But the failure of these expeditions contributed to make the ministry of the Duke of Newcastle unpopular. Other mistakes were also made in the old world. The conduct of Admiral Byng in the Mediterranean excited popular clamor. The repeated disappointments and miscarriages, the delay of armaments, the neglect of opportunities, the absurd disposition of fleets, were numbered among the misfortunes which resulted from a weak and incapable ministry. Stronger men were demanded by the indignant voice of the nation, and the Duke of Newcastle, first lord of the treasury, since the death of his brother, was obliged to call Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge—the two most popular commoners of England—into the cabinet. But the new administration did not work harmoniously. It was an emblem of that image which Nebuchadnezzar beheld in a vision, with a head of gold, and legs of iron, and feet of clay. Pitt and Legge were obliged by their colleague to resign. But their removal incensed the whole nation, and so great was the clamor, that the king was compelled to reinstate the popular idols—the only men capable of managing affairs at that crisis. Pitt became secretary of state, and Legge chancellor of the exchequer. The Duke of Newcastle, after being at the head of administration ten years, was, reluctantly, compelled to resign. The Duke of Devonshire became nominally the premier, but Pitt was the ruling spirit in the cabinet.

[Sidenote: Character of the Duke of Newcastle.]

The character of the Duke of Newcastle is thus sketched by Horace Walpole; "He had no pride, but infinite self-love. Jealousy was the great source of all his faults. There was no expense to which he was addicted but generosity. His houses, gardens, table, and equipage, swallowed immense sums, and the sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted. He loved business immoderately, but was always doing it; he never did it. His speeches were copious in words, but empty and unmeaning, his professions extravagant, and his curiosity insatiable. He was a secretary of state without intelligence, a duke without money, a man of infinite intrigue without secrecy, and a minister hated by all parties, without being turned out by either." "All able men," adds Macaulay, "ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveller, a child who never knew his own mind an hour together; and yet he overreached them all."

[Sidenote: Unpopularity of the Pelhams.]

The Pelham administration cannot, on the whole, be called fortunate, nor, on the other hand, a disgraceful one. The Pelhams "showed themselves," says Smyth, "friendly to the principles of mild government." With all their faults, they were tolerant, peaceful, prudent; they had the merit of respecting public opinion; and though they were not fitted to advance the prosperity of their country by any exertions of political genius, they were not blind to such opportunities as fairly presented themselves. But they were not fitted for the stormy times in which they lived, and quietly yielded to the genius of a man whom they did not like, and whom the king absolutely hated. George II., against his will, was obliged to intrust the helm of state to the only man in the nation capable of holding it.

The administration of William Pitt is emphatically the history of the civilized world, during a period of almost universal war. It was for his talents as a war minister that he was placed at the head of the government, and his policy, like that of his greater son, in a still more stormy epoch, was essentially warlike. In the eyes of his contemporaries, his administration was brilliant and successful, and he undoubtedly raised England to a high pitch of military glory; but glory, alas! most dearly purchased, since it led to the imposition of taxes beyond a parallel, and the vast increase of the national debt.

[Sidenote: Rise of William Pitt.]

He was born in 1708, of good family, his grandfather having been governor of Madras, and the purchaser of the celebrated diamond which bears his name, and which was sold to the regent of France for one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. William Pitt was sent to Oxford at the age of seventeen, and at twenty-seven, became a member of parliament. From the first, he was heard with attention, and, when years and experience had given him wisdom and power, his eloquence was overwhelming. No one ever equalled him in brilliant invective and scorching sarcasm. He had not the skill of Fox in debate, nor was he a great reasoner, like Murray; he did not talk philosophy, like Burke, nor was he master of details, like his son; but he had an air of sincerity, a vehemence of feeling, an intense enthusiasm, and a moral elevation of sentiment, which bore every thing away before him.

When Walpole was driven from power, Pitt exerted his eloquence in behalf of the Pelham government. Being personally obnoxious to the king, he obtained no office. But he was not a man to be amused by promises long, and, as he would not render his indispensable services without a reward, he was made paymaster of the forces—a lucrative office, but one which did not give him a seat in the cabinet. This office he retained for eight years, which were years of peace. But when the horizon was overclouded by the death of Henry Pelham, in 1754, and difficulties arose between France and England respecting North America and the East Indies; when disasters in war tarnished the glory of the British arms, and the Duke of Newcastle showed his incapacity to meet the national crisis, Pitt commenced a furious opposition. Of course he was dismissed from office. But the Duke of Newcastle could not do without him, and the king was obliged to call him into the cabinet as secretary of state, in 1756. But the administration did not work. The king opposed the views of Pitt, and he was compelled to resign. Then followed disasters and mistakes. The resignation of the Duke of Newcastle became an imperative necessity. Despondency and gloom hung over the nation, and he was left without efficient aid in the House of Commons. Nothing was left to the king but to call in the aid of the man he hated; and Pitt, as well as Legge, were again reinstated, the Duke of Devonshire remaining nominally at the head of the administration.

But this administration only lasted five months, during which Admiral Byng was executed, and the Seven Years' War, of which Frederic of Prussia was the hero, fairly commenced. In 1757, Pitt and his colleague were again dismissed. But never was popular resentment more fierce and terrible. Again was the king obliged to bend to the "great commoner." An arrangement was made, and a coalition formed. Pitt became secretary of state, and virtual premier, but the Duke of Newcastle came in as first lord of the treasury. But Pitt selected the cabinet. His brother-in-law, Lord Temple, was made keeper of the privy seal, and Lord Grenville was made treasurer of the navy; Fox became paymaster of the forces; the Duke of Bedford received the lord lieutenancy of Ireland; Hardwicke, the greatest lawyer of his age became lord chancellor; Legge, the ablest financier, was made chancellor of the exchequer. Murray, a little while before, had been elevated to the bench, as Lord Mansfield. There was scarcely an eminent man in the House of Commons who was not made a member of the administration. All the talent of the nation was laid at the feet of Pitt, and he had the supreme direction of the army and of foreign affairs.

Then truly commenced the brilliant career of Pitt. He immediately prosecuted hostilities with great boldness, and on a gigantic scale. Immense armies were raised and sent to all parts of the world.

[Sidenote: Brilliant Military Successes.]

But nothing raised the reputation of Pitt so highly as military operations in America. He planned, immediately on his assumption of supreme power as virtual dictator of England, three great expeditions—one against Louisburg, a second against Ticonderoga, and a third against Fort Du Quesne. Two of these were attended with triumphant success, (1758.)

Louisburg, which had been surrendered to France by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, was reduced by General Amherst, though only with a force of fourteen thousand men.

General Forbes marched, with eight thousand men, against Fort Du Quesne; but it was abandoned by the enemy before he reached it.

Ticonderoga was not, however, taken, although the expedition was conducted by General Abercrombie, with a force of sixteen thousand men.

Thus nearly the largest military force ever known at one time in America was employed nearly a century ago, by William Pitt, composed of fifty thousand men, of whom twenty-two thousand were regular troops.

[Sidenote: Military Successes in America.]

The campaign of 1759 was attended with greater results than even that of the preceding year. General Amherst succeeded Abercrombie, and the plan for the reduction of Canada was intrusted to him for execution. Three great expeditions were projected: one was to be commanded by General Wolfe, who had distinguished himself at the siege of Louisburg, and who had orders from the war secretary to ascend the St. Lawrence, escorted by the fleet, and lay siege to Quebec. The second army, of twelve thousand men, under General Amherst, was ordered to reduce Ticonderoga and Crown Point, cross Lake Champlain, and proceed along the River Richelieu to the banks of the St. Lawrence, join General Wolfe, and assist in the reduction of Quebec. The third army was sent to Fort Niagara, the most important post in French America, since it commanded the lakes, and overawed the whole country of the Six Nations. After the reduction of this fort, the army was ordered down the St. Lawrence to besiege Montreal.

That this project was magnificent, and showed the comprehensive military genius of Pitt, cannot be doubted. But that it was easy of execution may well be questioned, when it is remembered that the navigation of the St. Lawrence was difficult and dangerous; that the fortifications and strength of Quebec were unrivalled in the new world; that the French troops between Montreal and Quebec numbered nine thousand men, besides Indians, commanded, too, by so great a general as Montcalm. Still all of these expeditions were successful. Quebec and Niagara were taken, and Crown Point and Ticonderoga were abandoned.

The most difficult part of the enterprise was the capture of Quebec, which was one of the most brilliant military exploits ever performed, and which raised the English general to the very summit of military fame. He was disappointed in the expected cooeperation of General Amherst, and he had to take one of the strongest fortresses in the world, defended by troops superior in number to his own. He succeeded in climbing the almost perpendicular rock on which the fortress was built, and in overcoming a superior force. Wolfe died in the attack, but lived long enough to hear of the flight of the enemy. Nothing could exceed the tumultuous joy in England with which the news of the fall of Quebec was received; nothing could surpass the interest with which the distant expedition was viewed; and the depression of the French was equal to the enthusiasm of the English. Wolfe gained an immortal name, and a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey. But Pitt reaped the solid and substantial advantages which resulted from the conquest of Canada, which soon followed the reduction of Quebec. He became the nation's idol, and was left to prosecute the various wars in which England was engaged, in his own way.

[Sidenote: Victories of Clive in India.]

