which made him visionary and rhapsodical and conceited. He was a
second-adventist, and believed that Christ would return, at no distant
time, to establish the reign of the saints upon the earth. But his
morals were as irreproachable as those of Marcus Aurelius. Like Michael
Angelo, he despised frivolities, though it is said he relished rough
jokes, like Abraham Lincoln. He was conscientious in the discharge of
what he regarded as duties, and seemed to feel his responsibility to God
as the sovereign of the universe. His family revered him as much as the
nation respected him. He was not indeed lovable, like Saint Louis; but
he can never lose the admiration of mankind, since the glory of his
administration was not sullied by those private vices which destroy
esteem and ultimately undermine both power and influence. He was one of
those world-heroes of whom nations will be proud as they advance in the
toleration of human infirmities,--as they draw distinction between
those who live for themselves and those who live for their country,--and
the recognition of those principles on which all progress is based.
Cromwell died prematurely, if not for his fame, at least for his
usefulness. His reign as Protector lasted only five years, yet what
wonders he did in that brief period! He suppressed the anarchies of the
revolution, he revived law, he restored learning, he developed the
resources of his country; he made it respected at home and abroad, and
shed an imperishable glory on his administration,--but "on the threshold
of success he met the inexorable enemy."
It was a stormy night, August 30, 1658, when the wild winds were roaring
and all nature was overclouded with darkness and gloom, that the last
intelligible words of the dying hero were heard by his attendants: "O
Lord! though I am a miserable sinner, I am still in covenant with Thee.
Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, an instrument to do Thy people
good; and go on, O Lord, to deliver them and make Thy name glorious
throughout the world!" These dying words are the key alike to his
character and his mission. He believed himself to be an instrument of
the Almighty Sovereign in whom he believed, and whom, with all his
faults and errors, he sought to serve, and in whom he trusted.
And it is in this light, chiefly, that the career of this remarkable
man is to be viewed. An instrument of God he plainly was, to avenge the
wrongs of an insulted, an indignant, and an honest nation, and to
impress upon the world the necessity of wise and benignant rulers. He
arose to vindicate the majesty of public virtue, to rebuke the egotism
of selfish kings, to punish the traitors of important trusts. He arose
to point out the true sources of national prosperity, to head off the
troops of a renovated Romanism, to promote liberty of conscience in all
matters of religious belief. He was raised up as a champion of
Protestantism when kings were returning to Rome, and as an awful
chastiser of those bigoted and quarrelsome Irish who have ever been
hostile to law and order, and uncontrollable by any influence but that
of fear. But, above all, he was raised up to try the experiment of
liberty in the seventeenth century.
That experiment unfortunately failed. All sects and parties sought
ascendency rather than the public good; angry and inexperienced, they
refused to compromise. Sectarianism was the true hydra that baffled the
energy of the courageous combatant. Parliaments were factious,
meddlesome, and inexperienced, and sought to block the wheels of
government rather than promote wholesome legislation. The people
hankered for their old pleasures, and were impatient of restraint; their
leaders were demagogues or fanatics; they could not be coerced by mild
measures or appeals to enlightened reason. Hence coercive measures were
imperative; and these could be carried only by a large standing
army,--ever the terror and menace of liberty; the greatest blot on
constitutional governments,--a necessity, but an evil, since the
military power should be subordinate to the civil, not the civil to the
military. The iron hand by which Cromwell was obliged to rule, if he
ruled at all, at last became odious to all classes, since they had many
rights which were ignored. When they clamored for the blood of an
anointed tyrant, they did not bargain for a renewed despotism more
irksome and burdensome than the one they had suppressed. The public
rejoicings, the universal enthusiasm, the brilliant spectacles and
fêtes, the flattering receptions and speeches which hailed the
restoration of Charles II., showed unmistakably that the régime of
Cromwell, though needed for a time, was unpopular, and was not in
accordance with the national aspirations. If they were to be ruled by a
tyrant, they preferred to be ruled according to precedents and
traditions and hallowed associations. The English people loved then, as
they love now, as they ever have loved, royalty, the reign of kings
according to the principles of legitimacy. They have shown the
disposition to fetter these kings, not to dispense with them.
