RCs ete 65 aaa * | Cornell Mniversity Library THE GIFT OF OLIN LIBRARY — CIRCULATION - B DATE DUE | ' | ai THE BLOT UPON THE BRAIN. The Philosophice! Neview’ EDITOR'S OPFTICU D EU b duis & GORNELL UNIVERSITY ithaca, IL Y, THE vp pea BLOT UPON THE BRAIN: STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY. BY WILLIAM W. IRELAND, M.D. Epi. ; FORMERLY OF H.M. INDIAN ARMY ; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE PSYCHIATRIC SOCIETY OF ST. PETERSBURG, AND OF THE NEW YORK MEDICO-LEGAL SOCIETY ; MEMBER OF THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. ‘Tis the blot upon the brain That will show itself without.” TENNYSON. SHCOND EDITION. New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS. EpinsurcH: BELL & BRADFUTE. 1893, 4 “aa PG tee bie YRARCLS A. 6/762 EDINBURGH; PRINTED BY LORIMER AND GILLIES, 31 ST. ANDREW SQUARE, PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. [i this new Edition I have tried to keep the work abreast of scientific research. By lopping off superfluous passages, and abridging others, I have been able to make a good many changes and additions without increasing the size of the book save by a few pages. I am grateful for the kind and courteous reviews which have appeared in the British, Continental, and American press. I have carefully read over the criticisms with the desire of improving my treatment of the subjects. WILLIAM W. IRELAND. ScHoon anD Home For ImBEciLEs, MAvVIsBUSH, Potton, Mip-Loraian, Ist August, 1893. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. SE N the following pages the study of diseased function of the brain has helped the author to give explanations of some important events in history. In a similar way several ques- tions in psychology are approached through knowledge gained by observations in mental derangement. In perusing the opening essay on Hallucinations, the reader will derive assistance from the plates in the last paper. It is hoped that the interest of the subjects treated will attract persons of culture beyond those directly interested in vi PREFACE. medical psychology. The author has tried to avoid technical terms, as far as clear definition seemed to allow. It is hoped that a rudimentary knowledge of physiology is now sufficiently diffused to make the more scientific papers understood by educated people without any preliminary study. The author has much pleasure in acknowledging the kind assistance afforded to him in collecting materials for the work by Professor BALL of Paris, Professor WESTPHAL and Professor MENDEL of Berlin, Professor TAMBURINI of Modena, and Dr. ADRIANI of Perugia. In our own country, he has received aids of a similar kind from Dr. CLouston of the Royal Asylum at Morningside, Dr. Grierson of the Roxburgh District Asylum, and Professor TURNER of the University of Edinburgh. He also desires to record the advice and watchful scrutiny of the Rev. Wm. C. Fraser of Prestonpans, and of Dr. CLOUSTON, in revising and correcting the proof sheets. / For the drawings from which the illustrations are taken, he is indebted to the skill of Dr. DRUMMOND of Prestonpans, and Mr. Joun C. Rerp, Student of Medicine at Edinburgh. Mr. Murray, the well-known publisher, has kindly allowed a few pages to be reprinted from an article in the Quarterly Review treating of St. Francis Xavier. WILLIAM W. IRELAND. Preston Lopes, PRESTONPANS, 1st August, 1885. CONTENTS. on etn PAGE PREFACE, . 4 : 3 ‘ Vv PAPER I. ON HALLUCINATIONS, ESPECIALLY OF SIGHT AND HEARING, , : 1 PAPER II. THE HALLUCINATIONS OF MOHAMMED AND LUTHER, ‘ y . 37 PAPER III. ON THE CHARACTER AND HALLUCINATIONS OF JOAN OF ARO, . - 56 PAPER IV. THE INSANITY OF POWER— CHAPTER 1.—The Limitations of our Life—The Debasing Effects of Unchecked Power—The Claudian-Julian Family: Augustus, Drusus, Julia, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Messalina, Agrippina, Nero, —The Reign of Philosophy : Marcus ‘Aurelius — Commodus, Heliogabalus, . : ‘ . 88 CHAPTER 11.—Mohammed Toghlak, Sultan of India, .. 110 CHAPTER 111.—Ivan the Terrible—The End of the Dynasty of Bustle —The Romanofs—Paul of Russia, . : . 129 PAPER V. THE HISTORY OF THE HEREDITARY NEUROSIS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF SPAIN, ; 2 : . : ‘ 3 . 151 PAPER VL ON §T. FRANCIS XAVIER, THE APOSTLE OF THE INDIES, ‘ . 165 vii vill CONTENTS. PAPER VII. ON FIXED IDEAS, PAPER VIII. ‘ FOLIE A DEUX—A MAD FAMILY, PAPER IX. UNCONSCIOUS CEREBRATION, PAPER X. THOUGHT WITHOUT WORDS AND THE RELATION OF WORDS TO THOUGHT— PART I.—On Wordless Thought, PART 11.—The Relation of Words to Thought, PAPER XI. LEFT-HANDEDNESS AND RIGHT-HEADEDNESS, : PAPER XII. + ON MIRROR-WRITING, . PAPER XIII. ON THE DUAL FUNCTIONS OF THE DOUBLE BRAIN, | INDEX, . PAGE 189 206 215 246 282 299 309 320 377 THE BLOT UPON THE BRAIN. ON HALLUCINATIONS, ESPECIALLY OF SIGHT AND HEARING. Y way of introduction to the explanations of historical events which follow, I should like to state, as shortly as seems compatible with clearness, what is at present known about the delusions of the senses. To readers not well acquainted with the functions of the nervous system, this essay will likely be the most difficult in the whole book ; but if diligently read over, it will make the meaning of the succeeding pages much more easily understood. Every one assumes the existence of an outer world, known to us through appearances. These appearances can be reduced to changes in the organs of our senses, from which we have learned to make different interpretations. These varying sensations are dependent upon the existence and continuity of the nervous system, which is made up of masses of nerve-cells, granules, and nerve-fibres in the brain and spinal cord, some smaller masses called the sympathetic ganglia, and the nerve- trunks. These nerve-trunks, taking their origin from the brain and spinal cord, and communicating with the sympa- thetic ganglia in their course, give off branches as they pass through the body and limbs, and separate into smaller nerve- twigs, which go everywhere, mixing with all the other tissues of the body. If we could disentangle from the other tissues the whole nervous system, it would bear the shape of the human body, in the same way that a skeleton leaf retains in its vascular tissue the outline of the original green leaf, thicker B 2 ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS. at the stalk and mid-rib, and looser at the edges. Some of the changes in the forces of the outer world cause modifications in the nervous system, and these, recognised by the mind, constitute what we may call sensation. But the nervous system may be affected by changes within the body; for example, by an altered state of the blood; by cold or heat; or by electricity. Each nerve, when stimulated, gives its own proper and peculiar sensation. If one touch a nerve trunk in the leg, it will give a feeling probably referred to the foot. If one touch or stimulate the optic nerve, a flash of light is seen ; or if one excite the auditory nerve, a sound is heard. Thus, changes within the body must be distinguished from changes without the body ; and this, in general, is easy. We soon learn the difference between what are called objective or real sounds, produced by vibrations in the outer world, and subjective sounds, such as humming or buzzing in the ears, or real changes in the refraction of light, and flashes of light caused by irritation of the optic nerve, or motes floating before the eyes. The nerves are more exposed to excitation at their extremities, as in their course from the surface of the body to the brain or spinal cord, they are well covered up and guarded by the other tissues, hence irritations of their trunks scarcely ever occur, save in abnormal conditions of the economy. When these do occur, we are very apt to confound the sensations arising from irrita- tions from within the body with the ordinary stimuli derived from the contact of the outer phenomenal world. Thus, men fall into various errors. Of these, we have at present to do with illusions and hallucinations. An illusion is an erroneous interpretation of a real sensation, that is, a sensation originat- ing from changes in the outer world acting on some part of the nervous system. Thus, a man mistakes a rock for a tower, or the play of the moonlight through the forest leaves for running water, or a sheet hung up for a ghost. In these instances, the mind has been too rapid in its forecast, either by following the line of habit acquired in cases outwardly similar, or by yielding to the suggestions of hope or fear, or the fallacies of a dis- ordered mind. A hallucination is a perception of a sensation arising from changes within the organism without any corresponding change SIMPLE AND ELABORATED. 3 ( in the outer world. It is a perception that has no object. Hallucinations have been divided into elementary and elabor- ated. Thus a flash of light, or a sound in the ear, is a simple hallucination; but if a man believes he sees a figure or hears a voice which has no outward existence, it is an elaborated hallucination. This subjective irritation of the optic or auditory nerve appears to him to be the same as the image of some figure or sound already existing in his mind. It is sometimes not easy to distinguish between illusions and hallu- cinations, indeed they may occur together. Misinterpretation may exist both in an illusion and a hallucination. A man may imagine that he hears a human voice from hearing some other sound, or from hearing a subjective sound in the ear; in either case he has made a wrong inference from the sensory impression. Hallucinations of hearing are more common than those of sight, but hallucinations of taste, smell, and touch are frequently met with amongst the insane. Any one who takes the trouble to examine the cases of hallucination which occur in an asylum, will soon find out that many of them can be reduced to delusions. The patient says, for example, that he has seen Christ ; but if you ask him when, he will say, that morning, or the night before, when he himself was floating in the clouds. In fact his memory and imagination have deceived him. It is not easy, even in a large asylum, to see patients who are actually being visited by a hallucination. Most of them, indeed, occur in the watches of the night. The attendants at asylums, who are constantly with the patients, sometimes observe remarkable hallucinations. One man told me that he had seen a lunatic who made the appearance of sewing with an imaginary heedle. Once the needle seemed to escape from his fingers, when he caught the attached thread, and seized the spectral needle again as it seemed to him to hang in the air; he then gravely recommenced his sewing. An attendant in the Bothwell Asylum reported of a patient: “His chief hallucination is that of seeing a pair of wings floating in the air. He occasionally admires them for hours, blows them with his mouth with the intention of making them move.” I have heard patients say that they see apparitions when 4 NICOLAIS HALLUCINATIONS. their eyes are shut; in other cases, closing or covering the eyes makes the hallucinations disappear. Sometimes they are fainter than real impressions; at other times they are so vivid that they cannot be distinguished from ordinary objects, which they cover and shut out of view. This is clearly stated by Nicolai, the bookseller at Berlin, who gave such a well-considered account of the apparitions to which he was subject.* In the year 1791, being much disturbed and irritated by a series of events which had wounded his moral feelings, and from which he saw no possibility of relief, one morning, while in the company of his wife and a friend, who had come to console him, he suddenly observed, at the distance of ten paces, the figure of a deceased person. He pointed at it, and asked his wife whether she did not see it. After this, to use Nicolai’s own description— “The figures appeared both by day and night, and, when I shut my eyes, sometimes the figures disappeared; sometimes they remained even after I had closed them. If they vanished in the former case, on opening my eyes again, nearly the same figures appeared which I had seen before. “T saw, in the full use of my senses, and (after I had got the better of the fright which at first seized me, and the disagreeable effects which it caused), even in the greatest composure of mind, for almost two months, constantly and involuntarily, a number of human and other apparitions,—nay, I even heard their voices. “For the most part I saw human figures of both sexes; they commonly passed to and fro as if they had no connection with each other,—like people at a fair where all is bustle. Sometimes they appeared to have business with one another. Once or twice I saw amongst them persons on horseback, and dogs and birds; these figures all appeared to me in their natural size, as distinctly as if they had existed in real life, with the several tints on the uncovered parts of the body, and with all the different kinds and colours of clothes. But I think, however, that the colours were somewhat paler than they are in nature.” * “Memoir on the Appearance of Spectres; or, Phantoms Occasioned by Disease, with, Psychological Remarks,” read by Nicolai to the Royal Society of Berlin on the 28th of February, 1799. A translation of this paper is given in Nicholson’s Journal, vol. vi., p. 161. DISAPPEAR AFTER BLEEDING. 5 Nicolai found that he could not produce any hallucination from the efforts of his memory or imagination. When certain figures which he was accustomed to see had passed before him, he tried to recall them mentally, but he tells us: “T could not succeed in making the internal image external.” He never saw anything in the night time unless by fire or candlelight, or in the moonshine, “T had two spirits,” he says, ‘who constantly attended me, night and day, for about three months together, who called each other by their names; and several spirits would call at my chamber door, and ask whether such spirits lived there, calling them by their names, and they would answer they did. As for the other spirits that attended me, I heard none of their names mentioned, only I asked one spirit, which came for some nights together, and rang a little bell in my ear, what his name was, who answered ‘Artel.’ The two spirits that constantly attended myself appeared both in woman’s habits, they being of a brown complexion, about three feet in stature; they had both black, loose net-work gowns, tied with a black sash about the middle, and within the network appeared a gown of a golden colour with somewhat of a light striking through it, &e.” : Tracing the disordered state of his health to a plethoric habit, owing to the omission of customary bleedings, Nicolai got leeches applied about eleven o’clock in the forenoon. “T was,” he writes, “alone with the surgeon during the operation ; the room swarmed with human forms of every description, which crowded fast on one another. This continued till half-past four o'clock, exactly the time when digestion commences. I then observed that the figures began to move more slowly; soon after- wards the colours became gradually paler; every seven minutes they lost more and more of their intensity without any alteration in the distinct figure of the apparitions. At about half-past six o’clock all the figures were entirely white and moved very little, yet the forms appeared perfectly distinct; by degrees they become visibly less plain, without decreasing in number, as had often formerly been the case. The figures did not move off, neither did they vanish, which also had usually happened on other occasions. In this instance they dissolved immediately into air; of some, even the whole pieces remained for a length of time, which also by degrees were lost to the 6 HERSCHEL’S HALLUCINATIONS. eye. At about eight o’clock, there did not remain a vestige of any of them; and I have never since experienced any appearance of the same kind.” My own inquiries have long ago convinced me that hallu- cinations, especially of sight and hearing, are far from being uncommon; but itis rare for them to be described by so highly- cultivated an observer as Sir John Herschel. In a lecture on Sensorial Vision,* this distinguished astronomer assures us that he had frequently seen, or seemed to see, faces or land- scapes in the dark, and with his eyes closed. “The faces were always shadowy, for the most part unpleasing, though not hideous; expressive of no violent emotions, and succeed- ing one another at short intervals of time, as if melting into each other. Sometimes ten or a dozen appear in succession, and have always on each separate occasion a general resemblance of expression or some peculiarity of feature common to all, though very various in individual aspect and physiognomy. Landscapes present themselves much more rarely, but more distinctly, and, on the few occasions I remember, have been highly picturesque and pleasing, with a certain but very limited power of varying them by an effort of the will, which is not the case with the other sort of impressions. “A great many years ago,” he goes on, “ when recovering from fever, my chief amusement for two or three days consisted in the exercise of a power of calling up representations both of scenes and persons, which appeared with almost the distinctness of reality. One of these scenes I perfectly recollect. A crowd was assembled round a hole in the ice, into which a youth had fallen. ‘His mother was standing in agony on the brink, and there were the floating fragments, and something of a shadowy form under the blue trans- parent ice. In this case, there was, of course, the excitability of nerve connected with the remains of bodily disorder. On the other occasion to which I allude, I had been witnessing the demolition of a structure familiar to me from childhood, and with which many interesting associations were connected, a demolition not unattended with danger to the workmen employed, about whom I had felt very uncomfortable. It happened to me, on the approach of evening, while, however, there was yet pretty good light, to pass near the * See “Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects,” by Sir John Herschel, London, 1867, p. 404. VISIONS WITH THE EYES. 7 place where the day before it had stood; the path I had to follow leading beside it. Great was my amazement to see it as if still standing—projected against the dull sky. Being perfectly aware that it was a mere nervous impression, I walked on, keeping my eyes directed to it, and the perspective of the form and disposition of the parts appeared to change with the change in the point of view, as they would have done if real. I ought to add, that nothing of the kind had ever occurred to me before, or has occurred since.” The following letter from the British Medical Journal, 10th March, 1883, seems worthy of reproduction :— “T am attending an elderly lady, who is in an advanced state of Bright’s Disease, but except general debility and cedema, no great sufferer, and in possession of her mental faculties, Cataract is forming on both eyes. Nearly every day she sees for some time a church, numbers of people entering it, carriages driving up, some- times a market-place full of life opposite her windows, although she is quite aware that there is nothing of the kind in reality. The vision ceases when she shuts her eyes; therefore, I cannot consider it a hallucination in the proper sense of the term. May the impaired vision (in an anemic person) be the cause of it, presenting to the mind confused images for a persisting wrong interpretation ? “ Aueustus Hess, M.D.” Here there were two elements of disturbance, the cataracts, perhaps, as suggested by the editor, progressing in the form of dotted or linear opacities, and casting shadows on the retina, and the brain weakened by anzemia and disordered by impure blood. It may be here observed that some hallucinations only appear when the eyes are shut. Baillarger* has given seve- ral examples. In one of his cases, G., the moment she shut her eyes, saw animals, meadows, horses, &. Some- times, on Baillarger shutting her eyelids, she would name the objects which appeared to her. With many patients, * “De )’Influence de l’Etat intermediaire & la Veille et au Sommeil sur la Production et la Marche des Hallucinations,” par M. J. Baillarger, Paris, 1846, p. 328. See also “ Physiologie des Hallucinations, les Deux Théories,” par M. le Dr. Baillarger, Annales Medico-Psychologiques, Tome quatriéme, p. 19, 1886. 8 KANDINSKY’S HALLUCINATIONS. he remarks, the visions are only produced in the dark; the light dispels them at once. Baillarger experienced this him- self on the hallucinations which he brought on by the use of haschisch. Dr. Victor Kandinsky* has given us the result of his studies on the hallucinations which he himself experienced. He had the misfortune to suffer from insanity for two years. During the first months of his illness there was no hallucina- tion, but an irregular mental activity, an intellectual delirium, a headlong race of thoughts, delusions, and dominant ideas. He was affected with melancholia, brooding over his altered circumstances and the probable sequence of his unfortunate illness. It was after the brain was exhausted through this unceasing mental activity, when he had fallen into a weak anemic condition through voluntary abstinence from food, that the hallucinations began to appear. He remarks that in the. normal state the activity of the grey matter of the frontal lobes of the brain regulates and inhibits the random excita- tions of the centres of sensation; and it is this suspension of activity which makes hallucinations possible, so that hallucinations are no proof of the excitement of the grey matter of the brain, but rather a proof of the abatement of its activity. Dr. Kandinsky was affected with hallucinations of all the senses, except, perhaps, that of taste; hallucinations of smell were comparatively rare, and it was difficult to distinguish them from real impressions, because the sense of smell was very active. Tn many cases, he naively remarks, it was not easy to distinguish hallucinations of hearing from real auditory perception, for in * “Zur Lehre von den Hallucinationen,” Archiv. fiir Psychiatrie, xi, Band, 2 Heft, Berlin, 1881. An abstract of this paper, made by me, appeared in the Journal of Mental Science for October, 1881. This gifted but unfortunate physician died in 1889, at the Asylum of St. Nicholas, St. Petersburg, of which he was Superintendent (See obituary notice in the Journal of Mental Science, 1890, p. 316). Dr. Kandinsky published a longer treatise, in which his own experience, observations, and reading are blended into a valuable work which is well worthy of being translated into English. “ Kritische und Klinische Betrachtungen im Gebiete der Sinnestaéuschungen von Victor Kandinsky,” Berlin, 1885. HIS WAKING DREAMS, 9 asylums the patient hears from every side so many sounds, voices, and speeches of all kinds, that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the real from the fanciful. Of all the hallucina- tions, he tells us, those of sight and feeling were the most frequent, the most lively, and the most diversified. There were numerous abnormal impressions of touch and pressure and constriction of the neck, as well as some remarkable hallucina- tions in relation to the equilibrium of the body, or round the line of vision, or they seemed to fly in various fixed directions. The ground, he writes, seemed to fly forward under his feet ; the wall to fly or be pushed asunder. Sometimes it happened that to the right eye the wall seemed to be moving upwards, and to the left eye the opposite wall seemed to be moving downwards, producing a very painful feeling of sundering of the brain. There was a feeling of rolling down a slope, or of a turning up of the bed, or of being turned round or thrown into the air, and there was a very vivid feeling of flying in space. Not more than one-tenth of the hallucinations he experi- enced had any relation to the delusions and involuntary ideas which occupied his mind. The hallucinations were not, in general, incongruous with his personal education and culture, but there were others which, especially appearing at a later stage of his malady, harmonised so little with his experience of himself, that he sought to account for them on the whimsical theory that they were hallucinations communicated by some process like electrical induction from the brain of the patients around him. As the hallucinations became frequent, the purely intellectual delirium subsided, partly because his mental activity was exhausted, and partly because his whole attention was engrossed by the rapid succession of striking sensory images. His dreams were uncommonly vivid, so that there was no clear distinction between the period of waking and that of sleep. The images in his sleep were so lively that he seemed to be awake during sleep, and the hallucinations in his waking moments were so marvellous and diversified that he seemed to have waking dreams. “ During the period of my illness,” he says, “my dreams were not 10 NOT THOUGHTS PROJECTED OUTWARDS. less lively than what I experienced in real life, and when the repre- sentations and dreams came back to my remembrance, it was only by a slow and difficult process of questioning myself that I could make out whether I had experienced those things in reality, or had only dreamed of them. Some of my hallucinations were in comparison with others colourless and indistinct ; others were vivid and diversi- fied with the bright colours of the real objects of ordinary vision. For a week J saw on the wall, which was hung with smooth tapestry of one colour, a row of pictures with wonderful golden frames or borders, fresco pictures, landscapes, sea pieces, sometimes portraits with colours as bright as those of Italian artists. Another time, when I made myself ready to sleep, I saw suddenly before me a statue of middle size of white marble in the attitude of a stooping Venus. After some seconds the head of the statue fell off, leaving the stump of the neck with the red muscles. The head, when it fell, broke in the middle, exposing the brain. The contrast between the white marble and the red blood was especially striking. “There were hallucinations with the eyes open as well as with the eyes closed. In the first of these cases they were seen on the ground, or the carpet, or on the wall, or they appeared in space, covering the objects lying behind them. Sometimes the whole surrounding scene disappeared, to be replaced for a few seconds by an entirely new one, For example, from being in a room I suddenly saw myself transferred to an arm of the sea, and on the opposite shore there was a chain of mountains with all the semblance of reality. Even when my eyes were shut I saw images of living beings, microscopical preparations and ornamental figures upon the dull background of the field of vision. In time I became accustomed to the hallucinations of sight. They ceased to excite or overwhelm me, and at last simply amused me.” Dr. Kandinsky found that the condition most favourable to the appearance of hallucinations was the suspension of activity, both of the mind and body. The only influence which the will has over the hallucinations is that it may place the patient in a favourable position for receiving them. He never succeeded either in intentionally calling before him hallucinations or changing a recollection or a product of the fancy into a hallucination, or even in recalling one which had recently appeared to him. MHence he rejects the view of Lelut that hallucinations are simply thoughts projected outwards. HALLUCINATIONS V:; IMAGINATION, 11 There is always a clear distinction between hallucinations and images furnished by the memory, or moulded by the fancy. What is characteristic of hallucinations is not their vivid character, for some are faint, but their felt objectivity, while the images of the memory and imagination are associated with a feeling of activity of the brain, and thus always retain a subjective character. Some artists and poets are gifted with a very powerful and lively imagination, but have no hallucina- tions, while a man may have a very weak power of imagination and yet be visited by hallucinations. In answer to the question whether his hallucinations were of a peripheral or central origin, Dr. Kandinsky writes :— “My organs of sense were in a state of hyperwsthesia, but this hyperesthesia showed itself only in the later period of delirium of the senses. It was expressed through noise in the ears, simple and co-ordinated sounds, through sparks in the eyes, universal lighting up of the field of vision, or by the appearance of points of light moving in circles and sparks. These simple hallucinations had no resemblance to the others of central origin, which were both compli- cated in detail and harmonious as a whole. Moreover, the peripheral hallucinations lasted after the eyes were shut ; those of central origin either disappeared or were replaced by others. The images derived from hallucinations of peripheral origin followed the movements of the eyes; those of central origin generally disappeared on turning the eyes away from them, so that in a new direction nothing was seen or a quite new image appeared. .On casting the eyes quickly back, I could sometimes see the same image as before. ‘“ Without energetic exertion of the will,” he observes, ‘‘ my hallucinations would probably have become permanent, and my mental powers totally extinguished ; but after I had become accustomed to the hallucina- tions, I began steadily to read. At first it was difficult, for the hallucinations of hearing disturbed me, and those of sight stood between the book and the eyes, but in time I succeeded in continuing my reading without paying any heed to the hallucinations. With the beginning of a regular mental activity, the hallucinations became paler and less frequent, and disappeared entirely some months later after I had begun to work.” It appears as if Dr. Kandinsky had wrought out his own cure, and his experience furnishes valuable indications how similar cases should be treated. The only trace of his old 12 MEYNERT’S THEORY. hallucinations is the appearance of sparks, stars, and other figures of light before he composes himself to sleep after fatiguing mental work. Dr. Kandinsky goes over some of the modern theories on the nature and origin of hallucinations, rejecting them all save the theory of Meynert. This distinguished physician holds that hallucinations are the result of a stimulus applied to the cortex or grey matter of the anterior lobe of the brain, He has demonstrated the anatomical connection of the corpora quadri- gemina, the centres of visual perception, with the cortex of the brain. Through this path travel visual impressions with the sensory impressions of the adaptations of the muscles of the eye to the brain where they are associated with the repre- sentations of space, but the connection with the factors of the representation of space already begins in the corpora quadri- gemina. The grey matter of the anterior part of the brain has for its function the reproduction and association of ideas, and the regulation of the subjective excitement or other parts of the brain, as also the excitation of the centres of the organs of sense at the base of the brain. If an excitation, representing no outward sensation, comes from one of the inferior centres of the organs of sense to the hemispheres of the brain, the centre of consciousness, there are no means of distinguishing this excitation from a real outward impression, and thus a hallucination is produced. In the normal state, the activity of the superior portions of the brain regulates the merely subjective excitations of the organs of sense. In ordinary language, the intellect distinguishes and interprets our sensations; and by an exertion of the will we pay attention to some of these, and dismiss others. Thus the diminution of mental activity is favourable to the recep- tion of hallucinations. For their production, according to Meynert, two factors are needed—an excitation of the lower ganglia of the brain, the centres of sensation, and a diminished activity of grey matter of the frontal lobes of the brain, the centre of thought. The announcement of the discovery of centres of motor impulse and of sensation in the cortex, or outer grey matter of the hemispheres of the brain, naturally led to a revisal of our TAMBURINI’S THEORY. 13 theories of hallucinations. Dr. Augusto Tamburini, one of the most distinguished physicians and neurologists of Italy, had, by observation and experiment, carefully studied the question of sensory and motor centres. Having arrived at the belief that different parts of the brain surface had, for their more especial function, the reception of impressions transmitted by the sensory nerves, and the conversion of these impressions into mental images, and that other tracts of the brain originated the impulses by which the different groups of muscles were set in motion, he applied these data to the explanation of hallucina- tions, especially to those of sight and hearing, as the upper brain centres of these senses had been indicated with greater certainty. The centre for the elaboration and storing of visual images is believed by Dr. Tamburini to be not only in the occipital lobe of the brain, as stated by Munk, but also in the convolution in front of this called the gyrus angularis, to which the same function was first assigned by Ferrier. In front of the gyrus angularis lies the temporo-sphenoidal convolution, wherein auditory impressions, heard words, are believed to be realised by the mind ; and still farther in front and above this in the region of the brain, near the margin of the outer ears, lie the convolutions from which motor impulses are supposed to arise, and by sending stimuli to the descending nerve fibres to put in motion the different muscles of the body. To use the words of Hitzig, probably all single mental functions in their entry into matter, or in their evolution from it, are referable to circumscribed portions of the hemispheres of the brain. The locality of the centres for the other feelings such as those of taste, smell, and general sensation, have also been indicated, but with less assurance. Granting all this, as has been done by most physiologists, it is easy to perceive that a derangement or irritation of the sensory areas in the brain might be the causes of delusions of sense. It was not so easy to prove this by any changes of the tissues found after death, because a very slight irritation or increase in the supply of blood to the brain, or the presence of some poison or impurity in the circulating fluid, is known to be sufficient to cause a hallucination. Dr. Tamburini was, however, able to collect a few pathological observations to support his theory, which he 14 HAPPEN WITHOUT INSANITY. states in a masterly way.* He admits that a sensation may be aroused from any portion of the sensory tract; but this sensation will be all the more elementary in proportion as the morbid stimulus is further from that portion of the brain where sensory images are elaborated and stored. The nearer to the brain the nerve tissue to which the stimulus is applied, the more complicated the hallucination will be. A flash of light, or a humming in the ear, may be transformed into a mental image, such as an angel or a message from heaven. In this case, it would be necessary to admit that the brain centre was diseased, since the impression brought to it was misinterpreted by a morbid discharge of function. Otherwise, irritations trans- mitted from the nerves could only give simple rudimentary hallucinations, as sparks or sounds, not figures or words which represent complex actions in the brain tissue of a mental character. Dr. Tamburini admits that excitement may begin with the centres of ideation or thought, and may diffuse itself backwards to the sensory centres; but the excitement of an intellectual centre can only give ideal representations of objects, never sensorial images. It is also obvious that a lively repro- duction of such images, similar to what are seen and beard in real life, can only come from the simultaneous action of the nervous apparatus of the senses and of the centres of sensation in the brain. Thus, hallucinations cannot be produced without the intervention of the sensory portion of the nervous system. Epilepsy consists of sudden and violent contractions of the muscles, affecting successively different muscular groups. It may occur without mental derangement, and even without loss of consciousness, though this is rare. Hallucinations without insanity would be the parallel of epilepsy without insanity. The explanation simply amounts to this, that a certain amount of irritation of a motor centre causes convulsions, and irritation of a centre of sensation causes hallucinations, and that the motor and sensory areas of the brain may be diseased while the neigh- bouring parts remain sound, or only share in the unhealthy condition by a greater or less amount of irritation. Epileptics * “Sulla Genesi delle Allucinazioni pel Prof. Augusto Tamburini, Reggio nell Emilia, 1880.” HALLUCINATIONS AND SPASMS. 15 are often insane, and almost always irritable, and the coming on of an epileptic fit is often preceded by hallucinations, gener- ally of a chaotic character. On the other hand, persons visited by hallucinations are often troubled by fits or by mental derangement, for the disease accompanying the hallucination, as well as that accompanying the epilepsy, has a tendency to diffuse itself over the whole surface of the brain hemi- spheres. A hallucination is thus a species of epilepsy of the centres of sensation “ epilessia dei centri sensori,” or, as Hagen called it, “ Krampf der Sinnesnerven.” Dr. Tamburini found in his experiments upon animals that an electrical stimulus applied to the auditory and visual centres, caused hallucina- tions, as shown by motions of the ears and eyes. The following case* may be regarded as a confirmation of these views. A young Jewess had an attack of insanity (paranoia hallucinatoria acuta), during which she had hallu- cinations of hearing of two different kinds. She had a series of subjective noises in the ear. It was noted that she had diminished sense of hearing with chronic catarrh of the Eustachian tube. These noises could be suspended by stopping the left ear. Sometimes she heard with both ears the voices of tormentors and the sound of flying birds and other illusions which she localised in outer space. The patient imagined that the persecutors pulled at her sheet and bedcover from the left side. After six weeks the woman was so much better that she was discharged from the hospital. During several years she continued to hear sounds in the left ear like the crackling of burning wood, the fluttering of birds, and loud laughter. These illusions became weaker, and at last disappeared. They were replaced by a singular hallucination. The patient saw continually in the field of vision of the left eye, sometimes in the centre, sometimes in the outer half of the eye, a white dog in the act of springing. This appearance annoyed her very much, although she recognised. that it was but the result of disease. She saw the dog even when her eyes were shut. The power of vision did not seem to be altered in either eye. * Described by Dr. Tomaschewsky, see Neurologisches Centralblatt, No. 1, 1889, and German Retrospect, Journal of Mental Science, July, 1890, p. 447. 16 MOTOR HALLUCINATIONS. From time to time she had epileptic attacks. In 1887 she was again received into the hospital at Odessa, suffering from convulsive attacks which implicated both sides of the body, but towards the end the spasms were confined to the left side of the face, with deviation of the eyes to the left. She died thirteen days after. On examination it appeared that a process of irritation and degeneration had been going on in the cortex of the brain, especially on the right side, and that in some places the nerve tissue had been replaced by connec- tive tissue. This was the cause of the cessation of the symptoms of irritation in the auditory and visual areas, as well as of the spasms affecting the left arm, of which the corres- ponding motor centre was most deeply affected. Tamburini holds that the irritation of a motor centre causes convulsions, and that irritation of a sensory centre causes hallucinations, and here we have the same irritation acting in motor and sensory centres at once, and causing both spasms and hallucinations. Tamburini has further observed* that there are insane per- sons who think that they utter words, or that words are uttered by them against their will. They believe that these words have been uttered by them even when no movement can be perceived either in their tongue or lips. According to the learned professor, the motor image of the word or the nerve action accompanying the formation of such an image is pro- duced in the part of the brain employed for the motor innerva- tion of words. There is a perception similar to that which would have been produced had the word been fairly spoken, just as in a hallucination of vision an image is presented to the mind as that of an outward object really seen. While, there- fore, these patients believe that they have uttered words, in many cases they have merely become conscious of the initial motor stimulus, which, however, has stopped short of setting in motion the muscles of voice. They have the sense of having spoken without having done so. This is what Tamburini calls a motor hallucination. When the psycho-motor word image is very lively, and the restraint of the will diminished, as in * See his paper on “ Motor Hallucinations,” translated by Joseph Work- man, M.D., in the Alienist and Neurologist, St. Louis, July, 1890. DECEPTIONS OF MUSCULAR SENSE, 17 delirium, there are slight motions of the tongue or of the lips, and the excitement getting stronger, words are muttered, spoken, or shouted out. Dr. Cramer has shown* that insane patients sometimes mistake their own voices for those of imaginary beings. He holds that this is owing to deceptions of the muscular sense, the sense by which we are made aware of the accomplished — movements of our own bodies. In this we are often assisted by the sight, but the movements of the tongue, throat, and larynx, from which the voice is produced, are invisible to the eye. The acquisition of speech is made through the muscular sense, corrected by the ear. When thought is lively, there is a slight nervous stimulus transmitted to the muscles of the vocal apparatus, which causes an involuntary muttering or an irresistible impulse to emit words. If the muscular sense be deranged, the patient may utter words which he hears without knowing they come from his own throat. The insane often mutter words in a low tone; one can see their lips moving. A lunatic imagined that his thoughts were noted by invisible spies who, by means of a machine, were able to register the almost imperceptible motions of his tongue. Dr. Cramer describes a number of cases of paranoia, or delusional insanity, in which the prominent symptoms were fixed ideas, and the feeling that some one was repeating their inmost thoughts or revealing their past deeds through voices heard from various directions. It does not seem to me that these symptoms can in all the cases be explained by perversion of the muscular sense, but in the acute form of paranoia the whole nervous system is in a state of excitement, so that hallucinations of the muscular sense and of the ordinary sensory nerves, as well as general irritation of the brain centres, may all occur together. Tamburini has observed that in the well-known illusion when the patient feels an amputated limb as if it were still left, there are not only feelings referred to lost parts, such as the fingers or toes, but also the sensation of motions accomplished by * “Die Hallucinationen im Muskelsinn bei Geisteskranken,” von Dr. August Cramer, Freiburg (Baden), 1889. Dr. Klinken supports Cramer's explanations in a paper on “Verbal Impulses” (Zwangsreden), in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift fiir Psychiatrie, xlviii. Band, 1 and 2 Heft. Cc 18 COLOURED HEARING. them, such as that of opening and closing the fist after the arm has been cut off from the shoulder. In some cases patients believe that they have moved their arms or legs, while these limbs have remained still. Unusual feelings in the skin are sometimes the causes of delusion with the insane. They con- ceive that they have the skins of beasts, or that their bodies are made of glass or some other foreign material. As we have seen, hallucinations of two or more senses may occur together, but affections of all the senses at once are very rare. The whole nervous system may be in such a state of morbid excitement that delusions of conception and hallucina- tions of the senses may occur together, but sometimes affections of one sense seem to excite another sense apparently without any central derangement. This is difficult to explain, but we have some observations bearing on the question. Of late years attention has been drawn to what has been called coloured hearing (audition colorée).* This consists in the faculty which certain persons have of receiving a sensation of colour at the same time as a sensation of hearing when sound strikes the ear. High notes generally produce sensations of brilliant colours, and low notes sensations of dark colours. The coloured image is seen as if it belonged to the person or instru- ment that produces the sound. This deranged sensation has been noticed in members of the same family. MM. Pouchet and Lourneux think that in these abnormal persons there is an unusual connection between the nerve fibres coming from the ear with the centres of perception of the optic nerve. In some rare cases we have the inverse phenomenon, a sound is heard when the eye is struck by a colour. Intense pain and vivid sensations of touch sometimes produce bright sensations to the eye. The secondary sensations of light are called photisms, the secondary sensations of hearing are called phonisms. Ziehen tells us that sometimes a definite colour is associated with a definite pitch, vowel, or noise. There is a German lady who is known to associate the acoustic sensation 4 with * Annales Médico-Psychologiques, September, 1886. See also the English translation of Ziehen’s introduction to “ Physiological Psychology,” London, 1894, p. 224; and D. F. Suarez de Mendoza’s “‘L’Audition Colorée, &c.,” Doin, Paris, 1890. PHOTISMS. 