, the allies wanted
to prevent the czar from again beginning the war by the
destruction of his forces on the Black Sea. They laid
siege to the Russian arsenal in the Crimea, Sebastopol.
After a siege of 350 days it was taken and destroyed.
The Congress of Paris, where were representatives from
all the great powers, regulated the affairs of the Orient
(1856). The Black Sea became neutral water; no ships
of war could remain there. The Danube was declared
neutral, and an international commission was formed to
control the navigation of the stream. The powers guar
anteed the integrity of Ottoman territory. Thus the

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPniE 321
European states defended the sultan against Russia. In
return they demanded certain reforms which he had an
nounced, and the establishment of an equitable govern
ment for his Christian subjects. The sultan issued an
edict (February 18, 1856), when he proclaimed the prin
ciple of hberty and equahty before the law; the Christians
should no longer pay the poll-tax; they should be admitted
to the army, and they should have representatives in the
councils. The European states declared their "apprecia
tion of the high value of this communication," adding
that it gave them no right " to interfere in the relations of
the sultan with his subjects, nor in the internal administra
tion of the empire." They exacted promises of reform
from the Turkish government, but they took no precau
tions to oblige it to keep these promises.
The government could not keep them without over
turning the organization of the empire. The only law
was the religious Mussulman law, and it did not protect
the Christians. On the other hand, the Christians were
organized in small communities, each sect by itself, gov
erned by bishops who had the privilege of administering
both in civil and in religious affairs. Therefore, the gov
ernment could not estabhsh an equal law for all without
a violation of Mussulman laws and of Christian priv
ileges. The Mussulmans were not willing to obey the
infidels, therefore the Christians could not be admitted
to the functions of the government. The Mussulmans
continued their ill-treatment of the Christians, who could
not obtain justice in the Mussulman courts. The Chris
tians did not care to serve in the Turkish army, suffering
to buy exemption from such service, so that the poll-tax,
which had been abolished, was soon restored under the

322 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
form of exemption-tax. The two statesmen who controlled
affairs, Ah and Fuad, partisans of European institutions,
established tribunals, and councils of administration
throughout the empire, and the Christians were to share
in them. But the Mussulmans ruled; at Adrianople
4,000 Mussulmans had eleven representatives, while
60,000 Christians had only three. When the European
governments began an investigation of the result of the
reforms they found that the laws had not been executed.
The Christians were still treated and acted as inferiors.
Two only had reached the rank of pasha, and they had
no employment. The courts, which were to have held
procedure in public, kept their doors guarded by police,
and would not listen to the testimony of a Christian. The
police were recruited from among the brigands, and op
pressed the people.
The allies of the sultan demanded that he carry out
the reforms in good faith. Two methods were proposed
to him. The French government made him promise to
"suppress all distinctions between the various Ottoman
nationalities." By giving to all his subjects the same
rights they would be fused into one nation as in France.
The Russian government was opposed to this fusion, and
proposed "a separation of Christian and Mussulman
interests." "The doctrine of the Koran traces an im
passable line between Turks and Christians. Equahty
before the law will never be realized in Turkey (1867)."
The counsel of France was sincere, but impracticable; that
of Russia was practicable, but it led to dismemberment of
the empire and that was what Russia so much desired.
The Turkish empire was protected only by the agree
ment between France and England. The defeat of

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 323
France in 1870 gave Russia liberty to act. She began
by a declaration that the treaty of Paris was annulled,
and sent out a fleet of war-ships on the Black Sea. Then
she stirred up the Christian Slavs of Herzegovina to re
volt against the authority of the sultan.
5. The Eastern Question again arose (1875), apropos
of the Christian Slavs. The sultan had, in 1875, published
edicts which promised hberty and equahty, but none of
the powers had any more faith in his promises. On the
proposal of Austria the great powers declared that the
sultan must reform the taxes and the judiciary, and that
"the carrying out of the reforms must not be left to the
discretion of the pashas." They demanded a "board of
control to be made up of Christians and Mussulmans."
While the mountaineers of Herzegovina, supported by
the Montenegrins, engaged the attention of the Turkish
army, the Slav peasants of Bulgaria tried to declare their
independence. The government turned loose on them
the Bashi-Bazouks, who rushed on the defenceless villages,
destroying them by hundreds, massacring from 20,000
to 40,000 inhabitants, and carrying off 12,000 women into
slavery. The "Bulgarian atrocities" filled all Europe
with indignation (1876). The civilized governments no
longer dared to defend the Turkish empire.
The Turks themselves were divided: the new party,
Young Turkey, under the leadership of Midhat Pasha,
demanded that a chamber composed of representatiyes
of all races and religions be formed. The sultan was de
posed and his nephew Mourad (1876) succeeded him,
but was himself deposed in less than three months. Then
a constitution, drawn up in secret, was promulgated,
December, 1876. It estabhshed a constitutional govern-

324 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
ment, with a senate and an elective chamber. But these
so-called elected deputies had no will but that of the govern
ment. They were surnamed the "Yes, Sirs." It was a
comedy which was played for the benefit of Europe.
"The new institutions," said the Turkish government,
"establish in the empire the reign of liberty, justice,
equality; that is to say, the triumph of civilization." It
concludes, therefore, that Turkey, having reformed her
self, has no need of the intervention of the foreigners.
The European governments agreed to demand a system
of autonomy, giving to the different races the right to
control their own affairs, and certain guarantees against
arbitrary authority. This was the regime proposed by
Russia. The Turkish government declared that the
demand was contrary to the new constitution , and pre
sented it to a grand council (Divan) which rejected it by
236 votes against 1. The ambassadors of the European
states were recalled.
The Ottoman empire was obhged to depend on its
own forces. It had resisted the Montenegrins, and had
just repulsed the Servian army. The czar went to war,
obtained permission to go through Roumania, and in
vaded Turkey (1877). Europe did not interfere, as in
1853. After a fatiguing campaign the Russian army
resumed its march of 1829, and arrived at Adrianople.
As in 1829 the czar imposed his conditions. The sultan
recognized the complete independence of the three Christian
states, allies of Russia, Montenegro, Servia, Roumania,
and ceded bits of territory to them. He gave up all the
Bulgarian countries. A new Bulgarian state was to in
clude Roumelia on the north and south of the Balkans
and Macedonia. Of Turkey in Europe the sultan retained

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 325
only three isolated remnants: Bosnia, Albania, Rou
melia. The European governments found this dismem
berment too complete, too favorable to Russia; they
compelled the czar to agree to a general congress in
order to determine the situation of the Ottoman empire.
The congress of Berlin acknowledged the independence
of the three Christian states, and the cessions which had
been made to them, but reduced the share of Montenegro.
It also cut down the territories in Asia Minor, which had
been ceded to Russia, and declared Batoum a free port.
It maintained the neutrality of the straits and of the
Danube. But it could not accept the Bulgaria of the
treaty. Only the country to the north of the Balkans
formed the principality of Bulgaria, and was to remain a
vassal of the sultan; the Bulgarian country to the south of
the "Balkans became the province of Eastern Roumelia,
the government to be administered by a European com
mission under a governor named by the sultan; the Bul
garians of Macedonia were simply returned to the Turkish
empire. The congress diminished the shares of Russia and her
allies, but it dismembered the empire in favor of the
neutral states. To Greece it granted, on the demand of
France and Italy, the larger part of Thessaly. Austria was
to take care of insurgent Bosnia and of Herzegovina.
England had already obtained permission from the sultan
to occupy the island of Cyprus.
Almost all of European Turkey has been thus torn away
from the sultan. There remain to him only the countries
inhabited by Mussulmans (Albania and the province of
Constantinople), and as regards Christian subjects, only
the Bulgarians of Macedonia and the Greeks of the prov-

/J26 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
ince of Salonica. The dismembered countries have again
become independent states, such as they were before the
conquest in the fifteenth century. The Eastern Question
has been solved in a fashion not foreseen by the diplo
mats, through, the reconstitution of the four nations,
Greece, Servia, Roumania, and Bulgaria (without count
ing Montenegro).
Establishment of the Greek Nation. — The Greek nation,
much exhausted in the Middle Ages, had been reconsti
tuted under Turkish rule. The Greeks had gradually
Hellenized the Slavs and the Albanians who were settled
in Greece. A nation speaking the Greek language had
been formed which occupied almost the same territory as
the ancient Hellas, all the south of Turkey in Europe, from
Thessaly, the archipelago, and the shores of Asia Minor.
During the wars from 1793 to 18 14, the Greek sailors,
sailing under the Turkish flag, with the privilege of re
maining neutral among the hostile nations, built up a
merchant marine which controlled almost all the com
merce of the Mediterranean. They were the carriers to
Europe, too, of Russian wheat from Odessa. In 1816 they
had 600 ships, armed with 6,000 guns and 17,000 sail
ors. Almost all the sailors lived on three rocky, bare,
and sterile islets opposite the coast of Argolis, Hydra,
Spetzai and Psara. They formed three small republics,
which the sultan left free to rule themselves. The in
habitants were armed and accustomed to fight pirates
on the seas. Peace in Europe reduced them to a state of
poverty. In the mountains of Maina (ancient Laconia) and
central Greece bands of irregular militia, the Klephts,
the Pallicares, were accustomed always to go about armed.

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 327
They fought each other like sharpshooters, from behind
rocks, and only obeyed the local chiefs. In Maina each
of these captains had his fortified tower or stronghold.
Thus the Greeks had an army and a navy ready for
combat. At the same time, the wealthy Greek mer
chants sent their sons abroad for study, and the cultivated
Greeks founded academies and colleges. The Greek
language, which had become debased under the Turkish
dominion, was reconstituted. They hoped to reorganize
their state. As early as 1797 a Greek from Thessaly,
Rhigas, had composed a national hymn, an imitation of
the Marseillaise: "Rise, sons of Greece, the glorious day
is nigh."
The revolt began at the same time in Epirus, in the
Morea, and in Roumania. It was soon suppressed in the
north, but the Morea and the islands succeeded in expelling
the Turk. Then began a bloody war which lasted for eight
years (1821-1829). The Greeks lost Thessaly, but were
able to hold the Morea and the islands. It was a war of
ambuscades and sieges. The insurgents had formed three
governments, which were united in a single one. But
the leaders were divided into two parties: on one side
the islanders and the notables of the Morea, on the other
the Klephts. Civil war was the result. In 1826 all Greece
was subdued by the Mussulmans, and the two Greek
parties, who had sought refuge at Patras, had again be
gun to fight among themselves.
The intervention of the European states saved Greece.
At first they proposed to create three petty Greek states,
vassals of the sultan. The exhausted Greeks consented
(their government had only sixteen piastres and no more
powder). The sultan refused.

328 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
In 1829 the victorious czar forced the sultan to grant
complete independence to the Greeks, and Greece was
to estabhsh a kingdom with a European king. But the
diplomats were not willing to make a real power out of it.
They refused to give up Thessaly and Crete. They con
fined it to the poorest part, the territory south of the gulfs
of Arta and Volo. This section, in 1829, was almost a
desert, so fearful was the devastation caused by the wars.
This small kingdom was not rich enough to support
itself. Therefore, the Greeks continually stirred up an
agitation, whose purpose was the annexation of all coun
tries with a Greek population. But the European states
were afraid of weakening the Ottoman empire. Only in
1878, at the Congress of Berlin, did France succeed in ob
taining the annexation of Thessaly to the Greek dominion.
It took three years to put the kingdom in full possession
of the new domain.
In 1833 Greece was organized as an absolute monarchy
with Otto, Prince of Bavaria, as king. In 1842 the
Greeks compelled the king to grant them a constitution.
In 1863 Otto was expelled. Greece has become a con
stitutional monarchy.
Formation of the Servian, Roumanian and Bulgarian
Nations. — The Servian nation gradually and quietly be
came independent. At the beginning of the century the
Servians were still only a peasant people. Some culti
vated fields of maize, others were swine-herds in the
great oak forests. The only notables were the pork-
dealers, and the people who had seen service in the
Austrian army. From 1804 to 1813 the Servians, profit
ing by the conflicts between the janissaries and the Mus
sulman governors, had revolted (first in the name of

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 329
the sultan), under the leadership of a noted pork-merchant,
and formerly a petty officer in the Austrian army, Kara-
george (Black George). They then became independent,
but the Russian government had abandoned them and
the insurgents were obhged to take refuge in Austria.
Another pork-dealer, Miloch Obrenovitch, set up his
authority as a servant of the Turkish government, and
by fighting the insurgents. He obtained permission for
the Servians to keep their arms, and he was charged with
collecting the taxes, and with the appointment of the
Servian judges. * In 1820 he received the title of " Prince
of the Servians of the Pashalik of Belgrade." During
all the wars he remained faithful to the sultan, who re
warded him by making him an hereditary prince (1830),
giving him the Servian districts outside of the pashalik,
and ordering the Turks to evacuate all of Servia but Bel
grade. The Servians had again become an independent
nation. Miloch governed despotically. He had a monop
oly of the commerce in salt and in pork. He forced his
subjects to come and reap his fields. Russia finding him
too powerful, obhged him to estabhsh a senate composed
of noted Servians. Miloch could not endure this control
and finally abdicated in 1839. His sons su ceeded him.
The second son was overthrown in 1842, and the in
surgents chose a son of Karageorge for their prince.
The Obrenowiches returned to power in 1859. Servia re
mained nominally dependent on the sultan until 1878.
The Congress of Berlin declared its sovereignty. In
1882 the prince took the title of King of Servia. The
Roumanians to the north of the Danube were divided into
1 In 1818 Karageorge returned, and called the Servians to arms.
Miloch demanded his head of the host who had received the fugitive, and
sent it to the sultan.

330 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
two principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia. This coun
try was inhabited by Christians; some were peasants, the
others were boyars (proprietors). For a long time they
had had national princes, the hospodars, but since the
seventeenth century the sultan had been sending Greeks
from Constantinople to be hospodars, recalling them at
his pleasure. In 1774 the Russian government an
nounced that it had taken the Roumanians under its
protection, and compelled the sultan to have the hospodars
elected by the boyars (1784), then to fix the tribute that
they owed him (1783), then to let them serve for seven
years (1802). From 1808 to 1812 the Russians occupied
the whole of Roumania. They evacuated it in 181 2, but
kept a portion called Bessarabia. The occupation again
began with the war of 1828 and lasted until 1835. Russia
had all the Turkish fortresses levelled. In 1856 the Con
gress of Paris replaced the protectorate of Russia by a
commission from the European states. It increased the
area of Moldavia by adding a territory to the north of the
Danube, but it refused to unite the two territories into a
single state, notwithstanding the insistence of the Rou
manians, who had the support of Napoleon III.
Each of the two principalities was to have a national
council (Divan) and an elected prince. The Wallachians
waited until the Moldavians had chosen their prince, then
they elected the same one (the Roumanian Couza); then
the two Divans united in one body at Bucharest (1862).
After the abdication of Couza (1866) the single princi
pality of Roumania was formed with a constitutional
government under a foreign prince, Charles of Hohen-
zollern. Independence was declared in 1878 and the
title of kingdom was adopted in 1881.

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 331
The Bulgarians had remained a nation of Slav peasants;
they were Christians, but their priests and bishops were
Greeks, and labored to suppress the Bulgarian tongue.
For a long time the Bulgarians were counted in with the
Greeks. The Russians, when they invaded the country
in 1828, were much astonished to find there a people
speaking the Slav language. This invasion taught the
Bulgarians that they were a nation. They would no
longer obey the Greek clergy. In 1870 they obtained
from the sultan permission to have an independent Bulgar
ian church, separate from the Greek Church of Constan
tinople. The war of 1877 at once freed Bulgaria. The czar
demanded that she be made an independent state. The
Congress of Berlin was less favorable to that project
and cut Bulgaria into three pieces. The district in the
north formed the principality of Bulgaria with a Euro
pean prince and a national assembly, the Sobranje; the
district in the south was organized into the self-governing
province of Roumelia, with the officials named by the sul
tan; Macedonia was returned unconditionally to the empire.
The Bulgarians were not resigned to this arrangement.
The people of Roumelia organized a militia and armed
societies, and in 1885 they united with the principality of
Bulgaria in spite of the remonstrances of the sultan and
of the European powers.
Thus the four Christian nations of Turkey have been
delivered from the Turks — all, except the Servians, with
the aid of Russia, who hoped to rule them; but all, once
free, became independent states.
Egypt. — The domination of the sultan extended even
into Africa. Egypt was the name of one province of the
empire. In fact, it belonged to the chiefs of the Mame-

332 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
lukes, with whom Napoleon made war in 1798. England,
unwilling to have Egypt in the power of France, con
quered it and gave it to the sultan, who sent a Turkish
governor there. An Albanian of the governor's suite,
Mehemet Ali, aided by the ulemas (doctors of theology),
succeeded in having himself appointed Pasha of Cairo;
then he ordered a massacre of the Mamelukes and be
came the absolute master of Egypt. He declared him
self the sole proprietor of the land, the Egyptian peasants
(fellahs) were nothing more than the farmers. He trans
formed the agriculture of the country by introducing the
cultivation of indigo, madder, the mulberry, and especially
cotton. He organized an army on the European system;
the soldiers were native Egyptians (fellahs), the officers
were Turks, some of the superior officers were foreigners,
mostly Frenchmen.
In recompense for the services of Mehemet Ali in lend
ing him troops and a fleet to put down the rebellion in
Greece (1825-1828), the sultan granted to his family
hereditary rights. Henceforth Egypt was independent
of the government at Constantinople, and was governed
by the family of Mehemet Ah. Yet apparently the ruler of
Egypt continued to obey the sultan, who is the chief of
all orthodox Mussulmans. In 1829 the Enghsh govern
ment made a proposal to Mehemet Ali to recognize the
dynasty as independent. Mehemet answered the envoy:
" You are a foreigner and do not know how to think as a
Mussulman. But who gave you the authority to insult
me in my own house ? Do you know what would be the
result for me if such a thing came to pass ? Every Mus
sulman would hold himself aloof from me, even my own
son. The sultan is mad, but God has set him over us,

DISMEMBERMENT OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE 333
to punish us for our sins." In the two campaigns against
the Turkish troops Mehemet ever declared his fidelity to
the sultan. The successors of Mehemet occupied the
same position, they continued to send tribute to the sultan,
and to bear only the title of pasha. One of them, Ismail
Pasha, entered into an agreement with a Frenchman,
M. de Lesseps, in order to make a canal through the
Isthmus of Suez (1856-1866). For a long time there was
a belief that the work would not succeed. At that time
the sultan showed himself well disposed toward Ismail.
He let him change the order of succession (until that time
the oldest relative inherited the sovereignty, which was
according to Turkish usage; now the eldest son was made
the heir). He permitted him to take the title of khedive
(that is to say sovereign), and to send diplomatic agents
to' the European governments. Egypt thus became a
state. In 1869, when the Suez Canal was finished, the
khedive himself, accompanied by his prime minister,
Nubar Pasha, went to Europe to invite the sovereigns to
take part in the inauguration. The Turkish government,
displeased, tried to bring him back into subjection. It
ordered him to deliver up 200,000 guns, to reduce his
army to 30,000 men, to send his budget to Constantinople,
to demand the consent of the sultan when he wished to
make a loan. And the order of the sultan was to be read
in public throughout all Egypt. The English govern
ment sustained these orders; the khedive finally obeyed,
but the order was read in Turkish, so that none of his
subjects understood it. Then he set to work to appease
the sultan. In 1871 he obtained permission to reform
his administration, and also obtained a confirmation of
his privileges.

334 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
He turned to France and England, his two commercial
allies, for help in carrying out these reforms. In 1875
the judiciary was reformed by creating tribunals whose
judges were Europeans, and a commission composed of
Europeans drew up new codes of law. In 1876 a Franco-
English administration was created for the purpose of
guaranteeing the payment of the national debt. After
that time France and England became more powerful in
Egypt than the sultan, and since the withdrawal of
France, England has had full control of affairs in Egypt.

CHAPTER XIV
THE NEW WORLD
The United States. — The government of the United States
was organized in . 1789. The constitution was a com
promise between the two parties — the Federalists, who
wanted a Federal government strong enough to control
the states, and the Republicans, who wanted to give
sovereign power to each state. It was also a compromise
between the Northern states, inhabited by the whites
who cultivated their own lands, and the Southern states,
where the planters owned large estates worked by negro
slaves.1 Each party had made some concessions. The
Federal government was given the power to make war,
peace, and treaties with other powers, to regulate the
coinage and the commerce. All other authority was
vested in the state governments.2
The organization of the Federal government was com
pleted during the presidency of Washington (1 789-1 797).
The Union took in charge aU debts contracted during the
war by the Congress or by the individual states. Thus
a national debt was created. In order to pay the interest
1 It is not correct to say that the Constitution was a compromise be
tween Federalists and Republicans, between Northern and Southern
states. The Constitution was made up of a series of compromises, but
political parties grew rather out of the adoption and interpretation of
the Constitution. — Ed.
2 Powers of the state governments were more circumscribed. See
Constitution, Article I., Section X.; and Article IV. — Ed.
3C5

336 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
and carry on the government a system of duties and ex
cise tax was established. The Bank of the United States
was also founded.
The territory of the United States was still confined to
the area between the Atlantic Ocean and the Alleghany
Mountains and consisted of thirteen states, but some
states possessed wild lands extending to the Mississippi.1
The Federal government regarded these lands as a field
for colonization, destined to be peopled by the citizens of
the Union, and to form new states. It secured possession
of them and became proprietor of all the land between
the states and the Mississippi, which by the Ordinance
of 1787 was organized into a territory, which has been the
model of all territorial establishment in the Union. The
country was divided according to meridian and parallel
lines into a certain number of territories.2 To each terri
tory the Union sent a governor,3 who at first governed
alone, but as soon as there was a population of 5,ooo,4
the territorial legislature was elected, consisting of one
house and a legislative council; a delegate, having the
right of discussion without that of voting, was sent to
represent the territory in Congress. The principle was
to place the inhabitants of the territories as soon as possible
in a position to govern themselves.
Therefore the United States was not confined to fixed

1 New York ceded her claims to Western lands in 1781; Virginia gave
up her claim to lands north of the Ohio River in 1784; Massachusetts
in 1785. Connecticut ceded her claims to Congress in 1786, reserving
a strip of land along the southern shore of Lake Erie, known as the
Western Reserve. — Ed.
a Division into townships according to the rectangular survey is meant.
—Ed.
8 The Ordinance of 1787 provided for a governor appointed by Con
gress. — Ed.
! Five thousand free male inhabitants twenty-one years of age.-^ED

THE NEW WORLD 33?
boundaries, and could expand indefinitely. The country
extending from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi began
to be settled between 1787 and 1820.
Beyond the Mississippi was a waste of land which was
a- dependency of Louisiana. France had ceded it to
Spain in 1763. Napoleon I. secured possession of it for
the establishment of a great French colony. The Repub
lican party, which came into power in 1800, did not desire
to increase the territory of the United States. It believed
that the repubhc could not last in a large state,1 and feared
to increase the power of the Federal government.
But it was necessary, above all, to avoid the neighbor
hood of so redoubtable a power as France. England had
just declared war and Napoleon, feeling that he could not
defend this new acquisition from the attacks of his power
ful enemy, offered to sell the territory to the United States.
The government decided to buy Louisiana (1803). The
limits of the Union were carried to the Rocky Mountains,
and the land thus annexed was soon settled and divided
into territories. The United States, then, was bounded on
the south and west by Mexico, which owned immense
stretches of waste lands. Adventurers coming from the
United States settled in Texas, proclaimed the inde
pendence of the country, and organized the Republic of
Texas (1835), which they succeeded in having admitted
to the Union in 1846.2 The government of Mexico pro
tested, and this was a pretext for declaring war.3 The
victorious American army entered Mexico, and forced the
1 This was the doctrine of Montesquieu.
2 Texas was admitted as a State in December, 1845. — Ed.
' Other pretexts were: the disputed boundary line between Texas and
Mexico; and claims against Mexico for outrages against the persons and
property of American citizens. — Ed.

