Chapter I: Part 1

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%THE GREAT EVENTS%

BY

Famous Historians

A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY. EMPHASIZING THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS. AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS

%NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL%

ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE. INCLUDING BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES. BIBLIOGRAPHIES. CHRONOLOGIES. AND COURSES OF READING

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

_With a staff of specialists VOLUME XII_

%The National Alumni% 1905

%CONTENTS%

VOLUME XII

_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_ CHARLES F. HORNE

_Louis XIV Establishes Absolute Monarchy (A.D. 1661)_ JAMES COTTER MORISON

_New York Taken by the English (A.D. 1664)_ JOHN R. BRODHEAD

_Great Plague in London (A.D. 1665)_ DANIEL DEFOE

_Great Fire in London (A.D. 1666)_ JOHN EVELYN

_Discovery of Gravitation (A.D. 1666)_ SIR DAVID BREWSTER

_Morgan, the Buccaneer, Sacks Panama (A.D. 1671)_ JOHANN W. VON ARCHENHOLZ

_Struggle of the Dutch against France and England (A.D. 1672)_ C.M. DAVIES.

_Discovery of the Mississippi La Salle Names Louisiana (A.D. 1673-1682)_ FRANCOIS XAVIER GARNEAU

_King Philip's War (A.D. 1675)_ RICHARD HILDRETH

_Growth of Prussia under the Great Elector His Victory at Fehrbellin (A.D. 1675)_ THOMAS CARLYLE

_William Penn Receives the Grant of Pennsylvania Founding of Philadelphia (A.D. 1681)_ GEORGE E. ELLIS

_Last Turkish Invasion of Europe Sobieski Saves Vienna (A.D. 1683)_ SUTHERLAND MENZIES

_Monmouth's Rebellion (A.D. 1685)_ GILBERT BURNET

_Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (A.D. 1685)_ BON LOUIS HENRI MARTIN

_The English Revolution Flight of James II (A.D. 1688)_ GILBERT BURNET H.D. TRAILL

_Peter the Great Modernizes Russia Suppression of the Streltsi (A.D. 1689)_ ALFRED RAMBAUD

_Tyranny of Andros in New England The Bloodless Revolution (A.D. 1689)_ CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT

_Massacre of Lachine (A.D. 1689)_ FRANCOIS XAVIER GARNEAU

_Siege of Londonderry and Battle of the Boyne (A.D. 1689-1690)_ TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT

_Salem Witchcraft Trials (A.D. 1692)_ RICHARD HILDRETH

_Establishment of the Bank of England (A.D. 1694)_ JOHN FRANCIS

_Colonization of Louisiana (A.D. 1699)_ CHARLES E.T. GAYARRE

_Prussia Proclaimed a Kingdom (A.D. 1701)_ LEOPOLD VON RANKE

_Founding of St. Petersburg (A.D. 1703)_ K. WALISZEWSKI

_Battle of Blenheim (A.D. 1704) Curbing of Louis XIV_, SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

_Union of England and Scotland (A.D. 1707)_ JOHN HILL BURTON

_Downfall of Charles XII at Poltava (A.D. 1709) Triumph of Russia_ K. WALISZEWSKI

_Capture of Port Royal (A.D. 1710) France Surrenders Nova Scotia to England_ DUNCAN CAMPBELL

_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1661-1715)_ JOHN RUDD

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME XII

_Surrender of Marshal Tallard at the Battle of Blenheim_, Painting by R. Caton Woodville.

_The Duke of Monmouth humiliates himself before King James II_, Painting by J. Pettie, A.R.A.

_Charles XII carried on a litter during the Battle of Poltava_, Painting by W. Hauschild.

%AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE%

Tracing Briefly The Causes, Connections, And Consequencies Of

%THE GREAT EVENTS%

(Age Of Louis XIV)

CHARLES F. HORNE

It is related that in 1661, on the day following the death of the great Cardinal Mazarin, the various officials of the State approached their young King, Louis XIV. "To whom shall we go now for orders, Your Majesty?" "To me," answered Louis, and from that date until his death in 1715 they had no other master. Whether we accept the tale as literal fact or only as the vivid French way of visualizing a truth, we find here the central point of over fifty years of European history. The two celebrated cardinals, Richelieu and Mazarin, had, by their strength and wisdom, made France by far the most powerful state in Europe. Moreover, they had so reduced the authority of the French nobility, the clergy, and the courts of law as to have become practically absolute and untrammelled in their control of the entire government. Now, all this enormous power, both at home and abroad, over France and over Europe, was assumed by a young man of twenty-three. "I am the state," said Louis at a later period of his career. He might almost have said, "I am Europe," looking as he did only to the Europe that dominated, and took pleasure in itself, and made life one continued glittering revel of splendor. Independent Europe, that claimed the right of thinking for itself, the suffering Europe of the peasants, who starved and shed their blood in helpless agony--these were against Louis almost from the beginning, and ever increasingly against him.

At first the young monarch found life very bright around him. His courtiers called him "the rising sun," and his ambition was to justify the title, to be what with his enormous wealth and authority was scarcely difficult, the Grand Monarch. He rushed into causeless war and snatched provinces from his feeble neighbors, exhausted Germany and decaying Spain. He built huge fortresses along his frontiers, and military roads from end to end of his domains. His court was one continuous round of splendid entertainments. He encouraged literature, or at least pensioned authors and had them clustered around him in what Frenchmen call the Augustan Age of their development.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Louis XIV Establishes Absolute Monarchy_, page 1.]