19 the sensation of the colour yellow, 4 with white, é with blue, 6 with red, and 66 with black. This lady also states that she sees the printed vowels glimmer in the same colours whenever she reads. In general, lighter photisms correspond to the vowels 4, 4, and 6, and darker photisms to the vowels 6 and 66. Fechner collected 347 cases of coloured hearing. In almost all these persons there was an unhealthy condition of the nervous system. Though sane people sometimes believe that they have heard short sentences or voices calling their names, which turn out to be unreal, hallucinations of hearing do not seem to be so common with the sane as those of sight; but with the insane hallucinations of hearing are very common. They are mostly of an unpleasing character, and are sometimes very dangerous. as mad persons are prone to obey suggestions which they believe to be commands from a higher power. Blandford, in his book on Insanity, tells us of a lady who was so annoyed by voices coming through the wall that she purchased the adjoining houses to compel them to cease; but, unhappily, she did not so get rid of them. Schreeder van der Kolk knew of a case where a man set his house on fire in order to drive out the concealed spirits who continually tormented him with their talking. Dr. Savage* was consulted by a lady who was in the habit of taking lodgings for herself and her maid at various watering-places. After a time she would give notice that she must leave at once, but that she would pay a month’s rent in advance. It was found that her abrupt changes of abode were due to “voices.” She thought that she heard people upbraiding her, and quietly left the place, only again to find the same annoyance after atime. One patient thought he heard songs coming out of the earth, and used to dig in the ground to get at the singers. In 1885, a woman complained to the magis- trate of a London police court that she was persecuted by people in a balloon above her house at Brighton; a man threatened to murder her, and French girls in the balloon shouted and jeered at her. When no one is to be seen, the * “Tnsanity and Allied Neuroses,” London, 1884, p. 251. 20 UNR&AL VOICES, insane often imagine that the speakers are in the next room or hidden somewhere. I have seen a man who imagined that the voices came from under the floor, and used to run about from room to room to get rid of them. Sometimes the insane will hold long conversations with people under the floor, speak- ing and then listening for a reply. Many patients now say that sounds are conveyed to them through telephones, just as it has long been customary to attribute strange sensations to the action of electricity or mesmerism. Schroeder van der Kolk writes* :— “A poor woman complained to me that she was continually perse- cuted by the devil, who let loose at her all sorts of blasphemies, and, indeed, all the worse the more she exerted herself not to attend to them; but often, also, when she was talking and active. She had already been to a clergyman, who should exorcise the devil and who had judiciously directed the woman to me. I asked in which ear the devil always talked to her. She was surprised at the question, which she had never started for herself, but now recognised that it always occurred in the left ear. I explained to her that it was an affection of the ear, which now and then occurs, but she was doubt- ful; it was impossible to convince her, and all the remedies employed were ineffectual. This is, moreover, the only case with which I am acquainted where the hallucinations were confined to one ear.” On careful inquiry, it was found that one-sided hallucina- tions were not unfrequent in asylums. The spectre was only seen with one eye, or the sound was only heard with one ear. My son, Thomas Ireland, told me of a patient, a single woman, aged thirty-six, who imagined that a green fish followed her about and bit her between the shoulders. It used to look over her right shoulder at her with its large round eyes. When asked if she heard voices, she said: ‘It seems to come over my shoulder (right) ; it is like a fish with big eyes. It does not say anything, but I don’t like the look of it.” On glancing over her left shoulder she could not see the green fish. I once saw a woman under the care of Dr. Campbell Clark, * “The Pathology and Therapeutics of Mental Diseases,” by J. L. C. Schroeder van der Kolk, translated by J. T. Rudall, London, 1870, p. 113. ONE-SIDED HALLUCINATIONS. 21 who had hallucinations of hearing, especially in the right ear. She said that her enemies used this ear to miscall and abuse her, and her friends the left ear to console and support her. She would slap her right ear with her hand, saying that her enemies had got into her head through the right ear and were making a noise. She told me, without any leading questions, that she often had a humming in the right -ear, and some- times a pulse. M. Magnan™ has described four cases of this kind. A patient hears in one ear, and always in the same ear, threats and insulting and abusive expressions, while at other times he hears, through the other ear, cheerful and flattering words which excite in him a dream of ambition; and this antagonism in the hallucinations of either ear persists during all the disease. In one, the exasperating words seemed to come through the right ear. In the three other cases the reverse held good. Cases have been described in which stopping the ear with wadding was sufficient to cause a one-sided hallucination of hearing to cease. Dr. Hammond} tells us of a lady who had been subjected to a malignant persecution through anonymous letters from various parts of the country. She pondered much who the author of these abusive communications could be, whether a man ora woman. One day, however, as she lay in bed with a sick headache, her mind reverted to the question that had so often disturbed her, ‘‘Who was the person that sent her the anonymous letters?” Happening to look in the direction of the large bay window that filled up nearly the whole front of the room, she saw a man and a woman standing in the opening. é For the moment she did not doubt the reality of the appearances, but as she raised herself in bed to look at them better, she was astounded to perceive that they very slowly faded out of sight. She got up, dressed herself, and did not see the image again for several days. “ The most curious circumstance about the hallucination,” observes Dr. Hammond, “ was that the man was perceived with the right and * Chronique des Annales Médico-Psychologiques, Novembre, 1883. + New York Medical Journal, December 12, 1885. 22 ONE-SIDED HALLUCINATIONS. the woman with the left eye. Thus, if she closed the right eye she saw only the woman, and if she shut the left eye the man only was visible, Ifshe had by moving actively about the room caused them to disappear, she could often bring them back by lying down on a bed with her head rather low. It appears to me,” goes on Dr. Hammond, “that nothing could be more confirmatory of the case of the independent action of the two visual centres than such hallucinations.” Dr. Alexander Robertson who has carefully studied one- sided hallucinations found that they are most common in the forms of insanity due to alcohol. They more frequently affect the left than the right ear. He found that hallucinations of hearing often persisted for a day or two after the insanity had disappeared. Dr. Regis observes that hallucinations of hearing and sight often appear where the ear or eye is diseased, and even after the normal use of the organ is destroyed. Blind people and deaf people in asylums are often visited by hallucinations of hearing. The irritation, or inflammation, which has destroyed the organ still stimulates the nerve. Thus chronic inflammation of the internal ear becomes a cause of hallucinations of hearing. Dr. A. Pick,* has described a curious case,a man of twenty-eight who had delusions of persecution. He heard reproaches poured into his ear, A lady followed him with her endearments. He was electrified, magnetised; he saw visions, such as a burning house. He often heard a voice on the right side. Sometimes it dis- appeared as he put his finger into the ear, but then it passed to the left ear. He had hallucinations of sight, which affected only the right eye. “ They appeared generally in the evening when his eyes were shut, but sometimes after awakening. These hallucinations disappeared when he opened his eyes. * “Jahrbuch fiir Psychiatrie,” ii. 1, quoted in the Centralblatt fir Nervenheilkunde, 1st April, 1881. In the first number of L’ Encéphale, Dr. Regis gives a summary of Pick’s observations, and adds some valuable cases from his own experience. In one of these, a man, blind of the right eye, had hallucinations, seen only with the left. In another, the hallucinations of sight and sound were confined to the left eye and ear. These organs were not so strong as those on the right side; in fact, the whole left side was weaker. THE BLIND MAY HAVE VISIONS. 23 He often saw portions of figures—heads or feet, generally the upper parts of men, or the tops of trees, or objects which were sharply defined off against a dark ground. There was found to be a broad spot in the right eye, where sight was deficient, without any positive lesion. Dr. Pick places the seat of the lesion in the inner side of the left optic tract, behind the com- missure of the optic nerve. A Russian peasant in the asylum of Charkoff,* who was quite blind from amaurosis, though the hearing was acute, was in a state of the utmost terror, believing that he saw Turks everywhere. In order to escape from them he dashed himself against the walls, doors, and windows, crying out at the same time for help and rescue. During these panics he refused all food. The fits were periodical, generally lasting the whole day, and were succeeded by a period of stupor. The par- oxysms lasted ten days, at the end of which he fell asleep, and wakened in the morning quite well. He had totally forgotten the fearful experiences which he had gone through, and was quite astonished when told of his frantic behaviour. Dr. Kowalewsky regarded this as a case of psychic epilepsy taking an intermittent form. There was shown to the Medico-Psychological Society of Parist a young man who had sounds in the left ear when he was thirteen years of age, after receiving a blow which caused inflammation of the internal ear. About two years after this he had typhoid fever with delirium. The deafness became worse, and the sounds in the ear were increased. His mental powers were so far injured that, though not destitute of intelligence, he was incapable of working, became subject to melancholy, and had thoughts of committing suicide. The noises in the ear were most bewildering, and hindered intellec- tual application. Under the influence of a double cause, increased subjective sounds, and diminished mental power, the sounds passed into hallucinations. He thus described their gradual elaboration. First, there were sounds like a running stream, or water falling from rocks, and reports of * See my German Retrospect, Journal of Mental Science, April, 1879, p. 274. + Annales Médico-Psychologiques, Mai, 1882. 24 HALLUCINATIONS DERANGE THE MIND. firearms; then, a little later, there were singing voices, choruses, first indistinct and distant, and then becoming clearer and nearer, amongst which a soprano voice was clearly heard. After this the patient thought that they called his name again and again, the word becoming more plainly pronounced ; then he seemed to hear abusive expressions, which were of a very gross and malicious character. It is beginning to be recognised that hallucinations in the ear have a powerful tendency to derange the mind; even simple noises sometimes induce such extreme mental distress as to become the apparent cause of insanity. Dr. Fiirstner bas given twenty-eight cases of insanity which seemed to have originated in diseases of the ear or auditory nerve.* Dr. Mabillet+ had a patient whose constitution had been much reduced by several confinements following one another, and nursing the children. She became listless and melancholy with buzzing noises in the right ear, and her sleep was disturbed by hallucinations. She described her own condition in a letter :—“TI felt so much distress that I wished to throw myself into a well. I could not eat, but drank much. At the very beginning I felt a noise in my ear. The least sound that I heard my head was like to open, and for fifteen months this mischief in the ear existed. After the superintendent gave me injections in the ear I felt it no longer.’ In fact, an injection of luke-warm water into the ear brought away some hardened wax, in the middle of which was a grain of corn. The first night after this relief the auditory hallucina- tions ceased and the patient could sleep. The general health also improved, the melancholy gradually passed away, and she was discharged in good health after being in the asylum about two months and a-half. Nageli,t the botanist in Munich, got his eyes severely * Allgemeine Zeitschrift fiir Psychiatrie, Band xl., Heft 1 and 2, and Neurologisches Centralblatt, No. 12, 1883. See also the observations of Dr. Bjeljakow cited in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift fiir Psychiatrie, xlviii. Band, 1 Heft. t See Annales Médico-Psychologiques, Novembre, 1883. t Nageli : ‘“‘ Ueber Selbstbeobachtete Gesichtserscheinungen.” A resumé of his paper is given by Professor Jolly in the Zeitschrift fiir Psychiatrie, x]. Band, 4 Heft. NAGELI’S VISIONS. 25 burned with boiling spirits. The right eye was well again in three days, but the inflammation in the left was severe and painful. He was kept in a darkened room and cold cloths applied for three days upon both eyes and two days longer on the left eye. After twenty-four hours the whole field of vision of the left eye seemed lighted up; soon cloudy spots appeared in different parts, then indistinct figures appeared. After about two hours the objects became quite distinct, and from that time, Nageli says, it seemed as if I was looking outside with my eyes open in daylight. I saw what one commonly sees, land- scapes, houses, rooms, persons. This lasted for thirty-six hours, during which time there was no fever. This was succeeded by a second period of about the same duration, during which the field of vision was less bright; but on a slight fever intervening the bright visions of the first period with the bright field of vision returned. What he saw were not the usual surroundings of his daily life, such as microscopes, or living or dried plants, but mountain landscapes with a lake, sometimes a sea-coast, more rarely a plain with an expanse of water. He also saw human figures. The images did not shift their positions, but turned with the head. Those in the centre of the visual axis were most distinct. The images were at first colourless, with little shading, but gradually they assumed more striking hues though never very bright ones. Sometimes the objects underwent a whimsical meta- morphosis; the vision of an ass’s head passed into a horn of plenty; a wine barrel into a sphinx; a medicine bottle into a death’s-head. It was the left eye, the most injured one, before which the visions appeared. When he opened the right eye the hallucinations disappeared ; when he shut it an entirely new hallucination would be seen by the left eye,—for example, he would see a landscape which would disappear on opening the right eye; on his again shutting it, instead of a landscape, he would see a building. He found that he could not by any voluntary method alter the appear- ance of the visions. He could not even reproduce changes which had already taken place without his desiring it. He imagined that he saw a brown polished table when his eyes were bound up, and this seemed so real that he put a glass 26 DOUBLE IMAGES. of lemonade upon it, which, of course, fell to the ground. Niageli says that he had never before had any visions, and that his mind was quite clear. He correctly attributes the hallucinations to the irritated condition of. the optic nerves, which, through the means of their connections with the brain, aroused images stored up from earlier impressions, and brought them within the range of perception. In fact, we do not know how far back the irritation may have gone. Niageli had suffered a painful accident, and had reason to fear that he might lose his sight, which no doubt disturbed his mind. The visions were of a varied and indifferent character, as his fancy was free, and there was no ruling passion nor dominant idea to give a shape to them. Professor Jolly remarks that remaining in the dark causes a hyperesthesia of vision, and quotes the observations of Dr. Schmidt Rimpler* that the mind is apt to be deranged by the sudden cutting off of light through covering the eyes by bandages when under treatment. It has been stated by many writers, apparently on the authority of Sir David Brewster, that in some cases, by deranging the visual axis by pressing one eye aside, instead of one apparition, two appear. Dr. Despine had a patient who, without being insane, had fits of ecstasy, during which he saw the Virgin and heard her speak. Seizing the moment when he said, “I see the Virgin,” M. Despine pressed lightly on the globe of the eye through the eyelid, asking if he saw one or two images of the Virgin. He answered, ‘‘I see two, one here and another there.’ The distance indicated was not great. This experiment, several times repeated, always gave the same result. Dr. Ballt had a patient, a young hysterical woman, who fell easily into a state of somnambulism, during which she had visions of a religious character. By pressing the eyeball, he always succeeded in producing a double image. But we are justified in being wary of conclusions derived from experiments on hysterical Frenchwomen. Dr. D. Hack Tuke, who has made original observations on this point,t states his * Archiv. fiir Psychiatrie, ix. Band, 2 Heft. + “Lecons sur les Maladies Mentales,” par B. Ball, p. 74. + See his article on “ Hallucinations and the Subjective Sensations of the Sane,” in Brain, vol. xi., 1889, p. 441. PORTIONS OF FIGURES SEEN. 27 belief that lateral pressure on the eyeball, or looking through a multiplying lens, never doubles an object, unless it is actually external to the eye. It seems to me that no one can fairly repeat this old observation of Brewster’s without replying to Dr. Tuke. The idea of making a study of the artificial hallucinations in hypnotised persons has been put into execution by some ingenious French psychologists. M. Féré* has found that during the period of attack of hystero-epilepsy, there were alternations of dilatation and contraction in connection with the distance of the object of hallucination. In two hysterical patients, who could be made aware of what he said to them during the cataleptic attack, he would tell them to look at a bird at the top of a steeple, or rising upwards in the air. The pupil was then observed gradually to dilate to almost double its usual size, and on making the bird descend the pupil again gradually contracted. M. Féré found he could produce the same phenomenon as many times as he pleased by inducing in the mind of the patient the idea of a moving object. From this he concludes that, during these hallucina- tions, the object is seen exactly as if it existed, and that it provoked by its changes of distance efforts of accommodation under the same laws that regulate the perception of a real object. A hysterical patient was plunged into the hypnotic or cata- leptic sleep, and the idea was impressed on her mind that there was a portrait seen in profile on a table of dark colour. The patient distinctly saw the portrait. Without giving her any warning, a prism of double reflecting spar was placed before one of her eyes, when she was astonished to see two portraits instead of one. The false image he said was always in conformity with the laws of optics. M. Alfred Binet gives in Mind+ a summary of experi- ments made upon five hysterical girls at the Salpetriére which confirm Féré’s observations. He found, when visual hallucina- * Annales Médico-Psychologiques, Mai, 1882. M. Féré’s paper originally appeared in the Progrés Médical, No. 53, 1881. + No, xxxv., July, 1884. See also Révue Philosophique, Mai, 1884. 28 HALLUCINATIONS IN A MIRROR. tions were suggested to the mesmerised patient, that a screen placed before her eyes in most cases suppressed the hallucina- tion, though sometimes the images seemed to cover the screen. A spy-glass makes the imaginary object appear nearer or farther off, according as the instrument is adjusted; and a mirror reflects the hallucination and gives a symmetrical image of it. M. Binet invites specialists who may have occasion to observe hallucinations to seize the opportunity of repeating these experiments. For my part, I have tried to do so, and have visited several asylums for the purpose, occasionally remaining for days through the hospitality of the superin- tendents; but I never succeeded in seizing on the moment favourable for making the experiment of doubling the spectre by getting the patient to look through a prism of double reflecting spar. Many readers will think me too simple, and ask on what theory of optics this experiment is based. Epicurus held that spectres were floating films thrown off from the surfaces of objects :-— “ Dico igitur, rerum effigies, tenueisque figuras Mittier ab rebus summo de corpore earum ; Quee quasi membrana, vel cortex nominitanda’st Quod speciem, ac formam similem gerit ejus imago.” Lucretius, Lib. iv., 1. 46. “ A stream of forms from every surface flows, Which may be called the film or shell of those: Because they bear the shape, they show the frame And figure of those bodies whence they came.” Crercn’s TRANSLATION. But such films were supposed to be cast off from real objects, while the hallucinations in question were introduced into the mind of the person by words whispered into the ear. How can such an image, even if represented by some change in the retina, be divided into two by a prism held before the eye, or be reflected in a mirror from a point of space? It may be ascertained by an easy experiment that after images the impression left on the retina after looking fixedly on a strong THE SEAT OF HALLUCINATIONS, 29 light cannot be made to appear double by a prism or to appear multiplied on looking through a glass cut into facets. Shall we not rather believe that the mesmerised patient had the quickness to seize upon the idea which he was expected to gratify? For example, he would, in looking through the prism, see real objects double, and would therefore conceive that the hallucination should also be seen double through the same medium. In the same way the mesmerised person would, on seeing the mirror, conceive in her mind that the hallucinated images should also be reflected. These views have been confirmed by the observations of MM. Bernheim and Charpentier.* These physicians have, in studying hallu- cinations in the somnambulism of hypnotised persons, with double-refracting prisms and other optical apparatus, arrived at the conclusion that the answers of those under hallucina- tions of vision were “in perfect contradiction with the laws of optics. The image, therefore, is a fictitious one, arising entirely from the imagination of the subject.” In psychology speculation has long ago done its best, and it is to observation that we must look for more light; but let us not run away with the notion that we understand the nature of hallucinations when we have indicated their anatomi- cal seat. There is a mystery about the relations of sensation and perception to the nerve tissues which cannot be explained. We may know the appearance of the brain, and show its cells, granules, and fibres under the microscope, without getting any nearer the wonders of sensation, perception, and thought, revealed to us in our consciousness. The mind irresistibly puts these tissues into one category, and the thoughts and feelings known to us through consciousness into another. It is willing to recognise that the physical phenomena accompany the mental conceptions, but not that changes in matter are the causes of ideas. The reason why hallucinations appear to have an objective reality is, that they are owing to an irrita- tion which affects the nervous elements of the sensory organs, or those portions of the sensory tracts which are used to convey such sensations to the mind, The ordinary stimulus of the * Gazette Médicale de Paris, Nos. 11 and 12, 1885. 30 TWO FACTORS NEEDED. eye is light, but other stimuli, such as touching the optic nerve, or sending a galvanic current along it, will also cause us to see a flash of light. The same holds good of hearing ; the ordinary stimulus to the ear is motions or vibrations in the outer world; but a galvanic current, or irritation of the auditory nerve, will also cause a sound. Irritation is a vague word, implying some change in the nerves, We know that little is required to produce hallucination; a drug such as haschisch, or alcohol in the blood, or a galvanic current along the nerves, is sufficient. Brierre de Boismont, Ball, Emminghaus, and Baillarger, have given instances where simply holding the head down brought on hallucinations. When I was a boy at school, about nine years old, a hallucination used to occur at my writing lesson. I thought I saw the roof overhead open, and the head and shoulders of a man appear, as one sees a preacher in the pulpit. The face had an angry expression. When I looked up at it the figure instantly disappeared, again to re- appear when my head was lowered. I made out that the hallucination was connected with holding down the head. It troubled my mind a good deal, but I did not speak about it, fearing ridicule. It passed away after lasting some months, nor did anything similar ever again occur to me. Dr. Foster, in his Text-book of Physiology, tells us that he is aware of a case in which spectra of a pleasing and gorgeous character, such as visions of flowers and landscapes, can be brought on at once by compressing the eyeballs with the orbicularis muscle. But though a stimulus may produce a simple hallucination, such as a flash of light or a sound in the ear, there must be some predisposition of the mind to interpret it into a complex one, We thus need two factors, irritation of the sensory nerves and excitement of the brain; we do not say insanity, for an active imagination or a powerful mental strain may be enough. Jolly found by applying the galvanic current to the ears of patients who had hallucinations of hearing that there was increased irritability of the auditory nerves. Chvostek,* also * Jahrbuch fiir Psychiatrie, Band xi., Heft 3. MENTAL IMAGES MAY COME FIRST. 31 experimenting on patients who had hallucinations of hearing, directed the constant current to the nerves of hearing, and then applied a tuning fork to the ear. He found that the vibrations of the tuning fork excited not only elementary sounds, but complicated hallucinations of hearing. The pre- disposition of these patients transmuted simple sensations into their besetting illusions. The irritation may proceed from the circumference to the centre, or from the centre to the circumference. In the one case it is the organs of sense which are affected, either at their commencement in the eye or ear, or the surface of the body, or at some part of their course up to the brain ; or what is called the sensory centre in the brain itself. There is a modification of the organs or nerves; or a molecular or chemical change takes place; some call it a vibration, Thus much we may assume. But I do not take it for proved that consciousness is entirely confined to the brain. A visual image may be conceived in the retina, some of whose layers may thus be viewed as a delicate nervous structure, possessing some of the endowments of brain sub- stance, spread out so as to be subjected to the stimulus of light, and kept out of the way of other stimuli. It is quite true that for this image in the retina to be con- nected with the mind, the sum of all other impressions and memories, the integrity of the optic tract must be kept up. This optic tract can be traced through a fillet of white fibres and through some ganglia from the eye to the convolutions of the brain at the back of the head. Most of these fibres cross to the opposite hemisphere. The irritation of any portion of this long tract may lead to a visual impression or hallucina- tion, and it is very probable that for a hallucination to be mistaken for a real sensation some of this tract must be affected. But how can a random irritation of the optic tract exactly reproduce the same series of changes which follow the photographic effects of light on the retina? The sight of an old friend, a horse, or a dog, is the result of the refractions of light occasioned by their surfaces. If the same effect appear to follow a coarse irritation of the optic nerve, such as accom- panies a burn or simple pressure on the optic nerve, we 32 A CHORUS OF FEMALE VOICES. obviously have the intervention of the mind which puts its own interpretation upon the irritation, reducing it to some- thing expected, or feared, or hoped for. The theory of hallucinations would be simple, if we could stop here, but we are obliged to admit that occasionally the mechanism goes backwards, from the centres of thought in the brain to the sensory tracts, for sometimes the mental image comes before the sensory one. This, of course, holds good in hypnotism, and in some cases of somnambulism, in which a whisper in the ear, or a mental conception or preoccupation, determines the character of the hallucination. Dr. Max Huppert* has given a whole series of cases where hallucinations of hearing obviously followed ideas arising in the mind or suggested by reading. He tells of a man thirty- eight years of age suffering from general paralysis, who had led a dissolute life. He complained that he heard voices of women, who reproached him with some of his old misdeeds. He was very fond of reading, but now he found that, when he took up a book, the words which he read were repeated by a chorus of female voices, fifty or sixty in number. At the end of the reading, when he himself had ceased, he heard these voices repeat the last two words or syllables. He found that the voices were no longer heard when he read in a loud tone, but when he stopped reading again they echoed the last word. When he sat down to write a letter, ere he had finished writing out the word the feminine voices had guessed it, and cried it in his ear. Reading with one eye only made no difference. One patient said that his thoughts were spoken in his ear as they were conceived. Some said that the words of a song which they read or thought of were sung in their ears. One patient imagined that he saw before him, when he shut his eyes, the figure of a man or house that he was thinking about; another saw in the air some yards before him the numerals of a sum which he was thinking of. Dr. Huppert treats these as instances of double conceptions, arising from the unequal action of the two sides of the brain. Mental conceptions in one * “Ueber das Vorkommen von Doppelvorstellungen,” Archiv. fiir Psychiatrie, iii. Band, 1 Heft. MISS X. AND HER MAJORS, 33 hemisphere were repeated in the other as hallucinations of hearing or of sight. What seems less doubtful is that, in these cases, real impressions entering the mind were thrown outwards as hallucinations. Dr. A. Giovanni* had a patient, who for a long time had a series of nervous symptoms which ended in a peculiar form of hallucination, The patient saw continually before her faces and figures which changed every moment in expression, and when she contracted some of the muscles of the face and neck the hallucinations likewise appeared to make the same motions, altering both their position and physiognomy ; in short, whatever she did the apparitions seemed to do. Dr. Giovanni judged this to be a case of indirect suggestion, acting automatically in the waking state. Dr. Parantt enforces bis argument that hallucinations some- times take their origin from conceptions in the mind, by describing a case the like of which is not rare amongst the insane :— “Miss X., thirty-eight years of age, in the asylum of Toulouse, is subject to the mania of persecution. She holds long conversations with imaginary persons, who generally get the title of major. When she has complaints or requests to make she comes to the medical superintendent to make them known. Generally the answers she receives do not satisfy her. Then she goes to some place either near a streamlet, or a wall, or by a window with closed blinds, more rarely behind a door. She strikes several blows to attract the attention of her invisible friends; after waiting a few moments ‘she is informed that they are there, and the conversation begins.’ ‘ Major,’ says she, ‘I have asked such and such a thing, and I have been answered such and such a thing. What do you think of it?’ A pause, during which she listens; she speaks again, becomes silent, recommences, and after this performance has lasted several minutes, she comes and tells us that the information she has received does not agree with my words and that we ought to let her free to act otherwise than we permit. At other times she consults her majors because she is told to take food which does not suit her, to work, or obtain something which is disagreeable to her.” * Rivista di Freniatria, vol. xii., fase. 4. + “On the Pathogeny of Hallucinations in reference to a case of Psycho- sensory Hallucinations,” translated in the Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1883. D 34 IDEAS BEGET HALLUCINATIONS. The patient very positively asserted that she hears with her ears and not mentally, nor by the aid of any extraordinary sense, Dr. Parant observes :— “‘The patient unconsciously formulates to herself what she desires or wishes. In this frame of mind she questions her majors, who gave her answers in accordance with the preconceived ideas. The answers, previously prepared, shape themselves as soon as the ques- tion has been made, and as a consequence of the morbid conditions, become a true hallucination. In all that has been produced, there is certainly a primordial intellectual operation, a manifest influence of the imagination or the placing in activity of the centres of per- ception.” Cases like these are too numerous to be got rid of ; and we must admit that, though an excited condition of the sensory tract and nerves may be necessary to hallucinations, they may ‘still take their origin from ideas on the mind. In a disease like general paralysis, which commences with inflammatory action of the higher centres, the grey matter of the brain, mental derangement precedes the hallucinations, which appear after the morbid process has diffused itself to those portions of the brain and nerves whose functions are sensory. In other diseases the reverse takes place; the irritation commences with the nerves or lower ganglia, and spreads upwards to the surface of the brain. In those cases where the conception in the mind precedes the hallucination, we may suppose that the wave of irritation commences in the brain, and descends downwards to the sen- sory tracts, and even to the extremities of the sensory nerves. Having been first realised as a mental image, on passing down to the sensory region it appears as a sensory impression, in the optic tract as a spectre, in the auditory tract as a sound, and so On. The exact conditions under which this takes place are not known to us. Why and how is the ordinary procession of \impressions from without reversed so that sensory impressions ‘\flow backwards from the grey matter of the brain to the nerves, so that thoughts become feelings, instead of feelings begetting ideas? Here it is customary to invoke what we THEY PARTAKE OF THE ABNORMAL. 85 experience in dreams, at once so familiar and so mysterious. There is one broad distinction between ordinary dreaming and hallucinations—that in dreaming we have lost all sense of the antecedent parallel actions of perception and consciousness which accompany us when awake, and which inform us what we have been doing, what we are doing, and where we are. In somnambulism, these parallel acts of perception and con- sciousness are also cut off, and the mind, for the time being, obeys a single idea. It is the absence of these corrective sensations and perceptions which allows us during sleep to be so easily deluded by our wandering ideas; but the subject of a hallucination is awake, and the delusive appearances are lively enough to cover real sensations, and the vividness of the delusion is strong enough to overcome the sense of incon- gruity derived from a comparison between the apparition and the circumstances under which it appears, The ordinary images in my dreams at least have not the reality of sensory impressions, though on rare occasions they seem to be almost, if not quite, as vivid. It may perhaps be said that the con- dition of sleep is very favourable to the coming on both of illusions and of hallucinations, and that many nascent illu- sions and hallucinations are cut off by the corrective interfer- ence of the judgment. In any case, hallucinations seem to me to partake of the abnormal, and to be indicative of the passage of healthy into diseased action. Dr. Burckhardt,* the superintendent of the asylum at Préfargier, believing that the mind is made up of several faculties which hold their seats in distinct portions of the brain, has attempted a practical application of his views. Where excess or irregularity of function occurred, he sought to check it by removal of a portion of the irritated brain centres. If a man had hallucinations of vision, the proper course, the doctor thought, was to trephine the skull where it covered the visual centre, and remove a portion of the underlying grey matter. Where there were hallucinations of hearing, the *See his paper in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift fiir Psychiatric, xlvii. Band, 5 Heft, and my abstract in the Journal of Mental Science for October, 1891, p. 613. 36 OPERATIVE TREATMENT. temporo-sphenoidal convolutions should be attacked. Dr. Burckhardt opened the skull in six patients, excising portions of the brain weighing from a gramme and a-half to five and a-half grammes. Upon one patient he performed four opera- tions, the result being that the woman was changed from a dangerous and excited dement into a quiet one. No great improvement occurred in any of the cases. One of his patients, who was awaiting a second operation, threw herself into the Rhone at Geneva. The sixth case had marked hallucinations of hearing, and a portion of brain was taken away from the auditory area. The immediate result was complete word-deafness, and cessation of the hallucinations of hearing, but four days after the operation convulsive attacks began which soon carried him off. Dr. Burckhardt defends this heroic treatment by showing that he only operated in cases where improvement through other means seemed hopeless. PAPER II. THE HALLUCINATIONS OF MOHAMMED AND LUTHER, O one who does not admit the Divine mission of Mohammed it is very difficult to explain the pretensions of that remarkable man, and at the same time to uphold his sincerity. There have undoubtedly been instances where mere politicians have resorted to religious impostures as temporary expedients to advance their ends; for example, the woman whom Pisis- tratus got dressed up in the traditional costume of Pallas, and who conducted him back to Athens from exile, or the milk- white hind which followed Sertorius in Spain, and by means of which he was reputed to hold converse with the Gods. But a contrivance of this kind is a very different thing from the foundation of a religion which now numbers about a hundred and forty millions of votaries, and which possesses to this day a very singular power over the minds of its followers. By‘the persistent claim of being a messenger from God, after a struggle of twenty-one years Mohammed made himself master of the greater part of Arabia, and roused a mighty religious movement which continued after his death. In a few years more a number of wandering tribes, who had previously no more cohesion than the sands of their deserts, had run a mighty career of conquest, which bore them to the banks of the Loire and of the Oxus. It is generally admitted that men cannot excite in others feelings which are wanting in their own breasts. A man without honesty and destitute of religious faith could no more found a religious system like that of Islam than a man with- out an ear for music could compose an opera. The old notion that Mohammed was a mere impostor appears so difficult 37 38 MUSSULMAN TRADITIONS. of belief that no one of any recognised skill in historical inquiry now upholds it. But it has always been a great difficulty to explain how Mohammed could in good faith say that he had seen the angel Gabriel, and heard voices from heaven calling him the Messenger of God, and revealing chapter after chapter of the Koran. It had long-seemed to me that the question was beyond human solution, and that it might have been a very difficult one, even had the inquirer lived in Mecca or Medina during the time of Mohammed’s mission. It has been several times suggested that Mohammed was subject to some nervous disease accompanied by hallucina- tions, and if this could be proved it might help to solve a very interesting historical problem. A theory of this kind has been advanced, and worked out in some detail by Sprenger in his Life of Mohammed; * and this learned writer, by printing many of the traditions on which his narrative was founded, allows us, to a certain extent, to exercise our own judgment in the matter. In preparing this paper Sprenger is our principal authority; and when we take a statement from another writer the reference will be given. It is necessary to remember that though the text of the Koran is not disputed by Arabic scholars, the traditions which have come down to us are often very doubtful and full of corruptions and legends. Even Mussulmans are not expected to receive them with- out criticism ; and it is likely that the mythical theory could be applied to many of them. When Mohammed received his first revelation he was a man of forty-two years of age. He had lost his father in infancy and his mother in childhood, had followed the calling of a travelling merchant, and had been raised to a good position in Mecca by his marriage with a wealthy widow whom he had always treated with the greatest affection, although -she was fifteen years older than himself; nor did he ever take another wife as long as she lived. There are several traditions about Mohammed’s first revela- * “Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed nach bisher gréssentheils unbenutzten Quellen bearbeitet von A. Sprenger.” Berlin, 1861. THE FIRST REVELATION. 39 tion ; the following, given by Sprenger, is one of the fullest in detail :— . “The revelations of the Prophet began with visions in his sleep as bright as the dawn of the morning, Then a love of solitude came upon him. He used to live alone in a cave of the mountain Hira, where he spent several days and nights together in prayers and devo- tional exercises, and when he returned to his family it was but to get provisions. He came home then to Kadija, and fetched food for a certain number of days. This lasted until suddenly the truth came to him when he was in the cave of Hira. The angel came to him, and said, ‘Read.’ He tells, ‘I answered, “I will never read.” He seized on me, and pressed me till my strength went away. Then he loosed me, and said, “ Read.” I answered, “TI will never read.”’” This was repeated twice with the same answer. After pressing him the third time, the angel said— “ Read, in the name of thy Lord who has created you. He has created men from blood. Read; the Lord is the greatest who has taught men. He has taught man by writing what he did not know.” The prophet returned home trembling, and said to Kadija, “Wrap me up.” She covered him up until his agitation was past; then he said, “Oh, Kadija; what has happened to me?” and he told her the story, adding, “I fear for myself.” Kadija answered, “Surely not. Be of good courage. Allah will never make you miserable ; for by Allah you are faithful to your relations. You speak the truth; you assist the needy ; you are active in your calling; you are hospitable to strangers, and help people who have fallen into undeserved misfortune.” Then Kadija went to her relation Waraka. “This was a man who had become a Christian in the time of heathendom, could write in Arabic, and had copied as much of the Gospel as it pleased God.” He was very old, and had become blind. Kadija spoke, ‘Oh, uncle, hear what thy relation has to tell thee.’ Waraka said, “Tell what you have seen;” and Waraka said, “This is the spirit which God hath sent upon Moses. Oh, that I were young! Oh, that I should be in life when thy people persecute you!” “What!” broke in the prophet, “will they persecute me?” ‘Yes,” said 40 MOHAMMED’S HALLUCINATIONS. Waraka; “never has a man brought what you bring without having enemies.” According to another tradition, on this first occasion, where- ever the prophet turned his gaze, he always saw the same figure ; but another account simply says that he heard a voice crying, “Oh Mohammed!” and looking round, and seeing no one, he hastened to his wife and told her of it, saying he feared that he was deranged or enchanted. Another tradition tells that when “‘Mohammed was walking in the defiles and valleys about Mecca, every stone and tree greeted him with the words, ‘ Hail to thee, O messenger of God.’ He looked round to the right and to the left, and discovered nothing but trees and stones. The prophet heard these cries as long as it pleased God that he should be in this condition; then the angel Gabriel appeared, and announced to him the message of God in the mountain Hira, in the month of the Ramadan.” In the Koran his interviews with Gabriel are rather alluded to than described, so we are obliged to depend upon traditions which are not always authentic. According to some of these accounts, after the first interview with the angel, there was a very long silence, and Mohammed was so much troubled in mind that he went sometimes to Mount Thabyr, and some- times to Mount Hira, with the thought of throwing himself over a precipice. On Mount Hira he heard a voice from Heaven. “ He stood still, for he felt faint on account of the voice, and he turned his face upwards, and behold Gabriel sat with crossed legs upon a throne between heaven and earth, and cried out, ‘O Mohammed, thou art in truth the messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.” The prophet then turned back. God had gladdened his heart and filled it with courage. Then followed revelation upon revelation.” According to another tradition, when questioned upon the manner of his inspiration, Mohammed replied *— * “The Life of Mohammed,” by Wm. Muir, Esq., vol. ii., p. 378. London, 1858. REVELATION IN TWO WAYS. 41 ‘“‘Tnspiration descendeth upon me in one of two ways. Sometimes Gabriel cometh and communicateth the revelation unto me, as one man unto another, and this is easy; at other times it affecteth me like the ringing of a bell, penetrating my very heart, and rending me as it were in pieces; and this it is which grievously afflicteth me.” In the later period of life Mohammed referred his grey hairs to the withering effect produced upon him by the. terrific Suras, or passages of the Koran. Ayescha, his favourite wife, said, “I observed the prophet when he got a revelation on a very cold day, and when it was over the drops of sweat stood upon his forehead.” Othman was speaking to him one day, when he remarked that his eyes were suddenly turned towards Heaven and then to the right. His head moved as if he were speaking; after some time he looked again towards Heaven, and then to the left, and then to Othman. His face was covered with sweat. Othman asked him what ailed him, when he repeated a verse of the Koran which had just been revealed to him, There is another tradition that a Bedouin had a strong desire to see the prophet when a revelation came on. Moham- med was lying under a cloth which had been stretched out to shade him from the sun, with Omar and some other followers. Omar allowed the man to put his head under the awning, and he saw that the prophet was red in the face, and seemed unconscious. After awhile he came to himself and gave the Bedouin the advice of which he came in quest. There are other traditions which might favour the idea that he was subject to epileptic fits; for example, he made a sound like that of a young camel. On another occasion he fell upon Zayd’s lap with such a force that he feared his leg was broken. Sprenger thinks this attack was so d propos that it might have been feigned. Another tradition says that when the prophet had a revelation he fell into a coma as if he were drunk, It is said that his face turned white, and that he moved his lips as if he were speaking. Sir William Muir remarks that it is a question of great interest whether the ecstatic periods of Mohammed were simply aa 42 MOHAMMED AN EPILEPTIC. reveries of profound meditation, or swoons connected with a morbid sensibility of the mental or physical constitution. There is a tradition that Akra b. Habis visited the prophet just at the time he was getting cupped on the back of the head, and said to him, “Ob, son of Abu Habscha! why do you allow yourself to be cupped in the middle of the head?” Mohammed answered, “ It is a remedy against headache, tooth- ache, drowsiness, leprosy,” and Layth adds, “I believe he said also against delusions.” Sprenger tells us that Mohammed used cups for a great variety of complaints. They were made of horn, and probably resembled those described by Celsus, and were brought into use even on the occasion of eating the poisoned mutton which the Jewish woman at Chaibar gave him. If we are to believe that Mohammed fell into some species of trance, accompanied by hallucinations, this appears different from ordinary epilepsy. Gibbon tells us, in a note to the “Decline and Fall,” that the epilepsy or falling sickness of Mohammed, is asserted by Theophanes, Honoras, and the rest of the Greeks. Against this calumny, he remarks, that “the silence, the ignorance of the Mohammedan commentators is more conclusive than the most peremptory denial.” Evidently the great historian, who did not know Arabic, was ignorant of the traditions reproduced by Sprenger. A learned Semitic scholar writes* :— ‘‘Mohammed was epileptic ; and vast ingenuity and medical know- ledge have been lavished upon this point, as explanatory of Mohammed’s mission and success. We, for our own part, do not think that epilepsy ever made a man appear a prophet to himself or even to the people of the East; or, for the matter of that, inspired him with the like heart-moving words and glorious pictures. Quite the contrary. It was taken as a sign of demons within—demons, ‘Devs,’ devils, to whom all manner of diseases were ascribed throughout the antique world: in Phcenicia, in Greece, in Rome, in Persia, and among the lower classes of Judea after the Babylonian exile.” * “Titerary Remains of the late Emanuel Deutsch.” London, 1874, Islam, p. 82. THE PROPHETIC TRANCE. 43 It is clear that Deutsch did not see all the significance which gathers round the admission that Mohammed was an epileptic. One can scarcely wonder at the prophet being represented in a trance, as this was the accredited form in which a Divine revelation was communicated; as Deutsch himself admits*— “There is a peculiar something supposed to inhere in epilepsy. The Greeks called it a sacred disease. Bacchantic and chorybantic furor were God-inspired stages. The Pythia uttered her oracles under the most distressing signs. Symptoms of convulsion were even needed as a sign of the Divine.” Thus Virgil, describing the inspiration of the Cumean Sybil, sings : “ At Pheebi nondum patiens immanis in antro Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit Excussisse deum ; tanto magis ille fatigat Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.” Aineidos, vi. 1. 77. It is true there is generally an easy distinction between an ordinary epileptic and an inspired prophet. In most cases an epileptic entirely loses consciousness, and when it returns he is in a confused and sleepy state, quite different from that of Mohammed, who had always his rhymed verse of the Koran ready after having had a revelation. But epileptic or epilepti- form convulsions are symptoms of irritation arising from or reflected from the brain, which are allied to the whole family of neurosis. The other symptoms and actual diseased condition are often various. Epilepsy, especially when the fits are frequent, is a malady which is often most destructive to mental force and soundness of thought. On the other hand, cases are not uncommon, especially when the disease has appeared after puberty, where there is no observable injury to the mental powers; in others the mind is little affected, or the patient may be simply capricious or irritable. In some rare cases, instead of mental enfeeblement, the reverse is noticed. With some epileptics the intellectual faculties are excited, they are * Op. cit. p. 83. 44 EPILEPSY WITH HALLUCINATIONS. men of talent, sometimes men of genius.* The approach of a fit is sometimes announced by a strange feeling of uneasiness in some part of the body, mounting to the head. This is called an aura, because it often feels like a breath of cold air or vapour. To make use of Dr. Ball’s words :— “The aura is often accompanied or replaced by hallucinations, the most common of which are those of vision. One patient perceives at the beginning of the attack a toothed wheel, in the middle of which there appears a human face making strange contortions; another sees a series of smiling landscapes. In some cases it is the sense of hearing which is affected,—the patient hears voices or strange noises. Others are warned by the sense of smell that the fit is going to commence. In some cases the epileptic fit may be replaced by a period of mental excitement.” Dr. Raab+ has described three cases of epilepsy, where between the attacks there was a state of religious delirium without hallucinations, imaginary intercourse with God and Christ, and he cites two similar observations of Loeb. Dr. Adolph Kiihn{ also describes three cases which he saw in the House of Correction at Moringen. Two of these were un- doubtedly subject to epilepsy; the other probably so. There was a sudden appearance of twilight, with anxiety and appari- tions, which lasted from two to three minutes. After the complete return of consciousness there was a full recollection of what they had seen. He believes that these hallucinations took place in substitution of ordinary epileptic attacks. Dr. Howden,§ a physician of great experience in insanity, has remarked that in epilepsy there is often an exaltation of the religious sentiments, generally without any corresponding strictness in morals. Dr. Toselli|| says that of all diseases * See “Legons sur les Maladies Mentales,” par B. Ball, Professeur & la Faculté de Médecine de Paris. Paris, 1880-1883, p. 504. + Der Irrenfreund, No. 10, 1883. t Cited in Centralblait fiir Nervenheilkunde, No. 18, 1883. § “The Religious Sentiments in Epileptics,” by James C. Howden, M.D., Medical Superintendent, Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, Journal of Mental Science, January, 1873. || “Sulla Religiosits degli Epilettici,” Studio di Enrico Toselli, Archivio Italiano, Anno xvi., Fasc. ii, Milan, 1879. RELIGIOSITY OF EPILEPTICS. 45 epilepsy is the one in which morbid manifestations of the religious statements are oftenest observed. All the writers who treat of the intellectual and moral disorders of epileptics have commented on their morbid religiosity, which is all the more remarkable as it is often in contrast with their habitual conduct, some of them being vicious in the highest degree. Of this religious disposition Dr. Howden gives some instances, one of which is of interest in the present inquiry :— “A gardener, aged forty-seven, who had several severe epileptic fits, but otherwise strong and healthy, started in his sleep, and said that he was dying. Next day he was sure he was dead, and that his soul was in heaven; again, he would complain of great weakness, and say that he was dying; always, however, his conversation was of a religious character, Next day he was sure he was dead, and that his soul was in heaven, and in perfect happiness. He continued in this belief for two days; but on the third day he believed soul and body were again united in this world. In a few days he was able to be at his work again, and spoke quite rationally on every subject but that of his vision. He maintained that God had sent it to him as a means of conversion, that he was now a new man, and had never known before what true peace was. He still believed that his soul had been transported to heaven. It was a glorious country, abounding with the most beautiful trees, shrubs, and flowers; the trees were loaded with the most luscious fruit, and the fields waved with the most luxuriant crops.” One of Dr. Toselli’s patients, during his attacks of epileptic vertigo, has visual illusions, which he has sufficient judgment to disregard. Though not habitually inclined to religious exercises while in this state, he has an irresistible impulse to recite a prayer, which arises from a religious sentiment. But the words and the devout action come before the religious sentiment, which then arises in the mind, and is revealed to consciousness. During the stage of religious delirium some epileptic patients receive orders from the Divinity—feel them- selves invaded by the genius of a prophet or reformer, and hear voices which impel them to acts of unheard-of ferocity. One of his epileptic patients was going to throw himself over a bridge, when the Virgin appeared to him, saying that he was not yet worthy to die. Another time, he was going to kill bis 46 THE STARTING POINT. own son, when a sudden inspiration and religious hallucination kept him back. We do not seek to explain the nature or success of Moham- med’s mission by his epilepsy. These lie in the character of the man and the circumstances of the times; but we think that the starting point of his hallucinations came through the nervous disorder which affected him, and of which the epileptiform fits were the visible proof. It was this which held before his eyes, and made to sound in his ears, the hallucinations which led him to believe that he had a message from God. Without this, no amount of religious fervour or abstract monotheism would have made him take such a view. The message once granted, each step becomes easy. We are inclined to believe that the fits were rather rare, as a frequent succession of them would be fatal to an active and difficult career ; yet Mohammed had to encounter much opposition, both before the flight to Medina and after it. He showed great activity in war; he led twelve military expeditions, underwent much exposure, and was many times in extreme danger. Setting aside his claims to Divine communications, there is no proof that he was in the least deranged. He evidently possessed an intellect of the highest order for managing and controlling affairs, and was skilful both in conducting war and treating with his adver- saries. It is common in works about insanity to repeat the statement that Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte were both epileptics. What we know about Cesar seems to rest on the authority of Suetonius,* who says that Czsar had good health, except that towards the end of his life he would suddenly swoon away and was frequently terrified in his sleep, and that he was twice seized with epilepsy while transacting business. Plutarch mentions a report that Cesar had a fit during the time the battle of Thapsus was fought, but this was one of his last battles. It is likely that these fits came on towards the close of his life, for a man subject to repeated attacks of epilepsy could never have run the great ¥ Valetudine prospera, nisi quod tempore extremo repente animo linqui atque etiam per somnium exterreri solebat. Comitiali quoque morbo bis inter res agendas correptus est.—SUETONIUS xii, Caesares, cap. 45. CHSAR AND NAPOLEON. 47 career that Cesar did, though it is possible that had the daggers of Brutus and Cassius not abruptly ended his life, the splendid intellect of Julius might have sunk into insanity, perhaps after a period of extravagance and furious tyranny like that of his successor Caligula, who was an epileptic lunatic. Napoleon was a man of very hardy constitution and great power of work, both of mind and body. Bourrienne in his Memoirs tell us— “Tt has been everywhere said that he was subject to epilepsy ; but during more than eleven years that I was constantly with him, I have never seen in him any symptoms in the least degree indicative of that malady.” It has been objected to this, that Bourrienne saw little of Napoleon after 1804, but the Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat and of the Prince Metternich continue our knowledge of Napoleon’s private life. They make no mention of epilepsy. The only authentic statement which might lead us to believe that Napoleon ever had an epileptic fit is in Talleyrand’s Memoirs. The description does not seem to me sufficiently clear to be decisive.* * The following is the whole passage :—“Je regus l’ordre de l’accompagner & Strasbourg pour étre prét a suivre son quartier général selon les circonstances (Septembre, 1805). Un accident de santé qu’eut l’empereur au début de cette campagne m’éffraya singuliérement. Le jour méme de son départ de Strashourg, j’avais diné avec lui, en sortant de table il était entré seul chez limpératrice Joséphine, au bout de quelques minutes il en sortit brusquement, j’étais dans le salon, il me prit par le bras et m’amena dans sa chambre. M. de Rémusat, premier chambellan, qui avait quelques ordres & lui demander, et qui craignait qu’il ne partit sans les lui donner, y entra en méme temps. A peine y étions-nous,.que l’empereur tomba par terre ; il n’eut que le temps de me dire de fermer la porte. Je lui arrachai sa cravate parce qu'il avait Vair d’étouffer, il ne vomissait point, il gemissait et bavait. M. de Rémusat lui donnait de l’eau, je Vinondais d’eau de Cologne. J] avait des espéces de convulsions qui cessérent au bout d’un quart @heure, nous le mimes sur un fauteuil; il commenca & parler, se réhabilla, nous recommanda le secret, et une demi-heure apres il était sur le chemin de Carlsruhe. En arrivant 4 Stuttgard, il m’écrivit pour me donner de ses nouvelles, sa lettre finissait par ces mots, ‘Je me porte bien.’ ”— Mémoires du Prince de Talleyrand,” Paris, 1891, p. 295. 48 THE STARTING POINT. It should be here noted that Napoleon spoke after falling down, and drank some water, which are not consistent with an epileptic fit. Weighing all the testimony that remains to us together, it seems likely that Mohammed, at the commencement of his mission, was subject to hallucinations of bearing and sight, which, taking the tone of his deeply religious feelings, and his dislike to the idolatry and polytheism of the people of Mecca, were interpreted by him as messages from God. In this belief he was prompted and encouraged by his wife, Kadija, and some of his relations, and was thus induced to commence his remarkable course of apostleship. How far these hallucinations accompanied the remaining twenty-one years of his life it would be difficult to say. There are some reasons to believe that they became less frequent after the flight to Medina; but it is evident that after his claim to Divine inspiration was fairly settled by himself and admitted by others, he would be disposed to regard his dreams and omens, and the impulses of his own thoughts and feelings, as so many signs from Allah, whose messenger he believed himself to be, Behind all these delusions, there was a keen and powerful intellect, well acquainted with the passions and motives which most act upon men, and gifted with a wonderful power of forcible speech ; and if Mohammed is to be called insane, his insanity was of a very rare type. It is one thing to account for a succession of hallucinations, occurring without order or purpose in a man whose conduct shows his brain to be deranged, and quite another to account for a series of visions or hallucinations, each going to support a revelation of a systematic character. The hallucinations of Mohammed took a definite shape and sequence, adapting themselves to difficulties, opposition, and criticism, in the end working out a religion which, from its rapid extension and durability, must have been well adapted to the races who have made it their own. It seemed as if there were some one behind, directing the hallucinations or delusions of Mohammed, or arranging them so that they should produce a given effect. Sir William Muir suggests that the prophet yielded to the THE SUGGESTIONS OF THE DEVIL. 49 suggestions of the devil. Sprenger, who laughs at his fellow- biographer, remarking that, if people still believe in a personal devil, there is no reason why they should not give him something to do—nevertheless is evidently much at a, loss for a personage of this kind to help out his theory ; for though he affirms that Mohammed was subject to hallucinations and what he calls hysterical attacks, he abandons the theory again and again to accuse the prophet of deceit and trickery, and pious and political frauds. It is admitted that a man can habitually have halluci- nations without being insane. It is often said that, if the man recognise the hallucination to be something unreal, he may be sane ; on the other hand, if he believe and act upon the hal- lucination, that he is insane. Much, however, must depend upon what a man’s preconceived opinions are. One brought up from his childhood to believe in ghosts will take any figure he sees in the dark for a spectre, if it appear at an hour or in a situation when and where no man could be expected to be. In the same way a man who believes that angels are in the habit of appearing to men would not take up the idea that a similar apparition to himself was a mere hallucination. Mohammed had heard of many apparitions of angels to the old Hebrew prophets, he believed in djins, and bad and good spirits; his mind had outgrown the polytheism and idolatry of Mecca; he was deeply religious, and felt himself in possession of truths which raised him above the stupid idolatry of his fellow-citizens. He knew nothing about the physiology of the brain, but he believed that a man could be deceived by bad spirits, and, doubtful whether this might not be his own hap, he took the opinion of those whom he loved and trusted most. Viewed in this way, I cannot call him insane. In ancient times, and amongst half-civilised nations, things were done in the name of religion which none but men of the weakest mental structure would now do; but the rule we would apply to the one time will not hold good for the other. If to claim to be an inspired prophet be a sufficient proof of insanity, then of course Mohammed was insane ; but if this be not assumed, on what grounds can such an imputation be made good against the son of Abdallah? If we had an E 50 WAS MOHAMMED INSANE ? account of him written by Abu Sophian, or some of his other opponents, no doubt the unfavourable points of his character would be brought out; but, as far as the accounts of his friends go, he appears to have possessed a great deal of savoir faire. His manner of speaking and acting impressed even his enemies very favourably. The Koran is his undoubted work, and though it seems to me, through a translation, an irregular and often tiresome production, it certainly affords no proof of insanity. A claim is persistently put forward by the Mussul- man, originally stated by Mohammed himself, that the composition of the Koran bears in itself the impress of Divine wisdom. Truly, if the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced without Divine inspiration, Mohammed had need of no such help in composing the Koran ! Looking only at broad results, one may say that Islarh is the only religion which has ever succeeded in displacing any form of Christianity. Interposing between the Christianity of the West, and the Hinduism, Buddhism, and rude Paganisms of the East, from which it drew many converts, Mohammedan- ism has everywhere formed a barrier against the spread of the Gospel. On the other hand, Christianity has never succeeded in making any considerable number of converts from Moham- medanism, even by the direst persecution. Lands overspread by the Mussulman have again become Christian, not by any preaching or conversion, but simply by pushing back or expelling the Mohammedan population. The Saracens were chased from Sicily ; the Moriscoes were banished from Spain ; and the Turks driven away from Greece and Roumania. Even at the present time the missionary power of Islam is shown by millions of new converts among the black races of Africa. There is nothing in the organisation of Mohammedanism to account for this. It has not even a separate priesthood. It must therefore contain something more attractive to the Oriental mind than other forms of faith, not necessarily more of truth, but something more prepossessing to human nature as it was, or is, in these countries. The stern simplicity of Mohammed’s creed helped to enforce acceptance,—one personal God without any obscuring distinction of His manifold nature, or any pantheistic confusion between the creating and the THE STRENGTH OF ISLAM. 51 human mind or the forces of nature. The Athanasian creed has ever been a stumbling block in the way of missionary Christianity, as it was to the first barbarian converts, the Goths and Vandals, who showed a preference to the heresy of Arius. It is not a sufficient explanation of the success of Moham- med’s mission that it was spread by the sword. Christianity spread through the Roman world, and grew strong under persecutions much crueller than were ever dreamed of by the Caliphs. It cannot be denied, however, that the early victories of the followers of the prophet bore an important part in gaining proselytes. To most men there is something Divine in success) Mohammed awoke the old hereditary martial instincts of the paganism of antiquity, which had been much weakened by Christianity. From an early time in the Christian Church the love of women had been proscribed as something inconsistent with the highest virtue, a species of stain, if not of defilement to the saintly ideal. At the commencement of the Hejira, Syria and Egypt were full of monks and nuns and hermits who exalted an incomplete life as the highest fulfilment of duty, and assumed a superiority over those who handed down the lamp of life to other gener- ations. Against such asceticism Islam came with the full force of a reaction in favour of nature. Instead of regarding as a weakness or a sin the enjoyment of the highest pleasure most men could know, Mohammed promised a continuation of it in Paradise to the faithful. The forbidding of wine, owing perhaps to the delicate nervous organisation of the prophet, made Mohammedanism a safer doctrine to preach to uncivilised tribes. Then his threats of judgment and hell were terrific. Though the historical evidences of the truth of the Koran are of the weakest, sceptics have always been rare amongst educated Mussulmans. To searchers for truth, it is difficult to understand why God lets error prevail, but in all widespread traditional error there seems a mixture of living truth. The strangest thing is, how much the falsehood helped the truth, for had Mohammed been without delusions, and simply reasoned on virtue and the unity of God, he would never have seen a single idol broken in the Kaaba. Having myself lived for years amongst Mohammedans, J know that their creed is 52 LUTHER ON PHYSICIANS. not inconsistent with a good and unselfish life. As General Gordon says, “I like the Mussulman ; he is not ashamed of his God ; his life is a fairly pure one.” It is possible a careful study of the lives of other religious pretenders might help us to some useful generalisations ; but such an undertaking would be very difficult, for the origin of old religions is generally lost in an uncritical antiquity, and the presence of philosophical observers will ever be a hind- rance to the appearance of new ones. If Luther did not profess to found a new religion, he was at least the leader of a great religious movement. As is well known, he was subject to delusions about the devil; nor is this very difficult to explain. Though gifted with extraordinary penetration of mind, a learned scholar, and a keen critic upon books, he had in common things all the superstition of a Saxon peasant. Of anything like physical science he was entirely ignorant, and his observations of the external world were merely used to give illustration to his preachings and controversies. One of the commonest sources of errors in speculation is for men to attribute things they are un- acquainted with to causes of which they know something, or think they know something. Luther’s attention was entirely directed to the operations of the mind, the aspirations and struggles of the soul, and the political changes of the time; hence he gave psychical explanations of physical events. One day, when there was a great storm abroad, Luther said, “’Tis the devil who does this; the winds are nothing else but good or bad spirits. Hark ! how the devil is puffing and blowing.”* Then again, “Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom devils have established themselves; and all the phy- sicians who heal those infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads, who know nothing about the power of the demon.” It is well known that he wished a Cretin to be thrown into the Moldau on the theory that the Cretin was a fabrication of the devil. * These quotations are all taken from Michelet’s “ Life of Luther,” trans- lated by William Hazlitt. London, 1856. See pp. 321, 338, 339, 208, 480, 102, 318. IRRITABILITY OF THE BRAIN, 53 The credulity of this great man on everything connected with the devil is very strange to men of this time. One-tenth of the critical power which was lavished upon the theses of Wittemberg, or the claims of the Apocalypse, or the Epistle of St. Jude to rank as canonical books, would have made him distrust the silly stories about the devil which are so prominent in his Table-talk. But he was a man of very powerful imagination, and subject to neurotic affections, which, as usual, he put down to diabolical agency. On his pilgrimage to Rome (1510) when he was no older than twenty- seven, he was troubled with giddiness and sounds in the ears,* “This toothache and earache I am always suffering from (says he) are worse than the plague. When I was at Coburg, in 1530, I was tormented with a noise and buzzing in my ear, just as though there was some wind tearing through my head, The devil had something to do with it. “A man was complaining to him one day of the itch ; said Luther, ‘I should be very glad to change with you, and to give you ten florins into the bargain. You don’t know what a horrid thing this vertigo of mine is. Here, all to-day, I have not been able to read a letter through, nor even two or three lines of the Psalms consecutively. I have not got beyond more than three or four words, when buzz, buzz, the noise begins again, and often I am very near falling off my chair with the pain. But the itch, that’s nothing ; nay, it is rather a beneficial complaint.’ ” In 1530 he writes :— “When I try to work, my head becomes filled with all sorts of whizzing, buzzing, thundering noises, and if I did not leave off on the instant I should faint away. For the last three days I have not been able even to look at a letter. My head has lessened down to a very short chapter ; soon it will be only a paragraph, then only a syllable, then nothing at all. The day your letter came from Nuremberg I had another visit from the devil. I was alone, Vitus and Cyriacus having gone out, and this time the Evil One got the better of me, drove me out of my bed, and compelled me to seek the face of man.” This is a very good description of what has been sometimes * Die nervésen Beschwerden des Dr. Martin Luther, von Dr. Berkhan. Archiv. fiir Psychiatrie, Berlin, 1881, p. 799. 54 LUTHER'S HALLUCINATIONS. called irritability of the brain. The incapacity for mental exertion is frequently accompanied with hyperzsthesia. In his last illness he writes :— “T take it that my malady is made up—first of the ordinary weak- ness of advanced age; secondly, of the results of my long labours and habitual tension of thought ; thirdly, above all, of the blows of Satan. If this be so, there is no medicine in the world will cure me.” It seems to me an error to say that he wished it to be under- stood that the devil appeared to him and disputed with him about the mass. The truth is, he was accustomed to refer all the evil thoughts that came into his head to the suggestions of the devil, and it is in this sense that he writes: ‘‘I awoke suddenly at midnight on one occasion, when Satan began to dispute with me in the following terms” (here followed a long argument about the mass). During his strict retirement in Wartburg Castle his mind was in a very excited state. I believe that there is no con- temporary authority for the story of his throwing the inkstand at the devil, though, as is well known, the mark is still shown on the wall of the chamber he occupied, but the following is an instance of a hallucination of sight, if not also of hearing :— “When, in 1521, on my quitting Worms, I was taken prisoner near Eisenach, and conducted to my Patmos, the Castle of Wartburg, I dwelt far apart from the world in my chamber, and no one could come to me but two youths, sons of noblemen, who waited on me with my meals twice a-day. Among other things, they had brought me a bag of nuts, which I had put in a chest'in my sitting-room. One evening, after I had retired to my chamber, which adjoined the sitting- room, had put out the lights and got into bed, it seemed to me all at once that the nuts had put themselves in motion, and jumping about in the sack, and knocking violently against each other, came to the side of my bed to make noises at me. However, this did not alarm me, and I went to sleep. By-and-by I was wakened up by a great noise on the stairs, which sounded as though somebody was tumbling down them a hundred barrels one after another. Yet I knew very well the door atthe bottom of the stairs was fastened with chains, and that the door itself was of iron, so that no one could enter. I rose immediately to see what it was, exclaiming, ‘Isit thou? Well, ONLY THE DEVIL. 55 be it so!’ and I recommended myself to our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it is written, ‘Thou hast put all things under His feet’ (Psalm viii.), and I returned to bed. The wife of John Berblibs came to Eisenach. She suspected where I was, and insisted upon seeing me, but the thing was impossible. To satisfy her, they removed me to another part of the castle, and allowed her to sleep in the apartment I had occupied. In the night she heard such an uproar that she thought there were a thousand devils in the place.” It would appear that any noise he could not account for was attributed to Satan, who was perpetually haunting him. “Once in our monastery at Wittemberg (said he) I distinctly heard the devil making a noise. I was beginning to read the Psalms, after having celebrated matins, when, interrupting my studies, the devil came into my cell, and thrice made a noise behind the stove, just as though he were dragging some wooden measure across the floor. As I found he was going to begin again, I gathered together my books and got into bed. . . . Another time in the night I heard him above my cell, walking in the cloister; but as I knew it was the devil, I paid no attention to him, and went to sleep.” Utterly worn out by his ceaseless labours of controversy, preaching, writing, and organising his Church, Luther died at the age of sixty-three. There is no proof that the delusions or hallucinations to which the German reformer was subject did in any way alter or modify his religious views. It is, however, easy to imagine circumstances under which they might have done so, and led Luther to become the founder of a new religion. PAPER ITI. ON THE CHARACTER AND HALLUCINATIONS OF JOAN OF ARC. S we learn more of the influence of external circumstances and physical conditions on human belief and conduct, the records of the past are read in a new light. As science shows us the relation of events previously unknown, we see more surely how things really occurred. What was perplexing becomes clear; embellishments and additions fall off; and we are confirmed in the belief that the past was governed by the same laws as the present. Thus the knowledge of nervous diseases, and the experience gained by the study of hallucina- tions, illusions, and the errors and deceptions of the human mind, may explain some of the difficult problems of history. In considering the claims of Joan of Are to have been inspired by heaven, from a psychological aspect it seems to me necessary to recall as much of her history as will illustrate the nature of these claims, and their effect upon a credulous age. Even the bare narration of many of the leading events of her life, so strangely mixed up with the superstitions of the times, will show the complete change which has taken place in our views of the supernatural. Events like these can never again occur in Europe, for the conditions under which they occurred will never return. The part played by this memorable heroine is unique in history. The infant son of Henry V. of England and of the French Princess Catherine had been proclaimed King of France, and at this time it was thought likely that he would really inherit the throne of his grandfather, though, as events proved, he only inherited his insanity. The English, in alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, had made the claims of their young prince to be 56 A PROPHECY. 57 acknowledged by well-nigh all France north of the Loire. They had been besieging Orleans for seven months. The Dauphin, son of Charles VI., was living in the castle of Chinon, with a scanty and precarious revenue, deserted by most of the great nobility. An attempt to effect a diversion in favour of the beleaguered town had ended in a severe defeat. It seemed left to its fate, and it was generally thought that it would fall in the end. The armies of England and Burgundy would then be free to cross the Loire, and drive the Dauphin from the southern provinces, which still acknowledged his right. We read in the chronicles of the times that the prince himself meditated leaving France in the hands of his enemies, and seeking refuge in Spain or Scotland. When no one expected it, the tide of affairs, which seemed driving his cause to ruin, was turned to his triumph, and the most successful soldiers in Europe were put to flight by a peasant girl of eighteen years of age. Town after town was recovered to his rule, and Charles VII. was triumphantly crowned in the sacred seat of his ancestors, which a few months before seemed hopelessly in the power of his enemies. The means by which this marvellous revolution was accom- plished were simple enough,—an appeal to passions and beliefs universally existing in a credulous age. For thirteen years France had been laid waste by the ferocity of the English invaders, and the fury of civil war. One disaster had followed another; the minds of the people were deeply stirred. There was a prophecy diffused among them that France, after being laid desolate by a woman, should be restored by a virgin. The woman was Isabella of Bavaria, the Queen-mother, who had taken the side of the English; and it appears that the virgin was for some time thought to be Margaret, the infant daughter of James the First of Scotland,* who had been * See the “ Life and Death of King James the First of Scotland ” (printed for the Maitland Club), 1837, pp. 6 and 7. See also vol. iii., p. 340 of “*Procés de Condamnation et de Réhabilitation de Jeanne d’Are dite la Pucelle, publiés pour la premiére fois d’aprés les Manuscrits de la Biblio- théque Royale suivis de tous les documents historiques qu’on a pu réunir, et accompagnés de notes et d’éclaircissements, par Jules Quicherat. Paris, 1841.” This work, in five volumes, published by the Historical Society of 58 HER BIRTH AND BREEDING. betrothed to the Dauphin’s son, an event which had perhaps excited the hope of a new contingent of those Scottish warriors who had kindled a gleam of hope through France by the victory of Beaugé, where the brother of the English king had been slain. The prophecy was actually quoted by Joan of Arc herself, when she was trying to persuade Robert of Baudricourt to send her to the Dauphin, and no doubt it had a great effect in converting the inhabitants of Vaucouleurs to assist the wonderful peasant girl on her strange mission. Joan was born at Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine. Her father and mother were labouring people. All her early associates belonged to the peasant class. She had three brothers, and at least one sister, who grew up. Her parents bore a good character ; but Joan, though apparently instructed in religion, could neither read nor write. At an early age she was sent to keep sheep, and, as she became stronger, went to work in the fields with the plough and graipe. Those who remembered her said that she was skilful at sewing, was kind to the poor, simple and modest, and very devout at religious exercises. The people of Domremy took the side of the French ; the neighbouring village of Marcey held for the Burgundians. The boys of the two hostile villages often used to fight, and come back hurt and bleeding. The inhabitants of Domremy had to leave their village for four days for fear of their lives. Amidst the excitement of these painful events Joan grew up to womanhood. According to her own statement, given in the notes of her trial, she first heard a supernatural voice when she was thirteen years old. When she heard the voice she was much afraid. It was about mid-day, in her father’s garden. She had fasted the ‘France, is so complete that it will be needless to cite any other books on the subject. The notes supply all the information needed to elucidate the text, and there is an excellent index. M. Quicherat has also published in the Revue Historique, 1lme Année, Tome quatrieme, p. 327, the text of a manuscript found in the library of Rochelle, which contains an account of the Pucelle, by a contemporary. In the standard histories of England there are many incorrect and careless statements about Joan of Arc. Of all accounts which I have read, the narrative of Michelet is the most correct. A VOICE AND A LIGHT. 59 day before. The voice appeared to come from the right side, towards the church. She seldom heard a voice without seeing a light, generally a bright one. The light came from the same side as the voice. When she was in a grove she could hear voices approaching her. She was fond of hearing bells, and the voices of saints and angels mingled with their chimes. As most of the process is given in Latin, we rarely know what were the original words which Joan fancied to be sounded in her ears. In one place it is said that she often heard: “Fille Dé, va, va, va; je serai 4 ton ayde; va”—“ Daughter of God, go, go, go; I will aid you; go.” This might readily be suggested by the sound of the bells, as in the old story of “ Turn again, Whittington, thrice mayor of London,” or in the words of a royal poet her contemporary :— “ Suich a fanatasye Fell me to mynd, yt ay me thot the bell Said to me, Tell on man, quhat the befell.” * It would seem most probable that the first sounds heard by Joan were short sentences like these ; but we learn from her own recollections that it was revealed to her in the first vision that she was to go to the rescue of France. In a letter of Perceval de Boulainvilliers to Philip Visconti, Duke of Milan, dated 21st June, 1829, there is an account of Joan, which was probably taken from original observation— for Boulainvilliers held a high office at the court of the Dauphin. He writes that the first revelation made was when Joan was twelve years of age. She agreed to try a race with some of her companions. She ran with such swiftness that one of the girls cried, “Joan, I see you flying over the .ground.” She stopped to take breath at the end of the meadow. She thought she heard a boy’s voice saying, “Joan, go home, for your mother needs you to help her.” Thinking it must be her brother, or some other boy, she hastened home. Her mother asked her why she had left her sheep, to which * “The King’s Quair.”. A Poem: By James the First, King of Scots. Canto i., xi. 60 THE ANGEL MICHAEL. the girl answered, “ Did you not send for me?” Her mother said. “No.” Then, believing herself mistaken about the boy, and wishing to return to her companions, suddenly before her eyes a bright cloud or haze appeared, and from the cloud a voice came, saying: “Joan, you must lead another life, and do wonderful actions, for it is you whom the King of Heaven has chosen for the succour of France, and the help and pro- tection of King Charles expelled from his dominions. You will put on male attire, and, taking arms, will be the leader of war. All things will be ruled by your counsel.” It seems likely enough that these two accounts reproduced different circumstances of the same story, for Joan may have thought that the first voice, calling her to her mother, was not worth mentioning ; or it may have been suppressed in the truncated notes of her trial. These visions returned again. The angel Michael brought with him St. Catherine and St. Margaret, who often visited her. She knew their voices which were gentle and sweet, said that she had embraced and kissed them, and felt that they had a good odour. They exhorted her to lead a pure life, and to go to mass, and she made a vow of virginity to them. At her trial a great many questions were put to her about the appearance of these angels and saints, whether the angel wore a crown? and whether he had hair beneath it? and whether the hair was long or short? or whether the saints had rings in their ears, or wore dresses of the same cloth? When it came to such particulars Joan refused to answer, sometimes saying she was forbidden to answer, perhaps because the visions had a vague form, or that she feared some snare under their captious questioning. A few months before Joan’s trial a woman in Paris had been burned because she said that the maid was doing the will of God, and that she herself had seen God, and that He wore clothes, which was treated as blasphemy. Joan, however, firmly maintained the reality of the apparitions. She said that Michael had the form of a proper man. ‘I saw them,” she said to her judge, “with my own eyes, as plainly as I see you; and when they retired from me I wept, and much I wished that they would take me up with them.” She kissed the ground over which THE JOURNEY TO CHINON. 61 they had passed. Joan told no one of these visions, not even her confessor ; but apparently her parents had their surmises or fears, for about two years after her first vision, when she was about fifteen, her mother told her that her father had dreamed that their daughter would go away with armed men to France. He told her brothers that he would rather she were drowned than that this should happen to her. She said that her father and mother watched her, and kept her in great subjection, and that they almost lost their senses when she went to Vaucouleurs. She said she never disobeyed them save in the case of the young man who wanted to marry her. He summoned her to the court at Toul; saying she had pro- mised to marry him, which she denied on oath. The voices told her that she would gain her process. Apparently this young man had seen Joan at Neufchateau, where she had gone for fifteen days to live with a woman who kept an inn. Her enemies made a good deal of this residence at the inn, saying that she used to take horses to water, and thus learned to ride. It is not very clear how she learned to be so expert at riding, as it seems she was, when she appeared before the Dauphin at Chinon. As time wore on the tumult of war came nearer and nearer, and the prolonged siege of Orleans, kept the whole of France in a state of excitement. The voices told her twice or thrice a-week to go to Robert of Baudricourt, the commandant at Vaucouleurs, and that he would help her. She went to live with her uncle, who took her to Robert of Baudricourt. At first he was amused at her simplicity, and incredulous of her visions ; but the voices encouraged her, and she gained some converts among the people of Vaucouleurs, so that when he received her favourably, after twice sending her away, the people brought her a horse, and got male attire made for her. Joan had an interview with the Duke of Lorraine, and Robert of Baudricourt sent her with six men with a letter to the Dauphin at Chinon. It was a long and dangerous journey through a country infested by the enemy. She arrived at Chinon on the 6th March, 1429. We can understand the feeling of the Dauphin on receiving this strange message, Here was a peasant girl of eighteen years of age, 62 BEFORE THE DOCTORS. dressed like a man* proclaiming that she had a revelation from on high to go and relieve Orleans and deliver France. Mere acquiescence would not do; she must have an army and convoy with her. She is said to have singled out the Dauphin amongst his courtiers, although some one else was deputed to play the king. At her trial Joan stated that she was enabled to do this by a voice which revealed the prince to her. Joan is described as being tall and comely, with dark hair, having a graceful and modest demeanour, and a sweet voice, generally speaking little, of a cheerful countenance, but readily moved to tears. She showed great power of enduring fatigue, and from the beginning seemed skilful at riding and in the use of weapons. She was repeatedly examined during three weeks by different dignitaries of the Church and doctors of theology, first at Chinon and then at Poictiers. The examination at Poictiers lasted three weeks, and was committed to writing. Unfortunately it could not be found when the information for her rehabilitation was taken. In the resumé which still remains to us, it is stated that the king had made inquiry about the life, birth, manners, and designs of the said maid, and had kept her near him for about six weeks, so that all people might observe her, whether learned men, ecclesiastics, religious people, soldiers, wives, widows, or others. Both in public and in private she has conversed with all people; but in her they find no evil, nothing but goodness, humility, virginity, devo- tion, honest simplicity; and of her birth and her life some marvellous things are told. The king asked her for a sign, as Ahaz did of God ; but she said that she would show it before ‘Orleans, and in no other place, for so God had ordered. They ought therefore to let her go to Orleans with her soldiers, hoping in God, for to doubt or to abandon her without appear- ance of evil would be to offend against the Holy Ghost, and * Joan is described in the Rochelle Manuscript as wearing a black doub- let, hose and a short skirt of dark grey cloth, Her black hair was cut short and she had a black hat on her head. Jehanne estoit en habit Vhomme: cest assavoir quelle avoit pourpoint noir, chausses estachées, robbe courte de gros gris noir, cheveux ronds et noirs, et un chappeau noir sur la teste ; et avoit en sa compagnie quatre escuiers qui la conduisoyent. HER ENTRY INTO ORLEANS. 