is, that the intellect of Charles V. deteriorated until he became a
mere second-rate amateur of clocks and watches, and that Torriano,
who held the title of watchmaker to the Emperor, worked with his
master at the trade. The truth is, that Charles V. had a great natural
taste for the exact sciences, which is corroborated by the variety of
mathematical instruments enumerated in the inventory of his effects
taken after his death. Torriano, far from being a mere clockmaker,
was a first-rate engineer and mathematician, and was called by the
historian Strada the Archimedes of his age. His mechanical inventions
gained him a reputation for sorcery among the monks of Yuste. With
regard to the reported collection of clocks, we only find mention
of four or five in the long inventory. The Emperor was a very exact
observer of time, but no contemporary writer has authorised us to
suppose that he took especial pleasure in amassing a variety of watches
and time-pieces.[35]
Let us now examine the account given by Sandoval and Robertson of the
famous funeral ceremony of the 31st August 1558. The Scotch historian,
with a sublime indifference to facts, informs us that Charles V.,
in the last six months of his life, fell into the lowest depths of
superstition. He describes him as seeking no other society but that
of the monks; as continually occupied in singing hymns with them from
the missal; as inflicting on himself the discipline of the scourge,
and lastly, as desiring to rehearse his own obsequies. A desire which
could only have originated in an enfeebled and diseased brain. Such are
the events contained in the introduction to Robertson’s romance. He
goes on to say that: “The chapel was hung with black, and the blaze of
hundreds of waxlights was scarcely sufficient to dispel the darkness.
The brethren, in their conventual dress, and all the Emperor’s
household clad in deep mourning, gathered round a huge catafalque
shrouded also in black, which had been raised in the centre of the
chapel. The service for the burial of the dead was then performed, and
was accompanied by the dismal wail of the monks’ prayers interceding
for the departed soul, that it might be received into the mansion of
the blessed. The sorrowing attendants were melted to tears at this
representation of their master’s death, or they were touched, it may
be, with compassion by this pitiable display of his weakness. Charles,
muffled in a dark mantle, and bearing a lighted candle in his hand,
mingled with his household, the spectator of his own obsequies; and the
doleful ceremony was concluded by his placing the taper in the hands of
the priest in sign of his surrendering up his soul to the Almighty.”
Such is the account given by Robertson, and it has been still further
embellished by later writers. Not only have they represented Charles
V. as assisting at his own funeral, but they have extended him in his
coffin like a corpse. In that position he is reported to have joined
the monks in chanting the prayers for the dead. Another writer (Count
Victor Duhamel, _Histoire constitutionelle de la Monarchie Espagnole_)
goes still further: “After the service,” says he, “they left the
emperor alone in the church. He then arose like a spectre out of his
bier, wrapped in a winding-sheet, and prostrated himself at the foot of
the altar. This ceremony was succeeded by fearful delirium caused by an
attack of fever. The Emperor,” he continues, “at length regained his
cell, where he expired the following morning.”
Here the horrible and the absurd seem to vie with one another. But
these descriptions are in complete contradiction with the strength
of mind really displayed by Charles V. in his last moments; and are
moreover contrary to his character, his habits, and mode of life, and
with his sentiments as a man and as a Christian on the solemnity of
death, and the gravity of the burial service. His dependants, who never
left his side, and who have transmitted the minutest details of his
life, would surely have been cognizant of these imputed eccentricities,
and would doubtless have alluded to them. But their testimony, on the
contrary, contradicts everything told by the monks, and their records
differ materially in regard to dates.