The little German princes of the Rhine, each of them practically independent ruler of a tiny state, could not of course compete with Louis or defy him. Nor for a time did they attempt it. His splendor dazzled them. They were content to imitate, and each little prince became a patron of literature, or giver of entertainments, or builder of huge fortresses absurdly disproportioned to his territory and his revenues. Germany, it has been aptly said, became a mere tail to the French kite, its leaders feebly draggling after where Louis soared. Never had the common people of Europe or even the nobility had less voice in their own affairs. It was an age of absolute kingly power, an age of despotism.

England, which under Cromwell had bid fair to take a foremost place in Europe, sank under Charles II into unimportance. Its people wearied with tumult, desired peace more than aught else; its King, experienced in adversity, and long a homeless wanderer in France and Holland, seemed to have but one firm principle in life. Whatever happened he did not intend, as he himself phrased it, to go on his "travels" again. He dreaded and hated the English Parliament as all the Stuarts had; and, like his father, he avoided calling it together. To obtain money without its aid, he accepted a pension from the French King. Thus England also became a servitor of Louis. Its policy, so far as Charles could mould it, was France's policy. If we look for events in the English history of the time we must find them in internal incidents, the terrible plague that devastated London in 1665,[1] the fire of the following year, that checked the plague but almost swept the city out of existence.[2] We must note the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 for the advancement of science, or look to Newton, its most celebrated member, beginning to puzzle out his theory of gravitation in his Woolsthorpe garden.[3]

[Footnote 1: See _Great Plague in London_, page 29.]

[Footnote 2: See _Great Fire in London_, page 45.]

[Footnote 3: See _Discovery of Gravitation_, page 51.]

CONTINENTAL WARS

Louis's first real opponent he found in sturdy Holland. Her fleets and those of England had learned to fight each other in Cromwell's time, and they continued to struggle for the mastery of the seas. There were many desperate naval battles. In 1664 an English fleet crossed the ocean to seize the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and it became New York.[4] In 1667 a Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and burned the shipping, almost reaching London itself.

[Footnote 4: See _New York Taken by the English_, page 19.]

Yet full as her hands might seem with strife like this, Holland did not hesitate to stand forth against the aggression of Louis's "rising sun." When in his first burst of kingship, he seized the Spanish provinces of the Netherlands and so extended his authority to the border of Holland, its people, frightened at his advance, made peace with England and joined an alliance against him. Louis drew back; and the Dutch authorized a medal which depicted Holland checking the rising sun. Louis never forgave them, and in 1672, having secured German neutrality and an English alliance, he suddenly attacked Holland with all his forces.[5]

[Footnote 5: See _Struggle of the Dutch against France and England_, page 86.]

For a moment the little republic seemed helpless. Her navy indeed withstood ably the combined assaults of the French and English ships, but the French armies overran almost her entire territory. It was then that her people talked of entering their ships and sailing away together, transporting their nation bodily to some colony beyond Louis's reach. It was then that Amsterdam set the example which other districts heroically followed, of opening her dykes and letting the ocean flood the land to drive out the French. The leaders of the republic were murdered in a factional strife, and the young Prince William III of Orange, descended from that William the Silent who had led the Dutch against Philip II, was made practically dictator of the land. This young Prince William, afterward King William III of England, was the antagonist who sprang up against Louis, and in the end united all Europe against him and annihilated his power.

Seeing the wonderful resistance that little Holland made against her apparently overwhelming antagonists, the rest of Germany took heart; allies came to the Dutch. Brandenburg and Austria and Spain forced Louis to fall back upon his own frontier, though with much resolute battling by his great general, Turenne.

Next to young William, Louis found his most persistent opponent in Frederick William, the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg and Prussia, undoubtedly the ablest German sovereign of the age, and the founder of Prussia's modern importance. He had succeeded to his hereditary domains in 1640, when they lay utterly waste and exhausted in the Thirty Years' War; and he reigned until 1688, nearly half a century, during which he was ever and vigorously the champion of Germany against all outside enemies. He alone, in the feeble Germany of the day, resisted French influence, French manners, and French aggression.

In this first general war of the Germans and their allies against Louis, Frederick William proved the only one of their leaders seriously to be feared. Louis made an alliance with Sweden and persuaded the Swedes to overrun Brandenburg during its ruler's absence with his forces on the Rhine. But so firmly had the Great Elector established himself at home, so was he loved, that the very peasantry rose to his assistance. "We are only peasants," said their banners, "but we can die for our lord." Pitiful cry! Pitiful proof of how unused the commons were to even a little kindness, how eagerly responsive! Frederick William came riding like a whirlwind from the Rhine, his army straggling along behind in a vain effort to keep up. He hurled himself with his foremost troops upon the Swedes, and won the celebrated battle of Fehrbellin. He swept his astonished foes back into their northern peninsula. Brandenburg became the chief power of northern Germany.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Growth of Prussia under the Great Elector: His Victory at Fehrbellin_, page 138.]

