The very sounds of active life must at first have startled the dreamy youth who had come from the seclusion of a chateau in the marsh land. Cavaliers in velvet and satin rallied to the roll of a drum which the soldiers beat in martial-wise, and engaged in fierce conflicts with each other. Acts were constantly passed to forbid duelling, but there were many wounded every year in the streets, and the nobility would have thought {117} themselves disgraced if they had not drawn their swords readily in answer to an insult. Class distinctions were observed rigidly, and the merchant clad in hodden grey and the lawyer robed in black were pushed aside with some contempt when there was any conflict between the aristocrats. The busy Pont Neuf seemed to be the bridge which joined two different worlds. Here monks rubbed shoulders with yellow-garbed Jews, and ladies of the court tripped side by side with the gay filles of the town. Anyone strolling near the river Seine could watch, if he chose, the multicoloured throng and amuse himself by the contrast between the different phases of society in Paris.

Richelieu, who held the proud title of Marquis de Chillon, handled a sword skilfully and dreamed of glory won upon battle-fields. He was dismayed when he first heard that his widowed mother had changed her plans for his career. A brother, who was to have been consecrated Bishop of Lucon, had decided to turn monk, and as the preferment to the See was in the hands of the family, it had been decided that Armand Jean should have the benefit.

Soon a fresh vision had formed before the eyes of the handsome Bishop, who visited Rome and made friends among the highest dignitaries. He was tall and slender, with an oval face and the keenest of grey eyes; rich black hair fell to his shoulders and a pointed beard lent distinction to his face. The Louvre and the Vatican approved him, and many protesting voices were heard when Richelieu went down to his country diocese.

Poitou was one of the poorest districts of France, the peasants being glad enough to get bread and chestnuts for their main food. The cathedral was battered by warfare and the palace very wretched. Orders to {118} Parisian merchants made the last habitable, Richelieu declaring that, although a beggar, he had need of silver plates and such luxuries to "enhance his nobility." The first work he had found to do was done very thoroughly. He set the place in order and conciliated the Huguenots. Then he demanded relief from taxation for his overburdened flock, writing urgently to headquarters on this subject. He had much vexation to overcome whenever he came into contact with the priests drawn from the peasantry. These were far too fond of gambling and drinking in the ale-houses, and had to be prohibited from celebrating marriages by night, a custom that led to many scandals.

But Lucon was soon too narrow a sphere for the energy and ambition of a Richelieu. The Bishop longed to establish himself in a palace "near to that of God and that of the King," for he combined worldly wisdom with a zeal for religious purity. He happened to welcome the royal procession that was setting out for Spain on the occasion of Louis XIII's marriage to Anne of Austria, a daughter of Philip II. He made so noble an impression of hospitality that he was rewarded by the post of Almoner to the new Queen and was placed upon the Regent's Council.

Richelieu had watched the coronation of the quiet boy of fourteen in the cathedral of Notre Dame, for he had walked in the state procession. He knew that Louis XIII was a mere cipher, fond of hunting and loth to appear in public. Marie de Medici, the Regent, was the prime mover of intrigues. It was wise to gain her favour and the friendship of her real rulers, the Italian Concini.

Concini himself was noble by birth, whereas his wife, the sallow, deformed Leonora, was the daughter of a {119} laundress who had nursed the Queen in illness. Both were extravagant, costing the Crown enormous sums of money—Leonora had a pretty taste in jewels as well as clothes, and Marie de Medici even plundered the Bastille of her husband's hoards because she could deny her favourites nothing.

Richelieu rose to eminence in the gay, luxurious court where the weak, vain Florentine presided. He had ousted other men, and feared for his own safety when the Concini were attacked by their exasperated opponents. Concini himself was shot, and his wife was lodged in the Bastille on a charge of sorcery. Paris rejoiced in the fall of these Italian parasites, and Marie de Medici shed no tears for them. She turned to her secretary, Richelieu, when she was driven from the court and implored him to mediate for her with Louis XIII and his favourite sportsman-adventurer, de Luynes, who had originally been employed to teach the young King falconry.

Richelieu went to the chateau of Blois where Marie de Medici had fled, a royal exile, but he received orders from Luynes, who was in power, to proceed to Lucon and guide his flock "to observe the commandments of God and the King." The Bishop was exceedingly provoked by the taunt, but he was obliged to wait for better fortunes. Marie was plotting after the manner of the Florentines, but her plans were generally fruitless. She managed to escape from Blois with Epernon, the general of Henry IV, and despite a solemn oath that she would live "in entire resignation to the King's will," she would have had civil war against the King and his adviser.

Richelieu managed to make peace and brought about the marriage of his beautiful young kinswoman {120} to the Marquis of Cambalet, who was de Luynes' nephew. He did not, however, receive the Cardinal's Hat, which had become the chief object of his personal ambition.

The minister, de Luynes, became so unpopular, at length, that his enemies found it possible to retaliate. He favoured the Spanish alliance, whereas many wished to help the Protestants of Germany in their struggle to uphold Frederick, the Elector Palatine, against Ferdinand of Bohemia. The Huguenots rose in the south, and Luynes took the field desperately, for he knew that anything but victory would be fatal to his own fortunes. Songs were shouted in the Paris taverns, satirizing his weak government. Richelieu had bought the service of a host of scribblers in the mean streets near the Place Royale, and these were virulent in verse and pamphlet, according to the dictates of their master.

Fever carried off de Luynes, and the valets who played cards on his coffin were hardly more indecent in their callousness than de Luynes' enemies. The Cardinal's Hat arrived with many gracious compliments to the Bishop of Lucon, who then gave up his diocese. Soon he rustled in flame-coloured taffeta at fetes and receptions, for wealth and all the rewards of office came to him. As a Prince of the Church, he claimed precedence of princes of the blood, and was hardly astonished when the King requested him to form a ministry. In that ministry the power of the Cardinal was supreme, and he had friends in all posts of importance. With a show of reluctance he entered on his life-work. It was a great and patriotic task—no less than the aggrandisement of France in Europe.

France must be united if she were to present a solid front against the Spanish vengeance that would threaten any change of policy. The Queen-Regent had intended {121} to support Rome, Austria and Spain against the Protestant forces of the northern countries. Richelieu determined to change that plan, but he knew that the time was not yet ripe, since he had neither a fleet nor an army to defeat such adversaries.

The Huguenot faction must be ruined in order that France might not be torn by internal struggles. The new French army was sent to surround La Rochelle, the Protestant fort, which expected help from England. The English fleet tried for fourteen days to relieve the garrison, but had to sail away defeated. The sailors of the town elected one of their number to be Mayor, a rough pirate who was unwilling to assume the office. "I don't want to be Mayor," he cried, flinging his knife upon the Council-Table, "but, since you want it, there is my knife for the first man who talks of surrender." The spirit of resistance within the walls of La Rochelle rose after this declaration. The citizens continued to defy the besiegers until a bushel of corn cost 1,000 livres and an ordinary household cat could be sold for forty-five!

It was Richelieu's intention to starve the inhabitants of La Rochelle into surrender. He had his will, being a man of iron, and held Mass in the Protestant stronghold. He treated the people well, allowing them freedom of religion, but he razed both the fort and the walls to the ground and took away all their political privileges. The Huguenots were too grateful for the liberty that was left to them to menace the French Government any longer. Most of them were loyal citizens and helped the Cardinal to maintain peace. In any case they did not exist as a separate political party.

Richelieu reduced the power of the nobles by relentless {122} measures that struck at their feudal independence. No fortresses were to be held by them unless they lived on the frontiers of France, where some defence was necessary against a foreign enemy. When their strong castles were pulled down, the great lords seemed to have lost much of their ancient dignity. They were forbidden to duel, and dared not disobey the law after they had seen the guilty brought relentlessly to the scaffold. The first families of France had to acknowledge a superior in the mighty Cardinal Richelieu. Intendants were sent out to govern provinces and diminish the local influence of the landlords. Most of these were men of inferior rank to the nobility, who found themselves compelled to go to the wars if they wished to earn distinction. The result was good, for it added many recruits to the land and sea forces.

In 1629, the Cardinal donned sword and cuirass and led out the royal army to the support of the Duke of Mantua, a French nobleman who had inherited an Italian duchy and found his rights disputed by both Spain and Savoy. Louis XIII accompanied Richelieu and showed himself a brave soldier. Their road to Italy was by the Pass of Susa, thick with snow in the early spring and dangerous from the presence of Savoy's hostile troups. They forced their way into Italy, and there Richelieu remained to make terms with the enemy, while Louis returned to his kingdom.

