Chapter II: Part 2

Two centuries elapsed from Cimabue to Lionardo da Vinci. The most distinguished artists in this interval were Giotto, who immediately followed Cimabue, and Masaccio, who immediately preceded Lionardo; but, although we can trace a gradual improvement from the infancy of Tuscan art to the surprising works of Masaccio, in the Chiesa del Carmine, at Florence, (works which afterwards Raffaelle himself did not disdain to imitate,) the appearance of Lionardo may be justly considered the commencement of a new æra. Vasari, who composed his lives of the painters when the most excellent specimens of the art had been recently produced, emphatically calls the style of Giorgione, Titian, Correggio, and Raffaelle, “the modern manner,” as opposed to that of Mantegna, Signorelli, and others, and still more to that of Lippi, Giovanni da Fiesole, and the earlier masters. Of this “modern manner,” Lionardo da Vinci was the inventor. His chiaro-scuro is to be traced in the magic and force of Correggio and Giorgione; his delicate and accurate delineation of character, and his sweetness of expression, reappear in Raffaelle; while, in anatomical knowledge and energetic design, he is the precursor of Michael Angelo; but we should look in vain for the teacher from whom he derived these excellences. The original genius, of which this affords so striking a proof, was apparent in every thing to which he applied his mind; and not only every art, but almost every science that was studied in his time, seems to have engaged his attention. He was conversant in chemistry, geometry, anatomy, botany, mechanics, astronomy, and optics; and there is scarcely a subject which he touched in which he did not, in more or less important points, anticipate the discoveries of later philosophers. With these astonishing powers of mind, he possessed great personal beauty and a captivating eloquence; the first musician of his time, and an accomplished improvisatore, he excelled besides in all manly exercises, and was possessed of uncommon strength. This extraordinary man was born at Vinci, a small burgh, or castle, of Val d’Arno di Sotto, in the year 1452. He was the son of one Piero, a notary of the Signoria of Florence. His father, who had at first intended to educate him for a mercantile life, having noticed his wonderful capacity and his particular fondness for drawing, placed him with Andrea Verocchio, originally a sculptor, but who, with the versatility of his age, was occasionally a designer and painter.

Vasari relates, that Verocchio being occupied on a picture of the Baptism of Christ, Lionardo was permitted to paint an accessory figure of an angel in the same work. Verocchio, perceiving that his own performance was manifestly surpassed by that of his young scholar, abandoned the art in despair, and never touched a pencil again. Although Lionardo thus excelled his master while a boy, and soon enlarged the boundaries of the art, it is justly observed by Lanzi that he retained traces of the manner and even general tastes of Verocchio all his life. Like his master, he studied geometry with ardour; he was fonder of design than painting: in his choice of form, whether of face or limb, he preferred the elegant to the full. From Verocchio too he derived his fondness for drawing horses and composing battles, and from him imbibed the wish to advance his art by doing a few things well, rather than to multiply his works. Verocchio was an excellent sculptor; in proof of which the S. Tommaso at Or San Michele, in Florence, and the equestrian statue before S. Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice, may be adduced. Lionardo modelled the three statues, cast in bronze by Il Rustici, for S. Giovanni at Florence, and the colossal equestrian statue of the first Francesco Sforza, (destroyed by the French before it was cast,) at Milan. To his knowledge of sculpture must be also greatly attributed that roundness and relief which he infused into many of his pictures, and which had hitherto been wanting in the art. To this period of Lionardo’s life belong the Medusa’s head, now in the Florence gallery; the cartoon of Adam and Eve; a Madonna, once in the Borghese palace in Rome, known by the accompaniment of a crystal vase of flowers; a triumph of Neptune; and other works mentioned by Vasari. Some of the feebler pictures ascribed to him in Rome and Florence may also belong to this time. His genius for mechanics had already manifested itself: he invented machines for sinking wells, and lifting and drawing weights; proposed methods for boring mountains, cleansing ports, and digging canals. His architectural schemes too were numerous and daring: with the boldness of an Archimedes, he offered to lift the Baptistery, or church of S. Giovanni, in the air, and build under it the basement and steps which were wanting to complete the design. It does not appear that his fellow-citizens availed themselves of these powers in any memorable work; but his plan for rendering the Arno navigable seems to have been adopted two centuries afterwards by Viviani.

Lionardo remained at Florence till about the age of thirty, after which we find him at Milan, in the service of Lodovico Sforza, known by the name of Lodovico il Moro. The artist’s residence at the court of this prince, from 1482 to 1499,[2] may be considered the most active and the most glorious period of his life. Lodovico il Moro, whatever may have been his character as a potentate and as a man, certainly gave great encouragement to literature and the arts, and the universal genius of Lionardo was in all respects calculated for the restless enterprise of the time. A letter is preserved, addressed by him to Lodovico Sforza, in answer to that prince’s first invitation, (and it is sufficient to disprove Vasari’s story, that the artist recommended himself by his performance on the lute,) in which he gives a list of such of his qualifications as might be serviceable to the Duke. After an account of new inventions in mining operations and gunnery, with a description of bridges, scaling ladders, and “infinite things for offence,” in the tenth and last item, he professes competent knowledge of architecture and hydrostatics, confident that he can “give equal satisfaction in time of peace;” and adds, “I will also execute works of sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay; in painting too I will do what is possible to be done, as well as any other man, whoever he may be.” All his powers were put in requisition by the Duke of Milan. The warlike habits of the sovereigns of Italy at this time rendered the science and services of the engineer particularly useful, and Lionardo was constantly inventing arms and machinery for attack and defence. He was engaged in the architecture of the cathedral; he superintended all the pageants and masques, then so commonly conducted with splendour and taste in the Italian courts, and in some of which his knowledge of mechanics produced almost magical effects; he improved the neighbourhood of the Ticino by canals and irrigation, and attempted to render the Adda navigable between Brivio and Trezzo. The colossal equestrian statue before-mentioned occupied him, at intervals, for many years; want of means alone, it seems, prevented the Duke from commissioning him to cast it in bronze. The model existed till the invasion of Milan by Louis XII., in 1499, when it was broken to pieces by his Gascons.