So the experiment of Cromwell and his party failed. How mournful it
must have seemed to the original patriots of the revolution, that hard,
iron, military rule was all that England had gained by the struggles and
the blood of her best people. Wherefore had treasures been lavished in a
nine years' contest; wherefore the battles of Marston Moor and
Worcester; wherefore the eloquence of Pym and Hampden? All wasted. The
house which had been swept and garnished was re-entered by devils worse
than before.
Thus did this experiment seem; teaching, at least, this useful and
impressive lesson,--that despotism will succeed unwise and violent
efforts for reform; that reforms are not to be carried on by bayonets,
but by reason; that reformers must be patient, and must be contented
with constitutional measures; that any violation of the immutable laws
of justice will be visited with unlooked-for retribution.
But sad as this experiment seemed, can it be pronounced to be wholly a
failure? No earnest human experiment is ever thrown away. The great
ideas of Cromwell, and of those who originally took up arms with him,
entered into new combinations. The spirit remained, if the form was
changed. After a temporary reaction, the love of liberty returned. The
second revolution of 1688 was the logical sequence of the first. It was
only another act in the great drama of national development. The spirit
which overthrew Charles I. also overturned the throne of James II.; but
the wisdom gained by experience sent him into exile, instead of
executing him on the scaffold. Two experiments with those treacherous
Stuarts were necessary before the conviction became fastened on the mind
of the English people that constitutional liberty could not exist while
they remained upon the throne; and the spirit which had burst out into a
blazing flame two generations earlier, was now confined within
constitutional limits. But it was not suppressed; it produced salutary
reforms with every advancing generation. "It produced," says Macaulay,
"the famous Declaration of Right, which guaranteed the liberties of the
English upon their present basis; which again led to the freedom of the
press, the abolition of slavery, Catholic emancipation, and
representative reform," Had the experiment not been tried by Cromwell
and his party, it might have been tried by worse men, whose gospel of
rights would be found in the "social contract" of a Rousseau, rather
than in the "catechism" of the Westminster divines. It was fortunate
that revolutionary passions should have raged in the bosoms of
Christians rather than of infidels,--of men who believed in obedience to
a personal God, rather than men who teach the holiness of untutored
impulse, the infallibility of majorities, and the majesty of the
unaided intellect of man. And then who can estimate the value of
Cromwell's experience on the patriots of our own Revolution? His example
may even have taught the great Washington how dangerous and inconsistent
it would be to accept an earthly crown, while denouncing the tyranny of
kings, and how much more enduring is that fame which is cherished in a
nation's heart than that which is blared by the trumpet of idolatrous
soldiers indifferent to those rights which form the basis of social
civilization.
AUTHORITIES.
Bulstrode's Memoirs; Ludlow's Memoirs; Sir Edward Walker's Historical
Discourses; Carlyle's Speeches and Letters of Oliver Cromwell;
Macaulay's Essays; Hallam's Constitutional History; Froude's History of
England; Guizot's History of Cromwell; Lamartine's Essay on Cromwell;
Forster's Statesmen of the British Commonwealth; Clarendon's History of
the Rebellion; Hume and Lingard's Histories of England; Life of
Cromwell, by Russell; Southey's Protectorate of Cromwell; Three English
Statesmen, Goldwin Smith; Dr. Wilson's Life of Cromwell; D'Aubigné's
Life of Oliver Cromwell; Articles in North American, North British,
Westminster, and British Quarterlies on Cromwell.
LOUIS XIV.
A.D. 1638-1715.
THE FRENCH MONARCHY.
The verdict of this age in reference to Louis XIV. is very different
from that which his own age pronounced. Two hundred years ago his
countrymen called him _Le Grand Monarque_, and his glory filled the
world. Since Charlemagne, no monarch had been the object of such
unbounded panegyric as he, until Napoleon appeared. He lived in an
atmosphere of perpetual incense, and reigned in dazzling magnificence.