63 make themselves unworthy of the aid of God, as Gamaliel said in his counsel to the Jews concerning the apostles. From Chinon she sent a letter asking the priests to seek for a sword which was under the ground near the altar of St. Catherine of Fierbois. An armourer of Tours was sent on this errand, and a rusty sword was found near the place indi- cated. On the sword being cleaned, the priests said that the rust fell off with a readiness which they were willing to regard as supernatural. The sword was used by the maid till the siege of Paris, when she broke the blade on the back of a courtesan who was following her men-at-arms. One of the chroniclers says that Joan had never been at the Chapel of Fierbois; but she herself stated in her trial that she had passed through this place, and had heard mass at the chapel, when it is likely that she had learned or guessed that some arms were under the pavement, as it was common to bury armour and swords with the dead. The weapon had five crosses engraven on the blade, and Joan claimed that her voices had revealed this to her.* Most historians mention this fact without any comment, and indeed it is difficult to give any reasonable explanation of it. The convoy entered Orleans without the English daring to oppose her. The surprising events that followed are related in every history of France. . The following passage from the “Journal of the Siege of Orleans,” written by an eye-witness, describes her first appear- ance in the beleagured city :— “She entered in complete armour, mounted on a white horse. There was carried before her a standard which was also white, and on it was painted the image of Our Lady having two angels holding each a lily in their hand. Thus she entered into the town, having on her left side the Bastard of Orleans armed and mounted very richly, and after her came several other noble and gallant gentlemen, * Respondit quod erat in terra, rubiginosus, habens quinque cruces ; et hoe scivit per voces suas, Tome i. 235. See also iv. 129. In the Rochelle manuscript it is said that the sword was found in a trunk which had not been opened for twenty years. This trunk was within the altar itself, Revue Historique, p. 338. 64 THE FIRST AND THE READIEST. esquires, captains, and men of war. On their side came to receive her the soldiers, citizens, and women of Orleans, carrying a great number of torches, and making as much joy as if they saw God descending amongst them, and not without cause, for they had endured much weariness and, what is worse, a great doubt of being relieved, and a fear of losing their lives and goods; but they felt indeed comforted, and as if the siege were already raised by the Divine virtue that was said to be in the simple maid, whom they looked at very affectionately, both men and women, and little child- ren. There was such a press round about her in order to touch her, or the horse on which she sat, that some one bearing a torch came so near her standard that the cloth caught fire, so she spurred her horse and turned it as dexterously to the flag and put out the fire as if she had long followed the wars, which the men-at-arms much wondered at, and the citizens of Orleans too. They accompanied her through the town cheering lustily, and conducted her with great honour to the house of Jacques Boucher, who was treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, where she was received with great joy, with her two brothers, and the two gentlemen and their page, who had come with them.” Three of the English bastiles or forts were carried by assault, and their army was in full retreat in ten days after the holy maid appeared with her awe-inspiring standard. The French believed her to be a prophetess; the English feared her as a witch. Knights and warriors gathered to fight under her banner, and this girl of eighteen sat at councils of war, and quoted her miraculous voices against the opinions of Dunois, Alencon, and La Hire. When we remember that she was only an ignorant peasant girl, it is astonishing how well she played her part. Before the court at Chinon, before the doctors of theology at Poictiers, with the armed convoy at Orleans, and in the battles and sieges which followed, Joan had ever sustained and increased her reputation, To use the words of an old chronicler,* “She rode always in complete armour, as much or more than any captain of the time, and when one spoke of war, or putting troops in order, she made it to be heard and seen that she knew what she was about, and * Tome iv., p. 248. HER THREE ADVISERS. 65 when the cry of arms was sounded she was the first and readiest, whether on foot or on horseback.” In the proces de réhabilitation we have the testimony of the renowned generals under whom the English were driven out of France, taken about twenty-five years after the death of the heroine. The Duke of Alengon, who bore her a warm friendship, said ‘that in war she acted as cautiously and prudently as if she had been a captain who had borne arms for twenty or thirty years, and that she was. especially skilful in the preparation of artillery. Similar testimony was given by Count Dunois, who stated his belief in her Divine mission. Some very curious testimony was given by Jean d’Aulon, a valiant and worthy gentleman of Languedoc, who was commissioned ‘by the king to attend on Joan, and who followed her everywhere, guarded her in battle, and was taken prisoner along with her. After bearing witness to the purity of her life, and recording his belief that it was impossible that so young a girl could do such deeds without the will and help of our Lord, he said that Joan had told him that when she had on hand some difficult undertaking, her council told her what she ought to do. D’Aulon asked her who were her council? She answered that there were three advisers, of whom one always remained with her; the other went and came often to her, and visited her; and the third was the one with whom the two others deliberated. It happened that once upon a time D’Aulon begged of her that she would show him her council. She answered that he was not worthy nor virtuous enough to behold them, upon which he ceased to speak or inquire about it. From the words used these councillors seemed to be of the male sex. At the attack on St. Pierre-le-Moustier the French were driven back, and D’Aulon was wounded on the heel; but, observing that the maid was almost left alone, he got on a horse and rode towards her, asking her what she was doing there alone, and why she did not retire like the others? Joan, after having taken her helmet from her head, answered that she was not alone, that she had still in her company fifty thousand of her people, and that she would not go away until she had taken the town. D’Aulon was sure that at that time, whatever she said, she F 66 WHAT SHE SAID TO DUNOIS. had not with her any more than four or five men. This he knew for certain, as well as several others who likewise saw her. She, however, refused to go away, and got the soldiers to lay a bridge over the ditches, and storm the town at this very place. D’Aulon quoted a speech of hers to the celebrated Dunois: « Bastard! bastard! in the name of God, I command you that whenever you know of the coming of Falstaff you will let me know; for if he passes without me knowing, I promise you that I will make your head be taken off” There was nothing in the usage of these times offensive in the title of bastard for one who claimed descent from a prince of the blood; but for a peasant girl to use such language to a man of rank, apparently without giving offence, showed what a high tone the maid assumed as a messenger from heaven. D’Aulon goes on to tell that, after retiring to sleep, the maid started up, saying that, she had been warned by her council to go against the English, but that she did not know whether to go against the bastiles or against Falstaff, who came to victual them. She made him put on her armour, and rode out to the gate of Orleans. On her way she met a soldier coming in badly wounded, when she said that she never saw the blood of a Frenchman without her hair standing on end. A short time after the bastile of St. Loup was carried by assault. Despite the coarse abuse of the English, her virginity was beyond dispute; but menstruation seems never to have occurred.* Schiller, in his beautiful drama, “ Die Jungfrau * Dominus Johannes Massieu Curatus ecclesiz parochialis Sancti Candidi Senioris Rothomagensis dicit et deponit, quod bene scit quod fuit visitata, an esset virgo vel non, per matronas seu obstetrices, et hoc ex ordinatione ducisse Bedfordie, et signanter per Annam Bavon et aliam matronam de cujus nomine non recordatur. Et post visitationem, retu- lerunt quod erat virgo et integra, et eo audivit referri per eamdem Annam ; et propter hoc, ipsa ducissa Bedfordiz fecit inhiberi custodibus et aliis ne aliquam violentiam sibi afferrent.—Tome iii., p. 155. Several other wit- nesses testified to the same effect. See also iii. 102, and iii. 102 and 209. D’Aulon dit encores plus qwil a oy dire & plusiers femmes, qui ladicte Pucelle ont veue par plusieurs foiz nue, et sceu de ses secretz, que oncques nvavoit eu la secrecte maladie des femmes et que jamais nul n’en peut riens cognoistre ou appercevoir par ses habillemens, ne aultrement.—Tome iii, p. 219. HER SENSITIVE TEMPERAMENT. 67 von Orleans,” makes Dunois and La Hire rivals to gain the love of the warlike maid, and there is a striking scene where the amazon shows a tenderness for a vanquished foe, the English leader, Lionel. In the Procts de Réhabilitation, Dunois, Alencgon, and D’Aulon declared that her conduct repressed every irregular desire, and that they never felt any passion for her. As she was not without personal attractions, they were willing to recognise in this something of the super- natural. Many instances might be given of the highly-sensitive tem- perament of the heroine. John Pasquerel, an Augustine monk, who had acted as her confessor, said that when she was wounded by an arrow above the breast at Orleans, she was afraid, and wept. When Glansdale, the English captain, who had coarsely abused her from the bastile, fell into the Loire trying to escape, and was drowned, she began to weep for his soul. When she saw the English soldiers lying wounded, she had great compassion, and would get them a confessor. She herself often heard mass, and went to confession; and tried to get the soldiers to do the same. She tried to discourage gambling, would not suffer profane language, and had the credit of getting La Hire to give up swearing. She had such a horror of plundering that, when a Scotsman told her she had eaten of a calf obtained in this way, she was very angry, and wished to strike the said Scot. Joan had a truly feminine dislike to the girls who followed the camp. Her enemies accused her of being too proud, and fond of fine armour and trappings.* Save in matters pertain- ing to war, she was simple and credulous; but no one, whether friend or foe, seems to have thought her insane. Joan’s glory reached its highest point when she led the * Jean Rogier, in his Memoirs, quotes a letter of the Chancellor of France, who was an archbishop, about the taking of Joan of Arc. He says: “Que Dieu avait souffert prendre Jehanne la Pucelle pour ce quel s’estoit constitué en orgueil, et pour les riches habitz qu’el avoit pris.”—Tome v., p. 169. M. Quicherat quotes from an old chronicle, written evidently by one who favoured the Burgundian party and disliked Joan, that “ Quant aucun de ses gens mesprenoit, elle frappoit, dessus de son baston grans coups, en maniére de femme trés cruelle.”—Tome iv., p. 469. 68 SHE IS TAKEN PRISONER. Dauphin to be crowned at Rheims. Up to this time every thing had gone on as she desired, and as she had predicted. The caution of experienced generals had again and again been overruled by her impetuous call for action. One blow after another had been struck, and every blow told, Fortifications, apparently too strong for the force brought against them, had been stormed; seven cities had been taken; and at Patay an English army had been scattered and slaughtered like a herd of deer. The newly-crowned king was urged unwillingly to St. Dennis, and an assault made upon Paris from noon to sunset. The martial maid was wounded by an arrow from the wall, and carried against her will out of the ditch. She wished the assault to be renewed next day, which the Duke of Alengon and others enthusiastically attached to her, were anxious should be done, but the king seemed to have lost courage, and left. Joan and the rest were compelled to follow. She had given out that her voices had revealed that she would lead the king in triumph into Paris; and this was a check which could not fail to raise misgivings in the minds of her admirers, and to strengthen the doubts of those not fully convinced of her heavenly inspiration. From this date, 13th September, 1429, Joan ceased to have the forces of France at her disposal, and was obliged, with Alencon and a few brave knights of France and Scotland, to engage in smaller enterprises. Three or four places were taken from the enemy, but she was obliged to raise the siege of La Charité, because as we are told, the king did not arrange to send her provisions or money to maintain her company. Envy and jealousy play a large part in human affairs. The simple peasant girl who had done so much for France was adored by the people, who crowded around her to kiss her garments, and soldiers were willing to fight under her banner without pay; but some of the councillors of the French king did not seem even to have the sense to perceive the wonderful power she had set in motion, and disliked her because they thought they were entitled to some of the praise which was lavished upon the holy maid. On the 21st May she threw herself into Compiégne, which was besieged by the Burgun- dians, and in a sally was surrounded, pulled off her horse, and SOLD TO THE ENGLISH. 69 taken prisoner by some soldiers of John of Luxembourg. She was seen by the Duke of Burgundy, and then sent to Beaulieu, where she remained above two months, when she was re- moved to the Castle of Beaurevoir. During the six months she was in the hands of the Burgundians she was very strictly confined, and kept in irons for fear she would escape. The ladies who visited the prisoner teased her to wear petticoats, to which she had clearly a strong dislike; and one at least of the gentlemen who saw her acknowledged using indecent liberties with the maiden. It does not seem that Charles made any attempt to ransom or rescue her, though he must have known her extreme danger, for the English had proclaimed that they would burn her if they took her, and they had even threatened to burn her herald at Orleans as a messenger from Satan. At last she was sold to the English by John of Luxem- bourg for a thousand livres and a yearly pension of two hundred more. When she heard of this she threw herself from the tower of Beaurevoir, and was picked up insensible at the foot. She herself said that she could neither eat nor drink for two or three days after. She said that she did this not with the intention of committing suicide, but with hopes of escaping, thinking that it was better to risk death than to fall into the hands of the English. She said that St. Catherine had forbid- den her to throw herself from the tower, but had afterwards comforted her and advised her to confess and ask pardon of God, on which she took heart and began again to eat, and soon recovered. The English took her to Rouen, and the treatment to which she was subjected might have deranged a strong mind. She was heavily chained by the ankles, and fastened to a beam, and watched by a guard of five fellows of the lowest sort, who teased and mocked the poor girl, and several times tried to violate her. On one occasion Joan’s cries were heard by the Earl of Warwick, who rescued her, this not being the kind of revenge which he had in view. The men of war made little concealment that they had bought her in order to burn her. The Earl of Warwick, who com- manded at Rouen, hearing that she was ill, sent doctors to attend her, because it would be displeasing to the king if she 70 PETER CAUCHON. should die a natural death. The king held her dear, and had bought her dear, nor did he wish that she should die unless by the hands of justice, and that she should be burned. The doctors found her feverish, and advised bleeding, and the Earl was fearful that she might pass away under their hands, Never- theless, she was bled, and seemed recovering, when one Master John de Estevet entered, who abused her in the coarse terms put by Shakespeare in the mouths of English noblemen, unfor- tunately quite in keeping with historical truth. This made Joan very angry, and caused the fever to return. We see the same circumspect Earl of Warwick protecting the captive girl when the Earl of Stafford half drew his dagger to strike her because she said that a hundred thousand English could not win France. There was no reason why shé should not be treated like other prisoners of war. She had never violated any of the laws of war, and indeed had been more merciful than most of the combatants of the time. Besides there were English prisoners in the hands of the French who might become the subjects of reprisal; or perhaps in the fortune of war Warwick might some day fall into the hands of the enemy, as Talbot, the Scales, and Warwick’s own son had done. It was prudent, therefore, to establish some distinction between Joan and other prisoners, and to arrive at this it was necessary to make her go through the form of a trial. The infamy of con- ducting these proceedings belongs to Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais—a man who bore, amongst his friends at least, a fine character—along with a judicious selection of abbots, doctors of divinity and of canon law, and other learned and holy personages. The trial was dragged over four months. This girl, who was no older than twenty, and who could not read, but had passed a year in camps, and nearly a year in prison, was subjected to perplexing cross-examinations and insidious questions for six hours a-day. Her answers were put down, though in a somewhat garbled manner, and then fresh questions contrived. Nicholas Loiselleur, a creature of the Bishop of Beauvais, was introduced into her cell, with instruc- tions to pass himself off as a prisoner on the same side as herself, and try to lead her into unguarded disclosures, which were listened to through an aperture in the wall. The same “TAKE EVERYTHING CHEERFULLY.” 71 man was afterwards made to act as her confessor. While they sometimes questioned and upbraided her, two or three at a time, no one was allowed to give her counsel, and some mem- bers of the court who were thought to favour her had to leave for fear of their lives. Even the Bishop of Beauvais was accused of being too slack, which he angrily denied, as endangering his hopes of preferment under his English masters. Notes of the process have come down to us, of course much shorter than the actual proceedings, but helping us to realise the unfairness, stupidity, and cruelty of these pompous pedants. Joan boldly defended the truth of her revelations, even when threatened with torture. She said that she had heard the voices every day in her prison, and that light accompanied the voices. Visions, if they appeared at all, were much less frequent. The angel Gabriel conversed with her on one occa- sion; the voices told her that it was he. But the voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret were often in her ears. They told her to answer boldly. Sometimes they came without her asking ; sometimes their voices awaked her from sleep; and sometimes the voices were drowned by the noise made by her guards. They told her what to say, and when she prayed to God for them they came immediately. Sometimes the saints would ask God what she should say, and return with the answer. They promised that she should be freed from prison, but in what manner she did not know. “Take everything cheerfully,” they said. ‘Do not distress yourself about your martyrdom, you will come at last into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Manchon, the notary, who was present at the trial, and who took part in translating the proceedings into Latin, examined afterwards at the proces de réhabilitation, said that Joan appeared to him to be very simple, though sometimes she answered very prudently, and sometimes simply enough. As far as can now be judged, some of her replies were very skilful, She generally refused to answer questions which were not to the point, or to be twice examined on the same matter. Her woman’s wit showed her that these pretended judges were her cruel enemies, but she had a deep veneration for the authority of the Church, of which they claimed to be the representatives. 72 CATHERINE OF ROCHELLE. Her judges evidently believed that she was deceived by evil spirits, who took the form of saints and angels. They had got hold of a story of her consulting with the fairies under an ancient beech tree, in a grove near her father’s house. Under this old tree, where of old the fairies were said to have been seen, the boys and girls of Domremy used to assemble in the spring and summer time to sing and dance, after which they went to drink at a fountain near. Joan acknowledged having danced with other girls under the tree, but she never saw any fairies, nor knew of any one who had done so. The Court interrogated Joan about her relations with a woman called Catherine of Rochelle, who advanced pretensions similar to her own. This Catherine gave out that a white lady dressed in cloth of gold appeared to her and told her to ask the king for trumpeters and others to go about collecting money to pay Joan’s soldiers. She also claimed the power to discover hidden treasures. The Maid told this new partisan to go home to her husband and look after her children ; and to make sure, she consulted St. Catherine and St. Margaret about this new claim, who told her that it was madness, and would come to nothing. She slept a night with Catherine to see whether the white lady would come. Catherine told her that the apparition had come when she was asleep. Joan therefore slept during the day so as to be able to remain awake all night. She often asked Catherine whether the white lady would come, to which Catherine answered, “She would come soon.” Perhaps it did not then occur to Joan that she was using a test which might be used against herself; for she could no more make her voices be heard, or her visions be seen, by any one save herself than this adventuress. In fact it is the character of visions in every age that they are only seen by the ghost-seers. This Catherine of Rochelle having fallen into the hands of the English, had denounced Joan as in league with the devil. Another imitator of Joan, called Peronne, was also taken by them. When pressed by the Court that she ought to give a sign, etherwise she had no reason to claim more credit than THE STORY OF THE CROWN. 73 Catherine of Rochelle, Joan was led to make obscure -refer- ences to a sign with which she had been favoured, till she was at last drawn on to make a positive statement, somewhat against her will—for she said that she had promised to St. Catherine not to speak of this sign. This statement is so strange that it merits consideration as bearing upon her mental condition. She said that when she was at Chinon the Archangel Michael came, with a great multitude of angels to the house of a woman where she was living, and taking her by the hand led her up to the king’s castle, and into the royal chamber, and gave to the Archbishop of Rheims a rich crown of gold, which he placed upon the king’s head. She said this was done in the presence of Charles of Bourbon, the Lord of Tré- mouille, the Duke of Alengon, and several others; and that this crown was still in the royal treasury. Joan herself went into a small chapel near, where the angel followed and then disappeared. The Court offered to allow her to write to some of the persons she mentioned, to see if they would confirm this state- ment under their seals; to which she answered, “Give me a messenger, and I shall write to them about this whole trial.” On another occasion she was asked to refer to the Archbishop of Rheims about this story of the crown. “Make him come,” she replied, “and then I shall answer about this to you, nor will he dare to say the contrary of what I have told you.” As a postscript to the trial, and in the same handwriting, there were some additional notes made by six of the judges who had visited Joan in prison during the few days of depression between her abjuration and her death. These men stated on oath that Joan acknowledged that she herself was the angel who brought the crown to the king, and no other, and that she was the messenger who announced that the king would be crowned at Rheims. Being interrogated whether the appari- tions were real, she replied, “‘ Whether they were good or bad spirits, they appeared to me.” She said that she heard voices, especially when the bells were sounded, and that the appari- tions appeared in great multitude and small quantity, as a crowd of figures. of small size; but she could not be got to 74 THE VOICES REPROACH HER. enter into any defined description.* Three of the witnesses, one of whom was Loiselleur, the spy, stated their impression that Joan was at that time of sound mind, a question which seems to have received little consideration during her trial and imprisonment. They declared that, up to her very last moments, she persevered in the reality of the apparitions. At the stake she was heard to invoke the angel Michael, though on one occasion, at least, she said she thought they must be bad spirits since they had deceived her with promises that she would be delivered from the hands of her enemies. Of course she was condemned, and ordered to submit herself to the authority of the Church, and renounce her errors, or she would be burnt that very day. The executioner, or torturer, as he was called, was waiting for her with his cart. Under terror of such a painful death, Joan consented to make a recan- tation, which apparently was different from the one afterwards published by the court. She was then sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. The poor maid expected to be put into the custody of the Church, and to have some of her own sex near, but she was sent back to her old prison, and the guards treated her as roughly as before. It had been one of the articles of accusa- tion that she wore a male dress, and she had promised not to resume it. The voices reproached her for her abjuration, and said that she ought to have resisted to the last. The English, on their part, were disappointed that she had not been sentenced to death. In four days it was announced that Joan had put on the old male dress which had still remained in her room.t This was seized upon as a relapse, the judges entered * Inquirebant ab ea utrum verum erat quod ipsas voces et apparitiones habuisset ; et ipsa respondebat quod sic. Et in illo proposito continuavit usque ad finem, et non determinabat proprie (saltem quod audiret loquens), in qua specie veniebant, nisi prout melius recolit, veniebant in magna mul- titudine et quantitate minima.— Tome i., p. 479. Apparebant sibi sub specie quarumdam rerum minimarum—p. 480. + Guillelmus Manchon dixit quod tunc erat induta indumento virili, atque conquerebatur quod non audebat se exuere, formidans ne de nocte ipsi custodes sibi inferrent aliquam violentiam atque semel aut bis conquesta fuit dicto episcopo Belvacensi, Subinquisitori, et magistro Nicolao Loyselleur, quod alter dictorum custodum.voluerat eam violare ; quibus Anglicis prop- HER LAST HOURS. 75 her prison. “She is caught now,” the Bishop of Beauvais was heard to say. He was very jocund with the Earl of Warwick. ‘‘ Farewell,” he added, “make good cheer, the thing is done.” On the 30th of May, 1431, she was delivered over to the secular arm, and it was resolved that a few hours afterwards she should be led to be burned in the old market-place of Rouen. We have an account of her last hours from Brother Martin Ladvenu, a Dominican :— “When he announced to the poor woman the death she was to die that day, and she had learned the hard and cruel death that was near, she commenced to cry piteously, and to tear her hair. ‘Alas! do they treat me so horribly and cruelly! Must it be that all my body which was never corrupted shall be to-day consumed and reduced to ashes! Ah, I would rather be beheaded seven times than be thus burned! Alas! if I had been in the prisons of the Church to which I submitted myself, and if I had been guarded by the people of the Church, I should never have come to such a miserable mischance! Oh, I call God, the great Judge, to witness the great wrongs that have been done to me!’ And then she complained marvellously of the oppressions done to her in prison by her gaolers and others who had entry to her.” Joan went weeping to the stake. She maintained the reality of her revelations to the end, and was heard to invoke Michael and St. Catherine. Martin Ladvenu heard her con- fession, followed her to the stake, and sat with her till the fire came near, when she told him to descend and to hold the cross before her till she expired. After it was seen that she was dead, the faggots were pulled apart, and her body, still tied to the stake, was shown to the crowd. The fuel was then again heaped around till her remains were reduced to ashes. It was afterwards told that the executioner was heard to say that her heart would not consume, and that he feared that he was terea, a domino de Warvik juxta relationem ipsorum episcopi, inquisitoris et Loyselleur, mine magne illate sunt, si ulterius id attentare presumer- ent; et de novo duo alii custodes commissiTome ii., p. 298. Frater Bardinus de Petra ab eadem Johanna audivit, fuit per unum magne auc- toritatis tentata de violentia ; a propter quod, ut illa esset agilior ad resisten- dum, dixit se habitum virilem, qui in carcere fuerat juxta eam caute dimissus, resumpsisse.—Tome ii., p. 305. 76 THE FALSE PUCELLE. damned, for he had burned a holy woman. An Englishman, who had placed a faggot to the pile, cried out that he repented bitterly, and that he had seen a dove come out of the flames. It was popularly believed that the holy maid had not really died, and a few years after a woman pretending to be Joan of Arc again come to life, went about Germany and France (from 1436 to 1440), and for a time deceived many, among others, some people of Orleans and two of Joan’s brothers. She was married to a knight, Robert des Harmoises. The imposture was detected by the king, Charles VIJ. She afterwards led an abandoned life, and came to a miserable end. The cold-hearted councillors of that king, who had done little or nothing to rescue Joan, soon found the want of the powerful arm which had been so useful to their cause, and even tried a substitute. They got hold of a shepherd-lad named William le Bergier or Pastourel, who, as the Chancellor of France wrote, “said neither more nor less than the Maid had done, and who was commanded by God to go with the king’s people.” In an incursion which the French made into Nor- mandy (August, 1431), the shepherd fell into the bands of the English after a fierce combat, in which the Sire de Saintrailles was also taken. He was brought before the boy-king, Henry VI., tightly tied with cords, and then, it is said, thrown into the Seine. Like St. Francis he showed, five blood-marks on the feet, hands, and side. It is worthy of notice that the chroniclers who mention this unfortunate youth, call him insane, which no one said of Joan of Arc. Twenty-five years after, when the French had regained Normandy, the whole proceedings against the heroine formed the subject of a careful inquiry. Evidence was taken at Dom- remy, Toul, Vaucouleurs, Poictiers, Orleans, Paris, and Rouen. The old condemnation was formally annulled by the ecclesi- astical courts, with the sanction of the Pope, and Joan’s memory cleared of the imputation of being a witch, a dreadful one in those days, which blasted all it touched. It is from the record of her trial and rehabilitation that we have gathered so many details. Some French writers have proposed that Joan should be canonised as a saint. She appeared in a just cause UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES. 77 to save a great nation from ruin. Her claims to miraculous aid may well appear credible to those who are willing to admit the supernatural in history, and her fitness to play the difficult part assumed by her might rather be deemed the proof of the selection of a higher wisdom than the result of the random excitations of nervous disease. How could God suffer an innocent girl to be deceived by the form of the messengers whom He had sent of old? Nevertheless it would be easy to show that Joan’s voices several times deceived her; for example, she said that she was destined to set free the Duke of Orleans from his English captivity, and that she would lead Charles VII. in triumph into Paris. There is reason to believe that she gave out that the fatal sally at Compiégne would succeed. She also said that the voices told her that she would see the King of England, and that she would be delivered from the hands of her enemies. It must be kept in mind that she was no older than twenty when she died, and that her career only lasted about two years, one half of which was spent in prison. Had she lived longer it is likely that the course of events would have indicated more clearly the character of her delusions. Would her hallucinations have ceased to follow her, and her mind have subsided from the state of exaltation? Or would she have gone on in her claims of having supernatural communication with Heaven ? Brierre de Boismont has shown that hallucinations are quite compatible with sanity, and even speaks about physiological hallucinations ; but though men may have hallucinations with- out their reason being overset, we hold with Dr. Hagen* that a hallucination is always something pathological. By derang- ing our sensations, the channel of all our knowledge of the outer world and of our intercourse with other minds, hallucina- tions must ever place the reason in danger of being overthrown. Joan wrote a letter to the Hussites threatening to give up even the war against the English, to visit these heretics with an avenging arm. It is clear any one making such preten- * Studien auf dem Gebiete der Aerztlichen Seelenkunde, von Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Hagen. Erlangen, 1870. “Die Jungfrau von Orleans,” p. 107. 78 GOOD OR BAD SPIRITS ? sions at the present time would get her case considered by doctors of medicine instead of doctors of divinity; nor need it be said what would be their decision. But she lived in credulous times, when no one doubted that men frequently communicated with spirits. The only question was whether they were good or bad spirits. Joan believed they were good spirits, because they never tempted her to evil, and urged her to free her country, which she and those around her believed to be a good work. It was seriously discussed by a learned doctor of Germany whether Joan was really a woman at all, and not a python, who would disappear or turn into a serpent, like the lady in Keats’ poem of Lamia. When the whole age was thus deluded, there is little wonder that Joan herself went with the current. The great difficulty, of course, is to give a rational explanation of her early delusions, which seem to be connected with hallucinations of hearing and sight. Some see no difficulty in the case. They accept as a fact that Joan actually had a mission from heaven. Several romances have been written under this view; and, what is more singular, one of my correspondents, an able psychologist and well-known writer on insanity, wrote to me that he accepted the visions and voices of Joan of Arc as coming directly from Heaven. If I entertained this explanation myself I should feel the same difficulty which the judges had at her trial. In denying all authority to her revelations, they felt they were in danger of discrediting all the visions and miracles of the Middle Ages, related on no better evidence, of saints beatified and canonised by the Church. Unwilling to attribute her revelations to God, they attributed them to the devil. Either explanation will hardly do for any one but a good Catholic. Without the slightest intention of being irreverent, we see no valid reason why they should not have a Saint Joanna on the calendar, especially as the condemnation at Rouen was solemnly annulled by the Pope. It has been already notified in 1892 to the Archbishop of Rouen that the Congregation of Rites has admitted the first step towards the beatification of Joan, and the process of canonisation will likely take its due course favoured by French patriotism. Nevertheless, Protestants who believe that the time of miracles JOAN WITH THE POETS. 79 ceased with the Apostles, or rationalists who totally reject the supernatural in history, will not try to get out of the difficulty in this way. Historians have generally been content to relate the events more or less correctly with a few commonplaces on the effects of imagination, enthusiasm, or credulity. Of late years especially, many biographies have appeared, generally weak and incorrect, written out of the histories, or from one another, selecting this statement, missing over that one, invent- ing a third. The subject has tempted the poets; but they only lead us away from the reality, which is finer than their inventions. The scenes in Henry VI. which deal with Joan of Arc are perhaps the only passages of Shakespeare’s plays which an Englishman need be ashamed of; and yet it is curious to know that the great dramatist must have thought that under such a character Joan would best be received on the English stage; perhaps he felt it to be the only guise in which her appearance would be tolerated. Indeed, years after Henry VI. was put on the stage, the chroniclers of England went on telling the old coarse falsehoods about the Maid, for which the epic of Southey may perhaps be held to be a tardy expiation. The wittiest of Frenchmen has selected the national heroine as the object of his indecent ridicule. In the “Pucelle,’ Voltaire has used his invention to raise laughter from the comical situations which a female combatant might place herself in, in camps and battles where men alone appear. Schiller, a man of rare historical insight and fine poetical imagination, has wandered very far from history in the ‘Jungfrau von Orleans.” He makes the heroine fly from the cathedral at Rheims after crowning the king, and instead of being burnt at the stake, she sinks through wounds received in rescuing the king from the hands of the English. We know that Joan was deeply distressed by the misery of France. It had lasted long, well-nigh as long as she could remember. None escaped from it. The people of her village had once been compelled to fly for their lives. Every one looked around for some hope of better things. The pro- phecy that France should be rendered desolate by a woman, and restored by a virgin was circulated everywhere. One witness, Geoffrey du Fay, who knew Joan and her parents, 80 THE PROPHECY AND THE MYTH. heard her quote this saying when she was preparing to go to Robert of Vaucouleurs.* Another version was, that the virgin should come from the Marches of Lorraine, and even from a wood in the bois-chenu near Domremy. Joan pondered over these prophecies. Who was this virgin ? Was she living somewhere near? Would that heaven would choose her, though she was but a poor girl! These ideas were quite natural, for she was capable of fulfilling them. High thoughts find their home in heroic breasts. The pro- phecy acted two ways. It filled her mind with a predisposi- tion to receive certain ideas; and it disposed the people ardund to sympathise with them and to assist in carrying them out. A simple and earnest mind preoccupied with the hope of supernatural aid will watch for its coming and read a thou- sand signs in the face of nature. Those whose minds are full of the thoughts of a spiritual world, which they believe to exist around them, and to be interested in their hopes and struggles, have often interpreted casual events or random words as messages from the unseen. Thoughts suddenly flashing into their own minds have been treated as inspired messages. Some, like John Knox, have imagined they possessed the gift of prophecy from the fulfil- ment of their forecasts and predictions. Others have inter- preted events in a manner very different from what most men would do. As an instance of this, let us take General Harrison, a man of great gallantry and skill, but one of the * “Procés de Réhabilitation,” Tome ii, p. 444. John of Novelonpont, who saw Joan at Vaucouleurs, remembered to have heard her say, “It is needful that I should go to the king, if I should wear my feet to the knees. For no one in the world, neither kings nor dukes, nor the daughter of the King of Scotland, nor any other, can recover the kingdom of France ; nor is there any succour save with me, although I would prefer to sew beside my poor mother,” ii., p. 436. “Oriunda namque fuit ex confinibus regni Francie et ducatus Lotharingie, de vico aut villagio quodam dicto Dom- premy, a parte ipsius regni constituto ; in quo non longe a paterna domo ipsius Johannz, cernitur nemus quoddam quod vetusto nomine Canutum dicitur. De quo vulgaris et antiqua percrebuit fama, puellam unam ex eo loco debere nasci, quae magnalia faceret, prout etiam in processu refertur.” “Procés de Réhabilitation,” Tome iil, p. 339. See also T. iv., p. 323, and T. v., p. 13. GENERAL HARRISON. 81 wildest enthusiasts in the civil wars. He was described by Baxter “as of excellent natural parts for affection and oratory ; of a sanguine complexion; naturally of such a vivacity, hilarity, and alacrity, as another man hath when he hath drunken a cup too much.” Though one of the judges of Charles, at the Restoration he would neither fly nor apply for the amnesty. His behaviour at his trial showed a sublime fearlessness which excited the admiration even of his enemies. He told the sheriff on the day of his execution, that he looked upon this as a clear answer to his prayers. ‘ For many a time,” said he, “have I begged of the Lord, that if He had any hard thing, any reproachful work or contemptible service to be done by His people, that I should be employed in it, and now blessed be the name of God who accounteth me worthy to be put upon this service for my Lord Christ.” This exulting faith he preserved to the last. As he was going to execution, one in derision called to him and said: “Where is your good old cause?” He, with a cheerful smile, clapt his hand on his breast, and said, ‘‘ Here it is, and I am going to seal it with my blood.” And when he came to the sight of the gallows, he was transported with joy, and his servant asked him how he did: he answered, “Never better in my life.” Thus, events, which would have shaken the minds of most men in their belief of the goodness of their cause, only heightened the confidence of Harrison. With some minds a predisposition is all powerful. Moreau* tells us of a young Frenchman who had gone to Egypt to fill some employment, when he was possessed with a longing to return to his own country. In order to escape from this harassing desire he used haschish—but in place of diverting his thoughts the drug only caused visions and delusions. He thought he saw the country house where he had lived in his own France; that he saw his mother and sister in the garden, who asked him to rejoin them, and regretted his absence. In the same way, the mind of Joan of Arc was filled with a restless desire for the deliverance of * “Du Haschisch et de Alienation Mentale,” par J. Moreau. Paris, 1845, p. 180. ; G 82 SIMILAR HALLUCINATIONS. France, and in this state of preoccupation she had a halluci- nation of hearing and afterwards of sight. The period when these hallucinations first came on is about the time when a natural process might have been expected during which the nervous system is unusually excitable. Dr. Hammond writes,* that one young lady, who was under his care always at these periods had visions of heads and hands floating about in the air near her. They were scarcely ever absent during the whole time. He gives other instances to show that “some- times the only faculties which are disordered in their action are the perceptions, causing the production of illusions and hallucinations.” It would appear that with the Pucelle hal- lucinations of hearing were the most frequent, but they were often accompanied by apparitions. The voices were aroused by or accompanied the sounding of bells. Probably the bells echoed the words of her thoughts. One of her youthful com- panions said} that ‘while the girls made merry together in the meadows, Joan used to turn aside and speak to God, and he and the others derided her. She was good and simple, and frequented the churches and sacred places. When she was in the fields and heard the church bells, she would bend the knee.” She told the churchwarden of Domremyf that he had been remiss in sounding the bells, and promised to give him some wool if he were more diligent. Hallucinations thus excited are not unknown. Under the head of “functional hallucinations of hearing,” writes the learned Emminghaus§ “we must designate those phantasms which occasionally appear after the apprehension of real sounds which arouse the attention of the patient. These hallucinations are distinct from the real sounds.’ Kahlbaum describes some cases of this kind. The patient had the hallucinations so long as * “A Treatise on Insanity,” by William A. Hammond, M.D., &c. London, 1883, p. 109. Baillarger gives the case of a young woman who had hallucinations of the five senses with a condition analogous to Joan’s. They disappeared under fitting remedies. ‘Des Hallucinations.” Paris, 1846, p. 482. + “Procés de Réhabilitation,” p. 420; see also p. 424. { Ibid. ii, p. 413. § “ Allgemeine Psychopathologie,” p. 167. NATURE OF HER HALLUCINATIONS, 83 the unmeaning sounds lasted ; when all was silent, or some one spoke with them, the phantasms ceased. At her trial she said that the voice and the light came from the right side.* This looks as if the hallucinations were, in the beginning at least, unilateral. There is less likelihood of the mind being deranged in unilateral hallucinations, as one side of the brain remains unaffected. From her replies to her judges, that Joan had touched St. Margaret and St. Catherine, and that they had a good odour, it would appear that she had also hallucinations of touch and smell. After all, hallucinations are not so uncommon, and were not less common in the fifteenth century. Michelet has judiciously remarkedt :— “The originality of the Maid of Orleans, and what determined her success, was not so much her valour or her visions, ay her good sense. Through all her enthusiasm, this daughter of the people saw the question clearly, and was able to solve it. “She cut the knot which the politic and the men of little faith could not untie. She declared in God’s name that Charles VII. was the true heir, and she set him at ease as to his legitimacy, of which he himself had doubts. That legitimacy she sanctified, taking her king straight to Rheims, and gaining over the English, by the celerity of her movements, the decisive advantage of the coronation, “It was not very unusual to see women take uparms. They often fought in sieges,—witness the thirty women wounded at Amiens, and also Jeanne Hachette. In the time of the Maid, and in the same years, the women of Bohemia were fighting against the men, in the wars of the Hussites.” “Neither, I repeat, did the Maid’s originality consist in her visions. Who was without such in the Middle Ages?” * “Et prima vice, habuit magnum timorem. Et venit illa vox quasi hora meridiana, tempore zstivo, in horto patris sui ; et ipsa Johanna jejunaverat die precedente. Audivitque vocem a dextro latere versus ecclesiam, et raro eam audit sine claritate. Que quidem claritas est ab eodem latere in quo vox auditur, sed ibi communiter est magna claritas. Et quando ipsa Johanna veniebat in Franciam, seepe audiebat illam vocem.... Dixit preeterea quod, si ipsa esset in uno nemore, bene audiret voces venientes ad eam.”