"Since the conclusion of that treaty [of 1637], Corea has been

at peace with both her neighbours and able, till within the

last twenty years, to maintain the seclusion she so much

desired. Until the beginning of the present century—when the

doctrine preached by Roman missionaries in China began to

filter across the frontier, and to provoke a fitful and

uncertain intercourse between them and the few Coreans who had

been attracted by the new religion—the only fresh glimpse we

obtain of the interior of the country and its inhabitants is

afforded by the well-known story of Henry Hamel, who was

wrecked off the Corean coast in 1653, and detained there

twelve years as a prisoner at large. … We come now to events

nearer our own time, in which the propaganda of Rome and the

proceedings of its emissaries begin to play a prominent and

interesting part. In the year 1784, a young Corean named Le,

who had come to Peking in the suite of the tribute-bearing

embassy, applied to the Roman Catholic Mission for books and

instruction in the science of mathematics, of which he was

naturally fond. The missionaries profited by the occasion to

lend him books on religion, which awakened his interest and

led to his eventual conversion. As usual in such cases, the

neophyte set himself, directly on his return, to propagate the

new creed he had learned, among his relations and friends; and

with so much success that, in less than five years, he had,

according to Mgr. Govéa, gained 4,000 adherents. As may be

imagined, however, the doctrine acquired from a convert who

had had only a few months' instruction, and disseminated again

at second-hand by men who had caught the crude idea from his

conversation, was of a somewhat obscure description. … Neither

letter nor news was received from the Corean Christians for

more than two years; but two converts made their way to

Peking, at the close of 1793, with news of a severe

persecution which had occurred in the interval. … No sooner

had the persecution … subsided, than a priest was successfully

introduced across the frontier, to instruct and impart new

life to the converts. Nor, it is affirmed, has the flock ever

since been left unguarded. Persecution has followed

persecution; but from Jacques Velloz, the first missionary to

cross the frontier, who suffered martyrdom in 1800, to Mgr.

Ridel, who has returned to Europe with health shattered by the

anxieties and hardships undergone during the latest outbreak,

there have always been some priests alternately tolerated or

hiding in the country, and the spark lighted by the young

Corean attache has never been quite extinguished. … On July

7th, 1866, a Roman Catholic missionary arrived in a Corean

boat at Chefoo, with a tale of dire persecution. Two bishops,

nine priests, and a number of Christians of both sexes had

been massacred, many of them after judicial tortures of

atrocious cruelty. Three members of the mission only survived,

and M. Ridel had been chosen to carry the news to China, and

endeavour to procure assistance. It was to the French

authorities, naturally, that he addressed himself; and both

Admiral Roze, the Commandant of the French fleet in Chinese

waters, and M. de Bellonet, then charge-d'affaires at Peking,

lent a sympathetic ear to his protest. … An expedition was

accordingly resolved on. … Admiral Roze started from Chefoo

with the expeditionary force on October 11th, arrived off

Kang-hwa on the 14th, and occupied it, after a merely nominal

resistance, two days later. The Coreans were apparently taken

by surprise, having perhaps thought that the danger had

passed. … The forts along the banks of the river were found

ungarrisoned, and Kang-hwa itself, a considerable fortress

containing large stores of munitions of war, was practically

undefended. A letter was received, a few days later, inviting

Admiral Roze to come or send delegates to Söul, to talk over

matters in a friendly spirit; but he replied that, if the

Corean authorities wished to treat, they had better come to

Kang-hwa. This attitude was meant, no doubt, to be impressive,

but the event proved it to be slightly premature. So far all

had gone well; but the expedition was about to collapse with a

suddenness contrasting remarkably with the expectations raised

by M. de Bellonet's denunciations and Admiral Roze's hauteur.

… The disastrous termination of … two movements appears to

have persuaded Admiral Roze that the force at his disposal was

insufficient to prosecute the enterprise to a successful

issue, in face of Corean hostility. It was no longer a

question whether he should go to Söul or the Coreans come to

him: the expedition was at a deadlock. He had rejected the

first overtures, and was not strong enough to impose terms. A

retreat was accordingly decided on. The city of Kang-hwa was

burned, with its public offices and royal palace."

_R. S. Gundry,

China and her Neighbours,

chapter 9._

In 1866, when the French threatened Corea, the latter sought

help from Japan and received none. Two years later, after the

Japanese revolution which restored the Mikado to his full

sovereignty, the Coreans declined to acknowledge his

suzerainty, and bitterly hostile feelings grew up between the

two peoples. The Japanese were restrained from war with

difficulty by their more conservative statesmen.

{3738}

Without war, they obtained from Corea, in 1876, an important

treaty, which contained in the first article "the remarkable

statement that 'Chosen, being an independent State, enjoys the

same sovereign rights as does Japan'—an admission which was

foolishly winked at by China from the mistaken notion that, by

disavowing her connection with Korea, she should escape the

unpleasantness of being called to account for the

delinquencies of her vassal. This preliminary advantage was

more than doubled in value to Japan when, after the revolution

in Söul in 1884, by which her diplomatic representative was

compelled to flee for the second time from the Korean capital,

she sent troops to avenge the insult and declined to remove

them until China had made a similar concession with regard to

the Chinese garrison, which had been maintained since the

previous outbreak in 1882 in that city. By the Convention of

Tientsin, which was negotiated in 1885 by Count Ito with the

Viceroy Li Hung Chang, both parties agreed to withdraw their

troops and not to send an armed force to Korea at any future

date to suppress rebellion or disturbance without giving

previous intimation to the other. This document was a second

diplomatic triumph for Japan. … It is, in my judgment, greatly

to be regretted that in the present summer [1894] her

Government, anxious to escape from domestic tangles by a

spirited foreign policy, has abandoned this statesmanlike

attitude, and has embarked upon a headlong course of

aggression in Korea, for which there appears to have been no

sufficient provocation, and the ulterior consequences of which

it is impossible to forecast. … Taking advantage of recent

disturbances in the peninsula, which demonstrated with renewed

clearness the impotence of the native Government to provide

either a decent administration for its own subjects, or

adequate protection to the interests of foreigners, and

ingeniously profiting by the loophole left for future

interference in the Tientsin Agreement of 1885, Japan … (in

July 1894) landed a large military force, estimated at 10,000

men, in Korea, and is in armed occupation of the capital. Li

Hung Chang … responded by the despatch of the Chinese fleet

and of an expeditionary force, marching overland into the

northern provinces."

_G. N. Curzon,

Problems of the Far East,

chapter 7._

"The ostensible starting-point of the trouble that resulted in

hostilities was a local insurrection which broke out in May in

one of the southern provinces of Corea. The cause of the

insurrection was primarily the misrule of the authorities,

with possibly some influence by the quarreling court factions

at the capital. The Corean king applied at once to China as

his suzerain for assistance in subduing the insurgents, and a

Chinese force was sent. Japan, thereupon, claiming that Corea

was an independent state and that China had no exclusive right

to interfere, promptly began to pour large forces into Corea,

to protect Japanese interests. By the middle of June a whole

Japanese army corps was at Seoul, the Corean capital, and the

Japanese minister soon formulated a radical scheme of

administrative reforms which he demanded as indispensable to

the permanent maintenance of order in the country. This scheme

was rejected by the conservative faction which was in power at

court, whereupon, on July 23, the Japanese forces attacked the

palace, captured the king and held him as hostage for the

carrying out of the reforms. The Chinese were meanwhile

putting forth great efforts to make up for the advantage that

their rivals had gained in the race for control of Corea, and

to strengthen their forces in that kingdom. On the 25th a

Chinese fleet carrying troops to Corea became engaged in

hostilities with some Japanese war vessels, and one of the

transports was sunk. On August 1 the Emperor of Japan made a

formal declaration of war on China, basing his action on the

false claim of the latter to suzerainty over Corea, and on the

course of China in opposing and thwarting the plan of reforms

which were necessary to the progress of Corea and to the

security of Japanese interests there. The counter-proclamation

of the Chinese Emperor denounced the Japanese as wanton

invaders of China's tributary state, and as aiming at the

enslaving of Corea. On August 26 a treaty of offensive and

defensive alliance against China was made between Japan and

Corea. … A severe engagement at Ping-Yang, September 16,

resulted in the rout of the Chinese and the loss of their last

stronghold in Corea. A few days later the hostile fleets had a

pitched battle off the mouth of the Yalu River, with the

result that the Japanese were left in full control of the

adjacent waters. On the 26th of October the Japanese land

forces brushed aside with slight resistance the Chinese on the

Yalu, which is the boundary between Corea and China, and began

their advance through the Chinese province of Manchuria,

apparently aiming at Pekin."

_Political Science Quarterly,

December, 1894._

On the 3d of November, Port Arthur being then invested by the

Japanese land and naval forces, while Marshal Yamagata, the

Japanese commander, continued his victorious advance through

Manchuria, Prince Kung made a formal appeal to the

representatives of all the Powers for their intervention,

acknowledging the inability of China to cope with the

Japanese. On the 21st of November, Port Arthur, called the

strongest fortress in China, was taken, after hard fighting

from noon of the previous day. In retaliation for the murder

and mutilation of some prisoners by the Chinese, the Japanese

gave no quarter, and are accused of great atrocities. To the

advance of the Japanese armies in the field, the Chinese

opposed comparatively slight resistance, in several

engagements of a minor character, until the 19th of December,

when a battle of decided obstinacy was fought at Kungwasai,

near Hai-tcheng. The Japanese were again the victors.

Overtures for peace made by the Chinese government proved

unavailing; the Japanese authorities declined to receive the

envoys sent, for the reason that they were not commissioned

with adequate powers. Nothing came of an earlier proffer of

the good offices of the Government of the United States.

Obstinate fighting occurred at Kai-phing, which was captured

by the Japanese on the 10th of January, 1895. On the 26th of

January the Japanese began, both by land and sea, an attack on

the stronghold of Wei-hai-wei, which was surrendered, with the

Chinese fleet in its harbor on the 12th of February. Shortly

afterwards, China made another effort to obtain peace,

commissioning her able Statesman, Li-Hung-Chang, as a special

envoy to Japan, with full power to negotiate terms. At the

time of this writing, the result has not appeared.

{3739}

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, The founding of.

See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 735).

CORONER AND CORONER'S JURY.

See LAW, CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1215, and 1276 (page 1982).

CORRUPT AND ILLEGAL PRACTICES AT ELECTIONS,

The English Act to prevent.

See England: A. D. 1883 (page 972).

CORTEREALS, Voyages of the.

See (in this Supplement) AMERICA.

COTTON-GIN, Whitney's, and its effect.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793 (page 3306).

COURTS, Origin of the English Criminal.

See LAW, CRIMINAL: A. D. 1066-1272 (page 1981).

COURTS OF OYER AND TERMINER.

See LAW, CRIMINAL: A. D. 1285 (page 1982).

COXEY MOVEMENT, The.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1894 (page 2956).

CRIMINAL LAW.

See LAW, CRIMINAL (page 1981).

CRUSADES:

The initial movements.

"The pious legend according to which Peter the Hermit is

supposed to have been miraculously chosen by God Himself to

call Christendom to arms for the purpose of freeing the Holy

Sepulchre has long since been proved unhistorical by

scientific investigators. That account of the matter may have

given suitable expression to the religious enthusiasm which

the crusades called forth in those circles that were

especially strongly influenced by the church; but it is

entirely without any actual foundation in fact, nay, more; the

religious element altogether did not play nearly so important

a part in the origin of the crusades as it would seem to have

done to judge by the later character of the great movement.

For if in those days church influences and the religious

impulses on which they were based made a mighty impression and

in many ways produced an almost overwhelming effect;

nevertheless the reason for all this lay essentially herein

that the whole age, more than any other, was in a condition,

through crying agricultural, social and political needs, to

give itself up without reserve to the influence of similar

impelling forces, and that just for this reason it took up

with such enthusiasm the impulse furnished by the church. In

its most general form the thought which lies at the base of

the crusades springs from the idea of the calling of

Christendom to have and to hold the rule of the world. The

desire to practically carry out this idea was especially

active whenever the Christian ideal of world-rule,

incorporated as it was in a double form in the empire and in

the papacy, seemed near to realization; then it was that its

inherent magic unfolded most irresistibly its animating and at

the same time ensnaring power. Thus did Otto II, already, plan

a great undertaking for the protection of Christendom against

the Arabs. Thus did the fantastic mind of his immature son

busy itself with plans for a great crusade. Neither one nor

the other carried out his intention. But, little more than two

generations later, the commanding position which the empire

had at that time held, passed into the holding of the

hierarchical papacy. The creator of this hierarchical papacy,

who was beyond a doubt a reformer of genius, but revolutionary

in his means and hostile to the state as regarded his final

ends, was far from contenting himself with the spiritual power

which belongs uncontestedly to the church, but strove for an

actual, secular rule of the world. He thought to bring into

his own hands the complete political guidance of Christendom

as well as the command over its war-forces. … Plans for

widening his political and ecclesiastical sphere of power

formed the pith of Gregory VIIth's crusading plans. … Already

the victorious course had come to a stand-still in which the

Arabs up to the beginning of the eleventh century had

threatened to flood southwestern Europe. It was to rid

themselves of their troublesome enemies and their deeds of

violence, but not, however for the sake of the Faith, that

those who were threatened had determined to help themselves.

This led to the rapid rise of the naval power of Pisa and

Genoa, which soon won brilliant victories on the north coast

of Africa, and at the same time the brave Normans struggled

with growing success against the Arabs for the possession of

fair Sicily. There and not in Rome was the thought of a holy

war against the power of the Crescent first taken hold of; it

sprang from the knightly zeal for action and the political

genius of Robert Guiscard. … About the same time, moreover,

the Christians of the Pyrenean peninsula had energetically

roused themselves to a new attack against the Mohammedans.

Along the whole line therefore, in southwestern Europe, the

Christian arms were already victoriously pressing forward

against the followers of the prophet when the call from Rome

to the crusades first sounded out. Regarded as a whole,

therefore, the crusades cannot simply be looked upon as the

exclusive work of the church. The movement was already in full

progress and had, independently of the church, most successful

results to show, when that church's head undertook through a

skillful act to concentrate the separate movements and to

unite and organize them under his own guidance. This policy

was cleverly carried out by Urban. The church succeeded

effectually in bringing under her own undivided direction the

undertakings which different peoples of the Occident had

separately begun against their Mohammedan adversaries. For on

the one hand the empire, to which even then the opinion of the

world ascribed the first right of leadership in such a

struggle, lay prostrate in abject weakness and degradation; it

was incapable of fulfilling its calling. The whole age on the

other hand was so thoroughly roused to its depths and so

exhausted through the mighty spiritual struggles by which

church-life especially was shaken to its very foundation that

it submitted without opposition and even willingly to a

churchly right of guidance emphatically asserted; the more so

as this new guide promised to show the individual the way to

inward rest and peace of soul. The deeply sunken church had

been reformed by Cluny ideas; in place of the worldly doings

and sensual pleasures which had formerly engrossed her

servants and dignitaries, stern asceticism and saintly

enthusiasm ruled the day. Although it was among the clergy of

the eleventh century that the effect of this was primarily to

be seen, yet it was not without influence on the great body of

laymen.