In 1679 the Peace of Ryswick ended the general war, and left Holland unconquered, but with the French frontier extended to the Rhine, and Louis at the height of his power, the acknowledged head of European affairs. Austria was under the rule of Leopold I, Emperor of Germany from 1657 to 1705, whose pride and incompetence wholly prevented him from being what his position as chief of the Hapsburgs would naturally have made him, the leader of the opposition, the centre around whom all Europe could rally to withstand Louis's territorial greed. Leopold hated Louis, but he hated also the rising Protestant "Brandenburger," he hated the "merchant" Dutch, hated everybody in short who dared intrude upon the ancient order of his superiority, who refused to recognize his impotent authority. So he would gladly have seen Louis crush every opponent except himself, would have found it a pleasant vengeance indeed to see all these upstart powers destroying one another.

Moreover, Austria was again engaged in desperate strife with the Turks. These were in the last burst of their effort at European conquest. No longer content with Hungary, twice in Leopold's reign did they advance to attack Vienna. Twice were they repulsed by Hungarian and Austrian valor. The final siege was in 1683. A vast horde estimated as high as two hundred thousand men marched against the devoted city. Leopold and most of the aristocracy fled, in despair of its defence. Only the common people who could not flee, remained, and with the resolution of despair beat off the repeated assaults of the Mahometans.[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Last Turkish Invasion of Europe: Sobieski Saves Vienna_, page 164.]

They were saved by John Sobieski, a king who had raised Poland to one of her rare outflashing periods of splendor. With his small but gallant Polish army he came to the rescue of Christendom, charged furiously upon the huge Turkish horde, and swept it from the field in utter flight. The tide of Turkish power receded forever; that was its last great wave which broke before the walls of Vienna. All Hungary was regained, mainly through the efforts of Austria's greatest general, Prince Eugene of Savoy. The centre of the centuries of strife shifted back where it had been in Hunyady's time, from Vienna to the mighty frontier fortress of Belgrad, which was taken and retaken by opposing forces.

LATER EFFORTS OF LOUIS XIV

The earlier career of Louis XIV seems to have been mainly influenced by his passion for personal renown; but he had always been a serious Catholic, and in his later life his interest in religion became a most important factor in his world. The Protestants of France had for wellnigh a century held their faith unmolested, safeguarded by that Edict of Nantes, which had been granted by Henry IV, a Catholic at least in name, and confirmed by Cardinal Richelieu, a Catholic by profession. Persuasive measures had indeed been frequently employed to win the deserters back to the ancient Church; but now under Louis's direction, a harsher course was attempted. The celebrated "dragonades" quartered a wild and licentious soldiery in Protestant localities, in the homes of Protestant house-owners, with special orders to make themselves offensive to their hosts. Under this grim discouragement Protestantism seemed dying out of France, and at last, in 1685, Louis, encouraged by success, took the final step and revoked the Edict of Nantes, commanding all his subjects to accept Catholicism, while at the same time forbidding any to leave the country. Huguenots who attempted flight were seized; many were slain. Externally at least, the reformed religion disappeared from France.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Revocation of the Edict of Nantes_, page 180.]

Of course, despite the edict restraining them, many Huguenots, the most earnest and vigorous of the sect, did escape by flight; and some hundred thousands of France's ablest citizens were thus lost to her forever. Large numbers found a welcome in neighboring Holland; the Great Elector stood forward and gave homes to a wandering host of the exiles. England received colonies of them; and even distant America was benefited by the numbers who sought her freer shores. No enemy to France in all the world but received a welcome accession to its strength against her.

In the same year that Protestant Europe was thus assailed and terrified by the reviving spectre of religious persecution, Charles II of England died and his brother James II succeeded him. Charles may have been Catholic at heart, but in name at least he had retained the English religion. James was openly Catholic. A hasty rebellion raised against him by his nephew, Monmouth, fell to pieces;[1] and James, having executed Monmouth and approved a cruel persecution of his followers, began to take serious steps toward forcing the whole land back to the ancient faith.

[Footnote 1: See _Monmouth's Rebellion_, page 172.]

So here was kingly absolutism coming to the aid of the old religious intolerance. The English people, however, had already killed one king in defence of their liberties; and their resolute opposition to James began to suggest that they might kill another. Many of the leading nobles appealed secretly to William of Orange for help. William was, as we have said, the centre of opposition to Louis, and that began to mean to Catholicism as well. Also, William had married a daughter of King James and had thus some claim to interfere in the family domains. And, most important of all, as chief ruler of Holland, William had an army at command. With a portion of that army he set sail late in 1688 and landed in England. Englishmen of all ranks flocked to join him. King James fled to France, and a Parliament, hastily assembled in 1689, declared him no longer king and placed William and his wife Mary on the throne as joint rulers.[2] Thus William had two countries instead of one to aid him in his life-long effort against Louis.

[Footnote 2: See _The English Revolution: Flight of James II_, page 200.]

Louis, indeed, accepted the accession of his enemy as a threat of war and, taking up the cause of the fugitive James, despatched him with French troops to Ireland, where his Catholic faith made the mass of the people his devoted adherents. There were, however, Protestant Irish as well, and these defied James and held his troops at bay in the siege of Londonderry, while King William hurried over to Ireland with an army. Father-in-law and son-in-law met in the battle of the Boyne, and James was defeated in war as he had been in diplomacy. He fled back to France, leaving his Catholic adherents to withstand William as best they might. Limerick, the Catholic stronghold, was twice besieged and only yielded when full religious freedom had been guaranteed. Irishmen to this day call it with bitterness "the city of the violated treaty."[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Siege of Londonderry and the Battle of the Boyne_, page 258.]

