Chapter VII: Part 7

The early life of Hippolyte Adolphe Taine is notable for its
successes and its disappointments. Born at Vouziers, in
Ardennes, on April 21, 1838, he passed with great distinction
through the Collège de Bourbon and the École Normale. Until he
was twenty-five he filled minor positions at Toulon, Nevers,
and Poitiers; and then, hopeless of further promotion, he
abandoned educational work, returned to Paris, and devoted
himself to letters. During 1863-64 he produced his "History of
English Literature," a work which, on account of Taine's
uncompromising determinist views, raised a clerical storm in
France. About 1871 Taine conceived the idea of his great life
work, "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine," in which he
proposed to trace the causes and effects of the revolution of
1789. The first of the series, "The Ancient Régime," appeared
in 1875; the second, "The Revolution," in 1878-81-85; and the
third, "The Modern Régime," in 1890-94. As a study of events
arising out of the greatest drama of modern times the
supremacy of the last-named is unquestioned. It stands apart
as a trenchant analysis of modern France, Taine's conclusions
being that the Revolution, instead of establishing liberty,
destroyed it. Taine died on March 5, 1893.

_I.--The Architect of Modern France_

In trying to explain to ourselves the meaning of an edifice, we must take into account whatever has opposed or favoured its construction, the kind and quality of its available materials, the time, the opportunity, and the demand for it; but, still more important, we must consider the genius and taste of the architect, especially whether he is the proprietor, whether he built it to live in himself, and, once installed in it, whether he took pains to adapt it to his own way of living, to his own necessities, to his own use.

Such is the social edifice erected by Napoleon Bonaparte, its architect, proprietor, and principal occupant from 1799 to 1814. It is he who has made modern France. Never was an individual character so profoundly stamped on any collective work, so that, to comprehend the work, we must first study the character of the man.

Contemplate in Guérin's picture the spare body, those narrow shoulders under the uniform wrinkled by sudden movements, that neck swathed in its high, twisted cravat, those temples covered by long, smooth, straight hair, exposing only the mask, the hard features intensified through strong contrasts of light and shade, the cheeks hollow up to the inner angle of the eye, the projecting cheek-bones, the massive, protuberant jaw, the sinuous, mobile lips, pressed together as if attentive; the large, clear eyes, deeply sunk under the broad arched eyebrows, the fixed oblique look, as penetrating as a rapier, and the two creases which extend from the base of the nose to the brow as if in a frown of suppressed anger and determined will. Add to this the accounts of his contemporaries who saw or heard the curt accent, or the sharp, abrupt gesture, the interrogating, imperious, absolute tone of voice, and we comprehend how, the moment they accosted him, they felt the dominating hand which seizes them, presses them down, holds them firmly, and never relaxes its grasp.

Now, in every human society a government is necessary, or, in other words, an organisation of the power of the community. No other machine is so useful. But a machine is useful only as it is adapted to its purpose; otherwise it does not work well, or it works adversely to that purpose. Hence, in its construction, the prime necessity of calculating what work it has to do, also the quantity of the materials one has at one's disposal.

During the French Revolution, legislators had never taken this into consideration; they had constituted things as theorists, and likewise as optimists, without closely studying them, or else regarding them as they wished to have them. In the national assemblies, as well as with the public, the task was deemed easy and ordinary, whereas it was extraordinary and immense, for the matter in hand consisted in effecting a social revolution and in carrying on a European war.

What is the service which the public power renders to the public? The principal one is the protection of the community against the foreigner, and of private individuals against each other. Evidently, to do this, it must _in all cases_ be provided with indispensable means, namely, diplomats, an army, a fleet, arsenals, civil and criminal courts, prisons, a police, taxation and tax-collectors, a hierarchy of agents and local supervisors, who, each in his place and attending to his special duty, will co-operate in securing the desired effect. Evidently, again, to apply all these instruments, the public power must have, _according to the case_, this or that form of constitution, this or that degree of impulse and energy; according to the nature and gravity of external or internal danger, it is proper that it should be concentrated or divided, emancipated from control or under control, authoritative or liberal. No indignation need be cherished beforehand against its mechanism, whatever this may be. Properly speaking, it is a vast engine in the human community, like any given industrial machine in a factory, or any set of organs belonging to the living body.

Unfortunately, in France, at the end of the eighteenth century, a bent was taken in the organisation of this machine, and a wrong bent. For three centuries and more the public power had unceasingly violated and discredited spontaneous bodies. At one time it had mutilated them and decapitated them. For example, it had suppressed provincial governments _(états)_ over three-quarters of the territory in all the electoral districts; nothing remained of the old province but its name and an administrative circumscription. At another time, without mutilating the corporate body, it had enervated and deformed it, or dislocated and disjointed it.

Corporations and local bodies, thus deprived of, or diverted from, their purpose, had become unrecognisable under the crust of the abuses which disfigured them; nobody, except a Montesquieu, could comprehend why they should exist. On the approach of the revolution they seemed, not organs, but excrescences, deformities, and, so to say, superannuated monstrosities. Their historical and natural roots, their living germs far below the surface, their social necessity, their fundamental utility, their possible usefulness, were no longer visible.