{3740}

Not seldom do princes and nobles emulate each other in strict

ecclesiasticism, in monkish practices and pilgrimages. An age

without a parallel began of founding monasteries and churches.

Was it to be wondered at that the people also, otherwise bound

fast by the barren monotony of toilsome existence, turned

their thoughts often in the same direction? The more frequent

coming forward of popular saints and popular preachers, the

overwhelmingly rapid increase in the worship of relics, which

assumed a hitherto unheard-of significance for the catholic

system of religious observance, and the astonishing renewal of

life which came about in the matter of pilgrimages and sacred

undertakings customary though they had been of old: all these

show clearly how the enthusiastic frame of mind which had been

aroused by Cluny won for itself wider and wider circles even

beyond the pale of the clergy. And in an age like this, so

deeply excited about church matters, fell now the

world-rousing struggle between the papacy and the empire. It

appeared to annihilate the foundations on which church and

state had hitherto been reared. With bitterness men saw those

powers in conflict with each other on whose concord they had

believed the peace and happiness of the world to depend. …

Most impressively of all, as far as the uneducated masses were

concerned, was the wretchedness of the age betokened by the

outward evils and ravagings which the termination of the reign

of Henry IV brought about: by the vanishing of discipline and

order, the utter prostration of law, the loosing even of the

holy ties of family. The vassal broke faith with the feudal

lord, the subject warred with the authorities, the son rose up

against the father. Heavily did the chastening hand of God

rest upon land and people. Everywhere did men suffer from

feuds, robbery and violence; everywhere did the common man

find himself in a position which he felt that he could no

longer endure. In France the rural population was utterly

prostrated under the galling oppressions of the nobles who

were their landlords. In Germany, to add to similar evils,

came the loosing of all bonds of order through the civil war

which had sprung from the conflict concerning the investiture.

… In short, wherever in the Occident one turns his gaze,

everywhere did dissatisfaction and an impulse towards

improvement, or at least towards change, rule the day;

everywhere an eager desire with one stroke to break free from

the uncomfortable, indeed in many cases unbearable, present!

The dissatisfied and revolutionary mood which possessed high

and low in almost all parts of occidental Christendom is one

of the essential reasons why the call to the crusade at once

set hundreds of thousands in motion and called forth a very

wandering of the nations. … Hierarchical ideas and asceticism

ruled the spirit of the age; in mind and in mood they had

prepared Europe for the crusades. Most emphatically was this

made evident by the fact that the crusaders marched out under

the banner of the hierarchical papacy—that same red cross

which Erlembald Cotta, the 'knight of the church' had borne on

his white standard during the religious civil war in Lombardy,

and which in 1066 had been bestowed by the pope on the

conqueror of England. But on the other hand the political,

social and agricultural needs, which were not to be put off

and which kept calling for speedy change, were no less

effective agents in the same direction. Not religious

enthusiasm alone was it that ever anew, at the end of the

eleventh century, impelled hundreds of thousands towards the

Orient; how many would have staid at home quietly if they had

had enough to eat and had otherwise rejoiced in an existence

fit for a human being. But for years one bad harvest had

succeeded another; almost everywhere there was want almost

bordering on famine; to eke out their scanty existence

countless of those of the lower classes had had to squander

their possessions. They stood there now utterly without means;

they were forced to emigrate if they would not starve at home.

From all such oppressions, however, he was released who obeyed

the call to the crusade. Brilliant gains seemed assured to him

so soon as he allowed the red cross to be affixed to his

garment. The serf became free, the debtor shook off his

creditor or at any rate needed to pay him no interest. The

monk escaped from the strict discipline of the monastery, he

who had been under the ban was received again into the

communion of the church. What wonder then if countless numbers

hastened to join the adventurous expedition to the East which

promised them such blessings; and to the outward advantages

that allured the crusaders, to the expectation of the toilless

acquisition of land and subjects, of money and possessions,

must be added still the rich spiritual blessings and

ecclesiastical rewards which were solemnly assured to the

warriors of Christ. … Human nature at that time would have had

to be actually raised out of itself, to have become to a

certain extent untrue to itself if, in contrast to the misery

at home, the alluring prospects which began to show themselves

in the unknown distance had not worked an irresistible charm

on the great masses of the people. Nor did the church have any

scruples in putting in motion exactly these incentives to

action; she declared that the prevailing misery arose from the

thickness of the population in an impoverished land; she

unchained the popular greed by representing what riches would

be captured from the infidels, and even roused the sensual

passions by the seductive praise of Greek female beauty. That

such language should fairly carry away the great masses may

easily be imagined. For we may surely not regard the people as

of better moral fibre, and therefore more susceptible to ideal

motives, than the princes and commanders who led the crusading

armies. Of these, however, only the hot-blooded nobles of

southern France can primarily pass for representatives of that

churchly enthusiasm with which, according to the tradition

well-tinged with legend, the crusaders as a whole are said to

have been seized. And it is well known that their churchly

narrow-mindedness brought the people of southern France, under

Raymond of Toulouse, soon enough into direct opposition to the

other participants in the first crusade. For the majority of

the princes who had taken the cross were by no means willing

to work for the sole advantage of the church, but wished to

further their own worldly interests at least as much as they

did those of the pope. Indeed the Norman princes whose race

had been the first to take up the idea of a holy war against

the infidels had joined the crusade without religious

enthusiasm, after sober consideration and entirely following

out their own selfish, world]y plans. And it was exactly into

their hands that the leadership of the great undertaking

primarily came: the more completely therefore did the worldly,

political and dynastic points of view weigh down the churchly

intentions of the pious fanatics who, under the influence of

asceticism, wished only to serve the hierarchy."

_Hans Prutz,

Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge,

(translated from the German)

pages 12-17._

See, also, CRUSADES, page 626.

{3741}

CUMBERLAND ROAD, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1806-1812 (page 3335).

CURIA REGIS.

See LAW (page 1957).

CY PRES DOCTRINE.

See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1601 (page 1991).

CYRUS, King, and the Jews.

See JEWS: B. C. 604-536, and 537 (pages 1908-1910).

D.

D'ALBUQUERQUE, Afonso,

and the domination of the Portuguese in the East.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MODERN.

DARNLEY, Lord, The murder of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568 (page 2857).

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE, The.

"Dartmouth College … was originally a charity school for the

instruction of Indians in the Christian religion, founded by

the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, D. D., about the year 1754, at

Lebanon, in Connecticut. Its success led Dr. Wheelock to

solicit private subscriptions in England, for the purpose of

enlarging it, and of extending its benefits to English

colonists. Funds having been obtained for this purpose from

various contributors, among whom the Earl of Dartmouth,

Secretary for the Colonies, was a large donor, Dr. Wheelock

constituted that nobleman and other persons trustees, with

authority to fix the site of the college. The place selected

was on the Connecticut River, at what is now the town of

Hanover, in New Hampshire, where large donations of land were

made by the neighboring proprietors. A charter for the college

was obtained from the crown, in 1769, creating it a perpetual

corporation. The charter recognized Dr. Wheelock as founder,

appointed him to be the president, and empowered him to name

his successor, subject to the approval of the trustees; to

whom was also imparted the power of filling vacancies in their

own body, and of making laws and ordinances for the government

of the college, not repugnant to the laws of Great Britain or

of the province, and not excluding any person on account of

his religious belief. Under this charter, Dartmouth College

had always existed, unquestioned and undisturbed in its rights

as a corporation, down to the Revolution, and subsequently

until the year 1815. Whether from political or personal

motives springing up outside of the board of trustees of that

period, or from some collisions arising within the body

itself, it appears that … legislative interference with the

chartered rights of this college was threatened. … In the

following year (1816), the difficulties, which had become

mixed with political interests, culminated in a direct

interference by the Legislature. In that year an act was

passed, changing the corporate name from 'The Trustees of

Dartmouth College' to 'The Trustees of Dartmouth University;'

enlarging the number of trustees, vesting the appointment of

some of them in the political bodies of the State, and

otherwise modifying the ancient rights of the corporation as

they existed under its charter derived from the crown of

England. A majority of the existing trustees refused to accept

or to be bound by this act, and brought an action of trover in

the Supreme Court of the State, in the name of the old

corporation, against a gentleman, Mr. W. H. Woodward, who was

in possession of the college seal and other effects, and who

claimed to hold them as one of the officers of the

newly-created 'university.' The argument in this case was made

in the State court, for the college, by Mr. Mason and Mr.

Jeremiah Smith, assisted by Mr. Webster. The decision was

against the claim of the college. It was then determined to

remove the cause, by writ of error, to the Supreme Court of

the United States, under the provisions of the Federal

Constitution and laws creating in that tribunal an appellate

jurisdiction in cases which, although originating in a State

court, involved the construction and operation of the Federal

Constitution. This was supposed to be such a case, because it

was claimed by the college that the act of the Legislature,

modifying its charter, impaired the obligation of a contract;

an exercise of power which the Constitution of the United

States prohibits to the Legislature of a State. As soon as it

was known in New Hampshire that this very interesting cause

was to come before the Supreme Court of the United States, the

friends of the college, including their other counsel in the

State court, unanimously desired to have it committed to the

hands of Mr. Webster. He consented to take charge of it in the

autumn of 1817; but the cause was not argued at Washington

until February, 1818. … Before the case of Dartmouth College

vs. Woodward occurred, there had been no judicial decisions

respecting the meaning and scope of the restraint in regard to

contracts, excepting that it had more than once been

determined by the Supreme Court of the United States that a

grant of lands made by a State is a contract within the

protection of this provision, and is, therefore, irrevocable.

These decisions, however, could go but little way toward the

solution of the questions involved in the case of the college.

… Was the State of New Hampshire—a sovereign in all respects

after the Revolution, and remaining one after the Federal

Constitution, excepting in those respects in which it had

subjected its sovereignty to the restraints of that

instrument—bound by the contracts of the English crown? Is the

grant of a charter of incorporation a contract between the

sovereign power and those on whom the charter is bestowed? If

an act of incorporation is a contract, is it so in any case

but that of a private corporation? Was this college, which was

an institution of learning, established for the promotion of

education, a private corporation, or was it one of those

instruments of government which are at all times under the

control and subject to the direction of the legislative power?

All these questions were involved in the inquiry whether the

legislative power of the State had been so restrained by the

Constitution of the United States that it could not alter the

charter of this institution, against the will of the trustees,

without impairing the obligation of a contract. …

{3742}

On the conclusion of the argument, the Chief Justice intimated

that a decision was not to be expected until the next term. It

was made in February, 1819, fully confirming the grounds on

which Mr. Webster had placed the cause. From this decision,

the principle in our constitutional jurisprudence, which

regards a charter of a private corporation as a contract, and

places it under the protection of the Constitution of the

United States, takes its date."

_G. T. Curtis,

Life of Daniel Webster,

volume 1, chapter 8._

See, also, LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1819 (page 1976).

DAVY, Sir Humphrey, and the discovery of the electric arc light.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY: A. D. 1810-1890 (page 772).

DENMARK: Libraries.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).

DENMARK: Schools.

See EDUCATION (page 710).

DESCARTES, and modern physiological Science.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17TH CENTURY (page 2134).

DIPHTHERIA, Appearance of.

See PLAGUE: 18TH CENTURY (page 2543).

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST.

"This body, often called also Christians, was one of the

results of the great revival movement which began in Tennessee

and Kentucky in the early part of the present century. Rev.

Barton W. Stone, a Presbyterian minister who was prominent in

the revival movement, withdrew from the Presbyterian Church,

and in 1804 organized a church with no other creed than the

Bible and with no name but that of Christian. One of his

objects was to find a basis for the union of all Christian

believers. A little later Thomas and Alexander Campbell,

father and son, who came from Ireland, where the former had

been a Presbyterian minister, organized union societies in

Pennsylvania. Changing their views as to baptism, they joined

the Redstone Association of Baptists. Shortly after, when

Alexander Campbell was charged with not being in harmony with

the creed, he followed the Burch Run Church, of which he was

pastor, into the Mahoning Baptist Association, which, leavened

with his teachings, soon ceased to be known as a Baptist

association. In 1827, after some correspondence with Rev. B.

W. Stone and his followers of the Christian Connection, there

was a union with a large number of congregations in Ohio,

Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the organization variously known

as 'Disciples of Christ' and 'Christians' [also, popularly

designated 'Campbellites'] is the result."

_H. K. Carroll,

Religious Forces of the United States,

chapter 18._

DUNKARDS, The.

"The Dunkards, or German Baptists, or Brethren, are of German

origin, and trace their beginning back to Alexander Mack, of

Schwartzenau, Germany. Early in the 18th century Mack and

several others formed a habit of meeting together for the

study of the New Testament. They were convinced that its

doctrines and principles of church order were not being

faithfully followed, either by the Lutheran or the Reformed

Church. They therefore resolved to form a society of their

own. Alexander Mack was chosen as their pastor. Persecution

soon arose, and they were scattered. In 1719 most of them got

together and came to the United States, settling in

Pennsylvania, where their first church was organized about

1723."

_H. K. Carroll,

Religious Forces of the United States,

chapter 19._

DUTCH, Commerce of the.

See (In this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL, and MODERN.

DYNAMO-ELECTRIC MACHINES, The invention of.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:

A. D. 1831-1872 (page 774).

E.

EBENEZER AND AMANA COMMUNITIES.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: 1843-1874 (page 2945).

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW.

See LAW, ECCLESIASTICAL (page 1986).

EDISON, Electrical Inventions of.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:

A. D. 1841-1880, and 1876-1892 (pages 775-776).

EDMUNDS ACT, The.

See UTAH: A. D. 1882-1893 (page 3591).

EDUCATION.

See (in addition to pages 673-748),

VERMONT UNIVERSITY (page 3619),

VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY (page 3639),

WISCONSIN UNIVERSITY (page 3655);

and, (in this Supplement)

BOWDOIN COLLEGE, BROWN UNIVERSITY,

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, HAMILTON COLLEGE,

MINNESOTA UNIVERSITY, OBERLIN COLLEGE,

OHIO UNIVERSITY, PRINCETON COLLEGE,

RUTGERS COLLEGE, TULANE UNIVERSITY, UNION COLLEGE.