Meanwhile the strife between Louis and William had spread into another general European war. William had difficulties to encounter in his new kingdom. Its people cared little for his Continental aims and gave him little loyalty of service. In fact, peculation among public officials was so widespread that, despite large expenditures of money, England had only a most feeble, inefficient army in the field, and William was in black disgust against his new subjects. It was partly to aid the Government in its financial straits that the Bank of England was formed in 1694.[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Establishment of the Bank of England_, page 286.]

Yet Louis's troubles were greater and of deeper root. Catholic Austria and even the Pope himself, unable to submit to the arrogance of the "Grand Monarch," took part against him in this war. It can therefore no longer be regarded as a religious struggle. It marks the turning-point in Louis's fortunes. His boundless extravagance had exhausted France at last. Both in wealth and population she began to feel the drain. The French generals won repeated victories, yet they had to give slowly back before their more numerous foes; and in 1697 Louis purchased peace by making concessions of territory as well as courtesy.

This peace proved little more than a truce. For almost half a century the European sovereigns had been waiting for Charles II of Spain to die. He was the last of his race, last of the Spanish Hapsburgs descended from the Emperor Charles V, and so infirm and feeble was he that it seemed the flickering candle of his life must puff out with each passing wind. Who should succeed him? In Mazarin's time, that crafty minister had schemed that the prize should go to France, and had wedded young Louis XIV to a Spanish princess. The Austrian Hapsburgs of course wanted the place for themselves, though to establish a common ancestry with their Spanish kin they must turn back over a century and a half to Ferdinand and Isabella.

But strong men grew old and died, while the invalid Charles II still clung to his tottering throne. Louis ceased hoping to occupy it himself and claimed it for his son, then for his grandson, Philip. Not until 1700, after a reign of nearly forty years, did Charles give up the worthless game and expire. He declared Philip his heir, and the aged Louis sent the youth to Spain with an eager boast, "Go; there are no longer any Pyrenees." That is, France and Spain were to be one, a mighty Bourbon empire.

That was just what Europe, experienced in Louis's unscrupulous aggression, dared not allow. So another general alliance was formed, with William of Holland and England at its head, to drive Philip from his new throne in favor of a Hapsburg. William died before the war was well under way, but the British people understood his purposes now and upheld them. Once more they felt themselves the champions of Protestantism in Europe. Anne, the second daughter of the deposed King James, was chosen as queen; and under her the two realms of England and Scotland were finally joined in one by the Act of Union (1707), with but a single Parliament.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Union of England and Scotland_, page 341.]

Meanwhile Marlborough was sent to the Rhine with a strong British army. Prince Eugene paused in fighting the Turks and joined him with Austrian and German troops. Together they defeated the French in the celebrated battle of Blenheim (1704),[2] and followed it in later years with Oudenarde and Malplaquet. Louis was beaten. France was exhausted. The Grand Monarch pleaded for peace on almost any terms.

[Footnote 2: See _Battle of Blenheim: Curbing of Louis XIV_, page 327.]

Yet his grandson remained on the Spanish throne. For one reason, the Spaniards themselves upheld him and fought for him. For another, the allies' Austrian candidate became Emperor of Germany, and to make him ruler of Spain as well would only have been to consolidate the Hapsburg power instead of that of the Bourbons. Made dubious by this balance between evils, Europe abandoned the war. So there were two Bourbon kingdoms after all--but both too exhausted to be dangerous.

Louis had indeed outlived his fame. He had roused the opposition of all his neighbors, and ruined France in the effort to extend her greatness. The praises and flattery of his earlier years reached him now only from the lips of a few determined courtiers. His people hated him, and in 1715 celebrated his death as a release. Frenchmen high and low had begun the career which ended in their terrific Revolution. Lying on his dreary death-bed, the Grand Monarch apologized that he should "take so long in dying." Perhaps he, also, felt that he delayed the coming of the new age. What his career had done was to spread over all Europe a new culture and refinement, to rouse a new splendor and recklessness among the upper classes, and to widen almost irretrievably the gap between rich and poor, between kings and commons. In the very years that parliamentary government was becoming supreme in England, absolutism established itself upon the Continent.

CHANGES IN NORTHERN EUROPE

Toward the close of this age the balance of power in Northern Europe shifted quite as markedly as it had farther south. Three of the German electoral princes became kings. The Elector of Saxony was chosen King of Poland, thereby adding greatly to his power. George, Elector of Hanover, became King of England on the death of Queen Anne. And the Elector of Brandenburg, son of the Great Elector, when the war of 1701 against France and Spain broke out, only lent his aid to the European coalition on condition that the German Emperor should authorize him also to assume the title of king, not of Brandenburg but of his other and smaller domain of Prussia, which lay outside the empire. Most of the European sovereigns smiled at this empty change of title without a change of dominions; but Brandenburg or Prussia was thus made more united, more consolidated, and it soon rose to be the leader of Northern Germany. A new family, the Hohenzollerns, contested European supremacy with the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Prussia Proclaimed a Kingdom_, page 310.]

