land and sea. England was to send 6,000 men to assist the
French army. Gravelines was to become French and Dunkirk
English; should the former fall first it was to be held by
England until Dunkirk too was taken. ... The alliance was not
a moment too soon. The campaign of 1657 had opened
disastrously. The tide was however turned by the arrival of
the English contingent. Montmédy was immediately besieged, and
capitulated on August 4. The effect was again to make Mazarin
hang back from further effort, since it seemed possible now to
make peace with Spain, and thereby avoid an English occupation
of Dunkirk. But Cromwell would stand no trifling, and his
threats were so clear that Mazarin determined to act loyally
and without delay. On September 30, Turenne laid siege to
Mardyck, which protected Dunkirk, and took it in four days. It
was at once handed over to the English." In the spring of 1658
the siege of Dunkirk was begun. The Spaniards, under Don John
of Austria and Condé, attempting to relieve the place, were
defeated (June 13) in the battle of the Dunes, by Turenne and
Cromwell's Ironsides (see ENGLAND: A. D.1655-1658). "Dunkirk
immediately surrendered, and on the 25th was in Cromwell's
possession. Two months later Gravelines also fell. A short and
brilliant campaign followed, in which Don John and Condé, shut
up in Brussels and Tournai respectively, were compelled to
remain inactive while fortress after fortress fell into French
hands. A few days after the fall of Gravelines Cromwell died;
but Mazarin was now near his goal. Utterly defeated on her own
soil, beaten, too, by the Portuguese at Elvas, and threatened
in Milan, her army ruined, her treasury bankrupt, without a
single ally in Europe, Spain stood at last powerless before
him."
_O. Airy,
The English Restoration and Louis XIV.,
chapter 6._
FRANCE: A. D. 1657.
Candidacy of Louis XIV. for the imperial crown.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.
FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.
The treaty of the Pyrenees.
Marriage of Louis XIV. to the Spanish Infanta.
"The Spaniards could struggle no longer: they sued for peace.
Things were prepared for it on every hand: Spain was
desperate; matters far from settled or safe in France; in
England the Protector's death had come very opportunely for
Mazarin; the strong man was no longer there to hold the
balance between the European powers. Questions as to a Spanish
marriage and the Spanish succession had been before men since
1648; the Spaniards had disliked the match, thinking that in
the end it must subject them to France. But things were
changed; Philip IV. now had an heir, so that the nations might
hope to remain under two distinct crowns; moreover, the needs
of Spain were far greater than in 1648, while the demands of
France were less. So negociation between Mazarin and Louis de
Haro on the little Isle of Pheasants in the Bidassoa, under
the very shadow of the Pyrenees, went on prosperously; even
the proposal that Louis XIV. should espouse the Infanta of
Spain, Maria Theresa, was at last agreed to at Madrid. The
only remaining difficulty arose from" the fact that the young
King, Louis XIV., had fallen in love with Maria Mancini,
Cardinal Mazarin's niece, and wished to marry her. "The King
at last abandoned his youthful and pure passion, and signed
the Treaty of the Pyrenees [concluded November 7, 1659],
condemning himself to a marriage of state, which exalted high
the dignity of the French Crown, only to plunge it in the end
into the troubles and disasters of the Succession War. The
treaty of peace begins with articles on trade and navigation:
then follow cessions, restitutions, and exchanges of
territories.
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1. On the Northern frontier Spain ceded all she had in Artois,
with exception of Aire and S. Omer; in Flanders itself France
got Gravelines and its outer defences. In Hainault she became
mistress of the important towns, Landrecies, Quesnoy, and
Avesnes, and also strengthened her position by some exchanges:
in Luxemburg she retained Thionville, Montmédy, and several
lesser places; so that over her whole northern border France
advanced her frontier along a line answering to her old
limits. ... In return she restored to Spain several of her
latest conquests in Flanders: Ypres, Oudenarde, Dixmüden,
Furnes, and other cities. In Condé's country France recovered
Rocroy, Le Câtelet and Linchamp, occupied by the Prince's
soldiers; and so secured the safety and defences of Champagne
and Paris.
2. More to the East, the Duke of Lorraine, having submitted
with such good grace as might be, was reinstated in his Duchy.