_II.--The Body-Social of a Despot_

Corporations, and local bodies being thus emasculated, by the end of the eighteenth century the principal features of modern France are traced; a creature of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues forth its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social body organised by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of one man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with a superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains lucid and this will remain healthy; adapted to a military life and not to civil life and therefore badly balanced, hampered in its development, exposed to periodical crises, condemned to precocious debility, but able to live for a long time, and for the present, robust, alone able to bear the weight of the new dominion and to furnish for fifteen successive years the crushing labour, the conquering obedience, the superhuman, murderous, insensate effort which its master, Napoleon, exacts.

However clear and energetic the ideas of Napoleon are when he sets to work to make the New Régime, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations of the sovereign. It is not enough for him that his edifice should be monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. First of all, as he lives in it and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants it habitable, and habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and permanent wants for which the new structure is to provide. These wants, however, must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for he is a calculator as close as he is profound, and deals only with positive facts.

To restore tranquillity, many novel measures are essential. And first, the political and administrative concentration just decreed, a centralisation of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the central power, and this supreme power in the hands of a resolute chief equal in intelligence to his high position; next, a regularly paid army, carefully equipped, properly clothed, and fed, strictly disciplined, and therefore obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or faltering, like any other instrument of precision; an active police force and _gendarmerie_ held in check; administrators independent of those under their jurisdiction--all appointed, maintained, watched and restrained from above, as impartial as possible, sufficiently competent, and, in their official spheres, capable functionaries; finally, freedom of worship, and, accordingly, a treaty with Rome and the restoration of the Catholic Church--that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox hierarchy, and of the only clergy which the faithful may accept as legitimate--in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope, and of priests by the bishops. This done, the rest is easily accomplished.

The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds the revolution has made--which are still bleeding--with as little torture as possible, for it has cut down to the quick; and its amputations, whether foolish or outrageous, have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social organism.

Above all, religion must be restored. Before 1789, the ignorant or indifferent Catholic, the peasant at his plough, the mechanic at his work-bench, the good wife attending to her household, were unconscious of the innermost part of religion; thanks to the revolution, they have acquired the sentiment of it, and even the physical sensation. It is the prohibition of the mass which has led them to comprehend its importance; it is the revolutionary government which has transformed them into theologians.

From the year IV. (1795) the orthodox priests have again recovered their place and ascendancy in the peasant's soul which the creed assigns to them; they have again become the citizen's serviceable guides, his accepted directors, the only warranted interpreters of Christian truth, the only authorised dispensers and ministers of divine grace. He attends their mass immediately on their return, and will put up with no other.

Napoleon, therefore, as First Consul, concludes the Concordat with the Pope and restores religion. By this Concordat the Pope "declares that neither himself nor his successors shall in any manner disturb the purchasers of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that the ownership of the said property, the rights and revenues derived therefrom, shall consequently remain incommutable in their hands or in those of their assigns."

There remain the institutions for instruction. With respect to these, the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient endowment is almost entirely wasted; the government has nothing to give back but dilapidated buildings, a few scattered investments formerly intended for the maintenance of a college scholarship, or for a village schoolhouse. And to whom should these be returned, since the college and the schoolhouse no longer exist? Fortunately, instruction is an article of such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for his children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too dear; only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality, and, therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp or label.

The state invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to the undertaking. It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favour of new establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the most invariable respect." Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it assigns to each its eventual duty; if the commune establishes a primary school for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging, and the parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a college or accepts a _lycée,_ it must pay for the annual support of the building, while the pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.

In this way the heavy expenses are already met, and the state, the manager-general of the service, furnishes simply a very small quota; and this quota, mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact, for its main largess consists in 6,400 scholarships which it establishes and engages to support; but it confers only about 3,000 of them, and it distributes nearly all of these among the children of its military or civil employees, so that the son's scholarship becomes additional pay for the father; thus, the two millions which the state seems, under this head, to assign to the _lycées,_ are actually gratifications which it distributes among its functionaries and officials. It takes back with one hand what it bestows with the other.

This being granted, it organises the university and maintains it, not at its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the expense of private persons and parents, of the communes, and, above all, at the expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free institutions, and all this in favour of the university monopoly which subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious. Whoever is privileged to carry on a private school, must pay from two to three hundred francs to the university; likewise, every person obtaining permission to lecture on literature or on science.

_III.--The New Taxation, Fiscal and Bodily_

Now, as to taxes. The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation performed on the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance; he suffers on account of this, and submits to it only because he is obliged to. If the operation is performed on him by other hands, he submits to it voluntarily or not; but if he has to do it himself, spontaneously and with his own hands, it is not to be thought of. On the other hand, the collection of a direct tax according to the prescriptions of distributive justice is a subjection of each taxpayer to an amputation proportionate to his bulk, or at least to his surface; this requires delicate calculation and is not to be entrusted to the patients themselves; for not only are they surgical novices and poor calculators, but, again, they are interested in calculating falsely.

To this end, Napoleon establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one, the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any property; and the other the personal tax, which does affect him, but lightly. Such a system favours the poor; in other words, it is an infraction of the principle of distributive justice; through the almost complete exemption of those who have no property, the burden of direct taxation falls almost entirely on those who own property. If they are manufacturers, or in commerce, they support still another burden, that of the license tax, which is a supplementary impost proportioned to their probable gains. Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes, levied on the probable or certain income derived from invested or floating capital, the exchequer adds an eventual tax on capital itself, consisting of the _mutation_ tax, assessed on property every time it changes hands through gift, inheritance, or by contract, obtaining its title under free donation or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the _timbre_, is enormous, since, in most cases, it takes five, seven, nine, and up to ten and one-half per cent, on the capital transmitted.