Richelieu induced both Spain and Savoy to acknowledge the rights of the Duke of Mantua, and then turned his attention to the resistance which had been organized in Southern France by the Protestants under the Duke of Rohan. The latter had obtained promises of aid from Charles I of England and Philip IV of Spain, but found that his allies deserted him at a critical {123} moment and left him to face the formidable army of the Cardinal. The Huguenots submitted to their fate in the summer of 1629, finding themselves in a worse plight than they had been when they surrendered La Rochelle, for Richelieu treated with them no longer as with a foreign power. He expected them to offer him the servile obedience of conquered rebels. Henceforth he exerted himself to restore the full supremacy of the Catholic faith in France by making as many converts as was possible and by opening Jesuit and Capuchin missions in the Protestant places. "Some were brought to see the truth by fear and some by favour." Yet Richelieu did not play the part of a persecutor in the State, for he was afraid of weakening France by driving away heretics who might help to increase her strength in foreign warfare. He was pleased to find so many of the Huguenots loyal to their King, and rejoiced that there would never be the possibility of some discontented nobleman rising against his rule with a Protestant force in the background. The Huguenots devoted their time to peaceful worship after their own mind, and waxed very prosperous through their steady pursuit of commerce.

Richelieu returned to France in triumph, having won amazing success in his three years' struggle. He had personal enemies on every side, but for the moment these were silenced. "In the eyes of the world, he was the foremost man in France." For nineteen years he was to be the King's chief minister, although he was many times in peril of losing credit, and even life itself, through the jealous envy of his superiors and fellow-subjects.

Mary de Medici forsook the man she had raised to some degree of eminence, and declared that he had {124} shown himself ungrateful. The nobility in general felt his power tyrannical, and the clergy thought that he sacrificed the Church to the interests of the State in politics. Louis XIII was restive sometimes under the heavy hand of the Cardinal, who dared to point out the royal weaknesses and to insist that he should try to overcome them.

Richelieu was very skilful in avoiding the pitfalls that beset his path as statesman. He had many spies in his service, paid to bring him reports of his enemies' speech and actions. Great ladies of the court did not disdain to betray their friends, and priests even advised penitents in the Confessional to act as the Cardinal wished them. When any treachery was discovered, it was punished swiftly. The Cardinal refused to spare men of the highest rank who plotted against the King or his ministers, for he had seen the dangers of revolt and decided to stamp it out relentlessly. Some strain of chivalry forbade him to treat women with the same severity he showed to male conspirators. He had a cunning adversary in one Madame de Chevreuse, who would ride with the fearless speed of a man to outwit any scheme of Richelieu.



The life of a king in feeble health was all that stood between the Cardinal and ruin, and several times it seemed impossible that he should outwit his enemies. Louis XIII fell ill in 1630. At the end of September he was not expected to survive, and the physicians bade him attend to his soul's welfare.

The Cardinal's enemies exulted, openly declaring that the King's adviser should die with the King. The heir to the throne was Louis' brother Gaston, a weak and cowardly prince, who detested the minister in office and hoped to overthrow him. When the sufferer {125} recovered there was much disappointment to be concealed. The Queen-Mother had set her heart on Marillac being made head of the army in Richelieu's place, and had secret designs to make Marillac's brother, then the guard of the seals, the chief minister.

Louis was induced to say that he would dismiss the Cardinal when he was completely recovered from his illness, but he did not feel himself bound by the promise when he had rid himself of Marie de Medici and felt once again the influence of Richelieu. He went to Versailles to hunt on November 11th, 1630, and there met the Cardinal, who was able to convince him that it would be best for the interests of France to have a strong and dauntless minister dominating all the petty offices in the State instead of a number of incapable, greedy intriguers such as would be appointed by Marie de Medici. On this Day of Dupes the court was over-confident of success, believing that the Cardinal had fled from the disgrace that would shortly overtake him. The joy of the courtiers was banished by a message that Marillac was to be dismissed. The Queen-Mother knew at once that her schemes had failed, and that her son had extricated himself from her toils that he might retain Richelieu.

Marshal Marillac and his brother were both condemned to death. Another noble, Bassompierre, was arrested and put in the Bastille because he was known to have sympathized with the Cardinal's enemies. Richelieu did not rid himself so easily of Marie de Medici, who was his deadliest enemy. She went into banishment voluntarily, but continued to devise many plots with the Spanish enemies of France, for she had no scruples in availing herself of foreign help against the hated minister.

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After the Day of Dupes, Richelieu grasped the reins of government more firmly. He asked no advice, and feared no opposition to his rule. His foreign policy differed from that pursued by Marie de Medici, because he realized that France could never lead the continental powers until she had checked the arrogance of Spanish claims to supremacy. It seems strange that he should support the Protestant princes of Germany against their Catholic Emperor when the Thirty Years' War broke out, but it must be remembered that the Emperor, Ferdinand II, was closely allied to the King of Spain, and that the success of the former would mean a second powerful Catholic State in Europe. The House of Austria was already strong and menaced France in her struggle for ascendancy.

In 1635, war was formally declared by France against the Emperor Ferdinand and Spain. Richelieu did not live to see the conclusion of this war, but he had the satisfaction of knowing that, at its close, France would be established as the foremost of European nations, and he felt that the result would be worth a lavish expenditure of men and money. In 1636, France was threatened by a Spanish invasion, which alarmed the people of the capital so terribly that they attacked the minister who had plunged them into warfare. Richelieu displayed great courage and inspired a patriotic rising, the syndics of the various trades waiting on the King to offer lavish contributions in aid of the defence of Paris. Louis took the field at the head of a fine army which was largely composed of eager volunteers, and the national danger was averted.

Harassed by the cares of war, the Cardinal delighted in the gratitude of men of letters whom he took under his protection. He founded the famous Academy of {127} France and had his own plays performed at Ruel, the century-old chateau, where he gave fetes of great magnificence. His niece, Mme. de Cambalet, was made Duchesse D'Aiguillon that she might adorn the sphere in which the Cardinal moved so royally. She was a beautiful woman of simple tastes, and yearned for a life of conventual seclusion as she received the homage of Corneille or visited the salon of the brilliant wit, Julie de Rambouillet.

Richelieu had a dozen estates in different parts of France and spent vast sums on their splendid maintenance. He adorned the home of his ancestors with art treasures—pictures by Poussin, bronzes from Greece and Italy, and the statuary of Michael Angelo. His own equestrian statue was placed side by side with that of Louis XIII because they had ridden together to great victory. The King survived his minister only a few months; Richelieu died on December 4th, 1642, and Louis XIII in the following May. They left the people of France submissive to an absolute monarchy.



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Chapter XI

The Grand Monarch

Richelieu bequeathed his famous Palais Cardinal to the royal family of France. He left the reins of tyranny in the hands of Mazarin, a Spaniard, who had complete ascendancy over the so-called Regent, Anne of Austria.

There was not much state in the magnificent palace of little Louis XIV during his long minority, and he chafed against the restrictions of a parsimonious household. Mazarin was bent on amassing riches for himself and would not untie the purse-strings even for those gala-days on which the court was expected to be gorgeous. He stinted the education of the heir to the Crown, fearing that a well-equipped youth would demand the right to govern for himself. His system was so successful in the end that the mightiest of the Bourbon kings could barely read and write.

Yet Louis XIV grew strong and handsome, with a superb bearing that was not concealed by his shabby clothes, and a dauntless arrogance that resented all slights on the royal prerogative. He refused to drive in the dilapidated equipage which had been provided for his use, and made such a firm stand against Mazarin's avarice in this case that five new carriages were ordered.

The populace rose, too, against the first minister of the State, whose wealth had increased enormously {129} through his exactions from the poorer classes. France was full of abuses that Richelieu himself had scarcely tried to sweep away. The peasants laboured under heavy burdens, the roads were dangerous for all travellers, and the streets of cities were infested after nightfall by dangerous pickpockets and assassins. There had been a great victory won at Rocroy by the Due d'Enghien, who routed the Spanish and sent two hundred and sixty standards to the church of Notre Dame; but this glorious feat of arms brought neither food nor clothing to the poor, and the fierce internal strife, known as La Fronde, broke out. The very name was undignified, being derived from a kind of sling used by the urchins of the Paris streets. It was a mere series of brawls between Frondeurs and Mazarins, and brought much humiliation to the State.

In 1649, civil war began which withdrew France somewhat from European broils. Enghien (Conde) returned to Paris to range himself against the unruly Parlement as leader of the court party, and to try to reduce Paris by a military force. When the capital was besieged Anne of Austria had to retire to Saint-Germains with her son, who suffered the indignity of sleeping on a bed of straw in those troubled times. She concluded peace rather thankfully in March when the besieged citizens had suffered severely from want of food. The young King showed himself in Paris in August when the tumult was at its worst, for the troubles of King Charles I of England incited the Frondeurs to persevere in their desire for a French Republic, where no minister should exercise the royal prerogatives.

Mazarin played a losing game, and went into exile when Louis XIV was declared of age. The young King was only thirteen but had the dignity of manhood in his air and carriage, and showed no fear in accepting {130} absolute power. But it was not until ten years later that he was finally freed from Mazarin. When the cardinal was dead he proclaimed his future policy to the state of France—"Gentlemen," said he, "I shall be my own prime minister."