... But France received her price here also, the Duchy of Bar,
the County of Clermont on the edge of Champagne, Stenay, Dun,
Jametz, Moyenvic, became hers. The fortifications of Nancy
were to be rased for ever; the Duke of Lorraine bound himself
to peace, and agreed to give France free passage to the
Bishopricks and Alsace. This was the more necessary, because
Franche-Comté, the other highway into Alsace, was left to the
Spaniards, and such places in it as were in the King's hands
were restored to them. Far out in Germany Louis XIV. replaced
Jülich in the hands of the Duke of Neuberg; and that element
of controversy, the germ or pretext of these long wars, was
extinct for ever. On the Savoyard border France retained
Pinerolo, with all the means and temptations of offence which
it involved: she restored to the Duke her other conquests
within his territories, and to the Spaniards whatever she held
in Lombardy; she also honourably obtained an amnesty for those
subjects of Spain, Neapolitans or Catalans, who had sided with
France. Lastly, the Pyrenees became the final, as it was the
natural, boundary between the two Latin kingdoms. ...
Roussillon and Conflans became French: all French conquests to
the south of the Pyrenees were restored to Spain. The Spanish
King renounced all claims on Alsace or Breisach: on the other
hand the submission of the great Condé was accepted; he was
restored to all his domains; his son, the young Duke of
Enghien, being made Grand Master of France, and he himself
appointed Governor of Burgundy and Bresse: his friends and
followers were included in the amnesty. Some lesser
stipulations, with a view to the peace of Europe, for the
settlement of the differences between Spain and Portugal,
between the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua, between the Catholic
and the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, and an agreement to
help forward peace between the Northern Courts, worthily close
this great document, this weighty appendix to the Treaties of
Westphalia. A separate act, as was fitting, regulated all
questions bearing on the great marriage. It contains a solemn
renunciation, intended to bar for ever the union of the two
Crowns under one sceptre, or the absorption into France of
Flanders, Burgundy, or Charolais. It was a renunciation which,
as Mazarin foresaw long before, would never hold firm against
the temptations and exigencies of time. The King's marriage
with the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain did not take place
till the next year, by which time Mazarin's work in life
seemed well nigh over; racked with gout, he had little
enjoyment of his triumphs. ... He betook himself to the
arrangement of his own affairs: his physicians giving him,
early in 1661, no hopes of recovery. ... These things
arranged, the Cardinal resigned himself to die 'with a
serenity more philosophic than Christian'; and passed away on
the 8th of March, 1661."
_G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapter 8 (volume 3)._
"The Treaty of the Pyrenees, which completed the great work of
pacification that had commenced at Munster, is justly
celebrated as having put an end to such bitter and useless
animosities. But, it is more famous, as having introduced a
new æra in European politics. In its provisions all the
leading events of a century to come had their origin--the wars
which terminated with the Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle,
Nimeguen, and Ryswick, and that concerning the Spanish
succession. So great an epoch in history has the Pyrenean
Treaty been accounted by politicians, that Lord Bolingbroke
was of opinion, 'That the only part of history necessary to be
thoroughly studied, goes no farther back than this treaty,
since, from that period, a new set of motives and principles
have prevailed all over Europe.'"
_J. Dunlop,
Memoirs of Spain during the Reigns of
Philip IV. and Charles II., volume 1.
chapter 11._
FRANCE: A. D. 1660-1688.
A footing gained in Newfoundland.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.
FRANCE: A. D. 1661.
Personal assumption of the government by Louis XIV.
The extraordinary characteristics of the reign of the Grand
Monarch, now begun.
On the death of Mazarin Louis XIV., then twenty-three years
old, announced to his council his intention of taking the
government solely upon himself. His ministers were
henceforward to receive instructions from him in person; there
was to be no premier at their head. The reign which then began
"was the culminating epoch in the history of the French
Monarchy. What the age of Pericles was in the history of the
Athenian Democracy, what the age of the Scipios was in the
history of the Roman Republic, that was the reign of Louis
XIV. in the history of the old Monarchy of France. ... It is
not only the most conspicuous reign in the history of
France--it is the most conspicuous reign in the history of
Monarchy in general. Of the very many kings whom history
mentions, who have striven to exalt the monarchical principle,
none of them achieved a success remotely comparable to his. ...