One tax remains, and the last, that by which the state takes, no longer money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and for the best years of his life, namely, military service. It is the revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly it was light, for, in principle, it was voluntary. The militia, alone, was raised by force, and, in general, among the country people; the peasants furnished men for it by casting lots. But it was simply a supplement to the active army, a territorial and provincial reserve, a distinct, sedentary body of reinforcements, and of inferior rank which, except in case of war, never marched; it turned out but nine days of the year, and, after 1778, never turned out again. In 1789 it comprised in all 75,260 men, and for eleven years their names, inscribed on the registers, alone constituted their presence in the ranks.

Napoleon put this military system in order. Henceforth every male able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no more exemptions in the way of military service; all young men who had reached the required age drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn according to the order fixed by their drafted number.

But Napoleon is an intelligent creditor; he knows that this debt is "most frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are real, living men, and therefore different in kind, that the head of the state should keep these differences in mind, that is to say, their condition, their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that, not only in their private interest, but again in the interest of the public, not merely through prudence, but also through equity, all should not be indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to the same manual labour, to the same indefinite servitude of soul and body.

Napoleon also exempts the conscript who has a brother in the active army, the only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans, the son of a father seventy-one years old dependent on his labour, all of whom are family supports. He joins with these all young men who enlist in one of his civil militias, in his ecclesiastical militia, or in his university militia, pupils of the École Normale, seminarians for the priesthood, on condition that they shall engage to do service in their vocation, and do it effectively, some for ten years, others for life, subject to a discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid, as military discipline.

_IV.--The Prefect Absolute_

Yet another institution which Napoleon gave to the Modern Régime in France is the Prefect of a Department. Before 1870, when this prefect appointed the mayors, and when the council general held its session only fifteen days in the year, this Prefect was almost omnipotent; still, at the present day, his powers are immense, and his power remains preponderant. He has the right to suspend the municipal council and the mayor, and to propose their dismissal to the head of the state. Without resorting to this extremity, he holds them with a strong hand, and always uplifted over the commune, for he can veto the acts of the municipal police and of the road committee, annul the regulations of the mayor, and, through a skilful use of his prerogative, impose his own. He holds in hand, removes, appoints or helps appoint, not alone the clerks in his office, but likewise every kind and degree of clerk who, outside his office, serves the commune or department, from the archivist down to and comprising the lowest employees, such as forest-guards of the department, policemen posted at the corner of a street, and stone-breakers on the public highway.

Such, in brief, is the system of local and general society in France from the Napoleonic time down to the date 1889, when these lines are written. After the philosophic demolitions of the revolution, and the practical constructions of the consulate, national or general government is a vast despotic centralised machine, and local government could no longer be a small patrimony.

The departments and communes have become more or less vast lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the same regulations, one as passable as the other, with apartments in them which, more or less good, are more or less dear, but at rates which, higher or lower, are fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire territory, so that the 36,000 communal buildings and the eighty-six department hotels are about equal, it making but little difference whether one lodges in the latter rather than in the former. The permanent taxpayers of both sexes who have made these premises their home have not obtained recognition for what they are, invincibly and by nature, a syndicate of neighbours, an involuntary, obligatory association, in which physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a natural, limited society whose members own the building in common, and each possesses a property-right more or less great according to the contribution he makes to the expenses of the establishment.

Up to this time no room has yet been found, either in the law or in minds, for this very plain truth; its place is taken and occupied in advance by the two errors which in turn, or both at once, have led the legislator and opinion astray.

* * * * *

THOMAS CARLYLE

Frederick the Great

Frederick the Great, born on January 24, 1712, at Berlin,
succeeded to the throne of Prussia in 1740, and died on August
17, 1786, at Potsdam, being the third king of Prussia, the
regal title having been acquired by his grandfather, whose
predecessors had borne the title of Elector of Brandenburg.
Building on the foundations laid by his great-grandfather and
his father, he raised his comparatively small and poor kingdom
to the position of a first-class military power, and won for
himself rank with the greatest of all generals, often matching
his troops victoriously against forces of twice and even
thrice their number. In Thomas Carlyle he found an
enthusiastic biographer, somewhat prone, however, to find for
actions of questionable public morality a justification in
"immutable laws" and "veracities," which to other eyes is a
little akin to Wordsworth's apology for Rob Roy. But whether
we accept Carlyle's estimate of him or no, the amazing skill,
tenacity, and success with which he stood at bay virtually
against all Europe, while Great Britain was fighting as his
ally her own duel in France in the Seven Years' War,
constitutes an unparallelled achievement. "Frederick the
Great" was begun about 1848, the concluding volumes appearing
in 1865. (Carlyle, see LIVES AND LETTERS.)

_I.--Forebears and Childhood_

About the year 1780 there used to be seen sauntering on the terrace of Sans-Souci a highly interesting, lean, little old man of alert though slightly stooping figure, whose name among strangers was King Friedrich II., or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people was _Vater Fritz_--Father Fred. A king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king; in a Spartan simplicity of vesture. In 1786 his speakings and his workings came to _finis_ in this world of time. Editors vaguely account this man the creator of the Prussian monarchy, which has since grown so large in the world.