338 CONTEMPORARY CTvlLlZATlON
Mexican government to cede to the United States all the
land between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific
Ocean (1848). l The territory of the United States then
extended over all the territory from one ocean to the other.2
During this epoch the country had grown rich and
populous. The duties on imported goods brought an
ever-increasing revenue to the government. Not only
was the interest paid on the national debt, but the debt
itself was nearly all paid. Then came a time when the
treasury received more money than it could use. It was
not considered practicable to do away with the customs,
as the duty was a protection to American industry. The
Federal government proposed to use the surplus in works
of pubhc utility. Permission was granted to build a
great highway from the Ohio River to the west, and to
make the Erie Canal, which joined Lake Erie with the
Ocean.3 This system, which employed the revenue
duties as a means of protection to the industries, and as a
resource serving for pubhc works, has remained in force
in the United States and is called the American system.
During the War of Secession (1860-1865) it was again
necessary to establish an income tax, to increase the duties,
and to issue paper money. Even these resources did not
suffice to cover the enormous expenses of the war. The
Federal government had to borrow money. The debt,
which in i860 had gone down to $90,000,000, increased
1 Fifteen million dollars was paid Mexico for New Mexico and Cali
fornia. ! Territory known as the Gadsden purchase was acquired in 1853.
Alaska was added in 1867; Hawaiian Islands in 1898; Porto Rico and
the Philippines in 1898; and Tutuila and other Samoan islands in 1899.
—Ed. 3 The Cumberland Road is *iere meant. The Erie Canal was built
by the State of Ne™ York. — Ed.

THE NEW WORLD 339
to $2,800,000,000. But the war once ended, payment of
the debt was begun, and in 1878 the forced circulation of
paper money was abolished.1
Ever since the foundation of the Union the population
has increased more rapidly than that of any other country
in the world. The land was open to whoever wanted to
occupy it. The Americans, accustomed from childhood
to the idea of going afar, departed for the distant West.
The most adventurous went hunting in the territories that
were still occupied by the Indians : the others built them
selves cabins of wood and became farmers.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century these colo
nists were almost all Americans. But the European
countries, when the inhabitants began to feel the crowd
ing together in certain districts or towns, started pouring
into the United States a portion of their surplus population.
The means of transportation had been perfected, and a
service of steamships was organized for more rapid passage.
The voyage from England to America lasted only about
ten days.2
In 1820 hardly more than 20,000 immigrants arrived
in a year in the United States; in 1842 the number had
already passed 100,000. In 1847 the State of New York
organized an emigrant commission, in order to encourage
emigration from Europe and to aid the immigrants on
their arrival. There were then 235,000 immigrants a
year. In 1850 there were 300,000, in 1882 780,000 ar-
1 By an act of 1875, Congress decided that it would resume specie
payments, January 1, 1879, by redeeming, in gold, all of the United
States notes that might be presented for redemption. The amount was
reduced to $346,681,016 and Congress forbade any further reduction.
—Ed.
' Prior to i860, twelve days was the shortest time in which steamships
crossed the Atlantic. — Ed.

340 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
rived.1 In sixty years, from 1821 to 1881, 11,200,000 im
migrants settled in the United States, among them 3,500,-
000 Germans, 6,000,000 Irish, and 2,000,000 English.
The immigrants came especially from the northern
countries2 that were poorer or more thickly populated —
Germans, Norwegians, Irish, English. The Irish fled
from misery. In the years of the great famine brought on
by disease in the potato (1847-1853), Ireland lost nearly
3,000,000 inhabitants.
Thanks to this emigration the United States was settled
with a rapidity without a parallel in the history of the
world. In 1820 there were only 5,000,000 inhabitants.
Seventy years after, in 1890, there were 63,000,000. In
1820 the Far West, the country west of the Mississippi,
was still a wildernesss overrun by pillaging Indians.
To-day the Indians are destroyed or driven back into some
of the territories; the whites have taken possession of the
whole country extending from ocean to ocean. In the
new countries European civilization has been all at once
introduced. The striking characteristic of American
colonization is that it proceeds in an inverse order from
the old countries of Europe. Through an absolutely
wild region a railway was constructed. (The line of the
Union Pacific Railroad, was opened in 1869. It crossed
in half of its course only vast prairies and solitary moun
tains. In the first years it was necessary to guard the
trains from the attacks of the Indians of the prairies.)
On the passage of the railway each station became a
town, telegraph and printing offices were installed, and
newspapers were published before even the houses were
1 The number in 1905 was over 1,000,000. — Ed.
! During recent years the majority of the immigrants have come from
the nations in Southern Europe. — Ed.

THE NEW WORLD 341
finished. San Francisco, which did not exist in 1846, had
250,000 inhabitants in 1880.1 The country was not settled
until some time after the towns were built. The agricul
turists of America do not at all resemble our peasants.
They use machines and exploit their lands after the
fashion of a great factory. As the land had no value,
the state, which had taken possession of it, sold it in large
lots at a low price, often at the rate of one dollar an acre.2
In France, where an acre is worth from two hundred to
four hundred dollars, a property of one hundred acres is
regarded as a large estate. In the United States such
domains often include thousands of acres.
A few figures will serve to show the material progress
of the United States. In 1790 there were in the whole
Union only four cities of more than 10,000 souls; the largest,
Philadelphia, had 42,000,' and the population of the towns
formed three per cent, of the whole population. In 1880
there were 963 towns. More than thirty4 of these had
more than 100,000 inhabitants; New York had 6oo,ooo,5
and the population of the towns made up twenty-five per
cent. In 1790 the foreign commerce was valued at $23,000,-
000 exports, and $20,000,000 imports. In 1880 the im
ports were $650,000,000, the exports $700,000,000.

1 It should be noted that the development of San Francisco has been
due to the discovery of gold in California. The population of this city
in 1900 was 342,782. — Ed.
' The general government controlled the public lands and sold them
to the settlers. — Ed.
" There were five cities, in 1790, having a population of over 10,000.
These were: Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Charleston and Balti
more. — Ed.
4 In 1900, there were thirty-eight cities each with a population ex
ceeding 100,000. — Ed.
* The population of New York City in 1900 was 3,437,200. — Ed,

342 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
The Spanish Republics of America. — The Spanish
government had continued, from the sixteenth century,
to treat its colonies as domains, and to have them governed
by Spaniards. The Creoles, that is, the people born in
the colonies, were set aside from all functions and com-
merical relations. They were forbidden to buy mer
chandise from any but Spanish traders. When Spain
was invaded by a French army in 1808 the Creoles re
solved to side, as did the European Spaniards, with
Ferdinand VII.; and refused to recognize as king the
French usurper, Joseph Bonaparte. But they profited
by the opportunity to demand reforms. About 1808 the
inhabitants of Caracas, in Venezuela, published their
manifesto. They demanded equal rights for the Creoles,
that they should be given the liberty to cultivate lands,
to manufacture, to import, and to export, as did the
Spaniards; that one-half of the offices in the colonies
should be reserved for them; that there should be, in each
capital of the vice-royalty, a representative assembly
(junta) to control the government.
The Spanish governors in the colonies refused their con
sent, the colonies revolted and organized repubhcs after
the fashion of the United States.
The war was long, the insurgents ill-equipped and ill-
disciplined. After the restoration of Ferdinand to the
throne of Spain they were conquered, and almost com
pletely subdued in 1816. But the revolution in Spain
(1820-1823) restored their courage. One by one all the
colonies finally forced the King of Spain to grant them
independence. (Spain kept only Cuba, Porto Rico and
the Philippines.)
The enfranchised colonies sought at first to group them-

THE NEW WORLD 343
selves into confederations, as the English colonies had
done, but the inhabitants, of whom a majority were
Indians or of mixed blood, had had no experience in
governing; more than that, from province to province
they detested each other.
During the term of Spanish rule there had been five
vice-royalties: Mexico in Mexico, Lima in Peru, Santa F6
in Colombia, Buenos Ayres in Argentina, and three cap
taincies general: Guatemala in Central America, Caracas
in Venezuela, and Valparaiso in Chile. The states founded
after the insurrection corresponded almost exactly to the
seven Spanish provinces. However, Paraguay, chiefly in
habited by Indians, whom the Jesuits had organized, had
formed an independent state. Venezuela had been
added to the vice-royalty of Sante Fe' in order to form the
Republic of Colombia, under the presidency of General
Bolivar, who was also governor of Peru, and of a state
created by him and called Bolivia.1
But most of the states were in pieces, the inhabitants
of the distant regions would not obey those of the capital,
Uruguay separated from Buenos Ayres and established
the Eastern Repubhc of Uruguay (1828). Peru and
Bolivia revolted against the power of Bolivar and formed
two separate republics. The United States of Colombia
was broken up into three parts: New Grenada, Venezuela,
and Ecuador. Central America revolted, first agamst
Mexico (1823) in order to organize the United States of
Central America, then the five states which composed this
confederation, after a long contest, finally separated in
1847. 1 Bolivar even tried to unite in one confederation all the states of
Spanish America. He called a general Congress at Panama. But the
only delegates were from the countries which he ruled and from Mexico.

344 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
There are to-day fifteen Hispano-American Republics.
The new states had passed through a long series of
revolutions and civil wars before they arrived at the point
of becoming an organized government. The country was
almost a wilderness, the Spaniards had come there only
in search of wealth, or to lead the life of great lords, with
out doing any work, so there was hardly anything but
provincial capitals and the residences of large proprietors,
separated by immense desert wastes. There was no
manufacturing and very little cultivation of the soil. A
large part of the population was composed of Indians,
negroes, almost savage mestizos, and all miserable and
totally ignorant. The whites themselves were hardly civil
ized. They had been rendered more savage by the
ferocious war against the Spaniards.
Almost everywhere there were two parties. The Con
servatives, who had on their side the large proprietors
and the clergy, wanted to reserve the offices for the men
of the great families, to establish limited suffrage, to main
tain Catholicism as the state religion, leaving to the clergy
their domains, tribunals, and privileges, and withholding
these from all other faiths to preserve the censorship and
to keep away the foreigner. The Liberals, or Progress-
ivists, which were recruited chiefly from the commercial
classes and the half-breeds, demanded the abolition of
slavery, universal suffrage, religious liberty, the con
fiscation of church property held by the clergy, and
favored the immigration of foreigners.1
They were also divided into Centralists and Federalists.
The Centralists wanted, in imitation of European coun-
1 In certain countries the parties were designated by surnames. In
Mexico, the Conservatives were called Escoseses; in Chile Pelucones
(Perukes). The Liberals in Mexico were called Yorkinos.

THE NEW WORLD 345
tries, to have a single government estabhshed at the cap
ital, which should send out prefects to administer justice
in the provinces. The Federalists wanted a regime
copied after that of the United States, the provinces organ-
bad as almost sovereign states, bound together by a
Federal government.
In general, the Conservatives have been Centralists
and the Liberals have been Federalists, save in the prov
inces of Central America.
But the struggles of the parties served chiefly as a pre
text for personal quarrels and the conflicts of rival cities.
The large majority of the inhabitants, Indians, negroes,
mestizos, wholly incapable of comprehending any pohtical
questions, could be attached to only the party leaders.
Now the war had left many ambitious leaders without an
occupation, and they had acquired the habit of forming
armies, enrolling by force the inhabitants. They lacked
the elements required to carry on pohtical contests, but
those necessary for civil wars were not wanting. To the
civil wars were added wars with neighboring states for
the settlement of their frontiers.
Therefore, for more than half a century to be at war
has been the habitual condition of the Spanish republics.
But it would be unjust to say, as is often done, that these
states are incapable of governing themselves, because
they have in the nineteenth century served the apprentice
ship to pohtical hberty which the European countries
served in past centuries.1 Their apprenticeship has been
neither so long nor so bloody as was that of England or of
France; it has even been less so.
1 It is remarkable that the states which have made the least progress,
Paraguay, Ecuador, and Bolivia, are those which have been least dis
turbed by civil wars.

346 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Since 1870 the civil wars have been less frequent, and
the wars between the several states have almost ceased.
Nearly everywhere the Progressivists have triumphed
over the Conservatives, and the Federalists over the Pro
gressivists. Almost all the states have been organized
into a Union, with a Congress composed of two houses,
and a president elected for a term of several years, as in
the states of North America. All have freed the negroes,
nearly all have estabhshed universal suffrage and freedom
in public worship. All have been opened to immigration
from Europe, and Europeans have been called on to
exploit the lands and the mines.
Emigration has been especially active in the last twenty
years. The current has turned chiefly in the direction of
Argentina, which has a cooler and healthier climate, for
Europeans. More than 100,000 immigrants are landed
yearly at Buenos Ayres. They nearly all come from the
Latin countries — Italy, France (the Basque country), and
Spain. They settle on those vast plains (pampas), where
are raised enormous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep.
The soil, formed of a thick layer of the decaying grasses,
needs no enriching in order to make it produce large
harvests of grain. The colonist has only to plow and
sow, he does not need to use any fertilizers, and when the
time of harvest arrives the contractors, who go about the
country with their machines, take charge of the reaping
and threshing of the wheat.
The other Spanish republics, situated in the warmer
climates, attract fewer immigrants, but European capital
is drawn there and serves to build the railways, to open
mines, and to settle plantations.
According as the population has increased the produc-

THE NEW WORLD 347
tion has grown in volume. It is almost entirely agricultural
and mineral — wheat, leather, meats, tropical products
(coffee, cacao, tobacco, cotton, cinchona), metals and
guano. These articles are brought to the seaports from
which they are sent to Europe. Europe furnishes in ex
change almost all the manufactured articles, for home
industry is still insufficient for the consumption.
With wealth, there has come order in the public finances.
Until recent years the Spanish Republics (except Chile)
always had a deficit in the budget and could not usually
pay the interest on their debt; therefore they had no credit
in Europe. To-day confidence has returned and the states
which need money find that they can borrow it in Europe.
The Spanish states of South America begin to enter
the path of industry and of material prosperity where the
English states of North America have preceded them.
Brazil. — The only country in South America which did
not belong to the Spaniards, Brazil, became an independent
state, at about the same time as the Spanish colonies, but
with much less effort. At the period of the French in
vasion (1808) the royal family of Portugal had withdrawn
to Brazil (the most important Portuguese colony). It
remained there even after the departure of the French.
The Portuguese were not content to be governed by a
sovereign who lived in America, and finally revolted
(1820). The king resigned to return to Lisbon, leaving
his son Pedro to act as regent in Brazil.
The Cortes of Portugal soon wanted to compel Pedro
to return. He convoked a National Constituent Assembly,
which declared Brazil independent, and proclaimed the
regent Emperor of Brazil (1822). The Portuguese fleet
was sent away.

348 CONTEMPORARY CD7ILIZATION
Brazil, raised to the dignity of an independent monarchy,
was organized after the constitutional monarchy of France
and England, with a Lower House elected by restricted
suffrage, a Senate composed of the large landed proprietors,
and a ministry chosen by the emperor.
The difficulties to be encountered were the same as
those found in the Spanish repubhcs : a country too vast,
a population chiefly composed of Indians, negroes, and
mestizos, ignorant and without political experience.
Brazil was not exempt from civil wars. The govern
ment had to repress the revolts of the Republican party
at Pernambuco and at Para, and also the revolts of the
southern provinces. These wars were almost always as
bloody and as long as those in the Republic of Argentina.
Gradually manners grew more civilized, and since 1863
these conflicts have ceased.
The struggle between Liberals and Conservatives has
continued. In 1880 the Constitution was revised, the
Moderate Liberals came into power, and the privileges of
the clergy were suppressed. In 1889 the Republican
party suddenly overthrew the Imperial government and
transformed Brazil into a republic.
Brazil possesses an immense territory, the whole basin
of the Amazon River, and the sea-coast from Guiana
down to Uruguay. The larger part is inhabitable for Euro
peans. It is a great wilderness of marshy, forest covered
lands, overrun by savage tribes. The only part now
settled is that which extends along the coast of the Atlantic
on the east. To the north is a tropical region, a country
of large plantations for the cultivation of coffee and to
bacco. The work is done chiefly by negroes. To the
south the climate is more temperate, like that of the Re-

THE NEW WORLD 349
public of Argentina, and the region is suited to receive
European colonists. Emigration has turned in that
direction. The Abolition of Slavery in America. — All the European
nations which had colonies in America had introduced
negroes, which had been purchased in Africa, for the culti
vation of the large plantations of coffee, sugar-cane, and
cotton.1 Slavery was; therefore, an institution common
to all the American colonies, which were situated in the
warm regions of the continent. It was conceded that none
but blacks could labor on the plantations and they only
as slaves.
The first protest agamst slavery came from France
during the Revolution. The Constituent Assembly had
declared the freedom of the blacks without being willing
to accord any indemnity to the slave-owners. The negroes
revolted, and those in Hayti massacred the white planters.
Napoleon restored slavery, without which, it was said,
the colonies could not exist. All the other states had pre
served it. Some, through humanity, had suppressed the
slave trade. The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, decided
to prohibit it through an agreement among all the civilized
nations. France and England sent cruisers along the
African coast in order to seize the slave ships. The sailors
of these ships were to be treated as pirates and hung.
But in America the negroes remained slaves, they and
their families. They continued to be sold and the law
obliged private individuals to return fugitive slaves to
their masters. For thirty years there was an agitation
in Europe, aroused either through democratic sentiment
1 There was little cotton raised in America before the invention of the
cotton-gin in 1794. Tobacco was one of the chief products.

350 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
or through a feeling of Christian charity, for the purpose of
securing the abolition of slavery. Sweden abohshed
it in 1847; France in 1848; the other states followed their
example.1 In the United States this abolition was complicated by
a civil war. When the colonies had been gathered into
one nation, in 1789, the Southern states, inhabited by
planters, had exacted that the Constitution should guar
antee to them the security of their "peculiar institution,"
as they called slavery. They did not dare, after the declar
ation of 1776, which had proclaimed the natural right of
man to liberty, to employ the word slave, so it was replaced
by a circumlocution: "person held for labor or for service."
They were not willing to abohsh the slave-trade, which
continued until 1808. The American statesmen at that
time counted upon the disappearance of slavery through
the gradual extinction of the negro families. But in 1793
Whitney invented a machine to gin cotton, with which a
good worker could clean 350 pounds a day. The produc
tion of cotton became more lucrative. The states in the
extreme south (Georgia and the Carolinas), where there
were large plantations of cotton, needed a great many
negroes. The neighboring states, Maryland and Vir
ginia, whose climate was not warm enough for cotton
raising, began to raise negroes to be sold to the cotton
planters. The number of slaves, instead of diminishing,
went on increasing. From 700,000 in 1790 the number
in 1820 amounted to 1,500,000.
In the Northern states the slaves gradually disappeared
(a few were still there as late as 1840). Thus the North
became the land of liberty, where slavery was finally
¦Great Britain abolished slavery in 1833. — Ed.

THE NEW WORLD 351
abolished. In Louisiana slavery had existed even under
French rule. But when the colonization extended beyond
the Mississippi the question of slavery came up for solution.
The territory of Missouri, settled by slave-owners, de
manded admission as a state. The House of Representa
tives wanted to insert the condition that slavery should
be forbidden there; the Senate refused. At last came the
Missouri Compromise. Missouri was admitted as a
state (1820) and it was decided that slavery should be for
bidden in the new territories north of the parallel 360 30'.
The Union was divided into two geographical divisions —
the free North, and the slave South.
The population in the South was less in numbers, but
the Southerners, took care that there should always be an
equal number of free and slave states, each state having
two senators. The South did not risk falling into the
minority. The representatives from the South, acting
in common to maintain slavery, faced a divided North.
The Democrats in the North sustained them in return for
their support in other matters. All worked in concert
to stifle the question of slavery.
But toward 1833 some individuals began to be indignant
and to demand in the name of the Christian religion and
of humanity that slavery should be abohshed. They
formed a society for the abolition of slavery, which pub
lished documents, held conferences, and sought to found
negro schools. These societies increased in the towns,
especially among the Quakers. The governments perse
cuted them at first as enemies of the law. But as the
number of immigrants increased the Abolitionist party
grew larger, for these people were not accustomed to
slavery in Europe.

352 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
California was admitted into the Union, and this placed
the slave states in the minority. But in exchange the
anti-abolitionists had secured the passage of a law which
compelled every inhabitant of the United States to deliver
up fugitive slaves to their masters (1850).
The Abolitionists profited by the growing indignation
against slave traders and hunters. Ministers especially
began to preach against slavery as contrary to humanity
and religion. Then appeared "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
where, in the guise of a romance, Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Stowe described the miserable condition of the negroes
and the demoralization produced by slavery in both
master and slave. The book had a rapid and brilliant
success. A new party was formed (1854) in the Northern
states. It took the name Republican, and openly at
tacked slavery. In i860 this party, owing to a division
in the Democratic party, was able to elect its candidate,
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.
The Southern states were not resigned to the loss of a
power which had been theirs ever since the organization of
the Union. They decided to withdraw from the Union
and to form a confederation of their own. War was de
clared. At first it was only a question of constitutional
rights — the government only wanted to force the Southern
states to return to the Union. The abolition of slavery
was not even spoken of. But the war forced the settlement
of the question. At first the negroes, who had been taken
prisoners, were set free. Then the president declared that
all negroes1 should be free on and after January 1, 1863.
Finally slavery was abolished by act of Congress in 1865.2
1 In those states in rebellion. — Ed.
2 The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which became a
part of the Constitution, December, 1865, abolished slavery. — Ed.

THE NEW WORLD 353
Later Congress decided that the negroes should have the
same political rights as the white citizens.1
Slavery no longer existed except in one Christian
state, Brazil. The emperor began by freeing all newly-
born negroes; then all the others were given their free
dom. The Monroe Doctrine. — When the Spanish colonies be
came independent states the United States was the first
government to recognize them. The great European
powers which belonged to the Holy Alliance proposed
intervention in America in order to combat the ideas of
the revolting Spanish republics.
The statesmen of the Union had set forth the principle
that no European state was to mingle in the affairs of the
American states.
The President of the United States, Monroe, agreeing
with the English government, profited by a negotiation
with Russia to make the declaration of 1823. It is there
declared: "that the American continents, in relation to
the independent situation which they have taken and
maintained, should not be regarded henceforth as a
territory for colonization by any European power. We
have never," added the president, "taken part in the wars
of the European powers; this would be irreconcilable
with our policy. But we would regard every attempt on
their part, to extend their power in any portion whatever
of this hemisphere, as a menace to our peace and sej
eurity." This was called the Monroe doctrine, and thus was
formulated the doctrine: "America for the Americans."
The Europeans have no possessions in America, except
1 The Fourteenth Amendment. AA

354 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Canada, the Guianas, and the Islands of the Antilles.
Through all the remainder of the two American conti
nents, the descendants of the colonists who had come
from Europe form to-day independent peoples.

