Chapter I: H-- S---- V (5)

All this may sound as if Louis were a silly person with no sense, but you must not get that idea. In spite of his absurd manners he made France the chief power in Europe. He was almost constantly fighting other countries, trying to increase the size of France and to add to his kingdom, but I have already told you so much about so many fights, that I’m not going to tell you any more about his just now, for you would probably not read it if I did. So France had her turn as leader of all the other countries as Spain and England had had.

Louis built a magnificent palace at Versailles in which were marble halls, beautiful paintings, and many huge mirrors in which he could see himself as he strutted along. The palace was surrounded by a park with wonderful fountains. The water for the fountains had to be brought a long distance, and it cost thousands of dollars to have the fountains play just for a few minutes. Even to-day sight-seers visit Versailles to see the magnificent palace rooms and to watch the fountains play.

But Louis surrounded himself not only with beautiful things. He also surrounded himself with all the most interesting men and women of his time. All those who could do anything exceptionally well, all those who could paint well or write well or talk well or play well or look well, he brought together to live with him or near by him. This was called his _court_. Those in his Court were “in society.” They were the chosen few who looked down on all the others who were not in society.

This was all very fine for the people who were lucky enough to be “in society”--in Louis’s court. But the poor people of France, those not in his court, were the ones who had to pay Louis’s expenses and those of his court. They were the ones who had to pay for his parties and balls and feasts and for all sorts of presents which he gave his friends. So we shall see presently what happened. The poor people would not stand that sort of thing forever. “The worm will turn,” we say.

69

A Self-Made Man

Who was the Father of His Country?

I know what you will say:

“George Washington.”

But there was another man called “The Father of His Country” before Washington was born, and he was not an American.

In the east of Europe there is a great country as large as our own, and its name is Russia. Very little had been heard of Russia before the Year 1700, for although it was the largest country in Europe, its people were only about half civilized. The Russians were a branch of the great Aryan family called Slavs, but although they were white people, they were living so close to the yellow people in China that they had become much like them in many of their ways. Then, too, the terrible Genghis Khan and his yellow Mongols had conquered Russia in the thirteenth century and ruled over the land. So although the Russians were Christians, they were in every other way more like the people of the East than like Europeans. The men had long beards and wore long coats. The women wore veils like those the Turkish women wore. The people counted with balls strung on wires as the Chinese did.

Well, just before 1700 there was born a Russian prince named Peter. When a small boy, Peter was very much afraid of the water. But he felt so ashamed that he, a prince, should fear anything that he forced himself to get used to the water. He would go to it and play in it and sail boats on it, although all the time he was almost scared to death. And so at last he not only got over this great fear but he came to like the water and boats more than any other playthings.

When Peter grew up the thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was to make his country important in Europe, for before this time it had not been. It was big but not great. And his people had to be civilized. But before he could teach his own people, who were most of them very poor and ignorant, he had to learn himself. As there was no one in Russia who could teach him what he wanted to know, he disguised himself as a common laborer and went to the little country of Holland. Here he got a job in a shipbuilding yard and worked for several months, cooking his own food and mending his own clothes. While he was doing this, however, he learned all about building ships and studied many other things besides, such as blacksmithing, cobbling shoes, and even pulling teeth.

Then he went to England, and everywhere he went he learned all he could. At last he returned to his own country with the knowledge he had gained and set to work to make Russia over. First of all, Peter wanted Russia to have a fleet of ships as other nations had. But in order to have a fleet he had to have water for his ships, and Russia had almost no land bordering on the water. So Peter planned to take a sea-shore away from the neighboring country of Sweden.

Now the king of Sweden at this time was Charles. He was the twelfth king named Charles that Sweden had had. Charles XII was hardly more than a boy, and Peter thought it would be an easy matter to beat this boy and help himself to whatever land he wanted on the water. But Charles was not an ordinary boy. He was an extra-ordinary boy, extra-ordinarily bright and gifted, and he had been unusually well educated besides. He knew several languages; he had learned to ride a horse when he was four years old and how to hunt and to fight. Besides all this, he feared neither hardship nor danger. Indeed, he was such a daredevil that people called him the Madman of the North. So at first Peter’s army was beaten by Charles.

But Peter took his beating calmly, simply remarking that Charles would soon teach the Russian army how to win. Indeed, so successful was Charles at first in fighting Peter and all others who threatened him that the countries of Europe began to think of him as Alexander the Great come to life again, and they feared he might conquer them all. But at last the Russians did win against Charles, and Peter got his sea-shore. Then Peter built the fleet for which he had been working and planning for so many years.