EGIBI AND COMPANY, The House of.

See MONEY AND BANKING:

ANCIENT EGYPT AND BABYLONIA (page 2199).

EGYPT, ANCIENT: Chronology.

Modern reckoning of Egyptian Chronology is by two modes: "(1)

that by 'dead reckoning,' or adding the dynasties up one on

another: (2) by certain fixed astronomical data, into the

interpretation and calculation of which various uncertainties

may enter. The more apart these modes can be kept the better,

as then they serve to check each other. The fundamental fact

on which all of our astronomically fixed points depend is the

imperfection of the Egyptian calendar. Using a year of 365

days, it followed that the nominal beginning of each year was

a quarter of a day too soon: just as if we were to neglect the

29th of February in leap years, and go on always from 28th

February direct to 1st March. Thus every four years a day was

slipped, and the nominal months of the year were begun a day

too soon. In 4 x 7 = 28 they began, then, a week too soon. In

4 x 30 = 120 years they began & month too soon; and after

twelve months and five days thus slipped, or in 1,460 years,

they began a year too soon, and so had rotated the nominal

months through all the seasons. … This loss of the day in four

years was … soon known to the Egyptians, and used by them as a

mode of constructing a great cycle, which in Ptolemaic times

became very prominent, and entered into all their fanciful

adjustments of history and myths.

{3743}

Some mode of noting the absolute months, as related to the

seasonal periods, became a necessity; and, of course, the

place of the sun among the stars most truly shows the exact

length of the year. But how to observe both sun and stars,

when without any mode of time-dividing,—such as clepsydra or

clock,—was an essential difficulty. This was got over by

noting on what day a particular star could be first seen, at

its emerging from the glow of the sunlight. In actual practice

they observed Sirius (or Sothis), the dog-star; and as the

stars all rise and set earlier and earlier every night, they

observed what was the first night in the year on which Sirius

could just be seen emerging from the glow of sunlight at dawn,

and this was entitled the heliacal rising. Hence, from using

Sothis for this observation, the whole period during which the

months rotated in the seasons was called the Sothic period of

1,460 years. We have some definite statements as to this in

Roman times. Censorinus, writing in 239 A. D., states that the

Egyptian New Year's day, 1st of Thoth, fell on the 25th of

June; and a hundred years before, in 139 A. D., it fell on the

21st July, 'on which day Sirius regularly rises in Egypt.'

Hence the beginning of a Sothic period of 1,460 years, or the

New Year's day falling on the 21st of July at the heliacal

rising of Sirius, took place in 139 A. D.; likewise in 1322 B.

C., in 2784 B. C., and in 4242 B. C., or thereabouts. From

this it is plain, that, as the nominal months rotated round

all the seasons once In each of these cycles, therefore, if we

only know the day of the nominal month in which any seasonal

event happened,—such as the rising of Sirius, or the

inundation,—we can find on what part of the cycle of 1,460

years such a coincidence can have fallen. It is from data such

as this that Mahler has lately calculated, by the rising of

Sirius, and also the new moons, that Tahutmes III. reigned

from 20th March 1503 B. C., to 14th February 1449. … Merenptah

celebrated in the second year of his reign a festival of the

rising of Sirius on the 29th of the month Thoth. Mahler has

fixed the rising of Sirius, recorded on 28th Epiphi under

Tahutmes III., as in 1470 B. C. From 28th Epiphi to 29th Thoth

is 66 days, which the heliacal rising would change to in the

course of 4 x 66 years, or 264 years. This, from 1470, gives

1206 B. C. for the second year of Merenptah, or 1208 B. C. for

his accession, which is just the date we have reached by the

approximate summing of the reigns. Another datum on the other

side is the calendar of the Ebers papyrus, which records the

rising of Sirius on the 9th of Epiphi in the ninth year of

Amenhotep I. The reading of the king's name has been much

debated; but this is the last, and probable, conclusion. Now,

from the 28th to the 9th of Epiphi is 19 days, which Sirius

would change through in 76 years; so that the rising on the

9th of Epiphi took place in 1470+76 = 1546 B. C.; and the

first year of Amenhotep I. would be thus fixed in 1555 B. C.

The date before reached is 1562 B. C., equal to a difference

of less than 2 days in the time of Sirius' rising. This, at

least, shows that there is no great discrepancy. Thus there

are three data for the rising of Sirius, which agree within a

few years, though at considerably different epochs. … We …

have as a starting-point for our backward reckoning the

accession of the XVIIIth dynasty about 1587 B. C. From this we

can reckon in the dynastic data given by Manetho; following

this account rather than the totals of reigns, as he appears

to have omitted periods when dynasties were contemporary, as

in the 43 years for the XIth after the close of the Xth. Thus,

from the above starting-point of 1587 B. C., we reach the

following results, solely by using material which has been

discussed and settled in this history on its own merits alone,

and without any ulterior reckoning in total periods.

Dynasty Years. B. C.

I. 263 4777

II. 302 4514

III. 214 4212

IV. 277 3998

V. 218 3721

VI. 181 (T. P.) 3503

VII. 70 3322

VIII. 146 3252

IX. 100 3106

X. 185 3006

XI. 43 2821

XII. 213 (T. P.) 2778

XIII. 453 2565

XIV. 184 2112

XVI. 190 1928

XVII. 151 1738

XVIII. 260 1587

XIX. 1327

… In the present rough state of the astronomical data, and the

doubts as to the MS. authorities, we have reached quite as

close an equivalence as we may hope for; and at least there is

enough to show us that we may trust to the nearest century

with fair grounds of belief. These dates then, are what I have

provisionally adopted in this history; and though they are

stated to the nearest year, for the sake of intercomparison,

it must always be remembered that they only profess to go

within a century in the earlier parts of the scale."

_W. M. Flinders Petrie,

A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times

to the XVIth Dynasty,

chapter 11._

EGYPT.

Commerce.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE: THE EARLIEST RECORDS,

and EGYPT.

EGYPT.

Medical Science, Ancient.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE (page 2120).

EGYPT.

Money and banking.

See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2199).

EJECTMENT, Action of.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1499 (page 1966).

ELDON, Lord, and the rules of Equity.

See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1801-1827 (page 1993).

ELECTOR, The Great.

See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1700;

also page 309.

ELECTORS, Rise of the German College of.

See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1175-1272.

EMIGRES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JULY-AUGUST), (AUGUST-OCTOBER),

and 1781-1791 (pages 1264, 1265, and 1268).

EMPLOYER'S LIABILITY.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1837 (page 1977).

ENGLAND: Outline sketch of general history.

See EUROPE (page 1014, and after).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1622.

First printed newspaper publication.

See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1622-1702 (page 2593).

{3744}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.

First daily newspaper publication.

See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1622-1702 (page 2594).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1844.

The Bank Charter Act.

See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1844 (page 2216).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1881-1882.

The Irish Coercion Bill and Land Act.

Arrest of Irish leaders.

Alleged Kilmainham Treaty and release of Mr. Parnell and others.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1881-1882 (page 1797).

ENGLAND:

Commerce.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL, and MODERN.

ENGLAND:

Libraries.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2014).

ENGLAND:

Possessions in Africa.

See (in this Supplement) AFRICA.

ENGLAND, Bank of.

See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2209).

EQUITY.

See LAW, EQUITY (page 1988).

ERITREA, The Italian colony of.

See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1890-1801.

ESSENES, The.

"Apart from the great high road of Jewish life, there lived in

Palestine in the time of Christ a religious community which,

though it grew up on Jewish soil, differed essentially in many

points from traditional Judaism, and which, though it

exercised no powerful influence upon the development of the

people, deserves our attention as a peculiar problem in the

history of religion. This community, the Essenes or Essaeans,

is generally, after the precedent of Josephus, placed beside

the Pharisees and Sadducees as the third Jewish sect. But it

scarcely needs the remark, that we have here to deal with a

phenomenon of an entirely different kind. While the Pharisees

and Sadducees were large political and religious parties, the

Essenes might far rather be compared to a monastic order.

There is indeed much that is enigmatical in them as to

particulars. Even their name is obscure. … The origin of the

Essenes is as obscure as their name. Josephus first mentions

them in the time of Jonathan the Maccabee, about 150 B. C.,

and speaks expressly of one Judas an Essene in the time of

Aristobulus I. (105-104 B. C.). According to this, the origin

of the order would have to be placed in the second century

before Christ. But it is questionable whether they proceeded

simply from Judaism, or whether foreign and especially

Hellenistic elements had not also an influence in their

organization. … Philo and Josephus agree in estimating the

number of the Essenes in their time at above 4,000. As far as

is known, they lived only in Palestine, at least there are no

certain traces of their occurrence out of Palestine. … For the

sake of living as a community, they had special houses of the

order in which they dwelt together. Their whole community was

most strictly organized as a single body. … The strongest tie

by which the members were united was absolute community of

goods. 'The community among them is wonderful [says Josephus],

one does not find that one possesses more than another. For it

is the law, that those who enter deliver up their property to

the order, so that there is nowhere to be seen, either the

humiliation of poverty or the superfluity of wealth, but on

the contrary one property for all as brethren, formed by the

collection of the possessions of individuals.' 'They neither

buy nor sell among each other; but while one gives to another

what he wants, he receives in return what is useful to

himself, and without anything in return they receive freely

whatever they want.' … 'There is but one purse for all, and

common expenses, common clothes and common food in common

meals. For community of dwelling, of life and of meals is

nowhere so firmly established and so developed as with them.

And this is intelligible. For what they receive daily as wages

for their labour, they do not keep for themselves, but put it

together, and thus make the profits of their work common for

those who desire to make use of it. And the sick are without

anxiety on account of their inability to earn, because the

common purse is in readiness for the care of them, and they

may with all certainty meet their expenses from abundant

stores.' … The daily labour of the Essenes was under strict

regulation. It began with prayer, after which the members were

dismissed to their work by the presidents. They reassembled

for purifying ablutions, which were followed by the common

meal. After this they again went to work, to assemble again

for their evening meal. The chief employment of members of the

order was agriculture. They likewise carried on, however,

crafts of every kind. On the other hand, trading was forbidden

as leading to covetousness, and also the making of weapons or

of any kind of utensils that might injure men. … The Essenes

are described by both Philo and Josephus as very connoisseurs

in morality. … Their life was abstemious, simple and

unpretending. 'They condemn sensual desires as sinful, and

esteem moderation and freedom from passion as of the nature of

virtue.' They only take food and drink till they have had

enough; abstaining from passionate excitement, they are 'just

dispensers of wrath.' At their meals they are 'contented with

the same dish day by day, loving sufficiency and rejecting

great expense as harmful to mind and body.' … There is not a

slave among them, but all are free, mutually working for each

other. All that they say is more certain than an oath. They

forbid swearing, because it is worse than perjury. … Before

every meal they bathe in cold water. They do the same after

performing the functions of nature. … They esteem it seemly to

wear white raiment at all times. … They entirely condemned

marriage. Josephus indeed knew of a branch of the Essenes who

permitted marriage. But these must at all events have formed a

small minority. … A chief peculiarity of the Essenes was their

common meals, which bore the character of sacrificial feasts.

The food was prepared by priests, with the observance probably

of certain rites of purification; for an Essene was not

permitted to partake of any other food than this. … In their

worship, as well as in that of other Jews, the Holy Scriptures

were read and explained; and Philo remarks, that they

specially delighted in allegorical interpretation. They were

extraordinarily strict in the celebration of the Sabbath. They

did not venture on that day to move a vessel from its place,

nor even to perform the functions of nature. In other respects

too they showed themselves to be Jews. Though they were

excluded from the temple they sent gifts of incense there. …

Concerning their doctrine of the soul and of its immortality,

Josephus expresses himself most fully.

{3745}

If we may trust his account, they taught that bodies are

perishable, but souls immortal, and that the latter dwelt

originally in the subtlest aether, but being debased by

sensual pleasures united themselves with bodies as with

prisons; but when they are freed from the fetters of sense

they will joyfully soar on high, as if delivered from long

bondage. To the good (souls) is appointed a life beyond the

ocean. … But to the bad (souls) is appointed a dark cold

region full of unceasing torment."

_E. Schürer,

A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ,

volume 2, pages 190-205._

EXEMPTION LAWS.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1836 (page 1977).

EXPLORATION, African and Arctic.

For a complete chronological record.

See (in this Supplement) AFRICA; and ARCTIC EXPLORATION.

F.

FAMILISTÈRE OF M. GODIN, The.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1859-1887 (page 2947).

FAURE, François Felix.

Election to the Presidency of the French Republic.

See (in this Supplement) FRANCE: A. D. 1894-1895.

FEDERALIST SECESSION MOVEMENT.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803-1804 (page 3329).

FEUDAL AIDS.

"In theory the duty of the noble vassal towards his lord was a

purely personal one and to commute it for a money payment was

a degradation of the whole feudal relation. The payment of

money, especially if it were a fixed and regular payment,

carried with it a certain ignoble idea against which, in the

form of state taxation, the feudal spirit rebelled to the

last. When the vassal agreed to pay something to his lord, he

called it, not a tax, but an 'aid' (auxilium), and made it

generally payable, not regularly, like the tax-bill of the

citizen, but only upon certain occasions—a present, as it

were, coming out of his good-will and not from compulsion; e.

g., whenever a fief was newly granted, when it changed its

lord, and sometimes when it changed its vassal, it was from

the beginning customary to acknowledge the investiture by a

small gift to the lord, primarily as a symbol of the grant;

then, as the institution grew and manners became more

luxurious, the gift increased in value and was thought of as

an actual price for the investiture, until finally, at the

close of our period, it suffered the fate of all similar

contributions and was changed into a definite money payment,

still retaining, however, its early name of 'relief.' … The

occasions for levying the aids were various but always, in

theory, of an exceptional sort. The journey of a lord to the

court of his suzerain, or to Rome, or to join a crusade, the

knighting of his eldest son, the marriage of his eldest

daughter and his ransom from imprisonment are among the most

frequent of the feudal 'aids.' The right of the lord to be

entertained and provisioned, together with all his following,

was one of the most burdensome and, at the same time, most

difficult to regulate. Its conversion into a money-tax was,

perhaps for this reason, earlier than that of many other of

the feudal contributions."

_E. Emerton,

Mediaeval Europe,

chapter 14._

FEUDAL SYSTEM: Origin.