Footnote 2:

The erroneous dates of Vasari have been corrected in this particular
by Amoretti.

As the founder of the Milanese Academy, the first, in all probability, established in Italy, Lionardo composed his Treatise on Painting; which Annibale Carracci declared would have saved him twenty years of study had he known it in his youth. This work was first published in Paris, in 1651, by Raffaelle Dufresne, and was illustrated with engravings from drawings by N. Poussin, with some additions by Errard. The drawings of Poussin were in a MS. copy, which belonged to the Cavaliere del Pozzo. To this last object were directed the studies of Lionardo in optics, perspective, anatomy, libration, and proportion. In this active period of his life also were composed the numerous MS. books, explained by designs, which appear to have comprised specimens of the whole range of his vast knowledge. Thirteen of these books became the property of the Melzi family of Milan, on the death of Lionardo. The history and vicissitudes of these interesting works cannot now be accurately traced. The documents and observations of Dufresne, Mariette, and others, have been collected by Rogers, in his “Imitations of Drawings by the Old Masters.” Six or seven books, which cannot be accounted for after having been collected by one Pompeo Leoni, are supposed to have become the property of Philip II. of Spain. Some of the remaining volumes, augmented by less voluminous MSS. of Lionardo, were presented to the Ambrosian Library by Galeazzo Arconato. The inscription which records this donation, in 1637, states, that Arconato had been offered 3000 pistoles of gold by a king of England, (probably Charles I., and not James I., as Addison, Wright, and latterly Amoretti, suppose,) but which he, Arconato, “regio animo,” had refused. Another volume was presented to the Ambrosian Library by its founder, the Cardinal Borromeo; and Amoretti states, that another, containing drawings relating to hydrostatics, was sold “al Signor Smith, Inglese.” The whole of the MSS. of Lionardo, preserved in the Ambrosian Library, were taken from Milan to Paris, in 1796. A large folio volume of Lionardo’s Drawings, collected by the above-mentioned Pompeo Leoni, is in this country, in His Majesty’s collection. On its cover is inscribed, “Disegni di Lionardo da Vinci, restaurati da Pompeo Leoni:” it contains 779 drawings, various in subject and execution; the most remarkable are, perhaps, some accurate anatomical drawings. The whole are illustrated, like the contents of his other books, by notes written with his left hand, which can only be read through a glass. This volume was discovered, at the bottom of a large chest, about sixty years ago, by Mr. Dalton, the librarian of George III.; and in the same chest were Holbein’s drawings of the principal personages of the court of Henry VIII. It is supposed that they were placed there for security by Charles I., who retained a sincere love for the arts even in his misfortunes.

Lionardo’s works in painting during his residence in Milan were by no means numerous, owing to the quantity and variety of his occupations. The portraits of Cecilia Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli, done in the earlier part of this period, received unbounded praises from the poets of the day. A picture of the Virgin and Child, St. John, and St. Michael, now in the possession of the Sanvitali family of Parma, is dated 1492. The portraits of Lodovico Sforza, his wife and family, were painted on the wall of the refectory in the Convent delle Grazie, where the Last Supper was afterwards painted. These portraits faded, owing to the damp of the wall, soon after they were done. Other works, in the same place, are mentioned by some writers as having been done on canvass, but they all perished from the same cause. A colossal Madonna, painted on a wall at the villa of Vaprio, belonging to the Melzi family, still exists, but it was much injured during the last occupation of Milan by the French. The paintings on the walls of the castle of Milan were destroyed by invaders of the same nation, in 1499. Various portraits, and a half figure of St. John, are preserved in the Ambrosian Library.

In 1496, Lionardo began his greatest work, the Last Supper, in the refectory of the Convent delle Grazie: it was painted on the wall in oil, to which circumstance Lanzi, and others who have followed him, attribute its premature decay. But had it been in fresco, it would probably have suffered as much, since that part of Milan, where the convent stands, has frequently been subject to inundations; and so late as 1800, the floor, or rather ground, of the refectory, was several feet under water for a considerable time. The walls have thus been never free from damp: fifty years only after the picture was painted, Armenini describes it as half decayed. Vasari found it indistinct and faded. Later writers speak of it as a ruined work; and in 1652, the friars of the convent showed how worthless it was considered, by cutting a door through the wall, and thus destroyed the lower extremities of some of the figures. In 1726, a painter, named Bellotti, was unfortunately commissioned to restore it, and it appears that he almost covered the work of Lionardo with his own. The dampness, however, soon reduced the whole to its former faded state; and the next restorer, one Mazza, in 1770, actually scraped the wall (from which the original colour was chipping) to have a smooth surface to paint on, and even passed a coat of colour over the figures before he began his operations. Three heads were saved from his retouchings; but it must be evident that very little of the original work can be visible in any part. Bonaparte ordered that the place should not be put to military uses; but his commands were not attended to in his absence, and the refectory was long used as a stable. The building however was finally repaired, and, as far as possible, secured from damp. Fortunately numerous copies were made from this painting soon after it was done, and one of the best, by Marco de Oggiono, or Uggione, a scholar of Lionardo, is in this country, in the Royal Academy, where is also preserved a cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, by Da Vinci himself. Uggione’s copy, from which the print by Frey was taken, is nearly the size of the original; it was, however, enlarged from a smaller copy, so that it cannot be considered very accurate. The head of the Christ is inferior even to the ruins of Lionardo’s work; and it may here be observed, that when Vasari says this head was declared unfinished by the painter, the imperfection is to be understood in the same sense in which Virgil spoke of the incompleteness of the Æneid. Two series of original studies for the heads in this picture are in this country; the greater part of one series is in the possession of Messrs. Woodburn. The print by Morghen was done from drawings taken from the original painting.