While the English armies, under the direction of Pitt, were wresting from the French nearly all their possessions in America, Clive was adding a new empire to the vast dominions of Great Britain. India was conquered, and the British power firmly planted in the East. Moreover, the English allies on the continent—the Prussians—obtained great victories, which will be alluded to in the chapter on Frederic the Great. On all sides the English were triumphant, and were intoxicated with joy. The stocks rose, and the bells rang almost an incessant peal for victories.

In the midst of these public rejoicings, King George II. died. He was a sovereign who never secured the affections of the nation, whose interests he sacrificed to those of his German electorate, "He had neither the qualities which make libertinism attractive nor the qualities which make dulness respectable. He had been a bad son, and he made a worse father. Not one magnanimous action is recorded of him, but many meannesses. But his judgment was sound, his habits economical, and his spirit bold. These qualities prevented him from being despised, if they did not make him honored."

His grandson, George III., entered upon his long reign, October, 1760, in the twenty-third year of his age, and was universally admitted to be the most powerful monarch in Christendom—or, rather, the monarch of the most powerful kingdom. He, or, rather, his ministers, resolved to prosecute the war with vigor, and parliament voted liberal supplies. The object of Pitt was the humiliation of both France and Austria, and also the protection of Prussia, struggling against almost overwhelming forces. He secured his object by administering to the nation those draughts of flattery and military glory which intoxicated the people.

[Sidenote: Resignation of Pitt.]

However sincere the motives and brilliant the genius of the minister, it was impossible that a practical nation should not awake from the delusion, which he so powerfully contributed to produce. People at last inquired "why England was to become a party in a dispute between two German powers, and why were the best English regiments fighting on the Maine?" What was it to the busy shopkeeper of London that the Tower guns were discharged, and the streets illuminated, if he were to be additionally taxed? Statesmen began to calculate the enormous sums which had been wasted in an expensive war, where nothing had been gained but glory. Besides, jealousies and enmities sprung up against Pitt. Some were offended by his haughtiness, and others were estranged by his withering invective. And his enemies were numerous and powerful. Even the cabinet ministers, who were his friends, turned against him. He wished to declare war against Spain, while the nation was bleeding at every pore. But the cabinet could not be persuaded of the necessity of the war, and Pitt, of course, resigned. But it was inevitable, and took place under his successor. Pitt left the helm of state with honor. He received a pension of three thousand pounds a year, and his wife was made a baroness.

The Earl of Bute succeeded him as premier, and was the first Tory minister since the accession of the house of Hanover. His watchword was prerogative. The sovereign should no longer be a gilded puppet, but a real king—an impossible thing in England. But his schemes pleased the king, and Oxford University, and Dr. Johnson; while his administration was assailed with a host of libels from Wilkes, Churchill, and other kindred firebrands.

His main act was the peace he secured to Europe. The Whigs railed at it then, and rail at it now; and Macaulay falls in with the lamentation of his party, and regrets that no better terms should have been made. But what can satisfy the ambition of England? The peace of Paris, in 1763, stipulated that Canada, with the Island of St. John, and Cape Breton, and all that part of Louisiana which lies east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, should be ceded to Great Britain, and that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed; that Spain should relinquish her claim to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland, should permit the English to cut mahogany on the shores of Honduras Bay, and cede Florida and Minorca to Great Britain. In return for these things, the French were permitted to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland, and the Islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Belleisle, and St. Lucia were restored to them, and Cuba was restored to Spain.

[Sidenote: Peace of Paris.]

The peace of Paris, in 1763, constitutes an epoch; and we hence turn to survey the condition of France since the death of Louis XIV., and also other continental powers.

* * * * *

REFERENCES.—Archdeacon Coxe's History of the Pelham Administration. Thackeray's Life of Lord Chatham. Macaulay's Essay on Chatham. Horace Walpole's Reminiscences. Smyth's Lectures on Modern History. Jesse's Memoirs of the Pretenders. Graham's History of the United States, an exceedingly valuable work, but not sufficiently known. Lord Mahon's, Smollett's, Tyndal's, and Belsham's, are the standard histories of England, at this period; also, the continuation of Mackintosh, and the Pictorial History, are valuable. See also the Marchmont Papers, Ray's History of the Rebellion, Horace Walpole's Memoirs of George II., Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, and Doddington's Diary.



CHAPTER XXII.

LOUIS XV.

The reign of Louis XV. was one of the longest on record extending from 1715 to 1774—the greater part of the eighteenth century. But he was a child, only five years of age, on the death of his great grandfather, Louis XIV.; and, even after he came to his majority, he was ruled by his ministers and his mistresses. He was not, like Louis XIV., the life and the centre of all great movements in his country. He was an automaton, a pageant; not because the constitution imposed checks on his power, but because he was weak and vacillating. He, therefore, performing no great part in history, is only to be alluded to, and attention should be mainly directed to his ministers.

[Sidenote: Regency of the Duke of Orleans.]

During the minority of the king, the reins of government were held by the Duke of Orleans, as regent, and who, in case of the king's death, would be the next king, being grand-nephew of Louis XIV. The administration of the Duke of Orleans is nearly contemporaneous with that of Sir Robert Walpole. The most pressing subject which demanded the attention of the regent, was that of the finances. The late king had left a debt of one thousand millions of livres—an enormous sum in that age. To get rid of this burden, the Duke of St. Simon proposed a bankruptcy. "This," said he, "would fall chiefly on the commercial and moneyed classes, who were not to be feared or pitied; and would, moreover, be not only a relief to the state, but a salutary warning to the ignoble classes not to lend their money." This speech illustrates the feelings and opinions of the aristocratic class in France, at that time. But the minister of finance would not run the risk of incurring the popular odium which such a measure would have produced, and he proposed calling together the States General. The regent duke, however, would not hear of that measure, and yet did not feel inclined to follow fully the advice of St. Simon. He therefore compromised the matter, and resolved to rob the national creditor. He established a commission to verify the bills of the public creditors, and, if their accounts did not prove satisfactory, to cancel them entirely. Three hundred and fifty millions of livres—equal, probably, to three hundred millions of dollars in this age—were thus swept away. But it was resolved not only to refuse to pay just debts, but to make people repay the gains which they had made. Those who had loaned money to the state, or had farmed the revenues, were flung into prison, and threatened with confiscation of their goods, and even death,—treated as Jews were treated in the Dark Ages,—unless they redeemed themselves by purchasing a pardon. Never before did men suffer such a penalty for having befriended an embarrassed state. To this injustice and cruelty the magistracy winked. But, in addition to this, the coin was debased to such an extent, that seventy-two millions of livres were thus added to the treasury. Yet even these gains were not enough to satisfy a profligate government. There still continued a constant pressure. The national debt had increased even to fifteen hundred millions of livres, or almost seventy millions sterling—equivalent to what would now be equal to at least one thousand millions of dollars.

[Sidenote: John Law.]

To get rid of this debt, the regent listened to the schemes of the celebrated John Law, a Scotch adventurer and financier, who had established a bank, had grown rich, and was reputed to be a wonderful political economist.

Law proposed, in substance, to increase the paper currency of the country, and thus supersede the necessity for the use of the precious metals.

The regent, moreover, having great faith in Law's abilities, and in his wealth, converted his private bank into a royal one—made it, in short, the Bank of France. This bank was then allied with the two great commercial companies of the time—the East India and the Mississippi. Great privileges were bestowed on each. The latter had the exclusive monopoly of the trade with Louisiana, and all the countries on the Mississippi River, and also of the fur trade in Canada. Louisiana was then supposed to be rich in gold mines, and great delusions arose from the popular notion.

[Sidenote: Mississippi Company.]

The capital of this gigantic corporation was fixed at one hundred millions and Law, who was made director-general, aimed to make the notes of the company preferable to specie, which, however could lawfully be demanded for the notes. So it was settled that the shares of the company could only be purchased by the paper of the bank. As extravagant hopes of gain were cherished respecting the company, its shares were in great demand. And, as only Law's bank bills could purchase the shares, the gold and silver of the realm flowed into Law's bank. Law and the regent had, therefore, the fabrication of both shares and bank bills to an indefinite amount.

The national creditor was also paid in the notes of the bank, and, as unbounded confidence existed, both in the genius of Law and in the profits of the Mississippi Company,—as the shares were constantly in demand, and were rising in value,—the creditor was satisfied. In a short time, one half of the national debt was transferred. Government owed the bank, and not the individuals and corporations from whom loans had been originally obtained. These individuals, instead of government scrip, had shares in the Mississippi Company.

And all would have been well, had the company's shares been valuable, or had they retained their credit, or even had but a small part of the national debt been transferred. But the people did not know the real issues of the bank, and so long as new shares could be created and sold to pay the interest, the company's credit was good. For a while the delusion lasted. Law was regarded as a great national benefactor. His house was thronged with dukes and princes. He became controller-general of the finances—virtually prime minister. His fame extended far and wide. Honors were showered upon him from every quarter. He was elected a member of the French Academy. His schemes seemed to rain upon Paris a golden shower. He had freed the state from embarrassments, and he had, apparently, made every body rich, and no one poor. He was a deity, as beneficent as he was powerful. He became himself the richest man in Europe. Every body was intoxicated. The golden age had come. Paris was crowded with strangers from all parts of the world. Five hundred thousand strangers expended their fortunes, in hope of making greater ones. Twelve hundred new coaches were set up in the city. Lodgings could scarcely be had for money. The highest price was paid for provisions. Widow ladies, clergymen, and noblemen deserted London to speculate in stocks at Paris. Nothing was seen but new equipages, new houses, new apparel, new furniture. Nothing was felt but universal exhilaration. Every man seemed to have made his fortune. The stocks rose every day. The higher they rose, the more new stock was created. At last, the shares of the company rose from one hundred to twelve hundred per cent., and three hundred millions were created, which were nominally worth, in 1719, three thousand six hundred millions of livres—one hundred and eighty times the amount of all the gold and silver in Europe at that time.