He was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on January 24, 1712; a small infant, but of great promise and possibility. Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia, father of this little infant, did himself make some noise in the world as second king of Prussia.

The founder of the line was Conrad of Hohenzollern, who came to seek his fortune under Barbarossa, greatest of all the kaisers. Friedrich I. of that line was created Elector of Brandenburg in 1415; the eleventh in succession was Friedrich Wilhelm, the "Great Elector," who in 1640 found Brandenburg annihilated, and left it in 1688 sound and flourishing, a great country, or already on the way towards greatness; a most rapid, clear-eyed, active man. His son got himself made King of Prussia, and was Friedrich I., who was still reigning when his grandson, Frederick the Great, was born. Not two years later Friedrich Wilhelm is king.

Of that strange king and his strange court there is no light to be had except from the book written by Frederick's little sister, Wilhelmina, when she grew to size and knowledge of good and evil--a flickery wax taper held over Frederick's childhood. In the breeding of him there are two elements noticeable, widely diverse--the French and the German. Of his infantine history the course was in general smooth. The boy, it was said, was of extraordinary vivacity; only he takes less to soldiering than the paternal heart could wish. The French element is in his governesses--good Edict-of-Nantes ladies.

For the boy's teachers, Friedrich Wilhelm has rules for guidance strict enough. He is to be taught useful knowledge--history of the last hundred and fifty years, arithmetic, fortification; but nothing useless of Latin and the like. Spartan training, too, which shall make a soldier of him. Whereas young Fritz has vivacities, a taste for music, finery, and excursions into forbidden realms distasteful and incomprehensible to Friedrich Wilhelm. We perceive the first small cracks of incurable division in the royal household, traceable from Fritz's sixth or seventh year; a divulsion splitting ever wider, new offences super-adding themselves. This Fritz ought to fashion himself according to his father's pattern, and he does not. These things make life all bitter for son and for father, necessitating the proud son to hypocrisies very foreign to him had there been other resource.

The boy in due time we find (at fifteen) attached to the amazing regiment of giants, drilling at Potsdam; on very ill terms with his father, however, who sees in him mainly wilful disobedience and frivolity. Once, when Prussia and Hanover seem on the verge of war over an utterly trivial matter, our crown prince acquires momentary favour. The Potsdam Guards are ordered to the front, and the prince handles them with great credit. But the favour is transitory, seeing that he is caught reading French books, and arrayed in a fashion not at all pleasing to the Spartan parent.

_II.--The Crown Prince Leaves Kingship_

The life is indeed so intolerable that Fritz is with difficulty dissuaded from running away. The time comes when he will not be dissuaded, resolves that he will endure no longer. There were only three definite accomplices in the wild scheme, which had a very tragical ending. Of the three, Lieutenant Keith, scenting discovery, slipped over the border and so to England; his brother, Page Keith, feeling discovery certain, made confession, after vigilance had actually stopped the prince when he was dressed for the flight. There was terrible wrath of the father over the would-be "deserter and traitor," and not less over the other accomplice, Lieutenant Katte, who had dallied too long. The crown prince himself was imprisoned; court-martial held on the offenders; a too-lenient sentence was overruled by the king, and Katte was executed. The king was near frenzied, but beyond doubt thought honestly that he was doing no more than justice demanded.

As for the crown prince himself, deserting colonel of a regiment, the court-martial, with two dissentients, condemned him to death; sentence which the Junius Brutus of a king would have duly carried out. But remonstrance is universal, and an autograph letter from the kaiser seemingly decisive. Frederick was, as it were, retired to a house of his own and a court of his own--court very strictly regulated--at Cüstrin; not yet a soldier of the Prussian army, but hoping only to become so again; while he studied the domain sciences, more particularly the rigidly economical principles of state finance as practised by his father. The tragedy has taught him a lesson, and he has more to learn. That period is finally ended when he is restored to the army in 1732.

Reconciliation, complete submission, and obedience, a prince with due appreciation of facts has now made up his mind to; very soon shaped into acceptance of paternal demand that he shall wed Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevern, insipid niece of the kaiser. In private correspondence he expresses himself none too submissively, but offers no open opposition to the king's wishes.

The charmer of Brunswick turned out not so bad as might have been expected; not ill-looking; of an honest, guileless heart, if little articulate intellect; considerable inarticulate sense; after marriage, which took place in June 1733, shaped herself successfully to the prince's taste, and grew yearly gracefuller and better-looking. But the affair, before it came off, gave rise to a certain visit of Friedrich Wilhelm to the kaiser, of which in the long run the outcome was that complete distrust of the kaiser displaced the king's heretofore determined loyalty to him.

Meanwhile an event has fallen out at Warsaw. Augustus, the physically strong, is no more; transcendent king of edacious flunkies, father of 354 children, but not without fine qualities; and Poland has to find a new king. His death kindled foolish Europe generally into fighting, and gave our crown prince his first actual sight and experience of the facts of war. Stanislaus is overwhelmingly the favourite candidate, supported, too, by France. The other candidate, August of Saxony, secures the kaiser's favour by promise of support to his Pragmatic Sanction; and the appearance of Russian troops secures "freedom of election" and choice of August by the electors who are not absent. August is crowned, and Poland in a flame. Friedrich Wilhelm cares not for Polish elections, but, as by treaty bound, provides 10,000 men to support the kaiser on the Rhine, while he gives asylum to the fugitive Stanislaus. Crown prince, now twenty-two, is with the force; sees something of warfare, but nothing big.