CHAPTER XV
THE EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE
France in Africa. — France had, in the eighteenth cen
tury, lost almost all her colonial settlements. Nothing
remained to her but the Island of Reunion, St. Louis and
Gorea in Africa, several small islands of the Antilles, two
islets, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Guiana in America,
and the five trading-stations in India, which the English
had left in their hands. Napoleon, who greatly desired that
France should occupy the position of a great colonial
power, was prevented in his efforts by the contest with
England. The Restoration did not concern jtself with
colonial affairs. But since 1830 all of the French govern
ments have labored to build up a colonial empire. In
Oceania they have occupied New Caledonia, the islands
of Tahiti, and several adjacent archipelagoes, and in
Asia a large part of Indo-China.1 Africa, especially, has
been the object of the colonization schemes of France.
In 1815 she had then only a few widely scattered settle
ments: Saint Louis, the Island of Gorea, and some sta
tions along the Gaboon, on the west coast, and Reunion
Island on the east coast. She has acquired three vast
territories in it : Algeria and Tunis on the northern coast,
Senegal and the Soudan, the Congo, and the Gaboon
1 France has not considered the establishment of colonies in America,
since the old English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies have been con
stituted independent states, and since they have declared that America
was not the soil for colonization by Europeans.
355

356 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
country on the western coast, and the large island of
Madagascar. The occupation began in the north, in Algeria. The
country had been inhabited by three different races, one
after the other. The Kabyles, descendants of the ancient
inhabitants of Africa in the Roman times, had become
Mussulman, but had preserved their ancient language1
and customs. They were peasants, settled on the lands
which they tilled, but they were warlike peasants, who
bore arms and dwelt in the fortified towns on the summits
of the mountains. They were especially numerous in
the fastnesses of the Atlas range.
The Arabs, coming from Egypt in the eleventh century,
had remained a race of nomadic shepherds, living in tents.
They were divided into tribes, which obeyed chiefs called
"sheiks." They, too, went armed, and there was con
tinual war between the tribes over the thefts of flocks which
went on among them. The Arabs generally occupied the
plains in front of and the table-lands behind the Atlas
Mountains. The Turks, who had come in the sixteenth century, did
not form a nation. They were soldiers and pirates, and
settled in the towns, especially along the sea-coast. Their
chiefs bore Turkish titles (bey and dey),and were supposed
to govern in the name of the Sultan of Constantinople. In
fact, they reigned like sovereigns, but they could not com
pel either Kabyles or Arabs to obedience.
Besides these three war-like peoples there was a peace
able and industrious population in the towns. These were
Jews, and mestizos of every race, which were called
Moors. Neither Jews nor Moors were warlike.
1 The people who speak that tongue are called Berbers.

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 357
France conquered successively the three warlike races:
the Turks between 1830 and 1836 (the last episode was
the taking of Constantine), the Arabs between 1837 and
1847 (the resistance was led by the Emir Abd-el-Kader,
whom the French government had strengthened by
officially recognizing him as chief of the Arabs), the
Kabyles between 1844 and 187 1 (the conflict was ended
in 1852, and after that time there were only insurrections).
These twenty years of combats put France in possession
of a territory of 300,000 square kilometres, not including
100,000 square kilometres in the desert of Sahara. Among
the former Kabyle and Arab races European colonists
had settled They numbered in 1881 a population of
420,000 souls. Half of them, at least, were French, or
descendants of the French, who had almost all come from
the south. Some were naturalized foreigners 1 the others
were Italians, Spaniards and Maltese. (To this must be
added 50,000 Algerian Jews, who had been dj:lared
French in 1870.) The natives numbered 3, 260,0c/ souls.
The country has been divided into two parts. T\J region
where the colonists have settled forms the civil ierritory,
divided into three departments, organized as in France,
and with the same kind of functionaries. The inhabitants
elect deputies to the Chamber and to the Senate. The
majority of the natives live within this civil territory also,
but they have preserved their own religion and laws of
their tribal chiefs, and are not French citizens.
The part of the country inhabited by natives only, espe
cially the region of the Sahara, forms a military depart
ment, which has continued the military organization.
1 After 1870 an effort was made to establish Alsatian colonies in Al
geria. It was unsuccessful.

358 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
The French officers being at the same time in military
command and civil administrators, they dispense justice
and keep order among the natives.
The colonists have acquired a large part of the fertile
lands, confiscated or bought from the natives, and have
put them in cultivation. The Kabyles, who were already
agriculturalists, have increased their production. Al
geria has, above all, a fine soil for grain. In 1887 almost .
15,000,000 quintals of wheat and barley were harvested
in that region. It also produces the fruits native to the
tropics. In 1887 it supplied to the market 160,000
hectolitres of olive oil. The orange, date-palm, and sugar
cane are also cultivated.
During the last few years three new sources of revenue
have been opened. On the coast, vegetables are raised
for u\e French markets. They ripen much earlier there
tharrjdo those in France. On the interior plateaux a
wilcillant, alfa, is raised for the purpose of making
papipl- In 1887 2,200,000 quintals were sent to market.
In ti A4 termediate region grapes in abundance are raised.
In i8t \ 70,000 hectares were in bearing vineyards, and
in 1888 *here were 88,000 hectares; 1,569,000 hectolitres
of wine were made in 1886, and in 1888, 2,728,000 hecto
litres. In 1887 the commerce of Algeria included 211,000,000
francs imports, and 186,000,000 francs exports. It is
estimated that from 1830 to 1888 Algeria had cost France
5,000,000,000 francs and brought in only 1,250,000,000
francs. But we must take into account that 3,400,000,000
francs were absorbed in military expeditions. From this
time the receipts increase more rapidly than the expendi
tures, arid the value of property in Algeria is estimated at

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 359
more than 3,000,000,000 francs. On both sides of Al
geria independent Mussulman states had remained.
Morocco on the west and Tunis on the east. France did
not try to occupy Morocco, even after her victory over the
sultan, who had been an ally of Abd-el-Kader in 1844.
In regard to Tunis, she was content to force the bey to
give up piracy in the Mediterranean.
The Bey of Tunis had tried to introduce European cus
toms into his country. He had only succeeded in getting
some French engineers to build some public works, and
in borrowing money from Europe, which led him into
bankruptcy in 1869. Tunis was left in such disorder that
her resources could not be utilized.
In 1881 the French government took advantage of a
violation of the Algerian boundary lines, and sent a small
army into Tunis. The bey without opposition agreed to
put his territory under French protection. He has kept
his title, his palace, and his revenues. France took it
upon herself to make all the reforms in the administration,
judiciary and finances. She was given the right to place
garrisons wherever they were thought to be necessary, and
she took entire charge of the foreign relations. A special
administration composed of Frenchmen was created.
They reorganized the finances in a few years, lessening
the taxes, and reducing the expenses.
The natives have retained their laws, usages, and pos
sessions. But the security established by a systematic
administration has drawn many Europeans to the country,
who began to settle there, not only for the purpose of trade,
but to exploit the soil. There are now in Tunis 40,000
Europeans, of whom 15,000 are French.
Tunis contains from 130,000 to 150,000 square kilo-

360 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
metres (one-fourth the size of France). It is more fertile
than Algeria. Formerly it was considered the granary
of Rome, and now vineyards have been planted which
produce abundantly. The commerce, which in 1880,
only amounted to 12,000,000 francs of imports, and 11,000,-
000 francs of exports, had reached, in 1888, the sum of
31,000,000 francs of imports and 19,000,000 francs of
exports. This occupation has cost France about 300,000,000
francs, and the expense of the protectorate diminishes
yearly. France, mistress of Algeria and Tunis, rules in northern
Africa. On the west coast until 1854 France had only the trad-
ing-pOsts of Saint-Louis, and the island of Gorea, where
some French merchants, protected by French troops,
carried on a commerce with the natives. The country to
the north of the Senegal belonged to a warlike race of
Mussulmans, the Toucouleurs,1 who exacted tribute
from the vessels which navigated that stream. The coun
try to the south of the Senegal was inhabited by pagan
negroes, who were governed by kings of their own race.
Since 1854, the French governors have labored to
bring about a recognition of French authority on both
shores of the Senegal. With the negro kings on the south
bank they proceeded in a peaceful manner; by presents
and by military demonstrations they have obtained suc
cessive treaties which have given to France the right- to
trade, and to establish military posts throughout the
region, not only on the shores of the Senegal, but in the
country of the "southern rivers."
1 A mixed race of Mestizos, and negroes, or Moors. — Ed.

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 361
It was necessary to use force with the Toucouleurs on the
northern bank. The French troops advanced along the
river, building small fortresses as they progressed. Around
these gathered the peaceable population. The Tou
couleurs have come and attacked these fortresses, but have
always been repulsed, and their empire has crumbled
away. These wars have been carried on by the garrisons,
and by expeditionary corps composed of a few hundreds
of soldiers. Only a part of these corps was made up of
Frenchmen, the other was composed of natives commanded
by French officers.
Arriving at the headwaters of the Senegal the French
followed the caravan route to the Upper Niger, and have
thus reached the Soudan.
The Soudan is an immense region, which occupies all
of central Africa from the Upper Niger to the Upper Nile.
A large part of it is a wilderness and probably sterile.
But in spite of the continual wars, which destroy the vil
lages and of the expeditions of the slave merchants which
carry off the inhabitants, there still remains in the Soudan
a population sufficiently large to constitute an important
market. The Europeans ha ve" sought to penetrate this
wilderness in order to find an outlet for their merchandise,
especially woven stuffs and hardware, which they exchange
for the produce of the country, ivory, gold-dust, gums,
and ^cereals. In order to reach the Soudan the French
had the choice of two routes, that by way of Algiers, which
crosses the Sahara and ends at Timbuctoo, or that of
the Senegal which descends along the Niger. Two rail
way lines have been projected, the Trans-Saharan which
starts from Algiers and the Niger railway which unites
the Niger with the Senegal. After the massacre of the

362 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Flatters mission which was sent into the Sahara (1888),
the Trans-Saharan fine was abandoned. The work has
been begun at Senegal and 264 kilometres have been
built, but the operation has been much more costly than
was anticipated.
In all the countries with which treaties have been made,
France has estabhshed military posts, with small garrisons.
This fine of posts has been completed to the sources of
the Senegal. In 1883, Bamakon on the Niger was occu
pied, and the descent of that stream was begun.
There are very few French in Senegal, the climate is
too warm. But the natives have soon grown accustomed
to considering themselves French subjects, and the com
merce of the country has grown rapidly. It amounts to
about 40,000,000 francs a year.1
To the south of the equator a small French trading-
post at the entrance of the Gaboon has served as a point
of departure for expeditions which have gone up the
Ogooue- (1873-1878), ending at last in the Congo. Sa-
vorgnan de Brazza has, in the name of France, taken
possession of a territory 670,000 square kilometres in
extent, whose limits were fixed by the Congress of Berlin
in 1 885-1 886. This region, larger than France, is as yet
peopled only with the native races. , But the climate is
less unhealthy than that of Senegal, and some settle
ments have already been made, one at the source of the
Ogooue", the other on the right bank of the Congo, at
Brazzaville (opposite Leopoldville, chief city of the Congo
Free State, founded on the other side of the river by
Stanley, at the expense of the King of Belgium).
1 The French settlements on the Guinea coast are only small trading-
posts. They had even been abandoned by the government, because
they were unhealthy and too costly.

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 363
On the east coast of Africa France had tried during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to get possession
of the large island of Madagascar; she had given it up
and retained only the small islands and Reunion Island,
which had formerly been very rich owing to the large plan
tations of coffee and sugar-cane. To-day it is half ruined,
because of the exhaustion of the soil. She tried to exercise
an influence over the nation of the Hovas, who have
founded a sort of mihtary empire in Madagascar. Many
treaties in regard to a protectorate were concluded, but
the teachings of the Enghsh missionaries, who have
converted the Hovas kings to Christianity, have from the
first outweighed the French influence. The French gov
ernment began by obliging the Hovas to accept the treaty
of 1885, which ceded to France the port of Diego-Suarez,
and gave her the right to have a French official resident
at the capital of Madagascar. Finally, it was decided
to send a mihtary expedition to the centre of the island,
which ended in the annexation of Madagascar (1898).
France has, therefore, the preponderance of power in
four districts of Africa.
Progress in Asia of the Rival European Powers. — Asia
has continually been encroached upon by the European
powers. Russia came from the north and west; from
Siberia which she has occupied ever since the end of the
sixteenth century, and from the Caucasus country which
she had gained possession of between 1799 and 1859.
England came from the south; she began by Bengal in
1757, and completed the conquest of India in 1857.
France, the last comer, established herself in the south
east, in Indo-China (1862).
This was the least important of the three domains, but

364 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
has grown rapidly. The occupation began in 1862.
The Emperor of Annam, who had permitted the massacre
of French missionaries, was forced to cede three prov
inces, of which French Cochin-China was formed. It
has been increased since 1867 by three new provinces.
To-day there are nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants, and the
commerce is rated at 123,000,000 francs a year. The
budget has increased from 8,000,000 francs in 1868 to
30,000,000 francs in 1888. The country is indeed some
what unhealthy, except in the mountainous regions, but
it is fertile, and very productive, especially in rice.
Since 1863 France has had a protectorate in the petty
kingdom of Cambodia; and since the war in Tonquin,
over the empire of Annam, itself (1883), Tonquin, a prov
ince of Annam, having become in fact independent, was
twice conquered by the French. Since 1882 it has been
governed by a French administration.
France has thus occupied, more or less openly, all of
the eastern part of Indo-China. In the west England
has outstripped her since 1824. The kingdom of Bur-
mah became an Enghsh province. France and England
are still separated by the independent empire of Siam.
South of Indo-China, England has taken possession of
two important points, Malacca (1826), Singapore (1836).
The domain of India stretches from the Himalayas to
Ceylon, a territory which contains more than 250,000,000
souls. The East India Company, which in a century
(1757-1857) had conquered this vast empire from the
petty mihtary despots, had continued to govern despotic
ally without consulting the natives. The Enghsh govern
ment, after the great revolt of the Sepoys, took the place
of the company (i860), and since that time has taken

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE .OF EUROPE 365
charge of all Indian affairs. This regime procures peace
for a country that has never known it. It permits the
population to work, to grow rich, and to increase in
numbers. The Hindoos, in rehgion and customs, are very differ
ent from the Enghsh, who govern them. But throughout
Northern India, the Brahmins, who form the superior
classes, are an Aryan race. They have preserved in the
physical type and the trend of thought a resemblance to
the Europeans which recalls their common origin.
The first Enghsh governors, full of respect for the old
Hindoo civilization, did not seek to introduce the ideas
and the languages of Europe. But in 1836, at the sugges
tion of Macaulay, the government came to a decision fraught
with great consequences. It was resolved that Enghsh
should be taught in the Indian schools, together with the
native tongue.1
The telegraph and the Suez Canal have made com
munication much more easy between England and India.
The commerce has become enormous, the two countries
are closely bound together. For some years the Hindoos
seem also to have been approaching the civilization of
Europe. They learn Enghsh, and pursue the study of the
classics. Books and journals are pubhshed in the Hindoo
tongue. England has begun to allow the natives a share
in the government. Several Hindoos are among the
judges of the Supreme Court at Calcutta.
Siberia has been the especial domain of Russia. It is
an immense region, almost a wilderness, and in a great
1 In India several languages derived from the Sanscrit are spoken'
Bengali and Hindustani. They have replaced the Sanscrit, which has
become a dead language, as the Latin has been replaced by French and
Italian.

366 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
measure uninhabitable. To-day, although the Russian
government deports there each year thousands of crim
inals, it has hardly more than 5,000,000 inhabitants.
There is as yet very little known of the resources of south
ern Siberia. Until the present time scarcely anything
but the mines have been exploited. There are great
forests, and it seems as if the soil could be utilized were
the population large enough to warrant cultivation.
The advance of Russia on the side of Siberia has been
arrested by the icy wastes of Mongolia. The Russian
territory has been increased by a territory as large as
France, which lies south of the Amoor (1858). For several
years Russia has been on the march towards China.1
In the west, Russia has pursued her way into Asia.
There she has gone beyond the Caucasus, and approached
Persia. She has also tried to extend her power into
Turkestan. This country is ruled by nomad tribes of
Turkish race. They were horsemen who lived on the
produce of their brigandage and their herds. They went
about in bands, attacking peaceable tillers of the soil in
Persia, pillaging villages, and bringing back the inhabitants
attached to the tails of their horses, for sale in the slave
markets. Russia tried at first to subdue them, coming in from
the north, but the expedition sent against Khiva perished
on the way (1841) and that route was abandoned.
It was by way of the Caspian Sea that Russia approached
Turkestan. The Caspian was first bound to Russia by a
line of railway, which was constructed from Poti on
the Black Sea to Baku on the Caspian. From Baku
the fleet transports soldiers and supplies to Krasnovosk
1 This was checked in the war between Japan and Russia in 1905. — Ed.

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 367
on the eastern shore of the Caspian. There begins a
new railway, which was easily constructed on the level
lands. The inhabitants were requisitioned by force to
do the work, and the rails brought forward by trains as
fast as the work advanced.
The Russian government had at the same time re
sumed its march by the north. As the army, composed
chiefly of mounted Cossacks, gradually advanced, they
built fortresses in the occupied country.
By degrees, the Russians, sometimes by negotiation
with the chiefs of the tribes, sometimes by attacking their
strong cities, first subdued the Kirghis in 1847, then con
quered all of Turkestan (1864-1881). It was necessary
to take the principal cities by assault. In 1873 three
armies were converged against Khiva; one came from
the Caucasus bearing its provisions across the desert.
The last combat was the assault on the fortress of the
Tekkes, the most redoubtable of all the Turcomans,
through their depredations.
The war was brutal, but the Turcomans, once subdued,
have not thought of revolt. The Russian government
has left them their customs and their leaders; it has im
posed upon them no other duty than the recognition of
the czar as their sovereign, the abandonment of brigandage,
and to come armed when they are summoned. It recom
penses the chiefs, by presents, and by giving them an
official rank. According as Russia advances to the south,
she draws near the domain of England in India. Since
1834 the Enghsh have regarded this advance with alarm.
and have considered the Russians as rivals. In order
to prevent the Russians from touching their frontiers
they have sought to make use of the warlike races of

368 CONTEMPORARY CD7ILIZATION
Afghanistan who live to the north of the Himalayas, and
who are able to guard the approaches to India. The
Russian government made an alliance with the Shah of
Persia, enemy of the Afghans. Then began a contest for
influence between England and Russia. The Russian
government urged the Shah of Persia to take Herat,
the English officers defended Herat, and forced the Per
sians to retire. The Enghsh government took advan
tage of the dispute among the Afghan princes over- the
succession, and sent an army to occupy Afghanistan.
But the Afghans, and Mussulmans would not tolerate the
occupation of their country by Christian soldiers, and
massacred the whole English army {1842). The English
government then again made an alliance with the Ameer
of Afghanistan, became master of the adjacent countries
of Kandahar and Balkh, and aided the ameer to con
quer Herat (1863). Notwithstanding a second war, and
a second massacre of the English (1878-1879), England
has continued to treat the Afghans as allies.
In 1884 the Turcoman tribes of Merv recognized the
domination of the czar. Thus the Russians had reached
Afghanistan, and the nomadic subjects of the czar and
the ameer were already beginning to quarrel over the
boundary of their respective territories. The English
and Russian governments came to an agreement in order
to avoid a war, and an Anglo-Russian Commission went
to the scene of the troubles and regulated the limits of
the frontier.
The English government, to avoid being at the mercy of
its Afghan allies, has put in a defensible condition all the
defiles of the Himalayas on the northwest frontier, which
give access to Hindostan.

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 369
European Civilization in the Orient. — The Europeans
have also tried to penetrate into the countries of the Far
East, China and Japan. There they have encountered a
civilization much older than their own.
The Chinese, more numerous than all the Europeans
together, have been for centuries united in a single state, the
Middle Kingdom. They number nearly 400,000,000
souls, having the same language, customs and government.
They are a sober and industrious race, incomparable
in the art of enabling many people to live in a small space.
The population along the shores of the great streams of
China is the most dense of any place in the world. The
soil is cultivated with the greatest care, largely by hand
labor. China resembles a vast market garden. The
Chinese are clever and patient workmen. Their industry,
even to-day, far surpasses that of the Occident where
machines give the advantage to Europeans. Likewise,
there are in China many large cities; forty-two have a
population of more than 100,000, several have 1,000,000.
China has a regular government; the mandarins who
administer affairs are learned men, and have been ad
vanced from one rank to another through a system of
competitive examinations. It was quite the fashion for
the philosophers of the eighteenth century to admire this
old Pacific empire, which had stood for 3,000 years,
where agriculture was so honored that the emperor starts
the first furrow with his own hand and with a solemn
ceremonial. When the two civilizations met face to face it was at
first supposed that amicable relations would be established
between them. But there seems to be an insurmount
able antipathy between the Chinese and Europeans. BB

370 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
All that constitutes the true grandeur of European civiliz
ation, sciences, arts, rehgion, remains closed to the Chinese,
or at least they understand these things in a quite different
manner from our own. It appears, too, as if they scorned
progress and preferred to adhere to the customs of their
ancestors. They regarded the arrival of the Europeans
with suspicion, considering them wicked barbarians and
deceivers. The Europeans presented themselves as
merchants and as soldiers. What the Chinese saw
most clearly as evidences of our civilization were fire
arms, the instruments for massacre, and opium, with
which the Enghsh merchants poisoned the Chinese
smokers. It was with regret that the consent of the Chinese gov
ernment was given to open one or two ports to Enghsh
vessels. In 1839 it ordered 20,000 cases of opium sent
by the Enghsh merchants in India to be thrown into the
sea. Other European nations obtained the same rights
as the English, to extend their commerce. But the Chinese
government continually put difficulties in the way of
European commerce. The demands of the French and
English governments having been repulsed, war was de
clared. A French expedition landed an army which
marched on Pekin, destroyed the magnificent summer
palace of the emperor, and forced the Chinese to re
establish commercial relations (i860).
Since that time nearly all the states of Europe have
concluded treaties with the Chinese government, which
have given them the right to trade in certain ports. There
are, to-day, nineteen of these treaty ports in China. But
the Chinese still refuse to adopt European customs.
They have only decided to make use of railways and tele-

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 371
graphs. Still, it is very difficult to construct the lines
because of the hostility of the population.
The Japanese, much fewer in numbers (about 36,000,000)
and of later civihzation than the Chinese, at once accepted
the civilization of the Occident. It was in 1854 that the
ports of Japan were opened for the first time to foreign
ers (there were five of them), and already the Japanese
government has adopted the systems of railways and tele
graphs, the coinage of money, the press, and the European
calendar. It has taken European engineers into its ser
vice. It sends yearly hundreds of young Japanese to
study in the Occident. The administration has been
reorganized on European models, and even a parliament
ary government has been essayed.
English Colonies. — England has reconstituted her colo
nial empire, which was reduced by the separation of the
United States. She has to-day four groups of possessions:
in North America the country conquered from the French,
in South Africa the country taken from Holland during
the wars of the Empire, the large islands of Oceania, which
were gradually occupied, and India, conquered in the
name of the East India Company. The whole forms an
empire of 21,000,000 square kilometres, with a population
of 270,000,000. India, which alone numbers 257,000,000,
is still inhabited by the native races. The other possessions
have been settled by the English, or at least by Europeans.
Each of the three groups is composed of several separate
colonies. At the Cape there are five, in Canada eight
(without counting Newfoundland). In Australia there
were no Europeans in the eighteenth century. The
Enghsh government decided to found there a penal col
ony, in order to get rid of the convicts condemned to

372 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
forced labor. In 1787 a vessel landed at Botany Bay
with 565 men, 182 women, 7 cattle, 7 horses, 29 sheep,
19 goats, 74 pigs, 5 rabbits, 18 turkeys, 38 ducks, 29 geese,
and 122 chickens. Thus came into existence the first
colony. Six have been successively formed. In 1840
New Zealand, which had remained unoccupied up to
that period, was taken possession of by English colo
nists. It is now divided into eight provinces.
The colonists who settled in these countries have pre
served the political customs of the English; they are ac
customed to self-government, and do not at all like the
intervention of the state. Therefore, the English govern
ment has applied to them the principles of the liberal
economists, and leaves them to govern themselves.1
Each colony has its own constitution, but all these con
stitutions resemble the English constitution. There is
always a parliament composed, as in England, of a Lower
House, founded by the representatives elected by the
colonists, and an Upper House, or Legislative Council,
whose members are appointed (for life) by the governor
with the advice of the ministers. A governor, sent from
England by the king, represents the royal authority. He
chooses his ministers who are responsible to the chamber.
The English government has the right of veto upon the
acts of the colonial assembly, but it does not like to make
use of it. In 1872 the Lower House of the state of Victoria,
in Australia, had voted funds to pay the representatives.
The Upper House refused its support to the measure, and
a contest between the two houses ensued. The prime
minister of the colony took a journey to London, ex-
1 Except in Jamaica, and in Mauritius, which are subject to a governor
and a legislative council appointed by the English government.

