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%THE GREAT EVENTS%
BY
Famous Historians
A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY. EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS. AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN
THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
%NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL%
ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE. INCLUDING BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS
BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED NARRATIVES, ARRANGED
CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES. BIBLIOGRAPHIES. CHRONOLOGIES. AND
COURSES OF READING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
_With a staff of specialists VOLUME XII_
%The National Alumni% 1905
%CONTENTS%
VOLUME XII
_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_
CHARLES F. HORNE
_Louis XIV Establishes Absolute Monarchy (A.D. 1661)_
JAMES COTTER MORISON
_New York Taken by the English (A.D. 1664)_
JOHN R. BRODHEAD
_Great Plague in London (A.D. 1665)_
DANIEL DEFOE
_Great Fire in London (A.D. 1666)_
JOHN EVELYN
_Discovery of Gravitation (A.D. 1666)_
SIR DAVID BREWSTER
_Morgan, the Buccaneer, Sacks Panama (A.D. 1671)_
JOHANN W. VON ARCHENHOLZ
_Struggle of the Dutch against France and England (A.D. 1672)_
C.M. DAVIES.
_Discovery of the Mississippi
La Salle Names Louisiana (A.D. 1673-1682)_
FRANÇOIS XAVIER GARNEAU
_King Philip's War (A.D. 1675)_
RICHARD HILDRETH
_Growth of Prussia under the Great Elector
His Victory at Fehrbellin (A.D. 1675)_
THOMAS CARLYLE
_William Penn Receives the Grant of Pennsylvania
Founding of Philadelphia (A.D. 1681)_
GEORGE E. ELLIS
_Last Turkish Invasion of Europe Sobieski Saves Vienna (A.D. 1683)_
SUTHERLAND MENZIES
_Monmouth's Rebellion (A.D. 1685)_
GILBERT BURNET
_Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (A.D. 1685)_
BON LOUIS HENRI MARTIN
_The English Revolution
Flight of James II (A.D. 1688)_
GILBERT BURNET
H.D. TRAILL
_Peter the Great Modernizes Russia
Suppression of the Streltsi (A.D. 1689)_
ALFRED RAMBAUD
_Tyranny of Andros in New England
The Bloodless Revolution (A.D. 1689)_
CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT
_Massacre of Lachine (A.D. 1689)_
FRANÇOIS XAVIER GARNEAU
_Siege of Londonderry and Battle of the Boyne (A.D. 1689-1690)_
TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT
_Salem Witchcraft Trials (A.D. 1692)_
RICHARD HILDRETH
_Establishment of the Bank of England (A.D. 1694)_
JOHN FRANCIS
_Colonization of Louisiana (A.D. 1699)_
CHARLES E.T. GAYARRÉ
_Prussia Proclaimed a Kingdom (A.D. 1701)_
LEOPOLD VON RANKE
_Founding of St. Petersburg (A.D. 1703)_
K. WALISZEWSKI
_Battle of Blenheim (A.D. 1704)
Curbing of Louis XIV_,
SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
_Union of England and Scotland (A.D. 1707)_
JOHN HILL BURTON
_Downfall of Charles XII at Poltava (A.D. 1709)
Triumph of Russia_
K. WALISZEWSKI
_Capture of Port Royal (A.D. 1710)
France Surrenders Nova Scotia to England_
DUNCAN CAMPBELL
_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1661-1715)_
JOHN RUDD
ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XII
_Surrender of Marshal Tallard at the Battle of Blenheim_, Painting by R.
Caton Woodville.
_The Duke of Monmouth humiliates himself before King James II_, Painting by
J. Pettie, A.R.A.
_Charles XII carried on a litter during the Battle of Poltava_, Painting by
W. Hauschild.
%AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE%
Tracing Briefly The Causes, Connections, And Consequencies Of
%THE GREAT EVENTS%
(Age Of Louis XIV)
CHARLES F. HORNE
It is related that in 1661, on the day following the death of the great
Cardinal Mazarin, the various officials of the State approached their young
King, Louis XIV. "To whom shall we go now for orders, Your Majesty?" "To
me," answered Louis, and from that date until his death in 1715 they had
no other master. Whether we accept the tale as literal fact or only as the
vivid French way of visualizing a truth, we find here the central point
of over fifty years of European history. The two celebrated cardinals,
Richelieu and Mazarin, had, by their strength and wisdom, made France by
far the most powerful state in Europe. Moreover, they had so reduced the
authority of the French nobility, the clergy, and the courts of law as to
have become practically absolute and untrammelled in their control of the
entire government. Now, all this enormous power, both at home and abroad,
over France and over Europe, was assumed by a young man of twenty-three. "I
am the state," said Louis at a later period of his career. He might almost
have said, "I am Europe," looking as he did only to the Europe that
dominated, and took pleasure in itself, and made life one continued
glittering revel of splendor. Independent Europe, that claimed the right of
thinking for itself, the suffering Europe of the peasants, who starved and
shed their blood in helpless agony--these were against Louis almost from
the beginning, and ever increasingly against him.