War being finished, Frederick occupied a mansion at Reinsberg with his princess, and things went well, if economically, with much correspondence with the other original mind of those days, Voltaire. But big events are coming now. Mr. Jenkins's ear re-emerges from cotton-wool after seven years, and Walpole has to declare war with Spain in 1739. Moreover, Friedrich Wilhelm is exceedingly ill. In May 1740 comes a message--Frederick must come to Potsdam quickly if he is to see his father again. The son comes. "Am not I happy to have such a son to leave behind me?" says the dying king. On May 31 he dies. No baresark of them, nor Odin's self, was a bit of truer stuff.

_III.--The Silesian Wars_

Shall we, then, have the philosopher-king, as Europe dimly seems to half expect? He begins, indeed, with opening corn magazines, abolishing legal torture; will have freedom of conscience and the Press; encourage philosophers and men of letters. In those days he had his first meeting with Voltaire, recorded for us by the Frenchman twenty years later; for his own reasons, vitriolically and with inaccuracies, the record amounting to not much. Frederick was suffering from a quartan fever. Of which ague he was cured by the news that Kaiser Carl died on October 20, and Maria Theresa was proclaimed sovereign of the Hapsburg inheritance, according to the Pragmatic Sanction.

Whereupon, without delay, Frederick forms a resolution, which had sprung and got to sudden fixity in the head of the young king himself, and met with little save opposition from all others--to make good his rights in Silesia. A most momentous resolution; not the peaceable magnanimities, but the warlike, are the thing appointed for Frederick henceforth.

In mid-December the troops entered Silesia; except in the hills, where Catholics predominate, with marked approbation of the population, we find. Of warlike preparation to meet the Prussians is practically none, and in seven weeks Silesia is held, save three fortresses easy to manage in spring. Will the hold be maintained?

Meanwhile, France will have something to say, moved by a figure not much remembered, yet notable, Marshal Belleisle; perhaps, after Frederick and Voltaire, the most notable of that time. A man of large schemes, altogether accordant with French interests, but not, unfortunately, with facts and law of gravitation. For whom the first thing needful is that Grand Duke Franz, husband of Maria Theresa, shall not be elected kaiser; who shall be is another matter--why not Karl Albert of Bavaria as well as another?

After brief absence, Frederick is soon back in Silesia, to pay attention to blockaded Glogau and Brieg and Neisse; harassed, however, by Austrian Pandours out of Glatz, a troublesome kind of cavalry. The siege of Neisse is to open on April 4, when we find Austrian Neipperg with his army approaching; by good fortune a dilatory Neipperg; of which comes the battle of Mollwitz.

In which fight victory finally rested with Prussians and Schwerin, who held the field, Austrians retiring, but not much pursued; demonstration that a new military power is on the scene (April 10). A victory, though, of old Friedrich Wilhelm, and his training and discipline, having in it as yet nothing of young Frederick's own.

A battle, however, which in effect set going the conflagration unintelligible to Englishmen, known as War of the Austrian Accession. In which we observe a clear ground for Anglo-Spanish War, and Austro-Prussian War; but what were the rest doing? France is the author of it, as an Anti-Pragmatic war; George II. and Hanover are dragged into it as a Pragmatic war; but the intervention of France at all was barefacedly unjust and gratuitous. To begin with, however, Belleisle's scheming brings about election to kaisership of Karl Albert of Bavaria, principal Anti-Pragmatic claimant to the Austrian heritage.

Brieg was taken not long after Mollwitz, and now many diplomatists come to Frederick's camp at Strehlen. In effect, will he choose English or French alliance? Will England get him what will satisfy him from Austria? If not, French alliance and war with Austria--which problem issues in treaty with France--mostly contingent. Diplomatising continues, no one intending to be inconveniently loyal to engagements; so that four months after French treaty comes another engagement or arrangement of Klein Schnelendorf--Frederick to keep most of Silesia, but a plausible show of hostilities--nothing more--to be maintained for the present. In consequence of which Frederick solemnly captures Neisse.

The arrangement, however, comes to grief, enough of it being divulged from Vienna to explode it. Out of which comes the Moravian expedition; by inertness of allies turned into a mere Moravian foray, "the French acting like fools, and the Saxons like traitors," growls Frederick.

Raid being over, Prince Karl, brother of Grand Duke Franz, comes down with his army, and follows the battle of Chotusitz, also called of Czaslau. A hard-fought battle, ending in defeat of the Austrians; not in itself decisive, but the eyes of Europe very confirmatory of the view that the Austrians cannot beat the Prussians. From a wounded general, too, Frederick learns that the French have been making overtures for peace on their own account, Prussia to be left to Austria if she likes, of which is documentary proof.

No need, then, for Frederick to be scrupulous about making his own terms. His Britannic Majesty is urgent that Maria Theresa should agree with Frederick. Out of which comes Treaty of Breslau, ceding Silesia to Prussia; and exceeding disgust of Belleisle, ending the first Silesian War.

With which Frederick would have liked to see the European war ended altogether; but it went on, Austria, too, prospering. He tries vainly to effect combinations to enforce peace. George of England, having at last fairly got himself into the war, and through the battle of Dettingen, valorously enough; operations emerging in a Treaty of Worms (September 1743), mainly between England and Austria, which does _not_ guarantee the Breslau Treaty. An expressive silence! "What was good to give is good to take." Is Frederick, then, not secure of Silesia? If he must guard his own, he can no longer stand aside. So the Worms Treaty begets an opposition treaty, chief parties Prussia, France, and Kaiser Karl Albert of Bavaria, signed at Frankfurt-on-Maine, May 1744.