"The 'benefice,' … emerges from the struggles of the eighth

century as a form of grant originated by the ruling house and

remaining at its disposal. It was a form of grant which was at

all times revocable and which would thus necessarily prompt

the grantee to avoid any act which could displease the

sovereign. It entailed the reversion of the benefice at the

death of the grantee as well as of the person granting. The

benefice … was now chiefly made use of by the Carolingians of

the 8th century to win the military aid of the nobles against

internal and external enemies and especially against the

Saracens. Army commanders and counts or other important

officials would receive wide stretches of ecclesiastical or

royal land. They would organize these into 'manors,' would

collect a large 'following,' and would call in free tenants to

do service in their armies in return for their protection.

Thus they themselves became the stays and props of the new

form of government. As the reorganization of the military

forces went on this process was repeated more and more often,

and as a matter of course the same vital principles which

these holders had carried through with regard to those under

them came to be applied to their own position as regarded

their military duties to the king: namely that they should

become vassals. This accordingly happened. The vassal system

and the benefice system blended together into a new form of

actual and personal union of the nobles with the crown. In

receiving a benefice they swore to the king the special oath

of fidelity of the 'following'; this fidelity on the other

hand seemed assured through the power of the king to revoke

the benefice. Quickly enough did this connection of the vassal

system and the benefice system, which is commonly called

vassalism, become so common that it began to extend downwards

also. It had already become usual for rich landholders no

longer, in the old Germanic manner, to provide for all their

vassals at their own court, but to provide sustenance for them

in various other ways—notably by granting them estates. Now,

after the royal model, it came to be the custom to grant

benefices and thus to found personal responsibilities. The

results of this development were extraordinary. If on the one

hand, in spite of all Charles the Great's measures to the

contrary, the old army organization based on the service of

all freemen fell into decay and the contingents from the land

holders began to constitute the great mass of the army: on the

other hand the bond of vassalism with its different variations

became of prime importance for the administration of the land.

No longer did the king by virtue of his royal ban or

jurisdiction issue his commands to all freemen in common. He

issued his commands to the nobles and they by virtue of their

feudal prerogatives commanded the vassals who were subject to

them. The evenly distributed mass of freemen subject to

military duty had vanished; a high-towering structure of those

bound in vassalage had taken its place. The military

organization had assumed its position under the banner of the

feudal state. The administration, too, was soon to be

undermined by the system of vassalage and to change its

structure from the very foundation."

_Lamprecht,

Deutsche Geschichte,

volume 2, pages 104-105._

{3746}

"The latest investigations of Brunner … have established the

proof that feudalism originated in consequence of the

introduction of cavalry service into the military system of

the Frankish kingdom and that it retained its original

character until well on towards the close of the Middle Ages.

The Franks like the Lombards learned the use of cavalry from

the Moors or Saracens. Charles Martel was led by his

experiences after the battle of Poictiers to the conclusion

that only with the help of mounted armies could these enemies

be opposed with lasting success. It was between 732 and 758

that the introduction of cavalry service into the Frankish

army took place; it had hitherto consisted mainly of infantry.

The attempt was first made, and with marked success, in

Aquitaine and Septimania; almost contemporaneously also among

the Lombards. In order to place the secular nobles in

condition to fit out larger masses of cavalry a forced loan

from the church was carried through by Charles Martel and his

sons, it being under the latter that the matter was first

placed upon a legal footing. The nobles received

ecclesiastical benefices from the crown and regranted them in

the way of sub-loans. The custom of having a 'following' and

the old existing relationships of a vassal to his lord

furnished a model for the responsibilities of those receiving

benefices at first and at second hand. The secular nobles

became thus at once vassals of the crown and lords (seigneurs)

of those to whom they themselves in turn made grants. The duty

of the vassals to do cavalry service was based on the

'commendation': their fief was not the condition of their

doing service but their reward for it. Hence the custom of

denominating the fief (Lehn) as a 'fee' (feudum)—a designation

which was first applied in southern France, and which in

Germany, occasionally in the eleventh and ever more frequently

in the twelfth century, is used side by side with the older

term 'benefice,' until in the course of the first half of the

13th century it completely displaces it. With the further

development of cavalry service that of the feudal system kept

regular pace. Already in the later Carolingian period Lorraine

and Burgundy followed southern France and Italy in becoming

feudalized states. To the east of the Rhine on the contrary

the most flourishing time of cavalry service and of the feudal

system falls in the time of the Hohenstaufens, having

undoubtedly been furthered by the crusades. Here even as late

as the middle of the twelfth century the horsemen preferred

dismounting and fighting with the sword because they could not

yet manage their steeds and the regular cavalry weapons, the

shield and the spear, like their western neighbors. But never

in Germany did feudalism make its way into daily life as far

as it did in France where the maxim held true: 'nulle terre

sans seigneur.' There never was here a lack of considerable

allodial possessions, although occasionally, out of respect

for the feudal theory, these were put down as 'fiefs of the

sun.' The principle, too, was firmly maintained that a fief

granted from one's own property was no true fief; for so

thoroughly was feudal law the law governing the realm that a

true fief could only be founded on the fief above it, in such

manner that the king was always the highest feudal lord. That

was the reason why a fief without homage, that is, without the

relationship of vassalage and the need of doing military

service for the state, could not be looked upon as a true

fief. The knight's fee only (feudum militare) was such, and

only a man of knightly character, who united a knightly manner

of living with knightly pedigree, was 'perfect in feudal

law,'—in possession, namely, of full feudal rights or of the

'Heerschild.' Whether or not he had been personally dubbed

knight made no difference; the fief of a man who was still a

squire was also a true fief. … The object of the feudal grant

could be anything which assured a regular

emolument,—especially land, tithes, rents and other sources of

income, tolls and jurisdictions, churches and monasteries;_

above all, offices of state. In course of time the earlier

distinction between the office and the fief which was meant to

go with the office ceased to be made. … The formal course of

procedure when granting was a combination, exactly on the old

plan, of the act of commendation, now called Hulde, which was

the basis of vassalage, and the act of conferring

(investiture) which established the real right of the man to

the fief. … The Hulde consisted in giving the hand (=the

performing of mannschaft, homagium, hominium, Hulde) often

combined with the giving of a kiss and the taking of an oath

(the swearing of fidelitas or Hulde) by which the man swore to

be 'true, loyal and willing' as regarded his lord. The custom

earlier connected with commendation of presenting a weapon had

lost its former significance and had become merged in the

ceremony of investiture: the weapon had become a symbol of

investiture. … These symbols of investiture were in part the

same as in territorial law: the glove, the hat, the cape, the

staff, the twig; occasionally probably also a ring, but quite

especially the sword or spear. As regarded the principalities

it had quite early become the custom to fasten a banner on the

end of the spear in token of the royal rights of supremacy

that were to be conferred. Thus the banner became the sole

symbol of investiture in the granting of secular

principalities and the latter themselves came to be called

'banner fiefs.' The installation of the ecclesiastical princes

by the king took place originally without any distinction

being made between the office and the appanage of the office.

It was done by conferring the pastoral staff (ferula, virga

pastoralis) of the former bishop or abbot; in the case of

bishops since the time of Henry III by handing the ring and

crosier. In the course of the struggle concerning the

ecclesiastical investitures both sides came to the conviction

that a distinction could be made between the appanaging of the

church with secular estates and jurisdictions on the one hand,

and the office itself and the immediate appurtenances of the

church—the so-called 'sacred objects' on the other. A union

was arrived at in the Concordat of Worms which provided that

for the granting of the former (the so-called Regalia) the

secular symbol of the sceptre might replace the purely

ecclesiastical symbols. As this custom was retained even after

the incorporation of the ecclesiastical principalities in the

feudalized state-system the ecclesiastical principalities, as

opposed to the secular banner-fiefs, were distinguished as

'sceptre-fiefs.'"

_Schröder,

Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (1889),

pages 381-388._

{3747}

"By the time at which we have arrived (the Hohenstaufen

Period) the knights themselves, 'ordo equestris major:' had

come to form a class so distinct and so exclusive that no

outsiders could enter it except in the course of three

generations or by special decree of the king. Only to those

whose fathers and grandfathers were of knightly origin could

fiefs now be granted; only such could engage in judicial

combat, in knightly sports and, above all, in the tournament

or joust. … Feudalism did much to awaken a moral sentiment:

fidelity, truth and sincerity were the suppositions upon which

the whole system rested, and a great solidarity of interests

came to exist between the lord and his vassals. The latter

might bring no public charges against their master in matters

affecting his life, limb or honor; on three grand occasions,

in case of captivity, the knighting of his son, the marriage

of his daughter, they were obliged to furnish him with

pecuniary aid. Knightly honor and knightly graces come in the

twelfth century to be a matter of fashion and custom; a new

and important element, too, the adoration of woman, is

introduced. A whole literature arises that has to do almost

exclusively with knightly prowess and with knightly love.

Altogether we see the dawn of a new social life."

_E. F. Henderson,

A History of Germany in the Middle Ages,

page 424-425._

See, also, FEUDALISM (page 1117);

and EUROPE (pages 1019-1020).

FIELD, Cyrus, and the ocean telegraph.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:

A. D. 1854-1866 (page 776).

FINNISH POPULAR POETRY.

See KALEVALA (page 1935).

_John Martin Crawford,

Kalevala,

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5186

One of several versions._

FLEMINGS, Commerce of the.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.

FLORENTINE BANKERS AND MONEY CHANGERS.

See MONEY AND BANKING (pages 2205 and 2206).

FORMOSA.

"Formosa, or Taiwan, as it is called by the Chinese, is about

400 miles south of the mouth of the Yang-tse, and 100 from the

mainland of China. It lies between 25° 20' and 21° 50' north

latitude, is nearly 240 miles long, by an average of 75 miles

wide, and has an area of about 12,000 square miles. It is

remarkable for its beauty and fertility, and also for the

variety of its products. It was formerly attached to the

province of Fohkien, and governed by a resident commissioner;

but since the Franco-Chinese War, during which the French,

under Admiral Courbet, were foiled in their efforts to take

possession of it, it has been erected into an independent

province by imperial decree, and is now [1887] governed by Liu

Ming-Ch'uan, an able and progressive man, with the title and

almost unlimited authority of governor-general. The island was

once in the possession of the Spaniards, who called it Formosa

(beautiful), but did not colonize it. It then passed into the

hands of the Dutch, who built Fort Zealandia, and established

a trading-post on the southwest coast, near the present city

of Taiwan-fu, and another known as the Red Fort, at Tamsui, on

the northwest coast. But the Dutch in turn abandoned the

island about the year 1660, immediately after which it was

occupied and colonized by the Chinese from Amoy and other

points on the coast of Fohkien. The population is now

estimated by the governor-general at 4,000,000 Chinese and

60,000 savages, but the first figures are doubtless much too

large. The savages are a fine race of men of the Malay or

Polynesian type, who hold nearly all the east coast and the

mountain region, covering over one half the island. They live

mostly by hunting and fishing, or upon the natural products of

the forest, and cultivate but little land. They wear scarcely

any clothing, use bows, arrows, and knives, together with a

few old-fashioned matchlocks, and yet withal they have up to

the present time successfully resisted all efforts to

subjugate them or to take possession of their fastnesses. They

are brave, fierce, and active, but have made scarcely any

progress in the arts of civilization. They are naturally kind

and hospitable to Europeans, but look upon the Chinese as

their deadly enemies."

_J. H. Wilson,

China,

chapter 18._

In 1874, in order to obtain redress for a murder of Japanese

sailors by savages on the eastern coast of Formosa, the

Japanese Government undertook to take possession of the

southern part of Formosa, "asserting that it did not belong to

China because she either would not or could not govern its

savage inhabitants. … The expedition was called a High

Commission, accompanied by a force sufficient for its

protection, sent to aboriginal Formosa to inquire into the

murder of fifty-four Japanese subjects, and take steps to

prevent the recurrence of such atrocities. A proclamation was

issued April 17, 1874, and another May 19th, stating that

General Saigo was directed to call to an account the persons

guilty of outrages on Japanese subjects. As he knew that China

was not prepared to resist his landing at Liang-kiao, his

chief business was to provide means to house and feed the

soldiers under his command. The Japanese authorities do not

appear very creditably in this affair. No sooner did they

discover the wild and barren nature of this unknown region

than they seemed fain to beat an incontinent and hasty

retreat, nor did the troops landed there stand upon the order

of their going. … The aborigines having fled south after the

first rencontre, the Japanese leader employed his men as best

he could in opening roads through the jungle and erecting

houses. Meanwhile the Peking authorities were making

preparations for the coming struggle, and though they moved

slowly they were much in earnest to protect their territory.

General Shin Pao-chin having been invested with full powers to

direct operations against the Japanese forces, began at once

to draw together men and vessels in Fuhchau and Amoy. The

Japanese consuls at Amoy and Shanghai were allowed to remain

at their posts; and during the year two envoys arrived at

Pelting to treat with the Court. … The probabilities were

strong against any settlement, when the parties were induced

to arrange their quarrel by the intervention and wise counsel

of Sir T. F. Wade, the British minister. The Japanese accepted

500,000 taels for their outlays in Formosa for roads, houses,

and defences; agreeing thereupon to retire and leave the

further punishment of the aborigines to the Chinese

authorities. The two envoys left Peking, and this attempt at

war was happily frustrated. … The civilization of all parts of

Formosa has since rapidly advanced by the extension of tea and

sugar culture, the establishment of Christian missions, and

the better treatment of the native tribes."

_S. W. Williams,

The Middle Kingdom,

chapter 26 (volume 2)._

FOURIER AND FOURIERISM.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1832-1847,

and 1841-1847 (pages 2939 and 2943).

{3748}

----------FRANCE: Start--------

FRANCE:

Outline Sketch of general history.

See EUROPE (page 1015. and after).

FRANCE: 1ST-5TH CENTURIES.

The early routes and marts of trade.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.

FRANCE: 12TH-13TH CENTURIES.

Rise of the Privileged Bourgeoisies and the Communes.

The double movement of Urban Emancipation.

"The 12th and 13th centuries saw the production of that

marvelous movement of emancipation which gave liberty to

serfs, created privileged bourgeoisies and independent

communes, caused new cities and fortresses to issue from the

earth, freed the corporations of merchants and artisans, in a

word placed at the first stroke, beside royalty, feudality and

the church, a fourth social force destined to absorb one day

the three others. While the cultivator of the soil passed by

enfranchisement from the category of things sold or given away

into that of the free people (the only ambition permitted to

the defenseless unfortunates who inhabited isolated farms or

unwalled villages), the population grouped in the urban

centers tried to limit or at least to regulate the intolerable

exploitation of which it was the object. The bourgeois, that

is to say the inhabitants of walled cities, born under the

shelter of a donjon or au abbey, and the citoyens of the

ancient episcopal cities, rivaled each other in efforts to

obtain from the seigneurial power a condition more endurable

in point of taxation, and the suppression of the most

embarrassing hindrances to their commerce and manufactures.