At first the young monarch found life very bright around him. His courtiers
called him "the rising sun," and his ambition was to justify the title, to
be what with his enormous wealth and authority was scarcely difficult, the
Grand Monarch. He rushed into causeless war and snatched provinces from
his feeble neighbors, exhausted Germany and decaying Spain. He built huge
fortresses along his frontiers, and military roads from end to end of his
domains. His court was one continuous round of splendid entertainments. He
encouraged literature, or at least pensioned authors and had them clustered
around him in what Frenchmen call the Augustan Age of their development.[1]
[Footnote 1: See _Louis XIV Establishes Absolute Monarchy_, page 1.]
The little German princes of the Rhine, each of them practically
independent ruler of a tiny state, could not of course compete with Louis
or defy him. Nor for a time did they attempt it. His splendor dazzled them.
They were content to imitate, and each little prince became a patron of
literature, or giver of entertainments, or builder of huge fortresses
absurdly disproportioned to his territory and his revenues. Germany, it has
been aptly said, became a mere tail to the French kite, its leaders feebly
draggling after where Louis soared. Never had the common people of Europe
or even the nobility had less voice in their own affairs. It was an age of
absolute kingly power, an age of despotism.
England, which under Cromwell had bid fair to take a foremost place in
Europe, sank under Charles II into unimportance. Its people wearied with
tumult, desired peace more than aught else; its King, experienced in
adversity, and long a homeless wanderer in France and Holland, seemed to
have but one firm principle in life. Whatever happened he did not intend,
as he himself phrased it, to go on his "travels" again. He dreaded and
hated the English Parliament as all the Stuarts had; and, like his father,
he avoided calling it together. To obtain money without its aid, he
accepted a pension from the French King. Thus England also became a
servitor of Louis. Its policy, so far as Charles could mould it, was
France's policy. If we look for events in the English history of the
time we must find them in internal incidents, the terrible plague that
devastated London in 1665,[1] the fire of the following year, that checked
the plague but almost swept the city out of existence.[2] We must note the
founding of the Royal Society in 1660 for the advancement of science, or
look to Newton, its most celebrated member, beginning to puzzle out his
theory of gravitation in his Woolsthorpe garden.[3]
[Footnote 1: See _Great Plague in London_, page 29.]
[Footnote 2: See _Great Fire in London_, page 45.]
[Footnote 3: See _Discovery of Gravitation_, page 51.]
CONTINENTAL WARS
Louis's first real opponent he found in sturdy Holland. Her fleets and
those of England had learned to fight each other in Cromwell's time, and
they continued to struggle for the mastery of the seas. There were many
desperate naval battles. In 1664 an English fleet crossed the ocean to
seize the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and it became New York.[4] In 1667
a Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and burned the shipping, almost reaching
London itself.
[Footnote 4: See _New York Taken by the English_, page 19.]
Yet full as her hands might seem with strife like this, Holland did not
hesitate to stand forth against the aggression of Louis's "rising sun."
When in his first burst of kingship, he seized the Spanish provinces of the
Netherlands and so extended his authority to the border of Holland, its
people, frightened at his advance, made peace with England and joined an
alliance against him. Louis drew back; and the Dutch authorized a medal
which depicted Holland checking the rising sun. Louis never forgave them,
and in 1672, having secured German neutrality and an English alliance, he
suddenly attacked Holland with all his forces.[5]
[Footnote 5: See _Struggle of the Dutch against France and England_, page
86.]
For a moment the little republic seemed helpless. Her navy indeed withstood
ably the combined assaults of the French and English ships, but the French
armies overran almost her entire territory. It was then that her people
talked of entering their ships and sailing away together, transporting
their nation bodily to some colony beyond Louis's reach. It was then that
Amsterdam set the example which other districts heroically followed, of
opening her dykes and letting the ocean flood the land to drive out the
French. The leaders of the republic were murdered in a factional strife,
and the young Prince William III of Orange, descended from that William
the Silent who had led the Dutch against Philip II, was made practically
dictator of the land. This young Prince William, afterward King William III
of England, was the antagonist who sprang up against Louis, and in the end
united all Europe against him and annihilated his power.