In November 1659, the Treaty of the Pyrenees had restored peace to France and Spain. In the following year Louis XIV wedded the Infanta, daughter of Philip IV, who renounced all her prospective rights to the Spanish crown. Mazarin had done well for France in these last diplomatic efforts for the crown, but he had forced the people to contribute to the enormous fortune which he made over to the King.

Colbert was the indefatigable minister who aided the new monarch to restore the dignity of court life in France. He revealed vast hoards which the crafty Mazarin had concealed, and formed schemes of splendour that should be worthy of a splendid king.

Louis XIV was one of the richest monarchs of Christendom, with a taste for royal pomp that could be gratified only by an enormous display of wealth. He wished the distasteful scenes of his early life to be forgotten by his subjects, and decided to build himself a residence that would form a fitting background for his own magnificence. He would no longer live within the walls of Paris, a capital which had shown disrespect to monarchy.

The ancient palace of the Louvre was not fine enough for Louis, and Versailles was built at a cost of twenty millions, and at a sacrifice of many humble lives, for the labourers died at their work and were borne from the beautiful park with some attempt at secrecy. It was a stately place, and thither every courtier must hasten if he wished for the favour of the King. It became {131} the centre of the gayest world of Europe, for there were ambassadors there from every foreign court.

Etiquette, so wearisome to many monarchs, was the delight of the punctilious Louis XIV; every detail of his life was carried out with due regard to the dignity that he held to be the fitting appendage of a king. When he rose and dressed, when he dined or gave audience, there were fixed rules to be observed. He was never alone though he built Marly, expressing some wish that he might retire occasionally from the weariness of the court routine. His brothers stood in the royal presence, and there was no real family life. He was the grand monarch, and represented the majesty of France most worthily on the occasions of ceremony, when velvet and diamonds increased his stately grace. "The State—it is Myself," he was fond of declaring, and by this remark satisfied his conscience when he levied exorbitant taxes to support the lavish magnificence of his court.

Ignorant as the king was through the device of Mazarin, he was proud of the genius that shed lustre on the French nation. Corneille and Racine wrote tragedies of classic fame, and Moliere, the greatest of all comedians, could amuse the wit of every visitor to the court. Louis gave banquets at Versailles in honour of the dramatists he patronized, and had their plays performed in a setting so brilliant that ambition might well be satisfied. Tales of royal bounty spread afar and attracted the needy genius of other lands. Louis' heart swelled with pride when he received the homage of the learned and beheld the deference of messengers from less splendid courts. He sat on a silver throne amid a throng of nobles he had stripped of power. It was part of his policy to bring every landowner to Versailles, where fortunes vanished {132} rapidly. It was useless to hope for office it the suitor did not come to make a personal appeal.

Parisians grumbled that the capital should be deserted by the King, but they were appeased on holidays by free admission to the sights of sumptuous Versailles. The King himself would occasionally appear in ballets performed by some exclusive company of the court. There was always feasting toward and sweet music composed by Lulli, and they were amazed and interested by the dazzling jets of water from the fountains that had cost such fabulous sums. Court beauties were admired together with the Guards surrounding the King's person in such fine array. Rumours of the countless servants attached to the service of the court gave an impression that the power of France could never fail. Patriotic spirit was aroused by the fine spectacle of the hunting-train as it rode toward the forests which lay between Versailles and the capital. The Grand Huntsman of France was a nobleman, and had a splendid retinue. "Hallali, valets! Hallali!" was echoed by many humble sportsmen when the stag was torn to pieces by the pack.

A special stud of horses was reserved for Louis' use in time of war. He had shown himself a bold youth on the battlefield in Mazarin's time, fighting in the trenches like a common soldier that his equipment might not be too heavy an expense. He chose, however, to be magnificent enough as a warrior when he disturbed the peace of Europe by his arrogant pride.

Philip IV of Spain died in 1665, leaving his dominions to Charles II, half-brother of France's Queen. Louis declared that Maria Theresa had not been of age when she renounced her claims and that, moreover, the dowry of 500,000 golden crowns promised in consideration {133} of this renunciation had not been paid. He wished to secure to his consort the Flemish provinces of Brabant, Mechlin, Antwerp, etc., and to this end made a treaty with the Dutch. He was compelled to postpone his attack on the Spanish possessions by a war with England which broke out through his alliance with Holland, her great commercial rival at that date.

Louis XIV showed himself perfidious in his relationship with the Dutch when he concluded a secret peace with Charles II of England in 1667. He marched into the Netherlands, supported by a new alliance with Portugal, and intended to claim the whole Spanish monarchy at some future date. Many towns surrendered, for he had a well-disciplined army and no lack of personal courage. Turenne and Conde, his brave generals, made rapid conquests which filled all Europe with alarm.

But Louis' campaigns involved him in disastrous warfare with too many foes. He was a bigoted persecutor of the Protestant, and made a secret treaty with England's treacherous ruler, Charles II, who, to his lasting shame, became a pensioner of the French King, agreeing, in return for French subsidies, to second Louis' designs on Spain. France herself was torn by wars of religion in 1698 when the Edict of Nantes was revoked and the real intentions of the King were revealed to subjects who had striven, in the face of persecution, to be loyal.

Louis XIV was under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, whom he married privately after the death of his neglected Queen. This favourite, once the royal governess and widow of the poet Scarron, was strictly pious, and desired to see the Protestants conform. She founded the convent of Saint-Cyr, a place of education for beautiful young orphan girls, and placed at the head {134} of it Fenelon, the priest and writer. She urged the King continually to suppress heresy in his dominions, and was gratified by the sudden and deadly persecution that took place as the seventeenth century closed.

Torture and death were excused as acts necessary for the establishment of the true faith, and soon all France was hideous with scenes of martyrdom. Children were dragged from their parents and placed in Catholic households, where their treatment was most cruel unless they promised to embrace the Catholic religion. Women suffered every kind of indignity at the hands of the soldiers who were sent to live in the houses and at the cost of heretics. These Dragonnades were carried on with great brutality, shameful carousals being held in homes once distinguished for elegance and refinement. Nuns had instructions to convert the novices under their rule by any means they liked to employ. Some did not hesitate to obtain followers of the Catholic Church by the use of the scourge, and fasting and imprisonment in noisome dungeons.

There was fierce resistance in the country districts, and armed men sprang up to defend their homes, welcoming even civil war if by that means they could attain protection. The contest was unequal, for the peasants had been weakened by centuries of oppression, and there were strange seignorial rights which the weak dared not refuse when they were opposing the government in their obstinate choice of a religion.

The reign of the Grand Monarch was losing radiance, though Louis was far from acknowledging that all was not well in that broad realm which owned him master. He had discarded the frivolities of his youth and kept a dreary solemn state at Versailles, where decorous Madame de Maintenon was all-powerful. He did not lament {135} his Spanish wife nor Colbert the minister, who died in the same year, for strict integrity was not valued too highly by the King of France. Yet Colbert's work remained in the mighty palaces his constructive energy had planned, the bridges and fortresses and factories which he had held necessary for France's future greatness as a nation. Louis paid scant tribute of regret to the memory of one who had toiled indefatigably in his service; but he looked complacently on Versailles and reflected that it would survive, even if the laurels of glory should be wrested from his brow.

In 1700, Louis' prestige had dwindled in Europe, where he had once been feared as a sovereign ambitious for universal monarchy. William the Stadtholder, now ruler of England with his Stuart wife, had been disgusted by the persecution of the French Protestants and had resolved to avenge Louis' seizure of his principality of Orange. Chance enabled this man to ally the greater part of Europe against the ambition of the Grand Monarch. War had been declared by England against France in 1689, and prosecuted most vigorously till Louis XIV was gradually deprived of his finest conquests. Though this was concluded in 1697 by the Peace of Ryswick, the French King's attempt to win the crown of Spain for his grandson, the Duke of Anjou, caused a renewal of hostilities.

William III was in failing health, but a mighty general had arisen to defeat the projects of the French King. The news of the Duke of Marlborough's victories in Flanders made it evident that the power of Louis XIV in the battlefield was waning. Yet the French monarch did not reflect the terror on the faces of his courtiers when the great defeat of Lille was announced in his royal palace. He observed all the usual duties of his daily {136} life and affected a serenity that other men might envy when they bewailed the passing of the Old Order, or repeated the prophecy once made by an astrologer that the end of Louis XIV's reign should not be glorious as the beginning.

The King retained his marvellous composure to the last, too haughty to bend before misfortune or to retire even if the enemy came to the very gates of Paris. At seventy-six he still went out to hunt the stag; he held Councils of State long after his health was really broken. He said farewell to the officers of the crown in a voice as strong as ever when he was banished to the sick-room in 1715, and upbraided the weeping attendants, asking them if they had indeed come to consider him immortal.