In the first place, how can we give credence to the ceremony itself?--a
ceremony reserved only for the dead by the Roman-catholic church, and
never performed for the living? A council held at Toulouse in the
beginning of the 14th century pronounced, that the church considered
an anticipated funeral to be an act of censurable superstition, and
prohibited any priest under pain of excommunication, from taking part
in it. This circumstance would perhaps be insufficient to cast a
doubt upon the obsequies of Charles V., if it stood alone, but it is
supported by others. The greater number of the incidents related by
the monks are improbable or false. The Hieronymite chroniclers allege
that Charles V. expended on this ceremony two thousand crowns which he
had saved up. Now a forcible objection arises to the employment of so
enormous a sum for so simple a service. Only a very small part of it
could have been used in obsequies which were without pomp and needed
scarcely any outlay. It is more probable, on the contrary, as Sandoval
affirms (_Vida del Emperador Carlos V. en Yuste_), that it was from
this sum that the expenses of the real funeral were drawn, the solemn
services of which lasted nine days. Moreover, the physical strength of
the Emperor, which was on the wane, could not have borne the fatigue of
any such mock display. On the 15th August he was carried to the church,
and received the sacrament sitting. It was only on the 24th that he
was free from gout: the eruption on his legs succeeded the gout: and
he was quite unfit to present himself before the altar on the 29th. On
the 31st August, the day that has been selected for these obsequies,
he was confined for twenty hours to his room by illness. If all these
impossibilities and improbabilities do not settle the question, it
remains to be explained why neither the major-domo, nor the Emperor’s
secretary, nor his physician, who mention in their letters all the
ordinary incidents of his religious life, especially when they
bear some reference to the state of his health, do not speak of so
extraordinary a ceremonial?--why, remembering the funeral service of
the Empress on the anniversary of the 1st May, they make no mention of
the sham funeral that the emperor had devised for himself?--why, after
stating that he had been carried to church on the 15th of August, where
he received the sacrament sitting, they are entirely silent respecting
the absurd obsequies of the 31st, to which their master would
undoubtedly have summoned them, and which were so immediately followed
by his death? But they are even more than silent, they indirectly deny
all the alleged circumstances. Their narrative is at complete variance
with that of the monks.
About two o’clock on the morning of the 21st September 1558, the
Emperor perceived that his life was slowly ebbing away and that death
was near. Feeling his own pulse, he shook his head as much as to
say: “It is all over.” He then begged the monks, says Quijada, in a
letter to Vasquez of the 21st September, to recite the litanies by his
bedside, and the prayers for the dying. The archbishop, at his request,
gave him the crucifix which had been embraced by the empress in her
last hours; he carried it to his lips, pressed it twice to his breast
and said: “The moment has come!” Shortly after he again pronounced the
name of Jesus and expired breathing two or three sighs.
“So passed away,” wrote Quijada, with mingled grief and admiration,
“the greatest man that ever was or ever will be.” The inconsolable
major-domo adds: “I cannot persuade myself that he is dead.” And he
continually entered the chamber of his master, fell on his knees by
his bedside, and with many tears kissed over and over again his cold
inanimate hands.
THE INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-ENGINE.
A. D. 1625.
The biography of Salomon de Caus and the account of his labours and his
discoveries were scarcely known until the year 1828, when a learned
French scholar, Arago, published for the first time in _L’Annuaire du
Bureau des Longitudes_, a remarkable article upon the history of the
steam-engine.
In it he cites the work of Salomon de Caus entitled _Les raisons
des forces mouvantes avec diverses machines, &c._, which was first
published at Frankfort in 1615 and reprinted at Paris in 1624. M. Arago
draws from it the conclusion that De Caus was the original inventor
of the steam-engine. Six years later there appeared in the _Musée des
Familles_, a letter from the celebrated Marion Delorme, supposed to
have been written on the 3rd February 1641 to her lover Cinq-Mars. It
is as follows:
“My dear d’Effiat,[36] Whilst you are forgetting me at Narbonne and
giving yourself up to the pleasures of the court and the delight of
thwarting the cardinal, I, pursuant to the wishes you have expressed,
am doing the honours to your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester,
and I am taking him, or rather he is taking me, from sight to sight,
always choosing the dullest and the saddest; speaking little, listening
with great attention, and fixing upon those whom he questions two
large blue eyes which seem to penetrate to the very depths of their
understanding. Moreover, he is never satisfied with the explanations
that are given him, and scarcely ever sees things from the point of
view in which they are represented. As an instance of this I will
mention the visit we made together to Bicêtre, where he thinks he has
discovered in a maniac a man of genius. If the man were not raging mad
I really believe that your Marquis would have demanded his freedom,
that he might take him with him to London and listen to his ravings
from morning till night.