—“ Procés de Condemnation,” i., p. 52. t+ “The History of France,” vol. ii., p. 515. London, 1846. 84 CATHERINE OF SIENA. Here is one of them, told of a famous woman, Catherine of Siena.* When she was about six years old, returning from an errand with her little brother Stephen, and looking up to the golden clouds of evening, she saw a vision of Jesus, very gloriously apparelled and terrible in majesty and beauty. As she gazed in awe, the Saviour, she said, looked towards her and smiled lovingly upon her, extending His hand in blessing. While she was lost in contemplation of this vision, her little brother continued to descend the hill, imagining that she was following; turning round, he saw his sister far off looking up to heaven; he called to her as loud as he could call, but she made no answer; at length he ran back to her and took her by the hand, saying, “Come on, why are you stopping here?” Catherine appeared to awake from a deep sleep, and bursting into loud weeping she replied, ‘‘O Stephen, if you could only see what I see you would never have disturbed me thus!” And her eyes again turned towards heaven, but the vision had vanished. But to return to our subject, had Joan been a common girl, the hallucinations would have ended in mere talk, or urged her into imprudences which would have caused her ruin, but she had some rare mental and moral qualities. She had a quick perception of the adaptation of means to ends— how things are done in this world. Brother Seguin, a pro- fessor of theology, who examined her at Poictiers, said to her, that if God wished to deliver Orleans there was no need to send armed men. She answered, “In the name of God the soldiers will fight and God will give the victory.” The theo- logian rejoined, that God would not desire that they should advise the king to undertake a dangerous expedition unless she gave some proof of her mission beyond her simple assertion ; to which she answered, “In the name of God, I am not come to Poictiers to make signs, but take me to Orleans, and I shall show you the signs for which I am sent.” The statement already mentioned, which Joan made before her judges, about the angels accompanying her from her lodging * “Catherine of Siena: a Biography,” by Josephine E. Butler. London, 1879. Page 24. THE STORY OF THE CROWN, 85 to the Castle of Chinon, one of them bearing a rich golden crown which was put on the Dauphin’s head by the Archbishop of Rheims, is seldom mentioned by historians. The reason, perhaps, is, that it is difficult to tell it in a way which would not detract from the reputation of the heroine. Michelet* only refers to it inashort note. ‘It seems to follow from her replies, which, indeed, are very obscure, that the crafty court abused her simplicity, and that in order to confirm her belief in her visions, it had a sort of mystery enacted before her, in which an angel appeared carrying the crown.” Joan said that there were several angels among them. She distinguished St. Catherine and St. Margaret. The Dauphin, so far from helping, kept amongst the courtiers, and was only recognised by the quickness of Joan. It was their faith, and not hers, which needed strengthening ; it was the Dauphin, not Joan, who sought to be confirmed in the nature of her mission; and a trick of this kind would have thrown the whole affair into discredit. It may be said that the whole story was a garbled version of something which she really said; and it would be difficult to deny that her enemies were quite capable of any invention which might tend to blast her credit for veracity. Nevertheless, this is not the kind of invention they were likely to make to serve their purpose. The notes of her statements on this point, at her trial, are full and circumstantial ; and what is of importance, no attempt is made at the proces de réhabilitation to discredit them, or to prove that this alleged statement was a mere fabrication, or that Joan had been deceived by a pageant got up for the purpose. On the con- trary, they tried to show that her words were capable of an allegorical explanation. It must be of course understood that in history we follow probabilities. It seems most probable that this statement was actually made by Joan of Arc. Miss Parr, one of her biographers,t who is too ingenuous to pass the matter over, admits that Joan here told an untruth; but if she made this statement knowing it to be untrue, it is clear * “ History of France,” English Translation, vol. ii., p. 525. + “The Life and Death of Jeanne d’Arc, called the Maid,” by Harriet Parr. London, 1866. 6 HER DELUSION. aat she acted very foolishly. Under the circumstances, othing more rash and senseless could have been said; and s the story leaked out by degrees, first at one examination and hen at another, Joan had three days to weigh the matter aoroughly. My own explanation is that it was a delusion. Vhether she had any hallucinations at the time when she saw ne king does not appear; but in recalling the circumstances f her meeting with the Dauphin at Chinon, she had mixed up er hopes and her dreams and made one of those delusive tatements which are significant of a wandering mind. The act that before her execution she admitted that she had been iistaken, and that she herself was the angel who brought the rown to the king, is not incompatible with her former good aith, for it frequently happens that persons, when the exalta- ion of their fancy has subsided, admit that they have been ubject to a delusion which has ceased to command their faith. The question whether Joan was sane or insane cannot be uswered without some qualification. Those only who believe .er visions to be real can hold her mind to have been in a iormal condition. We can distinguish in thought the intellect rom the senses; but the mind includes the senses, takes its rremises from them, and cannot be in a healthy state if they noislead it about the phenomena of the outer world. Thus foan would come under Hammond’s division of perceptional nsanity. Leaving the voices and visions out of view, and aking into consideration the views of the age about good and ‘vil spirits, one cannot, save in the instance already noted, wroduce any fact denoting insanity; and it might be held that vith these reservations there is no proof of mental derange- nent. There is no dividing line between sanity and insanity. As he eye is not perfectly achromatic, the mind is probably iever perfectly sane. Some brains work well, at least, on nost occasions ; many work tolerably ; some work ill; a few icarcely work at all. The differences are endless; no two reings are exactly alike. There may have been people like rou or me, but never the same. Circumstances may be imilar, but never identical. History never repeats itself; if t appear to do so, it is because we read it wrong, mistake A CROP OF LEGENDS. S7 one feature for the whole. Thus, between the soundest intelli- gence and the most disordered there are differences our vague adjectives will not define. People mad enough to be shut up in asylums are not so rare-—say, one in every five hundred in highly-civilised countries. Then, again, people with a less dangerous or intractable degree of insanity are very common. Every man skilful in the symptoms of lunacy knows this. Some have said that Joan was affected with theomania, with paranoia, or delusional insanity. Perhaps a separate variety would need to be made for her, just as natural orders have had to be made for one or two plants, while other orders include thousands. I do not know any insane person who was *) like her, but she was not quite sane. On the world’s history men somewhat deranged in mind have had a great influence; but to effect this their delusion must harmonise with the delusions of the multitude. This was the case with the Pucelle. The people were ready to give wonderful attributes to her. Her warnings were heeded as prophecies. Men-at-arms noticed that those to whom she promised life came safe out of battle; others whose life she said would be short were killed. They wanted her to lay her hands on the sick, and to pray for life for the dying or dead. They said that she could bring the birds down from the air to her hand. Her death was followed by a crop of legends, some of which have been already mentioned. PAPER IV. THE INSANITY OF POWER. CHAPTER I. Tue Limitations oF ouR Lire—THE Drsasine Errects oF UNCHECKED PowER—THE CLAUDIAN-JULIAN Famity: Avaustus, Drusvs, JuLia, TiBeRius, CaLIcuLa, Craupius, MessaLina, AGRIPPINA, NERO—THE Reien oF PuinosopHy: Marcus AurELIus—Commopvus, Hetioga- BALUS, NSANITY is generally described as an acquired quality or modification of a man’s character, something unnatural and pathological, whereas it may be easily viewed either as a condition natural in many men, or in others the result of the gradual and inevitable growth of his character. Some child- ren, if not all, are selfish, prone to passion, giving way to anger at the slightest opposition to their wishes, indifferent to the welfare of others, and resenting deprivation and disappointment with an extravagant keenness which rapidly exhausts itself. Ata later age they are apt to indulge in cruelty to animals, delight in delusions and false statements, and gloat in pictures of wholesale cruelty and slaughter. Ifa child were to grow up in such a state of mind it would grow up insane. The educa- tion to which children are ceaselessly subjected by their parents and teachers instils certain ideas and replaces others, leads them to control their self-will, and shows them how their own happi- ness will be injured by bringing their covetousness into collision with the interests of those around them. Hence it may be said that sanity is the result of education, and that those who cannot be educated to control their passions and subdue their appetites to the limits prescribed by society, really grow up insane, have never had sanity implanted upon their nature. In 88 THE COERCION OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 89 some cases a mau comes into the world with tastes, impulses, and sensibilities which no efforts of education can subdue, and which, in the end, drive him into collision with other men, who put him to death, throw him into prison, or treat him as insane. If such unconformable propensities are shared by a whole tribe, they come into collision with others, destroy, or are destroyed ; the general result being that those who have most power of adapting themselves to circumstances, or adapting circumstances for their ends, remain the rulers of the rest. From the cradle to the grave man needs the help of his kind; alone he is weak; but he can multiply his own strength a thousandfold, by gaining the control of the strength of others.) At once the most powerful and the most enslaved of animals, he may hold in his hand a sceptre which rules the fate of millions, or be so utterly cowed by direct subjection to violence, or coerced by the arrangements of wealth and the law of contract, that he has no right to stand upon the earth, or to gain a bite of food, until he has earned these privileges by bearing some of the burdens of those in possession of the world’s wealth. Even if he be not the born slave of another man, everywhere he goes some one will drive him away, and say, “This ground is mine.” If he wander about, he is imprisoned as a vagrant. If he will not work, he must starve; if he lift his hand to grasp anything, he is seized as a thief. Thus by rude experience he learns the rule of his narrow lot, or if he rebel he becomes a criminal. If he cannot learn, or will not distinguish, he is treated as insane. Such is the condition of those born among the poor and lowly, nor is it any wonder that all should desire to escape it. ‘Thus the desire of power, the fondness for privilege, the quest for riches, one of the surest means of power, are universal ; but the constant competition of other men checks the full attainment of the aim of all. It so happens that some men have got so pre-eminent a position and gained such a control over other men that their resistance is of no account, and that they show their approval and disapproval of their superiors in a very cautious way ; or the knowledge of a capri- cious and tyrannical will on the part of a master may turn the real reluctance into feigned approval. Such despotism is rare ; 90 THE AFRICAN CHIEF. for rulers in general have to make a good many sacrifices and compromises to keep the goodwill of their subjects, or avoid the hostility of their neighbours. In fact, power is too eagerly coveted ever to cease to be an object of contention. Nevertheless, by reading the history of the known generations of men, or even by studying the observations of modern travellers, we find a number of despots whose will is all powerful over the tribes or subject nations. A striking illustration of the ordinary effects of power upon | a gross and uncultivated race is to be found in the African chief, as described by modern travellers. In Africa everything is reproduced with great simplicity and in a rude form. Living amongst savages whose notions of morals are rudiment- ary, regulated by no laws, enjoying the power of life and death, killing his subjects “like hens,” surrounded by worth- less and corrupt courtiers who spend their time fawning upon him and pandering to his desires, yielding to the caprice of the moment, seizing everything which he covets, gratifying all his lusts, sending to execution the woman whom he has caressed an hour before, subject to fits of fury after his debaucheries, or lying in stupid lethargy, he lords it over his black subjects till his excesses wear out his life, or he dies by the plot of a rival or the hostile spears of some neighbouring tribe. If his name carry terror far and wide, the African king may try to conquer nature or indulge in some ferocious caprice, forbid the young men to marry, have regiments of female warriors, or float a canoe with human blood. The effect of such a situation upon the character must be interesting to a student of human nature. The man whose every whim is immediately gratified by the ready servility of others is in a position very dangerous to his own mental advancement. By satisfying every desire, his appetite is increased ; by continually gratifying his appetite, his will is enfeebled; by never disputing his opinion or correcting his errors, his judgment is deranged. The flatterers fan his most languid caprices into a glow. His selfishness is continually nourished by the eager sacrifices made to his half-formed wishes, and the rights of other men appear of no account. The first effect of absolute power seems to be a free indul- THE LUXURY OF POWER. 91 gence in sensual pleasures, passing into immoderate lust and debauchery ; then a capricious delight of domineering over others, putting them into degrading positions, and making them execute painful tasks, passing into a contempt for their sufferings or a positive pleasure in seeing them suffer. Un- restrained power always tends toward abuse. Indeed, save to some rare and fine natures, the luxury of power consists in its abuse. Power is nothing if it be conscientiously applied. The man who gives only to the deserving, who punishes only the guilty, who absolves only the innocent, whose testimony is inexorably true, has really no power at all. An imperious sense of duty rules his ways. It is only the limitations of his nature that enable him to exercise his functions with satis- faction. He prefers those whom he knows best, or whom he likes best, or gratifies his tastes as, with unconscious corruption, he absolves the guilty or condemns the innocent. If men were the servants of duty, and really knew their own hearts, power would not be so universally coveted. As it is, few who have attained it are willing to give it up, and the only way to prevent men abusing it is to entrust them witb as little as need be. The fear of losing power often makes people careful how they employ it, only this does not always lead them in the right way. As Macchiavel has sagely observed, “Men often attract as much hatred by doing good as by doing evil,” and thus a prince who wishes to maintain his power is some- times constrained not to be good, especially in corrupt times. The only thing really worth having in a man is his intellect ; and this by showing him the limitations of his nature and of his circumstances saves him from the impulse of his passions, and checks the waywardness of his desires and the boundless stretch of his imagination. It is scarcely needful to point out the checks against the abuse of moderate power. Beyond a man’s own conscience, around his own heart, over against his own selfishness, are the consciences and hearts of other men. He is so made that he is uneasy at their disapproval, is pained by their remonstrances, fears their displeasure, and writhes under their contempt. Even when he is able to execute what he wants in spite of their opposi- 92 INSANITY IN ROYAL FAMILIES. tion, or to force them to do what they disapprove, his satisfac- tion is incomplete; hence he wishes not only to overcome their resistance but to alter their will and rule their thoughts, and the slightest sign that he has failed in these objects is enough to arouse his resentment. Thus if the power be very great, these checks to keep a man within the bounds of reason and sobriety are not only overcome, but may be turned to work in a contrary direction. A circle of flatterers may obscure the real opinion of the world, and lead a man along a dangerous path by their suggestions and ready approval of every thing he does. If it be kept in mind that, besides its own degenerative influence, absolute power is tempted to the indulgence of all the alluring kinds of sensuality without any stint, it will not be surprising that insanity has appeared in all great ruling families. In the earliest historical times we see it in the Babylonian and Persian dynasties, in the Julian family, in that of Charlemagne, in the royal family of Spain, in the imperial house of Russia, and the Sultans of Turkey. There is scarcely an existing dynasty in Europe in which there is not a hereditary neurosis; and insanity and idiocy are very common among the princes of India. But lest we lose our- selves amidst vague generalities, let us consider a few examples selected from ancient and modern history. THE CLAUDIAN-JULIAN FAMILY—AUGUSTUS. In our study of the well-known history of the Cesars, we are bound to select for consideration those pathological aspects, those symptoms of a neurosis—that is to say, a morbid condi- tion of the nervous system—showing itself in many ways, by insanity, by hallucinations, by hypochondria and hysteria, by odd tastes, strange and immoderate cravings and caprices, by epilepsy or chorea, as well as by deformation of the bones of the skull and face, or of the body, generally or partially. Considerations like these have not been sufficiently attended to either by ancient or by modern historians. It is not clear whether the neurotic tendency in the Claudian-Julian family commenced with Augustus. The great LIVIA’S HUSBAND. 93 Julius towards the close of his life had several epileptiform fits, but this might be the result of his restless and exciting life, his enormous exertions and exposure, and his venereal excesses. His son Czsareon by Cleopatra was put to death after the fall of Marc Antony. Augustus was no nearer than his grand-nephew. ‘The dictator’s younger sister Julia, had a daughter called Atia, who was married to Caius Octavius, the father of Augustus. Neither in appearance, in bodily or in mental qualities, did the second of the Cesars bear any resemblance to the great founder of the dynasty. Dr. Jacoby* quotes a passage of Suetonius to prove that Augustus suffered from writer’s cramp, which he insists is a disease of cerebral origin. Though of weakly health, and troubled with various disorders of nutrition, Augustus lived to seventy-six, a great age for a Roman of that period. Drvusus. There are some difficulties in tracing the neurosis from Augustus. Drusus Claudius Nero Germanicus was born three months after the marriage of Augustus with Livia, whose first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, was then alive. Augustus had forced him to repudiate his wife in order that he might marry her. The infant Drusus was sent to his presumptive father, Tiberius Claudius, with whom he and his elder brother, afterwards the Emperor Tiberius, remained till his death, which took place three years after, when they returned to their mother Livia. It is said that Augustus had connection with Livia before his marriage with her, but this, even if proved, does not make him the father of Drusus, though it makes it possible. Dr. Jacoby uses many arguments, some of them pretty far-fetched, to prove that Drusus really was the son of Augustus. Of course, unless he can prove this, the hereditary transmission of infirmity in this line cannot be * Etudes sur la Selection dans ses Rapports, avec ’Herédité chez l’Homme, par le Dr. Paul Jacoby. Paris, 1884, p. 56. Suetonius, “ Octavius Augustus,” clxxx. 94 WHOSE SON WAS DRUSUS ? upheld ; for if Drusus were no son of Augustus, how could he have transmitted the neurosis to Claudius, the son of Drusus by Antonia, the daughter of the triumvir Mare Antony by Octavia? It may be said that the neurosis came from the father of Augustus through his sister Octavia, a theory which, though sustained by no direct proof, is not out of keeping with the genesis of such affections. Insanity and its allied neuroses may appear in separate branches of a family, which it continues to follow for generations. In some instances the only assignable cause is, that the members affected derive their descent from a common ancestor, who himself showed no signs of the disorders which he transmitted to his pro- geny.* Jacoby’s strongest argument, that Drusus resembled Augus- tus in appearance, is not quite decisive. If Augustus had shown any desire that Drusus should be regarded as his real instead of his adopted son, we may be sure that Horacet would never have laid so much stress on his descent from the noble race of the Claudii. That Augustus made Tiberius his heir instead of Germanicus, the son of Drusus, forms a strong pre- sumption that the emperor did not believe Drusus to be his . own son. Jacoby takes advantage of the story, that Drusus saw, in a forest of Germany, a barbarian woman of superhuman stature, who forbade him, in Latin, to pursue his conquests any farther, to assume that he had a hallucination of sight and hearing. * See, for some illustrations of this, the interesting genealogies given by Dr. Ludwig Dahl in his book, “Bidrag til Kundskab om de Sindssyge i Norge (on Insanity in Norway), Christiania, 1859. These were republished in the Appendix of my book on Idiocy and Imbecility. See also the Genea- logy of a Neurotic family, Journal of Mental Science, Oct. 1881, and Illus- trations of Heredity, by James R. Dunlop, M.B., 7b. April, 1881, and the Neuroses of Development by Dr. Clouston, Edinburgh, 1891. A great collection of information bearing on the subject will be found in the learned work of Professor J. Dejerine, L’Herédité dans les Maladies du Systeme Nerveus, Paris, 1886. + Carminum, iv. 4, In verses from 25 to 40 of this fine ode, Horace clearly takes for granted the descent of Tiberius and Drusus from the Claudii, giving the credit of their education to Augustus. Drusus was then in his twenty-third year. THE FIRST FRUITS OF POWER. 95 He was much loved, and gained great distinction for his bravery and conduct in war. He died from a fall from his horse before he was thirty. JULIA. It was in his daughter Julia by his first wife Scribonia that Augustus saw the first fruits of the degeneration of his family. While coldly satiating his own desires, bringing fear and force to subdue the chastity of free-born virgins, and setting at nought the honour of the wives of Roman citizens, Augustus never contemplated that the ladies of his own house should be otherwise than austere matrons, like his sister Octavia, and his niece Antonia, or the haughty Livia, who bent to him alone: and when made aware of the full measure of the impudent wantonness of his own daughter, he was struck with such horror and indignation as he might have felt had Drusus surrendered his legions to the Vindelici. He at first thought of putting her to death, banished her to an island, where he kept her for five years in strict confinement ; never would see her more; and, in his will, forbade her ashes to be placed in his mausoleum. The daughter of the master of the world, drunk with pride, Julia, the first princess of the Caesars, ran from one indulgence to another, till she lost all power of restraint. The, draught that the cold-hearted, cautious usurper could bear without intoxication was too strong for his daughter. Two of her sons whom she bore to Agrippa died when young, her third son, Agrippa Posthumus was weak-minded. Thus imbecility appeared in two branches of the second generation from Augustus. Her daughter Agrippina married Germanicus, thus uniting these two branches, TIBERIUS. The reign of the Emperor Tiberius was the first instance of the long-continued abuse of the vast power placed at the disposal of the commander of the legions which had subdued the civilised world. Velleius Paterculus, who knew him intimately before his cruelties had disgusted men, but who is 96 A DARK TYRANT. suspected of being a flatterer, praises him warmly, amongst other qualities, for his moderation and affection (pietas). Tacitus, who wrote after the emperor’s name had become hateful, lavishes his matchless skill in analysing and unfolding character with the stern pleasure of bringing the worst crimes of the dark tyrant into the full light of history. The portrait traced by Suetonius, with his usual attention to realistic effect, is nearly assombre. Tacitus allows little for the corrupting effects of a bad time and of unlimited power. Tiberius is described as a man naturally heartless, cruel, and licentious, but with great powers of self-restraint, and so given to dissimulation that he preferred to work underground when it was in his power to carry out his purposes more easily by direct measures. Owing everything to the goodwill of his imperious and politic mother, Livia, the wife of Augustus, he was brought up in an uneasy position without any justifiable expectations of gaining the sovereign power. He was generally thought amiable in private life, and under the watchful eye of his stepfather Augustus, had won renown in war, and proved himself an able administrator and a powerful speaker. Augustus, who com- plained to Livia of his sour temper, evidently appreciated his abilities. It was probably with an eye to his advancement, or to bind so able a statesman to the Julian dynasty, that he was selected to be the third husband of Julia on the death of Agrippa. To marry this woman, already notorious for her profligacy, Tiberius had to put away his own wife Vipsania, to whom he was much attached. Disgusted with the conduct of Julia, and fearful and jealous of the grandsons of the emperor, Tiberius wrung an unwilling consent from Augustus to go into exile at Rhodes, where he lived seven years, according to Suetonius, in philosophic retirement, but if we are to trust Tacitus, indulging in secret pleasures and concealed cruelty, and meditating plans of future ven- geance. One by one the heirs of Augustus were carried off by an untimely death, Marcellus, the son of Octavia; Caius and Lucius Caesar, the sons of Agrippa and Julia; and the younger brother of Tiberius, Drusus Claudius Nero, the son of Livia. The influence of Livia made Augustus prefer Tiberius to THE DEIFIED CASARS. 97 Germanicus, the son of Drusus, so that at the age of fifty-six he inherited the: imperial power, which he increased by his own dark and subtle policy. The son of Livia by Tiberius Nero, her first husband, he was descended, both on the father’s and mother’s side, from the old patrician family of the Claudii, renowned for their talents and their eccentricities, who had done good and evil service to the State.* For the first nine years the reign of Tiberius was a benefit to the Roman world. The corrupting influence of absolute power acted slowly on a man by nature thoughtful and circumspect. According to Tacitus, it was the death of his mother, in the fifteenth year of his reign, that first freed him from any remains of restraint. From this time may be dated a furious, headlong tyranny such as the world had never seen before on so great a scale. A worn-out sensualist, he tried to revive by every device the passions of youth. It has been made a reproach to the historians the faithful realism with which they have chronicled the abominable excesses of the first Caesars ; but, in truth, the study has its interest. Where else can we find such experiments to gauge the limits of the possible depravity of human nature? Where else can we find such far-reaching and irresistible power over the civilised world; such shameless passions, such contempt for the opinion of men, so little fear of retribution beyond the grave? When such men as the first Casars were deified, some of them during their lives, religion itself seemed to become the ally of all mastering force that had quite severed itself from pity or from conscience. It would be wasting time to discuss the question whether, in his latter years, Tiberius was insane or only hideously wicked. Insanity sometimes seems the mere exaggeration of wickedness. ‘“« Never let man be bold enough to say, Thus and no farther let my passions stray ; The first crime past compels us on to more, And guilt proves fate which was but choice before.” * “Multa multorum Claudiorum egregia merita, multa etiam sects admissa in rempublicam extant.’”—Svetontius, Tiberius Nero, cap. ii. H 98 THE EXAGGERATION OF CRIME. Tacitus gives some instances of Tiberius’ rooted hatred of mankind which certainly look like insanity* :— “Tn his solitary island, we are told, he committed petty murders without remorse or ceremony. He had ordered a person, whom he suspected as an accomplice in the destruction of his son Drusus, to attend his presence in the isle of Caprese; and it happened that he had invited, at the same time, a friend from Rhodes, on a visit of pleasure. The friend arrived first, and no sooner set his foot on the shore than he was seized by the guards, and, as a delinquent, hurried away and put to the rack. Tiberius heard of the mistake, but was no otherwise moved than to say, with calm composure, ‘Since you have begun with him, you may finish your work, and put the man out of his pain.’” Suetonius tells us that the place was still shown at Caprez where he ordered those who were condemned to death after long and exquisite tortures to be thrown into the sea before his eyes. A party of sailors were ready to fall upon them with poles and oars lest any life should be left in them. In spite of the terror he inspired, he could not escape from unwelcome truths. Those condemned to die stung him with reproaches, and libels were scattered amongst the seats in the theatre. Artibanus, the king of the Parthians, sent him a letter upbraid- ing him with his crimes. Both Tacitus and Suetonius describe him as disgusted with life and suffering from remorse. Tiberius paid little attention to religion, was addicted to astrology, and persuaded that all things were governed by fate. Death he regarded as the end of being, and he gave this as a reason for prolonging the tortures of his victims. CALIGULA. But a more hideous portent was still to appear, who, from the seat of absolute power, should flaunt in the eyes of the world the follies and atrocities of a deranged mind. There is not a page in the narrative of Suetonius which does not show the insanity of Caligula. The son of Germanicus and * Murphy’s “ Tacitus, Annals,” Book v. c. 41, vol. ii, p. 307. London, 1811. A LUNATIC EMPEROR. 99 Agrippina, the reputed great-grandson of Augustus, both by Drusus and by Julia, he became emperor at the age of twenty- five. He is described as tall of stature, pale, stout of body, with a long neck and thin legs. He increased his naturally repulsive appearance by studying before a mirror the means of making it more frightful. Suetonius* expressly tells us that “He had neither health of body nor of mind. Asa boy, he was troubled with epilepsy, and when he arrived at the years of manhood, though he could endure fatigue, he was sometimes seized with a sudden faintness, so that he could scarcely move, stand, or collect himself. He was himself sensible of the weakness of his mind, and had thoughts of retiring in order to clear his brain, He was believed to have got a philtre from his wife Cesonia which threw him into a frenzy. He was much disquieted by want of sleep, not resting at night more than three hours, and even then his sleep was broken and troubled by strange images; among other things the ocean seemed to come and speak with him, so during a great part of the night he would sit down at table, or wander through the vast galleries of his house, wishing for the approach of day. To this weakness of mind may be attributed two vices of an opposite character—great confidence and an excessive timidity.” He was fond of speaking in public, and had a considerable command of words, especially in invective. Once he led the victim to the altar, and raising the mallet with an insane impulse slaughtered the man who bore the sacrificial knife. At another time, lying at a feast beside the two consuls, he burst into a loud laugh. On their blandly asking him what amused him, he answered, ‘“‘ By a single nod I could get either of you strangled.” In the same manner Nero, elated with the enormities which he had committed, said that no prince before him had known the extent of his power. Such is the natural effect of power upon a weak mind. Like a child with a hatchet who must be chopping everything around, he is not content with holding it, he must exercise it. He seeks to make an occasion for showing his power, and would rather excite resistance than abstain from useless displays. If he be * “ Caius Caligula,” cap. xl. 100 A WEAKER TYPE. allowed to exercise his power to the fullest extent, he next seeks to go beyond it, and hates the person who checks him. Enough of the cruelties and extravagances which filled the four years of the reign of Caligula are related in the ordinary histories of Rome. The next figure was of a weaker type of insanity. CLAUDIUS. There never was any doubt of the imbecility of Claudius, the son of Drusus and the brother of Germanicus, whom .the legionaries made emperor rather than see the republic restored. His mother, Antonia, said that he had been begun but never finished by nature ; and Suetonius has preserved a letter from Augustus to Livia discussing how they could invest their grandson with some dignities without letting him make him- self laughed at. The same historian * tells us that he had a tall and good figure, which gave him dignity both when stand- ing and sitting, but especially when at rest. His gait was unsteady through the weakness of his knees. His laugh was uncouth ; when angry he grinned and foamed at the mouth. He stuttered, and his head shook when he was doing anything. Such symptoms of nervous disorder not unfrequently attend imbecility. Claudius was weak, timid, and credulous, but, being put under a severe pedagogue learned to declaim, made a good Greek scholar, and wrote a history of some length. Though diffident in many things, Claudius himself had no idea that he was destitute of judgment; indeed, as may happen with fools, his simplicity was sometimes mixed with shrewdness. He had a passion for hearing causes, and was much inclined to give judgment in favour of the party who appeared, without inquir- ing why the other was absent. On one occasion he delivered * Suetonius, Claudius, cxxx. Juvenal mentions his shaking head and dribbling lips :-— “Tle senis tremulumque caput descendere jussit In coelum et longa manantia labra saliva.” Satira vi., 1. 622. NARCISSUS DREAM. 101 his opinion in writing, “that he was in favour of those who may have spoken the truth.” The advocates practised upon his simplicity,—they would call him back and even lay hold of him as he was leaving the tribunal. One disappointed litigant called him an old fool to his face. A man unjustly condemned threw a stylus and some books at him. One day when hearing his causes he caught the smell of a dinner which was preparing in the Temple of Mars. He left the tribunal and joined the feast with the priests. What faculties he had were debased by drunkenness. Through the caprice of the soldiers he was made emperor when fifty. We are told he was naturally cruel. What is more likely, at an early age he acquired a taste for blood in the games of the gladiators, and liked to watch the faces of the dying. At Tibur he took a fancy to see some malefactors put to death in the ancient manner, and waited till night for an executioner who had been called from Rome for the purpose. Suetonius says that Claudius could be pushed to do anything by acting upon his fears. On one occasion a litigant told the emperor that he had, in a dream, seen him killed by some one. A short time after the opponent in the lawsuit appeared, when the other pretended to recognise him as the assassin, on which the weak emperor ordered him to be dragged to execution. It is said that Messalina and Narcissus used a similar artifice to destroy Appius Silanus. Having arranged their parts, Narcissus rushed before daybreak into the bed-chamber of the emperor to tell him that he had seen in a dream Appius making an attempt on his life. Messalina, feigning to be surprised, said that she had dreamed the same thing for several nights. A short while after it was announced that Appius had made his way in, for they had sent him a message to come the day before, and Claudius, convinced that the dream must be correct, immediately ordered him to be put to death. The next day Claudius related the occurrence to the senate, and thanked the freedman because he had watched over his safety even in his sleep. MESSALINA. The only question was whether Claudius should be governed 102 THE EMPERORS WIVES. by his freedmen* or by his wives. As he did not share the depraved tastes of the other Czesars, the women generally had the victory. We may here stop to inquire what were the effects of absolute power upon the minds of the two empresses who, one after the other, really exercised the powers nominally given to the weak-minded Claudius. Chastity is the point of honour of a woman as courage is that of a man. It might therefore be thought that the wife of an emperor would be anxious to maintain her power by her fidelity, would seek to satisfy at least in one point the expectations of men, and be fearful of losing the good opinion of her own sex; but Mes- salina gave herself up to excesses, which, if the description of Juvenal and others be correct, could be hardly outdone by the _most sensual men in that corrupt age. The indignation of her stupid husband was only aroused when she openly cele- brated her marriage with a paramour. After her tragical death, Claudius, or rather his freemen, decided that he should marry no more wives; but the post of wife to the emperor was too attractive to female ambition. It was gained by AGRIPPINA. This woman, married at thirteen to Domitius Ahenobarbus, became the mother of Nero nine years after. She partook in the orgies of her brother Caligula, and had him on the long list of her paramours. She was accused of poisoning her second husband, Crispus Passienus, and after the death of Messalina used the privileges of a niece to kindle desires in the weak mind of Claudius, whom she married to rule over the world. She promptly got all her rivals in the good graces of Claudius put to death. To be sure that one of them was really executed, Agrippina got the head sent to her and opened the mouth with her fingers to make sure that it was the real Lollia by some peculiarity of the teeth. She got herself a recognised rank as Augusta, and sat with Claudius * “His, ut dixi, uxoribusque addictus, non principem sed ministrum eoit.”SurEtontivs. Claudius. ¢. xxix. NERO’S MOTHER. 103 receiving ambassadors. It was before this vile pair, the weak-minded Claudius and his abandoned niece blazing in splendid robes, that the British hero Caractacus was led to atone for his presumption in refusing to share the slavery of the civilised world. Greedy of gold, Agrippina sold places and power, and got rich people put to death to lay hands upon their possessions. She persuaded her simple consort to get her son Nero declared his successor instead of his own son Britannicus, by Messalina. As Claudius showed some signs of contumacy, between them they poisoned the old imbecile, and then put him in the number of the gods. _ Britan- nicus, who was epileptic, was afterwards poisoned by Nero. Though women have not unfrequently been the holders of temporary and precarious power, there are not many instances where they have held a secure and absolute dominion. It may be said that, though the characters of these female sovereigns have been various, they do not seem to have been better able to resist the temptations to irregular amours than those men who preceded and followed them on the throne. Passing over the ancient scandals of the court of Semiramis, the unchastity of Catherine I. after the death of Peter the Great, and of the Tsaritzas, Elizabeth and Catherine II., show that, under the temptations of unchecked power, women are prone to fall into the same excesses as men. Unacquainted with the observations and generalisations of modern psychology, the great Roman historian did not grasp at the hereditary neurosis which followed tbe Julian family till it ended with NERO, who inherited, both from his father * and mother, a descent corrupted by the subtle taint of insanity and epilepsy, and depraved by sensuality and cruelty, rendered easy by the long enjoyment of power. It was said of Domitius Ahenobarbus, * The father of Nero, Cneius Domitius Ahenobarbus, was the grandson of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, through her daughter, the elder Antonia. Agrippina, the mother of Nero, was the daughter of Germanicus, the son of Drusus, by Antonia the younger sister. Agrippina was the sister of Caligula. 104 NERO’S FATHER, that if he had not been the father of Nero, he would have been the worst man of the age. Suetonius tells that when Domitius was congratulated on the birth of Nero, he said, “Nothing can spring from Agrippina and myself but what is detestable, and an evil to the public.” It is likely that Domitius, clearly a man of an observant and speculative turn of mind, had taken into consideration his own ancestors as well as those of Agrippina. It had been said of his grandfather, Cneius Domitius, that it was no wonder he had a beard the colour of brass, when he had a mouth of iron and a heart of lead. He had probably read the second Philip- pic of Cicero against Mare Antony, and knew something of the career of Julia. With such a pedigree, Nero might be expected to outdo his father. Nevertheless, the first years of the reign of Nero were said by Trajan to be amongst the best of any emperor. It required four years of absolute power, and the vile servility of panders and flatterers, to overcome the good influence of his tutors, Seneca and Burrhus, and to fan into a blaze that burst of cruelty, caprice, and sensuality, which has gained for his name a notoriety so horrible. Nero had one daughter by his wife, Poppzea, who died when four months old. She was made a goddess, by a decree of the Senate. Medals have been found with the inscription “ Diva Claudia Neronis Filia,’—‘ The Divine Claudia, the daughter of Nero.” Nero was the last of the dynasty of the Cesars. Only a few side branches of the Augustan family, by the female line, remained. Nero had done his best to help the extinction of the family, for he had put to death nine of the descendants of Augustus. Adding those killed by Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and his wives, as well as by Sejanus and Cherea, twenty-four of this race had come to a violent end. Eleven of them were females. The next ruling family at Rome was the Flavii, which ended with Domitian, a tyrant and sensualist fit to be ranked with Caligula, Nero, and Vitellius. Marcus AURELIUS. The wonderful succession of good emperors who ruled the THE REIGN OF THE PHILOSOPHER. 105 Roman world for above eighty years might be said to have freed human nature from the reproach that absolute power was a draught too intoxicating for any one to bear. This golden period began with Nerva, and ended with Marcus Aurelius, the best of them all. With him philosophy has reigned; for a moment, thanks to him, the world bas been governed by one who was at once the best and the greatest man of his age.