More important still was the strife between Sweden and Russia. Sweden had been raised by Gustavus Adolphus to be the chief power of the North, the chosen ally of Richelieu and Mazarin. Her soldiers were esteemed the best of the time. The prestige of the Swedes had, to be sure, suffered somewhat in the days when the Great Elector defeated them so completely at Fehrbellin and elsewhere. But Louis XIV had stood by them as his allies, and saved them from any loss of territory, so that in 1700 Sweden still held not only the Scandinavian peninsula but all the lands east of the Baltic as far as where St. Petersburg now stands, and much of the German coast to southward. The Baltic was thus almost a Swedish lake, when in 1697 a new warrior king, Charles XII, rose to reassert the warlike supremacy of his race. He was but fifteen when he reached the throne; and Denmark, Poland, and Russia all sought to snatch away his territories. He fought the Danes and defeated them. He fought the Saxon Elector who had become king of Poland. Soon both Poland and Saxony lay crushed at the feet of the "Lion of the North," as they called him then--"Madman of the North," after his great designs had failed. Only Russia remained to oppose him--Russia, as yet almost unknown to Europe, a semi-barbaric frontier land, supposedly helpless against the strength and resources of civilization.

Russia was in the pangs of a most sudden revolution. Against her will she was being suddenly and sharply modernized by Peter the Great, most famous of her czars. He had overthrown the turbulent militia who really ruled the land, and had waded through a sea of bloody executions to establish his own absolute power.[1] He had travelled abroad in disguise, studied shipbuilding in Holland, the art of government in England, and fortification and war wheresoever he could find a teacher. Removing from the ancient, conservative capital of Moscow, he planted his government, in defiance of Sweden, upon her very frontier, causing the city of St. Petersburg to arise as if by magic from a desolate, icy swamp in the far north.[2]

[Footnote 1: See _Peter the Great Modernizes Russia: Suppression of the Streltsi_, page 223.]

[Footnote 2: See _Founding of St. Petersburg_, page 319.]

Charles of Sweden scorned and defied him. At Narva in 1700, Charles with a small force of his famous troops drove Peter with a huge horde of his Russians to shameful flight. "They will teach us to beat them," said Peter philosophically; and so in truth he gathered knowledge from defeat after defeat, until at length at Poltava in 1709 he completely turned the tables upon Charles, overthrew him and so crushed his power that Russia succeeded Sweden as ruler of the extreme North, a rank she has ever since retained.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Downfall of Charles XII at Poltava: Triumph of Russia_, page 352.]

GROWTH OF AMERICA

The vast political and social changes of Europe in this age found their echo in the New World. The decay of Spain left her American colonies to feebleness and decay. The islands of the Caribbean Sea became the haunt of the buccaneers, pirates, desperadoes of all nations who preyed upon Spanish ships, and, as their power grew, extended their depredations northward along the American coast. So important did these buccaneers become that they formed regular governments among themselves. The most famed of their leaders was knighted by England as Sir Henry Morgan; and the most renowned of his achievements was the storm and capture of the Spanish treasure city, Panama.[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Morgan, the Buccaneer, Sacks Panama_, page 66.]

As Spain grew weak in America, France grew strong. From her Canadian colonies she sent out daring missionaries and traders, who explored the great lakes and the Mississippi valley.[3] They made friends with the Indians; they founded Louisiana.[4] All the north and west of the continent fell into their hands.

[Footnote 3: See _Discovery of the Mississippi_, page 108.]

[Footnote 4: See _Colonization of Louisiana_, page 297.]

Never, however, did their numbers approach those of the English colonists along the Atlantic coast. Both Massachusetts and Virginia were grown into important commonwealths, almost independent of England, and well able to support the weaker settlements rising around them. After the great Puritan exodus to New England to escape the oppression of Charles I, there had come a Royalist exodus to Virginia to escape the Puritanic tyranny of Cromwell's time. Large numbers of Catholics fled to Maryland. Huguenots established themselves in the Carolinas and elsewhere. Then came Penn to build a great Quaker state among the scattered Dutch settlements along the Delaware.[1] The American seaboard became the refuge of each man who refused to bow his neck to despotism of whatever type.

[Footnote 1: See _William Penn Receives the Grant of Pennsylvania: Founding of Philadelphia_, page 153.]

Under such settlers English America soon ceased to be a mere offshoot of Europe. It became a world of its own; its people developed into a new race. They had their own springs of action, their own ways of thought, different from those of Europe, more simple and intense as was shown in the Salem witchcraft excitement, or more resolute and advanced as was revealed in Bacon's Virginia rebellion.[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Salem Witchcraft Trials_, page 268.]

The aboriginal inhabitants, the Indians, found themselves pressed ever backward from the coast. They resisted, and in 1675 there arose in New England, King Philip's war, which for that section at least settled the Indian question forever. The red men of New England were practically exterminated.[3] Those of New York, the Iroquois, were more fortunate or more crafty. They dwelt deeper in the wilderness, and formed a buffer state between the French in Canada and the English to the south, drawing aid now from one, now from the other.

[Footnote 3: See _King Philip's War_, page 125.]

Each war between England and Louis XIV was echoed by strife between their rival colonies. When King William supplanted James in 1688 there followed in America also a "bloodless revolution."[4] Governor Andros, whom James had sent to imitate his own harsh tyranny in the colonies, was seized and shipped back to England. William was proclaimed king. The ensuing strife with France was marked by the most bloody of all America's Indian massacres. The Iroquois descended suddenly on Canada; the very suburbs of its capital, Montreal, were burned, and more than a thousand of the unsuspecting settlers were tortured, or more mercifully slain outright.[5]

[Footnote 4: See _Tyranny of Andros in New England: The Bloodless Revolution_, page 241.]

[Footnote 5: See _Massacre of Lachine_, page 248.]