The reign of seventy-two years, so memorable in the annals of France, drew to a close with the life that had embodied all its royalty. Louis XIV died "as a candle that goes out"—deserted even by Madame de Maintenon, who determined to secure herself against adversity by retirement to the convent of Saint-Cyr. There was no loud mourning as the King's corpse was driven to the tomb on a car of black and silver, for the new century knew not the old reverence for kings. It was the age of Voltaire and the mocking sceptic.



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Chapter XII

Peter the Great

On the very day when the Grand Monarch watched his army cross the Rhine under the generals—Turenne and Conde—a man was born possessed of the same strong individuality as Louis XIV, a man whose rule was destined to work vast changes in the mighty realms to the extreme east of Europe.

On 30th May, 1672, Peter, son of Alexis, was born in the palace of the Kreml at Moscow. He was reared at first in strict seclusion behind the silken curtains that guarded the windows of the Terem, where the women lived. Then rebellion broke out after his father's death; for Alexis had children by two marriages, and the offspring of his first wife, Mary Miloslavski, were jealous of the influence acquired by the relatives of Nathalie Naryshkin, Peter's mother.

Peter found a strange new freedom in the village near Moscow which gave him shelter when the Miloslavski were predominant in the State. He grew up wild and boisterous, the antithesis in all things of the polished courtier of the western world, for he despised fine clothing and hated the external pomp of state. He ruled at first with his half-brother Ivan, and had reason to dread the power of Ivan's sister, Sophia Miloslavski, who was Regent, and gave lavish emoluments to Galitzin, {138} her favourite minister. There was even an attempt upon Peter's life, which made him something of a coward in later times, since he was taken unawares by a terrible rising that Sophia inspired and escaped her only by a hurried flight.

The rising was put down, however; Sophia was sent to a convent, and Galitzin banished before Peter could be said to rule. He did not care at first for State affairs, being absorbed by youthful pleasures which he shared with companions from the stables and the streets. He drilled soldiers, forming pleasure regiments, and had hours of delight sailing an old boat which he found one day, for this aroused a new enthusiasm. There were Dutch skippers at Archangel who were glad to teach him all they knew of navigation and the duties of their various crafts. The Tsar insisted on working his way upward from a cabin-boy—he was democratic, and intended to level classes in his Empire in this way.

Russian subjects complained bitterly of the Tsar's strange foreign tastes as soon as they heard that he was fond of visiting the Sloboda, that German quarter of his capital where so many foreigners lived. There were rumours that he was not Alexis' son but the offspring perhaps of Lefort, the Genevese favourite, who helped him to reform. When it was reported that he was about to visit foreign lands, discontent was louder, for the rulers of the east did not travel far from their own dominions if they followed the customs of their fathers, and observed their people's will. The Streltsy, a privileged class of soldiers, rose on the eve of the departure for the west. Their punishment did not descend on them at once, but Peter planned a dark vengeance in his mind.

The monarch visited many countries in disguise, intent on learning the civilized arts of western Europe, {139} that he might introduce them to "barbarous Muscovy," which clung to the obsolete practices of a former age. He spent some time at Zaandem, a village in Holland, where he was busily engaged in boat-building. Then he was entertained at Amsterdam, and passed on to England as the guest of William III. He occupied Sayes Court, near Deptford, the residence of John Evelyn, the great diarist, and wrought much havoc in that pleasant place; for his manners were still rude and barbarous, and he had no respect for the property of his host. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted him—a handsome giant, six feet eight inches high, with full lips, dark skin, and curly hair that always showed beneath his wig. The Tsar disdained to adorn his person, and was often meanly clad, wearing coarse darned stockings, thick shoes, and studying economy in dress.

Peter continued his study of ship-building at Deptford, but the chief object of his visit was fulfilled when he had induced workmen of all kinds to return with him to Russia to teach their different trades. The Tsar was intent on securing a fleet, and hoped to gain a sea-board for his empire by driving back the Poles and Swedes from their Baltic ports. He would then be able to trade with Europe and have intercourse with countries that were previously unknown. But only war could accomplish this high ambition, and he had, as yet, no real skill in arms. An attempt on Azov, then in Turkish hands, had led to ignominious defeat.

Peter returned home to find that the Streltsy had broken out again. His vengeance was terrible, for he had a barbarous strain and wielded the axe and knout with his own hands. The rebellious soldiers were deprived of the privileges that had long been theirs, and those who were fortunate enough to escape a cruel death were {140} banished. In future the army was to know the discipline that such soldiers as Patrick Gordon, a Scotch officer, had learned in their campaigns in foreign lands. This soldier did much good work in the organization and control of Peter's army. Their dress was to be modelled on the western uniforms that Peter had admired. He was ashamed of the cumbersome skirts that Russians wore after the Asiatic style, and insisted that they should be cut off, together with the beards that were almost sacred in the eyes of priests.

Favourites of humble origin were useful to Peter in his innovations, which were rigorously carried out. Menshikof, once a pastry-cook's boy, aided the Tsar to crush any discontent that might break out, and himself shaved many wrathful nobles who were afraid to resist. It was Peter's whim to give such lavish presents to this minister that he could live in splendid luxury and entertain the Tsar's own guests. Peter himself preferred simplicity, and despised the magnificence of fine palaces. He married a serving-maid named Catherine for his second wife, and loved her homely household ways and the cheerful spirit with which she rode out with him to camp. His first wife was shut up in a convent because she had a sincere distrust of all the changes that began with Peter's reign.

Charles XII of Sweden was the monarch who had chief reason to beware of the impatient spirit of the Tsar, ever desirous of that "window open upon Europe," which his father too had craved. The Swede was warlike and fearless, for he was happy only in the field. He scorned Peter's claims at first, and inflicted shameful defeat on him. The Tsar fled from Narva in Livonia, and all Europe branded him as coward. By 1700, peace with Turkey had been signed in order that the {141} Russians might march westward to the Baltic sea. Their repulse showed the determination of the Tsar, who had learnt a lesson from the humiliation he had endured. He began to train soldiers and sailors again, and sent for more foreigners to teach the art of war. The very church-bells were melted into cannon-balls that he might conquer the all-conquering Swedes.

Moscow, which consisted largely of wooden buildings, caught fire and was burnt in 1701, both palace and state offices falling to the ground. The capital had dreadful memories for the Tsar, who wished to build a new fort looking out upon the Baltic Sea. Its ancient churches and convents did not attract him, for religion was strongly associated in his mind with the stubborn opposition of the priesthood, which invariably met his plans for reform.

Petersburg rose in triumph on an island of the Neva when the estuary had been seized by a superb effort of the Tsar. It was on a damp unhealthy site and contained only wooden huts in its first period of occupation, but inhabitants were quickly found. The Tsar was autocratic enough to bid his boyards, or nobles, move there despite all their complaints. He built the church of St Peter and St Paul, and drew merchants thither by promises of trade. "Let him build towns," his adversary said with scorn, "there will be all the more for us to take."

The King of Poland had allied himself with Russia against Sweden, but proved faithless and unscrupulous as the contest waxed keen. Augustus had found some qualities in the Tsar which appealed to him, for he was boisterous in mirth himself and a hard drinker, but his principal concern was for the safety of his own throne and the security of his own dominions. After two {142} decisive defeats, he was expelled from the throne of Poland by Charles XII, who placed Stanislaus Leszczynski in his place. This alarmed Peter, who had relied on Poland's help. The winter and cold proved a better ally of Russia in the end than any service which Augustus paid. The Tsar wisely drew the Swedish army into the desert-lands, where many thousands died of cold and hunger. He met the forlorn remnants of a glorious band at Poltava in 1709, and routed them with ease. Narva was avenged, for the Swedish King had to be led from the battlefield by devoted comrades and placed in retreat in Turkey, where he was the Sultan's guest. Charles' lucky star had set when he received a wound the night before Poltava, for he could not fight on foot and his men lost heart, missing the stern heroic figure and the commanding voice that bade them gain either victory or death.

Peter might well order an annual celebration of his victory over Sweden, writing exultantly to Admiral Apraxin at Petersburg some few hours after battle, "Our enemy has encountered the fate of Phaethon, and the foundation-stone of our city on the Neva is at length grimly laid." The Swedish army had been crushed, and the Swedish hero-king was a mere knight-errant unable to return to his own land. The Cossacks who had tried to assert their independence of Russia under the Hetman Mazeppa, an ally of Charles XII, failed in their opposition to the mighty Tsar. Augustus was recognized as King of Poland again after the defeat of the Swedish King at Poltava, as Stanislaus retired, knowing that he could expect no further support from Sweden. Peter renewed his alliance at Thorn with the Polish sovereign.