The capital of Russia was Moscow. It was a beautiful city but near the center of that country and far from the water. This didn’t suit Peter at all. Peter wanted a fine city for his capital, but he wanted it right on the water’s edge, so that he could have his beloved ships close to him. So he picked out a spot not only on the water but mostly water, for it was chiefly a marsh. Then he put a third of a million people to work filling in the marsh, and on this he built a beautiful city. This city he called St. Petersburg in honor of his patron saint, the apostle Peter, after whom he himself had been named. The name of St. Petersburg was later changed to Petrograd and recently to Leningrad. Then Peter improved the laws, started schools, and built factories and hospitals and taught his people arithmetic, so that they could count without having to use balls strung on strings. He made his people dress like other Europeans. He made the men cut off their long beards, which he thought looked countrified. The men thought it indecent to have no beards so some saved them to be placed in their coffins in order that at the day of resurrection they could appear before God unashamed. He introduced all sorts of things that he found in Europe but which were unknown in his own country, and he really made Russia over into a great European nation, so that is why he is called Peter the Great, the Father of his Country.

Peter fell in love with a poor peasant girl, an orphan named Catherine, and married her. She had no education, but she was very sweet and lovely and bright and quick-witted, so the marriage turned out happily. The Russians were shocked at the idea of having a queen who was not a princess and was so low-born. But Peter had her crowned, and after he died she ruled over Russia.

70

A Prince Who Ran Away

If you put a P in front of Russia it makes--Prussia. This is the name of a little country in Europe, which is now a part of Germany. Russia was big, and Peter made it great. Prussia was small, but another king made it also great. This king was named Frederick. He, too, lived in the eighteenth century, but a little later than Peter, and he, too, was called “the Great”--Frederick the Great.

Frederick’s father, who was the second king of Prussia, had a hobby for collecting giants--as you might collect postage-stamps. Wherever he heard of a very tall man, no matter in what country and no matter what it cost to get him, he bought or hired him. This collection of giants he made into a remarkable company of soldiers which was his special pride.

He was a very cranky, cross, and bad-tempered old king. He treated his children terribly, especially his son Frederick, whom he called Fritz. Fritz had curls and liked music and poetry and fancy clothes. And his father thought he was growing up to be a girl-boy. This disgusted his father, for he wanted a son who would be a soldier and fighter. His father when angry used to throw dishes at him, lock him up for days at a time, and feed him on bread and water and whip him with a cane. Finally Fritz could stand it no longer, and he ran away. He was caught and brought back. His father was so angry with his son for disobeying and acting as he had done that he was actually going to have him killed--yes, put to death--but at the last minute was persuaded not to do it.

But here is a funny thing: When Fritz grew up to be Frederick, he turned out just what his father wanted him to be--a great soldier and fighter. He still loved poetry and even tried to write poems himself, and he was very fond of music and he played the flute very well, indeed. But Frederick wanted above everything else to make his country important in Europe; for before his time it was of little account, and no one paid much attention to it.

Now, the neighboring country to Prussia was Austria. Austria was ruled over by a woman. This woman was named Maria Theresa. Maria Theresa had become ruler of Austria at the same time that Frederick had become king of Prussia. Some people thought a woman was not a fit person to rule over a country. Frederick’s father had promised to let Maria Theresa alone--he had promised not to fight a woman--but when Frederick became king he wanted to add a part of Austria to his own country, and so he simply helped himself to the piece of Maria Theresa’s country that he wanted. He didn’t care if she was a woman or whether it was fair or not. Of course this started a war. Before long almost every country in Europe was fighting either with Frederick or against him. But Frederick not only succeeded in getting what he was after; he succeeded in holding on to it.

Maria Theresa, however, would not give up. She wanted to get back what had been wrongfully taken away from her. So she began quietly and secretly to get ready for another war against Frederick. Quietly and secretly she got other countries to promise to help her. But Frederick heard of what she was doing, and suddenly he attacked her again, and for seven long years this next war went on. So this was called the Seven Years’ War. Frederick kept on fighting until he had beaten Austria for good and until he had gained his purpose, which was to make his little country of Prussia the most powerful country in Europe. He still held on to the part of Austria that he had at first taken away. Maria Theresa was a great queen, and she would have won against Frederick had he been an ordinary king. But she had too strong a ruler against her. Frederick was one of the world’s smartest generals and too much for her.

The Seven Years’ War, strange to say, was fought out not only in Europe but in far-off America, also. England had taken Frederick’s side. France and other countries had taken sides against him. So the English settlers in America, who were on Frederick’s side, fought the French settlers, who were against him. When, therefore, Frederick won in Europe, the English in America also won against the French in America. I am telling you all this because that is why we in America speak English instead of French to-day. If Frederick had lost, France would have won, and we here in America would probably now speak French instead of English.