“As we were crossing the court-yard of the asylum, I more dead than
alive from fright, a hideous face appeared behind the large grating
and began to call out in a crazy voice. ‘I am not mad; I have made a
great discovery that will enrich any country that will carry it out.’
‘What is this discovery?’ said I to the person who was shewing us over
the asylum. ‘Ah!’ said he, shrugging his shoulders, ‘it is something
very simple, but you would never guess it. It is the employment of the
steam of boiling water.’ At this I burst out laughing. ‘This man,’
resumed the warder, ‘is called Salomon de Caus. He came from Normandy
four years ago to present a memoir to the king upon the marvellous
effects that might be produced from his invention. To listen to him,
you might make use of steam to move a theatre, to propel carriages,
and in fact to perform endless miracles.’ The Cardinal dismissed
this fool without giving him a hearing. Salomon de Caus, not at all
discouraged, took upon himself to follow my lord cardinal everywhere,
who, tired of finding him incessantly at his heels, and importuned by
his follies, ordered him to Bicêtre, where he has been confined for
three years and a half, and where, as you have just heard, he cries out
to every visitor, that he is not mad, and that he has made a wonderful
discovery. He has even written a book on this subject which is in my
possession.’
“My Lord Worcester, who all this time appeared to be in deep thought,
asked to see the book, and after having read a few pages, said, ‘This
man is not mad, and in my country, instead of being shut up in a
lunatic asylum he would be laden with wealth. Take me to him, I wish to
question him. He was conducted to his cell, but came back looking grave
and sad. ‘Now he is quite mad,’ said he, ‘it is you who have made him
so; misfortune and confinement have completely destroyed his reason;
but when you put him into that cell you enclosed in it the greatest
genius of your epoch.’ Thereupon we took our leave, and since then
he speaks of no one but Salomon de Caus.[37] Adieu my dear and loyal
Henry; return soon, and do not be so happy where you are, as to forget
that a little love must be left for me. Marion Delorme.”
The success obtained by this fictitious letter was immense and lasting.
The anecdote became very popular, and was copied into standard works,
represented in engravings, chased on silver goblets, &c. At length some
incredulous critics examined more closely into the matter, and found
that not only had Salomon de Caus never been confined in a lunatic
asylum, but that he had held the appointment of engineer and architect
to Louis XIII. up to the time of his death, in 1630, while Marion
Delorme is asserted to have visited Bicêtre in 1641!!
On tracing this hoax to its source, we find that M. Henri Berthoud, a
literary man of some repute and a constant contributor to the _Musée
des Familles_, confesses that the letter imputed to Marion, was in
fact written by himself. The editor of this journal had requested
_Gavarni_ to furnish him with a drawing for a tale in which a madman
was introduced looking through the bars of his cell. The drawing was
executed and engraved, but arrived too late; and the tale, which
could not wait, appeared without the illustration. However, as the
wood-engraving was effective, and moreover was paid for, the editor
was unwilling that it should be useless. Berthoud was therefore
commissioned to look for a subject and to invent a story to which the
engraving might be applied.
Strangely enough, the world refused to believe in M. Berthoud’s
confession, so great a hold had the anecdote taken on the public mind;
and a Paris newspaper went so far even as to declare that the original
autograph of this letter was to be seen in a library in Normandy! M.
Berthoud wrote again denying its existence, and offered a million of
francs to any one who would produce the said letter.
From that time the affair was no more spoken of, and Salomon de Caus
was allowed to remain in undisputed possession of his fame as having
been the first to point out the use of steam in his work _Les raisons
des forces mouvantes_. He had previously been employed as engineer
to Henry Prince of Wales,[38] son of James I., and he published in
London a folio volume, “_La perspective, avec les raisons des ombres et
miroirs_.”
In his dedication of another work to the queen of England in 1614, we
find some allusion made to the construction of hydraulic machines. On
his return to France he, as we said before, was appointed engineer to
Louis XIII., and was doubtless encouraged by Cardinal Richelieu, that
great patron of arts and letters.
