From “The People’s Commentary”—and paragraphed.
1. Gallia was the name under which France was designated by the Romans,
who knew little of the country till the time of Cæsar, when it was
occupied by the Aquitani, Celtæ, and Belgæ.
2. Under Augustus, Gaul was divided into four provinces, which, under
subsequent emperors, were dismembered, and subdivided into seventeen.
3. In the fifth century it fell completely under the power of the
Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks.
4. In 486 A. D., Clovis, a chief of the Salian Franks, raised himself to
supreme power in the north. His dynasty, known as the Merovingian, ended
in the person of Childeric III., who was deposed 752 A. D.
5. The accession of Pepin gave new vigor to the monarchy, which, under
his son and successor, ~Charlemagne~,[A] crowned Emperor in the west
in 800 (768-814), rose to the rank of the most powerful empire of the
west. With him, however, this vast fabric of power crumbled to pieces,
and his weak descendants completed the ruin of the Frankish Empire by
the dismemberment of its various parts among the younger branches of the
Carlovingian family.
6. On the death of Louis V. the Carlovingian dynasty was replaced by that
of Hugues, Count of Paris, whose son, Hugues Capet, was elected king by
the army, and consecrated at Rheims 987 A. D.
7. At this period the greater part of France was held by almost
independent lords. Louis Le Gros (1108-1137) was the first ruler who
succeeded in combining the whole under his scepter. He promoted the
establishment of the feudal system, abolished serfdom on his own estates,
secured corporate rights to the cities under his jurisdiction, gave
efficiency to the central authority of the Crown, carried on a war
against Henry I., of England; and when the latter allied himself with
the Emperor Henry V., of Germany, against France, he brought into the
field an army of 200,000 men.
[Illustration: MAP OF FRANCE]
8. The _Oriflamme_ is said to have been borne aloft for the first time on
this occasion as the national standard.
9. Louis VII. (1137-’80) was almost incessantly engaged in war with Henry
II., of England.
10. His son and successor, Philippe Auguste (1180-1223), recovered
Normandy, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou from John of England. He took an
active personal share in the crusades. Philippe was the first to levy a
tax for the maintenance of the standing army.
11. Many noble institutions date their origin from this reign, as the
University of Paris, the Louvre, etc.
12. Louis IX. effected many modifications in the fiscal department,
and, before his departure for the crusades, secured the rights of the
Gallican church by special statute, in order to counteract the constantly
increasing assumptions of the Papal power.
13. Philippe IV. (1285-1314), surnamed _Le Bel_, acquired Navarre,
Champagne, and Brie by marriage.
14. Charles IV. (_Le Bel_, 1321-’28) was the last direct descendant of
the Capetian line.
15. Philippe VI., the first of the House of Valois (1328-’50), succeeded
in right of the Salic law. His reign, and those of his successors,
Jean (1350-’64) and Charles V. (_Le Sage_, 1364-’80), were disturbed by
constant wars with Edward III., of England. Hostilities began in 1339; in
1346 the ~Battle of Crécy~ was fought; at the battle of Poitiers (1356)
Jean was made captive; and before the final close, after the death of
Edward (1377), the state was reduced to bankruptcy.
16. During the regency for the minor, Charles VI. (_Le Bien Aime_,
1380-1422), the war was renewed with increased vigor on the part of the
English nation.
17. The signal victory won by the English at Agincourt in 1415 aided
Henry in his attempts upon the throne. But the extraordinary influence
exercised over her countrymen by ~Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans~,
aided in bringing about a thorough reaction, and, after a period of
murder, rapine and anarchy, Charles VII. (_Le Victorieux_, 1422-’61) was
crowned at Rheims.
18. His successor, Louis XI. (1461-’83), succeeded in recovering for the
Crown the territories of Maine, Anjou and Provence, while he made himself
master of some portions of the territories of Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy.
19. Charles VIII. (1483-’98), by his marriage with Anne of Brittany,
secured that powerful state. With him ended the direct male succession of
the House of Valois.