* The descent from the father to the son, from Marcus Aurelius to Commodus, was so dreadful that the emperor has not escaped reproach in allowing his paternal fondness to blind him to the faults of the young savage whom he might have disposed in some position better suited to his instincts. It is not to be wondered at that those who witnessed the son of Marcus Aurelius murdering wretched captives in the arena should have recalled the light reputation of his mother, Faustina, and listened to the suggestion that this was the offspring of a gladiator rather than the son of the philosophic emperor. But Renan assures us that all the monuments attest the resemblance of Commodus to Marcus, thus confirming the remark of Fronto, the friend of the emperor, that the twins, Commodus and Antoninus, bore a striking resemblance to their father. CoMMODUS. Gibbon remarks that of all the Roman emperors Commodus was the first porphyrogenitus, born since his father’s succession to the throne. He was carefully educated. We have still the names of the professors of philosophy to whom he was forced to listen like a young lion yawning and showing his formidable teeth.t Apparently the only effect of all their maxims was, that a certain antipathy was established in his mind by which he was led to do the opposite of what they had taught. From his first boyhood, says Lampridius,{ he was base, cruel, and libidinous, given up to unnatural desires, * Renan, “ Marc-Auréle.” + Renan. + “Historie Auguste,” Biponti, 1787, Commodus Antoninus, chaps. i. and ix. 106 THE REIGN OF THE GLADIATOR. and corrupting his associates. When twelve years of age, he wished a slave who had overheated the bath to be thrown into the furnace. Xiphilinus,* on the contrary, says that he was not naturally malicious, but simple and easily led away. He accompanied his father in the war with the Quadi and the Marcomanni, and the carnage of the barbarians beyond the Danube no doubt nourished his young taste for blood. If he could not take up the maxims of the Stoics, he learned to use the bow and javelin with surprising skill, Admitted at the age of fifteen to a share in the imperial dignity, he became emperor when nineteen, and leaving the camp returned to Rome. For two or three years he seems to have suffered the counsellors of his father to preserve an appearance of decent government. He himself was quite incapable of exercising the vast concentrated powers of the Roman empire; he dis- liked even signing his name. Many of his letters contain only the word Vale. As he gave himself up more and more to lust and cruelty, the government passed into the hands of the ministers of his pleasures, Perennis or Cleander, on the understanding that he should do what he liked with men’s bodies, fortunes, and lives. His favourites sent the vilest creatures to govern the provinces, and sold the lives of men. He kept 300 concubines, and as many boys. His harem was shared by his favourites. He was a glutton and a drunkard. He went to the bath seven or eight times a day, and took food in the bath. So little did he fear the verdict of history, the doom which Tacitus so sternly inflicted on Tiberius, that he caused his most shameful actions to be engrossed in the public records.t His exploits in the arena, his shooting of wild beasts, and his slaughter of captives or gladiators, who got little chance of their lives, are too well known to need description. He is said to have fought 735 times in the gladiatorial games. The companions of his orgies often fell a victim to his rage for * “Collection des Auteurs Latins, avec la Traduction en Francais de M. Nisard.” Paris, 1860, vol. i., p. 617. +“Habuit preterea morem ut omnia que turpiter, que impure, que erudeliter, que gladitorie, que lenonice faceret, actis urbis indi juberet.” —T.awprimninne yw A CRAVING FOR BLOOD. 107 blood. He is said to have taken a pleasure in bleeding men with a surgeon’s lancet. His public acts of power were simply acts of folly. Sometimes he took the title of Hercules ; sometimes he delighted to bear the names of celebrated gladi- ators. He wanted the names of the months to be changed, and that the city of Rome should be called Colonia Com- modiana, Such was the son of Marcus Aurelius. He was simply a man of low intellectual power, of a sanguine temperament and vigorous frame, with strong sensual passions and a wild beast’s craving for slaying and blood. His desires were fed to madness by boundless temptation and indulgence. It is difficult to perceive, even had he been held under the fear of stern punishment, what situation Commodus could have filled in this world. He was scarcely fitted for a slave; but the madness of mankind made him an emperor. It is customary to date the decline of the Roman empire from his _ reign; but a State which could endure a senseless brute like this as its master for thirteen years was marked for ruin. As usual with these mad tyrants, he perished by the hands of conspirators. As usual the people rejoiced, ans the assassins who delivered them were put to death. HELIOGOBALUS. A greater degeneration was still to come in the servile submission of the Roman world to a boy of fourteen, who, incapable of ruling, used the vast wealth and power of Rome in gratifying the whims of sensuality. “It may seem probable,” writes Gibbon, ‘that the vices and follies of Elagabalus have been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. Yet, confining ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and attested by grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other age or country, The license of an Eastern monarch is secluded from the eye of curiosity by the inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The sentiments of honour and gallantry have introduced a refinement of pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the public opinion, into the modern Courts of Europe; but the corrupt and opulent 108 THE BOY EMPEROR. nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without restraint in the patient and humble society of their slaves and parasites. The emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank of his subjects with the same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.” Heliogobalus had been placed by the legionaries on the imperial throne for no better reason than that he was reputed to be the son of the tyrant Caracalla. Quite aware of the fate which awaited him, of the violent death which sooner or later ended the orgies of the dissolute emperors of Rome, he yielded to the current of his passions, which bore him to the tomb. Lampridius tells us that he had prepared silver ropes to strangle himself, and golden swords to stab himself, and solutions of poisons, flavoured with spices; and he had got a high tower erected, the inside of which was adorned with pictures, gold, and gems, from which he might precipitate himself, saying that even his death should be costly. More time might have been spent in considering the intoxicating effects of despotic power as displayed by the Roman emperors, had not the subject been rendered familiar by some of the greatest historians of ancient and modern times. The next example, though not less striking, is probably little known to ordinary readers. It may be said of the worst of the Roman emperors that their excesses fell principally upon those around them. Their caprices were like those of overgrown children sure of their way in everything. Indeed, most of them were giddy young men, brought up in the corruptions of power. When he became emperor, Caligula was but twenty-five years of age, Caracalla was twenty-three, Commodus nineteen, Nero seventeen, Heliogobalus fourteen, but Domitian was thirty, and Maximin sixty-two. Under these tyrants the machinery of government was deranged principally by their neglect. The real administration of affairs, during their short reigns, was in the hands of inferior functionaries, who still retained some of the ruling power of the old Romans. ONE WHO WOULD GOVERN. 109 In the case of Mohammed Toghlak, Emperor of Delhi, we have a man who insisted in governing, who delighted in the real exercise of power; and whose mental derangement was displayed by his restless desire to try new experiments on the body politic. As the history of his insanity is the history of India during his reign, we shall be obliged to go into some details, CHAPTER II. MoHAMMED ToGHLAk, SULTAN oF INDIA. HE genealogy of Mohammed Toghlak cannot be traced far back. According to Ferishta, his father, Gheias u din Toghlak, was originally a Turki slave, his mother a Jat woman. From a foot-soldier, he had risen to be governor of Debalpur, a town in the Punjab. His son, Mohammed, or Juna as he was then called, was chief of the imperial stables at Delhi while Khusru Khan was sultan. One day Juna rode away with the son of Kichlu Khan, the governor of Multan, to join in a revolt against the sovereign. Khusru Khan was defeated, and fled, and the insurgent chiefs entered the royal palace of Delhi. Gheias u din Toghlak said to Kichlu Khan, “ You must be sultan.” ‘You ought rather to be so,” answered the other. They continued disputing for some time, till Kichlu Khan said to Toghlak, “If you refuse to be sultan, your son will become the sovereign.” Toghlak, not liking this, seated him- self upon the throne. The defeated monarch, Khusru Khan, detected in his hiding-place, was conducted to the new sultan by Juna, and put to death. His head and body were thrown from the terrace, as Khusru Khan had done with the head of his predecessor, and the kingdom belonged in peace to Gheias u din Toghlak, who gained the character of a just and virtuous king. His wife was a virtuous lady, renowned for her works of kindness and charity. Their son Juna, who thus appears to have played an important part from the beginning, was next employed by his father on military expeditions amongst the Hindu rajahs of the Deccan. Accordiug to Ibn Batuta, Gheias u din had good reason to suspect his son’s fidelity. ‘Wishing perhaps to remain at the head of the army, the sultan set out on an expedition to Bengal, leaving his son A GREAT TRAVELLER. 111 as viceroy in Delhi. Juna bought a large number of slaves, gave magnificent presents, and consulted devotees and astrolo- gers about his future fortunes. On his father’s returning with the army, he came out to meet him, and prepared to receive him in a pavilion or great building of wood which he had erected in his honour. Batuta, who took the story from the mouths of eye-witnesses, says that the building was so arranged that it would fall when the elephants passed over a certain spot. At anyrate, the kiosk fell suddenly upon the sultan and his favourite son, Juna ordered them to bring picks and shovels to seek for his father ; but he made a sign that they should not be in a hurry, and the tools were only brought after sunset. They found the sultan lying above the body of his son, and it was even said that he was not yet dead, but had to be despatched. He was buried during the night. Ibn Batuta, who evidently believes this story, says that Khwaja Jehan, the constructor of this building which so opportunely made the throne vacant, enjoyed greater credit with the successor than any one else ever did. At the same time, he was evi- dently a useful and faithful vizir to Juna, who now (1325) became sultan, under the title of Mohammed Shah Toghlak. On his accession he must have been at least thirty years of age. The fullest description of this monarch is to be found in the travels of Ibn Batuta,* a native of Tangiers, who com- menced his wanderings about thirty years after another great medieval traveller, Marco Polo, had returned to Italy. He visited Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, Southern Russia, Bokhara, Constantinople, Persia, Khorassan, and Kabul. He entered India in 1333, and remained in that country about ten years. These were the days of Edward III. and Philip de Valois, when Petrarch and Boccaccio had attained fame, and ‘Chaucer and Froissart were still children. Ibn Batuta was received with great favour by Mohammed ‘Toghlak, who gave him many rich presents, and repeatedly je ae Asiatique. Voyages de Ibn Batoutah, Texte Arabe, accom- pai es raduction, par C. Defremery et le Dr. B. R. Sanguinetti.” Tome Troisiéme. Paris, 1855. This edition is more complete than the text from which Lee’s English translation of Ibn Batuta was made. 112 HIS PORTRAIT OF TOGHLAK. paid his debts. He made him judge of Delhi, with a large salary; and as the traveller did not know the language, he allowed him two substitutes. Batuta had many interviews with Toghlak; and as his Travels were written after his return to his native Morocco, he could have had no motives to tell anything but the truth. Though the wonderful character of the events related caused his narrative to be viewed with suspicion, the most incredible parts of his state- ments are confirmed by Indian historians, who wrote from different sources. The great Oriental traveller has given us a life-like portrait of the Indian monarch. Toghlak, he tells us, of all men, loved most to make pre- sents and to shed blocd. At his gate there is always seen some beggar who becomes rich, or the body of some man put to death, His generosity, his bravery, and his acts of violence and cruelty towards those in fault, have gained him notoriety amongst the people. In spite of all this, he is the most humble of men, and shows the most equity. The ceremonies of religion are observed at his court, and he is very severe in enforcing the regular performance of prayer. He put to death nine people in one day for neglecting the customary prayers. The neighbouring countries, such as Yemen, Khorassan, and Persia, were full of anecdotes about this prince and his pro- fuse generosity to strangers. Ferishta, the Mohammedan historian of India,* who wrote about 260 years later, says that Toghlak was the most. eloquent and accomplished prince of his time; that he wrote some good Persian poetry himself, and was the patron of literary men in general. His letters, both in Arabic and Persian, display so much eloquence, good taste, and good sense that the most able secretaries of later times study them with admiration. Batuta tells us that, though Toghlak understood Arabic tolerably, he could not speak it fluently. It is likely, therefore, that he took advantage of the skill of some Arabian secretary at his court. He was fond of history, and had so * “History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India till the Year a.D. 1612, translated from the original Persian of Mahomed Kasim Ferishta by John Briggs, M.R.A.S., Lieutenant-Colonel in the Madras. Army.” London, 1829, pp. 410, 411. SCATTERS GOLD TO THE PEOPLE. 113 retentive a memory that he recollected almost every event he read of and the time it occurred. He was skilled also in the sciences of physic, logic, astronomy, and mathematics. He had the talent of discovering the character of persons from a very slight acquaintance; and his flashes of suspicion were abrupt and dangerous. He even went so far as to attend himself on patients afflicted with any remarkable disease. He studied the philosophy of the Greek schools, and after his accession to the throne he maintained disputes with Assaud Muntuky, the metaphysician, Oobeid, the poet, and other learned men whose names were once in people’s mouths. The presents he gave to these fawning literati almost surpass belief. The story told by Batuta in Morocco, that on a grand entry into Delhi the sultan caused gold and silver money to be thrown from the backs of elephants amongst the people was received with distrust; but a similar statement is to be found both in Khondemir® and Ferishta, taken from a contemporary of Mohammed Toghlak, the historian Ziai din Burny. We are told that the sultan discouraged all intemperate pleasures, and set the example by his own rigid life+ There is nothing to indicate that the sultan was much given to the company of women. From anything we can gather, the reverse seems more likely. But the jealous seclusion of the harem covers much of the private life of an Eastern prince, and Mohammedans consider it bad taste to allude to the females of a family. At his death he only left one son, a child whom his old vizir, Khwaja Jehan, wished to put on the throne, and whom his nephew treated as supposititious. Batuta mentions beer as being served at the sultan’s banquets; but had Toghlak been given to excess in drinking, or had he even been known to drink wine, it would, no doubt, have been recorded to his discredit by the Mussulman historians. Mohammed Toghlak was thus evidently a character of no common depth and intensity, accomplished, attentive to busi- ness, firm, brave and energetic, loving knowledge though bred * “Voyages d@Ibn Batoutah,’ Tome iii. Advertissement p. xvii., and note p. 464. + “The History of Hindostan, Translated from the Persian,” by Alexander Dow, London, 1812, vol. i., p. 280. T 1i4 HIS CRUELTY. in camps, skilful in war, fond of the society of learned men, studious of history as became a prince, but with a restless curiosity which was attracted by the mysteries of the human mind, and wandered beyond the bounds of the world. Yet the recognition by daily prayer that life is short and God the Judge of all seems to have been of little avail in keeping him from doing wrong. As Mountstuart Elphinstone has observed,* “The whole of these splendid talents and accomplishments were given to him in vain; they were accompanied by a perversion of judgment which, after every allowance for the intoxication of absolute power, leaves us in doubt whether he was not affected by some degree of insanity. His whole life was spent in pursuing visionary schemes, by means equally irrational, and with a total disregard of the sufferings which they occasioned to his subjects; and its results were more calamitous than those of any other Indian reign.” Ferishta tells us that this man, “who established hospitals for the sick, and almshouses for widows and orphans on the most liberal scale,’ was wholly devoid of mercy. “So little did he hesitate to spill the blood of God’s creatures, that when anything occurred which excited him to proceed to that horrid extremity one might have sup- posed his object was to exterminate the human species alto- gether. No single week passed without his having put to death one or more of the learned and holy men who surrounded him, or some of the secretaries who attended him.” “Every day,” writes Ibn Batuta, “they brought to the hall of audience hundreds of people in chains, their arms attached to their neck and their feet tied. Some were killed; others tortured or beaten.” The executioners sat at the outer door of the hall of audience and the bodies of the victims lay three days at the gate where they were killed. The sultan’s elephants were taught to throw men in the air and catch them with their trunks, to cut their bodies on knives fastened to their tusks, or to trample them under foot. This grim ruler “took no delight in tales or romances, nor did he encourage buffoons or - * “The History of India. The Hindu and Mahometan Periods,” by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, London, 1857, p. 347. HIS OMINOUS PLEASANTRY. 115 actors.” Even his pleasantry was cruel: when he wished to exile his two brothers-in-law, the husbands of his sisters, he wrote on a bit of paper, “ Banish the foundling, and banish the eater of mice.” One of these relatives was of unknown origin ; the other was an Arab of the desert, and the Arabs were said to eat the jerboa, a little rodent classed by popular arrange- ments among the mice. This vein of ominous pleasantry was, perhaps, hereditary through his father, who, for an Oriental ruler, did not pass for cruel. During his life, the report had been set agoing by his dutiful son that the emperor his father was dead, and, in consequence, the army dissolved and the siege of Warangol was raised. The old emperor, getting some of the spreaders of this story into his power, ordered them to be buried alive, with the pointed remark that, “as they had buried him alive in jest, he would bury them alive in earnest.” The first actions of Mohammed ToghlaK seem to have been reasonable and politic enough. He made peace with the general of an invading Mogul force, whom he was not strong enough to drive away, and induced him by an enormous ransom to withdraw into his own country. Mohammed then turned his attention to India, and he subdued the distant provinces, so that his authority was recognised as far as Chittagong and the shores of the Carnatic. In fact the Mussulman empire, during the early part of his reign, was more extensive than it ever was till the days of Aurangzib. One of the first of his extravagant undertakings was the assembling of a vast army for the conquest of Khorassan, but the troops, finding that proper arrangements had not been made for their subsistence, dispersed, plundering the country wherever they went. Beha u din, the nephew of Gheias u din, was a great warrior; he had been made governor of a province. After the death of his uncle, he refused allegiance to his son Mohammed. Being defeated in the field after a bloody contest, he took refuge with the rajah of Cambila, who refused to give him up. The Hindu prince being blockaded in a fortress, and unable to hold out much longer, told Bhea u din to take refuge with another rajah. Then he ordered a great fire to be kindled, and said to his wife and daughters, “‘] wish to die, and those who would do like me let them do 116 AN ARBITRARY COINAGE. so.” Then the women washed themselves, and rubbing their bodies with perfumes, threw themselves into the flames. The wives of the principal officials and other women did the same. Then the rajah with those who followed his example rushed out upou the Mohammedan army, and fought till they were all killed. The town was taken, and eleven sons of the rajah of Cambila were led away to the sultan, who made them become Mussulmans, and greatly honoured them on account of their birth and the conduct of their father. The other rajah, not having the same resolution, gave up Beha u din, who was conducted to the sultan, his arms bound to his neck. He was taken to his female relations, who abused him and spat on his face. In the end he was flayed alive, and his flesh cooked with rice and sent to his wife and children. His skin was stuffed, and along with the remains of Bahadur Boura, another victim, exhibited through India as a warning to rebels. Dis- gusted at this barbarity, Kichlu Khan, when these figures were brought to his province, ordered them to be buried. Dreading the resentment of Mohammed Toghlak, Kichlu Khan, who had done so much to place his father on the throne, raised a formidable revolt (1827). Toghlak, who, according to Batuta, showed great courage and conduct, was again successful, killed Kichlu Khan in battle, and hung his head over the gate of Multan. It was with difficulty that he was dissuaded from a general massacre of the people of that great city. Mohammed Toghlak had heard of the paper notes used for money in China, and thought that he could enrich the imperial treasury by fixing an arbitrary value on copper tokens. The result was that they were only accepted through fear and could not be passed in the remote provinces. Merchants were allowed to coin large quantities through special favour at the mint; for these they obtained goods which they exported to foreign countries, getting gold and silver in exchange. The discontent became so great that the king was obliged to call in the copper currency. The treasury was emptied in exchanging real money for the copper coins at their imaginary value, and the king refused any more payments, so that thousands were ruined. Nobody gained but a few merchants and bankers. Another scheme of the DRIVES THE PEOPLE OUT OF DELHI. 117 fanciful despot was dividing the country at Surgdemary on the Ganges into districts of sixty-six miles square under an inspector of husbandry, who should be responsible for the cultivation of the ground. Sums of money were allowed to set the business a-going; but it entirely failed, “and it is likely,” adds Ferishta, “if the king had ever returned to Delhi, he would not have spared the life of one of these revenue officers,” In his attempts to shift the capital of India from Delhi to Diogiri, Toghlak showed at once the whimsical character of his mind and his power to overcome all obstacles to the fulfilment of his wishes, According to Ibn Batuta, he was provoked by anonymous letters which were thrown at night into the Hall of Audience reproaching him with his crimes and follies. Failing to trace the writers of these libels, his wrath fell on the whole population of Delhi. He paid the inhabitants a price for their houses, and ordered them to betake themselves to Diogiri, nearly seven hundred miles off. This place he determined to make the capital of India under the name of Doulatabad. Those who had no money were to be fed by the way at the public expense. “‘Oriers proclaimed that after three days no one should be found in the city of Delhi. He ordered a careful search to be made for those who should remain hiding. His slaves found in the streets two men, one paralytic and the other blind. They brought them before the sovereign, who ordered the paralytic to be thrown from a catapult, and that the blind man should be dragged from Delhi to Doulatabad, that is to say, forty days’ march. He fell to pieces during the journey and only one leg was dragged into Doulatabad. All the inhabitants quitted Delhi. They abandoned their furniture and their goods, and the city remained a desert.” “ A trustworthy person,” goes on Ibn Batuta, “assured me that the sultan mounted one evening on the terrace of his palace and gazed upon the city of Delhi, where there was neither fire, nor smoke, nor torchlight, and said: ‘Now my heart is satisfied and my mind is quiet.’ But there was a fire in his brain which would not let him rest, Some time after, he wrote to the inhabitants of different provinces to come to Delhi. ‘They ruined their country but did not people Delhi, so great is that city. On our entry into the capital we found it empty, abandoned by its population.’” 118 THE INVASION OF CHINA. Toghlak brought his army again to Delhi and remained there for the space of two years; but again took it into his head to remove to Doulatabad. He carried off the whole of the inhabitants a second time to the Deckan, leaving the noble metropolis of Delhi a resort for owls and a dwelling-place for the beasts of the desert. The wretched inhabitants, driven to Doulatabad, reduced to poverty in a strange country, with- out houses and employment, suffered great misery. The country round about, exasperated by his exactions, repeatediy rose against him, and in the end his troops were driven out of the Deckan. At last he lost even the city of Doulatabad, where some of the great works he undertook still attest his vast designs, A less serious instance of the whimsical character and surpassing egotism of the man is recorded by Ferishta: “On the way to Doulatabad he was afflicted with a violent toothache and lost one of his teeth, which he ordered to be buried with much ceremony at Bhir, and caused a magnificent tomb to be reared over it, which still remains a monument of his vanity and folly.” In the year 1337, he conceived the idea of invading China. It was in vain that his councillors of state assured him that it was impossible to conduct an army across the great mountains which separate Thibet from India. The arbitrary will of the monarch bore down all remonstrance, and a hundred thousand troops, Ferishta says, horsemen, were sent under the command of his sister’s son through Nepaul. Some of the troops actually reached the other side of the Himalayas, where they were easily repulsed; and from the pursuit of the Chinese, the attacks of the mountaineers, the loss by famine, and the rainy season, scarcely a man returned save the soldiers left in garrison in some forts to secure the communication, and these were put to death by the order of the king on their return to Delhi. Toghlak having set his heart upon being confirmed on his throne by the nominal Caliph, Aboul Abbas of Egypt, sent an ambassador to Cairo; who returned with an envoy bearing a letter. Toghlak advanced to meet the envoy on foot, put the letter of the Caliph upon his head, ordered great rejoicings to THE SON OF THE CALIPH. 119 be made, and struck out from the roll of sultans in the mosques every king’s name who had not been confirmed. Amongst the number of these degraded sovereigns was his own father. The envoy was rewarded with lavish gifts, and his horses were shod with gold. Some time after, Ghiyath u din, a descendant of the Caliph Almostansir, came to India to visit Toghlak. The monarch went to meet him out of Delhi, held the stirrup while his guest mounted on horseback, presented him with betel with his own hand, stood up when he entered, and ordered his courtiers to pay the same respect to the son of the Caliph as to himself. A hundred villages were assigned him for his maintenance, and the most costly gifts showered upon him. Ibn Batuta, who knew this favoured personage, says that he was as miserly as Toghlak was generous. He gives a whimsical instance of the superstitious regard which the sovereign of India showed for the adventurer. Ghiyath u din, becoming jealous of the honours paid to another visitor, the King of Gaznah, sent a message to Toghlak that he might take back all his gifts. On hearing this, writes Batuta, the sovereign got on horseback without losing a moment and went to the son of the Caliph accompanied by ten of his attendants, He caused himself to be announced, dismounted outside the man’s house on the public highway, where he was met by the son of the Caliph, who was ready to accept his excuses, but the sultan replied: “In God’s name I shall not believe that you are pleased with me till you have put your foot on my neck.” , Ghiyath u din answered: “If I should die, I would not do such a thing.” The sultan answered : “T swear by my head that you must do this.” He put his head on the ground, and one of his great officials took with his hand the foot of the son of the Caliph and placed it on the neck of the sovereign, who then rose, saying, “ My mind is at rest, for I know that you are pleased with me.” A man of high rank among the Hindus pretended that the sovereign had caused his brother to be put to death without a justifiable motive,and cited him before the judge. The sovereign came on foot without arms to the tribunal. He saluted it, bent before it, and stood before the Khadi. He had previously 120 TWO VERDICTS AGAINST THE SULTAN. warned this functionary that he was not to rise for him, nor stir from his place when he should arrive at the courts. The judge decided that the sovereign was bound to satisfy the opposite party for the blood he had shed, and the sentence was executed. On another occasion a Mussulman pretended that the sultan was owing him some money. The affair was argued in the presence of the judge, who pronounced a verdict against the sovereign that he should pay a sum of money, and he paid it. A lad belonging to the sons of kings, that is, the great officers of the court, accused the sultan of having struck him without cause, and cited him before the Khadi. He decided that the sovereign was obliged to indemnify the plaintiff by giving him a sum of money, if he were satisfied; if not, that he had a right to direct retaliation. The sultan sent for the lad, and giving him a stick, said: “ By my head you must strike me as I have done to you.” ‘The lad took the stick and gave the sultan twenty-one blows with such vigour that I saw his bonnet fall off his head.” The sultan had a brother called Mashoud Khan, whose mother was daughter of a former sultan, Alau din. ‘“ He was,” says Batuta, ‘one of the most beautiful creatures that I ever saw in this world.” Suspected by Toghlak of wishing to make an insurrection against him, he confessed through fear of torture. ‘In fact,” adds Ibn Batuta, ‘‘ every person who denied accusations of that kind that the sultan frames against him is, as a matter of course, put to the torture, and most people preferred death to being tortured.” The sultan ordered his brother’s head to be cut off in the public square, and the body remained three days abandoned in the same place accord- ing to custom. The mother of Mashoud had been stoned two years before for adultery. On one occasion he ordered two men learned in the law to go to a certain province, with a Turk who should execute their orders. Being suspicious that this man was sent as a spy, they answered: ‘‘It would be better that we should go as two witnesses, and we will show him the path of justice that he may follow it.” Then the sovereign said: ‘“ Assuredly your intention is to devour and waste my goods and to blame. that HIS SUSPICIOUS NATURE. 121 upon the Turk who has no knowledge.” The two lawyers answered: “God keep us from that, O master of the world. We do not seek such a thing.” The sultan answered: “You have no other thought ;” then he said to his people: “Take them to the Sheikh Zadeh, who is to administer the punish- ment.” When they were brought to this dreadful functionary he said: “The sultan wishes your death ; confess then what he accuses you of and do not cause yourself to be tortured.” They answered: “‘We have never meant anything but what we have said.” Zadeh answered, addressing his executioners, ‘Make them taste something.” That means, put them to the torture. They laid them on their backs, and placed on their breasts a plate of red-hot iron, which they took away after great torture, and which exposed or destroyed the flesh. Then they took ashes, which they applied upon the sore. Then the two victims confessed that their intention had been rightly indicated by the sultan, that they were two criminals who deserved death and who had no right to live, nor any complaint to make for their blood in this world or in the next. They wrote that with their own hands and acknow- ledged their writing before the Khadi. He legalised the state- ment that their confession had been made voluntarily and with- out restraint. If they had said, We have been forced to it, they would have been infallibly tormented worse than before. They thought that it was better to have their throats cut without delay than to die in torments. They were killed. “ May God have pity upon them.” Ibn Batuta states that, suspecting several notable people of sympathy with a revolt, he imprisoned some and put to death others. A Khadi, whose eyes had been put out for this assumed offence, was brought before the sultan and told to give the names of the persons in his town who thought and acted like those who had been executed. The Khadi dictated the names of a number of the principal personages of the district. When the monarch saw the list, he said, ‘This man desires the destruction of the town;” and, addressing himself to his slaves, he said, “ Cut off his head,” which was instantly done. “ May God. have pity upon him.” Truly, the people were to be 122 YES, YOU ARE A TYRANT. pitied under a despot whose very clemency was cruel, and who could not forgive one without slaughtering another. An Indian, named Ein-ul-Mulk, Governor of Oude, suddenly revolted, and had nearly caused the destruction of the monarch. Captured in battle, he was brought, riding naked on a bull, to the tent of Toghlak, who spared his life, and even allowed his mother, sister, and wife to live beside him. But the victorious sultan caused sixty-two of his adherents to be torn to death, or tossed about by the elephants to the sound of trumpets and the beating of drums; pieces of their bodies were thrown at the leader of the rebellion. Toghlak himself witnessed the scene from a tower. Ein-ul-Mulk was finally pardoned, and made inspector of the imperial gardens. Chihab u din was a man renowned for his virtues. He used to fast for a fortnight at a time. He had been in great esteem by the two previous sultans, who used to visit him to ask his benediction. He refused in public audience an employ- ment offered by Mohammed Toghlak, who ordered a celebrated jurisconsult to pull out his beard; on the latter refusing, he ordered the hairs of both their beards to be pulled out, and sent them away to distant employments. Chihab u din, after being seven years in Diogiri, was recalled, accepted some office, and was again held in honour by the sultan. After this, he retired to an uncultivated spot, a few miles from Delhi, where he lived in a grotto, which he had caused to be excavated, and employed himself for above two years in reclaiming and infigating the waste land around. The monarch, on his return to Delhi, received him with great honour. After a while he sent for him again, but Chihab u din refused to come. Then the sultan sent one of his principal officers, who tried to persuade him to come, and warned him of the danger of refusing. The sheikh answered, “I will never serve a tyrant.” On the sultan being informed of this, he, causing Chihab u din to be brought before him, asked, “Do you say that I ama tyrant?” He answered, “ Yes, you are a tyrant,” mentioning several things he had done, among which was the devastation of the city of Delhi, and the order to leave it given to all the inhabitants. The sultan drew his scimitar, and passed it to Sadr Aldjihan, saying, ‘“‘ Confirm this, that I am a DANGER OF IBN BATUTA. 123 tyrant, and cut my neck with this sword.” Chihab u din replied, ‘‘ He who would bear witness to that would, no doubt, be killed ; but you are yourself conscious of your own crimes.” His feet were tied together, and his hands fastened to his neck. He was kept in this condition for fourteen days, without eating or drinking. Every day they brought him to the Hall of Audience, and the lawyers and sheikhs said to him, “ Retract your assertion.” Chihab u din answered, “I will not retract it ;” and desired to be put amongst the band of the martyrs. The fourteenth day the sultan sent food to him, but the sheikh would not eat, and said, ‘‘ My goods are no longer on this earth. Return to him with your food.” The sultan, hearing of this, immediately ordered that they should make the sheikh swallow about two pounds of fecal matter. The sweepers took this dirt, which they dissolved in water, and, throwing him on his back, opened his mouth with pincers, and made him swallow it. Next day, on the sheikh still refusing to withdraw his word, he was beheaded. Thus, in one human breast, the sense of outraged justice and mercy was strong enough to fill the soul with indignation, which would not let him be the servant of a tyrant. Some honour we should pay to the unconquerable sheikh, who dared to speak out the whispers of many and the thoughts of all, in the face of the despot and his crouching courtiers and ready torturers. He ranged himself in the army of the martyrs, nor could all the tortures at the command of the sultan wring from him one word of weakness to soothe the tyrant’s maddened pride. He knew that words so spoken could not be idle words. We have sometimes wondered at the terror the base and wicked have for the word which meets their inner thoughts, which puts them in their right class. The word enters their soul, and will not cease to torture them, stirring up thoughts of their debasement, and awaken- ing the sentiment so deeply fixed in-a human breast, that a man will be judged by the deeds he has done in the body. Ibn Batuta, who had the reputation of being a friend of Chihab u din, was in great danger of falling a victim to the wrath of the sultan. It was probably owing to the painful impressions attending his narrow escape, which he attributed to his prayers and penances, that the traveller renounced all 124 APPALLING CONDITION OF INDIA. his possessions and retired to live in the hermitage of a cele- brated Mussulman saint, with whom he stayed five months. At the end of this time, Mohammed Toghlak called him to his presence, and sent him on a magnificent embassy to the emperor of China. While Toghlak remained at Delhi, he led his army out to hunt, as is customary with princes. When he arrived in the district of Beiram, he plainly told his officers that he came not to hunt beasts, but men ; and, without any obvious reason, began to massacre the inhabitants. He had even the barbarity to bring home some thousands of their heads, and to hang them over the city walls. On another occasion he made an excur- sion towards Canouj, and put to death the inhabitants of that city and the neighbourhood for many miles round, spreading terror and desolation wherever he turned his eyes. Thousands fled to Bengal, where Mullik Fakr u din had revolted (1339), and managed to hold his own against the tyrant. In order that he might lavish extravagant gifts upon strangers, and maintain an army of Mongols, Turks, Persians, and Afghans, the people were so mercilessly taxed and oppressed by the revenue officers, that in the fertile. tract between the Ganges and Jumna the cultivators, weary of their lives, set fire to their houses and retired to the woods with their families and cattle. Many populous towns were abandoned, and remained so for several years. In some in- stances, the revenue officers, unable to raise the amount demanded, became themselves the leaders of revolts. When we think on the appalling condition of the people of India, we are tempted to ask, Was it they who were mad, or the tyrant for whom no sword or spear had an edge? As Mountstuart Elphinstone remarks, “There is in general so little scruple about getting rid of a bad king in the East, that it is seldom such extensive mischief is brought about by the misgovernment of one man.” We hear of no plots in the palace ; but there were revolts in plenty. Ferishta tells us of fifteen of them, with two invasions from the north-west; but as has been often observed in India, from the diversity of castes, and the antagonism of rival religions, a united effort of the whole people is difficult or impossible. THE MISERY OF INDIA. 125 The sultan’s spies went everywhere. What men said to their wives at dead of night was reported in the palace. He lived much amongst the strangers whom he had attracted to his court ; and gave great offices to obsequious creatures whom he had raised from a mean condition. He was at the head of an army, in great part composed of foreigners, who were as well pleased to ravage India as to live at peace. Revolt brought them plunder and slaves. “Female captives,” writes Ibn Batuta, “are scarcely of any value in India, for they are dirty, and ignorant of the proprieties of life in towns. Even those who have been taught are very cheap, and no one needs to buy captives.” Batuta had ten sent him from the vizir. ‘‘T gave one,” writes he, “ to the man who brought them; my companion took three of the youngest; as for the rest, I do not know what has become of them.” “The infidels,” he goes on, “ occupy places adjacent to those belonging to the Mussulmans who have conquered them. These Hindus fortify themselves in the mountains and rough places. They surround themselves with plantations like hedges, which grow extremely thick and close, and cannot be burned. Within these they keep their cattle and their grain, and collect rain water.” The country was overrun with robbers. We read of a great pestilence in 1341, well-nigh destroying a whole army in the Deckan. Was this an invading epidemic of the Black Death, which so terribly thinned the population of Europe a few years later? We read, too, of droughts and dreadful famines. The sultan, who was grandiose in all his conceptions, caused food to be distributed to the people of Delhi for six months from the great public magazines of corn stored up for many years, His mother, who had become blind, was renowned for her charity, and her son paid great respect to her. Ibn Batuta says that on one occasion when the sultan met his mother on a journey he was seen to go up to her palanquin and kiss her feet. When the traveller returned to Tangiers he was thought to be an impostor as he told of these wonders; but in our own day we have seen the great city of Delhi cleared of all its inhabitants, and thousands of wretches, starving from the famine, fed by the magistrate of a foreign power at the city gates. 126 DISAFFECTION EVERYWHERE, Toghlak, who was brave, active, and skilful in war, again and again scattered his enemies, and ravaged the revolted provinces with merciless cruelty ; but the Hindu rajahs of the Deckan recovered their independence, and Bengal became permanently detached from his dynasty,—in fact, all his conquests were wrested from him except Guzerat. Ferishta tells us that the king said to Ziai u din Burny, the historian, that he understood the people thought these rebel- lions arose out of his severe punishments, “ but,” said he, “ they shall never prevent them ; crimes must be punished. You are a great historian and learned in the Jaw; in what instances are capital punishments warranted ?” The historian replied, “Seven sorts of criminals deserve severe punishment, but three only entailed death by the law of the Koran,—apostates, shedders of Mussulman blood, and double adulterers.” The king said, “All this may be very true; but mankind has become much worse since these laws were made.” On another occasion Toghlak said that he no sooner put down rebellions in one place than they broke out in another, and asked Burny to suggest some remedy. He replied that when disaffection had once taken root so deeply in the minds of the people, it was not to be exterminated without tearing up the vitals of the State. He had the courage to recommend the monarch to abdicate the throne in favour of his heir. Toghlak answered in an angry tone that he had no one whom he could trust, and that he was determined to scourge his subjects for their rebellion, whatever might be the consequences. A few days after this, having eaten to excess of the savoury fish of the Indus, he died near Tatta in Sind, after a reign of twenty-seven years. He was succeeded by his nephew, Firuz Toghlak, who had been often associated with him, and had followed him in his campaigns. Firuz gained the character of a just and bene- ficent king. As a record of the painful memories left by Mohammed Toghlak, Ferishta quotes a decree carved on the Mosque of Firozabad* :— “Tt has been usual in former times to spill Mohammedan blood on * Brigg’s “ Ferishta,” vol. i, pp. 462-464. THE TYPE OF HIS INSANITY. 