Seeing the wonderful resistance that little Holland made against her
apparently overwhelming antagonists, the rest of Germany took heart; allies
came to the Dutch. Brandenburg and Austria and Spain forced Louis to fall
back upon his own frontier, though with much resolute battling by his great
general, Turenne.
Next to young William, Louis found his most persistent opponent in
Frederick William, the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg and Prussia,
undoubtedly the ablest German sovereign of the age, and the founder of
Prussia's modern importance. He had succeeded to his hereditary domains in
1640, when they lay utterly waste and exhausted in the Thirty Years' War;
and he reigned until 1688, nearly half a century, during which he was ever
and vigorously the champion of Germany against all outside enemies. He
alone, in the feeble Germany of the day, resisted French influence, French
manners, and French aggression.
In this first general war of the Germans and their allies against Louis,
Frederick William proved the only one of their leaders seriously to be
feared. Louis made an alliance with Sweden and persuaded the Swedes to
overrun Brandenburg during its ruler's absence with his forces on the
Rhine. But so firmly had the Great Elector established himself at home, so
was he loved, that the very peasantry rose to his assistance. "We are only
peasants," said their banners, "but we can die for our lord." Pitiful cry!
Pitiful proof of how unused the commons were to even a little kindness, how
eagerly responsive! Frederick William came riding like a whirlwind from the
Rhine, his army straggling along behind in a vain effort to keep up. He
hurled himself with his foremost troops upon the Swedes, and won the
celebrated battle of Fehrbellin. He swept his astonished foes back into
their northern peninsula. Brandenburg became the chief power of northern
Germany.[1]
[Footnote 1: See _Growth of Prussia under the Great Elector: His Victory at
Fehrbellin_, page 138.]
In 1679 the Peace of Ryswick ended the general war, and left Holland
unconquered, but with the French frontier extended to the Rhine, and Louis
at the height of his power, the acknowledged head of European affairs.
Austria was under the rule of Leopold I, Emperor of Germany from 1657 to
1705, whose pride and incompetence wholly prevented him from being what
his position as chief of the Hapsburgs would naturally have made him, the
leader of the opposition, the centre around whom all Europe could rally to
withstand Louis's territorial greed. Leopold hated Louis, but he hated also
the rising Protestant "Brandenburger," he hated the "merchant" Dutch,
hated everybody in short who dared intrude upon the ancient order of his
superiority, who refused to recognize his impotent authority. So he would
gladly have seen Louis crush every opponent except himself, would have
found it a pleasant vengeance indeed to see all these upstart powers
destroying one another.
Moreover, Austria was again engaged in desperate strife with the Turks.
These were in the last burst of their effort at European conquest. No
longer content with Hungary, twice in Leopold's reign did they advance to
attack Vienna. Twice were they repulsed by Hungarian and Austrian valor.
The final siege was in 1683. A vast horde estimated as high as two hundred
thousand men marched against the devoted city. Leopold and most of the
aristocracy fled, in despair of its defence. Only the common people who
could not flee, remained, and with the resolution of despair beat off the
repeated assaults of the Mahometans.[2]
[Footnote 2: See _Last Turkish Invasion of Europe: Sobieski Saves Vienna_,
page 164.]
They were saved by John Sobieski, a king who had raised Poland to one of
her rare outflashing periods of splendor. With his small but gallant Polish
army he came to the rescue of Christendom, charged furiously upon the huge
Turkish horde, and swept it from the field in utter flight. The tide of
Turkish power receded forever; that was its last great wave which broke
before the walls of Vienna. All Hungary was regained, mainly through the
efforts of Austria's greatest general, Prince Eugene of Savoy. The centre
of the centuries of strife shifted back where it had been in Hunyady's
time, from Vienna to the mighty frontier fortress of Belgrad, which was
taken and retaken by opposing forces.
LATER EFFORTS OF LOUIS XIV
The earlier career of Louis XIV seems to have been mainly influenced by his
passion for personal renown; but he had always been a serious Catholic, and
in his later life his interest in religion became a most important factor
in his world. The Protestants of France had for wellnigh a century held
their faith unmolested, safeguarded by that Edict of Nantes, which had been
granted by Henry IV, a Catholic at least in name, and confirmed by Cardinal
Richelieu, a Catholic by profession. Persuasive measures had indeed been
frequently employed to win the deserters back to the ancient Church; but
now under Louis's direction, a harsher course was attempted. The celebrated
"dragonades" quartered a wild and licentious soldiery in Protestant
localities, in the homes of Protestant house-owners, with special orders to
make themselves offensive to their hosts. Under this grim discouragement
Protestantism seemed dying out of France, and at last, in 1685, Louis,
encouraged by success, took the final step and revoked the Edict of Nantes,
commanding all his subjects to accept Catholicism, while at the same time
forbidding any to leave the country. Huguenots who attempted flight were
seized; many were slain. Externally at least, the reformed religion
disappeared from France.[1]
[Footnote 1: See _Revocation of the Edict of Nantes_, page 180.]