These inhabitants of towns and cities constituted, if only by

being grouped together, a force with which feudality was very

soon obliged to reckon. Divided, besides, into merchants'

societies and companies of workmen they found within

themselves the germ of organization which permitted collective

resistance. The seigneur, intimidated, won by an offer of

money, or decided by the thought that his domination would be

more lucrative if the city became more prosperous, made the

concessions which were asked of him. Thanks to a favorable

concurrence of circumstances, charters of franchises were

multiplied in all parts of France. At the end of the 12th

century, the national territory, in the north as well as the

south, was covered with these privileged cities or

bourgeoisies, which, while remaining administered, judicially

and politically, by seigneurial officers, had acquired, in

matters financial, commercial and industrial, the liberties

necessary to their free development. Feudality very soon found

such an advantage in regulating thus the exploitation of the

bourgeois, that it took the initiative itself in creating, in

the uninhabited parts of its domains, privileged cities,

complete in all their parts, designed to become so many

centers of attraction for foreigners. It is the innumerable

bourgeoisies and 'villes neuves' which represent the normal

form of urban emancipation. Certain centers of population

obtained at the first stroke the most extensive civil and

financial liberties; but, in the majority of cases, the

bourgeois could win their franchises only bit by bit, at the

price of heavy pecuniary sacrifices, or as the result of an

admirable perseverance in watching for opportunities and

seizing them. The history of the privileged cities, whose

principal virtue was a long patience, offers nothing moving or

dramatic. … But the spectacle of these laborious masses

persisting, in obscurity and silence, in the demand for their

right to security and well-being, does not the less merit all

our attention. What forces itself upon the meditations of the

historian, in the domain of municipal institutions, is just

the progress slow and obscure, but certain, of the dependent

bourgeoisie. … The development of the seigneurial cities

offers such a variety of aspects, their progressive and

regular conquests were so important in the constitution of our

rights public and private, that too much care and effort

cannot be devoted to retracing minutely their course. This

history is more than any other that of the origin of our third

estate. It was in the privileged cities, to which the great

majority of the urban population belonged, that it began its

political education. The city charters constituted the durable

lower stratum of its first liberties. In other words the third

estate did not issue suddenly from the more or less

revolutionary movement which gave birth to the independent

communes: it owes its formation and its progress above all to

this double pacific evolution: the possessors of fiefs

enfranchising their bourgeoisie and the latter passing little

by little entirely from the seigneurial government under that

of royalty. This was not the opinion which prevailed at the

time when the founder of the science of municipal

institutions, Augustin Thierry, published in the 'Courrier

Français' his admirable 'Lettres ' on the revolutions of the

communes. The commune, a city dowered with judicial and

political privileges, which conferred upon it a certain

independence, administered by its elected magistrates, proud

of its fortified inclosure, of its belfry, of its militia,—the

commune passed at that time as the pre-eminent type of the

free city of the middle ages. That great movement of urban and

rural emancipation which stirred the France of the 12th

century to its very depths was personified in it. So the

commune concentrated historical interest upon itself, leaving

in the shade all other forms of popular evolution. Guizot, who

had the sense of truth rather than that of the picturesque,

tried to combat this exclusive tendency. In the brilliant

lessons that he gave at the Sorbonne on the history of the

origins of the third estate, he showed, with his customary

clearness, that the development of the bourgeois class was not

accomplished by any single method; that the progress realized

in the cities where the communal regime had never succeeded in

establishing itself must also be taken into account. The

impression left by the highly colored and dramatic recitals of

Augustin Thierry remained for a long time the stronger. …

Contemporary science has not only assigned to itself the

mission of completing the work of the historians of the

Restoration: it has desired also to improve it by rectifying,

upon many points, the exaggerated opinions and false judgments

of which the history of our urban institutions was at first

the victim. It has been perceived that the communal movement

properly so called did not have, upon the destinies of the

popular class, the decisive, preponderant influence which was

attributed to it 'a priori.' The commune, a brilliant but

ephemeral form of the emancipation of the bourgeoisie, has

been set back little by little into its true place.

{3749}

It is now no longer regarded as an essential manifestation of

our first democratic aspirations. One might be tempted to see

on the contrary, in that collective seigneury, often hostile

to the other social elements, impregnated with the spirit of

'particularisme,' made for war and agitated without cessation

by warlike passions, an original but tardy product of the

feudal principle. … We must be resigned to a fact in regard to

which nothing can be done: the absence of documents relative

to the municipal constitution of cities and towns during four

hundred years, from the 7th century to the 11th. From all

appearances, this enormous hiatus will never be overcome. …

Facts being lacking, scholars have had recourse to conjecture.

Some among them have supposed that the principal

characteristics of the Gallo-Roman municipalities were

perpetuated during this period. At bottom, their hypothesis

rests principally upon analogies of names. … From the point of

view of positive science, the Germanic origin of the communes

is not more easy of demonstration. … It is even doubtful

whether the essential element of the communal institution, the

confederation formed by the inhabitants, under the guaranty of

the mutual oath, belongs exclusively to the customs of the

Germans. The theory of Augustin Thierry, which made of the

commune a special application of the Scandinavian gilde, has

been judged too narrow by contemporary scholars. They have

reproached him with reason for having localized an institution

which belongs entirely to the Germanic race. But the principle

of association, applied in the cities, is not a fact purely

German. … Association is a fact which is neither Germanic nor

Roman; it is universal, and is produced spontaneously among

all peoples, in all social classes, when circumstances exact

and favor its appearance. The communal revolution then is a

national event. The commune was born, like other forms of

popular emancipation, from the need which the inhabitants of

the cities had of substituting a limited and regulated

exploitation for the arbitrary exploitation of which they were

the victims. Such is the point of departure of the

institution. We must always return to the definition of it

given by Guibert de Nogent. It is true as a basis, although it

does not embrace all the characteristics of the object

defined: 'Commune! new name, detestable name! By it the

censitaires are freed from all service in consideration of a

simple annual tax; by it they are condemned, for the

infraction of the law, only to a penalty legally determined;

by it, they cease to be subjected to the other pecuniary

charges by which the serfs are overwhelmed.' At certain

points, this limitation of the seigneurial power was made

amicably, by pacific transaction between the seigneur and his

bourgeois. Elsewhere, an insurrection, more or less prolonged,

was necessary in order to establish it. When this popular

movement had as a result, not only the assuring to the people

the most necessary liberties which were demanded, but besides

that of abating to their advantage the political position of

the master, by taking from him a part of his seigneurial

prerogatives, there arose not only a free city, but a commune,

a bourgeois seigneury, invested with a certain political and

judicial power. This definition of the commune implies that

originally it was not possible to establish it otherwise than

by a pressure exerted, more or less violently, upon the

seigneurial authority. We have the direct proof of it for some

of our free municipalities, but it is presumable that many

other communes whose primitive history we do not know have

owed equally to force the winning of their first liberties. …

We do not mean that, in the first period of the history of

urban emancipation, all the communes, without exception, were

obliged to pass through the phase of insurrection or of open

resistance. There were some which profited (as the cities of

the Flemish region in 1127) by a combination of exceptional

circumstances to attain political liberty without striking a

blow. Among these circumstances must be mentioned in the first

rank the prolonged vacancy of an episcopal see and the

disappearance of a laic lord, dead without direct heir,

leaving a succession disputed by numerous competitors. But,

ordinarily, the accession of the bourgeoisie to the rank of

political power did not take place pacifically. Either the

seigneur struggled against his rebellious subjects, or he

feared the struggle and bent before the accomplished fact. In

all cases it was necessary that the people were conscious of

their power and imposed their will. This is proven by the

dramatic episodes which the narrations of Augustin Thierry

have forever rendered celebrated. … Later, in the decline of

the 12th century, it must be recognized that the opinion of

the dominant class ceased to be as hostile to the communes.

When the conviction had been acquired that the popular

movement was irresistible, it was tolerated; the best means

even were sought to derive advantage from it. The Church

always remained upon the defensive; but the king and the great

feudal lords perceived that in certain respects the commune

might be a useful instrument. They accepted then the communal

organization, and they even came to create it where it was not

spontaneously established. But it is easy to convince one's

self that the communes of this category, those which owe their

creation to the connivance or even to the initiative of the

seigneur, did not possess the same degree of independence as

the communes of the primitive epoch, founded by insurrection.

On the whole, the communal revolution was only one of the

aspects of the vast movement of political and social reaction

which the excesses of the feudal regime engendered everywhere

from the 11th to the 14th century. … One would like to possess

the text of one of those oaths by which the bourgeois of the

northern communes bound themselves together, for the first

time, with or without the consent of their seigneur, in the

most ancient period of the communal evolution. It would be of

the highest interest for the historian to know how they set

about it, what words were pronounced to form what the

contemporary writers called a 'conjuration,' a 'conspiration,'

a 'confederation.' No document of this nature and of that

primitive epoch has come down to us. … The sum total of the

sworn bourgeois constituted the commune. The commune was most

often called 'communia,' but also, with varying termination,

'communa,' 'communio,' 'communitas.'

{3750}

Properly speaking and especially with reference to the origin,

the name commune was given not to the city, but to the

association of the inhabitants who had taken oath. For this

reason also the expression 'commune jurée' was used. Later the

acceptation of the word was enlarged; it designated the city

itself, considered as a geographical unit. … The members of

the commune, those who formed part of the sworn association,

were properly called 'the sworn of the commune,' 'jurati

communie,' or, by abridgment, 'the sworn,' 'jurati.' They were

designated also by the expression: 'the men of the commune,'

or, 'those who belong to the commune,' 'qui sunt de communia.'

They were also entitled 'bourgeois,' 'burgenses,' more rarely

'bourgeois jurés'; sometimes also 'voisins,' 'vicini,' or even

'friends,' 'amici.' … We are far from having complete light on

the question as to what conditions were exacted from those who

entered the communal association, and to what classes of

persons the access to the bourgeoisie was open or interdicted.

The variety of local usages, and above all the impossibility

of finding texts which apply to the most ancient period of

urban emancipation, will always embarrass the historian. To

find upon these matters clear documents, developed and

precise, we must come down, generally, to the end of the 18th

century or even to the century following, that is to say to

the epoch of the decadence of the communal regime. … The

bourgeois could not be diseased, that is to say, undoubtedly,

tainted with an incurable malady and especially a contagious

malady, as leprosy. … The communal law excluded also bastards.

On this point it was in accord with the customary law of a

very great number of French regions. … They refused also to

receive into their number inhabitants encumbered with debts.

The condition of debtor constituted in effect a kind of

servitude. He no longer belonged to himself; his goods might

become the property of the creditor, and he could be

imprisoned. … With still more reason does it appear

inadmissible that the serf should be called to benefit by the

commune. The question of urban serfdom, in its relations with

the communal institution, is extremely obscure, delicate and

complex. There are however two facts in regard to which

affirmation is allowable. It cannot be doubted that at the

epoch of the formation of the communes, at the opening of the

12th century, there were no longer any serfs in many of the

urban centers. It may be held also as certain that the desire

to bring about the disappearance of this serfdom was one of

the principal motives which urged the inhabitants to claim

their independence. … The inhabitant who united all the

conditions legally required for admission to the bourgeoisie

was besides obliged to pay a town-due, ('droit d'entrée'). …

If it was not always easy to enter a communal body, neither

could one leave it as easily as might have been desired. The

'issue de commune' exacted the performance of a certain number

of troublesome formalities. … So, it was necessary to pay to

become a communist, and to pay yet more in order to cease to

be one. The bourgeois was riveted to his bourgeoisie. … Up to

this point we have examined only half the problem of the

formation of the commune, approaching it on its general side.

There remains the question whether all the popular element

which existed in the city formed part of the body of

bourgeoisie, and whether the privileged class, that of the

nobles and clergy, was not excluded from it. … We shall have

to admit as a general rule, that the nobles and the clergy

while taking oath to the commune, did not in reality enter it.

What must be rejected, is the sort of absolute, inviolable

rule which has been formed on this opinion. In the middle ages

especially there was no rule without exception. … The commune

was an institution rather ephemeral. As a really independent

seigneury, it scarcely endured more than two centuries. The

excesses of the communists, their bad financial

administration, their intestine divisions, the hostility of

the Church, the onerous patronage of the 'haut suzerain,' and

especially of the king: such were the immediate causes of this

rapid decadence. The communes perished victims of their own

faults, but also of the hate of the numerous enemies

interested in their downfall. … The principal cause of the

premature downfall of the communal regime is without any doubt

the considerable development of the monarchical power in

France at the end of the 18th century. The same force which

annihilated feudality, to the profit of the national unit, was

also that which caused the prompt disappearance of the

independence of the bourgeois seigneuries. With its privileges

and its autonomy, the commune impeded the action of the

Capetains. Those quarrelsome and restless republics had no

reason for existence, In the midst of the peaceful and

obedient bourgeoisie upon which royalty had laid its hand. The

commune then was sacrificed to the monarchical interest. In

Italy and in Germany, the free cities enjoyed their

independence much longer, by reason of the absence of the

central power or of its weakness."

_Achille Luchaire,

Les Communes Francaises a l'époque des Capétiens directs

(translated from the French),

pages 1-16, 45-56, 65, and 288-290._

FRANCE: A. D. 1226-1270.

The reign of Saint Louis.

The monarchy in his time and its kingdom.

"The fundamental institution upon which all the social edifice

rested, in the time of Saint Louis, was royalty. But this

royalty, from the double point of view of theory and practice,

was very different from what it had been originally. In

principle it was the divine right, that is, it was an

emanation from the Most High, and the king held of no other

seigneur. This is what the feudal maxim expressed after its

fashion; 'The king holds only of God and his sword.' … Royalty

was transmitted by heredity, from father to son, and by

primogeniture. However, this heredity, which had formerly

needed a sort of election to confirm It, or at least popular

acclamation, needed now to be hallowed by the unction of the

church. Consecration, joined to the privilege of being the

eldest of the royal race, made the king. … It must not be

thought however that the ideas of the time attributed to the

hereditary principle a force absolute and superior to all

interests. Theologians could say to kings that the son should

succeed the father if he imitated his probity; that power was

transferred into other hands in punishment of injustice. …

Christian tradition was, in fact, greatly opposed to what was

then called tyranny. … Not only must royalty not be tyranny,

but it must admit the representatives of the nation, in a

certain measure, to a participation in the government. …

{3751}

In practice, without doubt, these salutary principles were

often disregarded; but it is still much that they were

professed, and this fact alone constitutes an enormous

difference between the middle ages and the later centuries.