[Sidenote: Popular Delusion.]

In this public delusion, the directors were wise enough to convert their shares into silver and gold. A great part of the current coin in the kingdom was locked up in the houses or banks of a few stockjobbers and speculators.

But the scarcity of gold and silver was felt, people's eyes were opened, and the bubble burst, but not until half of the national debt had been paid off by this swindling transaction.

The nation was furious. A panic spread among all classes; the bank had no money with which to redeem its notes; the shares fell almost to nothing; and universal bankruptcy took place. Those who, a few days before, fancied themselves rich, now found themselves poor. Property of all kinds fell to less than its original value. Houses, horses, carriages, upholstery, every thing, declined in price. All were sellers, and few were purchasers.

But popular execration and vengeance pursued the financier who had deceived the nation. He was forced to fly from Paris. His whole property was confiscated, and he was reduced to indigence and contempt. When his scheme was first suggested to the regent, he was worth three millions of livres. He had better remained a private banker.

The bursting of the Mississippi bubble, of course, inflamed the nation against the government, and the Duke of Orleans was execrated, for his agency in the business had all the appearance of a fraud. But he was probably deluded with others, and hoped to free the country from its burdens. The great blunder was in the over-issue of notes when there was no money to redeem them.

Nor could any management have prevented the catastrophe.

[Sidenote: Fatal Effects of the Delusion.]

It was not possible that the shares of the company should advance so greatly, and the public not perceive that they had advanced beyond their value; it was not possible, that, while paper money so vastly increased in quantity, the numerical prices of all other things should not increase also, and that foreigners who sold their manufactures to the French should not turn their paper into gold, and carry it out of the kingdom; it was not possible that the disappearance of the coin should not create alarm, notwithstanding the edicts of the regent, and the reasonings of Law; it was not possible that annuitants should not discover that their old incomes were now insufficient and less valuable, as the medium in which they were paid was less valuable; it was not possible that the small part of society which may be called the sober and reasoning part, should not be so struck with the sudden fortunes and extravagant enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt of the solidity of a system, unphilosophical in itself, and which, after all, had to depend on the profits of a commercial company, the good faith of the regent, and the skill of Law; it was impossible, on these and other accounts, but that gold and silver should be at last preferred to paper notes, of whatever description or promise. These were inevitable consequences. Hence the failure of the scheme of Law, and the ruin of all who embarked in it, owing to a change in public opinion as to the probable success of the scheme, and, secondly, the over-issue of money.

By this great folly, four hundred thousand families were ruined, or greatly reduced; but the government got rid of about eight hundred millions of debts. The sufferings of the people, with such a government, did not, however, create great solicitude; the same old course of folly and extravagance was pursued by the court.

Nor was there a change for the better when Louis XV. attained his majority. His vices and follies exceeded all that had ever been displayed before. The support of his mistresses alone was enough to embarrass the nation. Their waste and extravagance almost exceeded belief. Who has not heard of the disgraceful and disgusting iniquities of Pompadour and Du Barry?

The regency of the Duke of Orleans occupied the first eight years of the reign of Louis XV. The prime minister of the regent was Dubois, at first his tutor, and afterwards Archbishop of Cambray. He was rewarded with a cardinal's hat for the service he rendered to the Jesuits in their quarrel with the Jansenists, but was a man of unprincipled character; a fit minister to a prince who pretended to be too intellectual to worship God, and who copied Henry IV. only in his licentiousness.

The first minister of Louis XV., after he assumed himself the reins of government, was the Duke of Bourbon, lineal heir of the house of Conde, and first prince of the blood. But he was a man of no character, and his short administration was signalized by no important event.

[Sidenote: Administration of Cardinal Fleury.]

Cardinal Fleury succeeded the Duke of Bourbon as prime minister. He had been preceptor of the king, and was superior to all the intrigues of the court; a man of great timidity, but also a man of great probity, gentleness, and benignity. Fortunately, he was intrusted with power at a period of great domestic tranquillity, and his administration was, like that of Walpole, pacific. He projected, however, no schemes of useful reform, and made no improvements in laws or finance. But he ruled despotically, and with good intentions, from 1726 to 1743.

The most considerable subject of interest connected with his peaceful administration, was the quarrel between the Jesuits and the Jansenists. Fleury took the side of the former, although he was never an active partisan; and he was induced to support the Jesuits for the sake of securing the cardinal's hat—the highest honor, next to that of the tiara, which could be conferred on an ecclesiastic. The Jesuits upheld the crumbling power of the popes, and the popes rewarded the advocates of that body of men, who were their ablest supporters.

The Jansenist controversy is too important to be passed over with a mere allusion. It was the great event in the history of Catholic Europe during the seventeenth century. It involved principles of great theological, and even political interest.

[Sidenote: Cornelius Jansen.]

The Jansenist controversy grew out of the long-disputed questions pertaining to grace and free will—questions which were agitated with great spirit and acrimony in the seventeenth century as they had previously been centuries before by Augustine and Pelagius. The Jesuits had never agreed with the great oracle of the Western church in his views on certain points, and it was their aim to show the absolute freedom of the human will—that it had a self-determining power, a perfect liberty to act or not to act. Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, had been a great defender of this ancient Pelagianism, and his views were opposed by the Dominicans, and the controversy was carried into all the universities of Europe. The Council of Trent was too wise to meddle with this difficult question; but angry theologians would not let it rest, and it was discussed with peculiar fervor in the Catholic University of Louvaine. Among the doctors who there distinguished themselves in reviving the great contest of the fifth and sixth centuries, were Cornelius Jansen of Holland, and Jean de Verger of Gascony. Both these doctors hated the Jesuits, and lamented the dangerous doctrines which they defended, and advocated the views of Augustine and the Calvinists. Jansen became professor of divinity in the university, and then Bishop of Ypres. After an uninterrupted study of twenty years, he produced his celebrated book called Augustinus, in which he set forth the servitude of the will, and the necessity of divine grace to break the bondage, which, however, he maintained, like Calvin, is imparted only to a few, and in pursuance of a decree existing in the divine mind before the creation of our species. But Jansen died before the book was finished, and two years elapsed before it was published, but, when published, it was the signal for a contest which distracted Europe for seventy years.

[Sidenote: St. Cyran—Arnauld—Le Maitre.]

While Jansen was preparing this work, his early companion and friend, De Verger, a man of family and rank, had become abbot of the monastery of St. Cyran in Paris, and had formed, in the centre of that gay city, a learned and ascetic hermitage. This was during the reign of Louis XIII. His reputation, as a scholar and a saint, attracted the attention of Richelieu, and his services were solicited by that able minister. But neither rewards, nor flatteries, nor applause had power over the mind of St. Cyran, as he was now called. The cardinal hated and feared a man whom he could not bribe or win, and soon found means to quarrel with him, and sent him to the gloomy fortress of Vincennes. But there, in his prison, he devoted himself, with renewed ardor, to his studies and duties, subduing his appetites and passions by an asceticism which even his church did not require, and devoting all his thoughts and words to the service of God. Like Calvin and Augustine, he had so profound a conception of the necessity of an inward change, that he made grace precede repentance. A man so serene in trial, so humble in spirit, so natural and childlike in ordinary life, and yet so distinguished for talents and erudition, could not help exciting admiration, and making illustrious proselytes. Among them was Arnauld D'Antilly, the intimate friend of Richelieu and Anne of Austria; Le Maitre, the most eloquent lawyer and advocate in France; and Angelique Arnauld, the abbess of Port Royal. This last was one of the most distinguished ladies of her age, noble by birth, and still more noble by her beautiful qualities of mind and heart. She had been made abbess of her Cistercian convent at the age of eleven years, and at that time was gay, social, and light-hearted. The preaching of a Capuchin friar had turned her thoughts to the future world, and she closed the gates of her beautiful abbey, in the vale of Chevreuse, against all strangers, and devoted herself to the ascetic duties which her church and age accounted most meritorious. She soon after made the acquaintance of St. Cyran, and he imbued her mind with the principles of the Augustinian theology. When imprisoned at Vincennes, he was still the spiritual father of Port Royal. Amid this famous retreat were collected the greatest scholars and the greatest saints of the seventeenth century—Antoine Le Maitre, De Lericourt, Le Maitre de Saci, Antoine Arnauld, and Pascal himself. Le Maitre de Saci gave to the world the best translation of the Bible in French; Arnauld wrote one hundred volumes of controversy, and, among them, a noted satire on the Jesuits, which did them infinite harm; while Pascal, besides his wonderful mathematical attainments, and his various meditative works, is immortalized for his Provincial Letters, written in the purest French, and with matchless power and beauty. This work, directed against the Jesuits, is an inimitable model of elegant irony, and the most effective sarcasm probably ever elaborated by man. In the vale of Port Royal also dwelt Tillemont, the great ecclesiastical historian; Fontaine and Racine, who were controlled by the spirit of Arnauld, as well as the Prince of Conti, and the Duke of Liancourt. There resided, under the name of Le Merrier, and in the humble occupation of a gardener, one of the proudest nobles of the French court; and there, too, dwelt the celebrated Duchess of Longueville, sister of the Prince of Conde, the life of the Fronde, the idol of the Parisian mob, and the once gay patroness of the proudest festivities.