They may have ruled over wider dominions, but they never
attained the exceptional position of power and prestige which
he enjoyed for more than half a century. They never were
obeyed so submissively at home, nor so dreaded, and even
respected, abroad. For Louis XIV. carried off that last reward
of complete success, that he for a time silenced even envy,
and turned it into admiration. We who can examine with cold
scrutiny the make and composition of this Colossus of a French
Monarchy; who can perceive how much the brass and clay in it
exceeded the gold; who know how it afterwards fell with a
resounding ruin, the last echoes of which have scarcely died
away, have difficulty in realising the fascination it
exercised upon contemporaries who witnessed its first setting
up. Louis XIV.'s reign was the very triumph of commonplace
greatness, of external magnificence and success, such as the
vulgar among mankind can best and most sincerely appreciate.
... His qualities were on the surface, visible and
comprehensible to all. ...
{1233}
He was indefatigably industrious: worked on an average eight
hours a day for fifty-four years; had, great tenacity of will;
that kind of solid judgment which comes of slowness of brain,
and withal a most majestic port and great dignity of manners.
He had also as much kindliness of nature as the very great can
be expected to have. ... He must have had great original
fineness of tact, though it was in the end nearly extinguished
by adulation and incense. His court was an extraordinary
creation, and the greatest thing he achieved. He made it the
microcosm of all that was most brilliant and prominent in
France. Every order of merit was invited there, and received
courteous welcome. To no circumstance did he so much owe his
enduring popularity. By its means he impressed into his
service that galaxy of great writers, the first and the last
classic authors of France, whose calm and serene lustre will
for ever illumine the epoch of his existence. It may even be
admitted that his share in that lustre was not so accidental
and undeserved as certain king-haters have supposed. That
subtle critic, M. Ste. Beuve, thinks he can trace a marked
rise even in Bossuet's style from the moment he became a
courtier of Louis XIV. The king brought men together, placed
them in a position where they were induced and urged to bring
their talents to a focus. His Court was alternately a
high-bred gala and a stately university. ... But Louis XIV.'s
reign has better titles than the adulations of courtiers and
the eulogies of wits and poets to the attention of posterity.
It marks one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of
mankind. It stretches across history like a great
mountain-range, separating ancient France from the France of
modern times. On the farther slope are Catholicism and
feudalism in their various stages of splendour and decay--the
France of crusade and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. On
the hither side are free-thought, industry, and
centralization--the France of Voltaire, Turgot and Condorcet.
When Louis came to the throne, the Thirty Years' War still
wanted six years of its end, and the heat of theological
strife was at its intensest glow. When he died, the religious
temperature had cooled nearly to freezing-point, and a new
vegetation of science and positive inquiry was overspreading
the world. This amounts to saying that his reign covers the
greatest epoch of mental transition through which the human
mind has hitherto passed, excepting the transition we are
witnessing in the day which now is. We need but recall the
names of the writers and thinkers who arose during Louis
XIV.'s reign, and shed their seminal ideas broadcast upon the
air, to realise how full a period it was, both of birth and
decay; of the passing away of the old and the uprising of the
new forms of thought. To mention only the greatest;--the
following are among the chiefs who helped to transform the
mental fabric of Europe in the age of Louis XIV.:--Descartes,
Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, Boyle. ... But the chief interest
which the reign of Louis XIV. offers to the student of history
has yet to be mentioned. It was the great turning-point in the
history of the French people. The triumph, of the Monarchical
principle was so complete under him, independence and
self-reliance were so effectually crushed, both in localities
and individuals, that a permanent bent was given to the
national mind--a habit of looking to the Government for all
action and initiative permanently established. Before the
reign of Louis XIV. it was a question which might fairly be
considered undecided, whether the country would be able or
not, willing or not, to co-operate with its rulers in the work
of the Government and the reform of abuses. On more than one
occasion such co-operation did not seem entirely impossible or
improbable. ... After the reign of Louis' XIV. such
co-operation of the ruler and the ruled became impossible. The
Government of France had become a machine depending upon the
action of a single spring. Spontaneity in the population at
large was extinct, and whatever there was to do must be done
by the central authority. As long as the Government could
correct abuses it was well; if it ceased to be equal to this
task they must go uncorrected. When at last the reform of
secular and gigantic abuses presented itself with imperious
urgency, the alternative before the Monarchy was either to
carry the reform with a high hand, or perish in the failure to
do so. We know how signal the failure was, and could not help
being, under the circumstances; and through having placed the
Monarchy between these alternatives, it is no paradox to say
that Louis XIV. was one of the most direct ancestors of the
Great Revolution."