After the fall of Lodovico il Moro, in 1500, Lionardo returned to Florence, where he remained thirteen years, occasionally revisiting Milan. Among his first works done in Florence, at this time, Vasari names the above-mentioned cartoon of the Madonna and Child, St. Anne, and the Infant St. John, and a portrait of Genevra Benci. At this period too he produced the celebrated portrait of Mona, or Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. This was the labour of four years, and this too, Vasari says, was left at last imperfect. We may thus understand the meaning of the expression, as applied to the head of the Christ in the Last Supper. The portrait of Mona Lisa, now in the Louvre, is most highly wrought, although it by no means agrees with the absurd encomiums of Vasari, who almost leads his reader to believe that the hair of the eyebrows and pores of the skin are perceptible, whereas the execution resembles rather the broad softness of Correggio. His next work was the celebrated cartoon, of which the composition known by the name of the Battle of the Standard was a part only. The subject was the defeat of Nicolo Piccinino, the general of Filippo Maria Visconti, by the Florentines, near Anghiara, in Tuscany, in the year 1440. This was to have been painted in the Council Hall, at Florence, in competition with Michael Angelo, whose rival work was the celebrated composition known by the name of the Cartoon of Pisa. Lionardo’s attempt to paint in oil on the wall failed in this instance, even in the commencement, and the picture was never done. The large cartoon disappeared, but a drawing for a part of it was preserved, which was published in the Etruria Pittrice, and the same group was engraved by Edelinch, from a copy, or rather free imitation, by Rubens. To this period belong also his own portrait in the Ducal Gallery, at Florence; the half figure of a nun, in the Nicolini Palace; the Madonna, receiving a lily from the infant Christ; the Vertumnus and Pomona, miscalled Vanity and Modesty, in the Sciarra Palace at Rome; a holy family, now in Russia; the supposed portrait of Joan of Naples, in the Doria Palace; and the Christ among the Doctors, formerly in the Aldobrandini Palace at Rome. His numerous imitators render, however, all decision as to the originality of some of these works doubtful; and the last-mentioned picture, now in the National Gallery, has been thought, by more than one writer, to have been, at least in part, painted by his scholars. A portrait of the celebrated Captain, Giangiacomo Triulzio, may have been painted in one of Lionardo’s short visits to Milan. For a fuller list of his works, Amoretti, and the authors he quotes, may be referred to.

In 1514, after the defeat of the French at Novara, Lionardo, being then at Milan, left that city for Rome, passing through Florence. His stay in Rome was short. Pope Leo X. seems to have been prejudiced against him by the friends of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, and was displeased at his dilatory, or rather desultory habits. From the notes of Lionardo himself, collected by Amoretti, it appears that, while in Rome, he improved the machinery for the coinage; but the only certain painting of his done at this time is a votive picture on the wall of a corridor in the Convent of S. Onofrio.

Francis I., who succeeded Louis XII. in 1515, having reconquered the Milanese, Lionardo again repaired to Milan, and once more superintended a pageant, in this instance intended to celebrate the triumph of the king after the victory of Marignano. Francis, having in vain attempted to remove the painting of the Last Supper from Milan to Paris, desired, at least, to have the painter near him. Lionardo accepted the invitation, and afterwards accompanied his new patron to France. This being little more than two years before the death of Lionardo, and as he was occupied in planning canals in the department of the Cher et Loire, he painted nothing, although the king repeatedly invited him to execute his cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, which was afterwards painted by Luini. His usual residence in France was at Cloux, a royal villa near Amboise, in Touraine, where he died, May 2, 1519. The story of his having expired in the arms of Francis I., which, as Bossi observes, does more honour to the monarch than to the artist, appears to be without foundation. Francesco Melzi, who wrote an account of Lionardo’s death from Amboise soon after it happened, not only does not mention the circumstance, but was the first, according to Lomazzo, to inform the king himself of the artist’s decease; and Venturi has ascertained, that on the day of Lionardo’s death the court was at St. Germain en Laye. He was buried in the church of St. Florent, at Amboise, but no memorial exists to mark the place; and it is supposed that his monument, together with many others, was destroyed in the wars of the Hugonots.