In the later war about the Spanish throne, England captured Nova Scotia, the southern extremity of the French Canadian seaboard; and part of the price Louis XIV paid for peace was to leave this colony in England's hands.[1] The scale of American power began to swing markedly in her favor. Everywhere over the world, as the eighteenth century progressed, England with her parliamentary government was rising into power at the expense of France and absolutism.

[Footnote 1: See _Capture of Port Royal: France Surrenders Nova Scotia to England_, page 373.]

[Footnote: FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME XIII.]

%LOUIS XIV ESTABLISHES ABSOLUTE MONARCHY%

A.D. 1661

JAMES COTTER MORISON

Not only was the reign of Louis XIV one of the longest in the world's history, but it also marked among Western nations the highest development of the purely monarchical principle. Including the time that Louis ruled under the guardianship of his mother and the control of his minister, Cardinal Mazarin, the reign covered more than seventy years (1643-1715).

The sovereign who could say, "I am the state" ("_l'Etat c'est moi_"), and see his subjects acquiesce with almost Asiatic humility, while Europe looked on in admiration and fear, may be said to have embodied for modern times the essence of absolutism.

That all things, domestic and foreign, seemed to be in concurrence for giving practical effect to the Grand Monarque's assumption of supremacy is shown by the fact that his name dominates the whole history of his time. His reign was not only "the Augustan Age of France"; it marked the ascendency of France in Europe.

Of such a reign no adequate impression is to be derived from reading even the most faithful narrative of its thronging events. But the reign as well as the personality of Louis is set in clear perspective for us by Morison's picturesque and discriminating treatment.

The reign of Louis XIV was the culminating epoch in the history of the French monarchy. What the age of Pericles was in the history of the Athenian democracy, what the age of the Scipios was in the history of the Roman Republic, that was the reign of Louis XIV in the history of the old monarchy of France. The type of polity which that monarchy embodied, the principles of government on which it reposed or brought into play, in this reign attain their supreme expression and development. Before Louis XIV the French monarchy has evidently not attained its full stature; it is thwarted and limited by other forces in the state. After him, though unresisted from without, it manifests symptoms of decay from within. It rapidly declines, and totally disappears seventy-seven years after his death.

But it is not only the most conspicuous reign in the history of France--it is the most conspicuous reign in the history of monarchy in general. Of the very many kings whom history mentions, who have striven to exalt the monarchical principle, none of them achieved a success remotely comparable to his. His two great predecessors in kingly ambition, Charles V and Philip II, remained far behind him in this respect. They may have ruled over wider dominions, but they never attained the exceptional position of power and prestige which he enjoyed for more than half a century. They never were obeyed so submissively at home nor so dreaded and even respected abroad. For Louis XIV carried off that last reward of complete success, that he for a time silenced even envy, and turned it into admiration. We who can examine with cold scrutiny the make and composition of this colossus of a French monarchy; who can perceive how much the brass and clay in it exceeded the gold; who know how it afterward fell with a resounding ruin, the last echoes of which have scarcely died away, have difficulty in realizing the fascination it exercised upon contemporaries who witnessed its first setting up.

Louis XIV's reign was the very triumph of commonplace greatness, of external magnificence and success, such as the vulgar among mankind can best and most sincerely appreciate. Had he been a great and profound ruler, had he considered with unselfish meditation the real interests of France, had he with wise insight discerned and followed the remote lines of progress along which the future of Europe was destined to move, it is lamentably probable that he would have been misunderstood in his lifetime and calumniated after his death.

Louis XIV was exposed to no such misconception. His qualities were on the surface, visible and comprehensible to all; and although none of them was brilliant, he had several which have a peculiarly impressive effect when displayed in an exalted station. He was indefatigably industrious; worked on an average eight hours a day for fifty-four years; had great tenacity of will; that kind of solid judgment which comes of slowness of brain, and withal a most majestic port and great dignity of manners. He had also as much kindliness of nature as the very great can be expected to have; his temper was under severe control; and, in his earlier years at least, he had a moral apprehensiveness greater than the limitations of his intellect would have led one to expect.

His conduct toward Moliere was throughout truly noble, and the more so that he never intellectually appreciated Moliere's real greatness. But he must have had great original fineness of tact, though it was in the end nearly extinguished by adulation and incense. His court was an extraordinary creation, and the greatest thing he achieved. He made it the microcosm of all that was the most brilliant and prominent in France. Every order of merit was invited there and received courteous welcome. To no circumstance did he so much owe his enduring popularity. By its means he impressed into his service that galaxy of great writers, the first and the last classic authors of France, whose calm and serene lustre will forever illumine the epoch of his existence. It may even be admitted that his share in that lustre was not so accidental and undeserved as certain king-haters have supposed.

That subtle critic, M. Sainte-Beuve, thinks he can trace a marked rise even in Bossuet's style from the moment he became a courtier of Louis XIV. The King brought men together, placed them in a position where they were induced and urged to bring their talents to a focus. His court was alternately a high-bred gala and a stately university. If we contrast his life with those of his predecessor and successor, with the dreary existence of Louis XIII and the crapulous lifelong debauch of Louis XV, we become sensible that Louis XIV was distinguished in no common degree; and when we further reflect that much of his home and all of his foreign policy was precisely adapted to flatter, in its deepest self-love, the national spirit of France, it will not be quite impossible to understand the long-continued reverberation of his fame.