Frederick, like some other kings we have heard of before, thought nothing of lying or cheating or stealing if he had to in order to get the better of other countries. Fair means or foul means made no difference to him. But his own people he treated as if they were his children and did everything he could for them. Like a lioness with her cubs, he fought for his family, even with the world against him.

There was a mill close by Frederick’s palace that belonged to a poor miller. As it was not a pretty thing to be so near, the king wanted to buy it in order to tear it down and get rid of it. But the miller would not sell. Although Frederick the Great offered the miller a large sum of money, he refused. A great many kings would simply have taken the mill and perhaps put the miller in jail or put him to death, but Frederick did neither, for he thought his lowliest subject had his rights and that if he didn’t want to sell he shouldn’t be made to. So he left the miller undisturbed, and the mill stands to-day as it did then, close to the palace.

Though Frederick was a German, strange to say, he hated the German language. He thought it the language of the uneducated. He himself spoke French and wrote in French and only spoke German when he had to talk to his servants or those who did not understand French.

71

America Gets Rid of Her King

Did you know that we once had a king?

His name was George.

No, George Washington wasn’t a king.

This was another George.

You remember the Stuarts in England--James, Charles, and the rest of the family who ruled England for a hundred years from 1600 to 1700. Well about 1700 England ran out of Stuarts--there were no more Stuart children.

As England had to have another king, they asked a distant relative of the royal family over from one of the German states to rule England. Yes, from Germany to rule England. His name was George, and the English called him George I. George couldn’t even speak English. He was German and loved his own country much better than England, but he had agreed to come and rule over England, and he did so. You can imagine what sort of a king he was. His son, George II ruled after him, although he, too, was more German than English. But when the grandson, George III, came to the throne he was a born and bred Englishman. It was in this grandson’s reign, in the reign of George III, that our own country, the United States, was born.

When a wheel turns over we call it a _revolution_, which is a big name for a little thing.

When a _country_ turns over we also call it a revolution, which is a big name for a big thing.

Our country had started with the two little settlements, or colonies, as they were called, of Jamestown and Plymouth. But it had grown and grown until there were now a number of settlements along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the people who had settled here were English, and the king of England ruled over them. The king asked all these people to send him money, which was called taxes. Now, the money collected from taxes was not, of course, for the king to put in his pocketbook to use as he liked. It was supposed to be spent on the people who were taxed, to be used for roads, schools, police, and such things that are for the good of all.

So these people along the coast who were paying money or taxes to the king far off across the water thought they ought to have a vote to say how this money should be spent and on what it should be spent. But they did not have a vote, and so they thought they ought not to have to pay taxes to the king away off in England.

One of the leading citizens of America at this time was a man named Benjamin Franklin. He was the son of a candlemaker, but from a poor boy who had once walked the streets of Philadelphia with a loaf of bread under each arm he had risen to a very honored position in the country. He had learned to be a printer and had started one of the first and best newspapers in the United States. He was a great thinker and had invented a stove and a lamp and had succeeded in getting electricity from the lightning in the clouds by flying a kite with a wire during a storm. He was one of the Wise Men of the West.

Franklin was sent over to England to try to get the king to change his mind about taxing the colonies or to bring about some sort of agreement with him. But King George was hardheaded, and Franklin was unable to stop the king from doing what he had made up his mind to do.

So the people in America, finding that talking did no good, started in to fight. They raised an army. Then they tried to find a good man to command the army. Such a leader must be honest and brave; he must have a good mind; he must love his country; and he must be a good fighter. So they looked around for a man who had all these qualities, and they found one. The man they picked was honest and brave, for when he was a boy, he had cut down a favorite tree of his father’s just to try a new hatchet he had been given. In those days to cut down a cherry-tree was a crime for which by law a man could be put to death. When this boy was asked by his angry father if he had done it he said, “I cannot tell a lie; I did.” Of course, now you know who it was--George Washington.

George learned to be a surveyor--that is, a man who measures land--and when only sixteen years old he was employed to survey the large farm of Lord Fairfax in Virginia; that showed he had a good mind. He then had been a soldier and had fought the Indians bravely and well; that showed that he loved his country and was a good fighter. So George Washington was chosen to lead the American army against the English.