[Sidenote: The Labors of the Port Royalists.]

But it is the labors of these saints, scholars, and nobles to repress the dangerous influence of the Jesuits for which they were most distinguished. The Jansenists of Port Royal did not deny the authority of the pope, nor the great institutions of the papacy. They sought chiefly, in their controversy with the Jesuits, to enforce the doctrines of Augustine respecting justification. But their efforts were not agreeable to the popes, nor to the doctors of the Sorbonne, who had no sympathy with their religious life, and detested their bold spirit of inquiry. The doctors of the Sorbonne, accordingly, extracted from the book of Jansen five propositions which they deemed heretical, and urged the pope to condemn them. The Port Royalists admitted that these five propositions were indefensible if they were declared heretical by the sovereign pontiff, but denied that they were actually to be found in the book of Jansen. They did not quarrel with the pope on grounds of faith. They recognized his infallibility in matters of religion, but not in matters of fact. The pope, not wishing to push things to extremity, which never was the policy of Rome, pretended to be satisfied. But the Jesuits would not let him rest, and insisted on the condemnation of the Jansenist opinions. The case was brought before a great council of French bishops and doctors, and Arnauld, the great champion of the Jansenists, was voted guilty of heresy for denying that the five propositions which the pope condemned were actually in the book of Jansen. The pope, moreover, was induced to issue a formula of an oath, to which all who wished to enjoy any office in the church were obliged to subscribe, and which affirmed that the five condemned propositions were actually to be found in Jansen's book. This act of the pope was justly regarded by the Jansenists as intolerably despotic, and many of the most respectable of the French clergy sided with them in opinion. All France now became interested in the controversy, and it soon led to great commotions. The Jansenists then contended that the pope might err in questions of fact, and that, therefore, they were not under an obligation to subscribe to the required oath. The Jesuits, on the other hand, maintained the pope's infallibility in matters of fact, as well as in doctrine; and, as they had the most powerful adherents, the Jansenists were bitterly persecuted. But, as twenty-two bishops were found to take their side, the matter was hushed up for a while. For ten years more, the Port Royalists had peace and protection, chiefly through the great influence of the Duchess of Longueville; but, on her death, persecution returned. Arnauld was obliged to fly to the Netherlands, and the beautiful abbey of Port Royal was despoiled of its lands and privileges. Louis XIV. had ever hated its inmates, being ruled by Madame de Maintenon, who, in turn, was a tool of the Jesuits.

But the demolition of the abbey, the spoliation of its lands, and the dispersion of those who sought its retreat, did not stop the controversy. Pascal continued it, and wrote his Provincial Letters, which had a wonderful effect in making the Jesuits both ridiculous and hateful. That book was the severest blow this body of ambitious and artful casuists ever received.

[Sidenote: Principles of Jansenism.]

Nor was the Jansenist controversy merely a discussion of grace and free will. The principles of Jansenism, when carried out, tended to secure independence to the national church, and to free the consciences of men from the horrible power of their spiritual confessors. Jansenism was a timid protest against spiritual tyranny, a mild kind of Puritanism, which found sympathy with many people in France. The Parliament of Paris caught the spirit of freedom, and protected the Jansenists and those who sympathized with them. It so happened that a certain bishop published a charge to his clergy which was strongly imbued with the independent doctrines of the Jansenists. He was tried and condemned by a provincial council, and banished by the government. The Parliament of Paris, as the guardian of the law, took up the quarrel, and Cardinal Fleury was obliged to resort to a Bed of Justice in order to secure the registry of a decree. A Bed of Justice was the personal appearance of the sovereign in the supreme judicial tribunal of the nation, and his command to the members of it to obey his injunctions was the last resort of absolute power. The parliament, of course, obeyed, but protested the next day, and drew up resolutions which declared the temporal power to be independent of the spiritual. It then proceeded to Meudon, one of the royal palaces, to lay its remonstrance before the king; and Louis XV., indignant and astonished, refused to see the members. The original controversy was forgotten, and the cause of the parliament, which was the cause of liberty, became the cause of the nation. The resistance of the parliament was technically unsuccessful, yet, nevertheless, sowed the seeds of popular discontent, and contributed to that great insurrection which finally overturned the throne.

[Sidenote: Functions of the Parliament.]

[Sidenote: The Bull Unigenitus.]

It may be asked how the Parliament of Paris became a judicial tribunal, rather than a legislative assembly, as in England. When the Justinian code was introduced into French jurisprudence, in the latter part of the Middle Ages, the old feudal and clerical judges—the barons and bishops—were incapable of expounding it, and a new class of men arose—the lawyers, whose exclusive business it was to study the laws. Being best acquainted with them, they entered upon the functions of judges, and the secular and clerical lords yielded to their opinions. The great barons, however, still continued to sit in the judicial tribunals, although ignorant of the new jurisprudence; and their decisions were directed by the opinions of the lawyers who had obtained a seat in their body, as is the case at present in the English House of Lords when it sits as a judicial body. The necessity of providing some permanent repository for the royal edicts, induced the kings of France to enroll them in the journals of the courts of parliament, being the highest judicial tribunal; and the members of these courts gradually availed themselves of this custom to dispute the legality of any edict which had not been thus registered. As the influence of the States General declined, the power of the parliament increased. The encroachments of the papacy first engaged its attention, and then the management of the finances by the ministers of Francis I. called forth remonstrances. During the war of the Fronde, the parliament absolutely refused to register the royal decrees. But Louis XIV. was sufficiently powerful to suppress the spirit of independence, and accordingly entered the court, during the first years of his reign, with a whip in his hand, and compelled it to register his edicts. Nor did any murmur afterwards escape the body, until, at the close of his reign the members opposed the bull Unigenitus—that which condemned the Jansenists—as an infringement of the liberties of the Gallican Church. And no sooner had the great monarch died, than, contrary to his will, they vested the regency in the hands of the Duke of Orleans. Then freedom of expostulation respecting the ruinous schemes of Law induced him to banish them, and they only obtained their recall by degrading concessions. Their next opposition was during the administration of Fleury. The minister of finance made an attempt to inquire into the wealth of the clergy, which raised the jealousy of the order; and the clergy, in order to divert the attention of the court, revived the opposition of the parliament to the bull Unigenitus. It was resolved by the clergy to demand confessional notes from dying persons, and that these notes should be signed by priests adhering to the bull, before extreme unction should be given. The Archbishop of Paris, at the head of the French clergy, was opposed by the parliament, and this high judicial court imprisoned such of the clergy as refused to administer the sacraments. The king, under the guidance of Fleury, forbade the parliament to take cognizance of ecclesiastical proceedings, and to suspend its prosecutions. Instead of acquiescing, the parliament presented new remonstrances, and the members refused to attend to any other functions, and resolved that they could not obey this injunction without violating their consciences. They cited the Bishop of Orleans before their tribunal, and ordered all his writings, which denied the jurisdiction of the court, to be publicly burnt by the executioner. By aid of the military, the parliament enforced the administration of the sacraments, and became so interested in the controversy as to neglect other official duties. The king, indignant, again banished the members, with the exception of four, whom he imprisoned. And, in order not to impede the administration of justice, the king established another tribunal for the prosecution of civil suits. But the lawyers, sympathizing with the parliament, refused to plead before the new court. This resolute conduct, and other evils happening at the time, induced the king to yield, in order to conciliate the people, and the parliament was recalled. This was a popular triumph, and the archbishop was banished in his turn. Shortly after, Cardinal Fleury died, and a new policy was adopted. The quarrel of the parliament and the clergy was forgotten in a still greater quarrel between the king and the Jesuits.

The policy of Fleury, like that of Walpole, was pacific; and yet, like him, he was forced into a war against his own convictions. And success attended the arms of France, in the colonial struggle with England, until Pitt took the helm of state.

Until the death of Fleury, in 1743, who administered affairs with wisdom, moderation, and incorruptible integrity, he was beloved, if he was not venerated. But after this event, a great change took place in his character and measures, and the reign of mistresses commenced, and to an extent unparalleled in the history of Europe. Louis XIV. bestowed the revenue of the state on unworthy favorites, yet never allowed them to govern the nation; but Louis XV. intrusted the most important state matters to their direction, and the profoundest state secrets to their keeping.

[Sidenote: Madame de Pompadour.]

Among these mistresses, Madame de Pompadour was the most noted; a woman of talent, but abominably unprincipled. Ambition was her master-passion, and her boudoir was the council chamber of the royal ministers. Most of the great men of France paid court to her, and to neglect her was social ruin. Even Voltaire praised her beauty, and Montesquieu flattered her intellect. And her extravagance was equal to her audacity. She insisted on drawing bills on the treasury without specifying the service. The comptroller-general was in despair, and the state was involved in inextricable embarrassments.

It was through her influence that the Duke de Choiseul was made the successor of Fleury. He was not deficient in talent, but his administration proved unfortunate. Under his rule, Louis lost the Canadas, and France plunged into a contest with Frederic the Great. The Seven Years' War, which occurred during his administration, had made the age an epoch; but as this is to be considered in the chapter on Frederic III., no notice of it will be taken in this connection.