But Louis XIV's reign has better titles than the adulations of courtiers and the eulogies of wits and poets to the attention of posterity. It marks one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of mankind. It stretches across history like a great mountain range, separating ancient France from the France of modern times. On the further slope are Catholicism and feudalism in their various stages of splendor and decay--the France of crusade and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. On the hither side are freethought, industry, and centralization--the France of Voltaire, Turgot, and Condorcet.

When Louis came to the throne the Thirty Years' War still wanted six years of its end, and the heat of theological strife was at its intensest glow. When he died the religious temperature had cooled nearly to freezing-point, and a new vegetation of science and positive inquiry was overspreading the world. This amounts to saying that his reign covers the greatest epoch of mental transition through which the human mind has hitherto passed, excepting the transition we are witnessing in the day which now is. We need but recall the names of the writers and thinkers who arose during Louis XIV's reign, and shed their seminal ideas broadcast upon the air, to realize how full a period it was, both of birth and decay; of the passing away of the old and the uprising of the new forms of thought.

To mention only the greatest; the following are among the chiefs who helped to transform the mental fabric of Europe in the age of Louis XIV: Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, Boyle. Under these leaders the first firm irreversible advance was made out of the dim twilight of theology into the clear dawn of positive and demonstrative science.

Inferior to these founders of modern knowledge, but holding a high rank as contributors to the mental activity of the age, were Pascal, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Bayle. The result of their efforts was such a stride forward as has no parallel in the history of the human mind. One of the most curious and significant proofs of it was the spontaneous extinction of the belief in witchcraft among the cultivated classes of Europe, as the English historian of rationalism has so judiciously pointed out. The superstition was not much attacked, and it was vigorously defended, yet it died a natural and quiet death from the changed moral climate of the world.

But the chief interest which the reign of Louis XIV offers to the student of history has yet to be mentioned. It was the great turning-point in the history of the French people. The triumph of the monarchical principle was so complete under him, independence and self-reliance were so effectually crushed, both in localities and individuals, that a permanent bent was given to the national mind--a habit of looking to the government for all action and initiative permanently established.

Before the reign of Louis XIV it was a question which might fairly be considered undecided: whether the country would be able or not, willing or not, to cooperate with its rulers in the work of the government and the reform of abuses. On more than one occasion such cooperation did not seem entirely impossible or improbable. The admirable wisdom and moderation shown by the Tiers-Etat in the States-General of 1614, the divers efforts of the Parliament of Paris to check extravagant expenditure, the vigorous struggles of the provincial assemblies to preserve some relic of their local liberties, seemed to promise that France would continue to advance under the leadership indeed of the monarchy, yet still retaining in large measure the bright, free, independent spirit of old Gaul, the Gaul of Rabelais, Montaigne, and Joinville.

After the reign of Louis XIV such cooperation of the ruler and the ruled became impossible. The government of France had become a machine depending upon the action of a single spring. Spontaneity in the population at large was extinct, and whatever there was to do must be done by the central authority. As long as the government could correct abuses it was well; if it ceased to be equal to this task, they must go uncorrected. When at last the reform of secular and gigantic abuses presented itself with imperious urgency, the alternative before the monarchy was either to carry the reform with a high hand or perish in the failure to do so. We know how signal the failure was, and could not help being, under the circumstances; and through having placed the monarchy between these alternatives, it is no paradox to say that Louis XIV was one of the most direct ancestors of the "Great Revolution."

Nothing but special conditions in the politics both of Europe and of France can explain this singular importance and prominence of Louis XIV's reign. And we find that both France and Europe were indeed in an exceptional position when he ascended the throne. The Continent of Europe, from one end to the other, was still bleeding and prostrate from the effect of the Thirty Years' War when the young Louis, in the sixteenth year of his age, was anointed king at Rheims. Although France had suffered terribly in that awful struggle, she had probably suffered less than any of the combatants, unless it be Sweden.

It happened by a remarkable coincidence that precisely at this moment, when the condition of Europe was such that an aggressive policy on the part of France could be only with difficulty resisted by her neighbors, the power and prerogatives of the French crown attained an expansion and preeminence which they had never enjoyed in the previous history of the country. The schemes and hopes of Philip the Fair, of Louis XI, of Henry IV, and of Richelieu had been realized at last; and their efforts to throw off the insolent coercion of the great feudal lords had been crowned with complete success. The monarchy could hardly have conjectured how strong it had become but for the abortive resistance and hostility it met with in the Fronde.

The flames of insurrection which had shot up, forked and menacing, fell back underground, where they smouldered for four generations yet to come. The kingly power soared, single and supreme, over its prostrate foes. Long before Louis XIV had shown any aptitude or disposition for authority, he was the object of adulation as cringing as was ever offered to a Roman emperor. When he returned from his consecration at Rheims, the rector of the University of Paris, at the head of his professorial staff, addressed the young King in these words: "We are so dazzled by the new splendor which surrounds your majesty that we are not ashamed to appear dumfounded at the aspect of a light so brilliant and so extraordinary"; and at the foot of an engraving at the same date he is in so many words called a demigod.

It is evident that ample materials had been prepared for what the vulgar consider a great reign. Abundant opportunity for an insolent and aggressive foreign policy, owing to the condition of Europe. Security from remonstrance or check at home, owing to the condition of France. The temple is prepared for the deity; the priests stand by, ready to offer victims on the smoking altar; the incense is burning in anticipation of his advent. On the death of Mazarin, in 1661, he entered into his own.