20. Louis XII. (1498-1515), _Le Père Du Peuple_, was the only
representative of the _Valois-Orleans_ family; his successor, Francis I.
(1547), was of the _Valois-Angoulême_ branch.
21. The defeat of Francis at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, and his
subsequent imprisonment at Madrid, threw the affairs of the nation into
the greatest disorder.
22. In the reign of Henri II. began the persecutions of the Protestants.
Henri III. (1574-’89) was the last of this branch of the Valois. The
massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572) was perpetrated under the direction
of the Queen-mother, Catherine de’ Medici, and the confederation of the
league, at the head of which were the Guises. The wars of the league,
which were carried by the latter against the Bourbon branches of the
princes of the blood-royal, involved the whole nation in their vortex.
23. The succession of ~Henri IV., of Navarre~ (1589-1610), a Bourbon
prince, descended from a younger son of St. Louis, allayed the fury of
these religious wars, but his recantation of Protestantism in favor of
Catholicism disappointed his own party.
24. During the minority of his son, Louis XIII. (1610-’43), Cardinal
Richelieu, under the nominal regency of Marie de’ Medici, the
Queen-mother, ruled with a firm hand. Cardinal Mazarin, under the regency
of the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria, exerted nearly equal power for some
time during the minority of ~Louis XIV.~ (1643-1715).
25. The wars of the Fronde, the misconduct of the Parliament, and the
humbling of the nobility, gave rise to another civil war, but with the
assumption of power by young Louis a new era commenced, and till near the
close of his long reign the military successes of the French were most
brilliant.
26. Louis XV. (1715-’75) succeeded to a heritage whose glory was
tarnished, and whose stability was shaken to its very foundations during
his reign.
27. The peace of Paris (1763), by which the greater portion of the
colonial possessions of France were given up to England, terminated an
inglorious war, in which the French had expended 1350 millions of francs.
28. In 1774 ~Louis XVI.~, a well-meaning, weak prince, succeeded to the
throne. The American war of freedom had disseminated Republican ideas
among the lower orders, while the Assembly of the notables had discussed
and made known to all classes the incapacity of the government and the
wanton prodigality of the court. The nobles and the _tiers état_ were
alike clamorous for a meeting of the states; the former wishing to impose
new taxes on the nation, and the latter determined to inaugurate a
thorough and systematic reform.
29. After much opposition on the part of the king and court, the _États
Généraux_, which had not met since 1614, assembled at Versailles on the
25th of May, 1789. The resistance made by Louis and his advisers to the
reasonable demands of the deputies on the 17th of June, 1789, led to the
constitution of the National Assembly. The consequence was the outbreak
of insurrectionary movements at Paris, where blood was shed on the 12th
of July. On the following day the National Guard was convoked; and on the
fourteenth the people took possession of the Bastille. The royal princes
and all the nobles who could escape, sought safety in flight.
30. The royal family, having attempted in vain to follow their example,
tried to conciliate the people by the feigned assumption of Republican
sentiment; but on the 5th of October the rabble, followed by numbers of
the National Guard, attacked Versailles, and compelled the king and his
family to remove to Paris, whither the Assembly also moved.
31. A war with Austria was begun in April, 1792, and the defeat of the
French was visited on Louis, who was confined in August with his family
in the temple. In December the king was brought to trial. On the 20th of
January, 1793, sentence of death was passed on him, and on the following
day he was beheaded.
32. Marie Antoinette, the widowed Queen, was guillotined; the Dauphin and
his surviving relatives suffered every indignity that malignity could
devise. A reign of blood and terror succeeded.
33. The brilliant exploits of the young general, Napoleon Bonaparte, in
Italy, turned men’s thoughts to other channels.
34. In 1795 a general amnesty was declared, peace was concluded with
Prussia and Spain, and the war was carried on with double vigor against
Austria.
35. The revolution had reached a turning point. A Directory was formed to
administer the government, which was now conducted in a spirit of order
and conciliation.
36. In 1797 Bonaparte and his brother-commanders were omnipotent in
Italy. Austria was compelled to give up Belgium, accede to peace on any
terms, and recognize the Cis-Alpine republic.