The Americans did not at first think of starting a new country. They simply wanted the same rights that Englishmen in England had. But they soon found out that there was only one way to get those rights, and that was to start a new country independent of England. So a man named Thomas Jefferson wrote a paper which was called a Declaration of Independence--can you say it?--because it declared that the colonies were going to be independent of England. There were fifty-six Americans chosen by the people to sign it. Each one of the signers would have been put to death as a traitor to England if the United States had not won, and each signer knew it, yet he signed it nevertheless. But just signing this paper didn’t make England give up the colonies. Oh, no! King George’s armies tried to stop the colonies from getting away from the rule of England.

Washington had a very small army with which to fight the English army, and very little money with which to pay the soldiers or to supply them with food or clothes or powder and shot. One winter the soldiers nearly froze and starved to death, for they had little clothing and hardly any food but carrots, and it seemed as if the war could not go on unless they got help. Yet Washington kept up their spirits.

Benjamin Franklin was sent across the ocean, not to England this time of course, but to France to see if he couldn’t get some help from that country. France hated England because she had lost part of America, Canada, in the Seven Years’ War, but at first France would not help. She took little interest in the fight for Washington’s army had lost a number of battles against the English, and people don’t like to back a loser. But the year after the Declaration of Independence the American army beat the English badly at a place called Saratoga in New York State. Then the king of France became more interested, and then he sent help to the colonies to carry on the war. A young French nobleman named Lafayette hurried over from France and fought under General Washington and did so well that he has made a great name for himself.

England, seeing that things were going against her, now wanted to make peace with the Americans and give them the same rights that English citizens had, but it was then too late. At the beginning of the war the Americans would have agreed to this and been glad to agree, but now they would agree to nothing less than entire independence of England; and so the War went on, for England would not let the colonies go.

The English had been beaten by the Yankees, as they called them in the North, at a place called Saratoga. So then they sent their general, Lord Cornwallis, to the south of our country to see if he could beat the people there. General Greene was put in command of the Southern American soldiers. Lord Cornwallis tried to fight Greene, but Greene led Cornwallis a merry chase round the country until he was all tired out and finally went into a little place called Yorktown in Virginia. Here Cornwallis and his army were caught fast so that they could not get out. On one side was the American army, and on the water side were the French war-ships that had been sent over to help. So Cornwallis had to surrender.

King George then said, “Let us have peace”; and in 1783 the war was ended by a treaty of peace, eight years after it had started, and the colonies were independent of England. This was called the Revolutionary War, and after it was over our country was called the United States.

There were just thirteen of these original colonies that joined as partners in this Union. That is why there are just thirteen stripes in our flag. Some people think thirteen is an unlucky number; but our flag with its thirteen stripes still waves over the land, and it has brought us good luck; don’t you think so?

Washington was made the first President, and so he is called the Father of His Country; the First in War, the First in Peace, and the First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.

72

Upside Down (header upside down)

Measles and Mumps are very catching.

So are Revolutions.

Just a little later than the Revolution of the thirteen colonies, the people in France had a Revolution, too. They saw how successful the Americans had been in their fight against the king of England, and so they rebelled against their own king and queen in France. This was called the French Revolution.

The reason the French people rebelled against their king was because they had very little, and the king and his royal family and nobles seemed to have everything. Both the Americans and the French rebelled against paying taxes. With the Americans, however, it was a matter of principle more than anything else. Their taxes were not very large, but they thought them unjust. The French taxes, however, not only were unjust but they took almost everything away from the people.

I have already told you how bad things were under Louis XIV, and they got worse until the people could stand it no longer.

At this time the king of France was Louis XVI, and his queen was named Marie Antoinette. Although the people were so poor they had hardly anything to eat except a very coarse and bad-tasting kind of bread called black bread; they were compelled to pay the king and the nobles money so that they could live in fine style and have “parties”; and they had to do all sorts of work for them for nothing or next to nothing. If any one complained he was put in a great prison in Paris called the Bastille and left there to die. In spite of the fact that all the people were so terribly poor, the king and the queen and their friends lived in luxury and extravagance with everything in the world they wanted, all paid for by the poor people.

Neither the king nor his wife was really wicked. They were simply young and thoughtless. They meant well, but like a great many well-meaning people they lacked common sense and did not know how others lived. They didn’t seem to understand that people _could_ be poor, for they had so much themselves. Marie Antoinette was told that her subjects had no bread to eat. “Then why don’t they eat cake?” she is said to have asked.

To right the wrongs of the people, a body of many of the best men from all France gathered together and, calling themselves the National Assembly, tried to work out some plan to do away with all the injustice the people had been suffering. They wanted to make every one free and equal and give everybody a “say” in the government.