127 trivial occasions, and for small crimes to mutilate and torture them by cutting off the hands and feet, and noses and ears, by putting out eyes, by pulverising the bones of the living criminal with mallets, by burning the body with fire, by crucifixion, and by nailing the hands and feet, by flaying alive, by the operation of hamstringing, and by cutting human beings to pieces. God in His infinite goodness having been pleased to confer on me the power, has also inspired me with the disposition to put an end to these practices.” In another part of the inscription Firuz says :— “T have also taken pains to discover the surviving relations of all persons who suffered from the wrath of my late lord and master, Mohammed Toghlak ; and having pensioned and provided for them, have caused them to grant their full pardon and forgivenness to that prince, in the presence of the holy and learned men of this age, whose signatures and seals as witnesses are affixed to the documents; the whole of which, as far as lay in my power, have been procured and put into a box, and deposited in the vault in which Mohammed Toghlak is entombed.” The analogy of Mohammed Toghlak in private life would be, a man intellectually gifted, accomplished, and full of vigour ; courageous, and skilful in athletic exercises; rigid in the formalities of religious worship, showing a sense of responsi- bility to a higher power ; curious for knowledge and fond of the society of learned men, but deficient in judgment; very fond of power, with an enormous idea of his own importance, but subject to fits of extravagant humility. He would squander money in extravagant gifts, and try to gain more by absurd and chimerical speculations on the most gigantic scale, untaught by his own failures and heedless of the ruin he caused to others. He would be unjust and cruel to those in his power, kindled into murderous frenzy by any contradiction, but capable of forgiving those who offended him after his fury was spent. Such a man would soon dissipate his fortune and indulge in guilty excesses, till he fell into the grasp of the law, or was consigned to a lunatic asylum. Unhappily, he was a powerful prince at the head of a conquering army of mercenaries, surrounded by servile courtiers, who wished to make themselves rich by his profusion, the absolute ruler 128 MANIACAL EXCITATION. of a submissive race to whom oppression was nothing new, the representative of a fanatical religion, proud of its mono- theism and purity of worship amongst a nation of polytheists, who had but faint claims to justice and forbearance on earth, and who were destined from their obstinate unbelief to ever- lasting torments. He presents to mankind the frightful spectacle of a madman on the throne, wielding absolute power to carry out the chimeras of a deranged mind, dragging a whole nation to ruin and misery by his senseless delusions and delirious activity ; having a band of executioners ever ready to carry out the tortures of his depraved fancy, and an army willing to commit murder, on a great scale; all the while retaining enough of sense and conduct to remain the master and scourge of India. Taking up Dr. Ball’s “ Legons sur les Maladies Mentales,” we find, under the head of maniacal excitation, a description of symptoms which recall the derangement of the Indian monarch. Ball accepts the definition of Falret, who describes this form of insanity as a general excitement of all the faculties and disorder of action without any clear derange- ment of the intelligence. There is a mobility in their ideas which still does not pass into incoherency, and there is a certain degree of logic which rules the situation and hinders the patients from falling into complete absurdity. There exists, at the same time, a moral perturbation which drives the patient to extravagant and sometimes to criminal actions. In such cases there is often an excessive develop- ment of certain intellectual faculties, especially of the memory. They are fond of poetry, and full of financial speculations and new projects, CHAPTER IIL. IvaAN THE TERRIBLE—THE END oF THE Dynasty oF RuRIK—THE Romanors—Pavt or Russia. — nations are too high-spirited and intelligent to submit to tyranny, and some races will suffer a great deal from a master who lives near them ; but the very tendency to obey an immediate superior renders impossible a wide- spread organisation of despotism. In considering the insanity of power, we may look at it in two ways, the madness of the tyrant in abusing it, and the madness of the people in submit- ting to it. In the history of Russia* we meet with many striking instances of both. The Russians are rough and cruel -to those under them, but inclined to submit to much oppression from those over them. They are at once domineering and servile, brave and submissive. Standing between Asia and Europe, Russia has the organising power of Europe with the yielding nature of Asia. Something of this national char- acter may be inherent in the race. Qther traits may be explained by their past history. Under the brutal yoke of the Mongols the Russians learned the utmost extremities of cruelty to which the vanquished must submit. Their country laid waste by the Tartars, and devastated by civil war, the whole people were rendered familiar with misery, bloodshed, and cruelty. Despotism had its root even in the family. The father’s children were his slaves, whom he could sell four times. Wives in Russia were under a sterner rule than in Asia. A father was as despotic in his wooden hut as the Tsar in the Kremlin. Prisoners of war became slaves; those ruined by * The principal authorities used in this chapter are the “ Geschichte des Russischen Staates,” von Dr. Ernest Herrmann: Hamburg, 1846 ; the “ His- tory of Russia,” by Walter K. Kelly : London, 1854; and the “ History of Russia,” in Lardner’s Cyclopaedia : London, 1836.” 129 K 130 IVAN’S MINORITY. the Tartars or the civil wars could only escape dying of want by selling themselves. The military class were the only possessors of the soil. The towns were scattered over a wide and wasted country ; what freedom they possessed was wrested from them by the military chiefs. A strong concentration of power was needed if they should live at all. The people looked to the Tsar as their protector against the Tartars and the nobles. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Muscovite princes seemed to have been a vigorous and long-lived race. These circumstances allowed such facilities for the abuse of power that it is not surprising that, amongst the Russian Tsars, Ivan IV., generally called Ivan the Terrible, has good claims to be considered the greatest tyrant that ever appeared in history. His father, Vassili, died in 1553, when Ivan was three years old; and his mother, Helena, became regent. Having rendered herself odious for her irregular conduct and cruelties, she was got rid of by poison at the end of four years. During her rule, Ivan’s three uncles had been put to death. The young Tsar fell into the hands of one set of conspirators after another, who committed cruelties, sometimes in his name, and sometimes in their vuwn. He had to suffer many indignities ; was sometimes in danger of his life; and saw his favourites killed before his eyes. At the same time he was suffered to indulge all his boyish caprices upon the weak and helpless. Amidst the applause or laughter of his companions the youth- ful Tsar learned to torment animals to death, to trample under foot the women and children that were in the way of his horses, to roam about at free quarters with his suite, and cause the suppliants who asked his mercy or his justice to be tormented before his eyes. In spite of an education so vile, he was not beyond’ the reach of good influences. In 1547, when Ivan was seventeen years old, a fire broke out in the capital, and a large part of the city was reduced to ashes. About two months after, another conflagration, helped by a strong wind, completed the destruction of Moscow. Seventeen hundred people were said to have perished in the flames. The populace, enraged and suspicious, accused the Princess Anna, the Tsar’s grandmother, AT FIRST REIGNS WELL. 131 and two of her sons, of causing the city to be set on fire. They rose and killed one son who had fled into a church for refuge ; and, three days after, a crowd came to Vorobievo, where Ivan was, to demand that the Princess Anna and her remaining son should be given up to them. Ivan caused some of the ringleaders to be seized and put to death, others fled. In the midst of these disorders appeared at Vorobievo one of those imposing figures who, like the Hebrew prophets or the dervishes of the East, dared to tell the truth to tyrants. Sylvester, a monk from Novgorod, says a Russian chronicler (Kurbski), came before the Tsar. “ He enjoined him, in the name of an avenging God, to lead a better life, and told him of wonders and Divine visions coming to him. But it is uncertain whether these were really true, or whether they were rather devised on account of the folly of the prince and his childish and thoughtless behaviour. For, as many people tell their servants to terrify the children with the fear of ghosts in order to make them give up the idle amusements of bad companions, so I believe that this priest wanted to heal a great evil by means of harmless threats and useful artifice; and he succeeded. He healed the prince’s soul of its leprous wounds.” Under the combined influence of Sylvester, Alexis Adashef, a young nobleman of great ability,- and Anastasia, the amiable wife of the young sovereign, his evil propensities were kept under, and for thirteen years Russia enjoyed an unusual period of good government and outward prosperity. The army was put in better order; a new code of laws devised ; a printing office was established; Archangel was founded, and trade was commenced with England through the White Sea; the frontier was pushed towards the Baltic by successes in Livonia; and by the conquest of Kasan and Astrakhan, the empire was extended to the Caspian. For- tresses were erected to keep the Tartars of the Crimea in check; and the Turks were driven back. In these wars Ivan tasted blood ; his tigerish impulses were awakened ; he endured with increasing impatience the restraints of moderation and policy with which these two able ministers sought to surround him. In 1552 he found a more pleasing adviser in Vassian, the deposed bishop of Colomna. ‘How can I rule securely,” 132 HIS MINISTERS BANISHED. asked Ivan, “and make the great and powerful submissive to me?” Be cleverer than they,” replied the crafty old monk. ‘Keep no counsellor who is abler than yourself, and you will reign unchecked; to a wiser man you will be as a slave.” Ivan kissed the old man’s hand, earnestly exclaiming: “‘ My own father could not have given me more wholesome advice.” On the death of the good Anastasia his tyrannical nature broke through all bounds. Sylvester and Adashef found it prudent to leave Moscow. In a letter which is still preserved * Ivan says :— “This sly hypocrite (Sylvester) who has befooled me with sweet words only thought of worldly power, and made friendship with Adashef to rule the empire without the Tsar, whom they despised. They aroused anew in the boyars the spirit of self-will, and shared cities and provinces amongst their followers, pushed into the imperial council when they wished, and filled all posts with their creatures. I was a slave upon the throne ; they dragged the Tsar like a prisoner with a handful of soldiers through the dangerous land of the enemy (Kasan), regarding neither his health nor his life. They devised childish terrors to horrify my soul. They desired that I should be higher than human nature. They forbade me to visit the holy cloisters, and would not allow me to chastise the Germans (to wage war with Livonia) They hated and calumniated the Tsaritza Anastasia, and favoured in every way the Prince Vladimir Andro- vitch ; and is it now to be wondered at that-I am determined to be no more a child in the years of manhood, and to shake off the yoke which a cunning priest and an ungrateful servant have laid on the empire?” Adashef and Sylvester were soon accused of compassing the death of Anastasia, and when they asked to be allowed to come before the Tsar to clear themselves, the flatterers, by whom Ivan was now surrounded, said to him: “If you allow these wicked sorcerers to come before your eyes, they will enchant you, the great, famous, wise, and God-crowned Tsar, and prescribe to you how much to eat and drink, and how you should live with the Tsaritza. They will allow you your will as little in great as in small matters; and if you suffer * Herrmann, vol. iii., p. 172. IVAN’S ARTFUL POLICY. 133 them to come before you they will again strike you with blindness. Have you not come to the true use of your under- standing only since you chased them away?” Adashef was thrown into prison, where he soon died ; and Sylvester banished to a desert island in the White Sea. In his unwearied desire to humble the boyars, the autocrat followed the policy of his father and his grandfather, Ivan the Great. In the dead of winter, 1565, the Tsar retired to a village near Moscow, whence he sent a letter complaining bitterly of the disorders during his minority, and assuring the citizens, merchants, and people of his good intentions to them. He ended by saying that, as so much opposition was offered to him, he would leave the empire in great sorrow, going the way that God would show. This crafty letter, which was read to the people by the Metropolitan of Moscow, had the effect desired. Anarchy seemed to all worse than despotism. ‘The Tsar has left us,” cried the people, “we shall perish! Who will be our defence in war with the stranger? How can the sheep do without the shepherd?” The Metropolitan was sent to implore him to return. No one wished the guilty to escape. In a month Ivan consented to come back. Every one was astonished at the change in his appearance. When he left he was tall and stout, with a comely countenance, a fine complexion, sharp grey eyes, a full red beard, broad shoulders, and a wide chest. Now he had lost his hair and beard, his eyes were dull, and his body wasted. Most likely he had suffered from a disease which had been brought to Europe by the companions of Columbus. But now be could have his cherished revenge against the boyars, who had so long restrained and thwarted him. He raised a bodyguard of six thousand men, called the Opritschnina, who carried at their saddle-bows a dog’s head and besom, to signify that they were ready to worry to death and sweep away the enemies of the Tsar. With bands of these ruffians he rode through his own dominions, chasing the boyars from their estates in thousands. Many of their wives and families perished in the snow, every one being afraid to help them. Many who could bring two or three hundred horsemen and pay thousands of roubles, were seen begging 134 HOW HE CHOSE A WIFE. from door to door; and others who had been their servants were put in possession of their land, so that men who had been accustomed to hold the plough now appeared with fifty or a hundred horsemen riding behind them ; but as these upstarts had no money to begin with, they took from the poor peasants, who were given up to them, as much in one year as they had formerly paid in ten. Informers were employed everywhere. Fear was in every heart. Ivan shut himself up in his palace of Alexandrova, which was surrounded with a wall and ditches. Only eight days after the death of Anastasia, he married a second wife, the daughter of a Circassian, who was rough, and had a bad influence on the Tsar. During his life he married seven wives in succession. It was the custom in Russia to collect all the most beautiful young women in the provinces, and allow the Tsar to choose his consort from among them. This custom lasted until the days of Peter the Great. In the times of the Romanofs the fair candidates were honourably treated, but with Ivan every successive marriage was the occasion of fresh oppression and insult to his subjects, or slaves, as they called themselves. In 1570 Ivan caused to be brought to Alexandrova two thousand young women, collected from all parts of Russia. He kept them nearly a year in his dishonourable custody.* After a time the autocrat reduced the number of expectants to twenty-four, then to twelve. Out of these he chose a con- sort for himself and one for his son. Some of the women were bestowed on his servants, the rest turned away. No one was secure from his immoderate and unnatural desires, A volume would scarcely suffice for the record still remaining of his caprices and mad cruelties. These were not anecdotes of the occasional crimes and weaknesses of a long * Herrmann, Band iii, p. 222. Dieselbe so jme deuchte, zu heirathen nicht gefellig, gebraucht er zu schandtbarer fleischlichen Wollust, gab jr etwas und vorheirathet dieselbig under seine henkersbuben, oder wurde auch gar ledig ausgestossen. Taube u. Kruse, 8. 231. Der Dane Ulefeldt sagt in seinem Reisebericht von J. 1579 von Iwan (p. 19): Habet (ut aiunt) in gyneceo suo 50 virgines ex illustri familia oriundas ex Livonia abductas, quas secum, quo se confert, ducit, iis loco uxoris, tamquam ipse uxoratus non sit, utens; und Oderborn, p. 262: Pellices et concubinas cum filiis subinde permutavit. IVAN’S MAD CRUELTY, 135 life, but examples of the career of' an unrestrained madman, who was the absolute master of about twelve millions of unre- sisting slaves. For twenty-six years Ivan lived in an atmos- phere of suspicion, fear, jealousy, and hatred, yielding without any remorse to his homicidal impulses and cruellest fancies, and indulging without stint his worst passions and vilest pro- pensities amongst a coarse and servile race. Let us take a few illustrations from the copious narrative of Herrmann, who supports his statement by the citation of numerous authorities,—Russian chroniclers, and the reports of envoys and traders from Germany, Poland, England, Denmark, and Italy. One of his favourite jesters had made some unlucky pleasantry, and the Tsar poured a basin of hot soup over his head. When the poor fool began to howl, and wanted to run away, Ivan stabbed him with a knife, and he fell bathed in his blood. Then they called Dr. Arnolph. ‘Cure my honest servant for me,” said the Tsar; “I have carelessly played with him.” ‘So carelessly,’ answered Arnolph, “that only God and your Tsarish majesty can raise him again. There is no more breath in him.” Another time, as Ivan sat at table there came a nobleman to him. He bent himself to the earth, and greeted the auto- crat with the customary obeisance. The Tsar answered, “May you keep well, my dear voyevode; you are worthy of our grace,” and cut off his ear with a knife. Repressing all sign of pain, the poor man thanked the Tsar for his gracious pleasantry, and wished him a prosperous reign. Theodore, who had been his master of the horse for nineteen years, was accused, some thought at the instigation of the tyrant himself, of wishing to dethrone him. Ivan ordered the old man, in presence of the Court, to be dressed with the royal robes and crown ; he placed him upon the throne, and put the sceptre in his hand. Then, taking off his hat, Ivan bowed himself before him, and said: “I wish you health, great Tsar of the Russians. Behold you have got the desired honour. But, as I have the power to raise you to the rank of Tsar, I have also the power to throw you down again.” On these words, he ran a knife into the heart of the old man. 136 A POISONER. Sometimes at his feasts he would push away the dishes and call the ministers of his cruelty to kill the Lithuanian prisoners. Kurbski relates that one of the captives snatched a lance from the hand of the tyrant, and would have killed him had he not been struck down by the Tsarowitch, who enjoyed the massacre as much as his father. After they had butchered about a hundred men, they returned in triumph singing, Goida, goida, and sat down again to the feast. He got a doctor to prepare a poison which could be graduated to kill a man in half-an-hour, in one hour, or several hours, and killed more than a hundred men in trying this preparation. In 1569, Ivan sent his cousin Vladimir to command the army which he was collecting in Nijni Novgorod ; and the people of Kostroma, wishing to do him honour, went out in procession to meet him. On this being reported to him, the autocrat was so much enraged that he ordered the leaders of this public reception to Moscow, and put them to death. To Vladimir he sent a friendly invitation to come to meet him at Alexandrova. On the general announcing his approach, Ivan caused the village where he was to be surrounded, and sent him word that he should be received not as a brother but as an enemy. He ordered the court cook to prepare a bowl of poison. Vladimir, his wife Eudoxia, and their two grown-up daughters, and two sons who were younger, were then brought before the Tsar, and the bowl of poison handed to them one by one. The ladies-in-waiting and servants of Kudoxia would not ask his mercy, and Ivan caused them to be led naked before the people, and then shot. Vladimir’s old mother, who had retired into a convent, was ordered to be drowned. Ivan used to keep bears, which he now and then let loose upon the people for sport. He forced one man to kill his brother; another to kill his father. ‘Husbands or children were fastened dead to the places which they had occupied at the domestic table, and their wives or mothers were compelled to sit for days opposite to the dear and lifeless remains.” ‘‘Like most insane persons,” writes Mr. Kelly,* “ this frantic being now and then manifested scintillations of talent, * Kelly, vol. i, p. 145. IVAN’S LETTER. 187 of which he made a parade in sophisms, priding himself on his knowledge, aud often reasoning with considerable acute- ness,” One of his best generals, Kurbski, bearing while in command at Dorpat, on the Lithuanian frontier, that his life was in danger from the suspicious tyrant, fled to Sigismund, King of Poland (1564). He indulged himself in the needless luxury of sending a letter to Ivan, reproaching him with his ingrati- tude and cruelty, a grievous commission for the faithful slave who delivered it to the Tsar in Moscow. The Tsar ran his pointed staff into the foot of Kurbski’s messenger, which the man suffered without a cry. On the letter being read, Ivan ordered the devoted slave to be tortured, and then wrote a long reply. The passages given by Herrmann are like the compo- sition of an insane person, full of that acuteness which consists in missing the main point, and tripping up an opponent with some trifling quibble. We give a few sentences :— “T have read and understood your writing. The poison of adders is upon the lips of the traitor. You complain of the persecutions which you have suffered ; but you would not have gone over to the enemy if we had not treated you too graciously. You boast of the blood you have poured out in battle; but had it not been for your obstinacy, the whole of Livonia had been subjected to the Russian land. Against your will, wholly driven by force like a slave, you have gained victory. You say you have poured out your blood for us; but we have poured out sweat and tears for your disobedience. What was the country during your rule and our minority? A desert, from the rising to the setting of the sun. But when we had tamed you, we built towns and villages where formerly only wild beasts lived. Woe to the house where the wife rules! Woe to the empire where many rule! The Emperor Augustus was the sovereign of the world. He shared his power with nobody. Till now the rulers of Russia have been unrestrained. They have shown grace to their subjects and punished them with death at their pleasure, and so it will remain. Iam no morea child. I need the grace of God, and of the Holy Virgin Mary, and of the Holy Saints; but I do not desire the approval of men. ‘You threaten me with the judgment of Christ in another world. Is the power of God not also in this world? That is a heresy of the Manicheans. You think that God only reigns in heaven, and the devil in hell; but that men rule on 138 DISASTERS OF HIS REIGN. earth. No, no; the kingdom of God is everywhere,—in this life as well as in the next. You surround the throne of the Almighty with those put to death by me. What a new heresy! In the words of the Apostle, No man can see God. You have chosen a better master. Your great king is the slave of slaves. Is it then wonderful that slaves praise him? But I have done. Solomon says, Do not answer a fool ;—and that is what you are.” This badly-quoted and badly-applied proverb comes at the end of a letter which was as long as a book. Stephen Battori, the successor of Sigismund on the throne of Poland (1576), wrote to Ivan that he was a forger who falsified his treaties, and a monster who tortured his subjects. He challenged the Tsar to meet him in single combat, who would not come. “Where are you, god of the Russians,” said Battori, “as you compel your wretched slaves to call you ?” The end of the long wars on the western frontiers, signal- ised by horrible cruelties, was that the Poles drove Ivan’s troops out of Livonia, and the Swedes drove them out of Esthonia, thus shutting out Russia from the Baltic. Kurbski still found means to send insulting letters to his old sovereign. Towards the end of his reign, Ivan tried by submission to soften the anger of Battori. This madman, who had said to the Russians, “I am your god, as God is mine, whose throne, like that of the Omnipo- tent, is surrounded by winged archangels, and who sends forth armies of three hundred thousand men and two hundred cannon against his enemies,” fled at the approach of Dewlet Girai, the Khan of the Tartars of the Crimea, who burned Moscow to the ground (1571), and massacred or led into captivity the inhabitants. The Tartars returned next year; but through the bravery and skill of Michael Vorotynski, aided by 7000 German mercenaries, they were driven back to the steppes. During Ivan’s reign, Siberia was added to the Russian dominions by Yermak, an adventurer, who, like the Spanish conquerors of America, took advantage of the natives’ ignor- ance of fire-arms. Ivan sometimes tried to soothe his conscience by religious PHILIP REPROVES THE TSAR. 139 rites of a whimsical character. Keeping three hundred of his minions in the garb of monks, he himself, as abbot, directed their devotions with his usual extravagance. The bell aroused them at four in the morning; the service lasted till seven, and then recommenced from eight to ten. The Tsar sang, read, and prayed with such zeal that the marks of his striking his forehead upon the ground were often visible. While the rest breakfasted, he read or preached, for he knew the Holy Scriptures very well. Like Toghlak, he had a won- derful memory, so that he knew and repeated the names of the captives from all nations. During these devotions, he went every day to visit the prisoners, and never seemed to enjoy anything more than seeing them tortured. In his bed- chamber he had three old blind men who told him histories and tales till he fell asleep. He avoided Philip, the Metropo- litan of Moscow, whose saintly character seemed to have imposed respect even upon the savage nature of the Tsar. On the 22nd of March, 1568, Ivan entered the cathedral of Moscow, with some of his courtiers and guards. The Metropolitan Philip stood in the church by the altar. Ivan approached him to receive the benediction. The metropolitan gazed silently on the image of the Redeemer. At last the courtiers said, ‘Holy Father, here is the Tsar; bless him.” The same heroic wrath which roused the Indian sheikh, Chihab u din, to say to Mohammed Toghlak, ‘You are a tyrant,” now flashed through the soul of the aged patriarch. “Tn this shape,” he said, “and in such deeds as are being done, I cannot recognise the Tsar. Since the sun has shone in heaven no one has seen or heard of sovereigns with the fear of God so foully laying waste their own states. Tartars, and heathens, and other people have law and right; and everywhere there is mercy save in Russia. Remember that God, who has exalted you in the world, will demand an account for the innocent blood on your hand. These stones under your feet will cry out against you. This must I say by God’s command, should I meet my death for doing so.” Ivan struck his staff on the ground for rage. “Till now,” he replied, ‘I have been much too good to your people and to my empire; but now, for the first time, you will have some- 140 IVAN’S VENGEANCE. thing to complain of.” This threat was followed by fresh cruelties, in which the priests suffered. Amongst other excesses, he went with some hundreds of his guards, and car- ried away the wives of some of the noblest citizens of Moscow, whom they dragged through the country for several weeks, living at free quarters in the houses of the nobility. Then one night, all the women who were left alive were taken to the doors of their own houses. Philip said to the Tsar—‘ Ruler! Great Prince! You think that I fear you or death. I have now lived an honest, severe, and upright life for fifty-three years in the holy place at Solowkoi, until my seventy-ninth year—therefore it is better for me to die as an innocent martyr than to look dumb on fear and violence as metropolitan. Do what you please. Here is the shepherd’s staff, here are the white hood and the mantle, the signs of my elevation. But you, bishops, archimandrites, abbots, and all servants of the altar, feed faithfully the flock of Christ, and fear the heavenly Tsar more than the earthly one.” On this occasion Ivan forced the old man to take back his priestly robes; but what bad-hearted man ever forgave those who told him an unwelcome truth? On Michaelmas-day, Philip was reading service in full canonicals at the altar, when there entered the church a boyar with some guards behind him. He read from a paper that the metropolitan was deposed from all his dignities by some ecclesiastical conclave. The soldiers at once seized the old man, tore off his episcopal robes, and threw on a poor frock, let him out of the church, and putting him on a sledge, hurried him away to a cell. One day he was taken out to be tried. The Tsar was present. Philip was accused of sorcery and other misconduct. His judges much regretted to have to perform so painful a duty, but however repugnant to their private feelings, they must obey the voice of conscience, so the old metropolitan was condemned to imprisonment for life. One day the door of his cell was opened, and there was placed before his eyes the head of his nephew, with a message from the Tsar: “There is your dear relation. Your sorceries have not been able to save him.” The people wept in secret, and reported MASSACRE AT NOVGOROD. 141 that wonders were done in the name of the aged saint. They rejoiced that the Bishop of Novgorod, who had been active in degrading the metropolitan, did not reap his desired-for reward, the succession of Philip’s dignity. Living in an atmosphere of suspicion and fear, Ivan welcomed the tales of informers as the confirmation of his own delusions. A man who had been punished in Novgorod for some offence wrote, in the name of the archbishop and the citizens, a letter to the King of Poland, inviting him to come to rescue them. Having managed to conceal this letter behind the image in the church, he went to Ivan revealing the pretended plot. The Tsar sent a messenger with the man, who brought back the letter. No further proofs were desired. Ivan collected 15,000 men, and with his two sons marched upon Novgorod. Passing in his way the monastery where Philip, the deposed metropolitan, was confined, he ordered him to be strangled. After plunder- ing some towns on the road, the vanguard of his disorderly army reached Novgorod on the 2nd January, 1570. The town. was surrounded with stakes, and no one allowed to get out. Many of the principal people were put in chains. The stillness of terror reigned. No one knew either the cause or the pretext of this ominous march. All awaited the arrival of the Tsar. His first rage was expended on the archbishop and clergy, who were plundered of their possessions. After this came the turn of the inhabitants. Every day they brought before Ivan and his sons from 500 to 1000 of the people, of all classes, who were slaughtered in various ways, —stabbed, cut down, burnt, tied to sledges by the hands and feet. Whole families of men, women, and children, were thrown into the Volkov at places where the ice was open. Those who sought to escape by swimming were stabbed or hacked to death. These massacres lasted for five weeks, and then came a general pillage. The houses were gutted ; the cattle and horses killed. Quantities of skins, flax, and other wares, which could not be carried away, were burned. It is not known how many of the inhabitants were killed) A probable estimate makes it about 27,000. Ivan ended by collecting the survivors, and telling them to pray for him and his Christian army. He added, that from the archbishop and 142 KILLS HIS OWN SON. his foolish counsellors God would demand an account of the blood which had been shed. The remaining inhabitants were left starving, and the Tsar went to plunder other places. A hermit, who had great reputation for holiness, met him on the way, and awakened his fears by threats of future punish- ment, so that he returned to Moscow, which soon became the scene of fresh executions. But we have only room for the crowning horror of his life. To use the words of Karamsin, the Russian historian, in his eldest son Ivan, the Tsar had prepared for Russia a second self. The Tsarevitch assisted his father in governing the kingdom, and was the partner of his debaucheries and murders. It is said that the son reproached his father for brutally ill-treating his wife, the Princess Helena. The Tsar rushed upon his son, wounding a courtier who tried to hold him back. He struck his son on the temple with his iron-headed staff. The Prince fell down insensible, and died five days after. The Tsar remained speechless for days after, refused to see anyone, and would take no food. Then his unavailing regrets broke out into lamentations. They heard him calling his son. He thought he saw the Prince everywhere, and heard his voice. He left the palace of Alexandrova, and went to live in Moscow. He sent large sums of money to the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, to get prayers said for the soul of the prince whom he had killed. Otherwise, for the two years and four months during which he survived his son, there were no traces of a better life. About this time Ivan sent a special ambassador to Queen Elizabeth, desiring an English wife of noble family, and offer- ing to put away his seventh wife to make room for her. Mary Hastings, the daughter of the Earl of Huntington, was proposed by Elizabeth, and approved of by the Russian envoy ; but Lady Hastings took fright, and begged the Queen to spare her from such a fate. A noble maiden brought up in an English home, amongst the people from whom Shakespeare drew his portraits of tender and loving women, such an Imogen, Desdemona, Juliet, Cordelia, Rosalind, to be shipped to Archangel to become the head wife in the seraglio of the tyrant of the coarsest of the barbaric nations ! SUBMISSION OF THE RUSSIANS. 143 In 1584, Ivan felt his health failing. They announced the appearance of a comet; he gazed at it long, and said: “This is a sign of my death.” He collected about sixty astrologers and magicians, some from Lapland. He kept them all in a house and sent to consult them daily. They said that he would not live longer than twelve days. The wife of -Feodor, his son and successor, who came to console him, had to fly from the indecency of the Tsar, whose atrocious nature even the approach of death could not tame. Apparentiy he intended putting the astrologers to death, as lying prophets, if he survived the twelve days; but ere the last day had passed away while playing at draughts on his bed with his favourite, Beelski, he suddenly sank back and expired. His life lasted fifty-three years; his nominal reign fifty, of which the period of furious tyranny had endured for twenty-six years. It is actually said that the people bewailed his death. Karamsin, after relating his vices and cruelties, observes: “Such was the Tsar! Such were his subjects! Their patience had no limits, for they regarded the rule of the Tsar as the rule of God, and held all contradiction as a transgression of His law. They perished, but they saved for us (the Russians now living) the power of Russia; for in the depth of the obedience of the people lies the strength of the empire.” With the exception of Tiberius, whose excesses were more of a private character, all the tyrannical emperors of Rome came to a violent end; and had Mohammed Toghlak lived a year longer, he would most likely have sunk under the general disaffection of his subjects and the inroads of his revolted tributaries; but Ivan at the end of a long and unmeasured indulgence in vice and cruelty, died the undisputed autocrat of the Russians. The request which he transmitted to Queen Elizabeth that he might be allowed an asylum in England should he be driven away by a rising of his subjects, may have been founded upon knowledge of real danger, or, what seems more likely, upon the delusions of his endless suspicions and fears. In the insanity of Caligula, Nero, or Commodus, we see the exaggeration of the vices of the Roman empire; in the - 144 IVAN’S MENTAL DERANGEMENT. maniacal excitation of Mohammed Toghlak we see an exagger- ation of the cupidity, intolerance, and desolating violence of the Mussulman conquerors of India; and in the character of Ivan Vassilovitch we see the exaggeration of the most repulsive traits of the Russians of the time,—ferocity, cruelty, coarseness, superstition, and deceitfulness. Less whimsical than the Indian monarch, he was more selfish and more vindictive. Sensuality, not marked in Toghlak, appears in Ivan in the grossest forms, and his delusions of suspicion seem more insane and destructive. The intellect of the Tsar had not the brilliant and comprehensive character of that of the Indian sultan ; but Ivan seems to have been less liable to perversion of judgment, and more capable of conducting a steady policy. Those of his letters which have been published show a delusive sharpness, with marked confusion of thought. Stephen Battori, the king of Poland, replying to his adversary the Tsar, gives a candid and correct piece of criticism: “The letters which you sent to us,” writes Stephen, are “very long, full of scurrility and impudence, and quite destitute of order and arrangement. You have written everything in a confused, and unformed manner, from which the perturbation of your mind is easily seen.” FEODoR. Ivan was succeeded by Feodor, his eldest surviving son, who was then twenty-three years old. In him the neurosis assumed a weaker type. Feodor was pale and delicate, stunted in his growth, with a tottering gait. In disposition he was easy, credulous, and weak-minded, fond of going to the churches and ringing the bells.) The Polish ambassador describes him as sitting on the throne pleased with the sceptre and golden apple of state, like a child enjoying his toys. As he had too little capacity to attend to public affairs, Russia was ruled by Boris Godunof, an able minister, who, content to let the weak Feodor remain as the voi fainéant, watched for the succession to the throne. By his wife Irene, Feodor had one daughter, who only lived a few days. The presumptive heir to the tsardom was Demetrius, the son of Ivan’s sixth wife. Stories were spread’ that this child inherited his father’s cruel disposi- THE FIRST OF THE ROMANOFFS. » 145 tion. It was said that he liked to see sheep slaughtered, that he was pleased at seeing blood flow, that he used to kill hens and geese. On one occasion he got his companions to make a number of snow men, to each of which he gave the name of some well-known boyar, the biggest being Boris Godunof. The child then commenced slashing the figures with a wooden sword, saying; ‘That is what I shall do with the great lords when I am Tsar.” These stories only gained importance as being told of the son of Ivan the Terrible, and as threatening a powerful minister. His mother anxiously watched over the young prince; but one day his governess lost sight of him, and he was found lying dead in the courtyard with a cut in the throat. Though it was given out that he had taken an epileptic fit and fallen upon a knife which he had in his hand, it was generally believed that he had been murdered by the directions of Boris, At his death he was ten years of age. The occurrence of epileptic fits, which was not denied, revealed the hereditary neurosis. Feodor died in 1598, after a nominal reign of fourteen years, the last of the descendants of Ivan the Terrible, and the fifty-second sovereign of the Varangian dynasty of Rurik. Boris Godunof succeeded in becoming Tsar; but dying in a few years, his son was put to death, and Russia fell into great confusion, till in 1613, a boy, sixteen years old, recommended by the virtues of his father, was seated on the throne. MICHAEL FEODOROVITCH, the first Tsar of the House of Romanof. Manners in Russia still remained rough and cruel, and the subjection of the lower orders became more rigidly fixed than before. The Tsar was still possessed of despotic power, which the slavish nature of the people allowed to be frightfully abused. The hereditary neurosis which seems to follow such dynasties was not long in appearing. Alexis, the son of Michael, who was an able ruler, had, by his first wife, Feodor, Ivan, Sophia, and several other daughters. By his second wife he had Peter and Nathalie. Feodor II., who occupied the throne for five years, was weak- minded; Ivan positively imbecile. His gait was unsteady ; L 146 GENIUS AND INSANITY. he stammered; and could scarcely see. On the death of Feodor, his sister Sophia tried to make Ivan Tsar in order to rule in his name. She was a woman of superior talents, but had to give way to the irresistible force of character of her younger brother, Peter the Great. Thus, of Alexis’ children two had genius, and two were weak-minded. In Peter, the neurosis was shown by a tendency to convulsions. He was a singular medley of self-sacrifice and tyranny, humanity and cruelty. In dealing with his revolted soldiers, his ferocious executions reminded men of Ivan the Terrible, whom he professed to admire. Peter the Great had only one legitimate son, Alexis, with whose conduct he was so much displeased that he got him put to death in order to preclude the danger of having him for a successor. Peter was succeeded by his wife, Catherine, who was followed by Peter, the son of the unfortunate Prince Alexis. With Peter II, who died young, the male line of the Romanofs be- came extinct (1730). He was succeeded by Anna, one of the reputed daughters of Ivan, the elder brother of Peter the Great. Anna adopted the great grandson of Ivan as heir to the throne. This unfortunate prince, sometimes called Ivan VI., was sup- planted by Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, who thus became T’saritza. He grew up in confinement, and was put to death during the reign of Catherine II. (1764). His intellect was weak—whether by natural infirmity or by depriva- tion of all education seems uncertain. Elizabeth was indolent and dissolute, and given to drinking and unchastity. She chose for her successor her nephew, Peter III., grandson of Peter the Great by Anna, wife of the Duke of Holstein. Peter was weak-minded, coarse, and dissolute. He was dethroned, and put to death by his astute wife, Catherine, a German princess of the house of Anhalt-Herbst. The royal princes of Russia seem like people living on the top of a high tower. They have nothing to fear from those below, but they are easily pushed over by those who share with them the dangerous eminence, The notorious unchastity of Catherine II. rendered it at least doubtful who was the father of her only son, afterwards the Emperor, PAUL WHILE GRAND DUKE. 147 PAUL. It was generally thought that Soltikof had good claims to the paternity. This makes it uncertain whether an entirely new family was not introduced by Catherine into the palaces of St. Petersburg. While circumstantial evidence may look against Paul’s legitimacy, in character he was not dissimilar to Peter III. Paul was said to be the ugliest man in his empire, not even excepting the Kalmucks.* Catherine dis- liked and neglected him, and intended to set him aside for his son, Alexander. His mother dying suddenly, Paul found himself the absolute master, at the age of thirty-five, of the great empire of Russia (1796). While he was grand-duke, Paul lived in his castle, at a place called Paulowski, where he spent his time drilling his regiment, and managing the affairs of the village. He had a passion for drill, costume, and regulations. This is natural to a small mind put in possession of power. Unable to grasp the connection of things on a large scale, a person of narrow intellect seizes upon a few details, makes small changes, petty interferences, and trifling regulations, without considering their effect on the whole. In fact, such a person must either exer- cise his power in this way, or give it over to some one more competent. Such petty tyranny naturally provokes remon- strance, neglect of orders, or opposition. But advice is wasted ona fool, as it is his nature to mistake the relative importance of things. He argues and frets till the smallest points become great in his eyes. Appearances—the mere outer film of things—are to him all-important, because this is all he sees, as he cannot get below the surface of anything requiring an exertion of thought. To such minds, the exact- ness and mechanical precision of military drill have a fascina- tion. Not grasping at the reasons and essentials of military obedience, they are pleased with the opportunity command gives them for gratifying their love of power. Such men will * The best of the anecdotes, which are repeated in the histories about Paul, are taken from the “‘ Memoires Secretes sur la Russie,” Amsterdam, 1800 ; see Tome I., pp. 338, 339. 148 PAUL FOND OF REGULATIONS. consume the whole time and attention of their soldiers in cleaning their buttons and burnishing their arms and accoutre- ments, all the while forgetting to teach their soldiers the use of their weapons; so that, though looking very smart and “efficient” on the parade ground, they are easily beaten in real warfare by those who prefer what is essential to what is superfluous. He would place sentries round about his castle at_ Paulowski, order them to walk or stand in a particular way, to button or unbutton a little more of their coats, or hold their arms in a given manner, then from a terrace he would watch through a telescope whether they obeyed these orders or not. Sometimes Paul would run a mile to cane a soldier who was neglecting his directions, or to give him a rouble if he stood faithful. Visitors who came to the neighbouring village had to write down whence they came, where they were going, and what they wanted. Many stories are told of his unreasonable love of having everything his own way. On one occasion, going in his coach by a narrow road through a wooded morass, Paul told the driver to turn back. The man drove on, wishing to gain a place where he could turn his vehicle. This enraged Paul, who shouted to him to turn at once. On the equerry repre- senting to him that this could not be done, as the road was too narrow, he abused the equerry also. ‘You are a pitiful scoundrel, like himself,” said he; “let him overturn the carriage, let him break my neck, but let him obey me, and turn the instant I command him,” The coachman in the meantime got the coach turned, but Paul made him be beaten on the spot. Paul came to the throne with a number of regulations ready drawn up in his pocket, which he thought he had nothing to do but to carry into execution. He gave away money, and the estates and serfs of the crown, with reckless profusion, and, to replenish his treasury, increased the taxes, and tried to force the people to accept paper notes. He passed most of his time on the parade ground, standing in the coldest weather with his bald head bare, and surrounded by his old generals, who dared no longer appear in their fur pelisses, but had to be dressed like the Tsar. His mind was ASSASSINATION OF PAUL. 149 incessantly occupied with petty regulations about costume and appearances, which were enforced even upon civilians. He was continually issuing new dresses and accoutrements for his soldiers, and he was unreasonable and cruel in punishing those who did not attend to the smallest orders. Obedience was not always possible, for his orders were sometimes contradictory. For example, he ordered all the officers who had sent in their resignation to leave St. Petersburg and go to their homes; but as those officers who had their homes in St. Petersburg could not do both, they naturally preferred obey- ing the second part of the order. They were seized, and turned out of the city in the dead of winter. It soon became evident to those about him that the emperor was deranged, and that no one was safe from his fickle and furious disposition. His lucid or quiet intervals became shorter, and his paroxysms of tyranny and unreason more violent. So his courtiers had to apply the only remedy which could be used in an autocracy like that of Russia. His son Alexander consented to take his place. A number of the principal officials broke into the emperor’s bedroom, and, on his refusing to sign a deed of abdication, Paul was at once strangled, after having reigned five years. ALEXANDER I. Paul’s wife, Mary of Wiirtemberg, was a beautiful and virtuous princess. She bore him four sons and six daughters. Alexander, the eldest, was unlike his father both in appear- ance and. disposition. He was a handsome man, with a noble countenance, and was kind-hearted and generous, but unde- cided in character. ‘There might be discerned in him,” says Thiers, ‘‘traces of hereditary infirmity. His mind—lively, changeable, and susceptible—was continually impressed with the most contrary ideas. But this remarkable prince was not always led away by such momentary impulses; he united with his extensive and versatile comprehension a profound secretiveness which baffled the closest observation. He was well-meaning and a dissembler at the same time.” It was said of Alexander that he walked to be crowned “preceded by the assassins of bis grandfather, followed by 150 THE IMPERIAL FAMILY GERMANISED, those of his father, and surrounded by his own.” In fact, though he died of natural disease, his death seems to have been hastened by the revelation of a wide-spread conspiracy against his life. Paul’s second son, Constantine, resembled his father both in his Tartar appearance and in his eccentricities and passions. He was judged incapable of reigning; and on the death of Alexander without children, he acquiesced in his brother ‘Nicholas becoming Emperor of Russia (1825). Nicholas was a, tall, fine-looking man, brave, able, and inflexible in purpose, at the same time ambitious and hard-hearted. The continual marriages of the sovereigns of Russia with German princesses introduced a German race, the old Tartar or Slavonic element gradually disappearing. Whatever else may be said or thought of them, the present royal family of Russia are possessed of much fortitude and bodily vigour. Postserypt. Even yet the dynasty might save itself by well-chosen marriages and attention to the laws of health in the education of its children ; but the danger must be recognised if it is to be avoided. Grievous as was the tyranny of the Roman Emperors, the shifting character of the succession gave intervals of free- dom to the historian; but a hereditary despotism like that of Russia would fain hush the warnings of the past. Though this book confined itself to history, had no political animus, and taught lessons which applied to the prince and peasant alike, it has been excluded from the Russian dominions, no doubt owing to the foregoing chapter. Nevertheless the autocrat’s ukases have no control over the laws of heredity. PAPER V. THE HISTORY OF THE HEREDITARY NEUROSIS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF SPAIN. N inquiries upon the influence of heredity in the causation of insanity we rarely get back beyond the third genera- tions. Few men either know, or care much about their great-grandfathers or great-grandmothers, and fewer are will- ing to keep in remembrance the existence of an ancestral taint. Nevertheless, in studying these subjects we ought to go back as far as we can, and the few pedigrees which have been traced of the genesis of insanity in families bring out deductions of the highest interest. In studying the fortunes of those ruling houses whose lives are—recorded by history, we octasionally~-trace the rise and extinction. of a family through insanity, or we behold the wane and final extincti of the hereditary disease. There is no deficiency in the Materials, Mental diseasé is very common in royal and noble families, and great disasters to nations have sometimes signalised the madness of their rulers. The insanity of Charles VI. of France gave an opportunity to the warlike encroachments of Henry V. of England. The conqueror of Agincourt compelled the French king to give him his daughter in marriage. The revival of the English claims to the throne brought a long and desolating war upon France. Unhappily, Henry VI. inherited the malady trans- mitted through his French mother, and England, in her turn, was desolated by the Wars of the Roses as a penalty for a dynastic marriage in which the laws of heredity were set at defiance. The insanity did not follow the French line of kings; but then the legitimacy of Charles VII., the reputed son of Charles VI. by Isabella of Bavaria, was very doubtful. 