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 373
pressly to demand a change in the Victoria constitution.
The English ministry refused to interfere, declaring that
intervention in the home affairs of the colonies was justi
fiable only in case of pressing need. In 1878, in the colony
of Lower Canada, the governor had dismissed the ministry
which had a majority in the parhament, and had replaced
it with one of his own choosing. The House voted against
this new ministry, but the king persisted in retaining it.
The House demanded that the constitution be observed,
and the English ministry supported the demand by recall
ing the governor.
The government allows the colonies to organize their
own armies; in Australia there are 10,000 troops, in
Canada 28,000 troops. They are also permitted to fix
the duties on merchandise imported from England.
Thus each colony is almost an independent state.
There has been some idea of grouping these states into
a confederation like that of the United States. In 1867
the Dominion of Canada was constituted. Eight of the
North American colonies entered into the confedera
tion. Newfoundland would not agree to do so. The
constitution of this confederation is copied from those of
the individual states. There is a governor-general sent
out from England and a parhament formed of an Upper
House chosen by the governor with the consent of the
ministers, and a Lower House elected by the people.
This parliament sits at Ottawa, and regulates the affairs
pertaining to the customs, to the army, and to commerce.
Neither the colonies of the Cape nor those in Australia
have consented to be grouped together in one govern
ment. There are in England two opposing systems concern-

374 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
ing the methods to be used in regard to the colonies.
One school, faithful to the principles of the economists,
considers the colonies as a burden which costs much and
brings in nothing. England spends her money to make
their highways and railways, to support their garrisons
and fleets. She has brought upon herself difficulties
and wars with the Maoris in New Zealand, with the
Kaffirs at the Cape, and with the Afghans in India. She
draws no revenue from them, for she has no power even
to levy taxes nor to send her merchandise into colonial
ports, free of all customs duties. "We are the Imperial
sovereign, but we have no empire," said one of the sup
porters of this school.1 " England ought, therefore, to de
clare the independence of her colonies, and leave to them
the care and the defence of their own domains.
The other, a much more numerous school, insists
that England should retain all her possessions, or, as they
say, leave the British empire intact. The conservative
ministry of Beaconsfield (1874-1880) was engaged in
several wars with the Zulus, the Boers, and the Afghans.
It obtained the cession of the Island of Cyprus to Eng
land, and it proclaimed the Queen of England Empress
of India (1876). The liberal ministry of Gladstone
abandoned the warlike policy, which was too costly, but
it has preserved the empire pacific.
A party has even been formed which, instead of aban
doning the colonies, would rather bind them more firmly
to the capital. There exists as yet only a British empire,
they say; there should be an Imperial British Parhament,
where all the colonies would be represented. In place of
1 This opinion has been set forth by Goldwin Smith, in "The Em
pire" (1863).

EUROPEAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE OF EUROPE 375
isolated states and small confederations there should be a
single vast confederation. This would be no longer
Great Britain, but the Greater Britain.1
Explorations. — At the close of the eighteenth century,
after the great maritime expeditions of Captain Cook,
the contour of all the continents and islands was pretty
well known save that of the polar regions. There still
remained for exploration the interiors of Africa, Australia,
and South America, and the environs of the two poles.
These regions were the object of the exploring expeditions
of the nineteenth century.
They were not like the commercial expeditions of the
sixteenth century, but were for research, having no per
sonal ends in view but for the advancement of science.
The explorers were, if not scientists, at least scientific
agents, usually in the service of a government, or of a
society for scientific research. In 1788 there was founded
in England the African Society, which sent Mungo Park
to explore the Niger valley. In France the Geographical
Society gave subventions and rewards to explorers. Sev
eral expeditions have been organized by subscriptions,
and it was a New York journal which paid the expenses
of the first expedition made by Stanley in the wilderness of
Africa. These expeditions to the interior of the continents are
incomparably more dangerous than the voyages along
the coasts. They take place either in the hot climate so
deadly to Europeans, or in the wild, icy regions of the
poles. A large number of the explorers have lost their
lives in these expeditions. They have been killed by the
1 The idea was first expressed in a book by Sir Charles Dilke, entitled
"Greater Britain" (1868). It was developed in Seeley's "The Ex
pansion of England."

376 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
natives, like Mungo Park and Vogel in the Soudan; they
have died from fever, like Clapperton and Livingstone,
or from hunger, as did the explorers of Australia. Frank
lin, who, with two ships, departed in 1845, for the polar
regions, never returned. In 1859 the remains of the ex
pedition were discovered. Franklin and his companions
had passed two winters in the ice, and had died of starva
tion and want. The expedition of Greely, to the North
Pole, was believed to be lost, but after two years was
found just at the moment when the last survivors were
about to die from starvation. These sacrifices have not
been useless. They have made possible an almost per
fect map of the globe.

CHAPTER XVI
ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES IN THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
LITERATURE
The Romantic School. — German literature since the
seventeenth century had consisted chiefly of translations
and imitations of French works. During the last third
of the eighteenth century an original literature was
formed in Germany. The writers of that time, Lessing,
Goethe, Schiller, are the greatest that Germany has ever
had. They introduced into Europe an entirely new con
ception of literature, quite opposed to the classic style
which prevailed in France.
They no longer sought to please by the perfection of
form, but to move by the force of the sentiments expressed
(the period from 1770 to 1780 has been called the Storm
and Stress period). They loved to speak of their own
emotions. They readily took their subjects from every
day life, and when the past was represented they did not
go back to antiquity, but into modern times, into Germanic
history for their heroes (Egmont, William Tell, Wallen-
stein). They did not speak in the old noble style, but in
familiar language, no longer guardedly, but with passion.
The desire was to produce enthusiasm. They did not
write for "good society" only. They addressed all classes
377

378 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
of society, but especially the burgher class. Schiller has
always been the especial poet of women and of young
people. This new literature was received with transports of
admiration all over Germany. It was less perfect than
the classical literature, but was more spirited, more natural,
and more touching. The enthusiasm spread to the other
countries, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century
German literature gave the tone to all Europe.
The German writers who followed the movement begun
by Goethe and Schiller were called romanticists, because
instead of imitating the forms of antiquity, they had
taken their models from the romances of the Middle Ages.
The Romantic school was born in Germany (with
Schlegel, Tieck, Brehtano). It is distinguished by its
enthusiasm for chivalry and the Catholic Church, its scorn
for pagan antiquity, its taste for popular legends, and
for the fantastic.
At the close of the eighteenth century a romantic school
was formed in England. At first, according to the declara
tion of its founders, it was only a "sect of dissenters in
poetry," who were trying "to adapt the ordinary language
of the middle and lower classes to the uses of poetry."
They went back to the old ballads of the Middle Ages,
and invented new forms of verse. Then came the
philosophic romanticists, Wordsworth and Cowper, then
the two great poets, Shelley and Byron, and the novelist,
Walter Scott, who brought about the triumph of romanti
cism in England.
In France the movement began under Napoleon.
Chateaubriand made the Middle Ages and America
fashionable, Madame de Stael made the French pubhc

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES 379
acquainted with Germany. The romantic school was
finally formed under the Restoration. The preface to
the drama of Cromwell by Victor Hugo, which appeared
in 1827, is considered to be the manifesto of the school.
The romanticists declare that tragedy and comedy are
false and obsolete forms. They replaced them with the
drama, which was to unite on the same stage the sublime
and the grotesque as they are united in nature, adding to
it a beauty of versification and of " mise en scene." They
no longer wanted Greek and Latin heroes. They found
their subjects and their inspiration in the Middle Ages
and in the Renaissance, in Germany, in Spain, in the Ori
ent. They reproached the- classicists for having made
the Ancients like the moderns; as for themselves they
claimed to represent people just as they really are, with
their own modes of expression, their personal sentiments,
and their costumes. This was called giving a local color
to the scene. They would have nothing of the stately
style; the language must be varied and picturesque. They
introduced into the literary language all the common
words which had been proscribed by the classicists;
they even went to the dictionary in search of technical
terms and new rhymes in order to enrich the language
and poetry. They condemned the classic art as false,
formal, monotonous, and cold. They wished to estabhsh
an art more supple, more varied, more in conformity with
nature, which would go straight to the heart.
Under the Restoration there broke forth the famous
quarrel between the classicists and the romanticists. It
took the form of a struggle between old men and young
men. The former were attached to the correct forms
and the dignified style of the classics; the others were en-

380 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
thusiastic for the famihar tongue and the passionate forms
of the new romantic school. The classicists put them
selves under the protection of Racine; the romanticists
invoked Shakespeare. It was a violent and puerile con
flict; the adversaries not only insulted each other, but also
the two great men whom they considered as the repre
sentatives of the two schools — Racine and Shakespeare.
At the theatre the quarrel degenerated into a battle be
tween the partisans of the two opposing schools, classic
drama and the partisans of the romantic drama. Some
hissed, others applauded, often they came to blows. At
first the classicists had the numbers on their side. The
party of "Young France" was as yet composed of only a
few enthusiastic young men, "the long-haired romanti
cists." But all the writers of the future were with them,
and from 1830 the general pubhc gradually rallied to their
support. The Realistic School. — The romanticists have, in their
turn, been, attacked in the name of truth and nature.
It has been said that their dramas and their historical ro
mances are no more according to nature than were the
tragedies of the classical school. Their local color is only
an illusion, their knights of the Middle Ages, their men
of the Renaissance, their Orientals are no more faithfully
drawn than were the Greeks and Romans of the classicists.
They, too, are nothing but modern personages dressed
out in an ancient costume, to whom the author has
given the sentiments and the language of the men of 1830.
These new adversaries of the romantic school ap
peared in France about the year 1848, and finally formed
a school. They retained the language of the romanti
cists, but they cast aside the historical drama and romance,

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES 381
taking their subjects from contemporary hfe, and seeking
to represent only the things that they had seen. Their
endeavor is to reproduce the reality and to depict nature
as it really is; therefore they describe at length scenes
from actual hfe, with all minuteness of detail, so as to give
a complete and exact idea of it. They have called them
selves realists, and in these last years naturalists. It is
they who predommate not only in France but in England
and in Russia. There are realists even in Germany.
Contemporary literature is especially a literature of obser
vation. Its favorite genre is the romance of morals and
manners which relates the episodes of daily life.
But the multiplicity of exact details characteristic of
this school may be allied to two distinctly opposite senti
ments: to a cold curiosity which only looks on the person
ages as subjects for study, or, on the contrary, to a lively
sympathy of the author for his heroes. From this come
two well-defined genres of romances. In the one the
author analyzes and describes the adventures and the emo
tions of his personages as if he were an indifferent wit
ness (this is the impassive, which rules in France); in the
other the author recounts the joys and sufferings of his
personages with a personal emotion, as if he had shared
in them (this is the genre common in England and in
Russia). Forms of Literature. — No literature has been as varied
as that of the nineteenth century. There is no style that
has not had its representatives, no ancient form that they
have not tried to revive. But only in four forms have
great works been produced: lyric poetry, drama, romance,
and criticism. Lyric poetry, which had fallen into de
cadence during the classic period, was revived in Ger-

382 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
many by Goethe and Schiller; it has become the favorite
style of the romantic school. From 1770 to 1830 all the
great writers were lyric poets: in Germany, Uhland and
Heine; in England, Wordsworth, Bums, Coleridge, Byron
and Shelley; in Italy, Leopardi; in France, the three great
romanticists, Lamartine, Musset, Hugo.1
The drama, also created by Goethe and Schiller, is
divided into two branches. The historic drama, takes
the place of the ancient tragedy, and is modelled on the
drama of Shakespeare. The subjects are chosen from
the history and legends of Europe; the costumes of the
personages help to give local color, and violent actions
take place on the stage in the presence of the spectators.
The greater number of these dramas are the work of
lyric poets (Goethe, Schiller, Hugo); therefore, they are
made to be read rather than to be played. The histori
cal drama has fallen into discredit since 1830; it is to-day
more completely abandoned than is the classic tragedy,
with which it has finally become confused. The master
pieces of the historic drama have great difficulty in
holding their own in a rivalry with the classic tragedies,
which the Come"die-Francaise has restored to popu
larity. The drama of contemporary manners, of which Lessing
presented a model in Minna von Barnhelm, led a vegetative
existence during the romantic period; but since 1848
it has become a favorite style with the pubhc. It tends
more and more to draw near to the old comedy of man
ners. This form has taken possession of the contempo
rary stage. Hardly anything else is played in Europe
1 The remains of the romantic school in France have formed a group
called the Parnassian.

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES 383
except the dramas of French authors (Dumas, Augier, and
Sardou, especially).
The romance was at first neglected by the romantic
school. Then it re-appeared in two forms. The histori
cal romance was created by Walter Scott, who from 1814
to 1832 wrote seventy-two romances. This style of
novel remained the fashion until the middle of the nine
teenth century. He has served as a model, in France
even, for the historians (Augustin Thierry, Quinet,
Michelet). The romance of manners again arose at
about the same period and in every country. It has be
come the most influential form of modem contemporary
literature. Since 1830 almost all the celebrated writers
have been novelists: in England, Dickens, Thackeray,
George Eliot; in Russia Gogol, Turguenieff, Tolstoi,
Dostoievsky; in Germany Freytag; in France, Balzac,
George Sand, and all the reahstic school (Flaubert,
Zola, Daudet, etc.).
Criticism, that is to say, the study of literary and artistic
works, was in the preceding century only a secondary
form of literature; it was generally confined to praise or
censure of the work. In the nineteenth century the critics
have sought to understand the works and to make them
understood by others by explaining how the ideas, senti
ments, and style of an author depend on his country,
education, and environment, on what is called "the
milieu." Criticism is especially an Enghsh and French
form; in England it is of the nature of essays, in France
it appears in the shape of articles in the newspapers, re
views and magazines. Macaulay in England, Sainte-
Beuve, Taine and Renan in France have taken their place
in the ranks of authors.

384 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Importance of the Literature of the Nineteenth Century.
— There is no agreement as to the value of the nineteenth
century literature. Its enemies esteem it far inferior to
the literature of the preceding centuries. They think it
less simple, less noble, less perfect, and reproach it with
a lack of ideals. Its partisans prefer it to any other, be
cause they find it more varied, more spirited, more exact,
and they think that it expresses sentiments more nearly
like our own. But all are agreed that never has liter
ature held so large a place in hfe. In the eighteenth cen
tury women read little, and the popular classes not at all.
To-day reading is the diversion of all classes, the peasants
excepted. The newspaper has become a necessity for all
the inhabitants of the towns. Formerly a book of which
several thousand copies were sold was regarded as a great
success. To-day it is not rare to see 50,000 copies of a
very mediocre romance issued in one year. The reading
public has increased tenfold in a century. In order to
satisfy it, libraries have been organized in Germany
where one can go and rent books for a term of several
days, and in England there are circulating libraries which
loan books through the country. In France the habit
of buying books is still the custom. The book trade has
been largely increased along with other kinds of commerce.
The writers have profited by this success. In the cities
a large class of men of letters live only by the product
of their pen. The greater number are journalists by
profession, or at least write regularly for the journals as
a source of revenue. But the laws guaranteee to the-
authors a small share in the results of their labor, and
these "copyrights" yield a comfortable living to the
dramatic and romance writers who are in vogue.

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCDZNCES 385
THE JINE ARTS
Painting. — Almost all of the collections of pictures and
statues which had been gathered by the princes became,
in the nineteenth century, the property of the state. They
have been placed in pubhc museums or galleries, where they
serve at the same time as a spectacle for the amateur and
a school for the artist. In nearly all the capitals of Europe
are organized annual expositions of painting and sculpture
for the benefit of contemporary artists. The principal
exposition is the Salon at Paris, which had its origin in
the eighteenth century. Every year more than 3,000
paintings and 1,500 statues are exhibited there.
Since the fashion of having private galleries has spread
among the rich amateurs the competition among buyers
has greatly increased the prices of pictures. Some have
been sold for 300,000 francs. In these later years the
pictures of the contemporary artists have attained a price
much greater even than that of the masterly works of the
Renaissance. Painting has become a regular profession.
There are to-day several thousand painters, chiefly in
France. The best known five in comfort and some in great
opulence. Like literature, painting has passed suc
cessively through three schools. The nineteenth century
began with the classic school; its centre was in Paris, its
master was David. The subjects preferred by this school
were taken from antiquity, chiefly from Roman history,
and more stress was laid on drawing (line) than on
color. In Germany, about 1840, a romantic group
was formed which had for its masters Overbeck and
Cornelius, the founder of the Munich School. The Ger
man romanticists took their subjects from the history of
cc

386 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the church or from chivalry, but they, too, attached less
importance to color than to line. The romantic move
ment did not begin in France until after 1830. It took
the form of a contest between the draughtsmen, with
Ingres at their head, and the colorists, whose chief was
Delacroix. Finally came the realistic school, which
stood for the reproduction of the reality exactly as it is,
without regard to beauty.
The painters, like the writers, of the nineteenth century,
have tried all branches of painting, and there is not one of
them which is not represented in the Salon. The classic and
the romantic schools preferred to take from history the
subjects of their paintings. The classicists chose scenes
from antiquity, the romanticists took their subjects from
the period of the Middle Ages, and the colorists took
theirs from the Orient. Like the authors, they tried to give
a local color by putting the personages in the exact cos
tume of the country where the sce^e was laid. For half a
century historical painting has had the same fate as that
of the historical drama and novel. It also has yielded its
place to other forms which permit the artist to represent
only what he has seen. There are three kinds of these
— genre, landscape, and portraiture. In Germany genre
predominates, as exemplified in the schools of Diisseldorf
and Munich. The greatest portrait and landscape paint
ers have been French (Corot, Rousseau, Millet, Fromentin,
Cabanel, Breton).
Sculpture. — Sculpture again received added lustre in
the early years of the nineteenth century — in Italy through
Canova (1757-1822); in the north through the Danish
artist Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), and also the Germans,
Schwanthaler and Ritschl. For half a century sculptors

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES 387
of talent have not been rare in Germany, in Italy, and
especially in France. They work for the tombs and for the
commemorative monuments which it has become the cus
tom to erect on the pubhc squares. But sculpture is not
as much sought for by amateurs as are the works of the
painter. Sculptors are often obliged to seek for orders from
the state or to make busts of private individuals.
There has not been in sculpture the rivalry of the clas
sic and romantic schools; all have taken the antique for
their model in order to return to simple and severe forms.
Yet since 1848 a number of sculptors have turned toward
realism. They try to copy more exactly their model and
to give more expression and movement to their figures.
Together with the classic statuary which seeks beauty of
form, we have also the sculpture of expression, which
tries to represent the physiognomy of the personage.
Architecture. — Never have so many public edifices of
all kinds been constructed at one time as in the nineteenth
century — churches, town halls, court-houses, theatres,
hospitals, barracks, schools. But most of the buildings
lack style, others are only reproductions of other monu
ments. At the close of the eighteenth century, people
were weary of the rococo, and of the imitations of the
Italian styles. No longer was there any pleasure found
in the indirect imitation of the classical styles, through the
medium of the Renaissance. Architects went to Greece
and Rome and studied the ancient monuments themselves.
Thus grew up a classic school, which set about faithfully
reproducing the antique edifices; in France the Roman
art was chiefly imitated, in Germany the Greek. At
that time in France the Madeleine and the Bourse were
built; both are copies of temples. The Triumphal Arch

388 CONTEMPORARY CD7ILIZATION
of the Carrousel is a copy of the Arch of Titus. Later
in Germany, Louis I., King of Bavaria, had a whole city
of Greek edifices constructed in Munich; This neo-
Greek school lasted until 1848.
The romantic school did not seek to create a new
style, but took the romanesque and gothic styles for
models. The head of the school in France was Viollet-le-
Duc, who labored all his life long in the restoration or in the
reproduction of the monuments of the Middle Ages. The
romantic architects have done hardly anything but copy
the churches and civic buildings of these two styles. But
in doing so they have rendered a great service to architect
ure and to the world. They have taught the people to
admire the gothic and romanesque art, which had been
scorned for so many centuries. They have saved the
masterpieces of the Middle Ages, which were rapidly fall
ing into ruin. Notre Dame de Paris, even, was so dilapi
dated that Viollet-le-Duc spent years in repairing it; in
Germany it was necessary to almost wholly reconstruct
the castle of the Wartburg.
In the last few years some architects have tried to build
up a new style of edifice, appropriate to modern needs.
Of this character is the Opera at Paris, the work of
Gamier. The Universal Exposition of 1889 inaugurated a new
form of architecture. It is made up of light materials,
iron, and enamelled brick, which permit the construction
of much higher and more slender edifices. The highest
monument in the world is the Eiffel Tower (300 metres),
built on the Champ-de-Mars.
Music. — The nineteenth century is sometimes called
the century of music. Music has in fact taken at times

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCDZNCES 389
as large a place as literature in the life of the century.
It has been made a part of all festal occasions. Since 1830
it has been considered indispensable in the education of
the daughters of the middle class, and in almost all the
countries of Europe it has been introduced into the primary
schools. Nearly all the large towns in Europe have their
opera house and their concerts. Even in France and
England, where music was not a part of the daily life, the
example of Germany, Italy, and the Slav countries has
been followed.
The nineteenth century has produced more great
musicians than any other century. It has produced the
greatest of all musicians; Beethoven (1770-1827).
During the first half of the century the public was
divided on the merits of two schools of widely different
origin and character — the Italian and the German. The
German music represented by Beethoven, Mozart, Weber,
Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, consists chiefly of
symphonies, sonatas, overtures and melodies; it is com
posed for orchestra, piano, and voice.
The Italians, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, have
done little but for the stage. Their operas destined for
the French pubhc were composed to French words. As
for French music (Bo'ieldieu, Herdd, Auber, HaleVy,
Meyerbeer, Gounod), it is chiefly operatic or for the comic
opera, and is intermediary between the two schools.
The Italians were the fashion in France during the
reign of the romantic school. The "Italiens" at Paris
was the rendezvous of the most aristocratic society. To
day the public prefers the music of the German com
posers; the orchestration is better, the thought more pro
found and more varied than in the Italian. A German,

390 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Richard Wagner (1812-1883), has revived the opera in
creating the music drama.1 He has broken away from
ancient usage. Instead of writing his music afterwards
to words composed to order by a hbrettist, he has written
words and music at the same time, so that the music is
bound up with the action. He has suppressed the " coup
lets," during which the action was stopped. He wanted
the singer to be also an actor, and the music to form a
unity with the drama.
In our time, also, a new source of music has been dis
covered in the popular melody, and these popular airs are
being gathered together. This work began in Germany
and in the Slav countries, and is continued in France to
day. THE SCIENCES
Progress of the Sciences. — The nineteenth century has
often been called the century of science. All civilized
peoples support scientific establishments and universities,
whose professors make it their chief mission to aid in the
advancement of science. Never have there been so many
savants of all kinds, never have the sciences advanced so
systematically. Many pages would be needed to recount all the events
in the progress of each science. The most rapid advance
has been made in chemistry and in the natural sciences.
In physics the principal discovery has been electro-
magnetism, that is, of the currents of induction, which
has supphed the principle for the electric telegraph. It
was made at the same time in France and in England.
The principal theory is that of the equivalence of force
1 Weber had prepared for this revolution by the introduction of the
popular melody into his operas.