But the poor had become so furiously mad at the way they had been treated by the rich that they would stand things no longer and a wild and angry mob of them attacked the old prison of the Bastille. They battered down the walls and freed the prisoners and killed the guards of the Bastille simply because they were servants of the king. Then they cut off the heads of the guards and stuck them on poles and, carrying them aloft, paraded through the streets of Paris. There were only about half a dozen prisoners in the old jail, so that freeing them didn’t matter much, but this attack was to show that the people would no longer allow the king to imprison them.

The Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789. This is the beginning of what is called the French Revolution, and this day is celebrated in France in almost the same way that our Fourth of July is, for it is the French Declaration of Independence against kings.

Lafayette, who was now back in France, the same Lafayette who had helped the Americans fight their king, sent the key of the Bastille over to George Washington as a souvenir that his own country had now overthrown its king and declared its independence.

The king and queen were living in the beautiful palace at Versailles, the palace that Louis XIV had built. All the king’s nobles, when they heard what was taking place in Paris, became frightened and, deserting their king and queen, took to their heels and left the country. They knew pretty well what was going to happen, and they didn’t wait to see.

Meanwhile the National Assembly drew up what was called a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was something like our Declaration of Independence. It said that all men were born free and equal, that the people should make the laws and the laws should be the same for all.

Soon after the Declaration of Rights had been made, the mad mob from Paris, ragged and wild-looking, carrying sticks and stones, and crying, “Bread, bread!” marched out the ten miles to Versailles, where Louis and Marie Antoinette were still living. Up the beautiful grand staircase of the palace they rushed. The few guards remaining round the king were unable to hold them back. They captured the king and queen and took them prisoners to Paris. There they kept Louis and Marie Antoinette prisoners for several years. Once the king and queen tried to escape in disguise but were caught before they could get out of the country and brought back.

Then it was that the National Assembly drew up a Constitution--a set of rules by which the country should be justly governed. This the king agreed to and signed.

But that still wasn’t enough. The people wanted no king at all to rule over them. So about a year later they started a real republic like our own, and the king was sentenced to death. A Frenchman had invented a kind of machine with a big knife for chopping off heads. This was called the guillotine, and it was used instead of an ax, for it was quicker and surer. So the king was taken to the guillotine, and his head was cut off.

But the people did not settle down quiet and contented when they had got rid of their king. They were afraid that those who were in favor of kings might start another kingdom. The people chose red, white, and blue as their colors and the “Marseillaise” as their national song; and everywhere they marched they carried the tricolor, as they called the three-colored flag, and as they marched they sang the “Marseillaise.”

Then began what is called the Reign of Terror, and this is a tale of blood. A man named Robespierre and two of his friends were leaders in this Reign of Terror. Any one whom the people suspected of being in favor of kings they caught and beheaded. The queen was one of the first to have her head cut off. If any one even whispered, “there’s a man, or there’s a woman, or there’s a child who is in favor of kings,” that man, woman, or child would be rushed to the guillotine. If any one simply hated another and wished to get rid of him, all he had to do was to point him out as in favor of kings, and off he would be taken to the guillotine. No one was sure of his life for a day. He never knew what moment some personal enemy might accuse him. Hundreds, then thousands, of suspected people were beheaded, and a special sewer had to be built to carry off the blood. But the guillotine, fast as it was, was too slow for the Terrorists. It could cut off but one head at a time, and so prisoners were lined up and shot down with cannons.

People seemed to have gone wild, crazy, mad! They insulted Christ and the Christian religion. They put a pretty woman called the Goddess of Reason on the altar of the beautiful Church of Notre Dame and worshiped her instead of the Lord. They pulled down statues and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary. In their places they put statues and pictures of their own leaders. The guillotine was put up in place of the cross. They did away with Sundays. They made a week ten days long, and every tenth day they made a holiday instead of Sunday. They stopped counting time from Christ’s birth, because they didn’t want anything that had to do with Christ, and they began to call the year when the republic was started in 1792 the year 1.

But Robespierre wished to rule alone, and he plotted against his two friends. One of these he had beheaded, and the other was killed in his bath-tub by a girl named Charlotte Corday, who was in a rage at what he had done. So Robespierre was left alone. At last the people, in fear of this man who was such a monstrous and inhuman tyrant, rose up against him. When he found that he too, was to be put to death, he tried to commit suicide, but, before he could do so he was caught and taken to the guillotine, where he went to the same death to which he had sent countless others, and the Reign of Terror was ended. It was a pity that he hadn’t a thousand lives with which to pay for the thousands of lives he had taken away.

73

A Little Giant

At last the Revolution was stopped.