The accounts given of Lionardo da Vinci by Vasari, Lomazzo, and the older writers, were repeated by Dufresne, De Piles, Felibien, and others. The more recent and accurate researches of Amoretti, prefixed to Lionardo’s Trattato della Pittura, in the thirty-third volume of the “Classici Italiani;” of Bossi, “Del Cenacolo di Lionardo da Vinci;” and of Venturi, “Essai sur les Ouvrages Physico-Mathématiques de Léonard da Vinci, avec des fragmens tirés de ses manuscrits apportés de l’Italie;” may be consulted for further particulars respecting the life and works of this great man.

[Group from the Battle of the Standard.]
]

_Engraved by W. T. Fry._

VAUBAN.

_From an original Picture by Lebrun
in the War Office at Paris._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

VAUBAN.

Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, son of Albin le Prestre and Aimée Carmagnol, was born May 1, or, by other accounts, May 15, 1633, at St. Leger-de-Foucheret, a small village between Saulieu and Avallon, in the province of Burgundy. He became an orphan at an early age, his father having lost both his life and fortune in the public service. Under the protection and instruction of M. de Fontaines, prior of St. John at Semur, he acquired some knowledge of geometry, a science then but little cultivated among military men. At seventeen years of age he deserted his home, and entered as a volunteer in the regiment of Condé, then employed in the Spanish service, in which his zeal and abilities soon procured him a commission. Nor was it long before he showed his talent for the science of engineering. In 1652 he was employed in the erection of the fortifications of Clermont, in Lorraine; and the same year, serving at the first siege of S^{te.} Menehould, he made several lodgments, and during the assault swam the river under the enemy’s fire. Public notice was taken of this exploit; and by this means Vauban’s family heard, for the first time, that he had embraced the military profession. In 1653 he was taken prisoner by a French corps, and conducted to Cardinal Mazarin, who thought it worth while to purchase his services with a lieutenancy in the regiment of Bourgogne. In the same year he served as an engineer under the Chevalier de Clerville, at the second siege of S^{te.} Menehould; and the charge of repairing the fortifications of that town, when retaken by the troops of Louis XIV., was confided to him.

In May, 1655, Vauban received his commission as engineer, and in the following year he was rewarded for his services with the command of a company in the regiment of the Maréchal de la Ferté. Not to mention the numerous situations in which he bore an active but subordinate part, we proceed at once to the year 1658, in which he had the chief direction of the sieges of Gravelines, Ypres, and Oudenarde; where, being free to act on his own opinions, yet still doubting his strength, he showed, by judicious though slight innovations, what might be ultimately expected from his matured experience. He was also charged with the improvement of the port and fortifications of Dunkerque, on the surrender of that once important place to France by the treaty of October 17, 1662.

When the war with Spain was renewed in 1667, Vauban had the principal direction of the sieges at which Louis XIV. presided in person. At Douay he received a musket-wound in his cheek, the scar of which is preserved by Coisevox and Lebrun in his bust and portraits. The capture of Lille, after only nine days of open trenches, procured for him a lieutenancy in the Guards and a pension, accompanied with the far more gratifying commendations of his sovereign. Hostilities were ended by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1668, in which year he prepared designs for the citadel of Lille, for Ath, and several other places; and in 1669 the king appointed him governor of the citadel of Lille, the first reward of this description created in France.

Soon after the peace Vauban accompanied the minister Louvois on a mission to the Duke of Savoy, and furnished plans for the fortifications of Verrue, Verceil, and the citadel of Turin. Returning to Flanders, the works of Dunkerque were prosecuted under his immediate direction with unexampled activity. Three corps of 10,000 men relieved each other daily, every four hours, proceeding from the camp with their arms, and resuming them on the completion of their task. In the midst of these labours he prepared his first work on the attack of fortresses, for the instruction of Louvois, pointing out in it many of the errors committed in former sieges, and proposing remedies for them.

The war with Holland, which commenced in 1672, afforded Vauban many opportunities of displaying his superior abilities. Louis again took the field in person; and again Vauban had the principal direction of the sieges of which the king was a spectator. Previous to the siege of Maestricht, in 1673, the regular method of assaulting a fortified place was to excavate a trench parallel to the general contour of the fortress, and from batteries erected near it to fire indiscriminately on the works and the town. On this occasion Vauban introduced three parallel trenches, connected by oblique or zigzag approaches, which enabled him to place large bodies of infantry near the head of his attack, each successive parallel more closely shutting in the garrison, and restraining their offensive operations.

In 1674 Vauban was promoted to the rank of Brigadier. In the following year he had the magnanimity to second with his recommendation the ineffectual application made by his rival, Coehorn, for employment by the French government.

In 1676 Vauban’s services were rewarded with the rank of Major-General; and in 1677 the mode of attack adopted at Maestricht was perfected at Valenciennes, where the fronts attacked were completely shut in by the parallels, the flanks of which rested on the Scheldt and the marsh of Bourlin.

At this siege it was determined to assault an earthen crown-work, and Vauban proposed to make the attack during the day. Five Marshals of France, Louvois, Monsieur, and even the king himself, opposed this advice. Vauban was immoveable; he maintained that it was the only way to avoid confusion and mistakes, to surprise the enemy, and to overpower him by opposing fresh troops to his wearied garrison. “Night,” said he, “has no shame! Open day and the eye of the commander restrain the cowardly, animate the feeble, and add fresh courage to the brave.” The king at length yielded to his arguments. The enemy was found, as he had predicted, harassed with watching, sleeping, or absent in the fortress seeking provisions. The crown-work, and a ravelin which served as an interior intrenchment, were successively carried. The enemy, retreating into the Paté, an extensive irregular work covering the place, was promptly pursued. Four grenadiers got possession of a sally port, while others entered by a subterraneous passage. The besieged fled into the body of the place, and raised the bridge. An immediate and vigorous assault soon placed the disputed works in the possession of the assailants, who, pushing forward to the canal which traverses the city, intrenched themselves in the houses bordering it. They were strongly and speedily supported, and thus the place was taken at a single assault, justifying Vauban’s advice, even beyond his most sanguine expectations. His services on this occasion were rewarded with a gratuity of 25,000 crowns.