Although he is not now regarded in the same light as he was in the
seventeenth century, and originated no great movement that civilization
values,--in fact was anything but a permanent benefactor to his country
or mankind,--yet Louis XIV. is still one of the Beacon Lights of
history, for warning if not for guidance. His reign was an epoch; it was
not only one of the longest in human annals, but also one of the most
brilliant, imposing, and interesting. Whatever opinion may exist as to
his inherent intellectual greatness, no candid historian denies the
power of his will, the force of his character, and the immense influence
he exerted. He was illustrious, if he was not great; he was powerful, if
he made fatal mistakes; he was feared and envied by all nations, even
when he stood alone; and it took all Europe combined to strip him of the
conquests which his generals made, and to preserve the "balance of
power" which he had disturbed. With all Europe in arms against him, he,
an old and broken-hearted man, contrived to preserve, by his fortitude
and will, the territories he had inherited; and he died peacefully upon
his bed, at the age of seventy-six, still the most absolute king that
ever reigned in France. A man so strong, so fortunate until his latter
years; so magnificent in his court, which he made the most brilliant of
modern times; so lauded by the great geniuses who surrounded his throne,
all of whom looked up to him as a central sun of power and glory,--is
not to be flippantly judged, or ruthlessly hurled from that proud
pinnacle on which he was seated, amid the acclamations of two
generations. His successes dazzled the world; his misfortunes excited
its pity, except among those who were sufferers by his needless wars or
his cruel persecutions. His virtues and his defects both stand out in
bold relief, and will make him a character to meditate upon as long as
history shall be written.
The reign of Louis XIV. would be remarkable for the great men who shed
lustre on his throne, if he had himself been contemptible. Voltaire
doubted if any age ever saw such an illustrious group, and he compares
it with the age of Pericles in Greece, with that of Augustus in Rome,
and that of the Medici in Italy,--four great epochs in intellectual
excellence, which have never been surpassed in brilliancy and variety of
talent. No such generals had arisen since the palmy days of Roman
grandeur as Condé, Turenne, Luxembourg, Vauban, Berwick, and Villars, if
we except Gustavus Adolphus, and those generals with whom the marshals
of Louis contended, such as William III., Marlborough, and Eugene. No
monarch was ever served by abler ministers than Colbert and Louvois; the
former developing the industries and resources of a great country, and
the latter organizing its forces for all the exigencies of vast military
campaigns. What galaxy of poets more brilliant than that which shed
glory on the throne of this great king!--men like Corneille, Boileau,
Fontanelle, La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière; no one of them a Dante or
a Shakspeare, but all together shining as a constellation. What great
jurists and lawyers were Le Tellier and D'Aguesseau and Molé! What great
prelates and preachers were Bossuet, Fénelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon,
Fléchier, Saurin,--unrivalled for eloquence in any age! What original
and profound thinkers were Pascal, Descartes, Helvetius, Malebranche,
Nicole, and Quesnel! Until the seventeenth century, what more
respectable historians had arisen than Dupin, Tillemont, Mabillon, and
Fleury; or critics and scholars than Bayle, Arnauld, De Sacy, and
Calmet! La Rochefoucauld uttered maxims which were learned by heart by
giddy courtiers. Great painters and sculptors, such as Le Brun, Poussin,
Claude Lorrain, and Girardon, ornamented the palaces which Mansard
erected; while Le Nôtre laid out the gardens of those palaces which are
still a wonder.