It was stopped by a young soldier only about twenty years old and sixty inches tall.

The Government was holding a meeting in the palace while a mad mob in the streets outside were trying to attack the palace. A young soldier had been given a few men and told to keep the mob away. The young soldier pointed cannons down each street that led to the palace, and no one dared to show himself. This young soldier was named Napoleon Bonaparte. He made such a fine record that people wanted to know who he was and where he came from.

Napoleon had been born on a little island called Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. He was born just in time to be a Frenchman, for the island of Corsica had belonged to Italy and had only just been given to France a few weeks before he was born. As soon as he was old enough, he was sent off to a military school in France. There his French schoolmates looked upon him as a foreigner and didn’t have much to do with him. But Napoleon made high marks in arithmetic, and he loved hard problems. Once he shut himself up in his room to work over a hard problem, and there he stayed for three days and nights until he had found the answer.

Napoleon showed by the way he put an end to the French Revolution that he was going to be a fine soldier, and so when he was only twenty-six years old he was made a general.

Now, at this time all the other countries of Europe had kings. France had caught the fever of revolution from the Americans all the way across the ocean and had got rid of her kings. The kings of these other countries were afraid their people might catch the fever of revolution, too. So all of these other countries became enemies of France because France had put an end to her kings.

Napoleon was sent off to fight Italy. He had to cross the Alps, which Hannibal in the Punic Wars had crossed long before. But Hannibal had no heavy cannons when he crossed; it seemed impossible for Napoleon’s army to cross with cannons. Napoleon asked his engineers, the men who were supposed to know about such things, if it could be done. They said they thought it was impossible.

“Impossible,” Napoleon angrily replied, “is a word found only in the dictionary of fools.” Then he shouted:

“There shall be no Alps!” and went ahead and crossed them. His army won in Italy, and when he returned to France he was greeted by the people as a conquering hero. But the men who were then governing France were afraid of him. They feared he might try to make himself king because he was so popular with the people. Napoleon, however, asked to be sent to conquer Egypt because he had an idea he could get the better of the English there. He thought he might then cut England off from India, the new country that they had won in the reign of James I. England had lost America, but she didn’t want to lose India.

The French Government was very glad to get rid of Napoleon, and so they sent him off to Egypt as he asked. He quickly conquered Egypt as Julius Cæsar had done, but there was no Cleopatra to upset his plans. While he was conquering Egypt, his fleet, which was waiting for him at the mouth of the Nile, was caught and destroyed by the English fleet under a great admiral, if not the greatest that ever lived. His name was Lord Nelson.

Napoleon had no way to take his army back to France. So he left his army in Egypt under command of another. He himself, however, managed to find a ship to take him back home. When he reached France he found that the men who were supposed to be governing were quarreling among themselves, and, seeing his chance, he had himself made one of three men chosen to rule France. He was called first consul; and there were supposed to be two assistant consuls, but the assistants were little more than clerks to do Napoleon’s bidding. It was only a very short time before he was next made first consul for life. Then, not long after that, he became emperor of France and also king of Italy.

The other countries of Europe began to fear that Napoleon would conquer them, too, and make them also a part of France. So all the other countries joined together to beat him. Napoleon planned to conquer England first, and he got ready a fleet to cross over to England. But his fleet was caught off Spain near a point called Trafalgar by the same English admiral, Lord Nelson, who had beaten him in Egypt. Before this battle, Nelson said to his sailors, “England expects that every man will do his duty,” and they did it. Napoleon’s fleet was utterly destroyed, though Nelson himself was killed.

Napoleon then gave up the idea of conquering England, and he turned his attention in the opposite direction. He had beaten Spain and Prussia and Austria. Almost all Europe either belonged to him or had to do what he said. Then he attacked Russia. It was a great mistake he made, for Russia was far off, and it was wintertime and very cold. Still, he managed to reach Moscow way off in the center of Russia with his army. But the Russians burned the city and destroyed all the food, so that Napoleon had nothing with which to feed his army. It was terribly cold; there were deep snows; and, in retreating, his army suffered enormous losses. Napoleon himself soon made a bee-line to Paris leaving his army to get back the best way they could. Men and horses died of cold and hunger by the thousands. Napoleon reached Paris, but his fortune had turned. All of Europe was getting ready to put an end to the tyrant, and it was not long after this that he was hemmed in and beaten by his enemies.

When Napoleon saw that he was beaten, he signed a paper saying that he would give up and leave France. And so he did, sailing away to a little island called Elba, just off the coast of Italy, not far from the island where he was born.