Cambray was besieged next. The town surrendered after a few nights of open trenches. The citadel was then attacked. Du Metz proposed assaulting the ravelin: Vauban opposed this counsel, representing that the strength of the work, and the vigour of the defence, prescribed an attack _en règle_. “Sire,” said he to the king, “you will lose some one who is of more value than the ravelin.” The success at Valenciennes inspired the troops with temerity: assault was given, the ravelin was carried, and a lodgment in it was commenced; but the enemy brought a heavy fire to bear on the work and its approaches, and then sallying forth speedily drove back the assailants. Du Metz reproached Parisot, the engineer who traced the lodgment, with having caused the failure of the attack. Vauban however insisted that the work was lost, not through any vice in the lodgment, but because the assault could not be sufficiently supported. The siege was then proceeded with in the ordinary manner, and the ravelin secured with the loss of five men only. “I will believe you another time,” said the king to Vauban, and he kept his word. A practicable breach being made, Louis expressed his intention of giving no quarter to the three thousand men who formed the garrison, and had so vigorously defended themselves. Vauban alone ventured to oppose his views, representing that such conduct was contrary to the usages of warfare among civilized nations; that the place would be taken, but would cost more bloodshed; and, “Sire,” he added, “I would rather have preserved 100 soldiers to your majesty than have deprived the enemy of 3000.”

Vauban succeeded to the Chevalier de Clerville, as Commissary-General of the Fortifications of France, in December, 1677. In 1678 he received the congratulations of Colbert on the success attending the execution of his projects for the improvement of the Port of Dunkerque, which, having been previously used only by fishermen, was now made accessible to vessels carrying forty guns. It would be useless to reckon all the labours of this part of his life: the fortifications of Maubeuge, Thionville, Sarre-Louis, Phalzbourg, Béfort, and the citadel of Strasburg, were among the new works projected by him, while all the principal ports and fortifications of France were more or less improved by his master-hand.

The war of 1683 contributed to the increase of Vauban’s reputation. The siege of Luxemburg, in 1684, was carried on under his direction; and he here displayed an admirable presence of mind when discovered one evening by the enemy, in reconnoitring the works of the place. He instantly made a signal to them not to fire, and, instead of retreating, advanced towards them; they mistook him for one of their own officers, and having skirted the glacis, he retired slowly without exciting further suspicion. After having surmounted the many difficulties presented by the nature of the ground over which the attack was necessarily carried, the assailants attained the covered way. To drive the enemy out of its long branches, Vauban caused elevated parapets to be constructed on their prolongations, whence a plunging musketry-fire was thrown into the covered way, and the mass of its defenders were compelled to retreat; the few who remained concealed behind the traverses being gradually dislodged, as the crowning of the covered way was extended along the crest of the glacis. This siege was remarkable both for the difficulties which were overcome, and for the improvements made in the method of conducting an attack and protecting the troops employed in it.

The new fortresses of Mont-Royal, Landau, and Fort Louis, together with extensive projects for the improvement of the canal of Languedoc, formed part of Vauban’s labours during the truce of Ratisbon. He likewise prepared a general project for the improvement and defence of all the ports, roadsteads, and coasts of France. To his exertions the French are indebted for the first general statistical account of their country, he having caused blank forms to be prepared and printed, which he distributed, to be filled up by the several intendants, governors, and other public functionaries with whom his frequent journeys through the country in the execution of his ordinary duties brought him acquainted. Louis XIV. afterwards caused these returns to be made generally throughout France.

The war of 1688 commenced with the siege of Philisbourg, where the Dauphin commanded in person, and Vauban directed the attacks. He here tried the effect of firing _en ricochet_, of which he was the original proposer. The superiority of this method of attack was not so decisively shown in this first instance as on subsequent occasions: still it proved so far effectual in subduing the fire of the town, as to cause its surrender after twenty-four days of open trenches. The Duc de Montausier said in a letter to the Dauphin, “I do not offer you my congratulation on the fall of Philisbourg: you had a good army, mortars, guns, and Vauban.” On the same occasion, Louis XIV. wrote thus to the successful engineer:—“You know, long since, in what estimation I hold you, and the confidence I have both in your knowledge and affection. Believe that I do not forget the services you render me, and that I am particularly pleased with your conduct at Philisbourg. If you reciprocate the feelings of my son you must be on the best of terms, for I feel assured that he, equally with myself, knows how to esteem and value you. I cannot conclude without earnestly recommending you to preserve yourself for the benefit of my service.”

Manheim and Franckenthal were next besieged and taken. On the surrender of the latter, the Dauphin presented Vauban with four pieces of artillery, to be selected by him from the arsenals of the conquered fortresses, to ornament his chateau of Bazoches. He was this year promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General. The difficulty with which the obstacles presented at the siege of Philisbourg were overcome, induced Vauban to renew, with greater earnestness, his project for the formation of a corps of sappers, originally suggested shortly after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Louvois, though he yielded to Vauban’s arguments in favour of this new force, postponed its formation, and subsequent events prevented his adding this to the other establishments which he created.