It must be borne in mind that Louis XIV. had an intuitive perception of
genius and talent, which he was proud to reward and anxious to
appropriate. Although his own education had been neglected, he had a
severe taste and a disgust of all vulgarity, so that his manners were
decorous and dignified in the midst of demoralizing pleasures. Proud,
both from adulation and native disposition, he yet was polite and
affable. He never passed a woman without lifting his hat, and he
uniformly rose when a lady entered into his presence. But, with all his
politeness, he never unbent, even in the society of his most intimate
friends, so jealous was he of his dignity and power. Unscrupulous in his
public transactions, and immoral in his private relations with women, he
had a great respect for the ordinances of religion, and was punctilious
in the outward observances of the Catholic Church. The age itself was
religious; and so was he, in a technical and pharisaical piety and petty
ritualistic duties. He was a bigot and a persecutor, which fact endeared
him to the Jesuits, by whom, in matters of conscience, he was ruled, so
that he became their tool even while he thought he controlled
everything. He was as jealous of his power as he was of his dignity, and
he learned to govern himself as well as his subjects. He would himself
submit to the most rigid formalities in order to exact a rigorous
discipline and secure unconditional obedience from others. No one ever
dared openly to thwart his will or oppose his wishes, although he could
be led through his passions and his vanity: he was imperious in his
commands, and exacting in the services he demanded from all who
surrounded his person. He had perfect health, a strong physique, great
aptitude for business, and great regularity in his habits. It was
difficult to deceive him, for he understood human nature, and thus was
able to select men of merit and talent for all high offices in State
and Church.
In one sense Louis XIV. seems to have been even patriotic, since he
identified his own glory with that of the nation, having learned
something from Richelieu, whose policy he followed. Hence he was
supported by the people, if he was not loved, because he was ambitious
of making France the most powerful nation in Christendom. The love of
glory ever has been one of the characteristics of the French nation, and
this passion the king impersonated, which made him dear to the nation,
as Napoleon was before he became intoxicated by power; and hence Louis
had the power of rallying his subjects in great misfortunes. They
forgave extravagance in palace-building, from admiration of
magnificence. They were proud of a despot who called out the praises of
the world. They saw in his parks, his gardens, his marble halls, his
tapestries, his pictures, and his statues a glory which belonged to
France as well as to him. They marched joyfully in his armies, whatever
their sacrifices, for he was only leading them to glory,--an empty
illusion, yet one of those words which has ruled the world, since it is
an expression of that vanity which has its roots in the deepest recesses
of the soul. Glory is the highest aspiration of egotism, and Louis was
an incarnation of egotism, like Napoleon after him. They both
represented the master passions of the people to whom they appealed.
"Never," says St. Simon, "has any one governed with a better grace, or,
by the manner of bestowing, more enhanced the value of his favors. Never
has any one sold at so high a price his words, nay his very smiles and
glances." And then, "so imposing and majestic was his air that those who
addressed him must first accustom themselves to his appearance, not to
be overawed. No one ever knew better, how to maintain a certain manner
which made him appear great." Yet it is said that his stature was small.
No one knew better than he how to impress upon his courtiers the idea
that kings are of a different blood from other men. He even knew how to
invest vice and immorality with an air of elegance, and was capable of
generous sentiments and actions. He on one occasion sold a gold service
of plate for four hundred thousand francs, to purchase bread for
starving troops. If haughty, exacting, punctilious, he was not cold.
Even his rigid etiquette and dignified reserve were the dictates of
statecraft, as well as of natural inclination. He seemed to feel that he
was playing a great part, with the eyes of the world upon him; so that
he was an actor as Napoleon was, but a more consistent one, because in
his egotism he never forgot himself, not even among his mistresses. As
_grand monarque_, the arbiter of all fortunes, the central sun of all
glory, was he always figuring before the eyes of men. He never relaxed
his habits of ceremony and ostentation, nor his vigilance as an
administrator, nor his iron will, nor his thirst for power; so that he
ruled as he wished until he died, in spite of the reverses of his sad
old age, and without losing the respect of his subjects, oppressed as
they were with taxes and humiliated by national disasters.
Such were some of the traits which made Louis XIV. a great sovereign, if
not a great man. He was not only supported by the people who were
dazzled by his magnificence, and by the great men who adorned his court,
but he was aided by fortunate circumstances and great national ideas. He
was heir of the powers of Richelieu and the treasures of Mazarin. Those
two cardinals, who claimed equal rank with independent princes, higher
than that of the old nobility, pursued essentially the same policy,
although this policy was the fruit of Richelieu's genius; and this
policy was the concentration of all authority in the hands of the king.