Before which France has actually declared war on England, with whose troops her own have been fighting for a not inconsiderable time without declaration of war; and all the time fortifications in Silesia have been becoming realities. Frederick will strike when his moment comes.

The imperative moment does come when Prince Karl, or, more properly, Traun, under cloak of Prince Karl, seems on the point of altogether crushing the French. Frederick intervenes, in defence of the kaiser; swoops on Bohemia, captures Prag; in short, brings Prince Karl and Traun back at high speed, unhindered by French. Thenceforward, not a successfully managed campaign on Frederick's part, admirably conducted on the other side by Traun. This campaign the king's school in the art of war, and M. de Traun his teacher--so Frederick himself admits.

Austria is now sure to invade Silesia; will Frederick not block the passes against Prince Karl, now having no Traun under his cloak? Frederick will not--one leaves the mouse-trap door open, pleasantly baited, moreover, into which mouse Karl will walk. And so, three weeks after that remarkable battle of Fontenoy, in another quarter, very hard-won victory of Maréchal Saxe over Britannic Majesty's Martial Boy, comes battle of Hohenfriedberg. A most decisive battle, "most decisive since Blenheim," wrote Frederick, whose one desire now is peace.

Britannic Majesty makes peace for himself with Frederick, being like to have his hands full with a rising in the Scotch Highlands; Austria will not, being still resolute to recover Silesia--rejects bait of Prussian support in imperial election for Wainz, Kaiser Karl being now dead. What is kaisership without Silesia? Prussia has no insulted kaiser to defend, desires no more than peace on the old Breslau terms properly ratified; but finances are low. Grand Duke Franz is duly elected; but the empress queen will have Silesia. Battle of Sohr does not convince her. There must be another surprising last attempt by Saxony and Austria; settled by battles of Hennensdorf and Kesselsdorf.

So at last Frederick got the Peace of Dresden--security, it is to be hoped, in Silesia, the thing for which he had really gone to war; leaving the rest of the European imbroglio to get itself settled in its own fashion after another two years of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

Frederick now has ten years of peace before him, during which his actions and salutary conquests over difficulties were many, profitable to Prussia and himself. Frederick has now, by his second Silesian war, achieved greatness; "Frederick the Great," expressly so denominated by his people and others. However, there are still new difficulties, new perils and adventures ahead.

For the present, then, Frederick declines the career of conquering hero; goes into law reform; gets ready a country cottage for himself, since become celebrated under the name of Sans-Souci. General war being at last ended, he receives a visit from Maréchal Saxe, brilliant French field-marshal, most dissipated man of his time, one of the 354 children of Augustus the Physically Strong.

But the ten years are passing--there is like to be another war. Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, made in a hurry, had left some questions open in America, answered in one way by the French, quite otherwise by English colonists. Canada and Louisiana mean all America west of the Alleghanies? Why then? Whomsoever America does belong to, it surely is not France. Braddock disasters, Frenchmen who understand war--these things are ominous; but there happens to be in England a Mr. Pitt. Here in Europe, too, King Frederick had come in a profoundly private manner upon certain extensive anti-Prussian symptoms--Austrian, Russian, Saxon--of a most dangerous sort; in effect, an underground treaty for partitioning Prussia; knowledge thereof extracted from Dresden archives.

_IV.--The Seven Years' War Opens_

Very curious diplomatisings, treaties, and counter-treaties are going on. What counts is Frederick's refusal to help France against England, and agreement with George of England--and of Hanover--to keep foreign troops off German soil? Also Kaunitz has twirled Austrian policy on its axis; we are to be friends with France. In this coming war, England and Austria, hitherto allies, to be foes; France and Austria, hitherto foes, to be allies.

War starts with the French capture of Minorca and the Byng affair, well known. What do the movements of Russian and Austrian troops mean? Frederick asks at Vienna; answer is no answer. We are ready then; Saxony is the key to Bohemia. Frederick marches into Saxony, demands inspection of Dresden Archives, with originals of documents known to him; blockades the Saxons in Pirna, somewhat forcibly requiring not Saxon neutrality, but Saxon alliance. And meanwhile neither France nor Austria is deaf to the cries of Saxon-Polish majesty. Austrian Field-Marshal Browne is coming to relieve the Saxons; is foiled, but not routed, at Lobositz; tries another move, executing admirably his own part, but the Saxons fail in theirs; the upshot, capitulation, the Saxon troops forced to volunteer as Prussians.

For the coming year, 1757, there are arrayed against Frederick four armies--French, Austrian, Russian, Swedish; help only from a Duke of Cumberland on the Weser; the last two enemies not presently formidable. He is not to stand on the defensive, but to go on it; startles the world by suddenly marching on Prag, in three columns. Before Prag a mighty battle desperately fought; old Schwerin killed, Austrian Browne wounded mortally--fatal to Austria; Austrians driven into Prag, with loss of 13,000 men. Not annihilative, since Prag can hold out, though with prospect of famishing.