When the reverses suffered by the French armies in 1689, the disordered finances, and the exhausted resources of the kingdom, had reduced Louis XIV. to the greatest difficulties, Vauban alone had courage to propose the re-establishment of the edict of Nantes. In a manuscript addressed to Louvois, he says, “Forcible conversions, and the belief that they yield no faith to sacraments, the profanation of which they make a jest, have inspired an universal horror of the conduct of the clergy. If it is resolved to proceed, either the new Protestants must be exterminated as rebels, or banished as madmen: both execrable projects, opposed to every Christian virtue, dangerous to religion itself; for persecution propagates sects, as was proved when, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, a new census showed that the Protestants had increased in number not less than 110,000.” He proposed, therefore, to re-establish, purely and simply, the edict of Nantes; to restore all civil rights to the Protestants and their clergy; to recall the one from exile; to deliver the others from the galleys; to leave their consciences free; and to permit the re-opening and rebuilding of their places of worship.

After the fall of Mons, in 1691, Vauban greatly strengthened that fortress; placing outworks in the marshes, inaccessible to an enemy, and seeing in reverse all the points of attack.

In 1692 Vauban directed the operations of the siege of Namur, where Coehorn commanded the stronghold of Fort William. The army watched with eagerness this struggle between the rival engineers, one of whom defended his own work. Fort William was soon taken, and the triumph rested with Vauban. The order of St. Louis, the first restricted to the reward of military distinction, was instituted before the campaign of 1693. It is said to have been suggested by Vauban, who was one of the seven Grand Crosses named at its creation.

In 1693 he conducted, with his usual skill, the siege of Charleroi, a place which he had fortified, and of which he might well be supposed to know the weakest points; yet it was confidently believed among the besiegers that their celebrated engineer had at last made a mistake, in having selected the strongest fronts as points of attack. Vauban soon convinced them of their error, by the capture of Charleroi.

The system of _ricochet_ firing, devised at Philisbourg, and employed with various success at subsequent sieges, was fully developed at the siege of Ath, in 1697, when Vauban placed his first batteries in the second parallel with such good effect as to reduce the place to surrender after only three days of open trenches.

During the peace of Ryswick, Vauban made a tour of the northern frontiers, in which he was occupied three years, preparing projects for canals and various other public works, as well as for the improvement of existing and the construction of new fortresses; among others, of Neuf-Brisach, his last work, in which he improved on his system of tower bastions, previously applied at Béfort and Landau. In 1699 he was elected an honorary member of the French Academy; and, January 2, 1703, was promoted to the rank of Marshal of France; a dignity which he modestly wished to decline, lest it might, at a future period, deprive him of the opportunity of serving his country.

In the autumn of 1703 Vieux-Brisach was besieged by the army under the orders of the Duc de Bourgogne, who is reported to have thus addressed Vauban:—“Monsieur Maréchal, you must lose your honour before this place: for either we shall take it, and if so, they will say you have fortified it badly; or we shall fail, and they will then say that you have ill assisted me.” “Monseigneur,” replied Vauban, “it is already known how I have fortified Brisach; they have yet to learn how you will take the places I have fortified.” The siege lasted only thirteen days, and was the last at which Vauban served. The following year he presented to the Duc de Bourgogne his treatise on the Attack of Fortresses, first published at the Hague by Pierre Dehoult, in 1737.

When Turin was attacked, in 1706, M. de la Feuillade rejected the project of attack submitted by Vauban, and the result was, that a perfect investment was not completed until after three months’ fighting. Louis XIV., annoyed at the duration of the siege, and at the progress of Prince Eugene, sent for Vauban, who, after pointing out the faults of the attack, offered to give his assistance as a volunteer. “Recollect,” said the king, “that this employment is beneath your dignity.” “Sire,” replied Vauban, “my dignity consists in serving my country. I will leave my baton at the door, and perhaps may assist M. de la Feuillade in taking the city.” La Feuillade refused the proffered aid, lest he should have to share with Vauban the honour of taking Turin: an honour, however, which he did not acquire, being forced to raise the siege after ninety-seven days of open trenches.

From the period of Vauban’s promotion to the dignity of Marshal of France, his active labours in the public service were necessarily much less numerous; much of his time being devoted to the arrangement of his numerous memoranda, projects, &c., a compilation extending to twelve volumes, entitled ‘Mes Oisivetés,’ of which however seven volumes are lost. In 1706, after the battle of Ramillies, he was sent to command at Dunkerque, and on the coast of Flanders, where, by his presence, he reassured the timid, and prevented the destruction of a tract of land which it was proposed to inundate, in order to avert an attack on Dunkerque. This he did more effectually by forming an entrenched camp between that place and Borgues.

The imperfect defence of several of the fortresses of France during the same campaign induced him to commence a treatise on the defence of fortresses, which he did not live to complete.

The Duc de St. Simon affirms that Vauban’s days were shortened by chagrin, at having displeased his sovereign by the publication of his scheme of taxation, entitled _Dixme Royale_, and that Louis XIV. was so much offended as to be indifferent to the loss of a man beloved by his countrymen, and celebrated throughout Europe. According to Dangeau, on the contrary, so soon as Louis heard of Vauban’s illness, he sent his principal physician to attend him. Fontenelle distinctly states that his death, which took place March 30, 1707, was occasioned by an inflammation of the lungs.