Louis XIII. was the feeblest of the Bourbons, but he made his throne the
first in Europe. Richelieu was a great benefactor to the cause of law,
order, and industry, despotic as was his policy and hateful his
character. When he died, worn out by his herculean labors, the nobles
tried to regain the privileges and powers they had lost, and a miserable
warfare called the "Fronde" was the result, carried on without genius or
system. But the Fronde produced some heroes who were destined to be
famous in the great wars of Louis XIV. Mazarin, with less ability than
Richelieu, and more selfish, conquered in the end, by following out the
policy of his predecessor. He developed the resources of the kingdom,
besides accumulating an enormous fortune for himself,--about two hundred
millions of francs,--which, when he died, he bequeathed, not to the
Church or his relatives, but to the young King, who thus became
personally rich as well as strong. To have entered upon the magnificent
inheritance which these two able cardinals bequeathed to the monarchy
was most fortunate to Louis,--unrestricted power and enormous wealth.
But Louis was still more fortunate in reaping the benefits of the
principle of royalty. We have in the United States but a feeble
conception of the power of this principle in Europe in the seventeenth
century; it was nursed by all the chivalric sentiments of the Middle
Ages. The person of a king was sacred; he was regarded as divinely
commissioned. The sacred oil poured on his head by the highest dignitary
of the Church, at his coronation, imparted to him a sacred charm. All
the influences of the Church, as well as those of Feudalism, set the
king apart from all other men, as a consecrated monarch to rule the
people. This loyalty to the throne had the sanction of the Jewish
nation, and of all Oriental nations from the remotest ages. Hence the
world has known no other form of government than that of kings and
emperors, except in a few countries and for a brief period. Whatever the
king decreed, had the force of irresistible law; no one dared to disobey
a royal mandate but a rebel in actual hostilities. Resistance to royal
authority was ruin. This royal power was based on and enforced by the
ideas of ages. Who can resist universally accepted ideas?
Moreover, in France especially, there was a chivalric charm about the
person of a king; he was not only sacred, of purer blood than other
people, but the greatest nobles were proud to attend and wait upon his
person. Devotion to the person of the prince became the highest duty. It
was not political slavery, but a religious and sentimental allegiance.
So sacred was this allegiance, that only the most detested tyrants were
in personal danger of assassination, or those who were objects of
religious fanaticism. A king could dismiss his most powerful minister,
or his most triumphant general at the head of an army, by a stroke of
the pen, or by a word, without expostulation or resistance. To disobey
the king was tantamount to defiance of Almighty power. A great general
rules by machinery rather than devotion to his person. But devotion to
the king needed no support from armies or guards. A king in the
seventeenth century was supposed to be the vicegerent of the Deity.
Another still more powerful influence gave stability to the throne of
Louis: this was the Catholic Church. Louis was a devout Catholic in
spite of his sins, and was true to the interests of the Pope. He was
governed, so far as he was governed at all, by Jesuit confessors. He
associated on the most intimate terms with the great prelates and
churchmen of the day, like Bossuet, Fénelon, La Chaise, and Le Tellier.
He was regular at church and admired good sermons; he was punctilious in
all the outward observances of his religion. He detested all rebellion
from the spiritual authority of the popes; he hated both heresy and
schism. In his devotion to the Catholic Church he was as narrow and
intolerant as a village priest. His sincerity in defence of the Church
was never questioned, and hence all the influences of the Church were
exerted to uphold his domination. He may have quarrelled with popes on
political grounds, and humiliated them as temporal powers, but he stood
by them in the exercise of their spiritual functions. In Louis' reign
the State and Church were firmly knit together. It was deemed necessary
to be a good Catholic in order to be even a citizen,--so that religion
became fashionable, provided it was after the pattern of that of the
King and court. Even worldly courtiers entered with interest into the
most subtile of theological controversies. But the King always took the
side devoted to the Pope, and he hated Jansenism almost as much as he
hated Protestantism. Hence the Catholic Church ever rallied to
his support.