The new order began for Russia as soon as the Baltic coast fell into the possession of Peter, who was {143} overjoyed by the new link with the west. He was despotic in his sweeping changes, but he desired the civilization of his barbarous land. He visited foreign courts, disliking their ceremony and half-ashamed of his homely faithful wife. He gathered new knowledge everywhere, learning many trades and acquiring treasures that were the gifts of kings. It was long before his ambassadors were respected, longer still before he received the ungrudging acknowledgment of his claims as Emperor. He had resolved to form great alliances through his daughters, who were educated and dressed after the manner of the French.

Peter did much for the emancipation of women in Russia, though his personal treatment of them was brutal, and he threatened even Catherine with death it she hesitated to obey his slightest whim. They had been reared in monotonous retirement hitherto, and never saw their bridegrooms till the marriage-day. Their wrongs were seldom redressed if they ventured to complain, and the convent was the only refuge from unhappy married life. The royal princesses were not allowed to appear in public nor drive unveiled through the streets. Suitors did not release them from the dreary empty routine of their life, because their religion was a barrier to alliance with princes of the west. Sophia had dared greatly in demanding a position in the State.

Peter altered the betrothal customs, insisting that the bridal couple should meet before the actual ceremonies took place. He gave assemblies to which his subjects were obliged by ukase or edict to bring the women of their families, and he endeavoured to promote that social life which had been unknown in Russia when she was cut off from the west. He approved of dancing and music, and took part in revels of a more boisterous {144} kind. He drank very heavily in his later days, and was peremptory in bidding both men and women share the convivial pleasures of his court. National feeling was suspicious of all feminine influence till the affable Catherine entered public life. She interceded for culprits, and could often calm her husband in his most violent moods. Gradually the attitude changed which had made proverbs expressing such sentiments as "A woman's hair is long, but her understanding is short."

Peter's fierce impetuous nature bore the nation along the new channel in which he chose that it should flow. He played at being a servant, but he made use of the supreme authority of an Emperor. All men became absorbed in his strong imperious personality which differed from the general character of the Russian of his day. Relentless severity marked his displeasure when any disaffection was likely to thwart his favourite plans. He sacrificed his eldest son Alexis to this theory that every man must share his tastes. "The knout is not an angel, but it teaches men to tell the truth," he said grimly, as he examined the guilty by torture and drew confession with the lash.

St Petersburg became the residence of the nobles. They had to desert their old estates and follow the dictates of a Tsar whose object it was to push continually toward the west. Labourers died in thousands while the city was built and destroyed again by winter floods, but the past for Russia was divided from the future utterly at Peter's death in 1725.



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Chapter XIII

The Royal Robber

Peter the Great had paid a famous visit to the Prussian court, hoping to conclude an alliance with Frederick William I against Charles XII, his northern adversary. Queen Catherine and her ladies had been sharply criticized when they arrived at Berlin, and Peter's own bearing did not escape much adverse comment and secret ridicule; nevertheless he received many splendid presents, and these, no doubt, atoned to him for anything which seemed lacking in his reception.

A splendid yacht sailed toward Petersburg as the gift of Frederick, who was anxious to conciliate the uncouth ruler of the East. In return, men of gigantic stature were sent annually from Russia to enter the splendid Potsdam Guards, so dear to the monarch, who was a stern soldier and loved the martial life. Prussia was a new kingdom obtained for his descendants by the Elector of Brandenburg. It was necessary that the rulers should devote themselves to recruiting a goodly force, since their land might be easily attacked by foreign foes and divided among the greater powers, if they did not protect it well.

Frederick William sent recruiting sergeants far and wide, and suffered these even to enter churches during service and to carry off by force the stalwart young men {146} of the congregation. Yet he was a pious man, an enemy to vice, and a ruler of enormous diligence. He rid himself of useless attendants as soon as his father died, and exercised the strictest economy in his private life. He kept the purse-strings and was also his own general. He was ever about the streets, accosting idlers roughly, and bidding the very apple-women knit at their stalls while they were awaiting custom. He preached industry everywhere, and drilled his regiments with zealous assiduity.

Of tall stature and florid complexion, the King struck terror into the hearts of the coward and miscreant. He despised extravagance in dress. French foppery was so hateful to him that he clothed the prison gaolers in Parisian style, trusting that this would bring contempt on foreign fashions.

The Potsdam Guards were under the strictest discipline, and the Prussian soldiers won battles by sheer mechanical obedience to orders when they took the field. Death punished any resistance to a superior officer, and merciless flogging was inflicted on the rank and file. Boys were often reluctant to enter on such a course of training, and parents were compelled to give up their sons by means of Dragonnades—soldiers quartered upon subjects who were not sufficiently patriotic to furnish recruits for the State. Every man of noble birth had to be an officer, and must serve until his strength was broken. The King fraternized only with soldiers because these were above other classes and belonged more or less to his own order. The army had been raised to 80,000 men when Frederick William I died, holding the fond belief that his successor had it in his power to enlarge the little kingdom which the old Elector had handed down with pride.

{147}

The Crown Prince, Frederick of Brandenburg and Hohenzollern, was born in the royal palace of Berlin on January 24th of 1712. He was christened Friedrich "rich in peace"—a name strangely ironical since he was trained from his earliest years to adopt a martial life. From the child's eighth year he was educated by military tutors, and bred in simple habits that would make him able to endure the hardships of a camp.

The martinet, Frederick William I, laid down strict rules for his son's training, for he longed to be followed by a lad of military tastes. He was to learn no Latin but to study Arithmetic, Mathematics and Artillery and to be thoroughly instructed in Economy. The fear of God was to be impressed on the pupil, and prayers and Church services played an important part in the prince's day, of which every hour had its allotted task. Haste and cleanliness were inculcated in the simple royal toilette, for Frederick I had, for those days, a quite exaggerated idea of cleanliness, but he particularly impressed upon attendants that "Prayer with washing, breakfast and the rest" were to be performed within fifteen minutes. It was a hard life, destined to bring the boy a "true love for the soldier business." He was commanded to love it and seek in it his sole glory. The father returned from war with the Swedes in January 1716, victorious, and delighted to see the little Fritz, then of the tender age of three, beating a toy drum, and his sister Wilhelmina, aged seven, in a martial attitude.

But the Crown Prince began to disappoint his father by playing the flute and reading French romances. He liked fine clothes too, and was caught wearing a richly embroidered dressing-gown, to the rage of the King, who put it in the fire. Frederick liked to arrange his hair in flowing locks instead of in a club after the {148} military fashion. "A Querpfeifer und Poet, not a soldier," the indignant father growled, believing the Querpfeif, or Cross-Pipe, was only fit for a player in the regimental band. Augustus William, another son, ten years younger than Fritz, began to be the hope of parental ambition. He took more kindly to a Spartan life than his elder brother. There were violent scenes at court when Frederick the younger was asked to give up his right to the succession. He refused to be superseded, and had to endure much bullying and privation. The King was ever ready with his stick, and punished his son by omitting to serve him at his rather scanty table!

There was much talk of a double marriage between the English and the Prussian courts, which were then related. Frederick was to marry Amelia, daughter of George I while his sister, pretty pert Wilhelmina, was destined for Frederick, Prince of Wales. The King of Prussia set his heart on the plan, and was furious that George I did not forward it. The whole household went in fear of him; he was stricken by gout at the time, an affliction that made him particularly ill-tempered, and Wilhelmina and Fritz were the objects of his wrath. They fled from his presence together; the Prince was accused of a dissolute life, and insulted by a beating in public.

He decided on flight to England. It was a desperate measure, and was discovered and frustrated at the last moment. The King of Prussia laid the blame on English diplomats, though they had done nothing to help the Prince. There was talk of an Austro-English war at that time. "I shall not desert the Emperor even if everything goes to the dogs," wrote the irate father. "I will joyfully use my army, my country, my money and my blood for the downfall of England." He was so {149} enraged by the attempted flight that he might have gone to the extreme of putting his son to death, but an old general, hearing of the probable fate of the Crown Prince, offered his own life for that of Frederick, and raised so vehement a protest that the runaway was merely put in prison.

His confinement was not as strict as it would have been, had the gaolers followed the King's orders. He had to wear prison dress and sit on a hard stool, but books and writing materials were brought to him, and he saw his friends occasionally. Lieutenant von Katte, who fled with him, was executed before the fortress, and the Prince was compelled to witness the punishment of the companion with whom he had practised music and other forbidden occupations.

By degrees, the animosity of Frederick William toward his eldest son softened. He was allowed to visit Berlin when his sister Wilhelmina was married to the Margrave of Baireuth, after four kings had applied for her hand, among them the elderly Augustus of Poland and Charles XII of Sweden. The Castle of Rheinsburg, near Neu-Ruppin, was given to the Prince for his residence. He spent happy hours there with famous men of letters in his circle, for he was actually free now to give time to literature and science. He corresponded frequently with Voltaire and became an atheist. He cared nothing for religion when he was king, and was remarkable for the religious toleration which he extended to his subjects. But the harsh treatment of youth had spoilt his pleasant nature, and his want of faith made him unscrupulous and hard-hearted. He grasped at all he could win, and had every intention of fulfilling the commands laid upon him by the Testament which his father wrote in 1722 when he believed himself {150} to be dying;—"Never relinquish what is justly yours."