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES 391
and heat. The principal invention is the spectroscope,
which permits the study of a distant body, planet, or star,
by gathering up the light emitted from it (spectral analysis).
Astronomy has been constituted by the hypothesis of
Laplace, which explains the formation of the sun, the earth,
and the planets (set forth in his "Treatise on Celestial
Mechanics"), and by the discovery of the composition of
the nebulae. Meteorology, for which observatories have
been built on the summits of high mountains, has collected
a large number of facts, without as yet being constituted
a science. Chemistry was created at the close of the eighteenth
century through the efforts of a Swede, Scheele, an Eng
lishman, Priestley, and a Frenchman, Lavoisier, who had
isolated the most important chemical bodies (Lavoisier
was the first to analyze water in separating the oxygen
from the hydrogen).1 Since that time chemistry has made
an uninterrupted progress in France, in England, and in
Germany. After having isolated the simple bodies, the
composition of organized bodies was studied as they are
seen in the animal and vegetable world. This is called
organic chemistry. It is already so far advanced that
organic bodies have been produced just as they are found
in nature by combining their elements according to chem
ical synthesis.
Zoology was constituted a science by Cuvier, who
studied the anatomy of animals, and in his "Animal King
dom" he has given a general classification of the animals.
Botany has been completed by vegetable anatomy and
physiology, which reveal the organization and functions
1 Lavoisier may also be considered as one of the founders of physiology.
He has pointed out the r61e of oxygen, and has shown that all respiration
is combustion.

392 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
of plants. Geology and paleontology are entirely new
sciences. Cuvier laid the foundation of them; the re
searches of savants, the labors of engineers in the quarries
and in the cuts of the railways, have furnished innumer
able specimens of the different kinds of soils, and of the
different species of animals which have succeeded each
other on the globe. Claude Bernard, in France, estab
lished a system of general physiology by means of ex
periments on living animals (vivisection); in Germany
histology was constituted a science through studies made
with the microscope. All these sciences have been
grouped into one system through the hypothesis of evolu
tion set forth by Darwin in regard to animals, and since
then applied to all the natural sciences. This hypothesis
has permitted the joining together of hitherto isolated
facts and has given a new direction to research.
The Moral Sciences. — In the nineteenth century the
first efforts were made toward the methodic study of moral
phenomena, i. e., the manifestations of the human mind
(languages, books, laws, institutions), and search for the
laws by which they are governed. This work was be
gun in France by isolated students of humanity, and con
tinued in Germany by the professors at the universities.
The languages and religions of Persia and India have
been recovered. By comparing them with the languages
and religions of the Greeks and Romans, comparative
mythology and philology have been created. It has been
observed that the languages have not been formed by
chance, but according to regular laws. Grammar, until
that epoch, was nothing but a collection of rules of which
no one knew the reason. Grimm and Bopp made it into a
science which explains the origin and transformation of

ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES 393
language, by entering on a comparative study of the
languages of the people of China and those of savage tribes,
as collated by the missionaries. Humboldt has constructed
a general science of language (linguistics).1
There has been an attempt to renovate even history.
In place of the simple story, they have sought to make it
a methodical study of the transformations in human society.
This has been the work of the philologists, and learned
men of Germany especially. They have laid down the
principle that history can only be based on authentic
documents. They have applied a critical method which
permits the reconstitution of altered texts, and the deter
mination of their value. The soil of Greece, Italy, Egypt
and Assyria has been searched in order to find inscriptions
and the dehris of monuments; libraries and archives have
been examined for documents concerning the history of
Europe. Thanks to these efforts, continued for more
than a century, history has almost become a science.
The historic method has also been applied to the study
of society. We have sought to learn how the laws and
institutions of peoples have been formed. In this manner
have come into being historic law (created by the German
school, whose chief exponent was Savigny), historic poli
tics, and historical pohtical economy. In this sense one
might say that the nineteenth century is the century of
history. Philosophy in our century has produced two great
schools, the German school and the English school.
The German philosophers since the time of Kant have
been more than anything else metaphysicians. They
1 To-day the word philology is applied to the study of authors, and
linguistics to the study of languages.

394 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
have tried to construct a system which would explain the
ensemble of the world, and the place of man in the universe.
Each of the great philosophers (Kant, Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Schopenhauer) has had his original system.
Through the profundity of their thought, and the poetic
beauty of their creations, they have made a strong im
pression on the imagination, and set all minds in action.
The traces of their ideas are found among the writers,
politicians, and learned men of their time.
The English, on the contrary (John Stuart Mill, Bain,
Herbert Spencer), were logicians and psychologists. They
observed the truths which appeared in the minds of men,
and sought to classify them. They did little with meta
physics, preferring to study politics and morals, of which
they tried to constitute sciences by observing the laws
which govern human actions.
In the other countries the philosophers have been only
disciples of the English or of the German schools.
In France the only school which might be able to pass
for an original system is the Positivist school founded
by Auguste Comte. The eclectic philosophy, whose
chief representative was Cousin, was inspired by the
Scotch school; the critical philosophy is derived from the
doctrine of Kant, and the experimental school is an ap-
plic?tion of the English method.

CHAPTER XVII
INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE
Application of Scientific Discoveries to Industry. —
Science in the nineteenth century has not only grown
more extensive, it has become more useful. Sufficiently
exact and precise theories have been formulated so that
it has been possible to apply them in actual practice. The
progress of the sciences has thus brought into all the arts
of life perfected methods which have caused a revolution
in industry, agriculture, and in the modes of transportation.
These changes have in their turn produced a most rapid
revolution in the organization of life. In each country,
as the savants have discovered new facts and formulated
new laws, the engineers, chemists and manufacturers have
sought to benefit by them. Some have labored to be
come better acquainted with nature, others have sought
to control it.
Steam and Electricity. — The most fecund of all dis
coveries up to the present is that of the motor power of
steam. Three important applications of this knowledge
have been made in steam engines, steamboats and rail
ways. In the eighteenth century Watt had invented a steam
engine. It has been improved upon many times, and
serves to-day to set in motion great manufacturing ma
chines, and is employed in mills in place of water.
The idea of a steamboat reverts to Papin and the Mar-
395

396 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
quis of Jouffroy. But the invention did not become
practical until the nineteenth century after the American
Fulton had launched the first steamboat on the Hudson,
in 1808. They were at first furnished with wheels, but
since 1840 the screw has gradually taken the place of the
wheel. Steamboats have taken away almost all of the
transportation of passengers from sailing vessels, and
they are drawing away more and more of the carriage
of merchandise. They are even taking the place of the
fishing smack. They have the advantage of being able
to move more quickly and in all kinds of weather.
Railways came into use later. The steam carriage
was invented to run on the ordinary road, and on the iron
railway which was used in the mines in order to aid in
the rapid movement of a cart drawn by a horse. Stephen
son, in putting the steam locomotive on the rails, created
the railway. At first (1821) it was only employed for the
transportation of coal, but since 1830 it has been used for
the carriage of people.
Electricity has been applied only during the last half
century, but it has already given rise to the telegraph, tele
phone, electric lighting, and electrotyping.
The invention of the electric telegraph took place
about the same time in France, England and Germany,
between the years 1833 and 1838. After having found out
a manner of using it on a single wire, the transmission of
dispatches was perfected; at first a needle marked the
letters on a clock-face, then the Morse invention of mark
ing points on a band of paper, and finally the apparatus for
printing the letters. Since 1850 the telegraph has come
into general and frequent use. The submarine telegraph
consists of wire cords protected by gutta-percha wrappers,

INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE 397
forming a cable. The first cable was laid from Calais
to Dover in 185 1. The transatlantic cable was laid in
1857, but the first one was a failure, and only since 1865
has the service been regularly estabhshed, and it has
made necessary the invention of a new receiving ap
paratus. The telephone is a recent invention, and is still incom
plete. It is established in nearly all the large towns; each
business house has one for rapid communication with
its patrons.
Progress of Agriculture. — Through mechanics and chem
istry agriculture has been improved. Machines have
been invented (reapers, mowers, threshing-machines)
which have taken the place of the instruments used by
hand (scythe, sickle and flail) and accomplish the work
in much less time, and with less labor. Chemistry has
furnished fertilizers, of more energy and less expense.
Something has been learned, too, from the study of zo
ology and botany. The large proprietors have labored
to improve the races of animals and to introduce new
crops. Everywhere agricultural societies have been found
ed. These publish studies on farming, and employ men
to improve on the processes in use.
Still more than science has commerce added to the
growth of the agricultural industries. When there was no
other means of transportation except by wagons the
farmers were interested only in producing enough for home
consumption and for the markets of the neighboring
towns. The peasants of Castille let their grain decay in the
fields; the peasants of Russia could not sell their crops
because it would not have paid for the transportation. Since
railways and good roads have been made everywhere, th|

398 CONTEMPORARY CIVHJZATION
farmers, being sure of a market for their produce, labor
continually to increase the yield. By methodical fertiliz
ing they cause the earth to bring forth more abundantly.
The practice of permitting the land to lie fallow every
third year has been abandoned. Sugar beet is largely
cultivated, and all farming is done on the plan of intensive
culture. The extent of cultivated land has been largely
increased. Mediocre lands, which were always left un-
ploughed, have been put under cultivation. The vast
solitudes of America have been transformed into fields
of wheat. Europe, which in 1850 had only 150,000,000
hectares under cultivation, had in 1884 200,000,000. The
United States, which in 1850 had only 22,000,000 hectares,
had in 1884 64,000,000. The same progress is noted in the
raising of cattle. The great sheep-raising countries,
Australia, the Cape, La Plata, exported in 1864 45°>000
bales of wool, in 1885 the exports were 1,700,000 bales.
The production of cotton has risen from 2,400,000 pounds
in 1870 to 4,000,000 in 1884. Agriculture has made more
progress in the last thirty years than in all the eighteen
preceding centuries.
Progress of Industry. — Industry has greatly profited
by the apphcation of the sciences, and especially through
the aid of mechanics, and chemistry. Many new indus
tries have been started in the nineteenth century and it
would be hard to find any of the old industries in which
the instruments and methods have not been changed
during the last hundred years. Extension has kept pace
with the improvements. The increase in population and
wealth, and the facility of transportation, have induced
a larger production. Old manufactories have been en
larged and new ones have been built. In the last thirty

INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE 399
years manufacturing on a large scale has been established
in countries that were formerly exclusively devoted to
agriculture: Russia, Hungary, and the United States.
Each branch of industry has a double history: the history
of successive improvements brought into its methods,
and the history of its introduction into the different civil
ized countries. In place of that long history is given the
list of the principal industries, invented or improved on
during the nineteenth century.
Among the former industries:
Mining (the coal mines produced in 1810 only 9,000,000
tons, in i860 140,000,000, in 1880 344,000,000).
The iron industry (forges heated by wood have been
replaced by those heated by coal); then were built the
great furnaces, and steam hammers, and pile drivers,
which allow the fusing and working of enormous masses;
the production of iron has increased from 4,000,000 tons
in 1650 to 20,000,000 in 1882.
The making of firearms (the flint musket had given
place to the rifle, and then rapid-firing guns were in
vented, breech-loading steel guns, carbines and revolvers).
Printing improved by the use of the steam press and of
stereotyping. Among the new inventions and discoveries the principal
ones, beside steam and electricity, are :
Chemical matches.
Beet-sugar. Gas.
Petroleum.
India rubber and gutta-percha.
Photography and heliogravure.
Electrotyping.

400 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Extracting colors from coaL
Canning of foods, and the manufacture of the extract of
beef. The number of workmen employed in the mines and
factories of Europe and the United States in 1880
reached 16,000,000, producing 70,000,000,000 francs; cot
tons and woolens alone occupied 3,500,000 workmen, who
produced one-fourth of the total value. France had nearly
2,000,000 operatives.
Progress of Commerce. — Commerce has been disturbed
by two great revolutions: one the change in the mode of
transportation, the other the change in methods of com
munication. On the sea, the sailing-vessel has been supplanted by
the much more rapid steamer. Harbors have been
put in order. The coast has been furnished with light
houses. Marine maps have been drawn, which give the
depths and the directions of the currents. Regular
steamship service has been arranged between the large
ports. There are now hundreds of lines crossing the seas.
The way is so well known, and so methodically followed,
that the ordinary passage of ships may be recognized at
the bottom of the sea, by the trail of coal cinders which
have been thrown overboard. The voyage from England
to America, which once occupied a month, is now regularly
made in ten days, and some boats have just been built
which can make the passage in five days. It is estimated
that a steamer to-day does five times the carrying that was
done by a sailing-vessel of the same tonnage.
On land the transportation was formerly only by means
of the stage-coach for people, and of wagons for merchan
dise. This was carried on along the dusty highways,

Industry, agriculture, commerce 4oi
which were at times often full of mud holes. In France
it was thought that great progress had been made when
the messageries took only three days and three nights to
make the journey from Paris to Lyons. Since 1850 stage
coaches and wagons have disappeared on all the great
lines; the railways have taken their place. In 1883 there
were about 450,000 kilometres of railway in the world,
183,000 in Europe, and 220,000 in America, with express
trains running at the rate of sixty kilometres an hour
(the train from London to Edinburgh makes the 646
kilometres in nine hours).
The building of railways has not prevented the improve
ment of the highways. The old straight, paved roads,
with dangerous ascents and descents have been replaced
by macadamized roads with gentle slopes.
The means of communication have also been increased.
The postal service was in use at the beginning of the
century, but the transportation of letters was slow and
costly. England set the' example by franking letters,
through the use of the postage-stamp, and by establishing
a low uniform tariff, no matter what distance was to be
covered. Then the extension of the railways has caused
a revolution in the postal system. The service exists
to-day between all civilized peoples and their colonies.
In 1882 the Postal Union had carried about 4,800,000,000
letters, 900,000,000 postal cards, 3,700,000,000 journals,
and 120,000,000 postal orders representing a value of
6,500,000,000 francs. The electric telegraph systems have
only been organized since 1850, and in 1883 there were
1,200,000 kilometres of telegraph lines (500,000 for Europe,
430,000 in America), and 153,000 kilometres of electric
cables.
DD

402 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
These new means of transportation and communica
tion have prodigiously increased the internal commerce
of each country, as well as the trade between different
countries. In fifty years (1830-1880) the commerce of
the United States and Europe had increased 800 per cent.,
from 9,000,000,000 to 70,000,000,000 francs. The com
merce of England increased from 2,200,000,000 to 15,-
000,000,000 and that of France from 1,500,000,000 to
9,200,000,000. It was estimated that in 1883 the trade of
Europe increased to more than 62,000,000,000 (England
alone imported more than 10,000,000,000, and exported
more than 6,000,000,000 worth of merchandise). This
activity goes on increasing. In twenty years (1865-1885)
commerce has more than doubled. 5
The result has been to permit each country to sell
its products and to put them within the reach of buyers
in all the other countries; consequently to increase the
price of merchandise in the countries where it is produced,
and to lower the price in the countries where the sales are
made. Towards 1830 the measure of wheat was valued
in England at 15 francs 20, in France at 9.50, in Germany
6.20, and in Hungary 4.25. In 1870 the price had gone
down in England to 9 francs 90, and had risen in Hungary
to 7.90. The difference had been reduced from 150 to
23 per cent. Thus prices are equalized from one end
of the world to the other. Commerce tends to bring the
conditions of living to almost the same level in all civilized
countries.

CHAPTER XVIII
ECONOMIC REFORMS IN FRANCE AND IN EUROPE
Increase of Wealth. — The progress of industry and
commerce has created new sources of wealth. The abun
dance of things necessary to life has increased the number
of inhabitants. Never has this growth been so rapid.
In eighty-two years (1800-1882) Europe shows an increase
from 187,000,000 inhabitants to 330,000,000, the United
States from 5,000,000 to 50,000,000. The growth has
been much more rapid among the Anglo-Saxon peoples;
in these eighty years the number has trebled. ^
Wealth grew still more rapidly and continues to increase.
The inhabitants of the civilized countries no longer spend
all their revenue; each year a sum is put aside to be em
ployed as a new source of income. These savings average
1,600,000,000 francs in England, 1,900,000,000 in France,
1,000,000,000 in Germany, 4,000,000,000 in the United
States; in all 12,000,000,000 a year. The savings-banks;
which in i860 had deposits of 3,150,000,000 francs, had in
1878 8,500,000,000. 1
The nations have taken advantage of this increase in
wealth and have added to their expenditures. All the
states of Europe taken together did not in 1820 spend
more than 6,000,000,000 francs a year. To-day the ex
penditure amounts to 19,000,000,000. For England the
increase has been from 1,250,000,000 to 2,800,000,000; for
403

404 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
France from 700,000,000 to 2,800,000,000. In order to
cover these expenses the taxes had to be increased, for they
are to-day the chief source of revenue for the governments.
The direct tax on property would not have sufficed to
bear this crushing increase. Recourse was had to the
customs and the indirect tax on beverages, sugar, tobacco,
and owing to the rapid increase in population these taxes
have become the most productive of all.
Countries have had facilities for borrowing that were
unknown in the eighteenth century, and in this way have
contracted enormous debts., England set the example;
in order to maintain the wars with Napoleon she increased
her debt to 920,000,000 pounds sterling in 1815. It was
then said that such a debt would render bankruptcy in
evitable. England has, however, not only paid the inter
est on the debt, but has saved since that time 83,000,000,-
000 francs, reducing the debt from 23,000,000,000 to
19,000,000,000 francs. All the other states have entered
the same path. To borrow is the usual recourse of govern
ments when they are embarrassed in order to find sufficient
money for their necessities. The debts of a state are con
tracted under the form of an irredeemable loan; the cred
itors have the right to draw out the interest only. The
increase in the annual tax serves to pay this interest.
So general has been this method of procedure that the
debts of almost all the states have increased, between
1820 to 1880, in unprecedented proportions. Germany's
debt of 550,000,000 francs has become 5,400,000,000 for
the empire, and 8,000,000,000 for the individual states;
Russia's debt increased from 1,200,000,000 to 14,500,000,-
000; Austria's from 2,400,000,000 to 10,500,000,000.
Italy's from 820,000,000 to 10,000,000,000; and the debt

REFORMS IN FRANCE AND IN EUROPE 405
of France from 4,000,000,000 to 22,000,000,000. The
greater part of the money thus borrowed has been ex
pended in wars. The Crimean War is thought to have
increased the debts of the states which participated in it
4,800,000,000 francs; the Civil War in the United States
added 12,200,000,000 francs to the debt, and the French
war 9,000,000,000 francs. The armaments alone have
increased the debts 42,000,000,000 francs, while railways
and telegraphs have only increased them 14,000,000,000
francs. Coin and Paper Money. — The gold mines of Australia
and California have produced more gold than there had
ever before been in circulation since the world began.
During the period from 1850 to i860 the average product
yearly was 200,000 kilos, valued at 700,000,000 francs.
Between 1800 and 1885 the quantity was almost trebled,
and to-day it is estimated that about 45,000,000,000
francs are in circulation. The silver mines had been at
first less productive. Toward 1850 the yield was as yet
only 900,000 kilos, a year. By 1870 the increase amounted
to 2,000,000 kilos, and in 1884 to 2,800,000. This in
crease, enormous though it may be, is not, however, in
proportion to the increase in commerce, which has grown
tenfold in the same time. The precious metals have,
therefore, not been sufficient for the needs of trade. One
of the great revolutionary measures of the nineteenth cen
tury was the development of the system of paper money.
For a long time banks had been accustomed to issue
notes. They were used in China as early as the eighth
century of our era. France had used them in 17 19 in
the State Bank, established by law. But the public never
had any confidence in this paper.

406 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Since the close of the eighteenth century government
banks have been established with sufficient guarantees to
inspire confidence. The bank had the right to issue only
a fixed quantity of notes, and it must keep in its vaults
enough coin to redeem these notes. This is the metal re
serve, and equals about one-third of the notes in actual
circulation. The bank utilizes the remainder of its funds
by placing them in loans to responsible merchants. These
loans constitute the commercial paper of the bank. As
the money has cost it nothing, having been received in ex
change foyiotes issued by the bank, a profit is assured. In
a monetary crisis, when the holders of the notes might be
tempted to demand redemption, the state comes to the aid
of the bank by decreeing the issue to be legal tender; and
the bank is then no longer obliged to redeem; the notes
must be accepted in all payments.
All the civilized countries have to-day state banks.
In the rich countries like England, France and the United
States, where there is complete confidence in the monetary
system, the notes are as readily accepted as gold. Often
they are preferred, as they are more conveniently carried.
In the countries where the state has less credit the notes
are less in value than the sum they are intended to repre
sent. In Austria paper loses 29 per cent., in Russia the
paper rouble in place of being worth four francs is worth
hardly 2 francs 50 centimes. About 23,000,000,000 francs
in bank notes are in circulation.
Organization of Credit. — The enormous growth of in
dustry and commerce has been possible only through a
corresponding increase in the 'credit system. Credit ex
isted from the time of the Middle Ages, but only in the
nineteenth century did it becorne such a power, owing

REFORMS IN FRANCE AND IN EUROPE 407
chiefly to two institutions which already existed but which
have been utilized in an entirely different manner: banks
and joint-stock companies.
The banks issue notes, and as gold and silver continue
to circulate along with these notes, the quantity of cash
is doubled and manufacturers can operate with a doubled
capital, and do a double amount of business. The banks
have rendered another service to commerce by the system
of checks and clearing of accounts. The manufacturers
and merchants of the different countries, who have an
account open in a bank, in order to pay a sum have only
to give a check for that sum, payable at that bank. In
order to arrange a payment between two patrons of the
same bank, it is only necessary to efface the amount from
the assets of the debtor and carry it over to the assets of
the creditor. Millions are thus paid without disturbing
one cent of the cash. The Bank of France handles in
this way more than 40,000,000,000 francs every year for
the benefit of its patrons. The same system is used among
the banks of the same town. In London and in New
York the clerks of the principal banks assemble every
day at the clearing-house, in order to offset the checks
which they have drawn on each other. The amount of
these payments in London reaches yearly the sum of
130,000,000,000 francs and in New York about 150,000,-
000,000 francs. This simple procedure keeps in circula
tion indefinitely an immense capital, and renders possible
the extraordinary figures which indicate the business of
the world.
Joint-stock companies are not a new arrangement.
The Bank of St. George, founded at Geneva, in 1407,
belonged to a company of capitalists, each of whom owned

408 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
a share in the enterprise. All the commerical companies
organized since the seventeenth century have had their
capital divided into parts which were even then called
shares or stock. But in our day capital is divided into
much smaller shares (some of 500 francs), within reach
of the smallest purses; thus the small savings have been
grouped to form a large capital and to set up large enter
prises by means of stocks.
When a business appears to offer large results a joint-
stock company is formed. This company belongs in
common to all who have taken stock in it. The stock
holders share with each other the profits in propor
tion to the amount of stock which each one holds; this is
the dividend. The affairs are directed by a council of
administration, but movements are decided upon at the
meetings of the stockholders. These companies have
been organized for all kinds of great enterprises, railways,
mines, the Canal of Suez, etc.
The stock of a company has a fluctuating value; the
buyers will give a larger or smaller price, according to the
results which are expected. The same is true in regard
to merchandise. The price of grain, cotton, coffee, oil,
depends on very changeable conditions, and varies from
day to day. In order to fix the value of these stocks
and products it was necessary that the buyers and sellers
should come together at a common centre. This centre
is the Exchange. This daily reunion has done away with
the great annual fairs, which have by degrees attracted
fewer visitors, in the West at least.
Ever since the sixteenth century there have been in the
large commercial towns exchanges which served as a
rendezvous for the traders in grains, cotton, coffee and^ other

REFORMS IN FRANCE AND IN EUROPE 409
merchandise which was sold at wholesale, but the princi
pal exchange to-day, that which is called simply the Ex
change, is where the stockbrokers come to buy or sell for
their clients the stocks of the joint-stock companies or
the bonds issued by the state.
The price of each varies daily: when it increases it is
said to be "going up"; when it decreases then it is "going
down." These fluctuations correspond to periods of
prosperity or of depression. That is the reason why the
Exchange is compared to a thermometer, whose variations
indicate the financial condition of a country.
This fluctuation in values has given rise to a class of
operations characteristic of our century and called specu
lation. It arose from the habit of buying and selling secur
ities not for cash that is payable at once, but for a term,
deliverable only at the end of a certain time, usually at
the end of the month. The speculators buy securities or
merchandise without having the same delivered, and sell
again without ever having had possession of their pur
chases. If the value increases in the interval between
the sale and the time of delivery, those who have sold are
obhged to buy at a greater price than they have sold for,
and they lose the difference. If the price is lowered they
can buy cheaper and so gain the difference. In the same
way the buyer gains if the value increases, and loses in
case of a decline. The operations of the Exchange have
thus taken on the form of a game, and to "speculate on
the rise" or "to speculate on the fall" are common ex
pressions. Speculation is carried on with enormous
sums, for the speculator who buys a million of securities
does not need to have a million; therefore the gains and
losses axe immense. Jt js chiefly through speculation