Of course, despite the edict restraining them, many Huguenots, the most
earnest and vigorous of the sect, did escape by flight; and some hundred
thousands of France's ablest citizens were thus lost to her forever. Large
numbers found a welcome in neighboring Holland; the Great Elector stood
forward and gave homes to a wandering host of the exiles. England received
colonies of them; and even distant America was benefited by the numbers who
sought her freer shores. No enemy to France in all the world but received a
welcome accession to its strength against her.
In the same year that Protestant Europe was thus assailed and terrified by
the reviving spectre of religious persecution, Charles II of England died
and his brother James II succeeded him. Charles may have been Catholic at
heart, but in name at least he had retained the English religion. James
was openly Catholic. A hasty rebellion raised against him by his nephew,
Monmouth, fell to pieces;[1] and James, having executed Monmouth and
approved a cruel persecution of his followers, began to take serious steps
toward forcing the whole land back to the ancient faith.
[Footnote 1: See _Monmouth's Rebellion_, page 172.]
So here was kingly absolutism coming to the aid of the old religious
intolerance. The English people, however, had already killed one king in
defence of their liberties; and their resolute opposition to James began to
suggest that they might kill another. Many of the leading nobles appealed
secretly to William of Orange for help. William was, as we have said, the
centre of opposition to Louis, and that began to mean to Catholicism as
well. Also, William had married a daughter of King James and had thus some
claim to interfere in the family domains. And, most important of all, as
chief ruler of Holland, William had an army at command. With a portion of
that army he set sail late in 1688 and landed in England. Englishmen of all
ranks flocked to join him. King James fled to France, and a Parliament,
hastily assembled in 1689, declared him no longer king and placed William
and his wife Mary on the throne as joint rulers.[2] Thus William had two
countries instead of one to aid him in his life-long effort against Louis.
[Footnote 2: See _The English Revolution: Flight of James II_, page 200.]
Louis, indeed, accepted the accession of his enemy as a threat of war and,
taking up the cause of the fugitive James, despatched him with French
troops to Ireland, where his Catholic faith made the mass of the people his
devoted adherents. There were, however, Protestant Irish as well, and these
defied James and held his troops at bay in the siege of Londonderry, while
King William hurried over to Ireland with an army. Father-in-law and
son-in-law met in the battle of the Boyne, and James was defeated in war
as he had been in diplomacy. He fled back to France, leaving his Catholic
adherents to withstand William as best they might. Limerick, the Catholic
stronghold, was twice besieged and only yielded when full religious freedom
had been guaranteed. Irishmen to this day call it with bitterness "the city
of the violated treaty."[1]
[Footnote 1: See _Siege of Londonderry and the Battle of the Boyne_, page
258.]
Meanwhile the strife between Louis and William had spread into another
general European war. William had difficulties to encounter in his new
kingdom. Its people cared little for his Continental aims and gave him
little loyalty of service. In fact, peculation among public officials was
so widespread that, despite large expenditures of money, England had only
a most feeble, inefficient army in the field, and William was in black
disgust against his new subjects. It was partly to aid the Government in
its financial straits that the Bank of England was formed in 1694.[2]
[Footnote 2: See _Establishment of the Bank of England_, page 286.]
Yet Louis's troubles were greater and of deeper root. Catholic Austria and
even the Pope himself, unable to submit to the arrogance of the "Grand
Monarch," took part against him in this war. It can therefore no longer be
regarded as a religious struggle. It marks the turning-point in Louis's
fortunes. His boundless extravagance had exhausted France at last. Both in
wealth and population she began to feel the drain. The French generals won
repeated victories, yet they had to give slowly back before their more
numerous foes; and in 1697 Louis purchased peace by making concessions of
territory as well as courtesy.