It was far from his intention to relinquish any part of his dominions, and, moreover, he set early about the business of conquering Silesia to add to his little kingdom. Saxony should fall to him if he could in any wise win it. There was hope in that fine stalwart body of men his father had so well disciplined. There was courage in his own heart, and he had been reared in too stern a school to fear hardships.

In 1740, Frederick received his dying father's blessing, and in the same year the Emperor, Charles VI, left his daughter, Maria Theresa, to struggle with an aggressive European neighbour. She was a splendid figure, this empress of twenty-three, beautiful and virtuous, with the spirit of a man, and an unconquerable determination to fight for what was justly hers. She held not Austria alone but many neighbouring kingdoms—Styria, Bohemia, the Tyrol, Hungary, and Carpathia.

Charles VI had endeavoured to secure his daughter's kingdom by means of a "Pragmatic Sanction," which declared the indivisibility of the Austrian dominions, and the right of Maria Theresa to inherit them in default of a male heir. This was signed by all the powers of Europe save Bavaria, but Frederick broke it ruthlessly as soon as the Emperor died.

In high spirits Frederick II entered on the bold enterprise of seizing from Maria Theresa some part of those possessions which her father had striven to secure to her.

Allies gathered round Prussia quickly, admiring the 80,000 men that the obscure sovereignty had raised from the subjects of a little kingdom. France, Spain, Poland, and Bavaria allied themselves with the spoiler against Maria Theresa, who sought the aid of England. She {151} seemed in desperate straits, the victim of treachery, for Frederick had promised to support her. The Battle of Molwitz went against Austria, and the Empress was fain to offer three duchies of Silesia, but the King refused them scornfully, saying, "Before the war, they might have contented me. Now I want more. What do I care about peace? Let those who want it give me what I want; if not, let them fight me and be beaten again."

The Elector of Bavaria was within three days' march of Vienna, proclaiming himself Archduke of Austria. Maria Theresa had neither men nor money. Quite suddenly she took a resolution and convoked the Hungarian magnates at Pressburg, where she had fled from her capital. She stood before them, most beautiful and patriotic in her youth and helplessness. Raising her baby in her arms, she appealed to the whole assembly. She had put on the crown of St Stephen and held his sword at her side. The appeal was quickly answered. Swords leapt from their scabbards; there came the roar of many voices, "Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresa!" ("Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa.")

But Friedrich defeated the Austrians again and again in battle. No armies could resist those wonderful compact regiments, perfectly drilled and disciplined, afraid of nothing save of losing credit. Maria had to submit to the humiliation of giving up part of Silesia to her enemy, while the Elector had himself crowned as Emperor Charles VII at Frankfort. The English King, George II, fought for her against the French at Dettingen and won a victory. She entered her capital in triumph, apparently confirmed in her possessions. But Frederick was active in military operations and {152} attempted to detach the English from her. He invaded Bohemia and defeated the imperial generals. He received the much-disputed territory of Silesia in 1745 by the Treaty of Dresden, which concluded the second war.

The national spirit was rising in Prussia through this all-powerful army, which drained the country of its men and horses. The powers of Europe saw with astonishment that a new force was arraying itself in youthful glory. The Seven Years' War began in 1756, one of the most fateful wars in the whole of European history.

France, Russia, and Saxony were allied with Maria Theresa, but the Prussians had the help of England. Frederick II proved himself a splendid general, worthy of the father whose only war had wrested the coveted province of Pomerania from the doughty Charles XII of Sweden. He defeated the Austrians and invaded Saxony, mindful of the wealth and prosperity of that country which, if added to his own, would greatly increase the value of his dominions. He was almost always victorious though he had half Europe against him. He defeated the Austrians at Prague and Leuthen, the Russian army at Zorndorf. One of his most brilliant triumphs was won over the united French and Imperial armies at Rossbach.



The French anticipated an easy victory in 1757, for the army of the allies was vastly superior to that which Frederick William had encamped at Rossbach, a village in Prussian Saxony. The King watched the movements of the enemy from a castle, and was delighted when he managed to bring them to a decisive action. He had partaken of a substantial meal with his soldiers in the camp, although he was certainly in a most precarious {153} position. He was too cunning a strategist to give the signal to his troops till the French were advancing up the hill toward his tents. The battle lasted only one hour and a half and resulted in a complete victory for Prussia. The total loss of the King's army was under 550 officers and men compared with 7700 on the side of the enemy.

The "Army of Cut-and-Run" was the contemptuous name earned by the retreating regiments.

Gradually, allies withdrew on either side, France becoming involved with England in India and the Colonies. Frederick II and Maria Theresa made terms at Hubertsburg. Silesia was still in the hands of the Prussian King, but he had failed in the prime object of the war, which was the conquest of Saxony.

There was work for a king at home when the long, disastrous war was over. Harvests went unreaped for want of men, and there were no strong horses left for farm-labour. Starvation had rendered many parts of the kingdom desolate, but the introduction of the potato saved some of those remaining. The King had forthwith to rebuild villages and bring horses from foreign countries. He was anxious to follow his father's exhortations and make the population industrious and thriving. He saw to it that schools rose everywhere and churches also, in which there was as little bickering as possible. The clergy were kept down and prevented from "becoming popes," as seemed to be the case in some countries. The King had no piety, but revered his father's Protestantism.

When the war was over, Frederick looked an old man though he was but fifty-one. He was a shabby figure, this "old Fritz," in threadbare blue uniform with red facings. His three-cornered hat, black breeches and {154} long boots showed signs of an economical spirit, inculcated in his youth when he had only eighteen pence a week to spend. He walked about among the country people talking familiarly with the farmers. He made it a rule to go round the country once a year to see how things had prospered.

The King hated idleness, and, like the first Frederick, scolded his subjects if they were not industrious. "It is not necessary that I should live, but it is necessary that whilst I live I be busy," he would remark severely. Frugality won praise from him and he always noted it among his subjects. One day he asked the time of an officer he met in the streets and was startled to see a leaden bullet pulled up by a golden chain. "My watch points to but one hour, that in which I am ready to die for your Majesty," was the patriotic answer to his question. He rewarded the officer with his own gold watch, and reflected that his methods had been as successful as those of his father. That prudent monarch put loose sleeves over his uniform whenever he wrote that he might not spoil the expensive cloth which was then the fashion.

In 1786, Frederick II died, leaving Germany to mourn him. The best-disciplined army in Europe and a treasury full of gold were the good gifts he left to his successor. The population of the realm numbered six million souls, in itself another fortune. "If the country is thickly populated, that is true wealth" had been a wise maxim of the first Frederick.

Father and son cut homely figures on the stage of eighteenth-century Europe. The brilliant Louis XIV, and his stately Versailles, seemed to far outshine them. But Germany owed to Frederick I and Frederick II, known as the Great, her unity and national spirit. {155} They built on solid ground and their work remained to bring power to their successors, while the Grand Monarch left misery behind, which was to find expression in that crying of the oppressed, known throughout history as the French Revolution.



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Chapter XIV

Spirits of the Age

It was the aim of Frederick the Great to shake down the old political order in Europe, which had been Catholic and unenlightened. To that end he exalted Prussia, which was a Protestant and progressive State, and fought against Austria, an empire clinging to obsolete ideas of feudal military government. He brought upon himself much condemnation for his unjust partition of Poland with Russia. He argued, however, that Poland had hitherto been a barbaric feudal State, and must benefit by association with countries of commercial and intellectual activity. Galicia fell to Maria Theresa at the end of the war, and was likely to remain in religious bondage.

Frederick II dealt many hard blows at the Holy Catholic Church, but he did not intend to wage a religious war in Europe. He insisted on toleration in Prussia though he was not himself a religious man, and invited to his court that enemy of the old faith of France—Francois Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, a title he derived from the name of an estate in the possession of his family.

The French scholar came to Frederick after he had suffered every persecution that inevitably assailed a fearless writer in an age of narrow bigotry. Very soon after his appearance in Paris, Voltaire was accused {157} of writing verses which recounted the evils of a country where magistrates used their power to levy unjust taxes, and loyal subjects were too often put in prison. As a consequence, he was thrown into the Bastille. It was quite useless to protest that he was not the author of Je l'ai vu ("I have seen it"). His opinions were suspected although he was but twenty-one and was under the protection of his godfather, the Abbe Chateauneuf. Voltaire was philosopher enough to use his year in the Bastille very profitably—he finished his first great tragedy, Oedipe, and produced it in 1716, winning the admiration of French critics.