An authorized edition of Vauban’s treatise on the Attack and Defence of Fortresses was published, in 1829, by M. le Baron de Valazé. His other works principally consisted of projects for the defence and improvement of France, and many of them are preserved in the depôt, of fortifications, and in the collection of M. de Rosambo. A list of Vauban’s works may be found in the notes to ‘L’Histoire du Corps Impérial du Génie, par A. Allent,’ the best authority for an account of his labours; the Eloges of Fontenelle and Carnot may also be consulted. Honest, independent, humane, Vauban is characterised by Voltaire as the “first of engineers and best of citizens.” The industry of his life may be estimated from the calculation that he improved, more or less, three hundred fortified or trading places, built thirty-three new fortresses, conducted fifty-three sieges, and was present in a hundred and fifty actions, greater or less.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

WILLIAM III.

_From a Picture by Netscher in the
possession of the Publisher._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]

WILLIAM III.

William, Prince of Orange, the third King of England of that name, born November 14, 1650, was the posthumous son of William II., Prince of Orange, and Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I. of England. The fortunes of his childhood did not promise that greatness which he attained. His father had been thought to entertain designs hostile to the liberties of the United Provinces, and the suspicions of the father produced distrust of the son. When Cromwell dictated terms of peace to the Dutch in 1654, one of the articles insisted on the perpetual exclusion of the Prince of Orange from all the great offices formerly held by his family; and this sentence of exclusion was confirmed, so far as Holland was concerned, thirteen years after, by the enactment of the Perpetual Edict, by which the office of Stadtholder of Holland was for ever abolished. The Restoration of the Stuarts, however, was so far favourable to the interests of the House of Orange, as to induce the princess-royal to petition, on her son’s behalf, that he might be invested in the offices and dignities possessed by his ancestors. The provinces of Zealand, Friesland, and Guelderland warmly espoused her cause: even the States of Holland engaged to watch over his education, “that he might be rendered capable of filling the posts held by his forefathers.” They formally adopted him as “a child of the state,” and surrounded him with such persons as were thought likely to educate him in a manner suited to his station in a free government.

A storm broke upon Holland just as William was ripening into manhood; and discord at home threatened to aggravate the misfortunes of the country. The House of Orange had again become popular; and a loud cry was raised for the instant abolition of the Perpetual Edict, and for installing the young prince in all the offices enjoyed by his ancestors. The Republican party, headed by the De Witts, prevented this; but they were forced to yield to his being chosen Captain-General and High-Admiral. Many persons hoped that William’s military rank and prospects would incline his uncle Charles II. to make common cause with the friends of liberty and independence; but the English monarch was the pensioner of the French king, and France and England jointly declared war against the States, April 7, 1672. The Dutch made large preparations; but new troops could not suddenly acquire discipline and experience. The enemy meditated, and had nearly effected, the entire conquest of the country: the populace became desperate; a total change of government was demanded; the De Witts were brutally massacred; and William was invested with the full powers of Stadtholder. His fitness for this high office was soon demonstrated by the vigour and the wisdom of his measures. Maestricht was strongly garrisoned; the Prince of Orange, with a large army, advanced to the banks of the Issel; the Dutch fleet cruised off the mouth of the Thames, to prevent the naval forces of England and France from joining. The following year, 1673, Louis XIV. took Maestricht; while the Prince of Orange, not having forces sufficient to oppose the French army, employed himself in retaking other towns from the enemy. New alliances were formed; and the prince’s masterly conduct not only stopped the progress of the French, but forced them to evacuate the province of Utrecht. In 1674 the English Parliament compelled Charles II. to make peace with Holland. The Dutch signed separate treaties with the Bishop of Munster and the Elector of Cologne. The gallantry of the prince had so endeared him to the States of Holland, that the offices of Stadtholder and Captain-General were declared hereditary in his male descendants. Meanwhile he continued to display both courage and conduct in various military operations against the French. The battle of Seneffe was desperately fought. After sunset, the conflict was continued by the light of the moon; and darkness, rather than the exhaustion of the combatants, put an end to the contest, and left the victory undecided. The veteran Prince of Condé gave a candid and generous testimonial to the merit of his young antagonist: “The Prince of Orange,” said he, “has in every point acted like an old captain, except in venturing his life too much like a young soldier.”

In 1675 the sovereignty of Guelderland and of the county of Zutphen was offered to William, with the title of Duke, which was asserted to have been formerly vested in his family. Those who entertained a bad opinion of him, and attributed whatever looked like greatness in his character to ambition rather than patriotism, insinuated that he was himself the main spring of this manifest intrigue. He had at least prudence enough to deliberate on the offer, and to submit it to the judgment of the States of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. They viewed with jealousy the aristocratic dignity, and he wisely refused it. This forbearance was rewarded by the province of Utrecht, which adopted the precedent of Holland, in voting the Stadtholdership hereditary in the heirs-male of his body.