The royal power, besides, had not yet a material force

sufficiently great to dominate everywhere as absolute master.

Under the two first lines, it was exercised in the same degree

over all points of the territory; from the accession of the

third, on the contrary, it was only a power of two degrees,

having a very unequal action according to the territory and

the locality. A part of France composed the royal domain; it

was the patrimony of the Capetian house, increased by conquest

or successive acquisitions. There, the king exercised an

authority almost without limit; he was on his own ground. All

the rest formed duchies, counties, or seigneuries of different

sorts, possessed hereditarily by great vassals, more or less

independent originally. Here the king was only the suzerain;

he had scarcely any rights excepting to homage, to military

service, to pecuniary assistance in certain stated cases, and

to some privileges called royal, as that of coining money. The

entire royal policy, from Philip Augustus to Louis XI.,

consisted in skilfully increasing the first of these parts by

absorbing little by little the second. … The kingdom of

France, in the time of Saint Louis, was still very nearly as

the treaty of Verdun had established it. On the north and

east, it was bounded by the Empire of Germany. The frontier

line passed a little beyond the cities of Ghent, Audenarde,

Tournai, Douai, Guise, Mézières, Grandpré, Vitry, Joinville,

Fay, Mirabeau; then it followed the course of the Saône and

the Rhône, from which it diverged only in two places in order

to attribute to the Empire the, at least, nominal possession

of part of Lyonnais and Vivarais. On the south, the Pyrenees

formed, as originally, the natural limit; but from the treaty

of Corbeil (1258) Roussillon remained with the king of Aragon,

in exchange for his right over the county of Foix, the

territory of Sault, Fenouilhedès and Narbonnais. On the other

hand, the vast duchy of Guienne, comprising Bearn and the

county of Bigorre, came … under the suzerainty of the king of

France only by virtue of the treaty of Paris (1259). On the

west the kingdom was bounded only by the ocean, Brittany also

having rendered homage to the crown from the time of Philip

Augustus. Thus Saint Louis and his son left it, on the whole,

more extensive than it was before them, and if it was more

limited than the France of the present, on the east, it

reached, on the contrary, farther to the north. The royal

domain embraced in 1226 only the half of this immense

perimeter. It was composed of the primitive nucleus of the

Capetian possessions: that is, of the Isle of France and of

Orleannais; then of French Vexin. Gâtinais and the viscounty

of Bourges, brought by Philip I.; of the county of Corbeil and

the seigneury of Monthléry, acquired by Louis VI.; of Artois,

Vermandois (with the county of Amiens), Valois, Norman Vexin,

of the counties of Evreux, Meulan, Alençon, Perché, Beaumont

sur Oise, acquired by Philip Augustus and Louis VIII.; finally

the territory obtained by the former from John Lackland by war

or by confiscation, that is, all Normandy, Touraine, Perigord,

Limousin, and the viscounty of Turenne. Anjou, Maine, Poitou,

Auvergne, Angoumois, included in the same conquest, had since

been detached from the crown to form princely appanages. The

profitable domain of Perigord of Limousin and of the viscounty

of Turenne, was reconveyed, in 1259, to the king of England, …

in order to bring all the region of the southwest within the

pale of the royal suzerainty. But Saint Louis compensated for

this diminution by acquiring successively the two great

seneschalates of Nîmes and of Carcassonne, the counties of

Clermont, of Mortain, of Macon, and Philip the Bold did more

than redeem it, by realizing the annexation, so skilfully

prepared by Blanche of Castile, of the last domains of the

count of Toulouse, which had become those of Alphonse of

Poitiers, that is, of nearly all Languedoc. The possessions of

the crown thus formed two or three separate groups, cut up in

the most fantastic fashion, and connected only as the result

of long effort. All the rest of the kingdom was composed of

great fiefs escaping the direct action of royalty, and

themselves subdivided into lesser fiefs, which complicated

infinitely the hierarchy of persons and lands. The principal

were the counties of Flanders, Boulogne, Saint Pol, Ponthieu,

Aumale, Eu, Soissons, Dreux, Montford-l'Amaury; the bishoprics

of Tournai, Beauvais, Noyon, Laon, Lisieux, Reims, Langres,

Chalons, the titularies of which were at the same time counts

or seigneurs; the vast county of Champagne, uniting those of

Réthel, Grandpré, Roucy, Brienne, Joigny and the county

Porcien; the duchy of Burgundy, so powerful and so extensive;

the counties of Nevers, Tonnerre, Auxerre, Beaujeu, Forez,

Auvergne; the seigneury of Bourbon; the counties of Blois and

of Chartres; the county or duchy of Brittany; Guienne, and,

before 1271, the county of Toulouse; the bishoprics of Albi,

Cahors, Mende, Lodève, Agde, Maguelonne, belonging temporally

as well as spiritually to their respective bishops; finally

the seigneury of Montpellier, holding of the last of these

bishoprics. To which must yet be added the appanages given by

Louis VIII. to his younger sons, that is, the counties of

Artois, Anjou, Poitiers, with their dependencies. … So when

the government of the kingdom at this epoch is spoken of, it

must be understood to mean that of only the least considerable

part of the territory,—that is, of the part which was directly

submitted to the authority of the king. In this part the

sovereign himself exercised the power, assisted, as ordained

by the theories examined above, by auxiliaries taken from the

nation. There were neither ministers nor a deliberative corps,

properly speaking; however there was very nearly the

equivalent. On one side, the great officers of the crown and

the royal council, on the other the parliament and the chamber

of accounts (exchequer), or at least their primitive nucleus,

constituted the principal machinery of the central government,

and had, each, its special powers. The great officers, of whom

there had at first been five, were only four from the reign of

Philip Augustus, who had suppressed the seneschal owing to the

possibility of his becoming dangerous by reason of the

progressive extension of his jurisdiction; they were the

bouteiller, who had become the administrator of the royal

expenditure; the chambrier, elevated to the care of the

treasury; the connétable, a kind of military superintendent;

and the chancelier, who had the disposition of the royal seal.

{3752}

These four personages represented in a certain degree,

secretaries of state. The two latter had a preponderant

influence, one in time of peace, the other in time of war. To

the chancellor belonged the drawing up and the proper

execution (legalization) of the royal diplomas; this power

alone made him the arbiter of the interests of all private

individuals. As to the constable he had the chief direction of

the army, and all those who composed it, barons, knights, paid

troops, owed him obedience. The king, in person, had the

supreme command; but he frequently allowed the constable to

exercise it, and, in order not to impose too heavy a burden

upon him, or rather to prevent his taking a too exclusive

authority, he had appointed as coadjutors two 'maréchaux de

France' who were second in command. … The king's council had

not yet a very fixed form. Saint Louis submitted important

questions to the persons about him, clerics, knights or men of

the people; but he chose these advisers according to the

nature of the questions, having temporary counsellors rather

than a permanent council. Among these counsellors some were

more especially occupied with justice, others with finance,

others with political affairs. These three categories are the

germ of the parliament, of the exchequer, and of the council

of state; but they then formed an indistinct ensemble, called

simply the king's court. They were not completely separated so

as to form independent institutions until the time of Philippe

le Bel. The first, that which later constituted the

parliament, belongs especially to the judicial department. …

The second, while not yet elevated into a distinct and

permanent body, is already delegated to special duties, being

charged with examining the accounts of the baillis and

seneschals. The 'gentlemen of the accounts' ('gentes quae ad

nostros computos deputantur') began under Saint Louis to meet

periodically in the Temple, at Paris, and to exercise a

regular control over the public finances; so that this new

creation, which was, later, to render services so important,

was an outcome of the scrupulous probity with which the royal

conscience was filled. … The superior jurisdiction is

represented by the parliament. The organization of this famous

body was begun in the lifetime of Philip Augustus. Under the

reign of this prince [Saint Louis] and notably as a result of

his absence, the 'cour du roi' had begun to render more and

more frequent decisions. The section which was occupied with

judicial affairs, appears to have taken on, in the time of

Saint Louis, an individual and independent existence. Instead

of following the sovereign and meeting when he thought it

expedient, it became sedentary. … The date at which the series

of the famous registers of the parliament, known under the

name of Olim begins may be considered that of the definitive

creation of this great institution. It will be remarked that

it coincides with the general reform of the administration of

the kingdom undertaken by the good king on his return from

Syria. … From its birth the parliament tended to become, in

the hands of royalty, a means of domination over the great

vassals. Not only were the seigneurs insensibly eliminated

from it, to the advantage of the clergy, the lawyers, and the

officers of the crown, but by a series of skilful victories,

its action was extended little by little over all the fiefs

situated outside the royal domain, that is over all France. It

is again Saint Louis who caused this great and decisive

advance toward the authority of the suzerain. He brought it

about especially by the abolition of the judicial duel and by

the multiplication of appeals to the parliament. … As for the

appeals the interdiction of 'fausser jugement' (refusal to

submit to the sentence pronounced) was not the only cause of

their multiplication. Many of the great vassals were led to

bring their affairs before the king's court, either on account

of the confidence inspired by the well known equity of Saint

Louis, or by the skill of the royal agents, who neglected no

opportunity to cause the acceptance of the arbitration of the

crown; and those who did not resign themselves to it were

sometimes compelled to do so. The appeals of their subjects

naturally took the same route; however they continued to

employ the medium of the seneschal's court or that of the

bailli, while those of the barons and the princes of the blood

went directly to Paris. No general law was promulgated in

regard to the matter. Royalty was content to recover little by

little, by partial measures, the superior jurisdiction

formerly usurped by the feudality. … Above and outside of the

parliament justice was rendered by the king in person. … Saint

Louis, always thoughtful of the interests of the lowly, had a

liking for this expeditious manner of terminating suits.

Nearly every morning, he sent two or three members of his

council to inquire, at the palace gate, if there were not some

private individuals there wishing to discuss their affairs

before him; from this came the name 'plaids de la porte' given

to this kind of audience. If his counsellors could not bring

the parties to an agreement, he called the latter into his own

room, examined their case with his scrupulous impartiality,

and rendered the final sentence himself on the spot.

Joinville, who took part more than once in these summary

judgments, thus describes to us their very simple mechanism.

'The king had his work regulated in such a way, that

monseigneur de Nesle and the good count de Soissons, and the

rest of us who were about him, who had heard our masses, went

to hear the 'plaids de la porte,' which are now called

'requêtes' (petitions). And when he returned from the

monastery, he sent for us, seated himself at the foot of his

bed, made us all sit around him, and asked us if there were

any cases to despatch which could not be disposed of without

him; and we named them to him, and he sent for the parties and

asked them: Why do you not take what our people offer you? And

they said: Sire, because they offer us little. Then he said to

them: You should take what they are willing to give you. And

the saintly man labored in this way, with all his might to set

them in a just and reasonable path.' Here the great

peace-maker is clearly seen; private individuals as well as

princes, he desired to reconcile all, make all agree. These

patriarchal audiences often had for theater the garden of the

palace or the wood of Vincennes. The legendary oak which

sheltered the modern Solomon remains in all memoirs as the

symbol of his kindly justice and of his popularity, well

acquired."

_A. Lecoy de la Marche,

La France sous Saint Louis et sous Philippe le Hardi,

liv. 1, chapter 2, and liv. 2, chapters 1 and 3._

_François Guizot,

Great Christians of France: Saint Louis and Calvin,

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62518._

{3753}

FRANCE: A. D. 1423-1429.

The family and circumstances of Jeanne d' Arc.

"What were the worldly circumstances, what was the social

position, of the parents of Jeanne d'Arc? Questioned on these

points, the people of the country, called to testify at the

public inquiry, in the course of the rehabilitation

proceedings, all made the same reply; they said that the

father and mother of the maid were unassuming husbandmen and

possessed with their cottage only a moderate patrimony.

According to a memorandum, made out with the assistance of

papers and family traditions, a memorandum transmitted by the

abbé Mandre, curé of Damvillers (Meuse), who died about 1820,

to his nephew Mr. Villiaumé, father of the historian of Jeanne

d' Arc and of the Revolution, the real estate belonging to

Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée represented about twenty

hectares, of which twelve were cultivated, four were meadow

and four woodland, and in the latter the 'bois Chesnu'; they

had beside their house, their furniture and a reserve of two

or three hundred francs which they kept carefully in view of

the possibility of a flight before some invasion, such as they

had been obliged to take to Neufchâteau. By cultivating,

themselves, what they possessed, they could obtain from it an

annual revenue equivalent to four or five thousand francs of

our money, which permitted them to distribute alms to the

poor, notwithstanding their moderate patrimony, and to give

hospitality to the mendicant friars as well as to the

travelers who often passed through that country. If these

valuations are not rigorously exact, they appear to us at

least quite reasonable, though we are ignorant of the data

upon which they rest. In a parochial register of Domremy,

transcribed in 1490, we read that Jacob d'Arc and Ysabellot,

his wife, had established an annual income of two gros [gros

of Lorraine, coin worth 1/8 oz. of silver] in favor of the

curé of Domremy from a 'fauchée' and a half [day and a half's

mowing] of field situated in the 'ban' of Domremy, above the

bridge, between the heirs Janvrel and the heirs Girardin, on

condition of the celebration of two masses each year during

the week of the Fontaines for anniversary services for the

dead. The property of these honest people constituted, if we

may judge by the different replies of the Maid compared with

one another, what was called then in the Barrois a 'gagnage'

or little farm; now, what distinguished the gagnage from the

simple 'conduit,' was that the first always employed for the

needs of cultivation a certain number of horses. The usage was

at that time, in that region, to attach three or four mares to

the plough, and they even had, at least in the great gagnages,

a special horse to drag the harrow. Besides this property

situated at Domremy, it may be supposed that Jacques d'Arc

possessed in right of his wife some pieces of land at Vouthon,

for we see by a register of the writs of court of the

provostship of Gondrecourt that the eldest of his sons named

Jacquemin made his residence from 1425 in this village of the

Barrois holding where he cultivated undoubtedly the little

patrimony of Isabelle Romée. Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle de