This peace proved little more than a truce. For almost half a century the
European sovereigns had been waiting for Charles II of Spain to die. He
was the last of his race, last of the Spanish Hapsburgs descended from
the Emperor Charles V, and so infirm and feeble was he that it seemed the
flickering candle of his life must puff out with each passing wind. Who
should succeed him? In Mazarin's time, that crafty minister had schemed
that the prize should go to France, and had wedded young Louis XIV to a
Spanish princess. The Austrian Hapsburgs of course wanted the place for
themselves, though to establish a common ancestry with their Spanish kin
they must turn back over a century and a half to Ferdinand and Isabella.
But strong men grew old and died, while the invalid Charles II still clung
to his tottering throne. Louis ceased hoping to occupy it himself and
claimed it for his son, then for his grandson, Philip. Not until 1700,
after a reign of nearly forty years, did Charles give up the worthless game
and expire. He declared Philip his heir, and the aged Louis sent the youth
to Spain with an eager boast, "Go; there are no longer any Pyrenees." That
is, France and Spain were to be one, a mighty Bourbon empire.
That was just what Europe, experienced in Louis's unscrupulous aggression,
dared not allow. So another general alliance was formed, with William of
Holland and England at its head, to drive Philip from his new throne in
favor of a Hapsburg. William died before the war was well under way, but
the British people understood his purposes now and upheld them. Once more
they felt themselves the champions of Protestantism in Europe. Anne, the
second daughter of the deposed King James, was chosen as queen; and under
her the two realms of England and Scotland were finally joined in one by
the Act of Union (1707), with but a single Parliament.[1]
[Footnote 1: See _Union of England and Scotland_, page 341.]
Meanwhile Marlborough was sent to the Rhine with a strong British army.
Prince Eugene paused in fighting the Turks and joined him with Austrian and
German troops. Together they defeated the French in the celebrated battle
of Blenheim (1704),[2] and followed it in later years with Oudenarde and
Malplaquet. Louis was beaten. France was exhausted. The Grand Monarch
pleaded for peace on almost any terms.
[Footnote 2: See _Battle of Blenheim: Curbing of Louis XIV_, page 327.]
Yet his grandson remained on the Spanish throne. For one reason, the
Spaniards themselves upheld him and fought for him. For another, the
allies' Austrian candidate became Emperor of Germany, and to make him ruler
of Spain as well would only have been to consolidate the Hapsburg power
instead of that of the Bourbons. Made dubious by this balance between
evils, Europe abandoned the war. So there were two Bourbon kingdoms after
all--but both too exhausted to be dangerous.
Louis had indeed outlived his fame. He had roused the opposition of all his
neighbors, and ruined France in the effort to extend her greatness. The
praises and flattery of his earlier years reached him now only from the
lips of a few determined courtiers. His people hated him, and in 1715
celebrated his death as a release. Frenchmen high and low had begun the
career which ended in their terrific Revolution. Lying on his dreary
death-bed, the Grand Monarch apologized that he should "take so long in
dying." Perhaps he, also, felt that he delayed the coming of the new age.
What his career had done was to spread over all Europe a new culture and
refinement, to rouse a new splendor and recklessness among the upper
classes, and to widen almost irretrievably the gap between rich and poor,
between kings and commons. In the very years that parliamentary government
was becoming supreme in England, absolutism established itself upon the
Continent.
CHANGES IN NORTHERN EUROPE
Toward the close of this age the balance of power in Northern Europe
shifted quite as markedly as it had farther south. Three of the German
electoral princes became kings. The Elector of Saxony was chosen King of
Poland, thereby adding greatly to his power. George, Elector of Hanover,
became King of England on the death of Queen Anne. And the Elector of
Brandenburg, son of the Great Elector, when the war of 1701 against France
and Spain broke out, only lent his aid to the European coalition on
condition that the German Emperor should authorize him also to assume the
title of king, not of Brandenburg but of his other and smaller domain of
Prussia, which lay outside the empire. Most of the European sovereigns
smiled at this empty change of title without a change of dominions; but
Brandenburg or Prussia was thus made more united, more consolidated, and
it soon rose to be the leader of Northern Germany. A new family, the
Hohenzollerns, contested European supremacy with the Hapsburgs and the
Bourbons.[1]
[Footnote 1: See _Prussia Proclaimed a Kingdom_, page 310.]