Although Voltaire was now embarked on a brilliant career as a dramatist, he was unjustly treated by his superiors in social rank. He was the son of a notary of some repute, and was too rich to sue for patronage, but nobles were offended by the freedom of the young wit, who declared that a poet might claim equality with princes. "Who is the young man who talks so loud?" the Chevalier Rohan inquired at an intellectual gathering. "My lord," was Voltaire's quick reply, "he is one who does not bear a great name but wins respect for the name he has."

This apt retort did not please the Chevalier, who instructed his lackey to give the poet a beating. Voltaire would have answered the insult with his sword, but his enemy disdained a duel with a man of inferior station. The Rohan family was influential, and preferred to maintain their dignity by putting the despised poet in prison.

Voltaire was ordered to leave Paris and decided to visit England, where he knew that learned Frenchmen found a welcome. He was amazed at the high honour paid to genius and the social and political consequence which could be obtained by writers. Jonathan Swift, {158} the famous Irish satirist, was a dignitary of the State Church and yet never hesitated to heap scorn on State abuses. Addison, the classical scholar, was Secretary of State, and Prior and Gay went on important diplomatic missions. Philosophers, such as Newton and Locke, had wealth as well as much respect, and were entrusted with a share in the administration of their country. With his late experience of French injustice, Voltaire may have been inclined to exaggerate the absolute freedom of an English subject to handle public events and public personages in print. "One must disguise at Paris what I could not say too strongly at London," he wrote, and the hatred quickened in him of all forms of class prejudice and intellectual obstinacy.

His Lettres anglaises, which moved many social writers of his time, were burnt in public by the decree of the Parlement of Paris in 1734. The Parlement, composed of men of the robe (lawyers), was closely allied to the court in narrow-minded bigotry. It was always to the fore to prevent any manifestation of free thought from reaching the people. The old order, clinging to wealth and favour, judged it best that the people—known as the Third Estate—should remain in ignorance of the enormous oppressions put upon them. It had been something of a shock to Voltaire to discover that in England both nobles and clergy paid taxes, while in France the saying of feudal times held good—"The nobles fight, the clergy pray, the people pay."

Sadly wanting in respect to those in high places was that Voltaire who had not long ago been beaten by a noble's lackeys. He did not cease to write, and continued to give offence, though the sun of the court shone on him once through Madame de Pompadour, the King's favourite. She caused him to write a play {159} in 1745 to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin. The Princesse de Navarre brought him more honour than had been accorded to his finest poems and tragedies. He was admitted to the Academy of Letters which Richelieu had founded, made Gentleman of the Chamber, and Historiographer of France.

It was well in those times to write for royal favour, though the subjects of the drama must be limited to those which would add glory to the Church or State. Yet Voltaire did not need the patronage which was essential for poor men of genius like the playwrights of the famous generation preceding his own. He had private means which he invested profitably, being little anxious to endure the insults commonly directed at poverty and learning. He lived in a quiet chateau at Cirey, industrious and independent, though he looked toward the Marquise du Chatelet for that admiration which a literary man craves. It was the Marquise who shared with Frederick the Great the tribute paid by the witty man of letters, i.e. that there were but two great men in his time and one of them wore petticoats. She differed from the frivolous women of court life in her earnest pursuit of intellectual pleasures. Her whole day was given up to the study of writers such as Leibnitz and Newton, the philosopher. She rarely wasted time, and could certainly claim originality in that her working hours were never broken by social interruptions. She was unamiable, but had no love for slander, though she was herself the object of much spiteful gossip from women who passed as wits in the corrupt court life of Versailles.

Voltaire came and went, moving up and down Europe, often the object of virulent attacks which made flight a necessity, but for fifteen years he returned regularly {160} to the solitary chateau of Cirey, where he could depend upon seclusion for the active prosecution of his studies. He was a man with a wide range of interests, dabbling in science and performing experiments for his own profit. He wrote history, in addition to plays and poetry, and later, in his attacks upon the Church, proved himself a skilful and unscrupulous controversialist.

In 1750, Madame du Chatelet being dead, Voltaire accepted the invitation which had been sent to him from Berlin by the King of Prussia. He was installed sumptuously at Potsdam, where the court of Frederick the Great was situated. There he could live in familiar intercourse with "the king who had won five battles." He loved to take an active part in life, and moved from one place to another, showing a keen interest in novelty, although his movements might also be inspired by fear of the merciless actions of the government.

At Potsdam he found activity, but not activity of intellect. Frederick the Great was drilling soldiers and received him into a stern barracks. There was a commendable toleration for free speech in the country, but there was constant bickering. At court, Voltaire found his life troubled by the intrigues of the envious courtiers, by the unreasonable vanity of the King, and the almost mediaeval state of manners. There were quarrels soon between the King and his guest, which led to exhibitions of paltriness and parsimony common to their characters. The King stopped Voltaire's supply of chocolate and sugar, while Voltaire pocketed candle-ends to show his contempt for this meanness! The saying of Frederick that the Frenchman was only an orange, of which, having squeezed the juice, he {161} should throw away the skin, very naturally rankled in the poet to whom it was repeated.

There was jealousy and tale-bearing at Potsdam which went far to destroy the mutual admiration of those two strong personalities who had thought to dwell so happily together. Voltaire spoke disparagingly of Frederick's literary achievements, and compared the task of correcting his host's French verses with that of washing dirty linen. Politeness had worn very thin when the writer described the monarch as an ape who ought to be flogged for his tricks, and gave him the nickname of Luc, a pet monkey which was noted for a vicious habit of biting!

In March 1753, Voltaire left the court, thoroughly weary of life in a place where there was so little interest in letters. He had a fracas at Frankfort, where he was required to give up the court decorations he had worn with childlike enjoyment, and also a volume of royal verses which Frederick did not wish to be made public. For five weeks he lay in prison with his niece, Madame Denis, complaining of frightful indignities. He boxed the ears of a bookseller to whom he owed money, attempted to shoot a clerk, and in general committed many strange follies which were quite opposed to his claims to philosophy. There was an end of close friendship with Prussia, but he still drew his pension and corresponded with the cynical Frederick, only occasionally referring to their notorious differences. In dispraise of the niece Madame Denis, the King abandoned the toleration he had professedly extended. "Consider all that as done with," he wrote on the subject of the imprisonment, "and never let me hear again of that wearisome niece, who has not as much merit as her uncle with which to cover her {162} defects. People talk of the servant of Moliere, but nobody will ever speak of the niece of Voltaire."

The poet resented this contempt of his niece, for he was indulgently fond of the homely coquette who was without either wit or the good sense to win pardon for the frivolity of her tastes and extravagances. Living in a learned circle, she talked, like a parrot, of literature and wrote plays for the theatre of Ferney. "She wrote a comedy; but the players, out of respect to Voltaire, declined to act in it. She wrote a tragedy; but the one favour, which the repeated entreaties of years could never wring from Voltaire, was that he would read it."

In spite of his quarrels, Voltaire spoke favourably of the German freedom which allowed writings to be published reflecting on the Great Elector. He could not endure the hostile temper of his own land and deserted Paris to settle at Geneva, that free republic which extended hospitality to refugees from all countries. He built two hermitages, one for summer and one for winter, both commanding beautiful scenes, which he enjoyed for twenty years to come, though he was not content with one shelter. He bought a life-interest in Tournay and the lordship of Ferney in 1758, declaring that "philosophers ought to have two or three holes underground against the hounds who chase them." From Ferney he denounced the religion of the time, accusing the Church of hatred of truth and real knowledge, with which was coupled a terrible cruelty and lack of toleration.

To make superstition ridiculous was one of the objects of Voltaire's satire, for, in this way, he hoped to secure due respect for reason. All abuses were to be torn away, and such traditions as made slaves of the {163} people. The shameful struggles between Jesuits and Jansenists were at their height. How could religion exist when one party believing in works denied the creed of a second believing grace better than deeds, and when both sides were eager to devote themselves to persecution?

In Voltaire's day, the condemnation of free writing came chiefly from the clergy. They would shackle the mind and bring it in subjection to the priesthood. Here was a man sneering at the power claimed by members of a holy body. The narrow bigotry of priests demanded that he should be held in bondage. Yet he did not mock at men who held good lives but at the corrupt who shamed their calling. The horrors of the Inquisition were being revived by zealous Jesuits who were losing authority through the increasing strength of another party of the Catholic Church, then known as Jansenists.

The Jansenists followed the doctrines of Calvin in their belief in predestination and the necessity for conversion, but they differed widely from the Protestants on many points, holding that a man's soul was not saved directly he was converted although conversion might be instantaneous. They were firmly convinced that each human soul should have personal relation with its Maker, but held that this was only possible through the Roman Church. Their chief cause of quarrel with the Jesuits was the accusation brought against the priests of that order that they granted absolution for sins much too readily and without being certain of the sinners' real repentance.