Vouthon had three sons, Jacquemin, Jean and Pierre, and two

daughters, the elder named Catherine, the younger Jeanne or

rather Jeannette, she who was by her heroism to immortalize

her line. Two documents … prove with evidence that Jacques

d'Arc figured in the first rank of the notables of Domremy. In

the first of these, dated Maxey-sur-Meuse, October 7, 1423, he

is styled 'doyen' of that village and by this title comes

immediately after the mayor and alderman. 'In general,' says

M. Edward Bonvalot, speaking of the villages in the region of

the Meuse governed by the famous charter of Beaumont in

Argonne, 'there is but one doyen or sergeant in each village,

who convokes the bourgeois to the electoral assemblies and to

the sittings of the court; it is he also who convokes the

mayor, aldermen and the men of the commune to their reunions

either periodical or special; it is he who cries the municipal

resolutions and ordinances; it is he who commands the day and

night watch; it is he who has charge of prisoners. Among the

privileges which he enjoys must be cited the exemption from

the taxes (deniers) of the bourgeoisie. At Linger, he has the

same territorial advantages as the clerk of the commune.' It

is seen by various documents that the doyens were also charged

with the collection of the 'tailles,' 'rentes' and

'redevances,' and that they were appointed to supervise bread,

wine and other commodities as well as to test weights and

measures. In the second document, drawn up at Vaucouleurs

March 31, 1427, Jacques d'Arc appears as the agent of the

inhabitants of Domremy in a suit of great importance which

they then had to sustain before Robert de Baudricourt, captain

of Vaucouleurs. … The situation of Domremy was privileged,

and, thanks to this situation, humble peasants who had few

needs found even in the soil which they cultivated nearly

everything which was necessary for their subsistence. The

heights crowned with beeches and venerable oaks, which shut in

on the west the valley where the village lies, furnished

fire-wood in abundance; the acorns permitted the fattening of

droves of hogs; the beautiful vineyard of Greux, exposed to

the east and climbing the slopes of these heights since the

14th century, produced that light wine, excessively acid,

which is not the less agreeable to the somewhat harsh palate

of the children of the Meuse; the fields lying at the foot of

these slopes and contiguous to the houses were reserved for

the cultivation of the cereals, of wheat, of rye and of oats;

finally, between these cultivated fields and the course of the

Meuse, over a breadth of more than a kilometer stretched those

verdant meadows whose fertility equals their beauty and from

which is still taken the best and most renowned hay of all

France. The principal wealth of the inhabitants of Domremy was

the cattle which they pastured in these meadows, where each,

after the hay-harvest, had the right to pasture a number of

heads of cattle proportioned to that of the 'fauchées de pré'

[days mowings of field] that he possessed. This is what was

called the 'ban de Domremy' the care of which was confided, by

turns, to a person taken from each 'conduit' or household. It

may be seen by certain replies of Jeanne to her judges at

Rouen that she had been more than once appointed to this

charge, when the turn of her parents came, and her enemies had

not failed to seize upon this circumstance to pretend to see

in her only a shepherdess by profession. …

{3754}

Most of the historians of Jeanne d'Arc have made a great

mistake when they have imagined Domremy an out-of-the-way

corner and isolated, so to speak, from the rest of the world;

on the contrary, a road much frequented toward the end of the

middle ages crossed this village. This was the old Roman road

from Langres to Verdun which passed through Neufchâteau,

Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Void, Commercy and Saint-Mihiel; it had

acquired yet more importance since the marriage of Philip the

Bold and Margaret, daughter of Louis de Male, had brought into

the same hand Flanders, Artois and Burgundy. This marriage had

had the effect of giving increased activity to the exchanges

between the extreme possessions of the Burgundian princes. …

It may be seen by what precedes that, like the legendary beech

of her native village, the childhood of the virgin of Domremy

sprang out of a soil full of vigor and was in the main haunted

by beneficent fairies. Born in a fertile and smiling corner of

the earth, the issue of an honest family, whose laborious

mediocrity was elevated enough to touch nobility when

ennobling itself by alms-giving, and humble enough to remain

in contact with all the poor; endowed by nature with a robust

body, a sound intelligence and an energetic spirit, the little

Jeannette d'Arc became under these gentle influences all

goodness and all love. Certain facts which are related of her

early years show her religiously enamored of country life. She

gave some wool from her sheep to the bell-ringer of Domremy to

render him more zealous in fulfilling his office, so much did

the silvery chiming of his church bell, sounding suddenly in

the quiet of the valley, enchant her ear. And the inspiring

virtue of the cool shadows, of the 'frigus opacum' of Virgil,

who had better felt it than she who replied to her judges at

Rouen: 'If I were in the midst of the woods, I should hear my

voices better.' … One of the consequences of the treaty of

Troyes was the occupation of Champagne by the [English]

invaders.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422 (page 1175).

It is certain, notwithstanding the assertions to the contrary

of many historians of Jeanne, that from this date the English

were rendered absolutely masters of the bailiwick of Chaumont.

The principal fortresses of Bassigny, notably Nogent-le-Roi

and Montigny-le-Roi, received garrisons of the enemy. The

'registres du Trésor des Chartes,' preserved in our National

Archives, where the acts emanating from the English government

[chancellorship] during this period are registered, are full

of letters of pardon or of remission granted in the name of

Henry V. and Henry VI. to different inhabitants of this

bailiwick, and nothing proves better to what degree the

authority of the king of England was at that time received and

accepted in this region. Some of these letters were given on

account of offenses committed in the provostship of Andelot,

of which the châtellenie of Vaucouleurs held, as is known.

This châtellenie was, in truth, the last fragment of French

soil that Charles VII. had kept at the eastern extremity of

his kingdom, as he had succeeded in keeping Mont-Saint-Michel

at the western extremity. Pressed upon by the

Anglo-Burgundians on the south, by the restless and violent

Robert of Saarbruck, seigneur of Commercy, on the north,

hemmed in, on the east and west, between the possessions of

the dukes of Bar and of Lorraine, who were unceasingly at war

with their neighbors, this little corner of the earth was a

sort of arena where all parties came into collision; and

during the four or five years which immediately preceded the

first apparition of the archangel Michael to the Maid, toward

the middle of 1425, ten or twelve leaders of bands may be

counted who emulated each other, as it were, in ravaging it in

all directions. During the first half of the 15th century, the

men at arms of the marches of Lorraine had the reputation of

being, with the Bretons, the greatest pillagers in the world.

… We know now in all its details a curious episode which

particularly concerns the native village of Jeanne. This

episode had remained completely unknown up to the present day,

and it was a fortunate accident which, in the beginning of our

researches, commenced in 1878, caused us to discover in the

National Archives, in the 'registres du Trésor des Chartes,'

the document in which the relation of it is found. There is

question in this document of a remission of penalty granted by

King Charles VII. to a certain Burthélemy de Clefmont for the

murder of an Anglo-Burgundian band-leader who had carried away

the cattle from two villages of the châtellenie of

Vaucouleurs; now, these two villages are precisely Greux and

Domremy. … Different circumstances of the narrative, compared

with several documents relative to the leader killed by

Barthélemy de Clefmont, do not permit us to place the incident

at any other date than 1425. … The principal, not to say the

only wealth of the inhabitants of Domremy, was the cattle

which they pastured in the meadows of the Meuse. The

configuration of the soil permits the cultivation only of some

fields situated along the border of these meadows, at the foot

of the wooded hill against which the village is set; so, the

little grain that was harvested there would not have sufficed

to feed the population. … We understand then the important

injury done to these unfortunate peasants by taking from them

at one stroke all the communal flock; they were completely

ruined; they were stripped between one day and another of the

most precious of their possessions; they were almost condemned

to die of poverty with very brief delay. Such a disaster would

have cast down a spirit of ordinary temper; it had no other

effect than to exalt the profound faith and to awaken the

already extraordinary energies of the little Jeannette d'Arc.

Endowed, notwithstanding her tender years, with that almost

superhuman moral force of which we read that it transports

mountains, she called Heaven confidently to the assistance of

her people, and our readers already know that Heaven heard her

voice. Jeanne de Joinville, lady of Ogéviller, the good

châtelaine of Domremy, must have been keenly touched by the

unfortunate situation caused to her people, and she had

besides the greatest interest in making the brigands in the

pay of Henri d'Orly disgorge, in order to assure the payment

of her taxes. This is why she complained to her cousin Antoine

de Lorraine, count of Vaudemont, who had in his immediate

tenure the château of Doulevant, occupied by the chief of

these brigands. The count hastened to give satisfaction to the

demands of his relative; he sent Barthélemy de Clefmont, one

of his men at arms, in pursuit of the marauders.

{3755}

The expedition was a complete success. Though the cattle had

already been taken as far as Dommartin-le-Franc, twenty

leagues distant from the shores of the Meuse, they were

recovered. Antoine de Lorraine then caused them to be restored

to the lady of Ogéviller whose people, those of Greux as well

as of Domremy, thus came again into possession of the precious

booty which had been stolen from them and which they believed

irreparably lost. What a signal favor of Providence, a

miracle, these poor people in general and Jeannette d'Arc in

particular must have seen in a restitution so unhoped for! In

the meantime,—we may reasonably suppose this, if not affirm it

with certainty,—the news of a great defeat inflicted on the

English before Mont-Saint-Michel, toward the end of June 1425,

by sea as well as by land, must have arrived at Domremy.

Almost at the same time, that is in the last days of the

following August, they learned that these same English had

just invaded Barrois and that they had burned dwellings at

Revigny as well as in the ban of Chaumont, near Bar-le-Duc.

Never had Jeanne felt more sorrowfully 'the pity it was for

the kingdom of France,' and never also had she had a more

entire faith in God to assure the salvation of her country.

The theft, then the restitution of the cattle of Greux and

Domremy, the victory won by the defenders of

Mont-Saint-Michel, the invasion of Barrois by the English,

here are the three principal occurrences which immediately

preceded and which explain, at least in a certain degree, the

first apparition of the archangel Michael to the little

Jeannette d'Arc."

_S. Luce,

Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy

(translated from the French),

chapters 2-3._

FRANCE: A. D. 1582.

Footing secured at the mouth of the Senegal.

See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1582.

FRANCE: A. D. 1631.

First printed newspaper publication.

See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1631 (page 2594).

FRANCE: A. D. 1648-1715.

Relations with Germany and Austria.

See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1715.

FRANCE: A. D. 1682-1693.

Contest of the King and the Gallican Church with the Papacy.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1682-1693 (page 2462).

FRANCE: A. D. 1715-1770.

The fatal policy in Europe which lost to the French their

opportunity for colonial aggrandizement.

"Louis XIV. had made France odious to her neighbors and

suspected by all Europe. Those who succeeded him required much

prudence and wisdom to diminish the feelings of fear and

jealousy which this long reign of wars and conquests had

inspired. They were fortunate in that the moderation demanded

of them was for France the most skilful and advantageous

policy. France kept Alsace, Franche-Comte, Flanders,

Roussillon, and beyond this enlarged frontier she was no

longer menaced by the same enemies. The treaty of Utrecht had

modified the entire balance of power. There is henceforward no

house of Austria excepting in Germany. It is too often

forgotten, in speaking of this house and its rivalry with that

of France, that the most ardent center of hatred was in Spain.

It was Spain which cherished that violent rancor which, for

lack of words as much as of ideas, is placed to the account of

Austria alone. Spain is no longer to be feared; she is

weakened, she is becoming dependent. A cadet of France, a

Bourbon, reigns at Madrid, and the roles, in that direction,

are exchanged. As to Austria even, she has increased

undoubtedly: she has taken the Low Countries, Milan, Naples,

very soon she adds Sicily to them; but she is scattered. In

multiplying her outposts, she presents so many points of

aggression to her adversaries. France has the Low Countries

under her hand: Savoy threatens Milan: and, in Germany,

Prussia, which is growing, groups the opponents of the Empire.

France completes her work by the annexation of Lorraine. The

house of Lorraine is transported to Tuscany, and by the effect

of the same treaty, that of Vienna in 1738, Naples and Sicily

pass to the Spaniards. It seems that henceforward France has

only to conserve on the continent. She presents to it the most

compact power. Her principal enemy in it is greatly reduced.

She is surrounded by states, weaker than she, who defer to her

and fear her; she can resume that fine role of moderator and

guardian of the peace of Europe which Richelieu had prepared

for her, and bear elsewhere, into the other hemisphere, the

superabundance of her forces and that excess of vigor which in

great nations is precisely the condition of health. The future

of her grandeur is henceforward in the colonies. There she

will encounter England. Upon this new stage their rivalry will

be revived, more ardent than in the days of the hundred years

war. To maintain this struggle which extends over the entire

world, France will not be too strong with all her resources.

When she is engaged in Canada and the Indies at the same time,

she will not need to carry her armies across the Rhine. Peace

on the continent is the condition necessary to the magnificent

fortune which awaits her in America and Asia. If she wishes to

obtain it she must renounce continental ambitions. She can do

it; her defense is formidable. No one about her would dare to

fire a gun without her permission. But, alas! she is far

removed from this wisdom, and, in attempting to establish

colonies, and make changes in the kingdoms of Europe at the

same time, she will compromise her power in both worlds at

once. The French desire colonial conquests, but they can not

abstain from European conquests, and England profits by it.

Austria becomes her natural ally against France. These

powerful diversions keep the French on the ground. However,

they can yet curb Austria; they have Prussia, Savoy, Poland

and Turkey if necessary. Diplomacy is sufficient for this

game; but this game is not sufficient for the French

politicians. The hatred of the house of Austria survives the

causes of rivalry. This house seems always 'the monster' of

which Balzac speaks. One is not satisfied to have chained it;

one can cease only after having annihilated it. 'There is

always,' writes Argenson, 'for politicians a fundamental rule

of reducing this power to the point where the Emperor will not

be a greater landholder than the richest elector.' Charles VI.

dies in 1740; he leaves only a daughter; the opportunity seems

favorable, and noisily sounding the death-cry (l'hallali) they

take the field at the head of all the hunters by inheritance.

See AUSTRIA: A. D.1740, and after (pages 212-220).

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They go 'to make an emperor, to conquer kingdoms!' The

Bavarian whom they crown is a stage emperor, and, as for

conquests, they are considered only too fortunate that Maurice

of Saxe preserves to France those of Louis XIV. The coalition

has no other result than to enlarge Prussia. Meanwhile France

is beaten on the sea and abandons solely to the resources of

his genius Dupleix, who with a handful of men was founding an

empire. There was besides another small matter; after having

exposed Canada in order to conquer Silesia for the king of

Prussia, it was lost in order to have the pleasure of giving

back that province to the queen of Hungary. France had played

the game of England in the war of the succession of Austria,

she played that of Austria in the seven years war.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756, and after (pages 1495-1502).