But Daun is coming, in no haste--Fabius Cunctator about to be named--with 60,000 men; does come to Kolin. Frederick attacks; but a blunder of too-impetuous Mannstein fatally overturns the plan of battle; to which the resulting disaster is imputed: disaster seemingly overwhelming and irretrievable, but Daun does not follow up. The siege of Prag is raised and the Prussian army--much smaller--retreats to Saxony. And on the west Cumberland is in retreat seawards, after Hastenbeck, and French armies are advancing; Cumberland very soon mercifully to disappear, Convention of Kloster-Seven unratified. But Pitt at last has hold of the reins in England, and Ferdinand of Brunswick gets nominated to succeed Cumberland--Pitt's selection?

In these months nothing comes but ill-fortune; clouds gathering; but all leading up to a sudden and startling turning of tables. In October, Soubise is advancing; and then--Rossbach. Soubise thinks he has Frederick outflanked, finds himself unexpectedly taken on flank instead; rolled up and shattered by a force hardly one-third of his own; loses 8,000 men, the Prussians not 600; a tremendous rout, after which Frederick had no more fighting with the French.

Having settled Soubise and recovered repute, Frederick must make haste to Silesia, where Prince Karl, along with Fabius Daun, is already proclaiming Imperial Majesty again, not much hindered by Bevern. Schweidnitz falls; Bevern, beaten at Breslau, gets taken prisoner; Prussian army marches away; Breslau follows Schweidnitz. This is what Frederick finds, three weeks after Rossbach. Well, we are one to three we will have at Prince Karl--soldiers as ready and confident as the king, their hero. Challenge accepted by Prince Karl; consummate manoeuvring, borrowed from Epaminondas, and perfect discipline wreck the Austrian army at Leuthen; conquest of Silesia brought to a sudden end. The most complete of all Frederick's victories.

Next year (1758) the first effective subsidy treaty with England takes shape, renewed annually; England to provide Frederick with two-thirds of a million sterling. Ferdinand has got the French clear over Rhine already. Frederick's next adventure, a swoop on Olmütz, is not successful; the siege not very well managed; Loudon, best of partisan commanders, is dispatched by Daun to intercept a very necessary convoy; which means end of siege. Cautious Daun does not strike on the Prussian retreat, not liking pitched battles.

However, it is now time to face an enemy with whom we have not yet fought; of whose fighting capacity we incline to think little, in spite of warnings of Marshal Keith, who knows them. The Russians have occupied East Prussia and are advancing. On August 25, Frederick comes to hand-grips with Russia--Theseus and the Minotaur at Zorndorf; with much ultimate slaughter of Russians, Seidlitz, with his calvary, twice saving the day; the bloodiest battle of the Seven Years' War, giving Frederick new views of Russian obstinacy in the field. The Russians finally retire; time for Frederick to be back in Saxony.

For Daun has used his opportunity to invade Saxony; very cleverly checked by Prince Henri, while Frederick is on his way back. To Daun's surprise, the king moves off on Silesia. Daun moved on Dresden. Frederick, having cleared Silesia, sped back, and Daun retired. The end of the campaign leaves the two sides much as it found them; Frederick at least not at all annihilated. Ferdinand also has done excellently well.

_V.--Frederick at Bay_

Not annihilated, but reduced to the defensive; best of his veterans killed off by now, exchequer very deficient in spite of English subsidy. The allies form a huge cordon all round; broken into at points during the spring, but Daun finds at last that Frederick does not mean any invasion; that he, Daun, must be the invader. But now and hereafter Fabius Cunctator waits for Russia.

In summer Russia is moving; Soltikoff, with 75,000 men, advancing, driving back Dohna. Frederick's best captains are all gone now; he tries a new one, Wedell, who gets beaten at Züllichau. Moreover, Haddick and Loudon are on the way to join Soltikoff. Frederick plans and carries out his movements to intercept the Austrians with extraordinary swiftness; Haddick and Austrian infantry give up the attempted junction, but not so swift-moving Loudon with his 20,000 horse; interception a partial failure, and now Frederick must make straight for the Russians.

Just about this time--August 1--Ferdinand has won the really splendid victory of Minden, on the Weser, a beautiful feat of war; for Pitt and the English in their French duel a mighty triumph; this is Pitt's year, but the worst of all in Frederick's own campaigns. His attack now on the Russians was his worst defeat--at Kunersdorf. Beginning victoriously, he tried to drive victory home with exhausted troops, who were ultimately driven in rout by Loudon with fresh regiments (August 9).

For the moment Frederick actually despaired; intended to resign command, and "not to revive the ruin of his country." But Daun was not capable of dealing the finishing stroke; managed, however, to take Dresden, on terms. Frederick, however, is not many weeks in recovering his resolution; and a certain astonishing march of his brother, Prince Henri--fifty miles in fifty-six hours through country occupied by the enemy--is a turning-point. Soltikoff, sick of Daun's inaction, made ready to go home and England rejoiced over Wolfe's capture of Quebec. Frederick, recovering, goes too far, tries a blow at Daun, resulting in disaster of Maxen, loss of a force of 12,000 men. On the other hand, Hawke finished the French fleet at Quiberon Bay. A very bad year for Frederick, but a very good one for his ally. Next year Loudon is to invade Silesia.