_J. C. Morison,
The Reign of Louis XIV.
(Fortnightly Review, March, 1874)._
ALSO IN:
_J. I. von Döllinger,
The Policy of Louis XIV.
(Studies in European History, chapter 11)._
FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1680.
Revived and growing persecution of the Huguenots.
"One of the King's first acts, on assuming the supreme control
of affairs at the death of Mazarin, was significant, of his
future policy with regard to the Huguenots. Among the
representatives of the various public bodies who came to
tender him their congratulations, there appeared a deputation
of Protestant ministers, headed by their president Vignole;
but the King refused to receive them, and directed that they
should be ordered to leave Paris forthwith. Louis was not slow
to follow up this intimation by measures of a more positive
kind, for he had been carefully taught to hate Protestantism;
and, now that he possessed unrestrained power, he flattered
himself with the idea of compelling the Huguenots to abandon
their convictions and adopt his own. His minister Louvois
wrote to the governors throughout the provinces that 'his
majesty will not suffer any person in his kingdom but those
who are of his religion.' ... A series of edicts was
accordingly published with the object of carrying the King's
purposes into effect. The conferences of the Protestants were
declared to be suppressed. Though worship was still permitted
in their churches, the singing of psalms in private dwellings
was declared to be forbidden. ... Protestant children were
invited to declare themselves against the religion of their
parents. Boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years old might,
on embracing Roman Catholicism, become enfranchised and
entirely free from parental control. ... The Huguenots were
again debarred from holding public offices, though a few, such
as Marshal Turenne and Admiral Duquesne, who were Protestants,
broke through this barrier by the splendor of their services
to the state. In some provinces, the exclusion was so severe
that a profession of the Roman Catholic faith was required
from simple artisans. ...
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Colbert, while, he lived, endeavored to restrain the King, and
to abate these intolerable persecutions. ... He took the
opportunity of cautioning the King lest the measures he was
enforcing might tend, if carried out, to the impoverishment of
France and the aggrandizement of her rivals. ... But all
Colbert's expostulations were in vain; the Jesuits were
stronger than he was, and the King was in their hands;
besides, Colbert's power was on the decline. ... In 1666 the
queen-mother died, leaving to her son, as her last bequest,
that he should suppress and exterminate heresy within his
dominions. ... The Bishop of Meaux exhorted him to press on in
the path his sainted mother had pointed out to him. ... The
Huguenots had already taken alarm at the renewal of the
persecution, and such of them as could readily dispose of
their property and goods were beginning to leave the kingdom
in considerable numbers for the purpose of establishing
themselves in foreign countries. To prevent this, the King
issued an edict forbidding French subjects from proceeding
abroad without express permission, under penalty of
confiscation of their goods and property. This was followed by
a succession of severe measures for the conversion or
extirpation of such of the Protestants--in numbers about a
million and a half--as had not by this time contrived to make
their escape from the kingdom. The kidnapping of Protestant
children was actively set on foot by the agents of the Roman
Catholic priests, and their parents were subjected to heavy
penalties if they ventured to complain. Orders were issued to
pull down the Protestant places of worship, and as many as
eighty were shortly destroyed in one diocese. ... Protestants
were forbidden to print books without the authority of
magistrates of the Romish communion. Protestant teachers were
interdicted from teaching children any thing more than
reading, writing, and arithmetic. ... Protestants were only
allowed to bury their dead at daybreak or at nightfall. They
were prohibited from singing psalms on land or on water, in
workshops or in dwellings. If a priestly procession passed one
of their churches while the psalms were being sung, they must
stop instantly on pain of the fine or imprisonment of the
officiating minister. In short, from the pettiest annoyance to
the most exasperating cruelty, nothing was wanting on the part
of the 'Most Christian King' and his abettors."
_S. Smiles,
The Huguenots,
chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_A. Maury,
Memoirs of a Huguenot Family (Fontaine),
chapters 4-7._
_W. S. Browning,
History of the Huguenots,
chapters 59-60._
FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1683.
The administration of Colbert.
His economic system and its results.