The most memorable event which arose out of the policy and conduct of Choiseul was the fall of the Jesuits.

[Sidenote: The Jesuits.]

Their arts and influence had obtained from the pope the bull Unigenitus, designed to suppress their enemies, the Jansenists; and the king, governed by Fleury, had taken their side.

But they were so unwise as to quarrel with the powerful mistress of Louis XV. They despised her, and defied her hatred. Indeed, the Jesuits had climbed to so great a height that they were scornful of popular clamor, and even of regal distrust. But there is no man, and no body of men, who can venture to provoke enmity with impunity; and destruction often comes from a source the least suspected, and apparently the least to be feared. Who could have supposed that the ruin of this powerful body, which had reigned so proudly in Christendom for a century; which had imposed its Briareus's arms on the necks of princes; which had its confessors in the courts of the most absolute monarchs; which, with its hundred eyes, had penetrated the secrets of all the cabinets of Europe; and which had succeeded in suppressing in so many places every insurrection of human intelligence, in spite of the fears of kings, the jealousy of the other monastic orders, and the inveterate animosity of philosophers and statesmen,—would receive a fatal wound from the hands of a woman, who scandalized by her vices even the depraved court of an enervated prince? But so it was. Madame de Pompadour hated the Jesuits because they attempted to undermine her influence with the king. And she incited the prime minister, whom she had raised by her arts to power, to unite with Pombal in Portugal, in order to effect their ruin.

[Sidenote: Exposure of the Jesuits.]

In no country was the power of the Jesuits more irresistible than in Portugal. There their ascendency was complete. But the prime minister of Joseph I., the Marquis of Pombal, a man of great energy, had been insulted by a lady of the highest rank, and he swore revenge. An opportunity was soon afforded. The king happened to be fired at and wounded in his palace by some unknown enemy. The blow was aimed at the objects of the minister's vengeance—the Marchioness of Tavora, her husband, her family, and her friends the Jesuits. And royal vengeance followed, not merely on an illustrious family, but on those persons whom this family befriended. The Jesuits were expelled in the most summary manner from the kingdom. The Duke de Choiseul and Madame Pompadour hailed their misfortunes with delight, and watched their opportunity for revenge. This was afforded by the failure of La Valette, the head of the Jesuits at Martinique. It must be borne in mind that the Jesuits had embarked in commercial enterprises, while they were officiating as missionaries. La Valette aimed to monopolize, for his order, the trade with the West Indies, which commercial ambition excited the jealousy of mercantile classes in France, and they threw difficulties in his way. And it so happened that some of his most valuable ships were taken and plundered by the English cruisers, which calamity, happening at a time of embarrassment, caused his bills to be protested, and his bankers to stop payment. They, indignant, accused the Jesuits, as a body, of peculation and fraud, and demanded repayment from the order. Had the Jesuits been wise, they would have satisfied the ruined bankers. But who is wise on the brink of destruction? "Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat." The Jesuits refused to sacrifice La Valette to the interests of their order, which course would have been in accordance with their general policy. The matter was carried before the Parliament of Paris, and the whole nation was interested in its result. It was decided by this supreme judicial tribunal, that the Jesuits were responsible for the debts of La Valette. But the commercial injury was weak in comparison with the moral. In the course of legal proceedings, the books and rule of the Jesuits were demanded—that mysterious rule which had never been exposed to the public eye, and which had been so carefully guarded. When this rule was produced, all minor questions vanished; mistresses, bankruptcies, politics, finances, wars,—all became insignificant, compared with those questions which affected the position and welfare of the society. Pascal became a popular idol, and "Tartuffe grew pale before Escobar." The reports of the trial lay on every toilet table, and persons of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions, read with avidity the writings of the casuists. Nothing was talked about but "probability," "surrender of conscience," and "mental reservations." Philosophers grew jealous of the absorbing interest with which every thing pertaining to the regime of the Jesuits was read, and of the growing popularity of the Jansenists, who had exposed it. "What," said Voltaire, "will it profit us to be delivered from the foxes, if we are to be given up to the wolves?" But the philosopher had been among the first to raise the cry of alarm against the Jesuits, and it was no easy thing to allay the storm.

[Sidenote: Their Expulsion from France.]

The Jesuits, in their distress, had only one friend sufficiently powerful to protect them, and he was the king. He had been their best friend, and he still wished to come to their rescue. He had been taught to honor them, and he had learned to fear them. He stood in fear of assassination, and dreaded a rupture with so powerful and unscrupulous a body. And his resistance to the prosecution would have been insurmountable, had it not been for the capriciousness of his temper, which more than balanced his superstitious fears. His minister and his mistress circumvented him. They represented that, as the parliament and the nation were both aroused against the Jesuits, his resistance would necessarily provoke a new Fronde. Nothing he dreaded so much as civil war. The wavering monarch, placed in the painful necessity of choosing, as he supposed, between a war and the ruin of his best friends, yielded to the solicitations of his artful advisers. But he yielded with a moderation which did him honor. He would not consent to the expulsion of the Jesuits until efforts had been made to secure their reform. He accordingly caused letters to be written to Rome, demanding an immediate attention to the subject. Choiseul himself prepared the scheme of reformation. But the Jesuits would not hear of any retrenchment of their power or privileges. "Let us remain as we are, or let us exist no longer," was their reply. The parliament, the people, the minister, and the mistress renewed their clamors. The parliament decreed that the constitution of the society was an encroachment on the royal authority, and the king was obliged to yield. The members of the society were forbidden to wear the habit of the society, or to enjoy any clerical office or dignity. Their colleges were closed, their order was dissolved, and they were expelled from the kingdom with rigor and severity, in spite of the wishes of the king and many entreaties and tears from the zealous advocates of Catholicism, and even of religious education.

[Sidenote: Suppression in Spain.]

But the Jesuits were too powerful, even in their misfortunes, to be persecuted without the effort to annihilate them. Having secured their expulsion from France and Portugal, Choiseul and Pombal turned their attention to Spain, and so successfully intrigued, so artfully wrought on the jealousy and fears of Charles III., that this weak prince followed the example of Joseph I. and Louis XV. But the king and his minister D'Aranda, however, prosecuted their investigations with the utmost secrecy—did not even tell their allies of their movements. Of course, the Jesuits feared nothing from the king of Spain. But when his measures were completed, an edict was suddenly declared, decreeing the suppression of the order in the land of Inquisitions. The decree came like a thunderbolt, but was instantly executed. "On the same day, 2d April, 1767, and at the same hour, in Spain, in Africa, in Asia, in America, and in all the islands belonging to the Spanish monarchy, the alcaldes of the towns opened their despatches from Madrid, by which they were ordered, on pain of the severest penalties, immediately to enter the establishments of the Jesuits, to seize their persons, expel them from their convents, and transport them, within twenty-four hours, to such places as were designated. Nor were the Jesuits permitted to carry away their money or their papers. Only a purse, a breviary, and some apparel were given them."

The government feared a popular insurrection from an excitement so sudden, and a persecution so dreadful, and therefore issued express prohibition to all the ecclesiastical authorities to prevent any allusion to the event from the pulpit. All classes were required to maintain absolute silence, and any controversy, or criticism, or remark was regarded as high treason. Such is despotism. Such is religious persecution, when fear, as well as hatred, prompts to injustice and cruelty.

The Jesuits, in their misfortunes, managed with consummate craft. Their policy was to appear in the light of victims of persecution. There was to them no medium between reigning as despots or dying as martyrs. Mediocrity would have degraded them. Ricci, the general of the order, would not permit them to land in Italy, to which country they were sent by the king of Spain. Six thousand priests, in misery and poverty, were sent adrift upon the Mediterranean, and after six months of vicissitude, suffering, and despair, they found a miserable refuge on the Island of Corsica.

[Sidenote: Pope Clement XIV.]

Soon after, the pope, their most powerful protector, died. A successor was to be appointed. But France, Spain, and Portugal, bent on the complete suppression of the Jesuits, resolved that no pope should be elected who would not favor their end. A cardinal was found,—Ganganelli,—who promised the ambassadors that, if elected pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, intrigued to secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every nerve, and put forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope who would protect them. But the ambassadors of the allied powers overreached even the Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, apparently, the most unambitious of men. His father had been a peasant; but, by the force of talent and learning, he had arisen, from the condition of his father, to be a Roman cardinal. Under the garb of a saint, he aspired to the tiara. There was only one condition of success; and that was, to destroy the best supporters of that fearful absolutism which had so long enslaved the world. The sacrifice was tremendous; but it was made, and he became a pope. Then commenced in his soul the awful struggle. Should he fulfil his pledge, and jeopardize his cause and throne, and be branded, by the zealots of his church, with eternal infamy? or should he break his word, and array against himself, with awful enmity, the great monarchs of Europe, and perhaps lose the allegiance of their subjects to him as the supreme head of the Catholic Church? The decision was the hardest which mortal man had ever been required to make. Whatever course he pursued was full of danger and disgrace. Poor Ganganelli! he had better remained a cowherd, a simple priest, a bishop, a cardinal,—any thing,—rather than to have been made a pope! But such was his ambition, and he was obliged to reap its penalty. Long did the afflicted pontiff delay to fulfil his pledge; long did he practise all the arts of dissimulation, of which he was such a master. He delayed, he flattered, he entreated, he coaxed. But the monarchs called peremptorily for the fulfilment of his pledge, and all Europe now understood the nature of the contest. It was between the Jesuits and the monarchs of Europe. Ganganelli was compelled to give his decision. His health declined, his spirits forsook him, his natural gayety fled. He courted solitude, he wept, he prayed. But he must, nevertheless, decide. The Jesuits threatened assassination, and exposed, with bitter eloquence, the ruin of his church, if he yielded her privileges to kings. And kings threatened secession from Rome, deposition—ten thousand calamities. His agony became insupportable; but delay was no longer possible. He decided to suppress the order of the Jesuits; and sixty-nine colleges were closed, their missions were broken up, their churches were given to their rivals, and twenty-two thousand priests were left without organization, wealth, or power.