More important still was the strife between Sweden and Russia. Sweden had
been raised by Gustavus Adolphus to be the chief power of the North, the
chosen ally of Richelieu and Mazarin. Her soldiers were esteemed the best
of the time. The prestige of the Swedes had, to be sure, suffered somewhat
in the days when the Great Elector defeated them so completely at
Fehrbellin and elsewhere. But Louis XIV had stood by them as his allies,
and saved them from any loss of territory, so that in 1700 Sweden still
held not only the Scandinavian peninsula but all the lands east of the
Baltic as far as where St. Petersburg now stands, and much of the German
coast to southward. The Baltic was thus almost a Swedish lake, when in
1697 a new warrior king, Charles XII, rose to reassert the warlike
supremacy of his race. He was but fifteen when he reached the throne; and
Denmark, Poland, and Russia all sought to snatch away his territories. He
fought the Danes and defeated them. He fought the Saxon Elector who had
become king of Poland. Soon both Poland and Saxony lay crushed at the feet
of the "Lion of the North," as they called him then--"Madman of the
North," after his great designs had failed. Only Russia remained to oppose
him--Russia, as yet almost unknown to Europe, a semi-barbaric frontier
land, supposedly helpless against the strength and resources of
civilization.
Russia was in the pangs of a most sudden revolution. Against her will she
was being suddenly and sharply modernized by Peter the Great, most famous
of her czars. He had overthrown the turbulent militia who really ruled the
land, and had waded through a sea of bloody executions to establish his
own absolute power.[1] He had travelled abroad in disguise, studied
shipbuilding in Holland, the art of government in England, and
fortification and war wheresoever he could find a teacher. Removing from
the ancient, conservative capital of Moscow, he planted his government,
in defiance of Sweden, upon her very frontier, causing the city of St.
Petersburg to arise as if by magic from a desolate, icy swamp in the far
north.[2]
[Footnote 1: See _Peter the Great Modernizes Russia: Suppression of the
Streltsi_, page 223.]
[Footnote 2: See _Founding of St. Petersburg_, page 319.]
Charles of Sweden scorned and defied him. At Narva in 1700, Charles with
a small force of his famous troops drove Peter with a huge horde of his
Russians to shameful flight. "They will teach us to beat them," said Peter
philosophically; and so in truth he gathered knowledge from defeat after
defeat, until at length at Poltava in 1709 he completely turned the tables
upon Charles, overthrew him and so crushed his power that Russia
succeeded Sweden as ruler of the extreme North, a rank she has ever since
retained.[1]
[Footnote 1: See _Downfall of Charles XII at Poltava: Triumph of Russia_,
page 352.]
GROWTH OF AMERICA
The vast political and social changes of Europe in this age found their
echo in the New World. The decay of Spain left her American colonies to
feebleness and decay. The islands of the Caribbean Sea became the haunt of
the buccaneers, pirates, desperadoes of all nations who preyed upon Spanish
ships, and, as their power grew, extended their depredations northward
along the American coast. So important did these buccaneers become that
they formed regular governments among themselves. The most famed of their
leaders was knighted by England as Sir Henry Morgan; and the most renowned
of his achievements was the storm and capture of the Spanish treasure city,
Panama.[2]
[Footnote 2: See _Morgan, the Buccaneer, Sacks Panama_, page 66.]
As Spain grew weak in America, France grew strong. From her Canadian
colonies she sent out daring missionaries and traders, who explored the
great lakes and the Mississippi valley.[3] They made friends with the
Indians; they founded Louisiana.[4] All the north and west of the continent
fell into their hands.
[Footnote 3: See _Discovery of the Mississippi_, page 108.]
[Footnote 4: See _Colonization of Louisiana_, page 297.]
Never, however, did their numbers approach those of the English colonists
along the Atlantic coast. Both Massachusetts and Virginia were grown into
important commonwealths, almost independent of England, and well able to
support the weaker settlements rising around them. After the great Puritan
exodus to New England to escape the oppression of Charles I, there had come
a Royalist exodus to Virginia to escape the Puritanic tyranny of Cromwell's
time. Large numbers of Catholics fled to Maryland. Huguenots established
themselves in the Carolinas and elsewhere. Then came Penn to build a great
Quaker state among the scattered Dutch settlements along the Delaware.[1]
The American seaboard became the refuge of each man who refused to bow his
neck to despotism of whatever type.
[Footnote 1: See _William Penn Receives the Grant of Pennsylvania: Founding
of Philadelphia_, page 153.]
Under such settlers English America soon ceased to be a mere offshoot of
Europe. It became a world of its own; its people developed into a new race.
They had their own springs of action, their own ways of thought, different
from those of Europe, more simple and intense as was shown in the Salem
witchcraft excitement, or more resolute and advanced as was revealed in
Bacon's Virginia rebellion.[2]
[Footnote 2: See _Salem Witchcraft Trials_, page 268.]