37. Under the pretext of attacking England, a fleet of 400 ships and
an army of 36,000 picked men were equipped; their destination proved,
however, to be Egypt, whither the Directory sent Bonaparte; but the young
general resigned the command to Kleber, landed in France in 1799, and
at once succeeded in supplanting the Directory, and securing his own
nomination as Consul.
38. In 1800 a new constitution was promulgated, which vested the sole
executive power in Bonaparte. Having resumed his military duties, he
marched an army over the Alps, attacked the Austrians unawares, and
decided the fate of Italy by his victory at Marengo.
39. In 1804, on an appeal of universal suffrage to the nation, Bonaparte
was proclaimed Emperor. By his marriage with the archduchess Maria
Louisa, daughter of the emperor of Germany, Napoleon seemed to have given
to his throne the prestige of birth, which alone it had lacked. The
disastrous Russian campaign, in which his noble army was lost amid the
rigors of a northern winter, was soon followed by the falling away of his
allies and feudatories.
40. Napoleon himself was still victorious wherever he appeared in person,
but his generals were beaten in numerous engagements; and the great
defeat of Leipsic compelled the French to retreat beyond the Rhine. The
Swedes brought reinforcements to swell the ranks of his enemies on the
east frontier, while the English pressed on from the west; Paris, in the
absence of the emperor, capitulated after a short resistance, March 30,
1814. Napoleon retired to the island of Elba.
41. On the 2d of May, Louis XVIII. (the brother of Louis XVI.) made his
entry into Paris.
42. On the 1st of March, 1815, Napoleon left Elba, and landed in France.
Crowds followed him; the soldiers flocked around his standard; the
Bourbons fled, and he took possession of their lately deserted palaces.
The news of his landing spread terror through Europe; and on the 25th of
March a treaty of alliance was signed at Vienna between Austria, Russia,
Prussia and England, and preparations at once made to put down the
movement in his favor, and restore the Bourbon dynasty.
43. At first, the old prestige of success seemed to attend Napoleon; but
on the 18th of June he was thoroughly defeated at Waterloo; and, having
placed himself under the safeguard of the English, he was sent to the
island of St. Helena.
44. In 1821 Napoleon breathed his last at St. Helena; and in 1824 Louis
XVIII. died without direct heirs, and his brother, the duc d’Artois,
succeeded as Charles X. The same ministerial incapacity, want of good
faith, general discontent, and excessive priestly influence characterized
his reign, which was abruptly brought to a close by the revolution of
1830, and the election to the throne of Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans,
as king, by the will of the people.
45. Louis Philippe having abdicated (February 24, 1848), a republic was
proclaimed, under a provisional government. Louis Napoleon was elected
president of the Republic in December, 1848, but by the famous _coup
d’état_ of December 2, 1851, he violently set aside the Constitution, and
assumed dictatorial powers; and a year after was raised, by the almost
unanimous voice of the nation, to the dignity of Emperor, as Napoleon III.
46. The result of the appeal made to the nation in 1870, on the plea of
securing their sanction for his policy, was not what he had anticipated.
The course of events in the short but terrible Franco-German war of
1870-’71, electrified Europe by its unexpected character.
47. On September 2, 1870, Napoleon, with his army of 90,000 men,
surrendered at Sedan. With the concurrence of Prussia the French nation
next proceeded, by a general election of representatives, to provide for
the exigencies of the country.
48. A republic was proclaimed, and the first national assembly met
at Bordeaux in February, 1871. After receiving from the provisional
government of defense the resignation of the powers confided to them
in September, 1870, the Assembly undertook to organize the republican
government, and nominated M. Thiers chief of the executive power of the
state, with the title of President of the French Republic, but with the
condition of responsibility to the National Assembly.
49. The ex-Emperor Napoleon died in 1872, at Chiselhurst, England, where
he had resided with his family since his liberation in March, 1871.
50. In 1873 M. Thiers resigned the office of President of the French
Republic, and was succeeded by Marshal MacMahon, who resigned in 1879,
and was succeeded by M. Grèvy.