[Sidenote: Death of Ganganelli.]

Their revenge was not an idle threat. One day, the pope, on arising from table, felt an internal shock, followed by great cold. Gradually he lost his voice and strength. His blood became corrupted; and his moral system gave way with the physical. He knew that he was doomed—that he was poisoned—that he must die. The fear of hell was now added to his other torments. "Compulsus, feci, compulsus, feci!"—"O, mercy, mercy, I have been compelled!" he cried, and died—died by that slow but sure poison, such as old Alexander VI. knew so well how to administer to his victims when he sought their wealth. Pope Clement XIV. inflicted, it was supposed, a mortal wound upon his church and upon her best friends. He, indeed, reaped the penalty of ambition; but the cause which he represented did not perish, nor will it lose vitality so long as the principle of evil on earth is destined to contend with the principle of good. On the restoration of the Bourbons, the order of the Jesuits was restored; and their flaming sword, with its double edge, was again felt in every corner of the world.

[Sidenote: Death of Louis XV.]

The Jesuits, on their expulsion, found shelter in Prussia, and protection from the royal infidel who had been the friend of Voltaire. A schism between the crowned heads of Europe and infidel philosophers had taken place. Frederic, who had sympathized with their bitter mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their writings; that men who assailed obedience to divine laws would not long respect the institutions and governments which mankind had recognized. He perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism in the church with absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue of the great, unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advocates of despotism. The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pompadour, and the debauched Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive the truth which the King of Prussia recognized in his latter days. Nor would it have availed any thing, if they had been gifted with the clear insight of Frederic the Great. The stream, on whose curious banks the great and the noble of France had been amusing themselves, soon swelled into an overwhelming torrent. That devastating torrent was the French Revolution, whose awful swell was first perceived during the latter years of Louis XV. He himself caught glimpses of the future; but, with the egotism of a Bourbon, he remarked "that the throne would last during his time." Soon after this heartless speech was made, he was stricken with the small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and inglorious reign. He was deserted in his last hours, and his disgusting and loathsome remains were huddled into their last abode by the workmen of his palace.

Before the reign of Louis XVI. can be described, it is necessary to glance at the career of Frederic the Great, and the condition of the various European states, at a period contemporary with the Seven Years' War—the great war of the eighteenth century, before the breaking out of the French Revolution.

* * * * *

REFERENCES.—For a general view of the reign of Louis XV., see the histories of Lacretelle, Voltaire, and Crowe. The scheme of Law is best explained in Smyth's Lectures, and Anderson's History of Commerce. The struggles between the king and the Parliament of Paris are tolerably described in the History of Adolphus. For a view of the Jansenist Controversy, see Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, Ranke's History of the Popes, Pascal's Provincial Letters, and Stephens's article in the Edinburgh Review, on the Port Royalists. The fall of the Jesuits has been admirably treated by Quinet. James has written a good sketch of the lives of Fleury and Choiseul. For the manners of the court of Louis XV., the numerous memoirs and letters, which were written during the period, must be consulted; the most amusing of which, and, in a certain sense, instructive, are too infamous to be named.



CHAPTER XXIII.

FREDERIC THE GREAT.

[Sidenote: Frederic William.]

Frederic II. of Prussia has won a name which will be immortal on Moloch's catalogue of military heroes. His singular character extorts our admiration, while it calls forth our aversion, admiration for his great abilities, sagacity, and self-reliance, and disgust for his cruelties, his malice, his suspicions, and his tricks. He had no faith in virtue or disinterestedness, and trusted only to mechanical agencies—to the power of armies—to the principle of fear. He was not indifferent to literature, or the improvement of his nation; but war was alike his absorbing passion and his highest glory. Peter the Great was half a barbarian, and Charles XII. half a madman; but Frederic was neither barbarous in his tastes, nor wild in his schemes. Louis XIV. plunged his nation in war from puerile egotism, and William III. fought for the great cause of religious and civil liberty; but Frederic, from the excitement which war produced, and the restless ambition of plundering what was not his own.

He was born in the royal palace of Berlin, in 1712—ten years after Prussia had become a kingdom, and in the lifetime of his grandfather, Frederic I. The fortunes of his family were made by his great-grandfather, called the Great Elector, of the house of Hohenzollern. He could not make Brandenburg a fertile province; so he turned it into a military state. He was wise, benignant, and universally beloved. But few of his amiable qualities were inherited by his great-grandson. Frederic II. resembled more his whimsical and tyrannical father, Frederic William, who beat his children without a cause, and sent his subjects to prison from mere caprice. When his ambassador, in London, was allowed only one thousand pounds a year, he gave a bounty of thirteen hundred pounds to a tall Irishman, to join his famous body-guard, a regiment of men who were each over six feet high. He would kick women in the streets, abuse clergymen for looking on the soldiers, and insult his son's tutor for teaching him Latin. But, abating his coarseness, his brutality, and his cruelty, he was a Christian, after a certain model. He had respect for the institutions of religion, denounced all amusements as sinful, and read a sermon aloud, every afternoon, to his family. His son perceived his inconsistencies, and grew up an infidel. There was no sympathy between father and son, and the father even hated the heir of his house and throne. The young prince was kept on bread and water; his most moderate wishes were disregarded; he was surrounded with spies; he was cruelly beaten and imprisoned, and abused as a monster and a heathen. The cruel treatment which the prince received induced him to fly; his flight was discovered; he was brought back to Berlin, condemned to death as a deserter and only saved from the fate of a malefactor by the intercession of half of the crowned heads of Europe. A hollow reconciliation was effected; and the prince was permitted, at last, to retire to one of the royal palaces, where he amused himself with books, billiards, balls, and banquets. He opened a correspondence with Voltaire, and became an ardent admirer of his opinions.

[Sidenote: Accession of Frederic the Great.]

In 1740, the old king died, and Frederic II. mounted an absolute throne. He found a well filled treasury, and a splendidly disciplined army. His customary pleasures were abandoned, and dreams of glory filled his ambitious soul.

Scarcely was he seated on his throne before military aggrandizement became the animating principle of his life.

His first war was the conquest of Silesia, one of the richest provinces of the Austrian empire. It belonged to Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, daughter of the late emperor of Germany, whose succession was guaranteed by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction—a law which the Emperor Charles passed respecting his daughter's claim, and which claim was recognized by the old king of Prussia, and ratified by all the leading powers of Europe. Without a declaration of war, without complaints, without a cause, scarcely without a pretext, from the mere lust of dominion, Frederic commenced hostilities, in the depth of winter, when invasion was unexpected, and when the garrisons were defenceless. Without a battle, one of the oldest provinces of Austria was seized, and the royal robber returned in triumph to his capital.

Such an outrage and crime astonished and alarmed the whole civilized world, and Europe armed itself to revenge and assist the unfortunate queen, whose empire was threatened with complete dismemberment. Frederic was alarmed, and a hollow peace was made. But, in two years, the war again broke out. To recover Silesia and to humble Frederic was the aim of Maria Theresa. She succeeded in securing the cooeperation of Russia, France, Sweden, and Saxony. No one doubted of the ruin of the house of Brandenburg. Six hundred thousand men were arrayed to crush an upstart monarchy, and an unprincipled king, who had trampled on all the laws of nations and all the principles of justice.

[Sidenote: The Seven Years' War.]

The resistance of Frederic to these immense forces constitutes the celebrated Seven Years' War—the most gigantic war which Europe had seen, from the Reformation to the French Revolution. This contest began during the latter years of George II., and was connected with the colonial wars of Great Britain and France, during which Wolfe was killed and the Canadas were gained. This war called out all the energies of the elder Pitt, and placed Great Britain on the exalted height which it has since retained.

Frederic was not so blinded as not to perceive the extent of his dangers; and his successful resistance to the armies which his own offensive war had raised up against him, has given him his claims to the epithet of Great. Although he provoked the war, his successful defence of his country placed him on the very highest pinnacle of military fame. He would gladly have been relieved from the contest, but it was inevitable; and when the tempest burst upon his head, he showed all the qualities of exalted heroism.

Great and overwhelming odds were arrayed against him. But he himself had some great advantages. He was absolute master of his army, of his treasury, and of his territories. The lives and property of his subjects were at his disposal; his subjects were brave and loyal; he was popular with the people, and was sustained by the enthusiasm of the nation; his army was well disciplined; he had no sea-coast to defend, and he could concentrate all his forces upon any point he pleased, in a short time.

His only hope was in energetic measures. He therefore invaded Saxony, at once, with sixty thousand men. His aim was to seize the state papers at Dresden, which contained the proofs of the confederation. These were found and published, which showed that now, at least, he acted on the defensive.

The campaign of 1756 commenced, and the first great battle was won by the Prussians. By the victory of Lowositz, Frederic was in a better condition to contend with Austria. By this he got possession of Saxony.