Louis XIV never forgot the trials and humiliations to which he and his mother had been subjected during the troubles of the Fronde. It has often been remarked that rulers born in the purple have seldom shown much efficiency unless they have been exposed to exceptional and, as it were, artificial probations during their youth. During the first eleven years of Louis' reign--incomparably the most creditable to him--we can trace unmistakably the influence of the wisdom and experience acquired in that period of anxiety and defeat. He then learned the value of money and the supreme benefits of a full exchequer. He also acquired a thorough dread of subjection to ministers and favorites--a dread so deep that it implied a consciousness of probable weakness on that side. As he went on in life he to a great extent forgot both these valuable lessons, but their influence was never entirely effaced. To the astonishment of the courtiers and even of his mother he announced his intention of governing independently, and of looking after everything himself. They openly doubted his perseverance. "You do not know him," said Mazarin. "He will begin rather late, but he will go further than most. There is enough stuff in him to make four kings and an honest man besides."

His first measures were dictated less by great energy of initiative than by absolute necessity. The finances had fallen into such a chaos of jobbery and confusion that the very existence of the government depended upon a prompt and trenchant reform. It was Louis' rare good-fortune to find beside him one of the most able and vigorous administrators who have ever lived--Colbert. He had the merit--not a small one in that age--of letting this great minister invent and carry out the most daring and beneficial measures of reform, of which he assumed all the credit to himself. The first step was a vigorous attack on the gang of financial plunderers, who, with Fouquet at their head, simply embezzled the bulk of the state revenues. The money-lenders not only obtained the most usurious interest for their loans, but actually held in mortgage the most productive sources of the national taxation: and, not content with that, they bought up, at 10 per cent. of their nominal value, an enormous amount of discredited bills, issued by the government in the time of the Fronde, which they forced the treasury to pay off at par; and this was done with the very money they had just before advanced to the government.

Such barefaced plunder could not be endured, and Colbert was the last man to endure it. He not only repressed peculation, but introduced a number of practical improvements in the distribution, and especially in the mode of levying the taxes. So imperfect were the arrangements connected with the latter that it was estimated that of eighty-four millions paid by the people, only thirty-two millions entered into the coffers of the state. The almost instantaneous effects of Colbert's measures--the yawning deficit was changed into a surplus of forty-five millions in less than two years--showed how gross and flagrant had been the malversation preceding.

Far more difficult, and far nobler in the order of constructive statesmanship, were his vast schemes to endow France with manufactures, with a commercial and belligerent navy, with colonies, besides his manifold reforms in the internal administration--tariffs and customs between neighboring provinces of France; the great work of the Languedoc canal; in fact, in every part and province of government. His success was various, but in some cases really stupendous. His creation of a navy almost surpasses belief. In 1661, when he first became free to act, France possessed only thirty vessels-of-war of all sizes. At the peace of Nimwegen, in 1678, she had acquired a fleet of one hundred twenty ships, and in 1683 she had got a fleet of one hundred seventy-six vessels; and the increase was quite as great in the size and armament of the individual ships as in their number.

A perfect giant of administration, Colbert found no labor too great for his energies, and worked with unflagging energy sixteen hours a day for twenty-two years. It is melancholy to be forced to add that all this toil was as good as thrown away, and that the strong man went broken-hearted to the grave, through seeing too clearly that he had labored in vain for an ungrateful egotist. His great visions of a prosperous France, increasing in wealth and contentment, were blighted; and he closed his eyes upon scenes of improvidence and waste more injurious to the country than the financial robbery which he had combated in his early days. The government was not plundered as it had been, but itself was exhausting the very springs of wealth by its impoverishment of the people.

Boisguillebert, writing in 1698, only fifteen years after Colbert's death, estimated the productive powers of France to have diminished by one-half in the previous thirty years. It seems, indeed, probable that the almost magical rapidity and effect of Colbert's early reforms turned Louis XIV's head, and that he was convinced that it only depended on his good pleasure to renew them to obtain the same result. He never found, as he never deserved to find, another Colbert; and he stumbled onward in ever deeper ruin to his disastrous end.

His first breach of public faith was his attack on the Spanish Netherlands, under color of certain pretended rights of the Queen, his wife--the Infanta Marie Therese; although he had renounced all claims in her name at his marriage. This aggression was followed by his famous campaign in the Low Countries, when Franche-Comte was overrun and conquered in fifteen days. He was stopped by the celebrated triple alliance in mid career. He had not yet been intoxicated by success and vanity; Colbert's influence, always exerted on the side of peace, was at its height, the menacing attitude of Holland, England, and Sweden awed him, and he drew back. His pride was deeply wounded, and he revolved deep and savage schemes of revenge. Not on England, whose abject sovereign he knew could be had whenever he chose to buy him, but on the heroic little republic which had dared to cross his victorious path. His mingled contempt and rage against Holland were indeed instinctive, spontaneous, and in the nature of things. Holland was the living, triumphant incarnation of the two things he hated most--the principle of liberty in politics and the principle of free inquiry in religion.

With a passion too deep for hurry or carelessness he made his preparations. The army was submitted to a complete reorganization. A change in the weapons of the infantry was effected, which was as momentous in its day as the introduction of the breech-loading rifle in ours. The old inefficient firelock was replaced by the flint musket, and the rapidity and certainty of fire vastly increased. The undisciplined independence of the officers commanding regiments and companies was suppressed by the rigorous and methodical Colonel Martinet, whose name has remained in other armies besides that of France as a synonyme of punctilious exactitude.