The aboriginal inhabitants, the Indians, found themselves pressed ever
backward from the coast. They resisted, and in 1675 there arose in New
England, King Philip's war, which for that section at least settled the
Indian question forever. The red men of New England were practically
exterminated.[3] Those of New York, the Iroquois, were more fortunate or
more crafty. They dwelt deeper in the wilderness, and formed a buffer state
between the French in Canada and the English to the south, drawing aid now
from one, now from the other.
[Footnote 3: See _King Philip's War_, page 125.]
Each war between England and Louis XIV was echoed by strife between their
rival colonies. When King William supplanted James in 1688 there followed
in America also a "bloodless revolution."[4] Governor Andros, whom James
had sent to imitate his own harsh tyranny in the colonies, was seized and
shipped back to England. William was proclaimed king. The ensuing strife
with France was marked by the most bloody of all America's Indian
massacres. The Iroquois descended suddenly on Canada; the very suburbs
of its capital, Montreal, were burned, and more than a thousand of the
unsuspecting settlers were tortured, or more mercifully slain outright.[5]
[Footnote 4: See _Tyranny of Andros in New England: The Bloodless
Revolution_, page 241.]
[Footnote 5: See _Massacre of Lachine_, page 248.]
In the later war about the Spanish throne, England captured Nova Scotia,
the southern extremity of the French Canadian seaboard; and part of the
price Louis XIV paid for peace was to leave this colony in England's
hands.[1] The scale of American power began to swing markedly in her favor.
Everywhere over the world, as the eighteenth century progressed, England
with her parliamentary government was rising into power at the expense of
France and absolutism.
[Footnote 1: See _Capture of Port Royal: France Surrenders Nova Scotia to
England_, page 373.]
[Footnote: FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME XIII.]
%LOUIS XIV ESTABLISHES ABSOLUTE MONARCHY%
A.D. 1661
JAMES COTTER MORISON
Not only was the reign of Louis XIV one of the longest in the world's
history, but it also marked among Western nations the highest development
of the purely monarchical principle. Including the time that Louis ruled
under the guardianship of his mother and the control of his minister,
Cardinal Mazarin, the reign covered more than seventy years (1643-1715).
The sovereign who could say, "I am the state" ("_l'État c'est moi_"), and
see his subjects acquiesce with almost Asiatic humility, while Europe
looked on in admiration and fear, may be said to have embodied for modern
times the essence of absolutism.
That all things, domestic and foreign, seemed to be in concurrence for
giving practical effect to the Grand Monarque's assumption of supremacy is
shown by the fact that his name dominates the whole history of his time.
His reign was not only "the Augustan Age of France"; it marked the
ascendency of France in Europe.
Of such a reign no adequate impression is to be derived from reading even
the most faithful narrative of its thronging events. But the reign as well
as the personality of Louis is set in clear perspective for us by Morison's
picturesque and discriminating treatment.
The reign of Louis XIV 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. The type of polity which that monarchy embodied, the
principles of government on which it reposed or brought into play, in this
reign attain their supreme expression and development. Before Louis XIV the
French monarchy has evidently not attained its full stature; it is thwarted
and limited by other forces in the state. After him, though unresisted from
without, it manifests symptoms of decay from within. It rapidly declines,
and totally disappears seventy-seven years after his death.
But 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. His two great predecessors in kingly ambition, Charles V and Philip
II, remained far behind him in this respect. 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 afterward fell with a resounding ruin,
the last echoes of which have scarcely died away, have difficulty in
realizing 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. Had he been a great and profound ruler,
had he considered with unselfish meditation the real interests of France,
had he with wise insight discerned and followed the remote lines of
progress along which the future of Europe was destined to move, it is
lamentably probable that he would have been misunderstood in his lifetime
and calumniated after his death.
Louis XIV was exposed to no such misconception. His qualities were on the
surface, visible and comprehensible to all; and although none of them was
brilliant, he had several which have a peculiarly impressive effect when
displayed in an exalted station. 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; his
temper was under severe control; and, in his earlier years at least, he
had a moral apprehensiveness greater than the limitations of his intellect
would have led one to expect.
His conduct toward Molière was throughout truly noble, and the more so that
he never intellectually appreciated Molière's real greatness. But 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 the 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 forever 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. Sainte-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. If we contrast his
life with those of his predecessor and successor, with the dreary existence
of Louis XIII and the crapulous lifelong debauch of Louis XV, we become
sensible that Louis XIV was distinguished in no common degree; and when we
further reflect that much of his home and all of his foreign policy was
precisely adapted to flatter, in its deepest self-love, the national spirit
of France, it will not be quite impossible to understand the long-continued
reverberation of his fame.