The campaign of 1757 was commenced under great solicitude. Five hundred thousand men were arrayed against two hundred thousand. Near Prague, Frederic obtained a victory, but lost twelve thousand men. He then invested Prague. General Daun, with a superior army, advanced to its relief. Another bloody battle was fought, and lost by the Prussian king. This seemed to be a fatal stroke. At the outset, as it were, of the war, he had received a check. The soldiers' confidence was weakened. Malevolent sarcasm pointed out mistakes. The siege of Prague was raised, and Bohemia was abandoned. A French army, at the same time, invaded Germany; and Frederic heard also of the death of his mother—the only person whom he loved. His spirits fell, and he became haggard and miserable.

The only thing for him to do now was, to protect Saxony, and secure that conquest—no very easy task. His dominions were now assailed by a French, a Swedish, and a Russian army. His capital was in the hands of the Croatians, and he was opposed by superior Austrian forces. No wonder that he was oppressed with melancholy, and saw only the ruin of his house. On one thing, however, he was resolved—never to be taken alive. So he provided himself with poison, which he ever carried about his person.

The heroic career of Frederic dates from this hour of misfortune and trial. Indeed, the heroism of all great men commences in perplexity, difficulty, and danger. Success is glorious; but success is obtained only through struggle. Frederic's career is a splendid example of that heroism which rises above danger, and extricates a man from difficulties when his cause is desperate.

[Sidenote: Battle of Rossbach.]

The King of Prussia first marched against the French. The two armies met at Rossbach. The number of the French was double that of the Prussians; but the Prussians were better disciplined, and were commanded by an abler general. The French, however felt secure of victory; but they were defeated: seven thousand men were taken prisoners, together with their guns, ammunition, parrots, hair powder, and pomatum. The victory of Rossbach won for Frederic a great name, and diffused universal joy among the English and Prussians.

[Sidenote: Battle of Leuthen.]

After a brief rest, he turned his face towards Silesia, which had again fallen into the hands of the Austrians. It was for this province that he provoked the hostilities of Europe; and pride, as well as interest, induced him to bend all his energies to regain it. Prince Charles of Lorraine commanded the forces of Maria Theresa, which numbered eighty thousand men. Frederic could only array against him an army of thirty thousand. And yet, in spite of the disparity of forces, and his desperate condition, he resolved to attack the enemy. His generals remonstrated; but the hero gave full permission to all to retire, if they pleased. None were found to shun the danger. Frederic, like Napoleon, had the talent of exciting the enthusiasm of his troops. He both encouraged and threatened them. He declared that any cavalry regiment which did not, on being ordered, burst impetuously on the foe, should after the battle, be dismounted, and converted into a garrison regiment. But he had no reason to complain. On the 5th of December, the day of the ever-memorable battle of Leuthen, he selected an officer with fifty men as his body-guard. "I shall," said he, "expose myself much to-day; you are not to leave me for an instant: if I fall, cover me quickly with a mantle, place me in a wagon and tell the fact to no one. The battle cannot be avoided, and must be won." And he obtained a glorious victory. The Austrian general abandoned a strong position, because he deemed it beneath his dignity to contend with an inferior force in a fortified camp. His imprudence lost him the battle. According to Napoleon, it was a masterpiece on the part of the victor, and placed him in the first rank of generals. Twenty thousand Austrians were either killed or taken. Breslau opened its gates to the Prussians, and Silesia was reconquered. The king's fame filled the world. Pictures of him were hung in almost every house. The enthusiasm of Germany was not surpassed by that of England. London was illuminated; the gay scions of aristocracy proposed to the Prussian king to leave their country and join his army; an annual subsidy of seven hundred thousand pounds was granted by government. The battle of Leuthen was the most brilliant in Prussian annals; out the battle of Rossbach, over the French, was attended by greater moral results. It showed, for the first time for several centuries, that the Germans were really a great people, and were a match for the French, hitherto deemed invincible.

Early in the spring of 1758, Frederic was ready for a new campaign, which was soon signalized by a great victory over the Russians, at Zorndorff. It was as brilliant and decisive as the battles of Rossbach and Leuthen. A force of thirty-two thousand men defeated an army of fifty-two thousand. Twenty-two thousand Russians lay dead on the field. This victory placed Frederic at the zenith of military fame. In less than a year, he had defeated three great armies; in less than a year, and when nearly driven to despair,—when his cause seemed hopeless, and his enemies were rejoicing in their strength,—he successively triumphed over the French, the Austrians, and the Russians; the three most powerful nations on the continent of Europe. And his moderation after victory was as marked as his self-reliance after defeat. At this period, he stood out, to the wondering and admiring eyes of the world, as the greatest hero and general of modern times. But, after this, his career was more checkered, and he was still in danger of being overwhelmed by his powerful enemies.

[Sidenote: Fall of Dresden.]

The remainder of the campaign of 1758 was spent in driving the Austrians from Silesia, and in capturing Dresden. No capital in Europe has suffered more in war than this elegant and polished city. It has been often besieged and taken, but the victors have always spared its famous picture gallery—the finest collection of the works of the old masters, probably, in existence.

But Frederic was now assailed by a new enemy, Pope Benedict XIV. He sent a consecrated sword, a hat of crimson velvet, and a dove of pearls,—"the mystic symbol of the divine Comforter,"—to Marshal Daun, the ablest of the Austrian generals, and the conqueror at Kolin and Hochkirchen. It was the rarest of the papal gifts, and had been only bestowed, in the course of six centuries, on Godfrey of Bouillon, by Urban II., when he took Jerusalem; on Alva, after his massacres in Holland; and on Sobieski, after his deliverance of Vienna, when besieged by the Turks. It had never been conferred, except for the defence of the "Holy Catholic Church." But this greatest of papal gifts made no impression on the age which read Montesquieu and Voltaire. A flood of satirical pamphlets inundated Christendom, and the world laughed at the impotent weapons which had once been thunderbolts in the hands of Hildebrand or Innocent III.

[Sidenote: Reverses of Frederic.]

The fourth year of the war proved disastrous to Frederic. He did not lose military reputation, but he lost his cities and armies. The forces of his enemies were nearly overwhelming. The Austrians invaded Saxony, and menaced Silesia, while the Russians gained a victory over the Prussians at Kunersdorf, and killed eighteen thousand men. The Russians did not improve this great victory over Frederic, which nearly drove him to despair. But he rallied, and was again defeated in three disastrous battles. In his distress, he fed his troops on potatoes and rye bread, took from the peasant his last horse, debased his coin, and left his civil functionaries unpaid.

The campaign of 1760 was, at first, unfavorable to the Prussians. Frederic had only ninety thousand men, and his enemies had two hundred thousand, in the field. He was therefore obliged to maintain the defensive. But still disasters thickened. General Loudon obtained a great victory over his general, Fouque, in Silesia. Instead of being discouraged by this new defeat, he formed the extraordinary resolution of wresting Dresden from the hands of the Austrians. But he pretended to retreat from Saxony, and advance to Silesia. General Daun was deceived, and decoyed from Saxony in pursuit of him. As soon as Frederic had retired a considerable distance from Dresden, he returned, and bombarded it. But he did not succeed in taking it, and was forced to retreat to Silesia. It was there his good fortune to gain a victory over the Austrians, and prevent their junction with the Russians. At Torgau, he again defeated an army of sixty-four thousand of the enemy, with a force of only forty-four thousand. This closed the campaign, and the position of the parties was nearly the same as at the commencement of it. The heart of Frederic was now ulcerated with bitterness in view of the perseverance of his enemies, who were resolved to crush him. He should, however, have remembered that he had provoked their implacable resentment, by the commission of a great crime.

Although Frederic, by rare heroism, had maintained his ground, still his resources were now nearly exhausted, and he began to look around, in vain, for a new supply of men, horses, and provisions. The circle which his enemies had drawn around him was obviously becoming smaller. In a little while, to all appearance, he would be crushed by overwhelming forces.

[Sidenote: Continued Disasters.]

Under these circumstances, the campaign in 1761 was opened; but no event of importance occurred until nearly the close of the year. On the whole, it was disastrous to Prussia. Half of Silesia was taken by the Austrians, and the Russian generals were successful in Pomerania. And a still greater misfortune happened to Frederic in consequence of the resignation of Pitt, who had ever been his firmest ally, and had granted him large subsidies, when he was most in need of them. On the retirement of the English minister, these subsidies were withdrawn, and the party which had thwarted William III., which had persecuted Marlborough, and had given up the Catalans, came into power—the Tories. "It was indifferent to them whether the house of Hohenstaufen or Hohenzollern should be dominant in Germany." But Pitt and the Whigs argued that no sacrifice would be too great to preserve the balance of power. The defection of England, however, filled the mind of Frederic with implacable hatred, and he never could bear to hear even the name of England mentioned. The defection of this great ally made his affairs desperate; and no one, taking a dispassionate view of the contending parties, could doubt but that the ruin of the Prussian king was inevitable. Maria Theresa was so confident of success, that she disbanded twenty thousand of her troops.

But Providence had ordered otherwise. A great and unexpected change came over the fortunes of Frederic. His heroism was now to be rewarded—not the vulgar heroism which makes a sudden effort, and gains a single battle, but that well-sustained heroism which strives in the midst of defeat, and continues to hope when even noble hearts are sinking in despair. On the 5th of January, 1762, Elizabeth, the empress of Russia, died; and her successor, Peter III., who was an admirer of Frederic, and even a personal friend, returned the Prussian prisoners, withdrew his troops from the Prussian territories, dressed himself in a Prussian uniform, and wore the black eagle of Prussia on his breast. He even sent fifteen thousand troops to reenforce the army of Frederic.