Voltaire's blood boiled when he heard that three young Protestants had been killed because they took {164} up arms at the sound of the tocsin, thinking it was the signal for rebellion. He received under his protection at Geneva the widow and children of the Protestant Calas, who had been broken on the wheel in 1762 because he was falsely declared to have killed his son in order to prevent his turning Catholic. A youth, named La Barre, was sentenced, at the instance of a bishop, to have his tongue and right hand cut off because he was suspected of having tampered with a crucifix. He was condemned to death afterwards on the most flimsy evidence.

Voltaire was all aflame at the ignorance of such fanatics. There was laughter in the writings of the unbelievers of the time, but it was laughter inspired by the miserable belief that jesting was the only means of enduring that which might come. "Witty things do not go well with massacres," Voltaire commented. There was force in him to destroy, and he set about destruction.

The clergy had refused in 1750 to bear their share of taxation, though one-fifth of France was in their hands. Superstition inevitably tends to make bad citizens, the philosopher observed, and set forth the evils to society that resulted from the idle lives which were supported by the labour of more industrious subjects. But in his praiseworthy attack upon the spirit of the Catholicism of his day which stooped to basest cruelty, Voltaire appealed always to intelligence rather than to feeling. He wanted to free the understanding and extend knowledge. He set up reason as a goddess, and left it to another man to point the way to a social revolution.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau it was who led men to consider the possibility of a State in which all citizens {165} should be free and equal. He suffered banishment and much hardship for the bold schemes he presented. The Parlement of Paris was ruthless when the two books—Emile and the Social Contract—were published in 1762.

Rousseau, a writer of humble origin, had been the close student of Voltaire since his mind had first formed into a definite individuality. He had been poor and almost starving many times, had followed the occupations of engraver and music-copier, and had treated with ingratitude several kindly patrons. Like Voltaire, too, he journeyed over Europe, finding refuge in Geneva, whence came his father's family. He was a man of sordid life and without morality; but he was true to his life's purpose, and toiled at uncongenial tasks rather than write at other bidding than that of his own soul.

Rousseau's play Le Devin du Village had a court success that brought him into favour with gay ladies. Many a beauty found it difficult to tear herself away from the perusal of his strangely romantic novel La Nouvelle Heloise, which preached a return to Nature, so long neglected by the artificial age of Paris. All conventions should be thrown off that man might attain the purity which God had originally intended. Kings there should not be to deprive their subjects of all liberty, nor nobles who claimed the earth, which was the inheritance of God's creatures.

At first, this theory of return to Nature pleased the ruling classes. The young King and Queen were well-meaning and kindly to the people. Louis XVI went among the poor and did something to alleviate the misery that he saw. Marie Antoinette gave up {166} the extravagant career of fashion and spent happy hours in the rustic village of Trianon. Nobles and maids of honour played at rusticity, unconscious of the deadly blows that Jean-Jacques had aimed at them in the writings which appealed so strongly to their sentiment. There was a new belief in humanity which sent the Duchess out early in the morning to give bread to the poor, even if at evening she danced at a court which was supported in luxury by their miseries. The poet might congratulate himself on the sensation caused by ideas which sent him through an edict of Parlement into miserable banishment. He did not aim at destruction of the old order, but he depicted an ideal State and to attain that ideal State men butchered their fellows without mercy. The Social Contract became the textbook of the first revolutionary party, and none admired Rousseau more ardently than the ruthless wielder of tyranny who followed out the theorist's idea that in a republic it was necessary sometimes to have a dictator.

There were rival schools of thought during the lifetime of Voltaire and Rousseau. The latter was King of the Markets, destined in years to come to inspire the Convention and the Commune. Voltaire, companion of kings and eager recipient of the favours of Madame de Pompadour, had little sympathy with the author of a book in which the humble watchmaker's son flouted sovereignty and showed no skill in his handling of religion. The elder man offered the younger shelter when abuse was rained upon him; but Jean-Jacques would have none of it, and thought Geneva should have cast out the unbeliever, for Jean-Jacques was a pious man in theory and shocked by the worship {167} of pure reason. The mad acclamations which greeted the return of Voltaire to Paris after thirty years of banishment must have echoed rather bitterly in the ears of Rousseau, who had despised salons and chosen to live apart from all society.



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Chapter XV

The Man from Corsica

Born on August 15th, 1769, Napoleon Buonaparte found himself surrounded from his first hours by all the tumult and the clash of war. Ajaccio, on the rocky island of Corsica, was his birthplace, though his family had Florentine blood. Letitia Ramolino, the mother of Napoleon, was of aristocratic Italian descent.

Corsica was no sunny dwelling-place during the infancy of this young hero, who learned to brood over the wrongs of his island-home. The Corsicans revolted fiercely against the sovereignty of Genoa, and were able to resist all efforts to subdue them until France interfered in the struggle and gained by diplomatic cunning what could not be gained by mere force of arms. This conquest was resented the more bitterly by the Corsicans because they had enjoyed thirteen years of independence in all but name under Paoli, a well-loved patriot. It was after Paoli was driven to England that the young Napoleon wrote, "I was born when my country was perishing, thirty thousand Frenchmen vomited upon our coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of blood; such was the sight which struck my eyes."

Corsican Napoleon declared himself in the youth of poverty and discontent, when he had dreams of {169} rising to power by such patriotism as had ennobled Paoli. Charles Buonaparte, his father, went over to the winning side, and was eager to secure the friendship of Marboeuf, the French governor of Corsica.

Napoleon, the second of thirteen children, owed assistance in his early education to Marboeuf for it was impossible for his own family to do more than provide the barest necessities of life. Charles Buonaparte was an idle, careless man and the family poverty bore hardly on his wife Letitia, who had been married at fifteen and compelled to perform much drudgery.

Napoleon entered the military school at Brienne in April 1779, and from there sent letters which might well have warned his parents that they had hatched a prodigy. All the bitterness of a proud humiliated spirit inspired them, whether the boy, despised by richer students, begged his father to remove him, or urged, with utter disregard of filial piety, the repayment by some means of a sum of money he had borrowed.

"If I am not to be allowed the means, either by you or my protector, to keep up a more honourable appearance at the school I am in, send for me home and that immediately. I am quite disgusted with being looked upon as a pauper by my insolent companions, who have only fortune to recommend them, and smile at my poverty; there is not one here, but who is far inferior to me in those noble sentiments which animate my soul. . . . If my condition cannot be ameliorated, remove me from Brienne; put me to some mechanical trade, if it must be so; let me but find myself among my equals and I will answer for it, I will soon be their superior. You may judge {170} of my despair by my proposal; once more I repeat it; I would sooner be foreman in a workshop than be sneered at in a first-rate academy."

In the academy Napoleon remained, however, censured by his parents for his ambitious, haughty spirit. He was gloomy and reserved and had few companions, feeling even at this early age that he was superior to those around him. He admired Cromwell, though he thought the English general incomplete in his conquests. He read Plutarch and the Commentaries of Caesar and determined that his own career should be that of a soldier, though he wrote again to the straitened household in Corsica, declaring, "He who cannot afford to make a lawyer of his son, makes him a carpenter."

He chose for the moment to disregard the family ties which were especially strong among the island community. "Let my brothers' education be less expensive," he urged, "let my sisters work to maintain themselves." There was a touch of ruthless egotism in this spirit, yet the Corsican had real love for his own kindred as he showed in later life. But at this period he panted for fame and glory so ardently that he would readily sacrifice those nearest to him. He could not bear to feel that his unusual abilities might never find full scope; he was certain that one day he would be able to repay any generosity that was shown to him.

The French Revolution broke out and Napoleon saw his first chance of distinction. He was well recommended by his college for a position in the artillery, despite the strange report of the young student's character and manners which was written for the private perusal of those making the appointment. {171} "Napoleon Buonaparte, a Corsican by birth, reserved and studious, neglectful of all pleasures for study; delights in important and judicious readings; extremely attentive to methodical sciences, moderately so as to others; well versed in mathematics and geography; silent, a lover of solitude, whimsical, haughty, excessively prone to egotism, speaking but little, pithy in his answers, quick and severe in repartee, possessed of much self-love, ambitious, and high in expectation."

Soon after the fall of the Bastille, Napoleon placed himself at the head of the revolutionary party in Ajaccio, hoping to become the La Fayette of a National Guard which he tried to establish on the isle of Corsica. He aspired to be the commander of a paid native guard if such could be created, and was not unreasonable in his ambition since he was the only Corsican officer trained at a royal military school. But France rejected the proposal for such a force to be established, and Napoleon had to act on his own initiative. He forfeited his French commission by outstaying his furlough in 1792. Declared a deserter, he saw slight chance of promotion to military glory. Indeed he would probably have been tried by court-martial and shot, had not Paris been in confusion owing to the outbreak of the French war against European allies. He decided to lead the rebels of Corsica, and tried to get possession of Ajaccio at the Easter Festival.