410 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
that the great fortunes of the financiers of our day are
made. Capital does not remain in the country that produces
it. For a long time the rich and civilized peoples, as in
England and France, have accumulated more capital than
they could employ in their own country. They send their
money and their engineers to new countries where money
is scarce: to America, Russia, Turkey, in order to organize
great schemes for the exploitation of the country, to in
vest in railways, mines, gas plants. The English draw
an annual interest of 1,500,000,000 francs from their
capital placed in foreign lands.
Throughout the world may be found industrial enter
prises which belong to English companies. Often, also,
the capital of different countries is brought together in
one common enterprise. In this way the Suez Canal was
built. It is 162 kilometres long, 100 metres wide, and
9 metres deep. The St. Gothard tunnel, which unites
Germany with Italy, was built at the common expense of
Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.
Protection and Free Trade. — In regard to the manner
of regulating commerce between nations there are two
widely diverse theories. One of these is free trade. This
comes from the principle of the ancient economists that free
competition is the system most favorable to the production
of wealth. It demands for all the inhabitants of a country
the right to freely exchange their merchandise with other
countries, that is to buy and sell in foreign lands in the
same way as in one's own country, without having to
pay a duty for entry, or at least only a very small tariff.
The other theory is that of protection, which resembles
the old theory of the balance of trade, It admits that a

REFORMS IN FRANCE AND IN EUROPE 411
nation is interested in protecting its own industries in
competition with those of other nations, and demands,
therefore, that articles of foreign manufacture should be
taxed on their entry into the country. This tax would
force an increase in the price, and put it on a level with
the price demanded for productions of the home market.
The free traders reject the idea -of a customs duty
on the frontier, or at least consider it only under the
head of a tax; the protectionists, on the contrary, demand
it especially as a protection.
Free trade, after having been in favor in the eighteenth
century, was abandoned during the wars of the Empire.
The Continental Blockade of Napoleon was a system of
protection, the most exclusive ever experienced. No
English merchandise could be admitted. After the Restor
ation, an intermediate system was instituted. In Eng
land, where the large land owners ruled in the Parhament,
they organized a tariff system to protect their grain against
the grain trade of the other countries. The law of 1815
closed England to all foreign grain until the price of Eng
lish wheat reached eighty shillings a quarter, then, only
to avoid a famine, did they permit the entrance of foreign
grain. In France, the introduction of the greater part of Eng
lish manufactured articles was forbidden, especially wool
and cotton threads, carriages, and cutlery. To regulate
the trade in grain the sliding scale system was introduced.
The tax levied at entry in France varied according to the
price of grain in the French markets. Then the free
traders began to agitate the suppression of the prohibitive
measures and the lowering of the protection tax. Their
triumph has been most complete in England. In 1824

412 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Huskisson obtained in Parliament a reduction of the tax,
and in 1838 an association was founded (the Anti-Corn
Law League) for the purpose of demanding the abolition
of the laws touching grain. It had its centre at Manchester,
and Richard Cobden, a manufacturer, was the leader of
the movement. Through agitation and writings, aided
by a famine, the association succeeded, in 1846, in obtain
ing a declaration in favor of free commerce in grain.
The school of Manchester finally converted the Whig
party to its ideas, and thus the customs duties on many
other objects were reduced.
In all the other European countries the governments
have remained protectionists.
Commercial Treaties. — Protection has remained a prin
ciple of international law in Europe. A country does not
allow foreign merchandise to enter without first paying a
duty. Each state has drawn up a list of duties that must
be paid by each kind of merchandise. This is the general
tariff. It cannot be suppressed or reduced for a certain
article unless by special convention. In order to obtain
these reductions, it has become necessary for the powers
to conclude treaties with each other. The principle usual
in these treaties is reciprocity. Each state agrees to grant
to another a reduction on the entry of its produce on con
dition that a similar reduction be made on the merchandise
of the other party to the contract. This is called, in
England "fair rade," and is different from free trade,
which opens the country to all foreign goods without de
manding any favors in return.
Commercial treaties at one time seemed to be a means
of gradually establishing free trade. By the treaty of
i860 between France and England Napoleon IIJ abolished

REFORMS IN FRANCE AND IN EUROPE 413
all prohibitive laws, and replaced them with protective
duties which were to be reduced from year to year: 30 per
cent, from 1861, 25 per cent, from 1864. England sup
pressed all duties on French manufactures, silks, millin
ery goods, articles de Paris; the duty on wines was
reduced from 158 francs to 22 francs a hectolitre.
This treaty was to be in force ten years.
In recent years all the states have returned to the system
of protection. Li many commercial treaties, instead of
establishing a fixed tariff of duties, the treaty stipulates
that no more duties shall be collected than are paid by
the nation that pays the least. This is called "the clause
of the most favored nation." This kind of treaty does
not hinder the state from raising its taxes, it only obliges
it to raise the taxes on the merchandise of all countries at
the same time.
Universal Expositions. — The enormous progress of in
dustry and commerce suggested the idea of a universal
exposition, where could be gathered the inventions and
products of the whole world, and which would serve at
the same time as an amusement and as a school. The
first was held at London in 1S51; there were 17,000 ex
hibitors. Then came the expositions at Paris in 1S55,
with 24,000 exhibitors; at London in iStu, with 27,000
exhibitors; at Paris, in 1S07, with 52,000 exhibitors; at
Vienna in 1873, Philadelphia in 1S70, Paris in 1S7S;
Melbourne, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruxelles, and the Ex
position at Paris in 1SS9. Each exposition has been larger
than the preceding one. At Paris, in 1S55, the exposition
was held in the Palais de Tlndustrie, in the Champs
Erysees. It occupied only eleven hectares, with 24,000
exhibitors. There were 4.504,000 visitors. The exposi-

414 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
tion of 1889, besides the Champ de Mars and the Troca-
dero, took in all the Esplanade of the Invalides and the
quais between the Invalides and the Champ de Mars.
There were more than 28,000,000 visitors.
Commercial Crises. — Commerce has bound all civilized
nations so closely together that they all mutually help one
another, and each one feels the effect of prosperity or of
disaster in the others. In the Middle Ages the provinces
of the same country were isolated. When the harvest
failed in one province a famine was the result and the
people died. Since the sixteenth, century famines have
ceased, but the years of failure in crops have continued,
and there has been want when the price of grain was too
high for the people. To-day, when the harvest is a failure,
the arrival of grain from Russia; America or Hungary
compensates so entirely for the deficit that the consumer
does not suffer. From 1876 to 1879 there were in France
four bad years in succession. This would have caused a
terrible famine in the Middle Ages, and yet at this time
there was scarcely a perceptible rise in the price of bread.
To-day want is no longer feared, and the greatest suffer
ing is caused by the economic crises. These come from
divers sources: commercial crises, brought on by a war
which has suspended the course of trade; by the opening
of a new market; by a sudden change in the routes of com
merce. Industrial crises produced by the closing of an
outlet for trade; by new competition, or because more
objects have been manufactured than can be sold (what
is called over-production). Monetary crises, due to the
exportation of too great a quantity of specie. Crises on
the Exchange, which burst forth when the infatuation of
the pubhc has caused stocks to rise to an unreasonable

REFORMS IN FRANCE AND IN EUROPE 415
price (for some years these crises have been called a
"Krach" from the German word for crash). All are mani
fested in a sudden decline of activity in business. Confi
dence ceases; capitalists who have money to invest will not
risk lending it; the bankers and merchants cannot borrow,
and not being able to meet their payments, bankruptcy
follows; consumption diminishes; manufacturers receive
no orders; they close their shops or send away a part of
their employees; the workmen can find nothing to do, and
poverty follows. Directly or indirectly, all classes of
society are involved. As all the civilized countries are
bound together by trade in such a way as to form one
single market, so a crisis arising in one country must be
felt in the others. The great crisis of 1857 began in the
United States, in the month of September. There were
more than 5,000 failures with liabilities of more than
1,500,000,000 francs. In the month of November it was
felt in England. From there it reached Northern Ger
many, Denmark, Austria; then the Indies, and finally
Brazil and Buenos Ayres.

CHAPTER XIX
DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM
Democratic Ideas. — All society in Europe, from the
time of the Middle Ages, had been organized in unequal
classes. According to the family in which one was born
one was a noble, bourgeois, or peasant; the condition of a
man depended on his birth, and it was thought quite
natural that a man should remain in the condition in
which he was born. A small number of men, of the su
perior classes — men who were well-born — alone had anjr
authority, honors or wealth, and they alone attracted
public attention. Society was aristocratic. From the
eighteenth century this society had been sharply attacked,
especially by the men of letters. They declared that the
arrangement was unjust, because it made men unequal
whom nature had made equal; inhuman, because it held
the larger part of the population in a humiliating and
miserable condition; absurd, because it left to the chance
of birth the decision as to what men should lead society.
There was formed in all of the countries a sentiment that
was called democratic, in opposition to aristocratic. The
word democratic has lost its primitive meaning (govern
ment by the people). It is applied to-day to any system
which takes no account of birth. In fact, the democrats
have usually been partisans of a republic, because the
nobles sustained the monarchy. But a democracy must
416

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 417
not be confounded with a repubhc.1 The French empire
was a democratic monarchy.
Democratic principles have been applied to government,
society and manners. In the government it is demanded
that the law should make no difference between men,
either in taxation or in judicature. It was desired even
that a man, whatever the accident of his birth, should be
eligible to all offices, even the highest. It was this pre
tention which shocked the partisans of tradition. It
seemed to them that the office was dishonored in con
fiding it to a man of the people. The democrats contended
that any man, if he had the means, should have the right
to buy any land, even that belonging to the nobihty, and
to give his children the same education as that given to
the children of the greatest lord. They did not admit
inequality in private life. They fought the prejudice of
birth and were indignant at the refusal of a noble to re
ceive as his guest a bourgeois, or to permit him to marry
his daughter, and that many bourgeois should act in the
same manner towards the laboring classes.2
Abolition -of Serfdom. — The serfdom of the peasants
had disappeared from almost all of Europe during the
Revolution. In all countries where a French administra
tion had been estabhshed serfdom had been immediately
abohshed. In the other countries the governments had permitted
1 Neither must the democrat and the partisan of equality be con
founded. The latter want all men to be treated with absolute equality,
without regard to merit: the democrats admit that there are inequalities
in fortune, in honors and in authority. They only demand that position
should not be decided by birth. The government of the Jacobins was a
system of equality, the republic of the United States is a democratic
system. 'This sentiment has been often expressed in romances and in the
drama. See particularly Schiller's "Kabale und Liebe."
EE

418 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the peasants to redeem the rents and forced labor (corvee)
which they owed to their lords. The redemption took
place gradually. In Germany all that remained of the seign
iorial rights has been suppressed as a result of the move
ment in 1848, and the peasants have become full pro
prietors (except in Mecklenburg). In the empire of
Austria the corvee had been retained, but under regula
tions. The Constituent of 1848 abolished it.
In Russia, nothing had been changed in regard to the
serfs. After 1850 the Russian writers began to touch the
heart of the public by describing the miserable condition
of the serfs. The Czar Alexander II. by the ukase of
1 86 1 abolished serfdom. All the serfs were declared free.
The domestics who served in the households of their
lords (there were 1,500,000) had ihe right to leave their
master or to remain in his service at a certain wage.
The condition of the peasants, which constitute the mass
of the Russian people, was more difficult of adjustment.
They could not be taken from the lands which they had
cultivated for generations and be reduced to the position
of day laborers for their masters. They, themselves,
preferred to remain serfs, and to keep the land which
they regarded as their own property. A philanthropic
landowner, who wanted to enfranchise his serfs, giving
to each one his house and garden, explained his project
to them. "And the tillable lands?" they asked. "The
lands are mine," was the reply. "In that case, little
father, let all remain as in the past. We belong to thee,
but the land is ours." The czar decided that each serf
should receive enough land for the support of his family.
The serfs of the crown domains remained proprietors of
the lands which they were tilling. The peasants who

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 419
belonged to private individuals were obliged to share the
domain with the proprietor, and to redeem the part which
fell to them. The state aided them by advancing to them
the price of the redemption. The lands thus purchased
are owned in common by the mir, that is, by the commu
nity of the peasants in a village.
Emancipation of Women. — The democratic sentiment
has also produced a movement in favor of women. A
party has been formed which demands the emancipation
of women in the name of humanity and of justice. Some
demand more, others less. Some want absolute equal
ity in the rights of man and woman. They demand
equal pohtical rights, the right to elect, and to be elected,
to sit in a representative assembly, to fill political offices.
Others demand social and economic equality; that women
should be permitted to earn their living as men do, to
enter the same schools, and to practise in all the non-
political professions. Others, finally, stop at civil equahty,
demanding only civil rights, the right to dispose of their
fortunes and of their liberty. The advocates of the liberty
of woman are numerous, especially in the most civilized
countries: in England, France, the United States. They
have succeeded in having women admitted to the medical
schools and to practice medicine. This authority has
not been granted in Germany; the women who wish to
study medicine must do it in France or in the universities
of Switzerland. The party in favor of the political rights
of woman is only to be found in English-speaking countries.
Woman-suffrage is now established in New Zealand,
and in two states of the Union, Wyoming and Washington.1
1 Full rights of suffrage are granted to women in Wyoming, Colorado,
Utah, and Idaho (1905).— Ed.

420 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Military Service. — In all the European states the gov
ernment, at the close of the feudal regime, ceased to exact
military service from the inhabitants; the armies were
composed of volunteers, usually engaged for a long term
of service. In the eighteenth century certain govern
ments had need of larger armies, and as the enrolled volun
teers did not suffice, they began to levy soldiers by force
from among theii" subjects. This was done in France by
Louis XIV., in. Prussia by Frederick William, in Russia
by Peter the Great.1 But the system was always applied
to the peasants and laborers; the nobles and bourgeoisie
were exempt.
When France was at war with all Europe, she tried,
at first, to recruit her army with patriots (the volunteers
of 1791-1792), But, from the beginning of the year
1793 the Convention was obliged to have recourse to a
forced levy. At that time was declared the principle
that every Frenchman owed military duty to his country.
As all the young men fit for duty were not needed, a sys
tem of conscription was adopted. Lots were drawn to
decide who should depart and who should remain.
Napoleon permitted that those who drew the lot to
depart could fill their places by substitutes, whom they
paid. The result was that the rich were practically
exempt from military duty. This system was preserved
with a change of name by all the governments until 1870.
It was adopted by the greater number of the European
states. The kingdom of Prussia, which, in order to fight
Napoleon, was forced to enroll all the able-bodied young-
1 The kings of Sweden had set the example from the time of Gustavus
Adolphus.

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 421
men, preserved the system of universal military service,
even after the war had ended. Every Prussian is a soldier;
he serves in the regular army for three years, then passes
into the reserve, then into the Landwehr. There is no
exemption, no substitution. When the citizens of Berlin,
in 1816, demanded exemption, the king replied by a
threat to publish the names of all who had made the
demand. But the young men who have completed their
studies have the right, by enrolling in advance, to do only
one year's active duty and to do it in the town of their
choice. They are called one year volunteers.
The Prussian system is based rather on the absolute
right of the government in regard to its subjects than on
a principle of equahty; for Prussian society was not then,
and is not now, democratic. But the example of Prussia
accustomed other peoples to the idea that every citizen
is obhged to bear arms for his country.
After the victor es of Prussia over Austria (1866), and
over France (1870), nearly all the European states adopted
the principle of obligatory mihtary service. Usually they
have followed the Prussian method, in the institution of
three years and one year terms of service. France, which
in 1875 had adopted the volunteer system with a term of
five years, has just changed to the three years' term, and
abohshed the volunteer feature (1889).
Switzerland (from 181 7) had been in favor of obligatory
service, but it was carried out in such a way as to make
it less of a burden to the citizens. Being a neutral coun
try, and having decided never to attack any of its neigh
bors, it organized a service for defence alone. The
young men serve only for several weeks, in the barracks,
and then they return to their homes. They are called

422 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
out at certain epochs for the manoeuvres, and they con
tinue to practice with the rifle. The use of the rifle has
become a national diversion and the Swiss are reported to
be the best marksmen in Europe.
England alone has kept up the volunteer system.
She enrolls professional soldiers by paying them one shilling
a day.The United States has only a very small army, of twenty
to twenty-five thousand men. They have no hostile
neighbors, and have no need of a military organization.1
Public Instruction. — The European governments had
for a long time considered education as a private affair,
which concerned only parents. There were then only
private schools. Almost all were established and con
ducted by the Catholic or Protestant clergy; in all of them
religious instruction was an essential part of the curriculum.
Some German governments had, in the eighteenth cen
tury, begun to declare that parents must give their chil
dren at least primary instruction, but they were satisfied
to impose on the communes the duty of providing this
instruction at their expense.
The Constituent and then the Convention set forth the
principle that it is the duty of the state to provide for the
education of all its children. But they had no time to
put this theory into practice. The Convention only suc
ceeded in establishing central schools to replace the col
leges, and primary schools. But before the organization
was complete Napoleon reestablished the colleges; the
primary schools were neglected, and their establishment
was left to the care of the communes.
1 The" New Army Law" of January, 1901, established the minimum
of men in the army at 57,000 and the maximum at 100,000. — Ed.

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 423
Primary instruction had been much neglected in all
lands until the nineteenth century.
There was a tolerably widespread idea among states
men that the people had no need of education. Instruc
tion, said they, unfits the people for manual labor, and
gives them ideas of rebellion. When, for the first time,
it was a question, in the English Parliament, of voting
funds for the use of primary schools, one of the lords op
posed the innovation, saying: "If a horse knew as much
as a man, I should not like to be its rider."
The principle of obligatory primary instruction was
first realized in Germany, especially in the kingdoms of
Saxony, Wurtemburg and Prussia. Primary schools were
formed in all the communes. All children from six to
fourteen years are obliged to attend school. The state
finally took the burden of the larger part of the expense,
so that instruction has been rendered free. The same
system has been established in Switzerland and in the
Scandinavian countries.
Gradually the same method has been adopted by other
nations. It is now admitted throughout the Continent
that all children have the right to receive primary instruc
tion. In some states this is obligatory. Such is the sys
tem in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and, since 1882,
in France. England herself, according as she has grown
less aristocratic, has paid more attention to popular edu
cation. The movement began immediately after the re
form of 1832.
Public instruction, in fact, developed in each country ac
cording to the progress of democratic ideas. The country
where primary instruction is most universally established
is the most democratic in the world, the United States.

424 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
At the same time that the governments made instruc
tion a duty they made it accessible to all by making the
state or the communes bear the expense of all schools in
villages and in hamlets.
In 1880 there were in France 73,000 schools1 with
5,000,000 pupils; in Germany 57,000 schools with more
than 7,000,000 pupils; in Austro-Hungary 33,000 schools
and more than 4,000,000 pupils; in Italy 48,000 schools
and 2,000,000 pupils; in Belgium 5,729 schools with
687,000 pupils; in Switzerland 4,800 schools and 455,-
000 pupils; in England 28,000 schools with 4,360,000
pupils. Progress of Democratic Ideas. — It is evident to-day that
democratic ideas have permeated all civilized nations.
Writers, for the most part bourgeois or children of the
people, have labored for the spread of these ideas. The
lower classes have been enriched and elevated. As polit
ical and private affairs have grown more complex, it has
been found necessary to take into account the personal
qualities of men, and not to count so much upon the con
ditions under which they have been born. Through all
these causes society has rapidly become more democratic.
To-day all civilized nations acknowledge equality be
fore the law. Everywhere there is equahty of taxes and
equality of justice for all conditions of men. All the states
admit also, at least in theory, that the functions of the
state are accessible to all without distinction of birth.
The better to insure this equality many offices are the ob
ject of a competitive examination. In England all the
offices in the service of India have been under rules re
quiring this examination since 1853. All universal suf-
1 Twelve thousand were private schools.

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 425
frage countries recognize the equahty of political rights,
since all have the franchise.
These ideas of equality have penetrated even into the
daily life of the people. The child of the most humble
citizen receives the same instruction as the children of the
great families. The nobles have preserved their titles,
but they live familiarly with those who are not ennobled,
and one does not inquire concerning the conditions of
birth before receiving a man as a guest. The aristocratic
party itself has become democratic; some of its leaders are
descendants of the bourgeoisie. The chief of the Tory
party in England was for a long time Benjamin Disraeli,
a bourgeois of Jewish origin. There remains hardly
anything of an aristocratic society except in England1 and
in Hungary, and even in those countries the law is wholly
democratic. "Conditions are more equal, in our day,
among Christians, than they have been at any time any
where in the world," wrote de Tocqueville in 1848.
SOCIAL QUESTIONS
Origin of Socialism. — In the nineteenth century there
has been a complete revolution in the organization of
labor. In the eighteenth century there were as yet few
large cities and almost no great factories. The regula
tions of the trades did not permit an employer to have
more than three or four workmen. These journeymen,
as they were called, worked in the shop with their em
ployer, as the artisans in our small towns still do (joiners,
bakers, shoemakers); after a few years they themselves
became employers.
In our day the great industry has been created. In
> See Thackeray, "The Book of Snobs."

426 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
order to utilize the power of machines, a great number of
workmen are gathered in the same factory; in order to
furnish fuel to these machines, mines have been opened
which give work to thousands of men. The absolute
liberty of industry, established at the demand of the econo
mists, has permitted the proprietors of factories and mines
to employ hundreds of workmen in their service by simply
pledging them a certain sum per day. Then began the
separation of the manufacturers, who possessed capital (the
instruments of labor) and the workmen, who rented out
their labor for a certain wage. This was called the con
flict of capital and wages. " The workman in the factor
ies," said M. Laveleye, "having nothing more to accom
plish than a mere muscular and automatic effort, has
descended below the journeyman of former times; at the
same time the chief of the industry has been lifted infinitely
above the master-workman. Whether the factory belongs
to him, or whether he is only the director of it, this in
dustrial leader has an immense capital at his disposal,
and, like a general, he commands an army of workmen.
Through his intelligence, position, and manner of living,
he belongs to a different world from that occupied by his
workmen. His sentiments as a man and a Christian may
lead him to look upon them as brothers, nevertheless there
is nothing in common between them — they are strangers
to each other." The manufacturers form a part of the
upper bourgeoisie, the wage-earners find themselves in a
condition unknown before the nineteenth century. They
live in the town where their factory is situated, but nothing
holds them there. If the factory should have no need of
them, they hope to find a better place elsewhere; they will
go to the other end of the land in order to find work in

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 427
another town. Therefore, they have no fixed habitation.
They hve like nomads, ever ready to depart. They pos
sess nothing, having only their wages to live on. The
wages depend on the labor, and there is no guarantee that
they will always have labor, for their employer engages
them by the day or week, and does not agree to keep them
beyond that time.
Thus, beside the peasant and artisan classes already
estabhshed, there arose a new class formed of workers
in factories and of miners. To this body was given the old
Roman name proletariat (those whose only wealth is in
their children). In Germany it is sometimes called the
Fourth Estate, to indicate that it is inferior to the old
Third Estate. The members of the modem proletariat
are assuredly better fed, better lodged, and the object of
less scom than were the common people of the Middle
Ages. However, they are much more discontented. They
are not comfortable because they have no abiding place,
and cannot count upon the future. At the same time,
since society has become so democratic, they hear continu
ally that all men are equal before the law, and that they
have the same political rights as the wealthy class. They
have ceased to be resigned to their fate, and have set about
demanding a change in conditions.
The economists of the eighteenth century taught that
poverty is the result of natural laws, and that it is in
evitable. When the English government, in 1840, insti
tuted an examination into the situation of the working-
man, a large machine manufacturer, James Nasmyth,
testified that he had often increased his profits by substi
tuting apprentices for skilled workmen. When he was
asked what became of the men who were dismissed and

428 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
their families, he replied, "I do not know, but I leave
that to the natural laws which govern society." In the
nineteenth century some theorists appeared who argued
from a contrary principle. They said that poverty comes
from the unequal division of wealth — some have too
much, others too little; society is badly organized, the state
ought to make it over in such a way as to diminish this
inequality. A social revolution is necessary. These
partisans of revolution were called Socialists,1 and their
doctrine was denominated socialism. The Socialists all
agree in attacking our system of property ownership, and
demand the intervention of the state for the purpose of
establishing another system. But they do not agree on
what ought to take the place of the one now existing.
Therefore, they cannot form one school. There is a great
difference in their teachings, especially between those of
the French socialists and the Germans.
The French Socialists. — The men who governed France
during the Revolution, even the Jacobins, declared that
property rights were sacred and inviolable. At the begin
ning of the Directorate, Babeuf tried to cause a revolution
in order to abolish private ownership and to establish a
community of goods; but the communist party, which was
small in numbers, was broken up by the government.
Socialism did not become a system in France until after
the Restoration. The principal leaders were Saint-Simon
and Fourier.
The French socialists, like the men of the Revolution,
1 There were in antiquity, and during the Renaissance, certain philos
ophers who were pleased to describe an ideal state of society (Plato,
Campanella, More), but they regarded their descriptions as dreams,
impossible of realization. That which distinguishes the socialists of
our day is, that they want to realize their ideals, and they are not content
with dreaming, but wish to institute a reform.