England and France had long been wearied of this war, and formed a separate treaty for themselves. Prussia and Austria were therefore left to combat each other. If Austria, assisted by France and Russia, could not regain Silesia and ruin Prussia, it certainly was not strong enough to conquer Frederic single-handed. The proud Maria Theresa was compelled to make peace with that heroic but unprincipled robber, who had seized one of the finest provinces of the Austrian empire. In February, the treaty of Hubertsburg was signed, by which Frederic retained his spoil. He, in comparison with the other belligerent parties was the gainer. But no acquisition of territory could compensate for those seven years of toil, expense, and death. After six years, he entered his capital in triumph; but he beheld every where the melancholy marks of devastation and suffering. The fields were untilled, houses had been sacked, population had declined, and famine and disease had spread a funereal shade over the dwellings of the poor. He had escaped death, but one sixth of the whole male population of Prussia had been killed, and untold millions of property had been destroyed. In some districts, no laborers but women were seen in the fields, and fifteen thousand houses had been burnt in his own capital.

[Sidenote: Exhaustion of Prussia by the War.]

It is very remarkable that no national debt was incurred by the king of Prussia, in spite of all his necessities. He always, in the worst of times, had a year's revenue in advance; and, at the close of the war, to show the world that he was not then impoverished, he built a splendid palace at Potsdam, which nearly equalled the magnificence of Versailles.

But he also did all in his power to alleviate the distress which his wars had caused. Silesia received three millions of thalers, and Pomerania two millions. Fourteen thousand houses were rebuilt; treasury notes, which had depreciated, were redeemed; officers who had distinguished themselves were rewarded; and the widows and children of those who had fallen were pensioned.

The possession of Silesia did not, indeed, compensate for the Seven Years' War; but the struggles which the brave Prussians made for their national independence, when assailed on all sides by powerful enemies, were not made in vain. Had they not been made, worse evils would have happened. Prussia would not have held her place in the scale of nations, and the people would have fallen in self-respect. It was wrong in Frederic to seize the possession of another. In so doing, he was in no respect better than a robber: and he paid a penalty for his crime. But he also fought in self-defence. This defence was honorable and glorious, and this entitles him to the name of Great.

After the peace of Hubertsburg, in 1763, Prussia, for a time, enjoyed repose, and the king devoted himself to the improvement of his country. But the army received his greatest consideration, and a peace establishment of one hundred and sixty thousand men was maintained; an immense force for so small a kingdom, but deemed necessary in such unsettled times. Frederic amused himself in building palaces, in writing books, and corresponding with literary friends. But schemes of ambition were, after all, paramount in his mind.

The Seven Years' War had scarcely closed before the partition of Poland was effected, the greatest political crime of that age, for which the king of Prussia was chiefly responsible.

The Bavarian war was the next great political event of importance which occurred during the reign of Frederic. The emperor of Germany formed a project for the dismemberment of the electorate of Bavaria. The liberties of the Germanic body were in danger, and Frederic came to the rescue. On this occasion, he was the opposer of lawless ambition. In 1778, he took the field with a powerful army; but no action ensued. The Austrian court found it expedient to abandon the design, and the peace of Teschen prevented another fearful contest. The two last public acts of Frederic were the establishment, in 1785, of the Germanic Union for preserving the constitution of the empire, and a treaty of amity and commerce, in 1786, with the United States of America, which was a model of liberal policy respecting the rights of independent nations, both in peace and war.

[Sidenote: Death of Frederic.]

He died on the 17th of August, 1786, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, and the forty-seventh of his reign. On the whole, he was one of the most remarkable men of his age, and had a great influence on the condition of his country.

His distinguishing peculiarity was his admiration of, and devotion to, the military profession, which he unduly exalted. An ensign in his army ranked higher than a counsellor of legation or a professor of philosophy. His ordinary mode of life was simple and unostentatious, and his favorite residence was the palace of Sans Souci, at Potsdam. He was very fond of music, and of the society of literary men; but he mortified them by his patronizing arrogance, and worried them by his practical jokes. His favorite literary companions were infidel philosophers, and Voltaire received from him marks of the highest distinction. But the king of letters could not live with the despot who solicited his society, and an implacable hatred succeeded familiarity and friendship. The king had considerable literary reputation, and was the author of several works. He was much admired by his soldiers, and permitted in them uncommon familiarity. He was ever free from repulsive formality and bolstered dignity. He was industrious, frugal, and vigilant. Nothing escaped his eye, and he attended to the details of his administration. He was probably the most indefatigable sovereign that ever existed, but displayed more personal ability than enlarged wisdom.

[Sidenote: Character of Frederic.]

But able and successful as he was as a ruler, he was one of those men for whom it is impossible to entertain a profound respect. He was cruel, selfish, and parsimonious. He was prodigal of the blood of his subjects, and ungenerous in his treatment of those who had sacrificed every thing for his sake. He ruled by fear rather than by love. He introduced into every department the precision of a rigid military discipline, and had no faith in any power but that of mechanical agencies. He quarrelled with his best friends, and seemed to enjoy the miseries he inflicted. He was contemptuous of woman, and disdainful of Christianity. His egotism was not redeemed by politeness or affability, and he made no efforts to disguise his unmitigated selfishness and heartless injustice. He had no loftiness of character, and no appreciation of elevation of sentiment in others. He worshipped only himself and rewarded those only who advanced his ambitious designs.

* * * * *

REFERENCES.—The Posthumous Works of Frederic II. Gillies's View of the Reign of Frederic II. Thiebault's Memoires de Frederic le Grand. Voltaire's Idee du Roi de Prusse. Life of Baron Trenck. Macaulay's Essay on the Life and Times of Frederic the Great. Coxe's House of Austria. Tower's, Johnson's, and Campbell's Life of Frederic the Great.



CHAPTER XXIV.

MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE II.

Contemporaneous with Frederic the Great were Maria Theresa and Catharine II.—two sovereigns who claim an especial notice, as representing two mighty empires. The part which Maria Theresa took in the Seven Years' War has been often alluded to and it is not necessary to recapitulate the causes or events of that war. She and Catharine II. were also implicated with Frederic in the partition of Poland. The misfortunes of that unhappy country will be separately considered. In alluding to Maria Theresa, we cannot but review the history of that great empire over which she ruled, the most powerful of the German states. The power of Austria, at different times since the death of the Emperor Charles V., threatened the liberties of Europe; and, to prevent her ascendency, the kings of France, England, and Prussia have expended the treasure and wasted the blood of their subjects.

[Sidenote: The Germanic Constitution.]

By the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, at the close of the Thirty Years' War, the constitution of Germany was established upon a firm basis. The religious differences between the Catholics and the Protestants were settled, and religious toleration secured in all the states of the empire. It was settled that no decree of the Diet was to pass without a majority of suffrages, and that the Imperial Chamber and the Aulic Council should be composed of a due proportion of Catholics and Protestants. The former was instituted by the Emperor Maximilian I., in 1495, at the Diet of Worms, and was a judicial tribunal, and the highest court of appeal. It consisted of seventeen judges nominated by the emperor, and took cognizance of Austrian affairs chiefly. The Aulic Council was also judicial, and was composed of eighteen persons and attended chiefly to business connected with the empire. The members of these two great judicial tribunals were Catholics; and there were also frequent disputes between them as to their respective jurisdictions. It was ordained by the treaty of Westphalia that a perfect equality should be observed in the appointment of the members of these two important courts; but, in fact, twenty-four Protestants and twenty-six Catholics were appointed to the Imperial Chamber. The various states had the right of presenting members, according to political importance. The Aulic Council was composed of six Protestants and twelve Catholics, and was a tribunal to settle difficulties between the various states of which Germany was composed.

These states were nearly independent of each other, but united under one common head. Each state had its own peculiar government, which was generally monarchical, and regulated its own coinage, police, and administration of justice. Each kingdom, electorate, principality, and imperial city, which were included in the states of Germany, had the right to make war, form alliances, conclude peace, and send ambassadors to foreign courts.

The Diet of the empire consisted of representatives of each of the states, appointed by the princes themselves, and took cognizance of matters of common interest, such as regulations respecting commerce, the license of books, and the military force which each state was required to furnish.

The emperor had power, in some respects, over all these states; but it was chiefly confined to his hereditary dominions. He could not exercise any despotic control over the various princes of the empire; but, as hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Moravia, Bohemia, Hungary, and the Tyrol, he was the most powerful prince in Europe until the aggrandisement of Louis XIV.

Ferdinand III. was emperor of Germany at the peace of Westphalia; but he did not long survive it. He died in 1657, and his son Leopold succeeded him as sovereign of all the Austrian dominions. He had not completed his eighteenth year, but nevertheless was, five months after, elected Emperor of Germany by the Electoral Diet.

Great events occurred during the reign of Leopold I.—the Turkish war, the invasion of the Netherlands by Louis XIV., the heroic struggles of the Prince of Orange, the French invasion of the Palatinate, the accession of a Bourbon prince to the throne of Spain, the discontents of Hungary, and the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. Most of these have been already alluded to, especially in the chapter on Louis XIV., and, therefore, will not be further discussed.