The campaign of 1675 passed without any memorable event in the Low Countries. In the following year hopes of peace were held out from the meeting of a congress at Nimeguen; but the articles of peace were to be determined rather by the events of the campaign than by the deliberations of the negotiators. The French took Condé, and several other places; the Prince of Orange, bent on retaliation, sat down before Maestricht, the siege of which he urged impetuously; but the masterly movements of the enemy, and a scarcity of forage, frustrated his plans. Aire had already been taken; the Duke of Orleans had made himself master of Bouchain; Marshal Schomberg, to whom Louis had entrusted his army on retiring to Versailles, was on the advance; and it was found expedient to raise the siege of Maestricht. It was now predicted that the war in Flanders would be unfortunate in its issue; but the Prince of Orange, influenced by the mixed motives of honour, ambition, and animosity, kept the Dutch Republic steady to the cause of its allies, and refused to negotiate a separate peace with France. In October, 1677, he came to England, and was graciously received by the king his uncle. His marriage with Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, was the object of his visit. That event gave general satisfaction at the time; the consequences which arose from it were unsuspected by the most far-sighted. At first the king was disinclined to the match; then neutral; and at last favourable, in the hope of engaging William to fall in with his designs, and listen to the separate proposals of the French monarch. The Prince, on his part, was pleased with the prospect, because he expected that the king of England would, at length, find himself obliged to declare against Louis, and because he imagined that the English nation would be more strongly engaged in his interest, and would adopt his views with respect to the war. In this he was disappointed, though the Parliament was determined on forcing the king to renounce his alliance with Louis. But the States had gained no advantage commensurate with the expense and danger of the contest in which they were engaged, and were inclined to conclude a separate treaty. Mutual discontent among the allies led to the dissolution of the confederacy, and a peace advantageous to France was concluded at Nimeguen in 1678; but causes of animosity still subsisted. The Prince of Orange, independent of political enmity, had now personal grounds of complaint against Louis; who deeply resented the zeal with which William had espoused the liberties of Europe and resisted his aggressions. He could neither bend so haughty a spirit to concessions, nor warp his integrity even by the suggestions of his dominant passion, ambition. But it was in the power of the French monarch to punish this obstinacy, and by oppressing the inhabitants of the Principality of Orange, to take a mean revenge on an innocent people for the imputed offences of their sovereign. In addition to other injuries, when the Duchy of Luxembourg was invaded by the French troops, the commanding officer had orders to expose to sale all the lands, furniture, and effects of the Prince of Orange, although they had been conferred on him by a formal decree of the States of the country. Whether to preserve the appearance of justice, or merely as an insult, Louis summoned the Prince to appear before his Privy Council in 1682, by the title of _Messire Guillaume Comte de Nassau_, living at the Hague in Holland. In the emergency occasioned by the probability of the Dutch frontier being attacked in 1683, the Prince of Orange exerted all his influence to procure an augmentation of the troops of the Republic; but he had the mortification to experience an obstinate resistance in several of the States, especially in that of Holland, headed by the city of Amsterdam. His coolness and steadiness, qualities invaluable in a statesman, at length prevailed, and he was enabled to carry his measures with a high hand.

The accession of James II. to the throne of Great Britain, in 1685, was hailed as an opportunity for drawing closer both the personal friendship and the political alliance between the Stadtholder of the one country and the King of the other; but a totally different result took place. The headstrong violence of James brought about a coalition of parties to resist him; and many of the English nobility and gentry concurred in an application to the Prince of Orange for assistance. At this crisis William acted with such circumspection as befitted his calculating character. The nation was looking forward to the Prince and Princess, as its only resource against tyranny, civil and ecclesiastical. Were the presumptive heir to concur in the offensive measures, he must partake with the King of the popular hatred. Even the continental alliances, which William was setting his whole soul to establish and improve, would become objects of suspicion to the English, and Parliament might refuse to furnish the necessary funds. Thus by one course he might risk the loss of a succession which was awaiting him; by an opposite conduct, he might profit by the King’s indiscretion, and even forestall the time when the throne was to be his in the course of nature. The birth of a son and heir, in June, 1688, seemed to turn the scale in favour of James; but the affections of his people were not to be recovered: it was even asserted that the child was supposititious. This event, therefore, confirmed William’s previous choice of the side which he was to take; and his measures were well and promptly concerted. A declaration was dispersed throughout Great Britain, setting forth the grievances of the kingdom, and announcing the immediate introduction of an armed force from abroad, for the purpose of procuring the convocation of a free parliament. In a short time, full four hundred transports were hired; the army rapidly fell down the rivers and canals from Nimeguen; the artillery, arms, stores, and horses were embarked; and, on the 21st of October, 1668, the Prince set sail from Helvoetsluys, with a fleet of near five hundred vessels, and an army of more than fourteen thousand men. He was compelled to put back by a storm; but, on a second attempt, he had a prosperous voyage, while the King’s fleet was windbound. He arrived at Torbay on the 4th of November, and disembarked on the 5th, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Treason. The remembrance of Monmouth’s ill-fated rebellion prevented the western people from joining him; but at length several persons of consideration took up the cause, and an association was formed for its support. At this last hour James expressed his readiness to make concessions; but it was too late; they were looked on only as tokens of fear: the confidence of the people in the King’s sincerity was gone for ever. But, how much soever his conduct deserved censure, his distresses entitled him to pity. One daughter was the wife of his opponent; the other threw herself into the hands of the insurgents. In the agony of his heart the father exclaimed, “God help me! my own children have forsaken me.” He sent the Queen and infant Prince to France. Public affairs were in the utmost confusion, and seemed likely to remain so while he stayed in the island. After many of those perplexing adventures and narrow escapes which generally befall dethroned royalty, he at length succeeded in embarking for the continent.