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 further slope are Catholicism and
feudalism in their various stages of splendor and decay--the France of
crusade and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. On the hither side are
freethought, 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
realize 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. Under these leaders the first
firm irreversible advance was made out of the dim twilight of theology into
the clear dawn of positive and demonstrative science.
Inferior to these founders of modern knowledge, but holding a high rank as
contributors to the mental activity of the age, were Pascal, Malebranche,
Spinoza, and Bayle. The result of their efforts was such a stride forward
as has no parallel in the history of the human mind. One of the most
curious and significant proofs of it was the spontaneous extinction of the
belief in witchcraft among the cultivated classes of Europe, as the English
historian of rationalism has so judiciously pointed out. The superstition
was not much attacked, and it was vigorously defended, yet it died a
natural and quiet death from the changed moral climate of the world.
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 coöperate with its rulers in the work of the government and the
reform of abuses. On more than one occasion such coöperation did not seem
entirely impossible or improbable. The admirable wisdom and moderation
shown by the Tiers-État in the States-General of 1614, the divers efforts
of the Parliament of Paris to check extravagant expenditure, the vigorous
struggles of the provincial assemblies to preserve some relic of their
local liberties, seemed to promise that France would continue to advance
under the leadership indeed of the monarchy, yet still retaining in large
measure the bright, free, independent spirit of old Gaul, the Gaul of
Rabelais, Montaigne, and Joinville.
After the reign of Louis XIV such coöperation 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."
Nothing but special conditions in the politics both of Europe and of France
can explain this singular importance and prominence of Louis XIV's reign.
And we find that both France and Europe were indeed in an exceptional
position when he ascended the throne. The Continent of Europe, from one
end to the other, was still bleeding and prostrate from the effect of the
Thirty Years' War when the young Louis, in the sixteenth year of his age,
was anointed king at Rheims. Although France had suffered terribly in that
awful struggle, she had probably suffered less than any of the combatants,
unless it be Sweden.
It happened by a remarkable coincidence that precisely at this moment, when
the condition of Europe was such that an aggressive policy on the part of
France could be only with difficulty resisted by her neighbors, the power
and prerogatives of the French crown attained an expansion and preeminence
which they had never enjoyed in the previous history of the country. The
schemes and hopes of Philip the Fair, of Louis XI, of Henry IV, and of
Richelieu had been realized at last; and their efforts to throw off the
insolent coercion of the great feudal lords had been crowned with complete
success. The monarchy could hardly have conjectured how strong it had
become but for the abortive resistance and hostility it met with in the
Fronde.
The flames of insurrection which had shot up, forked and menacing, fell
back underground, where they smouldered for four generations yet to come.
The kingly power soared, single and supreme, over its prostrate foes. Long
before Louis XIV had shown any aptitude or disposition for authority, he
was the object of adulation as cringing as was ever offered to a Roman
emperor. When he returned from his consecration at Rheims, the rector of
the University of Paris, at the head of his professorial staff, addressed
the young King in these words: "We are so dazzled by the new splendor which
surrounds your majesty that we are not ashamed to appear dumfounded at the
aspect of a light so brilliant and so extraordinary"; and at the foot of an
engraving at the same date he is in so many words called a demigod.
It is evident that ample materials had been prepared for what the vulgar
consider a great reign. Abundant opportunity for an insolent and
aggressive foreign policy, owing to the condition of Europe. Security from
remonstrance or check at home, owing to the condition of France. The temple
is prepared for the deity; the priests stand by, ready to offer victims on
the smoking altar; the incense is burning in anticipation of his advent. On
the death of Mazarin, in 1661, he entered into his own.
Louis XIV never forgot the trials and humiliations to which he and his
mother had been subjected during the troubles of the Fronde. It has often
been remarked that rulers born in the purple have seldom shown much
efficiency unless they have been exposed to exceptional and, as it were,
artificial probations during their youth. During the first eleven years
of Louis' reign--incomparably the most creditable to him--we can trace
unmistakably the influence of the wisdom and experience acquired in that
period of anxiety and defeat. He then learned the value of money and the
supreme benefits of a full exchequer. He also acquired a thorough dread of
subjection to ministers and favorites--a dread so deep that it implied a
consciousness of probable weakness on that side. As he went on in life he
to a great extent forgot both these valuable lessons, but their influence
was never entirely effaced. To the astonishment of the courtiers and even
of his mother he announced his intention of governing independently, and
of looking after everything himself. They openly doubted his perseverance.
"You do not know him," said Mazarin. "He will begin rather late, but he
will go further than most. There is enough stuff in him to make four kings
and an honest man besides."