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 429
based their system on general sentiments and principles.
They attacked property ownership as being contrary to
justice and humanity, and proposed the construction of
a wholly new society. The formula of Saint-Simon was,
"To each one according to his capacity, to each capacity
according to its production." He wanted a society where
the state only would be proprietor, and would distribute
to each member an income in proportion to the labor
performed. Fourier set down this formula, "To each
one according to his needs." He dreamed of a society
founded on harmony, the voluntary agreement of men
united to work in common from a love for labor. All
men would form an association and would be divided into
phalanxes, each composed of 1,800 persons, the phalanx
would lodge in a great palace, the phalanstery, with a cel
lar, kitchen, and granary common to all. The artists and
savants would be paid by a voluntary contribution from
all the phalanxes.
Among the men who carried out the revolution of 1848
and became members of the provincial governments
there were several socialists. They declared that society
is bound to furnish work to every one who demands it.
The provisional government, therefore, proclaimed the
right to labor, and, following the advice of Louis Blanc,
national workshops were established. But the state not
having any labor for the employment of mechanics, put
them to work cultivating the soil. The national work
shops had cost 14,000,000 francs, when they were closed.
The failure1 of this experiment brought discredit upon
socialist doctrines in France; the townspeople and the
1 The government was suspected of having willingly caused the failure
of the experiment.

430 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
peasants regarded them with terror, as they were repre
sented to set forth the idea of the division of property,
The historian of French socialism, Louis Reybaud, wrote
in 1854 that socialism was dead. "To speak of it," said
he, "is to deliver its funeral oration."
German Socialism. — A new socialism has grown up in
Germany since 1863. The founders were German Jews,
Lassalle and Karl Marx. Both had been disciples of the
French socialists. They were men of the people, intelli
gent, almost learned. They founded their system not on
sentiment or on principles, but on facts, in order to secure
the acceptance of their projects for reform. They in
voked not humanity and justice, but political economy
and statistics. Both took for their point of departure a
scientific law, admitted by the economists themselves.
Marx started with the law formulated by Adam Smith
and Ricardo: that riches are solely the product of labor;
the value of objects comes from the amount of labor
necessary for their production. Capital is, therefore, by
itself, of no value. " It is," said Marx, "dead labor, which
can only be revived by sucking like a vampire."1 It has
value only through the labor of the workman. Since
it is, therefore, the workman who alone produces value, it
is to the laborer alone, not to capital, that the profits should
accrue. In place of wages, therefore, the workman should
receive his share of the profits of the industry. Such was
the theory of Marx. Lassalle starts from what is called
the "iron law of wage" — a law asserted by the old econo
mists and which Turgot formulated as follows: "The
simple workman who has nothing but his arms, has noth-
1 This comparison has had great success. Thus there is often found in
socialist journals the expression vampirism, in allusion to the power of
a great industry.

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 431
ing but his labor, which he can succeed in selling to others.
He sells it more or less dear, but this price, be it high or
low, is the result of an agreement which he makes with
the one who pays him for his work. The latter pays the
least that he can, and as he has the choice from a large
number of workmen, he prefers to take the one who will
work cheapest. The workmen are, therefore, obhged
to lower their prices, vying with each other in order to
obtain the situation. In every kind of labor it must
happen, then, that the wages of a laborer must be con
fined to the limit of what is absolutely necessary for sub
sistence. "With society organized as it is," said Lassalle,
"the workman is always forced to lower the price; in
vain does he work more, he will gain only enough to keep
from starving to death; his labor will be of profit only
to the capitalist who employs him. To-day the laborer is
at the service of capital. Capital, on the contrary, should
be at the service of the laborer; the workman would then
obtain some results from his labor." Such is the theory
of Lassalle.1 In order to put it into practice, like Louis
Blanc, he turned to the state and demanded the organ
ization of labor by furnishing capital to workingmen.
Marx and Lassalle did not confine themselves to writing.
In a few years they succeeded in organizing a powerful
party in Germany. The socialist-democratic party, organ-
1 It has been demonstrated to-day that the laws set forth by the old
economists, and accepted by Marx and Lassalle, are not exact. It is
not true that the value of an object rests on the amount of labor expended
upon it. Bordeaux wine, which is worth ten francs a bottle does not re
quire more labor than does a bad wine at ten sous a litre; wheat harvested
on fertile lands is worth more than the grain from a common soil, and yet
it has cost less labor. It is not labor that has value, but the utility of the
object. Neither is it true that wages are always based on the minimum
necessary to support the workman; in fact, for thirty years wages have
been increasing in all countries.

432 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
ized in 1866, had in 1893 more than forty deputies in the
Reichstag. It holds meetings, publishes journals, and
the German government considers it as of sufficient im
portance to demand that special laws be passed against
the spread of sociahsm (1878). The German sociahsts
do not demand the complete overthrow of society,1 They
do not want to do away with private ownership of property,
with the right of inheritance, or with private hberty.
They only demand that the state should change the system
of property rights, that the instruments of labor (the
factories, mines, railways, the great estates) should cease
to belong to individuals or to companies; all should be
the collective property of the nation; the state should be
charged with loaning them to societies of workmen.
Therefore, one branch of the party calls itself "Col-
lectivist." The International Association of Workmen. — During
the universal exposition at London, in 1862, the foreign
workmen who were gathered at London conceived the
idea of an alliance between the workmen of all countries;
in 1866 was founded the International Association of
Laborers. It was led by one of the German sociahsts,
Karl Marx, and at first only proposed to arrange in groups
or sections all the workingmen, in order that there should
be a concert of action in case of strikes. Every year
delegates were to meet in a congress; the first meeting
was at Geneva in 1866, and there were sixty delegates. As
the assessment was only one or two francs a year, the num
ber of members soon rose to several millions. "They
were admitted to the association as easily as one takes a
1 A German savant, Schaeffle, has given a summary of socialist ideas
in "The Quintessence of Socialism."

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 433
glass of wine." From the time of the third congress
(Brussels, 1868) the International began to contend for
a transformation in society which would do away with
wages, "that new form of slavery." The Congress of
Basle (1869) declared that "society has the right to abol
ish the individual ownership of the soil, and to have it
made common to all." The International seemed then
to be very powerful and very dangerous; it was even
suspected of having led the insurrection of the Commune,
and governments began to pass laws against it. In
truth, it had very feeble resources, and did not do much
but issue proclamations. In 1872 a disagreement arose
among the leaders, and since 1874 it has become dis
organized. The Anarchists. — Opposed to the socialist party of
Karl Marx, which ruled the International, a new party
was formed in 1872 called the Anarchist party. The chief
was a Russian, Bakounin, founder of the International
Alliance, of the Social Democracy, and who was driven
from the International by the Hague Congress in 1872.
The anarchists propose no reforms. They want simply
to "destroy all the states, all the churches, with all their
institutions, and their laws, religious, political, judicial,
financial, police, university, economic, and social, so that
all the millions of poor human beings will henceforth
breathe with perfect freedom." In the place of what they
propose to destroy they offer nothing. "All reasoning
concerning the future is criminal, because it prevents
entire destruction and encroaches on the march of the
Revolution." There are anarchists in all the countries of Europe, and
some are found in the large cities of the United States,
FF

434 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
but the party has played an active r61e in Russia alone.
There it is especially a political party which protests against
the despotism of the czar and of the Russian administra
tion by seeking the assassination of the czar and of his
functionaries. To these Russian revolutionists who,
through hatred of tyranny, want to destroy all and create
nothing, has often been given the name nihilist (partisans
of nothing), which the novelist Turgenieff had given
to the discontented Russian revolutionists in 1852.
Social Theories and Reforms. — The economists are
to-day divided into two schools. One is called the Liberal
school, because it demands absolute liberty for all industry.
It starts with the principle that society left to itself is
naturally organized in such a manner as would be most
advantageous to all. The relations of employer and em
ployed should be allowed to regulate themselves without
the intervention of the state, by the sole action of natural
laws, free competition, and the law of supply and de
mand. There is no social question, only questions of
economics. The government cannot do better than to
permit the citizens to arrange matters among themselves.
This is sometimes called the orthodox school, because it
has remained faithful to the doctrines of the founders of
political economy. It is also called the Manchester
school, for since 1832 it has had its centre at Manchester,
England. It has especially the support of the French
economists. The other school, which is founded on the observation
of facts, is entitled the Historic school, or the Realistic
school. It maintains that the absolute liberty of industry
has had for result the production of misery and the spread
of selfishness and hatred among the classes. The most

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM 435
important thing, it declares, is not to create any more
wealth, there is enough already, so that no one need suffer
from want; the difficulty is to make a just division of it.
This is a social question. It cannot be solved except by
laws which will regulate the distribution of the profits.
Therefore the state must intervene to make these laws.
This school had its source in Germany, and its partisans
are chiefly among the professors at the universities.
Since 1872 they have held frequent congresses, where
questions of pohtical economy were discussed, and where
legislative reforms were proposed. Their adversaries
have called them "Socialists of the chair," because they
teach from the desks in the universities a doctrine which
on one point resembles sociahsm.
The social agitations and discussions which for half a
century have filled so large a part in the life of the nations
have called attention to the condition of the workingman.
It has seemed as if poverty were the principal cause of the
agitation. In Germany it was said "that the social
question was a question of the stomach." Therefore, an
effort was made to diminish pauperism and to ameliorate
the condition of the lower classes.
The state has prohibited the employment of young
children in the factories, and the employment of women
at too severe tasks. (The investigation of 1842 in England
revealed the fact that in certain mines women were em
ployed for from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, under
ground, hitched to wagons loaded with coal). The manu
facturers in England are also obliged to close their shops
for one day in seven for the purpose of allowing their
workmen a time of repose.
The state, the communes, and private parties have

436 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
founded bureaus of public assistance, which distribute
supplies to the indigent, hospitals where the sick are cared
for gratuitously, asylums where the old and infirm find
shelter. Free primary and professional schools have
been established for the benefit of the children of the people.
The workmen have sought to form associations to render
their lives more agreeable. They have established so
cieties for mutual aid, where each member, in return for
the yearly assessment, has the right to receive aid in case
of illness; societies for the supply of commodities, whose
members are furnished goods at a much lower price than
that asked in the large shops; loan companies, which lend
money to their members (such are the banks of Schultze-
Delitsch in Germany), and even cooperative societies
which permit the workmen to put in common their sav
ings, for the purpose of buying a shop, where they can
labor for themselves. The most celebrated, that of the
Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale, founded in 1834, with
only twenty members, had, in 1867, 823 members and
was possessed of a capital of 3,200,000 francs.
The employers also have made some reforms in . the
interest of their men. They have built cities for them
where each workman may become owner of a house,
for which he pays in small sums from time to time. They
have created a retiring fund, where the capital is partly
taken from the wages and partly from the profits. Some
have even organized a system which enables the work
men to share in the profits of the factory.
Never has so much been done to render life less pain
ful to those who must suffer.

CHAPTER XX
CONCLUSION
The Part Taken by France in the Social, Political and
Economic Progress of the Nineteenth Century. — It is very
difficult to distinguish what each country has done toward
the civilization of the world. The work is international;
the labor of one nation mingling with the labor of every
other, for the benefit of all.
It may be said, however, that France has contributed
more than any other nation to make possible the great
social progress of the century by the establishment of a
society founded on equality of rights. All societies from
the beginnings of civilization had been divided into classes.
All admitted privileges were sustained by law. In 1789
France set forth the principle that "men are born and
remain equal before the law," and this principle was
finally adopted by other nations. It was France that in
troduced the democratic system into Europe.
In pohtical matters France has usually borrowed from
England the institutions which she needed for reorgani
zation after the destruction of the ancient regime. But
in adopting them she transformed them to the conditions
of Continental hving. Therefore, the greater part of
the constitutions of Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Italy
has been drawn up on the model of the French. The
parliamentary system, such as it is in Europe, is an Eng
lish creation modified by experience in France,
437

438 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
As for progress in economics, nearly all had its origin
in England. The English people, richer, more accustomed
to industry, thanks to their mines of iron and coal, better
situated for carrying on a marine trade, took the lead of
all the other nations during the wars which depopulated
and ruined Europe. Therefore, it was England which
for more than a century gave to other nations an example
of progress in economics. It was the Enghsh who in
vented steam engines and railways, which set up a model
for the great factories, for working mines, and building
railways and steamboats, which organized the system of
banking and credit, as well as stock companies, cooper
ative companies, and workingmen's associations.
France was more often contented to imitate the Eng
lish economic institutions. She exercised no creative
power in the economic progress of the world. But she
took an important part in it. In order to perceive this,
a comparison of the statistics of to-day with those of the
early years of the century will suffice.
The value of land has more than doubled since 1815,
the hectare was then worth about 700 francs; in 1874
it was worth 2,000 francs; it has declined since that time,
and in 1889 was worth only 1,700 francs. The total value
has risen to 90,000,000,000 francs. Between 1851 and
1869 the rise was most rapid (the value of land increased
more than 25,000,000,000 francs). The cultivation of
wheat covered only 4,500,000 hectares in 1815, and pro
duced only 40,000,000 hectolitres; to-day it covers 6,800,-
000 hectares and yields 100,000,000 hectolitres. The pro
duction of nine hectolitres a hectare has increased to
fourteen. The sugar beet, which in 1840 covered only
58,000 hectares, now requires 520,000.

CONCLUSION

439

The number of houses and factories in 1823 was less
than 6,500,000, in 1888 it had increased to more than
9,000,000, and the value of these constructions had in
creased in greater proportion than their number; in 185 1
the valuation was 20,000,000,000, francs; in 1888 nearly
40,000,000,000. The city of Paris was worth in 1828
from 3,000,000,000 to 4,000,000,000 francs, to-day it is
worth 17,000,000,000 francs.
Industry has been almost entirely created since the
Restoration. In 1848, the production each year amounted
to 5,500,000,000 francs; to-day it is [in the neighborhood
of 12,000,000,000 francs.
Commerce with foreign ports from 1815 to 1825 averaged
400,000,000 francs imports, and 500,000,000 francs ex
ports. Since that time the following is the average for
every ten years;

Importation

Exportation

1827-1837

667,000,000

898,000,000

1837-1847

1,088,000,000

1,024,000,000

1847-1857

1,503,000,000

1,672,000,000

1857-1867

2,982,000,000

3,293,000,000

1867-1877

4,262,000,000

4,202,000,000

1877-1887

5,448,000,000

4,383.°°°,°°°

Position of France Among the Great European Powers.
— France has a territory of 528,000 square kilometres,
with a population of 38,000,000 souls.
The other great powers have: England, 315,000 kilo
metres with 37,000,000 souls; Germany 540,000 kilo
metres with 47,000,000 souls; Austria-Hungary 623,000

440 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
kilometres with 40,000,000 souls; Russia, 5,416,000 kilo
metres with 93,000,000 souls.
In no country (save Belgium and Holland) has the
land the same value as in France. England alone sur
passes France in the value of her improvements. Her
industries are superior to those of the other nations, Eng
land excepted. She produces more and her workmen
are better paid.
In commerce she is next to England, which exports
5,500,000,000 francs, and imports 9,000,000,000 francs.
But she surpasses Germany, whose exports and imports
are each valued at 4,000,000,000 francs; Austria-Hungary,
which imports 1,400,000,000 francs and exports 1,700,-
000,000 francs, and Russia, whose imports are valued at
1,000,000,000 francs, and whose exports are about 1,500,-
000,000 francs.
In number of sailing vessels the French merchant
marine ranks seventh in Europe after England, Norway,
Germany, Italy, Russia and Sweden, but in steam vessels
it occupies the second place.
In the matter of correspondence France is outdone by
England, where the average is forty-nine letters for each
inhabitant; Switzerland, with an average of twenty-seven
for each inhabitant; Germany, with an average of twenty-
one, while the average in France is only nineteen for each
inhabitant. The amount of money entrusted to the savings-banks
is larger in France than in any other country except
Prussia. It is estimated at 3,000,000,000 francs.
The total wealth of France is valued1 at 200,000,000,000
francs, with a revenue of 24,000,000,000. England alone
1 By Mulhall.

CONCLUSION 441
has a larger capital, 218,000,000,000 francs, with a revenue
of 31,000,000,000 francs; Germany is second to France,
with a capital of 158,000,000,000 francs, and a revenue of
21,000,000,000 francs; Russia's capital amounts to 108,-
000,000,000 francs, with 19,000,000,000 francs revenue;
Austria-Hungary has 90,000,000,000 francs, with a revenue
of 15,000,000,000 francs.1
As regards military strength, the French navy (191
vessels) ranks next to that of England (383 vessels). She
has the largest army on a peace footing (600,000 men).
In time of war the army would be almost equal to that of
Germany. Russia has a larger effective force on paper,
but it would probably be difficult to mobilize all her
contingent. The Present Condition of the World. — The number of
men of every race on the globe is estimated at about
1,450,000,000; 330,000,000 in Europe, 800,000,000 in
Asia, 200,000,000 in Africa, 100,000,000 in America.
There are on the earth a great number of distinct races,
but most of them, reduced to a few savage tribes, are on
the point of extinction, like the natives of Tasmania, or,
like the Indians of North America, are being merged in
more powerful races. In fact, there remain only three
great races. To. the white race belong the half of Asia,
Europe, America, Australia, and the coasts of Africa; the
yellow race has Eastern Asia, where it has spread through
the Malay archipelago; the negroes dwell in Africa, and
in the tropical regions of America, where they were
carried as slaves. It is the same with the different re
ligions. They are numerous still, but the greater number
are practised by a few tribes and are disappearing before
1 These figures are arbitrary.

442 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
the more thoroughly organized religions still more rapidly
than the races. Four great religions are dominant:
Christianity in Europe and America. There are 435,000,-
000 Christians divided among three branches : 200,000,000
Catholics, 150,000,000 Protestants, 85,000,000 orthodox
Greeks. Islam rules in Africa and in Western Asia.
There are 170,000,000 Mussulmans. Buddhism pre
dominates in Eastern Asia, where there are 500,000,000
devotees. Brahminism in India numbers 150,000,000.
(There are from 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 Israelites scattered
through the world). There remain about 230,000,000
idolaters among the savages of Oceania, the Indians of
America, and among the negroes in Africa. They are
being rapidly converted, some to Christianity, others to
Islamism. The races do not correspond to the religions. There
are among the whites, Christians, Mussulmans and
Brahmins; the negroes are divided between Christianity
and Islam. But to each religion a form of civilization
corresponds: European civilization to Christianity, Arab
civilization to Islamism, the Hindoo civilization to Brah
minism, and the Chinese to Buddhism. The Hindoo
civilization has ceased to develop and to spread; perhaps
it will be merged with the European civilization intro
duced into India by the English. The Arab civilization
has been declining ever since the Moslem world fell
into the hands of the barbarous Turks. There remain
two civilizations which up to the present have not been
able to make an impression on each other, the European
and the Chinese.
We have an irresistible inclination to regard our own
European civilization as the only true one, and to hope that

CONCLUSION 443
it will absorb or suppress its rivals. Already the largest
part of the globe belongs to one of the three great branches
of the European peoples: the Russians representing the
Slav race, occupy Northern Asia; the Anglo-Saxons,
representing the Germanic race, are masters of North
America, India and Oceania; the Latin peoples, repre
sented by the Spanish and Portuguese, are in possession
of South America. To these three groups correspond
three languages which reign over the vast territory: Eng
lish is spoken by about 120,000,000 people; Russian
by 100,000,000; Spanish by 50,000,000. German, which
is the language of Central Europe, is spoken by more
than 60,000,000; French by 46,000,000; but both are
confined to a restricted territory.
It would be puerile, however, to judge of the importance
of a people by the number who speak its language, and by
the number of square kilometres it possesses. A nation
is judged chiefly by the part which its savants, writers,
artists, and engineers take in the work of our common
civihzation. France plays a much more important r61e
in the world than Spain. It may be that some day the
Russians, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Hispano-Americans
may dominate the world by force of numbers, but that day
has not yet come. The three great nations of our time,
those who rise above the others by their activity, and who
direct the march of civilization, are still the English, the
French, and the Germans.
All these peoples have a common civilization born of
the antique transmitted to all Christian countries, and
which all are laboring to make more perfect. They
have the same instruments of labor, the same methods
of industry, the same means of transportation; all have

444 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
factories, steam engines, railways, telegraphs; all work
their mines and cultivate the soil. The newly settled
countries of America and Oceania are agricultural coun
tries; the temperate portions produce wheat and cattle,
the warm latitudes furnish cotton, rice, coffee, and spices.
Two-thirds of Europe have also remained agricultural
countries; the Latin countries in the south supply wines
and fruits, the Slav countries in the east furnish grain,
skins, and woods. Industry occupies chiefly the Germanic
peoples of the north: England, Belgium, Germany,
Switzerland, Northern France. There it is that the popu
lation is most dense and increases most rapidly; in Belgium
there are 192 inhabitants to one square kilometre, in
England 172, in Holland 128, in Germany 84, in the canton
of Geneva 364, in France only 71. In England the yearly
increase in population is 9.2 per 100, in Sweden 11.5, in
Germany 10, in Holland 9, in France 2.3. Since 1700
Great Britain has increased in population from 8,000,000
to 35,000,000; Germany from 19,000,000 to 46,000,000;
France from 19,000,000 to 37,000,000.
All civilized countries are bound together by a network
of railways (450,000 kilometres), by lines of steamboats
(97), of telegraphs (1,200,000 kilometres), of sub-marine
cables (150,000 kilometres), and by the Universal Postal
Union. They exchange their products and their capital.
They are in constant communication. Every day the
journals, informed by telegraph, give the news of the
whole world.
In all civilized countries life tends to become of the
same type. Everywhere are found the same great cities
with straight streets, great squares, pavements, sidewalks,
omnibuses, gas, sewers, and water brought from a dis-