In the castle of Heidelberg we find another instance of the difficulty
that exists in uprooting an historical error. There is in the _Galerie
des Antiquités_ of this castle a portrait on wood of Salomon de Caus.
Above this portrait is exhibited a folio volume of this author, the
_Hortus Palatinus, Francofurti_ 1620, apud Joh. Theod. de Bry, with
plates. A manuscript note that accompanies this volume, mentions that
the letter of Marion Delorme describing the madman of Bicêtre was
extracted from the _Gazette de France_ of 3rd March 1834.
Is it not singular that Heidelberg still remains in ignorance of the
truth respecting this absurd story, and that the extract from the
_Gazette de France_ is still permitted to mislead the public?
As recently also as the 30th September 1865, at a banquet given at
Limoges, M. le Vicomte de la Guéronnière, a senator and a man of
letters, who presided, made a speech which was reproduced in the
_Moniteur_ and in which he repeats the anecdote of Salomon de Caus and
Bicêtre. The newspaper _L’Intermédiaire_, in its 45th number, of the
10th November 1865, designates this persistence in error as inept and
stupid.
The works of de Caus were held in high estimation among learned men
during the whole of the 17th century. He had however been anticipated
in the discovery of the application of the power of steam for
propelling large bodies.
On the 17th of April 1543, the Spaniard Don Blasco de Garay, launched
a steam-vessel at Barcelona in the presence of the Emperor Charles V.
It was an old ship of 200 tons called _La sanctissima Trinidada_, which
had been fitted up for the experiment, and which moved at the rate of
ten miles an hour. The inventor of this first steam-vessel was looked
upon as a mere enthusiast whose imagination had run wild, and his only
encouragement was a donation of 200,000 marevedis from his sovereign.
The Emperor Charles no more dreamt of using a discovery which at that
time would have placed the whole of Europe at his feet, than did
Napoleon I., three centuries later, when the ingenious Fulton suggested
to him the application of steam to navigation. It is well known that
Fulton was not even permitted to make an essay of this new propelling
force in presence of the French Emperor.
So then we must date the fact of the introduction of steam navigation
as far back as 1543; anterior to Salomon de Caus in 1615, to the
Marquis of Worcester in 1663, to captain Savary in 1693, to Dr. Papin
in 1696, and to Fulton and others, who all lay claim to the original
idea.
But we may be wrong after all in denying originality to these men,
for we have no proof that either of them had any knowledge of the
discoveries of his predecessors.
It was not until the 18th of March 1816, that the first steam-vessel
appeared in France, making her entrance into the seaport of Havre. She
was the Eliza, which had left Newhaven in England on the previous day.
GALILEO GALILEI.
A. D. 1630.
There are few celebrated men about whom more has been written than
Galileo.
The mere enumeration of the works of which he is the subject would
fill many pages: nevertheless an important mistake relative to one of
the principal events of his life has been so generally accepted and
believed, that it may be said to have passed almost into a proverb,
and many historians and scientific writers have carelessly adopted and
propagated the error.
Between the years 1570 and 1670 Italy had fallen into a state of
torpor. The Italians, including even the magnates of the land, had
lost all dignity and self-respect, and lay cringing and prostrate at
the feet of papal authority. During this period of mental depression
Galileo came into the world. Although endowed with a capacious and
liberal mind, he was wanting in strength of character, the great
failing of his countrymen and of the age in which he lived. Never was
he known to exclaim “_E pur si muove!_” Never did he display the heroic
firmness that is falsely attributed to him. Greatly in advance of his
epoch in science, he still belonged to it in all its shortcomings and
defects. He yielded, he hesitated, he drew back before opposition, and
was sometimes induced to deny his own doctrines through timidity or in
the hope of disarming his enemies, and of escaping from the storm and
the whirlwind he had raised around him.
The whole of his correspondence proves the weakness of his character.
In Italy, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the most
dangerous accusations that could be brought against any man were deism
and infidelity. To doubt was punished with death. Galileo was so
imprudent as to address a long letter to Castelli, in which he sought
to reconcile the words of scripture with the rotation of the earth as
discovered by Copernicus. Copernicus had proved the fact previous to
Galileo, but he had used the wise precaution to give his opinion only
as an hypothesis, and in his work on the motion of the heavenly bodies,
dedicated to Pope Paul III., he avoided wounding any susceptibilities,
taking especial care to separate theology from science.