Frederic was the most equivocal of allies. In 1755, he

deserted cynically and passed over to the English, who had

just recommenced war against France. England having Prussia,

it was important in order to maintain the equilibrium, that

France have Austria. Maria Theresa offered her alliance and

France accepted it. Thus was concluded the famous treaty of

May 1, 1756. The object of this alliance was entirely

defensive. This is what France did not understand, and she did

not cease to be a dupe for having changed partners. Louis XV.

made himself the defender of Austria with the same blindness

as he had made himself her adversary. The continental war

which was only the accessory became the principal. From a

ruling power, France fell to the rank of a subordinate. She

did not even attain the indirect result to which she

sacrificed her most precious interests. Frederic kept Silesia,

France lost Canada and abandoned Louisiana; the empire of the

Indies passed to the English. Louis XV. had thus directed a

policy the sole reason for which was the defeat of England, in

such a way as to assure the triumph of that country. 'Above

all,' wrote Bernis to Choiseul, then ambassador at Vienna,

'arrange matters in such a way that the king will not remain

in servile dependence on his allies. That state would be the

worst of all.' It was the state of France during the last

years of the reign of Louis XV. The alliance of 1756 which had

been at its beginning and under its first form, a skilful

expedient, became a political system, and the most disastrous

of all. Without gaining anything in territory, France lost her

consideration in Europe. She had formerly grouped around her

all those who were disturbed by the power of Austria; forced

to choose between them and Austria, she allowed the Austrians

to do as they chose. To crown the humiliation, immediately

after a war in which she had lost everything to serve the

hatred of Maria Theresa for Frederic, she saw those

unreconcilable Germans draw together without her knowledge,

come to an understanding at her expense and, in concert with

Russia, divide the spoil of one of the oldest clients of the

French monarchy, Poland. There remained to France but one

ally, Spain. They were united in 1761 by the Family Pact, the

only beneficial work which had been accomplished in these

years of disaster. … To the anger of having felt herself made

use of during the war, to the rancor of having seen herself

duped during the peace, was joined the fear of being despoiled

one day by an ally so greedy and so little scrupulous. 'I

foresee,' wrote Mably some years later, 'that the Emperor will

demand of us again Lorraine, Alsace and everything which may

please him.'—'Who can guaranty France, if she should

experience a complicated and unfortunate war,' said one of the

ministers of Louis XVI., 'that the Emperor would not reclaim

Alsace and even other provinces?' It was in this way that the

abuse made by Austria of the alliance revived all the

traditions of rivalry. Add that Maria Theresa was devout, that

she was known to be a friend of the Jesuits, an enemy of the

philosophers, and that at the King's court, the favorites were

accounted as acquired from Austria: everything thus

contributed to render odious to public opinion the alliance

which, in itself, already seemed detestable. At the time when

they were beginning to style the partisans of new ideas

'patriots,' they were in the habit of confounding all the

adversaries of these ideas with the 'Austrian party.' … The

marriage of Marie Antoinette with the Dauphin was destined to

seal forever the alliance of 1756. The unfortunate princess

accumulated on her head the hatreds and prejudices heaped up

by three centuries of rivalry and excessively stimulated by

the still smarting impression of recent wrongs. Even the cause

of her coming to France rendered her suspected by the French;

they imputed to her as a crime her attachment to the alliance,

which was, notwithstanding, the very reason of her marriage.

To understand the prodigious unpopularity which pursued her in

France, it is necessary to measure the violence of the

passions raised up against her mother and her country; it was

summed up, long before the Revolution, in that word which

became for Marie Antoinette a decree of forfeiture and of

death: the Austrian."

_A. Sorel,

L'Europe et la Révolution française

(translated from the French),

part 1, pages 288-297._

FRANCE: A. D. 1776-1778.

Disposition to aid the revolt of the

English colonies in America.

The American embassy.

Dealings of Beaumarchais and Silas Deane.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

A. D. 1776-1778 (pages 3241, 3244).

FRANCE: A. D. 1777.

The first daily newspaper.

See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1777 (page 2600).

FRANCE: A. D. 1788-1789.

Paris in the Revolution.

The part of the Nobodies.

"The history of the revolution can no more be understood

without understanding the part played in it by Paris, than one

can conceive of the tragedy of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet

left out; and to understand the part played by Paris in the

revolution is equally impossible. … Let us commence at the

bottom with the nobodies. They are no specialty of Paris.

There are many of them in every city, but the larger the city

the greater the percentage. Paris, therefore, has the highest.

They are isolated particles. In the ushering in of the new era

they have no part. The regulations concerning the elections to

the States-General contain no provision in regard to them. …

It was simply a matter of course, that these nobodies went for

nothing in the question at hand. Whether they were likely to

continue to be nothing in it, nobody seems to have asked. …

The existence of this class was partly due to natural causes,

the working of which the wit of man can to a degree mitigate,

but never prevent.

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In the 'ancien régime,' however, the wit of man had altogether

been bent upon stimulating it. The privilege-bane had also

been extended over the domain of labor. When, in 1776, Turgot

broke down the guilds, the Parliament of Paris strenuously

opposed the government, declaring: all Frenchmen are divided

into established corporations, forming one continuous chain

from the throne down to the lowest handicraft, indispensable

to the existence of the state, and not to be abolished, lest

the whole social order break asunder. That was but too true.

Since the days of Henry III. (1574-1589) the forcing of all

industrial pursuits into the strait-jacket of guildships had

been carried to the extreme of utter absurdity. Here, too, the

chronic financial distress had been the principal cause. At

first the handicrafts, which everybody had been at liberty to

practice, were withdrawn from free competition and sold as a

privilege, and then, when nothing was left to be sold, the old

guilds were split up into a number of guildlets, merely to

have again something to put on the counter. And it was not

only left pretty much to the masters whom they would admit to

the freedom of the guild, but besides the charges for it were

so high that it was often absolutely out of the reach even of

the most skillful journeyman. Even a blood-aristocracy was not

lacking. In a number of guilds only the sons of masters and

the second husbands of masters' widows could become masters.

Thus an immense proletariat was gradually formed, which to a

great extent was a proletariat only because the law

irresistibly forced it into this position. And the city

proletariat proper received constant and ever-increasing

additions from the country. There such distress prevailed,

that the paupers flocked in crowds to the cities. … In 1791,

long before the inauguration of the Reign of Terror, there

were in a population of 650,000, 118,000 paupers (indigents).

Under the 'ancien régime' the immigrant proletariat from the

country was by the law barred out from all ways of earning a

livelihood except as common day-laborers, and the wages of

these were in 1788, on an average, 26 cents for men and 15 for

women, while the price of bread was higher than in our times.

What a gigantic heap of ferment!"

_H. von Holst,

The French Revolution,

lecture 2._

FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1792.

Effects of the Revolution in Germany.

See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1789-1792.

FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1794.

Myths of the Revolution.

"The rapid growth and the considerable number of these myths

are one of the most curious features of the Revolution, while

their persistent vitality is a standing warning for historical

students. I claim to show that Cazotte's vision was invented

by Laharpe, that Sombreuil's daughter did not purchase his

liberty by quaffing blood, that the locksmith Gamain was not

poisoned, that Labussière did not save hundreds of prisoners

by destroying the documents incriminating them, that the

Girondins had no last supper, that some famous ejaculations

have been fabricated or distorted, that no attempt was made to

save the last batch of victims, that the boys Barra and Viala

were not heroes, that no leather was made of human skins, that

no Englishmen plied the September assassins with drink, that

the 'Vengeur' crew did not perish rather than surrender, that

the ice-bound Dutch fleet was not captured, that Robespierre's

wound was not the work of Merda, but was self-inflicted, and

that Thomas Paine had no miraculous escape."

_J. G. Alger,

Glimpses of the French Revolution,

preface._

FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1796.

The Assignats of the Revolution.

See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1789-1796 (page 2212).

FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1807.

Napoleon and Germany.

See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1796-1807.

FRANCE: A. D. 1855-1895.

Acquisitions in Africa.

(See in this Supplement)

AFRICA: 1855, 1864, 1876-1880, and after.

FRANCE: A. D. 1858-1886.

Conquest of Tonkin and Cochin China.

See TONKIN (page 3114).

FRANCE: A. D. 1871-1892.

Advance in the policy of Protection.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1871-1892 (page 3082).

FRANCE: A. D. 1894-1895.

Assassination of President Carnot.

Election and resignation of M. Casimir-Périer.

Election of M. Faure to the Presidency.

"The most startling of all the deeds in the recent revival of

anarchistic activity was the assassination of M. Carnot,

President of the French Republic, on the 24th of June. While

driving through the streets of Lyons, where he was taking part

in the opening ceremonies of an exposition, he was mortally

stabbed by an Italian Anarchist named Santo Caserio. The

assassin was immediately captured, and was executed August 16.

His trial did not reveal any accomplices, though there was

evidence tending to show that the deed was resolved upon by a

band of Anarchists. Caserio boasted of his identification with

the sect. … According to the constitutional prescription, a

joint convention of the two chambers of the legislature was

immediately summoned for a presidential election. The

convention met at Versailles, June 27, M. Challemel-Lacour,

president of the Senate, in the chair, and on the first ballot

chose M. Casimir-Périer by 451 out of a total of 851 votes, M.

Brisson, the Radical candidate, stood second, with 195, and M.

Dupuy third, with 97."

_Political Science Quarterly,

December, 1894._

On the 15th of January, 1895, M. Casimir-Périer astonished the

world and threw France into consternation, almost, by suddenly

and peremptorily resigning the Presidency. The reason given

was the intolerable powerlessness and practical inutility of

the President under the existing constitution. The exciting

crisis which this resignation produced was passed through

without disorder, and on the 17th the National Assembly

elected M. François Felix Faure to the office of President.

FRANCE: Libraries.

See LIBRARIES (page 2010).

FRANCE, Bank of.

See MONEY (page 2212).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin,

and the first subscription library.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2017).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin:

Electrical discovery.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:

A. D. 1745-1747 (page 770).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin:

Examination before Parliament.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766 (pages 3192-3201).

FRANKLIN, Sir john.

Northern explorations and voyages of.

Loss and search for.

See (in this Supplement)

ARCTIC EXPLORATION: 1819-1822, and after.

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FREDERICK BARBAROSSA, in Italy.

See (in this Supplement)

GERMANY: A. D. 1154-1190, and 1162-1177;

also, pages 1811-1813.

FREE CITIES OF GERMANY, The.

See (in this Supplement)

GERMANY: 13-15th CENTURIES; also, page 473.

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.

See below: TOLERATION, RELIGIOUS.

FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW,

The first.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793 (page 3305).

The Second.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850 (pages 3388-3391).

GALEN, and the development of anatomy and physiology.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 2d CENTURY (page 2128).

GALVANI'S ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION:

A. D. 1786-1800 (page 771).

GAUL: Ancient commerce.

See (In this Supplement) COMMERCE, ANCIENT.

GENOA: The Bank of St. George.

See MONEY AND BANKING (page 2207).

GENOA: Mediæval Commerce.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.

GEORGE III.:

Conversation with Governor Hutchinson

on affairs in the colonies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (pages 3210-3213).

His absolute notions of Kingship.

See England: A. D. 1760-1763 (page 927).

GEORGE, Henry, and the Single Tax movement.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1880 (page 2955).

GERM THEORY OF DISEASE, Origin and development of the.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18TH CENTURIES,

and 19TH CENTURY (pages 2138, 2144, and after).

----------GERMANY:Start--------

GERMANY:

Outline sketch of general history.

See EUROPE (page 1015, and after).

GERMANY: A. D. 962.

Otto I. and the Restoration of the Empire.

"And now it came about that out of the midst of the Germanic

nations a new monarchy arose which wrested itself free from

the immediate influence of the papacy and its antiquated

pretensions and broke a new path for the idea of the empire,

an idea that seemed to have been fully crushed. This was the

empire of Otto the Great. It was not to be compared with the

old Roman empire, it did not at all come up to what the

Carolingian had been. But it did give strong and irrevocable

expression to the idea of a highest authority in Germany, an

authority bound up with religion, yet independent in itself. …

The foundation of the Germanic empire, that is of an

organization which, resting on the internal development of the

German nations had won a universal position through the

extension of the power of the Ottos over Italy, forms the

event of world-wide importance of the tenth century. … This

Germanic empire had no genealogical origin that was entirely

indisputable, but it did in so far have an advantage over the

Carolingian empire that the right of heredity in the German

monarchy decided of itself the question of succession to the

empire. Besides this it had a sort of overlordship over its

neighbors to maintain which was different from that earlier

one: the attempts at Christianizing and at the same time

reducing to submission took in other regions extending far

beyond the limits of the former ones. It was a resuscitation

of the idea of the old Roman empire but by no means of its

form. On the contrary, through constant struggles new

constitutional forms had developed themselves of which the old

world had as yet no conception. Not that it is the proper

place here to enter more deeply into the question of the

feudal system which gave to public life an altogether changed

aspect. But, in a word or two at least, we must characterize

this transformation. Its essence is that an attempt was made

to adjust the conception of obedience and military service to

the needs of the life of the individual. All the arrangements

of life changed their character so soon as it became the

custom to grant land to local overlords who, in turn, provided

with possessions according to their own several grades, could

only be sure of being able to hold these possessions in so far

as they kept faith and troth with the lord-in-chief of the

land. It was through and through a living organization, which

took in the entire monarchy and bound it together into a

many-membered whole; for the counts and dukes for their own

part entered into a similar relationship with their own

sub-tenants. Therewith the possession of land entered into an

indissoluble connection with the theory of the empire, a

connection which extended also to those border nations which

were in contact with and subordinate to the monarchy. That an

empire so constituted could not reckon on such unconditional

obedience as had been paid to the old Roman empire is clear as

day. Nevertheless the whole order of things in the world

depended on the system of adjusted relationships, the keystone

or rather commanding central point of which was formed by this

same empire. It could scarcely claim any longer to be

universal but it did nevertheless hold the chief place in the

general state-system of Europe, and it proved a powerful

upholder of the independence of the secular power. It was just

this idea of universal power, and altogether of ascendancy

over the Christian world, that was indelibly implanted in the

German empire. But could this idea be actually realized, was

Germany strong enough to carry it through? Otto the Great

originated it, but by no means carried it to its completion.

He passed his life amid constant internal and external

struggles; no lasting form of constitution was he able to

leave behind. That is, one might almost say, what is most

characteristic of great natures: they can originate, indeed,

but they cannot complete."

_L. von Ranke,

Weltgeschichte,

(translated from the German),

volume 7, pages. 5-7._

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