151 152 THE RISE OF THE NEUROSIS. One of the most interesting studies of the rise and progress of a hereditary neurosis may be found in the history of the first kings of Spain. About the time Edward III. of England was carrying war into France, and Mohammed Toghlak ruled in India, three contemporary kings in the Spanish Peninsula each gained the title of the Cruel. These were Pedro I. of Portugal, Pedro I. of Castile, and Pedro IV. of Aragon. The only other Christian monarch in the Peninsula was the King of Navarre, commonly called Charles the Bad. These princes were all related to one another by intermarriages amongst their ancestors. Pedro I. of Portugal (1357-1367) was so whim- sical, inconsistent, and cruel, that it is difficult to say whether he was “the incarnation of a demon” or insane. His own Fernardo was a deplorably weak prince. Fernardo was suc- ceeded by John I., a bastard son of Pedro. John married Philippa daughter of John of Gaunt, Earl of Lancaster, by Constance daughter of Pedro the Cruel of Castile, and his mistress Maria de Padilla. By Philippa the King of Portugal had, amongst other children, a daughter Isabella. This princess was wedded to Philip the Good of Burgundy, and became mother of Charles the Bold. Pedro of Castile* was the son of Alfonso XI. and Maria, sister of Pedro I. of Portugal. He so disgusted his subjects by his cruelties and caprices that he was imprisoned by his nobles, and after a brief renewal of power was chased from his throne by his bastard brother Henry of Trastamara. He was reinstated by the Black Prince; but after the English and Gascon army had recrossed the Pyrenees, the Castilians again rose against the faithless tyrant, and he was defeated and murdered by his brother Henry (1369), who reigned in his stead. Pedro’s granddaughter Donna Catalina was married to Henry III., who was grandson of Henry of Trastamara, and from this union came John II. of Castile. It may admit of question whether the wickedness and follies of these two Pedros did not pass the bounds of sanity. At anyrate it may be said that a hereditary neurosis had commenced with the * See “The History of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon,” by Prosper Mérimée. London, 1849. HOW IT CAN BE TRACED, 153 marriage of John II. of Castile with Isabella of Portugal (1449), the mother of Queen Isabella of Castile, by whose union with Ferdinard of Aragon (1469) the Spanish monarchy was formed, About, 350 years after, the direct line became extinct by the death of the imbecile Charles II. of Spain. From John II. to Charles II. we have eight generations. We know a great deal about the different personages of this great house, where and how they lived, and with whom they married, what children they had, and what became of them. We know their creeds and opinions, their successes and disappointments, their hopes and their fears. Even their forms and features remain to us; their portraits, painted by the greatest artists of Spain and Flanders, may be seen in the museum of Madrid, and gossiping chroniclers let us know their tempers, feelings, and minutest habits. It is difficult, there- fore, to imagine any case where the rise and course of a hereditary disease can be more fully studied or traced farther back, John II. of Castile, though a man of some accomplish- ments and fond of literature, was in many things weak and easy to imbecility. He allowed all affairs of state to be managed by his favourites, and lamented on his death-bed that he had not been born a mechanic instead of a king. His long reign, “if reign it may be called, which was more properly one protracted minority” (Prescott), was a most disastrous one for Castile. He took for his second wife Isabella of Portugal. This princess, towards the close of her life, was insane for many years. She was the mother of Queen Isabella, who, after the untimely death of her brother Alfonso, became heiress of Castile, and by marrying Ferdinand of Aragon,* united the two kingdoms. Neither Ferdinand nor Isabella showed any symptoms of insanity. They both possessed much bodily and mental vigour. Ferdinand was crafty and cold-hearted; Isabella * This prince was the fourth in descent from Ferdinand the Just, king of Aragon, a younger son of John I. of Castile. Ferdinand, like his wife Isabella, was thus descended from Henry of Trastamara, but not from Pedro the Cruel. 154 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. has been generally thought to have been naturally good and amiable ; but both joined in the work of suppressing the free constitutions of their country, little dreaming that the great dynasty which they were founding would end in a line of weak-minded princes, born to be tools in the hands of others. Of their four children, Don Juan died young (1497); Mary, Queen of Portugal, died in 1498, and her infant son in 1499, thus leaving the inheritance of her parents open to Juana. The youngest sister, Catherine, married Henry VIII. of England. Juana is generally described by bistorians as having become insane at the death of her husband, the Archduke Philip, and to have lingered over his dead body in the hope that he would come alive again. She kept all women away from it in the prosecution of her jealousy, for which he had given her too much cause during his life. Henry VII. of England was willing to marry Juana, whether sane or insane, especially as it was understood that her derangement would not prevent her bearing children.* She was put aside from the government of Spain, and confined for nearly fifty years in the Castle of Tordesillas, but her name was associated with that of her son Charles, in all public documents, until her death, which took place a few months before his own voluntary retirement from power. Bergenroth,t who spent several years of his life in the study of the Spanish archives at Simancas, has written a special essay to prove that the stories of the madness of the unfortunate lady were invented and kept up by her mother, her father, her husband, and, at a later time, by her son. He maintained that her seclusion and imprisonment were * De Puebla wrote about this proposed marriage :—“ There is no king in the world who would make so good a husband to the Queen of Castile as the King of England, whether she be sane or insane. . . . If the insanity of the queen should prove incurable, it would perhaps not be inconvenient that she should live in England. The English seem little to mind her insanity, especially since he has assured them that her derangement of mind would not prevent her from bearing children.”——“ Simaneas Records of the Reign of Henry VII,” Edinburgh Review, 117, 18638, p. 404. + “Gustave Bergenroth: a Memorial Sketch,” by W. C. Cartwright, M.P. Edinburgh, 1870. See Appendix. JUANA OF CASTILE. 155 really due to the guilty ambition of her father, Ferdinand, and her son Charles to possess the kingdom which she inherited ; for she was the heiress of Castile by the death of her mother, Queen Isabella, and ought to have reigned both over Castile and Aragon on the death of her father. Ber- genroth certainly proves that during her imprisonment at Tordesillas reports of her sanity were bruited about, and that when she was set free by the insurrection of the Commons (1520) her intellect was not observed to be disordered in any way, save that she was irregular in the times when she took her meals and went to sleep, It appears, however, that physicians were summoned to consult about her health, and had she been really sane it is difficult to see why she did not join with her deliverers and assume the power which they were so anxious to put into her hands. Robertson* tells us that long before Juana was secluded she was “affected with deep and sullen melancholy ;” and Prescott+ gives from a well-informed contemporary witness, an early instance of her mental instability, which took place in the year 1503, about seven months after the birth of her second son, Ferdinand. “Being very anxious to rejoin her husband in Flanders, she sallied out one evening from the Castle of Medina del Campo, though in deshabille, without announcing her purpose to any of her attendants. They followed, however, and used every argument and entreaty to prevail on her to return, at least for the night, but without effect, until the Bishop of Burgos, who had charge of her household, finding every other means ineffectual, was compelled to close the castle gates in order to prevent her departure. “The princess, thus thwarted in her purpose, gave way to the most violent indignation. She menaced the attendants with her utmost vengeance for their disobedience, and taking her station on the barrier, she obstinately refused to re-enter the castle, or even to put on any additional clothing, but remained cold and shivering on the spot till the following morning. The good Bishop, sorely embarrassed by the dilemma to which he found himself reduced, of * Robertson’s “Charles V.” London, 1857, vol. i., p. 172. + “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic of Spain.” By William H. Prescott. London, 1867, vol. ii., pp. 271, 272. 156 BERGENROTH’S THEORY. offending the queen by complying with the mad humour of the princess, or the latter still more by resisting it, despatched an express in all haste to Isabella, acquainting her with the affair, and begging instructions how to proceed. “The queen, who was staying, as has been said, at Segovia, about forty miles distant, alarmed at the intelligence, sent the king’s cousin, the Admiral Henriquez, together with the Archbishop of Toledo, at once to Medina, and prepared to follow as fast as the feeble state of her health would permit. The efforts of these eminent persons, however, were not much more successful than those of the Bishop. All they could obtain from Juana was that she would retire to a miserable kitchen in the neighbourhood during the night, while she persisted in taking her station on the barrier as soon as it was light, and continued there, immovable as a statue, the whole day. In this deplorable state she was found by the queen on her arrival, and it was not without great difficulty that the latter, with all the deference habitually paid her by her daughter, succeeded in persuad- ing her to return to her own apartments in the castle. These were the first unequivocal symptoms of that hereditary taint of insanity which had clouded the latter days of Isabella’s mother, and which, with a few brief intervals, was to shed a deeper gloom over the long protracted existence of her unfortunate daughter.” The obscurity of the question* is probably owing to the extreme dislike of the Castilians to pass such an indignity on the royal line as publicly to declare the queen insane. If we are to believe that Juana was the victim of a plot so hideously wicked, the Cardinal Ximenes and her youngest daughter Catherine, who shared her imprisonment, must be classed as accomplices after the fact; nor would it be easy to explain why her pretensions were not brought forward after the death of her husband. The supporters of that prince were seriously alarmed at the prospect of Ferdinand again returning to rule over Castile, and had Juana been capable of governing, they would surely not have needed to call in the aid of Philip’s father, the Emperor Maximilian. Much of what Bergenroth advances might be explained by admitting that there were times when Juana’s intellect was * Bergenroth’s theory is carefully examined and rejected in an able article in the Edinburgh Review, No. 268, April, 1870. THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. 157 comparatively lucid ; which, indeed, was the general statement. Moreover, he is compelled to acknowledge that towards the close of her life the poor queen passed into a stage of dementia —an admission which obviously weakens his argument. “She lived,” he writes, “five and thirty years in her second imprisonment. No wonder that by degrees her reason gave way. During the latter years of her life she believed that she was possessed by evil spirits, which prevented her from being good, and loving her children, or the rites.of the Roman Church, She imagined that she saw a great cat lacerating the souls of her father and of her husband. But these wild fancies were not unfrequently interrupted by periods of calm and sound judgment. Physically she sank down to a deplor- able state of almost brutish existence. For weeks and months some- times she did not leave her bed, which received all the evacuations of her body, and was never cleaned. Two things she disliked until the close of her life. It was painful to her to receive a visit from any one of her fomily; and she wished not to be disturbed by religious ceremonies.” Her son, the Emperor Charles V., who thus reigned in his mother’s stead, was one of the greatest monarchs of Europe. He was, in his youth, a man of great physical strength and activity, and of extraordinary sagacity, mental power, and versatility of intellect. Almost perpetually engaged in wars and great enterprises, he was tried both by good and bad fortune. In some things he was mean and unscrupulous, was subject to fits of melancholy, and deeply religious. He had bad teeth,* and his lower jaw was longer than the other, so that the two rows of teeth did not well meet, which injured the power of mastication, and made his voice indistinct towards the close of his sentences. He is known to have had several fits of epilepsy. These attacks are said to have ceased after his marriage, but he remained much subject to headaches, which obliged him to cut his long hair in 1529. He was very fond of good eating, drank wine freely, and was much afflicted with gout, which came on when * This description of the appearance and bodily condition of the emperor is taken from the work of M. Mignet, “Charles Quint, son abdication, son séjour, et sa mort au monastére de Juste.” Paris, 1857. 158 THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. he was thirty years of age. His voluntary retirement at the age of fifty-six, though an extraordinary step, was by no means an unwise one. It was mainly owing to bad health. Charles’ father, the Archduke Philip, was the son of Maximilian of Austria and Mary of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles the Bold. Mary of Burgundy died at the age of twenty-three. The assertion of a superficial French historiographer that insanity was rife in the House of Burgundy, has cost me much inquiry. The only sign of derangement discovered was that the mind of Charles the Bold seems to have become unhinged by the ruinous defeats which he suffered from the Swiss, whom he so unjustly attacked. The Emperor Charles had one brother, Ferdinand, who succeeded him as emperor, and four sisters—EHleanor, who was first Queen of Portugal and then of France; Isabella, who became Queen of Denmark; Mary, Queen of Hungary ; and Catherine, Queen of Portugal. Ferdinand was the founder of the German branch of the House of Austria. His son, Maximilian, married his cousin Mary, daughter of Charles V. In two of their sixteen children the neurotic tendency appeared. Rhodolph II. pushed eccentricity and hypochondria to the verge of insanity. Inattentive to the affairs of state, and much given to scien- tific pursuits, he was at last deposed by his brother Matthias. Coxe, the historian of the House of Austria, tells us that Maximilian’s second son Ernest, was cold and reserved, and such a prey to morbid melancholy that he was scarcely ever seen to smile. These are the only examples known to me of the hereditary neurosis following the Austrian House, which so often intermarried with the Spanish one. The natural son of the Emperor Charles V., Don John of Austria, by Barbara Blomberg, died at the age of twenty-nine, after gaining great distinction as a general. By a Flemish lady, Margaret Vangest, Charles had a daughter, Margaret of Austria, who became Regent of the Low Countries. She was a woman of masculine character, and inherited from the emperor his love of power and gouty diathesis. She was married first to Alexander de Medici, and then to Octavio Farnese, by whom she became the mother of the celebrated CHARLES’ DESCENDANTS. 159 Alexander of Parma, a man of astonishing but eccentric genius, and undoubtedly the greatest general of his time. But the talents of the emperor did not pass to his legitimate descendants. He married his cousin, Isabella, daughter of Emanuel the Great, King of Portugal, by the Infanta Maria, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. He had three sons and two daughters, none of whom were insane. His eldest son, Philip II., a man of weakly frame, and of a gloomy, severe, obstinate, and superstitious character, was four times married. His first wife was also his cousin, Mary, daughter of John, King of Portugal, and of Catherine, the youngest daughter of the unfortunate Queen Juana, who had been actually brought up in the Castle of Tordesillas with her mother. The heir of this splendid but unfortunate pedigree was Don Carlos, whom the genius of Otway, Schiller, and Alfieri have done so much to make illustrious for gifts and virtues which he never possessed. The Emperor Charles, on his way to his retirement in the Monastery of Yuste, saw Don Carlos at Valladolid, when he was eleven years of age. Charles remarked to his sisters, “ He seems to me of a very irritable disposition. His manners and disposition do not please me, and I do not know what he may become through time.”* We learn from several observers that he was of a fitful and turbulent character, and of a weak and unequal intelligence. He was five years old before he uttered a word (Gachard). He is described by different ambassadors as of low stature, with one leg shorter and one shoulder lower than the other. He had a slight hump upon his back, his forehead was low, and he had the long protruding chin of his grandfather, the Emperor Charles, as may be seen from his portrait. He articulated with diffi- culty, especially the letters 1 and r. His beard was slight, and he was deficient in virility. He roasted hares and other animals taken in the chase, alive. His tutor, says Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell,+ * Mignet, p. 152. + The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles the Fifth,” by William Stirling, 1853, p. 145. 160 DON CARLOS. “Was compelled to acknowledge that he had failed to imbue him with the slightest love of learning, in which he consequently made but little progress ; that he not only hated his books, but showed no inclination for cane-playing or the still more necessary accomplish- ment of fencing; and that he was so careless and awkward on horse- back that they were afraid of letting him ride much for fear of accidents. To the emperor, who had loved and practised all manly sports with the ardour and skill of a true Burgundian, it must have been a disappointment to learn that the prowess of Duke Charles and Kaiser Max, which had dwindled woefully in his son Philip, seemed altogether extinct in the next generation.” At the age of sixteen Don Carlos was sent to reside in the university town of Alcala, where he got a very severe fall on the head. This was followed by erysipelas; the doctors suspected fracture, and trepanned the skull. For some days his life was despaired of; arnongst the symptoms were delirium and paralysis of the right leg, It is not to be wondered at that some historians* attribute his subsequent strange doings to derangement of intellect following this accident, and it is likely enough the injury brought a fresh disorder in an already unhealthy brain, though his youth seemed but the natural continuation of his childhood and boyhood. He made violent and senseless assaults upon ecclesiastics and great noblemen of the Court, and insulted women in the streets in a very indecent manner. Prescott tells us that he ordered a pair of boots to be made larger than usual to hold a pair of small pistols, but his father would not allow this to be done; and when Carlos found that his orders had not been executed, he beat the poor bootmaker, and, ordering the leather to be cut in pieces and stewed, he forced the man to swallow as much of it as he could get down, on the spot. Another time a money-lender having in the usual grandiloquent vein of the Castilian declared that all he had was at his disposal, Carlos took | him at his word, and * See Coxe’s “House of Austria,” vol.i. London, 1847, p. 487. “History of the Reign of Philip II., King of Spain,” by William H. Prescott, London, 1860, vol. ii., pp. 470, 471. A very full biography of this prince will be found in the work of M. Gachard, “Don Carlos et Philippe IT.” Bruxelles, 1863. PHILIP'S OTHER CHILDREN. 161 forced him to pay him 50,000 ducats, which he recklessly squandered. His father spoke of him as being insane, and treated him as a criminal. He was willing to attribute the prince’s excesses against others to madness, but he regarded his threats and disobedience against himself as crimes. Don Carlos was put into very rigid confinement by his merciless father; he repeatedly tried to commit suicide, indulged in great excess in eating, and died in prison when twenty-three years of age. By his second wife, Mary, Queen of England, his father’s cousin, most fortunately for that country, Philip had no children. There is little room for doubt that Mary Tudor was, towards the close of her life, afflicted with hysterical insanity. By his third wife, Elizabeth of France, he had two daughters, who were married into the Houses of Austria and Savoy. His fourth wife was his own niece, the daughter of Maximilian II. by Mary, daughter of Charles V. But the Pope, who could grant a dispensation for such a marriage, could not save his descendants from the consequences. By this lady, Anne of Austria, Philip had three sons and one daughter, who all died young, and one son who succeeded him on the Spanish throne as Philip III. But with Philip II., bigoted tyrant as he was, the whole vigour of the Spanish line passed away. The people had been brought into servile dependence, had no voice in their own government, and now were under kings who could not govern. The power of Spain declined as rapidly as it had risen. Philip III, a man of feeble and indolent character, governed by worthless favourites, was succeeded by Philip IV., whose reign was a period of great misfortune. He was indolent and voluptuous, but of some natural abilities; he had a taste for the fine arts, and is said to have composed a tragedy himself. He had a son named Prosper, afflicted from his birth with convulsion fits, who died early. A younger son succeeded him under the name of Charles II. Of this unfortunate prince Macaulay has given us the following description :— ‘From his birth a blight was on his body and on his mind. With difficulty his almost imperceptible spark of life had been screened and M 162 AN IMBECILE KING. fanned into a dim and flickering flame. His childhood, except when he could be rocked and sung into sickly sleep, was one long piteous wail, Till he was ten years old his days were passed on the laps of women, and he was never once suffered to stand on his rickety legs None of those tawny little urchins, clad in rags stolen from scare- crows, whom Murillo loved to paint begging or rolling in the sand, owed. less to education than this despotic ruler of thirty millions of subjects. The most important events in the history of his own kingdom, the very names of provinces and cities which were among his most valuable possessions were unknown to him, It may well be doubted whether he was aware that Sicily was an island, that Christopher Columbus had discovered America, or that the English were not Mohammedans. In his youth, however, though too imbecile for study or for business, he was not incapable of being amused, He shot, hawked, and hunted. He enjoyed, with the delight of a true Spaniard, two delightful spectacles: a horse with its bowels gored out, and a Jew writhing in the fire. The time came when the mightiest of instincts ordinarily awakens from its repose. It was hoped that the young king would not prove invincible to female attractions, and that he would leave a Prince of Asturias to succeed him. A consort was found for him in the royal family of France, and her beauty and grace gave him a languid pleasure. He liked to adorn her with jewels, to see her dance, and to tell her what sport he had had with his dogs and his falcons. But it was soon whispered that she was a wife only in name. She died, and her place was supplied by a German princess, nearly allied to the Imperial house. But the second marriage, like the first, proved barren; and long before the king had passed the prime of life, all the politicians of Europe had begun to take it for granted in all their calculations that he would be the last descendant in the male line of Charles the Fifth, Meanwhile, a sullen and abject melancholy took possession of his soul. The diversions which had been the serious employment of his youth, became distasteful to him. He ceased to find pleasure in his nets and boar spears, in the fandango and the bull-fight. Sometimes he shut himself up in an inner chamber from the eyes of his courtiers. Sometimes he loitered alone from sunrise to sunset, in the dreary and rugged wilderness which surrounds the Escurial. The hours which he did not waste in listless indolence were divided between childish sports and childish devotions. He delighted in rare animals, and still more in dwarfs. When neither strange beasts nor little men could dispel the black thoughts which gathered in his mind, he repeated aves and credos; he walked in THE LAST OF THE HOUSE. 163 processions ; sometimes he starved himself; sometimes he whipped himself. At length a complication of maladies completed the ruin of all his faculties. His stomach failed; nor was this strange, for in him the malformation of the jaw, characteristic of his family, was so serious that he could not masticate his food ; and he was in the habit of swallowing oilas and sweetmeats in the state in which they were set before him.” He was epileptic, and had lost his hair and eye- brows at the age of thirty-five. This monarch, who died in 1700, left behind him a will bequeathing all the millions who were under his rule to the grandson of Louis XIV. of France. The dissatisfaction of rival claimants Jed to the celebrated War of the Succession, at the end of which, after a great destruction of human life, the Bourbon prince remained in possession, under the title of Philip V.* In this sketch we have traced a hereditary neurosis follow- ing a family for 350 years—sometimes passing over a genera- tion and appearing in various forms and intensities as epilepsy, hypochondria, melancholia, mania, and imbecility, till at length it extinguished the direct royal line of Spain. The baneful tendency in the blood was reinforced by close inter- marriages with families of the some stock; and it is worthy of notice that the House of Austria, with which the Spanish line was so often connected by marriage, had few members insane, and in the end threw off the hereditary curse. What. vigour was in the first Spanish kings appeared in their illegitimate descendants, and those born in wedlock only inherited their diseases. In spite of the known ancestral taint, a match with Spain was much courted by the royal * It is not certain whether the neurosis ended with the Spanish House of Kings. -Philip V. was the son of Louis the Dauphin, whose mother was Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and wife of Louis XIV. She was extremely stupid. Philip resigned the crown of Spain twice through weakness and indolence. His son and successor, Ferdinand VL., became insane. His brother, by another mother, Charles III., was a very able prince; but his eldest son was imbecile and declared incapable of reigning. See the Report of the Physicians in Smollett’s Continuation of Hume’s “History of England,” Edinburgh, 1835, Vol. iii, Note BB., p. 902. 164 WHO IS WELL BORN ? families of Europe; as an example we may recall the silly eagerness shown by James I. of England to marry his son Charles with the Infanta Maria. Whoever attends closely to history must know that there is a great deal in birth, but not birth as fixed by laws and traced by heralds. A man who is well made, strong, mentally gifted, and able to do much work and stand much strain must be well born ; and a race sodden with epilepsy, insanity, and scrofula, whatever its fictitious rank, is necessarily low-born, and in reality is not worth preserving. The royal families of Europe have shown a tendency to segregate themselves, as if the possession of political power conferred some peculiar virtues on the stock, and this leads them to seek alliances which sound notions would teach them to avoid, and to brand as morganatic or left-handed, marriages which would purify their blood. If the people they rule over had any voice in such matters, as they have so deep an interest, they would forbid two royal families, each tainted with insanity, from intermarrying with one another, as fraught with great dangers, not only to the family but to the nation placed under its rule, and which must suffer for the extravagances of its members. PAPER VI. ON ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, THE APOSTLE OF THE INDIES. HE Portuguese first brought a European prow into the Indian seas. In 1497, Vasco di Gama doubled the stormy Cape and landed at Calicut on the Malabar coast. The same improvements in ship-building and skill in naviga- tion which has enabled the Portuguese to reach, helped them to rule over, those distant seas. Their clumsy caracols, armed with a few rude pieces of artillery, destroyed the frail barks of the timid navigators of the Indian Ocean with almost as mucb ease as the English and the Dutch steamers used to run down the piratical prahus of the Sunda Islanders. The Portuguese were the tyrants of the seas and the terror of the Mecca pilgrims. They seized upon a number of maritime stations, among others Ormuz, Diu, Malacca, and several of the Moluccas, whence they could command the trade of the East. They twice attempted to take Aden, but without success. Goa was their capital; from it they ruled over most of the towns on the Malabar coast. But the petty princes who then shared the south of the Indian peninsula did not tamely submit to the sway of the Portu- guese, whose cruelty and treachery they soon learned to detest. An incessant series of little wars, although generally turning out to the advantage of Portugal, was still too heavy a drain on a country whose population was scarcely sufficient for the vast undertakings it had traced out in India, Africa, and America. The growing power of Spain alarmed them at ‘home, the rivalry of the Spaniards alarmed them in their colonies, and they were getting more and more embroiled in hostilities with the nations of the northern coast of Africa. The Portuguese were, therefore, anxious that their dominions 165 166 XAVIER STUDIES AT PARIS. in India should be placed on a more secure and peaceable tenure, which might save a moiety of the large garrisons necessary to hold so many scattered posts along a permanently hostile coast. ‘After many deliberations at the Council of Portugal to find some measures which might in future conciliate the Indians, it was determined to try the assistance of religion, in consideration of the fruit they had gained from it in the kingdom of Congo.”* This was very much to the taste of the king, John IIL, and his brother, Cardinal Henry, who favoured the new order of Loyola and introduced the Inquisition into Portugal (1533). Through the Portuguese ambassadors at Rome, an applica- tion was made to the Pope for several Jesuit fathers to go out as missionaries to the Indies. Francis Xavier and Simon Rodriguez were sent. Francis Xavier was born on the 7th April, 1506,t of a noble family in Navarre. His brothers chose the profession of arms; and his sister Madeleine became abbess of a nunnery. His maternal uncle was a celebrated professor of theology at the University of Coimbra. Francis, the youngest of a large family, went to Paris to study. At this time the doctrines of Luther occupied the attention of all the leading minds of Europe; but there is no proof they had any influence on Xavier’s religious views. It was while he was delivering lectures in the College of St. Barbe at Paris, that the young philosopher attracted the attention of the ablest of the opponents of the Reformation. It is said that the proud young scholar at first looked with disdain upon the humble and unlearned Ignatius Loyola; but Ignatius perseveringly sought his acquaintance, and at last succeeded in winning him for his new order. He continually sounded in Xavier’s ears * Osorius, “ Histoire de Portugal, Contenant les Gestes Memorables des Portugallois dans les Indes,” Liv. xx. Paris, 1588. +I have given the date accepted by most of his biographers. Lucena says that he was born in 1497, that is nine years earlier. See “ Historia da Vida do Padre S, Francisco de Xavier, Composta pelo Padre Joam de Lucena, da Mesma Companhia de Jesu.” Tomo i, p. 138. Lisbon, 1788. The younger age seems to me to agree better with some allusions in Xavier’s own letters. MEETS IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 167 the words of Scripture: “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?” On the day of the Assumption, 1534, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Peter Lefévre, with three Spaniards and one Portuguese, went to the subterranean chapel of the Abbey of Mont Martre, where they pronounced the four vows of poverty, chastity, pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and devotion to the conversion of the infidels. This was the beginning of the Society of the Jesuits, a name destined to gain a reputation so different from that of Christian. Profoundly acquainted with human nature in its ascetic and religious aspects, Ignatius Loyola knew how to fill the minds of his disciples with a few ruling ideas. The spiritual and religious exercises which he got them to go through were directed to substitute new motives for those which habitually influence the minds of most men, and thus to give life an entirely new aim. Henceforth Francis Xavier, liker to Ignatius than to himself (jam Ignatit quam sui similior) lived to carry out the practical conclusion thus stated in the “ Exercises” of the founder of his order :* “It is necessary to make ourselves indifferent towards all created things, as far as is permitted to the liberty of our free will, and not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we do not wish health more than infirmity, riches rather than poverty, honour rather than dis- grace, a long life rather than a short one, and so in all other things, that we should only desire and choose those things which may lead us to the end for which we were created.” Such an aim, though beyond the reach of common men, has been nearly attained by a few, among whom we may number several of the early fathers of the Order of Jesus. Soon after the meeting at Mont Martre, Francis Xavier set out for Venice, where he waited on the sick in the hospital for incurables. He practised great austerities: Lucena says that he sometimes would want food for four days at a time. Xavier was at Rome when the request of the King of * “Exercitia Spiritualia 8. P. Ignatii de Loyola.” Romae, 1861, p. 27. See also Lucena. Tomo i, liv. i., cap. iii. 168 THE PORTUGUESE IN THE INDIES. Portugal reached the pope. Henceforth he had a mission equal to his wonderful powers. When he and Simon Rodriguez arrived at Lisbon, the ’ austerity of their lives made such a deep impression upon the Portuguese court, that the king had some thoughts of keeping them by him. It was, however, arranged that Francis Xavier should go with two assistants, and Simon Rodriguez remain in Portugal. There he founded the Jesuit college of Coimbra, and in his capacity of confessor to the king, was able to be of valuable service to the mission. Xavier sailed for the Indies in the same ship as the viceroy, Martin Alphonse de Sousa. When he left Lisbon he was thirty-five years of age, seven of which he had spent in the order of Loyola, whose system, maxims, and policy he had thoroughly learned. He landed at Goa on the 6th of May, 1542, after a voyage of thirteen months. In reviewing the conduct of the English in the East, the worst days of the East India Company would look well by being compared with the corruption of manners which the new apostle found everywhere amongst the Portuguese in the Indies. His biographers assure us that ‘‘each Portuguese had several native concubines, Assassination was common. Justice was sold in the tribunals, and the most enormous crimes were only punished when the criminals had nothing wherewith to corrupt their judges. . . . Crimes proved in judgment were used only as weights to weigh the bribes of the judges.” The Portuguese were enormously rich; the sole market for the costly wares of the East was now the “Casa da India” at Lisbon. Religion, however, was forgotten, and even the bigotry characteristic of the native of the Spanish Peninsula seemed to slumber. The Franciscans had already made some attempts at conversion amongst the natives and slaves of the Portuguese, but with unsatisfactory results. The first effect of Xavier's preachings was a species of religious revival amongst the Portuguese which seems to have followed in every settlement he visited. To those who have marked the scanty results of our own elaborate system of missions, with their carefully-trained missionaries, the success of Xavier’s preaching XAVIER COMPARED TO GORDON, 169 must be somewhat surprising. It arose from two causes, one of which lay in the nature of the man; the other without. In person, Francis Xavier was tall and rather spare, but well-proportioned, with dark hair, a fair complexion, and blue eyes. The expression of his face was lively and cheerful ; his conversation benign and courteous to everybody. The mixture of intellectual vigour and moral power, with a courage that nothing could dismay, and an entire abnegation of self, made Xavier one of those striking figures that command admiration wherever they are known. No doubt it was of him that Castelar was thinking when he compared General Gordon to the first Jesuit missionaries.* The people of India are most readily attracted by extremes. A certain want of measure apparent in their religious systems and their literature, is distinctive of their character. They were there- fore peculiarly apt to be struck by the blending of energy and asceticism in the life of the new apostle. It was an old article of the Brahminical creed that even the most wicked of men could by dreadful penances raise himself to rule over the gods; and their sacred books are full of fasts and mortifica- tions, apparently beyond human endurance, which were to be followed by those who wished to attain to a sanctified state. * The following passage lately appeared in a newspaper. In an article in the Dia, Senor Castelar says : “Gordon, the Chinese, the Egyptian, the Nubian, the Abyssinian, the merchant, the warrior, the visionary, the clairvoyant, the strange being admired and marvelled at for his great abilities and his extraordinary exploits, is the greatest type of originality among the Saxon races. Casting my eyes back over the heroes of Spain, I find men with whom I would rather compare him than with any hero of our modern times. I do not compare him to our first discoverers of the New World, in whom the character of the warrior predominates over any other character ; I would rather compare him to the first Jesuit mission- aries, and among them to the first explorers of India and China. The missionary and the explorer are with great felicity united in the Pacha and the Briton, as they were united in the Jesuit—an incomprehensible mixture of asceticism and worldliness, vehement and clever, with prophetic pre- vision and mathematical calculation, an informal combination of individual sacrifice and mercantile egotism. ... Pure morals, firm faith, and a practical mind—these are the qualities recognised in the history of the Asiatic apostles ; and such are the prominent characteristics of General Gordon.” 170 XAVIER'S ASCETIC LIFE. The Mohammedans had similar views. ‘The history of Islam affords many examples of saints devoting their lives to the severest mortifications; and the annals of those times* give evidence of the great respect and religious veneration with which such ascetics were regarded. No gosain, no fakir ever transferred his hopes to another world more completely than Francis Xavier. He made one garment serve for frock and mantle, and lived on a morsel of bread which he often pro- cured by begging. He rarely slept more than four hours a day, and his rest was often broken by visions and pious exclamations. He went about on foot under the burning sun of India with a bell in his hand to call the people to come and listen to him. His whole time was employed in preaching or directing his subordinates; and he did his best to disdain worldly honours, though he did not dispense with worldly influences. But though the Hindus and even the Mussulmans must have been struck by his ascetic manner of life, and though they may have regarded him as a prophet among his own people, and though they may have allowed to him a part of the miraculous powers they so freely attributed to their own devotees and magicians, yet all this would not have induced them to abandon their own religion and caste. Francis Xavier was an eloquent and persuasive preacher, and his letters show that he possessed both force and clearness of expression, with a deep knowledge of the art of gaining over an audience. But this now stood him in no stead; he had not yet learned the Tamil language, and his first preachings were confined to repeating the principal articles of the Catholic creed, with a short exhortation to induce his hearers to adopt them. These he got translated and learned off by heart. Though he seems afterwards to have become able to converse in Tamil, he was never able to deliver a public discourse in that language. The other causes of the success of his propagandism were of * There are some remarkable instances of the political influence of fakirs and dervishes in the first volume of Erskine’s “Baber and Hamaion.” See also “Purchas his Pilgrimes,” Lib. iv., chap. iv., § 7; and the autobiography of Jehangir. On the wonderful penances demanded from Hindu devotees, see the “ Ayeen Akbery,” vol. ii. BAPTISES TOWNS IN ONE DAY. 171 a secular character.. From the very outset Xavier had been promised the support and assistance of the Portuguese govern- ment, and he neither hesitated to claim nor to acknowledge the advantages he derived from them. At first he exerted himself to remove the idolatry which still prevailed in Goa, and then he set out to preach amongst the pearl-fishers of the southern coast of India, many of whom had already consented to be baptised under a promise that they should be. protected from the incursions of the Mohammedans. “It sometimes happens,” he writes, “that I baptise a whole city in one day. This is in a great measure to be attributed to the Governor of India, both because he is a singular friend and favourer of our society, and because he spares no expenses or labour to promote the propagation of the faith. By his assistance we have on this coast thirty Christian cities.” Xavier’s manner of conversion was of the simplest character. He got the creed and different parts of the catechism trans- lated into the Malabar language, learned them off by heart, and repeated them to his catechumens, who, if they declared their belief in what they heard, were at once baptised.