CONCLUSION 445
tance. The peasants and the workmen of Eastern
Europe, slower in changing their habits, still keep
their old customs and dress; but the bourgeoisie have
everywhere the same occupations, the same distractions,
and the same customs; everywhere, Enghsh dress, Par
isian fashions, the theatre, the journals, the clubs, and
the Exchange. Ideas are also communicated from one
country to another. Everywhere the savants are working
according to the same methods; they work at science in
common, and even gather in international scientific
congresses. Painting, sculpture, architecture, music are
common to all peoples. Literary works still have a
national character, owing to the difference in languages,
but they circulate in foreign lands, in the form of trans
lations, and literature from one end of the world to the
other is crossed by the same currents.
The civilized nations borrow even their pohtical sys
tems from each other. The examples of England and
of the French Revolution have caused the introduction
everywhere of a constitutional regime. There are in
Europe nineteen independent states (including Bulgaria),
in America eighteen (without counting the colonies). All
the states of Europe save two are monarchies; all the
states of America are republics. Under this difference
in form, all, except Russia, have the same structure: a
parhament, representing the nation, a budget discussed
and voted upon by the representatives, liberty of the press,
security guaranteed by police and by regularly con
stituted tribunals. Thus everything which goes to make
up the hfe of civilized nations, industry, commerce,
practical hfe, science, arts, manners, political customs,
everything except the language, has become common

446 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
to all nations. However, the nations united by so many
bonds, seek neither to be merged, nor to form a union.
They are separated by language, by industrial com
petition and by ancient antipathies. In Europe especially,
where the population is more dense, where national dis
turbances still continue, where centuries of wars, conquests,
and annexations have sown hatred among the peoples,
the states regard each other with suspicion.
Since the victory of Prussia over France all the powers
have been holding themselves ready for war; they sup
port larger permanent armies than have ever been known.
Russia has 750,000 soldiers, Italy 750,000, France 600,000;
Germany 450,000. Thanks to a reserve system, which
makes every able-bodied man liable to mihtary duty, the
number could easily be trebled. That is the regime of
the "armed nation." The average annual cost to Europe
is 4,500,000,000 francs. Europe fives in peace, but it is
an armed peace, as ruinous as war.
The civihzed world finds itself between two opposing
currents. The common civilization has created an inter
national current which contributes to the solidarity of
peoples and draws them together; the rivalries and hatreds
create a national current, which induces the nations to
isolation, and to treat each other as enemies. On the
force of these currents depends the future of the world.
Characteristics of Contemporary Civilization. — How are
we to define the characteristics of the civilization of which
we are a part ? Let us compare our mode of hving with
that of antiquity, and of the Renaissance. The contrast
will show us how our century differs from those that have
preceded it, and will show us what there may be of orig
inality in our civilization. The civilized peoples are no

CONCLUSION 447
longer confined to Europe; they have taken possession
of the rest of the globe and are endeavoring to cultivate
and populate it. Therefore, civilization is no longer
European, it is universal.
In order to carry on material labors, which are the
great work of civilized life, our ancestors had to depend
on the strength of man and of the domestic animals.
Contemporary civilization works by the aid of machines.
The quantity of manual labor has diminished, factories
supply by wholesale all the objects necessary to our ex
istence. Agriculture even has been changed into an
industry. Civilization becomes industrial.
The great industries and the methods of agriculture
have created wealth beyond our necessities. The excess
in production has, in less than a century, accumulated such
an enormous capital that the manufacturers and financiers
of our day surpass in opulence the great lords of the olden
time. At the same time, luxury has also increased and been
spread abroad. If it is less brilliant than in the time when
the great lords had a monopoly of it, it is much more gen
eral, and has permeated all classes of society. All manu
factured products are sold at such a low price, commerce
has transported the produce of warm climates in such
abundance everywhere, that they have ceased to be
objects of luxury, and have become necessities for all
ranks of society.
From the new inventions has come what the English
call comfort. We enjoy a thousand refinements of which
our ancestors hardly dreamed, rapid transportation, good
roads, well-kept hotels, sea-baths, tours for pleasure,
newspapers, reviews, theatres, concerts, museums, paved,

448 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
lighted, and swept streets. A simple citizen has in our
day a much more agreeable life than the great seignior of
the olden time.
Peoples who were formerly isolated have been brought
together by the facility of transportation and of communi
cation. Each profits by the progress of all; commerce,
credit, the press, the sciences have created an interna
tional civilization.
The soul of this civilization is science. Formerly it
was only a pastime for choice spirits. Since it has
formulated its methods and verified its results, it has as
sumed a practical role; it has become the guide of industry
and of commerce, and has even begun to rule in politics.
It has, therefore, become for all classes an instrument of
education for the mind and for the character. Every
where schools and libraries are establishments of public
utility; the primary school is a state institution.
Contemporary science results from a study of the
minutiae of facts; it leads to bold apphcations which totally
change the face of things. It thus inspires at the same
time a taste for seeing the truth as it really is and for trans
forming it. The union of these two sentiments, contra
dictory in appearance, is a characteristic of our contem
porary intellectual life. Realism is the product of this
passionate search for exactitude, and idealism is the pro
duct of the desire for indefinite progress.
Contemporary art is realistic. Our artists insist less
on the perfection of form than on the exactitude and
abundance of detail. On the other hand, the necessity
for an ideal has penetrated pohtical life under the name
of a love of progress.
Society formerly rested upon fact, consecrated bytra-

CONCLUSION 449
dition; the only thought was of preserving this tradition.
In our time an attempt is made to ameliorate institutions
by modelling them on a theoretic ideal. Force and custom
ruled the old forms of society; modern society is founded
on principles.
The family and property rights are all that remain of
the ancient organization. The rest has been transformed.
Modern society no longer recognizes the right of one man
over another, of the master over the slave, of the employer
over employee, of the seignior over the serf; it only admits
the authority of the father of a family over wife and chil
dren; every man is free; no one owes submission to any
one. The customs and laws which bound the lives of
individuals have disappeared; every man can dispose of
his person and his property, liberty of conscience, of
worship, of speech, hberty to go and come, to choose one's
domicile, to regulate his style of hving, hberty in manu
factures, in commerce — contemporary society acknowl
edges all these. It rests upon the hberty of the in
dividual. The ancient laws were aristocratic, they
divided men into unequal classes and assigned to each
his rank; modem society is democratic, it has made all
men equal before the law, and has preserved only the
inequality which results from fortunes; it has established
public equahty.
Formerly a small number of the privileged classes,
citizens or nobles, alone formed the nation. "A well-
regulated city," said Aristotle, "will not make citizens of
workmen." Manual labor was scorned, and laborers
were excluded from the government. Contemporary
society admits all the inhabitants into the body politic,
even laborers; it has rehabilitated manual labor, it
GG

450 CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
honors manufacturers and men in commerce equally with
the landed proprietor.
The government is no longer the exclusive property
of an aristocracy of citizens, of an emperor, or of a royal
family, it is the self-governing nation.
Ancient societies lived in confusion and violence.
Modern states have a systematic administration, which is
informed of everything and maintains order everywhere.
The police and the judiciary are sufficiently strong to
afford protection to private individuals against the at
tacks of malefactors; the officers are sufficiently honest
and watched over to prevent them from doing violence
any longer to individuals. There are neither brigands
nor pirates in the civilized world — security is complete.
War between nations has not disappeared, but it is
now regarded as a necessary evil. Warriors no longer
form a privileged class; one is a soldier from a sense of
duty, not for amusement or from a sentiment of honor.
Wars are murderous, but they are rare and short. Civil
ization has become pacific.
All these changes have rendered life more comfortable,
more agreeable, and more free. Never has civilization
gathered about man so many conditions for happiness.
Are we happier than our ancestors? No one can affirm
that. Happiness depends more on inward sentiment
than on exterior advantages. Our hfe is better organized
than that of our fathers, but, like children too sumptuously
brought up in luxury, we are accustomed to comfort, and
scarcely feel the charm of it; our education has enfeebled
our sense of enjoyment. Since the ancient times every
thing has changed — material life, intellectual hfe, social
life. We must expect that the future will differ from the

CONCLUSION 451
present, just as the present differs from the past. Per
haps our own generation even may be a witness of these
great changes, for it seems that the more our civihzation
advances, the more rapid becomes its march. We need
not be alarmed by it; humanity has passed through great
transformations" without perishing. The history of civil
ization should teach us to have confidence in the future.

APPENDIX I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
List of the principal works to which the reader may refer for the
details, which have found no place in this short history.
I have not thought it necessary to indicate the books which recent
investigations have superseded.
FRENCH, OR TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH
Leroy-Beaulieu (Anatole): L'Empire des Tsars. 3 vols., 1881-89.
Rambaud: Histoire de la Russie. New ed., 1894.
Lavisse et Rambaud: Histoire generate. Vol. VII. a XI., 1895-97.
Leroy-Beaulieu (Paul) : La colonisation chez les peuples modernes.
1876.
Laboulaye: Histoire des Etats-Unis. 2 vols., 1892.
Daire: Collection des economistes. 1843-46.
Foncin: Essai sur le ministere de Turgot. 1877.
Rocquain: L'esprit revolutionnaire avant la Revolution. 1878.
Seger: Histoire de fAutriche-Hongrie. 4th ed., 1895.
Cherest: La chute de l'ancien regime. 2 vols., 1884-86.
Taine: Origines de la France contemporaine. L'ancien regime.
1 vol. La Revolution. 3 vols., 1878-80.
Tocqueville (de): L'ancien regime et la Revolution, 1887.
Champion: Esprit de la Revolution francaise, 1887.
Sorel: L'Europe et la Revolution francaise. 4 vols., 1887-92.
Sorel: Les traites de 1815. 1873.
Sorel: La question d'Orient au XVIIIe siecle. 2d ed., 1889.
Michelet: Histoire de la Revolution. 7 vols., 1847-53.
Thiers: Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire. 20 vols., 1845-62.
Rambaud: Histoire de la civilisation en France. Vol. II., 1882.
Rambaud: Histoire de la civilisation contemporaine en France. 1888.
Rambaud: Les Francais sur le Rhin. 3d ed., 1883.
Denis: L'Allemagne de 1789 a 1845. 1896.
Levasseur: Histoire des classes ouvrieres en France. 2 vols., 1867.
Sybel: Histoire de l'Europe pendant la Revolution (trans). 6 vok,
1869. 453

454 APPENDIX
Stourm: Les finances de l'ancien regime et de la Revolution. 2 vols.,
1880.
Leroy-Beaulieu (Paul): Traite' de la science des finances. 2 vols.,
1880.
Clamageran: Histoire de l'imp6t en France. 2 vols., 1876.
Welschinger: La censure sous le premier Empire. 1882.
Wallon: Histoire de l'esclavage. Vol. III., 1848.
Debidour: Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe. 2 vols., 1891.
Seignobos: Histoire politique de l'Europe contemporaine. 1897.
Viel-Castel: Histoire de la Restauration. 20 vols., 1860-78.
Duvergier de Hauranne : Histoire du regime parlementaire. 10 vols.,
I8S7-74.
Thureau-Dangin: Histoire de la monarchic de Juillet. 7 vols.,
1887-92.
Foville: La France economique. 1889.
Simon (J.): La liberie1 civile. 1867.
Mill (Stuart): La liberie" (trans.). 1861.
Mill: Le regime representatif (trans.). 1862.
Pierre (V.): Histoire de la Revolution de 1848. 2 vols., 1873-78.
Block: Dictionnaire de la politique. 2d ed., 2 vols., 1880.
Block: Dictionnaire de Padministration francaise. New ed.,
1891.
Delord (Taxile): Histoire du second Empire. 6 vols., 1870.
D'Azeglio: Mes souvenirs (trans.). 2 vols., 1876.
Bianchi: La politique du comte de Cavour. 1885.
Reyntiens: Bismark et Cavour et 1' unite* de l'ltalie. 1875.
Zeller: Pie IX. et Victor Emmanuel. 1879.
Bagehot: La constitution anglaise (trans.). 1869.
Franqueville (de) : Le gouvernement et Is parlement britannique.
3 vols., 1887.
Boutmy: Developpement de la constitution et de la socie'te' politique en
Angleterre. 1887.
De Rousiers: Le trade unionisme en Angleterre. 1897.
Hilty: Les constitutions federales de la Suisse. 1891.
Mac-Carthy: Histoire contemporaine d' Angleterre (trans.). 5 vols.,
1885.
May (Erskine): Histoire constitutionelle de I'Angleterre depuis
George III. 3 vols., 1865.
Hubbard (G.): Histoire contemporaine de l'Espagne. 4 vols.,
1882-84. -
Justi: La revolution beige de 1830. 1870.
Justi: Le congres national de Belgique. 2 vols., 1880.
Goblet d'Aviella: Histoire politique de Belgique {dans Cinquante
ans de liberty. Vol. I.), 1881.
Hymans: Histoire parlementaire de Belgique de 1831 a 1880. 2 vols.,
1877-80.

APPENDIX 455
Thonissen: La Belgique sous le regime de Leopold Ier. 4 vols.,
1855-58-
Cavaignac: Formation de la Prusse contemporaine. 1891.
Hillebrand: La Prusse contemporaine et ses institutions. 1867.
Laveleye (de) : La Prusse et l'Autriche depuis Sadowa. 2 vols., 1870.
Taillandier (Saint-Rene) : Etudes sur la Revolution en Allemagne.
2 vols., 1853.
Simon (E.) : L'empereur Guillaume et son regne. 1886.
Engelhardt (Ed.) : La Turquie et le Tauzimat, histoire des re7ormes
depuis 1826. 2 vols., 1882-83.
Leger: La Save le Danube et les Balkans. 1884.
Moltke (de): Lettres sur la Turquie (trans.). 1877.
Wallace: La Russie (trans.). 2 vols., 1879.
Tikhomirov: La Russie politique et sociale. 1886.
Haxthausen: Etudes sur les institutions de la Russie. 3 vols.,
1847-53-
Daireaux: La vio et les mceurs a la Plata. 2 vols., 1888.
Deberle: Histoire de l'Amenque du Sud. 1878.
Gervinus: Histoire du XIXe siecle (trans.). 24 vols., 1863-70.
Stanley Jevons (W.) : La monnaie et le mecanisme de l'exchange.
4th ed., 1885.
Seeley: Expansion de I'Angleterre (preface de Rambaud). 1885.
Lanessau: L'expansion coloniale de la France. 1886.
Laveleye: Le socialisme contemporain. 10th ed., 1896.
Wyzewa: Le mouvement socialiste en Europe. 1892.
Schaeffle: La quintessence du socialisme (trans.). 1886.
George (H.): Progres et pauvrete (trans.). 1879.
George (H.): Protection et libre-echange (trans.). 1887.
Fawcett: Travail et salaire (trans.). 1884.
Leroy-Beaulieu (P.): Precis d'economie politique. 1888.
Leroy-Beaulieu (P.) : Essai sur la repartition des richesses. 3d ed.,
1888.
Reybaud (P.): Etude sur les rdformateurs et socialistes modernes.
2 vols. 1882.
Bluntschli: Theorie de l'Etat (trans.). 3 vols., 1876.
Spencer (H.): L'individu contre l'Etat (trans.). 1885.
Taine: Histoire de la litterature anglaise. 1866.
PRINCIPAL ENGLISH AND GERMAN WORKS
Oncken: Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarsteilungen.
Bruckner: Peter der Grosse, Katharina II.
Oncken: Zeitalter Friedrichs des Grossen. 2 vols. Zeitalter der
Revolution und des Kaiserreiches 1 789-1815; Zeitalter Kaiser
Wilhelms I. 2 vols.
Wolf: (Esterreich unter Maria Theresia, Joseph II. und Leopold II.

456 APPENDIX
Collection Heeren-Uckert: Histoire des Etats de l'Europe. In this
collection:Hertzberg: Geschichte Griechenlands, Hillebrand, Geschichte
Frankreichs. 1874-79.
Collection Staatengeschichte der neuesten Zeit:
Baumgarten: Geschichte Spaniens.
ReuchUn: Geschichte Italiens.
Bernhardy: Geschichte Russlands.
Spinger: Geschichte (Esterreichs.
Treitschke: Deutsche Geschichte.
Rosen: Geschichte der Turkei.
Encyclopaedia Britannica: Articles: United States, Socialism.
Treitschke: Historische und politische Aufsatze. 3 vols., 1882.
Hahn: Fiirst Bismarck. 5 vols., 1878-91.
Bulle (C.) : Geschichte der neuesten Zeit. 4 vols., 1886.
Walpole (Spencer) : A History of England from the conclusion of
the Great War.
Stephen: History of English Thought in the XV 111. Century, a
vols., 1876.
Todd: On Parliamentary Government in England. 2 vols., 2d ed.,
1887-89.
Sybel: Die Begriindung des deutschen Reiches. 7 vols., 1892-95.
Seeley: Life of Stein. 3 vols., 1880.
Roenne: Staatsrecht der preussischen Monarchie. 4th ed., 4 vols.,
1881.
Hoist (von) : Ver fassungs geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten. 3 vols.,
1878-83.
Bryce: The American Commonwealth. 2 vols., 1888.
Bancroft: History of Mexico. 1885.
Bancroft: History of Central America. 1885.
Mulhall: Dictionary of Statistics. 1885.
Meyer (Rud.): Der Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes.
2 vols., 1874.
Krones: Grundriss der CEsterreichischen Geschichte. 1882.
Meyer (J.) : Geschichte des Schweizerischen Bundesrichtes. 2 vols.,
1878.
Marquardsen: Handbuch des ceffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart.
Handwoerterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. 7 vols., 1890-95.

APPENDIX II
BOOKS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING
This list contains the titles of books suitable for reference or for
further reading. Those which are recommended especially for
secondary schools are marked *. The reader is referred also to
books mentioned in the appendix of Medieval Civilization. — Ed.
Original Sources —
Anderson, F. M.: Constitutions and Other Select Documents.
(France, 1789-1901.)
Bismarck, Otto von: Reflections and Reminiscences. 2 vols.
Bismarck, Otto von: Letters to his Wife, his Sister and Others.
1844-70. Moxse's translation.
Bourrienne, A. F. De: Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte. 4 vols.
Burke, Edmund: Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Brewea: World's Best Orations.
Garibaldi: Autobiography. (Mauer translation.)
Metternich: Memoirs. 5 vols. (Translated by Mrs. Alexander
Napier.)
*Pennsylvania Translations and Reprints frorr 'u& Original
Sources of European History.
Talleyrand: Memoirs. 5 vols.( Translated * j Mrs. Angus Hall.)
Tarbell, Ida M.: Napoleon's Addresses.
Young, Arthur: Travels in France, 1 787-1 789.
Secondary Authorities —
Andrews, C. M.: The Historical Development of Modern Europe.
2 vols. Student's edition in 1 vol.
Belloc, H.: Danton.
Bright, J. F.: Maria Theresa, Joseph II.
Cambridge Modern History, French Revolution.
Cesaresco, Countess E. M.: Cavour.
Cesaresco, E. M.: Liberation of Italy.
457

458 APPENDIX
Coubertin, Pierre De: Evolution of France under the Third Re
public.
Cunningham, W., and E. A. McArthur: Outlines of English
Industrial History.
*Duruy, Victor: Modem Times.
Foumier, August: Napoleon the First.
Fvfie, C. A.: History of Modem Europe. 3 vols (also in
x vol. edition).
Gardiner, Bertha M.: The French Revolution.
Hassall, A.: The Balance of Power, European History, 1715-1789.
Headlam, J. W.: Bismarck.
Johnston, R. M. : Napoleon.
Koralevsky, Maxime: Russian Political Institutions.
Lanfrey, Pierre: History of Napoleon I. 4 vols.
?Lavisse, E. : The Youth of Frederick the Great.
Lecky, W. E. H.: The French Revolution.
Lecky, W. E. H.: History of England in the Eighteenth century.
8 vols.
Lodge, Richard: History of Modem Europe.
Longman, F. W.: Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War.
¦"Lowell, E. J.: Eve of the French Revolution
Lowell, A. L. : Governments and Parties in Continental Europe.
2 vols. Houghton, Mifflin.
Mahan, A. T.: Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783.
Mahan, A. T. : Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolu
tion and Empire. 2 vols.
Mathews: The French Revolution.
McCarthy, Justin: History of Our Own Times. 5 vols.
Morley, John: Voltaire.
Morley, John: Rousseau.
Morley: John: Gladstone.
Moran, T. F.: Theory and Practice of the English Government.
Mufler, Wilhelm: Political History of Recent Times.
Perkins, J. B.: France Under the Regency.
Perkins, J. B.: France Under Louis XV.
Phillips, W. A.: Modem Europe
Probyn, J. W. : Italy, 1815-1890.
Putzger: Historischer Schul-Atlas.
Ropes, John C: The First Napoleon.

APPENDIX 459
Rose, J. H.: Napoleon I.: a vols, in i.
Rose, J. II.: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era.
*Roseberry: Napoleon, The Last Phase.
Say, Leon: Turgot.
Seeley, J. R. : Expansion of England.
Seeley, J. R.: Life and Times of Stein. a vols.
*Seeley, J. R.: Napoleon the First.
Seignobos, Charles: The Feudal Regime. (Translated by Dow.)
Seignobos, Charles: Political History of Europe since 1814.
(Translated by Macvane.)
Sloane, W. M.: Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. 4 vols.
Smith, Munroe: Bismarck and German Unity.
Stephens, H. Morse: Revolutionary Europe (1789-1S15).
Stephens, H. Morse: The French Revolution. Vols. I and II.
Taine, H. A.: The Ancient Regime.
Taine, H. A : The French RevoluUon. 3 vols.
Willert, P. F ; Mirabeau.

THE STORY OF THE NATIONS
A SERIES OF POPULAR HISTORIES.

Bach Volume Is furnished with Maps, niustratlons, and Index. Large Crown
Svo, fancy cloth, gold lettered, or Library Edition, dark cloth, burnished red
top, 5s- each.— Or may be had In half Persian, cloth sides, gilt tops ; Price
on application.

By Arthur Gil*

i. Rome. By Arthur Gilman, M.A.
2. The Jews. By Prof. J. K. Hosmer.
3. Germany. By Rev. S. Baring-
Gould, M.A.
4. Carthage. By Prof. Alfred J.
Church.
5. Alexander's Empire. By Prof.
J. P. Mahaffy.
6. The Moors in Spain. By Stanley
Lane-Poole.
7. Ancient Egypt. By Prof. George
Rawlinson.
8. Hungary. By Prof. Arminius
Vambery.
9. The Saracens.
man, M.A.
10. Ireland. By the Hon. Emily
Lawless.
11. Chaldea. ByZENAlDEA. Ragozin.
12. The Goths. By Henry Bradley.
13. Assyria. ByZENAlDEA. Ragozin.
14. Turkey. By Stanley Lane-Poole.
15. Holland. By Prof. J. E. Thorold
Rogers.
16. Mediaeval France. By Gustave
Masson.
17. Persia. By S. G. W. Benjamin.
18. Phoenicia. By Prof. G. Rawlinson.
19. Media. By ZenaIde A. Ragozin.
20. The Hansa Towns. By Helen
Zimmern.
21. Early Britain. By Prof. Alfred
J. Church.
13. The Barbary Corsairs. By
Stanley Lane-Poole.
23. Russia. By W. R. Morfill, M.A.
24. The Jews under the Romans. By
W. D. Morrison.
25. Scotland. By John Mackintosh,
LL.D.
26. Switzerland. By Mrs Lina Hug
and R. Stead.
27. Mexico. By Susan Hale.
28. Portugal. By H.Morse Stephens.
29. The Normans. By Sarah Orne
Jewett.
30. The Byzantine Empire. By C.
W. C. Oman.
31. Sicily: Phoenician, Greek and
Roman. By the late Prof. E, A.
Freeman.
32. The Tuscan Republics. ByBELLA
Duffy.
33. Poland. By W. R. Morfill, M.A.
34. Parthia. By Prof. George
Rawlinson.
35. The Australian Commonwealth.
By Greville Tregarthen.

36. Spain. By H. E. Watts.
37. Japan. By David Murray, Ph.D.
38. South Africa. By George M.
Theal.
39. Venice. By Alethea Wiel.
40. The Crusades. By T. A. Archer
and C. L. Kingsford.
41. Vedic India. By Z. A. Ragozin.
42. The West Indies and the Span
ish Main By James Rodway.
43. Bohemia. Py C. Edmund
I\'I \ U K I C K
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50.

53

By Justin McCarthy.
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(THE SOUTH AMERICAN SERIES, Vol. II.)
PERU
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