But Napoleon on the island of Elba got an idea that all was not lost and that he might return to France and get back his power again. So all of a sudden, to the surprise of France and the rest of the world, he landed on the coast of France. The French Government at Paris sent an army of his old soldiers against him with orders to meet him and bring him to Paris in an iron cage. But when his old soldiers met their old general they went over to his side, and so with them he marched on to Paris. The English and German armies were north of France and preparing to fight. Napoleon quickly got together an army and went forth to meet them. At a little town called Waterloo, Napoleon fought his last battle, for there he was utterly beaten by an English general named Wellington. This was the Year 1815. We still speak and probably always will speak of any great defeat as “Waterloo.”

There is a peculiar sentence which reads backward the same as forward. It is what Napoleon might have said after all was over. It is:

ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW ELBA

After Napoleon was beaten at Waterloo, the English took him away and put him on a little island far off in the ocean where he could not possibly escape. It was a lonely spot named St. Helena after the mother of Constantine. Here he lived for six years before he died.

Napoleon was probably the greatest general that ever lived, but that does not mean that he was the greatest man. Some say he was the worst, for just to make himself great, he killed hundreds of thousands of people and brought destruction and ruin to the whole of Europe wherever he fought his battles.

This brings us up into the nineteenth century, for Napoleon died in 1821. How long ago is that?

74

From Pan and His Pipes to the Phonograph

Frogs croak;
Cats me-ow;
Dogs bark;
Sheep bleat;
Cows moo;
Lions roar;
Hyenas laugh;
But only birds and people _sing_.
All other animals simply make noises.
But people can do what birds cannot.
They can also make music out of _things_.

Have you ever made a cigar-box fiddle or a pin piano or musical glasses?

In the long-ago story-book times Apollo took a pair of cow-horns and fastened between them seven strings made from the cow’s skin. This was called a lyre. These strings he picked with his fingers or with a quill, making a little tinkling sound that could hardly have been very beautiful. Yet Apollo’s son Orpheus is said to have learned from his father to play so beautifully on the lyre that the birds and wild beasts and even trees and rocks gathered round to hear him.

Pan, the god of the woods, who had goat’s horns and ears and legs and feet, tied together several whistles of different lengths and played on these as you might on a mouth-organ. This instrument was called Pan’s pipes.

The lyre and Pan’s pipes were the two earliest musical instruments. The first was a stringed instrument; the second a wind instrument. The long strings and long pipes made low notes; the short strings and short pipes made high tones.

From Apollo’s lyre we get the piano with its many, many strings. Did you ever look at the inside of a piano and see the many strings of different lengths? They are, however, not picked as the strings of a lyre or harp are picked, but hammered by little felt-covered blocks as you touch the keys.

From Pan’s pipes we get the great church organ with its pipes like giant whistles. You don’t, of course, blow the pipes with your mouth as you do a whistle. The pipes are so big you must blow them with a machine like a tire-pump, and you do this as you touch the keys.

We know what the instruments in olden times were like, but we don’t know what the music that people made was really like; there were no phonographs to bottle up the sounds and, when uncorked a thousand years later, to pour forth the old notes once again. The music went off into thin air and was lost.

It was not until about the Year 1000 A.D. that music could even be written down. Before then all music was played “by ear,” for there was no written music. A Benedictine monk named Guy, or, in Italian, Guido, thought of a way to write down musical notes, and he named the notes do, re, mi, fa, and so on. These were the first letters of the words of a hymn to St. John which the monks sang like the scale.

Another Italian is sometimes called the “father of modern music.” His name is Palestrina, and he died about 1600. He set the church service to music, and the pope ordered all churches to follow it, but the people didn’t like his music very much; that is, it was not what we call “popular.”

It was not until a hundred years later--that is, about 1700--that the first great musician lived who wrote music that was really popular, that the people loved, and that we still love to-day.

He was a German named Handel. His father was a barber, a dentist, and doctor, and he wanted his boy to become a great lawyer. But the only thing the boy liked was music.

In those days there were no pianos. There was a little instrument with strings which was played by touching keys. This was called a clavichord. Sometimes it had legs like a table. Sometimes it had no legs and was just laid on a table.

Handel, though only six years old, got hold of one of these instruments, and, without any one finding out about it, he had it put up in his room in the attic of his house. After every one had gone to bed at night he would practise on this clavichord until late, when he was supposed to be in bed. One night his family heard sounds up under the roof. Wondering what it could be, they took a lantern, and, quietly climbing the attic stairs, they suddenly opened the door, and there sat little Handel in his night-clothes on a chair with his feet reaching only half-way to the floor, playing on the clavichord.