It did seem to beholders in this year 1660 that Frederick was doomed, could not survive; but since he did survive it, he was able to battle out yet two more campaigns, enemies also getting worn out; a race between spent horses. Of the marches by which Frederick carried himself through this fifth campaign it is not possible to give an idea. Failure to bring Daun to battle, sudden siege of Dresden--not successful, perhaps not possible at all that it should have succeeded. In August a dash on Silesia with three armies to face--Daun, Lacy, Loudon, and possible Russians, edged off by Prince Henri. At Liegnitz the best of management, helped by good luck and happy accident, gives him a decisive victory over London's division, despite Loudon's admirable conduct; a miraculous victory; Daun's plans quite scattered, and Frederick's movements freed. Three months later the battle of Torgau, fought dubiously all day, becomes a distinct victory in the night. Neither Silesia nor Saxony are to fall to the Austrians.

Liegnitz and Torgau are a better outcome of operations than Kunersdorf and Maxen; the king is, in a sense, stronger, but his resources are more exhausted, and George III. is now become king in England; Pitt's power very much in danger there. In the next year most noteworthy is Loudon's brilliant stroke in capturing Schweidnitz, a blow for Frederick quite unlooked for.

In January, however, comes bright news from Petersburg: implacable Tsarina Elizabeth is dead, Peter III. is Tsar, sworn friend and admirer of Frederick; Russia, in short, becomes suddenly not an enemy but a friend. Bute, in England, is proposing to throw over his ally, unforgivably; to get peace at price of Silesia, to Frederick's wrath, who, having moved Daun off, attacks Schweidnitz, and gets it, not without trouble. And so, practically, ends the seventh campaign.

French and English had signed their own peace preliminaries, to disgust of Excellency Mitchell, the first-rate ambassador to Frederick during these years. Austria makes proffers, and so at last this war ends with Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg; issue, as concerns Austria and Prussia, "as you were before the war."

_VI.--Afternoon and Evening of Frederick's Life_

Frederick's Prussia is safe; America and India are to be English, not French; France is on the way towards spontaneous combustion in 1789;--these are the fruits of the long war. During the rest of Frederick's reign--twenty-three years--is nothing of world history to dwell on. Of the coming combustion Frederick has no perception; for what remains of him, he is King of Prussia, interesting to Prussia chiefly: whereof no continuous narrative is henceforth possible to us, only a loose appendix of papers, as of the extraordinary speed with which Prussia recovered--brave Prussia, which has defended itself against overwhelming odds. The repairing of a ruined Prussia cost Frederick much very successful labour.

Treaty with Russia is made in 1764, Frederick now, having broken with England, being extremely anxious to keep well with such a country under such a Tsarina, about whom there are to be no rash sarcasms. In 1769 a young Kaiser Joseph has a friendliness to Frederick very unlike his mother's animosity. Out of which things comes first partition of Poland (1772); an event inevitable in itself, with the causing of which Frederick had nothing whatever to do, though he had his slice. There was no alternative but a general European war; and the slice, Polish Prussia, was very desirable; also its acquisition was extremely beneficial to itself.

In 1778 Frederick found needful to interpose his veto on Austrian designs in respect of Bavarian succession; got involved subsequently in Bavarian war of a kind, ended by intervention of Tsarina Catherine. In 1780 Maria Theresa died; Joseph and Kaunitz launched on ambitious adventures for imperial domination of the German Empire, making overtures to the Tsarina for dual empire of east and west, alarming to Frederick. His answer was the "Fürstenbund," confederation of German princes, Prussia atop, to forbid peremptorily that the laws of the Reich be infringed; last public feat of Frederick; events taking an unexpected turn, which left it without actual effect in European history.

A few weeks after this Fürstenbund, which did very effectively stop Joseph's schemes, Frederick got a chill, which was the beginning of his breaking up. In January 1786, he developed symptoms concluded by the physician called in to be desperate, but not immediately mortal. Four months later he talked with Mirabeau in Berlin, on what precise errand is nowise clear; interview reported as very lively, but "the king in much suffering."

Nevertheless, after this he did again appear from Sans-Souci on horseback several times, for the last time on July 4. To the last he continued to transact state business. "The time which I have still I must employ; it belongs not to me but to the state"--till August 15.

On August 17 he died. In those last days it is evident that chaos is again big. Better for a royal hero, fallen old and feeble, to be hidden from such things; hero whom we may account as hitherto the last of the kings.

* * * * *

GEORGE FINLAY

History of Greece

George Finlay, the historian of Greece, was born on December
21, 1799, at Faversham, Kent, England, where his father, Capt.
J. Finlay, R.E., was inspector of the Government powder mills.
His early instruction was undertaken by his mother, to whose
training he attributed his love of history. He studied law at
Glasgow and Göttingen universities, at the latter of which he
became acquainted with a Greek fellow-student, and resolved to
take part in the struggle for Greek independence. He proceeded
to Greece, where he met Byron and the leaders of the Greek
patriotic forces, took part in many engagements with the
Turks, and conducted missions on behalf of the Greek
provisional government until the independence of Greece was
established. Finlay bought an estate in Attica, on which he
resided for many years. The publication of his great series of
histories of Greece began in 1844, and was completed in 1875
with the second edition, which brought the history of modern
Greece down to 1864. It has been said that Finlay, like
Machiavelli, qualified himself to write history by wide
experience as student, soldier, statesman, and economist. He
died on January 26, 1875.

_I.--Greece Under the Romans_

The conquests of Alexander the Great effected a permanent change in the political conditions of the Greek nation, and this change powerfully influenced its moral and social state during the whole period of its subjection to the Roman Empire.