Galileo went even further in a second letter, in which he not only
attempted to reconcile his principles of astronomy with scripture, but
he endeavoured to make the words of scripture subservient to the axioms
he laid down. Some powerful friends tried to bring him to a sense of
his indiscretion. Cardinal Bellarmini sent him a written remonstrance,
urging him to confine himself to mathematics and astronomy, and to
avoid the field of theology.
Monsignor Dini, the friend of Galileo, wrote to him thus, 2nd May
1615: “Theologians allow mathematical discussion, but only when the
subject is treated as a simple hypothesis, which is alleged to have
been the case with Copernicus. The same liberty will be accorded to
you if you keep clear of theology.” Cardinal Barberini, also on terms
of friendship with Galileo, sent word to him by Ciampoli on the 28th
February of the same year, “that he was not to pass the physical
and mathematical limits of the question, because the theologians
maintain that it appertains to them alone to elucidate scripture.”
They all advised him openly and explicitly to refrain from quoting
the bible, and his pertinacity might have excited admiration had it
been based on firmness of character, but his timidity and innumerable
self-contradictions when directly accused of heresy gave the lie to his
apparent determination and adhesion to his principles. When Cardinal
Maffeo Barberini was elected pope, under the name of Urbanus, Galileo,
who had long been on terms of friendship with him, went to Rome to
offer his congratulations, and soon after published his celebrated
work: _Dialogo intorno ai due massimi sistemi del mondo_.
Unfortunately, instead of limiting himself to astronomy in this work,
he enters again upon questions of theology utterly irrelevant to the
main subject; but, strangely enough, in the preface to the _Dialogo_ he
has the weakness to disguise his real opinions. “I come,” says he, “to
defend the system of Ptolemy. As the friend of the cardinals who have
condemned the doctrines of Copernicus, I highly approve their decision;
a most excellent decision; a most salutary decision. They who have
murmured against it, have been to blame. If I take up my pen it is out
of excess of catholic zeal; this it is that moves me to reappear before
the public after many years of silence.”
The reader cannot but feel compassion in observing so much
feeble-mindedness, unworthy of so great a genius. It may be said in
his excuse that the counsels of his best friends forced him to play
the miserable part with which he has been reproached, that of servile
submission and the abandonment of his convictions. While expressing the
liveliest interest in his works, his principal patron, the ambassador
of Tuscany, thus advises him in letters of the 16th February and 9th
April 1633: “Submit yourself to whatever may be demanded of you, as
the only means of appeasing the rancour of him who in the excess of
his anger has made this persecution a personal affair. Never mind your
convictions, do not defend them, but conform to all that your enemies
may assert on the question of the earth’s movement.”
Galileo was ordered to Rome to explain himself before the tribunal
of the Inquisition. After remaining a month in the palace of the
ambassador of Tuscany, he was removed to the palace of the Inquisition,
but so far from being imprisoned there, he himself informs one of his
friends that he has the use of three spacious apartments, and the
services of his own servant, and that he can roam at pleasure through
the whole building. On the 12th April 1633 Galileo underwent his first
examination. He declares that in his dialogue upon the systems of the
world, he neither maintains nor defends the opinion of the mobility of
the earth and the immobility of the sun; that he even demonstrates the
contrary opinion, shewing that the arguments of Copernicus are without
weight, and are inconclusive. On his second examination, on the 30th
April, he says plainly: “I do not actually entertain the opinion of the
movement of the earth and the immobility of the sun; I will add to my
_Dialogo_ two or three colloquies, and I promise to take up one by one
the arguments in favour of the assertions which you condemn, and to
refute them unanswerably.”
Certainly the humiliation this great man underwent was profound. He
had carried submission so far as to renounce the strongest convictions
of the man of science. His persecutors were culpable and cruel, but
our business here is only to examine carefully and truthfully the two
following propositions: Was Galileo thrown into the dungeons of the
Inquisition? and Was he subjected to torture?