After that Handel’s father saw it was no use trying to make his son a lawyer. So he got teachers for him, and before long the boy amazed the world with his playing. He went to England, lived there, became an Englishman, and when he died the English people buried him in Westminster Abbey, a church in which famous Englishmen were buried.

Handel “set the Bible to music.” These songs with the Bible words to be sung by a chorus of voices were called _oratorios_, and one of these oratorios named “The Messiah” is sung almost everywhere at Christmas-time.

Living at the same time with Handel was another German musician named Bach. Bach played divinely on the organ as Handel did on the clavichord and wrote some of the finest music for the organ that ever has been written. Strange that both Handel and Bach went blind in their old age, but to them it was sound, not sight, that counted most. Here is another good subject for an argument: would you rather be deaf or blind?

Almost all musical geniuses have been musical wonders when they were still babies. They have been great musicians even before learning to read and write.

One such genius was born just before Handel died. He was an Austrian named Mozart.

Mozart when only four years old played the piano wonderfully. He also wrote music--composing, it is called--for others to play.

Mozart’s father and sister played very well, so the three went on a concert tour. Mozart, the boy wonder, played before the empress, and everywhere he went he was treated like a prince, petted and praised and given parties and presents.

Then he grew up and married, and ever after he had the hardest kind of a time trying to make a living. He composed all sorts of things, plays with music called operas, and symphonies, which are written for whole orchestras to play; but he made so little money that when he died he had to be buried where they put people who were too poor to have a grave for themselves alone. People afterward thought it a shame that such a great composer should have no monument over his grave, but then it was too late to find where he was buried. A monument was put up, but to this day no one knows where Mozart’s body lies.

A German named Beethoven had read the stories of the boy wonder, Mozart, and he thought he, too, would like to have a boy wonder to play before kings and queens. So when his son Louis was only five years old he kept the boy practising long hours at the piano until he became so tired that the tears ran down his cheeks. But Louis Beethoven, or Ludwig, as he was called in German, finally came to be one of the greatest musicians that have ever lived. He could sit at the piano and make up the most beautiful music as he went along--improvise, as it is called--but he was never satisfied with it when written down. Time and time again he would scratch out and rewrite his music until it had been rewritten often a dozen times.

But Beethoven’s hearing began to grow dull. He was worried that he might lose it entirely--a terrible thing to happen to any one, but to one whose hearing was his fortune nothing could be worse. And at last he did become deaf. This loss of his hearing made Beethoven hopelessly sad and bad-tempered, cross with everything and everybody. Nevertheless, he didn’t give up; he kept on composing just the same, even after he could no longer hear what he had written.

Another great and unusual German musician named Wagner lived until 1883. Though he practised all his life, he never could play very well. But he composed the most wonderful operas that have ever been written, and he wrote not only the music but the words, too. He took old myths and fairy-tales and made them into plays to be sung to music. At first some people made fun of his music, for it seemed to them so noisy and “slam-bangy” and without tune. But people now make fun of those “some people” who don’t like it!

I have told you in other places of painters and poets, of architects and wise men, of kings and heroes, of wars and troubles. I have put this story of music of all ages in one chapter which I have tucked in here between the acts, to give you a rest for a moment from wars and rumors of wars.

When I was a boy I never heard any great musicians play. Now you and I can turn on the phonograph any time and hear the music of Palestrina or Mozart, of Beethoven or Wagner, of dozens of other masters, played or sung to us whenever we wish; the greatest musicians become our slaves. No caliph in the “Arabian Nights” could command such service to his pleasure!

75

The Daily Papers of 1854-1865

If you could go up into your grandfather’s attic or the attic of somebody else’s grandfather, or would dig down into some old trunk, you might find some of the newspapers that were printed during the years from 1854 to 1865. Then you might actually read in these daily papers the happenings that I am now going to tell you about. Many people still alive have taken part in some of these events themselves or know those who have. Under the heading, “Foreign News,” you would probably find some of the following things told about:

ENGLISH NEWS. At this time the queen of England was named Victoria. She was much beloved by her people because she had such a kindly nature and Christian spirit. She was more like a mother to her people than like a queen. She ruled for more than half a century, and the time when she ruled is called the Victorian Age.

The English news of 1854 would tell about a war that the English were then fighting with Russia. Russia was a long way off, and so the English had to send their soldiers in boats through the Mediterranean Sea to the end, then past Constantinople in to the Black Sea. There in a little spot of land that jutted out from Russia into the Black Sea most of the fighting was done. This little spot of land was called the Crimea, and the war therefore was called the Crimean War. In this war in that far-off land thousands of English soldiers died from wounds and disease.